Same reasoning as Vista. Release a bad OS, so the next one looks WAY better.

If you set your expectations low, you can't possibly be disappointed.

Before you order a co-lo, agree that it has to pass certain checks, such as a blacklist check.

http://www.mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx

As for decreasing IP space, IPv6 (real or tunneling) is available at most large co-lo places, so that won't be a problem.

Sorry, it *is* jokingly between us.

Whenever there is a computer problem, i say "well, time to save some lives" whenever she's around to get her into it...it definitely confuses people around us.

I agree. My long-time girlfriend is a veterinarian and always makes fun of my career choice when I am "on-call" or have an "emergency."

Obviously her on-calls, and emergencies deal with life-or-death situation (of animals...) and mine deals with thousands, and possible hundreds of thousands ($$) in lost productivity, revenue, etc.

Whenever I even mention the $$ argument as a way to back up my claim as my job is important - I get the "saving lives" is more important. One of our good friends is a doctor and uses the "save lives vs. save useless lives" argument with her...funny actually. The only reason why she did vet school instead of med school (truth be known vet school is more difficult to get into) is because she likes animals better than people.

Anyway, back to the story, whenever her computer screws up, I make it a point to note that I'm saving its life. It gets her all riled up, stating she'll just buy a new computer - to which I reply I'll simply buy a new dog when mine gets hurt - or even a new girlfriend when mine is broken.

It's this back and forth that makes me wonder if we'll ever get or stay married.

The summary was incorrect - corrected below:

This is the best method to remove viruses/malware, I agree, but only if you have physical access to the machine.

If you're supporting one of your 10 000 new friends (how convenient, so many new friends, all have viruses) over the phone, getting them to install one of those quickly, works.

How about testing some malware removal programs? Malwarebytes, Adaware, Spybot?

I find Malwarebyte's Anti-malware to work wonders. Paired with Avast home edition, it is a good free combination. I think most system administrators notice the difference between software primarily tailored for virus detection and removal, and ones tailored for malware detection and removal.

They tested these:

Avast Professional Edition 4.8
AVG Anti-Virus 8.5
AVIRA AntiVir Premium 9.0
BitDefender Anti-Virus 2010
eScan Anti-Virus 10.0
ESET NOD32 Antivirus 4.0
F-Secure AntiVirus 2010
G DATA AntiVirus 2010
Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010
Kingsoft AntiVirus 9
McAfee VirusScan Plus 2009
Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0
Norman Antivirus & Anti-Spyware 7.10
Sophos Anti-Virus 7.6
Symantec Norton Anti-Virus 2010
Trustport Antivirus 2009

It is unfortunate that SORBS has gotten a bad rap. Although it has been plagued on the administrative side of things, its list was still helpful in detecting and removing spam.

GFI is a good company - but I am betting the list will no longer be free to use. Everything they sell is licenced on a "per mailbox" structure, and as such I imagine the list will be implemented into their anti-spam products. There may also be a nominal fee (per box) to use the list with other spam filters.

As a Windows (and Unix) System Administrator dealing with numerous users of the 'average' type, I must say giving users limited rights only work if the programs they need to run can do so within those rights.

We deal with a lot of industry specific software (ie. badly produced software) and many of the users need to have full access to absolutely everything in order for it to work, including mapped drives to the data!

Some of the users I support are absolutely mind-numbingly stupid. You tell them over and over to NOT do something and they do it again. You try and educate them on attachments and safe web browsing, and they don't care! Many of them will try all the risky things at work that they wouldn't do at home - because they know if they screw up their home computers they'll have to pay to get it fixed. At work, I fix them, someone else pays.

Oh come on now, let's be nice...this is slashdot...one of the most *tolerant* communities on the Internet!

We need to bring about a paradigm shift, to think outside the box, and produce a clear synergy between cloud computing and virtualization.

Wow....praises for everything that is wrong with programming.

I believe in a 100% good project, and somewhere around 97%+ good project. If it can't be delivered, then you're not smart enough, or it's not possible.

Of course, I think he means something along the lines of industry software.

I work in the auto repair industry as a system administrator. We have 20 industry specific programs. They fall into two categories:

1. Programs developed by companies within the industry with no real programming experience. IE. Auto Shop gets smartest guy to learn how to program - builts program...these are the programs that are 50% good. Poor programming practice, unstable, but overall, on a good day, works well enough to increase efficiency beyond that of a pen/paper.

2. Programs developed by professional programmers with no industry experience. These programs are polished, stable, run fast. The problem is, since the programmers have little or no industry experience, there is an obvious disconnect in the work process within the program. This results in features we don't need, or things we need that are absent.

Overall, as a system administrator, #2 are better for me, because they work. #1 are better for the workers themselves.

We have one program that "tracks changes" by polling every file on the hard drive constantly. Starts at the top and works through every file and starts again. We have a server dedicated to this, chews up a 4-core processor. When asked about it, they said there was no other way to do it...uh huh...this is the #1 approach.

Verizon gives status updates on all their techs:

Bill - Godlike
Chris - Rampage
Steve - Headshot

Oh wait, I'm thinking Unreal Tournament...or...am I

There is a slow progression to that point. Looking back 10 or 20 years ago today there have been significant advancements in technology and many game-changing technologies that never became mainstream. Even virtualisation has been held back by the 'needs' of the small and medium business - most have no need for it. The cloud will start in large enterprises and maybe trickle down to small businesses in some form or another, but we'll still need many IT techs at all levels of knowledge and organisation.

As long as businesses hold onto legacy software, advancement will be kept at a reasonable maximum. We still have accounting software that is 25 years old. Can we put that in the "Cloud"? Perhaps cloud computing or grid (like electricity utility) is where we are headed, but the jobs that is displaces will be filled in the "Cloud Industry".

I try to keep my feet wet in all aspects of IT regardless of the specific duties I'm performing at a job - this way I can at least have a taste for what I enjoy, what I'm capable of (programming, say) or where I might like to be in 10 years. As trends pick up, I'll devote more time to the fields which may have a better payoff in not only my personal life, but my professional life. I have dabbled enough in virtualisation to become proficient, but I am no expert - mainly because I, or the company I am at, have little to no use for it at the moment, but I realize the possibility my next job may have for it.

What the Industry sometimes fails to realize is that it is IT people who make or break the products. From the majority of /, readers responses to all these Cloud Computing posts, the main concerns are reliability and security. Reliability may be solved soon, but I feel security will always be a neverending list of crackers and incompetence on the part of the cloud utility. Too many stories of losing usb keys, laptops, security passes, passwords, etc, on the part of large "no fail" companies that should know better. Most businesses will be very very adverse to giving up control of their data, and somehow I don't see that ever changing, even when they claim the risk is almost 0%.

I'd rather think about skating to where the puck is going to be than where it is now.

Original Quote by Wayne Gretzky:

"I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been"