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I don't think I ever had 720Kb 5.25's. I had 1.2MB and 360KB drives. Before that on my trusty Radio Shack Trash-80, I had a cassette tape drive and a stringy floppy. How many of you have heard of a stringy floppy before? It was a business card sized tape that was endless loop IIRC. About 1/8" thick, the tape was 1/16" thick. See TechWeb for definition, the cool manual here, an old Creative Computing article, and great scans of an old review here.

I was so l337 with my trs-80, expansion board, and stringy floppy. I was so sad when my space invaders game (galactic something?) got eaten by that damn drive.

• Here's a link
• and here
• and here
• and here

I just found this: Among the products to be put to rest are older versions of some the Redmond, Wash.-based developer's flagship packages, including all versions of Office 2000, Visio 2000, all editions of Windows 98 except for Windows 98 Second Edition, Internet Explorer 5.5, and SQL Server 7. The artical from techweb

You're wrong.

First of all 'Boise' is the capital of Idaho. (I know it was the grandparent that started it, but still...)

Boies was a lawyer for the DOJ in their case against Microsoft, not a lawyer for Microsoft. The first google hit for "boies microsoft doj" is here. He actually did quite a good job, and I had a lot of respect for him until he started representing SCO.

G5s all round then

When a server gets "lost", you can track it by it's radio signature.

Well according to TechWeb, if ATM's are mission critical then a bank couldn't operate unless they were up & running. It would be a pain in the ass for them, but obviously this isn't the case.

Jaysyn

Did they find a fourth server hiding behind a wall?

SCO Targets Major Linux User
The SCO Group Inc. said Tuesday it would sue a major user of Linux within 90 days, as the company prepared to launch a new legal assault in its claims that the open-source operating system contains the computer maker's copyrighted code.

techweb

<globallyUniqueDocID value="[id]">

<endUserPrivacy value="false">

Oh, come on. Al Gore was incredibly techno-savvy. Not only did he invent the internet (and only brainwashed assholes who love word games will dispute that's what he was trying to imply), but he made his website "open source." I'll bet he compiled his kernel all by himself!

Where could I post this bogus URGENT information?

Apparently SCO group CEO Darl McBride has through license agreements with Micro$oft obtained Micro$oft source code. SCO's "compare all source code and render a verdict software" has found over 1 million similarities and "infringements". Darl McBride is quoted as saying:

"The copyright rules that underlie SCO's case are not disputable. They provide a solid foundation for any software development model,... Rather than ignore or challenge copyright laws,... developers will advance their cause by respecting the rules of law that built our society into what it is today.... In the meantime, I will continue to protect SCO's intellectual property and contractual rights. "

Their recent aquisition of approximately 5 times the reserve they had or could ever make has put them on solid enough ground to go after bigger apes than IBM. The suit is looking for undisclosed damages totaling well over 300 billion. We await Micro$ofts answer.

I wish I was smart enough to have copyrighted the "if...then" statement. Oh and that "else" statement too.

nope. novell! wasn't it a university in nc that walled up a server for four years?

Server 54, Where Are You?

I have an AT&T Globalyst 630 that has been running at my house for years. Its a SCSI based P100/64MB ram. It's current duties are Squid and my SSH server that I can get into from the outside world. I also have Apache and Squirrelmail on it but don't use them often.

some of dmesg:

Initializing CPU#0
Detected 99.996 MHz processor.
Calibrating delay loop... 199.47 BogoMIPS
Intel Pentium with F0 0F bug - workaround enabled.

top:

10:32pm up 24 days, 1:11, 1 user, load average: 0.01, 0.00, 0.00
48 processes: 47 sleeping, 1 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states: 0.7% user, 1.3% system, 0.0% nice, 97.8% idle
Mem: 61868K av, 61092K used, 776K free, 0K shrd, 1928K buff
Swap: 118760K av, 22376K used, 96384K free 28096K cached

It has been up for 200+ days many times in the past but that current uptime corresponds to when my power was restored after hurricane Isabel passed though. It is headless and KB less. I telnet/ssh in and update as required.

According to this article at Techweb, the head park time was not "specified" in IDE drives, so they had to get drive manufacturers to meet their 200-300 millisecond requirement...

Thats a little slower than a 1/10 of a second.

Another great contribution to providing free public documentation by IBM. Kudoes to them.

Meanwhile, there's that oncoming train about states requiring VoIP providers to become fully bureaucratically functional telephone providers....

A good dose of well-meaning out-dated regulation ought to slow down the adoption rate of good new technology.

1
2
3
4

Considering Dell has $35 Billion in annual sales compared to Apples $1.5 billion, I think you may want to reconsider who is having more success right now.

I forgot, just mention Apple in good terms and get +5 insightful.

I hope this isn't just some tactic by Ford to draw a better price from Microsoft ala the article about the Microsoft VS. Linux Slush Fund

It would really be a win for the computing world in general if this signalled real competition in the corporate workplace for the MS monopoly.

nobody ever caught a virus from a telephone

Are you sure?

my bad.

But in another article on the same story.
In the large enterprise scenario, the licensing costs for J2EE tipped the financial scales at $208,567 for the BEA application servers, Oracle databases, and BEA development tools. Costs for the equivalent Microsoft licenses, however, would run only $52,591. Advantage Microsoft, to the tune of $155,976. That difference accounts for about a quarter of the cost savings Forrester claimed companies would see by going with the Redmond, Wash.-based developer's platform.
Oracle != MS SQL
s/Oracle/postgresql
s/BEA/tomcat

With only those small changes you cut the difference by 25%, now if we only knew some of the other details. I am sure there are other ways that the costs on the linux side were artificially inflated.

The Contact Form

This story which says "It is our expectation that
those who use our service with unlicensed or unauthorized third-
party clients will likely not be able to log on after October 15,"
Microsoft spokesperson Sean Sundwall told BetaNews.
"We would encourage those third parties to contact us to work out
agreements by which they can continue to have their customers access our network."

A Techweb stating: Those who don't update won't be able to access
the service, nor will unauthorized or unlicensed third-party clients be allowed to connect
to MSN's IM network, the company said.

IT NEVER CRASHES

Netware's reliability is indeed legendary.

For those too lazy to click:

The University of North Carolina has finally found a network server that, although missing for four years, hasn't missed a packet in all that time. Try as they might, university administrators couldn't find the server. Working with Novell Inc., IT workers tracked it down by meticulously following cable until they literally ran into a wall. The server had been mistakenly sealed behind drywall by maintenance workers.

• Techweb: RealNetworks Takes Open-Source Player Seriously
  
• Linux Weekly News: RealNetworks launches Helix Player project
  
• Google News search for "RealNetworks" and "Linux"
  

3 : something established by authority, custom, or general consent as a model or example : CRITERION

4 : something set up and established by authority as a rule for the measure of quantity, weight, extent, value, or quality

You are saying that MP3 is "the standard" format because most people use it. You are using definition #3.

But when technical people say that a format or a technology is "a standard" they are using definition #4: a recognized organization such as ISO, IEEE, ITU, etc. determines the required specifications that the involved elements must follow in order to comply with the standard and therefore maintain compatibility. Following this definition, the MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 formats as well as their audio layers (MP3 and AAC) are "standards" since they are carefully defined by experts designated by ISO and ITU. Some companies love "embracing and extending" standards thus braking them.

Note: Techweb does not allow direct links, so you will need to reload the URL to view the page.

This story needs to be put in context with recent developments and crowing about Windows being chosen over Linux. The biggest story out of this surprising admission is that analysts and large organizations are starting to recognize the value proposition of Linux and Open Source, as described in the rejected post below. The most telling comment is in the quotation in boldface, which lends support to Mitch Kapor's predictions.

Microsoft Ranks Linux its Number Two Threat

While most media are focusing on Microsoft's growing sales and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 replacing Linux servers based on the June 2003 Netcraft survey, (also at SMH, but disputed by the Register) there's a more interesting story to Microsoft's latest earnings report and conference call. Speaking about the top five risks for Microsoft, CFO John Connors said, ''The general economic environment is risk and driver number one. Linux and non-commercial software is risk number two.'' The recent Munich win for Linux is partly credited for making Microsoft take Linux and OS software seriously. Said one analyst about future threats, ''People are underestimating Linux on the desktop. They're going to be surprised at how quickly Linux's threat will be an issue on the desktop.''

Just spend some time reading Microsoft's own product announcements, interviews, etc... they don't make any effort to hide any of this. You'd pretty much have to be blind not to see what's going on... oh wait, that pretty much describes most of /. poster community.

First, there's Longhorn...
TechWeb
WinSuperSite

But don't forget to research Jupiter, Yukon and Kodiak, and be sure to look at the extended feature sets of these products and how they can interoperate.

A quick search for some time lines got me this, but there are lots of places that keep track of this stuff:
Internet.com

Some general info on Jupiter
JupiterResearch

...and don't forget MS' own efforts to push rights enabled content into the marketplace:

for one example there is...
Microsoft
...but don't forget, games, their deal with small movie studios, etc...

MS is working with British Telecom to develop online applications and media support including appication rental that can be used for an added nominal monthly fee... all of this is web browser accessable, and while the dot's are pretty thin to find, I've heard in the developer circles that once it is stablized around MSN 9, MS is looking to offer this service out to XBox live subscribers.
news.com"

...and then there is the MIIS layer that just was released to support data tracking.
MetaConnections
"MIIS has its own data store (the metaverse) into which it consolidates information drawn from the connected systems. Rules can be applied to determine how objects in a connected system are projected into, or join with objects already in, the metaverse and to create objects in the connected system (i.e. provisioning). Other rules specify how each attribute within the object should flow into or out of the metaverse. The sophistication of these rules allows customers to create fully automated identity data integration solutions."

...or this quote:
TheWhir
"Customers have told us they need an end-to-end solution for managing identity information and access rights," said Bill Veghte, corporate vice president for the Windows Server Group at Microsoft. "With today's delivery of MIIS, we bring provisioning and metadirectory capabilities together in a single solution that enables customers to create and manage user identities with a single consistent view across the enterprise and throughout the complete life cycle of identity management."

I would point you to the Market announcements on the MS site, but they are oddly missing... but then Google saves the day here...
MS care of Google #1
MS care of Google #2

...and on and on and on... Do I really need to give you more links... I suppose it's pointless because with most of the people who can't see this, I could drop a bible of text proof in your face and you'd still denign it.

Microsoft makes no efforts to hide what they're planning, and doing. It's all out there in your face if you bother to take the time to read it.

Big business wants start-to-end accountability for ALL DATA, and they are going to get it, and Microsoft is going

Anyone remember this "up" story?

Copy every 3rd line from SCO. Remove copyrights. Don't fix typos

Slight off topic, but we haven't had a SCO story for a couple of days:

Next month, SCO will tell companies that use or distribute Linux, such as Red Hat Inc., that they need to buy a license, says McBride

"SCO Group will publicly discuss potential solutions" ... "expected to hold a news conference 9 July": "It's unclear what SCO Group has in mind, but compensation and prevention of future code misuse are possibilities"

Darl McBride is flying over to Japan to try and put his case to the CE Linux Forum (CELF). This story also has some further comments by analysts, which give additional interesting hints about the allegedly infringing code.

Software provider Softmart will face up to $1 million in fines after pleading guilty to bilking Microsoft in a phony rebate scheme in 1995. [...] According to court documents, Sloane ordered reluctant employees to submit phony sales reports to Microsoft and Symantec in late June and early July of 1995 that amounted to close to $1.2 million.

Think about it - one platform, only one place to assert master key escrow .

Think about it - one platform, only one place to assert master key escrow .

> my Psion 3a has never crashed despite being switched on and in use for over five years

Heh, reminds me of this story, which never surprised me in the least after having worked for a university.

Perhaps this?

I read the article the other way.
I'm thinking it might be much more interesting to throw the mainframes, etc back into the fray, and find the oldest continually running app...

It just might turn out to be a copy of Novell server sitting in somebody's closet, or inside a wall...

I suppose we'd need to qualify exactly what an application is, and perhaps we'd find an example where it didn't meet the criteria when switched on way-back-when, but has had bits added to it along the way, and now does?

: .. cut the lan/wan/internet lines ..

This is a very important part that is often overlooked as demonstrated by the following example :

The University of North Carolina has finally found a network server that, although missing for four years, hasn't missed a packet in all that time. Try as they might, university administrators couldn't find the server. Working with Novell Inc. (stock: NOVL), IT workers tracked it down by meticulously following cable until they literally ran into a wall. The server had been mistakenly sealed behind drywall by maintenance workers.

What are CAT 5's?

Right now many are less aware or concerned about the issue of proprietary data formats than they are over OSes. Another key is that MS-Office (for the time being) has even a higher market penetration than MS-Windows.

It extends Microsoft's MS-Windows monopoly by requiring at least one Serer 2003 at each site. It also has the potential to lock out non-Windows or End-of-Life'd MS-Windows distros:

A user's computer must be able to access the Windows Server 2003 running RMS on first opening a document to authenticate the rights and decrypt the document. Otherwise, the document cannot be opened.

the operating systems must use XrML (Extensible Rights Markup Language) in the same way Microsoft does...Otherwise, the document could not be opened on the non-Windows operating system.

In the future, Microsoft plans to replace the underlying "platform" with the forthcoming security technology formerly known as Palladium," Nash said. RMS is solely a software technology, whereas Palladium will add hardware security chips as an additional protection and rights management mechanism.

In short it's about control -- this would give the last bit of control of data away, out of the hands of users / businesses. This is not just a U.S. problem. It is also an issue for non-US companies, governments and agencies. Once 100% control over the data is given away, then both hardware and software budgets are effectively determined by outsiders. Access to data would be controlled by outsiders as well -- who is to say that there isn't a backdoor or that product activation wouldn't be used to "blockade" the data of an agency or competing company.

What's wrong with this? Now maybe we can finally get a PlayStation emulator built into Windows.

1. 
   Pentium Floating-point division bug (it's close enough, isn't it?)
   Invalid Operand Instruction crashes original Pentiums Pentium crash codes
   Pentium Pro/II still having problems with floats Unable to convert to int
   Pentium III can't even start up You went faster with an 8088
   SSE is great for when you want your PIII to crash Pretty blue screens abound.
   PIII Xeon, quality you can count on, except at high CPU usage Watch the task manager, Phil.
   Yay, PIII MTH crashes! Does MTH stand for Meth?
   Total Recall 2: PIII@1.13GHz Fastest crashes ever.
   Total Recall 3: PIII Xeons@800/900Mhz More Xeon quality in a box.
   Total Recall 4: CC820 How many defects? Can't recall...
   Pentium 4 overwriting data Hope it wasn't something important.
   Pentium 4 chipset bug Fast video performance? Naaa.
   P4 Oracle/Sun problems More workarounds than work
   Itanium shipments halted That's an expensive oops.
   

Crap. This means that we'll be dealing with displays that have completely integrated copy-protection mechanisms.

Even if current efforts such as Intel's HDCP are flawed, future versions of these technologies may not be amenable to cryptographic attacks, and hardware based attacks will be extremely difficult if the circuitry is embedded in the screen itself.

This falls perfectly in line with the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group's desire to mandate implementation of a broadcast flag that all devices must honor.

They might group you with others who prefer clean underwear. Then again, maybe not.

Anyhow folks, dumbasses like this guy who are socially retarted aside from their once-a-week get-together with their dork friends to watch Farscape, who derive all of their self-worth from the idea that they are some programming genius above everyone else...just forget these people, they're hopeless. As for the rest of us who are unhappy with Microsoft, IBM, Intel etc. ramming laws through Congress with the ITAA like the raised H1-B cap, section 1706 in IRS tax code, FLSA changes etc. and so forth, and who are interested in organizing into whatever - professional associations, unions, guilds or whatever - sitting back and waiting for an organization to come along that you can sign up is not going to happen. An organization of IT workers is built by IT workers, which means people like you can't sit around and wait, you have to get up and help build it yourself. There are already nascent organizations like the Programmers Guild or Washtech/CWA (which is in CESO), there's already a nascent base to organize with, to communicate with and educate one another. Like-minded people like you are out there, and are in organizations, are meeting, are posting on Usenet and so forth, we have to organize those who agree with us, who are predisposed to this - if you want to get somewhere, forget arguing with self-deluded "geniuses", it's not worth the time, from my experience, concentrating on getting like-minded people for a better worker organization is the thing to concentrate on. IBM, Intel, Microsoft and so forth are well organized, and well-funded (with the ITAA). They like having a well-funded, well-organized group - maybe they know something we don't (e.g. organization is good, being unorganized is bad)?

Also, making a proclamation for everyone in the industry is arrogant as well. Why does everyone speak like the whole industry has to be one way or the other? Right now many aerospace, government and telecommunications IT jobs are unionized. Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing body shops added to that list, and if unionization "destroys" body shops? Good! We're better off without them, although unionization would only destroy bad body shops, and turn the ones that are not totally crummy into consulting firms. Who are you to tell workers in a company whether they should be in a union or not? Talk about megalomania. May your beeper go off at 3 AM.

It's actually documented- G. Pascal Zachary claims that David Cutler introduced the phrase to MS when he led the development of Windows NT.

http://www.techweb.com/

>What a load of FUD.

Pull the wool off in the new few paragraphs. This is one of the many reasons to detest MS.

>Do you know how much of a backlash there would be if MS put a trojan in their products, and it was discovered by anyone, possibly by noticing their computers randomly connect to the US?

Not much.

>That would be a absolutely stupid business decision.

Not really.

TTYL + HTH!

I have news for you. Microsoft doesn't give a crap about Linux or OS software and whatever insignificant market share they have.

Ballmer: Linux Is Top Threat To Windows

Microsoft acknowledges Linux threat

Ballmer: Microsoft sees the Linux challenge

You mention that "lots of big companies" are starting to deply Linux to the business desktop. Name a few.

Wall Street Embraces Linux

Linux for the Rest of Us

DreamWorks switches to HP, Linux

Secure Linux desktop begins shipping to UK police force

There's also the story about the Novell server at the college that they couldn't find. I think that was on Slashdot too although I'm too lazy to look up the article.