I'm baaaaaaack...

"Alan Street" <alan@nonono_irsi.com> wrote in message
news:240820030353527394%alan@nonono_irsi.com...

> "And for those saying they don't trust Microsoft to fix their
> systems, I have one question: If you don't trust this company, why did
> you give it your money? "

Soon as *anyone* comes up with a better way to run CAD/CAM software on a PC,
I am in.

Scott

In article <vkhlkgmb3lvb43@corp.supernews.com>, Scott
<scottk@localaccess.com.com> wrote:

€"Alan Street" <alan@nonono_irsi.com> wrote in message
€news:240820030353527394%alan@nonono_irsi.com...
€
€> "And for those saying they don't trust Microsoft to fix their
€> systems, I have one question: If you don't trust this company, why did
€> you give it your money? "
€
€Soon as *anyone* comes up with a better way to run CAD/CAM software on a PC,
€I am in.
€
€

http://www.eds.com/products/plm/unigraphics_nx/

Although it's not exactly a windows based product.

"Alan Street" <alan@nonono_irsi.com> wrote in message
news:240820030829219948%alan@nonono_irsi.com...

> http://www.eds.com/products/plm/unigraphics_nx/
>
> Although it's not exactly a windows based product.

And cheap too... did I mention that I work for a living?

Also, I work with too many common Windoz based systems, and have to be able
to read files in .dxf, .dwg, .ipt, .sat, .iges, .prt, .MC9, .MC8,
etc, ad nauseum, ad infinitum.

Scott

X-No-Archive: yes
On Sun, 24 Aug 2003 09:40:18 -0700, "Scott" <scottk@localaccess.com.com> wrote:
>And cheap too... did I mention that I work for a living?
>
>Also, I work with too many common Windoz based systems, and have to be able
>to read files in .dxf, .dwg, .ipt, .sat, .iges, .prt, .MC9, .MC8,
>etc, ad nauseum, ad infinitum.

Talk about cheap Scott. I'm still running Generic Cadd, and you
know what? Despite being a DOS program from the early 80's
XP runs it.

Don't know if you know the product. It was an economy version
of autocad. Trouble is, it was so good, autodesk was having trouble
selling autocad, autocad clients were downgrading to get at the
better ergonomics and features. Autodesk killed it, fired the
creators. http://www.cshull.demon.co.uk/new/cadgchome.html

Some years later, almost a decade IIRC, it is reborn as Visual
Cadd. Among the investors backing it's rebirth: B.G.

bullshark@scubadiving.com stopped playing nethack just long enough to say:
>X-No-Archive: yes
>On Sun, 24 Aug 2003 10:57:45 GMT, Alan Street <alan@nonono_irsi.com> wrote:
>
>>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Aug23.html
>
>I can't read the article, it mandates invasion of my privacy to access.

Eh?

-JimG

--
Jim Greenlee (jkg@cc.gatech.edu) You have the talent to make me feel
College of Computing like dirt. You use your talent to dig
Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA 30332 me under, and cover me with dirt.

> Talk about cheap Scott. I'm still running Generic Cadd, and you
> know what? Despite being a DOS program from the early 80's
> XP runs it.

One of my buds has a copy, and he does fine with it.

I see it sells for $495 now days: http://www.visualcadd.com/

Check this out: http://www.bobcad.com/

> Don't know if you know the product. It was an economy version
> of autocad. Trouble is, it was so good, autodesk was having trouble
> selling autocad, autocad clients were downgrading to get at the
> better ergonomics and features. Autodesk killed it, fired the
> creators. http://www.cshull.demon.co.uk/new/cadgchome.html

AutoCAD can be a real pain in the ass for most of my purposes, simply
because they made the platform to do so many things,
that gettting it configured to do one thing takes a lot of time. It also
sucks for 3D modeling, compared to Inventor or Solidworks.
Plus, they upgrade and obsolete the program so often that it just gets
rediculously expensive.

> Some years later, almost a decade IIRC, it is reborn as Visual
> Cadd. Among the investors backing it's rebirth: B.G.

B.G.???

I started out with APT and Compact, which we ran on a Schlumberger
proprietary bench (and I mean bench) from MDSI.

2 10" floppies, 2 5 1/2" floppies and a 256 with 16 kilobyte of RAM.

It went something like this:

define point 1, x1.5,y1.5,z0
define point 2, x2,y1.5,z0
define line 1, point1, point2, z0

Then, we would sign on to a timeshare down in Berzerkly and crunch what we
programmed, and run the mill programs with a pencil in the quill,
on a piece of paper, to "proof" the geometry. Of course, this was then run
on a 2.5 axis Slo7 (point to point only) with a pneumatic tape reader and a
pneumatic quill control for the 3rd axis, which had to be set up with hard
stops.

Scott

X-No-Archive: yes
On Mon, 25 Aug 2003 15:01:51 +0000 (UTC), Jim.Greenlee@cc.gatech.edu wrote:

>bullshark@scubadiving.com stopped playing nethack just long enough to say:
>>X-No-Archive: yes
>>On Sun, 24 Aug 2003 10:57:45 GMT, Alan Street <alan@nonono_irsi.com> wrote:
>>
>>>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Aug23.html
>>
>>I can't read the article, it mandates invasion of my privacy to access.
>
>Eh?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...2003Aug23.html

X-no-Archive: yes
On Mon, 25 Aug 2003 08:29:46 -0700, "Scott" <scottk@localaccess.nospam.com> wrote:
>> Some years later, almost a decade IIRC, it is reborn as Visual
>> Cadd. Among the investors backing it's rebirth: B.G.
>
>B.G.???

Billy Gates

"bullshark" <bullshark@scubadiving.com> wrote in message
news:vtbkkv8p16uufh471rrcmcl9ppvrnnulji@4ax.com...
> X-no-Archive: yes
> On Mon, 25 Aug 2003 08:29:46 -0700, "Scott"
<scottk@localaccess.nospam.com> wrote:
> >> Some years later, almost a decade IIRC, it is reborn as Visual
> >> Cadd. Among the investors backing it's rebirth: B.G.
> >
> >B.G.???
>
> Billy Gates

Ahhhh so.

Wonder if it crashes all the time now?

Scott

In article <7a7kkv4vijm2bp37plcde9npv3nvo48iea@4ax.com>,
bullshark@scubadiving.com says...
>
>X-No-Archive: yes
>On Sun, 24 Aug 2003 10:57:45 GMT, Alan Street <alan@nonono_irsi.com> wrote:
>
>>In article <vtpbkvorpbqq2imaui84komkf9ti3qhf4n@4ax.com>, bullshark
>><bullshark@scubadiving.com> wrote:
>>€Outlook XP won't touch any dangerous attachments.
>>€Old windows was soft. Modern Windows is as hard as they come,
>>
>>Perhaps not. Here's a somwwhat different opinion:
>>
>>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Aug23.html
>
>I can't read the article, it mandates invasion of my privacy to access.
>My view may be contrary. One of the reasons, is that I run multiple
>operating systems including linux. I don't think it's fair to compare
>the hardness of one OS to another unless equal amounts of care are
>applied to the installation of both.
>
>


Microsoft Windows: Insecure by Design


By Rob Pegoraro
The Washington Post
Sunday, August 24, 2003; Page F07


Between the Blaster worm and the Sobig virus, it's been a long two weeks for
Windows users. But nobody with a Mac or a Linux PC has had to lose a moment of
sleep over these outbreaks -- just like in earlier "malware" epidemics.

This is not a coincidence.

The usual theory has been that Windows gets all the attacks because almost
everybody uses it. But millions of people do use Mac OS X and Linux, a
sufficiently big market for plenty of legitimate software developers -- so why
do the authors of viruses and worms rarely take aim at either system?

Even if that changed, Windows would still be an easier target. In its default
setup, Windows XP on the Internet amounts to a car parked in a bad part of
town, with the doors unlocked, the key in the ignition and a Post-It note on
the dashboard saying, "Please don't steal this."

Not opening strange e-mail attachments helps to keep Windows secure (not to
mention it's plain common sense), but it isn't enough.

The vulnerabilities built in: Security starts with closing doors that don't
need to be open. On a PC, these doors are called "ports" -- channels to the
Internet reserved for specific tasks, such as publishing a Web page.

These ports are what network worms like Blaster crawl in through, exploiting
bugs in an operating system to implant themselves. (Viruses can't move on their
own and need other mechanisms, such as e-mail or floppy disks, to spread.) It's
canonical among security experts that unneeded ports should be closed.

Windows XP Home Edition, however, ships with five ports open, behind which run
"services" that serve no purpose except on a computer network.

"Messenger Service," for instance, is designed to listen for alerts sent out by
a network's owner, but on a home computer all it does is receive ads broadcast
by spammers. The "Remote Procedure Call" feature exploited by Blaster is, to
quote a Microsoft advisory, "not intended to be used in hostile environments
such as the Internet."

Jeff Jones, Microsoft's senior director for "trustworthy computing," said the
company was heeding user requests when XP was designed: "What customers were
demanding was network compatibility, application compatibility."

But they weren't asking for easily cracked PCs either. Now, Jones said,
Microsoft believes it's better to leave ports shut until users open the ones
they need. But any change to this dangerous default configuration will only
come in some future update.

In comparison, Mac OS X ships with zero ports open to the Internet.

The firewall that's down: A firewall provides further defense against worms,
rejecting dangerous Internet traffic.

Windows XP includes basic firewall software (it doesn't monitor outgoing
connections), but it's inactive unless you use its "wizard" software to set up
a broadband connection. Turning it on is a five-step task in Microsoft's
directions (www.microsoft.com/protect) that must be repeated for every Internet
connection on a PC.

Mac OS X's firewall isn't enabled by default either, but it's much simpler to
enable. Red Hat Linux is better yet: Its firewall is on from the start.

The patches that aren't downloaded: Windows is better than most operating
systems at easing the drudgery of staying on top of patches and bug fixes,
since it can automatically download them. A PC kept current with Microsoft's
security updates would have survived this week unscathed.

But hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Windows systems still got
Blasted, even though the patch to stop this worm was released weeks ago.

Part of this is users' fault. "Critical updates" are called that for a reason,
and it's foolish to ignore them. (The same goes for not installing and updating
anti-virus software.)

The chance of a patch wrecking Windows is dwarfed by the odds that an unpatched
PC will get hit. And for those saying they don't trust Microsoft to fix their
systems, I have one question: If you don't trust this company, why did you give
it your money?

Microsoft, however, must share blame, too. Windows XP's pop-up invitations to
use Windows Update must compete for attention with all of XP's other, less
important nags -- get a Passport account, take a tour of XP, hide unused
desktop icons, blah, blah, blah.

Microsoft's critical updates also are absent from retail copies of Windows XP,
forcing buyers into lengthy Windows Update sessions to get the fixes since last
year's Service Pack 1 upgrade. At least the version of XP provided to PC
manufacturers is refreshed once a quarter or so -- and Microsoft says it's
working to shorten this lag.

The lack of any limit to damage: Windows XP, by default, provides unrestricted,
"administrator" access to a computer. This sounds like a good thing but is not,
because any program, worms and viruses included, also has unrestricted access.

Yet administrator mode is the only realistic choice: XP Home's "limited
account," the only other option, doesn't even let you adjust a PC's clock.

Mac OS X and Linux get this right: Users get broad rights, but critical system
tasks require entering a password. If, for instance, a virus wants to install a
"backdoor" for further intrusions, you'll have to authorize it. This fail-safe
isn't immune to user gullibility and still allows the total loss or theft of
your data, but it beats Windows' anything-goes approach.

Because Microsoft blew off security concerns for so long, millions of PCs
remain unpatched, ready for the next Windows-transmitted disease. Microsoft
needs to do more than order up another round of "Protect Your PC" ads.

Here's a modest proposal: Microsoft should use some of its $49 billion hoard to
mail an update CD to anybody who wants one. At $3 a pop (a liberal estimate),
it could ship a disc to every human being on Earth -- and still have $30
billion in the bank.

Living with technology, or trying to? E-mail Rob Pegoraro at rob@twp.com.




© 2003 The Washington Post Company