Access to this site is still erratic, thanks to continuing attacks by 'bots. Moving servers and changing software doesn't help; the attacks are directed at the domain goodbyemicrosoft.net, wherever it is located, and whatever software I run. So the obvious solution is to change the domain name.
Now, I first registered goodbyemicrosoft.net as a lark, after giving a presentation called "Goodbye, Microsoft" at a local computer conference. And I registered as ".net" because my domain registrar at that time was offering a terrific price for new .net registrations ($2.99/year). Since this site is purely a hobby, I was minded to pinch pennies.
But now I've invested some time in it, so I don't want to just shut it down. Hence the search for a new domain name. goodbyemicrosoft.com was taken, so I registered goodbyemicrosoft.org. (Not yet active...give me a few weeks.)
Then I began to wonder...was goodbyemicrosoft.com a kindred spirit? Visiting that web address just returns a Bing search page, so I figured the domain had been registered and parked. So I decided to try a whois search, where I found the owner is:
Domain Administrator Microsoft Corporation One Microsoft Way Redmond WA 98052 US
What's funny is that they've parked the domain name on a Bing search, where the second result listed is this site. (The first search result is goodbye-microsoft.com, which will install Linux on your Windows PC.)
I don't have access to the full whois history, but it looks like they registered the .com after I registered the .net. Did they notice this site and decide to grab the .com? Or was this just part of a routine grab of all "critical" domain names?
Hey, Redmond...make me an offer for the old .net domain name. No extra charge for the 'bots.
The U.K. government is asking its employees to suggest ideas to save money. A few people suggested an obvious and easy savings:
The 8th item on the newly published list suggests that the whole of government, including the NHS and the Education services, migrate from Microsoft products, such as Windows and Office, to Linux and other open source software, specifically mentioning the OpenOffice.org office suite.
From just a quick web search, I couldn't find how many computers the U.K. government owns, or how much they're paying per seat for software licenses. But I did find a report last year from the BBC that said "According to some in the open source industry, the shift from proprietary standards could save the government £600m a year."
That's getting close to a billion dollars in savings. For a country (or a province, or a state) desperate to make ends meet, not something to reject lightly.
Last week we -- and other sites running the e107 CMS -- got hammered by a particularly nasty Distributed Denial of Service attack. This was an attempt to exploit a vulnerability in an older version of e107. We're protected against that exploit, but the sheer volume of requests -- literally millions, coming from thousands of IP addresses -- was enough to bring our server down. We've been working with our web host for the last several days to harden the site still further, and increase our server resources to handle the load.
The attacks continue, and you may occasionally get timeouts when visiting the site. But we seem to be on top of the situation now. Thanks for your patience.
I gather this has been known for a few weeks, but I just learned that Google is halting the use of Windows for its internal desktop PCs, citing security as the reason. (Google has long used Linux on its servers.) We all reach this point sooner or later:
After Chinese security crackers infamously cracked Google security via Microsoft Windows security vulnerabilities, a number of interesting things have happened...
...Google has apparently implemented a new internal security policy change that seems like it might be related: Microsoft Windows is being phased out within the company. Microsoft chooses to paint the policy change in the colors of what amounts to a publicity stunt, but Google is not the first business to renounce all things Microsoft, and there are definite indicators that the time has come for Google to cease relying on Microsoft for any of its mission critical information technology deployments.
In my case it was the frequent crashes of my Windows desktop, rather than a security breach, that led me to dump Windows. But several times a year -- when I read a news story about a pernicious attack, or have to clean up someone else's Windows PC -- I give thanks that I switched to Linux eight years ago.
Howard Fosdick -- a man after my own heart -- has a good article this week on OSNews, "Smart Reuse with Open Source: Linux Goes Green", in which he explains why computer refurbishing is important, and how Linux helps computer refurbishers.
Estimates put the number of personal computers in use world-wide today at about one billion. The average lifespan of a personal computer is only two to five years. We can expect a tidal wave of computers ready for disposal shortly, and this number will only increase. And as if that isn't challenge enough, there are already several hundred million computers out-of-service, sitting in attics and basements and garages, awaiting disposal.
...If we simply keep computers in service for their natural lifespans -- rather than for the artificially-shortened lifespans promoted by some vendors -- we reduce the rate at which we must dispose of them.
...Finally, better use of existing computers makes it possible to get technology into the hands of the nearly one in four Americans do not own a personal computer. Not everyone can afford a new computer.
Fosdick points out that with Linux, computers up to ten years old (basically Pentium III or better) are reusable. Microsoft's difficult and expensive refurbisher program can only reuse computers up to about five years old.
Be sure to read the section on "Planned Obsolesence," which describes the many ways Microsoft policies limit your ability to upgrade or repair your existing computer. Here's just one pernicious example he mentions, that I've encountered:
Many PC's today ship without an operating system CD. Instead they have a hidden disk partition with a backup image of the operating system or a recovery CD. I don't know whether this "innovation" is due to Microsoft's efforts or that of many major computer manufacturers. What I do know is that this limits the lifespan of the computer to the lifespan of its most vulnerable hardware component, the hard disk. Disk failure forces the user to buy a new retail copy of Windows, which probably costs more than the computer is worth at the time of the failure.
Of course he links to one of the best-known refurbishing projects, Free Geek. We also have our own list of computer refurbishers, which includes several Free Geek affiliates.
I first heard this news story while I was traveling last week. Thanks to our friend Charles, I also found it in my email when I returned home. But last night, during dinner with some friends, I discovered that those friends were using their Windows PC to manage their bank accounts...so I realized the story hasn't been repeated enough:
David Green normally only accessed his company's online bank account from his trusty Mac laptop. Then one day this April while he was home sick, Green found himself needing to authorize a transfer of money out of his firm's account. Trouble was, he'd left his Mac at work. So he decided to log in to the company's bank account using his wife's Windows PC.
Unfortunately for Green, that PC was the same computer his kids used to browse the Web, chat, and play games online. It was also the same computer that organized thieves had already compromised with a password-stealing Trojan horse program.
A few days later, the crooks used those same credentials to steal nearly $100,000 from the company's online accounts, sending the money in sub-$10,000 and sub-$5,000 chunks to 14 individuals across the United States.
As I said to our friends, "I'm paranoid...but I'm not paranoid enough." I never use a Windows PC to read email, or access our web server, or (especially) do anything financial. My desktop PC, my wife's desktop, and our "travel" netbook all run Linux. I don't save critical passwords in my PC's browser -- it might be stolen -- and I don't save any passwords in the netbook. I even use a separate browser for some tasks. And I never click on links in email.
And yet, I'm not paranoid enough. The experts suggest you at least use a dedicated computer to do your online banking; some suggest you go one step further and run a Live CD for banking. The advantage of a Live CD is that it can't get infected, and you always boot up into a clean system. Another advantage, if you're still using Windows, is that you can boot a Linux CD on your Windows PC.
Don't believe, as our friends did, that you're safe if you have the latest security software on your PC. As my mom learned the hard way, even if you run well-known anti-virus and anti-malware software, and are diligent about keeping it updated, your Windows PC can still get infected.
I finally got around to reading this item that Charles sent me two weeks ago. (Belated thanks!) After years of hearing, "oh, it's so hard to do X in Linux, you need to be a guru!" it's nice to learn that Linux now surpasses Windows in ease-of-use, at least if you need to install an HP Deskjet H740 Bluetooth printer:
...I had not yet configured the Bluetooth printer on Windows (I rarely use it, so why bother?)... but how difficult could it be, anyway? Since I had the time, I might as well do it.
In a nutshell... don't bother. If you can even find the place where Windows deals with Bluetooth devices in general, and then setting up Bluetooth printers in particular, and then find the driver CD that came with the printer... well, after fighting with it for WAY too long, I gave up in disgust and rebooted. But hold on, there's a fly in the ointment... I recently reloaded Ubuntu, because of the new release, and I hadn't gotten around to setting up the printer on that either. So here we go again...
Except with Ubuntu, setting up a Bluetooth printer consists of clicking "System/Administration/Printing", then "Add", wait about 30 seconds for it to discover the Bluetooth printer and decide on a driver for it, and then click "OK". That's it, all done, ready to print.
I hasten to add, Your Mileage May Vary. Some printers are supported on Linux, and some still are not...whereas every new printer must be supported on Windows or it won't sell. (If you have an older printer you may be in for a rude awakening when you upgrade Windows.) This is one reason I now buy only HP printers; they are committed to supporting Linux. Other printer manufacturers are doing likewise; but you should always check at the OpenPrinting database before buying a new printer.
I'm still swamped with work, but I stumbled across this today and thought Windows users might appreciate a new alternative: Nitro PDF Reader is a new, free, PDF reader. I haven't tried it myself, but this review on Download.com is favorable:
To put it mildly, the feature set is robust. Users can comment on PDFs using notes and text markup, fill out forms, print to PDF, or create one by dragging an existing document into Nitro, share and comment with others, and securely sign a document. This may sound like standard PDF boilerplate, but it's important to emphasize given that they're all free here, and they all work well.
I gather it's still in beta testing, and they'd appreciate comments from users.
Sometimes there is a synchronicity to events. A few weeks ago I saw, for the first time, a demo of Tiny Core Linux.
Then I got an email from someone looking for a minimalist, but easy-to-use, Linux distribution (not a "big pre-packaged bag of software" like most distributions). Since I hadn't yet tried Tiny Core Linux, it didn't spring to mind.
Now FotB* Charles Curley has sent me a link to this article on Click, "An afternoon in Tiny Core." I've linked to Click several times before; Steven Rosenberg is a man after my own heart (BSD, Debian, lightweight systems, refurbishing, to name just a few points of common interest).
Compared to a "real" distribution like Ubuntu, Tiny Core has way fewer processes running on its much-more minimalist desktop, yet the way the apps sit in a doc at the bottom of the screen is very Macintosh OS X-like. Except here I have multiple desktops, many dozens of apps that can be installed by Tiny Core's package manager ... and I'm running a system that's as efficient as any I can remember.
And perhaps it's the solution for my email correspondent:
One thing I can say about Tiny Core vs. my previous experience with Puppy and Damn Small Linux is that with TC it's a lot easier to build up exactly the system you want. I have more than a few "full-sized" apps in here — Firefox, OpenOffice. But I could be running just a Web browser and nothing more. Sometimes you need a lot of apps, sometimes one - it's nice to have that kind of flexibility without jumping through all sorts of hoops.
I'm a bit swamped with work at the moment, which explains the infrequent posting. But a Tiny Core evaluation is at the top of my list when I get back to refurbishing.
...Associated is an article on computer security software: McAffee, Norton, etc., and rating them. The article actually mentions two free programs and gives them high ratings, the only CR Best Buy ratings in the lot: Avira Personal 9 and Microsoft Security Essentials. However, CR neglected to report that the second requires Genuine Windows, formerly Genuine Windows Advantage, definitely a strike against it.
But I wonder.... For one thing, I missed the magic word in the articles: Linux. Linux is a much more secure operating system than Windows. If you are getting ready to replace a computer, you can often extend its life by putting Linux on it: Linux is usually much less resource intensive than Windows.
...By neglecting to mention the magic word, CR once again flubbed its remit to help consumers protect themselves by offering all the alternatives.
I agree. My folks get Consumer Reports, and the magazine is quite good about finding tech-savvy people to evaluate tech products, and then to distill that knowledge down to advice non-tech people can use to make buying decisions. (As in their reviews of antivirus software.) But not to even mention the Linux option is an implicit endorsement of one of most monopolistic, most consumer-abusive megacorporations on the planet. Would they print their annual automobile issue with only reviews of GM cars?
It seems to me that Consumer Reports would be just the outfit to do a comparative review of the top dozen Linux distros, from the standpoint of an everyday (non-techie) computer user. But probably this is too much of a "niche" market for them. Or could it be that they don't know how to critique products that are given away for free?
applications: The software that lets you do things with your computer (word processor, Internet browser, email, etc.). The programs you see and use.
distribution: Also called "distro." An operating system (usu. Linux) combined with a selection of application programs, in a ready-to-install form. Different distributions are customized for different purposes, e.g., desktop computing, music editing, Internet server, and so on.
FOSS: "Free / Open Source Software," a catch-all term. Sometimes F/OSS or FLOSS.
free software: Refers to free as in freedom, not free as in free beer. Specifically, the freedom to run, study, share, and modify the software.
howto: A short tutorial telling "how to" perform some task. See, for instance, the Linux HowTos.
Linux: Strictly, GNU/Linux. A free operating system, modeled on Unix, developed since 1991 by volunteers around the world.
open source: Refers to software whose source code can be examined, modified, and redistributed. Similar to but not exactly the same as "free software."
operating system: The software that manages your computer's hardware (disk drives, display, network connection, etc.). The stuff "under the hood" that makes your computer work.
repository: An on-line library of application programs for a particular distribution, in a ready-to-download-and-install format. In many distributions, programs can be installed from the repository with just a few mouse clicks.
Unix: A computer operating system originally released by Bell Labs in 1970. It is still widely used in several commercial variants, and in the open-source BSD Unix.
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