M$ turns the screw... more

K

Keith R. Williams

fammacd=! said:
As Robert has noted, it's actually kinda amazing how businesses world-wide
have embraced, and committed their most valuable asset, i.e. information,
to, a set of proprietary formats... which require IPS (latest buzz-word
acronym for Intrusion Prevention Software :)) to protect that data from
common thieves and miscreants... never mind competitors, zealous info
harvesters and govt. I keep thinking "somebody's going to waken up"
but.... nope.
Click to expand...

Yup. I regularly get "security update" messages and "Compliance ACTION
REQUIRED" notes from corporate security telling me that I *must*
install this or update that. I'd think they would sit back and have a
"wait a minute" moment. Nope.
Wow - that hurts. Did you find a culprit?... a fix?
Click to expand...

I fixed the boot record using the repair facility on the SuSE install
DVD. I still can't get ACPI working. It gives me a warning on boot
that I should start the powersaved daemon, but it won't start. It
complains that my system doesn't support APM or ACPI, which I know
isn't right. Perhaps Tyan's latest BIOS (2.53, IIRC) for the S2875
isn't so hot? I'll have to fire off a note to Tyan today.
Then again, we've all done flashes 100s of times without unplugging
anything. An odd thing with MSI mbrds I've been using recently: there are
dire warning not to try flashing from a floppy - the BIOS file and flash
executable must be on the hard disk or on the RAMDRIVE created by a Win98
bootable floppy. This Live Update nonsense though... that's really scarey
stuff.
Click to expand...

Me too. I did hundreds of flashes before there was boot sector flash.
....before flash. ;-) One slip and it was hot-swap time. Tyan's
instructions explicitly say to use a Win95/98 recovery diskette (an
image I found using the advice in this NG - thanks again folks). Live
update of the OS is scary enough. BIOS? Without a way to use the boot
sector of the flash device to get back? Yuck, sounds like a step
backwards.
 
R

Robert Redelmeier

Keith R. Williams said:
Me too. I did hundreds of flashes before there was boot sector flash.
...before flash. ;-) One slip and it was hot-swap time. Tyan's
Click to expand...

Oh, could the trouble have been you tried to save old BIOS to a
filesystem (NTFS) that the boot OS (MS-DOS) doesn't understand?
This ought to be fixable.

You may be able to get ACPI working by a hard clear of BIOS SRAM.
Sometimes this is required after an ugly BIOS update.

-- Robert
 
K

Keith R. Williams

Oh, could the trouble have been you tried to save old BIOS to a
filesystem (NTFS) that the boot OS (MS-DOS) doesn't understand?
This ought to be fixable.
Click to expand...

Not on purpose. The Tyan site keeps all prior versions, including the
one I upgraded from, so I simply downloaded the flash files for a few
versions (I've been scared to go back though).
You may be able to get ACPI working by a hard clear of BIOS SRAM.
Sometimes this is required after an ugly BIOS update.
Click to expand...

Good idea. Though the information in the SRAM seemed OK. It's worth a
try.
 
N

nobody

I wouldn't make such public announcements if I were you. Mr Kochis would
apparently like to introduce you to a 300lb err, sado-gay man.
Click to expand...
Oh, yeah, he'd like to get all of us shafted, one way or the other...
;-)
 
R

Robert Myers

There are VERY few websites that I find which fail in both Firefox and
Konqueror. In fact, it's extremely rare that I have any sites fail to
load properly in either one. The one caveat to go along with that
comment though is that you sometimes have to use a User-Agent
switching trick to TELL the website that you're running IE before it
will let you in. The sites almost always render perfectly (or
sufficiently close not to bother me) in Firefox or Konqueror once
you're in.
Click to expand...

Your experience is different from mine, that's all I can say. Many,
many websites with active content do not work under Mozilla, whether
in Linux or Windows.

Media really isn't the problem that it once was in Linux, with the
possible exception of the DRM issue (though that might not exactly be
a bad thing). It used to be that it was rather difficult to play any
of the less standard media formats in Linux. However these days you
can use any codec that plugs into Windows Media Player to play content
in Linux, and that's pretty darn near any type of media out there.
Sometimes it's a bit trickier to get the codecs loaded though as their
regular Windows installer (for those that come with one) obviously
won't cut it.
Click to expand...

Not if it's in Windows media format, AFAIK. Linspire has something
that will do Windows media format,

http://www.linspire.com/lindows_michaelsminutes_archives.php?id=143

but it certainly didn't come with my RedHat distribution.

As to tricky installs, that's called geekware, and that's why Linux is
not ready for prime time and probably never will be. I haven't tried
Linspire. Maybe it actually works out of the box as a media platform.

RM
 
N

nobody

On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 19:47:13 -0500, George Macdonald

....snip...
I didn't feel I could get away with that - some work-related things I do at
home need Windows and then other people use the home computer. I've been
"considering" dual boot to a Linux for a while but am procrastinating on
the (in)convenience and possible complexity of the mechanism to family.
Click to expand...

As for me, I need MS stuff for work. Also must admit that, knowing
very little about *nix (including linux), I am afraid to install it on
my system that I use to work from home. And, if I ever get extra time
to learn new stuff, I'd rather spend it on something that would
increase my employability, like the next MS certification level (done
MCAD, on my way to MCDBA and MCSD). Open Source may be cool, but MS
pays my bills...
 
G

George Macdonald

There are VERY few websites that I find which fail in both Firefox and
Konqueror. In fact, it's extremely rare that I have any sites fail to
load properly in either one. The one caveat to go along with that
comment though is that you sometimes have to use a User-Agent
switching trick to TELL the website that you're running IE before it
will let you in. The sites almost always render perfectly (or
sufficiently close not to bother me) in Firefox or Konqueror once
you're in.
Click to expand...

I've looked at Firefox and see no reason to switch from (Mozilla 1.7.5
currently) - it's no faster in any substantial way -- I did read that the
engine is the same in both now anyway -- and I can't be bothered to face up
to switching to Thunderbird for e-mail... yeah I know it's not essential
but it would be sorta unclean.:) Mozilla works well in most places - I've
never seen a total failure though there is the odd malfunction, e.g. at
www.cdspeed2000.com - baffles me why someone who is actually clued about
the computer business could commit the sin of an IE Web site.
 
R

Robert Myers

I've looked at Firefox and see no reason to switch from (Mozilla 1.7.5
currently) - it's no faster in any substantial way -- I did read that the
engine is the same in both now anyway -- and I can't be bothered to face up
to switching to Thunderbird for e-mail... yeah I know it's not essential
but it would be sorta unclean.:) Mozilla works well in most places - I've
never seen a total failure though there is the odd malfunction, e.g. at
www.cdspeed2000.com - baffles me why someone who is actually clued about
the computer business could commit the sin of an IE Web site.
Click to expand...

Firefox takes forever to save web pages, at least the last time I
tried it.

RM
 
G

George Macdonald

Your experience is different from mine, that's all I can say. Many,
many websites with active content do not work under Mozilla, whether
in Linux or Windows.
Click to expand...

Sorry but I find very few sites which don't work with Mozilla - a very few
don't work 100% right but there's usually some work-around where I don't
lose content. I figure that if a Web site really works only with IE it's
because the owner is too stupid to know better or he wants to commit a
mischief which other browsers will not allow. Both groups should pay
attention to the number of Firefox downloads.:)
Not if it's in Windows media format, AFAIK. Linspire has something
that will do Windows media format,

http://www.linspire.com/lindows_michaelsminutes_archives.php?id=143

but it certainly didn't come with my RedHat distribution.

As to tricky installs, that's called geekware, and that's why Linux is
not ready for prime time and probably never will be. I haven't tried
Linspire. Maybe it actually works out of the box as a media platform.
Click to expand...

But Windows has its share of such geekware too - just sometimes it's not so
obvious that anything's gone wrong. That's why your average non-expert
user's Windows system is so consistently screwed up.
 
G

George Macdonald

Me too. I did hundreds of flashes before there was boot sector flash.
...before flash. ;-) One slip and it was hot-swap time. Tyan's
instructions explicitly say to use a Win95/98 recovery diskette (an
image I found using the advice in this NG - thanks again folks). Live
update of the OS is scary enough. BIOS? Without a way to use the boot
sector of the flash device to get back? Yuck, sounds like a step
backwards.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, that sounds like what is known as a Windows 98 Startup Disk and that
is *not* what you want, since it contains a bunch of drivers, including
HIMEM.SYS, CD-ROM drivers & DRVSPACE.BIN which is the compressed drive
driver... could be it's the one which buggered your boot record if it's not
a Windows hard disk. At any rate what you want is a simple Windows 95/98
formatted with system files disk - that'd have 4 files on it:
MSDOS.SYS(0KB), IO.SYS, COMMAND.COM & DRVSPACE.BIN and for a BIOS Flash I
always delete the DRVSPACE.BIN. You should be able to trim the "Startup
Disk" down to that by just deleting files.

For the ACPI thing, I wonder if you need to clear the NVRAM PnP stuff with
the new BIOS - there's a switch on the Award/Phoenix Flash prog to do that
but I don't recall what it is. You *did* reload the BIOS Setup Defaults
after the flash?
 
G

George Macdonald

Firefox takes forever to save web pages, at least the last time I
tried it.
Click to expand...

You mean save a local copy of a page? I don't think I even tried that but
I *did* recently find why my Mozilla was blocking badly (10secs or more to
start and again to finish) on Saves and Downloads: the DOWNLOADS.RDF file
had gotten huge because I'd never even realized the need to clean out the
Download Manager history. I've also found that several migrations from
Netscape 4.x versions through NS 6.x through NS 7.x to Mozilla had left a
lot of clutter in various files. Sometimes you just need to start afresh.
 
G

Grumble

Robert said:
Many, many websites with active content do not work under Mozilla,
whether in Linux or Windows.
Click to expand...

What version of Mozilla are you using?
Could you provide 3 or 4 URLs to websites which do not work?
Not if it's in Windows media format, AFAIK. Linspire has something
that will do Windows media format, but it certainly didn't come with
my RedHat distribution.
Click to expand...

Have you tried MPlayer?

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/info.html
 
T

Tony Hill

Your experience is different from mine, that's all I can say. Many,
many websites with active content do not work under Mozilla, whether
in Linux or Windows.
Click to expand...

Perhaps. It's quite odd for me to run into such sites, but I guess
everyone visits a different set of sites.
Not if it's in Windows media format, AFAIK. Linspire has something
that will do Windows media format,

http://www.linspire.com/lindows_michaelsminutes_archives.php?id=143

but it certainly didn't come with my RedHat distribution.
Click to expand...

One word for you: MPlayer

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/info.html

It plays WMA and WMV files using the Windows Media Player codecs. The
only thing that Linspire has here is that they are legally allowed to
use the Windows media codec pack WIHTOUT owning a copy of Windows. On
other versions of Linux you CAN use the codec pack, but you are
required to have a legal copy of Windows on that machine to get the
rights to them.
As to tricky installs, that's called geekware, and that's why Linux is
not ready for prime time and probably never will be.
Click to expand...

It definitely still is geekware, though I don't know about the "never
will be" part. These things are MUCH easier now than they were just a
few years ago. The Linux geeks are finally realizing that they do
need to make things all "point, click and it works" like for more
widespread acceptance. It's still a LONG road though.

Of course, that being said, some of the codecs aren't very easy to
install in Windows either, many still require a fair bit of knowledge
to figure out just WHAT codec is required and often are not just a
point-and-shoot install on their own. XVid is a good example of a
very common video codec that can be rather tricky in Windows and is
actually EASIER in Linux (in most cases it's just a matter of adding a
package like any other program). This might be more the exception
than the rule, but I'm definitely seeing more exceptions like this as
time goes by.
 
R

Robert Myers

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 17:02:38 -0500, Robert Myers



It definitely still is geekware, though I don't know about the "never
will be" part. These things are MUCH easier now than they were just a
few years ago. The Linux geeks are finally realizing that they do
need to make things all "point, click and it works" like for more
widespread acceptance. It's still a LONG road though.
Click to expand...
You are much more optimistic than I am. I hung mozilla recently,
terminated it abnormally, then had a devil of a time figuring out
where the lock file had been moved. I once thought RedHat would solve
those problems, but, of course, RedHat is no longer interested in the
desktop.

If you look at the history of mainframes, life doesn't get easier.
People are forced to adjust. If it's only marginally easier to adjust
to Windows, Windows will continue to dominate. Open Office can do
MSWord and Power Point formats? Oh, sort of.

Linux is just too much for people who like the power of knowing they
_can_ figure out where the softlink for java has to be, and the linux
cognoscenti just cannot relate to people who don't know, don't care,
and will put up with whatever Bill dishes out to stay that way. Didja
hear that Bill was just knighted?

RM
 
R

Robert Myers

What version of Mozilla are you using?
Could you provide 3 or 4 URLs to websites which do not work?
Click to expand...
The problem under windows turned out to be Norton Internet Security,
which was blocking pop-up windows. Apparently, it saw the embedded
media (like quick time or windows media player) as a pop up window
under mozilla but not under explorer. As stated elsewhere, I haven't
put much effort into trying to configure media for linux.

RM
 
N

Niel Drummond

hi

Your experience is different from mine, that's all I can say. Many,
many websites with active content do not work under Mozilla, whether
in Linux or Windows.
Click to expand...

Active X content on IE has a history of security CERT advisories, which
translates into unwanted adware and trojans. As a web developer, it's
imperative that I test web sites on IE, but I will always turn active X
off -- furthermore, I don't see it being a roadmap for future web
development. We have the Gecko engine, which is now integrated into
countless variations of browsers; we have opera, which is a
mainstay for mobile phones: IE usage ratings have dropped considerably
over the last couple of years (some sites have it at 76%).
You cannot develop only for IE these days.
As to tricky installs, that's called geekware, and that's why Linux is
not ready for prime time and probably never will be. I haven't tried
Linspire. Maybe it actually works out of the box as a media platform.
Click to expand...

Windows is getting more "dummified" to appeal to the mass market though,
so where would you like to sit ?

Besides, the linux has a more distinct failure: the distros are so
disparate and many many programs are not willing to agree to any
standards. Linux will not be ready for prime time until this is sorted out.

I am half a geek though, so I like it.

regards,

- Niel
 
R

Robert Myers

hi



Active X content on IE has a history of security CERT advisories, which
translates into unwanted adware and trojans. As a web developer, it's
imperative that I test web sites on IE, but I will always turn active X
off -- furthermore, I don't see it being a roadmap for future web
development. We have the Gecko engine, which is now integrated into
countless variations of browsers; we have opera, which is a
mainstay for mobile phones: IE usage ratings have dropped considerably
over the last couple of years (some sites have it at 76%).
You cannot develop only for IE these days.
Click to expand...
As I said in a separate post, at least part of the problem turned out
to be a pop-up blocker that saw embedded media in Mozilla as popups,
but not in IE.
Windows is getting more "dummified" to appeal to the mass market though,
so where would you like to sit ?
Click to expand...
With cygwin, I almost get the best of both worlds: brain-dead PC user
to do my taxes and watch windows media, hyper-aware Linux user when I
need the power. Doesn't always work, and cygwin is noticeably slower
than native linux.
Besides, the linux has a more distinct failure: the distros are so
disparate and many many programs are not willing to agree to any
standards. Linux will not be ready for prime time until this is sorted out.

I am half a geek though, so I like it.
Click to expand...
Being a geek wears thin after a while, especially when you've got lots
of other things to worry about.

RM
 
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