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BHO Cop 1.0

I ran it this morning and don't seem to have bee infected by their fraud so I don't know what the BHO looks like that belongs to Morpheus, but this app looks pretty helpful.

In the article, there's a link to a cnet download page that contains a BHO Cop....This is supposedly software that scans for and allows you to disable hidden browser plug-ins.

Has anyone used this before and can it be used to conteract such forms of internet theivery?

I'd hate to see Amazon lose even more money. Rob

After reading this article (and noticing redirects being performed on my system - i thought it was something else, not morpheus) I downloaded this utility: BHO Cop which is designed to search out these nasty browser-attached proggies and allow the user to disable them. I found the culprit: bpboh.dll put out by Wurld Media, who, according to their inadequite website, claim the primary goal of their business is to help companies be profitable (very ambiguous, don't you think?).

Well, I disabled the .dll w/ BHO Cop, relogged in (WinXP) and low and behold, when I go to amazon.com, I end up at the root page rather than a referal page deep in the system.

So - download and run BHO Cop now! who knows what else you might find (Acrobat seems to have dumped something as well)

1. How about the complete dropping of Macintosh related software from their DOWNLOAD.com?

OK, CNET sucks. But in the middle of the Download.com homepage there is a link to this page, where you can find the Mac related software.

What is your GSM carrier and plan, and how are you liking it? I will be using VoiceStream in the Kansas City area, so would be especially interested if that is your carrier. Can you get VoiceStream iStream service on the Treo?

I am using voicestream, and it's fine. I've used Nextel in the past, and, as far as I can tell, Voicestream is just as good. They seem a little cheaper than Sprint (at least when I signed up) and I have so far had no problems. The free weekends are also especially nice for data connections. I find Istream to be completely unnecessary. Voicestream and the Treo install software both claim I have to pay an extra fee for Data service and have my own ISP. That's not true - I followed the directions on this article and connect to the internet in six seconds without paying anything. I can't say how long it will last - but it's great for the moment. One friend suggested voicestream does this on purpose, because it's cheaper for them to provide an ISP than it is to provide an outgoing line out of their network for me to connect to an outside ISP. Interestng idea.

How annoying is the short battery life? I am not a road warrior, so I can charge my phone nightly. Is that good enough?

I don't think the battery life is all that short. I think it's rated at something like 2.5 hours of talk time, and a coupla' days standby time. Going for two days is stretching it, but if you charge every night there should be no problem unless you talk on the phone a lot.

How bad is the rumored problem with "face oil" on the screen from talking on the phone?

Some people reported that this was a problem with the visorphone. I had a visorphone before my Treo, but never had this problem. On the visorphone, the speaker is angled away, so to hear anything, you have to hold the screen away from your face. The Treo is set up just like a regular flip-phone, so this never becomes a problem. I've been using mine for about a week and have never had this problem.

How are you carrying the thing? I am thinking I'll need a belt case, since it isn't going to fit into a hip pocket like my little cell phone.

I just carry it in my pocket. It's larger than tiny cellphones, but not all that much. It also fits comfortably in a shirt pocket. Handspring has a belt-clip carrying case that they're releasing soon, but I don't think I'll need it. I do tend to wear baggy pants, though...

Have people gotten tired of you answering the phone by flipping up the cover and saying, "Kirk here?"


Hell no! I even got the Trek Sounds hack just to be even more geeky, and everyone thinks I'm really cool! :)

Overall, I love the thing! Making the Visorphone first as a beta test was a really good idea, because it had a lot of flaws, but so far I'd have to say that they've vastly improved almost everything with the Treo.

> it doesn't come with Enterprise Manager, so if you don't already have access to the tools, you're screwed.

Screwed? Any serious database hacker would use a SQL client anyway. You can find them for free at downloads.com.

Ok so there is a new version of Morpheus now:
download

Flaw weakens Linux security

Programmers have found a vulnerability in Linux (news - web sites) that could allow protective firewall software to grant malicious computer users access to protected networks.

The flaw, which affects versions 2.4.14 through 2.4.18-pre9 of the Linux kernel, is in a component of the Netfilter firewall software. The component is involved when two computer users chat directly with each other using the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) system.

Information sent across the Internet is broken up into tiny "packets," each with "from" and "to" addresses, indicating who's sent the information and where it's intended to go. So-called firewall software transmits or screens out these packets based on the address of the sender.

Netfilter, among the new aspects of the 2.4 version of the Linux kernel, is software that runs within the kernel to filter out unwanted packets. But its IRC helper component configures firewall settings too broadly, potentially allowing communication from IP (Internet Protocol) addresses that should be blocked.

Programmers working on the Netfilter firewall software project reported the problem Monday.

Versions 7.1 and 7.2 of leading Linux seller Red Hat's product are vulnerable. The Durham, N.C.-based company issued a patch Thursday that corrects the problem. The flawed software isn't installed by default on the Red Hat versions, the company said, but some users may have added it.

Security is a nagging concern for the computer industry, which must juggle new features with the risk that they open up new problems. While the firewall problem the Netfilter programmers discovered is limited to a few versions of Linux, a more serious problem emerged earlier this month affecting numerous operating systems using standard network management software.

From the annals of the Troll Library .

Programmers have found a vulnerability in Linux (news - web sites) that could allow protective firewall software to grant malicious computer users access to protected networks.

The flaw, which affects versions 2.4.14 through 2.4.18-pre9 of the Linux kernel, is in a component of the Netfilter firewall software. The component is involved when two computer users chat directly with each other using the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) system.

Information sent across the Internet is broken up into tiny "packets," each with "from" and "to" addresses, indicating who's sent the information and where it's intended to go. So-called firewall software transmits or screens out these packets based on the address of the sender.

Netfilter, among the new aspects of the 2.4 version of the Linux kernel, is software that runs within the kernel to filter out unwanted packets. But its IRC helper component configures firewall settings too broadly, potentially allowing communication from IP (Internet Protocol) addresses that should be blocked.

Programmers working on the Netfilter firewall software project reported the problem Monday.

Versions 7.1 and 7.2 of leading Linux seller Red Hat's product are vulnerable. The Durham, N.C.-based company issued a patch Thursday that corrects the problem. The flawed software isn't installed by default on the Red Hat versions, the company said, but some users may have added it.

Security is a nagging concern for the computer industry, which must juggle new features with the risk that they open up new problems. While the firewall problem the Netfilter programmers discovered is limited to a few versions of Linux, a more serious problem emerged earlier this month affecting numerous operating systems using standard network management software.

How long do you think Star Office is going to be around, or at least going to be supported by Sun? Sun can't keep putting money into it while they are laying people off. It isn't bring anything to Sun. My bet is on Gobe Productive.

Gobe Productive is coming to Linux and it's pretty darn good. Check out their trial version on Windows. This will bring a lot of business users over to Linux.

But hey, it couldn't have been too bad of a move for the company, they're stock shot up 20% today (to 0.12/share... but still ;).

Or for the more lazy... You can download Adaware from their main site here (but it's temporarily down) or get it from cnet.com here. This will scrub your computer of spyware you have now on it. I would periodically use it as well.

While browsing I would probably use a blocker in addition to your firewall. Maybe something like Spyblocker which will block malicious bugs, cookies, ads, spyware, and worms. This can be downloaded here.

That should keep your computer covered.

I recently ran Ad-Aware on my windows box and was surprised to find there were 4 spyware programs installed and running, and remnants of 3 more existed in the registry. And I thought I was being careful...

Looks like the requirement is for a 32-bit ARM-based chip. Here's an article that mentions it.

I bought one of these in Japan in July 2001. And CNET Asia ran this review of the product in October 2001. Sheesh. So much for cutting edge news on /.

...However, consider the impact on the consumer if these add-ons were removed from the OS? Now, on top of the OS license cost...
...?!??
CD burner ($50) -- use freeware instead. ($0)

a browser($30) -- WTF?! Here It's free. ($0)

an archiver($30 for Winzip) -- Here. It's free as well. ($0)

an FTP client($40 CuteFTP c4.2) -- if FREE ($0) IE is not enough, go here and get something else. ($0)

etc etc etc. -- You can get this for free as well :)

The total is $0. Consider the imact on the consumer :-)

...However, consider the impact on the consumer if these add-ons were removed from the OS? Now, on top of the OS license cost...
...?!??
CD burner ($50) -- use freeware instead. ($0)

a browser($30) -- WTF?! Here It's free. ($0)

an archiver($30 for Winzip) -- Here. It's free as well. ($0)

an FTP client($40 CuteFTP c4.2) -- if FREE ($0) IE is not enough, go here and get something else. ($0)

etc etc etc. -- You can get this for free as well :)

The total is $0. Consider the imact on the consumer :-)

...However, consider the impact on the consumer if these add-ons were removed from the OS? Now, on top of the OS license cost...

...?!??

CD burner ($50) -- use freeware instead. ($0)

a browser($30) -- WTF?! Here It's free. ($0)

an archiver($30 for Winzip) -- Go Here. It's free as well. ($0)

an FTP client($40 CuteFTP c4.2) -- if FREE ($0) IE is not enough, go here and get something else. ($0)

etc etc etc. -- You can get this for free as well :)

The total is $0. Consider the imact on the consumer :-)

...However, consider the impact on the consumer if these add-ons were removed from the OS? Now, on top of the OS license cost...

...?!??

CD burner ($50) -- use freeware instead. ($0)

a browser($30) -- WTF?! Here It's free. ($0)

an archiver($30 for Winzip) -- Go Here. It's free as well. ($0)

an FTP client($40 CuteFTP c4.2) -- if FREE ($0) IE is not enough, go here and get something else. ($0)

etc etc etc. -- You can get this for free as well :)

The total is $0. Consider the imact on the consumer :-)

download a freeware program called tweak ui.

Its a free download microsoft publishes, and its actually very, very useful. Under the "general" tab, click the checkbox that says "Prevent applications from stealing focus." This keeps annoying IE windows from taking over, instant messenger clients from hopping to the front, and pop-ups from jumping up from the non-active application.

The software giant's budget for its Political Action Committee (PAC) increased from about $16,000 in 1995 to $1.6 million in 2000, according to Edward Roeder, a self-styled expert on efforts to influence the U.S. government, and founder of Sunshine Press Services, a news agency devoted to investigating money in politics.

Roeder's report was submitted to Judge Kollar-Kotelly at the end of January. Microsoft has been unable to comment.

Judge Kollar-Kotelly heard that total donations to political donations from Microsoft and its employees to political parties, candidates and PACs in the 2000 election cycle amounted to more than $6.1 million. During this period, Microsoft and its executives accounted for $2.3 million in soft money contributions, compared to $1.55 million by Enron and its executives for the same period. Soft money is the term generally given to unregulated corporate and individual contributions that cannot go directly to candidates, but which typically goes to political parties.

The evidence came from a review commissioned by the Computer & Communications Industry Association. Roeder said that although the research was commissioned by the CCIA--a known critic of Microsoft--the evidence was based on the "extraordinary public record of Microsoft's political activities during the timeframe of this trial."

Roeder said that his review of the available documents has led him to conclude that over the past five years, Microsoft has engaged in political influence peddling "in many ways unprecedented in modern political history."

The report was delivered in response to the deal unexpectedly reached between Microsoft and the U.S. Department of Justice last year after Microsoft had been found guilty of violating antitrust laws.

"Microsoft's campaign contributions significantly surpassed those of Enron," said Roeder in his report. "It appears Microsoft may have successfully influenced the administration's antitrust policy, with major implications for legal antitrust pecedent." Microsoft insists it did not participate in any "backroom" deals.

Nevertheless, Roeder recommended that the court "undertake an immediate review of Microsoft's lobbying activities surrounding this settlement, with particular attention to meetings with the Justice Department of the White House by Microsoft or its agents."

What makes Microsoft's lobbying throughout the trial so unique is not necessarily the size of political contributions but the scope of its efforts and the speed at which Microsoft went from having almost no political presence in Washington to having one of the "largest and most sophisticated political operations."

In 1995, the company had just a single lobbyist based in Chevy Chase, Maryland; today, it has one of the largest PACs in U.S. corporate history, said Roeder. Microsoft has leapt to the top of the corporate contributor list in soft money contributions.

The size and speed of this leap was staggering. In the seven days preceding Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's ruling against Microsoft, said Roeder, the company donated more soft money to the national political parties than it gave to federal candidates and political parties in the seven years spanning 1989 to 1996. And during the 1999-2000 election cycle, Microsoft and its executives accounted for some $2,298,551 in soft money contributions. Enron, by comparison, donated $1,546,055 during the same period.

Microsoft's direct lobbying has also grown out of all proportion, so that it now retains more lobbyists than the handful of companies with more than 300,000 employees. Microsoft has just 30,000 employees. Part of the reasoning for extensive use of retainers, says Roeder, citing a Business Week article, is to "suck all the oxygen out". In Washington State, Microsoft has hired many law firms with antitrust expertise to work in unrelated areas.

The strategy was extended to other key states, with the dual benefits of starving the opposition of experienced lobbyists, and achieving political results that have benefited the company's case.

In South Carolina, one of the states originally participating in the antitrust suit, Microsoft contributed $25,000 to attorney general Charles Condon shortly before his re-election in 1998. According to the chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party this was the largest unsolicited donation ever received. Three weeks after Condon won the election, South Carolina withdrew from the antitrust case.

The analysis of donations by political party shows some surprising results. While Microsoft donations favored Republicans (who got 72 percent of the money from 1995 to 1998), its employees were more inclined to support the Democrats. Democratic PACs received $222,100 from the company's employees, compared to the $42,875 for Republican PACs.

Letters

It's difficult to be impartial

Both sides now

Would you like to comment on this story? Send us a note and we'll publish the best.

I get 5 MB of data in my subscription regardless of how long I stay connected (I normally am always online). For each MB I download to my phone that exceeds what's included, I pay a certain extra fee. AFAIK, this is how all GPRS services work so I think your fears are unfounded.

That the corp sueing him apparently didn't go through the ICANN name dispute resolution system? Interesting that they realize that ICANN has no real power in those sorts of disputes. Not that it's any surprise See this story from a year ago for another example of using the courts to avoid/overrule ICANN.

Dude, it's the most standards compliant browser available, it's fast as hell, it has an awesome email program, it's more stable than IE6, and it doesn't severely fuck up CSS seemingly randomly the way IE 6 does. The scope of the Mozilla far exceeds whatever you must be comparing it to. Netscape 6.2 is an awesome "primetime" browser. Mozilla is for pushing the envelope and testing. Why is that so difficult?

Besides, Netscape 6.2 is what you have to judge if you are talking about what has come of "Open Sourcing a company project." According to the W3C, Netscape 6.2 is the most standards compliant browser availabe. According to many browser comparisons by major consumer magazines/sites, such as this one, Netscape is also faster and less "crashy" than IE.

Jes, I come on here to read news, and I end up getting disgusted by people with bugs up their asses sounding like total assholes just trying to shit on peoples' hard work spreading pure propaganda about stuff they obviously don't have any real experience with or knowledge upon and it's just sad.

Are there any good people left out there who can appreciate a good thing and support it, or are we all just a bunch of bsers trying to scam enough money to buy status symbols while downplaying the admirability of actually doing something unique and/or significant?

Since the iCEBOX link is Slashdotted, you can go here instead. You can order the iCEBOX from this page for $3,500.00.

iCEBOX Flipscreen
A complement to any contemporary kitchen, the iCEBOX is the first web-enabled entertainment center designed specifically for the kitchen. This sleek new space-efficient device combines cable-ready television, DVD and Audio CD Player, Internet access and household monitoring - all delivered to you seamlessly and with push-button simplicity. the iCEBOX also comes equipped with a waterproof, wireless keyboard and remote. The perfect union of elegance and innovation, the iCEBOX fits conveniently under a kitchen cabinet and features an adjustable LCD monitor that flips up and out of the way when not in use. Finally, an appliance that recognizes you do more in the kitchen than cook.

Screen Size: 12.1" LCD TFT
Resolution: 800 x 600
Aspect: 4:3
Contrast: 400:1
Weight: 40lbs.
Dimensions: 23.54" x 11.8" x 3.8"
Power: 110Vac, 60 Hz, 230Vac, 50Hz
Ships in two business days
CMI-ICEBOX-000
$3,500.00

There is a news article at USA Today.
Another article on Cnet
And there is the press release here.

But don't you think it is a little odd that this mess starts with AOL not a week after Trillian gets top pick in a CNET review of IM clients?

> How, exactly did Microsoft cheat to get where > they are today? By following through on an offer > to create an operating system some umpteen years > ago? If that's cheating, then... well, I'm a > cheater, too. You should read the Findings of Fact from the trial (at http://news.cnet.com/News/Pages/Special/Microsoft/ findingoffacts.html). This details specifically how they broke the law in more than 300 bullet-points.

I have been communicating with US and UK Government (and lawyers) about these problems for some time now.

The authorities know the solution - restricted TLD for trademarks.

ICANN President Stuart Lynn and Chairman Vint Cerf made admission about restricted top-level domains to Reuters.

"More people I talk to think it's the more likely direction," said Llyn.

I wonder why UN WIPO or US DOC did not tell them - (not).

WIPO took these domains, saying they were "confusingly similar" to the company's actual name.

This is just SPIN and PROPAGANDA - they know the solution.

Virtually every word is trademarked, be it Alpha to Zeta or Aardvark to Zulu, most many times over.

MOST share the same words or initials with MANY others in a different business and/or country.

For example, the World Trade Organization (WTO) shares its initials with six trademarks - in the U.S. alone.

The authorities allow this conflict to continue, for reasons stated on my site and in comments to WIPO.

Domains could be made unique and totally distinctive, as the LAW requires trademarks to be.

The solution was ratified by honest attorneys - including the honourable G. Gervaise Davis III, himself a UN WIPO panellist judge.

Please visit WIPO.org.uk to see it.

Nothing to do with the United Nations Organization - WIPO.org ;-)

Comic book readers are a completely different demographic than music listeners. They A) aren't already spoiled by free comics, and B) they already pay big bucks to collect them. Buying a download and then printing it out on your own color printer is a small price to pay compared to what you *would* have paid. And besides...many of us would pay a buck to read the first Superman, Spiderman, Batman, etc.

Pop up ads *are* the way to go (until the subscription models work out). The real question is whether or not these places will get smart and not allow those using ad killers (such as Guard-IE.

If everyone used these types of programs, then no one would buy ad space.

Favorable at MP3.Com

Negative at CNET.COM

Brief at IGN FOR MEN (heh)

Mixed at Epinions

This is for all of you who don't have google-equipped browsers.

The download for Morpheus can be found here: http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0-1896420-108-7 6172.html?bt.48575.185

Except for the ads servers, no commericial servers appear to be contacted. So once KaZaa gets shut down, we just won't see their ads.

Shamelessly cut+pasted

Tools for programming and developing your project
Programming enviroments

Robert Höhne developed (with the colaboration of some friends ;-) a whole IDE (Integrated Development Enviroment) with the same look & feel of the Borland's IDE but more powerfull ;-). It's called RHIDE. I contributed to this project with the Help classes (aka InfView, to read the Info files) and the text editor (specially designed for writing C/C++). The last stable version is 1.4.9 and is available for Linux too!.

A very used enviroment in the world of Linux is the GNU Emacs. Emacs is a very huge and powerfull editor that can be customized by the user. The program is splited in various ZIP files. Now v20.5 is available for DOS.

For people that comes from UNIX there are a VI clon for DOS called VIM (http://www.primenet.com/~imbe/vim/ The link seems to be broken, if you can get it download the sources and compile it). The sources of the last beta version (5.0t that compiles with DJGPP) can be obtained here. A GUI Shell for windows is available too.

SET's editor (SETEdit) v0.4.41 by ... SET, that's: by me ;-). SETEdit is a very powerful editor with a lot of tools for programmers (is the one used by RHIDE). That's the last version publicly available. If you want to cooperate just contact me. Free, donations accepted ;-). For information and downloads visit this page. Last beta version is v0.4.49 and is a candidate to become the next stable release. A test binary for Win32 (native Win32) is available. Debian packages and test versions for Linux/PPC and Linux/SPARC are also available. We need help to fully support Solaris and FreeBSD, also to fix problems in Linux/Alpha.

Lemur 0.3 (alpha) by Endlisnis scanning program. It is a sLisp script for Setedit (and hence RHIDE) plus a program to look up function prototypes, structure members, etc.

FTE is a portable editor compiled with djgpp under DOS, is available for Linux, X-Windows and OS/2 too.

DFE 95 by Will Weisser is a native win32 IDE for Windows 95. Is available in Simtel too (/v2apps) but 3.4 is only in this link or try this. Free. Sources. The author abandoned the project but Exuviae announced a new GUI called DFE98 (was in http://home.sprintmail.com/~exuviae) or try here, I'm not sure if that's the continuation. Note: the version I downloaed in november 1997 wasn't very stable.

colgcc by Richard Dawe colours the output of gcc to highlight warnings and errors. Useful for command line funs. Now v1.2 available. Sources. GPL.

RSXIDE by Rainer Schnitker is a IDE for Win32 systems. It can be used for RSXNTDJ.

Personally, I like RHIDE and DFE. Haven't done any DJGPP in forever!

I can remember the days building Allegro on my Pentium 75!

------------

Oh, here's a link for a billion Windows editors:

CNET Download.com

To find online shops I usually use "+price" so "bicycle shops uk +price" produced very nice results!!!
GO GOOGLE!
Whenever I'm shopping for something I have found that google will sometimes find lower prices that shopper.cnet.com or pricewatch

Sorry, but Palm is most definitely not the choice of the tech savvy user. Its very limited hardware and OS are both way behind the times and Microsoft is increasing the gap more by the day. Here's a very accurate description of why Palm is in such trouble: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-201-8480246-0.htm l

A year ago, I would have agreed with you on this point. However, the latest direction in Microsoft's licensing policies leads me now to believe otherwise. Perhaps we should call it "future cost avoidance." They may not save anything over what they have currently paid, but when they start upgrading computers and have to upgrade software as well, they are sure to avoid the future costs of "renting" software.

The overwhelming probability is that most of the spending dollars on software go on low volume niche type software that would only be relevant to councils. Public sector accounting packages, pupil progress monitoring packages, police evidence management systems, court clerk management systems. The council that size might buy a hundred copies of Office a year for $40K but an accounting package might easily cost $100K plus the same again for installation, customization etc.

I agree with you here. However, I'd like to think that there may be some Open Source alternatives for even those niche products that are used. I've found that even with a niche product, only a small subset of the actual functionality is used or needed. If somebody does a careful analysis, my guess is that some of those mongo expensive niche applications could be replaced with either something free or much less expensive. Perhaps open source advocates should actually evaluate what some of those high price applications are and consider devoting some resources to providing alternatives.

Why should some open source monomaniac decide that they have to use something different because their current software offends his religion?

I didn't really get the impression that he was all that fanatical. It seemed to me that he was an advocate of open source, and was interested in seeing if there was an angle and potential cost savings that could be used in his campaign.

If you actually want to save the council money a much better approach is to look into opportunities to cut costs by outsourcing IT functions.

This is simply not true, at least not in the general sense. While many companies have gone this route recently and outsourced all or most of their IT department, I'm not aware of any of them that actually saved money at the bottom line. All it does is transfer money from the fixed costs column to the variable costs column. And you can bet that there is a multiplier that gets thrown into the mix when they make this kind of transition. The employees of IT consulting firms are generally paid at least as much as those of the company requesting the service. They have the same benefits requirements. And you can bet that the consulting company is charging those costs plus a hefty premium back to their customer. After all, THEY need to make a profit too.

Most companies outsource their payroll because it is cheaper to let ADT work out all the fiddly tax laws than have someone build that experience in house. Many companies outsource management of their email systems, it is cheaper for a company like USA.net to have 50 admins working 24x365 managing 500 companies email than it is for any of those companies to have a half time admin during business hours only.

In these special cases, I agree with you. Unless the company requesting the service is extremely large, I believe it would be better to outsource payroll than to hire people with the correct tax law knowledge. The same is almost certainly true for e-mail and other commodity services. However, as the company (or government) size grows, the cost savings on this shrinks. At some point, it becomes more beneficial to move that function back "in-house." But I don't know of any city governments that are large enough to fit that description.

The problem for small enterprises (city governments being typical) is that they are simply too small to realise the savings of scale that large companies can.

I think this statement pretty much sums up our previous discussion. It's all about economies of scale, isn't it? :)

The cost of software is really not where the pain is. The Total Cost of Ownership and Return On Investment are the metrics used.

As I said before, I think this is changing. If the cost of software rises due to changes in licensing practices, I think that it can easily push the TCO numbers to higher levels. At this point, it's anybody's guess as to what the final impact of that will be. I think businesses (and governments) should keep a close watch on this, and be ready to act when TCO becomes unacceptable.

Wow, quite a little tirade there.

Here's a little hint - let the free market system deal with it. That's how things are done in the US. If people don't think Microsoft is secure (as opposed to the _wonderful_ security history Unix vendors have had - please note dripping sarcasm) then buy other products.

Here's another little hint - your buddies at Sun just fell victim to a Solaris security hole

There's already shareware out there that allows you to use a Palm's IR port as a remote control. I only get a range of about 10 feet with my Visor Deluxe though. Hopefully these new ones will work from across the room.

AudioGalaxy IMHO is the best free client out there . The others such as MusicCity's Morpheus, Bearshare, Limewire, and KaZaA all have been held accountable for copyright violations. You might remember the slashdot article entitled P2P vs. RIAA: RIAA Wins. Now aren't we glad that our government passed that wonderful law called The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)[pdf]?

Thinking of downloading a free share program, ever wonder how RIAA can attack you? The following was taken from their website outlining how the DMCA can be used against you and I.

"The DMCA law also delineates the responsibilities of Internet service providers (ISPs) in cases of infringement online. For example, the law formalizes a notice and takedown procedure between ISPs and copyright owners. It is now clear that when an ISP is aware it is posting or transmitting infringing content, the ISP must act to remove the infringing works or it may be liable for any resulting damages." snip

So what has RIAA been up to? The following is proof that they have been busy using their precious DMCA.

The RIAA Anti-Piracy Unit seized 1,257,796 illegal CD-Rs by midyear 2001, this is up 133% compared to midyear of 2000. Here is a link to a pdf with their mid year statistics for 2001; and then I will end my rant on RIAA because I don't want to get too offtopic :)

On Cnet they keep track of the most popular mp3 search utilities. Morpheus comes in first this week with slightly less than a million and a half downloads; it has an impressive 42 million total downloads. Remember back to the height of Napster's popularity, they had a supposed 200 million users. This number shouldn't be compared to the number of total downloads due to the possibility of users creating multiple accounts.

Also on Cnet, Napster 2.0 beta 10.4 the one that was reviewed in the article has a ghastly approval rating of 0.099. That means that less than one hundredth of the people that downloaded the new pay-for-play Napster actually liked it. Going through the user reviews of the products it appears that they find that Napster falls short of the free clients, it certainly is apparent that it does not yet have the user base that Free Nappyster enjoyed.

For the electronic junkies out there I would recommend a less well known file sharing client known as SoulSeek. You can download it not from Cnet, but from their own website. The latest version is 104 and it includes dedicated techno/electronica service with a great user base; "Private messaging capabilities with both online and off-line users; Folder based file-sharing, which allows for more convenient browsing and downloading; Fine-grained control over file-sharing, with the ability to restrict access to a select list of users, as well as the ability to disallow access to specific users; Fine-grained transfer queue management, with the ability to restrict the number of uploads and downloads per-user and in total; File searching with users in room or in user list; Wishlist that takes search patterns for easy automatic notification when certain files become shared; A generic personalized recommendation system." snip

Now that these Pier to Pier file sharing networks have taken over, they are looking for ways to make money. Maybe to pay their programmers and lawyers. Beware of the adervistements that come bundled along with the install for the more popular sharing clients, such as Audiogalaxy. These bundled programs are known as SpyWare.

-If I metamoderated myself I would care more about karma

AudioGalaxy IMHO is the best free client out there . The others such as MusicCity's Morpheus, Bearshare, Limewire, and KaZaA all have been held accountable for copyright violations. You might remember the slashdot article entitled P2P vs. RIAA: RIAA Wins. Now aren't we glad that our government passed that wonderful law called The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)[pdf]?

Thinking of downloading a free share program, ever wonder how RIAA can attack you? The following was taken from their website outlining how the DMCA can be used against you and I.

"The DMCA law also delineates the responsibilities of Internet service providers (ISPs) in cases of infringement online. For example, the law formalizes a notice and takedown procedure between ISPs and copyright owners. It is now clear that when an ISP is aware it is posting or transmitting infringing content, the ISP must act to remove the infringing works or it may be liable for any resulting damages." snip

So what has RIAA been up to? The following is proof that they have been busy using their precious DMCA.

The RIAA Anti-Piracy Unit seized 1,257,796 illegal CD-Rs by midyear 2001, this is up 133% compared to midyear of 2000. Here is a link to a pdf with their mid year statistics for 2001; and then I will end my rant on RIAA because I don't want to get too offtopic :)

On Cnet they keep track of the most popular mp3 search utilities. Morpheus comes in first this week with slightly less than a million and a half downloads; it has an impressive 42 million total downloads. Remember back to the height of Napster's popularity, they had a supposed 200 million users. This number shouldn't be compared to the number of total downloads due to the possibility of users creating multiple accounts.

Also on Cnet, Napster 2.0 beta 10.4 the one that was reviewed in the article has a ghastly approval rating of 0.099. That means that less than one hundredth of the people that downloaded the new pay-for-play Napster actually liked it. Going through the user reviews of the products it appears that they find that Napster falls short of the free clients, it certainly is apparent that it does not yet have the user base that Free Nappyster enjoyed.

For the electronic junkies out there I would recommend a less well known file sharing client known as SoulSeek. You can download it not from Cnet, but from their own website. The latest version is 104 and it includes dedicated techno/electronica service with a great user base; "Private messaging capabilities with both online and off-line users; Folder based file-sharing, which allows for more convenient browsing and downloading; Fine-grained control over file-sharing, with the ability to restrict access to a select list of users, as well as the ability to disallow access to specific users; Fine-grained transfer queue management, with the ability to restrict the number of uploads and downloads per-user and in total; File searching with users in room or in user list; Wishlist that takes search patterns for easy automatic notification when certain files become shared; A generic personalized recommendation system." snip

Now that these Pier to Pier file sharing networks have taken over, they are looking for ways to make money. Maybe to pay their programmers and lawyers. Beware of the adervistements that come bundled along with the install for the more popular sharing clients, such as Audiogalaxy. These bundled programs are known as SpyWare.

-If I metamoderated myself I would care more about karma

AudioGalaxy IMHO is the best free client out there . The others such as MusicCity's Morpheus, Bearshare, Limewire, and KaZaA all have been held accountable for copyright violations. You might remember the slashdot article entitled P2P vs. RIAA: RIAA Wins. Now aren't we glad that our government passed that wonderful law called The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)[pdf]?

Thinking of downloading a free share program, ever wonder how RIAA can attack you? The following was taken from their website outlining how the DMCA can be used against you and I.

"The DMCA law also delineates the responsibilities of Internet service providers (ISPs) in cases of infringement online. For example, the law formalizes a notice and takedown procedure between ISPs and copyright owners. It is now clear that when an ISP is aware it is posting or transmitting infringing content, the ISP must act to remove the infringing works or it may be liable for any resulting damages." snip

So what has RIAA been up to? The following is proof that they have been busy using their precious DMCA.

The RIAA Anti-Piracy Unit seized 1,257,796 illegal CD-Rs by midyear 2001, this is up 133% compared to midyear of 2000. Here is a link to a pdf with their mid year statistics for 2001; and then I will end my rant on RIAA because I don't want to get too offtopic :)

On Cnet they keep track of the most popular mp3 search utilities. Morpheus comes in first this week with slightly less than a million and a half downloads; it has an impressive 42 million total downloads. Remember back to the height of Napster's popularity, they had a supposed 200 million users. This number shouldn't be compared to the number of total downloads due to the possibility of users creating multiple accounts.

Also on Cnet, Napster 2.0 beta 10.4 the one that was reviewed in the article has a ghastly approval rating of 0.099. That means that less than one hundredth of the people that downloaded the new pay-for-play Napster actually liked it. Going through the user reviews of the products it appears that they find that Napster falls short of the free clients, it certainly is apparent that it does not yet have the user base that Free Nappyster enjoyed.

For the electronic junkies out there I would recommend a less well known file sharing client known as SoulSeek. You can download it not from Cnet, but from their own website. The latest version is 104 and it includes dedicated techno/electronica service with a great user base; "Private messaging capabilities with both online and off-line users; Folder based file-sharing, which allows for more convenient browsing and downloading; Fine-grained control over file-sharing, with the ability to restrict access to a select list of users, as well as the ability to disallow access to specific users; Fine-grained transfer queue management, with the ability to restrict the number of uploads and downloads per-user and in total; File searching with users in room or in user list; Wishlist that takes search patterns for easy automatic notification when certain files become shared; A generic personalized recommendation system." snip

Now that these Pier to Pier file sharing networks have taken over, they are looking for ways to make money. Maybe to pay their programmers and lawyers. Beware of the adervistements that come bundled along with the install for the more popular sharing clients, such as Audiogalaxy. These bundled programs are known as SpyWare.

-If I metamoderated myself I would care more about karma

AudioGalaxy IMHO is the best free client out there . The others such as MusicCity's Morpheus, Bearshare, Limewire, and KaZaA all have been held accountable for copyright violations. You might remember the slashdot article entitled P2P vs. RIAA: RIAA Wins. Now aren't we glad that our government passed that wonderful law called The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)[pdf]?

Thinking of downloading a free share program, ever wonder how RIAA can attack you? The following was taken from their website outlining how the DMCA can be used against you and I.

"The DMCA law also delineates the responsibilities of Internet service providers (ISPs) in cases of infringement online. For example, the law formalizes a notice and takedown procedure between ISPs and copyright owners. It is now clear that when an ISP is aware it is posting or transmitting infringing content, the ISP must act to remove the infringing works or it may be liable for any resulting damages." snip

So what has RIAA been up to? The following is proof that they have been busy using their precious DMCA.

The RIAA Anti-Piracy Unit seized 1,257,796 illegal CD-Rs by midyear 2001, this is up 133% compared to midyear of 2000. Here is a link to a pdf with their mid year statistics for 2001; and then I will end my rant on RIAA because I don't want to get too offtopic :)

On Cnet they keep track of the most popular mp3 search utilities. Morpheus comes in first this week with slightly less than a million and a half downloads; it has an impressive 42 million total downloads. Remember back to the height of Napster's popularity, they had a supposed 200 million users. This number shouldn't be compared to the number of total downloads due to the possibility of users creating multiple accounts.

Also on Cnet, Napster 2.0 beta 10.4 the one that was reviewed in the article has a ghastly approval rating of 0.099. That means that less than one hundredth of the people that downloaded the new pay-for-play Napster actually liked it. Going through the user reviews of the products it appears that they find that Napster falls short of the free clients, it certainly is apparent that it does not yet have the user base that Free Nappyster enjoyed.

For the electronic junkies out there I would recommend a less well known file sharing client known as SoulSeek. You can download it not from Cnet, but from their own website. The latest version is 104 and it includes dedicated techno/electronica service with a great user base; "Private messaging capabilities with both online and off-line users; Folder based file-sharing, which allows for more convenient browsing and downloading; Fine-grained control over file-sharing, with the ability to restrict access to a select list of users, as well as the ability to disallow access to specific users; Fine-grained transfer queue management, with the ability to restrict the number of uploads and downloads per-user and in total; File searching with users in room or in user list; Wishlist that takes search patterns for easy automatic notification when certain files become shared; A generic personalized recommendation system." snip

Now that these Pier to Pier file sharing networks have taken over, they are looking for ways to make money. Maybe to pay their programmers and lawyers. Beware of the adervistements that come bundled along with the install for the more popular sharing clients, such as Audiogalaxy. These bundled programs are known as SpyWare.

-If I metamoderated myself I would care more about karma

AudioGalaxy IMHO is the best free client out there . The others such as MusicCity's Morpheus, Bearshare, Limewire, and KaZaA all have been held accountable for copyright violations. You might remember the slashdot article entitled P2P vs. RIAA: RIAA Wins. Now aren't we glad that our government passed that wonderful law called The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)[pdf]?

Thinking of downloading a free share program, ever wonder how RIAA can attack you? The following was taken from their website outlining how the DMCA can be used against you and I.

"The DMCA law also delineates the responsibilities of Internet service providers (ISPs) in cases of infringement online. For example, the law formalizes a notice and takedown procedure between ISPs and copyright owners. It is now clear that when an ISP is aware it is posting or transmitting infringing content, the ISP must act to remove the infringing works or it may be liable for any resulting damages." snip

So what has RIAA been up to? The following is proof that they have been busy using their precious DMCA.

The RIAA Anti-Piracy Unit seized 1,257,796 illegal CD-Rs by midyear 2001, this is up 133% compared to midyear of 2000. Here is a link to a pdf with their mid year statistics for 2001; and then I will end my rant on RIAA because I don't want to get too offtopic :)

On Cnet they keep track of the most popular mp3 search utilities. Morpheus comes in first this week with slightly less than a million and a half downloads; it has an impressive 42 million total downloads. Remember back to the height of Napster's popularity, they had a supposed 200 million users. This number shouldn't be compared to the number of total downloads due to the possibility of users creating multiple accounts.

Also on Cnet, Napster 2.0 beta 10.4 the one that was reviewed in the article has a ghastly approval rating of 0.099. That means that less than one hundredth of the people that downloaded the new pay-for-play Napster actually liked it. Going through the user reviews of the products it appears that they find that Napster falls short of the free clients, it certainly is apparent that it does not yet have the user base that Free Nappyster enjoyed.

For the electronic junkies out there I would recommend a less well known file sharing client known as SoulSeek. You can download it not from Cnet, but from their own website. The latest version is 104 and it includes dedicated techno/electronica service with a great user base; "Private messaging capabilities with both online and off-line users; Folder based file-sharing, which allows for more convenient browsing and downloading; Fine-grained control over file-sharing, with the ability to restrict access to a select list of users, as well as the ability to disallow access to specific users; Fine-grained transfer queue management, with the ability to restrict the number of uploads and downloads per-user and in total; File searching with users in room or in user list; Wishlist that takes search patterns for easy automatic notification when certain files become shared; A generic personalized recommendation system." snip

Now that these Pier to Pier file sharing networks have taken over, they are looking for ways to make money. Maybe to pay their programmers and lawyers. Beware of the adervistements that come bundled along with the install for the more popular sharing clients, such as Audiogalaxy. These bundled programs are known as SpyWare.

-If I metamoderated myself I would care more about karma

Contrary to my earlier post, I WILL pay for Napster if it meets my criteria because of programs that I DIDN'T want, like
eZula, OnFlow, WebEnhancer, Cydoor Technologies, etc. If Napster is good enough, sufficient people might go over to it for that reason (and the fact that it lets you stay legal, of course). Admittedly, Napster doesn't do movies, so people will still need those programs for their pr0n, but maybe Napster will SHARE harddrive space with the other programs. Either way, don't count Napster out just yet ... time will tell on that one.

We all know that this is will spell the end of Napster. Few will use it to begin with, and, finding the bare library will cancel thier service, slimming the pickens even more.

Who in their right mind is going to pay for it to begin with, with so many other File Sharing apps on the Free market?

We all know that this is will spell the end of Napster. Few will use it to begin with, and, finding the bare library will cancel thier service, slimming the pickens even more.

Who in their right mind is going to pay for it to begin with, with so many other File Sharing apps on the Free market?

We all know that this is will spell the end of Napster. Few will use it to begin with, and, finding the bare library will cancel thier service, slimming the pickens even more.

Who in their right mind is going to pay for it to begin with, with so many other File Sharing apps on the Free market?

Personally, I think one way to prevent problems like this from happening again would be to have DSL lines regulated by each state's Public Utility Commission, just like POTS and T1s are. With those lines being under their current regulations, getting disconnected suddenly will result in the ILEC landing in very hot water with the PUC. But when Northpoint decides to go belly-up and screw hundreds of thousands of people, they get away scott-free.

That's my $0.02, feel free to mod up or down as appropriate.

There's no such thing as dot pitch on an LCD ...

Maybe it's more of a marketing thing and less of a realistic value, but somebody decided that this Samsung LCD has a .30 mm dot pitch.