Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Mail washer is a good one for emails (also free version) - allows messages to be checked on the ISP server and bounce your blacklist, supposedly to give impression your email address is not valid and thus removed from their spam list

One word:

LINUX!

Problem solved...

AMEN now if i just could have had some trainign in it. Oh wait thats right Microsoft bought the school system. Thats why i am stuck with this crap. Yankee you know of any good internet resources i could use to study LINUX I have dial up so text is good.

jtjf1 highlights the problem with Linux, it's not an ever person op system....

Don't get me wrong Linux has great merit in many ways... just saying it's probably beyond most mums and dads and home users

Macs, well yeah they're great too, although I personally wonder whether the extra cost of the system and software makes them really all that worthwhile....

Still these discussions have been thrashed around and around on forums all over the net and this thread is really devoted to ways and means of protecting a system from virii and spyware....

Perhaps the issues and relative merits of one operating system over another is best left for other forums or threads

Actually, Linux has gotten to the point where it truly is a no-brainer. The problem is you probably need Broadband -- There's a constant stream of updates to download. (A dedicated phone line running 24/7 would most likely make it tolerable...) Also, most games don't run on Linux, but who needs games when you've got Aquaponics?

Like a previous poster, I highly recommend Ubuntu. Even my non-technical wife can use it just fine -- she even figured out how to use the scanner on her own. (a first!)

It comes on a bootable live CD -- just pop in the disc and reboot, you can see if all your hardware works, give it a spin etc. If you want to go back to Windows, just remove the disc and reboot.

[edit]
jtjf1, the Ubuntu Forum is very similar to this one in terms of it being chock full of friendly, helpful, knowledgeable people. All the help you could need...

My work uses equal numbers of windows, mac and ubuntu systems - we get the least trouble with the ubuntu machines, then the macs, and 95% of the problems are the windows systems. Considering ubuntu is free and easy I think you're mad not to use it for everyday.

Mandrake... Redhat... Suse....FreeBSD...Ubuntu... what's next?

They've all had/have their good points and I love the idea of open source as a philisophy.

Ultimately, for a commercial application you need a support structure and trustworthy software applications.... IMHO neither really exist in a dedicated Linux form and given the very nature of Linux probably never will ... there's just too many variants.



Fine if all your hardware works straight out of the box, and the latest release is pretty good in that respect... but the average user either doesn't have the expertise or the time to write device drivers or patch kernels.

In terms of virus/spyware attack.... for all the virtues Linux may have surely no-one is going to suggest that should it become sufficiently attractive for the nerds to consider writing exploits ...that any "open source" operating systems has a "snow flakes chance in hell" of being a "secure" system?????

Just who's deluding who???.... there is only two levels of security by principle of design... user and god..... that's the way it was intended...

protected mode kernels.... no such thing...

Now just how many applications are running on each of the various systems (concurrently)... or are the Macs and Linux machines bare-bones systems running singular applications?

If we were to return to the "thin client" approach to compuiting that was once the vogue (and is I believe making a return) then my bet is a lot of "problems" will disappear.

In my experience most problems are due to either...

The machine was never set up properly in the first place...

or too many bloody experts have fiddled with it since it was setup... and none of them will tell you what they did... they'll all tell you what they think the solution is though LOL

Horse for courses I say and there ARE other options which leave even those mention in the shade.

Window 95, ME, XP, Vista, what's next?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defective_by_design



Many linux distribution companies provide exactly this, for a fee. Alternatively, you can use forums as mentioned earlier. The no commercial support argument was tired years ago.



Another tired argument. I spent a whole day last week upgrading Sophos from 4 to 6. That's because the average user doesn't have the expertise or time to install recent virus software - yet an equal number of Ubuntu users take 1% of my time. Remind me what started this thread?

You clearly haven't used a recent linux distro for at least 5 years



I'm not sure what your argument is here, I think you're aiming for the one about 'linux doesn't have many users so it doesn't need to be secure' or any of the variants on that one. Apache is an example of free software, and it is the most popular web server by a significant margin. Yet IIS has far more in the wild attacks and zero day exploits.



No idea what you are talking about here...



...perhaps you are trying to sound like you know what you are talking about?



Ok,
njh@flobber:~/svn/phd$ ps aux | wc
175 2239 18767
I'm running 175 processes. How many are you running? How many are virus related? On a decent operating system running more processes does not entail a security risk.



Multivac, telitype, remote X11, thin client, net computer, web is the computer, web 2.0, blah blah

Some of us want to do real work A web computer is not going to control your fish tank. I think thin clients is more about handing control back to paranoid sysadmins than any real utility. I don't think there are any arguments in favour of such things other than centralisation of control.



That's true when you're dealing with Windows machines. In my 10 years as a part time sysadmin most linux disto problems are due to people unwilling to retire deprecated software and hardware, or due to hard faults. My mum's neighbour still uses a linux system I set up for her 10 years ago (on a pentium) for web browsing and email. I haven't touched it in 5 years.



Well, you promote Windows systems (at least, that's my interpretation of your rants ; but your business is fixing broken Windows machines. Perhaps you are scared that if people moved away from Windows you would need to reskill? Nothing like the status quo to make people dig their heels in!

What I find bizarre is that people who advocates such radical changes to basic infrastructure are so blind to the control of their lives.

There are other reasons - like providing reasonable speed access to networks in remote locations where bandwidth is limited.

LOL, you started it EB.

yeh :fucyc:

njh... my reference to the variants of Linux was intended to highlight that over the last decade many differing variants of Linux have been extolled as the replacement for Windows based systems...nothing more than that....



I have absolutely no idea what relevance this article has to Windows operating systems ... DRM is not and has never been a Microsoft initiative...it has been incorporated into multimedia aspects of Windows operating systems at the beheist of those whose self interests drive it..
i.e the movie studios, recording studios etc... and I suspect to cover Microsofts own behind from litigation.



True, but there is not lots of them and they have come and gone as the various flavours of Linux have come and gone.



I have no idea why you spent so much time implementing a Sophos upgrade, as I'm not aware of your network structure or the number of servers/workstations involved.... However I do believe that most users are totally capable of installing a virus scanning application and this thread was directed toward the average home user not a commercial or educational network.



Another assumption... In fact I do exactly that for any new release of not only Linux but Windows and other software releases.... that exactly how I keep my knowledge current and support my clients.

For someone so knowledgable and at times so "pedantic" the number of times you dive into assumption is surprising.



Was reference to the underlying design of Linux and the base philosophy from it's inception.... It was conceived and designed to give totally control at user level... a restricted layer was placed over the top later to maintain a stable release.....



See above ... and perhaps you display your own ignorance by that statement njh.



Again you obviously display your own ignorance njh.



I am very aware of the shortcomings of Windows operating systems and have been through direct experience and exposure since the earliest days of DOS and 8086 machines and Lotus 123....

My clients (contracting through my own company for over ten years) have included systems management roles for ...

Lend Lease, WD & HO Wills, Kellogs, CSR, Optus, Australia Post, NSW Dept of Health, NSW Ambulance Service, Openplus International, Air Road.

I was DIRECTLY responsible for the design, build, install and implementation of the original 24 NSW TAFE Networks and subsequent consolidation into the now and still existing 12 NSW TAFE Institutes.... and I still have the contracts and payslips to prove it.

I was also one of the first twenty people in Australia directly trained (prior to release) of Windows NT... and have been a Microsoft approved Beta tester for over a decade....

So yes I have been closely involved with Microsoft operating Systems...(mostly as front ends "thin clients" to mainframe servers running VMS or AS400)... because thats where things began in the REAL world and thats where things STILL ARE in the real world.... sure they're changing and I say great....

I remember the days when the Mac snobs reckoned they would take over the world... and even in the bastions of the print/graphics industries the Windows and Sparc systems have effectively replaced any advantage that they once enjoyed.... schools (to some extent) but more particularly universities (or possibly more correctly ... professorial offices and labs) are probably the only real remaining distribution of Macs... and probably wont die until the crusty old academics and intellectual snobs die themselves. LOL

I'm not knocking the Mac (really) or Linux... just pointing out that (at the moment anyway) they are not mainstream operating systems and as such this thread is directed more towards those, the VAST, (even if misguided in your opinion) majority of people in this forum

Yes it really does peeve me off that every time someone raises issues about virus and spyware infections... there seems to be a (IMHO) rabid hijack by those that prefer Mac or Linux or maybe just by those that just want to bash Microsoft or Bill Gates....

Then sometimes I think it's just a case of smug intellectual *sigh* designed to reinforce a belief in the elitism and correctness of their uniqueness ....

Like I SAID ... horses for courses...

PS.... njh.... while I'm quiet prepared to accept your obvious intellegience and concede that my mental abilities may not be as sharp as they may have been, don't ever assume that I'm either unintelligent, unknowledgable or seek to make assumptions about my character or experience.

To call a spade a shovel.... there are times njh when you are both a pain in the arse and a dead set *sigh*... it's obvious you're intelligent, we get that.... we just don't need to be reminded of it every post or made to feel that we are lesser mortals...

Frankly I think you owe me an apology

Well All i have to say is i am in Indo on dial which pretty much leaves me stuck with windows. But then again 99.9% of Microsoft products are pirated so hey I am kinda sticking it to the man. But whatever if you don;t want to spend the rest of your life stuck behind your comp trying to set everything up Windows is just plain easier for those of my parents generation. I mean my mom has a hard enough time updating a virus scan. I would not like to be explaing seting up drivers with her from indo.

(so difficult to fight the urge to say Just Get a Mac!)

The new ones (including the one I am using right now) are Intel-based and make great Windows machines as well as great Macs. Dual boot using Bootcamp (what I do, WinXP finds itself on a fast Intel machine with an NVIDIA video card and doesn't know the difference) or use Parallels to run both at the same time. I could even install Linux on it too if I wanted. The price difference is not great when you spec out identical clone machines to an equivalent Mac.

BTW, the stepson's computer is infested with adware and viruses. It initially got infected overnight when he took the modem upstairs before I could warn him not to hook it up to the Internet before I could install some protection. After wiping it clean and reinstalling the OS then doing the same thing again after it got reinfected I gave up on trying to keep up with the dang things. In 17 years of using Macs I've never seen a virus.