Microsoft releasing emergency patch for perilous IE flaw

[KittenKoder]

It isn't WINE. It is, in fact, a crossover. I recognize the term now that you posted it.

I always forget about crossover myself, less stable than native code and no more or less than WINE so I usually avoid it like WINE.

Mac has one flaw: You can't tweak it well. If you try to tweak too many settings the OS will become unstable since it is more integrated with the hardware than it should be. You are lucky with XP having not crashed in awhile, XP hates programmers (possible written like that on purpose). Since my switch to Linux (thank the gods that Java runs on all of them) I haven't had problems. If my program crashes all I have to do is force out the JVM and try again, with XP I had to reboot almost every time.

 

[Steerpike]

I always forget about crossover myself, less stable than native code and no more or less than WINE so I usually avoid it like WINE.

Mac has one flaw: You can't tweak it well. If you try to tweak too many settings the OS will become unstable since it is more integrated with the hardware than it should be. You are lucky with XP having not crashed in awhile, XP hates programmers (possible written like that on purpose). Since my switch to Linux (thank the gods that Java runs on all of them) I haven't had problems. If my program crashes all I have to do is force out the JVM and try again, with XP I had to reboot almost every time.

Yeah, XP has been very stable. I run a lot of games. Install and uninstall apps all the time. I keep the system clean and defragged, though, including the registry. I'll occasionally even go through the registry and pull out crap manually just to eliminate some stuff that the cleaning program I use didn't catch. I think that has contributed to the stability. The average user isn't going to go to the trouble.

 

[Gord]

Experience is the only way to find out which is really better. Firefox still renders pages better, and it can be more secure than IE if you know a little about how web design works (hint: disable all Javascript except trusted sites and set Java AND Flash as blocked until selected). So ... yeah, they all have their ups and downs, but FF still is better for most people and IE6 (the one they use for comparison) is not HTML4 compatible, so many sites will render wrong now.

Opera is by far the best overall browser I am familiar with, except for one important thing - it does not have configuration versatility that IE has.

As far as security is concerned, a Windows computer is only as secure as the amount of effort a user puts into making it secure.

And it does not matter what kind of OS or browser one uses, a program to backup daily to the internet or to a remote computer, and a hard drive snapshot program are necessary for complete system security and peace of mind.

I use Diino for automatic daily backups to the internet and Acronis for hard drive snapshots, which I re-install every six months to keep the OS and other programs fesh and running crisply. Once I acquired a minor virus, but instead of fighting it I just reinstalled a OS and program snapshot and updated my info from Diino, and was back running smoothly in an hour.

 

[Diuretic]

Firefox Myths:

Firefox Myths

If nothing else read the Conclusion near the bottom of the page.

The Open Source community has developed alternatives to Firefox for some of the reasons mentioned in the article. I'm not expert on them though so I can't do much more than mention them.

Mozilla Corporation software rebranded by the Debian project - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is just one example, I think there are more.

 

[Ravi]

I have IE updates turned off and I went to Microsoft's website but can't figure out which patch to download. The one I thought was the correct one wouldn't do anything.

Groan. And now when I do use IE it freezes up.

Microsoft sux.

 

[Diuretic]

I have IE updates turned off and I went to Microsoft's website but can't figure out which patch to download. The one I thought was the correct one wouldn't do anything.

Groan. And now when I do use IE it freezes up.

Microsoft sux.

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-078 - Critical: Security Update for Internet Explorer (960714)

Did you try there? It has details that you can check your system against to get the right one. Other than that I can't think of anything else you can do.

 

[tigerbob]

Cuz they make deals with PC manufacturers to include it as part of the software package. People should at least know not to rely on IE as their sole browser.

I understand about the IE bundle thing. That's not a problem, as I always used Navigator, Opera or more recently Firefox when I ran a PC (except at work where they used IE).

My complaint is about the OS. I always found XP used to crash with alarming frequency. When Vista came out, the stories I heard about it were what convinced me to switch to a Mac.

Now I've switched, it would be a cold day in hell before I even ran a PC again. Macs take a few weeks to get used to, but that's about it and even the stuff that is different is incredibly intuitive. In the 9 months I've had one (MacBook), I've never had it crash, never had any of those wretched alerts I had pretty much daily with a PC.

The other thing is that going into the Apple Store is fun. The people there actually seem to believe in and know their product, and they explain things to you in everyday language (really useful when you're using one for the first time).

My wife just bought a new desktop Mac (the iMac) after 18 years using PCs. Instead of getting 6 boxes of stuff, you plug the screen into the mains socket and...that's it! Everything else is inside the same piece of hardware except for the mouse and the keyboard. Push the on button and you never need to look at the instructions again, or screw around under the desk trying to plug peripherals into it.

It's true they do cost a bit more money, but so far I haven't regretted a single cent of the difference.

OK, I'm starting to sound like an infomercial. Enough.

 

[tigerbob]

Well ... actually Windoze was not even the OS that made Microsoft so popular, it was their DOS. MS-DOS was one of the first OS's to be released and it was stable yet. What made them so popular was because almost all PC's had MS-DOS as the primary OS. They added Windoze as a GUI wrap to their DOS later, which merely added what is commonly called the "human interface" to their system. This was also extremely stable, though it didn't have a pretty look and was not as well organized it was the first to compete with Apple's GUI. Because it became so widely used by so many MS got more contracts with companies to install and maintain their OS and GUI on computers. Windoze was then evolved into the more advanced versions (I remember ooohing and aaaahing about 95). Though these versions had issues they were still structured with the MS-DOS kernel and when they became unstable could fall back to the kernel. It was still a good OS and GUI package then.

Then Bill started handing the company over to an idiot, which resulted in XP ... a HUGE mistake. XP combined the kernel with the GUI (which results in two inherent errors). XP was not only less secure because of being integrated into the kernel it also became less stable. It was prettier but you have to sacrifice too much for that. In the mean time Apple makes a brilliant move and decides to advance their OS into larger domains while keeping the GUI and kernel separate (using a *nix based system as the kernel, yes that's like Linux and Unix). Their next release will even allow *nix generic software to run, while MS is instead restricting their newer OS's to not include compatibility (this will ruin them eventually). Now the only two strong OS's with GUI's are Ubuntu for free or Mac if you have little computer experience. Yes, for those who don't know, MacOS can run on Intell architectures (IBM style CPUs).

So in response to the possibility of losing out they release Vista (even worse than XP). Vista is written to have appeal for all the graphic lovers, but is over-integrated (thus why IE actually uses less resources because it's using widgets built in). The biggest flaw with this is that many software companies that have been making games for a long time will stop making two versions (now that Mac will be able to run more *nix code) and will eventually just choose *nix compatible libraries to avoid the costly copyrights for Vista (and future versions) of Windoze. Even Sun is pondering getting rid of their other versions of Java and focusing on *nix kernels since it's easy to add more to them while MS is making it harder.

Okay, enough ranting from me on tech for a bit. LOL

Oh yeah - I had forgotten that the force is strong with you in IT terms!

I remember my first experience of 95. It was like a whole new world opened up. I liked 98 too. We used 2000 for a short time at work before upgrading to XP, which looked kind of cool, but effectively it was like a lousy general contractor - did pretty much everything but very little of it well. Initially, I thought the poor performance was due to all the stuff that my company (a multinational) had built over the core XP OS (it was really slow) but then I upgraded to XP at home as well and noticed many of the same problems.

I first used a Mac about 10 years ago (v8.1, I think) and didn't like it. But I so love OSX. This year I just finally lost patience with Windows after messing around with a friend's MacBook Pro for a couple of hours.

 

[Gord]

Oh yeah - I had forgotten that the force is strong with you in IT terms!

I remember my first experience of 95. It was like a whole new world opened up. I liked 98 too. We used 2000 for a short time at work before upgrading to XP, which looked kind of cool, but effectively it was like a lousy general contractor - did pretty much everything but very little of it well. Initially, I thought the poor performance was due to all the stuff that my company (a multinational) had built over the core XP OS (it was really slow) but then I upgraded to XP at home as well and noticed many of the same problems.

I first used a Mac about 10 years ago (v8.1, I think) and didn't like it. But I so love OSX. This year I just finally lost patience with Windows after messing around with a friend's MacBook Pro for a couple of hours.

It must be you, because I have used XP since it came out and have had very few problems with it even though I have very demanding stock trading programs where I have up to 50 windows open and streaming data at the same time. XP is tweak and maintenance intensive, but its customizing ability is more than worth it IMO. For those needing a plug and play computer, I guess a Mac would be more suitable...

 

[KittenKoder]

It must be you, because I have used XP since it came out and have had very few problems with it even though I have very demanding stock trading programs where I have up to 50 windows open and streaming data at the same time. XP is tweak and maintenance intensive, but its customizing ability is more than worth it IMO. For those needing a plug and play computer, I guess a Mac would be more suitable...

Actually, XP IS slower than other OS's, and Vista isn't any better. With the ultra high end CPU's you won't notice a difference .... if you have only experienced Windoze on a PC. Take the exact same computer running Windoze XP or Vista and install a Linux kernel with a GUI (Ubuntu is the best all-in-one) and you WILL notice a huge difference. Also you did point out the biggest problem, it's 'tweak heavy', in order to get decent performance you have to adjust settings for almost every new major app, then the 'updates' slow it down even more and use up memory (though mostly during boot time) since most have to be loaded as separate processes instead of being fully integrated. I never recommend Windoze XP or Vista to first time or novice users, I do recommend Ubuntu or buy a Mac. For experienced computer geeks like me we just find what works and often it's just personal preference.

I LOVE Ubuntu (it was faster to install than getting all the Linux programs from various sources). One-touch search and install for almost all free programs. Every utility you could ever need. And all the programs integrate seemlessly and without any extra tweaks or maintainance needed. For Intell PC's I always recommend Ubuntu even for novice computer users (there is also two huge sources of help if you need it online).

If you are not like me (I love piecing computer parts together and fully customizing the hardware) then get a Mac. It's more user friendly than Windoze now.

A side note of humor:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa1RCg-Ccp0]YouTube - Novell Linux, Mac, PC[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eTguZ5OzJ4]YouTube - Mac, PC & Linux - Novell Commercial #2[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQGAb0U4wD0]YouTube - MAC & PC; LINUX is Ready!!![/ame]

 

[KittenKoder]

Forgot this one:
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGKJaZJdsE8]YouTube - MAC VS. PC VS. LINUX 2[/ame]

 

[Ravi]

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-078 - Critical: Security Update for Internet Explorer (960714)

Did you try there? It has details that you can check your system against to get the right one. Other than that I can't think of anything else you can do.

Thanks...but I can't get IE to stop crashing so I went ahead and turned auto updates back on so I should know if it worked tomorrow morning.

 

[Diuretic]

Thanks...but I can't get IE to stop crashing so I went ahead and turned auto updates back on so I should know if it worked tomorrow morning.

Best of luck with it. It's bloody annoying I know.

 

[Steerpike]

It must be you, because I have used XP since it came out and have had very few problems with it even though I have very demanding stock trading programs where I have up to 50 windows open and streaming data at the same time. XP is tweak and maintenance intensive, but its customizing ability is more than worth it IMO. For those needing a plug and play computer, I guess a Mac would be more suitable...

Same here, as I stated earlier in the thread. People who have XP crashing all the time are either exaggerating or they are doing something wrong. I've run it since launch on multiple machines with various configurations, and no real trouble.

 

[KittenKoder]

Same here, as I stated earlier in the thread. People who have XP crashing all the time are either exaggerating or they are doing something wrong. I've run it since launch on multiple machines with various configurations, and no real trouble.

Here's the thing though, when it's compared to other OS's on the same machine it is very buggy. You have to try it to make a comparison. There are major flaws in the OS when dealing with hardware, not all hardware is supported through XP even though all the drivers are available. The Dells I have HATE XP and will crash it multiple times ... often at random. But the Compaq's ran it smoothly. However Linux ran twice as fast on them all.

The XP kernel is one of the biggest problems. With old MS-DOS and *nix you have each command as a separate program, which means that if one command fails (the program crashes) all the others will most likely be uneffected. XP uses a singular kernel, so when a command fails the kernel itself is more likely to crash. The biggest benefit of using individual programs for each command is that you don't see much when an error occurs, the wrapper for the human interface can pick up the slack and find the right one or correct the issue with little work from the user, while with a singular kernel if the OS cannot fix the problem fast enough the threads 'catch' and the resulting bottleneck will crash it. If XP is installed fresh and no mods are made to the computer, and only the barest of updates are installed, it will remain stable because the processes can keep up. Make too many changes, or if the system becomes unstable too often, it will start crashing more and more (snowball effect). Another major flaw with XP that high RAM computers don't notice as often is the garbage collector process just plain sucks (that's a whole essay worth of information though).

 

[Steerpike]

I have tried it Kitten. I dual boot XP and Linux on two computers, and XP and Vista on one of them.

Linux runs faster, of course, even though I have Windows pared down to make it run quicker. But I'm not seeing much difference in terms of stability, and I have multiple machines with multiple configurations.

 

[KittenKoder]

I have tried it Kitten. I dual boot XP and Linux on two computers, and XP and Vista on one of them.

Linux runs faster, of course, even though I have Windows pared down to make it run quicker. But I'm not seeing much difference in terms of stability, and I have multiple machines with multiple configurations.

I know, it was a general comment for the benefit of others.

As for your stability, as I said, some computers just like it better. For a coder though, even the most stable of OS's can become unstable with just one error in code, so XP is a headache for me, while Linux allows a more graceful crash of my own bad code (I use the compile-test-edit style of programming because I like to experiment with code sometimes).

Now, if you are wondering why the coders and other techies are trying to advertise and get people to switch more, there are several reasons. The primary being that the more people who switch the stuff Linux gets. It gives us a reason to write programs, without people to use those programs then we feel less useful. Also if we can push the major software companies to start porting more of their programs to *nix it will give us more to play with in our down time without having to switch OS's each time. The biggest reason though, old school programmers are pissed at MS for ignoring us since Bill started letting that idiot run the company.

 

[KittenKoder]

Oh, one other lesser reason, all internet servers already run Linux or Unix, but that's a minor reason because most people don't know how to actually build websites and web software.

 

[Gord]

Actually, XP IS slower than other OS's, and Vista isn't any better. With the ultra high end CPU's you won't notice a difference .... if you have only experienced Windoze on a PC. Take the exact same computer running Windoze XP or Vista and install a Linux kernel with a GUI (Ubuntu is the best all-in-one) and you WILL notice a huge difference. Also you did point out the biggest problem, it's 'tweak heavy', in order to get decent performance you have to adjust settings for almost every new major app, then the 'updates' slow it down even more and use up memory (though mostly during boot time) since most have to be loaded as separate processes instead of being fully integrated. I never recommend Windoze XP or Vista to first time or novice users, I do recommend Ubuntu or buy a Mac. For experienced computer geeks like me we just find what works and often it's just personal preference.

I LOVE Ubuntu (it was faster to install than getting all the Linux programs from various sources). One-touch search and install for almost all free programs. Every utility you could ever need. And all the programs integrate seemlessly and without any extra tweaks or maintainance needed. For Intell PC's I always recommend Ubuntu even for novice computer users (there is also two huge sources of help if you need it online).

If you are not like me (I love piecing computer parts together and fully customizing the hardware) then get a Mac. It's more user friendly than Windoze now.

A side note of humor:

YouTube - Novell Linux, Mac, PC
YouTube - Mac, PC & Linux - Novell Commercial #2
YouTube - MAC & PC; LINUX is Ready!!!

I did not mean tweak as a negative (and most tweakers do not see tweaking as a "problem", but as a way to better performance or a more comfortable user platform).

I have Ubuntu as a dual boot on my current trading desktop and have found it less than impressive and not worth the extra work necessary to set up and tweak to my satisfaction. And some of my stock programs only work with Windows anyway.

 

[tigerbob]

Same here, as I stated earlier in the thread. People who have XP crashing all the time are either exaggerating or they are doing something wrong. I've run it since launch on multiple machines with various configurations, and no real trouble.

I suppose it's all relative. I used to be relatively happy with XP. I just thought that's the way computers are. In most cases that's true. But it's not how they HAVE to be.