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Less than 1 in 4 of the lawsuits have been settled. Do you really think the media conglomerates are going to grandstand for the little guy fighting them on television? Also, after reading multiple variations of the story, you'll note that 17 year old Mr. Dhaliwal was responsible for files valued at 16% of ALL INTERNET MUSIC PIRACY. Read that again, blink, and wonder if anyone buys this shit.

And I'm still trying to figure out exactly what civil right the music industry is violating anyway

US Constitution - Amendment 4:

• The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The RIAA obtained information on Nick Mamatas without the signature of a judge. As his article clearly states, the 8th Circuit Court has already ruled that the RIAA needs more than a court clerk's signature to obtain this information. Congress has looked at this before and the idea of lowlifes getting account information on underage children easily with a DMCA informational subpoena doesn't sit well with them. Therefore, I don't expect the entertainment industry's appeal will get them anywhere. The end result is very clear; Mr. Mamatas had his rights violated.

Sure, Spyware Assasian did nothing, but there are even worse pseudo-anitspyware products out there. The article links to this chart, where PC Mag found spyware removal tools that added additional spyware or did things that aren't real good for Windows, like delete one of the driver folders.

So it looks like there are even shadier companies out there

It could be just coincidence, but Burst.com is also a company held by Baystar Capital. These are the people responsible for $50 million in funding for the SCO legal case against IBM over Linux. But then you would have to believe that when Microsoft helped Baystar and SCO meet was a coincidence. And don't forget when Microsoft bought $12 million in SCO licenses when they didn't need them.

And who can forget when Sun bought SCO licenses too and then less than a year later, Microsoft and Sun were best friends and settled their lawsuits with each other.

Maybe some of this stuff is a coincidence and then again maybe none of it is. I find it hard to believe that all of it is a coincidence though.

Yup. Your impression seems right: http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,118258,0 0.asp

Nope. Acer is the Ferrari of the computer world. It even goes VROOOOMM when it boots up. I wish I was kidding, but I'm not.

Ok, found the answer myself. http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,119660,0 0.asp

Maybe this is why Motorola has delayed their iTunes Phone launch today. It couldn't compete with this.

Can you get 5+ hours on the Pentium M laptops?

yes, yes, yes, and

There are plenty of others. Just do some research before you say something stupid.

Perhaps you've forgotten that Microsoft sold its share in Corel to a venture capitalist. Nothing to see here, move along.

Story about the firewall not blocking Windows shares. I think Slashdot carried this story a long time ago as well. Do not get me wrong, the firewall and steps in SP2 are a nice step, but they simply are not enough at this point. Unless the user is actively involved, no default Windows setup will be enough.

Forget delisting...run them out of town on a rail.

Out of curiosity, what did you have on the other end of those firewire ports? Anything that could really push 800 Megabits? [1]

3 firewire2 ports is only 300 megabytes/s, which is less than the scsi3 360 cards, that fit happily within the bandwidth of a 64 bit, 66mhz PCI slot. It may be a PCI-X card, but I still contend that it doesn't NEED to be. I can't speak to the High Speed Color scanner. That'd probably be a pretty cool application. Though would you really need 16 Gb of ram?

[1] Now, I admit, I had to dig a little bit to find out if firewire2 was in megabits or megabytes. According to this article it's megabits)

I don't recall Gates ever proclaiming the ability to define what was "Evil" as a matter of corporate policy, unlike Page and Brin. Should be interesting to see how AutoLink plays out, given the howls when Microsoft introduced smart tags in Office.

I find Google to be quite useful, though I don't use it exclusively. That said, Google management obliterated its credibility with me on the "We won't be Evil" front when they granted themselves stock with preferential voting rights so that they could "keep control of the company" (so why go public?), something I don't recall anyone at Microsoft ever doing.

Let's not forget this incident, either. Google is a profit making company, good for them. But the company also has an effective monopoly on search. Who knows, someday Google management may cross the political line and get sued by the DoJ, too. When that happens, I suppose they will know they have "made" it.

Seriously, I've seen some awfully lame attempts at describing online chat slang.

"It's important to remember that the leetspeek community encourages new forms and awards individual creativity, resulting in a dynamic written language that eludes conformity or consistency."

It's like they actually kinda get it.

Compared to, say, http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,88686,p g,2,00.asp, where they include 'kiss' as 'keep it simple stupid'. Have you ever seen anyone actually use that in chat?

fysbigtbabn = Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night

Yeah right.
--
http://www.stevex.org/longtail

This will probably use Microsoft Sender ID which is incompatible with open source. This would be a really big problem. Fortunately even AOL rejected it. Meanwhile Yahoo has developed DomainKeys, which are compatible with open source.

No, Sun wanted Microsoft to stop providing its polluted JRE, and to ship Sun's own JRE. - (full article).

My point was that Microsoft made a big deal of this:

Tulchin added there was no immediate prospect of irreparable harm to Sun that would justify forcing Microsoft to carry Java. - (full article)

So, using Microsoft's own words, if there's no immediate prospect of irreparable harm to Microsoft, why should it be justified in carrying WMP over any other media player?

Here are some helpful resources on Virus Scanner tests if you can't decide which one to use:

http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archives/products.xm l?
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,11593 9,pg,5,00.asp

But a 600 mhz G3 iBook was not exactly state of the art. The top of the line x86 chips you mention would better be compared to, say, a dual Powermac G4. Compare the iBook to something more reasonably consumer-focused. A Dell Latitude laptop from 2001 was likely to come with a 1.0 GHz PIII mobile (a news announcement of this product) That Dell isn't looking so powerful, is it? Probably fine for web surfing, word processing, etc, but your comparison was not quite fair. The iBook is hardly a smoker by today's standards, but you can't compare it to a 2.0 GHz P4

Ask and ye shall receive.

You appear to be referencing Telular, who sued over the Vox2 VOX.LINK product. Telular does not seem to have any similar products, and they blasted the VOX.LINK consumer product off the market.

Telular's press release cites the following patents:

Patent 4,658,096 - System for interfacing a standard telephone set with a radio transceiver
Patent 5,715,296 - Concurrent wireless/landline interface apparatus
Patent 5,949,616 - Suspension having relief against flexure movement interference (??!!)

(That last one appears to be a typo in their press release. I hope.)

I guess all the corporations I've worked for have been the exception. Or are you now making shit up?

Only if those 10,000 all used the same OC 48. And even then, like I've said, they'd be quickly shut down.

I've never said that zombies don't need to be shut down. They do, but it really has very little to do with spam.

They certainly don't have firewalls which disallow incoming connections, since they allow incoming connections by their very nature.

Exchange server? There are far more linux servers running apache than windows servers running exchange server.

Real authentication would be more like the way HTTPS works.

Few Linux servers on the Internet? You should present this theory to Netcraft.

Look at http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,119011,0 0.asp

Windows server: Sure, some folks buy it, but plenty don't. So far, Microsoft only has about one third of this space, and Linux is nipping at its heels. They knifed Windows for Itanium, to the disappointment of both Itanium users.

Server appications: IIS has lost market share to Apache in recent years, and Exchange isn't ubiquitous yet either. SQL server enjoys showing the web its limits.

Windows CE/Mobile/Tablet/whatever: Still no monopoly, and since sales of PDAs are shrinking and tablet PC's haven't really caught on, even if MS did take over this market...

Game Consoles: XBox did just have its first profitable quarter. Ever. But it doesn't seem to sell so well overseas, and Nintendo and Sony haven't been persuaded to go away yet.

Media: Media Center PC's aren't selling so well, and in a world with iTuneszilla stomping around, Windows Media suddenly seems less likely to rule the universe than it did a few years ago, even with "PlaysForSure."

Internet Services: Even with its added features, MSN Messenger doesn't seem to be destroying AIM or Yahoo Messenger. MSN doesn't seem to be destroying anybody in general, even if Verizon throws it in free with DSL, and even if MSN is the homepage for Internet Explorer. Now Microsoft wants to go after Google, too.

It's pretty interesting to consider that Windows Client and Office are so frickin' profitable that Microsoft can afford to throw gobs of money at their unprofitable products and divisions (which are pretty much everything but Windows Client and Office) and still have huge heaps of cash left over.

(Oh, and I left off Apple, because if 95% of the world abruptly switched to Apple, Microsoft is second only to Apple itself in Mac software development, and would still be one of the most profitable companies out there, on sales of Office for Mac, VirtualPC, etc. Also, because as long as Apple is out there, and isn't owned by Microsoft, Microsoft can point at it and say "look, there are other choices, we're not that much of a monopoly!" :)

Oh, I dunno, you might be able to grill a steak on this printer.

The current barrier to entering the market for search engines is low. The technology is relatively simple as the multitude of search-engine companies will attest.

The advantage that M$ has, over Google, is its huge R&D budget. M$ labs is the modern-day equivalent of the venerable Bell Laboratories, which is shriveling under the management of Lucent. M$ has plucked numerous professors from the computer science departments at top universities by offering incredibly high salaries.

Why? Only he can say for sure, but possible reasons could be:

• distract the public from trying Linux or other Free or Open Source Software, or at least delay them.
• distract the public from real open document standards
• distract policy makers from the fact that WordML is still closed
• distract home users and businesses from OpenOffice.org
• distract everybody from FireFox, Mozilla and Opera.
• distract the public from ongoing Windows security failures
• distract investors from the fact that MS has halved research and development
• distract pundits from Longhorn's list of features getting shorter and release getting later
• distract home users from the Mac mini
• distract investors from the EU anti-trust case
• distract businesses and lawmakers from the VC-1 codec
• distract European businesses from the software patent threat
• ... etc.

The government [...] chided [Microsoft] for releasing the documents in a format that can't be annotated and only work with Internet Explorer.

-- DOJ Takes a Long Look at Longhorn, January 26, 2005

It's been a long time since MS was an IT company and for the last few years it's even been leaving the marketing sector in favor of international lobbying. I suppose this is just a watershed moment.

MSIE was its chance to get a death grip on the WWW, but MSIE won't last without the desktop monopoly. The desktop monopoly has been eroding quietly for some time, especially in Europe, China, S America and Africa. Now the sound of the erosion is not so quiet as the world discovers that Linux and other F/OSS is easy to install and use.

Yes, MS still sells MS-Windows like no other piece of software has ever sold. However, the mainstay of the desktop monopoly has been control of the OEMs, which supply over 90% of the sales of MS-Windows and about 70% of MS-Office sales. Without those two, there is no revenue to speak of. Get the OEMs and the whole dot-com bubble called Microsoft goes away overnight.

Cutting off R&D is cutting off future revenue. MS is now demonstrating how dire its situation is. It's become redundant as its defective products are replaced around the world with competing ones that actually get the job done for a change.

Remember him? The guy who wrote the Melissa virus? He got twenty months for writing that critter.

Prosecutors took pity on him because of his parents! His parents? Folks, I don't take pitty on a deadly cyber-terrorist who causes three-hundred-twenty million dollars of damage to the US economy. I for one hope he rots in prison for his heinous cyber-crime, right beside his predecessor.

At least those one hundred community service hours won't be spent on a computer like his predecessor spent his. The judge had some forethought at least.

Memo to "Complete Idiot II": If someone drops a bar of soap in the shower, don't pick it up. You might get infected by a virus!

Not only was this story posted on Slashdot over a month ago, it is significantly older than that. Here is a PCWorld article (yes, PCWorld!) that is exactly 1 year old today that talks about this technology attributing it to HP and even calling LightScribe. A little bit ironic? Don't you think.

Slashdot. One year old news. Stuff that used to matter.

The original poster was not lying, the original poster simply doesn't waste his limited time on Earth reading MS blogs. All the original poster was trying to illustrate is that there are still buffer overrun exploits that keep happening, and wanted to illustrate that fact simply without writing a thesis.

PC World gives FF a best buy [sic] in its Feb. issue, for example.

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,11879 4,00.asp

You're thinking of hop-on... they've been making vaporware and press releases for years, and it seems like the only phones they've been selling have been non-disposable. But the at this year's CES, they showed their new disposable phone without a screen, but still no price point. I don't know if I should hold my breath again this year...

Wait, this wasn't your favorite keyboard?

Sony Considers Opening PSP

"...Engineering Laboratory at the Medical University of South Carolina, is one of the scientists who has rigged Hewlett-Packard and Canon inkjet printers to shoot out proteins instead of ink, and to capture tissue on specialized gel instead of paper. Older printers work well because their spray nozzles have larger holes and are less likely to damage fragile cells. It would be great to have a use for these old printers instead of searching for a place to recycle them safely..." Link

According to the same source, the only German airport that is ready for the A380 is Munich's. However, some "minimal modifications" will be made to the terminal building to make simultaneous boarding of both main and upper decks, via a number of bridges. Modifications are also underway at the Frankfurt-Main airport. These include 9 parking positions and enlarged waiting rooms. Fraport (the company that manages the airport) has already "set aside" about 50 million euros for the modifications. However, it is still "not clear" whether simultaneous boarding on both decks will be possible in Frankfurt.

Lufthansa has ordered 15 A380s (most likely all of them in the 500-passenger configuration, Rolls-Royce engine option) and will start flying them in the summer of 2007. The destinations have not yet been completely decided, but will be chosen by the end of 2006 among 19 "potential destinations." It looks like it will be mostly long-haul flights to the "emerging markets" in Asia.

Also related:
Airbus Beluga "Super Transporter"
This is used to transport some of the "smaller" parts---I guess, if you want to build the largest commercial passenger plane, it helps if you have already built the world's largest freighter plane! :-)

And a last tidbit: the diameter of the A380s jet engines is the same as the diameter of the A320 fuselage. What the...?

Finally, in other news, one other first for Lufthansa (BTW, no, I don't work for them, I'm not even German :-) is FlyNet, which uses Boeing's Connexion to offer live Internet via on-board WiFi (11Mbps) and a satelite link (1Mbps). Lufthansa is already offering it on many flights. Connexion was ditched by the US companies initially involved, citing "financial concerns" after 9/11 (and this, only a couple of weeks after 9/11... hmm :-). Of course, this is also a first for Boeing (which will be outfitting some Airbuses as well).

Gunter Hefner, formerly Infineon's vice president of sales for memory products, is now US Inmate #98184-011, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. Heinrich Florian, former vice president for sales marketing and logistics for memory products, is now US Inmate #98182-011.

Infineon had to pay $160 million in fines.

Samsung, Hynix, and Micron have also been implicated. The investigation continues.

Looks like it's time for anyone still running NT4 to give these guys a call if they need a HotFix.

Still no user-replaceable battery, which is quite lame, my iPod now has about 90 mins battery life these days :( Come on apple, is it really too hard to let people replace batteries on their own?

Are you new to the Internet? Go buy a new battery you fool!

According to C. Brian Grimm, communications director for the Wi-Fi Alliance, the range of 802.11g is about 10 percent LESS than 802.11b.

http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,109041, 00.asp

There has to be something said for comodity hardware. Sure it doesn't have 24x7 support, and will (not might) fail more often, but you can't beat the price. For many jobs 3 or 4 comodity 'servers' can take the place of one expensive server and eliminate a single point of failure. If it works for Yahoo (zawodny.com) and Google (pcworld). If building up a box is beyond the scope of your IT guy maybe you need a new one who can do more than call Dell when it breaks.

if 64-bit will be present in Windows Longhorn

If you're interested, here's a good discussion on what 64-bit Longhorn will look like.

Yeah! What a dweeb! It is closer to 55 million.

1. Nope, not that I know of
2. Nokia N-Gage
3. iPod has breakout
4. Some motorolla phones do this
5. Nokia N-Gage again
6. Not that I know of
7. Well, Nokia N-Gage.

1. Me neither. Bad since most new cell phones have a built-in camera, and since there's already 3 megapixel cam/cell phones available (with 4 MP just around the corner) with storage becoming increasingly cheaper, I think it's only a matter of time before we cross from "cell phone with a camera gizzmo" into "full fledged digital camera that also takes phone calls".
Sure, professionell photographers won't ditch their equipment and anyone who's serious about taking pictures still won't bother with these. But there's a point where a cell phone cam is "just enough" for the average Joe. And that point, there's just no point in carrying an extra digital camera. So, in essence, you the digital camera and the cell phone become indistinguishable.

4. True. There's quite a few other cell phones that have MP3 playback capabilities (I know Siemens and Samsung make some, plus there's the smartphones and PDA/cell phone clones). And since the ringtone business is pretty lucrative and kids definitely do want MP3-like ringtones, it's just a matter of time before MP3-like audio playback becomes a standard.

5. See above. Most business phones have Java. And those handsets that are marketed towards the 14-23 crowd, do definitely support games (usually through Java and on-demand GPRS downloads which are - again - big money makers).

Samsung announced a cell phone with TV tuner, but probably it will be disabled by Verizon request in order to force the consumers to buy content from Verizon Wireless.

Consumer Reports is probably at least a little more reliable, and their survey likes Apple desktops. I'm not a subscriber so I can't see their laptop rating or methodology, so that report probably isn't fully reliable either, but I imagine it at least has a larger cross-section of people than PCWorld.

If anyone else knows where to find better data about PC quality, I'd be delighted to follow a link.

A link showing the technology.

..Always seems to go the way of parachute pants before they get mainstream appeal, remember rfc3251.x42.compower over ip or, in a quirky twist of events, http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,114793,0 0.asp
networking over power lines. They all seemed as great as broadband over power lines, but never really caught on due to a number of reasons. All of these technologies just seem to go bust for several diffrent reasons, be it being nervous about putting power through that crappy old enet cable, or the potential cost of implementation,

Yeah, the incredibly slow video has essentially turned into a radio station for me. There's a way to capture the stream into a file, and I used ASFRecorder, freely-available from many places. And it can resume your file if your connection drops, which is a nice perk.

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/ 0,fid,7942,00.asp

That game was fun to watch. Painfully slow, but really fun to watch.