Freakin Philosophy paper… I have to get 3 pages out of what we’ve talked about since Jan. 30th. BUT WE TALK ABOUT THE SAME DAMN THING EVERY SINGLE DAY! Time to hone my BS skills…

Just so you know, Hershey’s Kisses taste like Kelly Yost and Piers Anthony. Every time I eat them I think about working at Chapters Bookshop when it was still on rt. 58 across from McDonald’s, listening to the Kelly Yost piano tapes and reading “The Incarnations of Immortality” series by Anthony. We had Kisses out for the customers, but all the workers were addicted to them after a few days working there.

As you could probably tell from the previous post, I’m a Linux fan. I’ve been using it for years off and on, and I’ve been getting more and more into it. I decided to slowly start moving away from Windows. Downloading Fedora Core 2 Test 1 as we speak actually.

Anyway, I just reinstalled Windows because it was being slow doing everything, so I decided to take a different direction with this installation.

AIM 5.2 with AIMutation
MSN Messenger with Messenger Plus!
ICQ 2003b with allicq.com banner remover
Yahoo! Messenger
(note: I’d use gAIM if the file transfer would work, and I’d use Trillian if it just didn’t annoy me for whatever reason. They can both connect to all 4 major IM protocols and gAIM connects to a lot more. gAIM kicks lots of ass in plain messaging, and its open source, which I’m all about now. I’d suggest you try it out if you don’t use file transfer much, but, especially with MSN, I use file transfer all the time with Aaron of SNP Software (where I beta test). So that’s out. Unfortunately.)
Anyway…
Dashboard, Prospect, Vista, and Edit This!, all from SNP Software.
OpenOffice.org – much more lightweight than MS Office, about as useful, and Open Source!
Foobar- because it does what it should- accurately plays music. Doesn’t sound as GOOD as other players, necessarily, but reproduces it more accurately.
Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird- I could rave for hours about why these are better programs than any other browser or mail client, but I won’t. If you try them, you’ll know.
WinRar archiver
Semagic Live Journal Client

Anyway, my point here is that I’m using more lightweight or open source software now, because I’ve gotten way past the “If it doesn’t look good it’s not as good” stage.

If anyone knows any open source software for computer security, Flash development, web development, image manipulation, pdf creation, or anything else handy, let me know, because, as I said, I’m trying to gradually move away from Windows, but I figure finding cross platform open source apps that work IN Windows is the best way to go.

I’ve been getting more and more into computers in general, and this makes me think… If I’d stayed with Computer Science I’d be out now and have a career. I don’t enjoy Journalism at all… I didn’t think I could get through the Physics classes for one, and I was kinda sick of coding programs for two, so I decided to change. I’ve always liked writing, but English wasn’t directed toward writing really, not for my purposes anyway, so I talked to the head advisor of the College of Arts and Sciences, and she said that Journalism might be what I wanted, so I talked to the head of the Media Studies department and he told me what it was all about and I was won over, because at the time I was still in the stage where I thought I could single-handedly change the world. Everyone goes through that I think… but now I regret it. I don’t want to do anything with Journalism when I get out of college, it just doesn’t interest me at all. So I have a bit of a quandry. What I think I’ll do is just finish it out, work wherever until I can get my certifications in my spare time (hopefully Microsoft, A+, and RedHat certified eventually) and then I can go on to bigger and better things. I’d like to eventually get MCSE certified (once I re-learn how to program) and if they have some sort of Apple certification I’d like to do that too. I don’t know what training you have to have to do tech support for major companies, but I know that after I’d been using a computer for about 6 months I knew how to do more than the tech support guy I talked to from Compaq. I had to practically walk him through how to do something, I wish I could remember what… anyway, that’s my rant.

Anyway, I’m off to write a paper for Philosophy, really the only interesting class I like right now.

Apparently the source code to an early build of Microsoft’s Codename Whistler Operating System (the OS that eventually became Windows XP) has leaked out onto the internet. [link] So this is what an MS spokesperson said:

From the BetaNews article:
“A source code leak would present multiple problems for Microsoft,” explained Wilcox. “First, the loss of valuable intellectual property worth hundreds of millions in development cost. Second, hackers could look for and exploit new security vulnerabilities. That could create credibility loss for Microsoft, as some businesses question the security of Windows. Finally, Windows NT and 2000 are the foundation of Windows XP.”

A comment posted by “thatwaltguy”:
“Second, hackers could look for and exploit new security vulnerabilities.

Let’s rewrite that.

Second, hackers could provide a much more reliable source for patches and bug fixes.”

This could be either very good or very bad for us and very good or very bad for MS.
On the one hand, there could be an operating system coming from the source that l337 hax0rz develop, unofficially officially codenamed “Windows XFree” by Katie. Granted, it wasn’t ALL the code, it was just a little bit of it. Only 13.5 million lines of code, as opposed to the 35-50 million rumored to be contained in the Windows 2000 source. So it’s only about 1/2 or 1/3 of the operating system… but it might be enough, to develop a Win32 operating system. Granted, I assume anyone found using it would get into some serious trouble…

Another possibility, CRACKERs, not hackers, may find new security holes and exploit them, leaving any windows user crippled and making MS lose credibility. My personal favorite possibility, because it would make Open Source development even just a little more mainstream. Bad for Windows users, good for anyone else.
OK let me rephrase that, I DON’T want every windows system to be crippled. I wouldn’t mind MS losing face though.

Could also lead to MS cracking down on any security holes that do exist, leading to a more stable Windows, and unfortunately, higher credibility for Microsoft. Good for Windows users, bad for anyone else.

Linux is believed to be on 2.8% of all computers out there, right behind Apple, at 3%, with Microsoft in the lead with, I imagine, most of the rest of the 94%. This could be just the thing that Linux and the open source community in general needs to get a little boost toward mainstream. Even if nothing happens of security holes, the fact that the source has leaked shows some incompetence on Microsoft’s part. The fact that there is a huge possibility of new security holes being found could make IT businesses make the switch because they can’t afford a security breach.

Meh. It’s all speculation now, but who knows what could happen? I seriously doubt anyone witll make an OS out of it, but the thought of new security holes (that we all know windows is full of) being found is scary… look at what people have found in the past year with blaster and mydoom, WITHOUT SOURCE!

So after all that, all I can say is switch to linux. *L*

-Travis-

You have to check out the moneyburger site now. It’s very very updated. Download some stuff, or get a few cds