Comment On Please Verify These Asterisks

The last one is not a WTF. Vista is not great for anything.

Of course, the WTF on the last one is that Vista needs 1GB RAM for any serious use.

How big is one gigabyte of cubic RAM ?

On DotNetNuke, if you request a password reminder to an administrator account, it will email your password... but before it sends the email, it censors the password to *****, which defeats the entire purpose.

joe.edwards@imaginuity.com:

On DotNetNuke, if you request a password reminder to an administrator account, it will email your password... but before it sends the email, it censors the password to *****, which defeats the entire purpose.

So true DOG! HAAHAHAA

I love the consistency of the disk metrics. 7200rpm > 40G + 15G free > 15G free. And 50mph > 16 years old > eye exam, too.

The desired specification of my work laptop is that the operating system loads.

We have a wiki whche savs a hash of the password. This is usually a great idea but as soon as you forget your password and request it it gets a little insane. It will mail you the hash and asks you to enter this as this will also work.

Er... doesn't that defeat the purpose of only saving the hash of the password?

Great if you want to switch to a less bloated OS.

Well, except for the users who use the same password everywhere.

BTW - the last one is from Dell's website, not Microsoft's

See http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/solutions/en/winvista?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

(Not saying it's not a WTF, but I just thought I'd mention that before people started complaining about Microsoft. There are plenty of other websites commenting on Dell's page as well - google for "booting the operating system, without running applications or games")

Paul:

BTW - the last one is from Dell's website, not Microsoft's

See http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/solutions/en/winvista?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

(Not saying it's not a WTF, but I just thought I'd mention that before people started complaining about Microsoft. There are plenty of other websites commenting on Dell's page as well - google for "booting the operating system, without running applications or games")

Good point. Here's the equivalent page from Microsoft:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/systemrequirements.mspx
A little better than saying the minimum CPU is a "modern processor" and the recommended hard drive is "7200 rpm".

Paul:

BTW - the last one is from Dell's website, not Microsoft's

See http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/solutions/en/winvista?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

(Not saying it's not a WTF, but I just thought I'd mention that before people started complaining about Microsoft. There are plenty of other websites commenting on Dell's page as well - google for "booting the operating system, without running applications or games")

Sounds like Dell is trying to scare people into buying their overpriced RAM.

hallo.amt:

We have a wiki whche savs a hash of the password. This is usually a great idea but as soon as you forget your password and request it it gets a little insane. It will mail you the hash and asks you to enter this as this will also work.

Generate a new password and mail them that while updating the hash at the same time...

Or am I actually getting hashes every time other sites give me what looks to be a randomly generated password?

Actually, the low-end laptop probably runs Linux well, assuming there are drivers for it.

But what most users want to know is
"How well will it get email and run spyware and a spambot?"

Renan_S2:

Of course, the WTF on the last one is that Vista needs 1GB RAM for any serious use.

no, it needs > 1GB of RAM for for anything serious. it needs 1GB to open a web browser.

In the defense of whoever wrote the specs in the last one, I have actually seen a computer set up with Win98 on a 386 with 4 megs of RAM, no sound card, minimal video and all minimal drivers.

It took 27 hours to boot, but it didn't actually crash.

Is this your email address?

*********@*****.***

[Yes] [No] [Maybe]

Ah, eclipse just informed me that an internal error occurred while showing an internal error.....

file_not_found

A funny thing about the Dell comment about "booting the operating system, without running applications or games" with 512MB: I use a 18 month old Mac (one of the original Core Duo 1.83GHz ones), and run Vista in VMWare Fusion, with 512MB assigned to it, and it actually runs most applications fine. No aero, and it's slow to boot, but it's ok.

Not that that means I would actually run Vista as my primary machine, but what's the fuss?

CynicalTyler:

Is this your email address?

*********@*****.***

[Yes] [No] [Maybe]

No. My email address is
*******@*****.***.***

Spacewarp:

In the defense of whoever wrote the specs in the last one, I have actually seen a computer set up with Win98 on a 386 with 4 megs of RAM, no sound card, minimal video and all minimal drivers.

It took 27 hours to boot, but it didn't actually crash.

....WHY?!?

Spacewarp:

In the defense of whoever wrote the specs in the last one, I have actually seen a computer set up with Win98 on a 386 with 4 megs of RAM, no sound card, minimal video and all minimal drivers.

It took 27 hours to boot, but it didn't actually crash.

WinXP on 8MHz. Enjoy:

http://www.winhistory.de/more/386/xpmini.htm

And the same for Vista:

http://www.winhistory.de/more/386/vistamini.htm

So... why isn't the first one actually a WTF?

Wow, my PC could actually run Vista? I'm surprised. No Flashget, or Deus Ex for me, though; sigh.

By the way, can anyone enlighten me why the first one isn't a WTF? It surely looks like one.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa:

So... why isn't the first one actually a WTF?

Because you have a few people on this website who will say "not a WTF" on every single submission regardless of what it is. The submitter probably just didn't want to have to deal with that.

On a related note, "not a WTF" should never be said on Error'ds, because that's not part of the criteria (everybody should read the descritpion).

Spectre:

By the way, can anyone enlighten me why the first one isn't a WTF? It surely looks like one.

Yes. Saying "Is *******@gmail.com your email address?" is completely pointless because you can't see the email address to confirm it! How is that not a WTF?

Herohtar:

Spectre:

By the way, can anyone enlighten me why the first one isn't a WTF? It surely looks like one.

Yes. Saying "Is *******@gmail.com your email address?" is completely pointless because you can't see the email address to confirm it! How is that not a WTF?

True.
It would make more sense to display it as:
"Is myname@*****.*** your email address?"

Believe it or not!!

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa:

So... why isn't the first one actually a WTF?

If the login is an email/password combination and you use hotmail, AOL, gmail, yahoo, school, company email, etc., this gives you enough information to narrow it down to which email you signed up with, but doesn't provide any useful information to spammers. Otherwise, with a list of usernames, you could easily turn it into a list of valid email addresses.

I'd rather be asked "does your social security number end with 6789" than "is your social security number 123-45-6789?"

The WTF on the last one is that other vendors aren't saying the same thing.. and for XP just halve the numbers, for 2000 halve them again, but no vendor shipped enough RAM on their standard systems to do more than "boot the OS without running any applications"

Monkios:

How big is one gigabyte of cubic RAM ?

As big as a football field.

Is this your email address?

*********@*****.***

[Yes] [No] [Maybe]

Is this your email address?

*********@*****.***

[Yes] [No] [Maybe] [FILE_NOT_FOUND]

AC:

Spacewarp:

In the defense of whoever wrote the specs in the last one, I have actually seen a computer set up with Win98 on a 386 with 4 megs of RAM, no sound card, minimal video and all minimal drivers.

It took 27 hours to boot, but it didn't actually crash.

....WHY?!?

Why do geeks do anything? To see if it works. In this case, to see whether Micro$oft's "minimum requirements" would actually run the product.

And, of course, because we had nothing better to do at the time. 8)

Monkios:

How big is one gigabyte of cubic RAM ?

Big enough to probably work unless you accidentally use your computer to do something.

"3 Initial testing indicates that while some single channel systems will run Aero, system performance may depend on applications, and minor system or driver changes could result in Aero being disabled later."

From the same page:

"With the right hardware configuration and the right version of Windows Vista®"

Also:

"Aero enabled as a default, but performance may be compromised as more windows, applications and games are opened."

To paraphrase:

"We have installed overhyped software that will likely cripple your PC, but don't worry you have a modern processor. It runs at 800Mhz."

Yes. It certainly does.

I like the way it marks a distinction between "window", "application" and "game". Lies. They're all the same.

(I regularly play Excel in my spare time at work. It's a hoot.)

Arlen:

I like the way it marks a distinction between "window", "application" and "game". Lies. They're all the same.

I beg to differ:

6 Initial testing indicates that while the computer will run when windows are open, system performance may depend on the status of doors, radiators, air conditioners and ceiling fans. Minor changes to air pressure could result in Aero being disabled later

ERROR: Couldn't get the localized message from message group "ErrorMessages", localization is not initialized, i got this at work - great work tool desingners i dont care if the you can't tell me what the error is my mother tongue, just tell me what you think that the error was

Capthca: words are the means for meaning

FIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spacewarp:

AC:

Spacewarp:

In the defense of whoever wrote the specs in the last one, I have actually seen a computer set up with Win98 on a 386 with 4 megs of RAM, no sound card, minimal video and all minimal drivers.

It took 27 hours to boot, but it didn't actually crash.

....WHY?!?

Why do geeks do anything? To see if it works. In this case, to see whether Micro$oft's "minimum requirements" would actually run the product.

And, of course, because we had nothing better to do at the time. 8)

This would probably have been a better use of your time.

Jake Vinson:

I'd rather be asked "does your social security number end with 6789" than "is your social security number 123-45-6789?"

How about, "Does your social security number include a 5?"

You'd have no way of confirming that the number they are thinking of is the same as the number you are thinking of.

If you happened to know that they were selecting your email address from a complete list of all your email addresses, and you were just selecting one based on the host, then fine. But how can you be sure that it's your gmail account they're sending to, and not the last guy who used that library computer?

I call the first one a WTF still... Why blank the whole username part? I mean, assuming it's a dynamic page generated from a form asking for the address, what spambots are gathering addresses from it?

And even if there are bots gathering addresses from the page, wouldn't it suffice to blank parts of the name instead of the whole thing? Try to spam me a u*t*u*t*d@hotmail.com while I sit here knowing that, yes, that does look my correct Hotmail username.

I got a similar message, but it showed the first letter of my username as well as the domain name. So it would be e******@example.com rather than *******@example.com.

Much more useful, and also eliminates the question of "Which email address did I give these guys?" (Unless you've got multiple accounts with one service...)

Jake Vinson:

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa:

So... why isn't the first one actually a WTF?

If the login is an email/password combination and you use hotmail, AOL, gmail, yahoo, school, company email, etc., this gives you enough information to narrow it down to which email you signed up with, but doesn't provide any useful information to spammers. Otherwise, with a list of usernames, you could easily turn it into a list of valid email addresses.

I'd rather be asked "does your social security number end with 6789" than "is your social security number 123-45-6789?"

And yet, no-one's actually hit the real problem. A proper verification method asks the user to provide all the info and is verified by the system. This is like asking "Is your password 'ilikekittens' instead of having you enter the password. I mean really, if a company provides you with the verification key and simply asks you if it's correct, do you think someone trying to breach your account would be dumb enough to say no? I know that it's not likely the case here, i'm just saying that if the person who wrote that site doesn't understand security enough to write a page like that, there's probably some pretty badly gaping holes elsewhere.

Arlen:

(I regularly play Excel in my spare time at work. It's a hoot.)

So you've found the Easter Egg?

vt_mruhlin:

Generate a new password and mail them that while updating the hash at the same time...

That opens you up to a DoS attack (someone goes to the "forgot my password" page and submits every user name he can find). A better approach is to email the user a verification link that they have to follow to reset their password.

Grimoire:

Paul:

BTW - the last one is from Dell's website, not Microsoft's

See http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/solutions/en/winvista?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

(Not saying it's not a WTF, but I just thought I'd mention that before people started complaining about Microsoft. There are plenty of other websites commenting on Dell's page as well - google for "booting the operating system, without running applications or games")

Sounds like Dell is trying to scare people into buying their overpriced RAM.

Sounds more like Dell is being truthful about vistas resource needs to avoid complaining customers.

death:

Sounds more like Dell is being truthful about vistas resource needs to avoid complaining customers.

Hear! Hear!
Though, when they know Vista's such a blood-leech to the system why do they ship the computers with Vista pre-installed, and ask you to burn 8(!) cd's with a "Vista backup" when you first start it?

(Whey does the bloodey captchey form ask me to misspell words?!)