Messages

301

C / C++ / Re: Managing Large code with Object Oriented Programming

« on: May 30, 2008, 05:35 AM »

There are literally boatloads of examples, and very thick books have been written on the subject... a good way i found to learn OO design is to use a good OO library in one of your applications, and get familiar with it's class design, and then eventually when you are comfortable with it, look into the code for gems.

A good OO library would be one that makes use of all the C++ features when appropriate. Makes use of namespaces, templates (but definitively does NOT over-use templates, which leads to nightmare scenarios), sub-classing, etc...

I'd say the Irrlicht library is a pretty good and simple example to learn from.

I'd also recommend documenting your code with doxygen from the very start (document as you create your classes and functions, not after you're done). I have found that keeping a browser open with a doxygen api documentation page of my own code helps me organize my mind, and it provides a nice overview of what's in your app. It can also create call graphs from your code.

302

Living Room / Re: New Adobe Flash Player Security Exploit Reported Today (tuesday may 27)

« on: May 27, 2008, 06:04 PM »

I have used noscript for a long time, to block flash and java. It's handy because you can whitelist sites or allow stuff on the fly. I only use it on my own computer now anymore though, because too many times my wife would not understand why sites did not function correctly. Even though she knew to click allow on the noscript button, sometimes you have to allow multiple sources etc... I imagine it can be a bit confusing for people that aren't much into computers.

303

Living Room / Re: Thread removed

« on: May 22, 2008, 02:26 AM »

I second that....
Dissapearing threads are not nice, spam or not.
We should have a spam bin or something where they get moved to.

304

Developer's Corner / Re: The internet hijacked

« on: May 20, 2008, 05:58 PM »

https on alternate ports is a good solution but is not always an option, and it puts an ugly semicolon in the url  (believe it or not, many people find this enough reason to not use it.)

305

Developer's Corner / Re: The internet hijacked

« on: May 20, 2008, 06:15 AM »

Most of the major sites and sites that absolutely need https will of course have it.
It's your average joe cpanel user that runs into the issues like you stated.
I was merely using it as an example, not stating it is 'the' reason.
I find it a perfect example showing how many of the protocols we use are inherently flawed, or perhaps, more
correctly, used these days as they were never intended to be used. It's as if the entire internet is hack built upon hack built upon hack, just to make things work.

Rebuilding the entire lot to be more user friendly so your average joe can run a site or server without worrying about hackers or security would be a dream-solution, but unfortunately the sad reality is that there is no such thing as 100% security, even if you were to build the system from the ground up to be user friendly.

The result would then be even more people running servers that don't understand basic security, and even more malware and drone servers on the net.

You may build a fortress from the ground up, security flaws will exist, and perhaps it is a good thing, in a way, that some knowledge is required to set up basic things, since people with that knowledge 'tend' to be more security aware.

Windows was designed to be user friendly out of the box, and look how many virus infected drone computers are out there. Vista was redesigned with security in mind and to address many issues, and it only took a few days for exploits to be released in the wild. It may not be the perfect example again, but I think the point is that it may not always be a good idea to promote a culture where knowledge/experience isn't needed to run things.

306

Developer's Corner / Re: The internet hijacked

« on: May 20, 2008, 04:38 AM »

This reminds me of a monty python scene where they were talking about the meaning of life, man's unique ability to get distracted, and hats.

HARRY:
    That's right. Yeah, I've had a team working on this over the past few weeks, and, uh, what we've come up with can be reduced to two fundamental concepts. One: people are not wearing enough hats. Two: matter is energy. In the universe, there are many energy fields which we cannot normally perceive. Some energies have a spiritual source which act upon a person's soul. However, this soul does not exist ab initio, as orthodox Christianity teaches. It has to be brought into existence by a process of guided self-observation. However, this is rarely achieved, owing to man's unique ability to be distracted from spiritual matters by everyday trivia.

Perhaps the reason security on the internet is broken, is because people get distracted by hats.
(black hats, gray hats, white hats, red hat,... we might be on to something here)

...pause...

BERT:
    What was that about hats, again?
HARRY:
    Oh, uh, people aren't wearing enough.
CHAIRMAN:
    Is this true?

307

Developer's Corner / Re: The internet hijacked

« on: May 20, 2008, 03:13 AM »

It's just a blackhat reference.
I needed to put something there so the image looked like an image. It was blending in with the rest of my text too much.. so much that it looked part of it.
Anyway,.. who cares about the hat? :p

308

Developer's Corner / The internet hijacked

« on: May 20, 2008, 02:34 AM »

Recently the IP address for one of the root nameservers has changed.
These IP addresses are hard-coded in configuration files deep in the servers or many ISP's, and are hardly ever updated.

Some smart, sneaky, probably malicious entity figured they would grab the OLD ip address of the nameserver, and set up an unauthorized nameserver of their own, thus capturing all hostnames requested by pretty much most people on the internet. And also having control to what these hostnames resolve to (so thus having the ability to redirect anyone to any malicious proxy or site, intercept any data they want etc,...)

Read all about it
[ Invalid Attachment ]

So why do I post this in the developer corner section?

Things like this really make you reflect on security in your internet-enabled applications.
It should be assumed that any connection you make to a remote server can potentially be snooped upon.

Actually, a root dns server being hijacked is a bit extreme, but it is a lot easier for your data to be compromised. It only takes one compromised network on the route between the two parties(or the network of one of the parties themselves), and a mitm(man in the middle) attack is possible.

With the vast amount of botnets and compromised drone computers out there these days, it becomes more and more likely that you stumble upon a compromised network, and potentially make your data available to unauthorized parties.

Very few applications still use encryption these days. Only the most sensitive information is encrypted usually.

But data that doesn't seem sensitive at first sight can still be harmful if combined with (lots) of other data. Identity thieves are especially crafty at that kind of thing.

One reason you don't see as much (https) encrypted websites on the web as you should is because of a limitation in the https protocol: only one https domain name per ip address is possible. (eg, currently you can't have donationcoder.com and codycoins.com on the same IP, both using https). This is just one of many examples of how our current infrastructure is not built for the vast amount of threats that are present on the web these days.

So what are you doing to make your internet-enabled applications, web-applications, and websites ready for the remainder of the 21st century?

To conclude, a little scary quote from the article:

So the operators of such bogus name servers could operate for a very long time, providing correct answers or incorrect ones as they saw fit. They could log your requests to determine your interests and censor the ones they didn't like. In general, they could engage in all sorts of mischief, ranging from very targeted ("let's get this one individual or organization") to very wide-ranging ("let's blow away .com today").

309

Developer's Corner / Re: OpenSSL Vulnerability?

« on: May 17, 2008, 03:59 PM »

And here is an exploit for it.
Run it on your system and see what you get.
I don't have any debian based systems to test it on though.

310

Developer's Corner / Re: Forking in Open Source Projects - Debate

« on: May 16, 2008, 08:17 PM »

Forking is just a result from a natural desire of developers to implement their own wishes into a project if the main branch is unwilling to do so. If you license your project under the GNU GPL, any forks will have to be released under the same license. Therefore you can freely backport any useful development back into your program. I see forks only as a positive thing, broadening the software choices.

311

General Software Discussion / Re: Linux Shootout: 7 Desktop Distros Compared (InformationWeek)

« on: May 16, 2008, 04:23 AM »

It isn't worth their valuable time.  To that end, the UI interface IS the deal-breaker.

If they don't have time they shouldn't even consider using GNU/Linux. It is vastly different from Windows in every single way, no matter how hard these distros try to make it familiar/similar.

These people will eventually end up switching back anyway, because once they inevitably stumble on something different, they'll be stuck, get frustrated, and switch back to Windows, and maybe make some silly post on some forum on how Linux sucks.

Use GNU/Linux out of passion, out of interest in technology, out of love for tinkering, or because you like the philosophy, whatever... but whatever you do, do NOT use it if you think you can be productive without learning a completely new way of doing EVERYTHING. 
This is going to take TIME.

I don't care how I 'sound'. I know it's not the 'hip' thing to say. I'm merely being realistic here. If all you've ever used is Windows, and you want to switch but don't have time to relearn everything, forget it. Stick to Windows.

While these reviews may help people gain technological interest in GNU/Linux, they do it in the wrong way IMO. You're not going to gain happy users by pretending everything is 'easy' when making the switch, and misguiding/misinforming people on what makes a 'good' distro.

312

Living Room / Re: Pirating abandoned content?

« on: May 15, 2008, 06:40 PM »

Wouldn't it be more fun if you could donate to the author for each ebook you read of him/her?
Unfortunately everything is so much more complicated with publishers etc...
But think of it, if you were able to donate to an author directly, you could still pay for any out-of-print books you find on the web if you wish so. Maybe some book authors should start putting some paypal buttons on their websites. (or subscribe to DC so we can send them codycredits)

313

Living Room / Re: What's Your Favorite Smilie?

« on: May 14, 2008, 02:25 AM »

Call me boring and old fashioned but I'm no fan of graphical smiley's. I prefer their textual equivalents. These I use most frequently:

:)
:p
;)
:P
:D
:(

314

Living Room / Re: An idea for the forum regarding disclosure

« on: May 13, 2008, 11:55 PM »

Try to make it visible but not annoying.
A pop-up would be in the annoying category.
Perhaps a checkbox people have to click saying "I agree to disclose my affiliation with products when i post about them" when people sign up for the forum or something, and make it stand out from the rest of the signup formalities.

315

General Software Discussion / Re: Linux Shootout: 7 Desktop Distros Compared (InformationWeek)

« on: May 08, 2008, 08:46 PM »

DC does reviews!

Yeah!   

316

Living Room / Re: Winamp 5.53 Release

« on: May 08, 2008, 10:26 AM »

I think that a minimal install might be able to run in such an old horse, at least I didn't see a noticeable surge in resource consumption when I upgraded from 2.x to 5.x on my old PIII. It may be a different story with newer versions, though.

I tried it, and >2.9 would run very noticeably slower on a pentium 133.
Dont forget that a pentium III is still waaaaaaaaay newer than a pentium I at 133MHz so you probably wouldn't notice it

317

General Software Discussion / Re: Your fav' audio CD burner?

« on: May 08, 2008, 04:02 AM »

With this said, I don't agree with you. They don't all handle every job equally good - some are experts on 'this' but not so fantastic on 'that'.

I never implied they all handle every job equally good. I was merely trying to understand. I don't really burn enough cd's to be too so critical/picky about my cd burning software. The metadata was a good example.

318

General Software Discussion / Re: Your fav' audio CD burner?

« on: May 07, 2008, 10:42 PM »

I raised an eyebrow when I saw the title to this post...

I didn't know there were applications just for audio cd burning.
Usually I think of cd recording software as an all-in-one type of thing.

On windows I stick with older (pre-bloatware) versions of Nero.
On Gnu/Linux k3b is pretty good when you want a GUI.

I'm not sure why anyone would want an application that only burns audio cd's and nothing else..
Anyone care to bring me up-to-date on that one?

319

General Software Discussion / Re: Linux Shootout: 7 Desktop Distros Compared (InformationWeek)

« on: May 07, 2008, 10:32 PM »

What I don't understand about these reviews is that they judge whatever is the "best" Gnu+Linux distribution by whichever is most intuitive(to them) to use, and since intuitive is pretty much a different way of saying familiar, it ends up being which distribution is most like Microsoft's Windows operating systems, meaning, GUI for everything etc...

Call me crazy, but what makes a particular Gnu+Linux distribution 'better' is not how many GUI tools it has to configure what you can already configure in the first place via text configuration. So what does make a Gnu/Linux distro better?

• Package management, package management and package management!!
  
  This is very important as it will determine which packages/programs you can install. While the number of packages in the package management system is important (more packages = more programs you can install without having to manually install, which is always more maintainable) it's flexibility and ability to customize the packages you install is also important. This is why I usually prefer package management which compiles from source. This allows you to enable/disable specific compile-time options which may not be enabled in the default binary builds of a binary-only package management system. Ubuntu wins in terms of pure number of packages available, followed closely by gentoo. As far as customization and flexibility goes, I'd say Gentoo wins by a long shot.
  
  
• /etc layout, filesystem layout in general, ease of customization.
  
  A tidy and logical organisation of configuration files, init scripts, etc,.. is important as it will save you time configuring things. From all distro's I have tried, I'd say gentoo wins again. It's layout is very logical and has great toolsets for customizing init scripts etc...
  
  
• Userland utilities
  
  Command-line configuration and helper utilities shipped with the distro.
  
  
• Updates
  
  How long after some vulnerability is discovered in a package will you get the patched version in your package management's repositories? VERY important.
  
  
• Documentation
  
  I find gentoo's documentation wonderful, it has wiki pages with install guides for about any linux application out there, and their installation manual is easy to follow even if you don't know much about linux, despite what people say about it being for 'expert' users, yes, you do have to type in a lot of manual commands, but it is all explained in a very understandable and readable way in their documentation, and in the end is a great way to learn more about the way Gnu/Linux works under the hood.
  Ubuntu's documentation is also fairly good, but I find it harder sometimes to find information about the more advanced subjects in the ubuntu docs.
  

I'm sure there's plenty more points that one could come up with that make a Gnu/Linux distribution "better", and maybe I'm a bit biased towards Gentoo, but that's not the point. The point I'm making is that there's more than just familiarity and eye candy to what makes a 'good' Gnu/Linux distro. Things which almost every single one of these reviews totally ignore.

Lots of them also focus on hardware support and how things work "out of the box". Don't even get me started on how ludicrous that is. All Gnu/Linux distributions have the same amount of hardware support because they all use the Linux kernel. Hardware support is in the Kernel, not the distro. The only thing a distro can do is things like automatic detection. Having installed countless distro's and compiled plenty of custom kernels, I'd say, once you got it down, it won't take you more than 5 minutes to compile the correct modules for your hardware. This is completely irrelevant. Install and configure any recent kernel for ANY distro and it will support everything your "best" linux distro supports.
Whatever works out of the box will only save you a little bit of time in the beginning. It does NOT make any difference in what makes a good distro imo.

320

Living Room / Re: Winamp 5.53 Release

« on: May 07, 2008, 10:02 PM »

May I ask why? If you say because of AOL I will lose respect for your opinion in this matter.

Not at all, just because any higher versions started hogging resources and including in my opinion unnecessary features for an mp3 player application such as video playing etc...
Anything higher than 2.9x didn't barely run on my p133MHz. Even on modern computers I prefer 2.9x just because I don't like wasting resources. It may seem insignificant with modern hardware, but I think it matters.

321

Living Room / Re: Winamp 5.53 Release

« on: May 07, 2008, 08:03 PM »

2.95 was the last good version of winamp in my book.
Still available via oldversion.com thank goodness.

322

General Software Discussion / Re: WTF SourceForge

« on: April 30, 2008, 07:06 PM »

All SF sites were down (including slashdot and freshmeat) due to a routing issue.
See relevant slashdot post here.

323

Official Announcements / Re: DC Server Accessibility Problem - April 24th 2008

« on: April 25, 2008, 02:43 PM »

It turned out to have been caused by fiber cable cuts in Texas.

324

General Software Discussion / Re: Vista Aero vs. Linux Compiz

« on: April 22, 2008, 06:59 AM »

I disagree with Enlightenment being attractive, certain parts are, others suck hard, but it's true that it's quite light, it reminds me of LiteStep, not only for its low footprint, but also the general look.

e16 is relatively light, especially compared to gnome and kde today (e16 was considered heavy at the time when it was released). However their newest e17 which is and has been in pre-alpha since forever can get quite heavy, though many of the components can be disabled to make it as light as e16.

With e17 they wanted to redesign the concept of a 'window manager', and they developed a system to draw widgets/windows in a manner similar to Macromedia(or i should now say Adobe) Flash.
The new dr17 is very modular and with all features and plug-ins enabled i'm pretty sure it can be as heavy as - if not heavier than gnome.
If you're thinking of trying out dr17, you'll probably be disappointed because since they haven't even reached beta yet, it's full of bugs, random crashes, and missing functionality. It has been in development since 2000. 8 years and counting, I wonder if they can beat duke nukem forever...

325

Living Room / Re: Earthquake

« on: April 18, 2008, 10:19 PM »

From wikipedia:

In February 2007 the Red Savina chili was displaced in Guinness World Records as the hottest chili in the world by the Naga Jolokia pepper. The Red Savina held the record from 1994 until 2006.[3]

.. cool.. i want one