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Open Office(simple):
http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-To-Install-OpenOffice-org-3-0-in-Ubuntu-8-10-96449.shtml
5 seconds to google "open office 3.0 ubuntu 8.10"

Firefox (harder - not recommended)
http://betabuild.wordpress.com/2008/12/22/how-to-install-firefox-31-beta-2-on-ubuntu-810-intrepid-ibex/
5 seconds on google "firefox 3.1 ubuntu 8.10"

You can also enable additional repositories with ubuntutweak - http://ubuntu-tweak.com/ just need to add it to your repositores. Incudes both Open Office and Firefox beta.

This is a move to fight ARM CPUs.

Late this year we should see the first ARM CPUs rolling off the lines that can compete with an Atom. Traditionally ARM has been for low power microcontrollers, cellphones, and handheld gaming devices. They never were fast enough to power a desktop PC.

But they're rapidly catching up to an Atom in performance, with a fraction of the power usage.

Check this out:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/TI-039-s-Mobile-Phone-Platform-Enables-1080p-Video-Recording-104692.shtml

Most ARM CPUs use somewhere under a watt - but where they win out is all the peripheral chips they have built in. x86 traditionally requires another 20-60 chips on the board for various purposes, so even if your CPU uses 1 watt, your other chips use 40 watts.

The OMAP 4440 has pretty much everything built in to a single chip, which gives the whole platform power usage around 5-15% of an Atom platform. (best guess) The result, when paired with a laptop battery? Damn long battery life. A week on a single charge isn't unreasonable, if you pick your other parts carefully - LED-backlit LCD, SD card rather than HDD/SSD, etc.

I look forward to the Cortex A9's. A Cortex A8 at 600mhz can decode 720p with ease. Overclock it to 900mhz and it can almost manage 1080p. The Cortex A8 is an in-order processor, like Via's C7/Eden, or the Atom. Two out-of-order Cortex A9 cores at > 1ghz should utterly stomp dual-core atoms for most tasks, while still using about a watt.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/First-Beta-of-Silverlight-for-Linux-Available-for-Download-99110.shtml

Actually Mr too cowardly to even have an account, I am a Windows repairman who has made his living with MSFT products sine the days of Win3.1 and am pretty fucking tired of seeing the company whose products I service and support pissed down the drain by Mr. "I want to be Apple so damned bad it hurts!" Ballmer. Of course I am not the only one that think Mr. Ballmer should be righteously fired for his incompetence, and as it gets closer to relase date we are seeing that Win7 is looking more and more like "Vista SE" instead of the new direction which was sorely needed in the company.

What we NEED is to go back to the division we had during the WinNT/Win9x days, where the business OS was a low resource backwards compatible OS with low system requirements so you don't need a gamer rig for your secretary. What it appears we will get AGAIN is another bloated as hell giant pig of an OS with more bling than you can shake a stick at because Ballmer wants to be Steve Jobs. But news flash, Steve Ballmer ain't Steve Jobs and Windows ain't OSX. You can run Leopard just fine on 5 year old machines, in fact according to my Mac friends they even run a little FASTER with the new version.

Compare that to Windows where you need a dual core with 3GB of RAM just to keep Vista from feeling like a 486 struggling to run Win98. I mean it is pretty fucking sad when I have WinXP running smooth and easy on a 733MHz with 384MB of PC100 RAM and Vista ran like a dead elephant on my 3.6GHz HT enabled P4 with 2Gb of RAM. The Vista codebase either needs to be stripped down and rebuilt or tossed over their shoulder into the trash. The consumer has spoken and they don't want it. Putting lipstick on the pig ain't gonna turn pork chops into steak and it ain't gonna sell Vista SE...errr Win7 either.

If they are determined to be Apple then put out the "Apple extra bling" edition for the home users and give us "Win2K10 Professional" for the business users that just want to get their work done without the bloat. Otherwise all of the businesses who got burned with Vista are going to start looking elsewhere. Why do you think there are all these sites including on MSDN showing how to make 2K8 into a desktop OS? Because for the enterprise Vista ain't cutting it and neither will Win7.

But believe what you will, but mark my words: Win7 will fail,just as Vista did. Then maybe Ballmer will be fired and we will have a decent OS by Win8. But I can't keep buying copies of XP for my customers for forever and they have made it clear there will be NO Vista for them.

The "game" is being deliberately offensive/unprofessional, and then using one's "protected status" as an excuse or dodge. For example, a local TV studio had a black lesbian employee who was seen (by quite a few individuals) having sex with her girlfriend in a car in the parking lot. When this was reported to the managers and the police called, it was discovered that she (a) was in fact employed there (nobody had been risky enough to try to identify who it was, just that it was going on) and (b) that she hadn't clocked out - she was doing this on company time instead of doing her job.

The most she got was a formal reprimand in her file. You can damn well bet if it had been a white, straight male, there would have been an immediate no-questions-needed firing.

In either case, Microsoft is stuck between a rock and a hard place. The hard place being the users (who want "self-expression", whatever that means) and the rock being the ridiculous ESRB ratings system. Games can be "re-rated" based on user-created mods these days, and any game with an online component has to have the whole "user experience may change" nonsense (which is why the Wii still lacks voice chat; Big N doesn't want to take any risks at all).

So MS has a choice. They either leave the system completely open - and take the risk of being hounded and hounded and having their console have to be kept out of sight behind store counters and sent home wrapped in giant paper bags as if it were a $300 dirty magazine - or they have to be immensely censorious and deal with the aftermath of stuff like this in order to appease the ESRB's ratings crew and keep games available to be purchased.

Yeah, there will be boneheaded decisions. There will be decisions you personally feel are wrong. The reality is, they don't really have a choice. It's either little blowups like this, or painting a giant target on themselves for the witch hunt.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned CrunchEee

It is based off ubuntu but with OpenBox as the Window Manager.

It's light, fast, stable, has drivers, looks amazing, etc.

you can download it from here

the installation guide is here

and some screenshots can be found here

If he like Vista he would probably love Vixta which is just a version of Linux designed with the Vista bling, complete with gadgets and black taskbar.

That said I don't see why he just doesn't add the Vista bling to XP with Vista Transformation Pack which will give him all the bling and get rid of the awful blue "fisher price look" of XP. While I will take XP over Vista any day of the week even I admit the black taskbar looks better than that horrible blue.

It takes a grand total of 28 minutes with Autopatcher, 38 minutes if you add all the extras like Java,.NET,DirectX, along with the freebies like powertoys. And if you only have an XP SP2 disk, or even 2K3 or 2K, just use XP ISO Builder to make you a new disc with the newer service pack slipstreamed. It is so easy to use my oldest made his own reinstall disc so he could have the OS tweaked his way. You can make it unattended, add 3rd party programs, tweak the services, pretty much anything you want to do

With autopatcher it is all quite simple and only requires a single reboot to install all the patches, and with XP ISO builder even a child can use it if they read the labels. So why would you do it the old and busted way of using Windows Updates? And with autopatcher burn it to CD and you can update as many PCs as you like, even those on dialup. Great tools to have in your toolbox.

Yes, but I refuse to deal with anymore screensavers involving oily naked guy butts after having to clean the fat girl's PC down the street ;-)

But seriously with XP Iso Builder or Nlite why would you NOT just roll your own Windows install? With XP ISO Builder it is so simple I let my 15 year old nephew roll his own so he could have the practice and learn about things like services. It is pretty damned simple and straight forward with an easy to use tool like that. It isn't like the old days when you had to learn all the Windows CMD for slipstreaming to update and customize the OS.

Just use autopatcher to get all the patches(also great to get all the Office patches and have them all burned to DVD), use XP Iso Builder to integrate them, or NLite if you want to strip anything out of the OS beyond language packs, and hit burn. Pretty simple. And then when you need a reinstall or get a new PC it is a simple matter to build a custom install for the hardware. You can even add all the drivers for your hardware so it is ready to go on first boot.

I have a 733MHz with 384MB of PC100 and XP runs great. Are you actually trying to run the default install? Because the default install of ANY MSFT OS is crap. Go get a copy of NLite or XP ISO Builder and make you a nice unattended with all the crap services turned off and see the difference.

If you don't know which services to kill here is a nice easy to follow list. But with 192MB you might be better running Win2K as I've found the lowest "sweet spot" for XP is 256MB, whereas Win2K plays nice with 128MB. But please don't torture yourself with WinME. Is your self esteem low or something that you would want to flog yourself with that evil OS? I'm sure that whatever you've done in the past surely isn't worth THAT level of punishment. Just forgive yourself and move on.

scores of intelligence personnel descended on all the pawn shops in Oklahoma. Also all New Zealanders in the US were understandably nervous. :P

You can write insecure websites using pretty much any tools, but if you're using MySQL and PHP, especially if you're using other peoples code in your app, you're probably going to end up with a security nightmare, regardless of how hard you try.

That's the problem.

Most of the pros on here can write good-quality, secure code, in PHP, RoR, whatever.

It's the external libraries which are the gap. For example, look at phplist, which is used in many places. Now, every installation of it needs to be upgraded. Now. Right now.

Unless you're a 100% fulltime sysadmin, you haven't got the time to be reading the security lists hourly and upgrading phplist etc when required.

The OP is really asking: how do I make sure phplist and the other hundred Ruby gems or PHP add-ins are up-to-date and safe? And keep them that way?

Apologies for promoting XP on this site, but you know a non-ugly MS theme for XP is available, right? Much better than the blue, silver, and olive vomit that so many people leave on. It ships as default on the Media Center versions, and is basically considered freeware around the web for Home/Pro. It actually looks good, believe it or not....

I remember reading about some Dell laptops that had both an Intel chip and an ARM chip. The Intel was used for Windows/Linux normally. For simpler tasks (basic browsing, email, etc.), the laptop booted Linux using the ARM chip, attached to the same hardware. It had much better battery life on ARM, but still was able to use the Intel if it needed to do more processor-intense tasks. Or run Windows. Ahh...here's the article http://news.softpedia.com/news/Intel-and-ARM-Processors-Inside-the-Same-Notebook-98601.shtml

You have denied my claim. In response, I present my facts.

1. Windows 7 and Vista SP2 have concurrent release schedules. Source
2. Windows has remained silent about windows 7 features. This is in stark contrast to its usual hype machine.
3. Last time MS had a turn around this fast for an OS was 98 SE.
4. A microsoft employee states it in his blog. He states "so we decided to ship windows 7 code as 6.1" source.

At least you can see where I am coming from...

Use Alien.

As to sending pictures something like this might be a solution

...can't you just drop the $12 on an older game like Q3A? Even if you got a measly 5 hours of play during the entire lifetime of your ownership, it would be hard to argue that it's not worth that price. It's fun, there are still tons of players, and you can pick it up and drop it without drama. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate and understand why there is free software in the world, but really good, comprehensive games almost universally cost money. The exception is probably id's free gift to the world Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, which you can download and play completely free of charge and it even has an available Linux client. However, this is not an "arena-style" fps, so I guess it doesn't quite fit the bill. It's class-based, but doesn't generally use timed rounds and there are a variety of map styles. I suppose it's possible to find a server that has arena-like settings.

so because Apple didn't want to buy some anonymous company's untested FireWire controller, that means they've withdrawn support for future FireWire speeds? right...

Apple isn't in charge of developing IEEE 1394b. IEEE has already approved the specs for S1600 and S3200, and Symwave has already developed an S1600 Physical Layer prototype, the FirePHY-1600, which is fully backwards compatible with S800 and S400 and is expected to cost the same as current S800 PHY chips. so there is plenty of incentive for manufacturers to switch to S1600 as soon as the new S1600 chips start hitting the market.

plus, it doesn't matter if Apple doesn't include S1600 controllers in their computers. using an S1600 cable + an S1600 device, you can still achieve the 1.6 Gbps transfer speeds on FireWire 800 ports. heck, even if computer/motherboard manufacturers suddenly stop including FireWire as a standard interface (which is not likely to happen) the people who use FireWire on a regular basis, and depend on it for their day-to-day work, would in all likelihood be more than willing to shell out $30-40 to pick up a PCIe FireWire adapter.

USB was designed primarily with the aim of providing a low cost peripheral interface. FireWire was designed for performance and thus fills a separate niche. it would be nice if i could believe that USB 3.0 will deliver the transfer rates it promises, but unless USB has switched to full DMA it will come nowhere near its max theoretical speeds. and Apple isn't going to drop FireWire so long as FireWire remains the only viable option for professional users needing high speed data transfers.

The bottom line is that lighting in heavily populated areas does increase safety, by discouraging those who would use the cover of darkness for their crimes. The couple dollars a night it takes to light a mile of street is well worth the cost to those living on, or walking at night on, those streets.

If crime was that much of a worry, they would probably be installing blue light. In energy conscious Japan, in the area where I was living they were doing exactly that. I just can't see them doing that in the US of A.

Now some people have been recommending red lights. I can only wonder what effect that would have on crime (if any.) I would think that blue light would probably be better than while light for star watching, but not as good as red.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Microsoft-SQL-Server-2005-Service-Pack-3-SP3-100153.shtml

The third service pack for SQL Server 2005 went live on December 15, 2008. Microsoft indicated that the release was designed to upgrade all service levels of SQL Server 2005 to Service Pack 3, as the services packed for the 2005 version of the database solution were cumulative. Users of the following SKUs of SQL Server 2005: Enterprise; Enterprise Evaluation; Developer; Standard; and Workgroup, are now able to make the jump to SP3. The software company emphasized that the focus with SP3 was to deliver all the hotfixes for SQL Server 2005 in a single package, but also to address various issues across the solution, in accordance with the user input.

"Microsoft released SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3 (SP3). SQL 2005 version should now be 9.00.4035. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3 (SP3) contains hotfixes that were included in cumulative update packages for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 from cumulative update package 1 to cumulative update package 9, and fixes to issues that have been reported through our customer feedback platforms. It also includes supportability enhancements and issues that have been reported through Windows Error Reporting," Christophe Fiessinger, senior technical product manager for Microsoft Office Project Server, explained.

At the same time, Microsoft has taken the SQL Server 2005 Database Engine, Notifications Services, Replication and Reporting Services to the next level. Having released SP3 in 32-bit, 64-bit and IA64 flavors, Microsoft informed that the x86 version of the refresh was capable of upgrading 32-bit instances of SQL Server 2005 running on Windows-on-Windows 64 x86 emulation mode on a x64 system, this in addition to the 32-bit versions of the Windows operating systems. For the 64-bit instance of SQL Server 2005, users will have to turn to the 64-bit variant of SP3, and the same is valid for IA64.

Actually, the only way Ballard got ANYthing done was by first using his equipment to find US nuclear subs (Thresher and Scorpion) that had gone missing. His team found them and then went to find the Titanic.

Ballard, in interviews I've seen, laughs at the journalists and other "passengers" on the Titanic journey who completely missed the fact that for many days they were pointing 90 to 180 degrees AWAY from North during the Search and Recovery part of the mission.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Titanic-Found-During-Nuclear-Subs-Search-87136.shtml

Ballard says that even the Navy Secretary knew of his plan to search the Titanic, "but the Navy never expected me to find the Titanic, and so when that happened, they got really nervous because of the publicity."

Speciation is the genetic degeneration of a species to a point where certain members of the species are no longer able to reproduce with certain other members of the species.

No. It's not a "degeneration", and it's not about individual "certain members". It's about populations. If two groups can't interbreed, they're not the same species.

There's nothing at all to imply that this sort of microevolution would eventually accumulate to create a different kind of animal, which was my original point in the comment you quoted.

A new species is most definitely a "different kind of animal". And beyond that, if you'll read the link I gave you (Here's Google's cached version as it seems to be unreachable at the moment) you'll notice observed instances of very large changes: unicellular algae becoming colonial, bacteria undergoing large changes in morphology.

And earlier this year, a remarkable mutation was observed in E. Coli bacteria that left them able to metabolize citrate. Certainly that a "different kind" of bacteria.

For instance, if poodles became so inbred that they were no longer able to successfully reproduce with other breeds, would you say they had become a different species?

Yes. That is exactly the usual biological definition of a species.

Now, if they also somehow developed opposable thumbs, I'd say they were a different species

No, that wouldn't necessarily tell whether they were a different species. Some dogs have dewclaws, some don't, they're still the same species.

It gets really bizarre when a publisher starts using cracks from cracker groups to solve their problems with copy protection.

I'm sure tesla will find its users but we won't see them on the Top500 list anytime soon.

Its already made the Top 500 last week:
Tokyo Tech's cluster just placed at #29 on the Top 500 with the installation of 170 NVIDIA Tesla S1070 1U systems. Each Tesla S1070 has 4 Tesla GPUs in it.

What absence?

http://www.softpedia.com/screenshots/Yahoo-Toolbar-for-Mozilla-Firefox_1.png

your right, the Linpack benchmarks are indeed also measured in FLOPS, and that's what the TOP500 rankings are based on. however, when the Dawning is advertised as being capable of 180 TFLOPS or 160 TFLOPS--depending on who you ask--they're probably not referring to the Linpack benchmarks, which it only peaks at ~11.264 TFLOPS.

Oh, how wrong you are...

http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/ToasterClone-Download-54367.html

Don't listen to parent, his "free" options are a sham.

For example, somebody suggested the Clam AV for Windows and it all it did was turn my screen into a black box with gibberish in it. If it wasn't for my swift hard reset, CLAM AV may have broken my computer!

...the first conviction under a new Canadian law making recoding a movie in a theater a crime.

Damn. Guess I can't use Nero Recode in the theaters anymore. I'll have to go all the way home to start compressing the video I took. What a pain...

If it is mutually beneficial they will get in bed with each other.
"The partnership between Intel and Microsoft has brought the benefit of using a dedicated computer software for use with Intel's technologies." - Wintel

Hate to reply to myself,but the above download link seems to be slow and glitchy,so here is a nice fast direct link from Softpedia. Enjoy and sorry for the previous slow link!

I'm curious how the USB key came to be made without any strong encryption on it. (I assume the key itself was encrypted; otherwise, there wouldn't be such a big scandal over it.)

I encrypted my USB key drive with TrueCrypt 6.0a. I use Windows XP at work and at home so it's not a really big deal. (Although I had to be slightly deceitful with IT at work to get TrueCrypt installed.) The password I use for the key drive is a strong password that I only use for the key drive; it's never sent online so the risk of it being sniffed that way is difficult.

I use Keepass 1.14 Portable to generate strong passwords and keep track of them. I run the Keepass and Firefox 3.0.3 off of my key drive using Portable Apps, and Firefox clears all my private data when it's closed. My Keepass password is again used only offline and is different from the TrueCrypt password. The only annoyance here is some banking websites doesn't recognize my computer because the cookies are cleared so I have to have them send a text message to my Blackberry to access the account. I don't access that account often so it's no big deal.

Keepass also generates a keyfile that I only keep on three secured systems: my home computer, my work computer, and the key drive itself; all three are encrypted. (My job uses PointSec and not TrueCrypt; IT knows it job pretty well, though, so I'm sure it's pretty well done. They kind of let me go by letting me violate IT policy by installing TrueCrypt and Firefox on my computer when I told them I wasn't planning on encrypting the hard drive. Firm data is stored on a network database I can't muck with, so I'm sure it's not trust on their part.) My backups are encrypted using AES and a strong password generated by and stored on Keepass. To access the password repository, you need the password database (AES 256-key, 6000 rounds) and the Keepass keyfile. Basically, the keyfile becomes the "something you need to have" while the TrueCrypt and Keepass master passwords become "the things you need to know."

The whole set up sounds complicated but it practice is actually is quite simple. When I need to access confidential information, I plug in my key drive, log in to TrueCrypt, and then boot Keepass and Firefox, and access the data. The whole thing takes less than three minutes. When I'm done, I disconnect the key drive and it's done. I'm surprised I seem to pay more attention to vital info more than a computer hired to do security for the UK government.

The article title and summary could have been worded better.

In addition to the new case (which by any means can be considered a minor change), there is speculation that the new Macs will be using nVidia MCP79 chipsets.

Along with the comparatively better graphics performance, this will also add SLI support to the Macbooks.

I don't think this was covered on Slashdot and I wish I could find a better citation than this but it's been said that Apple has threatened makers of "docks" for PCs with lawsuits. I can't verify that but I do know that I downloaded and installed a beta program called Y'z Dock which was developed by a now defunct crew.

The Y'z Dock software was really really slick and very comparable to Apple's. You can still find the beta distros on pages like Fileforum and other third party hosters (I won't link because you will have to use those at your own risk).

I don't think anyone in the community ever thought they could get away with mimicking the dock ... but my default response to software patents is that they're broken. Those of you that use Windows will never know the dock because Steve Jobs doesn't want it that way. Also, I'm kind of pissed that "a PC" means Windows ... it means personal computer, does it not? Isn't my Linux machine a personal computer? I hate that. But that's a totally offtopic rant triggered by marketing from all camps.

1. The age given is 3.8 to 4.28 billion years (why billion, not giga. Dunno.) The scientist favours the oldest possible date, at a guess because that increases funding,

Oh come on. Maybe your first guess could involve something, I don't know, scientific, instead jumping straight to bias? Right or wrong, you don't get published in Science, which is the world's leading scientific journal along with Nature, without at least some plausible if not airtight evidence supporting your interpretation.

If you read the abstract, you find that they get a samarium/neodymium ratio which indicates an age of 4.280 +.053/-.081 million years, which is right at the upper age limit and definitely excludes 3.8 billion years. I don't have access to the full text, but some further Googling says that "conventional dating" gives a date at the lower end of the range (although no error bars are given), and Sm/Nd dating (which applies to particularly old samples) gives a date at the upper end of the range. Given the tight error bound on the Sm/Nd date, it seems that there's something in there that's at least 4.2 billion years old. But one possibility is that there's a mix of materials of different ages; zircon crystals which are even older than this have been found before, embedded in younger rock.

I haven't personally tried it but from this about DeadMini http://linux.softpedia.com/get/System/Operating-Systems/Linux-Distributions/DeadMini-11601.shtml might have something you can use...

"The main advantage is that it boots anywhere - wherever you can stick the files, use something like syslinux or isolinux to make it boot - and of course make bios boot the medium - it will boot without a trouble. This is because the whole system (currently 5MB, including booting overhead) is copied in RAM without the need to seek the source device. It also boots very fast - minimal bootup time is about 3s (further testing will be done)."

I can't seem to figure out why some many people (usually MS haters) claim that Windows Mobile crashes consistently. I've had my phone for years and have only had to reset it about 12 times. Windows Mobile likes to keep apps open, but if you get MagicButton or any similar task manager, you can make programs actually close. This improves the performance and the stability quite a bit. And while I haven't done any heavy statistical analysis, I've found the built in Excel to be capable of meeting my needs (quick spreadsheet to track boxes of girl scout cookies sold for my daughter, a spreadsheet to help calculate loan costs of cars when shopping for a new one, etc.). Not a lot of need for Word and PowerPoint, so I can't speak to those.

Growing up with a C64 and then DOS of all flavors and even Windows 3.x, I'm used to limits of an operating system (and before you raise too many flames, how many programs can you run on an iPhone......). If those limits mean that I can't have 20 programs running at once, I'm ok with that. If you live within the limits, the OS is usually very stable and performant. Sure Windows Mobile isn't the worlds greatest OS, but I don't think it's as bad as the bashers like to claim. I think that it's smaller requirements would make it perfect for a NetBook because, let's face it, a NetBook isn't supposed to be your only computer. It's supposed to be something that is portable to be connected anywhere and allow for limited work. My phone (HTC Wizard) is already capable of meeting those basic needs and the newer versions (HTC Touch, HTC [next]) even more so.

Good uses of a Netbook:
Taking notes - Can do with Word Mobile
Surfing the web - Can do with IE (really needs a better browser, though it does technically work -- I've read Slashdot with my phone)
Playing music / video - TCPMP
Play games - yep.....Nethack, anyone: http://www.nethack.org/v343/ports/download-wince.html or maybe Doom http://handheld.softpedia.com/get/Games/Action/Doom-for-Pocket-PC-9834.shtml or Quake http://handheld.softpedia.com/get/Games/Action/Quake-3-Arena-CE-22440.shtml

No Flash support beyond v8 yet (http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flash/updates/8/flashlite2/fl8_flashlite2_1_update.exe), but I would expect it to be supported soon.

Basically, everything I would do with a NetBook works on my phone. Just without the larger screen and the laptop footprint (I've got a real keyboard). For that matter, it even already supports pen input (including OCR), so you could make a convertible NetBook fairly easily.

Layne

I can't seem to figure out why some many people (usually MS haters) claim that Windows Mobile crashes consistently. I've had my phone for years and have only had to reset it about 12 times. Windows Mobile likes to keep apps open, but if you get MagicButton or any similar task manager, you can make programs actually close. This improves the performance and the stability quite a bit. And while I haven't done any heavy statistical analysis, I've found the built in Excel to be capable of meeting my needs (quick spreadsheet to track boxes of girl scout cookies sold for my daughter, a spreadsheet to help calculate loan costs of cars when shopping for a new one, etc.). Not a lot of need for Word and PowerPoint, so I can't speak to those.

Growing up with a C64 and then DOS of all flavors and even Windows 3.x, I'm used to limits of an operating system (and before you raise too many flames, how many programs can you run on an iPhone......). If those limits mean that I can't have 20 programs running at once, I'm ok with that. If you live within the limits, the OS is usually very stable and performant. Sure Windows Mobile isn't the worlds greatest OS, but I don't think it's as bad as the bashers like to claim. I think that it's smaller requirements would make it perfect for a NetBook because, let's face it, a NetBook isn't supposed to be your only computer. It's supposed to be something that is portable to be connected anywhere and allow for limited work. My phone (HTC Wizard) is already capable of meeting those basic needs and the newer versions (HTC Touch, HTC [next]) even more so.

Good uses of a Netbook:
Taking notes - Can do with Word Mobile
Surfing the web - Can do with IE (really needs a better browser, though it does technically work -- I've read Slashdot with my phone)
Playing music / video - TCPMP
Play games - yep.....Nethack, anyone: http://www.nethack.org/v343/ports/download-wince.html or maybe Doom http://handheld.softpedia.com/get/Games/Action/Doom-for-Pocket-PC-9834.shtml or Quake http://handheld.softpedia.com/get/Games/Action/Quake-3-Arena-CE-22440.shtml

No Flash support beyond v8 yet (http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flash/updates/8/flashlite2/fl8_flashlite2_1_update.exe), but I would expect it to be supported soon.

Basically, everything I would do with a NetBook works on my phone. Just without the larger screen and the laptop footprint (I've got a real keyboard). For that matter, it even already supports pen input (including OCR), so you could make a convertible NetBook fairly easily.

Layne

Some slightly more information: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Little-Wonder-Boy-Discovers-New-Solar-Cell-Type-93760.shtml

Actually chimps do kill each other, they do seem to do it in tribal groups and it seems to be related to territorial claims. No one knows, or perhaps can know, the true reason behind it, although it does look similar to warfare.

A quick search here turned up plenty of information.

Intel *is* aiming at gamers. Why does everyone think otherwise? Intel has said *repeatedly* "We are in this to win the graphics card performance crown and dominate the graphics card market."

Why does Intel want the graphics card market now? It's because Intel is afraid of GPGPU. NVIDIA cards are now in the second fastest supercomputer in the world, doing jobs Intel's CPUs are supposed to be doing. That's scaring Intel, because they like their position as the top dog in the computer chip market.

So Intel needs a GPGPU chip. However, the GPGPU market isn't large enough, by itself, to support a gigantic development effort like Larrabee. In order to have a business case for developing Larrabee, it has to be able to sell in the gaming market, which is much larger. Larrabee is only viable as a business venture if Intel can sell enough of them to make a profit, and the gaming market is where that volume has to come from.

Not that simple, requires a 27mb download :)

I'm not sure if this is the competition you're referring to:

http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2008/03/28/os-x-first-os-to-be-hacked-in-pwn-2-own-contest/
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Mac-OS-X-Hacked-Vista-SP1-Hacked-Ubuntu-Linux-Survives-Unscathed-82079.shtml
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1000000189,39375171,00.htm
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-9906001-37.html

On day two things turned around when contests were allowed to instruct contest organizers to visit a web page or open an email. Within two minutes Miller had prepared his exploit code and instructed organizers to visit a web site. Game over. Miller had seized control of the MacBook Air and landed himself a nice prize, seemingly using a hole in Safari as contestants were only permitted to take advantage of preinstalled software.

The attackers didn't have direct physical access so much as taking advantage of the weakest element of security, the user.

Actually most computers are made with bog standard parts,the PC manufacturer simply doesn't package them for one OS or another because they don't want to support multiple Operating Systems for a piece of hardware. Simply use this tool to find out what the hardware ID is for the "no driver" piece and then download the driver from another source. If you would like an example,working repair shop I have found many laptops with "no driver" for sound,yet when I look at the hardware ID I find that it is almost always based on either the Realtek AC'97 or the Sigmatek sound chip. Then I simply take a Realtek or Sigmatek driver for XP from another site and voila! The "no driver" hardware magically works.

It is extremely rare to find anything truly proprietary anymore,they simply don't bother to package the drivers on the website. That way when you go around it they can ignore you if you need support. But I've been doing this for more years than I care to admit and so far,knock on wood,I haven't found a machine with hardware I couldn't find a driver for. Now getting a Compaq Mobo with all their proprietary hardware connectors into a new case is another story,but laptops are usually pretty easy once you have the hardware ID.

So if I was in your position I would make a disk image using Acronis(in case you need to send it back for warranty repairs or if you decide you want to go back to Vista at a later date) then download drivers matching the hardware IDs of your "unsupported" hardware. Usually I find a generic driver or barring that one from Acer or HP for similar hardware works best. Simply use the ISO builder to incorporate your drivers and make an unattended. Since you have the disk image you don't have to worry about anything going wrong and leaving you stranded,and if you guess wrong the first time as far as drivers go you can simply try again with another blank CD. Or you can add several drivers onto a folder on the CD and install them after OS installation,your call. But I have done it enough times to know that it works. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV

For you and the other user stuck on Vista due to lack of drivers for XP, here is the fix,from your friendly neighborhood PC repairman. I have used this tool more times than I can count to get around the no drivers bug. It is so simple I let my 15 year old make his own restore disc with it so he could have his own custom themes and apps.

The best part is it makes unattended OS install discs beyond simple. You can have it install the graphics drivers,set default screen resolution to your LCD,integrate SP3,and it even supports XPize which gets rid of the ugly 9X icons in XP. It literally makes building a custom unattended Win2K/2K3/XP CD a "clicky clicky next next next" event. So enjoy,the hairyfeet has you covered(and isn't THAT a disturbing image).

You can't extend the olive branch and shit on my pimentos at the same time... http://news.softpedia.com/news/Microsoft-Applauds-Victory-Over-Linux-and-Open-Source-91127.shtml

Really... I was under the impression that SP3 included IE.

Sadly, I think you made the fatal mistake of assuming that Microsoft would use Common sense.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/No-Internet-Explorer-7-Will-Not-Be-a-Part-of-Windows-XP-SP3-73896.shtml in case you're interested in reading.

Personally, I think they should have put IE7 in the service pack and forced all those companies to update their software. Worst case scenario is that a company is using a piece of outside software they can't get fixed and thus learn a valuable lesson.

I had always given Microsoft the benefit of the doubt. That they weren't really all that bad, just unusually incompetent and maybe a bit greedy with a touch of power-hungry. Now I'm fully convinced that there is some kind of rotten fucking evil permeating that organization.

I went through this transition, now comes the powerlessness associated with knowing there is little you can do stop them, none of your friends will even understand this - of course, where you can you try to fight the man, the man will eventually bludgeon you into submission.

The sad reality is that the market will slowly be corralled into accepting Vista and all the requisite DRM baggage that it carries. The key here is that the frog is heated very slowly in the pot and the market will accept, like sheep, what is fed to them. Of course the ardent Microsoft supporters will say Vista ain't so bad, and sure their products are nice to work with, but they are also a nightmare of interoperability when you try and work with anything else.

I don't want to encourage purchase of their products because when you dig deeper into the behavior of Microsoft the 'evil' conclusion is consistently reinforced. A corporation has the same legal rights as an individual in society it begs the question "What sort of individual is Microsoft", I found this and made the comparison.

HOW TO SPOT A PSYCHOPATH - 5 WAYS TO AVOID HIRING PSYCHOPATHS COPYRIGHT 2008 MICHAEL MERCER, PH.D.

1. Pre-Employment Tests - especially certain test scores

From my research on pre-employment tests, there are specific test scores that may indicate a job applicant is a psychopath. Specifically, psychopaths may get low or high scores on certain measures/scales in pre-employment tests:

* low scores on two measures - (a) Truthfulness and (b) Following Rules

Check , Check

* high scores on two measures - (a) Aggressiveness and (b) Power Motivation

Check, Check

Lesson: Be cautious with job applicants who get such scores on pre-employment tests.

2. Job Interviews

If you suspect a job applicant may be a psychopath, then you can ask questions to elicit answers revealing if the applicant threatens or intimidates people. Reason: Psychopaths get a huge thrill from intimidating through (a) real or implied threats, (b) verbal hostility, and (c) manipulation.

threats, hostility, manipulation, manipulation, manipulation.

3. Reference Checks

Call the job applicant's ex-bosses at home, and ask for a "personal reference." Obtain specific examples of how the applicant "handled difficulties and friction with other employees." Listen for warning signs of threats, intimidation, anger, or ridicule.

intimidation, anger,

Folks, the 20th century is over. It was great while it lasted, suburbs, drive ins, shopping malls, long distance commutes. But its over. What is going to replace it will not be different fuels, electric cars, whatever. What will replace it is commuting by mass transit, living closer to where you work, moving into high density cities, walking to shops. Biking to work in some places. It will be a lot like Europe in the fifties. The suburbs will vanish.

And you won't like it.

You sir, are absolutely dead wrong. There is too much inertia in the American culture and the infrastructure that has been built up for there to be any massive exodus from suburbia to the city. Mass transit and massive urban rehabilitation projects are expensive and get more expensive with every passing year. Even for transit projects that have net positive revenue, there's so much capital and time involved that it will be decades before any significant difference is made, and by then further-out suburbs replace the older connected ones. Your vision might take place in a very limited sense in isolated areas, but for American cities as a whole, forget it. A lot of people like the quiet of suburbs; the noisy, dirty lifestyle of the city center is not for everyone.

People tend to take the easy way out and will survive this crisis just like fuel prices in the 70's and every other major economic event with the least change (or the least expense) possible. If I had to bet, the future is probably going to involve manufacturing normal gasoline (not biodiesel, ethanol, etc..) from some sort of biomass, or more likely continuing the trend towards battery technology in cars. Or continuing to drive the same oil consuming cars we do now, only with a switchover to cleaner grid electricity (nuclear, solar, wind, carbon-sequestered coal, etc..)

See Gasoline from biomass