Ursus Pacificus

Originally posted 8/11/06 on technotrike.blogspot.com –ed.

It seems Microsoft’s latest patch batch either missed or created a vulnerability….? I’m having a little trouble deciphering the article, as are many on Slashdot, aparently.

It’s just sad.

I mean… Microsoft is basically in the position of a Monopoly (the Parker Brothers game — ironic, huh?) player, who’s managed to get the purples, the oranges, the reds, the yellows, the greens, the railroads and the utilities… has hotels on everything… even on the Water Works… has almost all the money from the bank.. everyone else has to transact with hand-written IOUs… this is a player who would really have to try for a long time to actually lose… they’ve gone beyond the tipping point of business peril. Although, this makes me think they’re trying.

Originally posted 8/10/06 on technotrike.blogspot.com –ed.

ZD-Net has a rather amusing article about Microsoft’s “Windows Genuine Advantage” or “WGA”.

…So… First it was “false positives” that were the problem… people with “legitemate” instances of MS Windows being locked out of their systems…

Now, It seems that WGA is also not locking out ACTUAL PIRATES.

*sigh*

This coupled with the US Department of Homeland Security’s adamant and unusual exhortation to all MS Windows users, that they immediately implement MS Patch MS06-040 (more here) serves to further diminish my respect for Microsoft.

I mean… Come on. Vista is already a “lipstick on a pig” disappointment. They’ve been working on it for, like, five years, and it’s still six or more months from general public release. IE7 is poised to be the most shunned web browser on the planet, in part because, after… what? 5 year?… Microsoft has decided to abandon it’s non-standards-compliant CSS implementation and be a little more standards-complaint. Web developers all around the planet are reaching for their favorite analgesics. MS Windows has never been the shining star of the computer security world. Microsoft has made more money in less time than any other company in the history of business. Prove me wrong! In spite of the fact that Microsoft makes obscene profits, without fail, it still feels there is more coin to be squeezed out of the MS Windows-using public (objective | subjective), and has managed to screw that pooch, too!.

Once again, you MS Windows users have my limited sympathies… I mean… There are alternatives to MS Windows, after all.

By the way, just for grins, I tried to “validate” my FedoraCore 5 (x86_64) install … hehe… The website just thrashed… It kept coming up with this pop-up:

…huh. Seems the least they could do is check the information provided by my browser in the HTTP-GET [User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.8.0.4) Gecko/20060614 Fedora/1.5.0.4-1.2.fc5 Firefox/1.5.0.4pango-text] to see that I’m not even running MS Windows.

I suppose I expect too much.

Originally posted 6/2/06 on technotrike.blogspot.com –ed.

For half the price of my first new computer (Atari 800XL: IIRC ~ $200), I just got a Linkksys NSLU2 that runs a hundred times faster and … it’s positively adorable. I dont know exactly how a woman feels when she receives a diamond-encusted teddybear wearing the keys to a new Lexus as a Valentine’s Day present… but… I think it’s kinda like that.

From the factory, the NSLU2 (or “slug” as the enthusiast community affectionatelly calls it) ships with a moderately lame-o firmware… with a typical Linksys web UI and the ability to connect… not 30…. not 4 … a stunning ONE USB 2.0 HDD to your LAN. Wow! Cool! No wonder they’re not really selling but the Slug has a secret… or, more precisely, there’s a secret about the Slug that Linksys would probably rather you didn’t know: It runs on Linux and there are several OpenSource projects out there to make greater use of this groovy product.

This Page is a great starting point for making greater use of the Slug.. I got one and installed OpenSlug on it. I call her thelmalou…

Thelmalou with a terabyte of attached storage.

I so love thelmalou and her tiny appetite for electricity that I’m setting up a sister for her to serve as my login/bastion/whatever server. I think I’ll try DebainSlug this time.

Wow… If you don’t have one… get one.

Originally posted 5/27/06 on technotrike.blogspot.com –ed.

*sigh*

Am I the ONLY person in the USA who screams every time someone calls this: “/” a “backslash”?

I just… Aaaaiiigh!

This character: “\” is called a “backslash”. This character: “/” is called (among other names) a “slash”.

What’s the difference?

I’m glad you asked.

If you’re typing a URI (or URL as they used to be called) into your garden-variety Web browser, and you type it this way:

http:\\www.yahoo.com
Your browser (if it’s doing its job) should yell at you and present you with an error page.

Also, in the Microsoft world, “\” (the backslash) is the filesystem delimiter. In the UNIX/Linux/sensible/sane/restofthe world, the slash (”/”) is the filesystem delimiter. The slash is also the filesystem delimiter for networking, such as Web addresses, NFS and other services on networks.

Why is this? Because the “\” has its own meaning. It is not a direct replacement for “/”. The backslash (this thing: “\”) is used to “escape” things. There are lots of characters that have special meaninig, like colons, semicolons, dollar signs and so on, which occasionally have to be used literally, rather than with their special meaning. To do this, we commonly precede these special characters with a backslash (remember? This one: “\”).

There’s APPARENTLY a tendency among the bulk of Americans to take on a “What’s the difference?” attitude. There seems to be a lack of concern for Saying what is meant and meaning what is said. I’m just plain disgusted. This, I think, points to a larger problem in our society, and that is that people just don’t seem to care about conveying meaning. There is concern for geting across the “like, you know” layer of meaning, but not the direct facts. I’m just sick of it.

People. *sigh*

I don’t have a lot of time to blubber about this article, but I wanted to point to it and say, “Hey, this is brilliant!”

Hi again…

I’ve gotten Technotrike (from Blogspot) about 1/2 moved… I’ll continue with it later… I have to get cracking up at the house.

Originally posted 5/21/06 on technotrike.blogspot.com –ed.

Apple has a new series of ads out. Kinda cute… but… these ads miss an important point.. “Mac” used to mean something… It used to mean superior system architecture and hardware design and performance and stuff like that. Now it’s just a style of box and an operating system.

Apple is trying really hard to sustain the notion that “The Mac” is alive and well even though it’s now just another Intel box.

The scruffy kid says, “I’m a Mac”, then the dumpy guy in the suit says, “…and I’m a PC.”

It should play out like this:

KID [at screen right]: Hi. I’m an Intel-based IBM PC-compatible computer running Apple’s Mac OS-X.

[Cut to blank white screen with “Think for yourself.” written in simple gray letters.

Maybe it’s just me.

Originally posted 5/21/06 on technotrike.blogspot.com –ed.

Computer display manufacturers have spent years and many millions of dollars to create anti-glare coatings and films which don’t detract from the image being displayed. They’ve gotten pretty OK at it. During the same period, PC software developers have expended many man-hours and countless CPU Clock Ticks to provide us with “eye candy” and “chrome”, to make our computers seem prettier, but, somehow, slower….

Now the software guys have gone too far. Now the software guys are starting to take away the gains made by the hardware engineers. How are they doing this? They are putting… This is no lie! I’m serious and will provide examples…. They are putting FAKE GLARE on their programs’ windows and widgets!…

See this image for some examples. Here’s a particularly egregious example. …Or you could just go to Apple’s website.

I guess, as a fan of the “good ol’ days”… I don’t see the value in all the shiny crap. Sure it’s pretty, I guess… If you like glare… but … if your goal is “pretty”… I guess it’s worth the extra cpu ticks… it’s worth the extra memory… It’s worth the extra cost. If your goal is “getting something done”… then… the extra time your CPU has to spend making curves, dealing with alpha channels and coping with way too many colors is wasted.

Just a thought.

Originally posted 5/18/06 on technotrike.blogspot.com –ed.

UPDATE: Microsoft has updated its Get Ready page, which is now legible ….

… in Firefox on Linux. This does nothing to change whether I will buy MS Windows Vista for my own consumption. In case you were wondering, I will not. I can’t help but wonder whether it was this post that made them change it

This article tells about Microsoft’s campaign to help MS Windows Users Get Ready. Strangely, It seems Microsoft doesn’t want Linux users to “Get Ready”, because the “Get Ready” page does not render legibly in Firefox under Linux:

Bork for the course, I guess…

But what gets me is this (from the article):

“There’s really no reason to wait until the launch of Windows Vista to start shopping for a PC that can deliver a great Windows Vista experience or to start thinking about upgrading your current PC to windows Vista,” product manager Greg Amrofell said in a telephone interview.

What?! So I can buy a PC now with an OEM MS Windows License, then, in a year, buy another copy of MS Windows?! Um… How about, “No.”?

I don’t know…. We got into a little religious skirmish at work today… Yet another scuffle in the smouldering browser war. A colleague of mine, who favors Microsoft products in his IT decisions, decided to leap on this Firefox vulnerability as a chance to show me that Open Source software is not perfect… which I already knew. There were some barbs tossed back and forth among others, then I lobbed this little honey into the fray:

All –

[person] makes an important point. The fact that he placed it below the
sign-off, reducing the likelihood that it would be read, does not
diminish its validity:

We must all make a point of employing safe computing practices.

What is “safe” and what is not (and, for that matter, what is “practical”
and what is not) is debatable, and, in many cases, subjective. In our
“common” computing environment, we must have some practices in place to
help ensure the resources we all use are as available as possible. Most
of these things are regarded by many people to be “common sense”…
but… still need occasional reinforcement.

[person] makes another excellent point:

No software is perfect.

This does not mean, however, that all software is of the same quality,
offers the same value or presents the same risks. Quality, value and
risk are statistically quantifiable, but statistics are malleable, and
normally used only to prop-up or assail the “personal value judgments”
made by one person or another.

For the record, the Web browser I prefer to use is Mozilla, not Firefox.
Both are multiplatform browsers, and, generally, of good quality
(irrespective of whether they are open-source or commercial offerings).
Of the two, I find the maturity of the Mozilla code base to be a
positive. Mozilla lacks some of the fancier “bell and whistle” features
of Firefox, but it handles browsing (and mail) well, with comparatively
low risk and is, in my experience, substantially more stable.

…and now, an evangelical rant:

The fact that a commercially-marketed “Internet-ready” Operating System
and its inextricably interwoven Web Browser are not “Internet-Safe” as-sold
12 years after the “Internet Explosion”; that the producer of such
an Operating System actually tells its customers not to use its product
on the Internet without having downloaded the latest updates from the
Internet and purchased an additional hundred-dollars-or-so worth of
commercial software… is telling. That there is still a market for
such a product 12 years on is simply depressing.

Thanks and have a sunshiny day!

Me

The thread died with that.

This “Get Ready” thing is just another in a long procession of “We own the market so fuck the rest of you” gestures from Microsoft. I’m sure there are plenty of MS Windows users out there who are skirting the shoals of usability in Windows XP, who will buy into this sham and buy a machine now with MS Windows XP on it, then buy the Vista “upgrade”, only to be disappointed in the performance.

This is addressed (sort of) in the article:

Kevin Johnson, head of the business unit that includes Windows, said in an interview with CNET News.com this week that Microsoft is likely to have some kind of discount or upgrade program to help those who buy a PC this holiday season upgrade to Vista.

“Yeah, there’s likely to be something,” Johnson said, without giving specifics.

“Yeah, there’s likely to be something”?!

*sigh*

You poor, poor MS Windows users.

Originally posted 5/4/06 on technotrike.blogspot.com –ed.

Wow… I’ve never read a more pissy article in a magazine or on its website than this article.

Jim Louderback really seems to have a stiffie for Mac-bashing. It seems nothing but a Dell running MS Windows will ever be good enough for him.

Calling Mac enthusiasts “Lemmings” is a little harsh, considering he’s advocating the product of a monopolist… Who’s the Lemming, Jim?!

If this article is any indication of ol’ Jimmy-boy’s value to society, then… well… the phrase “waste of skin” comes to mind.

I will grant that a dual-boot capability is nothing new in PC-dom… Although I’ve never used the capability, most GNU/Linux distributions have had the capability of dual-booting since at least 1998, when I started with it. I just boot into Linux. That’s fine for me.

I find it a little strange that Jim dismisses the entire Mac user community and any in the MS Windows camp who might try Mac Boot Camp as not being “Real Computer Users”, implying that MS Windows users are “Real Computer Users”… um… Jackass? Yeah… Jackass. How many of the world’s 500 fastest supercomputers are running MS Windows? I didn’t have time to look at all 500, but 7 of the top 10 are running Linux. “Real Computer”. Ha!

Oh, and blaming the handle on the orignal iMac for starting the whole “luggable” trend. Dude, what the fuck planet have you been on, Jimbo? Anyone remember the KayPro?!… Or the Osborne?! Needle-dick.

…and here’s an interesting bit from the article: “Remember the bad old days of OS/2 and Windows NT, and MIPS- and Alpha-based computers? Fanatics tried to push these supposedly better systems on everyone, touting power, capability, and destiny. It was all bunk, and each died from neglect.” Neglect? No, not neglect. Try predatory monopolism. Intel got in, not because their product was better, but because it was cheap and they were riding on Microsoft’s coat tails. Microsoft got in, not because they had a great product, but because they have been a biat-and-switch outfit almost since day one. MIPS is a superior architecture, as is the DEC Alpha. It may surprise some young’uns to hear that DEC (That’s Digital Equipment Corporation) had a killer 64-bit RISC Architecture back in 1992, a full 11 years before 64-bitness came to the Intel-compatible realm. And Microsoft STILL doesn’t support it in consumer-land 3 years later. Bad old days, indeed. Putz.

..and he ends the article this way: “…don’t come running to me when your mind and body prematurely degenerate. I’ll be smart, fit, and enjoying my real Windows computers, while you ooze slowly into the Pixar-Disney-ABC swamp of mindlessness. Chump.” I’m not really defending Apple, here… I lost what respect I had for them when the decided to dump PowerPC for Intel…. but “…smart, fit and enjoying my real Windows computers…”?! Yeesh! Keep an eye on that guy! He might just be ready to martyr himself at his nearest “Apple Store.”