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Actually W7 has a VERY nice touch interface, so that isn't the problem, the problem is Atom is a shitty embedded CPU and isn't really made to run a full OS. Hell working on XP based Atom machines here at the shop I was struck by how truly shitty the Atom CPU is, when my nearly decade old 1.3Ghz Celeron PC ran circles around the thing.

No, if someone wants to make a kick as touchscreen tablet with great performance and decent battery life I would suggest building it around the AMD Neo platform as it pairs an ULV Athlon based single or dual core CPU with a Radeon GPU to offload video acceleration to. I recently got to play with a Neo based netbook at the shop and frankly it is the first netbook that impressed the hell out of me. The OS, which was W7 HP, was smooth and responsive, video was great without flickering or stuttering, the unit never felt hot, it felt more like a "real" laptop in a netbook FF than one of those crippled Atom things.

If someone was to drop a Neo system into a tablet FF with a touchscreen and get it close to the Neo netbook I was playing with on price (around $400) I would snatch one up in a heartbeat. The Atom CPU is simply too underpowered, especially when using anything less than the ION GPU, to really be worthwhile in a tablet form. Hell it wouldn't even surprise me if Apple ends up going AMD since Intel has killed the Nvidia GPUs by cutting off their ability to make chipsets for the new sockets. In the ultra mobile space you really need a good GPU to have good performance while still being efficient, and the ATOM plus Intel GPU just don't cut the mustard, at least IMHO.

Another photo of the Sun.

Anybody remember this? A flash interpreter done in JavaScript would be a nice option to have for iPhone and iPad users ...

But drawing comparisons to China or North Korea is a bit of a stretch

Now Conroy wants Google to filter YouTube in Australia

Conroy himself is drawing comparisons with China without the need for those opposed to Internet Censorship in Australia to do so.

The Liberals, with their born-again conservatism in light of their newly appointed leader (Tony Abbott, aka the Mad Monk) support the concept of censoring our 'net. The concept is flawed, it's not the implementation that we should focus on. And we have to remember this. Information is meant to be free, etc etc.

The only possible way the Liberals (and the name MUST be capitalised for it to mean exactly who they are - they are by no means liberal, save for a minority faction of the party) will vote against this is if it is seen to be flawed in a technological sense (i.e. it will slow down our Internet)

The aforementioned article shows how Conroy has found through the trials that large sites WILL be slowed down when just one element of the site is added to the blacklist. This is because the filter works by sending all content for a filtered site through a proxy if a single element is added. The filter will be the bottleneck, particularly for large sites, and Conroy knows it, and he's posturing for a position once this becomes general knowledge.

Google are only required to filter, in the way Conroy is now suggesting, in countries like China and perhaps North Korea. Now Conroy is trying to apply the same rules here. Luckily Google, with their recent positioning on China, are pushing back. But, how hard they continue to push back is anyone's guess. Perhaps the US will strike a secret deal with Australia that REQUIRES Google to filter content, just like their doing for the sake of the media companies, and music / movie piracy.

Its just a simple HTTP blacklist, yes. But it's the idea of censorship we should be worried about, and the long-term impact it will have to online commerce. Not to mention the long term prospect that MORE conservative governments will use the implemented technology for something much worse than what's suggested now.

Both major parties support the idea NOW, and that's what worries me.

Guy #6 thinks Google should filter YouTube.
Oh wait ...
http://apcmag.com/now-conroy-wants-google-to-filter-youtube-in-australia.htm
http://www.crn.com.au/News/166677,conroy-meets-with-google-for-youtube-filtering.aspx
http://www.securecomputing.net.au/News/166754,google-cold-on-voluntary-youtube-filtering.aspx

http://apcmag.com/now-conroy-wants-google-to-filter-youtube-in-australia.htm
"Now Conroy wants Google to filter YouTube in Australia"
He was in talks with google to give Australia a China, Thailand deal.
"he is hoping Google will voluntarily do the job for him"

No I am well aware of the role that corporate contributions have played - like IBM's help with Apache, etc.

Are you really well aware of the role that corporate contributions have played? It's much more than one large company helping out with one project. The Apache Software Foundation and Free Software Foundation have significant corporate sponsorship. 75% of Linux kernel code is written by paid developers. Continued Firefox development is made possible via search royalties. Red Hat is significantly involved in many of the projects that make modern Linux systems useful.

I seriously doubt open source software would be anywhere as near as useful as it is today without the extensive corporate sponsorship and contributions. I don't think it'd be very competitive outside of perhaps academia.

However to expect a corporation to fund a project indefinitely is ludicrous

I didn't say otherwise. I really don't care about accessible open-source software.

The girl from jurassic park uses I think. Not a mouse, maybe a tracking device? http://apcmag.com/images/jurassic-park-unix-1.jpg

Because you're employed by a business which is more interested in itself than the broader linux community. The patches you create may be of a use to the broader community, but business priorities will generally come first. Now, it is a given that some (perhaps even a significant portion) of these developers are given a long leash, but the reality is the leash is always there. The resignation of Con Kolivas is a good example of why extensive corporate interest is bad: see http://apcmag.com/why_i_quit_kernel_developer_con_kolivas.htm

He tried to break into the clique, but Linus preferred someone he knew who essential ripped off Kolivas' work instead of someone that did all the hard work.

http://apcmag.com/why_i_quit_kernel_developer_con_kolivas.htm

http://apcmag.com/why_i_quit_kernel_developer_con_kolivas.htm

He tried to break into the clique, but Linus preferred someone he knew who essential ripped off Kolivas' work instead of someone that did all the hard work.

http://apcmag.com/why_i_quit_kernel_developer_con_kolivas.htm

http://apcmag.com/why_i_quit_kernel_developer_con_kolivas.htm

I could be wrong, but afaik Windows 7 has DivX built-in. It also plays most Quicktime .MOV files out of the box.

eh, I've seen places selling netbooks up to 12" for up AUD$1500. Agreed they don't meet the nerds version but netbooks is now a marketing term for no internal CD drive.

http://apcmag.com/dell_preps_12_inch_netbook.htm
I can't find any for $1500, and can't be arsed to search any longer (.21 seconds)

I got my Apple ibook cheap second hand for the same price as I'd pay for a second hand Windows laptop. I can run at least as much open software as I can on a Windows system. Yes, for me it runs nicer than the Windows laptop I had. Your dig at me for owning an Apple machine was wasted. :)

But a bigger reason for this is the fact that there are very very strict laws against corporate influence on politics in Australia. And there are similarly tough regulations surrounding what companies are allowed to do when it comes to advertising, donations, etc etc.

Unfortunately not strict enough.

1. Why Windows Vista and Office 2007 are so Expensive  The Firefox ...
2. Is Windows getting more expensive? - CNET News
3. Windows 7 to be âoemore expensiveâ than Vista, XP
4. Writing on the Wall: Why Windows is so expensive
5. Why are vinyl windows so expensive? who provides them cheapest ...
6. Omfg Vista Is So Expensive - Windows Vista and Windows 7

Top 6 results from Bing:

1. Why are Mac's So Expensive? - Yahoo! Answers

2. why so expensive?. - Games for Windows Live

3. Why are vinyl windows so expensive? who provides them cheapest ...

4. Why are windows hosting providers so expensive? - Community Server

5. Why are Macbooks so expensive? - Yahoo! Answers

6. WikiAnswers - Why are Apple Macs so expensive

5 out of the top 6 at Google are directly related to what I actually wanted to know... articles about why Microsoft Windows is too expensive.

3 out of the 6 at Microsoft's Bing search engine return results for why their direct competitor, Apple, has such expensive computers. 1 more out of the remaining three appears to be somewhat related to my search by at least being about windows games, but no... look at the clip telling me why Bing thought this was relevant:

Official Games for Windows Forums ... why are macbooks so expensive i mean i saw a better windows pc laptop for half the price and double the specs and looks so why

Of the remaining 2 top 6 results, one is about vinyl windows just like Google's one stray result, and the other is about internet hosting companies charging more for windows based hosting... this is the only result that even remotely comes close to answering my question. So... 4 out of the top 6 listed look bad for a direct competitor and don't answer my question, 1 is irrelevant noise, and one is marginally relevant, but still noise. Bing sucks, and is certainly biased against anything negative being said about Microsoft.

Your link? Yeah, it's on the first page of the Google results, but it is the second to the last result, and is the only Apple related link, and even that link directly mentions Windows in the comments, and Windows 7 is linked all over the friggin place on this article's page!

I'll do that.

http://apcmag.com/interview_with_con_kolivas_part_1_computing_is_boring.htm

http://apcmag.com/why_i_quit_kernel_developer_con_kolivas.htm

http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/01/1853228&from=rss
vhttp://linux.slashdot.org/linux/07/09/14/156234.shtml
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/18/131240

From my own post here http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=301061&cid=20655809

Re:No you can not (Score:4, Informative)
by recoiledsnake (879048)
on Tuesday September 18 2007, @01:35PM (#20655809)
That is a gross over-simplication of what happened and almost qualifies as revisionist history and brushing things under the carpet. Let me summarize my understanding of what happened and someone please correct me if I am wrong.

Con Kolivas had been shouting from rooftops about slow desktop performance and was submitting feedback and bug reports. One of the kernel devs apparently said "I do not notice the issue on my quadcore machine with 4GB RAM". Rightly or wrongly, this lead Con to believe that the kernel devs do not care about desktop performance and only give priority to issues that big corporates complain about.

In the true open source style, he took upon himself to learn kernel programming and released a whole set of -CK patches and various versions of benchmarking tools and schedulers. On the other side, Ingo Molnar was the maintainer of the scheduler portion of the kernel and maintained that the O(1) scheduler(and the one before it?) is good enough and has no problems. Con conclusively started proving this wrong with his benchmarks. At this point, everyone assumed the -CK branch would be merged into the kernel at some point and Linus says he had been considering it.

At some point, Ingo starts making his own scheduler, which later evolved into the Completely Fair Scheduler. A number of posts claim that it was kind of rip off of the ideas behind Con's scheduler with which it was in a race to get included in the kernel. Then Linus decides to include CFS into the kernel instead of Con's scheduler. The reason he gave was that Con thought SD was perfect and that he ignored and flamed the users on the CK mailing list and that he(Linus) was far more comfortable working with Ingo since he knew him well. He also admitted that he might have formed this opinion on a single incident on the mailing list and he didn't have the time to follow the CK mailing list.

Some people on Con's side in the LKML tried to explain this by saying that the single incident was in response to a troll who submitted faulty bug reports and ignored the reasons for why they were rejected and that Linus was playing favorites. Con couldn't take the non-inclusion of -CK and plugsched(which would have given users a clean way of using a custom scheduler) and quit kernel development totally.

The latest twist in the story was reported on Slashdot here [slashdot.org]. The gist of it was that another hacker(Roman Zippel) was trying work on CFS. He had asked questions about what some parts of the code did, and also made some patches that considerably simplified the code and mathematically proved his patches made things better. In response, Ingo came out with a big patch that ripped out the code that was questioned and included Roman's Zippel's ideas(another rip off?) with hardly any discussion and a tangential acknowledgement of including his changes. Roman complained that talking in patches without explanation is detrimental to collaborative OSS development. /quote

I'll do that.

http://apcmag.com/interview_with_con_kolivas_part_1_computing_is_boring.htm

http://apcmag.com/why_i_quit_kernel_developer_con_kolivas.htm

http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/01/1853228&from=rss
vhttp://linux.slashdot.org/linux/07/09/14/156234.shtml
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/18/131240

From my own post here http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=301061&cid=20655809

Re:No you can not (Score:4, Informative)
by recoiledsnake (879048)
on Tuesday September 18 2007, @01:35PM (#20655809)
That is a gross over-simplication of what happened and almost qualifies as revisionist history and brushing things under the carpet. Let me summarize my understanding of what happened and someone please correct me if I am wrong.

Con Kolivas had been shouting from rooftops about slow desktop performance and was submitting feedback and bug reports. One of the kernel devs apparently said "I do not notice the issue on my quadcore machine with 4GB RAM". Rightly or wrongly, this lead Con to believe that the kernel devs do not care about desktop performance and only give priority to issues that big corporates complain about.

In the true open source style, he took upon himself to learn kernel programming and released a whole set of -CK patches and various versions of benchmarking tools and schedulers. On the other side, Ingo Molnar was the maintainer of the scheduler portion of the kernel and maintained that the O(1) scheduler(and the one before it?) is good enough and has no problems. Con conclusively started proving this wrong with his benchmarks. At this point, everyone assumed the -CK branch would be merged into the kernel at some point and Linus says he had been considering it.

At some point, Ingo starts making his own scheduler, which later evolved into the Completely Fair Scheduler. A number of posts claim that it was kind of rip off of the ideas behind Con's scheduler with which it was in a race to get included in the kernel. Then Linus decides to include CFS into the kernel instead of Con's scheduler. The reason he gave was that Con thought SD was perfect and that he ignored and flamed the users on the CK mailing list and that he(Linus) was far more comfortable working with Ingo since he knew him well. He also admitted that he might have formed this opinion on a single incident on the mailing list and he didn't have the time to follow the CK mailing list.

Some people on Con's side in the LKML tried to explain this by saying that the single incident was in response to a troll who submitted faulty bug reports and ignored the reasons for why they were rejected and that Linus was playing favorites. Con couldn't take the non-inclusion of -CK and plugsched(which would have given users a clean way of using a custom scheduler) and quit kernel development totally.

The latest twist in the story was reported on Slashdot here [slashdot.org]. The gist of it was that another hacker(Roman Zippel) was trying work on CFS. He had asked questions about what some parts of the code did, and also made some patches that considerably simplified the code and mathematically proved his patches made things better. In response, Ingo came out with a big patch that ripped out the code that was questioned and included Roman's Zippel's ideas(another rip off?) with hardly any discussion and a tangential acknowledgement of including his changes. Roman complained that talking in patches without explanation is detrimental to collaborative OSS development. /quote

I'm all with you but it isn't exactly that easy. Some software packages to this day still require root access to the local machine even though the domain user is restricted and it is designed to run on a domain. QuickBooks used to be really bad with that but I don't think it is anymore. You also have the problem with approved sites being compromised and using browser exploits to defeat security limitations.

You also have the problem of some sites that don't even have a full time sysadmin. It's difficult to restrict US sticks and all if there isn't someone there to allow it when it's needed. I have used IPMI in the past but this gets tricky when you aren't there.

Your right though, those things should be considered and implemented. I try to set up proxy servers with access lists like Dan's guardian or something and redirect all zipped and executable downloads to a specific file where a script runs a virus scan on them before releasing it to the user. However, that is something easier accomplished at large sites more so then a 20 user site which the IT guy may be at it once every two weeks unless something goes wrong. I also just had an issue where an over priced app needed internet access and had no concept of networking so it wasn't able to grab the proxy settings from the workstation. It almost caused the entire proxy to go down until I figures out some IP-tables kung-fu where you can block all traffic except specifically allowed traffic and I basically had to set up a second network head.

The worse part about this was that I had the sales rep telling the owner we weren't smart for having the proxy in the first place, they are dangerous and we should get rid of it, to use a windows server instead. I won't give the name of the company, what the app did, or why the app needed to access the internet, but I ended up justifying the configuration by showing the PCI DSS standards and reminding the owner what it was like before we put the proxy in (he has kids supervising kids in the evenings, you can guess where that led to). He almost had me follow the rep's suggestion and rip the proxy out instead of insisting the app be fixed. The app wasn't fixed, I kludged a workaround in place, he uses it, and still and pays the annual license fee. It can be a real bitch implementing what you suggest- and yes, I agree with implementing it.

After a little research, I'm forced to admit that my comments on ZFS's limited value for desktop systems seems to be poorly informed. Here's a good summary:

Filter error: That's an awful long string of letters there. It's a **** URL!

Still, the interest in ZFS at Apple never seems to have gone beyond the "Hey, that's cool" phase. Probably they're just too committed to their own filesystem technology. They did put a lot of work into it.

Use Natal and a touchscreen, do you get a consumer-priced version of this > http://apcmag.com/selling-windows-7-this-should-do-it.htm That'd make for great PC gaming fun, never mind these weiner consoles

The resolution looks about what the mockups show. You can find a shot of the actual thing here.

That's total nonsense.

"Bloat" suggests unnecessary code, often called "code bloat". One person's "bloat" is another person's indispensable feature.

The more functions and capabilities a package has the larger its code base will be.

A better definition of "bloat" is a section of code that none of the developers know what it's for, and removing it causes instability. Windows is the dictionary reference for bloat because a lots of its code base is ambiguous, and even Microsoft agrees, but only because it was part of their campaign to get people to move to VISTA.
http://apcmag.com/microsoft_agrees_windows_is_a_really_large_bloated_operating_system.htm

"Niklaus Wirth has summed up the situation in Wirth's Law, which states that software speed is decreasing more quickly than hardware speed is increasing." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_bloat

Why not indeed?

Voip is fine in Australia, just select your ISP with great care and read the fine print re excess data costs.
Telstra (big bad Australian "Bell") enjoys offering low capped plans with over use charged at A$150/gb, counting uploads and downloads.
As the joke goes:
"New computer - $1200
Desk for the computer - $250
Bigpond 100Mps 200mb Cable Plan - $39.95
Using your 200mb quota + 2GB extra at $150 a gig doing VoIP - Priceless"

Telstra controls RIMs (Remote Integrated Multiplexer ~ digital loop carrier), toys with exchange rack space and does all it can to contain other ISP's.

Another fun aspect of Voip was this:
http://apcmag.com/bigpond_blocking_voip_on_new_modem.htm

Just a note on the Photoshop, Google has been funding Linux support of Photoshop for a while now.
http://apcmag.com/google_behind_photoshops_new_linux_compatibility.htm
I think it's great, I have to agree, the GIMP is a bit difficult to use when you're used to Photoshop.

http://apcmag.com/seagate_settles_class_action_cash_back_over_misleading_hard_drive_capacities.htm

You're citing a bullshit class-action suit as proof that there was any deception going on?

All manufacturers clearly state the units they are using NOW, however none of them lists BOTH sizes and none of them clearly state what the relationship this might be to the sizes listed in popular operating systems.

Hard drives have always been measured in decimal bytes, since before there was even a consumer market for them. It's a byproduct of how they are made. Unlike RAM, drives are not built on a binary tree. And engineers use decimal units.

Windows until Vista and 7 happily displayed size/some-base-2-number as Gigabytes, which always meant the disk you bought that was "100GB" actually turned out to be "98GB" or so. Hard disk manufacturers are absolutely guilty of manipulating their product marketing such that you buy one size disk and get it home to reveal it's lower than expected.

No, it's the OS developers who are guilty of incorrectly displaying Mebi/Gibi/Bytes as Mega/Giga/Bytes.

Imagine if you clicked Properties on a folder and found it was "100GB" in Windows. You might go out and buy a 100GB disk to back it up. Obviously this would never have worked and you'd be a few files short of backing it up totally.

Right. Fault lies with the OS, not the hard drive. The only thing that's really measured in binary bytes these days is memory space. Everything else is measured decimally. Do you complain that network speeds are measured in decimal bytes?

Who would have known, if not an engineer or technician or software developer or worked in professional IT support?

Anybody who's been paying attention. Now tell me, how does this "deception" benefit hard drive makers? The customers aren't going to be too happy if they didn't get what they think they paid for. It's actually negative for the hard drive makers. And there's no competitive benefit - because all the drive makers use the same units. When shopping, you will compare one 320GB drive to another 320GB drive. So how does any company gain a sale from the "deception" of using correct units?

Basically this whole thing about the "hard drive marketing scam" is pure myth, an old wives' tale. there is no evidence supporting it, yet this myth has become so widely believed amongst computer nerds, that people actually think it's real. Amazing how herd mentality can work, huh?

USB 3.0 is going to suffer the same thing because of the 8b10 encoding (which means that the bandwidth is actually 4/5ths of the speed it says on the box, even before packet header overhead;

That is nothing at all like the hard drive situation. When you buy a 320GB hard drive - you get exactly that - 320GB of storage space. The USB 3.0 situation is an entirely different scenario.

Yes, just look at the sales figures.

Hey! Look where the sales numbers come from!

"From the 30th of June, we have no longer been able to ship a PC with a XP licence," said Jane Bradburn, Market Development Manager, Commercial Notebooks for HP Australia. "However, what we have been able to do with Microsoft is ship PCs with a Vista Business licence but with XP pre-loaded. That is still the majority of business computers we are selling today."

Um, yeah. Vista is selling great... If you count the fictional licenses that come with the XP installations that people really want.

http://apcmag.com/seagate_settles_class_action_cash_back_over_misleading_hard_drive_capacities.htm

All manufacturers clearly state the units they are using NOW, however none of them lists BOTH sizes and none of them clearly state what the relationship this might be to the sizes listed in popular operating systems.

Windows until Vista and 7 happily displayed size/some-base-2-number as Gigabytes, which always meant the disk you bought that was "100GB" actually turned out to be "98GB" or so. Hard disk manufacturers are absolutely guilty of manipulating their product marketing such that you buy one size disk and get it home to reveal it's lower than expected.

Imagine if you clicked Properties on a folder and found it was "100GB" in Windows. You might go out and buy a 100GB disk to back it up. Obviously this would never have worked and you'd be a few files short of backing it up totally. Who would have known, if not an engineer or technician or software developer or worked in professional IT support?

USB 3.0 is going to suffer the same thing because of the 8b10 encoding (which means that the bandwidth is actually 4/5ths of the speed it says on the box, even before packet header overhead; http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-1056753.html)

I've seen some articles on, for instance, the Seagate website which explain that the value is the "fastest speed at which the drive can send data across the cable (or bus) from the drive buffer" which is not an outright lie, but does move into the realms of blurring and misinformation;

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=External_Drive_Troubleshooter_-_Performance_Issues_-_My_drive_is_slow&vgnextoid=33434a3cdde5c010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD

Don't forget that those shills were given Acer Ferrari laptops with Vista and a wink-wink-nudge-nudge "Don't bother sending them back after you finish reviewing"

Hand-picked hardware - and not some el-cheapo base model netbook. Bought-and-paid-for reviews.

3 major releases (1.6, 2.0, 2.1) this year!

Big deal. If I write a shell script, revise it twice, and label them as versions 1, 2, and 3, was it as big of an accomplishment?

That's not to say some major improvements haven't been made in VirtualBox, I am just pointing out that version numbers don't mean much

See Also:
Linux Kernel 3.0
Linux Kernel 0.95

In theory HSDPA, the predecessor of HSPA+, provides 14.4Mbit/s, not that far off the data rates being advertised here. In practise it is virtually unuseable. Call me when HSPA+ is working at those data rates with a full customer base, though I doubt you will be able to because the network will be gridlocked.

Good news: Apple have acknowledged this as an issue and are fixing out of warranty. See http://apcmag.com/apple_acknowledges_macbook_pro_graphics_glitch_offers_fix.htm for details.

Mine's in the faulty date of manufacture range so I'm just waiting to get hit with it too. Ric

Is this USD or AUD?

Try a link to the Kogan web site
http://www.kogan.com.au

You tell me.

The page seems to be a US page

Strange, I didnt notice that Australian PC magazine was a US site.

Also I'm having a bit of trouble finding this address in the US:
APC Magazine Street address:
Level 18, 66 Goulburn St,
Sydney, NSW 2000

And certainly never mind that the first two lines of the article clearly mentioned Australia:

Australian-based tech importer Kogan has revealed the first Google Android-based phone that will ship in Australia

So reading a review from an Australian magazine, about an Austalian company, importing phones into Australia I think it's fairly safe to assume that the price is in Australian dollars.

APC article

Dell has been caught red-faced: 2005
... apologized ... : 2008

However, if this article is to be believed APCMag and "...Apple now believes that there is no real need for Target Disk Mode anyway..." that's gonna be a big ol' WTF.

Sure, there's no TDM on a few portables right now, but what if/when they start removing firewire or TDM from other products? I use TDM at least once a day at work since we deal primarily with iMacs now. I don't want to have to take apart an iMac just to get at it's HD.

Maybe removal of TDM will spur Apple into improving their Migration Assistant, since right now it's terrible.

Why would it matter if it were an SI unit or not? "Mega", in its modern usage is based on the decimal system. So, why would you use it for a binary unit?

That was exactly my point! There is a bit of high-ground for those that equate megabyte to 1,000,000 bytes, but the developers have always equated it to 1024*1024 bytes. The redefinition of the redefinition meant it was no longer in the developers' hands.

This article talks about a class action lawsuit against Seagate, when their marketing department decided that they didn't care about the de facto definition of megabyte that had been in use for 20 years.

Megameter or megaliter might mean 10^6 units. But when used as a prefix to "byte", it was always 2^20 until marketing got their greasy fingers on it.

APCMag.com has an informative Q&A sit down with Android team member Dan Morrill. You can read it here.

Here is a forum link for one poor unfortunate who managed to get a new non-Asus laptop: http://apcmag.com/Forum.htm?g=posts&t=504
Here is a screenshot of the config folder: http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/4320/8192008120604amaw4.png

So if you've got an affected Asus laptop with a few months of warranty left, you may be able to get a new non-Asus laptop for nix.

the second link: http://apcmag.com/xp_still_killing_vista_in_sales_volume_hp.htm

the third link: http://www.infopackets.com/news/business/microsoft/2008/20080801_windows_xp_still_outselling_windows_vista.htm

these two stories are word for word, character for character, 50-70% identical. Yet authorship is claimed by two completely different sources.
 
This would suggest to me that _somebody_ is a shitty squat blog, plagiarising for page hits.

It also means that Windows can compete - very successfully - in the same space:
ASUS Eee PC 1000H (Windows XP) [June 18]

The gate crasher

With the momentum is has already gathered, could the Eee beat off its rivals to become the Holy Grail of Linux computing - that killer product that brings Linux into the mainstream?

Don't bet on it, says Hugo Ortega, principal of Tegatech, a distributor that handles the Eee alongside competing devices such as HP's 2133 Mini-Note PC and ultra-mobile PCs (UMPCs) that run Windows XP and Vista and range well past the $3000 mark.

"The HP 2133s are outselling the Eee PC 20 to 1," Ortega says, "and Linux only accounts for probably 20% of Eee PC sales and less than 5% of overall UMPC sales. The fact that there's a $500 notebook out there is a big plus, but we find most [buyers] are more than happy to use a license in their office to upgrade them to [Windows] XP."

Acer, which continues its commitment to Linux, is likely to take a similar path. "It's a give and take between simplicity of usage for the masses versus full customisation," says [Henry Lee of Acer.] "The Linux version is really only to use exactly what is provided, and someone in the know can easily remove what's been installed. But consumers are accustomed to the Windows environment, and the Windows version will be a stronger player eventually."

Indeed, despite the philosophical appeal, faster performance and ease of use that these Linux machines provide, the availability of a Windows alternative may have already started taking its toll as buyers opt for the more familiar option. "The bulk of the requests and requirements we see in the marketplace are for the model with Windows rather than Linux," Lee admits.

Microsoft's efforts to push Windows XP into this space, even after it terminated the operating system's general availability on June 30, are reflected in the fact that XP-based Eee PCs somehow became $50 cheaper than their Linux counterparts. That price disparity has since been eliminated after Asustek bowed to critics who pointed out that the lack of Windows licensing fees - traditionally equivalent to around one-quarter the price of the entire system - should have more than made up for the cost of the expanded onboard storage in the Linux devices.

Even pricing parity, however, may not be enough to save Linux. As market expectations push the low-end machines towards having larger screens, more storage, and faster processors, they will begin to resemble low-end conventional notebooks - potentially diluting the low-cost appeal that has driven their success.

Linux fans, who saw the devices as low-cost and highly portable Linux workstations with a nearly infinite variety of uses, can still buy the Windows devices for the hardware and install Linux on top, but there seems little doubt the mass-market demand Linux-only devices will struggle to maintain itself.

"It's going to be tough in the long term" for Linux-based mini-notebooks, says IDC's Rego. "Microsoft will play tough in this space, where there's a massive presence of Windows. We don't have expectations yet for Eee sales of XP vs Linux, but Linux definitely needs to create increased awareness. If you go into the mainstream, people just want something easy that they recognise." Linux not essential to Eee PC success: ASUS [July 14]

"Javascript has become quite the tool." - by WED Fan (911325) on Friday July 25, @02:06PM (#24338577) Homepage

Yes, it has - However, quite often also (not just 'for the good') for the creation of malware laden websites, as well as adbanners that are bad (in combination w/ Iframes too).

Searching SECUNIA.COM for the past 3-5 yrs. worth of exploits almost nearly always has something to do with javascript, in the past few years worth of attacks, such as these:

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Microsoft apologises for serving malware:

http://apcmag.com/microsoft_apologises_for_serving_malware.htm

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(It even happens to "the best of them", including large corporate bodies, in them being 'suckered' by the people that put out malwares, by sneaking them into adbanners, as the example above notes)

AND, javascript's being exploited fro upcoming worse malware attacks, such as this:

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Researcher to demonstrate attack code for Intel chips:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/07/14/Researcher_to_demonstrate_attack_code_for_Intel_chips_1.html

----

That last one? It's "pretty bad", imo @ least, maybe yours too, if you take a read of that last one.

I do NOT doubt it could happen, anymore than say, a malware being able to flash your vidcard OR motherboard's BIOS (because, if tools by say, ASUS &/or Gigabyte can do it, AND WHILE YOU ARE IN WINDOWS mind you (not bootup from a floppy) then it's possible these could too)

E.G.-> For example, if they ship a download via scripted attack that has say, a PnP driver + BIOS "img file" inside of it that the bogus javascript could SOMEHOW execute (or, a .exe they send - who knows? I don't make that kind of bogus ware, but the point is, the people misusing it are getting more & more "creative" about it, & their methods seem to be working).

----

Now, don't "get me wrong" here:

It's not that I "hate javascript" (well, I don't like working w/ it as opposed to other languages, let's put it that way), because it has its uses, but it gets abused a lot, in the way of being intended to harm others, is all.

Fact is - I have to use it myself on ASP.NET pages I create or created on the job, for instance, because sometimes, it makes easy going of it, or provides a way to do things I need done, faster (or, the only way I could SEE or KNOW how to do certain types of functionality, fast).

(Now - If the folks that create & extend javascripting engines can somehow do away with these misuses of javascript happening (how, I have NO idea, somekind of 'sandbox' such as 'fullblown java' has, good idea, maybe not perfect, but solid idea) that'd be GREAT... but I don't think that is as easily done, as it is said.

Mainly because it's like saying that for probably nearly ANY compiler out there for say, std. .exe files, first of all, probably an impossible undertaking (like a razor, compilers & code have 2 sides potentially).

Well - then, I wouldn't be "afraid of javascript", as an end-user online! Fact is, IF I knew it was safe (or, rather, safer than it is)?

I'd turn it on again in ALL of my webbrowser programs, & for every site online again (I cut the latter off, years back, once I saw it was being abused in bad adbanners mainly, like the first example above).

Yes, that is right, I am a bit afraid of it & tend to initially "cut it off" as to using it, wholesale @ first, in all of my webbrowsers, & ONLY turning it on for sites I absolutely cannot live without it on, & that's mostly banking &/or shopping style websites (& others that demand database or other files' access for instance, for ABSOLUTELY full & proper functionality (not just 'bells & whistles')).

Personal

The cake is a lie!

Well,you really should be worried,because your Realtor is trying to sell all the houses around you to clueless home owners that will fall for any con man,so the cons WILL be looking at your neighborhood. Do you really think you can have a "Windows replacement" Linux distro that doesn't have everything work automagically without the clueless user having to turn on services? Because otherwise you get companies saying Linux isn't worth the hassle and let us not forget that the bad guys can just bypass the OS and own the hardware directly,so security should be a concern to us all,REGARDLESS of OS used.

And as for the earlier poster and all the talk of old live CDs? When you use a live CD there is almost always a HDD hooked up and running in that PC. It may not be used by the OS,but Linux has had read/write NTFS access for awhile now,and of course read/write to Linux FS. If a bug takes over via and old unpatched vulnerability it wouldn't be hard to write the bug to the HDD. You could even write multiple bugs so that no matter what the underlying OS was you could still take control upon startup. After all,it isn't like the OS directories in Windows and Linux are in secret locations. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV

Hey I'm not saying they aren't clones of something else, or that they do not work as well, some things on Linux are nice and orginial. But Linux itself is a clone of Minix and has evolved into the plaything of the enterprise.
The application determines the software choice!
Linux makes an excellent LAMP platform, it's an excellent server but I have 15,000 or more windows boxes, I'm not about to sell my clients a "Samba" based PDC setup.
The difference between Linux and windows is simple One works well on the desktop and the other requires extensive support, and works well in other areas.
Redhat ceased supporting their desktop line for a reason, Corel sold it's desktop version after a bribe from Microsoft; or how about the fact that this man quit designing linux patches for the desktop completely even though he is an adept and talented programmer?
Funny how good developers quit developing for linux"
Politics are involved in all desktop decisions, and I can't get a good visio clone in Linux, nor can I have an good enterprise level of CAD without having to use an unsupported intermediary (wine).
That does not mean I don't use Gentoo, or build application specific firewalls in OpenBSD, or use it where appropirate.
Linux Zelotry is why people don't like it, the arrogence associated with the "Well it needs to work this way"...and all the diffrering opinions and infighting in the Open Source Development Community are what keep windows around, not the fact that windows is a bad product.
Those that sign the purchase orders want somthing a little more secure than "The community may release a fix if and when supported". Then there are business model issues as well, but I digrees.
The fact that this message will be posted as "Flamebait" is the perfect example of why linux fails at the desktop, because you the community are quick to judge and flame.
those that just want a product to work get fed up and leave for OS-X, BSD, and Yes even Microsoft.

Yeah, self-reply. Some links on the matter:

ZFS: The last word on filesystems

Why ZFS for home

Why ZFS Rocks

ZFS: what "the ultimate file system" really means for your desktop -- in plain English!

Take everyone on earth, and put them each in a different Ferrari Testarossa with no engine, no gas in the tank, and no ignition system. That is how fast this thing moves.

Some other equally useful analogies:

Take the same aforementioned people, and give them a OLPC. The amount of time it takes them all to calculate their degree of separation from Kevin Bacon, and divide by a googolplex. , then round up. That is the number of people that think the calculator analogy in the article was a good one.

Take the inverse of the clock frequency and multiply it by the number of instructions required for Windows to boot far enough to attempt to obtain an IP Address dynamically. Add to that the time it takes for the DHCP request to reach your Billion made router. That is the amount of time it takes for it to hose your router. Take the inverse of the clock frequency and multiply it by the number of instructions it takes to apply a service pack. Add it to the boot time, calculated as described above. That is the amount of time it takes to achieve a BSOD.

HTH,

- Thomas P. D'Agostino

Here is a list

Here is a compiled list of fixes in 10.5.3.

Do you honestly think that they are going to support a discount platform with security updates and bugfixes to an operating system that has been earmarked for extinction? The plan is to trap people into the vicious cycle of OS dependence, not liberate them. Linux can do anything XP can do and probably more given $100.00 hardware.