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Comment Re:Windows 7 reviews are no different.... (Score 3, Informative) 414

This has nothing to do with "depth of Microsoft's problems". Your school probably pays for MSDNAA as a benefit to students (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/academic/default.aspx/). This program has been around for a long time. I used it to get windows 98/2000/xp from my university back in the day.

Comment Re:Everyone here seems to be bashing this guy... (Score 1) 619

I'm in complete agreement with you. I wrote my own little note on the subject a little further down on the thread. Sadly, you and I are in the minority here but I'd rather be in the minority and have free time than do the same thing 7 days a week. I code because I often enjoy the results of it and it makes me money, but I don't let coding rule my life. I must rule it and only five days a week. The other two days are my own time in which coding doesn't rule me.

Comment Microsoft renders Sidekick data completely secure (Score 1) 246

Microsoft today implemented its 100% Data Confidentiality package for T-Mobile Sidekick, comprehensively protecting users' contacts, email and messages from any possible attacker.

"Our data security is impenetrable," said Steve Ballmer, "and will reassure everyone of the data integrity of our Windows Azure Screen Of Death cloud computing and Windows Mobile initiatives."

Microsoft plans to leverage the new confidentiality mechanism to finally purge the horror of Vista from the face of the earth, in the same manner as firing all the contractors who knew how to build Windows 2000 and having to reconstruct Windows XP from bits of NT 4.

Microsoft Sharepoint users looked forward to a similar denouement as the only safe way to scour their hopelessly incompetent organisations from the world in a manner that would not infect successor organisations.

Microsoft is putting together an outsourcing proposal to the UK government for data protection.

Illustration: Secure Windows data storage mechanism.

Comment Re:Vista: A shiny, new XP Service Pack (Score 1) 414

And to me that is the big problem with 7 (and was my problem with Vista). I don't see a compelling reason to upgrade from XP. Eventually, I'll have to buy a new Windows box and I'll end up getting stuck with 7 (or maybe 8 depending on how long I hold out). But for me there is no incentive to upgrade to 7.

Comment Re:SSL is trying to do too much. (Score 1) 292

SSL was indeed made to solve a different problem. And while sometimes ocassionally inconvenient IMO it's much better than the alternative.

Setting up services that work on a basis of "It's the same server as yesterday" only works well in two cases: When it's a company system, and when it's your own home server.

In the case of a company this works only until a certain point. It'll instantly become a problem if at your company people travel, and a server gets a new key for some reason while somebody is abroad.

In the case of doing it a home, you're knowledgeable enough already, so making a CA cert shouldn't be such a big deal. And current tools like tinyca make it very easy, no need to mess with openssl commands.

For most of the normal people such systems are not only not effective, but harmful. Knowing that a bank's cert is the same it was yesterday is of absolutely no use to anybody who doesn't work in the bank's data center.

Comment Pelican??! (Score 2, Funny) 619

The only thing i get from this is "My life sucks, I hate my job so much ill publicly state i don't code when i don't have to. Oh and here... a pelican eating a rabbit."

That grey monster devouring a sweet little bunny wabbit is a grey herron!

This despicable monster is a plague worse than the biblical locusts. Swarms of these screeching monsters peck at pets and small children, make an awful mess pulling anything edible out of the garbage containers, and cover the city with their immense splashes of their foul, abrasive excrement. You think pigeon poop is a problem? A herron poops puddles the size of a pigeon! Oh and the screeching! Have you ever heard one of these monsters sing? Inflate a balloon, then stretch the nozzle while you slowly deflate it. Imagine that sound getting married and having a child with the screeching of a dinosaur from a 1950's movie, that's what it sounds like.

The worst part is, you can't do a damn thing about them. You can't shoot them because burocrats in Brussels think these freaky miscreants are 'rare' and 'protected'. You know what, these feathered meat golems only seem rare, because they all seem to have flocked to these parts.

Comment Enough is enough - Time to amend the Constitution (Score 5, Insightful) 463

Amendment XXVIII - Strike the following: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited
Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;". Replace with: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for Times not to exceed 14 years to Authors, or 25 years for Inventors, the limited Privilege to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"

The actual time limits can be debated, but they need to be set in the constitution, not left to a congress that can be bribed with corporate donations.

Comment Re:Keep em ignorant (Score 0) 517

right. I would have no problem with that. in that instance, information isn't hurting anyone. what's hurting [me, hypothetically] is what the jurors decide to do with that information, as well as the general jury selection and judicial processes.

Comment Re:Long ago (Score 1) 875

FWIW, Unisys has accomplished much the same thing with MCP (compatible with older Burroughs A-series and B-series mainframes going back into the mid 1960's, and OS 2200 (compatible with the 2200-series and 1100-series platform all the way back to the UNIVAC 1108).

I don't know how many Unisys mainframe shops are left, but there are still several major ones in the airline industry, and I've seen Burroughs-compatible Clearpath servers in the strangest places. Those things are quite scalable.

Comment Re:Where is the controversy? (Score 1) 277

Can you sell the GPS tracker on Ebay if you find one stuck to the underside of your car? What's the going rate for a GPS tracker that hasn't been detuned for civilian use? Is it even legal to own/sell? How would that ebay page read? "Uh, found this tracker stuck to the bottom of my car with a magnet. Buyer assumes all risk that US Government may track you down and request it back. Seller assumes no responsibility if you become an assailant in the US Federal court case against me".

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