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Comment: iMac Frankenscreens (Score 1) 375

by MikeFM (#42915575) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Is Your Favorite Monitor For Programming?
Generally I just get the biggest baddest iMac as my main monitor, chain in an assortment of other monitors of different resolutions and quality, and hook my phones, tablets, and laptops to all act as additional monitors. If feeling extra geeky hook up some little screens via Arduino and maybe some projectors.

Comment: Digital currency better than sales tax. (Score 1) 297

by MikeFM (#42915351) Attached to: Congress Takes Up Online Sales Tax
Why not just let the idea of sales tax die and instead create a real digital currency similar to debit cards and let the government collect those fees instead of banks. There are reasons we decided on a national currency in the first place and those points apply to digital money as well as paper money and banks sure haven't shown themselves to be all that responsible. Banks do a good job of screwing both merchants and consumers and making their digital currency very un-democratic so not only would it be good to let the government collect these fees in lieu of taxes but it'd also be easy to improve on the current situation.

Comment: Re:No shit sherlock (Score 0, Flamebait) 500

It really comes down to the founders of the companies. Microsoft has taken on the personality of Bill Gates - lacks imagination, cares more about money than good products, etc. Apple has taken on the personality of Steve Jobs with a little bit of Woz thrown in - obsessive compulsive about solid products with good design, outwardly controlling but hacker friendly at heart. The reason Apple is kicking ass right now is because it does such a good job at constantly producing products that work well, look good, and don't change dramatically all the time. They may not have the highest specs at any given time but the user knows what to expect and that they can expect a pretty good device. When people say Apple is evil it just tells me they don't own any Apple products and know nothing of Apple's history. They're usually wannabe nerds that can barely use anything other than Windows and usually they think their awesome at Linux because they've managed to install the flavor of the month baby distro. They think hacking is taking a device that was expressly made for being hacked and following step by step directions. Probably they have absolutely no sense of taste either - they think their Dell Inspiron One is comparable to an iMac.

Comment: Re:no opt-out either (Score 2) 406

by MikeFM (#39048171) Attached to: AT&T On Data Throttling: Blame Yourselves
I still have my doubts about the claims that an iPhone costs $600 when a comparable iTouch costs $200.. for a 3G antennae and a better camera? And it seems I've read that the better camera doesn't cost very much more and should just be included in the iTouch too.. so how much does that 3G antennae cost?

Comment: Re:It's all the customers' fault... (Score 5, Informative) 406

by MikeFM (#39048089) Attached to: AT&T On Data Throttling: Blame Yourselves
As somebody that had an unlimited data plan for a couple years.. AT&T already has this down. My unlimited data plan on my iPad, with a solid 3G connection, struggled to pull down data fast enough to pull down a simple web page or email. So when are they going to refund money to people with unlimited plans that didn't get what they paid for?

Comment: Re:None of it ever happened. Marketing Hype. (Score 1) 233

by MikeFM (#37294304) Attached to: Did Apple Impersonate Police To Recover the Lost iPhone 5?
But if it were a PC company they'd have real cops dressed in shiny neon colored sexy cop outfits spouting how their software will finally make your hardware happy. C'mon people, Apple can afford to hire real cops to rough people up. And they'll make sure they look damn good while they do it - not tacky like their PC knockoffs' copycat cops.

Comment: Re:The book is in the mail (Score 1) 210

by MikeFM (#37158318) Attached to: Bookstores May Boycott New Amazon-Published Books
First Amazon replaced my local bookstores with selection. Amazingly I could actually buy the book I wanted when I wanted it. Then they were substantially cheaper. Then they could deliver within two days with free shipping. And Amazon can offer varied reviews by multiple customers and recommendations based on other customers. Of course iBooks has replaced Amazon for most fiction for me but Amazon is still my resource for non-fiction. More importantly Amazon has replaced Walmart as my goto source for just about everything else. Again because of selection, price, and the useful additional information they provide. Now what I need is a place that recycles delivery boxes.

Comment: Re:I don't need more. (Score 1) 153

by MikeFM (#36525004) Attached to: PlanetLab Creates a More Advanced Sudo

Why would a vm for the project be annoying? What whole disk? They could look at the OS files installed I guess but there would be nothing belonging to any other project or user on there. If they change something they shouldn't you can roll it back. If you want to write data but not let them read it then write it to an external log server or a write-only disk. Complex security schemes are a lot more annoying than just properly dividing security between services.

Comment: Security from a past life.. (Score 1) 153

by MikeFM (#36524890) Attached to: PlanetLab Creates a More Advanced Sudo

I already spend more effort than I like ripping out useless security features. Every project has a virtual machine, or several, and they are isolated from each other. I don't need outdated security features that just get in the way. As it is I'd be more interested in a Linux distro that came with all that crap removed. It's been years since I used groups on a production server, I never found ACLs useful, I usually disable firewalls, filesystem permissions are a hassle far more often than they are useful, etc. Heck, the only time a real person logs into most of my systems is when something goes wrong with permissions or some other protection feature and causes a problem.

Make sure the virtualization servers are up to providing proper security between instances and from the network and then scrap all that stuff in the guest OS.

Would it help if I got out and pushed? -- Princess Leia Organa

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