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A is expensive! B is much more efficient, and costs half as much. C is even more efficient than B - ten times less expensive than A, compared to B.

It's the efficiency I want to know about.

I run diesel that costs more because my truck gets 2.5 times the gas mileage as it's gas version.

I'd gladly pay more for a solar panel that worked better than what is currently available (or alternatively drove down the price of the less efficient models.

But telling me something is better because it costs less is stupid.

The computer you are reading this on likely cost less than $1000, probably less than $500. Roadrunner costs 1-200K as much. Are you going to tell me that your computer is better because it cost less?

4) Hardware failure. This is one of the lowest orders of lost data, although when it happens, it can be one of the most extreme.

I don't think this is quite right. Hardware fails all the time, it should not be underestimated, and often it is useful to augment backups with RAID. It just depends on your exact needs... what is this data? Does the world end if you can't get back up and running within an hour of a hardware failure? If 12 hours of downtime is ok, then restoring a backup, is of course, more reliable, but you may have lost data between the time the backup was taken and the system crash.

Latent defects on hard disk drives are extremely common, and can actually cause software failures (Are you sure your "NTFS" corruption is a NTFS bug and not a latent disk error?). Actually, silent data corruption is a lot more common than complete failure, and RAID may not even be sufficient. Just ask the folks at CERN who ran fsprobe on their drives, and detected scarily high rates of corruption on common drives.

My preference is not to run important storage on Windows, but to utilize technologies like Solaris and the ZFS filesystem, which can detect and recover from such corruption. But RAID arrays do often support some method of checksumming and periodic verifications, to assist with preventing such errors. Using RAID or some type of redundancy solution is a lot better than utilizing standalone drives, when data integrity matters.

Accidental file deletions do happen, but it's usually on workstations. Usually accidental file deletions have limited scope, and recovery is possible without a backup, by imaging the disk, and using various repair tools.

However, say on X site's 1000 user mailbox Exchange server, a trained sysadmin is not likely to accidentally delete C:\windows, or something like that; a hardware failure is one of the things that is most likely to have a wide impact (second only to a misconfiguration, software failure, or admin mistake). Yes, there can be software bugs, but NTFS is basically rock solid, filesystem corruption is extremely unlikely on modern server OSes.

It would basically be foolhardy to not at least utilize run RAID1 (if not RAID1+0 with a hot spare and 5 or 6 separate RAID LUNs for boot drive, data drives, log drives) on such a critical server, because HW failure _really_ is one of the few major failure modes.

Moving parts (HDs, Fans, Air conditioners, Cooling pumps) usually fail the most often, followed by the parts most exposed to unstable power (PSUs, UPS gear), parts that are electrically sensitive (RAM), and parts that generate high amounts of heat, CPU.

With proper security precautions, malware on important systems is rare or non-existent. Users may get infected with malware, but they don't have access permissions to delete critical files. Windows Volume shadow copy on servers with previous file version tracking is more than adequate for dealing with most situations there.

The newer, denser, high capacity SATA hard drives are even more likely to fail than the ones manufactured just a few years ago, especially when they are designed for workstation class application loads, and are being stressed beyond expectations (by demanding apps or new OS software).

Granted, having RAID setups with high performance needs, might be part of the reason so many hard drive failures are seen in datacenters.

If you have a 3 drive RAID 5, instead of a single drive, there is a massively increased probability that at least one drive will eventually fail, because there are 3 times as many hard drives, than if you had just one disk drive.

That's another cost you incur in order to improve performance and reduce the probability of HD failure causing data loss.

No one said Linux is "bulletproof". Don't try to change the topic.

TFA is saying that the closed-source software costs more when operating costs are included in the total price tag. How much does industry pay for malware protection, virus protection, trojan protection, downtime from infection, and loss of productivity as a result of closed-source software? Those costs are relevant to businesses and should be considered.

What the hell does 'closed-source' software have to do with malware and all things you listed? Those depend more on popularity than FOSS or not. For example, check FireFox 'infected' with spyware http://i.d.com.com/i/dl/media/dlimage/14/92/50/149250_large.jpeg

Debian servers attacked http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1000000189,39118062,00.htm

"This is a very unfortunate incident to report about. Some Debian servers were found to have been compromised in the last 24 hours," the posting read.

Attackers compromised four servers, including those responsible for maintaining the project's bug tracking system, mailing lists, Web, Common Versioning System (CVS), security downloads and others.

RedHat/Fedora itself being attacked http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/150212/hackers_crack_into_red_hat.html

The last two examples are almost the equivalent of Windows Update being attacked and distributing malware, which hasn't happened (yet).

How can you claim that 'closed-source software' is the cause of all the ills you mentioned?

If that is what he is looking for I wonder why he didn't look into Nano servers for his needs? Low power? Yep. Easy to cool? Yep. I don't know about the price but I bet buying in bulk like Facebook would do he would get a good price.

It sounds to me like somebody didn't do his homework. As an added bonus the Nano has built in hardware crypto support which would help even more for things like HTTPS. He sounds like he would have been better off with Nano blades to me.

I find it interesting that their little "trial run" of blocking Google comes so soon after Bing decides to filter out anything sensitive (you know porn, skeletons, pandas) to China. So if we've got on big player playing ball, let the other one know what will happen to them if they don't. Another motive could be a a display of defiance to the West's requests to stop with all the blocking and blocking software? Maybe it's coincidence, maybe it's many factors.

yeah, but it's apparently legal for a battery maker to clone their battery "feature":

http://www.pcworld.com/article/121327/supreme_court_rebuffs_lexmark_in_toner_cartridge_fight.html

Ahh, but the DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent or bypass DRM restrictions. So they could just load a chip with a copyrighted mp3 embedded on it, use that as the "genuine" certification process, and if anyone a) uses the same mp3 can be sued for violation or b) bypasses the mp3's DRM or emulates it can be tried in criminal court.

Make the DMCA work for you!

yeah, but it's apparently legal for a battery maker to clone their battery "feature":

http://www.pcworld.com/article/121327/supreme_court_rebuffs_lexmark_in_toner_cartridge_fight.html

GoPhone subscribers warned the upgrade will be the end of the service.

AT&T Narrows Prepaid Plan Options

"AT&T currently offers two types of prepaid plans: GoPhone, its "pay as you go" plan, and Pick Your Plan, its "prepay once a month" plan. AT&T's statement says that GoPhone will not be available for either original iPhones or iPhone 3Gs; Pick Your Plan will only continue to work for existing subscribers using the original iPhone, as long as they have an unlimited data plan. Current Pick Your Plan users who don't have an unlimited data plan will be asked to add one. iPhone 3G users are not eligible for Pick Your Plan.

According to Erica Sadun at TUAW, who's been investigating this issue, all pay-as-you-go users are being strongly encouraged to sign up for a postpaid plan, which includes making a new two-year commitment."

Looks like I'll be waiting a year for the Apple/AT&T agreement to time-out. I'll not do a two year agreement again, ever.

Major League Baseball Advanced Media totally botched the transition not once, but twice. When switching from Flash to Silverlight last year their new Silverlight-based streaming player didn't work, leaving paying customers without service for days. This year they decided to switched back to a Flash-based player ON OPENING DAY. Unfortunately, the new player doesn't work either, and in many ways was worse than the silverlight player, requiring additional installation plugins for HD capabilities, and left these same paying customers without the opening day experience they're paying for two years in a row.

New York Times Reader was a different case. It worked fairly well, but NYT got thoroughly flamed for introducing the reader for windows only, basing it on WPF's FlowDocument capabilities which aren't available for the Mac. Similar text features are eventually going to make it into Silverlight, but things like Printing are a much higher priority for the SL guys. The silverlight version of the reader used a complicated templating system rather than true adaptive text layout. Adobe's Text Layout Framework may not have been the first to market, but that + Flex + AIR are the first to bring it to a wider audience and may ultimately resonate more.

Also I'm sure politics played a prevalent role in both cases, especially in the case of NYT where the Mac User's vitriol for anything microsoft played out.

MLB 2008
http://www.pcworld.com/article/144035/mlbs_web_video_strikes_out_on_opening_day.html

MLB 2009
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-j-elisberg/major-league-baseball-str_b_185158.html

NYT:
http://www.itwriting.com/blog/1424-new-york-times-switches-from-wpfsilverlight-to-flash-for-reader-2.html

After a while, you see it all, repeated every few years.

Some things I will never understand. We know already that these kind of keyboards are bad and yet some big companies, insist on making badly designed keyboards with the same flaws in this day and age still.

Really it's that way in the US too:

When PC World was testing Bing and comparing video search results on Bing and Live Search, we noticed both were virtually the same right down to the preview feature. In fact, the only difference PC World found between the two Microsoft search brands was the page layout and the look and feel. PC World even asked Microsoft about this similarity, and the company confirmed via e-mail the primary difference between Bing and Live Search is the user interface, which the company claims is more intuitive.

link

AFAICT:
    Bing = Live search + new UI + some canned search query types

It's progress, but it's more like MSN Search 2.1 than 3.0.

Now that's a big part of the market we're talking about. So Google is rightly scared out of its wits.

Sorry ... can't fault Microsoft this time. It's finally delivering value to the masses.

Sounds like an http proxy. Maybe there will be a switch in IE to automatically turn in on.

I thought it best that I provide evidence:

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/165077/microsoftled_forum_yields_tools_for_ooxml_interoperability.html

An update this year adds support for ECMA-376, an earlier version of OOXML standard, to Office 2007, but Microsoft won't support the ISO29500 specification until it releases its forthcoming Office 2010 technology. Office 2007 is the software that set off the controversy over document formats when Microsoft developed OOXML as its own XML-based file format for the suite.

Oh, of course established companies never release flawed software, right? Their ActiveX control does not have to be malicious in itself, it is sufficient if it tears holes into your defense for others to abuse. ActiveX needs to die a very quick death already. And can we please club that idea that a browser, JavaScript and a bit of fairy-dust can fully replace any local application regardless of specific implications out of people's heads?

Why the fuck should I have to do the work when experts in the field such as Bruce Schneier has done it for me? of course I guess that Forbes magazine and Bruce Schneier are "less than half a chromosome closer to a chimpanzee" because they don't want a bloated piece of spying pig shit like Vista. Want some more Mr Troll? How about Shane O'Neil of CIO.com writing on PCWorld for the perspective of enterprise companies in all this. His answer: XP works and Vista don't.

I could go on all day troll. I could wallpaper this page with link after link after link, by heads of corporations, by security experts, and of course by the users that have been burnt. Vista is a POS. Accept it and quit sucking the Ballmer cock. If you want an Apple so bad buy one. Ballmer is just as shitty a CEO as the Pepsi guy was for Apple Inc, he just has more money he can piss down a rat hole before they fire his monkey ass. Hell even their own executives got burnt on the whole Vista capable fiasco. Vista is DOA and I wouldn't be surprised if Windows 7 is just as big a can of fail.

Maybe after the next one bombs we can get Steve Ballmer fired and bring in someone who actually will give the customers what they want instead of wanting to be a ripoff of Steve Jobs and Apple Inc. But enjoy your big can of Vista failure troll, suck it down baby! As soon as Win7 comes out they will abandon you just like they did the WinME users a decade ago. Meanwhile I'm making the cash by cranking out new XP builds as fast as I can get the parts. I guess all those customers who are handing me money hand over fist just can't see the Vista "advantage" of protected media either, huh?

According to the IDG article they are specifically claiming that it will work on all frequencies used around the world. Not sure how they plan to do that, but that's the claim.

But that doesn't really matter, because you'll see that Asus is already backing off from Qualcom's announcement and claiming, "no, no, we haven't been pressured by MS or Intel not to release this device that would be an obvious hit." Man a device that can run for 8-9 hours with 3G connectivity? Sign me up. The only thing I'd want more is even more battery power. I don't care about it being thicker and heavier, but give me 24 hours of battery life so I can really be away from power and I think they'd have a game changer. That or a high powered ARM UMPC without a screen that I can plug my own portable keyboard into and monitor if I want. That would really rule since the battery life could rock.

The new software also supposedly makes you re-buy apps that you've already purchased, just so they can allow multiple accounts on one phone (have people really asked for this?).

http://www.pcworld.com/article/165834/apple_thwarts_app_piracy_ahead_of_iphone_30_release.html

From: This Article

The upgrade to the faster network is just one part of AT&T's plans to boost its overall network... In addition, AT&T plans on increasing its radio-frequency capacity by a factor of almost double, which it says will help with both overall coverage and in-building reception; adding more bandwidth to cell sites, to help accommodate more traffic and prepare for both HSPA 7.2 and LTE; rolling out over 2,000 more cell sites nationwide; and introducing femtocell technology for improved in-building coverage.

As you can see, they do in fact plan on adding bandwidth to existing towers as well as adding additional towers. If this is correct, you should start seeing improvements, not only in speed but in reception as well.

Uuuuhhhhh....sorry, but that was XP and Vista starter. Those folks will now be getting Win7 Basic. They have already stated that Win7 Starter WILL get sold on Netbooks in the good old US of A. And as I said, that is just to start. I can easily see a scenario where MSFT prices Win7 sooooo cheap that pretty much all the desktops and laptops that get Vista Basic or XP Home now end up with Starter. Then MSFT can "maximize their IP" by trying to push upgrades on all those poor saps that got boned.

Remember one of the bigwigs IN MSFT ended up with a $2100 email machine because he didn't know the difference between Vista Capable and Vista premium Experience. You honestly expect Joe and Velma Home user to know the different Win7 SKUs and the level of cripple in each? As someone who work retail i can tell you that 90%+ of home users think "I have Windows" and that is it. They can't tell you if it is XP Pro or Home, or what the difference is, they can't tell you if it is Vista Basic, Premium, Or Ultimate Electrolyte Edition. They just know "I have Windows".

Hell I have been building PCs since Win3.x and even I, am confused over exactly what will qualify as an "app" under Starter. Things that run in the tray and as a service don't IE does but with unlimited tabs, huh? I as a user would have no fricking clue when I launched a program whether it would fit under MSFT's idea of an "app" or not. And even the shittiest machines today can run 3 apps without breaking a sweat.

Just let me say that if this isn't proof that Ballmer needs firing I don't know what is. It was bad enough with the..what was it? Six or seven flavors of Vista? But now while the economy is in the crapper and his profits are down to pull this level of bone headed move is just ridiculous. At least No Aero on Basic made sense, since it was being put on machines that wouldn't run Aero anyway. I smell a whole lot of lawsuits coming down the pike for MSFT. All those clueless customers that went to "buy a Windows PC" and get burned by Starter is going to have an easy class action if they don't make it really obvious, as in a big sticker that says "this computer can only run 3 programs at a time" which I'm sure the OEMs are gonna love, and any company whose app is counted under the three app limit will point to some app that don't get counted and scream "the monopolist is using his power to twist the market! We'll sue!"

They are gonna take what looked like it could be a good OS and thanks to Ballmer and his marketing drones they are gonna turn it into a giant clusterfuck. The only good that may come of this is the board get tired of his dumbass maneuvers and fire the Ballmer monkey. I thought the Pepsi guy that nearly drove Apple into bankruptcy was a shitty CEO. Hell he looks like a genius compared to Ballmer. This is a boneheaded move from a company that has made nothing but boneheaded moves since Bill stepped down and gave the reins to the monkey. Maybe the next guy will be somebody from the Office team and they will actually make Win8 a winning OS.

Print is only technically traceable. Your local PD will not have access to a database that links the inkjet patterns to your name. If, in fact, such a mythical database even exists (doubtful, requires competence from the government and honesty from corporations), it is not a simple matter to perform a lookup. GP's suggestion is near perfect.

If you are familiar with the EFF you would have realized that your statement is wrong. Here's at least one EFF link, Printers, and another Government Uses Color Laser Printer Technology to Track Documents. As everybody knows, companies do keep information on purchasers, sometimes indefinitely, and credit card details etc can easily be matched up with a database of serial numbers.

There is nothing magical or mythical here.

The link in the story goes to page two of the article. Here's Page 1 instead.

This isn't a generic benchmark, they tested the performances of real applications...

Even if you get a Fiber last mile to your house or apartment if that Fiber is owned by the telcos without government forced deregulation as they had in Japan, you will still be stuck with the same BS scarcity myths and tiered pricing and bandwidth caps and deep packet inspection and without net neutrality. You will NOT BE FREE and will have less than what you should, less than what your tax dollars already should have bought you!

The only viable solution is complete forced government deregulation as they have had in Japan in 2000.

OR

A new independent of the current American telcos company that owns its own fibers, owns its own data centers, owns its own deep sea cables to other continents so that they will NOT be forced by the current monopoly / duopoly American Telcos to artificially limit their service to consumers. (Note: to be independent the company must have its own connections overseas and NOT be dependent on any of the current telcos in any country where deregulation has not already occurred.. They must be independent of peering agreements and artificial constraints meant to ONLY to control them and hurt you.)

When you have fiber to your door and have either 100MB/100MB for $55 per month or 1GB / 1GB is expected to be less than $52.00 per month or 1 TB / 1 TB for less than $45 per month; no caps (they are NOT necessary); no censorship (Deep Packet Inspection as it is NOT necessary); no throttling of service (as it is NOT necessary);

than and only than will you be secure in yours and your families future internet access. You can do without cable TV, but you can NOT do without the Internet today.

History has shown us how the telcos operate and it is NOT good for consumers. Accept that without intervention they have no incentive to change their customer-no-service business practices.

Some of the facts as we know them today, 2009, are:

• It costs telcos less than .50 cents to provided 1 GB of bandwidth. (the telcos will be able to provide this even cheaper once we get Fiber over the last mile. Once the fiber is laid, lit up and hardware in place, it does not cost the telcos an additional penny to provide more bandwidth.)
• The bandwidth Scarcity myth has been exposed as LIES.
• With Fiber over the last mile, since before 2005, technology has existed so that a single strand of glass can be multiplexed and the bandwidth increased from 1 to a factor of 1024. That is from 1 to X 1024 with a single strand of glass, thus the telcos can provide bandwidth even cheaper than .50 cents per 1 GB.
• less than 224 GB CAP guarantees that you will eventually pay over $100 and up to $150 per month. The telcos are on the record as knowing this back in 2006. The average IPTV user will likely consume about 224 gigabytes per month

Let's take the recent estimate of a lost laptop at $50,000. Now let's multiply that by an estimated 2 million hosts "lost" to a botnet discovered already this year. That's $100B and it's only April.

I suppose you could add hardware, software, and 30% of all the processing power on the planet to support bloated antivirus software. And don't forget power. That's a lot of Watts. And that's just the client side - half of those websites you refer too are actually traps for people trying to perform some self-help that actually install more malware.

The numbers are horrid. And it's all unnecessary. Wasteful. Shameful. We can do better than this.

Can Slate stop writing articles about shit it doesn't know about?

Right.

First, most of the things Slate suggests have been tried. Timing human input behavior is in use already, and attacks already do some randomization there.

Second, despite what the Slate article quotes, the CAPTCHA for Gmail has been cracked. The success rate is only 20%, but because the cracker is embedded in a botnet, that's good enough to survive IP blacklisting. MessageLabs says Gmail spam went from 1.3 percent of all spam e-mail in January to 2.6 percent in February.

All the proposed tasks - recognizing people, cats vs dogs, etc. - can be done by computers at the 20% accuracy level or better. So that's not going to work.

ReCAPTCHA isn't very good in practice. You get two words, one of which was recognized by an OCR program and one of which wasn't. You only have to re-recognize the one which some OCR program already got to pass the CAPTCHA. If you can do that, you have a 50% chance of success.

Then there are the outsourcing services. "We are 35 seater call center located in Hyderabad, we would be interested." The going rate is US$0.001 to US$0.003 per CAPTCHA solved successfully. There are always ads on GetAFreelancer for CAPTCHA solving. Read Black Hat World for sources.

why would they release information about this only to quickly revert their intentions?

Good catch, you are right, they will NOT. They will keep pushing for this in every and all markets.

They have made it clear that they want everyones monthly bill to reach $150 per month, in all circumstances, no matter what.

Remember they (telcos) knew that you would need a minimum of 224 GB per month back in the year 2006. What CAP is being proposed in your market, 5 GB, 10GB, 50 GB, 100 GB? If the companies had used the Billions in our tax money and government funding to build out their Fiber offerings since 1994 as they promised they would, there would be no need for CAPs and the companies would all be making more money, even at $55.00 per month. It is over a 1000 percent markup over their costs. And their costs are decreasing, not increasing.

Per BellSouth's Chief Architect Henry Kafka (note his figures are blatantly WRONG) The average IPTV user will likely consume about 224 gigabytes per month

They have received Billions from the government to build out Fiber offerings since before 1996, here it is 2009, almost a decade after the Japanese got 100 MB / 100 MB for less than $55.00 per month. Now they are rolling out 1 GB / 1 GB for less than $55.00 thanks to government deregulation of NTT (the dominant telco in Japan).

Even Japanese NTT officiers have stated that they are making plenty of money, even while only charging customers $55.00 or less per month. (I saw this first hand on CSPAN, heard it from the officials mouth myself)

Not surprising when even US telcom officials have known for years that it costs them less than .50 cents to offer 1 GB of service to the customer.

Their profits have gone up, their bandwidth usages have gone down and they still want to maintain a scarce resource in order to drive up your monthly costs to $150 per month. All the while never giving you better than 20 - 40 Mbps down, who knows how they will throttle you to slow you down further or what your upstream speeds will be.

Another area they should have explored further is industry lobbying. They said that cable and phone companies spend $1.5 million per week in Washington

People the telecoms have been lying to you since before 1996, and continue to do so because you are gullible enough to buy their FUD .

Its almost a decade later and no one in the US has 100 MB / 100 MB internet for less than

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,163024/article.html

Put away the pitchforks...

They are acting like a jilted lover after being turned down by Sun.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/162748/sun_blundered_by_turning_down_ibm.html

PC World has the figure at $38 million, which one is right? News item here: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/162832/microsoft_loses_antipiracy_patent_case.html

They do have their malware removal tool and have free anti-virus software coming out.
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/154146/microsoft_drops_onecare_antivirus_product.html

That being said, there will probably still be the Genuine Disadvantage stuff.

What happens when those 6-10 netbooks get sold? What about the rest of us?

"I think there is a world market for maybe five netbooks." - The ghost of Thomas Watson

Not to be too critical, but it sure reads as if you also needs to calm down and take a breath. Fanboism has been around long before there was linux, unix, or even computers for that matter. And don't get me wrong, I too at times need to step back and simply ignore the illogical rants from all sides.

I read TFA and Keir's blog post to which he was referring and all I can say to Keir is that he needs to grow thicker skin. If he intends to continue as a journalist on any topic he'll need to train himself to ignore the rants that make no sense.

In reading the responses in his blog post I'd say he had comments from the open source user community but absolutely no comments from the open source developer community. And he had plenty of Apple and Windows fainbois joining in for some perverse circle jerking so I don't see any basis for the wide stroke with which he paints the open source community.

What Keir needs to understand is that criticism of open source is not going to be focused and centralized on his personal blog, it takes place within the developer community and all one has to do is read the archives of the mailing lists to see the flames of debate that take place within the developer community.

As far as convincing your PHB goes, I'd suggest you hit him up with the language he understands, fixed costs, gross margins, return on investment, pay back, etc. If he is making business decisions based on some end user's wailing on an obscure journalist blog you have much bigger problems than fanbois who get you tweaked.

So lets all just chill and let the fanbois be fanbois.

That's why PCWorld as worst in Customer service and in practically every single other cateory as well among the 14 Top ISPs? That's why the BBB had previously warned people about Charter's miserable customer service?

Are you one of the customer support reps that LIE to people on the phone when they ask when the installer is coming?

You can resent my stance all you want, you can pretend that the constant heap of shit you pile on your customers is making them happy, but it seems like there is an awfully large amount of incredibly unhappy customers.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/161284/digg_founder_offers_sneak_peek_of_iphone_30_copypaste_feature.html

Can't wait for the next-gen hardware upgrade (fingers crossed for 32gb). I'll finally be able to replace my crappy phone and iPod Nano with an iPhone (just a mediocre phone, but that's fine by me).

Say goodbye to the MS business plan. That's what we're really talking about, the slow death of Windows in the data center.

Nonsense. Even Ballmer agrees that Linux has always been the undisputed leader in the data center. The downturn will only increase the dominance of Linux.

"Forty percent of servers run Windows, 60 percent run Linux," he said. "How are we doing? Forty is less than 60, so I don't like it. ... We have some work to do."

from here:
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/151568/ballmer_still_searching_for_an_answer_to_google.html

Assuming said speculation was true it wouldn't be DRM, but it would be intentionally enforced hardware component lock-in. If you want to call it DRM, go ahead, but it is inaccurate. Either way it is annoying and likely actionable if someone had the legal muscle.

According to Apple's VP of iPod marketing, third parties will soon be selling a small cable with the controls on it that you can plug any headphones into. It's not even a "lockout". Basically they have an extra hardware feature on their headphones that isn't standard. To get these hardware features, you need to buy Apple headphones or a third party adapter with this hardware feature. Actually, you can still use any headphones but without the additional hardware buttons on the adapter or on Apple headphones you lose the control features. It's hardly DRM.

In the US, the cable companies seem pretty excited about offering VOIP these days, and Vonage is still around, despite the legal battering it has taken, even though we don't hear as much about them as we used to.

Of course Verizon doesn't like VOIP in the home. It's still losing customers because of it. I suppose they can take some solace in the fact that many of us have been replacing our land lines with mobile phones more often than with VOIP via home internet.

So, how does that correlate with http://www.pcworld.com/article/160566/utah_online_porn_capital_of_america.html

They are talking about creating streaming only subscriptions. But until the streaming movies are DVD quality and 5.1 surround sound, i'll use streaming for TV shows and wait for my movies to come in the mail.

I'd like to see an open-wrt router firmware with.

8+ - Ethernet ports for multi wan (load balancing and fail over) 8+ - port USB so I can attach everything

Different size distribution so we can choose what to install and a nice auto-update to support all the devices.

Good idea and I agree with you!

For those who are not aware, you can get this very cheaply with DD-WRT + multiple router / firewalls or a router/firewall + network hubs.

Just combine a typical 4 port firewall/router that supports and will run DD-WRT, use VLANS and either a second router or a Gigabyte hub...thus port 2 + VLAN1 could be one 8 port gigabyte hub; port 3 + VLAN2 + second 8 port gigabyte hub; assign port 4 + 3rd 8 port gigabyte hub + VLANs. Since VLANs normally start at zero VLAN0, assign that port to a computer and or segregated network for monitoring of the hub and put all your WiFi traffic on this port to the Internet service provider. Thus you segregate your local area network from the WiFi part, thus you can have your port free and open, even charge if you want and make some money, although most just leave it open. And no you do NOT advertise this fact to your ISP.

VLAN0 - All Wifi + Internet (throttled by you as you see fit, so that your usage always gets priority over any other user that does not live in your household) + Quality of Service (QoS) + separate LAN address and PC to monitor everything, pushing this traffic off the LAN and if setup correctly can monitor for Trojan horses installed thanks to buggy browsers, applications and operating systems from proprietary vendors.

VLAN1 - 8 port gigabyte hub - Internet (with priority given to this LAN segment over VLAN0, QoS so that your VoIP gets priority over anything else...thus your phone calls are always clear without interruption

VLAN2 - second 8 port gigabyte hub - Internet (also priority over VLAN0

VLAN3 - third 8 port gigabyte hub - Internet (priority over VLAN0

With that setup you would have 25 ports through that one 4 port hub....doubt you would need that many. The best thing is that you can offer FREE WiFi and prevent users of this FREE WiFi from seeing the rest of your Local Area Network by segmenting the VLANS.

By segregating your Local Area Network, you can offer FREE WiFi without concerns from crackers, phishers and scammers. By definition, hackers will DO NO HARM.

Encourage everyone to open up their WiFi and stop the FUD by those that ONLY want to offer us less than what we already pay for....

The telcos have accepted billions of our tax dollars to build out fiber to our homes, but give us excuses instead. Many other countries have had 100Mbps / 100Mbps since 2000. Japan is starting to implement 1 Gbps / 1Gbps for less than $55 per month NOW. How much are you paying for less than 2 Mbps? Even FIOS will NOT give us more than 45 Mbps and its 2009, is that really a solution?

While the typical router and firewall routers do not have more than 4 ports, you can use VLANs to separate out those four ports. Considering that the lowest priced DD-WRT router is around $35 - $65; you could just extend from 4 to more by chaining + VLAN with additional Router / Firewalls instead of network hubs.

IMPORTANT NOTE about LINKSYS routers: The new ones coming on the shelves since December 2008 DO NOT allow you to use the DD-WRT software. Make sure you ONLY purchase a DD-WRT supported router!

Here is the page showing which routers support DD-WRT; I recommend those reading this that you get one that will support t

I've enjoyed his stuff for some time, but Blount has royally pissed me off with this. He and the Author's Guild can go fuck themselves.

Blount is just saying that publisher's need to charge kindle's e-book rights at a rate closer to audiobook rates. And if Amazon does not like that then they need to stop offering the audio conversion.

Amazon can go do whatever the hell they want, the publishers can do whatever the hell they want, and the authors can do whatever they want. Amazon doesn't need to do anything. The value of an ebook is determined by whatever people are willing to pay for it, not what the Blount thinks it is.

Pardon my language, I'm getting so fucking tired of people not understanding that information is dirt fucking cheap. They need to get over outdated ideas of value. Sure--at one time people would pay twice for an audiobook and print book. However, that's because there wasn't a medium that would do both. If someone comes up with a medium that does both, it doesn't mean that medium = audio format + print format, it means the latter two things lose value because it's suddenly become easier to do them.

Valve's CEO raised similar issues in the gaming industry recently:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/159805/dice_valves_newell_says_pirates_way_ahead_of_us.html/

What people in the publishing industries--whether that be music, film, books, games, whatever--don't realize is that publishing has become a whole lot fucking easier in the last 15 years. People at home can do it. The way you make money is by charging a price (really super dirt cheap) that reflects the new value, and offer it at volume. Publishing doesn't make money anymore, the product does, and only then if it's offered cheap to a lot of people (which is now possible in ways that it wasn't before).

What Blount should be demanding is that Amazon _reduce_ the fucking price, of everything--way below audiobook or print prices--to drive up demand.

I have a Blackberry and use it to browse the net. It doesn't have Flash. Something like >14 million people have Blackberries, and >8 million people have iPhones. Those devices don't support Flash yet,though a player is in development for the iPhone. Additionally some of the most savvy web users don't run scripts, including Flash, for security reasons. This story sounds like Adobe-flavored Kool Aid.

Uh... I don't know about you, but when I buy a phone, there are usually a ton of display models. It's real obvious which ones use which connectors.

I never said "it was the cheapest design." My point was that these switches are never costless -- the consumer is going to have to give up something else. It may be a company will determine that by increasing the charging voltage beyond what the EU specification says, they can charge the battery faster. But, by forcing the EU spec, the consumer will never get that benefit. Instead, they're forced to have the standardized charger.

If the industry determines that consumers care about this, then they'll make the change. In fact, it appears that it is already doing so: http://www.pcworld.com/article/159630/universal_chargers_to_finally_become_a_reality.html

Why would they do that? Is it because of the EU? I doubt it -- this standard has clearly been under development for a while. Instead, it sounds like they're responding to what consumers want.

Car emissions are a different beast -- they're a negative externality, a cost that's imposed on everybody else. And, regulation makes sense in that situation because the car consumer can make a choice that's bad for everybody else. But, there's no externality in cell phone chargers, apart from the very, very minimal cost of disposing of old chargers.

From PC World

1) Instead of Apple's sheer walls of glass, Microsoft's stores will have brushed steel walls dotted with holes -- reminiscent of Windows security.

2) The store will have six different entrances: Starter, Basic, Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate. While all six doors will lead into the same store, the Ultimate door requires a fee of $100 for no apparent reason.

3) Instead of a "Genius Bar" (as Apple provides) Microsoft will offer an Excuse Bar. It will be staffed by Microsofties trained in the art of evading questions, directing you to complicated and obscure fixes, and explaining it's a problem with the hardware -- not a software bug.

4) The Windows Genuine Advantage team will run storefront security, assuming everybody is a thief until they can prove otherwise.

5) Store hours are undetermined. At any given time the store mysteriously shuts down instantaneously for no apparent reason. (No word yet on what happens to customers inside).

6) Stores will be named Microsoft Live Retail Store with PC Services for Digital Lifestyle Enthusiasts.

7) Fashioned after Microsoft's User Account Control (UAC) in Vista, sales personnel will ask you whether you're positive you want to purchase something at least twice.

8) Xbox 360 section of the store will be organized in a ring -- which will inexplicably go red occasionally.

9) DreamWorks will design a scary in-store theme park ride called "blue screen of death."

10) Store emergency exits will be unlocked at all times so people can get in anytime they want even if the front doors are locked.

HERE

How is this going to affect Microsofts' current retail channels, like Dixons or PC World ..

http://blogs.pcworld.com/gameon/images/rage_first_screenshot.jpg

At least it's an improvement on Vista, which is capable of "booting the operating system, without running applications or games".

The point of OSS is that you can do your own security fixes, and not have to wait 7 years for a patch.

If you think that large parts of critical UK infrastructure are not already running on BIND, postfix, sendmail and apache then you are a bit behind the times.