Evil copyright industry
OK. That’s it. I’ve had it. The film and music industry is Evil. Plain Evil. You know the bad guys from The Exorcist? Well, those are nothing compared to that freakin’ copyright industry.
Author Archives: Serge van Ginderachter
Gentoo Linux
Build your own excitement. Piece. By. Piece.
Forward Confirmed Reverse DNS
Forward Confirmed Reverse DNS (FCrDNS explains an important point on how DNS should be properly configured for mail servers.
Unreadable CD
Today our guys on the helpdesk asked whether it was possible to retrieve a file from backup, dated july 2003. Then, there was no schedule to keep backups separate for more than two years. Even nowadays most small companies don’t keep backups more than a couple of weeks or months, not to speak of one year back.
Computer Networks
Bought myself a geek book last week, which according to Wouter Verhelst is the best computer-related book ever. As some other people also acknowledged me that and I got good impressions with reviews, I got out and bought the Dutch version.
How a company policy begins
Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana
on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will
go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he
touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water.
Symantec antivirus stops production
Last week I witnessed an upgrade of the Symantec Anti-virus client to version 10, at a major customer. This company represents a Benelux division of a multinational who sels fast moving consumer goods. Picture a big American, Fortune 500 company.
After a period of testing several standard desktop deployments, the team involved with this upgrade decided to effectively deploy the new client, starting at the local premises at the Belgium production plant, from which they operated. Setup the server, push the clients.
Sony DRM Installs a Rootkit
For whom still thinks DRM ain’t no problem, slashdot reports how Sony DRM Installs a Rootkit: SysInternals.com guru Mark Russinovich has a detailed investigation of a rootkit from Sony Music. It’s installed with a DRM-encumbered music CD, Van Zant’s “Get Right with the Man”. (Mmmm, delicious irony!) The rootkit introduces several security holes into the […]
Mandrake Linux
Linux has never been more ready for the desktop.
On the problems of information archiving
Everybody watching CNN uses a lot of technologies first developed for, and as a result of, space exploration. The scientific data and engineering know-how collected in those first space missions are extremely valuable knowledge that should remain available forever.
Unfortunately, storing valuable data inside computers is no guarantee of its availability. Did you know that scientists “couldn’t read magnetic tapes from the 1976 Viking landings on Mars?… With the data in an unknown format, they had to track down printouts and hire students to retype everything.” That was quite a waste of money, wasn’t it? This situation occurred less than 30 years ago, and it was able to be fixed because paper copies were available, a format everybody could read.