Doesn't this mean a costly context switch from user/kernel mode?
Forgive my ignorance; I'm writing ASM on Solaris for school right now...so, it's like I'm playing baseball and trying to figure out kricket at the same time with no point of reference other than my limited experience...
That's quite literally what I do! On my desk, the top tier middle is where my garbage goes, (currently an empty rockstar can - garbage was just collected), the main tier middle is the place where what I'm currently working on goes - a big mess of crap.
The funny thing is, the bookshelf on my desk is immaculate. I have supplies to the left bookshelf, all orderly. Snacks on the top, all orderly, CD archives/spindles on the bottom, all labled and orderly. The middle is just at arms reach center, 2 4-packs of rockstar, 4 fridge mate packs of mountain dew can dispensers (2 regular, 2 code red). Above that I've got batteries ordered by size (I have wireless everything and hate to run out), ordered rows of deoderant and body spray (I sweat alot). Ear plugs, 2 stacks of smokes (usually a carton at a time, 2 stacks of 5), and a row of lighters (admittingly, ordered by color - hex value... it happened in a moment of OCD rage).
So, I'm anal about everything that I need to continue to work... but my workspace itself (currently 3 empty ramen bowls, a flashlight open rockstar, pen or two, lighter, a random twist tie, project specs, 4-in-1 reciever remote, dry erase marker, etc) is just a mess. It's like once I get going, I want to have everything right where I know it's going to be, supply wise, but I don't care/don't have time about how clean my workspace is. Hrm... If I took this second monitor off my desk... but I digress.
You, sir, are just anal! And incredibly frusterating! My muscle memory automatically adds 2 spaces after a period... Now, you tell me there are only certain times when I'm supposed to use 2. This is almost as bad as the time my teacher tried to tell me 'where' a comma is supposed to go in a sentence. Many children died as the result of safety scissor wounds. Who decided this - we'll have them shot tomorrow at sunup!
Of course, I'd venture that Microsoft already thought as much. If they're opening up their specs it may mean that (a) they're desperate to sell to the EU no matter what the possible consequences;
Correct me if I'm wrong, but when the EU was fining MS $2 million a day, weren't they fine with that since they were making $50 million a day in the EU?
I've still got an old 19 Gig Quantum Fireball running linux on it... One of the old bigfoots (5.25"!). I guess some of them were tragically flawed, and others just won't die. Granted, the drive seems to take 2 minutes to get up to speed, and 1 minute to shutdown, but that's what 5.25" platters will getcha!
I worked with a guy, when we were working on malware removal techniques, who did exactly this. Our google search was either 'warez' or 'crackz', I can't recall. He even played the stupid user - "Yeah, I'm sure I can install this activeX stuff, whatever that means...The site told me to hit OK" - and the box was LEVELED beyond repair in under 5 minutes and 10 sites. We had to pull the virtual ethernet card on it. It got to the point that the box almost got beligerent as we tried to pull the malware out... This stuff isn't your typical virus from 10 years ago! I forget how many hits we picked up from adaware and spybot, but it was in the several hundreds. Oh, and it was a SP2 box, as well.
ROFL - me too... Just a 1U rack, but MAN, those 15K RPM fans are freakin' loud! On the bright side, those 4 Xeon cores, 10K RPM Raptor and RAID 5 configuration produce a beautiful amount of heat on a cold winters day!
"Hey, peter, I'm cold in here... I'm going to start the rsync backup early today!"
Well, I'm a cross-breed. This is the user who uses Windows at work and for his primary machine, simply because I can't get away from Microsoft's grip. They're using my own mother against me! Mom, I know the weather is nice in florida, and I'd love to see the pictures, but do you have to embed them in a.doc - I run linux.... Yeah, the cute penguin one... However, my windows box sits next to an old G3 (which, BTW is still kickin after all these years), and is tied into my network, through my BSD firewall which is the only way to get to my slackware source code server / PDC / rsync backup / ISO repository (which, ironically holds my windows box's bit-for-bit HD image; and they have come in handy twice now in the last year). Given my choice, I run linux or BSD and given that my choice distro is slackware server side (although at work I run CentOS which I have no strong feelings one way or another about), and ubuntu (specifically kubuntu) on desktop. I'm a software development major and the only reason that I bother with MS development at all is because they give the IDEs away for free.
I'm to the point where I wholehearted agree with MS's view on their intellectual property - I won't steal any more of their crap because I simply no longer want it. I don't mind VS.NET 2k5, for the sole purpose that it's free and all the experience I can get with different platforms only helps me in the long run. I don't plan on developing MS apps in the future, but, then again I also don't plan on starving right out of college; if knowing.NET gets my foot in the door of some place, I'll take it. But I surely won't be pushing any MS software until they change their overall 'tone'.
On a side note... What happened to the geek that was Gates? He was one of us. Balmer - well, I don't think he was ever one of us; otherwise he'd understand us.
Let's start with "Administrators who are afraid of the command line", "Those who hold strong opinions about technology they don't understand", "People who think FOSS is for commies", "Admins who will only discuss high-level stuff for fear that their lack of knowledge will shine through"
Anyone else got Windows personas? I think we should put up a site...
It's not just their programs that are like this. Gentlemen, I submit to you, as exhibit 'a', the win32 API. It's slightly backwards compatible with the 16 bit stuff, which is good, because that part of the API is somewhat consistant. Then there is the MFC, ATL, ActiveX, COM, and.NET (for j#, c#, c++, ASP, etc.). Did I mention that.NET is in the third generation in about 5 years? If you're working with databases...well, which version of jet are you using, or which version of the MDAC. Each version seems to drop and add parts. If you want documentation, they have Technet, MSDN, etc. None of which will actually have the API specs that you are working for, but they will cross reference you to another part of the microsoft website... I've noticed that by the 3rd time or so that you get cross referenced and think you've found exactly what you're looking for, the page isn't found.
My point is this - they just seem to get a Bright Idea and run with it. And it always seems to come out just as soon as we get used to their current offerings and the quirks of them. It's always like trying to hit a randomly moving target that goes 3 ways at once.
I love variety, I think we all do. Choices are nice, but how many changes of theirs require me to spend time learning a new API. I don't mind adding one to my collective knowledge, but usually they're making me learn since they are dropping something and replacing it. Worse yet, as the underlying system constantly shifts, these changes are never really much seen in the operating system itself. It's like looking at a desk and thinking about the quantum fluctuations in the 'foam' underlying it. I can't be the only one angered at this!
I was basing my assumptions on the curing of many types of cancer. But, in light of the birthrate issue, you are correct, this is a more immediate problem.
I don't have any numbers to quote off the top of my head, and I can't look them up right now, (I'm supposed to be writing an assembly program for class, but such is the folly of SSH'ing from home to our solaris box at school!) but I have heard that the problem is that if we are able to cure terminal diseases (I think the article was on AIDS) we get a continually growing population. Eventually everyone will die, but if the average age that people die at goes up signifigantly, we have a big problem; old people, not being able to contribute to the labor force, and lots of them. Then we ultimately have food shortages, and people die of starvation.
I have heard that the planet supports about a billion people well, and after that resources become a problem. We're past 4 billion and still climbing. Should we cure terminal diseases and have a large population of people who aren't able to give any labor back... well, I think you get the image. Perhaps curing diseases that affect us in later years, after we've lived a full life, isn't in the best interest of our children who will have to support us.
Before you all flame, let it be known that I come from a family with a VERY high rate of cancer, and in later years it's very possible for it to be a bullet with my name written on it. Alright, flame on.
What we need is Chuck Norris; he wouldn't even have to karate kick it... A single 'stare of death' and the astroid would change its own trajectory and tell its friends not to 'come around these parts' of the solar system.
The "game" is always in favor of the hackers. All the admin truly 'has', at any given moment, is his server; which he, usually, doesn't get the final word in setting up anyways.
This is the most logical post I have ever read regarding this topic. Well done, good sir. Well done. Unfortunately, your grasp of this means that you're one of 'us'.
Those whom understand technology, do not manage it; those whom understand it, do not manage it. *sigh*
[blockquote]
Cheers to you Sinbad. You still suck, but you have my respect.
[/blockquote]
Am I the only one who reads this, and in my head I hear it being said in the voice of Stewie Griffin? I think he said, "Men be turnin' into zombies in the grocery stores... that's funny"
Perhaps...but, then again... Perhaps the question that needs to be asked is, whom is the amatuer? If the geeks, who are forced to use Microsoft products at work, choose, for their own personal use, to use a product because they like it, then maybe there's much to be said about that. I use samba, only for my own network (1 XP box, 1 slackware (source code server), 1 Mac and 1 BSD based firewall - and a whole slew of VM's), but I'd stack my flexability, uptime, security, and scalibility against this VP's ideal network any day of the week. My point being, if the geeks are using it, there's a reason - and price has nothing to do with it; check our average salaries.
Not to get off on a rant here, but, we (geeks) use software every day. We have RSS feeds from freshmeat, sourceforge, softpedia, codeplex (M.S., BTW), and we know what is out there and what works. We know what is tried and true, as we have encountered many setups, networks, situations, and problems. We have learned from our newbie mistakes and have taken that knowledge forth. It isn't about an idealogy, as such, it's about experience. We know what works and what doesn't, and we choose to use what works best for any given situation based on a very simple principle. Flexibility and complexity are usually at the opposite ends of the spectrum, working against each other. Small and simple is beautiful. We've all seen how complex systems fail in complex ways.
I'm not saying that Microsoft products don't have a place - I know an IT manager for a largish bank who only uses Cisco and Microsoft across the board for, mostly, a single reason. He says that with the ways that banks buy each other out, and how frequent the changes happen, he constantly has new infrastructure that must be grafted in. His best solution is 1 OS vendor, and 1 network vendor that he can get support for at any moment using a template that doesn't change. It works for him.
However, geeks choose to use samba because experience has taught us that it's fast, reliable, slim and small. The eyes of many, many, a hacker have looked over the code and made it better. We choose not to use Windows servers because we don't like waiting for a zero day patch tuesday next month, which will require us to reboot the server. We don't want to be locked in and forced to upgrade to version.7 software because our OS is no longer being supported. If we need to fix something, we'll code it, since we have the source for samba. It just works, and we don't have to worry about securing an interface that we forgot about. We don't worry about script kiddies having a VB script with a nice GUI to help them break in to our file server. They'll probably have to compile some C code before even beginning to expoit a vulnerability. And, lastly, the simplicity of the design acknowledges the seperation of concerns that Microsoft bunches together with API bungee cords into a horrifying series of interfaces that all rely on each other in such a way that a failure goes across the board.
If geeks choose to use a product, perhaps the VP's should ask themselves why we do so and what we know that they don't. Of course, that's just my opinion; I could be wrong. Feel free to flame.
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Forgive my ignorance; I'm writing ASM on Solaris for school right now...so, it's like I'm playing baseball and trying to figure out kricket at the same time with no point of reference other than my limited experience...
The funny thing is, the bookshelf on my desk is immaculate. I have supplies to the left bookshelf, all orderly. Snacks on the top, all orderly, CD archives/spindles on the bottom, all labled and orderly. The middle is just at arms reach center, 2 4-packs of rockstar, 4 fridge mate packs of mountain dew can dispensers (2 regular, 2 code red). Above that I've got batteries ordered by size (I have wireless everything and hate to run out), ordered rows of deoderant and body spray (I sweat alot). Ear plugs, 2 stacks of smokes (usually a carton at a time, 2 stacks of 5), and a row of lighters (admittingly, ordered by color - hex value... it happened in a moment of OCD rage).
So, I'm anal about everything that I need to continue to work... but my workspace itself (currently 3 empty ramen bowls, a flashlight open rockstar, pen or two, lighter, a random twist tie, project specs, 4-in-1 reciever remote, dry erase marker, etc) is just a mess. It's like once I get going, I want to have everything right where I know it's going to be, supply wise, but I don't care/don't have time about how clean my workspace is. Hrm... If I took this second monitor off my desk... but I digress.
You, sir, are just anal! And incredibly frusterating! My muscle memory automatically adds 2 spaces after a period... Now, you tell me there are only certain times when I'm supposed to use 2. This is almost as bad as the time my teacher tried to tell me 'where' a comma is supposed to go in a sentence. Many children died as the result of safety scissor wounds. Who decided this - we'll have them shot tomorrow at sunup!
OK, so I'm not the only one... I thought it was a meme I should have gotten.
...and if they made drivers like the kX audio drivers for windows. I can reroute my internal wiring via the drivers in a GUI.
I bet he backed those up on a disk that he locked in a vault at home!
I've still got an old 19 Gig Quantum Fireball running linux on it... One of the old bigfoots (5.25"!). I guess some of them were tragically flawed, and others just won't die. Granted, the drive seems to take 2 minutes to get up to speed, and 1 minute to shutdown, but that's what 5.25" platters will getcha!
I think this guy gets 2 days time out in the low oxygen server room.
I worked with a guy, when we were working on malware removal techniques, who did exactly this. Our google search was either 'warez' or 'crackz', I can't recall. He even played the stupid user - "Yeah, I'm sure I can install this activeX stuff, whatever that means...The site told me to hit OK" - and the box was LEVELED beyond repair in under 5 minutes and 10 sites. We had to pull the virtual ethernet card on it. It got to the point that the box almost got beligerent as we tried to pull the malware out... This stuff isn't your typical virus from 10 years ago! I forget how many hits we picked up from adaware and spybot, but it was in the several hundreds. Oh, and it was a SP2 box, as well.
"Hey, peter, I'm cold in here... I'm going to start the rsync backup early today!"
I'm not sure that I get why parent's post is funny... Did I miss something?
I'm to the point where I wholehearted agree with MS's view on their intellectual property - I won't steal any more of their crap because I simply no longer want it. I don't mind VS .NET 2k5, for the sole purpose that it's free and all the experience I can get with different platforms only helps me in the long run. I don't plan on developing MS apps in the future, but, then again I also don't plan on starving right out of college; if knowing .NET gets my foot in the door of some place, I'll take it. But I surely won't be pushing any MS software until they change their overall 'tone'.
On a side note... What happened to the geek that was Gates? He was one of us. Balmer - well, I don't think he was ever one of us; otherwise he'd understand us.
Let's start with "Administrators who are afraid of the command line", "Those who hold strong opinions about technology they don't understand", "People who think FOSS is for commies", "Admins who will only discuss high-level stuff for fear that their lack of knowledge will shine through"
Anyone else got Windows personas? I think we should put up a site...
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Ghandi Take a guess what stage we're at...
If you want documentation, they have Technet, MSDN, etc. None of which will actually have the API specs that you are working for, but they will cross reference you to another part of the microsoft website... I've noticed that by the 3rd time or so that you get cross referenced and think you've found exactly what you're looking for, the page isn't found.
My point is this - they just seem to get a Bright Idea and run with it. And it always seems to come out just as soon as we get used to their current offerings and the quirks of them. It's always like trying to hit a randomly moving target that goes 3 ways at once.
I love variety, I think we all do. Choices are nice, but how many changes of theirs require me to spend time learning a new API. I don't mind adding one to my collective knowledge, but usually they're making me learn since they are dropping something and replacing it. Worse yet, as the underlying system constantly shifts, these changes are never really much seen in the operating system itself. It's like looking at a desk and thinking about the quantum fluctuations in the 'foam' underlying it. I can't be the only one angered at this!
I was basing my assumptions on the curing of many types of cancer. But, in light of the birthrate issue, you are correct, this is a more immediate problem.
Thanks, yeah, that sounds like a better population, I just knew 4 billion was a safe estimate.
I have heard that the planet supports about a billion people well, and after that resources become a problem. We're past 4 billion and still climbing. Should we cure terminal diseases and have a large population of people who aren't able to give any labor back... well, I think you get the image. Perhaps curing diseases that affect us in later years, after we've lived a full life, isn't in the best interest of our children who will have to support us.
Before you all flame, let it be known that I come from a family with a VERY high rate of cancer, and in later years it's very possible for it to be a bullet with my name written on it. Alright, flame on.
What we need is Chuck Norris; he wouldn't even have to karate kick it... A single 'stare of death' and the astroid would change its own trajectory and tell its friends not to 'come around these parts' of the solar system.
The "game" is always in favor of the hackers. All the admin truly 'has', at any given moment, is his server; which he, usually, doesn't get the final word in setting up anyways.
Unfortunately, your grasp of this means that you're one of 'us'.
Those whom understand technology, do not manage it; those whom understand it, do not manage it. *sigh*
Am I the only one who reads this, and in my head I hear it being said in the voice of Stewie Griffin? I think he said, "Men be turnin' into zombies in the grocery stores... that's funny"
Please mod parent up. How does this stuff always get buried?
Not to get off on a rant here, but, we (geeks) use software every day. We have RSS feeds from freshmeat, sourceforge, softpedia, codeplex (M.S., BTW), and we know what is out there and what works. We know what is tried and true, as we have encountered many setups, networks, situations, and problems. We have learned from our newbie mistakes and have taken that knowledge forth. It isn't about an idealogy, as such, it's about experience. We know what works and what doesn't, and we choose to use what works best for any given situation based on a very simple principle. Flexibility and complexity are usually at the opposite ends of the spectrum, working against each other. Small and simple is beautiful. We've all seen how complex systems fail in complex ways.
I'm not saying that Microsoft products don't have a place - I know an IT manager for a largish bank who only uses Cisco and Microsoft across the board for, mostly, a single reason. He says that with the ways that banks buy each other out, and how frequent the changes happen, he constantly has new infrastructure that must be grafted in. His best solution is 1 OS vendor, and 1 network vendor that he can get support for at any moment using a template that doesn't change. It works for him.
However, geeks choose to use samba because experience has taught us that it's fast, reliable, slim and small. The eyes of many, many, a hacker have looked over the code and made it better. We choose not to use Windows servers because we don't like waiting for a zero day patch tuesday next month, which will require us to reboot the server. We don't want to be locked in and forced to upgrade to version .7 software because our OS is no longer being supported. If we need to fix something, we'll code it, since we have the source for samba. It just works, and we don't have to worry about securing an interface that we forgot about. We don't worry about script kiddies having a VB script with a nice GUI to help them break in to our file server. They'll probably have to compile some C code before even beginning to expoit a vulnerability. And, lastly, the simplicity of the design acknowledges the seperation of concerns that Microsoft bunches together with API bungee cords into a horrifying series of interfaces that all rely on each other in such a way that a failure goes across the board.
If geeks choose to use a product, perhaps the VP's should ask themselves why we do so and what we know that they don't. Of course, that's just my opinion; I could be wrong. Feel free to flame.