As far as I can tell, Why not. It's basicially a really small tablet PC, so it should in theory run any x86 based OS. the only problem here might be pen based support in X, but that shouldn't be that big a deal since it will support USB keyboards and mice.
Re:Comment about "web performance" amusing
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Treo 700w Review
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The president of our college is a Gadget collector. He's had a palm phone since the Kyocera 7135. He's had the 600 and 650 and every one of those crashed.
This time, he gets a 700w. It still crashes, but at least so far it's one of the only phones (or PDA for that matter) he's had that managed to handle his huge outlook contacts and calendar without duplicating them every other week. (as expected since it's Microsoft server to Microsoft Client) But Frankly, I don't like the thing. It's not that it not a nice device, but there are much better smartphones out there, Like the xv6700. In fact, I tried talking him into one, but he was dead set on the palm.
Web wise, the xv6700 is near perfect. Big keyboard, large landscape screen, solid browser, Other solid browser choices, WiFi. It's just a better smartphone all around, but I guess the brand name recognition is getting palm in the door.
The middle click and the scroll mouse works for me, But I'm using IE. The side scroll is just wierd since it's a slider like control, but it does work at least.
If your using a different browser than IE, then send them a feedback letter. If they get enough feedback they might fix it for other browsers. As for the adobe draging mouse to scroll, I don't see why they couldn't add this if enough feedback was given.
All IBM sold Lenovo was the Laptop and Desktop lines. They still own a lot of the technology behind the systems, such as the TCPA technology, and you can bet it's in their Workstations and Servers because it's an added value that the man with a plaid suit and Big teeth can sell to the Pointy haired boss.
Thats why they are working with Red Hat, Because they want Red Hat to take advantage of the encryption and added security the chip brings.
IBM could do this now, there's a Security chip in most IBM laptops, Heck, the security tech used in TCPA was Developed by IBM
It would be suicide for them to drop MS, because everyone and their uncle will just switch to Dell, and they know it. He's probably talking about what they are doing internally at IBM, which I wouldn't be surprised if it was running AIX or some in house mainframe system.
It did load for me relatively quickly, but it took around 10 seconds, still a lot slower than Google, but not the minutes some people are claiming. MS might be finally balancing the load.
The search itself seems to be a step backward. it doesn't appear to have the cached document, or the search builder customization of MSN Search, although you can search within the site by clicking a link under the first searched item, which is nice if your looking for a specific item at a particular site. For example, I searched for Linux, and at linux.com I searched for Debian and got results from linux.com containing Debian information.
The Dynamic search windows is a good idea, in the sense that you dont have a "Next" or "Goooooooooogle" under your search results, you just simply scroll down and you get the next page. It does however increases the initial search time and may be incompatible with stripped down browsers such as lynx, mobile phone browsers and the like. There should be a non dynamic version of live search in other words.
Also, it appears that you can search news feeds and add them to the live.com portal. I'm not into those but I can see them being useful for someone into news feeds.
Simply put, it adds some new and interesting features, but lacks features Google and even MSN search has and needs a lot more work to become mainstream.
I think a lot of this is because they don't want to be in the OS business. Regardless, if they made Dell Linux, they would have to support it. They want another company doing that for them, such as Red Hat or Novell.
What Dell is saying is true though, There needs to be a convergence of sorts. Some sort of standard business installation that all distros have as an install option. This Installation would need to be Standardized and Certified by some non-profit board to ensure that no distro deviates from this installation standard. By doing this, you could possibly eliminate some compatibility problems that you may run into going from distro to another, as well as have a standarized desktop look and feel from one distro to another, which also has the nice side effect of avoiding OS vendor lock in.
All this second test is proving is that OSX is secure from a Remote attack. Any OS (And I mean Any OS) can be secured to survive one of these.
What the ZDnet attack was trying to prove was a Local attack is possible in OSX. There's a ton of bull out there that states that OSX can never be affected by malware, and the ZDnet test proved that wrong hands down. It doesn't matter that he had shell access because your standard user will have that level of access. What matters is that he did it using a standard user accout that most OSX users are going to have when they first pull the machine out of the box and use it. It only means that now you have to trick the user to run something to hack it for you, and that's very easy to do.
The ZDnet article may have not been the best written article, but that doesn't change the fact that the box was locally exploited, which in the hands of a good social engineer and a stupid user, results in a local to remote exploit and a possible virus.
Second, as for storage limits, I would limit their exchange storage to 1GB per user, and (if you can. this only works with MSOffice Outlook) on the server side, set a autoarchive policy to archive files older than a few months to their archive folder on their PC except for the Deleted items (30 days then delete) and Junk Mail (7 Days then delete).
Third, Make sure they are made aware of any change that will affect their exchange mail store, that way, when Jim moans about how he lost all of his mail in Deleted Items after a month in there, you can point him to the memo.
The biggest problem I'm seeing isn't the merging, but this network QOS issue.
Frankly, the AT&T Copper business could become one again, and I wouldn't care since the phone market is so fragmented these days, but I would start going nuts if AT&T started charging Sprint to allow more of it's cell phones to access AT&T's network, or started charging Time Warner to access their internet pipes at a better rate.
This Internet QOS issue is dangerous. It's one of the big reasons Bell System got cut up in the first place, because Bell Systems were entirely proprietary and wouldn't let any third party in. Hell, you even had to get your phone from them or else they would cut you off. Now these groups are sneaking it back in with QOS. Congress needs the cut this snake head off right now, or there's going to be big problems down the line.
One of my professors in college (around 1999) for his security class actually had two PC's connected through a isolated hub. One was playing server while the other was playing hacker. Basically he just showed the class what an actual attack looks like on the server side. he did it with unpatched as well as patched Linux, and Windows NT OS's. Actually was pretty interesting, especially how quick he could take the OS'es down and know exactly what happened based on the logs alone.
Now if this professor is just having these kids go out on the internet and find hackable boxes to exploit, then he's asking for trouble.
Unipress Footprints has a lot of nice features: calendaring, submission by form, instant web chatting and VNC support, time tracking, built in knowledgebase, and more.
It's not free, but it's what we use at the college and it works great.
It doesn't suprise me at all, in fact I was pretty sure it was going to happen anyway.
China used this ICANN mess as an excuse. If the US capitulated they would probably still seperate their DNS servers from the net because in the end China wants total control over their internet, and what better way to control what people see on the internet then to control the DNS servers they can access.
You need a driver from Microsoft's hardware site to make the controller work, and it appears that they don't have a windows 2000 driver for it. I don't see why the XP driver wouldn't work but it's a installer so it might deny installation if it detects Windows 2000.
Just for the record, you also don't need the actual xbox headset for the headset portion to work, just about any 2.5mm headset (most cell phone sets) will activate the functionality since it's built into the controller and not the headset dongle. The 360 one just adds more controls like a volume and mute function, and meshes well with the controller.
The whole setup cost me about $45. (25 for a used 360 controller and 20 for the optional headset) I also haven't tried any third party wired 360 controllers, but I don't see why they wouldn't work with this driver. Also the wireless controllers will not work here. Just the wired ones.
first off, I don't own a 360 or even an original xbox. I do own a PC however, which I use for most of my gaming.
Now even though I don't own a 360, I own a wired 360 controller and headset. Why? because it's one of the best controllers you'll find on the PC, and the headset works great with teamspeak and allows me to use my speakers for actual game sounds while solely communicating through the headset.
That being said, all of the other features, like Media Center functionality, future Vista support for Xbox Live profiles as well as PC peripheral functionality and a solid online gaming service really makes me think about making this my next console since the Dreamcast. The only thing I'm waiting for is to see how well the home brew community expands on it, Particularly since xbox live is somewhat encouraging small developers to make games on it with it's arcade service.
My Tax Preparer (an independent, no national chain) had an option to E-File direct deposit into your personal checking account. I usually get my refund back in less than 2 weeks, this year I got it in less than 5 days, which is the fastest I've ever seen it come back. I've also found that the earlier you do your taxes the faster it seems to come back.
Microsoft could be shattered into separate companies. A Windows OS company. An Office productivity software company. A media player company (which would last about a fortnight)
And every one of those companies would be a monopoly in their field. Windows would still have 90%+ market share, IE Corp would still have a monopoly on browsers, Office would still command it's share, and WMP? well, it's either that, real, or Apple. Real might as well be declared dead and Apple is gaining market share through Itunes anyway through Ipod sales even though WMP is bundled. So I guess that means we need to split it up down to word inc, excel inc, windows server Inc, WMA Audio Inc, ETC, OOPS! the're still monopolies...
In fact, Apple and Mozilla are shining examples of software that competes very well in the MS monopoly. Why? because they don't suck, spam you, or are owned by someone who doesn't know what to do with it. Most of the companies that screamed monopoly Either got bought out and flushed by whoever bought them out (Wordperfect and Lotus), Made a shoddy product (Netscape), started using their client for ad revenue to the point of becoming practially spyware (Real), or did a combination of the three. Meanwhile, Microsoft slowly surpassed them while they were screwing around.
At the College I work for, we have a Laptop Program.
First off, we're using IBM/Lenovo R51 laptops. I definetly, recommend IBM/lenovo for laptops hands down because of the sheer beating they can take. (so far. one was left in a alleyway for two days and ran over multiple times, two was in a fire, one was lit on fire by fireworks, multiple "Pepsi Syndromes" from actual pepsi to candle wax to spit chew juice and they all still worked through all of this) Also, get 2 or more A+ and Lenovo warranty certified techs and do all of your repairs in house. It WILL pay for itself within the first 6 months and then some. They also offer a laptop tracking service. We found it to be cheaper in the long run to not get this service since it was so expensive, but it's a BIOS track and impossible to twart without doing a complete motherboard swap.
As for specs, Get At least 512MB ram, Centrino and 40gb hard drive. bigger is better, but at least start there.
As for whats on the computer image, Windows XP SP2, Office, Acrobat (Writer would be nice), Antivirus/AntiSpyware (we're using F-secure Client Security), Spywareblaster, and anything you need for the laptop Hardware. Also get an WSUS server if you don't have one to patch the microsoft end of this. Also set WMP to rip variable bit rate at the lowest setting since they will rip every CD they own and will start complaining that they have no hard drive space. This also makes it easier on you when (if) you have to back all of that up.
Policy wise, if it has a software problem or even seems to have a hardware problem, Image it. End of story. Why even on hardware? Because Students will do and install the wierdest thigs, especially stuff that messes with the Wireless/Land Network, so I keep some pre imaged hard drives around (IBM's are Really Easy to swap hard drives on) and always test on a fresh image before blaming the hardware. For software issues, Get some USB hard drives and use them to transfer their My Documents folder or better yet, get a big NAS and tell students to move all mission critical files to it and enforce that nothing on the drive will be saved if it needs wiped. Security wise, On IBM's Enforce that there are no BIOS passwords, and if you find one, the student bought the laptop if he doesn't give it to you/forgot it. once a password is set, you either know the password to remove it or you replace the motherboard and possibly the hard drive at your cost. Also, make sure that when they sign out the laptop, all of your policy is clearly written on it and on a single page. Get a lawyer (we have a professor that practices law that helped with ours) to verify it's legality, and point their parents to it when they complain about buying a laptop for damage/password/stolen/lost data due to image wipe. Trust me, you'll get a policy challenge at least once a semester.
When you give these to students, or as I like to refer to it, "Hell Week" first, get automated. get a PC, put some sort of database system on it (We're using Access with a specially written VS.net program to track them) and use barcode scanners to read the serial no. barcodes on the box and store their personal information. basicially we have a database of students and laptops on the machine, we scan the laptop in, scan their student ID card in, and it OK/reject the laptop transfer. You especially want to check if they are on financial hold, or if they already checked out a laptop. Even if you spend a month here preparing for this, it was absoletly pay off in the end.
Another thing, Don't even think about domains. They are a absolute nightmare when it comes to setting them up for students. Keep them in workgroups and leave it at that. Here we have a VB program that Maps network drives for them, and a http web printing server that they use to set up printers. Works great without having to worry about billy getting the "The Domin is not available" Message for the 10th time.
Remember Netmeeting? That was around since I believe IE4, maybe earlier. The biggest problem was that it didn't have a way to easily connect to other users without knowing their IP address, so me and my friends used to use ICQ's IP address reporting to connect to each other, that is until MSN messenger came out.
Speaking of MSN messenger, MSN messenger had full voip capabilities when it was first released, including dialpad.com like calling from your computer to someone else's land phone, but they ditched it early because it cost them so much they had to start charging for it and they eventually removed it when dialpad.com went pay and no one owuld pay for MSN's service.
reminds me of what Iwon was doing a few years ago. And it didn't work for them, so my guess is that this won't work for MSN.
On another note, the few times I used MSN search I found in some cases that it found what sites I was looking for within the first few pages where google was endlessly going through forum entries. I still don't like it over google but it does seem like it's getting better over time.
If longevity is the #1 issue for your app, then your best bet in the long run is Linux simply because the kernel source code is available to you and can be customized to work exactly and naively for your application. Even if a kernel update comes out, it shouldn't be too hard to upgrade to it since the source code is available to make migrating to the newer kernel easier.
Keep in mind, that if code security is an issue, Linux may not be an answer since any kernel changes has to be available for public use. If no kernel changes have to be made for your app however, I don't think it would be a problem however IANAL. Other people here could answer this question a lot better than I could.
I highly doubt that Apple would go down this road. Especially since the're sitting on a very solid and highly respected OS platform.
If anything, Apple would allow OS X to install on anything x86 before they would switch Macintosh to yet another Wintel reseller. Dell has already shown interest in OS X, and other Hardware Manufactures wouldn't be too far behind.
Has anyone seen a picture of the projector in use?
Definetly has me interested, Especially a color model. If they can replace all of our LCD based projectors with a laser one thats absoletly quiet and virtually maintience free for not much more than an current LCD/DLP projector, then they definetly got my attention.
I work for a Small Private College. We have a laptop program for students as well as maintain some computer labs with desktops (roughly 80 Machines). The labs have had the same Operating system (XP) on them for over two years under heavy usage and not one of them ever had spyware/viruses or any of the other happy fun "screw your box" exploits that seem to plague every laptop 15 minutes after we hand it to a student. Why? Because we protect the Lab PC's that's why, and not with some exotic "erase the drive every time" solution like Clean Slate or the Shared Computer Toolkit. In fact the only security program on them is F-secure Internet Security with only the antivirus and spyware modules install, and the spyware scanning was recently installed about 6 months ago when it was included with the latest F-secure version.
All we use is the built in security protections and policies to protect the PC's from what would basically be described as PC hell. On the laptops, the Students have admin access and can have a field day installing every porn and P2P Program they find, and they get spyware filled almost immediately. I seriously had a Laptop come in and it scored 17079 on Adaware. I've yet to see adaware score anything above 50 cookies on any of the lab boxes because they can't install anything on them because of the guest/user setup that we use in the labs.
Like I said in another post - the second we see an AV signature to protect against a virus that exploits a security hole, before we see the patch for that security hole, the world should (and in my opinion, has every right to) go apeshit on Microsoft.
While I understand what you're saying (MS will "patch" with OneCare first by stopping a virus threat using said exploit then patch the hole itself when they feel like it) it is inevitable that OneCare will be used for such a purpose.
For example, take the recent WMF vulnerability. The third party AV apps, while not patching the hole itself, were detecting worms that were actively exploiting the Vulnerability. It's safe to say that MS would do the same thing with OneCare, otherwise, would you trust it to protect you from a 0 Day threat?
To Microsoft (or any AV company for that matter), Security software such as AV or Firewalls is an added layer of protection against malicious intent. Ideally, you want to minimize the attack surface as much as possible (This is where a firewall is handy), but if something gets through that surface you want something as a safety net (This is where AV software is handy).
There is no reason why Microsoft shouldn't protect users in the interim, and if OneCare can do that then more power to them. I can guarantee their security competitors will if they won't. In the meantime, they should be kept under the same pressure to release patches in a timely manner in the future as they are today. Right now their averaging about 30 days patch time which in my opinion is too long. If patch cycles start going from months to quarters then they desere any negative press they get.
Slashdot Mirror
Does it run Linux?
As far as I can tell, Why not. It's basicially a really small tablet PC, so it should in theory run any x86 based OS. the only problem here might be pen based support in X, but that shouldn't be that big a deal since it will support USB keyboards and mice.
The president of our college is a Gadget collector. He's had a palm phone since the Kyocera 7135. He's had the 600 and 650 and every one of those crashed.
This time, he gets a 700w. It still crashes, but at least so far it's one of the only phones (or PDA for that matter) he's had that managed to handle his huge outlook contacts and calendar without duplicating them every other week. (as expected since it's Microsoft server to Microsoft Client) But Frankly, I don't like the thing. It's not that it not a nice device, but there are much better smartphones out there, Like the xv6700. In fact, I tried talking him into one, but he was dead set on the palm.
Web wise, the xv6700 is near perfect. Big keyboard, large landscape screen, solid browser, Other solid browser choices, WiFi. It's just a better smartphone all around, but I guess the brand name recognition is getting palm in the door.
The middle click and the scroll mouse works for me, But I'm using IE. The side scroll is just wierd since it's a slider like control, but it does work at least.
If your using a different browser than IE, then send them a feedback letter. If they get enough feedback they might fix it for other browsers. As for the adobe draging mouse to scroll, I don't see why they couldn't add this if enough feedback was given.
All IBM sold Lenovo was the Laptop and Desktop lines. They still own a lot of the technology behind the systems, such as the TCPA technology, and you can bet it's in their Workstations and Servers because it's an added value that the man with a plaid suit and Big teeth can sell to the Pointy haired boss.
Thats why they are working with Red Hat, Because they want Red Hat to take advantage of the encryption and added security the chip brings.
IBM could do this now, there's a Security chip in most IBM laptops, Heck, the security tech used in TCPA was Developed by IBM
It would be suicide for them to drop MS, because everyone and their uncle will just switch to Dell, and they know it. He's probably talking about what they are doing internally at IBM, which I wouldn't be surprised if it was running AIX or some in house mainframe system.
Here's my results so far.
It did load for me relatively quickly, but it took around 10 seconds, still a lot slower than Google, but not the minutes some people are claiming. MS might be finally balancing the load.
The search itself seems to be a step backward. it doesn't appear to have the cached document, or the search builder customization of MSN Search, although you can search within the site by clicking a link under the first searched item, which is nice if your looking for a specific item at a particular site. For example, I searched for Linux, and at linux.com I searched for Debian and got results from linux.com containing Debian information.
The Dynamic search windows is a good idea, in the sense that you dont have a "Next" or "Goooooooooogle" under your search results, you just simply scroll down and you get the next page. It does however increases the initial search time and may be incompatible with stripped down browsers such as lynx, mobile phone browsers and the like. There should be a non dynamic version of live search in other words.
Also, it appears that you can search news feeds and add them to the live.com portal. I'm not into those but I can see them being useful for someone into news feeds.
Simply put, it adds some new and interesting features, but lacks features Google and even MSN search has and needs a lot more work to become mainstream.
I think a lot of this is because they don't want to be in the OS business. Regardless, if they made Dell Linux, they would have to support it. They want another company doing that for them, such as Red Hat or Novell.
What Dell is saying is true though, There needs to be a convergence of sorts. Some sort of standard business installation that all distros have as an install option. This Installation would need to be Standardized and Certified by some non-profit board to ensure that no distro deviates from this installation standard. By doing this, you could possibly eliminate some compatibility problems that you may run into going from distro to another, as well as have a standarized desktop look and feel from one distro to another, which also has the nice side effect of avoiding OS vendor lock in.
All this second test is proving is that OSX is secure from a Remote attack. Any OS (And I mean Any OS) can be secured to survive one of these.
What the ZDnet attack was trying to prove was a Local attack is possible in OSX. There's a ton of bull out there that states that OSX can never be affected by malware, and the ZDnet test proved that wrong hands down. It doesn't matter that he had shell access because your standard user will have that level of access. What matters is that he did it using a standard user accout that most OSX users are going to have when they first pull the machine out of the box and use it. It only means that now you have to trick the user to run something to hack it for you, and that's very easy to do.
The ZDnet article may have not been the best written article, but that doesn't change the fact that the box was locally exploited, which in the hands of a good social engineer and a stupid user, results in a local to remote exploit and a possible virus.
First off, if you haven't run the Exchange best practices analyzer tool, Do so. It gives out a lot of advice regarding exchange and it's settings.a nge/downloads/2003/analyzers/default.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exch
Second, as for storage limits, I would limit their exchange storage to 1GB per user, and (if you can. this only works with MSOffice Outlook) on the server side, set a autoarchive policy to archive files older than a few months to their archive folder on their PC except for the Deleted items (30 days then delete) and Junk Mail (7 Days then delete).
Third, Make sure they are made aware of any change that will affect their exchange mail store, that way, when Jim moans about how he lost all of his mail in Deleted Items after a month in there, you can point him to the memo.
The biggest problem I'm seeing isn't the merging, but this network QOS issue.
Frankly, the AT&T Copper business could become one again, and I wouldn't care since the phone market is so fragmented these days, but I would start going nuts if AT&T started charging Sprint to allow more of it's cell phones to access AT&T's network, or started charging Time Warner to access their internet pipes at a better rate.
This Internet QOS issue is dangerous. It's one of the big reasons Bell System got cut up in the first place, because Bell Systems were entirely proprietary and wouldn't let any third party in. Hell, you even had to get your phone from them or else they would cut you off. Now these groups are sneaking it back in with QOS. Congress needs the cut this snake head off right now, or there's going to be big problems down the line.
It's what my professor did.
One of my professors in college (around 1999) for his security class actually had two PC's connected through a isolated hub. One was playing server while the other was playing hacker. Basically he just showed the class what an actual attack looks like on the server side. he did it with unpatched as well as patched Linux, and Windows NT OS's. Actually was pretty interesting, especially how quick he could take the OS'es down and know exactly what happened based on the logs alone.
Now if this professor is just having these kids go out on the internet and find hackable boxes to exploit, then he's asking for trouble.
http://www.unipress.com/
Unipress Footprints has a lot of nice features: calendaring, submission by form, instant web chatting and VNC support, time tracking, built in knowledgebase, and more.
It's not free, but it's what we use at the college and it works great.
It doesn't suprise me at all, in fact I was pretty sure it was going to happen anyway.
China used this ICANN mess as an excuse. If the US capitulated they would probably still seperate their DNS servers from the net because in the end China wants total control over their internet, and what better way to control what people see on the internet then to control the DNS servers they can access.
You need a driver from Microsoft's hardware site to make the controller work, and it appears that they don't have a windows 2000 driver for it. I don't see why the XP driver wouldn't work but it's a installer so it might deny installation if it detects Windows 2000.
Just for the record, you also don't need the actual xbox headset for the headset portion to work, just about any 2.5mm headset (most cell phone sets) will activate the functionality since it's built into the controller and not the headset dongle. The 360 one just adds more controls like a volume and mute function, and meshes well with the controller.
The whole setup cost me about $45. (25 for a used 360 controller and 20 for the optional headset) I also haven't tried any third party wired 360 controllers, but I don't see why they wouldn't work with this driver. Also the wireless controllers will not work here. Just the wired ones.
first off, I don't own a 360 or even an original xbox. I do own a PC however, which I use for most of my gaming.
Now even though I don't own a 360, I own a wired 360 controller and headset. Why? because it's one of the best controllers you'll find on the PC, and the headset works great with teamspeak and allows me to use my speakers for actual game sounds while solely communicating through the headset.
That being said, all of the other features, like Media Center functionality, future Vista support for Xbox Live profiles as well as PC peripheral functionality and a solid online gaming service really makes me think about making this my next console since the Dreamcast. The only thing I'm waiting for is to see how well the home brew community expands on it, Particularly since xbox live is somewhat encouraging small developers to make games on it with it's arcade service.
Just wait 3 weeks and get your full refund
Why wait when E-filing cuts that time in half.
My Tax Preparer (an independent, no national chain) had an option to E-File direct deposit into your personal checking account. I usually get my refund back in less than 2 weeks, this year I got it in less than 5 days, which is the fastest I've ever seen it come back. I've also found that the earlier you do your taxes the faster it seems to come back.
Microsoft could be shattered into separate companies. A Windows OS company. An Office productivity software company. A media player company (which would last about a fortnight)
And every one of those companies would be a monopoly in their field. Windows would still have 90%+ market share, IE Corp would still have a monopoly on browsers, Office would still command it's share, and WMP? well, it's either that, real, or Apple. Real might as well be declared dead and Apple is gaining market share through Itunes anyway through Ipod sales even though WMP is bundled. So I guess that means we need to split it up down to word inc, excel inc, windows server Inc, WMA Audio Inc, ETC, OOPS! the're still monopolies...
In fact, Apple and Mozilla are shining examples of software that competes very well in the MS monopoly. Why? because they don't suck, spam you, or are owned by someone who doesn't know what to do with it. Most of the companies that screamed monopoly Either got bought out and flushed by whoever bought them out (Wordperfect and Lotus), Made a shoddy product (Netscape), started using their client for ad revenue to the point of becoming practially spyware (Real), or did a combination of the three. Meanwhile, Microsoft slowly surpassed them while they were screwing around.
At the College I work for, we have a Laptop Program.
First off, we're using IBM/Lenovo R51 laptops. I definetly, recommend IBM/lenovo for laptops hands down because of the sheer beating they can take. (so far. one was left in a alleyway for two days and ran over multiple times, two was in a fire, one was lit on fire by fireworks, multiple "Pepsi Syndromes" from actual pepsi to candle wax to spit chew juice and they all still worked through all of this) Also, get 2 or more A+ and Lenovo warranty certified techs and do all of your repairs in house. It WILL pay for itself within the first 6 months and then some. They also offer a laptop tracking service. We found it to be cheaper in the long run to not get this service since it was so expensive, but it's a BIOS track and impossible to twart without doing a complete motherboard swap.
As for specs, Get At least 512MB ram, Centrino and 40gb hard drive. bigger is better, but at least start there.
As for whats on the computer image, Windows XP SP2, Office, Acrobat (Writer would be nice), Antivirus/AntiSpyware (we're using F-secure Client Security), Spywareblaster, and anything you need for the laptop Hardware. Also get an WSUS server if you don't have one to patch the microsoft end of this. Also set WMP to rip variable bit rate at the lowest setting since they will rip every CD they own and will start complaining that they have no hard drive space. This also makes it easier on you when (if) you have to back all of that up.
Policy wise, if it has a software problem or even seems to have a hardware problem, Image it. End of story. Why even on hardware? Because Students will do and install the wierdest thigs, especially stuff that messes with the Wireless/Land Network, so I keep some pre imaged hard drives around (IBM's are Really Easy to swap hard drives on) and always test on a fresh image before blaming the hardware. For software issues, Get some USB hard drives and use them to transfer their My Documents folder or better yet, get a big NAS and tell students to move all mission critical files to it and enforce that nothing on the drive will be saved if it needs wiped. Security wise, On IBM's Enforce that there are no BIOS passwords, and if you find one, the student bought the laptop if he doesn't give it to you/forgot it. once a password is set, you either know the password to remove it or you replace the motherboard and possibly the hard drive at your cost. Also, make sure that when they sign out the laptop, all of your policy is clearly written on it and on a single page. Get a lawyer (we have a professor that practices law that helped with ours) to verify it's legality, and point their parents to it when they complain about buying a laptop for damage/password/stolen/lost data due to image wipe. Trust me, you'll get a policy challenge at least once a semester.
When you give these to students, or as I like to refer to it, "Hell Week" first, get automated. get a PC, put some sort of database system on it (We're using Access with a specially written VS.net program to track them) and use barcode scanners to read the serial no. barcodes on the box and store their personal information. basicially we have a database of students and laptops on the machine, we scan the laptop in, scan their student ID card in, and it OK/reject the laptop transfer. You especially want to check if they are on financial hold, or if they already checked out a laptop. Even if you spend a month here preparing for this, it was absoletly pay off in the end.
Another thing, Don't even think about domains. They are a absolute nightmare when it comes to setting them up for students. Keep them in workgroups and leave it at that. Here we have a VB program that Maps network drives for them, and a http web printing server that they use to set up printers. Works great without having to worry about billy getting the "The Domin is not available" Message for the 10th time.
Microsoft was one of the first Voip providers.
Remember Netmeeting? That was around since I believe IE4, maybe earlier. The biggest problem was that it didn't have a way to easily connect to other users without knowing their IP address, so me and my friends used to use ICQ's IP address reporting to connect to each other, that is until MSN messenger came out.
Speaking of MSN messenger, MSN messenger had full voip capabilities when it was first released, including dialpad.com like calling from your computer to someone else's land phone, but they ditched it early because it cost them so much they had to start charging for it and they eventually removed it when dialpad.com went pay and no one owuld pay for MSN's service.
reminds me of what Iwon was doing a few years ago. And it didn't work for them, so my guess is that this won't work for MSN.
On another note, the few times I used MSN search I found in some cases that it found what sites I was looking for within the first few pages where google was endlessly going through forum entries. I still don't like it over google but it does seem like it's getting better over time.
If longevity is the #1 issue for your app, then your best bet in the long run is Linux simply because the kernel source code is available to you and can be customized to work exactly and naively for your application. Even if a kernel update comes out, it shouldn't be too hard to upgrade to it since the source code is available to make migrating to the newer kernel easier.
Keep in mind, that if code security is an issue, Linux may not be an answer since any kernel changes has to be available for public use. If no kernel changes have to be made for your app however, I don't think it would be a problem however IANAL. Other people here could answer this question a lot better than I could.
I highly doubt that Apple would go down this road. Especially since the're sitting on a very solid and highly respected OS platform.
If anything, Apple would allow OS X to install on anything x86 before they would switch Macintosh to yet another Wintel reseller. Dell has already shown interest in OS X, and other Hardware Manufactures wouldn't be too far behind.
Has anyone seen a picture of the projector in use?
Definetly has me interested, Especially a color model. If they can replace all of our LCD based projectors with a laser one thats absoletly quiet and virtually maintience free for not much more than an current LCD/DLP projector, then they definetly got my attention.
I work for a Small Private College. We have a laptop program for students as well as maintain some computer labs with desktops (roughly 80 Machines). The labs have had the same Operating system (XP) on them for over two years under heavy usage and not one of them ever had spyware/viruses or any of the other happy fun "screw your box" exploits that seem to plague every laptop 15 minutes after we hand it to a student. Why? Because we protect the Lab PC's that's why, and not with some exotic "erase the drive every time" solution like Clean Slate or the Shared Computer Toolkit. In fact the only security program on them is F-secure Internet Security with only the antivirus and spyware modules install, and the spyware scanning was recently installed about 6 months ago when it was included with the latest F-secure version.
All we use is the built in security protections and policies to protect the PC's from what would basically be described as PC hell. On the laptops, the Students have admin access and can have a field day installing every porn and P2P Program they find, and they get spyware filled almost immediately. I seriously had a Laptop come in and it scored 17079 on Adaware. I've yet to see adaware score anything above 50 cookies on any of the lab boxes because they can't install anything on them because of the guest/user setup that we use in the labs.
Like I said in another post - the second we see an AV signature to protect against a virus that exploits a security hole, before we see the patch for that security hole, the world should (and in my opinion, has every right to) go apeshit on Microsoft.
While I understand what you're saying (MS will "patch" with OneCare first by stopping a virus threat using said exploit then patch the hole itself when they feel like it) it is inevitable that OneCare will be used for such a purpose.
For example, take the recent WMF vulnerability. The third party AV apps, while not patching the hole itself, were detecting worms that were actively exploiting the Vulnerability. It's safe to say that MS would do the same thing with OneCare, otherwise, would you trust it to protect you from a 0 Day threat?
To Microsoft (or any AV company for that matter), Security software such as AV or Firewalls is an added layer of protection against malicious intent. Ideally, you want to minimize the attack surface as much as possible (This is where a firewall is handy), but if something gets through that surface you want something as a safety net (This is where AV software is handy).
There is no reason why Microsoft shouldn't protect users in the interim, and if OneCare can do that then more power to them. I can guarantee their security competitors will if they won't. In the meantime, they should be kept under the same pressure to release patches in a timely manner in the future as they are today. Right now their averaging about 30 days patch time which in my opinion is too long. If patch cycles start going from months to quarters then they desere any negative press they get.