I've seen several of you have mentioned this and I
have a need to locate a house in AZ so thought I'd
try it. Phew! an 11+ meg download on a 33K dialup.
Now I have some pgm but it dosent "run" just
keeps trying to install again when I try to run it.
Next went to the home page and tried to register
usin exactly the required "alpha numeric" characters
but it keeps replying "only alpha numeric characters
in the user name" . I am da--it.! So I can't even
on their BB how to get it to run.
Any advice?
Thanks.
...lew...

It only took 3 minutes to download and install it on my computer, but
the resolution is nowhere near good enough to pick out an individual house
(at least not any of the houses I tried to find).
David


"Lew Hartswick" wrote in message
ink.net...
I've seen several of you have mentioned this and I
have a need to locate a house in AZ so thought I'd
try it. Phew! an 11+ meg download on a 33K dialup.
Now I have some pgm but it dosent "run" just
keeps trying to install again when I try to run it.
Next went to the home page and tried to register
usin exactly the required "alpha numeric" characters
but it keeps replying "only alpha numeric characters
in the user name" . I am da--it.! So I can't even
on their BB how to get it to run.
Any advice?
Thanks.
...lew...

On Fri, 24 Mar 2006 12:21:45 -0500, Randy Replogle
wrote:

On Fri, 24 Mar 2006 11:07:39 -0600, "David Courtney"
wrote:

It only took 3 minutes to download and install it on my computer, but
the resolution is nowhere near good enough to pick out an individual house
(at least not any of the houses I tried to find).
David


Some areas have better resolution than others.
Randy Replogle

That's for sure. I can't even see the road in front my house and
barely see the river next to it.

On Fri, 24 Mar 2006 11:07:39 -0600, with neither quill nor qualm,
"David Courtney" quickly quoth:

It only took 3 minutes to download and install it on my computer, but
the resolution is nowhere near good enough to pick out an individual house
(at least not any of the houses I tried to find).

Yoda said "Use the Force, Luke!"

Larry says "Use the _zoom_ tool, David."

IOW, R T F M , bubba.
http://earth.google.com/support

--
-------------------------------------------------------
Never underestimate the innate animosity of inanimate objects.
----
http://diversify.com NoteSHADES(tm) laptop privacy/glare guards

On Fri, 24 Mar 2006 16:31:02 GMT, Lew Hartswick
wrote:

I've seen several of you have mentioned this and I
have a need to locate a house in AZ so thought I'd
try it. Phew! an 11+ meg download on a 33K dialup.
Now I have some pgm but it dosent "run" just
keeps trying to install again when I try to run it.
Next went to the home page and tried to register

AFAIK it does not/ will not run on dial-up, will only run on
broadband.
The detail ranges from 'can't see a house' to 'seeing people
and cars reasonably well'.
Maurice

AFAIK it does not/ will not run on dial-up, will only run on
broadband.
The detail ranges from 'can't see a house' to 'seeing people
and cars reasonably well'.

I don't know if it will run any better on dialup, but this is also
a pretty nifty tool, most areas have arial photos, some areas
have "birds eye" photos which almost let you count clapboards
and paving stones:
http://local.live.com/

Also, google maps itself is pretty good, depending on the
available arial photos. I particularly like the "hybrid" view
which superimposes a street map on the arial photos:
http://maps.google.com/

I don't know if either will be able to do what you want, but at
least there are no programs to download (I'm sure just the
images will take long enough).
--Glenn Lyford

Try www.zillow.com
not only shows your house but the market value too.


wrote in message
ups.com...
AFAIK it does not/ will not run on dial-up, will only run on
broadband.
The detail ranges from 'can't see a house' to 'seeing people
and cars reasonably well'.

I don't know if it will run any better on dialup, but this is also
a pretty nifty tool, most areas have arial photos, some areas
have "birds eye" photos which almost let you count clapboards
and paving stones:
http://local.live.com/

Also, google maps itself is pretty good, depending on the
available arial photos. I particularly like the "hybrid" view
which superimposes a street map on the arial photos:
http://maps.google.com/

I don't know if either will be able to do what you want, but at
least there are no programs to download (I'm sure just the
images will take long enough).
--Glenn Lyford

I met a man taking pix of the entire 'hood. There is some Canadian co.
sending people out to to photo every inch of the world. I lost the
brochure but there is no place going unmapped.
You are being watched.

The database is a massive collection of survey maps, custom maps, University maps -
areas of major universities - very high resolution - some houses I have lived in
are good some fair this one is just outside of a high res university zone - and oilfield
so it is fuzzy. Typically 10,000 ft, 30,000 but some places have 100 feet.
I can see people on the crosswalks and types of cars. But here - I see a fuzz ball
for the house.

Wonder how long will it take to update just the U.S.

Martin
Martin Eastburn
@ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net
NRA LOH & Endowment Member
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder
IHMSA and NRA Metallic Silhouette maker & member


Randy Replogle wrote:
On Fri, 24 Mar 2006 11:07:39 -0600, "David Courtney"
wrote:


It only took 3 minutes to download and install it on my computer, but
the resolution is nowhere near good enough to pick out an individual house
(at least not any of the houses I tried to find).
David



Some areas have better resolution than others.
Randy Replogle

----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

"Randy Replogle" wrote in message
news
On Fri, 24 Mar 2006 11:07:39 -0600, "David Courtney"
wrote:

It only took 3 minutes to download and install it on my computer, but
the resolution is nowhere near good enough to pick out an individual house
(at least not any of the houses I tried to find).
David


Some areas have better resolution than others.
Randy Replogle

I can see my box truck. The pictures are a few years old, though.

On Fri, 24 Mar 2006 17:29:49 -0800, "Bob Meyer"
wrote:

Try www.zillow.com
not only shows your house but the market value too.


And in my case..totally erroneously in both location and value.

It shows my house as been 4 houses away...and $100k over priced. For
both my house and the house indicated.



wrote in message
oups.com...
AFAIK it does not/ will not run on dial-up, will only run on
broadband.
The detail ranges from 'can't see a house' to 'seeing people
and cars reasonably well'.

I don't know if it will run any better on dialup, but this is also
a pretty nifty tool, most areas have arial photos, some areas
have "birds eye" photos which almost let you count clapboards
and paving stones:
http://local.live.com/

Also, google maps itself is pretty good, depending on the
available arial photos. I particularly like the "hybrid" view
which superimposes a street map on the arial photos:
http://maps.google.com/

I don't know if either will be able to do what you want, but at
least there are no programs to download (I'm sure just the
images will take long enough).
--Glenn Lyford





"A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them;
the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences."
- Proverbs 22:3

Lew Hartswick writes:
I've seen several of you have mentioned this and I
have a need to locate a house in AZ so thought I'd
try it. Phew! an 11+ meg download on a 33K dialup.
Now I have some pgm but it dosent "run" just
keeps trying to install again when I try to run it.

I doubt if it's usable on a dialup. The 11 meg download is just the
program; the (enormous) database it uses remains on Google servers. As
you move around or zoom in and out, the program is continually streaming
new data from the servers to your machine. The latency isn't bad with a
broadband connection, but it would be awful on dialup.

Also, it seems to be picky about graphics hardware. It won't run on our
laptop, with some mobile ATI chipset, but does run on desktop machines
of no more recent vintage. All of the cards provide 32-bit colour, but
it doesn't like the laptop for some reason.

Next went to the home page and tried to register
usin exactly the required "alpha numeric" characters
but it keeps replying "only alpha numeric characters
in the user name" . I am da--it.! So I can't even
on their BB how to get it to run.

Hmm. I don't remember having to register anywhere to use it.

Dave

Lew Hartswick wrote:

I've seen several of you have mentioned this and I
have a need to locate a house in AZ so thought I'd
try it. Phew! an 11+ meg download on a 33K dialup.
Now I have some pgm but it dosent "run" just
keeps trying to install again when I try to run it.
Next went to the home page and tried to register
usin exactly the required "alpha numeric" characters
but it keeps replying "only alpha numeric characters
in the user name" . I am da--it.! So I can't even
on their BB how to get it to run.

Don't even think about running it on a dial-up. The _minimum_ they specify
is 128 Kb and the recommended is 768 and they mean it.

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Randy Replogle wrote:

On Fri, 24 Mar 2006 11:07:39 -0600, "David Courtney"
wrote:

It only took 3 minutes to download and install it on my computer, but
the resolution is nowhere near good enough to pick out an individual house
(at least not any of the houses I tried to find).
David


Some areas have better resolution than others.

Most of the areas they cover are "medium resolution". Many major cities get
3-meter or better coverage. In some areas you can make out cars in parking
lots, but I haven't seen one yet that gives enough resolution to identify
them by model.

Randy Replogle

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Resolution really varies. I was looking at a place in Wisconsin
42.62091 (north) -88.311550 (west)

In the south part of the area you can clearly see the black tar strips
in the road, see windows on the trucks parked nearby. Can't quite pick
up the models but cars, pickups, and SUV's are clear.

In the north part it switches to a different data base, about all you
can tell is that there is some man made artifact there.

Randy Replogle wrote:
On Fri, 24 Mar 2006 11:07:39 -0600, "David Courtney"
wrote:


It only took 3 minutes to download and install it on my computer, but
the resolution is nowhere near good enough to pick out an individual house
(at least not any of the houses I tried to find).
David



Some areas have better resolution than others.
Randy Replogle

According to Lew Hartswick :
I've seen several of you have mentioned this and I
have a need to locate a house in AZ so thought I'd
try it. Phew! an 11+ meg download on a 33K dialup.
Now I have some pgm but it dosent "run" just
keeps trying to install again when I try to run it.
Next went to the home page and tried to register
usin exactly the required "alpha numeric" characters
but it keeps replying "only alpha numeric characters
in the user name" . I am da--it.! So I can't even
on their BB how to get it to run.

At least, you are presumably using a system which they
*support*. I just went to look at their site, and it says the
following;

================================================== ====================
OS: Windows 2000, XP, or Mac OS X (10.3.9 +)
================================================== ====================

For someone who will not let a Windows system touch the outside net, and
who has only unix systems which he *will* allow to touch the net, the
only option seems to be to pick up a Mac for this sort of thing. And
I'm *not* that thrilled with even the idea of a Mac -- even though it
does have a unix underpinning these days.

Good Luck,
DoN.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

DoN. Nichols wrote:

According to Lew Hartswick :
I've seen several of you have mentioned this and I
have a need to locate a house in AZ so thought I'd
try it. Phew! an 11+ meg download on a 33K dialup.
Now I have some pgm but it dosent "run" just
keeps trying to install again when I try to run it.
Next went to the home page and tried to register
usin exactly the required "alpha numeric" characters
but it keeps replying "only alpha numeric characters
in the user name" . I am da--it.! So I can't even
on their BB how to get it to run.

At least, you are presumably using a system which they
*support*. I just went to look at their site, and it says the
following;

================================================== ====================
OS: Windows 2000, XP, or Mac OS X (10.3.9 +)
================================================== ====================

For someone who will not let a Windows system touch the outside net, and
who has only unix systems which he *will* allow to touch the net, the
only option seems to be to pick up a Mac for this sort of thing. And
I'm *not* that thrilled with even the idea of a Mac -- even though it
does have a unix underpinning these days.

I think you're being excessively paranoid about Windows. What do you think
will happen if you "let a Windows system touch the outside net"?

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

John, what are you doing here?

J. Clarke wrote:
DoN. Nichols wrote:

According to Lew Hartswick :
I've seen several of you have mentioned this and I
have a need to locate a house in AZ so thought I'd
try it. Phew! an 11+ meg download on a 33K dialup.
Now I have some pgm but it dosent "run" just
keeps trying to install again when I try to run it.
Next went to the home page and tried to register
usin exactly the required "alpha numeric" characters
but it keeps replying "only alpha numeric characters
in the user name" . I am da--it.! So I can't even
on their BB how to get it to run.
At least, you are presumably using a system which they
*support*. I just went to look at their site, and it says the
following;

================================================== ====================
OS: Windows 2000, XP, or Mac OS X (10.3.9 +)
================================================== ====================

For someone who will not let a Windows system touch the outside net, and
who has only unix systems which he *will* allow to touch the net, the
only option seems to be to pick up a Mac for this sort of thing. And
I'm *not* that thrilled with even the idea of a Mac -- even though it
does have a unix underpinning these days.

I think you're being excessively paranoid about Windows. What do you think
will happen if you "let a Windows system touch the outside net"?

According to J. Clarke :
DoN. Nichols wrote:

For someone who will not let a Windows system touch the outside net, and
who has only unix systems which he *will* allow to touch the net, the
only option seems to be to pick up a Mac for this sort of thing. And
I'm *not* that thrilled with even the idea of a Mac -- even though it
does have a unix underpinning these days.

I think you're being excessively paranoid about Windows. What do you think
will happen if you "let a Windows system touch the outside net"?

It will get infected by a virus through one of a gazillion
possible paths.

My Windows system has never had the security patches added,
because they are not needed while it is hidden behind my firewall, and
not allowed to touch the outside net.

As a result, the process of applying all of the security patches
to make it (temporarily "sorta" safe) is a royal pain, as Microsoft's
site really wants the system to connect to their site and talk to the
site to determine which patches are needed (thus being exposed to the
attacks which my firewall sees being attempted against my unix boxes,
treating them as though they were running Windows -- and thus failing).

I, instead, would have to log into their site with one of my
unix boxes, convince it to give me a list of patches needed, and then
burn them to CD-ROM and take them to the box in question to apply the
patches.

All in all -- more trouble than I want to go through. I
*know* how to keep my unix boxes relatively secure. I don't know enough
about Windows to be sure that I have done everything that I would need
to do. And I *certainly* can't depend on Microsoft to honestly tell me
all of this, given their track record.

The Windows box is used primarily for income tax work once a
year, and until relatively recently, it was also used for converting the
images from a weird digital SLR to more normal formats -- before "dcraw"
was available for unix system to handle almost every weird format. :-)
So -- most of the year, it is kept turned off now. The most recent
turn-on for it was to try out the "live CD" for installing CYGWIN
including their X11-server and their SSH implementations.

Enjoy,
DoN.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

Louis Ohland wrote:

John, what are you doing here?

I'm here, I'm there, I'm everywhere, so beware g.

Mostly contributing to the noise level in the off-topic discussions, but in
between I'm trying to absorb what knowledge I can.

J. Clarke wrote:
DoN. Nichols wrote:

According to Lew Hartswick :
I've seen several of you have mentioned this and I
have a need to locate a house in AZ so thought I'd
try it. Phew! an 11+ meg download on a 33K dialup.
Now I have some pgm but it dosent "run" just
keeps trying to install again when I try to run it.
Next went to the home page and tried to register
usin exactly the required "alpha numeric" characters
but it keeps replying "only alpha numeric characters
in the user name" . I am da--it.! So I can't even
on their BB how to get it to run.
At least, you are presumably using a system which they
*support*. I just went to look at their site, and it says the
following;

================================================== ====================
OS: Windows 2000, XP, or Mac OS X (10.3.9 +)
================================================== ====================

For someone who will not let a Windows system touch the outside net, and
who has only unix systems which he *will* allow to touch the net, the
only option seems to be to pick up a Mac for this sort of thing. And
I'm *not* that thrilled with even the idea of a Mac -- even though it
does have a unix underpinning these days.

I think you're being excessively paranoid about Windows. What do you
think will happen if you "let a Windows system touch the outside net"?


--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

You know, while your at it use the Google map to look at the arch in ST.
Louis. Not far away from it in northerly direction is a parking lot that
appears to have an airplane painted on it. I really don't understand
that... is it a shadow?

LLB


"Gunner" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 24 Mar 2006 17:29:49 -0800, "Bob Meyer"
wrote:

Try www.zillow.com
not only shows your house but the market value too.


And in my case..totally erroneously in both location and value.

It shows my house as been 4 houses away...and $100k over priced. For
both my house and the house indicated.



wrote in message
oups.com...
AFAIK it does not/ will not run on dial-up, will only run on
broadband.
The detail ranges from 'can't see a house' to 'seeing people
and cars reasonably well'.

I don't know if it will run any better on dialup, but this is also
a pretty nifty tool, most areas have arial photos, some areas
have "birds eye" photos which almost let you count clapboards
and paving stones:
http://local.live.com/

Also, google maps itself is pretty good, depending on the
available arial photos. I particularly like the "hybrid" view
which superimposes a street map on the arial photos:
http://maps.google.com/

I don't know if either will be able to do what you want, but at
least there are no programs to download (I'm sure just the
images will take long enough).
--Glenn Lyford





"A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them;
the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences."
- Proverbs 22:3

brassbend wrote:
You know, while your at it use the Google map to look at the arch in ST.
Louis. Not far away from it in northerly direction is a parking lot that
appears to have an airplane painted on it. I really don't understand
that... is it a shadow?


I looked thru Google maps and there is indeed a plane outline shown,
but using zillow.com shows the lot to be empty.

I guess they had a plane parked there!


technomaNge

In article rs.com,
DoN. Nichols wrote:

According to Lew Hartswick :
I've seen several of you have mentioned this and I
have a need to locate a house in AZ so thought I'd
try it. Phew! an 11+ meg download on a 33K dialup.
Now I have some pgm but it dosent "run" just
keeps trying to install again when I try to run it.
Next went to the home page and tried to register
usin exactly the required "alpha numeric" characters
but it keeps replying "only alpha numeric characters
in the user name" . I am da--it.! So I can't even
on their BB how to get it to run.

At least, you are presumably using a system which they
*support*. I just went to look at their site, and it says the
following;

================================================== ====================
OS: Windows 2000, XP, or Mac OS X (10.3.9 +)
================================================== ====================

For someone who will not let a Windows system touch the outside net, and
who has only unix systems which he *will* allow to touch the net, the
only option seems to be to pick up a Mac for this sort of thing. And
I'm *not* that thrilled with even the idea of a Mac -- even though it
does have a unix underpinning these days.

Macs are nice, nowadays, and I speak as someone who wouldn't even
contemplate having one until they put a unix o/s under the GUI.

It's pretty clean unix under there, most open source compiles & runs
fine. Try one & see for yourself. I only use my SPARC boxes as servers
nowadays.

PDW

"brassbend" wrote
You know, while your at it use the Google map to look at the arch in ST.
Louis. Not far away from it in northerly direction is a parking lot that
appears to have an airplane painted on it. I really don't understand
that... is it a shadow?

It looks like a shadow of a plane flying overhead to me. Maybe a C-130...

http://c130.robins.af.mil/Graphics/10.htm

Best Regards,
Keith Marshall


"I'm not grown up enough to be so old!"

Been using Google earth on dialup -- very useful, in some respects, but
slow. It's way too fuzzy to help much in lat/long measurements in my 'hood,
but it does give elevation where the pointer is, and that seems quite
accurate.

In fact, using the Google elevation data gave me the info I needed to
complete a gravity water system from a spring about 0.3 miles away from our
house. After building a water holding pond, we checked true levels using
some existing piping and a long garden hose. It was right on. (To my great
relief, and my neighbor's astonishment. And mine.)

Take care, Will

According to Peter Wiley :
In article rs.com,
DoN. Nichols wrote:

[ ... ]

For someone who will not let a Windows system touch the outside net, and
who has only unix systems which he *will* allow to touch the net, the
only option seems to be to pick up a Mac for this sort of thing. And
I'm *not* that thrilled with even the idea of a Mac -- even though it
does have a unix underpinning these days.

Macs are nice, nowadays, and I speak as someone who wouldn't even
contemplate having one until they put a unix o/s under the GUI.

It's pretty clean unix under there, most open source compiles & runs
fine. Try one & see for yourself. I only use my SPARC boxes as servers
nowadays.

Hmm ... I'm in the process of helping develop some software
which will run on Windows, Macs, and unix, with the principal programmer
using OS-X. In the process of trying to discover things about what
works and what does not, it appears that OS-X is allergic to two files
whose names differ only in case (e.g. "Makefile" and "makefile"), and
will overwrite the file which is already there as you copy one in with a
different case mix. Of course, that system has a mix of MS-DOS old Mac
OS-IX (*not* OS/9, which I have used, and which is *very* different),
and whatever filesystem the OS-X uses, and I'm not really sure which he
was trying that on. It is a real pain to not have my hands directly on
the hardware. :-)

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

On Fri, 24 Mar 2006 16:31:02 GMT, Lew Hartswick
scribed:

I've seen several of you have mentioned this and I
have a need to locate a house in AZ so thought I'd
try it. Phew! an 11+ meg download on a 33K dialup.
Now I have some pgm but it dosent "run" just
keeps trying to install again when I try to run it.
Next went to the home page and tried to register
usin exactly the required "alpha numeric" characters
but it keeps replying "only alpha numeric characters
in the user name" . I am da--it.! So I can't even
on their BB how to get it to run.
Any advice?
Thanks.
...lew...

Try:

www.zillow.com

Your house and all the hood, with current assessment and taxes.

Fred

In article rs.com,
DoN. Nichols wrote:

According to Peter Wiley :
In article rs.com,
DoN. Nichols wrote:

[ ... ]

For someone who will not let a Windows system touch the outside net, and
who has only unix systems which he *will* allow to touch the net, the
only option seems to be to pick up a Mac for this sort of thing. And
I'm *not* that thrilled with even the idea of a Mac -- even though it
does have a unix underpinning these days.

Macs are nice, nowadays, and I speak as someone who wouldn't even
contemplate having one until they put a unix o/s under the GUI.

It's pretty clean unix under there, most open source compiles & runs
fine. Try one & see for yourself. I only use my SPARC boxes as servers
nowadays.

Hmm ... I'm in the process of helping develop some software
which will run on Windows, Macs, and unix, with the principal programmer
using OS-X.

BT, DT. We use Java. Realtime datalogging system logging to filesystem,
database (Postgresql & Oracle) and retransmitting to 'interested'
processes via UDP. Proven to run happily on Win2K, XP, linux, OS-X and
probably anything else that has a 1.5 JVM available.

In the process of trying to discover things about what
works and what does not, it appears that OS-X is allergic to two files
whose names differ only in case (e.g. "Makefile" and "makefile"), and
will overwrite the file which is already there as you copy one in with a
different case mix. Of course, that system has a mix of MS-DOS old Mac
OS-IX (*not* OS/9, which I have used, and which is *very* different),
and whatever filesystem the OS-X uses, and I'm not really sure which he
was trying that on. It is a real pain to not have my hands directly on
the hardware. :-)

OS-X can handle a few different types of filesystem, I've never had a
problem yet. If your programmer is screwing about with some arcane
version of unix for Mac, I wonder why.

I like my machine, it's the one I use most and take with me when I have
to travel. A 15" Powerbook G4. The Windows machine on my desk really
only gets used for corporate stuff and occasionally Oracle sys admin
stuff tho I'm thinking of installing Solidworks.

PDW

DoN,
Why don't you try Reatogo?
http://www.reatogo.de/
IT's a Linux program based on Bart PE that allows a person to create
his own CD with His choice of Windows in an ISO file. The CD is
bootable and the program runs on the CD and Ram. When the CD is removed
there is no trace left on the hard drive. Any viruses picked up online
will die. The person can run Win XP, for example but does not have to
defile his machine by installing Micro$oft products.
If you want to try it I can send you a disk.
John

For someone who will not let a Windows system touch the outside net, and
who has only unix systems which he *will* allow to touch the net, the
only option seems to be to pick up a Mac for this sort of thing. And
I'm *not* that thrilled with even the idea of a Mac -- even though it
does have a unix underpinning these days.


Good Luck,
DoN.

(Donald Nichols) writes:

I think you're being excessively paranoid about Windows. What do you think
will happen if you "let a Windows system touch the outside net"?

It will get infected by a virus through one of a gazillion
possible paths.

My Windows system has never had the security patches added,
because they are not needed while it is hidden behind my firewall, and
not allowed to touch the outside net.

If you have a firewall between your Windows box and the outside world,
and you don't run anything but Windows Update (which is really internet
Explorer) on your Windows box while you're updating, I don't know of any
attack from outside that can affect you. Your firewall probably won't
even let the Windows system be visible to the outside world.

As a result, the process of applying all of the security patches
to make it (temporarily "sorta" safe) is a royal pain, as Microsoft's
site really wants the system to connect to their site and talk to the
site to determine which patches are needed (thus being exposed to the
attacks which my firewall sees being attempted against my unix boxes,
treating them as though they were running Windows -- and thus failing).

Connecting to the outside world doesn't automatically mean being exposed
to attacks - that's what the firewall is for.

Dave

DoN. Nichols wrote:

According to J. Clarke :
DoN. Nichols wrote:

For someone who will not let a Windows system touch the outside net,
and who has only unix systems which he *will* allow to touch the net,
the
only option seems to be to pick up a Mac for this sort of thing. And
I'm *not* that thrilled with even the idea of a Mac -- even though it
does have a unix underpinning these days.

I think you're being excessively paranoid about Windows. What do you
think will happen if you "let a Windows system touch the outside net"?

It will get infected by a virus through one of a gazillion
possible paths.

You think that this is certain? Over a period of years it might be, but if
it happens then just remove the bloody virus.

My Windows system has never had the security patches added,
because they are not needed while it is hidden behind my firewall, and
not allowed to touch the outside net.

And why have you not applied them?

As a result, the process of applying all of the security patches
to make it (temporarily "sorta" safe) is a royal pain, as Microsoft's
site really wants the system to connect to their site and talk to the
site to determine which patches are needed (thus being exposed to the
attacks which my firewall sees being attempted against my unix boxes,
treating them as though they were running Windows -- and thus failing).

Uh, why is your firewall letting these alleged "attacks" through? It should
be blocking them.

I, instead, would have to log into their site with one of my
unix boxes, convince it to give me a list of patches needed, and then
burn them to CD-ROM and take them to the box in question to apply the
patches.

You wouldn't _have_ to do that. You do it because you are so paranoid that
you think that allowing a Windows box to contact the Microsoft site through
a firewall has a high probability of resulting in the installation of
malware on your system in the few hours that it takes to install the
updates.

All in all -- more trouble than I want to go through. I
*know* how to keep my unix boxes relatively secure. I don't know enough
about Windows to be sure that I have done everything that I would need
to do. And I *certainly* can't depend on Microsoft to honestly tell me
all of this, given their track record.

You clearly don't know enough about Windows if you are this afraid of it.

The _main_ things you need to do are put it behind a decent firewall and not
run as root (which in Windows is called "administrator") unless you have
to. If you do those two things you'll very, very seldom have a problem.

The Windows box is used primarily for income tax work once a
year, and until relatively recently, it was also used for converting the
images from a weird digital SLR to more normal formats -- before "dcraw"
was available for unix system to handle almost every weird format. :-)
So -- most of the year, it is kept turned off now. The most recent
turn-on for it was to try out the "live CD" for installing CYGWIN
including their X11-server and their SSH implementations.

Sounds like you've bought into the hype from Norton and AOL and all the
other outfits that have a vested interest in scaring you to death.

Just for hohos why not back up that Windows box, install the updates, put a
user account on it, and use it for a while and see what happens. I think
you'll, assuming that it's running an NT-derived Windows and not a 9x
variant, find it much less hazardous than you imagine.

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

According to Dave Martindale :
(Donald Nichols) writes:

I think you're being excessively paranoid about Windows. What do you think
will happen if you "let a Windows system touch the outside net"?

It will get infected by a virus through one of a gazillion
possible paths.

My Windows system has never had the security patches added,
because they are not needed while it is hidden behind my firewall, and
not allowed to touch the outside net.

If you have a firewall between your Windows box and the outside world,
and you don't run anything but Windows Update (which is really internet
Explorer) on your Windows box while you're updating, I don't know of any
attack from outside that can affect you. Your firewall probably won't
even let the Windows system be visible to the outside world.

My firewall is set up to keep even the web browser from
reaching the outside, as I normally don't even *want* to use a browser
from the Windows box. It is used for a very few functions these days,
and I do normal browsing from unix-based systems with Mozilla, FireFox,
or Opera, depending on the system and what I want to do -- plus wget for
downloading images to which direct urls have been posted, or very
occasionally lynx, for text-only browsing.

And some of the biggest holes are in IE itself. (Some of them
are accessed by e-mail being passed off by OE to IE.)

As a result, the process of applying all of the security patches
to make it (temporarily "sorta" safe) is a royal pain, as Microsoft's
site really wants the system to connect to their site and talk to the
site to determine which patches are needed (thus being exposed to the
attacks which my firewall sees being attempted against my unix boxes,
treating them as though they were running Windows -- and thus failing).

Connecting to the outside world doesn't automatically mean being exposed
to attacks - that's what the firewall is for.

And that is what I keep it set up for -- to totally eliminate
connections between the Windows box and anything other than things
within my own local network.

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

According to J. Clarke :
DoN. Nichols wrote:

According to J. Clarke :
DoN. Nichols wrote:

For someone who will not let a Windows system touch the outside net,
and who has only unix systems which he *will* allow to touch the net,
the
only option seems to be to pick up a Mac for this sort of thing. And
I'm *not* that thrilled with even the idea of a Mac -- even though it
does have a unix underpinning these days.

I think you're being excessively paranoid about Windows. What do you
think will happen if you "let a Windows system touch the outside net"?

It will get infected by a virus through one of a gazillion
possible paths.

You think that this is certain? Over a period of years it might be, but if
it happens then just remove the bloody virus.

Except that the typical purpose of Windows viruses these days is
to install backdoors which allow the infected system to be used to:

1) Attack other systems, to install viruses in them as well.

2) Serve as spam servers (thus getting my domain on blocklists)

3) Participate in DDOS (Distributed Denial Of Service) attacks on
other systems.

I wish none of these things to happen from my domain.

I regularly see sufficient evidence of (1) and (2) above. So
far, I have not been sufficiently visible to become a target if (3).

My Windows system has never had the security patches added,
because they are not needed while it is hidden behind my firewall, and
not allowed to touch the outside net.

And why have you not applied them?

Because there is no *need* for my Windows system to touch the
outside net -- and sometimes the security patches break working programs.

As a result, the process of applying all of the security patches
to make it (temporarily "sorta" safe) is a royal pain, as Microsoft's
site really wants the system to connect to their site and talk to the
site to determine which patches are needed (thus being exposed to the
attacks which my firewall sees being attempted against my unix boxes,
treating them as though they were running Windows -- and thus failing).

Uh, why is your firewall letting these alleged "attacks" through? It should
be blocking them.

I never said that it *was* letting them through. It is
*recording* attempts to connect to Windows ports on my visible systems,
even though those systems are not running Windows -- and for that
matter, *cannot* run Windows, as they have the wrong CPU. :-)

I, instead, would have to log into their site with one of my
unix boxes, convince it to give me a list of patches needed, and then
burn them to CD-ROM and take them to the box in question to apply the
patches.

You wouldn't _have_ to do that. You do it because you are so paranoid that
you think that allowing a Windows box to contact the Microsoft site through
a firewall has a high probability of resulting in the installation of
malware on your system in the few hours that it takes to install the
updates.

Given that the time to infection for a new install on certain
networks, such as those at colleges, is significantly less than the
time needed to download and install the patches, I think that my
"paranoia" has sufficient reason.

All in all -- more trouble than I want to go through. I
*know* how to keep my unix boxes relatively secure. I don't know enough
about Windows to be sure that I have done everything that I would need
to do. And I *certainly* can't depend on Microsoft to honestly tell me
all of this, given their track record.

You clearly don't know enough about Windows if you are this afraid of it.

I know what I see regularly from infected systems scattered
around the world -- bringing a new box every few seconds to attempt to
deliver (spam) e-mail. And most of those boxes are on either cable
modems or (a)dsl connections, getting their addresses from dhcp servers.
These machines are not *supposed* to be mail servers, but they are
*acting* as one-way servers. They don't accept incoming e-mail, but the
spew out outgoing e-mail -- sometimes as many as 1300 delivery attempts
(in the face of refusal to accept connections) in a single hour.

The _main_ things you need to do are put it behind a decent firewall and not
run as root (which in Windows is called "administrator") unless you have
to. If you do those two things you'll very, very seldom have a problem.

The one token Windows box is behind a *very* tightly closed
firewall. I don't *need* it to connect the outside, so why enable that?
That would mean that I would have to keep up with security patches --
sometimes several in a week.

And -- that box happens to be in an awkward location. My unix
boxen, however, can all be accessed from any one of them.

The Windows box is used primarily for income tax work once a
year, and until relatively recently, it was also used for converting the
images from a weird digital SLR to more normal formats -- before "dcraw"
was available for unix system to handle almost every weird format. :-)
So -- most of the year, it is kept turned off now. The most recent
turn-on for it was to try out the "live CD" for installing CYGWIN
including their X11-server and their SSH implementations.

Sounds like you've bought into the hype from Norton and AOL and all the
other outfits that have a vested interest in scaring you to death.

I've observed attacks from the outside, and the information in
news.admin.net-abuse.email. And I don't have a *need* to have that
system access the outside, so why bother?

Just for hohos why not back up that Windows box, install the updates, put a
user account on it, and use it for a while and see what happens. I think
you'll, assuming that it's running an NT-derived Windows and not a 9x
variant, find it much less hazardous than you imagine.

Actually -- these days, probably the safest system in the
Windows group is Win 95, because it will not *run* the current crop of
viruses.

The Windows box is Win 2000-Pro. But, as explained several
times above, I have no *need* for it to talk to the outside world, My
unix boxen do that very nicely, thank you.

Enjoy,
DoN.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

According to Peter Wiley :
In article rs.com,
DoN. Nichols wrote:

The one thing from your experience which differs is that you are
using a commercial database program. We are providing something which
will run on all systems without having to *purchase* extra software.
(Of course, he started this before OS-X came on the market, and I've
been trying to guide him to "the unix way" as we go. It is a bit
easier, now that he has a unix available for most things, other than him
being a bit afraid to try certain things, such as setting up a
/etc/csh.cshrc file to set some environment variables on login. :-)

[ ... ]

In the process of trying to discover things about what
works and what does not, it appears that OS-X is allergic to two files
whose names differ only in case (e.g. "Makefile" and "makefile"), and
will overwrite the file which is already there as you copy one in with a
different case mix. Of course, that system has a mix of MS-DOS old Mac
OS-IX (*not* OS/9, which I have used, and which is *very* different),
and whatever filesystem the OS-X uses, and I'm not really sure which he
was trying that on. It is a real pain to not have my hands directly on
the hardware. :-)

OS-X can handle a few different types of filesystem, I've never had a
problem yet. If your programmer is screwing about with some arcane
version of unix for Mac, I wonder why.

He is using Apple's OS-X -- I forget which version, but it is a
fairly recent one.

Try this experiment (all from the unix command line):

1) Create a subdirectory.

2) cd to it

3) create two files whose names differ only in the case (such
as "Junque" and "junque"). Ideally, put a different text
string in each, so they can be identified later.

4) Use "ls -laF" to verify that both are there.

5) Now -- go to the OS-X GUI, and go look at the same
subdirectory. His experience was that he saw both names for an
instant, and then one of them overwrote the other.

6) If this happens, go back in with the command line "ls -laF"
to see whether both files are still present. (I haven't gotten
him to try this, yet.

I like my machine, it's the one I use most and take with me when I have
to travel. A 15" Powerbook G4. The Windows machine on my desk really
only gets used for corporate stuff and occasionally Oracle sys admin
stuff tho I'm thinking of installing Solidworks.

O.K. Now, the trick comes of affording a Powerbook G4 on a
fixed retirement income. :-)

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

According to :
DoN,
Why don't you try Reatogo?
http://www.reatogo.de/
IT's a Linux program based on Bart PE that allows a person to create
his own CD with His choice of Windows in an ISO file. The CD is
bootable and the program runs on the CD and Ram. When the CD is removed
there is no trace left on the hard drive. Any viruses picked up online
will die. The person can run Win XP, for example but does not have to
defile his machine by installing Micro$oft products.
If you want to try it I can send you a disk.

I can download it, and built it with Win 2000-Pro. Thanks for
the pointer. As long as the real disks on the system remain invisible
to the Windows.

I wonder whether it will compile and work under OpenBSD or
Solaris? Some linux programs tend to be *very* linux specific.

Of course -- most of my systems are based on various flavors of
SPARC CPUs, so I doubt that it would work on those. :-)

Thanks,
DoN.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

In article rs.com,
DoN. Nichols wrote:

According to Peter Wiley :
In article rs.com,
DoN. Nichols wrote:

The one thing from your experience which differs is that you are
using a commercial database program.

At one stage I tested every dbms I could find that had a type 4 JDBC
driver against some of my code. I got all of them to work tho with
differing levels of performance. Oracle definitely works; the reason I
stopped using it is the same reason I don't use Windows. Poor software
sold by hype.

Postgresql isn't really a commercial dbms, it's open source. I've used
mysql and a couple of the small fry pure Java database engines as well.

We are providing something which
will run on all systems without having to *purchase* extra software.

Yes, I understand that. So am I. That's why I switched *from* Oracle to
Postgres. My main data servers are all open systems software from o/s
to our code to dbms.

3) create two files whose names differ only in the case (such
as "Junque" and "junque"). Ideally, put a different text
string in each, so they can be identified later.

4) Use "ls -laF" to verify that both are there.

5) Now -- go to the OS-X GUI, and go look at the same
subdirectory. His experience was that he saw both names for an
instant, and then one of them overwrote the other.

6) If this happens, go back in with the command line "ls -laF"
to see whether both files are still present. (I haven't gotten
him to try this, yet.

Hmmm. It's worse than that. I created Fred.txt (vi Fred.txt) then
attempted to create fred.txt - vi opened the Fred.txt file.
Interesting.

ok, cd .. and vi fred.txt no probs.

mv fred.txt archive/. (which is where the Fred.txt file was created)

Guess what? Fred.txt vanishes. fred.txt takes its place, as shown by
different text inside the file.

You don't need to do anything with Finder in the Mac GUI at all to
cause this.

I'd say OS X has a serious filesystem bug.

I like my machine, it's the one I use most and take with me when I have
to travel. A 15" Powerbook G4. The Windows machine on my desk really
only gets used for corporate stuff and occasionally Oracle sys admin
stuff tho I'm thinking of installing Solidworks.

O.K. Now, the trick comes of affording a Powerbook G4 on a
fixed retirement income. :-)

I don't work here (only) for the salary, I like the toys.........

PDW

While you're looking at stuff, this one may be interesting if you
haven't come across it. First distrib we've been able to load straight
onto a HP laptop and work straight away, graphics card and all.

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

PDW

In article rs.com,
DoN. Nichols wrote:

According to :
DoN,
Why don't you try Reatogo?
http://www.reatogo.de/
IT's a Linux program based on Bart PE that allows a person to create
his own CD with His choice of Windows in an ISO file. The CD is
bootable and the program runs on the CD and Ram. When the CD is removed
there is no trace left on the hard drive. Any viruses picked up online
will die. The person can run Win XP, for example but does not have to
defile his machine by installing Micro$oft products.
If you want to try it I can send you a disk.

I can download it, and built it with Win 2000-Pro. Thanks for
the pointer. As long as the real disks on the system remain invisible
to the Windows.

I wonder whether it will compile and work under OpenBSD or
Solaris? Some linux programs tend to be *very* linux specific.

Of course -- most of my systems are based on various flavors of
SPARC CPUs, so I doubt that it would work on those. :-)

Thanks,
DoN.

DoN. Nichols wrote:

According to J. Clarke :
DoN. Nichols wrote:

According to J. Clarke :
DoN. Nichols wrote:

For someone who will not let a Windows system touch the outside net,
and who has only unix systems which he *will* allow to touch the
net, the
only option seems to be to pick up a Mac for this sort of thing.
And I'm *not* that thrilled with even the idea of a Mac -- even
though it does have a unix underpinning these days.

I think you're being excessively paranoid about Windows. What do you
think will happen if you "let a Windows system touch the outside net"?

It will get infected by a virus through one of a gazillion
possible paths.

You think that this is certain? Over a period of years it might be, but
if it happens then just remove the bloody virus.

Except that the typical purpose of Windows viruses these days is
to install backdoors which allow the infected system to be used to:

1) Attack other systems, to install viruses in them as well.

2) Serve as spam servers (thus getting my domain on blocklists)

3) Participate in DDOS (Distributed Denial Of Service) attacks on
other systems.

I wish none of these things to happen from my domain.

I regularly see sufficient evidence of (1) and (2) above. So
far, I have not been sufficiently visible to become a target if (3).

My Windows system has never had the security patches added,
because they are not needed while it is hidden behind my firewall, and
not allowed to touch the outside net.

And why have you not applied them?

Because there is no *need* for my Windows system to touch the
outside net -- and sometimes the security patches break working programs.

As a result, the process of applying all of the security patches
to make it (temporarily "sorta" safe) is a royal pain, as Microsoft's
site really wants the system to connect to their site and talk to the
site to determine which patches are needed (thus being exposed to the
attacks which my firewall sees being attempted against my unix boxes,
treating them as though they were running Windows -- and thus failing).

Uh, why is your firewall letting these alleged "attacks" through? It
should be blocking them.

I never said that it *was* letting them through. It is
*recording* attempts to connect to Windows ports on my visible systems,
even though those systems are not running Windows -- and for that
matter, *cannot* run Windows, as they have the wrong CPU. :-)

I, instead, would have to log into their site with one of my
unix boxes, convince it to give me a list of patches needed, and then
burn them to CD-ROM and take them to the box in question to apply the
patches.

You wouldn't _have_ to do that. You do it because you are so paranoid
that you think that allowing a Windows box to contact the Microsoft site
through a firewall has a high probability of resulting in the
installation of malware on your system in the few hours that it takes to
install the updates.

Given that the time to infection for a new install on certain
networks, such as those at colleges, is significantly less than the
time needed to download and install the patches, I think that my
"paranoia" has sufficient reason.

All in all -- more trouble than I want to go through. I
*know* how to keep my unix boxes relatively secure. I don't know
enough about Windows to be sure that I have done everything that I
would need
to do. And I *certainly* can't depend on Microsoft to honestly tell me
all of this, given their track record.

You clearly don't know enough about Windows if you are this afraid of it.

I know what I see regularly from infected systems scattered
around the world -- bringing a new box every few seconds to attempt to
deliver (spam) e-mail. And most of those boxes are on either cable
modems or (a)dsl connections, getting their addresses from dhcp servers.
These machines are not *supposed* to be mail servers, but they are
*acting* as one-way servers. They don't accept incoming e-mail, but the
spew out outgoing e-mail -- sometimes as many as 1300 delivery attempts
(in the face of refusal to accept connections) in a single hour.

The _main_ things you need to do are put it behind a decent firewall and
not run as root (which in Windows is called "administrator") unless you
have
to. If you do those two things you'll very, very seldom have a problem.

The one token Windows box is behind a *very* tightly closed
firewall. I don't *need* it to connect the outside, so why enable that?
That would mean that I would have to keep up with security patches --
sometimes several in a week.

And -- that box happens to be in an awkward location. My unix
boxen, however, can all be accessed from any one of them.

The Windows box is used primarily for income tax work once a
year, and until relatively recently, it was also used for converting
the images from a weird digital SLR to more normal formats -- before
"dcraw" was available for unix system to handle almost every weird
format. :-)
So -- most of the year, it is kept turned off now. The most recent
turn-on for it was to try out the "live CD" for installing CYGWIN
including their X11-server and their SSH implementations.

Sounds like you've bought into the hype from Norton and AOL and all the
other outfits that have a vested interest in scaring you to death.

I've observed attacks from the outside, and the information in
news.admin.net-abuse.email. And I don't have a *need* to have that
system access the outside, so why bother?

Just for hohos why not back up that Windows box, install the updates, put
a
user account on it, and use it for a while and see what happens. I think
you'll, assuming that it's running an NT-derived Windows and not a 9x
variant, find it much less hazardous than you imagine.

Actually -- these days, probably the safest system in the
Windows group is Win 95, because it will not *run* the current crop of
viruses.

The Windows box is Win 2000-Pro. But, as explained several
times above, I have no *need* for it to talk to the outside world, My
unix boxen do that very nicely, thank you.

The bottom line on this seems to be that you're unhappy because you can't
use Google Earth and the reason you can't use it is that you're too chicken
to do something that the average third grader takes in stride.

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

On Thu, 30 Mar 2006 06:04:08 +0100, Peter Wiley
wrote:


While you're looking at stuff, this one may be interesting if you
haven't come across it. First distrib we've been able to load straight
onto a HP laptop and work straight away, graphics card and all.

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

PDW

Have you tried Ubuntu? Its run on every laptop Ive put it on, with
the exception of the 386 with 16 whopping megs of memory and that huge
20 meg hard drive.

Gunner


In article rs.com,
DoN. Nichols wrote:

According to :
DoN,
Why don't you try Reatogo?
http://www.reatogo.de/
IT's a Linux program based on Bart PE that allows a person to create
his own CD with His choice of Windows in an ISO file. The CD is
bootable and the program runs on the CD and Ram. When the CD is removed
there is no trace left on the hard drive. Any viruses picked up online
will die. The person can run Win XP, for example but does not have to
defile his machine by installing Micro$oft products.
If you want to try it I can send you a disk.

I can download it, and built it with Win 2000-Pro. Thanks for
the pointer. As long as the real disks on the system remain invisible
to the Windows.

I wonder whether it will compile and work under OpenBSD or
Solaris? Some linux programs tend to be *very* linux specific.

Of course -- most of my systems are based on various flavors of
SPARC CPUs, so I doubt that it would work on those. :-)

Thanks,
DoN.


"The importance of morality is that people behave themselves even if
nobody's watching. There are not enough cops and laws to replace
personal morality as a means to produce a civilized society. Indeed,
the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of
defense for a civilized society. Unfortunately, too many of us see
police, laws and the criminal justice system as society's first line
of defense." --Walter Williams

Gunner writes:

While you're looking at stuff, this one may be interesting if you
haven't come across it. First distrib we've been able to load straight
onto a HP laptop and work straight away, graphics card and all.

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

PDW

Have you tried Ubuntu? Its run on every laptop Ive put it on, with
the exception of the 386 with 16 whopping megs of memory and that huge
20 meg hard drive.


Gunner - I think they are talking about a BOOTABLE CD-ROM Image.
I've even heard of USB-drive versions of Linux.
It lets you run Linux on a computer WITHOUT installing any software.


--
Sending unsolicited commercial e-mail to this account incurs a fee of
$500 per message, and acknowledges the legality of this contract.