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Spam King Living High in the Bayou
mikey573 writes "Connecticut's main newspaper, The Hartford Courant, decided to bring the issue of spam to the forefront with a top headline front page story Spam King Living High In The Bayou in its Sunday print edition. The article goes into describing the spam marketing company "Opt-In Marketing Services". The article goes too much into glorifying one person's success with spam, while failing to underscore the potential problems he has caused for others."
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Horror/Sci Fi writer Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
The Infamous 419 Scam
It's a billion dollar industry in Nigeria, and has paid for the careers of much of that nation's government.
It has, however, allowed for some very interesting counter-scams:
The "Buddy Weiserman Counter-Scam
The "David Lee Roth" Counter-Scam, with cache
The "Kieron Dykes" Counter-Scam
:^)
Ryan Fenton
So whatever happened to Linux At tech expo open source software is hard to find By John W SchoenMSNBC NEW YORK June 26 Just a few years ago one of the hottest topics at this annual confluence of PC hardware and software makers was the socalled open source alternative to Microsofts industrydominant Windows operating system Soon open source proponents argued PC users would be liberated from the burden of paying for software The Linux operating system and other open source alternatives written by devoted bands of volunteer programmers would be available to anyone for the cost of a download But today Windows is still running on the vast majority of PCs So what happened LINUX HASNT gone away But after attracting widespread attention and generating several moonshot initial public offerings during the tech boom purveyors of Linux software and support have fallen back to earth along with their stocks Earlier this month Red Hat which sells about half of all Linux software reported a loss of 43 million on an 8 percent drop in revenues in the latest quarter as corporate customers continued to squeeze every penny of their computer budgets Ironically those tight budgets have helped fuel adoption of Linux by managers of large corporate technology departments Created by Finish college student Linus Torvalds and continually updated and improved by a loose confederation of programmers who arent paid for their work Linux is available without the steep licensing fees that come with commercially produced software Companies like Red Hat sell upgraded versions and provide technical support but dont charge licensing fees Those continuing upgrades have begun to generate increased interest from costconscious technology managers A recent survey of 800 companies in North America and Western Europe found that some 40 percent said they were either using or testing Linux according to the research firm IDC With some 27 percent of the market Linux is now the second most popular operating system for servers supplanting the decadesold operating system UNIX Microsoft holds the top spot MSNBC is a MicrosoftNBC joint venture Numbers like those have caught the attention of computer hardware makers Last year as the personal computer slogged through the worst sales crash in its history Linux server sales jumped by more than 50 percent to 400 million with IBM leading the pack Linux used to be just a bunch of geeks trying to change the industry said Elizabeth Phillips a HewlettPackard spokesperson Now Linux is becoming more mainstream every day Linux is also shining brightly on the radar screens of software makers like Oracle which is heavily marketing the latest version of its highend corporate enterprise software which generates mainframelike horsepower using clusters of relatively cheap servers running Linux LINUX BOOT CAMP But Linux has hardly made a dent in the desktop and home user markets At PC conventions like this one Microsofts Windows operating system still rules with some 94 percent of the operating system market for desktops and laptop PCs according to IDC Despite its growing popularity among computer professionals its still not completely user friendly Its for geeks said Faber Fedor a New Jerseybased consultant who helps small businesses upgrade to Linux Near the end of a long hallway in the basement of the Jacob Javits Center at a wellattended conference called Linux Boot Camp Fedor walked a roomful of developers and IT managers through the basics and not so basics of converting to the Linux world Until recently interacting with Linux was almost entirely textdriven much like Windows precursor DOS So converting meant learning an arcane vocabulary of computerese to give the PC even the simplest commands But Linux software is getting better and now more closely mimics the Windows world that the vast majority of PC users are accustomed to A Linuxbased opensource email program called Evolution looks pretty much like a standard Windows desktop OpenOffices provide most key features offered by Microsoft Office including a word processor spreadsheet and mail program Fedor says these alternatives offer more than a familiar look and feel We dont get viruses he said Last year viruses cost the business world billions but every one of those was on Windows WOOING THE HOME USER But adopters of Linux still face hurdles living in a Microsoft world High on the list of headaches is incompatibilities with files created with Microsoft products like Word Small software makers like Lindows are trying to help desktop users bridge that divide Still Linux evangelists like Fedor say that as long as new PCs come preloaded with Windows the open source community faces an uphill battle spreading Linux beyond corporate IT departments into the home Linux partisans point to some small victories WalMart recently began selling a house brand PC at rock bottom prices available with Linux for the thriftiest PC buyersThat thrift among home PC buyers though has further hampered the spread of Linux to home desktops Its another reason software developers like Dave Potter of Fountainville Pa prefer writing programs for corporate users He says he doesnt see much point writing Linux applications for individual PC buyers Home users are cheap he said At 4995 youre going to have to sell a whole lot of copies to make it in the market And as Linux proponents continue to try to enlist desktop PC users Microsoft is busy reinventing that desktop With sales of new PCs in their worst slump in decades Microsoft is hoping to reboot Windows sales by leading the charge toward the Tablet PC a sort of PDA on steroids With new technology to recognize and manipulate handwriting and speech Microsoft and its hardware and software partners are hoping to usher in a whole new platform by giving users all the capabilities of ink according to Microsoft Group Vice President Jeff Raikes Microsoft and the rest of the PC industry are hedging their bets by designing several variations of the device from a standalone tablet about the size of a standard piece of paper to a laptop with a display that flips around and folds flat with the screen facing outward The goal is to replace rather than augment existing PCs according to Leland Rockoff a director of Microsofts table PC project We see this as a primary PC he said Theyre not appliances theyre not companions theyre not secondary But Rockoff says the companys strategy with regard to open source software will be the same as it is with Windows XP
-pwpbot
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Please use fewer 'junk' characters.
god damn filters...i dont have any fucking junk charactersSLDJF:Lskjlkwetrn:LNFDM#)*RU#RPO"DFkn