1. Free as in freedom :
Almost 99.9% of Linux’s source code is released as open source. This means you can modify the code and redistribute it as you see fit. This means lesser lawsuits and lesser hassles in gaining updates.
There was a point in software time when anything free was considered buggy, incomplete or plain pointless. That might be then, but this is now. Linux has grown into one of the most advanced OS out there, and how! The penguin has come a long way indeed.
2. Surf the net without fear:
Yes, you read it right. Linux separates the root user from other users, thus restricting user privileges, and drastically reducing the chances of catching a virus. There are around 40 malwares in circulation, but almost 32 of them do nothing harmful, and are intended to point out security loopholes within Linux’s kernel. 6 of the remaining rest are dangerous and 2 are Trojans. If you’re still worried of catching a Linux virus, why don’t you resort to the age old solution- Go get yourself a free antivirus.
3. No more bloated OS: Linux makes a lot of room for your programs:
In fact, I’ve been using a PCLinuxOS installation on my PC for the past 2 months, and I’ve Installed a lot of software’s for Linux from Unreal Tournament 2004 to NVidia’s latest graphic drivers. Linux leaves a lot of room for your stuff, and doesn’t slow down one bit!!
Showing posts with label appaling software. Show all posts
Showing posts with label appaling software. Show all posts
02 February, 2009
30 January, 2009
How badly do you need an antivirus?
How many times have you wondered which is the best antivirus? Nod? Symantec Norton? Kaspersky? Bit defender?? My answer: None of the above. Why?? Read on.
Recently my curiosity got the best of me and I finally decided to read “The Big black book of virus programming” that I bought a while back. I’m told the book is illegal in most countries, and you could end up in jail for so much as possessing it!! The book details pretty much everything you need to know and also gives you a start by giving off some virus source code on the CD accompanying the book.
I started off writing my first virus and coded it such that it would look for a folder and deleted it. The folder was aptly named “Do Not Delete” and resided on my root drive.
I have a PC with the latest hardware. Thus , running 3 anti viruses is a walk in the park. Just for your info, I was running MacAfee, Symantec Corporate, and Nod 32. Some of the most reputed names in the antivirus industry.
The virus was written in assembler to make it faster than programs which I previously wrote in Java or C#. I fired up my “Virus”, and it promptly did its work. For a moment this really startled me because none of the antivirus programs even warned me that a potentially unsafe operation was being performed by a third party program. I convinced myself thinking that of course they didn’t detect it! It’s just another program that’s occupying memory and manipulating files. As far as other “programs” such as anti-viruses are concerned, there is NO harm being done to your computer!!
Most viruses are offshoots of “virus creation” kits available in shady websites running in third world countries like Nigeria or Kenya. So, the programmers for these “antivirus” programs have to detect a pattern in the viruses and voila, the antivirus detects the threat. But what if people like you and me started writing viruses? Would the antivirus programs have any chance at all in detecting these new “breed” of viruses?? Of course not! This is exactly the reason why the market for “network security” has grown exponentially over the past decade. We need to have fewer OS loopholes (poke at Microsoft) and fewer ways for programs to run in the background without your permission. Of course, if windows (like Symantec internet security 2008) were to ask you each and everything, you would curse your OS while click “ OK” and “Ignore” buttons , endlessly.
Yes, there is a certain tradeoff between OS security and usability, but that’s for novice users. NOT for pros like me. Well, we could probably have 5 modes for the OS, something like:
1. Novice
2. Intermediate
3. Power User
4. Expert User
5. Geek demigod ?
Recently my curiosity got the best of me and I finally decided to read “The Big black book of virus programming” that I bought a while back. I’m told the book is illegal in most countries, and you could end up in jail for so much as possessing it!! The book details pretty much everything you need to know and also gives you a start by giving off some virus source code on the CD accompanying the book.
I started off writing my first virus and coded it such that it would look for a folder and deleted it. The folder was aptly named “Do Not Delete” and resided on my root drive.
I have a PC with the latest hardware. Thus , running 3 anti viruses is a walk in the park. Just for your info, I was running MacAfee, Symantec Corporate, and Nod 32. Some of the most reputed names in the antivirus industry.
The virus was written in assembler to make it faster than programs which I previously wrote in Java or C#. I fired up my “Virus”, and it promptly did its work. For a moment this really startled me because none of the antivirus programs even warned me that a potentially unsafe operation was being performed by a third party program. I convinced myself thinking that of course they didn’t detect it! It’s just another program that’s occupying memory and manipulating files. As far as other “programs” such as anti-viruses are concerned, there is NO harm being done to your computer!!
Most viruses are offshoots of “virus creation” kits available in shady websites running in third world countries like Nigeria or Kenya. So, the programmers for these “antivirus” programs have to detect a pattern in the viruses and voila, the antivirus detects the threat. But what if people like you and me started writing viruses? Would the antivirus programs have any chance at all in detecting these new “breed” of viruses?? Of course not! This is exactly the reason why the market for “network security” has grown exponentially over the past decade. We need to have fewer OS loopholes (poke at Microsoft) and fewer ways for programs to run in the background without your permission. Of course, if windows (like Symantec internet security 2008) were to ask you each and everything, you would curse your OS while click “ OK” and “Ignore” buttons , endlessly.
Yes, there is a certain tradeoff between OS security and usability, but that’s for novice users. NOT for pros like me. Well, we could probably have 5 modes for the OS, something like:
1. Novice
2. Intermediate
3. Power User
4. Expert User
5. Geek demigod ?
26 November, 2008
The confusion over chrome
Definitely Not!! I read a news article in a major newspaper a few days ago which called Google’s chrome a “revolution” and that it would eventually overtake windows and Linux.. Excuse Me? Is it just me , or can you spot the odd one out of the group too? Heres whats wrong with the article:
Ø First off, chrome is an application, not an OS. To be specific, it’s a browser, just like Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.
Ø Secondly, Chrome needs an OS to run.
Ø Third, the day when chrome will start up as soon as you switch on your PC is still VERY far away.
The very fact that a major newspaper called chrome an OS shows the amount of computer literacy amongst the press. And to think the article came from the associated Press! God knows how many newspapers all over the world published his and how many people believed it!
22 November, 2008
Why windows software installs are slower than uninstalls
Put the other way, why are uninstalls faster than installs? Windows was built to just incinerate a directory when its deleted. That is, the directory, or files are just removed from the partition table if you pressed Shift+Del (which it seems, everyone these days is very used to!). When installing, the program has to
>Look up the target drive and check if enough space is available or not.
>Unpack the files onto some temporary location (Most probably C:\windows\Downloaded program installations)
> Extract and copy the files onto the desired location on your installation directory
This is the step that possibly takes up a lot of time because the transfer is happening from the hard disk onto the hard disk as opposed to the transfer happening from some other medium to the hard disk which is atleast, a bit faster. Since the source and the destination of the files are on the same disk, the transfer bus is fully used, and thus the OS seems to get stuck. During this process, if you try to , say play your music collection with winamp, your pc would get stuck because the OS (which is quite a heavy resource consumer), your copy process(also a heavy weight) and your music player are all contending for CPU time. As and when the CPU gets more tasks in its queue, the system starts to become slower, as each task has a degenerating effect on the system, leading to the popular deadlock problem of computer science. When your PC gets locked up, you have to remove all your processes from the CPU queue. The easiest way to do which is to RESTART your computer, which I assume, all of us,windows users do from time to time. :)
>Seek a suitable location in the registry
>Enter keys in the registry
>Delete the temporary files
>Possibly do other tasks such as configure the application for first run
This basically involves the installer entering some values into the applications configuration files to tell the application that the next time the application runs would be its first on this machine.
>Look up the target drive and check if enough space is available or not.
>Unpack the files onto some temporary location (Most probably C:\windows\Downloaded program installations)
> Extract and copy the files onto the desired location on your installation directory
This is the step that possibly takes up a lot of time because the transfer is happening from the hard disk onto the hard disk as opposed to the transfer happening from some other medium to the hard disk which is atleast, a bit faster. Since the source and the destination of the files are on the same disk, the transfer bus is fully used, and thus the OS seems to get stuck. During this process, if you try to , say play your music collection with winamp, your pc would get stuck because the OS (which is quite a heavy resource consumer), your copy process(also a heavy weight) and your music player are all contending for CPU time. As and when the CPU gets more tasks in its queue, the system starts to become slower, as each task has a degenerating effect on the system, leading to the popular deadlock problem of computer science. When your PC gets locked up, you have to remove all your processes from the CPU queue. The easiest way to do which is to RESTART your computer, which I assume, all of us,windows users do from time to time. :)
>Seek a suitable location in the registry
>Enter keys in the registry
>Delete the temporary files
>Possibly do other tasks such as configure the application for first run
This basically involves the installer entering some values into the applications configuration files to tell the application that the next time the application runs would be its first on this machine.
07 November, 2008
Is Google really a leader in technology?
Its a common misconception that any company that does things differently is supposed to be leading a certaing segment of technology. This seems to be true in the case of Google. Now, it may be a technology giant, but the products they make are far from perfection. Each and every one of their flagship products except other than their propreitery search engine technology ofcourse, is still in BETA. Do you know what that means? The services may go offline anytime, and may be entirely scrapped if not for Googles' ad based exploits. Most of their products are plagued by inconsistensies, and lack of basic support for their other products.
Take Google Chrome for example. Its supposed to be a a "revolutionary" piece of software, and they havent yet integrated their own Google notebook with Chrome.Google offers better support for IE than for chrome right now. Now, does that say anything about their competancy, and their development practices?Clearly, Google is very farsighted in its business practices and would be outstaged and outplayed in the coming years for sure.
Take Google Chrome for example. Its supposed to be a a "revolutionary" piece of software, and they havent yet integrated their own Google notebook with Chrome.Google offers better support for IE than for chrome right now. Now, does that say anything about their competancy, and their development practices?Clearly, Google is very farsighted in its business practices and would be outstaged and outplayed in the coming years for sure.
06 November, 2008
Blogger VS Wordpress
Last week, I decided to try out wordpress because of all the eye candy. The themes there are pretty good. The sign up page was enticing and a good experience I must say, but after that things started going downwards. The following is a list of things thats wrong with wordpress:
>Wordpress serves its own ads on your blog instead of letting you earn money by blogging. Who runs a blog just to pass time anymore,anyway?
>Doesnt let you edit your CSS unless you pay $26 per month.
>Doesnt stop serving ads until you pay for the hosting, and that too without your own domain. So, basically you'll be stuck with yourname.wordpress.com for the rest of your life!
Things blogger lacks(that wordpress revels in):
> Themes. OOO shiny blog.Me like shiny blogs!
> closeness to the user. The ambience around the site is well maintained, and welcomes the user to try out things out on his own.
Well, thats it! It also allows for importing your "OLD" blogger blog into your wordpres blog, but I wont mention that because of anomolies in the posts when importing them
>Wordpress serves its own ads on your blog instead of letting you earn money by blogging. Who runs a blog just to pass time anymore,anyway?
>Doesnt let you edit your CSS unless you pay $26 per month.
>Doesnt stop serving ads until you pay for the hosting, and that too without your own domain. So, basically you'll be stuck with yourname.wordpress.com for the rest of your life!
Things blogger lacks(that wordpress revels in):
> Themes. OOO shiny blog.Me like shiny blogs!
> closeness to the user. The ambience around the site is well maintained, and welcomes the user to try out things out on his own.
Well, thats it! It also allows for importing your "OLD" blogger blog into your wordpres blog, but I wont mention that because of anomolies in the posts when importing them
14 September, 2008
Alternatives to resource hungry programs
Who better at a job, to use a tool, than a man who created the tool right? WRONG! I have seen many cases of this.
>First off, is Adobe's acrobat reader. The resource hungry proggie does little to enhance readability, and takes long times to load images within a PDF file. Moreover, the reader doesnt even provide a PDF "document printer", that other open source proggies provide, which enable users to "print" into PDF files from any other format. I stumbled on a software called "Foxit Reader". Better than Acrobat Id say...
>This isnt an isolated case. I have found OpenOffice .org to be much more flexible than MS office, simply because it is free, and platform independent. So, I dont have to use an emulator on a virtual machine within my linux box to get the same environment.
>Adobes' Photoshop finds a worthy alternative in Gimp, which comes bundled with most Linux distros these days. Its free, as in freedom :) in addition to being very fast, and responsive..
So, tell me brothers and sisters of cyberspace, would you go about using a proggie that hogs up all of your memory, and is not free, as opposed to open source, FREE alternatives that are both fast, and compatible with their paid rivals' file formats?
>First off, is Adobe's acrobat reader. The resource hungry proggie does little to enhance readability, and takes long times to load images within a PDF file. Moreover, the reader doesnt even provide a PDF "document printer", that other open source proggies provide, which enable users to "print" into PDF files from any other format. I stumbled on a software called "Foxit Reader". Better than Acrobat Id say...
>This isnt an isolated case. I have found OpenOffice .org to be much more flexible than MS office, simply because it is free, and platform independent. So, I dont have to use an emulator on a virtual machine within my linux box to get the same environment.
>Adobes' Photoshop finds a worthy alternative in Gimp, which comes bundled with most Linux distros these days. Its free, as in freedom :) in addition to being very fast, and responsive..
So, tell me brothers and sisters of cyberspace, would you go about using a proggie that hogs up all of your memory, and is not free, as opposed to open source, FREE alternatives that are both fast, and compatible with their paid rivals' file formats?
12 September, 2008
Googles Chrome
Chrome? Nice nomencleature for a sub-standard browser Id say. What do you want in a browser? Not a funky GUI, not a browser integrated with an advertising campaign, to make the parent company richer by a million dollars, and certainly not a DOM inspector! Googles chrome is less of a browser and more of an advertising campaign if you ask me! It has Googles search engine built-in, and you get to search and type in URLs in the same bar, but whats the use? Its like re-inventing the wheel... Chrome doesnt have what firefox and IE or even Opera for that matter, havent had yet.. Google claims its faster than all other browsers, and even goes onto give a "task manager" option which shows the memory consumption, possibly per tab of both Chrome, and all other browsers that are open. But I could SWEAR that the chrome was a lot slower than Opera. Im not an opera fanatic or something like that, but yeah, Opera is simply THE BEST window to the world wide web around. It uses full bandwidth when browsing, and even has a built in download manager, and adding to this, is its bit torrent protocol support ! Opera even has an option to pause downloads, even though, rarely, the downloads dont resume properly, but a decent attempt has been made! Now, what would you equate Chrome to? Show of hands kids?? "JUNK".. very good!!
01 September, 2008
Just got myself a job in the Java/J2EE, AJAX domain!
I am elated that I found a job in a company called kingslake. Its based out of Sri Lanka and is looking for a foothold in India. It has major clients in Malaysiya and Singapore...
The US recession is nothing but hypothetical in a sense that not all software firms have run out of business, and not everyone is asking their employees to leave. I was appaled at the fact that Sapient didnt even ask us to go in for training, as it was running out of projects. And to think, I hadnt been recruited through some walk in interview. I had been recruited on campus. I didnt go to them, they came to me. This further testifies the appaling conditions of jobs in India, especially jobs in the software domain. BPO s have been the major winners in this race because a majority of people who find it hard to get into a software firm would get into the BPO jobs. Thanks a lot America!
My base salary might not be THAT good, but I have some hopes pinned on the future. I enjoy working with AJAX and this will provide me with an excellent opportunity to work with it, adding some weightage to my resume/ CV.
The US recession is nothing but hypothetical in a sense that not all software firms have run out of business, and not everyone is asking their employees to leave. I was appaled at the fact that Sapient didnt even ask us to go in for training, as it was running out of projects. And to think, I hadnt been recruited through some walk in interview. I had been recruited on campus. I didnt go to them, they came to me. This further testifies the appaling conditions of jobs in India, especially jobs in the software domain. BPO s have been the major winners in this race because a majority of people who find it hard to get into a software firm would get into the BPO jobs. Thanks a lot America!
My base salary might not be THAT good, but I have some hopes pinned on the future. I enjoy working with AJAX and this will provide me with an excellent opportunity to work with it, adding some weightage to my resume/ CV.
