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I think I might see where this game is heading:

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=viewArticleBasic&articleId=293181&taxonomyId= 14&intsrc=kc_top

Novell cut a deal with Microsoft and I think Novell and Microsoft are working together to secure the next market of Open Source. Will it work? Probably. If I was an IT exec and you had either Redhat or Novell selling me Open Source I would probably take Novell because there is less risk. Interesting tactic...

"I am not so sure, last I heard the migration to Microsoft didn't do well for the core systems, so they were or are planning to stick with HPs Tandem (NonStop) systems." - by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 17, @11:41PM (#19174443)

http://www.computerworld.com/databasetopics/data/s oftware/story/0,10801,106050,00.html

See that URL "fellow anonymous coward"... You're a bit behind the times is all. It happens. This field changes so fast on so many fronts, it's common to be a bit out of date on things that most likely probably do not directly affect YOU, personally.

NASDAQ is a full Microsoft shop (for the most part), using Windows Server 2003 & SQLServer 2005 on failover clustered rig type setups.

APK

Here

Actually, while the holographic disc holds up to 600GB of data, half of that capacity will be taken up by error correction software. They also had originally said the product launch was set for July. They must have hit a snag in execution.

Actually, NASDAQ switched to Microsoft and SqlServer 2005 roughly 18 months ago. Nasdaq bills themselves as "the stock market for the next hundred years" -- I wonder how long they will stick with MS SQL Server?

It is good to know that you can be in a position as Judge in an industrialized nation with nuclear weapons capability, yet not have used the internet enough to understand basic concepts. Perhaps the judge needs to be given a link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge wikipedia?

Perhaps these would help too?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_site
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_forum

And the winner is:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9019683&intsrc=hm_ list
or is this simply too harsh?

Incidentally, I mentioned those articles -- here's my collection. Let's get them out there to help build our industry.

They range in subject matters that assist me, with the majority being security related.

http://www.nbc4.com/money/11588165/detail.html
http://www.nbc4.com/money/11588165/detail.html
http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,71032-0.html
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pag ename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Artic le&cid=1135552209280&call_pageid=971358637177
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM .20050704.gtkirwanjul4/BNStory/specialScienceandHe alth/
http://www.redorbit.com/news/display/?id=176198
http://www.livescience.com/scienceoffiction/060619 _hyperactive_bob.html
http://www.labour.gov.on.ca/english/es/factsheets/ fs_faq.html
http://www.e.govt.nz/policy/open-source/open-sourc e-legal
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/securi ty/privacy/story/0,10801,108101,00.html
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=storage&article Id=9004274&taxonomyId=19&intsrc=kc_feat
http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=f6f 548f7-9dfd-49f4-9ff8-8ae8f4a2e2fd
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr 2006/tc20060417_996365.htm?campaign_id=bier_tca
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_37 /b4000401.htm?chan=tc&campaign_id=bier_tcst0
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1 781895,00.html
http://panko.cba.hawaii.edu/ssr/Mypapers/whatknow. htm

Incidentally, I mentioned those articles -- here's my collection. Let's get them out there to help build our industry.

They range in subject matters that assist me, with the majority being security related.

http://www.nbc4.com/money/11588165/detail.html
http://www.nbc4.com/money/11588165/detail.html
http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,71032-0.html
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pag ename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Artic le&cid=1135552209280&call_pageid=971358637177
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM .20050704.gtkirwanjul4/BNStory/specialScienceandHe alth/
http://www.redorbit.com/news/display/?id=176198
http://www.livescience.com/scienceoffiction/060619 _hyperactive_bob.html
http://www.labour.gov.on.ca/english/es/factsheets/ fs_faq.html
http://www.e.govt.nz/policy/open-source/open-sourc e-legal
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/securi ty/privacy/story/0,10801,108101,00.html
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=storage&article Id=9004274&taxonomyId=19&intsrc=kc_feat
http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=f6f 548f7-9dfd-49f4-9ff8-8ae8f4a2e2fd
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr 2006/tc20060417_996365.htm?campaign_id=bier_tca
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_37 /b4000401.htm?chan=tc&campaign_id=bier_tcst0
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1 781895,00.html
http://panko.cba.hawaii.edu/ssr/Mypapers/whatknow. htm

Smith broke down the alleged patent violations during the Fortune interview, saying the Linux kernel violates 42 patents and the operating system's user interface violates a further 65. He went on to claim that the Open Office application suite violates 45 patents and open-source e-mail applications infringe on 15 more. Other open-source software applications infringe on 68 patents, Smith said.

Yes, bludgeoned. Bludgeoned from two directions. One from the constant flow of press releases dressed up as reviews, the shills and sock puppets hitting the web, and astroturfing that goes on. I can't think of the last year I saw a decent software review of any kind in a commercial publication. Two from the exclusive arrangements with OEMs. These were done originally with illegal conditions in the contracts with OEMs, later replaced by legally different but functionally equivalent "advertising partnership"

Linux? Don't start with the trolling. There is no mention of linux, solaris, bsd, netware, os/2, os x, plan 9, unix, dr-dos, pc-dos or cpm/m anywhere in my post. However, since you did bring up Apple's 30+ year history, it might be interesting to note that the Microsoft Effect is being overcome to a certain extent as evidenced by a doubling of surfers using Mac OS X in the last eight months.

Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards. This is a whole new set of rules designed by the banks, to protect the banks, footed by their customers (the ones who take cards and data), which will ultimately be passed on to the actual user (consumers). But hey, what isn't. I'm just on the technical end of the implementation, and it sucks. http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/5026

the link did appear, but here it is again: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=viewArticleBasic&articleId=291226&source=rss_ news50

here is the link to the computerworld article that is from today: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=viewArticleBasic&articleId=291226&source=rss_ news50 http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=viewArticleBasic&articleId=291226&source=rss_ news50

here is the link to the computerworld article that is from today: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=viewArticleBasic&articleId=291226&source=rss_ news50 http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=viewArticleBasic&articleId=291226&source=rss_ news50

There is a Computerworld article from the previous slashdot story that seems pretty helpful in understanding the meltdown of their electronic medical records systems. They say that they are running the world's largest Citrix server system, and it does not scale well for their purposes.

As someone who has been frustrated by a variety of Electronic Medical Records systems in different medical settings, I must say that my "favorite" has been VistA (the medical records software used by the Veteran's Administration, and no relation to Microsoft Vista). Currently, I'm using GE's Centricity at my work site and have had some minor problems that have resulted in delays in entering my data. (Problems with VistA were more related to the entire network being down - problems with Centricty have been with database connectivity... I wish I could say more about it, but I'm not an IT person, I'm just a lowly end-user).

The outage lasted about 12 hours overnight Tuesday for BlackBerry users mainly in North America, RIM and users reported.

RIM said a fail-over system designed to stop the impact of such a problem did not work as expected, either. The company apologized to its 8 million users. RIM added that security and capacity issues were not the cause of the outage.

"RIM has determined that the incident was triggered by the introduction of a new, noncritical system routine that was designed to provide better optimization of the system's cache," RIM officials said in a statement.

"The system routine was expected to be nonimpacting with respect to the real-time operation of the BlackBerry infrastructure, but the pretesting of the system routine proved to be insufficient," the statement said.

The new system routine "produced an unexpected impact and triggered a compounding series of interaction errors between the system's operational database and cache," according to the statement. "After isolating the resulting database problem and unsuccessfully attempting to correct it, RIM began it's fail-over process to a backup system."

RIM described the backup system inadequacies this way: "Although the backup system and fail-over process had been repeatedly and successfully tested previously, the fail-over process did not fully perform to RIM's expectations in this situation and therefore caused further delay in restoring service and processing the resulting message queue."

Blame the editors. I submitted a couple of links, including another article on ComputerWorld which went into the "browser war" comments in a bit more detail:

Instead of trying to trump one another by adding features in point releases, [i.e. the classic browser war] the companies that developed these browsers are instead intent on advancing their use as platforms for a new generation of rich Internet applications and for tackling the hurdles that will come along with that shift in strategy, the panel said.

(For the record, I found the story via Opera Watch)

... if you don't use this DRM infested media, there is no difference between using Vista, Mac OSX or Linux.

Do digital restrictions in OSX or Linux:

• Disable your old media?
• Keep you from modifying your kernel
• Have "trip bits" at the hardware level?
• Disable outputs when you do so much as slip an audio CD into a drive? As is the case of Zune, they probably "protect" everything regardless of author intent.

I'll give you a quick hint: there are no digital restrictions in free software.

The consensus opinion is that Vista's digital restrictions set it up for failure. Really, it even annoys fanboys to the point where no one wants it. My opinion is that they just make obvious M$ intentions but don't represent any change of attitude.

DRM is snakeoil, much like Windows itself. All digital restriction schemes have the same attitude and end goal. The way M$ does it now represents the absurd lengths required make them even look like they could work. Big publishers want to control your digital media in a way that they could not with paper or even broadcast. It's not going to work but we need to fight it every step of the way. The easiest way to avoid it is to not buy things filled with such obvious contempt for the customer.

'The grid (as was shown by the outage on the east coast a couple years ago) is not very redundant'

Actually the grid used to more redundant until the utility companies stopped building standby generators and connected local systems to a central control station, to save on staff and to save money. They managed this by lobbying in Washington to get the regulations diluted.

The actual blackout was caused by the MS Blaster worm that caused the SCADA units to freeze. These Windows based units are used to provide remote reading of Remote Terminal Units (RTUs). As the operators were unaware that a single generator had tripped out in Ohio, they failed to respond when too much power was been drawn in from a neighboring area. This in turn tripped out other generators in a domino effect. Coincidentally enough ten months previously the SQL worm caused a similar crash of the SCADA units at a nuclear power plant owned by the same company.

Years later a report found (a) Unix to be responsible for the outage and (b) an operator had switched off a key piece of equipment and then went to lunch. This despite the fact that telephone transcripts showed that the operators were fully aware that something was wrong in the minutes preceding the blackout.

XA/21
http://www.nipc.gov/dailyreports/2003/August/DHS_I AIP_Daily_2003-08-18.pdf

MS Blaster
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/08/20/slammer_wo rm_crashed_ohio_nuke/

We have no idea what happened
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/09/04/blackout .hearing/index.html

transcripts
http://www.cnn.com/2003/fyi/news/09/04/transcript. fri/

potential vulnerability of plant computer network to worm infection
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen- comm/info-notices/2003/in200314.pdf

an engineer .. disabled an automatic periodic trigger
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/securi ty/recovery/story/0,10801,87400,00.html

RTUs
http://www.securityfocus.com/news/41

was: Re:What about a boogeyman attack?

When has Microsoft ever been concerned about security OR stability?

They are now calling Word2007 crashes resulting from malware a FEATURE!! rof,lllll
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9016401&pageNumber =1

I do agree with you that MS should be held responsible for remote exploits and buffer overflows

Here you go.
Same site, same page, different day, same brown zune.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=printArticleBasic&articleId=9015945

I am a long-time user of TT software (CD ROM version, and for the past four years, the Web version). I was always a little suspicious of your company's promises about security and now I can see that I was right to be skeptical.

So Bob, could you clarify exactly what happened with this customer in Nebraska? You said that the vulnerability does not affect the TurboTax Online application, yet the user in Nebraska says she was able to access other people's returns using your online service, and one of your employees has confirmed the incident.

Can you definitely confirm that NO ONE besides these three people were affected? Or do you just assume no one else was affected, because no one else reported this flaw? Do you have log files or other records which would be able to definitely confirm whether anyone else's record was viewed?

Also, a user on this thread reports that he noticed some poor security practices that your company had in place in its communications and policies earlier this year; is the Nebraska incident related to this? Did Intuit address the concerns that he brought up (he says no one ever got back to him)?

News like this make you appreciate techniques like TrackMeNot.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=printArticleBasic&articleId=9015599
I remembered to check the AC box this time...

Don't forget TrackMeNot. Thanks to ComputerWorld for telling me about it.

They really pushed it by mentioning adblock, but they totally lost their credibility when they mentioned PDF download, the only people who will EVER want to view a PDF in browser, are those who don't know there are other options.

And to top it off, when you didn't think site could lose any more karma, i see a link to another article

http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/4251 Why Firefox has lost its mojo

This article states that IE has bridged the gap in features and quality because a few copycat features they've implemented. So, computer world is on the do not visit these idiots list. I admit, i dont like firefox 2.0 as much as 1.5, but the only reason for that is I get a nasty memory leak when viewing tags that have way to much flash or js (fault of the website as much as firefox).

I'll be happy when slashdot submissions list the allononepage version of articles.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=printArticleBasic&articleId=9015599

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9015581

I only spent a few minutes looking around so there may be others. Still, you have to admire anyone willing to solder 88 tiny wires.

The airlines also benefit in general from passengers remaining ignorant about what's happening on the ground during flights, including personal problems, terrorist attacks, plane crashes and other information that might upset passengers.

What's to stop terrorists from testing various gadgets, finding the ones with the highest levels of interferences, then turning on dozens of them at some crucial phase of flight, such as during a landing in bad weather?

The last nail in the coffin came, of all places, from Apple. Thanks to OS X, Apple has come back from the dead in a way that is extremely rare in technology. Their victory is so complete that I'm now surprised when I come across a computer running Windows.

Uh, Apple desktop market share is still somewhere well under 10%. Has this guy been drug tested lately?

Actually, the big threat to Microsoft is OpenOffice. Office is where Microsoft makes its money. Putting Linux on a computer doesn't hurt Microsoft; they've already been paid by the computer maker. Installing OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office comes directly out of Microsoft's profits. The web stuff gets all the press attention, but that's not where the money is.

The summary leaves me scratching my head because the Quincey project is a Microsoft data center, nothing to do with Google. Google is building a data center in The Dalles, Oregon, right on the Columbia River.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9001262

Quincy is near enough to the Columbia to have cheap hydro power, but I just looked at the map and it's not right on the Columbia like The Dalles. I wonder if Google will use water from the Columbia to help cool their data center; and I wonder what the plan is for the Quincy data center. (Ordinary air conditioning? That part of Washington is cold in the winter but hot in the summer.)

steveha

How hard is it to link the the single page print version...
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=printArticleBasic&articleId=9012345
AC to avoid the whoring of karma.

And here is a follow-up story: http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command =printArticleBasic&articleId=9014518

'How do you know how they got your info?'

Well according to the article how they got the information by hacking TJX and using it to purchase large quantities of gift cards from Wal-Mart and Sam's Club. So in this case we don't have to wonder.

'in filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday, the company said 45.6 million credit and debit card numbers were stolen from one of its systems over a period of more than 18 months by an unknown number of intruders'

'in partnership with the Gainesville Police Department, officials from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said they have taken six of 10 suspects into custody for allegedly using the TJX customer data to purchase large quantities of gift cards from discount chains Wal-Mart and Sam's Club'

was .. Example (Score:5, Interesting)

'How do you know how they got your info?'

Well according to the article how they got the information by hacking TJX and using it to purchase large quantities of gift cards from Wal-Mart and Sam's Club. So in this case we don't have to wonder.

'in filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday, the company said 45.6 million credit and debit card numbers were stolen from one of its systems over a period of more than 18 months by an unknown number of intruders'

'in partnership with the Gainesville Police Department, officials from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said they have taken six of 10 suspects into custody for allegedly using the TJX customer data to purchase large quantities of gift cards from discount chains Wal-Mart and Sam's Club'

was .. Example (Score:5, Interesting)

.. stolen data was used for purchases at Walmart in Florida by making fake credit cards.. it surely is a big organised crime

The request by Diebold to block Massachusetts from buying from another vendor was blocked: http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command =viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=hardware&articleId= 9014518&taxonomyId=12&intsrc=kc_top
--
The proper use of a silicon ballot: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Quoting from http://www.mdronline.com/watch/watch_Issue.asp?Vol name=Issue+%23022007&on=1
Freescale wins an MPR Analysts' Choice Award for MRAM (magnetic random-access memory). Freescale's MR2A16A is the first commercially available memory chip based on spintronics technology. (See MPR 2/20/07-04, "MPR Innovation Award: MRAM.")

  I'd say a few people, if http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardwa re/story/0,10801,83987,00.html is considered sane.

It's not a new technology, but from the article, they seem to have made some improvements. Maybe you should try reading it?

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=viewArticleTOC&specialReportId=9000100&articl eId=112360

Here's the printable, all on one page version of the article:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=printArticleBasic&articleId=9014118

And even Bill Gates has admitted to watching pirated movies on YouTube:

http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/2803
http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/06/bill-gates-admi ts-watching-pirated.html

Remember Prohibition?

As I was reading TFA I followed this link to an article about the new GUI complete with screenshots.

After viewing the screenshots I've determined that most of the new features in Vista are a rehash of the same graphical tools that sysadmins have been using for years--except now they're brushed up with Apple polish and included on mass market consumer m0dels. The vast majority of the population won't ever care about or use them. The desktop seems to be the MS edition of Sun's Looking Glass whose capabilities have come to fruition in the free software realm through Gnome, Enlightenment, Beryl, and KDE.

The question I have is: what is really new and improved in Vista?

The progression from Win95, through 98, through 2k, through ME, through XP, to Vista is like reading a flame war between two contestants who never give up: each revision expands on the previous base to produce a progressively larger work. To be fair current GNU/Linux offerings seem to be inheriting the same progressive bloat though not to the same extent. Unlike flame war contestants, though, OS designers are supposed to look for ways to streamline the final product and deliver top performance with maximum efficiency. While Vista has (by screenshots) top performance it isn't much further ahead of free software for the millions which MS has spent preparing it.

In conclusion I'll definitely agree: Don't bother.

As I was reading TFA I followed this link to an article about the new GUI complete with screenshots.

After viewing the screenshots I've determined that most of the new features in Vista are a rehash of the same graphical tools that sysadmins have been using for years--except now they're brushed up with Apple polish and included on mass market consumer m0dels. The vast majority of the population won't ever care about or use them. The desktop seems to be the MS edition of Sun's Looking Glass whose capabilities have come to fruition in the free software realm through Gnome, Enlightenment, Beryl, and KDE.

The question I have is: what is really new and improved in Vista?

The progression from Win95, through 98, through 2k, through ME, through XP, to Vista is like reading a flame war between two contestants who never give up: each revision expands on the previous base to produce a progressively larger work. To be fair current GNU/Linux offerings seem to be inheriting the same progressive bloat though not to the same extent. Unlike flame war contestants, though, OS designers are supposed to look for ways to streamline the final product and deliver top performance with maximum efficiency. While Vista has (by screenshots) top performance it isn't much further ahead of free software for the millions which MS has spent preparing it.

In conclusion I'll definitely agree: Don't bother.

Here's the relatively ad-free all-in-one-page print version.

"Unlike pressed original CDs, burned CDs have a relatively short life span of between two to five years, depending on the quality of the CD,"[...]The problem with hard drives, he said, is not so much the disk itself as it is the disk bearing, which has a positioning function similar to a ball bearing.[...]Gerecke (a physicist and storage expert at IBM Deutschland GmbH) suggests using magnetic tapes, which, he claims, can have a life span of 30 to 100 years, depending on their quality.

I agree with your statement in principle--it was essentially what I wanted to post. However, I don't think the bias is coming from TFA this time. Mr. Gralla uses the words "thriving free market," without any obviously negative overtone, and several of his recent articles are pro-privacy and seem to have instances of political lambasting of both sides.

For instance:
http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/4056
http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/5182
http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/5017

Seems like the bias is coming from elsewhere here.