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a search on yahoo for "microsoft underwear" will find ya more links

-f

(1): It has been made public by the Federation of American Scientists, apparently, this is also where the chinese have been getting secrets, in addition to stealing them. <according to zdnet> Argh, we don't need any more nuclear secrets running around...goodness, with Kentucky on our left, and Djibouti on our right, its a wonder we are still a world-player...

-sempiternity

'I believe in diversity, not assimilation...hi, I'm Chris, and I wish I was Canadian"

Does this mean they've solved their little Winmodem problem?

Disclaimer: IANAL.

These bodies do not have the power to annul the 1st amendment of the constitution.

And the first admendment says, in full (emphasis mine, sorry for the caps):

CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW RESPECTING AN ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION, OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF; OR ABRIDGING THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH, OR OF THE PRESS; OR THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE PEACEABLY TO ASSEMBLE, AND TO PETITION THE GOVERNMENT FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES.

If UCITA violates this US Constitutional restriction, and US states are not allowed to pass legislation that does this, then logically UCITA is unconstitutional and must be repealed.

---

Also, Apogee do not define their trademarks properly. A trademark is a formal ADJECTIVE, and as such should always be followed by the noun.

As such, you can use any Apogee trademarks in trademarks of your own, provided that the product is different. Duke Nukem is a game, but if you opened a Duke Nukem coffee shop and registered the trademark, Apogee cannot legally touch you as long as you are not exploiting their trademark to market your own.

Strange but true: microsoft is a brand of underwear in the UK. Here's a story from 1997. Even Microsoft (the computer company) knows they can't fight the trademark law here.

--

It is simply amazing to me how this figure has spread. It was the largest reasonable figure that you could quote from the original report.

63,000 is a figure based on an internal email which in turn looks to be based on output from an automated testing tool. The internal estimate for real problems detected is about 28,000 or so. Plus some unknown number of interface issues, interactions not detected, documentation mistakes, etc, etc, etc.

But read the original report for yourself. Mary Joe Foley was careful in what she said, virtually nobody commenting on it has paid attention to that though.

Again, Microsoft has a long internal list of potential known problems. They think that slightly under half of those are actually bugs. There are an unknown (and probably large) number of real bugs out there that their tools didn't know to look for. There are large numbers of potential issues which people can legitimately differ on whether or not it is a bug or user confusion.

Given all that, the real figures are bad enough. There is no need to misquote them to make them look worse, then run the risk of running into Microsoft supporters who can demonstrate that you don't have a clue what you are talking about...

Cheers,
Ben

If you've never heard of the radio (which works pretty well actually, probably better than the shoes ever will!), or the new flashlight, here's a trivial description, or there are several news items around, such as this one.

You should be able to track one down if you're interested - look out for the iMac-alike version. If desparate maybe start with this UK stockist.

cheers

alex

Regret for the past is a waste of spirit

You can print your own codes, and assign them to special functions on your laptop. Quite useful (but I never use it.)
--
Paul Gillingwater

There is an article and already an update.

There is an article and already an update.

One of the ones that got me was a report that ADSL, which was supposed to be released in April (the London exchanges have been for the most part open since March) was delayed because BT told OFTEL that there wasn't enough interest in their trials.

That's interesting, since I know about 20 people who couldn't get on one. Then I managed to coax out of a customer service operator an ADSL department phone number. Asked to join a trial, and was told that tons of people ask that but they're full up. Interesting, I say, referring to your company's refusal to release ADSL because you don't have enough triallists. Hemm, hawww... Uhhh... I absolutely swear that three days later this phone number wasn't working anymore.

So this is what us UKers face. ADSL for roughly 65-70 US dollars a month (when you can get 2 Mbps no contention in the US for 40 dollars a month) at a 50:1 contention ratio, ethernet not allowed, only USB modem. Did I say 50:1 contention ratio? Did I mention that some urban areas of London have such bad copper lines that you can hear the connection break when the wind blows?

Or you can get their damned Home Highway ISDN service, which is what I have opted for. Starting in June, with Surftime it should cost roughly 67 pounds for 24 / 7 dual channel ISDN and two seperate analog lines for phone calls (this is great for my setup, as my roommate and I need our own phone numbers and lines, and we can play Counterstrike together on the Net using a 64k channel each). But it gets even better, as I've just found out. BT always inadverently screw up the installation. What most people don't know is that the agreement you sign indicates they owe you a month of rental for each day that the installation is late. They don't tell you this, you have to read the fine print and bitch. Well, as a result, I now have 5 months free ISDN rental. Woo hoo! Starting to love this company's inefficiency. We've started joking that next week when the engineer comes we'll chop down the telephone pole until BT owes us for 30 months compensation.

One last thing about HH. It makes you sign a year long contact that is unvoidable by any means. If you move, you're screwed. No transferring the account. If you got HH before April 25th, you can switch to ADSL for free... If you sign a 3 year binding agreement. Nice company, huh? And make sure you don't use the BT Terminal Adapter. Pings of 70-100 compared to 30-40 in a net game.

For further reading, check this message board: Wireplay's forum for broadband. There's always insider info and tips here.

The AMD 770 chipset is going to be capable of dual processor SMP, with otherwise the same features as the forthcoming AMD 760 (266 DDR SDRAM support, 4xAGP, next-gen ATA 120?). The last I read, it would probably be available early third quarter for release with Mustang. However it will probably be a little while before motherboards using it are available. So, although you might see it as early as July, it will probably be later. I would guess they will probably try to have them available in time for "Back-to-School" in late August/early September.

At http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2000/ 12/ns-14378.html Paul.

Many of these stories have been submitted to $slashdot recently, yet they don't seem to get posted - why? Because Andover is getting desperate as is the whole Linux community.

The nightmare for Linux is comming true, Win2K is a serious, stable OS that is a strong contender as a server and light years ahead of Linux for the desktop.

Microsoft is great at comming through in a clinch, remember the internet?

Microsoft's latest OS is selling well

INTERVIEW-China approves Microsoft Windows 2000

Users lap up Windows 2000 despite warnings

New operating system is a hit

Windows 2000 Sales Brisk; and Musings on "Pure Java"

Many of these stories have been submitted to $slashdot recently, yet they don't seem to get posted - why? Because Andover is getting desperate as is the whole Linux community.

The nightmare for Linux is comming true, Win2K is a serious, stable OS that is a strong contender as a server and light years ahead of Linux for the desktop.

Microsoft is great at comming through in a clinch, remember the internet?

Microsoft's latest OS is selling well

INTERVIEW-China approves Microsoft Windows 2000

Users lap up Windows 2000 despite warnings

New operating system is a hit

Windows 2000 Sales Brisk; and Musings on "Pure Java"

Since $lashdot/andover hasn't seen it worth mentioning any of these it seems important to mention them here.

Microsoft's latest OS is selling well

INTERVIEW-China approves Microsoft Windows 2000

Users lap up Windows 2000 despite warnings

New operating system is a hit

Windows 2000 Sales Brisk; and Musings on "Pure Java"

Since $lashdot/andover hasn't seen it worth mentioning any of these it seems important to mention them here.

Microsoft's latest OS is selling well

INTERVIEW-China approves Microsoft Windows 2000

Users lap up Windows 2000 despite warnings

New operating system is a hit

Windows 2000 Sales Brisk; and Musings on "Pure Java"

Since $lashdot/andover hasn't seen it worth mentioning any of these it seems important to mention them here.

Microsoft's latest OS is selling well

INTERVIEW-China approves Microsoft Windows 2000

Users lap up Windows 2000 despite warnings

New operating system is a hit

Windows 2000 Sales Brisk; and Musings on "Pure Java"

Since $lashdot/andover hasn't seen it worth mentioning any of these it seems important to mention them here.

Microsoft's latest OS is selling well

INTERVIEW-China approves Microsoft Windows 2000

Users lap up Windows 2000 despite warnings

New operating system is a hit

Windows 2000 Sales Brisk; and Musings on "Pure Java"

Since $lashdot/andover hasn't seen it worth mentioning any of these it seems important to mention them here.

Microsoft's latest OS is selling well

INTERVIEW-China approves Microsoft Windows 2000

Users lap up Windows 2000 despite warnings

New operating system is a hit

Windows 2000 Sales Brisk; and Musings on "Pure Java"

Since $lashdot/andover hasn't seen it worth mentioning any of these it seems important to mention them here.

Microsoft's latest OS is selling well

INTERVIEW-China approves Microsoft Windows 2000

Users lap up Windows 2000 despite warnings

New operating system is a hit

Windows 2000 Sales Brisk; and Musings on "Pure Java"

Since $lashdot/andover hasn't seen it worth mentioning any of these it seems important to mention them here.

Microsoft's latest OS is selling well

INTERVIEW-China approves Microsoft Windows 2000

Users lap up Windows 2000 despite warnings

New operating system is a hit

Windows 2000 Sales Brisk; and Musings on "Pure Java"

Since $lashdot/andover hasn't seen it worth mentioning any of these it seems important to mention them here.

Microsoft's latest OS is selling well

INTERVIEW-China approves Microsoft Windows 2000

Users lap up Windows 2000 despite warnings

New operating system is a hit

Windows 2000 Sales Brisk; and Musings on "Pure Java"

Since $lashdot/andover hasn't seen it worth mentioning any of these it seems important to mention them here.

Microsoft's latest OS is selling well

INTERVIEW-China approves Microsoft Windows 2000

Users lap up Windows 2000 despite warnings

New operating system is a hit

Windows 2000 Sales Brisk; and Musings on "Pure Java"

Since $lashdot/andover hasn't seen it worth mentioning any of these it seems important to mention them here.

Microsoft's latest OS is selling well

INTERVIEW-China approves Microsoft Windows 2000

Users lap up Windows 2000 despite warnings

New operating system is a hit

Windows 2000 Sales Brisk; and Musings on "Pure Java"

How about some 1GHz Athlons instead. They'll be available in full volume production too... unlike the P3. Cheaper too.

Nokia is doing exactly this with Linux and Mozilla. Watch for (not-necessarily Linux based ) efforts from Sony. The PC's days at the top are numbered, folks. Linux won't replace Windoze on PC's, but it may inherit a global empire nevertheless. The PC will soon be swamped by sub-pc devices; and whatever reigns on the sub-pc platform will lead what capabilties are developed for the PC. Linux or similar free OS on these devices may well dictate what Bill Gates can and can't do with databases, InternetServer software, etc. Despite its incredible power in the marketplace, this OS will never be a brandname, relentlessly pushed in ads and cross-promotions into the cyclopean eye of joe-consumer. Linux will be in all houses, browsing the Net, playing games, serving up the pages like it does already, running your lights, controlling HVAC, providing security, without ever becoming a household word itself.
What I want in my home and business is a PC running something free and powerful like Linux, and lots of stations that access the Net or do light duty work storing their data files, mail, etc on the PC. And does all these things SIMPLY, economically, and with a minimal demand for space, cooling and wattage. If someone steps up and pulls this altogether that company will do very, very well. Who knows, maybe while the Linux faithful are all screaming at each other to read the fucking manual, Bill Gates will sneak out of Redmond launch a startup and make this happen using BSD on PPC or something--who knows. Nokia is already planning to meet this market, obviously they'll have some company fast.

Mikko Hypponen, manager of anti-virus research at F-Secure, believes the discovery heralds a new era in virus writing and virus protection. "Now we can expect virus writers to include Windows 2000 compatibility as a standard feature in new viruses," he says.

Come on, this can't be real. A "benevolent despot" is what Microsoft was called by Judge Jackson. It's a concept that doesn't mix well with the idea of Open Source. I can understand people defending Linus for what he's done, but this is going too far.

I think you're absolutely right - USB, Firewire & Bluetooth all show the advantages of a PNP serial interface that fast and easy to connect (with Bluetooth of course being much easier to connect than it is fast). Already two companies, Ericsson & Idei have announced (links go to articles) a desire to develop Bluetooth enabled Flash RAM for storage. Great for PDAs, digital cameras and MP3 players, once they support Bluetooth. While the Bluetooth implimentations are not the worlds most rapid anything, the logical structure is very attractive - need some more {whatever - storage, CPU time, interfaces}, just add it to the piconet.

Hey, I just thought - has anyone commented on the power requirements/em? of a Serial I/O BUS v's a Parallel one of similar throughput? Are they more, less or about the same?

As a consumer, I just can't WAIT to get my hands on one, Intel. I'm just seething with anxiety over new features. Heaven forbid that they should f00f this one up.

Of course it's all simple mathematics, really. The more Intel rushes things, the more likely AMD will come out ahead.

:-)

Best regards,

SEAL

I foudn the quote from this comment hard to believe, so I did a search, and sure enough: he really said it.

Boggle.
--

Don't forget about Cool, Microsoft's rumored clean-room Java knock-off.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop...

-- Brian

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/pcmag/tinas/ 1999/82.html "No other company [Microsoft] has come close to providing so many innovative and groundbreaking products." I'll bet we never see that written about any Linux company or community.

This is such old news! Patricia Hewitt got ambushed at the 'Scrambling for Safety 3.5' event back in September by Nicholas Bohm of the Law Society. She'd just announced that the Govt. was dropping mandatory key escrow from the Bill, and was expecting a round of applause or something, when Bohm hit her with this. Absolutely hilarious, it was. Almost as good as that woman from the Post Office who nearly had a kitten when that bloke asked why she was talking about privacy when their website had been wide open to hackers... Fucking hilarious! :-)

D.
..is for Doh!

back to the source of the original article, batteries from zdnet uk.

just as an aside, if i were an investing man, i'd be checking out who has what on tap for batteries of the future. it's going to be a huge niche...

Sorry if this feels a little curt - I'd got a lovely reply written when I stopped concentrating for a moment and closed that window instead on another...

This sounds suspiciously similar to the Cookie Problem and so suffers from the same potential problem* as that for us lucky Europeans :) in that you can't collect personal data in the EU and then export it to a less severe jurisdiction to try and bypass data protection legislation.

If this is the case, which ZDNet UK News think it is - I promise I first hit reply to this article without having read their take on it, honest! - then this could get quite interesting. If the EU take this one to trial we could end up with this sort of practise made impractical for the whole net as it couldn't be legally used on a pretty large chunk of the users - I'm told we're currently predicted to be bigger than the USA on the net within 5 years, or something like that anyway. I haven't got the figures to hand, but that was the gist of it, OK? :)

And yes, I know that this article's talking about them releasing the patch and upgrading the privacy statement - but if the software isn't legal without the patch then it gets even nicer as they have to make that the default!

For those who are interested in the details, the UK law is here - as I understand it, other EU countries have roughly the same rules by agreement.


Greg

* Sorry to quote myself. It's just that I know I explained it and I can remember that quicker than I can find if anyone else gave a better explanation...

This is why they can win even in a review so otherwise ignorant as to give WinCE the edge in every individual category. (If the categories were better reviewed PalmOS would win in more of them.)

Er, I'm not actually sure about. If you read PC Magazine UK, you'll know they don't just rate programs on feature counts. They're getting multiple users to test all sorts of things - usability, productivity, intuitiveness, satisfaction and ergonomics. I've no idea how scientific this is, but it's not just one reviewer left to play with them for a week who then comes back and says he likes the colour WinCE machines as they let him have porn and MP3s in his pocket!

Anyway, this is the page with the charts, while this gives you the front page for the review. And remember, they gave it to the IIIx!

Greg

This is why they can win even in a review so otherwise ignorant as to give WinCE the edge in every individual category. (If the categories were better reviewed PalmOS would win in more of them.)

Er, I'm not actually sure about. If you read PC Magazine UK, you'll know they don't just rate programs on feature counts. They're getting multiple users to test all sorts of things - usability, productivity, intuitiveness, satisfaction and ergonomics. I've no idea how scientific this is, but it's not just one reviewer left to play with them for a week who then comes back and says he likes the colour WinCE machines as they let him have porn and MP3s in his pocket!

Anyway, this is the page with the charts, while this gives you the front page for the review. And remember, they gave it to the IIIx!

Greg

Dell:

http://www.idg.net/crd_ibm_dell_9-126 405.html


http://www.dell.com/linux/press.htm

SGI:

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/1999/3 1/ns-9268.html

IBM:


http://www4.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,416 4,2267514,00.html

http://www.theregister.co.uk/990930 -000020.html

Compaq:


http://www.digital.com/inFORM/issues/issue27/ln0 2-linux-story.htm

Intel:

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/1999/3 2/ns-9301.html


http://www.linuxia64.com/

Fujitsu:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/990929 -000017.html

Microsoft:

http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departm ents/nt/bugs.shtml

http://support.micro soft.com/support/kb/articles/Q150/7/34.ASP

http://support.micro soft.com/support/kb/articles/Q194/8/34.ASP

http://support.micro soft.com/support/kb/articles/Q224/7/93.ASP

Other side: HP:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/990920- 000020.html

Dell:

http://www.idg.net/crd_ibm_dell_9-126 405.html


http://www.dell.com/linux/press.htm

SGI:

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/1999/3 1/ns-9268.html

IBM:


http://www4.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,416 4,2267514,00.html

http://www.theregister.co.uk/990930 -000020.html

Compaq:


http://www.digital.com/inFORM/issues/issue27/ln0 2-linux-story.htm

Intel:

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/1999/3 2/ns-9301.html


http://www.linuxia64.com/

Fujitsu:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/990929 -000017.html

Microsoft:

http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departm ents/nt/bugs.shtml

http://support.micro soft.com/support/kb/articles/Q150/7/34.ASP

http://support.micro soft.com/support/kb/articles/Q194/8/34.ASP

http://support.micro soft.com/support/kb/articles/Q224/7/93.ASP

Other side: HP:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/990920- 000020.html

When it comes to transmitters, there are some who are already ahead.

Sweden's Ericsson together with IBM, Intel, Nokia and Toshiba have created an open standard technology for wireless communication called Bluetooth. The Bluetooth tranciever technology will be very cheap and low in power and is said to work even on planes. Bluetooth will have a range of up to 10 metres, 360-degree connectivity, point-to-point and point-to-multipoint connections, a gross data rate of 1 mbps, supporting Symmetrical and Asymmetrical Data rates up to 721 kbps, and support of both voice and data channels for simultaneous operation. The best thing is that it uses the open band of radio frequency which is available all over the world!

You might not have heard much about yet in America since it seems futile to get American media (including Slashdot...*mumble mumble*) to report on it, but interest in the system is rocketing and it is very hot in Europe. Over 750 companies have joined the Special Interest Group so far.
Already developed is a headset for your cell phone which lets you speak even if the phone is in your bag. (You will defenitely be taken for a loon when you go around on the streets talking to yourself with this one), a harddrive that automatically connect to thin clients anywhere(thereby working as PDAs) and many other things. Other early products is expected to be stereo speakers that you can place anywhere in the room (you still need a power cord of course), digital cameras from Casio, ID numbers to track stolen cars, cheap wireless LANs from 3Com, smart card readers, washing machines that call the repairman when broken, mobile phones that can double as remotes for your TV or to unlock your car, and other products. For computer users an early benefit is that we might finally get rid of the cable "spaghetti" behind the computer and the stereo. It is also said that the Calcaria Linux7K project (or Linux CL-PS7110) is interested in Bluetooth, something that makes Microsoft a bit worried since it seriously threatens Microsoft CE. The name Bluetooth comes from a Viking king who ruled Denmark and southern Sweden.

Read more at The official Bluetooth homepage and the ZDnet UK Bluetooth Special Report.

When it comes to transmitters, there are some who are already ahead.

Sweden's Ericsson together with IBM, Intel, Nokia and Toshiba have created an open standard technology for wireless communication called Bluetooth. The Bluetooth tranciever technology will be very cheap and low in power and is said to work even on planes. Bluetooth will have a range of up to 10 metres, 360-degree connectivity, point-to-point and point-to-multipoint connections, a gross data rate of 1 mbps, supporting Symmetrical and Asymmetrical Data rates up to 721 kbps, and support of both voice and data channels for simultaneous operation. The best thing is that it uses the open band of radio frequency which is available all over the world!

You might not have heard much about yet in America since it seems futile to get American media (including Slashdot...*mumble mumble*) to report on it, but interest in the system is rocketing and it is very hot in Europe. Over 750 companies have joined the Special Interest Group so far.
Already developed is a headset for your cell phone which lets you speak even if the phone is in your bag. (You will defenitely be taken for a loon when you go around on the streets talking to yourself with this one), a harddrive that automatically connect to thin clients anywhere(thereby working as PDAs) and many other things. Other early products is expected to be stereo speakers that you can place anywhere in the room (you still need a power cord of course), digital cameras from Casio, ID numbers to track stolen cars, cheap wireless LANs from 3Com, smart card readers, washing machines that call the repairman when broken, mobile phones that can double as remotes for your TV or to unlock your car, and other products. For computer users an early benefit is that we might finally get rid of the cable "spaghetti" behind the computer and the stereo. It is also said that the Calcaria Linux7K project (or Linux CL-PS7110) is interested in Bluetooth, something that makes Microsoft a bit worried since it seriously threatens Microsoft CE. The name Bluetooth comes from a Viking king who ruled Denmark and southern Sweden.

Read more at The official Bluetooth homepage and the ZDnet UK Bluetooth Special Report.

For more information, check here:

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/1999/1 6/ns-7955.html

Apparently, Sun is upset because the rules were changed on them. See if you can guess who lobbied for these changes. They have not given up on standards processes in general; They've just given up on MS-ISO.

ZDUK says here that it's not so straightforward. Apparently the GUID is only inserted when a document is first created -- after that, copies and extreme mods leave the original GUID intact. And since most of us copy some other document and modify rather than create from scratch, the GUID is not particularly useful.

--

But what the hell is that: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/1999/1 1/ns-7459.html? Settlement? WTF is that supposed to mean?

Here's Xilinx's Virtex FPGA chip.

Nine devices, from 50,000 to 1,000,000
system gates (1,728 to 27,648 Logic
Cells)
Over 500 user I/O pins
Many package options, including leading
edge 1.0mm FinePitch ball grid arrays
and 0.8mm chip scale packages
Leading edge 2.5-Volt, 0.22 micron, five
layer metal CMOS process
Fully 5-Volt tolerant I/Os
Timing-driven place and route tools allow
compile times of 200,000 gates per hour
(400 MHz Pentium II CPU)
Vector-based interconnect for fast,
predictable, core-friendly routing across all densities
Fully 64 bit/66 MHz PCI and Compact
PCI compliant

Okay, so say they take 280 of these at the 1 million gate density = 280,000,000 gates. Currently, the Pentium II has 7.5 million transistors (probable 1.875M approximate logic gates)(http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/1998/3 6/ns-5490.html)

Just raw silicon. Lets say they had a bunch of pre-compiled circuits, then there wouldn't be any lag in switching as they say. (I must admit that 1,000 switches per second would be a little overblown.

But - lets just say for equivilance, that we had 149 Pentium II's connected PARALLEL (Which is currently impossible. I think that LLNL uses PPro's currently at 2 chip SMP.) Such a system WOULD kill a cray. But the Pentium can't do that.

Everyone who has read the Beowulf papers know that the overall speed of the system is entirly dependant on the lag of the interconnect between systems. So, for fun let say we could put 18 chips on a board, and put 20 boards on a 128 bit local bus. That would lead to some damn fast computing. (Remember Deep Crack on the last RSA contest? It only ran at a system speed of 80 MHz?)

I believe they are at least on to it.

Didn't Hayes sue other modem manufacturers for using the +++ interrupt idea? I say good riddance. What an idiotic thing to patent.

On the other hand, this article reports that a Hayes VP says they aren't dead. Too bad.

--