Snakebite

For a week from a sandwhich?

Musta been prawn

But still for a week wow

Nope it was a South West Cheese Steak Sandwich.

Doesnt help that the person that makes your food also handles your money (which could come from anywhere, i.e filthy as hell) when they are short staffed or quiet with the same plastic gloves they use to make the food.

Surely the place would have to be pure stanky to get the shits for a week eating a sandwhich?

Thats food poisoning for you

I would wait till August if you can as Intel are coming out with new Laptop Processors that should drive down prices a little.

If you need it now though, I've had an Advent P3 Laptop for 5 years and it still works, though have had to get it fixed a few times.

What ever you do I would recommend an extended warranty on any Laptop purchase that includes accidental damage. As you wont be able to fix it yourself. Had my Laptop fixed a few times under warranty 2 of which was due to accidentally dropping it.

You can pick up an Advent Laptop for £349 at PC World.

If it's only for checking emails and browsing the internet then you could go for an emachine which is about £300-400. Not sure how good they are but they are cheap.

For myself have been looking at Toshiba (Portege M400) ones recently mainly for the touchscreen Tablet editions which have a very good spec (Built in anti-theft & Biometric security, wifi etc) but, they are a bit expensive £1334 on Dabs.com and still needs a little bit more performance to meet Vista aeroglass Requirements. So still looking myself at the moment.

Going to wait til Vista comes out before spashing out which I believe is in Jan/Feb 2007.

you dont want to go there unless you want severe diahorrea & vommiting.

Girlfriend got this back in May for about a week after eating a Subway Sandwich

Environmental Health needs to pay a visit as it's not the cleanest of places, but then neither are most of the fast food places in Aberdeen as the Staff are not paid enough to care.

Dont do that' date=' most of the supermarket chains do cheap alternatives.... 99p for a weeks supply, Asda do them, two different sorts non-drowsy and regular, buy both and see what works for you, get some good eye drops also and use them every day for a more pleasant summer...

G...[/quote']

You got to watch what you take for hayfever.

I'm not at bad as I used to be when I was younger as I only need to take tablets these days

However

For me Clarityn only works for half a day before I start feeling the effects of hayfever again.

Piriton gives me sinus pain as I am allergic to it.

I used to take Beconase until they changed it from an aerosol (which worked fine) to an aquause spray as the aquause spray gave me nose bleeds.

Always check with your doctor before taking any hayfever meds

I find Telfast (fexofenadine) works best for me but it's only available on prescription, but thats just me it may not work for everyone.

All hayfever meds are cheaper using a prescription including the ones you can buy over the counter as you can get a months supply for just the one prescription price.

The growing problem of obesity lies with the parents. Too many parents these days do not or cannot provide a healthy balanced diet for their children. Some of it is to do with poverty which the world as a whole has to deal with. The other is parental care where by some parents do not know what is a healthy diet.

Exercise is another main factor. Gone are the days where you see children playing in the streets & parks enjoying the outdoors. Computer games and consoles are now the norm where most children that end up being obese, spend around 90% of their free time in front of a TV/Monitor.

So what can be done to help parents tackle obesity:

• NHS Health Visitors are now providing advice to better educate parents during first few years of childhood using as many means possible.
  
• The Education department are now seeing sense and are trying their best to provide healthy nutritional school dinners.
  

So what else needs to be done.

• Physical education needs to play a greater part in a young childs life before and during primary school, this needs to be addressed by the Education department.
  
• Some parents are still found to be illiterate, which means they cant read any of the leaflets that do provide advice. This needs to be addressed by both the NHS and the education department to help these people.
  
• The media need to take a greater responsibility for ensuring they dont advertise junk food when childrens programmes are on TV. This one of the worst cuplrits for infulencing children on what they should be eating.
  

Finally, suing people doesnt get rid of the problem, people that are still obese after childhood need help to take responsibility for their own health, whether that be by their friends, family or their doctor.

most people that write open source applications TRY to share code because it's a fundamental premise of modern software engineering' date=' re-use existing components where possible, don't reinvent the wheel, etc. etc. [/quote']

That only works if the code or idea they are sharing hasnt already been used elsewhere by another company/individual who claims they own the intellectual property to it. Who may or may not use open source.

Thats where this new law is dangerous since if several people share code that hasnt been written by them they could all find themselves liable for prosecution by the company/individual that did write the code if they so desire to pursue it.

This is at best' date=' not proven, and at worst (and most plausibly) complete lies.

see the groklaw link above for background reading on the SCO vs IBM case. then you'll realise how laughable SCO's "case" actually is.

I assume you are talking about the proposed european software patent legislation, which the EU parliament voted to scrap a few weeks ago:

[url']http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/06/eu_bins_swpat

i don't know where you got the idea that "all" (or even 'many') users of the forum are using open source software... i could probably count on 2 of my 3 hands the number of open source operating system users on this forum. although a fair share probably use firefox or mozilla now, they do so because it just bloody works and not because it's open source.

The Intellectual Property law that is being proposed has nothing to do with the Patent Directive

I'm not talking about who uses open source and who doesnt. This new law will affect both non-open source & open source since it deals with ideas rather than patents. If an idea has been used already then the company or person that came up with and published that idea will own the intellectual property for it. Therefore if say you write application that somehow mimics the operation of existing published ideas then you could be sued/prosecuted under this new law for reusing the idea without the consent of the company or person that first published it.

If this law is passed then companies like SCO unix will be able make a lot of money from sueing/prosecuting people that have copied their ideas in other applications whether open source or not.

However ideas tend to be copied more often in open source since most people that write open source applications in the past believe that reusing someone elses idea in their own applications is just a part of using open source because it's free. When in reality they will actually be breaking the law if this IP law is passed.

Read the link on my first post

What is wrong with you?

Eh?

Am only bringing this issue up because it will affect a lot of people that use open source if this becomes law. Many of which appear use this Forum as you've all discussed how you all prefer to use open source applications enough in other threads.

I'm not pointing at any particular open source application. This issue applies to all open source. It will limit it's development and use in europe since application developers and users of open source will have to ensure they are not infringing on existing Intellectual Property before they publish.

It will to some extent affect some non open source applications as well. However they do seem to be more aware of what is intellectual property and the implications of infringing it than open source developers. Take linux as a prime example, it infringes on several pieces of SCO Unix intellectual property but open source developers/users are just ignoring it until they are sued. i.e. Daimler Chrysler for instance.

Say like for instance Tabbed browsing, Opera had the idea first before Firefox & Internet Explorer so in theory they could say they own the intellectual property for the idea. The owners of Opera could then in turn sue/prosecute Mozilla, Microsoft and any users of the software in europe if they wanted to if this law was passed.

The financial implications of this law are huge.

p.s. are you scared of open source or something' date=' really, it's not a big deal, try it, you might like it, it never did anyone any harm, well except microsoft, sun, HP and a few other big old mainframe codgers, but IBM got with the plan and tried to look for the positives, hey, maybe you should do the same, you know, a lot of people are now using open source legitimately as opposed to closed source illegitamately, surely you would see that as a good thing, and considering the foundation of some of the first internet protocols were some of the first open source style projects, surely it can't be a bad thing.

OPEN SOURCE NEVER KILLED ANYONE[/quote']

It hasnt stopped SCO Unix from sueing people that use Linux. And demanding people pay $699 to allow them to legally continue to use linux on a PC.

If the EU apply this intellectual Property law SCO Unix would have a field day against all Linux users since they believe they can be more effective if they target the user.

And if SCO Unix can do it then many more companies will sue and seek criminal proceedings against any users/owners of an open source application that intentionally infringes their intellectual property.

IBM are now trying to arrange legal protection for users of their open source software since if they dont SCO unix will be able to sue their user base. This will incur large legal bills to IBM which may end up being passed down to the user anyway.

Some other companies have already given in to SCO Unix and actually paid their demand of $699.

Open Source should be free to be developed and is ideal for development of the third world, but this law will mean that open source applications that mimic other applications which use intellectual Property could be a target if you live in europe.

This in turn would lead to money having to be spent by the user to pay for legal protection if they use open source therefore effectively meaning an end to free software since they will have to pay for the legal right to use it.

Just want to highlight the facts for a decent discussion on this topic.

The EU should be petitioned by as many people as possible in an attempt to stop this law being passed.

The European Union is proposing to implement an Intellectual Property Law.

See link below

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050801/152/fon1a.html

This has great implications on the use of Open Source as any intentional infringement of intellectual Property by a company or individual could result in criminal proceedings being filed against them.

This means that SCO Unix for instance could sue anyone using linux applications if it is based around unix owned intellectual property which could result in a criminal conviction.

Example: SCO Unix sued Daimler Chrysler for using their Autozone application on Linux, see above link.

This in turn would mean that before a company or individual creates/publishes an open source application they would need to check whether someone else didnt already own the intellectual property for the idea.

Would it mean the end for Free Open Source Software in Europe?

What are peoples thoughts on this?

1. a US patent is unenforceable in the UK...

2. the practicality of prosecuting all those who use smilies would be inhibitive...

3. a bit of a PR blunder by bill and the guys (again)

There is also a european patent been lodged by Microsoft which is also based around natural language

http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=EP1178408&F=0&QPN=EP1178408

Hopefully though the Prior art that has been found to contest these patents in the form of X-faces will succeed in revoking microsofts application.

And they prove?

The first one admits security is better with firefox' date=' the second is a critique of mozilla's marketing strategies (no security mentioned).

I can't read the third one, I'd have to subscribe and my doctor says I'm allergic to paying for websites, it brings me out in a cold sweat just thinking about it..

The fourth one doesn't talk about security at all.

I should have said, [b']relevant non-microsoft sponsored links are what we need.

EDIT: Damn, Scott! got there just before me, I'll leave it up though, just cos he deserves to be kicked when he's down.

No the first one states that Firefox is picky about what websites it will show properly which means only a minority of websites will function properly in firefox. Which isnt good if you try to say it's better than everything else if it cant view the majority of websites without some problem occuring with how it interprets it.

The second one states that the patch updates always seem to break something. which makes it a pain for the standard basic user as they wont normally know how to fix it themselves. Also it indicates that firefox has a habit of crashing badly resulting in loss of bookmarks etc.

The third one see google link below

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.webmasterworld.com%2Fforum21%2F9243-2-10.htm&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

This site states the firefox has a major habit of crashing frequently and that it hogs memory.

The fourth one states similar information as the third website about how it runs slow, hogs memory and crashes at least once a day.

Snakebite' date=' do everyone and yourself a favour and read this web site throughly:

[url']http://nanobox.chipx86.com/ie_is_dangerous.php

And stop posting your ill-informed and ignorant comments.

Here's a few websites you should read yourself

http://www.zdnetasia.com/insight/software/0,39044822,39200961-2,00.htm

http://kalsey.com/2004/09/why_i_dont_recommend_firefox/

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum21/9243-2-10.htm

http://www.zackvision.com/weblog/archives/entry/001243.html

If it is true that there have been as many patches made for Firefox within one year as for IE over the last 10 years' date=' surely that completely disproves the spurious point you've been trying to make.

This does NOT mean that Firefox is more necessarily more buggy than IE. It just means that Firefox has the capacity (because it's open source) to get things fixed quicker....so more things get fixed.[/quote']

I said the amount of patches released this year only for internet explorer are on par with the number of patches released this year only for firefox. Not the last ten. I just said internet explorer has been around for more than ten years.

What should we do' date=' then?[/quote']

Improve the security of any important information held on your PC (or take it off of your PC) to minimise the chance of it's theft when someone does break into your PC via your browser which will happen irrespective of which one you use.

Hackers will always be one step ahead of the software companies, the open source approach just gives them a bit of an advantage since they can easily see the programming code too.

Open source may be patched quicker, but it only takes a few minutes for hackers to take what they want once they've got into someones PC.

im confused as to what your point is....you need to download patches for internet explorer and firefox except you have to wait until the next patch day to get them for IE. whereas they are available quickly for firefox.

There has been a large frequency of patches for firefox already within its first year and is almost on par with the amount of patches released every month for internet explorer which has been around for more than 10 years. What happens in the next few years can mozilla keep up with an exponentially increasing rate of bug fixes.

a patch should be available as quickly as possible after an exploit is discovered' date=' if thats twice a day then YES patching twice a day is what should happen. Having exploits reported and then waiting until the next "patch day" to fix them leaves your browser insecure for longer, thats of course if microsoft ever gets round to patching them at all.[/quote']

So what do you do whilst your waiting for all these patches to be downloaded & installed, use another browser?

Who is going to have the time to write, test and issue patches twice a day? Is there enough computer programmers with nothing better to do but develop patches for firefox all day long every day.

also - won't more hackers attack IE anyway simply because it belongs to Microsoft' date=' nevermind whether or not Firefox becomes more popular?

I'm no software engineer (and it'll show probably) but surely the fact that Firefox is a free program that nobody is making money off of will mean that it's more likely to be left alone? the corporate money beast that is Micro$oft persists in doing things the wrong way ergo will keep being attacked more.

just a thought.[/quote']

Bollocks, if people want to steal your information they wont not do it because you use firefox. All they want is to see if there is any valuable information on your PC that they can steal irrespective of what browser you use.

Bollocks. Care to justify that statement with some facts and figures? No' date=' I thought not...?[/quote']

It was a good couple of years before hackers started to fully exploit internet explorers weaknesses, with Firefox it hasnt even been a year since it's official release and hackers are managing to access files on peoples PC's (okay it was an addon called grease monkey for firefox that allowed this to happen, but it was still successful in getting access to files of firefox users because they were installing the addons).

Maybe it's just the type of world we live in nowadays that everyone wants to hack into other peoples PC's compared to when internet explorer came out. Some of it maybe to do with that fact they want to attack microsoft, but others just want to steal information from you period, irrespective of your browser choice.

Below is a list of problems that had to be fixed in this year alone - okay internet explorer may have a similar amount these days, but it didnt have this much problems when it first came out.

(Doesnt include the theft of users personal information from the spreadfirefox.com website which also happened recently)

Fixed in Firefox 1.0.5/1.0.6 - 2 of which were critical that allowed unauthorised code to be run which could be used to access data

MFSA 2005-56 Code execution through shared function objects

MFSA 2005-55 XHTML node spoofing

MFSA 2005-54 Javascript prompt origin spoofing

MFSA 2005-53 Standalone applications can run arbitrary code through the browser

MFSA 2005-52 Same origin violation: frame calling top.focus()

MFSA 2005-51 The return of frame-injection spoofing

MFSA 2005-50 Possibly exploitable crash in InstallVersion.compareTo()

MFSA 2005-49 Script injection from Firefox sidebar panel using data:

MFSA 2005-48 Same-origin violation with InstallTrigger callback

MFSA 2005-47 Code execution via "Set as Wallpaper"

MFSA 2005-46 XBL scripts ran even when Javascript disabled

MFSA 2005-45 Content-generated event vulnerabilities

Fixed in Firefox 1.0.4 - All 3 were critical that allowed unauthorised code to be run which could be used to access data

MFSA 2005-44 Privilege escalation via non-DOM property overrides

MFSA 2005-43 "Wrapped" javascript: urls bypass security checks

MFSA 2005-42 Code execution via javascript: IconURL

Fixed in Firefox 1.0.3 - 3 of which were critical that allowed unauthorised code to be run which could be used to access data

MFSA 2005-33 Javascript "lambda" replace exposes memory contents

MFSA 2005-34 javascript: PLUGINSPAGE code execution

MFSA 2005-35 Showing blocked javascript: popup uses wrong privilege context

MFSA 2005-36 Cross-site scripting through global scope pollution

MFSA 2005-37 Code execution through javascript: favicons

MFSA 2005-38 Search plugin cross-site scripting

MFSA 2005-39 Arbitrary code execution from Firefox sidebar panel II

MFSA 2005-40 Missing Install object instance checks

MFSA 2005-41 Privilege escalation via DOM property overrides

Fixed in Firefox 1.0.2 - 1 of which was critical that caused problems with operation of firefox

MFSA 2005-32 Drag and drop loading of privileged XUL

MFSA 2005-31 Arbitrary code execution from Firefox sidebar panel

MFSA 2005-30 GIF heap overflow parsing Netscape extension 2

Fixed in Firefox 1.0.1 - 2 of which were critical that allowed access to data

MFSA 2005-29 Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) homograph spoofing

MFSA 2005-28 Unsafe /tmp/plugtmp directory exploitable to erase user's files

MFSA 2005-27 Plugins can be used to load privileged content

MFSA 2005-26 Cross-site scripting by dropping javascript: link on tab

MFSA 2005-25 Image drag and drop executable spoofing

MFSA 2005-24 HTTP auth prompt tab spoofing

MFSA 2005-23 Download dialog source spoofing

MFSA 2005-22 Download dialog spoofing using Content-Disposition header

MFSA 2005-21 Overwrite arbitrary files downloading .lnk twice

MFSA 2005-20 XSLT can include stylesheets from arbitrary hosts

MFSA 2005-19 Autocomplete data leak

MFSA 2005-18 Memory overwrite in string library

MFSA 2005-17 Install source spoofing with user:pass@host

MFSA 2005-16 Spoofing download and security dialogs with overlapping windows

MFSA 2005-15 Heap overflow possible in UTF8 to Unicode conversion

MFSA 2005-14 SSL "secure site" indicator spoofing

MFSA 2005-13 Window Injection Spoofing

Fixed in Firefox 1.0 - 2 of which were critical that allowed access to data

MFSA 2005-12 javascript: Livefeed bookmarks can steal private data

MFSA 2005-09 Browser responds to proxy auth request from non-proxy ssl server

MFSA 2005-08 Synthetic middle-click event can steal clipboard contents

MFSA 2005-07 Script-generated event can download content without prompting

MFSA 2005-05 Input stealing from other tabs

MFSA 2005-04 Secure site lock can be spoofed using view-source:

MFSA 2005-03 Secure site lock can be spoofed by a binary download

MFSA 2005-02 Opened attachments are temporarily saved world-readable

MFSA 2005-01 Link opened in new tab can load local file

But does the fact that is it open-source not make it inherently more secure? Because it is open-source the entire source code of the software is under scrutiny by many more people than would ever have access to the source code to Internet Explorer. Thus bugs not only usually get fixed quicker but they also get spotted quicker by the developer community.

In addition' date=' because it is open-source then you have complete transparency of the bugs detected and how they are fixed. You don't have this with Internet Explorer and Microsoft take advantage of this fact when they refuse to acknowledge bugs, say they have fixed bugs when they haven't or fix bugs on the sly through other patches/hot-fixes/service packs.[/quote']

Mozilla havent been fully transparent with details of some of the bug fixes that were carried out it the recent release, only some of them have been published on their website.

see link - http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/applications/0,39020384,39208855,00.htm

So what does that mean for the normal end user non stop patching of the software? How often will that be with in the next year or so, weekly, daily, twice a day?

I work in IT. And patching Microsoft related software and operating systems in an absolute nightmare at the best of times because of sheer volume of "critical" security patches that get released and have to be applied to desktops and servers.

I mean look at Windows 2003 server for example. In it's default configuration you can't browse ANY web site within Internet Explorer aside from the Windows Update web site because it has been locked down so much. What does that tell you about Microsoft's confidence in Internet Explorer?

All that means is that they've adopted a maximum security approach for initial installs, thats why Windows firewall in service pack 2 amongst other security features are now automatically switched ON. It is up to the installer to reduce the security settings down to a level to suit their required usage.

And as soon as everyone switches to IE again' date=' they'll target that, putting you back to square one.

You and logic don't live on the same street, do you?

I'll stick with Firefox if you don't mind, at least the people fixing it are staying further ahead of the pack than the fat, bloated, corporate monster which is MS[/quote']

Obviously you didnt read the post, you have a bad habit of that. What I was saying is that as soon as firefox becomes more popular it will get attacked more just like Internet explorer. I never said they would stop attacking internet explorer, nor did I say internet explorer was any better.

The problems that firefox has experienced since its release have however been on a greater scale than what internet explorer first experienced in it's infancy. Yes there may be alot of people that could help patch up firefox due to it being open source since everyone can modify it. It can also however be just as easily manipulated by hackers because they can easily access the programming code.

Open source is fine if no one decides to attack it, but once they do, all that will happen is the need to patch the software non stop in an attempt to keep up with the hackers instead of having the time to use it properly since you will have to constantly update it.

Internet Explorer may not be any better but not everyone has access to the programming code. Only the really determined hackers once they manage to decompile it.

A possible prior art has been found that could contest the validity of Microsofts Patent. See news report below:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050725/152/fo4li.html

A system called X-faces was developed about 15 years ago and was used on usenet bulletin boards. Hopefully this will be enough for the Microsoft patent to be thrown out. As it will be seen to be copying X-faces.

Not in a million years. The US Patent system is well overdue for an overhaul and people filling silly patents like this will only help accelerate such changes.

They have also filed a european patent as well

If these patents aren't thrown out what will be patented next?

I'm sorry' date=' you're completely wrong. Because it's open source, Mozilla doesn't need more software engineers- anybody who wants to can patch it. That means Mozilla's pool of engineers is much, much larger than Microsoft's, especially because Microsoft is content to let IE sit on the back burner and hardly ever update it. Also, the fundamental premise of your argument is flawed; Firefox itself is not what is insecure, it's an extension for Firefox. That's like blaming Microsoft for a fault in the Google Toolbar; they're completely unrelated. The key difference between Greasemonkey and ActiveX is that Greasemonkey needs to be installed by the user, while ActiveX is on by default. As soon as anyone sees the security advisory they can easily turn it off or uninstall it, which is impossible with ActiveX. They're two completely different beasts and comparing them makes no sense whatsoever.

PS: A firewall prevents against spyware and virii the same way a raincoat prevents against drowning: not at all. The firewall only blocks remote access requests. Since spyware installs itself covertly because of the user's doing something legitimately, the firewall only sees your computer requesting to do something, and thus sees no issue with the spyware's being downloaded. Check the facts.[/quote']

But so can the hackers just because it's open source it makes it easy for them to exploit it. All that will happen is firefox will eventually need to be patched more often than not which may end up meaning you have to download patches on a daily basis in an attempt to stop the hackers.

Okay the latest flaw was about due to an extension of firefox but some of the other major attacks like phishing were directed at firefox itself

do you really think that the supporter fee for aberdeen-music.com will increase due to this?

You'd better ask the webmaster that question