Linux-Advocacy Digest #301, Volume #26 Fri, 28 Apr 00 22:13:08 EDT
Contents:
Re: which OS is best? (Jim Richardson)
Re: which OS is best? (Jim Richardson)
Re: Linux whore seeks lover ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: What else is hidden in MS code??? (R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ))
Re: Linux KILLED MY SYSEM!!! IT SUXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: What else is hidden in MS code??? ("Erik Funkenbusch")
Re: Red Hat Linux Backdoor Password Vulnerability (Nic)
Re: X Windows must DIE!!! (Jimmy Navarro)
Re: Linux whore seeks lover (The Cat)
Re: Linux KILLED MY SYSEM!!! IT SUXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (The Cat)
Re: IBM dumping more shares of RedHat (R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ))
Re: i cant blieve you people!! (Joseph)
Re: What else is hidden in MS code??? ("Joseph T. Adams")
Re: Disabled lady needs Linux Corel (Christopher Browne)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jim Richardson)
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,alt.flame.macintosh
Subject: Re: which OS is best?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 01:11:21 GMT
On Fri, 28 Apr 2000 07:54:40 -0500,
[EMAIL PROTECTED], in the persona of <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
brought forth the following words...:
>On Fri, 28 Apr 2000 04:42:58 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jim Richardson)
>wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 27 Apr 2000 07:23:52 -0500,
>> [EMAIL PROTECTED], in the persona of <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>> brought forth the following words...:
>>
>>>On Thu, 27 Apr 2000 04:59:27 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jim Richardson)
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>>>Helix-modified-Gnome isn't all bad, but it's still a far cry from the
>>>>>ease-of-use of Windows/MacOS's GUI.
>>>>
>>>><rant of the day>
>>>>
>>>>So can someone explain why it is I have to open a pdf file in windows in
>>>>order to print it? I mean, under linux, dragging the file to the printer
>>>>icon, or typing lpr file.pdf prints it just fine. Why does windows feel
>>>>it is neccessary to open it up with adobe acrobat first? It takes a long
>>>>time compared to simply dragging it to the printer icon in KDE. I mean,
>>>>if I drag it to the printer icon in windows, windows asks me for a file
>>>>association, I don't want to open it, just print it.
>>>
>>>Why would it ask for a file association? Acrobat automatically
>>>registers itself at installation. It sounds like you didn't install
>>>Acrobat Reader - you only copied the installation from another
>>>machine, without adding the correct entries in the registry (which
>>>normally happens for you at installation time). When I drag a PDF
>>>onto a printer, it prints for me perfectly. (I just did it.)
>>>
>>acrobat is installed, if I dbl click on the pdf, it is opened in acrobat,
>>but dragging to the printer is a no go, wants a file association.
>
>Reinstall the latest Acrobat from Adobe.
Why? it prints okay as is, it just has to open it first. With a working
windows 9X setup, you don't tinker uneccesarily. THe registry is fragile
enough as it is.
>
>>>> Another thing, why is it that windows can't seem to deal with
>>>>postscript files, under linux, there's ghost script and the like, all
>>>>set up and easy as click to use, from the command line or gui. Sure, I
>>>>can go to the effort of grabbing GS and GV for windows, but why doesn't
>>>>it come with something similar?
>>>
>>>You'd have to tell me what those are before I can tell you what NT
>>>does in their place.
>>Ghostscript is a postscript interpreter, very versatile, knows pdf and ps
>>and a lot more. GV is the X-frontend for GS and its not NT, 95
>
>You'd have to tell me why I'd need that, given that NT puts the PS
>interpreter in the driver.
Read my lips, it's 95, not NT.
>>>>Ymmv, but for me, linux is easier to use, and with the exception of
>>>>games, has better and more apps.
>>>
>>>In some ways yes, in some no.
>>
>>
>>For what I do, it is.
>>
>>>
>>>>To top it all off, the W95 machine I was using briefly today froze, I had
>>>>tried running telnet from the "Run" menu item, (have done so before with
>>>>no prob) and the system froze, a few minutes later, it was rebooting, except
>>>>it had somehow trashed the C: drive, which it no longer recognized as a
>>>>bootable disk.
>>>
>>>I don't think anyone here seriously defends 95 as the 'be-all' machine
>>>for work.
>>>
Nevertheless, Win95/98 are the vast majority of systems out there, in small
companies all over, because the price of NT is too high, (not that Win9X is
cheap mind, but it's usually included on the new systems, and the cost is
hidden.)
>>
>>It's not the be all for anything, it's ok for games, because they are written
>>for it, but every game I have for linux is more stable than the windows version,
>
>All 5 of them? :) Yes, it's gotten better, especially with Loki, but
>really, there's no comparison.
Well, there are a couple of games out there I wouldn't mind trying on linux,
EV is one, but it's not avail for windows either, so that's a moot point. But
Civ CTP and Myth both take up more of my time than I should be spending
on games anyway, only so many hours in a day, and some of them have to be
spent at work.
>>this is a small list admitadly. Win9X is only good for the games that have
>>no linux version yet. NT might be better, but it's way too expensive, and I
>>don't trust the boys in Redmond.
>
>So you've not run NT / Win2k?
At a cost in excess of $300 for no net gain over linux? no, nor am I likely to.
Allthough the newest desktop machine actually has the oomph to do so (PIII at
550 Mhz and 128MB ram, nice machine, came with linux) I doubt I'll spend
money on W2K. (I probably could score a copy illegally, but frankly, I don't
support piracy, even of M$)
--
Jim Richardson
Anarchist, pagan and proud of it
WWW.eskimo.com/~warlock
Linux, because life's too short for a buggy OS.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jim Richardson)
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,alt.flame.macintosh
Subject: Re: which OS is best?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 01:14:46 GMT
On 28 Apr 2000 11:06:33 -0500,
Leslie Mikesell, in the persona of <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
brought forth the following words...:
>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>>>>> Another thing, why is it that windows can't seem to deal with
>>>>>postscript files, under linux, there's ghost script and the like, all
>>>>>set up and easy as click to use, from the command line or gui. Sure, I
>>>>>can go to the effort of grabbing GS and GV for windows, but why doesn't
>>>>>it come with something similar?
>>>>
>>>>You'd have to tell me what those are before I can tell you what NT
>>>>does in their place.
>>>Ghostscript is a postscript interpreter, very versatile, knows pdf and ps
>>>and a lot more. GV is the X-frontend for GS and its not NT, 95
>>
>>You'd have to tell me why I'd need that, given that NT puts the PS
>>interpreter in the driver.
>
>I suspect that he wants to read/preview PS files on the screen and
>have the ability to print them on non-postscript printers. GS/GV
>will do that under windows as well, but it could have been a
>native capability.
>
> Les Mikesell
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
This is correct, I was going to install GS/GV for windows, but never got
around to it, it was simply easier to ps2pdf the file on the linux machine,
and print from the windows box via acrobat, annoying, far from "integrated"
and slow, but it worked.
It just boggles the mind that win9X doesn't know what to do with a postscript
file...
--
Jim Richardson
Anarchist, pagan and proud of it
WWW.eskimo.com/~warlock
Linux, because life's too short for a buggy OS.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Linux whore seeks lover
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 01:09:28 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> I am a 23 yo female looking for a linux geek to spill his seed in my
> cunt and make a baby for me. I am totally hot when I am with geeks and
> wish to experience a geek orgasm. My cunt is real tight.
>
> Any race is ok but I prefer German cause Linux and German are a good
> match.
>
> P.S I can suck a golf ball through 5 feet of garden hose...
>
looks like "s" is finally out on probation....
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: What else is hidden in MS code???
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 01:05:47 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
hauck[at]codem{dot}com wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Apr 2000 21:50:29 GMT, Mathias Grimmberger
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
>
> >Any sane person pays for stuff in cash anyway. What do you mean, you
> >wouldn't pay for e.g. a car in cash?
>
> In the US, that sort of thing tends to bring
> on _more_ scrutiny of one's
> affairs rather than less. Banks are required
> to report cash deposits of
> over $10,000 to the feds for example.
> This is because of the US
> government's infamous "war on drugs".
Also, if you use an ATM to pull out more than $200
at a time, certain machines will trigger a notice to
police. At one time, I was renting a room from a 60
year old artist. She wanted to be paid cash so that
she didn't have to go to the bank.
I'd already paid 50% tax on the money, and she was paying
taxes as well. This saved her the hassle of having to
account for write-offs to offset the income.
Each time I would pull money for rent (about $300 each time),
I would pick up a bottle of soda or a snack at the store. By
the time I paid for my soda, the police cruiser was parked
at the doorstep, looking for a "dope deal". I didn't mind,
(I'd been sober 12 years at the time, and have been clean and
sober almost 20 years now).
I would do this every two weeks, and the cruiser would show up
within 3-5 minutes. When I would shop regularly at the same
location, the cruiser wouldn't come around for hours. Once,
I sat in a restaurant next door for an hour, went to the ATM,
and pulled my $300. I hadn't even made it to the front door
when the car came around the corner as quickly as it could.
Once, I pulled my $300, and by the time I got from the ATM
to my car (no soda purchase), the police were harassing a
couple of Black teens, searching them for drugs. By the time
I got my car out the driveway, the cops realized they had the
wrong kids. They had neither drugs nor money.
> --
> -| Bob Hauck
> -| Codem Systems, Inc.
> -| http://www.codem.com/
>
--
Rex Ballard - Open Source Advocate, Internet
I/T Architect, MIS Director
http://www.open4success.com
Linux - 60 million satisfied users worldwide
and growing at over 1%/week!
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Linux KILLED MY SYSEM!!! IT SUXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 01:14:12 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
[snippage]
> BUY MSFT AND BECOME RICH!!!
>
> POSTED FROM LINSHIT SO YOU CAN ALL SEE HOW MUCH IT SUCKS>>>>>>>>>>
>
"s" is back. would've thought the terms of probation would've kept him
away from computers. i wonder who we can call to violate him....
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: "Erik Funkenbusch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: What else is hidden in MS code???
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 20:27:41 -0500
R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:8eda5q$5id$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Actually, the Microsoft End User License Agreement (EULA)
> explicitly forbids "reverse engineering" of any aspect of
> the Microsoft product. This actually includes debugging
> efforts that attempt to walk through the assembler portion
> of a dll.
This is untrue. In fact, Microsoft provides the tools to debug into the
system by providing system symbols and and kernel level debuggers in the
customer diagnostics disk.
> If you publish actual evidence of "wire-tapping", you are in
> violations of the license, and therefore the copyright. This
> then makes you a pirate. Furthermore, you're evidence can be
> used in a court of law, and the penalty for Copyright violations
> is $250,000 PER OFFENSE, or 25 years in prison (worse than murder),
> and you've literally confessed.
Untrue. Reverse engineering is not a copyright violation, it's a liscense
violation. Liscense violations are contract law, while copyright violation
is civil/criminal (depending on the dollar value involved). Copyright only
covers duplication, not what you do with a legitimate copy.
> All wire-tap technologies are also protected under the trade secrets
> act, and these have even stiffer penalties.
Uh huh. And this is as accurate as everything else you've posted here?
Including the "fact" that Excel 95 needs Direct3D to be installed (never
mind the fact that Direct3D didn't exist for almost 2 years after Excel 95
was released).
> > > I've ever seen a single one back it up
> > > with actual evidence. Do you think
> > > you could be the first ?
>
> Looking for a confession? There are some things you can do to discover
> if you are being "tapped".
No, looking for you to back up some claims with proof, something which you
never do.
> What makes this particularly interesting is that I'm being tapped at
> this moment.
Didn't realize that you were both paranoid and delusional, though I guess
they go hand in hand.
> The there are only four tasks running on the desktop - netscape,
> Card Wizard (for my ethernet card), Diagnostics, and task manager.
> 70 background processes. ntvdm has eaten 2:09:47 since bootup, more
> than the idle process. The PC is slower than molasses in january.
ntvdm is the DOS emulator (NT Virtual DOS Machine). If it's eating up that
much time, you've got a DOS task running somewhere. This is not something
that happens on any kind of default installation of NT. Are you certain you
did not install something like distributed.net RC5 cracking software?
> The performance meter shows a 300 mhz Pentium II running at 100%
> all the time. The file handles go up and down, about once/second.
> The hard drive light goes on 10-20 times/second, and the output line
> activity shows that I'm SENDING packets at a remarkably high rate.
Again, not something you see on any kind of default system. You clearly
have something installed. Of course, if you had any kind of skills
whatsoever, it should take you about 5 minutes to find the source of this.
> I'm using 60 k out of 128 meg of RAM. But the file cache is shifting up
> and down by about 20 kbytes. None of the background processes are
> doing anything interesting that should be generating any significant
> activity, especially outbound network traffic.
Clearly there's something else.
> My primary activity is that I'm using Netscape to compose a document
> in a static text buffer.
What exactly is that supposed to mean?
> What makes this even more interesting is that the machine is behind
> a firewall at a financial institution.
Why does that make it more interesting?
> Some simple tests I haven't run yet:
Of course, sice they would prove you wrong.
> Install most of your software to an SMB Linux remote drive, put
> all of your servers on the drive. Every 15 minutes, run a
> "find <share path> -newer touchfile -print >logfile ; touch touchfile ;
>
> You can either throw it in a crontab file, or generate a loop.
>
> In the morning, you will have files that were touched that you
> expected to see touched, and then you will find the ones that
> shouldn't have been accessed for any reason.
And what is the results?
What would it prove even if it did give any results?
> see also:
> http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/dirtytricks.shtml
Gross exagerations, biased, and quite wrong in many places.
For instance, the claims of MS embedding a GUID in order to violate your
privacy are grossly exagerated. The GUID was there as a way to uniquely
identify documents for indexing, but it was later discovered that since the
GUID has the MAC address of the machine it was generated on embedded in it,
this could be used to trace the origin of the machine the document was
created on. This was a side-effect and not an intended purpose. Microsoft
also quickly moved to solve the problem once it was identified.
I might also mention that Microsoft did not invent the use of MAC's in
unique identifiers. The OSF did when they created RPC.
------------------------------
From: Nic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Red Hat Linux Backdoor Password Vulnerability
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 13:29:02 +1200
Eddie Dubourg wrote:
>
> I've used RedHat since v4.0, they all required you to type in a root
> password (non zero length, but other than than anything goes), but RedHat as
> of 6.1 still allowed you at the Lilo prompt to type "linux 1" and enter
> single user mode as root - my prime reason to switch to Debian, which if you
> try this insists on the root password (which makes it hard to restore a
> system if you've forgotten the root password, but I'd rather have this
> possibility than finding my system deleted.....)
Doing:
LILO: linux init=/bin/sh
[ kernel messages]
# mount -n -o remount,rw /
#
Gets you in anyway. This is, BTW, *very* useful for system recovery,
especially if you have sash installed (sash is a statically linked shell
with various utilities built-in) - in which case you'd use /bin/sash.
Works pretty much anywhere unless lilo is configured to be "restricted."
Even then, a floppy can get past it. The maxim is: if you have physical
access to the machine, you have access to the machine.
Regards,
Nic.
--
J. Random Coder < sky at wibble dot net >
------------------------------
From: Jimmy Navarro <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.x
Subject: Re: X Windows must DIE!!!
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 18:14:44 -0700
Christopher Browne wrote:
> Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when bytes256 would say:
> >Am I the only one here who thinks that X Windows is crap?
> >X Windows is extremely archaic, ridiculously bloated,
> >way too slow, and extremely hard to install.
> >
> >Let's get rid of it completely.
>
> Feel free.
>
> What were you planning to run distributed graphical applications on
> top of, as a replacement for X?
> --
> "Purely applicative languages are poorly applicable." -- Alan Perlis
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
I guess he may need to try the iMac...
------------------------------
From: The Cat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux whore seeks lover
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 01:38:35 GMT
Too bad you didn't post about a week ago.I just installed in ground
sprinklers in my lawn and half of them wouldn't work. Turned out to be
a clogged hose (factory defect). Sure could have used that suction
power to find the clog.
BTW installing sprinklers is a royal pia despite what mr fix it Bob
Villia says :)
On Fri, 28 Apr 2000 19:18:51 -0400, "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I am a 23 yo female looking for a linux geek to spill his seed in my
>cunt and make a baby for me. I am totally hot when I am with geeks and
>wish to experience a geek orgasm. My cunt is real tight.
>
>Any race is ok but I prefer German cause Linux and German are a good
>match.
>
>
>P.S I can suck a golf ball through 5 feet of garden hose...
>
>
>
TheCat (Steve)
"Agent under Wine and powered by Mandrake 7.0"
------------------------------
From: The Cat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux KILLED MY SYSEM!!! IT SUXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 01:39:41 GMT
The power gets turned back on at the trailer park and look what pops
out.
On Sat, 29 Apr 2000 01:14:12 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>[snippage]
>> BUY MSFT AND BECOME RICH!!!
>>
>> POSTED FROM LINSHIT SO YOU CAN ALL SEE HOW MUCH IT SUCKS>>>>>>>>>>
>>
>
>"s" is back. would've thought the terms of probation would've kept him
>away from computers. i wonder who we can call to violate him....
>
>
>Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
>Before you buy.
TheCat (Steve)
"Agent under Wine and powered by Mandrake 7.0"
------------------------------
From: R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: IBM dumping more shares of RedHat
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 01:28:07 GMT
In article <8ebtd1$ifp$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Truckasaurus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> In article <YDMN4.1698$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> "Erik Funkenbusch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:8e82dq$c07$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > It seems that Billy was spending the money IBM gave him
> > > to do OS/2 on Windows 3.0. They settled out of court with the
> > > usual nondislosures, but IBM didn't trust Microsoft anymore.
> >
> > Note that in Rex speak, "it seems" means,
> > I made this up out of thin air and
Actually, it's based on one of the articles I'd read 10 years
ago, out of the 200-400 pages per day that I have read for the
last 10 years, and since I don't have a search engine that goes
back to pre-1994, I would have to look it up in a library microfiche
file. My billing rate is $280/hour, and if you really want to pay
that price, I could probably find it in the New York Library, perhaps
in a week or two.
I'd LOVE to see the 10,000 pages/year that I've read, and the 5,000
pages per year that I've written PRIOR to 1994 - available in a
searchable public archive. I have a couple of 6250 BPI tar tapes,
and a couple of QIC 150 tapes in storage. I can't promise that they'll
still be readable, but it should make for VERY INTERESTING reading :-)
(Well, entertaining at least).
The net.flame, net.singles, net.women, and net.politics discussions
might be too "raw" for modern tastes, but then again, net.arch, net.pc,
net.unix, and comp.protocols were very interesting, especially some of
my discussions with Bill Joy.
Does anybody have usenet archives dating back to the early 1980s?
Back in those days, the entire newsfeed was over a megabyte per day.
Today, dejanews recieves posts at over a megabyte per second.
> > you can't prove that I didn't because
> > the information is not available to
> > disprove me.
Actually, it's available. Sometimes I get some of the minor
details wrong, and sometimes I even get the dates wrong - I've
been known to be off by as much as a year.
This particular story caught my interest because I happened to
be a consultant for IBM (working for another firm), working on
an OS/2 project at the time. I did a short stint with IBM in 1991,
and ported X11 to AIX/ESA in 1992. The story broke sometime between
October 1991 and January 1991. The settlement was announced sometime
between July and November of 1992.
> Yeah, that's great; let's have another
> prove it/disprove it discussion,
> that'll be great! Remember to bring Drestin along!
I spent 15 hours in the anchorage public library trying
to chase down the story last time. I found a mention in
the "NewsBytes" section of Byte - but couldn't find the weekly
that published the details. Right after that, they stopped the
conversation.
> --
> "It's the best $50 bucks I ever spent. I would have paid five
> times that for what your 'New You' packet allowed me to do!!!"
> -- K. Waterbury, CA
> Martin A. Boegelund.
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
>
--
Rex Ballard - Open Source Advocate, Internet
I/T Architect, MIS Director
http://www.open4success.com
Linux - 60 million satisfied users worldwide
and growing at over 1%/week!
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 18:47:47 -0400
From: Joseph <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: i cant blieve you people!!
Peter Ammon wrote:
>
> rj friedman wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, 27 Apr 2000 16:18:09 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >
> > �|�| 5. Presenting falsified evidence to the court - TWICE.
> >
> > �|�Twice? I know of the falsified video, what was the other thing?
> >
> > �|The "redone" video.
> >
> > �Don't forget Allchin's famous perjury.
> >
> > That, too. And their trained seal economist who argued one
> > side of an issue in one court (the Bristol case in
> > Connecticut), and a week later argued the opposite side of
> > the issue before Judge Jackson.
> >
>
> How about Microsoft's claim to the DOJ that they did not use
> undocumented programming interfaces in their own applications?
Or MS's whinning that splitting up the company into an OS and
Applications company will hurt "innovation" (i.e. hidden APIs).
------------------------------
From: "Joseph T. Adams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: What else is hidden in MS code???
Date: 29 Apr 2000 01:52:21 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy Christopher Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
:> Interestingly this is why I've banned all versions of Winblows from my
:> network. Prior to discovering NT's propensity to try to connect at
:> random times to nameless IP addresses in SE Asia, I had a lone NT box
:> behind a masquerading firewall. No more. It still exists in case I
:> have to open Office documents that SO or WP can't handle, but its only
:> connection to the rest of the network is via Sneakernet.
:>
:> Microsoft is NOT entitled, legally, morally or otherwise, to know what
:> is on the contents of my hard drive.
: It seems a lot of people like to make claims like this, but I don't believe
: I've ever seen a single one back it up with actual evidence. Do you think
: you could be the first ?
I can't prove anything just by posting the logs, and to be honest I
don't have them anymore. This was about 6 months ago.
But almost everyone I know who's put Windows behind a Linux or *BSD
autodialer has encountered the same problem - 'Doze tries, for
whatever reason, to send packets outside the local network even when
there's nothing that running that should need or want to.
Because it happens so consistently, I'm sure it's easily reproducible,
and I'm also sure that Microsoft or its apologists can come up with
some nicer-sounding explanation or excuse for this behavior than that
Microsoft is stealing my data.
I can't prove they are, but no one can prove they're not, and they are
known to have engaged in similar behavior before and to have defended
the practice and even sponsored legislation pretending to legalize it.
I'm not willing to take that chance.
Joe
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher Browne)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux.corel,alt.linux,alt.fan.linux
Subject: Re: Disabled lady needs Linux Corel
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 01:52:30 GMT
Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when Achim Nolcken Lohse would say:
>On 28 Apr 2000 10:53:09 -0600, Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>wrote:
>>[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Full Name) writes:
>>
>>> I have to concur with Achim's comments.
>>>
>>> All of the guys I work with are Linux advocates (with a definite
>>> hatred of MS).
>>>
>>> One of them recently purchased a Dell Inspiron 7500 notebook and
>>> promptly installed Madrake 7.x. He spent a fortnight trying to get
>>> the PCMCIA network card running. I was rather amused to see him
>>> camped in the communications cupboard with his notebook directly
>>> connected to the switch in an effort to get the network running.
>>>
>>> He finally gave up on the card and installed one he new would work
>>> with Linux.
>>>
>>> We purchased a second identical notebook (except for having a Linux
>>> compatible PCMCIA network card). It dual boots Win98 and Linux.
>>> Getting the Win98 networking took less than 15 minutes.
>>
>>And I have a dozen other stories in which Linux works "out of the box"
>>with something while NT falls on it's face.
>>
>>What's the point?
>>
>Well, as it happens, I've just spent about 16 hours over the space of
>the past week trying to get an OSITECH modem/Ethernet card working
>properly on my laptop under Win95.
>
>Happily, Ositech responds promptly and almost exhaustively to
>requests for technical assistance. And they have drivers available for
>WinXX, NT, and OS/2.
>
>With Linux, you're pretty much on your own when something doesn't work
>"out of the box".
Strange, "spending 16 hours" trying to get a network card working properly
doesn't sound to me like a provision of "exhaustive technical assistance."
The _only_ times I've found it "acceptable" to waste a couple of _days_
on something like this has been in troubleshooting problems when hardware
was _immensely_ badly supported on Windows.
I think my "billing rate" these days is around $90/hour. I'd not spend
more than about an hour on this; any more, and it would be worth
_writing off_ the hardware in favor of getting some better supported
piece of hardware where it doesn't cost $1300 worth of time to get it
to work.
The only way it was a good deal to spend 16 hours getting that card
working is if your time is worth less than $5/hour.
If you value yourself less than a fast-food burger-slinger, then the
"superior support" provided on Windows is probably worthwhile.
As for me, if it costs more than an hour or two to get it running,
I'd toss it into the bitbucket and get a card I _know_ is well-supported.
On the PCI bus side, I'd order/pick up a Netgear tulip card for about
$20, or for PCMCIA, look at the compatibility list at D-Link cards.
Life is too short to value time at Burger King wage rates, unless,
I suppose, you're a Winvocate...
--
"I've discovered that P=NP, but the proof is too long to fit within
the confines of this signature..."
[EMAIL PROTECTED] - - <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
------------------------------
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