*
Pain in my ass. The damned thing got into my school’s network and wreaked havoc for about two days. Mind you, I was trying to write two papers during this. Thank God it didn’t do anything to my computer – I’d be lost. Oh well – Nick
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*
I hope this doesn't alarm the Estwing-calloused folks out
there, it's the name of the latest worm and not my feelings (if
you haven't heard about it href=http://news.excite.com/news/zd/000504/15/iloveyou>read up
now before you read your mail or answer the door,
it's spreading fast).
Ah, the irony, with technology we can both hear about and be hit by
the latest scourge in a fraction the time; progress is an illusion.
Does it appear we're getting closer to the kind of Armageddon
cyberpunk novels turn on? I'm reassured that I can still reach over
and pull the plug on this thing if I want to.
*my ISP isn't sending email through temporarily...glad to have snail mail back up.near the stream,a
*"I'm reassured that I can still reach over and pull the plug on this thing if I want to."Actually, its much simpler; just avoid MicroSoft applications as much as possible; the iloveyou worm, virus, trojan horse (3 for the price of one!) exploits known security holes in MS's Outlook.The main problem with iloveyou, as with the Melissa virus of a few months ago, is that MS Outlook uses a scriptable object model that can be controlled by a received message. Similar to the MSWord macro "capability" that allows a macro to be run from within an otherwise innocuous looking word processing file.In other words, users of MS applications are vulnerable to this kind of thing because of conscious design decisions made by MS. "Where do you want to go today?" Indeed.The real irony is that alternative applications to MS's not only exist, but in most cases are more powerful and have better feature sets than the similar MS products. E.g., WordPerfect for word processing.Bob
*Well, "this thing" is a -nearly- MS-free Mac, but I didn't want to start up that old debate....I have to admit that Explorer 5 is a very nice piece of software ... that might have been written a couple of years ago if not for the MS monopoly...
*As long as we're talking Microsoft, I think I've got the appropriate "punishment" for the government's suit: Require Microsoft to fix Windows.Simple you say? Bill would never go for it. Easier to break up the company.rebootin' near the stream,Adam
*Just a FYI addendum (most probably know all this, but there are always newbies on this great site).From one of my tech writing lists (verbatim):"1) DO NOT OPEN ANY EMAIL ATTACHMENTS TITLED "LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.VBS".The attachment will attack specific files on your computer as well as email itself out to EVERYONE (and I do mean EVERYONE) in your address book.2) DO NOT REBOOT YOUR PC AFTER IT HAS BECOME INFECTED!! Check out the information on http://www.symantec.com if you have already been infected by this nasty little worm. They don't have a definition for their Norton Anti-Virus products to scan for the virus automatically yet, but will soon. Completeinformation on files affected and removal of the virus component of this worm are included there as well."As was mentioned, you can't (so far), get a virus by opening an e-mail--only by opening the attachment.
*This was passed on to me by a friend......................................................If you got the virus...well, what can I say but Microsoft apps make easy targets. Run Outlook and you're asking for it.Here's Macafffffffffeeee's fix:http://download.mcafee.com/extrafiles/love-4.zipThis is from Kurt of thepope.org:DISCLAIMER: I don't guarantee this will work on your computer. Also, you need to edit the registry, which is not for the faint of heart. If you are a sysadmin using sendmail, you may want to check out this. It was emailed to me. I won't be able to answer quesitons about the script since I dont know much about sendmail, and I am still waiting on the authors approval to post his email address. Another note to sysadmins and other users: If you suspect that your system has been infected or any machines on your network were infected, you should suspend any backup software until things are cleaned up. No point in backing up bad data. The fix: 1.If Outlook is running, turn it off now! There is still a chance that the messages in your Outbox were not sent yet. Unplug your network adapter/modem to ensure that you cannot accidentally connect, open Outlook again, and delete all entries from your Outbox. 2.Close Outlook. 3.Run regedit.exe (Click Start->Run, enter 'regedit' and click OK). 4.Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER->Software->Microsoft->Windows Script Host->Settings. If there is an entry for Timeout, delete it. I did not have this, but the source code looks like it may exist. 5.Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER->Software->Microsoft->Internet Explorer->Main. Scroll down until you see an entry for Start Page. Double click on it, and edit it so it reflects the correct start page (Ideally slashdot.org or thepope.org :) ). 6.Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE->Software->Microsoft->Windows->CurrentVersion->Run. Delete the entry for MSKernel32. 7.Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE->Software->Microsoft->Windows->CurrentVersion->RunServices. Delete the entry for Win32DLL. 8.Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRun. If there is an entry for WIN-BUGSFIX, delete it. 9.Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER->Software->Microsoft->Windows->CurrentVersion->Explorer->Doc Find Spec MRU. This entry contains all of the most recently used files. It would be a good idea to delete all of the entires. 10.Open Windows Explorer (Start->Programs->Windows Explorer). Go to c:windowssystem (or c:winntsystem32) and delete MSKernel32.vbs, LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.HTM, and LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs. Also, delete Win32DLL.vbs from the Windows directory. 11.This is the most painful part. This virus replaces every file with the following file extensions: vbs, vbe, js, jse, css, wsh, sct, hta, jpg, jpeg, mp3, mp2. You can't get the files back, but you can at least delete them pretty easily. First a search for all files with the .vbs or .vbe extension and which containt the text "LOVEYOU" (Start->Find and enter '*.vbs *.vbe' in the Named field, enter "LOVEYOU" in the Containing Text field, then click Find Now). Select all of the results, and hit delete. Make sure you include "LOVEYOU" in the contained text field. This will help prevent files that were not infected from getting deleted. Now, you can go back and fix any files that were renamed, but not infected. Do the exact same search, but do not include the "LOVEYOU" criteria. You will see all (if any) files that were renamed but not infected. Now you just need to start going through and rename all of the files to their original names (just remove the .vbs extension). UpdateIt looks like mp3 files are merely marked as hidden, not completely deleted. 12.Finally, you will need to do a search for a couple of other misc. files that may be on your machine now. Search for WIN-BUGSFIX.exe or WIN_BUGSFIX-32.exe (if you opened Internet Explorer after getting the bug) script.ini (if you use mIRC), and possibly WinFAT32.exe. If you have any of these two files, delete them. 13.When all of the files are deleted, it would be a good idea to empty your recycle bin. 14.Go to your room without dinner. You should know better than to run files like this. Optionally, you may avoid any punishment by purchasing an indulgence. This is my rough draft. I'll continue to take looks at it, and if anyone has any other information, feel free to email me ([email protected]) and I will try to integrate it into this page. For those of you who have given me tidbits of info (too many to list), you have my thanks. -Kurt
*This virus isn't really that big of a deal - The media is just trying to whip up a frenzy about it. (Much like they did over the cuban kid)As Kai said - just be careful with those email attachments.BTW - I keep up on viruses and virus hoaxes, and check them out on this page:http://www.kumite.com/myths/home.htmThe guy knows what he's talking about, but it kind of a smart-ass. (Like some of the people here ???)
*I disagree, this is a big deal -- inconvenient or even nasty for the individual user at home, BUT an expensive disaster for business and government networks. The worm is designed to propagate itself (the distinction from a virus) and destroy data, and apparently also to pilfer some passwords. Each attacker will learn from the last -- iloveyou is clearly the progeny of Melissa.Microsoft, of course, admits no fault and intends to issue no warnings or fixes. The users have to be vigilant -- in areas they may not and should not have to understand -- because the "experts" can't be bothered. This is nuts. Just look at the fix posted above! How long would you keep a power tool that had servicing instructions like that?Don't even start on the blame-the-victim route, whatever fault individuals may have for venturing onto the net without being experts or for losing files they haven't backed up, the monopoly that has driven so many computer platforms to have identical vulnerabilities can't duck the results of their incompetent design. Yet another price of monopoly -- the arrogant andindifferent monopolist -- oh wait, I've forgotten their claims to care about the consumer.I would like to see the wasted time and resources summarized in dollar terms -- computers open a whole new level for vandalism, or worse. Microsoft will be sued over this, I pray for it, for their collossal negligence in accounting for network security. It's like distributing a door lock with a hidden button that lets anyone into your house. (Remember the Explorer bug that allowed others to view and erase files while you were on the Internet? MS did fix that one.)Of course, there is a silver lining...>"I have not heard of it having a dramatic impact on business," Mr. Stinson said. "I suspect that some people discovered today that not receiving missives from headquarters could result in a pleasant day at the office." >Some victims seemed amused or even faintly pleased. >"I found 64 messages saying 'I love you' on my computer this morning," said Dr. Matthew Naythons, a vice president of PlanetRx, an Internet drugstore based in South San Francisco, Calif. "Given the state of of e-commerce these days, I was strangely moved."
*Round 2 (and 3, 4, 5, 6, 7....)
* yeh andrew.. thanks fer the valentine., iluv u too,... but all i get is encoded text on both of yur enclosures..
*I suppose you're seeing the HTML instead of what the HTML should display? Try opening the file in the browser itself, I forget that a lot of people don't use HTML mail clients.In English, save the attachment file on your disk and open in from within Navigator or Explorer. The stories describe the workings of iloveyou, how to stop it, and the fact there are now 5 variants and counting under entirely different names, one being a Mother's Day present receipt. It seems that everyone who receives the worm gets all the source code too, so they can modify it to do other nasty things and send it on its way.
*cool.. but ahm countin on u counselor to keep me informed witout havin to download HTML and convert... yada, yada..
*Yeah, I'm the first to promote ease-of-use and the minute you use an acronym you've lost half your audience.Set yourself up with a good news feed, such as a home page with Excite or Yahoo. Read the New York Times, if only for the good writing.And get a Mac.
*>"And get a Mac."Hey !! We're trying to fix our problems here, not trade them for worse.hehehe
*LOL, said by a non-Mac owner :)(I think Macs are the best, but the gatesian folks are snuffing us out at every turn.)
*Hardly! That's like saying Hyundai has bested Mercedes by selling more cars.Did i mention the Apple stock i bought at $18? :) And the supercomputer I bought for $1500? (A G4, my personal Cray.) Out-of-the-box in-house 100 mbps Ethernet for the price of the wire?Microsoft has many impressive achievements, but innovation is not one of them.
*the supercomputer I bought for $1500? (A G4, my personal Cray.) Out-of-the-box in-house 100 mbps Ethernet for the price of the wireIsn't a G4 a Mac? Of course it is :)I just meant that, at least in most of the business world, we are forced to use PCs. My last idiot boss converted us to PCs--this in a dept that publishes tons of huge and graphic-intensive docs. We're still having huge conversion issues trying to link to some of the Mac-friendly filenames (that PCs can't read) when we use older (Mac) docs as templates.
*Yes, the other day I was talking to a DTP outfit near here re a quote for some 4' x 20' graphics I would need printed and laminated (yes, that's 4x20 feet, $800 a pop). As we discussed media and graphic interchange formats, i almost dropped the phone when he said, "Well, we really prefer Mac if you can do that...." Hadn't heard that in a while.
*Macs are so perfect (except for the price) because they were designed for graphics-intensive stuff. PCs were for fast calcs of math algorithms. The CEOs are just not informed. My past boss could have saved our dept a ton of $$$ had he not snatched our Macs out from under from us. FWIW, at least the Creative Services dept (who does all the 4-color stuff--and they use Quark, we use FrameMaker) still uses Macs :)
*PC's were designed to make money! Graphics involves a staggering amount of math, which is why a Mac with a gigaflop+ processor (one Billion, with a B, floating point calcs per second) plus a 128-bit wide data-gobbling bus can run Photoshop 5.5. so fast -- one of the first programs recompiled to take advantage of the G4 architecture. (Un-optimized applications don't do much better than on equivalent clock speed G3's. )Competition among PC makers is so savage now that I can't see how one could make much money at it -- a PC from anyone functions the same, leaving price as the sole issue. But if you were the monopoly publisher of software required to make each and every PC run, you could do pretty well.... (Go Linux!)And because of the difference between instruction sets, RISC and CISC, 400 Mhz on a Mac mean 700 Mhz or so on a Pentium III.... Because the Mac has from day one been so graphic-intensive, from the user interface to its applications, it has required speedy (read: expensive) processors.Hope I/we am/are not the only people interested in this. There are many myths out there. What was this thread about again?
*PC's were designed to make money!Yeah, Andrew you are right. I was using the word "PC" when what I really should have said is that the "original IBM"/whatever, before PCs (clones) came on the market, were designed to crunch numbers, not translate graphics.You and I are not alone. I know of no (bright) heavily graphics-dependent publisher that has switched to PCs instead of Macs. OTOH, I know a lot who have (translate: not that bright).But back to the iloveyou virus, like most viruses (viri?), they are aimed at folks who use MS stuff. Macs, compared to PCs, are quite immune to most common viruses, wouldn't you say? I really hope the Mac makes a comeback.
*I don't think its the harware platform that affects virus vulnerability, but rather the software (operating system and apps)MS's Win9x and applications are prone to viruses because of the way they were designed: any script (mini-program) can play around with any file on a Win9x machine. So, to mess around with your Win9sx machine, all I have to do is get you to run a script. MS compounds the problem by making it very easy to con you into running scripts, as in the ILoveYou virus. Similarly, MSWord is designed so that macros (a form of script) can be embedded in any MSWord formatted doc and set to run when you open that doc. So, if I wanted, I could write an MS macro to futz with your OS files, say, and email it to you. Or, I could write a script which would insert itself into other MSWord docs on your machine so that if you email them to someone else, they get infected!Where do you want to go today? Hopefully, if you use MS apps, its the same place any unhinged hacker wants to take you!For PC users, there are alternatives. Linux, of course, as an OS. Even if you use Win9x as an OS, you'll avoid a lot of problems by using non-MS apps such as the Corel Office suite, which includes WordPerfect etc. These apps are generally more powerful than their MS counterparts (with the exception of the PIM, perhaps) and a heck of a lot safer (And significantly less expensive!)Bob
*PIM???Lost me on that one. Easy to do, wasn't it?Rich Beckman
*MS Outlook...personal information manager...a combination of email and other abilities including calendars, scheduling, to do lists and other time wasters...When you are done scheduling your whole day, it's time to go home or play golf!near the stream, seein a break in the clouds and headin out!aj
*What is a "VBS" file extenstion. Does it stand for anything?I got 2 Joke messages today with the same VBS extenstions, and deleted them.
*Visual basic script. Probably just a virus.
*I don't think its the harware platform that affects virus vulnerability, but rather the software (operating system and apps) Isn't the Mac also an OS? I'm only going by the fact that no one I know w/Macs get viruses. Unless they're running Win programs/emulator or VBS. The only ones I've gotten are strictly aol-related, however. Knock wood!
*Pain in my ass. The damned thing got into my school's network and wreaked havoc for about two days. Mind you, I was trying to write two papers during this. Thank God it didn't do anything to my computer - I'd be lost. Oh well - Nick
*Mac (Apple products) are both on a different hardare platform and use a different OS. I don't know anything about Mac's and viruses, though.My point was that it's not whether you use a PC or a Mac, but rather which OS and applications you use. Microsoft products (with the possible exception of Windows NT, I don't know much about that) are particularly vulnerable to viruses because of the way they are designed and because of their lack of security features, especially at the OS level.The OS contains lots of executable files which are essential for how the system operates. With Win 3x and 9x (as well as with MSDos) anyone with access to the computer can change any of those files, such as by deleting them. One way of getting access is getting the user to run an executable which contains commands to mess around with the OS files. With an OS like Linux or Unix, the OS files are put into directories where passwords are necessary for access. Thus, ebven if I can get you to run an executable, it can't mess around with system files. MS compounds the problem by making it so easy to run an exectable when you think you're just opening a file. So, open a MSWord doc, and any macro embedded in the document will run. If that macro was written to remove key OS files, you're SOL. In comparison, the only type of file which will automatically run a macro in WordPerfect is a template file, which are clearly identified as such by the filename. (As a side note, there haven't been any viruses identified using WP as the host, although this might have to do with the overwhelming popularity of MSWord.) Or, as with Outlook, open an email attachment, and if its an executable, it'll run!The MS approach is roughly comparable to selling circular saws without a blade guard. It's not a question of if you'll get hurt, but when.Bob
*All through this thread, I keep hearing about microsoft's monopoly. Microsoft has no monopoly. Some here use Linux, several have macs, one used word perfect, some are probably on unix.As for the complaint that microsoft forces it's customers to use all microsoft products, I have some claris stuff, adobe, and a list of others. Ford tells you to use only genuine for parts and even gives you two years of service at their shops if you buy ford. But you don't have to buy ford. Maybe the small garages should sue ford for offering this service.I'm glad that there's a company that has become big enough to create a computer system where all applications can work together seemlessly. I remeber trying to get my spreadsheet data to print with a print driver that wasn't made by the spread sheet company.
*> I'm glad that there's a company that has become big enough to create a computer system where all applications can work together seemlessly.Really? Which company is that? I assume Microsoft. They don't work seamlessly on my computer. I would be foolhardy to rely on Word for my word processing, WordPerfect is much more stable and reliable. I'm on Windows 98.Rich Beckman
*hey rich... i'm wit u.....i use werdperf and all corel sweet products cus they help a lot, esp. that splchkr..... also allows me to strike a blow fer freedom from MS.....i dropped Act2000 becus they dropped WordPerfect.....i will be goin to Win2000 with my next computer... supposed to be much more stable than 98..hey nick"ACE" whasup? i thot u dropped yur given name fer a nome-de-plume?
*Good move Scooter -- joke was an iloveyou variant. there is also a Mother's Day "receipt for diamonds purchase" one, and others.The author used VBS, a language where you code in English, so every moron with a copy of the worm could modify it a bit and send it on its way.
*Good move Scooter -- joke was an iloveyou variant.
*I chokes when I read "I remeber trying to get my spreadsheet data to print with a print driver that wasn't made by the spread sheet company." That's part of the problem in the current lawsuit -- MS has abused its monopoly by making it hard for others to program competitively. On the Mac, there was from day one full documentation on how to interact with the system -- they depended on developers to be clever, and along came PageMaker. i developed software on the Mac, and it took a matter of minutes to figure out how to bring up a window or print something.The legal definition of monopoly is not 100% market share, but enough market power to artificially control prices or product bundling or whatever (it gets illegal when you actually act on that power, it's OK to have an honest and fair-dealing monopoly). Try to buy a PC with no MS software on it. If you buy a PC with Windows, you've already done business with MS, regardless of whether you go on to buy an add'l system.
*Yep, absolutely right re OS and apps. One friend w/a Mac tried to d/l iloveyou and it wouldn't let him. Possibly because he didn't have VB? Still, it was via Outlook.At work we are on NT/Unix--very few viruses--but also a great broadcast warning sys, and we use Lotus Notes for e-mail, plus Netscape for internet access.At home (PC Win95), all of my probs have been traceable back to aol.Computers are so much fun!
*Companies should do like AOL. Whenever a competitor gets big enough to cause worry for the company, just buy 'em. How big are they gonna get before someone stops and say's "ENOUGH". They will own every media company in America before it's all over. Nobody seems to even care about them anymnore.If the gov't breaks up Microsoft, it ain't gonna change a thing. The breakup of a monopoly is supposed to keep prices down, and generate real competition and fairness in the marketplace. That ideology didn't work when the gov't split AT&T, or Bell Telephone. I feel that a company that has the insight, skill, and the luck to start out like Miscrosoft did, and then get to the point they are now should be left alone. Maybe they need a little regulation or fined a bit to keep them in check, but to come in and break up a business like that is wrong.But then again, what the heck do I know...James DuHamel
*> The breakup of a monopoly is supposed to keep prices down, and generate real competition and fairness in the marketplace. That ideology didn't work when the gov't split AT&T, or Bell Telephone. It didn't?? Do you have a source for that? Ii knowthat long distance charges arei muchcheaper now than before the AT&T breakup. And I doubt that in real dollars the local service is significantly more expensive (maybe if you buy into all the bells and whistles which were not even available before the breakup).It seems to me that the AT&T breakup was a win/win/win situation. Who lost?Rich Beckman
*AT&T was a good breakup -- by consent, incidentally, which I can't imagine ever coming from Microsoft. The biggest move forward resulting from the new competition was all that fiber-optic cable, which I'll hazard a guess played a part in keeping us ahead of the curve on the Internet/Web thing. Satellite communication technology also received a lift (ha-ha, get it?). Industrialized competitors like Japan -- where competition among Japanese companies is poor -- have far inferior telecom infrastructure; and I read the barriers to catching up are huge. It costs like 20x as much per meter to lay fiber optic lines in Tokyo v. Washington because of bureaucracy.When I went to college in 1989 the nighttime rate to California was 15¢. Now I can get an anytime rate of about 7¢ that sounds a hundred times better. Oh, AT&T would have gotten around to fiber optics ... eventually. Local bills in inflation-corrected dollars really aren't all that different, and unlike Europe we still have unlimited local service, another boon to the Internet.AT&T is a strong company today, with a strong spinoff of Lucent, thanks to the leaning-down induced by competition; and America has the newcomer world-class Sprint/MCI (though they never did get my bills right). That's it: don't think of it as a breakup of MS ... just a gov't-endorsed spinoff.Re MS, another security oops:New flaw discovered in MS Hotmail Updated 10:37 AM ET May 10, 2000A glitch in Hotmail could allow a hacker to tap into a user's account and read his or her e-mail.A bug watcher has discovered a flaw in Hotmail that could allow a hacker to tap into a user's account and read his or her e-mail. Bennett Haselton, Webmaster for Peacefire.org, said the flaw involves sending a user an e-mail with an HTML attachment. When the user clicks on the attachment, the file sends a copy of the user’s cookie to the hacker. Once that cookie is received, the hacker can insert it manually into the Netscape cookies.txt file and use that authentication key to log in to Hotmail as the user. Click here for a description of the trick.Microsoft Corp., which owns the Hotmail service, could not immediately be reached for comment.Not a 'trivial bug'Since the cookie does not contain the user's password, the hacker can only access the account when the user is logged on and as long as the authentication code is valid. But Haselton said that five minutes would be long enough for a hacker with a prepared script to download all of a user's e-mail messages.The trick uses JavaScript to send the cookie. Hotmail filters JavaScript in regular e-mail messages but doesn't filter JavaScript in HTML attachments."It's not a trivial bug that has to do with formatting; it's the essential nature of the software," Haselton said. "Hotmail is what all the big hunters set their sights on. ... Most of the free e-mail services can be broken into, and you find a new way to do it every three weeks or so. But it's really scary that hobbyists are the ones who are doing this."
*Maybe now is the time to repost a Q from a previous thread that no one picked up on.Does anyone out there run Linux and Win 95 on the same machine. .. partitioned hard drive.I'm way sick of Windows... use very little MS stuff.. WordPerfect, Corel, Netscape, Adobe etc, but know that I will be learning Linux for a long time so want Windows to fall back on.Need some tips etc.-pm
*Patrick,Sorry, I can't help on that, but I do plan to take a serious look a Linux as soon as I get a bigger hard drive (I'm pretty full up right now) and will probably do just what you suggest. I think there is software for the very purpose of having two operating systems. Presumably takes all the pain out of it. I've seen it at Staples.Rich Beckman
*Rich, what size hard drive you have ? IDE or scsi ? Yes, they do make the software for that. You might be able to find a freeware or shareware version at Tucows.... http://tucows.holler.net/I believe that if you buy RedHat Linux, it comes with software and instructions for installing windows and linux on the same hard drive....
*Yep, a friend showed me his setup the other day. You just boot up under the OS you want. the selection of software is growing, much is free, and a wordprocessor is a a wordprocessor, you won't care what the kernal is doing in the background. Linux (LIN-ux) is a flavor of Unix, named for Linus Torvalds; like unix its selling points are not flashy features but extreme stability and excellent security (like protected directories, which would have kept iloveyou in its place).Don't worry much about the learning curve, nothing is worse than Windows. Check Yahoo! for tons of Linux info. i'll look into installing the mac version here.View ImageOne hopes that people like you will add to the clamor for Windows alternatives. Up with penguins!
*Running Linux with Windows (95, 98, or NT) is fairly common. Linux comes with a dual boot utility called LILO. Most people I know, however, run with a commercial dual boot utility such as System Commander or BootMagic. Bootmagic came free with my last copy of Partition Magic, so I will probably use it when I set up my next dual boot Linux/Windows machine. There have been some reports of problems on setting up a dual boot machine when Linux and Windows were placed on separate hard disks even though those same users reported no problems when they had used these two operating systems on different partitions on the same hard drive.There are a number of sites that give information on setting up dual boot machines. Do a search on "dual boot Linux" or similar combination and you will come up with many hits (including many in German or other European languages). Three sites that I picked arbitrarily from my search are:http://icc3.com/ec/linux/linux8.htmlhttp://www.sentex.net/~bvandyk/linux/dualboot.htmhttp://whatis.com/dualboot.htmLinux is not quite ready for the computer phobic, but the set up has gotten considerably simplified over the past couple of years. I understand that while Red Hat setup is now fairly straight forward, the Corel Linux package is reportedly the simplest setup of all - I haven't tried it, however.I am hoping to try the Be operating system for digital video editing in the near future. It was designed for high capacity multi-media development but only a few tools have been developed for it to date.
*andrew:If you think the breakup of AT&T was a good thing then YOU call my father and explain the line items of his phone bill so he has not been crammed again and why AT&T no longer wants to bill their service through Bell Atlantic so he has to write two checks ( one of which now has to be mailed out of state instead of being paid at the bank) and why it cots him $8.00 a month after taxes for the privledge of having AT&T as his long distance carrier even when he makes NO long distance calls and the copper to his house has been in place since 1949 and why he cannot have a phone as durable and as easy to use as a Western Electric model 500. Then you can call my mother-in-law and explain to her why after being a C&P ( Chesapeake & Potomac Bell System ) employee for years until retirement she now has to call a number occasionally to make sure she has not been slammed again onto another long distance carrier without her permission because you can only request (even in writing) not being slammed for a period of six months and again explain all the line items of her phone bill because she knows of cramming and doesn't want it to happen to her and why now her retirement benefits are nothing compared to what they would have been before the AT&T breakup when she put in most of her time. Then you can explain to me why I have to listen to telemarketers at home trying to get me to change long distance service, and why my business phone lines were always ringing ( at least average of once a day, some days up to five times) with people asking who is in charge of my long distance service ( these are lines that cannot be screened with an answering machine unless one wants to lose customers). Then you can call my wife and explain again why her business lines ring with sales people asking who is in charge of the long distance service and why her business was a victim of slamming of long distance carrier and now she calls every six months to request a no slamming period because it is no fun to be trying to fax out reports in the middle of the night only to discover Podunk Long Distance is now your carrier and their access to international lines is limited and it may take hours to get through. And when you are finished with all these calls, you can start calling your relatives because I'm sure they have the same questions and concerns that were not part of their everyday worries before the breakup.You stated above that other industrialized countries have inferior telecom infrastructure. This is very true. We at one time had the greatest telephone service in the world. I cannot say that anymore. Have you called for new service installation? You would think you were in Europe for the schedule you get put on. Try calling for a problem in the line on a residential service? Service call might be in a week. Business lines do get higher priority, maybe several days. Things were much quicker in the old days. Everything is now done by independent contractors it seems. Ma Bell ran a tight ship with its employees. Customer service was excellent. Try calling in a line complaint now, you will get a runaround like you would never beleive. ANd everytime you call, you get another person in another city that has no clue that you just called in a complaint and want to know the status. There is no status, just log in another complaint and hope that someday phone service may be restored. Even if you have a report number and the name of the people you talk to! This is better than before the breakup? You just have no clue how well we had it. The phone itself was part of the bill. If it broke, or the wiring in your house broke, someone showed up quickly and without a bill to fix it. The installation cost was about the same then as now, but now it is just a software programming change they have to do. Anything else is a billable charge.You mention fiber optic cable. Any guess who was installing that first? Ma Bell. Whose R&D paid for inventing the transistor that lead us away from vacuum tubes and into the semiconductor era that you live in? MA Bell through Bell Labs. All those Nobel Prize winners in Physics and other sciences? Many were MA Bell employees. I guess by the time you came along you did not have movies in school produced by Bell Labs to enhance your learning on subjects like "Hemo the magnificent" Hemoglobin and a great on light and perception of the eye. Long distance charges helped pay for all these things. We got a big bang for our buck. Now who pays for R&D? We consumers still do as always, but now the total is so small that something as big as Bell Labs cannot be funded. Who loses? The consumers again get shafted. Many just do not know yet.If Ma Bell ran the cellular phone system it could be a lot simpler. Try to sort out the many plans and services available and then add the long distance options on top of that. The way the service areas have been doled out may make a lot of people who got in early millionaires, but I still cannot find one service provider that can cover Richmond, VA and Washington DC without roaming charges. I lose again.Speaking of satillite communications, who funded Telstar? Ma Bell again. This technology got its lift litterally from MA Bell, not from MCI or Sprint, they are Johnny Come Latelys riding on the coat tails of MA Bell.Laying fiber optic in Tokyo more expensive than in Washington D.C.? Probably true, but haven't you watched the local news? Every Tom-Dick-and-Harry has been ripping open the streets of DC to lay cable causing such traffis snarls that Mayor Anthony Williams has a moratorium on any more street openings until all the companies can get together and dig up a street once and lay all the cables one time. Who pays for opening up the street each time? We consumers do! How can this be cheaper for us?It used to cost you 15c per min for a call to CA. Now you have it for 7c per min. For the $4.95 a month fee you pay, you need to make a 70 min phone call every month to break even. Great if you are a jabbermouth, but again call all of your elderly relatives and see how often the break even! For the majority of residential customers, it was cheaper even adjusted for inflation the old way before the breakup of AT&T.The one and only thing I can see as a positive result of the breakup is now I can plug my modem into a phone line without MA Bell wanting to supply the modem. But, insider information... it was going to happen even without the breakup because AT&T saw what was needed to expand the phone system into the computer age. The computer age their research helped develop.We have had a great phone system that was started by Alexander Graham Bell, I only hope someday we will again be able to brag of our good phone system. In the words of a person who spoke to Judge Greene in the trial, he quoted Mark Twain : "Don't fix it if it ain't broke". Judge Greene did anyway. He passed away probably still trying to explain to his relatives why " it was a good thing".And now you want to explain how this same scenario will work with your local electric company delivering electricity you purchased from a far away generator being cheaper for the average 1000KW-HR per month consumer? Oh-My-God!Frank
*Gee, Frank, tell us how you really feel :) BTW, I happen to agree w/everything you said.
*LOL that's exactly what I was going to say.I guess I'll have to be content with...Gee Frank, take a breath.: )
*CaseyThanx for the links. The prob. with dual hardrives is my first hurdle. . .the reason I added a new hard drive was to accommodate a second O/S.Glad to hear the Corel version is simple, it was gonna be my choice.-pm
*1.96 GB, I have 109 MB free at the moment. Whenever the free space falls below 100 MB, the system runs a lot slower (48 MB ram).Rich Beckman
*You can get a 6 gig for 80 bucks or less now.....
*Well, Frank, I don't know where you live, but you should be checking into the state regs. Thei onlypart of your post that is vaguely familiar is that we occasionally (maybe once every other month, if that) get a call asking about long distance carrier. I seriously doubt that I have ever had a service outage in twenty years or more. The one time I wanted to add a line, it was done within a couple of days and I don't recall spending any significant time on hold to do so. And discontinuing the line was equally easy.Oh, but want to talk to the monopoly electric company about anything other than an outage, and plan to spend an hour on hold, and days for something to happen.I i knewthere was a reason I never left Indiana.I will admit that years ago when my business used Sprint for long distance, I would get about twenty 8 1/2 x 11 pages for a $2.36 (?) bill. The postage on the envelope exceeded the bill. That seemed pretty stupid.Rich Beckman
*The good old days were not so good.Individual experiences may be bad, but the net effect on society has been good. Also, any of these problems could be reduced with appropriate laws. Telemarketers, for example, are a pain no matter what they're selling. Cramming, slamming, etc. are already illegal.As for cost, that's the easiest. I can buy a flat 6.9¢ per minute calling card that I can use anywhere 24/7 -- versus the 15¢ night rate of the 80's. Remember, "night" was 11pm to 8am. 15¢ in 1983, the year of the breakup, is actually 25¢ today. Day rates then were obscene, around 50¢, and even if you didn't call you paid for them in higher prices from businesses who had no choice. Hey, the phone alone cost a few dollars a month to rent -- sure, it never broke, but you ended up paying $300 for it.Staying in the past because it feels more comfortable isn't reason to permit an anticompetitive monopoly. You violate antitrust laws when you deliberately break competitors, not by outcompeting them but through your sheer weight. Is this good for consumers?At most a limited parallel, electrical deregulation faces many challenges and must be handled carefully. I do not think the gov't has better judgment than the free market -- said market "seasoned" with some regulation to keep practices within certain bounds, to keep it free.For the record, Bell Atlantic service has been excellent, prompt and courteous. For which i feel fortunate -- if it weren't, the heck alternative would i have??? (Some are appearing now.) Look how wonderful monopoly cable TV has been. They practically read my mind when they added the 24-hour golf channel. I'm leaning towards DSL because I don't want to do business with the take-it-or-leave-town cable company.
*Corporations are modern versions of kings and kingdoms....Don't get me started...near the stream,ajDensity rules...freedom is everything.
*Hey, I'm a corporation ... but i don't feel like a king....An article from today's NYT analyzing the suggested parallels between AT&T and Microsoft breakup, arguments used by both sides in the present case: Microsoft Cites AT&T to Fight Breakup