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To be fair, the .NET SDK itself is 100% free, as are the Express editions: http://www.microsoft.com/express/Downloads/
They also provide XNA for free, and it looks like Windows Phone 7 tools will be free as well.

It's not like one *has* to pay for Microsoft's developer stack. They are just charging you for the premium features of their IDE.

at least Ballmer doesn't tell me I can't compile my code without forking him $100/yr

Of course, staying up to date with Visual Studio is going to cost you significantly more than that (unless you use the same version for 8 years).

The obvious fact is, that Lord Bill's nightmare came true. He was afraid that web browser would make the operating system irrelevant, and that's exactly what happened. Think about it. When was the last time someone said, "Hey check this out! Go download this application..." Almost never. All the really exciting is happening on the web. That's because the web has matured to the point that developers are leveraging Internet scale data. Not only that, but web based apps are preferred by users because they work everywhere. I still use a standalone application for email, but I'm in the minority. This hasn't just made Microsoft unhip, but frankly irrelevant. As I told a friend of mine who said how he despised Microsoft, "Isn't hating Microsoft, a bit like still hating Prussia?" What does Microsoft have that's relevant? Sure they still have their Windows and Office, but that software is commodified. I can access the web with any OS, so Windows simply doesn't matter. With interoperability. no one really needs Office. For me, Apple's Pages and Numbers work pretty well, although I still prefer Excel for its ability to allow me to write custom functions (albeit in VB).

Now here's the irony, Microsoft Research is supercool. They do all sorts of groundbreaking stuff. Photosynth, Surface, along with work in collaboration and personal information management, just to name a few areas. MSR is great, and there really aren't that many places that do that work, let alone at with the both the breadth and depth of MSR. Microsoft doesn't really have too many peers in that respect, and that makes Microsoft very hip. Of course, MSR isn't for everyone, but for those people that like to do research, its great place to work.

Disclosure of vulnerabilities is the only way to get them fixed.

Surely the thousands of other fixed bugs proves that this is statement wrong.

On top of that, how does a "security researcher" validate their claims of finding bugs if they don't release them?

Because software companies want to encourage people to report security bugs to them so they can get fixed before being exploited. It is in Microsoft's interest to acknowledge the security professionals who report the bugs. They also acknowledge the third parties who assist in solving bugs too.

If a researcher gives a week/2 week notice, then releases their information -- as far as I'm concerned their clear

But what if Microsoft are currently spending their time fixing a major security hole that is currently being exploited. Isn't it reasonable for them to prioritise that over some newly discovered bug that nobody knows about just because some hacker wants their 15 minutes of fame immediately?

If someone notices a problem in Microsoft's {insert function here} code, perhaps {Another company} with similar code has the same vulnerability, and would benefit from the knowledge?

It is far more likely that it will be Microsoft that finds similar code with the same vulnerability in other products which would need to be fixed by the same bug fix. There is a reason why it can take more than a week to find and fix a bug.

for those still running IIS5
get URLScan (if you haven't already)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/cc242650.aspx

and add this to your urlscan.ini file in the [DenyUrlSequences] section
INDEX_ALLOCATION

In the case of IE, you can let the browser do the checking itself. (And yes, parsing comments is a very good contender for the most stupid thing ever.)

It's not for the lack of trying from Microsoft's side, I can tell you that. Certification requirements for those "Designed for Windows" stickers you see on the boxes for some software cover all those things - properly running under non-admin, elevating only for things that actually require elevation, and a bunch of other common sense technical requirements such as not trying to catch & swallow segfaults (believe it or not, some try...). IIRC, this was the case since "Designed for Windows XP". Since Vista/7, running correctly on x64 is also a must for certification.

It helped a lot (though releasing Vista probably helped even more), but, as you rightly note, we still aren't fully there yet.

Anyway... I suggest looking at the Windows logo requirements, and if it sounds like what you'd expect from well-written Windows software, you should pay attention to that sticker. For commercial software, I really don't know any excuse for not having it (I've lead the effort to get an app certified in one of my past jobs, and it was for an app with 4 developers on the team, and probably a few thousand users at most). Free -including FOSS - stuff likely won't have it, of course, so there you're on your own - but, as a rule of thumb, FOSS specifically can be assumed to not do really stupid things.

Managed execution environments, such as .NET and Java, usually recompile each method as it is executed for the first time. In a DEP environment, the JIT recompiler needs a way to tell the OS to flip parts of memory between data and executable.

The flags to request the newly allocated memory block to be executable have been there since WinNT 3.1.

So if "some" argue that managed code is broken by design, I'd guess "some" work for Apple's iOS division, the only company I can think of that has explicitly banned managed code.

Not really, JS is also managed code, and Apple's implementation is even a JIT.

Visit the following page to find out how to run any program in low-integrity mode: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb625960.aspx

This is probably a reference to this clause, found both in Vista and Windows 7 eulas. Available here in various eulas, such as Vista Home Premium English and Windows 7 Home Premium English, found here: microsoft Searching the XP sp2 eula does not seem to contain a similar clause.

"6. POTENTIALLY UNWANTED SOFTWARE. If turned on, Windows Defender will search your computer for “spyware,” “adware” and other potentially unwanted software. If it finds potentially unwanted software, the software will ask you if you want to ignore, disable (quarantine) or remove it. Any potentially unwanted software rated “high” or “severe,” will automatically be removed after scanning unless you change the default setting. Removing or disabling potentially unwanted software may result in other software on your computer ceasing to work, or your breaching a license to use other software on your computer. By using this software, it is possible that you will also remove or disable software that is not potentially unwanted software."

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Bb250462

No DEP only prevents execution on memory that is not marked executable. Enabling DEP marks all memory as nonexecutable by default, but you can use the VirtualAlloc function in windows to allocate memory that is marked executable. This allows for the implementation of JIT compilers even with DEP turned on.

Why doesn't Windows enforce it's security?

Because they write the OS and do not dictate what you can run on your box?

Har, har, har.

Microsoft has 3 separate technologies for "security" that do to us exactly what you claim they do not. See their Trusted Platform Modules (TPM), DRM and HDCP divisions and reconsider our imaginary "freedom to run what we want" a double standard.

From Vista on a clause in every Windows EULA gives MS the right to delete executables and files from YOUR computer should they choose to do so (does XP also have this?) I smell a wedge for more proactive witch hunts in the future where OSS code and "unemcumbered" media/data is the target.

Why doesn't Windows enforce it's security?

Because they write the OS and do not dictate what you can run on your box?

Har, har, har.

Microsoft has 3 separate technologies for "security" that do to us exactly what you claim they do not. See their Trusted Platform Modules (TPM), DRM and HDCP divisions and reconsider our imaginary "freedom to run what we want" a double standard.

From Vista on a clause in every Windows EULA gives MS the right to delete executables and files from YOUR computer should they choose to do so (does XP also have this?) I smell a wedge for more proactive witch hunts in the future where OSS code and "unemcumbered" media/data is the target.

> I know that under FreeBSD and Linux applications are expected to run with the provided resources unless they're specifically run as root or similar.

DEP and ASLR are all about making it harder for stuff like say Mozilla to be pwned. Not really about resources.

You can force DEP to be on for everything on Windows: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/875352#5
But if your favourite app crashes badly, hope you know how to exclude it.

The trouble is if Mozilla is pwned, and runs "arbitrary code of the attacker's choice", that code can do anything that user account can do, and access anything that user account can access. This is true for FreeBSD, Linux and Windows.

Just because I run a browser doesn't mean I want to allow it full access to whatever my account can access/do.

Windows Vista and Windows 7 actually sandbox IE, so in fact Windows is one up on most major Linux distros in that respect.

I've seen the default apparmor template for firefox on ubuntu. 1) It's not enabled by default, and 2) Even if you enable it, it doesn't really help if you want security, you have to modify the template if you want to protect all your nonbrowser-related files from a pwned browser instance.

It's already been the user's choice since WinXP SP2. The deal is, 1) you cannot turn it on by default because many apps will break. 2) most users are ignorant, they wouldn't know about the choice, understand the choice, or figure out what to do if stuff doesn't work and how to exclude them if desirable.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/875352#5

If you are logged on as an administrator, you can manually configure DEP to switch between the OptIn and OptOut policies by using the Data Execution Prevention tab in System Properties. The following procedure describes how to manually configure DEP on the computer:

      1. Click Start, click Run, type sysdm.cpl, and then click OK. [or press winkey + pause/break]
      2. On the Advanced tab, under Performance, click Settings.
      3. On the Data Execution Prevention tab, use one of the following procedures:
                    * Click Turn on DEP for essential Windows programs and services only to select the OptIn policy.
                    * Click Turn on DEP for all programs and services except those I select to select the OptOut policy, and then click Add to add the programs that you do not want to use the DEP feature.
      4. Click OK two times.

Most of the windows users who don't know about it, shouldn't be touching it. The rest who know about it, know what to do with it.

Thing is the malware bunch aren't targeting the latter.

Could Microsoft have filed for patents that were any more big brother-ish. I mean having people disclose their health to their potential dates or having employees have to disclose ever aspect of their health to their employer.

I guess Microsoft hasn't designed a system in which 'a camera hangs around your neck and records every aspect of your life' (like the truman show)...oh wait they already did that. http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/cambridge/projects/sensecam/

Maybe you could take your non-IE9 browser to the demo pages linked from the article you'll be able to see if they're doing something standard or something non-standard.

Here's a link:

http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Graphics/DeepZoom/Default.html

Rather than telling you what will happen if you go to that page in, say, Safari, I'll let you go ahead and experience it for yourself. Just think of the thrill you'll get when finding that you're totally right that MS just can't do anything to spec, or maybe you'll be thrilled to find that, OMG!!!!, they're adhering to the draft standards as they exist today.

Which do you think it is? The anticipation almost makes you want to pee, doesn't it?

(Next time spend ten seconds to find out before you shoot your mouth off and demonstrate the accuracy of the old saw: "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.")

Really not difficult to stop this, we've done it already. Windows 7 has applocker:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/products/windows-7/features.aspx#applocker

And prior to that Vista/XP had software restriction policies.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc782792(WS.10).aspx

Really not difficult to stop this, we've done it already. Windows 7 has applocker:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/products/windows-7/features.aspx#applocker

And prior to that Vista/XP had software restriction policies.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc782792(WS.10).aspx

I hope this means that if IBM can't navigate a vendor's site with Firefox, they'll just look elsewhere.

Oh, I couldn't care less about that. Let me explain "What freedom means to me." My company has more than a few apps that kept us on IE6 for the longest time. Why did they select IE6? Well, at the time, Internet Exploder was the only browser that allowed them to maintain strict policies and security settings across the company. It's still one of their big selling points that they have "slipstream installation" and "Group policy enhancements (total of 1,500, with 140 new in Internet Explorer 8)." Well, now that IBM has developed the Client Customization Kit and maybe -- just maybe -- they can get it to a point where an administrator can control proxy and policy settings in Firefox from one central IT position. It's this. It's this concept that is the answer to my question why I'm still developing to support the browser from hell. And I know I'm not alone.

So I'm adding one marble to the 'like' side of the scales of IBM (which they'll need a lot more of to tilt it back to even). I hope to see some serious support come out of this for FF's CCK.

Actually, it's better than that - there's a system API to get at stored passwords. That's how Firefox gets at them (okay, I cheated, I got the link by reading the Firefox source). Oh, yeah - Firefox is a perfectly functioning IE password reader too :D

You could still access "Internet Explorer" by typing a URL into any Windows Explorer address bar. And that level of integration is what pretty much means that IE is tied into the OS.

This level of integration is very much present in Windows 7.

That's not true, actually. In 7 (and Vista), Explorer doesn't embed IE. If you type an HTTP URL in the address bar, it will open it in your default system browser, which may or may not be IE. If you uninstall IE (e.g. in EU edition), and won't install any other browser, you won't be able to open HTTP URLs from Explorer at all.

To be more precise, Explorer just hands the entered URL over to ShellExecute API function, which does its magic of looking up the associated default application and launching it. This is actually what any well-behaved application should do with URLs on Windows.

Any /usr/bin/perl that parses and runs the same language will do, even if it has third-party defect fixes applied to it. Microsoft doesn't make that so easy with mshtml.dll: either you use Microsoft's mshtml.dll, or you don't use Windows.

Actually, you can do that to mshtml.dll. So long as it provides the same API, which is documented, and can instantiate the same object (identified by GUID) via DllGetClassObject, it should work, though I'm not sure about any licensing issues (or applicability thereof in sane jurisdictions).

Furthermore, since IE rendering engine is actually a properly registered COM component, you could hijack that registration without even touching mshtml.dll - just patch the corresponding entries under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT to point at your own DLL. Someone might still try to go to mshtml.dll directly, though, but this isn't common.

Of course, this all isn't officially supported in any way. But then, in the hypothetical case presented by GP, neither would be running the Linux distro with your own Perl replacement - if it doesn't work, you're on your own.

"You claim the .pst format is open and documented? I'd very much like to see the method (from Microsoft, no reverse engineered solution allowed) to get your emails out of .pst and into another format."

What you mean like the file format specification here?:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff385210.aspx

and the reference implementation here?:

http://pstsdk.codeplex.com/

GP is right, contrary to popular belief Microsoft have just as many "open" formats as Apple, if not more. The problem isn't the formats being "open" for interoperability purposes though, it's the ones that aren't open at all, or the license restrictions / patents attached to usage of the formats, and this includes many of Apple's formats that you listed.

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en/us/Pages/HowToBuy/HowToBuy.aspx

click your country

I'm not sure of any that really cover the brain as well as neural nets, but a book with decent neural net coverage, and an excellent overview of machine learning is this one:

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/cmbishop/prml/

Depending on how far you wish to study the subject, the next stop is somewhere like the Cambridge university bookstore- I'm not sure if you live in the UK but if you do and are ever near Cambridge it's worth a look- their books can of course be ordered online, but in store they offer catalogs with upcoming books which always worth a peruse through too as it tends to cover books that are really cutting edge on the topics in question.

In fact, I just did a search on their site and found this, I've never read it but it may be exactly what you're looking for:

http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521421249

A slightly more light hearted, much easier read that helps illustrate some of the quirks in the human mind is the following:

http://www.mindhacks.com/book/

Some of the examples are good as illustrations of how it's easy to feed the brain with certain stimuli that can make it come to the wrong conclusion, one example that comes to mind in that book is the listing of various words related to some topic I think their example was sleeping or something, and then asking someone to recall those words, people will almost always come up with a common word despite that word having never been in the list. I think their example was words related to sleeping like 'pillow', 'tired', 'yawn', 'night' and a bunch more yet they omit 'bed' or something like that, ask someone to do the activity and they will nearly always falsely conclude 'bed' was one of the words- effectively bed is a 'false' attractor in this case. It effectively illustrates that whilst the brain may come up with most of the correct words, it can come up with incorrect but related words too, for some problems this may be acceptable, for others not so.

Bing Cash back? whats that I googled it, naturally.

And find it ends today at 9pm (talk about missing the boat its been running 2 years apparently).

http://advertising.microsoft.com/advertising/bing-cashback

Microsoft has made significant investments to help consumers make better shopping decisions online, including our groundbreaking launch of the Bing(TM) cashback program two years ago. Bing cashback was a uniquely innovative advertising opportunity that helped advertisers partner with Microsoft to give cash back to customers and drive new sales, while deepening consumer engagement with Bing. We introduced Bing cashback to shake up the search space, and while we had some good results and some great learnings, the program just did not produce the change in user behavior we had hoped to see.

For these reasons, Microsoft has decided to evolve Bing cashback. After July 30, 2010, we will no longer offer the Bing cashback Search or Shopping advertising programs on the Bing search results or Bing Shopping pages. This will also be the last day consumers will be able to earn cashback rewards.

guess that means even paying people to use Bing didn't bring users to Bing.

Microsoft seems to have an image problem these days even this reward program feels sneaky and underhanded.
Can't be good for advertisers either giving discounts to some of your customers is really going to upset the ones who didn't get the discount.

hows it feel to be the mug who paid extra ...

sneaky and underhanded is becoming a common meme when you think of Microsoft.
whats with the, Windows 7 crappiest version, crappy version, and the you going to pay thru the nose version because its got the features you need version.
everyone knows that the difference between versions is what Microsoft chooses to disable and thats crappy behavior as is treating all your customers as thieves.

Seems a major reason that people use microsoft products is because they "have to" or for a simple life at least.

Google on the other hand have great services and software for free which most of us use everyday which enables them to make money through the ad revenue.

Why do people still use pieces of trash like Opera or Firefox or Chrome when Microsoft has shown that IE9 is the most HTML5 compliant browser out there. This paired with IE9's unparalleled record of security means that the only people still using these "alternative browsers" are ideologues or Loonix faggots.

What other company could get away with producing a product like this and succeed?

Way to ignore the enormous elephant in the room.

Standard fanboi response: 'Something said, not good...quick, look at Microsoft!'

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality', which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to paedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and co

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality', which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to paedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and co

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality', which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to paedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and co

What other company could get away with producing a product like this and succeed?

Way to ignore the enormous elephant in the room.

run WinBLOZE?

Yours In Krasnoyarsk,
K. Trout

Actually, I have read the EULA for all of the software that's installed on my computers. Some of them drone on for pages and pages of legalese, some of them (like the BSD or MIT licenses) are actually easily human-readable.

I don't re-read the LGPL or the GPL every time I'm presented with it. I don't need to. But I do read each version that comes out to make sure I understand my rights and obligations. Similarly, Microsoft has a standard EULA that gets used for 95% of their software... if you've read the Windows EULA, then you've read the Office EULA. Most of the time, the EULA is simple standard legalese for "it's not our fault if your computer breaks, you agree not to steal this software, you agree not to use it in a way other than its original design purpose, you agree not to sell the software to terrorists."

It doesn't take *that* long to read an EULA, and 5 minutes of reading can save you tons of headache down the road. I have refused to install/use software in the past because I disagreed with the terms of the software, and I have successfully returned said software for a refund (though usually by contacting the vendor rather than the point of sale for my refund). Caveat emptor. If you blithely agree to and click through any license you're presented with, then it's your own fault if you get burned for it.

In fact, you don't even have to *buy* software to find the EULA. Many publishers put their EULA up on the 'net for you to read before money ever exchanges hands. A quick google search for the title (or publisher) of the program in question and the word "eula" will reveal most of them, and I have yet to encounter a publisher who won't happily e-mail me a copy of the EULA for me to read prior to buying the software.

even the evil empire and their red-haired cousin.

Coincidentally, you the EULA that tipped off this whole debate can also be viewed online without ever purchasing an Android device.

Absolutely! But it'll take some hacking. I ran it on a first-gen Acer netbook with an 8 GB SSD that liked to hardlock the system on ever write.

There's a fair tutorial here. The parts about Vista aren't really relevant, but the gist of it is

1. Download an evaluation copy of Microsoft Embedded here. You'll need to download the whole thing to get a copy of EWF.
2. Extract the EWF files to the appropriate places on your Windows install.
3. Make your disk effectively "read only" by setting the appropriate registry keys. Writes to that volume are cached in memory and discarded unless you explicitly have them committed to disk with ewfmgr. (Note that you can fill this cache and exhaust available memory by writing too much to disk.)
4. Turn off your swap file. When a piece of memory is no longer in use it will be swapped out to disk... Except that EWF will cache that write into memory. You swap from memory into memory, "losing" that memory until the cache is manually written out or the system rebooted.

Hope that helps. The biggest problem you have is that if, say, you only have 2 GB of memory your protected disk can only endure a MAXIMUM of ~2GB of writes. After that, all free memory is filled with the cached writes. You'll have to periodically commit the writes to disk with ewfmgr to ensure memory stays free or reboot or otherwise discard the changes.

As others mentioned, if the goal is just to keep an embedded system in its original pristine state, Microsoft SteadyState (free) or Faronics DeepFreeze (costly) are better options. However, EWF will make a machine *fly*, especially one that was previously writing to a slow disk.

I've found the "Shared Computer Toolkit for Windows XP" can be very helpful at locking down exactly what can be changed on an XP build... including allowing changes, but wiping them after a reboot.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/winxp/SharedToolkitFS.mspx
It's now called "Windows SteadyState 2.5"
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=d077a52d-93e9-4b02-bd95-9d770ccdb431&displaylang=en

I've found the "Shared Computer Toolkit for Windows XP" can be very helpful at locking down exactly what can be changed on an XP build... including allowing changes, but wiping them after a reboot.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/winxp/SharedToolkitFS.mspx
It's now called "Windows SteadyState 2.5"
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=d077a52d-93e9-4b02-bd95-9d770ccdb431&displaylang=en

I would also recommend this presentation on writing a good research paper. It helped me a good deal.

As for writing the paper, here's my favourite set of slides on this topic:

SPJ's `How to write a research paper'

Yes, SPJ works at Microsoft Research these days, since they sponsor his primary pet project (the Glasgow Haskell Compiler), but he has been extremely successful before and after going there. I've done enough writing to basically agree with him-- there are variations here and there when it comes to structuring the paper, but his main points are very sensible and good.

Why if Bill Gates said, "Jump" Microsoft would ask, "how high?": 1) He's an original Founder. 2) He owns more stock in the company than any other entity by FAR (the next closest, Capital Research Global Investors, owns around half of what he does). 3) He's the Chairman of the Board. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=msft http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/bod/bod.aspx

p.p.s Pay A Fucking Dividend You Stupid Motherfucker.

You mean like this?

btw, if you go to:
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/history.mspx
you can look up and see where the equity (assets-liability) has decreased from 40 billion to 36 billion in the last 10 years.

The specs are published here:
SMB: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc246231(PROT.13).aspx
SMB2: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc246482(PROT.13).aspx

You say "We have reverse engineered it for a while"... Who's "we"? Do you speak for the Samba team? The Samba team not only has access to the above specs, but they also receive some special treatment. They periodically meet with MS devs face to face or over voice conference. One of the Samba team members (Chris Hertel) is actually working for Microsoft on contract right now. The Samba team's challenges keeping pace with Windows SMB are not because of lack of access to information, they are because there is simply a lot of work and limited resources. In fact they have even more work than the Windows SMB team because they have to build some additional layers (e.g. creation timestamps, security ACLs, user ID mappings) owing to differences between UNIX and Windows.

Microsoft publishes specs for all their proprietary protocols used in Windows, including Active Directory. They are required to as part of the consent decree. You can find them all here:
Windows Server Protocols: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc964399(PROT.13).aspx

The specs are published here:
SMB: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc246231(PROT.13).aspx
SMB2: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc246482(PROT.13).aspx

You say "We have reverse engineered it for a while"... Who's "we"? Do you speak for the Samba team? The Samba team not only has access to the above specs, but they also receive some special treatment. They periodically meet with MS devs face to face or over voice conference. One of the Samba team members (Chris Hertel) is actually working for Microsoft on contract right now. The Samba team's challenges keeping pace with Windows SMB are not because of lack of access to information, they are because there is simply a lot of work and limited resources. In fact they have even more work than the Windows SMB team because they have to build some additional layers (e.g. creation timestamps, security ACLs, user ID mappings) owing to differences between UNIX and Windows.

Microsoft publishes specs for all their proprietary protocols used in Windows, including Active Directory. They are required to as part of the consent decree. You can find them all here:
Windows Server Protocols: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc964399(PROT.13).aspx

The specs are published here:
SMB: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc246231(PROT.13).aspx
SMB2: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc246482(PROT.13).aspx

You say "We have reverse engineered it for a while"... Who's "we"? Do you speak for the Samba team? The Samba team not only has access to the above specs, but they also receive some special treatment. They periodically meet with MS devs face to face or over voice conference. One of the Samba team members (Chris Hertel) is actually working for Microsoft on contract right now. The Samba team's challenges keeping pace with Windows SMB are not because of lack of access to information, they are because there is simply a lot of work and limited resources. In fact they have even more work than the Windows SMB team because they have to build some additional layers (e.g. creation timestamps, security ACLs, user ID mappings) owing to differences between UNIX and Windows.

Microsoft publishes specs for all their proprietary protocols used in Windows, including Active Directory. They are required to as part of the consent decree. You can find them all here:
Windows Server Protocols: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc964399(PROT.13).aspx

Pro free tools:
http://www.microsoft.com/express/windows/

For people in the Microsoft world, there's been Windows Connect Now for a while too. Compatible devices are configured by transferring settings from the computer to the router via USB stick.

That said, personally I much prefer knowing whats going on but nobody should complain that its difficult with a decent device anymore.

However, my main wireless complaint these days is that the vast majority of devices want to run in a speed boost mode utilizing channel 6 and neighbouring channels for better performance at their highest power rating, instead of taking an under-used channel and avoiding congestion.

Um..... no. Anyone can get a cert and sign the driver. It's documented here: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/driver/install/drvsign/kmsigning.mspx (word doc attached has all the details). Essentially you just get a cert from a CA. What is that $100.00? If you don't want to do that, then just run in test mode. What's wrong with that?