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Comment Re:Balderdash, poppycock.. (Score 1) 414

I know this is opening a can of worms, but I got kharma to burn so why the heck not...

Disclaimer : I work for a company which deals exclusively with firewalls and internet security including integration of both Cisco and Check Point products.

If you have a few firewalls, knock yourself out with the CLI. If you have a massive enterprise setup where not only do you have tiers of individuals who control what rules do and don't get put on the firewalls, but you also have S/Ox compliance to think about then get yourself a GUI driven system with proper workflow management. I know you're proud of your Unix mastery and your CLI Jedi powers and all. But the only thing really accomplished by doing everything via CLI is that you make yourself the one guy who the company is screwed without. Great for your job security, horrible for the company.

The number of times I've had to spend hours, sometimes days, troubleshooting network integration issues with someone only to find that "Oh, when I was manually editing the config for one of our Ciscos I forgot to put this particular IP/port combo in an allow for the ACL" was the root of the problem is all I need to know to verify that a well written GUI, and well written graphical log/event tracker are essential to the large enterprise.

Comment Re:Leave the networking stuff to the networking te (Score 1) 414

And Cisco isn't the only one who can handle an enterprise security infrastructure. The current Check Point line features much of what you're talking about, including building a graphical map of your network based on the information you give it so you can see how things are arranged and working.

As the parent poster said though, Belkin and LInksys are not firewalls. They are NAT capable home routers with limited ACL capability.
Linksys :: Corporate security
Yorkshire Terrier :: Trained Russian Bear cavalry.

Comment No... It's a giant con. (Score 4, Insightful) 495

I believe the push for 3d movies is primarily because the major studios have realized how little really original good new product they have to offer.

For TV manufacturers it's because whereas the jump from standard def to high def was a distinct quality improvement to the point that people did it, they now realize these people have no reason to do the "every few years upgrade" cycle that their bottom lines desperately want. So they have to come up with a new "innovation" to get people to buy new TV sets.

Of course.. I could be crazy.

Comment How do you authenticate? (Score 1) 619

First, if employees would have to get them when they got new jobs would this be something done in the field or something someone would have to go to an office to pick up? If the latter than exactly how much do you think immigrant workers who cross the border to work in the fields will stop by a government office to register?

If it's the former what stops anybody from creating a second indentity for themselves by simply getting a job, saying they have no ID, and getting a card? Or stops someone who is here from mexico (many of whom don't have birth certificates they could find or any documentation) from simply creating identities ad hoc?

Also, for the sake of comic relief, can we call it a Multipass?

Piracy

Ubisoft's Authentication Servers Go Down 634

ZuchinniOne writes "With Ubisoft's fantastically awful new DRM you must be online and logged in to their servers to play the games you buy. Not only was this DRM broken the very first day it was released, but now their authentication servers have failed so absolutely that no-one who legally bought their games can play them. 'At around 8am GMT, people began to complain in the Assassin's Creed 2 forum that they couldn't access the Ubisoft servers and were unable to play their games.' One can only hope that this utter failure will help to stem the tide of bad DRM."

Comment I was looking forward to this device far more.... (Score 0, Offtopic) 568

Before I found out it would be essentially another "buy into a contract or pay a half a grand for it" phone. You could get a completely unlocked G1 as well if you wanted to pay a much higher price and go through the dev phone procurement process. Also it's Edge only on AT&T, so not truly carrier agnostic.

The Google site for it earlier couldn't even sell you the T-mobile plan, so it was grayed out, same for the Verison and Vodaphone options which aren't available yet.

So essentially , it's a new phone on T-mobile.

I remember when it was a supposed to be a phone you could just get a data only plan for and use VOIP and Google voice on for a reasonable price. Apparently that was the flash and hype.

Mars

Mars Images Reveal Evidence of Ancient Lakes 128

Matt_dk writes "Spectacular satellite images suggest that Mars was warm enough to sustain lakes three billion years ago, a period that was previously thought to be too cold and arid to sustain water on the surface, according to research published today in the journal Geology. Earlier research had suggested that Mars had a warm and wet early history but that between 4 billion and 3.8 billion years ago, before the Hesperian Epoch, the planet lost most of its atmosphere and became cold and dry. In the new study, the researchers analysed detailed images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is currently circling the red planet, and concluded that there were later episodes where Mars experienced warm and wet periods."

Comment Why they started doing it... (Score 1) 383

I think around the time CNN saw Fox staking out the conservative-centric news angles, and MSNBC staking out the liberal-centric news angles they knew they were somewhat screwed. In at attempt to differentiate themselves they embraced the "let the people own it" mantra and started up all the tweeting crap and the iReporter stuff.

They're trying to find a niche, and not doing a good job of it if you go by the ratings. Unfortunately they have been the closest left to a "neutral" cable news channel. If they go under it will be a somewhat sad day.

Transportation

"Road Trains" Ready To Roll 318

clickclickdrone writes to mention that "road trains," a system linking vehicles together via wireless sensors, could soon be rolled out in Europe. The system is designed primarily for cutting fuel consumption, travel time, and congestion. "Funded under the European Commission's Framework 7 research plan, Sartre (Safe Road Trains for the Environment) is aimed at commuters in cars who travel long distances to work every day but will also look at ways to involve commercial vehicles. Tom Robinson, project co-ordinator at engineering firm Ricardo, said the idea was to use off-the-shelf components to make it possible for cars, buses and trucks to join the road train."

Comment Re:Good (Score 1) 249

I have yet to see a system that could effectively run XP that couldn't also run Windows 7. This includes :

My old rig which is old and actually got a substantial performance bump going to Windows 7 (4g ram and a E6300 processor, older nvidia card)
A Thinkpad X32 laptop which is also old by laptop standards (only drawback is no Aero glass interface due to older pixel shader)

In the vast majority of cases, if you can run XP, you can run Windows 7. Specifically the operating thresholds for it are lower than Vista because they streamlined some of the extraneous stuff Vista was hogging resources for.

And even in the case that someone needs to upgrade the amount of RAM, or video card in the system that's still a huge shade cheaper than "buy a Mac which is specifically only manufactured by one company and you will pay a pricing premium for"

Comment Re:Good (Score 4, Insightful) 249

I have to disagree with you on this. The ads do clearly state that it's 3G coverage. And the difference between 2G and 3G for heavy data use Smartphone owners is a very significant one. This ad is less deceptive than the AT&T one claiming the "fastest 3G network" when it is only faster because it's smaller and doesn't have to deal with coverage in spottier areas.

If you want to argue that it gives people the impression that the phones don't have any coverage even though they state it's 3G coverage areas the maps are talking about then you should also talk to Apple about the "If I'm going to move things, why not move to a Mac?" ads which neglect to mention that the difference between moving Xp to Win 7 as opposed to XP to Mac is the fact that you also have to buy a completely new computer on top of a new OS (making it just a tad more expensive...)

Wireless Networking

Unfinished Windows 7 Hotspot Feature Exploited 234

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Engadget: "It wasn't all that long ago that Microsoft was talking up the Virtual WiFi feature developed by Microsoft Research and set for inclusion in Windows 7, but something got lost along the road to release day, and the functionality never officially made it into the OS. As you might expect with anything as big and complicated as an operating system though, some of that code did make it into the final release, and there was apparently enough of it for the folks at Nomadio to exploit into a full fledged feature. That's now become Connectify, a free application from the company that effectively turns any Windows 7 computer into a virtual WiFi hotspot — letting you, for instance, wirelessly tether a number of devices to your laptop at location where only an Ethernet jack is available, or even tether a number of laptops together at a coffee shop that charges for WiFi."

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