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Altigen, Avaya, Nortel, and Mitel all make PBXes that run on Windowi>Altigen, Avaya, Nortel, and Mitel all make PBXes that run on Windows (and some on Linux as well)

Avaya? I think not. Here you go :

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/networks/0, 39020345,39197287,00.htm

While I'm sure that we do sell some toy PBX stuff that runs on Windows, Linux is the prefered platform. In fact as far as choice of OS is concerned, SCO probably ranks ahead of Windows. And bear in mind that SCO would probably put us out of business if they won their crack-fuelled court case.

Try these:

• http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=SCO+legal+fee s+limit
• SCO Puts limit on its Legal Payments
• Start-up hedges companies' bets against SCO
• SCO Cuts deal for legal expenses
• SCO Puts a Cap on its Legal Expenses
• SCO's case doesn't fit, but the lawyers won't quit

You can use the 32-bit GUI libraries by threading your app. If you're writing performance code, you should have threaded your app a log time ago.

It's not quite that easy. It's one thing to have a threaded, single process application; it's another thing to require two separate processes and use IPC between them.

Why do any of those things need to be 64-bit? Notepad? IE? How could those ever need more than 4 GB of memory?

They don't. But the entire OS, minus the 32-bit parts used to execute 32-bit software, is compiled for 64-bit. And it runs 32-bit software just fine.

The main use for 64-bit is for scientists doing number crunching. And Tiger does that... not perfect, in that some libraries are still 32-bit.

But 10.5 is promised to be fully 64-bit so that will get rid of annoyances of having to do work-arounds for 32-bit libraries. (A 64-bit app can still use 32-bit libraries, it's just a bit of a pain)

If the rumors are indeed true and Apple will be shipping 32-bit only Intel CPUs, Apple will eventually have mixed 32/64 bit software on Intel.

It's a hoax.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/applications/0,39 020384,39243639,00.htm

I dont throw chairs

Courtesy of Google News.

IE on the Mac: Bubbye
CNET News.com- Dec 19, 2005
News on Monday that Microsoft plans to discontinue support and development of its Internet Explorer Web browser on the Macintosh hardly came as a surprise.
MS pulls plug on Mac IE Register
Microsoft Drops Support for Mac IE TechNewsWorld
VNUNet.com- InformationWeek- Techtree.com- ZDNet UK- all 112 related

Microsoft to distribute XP SP2 on one million CDs [July 9, 2004]

No charge, even for postage.
You would also have found SP2 bundled with your favorite computer magazine.

Ben Goodger is being paid by google to work on Firefox... http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/ben/archives/007366 .html

And is supporting them in other ways: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39189475,00.htm

Perhaps they wish to buy (and then bury) the Opera browser?

According to their own Press Service: Deal on EU data retention law; more comprehensive version in German: Ja zur Vorratsdatenspeicherung bis zu zwei Jahren - Keine Speicherung der Kommunikationsinhalte. Incidentally, even the latter "limitation" (allegedly no storage of the contents of communications) is void in particular with respect to URLs - these being identifiers for the contents transmitted anyway.

Loopholes aplenty have already triggered plans e.g. in Poland to extend the storage even further, to a staggering 15 years (!), and remaining safeguards (if any) are not expected to last: The media industry wants access to that data, too (and a further directive is in the works, cf. the EU Legislative Observatory).

I found a report from 2005 that, ironically, is talking about open source app servers being underestimated market share wise.

The report concluded that the data points to the following breakout:

JBoss: 4.8%
WebSphere: 33.9%
WebLogic: 28.7%
Oracle: 22%

So it looks like while the industry might be only saying JBoss has 2% market share, it actually has more than twice that at close to 5%!

Guess what... I'm even MORE right than I thought I was. 90% of all J2EE app servers are VERY EXPENSIVE.

There ya go, "fuckwad".

Eric Schmidt, the current CEO of Google, worked at Sun where he led the development of Java. He left Sun to be the CEO of Novell and retrained the programming staff on Java. He went from Novell to Google and still has ties with Sun, mostly recently with the joint venture with Sun in distributing the JRE with the Google Toolbar. Google is also purchasing Sun hardware possibly to obtain a better performance per watt. Eric Schmidt has also said that Google has several projects that use Java. Google is also a member of the Java Community Process.
So, it seems that Google has some serious management, business, and code ties with Java. That's to say nothing of IBM, Oracle, and others.

Yes i do watch porn.

Indeed Private came to mind as one of the few porn companies that actually does (some) hardcore movies which actually have a storyline and decent scenarios. (this type of "quality" porn is targeted at the couples market, there is at least another company - Adam & Eve i believe - specialized in this kind of porn)

Two questions arise though:
- What is more important for selling Private movies - beautifull women in hardcore action or great storylines and good scenarios. Putting things another way, if Private had less good looking women, less or no hardcore action but beter scenarios, beter storylines and maybe even HD resolution would they sell more or sell less?
- How big a part of the industry is Private in term of sales?

Answers being:
- Probably less, even if they kept the beautiful women and just reduced the quality of the action, eventually they would come into competetion with the softcore part of the industry such as Playboy, and further downstream even Hollywood. Even if they keep the "quality" of the action and the women, beter storylines, beter scenarios and filming and releasing HD quality products all costs more money. Would it really be worth it in increased sales? Doubt it, especially in an early adopter scenario where the proportion of your customers that can use your products is a small percentage of the total porn digital media market.
- In 2004 Private made £24.4m in revenue out of an industry total of £33bn (source http://insight.zdnet.co.uk/business/employment/0,3 9020484,39237409-3,00.htm). In other words, they're less than 0.1% of the industry. Enough said.

In a fragmented industry such as porn, Private is hardly an important player, a "crest of the wave" early adopter or a trend setter.

Not as bad as IBM's.

and hell, they've already started attacking us and our allies.

Yes... just like how European computer shops couldn't keep the court-ordered Windows N in stock because consumers wanted to pay more for less. Oh wait, that didn't happen at all.

Microsoft mostly wins because this ruling will have next to zero negative impact on new PC sales (and hence new Windows licenses) since the vast majority of purchase decisions do not hinge on the inclusion of free, downloadable software.

They have all their online tax systems running on JBOSS, they are running around 4000 Linux servers. The savings are the yearly saving which they are making compared to the cost of running the old proprietary systems. These savings are not the savings on licences from MS alone as these applications would not have originally run on MS. The Desktop roll out for OO is next.

ZDNet UK has published a long and insightful article about the French Tax Agency move to Linux. Don't be fooled by the article subtitle, this is not so much about OpenOffice.org cost than about the whole excellent open-source strategy at work at the DGI.

French opt for laissez-faire Linux

Note that I am a contractor for the DGI, and can vouch for the accuracy of the article. Of course, not everything's perfect (schedules, budget, etc.), but for the most part, for a project of this magnitude, this is currently a big success. Definitely a very important reference for the open-source movement.

...unless the Chinese communists need help.

Why because they have a balanced life? Why does software have to be "inspired," it just has to function. Zealots can spend too much time including nice-to-have features than accomplishing the main objectives on schedule. You don't need to think about computers 24/7 to do a good job.

This is a terrible comment. Please don't tar people who are good at their job and have a passion for what they do by calling them zealots. If I were interviewing you for a position at my company, and you said, "Why does software have to be 'inspired,' it just has to function," I would stop, kindly thank you for your time, and ask you to leave. An attitude like that means you're just phoning it in; that your life begins at 5; that you don't understand the passion driving the co-workers around you.

Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against having other interests. But having other interests and writing inspired software are hardly mutually exclusive.

Great companies foster cultures that draw employees who are looking for inspiration. Take Google, for example: "Google engineers all have '20 percent time' in which they're free to pursue projects they're passionate about." And it's worked for them: "This freedom has already produced Google News, Google Suggest, AdSense for Content, and Orkut - products which might otherwise have taken an entire start-up to launch."

Ironically enough, since this article is related to Fog Creek Software, Joel Spolsky has written very well on this subject already. I suggest you read it. Slowly. Then go back and read it again.

Really great programmers, the kind who want software to be "inspired," are worth their weight in gold. Good management identifies them early, pays them a ton of money, and makes sure they're always happy. If they lose them, they tend to throw chairs around the room. That's how valuable they are. The rest tend to plod along in the IT development of, say, General Motors, writing crappy Perl CGI scripts to automate HR tasks (poorly).

My point is that given what you've just said, and given that Linux certainly hasn't been hindered by a lack of media attention, it's surprising how little headway has been made in adoption by anyone but enthusiasts.

A very real hinderance is that any time a big customer gets some visibility in moving to F/OSS on the desktop, resellers highly dependent on MS' continued good will must step in or lose that. If it's a big enough account, then MS will step in directly and try to cut certain people out of the decision making process. In some cases the vendor will hinder hardware orders for the evaluation or pilot. Or MS will set a handful of their own staff full time to work on site to "help" with the evaluation.

So there are good reasons why open source projects are not publicised. In general, it pays to keep quiet if for no other reason than to avoid the persistent whining and shouting from the MS vendors. Some however, either have nothing to lose or have been pushed too far by MS (or its designated reps the BSA) or both.

Anyway, some of the rest can be explained in that most non-power users won't remember or even know which specific hardware, OS, or apps they are using. So of course you won't hear about it. Put them on WordPerfect, Appleworks, AbiWord or OpenOffice.org and to them it's still "Word". For a lot of end users "Windows" means any graphical user interface including, but not limited to, Gnome, KDE, Fluxbox, and so on. Correspondingly "Word" means any word processor, "Excel" means a spreadsheet, and "Powerpoint" means those time-wasting presentation graphics. Even some die-hard F/OSS programmers do that. It's like the trademark dilution you had with "Kleenex" and "Xerox" or ordering a "Coke" down south.

My point is that given what you've just said, and given that Linux certainly hasn't been hindered by a lack of media attention, it's surprising how little headway has been made in adoption by anyone but enthusiasts.

A very real hinderance is that any time a big customer gets some visibility in moving to F/OSS on the desktop, resellers highly dependent on MS' continued good will must step in or lose that. If it's a big enough account, then MS will step in directly and try to cut certain people out of the decision making process. In some cases the vendor will hinder hardware orders for the evaluation or pilot. Or MS will set a handful of their own staff full time to work on site to "help" with the evaluation.

So there are good reasons why open source projects are not publicised. In general, it pays to keep quiet if for no other reason than to avoid the persistent whining and shouting from the MS vendors. Some however, either have nothing to lose or have been pushed too far by MS (or its designated reps the BSA) or both.

Anyway, some of the rest can be explained in that most non-power users won't remember or even know which specific hardware, OS, or apps they are using. So of course you won't hear about it. Put them on WordPerfect, Appleworks, AbiWord or OpenOffice.org and to them it's still "Word". For a lot of end users "Windows" means any graphical user interface including, but not limited to, Gnome, KDE, Fluxbox, and so on. Correspondingly "Word" means any word processor, "Excel" means a spreadsheet, and "Powerpoint" means those time-wasting presentation graphics. Even some die-hard F/OSS programmers do that. It's like the trademark dilution you had with "Kleenex" and "Xerox" or ordering a "Coke" down south.

here another
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/talkback/?PROCESS=show&ID=2 0052658&AT=39238665-39020463t-20000004c

meh, they're ok

Fuck the moon base, they've got Paris Hilton working for them,

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/ecommerce/0,39020 372,39237552-3,00.htm

that's enough for me!

Is she one of the new applications for "physical testing" too? I mean, it'd fit in with their goals for more wireless technology development.

The 10 Samsung laptops in the temporary installation will be manned from 0700 to 1900 by Google employees from across the organisation, with some flown in especially to help out.

Take a look at this photo and all the sudden it makes sense...

From TFA, 3rd Picture Caption
The 10 Samsung laptops in the temporary installation will be manned from 0700 to 1900 by Google employees from across the organisation, with some flown in especially to help out.
--
It would appear that Google has been flying in their more attractive employees. (Or maybe if I worked for Google I'd look like that too.)

What are the Znet's evaluation criteria?

According to http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/0,39023100,39237495,00. htm, "We then attempted to implement some basic business tools for each distro":
1.connect an email client to Microsoft's Exchange server
2.print on a networked printer
3.set up instant messaging

Is this the requirements of small business? :)

But most importantly, it's not a cell phone.. The best thing that high-tech has given the third world is cell phones. You can get a cell phone connection in almost all third-world cities, where most of the people are. The GSM consortium is trying to push handsets down to $30. The future in the third world is cell phones with Internet access, not vaporware laptops with hand cranks.

The x86 Macs that Apple will release next year will all be Intels. Since the official version of x86 MacOS X will be tightly tied to the hardware, it may be extremely hard, if not impossible, to hack it to run on AMD computers.

Having said that, the OS X 10.4.1 prototype that was leaked a couple of months ago *does* run on AMD, as shown in the ZDnet article featured recently on Slashdot (look at the last figure in the page). It's not clear, though, if Rosetta applications currently run on AMD.

So, to answer your question: yes, for Apple it will be extremely easy to port OS X to AMD after they have finished the transition to Intel. You can bet that this has passed through their minds, and that Jobs knew this when he made the offer.

Let's face it, Red Hat's amaturish "desktop" offerings and lame marketing can't and won't overthrow Micrsoft.

Troll.

Red hat do not compete in the desktop space. Nice try.

As the future of Unix, Apple is also making strong claims on the server and super computer markets. Apples success with the Virginia Tech supercomputer is proof that Apple is opening up a lead in the top-end of the market.

Troll

You mean the way Linux "rules" Supercomputers with an estimated 60% of the top 500?

There seems to be an emerging consensus in Slashdot land that Apple and OS X is the future of Unix and the sole legitmate claimaint to the king of the desktop.

*sighs* Troll... modded up to +3 by apple fanboys - how predictable.

They used a notebook with an intel i915g chipset with integrated graphics. Only Intel chipsets support 3d acceleration at the moment, but they also have it running on an Athlon 64 X2, with Nvidia Graphics and chipset (no 3d acceleration).

See the 2nd page of TFA.

http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/software/os/0,39024180, 39235916-2,00.htm

You know that's true, as a matter of fact, Sun changed their pricing a while back to be more competitive with RedHat ...but you notice who is changing their strategy here? Sun...

Yea, Solaris might be cheaper on paper, but there's gonna be more problems running it on just any hardware...not so with RedHat...And you can bet that if you are running Solaris on a competitors machine, the fingers are gonna point to hardware whenever there's a problem...

Besides, Sun support sucks...about half the time when I call for something like a system down problem, I get transfered to some guy in India who is reading from a script and doesn't know what he's talking about...and after like 2 hours of him reading from some script I'm finally transfered to a developer that actually knows what he's talking about and get a comment like "well, I don't know what the problem is"...oh, that's great...waste 3 hours just to tell me that you can't help me...

I'm just guessing here because most of them are extremely hard to understand...and I used to work in a company that had employees mostly from India and Pakistan...now just imagine how someone feels that doesn't have the background that I have...Sun made the mistake of offshoring a sizable portion of their US tech support and most of em suck...as far as I'm concerned, it has ruined their reputation for support...

ZDNet has said that a French tax office (80,000 desktops) is planning to move to OOo. MSOffice upgrade cost 29.5m, OpenOffice 200,000. See here.

Sony sold 7.8 million in Q4 2002 and 8.5 million in Q4 2003. I don't know what 2004 was like but I'd bet those numbers were higher with the new slim PS2.

I'd be quite suprised if the 360 outsells the PS2 until after the PS3 comes out.

Also, the receive antenna is "the size of a small paperback book", which is pretty big when compared to a 900MHz phone. So maybe the transmitter actually is omnidirectional, and it's the receiver that has directional gain.

AC

First of all - stop sounding like an Apple Lemming Devotee Apologist - and attack anyone who questions what Apple does to consumers. In my opinion, Apple does not operate in the best interests of consumers - at least we can agree on that - yes/no? You want a specific example how Apple's monopolistic agenda is damaging my ability to do what I want to do? Well here's one. I have invest about 15 years in trying to use Apple products effectively and about $20,000 in Apple hardware. My focus - Tv on the web. Apple has a history of producing hardware that has been anywhere from 25 to 35 percent slower than similar priced Dell/ Intel boxes (check http://www.digitalpostproduction.com/ ). So Apple will be producing "special Intel boxes" to run the next Mac Os x. Unfortunately the best dual core Intel box is anywhere from 30% to 50% slower than a dual core AMD when encoding H.264. From Znet UK: "AMD currently offers the most attractive dual core option. The entry level Athlon 64 X2 3800+ may cost $87 more than its Intel counterpart, the Pentium D 820, but the AMD chip is a much better performer. It also uses considerably less power. A typical Athlon 64 X2 3800+ system uses less than 100W, while an equivalent Intel-based system uses about 50 per cent more, so it will be easier to build a quiet office PC around an AMD dual core chip. The lower electricity cost could also be a significant factor in enterprises with several thousand PCs." As well check out (http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/processorsmem ory/0,39024015,39233885-5,00.htm ) to see that a $900 Intel CPU chip is 50% to 80% slower than dual Athalon 4800+ when encoding H.264!!!!! That means I can be twice as productive on and AMD than on an Intel's high end CPU chip!!! Simply Eh! (as we say in Canada). Will I be able to install the next Mac OSX I buy on a AMD!? Who are the idiots who consider this issue flame bate - what jerk-offs.

ZDNet UK saw that the bitstream vanished when the receiving antenna was moved out of alignment with the distant transmitter

In other words, this is a highly directional transmission. That's why they need a GPS to make the demo work. And when they say "omnidirectional antenna", either they are lying, or they mean it's a phase-array antenna that can be tuned to transmit in any direction (but not all directions).

The bullshit about a revolutionary modulation technique is probably just that. There's no way you can beat state-of-the-art modulations by 1000x.

Oh, and the demo seems to be a one-way transmission. Dunno how hard it is to do a phase-array receiver with the same gain as a phase-array transmitter.

In other words - nothing new here.

AC

Dual core shoot-out: Intel versus AMD

Phil Karn debunked the claims about VMSK here:
http://www.ka9q.net/vmsk/

I AM a radio engineer, and I am extremely dubious about some of the claims in the article/website/etc. The thin line on the spectrum analyzer looks alot more like a sine wave than a system that "modifies each cycle of the sine wave". Others have pointed out that this is another way of stating the essence of phase/frequency modulation, a very old modulation technique.

On the xG website there is a press release that has some tortured details:
http://www.xgtechnology.com/newsitem.asp?id=21

"xG's Flash Signal technology, which utilizes single-cycle waveforms to transmit information at a minimum effective rate of 1 MB/s for each megahertz of spectrum"

Well, to me, you take away the "megas" and you get 1 bit/sec/Hz for the spectral efficiency .. .the same as BPSK.

The only important technical point I can find in the article is this one:

"Moreover, because the receiver -- the design of which is xG's most-guarded intellectual property -- includes a passive wavelet path filter that acknowledges only single-cycle waveforms, all other RF signals are ignored."

My guess is that he has an antenna/feedline scheme that cancels signals that cross correlate with a 1 cycle delayed version of themselves. Most likely, he does this by using two antennas and a bit more coax (at a particular design frequency) on one antenna to cancel any signals that are coherent with themselves for some integration time. This is not a particularly new or cleaver idea, but I suppose you could use it with the modulation scheme to increase the SNR of the signal (assuming of course that most signals are not like yours).

Also, if this is the case, then the geometry of the antenna array relative to the transmitter will be important, because at the wavelength used (900 Mhz) the configuration of the antennas will yeild different phases depending on how they are aligned relative to the transmitter. I take further proof of this in the zdnet article which describes the signal as degrading when the antenna is pointed away from the transmitter. (near the end)

ZDNet UK saw that the bitstream vanished when the receiving antenna was moved out of alignment with the distant transmitter

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/wireless/0, 39020348,39235645,00.htm

This scheme will yield better performance, that is.. until everyone is using it. If there are many signals that are not coherent with themselves over the integration time of the circuit, then the supposed advantages in terms of interference rejection will disappear.

In summary, if everything is as I have guessed, this technology is about the same as using a better antenna for a regular wifi system ... it will get better performance, but at the cost of requiring knowledege of where the base station is located relative to the mobile unit. Also, if the technology is what I have guessed, it will be easily copied if the market finds it to have great value, of which I am dubious. I could be wrong about all of this, but it would be interesting to see more technical information rather than a few plots and a dog-and-pony show. Appeals to authority fail to be very convincing when you are talking about claims in a field with well-known laws limiting performance.

Lots more details in this article, and photo's here. Looks very interesting.

Lots more details in this article, and photo's here. Looks very interesting.

"hackers have been taking over more PCs in the UK than in any other country" Coincidence?

This article is pure speculation based on a domain name (googledvr.com) that Google doesn't even own! The article says that Google "might buy the domain" from its owner should Google want to start a DVR service. TiVo is becoming marginalized and plans to make its money from advertising technology-sharing agreements with cable companies and patent licensing.

The article even mentions "GBrowser," which as we all know is Google's Master Plan to unseat the most popular web browser in the world, bar none.

Google also owns googleporn.com. Can we have an article about how they're about to put every porn site out of business?

Look, I am 100% against software patents, but I really have a personal problem with Florian. Yes, he did do good things. However, in the middle of the fight, when it looked like he was going to lose he jumped ship and returned to game developement. And I quote from http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/legal/0,39020651, 39193150,00.htm

"For almost a year, I have been spending virtually all of my working time on
the political fight against software patents," said Mueller. "[But] the time
has come for me to step down from my responsibility as a full-time campaign
manager, and to resume a game development project in which I had previously
invested almost two years of work."

"Obviously, most people will in the greater scheme of things consider the
software patent issue more important than a game. However, that game is my
project, so I had to make a personal choice."

Suddenly, when it was clear we would win he suddenly appeared out of nowhere was the leader of this movement. This just strikes me as opportunistic and looking to profit (book deals, interviews) and stroke his ego.

The bug related to a "rare conjunction" of circumstances "whereby v4.02 failed to properly compensate for an (here it comes, ed.) unusual memory allocation error generated by a company's mail server and consequently appended a partial message to another email.

"Neither the original message or the appended partial message were ever exposed outside the company's firewall and the bug did not generate any external risk. Customers using v4.02 may obtain this fix from RIM or install v4.03."

Source:

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2144770/bbc-squa shes-blackberry

and for additional info another link, since I was googling (googelen is an official dutch word now by the way):

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,390203 75,39233646,00.htm

Funny that, not a Java problem. But you might be right in assuming they use Java for much else. Of course it could have been in a JNI (Java Native Interface) implementation - if you are going to use .dll's you are prone to use unsafe C and C++ as well. Note that Java just as easy talks to COM and .NET if necessary. So it might not be easy to fix by "just using java" I admit.

Wow, what ignornace.

Average ANNUAL SALARY of an African : $160
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39231004,00.htm
Total population of Africa: 800 million
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa

Sure, we'll get bandwidth to all of them, real quick and real cheap.

Microsoft: Africa doesn't need free software
Ingrid Marson
ZDNet UK
October 17, 2005, 16:30 BST
Talkback: Tell us your opinion

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/legal/0,39020651, 39218121,00.htm

It seems they already did this for Germany too, didn't know that.

http://insight.zdnet.co.uk/communications/0,390204 18,39231005,00.htm/

YAY Microsoft!

You knew it was happening, it would be really nice if serious open source projects stayed away from this stuff until there is a decisive technological leader/standard.

With Wi-Fi equipment hitting $20 only 2 years after it was created there will definitly be a push by the Hardware Manufacturers to try to implement a more expensive standard, lets not let that happen.

./team HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!