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Comment: Two clouds with replication! (Score 1) 150

by cras (#43476181) Attached to: Google Apps Suffering Partial Outage

Sorry for advertising my own product, but pretty much on topic here. :) Buy two (cheap) servers from completely different networks / data center providers, and keep them replicated with http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Replication. You can set up MX records to both of them, and use DNS to switch between the replicas for IMAP/POP3 as needed. Either one of the data centers can die and your mail won't stop working. Or keep one of the replicas in local network and your mail keeps working even if your internet connection dies.

(Then you'll only need to hope that there are no software bugs bringing down everything.)

Comment: Re:Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans (Score 1) 461

by cras (#43351985) Attached to: Let Them Eat Teslas

Dunno how it works in Germany, but I think the people should be able to decide for themselves what kind of education they want, whenever they want (+- a few years). And maybe more importantly: If you decide wrong at some point, you should be able to switch if you're good enough. I think the way it works in Finland is good enough. I dropped out of high school (wanted to code all nights), finished it 7 years later when I had more motivation, had no problem getting into university trying out something new interesting I re-learned at high school (biotech!), then deciding it wasn't really worth the trouble and switching back to computer science and getting a BSc out of it. The high school and college stories I hear from the US are pretty depressing usually.

Comment: Re:If you HAVE to have a Retina/Pixel display... (Score 1) 392

by cras (#42977333) Attached to: The Chromebook Pixel Is Real, and Expensive

My laptop comparisons nowadays:

Apple laptop:

Non-Apple laptop:

Until some laptop has MagSafe or similar I won't even consider it. I remember too well when I used to trip over the power cords and drag my laptop on the floor. Or break the power plug because it got twisted when moving the laptop in a bad direction. Or stepping on the power plug and breaking it. (Yeah, I don't treat my laptops all that well.)

Comment: Re:Classes/Templates are not a magic bullet ... (Score 1) 406

by cras (#41006231) Attached to: GCC Switches From C to C++

Any time you join an existing project you have to learn how to use its libraries, this is no different. Yeah, maybe you'll save a few hours of learning time if some of it is standardized by the base language. If that becomes a real issue with someone you probably shouldn't have hired him/her anyway.


by cras (#40998203) Attached to: GCC Switches From C to C++

Well, that kind of GENERATE_SORT() seems very ad-hoc way to do it and very specific to a sort.. My method looks more like this (dynamically growing type safe arrays):

#include "array.h"
int foobar_cmp(const struct foobar *f1, const struct foobar *f2); ..
ARRAY_DEFINE(foobars, struct foobar);
struct foobar f; ..
array_init(&foobars, 16);
array_append(&foobars, &f); ..
array_sort(&foobars, foobar_cmp);

I don't think that's much different (or more difficult) from how you'd do it with C++ templates. Of course implementing array.h is easier with C++.


by cras (#40997929) Attached to: GCC Switches From C to C++

It's also very hard to write type safe code properly in C. Just look at the classic example of the unsafe qsort versus the safer and faster std::sort.

You can do all kinds of nifty stuff with macros and gcc/clang extensions to provide type safety to C. Yeah, if you don't already have a library for that it can be a bit difficult to write one (or find one you like). But once you have the library it's very easy to write (mostly) type safe code with C. For example I have a type safe array_sort() in C.

Comment: Re:QR codes don't all have destinations (Score 2) 234

by cras (#38540886) Attached to: Malicious QR Code Use On the Rise

But every implementation I've seen of a QR code reader in Android and IOS also gives you the option to inspect the content visually before acting on it. They ask if you want to proceed.

Of course one could argue the click-thru generation does not know enough to evaluate the content, but then these are the same people that no amount of malware/antivirus software can protect.

Is the confirmation something like OK/Cancel? I also tend to click OK buttons without hardly even reading them. That's why potentially security sensitive questions shouldn't have such simple buttons, but rather two (radio?) buttons that require you to read (and hopefully understand) what you're doing, such as: "Replace network settings from QR" and "Keep the existing network settings".

Comment: Re:You're all wrong, and will be until about 2022 (Score 1) 79

by cras (#37397856) Attached to: The Rise of Software Security

I wasn't planning on fixing all of security problems, but the typical case of clicking open random email attachments or running random programs from internet should and could be made safe, while still keeping the user interface user friendly. Those are the reasons for most of today's security problems.
