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" Whoever modded you up is equally idiotic."

and you're an idiot for trusting a fake wiki like "wikia.com"

wikipedia.org:
"Because much of the court's ruling was based on the original licensing agreement between Apple and Microsoft for Windows 1.0, it made the case more of a contractual matter than of copyright law, to the chagrin of Apple. This also meant that the court avoided a more far-reaching "look and feel copyright" precedent ruling. However, the case did establish that the analytic dissection (rather than the general "look and feel") of a user interface is vital to any copyright decision on such matters. In 1997, five years after the lawsuit was decided, all lingering infringement questions against Microsoft regarding the Lisa and Macintosh GUI as well as Apple's "QuickTime piracy" lawsuit against Microsoft were settled in direct negotiations. Apple agreed to make Internet Explorer their default browser, to the detriment of Netscape. Microsoft agreed to continue developing Microsoft Office and other software for the Mac over the next five years. Microsoft also purchased $150 million of non-voting Apple stock, helping Apple in its financial struggles at the time. Both parties entered into a patent cross-licensing agreement."

See the "Microsoft also purchased"? Wasn't really part of the lawsuit, it just "also" happened in 1997 "helping Apple in its financial struggles at the time". Apple was a sinking ship and Microsoft rescued them.

What's wrong with Microsoft helping Apple? Why can't anyone just admit what really happened? The news confirms it.

"Steve Jobs didn't turn to Bill Gates and ask for $150 million in stocks. Microsoft was required to as part of a settlement deal after getting caught stealing Quicktime code...."

DIRECT QUOTE FROM THE NEWS
http://aroundcny.com/technofile/texts/tec081097.html
"Jobs asked Gates to pledge $150 million in purchases of Apple stock. Gates agreed, but only after getting the deal on sharing trade secrets and the agreement that Apple would promote the Microsoft Web browser. "

There was no settlement deal, no Quicktime code stealing. Stop making stuff up.

"I really doubt you can find them because that's all complete bullshit. MS bought a small (150M, I think) as part of a settlement deal, to prevent Apple cleaning their clock in court - MS had been caught ripping off Apple's code and selling it as their own."

You couldn't be more wrong if you tried. Where were you in 1997? This was huge news.
MS BITES INTO APPLE
"During a year of corporate reshuffling and job cuts, Apple's stock has fallen more than 50 percent... For right now, though, a $150 million investment really does keep Apple going...$150 million gets Apple a little new lease on life."

Microsoft's gorilla knocks on Apple's door
"Apple's stock had been falling steadily over the years. Despite occasional surges, the stock kept sliding down. Apple was losing the confidence of investors..... So Steve Jobs turned to Bill Gates, the $36 billion man....Jobs asked Gates to pledge $150 million in purchases of Apple stock. Gates agreed, but only after getting the deal on sharing trade secrets and the agreement that Apple would promote the Microsoft Web browser.... The $150 million in pledges....gave Apple stock a sudden boost, from a low of $13.68 a share in early July to a high of $26.31 a share (in August)"

Here let me break it down for you:
Jobs: Oh mighty Gates! A poor beggar I be! My company is failing, please won't thou shine ye mighty billions down onto my brow!
Gates: I hear you poor beggar Jobs. I shall grant you $150 million if you agree that all your base are belong to us.
Jobs: Oh bless you all powerful and mighty Gates! Bless you!!

This happened in 1997, a year before the announcement of the iMac, so it's safe to say without Microsoft there would be no iMac, iPod, iPhone or iPad

During the late 1980's, Radio Shack declared that they were creating the first writeable CD. Called THOR-CD, they were a couple years before CD-R of any kind, and there was a whirlwind of press. Years went by, no product ever arrived.

Read more here: http://aroundcny.com/technofile/texts/thorcd88.htm l

>Really? So the thousands of computers he donated to libraries and schools all across the country is actually Microsoft stock?

You mean the ones where the charities had to pay for windows, right? For the life of the machine in some cases. I just want to be sure what we're talking about here, because, you know, I have a car to give away, but you have to buy the tires from me for the life of the vehicle and they're a bargain at only $1,000 each.

>If you want to bag on him, there are far better things to do it on than his charity work.

On the contrary, I actually think it's one of the better things to bag him on, since he can't even be honest when it comes to that. If you can't donate to charity without expecting a profit, just don't.

>How many schools has Sam Walton started??

Oh, he's even more giving than Bill Gates. And he likes to teach a political lesson at the same time. Or didn't you know about this? It's in Wikipedia, man.

In 1985, Sam Walton began a program designed to stem the 'tide of communism' in Central America by promoting capitalism and privatization. His efforts included funding scholarship programs to bring Central American students to Christian universities in the United States, hoping that exposure to American capitalist and Protestant Christian values would dissuade them from becoming involved in communist movements.

Funny thing is, even if it's for the wrong reasons, he's still way more of an honest man than Bill G. Bill G surreptitiously tries to use his charitable donations to make money, until he's found out and (sometimes) backpedals. Sam Walton says his intentions loud and clear, and at least he's not doing it with a business angle.

Some other things that make Sam Walton a "great" man (at least according to your way of thinking, which is if you donate enough to charity, you're a great guy):

Walton supported various charitable causes, including those of his church, the Presbyterian Church (USA). The Sam and Helen R. Walton Award was created in 1991 when the Waltons made a gift of six million dollars which included an endowment in the amount of three million dollars to provide annual awards to new church developments that are working in creative ways to share the Christian faith in local communities.

Sam Walton's family has also donated more to the University of Arkansas than anyone else, ever.

There's the $85 million to the children's scholarship fund, $41 million to Children's Educational Opportunity (CEO) Foundation America, and $12 million to San Diego Society of Natural History Balboa Park, $11 million for John Brown University, etc, etc. In fact, with the $1/2 billion they've donated, I dare say Sam Walton's family more generous and benevolent to society than Bill Gates!

Sucks to eat your own words, doesn't it?

First of all, there is no "Linux community" in that they have a single answer or position on things. I wish people would stop generalizing like that.

It's true that it's a generalization. However, my point is that enough of the community stands in the way of some forms of progress to prevent it. Generally Linux is seem as "Elite". Anything that bolsters that leetness is well received while anything that threatens it is heavily challenged by a portion of the community. It can be challenged so heavily, that it can give the impression that the challengers speak for the entire community. Their position also doesn't help the rest of the community in moving forward on many user-friendly ideas.

I would say Linux's answer has been: "If you move to Linux, your computer will run for years without getting slower, there is no risk of viruses or spyware, you can customize the look of your computer or just stick with the elegant default, the operating system comes with hundreds of applications that are of high quality and absolutely free."

That's a nice thing to say, but that's not the value proposition that's seen by much of the market. Plus it's blatently incorrect. There have been several Linux viruses thanks to security flaws, and your computer is just as much at risk of slowing down due to more background programs and desktop widgets being installed. Older Linux systems can also have a great number of compatibility problems stemming from their insisitence on installing everything in /usr or /usr/local.

You think Mac's don't have any viruses?

I think Mac OS X doesn't have any, primarily because not a single one has EVER been identified. Mac OS 9 and less were highly vulnerable, but the two systems are not the same.

friend of mine had OS 10.something destroyed by one

You're going to have to back this up with facts. For example, from this link: "As of now, there are no viruses for OS X Macintoshes."

Regardless of whether or not there will be any in the future, this is an exceptional marketing tool that draws in new users.

I don't work for, near, or against NCR in any market, I just live here. My perception has been that Hurd took NCR and focused them on ATM machines, their core business. Lots and lots of other unrelated things were shed, including long-term employees and facilities. Most recently, NCR has turned over maintenance of their world-class headquarters to a local office-real estate company (Miller Valentine). Their ATM sales, by the way, are in competition with the infamous Diebold, Inc. And in that market, Diebold is innovating with ways to keep banks coming back to them. NCR just never seemed to get the hang of it.

Now back to HP and the recent high speed printing invention , and I would have to say we can all expect HP to shed all the unprofitable businesses and focus heavy on the printing. Well, heavier than they already do.

I expect that if HP is in some select-contract, highly-profitable, niche market that they will stay there. NCR has their TeraData database. HP had, during the merger claimed that Compaq's worldwide sales and services forces would allow them to dominate global industries, but I don't think that really every took foot they way they wanted to. So, unless they drum up something other than calculators and home PCs, those segments are likely to get hit hard. Hurd likely won't wait for the home PC market to do something unique because they've had a couple of dozen years to find a niche and haven't. I'd better say goodbye to the calculator segment too before Cringely goes around saying something stupid like "you saw it here first."

So that leaves the saturated inkjet market. Since the DMCA cannot be used, and since we're already paying $3,800US per gallon of ink, increasing profitability will be difficult to do without large customer outbursts. Of course, NCR was so full of waste, those of us in Dayton didn't think they could ever shed all of it and yet they did.

The thing is, almost certainly the only reason you don't see similar comments in the Windows kernel source is because the source is not available.

Not technically available, but in the "stolen" Windows code we find comments like these:

First excerpt: "The (expletive deleted) alpha cpp compiler seems to (expletive deleted) the (expletive deleted) type "LPITEMIDLIST", so to work around the (expletive deleted) peice of (expletive deleted) compiler we pass the last param as an void *instead of a LPITEMIDLIST."
Second excerpt: "!!!!!!!IF YOU CHANGE TABS TO SPACES, YOU WILL BE KILLED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!DOING SO (expletive deleted) THE BUILD PROCESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

So, I'm just saying that it happens everywhere.

Microsoft Bob! Oh, wait. Successful failure... hmm... Ah! Windows Millennium Edition (ME), without a doubt! This insecure, rushed, overhyped, bug-ridden excuse for an operating system should've gone the way of Bob and New Coke even before it was officially released.

Yes!
Let the UN general assembly do it!
No, wait, maybe it should be the ITU!
No, wait, maybe it should be the ISO!
Hmm... maybe the International electrotechnical commission?

Oh, wait... the US doesn't like standards-setting bodies. OR international organizations, for that matter.

It's better to have a hodgepodge of cell phone technologies that don't talk to each other, a silly measurement system based on bodyparts and british wheat, a TV broadcast system that never twice gives you the same color, never mind a digital TV standard that the rest of the world won't use.

I'm sure Bolton will take care of it once he's in the UN as our ambassador. Yeah, that's the ticket...

Yes. Bill Gates once owned and saved Apple.

Apple was starving and found a 900-lb. gorilla at the door. The gorilla was carrying bags of groceries and acting real chummy. Apple let the gorilla in. Apple was smiling and the gorilla was smiling. They both had a feast.
Everybody knows what will happen next. The old joke about the 900-lb. gorilla rings true: What will the gorilla do? Anything it wants to.

Delete iexplorer.exe and the BROWSER is gone.

The underlying network libraries, also called Internet Explorer, are much tougher to get rid of, but still possible with a little work.

According to this, this, and this there are no viruses for OS X at all.

The first link even links to an old /. article. :)

I propose the following experiment...

The difference that while Sir Tim Berners-Lee truly gave away something that the world could only benefit from, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is all about having strings attached. Considering what they demand back for their "donations", it's even surprising it's considered philantropy.

They donate millions worth of Microsoft operating systems and software (and count the donations at retail prices, mind you, so a million dollars of MS software only costs them a few thousand) and then demand that, after four of five years, the products be upgraded at regular market prices.

Here's one link: http://aroundcny.com/technofile/texts/massa_bill.h tml

And then there's the AIDS research funds for Africa and whatnot. They can't pay for that with boxes of Windows XP, so they donate in cash. But since that would be too altruistic, the research money requires pledges to advance enforcement of drug patents in already bankrupt countries. That's why the benevolent donations from B&MGF are partnered with more donations from companies like Bristol-Myers Squibb and Merck and Company.

So there's your difference between true altruism and vested business strategies. Hope you had fun.

Perhaps the story should have been when Apple released Apple Lossless Encoder. That's the recent iPod news that makes the iPod better for audiophiles.

Al Falsoldt is clearly some guy that fancies himself a techie because he knows how to plug in his scanner. He clearly has not had any real experience in the industry at all.

Quite a funny observation. And remember, it was a Japanese company that killed Betamax.

Blame the users, of course.

. . . maybe Microsoft will counter with some people who switched from Mozilla to MSIE, a la the infamous Windows switcher ad.

Found this url for getting AltaVista Personal http://aroundcny.com/technofile/texts/AVSearch.exe that was a fairly nice product for its time.

How about Tandy Corporation's THOR CD-RW-like technology developed back in the late 1980's.

What? You never heard of THOR QED.

Here are the programs you need to have a k-133t windows system.

1. AOL- DUH, they are the greatest ISP ever.

2. Webshots - Impress your friends with your changing wallpaper!

3. Hotbar - Skin Internet Explorer and Impress your friends!

4. AOHell This program will make you l33t!

5. Incredimail This makes your e-mail look k00lah then everyone elses.

6. Microsoft Outlook because all the anti-virus tools work with it. You don't want to use another e-mail client, you might get a virus!

7. Comet Cursor. Makes your cursor R0x0r.

8. Intruder Alert 99 You need a firewall, the internet isn't a safe place!

9. Gator Gator is an awesome program that helps u remember ur passwords. This way u don't have to fill out stupid forms!

10. BO Server The guys in my gaming clan sent me this, they said it would improve my FPS, and make windows run faster. I think it did!

He's the boyfriend of that girl who made a big deal of switching from MacOS to Windows!