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Let us know when you successfully [sic] run the largest software company on the planet.

MS has lost mindshare, marketshare, and profits under Ballmer. What has it gained? Zune, PlaysForSure, Courrier, Kin, Windows Phone 7, Bing, aQuantive, Surface tablets - a string of might-have-been products hamstrung by weak execution and weaker leadership. The stock price eloquently expresses what the market thinks of Ballmer's performance:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/chart-microsofts-performance-under-gates-vs-ballmer/35415

In June this year they announced their first quarterly loss:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18917906

I don't think you can say that Ballmer has run Microsoft successfully in any way, unless you feel he has successfully squandered the legacy of Bill Gates.

First off, what kind of dumbass would make a driverless car that can be hacked from the outside? The worst an intruder without physical access to the vehicle should be able to do is jam GPS, and even then a well-designed system should be able to use cached map data.

Try BMW, for starters.

A general response to both this post and the other reply: If I can't see a personal selection of apps/widgets/etc across my desktop multi-monitor setup without hitting a keyboard combo or mouse hotspot, then it's the UI that has failed, not my use of it. Why can I not have both interfaces visible at the same time and be able to treat the whole UI as s single entity? Also reference this interview " Usability Expert: Windows 8 on PCs is Confusing, a Cognitive Burden" or the shorter synopsis here or here. For myself I'll be sticking to Win7 for the foreseeable future, and as a Windows admin I'm more interested in the newer Server versions than I am Win8's desktop, even though older windows and scripting is where I do most of my work. - HEX

Well, some of these companies were recently accused of collaborating in other areas as well.

IOS 6 users received close to the 197 security patches when/if they upgraded to iOS6( http://www.zdnet.com/apple-provides-197-security-reasons-to-upgrade-to-ios-6-7000004535/) You and jo_ham and your counterparts anon and anon have nothing to fear. Just keep following your(suspiciously)similar Apple roadmaps. Using your new Apple 3D magic carpet ride mapping app of course. Be confident--you never have to check for security updates. After all, your in your new magical garden. It will magically stop all security vulnerabilities. No need to follow any security news. Apple has done it again. I'm sure they've already patented this magical walled garden approach, because it's such a monumental breakthrough in security it must have just been cooked up in their magical walled kitchen. Of course, they can close that kitchen now because, as you have pointed out, it is 'the' answer to the security problems surrounding mobile products. And I'm sure they won't, for the same reason, need to issue security patches so there's probably going to be a few layoffs in Cupertino--well enough said. You know what I'm talking about. Being right--all_the_time. Updates when updating to iOS 7=0. No need to even check. EVER.

Verizon has been targeted many times. They would steal network equipment, then call Cisco to get an advance replacement RMA, which would take their stolen equipment and double it. Then they would sell the gear on the 'Grey Market' for Cisco hardware. They focused primarily on Cisco 12000 line cards, where an individual card sells for $100k+ and are installed in a redundant fashion.

Then they started just getting serial numbers for equipment and starting RMA's for that, and selling it on the Grey market. When Cisco called to get the status on the return... Verizon would reply with "what return".

I helped track one of these cats back in early 2000's - once he found we were hot on his trail, he abandoned his Bentley, and his Mansion and fled back home to Russia - where he lives currently. Interestingly, this same type of scam popped up in eastern Europe shortly after his relocation.

Our suspect had a friend who worked in security at one of the Verizon data centers. He would grant 'back-door' access to a facility, and permit the theft of the hardware. Stories abound of this guy being too poor to buy gas one day, borrowing $50 from friends in order to make to to the airport to fly out to New York then from New York to California, then California back home - pulling a massive roll of C notes from his pocket and repaying the $50 loan + a couple of C-notes to show his gratitude.

Perhaps the reason we hear about this happening with Verizon was that they became aware of the scam early, then kept tracking the perps until they were finally able to catch them. Kudos to Verizon Security for being able to close the loop on this one. These cases are extremely hard to track and crack.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/27/nyregion/27theft.html?_r=2&ex=1152936000&en=28ee4e10417b8e50&ei=5070&oref=login

http://www.zdnet.com/level-3-falls-victim-to-data-centre-robbery-3039284520/

Not certain who is right and wrong, but this was my source:

http://www.zdnet.com/thinkpad-x1-carbon-able-macbook-air-competitor-review-7000002294/

If I were them, I would be kissing Tim Cook's ass so hard that he couldn't turn around without slapping me with his junk. AMD needs some high profile names to adopt AMD processors. I mean, they've always been kind of fringe players, but in this tablet/notebook/smartphone age, they've become more fringe than ever. They could easily turn it around with serious support from just one big player like Apple, Motorola, Samsung, Google, etc. But it doesn't seem to be happening. And every time AMD has tried to court a big name or even merge with one, they seem to come up short.

Maybe they should try sending flowers.

HYGAH: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/microsoft-to-stop-linux-older-windows-from-running-on-windows-8-pcs/9589

Also, according to this, the not-to-sue promise was a private contract, not a license; I think this was mentioned on Groklaw awhile back. And if this case was a slam dunk for Apple, I don't think they would have been after Samsung to get a license for the 3G patents in the first place.

A solution to both the iOS 6 map problem and iPhone V1 copy/paste problem is to simple: skip the first revision of a significant iteration.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/what-android-can-learn-from-the-iphone-os-updated/6991

6. Copy & paste. Apple took forever to deliver it, but it works really well. Android has had it forever but it's a kludge to the point that I don't use it.

"Too much of FOSS is based on emulating existing desktop software"

And that's why Microsoft is licensing Android to Googles OEMs.

"Where FOSS shines is in areas of technical interest that are not driven by the needs of the consumer"

Ubuntu 12.04 vs. Windows 8:

Xbmc + adalight + cinema experience

Duke Nukem 3D - Gameplay (Linux)

Oh, the difference here is that exploits once discovered work almost 100% of the time on a board variety of systems. And because the pc market is mostly a monoculture, these exploits effect every system in the block!. In fact this has been observed a number of timer: Or who can forget CodeRed, iloveyou, blaster; conficker/downup, stuxnet, duqu, flame, ... All these had some major impact on the computing community, so you can't compare that with the odd broken axel or loose bolts.

Actually, they don't work 100% of the time.
Its a browser bug.
It only affects IE 6-9. Not Safari, Chrome, or Firefox.
It only appears on a few dodgy websites.
The fact that this is unheard of pretty much means its not close to affecting 100%.

But hey, thanks for reminding me about all those other exploits,

who can forget CodeRed, iloveyou, blaster; conficker/downup, stuxnet, duqu, flame,

I had indeed forgotten about these.
Probably because they never affected me.
Or anyone that I knew.

Because they got blocked by Anti Virus software on windows well before they became epidemic in scope.
And of course none of them bothered linux.

Then how come blaster a did an estimated damage of $320 million http://www.pcworld.com/article/112047/article.html ?

Code red from $1.2 billion to $8.7 billion http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/08 /02/code_red_hysteria_8_7bn/

conficker http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/confickers-estimated-economic-cost-9-1-billion/3207 is said to have caused damaged up to $9.1 billion

So, how can you say it "never affected you". Don't you remember the day when "Slammer" was on the loose?

" How good they play determines how much money they make."

There are only two Android manufacturers that make any profit whatsoever -- HTC and Samsung and HTC isn't doing so well.

http://www.zdnet.com/htcs-quarterly-profits-plunge-again-what-can-they-do-to-turn-things-around-7000002275/

Advertising == spyware in this day and age, so yes I am finished with Ubuntu. This sort of thing seemed OK when Lindows was around, because there was still some pretense of decency and respect for privacy back then. Now it's all about no-holds-barred surveillance with the extra dollop of whipped cream and double-cherry on top in the form of warrant-less demands for data from the government.

Blocking ads used to be about readability; getting rid of the writhing, flashing, insane pools of upchuck that also brought many systems to a crawl and then became a prime vector for malware infection. It used to involve scraping the crud out of Windows, or using Ablock, or switching to Linux. Now it means switching distros.

After all, Microsoft is the one technology company that has demonstrated a consistently superior level of trustworthiness and sound ethics. Right?

As opposed to non-hackable NFC?

"Summary: Using a pair of zero day vulnerabilities, a team of security researchers from U.K.-based MWR Labs hacked into a Samsung Galaxy S3 phone running Android 4.0.4 by beaming an exploit via NFC"

http://www.zdnet.com/exploit-beamed-via-nfc-to-hack-samsung-galaxy-s3-android-4-0-4-7000004510/

I'm ok that the new iPhone doesn't have NFC.

And there are technical details like support for 4k sector drives (see http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/are-you-ready-for-4k-sector-drives/731 .

XP works just fine with 4K sector drives as most if not all manufactures use an alinement tool to properly align the drives. I use it on drives before I clone them and it has been working great. Your point here is invalid.

What 7 brings to the table, and the only reason I recommend it, is 64-bit. If you need more than 4GB RAM, get 7. I think Microsoft should do a "Windows Classic" which is XP re-branded, and sell it as a subscription to finance future patches. Let's say 5â/month. I think it would sell like hotcakes. I think I'd take it for the few remaining XP machines, I haven't converted to Linux yet. (I'll probably convert one back to XP as the ATI drivers for that laptop suck donkeys balls)

I think UAC is also an improvement. At least for people who understand when "allowing change to the computer" actually makes sense. And there are technical details like support for 4k sector drives (see http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/are-you-ready-for-4k-sector-drives/731.

In terms of general usability, however, I don't see a big difference to XP. The desktop concept was reasonably mature with Windows 95, what came after that were details.

Considering the laptop, are you running Catalyst or the Open Source driver (Radeon)? Catalyst is fast but much cursed for unreliability. The Open Source driver is slow, but reportedly much more stable.

Please note the summary is obviously about the "International" version of the Galaxy SIII.

Actually, Canada which is the country this benchmark was made in, also has faster Android phones.

Selecting (out-of-the-country) phones for this benchmark which have slower processors was most likely a deliberate choice on their part. It's a well known fact that if you post negative news news about Apple (it doesn't matter how big you are), or post negative reviews, you and all your colleagues at your company get blacklisted from their VIP events and most importantly, you and all your colleagues (including your bosses), also get blacklisted from receiving any "freebie" review devices.

Okay, but for how long?

Apple is already working on technology that would turn off all civilian cameras in an area. Governments everywhere are going to implement this as soon as they see a chance to do it without pissing off the majority of the population. It looks like a relatively trivial change if you legislate that manufacturers have to ship the feature inside everything they make that has a camera. Of course you and I may be able to disable it by googling how to, but what are the odds that you or I or another geek is there to film the next police meltdown?

This is completely irrelevant, and AMD does not make low-power x86 chips anymore.

Ahem, please do your homework before spouting bullshit.
Go shill somewhere that doesn't have access to google

Fortunately in the EU case the cheap ones were the patent lobby offering as bribes ice creams.
Pro-patent lobby in sticky situation over ice-cream offer

"No matter how much I like my Linux Desktop, I don't want to be responsible for bringing non-tech-savvy people along"

'Desktop Linux has been as easy to use as any of the mainstream desktop operating systems for over a decade. How easy is it? My 79-year old mother-in-law, Hulvia, can use it. -year old mother-in-law' link

The press release doesn't say, but they got approval to use 1800 MHz for LTE recently, so I assume it must be 1800.

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20120821-700757.html
http://www.zdnet.com/uk/4g-decision-annoys-everything-everywheres-rivals-but-it-will-benefit-consumers-7000002942/

they may be aweful, but the hosted email has been damn decent for the 4+ years I've been with them. I've always sort of snickered at the shit anonymous did, but now their vendetta against a big company fucks us little guys too.

Please don't misconstrue this as support for Anonymous' actions. You seem to forget that SOPA would fuck the little guys, too. Perhaps you've forgotten who supported that legislation, and why Wikipedia and many others (including myself, a customer for over 10 years) have left GoDaddy.

As long as MS have their deal with manufacturers to enforce a pre-installed windows nothing will change

Dell have done it on and off for years, they just didnt sell well. Asus has done it as well, as has HP and Acer. There's also Apple and a myriad of other manufacturers who sell systems with no Operating System or with Linux installed. The big players focus on Windows because that's what people buy, for the smaller market who don't want Windows there is certainly a lot of variety and there is also the Windows license refund.

There is an entire collection of root certs in your browser that are all trusted unconditionally. Hundreds of them, in fact. These root certs have signed thousands (who knows how many, really?) intermediate certs. All of these intermediate certs are trusted unconditionally to authenticate any SSL server whatsoever. It's pointless to have a key longer than the shortest intermediate cert key length in use anywhere. When you use SSL, you are trusting thousands of unknown parties with absolute cert-signing authority. SSL certificates are known to have been used for explicit man-in-the-middle purposes: Trustwave sold root certificate for surveillance. Sure they revoked that one key because of the bad publicity, but it's common industry practice. How is SSL hopelessly broken? Let us count the ways.

Since I can't edit a post, I'll edit it here - Evidently Microsoft might have switched gears on its update policy and as of Windows 8, might send upgrades over the air to all Windows 8 platforms.

Whether ZDNet has it right or not, it's hard to tell as I couldn't find any Microsoft update policy statement.

"So Bill Gates said "in 20 years the books will read themselves to you" and they are today. He also said that the absolute necessity of literacy will be replaced by an absolute necessity of computer literacy. So who is this guy anyway. He didn't write windows, he managed the folks who had the "talent" to do that. He couldn't do it, so why does his opinion matter." - by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 06, @02:08PM (#41251085)

See here http://www.zdnet.com/blog/murphy/bill-gates-programmer/640

PERTINENT QUOTE/EXCERPT:

"Although Bill Gates is known mostly for his founding of Microsoft he also has done a number of programming jobs before becoming the worlds richest man. Bill Gates first programming job would be when he offered the principle at his high school a timetable organizer that would be more efficient and easier to use than what the principle had previously been using. Little did Gates' principle know that Bill had created the program to his own benefit... Bill was going to be in all the pretty girls classes. Bill's second job was a summer's work programming in which he earned 4200 dollars. At the age of fourteen Bill Gates and his programming buddy thought up the idea for a traffic counting computer which would later be named 'Traf- o-Data' and earn them 20 000 dollars. But when word got around that the computers were being sold out of a basement by a couple of teens the business fell through. Gates also worked as a Congressional Page and at a programming company called 'TRW'. After dropping out of Harvard Gates created the first basic operating language for the computer. Although Gates has programmed a number of programs he is still going strong at it and is programming as I write this."

and, of course, this too:

""'Could Bill Gates Write Code?' Or was he merely the luckiest man alive," before concluding... "Yes He Bloody Could!""

---

* And, there you are...

APK

P.S.=> Small wonder you posted ac, because imo? You were NOT very sure of yourself in your erroneous statement quoted above, obviously... apk

Yes, its amazing just how many bloggers are running away from their predictions:

It's all but said and done that Oracle is going to have some kind of pay day. During a court hearing last July, Judge Alsup admitted that Google is definitely going to pay up "probably in the millions, maybe in the billions" at some point.

Rachel King April 16, 2012.

SF Gate, on the other hand pretty much predicted this outcome just 9 days later on April 25, 2012:

The remarkable thing is that, when the dust settles, five of the seven patents Oracle claimed that Google violated will likely be overturned because Google forced the patent office to take a second look. ...
If only two of Oracle's patents hold up on review, that means the patent office got it right less than 30 percent of the time, an average we have every reason to believe is representative of the entire sector's patents. In fact, software patent holders lose nearly 90 percent of the time in litigation, Stanford law Professor Mark Lemley found in a research paper published last year.

The courts would do best if they just struck down software patents again, as they have done three times in the past.

Even the output from software should not be patentable (slide to unlock).

1) US maintains a list of blacklisted countries accused of facilitating online piracy by not implementing surveillance and copyright enforcement.
Malaysia just promised to comply and thus got off the list. The OP topic may be a result of this.
http://www.zdnet.com/malaysia-dropped-from-us-piracy-watch-list-2062304676/

2) Malaysia's biggest ISP TM introduced for it's "fastest" internet service UNIFI (a max. 20MBit SDSL connection) blocking of port 6667. This started some weeks ago (August/2012). No official statement so far. Other ports work fine though (e.g. 6666).
http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/2477506/all

What do you expect? /. is all about trashing iOS these days.

Android is SWARMING in malware but you don't see those stories on /.

It's sad to see Slashdot lose its credibility so fast. /. has become an Android fan site and has ZERO credibility. Thank hacks like Timothy and Soulskill for that.

Android malware families nearly quadruple from 2011 to 2012

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/android-malware-families-nearly-quadruple-from-2011-to-2012/12171

Summary: F-Secure has found that between Q1 2011 and Q1 2012, the number of Android malware families has increased from 10 to 37, and the number of malicious Android APKs has increased from 139 to 3,069.

Almost Every Android Device Compromised With "Some Kind Of Malware"

http://www.forbes.com/sites/adriankingsleyhughes/2012/07/27/bt-almost-every-android-device-compromis
ed-with-some-kind-of-malware/

Summary: British Telecom says that one third of Android apps are compromised with some form of active or dormant malware, and that almost every Android device is infected.

âoeWe analyzed more than 1,000 Android applications and found a third compromised with some form of active or dormant malware,â said Jill Knesek, head of the global security practice at BT and former cybersecurity expert for the FBI. But if you think that is bad, it gets worse, reports EETimes.

âoeAlmost every device is compromised with some kind of malware, although often itâ(TM)s not clear if that code is active or what it is doing,â she said in a panel discussion at the NetEvents Americas conference.

1. Apple switch to Intel processors because IBM could not meet Apple's supply demand. It was a supple issue, that forced Apple to switch. 2. The term "Workstation" predates Personal Computer.

Uhm

Steve Jobs stated that Apple's primary motivation for the transition was their disappointment with the progress of IBM's development of PowerPC technology, and their greater faith in Intel to meet Apple's needs. In particular, he cited the performance per watt projections in the roadmap provided by Intel.[11] This is an especially important consideration in laptop design, which affects the hours of use per battery charge.
In June 2003, Jobs had introduced Macs based on the PowerPC G5 processor and promised that within a year, the clock speed of the part would be up to 3 GHz. Two years later, 3 GHz G5s were still not available, and rumors continued that IBM's low yields on the POWER4-derived chip were to blame. Further, the heat produced by the chip proved an obstacle to deploying it in a laptop computer, which had become the fastest growing segment of the personal computer industry.
Some observers were surprised that Apple had not made a deal with AMD, which had in recent years become a strong competitor to Intel. AMD had recently released its competitive 64-bit Opteron platform,[12][13] and by moving straight to x86-64 Apple would have had one less architecture transition. Analysts have speculated that AMD's lack of low-power designs at the time were behind the decision to go with Intel.[14]

So it wasn't a supply issue it was a development issue constraint meaning that IBM's advances in PowerPC were behind and other factors that led them to going with an X86 based architecture. Having worked on PowerPC architecture for quite a few years, I've found it to be both power efficient and fast compared to Intel chips. Now this was a few years ago but I do have to conceded the high ground in X86 to Intel right now. AMD is a close second but it depends on market space. The G5 Macs were very fast so while Jobs may have publicly stated that it was because of these disappointments it could also be the fact that he IBM was being salesmen.

All I know is that I had a PowerPC Mac G5 running a Linux Distro in 2004 and it screamed.

Under Oracle's care Open Office was updated as well or possibly even better than in the years before that. After the Feb 2011 release of 3.3 Oracle made the decision that they didn't want to continue providing commercial support for the project and started to look for alternatives. In May they had made their decision and donated the project to Apache Software Foundation.

I think this is among the best things to happen for open source in ages. It took a lot of hard work for the ASF community to replace the non-free libraries with free ones, which was the cause of the 15-month delay between 3.3 and 3.4, but now that we're finally there, look forward to having a more open, more free and faster-developing Office suite that can finally close the gap in usability and compatibility between the free alternatives and MS Office.

I've preferred Calc over Excel for years, but the tabs of .docs saved in Writer have never matched those saved in Word and Impress hasn't come even close to matching PowerPoint, so I've stuck with using a mixed office suite. Now that OpenOffice is in the hands of such a strong and capable community I look forward to it gradually replacing MS Office everywhere.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/oracle-gives-openoffice-to-apache/9035

Is there something Oracle has done wrong with MySQL?

Most likely because Google didn't have any ground to stand on and do something like that. Of course they've now bought Motorola and are resorting to the same tactics.

http://www.zdnet.com/motorola-mobility-sues-apple-again-seeks-iphone-mac-import-ban-7000002853/

So no, Google isn't clean and if I had to guess they'll only continue to do this sort of thing, just like the others. So the only solution is to fix the patent system.

The thing is though, this isn't really about how it affects Google or any other large corporation that has a pile of money and patents to go to war with. It's the fact it's pretty much impossible for anyone to start a new business. Sure Microsoft, Apple and Google and agree to share patents and that's all good for them but for anyone entering who will have no patents to begin with and probably little funds. They can't get into a patent sharing deal, they can't deal with being taken to court and if they agree to pay the licensing fees to everyone their product will probably be prohibitively expensive.

So long as we leave the system as it is, you can't really blame anyone for defending their patents. If they don't do it, someone will do it to them. So rather than fighting about which corporation we think is the best, it's better to focus on fixing the patent system.

Some very talented folks I once had the pleasure of meeting just went out of business. They had formed Bitcoin Harbor, an exchange for buying and selling items strictly in bitcoins. I suspect the undue lack of popularity for bitcoin is to blame, but there has been some pretty fierce efforts against bitcoin which might also influence the stagnation of what I consider a great system. One example of government hostility against alternative currencies I think is no better illustrated than in the case of Bernard von NotHaus.

Some fear the forced introduction to a "cashless society", and maybe I do as well. However, If such is the unavoidable future, I'd rather it be in bitcoin. It's peculiar the vehement government defense of what might reasonably be considered amongst the most unstable and fantastical currencies in the world, in contrast to their hostility toward arguably less deformed competitors. When speculation suggests bitcoin may be more worthy of confidence than the euro, I pay at least one ear of heed. But when Alan Grayson asks Lord Ben where $500,000,000,000 went and he can't reply, I reach for my Adult Depend Undergarment.

You needed fast storage to make Vista useable beyond very basic word processing and browsing (single processing). There's no two ways about that.

In that case care to explain the results here or here or here? Largely the complaints around Vista stemmed from the incompatibilities that came from introducing a new driver and security model (which are the same as in 7) and misconceptions around memory usage because of SuperFetch, the reality is the performance wasn't much different.

Australian has Attorney-General Nicola Roxon passed new laws allowing the authorities to "collect and keep Australians' internet records, including their web-browsing history, social media activity and emails." Roxon said the new powers will be used to find people "engaged in forgery, fraud, child pornography, and infringement of copyright and intellectual property".
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/new-law-to-control-cyber-data-20120822-24mur.html
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/authorities-gain-power-to-collect-australians--internet-records-20120822-24m03.html

Greens Senator Scott Ludlam says the laws went further than necessary, and the government had failed to explain why the far-reaching powers were needed: ''The European treaty doesn't require ongoing collection and retention of communications, but the Australian bill does." Ludlam said the new laws are a "lite" version of the laws Roxon had only two weeks ago promised to delay until after the next election. She didn't mention that when she announced her decision to delay those laws: everyone assumed it was over. Australian human rights lawyer Jen Robinson described it as a "A sad day for civil liberties."
http://www.zdnet.com/au/cybercrime-bill-passes-senate-set-to-become-law-7000002971/
http://www.dailydot.com/news/australia-cybersecurity-bill-privacy/

no idea what MS's excuse is.

I think their excuse is that 360's are still selling very well. Over 70 million units sold and its still growing at a decent rate. As of June they had a consecutive 1.5 years as the #1 selling console. Not bad considering that both the PS3 and Wii came out after the 360.

Thats a pretty good excuse, isnt it?

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/microsoft-slashes-product-key-allowances-for-technet-subscribers/4644

It doesn't look like anyone not AC (slider's broken for me) bothered to answer you, so: Yes, the license applies to "a computer that you build for your personal use" (quoted from the ZDnet article that was showing the particular EULA question). It doesn't matter what parts make up that computer as long as there is only one in use. No fair changing out half the parts into another PC to try and get two OS installs for the price of one (not that it'd actually stop anyone).

If you were cheap and didn't need microsoft support you bought the system builders/OEM version.

Technically this wasn't legal for a customer to do with the Windows 7 or Windows XP OEM System Builders package.
See this for details.

TFA is a secondary source. Here is a link to the primary source, with text from the actual licenses:

http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-radically-overhauls-license-agreements-for-windows-8-7000002866/

This would probably be a good place to start.

What is surprising to me though is that Computing classes are not in the list of "hard" subjects being taken up in increasing numbers. This year, computing is falling.

Maybe no-one wants a computing career, long hours, bad colleagues, constant re-learning crap that's itself obsoleted a couple of years later.

Lets hope the raspberry pi does something, or in a decade everything will be outsourced.

[PSA] Ken Starks of HeliOS fame has 2-3 weeks left

This is one of those put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is situations. From his partner's blog at http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2012/08/this-is-where-we-are.html

Ken's cancer has just recently begun to spread to his right lymph node but his Oncologist has assured us that this is 80 percent curative if he gets the needed surgery in time.

Unfortunately, his 1100 dollar a month SSI disability disqualifies him for Medicaid care and the local county low-income insurance he was receiving. This leaves us with about 2 weeks to either raise enough money for at least the OR for the surgery (we are hopeful of finding a surgeon to do the work pro bono) or raise enough money for the entire procedure. We've spent hours upon hours researching and contacting the links some of you have provided but they are so limited in scope that 90 percent of them are not helpful at all.

We are looking at two weeks, maybe three before the cancer spreads past the point of surgery being an option. After that, we've been told just to make him as comfortable as possible until he passes. I'm not ready to accept that.

Stupid, this Medicare exclusion. More about the guy, by Steven Vaughan-Nichols of ZDnet fame:

+Ken Starks is a Linux and open-source supporter. He also runs a non-profit that's donated thousands of PCs to low-income households. Now, he needs help to fight cancer. For more on what's happening with him see:

http://thomasaknight.com/blog.php?id=71

https://plus.google.com/app/plus/mp/374/#~loop:view=activity&aid=z132y3njjzjei5iic04cjds4ztnpef1pjb0

Pitch in if you can.

+Ken Starks is a Linux and open-source supporter. He also runs a non-profit that's donated thousands of PCs to low-income households. Now, he needs help to fight cancer. For more on what's happening with him see:

http://thomasaknight.com/blog.php?id=71

https://plus.google.com/app/plus/mp/374/#~loop:view=activity&aid=z132y3njjzjei5iic04cjds4ztnpef1pjb0

Premium products? Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Inflated prices give them a perceived value. Doesn't make them better. And yes I had one. Don't get it. While it was only one of the first intel imacs, a 3 year old PC (at a fraction of the price) ran rings around it. True the imac is pretty much a laptop on a stand with no cover but I'd never go back to one. Too slow and clunky.

A pickup truck can carry more than a Porsche, but a Porsche would still be considered the premium of the two. Apple seems to put it resources into support, screens, differentiation via OS X, and design rather than performance they can't win anyway using standard parts - or to sum it up: the complete user experience plus "pretty". Not performance.