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The cell phone networks compete. WiMAX (802.16e) is currently being built out by several companies with up/down rates of 70Mbps over short distances and 10Mbps at 10km. The fastest HSDPA already runs at 14.4Mpbs. In Japan, DOCOMO is currently working on deploying their Super 3G network, which runs at 300Mbps downstream, 80Mps upstream. We don't need complicated laws to fix this industry -- just laws that allow competition. If the current monopolies that own the wires and cable can't solve the last mile problem, others will.

Actually HP is now the #1 computer maker. They surpassed Dell in 2006.

http://www.cio-today.com/news/Strategy-Shift-Gives -HP-Lead-over-Dell/story.xhtml?story_id=12300BCZCB J9

http://www.courant.com/business/hc-ymleckey0624.ar tjun24,0,4681941.story?coll=hc-headlines-business

First site:

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/05/19/cuba_switchin g_to_gn.html

Cuba switching to GNU/Linux
Cuba is switching away from Windows to GNU/Linux. I have to say that I was a little surprised when I was last in Cuba and saw many of the PCs running Windows.

Cuba's director of information technology, Roberto del Puerto, says that Cuba already has approximately 1500 computers running on Linux, and is working towards replacing Windows on all state owned computers.

Link

Tony Montana writes "According to several news sites the government of Cuba is dumping Windows in favour of Linux. Cuba's director of information technology, Roberto del Puerto, says that Cuba already has approximately 1500 computers running on Linux, and is working towards replacing Windows on all state owned computers."

ONE OF the last bastions of revolutionary socialism, Cuba is to switch all its computers over to Linux to counter the influence of the Evil Capitalistic American lackey Microsoft.

According to the government daily, Juventud Rebelde, Roberto del Puerto, director of the state office of information technology, said his office was working on a legal framework that would allow the replacement of Windows through-out Cuba. Cuba already has 1,500 computers using Linux. Although what flavour is not clear.

More here.

Sorry, the page you requested was not found.

And before I know it, 15 minutes are gone and all I've learned is that 1500 computers have been switched. Thank you plagiarism. And the beatiful irony of it all is that I'm contributing to it with this post!

It isn't safe to use SCAMP. SCO's corporate future is uncertain. They've based their entire company around a lawsuit that it looks like they will probably lose. It would be a bad idea to use SCAMP for a production system only to have SCO go bankrupt a year or two later.

It's not safe to not use SCO, at least if you used to be a customer at some point. It's sad, but I think that they actually have customers that are hoping they'll go bust, in order to cease being their customer without risking getting sued.

I may be a bit paranoid but I'd like to turn off images and video for a few days until this ".wmf" issue is resolved.

".wma" and ".wmv" file extensions seem closer to the ".wmf" extension than ".jpg" or ".tif" extensions, so they may also be loaded by programs that open ".wmf" files only to read the internal label and execute the malicious code.

I unchecked the box called "load images" in Firefox, but animated web sites still come up. So I reinstalled Firefox (also deleting the directory) to try to return to Firefox's original default settings, but my settings were still active. Apparently, Firefox saves personal settings in the registry even after it is uninstalled.

Security web sites seem to be of little help:

Secunia, Kaspersky strongly caution against opening any untrusted *.wmf files
http://secunia.com/advisories/18255/
http://www.viruslist.com/en/alerts?alertid=1767016 69

VNUNet.com says Firefox will first ask the user before opening the file.
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2147909/hackers- attack-zero-day-windows

Pete Lindstrom, research director for Spire Security LLC, said,
"There's no such thing as 'extremely critical' when user interaction is required. [...] That's just silly."

Lisa Vaas of eweek.com says "Google had no immediate comment. To avoid the problem, security experts suggest disabling the feature's indexing of media files, or to remove Google Desktop altogether."
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1906177,00.as p

Jay Wrolstad at CIO-Today says, "Current exploits use the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer to attack any application that can handle Windows Metafiles. Disabling the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer will not eliminate the risk as the flaw exists in the Windows Graphical Device Interface library".
http://www.cio-today.com/news/Flaw-Detected-in-Win dows-Metafile/story.xhtml?story_id=131004IKPNAU

Alex Eckelberry, president of Sunbelt Software.
"There is no user interaction required," he wrote in an e-mail exchange. "You hit the Web site, you get hit immediately. No prompts, nothing."
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1906489,00.as p

http://appleintelfaq.com/

What did Apple announce at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 6, 2005?

Apple announced that it is transitioning from PowerPC processors provided by IBM and Freescale (formerly Motorola) to x86 architecture processors from Intel. The first Intel-based Macs will ship before mid-2006, and the transition will be complete by the end of 2007.

Where can I find out more official information about this announcement?

Apple press release

Intel press release

WWDC keynote address (Transcript)

Why did Apple make this change?

The following scenario likely contributed to this decision:

IBM has been unable to meet its performance commitments for the PowerPC 970 family (G5) processors. In mid-2003, IBM promised 3 GHz G5s to Apple by mid-2004. As of mid-2005, 3 GHz G5s are still not available, over two years after the initial announcement, and over one year after the promised delivery.[1]

Meanwhile, Microsoft has announced that IBM will make 3.2 GHz triple-core G5 derivatives available to Microsoft for Xbox 360.[2] IBM is also concentrating efforts on chips for Nintendo Revolution and Sony PlayStation 3.[3, 3.1] With IBM concentrating on expensive high-end server class processors and the console and embedded markets, and with Apple at less than 2%[4] of IBM's PowerPC business, it was clear IBM's priorities were focused elsewhere.

Apple is also less than 3%[4] of Freescale's PowerPC business, with Freescale focusing on embedded, communications, and automotive markets. The priorities of IBM and Freescale do not coincide with performance and other needs of the traditional desktop and portable computing marketplace.

What has Apple done to prepare for this transition?

Apple has been publicly maintaining the core OS of Mac OS X, Darwin, for both PowerPC and x86 platforms since the release of Mac OS X. Internally, Apple has been secretly maintaining Mac OS X in its entirety and all Apple applications for both PowerPC and x86 for over 5 years, since before Mac OS X's public release.[5] Mac OS X's predecessors also ran on x86.

Apple has made available Xcode 2.1, which adds the capability of creating PowerPC/x86 universal binaries. Xcode 2.1 can be used on either PowerPC or x86 systems to create universal binaries. Application developers already using Xcode in most cases need only recompile their application with an additional checkbox adding x86 architecture support.

Apple has also licensed[6] QuickTransit from Transitive Corporation for Rosetta, a realtime binary translation system to support PowerPC binaries seamlessly on x86 hardware. The current performance of Rosetta

Paul Murphy, I'd like you to meet Paul Graham. What we have here is an Apple press release being printed up as a trade journal article.

Good for Apple's PR firm. I guess.

Not that I have anything against Macs or PowerPC hardware, I just don't like disengenuous authors (or their articles).

Regards,
Ross

http://www.cio-today.com/story.xhtml?story_title=H ollywood-Sues-BitTorrent-Server-Operators&story_id =160.4652640 They're beings sued by the MPAA!