Tuesday, September 30, 2008

System call graph for IIS/Windows and Apache/Linux

Originally posted : http://www.thisisby.us/index.php/content/why_windows_is_less_secure_than_linux

This is a graph of system calls executed with IIS on a Windows Server, and the second image is the same for Apache on Linux. That's for rendering the same page with a single image.


Monday, September 22, 2008

Argument analysis - another non-technical useless post

((( This post is about t scientific arguments, as in the method, presentation; and value, not as in the science itself )))

When two people engage in an argument, it's because they have colliding opinions on some issue, or they are not seeing the entire other side's opinion

There are 3 possible outcomes of an argument:
1- One side proves his opinion is correct/superior and the other one is wrong/inferior
2- They reach a compromise or a trade-off. In the first one (2A), they were both wrong, and in the second one (2B) they were both right
3- They fail to reach anything out of it

Outcome 1 and 2, will occur because one side is less knowledgeable than the other, in which case I wouldn't classify it as an argument per se but rather an inquiry (1A). But it also typically occur in research teams where the whole team is researching an new topic and no one is more knowledgeable than the other (1B).

Case 3 also doesn't qualify as an argument, because each side left thinking he is right and the other is wrong. Thus a consensus was not reached. There is 3 reasons why this can happen:
1- Communication failure (3A)
2- Both parties are not knowledgeable enough/or is too arrogant (3B)
3- The topic itself does contradict itself, or the field they were discussing was a based on pure un-proven theories (3C)
Each of these 3 cases doesn't allow for an "argument" in the first place

Case 2B (both right) can be divided into 2 cases 2B' and 2B''
- 2B' they didn't reach a trade-off but only demonstrated that they have the exact point of view but were failing to communicate
- 2B'' they reached a trade-off, combining pieces of knowledge and creativity they created something new

What we can come out from that ?
2B'' and 1B are great argument that leads to an advancement and is worth the time spent
1A is good, but doesn't really qualify as an argument

Other cases are just plain useless, waste of time, and worst of all, unweighted sum of 5 argument out of each 8 are so.
Weighted sum differes between different environment and cultures.

To analyse that, I'll split them into three classes, the Great (I), the Good (II), and the Ugly (III)
Class I contains cases 2B'' and 1B, Class II contains only case 1A, and Class III contains the rest.

I'll compare different environments here

(MPC = most probable class)





EnvironmentMPC
UnivII
Barber shopIII
MITI (duh!)


I want to join MIT someday isA :)

Friday, September 12, 2008

Microsoft Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications

Though MS have similar things since 2000's, but I just found about it today.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc771470.aspx
Wikipedia is quite more informative
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Windows_Services_for_UNIX

For Linux guys, that means MS supports CC and X11, GDB, ls, kill, grep, awk, and the list goes on and on. As I understood from wikipedia, it comes with more than 350 such utilities.

CC is a wrapper around VC++. X11 doesn't come with a working X server so you'd use an open one like Cygwin/X.

To avoid confusing the reader, it's originally an implementation of the POSIX specifications (Portable Operating System Interface, an IEEE standard). I don't know why they took it from a defensive point of view and claimed it is only there to support UNIX apps..

UNIX apps can be source-ported, but not binary-ported. That means you have to recompile them on Windows to work there.

There were such a POSIX-compatibility implementation on Windows that I've heard of and used extensively (like Cygwin), but this is the first time for me to know that MS have "paid" developers to work on that :D :D

Wikipedia says that for Vista it only comes with Enterprise and Ultimate editions.

top 5 items in a TODO list...

5- improve X

4- implement Y

3- comment the code

2- clean the code

1- testing n' debugging

So basically the software have not been tested, is lacking functions, and the implemented functions are not complete nor good, the code isn't commented and isn't even clean...

PS: inspired from the TODO list here
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2006-11/msg00149.html

Virtualbox seamless mode (screenshot)



now that's CUTE

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

(a quote on google chrome)

Quoting from http://www.sol-sd.com/news/119/ARTICLE/3310/2008-09-08.html:

Chrome alone will not be a major moneymaker for Google, according to the executives, but if Chrome can improve the user experience, that will encourage more Internet use and ultimately create more revenue for Google, they said.
So Google's main problem is to increase Internet use... Google then sees "Internet = Google"...