Slashdot Mirror

You do run a firewall, right? If not, try Tiny. It's just one step up from ZoneAlarm, and so much smaller. You should probably ignore the CNet luzer votes though. You might also find this interesting.

That's assuming you are satisfied with software.

Jacco (to e-mail me, please remove all yourclothes)
---
# cd /var/log

Even thought it should have been done long ago. Besides, most people won't know the difference, and i bet alot use NT already at work.

Anyway what i meant was going from 2000 to XP is like going from win95 to win98. Nothing much to see.

http://www.cnet.com/software/0-429669-8-5194258-3. html?tag=st.sw.429669-8-5194258-2.arrow.429669-8-5 194258-3. Thats where i got the .net stuff from. Its the third page of the article, maybe you should try reading it.

There's not enough difference in brightness for my liking though.

I notice on the screenshot for the login page two things:
(1) The number of running apps that some users have open, including the Administrator.
(2) A button to shut the machine down.

Does this mean that non root^H^H^H^HAdministrator users can shut down higher privaleged (sp) programs? And services? All this time after the original release of NT (1994?) do Microsoft still not understand multi user OS's?

Dave

In terms of what? Specs? Well, agreed, some of the numbers are higher. Great. If that's all that counts for you, then have fun with your benchmark optimizer 'XBox'.

What is more important for me is the less than impressive number of japanese developers. Yes, MS did list the Namco, Konami, Capcom... logos. But there is not much coming out by them. See this article about Konami for example.

As for me, the Dreamcast is the best console currently out.

Note that there is still some bad Apple press like C|Net's Jeff Raskin video interview (but I wonder what he has to say about Windows if he's so nitpicky lol!) but on the whole it's been good, even from C|Net - Look at their Holy Grail group of articles on Apple.

Note that there is still some bad Apple press like C|Net's Jeff Raskin video interview (but I wonder what he has to say about Windows if he's so nitpicky lol!) but on the whole it's been good, even from C|Net - Look at their Holy Grail group of articles on Apple.

As a matter of fact, it's well documented that MSFT does "stooge" much smaller on-line forums. From Brill's Content, Sept 1998:

In 1992, the Microsoft evangelists began paying attention to on-line bulletin boards. "All of a sudden, press people started hanging out on CompuServe [home of the influential Canopus forum], and started using the forums as sources of information," says Segal, who monitored about 25 forums. Identifying themselves as Microsoft employees, Segal says, he and his colleagues would post retorts to anything they saw that portrayed Windows or Microsoft in a bad light.

IBM began to understand what was going on, and it appointed a lone OS/2 evangelist, David Whittle. He gamely joined the fray, posting items on the Canopus forum, which Microsoft now regarded as a hotbed of anti-Windows, pro-OS/2 sentiment, says Segal. The evangelists jumped on the outgunned Whittle. "It's outrageous how IBM sent him in with a pea shooter," recalls Segal. "We were going to cream him, pick him apart, slaughter him."

The CompuServe OS/2 forum probably had a much smaller readership (and influence) than Slashdot has today.

MSFT has paid for newspaper ads nominally authored by and independent 3rd party.

On April 10, 1999 the Los Angeles Times reported that Microsoft "has secretly been planning a massive media campaign designed to influence state investigators by creating the appearance of a groundswell of public support for the company". Plans for the campaign included planting articles, and commissioning letters to the editor and opinion pieces written by Microsoft media handlers, but presented as "spontaneous testimonials."

So, yes, I seriously do think that MSFT "stooges" Slashdot. MSFT has such a track record that I believe any pro-MSFT opinion expressed in a public forum has to be viewed with a fair amount of suspicion.

my watch?

interview Jef basically pans the OS, although he is obviously a complete idiot.

The horse's mouth explanation, which seems credible enough to me.

The lack of CDR/DVD features in 1.0 is hardly a showstopper for the "early adopter" types (i.e. us) who are going to be installing this weekend.

CNET is claiming ATT is buying NorthPoint's assets.

I seriously doubt either has fully surpassed that gap since, but I admit it may be closing.

Ahh, but Jupiter released new numbers just last week. Consider it closed, surpassed, and game over. :)

Cheers,

According to this CNET article they're not taking over the customer base:

Ma Bell agreed to buy "substantially all" of NorthPoint's assets for $135 million, the companies said. The phone company will use NorthPoint's networks to offer both high-speed Net service and voice telephone service, a spokeswoman said. AT&T is not taking over NorthPoint's customers along with the network, the companies said.

I REALLY hope this is wrong information. I can't take going back to dialup. I think I'm probably going to have to pick up a gun and go on a shooting spree if that happens.

The price at its launch (on July 16, 1999) was not $99 as you claim, but was, instead, $399 as shown in this CNet announcement. At the time, Netpliance was calling it the "Ipad." By December of 1999, they had dropped the price to $199 as shown in this PC Magazine news story.In July of 2000, Netpliance announced that they were raising the price of the i-opener from $99 to $399 as shown in this Netpliance press release and in this CNet news article. At the end of August, after dismal sales, Netpliance lowered the price to $299 as shown in this CNet news article. I believe that they sold more i-openers at $99 than at all of the other price points combined.

Next time, get your facts straight before claiming that I am wrong.

The price at its launch (on July 16, 1999) was not $99 as you claim, but was, instead, $399 as shown in this CNet announcement. At the time, Netpliance was calling it the "Ipad." By December of 1999, they had dropped the price to $199 as shown in this PC Magazine news story.In July of 2000, Netpliance announced that they were raising the price of the i-opener from $99 to $399 as shown in this Netpliance press release and in this CNet news article. At the end of August, after dismal sales, Netpliance lowered the price to $299 as shown in this CNet news article. I believe that they sold more i-openers at $99 than at all of the other price points combined.

Next time, get your facts straight before claiming that I am wrong.

The price at its launch (on July 16, 1999) was not $99 as you claim, but was, instead, $399 as shown in this CNet announcement. At the time, Netpliance was calling it the "Ipad." By December of 1999, they had dropped the price to $199 as shown in this PC Magazine news story.In July of 2000, Netpliance announced that they were raising the price of the i-opener from $99 to $399 as shown in this Netpliance press release and in this CNet news article. At the end of August, after dismal sales, Netpliance lowered the price to $299 as shown in this CNet news article. I believe that they sold more i-openers at $99 than at all of the other price points combined.

Next time, get your facts straight before claiming that I am wrong.

AOL, NAVY Settle Privacy Case

The M505 is impressive. It's got *most* of the things Palm users have been asking for: color in a PalmV formfactor (YES!!! And with side-reflective TFT... YES!!!), backlit graffiti area, vibrating alarm, and expansion slot.

The lack of MP3 playback is disappointing, but not a big deal right now, IMHO. When dataplay disks come out next year, then MP3 playback on a handheld computer will be more important. Right now it's mostly a gimmick.

However, the lack of improved audio or a higher resolution screen is going to be a real turn-off to some people (including me). Don't get me wrong... It doesn't make me want to switch to WinCE (unless they rewrite that buggy, inefficient OS from the ground-up). But I dunno if I'm gonna shell out for an M505, even though it's a very reasonable price.

I'll probably hold out for a device with a higher resolution screen. The question is, what will come first?

1. A version of WinCE that doesn't suck (doubtful, knowing M$)

2. PalmOS 5 devices with higher resolution, improved audio, and MP3 playback

3. Color EPOC Palm devices with multimedia capabilities

or

4. The new Sharp Linux devices, which will reportedly be focused on Java for development.

Looks like the next 12 months will be very interesting... shall we start a pool?

Upcoming "Star Wars" explores new territory

Oh, because it's CG?
Toys Story (1995) anyone?

Ok, so at best, they are improving their CG techniques. But calling that "exploring new territory" just looks like marketing BS to me...

My 2 cents...

PS: George, if you ever read this, please forget about the CG frills and concentrate on giving us a great movie as you used to!

To me it seems that they're trying to comeback after it was revealed that MSN Messenger is more popular.

Also a good windows alternative client Miranda ICQ has been in development for over a year (did I mention it's open sourced?). It has basic messaging without all the fluff and bloat.

could be an attempt to counter the recent news that M$ has more people using thier service

This gets announced the day before Microsoft's Hailstorm announcment, where Microsoft starts letting out some details to show why AOL better get their act together. Combine that with the fact that MSN Messenger now has more users than AIM, and it sounds like AOL's begging for free help from the open source community to save them from Microsoft and Hailstorm.

Cheers,

Microsoft files a lot of patents. Microsoft is better known for being sued for infringing on the partner's patents than for suing over patents. Microsoft has sued other companies over patents. Microsoft has been accused many times of using patents as leverage against competitors. I recall a story from over five years ago of Microsoft slipping a clause into its site licensing agreements saying that licenees agreed not to sue Microsoft for using their patents: buy our software, give up your patents to us. I can't find a link though, so you can just take it as a rumor.

One might observe that Microsoft decreased the number of lawsuits it launched as publicity over their illegal and allegedly illegal activiates increased(the several DOJ trials, and the IRS trial.

Microsoft sues over the name of the Python language Microsoft sues over Compression Patent
Microsoft sues over mouse cable patent
FTC investigate Intel
Microsoft sues for access to patent
Microsoft fails to disclose CSS patent to W3C
Let's not forget Microsoft threatening to not release software for Apple's platform and the whole question of patents that Apple brought up. This is a really interesting story, but I don't have time to post more links. A quick google search should get you lots of background on the Apple vs. Microsoft thing.
Microsoft has so many patents they developed an in-house application to search and manage them.
Microsoft doesn't like look-alike mouse, claims infringment

There are also many more cases of Microsoft being sued for Patent infringment. But I won't bother to list them; typically they involve a small company who pitched their product to Microsoft only to be rejected and find that MS released a similar product a year later.

The reasons were listed in a C|Net News.com article on March 12 of this year. Here's the relevant link and the quoted text (it's the second from the last paragraph in the article):

Napster has contacted some of the people spreading these anti-filter technologies and asked them to stop. Aimster confirmed late Monday that it was taking its Pig Latin system down at Napster's request and had stopped development of a more powerful program for evading the filters that had been dubbed "Scorpion."

Yes, your problem is that you're short-sighted. Visor's PDAs already have a gameboy style expansion slot, and the new iPaqs have more than enough horsepower to run an PSone style game. The problem now is screen size and control. I don't know if the Gameboy Advance has the right horsepower yet, but I could certainly see a GameBoy Advance 2 that had more than enough horsepower to run all PSone games.

Also see this interesting story on The Register about Sony portable PSone rumors.

- Twid

can be found here. BTW, their stock was down almost $12 USD the last time I checked. I guess that RAMBUS losing is a bad thing for their market cap...

Just a few week's ago - whether due to the greed that got them into this mess, or the pride of not being able to admit a mistake, or whatever.

When did the PalmOS go out of style? Since when is WinCE the leader in handhelds?

In terms of popularity, Palm sells more than anybody. In fact, Palm and Handspring together had 87 percent of the market in June 2000.

Technically, the PalmOS is limited, but definitely good enough. They're the ones that finally got the interface "right". They've got the right form factor, ease-of-use, battery life and necessary speed. They don't have a huge list of bells, whistles and gongs, but the essentials are there - and physically stripped down to exactly the size I want. It is exactly what you need as a PDA. More features (cameras, GPS, colour, music, phone, wireless are available as add-ons) are nice, but they aren't always essential, and shouldn't come at a permanent increase in size.

WinCE is attempting to be an all-singing, all-dancing embedded OS. The reality is that it's being handily beaten by Palm in the handheld market, by WindRiver (and other embedded OSes) in the realtime and embedded markets.

Handspring is finally producing the phone that I've wanted ever since I tried to juggle my old Casio BOSS and a cellular brick-phone. Now if only it was available in Canada. (Oh, and by the way Nokia, I don't want to enter appointments into a phone, using a clumsy keypad and itty-bitty screen).

There are still way more apps for PalmOS than any of its competitors, and developers get the benefits of an open environment. WinCE is a real late-comer and doesn't offer enough improvements to be the front-runner.

The non-disclaimer: I own a Palm Vx, chosen specifically because of it's form factor, user-interface and applications. I write embedded telecommunications software (on realtime OSes) for a living. That's my basis for these opinions.

1. The PEG-N700C is going to be released in the US later this year: http://yahoofin.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-5136591.h tml?tag=pt.yahoofin.financefeed..ne

2. Does anyone know what the color depth of the screen is? I'm assuming that it's 8-bit, because Sony would be flaunting the color depth if it were 16-bit. I've run the fish over all of the pages on Sony's PEG-N700C site, and I can't find any mention of the color depth at all. I just find it really hard to believe that Sony would release an 8-bit color screen when Handspring has had 16-bit color for months.

According to this C|Net article, it will in fact be released in the states. I hope that Europe will also be covered...

PalmStation has a nice summary of this new Clie. And, of course, the big news is the higher resolution (about time!). But it will be only offered in Japan, so this is largely non-news for the rest of the world.

Myself, I'm going to wait for the Palm m505 (aka the "Palm Vc"), which is due out next week.

Alex Bischoff
---

Space contractor Boeing buys Linux-AMD supercomputer for use in designing the new Delta IV rocket that launches satellites into space.

Sony once dropped one of its suits (which was already truncated to only 2 of the 9 original charges), only to bring a new one the next day. Of course, they only brought that suit after an appeals court decided to reverse the first ruling and declare VGS "fair use". Now they've lost in the last piece of litigation against Connectix. Is it finally over?! Maybe they'll just file yet another suit with a slight difference to continue to harass Connectix. And what about that other company Sony sued? How does this affect them?

Sony once dropped one of its suits (which was already truncated to only 2 of the 9 original charges), only to bring a new one the next day. Of course, they only brought that suit after an appeals court decided to reverse the first ruling and declare VGS "fair use". Now they've lost in the last piece of litigation against Connectix. Is it finally over?! Maybe they'll just file yet another suit with a slight difference to continue to harass Connectix. And what about that other company Sony sued? How does this affect them?

Sony once dropped one of its suits (which was already truncated to only 2 of the 9 original charges), only to bring a new one the next day. Of course, they only brought that suit after an appeals court decided to reverse the first ruling and declare VGS "fair use". Now they've lost in the last piece of litigation against Connectix. Is it finally over?! Maybe they'll just file yet another suit with a slight difference to continue to harass Connectix. And what about that other company Sony sued? How does this affect them?

Sony once dropped one of its suits (which was already truncated to only 2 of the 9 original charges), only to bring a new one the next day. Of course, they only brought that suit after an appeals court decided to reverse the first ruling and declare VGS "fair use". Now they've lost in the last piece of litigation against Connectix. Is it finally over?! Maybe they'll just file yet another suit with a slight difference to continue to harass Connectix. And what about that other company Sony sued? How does this affect them?

Sony once dropped one of its suits (which was already truncated to only 2 of the 9 original charges), only to bring a new one the next day. Of course, they only brought that suit after an appeals court decided to reverse the first ruling and declare VGS "fair use". Now they've lost in the last piece of litigation against Connectix. Is it finally over?! Maybe they'll just file yet another suit with a slight difference to continue to harass Connectix. And what about that other company Sony sued? How does this affect them?

To a large degree, even though it is not named, well, for example there is this bit:

Targets of the critics' scorn included convoluted commands such as the common "Alt-Control-Delete" sequence used to close a program or perform an emergency shutdown. They also lambasted computer designers who refuse to distribute the machines' intelligence to smaller devices scattered throughout the home, instead insisting on packing a single box with maximum functionality.

Strangely, this sounds rather familiar. Certain large companies will not be named. They do not have to be. The marketroids have strangled the future.

To a large degree, even though it is not named, well, for example there is this bit:

Targets of the critics' scorn included convoluted commands such as the common "Alt-Control-Delete" sequence used to close a program or perform an emergency shutdown. They also lambasted computer designers who refuse to distribute the machines' intelligence to smaller devices scattered throughout the home, instead insisting on packing a single box with maximum functionality.

Strangely, this sounds rather familiar. Certain large companies will not be named. They do not have to be. The marketroids have strangled the future.

Tim

Well Duh.

Palm tried to make itself sexy by hiring Claudia Schiffer to promote it and releasing a special "Claudia" edition (a Vx with metalic blue faceplate)

I wonder which supermodel handspring will use?

Huh? the m505 is due to be released next week.

Wanna see what it looks like?

Sony are also planning on releasing a new Clie in Japan today (no more information available yet)

It was also announced that the Handspring range will go on sale in Australia this week. They're being distributed & supported by Vodafone. Prices range from AUD$349 - AUD$1043, the Edge will cost AUD$899. There was an article in yesterdays's AustralianIT and there's a small article over at cnet today.

Huh? the m505 is due to be released next week.

Wanna see what it looks like?

Sony are also planning on releasing a new Clie in Japan today (no more information available yet)

It was also announced that the Handspring range will go on sale in Australia this week. They're being distributed & supported by Vodafone. Prices range from AUD$349 - AUD$1043, the Edge will cost AUD$899. There was an article in yesterdays's AustralianIT and there's a small article over at cnet today.

• 2001-03-09 15:45:01 Palm m505 (aka "Palm Vc") to be Released March 19th (articles,pilot) (rejected)

Another good (IMHO) update site is updates.com. It's a ZDNET site, but let's not hold that against it.

It shows you a list of what you have installed that has been updated, whether it's MS or not, OS or not. I'm not sure about their update frequency, but they tend to have updates relatively soon after they appear.

Link for the update page is here.

See http://aolcom.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-921517.html

Here is an extract :
This is not the first time AOL has come under fire by gay and lesbian rights groups. The most notable instance came when AOL admitted it had disclosed the member account of Timothy McVeigh, a naval officer, to a naval investigator. Because of the disclosure, the Navy discharged the sailor for "Homosexual Conduct Admittance" because he typed the word "gay" on his member profile under "Marital Status." He has since been reinstated.

Disclaimer : I work for AOL Time Warner and opinions are my own, not those of AOL Time Warner

This article in CNET this morning might explain things a little better.

See the CNet article. Not very encouraging.