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And so soon after it made the list.

"India and Brazil have filed appeals against the adoption of the Microsoft-sponsored Office Open XML (OOXML) document format as an international standard."

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/146468/india_and_brazil_file_appeals_against_ooxml_standardization.html

This article lists the US prices as:
Linux version: $560
WinXP version: $604

and the UK prices as:
Linux version: £320 (~630 USD)
WinXP version: £350 (~690 USD)

WTF. Defensive body language? What are you, a behavioral psychologist and a whiney mac fanboy? Can you whistle Beethoven's 5th with your nose as well?

They already did .... http://www.pcworld.com/ and http://networks.silicon.com/

Counterfeiting was the public reasoning for the RFID chips in the 2006 World Cup tickets.

Combining a parent's Google News search idea with SCHecklerX's mention below of AltaVista (hey, can I patent that process?) leads me to a PC World article about "AV Photo Finder" from October 14, 1998!

Beat that!

Will Businesses Skip Windows Vista Altogether?

Corporate Americaâ(TM)s rejection of Vista

Microsoft may allow businesses to skip Vista, go direct from XP to Windows 7

Businesses could skip Vista for Windows 7

Yes, or course they do. This trick has been at least known since Dell decided to use the Vista downgrade license to sell PCs with XP preinstalled.: "In essence, the user is buying a Vista license that it can apply to XP, and Microsoft can still claim a Vista sale."

It's remarkable how he can paint a happy face on the steepest decline in the history of the company.

If his figures are correct, the PC market just experienced the largest contraction ever and nobody noticed. Especially odd in that Intel's operating income is up 23%. Top PC seller HP's net income is up 16% on strong notebook sales and huge growth in emerging markets. Lenovo is reporting a 17% increase in sales on strong global demand.

Is anybody besides Microsoft seeing this decline? Is somebody lying to Ballmer? "Gee, no, Steve. Business is off everywhere. It's a recession. People adore Vista. You can put the chair down now."

Apparently the newest Eee PC will have a multi-touch trackpad, if that counts.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,143882-pg,1/article.html

They are just another PC company going for the cheapest parts.

What is TRULY disturbing is how Apple got you to believe this. If that is not a crime, I do not know what is.

I use an old laptop booting off a DOS disk with BananaCom on it as a dedicated console for our core router.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,143232-page,1/article.html

I am sure the olympics is a big website in terms of content and viewers. This will be enough to showcase its worth if done well.

I recall it specifically since I was working on Deer Hunter in '97, which was specifically targeted at those mid to low-end machines. For a good chuckle, look at the min specs required for that game. I think it's much more likely that the market will continue to grow in both direction. There will always be those who want the fastest and best at the upper end of the market, but it will likely also expand downward to fill additional niches.

That's why I always wanted one of these. It was lightweight like an EEE or whatever, but it had a 10" screen, reasonable keyboard, and was really thin (if it's not thinner than the MacBook Air, it was at least close). There's a lower limit to the length and width if you want good usability, but you can always make it thinner and lighter...

Aside from the slow processor and the fact that it wasn't a Tablet PC, it was almost perfect. I wish they'd bring it back with those deficiencies removed -- even at $1000, I'd buy it in a heartbeat!

But Novell already stated they won't be pursuing Unix copyrights. So OpenSolaris has nothing to fear, which is what the original poster was trying to imply.

Actually, it's not that elaborate at all. The idea is an old one, made popular with spy novels and movies. It's called a "dead man switch". Basically, it's just software that you have to sign into and disable on a regular basis or it will perform some action, which could be to lock the machine and e-mail a trusted party the username and password.

In fact, such software exists for Windoze machines, and I've used it. It's called "Dead Man Switch", or DMS for short. A quick Google for "dead man switch software windows" returned several places to download the software, including:
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,23183-order,1-page,1-c,alldownloads/description.html

Of course, none of that takes care of the original poster's problem.

Next, you're going to say oscilloscopes don't run windows, and that human beings only do things with the best intent for humanity in mind.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,143496-pg,1/article.html
http://www.programurl.com/software/heart-monitor.htm

It doesn't necessarily matter that the heart monitor doesn't run windows, although there's nothing stopping someone from trying that, if a machine with that problem is in the loop. It's especially problematic if the devices themselves are at risk of hacking. Windows is not the only thing suffering from security issues.

Even if Microsoft produces a DRM-encumbered operating system for the XO-1, what makes you think a country will choose it over the freely-available Sugar-on-Fedora that the XO currently runs?

Customers have, on occasion, inexplicably chosen Windows over Linux at a seemingly late stage in deployment, so it should be a genuine source of worry for anyone supplying Linux machines in large quantities.

And if you look at the end of that page, there's a link to a PC World story about the upcoming Wine 1.0. Written in 2002.

I don't want to sound like I'm just harping on the Wine guys, though. The Windows API is often poorly documented even when Microsoft isn't changing a function to do something completely different in their new release. Considering that, Wine is quite a piece of work.

The article has a photo of a drive that's supposed to be the ST506. It looks more like an ST225, as the ST506 was full height.

The article pictures what looks like a 40MB 5.25" (half-height) drive, the ST412.

As you say, the ST506 is a full height drive, twice the height (and weight) of the drive pictured.

Yes.

Do they have jurisdiction to require an Out-of-State vendor to collect Sale Tax on their behalf? I doubt it. Do they have jurisdiction to demand payment from said Vendor? I doubt it.

New York will sue and probably win. Do you forget that New York state will tax you if you telecommute to work for a company based on NY while you live outside NY. Enter the state on business and you own NY state tax for the YEAR.

The fastest Windows Vista notebook we've tested this year (through 10/25/07) is a Mac. Try that again: The fastest Windows Vista notebook we've tested this year--or for that matter, ever--is a Mac. Not a Dell, not a Toshiba, not even an Alienware. The $2419 (plus the price of a copy of Windows Vista, of course) MacBook Pro's PC WorldBench 6 Beta 2 score of 88 beats Gateway's E-265M by a single point, but the MacBook's score is far more impressive simply because Apple couldn't care less whether you run Windows.

In a world where computers boot a simple OS, then open a web browser to get all work (email, documents, spreadsheets, everything else) done scares the hell out of microsoft. That is not the business model that microsoft has been using.

Actually MS has been working on offering software as a service for some years. Just log into the website and there's your documents, much like Google Apps.

I went to another article and looked for the print link, then swapped the article ID number in.

http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,144127/printable.html
Change that bold number and you get a different article

For large websites, the printer link is generated on the backend, without any extra effort.
They aren't going to take the time to disable it on an article by article basis, even though they should.

Printer friendly: http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,144127/printable.html

Just because they don't show you a printer friendly link doesn't mean it isn't there.

Remember the keyboard garage in the Amiga 1000?

Google released a report about a year ago with the surprising finding that heat had no apparent effect on the rate of hard disk failure. This was based on Google's set of several tens of thousands of always-on hard disks.

It was the ones made in Hungary that were the problem

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,59943-page,1/article.html?tk=dn082901X

http://everything2.com/e2node/IBM%2520DeskStar

The ones made in Thailand IIRC were OK. So this one bad plant in Hungary caused IBM to sell it's hard drive business with a $2B loss.

An interesting story to tell people if they consider outsourcing. Seems like factories are not a commodity after all. In this case the Hungarian one ended up costing them $2B.

Well, in this article, Bill Gates and Jim Allchin speak of the new technologies that will make it into the system.
I for one am thrilled to see that it will feature a better DB based filesystem (This would be awesome for speedy searches, I mean come on, it's 2008 already, I don't want to wait for the computer to do a record search for the file I need...)
But more importantly what I'd welcome the most is the one click application install that doesn't require a reboot!
This would be just revolutionary.

" but if you mean been a success above all others, that's not clear at all to me.)"

Well fortunately, It doesn't matter if its clear to YOU, because you couldn't be more wrong. The below is just one independent metric that supports this claim. Google and other market share reports have shown the simialar.

"From December to March, Mobile Safari's browser market share in the U.S. jumped from 0.14 percent to 0.23 percent. StatCounter said that the iPhone is now the number one mobile browser in the United States, and number two globally"

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,143732-pg,1/article.html

The LG TV I picked up last week runs Linux, which I noticed because the last page of the manual credits various GPL and open source software used in the TV, including Linux and Busybox and other projects. Props to LG for going beyond the call of duty in crediting their suppliers.

The consensus appears to be developing that Windows Vista is the latest version of Windows ME. I'm advising my clients to skip Vista and wait for Windows 7 - since by that time, you'll have no choice but to upgrade to it - or switch to Linux (which may still not be an option for some people by 2009 or whenever "7" comes out.) Just make sure you can access enough Windows XP licenses to cover new purchases of machines for the next couple of years. This PC World article shows you how.

That happened two years ago:

Man charged with stealing Wi-Fi signal
Beware the wardriving menace

As reported by the St. Petersburg Times, Benjamin Smith III was recently arrested in Florida for "hacking into" an open WiFi network. According to the newspaper report, Richard Dinon, a St. Petersburg resident, saw an SUV parked outside his home, with its driver "furtively hunched over his computer," and called the cops. Smith was charged with unauthorized access to a computer network, a felony.Benjamin Smith III, 41, faces a pretrial hearing this month following his April arrest on charges of unauthorized access to a computer network, a third-degree felony.

London Man Arrested for 'Stealing' Wi-Fi

Police officers in London arrested a 39-year-old man using his laptop to access someone else's wireless Internet connection on Tuesday.
His actions could potentially breach the Computer Misuse Act and the Communications Act, according to a Metropolitan Police Service statement. A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police confirmed the arrest on Thursday.

U.K. man arrested, fined for using open WiFi signal

Gregory Straszkiewicz, 24, was found guilty of "dishonestly obtaining an electronic communications service" and "possessing equipment for fraudulent use of a communications service" after he was found logging on with a laptop outside an apartment building. Straszkiewicz was fined £500 ($872) and given a year's probation; he also had his laptop confiscated.

A list here
Some Required Reading
The Wiki Entry with everything

Now Those are just some places to start, however:
if you look here you'll get an idea
Finding a good vendor independent list that does not use adjectives, you know something with metrics on how many viri in the database, how fast does is scan files? How much Memory does it take up? all of these are becoming more and more difficult to find. AV software is supposed to do one thing, scan files, match them to heuristics and if they match the sig, move it to a sandbox or blow it away. Security is an evolving battlefield, polymorphisms brought way to new methods of infection and a few worms bounced about, then heuristics got better, now they rely on stupidity of which there will always be an ample supply.

Funny, because I recall Steve Jobs making it clear in September that Apple would fight attempts to unlock the iPhone. He didn't say anything about protecting the timid. I think it went more like this. "It's a cat and mouse game" and "It's our job to keep them from breaking in." I guess I missed his "Protect the timid" speech.

Yeaaaaah... I'm sure you're right SuperKendal. Steve was just feeling generous. I don't imagine that billion dollar class action lawsuit regarding the intentional bricking had anything to do with it.

Or, you know, maybe education doesn't work.

And yes, it is faster and has less crashes and uses less memory. Did you think that was a binary choice?

Conversely, if fully-featured smartphones (i.e. pc-equivalent) come down in price, one could expect to see laptop sales dwindling.

Really? How do you intend to get a PC class keyboard and display into a smartphone?

I love my Centro. I love my Zaurus. And I love my little old Sony Vaio "ultraportable" notebook. They all hit different points in the tradeoff between keyboard and display size versus portability.

Why get an underpowered ultraportable when a normal laptop costs just as much?

Because it's ultraportable.

My real ultraportable is a Zaurus SLC3000. It will fit in my back pocket. I use it for writing, it can also be used for emergency SSH sessions and cramped web broswing. It's usually in my backpack, ready for when poetic inspiration strikes. That's ultraportable. (The only thing more portable is my Centro. The neat thing is, my Centro becomes a modem, my Zaurus runs a terminal, and bam! SSH or browsing from anywhere I can get a cell signal, with gear that fits in my pockets.)

My ultraportable-as-this-article-is-using-the-term is an old Sony Vaio SRX77 that I've fitted with a solid state harddrive, and installed Puppy Linux on. Good sized keyboard, adequate power, under three pounds and smaller than a standard looseleaf binder. I take it when I'm headed down to the cafe to sit and write or browse for a while. Not pocketsized, by easily portable.

My full sized laptop is heavy, big, and sucks battery. It's a full-featured beast that goes with me on long trips, to replace my desktop.

A bit late in the discussion now, but for the sake of clarrifacation...
Firstly, nothing in my post was intended to be FUD. Secondly, I found what I read, and it was speculative, not factual. That was my bad. Finally, I am a linux supporter. I use it solely at home. I push to get open-source projects used at work (against my bosses wishes).

I travel with a Sharp Actius MM10 fairly regularly and I've never been hassled. This laptop is truly uber tiny, and it's quite similar to the Macbook in many of the ways listed. I'm willing to believe this is just viral marketing crap from Apple.