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You see, I believe one of the things computers should be able to do is overcome the limitations of the human ability to learn languages (quite difficult and time-consuming after about age 10) to let people communicate with each other, at least in text format. If services like Babelfish can translate crudely between European languages now, how long will it take before there's a version that can do it between Hindi and English, or Hindi and Mandarin for that matter? Not long, I hope.

For a start, here's one interesting link: WorldLingo. (Featuring Japanese-to-English! I don't know how well it works.)

Of course, this is one data point, but it's still a pretty bad failure for a random search. (I'm emailing a friend about the event.) It's also disappointing that Google has 3 listings within directories above the actual website - I don't think that would have happened a few months ago.

Better yet, try AltaVista's Raging Search. It's just like the old AltaVista, back when they were a top-notch search engine and not a (crappy) portal. It is quite obviously designed to compete with Google. I find that Google and Raging together cover most of my search needs.

or alternatively the text only av which does me fine. raging has some new and interesting customisation features now.

s
(and hey, how about letting us use xhtml compliant BR tags?)

Google is OK. I tend to use MetaCrawler most, then Alta Vista.

More than just pretty girls...

Google is OK. I tend to use MetaCrawler most, then Alta Vista.

More than just pretty girls...

As a webmaster for several websites, I have always found the backlinks checking option on Google to be one of the neatest features of the site.

Nothing new (or at least, not all that new) -- altavista has offered link: searching for a much longer period of time.

See:
http://doc.altavista.com/adv_search /syntax.html

If you find banners annoying (as I do), simply filter them out with something like Junkbuster, or my favoured solution, Squid and sleezeball. All those annoying flashing ads get replaced with a nice transparent gif. And so the advertising companies still pay my favourite sites, I occasionally click on those transparent gifs too.

If google wants to add banners, I say good luck to them. I won't be viewing the adverts, but they'll be getting revenue that will keep their service going. As long as the banners don't get in the way of the service, as they have on search engines such as Altavista, then that's fine. It's only when the websites become oriented around products rather than the service that there's a problem. IMO, this is far more likely to happen if they don't display adverts, revenues will no doubt be sapped and may force them into a position where a buyout is necessary. I somehow doubt any company which would buy them out would run the service half as well as the current google owners.

Translate from Polish to english, or some other permutation...

Gets mildly mangled, but beats the censorship remarkably well...

The German trademark law is a bit complicated, I'm afraid, and there is probably nothing in the Web in English, but here's at least some information in the form of translated headings to get you an idea of how it is structured.

Those out there with some knowledge of German might try the Bundesgesetzblatt (the Federal Law publishing board) or this comprehensive overview of German trademark law with the texts included; I think you can forget the idea of having it babelfished, though, because it's probably a bit too complicated in style to translate properly. Another good resource is the web site of the DPMA (Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt), the German Patent and Trademark Office.

If you know some German and want to go for an entirely different view of the matter, you might have a look at the other side's point of view, in this case in the form of the aforementioned lawyer Günther von Gravenreuth, well known (not to say notorious) for his actions against private and commercial "computer piracy". There even exists an FAQ for people who had legal trouble with him in one specific matter.

The European Union point of view on trademark law is available at the European Patent Office, with loads upon loads of links to various European and other offices and institutions, European law texts, patent databases and other stuff.

All this is governed by the German Trademark Act of October 25, 1994 (Bundesgesetzblatt I, p.3082).

If I spoke German, which I don't, I would translate the proper passage for you and write it here. Instead, I provide a link to the complete text in German. The more daring ones among you can use Babelfish to translate it.

CNBC today revealed on air that one of the John/Jane Does (most likely the primary John/Jane Doe) that Apple is chasing after in their suit is a message board poster named "Workerbee" who posted on the Yahoo APPL message board as well as AppleInsider's Future Hardware message boards, and who posted pictures (on a Geocities website which disappeared today) of Apple's multiprocessing mobo and an early version of Apple's new optical mouse long before either were announced. Louismg on Raging Bull's AAPL stock board compiled a list of links to Workerbee's posts earlier today which can be seen here. The accuracy of Workerbee's posts on a wide variety of Apple hardware projects (Mouse, keyboard, Cube, MPs, iMacs, etc.) leads to the obvious conclusion that he or she must be an Apple employee. In one of his or her last posts before disappearing, Workerbee confirms the ZDnet story that Apple has a cinema-screened Powerbook packing a G4 ready to roll soon, and might even have been the source for the scoop.

"We believe they are developing the largest spam database in the history of the Internet," says Dave McClure, executive director of the U.S. Internet Industry Association, Arlington, Va., which represents some 300 high-tech firms doing business on the Internet.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is this the Internet Industry Association which doesn't have a web site?

Nah! I'm being unfair. Just because it's a new site, and just because they are an organisation that "provides education on Internet and technology issues, advocates effective public policy for the Internet..." but does not have a privacy statement on it's site, and just because they are affiliate with one of the largest censor organisations in the country (which has "dirversified nto other safety programs to address lifelong injury prevention, including cyber safety, teen impaired driving ...", ...

Just because they are clueles doesn't mean I have any rights to make fun of them. So please completely ignore this post...

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"Where do you come from?"

I find humor in the fact that Emmett didn't even provide a link to the Ottawa Linux Symposium website... Anyway a couple others are listed here: Most notable and/or accessible for North-Americaners would be the Linuxworld Expo in San Jose, August 14-17, and the Atlanta Linux Showcase Oct 10-14. Also, here is a list of Corel tradeshows.

If anyone knows of others, please speak up (It took 2 minutes on Altavista to find these).

And I don't see why Slashdot couldn't announce every upcoming conference, or at least every conference that requested announcing. iT's only an inch of screen space... this is supposed to be a community site, after all. Sounds like a slashbox-in-the-making.

imuho

Get used to your e-mails being insecure. I know people are going to say "encryption", but think about this:

Before Quantum Cryptography becomes available, Quantum Computing will have arrived (many suggest within a few years) and it will render insecure most or all encryption methods using conventional computers. It has been proven that a quantum computer will be able to factor large primes (see reference in RSA's overview which, interestingly, predicts that quantum cryptography will be realised before quantum cryptoanalysis -- but they would say that, I guess ...).

(Find more about Quantum Cryptoanalysis on AltaVista.)

Sorry guys, but encryption will soon be a thing of the past (before it rises again in a different form on a different infrastructure). Bye, bye privacy, bye e-commerce, bye.

Learn to live with it.

(For the record: there is a different issue in some of the comments: should the Govt snoop your e-mails as a matter of routine? I don't think they should, any more than I think they should read all the postcards that are sent through the mail.)

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"Where do you come from?"

Get used to your e-mails being insecure. I know people are going to say "encryption", but think about this:

Before Quantum Cryptography becomes available, Quantum Computing will have arrived (many suggest within a few years) and it will render insecure most or all encryption methods using conventional computers. It has been proven that a quantum computer will be able to factor large primes (see reference in RSA's overview which, interestingly, predicts that quantum cryptography will be realised before quantum cryptoanalysis -- but they would say that, I guess ...).

(Find more about Quantum Cryptoanalysis on AltaVista.)

Sorry guys, but encryption will soon be a thing of the past (before it rises again in a different form on a different infrastructure). Bye, bye privacy, bye e-commerce, bye.

Learn to live with it.

(For the record: there is a different issue in some of the comments: should the Govt snoop your e-mails as a matter of routine? I don't think they should, any more than I think they should read all the postcards that are sent through the mail.)

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"Where do you come from?"

The MSNBC story is here.

It says in there how some Napster users are using Scour instead.

I've always been partial to finding MP3s with Altavista myself.

• Your AltaVista query is encoded and shipped to DoubleClick's "adult" department.
  http://ad.doubleclick.net/adf/adult.av.com/links;k w=sex;tw=530;th=180;tn=2;tsw=70;to=h;szs =260x140,200x140;ord=1701993088?
• A single-pixel transparent GIF is read from Akami. Unclear why, but the URL is http://a12.g.akamai.net/7/12/282/9e258e204c1159/ww w.altavista.com/i/px.gif

Nowadays, alta-vista.com redirects properly to altavista.com.
<O
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

See the book "Information Warfare" by Winn Schwartau (ISBN: 1560251328), which has a really good chapter on this stuff. I can't think of any decent web links at the moment, but searching for EMP and HERF at altavista should turn up interesting stuff

Seriously guys: this man goes on and on and on... A quick search on AltaVista for his name and Echelon turns up more than 20 pages of hits.

This guy never stops. He appars to be totally paranoid and he has -- as far as I can tell -- done no original research on his own.

Yes, it is worthwhile to discuss Echelon, the implications of Echelon, and, more generally, the role of intelligence services in democratic and civilised nations. But the ravings of this guy is not the right place to start a sensible discussion.

Please, can we get back to technology now? Try to read about flesh eating robots (seriously!) in the New Scientist for something more interesting than this guy.

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"Where do you come from?"

He's a troll - look at his posting history. He's one of the better trolls, granted, but a troll non the less. Try looking for "NPO Technologies" on the web (the IT firm he claims to work for). Surely they'd have some form of web presence, they're an IT firm, right? Nearly every company has a web site, and I'd be very surprised to find that an IT consulting firm would not have one. Yet searching AltaVista for either npo technologies or n.p.o. technologies returns nothing. It doesn't seem to exist. I'd expect there to be some web page about them somewhere, but there isn't... he's a troll. Albeit a good one.

He's a troll - look at his posting history. He's one of the better trolls, granted, but a troll non the less. Try looking for "NPO Technologies" on the web (the IT firm he claims to work for). Surely they'd have some form of web presence, they're an IT firm, right? Nearly every company has a web site, and I'd be very surprised to find that an IT consulting firm would not have one. Yet searching AltaVista for either npo technologies or n.p.o. technologies returns nothing. It doesn't seem to exist. I'd expect there to be some web page about them somewhere, but there isn't... he's a troll. Albeit a good one.

He's a troll - look at his posting history. He's one of the better trolls, granted, but a troll non the less. Try looking for "NPO Technologies" on the web (the IT firm he claims to work for). Surely they'd have some form of web presence, they're an IT firm, right? Nearly every company has a web site, and I'd be very surprised to find that an IT consulting firm would not have one. Yet searching AltaVista for either npo technologies or n.p.o. technologies returns nothing. It doesn't seem to exist. I'd expect there to be some web page about them somewhere, but there isn't... he's a troll. Albeit a good one.

But even for web searches, I'm coming to the conclusion that Altavista is just sucky. Firstly, it's way out of date, half the links are broken and it's still indexing my homepage as having content that was changed over two months ago. But mostly I get annoyed that the search page refreshes itself every 5 minutes.

I don't think Altavista will autorefresh if you use it in text mode. It doesn't seem to send any meta-refresh tags that way, plus it's a much faster loading, easier to read interface. Text mode used to not even have banner ads, but Junkbuster takes care of those easily enough.

I don't think this is going to help much, except for allowing for the existence of a parallel hidden Internet, much in the way there are hidden forums in some weblogs... Take a look at how things work in Brazil (you may prefer BabelFish)

It should be noted, for non-Spanish speakers, that Pendejo Sin Nombre, translates roughly as Nameless Asshole. I think Slashdot would profit a great deal from a similar terminology.

That's how Babelfish translates it but a more accurate translation is nameless moron. Otherwise, I agree with you. Slash could benefit from a similar terminology.

Not true! Babelfish now does Russian to English!

this has been about for at least a year now, and green for a couple of years. heres an artical from december 98 Cambridge claims blue light emitting polymer and heres a good one from feb 98 it clames that Seiko-Epson and Cambridge Display Technology were working on a momocrome version.
want to find out more .

If you can't read French, copy the link and paste it in a field at GO.com Translator to get surprisingly good results. It's a new version of the Systran software that powers AltaVista's Babel Fish.

Raging Search (AltaVista repackaged) turns up over half a million pages containing gopher links. Stunning...

(Slashdot thinks I'm not logged in, though I was logged in a few minutes ago. Slashdot's been wierd today; a few minutes ago I was seeing lots of Perl error messages regarding "mu.current.nu", which supports Slashdot in some way.)
(OK, did a Preview, and now Slashdot has me logged in again. Somebody needs a new roll of duct tape.)

"Existen diversos fenómenos -guerras, plagas, inspecciones sorpresa- que demuestran que la mano de Satán se esconde tras los asuntos del Hombre. Pero todo el mundo está de acuerdo en una cosa: el momento en que los estudiantes de demonología toman la circunvalación de la M25 hacia Londres es la prueba que se lleva la palma."

my copy of "Good Omens" is in spanish.
Terry Pratchett rocks :)

btw.. babelbish is your friend.

sorry for the offtopic.

I think google's slip into commercialism is inevitable, but by the time that happens there might be another slick clean engine to use. =)

http:// www.altavista.com/cgi-bin/query?pg=aq&what=web&enc =iso88591&text=yes

Interestingly, most of the hot software found in such boolean searches as:

download AND crack AND photoshop AND word AND illustrator

is on public webpages like freeyellow and geocities, and most of the sites are shut down before you get there. But for any shrink-wrap commercial software product you can name, it doesn't take more than an hour or two of searching to find a good download for it.

It happens that Microsoft has a full-time staff doing searches such as these with their own spider to find stashes of Windows 2000; I understand they find and shut down something like 100 sites a day. (Sorry, I tried to find a news report about this to link to and couldn't.)

Maybe Microsoft is able to minimize the impact of piracy this way, but I don't think they can completely eliminate it. Any normal software company simply doesn't have the resources to search out and elimate the warez like Microsoft tries to.

How could anyone hope to control something as popularly appealing and easy to obtain and use as music files?

As I understand it, the Office participated in an ad network to market its site. If you searched Altavista for "grow pot" , a Doubleclick banner would be served for the Drug Control office Web site and, of course, you'd be cookied (unless you filter). The paranoia is that the cookie potentially represents a personally identifiable piece of information that is understandable disconcerting if you believe the government is using the cookie to surreptitiously track you personally and determine what other sites you are visiting.

But "cookie" does not automatically equal "privacy invasion". I consider it to be a disservice to the education of the Web public for Jason Catlett (Junkbusters.Com), Mark Rotenberg (EPIC, and even Richard Smith (his expose' here) to contribute to this hysteria. I think it makes for good sensationalism to further the advocacy for electronic privacy. The Whitehouse's withering before the criticism is disappointing but understandable considering that any defense would have only powered the conspiracy theory. But in terms of the threat to privacy this represents, I think it only extends the broad and irrational fear of an incredibly useful and pervasive Web technology.

If you think I'm wrong, email me or post here so I can exercise the debate. I consider myself a pragmatic privacy advocate and am willing to listen to logic.

• Bungie remains autonomous inside Microsoft
• The decision on which platforms to develop for remains completely with Bungie
• the deal with microsoft was signed on a parchment made of human skin with the blood of a virgin goat (well, they're not sure whether the goat was actually virgin, but that's just a small nit)

Consider that when my former employer Live Picture announced that it was moving from scenic, rural Scotts Valley, California to Silicon Valley, the first thing I did (three hours after the announcement) was type up a page-long resignation with a detailed discussion of why I thought it was a miserable idea - and email it to each person in the heirarchy up in the company from my project manager to the Chief Executive Officer. I understand our expensive new CEO that was hand-picked by John Sculley was pretty furious about it (she got fired about a year later).

Consider further that I could then use the Altavista advanced search for boolean expressions like employment and programming and 95060 (repeated for each of the Santa Cruz County zip codes) allowed me to write the original form of this page:

The Santa Cruz County Computer Industry Index

whose URL I then emailed around the company to help my coworkers find new local jobs so they wouldn't have to commute over the hill.

Individual action has existed throughout history. What the Internet has done is made it much more effective.

Anyone can speak out, and their speech can be accessed by anyone else almost instantly. Companies can try to carefully control communication between themselves and the market (or their vendors) but individual actions such as the one I took when my employer announced a really annoying policy design can make their efforts futile.

Consider that Microsoft is working hard to win over the court of public opinion to prevent its breakup.

How effective is that actually, today? How much more effective would that have been 15 years ago when Microsoft could have controlled the industry media and folks like us couldn't have spoken out effectively.

Besides uReach, Yahoo!Mail is the only one I use for "real" mail because I'm hooked by the rest of Yahoo's personalized services, esp. Yahoo!Companion. The rest are just "throwaway's", good for pseudononymous transactions. If you're placing a lot of trust in Hotmail not to lose your data, or keep it secure, or always be available...I think you're being foolish.

I always use Babelfish . Just translate your English to German, then back to English, then to French, then back again, then to Spanish and back, ditto with Italian and Portugese and BLAMO!!!(tm), you have text that NOBODY can read. True, you can never get the original text back, but that just makes it that much more secure.

Unhappy Windows User asks: "An article on AltaVista states that Microsoft will "fight to the death anything that threatens its intellectual property". The article states that, by keeping APIs closed, Microsoft has an advantage over other software vendors such as Corel. But how exactly would disclosing the source code be a threat to IP?

Throughout its edits of the DOJ proposal, Microsoft tried to draw a distinction between external APIs (which the company is willing to give away and already often does) and internal APIs (which it is fighting tooth and nail to keep under wraps).

There are possible reasons which it is reasonable and legitimate not to want to release certain APIs. For one thing, the code to handle it may be lower quality or a "hack" put together to solve a problem and might not be adequately tested.

For another, once an API gets published and known, if code that is created relying on those APIs is not to be broken by changes made to them, it means the API must be frozen; any new changes require developing a new API

Even if the intent was to allow release of the source code, it is possible to do so without hurting the value of the (proprietary) program in question. In many cases, there are a number of applications - including some shareware programs - where you either get source code or get it by paying an additional fee. IBM would often sell certain Mainframe system programs with source code. In fact, a proposal to go to OCO (Object Code Only) licenses on these programs was met with severe opposition from customers because they could not be sure they would be able to customize the applications to fit local needs. IBM had promised to provide "exits" (the equivalent of callback functions) to provide certain features. But that doesn't guarantee you can be compatible with the program or know if you have to change something to fix a problem. It might be asked why did they want to do that (or why don't they leave things the way they are)?.

In Robert Heinlein's To Sail Beyond The Sunsetit was asked,

Whenever someone asks, 'Why don't they?' [or why do they] the answer is almost always, 'money'.

A proprietary program can be open source, meaning you do get the source with it or you only get it if you pay extra (pace the Bell Labs Unix license in which a source-code license - except for certain academic customers - cost an arm, a leg and part of the hip and shoulder).

If your product's comes with source code, you can't suddenly jack up the price to stratospheric levels once the customer is locked into the product, as has happened in at least one reported case involving a licensee of the Windows 95 source who it is said saw its fees for source code access go up by many times the original figure because they allegedly did something Microsoft didn't like or because MS decided they could impose huge raises in source license fees.

What has changed in the case of what is being done in the general Open Source market is that the programs being released may be sold or transferred by anyone.

Maybe it's just my imagination, but doesn't the Trolltech's QT logo look a bit too much like the sign of a former communist superpower? :-)

Yes, they do, but it's not ATA/100 . . . at least, not according to IBM:

Interface transfer rate (max MB/sec) 66.6+ 66.6+

Actually, it is. The ATA/100 interface wasn't officially introduced until monday. HD and chip manufacturers who had their ATA/100 products finished had to wait until Quantum gave them official permission. By calling the interface ATA/66+, IBM was able to get around this restriction. Technically, ther is no difference between ATA/66+ and ATA/100, so I expect IBM to change the name soon (after all, 100 sounds faster than 66, even with a plus sign...:-)

Check out this article on Heise Online for more information. It is in German, so you may want to use Babelfish.

Is this link legal? Who is to sue? Me,the poster, Slashdot, the site wich the link is on, Altavista, where the link can be found and I linked to, or galactic-guide.com where the link is?

J.

Is this link legal? Who is to sue? Me,the poster, Slashdot, the site wich the link is on, Altavista, where the link can be found and I linked to, or galactic-guide.com where the link is?

J.

Simply put, type in the name of a few commercial programs, or song names, plus keywords like "serial" and "crack" or "mp3" into the Altavista Advanced Search Form and you'll be on you're way to being an 31337 d00d.

So is the BSA and SPA and RIAA going to crack down on Altavista?

Mike

Tilting at Windmills for a Better Tomorrow

Simply put, type in the name of a few commercial programs, or song names, plus keywords like "serial" and "crack" or "mp3" into the Altavista Advanced Search Form and you'll be on you're way to being an 31337 d00d.

So is the BSA and SPA and RIAA going to crack down on Altavista?

Mike

Tilting at Windmills for a Better Tomorrow

The total cost of ownership includes these things and more:

• Original purchase price
• Price of upgrades
• Price of original installation
• Price of installing upgrades - including labor and document conversion
• Cost of training users
• Cost of training users to use upgrades
• Cost of downtime due to bugs
• Cost of technical support
• Cost of lost business due to bugs (can run into millions of $)

After all, if the cost of retail purchase is an issue the business owner can easily download the software from one of the many warez sites on the web, and many use pirated Microsoft software rather than use Linux and GPL'ed software legitimately.

Look at what the other side provides:

• A large pool of already-trained users (many trained in our public educational system)
• Certified engineers
• Easy-to-find solutions (retail stores, ecommerce, vars, consultants)
• Low-cost and free technical support for many items
• "For Dummies" books

I also suggest including a list of consultants who will provide support for your program, either for free or for pay, along with your distribution and on your website.

Don't make the assumption that someone using your product can build it from source, read a man page, write a shell script or memorize command line options. If you write a command line program and you don't like GUI, find someone who does to write a GUI interface for your command line tool - and make sure they work well together

Remember that the words "free software" do not send the message "inexpensive" to a businessman; more like "cheap" and "low quality", like that Matisse you passed up at the garage sale because it was priced at a buck fifty.

Rather than emphasizing that linux and its applications are free, emphasize that they come with source code that may be freely modified so that technical support and bug fixes may be readily obtained from anyone.