Domain: computerworld.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to computerworld.com.
Comments · 2,453
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I wonder...
I wonder if this question (and the others mentioned) have anything to do with this recent IDG story.
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Gartner Group seens StarOffice at 10% by 2004Recently Computerworld had an article that the Gartner Group sees a 50-50 chance of StarOffice taking 10% of the office productivity suites market by the end of 2004. Doesn't mean that it will be on Linux, but then it won't matter either. This doesn't include the effect of VMWARE and Mac OS X on the markets.
You can always run VMWARE to give the user exactly the same environment as before, but way reduce management cost. If a virus hits Outlook again, simply restore from a clean saved state. Software upgrades will be easier. It doesn't take market share away from MS, but by introducing Linux systems eases the transition, exactly what MS has to fear most.
Mac OS X is a bona-fide BSD with Max user interface and full MS office suite.Most people will consider getting a shiny Mac as an upgrade from MS/Intel, not a downgrade. The killer would be, of course, OS X (=BSD + Aqua user interface) for Intel. MS could pull the plug on Office for Macs, but they might already lack market force for that.
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Re:Instalation...Are you kidding? When was the last time you installed Windows?
XP virtually installs itself. You barely have to be there.Might want to check out this article in ComputerWorld before you continue in this vein. Windows isn't as easy to install as the Microsofties try to make it out to be.
After you read the article, you see that the author (R.L. Mitchel, apparently a serious microsoftie) had about the same sort of bad experience with WinXP that the Register reviewer had with SUSE. The only difference was that the microsoftie was out a lot more money.
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About ease of installation:Before you talk about ease of installation, you might want to look at page 44 of the 29 April 2002 Computerworld. The article is titled ``Tales of the Unexpected''. The author tells us that it took him 20 hours and $826.89 to upgrade his home computer from Win98 to WinXP.
The brief version is that he had to buy a new scanner, new CD-burner software, upgrade to Office XP, upgrade to PAgemaker 7.0, buy new versions of kiddie games. And it all took a LOT of suffering on his part!THe author concludes by saying
But if your experience is anything like mine, you may spend 20 hours or more over several weeks tinkering with hardware and software issues, making phone calls--and buying upgrades--before everything runs smoothly. And I could have bought a new computer for the cost of all the upgrades.
This is easy? This is ``ready for the desktop''? Don't tell me that Linux is hard to install or has hardware compatibility problems! I've never had hassles like this with Linux. But this horror story is pretty typical of what I've gone through every time I've tried to install Win-anything.
So was upgrading to Windows XP worth it? Absolutely. And I'm sure that someday my family will agree. -
Re:software architect?
Well, Novell thinks Netware is middleware.
If an OS is middleware, and an IM Client is middleware, where is the freaking line?
This is what happens when attorney generals, lawyers, and judges start writing software specifications.
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I feel so much safer!
I will be able to sleep much more soundly now knowing that I'll never have to worry about those damn Conneticut terrorists hijacking airplanes ever again!
Seriously folks, we already know that this face-recognition garbage doesn't work anyway... -
A desperate move by a desperate company
Seems kind of desperate when I company does something like this. It is a pretty good sign that its business model does not hold what the company promised their investors.
Take Yahoo! for instance, who recently reported a loss of $50M+ for the first quarter this fiscal year. They probably weighed the bad-will and complaints of changing their marketing policy against a projected short-term income for selling these addresses. Whatever $ figure they came up with as a result of resetting it's users settings , it's probably too high.
The strange thing is that when these policies change for the worse, people not only get upset, but they also a) become more reluctant to give accurate information when signing up b) opt-out as soon as possible. Apart from being able to sell a few more - lower quality - addresses, nothing is gained. The downside is that the intended audience for the advertising emails is less likely than before to read the emails, and also the accuracy of any demographics of the audience.
I think advertisers will realize sooner than later that the apparently millions of new Yahoo! customers were people that already opted out of advertising email, and therefore are a dead market not worth the new and higher price that Yahoo! demands -
Re:IBM buying SUN ? Not likely...
Didn't IBM fab their memory chips or something? I seem to remember some problem that Sun blamed on some chips fabbed by IBM.
I just looked it up, McNealy did the blaming:
Q: We reported last year about the problem with the external memory cache on UltraSPARC II chips that was causing a lot of Sun's Ultra Enterprise servers to crash. Is that something you're still grappling with, or is it history?
A: We're no longer buying IBM SRAM [static RAM]. They were the biggest source of the problem for us. They knew about it before, and they didn't tell us . . . But IBM sure made a big point of telling all of our customers about it a year and a half ago. But we don't have that issue anymore. We designed IBM out and put [error checking and correcting logic] across the entire cache architecture.
This was in Computerworld last December.
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counterpointJames Gosling (of sun and java fame) recently said he was switching to macs. To quote from the article, "And from a personal point of view, I personally actually read the [Windows] XP license and decided I couldn't sign it. So I've been shifting over to Mac. "
I understand that his reasons to switch involve licensing rather than hardward/cost/available software/etc, but I imagine that JG could pretty much run whatever he wanted without too much difficulty.
Yes, Virginia, I just bought a mac. It is fabulous (my other frequently used machines include a win 98 box, solaris 8 on both sparc and intel, and RedHat 7.2) and as advertised, it is unix with a gui that does not suck and hardware/software integration that just bloody works!
I was configuring a new sunblade the other day and the question arose, which was best KDE or Gnome? My vote -- AQUA ;-} (Actually, I choose to install both but run KDE.) -
Printer Friendly, Non-Flash(tm) Version
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I feel compelled to quote Scott McNealy
Just where you can get sun microsystems's view on this (not neccesarily mine.. but perhaps.. but maybe not..)
To quote This Article in computerworld magazine:
Q: Sun has done quite a bit in the way of Linux support, but you really haven't gone the IBM route of marketing Linux-based systems. Why is that?
A: We're the No. 1 Linux appliance server supplier in the world with the Cobalt line [from the acquisition of Cobalt Networks Inc. last year] (see story). We have Linux extensions to Solaris. We just don't think a Linux partition on a mainframe makes a lot of sense. It's kind of like having a trailer park in the back of your estate.
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Re: "Even software like Outlook ..."Even software like Outlook, which is specifically designed for this type of big-business structure, has trouble handling huge amounts of email (its not so much the amount of email thats the problem as much as the lack of security in the product.
...Outlook has significant problems scaling to the degree a behemoth like AOL-TW demands. It's beyond the almost complete absence of security that makes Outlook a really poor choice in large corporate envornments - Outlook basically falls prey to the same ills as AOL's client software: It's intended originally for ease-of-use over security and scalability.
I have definite biases here (as I prefer corporate mail solutions that run on a variety of platforms, scale out the wazoo, and Just Work), but they're rooted firmly in practical experience (first-hand and otherwise) of replacing 10's of Exchange boxes with several different solutions that actually SOLVED user requirements.
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Why you should sign
This is an example of why you should cryptographically sign your emails, whether that be with PGP, S/MIME, or something else.
In this case, it would have made the plaintiff's case easier to prove, which seems like a bad thing if you're the defendant, but perhaps the defendant would have thought more carefully about what he was saying if he knew it could be proven he said it.
But more importantly, in countries where digital sigs carry the same legal force as paper sigs (such as the United States), signing all your emails establishes an identity trail so that, if somebody else later forges an email with a forged signature, you can show a body of evidence that you use a different signature, and that therefore it isn't yours, it's just one that says your name.
Since there isn't a "digital driver's license" to use to "prove" the validity of an esig, this body of evidence could be very useful to you in court.
Remember the recent episode of identity theft Nick Petreley experienced? In part, this happened because he didn't establish an electronic identity in one place where he had a chance. In his case, it was a web account, not a digital sig, but a digital sig case could be far worse, because it would almost HAVE to involve the courts to be resolved.
Wouldn't you rather have more evidence in your favor, not less? -
The Information can be worth more than the laptop
Pogue's article had some great things to say about the technology of tracking down stolen laptops. It would have been good to make the point that, many times, the information on the laptop is worth far more than the laptop itself.
About 18 months ago Qualcomm's CEO had his laptop swiped during a conference. The laptop was thought to have all kinds of trade secrets. Losing a several-thousand dollar laptop was a trivial loss for the CEO. But shareholders were rightfully worried that Qualcomm's strategies for implementing CDMA rollout were now in the hands of rivals. To my knowledge, they never got the laptop back. And the theft was, I suspect, for the hard drive's trade secrets rather than for the actual laptop.
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Original PDF ReportIt doesn't look like the information they gathered alone is really anything remarkable
Exactly. It is the typical information that any sysadmin from the outside. The graphic diagramming the networking layout shows nothing remarkable.
You can seen the original report in PDF format here, with _all_ of the juicy details.
Which is funny, because the link is not directly accessable from the main site.
talk about security.
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Ohter news regarding this....
It was also reported that a federal judge overseeing the Microsoft antitrust case has dismissed a suit brought by a nonprofit antitrust group claiming that the parties didn't fully disclose communication related to the proposed settlement. See this link
And this...... Microsoft has filed a new motion in U.S. District Court to block media access to four depositions that have already been taken in its antitrust case, as well as one that has not yet occurred. See this link
And this.... A great place to get all the goods on the case... visit here!!!
And finally.... A great place to get the latest press releases Click Here!!! -
Ohter news regarding this....
It was also reported that a federal judge overseeing the Microsoft antitrust case has dismissed a suit brought by a nonprofit antitrust group claiming that the parties didn't fully disclose communication related to the proposed settlement. See this link
And this...... Microsoft has filed a new motion in U.S. District Court to block media access to four depositions that have already been taken in its antitrust case, as well as one that has not yet occurred. See this link
And this.... A great place to get all the goods on the case... visit here!!!
And finally.... A great place to get the latest press releases Click Here!!! -
Re:It's happened already!
This kind of thing? (PDF file) (The original webpages linked to by the reg have gone. Here is an ugly mirror
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Other reportings..
It was also reported that a federal judge overseeing the Microsoft antitrust case has dismissed a suit brought by a nonprofit antitrust group claiming that the parties didn't fully disclose communication related to the proposed settlement. See this link
And this...... Microsoft has filed a new motion in U.S. District Court to block media access to four depositions that have already been taken in its antitrust case, as well as one that has not yet occurred. See this link
And finally, a great place to get all the goods on the case... visit here!!! Good luck! -
Other reportings..
It was also reported that a federal judge overseeing the Microsoft antitrust case has dismissed a suit brought by a nonprofit antitrust group claiming that the parties didn't fully disclose communication related to the proposed settlement. See this link
And this...... Microsoft has filed a new motion in U.S. District Court to block media access to four depositions that have already been taken in its antitrust case, as well as one that has not yet occurred. See this link
And finally, a great place to get all the goods on the case... visit here!!! Good luck! -
I disagree; risk-friendly managers can save money.http://www.computerworld.com/itresources/rcstory/
0 ,,KEY11_STO67953,00.html"If we didn't have PHP, it would cost us six to seven times as much to operate [our] IT environment," says Kevin Crothers, head of corporate Web systems at WorldCom Inc. WorldCom has used PHP for several major Web projects, both internal and external, including the front end to a searchable database of employees and contractors that contains more than 100,000 records. "It's all LDAP-based," he says, noting that PHP had "the strongest LDAP integration we've been able to find."
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Source code? Better yet...People often argue that MS deliberately introduces hidden features in order to trip up developers of competing applications. The evidence against that is that the applications that have hidden-feature-induced bugs include MS's own products!
I'm not the first to point this out, but it bears repeating: having access to the source code and understanding the source code are two very different things.
Which makes me wish that somebody was running a Windows clean room. If you needed to work with a Windows API with incomplete or incorrect documentation, you just submit a question to the Windows clean room, and they figure out what the API really does.
Did I say that Microsoft doesn't do hidden features on purpose? I lied! It's all part of their monopolistic conspiracy! The antitrust settlement must require them to set up a clean room!
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Re:Mod Me Down If I'm Wrong.....
http://www.computerworld.com/computerworld/record
s /images/story/Farsite.gifWas it just me or does the notion of a "Centralized file server" NOT sound like distributed computing to you?
Not being in possesion of any moderator points I am forced to respond to your comment....
If you were to have read the caption on the image, you would see that it says Logically: a centralized file server, but then it goes on to say Physically distributed among clients.
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IT Job jumpers more likely to be laid off.Weird timing... saw this in my in-box (thanks to the ACM for pointing it out).
Read this article about the sort of folks more likely to be laid off. Here's its headline:
Study: IT job jumpers more likely to be laid off than veterans.
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Simply put, this is smoke(To nit pick, the WinInformant links to a written sound bite not an article.)
MS really only cares about the bottom line and obviously security issues are about to bite them financially. Right now, Bill can't do much except blow smoke. The distraction is really needed right now. Especially when you consider:
That the effort to squelch bug reporting is a tacit admission that none of the products in the current development cycle are likely to be secure
Prestigious and influential groups like the National Academy of Sciences are calling for punishment of software firms that skimp on security.
MS products will be magically secure and stable after February.
They've been found guilty of illegally maintaining a monopoly and the punishment is under discussion.
Several U.S. states and some European governments and commissions are pursuing / considering their own legal action.
The MS legal counsel is stepping down
MS-Passport, their new cash cow, can't even be made secure (thus their hop to Kerberos)
Revenue from upgrades is nil and given that Intel is not expecting to do well either the next few quarters will be for MS also.
Simply put, Bill is on so many people's shit list with no easy way off. A few decades ago, IBM used to have most computing centers by the short-n-curlies, but pushed it too far and more or less disappeared. MS is in a prime position to do the same.
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Re:I hope these stories end soon...
I agree.
But those stories serve as Marketing campaings. I mean, AFAIK, there's no http://marketing-Linux.sourceforge.net project nor you can go and provide a CD with marketing-Linux-kit-101.tar.gz to magazines, on-line sites and such.
Those news serve the purpose of a "GPL/comunnity-style" advertising.
Some corporations form the Northwest of the USA and other locations spend millions on advertisement and silly desktop backgrouds to appeal CIOs buying agenda.
The Community should appeal to them with "Yet Another Linux is Ready for the Desktop" group of news. This way, it can make its way to zdnet, Infoworld, ComputerWorld, CIO Magazine and the likes. -
Computerworld coverage
There is extensive coverage in Computerworld, here.
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Re:More quality than price, I think"The problem is that WinXP adds nothing to Win2k from a corporate point of view. "
That's not true.Very informative. Thank you for your insight. Now how about some examples to back up your claims?
Oh no! Having frequently used icons in the start menu is disorienting. Oh my god!
What does this really add over the way W2k does it; hiding icons that aren't frequently used, with the option to reveal all if you want something you don't use every day? If I want something on the main Start menu under W2k, I can just drag and drop it there. Personally, I like that a lot better than having Windows decide for me what goes there and what doesn't. This is, after all, the same OS that puts the Internet Connection wizard icon on every users desktop every time I update or patch anything at all connected to networking, even though everything my users need is already set up. And yes, it can be disorienting. Some people don't deal well with change of any sort. You can find at least a hundred examples here of people who literally follow step-by-step "click on Start, then click on Programs..." style directions that somebody wrote down for them. Read through some of the archives, you're bound to find a few before too long. Unfortunately, these are the users IT needs to think about most when making any upgrade decisions.
".net? Pure vaporware so far as far as real-world applications go. "
No more so than using Linux.Again, thanks for the insight. Now how about some examples? The only thing Linux is missing for me is a 3D CAD package, but nobody's promising one, so that doesn't really count as vaporware, does it.
OpenOffice 6.4 is a very usable office suite, with some features I really wish MS Office had, like displaying non-printing characters and actual WYSIWYG HTML output that's not horribly bloated. And did I mention that it has no problems opening and saving to MS file formats? I've actually been using OpenOffice on my Windows boxes in favor of MS Office for over a month now, and I haven't had a single problem.
Outlook? All of it's useful functionality has been available in *nix since before Windows ever existed, albiet not in one integrated package. But, hey, that's the beauty of pipes, isn't it? I guess the shared calendar thing is "missing", but frankly if I need to know when my CFO's kid gets back from his field trip, I'll call her up and ask her. No need for all that extra email traffic.
So, how exactly is Linux as vaporous as
.net?There is no WinXP server product.
In other words, it's not there! And when it is, what is it going to offer over W2k? Name just one compelling feature for us, please.
"Also, software compatibility is still to be tested."
It's actually pretty good.Funny, I remember hearing that about W2k, too. And for the most part it's been true, except for that one app/device you use all the time. Network card drivers were a big headache when I upgraded my company to W2k, and I don't look forward to repeating that experience. And can someone please explain why I need to replace my parallel port drivers with the NT ones (which can only be done through a kernel debugger (which I don't have) running on another machine through hyperterminal over a serial connection) in order to share my plotter?
Sorry, MS's history on this has been pretty bad, though ironically they've done better on the consumer OS's than the Professional ones.
And from another of your posts:
Perhaps if people who questioned the value of XP or Win2k did so with intelligent well-thought out comments who could reference facts to back up their opinions.... I would not make such posts.
I thought the parent was quite intelligent and well thought-out, certainly far above the drivel you've posted.
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focus, value, and experienceI have never heard of the SCP before, and a quick look at it didn't impress me.
There is an article in the September 2001 issue of Secure Computing Magazine. (a "trade rag" - so it never says anything bad about a potential advertiser)
Pay Your Dues by Jay Heiser in Information Security Magazine is also worth reading.
A small reader survey, May 2001 - Talkback.
Security Focus offers several mailing lists that you may wish to subscribe to, or at least read the archives about. In particular Security Certification, CISSP Study, and security-basics. One recent message is certainly worth reading. Similar questions have been also asked in cryptography and firewall wizards - Nov 2001 mailing lists, and I believe has come up several times before.
A review of one IS manager's experience from Computerworld secuirty Column.
A so-so review of different security certificates from CertCities.
The main points I would make are choose a certificate that has the right focus for your career. CISSP is the best known cert, but it is aimed at IT/IS Security Managers and Consultants not at senior technologists / engineers / "in the trenchs" types. The best features of this is requiring 3 years of computer / network / audit security experience and having a broad overview of computing security (the 10 common bodies of knowledge, CBK). This makes it out of reach for many people new to info sec, and that's okay, they likely should focus on another certification anyhow. Next is the SANS/GIAC certificates which are more focused and hands on. The best feature is that they require a "practical" part to the certification, which is doubly good because it is not just exam cramming and lets the student practice her communicaton skills, which is important in the security field since you should be able to work in a team and with others (non-technical other) in an organization outside your team for the common benefit of the business.
Certifications tend to be expensive to get, and don't forget most of them have requirements for maintaince such as x number of contuning education credits, re-examinations, or conference attendance. This is a mixed bag, it is good that it justifies staying up to date, but it can also be very expensive for a member working as a new contractor or for a small company that isn't pre-IPO throwing money around.
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Re:Why is this surprising?Trying to artificially create great volume of "discontent voices" is unethical and illegal as well.
Then I guess Microsoft, Exxon, the California Raisin Advisory Board and others are acting illegally and unethically, then. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander-lock 'em all up and throw away the key.
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Refer to previous articleJust a hunch, but I think this is probably a related issue. If the Corps don't care about their servers being 0wn3d by 1337 h4x0rz, why should they care about them being owned by email virii and other worms? And if the victims of a crime don't care, why should law enforcement?
One thing about Corps, they're generally consistent. Of course, that's generally, not always.
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One time Credit Card numbers.
The credit card paradigm is whats causing the problem, not securing the cc numbers!
No matter what you do, or how you do it, there is always the potential for loosing the information...either by theft, fire, fraud, etc.
The only sensible way to "charge" things are, IMHO, by changing the way credit cards work.
Before anyone mods this as off topic, consider aquiring the ability to accept a credit card that does one time transaction numbers and when you enter into a selling relationship with a customer who does not utilize this kind of credit card ... suggest it!!!
This not only ensures your customer that you care about the security of thier transactions it also serves as an opporitunity to explain that there is always a chance, even if it's a remote one, that thier current credit card numbers can be comprimised.
I do not know the answer to your original question. I personally think using the above suggestions with the system you currently are working to secure would be an option to consider.
Even if the customer does not want, or can not get a credit card that utilizes "one time transaction numbers" the fact you take the time to explain it to them should be a little reassuring to them..I know it would for me!
Here are a few more links to info on one time cc numbers:
American Express offers disposable credit card numbers for online shopping
Frequently asked questions about American Express Private Payments System
The O-Card
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Re:Links?
As a @home customer (comcast if you must know) that was REALLY watching out for new developments during the showdown, I used the DSLREPORTS forums for new developments. They even tossed ATT out of the @home forums and created their own cable forum for att users seperate from @home (so they can bish in piece it seems).
Linked here
From the look of it, the ATT users are none to pleased about the goings on... even talking about something worse than SPEED caps -- a download limit.
The forum goers seem ALL OVER THIS... for real information its a good bet to get it directly from them, so to speak. -
Re:hospitality accounting
also look at Hotel Software Systems Ltd., who makes a hospitality/reservations package used by Cendant, a $4 billion dollar hotel franchiser.
An article about 'em is here. -
Redo the Internet from the Ground UpInstead of the government spending billions and billions of dollars trying to patch up this hole we call security, the government should use some of that money to fund research project. The Internet was never designed from the beginning for what we currently use it for. In the beginning the only users/devices on the ARPAnet were trusted devices. TCP/IP was built for usability, not security. I believe TCP/IP v6 was designed with security as part of the protocol, however, not many administrators 1) know about this 2) actually implement it.
This ComputerWorld Article talks about.
TCP/IP was originally written among a cohesive community that had significant internal trust. By default, IP applications assume they should trust people
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Scott MacNealy on Linux
Quote from this article:
We have Linux extensions to Solaris. We just don't think a Linux partition on a mainframe makes a lot of sense. It's kind of like having a trailer park in the back of your estate.
hehe what a doofus. -
Jamming GPS
yes, the US military can selectively jam GPS signals, or control the precision of the signals in certain geographic locations.. I actually worked on a project with the NAWC about 6 years ago to do this.. The jammers were small enough that they could fit in something about the size of a suitcase, and be dropped from a plane into enemy territory..
In fact, this article suggests that they're doing it now in Afghanistan:
http://www.computerworld.com/storyba/0,4125,NAV4 7_ STO65096,00.html -
Re:Support the DDA!Have you viewed the site? Were you confused? For how long? If over a minute, where's your reading comprehension?
It was established some time ago that registering a trademark in order to place a site criticizing the trademark's owner is not "bad faith."
The WTO accused these folks of "harvesting" email addresses, but doesn't say what method they used...according to the site, the only method they used to "harvest" addresses was some "mailto:" links. WTO is annoyed by the mockery and is interpreting the facts to suit themselves.
Computerworld ran an article on this following WTO's party line on this issue so slavishly as to stretch anyone's definition of journalistic ethics. Most interesting is this passage:
The fake WTO site changed its look this afternoon so that it no longer exactly resembles the real WTO Web site.
Even so, the phony site contains so many references to the WTO that some search engines are directing people to it instead of to the official site. A search of AltaVista using the keyword WTO returns www.gatt.org in fifth place.
So, according to the WTO and to an incompetent journalist at Computerworld, establishing an anti-WTO site that shows up fifth in search engines is tantamount to site-jacking!!
Is this the type of reasoning that you wish to defend?
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Re: AG contact info for NY and Calif.The contact info for the NYS attorney general Eliot Spitzer is at this link. If you are a New York resident, call and register your concern about going along with the settlement.
If you are a Californian, the contact info is here for California attorney general Bill Lockyer- you can call toll-free (800) 952-5225 inside California.
Given that MS has a history of astroturfing again and again pretending to have a grass-roots movement in its support, it would be a good idea to express bona fide concern about how fair the settlement is at a time when it might make some difference.
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Deal far too tough on MS
(not!) Apparently operating and promoting a criminal monopoly in the United States does not incur much penalty.
The terms of this antitrust agreement (at C|Net) stike me as more of a blowjob than a slap on the wrist. The terms of this agreement do nothing to address the core issues of punitive damages in this "penalty" phase of the trial. Hasn't Microsoft been found to be an illegal monopolist? And even so there is no penalty forthcoming, only what can be described as minor conduct tweaking? Wow.
This deal is also weaker than what was on the table before MS was found guilty. Armed with a 7-0 judge appeals ruling that MS is an illegal monopolist, the DoJ now settles for something even less? [sarcasm] If I didn't have such a high confidence in the current administration, I'd have thought they'd been paid off or something; good thing we know that that can't be the case. [/sarcasm]
We can all be sure that more of the same will now continue. After all, were not similar minor conduct remedies ordered by courts in 1994, etc, only to be ignored by Microsoft? Now these conduct remedies will be... ignored again! And with that scary extension... yet again! Justice prevails in America. So do the undead apparently.
The idea, as is sometimes heard now, that the DoJ should go easy on Microsoft because of the current financial uncertainty does not hold water either. So we should suspend penalties to laws, just so that the economic boat doesn't get rocked? Even if the previous penalty of breaking the company into 2 was applied, this would not substantially change the immediate economic situation. Everyone would still use Windows, it would still come with your Dell, it would still be the de facto stadard for years; it's just that slowly other system choices would gradually appear. How would this be an economic calamity? Even this breakup scenario is now unlikely, after the DoJ unilaterally pulled the IE bundling claim off the table (for what reason, no-one really knows).
I am apalled at what amounts to a near toal capitulation by the Bush Administration's new DoJ attorneys. Mostly, it is the lack of justice that bothers me. I'm glad I'm not a US citizen otherwise I'd also be angry about the millions of taxpayers dollars put into this case over many years, and not even the most minor financial penalty to cover the costs of the case recuperated. If they want any kind of justice, Americans should write their state representatives and attorneys general to make known they do not support the Sates' signing on to this toothless deal. Barring that, it's up to the European Union to reign in the beast now. -
more testimonials
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Re:Interesting point of departure...
Increasingly, what oprerating system you have is becomming irelevent:
Solaris and FreeBSD both run Linux binaries and AIX should soon http://www.exquip.com/software/ibmaix.chtml
and HP-UX is not far behind: http://www.computerworld.com/cwi/story/0,1199,NAV4 7_STO48570,00.html
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Re:I thought Microsoft had learned this lesson bef
If there were ever a more perfect example of how Microsoft's monopoly is hurting the market (and individuals), I don't know what it would be. This perfectly shows that because of their presence, they feel that they can do whatever they want.
Just look at CE. When I was deciding between a Palm and a CE machine, I was extremely tempted to go with the Microsoft-based products because they were giving away their easy-to-use development tools. I didn't. I bought the Palm, but I never spent the $300 on CodeWarrior, nor did I spend the many hours it would have taken to figure out how to make a GUI using the open-source tools.
As I get on in years, it's increasingly interesting to me how much we can learn from history. We've seen this before. Many times. Once Microsoft gets a lock on a market, they make that market a revenue generator. After taking a bath on IE for years - don't think that didn't take millions to get coded - we're paying for it with higher costs for XP and strong-arm tactics to force companies to upgrade every seat they own (my company allowed themselves to be used).
Now, they've taken a long enough bath on IIS (which was also offered for free, remember), and they're going to get they're money back on it. The only hope in this case is that they don't have a lock on this market.
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IIS 6IIS 6 will have been through their Prefix program. Installing it will also have a wizard which will ask you what services you want.
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Re:You should talk, freeper scum!
In your otherwise masterful display of rhetoric, you seem to have left out the part where you actually refuted my statement. Here's another article that says the same thing.
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Gartner says: dump M$ for Linux
This might not be news to you bleeding edge slashdotters, but speaking of Gartner group (farther up the page) they just recommended in a Computerworld article that corporate users who have been burned once too many times by MicroSoft's approach to coding and security jump ship.
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Tech Disaster Links
- Cnet reports Akamai's co-founder and CTO Danier Lewin was on American 11.
- SiliconValley.Com suggests damage to USA economy.
- ComputerWorld says Comdisco has gotten 60 business disaster declarations.
- Radio reports that a Red Cross blood donation facility in one city has shut down -- they have a huge amount of donations today but can't fly the blood anywhere. This suggests a particular need for donations near the East Coast
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Because it worksI release software as open source because I learned so much from other people's work (and still do). I was extremely fortunate to have several very intelligent people help me learn programming. Source code was passed around without a second thought. We learned from each other. The openness made us more productive -- three or four brains working on one problem. Perhaps above all, it makes programming fun!
Best of luck with your meeting! For a Congressman to actively seek opinions from "one of us" gives me some hope.
You may find some helpful information from the following articles:
The Cathedral and the Bazaar
Freeware Creators Eye Corporate Users -
Well, they *have* made concessions before
Just last month, Microsoft changed the service agreement for their passport system to require only an email address and password to sign up. Did Microsoft do this without any armtwisting? No. Did they do it, though? Yes.
Just keep the pressure on them up. They're going to go ahead with some sort of service no matter what, but the amount of opposition they face now will determine how many of these concessions will be made "voluntarily". That way, even if the FTC doesn't come down with a favorable ruling, we won't be completely left out in the cold.
Incidentally, msnbc also has some coverage. A disinterested and impartial news source if there ever were one... or not, as it were.
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Pull cabling?
Actually, it looks like someone already thought of this:
ComputerWorld's Shark Tank 8/8/01:
http://www.computerworld.com/cwi/sharktank/0,1130, DAY08-06-2001_NAV47-68-86-103_STO62889,00.html