Domain: pcworld.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to pcworld.com.
Comments · 2,312
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Re:Microsoft Bob
in the article they link to a more elaborate article on bob which does mention it
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Re:Bad tech? Nah...
Or for those of us who appreciate irony, how about "breaking your article up into many pages in order to increase page impressions and ad revenue?"
I agree, for those of you that DO NOT feel like clicking through all 9 pages to view all of these "finalists", just go here -
Re:Bad tech? Nah...
http://www.pcworld.com/resource/printable/article
/ 0,aid,125772,00.asp The whole article in one page with pictures. (Printer friendly link) -
Re:That sound
From another article on the same thing:
"Though the news may appear to be a blow to Microsoft, Rob Enderle, analyst with the Enderle Group, said it actually could serve the company well in the near term as it continues to battle antitrust charges in the European Union." -
I like this one.. Rob Enderle again
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,125889,
0 0.asp
Though the news may appear to be a blow to Microsoft, Rob Enderle, analyst with the Enderle Group, said it actually could serve the company well in the near term as it continues to battle antitrust charges in the European Union.
"Initially this works in Microsoft's favor, because they're trying to showcase that there is no lock-in on the desktop," he said. "Right now, a couple of the big [hardware] guys going with Google is a good thing." -
AntiVir
I've been using AntiVir the past few months after a favorable PCWorld review:
http://pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,124475,00 .asp
Among the three free programs reviewed (also including Avast and AVG), its virus detecting was rated best. It's free; but, you must bear with the splash screens every couple of days. -
Re:AVG
Without stating what I currently use now, I'll stand up and say I've used AVG for years. I also of course read a lot of anti-virus test scores, most of which are complete crap btw. The bottom line is what I found was AVG while average in known virus detection is terrible in Heuristic detection. Example http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/chart_test_report/
0 ,chid,6214,prodid,27567,00.asp
So I'm starting to move myself and everyone I know to a new product which by all most reviews does a fanatastic job. For advanced users AVG still might work ok, especially when you consider its low impact on system resources. But for average users I simply can't recommend it anymore. -
BitDefender, comparison link
I haven't seen any BitDefener recommendations yet. I will be considering it along with Kaspersky, F-Secure and NOD32.
BitDefender
http://www.bitdefender.com/
The New Virus Fighters: Our Antivirus Picks
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,12416 3,pg,3,00.asp -
it wil always be 'too soon'
Remember last year when the JFK reloaded game was released? There was plenty of hubub about that, and in that case the actual event happened 50 years ago.
Really. What if someone made a game about the holocaust (and you play for the 'bad' team)? It's more than a matter of just how much time has passed, I'd say... -
Re:macs are great
If I had £1500 I would have one too.
the key is cost. For that much in a pc, you can much more for the money. A toshiba laptop with a bigger display, twice as much RAM, the same core duo processor, a tuner, bigger hard drive, and more costs the same http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/test_report/0,prodi d,28245,00.asp Are you sure that you aren't just a mac fan because they look pretty? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Listen to the money. Money talks -
Failure of security professionals?
"It is time to admit what many security professional already know: We as security professional are drastically failing ourselves, our community and the people we are meant to protect. Too many of our security layers of defense are broken. Security professionals are enjoying a surge in business and growing salaries and that is why we tolerate the dismal situation we are facing. Yet it is our mandate, first and foremost, to protect."
Bollocks - this implies that there's more security professionals could do, but they choose not to, to drum up business.
The sad reality of the matter is the vast majority of the threats they mention - Spyware, phishing, Trojans, viruses, worms, rootkits, spam, web app vulnerabilities & ddos attacks - are enabled by the existence of botnets (to stage attacks from, send spam, provide anonymity, host phishing webservers, etc)
The source of (the vast majority of) botnets is Microsoft's security failures in the late 90's/early 00s. How are security professionals supposed to combat something that happened in the past in another company?
Furhtermore, the list of data lossesCredit Card Breach Exposes 40 Million Accounts
can be blamed on companies who have failed to follow their security team's advice. Not on the security team itself.
Bank Of America Loses A Million Customer Records
Pentagon Hacker Compromises Personal Data
Online Attack Puts 1.4 Million Records At Risk
Hacker Faces Extradition Over 'Biggest Military Computer Hack Of All Time'
Laptop Theft Puts Data Of 98,000 At Risk
Medical Group: Data On 185,000 People Stolen
Hackers Grab LexisNexis Info on 32000 People
ChoicePoint Data Theft Widens To 145,000 People
PIN Scandal 'Worst Hack Ever'; Citibank Only The Start
ID Theft Hit 3.6 Million In U.S.
Georgia Technology Authority Hack Exposes Confidential Information of 570,000 Members
Scammers Access Data On 35,000 Californians
Payroll Firm Pulls Web Services Citing Data Leak
Hacker Steals Air Force Officers' Personal Information
Undisclosed Number of Verizon Employees at Risk of Identity Theft
The story makes some good points, but blames the wrong people. -
Re:GIMP!Will it be easier to do CMYK work on an LCD screen than a CRT?
I see where you're coming from but no. A CMYK LCD could be done, I suppose, but since that would require a total redefinition of the colour model for your graphics (a quick re-write of DirectX from the ground up, for example) it's easier to just install colour-management into the workflow instead since there are already hooks for that anyway.
Actually, the more I think about it the harder it is to see how a CMYK LCD display could work in a dark room where a blacklight is needed. I think you'd end up having to use a torch instead!
Have a look at this PCW article.
TWW
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Link to the actual article
The blurb links to the Digg page for the story, not the actual article: http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,125537,
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direct link
I'm not sure why this is linked via digg. Here's direct link.
On another note, no offense to the people in the article, but do we really call someone a computer support 'pro' after two hours of training and a pizza delivery job? -
Re:Other uses than destroying?
I'm suprised nobody has mentioned the 'donate a computer less than two years old to a school and write off the entire purchase price on your taxes' thing they have in the US. Couple of caveats :
1. Only works for companies - individuals can't do it (which is too bad, because I would have donated my entire four box Beowulf cluster (PowerEdge 400sc machines, P4 2.8GHz HyperThreaded CPUs, GigE, and about 6G of memory and 1.3T of drive space spread across the four machines) just for the ability to write them off.)
2. You are allowed to double dip - even if you have depreciated the machines completely, you get to write off 100% of the original purchase price. If your company is paying 30% taxes and you get to write off the entire purchase price twice in two years - TCO for those two years is ~ 40% of the sticker price. If you were a small company that wasn't adverse to a little book juggling, got machines with fairly hefty rebates on them your out of pocket costs for a new machine every two years could approach $0
Here is a PC World article with enough buzzwords to assist you in better Googling. -
Story Title FUD...
Not only will dual booting and sharing files between OSs be harder, but recovery of lost data could also be harder. If they used something standard, or at least disclosed how they were storing the data, we might have a way to recover lost data. However, if we don't know how to decrypt the data, then how are we supposed to recover the data. Will the data be lost if you have to reinstall the OS? I know windows XP deletes sensitive information if your Admin has to reset your password.
1. This "problem" only occurs with the Enterprise and Ultimate editions.
2. There is not a problem here. Bitkeeper (EFS with a name created by the marketing department) will not be enabled by default unless your company enables the policy. If your company does enable the policy, you should also create a Data Recovery Agent. This can also be done on a standalone workstation.
3. If you can't access your ENCRYPTED data from another OS or boot CD, the encryption worked. Encrypting data involves risks just as leaving your important data unencrypted involves risks. Pick your poison and move on.
4. If you do decide to encrypt your data via EFS, think first. Trust me, I made a huge mistake because I didn't understand the technology at the time.
I had a 20 GB hard drive for the OS and an 80 GB hard drive for "important data." This was four years ago, I was a college student, and legal digial music was in its infancy. I spent my savings on the 80 GB drive and acquired the music from various online sources. I had the 80 GB drive about 65% full when the RIAA started targeting universities. I thought encryption was an appropriate response since the data was "important." About a month after encrypting some contents on the drive, my 20 GB system drive died. It was still under warranty so I sent it in and got a replacement a couple weeks later. I reinstalled Windows XP Pro on the replacement drive and was looking forward to listening to the music again. To my surprise, many files were unreadable. Luckily I didn't encrypt the entire drive but just a few directories. -
Low voltage Core Duos now available
The general consensus is that the 12" Macbook Pro will be released when Merom hits the market. With the heat problems the Macbook Pros have been having, a 12" wouldn't be viable at this time.
I wouldn't give up hope on a pre-Merom 12" MacBook Pro. The current 15" and 17" MacBook Pros use the "standard" Core Duo processors rated at 31W TDP. However, since at least late March, "low voltage" versions of Core Duo have been available. These versions are rated at 15W TDP. IBM uses them in their ultraportable Thinkpad X60s.Here's some links if you want em':
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Re:You'd have to be a fool to use something like t
A valid concern with Microsoft's LiveDrive, but at least with the GDrive we wouldn't have to assume Google would hand such information over. Disturbing to think of Abdul's private family vacation snapshots being bored over in the hunt for Terrorist Activities (TM), but if history's anything to go by, the US government would have to do some work to prove that Weapons of Mass Destruction (R) were being stored in digital form. Maybe now that Google has set the path, other companies (even Microsoft) will think twice before handing over data lest they should end up with publicity like this.
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Re:summary
The sad part is that Burst has already one once against Microsoft, that'll weigh heavily on Apple going in to this.
Sigh. I'm still waiting for that (-1, WRONG WRONG WRONG) moderation tag that Slashdot needs so badly...
Burst.com has not "one" (sic) once against Microsoft in any legal sense, Microsoft settled. Such a settlement does not set any legal expectation to "weigh heavily on Apple," all it does is imply that Microsoft's lawyers thought that Burst.com had a strong case.
Even that isn't directly comparable, because the suit against Microsoft included antitrust claims that aren't applicable against Apple, since (regardless of complaints /.ers might make of Apple's dominance with the iTMS) there is no legal finding of fact that Apple is a monopoly. -
Re:The Input/Output Hurdle
I'd want one of these things too. The "portable screen" idea microsoft had was a start (several years ago they briefly marketed a concept that was basically an underpowered tablet running nothing but a glorified VNC client showing the display on your real computer) but I need something standalone. Don't need to store my mp3 collection on it, so 4GB flash (harddrive=movingparts=bad) should be enough to load the OS and basic apps. Wireless, a good screen, USB for an optional keyboard, and I'd be set.
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Re:Corporate version?
Actually:
Movie Maker
Movie Maker
WMP
And that's with two google searches and only looking at the first five results, if you utilized ultra extreme 133t tactics like bittorrents I'm sure you could find even more. Or, as I said, VLC and MPC, which most pirates would be using anyway, because WMP is garbage. Pirates never have to buy anything. Where there's a will there's a way. -
Re:Thank you MicrosoftNote: I do have legally acquired copy of XP (The MSDNAA rep gave them away at my college).
I'm sure Microsoft really hates losing a non-paying customer.
Yes, they would. In fact they would hate it so much they are willing to give huge discounts to people who have a pirated copy. Some research suggests that "22% of PCs in the US use a copy of Windows that is not genuine." That's in the US alone. I've been to Vietnam. I'm not entirely there is a single legitimate copy in the whole country. IOW, outside the US the illegitimacy rate is most likely higher. But let's assume it's the same. If MS has 90% market share and 22% of those are pirated, and MS lost those 22%, they would then only have ~70% market share. That means a lot of people have OS X or Linux or something else. That will start software companies noticing. And a huge step down in that direction in such a short time, suddenly people (defined as share holders, 3rd party developers, consumers and businesses) will start to see that Microsoft isn't all that special, just like when Firefox dropped IE's market share below 90% in such a short amount of time.
In fact, notice when Firefox ate MS's lunch in the browser world that suddenly MS had a new browser to show everyone. That's a freaking browser. You can do that quickly. An OS, as Vista has shown, takes a much longer time. It'll be a downward spiral. When MS starts to lose market share it will do so quickly, and Microsoft knows that. That's why they give discounts for pirated copies. That's why they won't disable the entire OS, just some unneeded functionality.
Does MS care about non-paying customers? Yes, a whole lot. They maintain they're position by being so widespread, not because of their merits as the best OS developers. If they lose that market dominance, they will suddenly be "just another software company."
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Google Calendar Reviewed in PC World......Here.
Google Calendar has been pretty slow for me this morning, and not all options are always saving correctly, but I guess it will take them a few more days to iron out the bugs and get used to the user load. Seriously neat is the ability to quickly add an entry by typing 'dinner with Chris next Thursday 5pm'.
I don't see any Gmail integration yet, like the ability to identify mails that mention appointments and ask you if you'd like them put into the calendar. But it's mentioned on the features page so I'm sure it will be there soon. -
Re:Interface, interface, interface.....
I agree up to a certain point. The other factors do make a difference and 1.3mp camera phone can take better pictures than a 2.0mp phone. But when Samsung starts shipping their 5 megapixel phones, you can be pretty sure that the difference will be enough to trump most of the other factors.
I just wish I could buy a decent phone, bling aside, I'm from the school of thought that, if you buy a camera phone, you get a crappy camera, and crappy phone. If your lucky, they throw in a crappy mp3 player, or pda. It's to the point now, that the cell phone manufactureres stopped engineering phones and started engineering bling. How bout a damn speaker phone feature that I can hear over the road noise in my car? It is after all a MOBILE phone.. right? -
Re:PC Phone Home - PC World article, Apr 2006Sort of a software LoJack.
Lincoln Spector of PCWorld gives an overview of laptop security products in the April 2006 issue: http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,124780
, 00.aspThe 3 methods are 1) lock, 2) encrypt and 3) have the laptop call a central server to report it's whereabouts.
Spector doesn't mention combination approaches: CyberAngel reportedly ( http://www.sentryinc.com/sohoapp.html ) encrypts and calls home automatically upon login failure.
Full Disclosure: I don't own a laptop yet, though I am in the market for one.
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AMD Vs Intel: Round 9
Ok, so I know I'm going to get a lot of AMD people agreeing with me and a lot of Intel people outright ripping me to shreds. But I'm going to speak my thoughts come hell or high water and you can choose to be a yes-man (or woman) with nothing to add to the conversation or just beat me with a stick.
I believe that AMD had this technology [wikipedia.org] before Intel ever started in on it. Yes, I know it wasn't really commercially available on PCs but it was there. And I would also like to point out a nifty little agreement between IBM and AMD [pcworld.com] that certainly gives them aid in the development of chips. Let's face it, IBM's got research money coming out of their ears and I'm glad to see AMD benefit off it and vice versa. I think that these two points alone show that AMD has had more time to refine the multicore technology and deliver a superior product.
As a disclaimer, I cannot say I've had the ability to try an Intel dual core but I'm just ever so happy with my AMD processor that I don't see why I should.
There's a nice little chart in the article but I like AMD's explanation [amd.com] along with their pdf [amd.com] a bit better. As you can see, AMD is no longer too concerned with dual core but has moved on to targeting multi core.
Do I want to see Intel evaporate? No way. I want to see these two companies go head to head and drive prices down. You may mistake me for an AMD fanboi but I simply was in agony in high school when Pentium 100s costed an arm and a leg. Then AMD slowly climbed the ranks to be a major competitor with Intel--and thank god for that! Now Intel actually has to price their chips competitively and I never want that to change. I will now support the underdog even if Intel drops below AMD just to insure stiff competition. You can call me a young idealist about capitalism!
I understand this article also tackles execution types and I must admit I'm not too up to speed on that. It's entirely possible that OOOE could beat out the execution scheme that AMD has going but I wouldn't know enough to comment on it. I remember that there used to be a lot of buzz about IA-64's OOOE [wikipedia.org] processing used on Itanium. But I'm not sure that was too popular among programmers.
The article presents a compelling argument for OOOE. And I think that with a tri-core or higher processor, we could really start to see a big increase in sales using OOOE. Think about it, a lot of IA-64 code comes to a point where the instruction stalls as it waits for data to be computed (most cases, a branch). If there are enough cores to compute both branches from the conditional (and third core to evaluate the conditional) then where is the slowdown? This will only break down on a switch style statement or when several if-thens follow each other successively.
In any case, it's going to be a while before I switch back to Intel. AMD has won me over for the time being. -
AMD Vs Intel: Round 8
Ok, so I know I'm going to get a lot of AMD people agreeing with me and a lot of Intel people outright ripping me to shreds. But I'm going to speak my thoughts come hell or high water and you can choose to be a yes-man (or woman) with nothing to add to the conversation or just beat me with a stick.
I believe that AMD had this technology before Intel ever started in on it. Yes, I know it wasn't really commercially available on PCs but it was there. And I would also like to point out a nifty little agreement between IBM and AMD that certainly gives them aid in the development of chips. Let's face it, IBM's got research money coming out of their ears and I'm glad to see AMD benefit off it and vice versa. I think that these two points alone show that AMD has had more time to refine the multicore technology and deliver a superior product.
As a disclaimer, I cannot say I've had the ability to try an Intel dual core but I'm just ever so happy with my AMD processor that I don't see why I should.
There's a nice little chart in the article but I like AMD's explanation along with their pdf a bit better. As you can see, AMD is no longer too concerned with dual core but has moved on to targeting multi core.
Do I want to see Intel evaporate? No way. I want to see these two companies go head to head and drive prices down. You may mistake me for an AMD fanboi but I simply was in agony in high school when Pentium 100s costed an arm and a leg. Then AMD slowly climbed the ranks to be a major competitor with Intel--and thank god for that! Now Intel actually has to price their chips competitively and I never want that to change. I will now support the underdog even if Intel drops below AMD just to insure stiff competition. You can call me a young idealist about capitalism!
I understand this article also tackles execution types and I must admit I'm not too up to speed on that. It's entirely possible that OOOE could beat out the execution scheme that AMD has going but I wouldn't know enough to comment on it. I remember that there used to be a lot of buzz about IA-64's OOOE processing used on Itanium. But I'm not sure that was too popular among programmers.
The article presents a compelling argument for OOOE. And I think that with a tri-core or higher processor, we could really start to see a big increase in sales using OOOE. Think about it, a lot of IA-64 code comes to a point where the instruction stalls as it waits for data to be computed (most cases, a branch). If there are enough cores to compute both branches from the conditional (and third core to evaluate the conditional) then where is the slowdown? This will only break down on a switch style statement or when several if-thens follow each other successively.
In any case, it's going to be a while before I switch back to Intel. AMD has won me over for the time being. -
Re:Fix the law.
There was a bill being passed around that would do that (http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,114999
, 00.asp), not sure what happened to it. /Offtopic - I want a T-shirt with your signature about rights management on it. -
Re:Apple's Customer service is great.
But they don't - because their corporate partners are more important then their customers wishes.
This is an oversimplistic way of looking at the situation, and one that lays entirely too much blame at the feet of Apple. Go and look back to the very first pocket mp3 players. The RIAA vs Diamond Rio lawsuit (references here, here, and here is now the legal precedent that Apple and everyone else is following. They are simply not legally allowed to make it trivial to transfer files back off of an iPod. If portable, transferrable music is your goal, just to buy your favorite flavor of Flash-based memopry card (Compact Flash, SD, SmartMedia, Memory Stick, etc., $US 40 for 1 GB) and a USB reader ($US 7-8). Do not accuse Apple of being unfriendly to consumers when it's been demonstrated that if they were to take your approach, they would soon be faced with an injunction that would PREVENT them from selling ANYTHING to consumers. -
Apple is pretty good
Yes, Apple zealots vastly exaggerate the build quality, performance, and innovation of Apple products. Nevertheless, Apple generally ends up near the top in customer satisfaction and reliability ratings. Combine that with good styling, good marketing, and decent engineering, and it's no surprise that they are doing well. They don't have to make flawless machines in order to appeal to people and in order to be worth the premium, they just need to be noticeable better than most of the competition in several, and they are that.
(Here is a recent PC World ranking.) -
Microsoft Antispyware
I can't help but wonder why Microsoft bothered to buy Giant Company awhile back for their antispyware product. Guess it explains why they've put zero effort into improving it since they bought it though.
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Re:And the EULA
Well, I'm guessig Sony solely holds the patent for the ble-ray, so they do have a hand in its price. The EULA part may be a bit far-fetched, but I'm sure DRM will insure enough lock-in to make up for that problem.
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Re:Privacy
Further proof of concept:
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,125053,0 0.asp
Here thieves gained access to the encrypted 'pin block' in which a lot of terminals store the actual PIN codes of the users who used their debit cards. They've apparently managed to extract valid PIN info from these are now happily withdrawing money from victims account with impunity. -
No downsampling of HD content confirmedI hope they pay the price for their copy protection scheme.
The good news:
The "Image Constraint Token" (downsampling of HD content for analog outputs) is more or less dead.
You won't see it invoked in the initial HD releases from SONY, Disney, Fox or Paramount. Warner may be the only significant hold-out. Not that 960x540 is half-bad:
Sony, Others Won't Degrade HD Content on Analog Outputs
Disney to release movies on HD DVD The worst possible news for the Blu-Ray camp and something that will put enormous pressure on Time-Warner.
AACS will survive in some form. But it is beginning to look like Microsof's iHD and HD-DVD are the real winners here.
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Not just laptops, but cell phones too
There's a several-months-old PC World article that says that fuel cells for mobile phones will be arriving (in Japan) in 2007.
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Re:the real problem is battery life3 hours may be very optimistic. I saw a quote earlier today that said the battery life was estimated at 1.7 hours, which is less than one DVD's worth of movie.
See this PC World article
-- Rick
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Of course you could get a FREE one from Micro$oft.
Micro$oft is giving them away, loaded with their crap propaganda. Its easy to wipe off and then you can laff all the way to the bank! http://blogs.pcworld.com/tipsandtweaks/archives/0
0 1545.html -
Best solution
I am amazed by how impulsive most of the comments are to the idea. First it was AOL and general sentiment was, well they're a crap company anyway so it's expected from them, they don't care about customers and want to profit. After Yahoo's name was mentioned the rage started to tone down.
It seems clear to me that this is by far the most efficient way of reducing spam. Spam represents today over 80% of all email traffic. An average spammer earns $1000 for 2 million messages sent (http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,123597
, 00.asp), i.e. he makes 0.0005 cents per email. If AOL or however else charges 0.5c/email that translates into $10,000/2,000,000 messages which means that a spammer would lose $9000. Ultimately is pretty simple math, if it costs more to send a spam email that money you make from it then you won't do it.It may be that 1c/email is not necessary, and companies could see the same effect by charging 0.01c/email. This will not bankrupt anyone. You can send 1000 messages for 10 cents. The benefits would be enormous: huge decrease in spam sent, less time spent keeping up spam filters, less time deleting spam. Jupiter research reports that in 5 years the average user will be exposed to 830 marketing impressions/day, double of the number today (http://www.jupitermedia.com/corporate/releases/0
2 .09.24-spamreport.html). I don't take these numbers too seriously, but I believe the trend is that spam is increasing because it's the cheapest way to advertise.I don't believe at all that "even" AOL is trying to profit from spammers or consumers. The benefit they would get from 80% less email immensely greater than revenue from charging a fraction of a cent per email. I know for sure that this solution was also discussed at Google because it's so effective in stopping spam, but the even bigger issue than initial public backlash, is how to handle micro payments. A credit card company charges a few cents per transaction so for a value amount of 1c you pay the cost many times more in transaction fees (just for that and AOL and Yahoo won't be making any money from this). Having cheap way of handling micro payments without losing money on fees is almost impossible in the current system. Credit card companies can't do it, Paypal can't do it, Google can't do it. Google will lower the cost of micro transactions but anything less that 10-50c will still be unprofitable. At the same time having to pay for email is also a huge disadvantage for spammers. Money has to come from an real account and that is infinitely easier to trace than an email account. Anonymity of spammers will be much more difficult to hide and that is a huge deal. Of course, so will be anonymity of everybody else but that is a separate discussion.
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Only mention mats?
It's not cheap, but they didn't mention the Kilowatt, which is basically an exercise joystick. (you have to throw your weight into it, and it's supposed to have some adjustable resistance)
It looks like the company has a less expensive controller coming out, too.
If you search for 'exercise controllers' on your favorite search engine, you'll also find info about products from companies like Qmotions and CatEye. -
Mincing words - the last time M$ sued a school
There's MS hate, and there's this. When was the last time MS sued a school, exactly? Never, that's right. Yes, MS did one time threaten to sue when it found rampant piracy in one district, but the gentleman/lady in question is obviously worried about license fees, so has no plans to pirate anything.
Man, the M$ shills are out in droves lately. I assume you are mincing words or playing with semantics in your capacity as active shill. MS went after lots of schools, at least in the US and in the UK. Who knows? Probably the same in other counties. Try searching a little for BSA or FAST and other branches of the main party, or even some semi-legitimate groups like BSI.Here's one example with what MS did in Portland, Oregon schools:
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,101601,0 0.asp Here are the results: http://www.seul.org/edu/acpe2002.html And here is the savings from just one school district dropping M$. Don't forget that the licensing fees are jus the tip of the ice berg. There are maintenance nightmares and hardware upgrades to deal with. http://www.k12ltsp.org/press_freedom_day.htmlYou can find many other cases where M$ went after schools. Did they sue? Maybe / maybe not. Did they threaten? youbetcha
Don't go on about "MS hate". It's called experience or brand recognition.
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Re:Is it really abhorrent?There's MS hate, and there's this. That's an awfully easy way of allowing yourself to ignore what I said. "You just hate MS!"
When was the last time MS sued a school, exactly? Never, that's right.
Q: What's the difference between a filed lawsuit, and an out-of-court settlement before the lawsuit's even been filed?A:A defendent who's not bleeding cash and a plaintiff who doesn't have billions of dollars in the bank.
The less tongue-in-cheek answer is "around 2002", when Microsoft threatened lawsuit against several school districts in the US if they didn't perform an expensive audit--or sign up for a volume licensing agreement:
Educators in both states received letters from the company in March giving them 60 days to perform extensive audits in search of unlicensed software, or risk facing potentially costly penalties. The letter came with a marketing brochure touting the company's latest volume-licensing agreements.
[...]
Microsoft's letter arrived in 24 school districts in Oregon and Washington, asking for audits to ensure compliance with software licensing agreements. It specified 261 Microsoft products that schools should inventory on each machine.
School administrators concede that Microsoft was well within its rights to ask for a software audit. However, the company's request that the schools complete the task in 60 days--and its seeming push toward a volume-licensing scheme that few schools could afford--left many with hard feelings toward the company.
[...]
The letter arrived at the busiest time of the year for the schools, as they were gearing up for the close of the spring semester. And because PPS has 25,000 computers spread across 100 buildings, completing the audit on time would have required hiring extra personnel, at a total cost of around $300,000, Robinson says. Microsoft's licensing agreements offer to send out auditors, but the audit cost would fall to the district if company auditors uncovered any undocumented software, he says.
[...]
"We're not in a wonderful financial situation as it is," says PPS's Robinson. "We took $36 million out of the budget for next year. The cost of licensing would run about $500,000, which for us is the cost of ten teaching positions
." [emphesis mine]I've heard reports (from friends of mine who would know) that a few universities I know of have also had lawsuit threatened--unless they signed up for License 6.0. Bleeding cash as they were/are, they of course caved.
There are certainly a few more articles of this sort around at the time, though (IMHO) it was extremely under-reported. Image-wise, the whole thing is remniscent of mafia than microsoft. On google, it's generally overshadowed by anti-trust settlments that included vouchers for schools for Microsoft software (we can discuss that further if you wish), but I found that "microsoft 'school districts' lawsuit" worked alright (it got me the PCWorld article; there are a few on
/. around that time as well, this is all in case you wanted to find out more about it).The bottom line is that Microsoft--or any proprietary software--requires you to keep your ducks in a very straight row, because the company can always come back to audit you (at your expense, natch), and these costs (the ducks-in-row'ing as well as lawyer's and auditing fees) must be taken into account, as they're real expenses.
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It's all about marketing
It's all about marketing , getting the name and message into the minds of the people.
But you also have to fight what I like to call the name gobbling effect. For example, when you tell people about X Windows, what is their response? "you mean Windows XP?" how about Linux Live CDs? "you mean Windows Live?" Or how about, I run X on my box? "you have an xbox?"
Getting people to remember the name is important, but often difficult, look what happened to Corel Linux before it even had much of a chance? Sure, it's now Xandros, but you see, people knew Corel, and a name like Corel Linux would've stuck easily. It was Debian based and even had a GUI installer. But you see, here again the name was too powerful, and sure enough "Corel Sells Out To Microsoft" * and following shortly after with "Corel to Spin Off Desktop Linux Unit" and "Xandros Buys Corel's Linux".
"The terms of the Microsoft investment included an option under which Microsoft could request that Corel translate Microsoft's next-generation .Net server software to Linux. Hanlon said that regardless of the restructuring options it selects, the company will fulfill its contractual requirements." - quote source Yeah, I bet.
* = "It isn't quite as strange as Microsoft 's investment in Apple Computer several years ago, but it ranks right up there."
In tin foil hat speculation mode, look what erupted in the press about Google via the censorship/China/web issue, even though Microsoft itself and Yahoo were also mentioned in news articles regarding the same issue, but the outcry was all against Google, and what did this follow? The wide news coverage of a possible "Goobuntu".
How many corporations are going to tolerate pressure from an outside source to stop selling Linux if they start? Especially when the millions of dollars are wiggled in their direction. We need someone with actual balls to stand up and market Linux to the masses that won't back down under pressure. On their way to success, you can bet every skeleton in their closet will be brought out for parade when they turn down offers for buyouts.
As others have suggested elsewhere, the fight needs to be taken via EFF or some other means to break up the grip that exists at the OEM level and bring choice to the people when they purchase their computer to begin with.
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Not Precedent for Google Books SearchThis Lawsuit does not set a strong precedent for the two Google Book lawsuits. At least that's what I think, I encourage people who know differently to tell me I'm wrong.
Both the Author's Guild and the American Association of Publishers lawsuits were filed in New York Federal Courts, while this was in California.
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Not Precedent for Google Books SearchThis Lawsuit does not set a strong precedent for the two Google Book lawsuits. At least that's what I think, I encourage people who know differently to tell me I'm wrong.
Both the Author's Guild and the American Association of Publishers lawsuits were filed in New York Federal Courts, while this was in California.
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Re:USA!!! USA!!!
because the iPod doens't make any money for Apple.
Apple makes its money by selling the razor blades, the "content" to put on the iPod.
Er, no, sorry... you've got that backwards.
Apple makes a healthy profit on the iPods: http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,119799,0 0.asp
They do make some money on the music sold through iTMS, but it's a pittance compared to the percentage they make on the hardware. Steve's basically said that iTMS exists to drive iPod sales. -
Re:Screenshots?
PC World has a cople of screen shoots. Your domain will be a your Gmail address: http://gmailusername.googlepages.com/
Don't expect this to be like Office live for a good long time. -
Re:Single you out?
WAMU (Washington Mutual) used to run OS/2 (warp?) 1999 (or earlier) to 2001, at least on teller and agent computers.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,64184,00 .asp -
IBM Workplace beat them to market
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Re:Need a port of SimTunes...
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description
/ 0,fid,2571,00.asp/ PC World has the demo version of SimTunes available. -
won again? ha ha ha.In about 1-2 years the PDA market will be 100% Windows Mobile. The battle will shift into the smartphone space with Symbian and Windows Mobile being the biggest players and everyone else feeding off the table crumbs.
Steve, just promise me you won't break any chairs of fucking kill anyone when your little wet dream does not work any better than Xbox or tablet PCs.
the market has chosen features over minimalism (it always does, BTW). No matter how ridiculous it is to watch movies on a 4" screen, this is what consumers want and Microsoft answered a call while Palm actually tried to tell consumers that they actually would not want to do that.
PDA sales are in the dirt right now. I suspect it has something to do with a planned lack of choices outside expensive but underperforming WinCE machines and constantly breaking Windoze syncs. Those losers can't even get handwriting recognition right. Saying that Windoze mobile has won in a market like that is not saying much. They might have "won" but they did it by killing the market and it's not going to get any better till choice comes back.
Oh yeah, one more reason for poor sales is good devices. I'm still happily syncing my handspring visor with Kontact and KPilot and those programs continue to improve it's capabilities. Here's three cheers for marking contact birthdays in my calendar.