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precisely. They did NOT misrepresent the storage size; in fact, they represented it very precisely.

Presumably the trial will take place in West Texas, where similar litigation almost always takes place and goes in favor of the plaintiff, like that bogus lawsuit against Toshiba a few years back.

Adobe needs to put the Flash player (as well as the Flash program itself) under the GPL license if they want to be relevant.

Yeah right. Flash currently has 95% market pentration according to most estimates and isn't going anywwhere by the looks of it. They don't "need" open source players to stay relevant - They've been relevant for just about the last decade, as one of the most prominent tools for rich-media web application.

I think the release of tools like Silverlight and other competition has more to do with this release than anything else others might believe.

You must have missed: Confirmation of stealth Windows Update.
Which naturally led to: Microsoft 'Stealth Update' Proving Problematic.

http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-10532-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=47095&messageID=876261&start=0

"Re: NTFS-3G as primary file system
        Yes, we're working on this targeted for over a year. For instance full file permission and ownership support has been implemented, we have ported and maintain a POSIX file system test suite (http://ntfs-3g.org/pjd-fstest.html) which we pass 100% using the improved driver.

        Apparently there is definitely need for this from a major (multi-million) user segment who are not interested in the technical implementation but just expect things to work out of the box fast, reliably, smoothly interoperating with the already used and common computing environment and without making intrusive, complicated, time consuming changes (partitioning, backup, reinstalling, etc).

        The main NTFS-3G driver has been tested as primary file system using an ordinary Gentoo install and it worked surprisingly well. Though this is not yet recommended due to several technical reasons what we are going to address by new public driver releases in the coming months. We have significant amount of unreleased code still in rigid testing.

        The open source community is enormous and incredible help in development, improving quality, and defining priorities. Enterprises interested in reliable interoperability on the desktop and in consumer appliances enable us to keep working on the driver and pay our bills.

        I think on the long term (10+ years) the main Linux file system could be ZFS or brtfs. File systems mature in many years, especially the very complex ones. For instance the NTFS-3G code base is basically 8 years old already.

        Regards, Szabolcs Szakacsits "

Yes, that includes you, too, Rudy de Haas

When it is running Vista, there's no reason to upgrade of course.

if you're running Vista more than likely you got a new PC or you upgraded an old PC to be Vista capable.

Photoshop

Adobe recommends that if you're running Photoshop on Vista that you get CS3. And it cost $650 while Photoshop CS3 Extended cost $1000.

Upgrades to stuff like Photoshop would surely be cheaper than a decent new PC?

First, to install an upgrade for Photoshop, Photoshop already has to be installed, I believe, and as I state above Adobe recommends CS3 for Vista, so it may be foolish to install CS2 on a Vista PC. Next, a decent PC should cost less than $1000, even to run Photoshop CS3 on. The following are headless: An HP that beats Photoshop's minimum requirements is less than $900, though this one's on sale. A Dell that exceeds CS3's minimum configuration is less than $820.

However even photographers are likely to get software other than Photoshop, perhaps a design suite and an office suite. Add all the software cost up and they can easily exceed the hardware cost.

You're not supposed to hide SSIDs. If you break the implementation of the AP, don't blame a client for not connecting.

If this was done deliberately, see this for why it's "worse than no wireless security at all".

Remember Microsoft Passport? That was another attempt to dominate users.

Google: "Do no evil."

Microsoft: "The only way we know how to make money is by doing evil."

My opinion, but I'm not the only one who thinks that way.

>>Truthfully, the Open Source and Free Software probably hasn't cost proprietary vendors much at all. The people who want to pay for support contracts and warranties still do so.

Are you kidding? Before Ethereal/Wireshark I paid $5000 for a packet capture package. This was about 12 years ago. We paid for software updates yearly. We had to have this type of software. Now I use Wireshark. That is a loss of revenue to that vendor. In fact, I'm almost certain they are out of business.

I paid for DNS/DHCP software for Windows from Checkpoint for a few years (they were ports of BIND with GUI interfaces) until I became comfortable enough with *nix to go that route. That's about $10,000 of software and thousands in support. Checkpoint no longer owns META/IP..

I paid for a proxy server from IBM. Now I use Squid. I don't want to tell you how much a Midrange (not PC) Proxy server costs.

The point is, I am spending less in software. Thank god & finally. DOS use to be $60. Now Windows Ultimate is $500. IBM PC's were $2000+ in the early 80's. and now I can find them for $199 on the low end. I can buy a PC for less than the OS.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=8440

>>Truthfully, the Open Source and Free Software probably hasn't cost proprietary vendors much at all. The people who want to pay for support contracts and warranties still do so.

Are you kidding? Before Ethereal/Wireshark I paid $5000 for a packet capture package. This was about 12 years ago. We paid for software updates yearly. We had to have this type of software. Now I use Wireshark. That is a loss of revenue to that vendor. In fact, I'm almost certain they are out of business.

I paid for DNS/DHCP software for Windows from Checkpoint for a few years (they were ports of BIND with GUI interfaces) until I became comfortable enough with *nix to go that route. That's about $10,000 of software and thousands in support. Checkpoint no longer owns META/IP..

I paid for a proxy server from IBM. Now I use Squid. I don't want to tell you how much a Midrange (not PC) Proxy server costs.

The point is, I am spending less in software. Thank god & finally. DOS use to be $60. Now Windows Ultimate is $500. IBM PC's were $2000+ in the early 80's. and now I can find them for $199 on the low end. I can buy a PC for less than the OS.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=8440

oh hai, you should read these:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=284
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Gutmann_(computer_scientist)#Criticism_of_Peter_Gutmann.27s_analysis_of_Vista_DRM

Hopefully some new alternatives to fiber optics and present day routers which would remove bottlenecks for faster video and so we don't have to order the evil cable tv.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/12501

http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2913761,00.html

See http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=615
This has been going on for a while. My Sony laptop from December '07 came with this. It should be noted that the ad-funded version is available only to OEMs.

For a eye opening experience for you read this article, I think it may have been linked on /. or roundabouts not too long ago.Hard numbers for you, not theory or personal bias. http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=758

As for the botnets, well that is another debate for another day, but suffice to say, the same thing that makes windows wonderful for networking is why worms slide in so easily.

Personally I run most major platforms at home, not to mention the 100+ networks I support. My parents run a Cheesegrater G5 and a windows Inspiron laptop. I personally run BSD, XP, Vista, FC5 (up to about a week ago), and one lonely mac computer at home. I have contemplated purchasing an up to date mac for a while. While I believe OSX to be a work of art for an OS, it is still just an OS and is flawed.

Each PC has its issues, linux is not user friendly to non-tinkers (Ubuntu has made great gains in this area though). Windows leaves to many services unguarded. Macs are difficult to support, also now that they are x86 their hardware is just as flawed as Windows architecture. In fact I have a HD coming in today to fix where windows will boot on the HD but OSX wont and cant be repaired. (Not a fault of OSX just happened to be on the part of the platter that got destroyed). Windows with all its flaws, has a lot of exposure and doesn't install on proprietary hardware which makes it more versatile but less stable, something like 29% of Vista crashes were due to NVIDIA.

But Mac and windows in the long run are about even security wise. Ease of use? OSX hands down. Supportability, WIndows. Stability? Linux by far.

No I am not bigoted towards anything, maybe I hate windows a bit more cause I have no choice but to work with it :) Each OS has its niche that makes wonderful sense.

According to one paper presented at last year's SubOptic conference in Baltimore, Maryland, rates of cable fault in water over 1km deep are less than 0.1 faults per year, per 1,000km of installed cable. This implies around 50 deepwater repairs per year, globally. At depths of less than 1km, failure rates hovered between 1-2 per 1,000km in the 1990s, but have been steadily declining. According to a SubOptic 2004 paper, the rate in 2003 was 0.2 fault per 1,000km.

He said there are approximately 50 cable cuts a year, 65 percent of which are due to fishing trawlers dragging heavy nets and 18 percent of which are due to shipsâ(TM) anchors. âoeThey donâ(TM)t even track terrorism,â he said. âoeCable cuts are a routine part of the business.â

So broadcom documentation describes a chip with a lot of unused pins, yet we find chips broadcasting clock signals down these pins. To make things interesting, it's only on the chips we receive from Broadcom. From another lab/project, these same pins are dead. I'm pretty sure Broadcom is acting like Monsanto and enforcing their draconian NDA by watching the customers developers. If they suspect they are releasing even the slightest bit of information to the public, they turn ">around and sue that company.

Yes, Broadcom has a stranghold.. but they're cheap.

They'll block VoIP in the initial sky Wifi: http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/?p=1506

I read a suggestion that when someone has a loud "private" conversation, you simply join into the conversation as they clearly intended all their neighbors to do by talking so loudly:

• "Oh you're right about that. I wouldn't put up with it for a minute. You should just tell him where to go."
• "How long has your sister had this disease?"
• "That's great news for you. I sure hope none of your competitors find out that you're going to bid 20k. Will you give me a call later and tell me how it comes out?"

XP's not going anywhere anytime soon. MS can stop selling it, but they've already committed to supporting it through 2014, and with Vista the way it is many people and enterprises are exercising their downgrade rights, or keeping their old XP PCs.

And it's possible that MS would ship Windows 7 in 2009, but despite Mr. Gates' speech the official line is still that Windows 7 is shipping in 2010.

1) yes, it was first. I'm not sure the conclusions your drawing or inferring are correct. Just because a few (very vocal) mac newbs, as well as some mac and linux fanbois have misunderstood the security of their platforms:

note: once a hack used, it couln't be re-used.
the hack used on the vista machine was believed to be applicable to all 3 platforms:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=993

"âoeThe flaw is in something else, but the inherent nature of Java allowed us to get around the protections that Microsoft had in place,â he (Macaulay) said in an interview shortly after he claimed his prize Friday. âoeThis could affect Linux or Mac OS X.â
The day 2 exploit succeeded finally after going back and forth between the machines tweaking the exploit.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/29/ubuntu_left_standing/

"Plenty of commentators have made hay of the MacBook Pro being the first to exit the race, and Linux zealots are sure to conclude the contest results prove the superiority of that platform. Maybe. But that's not how it looks to Macaulay, who says with a few hours of tweaking, his exploit will also work on OS X and Linux."

People are leaving MSIE, if not also MS Windows, in droves. So flexing their M$ agenda by requiring MSIE would backfire quite nastily at this point.

Well, also seeing as the banks have been replacing secure ATMs with insecure ATMs due to putting the M$ ideological ahead of technological factors, it's only natural that they begin to follow the M$ practice of blaming the customer.

Further, some major banks took that ideology two steps further and started destroying crucial components of their infrastructure by replacing it with M$. It's so bad that Microsoft's XSS hole causes state consumer agencies to tell people to file for damages from Sampo Bank, Danske Bank and the others. Too bad so many advertising budgets are dependent on M$ otherwise we'd hear about it in the mainstream media.

Again, the M$ tactic of blame the user helps the banks. At the least it creates a smoke screen that allows the public to get all indignant about such preposterous attitudes thus drawing the focus of the banks' home made catastrophy or willful negligence.

Microsoft's general manager of standards and interoperability Tom Robertson said that Microsoft, too, has been queried as part of the investigation.

He said that Microsoft will "fully cooperate" with any investigation from the Commission. In response to the accusations of stacking committees, Robertson said that IBM and other competitors have done exactly what Microsoft is accused of doing. For example, an employee from Google, which opposed Open XML standardization, joined the Finnish national committee only three days before a vote.

"It seems that one of the main concerns that people have raised about the process is the broad-based participation in the standards body deliberation," he said. "I think it's ironic IBM is complaining about new members in national standards bodies when they have been working around the clock to get people to join."

Two wrongs do not make a right, and if IBM and other companies were wrong as he suggest, then so was Microsoft if they did the same, and it just goes to support the argument that the process was tampered with and the results discarded. By making that statement, he actually argued against his own position that everything went fine.

Note: I work for IBM, but this opinion is my own

Looks like it's as fast as shit off a shovel http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1648

Silicon scaling will run out. We will reach a point where we can no longer make working circuits any smaller, but it will NOT be in the next four years. 45, 32, 22 nm circuits are already in the lab. 16nm (which may be the limit,) is expected to be in production by 2018 (10 years from now.) After 16nm, quantum tunneling may be a problem. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16_nanometer

Intel thinks we may hit the limit by 2021. http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-5112061.html

There Vista system didn't have Nvida graphics cards. . . NVida's whoas

Most people who were contributing software did so in a form of barter system. They needed a better Linux themselves, and that's why they contributed. Don Becker at NASA describes this as clearly as anyone else when he was asked why he contributes extremely fast Ethernet drivers, which is an extremely sophisticated technology, to the Linux kernel, and then allows Red Hat to make money selling his Ethernet drivers, and he doesn't make any money at it. He said, "Let me get this straight: I write a small Ethernet driver, that I admittedly give away, and Red Hat get to put in a box. And in return I get the complete source code and a license to do whatever I want with a complete 800MB operating system, and you're telling me Red Hat's taking advantage of me?"

Lame excuses. What about their pushing the browser to UNSUPPORTED OS?

This gets better and better. This UNWANTED installation which violates its OWN EULA fails on Windows 2000. Check it out here: http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1621.

Now what's your point on that one?

The auctions raised a record $19.12 billion for government coffers.

That ass is what broadcasters and the people attacking net neutrality would like to shovel on everyone. The issue is free speech and the broadcaster goal is to eliminate competition so we are all forced to keep watching their usual shit.

I don't know why anyone would listen to Ou but his core arguments are easy to dismantle. This is the same ass who savagely attacked researcher Peter Gutmann only to whine later when Vista crapped out for him. The core argument so insultingly put forth is that selective blocking of P2P is not, "violating someone's right to free speech and impinging on their civil rights." Duh! most of the same ISPs have blanket statements prohibit subscribers from operating "servers". They turn a blind eye for the most part, but the language blatantly says "we have the right to chose how you communicate." This is indeed a restriction on your free speech that puts you at the mercy of other ISPs who may also decide to kick you out. The net result of successful censorship is imploding civil rights.

People are angry about domestic spying abuses, torture, arrest without warrant and paranoid airport security that are increasingly being used to punish political opposition. The Republican party is about to get voted out of office under a cloud not seen since the Nixon administration. Those who replace them will feel little compulsion to fix those problems if they can silence mainstream discussion of civil rights abuses and continue abusing real dissidents. They will only be able to do this if they continue the Republican assault on the internet.

Mr. Ou, you need to STFU. Your incumbent favoring rants are not only politically clueless, they are technically flawed. The better answer to congestion is to build out US networks before they sink out of the top 50th in the world. At 26th and falling, it won't be long before places like Cuba have better networks than the US. Censoring equipment steals bandwith because every decision takes time that adds pointless delays. Everything that delays build out and encourages companies to buy censorship equipment is harmful and little better reasoned that Goatse Ass.

All ISPs should be forced to sell their connections based on target utilisations. Ie here is a 10Mb/s connection, at 100:1 contention, we expect you to use 0.1Mb/s on average, or 240GB a month. If you are below that then fine, if you go above it then you get hit with per/GB charges.

The author of the article, George Ou, explains why he thinks you are a stupid and evil for suggesting such a thing. Well, he doesn't actually use the word "stupid" and I don't think he actually uses the word "evil", but yeah that is pretty much says.

You see in Australia they have a variety of internet plans like that. And the one thing that all of the plans have in common is that they are crazy expensive. Obscenely expensive.

So George Ou is right any you are wrong and stupid and evil, and the EFF is wrong and stupid and evil, and all network neutrality advocates are all wrong and stupid and evil, you are all going to screw everyone over force everyone to pay obscene ISP bills. If people don't side with George Ou, the enemy is going to make you get hit with a huge ISP bill.

Ahhhh... except the reason Australian ISP bills are obscene might have something to do with the fact that there are a fairly small number of Australians spread out across an entire continent on the bumfuck other side of the planet from everyone else.

Which might, just possibly MIGHT, mean that the crazy high Australian ISP rates kinda sorta have absolutely no valid connection to those sorts of usage-relevant ISP offerings.

So that is why George Ou is right and why you are wrong and stupid and evil and why no one should listen to your stupid evil alternative. Listen to George Ou and vote No on network neutrality or else the Network Neutrality Nazis are gonna make you pay crazy high for internet access.

-

The Briscoe proposal reminds me a bit of USB actually. USB allocates bandwith for control transfers (analogous to downloading a web page) and isonchonous transfers (analogous to Skype, VOIP and streaming video) first. Anything left goes for bulk transfers (analogous to P2P). So if you're loading CNN or watching a video you get prioritised and things get better. But P2P isn't hurt by much, since web pages and streaming actually only use a small percentage of total bandwidth, especially at peak times compared to P2P. Outside peak times, P2P could actually be allowed to use more bandwidth.

And I thought senator Ted Stevens was crazy!
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=1078&page=2

I knew I shouldn't have read the article...

Software Update is no more annoying than any other updater. Anyone who has used an Adobe or Microsoft Office product, for example, has already had the experience of their updaters offering frivolous add-ons in addition to security updates.

As for the Download Safari box being preselected, that is the default behavior Apple's Software Update. This is quite reasonable and expected behavior on Macs, but perhaps Apple should reconsider changing what happens on Windows, if so many users are so dimwitted as to not uncheck the download box and are so inattentive as to not interrupt the download before installation.

If they should be so dimwitted and inattentive, what do they get? A completely free, fairly speedy and highly standards-compliant web browser which will do absolutely nothing but take up hard disk space if not used.

I first saw a rant complaining of the software update behavior update at http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1567, and would have responded there, except in order to post I would have had to register with my my name, address and phone number while they tried to auto-enroll me into several of their products with preselected checkboxes. What hypocrisy!

The point is, everyone is subjected to similar behavior or worse all the time. It is quite reasonable to complain and to want to do something about it, but trying to promote the idea that Apple is a particularly egregious violator is just silly and wrong.

There's a picture on ZDNET's page.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=404

Security update breaks printer drivers, Instant Hijack component http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1437

If you're not yet completely convinced that the electronic voting currently being rolled out is a craptastic idea, here's a little story on how a simple malformed URL can get the online voting registration page in Pennsylvania to yield other voters' registration files on demand.

Vista Service Pack 1 rolls up 551 bug fixes which are broken down by category in that link. Many of these fixes were not available before even through more advanced sites such as MSDN or TechNet. So, now that SP1 is out the trend to watch for is if it actually spures adoption or just passes by unnoticed. I for one welcome..., err, did buy Vista because SP1 was imminent for it as my primary purchasing reason. SP1 incrementally improves Vista and through the simple realities of OEM distribution like it or not within a few years Vista will probably be at least 40%+ market share.

Thank you

Finally someone remembers things the way I do. I was in the U.S. military at that time. MS Office had a market share, but wasn't dominant. Then the U.S. military stardardized on MS Office and everyone who wanted to do business with them had to use it. I've said it before once already today.

You must have a strange definition of "computer phone" if the N95 doesn't qualify. Nokia doesn't even sell it as a "phone" they call it a multimedia computer. It costs about twice what the iPhone does, and has sold about twice as many units. As of the beginning of last month, 7 million N95s vs. the iPhone's 4 million. The N95 did beat the iPhone to market by about two months (Another feather in Nokia's cap), but it's selling faster and generating more revenue than the iPhone, no matter how you look at it.... So.. wow... I guess you ought to consider actually looking up the numbers next time before telling someone else they don't do much reading.

It appears to me that they are trying to make the experience so miserable themselves that nobody WANTS to buy the device.

I'm not the one who bought a defective phone with no battery door. Besides, I've read much more realistic iPhone disaster scenarios in the news that I don't read. You see, what happened is some background task kept running and drained its owner's bank account of $4800. That wouldn't have happened if the iPhone wasn't locked to the American AT&T network. The owner could have just popped in a new SIM card for that locale and everything would have been peachy. But hey, it just one of many fine experiences brought to you under Apple's control. Others include, Look! I shattered my iPhone, Damn it! Why won't my headphones work? and everyone's favorite, I've been visited by the brick fairy!

Enjoy your app-less iPhone though. I'm sure you'll be kickin' it with that drug database in no time.

"I don't agree or I maybe I just haven't seen where security is always a back burner item." I submit this: http://government.zdnet.com/?p=3416 (There are others out there) And do not think for a second that this is out of the norm. The problem wasn't that the Unisys folks didn't want to effectively monitor the DHS network, it was more than likely a problem of 'priority'. 3 was enough, they met their 8500.2 IA control requirements (technically) and that was all they were worried about, contractually. Now I'm sure the good IA engineers at Unisys went to CCB meetings and engineering review boards and fought the good fight for security, and due to schedule, or cost, or both, implementing the other IDS's was deemed a low priority...Something they would do next revision. This is common, I imagine common in the private sector too, but I wouldn't clain ignorance.

Firefox 3 Beta 4 is 5x faster than IE7, 3x faster than FF2

Not bad.

It's mostly FUD. See here (read all three parts)

There's a guy who was put 3 years in jail for creating a Facebook profile.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7258950.stm http://blogs.zdnet.com/threatchaos/?p=545 http://helpfouad.com/

Unlike current haptic systems, this new device doesn't use gloves or robotic arms. With this haptic interface, which will take a big chunk of your desk, you will be able to perceive textures and feel hard contacts. But don't expect to use it before several years. Please find more details at ZDNet.

One of them was thrown in jail for 3 years. http://blogs.zdnet.com/threatchaos/?p=545/

Oh, wait...nevermind.

Thank God it wasn't a Facebook profile. They could have ended up in jail.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/threatchaos/?p=545