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I had been thinking that ODF was "obviously" a good thing until I read the rant by Opera's CTO about how shit both standards are (a memory dump between angle brackets), and how the correct way would be to go for XHTML with CSS formatting.

Like, seriously, why not? Have we not been here before, going "so we need to separate content from display" and was not the eventual solution actually rather good. It took ten years or so to get adopted, but nobody is denying that css has made the web a less obnoxious place. There are no technical reasons why it can't be extended to all aspects of "office" publishing/collaboration, and indeed a book has been published using XML+CSS.

I know that ODF is "here now", and it must be an improvement over Office's internal format ... but I'm concerned that standardising on ODF will come to bite us, the IT industry, in our collective butts sooner rather than later. We need something clear. Obvious. Simple. And from this some genuine innovation will come - remember that?

Dave

Apple had a unique product all their own prior to converting to x86 hardware. Given the cash injection from Microsoft [0] a number of years ago, and the recent windows support [1] on the mac, Apple isn't that unique. You just end up running Windows on Apple hardware - so what? The only thing I can see happening is that the software industry is going to be considering Microsoft alternatives for the first time in over a decade. If that's all that comes out of it, I'm all for it.

[0] http://news.com.com/2100-1001-202143.html
[1] http://onmac.net/
      http://www.macwindows.com/

And now a year later, she claims we need specialized hardware interfaces to scan memory for rootkits, even though this problem is laughably easy in the world of virtual machines.

And on to the actual work ... the research basically observes that MTTR registers (some of the MSRs in the CPU) can cause memory mappings to look different between the CPU and the northbridge, and then comes up with a pretty easy way to cause the northbridge to either lock up or read data that is different (really easy once you see the specs for the appropriate registers). And she totally ignores the possibility of a system defending itself against this attack by verifying the registers she's modifying. Lousy research, girl.

Oddly enough, this "hack" is ALREADY IN USE ON YOUR SYSTEM and is actually necessary. See, when the processor is running in SMM (System Management Mode), it switches to exactly this configuration: the PCI bus sees VGA hardware mapped at the well-known address, but the processor maps the RAM at that address, which gives SMM mode a few kilobytes of memory that the normal system can't touch. SMM mode is used for things like "legacy USB devices" (e.g. having your USB keyboard act like PS/2 so DOS can use it) and other implement-in-software hacks that your OS doesn't know about, but your BIOS vendor gives you as "value-added features".

I'm sure you will change your mind once all media will be required by law to be DRM-encrypted.
It already started to happen, and in case you missed it, here's a sample:
Senators aim to restrict Net, satellite radio recording

And I'm pretty sure that when all your freedoms will be gone you will blame everyone else but yourself ;)

Apple came out with a patch that addresses this issue:

http://news.com.com/New+Apple+patch+plugs+Wi-Fi+hi jack+flaws/2100-1002_3-6118245.html

The article doesn't mention if the machine he used in the demo had this patch. And if so, that may imply that the patch has holes.

Microsoft apparently paid 26 million.

So Microsoft settles for 26 million and they caved, but Sony settles for 150 million and its a great victory? Thats quite the spin there.

I don't know why an absolutely huge Sony fanboy is going around calling other people fanboys. Seriously, I hope you're employed by Sony, because its sad to think that someone could be so devoted to a company.

What kind of virus rule updates would you not want to download?

Maybe CNN was burned by Symantec updates before.

Perhaps. McAfee had a problem once where they were identifying Excel as a virus, but I've never heard of Symantec having such a problem. More likely, the CNN IT staff is either incompetent or just plain stupid.

Also, if they had been burned by Symantec, they should have gone with another vendor's product. A company like CNN not having up to date AV software is inexcusable.

The number of devices/programs you can actually create without running smack into someone's fool patent is very near zero.

In the original piece Torkington raised the question of whether the term "open source" had lost any meaning because of companies that use the label yet largly restrict user interaction.

Just because some people disagree with or don't understand the term "open source" doesn't mean it becomes worthless. All it means is that some people don't quite get it yet.

It's like the word "extreme", which marketing has over the last few years beaten to death. Extreme doesn't mean anything anymore to most people - the mind simply edits it out. But that doesn't mean that the word is suddenly broken. It still means what it means, it's just that we're desensitized to the word through repeated misuse.

It's much the same way with open source. When you repeatedly misuse the term, it loses meaning. A good example is everybody's favorite, Microsoft. They use the term as a negative. Then turn around and use it as a positive, albeit in a somewhat misunderstood way.

There is a lot more ugly stuff going on behind the scenes than most of us can imagine and this is probably just one of many ways Microsoft threatens computer vendors:
http://news.com.com/Did+Microsoft+want+to+whack+De ll+over+its+Linux+dealings/2100-1014_3-6153904.htm l

And, I fully agree. In addition, I agree Caldera did take the hush money from our present "mafia" if you will. But, the term criminal is a very basic one; one who breaks a law. I am guilty, and anyone else who has gotten a speeding ticket and paid it, or does not get caught, falls into that group.

So, we agree MS can be classified as criminals.

In the end, this is a mute point. Criminal is just a word. Its the actions that group, individual, company, country, etc, etc, etc, that give weight to them or take from it.

Responsibility.

-----------
ref:
http://news.com.com/Microsoft+emails+focus+on+DR-D OS+threat/2100-1001_3-225129.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/600488.stm

(the one comment about pulling the trigger on Novell just fits sooo nice)

.... More detail here:

http://news.com.com/Black+Hat+talk+on+RFID+access+ badge+risks+nixed/2100-1029_3-6162547.html?tag=nef d.top

So here's the article I was talking about the AC linked it below http://news.com.com/2009-1040-6131719.html?tag=to% 20pnav

so a quick glance shows his voting and maybe I'm missing something.

For Prohibiting Internet Gambling
For Banning some computer generate porn
For net surveillance without court orders
For nationalized ID card and linking databases
For investigating Grand Theft Auto

Now I'm not sure of the details of 2 & 3, so I might change my mind about those being a negative thing. Anti tech probably wasn't the right wording on my part.

Just goes to show that the legal system in the United States at least is based on money. Pure and simple. If you can afford the lawyers, you can win the battle reguardless of whether your right or wrong. I think the legal system needs an ovehaul.

Fortunately you're wrong. Microsoft has lost lawsuits. Microsoft loses appeal in Office patent spat. Microsoft loses Excel patent case. Microsoft even settled a lawsuit with Novell, Microsoft to pay Novell $536 million settlement. So MS does loose some lawsuits but unfortunately by the tyme MS is made to pay they've made more than they're required to pay and/or the other party is out of business.

Just goes to show that the legal system in the United States at least is based on money. Pure and simple. If you can afford the lawyers, you can win the battle reguardless of whether your right or wrong. I think the legal system needs an ovehaul.

Fortunately you're wrong. Microsoft has lost lawsuits. Microsoft loses appeal in Office patent spat. Microsoft loses Excel patent case. Microsoft even settled a lawsuit with Novell, Microsoft to pay Novell $536 million settlement. So MS does loose some lawsuits but unfortunately by the tyme MS is made to pay they've made more than they're required to pay and/or the other party is out of business.

Unless an organization can demonstrate that the reason they are asking for a person's SIN is specifically allowed by law, or that no alternative identifiers would suffice to complete the transaction, they cannot deny or refuse a product or service on the grounds of a refusal to provide a SIN. Examples of organizations that legitimately require an SIN include employers, banks and investment companies, and federal government agencies. Giving an SIN when applying for consumer credit, such as buying a car or electronics, or allowing it to be used as a general purpose identification number, such as by your cable company, is likely a bad idea.

Just in time for last-minute holiday shoppers, Microsoft has extended the Xbox 360's warranty from 90 days to one year, bringing it in line with the warranty lengths of rival game consoles from Sony and Nintendo.

Qwest is one of the companies speaking out against net neutrality. The CEO even went as far as to call it "really silly." Could it be that the CTO's comments are politically motivated?

I, for one, think so.

Your not getting this trailer park. Chances of you understanding the whole picture is slim. Despite hundreds of posts on slash dot of charges made by the RIAA and cases that were thrown out because the charges where false or inflated. You still don't understand the concept of Innocent until proven guilty. Its sad for all those people you will pass judgment on during your lifetime. Y'all pass me some more chewing tobacco and hang that man.

The RIAA tried to sue Gertrude Walton for file sharing 2005. Problem Gertrude had been dead for over a year. I know trailer you can come up with a good scenario of how Gertrude was file sharing from the grave. After all we both know how infallible the US judiciary process is and if the RIAA says Gertrude is guilty then guilty she is.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/05/riaa_sues_ the_dead/

A family in Rome, GA, (one of the 235 defendants) was very surprised when the local newspaper contacted them to ask about the file sharing lawsuit in which they were implicated. Problem they didn't own an Internet connection. I know trailer, guilty for living a building that had file sharing going on. Hey would someone play the banjo and dress my sister up real nice.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060424-6662 .html

The RIAA was offering false amnesty program for a while but discontinued it when they got sued for fraudulent business practices. Wait a second these guys are just a trade association why would they be luring confessions from folks falsly. This must be another lie by yours truly, the person you never met but cast judgment on after his first post. The banjos play in the back ground.

http://blogs.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/001435.php
or
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,112428-page,1/ar ticle.html

RIAA threatens to sue a 12 year old unless the parents pay $2000 dollars. I know trailer park $2000 bucks is a small price to pay to keep your children safe. Those RIAA folks are just misunderstood, they are just trying to give that little girls a lesson she'll keep with her for the rest of her life. Man don't y'all just love those RIAA guys they are just swell. Golly trailer I hope you don't have a inquisitive 12 year old. But hey your a smart guy who can afford a computer and Internet connection I am sure you can afford a measly 2 grand.

http://news.com.com/RIAA+settles+with+12-year-old+ girl/2100-1027_3-5073717.html

Hey did ya notice trailer how the RIAA doesn't use the word stealing in any of its written public documents. It uses a word called copyright infringement. Thats odd don't y'all think that we'd be using the word stealing that means legally something else. I wonder where we got that stealing word from. Thats a lot of thinking us regualr folk shouldn't be to concerned with don't ya'll think.

http://www.riaa.com/issues%5CcleanSlate.asp

Trailer you and the RIAA are just swell folks. I don't know what I was thinking.

The article is talking about Ohio University, not Ohio State University. I'm a student at OU and it's amazing how lax the network security is here. Absolutely nothing is blocked here, file sharing or otherwise. I know quite a few people that have gotten in trouble for file sharing but they've only gotten referred to the university officials, not the RIAA. Not that computer security is highly regarded here at all, considering that hackers recently got their hands on a list of the entire student body's social security numbers. Network security is definitely not a forte here. I doubt the school officials value "sharing information" as much as they're just lazy about their underfunded security. Not that I'm complaining... :-)

The cell companies will be turned into commodity providers one way or the other.
The cell phone companies are going to have face up to becoming commodity infrastructure providers within the next 3 years.
If they don't lead the way, free municipal WiMax networks will leave their tire tracks on the cell companies' faces, at least within urban metropolitan areas, and likely in rural areas as well, once roaming/signal handoff specifications and revenue deals are set up between the different municipalities.

Municipal broadband nationwide - a few big examples:
LA/SanFran/SanJose/SanDiego and most other major California cities, Chicago, NYC, Philly, Boston, Pittsburgh, Dallas, Houston, DC, Minneapolis, Denver, Atlanta, St. Louis, Vegas, Portland, Cleveland, etc.
check out the map and mouse over each state to see what they have cooking.
The cell phone network companies will be toast.
http://news.com.com/Municipal+broadband+and+wirele ss+projects+map/2009-1034_3-5690287.html

Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, etc. will all have WiMax and/or WiFi radios built into most handset models within 3 years.

Sprint sees the writing on the wall on WiMax and they will be rolling out a nationwide WiMax network that will address 100 million Americans by the end of 2008.

Clearly Microsoft is trying scare tactics with Vista sales floundering and piracy apparently not an adequate scapegoat.

As for Novell, I'm not really sure what to take from this because despite its "alliance" with Microsoft, it's still trying to take something from it.

See this article for more.

Windows is still the only popular OS that has no decent security by default. With Mac OS X, Linux or BSD you got to have a bad admin if your box gets owned. With windows you only need a clueless user and you're screwed. So there has to be something wrong with the design. You can't blame the user for everything; "you shouldn't have clicked that", "you should have been running a better firewall", "you should have bought a better anti-virus software".
No wonder mr ballmer is worried about the competition
Ballmer repeats threats against Linux

I believe they'll have a harder time now with the tired old mantra 'There's no customer demand for Linux.'

These might be the groupies (sadly).

A new study, conducted by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratories and sponsored by the federal agency, predicts that off-peak electricity production is adequate for keeping 185 million plug-in hybrids on the road.

The "well-to-wheel" emissions of electric vehicles are lower than those from gasoline internal combustion vehicles. California Air Resources Board studies show that battery electric vehicles emit at least 67% lower greenhouse gases than gasoline cars -- even more assuming renewables. A PHEV with only a 20-mile all-electric range is 62% lower(http://www.arb.ca.gov/regact/grnhsgas/isor.p df)

Nationally, two government studies have found PHEVs would result in large reductions even on the national grid (50% coal). The GREET 1.6 model in 2001(http://www.transportation.anl.gov/pdfs/TA/153 .pdf) by the DOE's Argonne National Lab estimates hybrids reduce greenhouse gases by 22%, and plug-in hybrids by 36% (see table 2). An Argonne researcher reached consensus with researchers from other national labs, universities, the Air Resources Board, automakers, utilities and AD Little to estimate in July 2002 that PHEVs using nighttime power reduce greenhouse gases by 46 to 61 percent.

Using another semiconductor than silicon for the CPU? Or a radical change in the design of the CPU or orther components? Are there experts here who can elaborate on this?

Performance per watt is a biggie for chip manufactures. Having a less than 10 watt server chip is possible, but who wants to use a Palm Pilot for a transaction server?

Having the performance to handle a slashdotting is what is needed in many servers. Performance is first, power consumption is second. That is why the performance per watt is an important part of the chip design. Low power chips is not the main design item. High performance is the most important. Providing that performance at the lowest power possible is the sweet spot chip designers aim for.

Here is additional reading. Look at what the Core 2 Duo and quad is bringing to the server market.
Please note the Woodcrest and Operon is now obsolete. The Operon was leading, but the new multi-core chips are a new race in the performance per watt race.

http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/2160

http://www.intel.com/performance/server/xeon/ppw.h tm

http://www.supermicro.com/newsroom/pressreleases/2 006/press081406.cfm

http://news.com.com/Chipmakers+admit+Your+power+ma y+vary/2100-1006_3-6082352.html

I think a lot of people are missing one of the biggest pains out of the DST change, which is meetings booked in an exchange environment. Even if you do everything Microsoft/RIM recommend, and do them within hours of each other (a very daunting task for any enterprise sized environment,) you will still have meetings off by an hour.

This can be caused by lots of reasons. If one desktop recieves the patch and sends a meeting to another user, who has not received the patch, the meeting time will be wrong. Even if you manage your DST updates flawlessly within your environment, and don't have any misplaced meetings, you have no control over any external sources that may be booking meetings with your users. It's pretty inconceivable that everyone will update at the same time.

I really don't want to be the one on the CEO's warpath the first time he shows up for a meeting early/late. These issues can be partly resolved by user education, but as another poster mentioned, it is very easy to get confused when talking about timezones. I've been working on our DST project, and I still need to think carefully every time I discuss the ramifications.

I think Cnet had it right when they wrote that users should add this to their signature:

'Please note, if I (am) an hour late or an hour early for my meeting with you, please understand, its not my fault, it's my government.'

The court case concluded that it was legal to download. It is still considered illegal to upload.

The Canadian Copyright Board ruled in 2003 that Canadians were entitled to download files off p2p networks, but sharing files was illegal. The following year, Judge Konrad von Finckenstein denied the CRIA's request to force ISPs to provide the names of 29 customers accused of file sharing, and commented that putting files in a shared folder did not violate Canada's copyright laws either

Is this a true quantum computer, or one that simply uses certain quantum properties? Scientists weren't predicting this for another 20-30 years. Wouldn't a 1024 qubit computer be far faster than any cluser on earth? And if I'm not mistaken, a 16 qubit computer would be faster than any single computer. I'd like to see some speed comparisons for parallel tasks.

If they were subpoenaed, they didn't have much choice.

Google doesn't have to cave just because they get a subpoena. They've fought subpoenas before.

They could be comparing it to this.

http://news.com.com/2061-10811_3-6158998.html?part =rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&subj=news/
He no longer works at Yahoo. Besides , David Goldberg (The exec) has been very vocal on this issue for over a year , so this actually might be the reason why he and his buddy "look forward to going back to our entrepreneurial roots" as was stated in Yahoo's press release .

This guy already resigned....

Spanish http://noticiastech.com/wordpress/?p=26

English http://news.com.com/2061-10811_3-6158998.html?part =rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&subj=news

According to this article" music sharing does not kill CD sales due to the fact that those that download music would not likely buy it in the first place. MP3 Players and P2P software have become the scapegoat of the music industry. They are trying to compensate for something they caused (by releasing music overpriced and more) by taking away from the consumer. It's completely ridiculous.

Since Vista launched on the 30th, we've sold all of two copies

As far as launches go, this one has been pretty pathetic.

A lot of the people that are coming in to look at new PC's or Laptops are deliberately avoiding the ones pre-loaded with vista because of all the horror stories they've heard

The Home premium upgrade refuses to install over an XP pro installation

and of the two copies of Vista that we've sold, one has come back as unusable

and the other user is considering returning it as he can't even get on the net with it

A few shops here and there, sure, but not much.

One of them had an idea about a world wide wiki.

Another started letting people put up faces and join groups of friends.

I'm not sure what this one does, but it serves billions of pages/day via hypertext preprocessor (and now with peanut butter:-)).

I'm not so sure of that, vista adoption has been faster than Windows 2000 adoption in american business ( http://news.com.com/Report+Vistas+business+sales+s tronger+than+expected/2100-1016_3-6149468.html ) to be honest thats going to drive sales. Most people I know like things to be the same, My pa uses outlook 2002 in work and refuses to upgrade to 2003, I can name several other family/friends who use a set OS/Office apps in work and so use the exact same ones at home (sometimes newer if the UI isn't much different.)

Vista's adoption rate has surprised me, only two other tech savy people I know have got it and yet the store in which I work is filled with new upgraders, a online group I'm part of has formed a vista discussion group and even a few of my university mates have also made the plunge. To be honest its worrying, I upgraded because I found one or two features useful and got too used to ribbons (from running the beta of Office) many people have upgraded because the people on the news have been going on about how wonderfuull Vista is.

I was doubtful that Microsoft would get 100 million copies of Vista out the door by the end of the year, but am not so sure now. BTW does anyone have and idea of the number of activations of Vista so far?

So, Apple is bad because they continue to use DRM on the iTunes store. Brilliant. It can't be because, oh, I don't know, that the media companies would absolutely freak out if Apple unilaterally dropped DRM. They can't -- they would end up in court I suspect.

According to Fred von Lohmann of the EFF, Apple would not drop iTunes Music Store DRM even if they could. As I understand it (I don't recall exactly where, but I think it was from one of DVD Jon's recent blog posts on the topic), Apple employs DRM on tracks from labels that don't want DRM. von Lohmann concludes, quite rightly:

Apple's warm embrace of DRM here is every bit as reprehensible as Lexmark's effort to use DRM to eliminate interoperable printer cartridges and Chamberlain's effort to use DRM against replacement garage door clickers.

Incredible is the reaction on tech discussion sites like /. and digg where Lexmark and Chamberlain get almost universally razzed but people believe the line that Apple only reluctantly employs digital restrictions.

von Lohmann's post is quite informative and shows the real purpose of Apple's iTMS DRM—to lock in iTMS customers. DVD Jon builds on this in his recent blog posts.

Then there's Steve Jobs' recent lie about not "gum[ming] up" networks with third-party software, which the FSF debunked handily.

One doesn't need to delve too far into history to see how proprietors, no matter how slick their ads or how popular their consumer electronics, are not working in your best interests.

CoD absolutely had HPs. Just because they added some temporary damage as well doesn't mean it's suddenly a new concept. If I recall correctly, when you got hit you took some permanent damage and some temporary damage that slowly returned. Temporary damage wouldn't kill you, but if you got hit again while your temporary damage had you below zero you would die.

It even had a bar that clearly represented a hidden numerical value (Hit points) and you died when it was empty (zero).

Not sure if this link will work, but here is a screenshot (off GameSpot) showing the hit points in action:

http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/pc/callo fduty/1029/call_screen006.jpg

It'll be a cold day in hell before Jobs allows Dell to sell Macs, after Dell's public advice to Apple...

This doesn't do a lot for privacy. It still permits widespread snooping, selling of information by commercial entities, etc.

It does nothing for example to the recent FBI snooping case:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/30/15 8227

Where the FBI has been found to capturing all an ISP's traffic, then filtering as needed to match the warrants they had. (The argument for that is bogus, if the FBI can do the filtering then the ISP could do the filtering. It's some sort of game to remove the 'minimization' requirement for search warrants.)

Nothing to stop logging of everything you do. Nothing to stop AOL or Google collecting search information, which as we found can be used to identify individuals:
http://news.com.com/2100-1030_3-6102793.html

The gate isn't closed, they're proposing to part close it. Better than nothing, but only a little better.

Not the first time. I was hit with this problem:

http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/m essage?board.id=cc_faq&message.id=329
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/4367 8/
http://news.com.com/Dell+hit+with+class+action+sui t+over+Inspiron/2100-1005_3-6150328.html

Ended up getting the credit card company to cover the bill as they doubled the warranty. To do this I had to spend many hours on the phone and a long time writing back and forth to the issuing bank, the wrong insurer the bank referred me to, the correct insurer and Dell (who I had to get to admit in writing that they'd have covered the problem if it had happened under warranty). I had the thing fixed. Took 5 months. I bought another laptop (sadly another Dell because $1000 price difference with the nearest competition including 2 extra years of warranty and the right set of features was hard to ignore) in the meantime.

So name one. Just ONE.

I would have written a long response about exactly why this is just bunk but this guy already said what needed to be said:

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/programming-and- development/?p=32