Every time I hear about some abuse of the Windows Update system I can't help but think of I, Robot "The NS5s are guaranteed to stay new by receiving daily updates from US Robotics's master AI system".
How secure is encryption? Say for instance Truecrypt, SSH/SCP, SSL, SMIME, GPG etc? How easy is it for criminals or governments to break? In books like Dan Brown's "Digital Fortress" or the TV show 24 it seems that breaking consumer grade encryption even with strong passphrases and certificates/keyfiles is all that difficult with enough processing power.
As a former tech, one of my biggest problems was getting accurate and detailed problem descriptions from customers. Something that turned out to be bad ram could have been described by the customer as "I can't check my Email". Seriously.
If a user turned on their computer and launched their email client and it crashed repeatedly the problem description would be "I can't check my Email". Especially at service centers where a service writer accepts the computers from the customers then tags it with a problem description for a technician, this can be very irritating. It's extremely important for the service writer to probe the customer and get an accurate description. Otherwise it could lead to a long game of telephone tag.
When work was slow we'd often mess with each other's sandbox computers in the office to keep on our toes. Sadly, I'd only trust one or two people in my old service center with my computers.
"A tech working for cheap isn't going to spend hours to test every possible case."
Yes but a good tech would have verified the problem and since it's not specific to a particular application or device, installed a test HDD, installed Windows (or other OS) and been able to narrow down the cause in less than an hour. This quickly eliminates ALL Software as the cause. That still leaves all the all the other hardware but it makes sense to try test RAM next since it's so easy to change and is a likely culprit.
A good tech would probably also have a liveCD on hand so installing Windows on a test HDD would not be necessary.
In older versions of Windows (pre XP) Intel provided a speedstep applet which gave the user more control over processor throttling. In XP I use speedswitch to do the same thing.
Speedswitch allows you to switch between battery optimized, max performance, max battery, and dynamic much like the Intel applet. Speedswitch is also able to configure a bunch of other power features.
is for many users who bought Vista PCs and are able to get XP recovery CDs, they'll have to run a destructive recovery to get XP on their boxes. That is unless there's a new autoplay option on the XP CD
I find it irritating that many ISPs block suspected spam without any notification to the recipient except in fine print on the terms of use document. It's much wiser for mail servers to tag suspected spam with an easy to filter string rather than drop it completely. This way the client is sure to receive every piece of mail and can choose to open their spam box to check occasionally. If they find mail that was falsely tagged, there should be a simple "not spam" mechanism for reporting back to the server.
Imagine if the US Postal service decided what mail was rubbish and trashes one of your credit card bills because it contained the word viagra. It's not for them to decide.
Who decides which SMTP servers are in the "trusted" network? As a hobbyist sysadmin/web designer I have a server which sends out mail and I find it increasingly difficult to send mail these days as spam filtering techniques become more stringent, increasing the number of false positives.
I find it interesting that so much Web2.0 innovation, most of which is commercial, comes out of the US yet these and other important technological developments are coming from elsewhere. Perhaps the US is too focused on capitalism.
Don't forget the cost of the electricity to write the data to RAM, spin the HDD and write to the temp Internet cache, light up those LEDs on your NIC card and cable/DSL modem, push the electrons on your TV cable/Telephone line...
Just host it yourself. You'll have almost full control of the information chain, which has its advantages and disadvantages, but it's a lot more fun! Unfortunately, to be truly safe you'd need at least two physical locations which many of us don't have.
Wonder what the service agreement was like. He'd better have skipped the country because he's going to have a class action lawsuit very soon.
For those interested, you can change your Windows time servers to NTP servers in the registry here:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Cur rentVersion\DateTime\Servers]
Both their names and numbering are strange. I was totally confused by their numbering system at first. I thought they used major.minor release numbers like everyone else but it's year.month hence Hardy Heron = 8.04.
I think this is bad for marketing since a new major version number generates more hype than a minor release. Consider non-free software. Would you be more willing to pay say $100 for an upgrade from v7.04 -> 7.10 or v7.10 -> 8.04? Although Ubunutu is free they still rely on marketing.
Rsync is great but if you're command line challenged you may find rsync intimidating. I've recommended smart sync pro to some of my friends who were looking for a sync program. My favorite feature is it's conflict resolution which is very accurate and easy to understand. Only drawback is that it's a commercial app so it does cost $.
Unfortunately I don't know of any sync programs have a "trigger by network" feature so you'd still need to write some sort of script to initiate the sync.
If she actually wins against AOL, this could have a severe impact on Net Neutrality.
I'm already pissed at what some ISPs block. For instance, I can't email my parents through my ISP (sakura.ne.jp) because my ISP's SMTP servers IP addresses are on their ISP's (rr.com) spam blacklist. Yes, they blacklist all mail from many mail servers. The RR customers have no idea when mail gets blocked since it's blocked at the ISP level. I'm sure it's stated somewhere on their customer service website or contract but how many of their customer's actually read that. As much as I hate spam, I think it's wrong that ISPs completely block suspected spam but I digress.
Slashdot Mirror
Every time I hear about some abuse of the Windows Update system I can't help but think of I, Robot "The NS5s are guaranteed to stay new by receiving daily updates from US Robotics's master AI system".
How secure is encryption? Say for instance Truecrypt, SSH/SCP, SSL, SMIME, GPG etc? How easy is it for criminals or governments to break? In books like Dan Brown's "Digital Fortress" or the TV show 24 it seems that breaking consumer grade encryption even with strong passphrases and certificates/keyfiles is all that difficult with enough processing power.
If a user turned on their computer and launched their email client and it crashed repeatedly the problem description would be "I can't check my Email". Especially at service centers where a service writer accepts the computers from the customers then tags it with a problem description for a technician, this can be very irritating. It's extremely important for the service writer to probe the customer and get an accurate description. Otherwise it could lead to a long game of telephone tag.
When work was slow we'd often mess with each other's sandbox computers in the office to keep on our toes. Sadly, I'd only trust one or two people in my old service center with my computers.
A good tech would probably also have a liveCD on hand so installing Windows on a test HDD would not be necessary.
Speedswitch allows you to switch between battery optimized, max performance, max battery, and dynamic much like the Intel applet. Speedswitch is also able to configure a bunch of other power features.
also knows every domain you query unless you have a caching server. Do you ever read their terms of use/eula to see what they do with that?
Windows XP CD detected. Would you like to:
I find it irritating that many ISPs block suspected spam without any notification to the recipient except in fine print on the terms of use document. It's much wiser for mail servers to tag suspected spam with an easy to filter string rather than drop it completely. This way the client is sure to receive every piece of mail and can choose to open their spam box to check occasionally. If they find mail that was falsely tagged, there should be a simple "not spam" mechanism for reporting back to the server.
Imagine if the US Postal service decided what mail was rubbish and trashes one of your credit card bills because it contained the word viagra. It's not for them to decide.
Who decides which SMTP servers are in the "trusted" network? As a hobbyist sysadmin/web designer I have a server which sends out mail and I find it increasingly difficult to send mail these days as spam filtering techniques become more stringent, increasing the number of false positives.
That and CS3's bloat.
I find it interesting that so much Web2.0 innovation, most of which is commercial, comes out of the US yet these and other important technological developments are coming from elsewhere. Perhaps the US is too focused on capitalism.
Maybe they're compensating for something else.
Don't forget the cost of the electricity to write the data to RAM, spin the HDD and write to the temp Internet cache, light up those LEDs on your NIC card and cable/DSL modem, push the electrons on your TV cable/Telephone line...
This is probably what they used on the spacecraft in the movie Sunshine.
Just host it yourself. You'll have almost full control of the information chain, which has its advantages and disadvantages, but it's a lot more fun! Unfortunately, to be truly safe you'd need at least two physical locations which many of us don't have.
Wonder what the service agreement was like. He'd better have skipped the country because he's going to have a class action lawsuit very soon.
For those interested, you can change your Windows time servers to NTP servers in the registry here: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Cur rentVersion\DateTime\Servers]
Tagging employees? Yet another reason so many US educated college graduates find work abroad. Too bad this law is not federal.
Sounds more like NT4 VGA mode, similar to safe mode.
I think this is bad for marketing since a new major version number generates more hype than a minor release. Consider non-free software. Would you be more willing to pay say $100 for an upgrade from v7.04 -> 7.10 or v7.10 -> 8.04? Although Ubunutu is free they still rely on marketing.
MPAA: All your RAM are belong to us.
Unfortunately I don't know of any sync programs have a "trigger by network" feature so you'd still need to write some sort of script to initiate the sync.
If he goes back can he use Ubuntu in the slammer?
(use windows || slammer)
In Soviet Russia we crash Skype. Wait... that doesn't seem right.
I'm already pissed at what some ISPs block. For instance, I can't email my parents through my ISP (sakura.ne.jp) because my ISP's SMTP servers IP addresses are on their ISP's (rr.com) spam blacklist. Yes, they blacklist all mail from many mail servers. The RR customers have no idea when mail gets blocked since it's blocked at the ISP level. I'm sure it's stated somewhere on their customer service website or contract but how many of their customer's actually read that. As much as I hate spam, I think it's wrong that ISPs completely block suspected spam but I digress.
Wonder if we'll start seeing it referred to as My$QL on /. now?