Last year researchers at Keele University
discovered a "three-dimensional" memory system. This, they
thought, would enable 2.3 TB of data to be crammed on to a PC
card sized device (details here) and it would cost about $70. They recently revised that here.
The latest figures are in the region of 10.8 TB for a device
of that size - more than four times the original value.
According to Mike Downey, head of Cavendish Management
Resource, which is handling the commercial issues associated with
the technology, the research also applies to DVD style storage
media, "That figure has also been revised upwards: to 245GB on a
single sided device," he said.
So soon you will be able to carry the library of congress on a pc card.
The Market sees this as a good thing
on
Microsoft Cracked
·
· Score: 1
After Microsoft reveals that its most guarded secrets have been stolen, the stock market rewards it by increasing its share price by over 5%. What do investors know that is not readily apparent?
I come from a nuclear weapon free country (go Canada!)...
One of Canada's worst kept secrets was its nuclear weapons policy. Canada was prepared to use nuclear weapons right from 1945 when Canadian scientists help invent the atomic bomb to the early 1980's when we finally got rid of the the CF-104 Starfighter(nuclear bomb delivery) and CF-101 Voodoo(Genie nuclear anti-aircraft missiles). Up to that point there were nuclear weapons stored in Canadain bases but under US guards and control. We also had BOMARK nuclear anti-aircraft missiles(instead of building the Avro Arrow) and the Honest John ground to ground missile launcher. They are all gone now but if we really wanted nukes it would not take long to get them from the US and our CF-18s and Aurora aircraft are 'nuclear capable'. Even if the US did not want to loan us the nukes our many CANDU nuclear reactors produce wepons grade fissiable material. India's nuclear program would not have happened if it were not for the CANUDUs Canada sold them.
So, while Canadains like to portray themselves as virtuous, their history in training to use nuclear weapons and selling reactors to rogue nations puts them right up there with the other nuclear nations.
The crystals were in a drill sample taken from an air intake shaft at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), the world's first underground dump for radioactive waste
left over from making nuclear weapons.
When they were extracted from the crystals in a laboratory and placed in a nutrient solution, the microorganisms revived and began to grow.
So now that we know that there is 250 million year old bacteria down there that revives when placed in liquid. Is it still a good idea to pump liquid radiactive waste down there? (cue music from twilight zone)
Amiga announced last April that Corel WordPerfect Office - Linux was going to be supported but it is not listed on their apps page. Anyone know if Corel is still working with Amiga?
"Dreams are the mind watching the brain processing memories," Stickgold says.
Actually the mind does more than just watch.
There has been some recent research on mind - brain interaction. When we go to sleep there is some part of us that some refer to as the 'mind' that stays awake or alert. If the parts of the brain are the hardware, the mind is the operating system. It monitors our bodily systems and does some of the housekeeping chores while we sleep. There has been lots of research on biological clocks and why some people seem to be able to wake up before their alarm goes off. The big question was how does the mind communicate with the body? Recent research indicates that the mind uses the stress reaction as a way to wake up the body. Stress hormones 'arouse' the body systems like breathing, blood
pressure, heart rate etc.
Researchers confirmed this in lab tests. They had two
groups of test subjects wired in a sleep lab. The first group were told that they were to be woken up at 8:00AM. At 07:30 they noticed that
levels of stress hormones started to gradually increase and by 08:00 reached a peak. In the second group, the subjects were also told
that they were to be woken at 08:00 but instead were woken at 06:00AM. Prior to waking the subjects stress hormones levels were low but
immediately after being woken unexpectedly the stress levels rose dramatically to peak levels.
What is still unclear is whether dreaming is caused by stress hormones or are used by the mind to induce the stress reaction.
Whatever the function of dreaming is, it doesn't require us to remember. Not remembering dreams is like dubbing tapes with the volume turned down," he explains. "The underlying process still gets carried out.
I would have to disagree with the author on this point. Many people remember their dreams. The trick is to write notes immediately after waking as the memory of the dream seems to fade quickly.
So what if Corel sold their soul to the devil? They were not getting anywhere fighting against them. Burney mentioned on the conference call that they are looking to recreate the relationship they had with MS when windows 3.1 was coming out. Corel made a ton of money selling Corel Draw and MS sold lots of Win 3.1.
BTW I disagree that Corel will be rethinking their Linux strategy. They made all their money back in the first week of sales. PCData said Corel had 23% of Linux retail sales in Jul. Corel has also been a very popular download at CNet and TUCOWS. True that last quarter's earnings showed only $1.2 million in Linux sales but this was due to the rebates used to clear the channel of the older version to make way for ver 1.2. Originally they were only going to put it out as a free download but as a retail product only released last Nov they have made $12 mil in sales which is not too bad considering it is only a sideline product.
Corel is planning an enterprise version along with Rebel and Graph on which will have higher margins. WP 10-Linux will be native to Linux which should make the critics happy. I think Corel can make money with Linux but it will take time. At least now they have the resources to make it work.
The key line in Corel's Press Release was:... In addition, both companies have agreed to settle certain legal issues between Corel and Microsoft.
Many people have wondered why Corel did not sue MS for damages after MS was convicted of being a monopoly. Some of the states had originally wanted to make MS Office the focus of the anti-trust suit. MS did the similar deal with Inprise a few years ago. If Corel is dropping any threat of law suits now then MS is getting off lucky. On the other hand, Corel does not have the resources to spend millions in court and needs the money now not years from now.
Ottawa, Canada-- August 10, 1999-- Two Canadian information
technology (IT) corporations announced today that they are donating
computer software, hardware and services worth over a million dollars
to UNDP's Sustainable Development Networking Programme (SDNP),
an initiative born of the Earth Summit that helps developing countries
gain access to information on the environment and sustainable
development through local and regional information networks. The
donation will help strengthen computer and Internet capacity in
developing countries where SDNP operates. The two corporations are
Corel Corporation, an internationally recognized developer of
award-winning graphics and business productivity applications, and
Rebel.com, a leading manufacturer of computer appliances and thin
servers using Linux®, UNIX® and Intel® platforms.
The SDNP supports information networking programmes in some 40
developing countries and trains nationals to operate and participate in
them. The contributions by Corel Corporation and Rebel.com will
strengthen the information and networking systems in these countries,
and expand the contribution SDNP makes at the local level--whether it
be in helping to quickly access information on disaster relief in
Honduras in the wake of Hurricane Mitch or finding rare matching blood
types to save lives in rural Pakistan.
Beginning this month, Rebel.com will provide their Linux-based
NetWinder group servers to a number of local SDNP programmes,
which will facilitate the use of the Internet and intranets in these
countries. "Participation in this initiative reinforces Rebel.com's role in
the international field," said Michael Mansfield, president of Rebel.com.
"It is also very rewarding to know that our technology is assisting in
making a positive impact on sustainable development while we help to
provide cutting edge information technology to developing countries."
Corel Corporation will provide Corel® WordPerfect® Suite 8 for Linux®
in several languages to the 40 developing countries along with Corel's
Linux distribution (presently in development); and the WordPerfect®
Office for LINUX® suite, which is expected to be available in early
2000. "It gives us great pleasure to bring our state-of-the-art technology
to these developing countries and to aid in their sustainable
development efforts," said Dr. Michael Cowpland, president and chief
executive officer of Corel Corporation.
Eimi Watanabe, Director of UNDP's Bureau for Development Policy,
underscored the importance of such partnerships between UNDP and
the private sector. "The global challenges we face in promoting
development that is sustainable and more equitable are immense," she
said. "Access to IT can make a significant difference. This kind of
public-private collaboration can trigger mobilization for change at the
individual, community, national and international levels."
I linked to the WPO-L page as it also comes with CLOS. On your amazon link CLOS SE Delux is ranked 2000th since it only starts shipping today. Of note is that Corel products on Amazon all have 5 or 4 1/2 stars for customer ratings and WordPerfect Office Family Pack is ranked 19th top seller of all Amazon software sales. Ironic since many Microsoft products listed are top sellers yet have customer ratings of (MS Office 2K)2 1/2 stars.
This fits with PC Mag customers surveys that show that while more people use MS products they don't really like them that much while Corel users are mostly very satisfied.
Why are there 3 identical links to RedHat under the related links sidebar and none for Corel There are links for Calders, SuSE and even Netscape which was not even mentioned in the article.
BTW: The Techevaluation.com site is pretty lame. If you go to their discussion forums pages(the ones with all the IBM ads) It just says that -Features and Site page will be up and available in the summer of 2000.
The article also mentions that Corel is pretty much history."
How about adding an update to the story like;
The Technology evaluation article uses IDC data as of Dec 99. IDC data for Jul 2000 indicates that Linux-Mandrake is #1 in retail sales in US 31,5% with Red Hat #2 - 24,9%
3 - Corel: 23,0% and
4 - TurboLinux: 8,4%.
I don't know why you would post a story based on 9 month old data but an update would clarify the situation somewhat.
Stories of Corel's demise are greatly exagerated. While Q3 may show a loss it is because both Corel Draw 9 and WordPerfect office 2K are near the ends of their cycles. Corel Draw 9 is due out in Nov and from early reviews it will be a big hit. WP10 is also due out in early 2001. They also have plenty of assets left to draw on if required including 8% of Graphon and 25% of Rebel(IPO due shortly).
It is because Corel Linux is currently #3 in sales and by next month should be number 2. The stats given in the article was from Dec 99. Corel Linux was only released in Nov 99 so obviously it did not have much of a market share in Dec. Since then Corel has launched WPO2K-L, CD9-L, PP9-L and CLOS SE. Since Corel is after the desktop and RedHat is in the server market it is hard to compare.
Here are the IDC stats from Jul 2000
Retail sales in July 2000 - Source: PC Data
With a 32,966-unit-sample selected by PC Data
1 - Linux-Mandrake: 31,5%
2 - Red Hat: 24,9%
3 - Corel: 23,0%
4 - TurboLinux: 8,4%
5 - SuSE: 6,1%
6 - Caldera: 4,3%
The only reason Mandrake has these numbers is that it is bundled with MacMillan's books. I can tell you that I have their cds in one of the
books I bought but they have never been used. If you could find out what people actualy have installed I am sure that Corel would fair
better. Now if I can find these stats why can't the rest of the media? Here is IDC for Feb and Nov
Linux®: US RETAIL MARKET SHARE PCDATA RETAIL
Revenue - Share_____Feb-00 _____ Nov-99
Red Hat________ 40.4% _____ 58.5%
Macmillan _____ 19.6% _____ 21.5%
Corel ________ 19.3% _____ 2.3%
S.U.S.E. _____ 7.1% _____ 0.7%
TurboLinux _____ 4.1% _____ 1.1%
Caldera _______ 3.0% _____ 6.9%
The CNet download stats are interesting also. While
downloads don't directly translate into revenue they are a good indication of popularity, brand recognition and potential upgrade_apps
sales. Total download stats from CNet show:
Corel Linux (since Nov 99) 307,840
RedHat (since Mar 98) 334,857
Caldera 39,495
Mandrake 86,505
SuSE 5,946
WordPerfect 8 for L PE
(since Dec 98) 1,134,190
Star Office PE (?) 160,644
If you look at the monthly trend this year you can see that CLOS is more popular
than RedHat by 30% and WP almost 350% more than Star Office.
Since we are talking about pie in the sky projects why not just develope a small fusion reactor as a powerplant for the launch vehicle? With an infinite(almost) source of energy, you do not need extreme speed to achieve orbit. Just a constant thrust. Once we have cheap clean fusion energy on earth we can also solve all the world's peroblems and then get on to our real task of tera forming Mars and sending colonies to the stars. I for one would not mind having my own 'Mr Fusion' powerpack like in 'Back to the Future'.
Smith describes himself as the CTO of the Privacy Foundation,
which we'd never heard of before - Privacy International is the long
standing clearing house and advocacy body for privacy information
on both sides of the Atlantic, and in Asia too. The Privacy
Foundation appears to be just Smith, journalist Stephen Keating...
and a webmaster.
But publicity stunt or not, Smith has drawn attention to a long
standing feature of applications that use embedded content.
Microsoft product manager was correct Lisa Gurry was quite correct
in pointing out that this is neither new nor limited to Microsoft
applications.
However the remedy she suggested was more telling than Smith's
advisory. Users should disable the cookie feature on their browsers,
she told CNet. Quite coincidentally, CNet itself holds the mother-of-all-patents for this kind of user tracking: a fact that our
fearless friends at CNet and ZDNet modestly declined to mention in
their coverage.
From Gurry's comments it sounds as if Microsoft wants the problem
to fade quietly. That's unlikely, given the scope for abuse. More
pertinently, there doesn't appear to be a way of turning off the
attempted retrieval of remote content from within the application. You
can only turn off the cookies themselves (and clobber your browser).
It took billions of dollars of lost customer time before Microsoft
attempted to apply some finer granularity to its email security model,
and we'll be interested to see how it reacts to this, particularly given
its recent posturing as the consumer champion against the evil
cookie.
Corel's desktop is based on KDE they but have made some modifications. Apparently their 'sugestions' were not picked up by KDE for KDE 2 so I think Corel's next version of CLOS will come with a stock version of KDE 2.
The software's K Desktop Environment also is open-source. KDE creates a graphical interface on top of Linux. Competitor Red Hat uses a different graphical interface, the GNU Network Object Model Environment, or Gnome for short. I liked KDE better than Gnome.
By using KDE, Corel delivers something that most Linux vendors have ignored: It has given the OS a look and feel that will be familiar to most PC users. For Linux to become a viable alternative to Windows, that user-interface harmony is crucial.
Thanks to this KDE front end, Corel Linux has better-organized multi-layer menus than Red Hat's Gnome. For example, Red Hat included the same item more than once in different locations under repeated headings. Corel arranged items logically and with less repetition - although a couple of items do appear more than once.
Corel® LINUX® OS Second Edition is available for download here. You can choose to download an ISO image (451 MB) or compressed version (347 MB) in the form of a gzipped ISO image.
If you do not have a CD-writer, a download CD can be ordered from Corel Customer Service for US $4.95 plus shipping, handling and applicable taxes.
Same PR says that CorelDRAW 9 Graphics Suite for Linux is scheduled to begin shipping by the end of August, 2000 for a suggested retail price of US $249.
BTW Corel rep says there is no truth to Mac WordPerfect Office rumors.
Corel Draw 9 suite for Linux including Photopaint will be on the retail shelves in a couple weeks but it was shown for the first time at Linux tag in Germany yesterday. I submited a story three days ago about Corel Photo Paint free download. I submitted a story two days ago about Corel Draw 9 for Linux being premiered in Germany at Linux tag. Both stories were rejected(sigh). I managed to slip a post in the PC Expo thread thursday with links to the free photo paint download and the Corel Draw 9 announcement but no one noticed. At least someone got a story on this posted but I think the Corel Draw 9 Linux is more important.
Slashdot Mirror
The latest figures are in the region of 10.8 TB for a device of that size - more than four times the original value.
According to Mike Downey, head of Cavendish Management Resource, which is handling the commercial issues associated with the technology, the research also applies to DVD style storage media, "That figure has also been revised upwards: to 245GB on a single sided device," he said.
So soon you will be able to carry the library of congress on a pc card.
I wonder if they could build an air compressor into the braking system so that the tanks would recharge when braking?
One of Canada's worst kept secrets was its nuclear weapons policy. Canada was prepared to use nuclear weapons right from 1945 when Canadian scientists help invent the atomic bomb to the early 1980's when we finally got rid of the the CF-104 Starfighter(nuclear bomb delivery) and CF-101 Voodoo(Genie nuclear anti-aircraft missiles). Up to that point there were nuclear weapons stored in Canadain bases but under US guards and control. We also had BOMARK nuclear anti-aircraft missiles(instead of building the Avro Arrow) and the Honest John ground to ground missile launcher. They are all gone now but if we really wanted nukes it would not take long to get them from the US and our CF-18s and Aurora aircraft are 'nuclear capable'. Even if the US did not want to loan us the nukes our many CANDU nuclear reactors produce wepons grade fissiable material. India's nuclear program would not have happened if it were not for the CANUDUs Canada sold them.
So, while Canadains like to portray themselves as virtuous, their history in training to use nuclear weapons and selling reactors to rogue nations puts them right up there with the other nuclear nations.
The crystals were in a drill sample taken from an air intake shaft at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), the world's first underground dump for radioactive waste left over from making nuclear weapons.
When they were extracted from the crystals in a laboratory and placed in a nutrient solution, the microorganisms revived and began to grow.
So now that we know that there is 250 million year old bacteria down there that revives when placed in liquid. Is it still a good idea to pump liquid radiactive waste down there? (cue music from twilight zone)
I want a fully operational Death Star
Actually the mind does more than just watch. There has been some recent research on mind - brain interaction. When we go to sleep there is some part of us that some refer to as the 'mind' that stays awake or alert. If the parts of the brain are the hardware, the mind is the operating system. It monitors our bodily systems and does some of the housekeeping chores while we sleep. There has been lots of research on biological clocks and why some people seem to be able to wake up before their alarm goes off. The big question was how does the mind communicate with the body? Recent research indicates that the mind uses the stress reaction as a way to wake up the body. Stress hormones 'arouse' the body systems like breathing, blood pressure, heart rate etc.
Researchers confirmed this in lab tests. They had two groups of test subjects wired in a sleep lab. The first group were told that they were to be woken up at 8:00AM. At 07:30 they noticed that levels of stress hormones started to gradually increase and by 08:00 reached a peak. In the second group, the subjects were also told that they were to be woken at 08:00 but instead were woken at 06:00AM. Prior to waking the subjects stress hormones levels were low but immediately after being woken unexpectedly the stress levels rose dramatically to peak levels.
What is still unclear is whether dreaming is caused by stress hormones or are used by the mind to induce the stress reaction.
Whatever the function of dreaming is, it doesn't require us to remember. Not remembering dreams is like dubbing tapes with the volume turned down," he explains. "The underlying process still gets carried out.
I would have to disagree with the author on this point. Many people remember their dreams. The trick is to write notes immediately after waking as the memory of the dream seems to fade quickly.
BTW I disagree that Corel will be rethinking their Linux strategy. They made all their money back in the first week of sales. PCData said Corel had 23% of Linux retail sales in Jul. Corel has also been a very popular download at CNet and TUCOWS. True that last quarter's earnings showed only $1.2 million in Linux sales but this was due to the rebates used to clear the channel of the older version to make way for ver 1.2. Originally they were only going to put it out as a free download but as a retail product only released last Nov they have made $12 mil in sales which is not too bad considering it is only a sideline product.
Corel is planning an enterprise version along with Rebel and Graph on which will have higher margins. WP 10-Linux will be native to Linux which should make the critics happy. I think Corel can make money with Linux but it will take time. At least now they have the resources to make it work.
Many people have wondered why Corel did not sue MS for damages after MS was convicted of being a monopoly. Some of the states had originally wanted to make MS Office the focus of the anti-trust suit. MS did the similar deal with Inprise a few years ago. If Corel is dropping any threat of law suits now then MS is getting off lucky. On the other hand, Corel does not have the resources to spend millions in court and needs the money now not years from now.
Developing Countries to Benefit From Collaboration Among the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Corel Corporation and Rebel.com
Ottawa, Canada-- August 10, 1999-- Two Canadian information technology (IT) corporations announced today that they are donating computer software, hardware and services worth over a million dollars to UNDP's Sustainable Development Networking Programme (SDNP), an initiative born of the Earth Summit that helps developing countries gain access to information on the environment and sustainable development through local and regional information networks. The donation will help strengthen computer and Internet capacity in developing countries where SDNP operates. The two corporations are Corel Corporation, an internationally recognized developer of award-winning graphics and business productivity applications, and Rebel.com, a leading manufacturer of computer appliances and thin servers using Linux®, UNIX® and Intel® platforms.
The SDNP supports information networking programmes in some 40 developing countries and trains nationals to operate and participate in them. The contributions by Corel Corporation and Rebel.com will strengthen the information and networking systems in these countries, and expand the contribution SDNP makes at the local level--whether it be in helping to quickly access information on disaster relief in Honduras in the wake of Hurricane Mitch or finding rare matching blood types to save lives in rural Pakistan.
Beginning this month, Rebel.com will provide their Linux-based NetWinder group servers to a number of local SDNP programmes, which will facilitate the use of the Internet and intranets in these countries. "Participation in this initiative reinforces Rebel.com's role in the international field," said Michael Mansfield, president of Rebel.com. "It is also very rewarding to know that our technology is assisting in making a positive impact on sustainable development while we help to provide cutting edge information technology to developing countries."
Corel Corporation will provide Corel® WordPerfect® Suite 8 for Linux® in several languages to the 40 developing countries along with Corel's Linux distribution (presently in development); and the WordPerfect® Office for LINUX® suite, which is expected to be available in early 2000. "It gives us great pleasure to bring our state-of-the-art technology to these developing countries and to aid in their sustainable development efforts," said Dr. Michael Cowpland, president and chief executive officer of Corel Corporation.
Eimi Watanabe, Director of UNDP's Bureau for Development Policy, underscored the importance of such partnerships between UNDP and the private sector. "The global challenges we face in promoting development that is sustainable and more equitable are immense," she said. "Access to IT can make a significant difference. This kind of public-private collaboration can trigger mobilization for change at the individual, community, national and international levels."
This fits with PC Mag customers surveys that show that while more people use MS products they don't really like them that much while Corel users are mostly very satisfied.
BTW: The Techevaluation.com site is pretty lame. If you go to their discussion forums pages(the ones with all the IBM ads) It just says that -Features and Site page will be up and available in the summer of 2000.
How about adding an update to the story like;
The Technology evaluation article uses IDC data as of Dec 99. IDC data for Jul 2000 indicates that Linux-Mandrake is #1 in retail sales in US 31,5% with Red Hat #2 - 24,9% 3 - Corel: 23,0% and 4 - TurboLinux: 8,4%.
I don't know why you would post a story based on 9 month old data but an update would clarify the situation somewhat.
Stories of Corel's demise are greatly exagerated. While Q3 may show a loss it is because both Corel Draw 9 and WordPerfect office 2K are near the ends of their cycles. Corel Draw 9 is due out in Nov and from early reviews it will be a big hit. WP10 is also due out in early 2001. They also have plenty of assets left to draw on if required including 8% of Graphon and 25% of Rebel(IPO due shortly).
It is because Corel Linux is currently #3 in sales and by next month should be number 2. The stats given in the article was from Dec 99. Corel Linux was only released in Nov 99 so obviously it did not have much of a market share in Dec. Since then Corel has launched WPO2K-L, CD9-L, PP9-L and CLOS SE. Since Corel is after the desktop and RedHat is in the server market it is hard to compare. Here are the IDC stats from Jul 2000
Retail sales in July 2000 - Source: PC Data With a 32,966-unit-sample selected by PC Data
1 - Linux-Mandrake: 31,5%
2 - Red Hat: 24,9%
3 - Corel: 23,0%
4 - TurboLinux: 8,4%
5 - SuSE: 6,1%
6 - Caldera: 4,3%
The only reason Mandrake has these numbers is that it is bundled with MacMillan's books. I can tell you that I have their cds in one of the books I bought but they have never been used. If you could find out what people actualy have installed I am sure that Corel would fair better. Now if I can find these stats why can't the rest of the media? Here is IDC for Feb and Nov
Linux®: US RETAIL MARKET SHARE PCDATA RETAIL
Revenue - Share_____Feb-00 _____ Nov-99
Red Hat________ 40.4% _____ 58.5%
Macmillan _____ 19.6% _____ 21.5%
Corel ________ 19.3% _____ 2.3%
S.U.S.E. _____ 7.1% _____ 0.7%
TurboLinux _____ 4.1% _____ 1.1%
Caldera _______ 3.0% _____ 6.9%
The CNet download stats are interesting also. While downloads don't directly translate into revenue they are a good indication of popularity, brand recognition and potential upgrade_apps sales. Total download stats from CNet show:
Corel Linux (since Nov 99) 307,840
RedHat (since Mar 98) 334,857
Caldera 39,495
Mandrake 86,505
SuSE 5,946
WordPerfect 8 for L PE (since Dec 98) 1,134,190
Star Office PE (?) 160,644
If you look at the monthly trend this year you can see that CLOS is more popular than RedHat by 30% and WP almost 350% more than Star Office.
Summary since 30 Apr 00
___________________WP84L_____CLOS_______RedHat____ ____Star Office
27-Aug________________ 5,610______ 3,188_______ 2,728______1,634 weekly snip
25 Jun - 16 Jul_________21,730_____13,304 _____12,501(monthly total)
28 May - 18 Jun_______27,318_____19,573 _____15,106
30 Apr - 21 May ______25,900 _____24,805 _____15,512
Totals________________107,149______81,478_____61 ,103
BTW the above story is just a rip off of a CNet article of 31 Aug Red Hat holds huge Linux lead, rivals growing By Stephen Shankland It also cited these 'recent figures from IDC.
Smith describes himself as the CTO of the Privacy Foundation, which we'd never heard of before - Privacy International is the long standing clearing house and advocacy body for privacy information on both sides of the Atlantic, and in Asia too. The Privacy Foundation appears to be just Smith, journalist Stephen Keating... and a webmaster.
But publicity stunt or not, Smith has drawn attention to a long standing feature of applications that use embedded content. Microsoft product manager was correct Lisa Gurry was quite correct in pointing out that this is neither new nor limited to Microsoft applications.
However the remedy she suggested was more telling than Smith's advisory. Users should disable the cookie feature on their browsers, she told CNet. Quite coincidentally, CNet itself holds the mother-of-all-patents for this kind of user tracking: a fact that our fearless friends at CNet and ZDNet modestly declined to mention in their coverage.
From Gurry's comments it sounds as if Microsoft wants the problem to fade quietly. That's unlikely, given the scope for abuse. More pertinently, there doesn't appear to be a way of turning off the attempted retrieval of remote content from within the application. You can only turn off the cookies themselves (and clobber your browser).
It took billions of dollars of lost customer time before Microsoft attempted to apply some finer granularity to its email security model, and we'll be interested to see how it reacts to this, particularly given its recent posturing as the consumer champion against the evil cookie.
BTW there is a good review of CLOS 1.2SE in today's Washington Post.
The author states:
The software's K Desktop Environment also is open-source. KDE creates a graphical interface on top of Linux. Competitor Red Hat uses a different graphical interface, the GNU Network Object Model Environment, or Gnome for short. I liked KDE better than Gnome.
By using KDE, Corel delivers something that most Linux vendors have ignored: It has given the OS a look and feel that will be familiar to most PC users. For Linux to become a viable alternative to Windows, that user-interface harmony is crucial.
Thanks to this KDE front end, Corel Linux has better-organized multi-layer menus than Red Hat's Gnome. For example, Red Hat included the same item more than once in different locations under repeated headings. Corel arranged items logically and with less repetition - although a couple of items do appear more than once.
A list of what is included is here.
Corel® LINUX® OS Second Edition is available for download here. You can choose to download an ISO image (451 MB) or compressed version (347 MB) in the form of a gzipped ISO image.
If you do not have a CD-writer, a download CD can be ordered from Corel Customer Service for US $4.95 plus shipping, handling and applicable taxes.
Press Release is here
Same PR says that CorelDRAW 9 Graphics Suite for Linux is scheduled to begin shipping by the end of August, 2000 for a suggested retail price of US $249.
BTW Corel rep says there is no truth to Mac WordPerfect Office rumors.
The file format for WPO2k for Linux is identical to the Win version which has not changed since version 6(1990).
Corel Draw 9 suite for Linux including Photopaint will be on the retail shelves in a couple weeks but it was shown for the first time at Linux tag in Germany yesterday. I submited a story three days ago about Corel Photo Paint free download. I submitted a story two days ago about Corel Draw 9 for Linux being premiered in Germany at Linux tag. Both stories were rejected(sigh). I managed to slip a post in the PC Expo thread thursday with links to the free photo paint download and the Corel Draw 9 announcement but no one noticed. At least someone got a story on this posted but I think the Corel Draw 9 Linux is more important.