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What does WinFS stand for? Windows File System or Windows Future Storage.

I've seen both in the media recently:
Future Storage - (example, example , example )
File System - (example, example).

But then when I looked a little more, I found this. Will this end up being something that is constantly being corrected on Slashdot? :)

eCommerceTime article

If so, then the government should probably be a bit sharper about actually getting tax revenue from them eh?

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/4526.html

The natural state for IP is public. Corporations have abused the corrupt system to make IP rights last multiple lifetimes, so forgive me if I fail to lose sleep over copyright infringement.

Except that the destination, in offshoring, is orders of magnitude weaker. And so is everything in between...

Who says domestic tapping isn't going offshore? Anybody can tap anywhere in the world, it's one of the problems with our highly connected information systems.

Not bad for a 33 year old single mom from da h00d

In 1998 2 stoner friends of mine with hardly any skills earned $60k/year in San Jose doing web maintenance. Not creating web pages mind you, but just making sure the links worked and content displayed correctly.
The IT industry overexpanded, they took anybody and everybody. Right now, unfortunately, talented people are feeling the hardship as well as the untalented. In the long run things will equalize, those who truly have a passion will be the ones employed, not just a warm body.

IP theft is a lot easier when a Chinese spy can tap the factory itself than tapping a computer on the internet. All the internet security in the three universes and infinity and beyond is, as I said, irrelevant when you can get the information - *ahem* - factory direct.

And unless the goverment does something, businesses will pull out to other countries. Getting ripped off is an additional cost which can quickly outweigh labor cost savings.

Actually, we didn't create higher value textiles, electronics or cars - the three major things that got offshored.

Textiles was a dead end industry, cars have actually ended up becoming balanced offshore and onshore, and cheap electronics, we use those to create the entire IT industry. There doesn't have to be a direct progression like IT being a layer of business on top of the electronics one. Value added, means there are goods and services that can gain higher margins that labor can move into. Computer manufacturing has become a low margin affair, it's the services that earn more money. Look at how IBM has reinvented itself.

Cars, computers and cell phones are still the highest value products, and all of it is being made overseas

Cars being made by US workers working for Japanese companies investing hundreds of millions of dollars in the US (including building hybrids). Computers are no longer high value, $299 for a complete system, and cellphones that are literally given away.
Services are higher value. The cellphone service providers, IBM has shed much of it's hardware (hard drives, computers) and moved towards a consulting service and custom chip provider.

You would cry if you saw the PDAs, cell phones and even computers that they sell over there.

I visit there often, and I'll be there next week, I've seen what they have. One of the reasons those products take longer to come to the US is because the market doesn't embrace technology. I've also been to third world countries who have cell phone technology far ahead of ours. In fact they may be more advanced technologically, but they aren't higher value (the margins are still small).
Actually one area where I see Japan ahead is in robotics. There doesn't seem to be much interest in the US. Although there really isn't a big market for it right now, I could foresee that as being one possible area for high growth in the future. It is an area that could exploit cheap electronics, and cheap programming. Japan is by far not a cheap labor market, but could be a global leader in that area, creating a higher value good that uses commoditized electronics and software, AIBOs sell for 2k.

Democracy in the US is being wiped out by wealthy people

Only because the general population is apathetic. The wealthy could always be kept in check through democracy, however, most people don't care. Right now there is false legitimacy to our goverment. It is controlled by the few, but has the legitimacy t

Google dominates?

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/44772.html
US figures of number of searches done last quarter:
Google: 37.6%
Yahoo: 30.4%
MSN: 15.6%

Leader? Yes. Dominate? I hardly think so.

found here (TMO not interested to sell): http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/44408.html

As for the best option if you were to jump ship, its dependant on your area really. Besides that, Cingular is SIM based so you can bring your phone to them (after its unlocked) and you dont have to sign a contract (unless that deal has changed).

Two years ago I noted in my blog about how Pakistan's entire bandwidth is depended on this one undersea connection (SMW3) and how 'little' it is when compared to what ordinary consumers have in the developed world.

Since then, Pakistan has leased a Hughes HGS-3 satellite and using it for various purposes, including telecommunications. Apparently now, all internet traffic is going through that and other satellite links... and from what I can tell even the country's biggest ISP Brain.NET (known for it's founders' famous DOS virus of the same name) site is taking forever to load. (Damn 6 second lags!)

Obviously, this is bad for the country's outsourcing ambitions, especially with a recent spike in interest in this sector due to rising costs in Bangalore.

Repost due to errors in original. Damn no edit rule!

Two years ago I noted in my blog about how Pakistan's entire bandwidth is depended on this one undersea connection (SMW3) and how 'little' it is when compared to what ordinary consumers have in the developed world.

Since then, Pakistan has leased a Hughes HGS-3 satellite and using it for various purposes, including telecommunications. Apparently now, all internet traffic is going through that and other satellite links... and from what I can tell even the country's biggest ISP Brain.NET (known for it's of the same name) site is taking forever to load. (Damn 6 second lags!)

Obviously, this is bad for the country's outsourcing ambitions, especially with a recent this sector due to rising costs in Bangalore.

The Apple Store uses Amazon's One-Click system under license, so my guess is that any use of one-click by Apple in the iTMS is covered by the terms of that licensing arrangement.

The numbers break down much like this for the whole college of engineering at the university: 3401 Windows, 1188 Macs, 471 Linux, 546 Misc. Unix (Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, Tru64, BSD and QNX). Countries like South Korea, China...have an unhealthy computing monoculture, which hurts them when a single debilitating worm hits their country's network. I always find it interesting when we have foreign visiting scholars who are oblivious to anything but Windows

Most webstats at our university show a 3:1 ratio of Macs:Linux (which are not that accurate in my opinion). The content of ones website will attract more or less OSX/Linux users. e.g. Slashdot will have a disproportionate Linux, OSX, BSD users compared to other websites. Where as Photoreview website will have more Mac/Windows users. Now if the NYTimes, BBC, Amazon gave us their stats I think their sampling would be more representative of what is used in the US or globally. Pulling numbers from a Polish website "may" represent usage in that country, but since I can't read Polish and can't discern the content of the website I'll take those stats with a grain of salt.

Just like when I read this article Scientists: The Latest Mac Converts. This only represents a particular NASA's JPL facility using 90% Macs. I know NOAA uses a lot of Solaris, OSX and Linux machines too. When I see documentaries they often have a Sun or Mac on their desktop and NASA's EdGCM also like using Macs. Even then 16% of usage globally or with in the US of Mac use is clearly not representative of the realities on the ground.

Based on ideas taken from Wikipedia and dodgeball , Cellphedia allows its members to broadcast questions to its community and receive answers, using SMS text messaging on cell phones. Here is how it works, according to " Cellphedia Melds Facts with Mobile Smart Mobs " from E-Commerce Times. First, you register for free on the site and you indicate what are your subjects of interest. If you want to ask a question, it is sent to all the members who expressed interest in this particular subject. Finally, the first answer received by Cellphedia is sent back to you. This means that later answers, which could have been more accurate, are discarded. But this service is still very young and its creator is working hard to improve it. Read more...

Here is a general description of this service, created by Limor Garcia as part of her thesis while at New York University.

Inspired by Wikipedia, the all-volunteer, online community encyclopedia, and Dodgeball, a cell phone-based social networking service, Cellphedia allows its members to broadcast questions to its community and receive answers, all through a mobile phone.

Registration for the service is free at the Cellphedia Web site. After registering, members choose areas that they're interested in -- art, architecture, food, music, etc. A member can ask a question in any area, but the questions go to people who have chosen the area as one that interests them.

Questions and answers are sent and received using SMS on your cell phone. And as I wrote above, only the first answer received by CellPhedia is sent back to the person who asked a question.

Unlike Wikipedia, answers to questions via Cellphedia aren't subjected to community review to assess their accuracy. And while multiple members might answer a question, only the first answer received by the system is forwarded to an inquirer.

Garcia noted that group editing of answers is her next priority for the service. "I'm going to open it up for people to correct answers as well," she said.

Interviewed for this article, Howard Rheingold, from Smart Mobs , said that Cellphedia was another example of the convergence between technologies such as cell phone, computers and Internet.

"The phone gives you instant communication wherever you are," he explained. "And the Internet enables you to connect with people who share an interest. Combining that gives you the ability to create something like Wikipedia with a social network."

"It remains a question about whether she's going to get a sufficient critical mass," he noted. "Wikipedia works because there's a sufficient number of people working on it."

Now, let's look at some examples of questions and answers stored on the Cellphedia central server. As you can see, there are all kinds of requests.

• Short question, short answer
  Q: age new pope
  A: 78
• Short question, long answer
  Q: what's a phreak
  A: a phreak is someone who is highly skilled in the use of phone systems. phreaksare considered a subset of hackers.
• Long question, short answer
  Q: does someone know how to install osx tiger on to an ipod for later installation on an ibook?
  A: not possible
• A question without answer
  Q: where can i find info on time travel?

For another point of view about this service, you can read this article from Wired News, "

Philips has signed an agreement with Microsoft to integrate Windows Media into its chip designs for set-top boxes, PVRs, HDTV, portable media players, cell phones, the works:

Philips, Microsoft Seal Software Deal

John Halliburton, e-commerce marketing manager for Martel Brothers Performance: We're also tweaking our pay-per-click landing pages in an effort to close the sale on the initial visit.

Kevin Beresford, president and CEO of Shari's Berries: I have to dig deeper. I want more data on how many people are buying on first visit. I need to understand why they come back and why they didn't buy the first time.

In the article, the president of the chocolate covered strawberry company [0]couldn't figure out why the "average waiting time for customers to return for a purchase is 15 hours"

Well doi! Like I'm going to order chocolate covered anything in mid-June and not wonder if it's going to be a puddle of goo by the time I pick it up. What he's probably seeing is people waiting to place orders so the delivery lands on a different day (or time) of the week.

I can't count the times I've dropped the shopping cart because the final shipping estimate put delivery while I was on vacation/at a conference/at work.

If I could pick "deliver it after the 17th, but before the 20th" or "next available weekend", that would be great. Especially since I don't want to pay for the privelege of getting it sooner. [1] Sometimes sooner doesn't help. Sometimes expedited shipping is a bug not a feature.

As another poster noted, Amazon recovers gracefully from that kind of thing: you don't lose your stuff. (Remember how Newegg used to have the cart on some kind of wacky timer? It's fixed now.)

R.

[0]"The report certainly piqued my curiosity as it was not what I expected," Beresford told the E-Commerce Times. "I have to dig deeper. I want more data on how many people are buying on first visit. I need to understand why they come back and why they didn't buy the first time." (president and CEO of Shari's Berries) from http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/ebiz/42761.htm l

[1]Nobody really wants to pay extra for any of this. That's why Amazon's "free shipping if you order over n$" thing works so well. And why I hate the stores that use Amazon as a reseller, since those discounts don't seem to apply.

Don't you think that if the soldier wanted the family to have a given email he would have sent it to them?

Not likely.

they seem to be having better and better ideas all the time...

Keyhole has been around for years, Google just recently bought them. I remember using the software about a year ago when it was just Keyhole.

It's not illegal to lose the shareholders money, just that they can be sued for ceertain mistakes that include criminal acts and cost the shareholder.
Here's URLs to stories on three of the biggest shareholder lawsuits of late. In every one, you'll see words like fraud and malfeesance, and specific allegations such as the management being sued 'failed to disclose information legally required by the SEC' (usually in quarters immediately prior to period covered by the suit), or sold off their own shares at the stock's peak, while hiding the fact from the board. That's what gets a company sued with even some chance of success, not doing something legal such as disclosing source code as part of involvement in an open source project.

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/18941.html

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/8340.html
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/e nron/2873746

It's not illegal to lose the shareholders money, just that they can be sued for ceertain mistakes that include criminal acts and cost the shareholder.
Here's URLs to stories on three of the biggest shareholder lawsuits of late. In every one, you'll see words like fraud and malfeesance, and specific allegations such as the management being sued 'failed to disclose information legally required by the SEC' (usually in quarters immediately prior to period covered by the suit), or sold off their own shares at the stock's peak, while hiding the fact from the board. That's what gets a company sued with even some chance of success, not doing something legal such as disclosing source code as part of involvement in an open source project.

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/18941.html

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/8340.html
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/e nron/2873746

You draw your own conclusions as to what that will mean.

Its been demonstrated that although people are willing to put up with microsoft products, they are unwilling to "trust" microsoft. Remember Microsoft Passport? Good idea, not too popular.

Some relevant urls:

http://yahoo.pcworld.com/yahoo/article/0,aid,63244 ,00.asp

http://www.winnetmag.com/Article/ArticleID/22777/2 2777.html

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/18366.html

http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/tech/software/1503 776.html

As the recent article from ecommercetimes.com mentioned on Slashdot states, Microsoft makes the majority of it's profits by selling Windows and MS Office. Even though it would slightly knock their O/S sales, I think it would be a worthwhile venture for Microsoft to contribute to WINE so that Linux users could run MS products under Linux. It would be a big boost to the WINE project and Microsoft would get product sales in return.

Point 1: Apple's support lists the highest in the Consumer Report Index. Below are more example from PC Magazine survey

Desktop survey

Laptop survey

Please note PC Magazine Reader's choice

Point 2: Many companies are looking to Apple Xserve as a competive equivalent. Just as other goverments are looking at Linux as an alternative to Windows.

Apple sells supercomputer sequel
Scientists: The Latest Mac Converts
The "Big Mac" Supercomputer Biz

Your evaluation of Apple is clearly uninformed.

The problem with that analysis is that it's much too kind to the underdog operating systems.

I'm having a hard tiime finding good numbers, but it seems that Apple's market share has generally been in decline over the years, with most sources citing a market share or install base fluttering around three or four percent for the past couple of years, with some wildly optimistic speculation that Apple could hit eight percent by 2008.

In the most recent report I could find, Apple's market share was put at 3.7%, with recent quarter growth of 9.3% -- but this is in a market where Dell alone has a share of 32.9%, and the market overall grew by 10.9% in the USA and 15.5% globally. That is to say, even though Apple is "growing" relative to their own recent performance, they're still not growing at a rate that keeps up with the industry as a whole, and they're especially slipping behind global figures. Their market share trend is going down, even as their health as an individual company appears to be holding steady or improving.

Meanwhile, figures for Linux are harder to determine, but it seems that the past couple of years suggest that Linux has hovered at a steady 1%, so the picture isn't any stronger on that side -- they're doing at best 1/3 of what Apple is doing.

(And yes, market share figures are all voodoo that is about as reliable as hardware benchmarks (that is to say, hardly reliable at all), but still, the discussion doesn't work if you don't at least take a stab at quantifying things. So please, grant me some leeway here :-)

More to the point, it doesn't seem like Google has ever had a problem with catering to just the dominant platform. Consider the Google Toolbar, which has been available for years as an IE only plugin on Windows -- it has never been available for the Mac version of IE, and it has never been offered for other operating systems (they just meekly suggest putting links to Google in your Netscape bookmark bar, but that hardly counts for much). Admittedly, Mozilla has had third-party Google search plugins for a while now, and when Safari came out it had a built-in Google search box, but these were both provided by third-parties, not Google.

The only client-side software Google has offered in the past has been for Windows and IE, and the Picassa acquisition is just a continuation of this pattern.

I played around with Picassa for a little while last night, and it is a pretty slick application; I can see why they wanted it (the UI is quite clever, and they may want to put some of the people who thought it up to work on their existing web tools & webmail). I'd love to see a version of it for OSX (please, please something better than iPhoto), but I'm not convinced that that Google will bother porting it, based on the questionable market share trends and their past client-side offerings.

The problem with that analysis is that it's much too kind to the underdog operating systems.

I'm having a hard tiime finding good numbers, but it seems that Apple's market share has generally been in decline over the years, with most sources citing a market share or install base fluttering around three or four percent for the past couple of years, with some wildly optimistic speculation that Apple could hit eight percent by 2008.

In the most recent report I could find, Apple's market share was put at 3.7%, with recent quarter growth of 9.3% -- but this is in a market where Dell alone has a share of 32.9%, and the market overall grew by 10.9% in the USA and 15.5% globally. That is to say, even though Apple is "growing" relative to their own recent performance, they're still not growing at a rate that keeps up with the industry as a whole, and they're especially slipping behind global figures. Their market share trend is going down, even as their health as an individual company appears to be holding steady or improving.

Meanwhile, figures for Linux are harder to determine, but it seems that the past couple of years suggest that Linux has hovered at a steady 1%, so the picture isn't any stronger on that side -- they're doing at best 1/3 of what Apple is doing.

(And yes, market share figures are all voodoo that is about as reliable as hardware benchmarks (that is to say, hardly reliable at all), but still, the discussion doesn't work if you don't at least take a stab at quantifying things. So please, grant me some leeway here :-)

More to the point, it doesn't seem like Google has ever had a problem with catering to just the dominant platform. Consider the Google Toolbar, which has been available for years as an IE only plugin on Windows -- it has never been available for the Mac version of IE, and it has never been offered for other operating systems (they just meekly suggest putting links to Google in your Netscape bookmark bar, but that hardly counts for much). Admittedly, Mozilla has had third-party Google search plugins for a while now, and when Safari came out it had a built-in Google search box, but these were both provided by third-parties, not Google.

The only client-side software Google has offered in the past has been for Windows and IE, and the Picassa acquisition is just a continuation of this pattern.

I played around with Picassa for a little while last night, and it is a pretty slick application; I can see why they wanted it (the UI is quite clever, and they may want to put some of the people who thought it up to work on their existing web tools & webmail). I'd love to see a version of it for OSX (please, please something better than iPhoto), but I'm not convinced that that Google will bother porting it, based on the questionable market share trends and their past client-side offerings.

I found this article that shows the direct inpact on digital media companies, its details that large fines could mean that a single lawsuit could force companied like Apple out of business

This browser warning page thoroughly trashes MSIE, but every phrase is linked to a news article that uses the exact same verbiage in order to demonstrate that it isn't just anti MS FUD - It's the honest truth. It's designed and maintained for webmasters to deliver to the IE-using visitors to their webpages. You can read the source code for some more information about that. In case you're curious, here's a paste of the text and links that it has - This should prove quite effective with anyone you're trying to convince to stop using IE:

Your web browser - a version of Microsoft Internet Explorer - may not function properly on this website, and could have a large number of problems that allow hackers to hijack it with viruses. These viruses could be used by criminals to secretly take over your computer, download child-pornography, or to commit acts of terrorism and fraud. You may automatically update it now with Microsoft's available patches, however, there is a possibility that a necessary patch will not be available due to Microsoft's somewhat sluggish development schedule.

The US Department of Homeland Security strongly suggests that you stop using Internet Explorer immediately.

There are several standards-compliant web browsers that you may use instead of Internet Explorer. Please install one of them as a replacement.

• Opera [Download Now]
• Mozilla [Download Now]
• Netscape [Download Now]
• K-Meleon [Download Now]

If you suspect that your computer is already being used for criminal activity, it is critical that you seek help from a computer professional in your local area. You may also try one of the free web-based virus scanners that are available.

If you get a chance you can read an article on E-Commerce news. The market for OS X users in engineering, research and defense in growing. Its just a matter of time for the marketing and sales folks to realize that.

First thing I found was http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=6013 So far, so good: Linux has 3.2% of desktop share and passed Apple according to that. Another good read is http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/32706.htm l. No definite answer there. A quote: 'According to The Linux Counter, there are probably somewhere between 2,747,850 and 68,689,500 Linux users worldwide.' Great.

So maybe I can figure Linux %% out from some browser stats... http://www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews/stat.htm gives some info but its stat sources may produce rather biased results (imo). Since Google is Google is Google I trust it. So here's what I see: http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html Can't be Linux is only 1%... lets look for something else.

Next thing I found thecounter.com - a web util which lets you add counter to your pages, they also publish stats from their hits. If you want to take 2 minutes and compare 2004 march results (http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2004/March/browse r.php) and eg 2003 january results (http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2003/January/brow ser.php) then you may see strange things there: linux users went down from some 0.42% to 0.29%.

I give up here. Now before you mark me as flamebait - I know there are some possible explanations like faking UA to prettend windoze. However I wonder what is reality: 3.2%(OSnews estimate) or 1%-0.28%(Google+some webcounter log data). That would be some 3/4 linux users faking UA.

Excerpt from article posted to /. a few years ago:

Here's a brief trivia quiz for would-be corporate accountants. How much federal income tax did Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), the supreme ruler of the known software universe, and Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO), second only to General Electric as the most valuable company in the U.S., pay this past year?

Combined or separately, the answer is zilch, nada and not a cent.

I think that this whole system of needless complications and obscurity to hide kickbacks and tax breaks and influence behaviour is nearly as bad as one done in secret.

But in this case, Forbes published the correct and balanced information and it is Slashdot that grossly mischaracterized the events to the detriment of Linux.

This was not a balanced or fair or accurate article. Here is my paragraph by paragraph analysis why. You should be ashamed to support this kind of yellow journalism. It is pathetic by any standard.

Quotes from article: Computer Associates International Inc. (nyse: CA - news - people) said on Monday it has licensed the freely available Linux operating system software from SCO -- a move that could become key legal ammunition for the SCO Group Inc.

Comment: Seems incorrect to me right off the bat. CA denied buying an IP license from SCO, much less a license for 'Linux'.

Quotes from article:SCO Group, which claims ownership over parts of Linux, is suing distributors and users of the software system in what has become a highly contentious legal battle among technology makers, and technology lawyers said each licensee SCO signs helps bolster its case.

Comment: what technology lawyers? Where are these mythical creatures? Are they the SCO laywers or the M$ lawyers. It doesn't sound like Eben Moglen said this?

Quotes from article:One of the world's largest software sellers, Computer Associates has championed an industry coalition supporting the open and free use of Linux.

Comment: I am not sure 'champion' is a proper discription of CA, it inflates CA's contribution. I don't see how they are in any way at the core of what is going on with Linux at the same level as say a Redhat.

Quotes from article:While Computer Associates confirmed it agreed to license the software last August, it took pains on Monday to distance itself from SCO, saying it had signed the licenses as part of a confidential legal settlement with a third party.

Comment: The software in question was Unixware, not Linux, that was licensed. This 2 second Google search turned up these stories which directly refutes the Forbes/Reuters story, take a look here. and here

Quotes from article:"(SCO) is grasping at straws to purport CA as a SCO supporter," Computer Associates said in a statement. "CA stands in stark disagreement with SCO's tactics, which are intended to intimidate and threaten customers."

Comment: A partial quote which fails to show the full CA position which is much more broadly a denial of SCO's claim.

Quotes from article:SCO has used the courts aggressively to assert ownership positions in Linux as well as software called Unix, whose code, SCO maintains, was utilized in the making of Linux.

Comment: SCO has not claimed to own any Linux code. They are in a contract dispute with IBM. The other lawsuits are with former SCO customers and virtually nothing is known about the substance of those charges.

Quotes from article:The SCO Group last week expanded its legal battle over Linux by suing AutoZone Inc. and DaimlerChrysler AG

Comment: SCO has certainly stepped up their legal attacks.

Quotes from article:Intellectual property, or IP, experts said CA's license could help convince a jury that SCO has a justified claim on Linux.

Comment: What intelectual property lawyer says that? Does he have a name? David Bois pwerhaps? Or is the aurthor of the article an expert on this?

Quotes from article:"Generally, if an IP holder is able to demonstrate that others in the industry have taken a license, thereby respecting the IP holder's claims, that can be used as evidence that is persuasive to a jury," said Brian Ferguson, a partner in a Washington, D.C. law firm that handles IP cases. Ferguson has no stake in the SCO case.

Comment: Who is Brian Fergeson? WTF? That is a 2 bit quo

all that was old is new again. there was no such thing as a new economy, just repackaged hype. See here Economists have predicted this behaviour repeatedly.

In the ECommerce Times coverage by Elizabeth Millard, Yankee Group Dana Gardner was quoted as saying...

With continued insults being hurled in formal statements and Web site postings, SCO will move forward with its trial preparations as the target of much ire from the Linux community and others, Gardner noted.

"There's a lot of negative sentiment toward the company," he said. "You see it in everything from published remarks to the recent denial-of-service attack. But they're continuing to be resolute.
...

Almost, but not quite, connecting "the Linux community" with the DoS.

Very slippery.

<grrr>

I'd think that if the government of any country is having enough of a problem with fake money they should move to digital money.

Yeah, really... I've been paying off all my debts in Flooz instead of cash for years now.

Now let's change a couple words of your post and see what we get, shall we?

I'd think that if the government of any country is having enough of a problem with fake votes they should move to digital elections.

Microsoft Security. What's it all about? Is it good, or it is whack?

I'd have to say whack. As is this report. Crowing about the lack of reported vulnerabilities means nothing when you have paid security firms not to report vulnerabilities! Of COURSE the vulnerabilities reported have decreased. But have the real vulnerabilities decreased? Thanks to Microsoft, we will never know.

Without subjecting themselves to the same review other operating systems undergo, they have no cause to crow about a perceived dearth of vulnerabilities, especially since many previously reported vulnerabilities persist and will not be patched (but are not included in this report since they are not newly reported).

There are plenty of alternatives to Oracle as both a DB and an ERP. As a matter of fact, on the DB side, many customers realize this as Oracle's marketshare is still dropping, which you can find here and here.

SAP is still crowned victorious in the ERP solutions market. And quite frankly, DB2 and SQL Server are much easier to admin than Oracle, both with an extremely rich set of features, with SQL Server beating Oracle in benckmarks for some time now (until the recent release of 10g where Oracle beats SQL Server in the cluster market) seen here. Unfortunately for IBM, DB2 doesn't rank very well in either clustered or non-clustered.

Then there's the issue of licensing....

Sorry for replying to myself (I unchecked the +1) but here's a different article.. this is the one I was looking for when I found the other.

S

Don't forget that Google also sells technology. In fact, that business is growing for them.

So your assertion that widespread filesharing would allow people to sample more music, and subsequently buy more music is the complete and utter opposite of what is actually happening!

I said nothing of the sort! I said there's no proof illegal file sharing is responsible for the decline in music sales. I also said there were other factors at work that likely have a larger and more verifiable affect on music sales than file sharing.

I am aware of studies purporting to demonstrate file sharing increases music sales. For example, Report: File Sharing Boosts Music Sales from July 21, 2000, which references a Jupiter Communications report with such quotes as "Napster usage is one of the strongest determinants of increased music buying," and "the SoundScan study shows that music sales dropped off before Napster launched and does not take into account the shift from brick-and-mortar music stores to online CD sales." What the??!!?? That kinda supports what I was saying. Good thing I can link to a supporting reference.

And then there is CD sales fall despite drop in downloads from October 07, 2003. Huh? The fight against file sharing was supposed to help music sales. But if less downloads doesn't equal more sales, maybe more downloads doesn't equal less sales. My mind has been blown!

News.news.com.com has Study: File sharing boosts music sales from May 3, 2002 which has numbers from different sources supporting both sides. Maybe the issue isn't as clear as more download==less sales. Seems there isn't much solid support for your assertions or your gratuitous use of ALL CAPS and Bold and BOLD ALL CAPS. (I'm kidding with you now. Can you tell?)

Here's the part where I do something you'll never see from the jokers at the RIAA...admit I was wrong. I did a little more research, and it seems my numbers on sales for the last few years where a little off.

Of course, that does not change the framework of the discussion or go to refute any of the heart of my comment. Correlation does not prove causation. File sharing on the internet started to get big about 3 years ago. Music sales started to drop about 3 years ago. The economy went into the tank about 3 years ago. The stock market hit a peak and started a downward spiral about 3 years ago. My neice was born about 3 years ago. A lot of thinks happened about 3 years ago. That does not show any cause-and-effect.

I stand by my claim, there is no proof, no evidence file sharing is responsible for the drop in music sales. I'm not saying that isn't the case; I'm saying the RIAA hasn't proved it is the case.

But wait! Perhaps I was wrong, but not in the way you suppose. RIAA piracy arguments, figures just don't add up from April 20, 2003 has a couple things to say on the issue. It seems the SoundScan numbers for music sales dropped for the first time in 2001. (SoundScan started tracking sales in 1991.) But the RIAA numbers show sales dropped in 1997. What gives? Well, SoundScan does not poll all retails and sources of legal music trade. The RIAA does not represent all artists and music publishers. So I guess the question is moot. Before we can discuss causes for a drop in music sales, we'd have to establish such a drop has indeed happened. Not only are the various industry groups highly suspect as dependable sources of information, but they don't agree with each other.

The sales figures for 2002 from SoundScan and RIAA differ by 20%. The drop in music sales was less than 10%. It's noise. It's reporting error. The pro-file sharing lobby is playing nice by accepting the premise that music sales have gone down. I a

Telling someone they are wrong without saying why makes you look ummm stupid - lookie here: Here is where Verio is bigger than Global - here and 883 other google related articles which I won't subject all of ./ to talks about when Clinton signed off on NTT buying them.

For example consider the following question about minimum credit card charges. The retailer says that she pays Visa 3 percent of charges PLUS A FLAT 30 CENT FEE PER TRANSACTION. That's why Visa can get away with allowing one cent charges, because in fact the merchant still pays them the 30 cents (and loses 29 cents of course).

And it's not like 30 cents is what it costs Visa. It probably costs them much more than that per transaction. But they make enough money on the percentage of $1000 transactions that they can charge only 30 cents for a very small one. With micropayment systems, however, they have no big transactions to help cover the cost of the small ones.

So my argument is that micropayments can't work because of the fixed overhead. BUT, one thing is that when some people talk about micropayments they can mean some pretty big amounts. I saw one article that defined a "micropayment" as anything under $2.50. Come on, you can buy lots of actual real useful goods for $2.50 today. If you go to a store and buy a magazine for $2.50 is that a "micropayment"? I think not.

So I think there should be some discussion over the boundary line for micropayments.

To me micropayments are so small that you don't even think about them individually, and they are therefore charged a lot -- for example paying something each time you view a page on a site. The per-second charges on cell phones are like that (per-SECOND I said, that is, just pennies at a time) -- nobody really worries about talking for an extra second or not. Personally I would say the micropayment cutoff should be around one cent, certainly under five cents, but that's just me.

- adam

As of April 21, 2000, some commercial Web sites will be required to obtain parental consent before collecting, using, or disclosing personal information from children under the age of 13. The FTC called the rule "a definitive move" that "puts parents in control over the information collected from their children online."

So when did this parent give the P2P people the right to disclose the personal informaion about her child to the RIAA?
Didn't the RIAA break the law by collecting this information?
Another link about this law.

Could you provide links to substantiate your claims of increased music sales linked to P2P piracy? Thanks.

Here's a start

More on the Ipso-Reid study covered here. The original study isn't available through their website, unless you look a lot harder than I did.

Here's more on the Jupiter study

Still more

Liebowitz writes about it, but his only purpose was to conclude that filesharing doesn't hurt the music business.

ZDNet reports on what is probably the same Jupiter study

This article sits right in the middle of the issue, but certainly hints at an Odyssey study supporting my point.

Here's a study about studies

This came out during the height of the Metallica fight against Napster

You can google for more if you're not satisfied with these. :)

It shouldn't be a Caldera logo anymore anyway. I think a picture of someone shooting themself in the foot is much more apropos :-)

It shouldn't be a Caldera logo anymore anyway. I think a picture of someone shooting themself in the foot is much more apropos :-)

It shouldn't be a Caldera logo anymore anyway. I think a picture of someone shooting themself in the foot is much more apropos :-)

Here. Nuff Said.

Remember back in 1999? It was MSN who was complaining that AOL wouldn't play nicely with them. Now MS throws their IM-bot in with windows, and makes it frustrating to remove if installing Outlook, and then closes the door.

But don't think AOL is now held irresponsible in this battle. A few months ago, AOL asked the FCC if it could break the rules. It seems yesterday, AOL announced it would go ahead and break the rules.

It sounds like there needs to be a group "time-out". Everybody goes to their corner and sits for 5 minutes.

hold it right there, bud.

MSFT had never paid a dividend until this year. and even then, it was a miniscule fraction of their actual profits, despite the accounting-foo.

jon

I like the guy sending monopoly money for his SCO license. For online purchases, one should probably try Flooz...

Here's a short piece about the founding of this company... written over 2 years ago. I'll be surprised if this company ever gets out of the "preparing to launch" phase...