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If you intend to submit your dissertation to any science journals you may want to re-evaluate the editor you use.
I think this was in a previous Slashdot posting a while ago... Per the article, Saving the doc in an older format will not help, the new equation editor format is incompatable with many submission systems.

Word 2007 documents rejected by leading science journals:
http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/12608/1023/

Then how is it supported?

They have deals with search engines, like Google and Yahoo, to get placement as the default engines in the toolbar, in Speed Dial, and in Opera Mini. (I think these days it's Yahoo in all 3.) Same kind of deal that Firefox has with Google, really.

Plus there are the versions for devices (Nintendo DS, etc.), which they still charge for, either directly or through licensing deals with device manufacturers and mobile carriers. So they pull in revenue from that.

This article is a year out of date, but still informative: Opera making big profits from free software.

Another '2-page' article (you're welcome for the ad revenue, mate)

So here's the print version
http://www.itwire.com.au/index2.php?option=com_con tent&task=view&id=13525&pop=1&page=0&Itemid=1090

I'm not sure what "you'll won't" is supposed to mean.. in "You'll won't have much success in convincing them - play has to go in one direction for them to move forward". Must be Aussie. Then again, the article is incoherent overall.
I'm not entirely sure what the article is about;

is it about the misunderstandings of the GPLv3?
If so - then why doesn't it list and address these misunderstandings? He links to a talk by Moglen in the end and recommends listening to it - but doesn't say why beyond saying that Moglen is a demi-god and by jove you should listen to him.

is it about the purported FUD being spread by other 'tech authors'?
If so - then why doesn't it give examples of this FUD?

is it about the reasonings behind this purported FUD-spreading - namely that the tech authors feel that they would become less relevant if GPLv3 were to become a 'success' in that it would slow adoption of the GPLv3 (huh?) ?
if so - then maybe he could explain -why- he thinks those 'tech authors' are using these reasonings, and how they are flawed in them?

The whole article reads like a bad blog posting.

But goob job on Slashdot for making it front-page material.. must be that 'GPLv3' keyword.

"Journals (Science [biggest journal, of the America Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)], and Nature) have prohibited taking OOXML documents, because they do not correspond to existing standards such as MathML and SVG and are not backwards compatible to Word 2003 and previous. Compatibility packs do not even help.[2][3] As Microsoft will stop selling Word 2003 by July 1, 2007[4], this is a very bad precedent for future-proofing documents.

1] http://www.sciencemag.org/about/authors/prep/docx. dtl "Because of changes Microsoft has made in its recent Word release that are incompatible with our internal workflow, which was built around previous versions of the software, Science cannot at present accept any files in the new .docx format produced through Microsoft Word 2007, either for initial submission or for revision. Users of this release of Word should convert these files to a format compatible with Word 2003 or Word for Macintosh 2004 (or, for initial submission, to a PDF file) before submitting to Science"

"Because of changes Microsoft has made in its recent Word release that are incompatible with our internal workflow, which was built around previous versions of the software, Science cannot at present accept any files in the new .docx format produced through Microsoft Word 2007, either for initial submission or for revision."

"Users of Word 2007 should also be aware that equations created with the default equation editor included in Microsoft Word 2007 will be unacceptable in revision, even if the file is converted to a format compatible with earlier versions of Word; this is because conversion will render equations as graphics and prevent electronic printing of equations, and because the default equation editor packaged with Word 2007 -- for reasons that, quite frankly, utterly baffle us -- was not designed to be compatible with MathML."

[3]http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/04/math-markup -marked-down.html "Math markup marked down"
        http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/12608/1023/
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/archives/20 07/06/04/scientists_hold_off_on_that_upgrade_to_of fice_2007.html

Nature's analysis of OOXML:
"We currently cannot accept files saved in Microsoft Office 2007 formats. Equations and special characters (for example, Greek letters) cannot be edited and are incompatible with Nature's own editing and typesetting programs"

[4] http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=519 "July 1: No more Office 2003 for OEMs" by Mary Jo Foley"

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/business_ap plications/the_pointless_office_converter_delay.ht ml "The Pointless Office Converter Delay"

"Two important Microsoft topics--interoperability and Office file formats--intersect on the Mac desktop, and they brutally cross like swords.

Two weeks ago, Microsoft broke a promise made in December: The spring beta release of OOXML (Office Open XML) converters for Mac Office. "

Microsoft pushing XPS over PDF

A 20% failure rate of course would not have gone by unnoticed and MS would certainly not have been able to dispute it.

You might be interested in this article: "According to some reports Xbox 360's continue to experience hardware issues. A recent query put to an Australian game retailer puts the figure at a 30% return rate."

However, reading further into the article it isn't very credibly sourced.

We're seeing too much of that on Slashdot these days, not just the astroturfers posting their messages, but endless bombardment of MS-oriented slashvertisements in place of real articles. Sometimes it's several content-free articles per day apparently posted just to keep MS in the headlines. How about easing up on that and getting back to technology?

None of the negative coverage is getting through, such as a 30% return rate for the Palladium testbed, so that suggests that Slashdot is a participant (willing or unwilling) in spreading that movement's marketing churn.

A moratorium on MS churn, whether slashvertisements or otherwise, even one day a week or one week a month would do wonders to improve Slashdot. Let's leave political parties like MS on the sideline and re-focus on technology.

For those that missed Part 1 of this two-part article, 7-Zip is the #5 most downloaded program this week on SourceForge.

http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/13085/53/

Oh, there it is! Phew. I stand with my faith in the basic universal ugliness of sites fully restored.

Telstra are building their own 1.2Tbps cable to Hawaii, Pipenetworks are building a 640Mbps cable to Guam, and Southern Cross are upgrading their cables from 240Gbps to 1.2Tbps.

So things are actually looking good.

According to this article, Kodak have added four new clear cells to the existing four cell Bayer pattern. Somehow this resolves to a 4x4 repeat pattern.

Apple has beaten the world's most popular desktop operating system and the world's most popular Unixalike to the punch with multi-platform support.

That has to be the funniest line in the whole thing. Apple, by any imaginable explanation, is dead last with "multi-platform support", especially if you're considering 64 bit to be multi-platform. For one, you only talk about PPC, x86, x64 and SPARC. Linux and *BSD run on literally dozens more architectures and have for many years (decades?). Windows went 64 bit years ago as well. Only in the past 1.5 years can you even remotely consider apple to be multi-platform.

... a user can use the same DVD to install Mac OS X on a ...

Now I'm not sure if your argument is multi-platform support or fewest disks to install. Either way, apple is still the last one to the table. Vista's 6 versions, depending on which of the numerous methods you acquire the disk from (MSDN, open licensing, OEM, retail, etc.) can all be installed from a single disk with the version being chosen upon installation and verified by the key that's entered. For IT shops, it's easy to acquire a disk that contains all 12 versions of Vista (6 versions on both 32 and 64 bit) on one DVD, again with the key verifying which was installed. This is also possible with Windows XP; you can install Home or Professional edition, OEM or Retail versions from the same disk and have been able to since '01 or '02. Also on Ubuntu, the alternate install CD installs all of the following: x86, x64, SPARC, PPC, Sony PS3. So now both your multi-platform support and fewest disks arguments are destroyed. Now let's move on...

It even goes so far as to allow 64-bit apps without a 32-bit binary to run in 32-bit mode transparently, which is unprecedented thus far.

Because for Windows and Linux, it's been not needed thus far. Again, see above - Windows and Linux have been using 64 bit processors for over 4 years now. People who choose to run 64 bit apps don't have any need to run them on old busted 32 bit machines - every PC that can be considered even remotely current has a 64 bit processor. That's not true with apple, being so late to join the party, so they have to provide some way to support their previous architecture.

So while you can download one version of Ubuntu for both 32- and 64-bit x86, if you want to run 32-bit programs on a 64-bit system you have to download a compatibility layer, check library dependencies, and compile it yourself.

OK, now you've singled out Ubuntu. That's pretty much how Linux works, you install what you need when you need it. You're trying to praise apple for pre-loading a possibly unneeded 32 bit compatibility layer. The 32-bit compatibility layer in Linux is easy enough to install. In many distributions it can be installed during initial system installation. On other 64 bit distributions it's included by default (same as apple). And of course Windows does, and has been doing for years, exactly what apple is going to do, maybe, 5 months from now. Good job.

At most, when counting Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server as two different "versions" of the operating system, you still have only to choose one and are then done with it.

So, what you're saying is that apple offers very little choice in one's ability to buy what they need and customize a system. <car-analogy>Buying a mac is like buying a Ford but you can only pick between a Ford car and a F

given that ipod has sold 100 million -- they have a long way to catch up...

j

These machines also come with dedicated video cards, as the integrated video isn't supported very well by Ubuntu. So you are STARTING OUT with a better base model than the Windows base model. (Which also explains why the Linux laptop is more expensive than the Windows one.)

This is not FUD. APC in this case stands for Australian Personal Computing. Here is a link to a story about Vista prices in Australia http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/6154/53/

It would have been much more helpful if you'd linked it in your post rather than just complaining.

Linky

1.) Apparently, the Earth magnetic field has decreased by 10% in the last 150 years. I'm an electrical engineer and during my studies in particle physics, I learned that a particles velocity can be affected by magnetic fields. I believe it's possible that more of the Sun's radiation is penetrating the Earth's magnetosphere due to it being weaker. If more radiation hits the Earth, shouldn't that also increase the overall temperature of the Earth and can global warming be attributed to this?

Another theory postulates that cosmic rays are at least partly responsible for cloud formation. When the solar wind picks up, inbound cosmic rays are deflected away from us, fewer clouds form, and things get warmer. When solar output falls off, more cosmic rays get through, more clouds form, and things get cooler. "Evidence from ice cores show this [lower solar activity, high cosmic rays, and lower temperatures] happening long into the past. We have the highest solar activity we have had in at least 1,000 years."

Was the labotomy painful?

Perhaps you'd care to read an article on how Vista is less intuitive than previous versions? Perhaps a simple Google search would sway your opinion on Vista being slow? What about one of the countless articles on the net advising that Office 2007 has no added value, just a steep learning curve?

No? Didn't think so.

The reason, Mr Shill (and I hope you're getting paid for this), all these companies are refusing to upgrade is that all this won't actually give them any greater functionality, or improve their workflow (due to the learning curve). Especially when you take into consideration how much this software costs! Even considering the heavy discounts these organisations will doubtless get, Microsoft should not expect money for nothing.

OpenOffice might be bloated, but at least it uses a file format that's open and supported by many other office suites. Unlike that binary bilge Microsoft keep peddling and trying to force through standards agencies. My hope is that the DOT realise that before they get labotomised and start speaking like Microsoft drones: 'in order to leverage interoperable cross-markets, we're standardising on Microsoft Bullshit Ultimate Shill Server Lazy-Wanking-Bastards Edition'.

Google has never claimed that Google Docs was an office replacement--they've always said it was meant to supplement traditional productivity suites.

You must've missed the Google manager: Google Apps replaced Microsoft Office at 100,000 businesses article. Yes, the Google rep uses a political "it's a supplement, not a replacement" line, but he also says, "We have hundreds of thousands of small to medium businesses that have already...switched their entire infrastructure over to Google Apps." Whether or not they are claiming Office-replacement as a goal, they certainly are touting it as a result.

The summary and the article are pretty misleading (here's a better article: http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/9806/1066/).

What John Glenn is actually saying is that the ISS should be getting more money so that it can fulfill its purpose and reach its true potential. There's been no follow-up with Glenn, but I'd imagine what he's really saying is that instead of cutting the ISS's budget to pay for manned missions to the Moon and Mars, how about increasing NASA's budget so it can make the ISS successful and also go to the moon?

I worked at a Gamestop as an Assistant Manager for the holiday season .. (and both the Wii and PS3 launches), this is what people bought:

1. Wiis, if we had them (tended to run out about an hour after the UPS guy arrived, sometimes less)
2. PS3s, until the Wii released.
3. Xbox 360s by the TON (average 3-4 a day), and out of those, 75% went out the door with a copy of Gears.

"around 2m Xbox 360s were sold between the start of November 2006 and Christmas Day." and Gears of War, ... with shipments of more than 2 million copies in six weeks leading Microsoft to proclaim it the "fast-selling next-generation console game" to date"

Yea .. I can see your point. Really.

Mars Express scientists think Mars might have plenty of water underground.

I'm sure they'll fix the article soon. But tossing the quoted section into a news.google search provides this.

A different report claims the opposite:

"The Forrester report which claimed iTunes sales were dropping off has been disputed by a ComScore report that says the opposite."
http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/8099/52/

If Sony doesn't get their act together and bring HD-DVD down to a reasonable price (in all respects), then they're going to run massive risk to standards like China's EVD. Now only will they lose the licensing in the Chinese market but EVD has no copyright protection scheme--which means it's buy and burn. I think that in China, a different strategy on HD-DVD is in order although with the way Sony runs its business, I wonder if China is even a viable market at all to Sony.

Well, CNN had reported that Nintendo had shipped 2 million Wii units which is double expected if I remember correctly. Reportedly, The Wii is sold out everywhere. I can certainly attest to this fact. I tried 8 different stores in an 1 hour 30 min driving radius and failed at every turn. The closest I got was at my third try. A Toy 'R Us which I stood in line 90 minutes only to have them run out of tickets 5 people ahead of me...I can't find any solid game sales numbers, but the shelves have been pretty bare and Zelda's missing from most online retailers.

Sony's launch in Japan sold 88,400 units but only 0.98 games per machine...

Sony's US launch doesn't appear to have hit the intended 400,000 units. One group estimates a lowly 100,000 while others guess at closer to 150,000 to 200,000 neither of which are more than half the hoped shipping amount. We can safly say that all of them sold, but who knows how many games are being sold?

While the US launch certainly puts Nintendo in a good position this holiday season, the PS3 has the head start in Japan, since the Wii doesn't launch until December 2nd and even then, it'll only be 400,000 units. Personally, I can't wait to hear when the second US shipments start rolling in...

You know, there was another console launched this weekend.

It's even selling out, in spite of its very healthy retail supply (10x the number of units as PS3).

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2006/11/20/tech -wii.html
http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/7278/52/

Isn't Slashdot going to mention it?

"It also works with any of the new 3D televisions from Sharp, Panasonic, LG, Samsung and others, where you don't need any glasses at all."

So says this article..

http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/7242/52/1/0/

Also the website you mention is actually from "a local Australian distributor", not the company making this thing which is apparently based in silicon valley.

This is fake, and here is why: The same author wrote an article at iTWire. http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/7242/52/ Where he refernced: Vortex Home Entertainment System (as the system) and http://www.fountainconsulting.com/products.htm (as the company) The list of Exhibitors from the egamesexpo in australia: http://blog.egamesexpo.com.au/static.php?page=exhi bitors Hmm... not listed as an Exhibitor

If this actually does pan out that would be very cool. I have my doubts, however it does seem to be reputable. For people who can't see it here, http://www.itwire.com.au/index2.php?option=com_con tent&do_pdf=1&id=7242, is a link to a PDF version of the text. I'm curious as to whether or not laptops will be able to use this technology. Pretty sure it's no but I can always hope they'll make something available...

http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/7242/52/1/0/

True, it is not native quad core. However AMD's first venture into quad-core will not be native either. In an effort to catch up to Intel, they will also be releasing a quad-core processor thats "taped together" as Intel's is.

I recently met with an Intel rep and they are very much pushing their new core architecture. Quad-core this year, Octo-core next.. Core count is the next clock speed. However one of it matters until the software manufacturers can take advantage of it, and very few server applications can at this point, let alone games.

Reference: http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/7120/53/

The days of that happening may be limited. MS has just announced the pricing of Vista in Australia ITWire. Vista Ultimate will cost us AUD$751, while Office 2007's equivalent looks like retailing at about AUD$1,100.

That means a fully-loaded home/office machine could attract a Microsoft tax of close to AUD$2,000.

It's possible to build the hardware component of a midrange machine for AUD$6-700, so the monopoly rent for Win/Office is starting to look pretty scary. Obviously most people will be getting their software OEM, but seeing those sticker prices on the retail packs is going to make your average shopper think twice about what that beige box might cost them without the predatory pricing.

"Frankly, I've never had a problem with Windows security, because I use things like permissions and limited user accounts on my home computers as well as in the office"

Perhaps you'de like to impart your knowlege to the people who suffered yet another zero day exploit.

"If you're handing out admin privileges to everyone that touches your box, you're doing something wrong from the get-go. You wouldn't do that on Linux and you shouldn't do it on Windows either"

You don't need to do it on Linux. A locked down Windows is unusable.

'Microsoft defaults to that on XP Home edition and such because its too confusing for your "average" user otherwise'

Nonsence, since when is security confusing. MS defaults to that because Windows is unusable otherwise.

'For those people, disabling UAC may as well be "constructing a rocket to fly to space"'

Since when do you need the brains of a rocket scientist to safely browse and type a letter.

"I'm not sure I agree with you about Windows security system. It isn't bad...it should just have different distros for different users."

translation: Windows security isn't bad it's only because it doesn't come in different distros.

"You'd be surprised how many people don't want to mess with security at all"

You'd be suprised how many people don't want to mess with the brakes at all.

"the real problem with Windows isn't even Windows, its the software developers"

QUÉ !

"Applications should be capable of running once you copy the folders...unfortunately, few in the Windows world are that simple to deploy."

That used to be the case until his billness invented the registry to thwart piracy and prevent cloning of the Windows API keeping it a 'moving target' as he put it.

And here's the relevant Google blog post: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/adobe-and-g oogle-team-up-for-toolbar.html Related, from ITWire: http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/4721/53/ (troll my hole.)

http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/4515/945/

Apple had been offering and still continues to offer tech support from another third party BPO provider, TransWorks based here in Bangalore.

But sources claim that this has nothing to do with the kind of quality of service that the India tech support would offer. "I think it has more to do with financial feasibility of the centre rather than the quality of service. You have to keep in mind that no work had started - basically it was just mid-level support staff that had been hired apart from Kharbanda who was expected to grow this the Dell way."

http://www.ciol.com/content/search/showarticle1.as p?artid=84773

Many of the components used in the company's products are, in fact, produced by third-party vendors in Taiwan, China, Japan, Korea, and Singapore. Most of the company's portable products including MacBook Pro, iBooks, and iPods are manufactured by third-party vendors in China. "It makes sense for the company to invest and expand in these regions, instead of having a new facility in India," say analysts.

http://services.silicon.com/offshoring/0,380000487 7,39157100,00.htm
The company stressed it isn't cutting any US jobs, noting that its ranks are growing both in the United States and overall. The Apple representative said: "Our call centres in Austin and Sacramento also continue to grow."

Moaners can read this too :
http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/2648?sourc e=NLT_MGT&nlid=23

In a bizarre twist to the offshoring craze, The Boston Globe reports that some Indian high-tech companies that accept "offshoring" work from American companies are turning around and offshoring some of that work back to Americans. According to the May 30 story, INDIA TECH FIRMS SEEK US TALENT IN OFFSHORING TWIST, Tata Consultancy Services of Bangalore can't find enough workers in India to fill the 30,500 positions it needs to hire for this year so it plans to hire talent abroad, including 1,000 recruits in America. Some 9,500 positions out of 62,000 at Tata are Americans, according to the story.

The company's R&D in Australia started in late 2004 when Google acquired Where 2 Technologies, a mapping company founded by Rasmussen, his brother and two Australian friends.

"We formed about half of the team that put out Google Maps about a year ago and once we had done that we started lobbying to have a fully-fledged engineering centre in Sydney, Rasmussen said.

"The Sydney engineers still form a very significant part of the team that is working on Google Maps and I think that fact is going to make Google Australia an extremely attractive place for the top programmers and computer scientists to seek employment.(")

You do realize that Apple can not sign artists directly without starting a music company under a different name. Their current agreement with Apple Corp states that they cannot, as I'm sure you will recall Apple Corp already thinks Apple Computer is treading on their turf. If they start signing artists they will be blatantly doing it. I personally think it is an amazing idea, and one that will eventually happen but it won't be happening under the Apple Computer name. I can't believe more big artists haven't just cut off the RIAA and started their own record labels, the numbers are rising and the RIAA really has be realizing that their business model is a dying one.

According to the article here: http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/4114/53/
Google actual pays for the privilege to be the defaut search for Firefox and Opera.

"if you get a new product from Microsoft, you have a predictable experience of that printer being able to print out of it".

"for the most part the glitches result from problems with some Hewlett-Packard software products, including any HP DeskJet printer that includes a card reader, HP scanners, some HP CD-DVD players/burners, and HP cameras".