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Comment Re:USA != world (Score 1) 134

I suspect some of their problems there are caused by the carrier monopoly.

Agreed.

In January of this year, RIM put Wi-Fi calling into BlackBerry 7.1 OS. This using the carrier’s Wi-Fi calling service (aka UMA-lite or GAN-lite). The caveat on that particular feature is "check with your carrier for availability." Looking forward to this, I upgraded using the Verizon image (if you will). I then did not see that feature. I called Verizon, whose business model is built around pay per minutes used. They do not offer this capability. No plans to either. To my knowledge, AT+T does not either. Across the border in Canada, Rogers has WiFi calling available for their customers.

The truly sad thing about this near duopoly with the U.S. carriers is that the U.S. taxpayer is truly subsidizing them. This in terms of all the tax breaks and government phone and data line contracts. And the above is one example of all that we get in return,

Comment Make a difficult decision like Ben Franklin would (Score 1) 397

Sounds like you have to make a hard call between two attractive job choices. I had a similar situation a little while back. I found the below method useful. Let me quote the man then on to an example.

"“My way is to divide half a sheet of paper by a line into two columns; writing over the one Pro and over the other Con. Then during three or four days’ consideration, I put down under the different heads short hints of the different motives, that at different time occur to me, for or against the measure. When I have thus got them altogether in one view, I endeavor to estimate their respective weights; and where I find two, one on each side, that seem equal, I strike them both out. If I judge some two reasons con equal to some three reasons pro, I strike out five; and thus proceeding, I find where the balance lies; and if after a day or two of further consideration, nothing new that is of importance occurs on either side, I come to a determination accordingly.” –Benjamin Franklin"

In a nut shell, write up a chart (excuse the csv):
Element, Importance Factor, Job A, Job A subtotal, Job B, Job B subtotal
Commute, 5, 6, 30, 4, 20
Salary, 8, 7, 56, 8, 64
So on....

Then add up your sub-totals for A (86) and B (84). Larger number means that choice has a more of what you value. In this example Job A wins. Buy yourself some time to make the decision. Be honest - tell them you've got to run the numbers. The below link expands it better than I could. Scroll about mid page to see a nicely formatted chart.

http://artofmanliness.com/2009/08/17/how-to-make-a-decision-like-ben-franklin/

Comment Re:Google Needs To Get Their Ass In Gear (Score 1) 280

I disagree. Here's why.

"Although I seriously doubt Symantec's 5 million number is right,...." I could see it. According to Gartner, "smartphone sales to end users reached 115 million units in the third quarter of 2011. The Android OS accounted for 52.5 percent of smartphone sales to end users in the third quarter of 2011 more than doubling its market share from the third quarter of 2010." Add in the Android phones sold prior to third quarter 2011 that are still in use.
Now we are talking about an under 10% successful infection. That doesn't grab headlines. Of course, an anti-virus vendor who happens to sell "end point protection" at $29 a year for their Pro version may have a financial incentive to make sure they are in news.

Phones are appliances, and trying to handle malware the same way we handle it on computers (which is to say, after the fact) is not going to work.

Smartphones are not appliances. Quit thinking of them as such. They are small, portable computers that meet most of the end user's needs. Hence the popularity. As their primary function is to make a phone call, perhaps the GUI does not fit into our typical "this is a computer" mindset. In the same way, VoIP phones and networks have been a target for years. For example, the Cisco 7940 has webserver built in. Again, a small computer.

Google needs to keep their market open. There's not the barriers to entry Apple has erected. I'll give you they do need to co-operate with the authorities.The key here is educating the user base. This in terms of tools (anti-virus software) as well as habits (don't go here on the web).

Links:

And as I live in the U.S., land of the free, the following disclaimer applies: The above material is presented strictly for educational purposes

Comment Re:Screen size/resolution lock? (Score 1) 407

Look around on aliexpress dot com under the Tablet PC section. Quite a few tablets for sale with that screen size that have some version of Android. Currently, there's only one seller offering a 9.7 inch tablet with a Qualcomm chipset. It's about $400. http://www.aliexpress.com/category/100005062/tablet-pc.html?pvId=48-200002859

Comment Re:Hell Yes! (Score 5, Informative) 317

Verizon wants 100 concessions from their union employees. Even though Verizon’s top five executives received compensation of $258 million over the past four years (1), Verizon wants to freeze pensions for current employees. Also eliminate traditional pensions for future workers, while making its 401(k) plans somewhat more generous for both (2). Additional, there's demands from Verizon regarding health care premiums for union employees.

References:

Comment Get ready for the monthly liquor bil to go up (Score 1) 554

Professional email admin here. Word of advice: Save yourself. Get out while you still can. If someone's email is not working, then there's absolutely no way for anyone else in the outside world to contact them. That out the way, here's my 0.02 USD (0.0140 Euro).

With your current setup, use mxtoolbox.com to poke around it. Think about how you'll need to cover all those bases. It's doable; just that's the scope of work.

For the DIY suggestion:

  • DNS - BIND
  • Webmail clients
  • Horde - It is used by various university's for their webmail needs. I'll let others comment on it.
  • Openwebmail (http://openwebmail.org/) - Based on NeoMail. It's pretty fast. There's a demo if you'd care to try it out.
  • Roundcube - What I use most of the time.
  • Squirrelmail.- Fast. Written in Perl which apparently some people hate. So much so they feel the need to express that. I have used the default interface on a mobile device. With a little bit of customizing, i would think you could get it to be very useful via this way.
  • Security items. Without knowing more details, here's what I'd recommend.
  • Firewall - Take your pick. Then park the mail server behind it.
  • Spam filtering - SpamAssasain. I set my score to 4 and am still getting some. If you situation permits it, look into subscribing to blacklists. There's 147 to choose from. The things is you will get a false positive and be prepared to deal with that.

Hosted stuff: You didn't say how mail mail accounts. I'm going to infer less than 50 ? Talk to your ISP. Assuming you are happy with them, I would think you could use their mail servers which you may already be paying for. Technically, it'd be a matter of editing the MX records for your domains to point to there's once everybody is on the same page.
Alternately, a personal webhost may very well suit your needs. The top five (according to lifehacker) are:

  • https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/
  • http://www.bluehost.com/
  • http://1and1.com/
  • http://www.hostgator.com/
  • http://dreamhost.com/

Read the TOS of each carefully. Let me stop for now because this is getting to close to work. Any rate - HTH!

Comment Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble (Score 1) 584

Working with what you got, here's off the top of my head: -Adjust the transmit power setting. Unless you need wireless coverage outside your residence, then I would turn down the power to where the signal is just barely getting outside your walls. For example, can you stand outside your apartment door and see your wireless network? If so, others can. AFAIK, only the custom firmwares support adjusting the power aka tomato and DD-WRT. Look at them if you haven't. -MAC address filtering + WPA 2 is good. Others will point out the MAC addresses can be spoofed. WEP is pathetic at the time of this writing. -Turn off support for unneeded services and protocols on your router. For example, if there's no 802.11b network cards, turn this off.

Comment Re:Eh? (Score 1) 210

Nice find. More informative than the original article. He swiped 4 consoles in addition to the games. So not everything could have been downloaded. Setting aside law and morality - the guy pulled the job about a month late. WoW Catacylsm was released last month. If he'd gone to work last month, he could have gotten a lot more cash from the register.

Comment Re:excluding taxes and shipping? (Score 1) 300

I would disagree. Taxes and shipping are variables withing your control. In the US, buying off the internet means one doesn't pay state taxes usually. On shipping, just shop (on newegg anyway) from the items marked "Free Shipping". One of the cheapest ways to get a case.

Comment Re:Values (Score 1) 203

I don't see a sarcasm tag so I'll take it you're serious. I can see that cost. Why? Off the top of my head: The salary cost of engineers, support staff such as CAD drafters and designers. Dont forget IT guys that run the mail, network and printers. Design software such as Catia and the hardware to run it. The lost time in man hours. Now figure a yearly cost, multiplied over three years. This the length of time ShanShan is accused of stealing said documents.

Comment Re:A list? (Score 1) 170

I don't know your level of knowledge so bear with me here. One approach would be to look up MAC addresses. Every network card has a code for the manufacturer listed in its MAC address. It's the first six characters. Any address starting with the following would be made by Huawei (1). For example, it may say "Dell" on the front, but if it starts with the below, its Huawei. If you manage a LAN you can compare to the list below. Can one clone/fake MAC addresses? Yes. However, if you run a LAN, I'd like to think you have the authority or knowledge to know if that's going on.

  • 000FE2
  • 001882
  • 001E10
  • 0022A1
  • 002568
  • 00259E
  • 00E0FC
  • 286ED4
  • 6416F0
  • 781DBA

Second, at the risk of pointing out the obvious, you could check their products page(2). Danger: Flash and scripts. As partners go, Huawei has at least two: 3Com and Symantec. 3Com's agreement on the surface seems to be a way for them to access the China markets. Symantec and Huawei announced a "joint cloud strategy" selling enterprise NAS products in the US market for starters. Hope this helps!

Source: ------

  1. MACs http://www.coffer.com/mac_find/?string=huawei
  2. Product page http://www.huawei.com/products_services.do

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