Chlorine and rubbing alcohol is probably the cheapest way to do it, although the dust and gas produced should be avoided. Actually, no matter what chemicals you're using, you should wear masks and take precautions not to do anything stupid.
They have a massive setup, so this may be a bit overkill for your situation -- they have something like 5,000 computers on the school network, which spans 8 or 9 different schools (I live in Quincy, Illinois.) They have a subscription to WebSense Enterprise, which is a software-less solution to blocking objectionable websites (such as YouTube, MySpace, et cetera) and have filters set up to not allow MP3 files or any video files to be placed in the student's personal folder. Student data is all stored on a shared folder, whereunder each student's specific folder (mine is 4533 -- my ID number) contains My Documents, Recycle Bin, and Desktop (the Start Menu is common to all users per computer.) The student directory is mapped to H:, and is also merged with the computer's file system, so that My Documents points to H:\My Documents. It works really well. They created a new group, with even more limited actions, in the user manager (under Administrative Tools) and set the priveledges very low - all students are classed under this group. The computers are still fully functional, and work excellently.
Finally, they have unattend disks -- you pop a disk in, reboot, a small DOS batch file runs, tells you to enter a computer name (like B203S01, which is Senior High, B Building, Station 1) and then to remove the disk. Windows then installs using setup files stored on the network (so patches are applied globally) and within an hour, it's back to the login screen, as if nothing ever happened.
It's one hell of a setup, but even I commend them greatly for getting it to work so damn well. Also, there are some tweaks they applied to Windows to disallow the executing of any EXE, VBS, JS, BAT, or COM files that they don't explicitly flag as "executable" -- excepting the Windows system files, of course. I'm not sure how they did that. I'm not a networking/security expert.
Also, there's another tweak they applied so that USB Flash drives may be used, but only if they're
KDE has many things going well for it. This'll sound weird, I'm sure, but I like Gnome better because it feels better. KDE has a weird feel to it that I can't get over. It's the same feeling I get when I use Opera, I don't quite like it.
KDE also seems very thrown-together, and there are icons for almost every single menu item in almost every single menu -- it makes the entire desktop look extremely cluttered. Some lines and shapes (in some dialogs, some programs) are off by just a single pixel from where they should be, but because of that small error, it makes the desktop look slightly askew, and adds to the screen clutter appearance.
Other than appearance and "feel" I have no problem using KDE.
I really wish they wouldn't use JPEGs for computer screenshots -- the lossy compression makes straight lines and text look terrible. PNG (or possibly GIF, depending on the number of colors used) is much more reasonable.
Other than that, I don't understand why the --enable-compositor compile-time option isn't included by default. Logically, if the support is there, but the hardware isn't up-to-par or the X composite extention is not loaded, then the compositor just won't do anything. If everything is A-OK, then the compositor works as expected. For example, I compile support for my sound card directly into my kernel. One day, if I suddenly remove the sound card, my kernel will still work. So why not just turn stuff on by default?
On the other hand, I can understand why some things aren't compiled in sometimes, due to size, but a compositor can't be more than, what, 100k of actual code? Anyway, I'm sure someone's gonna fire back at me.
Wow... in the US, at least here, I pay $30/month for DSL internet -- it's the fastest speed available here, at 1.5 Mbits. In addition to that, the phone bill is also $30/month, with very expensive long distance calling. And on top of that, standard low-res cable TV (61 channels) is $45/month.
My favorite game of all time is Metal Gear Solid, which is actually the third game in the Metal Gear series. Metal Gear Solid 2 is also a top-notch game, despite being the fourth game. Same for MGS 3. Super Mario Bros. 3 introduces some interesting concepts, but is on the whole the same type of game that Super Mario Bros. 1 was. Game developers and game development companies want to capture as many players with a single idea, and sequels are the best way to do that. A lot of times, the companies force a sequel to be made, but many times, the developers themselves initiate the push for a sequel. Usually, when it's developer-driven, it'll turn out to be more enjoyable.
Sequels don't always suck, it's mostly when they're rushed, under-funded, and under-developed do they suck.
I was browsing 4chan the other day, in their Random section, looking for interesting (ha) pictures to add to my new website that's been in the works for way too long, and bam -- I get tons of popups, a bunch of icons appear on my desktop, and I've got three freakin' toolbars (unhideable toolbars, mind you) in all of my Explorer windows. What's more -- I was using Firefox. I have IE's settings set to the highest possible security, so that even in the worst case that IE lauched for any reason, I won't get screwed. But wow, I certainly did not expect Firefox to be vulnerable to spyware. (I have since reformatted -- I tried everything to get rid of the toolbars and extra crap. I eventually got rid of most of it, but the thing made it so I couldn't right-click anything except for icons in Explorer. Arrrr. Why didn't I view 4chan on my Slackware box? -- More digression: the spyware managed to install some crappy program, which was actually listed in Add/Remove Programs, but the program was using over 10 MB. How can spyware install so quickly if it's so large?)
I see a lot of computers with spyware. Most, if not all, of the computers that I fix have been completely demolished by malware, spyware, adware, and just general crap. A lot of times, it's from user ignorance (the kind of people that don't even skim EULAs). However, many times, it's from them visiting a website that looks just fine, and the website using some kind of hole in IE to screw over the viewer.
So I must ask, how is exploiting security holes a legal business method? It's obvious that most spyware-creating companies use this tactic, since it's obvious that no one in their right minds would accept spyware voluntarily. Since many times it is known (through thorough searches and whatnot) who created the spyware with which one's machine is infected, I find it hard to believe that no serious legal action has been taken up with these companies.
I am truly displeased to see even Firefox becoming a serious target for these jackasses. If Opera felt better (I have this thing about the "feel" of some programs that I can't explain) I might think about almost downloading it.
They were actually high-end PCs -- I don't remember the model, but they had two 120 GB SATA Seagate hard disks, 1 GB RAM, a dual-layer DVD burner, and a pinless Pentium 4 3.4 GHz with 1 MB cache, HyperThreading, and EM64T support. Insane to think that even their high-end products suffer from poorly-manufactured or poorly-designed parts.
And their cases suck too.
that I've worked on were all Dells. Two of them had the same motherboard, both of which were completely dead, and both of which were no older than six months. When I called Dell to request new motherboards (since the machines were under warranty) they promptly told me that they could not replace motherboards. They then offered to send me new heatsinks. Yes, because heatsinks dissipate heat so well when they're placed on a component that can't be turned on. I was never able to coax them to send me new motherboards. I now have two dissatisfied customers.
Surely, someone should kick their ass.
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Chlorine and rubbing alcohol is probably the cheapest way to do it, although the dust and gas produced should be avoided. Actually, no matter what chemicals you're using, you should wear masks and take precautions not to do anything stupid.
They have a massive setup, so this may be a bit overkill for your situation -- they have something like 5,000 computers on the school network, which spans 8 or 9 different schools (I live in Quincy, Illinois.) They have a subscription to WebSense Enterprise, which is a software-less solution to blocking objectionable websites (such as YouTube, MySpace, et cetera) and have filters set up to not allow MP3 files or any video files to be placed in the student's personal folder. Student data is all stored on a shared folder, whereunder each student's specific folder (mine is 4533 -- my ID number) contains My Documents, Recycle Bin, and Desktop (the Start Menu is common to all users per computer.) The student directory is mapped to H:, and is also merged with the computer's file system, so that My Documents points to H:\My Documents. It works really well. They created a new group, with even more limited actions, in the user manager (under Administrative Tools) and set the priveledges very low - all students are classed under this group. The computers are still fully functional, and work excellently.
Finally, they have unattend disks -- you pop a disk in, reboot, a small DOS batch file runs, tells you to enter a computer name (like B203S01, which is Senior High, B Building, Station 1) and then to remove the disk. Windows then installs using setup files stored on the network (so patches are applied globally) and within an hour, it's back to the login screen, as if nothing ever happened.
It's one hell of a setup, but even I commend them greatly for getting it to work so damn well. Also, there are some tweaks they applied to Windows to disallow the executing of any EXE, VBS, JS, BAT, or COM files that they don't explicitly flag as "executable" -- excepting the Windows system files, of course. I'm not sure how they did that. I'm not a networking/security expert.
Also, there's another tweak they applied so that USB Flash drives may be used, but only if they're
KDE has many things going well for it. This'll sound weird, I'm sure, but I like Gnome better because it feels better. KDE has a weird feel to it that I can't get over. It's the same feeling I get when I use Opera, I don't quite like it.
KDE also seems very thrown-together, and there are icons for almost every single menu item in almost every single menu -- it makes the entire desktop look extremely cluttered. Some lines and shapes (in some dialogs, some programs) are off by just a single pixel from where they should be, but because of that small error, it makes the desktop look slightly askew, and adds to the screen clutter appearance.
Other than appearance and "feel" I have no problem using KDE.
I really wish they wouldn't use JPEGs for computer screenshots -- the lossy compression makes straight lines and text look terrible. PNG (or possibly GIF, depending on the number of colors used) is much more reasonable.
Other than that, I don't understand why the --enable-compositor compile-time option isn't included by default. Logically, if the support is there, but the hardware isn't up-to-par or the X composite extention is not loaded, then the compositor just won't do anything. If everything is A-OK, then the compositor works as expected. For example, I compile support for my sound card directly into my kernel. One day, if I suddenly remove the sound card, my kernel will still work. So why not just turn stuff on by default?
On the other hand, I can understand why some things aren't compiled in sometimes, due to size, but a compositor can't be more than, what, 100k of actual code? Anyway, I'm sure someone's gonna fire back at me.
Wow... in the US, at least here, I pay $30/month for DSL internet -- it's the fastest speed available here, at 1.5 Mbits. In addition to that, the phone bill is also $30/month, with very expensive long distance calling. And on top of that, standard low-res cable TV (61 channels) is $45/month.
I hate America.
... but shouldn't it be whom?
Nit-pickerry...
What the hell are you talking about?
My favorite game of all time is Metal Gear Solid, which is actually the third game in the Metal Gear series. Metal Gear Solid 2 is also a top-notch game, despite being the fourth game. Same for MGS 3. Super Mario Bros. 3 introduces some interesting concepts, but is on the whole the same type of game that Super Mario Bros. 1 was. Game developers and game development companies want to capture as many players with a single idea, and sequels are the best way to do that. A lot of times, the companies force a sequel to be made, but many times, the developers themselves initiate the push for a sequel. Usually, when it's developer-driven, it'll turn out to be more enjoyable. Sequels don't always suck, it's mostly when they're rushed, under-funded, and under-developed do they suck.
Isn't academia a kind of nut ... ?
But only if they're not rolling.
I was browsing 4chan the other day, in their Random section, looking for interesting (ha) pictures to add to my new website that's been in the works for way too long, and bam -- I get tons of popups, a bunch of icons appear on my desktop, and I've got three freakin' toolbars (unhideable toolbars, mind you) in all of my Explorer windows. What's more -- I was using Firefox. I have IE's settings set to the highest possible security, so that even in the worst case that IE lauched for any reason, I won't get screwed. But wow, I certainly did not expect Firefox to be vulnerable to spyware. (I have since reformatted -- I tried everything to get rid of the toolbars and extra crap. I eventually got rid of most of it, but the thing made it so I couldn't right-click anything except for icons in Explorer. Arrrr. Why didn't I view 4chan on my Slackware box? -- More digression: the spyware managed to install some crappy program, which was actually listed in Add/Remove Programs, but the program was using over 10 MB. How can spyware install so quickly if it's so large?)
I see a lot of computers with spyware. Most, if not all, of the computers that I fix have been completely demolished by malware, spyware, adware, and just general crap. A lot of times, it's from user ignorance (the kind of people that don't even skim EULAs). However, many times, it's from them visiting a website that looks just fine, and the website using some kind of hole in IE to screw over the viewer.
So I must ask, how is exploiting security holes a legal business method? It's obvious that most spyware-creating companies use this tactic, since it's obvious that no one in their right minds would accept spyware voluntarily. Since many times it is known (through thorough searches and whatnot) who created the spyware with which one's machine is infected, I find it hard to believe that no serious legal action has been taken up with these companies.
I am truly displeased to see even Firefox becoming a serious target for these jackasses. If Opera felt better (I have this thing about the "feel" of some programs that I can't explain) I might think about almost downloading it.
They were actually high-end PCs -- I don't remember the model, but they had two 120 GB SATA Seagate hard disks, 1 GB RAM, a dual-layer DVD burner, and a pinless Pentium 4 3.4 GHz with 1 MB cache, HyperThreading, and EM64T support. Insane to think that even their high-end products suffer from poorly-manufactured or poorly-designed parts. And their cases suck too.
that I've worked on were all Dells. Two of them had the same motherboard, both of which were completely dead, and both of which were no older than six months. When I called Dell to request new motherboards (since the machines were under warranty) they promptly told me that they could not replace motherboards. They then offered to send me new heatsinks. Yes, because heatsinks dissipate heat so well when they're placed on a component that can't be turned on. I was never able to coax them to send me new motherboards. I now have two dissatisfied customers. Surely, someone should kick their ass.