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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 pedophilia.

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 copyright of posters to Slashdot by gathering

... it isn't even covered by Windows Update.

Wrong. Windows Update does provide updates for critical Flash vulnerabilities. This is an older one but came up first in a quick search: MS06-020

Because when I do a search on their site, I'm not finding it.

I mean, you used Microsoft's search, what did you expect ?

Is it?

http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/2007/evaluation/editions.mspx

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 pedophilia.

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 copyright of posters to Slashdot by gathering

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 pedophilia.

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 copyright of posters to Slashdot by gathering

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 pedophilia.

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 copyright of posters to Slashdot by gathering

I don't like the use of public fields, please use a getter method.

Some languages have properties, or methods without parentheses: C#, for example.

MICROSOFT SOFTWARE LICENSE TERMS

MICROSOFT WINDOWS SERVER 2008

HYPER-V LINUX INTEGRATION COMPONENTS

PLEASE NOTE: Microsoft Corporation (or based on where you live, one of its affiliates) licenses this supplement to you. You may use it with each validly licensed copy of Microsoft operating system products software (for which this supplement is applicable) (the âoesoftwareâ). You may not use the supplement if you do not have a license for the software. The license terms for the software apply to your use of this supplement. Microsoft provides support services for the supplement as described at www.support.microsoft.com/common/international.aspx.

After it unpacks, I get an RTF named "Linux ICs for Hyper-V" and LinuxIC.iso ... no source code. Anybody know where said source code is? Because when I do a search on their site, I'm not finding it.

Sure, it may have contributed the source code to some repository somewhere but I think the GPLv2 says you need to provide it if you are distributing. Which is what they're doing. Pretty obvious violation right there. Also, when you distribute it, you should have a copy of the GPLv2 license with it. I can't find a trace of it when I get the iso from them ...

MICROSOFT SOFTWARE LICENSE TERMS

MICROSOFT WINDOWS SERVER 2008

HYPER-V LINUX INTEGRATION COMPONENTS

PLEASE NOTE: Microsoft Corporation (or based on where you live, one of its affiliates) licenses this supplement to you. You may use it with each validly licensed copy of Microsoft operating system products software (for which this supplement is applicable) (the âoesoftwareâ). You may not use the supplement if you do not have a license for the software. The license terms for the software apply to your use of this supplement. Microsoft provides support services for the supplement as described at www.support.microsoft.com/common/international.aspx.

After it unpacks, I get an RTF named "Linux ICs for Hyper-V" and LinuxIC.iso ... no source code. Anybody know where said source code is? Because when I do a search on their site, I'm not finding it.

Sure, it may have contributed the source code to some repository somewhere but I think the GPLv2 says you need to provide it if you are distributing. Which is what they're doing. Pretty obvious violation right there. Also, when you distribute it, you should have a copy of the GPLv2 license with it. I can't find a trace of it when I get the iso from them ...

Running an active TCP session for an IM client constantly would light up much more of the iPhone's hardware, and drain the battery that much faster.

Well, not exactly....

An active TCP session is EXACTLY what Apple's Push Notification Service uses.

Its an extended version of ActivSync, Licensed from Microsoft.

It works like this:

You open a TCP connection with an Apple Notification server, and shutdown the radio, leaving the connection open, by never explicitly closing it. With the radio down, the phone is Saving power.

Periodically, you wake up the radio, check if the TCP socket is readable. If so, you read it, and notify the user, and optionally launch that application that the notification was destined for.

If the socket failed, (timed out, network dropped, etc) you reestablish the socket.

Since TCP timeout is usually on the order of 12 minutes or longer, this happens only about 5 times an hour.

Checking socket readability takes just a tiny bit of power for a very very short time. So your radio is on for a few seconds every hour. (Which it is anyway, listening for incoming calls).

Apple's push notification leverages this single socket connection to an unlimited number of applications in the iPhone, by having a single daemon watching the socket, signaling the target app, and notifying the user.

It operates similar to InetD in Linux, other than instead of waiting for new connections, it is watching existing ones. In fact, there is some discussion as to whether ActiveSync is even patentable because it is so obvious.

And to be perfectly pedantic, Antennas do not consume any power when receiving.

• Have never tested your Exchange backups can actually be restored.
• Have no discernible disaster recovery plan. Pissing about with trial installs of Win2008??
• Don't know about Recovery Stores in Exchange 2003, or more likely didn't bother to find out. (This is a clue to how to fix your predicament quickly and painlessly, btw.)
• Don't know you can restore directly from tape - even with NTBackup. (Why are you doing using that for serious backups? Get the money for Backup Exec or similar - ask the CEO for it!)
• Lost a CD. (You can download Windows 2003 as an ISO direct from MS if you have a license for it.)

The New York Times covered this story on February 13, 2009: Will Clippy Be a Greeter at Microsoft's New Stores?. One way to know that Microsoft is not doing well is to realize that the New York Times has joined the Microsoft bashers. Perhaps the amateur bashers will upgrade their skills now that the professionals have moved in.

I admire Linus Torvald's leadership, but in saying Microsoft hatred is a Disease, he seems to be more and more alone. It's not really hatred, it is dislike, and dislike of Microsoft is becoming widespread. I'm not sure what Torvald's intention was in saying that, but of course the actual social effect is the opposite of what he is overtly saying. The actual effect is something like, "The dislike of Microsoft is becoming so widespread and intense that it is like an epidemic."

Microsoft hired this man to be the head of retail sales: Microsoft Appoints David Porter as Corporate Vice President of Retail Stores. Note in the upper right hand corner of that article, under "Press Resources", that Waggener Edstrom is still Microsoft's public relations agency. That's interesting, since Pam Edstrom's daughter, Jennifer Edstrom, wrote Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, published in 1998, with a former Microsoft manager. Quote from the first Amazon review in the list of reviews: "The authors are evidently very anti-Microsoft, yet at the same time their stories come across not so much as how stupid Microsoft is, but how mismanaged and lucky Gates & Company have been, which is closer to the truth than many people think."

What do you think of Microsoft's new vice-president? Looking at his photo, is he the kind of person who can make retail stores that people admire? He doesn't know how to tie his tie. Can he make stores look good?

The New York Times covered this story on February 13, 2009: Will Clippy Be a Greeter at Microsoft's New Stores?. One way to know that Microsoft is not doing well is to realize that the New York Times has joined the Microsoft bashers. Perhaps the amateur bashers will upgrade their skills now that the professionals have moved in.

I admire Linus Torvald's leadership, but in saying Microsoft hatred is a Disease, he seems to be more and more alone. It's not really hatred, it is dislike, and dislike of Microsoft is becoming widespread. I'm not sure what Torvald's intention was in saying that, but of course the actual social effect is the opposite of what he is overtly saying. The actual effect is something like, "The dislike of Microsoft is becoming so widespread and intense that it is like an epidemic."

Microsoft hired this man to be the head of retail sales: Microsoft Appoints David Porter as Corporate Vice President of Retail Stores. Note in the upper right hand corner of that article, under "Press Resources", that Waggener Edstrom is still Microsoft's public relations agency. That's interesting, since Pam Edstrom's daughter, Jennifer Edstrom, wrote Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, published in 1998, with a former Microsoft manager. Quote from the first Amazon review in the list of reviews: "The authors are evidently very anti-Microsoft, yet at the same time their stories come across not so much as how stupid Microsoft is, but how mismanaged and lucky Gates & Company have been, which is closer to the truth than many people think."

What do you think of Microsoft's new vice-president? Looking at his photo, is he the kind of person who can make retail stores that people admire? He doesn't know how to tie his tie. Can he make stores look good?

Dear God in heaven, have these guys *ever* had an original thought?

Yes.

I mean an original though that was good, of course.

Oh. Er, not in some while. The office application suite was a pretty nifty idea, for example. Um... hrm... Active directory? I think that was original, and it was damned nice. There's been some other stuff, I'm sure, especially if you allow for somewhat trivial things, like Bing's video preview.*

*Which may not've been original; I dunno. But stuff like it, if it wasn't.

No, you'll have to buy that separately.

Young programmers running Windows can always get Visual Studio for free via DreamSpark.

Dreamspark? I've never heard of that... what's wrong with just downloading the C# Express version? It's free, has been for years, and I'm constantly amazed how many Slashdotters don't know about it. http://www.microsoft.com/express/vcsharp/

No, he was talking about processes, and WuphonsReach probably knew THAT. You can tell for sure because he mentioned the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/wz223b1z(VS.80).aspx in the interview.

Emailing suggestions won't get you very far. You could put it into the bug-tracking system by posting on Connect, though: http://connect.microsoft.com./

XP 32 bit can not use a full 4gb. It can only "see" 3.foo GB of ram, due to having only 32 bit address space

XP 32-bit can use PAE, which provides a 36-bit address space.

Ugh, fact checking? 32-bit has a 4GB memory limit, not 2GB. With your video ram, it sometimes came out to be 3GB or a little more.

Individual processes are limited to 2GB of RAM.

Then there's the whole issue where Microsoft has limited their client OSs in the amount of RAM that can be accessed. (See Physical Memory Limits.)

Windows 2008 server is limited to 4GB in 32bit mode (or 16GB in 64bit mode). Unless you buy the more expensive versions.

All Vista 32bit is limited to 4GB of RAM. The 64bit editions go up to 128GB (but the home versions are only 8/16GB).

XP was limited to 4GB of RAM, 64bit could access up to 64GB of RAM.

And 2GB per process is a bit of a dream figment in the real 32bit world. Most programs start running into trouble up around the 1.5-1.8GB point, even if they're not yet swapping.

Knowledgeable users manage this problem. They still suffer from it ; even the "sensible" software we install likes to add resident tasks. And virtually nothing can clean your registry out without risking terminal damage to your OS (unless you really know what you are doing, and I used to be one of these people - but I let the knowledge atrophy because it's more trouble than it's worth).

One of the best utilities for this is Autoruns.

It certainly prolongs the MTBRBICWC for Windows (Mean Time Between Reinstalls Because It's Clogged With Crap).

Linux definitely scores points here for storing application-settings in their own hidden folder in your home directory. Uninstall the app? Delete the folder. Or not, if you don't mind - it's not slowing anything else down, they all look in their own folders, not in one giant nasty binary blob database.

Uhhhhmmmm, why do you need a super duper CPU to run DX10? That is the job of the GPU. Trying to improve your video with a CPU upgrade is a lost cause. If you're using onboard video that uses shared system memory, you never see video performance.

http://www.microsoft.com/games/en-US/AboutGFW/Pages/DirectX10-a.aspx

Simply put, DirectX is a Windows technology that enables higher performance in graphics and sound when you're playing games or watching video on your PC.

At the core of DirectX are its application programming interfaces, or APIs. The APIs act as a kind of bridge for the hardware and the software to "talk" to each other. The DirectX APIs gives multimedia applications access to the advanced features of high-performance hardware such as three-dimensional (3-D) graphics acceleration chips and sound cards. They control low-level functions, including two-dimensional (2-D) graphics acceleration; support for input devices such as joysticks, keyboards, and mice; and control of sound mixing and sound output.

Because of DirectX, what you experience with your computer is better 3-D graphics and immersive music and audio effects.

From one of MS's whitepapers:

Although DirectAccess has several advantages over VPNs, there are several scenarios where a VPN is still a preferred solution. Some of these include:

Networks that block IPv6 and IPv6 transition technology protocols. DirectAccess uses IPv6. Although IPv6 transition technologies enable DirectAccess to work on existing IPv4 networks (IPv6 needs to be enabled on the client and server computers), several IPv6-related protocols must be allowed to pass through your outward facing firewalls. If firewall rules block these protocols and they cannot be changed, the organization must use a VPN instead of DirectAccess.

I know its hard to let facts get in the way but here:

Firewall and Web Proxy Traversal

Because IPv6 is the initial Layer 3 transport and most remote computers are communicating across the IPv4 Internet, a DirectAccess client computer will attempt to use the 6to4 and Teredo IPv6 transition technologies to communicate with the DirectAccess server. However, Web proxy servers and some firewalls will not forward 6to4 and Teredo-encapsulated traffic. In this case, the DirectAccess client uses IP-HTTPS, a new protocol in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 that tunnels IPv6 packets inside an IPv4-based HTTPS session.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2009.05.cableguy.aspx?pr=blog

Why would ANYONE pay retail for Windows or Office when TechNet is available?

Quote from the Technet plus FAQ

The requirements for eligibility are as follows:

* Subscription status must be active. Note: If you have acquired a license to use the TechNet Subscription software via the Microsoft Open License Program and/or the Microsoft Select Licensing Program you will not have access to TechNet Benefits Portal and Subscriber Downloads unless you have registered online.
* Subscribers must validate their identity to Microsoft through the registration process. Upon completion, subscribers will use their chosen Windows Live ID for subsequent site access.
* This Windows Live ID should not be shared and should be treated in such manner consistent with the licensing agreement.

This rules out businesses and the average person. Fair enough the Volume Licensing program is for businesses but average people don't meet the requirements for Technet or MSDN. Having dealt with MS licensing MS always expects something back, becoming a sales partner (Req: certain no of sales per year), development partner/ISV, certain no. of purchases per year and/or a commitment of years to a license agreement. If you're not purchasing 10,000 licenses per year MS will shoehorn you into some kind of deal, they are scared of losing small businesses. Big business is already locked in.

Retail packages are grossly overpriced however, but with MSDN/Technet/SA/Partner agreements are per year where retail is for life (life == when MS turn off activations servers) and MS makes it clear that licences not in your current agreement are not to be used, I had to let 3 MSDN subscriptions lapse this year thanks to the GFC, we are still in compliance according to Australian law however (I.E. we had to let 3 developers go).

I don't know if Microsoft offers an official money back guarantee program in other continents, but they do offer one for North America. I used it recently myself because the copy of Windows XP that I purchased for a client would not install due to an odd raid controller. I had to return it and buy Vista instead. They took it back with zero hassle, and I had a check in the mail a couple weeks later that I think actually included the shipping charges from me shipping them the XP media kit. This program does not cover computers purchased with pre-installed software though (OEM). For that you have to go to the company you bought it from. I was pretty happy when I realized I could get my money back from Microsoft and not have to eat the extra cost of the software license. Anybody else in a similar situation, the website is:

Microsoft Product Refund

> "How many times does this have to happen before we can save everyone some time and just skip the fantasy that there was ever an opportunity to build trust?"

Infinity. The fact is, everybody knows better. But Microsoft Evangelists go online and pretend to be people who don't.

Sorry. I go my news from microsoft.com. Must not be as reliable. http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2009/Jul09/07-20LinuxQA.mspx

That is a known and recognized problem. SP2007 does support browsers other than IE, but functionality is reduced.

The good news is that in SP2010, much more attention is paid to other browsers (specifically Firefox and Safari, as two most popular one), so it will be much closer. On a side note, it also drops IE6 (I'm sure all web developers out there can sympathize with that).

For instance, it could agree not to sue reimplementers of .NET (Mono, etc.)

You mean like in their irrevocable covenant not to sue?

http://www.microsoft.com/interop/cp/default.mspx

Without trolling I would say that if you can not install application on a machine, then the machine is useless. So I don't use them (so I didn't though about this point).

So you'd call WebTV and the major video game consoles useless, and you'd prefer PCs. But are there any devices that 1. can use an SDTV as a monitor, 2. come ready to run (i.e. not assembled from parts from newegg), and 3. are not useless? Major label PCs fail 1, home-built PCs fail 2, and game consoles fail 3.

Well, you can bundle it and install it under the user's account.

Not if /home is mounted noexec, or equivalently if C:\Documents and Settings is covered by an active software restriction policy. You could get the corporate IT department to install it for you... a couple months after you request it.

[Restricting software installation] no longer provides extra security once all your applications run inside the webbrowser...

JavaScript and Java implementations provide a sandbox intended to prevent scripts and applets from interacting with the file system.

Microsoft have added weight to their argument that businesses shouldn't use GPL because it's viral nature

Actually it seems they have added weight to their argument that businesses should adhere to the licensing terms for the software they use. Microsoft puts massive resources into fighting violations of their licensing agreements with end users of their products and here they are caught violating the licensing terms for software they have licensed.

So in the end Microsoft should write their own code and refrain from stealing open source code if they have no intention of adhering to the licensing terms that made the open source code available. The GPL is not viral, otherwise they would be releasing ALL of their code under the GPL.

So what exactly is the problem?

Microsoft has released software under the GPL because they had to before. For years now actually, since they distribute the Windows Services for Unix.

Do you think other companies that comply with the GPL do so because they like the license?

No more freakin VPN's, bitches!

Check it out: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/network/dd420463.aspx

So it's a Network, that's Private to the company, but since it runs over another network, it's Virtual? Interesting... tell me more about this... NPV....

have you looked here ? http://www.microsoft.com/gettingWindowsAtDoD/NewSoftwarePolicy

Check it out: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/network/dd420463.aspx

(I should probably keep this in a text file on my desktop, it's a "batch of advice" which I frequently have to re-write, and it doesn't change much)

I mentioned the term "modern C++" above, though really it's better to call it "sane C++". By this I mean C++ that won't drive you nuts trying to figure out what went wrong, when something inevitably *will* go wrong. Practices that make programs more safe, and introspective.

If you already know C++ (the foundations, I mean), it'll be easier to shift to STL-dependent C++. If you're completely new to C++, these resources will still be very important, but you'll need to learn the lower-level stuff in parallel, so you can understand how STL containers/templates are built from the inside (which is important when you need to choose which ones to use).

A website that should very often sit in the background while you're coding/learning: C++ FAQ Lite. Following these rules will make it much easier to design and maintain your programs.
Another very useful website: cplusplus.com. It's a huge reference site, with a lot of examples.

The books I'd recommend:
Accelerated C++ -- higher-level to lower-level approach.
C++ Coding Standards -- similar to the C++ FAQ Lite in the nature of the advice, but covers more ground and is probably better organized.
C++ Common Knowledge -- This is for a few months down the line, delves into some nuances.

Software:
Windows: Visual Studio C++ Express -- You can force it to stick to ANSI C++. It's still the best IDE for C++ on windows (IMO).
Linux/Mac: Eclipse, probably Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers. Remember though that you can tweak Eclipse into just about anything.

If you're writing end-user applications, keep in mind two frameworks: Qt and wxWidgets.

Quick note about Boost: If you can create a structure using some combination of STL components, do that before resorting to Boost. Boost is highly abstracted, and you should only use the parts which would otherwise be extremely complicated to create from scratch (like regexp).

This is an moodle plugin for microsoft's own groupware. Like their previous driver offering, it's not a wholehearted contribution to making an open source project better, but instead just a thing to make microsoft's own services work better when people need to use open source.

After over a decade of hearing about it, Microsoft is finally just starting to realize that they can't play the vendor lock-in game as hard as they used to and still retain customers. It's just not a Microsoft world any more. They wanted these projects to interoperate better with their own offerings, so they put up the code to do it. That's what open source is all about.

I'd also like to point out that this is far from the first open source activity that Microsoft has engaged in. In fact, Microsoft has a few open source projects under its belt already, and my understanding is that they're under an OSI-approved license. (I can't find them just now, but I want to say one of them is a wiki? Or an application installer?) They also provide a SourceForge clone called CodePlex which claims to host over 10,000 open source projects. (Most of them only run on Windows-based technologies, I'm sure, but still.)

No, Microsoft is no longer a stranger to open source. It's just that they want to contribute and donate on their own terms, which is what they are fully entitled to do, and is the only way that makes business sense. These days, only their most assed-backwards shareholders and managers see Open Source as some kind of conspiracy to undermine their vision of The Great Microsoft Kingdom.

I just downloaded Google Chrome 3.0.192.0 for Mac and it crashed before I could even open a page. There is no excuse for this; my Mac Pro is perfect in every way with eight 2.93 GHz cores, 32 GB RAM, and a fresh install of Mac OS X Leopard v10.5.7. Ergo any crashing Google Chrome does is Google Chrome's own fault!

Why is it that Apple and Mozilla can do this but Google can't? I ran Internet Explorer 8 for months before its final release, Firefox 3.5 since its 3.1 days, and found Safari 4 Developer Preview more stable than Safari 3. In fact, even WebKit is more stable than Chrome.

What really baffles me, however, isn't the instability I've come to expect from Google, but that Google has the audacity to ask for personal user info to improve its browser. Is the search engine maker datamonger really so desperate for my private information that it's stooped to the level of Trojan horses to get it?

They should ask me that when it doesn't crash on launch.

Everything Google does is just another way to sieve personal data away for targeting ads. This kind of Big Brother crap is more repulsive than the fat programmers that make it possible. Google, with its deep pockets and doctoral scholars, thinks that by holding user data hostage it can maneuver around Apple and Microsoft. While this may be true, I'm not willing to be a part of it.

In using Google's search, Gmail, Chrome or whatever else the faceless robot of a company invents, the user is surrendering their personal information to a giant hivemind. No longer are their personal preferences some choice they make; they're a string of data processed by a Google algorithm: Google dehumanizes its users!

So while Google is arrogant enough to paint spyware shiny so it can parse our browsing habits, the least they could do is make sure it doesn't crash. If Apple, Microsoft, and Mozilla can get their preview releases right, why can't Google? And now they're making their own operating systems?

Get real, Google! I'll use your crashing codebloat when my Mac is cold and dead and I'm looking for handouts. Until then, quit mining my personal data!

I just downloaded Google Chrome 3.0.192.0 for Mac and it crashed before I could even open a page. There is no excuse for this; my Mac Pro is perfect in every way with eight 2.93 GHz cores, 32 GB RAM, and a fresh install of Mac OS X Leopard v10.5.7. Ergo any crashing Google Chrome does is Google Chrome's own fault!

Why is it that Apple and Mozilla can do this but Google can't? I ran Internet Explorer 8 for months before its final release, Firefox 3.5 since its 3.1 days, and found Safari 4 Developer Preview more stable than Safari 3. In fact, even WebKit is more stable than Chrome.

What really baffles me, however, isn't the instability I've come to expect from Google, but that Google has the audacity to ask for personal user info to improve its browser. Is the search engine maker datamonger really so desperate for my private information that it's stooped to the level of Trojan horses to get it?

They should ask me that when it doesn't crash on launch.

Everything Google does is just another way to sieve personal data away for targeting ads. This kind of Big Brother crap is more repulsive than the fat programmers that make it possible. Google, with its deep pockets and doctoral scholars, thinks that by holding user data hostage it can maneuver around Apple and Microsoft. While this may be true, I'm not willing to be a part of it.

In using Google's search, Gmail, Chrome or whatever else the faceless robot of a company invents, the user is surrendering their personal information to a giant hivemind. No longer are their personal preferences some choice they make; they're a string of data processed by a Google algorithm: Google dehumanizes its users!

So while Google is arrogant enough to paint spyware shiny so it can parse our browsing habits, the least they could do is make sure it doesn't crash. If Apple, Microsoft, and Mozilla can get their preview releases right, why can't Google? And now they're making their own operating systems?

Get real, Google! I'll use your crashing codebloat when my Mac is cold and dead and I'm looking for handouts. Until then, quit mining my personal data!

We have had/do have similar issues and have not found a single solution. For windows host inventory, we're utilizing Microsoft Systems Center Configuration Manager (previously we were using System Management Server) For network device inventory (managed routers and switches) we take a two-fold approach: Rancid for configuration (and therefor inventory) and NeDi for network discovery and inventory. For IP address Management we tried a few apps (phpIP and IPPlan) but I found issues with both...so i wrote my own and we use it now: Collate:Network. I had written something similar to Collate:Network for hardware/software/user-assignment management called Collate:Inventory but it never caught on so it mostly sits idle now waiting for someone to ask me to get off my butt and start adding new features. To a certain extend I think this mish-mash of tools works well for us. Each tool is good at what it does (at least the ones I work with are...i don't really use the Microsoft tools personally) and so we usually get what we want out of them. The problem we run into is that there are so many tools to manage that they sometimes don't get the attention they need to stay up-to-date on our environment...though i don't know if a single monolithic tool is the answer either.

We have had/do have similar issues and have not found a single solution. For windows host inventory, we're utilizing Microsoft Systems Center Configuration Manager (previously we were using System Management Server) For network device inventory (managed routers and switches) we take a two-fold approach: Rancid for configuration (and therefor inventory) and NeDi for network discovery and inventory. For IP address Management we tried a few apps (phpIP and IPPlan) but I found issues with both...so i wrote my own and we use it now: Collate:Network. I had written something similar to Collate:Network for hardware/software/user-assignment management called Collate:Inventory but it never caught on so it mostly sits idle now waiting for someone to ask me to get off my butt and start adding new features. To a certain extend I think this mish-mash of tools works well for us. Each tool is good at what it does (at least the ones I work with are...i don't really use the Microsoft tools personally) and so we usually get what we want out of them. The problem we run into is that there are so many tools to manage that they sometimes don't get the attention they need to stay up-to-date on our environment...though i don't know if a single monolithic tool is the answer either.

Plugins

Plugins for Mozilla® Firefox® help your browser perform specific functions like viewing special graphic formats or playing multimedia files.
They can enhance your browsing experience by allowing animation or they can help with tasks such as validating your genuine Microsoft® software.

That's kind and nice of MS!

Buridan's principle describes a type of race condition intrinsic to all decision-making systems. Lamport's paper is on the short list of documents that everybody in the slashdot community should read.

In a nutshell, macroscopic real world systems are continuous. Thus the mean value theorem applies. For every go/no-go decision, there is one threshold before which decision A is clearly valid and another threshold after which decision B is valid. By the MVT, somewhere between those two thresholds is a point where the decision crosses the axis between A and B.

Driving requires a sequence of decisions. It isn't too much to say that driving is a sequence of life-and-death decisions. Anything that distracts us moves the decision-making thresholds - e.g., the 3 second rule for following cars should lengthen for distracted drivers. Buridan, for instance, is a likely culprit in railroad crossing accidents. The driver could stop and be safe. The driver could cross expeditiously and be safe. The driver vacillates. Kaboom!

Cell phones aren't just a distraction - cars and roads are full of distractions. Cell phones are an unnecessary distraction.

You can also just disable LM hashing if a longer password sounds annoying:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/299656

Also, yes you can find Windows Server 2008 as a free download on microsoft.com.

Spoken like someone who has not given it a try yet.

While the system requirements on the download page seem to require Server 2008... that is not fully accurate... instead I'd consult the full system requirements page.

Hyper-V Server is a stand-alone, bare-metal hypervisor which is installed directly onto a machine without the need for a paid version of Windows sitting below... but which is also installable as a separate role under the full versions of Windows Server.

Ideally once it's all installed (the stand-alone version), you need only join it to an Active Directory domain in order to easily administer it from another Vista or 2008 box using the Remote Server Administration Tools... but even that is optional really as it can be administered without as well as in the end administration is just DCOM and WMI.

Spoken like someone who has not given it a try yet.

While the system requirements on the download page seem to require Server 2008... that is not fully accurate... instead I'd consult the full system requirements page.

Hyper-V Server is a stand-alone, bare-metal hypervisor which is installed directly onto a machine without the need for a paid version of Windows sitting below... but which is also installable as a separate role under the full versions of Windows Server.

Ideally once it's all installed (the stand-alone version), you need only join it to an Active Directory domain in order to easily administer it from another Vista or 2008 box using the Remote Server Administration Tools... but even that is optional really as it can be administered without as well as in the end administration is just DCOM and WMI.

Sell more copies of Hyper-V server? Good sir, that might be tricky given Hyper-V Server 2008 is free. Don't believe me? Go grab a copy for yourself here (do note the site that is hosted on).

Sell more copies of Hyper-V server? Good sir, that might be tricky given Hyper-V Server 2008 is free. Don't believe me? Go grab a copy for yourself here (do note the site that is hosted on).