Recent Posts

1976

Living Room / Re: 404 - Page Not Found

« Last post by JavaJones on October 18, 2006, 09:06 PM »

Hehe, great site! Good find.

- Oshyan

1977

General Software Discussion / Re: The Vista "kernel access" controversy - what does DC think?

« Last post by JavaJones on October 18, 2006, 09:03 PM »

Lots of good, interesting points here. I think we're getting a bit off track with the discussions of signed drivers, etc. but those *are* very important considerations and additional factors in the overall Vista picture.

I agree with the majority of you that the signed driver requirement is a bad thing, especially for small companies, as long as the actual verification process is still costly. But I say don't allow unsigned drivers necessarily (or if you do so, make it really a pain in the butt), rather just make the verification process cheaper. OR perhaps better yet provide 2 levels or types of verification - 1 security-related and 1 stability/functionality related (the latter being the major focus of the current verification as far as I know). This allows drivers to be made that make no guarantee of *stability*, but can at least be verified as not being a *security risk*. I would think such a verification process would be much less rigorous and thus costly because it is much less system-dependent. You can analyze a given driver and test on a limited subset of machines and generally see if it poses a security problem, whereas testing on a wide variety of hardware is much more important for stability and compatibility verification.

Anyway I'd like to get back to the "access the Vista kernel" thing though (continue discussion about driver signing, etc. if you want of course - maybe fork the thread if necessary). Neil, I'd be a lot less suspicious of this from the A/V vendor side if there were more unanimous outcry about it, and if the firms I actually respect had a problem with it. But as is, like I said, it's mostly the firms I don't like and who I think make poor products anyway (that don't protect that well *as it is*) that are crying for this level of access. Frankly I don't want Mcafee or Symantic digging around in my kernel! The problem is you can't just allow access to only them, either. It has to be basically opened up for anyone with "the right credentials" to access. That seems like a huge and unnecessary hole to me.

As for legitimate reasons, you speculate they have some, but I've not heard of any. I'm no expert, but from where I stand MS's arguments make at least as much sense as the A/V vendors - IMO a good deal more in fact. The only thing that gives me pause about it is MS caving so quickly, but I think the antitrust stuff, especially in the EU, is playing heavily into that, so the picture is not entirely clear without that taken into account.

Ultimately I guess the question is "Will this make users of Vista more secure overall?" and I honestly don't feel confident that the answer is yes.

- Oshyan

1978

General Software Discussion / Re: Jetico firewall tops in "leaktest"?

« Last post by JavaJones on October 18, 2006, 08:53 PM »

True enough mouser, but it's a difficult thing to really take fairly into account. Because there are two major possibilities with home users - the people most important to protect (even if one of us here gets a virus we at least know how to deal with it and will resolve it much quicker than if the average person gets one - damage control is a big part of what's important here, not just prevention). Either a home user will just use the defaults - in which case it's extremely important to know what those defaults are - or they will simply not use the product at all (akin to just saying "yes" to let everything through). Determining a tolerance threshold for the average person might help in the consideration, but it's all still a bit fuzzy.

These things are really vital to consider because I for one am more interested in what to recommend to others rather than what to use myself - that to me is most important because those people aren't as capable of making informed decisions on their own. So putting this info in perspective - that perspective specifically - is important for me at least.

- Oshyan

1979

Developer's Corner / Re: Let's Make us some Games!

« Last post by JavaJones on October 18, 2006, 08:49 PM »

Ok, first off I think it should be entirely 2D, like Diablo and older versions of Civ. This cuts down on resource use and system requirements.

Second, I think it should be started with the civ-like component, since I envision the diablo-like components being essentially spawned from that whenever a battle happens. You'll want the basic civ battle decision system in place anyway for those who don't want to diablo it, so this is a sensible starting place. Put in a simple resource collection and domination game (there are already a number of Flash-based examples, although none come readily to mind in URL form just now), and then you can build hack-and-slash battles and ultimately perhaps multiplayer on top of that.

I think you begin with just a few resource types, a very limited technology tree (if any - probably make it static, not research-based), and a smaller world map. Have limited unit types (maybe 5 typs of units), limited weapons, etc. Basically start everything small and limited, but try to get as many in there as possible.

Get it all setup and then work on balancing once it's functional.

Use publicly available textures and art at least as placeholders while prototyping. Keep it in prototyping phase, including prototype art, until you really want it to be played a lot (i.e. when it's a bit more mature).

Those are my thoughts for now. Unfortunately I don't have any Flash dev experience. Another possibility would be Java btw.

- Oshyan

1980

Developer's Corner / Re: Let's Make us some Games!

« Last post by JavaJones on October 18, 2006, 04:19 PM »

Adding multiplayer makes it a lot more feasible and cool, from a gameplay standpoint. The only major issues then are mostly technical - working out the multiplayer and whatnot. Doing a game like the one you mention in simple Flash probably wouldn't be too hard, at least to get a good start on it. But once you start getting into multiplayer I think it'd become rather more difficult. On the plus side of that however the "dungeon explorers" (diablo style) could be doing their thing pretty independently, not even necessarily interacting with other players, while the "kingdom masters" (civ style) would be turn-based, so simple message passing could be used to update the view of each client. Not bad as far as difficulty of programming I would think. But once you got into semi-realtime and if you wanted for example the hack-and-slashers to be able to work with each other or whatever, then you'd probably want to go to a dedicated client of some kind (stand-alone), or a very sophisticated browser component (I *have* seen stuff of that level of sophistication).

The only other thing to deal with then is making sure you have a good balance of player types. What if most people want to play hack-and-slash? Are there enough missions for them? Missions must be generated by the civ-style players, so if they're not doing enough battles, then there may not be. You'd have to spawn/allow AI players both to get more missions for the diablo players and to ensure enough opponents for the civ players. Counting on there always being enough players at either level would be a mistake. Also what if one player or another doesn't finish their game/turn? You have to have a cut-off point where the AI takes over. Presumably the diablo players would have to complete a dungeon/battle for the civ player to see a battle conclusion screen (or they die and the civ player sees a failure) - but what if the diablo player disconnects or just idles in the dungeon without completing? You have to be able to take it over with AI. To reduce load it'd probably just be a dice roll based on a few simple factors (how well the diablo player has done so far in the dungeon perhaps).

Oh wait, one more thing. There's the social element of it too. Not so much pairing people up with other people who are friends, but at the least you need a mechanism to regulate and distribute players to each other, since the civ and diablo players are complementary and basically a team. So how do you determine who gets the best fighter in the game? Does he get to pick who he plays with? Probably. But then you get a fairly small elite who will probably dominate the game together, so you have to deal with that. Making assignment more random would solve that, and to some degree the diablo players might not care since they get to keep fighting almost no matter what, but it would probably still be annoying for people not to be able to choose teammates. If you made games somewhat short, so no one could gain a long-term upper hand, that might solve some of the problems.

Anyway, lots to think about. Game design is fun.

- Oshyan

1981

Living Room / Re: What a bunch of MacMuffins ...

« Last post by JavaJones on October 18, 2006, 04:10 PM »

Hehe, I'll go with that.

- Oshyan

1982

General Software Discussion / Re: The Vista "kernel access" controversy - what does DC think?

« Last post by JavaJones on October 18, 2006, 04:09 PM »

Er, ok yes they'll find a way to bypass, but is it better to provide an actual API to do so (that ostensibly only A/V companies have access to, but yeah right!), just so the few A/V companies that are complaining about this can do as they please? The likelihood is *someone* will have to patch this. MS is already comitted to monthly security updates, so it is certainly likely they would be able to provide a patch for any discovered vulnerabilties. Maybe not quite as fast as the A/V companies, but it's arguable the holes would be smaller and less visible without such API's available.

I dunno, the whole thing just seems suspicious. I'm not so much interested in whether MS comply but in talking about whether they *should*. Perhaps none of us know enough about this to comment with authority, but I do note that the few companies who have officially complained are some of the ones I respect *least* in the field of security. Mcaffee and Symantec in particular are pretty far down on my list of security products to recommend. Meanwhile on the other side, companies who explicitly say this is *not* necessary, you have Sophos and Kaspersky Labs (I think), two of the more well-respected and still reliable companies, but also perhaps not coincidentally two of the smaller ones (well behind Symantec and Mcaffee anyway). So it seems to me there is more going on here than it appears, at least on the face of these company's requests.

Neil: Locking people out of the kernel is a pretty low-level security measure to protect against a relatively few very specific attacks. Most viruses *do not* alter the kernel at present, and A/V providers shouldn't necessarily have to either. MS already said they would allow companies to replace their warnings and whatnot with their own version - that seems to be enough to satisfy the needs you outline (which I agree are very legitimate). All I can really say to that in closing is that from what I've seen 3rd party companies have historically always been responsible for *complicating* the security and protection scenarious, not simplifying them (albeit they do generally provide more protection than MS's defaults). So I'm not sure I really see your point. I agree that is basically what these companies are arguing, but I'm just not convinced at all that they need this level of access to provide their services adequately.

- Oshyan

1983

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Ultra CPU Monitor

« Last post by JavaJones on October 18, 2006, 03:57 PM »

You can monitor every item of the system monitor of windows in your taskbar as tray icon.

Oho! That's really cool. Great app.

- Oshyan

1984

General Software Discussion / The Vista "kernel access" controversy - what does DC think?

« Last post by JavaJones on October 18, 2006, 01:58 PM »

Here's the latest in the month-long controversy surrounding Microsoft's unwillingness to allow 3rd parties (such as antivirus providers) to access the Vista kernel:

McAfee said Wednesday that Microsoft has failed to keep its promises, and has not delivered the necessary code and instructions to access the core of the Windows Vista operating system. Microsoft promised the European Commission it would do so last week.

The company is the second in as many days to claim Microsoft is not providing the APIs needed by its security partners. On Tuesday, Sunbelt Software called the company's announcement about sharing APIs was a "red herring" to fool the press.

http://www.betanews....vide_Code/1161180764

Now the first time I read about this a few weeks ago my first thought was the same as Microsoft's position - if A/V providers can't access the kernel due to protections, shouldn't that protection be kept in place to prevent issues, not opened up potentially causing them? Sure you could argue there are bound to be vulnerabilities in it, but if the problem is something Symantec can solve with downloadable updates, then it's certainly something MS could solve in the same way. It seems to me then the proper way to deal with this would be for companies like Sunbelt, etc. to report any discovered vulnerabilities to MS for fixing, *not* to force MS to open things up to potentially more issues. Seems like Mcaffee and the rest are just crying over sour grapes. MS takes steps to increase security and it *may* slightly hurt their business model - must we now be mandated to insecurity just to protect a company's "right to profit"? This reminds me of the RIAA.

I did some searching here and didn't see much discussion this issue, but it's something I'm really interested to hear other (non-Betanews - e.g. informed and reasonable ) opinions on. So, thoughts and comments? Is MS in the right here; are Mcaffee and the rest just being bullies to protect their business models? Or is MS just trying to provide false hope of real security and we *need* 3rd parties to go poking around in the kernel to make it truly secure?

- Oshyan

1985

Living Room / Re: An alternative view on VISTA activation and WGA ...

« Last post by JavaJones on October 18, 2006, 01:48 PM »

Oho! Interesting concept. And I too am surprised why I hadn't thought of it before. There's certainly a lot of fun potential disasters and/or paradigm shifts on the way. I await them all eagerly.

- Oshyan

1986

Living Room / Re: Windows Vista Pronunciation

« Last post by JavaJones on October 18, 2006, 01:44 PM »

Fista, HAHAHAAH! That's brilliant.

- Oshyan

1987

General Software Discussion / Re: Jetico firewall tops in "leaktest"?

« Last post by JavaJones on October 18, 2006, 01:43 PM »

Comodo's results on this test were not very impressive on the version they tested: 35.2% for Comodo compared to 85.2% for Jetico and 74% for Outpost and Look N Stop. Version tested was 1.1.005 though. They should be doing a new test soon, including Outpost 4 and hopefully Jetico 2 beta.

A good firewall should catch one program calling another, and that should be an infrequent enough thing as to not be *too* bothersome to the end user. If it's happening a lot for people, perhaps they have too much crappy software on their system.

- Oshyan

1988

Living Room / Re: What a bunch of MacMuffins ...

« Last post by JavaJones on October 18, 2006, 01:38 PM »

Erm, isn't that virtually the same story I posted above you?

- Oshyan

1989

Living Room / Re: (Defend the) Final Fortress - Flash Game of the Day

« Last post by JavaJones on October 18, 2006, 01:34 PM »

Ended too soon for me. Ah well. I did play that other "fortress" game a few months back for like 2 hours and got really ridiculously far, but there was no end to it which was kind of annoying. You need a balance IMO - to be able to reach the end, but not too soon. I know with this one they're trying to get you to buy the full thing though.

- Oshyan

1990

Developer's Corner / Re: Let's Make us some Games!

« Last post by JavaJones on October 18, 2006, 01:32 PM »

Ah, interesting concept. I like it. So basically Diablo-ish with an RTS twist? I'm sure that's been done, but it sounds like a cool gameplay dynamic, especially if the two aspects are reasonably well balanced. Of course the issue with mixing genres is always that fans of one may not necessarily be fans of another, so although they may enjoy half of the game, the other half may piss them off. Which is why I've always wanted to have basic AI in games to take care of unwanted aspects for people *optionally*. So in your proposed game for example, let's say someone doesn't really care about the Civ aspects and just wants to do the adventuring Diablo parts. When it comes time to do their Civ stuff they can just say "auto-roll" or "let the computer do it" (or even set this as a consistent setting for every turn or whatever) and then the computer does a reasonable (if not exceptional) job and they get to go fight some more. Obviously if anyone wants to master the game they have to get good at both parts, but the *option* of playing either or both is really great.

- Oshyan

1991

Living Room / Re: MouserMon - a silly tool that lets you know when the Boss is/not on the forum

« Last post by JavaJones on October 18, 2006, 01:25 PM »

Hehe, cute. Good idea!

- Oshyan

1992

General Software Discussion / Re: Jetico firewall tops in "leaktest"?

« Last post by JavaJones on October 18, 2006, 02:28 AM »

Ah, I hadn't heard about v2 becoming shareware. I imagine it is so secure because it doesn't let *anything* through without notifying the user. So, very secure, but a pain in the butt. Outpost also scored well however, and additionally on another test on the site that Jetico *didn't* score very well on. So Outpost may be the best of both worlds, once they work out the 4.x issues. Presumably 4.x will perform better on the "leaktests" too since it has functionality specifically built for doing so (according to that page).

- Oshyan

1993

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Special Folders in the Desktop NameSpace

« Last post by JavaJones on October 18, 2006, 02:20 AM »

He has a point you know. And I rather like this idea too! Anyone? I hereby pledge $5 to the cause!

- Oshyan

1994

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: DotNetNuke Keep Alive Utility

« Last post by JavaJones on October 18, 2006, 02:19 AM »

So remind me why anyone would want to do a CMS in .NET then?

- Oshyan

1995

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Firefox, Internet Explorer switch font button/selector for printing

« Last post by JavaJones on October 18, 2006, 02:18 AM »

I wonder if you could do this with Opera's "styles" - a feature I haven't played with at all actually. I feel fairly sure it was designed for things just like this. Of course that doesn't solve the problem for FF.

- Oshyan

1996

Living Room / Re: See a map of number and location of earthquakes in the last week

« Last post by JavaJones on October 18, 2006, 02:11 AM »

Hoorah for mashups! Nice reference.

- Oshyan

1997

Living Room / Re: A whole new world...

« Last post by JavaJones on October 18, 2006, 02:09 AM »

Oh my holy god. OK, as a service to others who may read this after me, before I die I warn you - don't, whatever you do, don't give in to curiousity and listen. It's god awful! I mean really well and truly!

Oh god. 

- Oshyan

1998

General Software Discussion / Jetico firewall tops in "leaktest"?

« Last post by JavaJones on October 18, 2006, 02:03 AM »

I was surprised to not see much discussion of this test site or Jetico as a firewall, though I know some people here use it. According to this website Jetico passes the greatest number of their "leak tests". Interesting results. Even more so because Jetico is free! Anyone here user Jetico and have some thoughts?

http://www.firewalll...tester.com/tests.php

- Oshyan

1999

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Now it's Paragon for FREE!

« Last post by JavaJones on October 18, 2006, 01:56 AM »

Ahhh yes, thanks for the clarification.

- Oshyan

2000

Living Room / Re: Social Networking Saved the Internet

« Last post by JavaJones on October 17, 2006, 11:45 PM »

Hmm. I'm a little dubious about the premise of ths, but it seems fairly well written and I like the challenge of its perspective. My questions are A: didn't the people participating in the great .com bubble also think they were "finally making the Internet useful for something/relevant/whatever" B: what's to say a similar crash won't happen with all this stuff and finally C: is there any statistics that could be checked or other actual comparative, analytical means that could be used to actually determine Internet "interest" in various periods of the past? Can we look at broadband adoption curves and plot them against Web 2.0 service introductions and popularity spikes? Who's gonna make me some pretty graphs?

- Oshyan