As reported previously here, United Virtualities is the same company that came up with those horrible "Shoshkeles" ads!! If you've never seen them, they are ads that run, animated, all over the page, with full sound. Ack!
It's times like this that I'm glad I don't use anything besides Mozilla; I'll never see any of these types of things. Companies like these need to be stopped, before we are even more overrun with ads than we already are.
Wow, they even turned off Anonymous posting for this story! The slashdot editors sure are having fun today:)
Scary thing is, even with today being April Fool's Day, I almost took this story seriously. With how many ads we constantly have shoved down our throats by websites, slashvertisements really don't seem too far off.
Repeat after me: SLASHDOT HAS MORE THAN ONE PERSON IN ITS COMMUNITY.
The SSSCA/CBDTPA will affect EVERYONE IN THIS COMMUNITY. It doesn't matter how diverse we are, what our varying interests are, it affects every last one of us.
I know the parent is modded as funny, but it's also a very insightful comment too. Unfortunately, situations like this just show the MPAA that they have us right where they want us.
Whenever a story is posted about the SSSCA, or Jack/Hilary talking about piracy killing their businesses, we all get up in arms and post hundreds of comments about the RIAA & MPAA being greedy cartels (which they are). But as soon as they release something that we geeks love (Star Trek DVDs, LOTR, etc.), we all jump for joy.
"Disney sucks, they are buying off Senator Hollings, we need to...ooooh, new edition of Tron on DVD!!"
"Hilary Rosen is trying to lock down our computers and needs to be sto...ooh, DVD-Audio!!" I think you get the idea.
Unfortunately, I'm salivating over this just as much as everyone else on this thread. I want the LOTR DVDs. I want the Simpsons Box Set DVDs. But do I really want to give money to the MPAA & News Corp when they are trying to squash our rights? Not particularly.
So, what can we really do about it? Unless we, as a LARGE group all say "Enough, we will boycott ANYTHING you put out, no matter how good it is, until you respect us", nothing will change. The transgressions against us by the MPAA/RIAA will be forgotten as soon as we get our hands on our favorite shiny silver discs.
This is a perfect chance, people. What a better way to send a message than to boycott LOTR on DVD, or SW Episode 2 in the theater?? (movies that are sure to draw out the geeks who realize exactly what laws they are trying to pass.) I for one will gladly boycott, if it means that we get to keep our rights.
The 9 states are introducing evidence and presenting witnesses to discuss things like hand-helds, set-top boxes, and any other market that Microsoft has entered since the initial trial was completed. Not only are these issues out of the scope of this trial, they're actually weakening the states' position.
The whole point of the states bringing these things up is to show that MSFT is still acting illegally as a monopoly, despite the previous court ruling.
If they only focused on Sun & Netscape (now AOL/TW), they would not properly show MS as the monopolistic giant that they are, nor would they show MS's potential for harm. These things are relevant to the case, in that they show how MS operates currently (which, not surprisingly, is exactly how they operated when this trial began).
Sorry, there are no
Smart Tags in StarOffice. If your company decides to use StarOffice instead of Microsoft Office, this is a feature you'll have to learn to live without.
Is this sarcasm, or is Roblimo actually implying that Smart Tags are a good thing??
In a comparison between MS Office, this should be a huge +5 for Sun. Smart tags are idiotic and intrusive, and should not be supported in Open/Star Office ever!
I'm not one to normally be conspiratorial, but I think that it's not Verisign that's sending these letters, it's their competitor, GoDaddy, making it look like Verisign is to blame.
Please check out a good scan of the letter in question here: http://www.domainscams.com/. It is not from GoDaddy.
Things like this are exactly why I no longer use Verisign/NetSol as my registrar. However, unfortunately this not their only dirty trick.
Aside from this, which is very similar to long-distance carrier slamming, Verisign also has a nasty habit of holding onto domains/not allowing customers to transfer their own domains. I know several people who were forced to wait for MONTHS for Verisign to finally go ahead and transfer their domains to another registrar, and that was only after repeated calls to them. Verisign's own transfer process was completely ignored, in the hopes of squeezing another $35 out of the billing contact.
Verisign also uses deceptive overbilling; if you register a domain with them for a year, come renewal time, they will send you a renewal bill for $70 or more! Of course, only in the very fine print do they tell you that it's $35 a year, so they are trying to make you renew for 2+ years. Yes, you can select 1 year, but they should not default to 2 years unless you previously paid for 2 years. It is very carefully worded to make it look like you actually owe them $70+.
Lastly, they make it ridiculously tough to modify your own contact information for a domain. I had a domain which was registered in my name, and with an email address that was now expired. So, you have to fax them a paper requesting a change of email address. Fine, no problem there. However, I had to send them nine faxes before it got changed. I would call to followup the fax, and they would repeatedly claim that it was never received. It took over 3 1/2 months for me to get an email address changed on a domain contact!! Of course, if you sign up for their expensive premium services, it only takes a day; glad to know where regular customers stand with Verisign.
I recommend that anyone who does use them to switch elsewhere. A company like Verisign/NetSol does not deserve our business.
Better yet is just to post the entire story, since those alternative links seem to "die out" after being linked in slashdot comments.
-----------------
Taiwan Maker of Notebook PC's Thrives Quietly
By MARK LANDLER
INKOU, Taiwan -- As Barry Lam shows a visitor around the art gallery on the top floor of his corporate headquarters, his gaze keeps coming back to a blue-and-green landscape by the legendary Chinese painter, Zhang Daqian.
The painting is called "Dawning Light in Autumn Gorges," and Mr. Lam loves its deep hues and moody, impressionistic style. And with its depiction of morning sun piercing the gloom of a mountain valley, the painting could stand as a metaphor for Taiwan, Mr. Lam's adoptive home and the birthplace of his 14-year-old company, Quanta Computer.
After weathering a crash in the global technology industry that shrouded its economy, Taiwan is creeping cautiously out of the darkness. Analysts say the island's economy hit bottom late last year and will recover gradually along with the industry.
Through it all, though, Quanta maintained its glow, managing to grow briskly during Taiwan's recession by winning lucrative orders from Apple Computer (news/quote) and Dell Computer (news/quote) to overtake Japan's Toshiba (news/quote) as the world's No. 1 maker of notebook PC's.
But that raises a question: if bad news ended up being good news for Quanta, then what will good news mean for the company? Mr. Lam, not surprisingly, thinks it will mean even more torrid growth. He predicts that Quanta will rack up $5 billion in sales this year, a 51 percent increase over 2001. By 2004, he says, Quanta will be a $10 billion company.
"Once companies begin to outsource, they never go back," Mr. Lam, 53, said in an interview at his office here, in a suburb of Taipei. "When companies minimize their costs, they can spend more on R & D and marketing. It's just very logical."
That logic has turned Quanta into perhaps the most important, least well-known computer maker in the world. Buy a notebook PC from Dell, Gateway, Compaq Computer (news/quote), or Hewlett-Packard (news/quote), and the odds are that some or all of it was assembled by Quanta, which is now using its strength in laptops to move into the desktop market, too, by putting together Apple's stylish new iMac.
The company already produces PC's for seven of the top 10 notebook companies. It manufactures close to half the notebooks sold by Dell, making it by far Dell's largest supplier. It will turn out more than five million notebooks this year, 30 percent of all those made in Taiwan. Taiwan, in turn, makes 55 percent of the world's notebook computers.
"Quanta is to Dell what Dell is to the American consumer," said Peter Kurz, the chief executive of Insight Pacific, an investment advisory firm based in Taipei. "It is an industrial brand name, and that is not easy to replicate."
Taiwan has a handful of these anonymous giants -- outfits with names like Compal, Asustek, Arima and Taiwan Semiconductor -- and they have turned Taiwan into the subcontractor of choice for the global technology industry.
That is why when spending on information technology dried up last year, it plunged Taiwan into the deepest recession in its history. It is also why executives here are watching the fledgling recovery in the United States with hope and trepidation.
Quanta's sales rose 32 percent in February over the previous year, to $294 million, as American companies began placing orders for notebook computers, liquid-crystal displays and other equipment. But the rebound is not across the board: United Microelectronics, the second-largest contract manufacturer of semiconductors, said its sales declined 52 percent in February from a year ago.
"So far, the recovery has been primarily in the area of consumer PC's," said Matt Cleary, the head of Asian technology research at Lehman Brothers (news/quote) in Taipei. "Telecom equipment and general corporate purchases have yet to come back."
Beyond that, executives here recognize that the boom in notebook computers cannot last forever. For now, laptops continue to flourish as consumers and companies move away from cumbersome desktop PC's. But Mr. Lam said there was no "killer application" on the horizon that would fuel demand once sales of notebooks reached a plateau.
This means that the pressure to cut production costs will intensify. If the much-debated merger of Compaq and Hewlett-Packard goes through, the combined company has said it would look for savings in its notebook PC business.
In the short-term, Mr. Lam said, such trends favor Quanta.
"The I.T. market is not growing as it used to," Mr. Lam said. "That means competition between the brands is growing. The market is squeezed, so they have to do more outsourcing. If we're the best company for outsourcing, then very logically, our market share will grow."
Quanta laid claim to its No. 1 ranking in Taiwan much as Dell has in the overall PC market: by assembling the most powerful, and supple, supply chain in the island's computer industry. Using the Internet, customers like Dell can send Quanta orders for notebooks with a wide variety of specifications.
By carefully managing its own suppliers, Quanta is able to assemble each order within 48 hours. Mr. Lam hopes to cut that to 24 hours, since he notes ruefully that it takes 24 hours to ship a finished machine to the United States.
By delivering PC's so quickly, Quanta allows customers like Dell to keep inventories tiny, which fattens their margins. Dell popularized the concept of just-in-time manufacturing, but its success in notebooks depends in large measure on the efficiency of Quanta.
"A marketer like Dell has to have complete confidence in its supplier," said Mr. Kurz of Insight Pacific. "I call it a chain of trust."
Mr. Lam runs more than just a crack assembly line. Quanta employs a sophisticated design team, with some of the most talented and best-paid engineers in Taiwan, who regularly suggest ways to improve the products of their customers.
The focus on design flows from Mr. Lam, a slim, soft-spoken man whose fashionable eye glasses and suits would look at home in Silicon Valley.
"Barry is different than anyone I know," said Max Fang, the former chief of Asian procurement for Dell. "He is a combination of an engineer and an artist."
Mr. Lam demurs when asked to name specific features dreamed up by his designers; the downside of being a subcontractor is having to dwell in the shadow of one's customers. Apple in particular has ordered Quanta not to discuss its work on the updated iMac, a stylish desktop PC with a white domed base and a flat panel monitor attached by a telescopic arm.
Tony Tseng, a technology analyst at Merrill Lynch (news/quote) in Taipei, estimates that the iMac contract will generate 20 percent of Quanta's revenues this year.
"The reason Barry is so bullish is because he got the iMac contract," Mr. Tseng said. "Quanta was hitting the ceiling with its existing clients."
One of those clients, Dell, has prodded Quanta to move more of its production to mainland China, where labor and other costs are much lower.
Joining the exodus to China raised ticklish issues for Mr. Lam. He is a strong supporter of Taiwan's president, Chen Shui-bian, whose party has expressed misgivings about the migration of technology and jobs from Taiwan to the mainland. Until recently, Taiwan restricted the production of notebook computers by local companies in China.
Mr. Lam's solution was to say little about Quanta's ambitions in China, while quietly laying the groundwork for an expansion. The company built a sprawling factory near Shanghai, with room for 20,000 workers. By the time Taiwan lifted the restrictions on manufacturing in China last fall, Quanta already had 2,000 people in place there.
By the end of 2003, Mr. Lam said, two-thirds of Quanta's notebook PC's will be assembled in the Shanghai factory. By 2004, the company will have an estimated 4,800 employees in the Chinese mainland, almost as many as in Taiwan.
Mr. Lam, however, hastens to add that Quanta will remain committed to Taiwan. He plans to build an architecturally splashy research and development center across the street from his headquarters. In addition to a hotel for Quanta's guests, it will house a museum devoted to science and technology.
"I love my country so much," Mr. Lam exclaimed suddenly, after the conversation drifted back to China. "I'm O.K. with our president."
Mr. Lam speaks with the patriotic fervor of an immigrant. He was born in Shanghai and raised in Hong Kong, where his father worked as an accountant at the Hong Kong Club, a watering hole for the city's British colonial elite.
When Mr. Lam failed his entrance examination for the University of Hong Kong, his father sent him to Taiwan to enroll at National Taiwan University. He graduated with a degree in electrical engineering and soon founded his first company, a pocket calculator maker that became the world's largest manufacturer. In 1988, he started Quanta.
Mr. Lam owns one-third of the company's shares, making him one of the richest men in Asia, with a fortune of about $1.7 billion. He says Taiwan's tradition of entrepreneurship will keep it ahead of China for the foreseeable future.
"You cannot build another Acer without Stan Shih," he said, referring to one of Taiwan's business leaders. "You cannot build another Quanta without Barry Lam."
Mr. Lam's art collection is the most obvious sign of his wealth, but he is no mere dabbler. He is regarded as the leading private collector of Zhang Daqian, and speaks fluently about the artist's work. Mr. Lam said that when he turns 59 -- which will coincide with Quanta's 20th anniversary -- he would retire to open a new art museum in Taiwan.
"Taiwan has been so well developed economically," Mr. Lam said. "But we are underdeveloped culturally."
Unfortunately, even with Ximian Connector, I still can't totally get rid of my Win2k box. Why, you may ask??
NT Authentication
I can use Linux for development, I can use Evolution now to integrate with Outlook, but I still need IE to be able to use my corporate intranet (some of my development work is for intranet applications, so I need to be able to test them). Unfortunately, my company runs IIS on the intranet servers, and only allows NT Challenge/Response for authentication. So, short of trying to get IE running under VMWare/Wine (Which I have not been able to successfully do yet), I'm stuck in Windows.
Does anyone know if there are any other web browsers that can do NT Authentication?? I'm guessing no, since it's a closed Microsoft protocol.
They believe that they are superiour beings (members claim to have gained superhuman powers by their Sc.-training). We, the non-members, are just stupid "wogs", who can be cheated, lied to, even killed at will. Hubbard actually promised his members the superhuman power of killing such enemies by mere thought.
Exactly. Want to see how L. Ron Hubbard would deal with non-CoS members? Check out Scientology's plan for extermination. The CoS has a "tone scale", which they think everyone falls onto, and that you can predict someone's exact behavior based on where they fall on that scale. If you are a 2.0 or less on that scale, they believe you should have no civil rights at all. (Hubbard actually wrote that in one of his books, isn't that lovely?). You can read more on that scale here.
No short supply of mathematical references.
on
Simpsons Guide to Math
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
The Simpsons, as anyone who has seen even half of a season's worth of episodes knows, is full of constant social commentary, and many things get repeated. However, their math jokes always make me laugh, and never seem to get stale, IMHO. (Bill Amend's "Foxtrot" is the same way.)
Several episodes besides those mentioned in the article contain mathematical formulas, etc. In the episode where Jay Sherman (of The Critic fame) comes to Springfield (the episode is entitled "A Star is Burns", #2F31 for anyone who cares), Homer has to decide which short movie made by fellow Springfieldians to vote on. Homer says "I've got some serious thinking to do", and then the camera pans to a shot of his brain, where two monkeys are doing natural logs and derivatives on a chalkboard!! (This of course was also a play on a previous brain-shot where two monkeys were doing nothing but picking fleas from each other)
They even manage to work in some references into those Butterfinger Shorts. My personal favorite was in a commercial for Butterfinger B.B.s, Bart's math book is entitled "Math For Underachievers"! Lisa tries helping him with math by asking "If you have 15 BB's, and I take 5, what do you have left?" Bart aptly replies "One less sister!" and raises a fist into the air. Even their shameless ads make me smile.;)
I'll tell you what I would really like on an iPod
on
Apple @ MacWorld Tokyo
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Offtopic, I know, but I would really like to see SHN (shorten) file support. Sure, you could transfer them on there, but I would like to see the iPod actually play them.
Mp3s are just too lossy for my liking. I could still fit a few losslessly compressed albums on a 5 or 10 gig iPod, which is fine by me! Anything to keep from bringing a battery-draining CD player and loads of discs.
Anyone know if that kind of hack is even possible? If it was, I'd buy one in a second.
Joel: First of all, yes, you should hold onto a program in FORTRAN "just because it works." Don't even talk to me about spending money replacing something that works. The only question that is relevant is -- what does it cost to fix it if it doesn't work?
I really have to disagree with that. Just because something works is not a good reason to continue using it. Especially with the circumstances he was commenting on.
Money is not the only factor here! Sure, spending money on replacing software that works might seem like a waste, but when you compare it to the benefits of the replacement, it doesn't seem so bad at all.
Benefits of a rewrite can include getting out of a code freeze, having a piece of software that is easily & readily maintainable, being able to offer better support or more functionality, I could go on. All these things need to be factored into replacing/rewriting a piece of software, and in my experience, usually those factors outweigh the cost of new development/product purchasing.
it's your damn fauly, if the servers were patched, the worm never would have spread! Don't just blame MS, their products, but lazy admins are a major part of the outlook/iis worm recipe.
While I agree that Admins need to keep on top of patches, Nimda can still spread even with patched servers. It self-propagates through Outlook (along with doing a ton of other things), so even having patched IIS servers won't totally stop it. Sure, it won't hurt, but it won't eliminate the threat either.
Honestly, people outside of IT simply shouldn't have unrestricted web access. It just makes sense.
Where I work (5000+ people company), this is what we do:
Developers get unrestricted access. Let's face it, we need it. Everyone in our group is smarter than to launch a.vbs on the Windows machines (and if they aren't, they would never live it down!).
Everyone else has access, but it is supposed to be restricted to lunch/break time only. Reports are run to show time spent online, and how. The secretary in HR does not need to spend 4 hours on MSN's Game Zone, sorry.
Obviously, certain sites are blocked based on content for everyone, and rightfully so. No one should be checking out Hustler at work (unless that is your job!!;).
Mail is filtered; known problematic attachments such as.scr &.vbs are stripped automatically.
Ports for P2P apps, AIM, ICQ, etc., are blocked for everyone but IT.
Honestly, I think that is about the best you can do. IT needs the internet extensively; other departments not so much. Hell, my boss has said to me on more than one occasion that if/. keeps me up-to-speed on things going on in the tech world, then he WANTS me browsing it on work time. And everyone in my group does it, with no problems.
I must say that I don't think its a good idea to totally remove internet access though for entire departments. I mean, if you work 8-5, that's the largest portion of your day spent at the office. You do have a life outside of work, and sometimes you have to do something online during those hours. Same goes for the phone, you are going to need it for a personal call every now & again. Of course, if you abuse the privileges, then you should have them revoked, plain & simple. But basic access should be allowed, after proper training, etc. However, giving everyone in the company unrestricted access is just flat-out stupid.
If Harry said that he was screened a rough cut, maybe I would believe him.
From the end of the review:
Now the cut I saw was still a bit rough around the edges, but folks...I can't wait to see this on the big screen complete. To see what gets cut, what gets changed, what I notice when watching this movie the way Lucas meant for people to see it.
He says right then & there that he was not viewing a final cut of the movie. Most likely, this will be like TPM, and not be complete until just before it hits the box office.
I'm not saying the review is true or not, but he does say it's not the final cut.
AoL is quite a large part of USA based ISP's but do you think EVERYBODY who has deviated from the de-facto standard of IE is going to change thier website so a bunch of AoL idiots can read it?
People will change their sites to fit the proper demographic. If their logs start to show that a large chunk of their hits are coming from Mozilla, they will make a change in their sites, or they will face losing customers.
If they are smart, they will make sure their site works in the browsers of their target audience. At the very least, they will make sure the site degrades smoothly for Moz.
Are there any sites actually using ActiveX? I've never ever encountered one.
Actually, outside of coporate intranets, neither have I, with one exception: MS Windows Update. That is honestly the only site I have ever been to with ActiveX components on it. And that kind of track record is fine by me.
I simply don't trust running ActiveX components anyway. I equate it to getting into a submarine with screen doors on it; its just not a good idea.
Ah, yes, but it's not just the entertainment industry that you have to deal with. They have lots of ties.
A very good point. Indeed, these companies are far bigger than many of us imagine. If you want to see a full list on what companies own what, take a look here: http://www.cjr.org/owners/
Especially check out Clear Channel, it's amazing how many stations they own. Also, it's odd that under Disney, it shows that they have an investment in TiVo. Isn't Disney part of the same people trying to outlaw those types of technologies?!
Check this [rerf.or.jp] out for a study done by the Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare on the inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Basically, people in the initial blast zone are (obviously) fucked. Survivor's offspring will show a huge spike in cases of leukemia, and small spikes in other cancer types. The grandchildren of survivors show close to baseline birth defects, meaning nothing statistically significant.
Before you take into consideration ANY report from the results of the nukes dropped during WWII, keep in mind the STRENGTH of those nukes, vs. the strength of the nukes we have now. A lone megaton warhead would do far more damage to both current and subsequent generations than any kiloton warheads that we previously dropped.
That said, should we be using weapons that damage a survivor's offspring AT ALL?! I personally do not find a "huge spike in cases of leukemia" acceptable whatsoever.
Unless those are highly automatable (e.g. select a BUNCH of files to send via AIM with a shift-click or similar mechanism; I've never used AIM, so I wouldn't know how their file transfer system works), the sheer *pain* of doing that -- eek.
FYI, using the OSCAR version of AIM (not TOC, which doesn't support file transfer), you can select entire directories to send to someone. Say you have all your MP3s on a Windows machine at c:\music. If you type in c:\music\ into the AIM file transfer window, it will send c:\music\*.* recursively to the other person. Sending 4000 files this way would be VERY, VERY easy, especially on a LAN.
Also, there is a Get List function, which grabs a list of all the files a person has available to share. (By default installed to c:\filelib) Provided the person allows lists to be grabbed from them, once you have the list, you can download anything off of it.
Lastly, yes,.ogg is the extension for Ogg Vorbis files.
Slashdot Mirror
Be sure to check out the FAQ at Digital Consumer for plenty of Q & A on the subject.
Also, Rep. Rick Boucher's Copyright Address will probably help you formulate a good argument.
Good Luck!!
As reported previously here, United Virtualities is the same company that came up with those horrible "Shoshkeles" ads!! If you've never seen them, they are ads that run, animated, all over the page, with full sound. Ack!
It's times like this that I'm glad I don't use anything besides Mozilla; I'll never see any of these types of things. Companies like these need to be stopped, before we are even more overrun with ads than we already are.
Wow, they even turned off Anonymous posting for this story! The slashdot editors sure are having fun today :)
Scary thing is, even with today being April Fool's Day, I almost took this story seriously. With how many ads we constantly have shoved down our throats by websites, slashvertisements really don't seem too far off.
here is the little piece of code on Sharp's that is preventing Moz from entering. Why they would even do this is beyond me.
//BROWSER DETECTION for 3
var threeNum = navigator.appVersion.substring(0,1)
if (parseInt(threeNum) location.pathname = "/browser.html";
}
If you really want to see the Sharp site, turn off Javascript in Moz for Navigator, and you're in.
Repeat after me: SLASHDOT HAS MORE THAN ONE PERSON IN ITS COMMUNITY.
The SSSCA/CBDTPA will affect EVERYONE IN THIS COMMUNITY. It doesn't matter how diverse we are, what our varying interests are, it affects every last one of us.
So, do we hate the MPAA this week?
I know the parent is modded as funny, but it's also a very insightful comment too. Unfortunately, situations like this just show the MPAA that they have us right where they want us.
Whenever a story is posted about the SSSCA, or Jack/Hilary talking about piracy killing their businesses, we all get up in arms and post hundreds of comments about the RIAA & MPAA being greedy cartels (which they are). But as soon as they release something that we geeks love (Star Trek DVDs, LOTR, etc.), we all jump for joy.
"Disney sucks, they are buying off Senator Hollings, we need to...ooooh, new edition of Tron on DVD!!"
"Hilary Rosen is trying to lock down our computers and needs to be sto...ooh, DVD-Audio!!"
I think you get the idea.
Unfortunately, I'm salivating over this just as much as everyone else on this thread. I want the LOTR DVDs. I want the Simpsons Box Set DVDs. But do I really want to give money to the MPAA & News Corp when they are trying to squash our rights? Not particularly.
So, what can we really do about it? Unless we, as a LARGE group all say "Enough, we will boycott ANYTHING you put out, no matter how good it is, until you respect us", nothing will change. The transgressions against us by the MPAA/RIAA will be forgotten as soon as we get our hands on our favorite shiny silver discs.
This is a perfect chance, people. What a better way to send a message than to boycott LOTR on DVD, or SW Episode 2 in the theater?? (movies that are sure to draw out the geeks who realize exactly what laws they are trying to pass.) I for one will gladly boycott, if it means that we get to keep our rights.
The 9 states are introducing evidence and presenting witnesses to discuss things like hand-helds, set-top boxes, and any other market that Microsoft has entered since the initial trial was completed. Not only are these issues out of the scope of this trial, they're actually weakening the states' position.
The whole point of the states bringing these things up is to show that MSFT is still acting illegally as a monopoly, despite the previous court ruling.
If they only focused on Sun & Netscape (now AOL/TW), they would not properly show MS as the monopolistic giant that they are, nor would they show MS's potential for harm. These things are relevant to the case, in that they show how MS operates currently (which, not surprisingly, is exactly how they operated when this trial began).
Is this sarcasm, or is Roblimo actually implying that Smart Tags are a good thing??
In a comparison between MS Office, this should be a huge +5 for Sun. Smart tags are idiotic and intrusive, and should not be supported in Open/Star Office ever!
Please check out a good scan of the letter in question here: http://www.domainscams.com/. It is not from GoDaddy.
Things like this are exactly why I no longer use Verisign/NetSol as my registrar. However, unfortunately this not their only dirty trick.
Aside from this, which is very similar to long-distance carrier slamming, Verisign also has a nasty habit of holding onto domains/not allowing customers to transfer their own domains. I know several people who were forced to wait for MONTHS for Verisign to finally go ahead and transfer their domains to another registrar, and that was only after repeated calls to them. Verisign's own transfer process was completely ignored, in the hopes of squeezing another $35 out of the billing contact.
Verisign also uses deceptive overbilling; if you register a domain with them for a year, come renewal time, they will send you a renewal bill for $70 or more! Of course, only in the very fine print do they tell you that it's $35 a year, so they are trying to make you renew for 2+ years. Yes, you can select 1 year, but they should not default to 2 years unless you previously paid for 2 years. It is very carefully worded to make it look like you actually owe them $70+.
Lastly, they make it ridiculously tough to modify your own contact information for a domain. I had a domain which was registered in my name, and with an email address that was now expired. So, you have to fax them a paper requesting a change of email address. Fine, no problem there. However, I had to send them nine faxes before it got changed. I would call to followup the fax, and they would repeatedly claim that it was never received. It took over 3 1/2 months for me to get an email address changed on a domain contact!! Of course, if you sign up for their expensive premium services, it only takes a day; glad to know where regular customers stand with Verisign.
I recommend that anyone who does use them to switch elsewhere. A company like Verisign/NetSol does not deserve our business.
-----------------
Taiwan Maker of Notebook PC's Thrives Quietly By MARK LANDLER
INKOU, Taiwan -- As Barry Lam shows a visitor around the art gallery on the top floor of his corporate headquarters, his gaze keeps coming back to a blue-and-green landscape by the legendary Chinese painter, Zhang Daqian.
The painting is called "Dawning Light in Autumn Gorges," and Mr. Lam loves its deep hues and moody, impressionistic style. And with its depiction of morning sun piercing the gloom of a mountain valley, the painting could stand as a metaphor for Taiwan, Mr. Lam's adoptive home and the birthplace of his 14-year-old company, Quanta Computer.
After weathering a crash in the global technology industry that shrouded its economy, Taiwan is creeping cautiously out of the darkness. Analysts say the island's economy hit bottom late last year and will recover gradually along with the industry.
Through it all, though, Quanta maintained its glow, managing to grow briskly during Taiwan's recession by winning lucrative orders from Apple Computer (news/quote) and Dell Computer (news/quote) to overtake Japan's Toshiba (news/quote) as the world's No. 1 maker of notebook PC's.
But that raises a question: if bad news ended up being good news for Quanta, then what will good news mean for the company? Mr. Lam, not surprisingly, thinks it will mean even more torrid growth. He predicts that Quanta will rack up $5 billion in sales this year, a 51 percent increase over 2001. By 2004, he says, Quanta will be a $10 billion company.
"Once companies begin to outsource, they never go back," Mr. Lam, 53, said in an interview at his office here, in a suburb of Taipei. "When companies minimize their costs, they can spend more on R & D and marketing. It's just very logical."
That logic has turned Quanta into perhaps the most important, least well-known computer maker in the world. Buy a notebook PC from Dell, Gateway, Compaq Computer (news/quote), or Hewlett-Packard (news/quote), and the odds are that some or all of it was assembled by Quanta, which is now using its strength in laptops to move into the desktop market, too, by putting together Apple's stylish new iMac.
The company already produces PC's for seven of the top 10 notebook companies. It manufactures close to half the notebooks sold by Dell, making it by far Dell's largest supplier. It will turn out more than five million notebooks this year, 30 percent of all those made in Taiwan. Taiwan, in turn, makes 55 percent of the world's notebook computers.
"Quanta is to Dell what Dell is to the American consumer," said Peter Kurz, the chief executive of Insight Pacific, an investment advisory firm based in Taipei. "It is an industrial brand name, and that is not easy to replicate."
Taiwan has a handful of these anonymous giants -- outfits with names like Compal, Asustek, Arima and Taiwan Semiconductor -- and they have turned Taiwan into the subcontractor of choice for the global technology industry.
That is why when spending on information technology dried up last year, it plunged Taiwan into the deepest recession in its history. It is also why executives here are watching the fledgling recovery in the United States with hope and trepidation.
Quanta's sales rose 32 percent in February over the previous year, to $294 million, as American companies began placing orders for notebook computers, liquid-crystal displays and other equipment. But the rebound is not across the board: United Microelectronics, the second-largest contract manufacturer of semiconductors, said its sales declined 52 percent in February from a year ago.
"So far, the recovery has been primarily in the area of consumer PC's," said Matt Cleary, the head of Asian technology research at Lehman Brothers (news/quote) in Taipei. "Telecom equipment and general corporate purchases have yet to come back."
Beyond that, executives here recognize that the boom in notebook computers cannot last forever. For now, laptops continue to flourish as consumers and companies move away from cumbersome desktop PC's. But Mr. Lam said there was no "killer application" on the horizon that would fuel demand once sales of notebooks reached a plateau.
This means that the pressure to cut production costs will intensify. If the much-debated merger of Compaq and Hewlett-Packard goes through, the combined company has said it would look for savings in its notebook PC business.
In the short-term, Mr. Lam said, such trends favor Quanta.
"The I.T. market is not growing as it used to," Mr. Lam said. "That means competition between the brands is growing. The market is squeezed, so they have to do more outsourcing. If we're the best company for outsourcing, then very logically, our market share will grow."
Quanta laid claim to its No. 1 ranking in Taiwan much as Dell has in the overall PC market: by assembling the most powerful, and supple, supply chain in the island's computer industry. Using the Internet, customers like Dell can send Quanta orders for notebooks with a wide variety of specifications.
By carefully managing its own suppliers, Quanta is able to assemble each order within 48 hours. Mr. Lam hopes to cut that to 24 hours, since he notes ruefully that it takes 24 hours to ship a finished machine to the United States.
By delivering PC's so quickly, Quanta allows customers like Dell to keep inventories tiny, which fattens their margins. Dell popularized the concept of just-in-time manufacturing, but its success in notebooks depends in large measure on the efficiency of Quanta.
"A marketer like Dell has to have complete confidence in its supplier," said Mr. Kurz of Insight Pacific. "I call it a chain of trust."
Mr. Lam runs more than just a crack assembly line. Quanta employs a sophisticated design team, with some of the most talented and best-paid engineers in Taiwan, who regularly suggest ways to improve the products of their customers.
The focus on design flows from Mr. Lam, a slim, soft-spoken man whose fashionable eye glasses and suits would look at home in Silicon Valley.
"Barry is different than anyone I know," said Max Fang, the former chief of Asian procurement for Dell. "He is a combination of an engineer and an artist."
Mr. Lam demurs when asked to name specific features dreamed up by his designers; the downside of being a subcontractor is having to dwell in the shadow of one's customers. Apple in particular has ordered Quanta not to discuss its work on the updated iMac, a stylish desktop PC with a white domed base and a flat panel monitor attached by a telescopic arm.
Tony Tseng, a technology analyst at Merrill Lynch (news/quote) in Taipei, estimates that the iMac contract will generate 20 percent of Quanta's revenues this year.
"The reason Barry is so bullish is because he got the iMac contract," Mr. Tseng said. "Quanta was hitting the ceiling with its existing clients."
One of those clients, Dell, has prodded Quanta to move more of its production to mainland China, where labor and other costs are much lower.
Joining the exodus to China raised ticklish issues for Mr. Lam. He is a strong supporter of Taiwan's president, Chen Shui-bian, whose party has expressed misgivings about the migration of technology and jobs from Taiwan to the mainland. Until recently, Taiwan restricted the production of notebook computers by local companies in China.
Mr. Lam's solution was to say little about Quanta's ambitions in China, while quietly laying the groundwork for an expansion. The company built a sprawling factory near Shanghai, with room for 20,000 workers. By the time Taiwan lifted the restrictions on manufacturing in China last fall, Quanta already had 2,000 people in place there.
By the end of 2003, Mr. Lam said, two-thirds of Quanta's notebook PC's will be assembled in the Shanghai factory. By 2004, the company will have an estimated 4,800 employees in the Chinese mainland, almost as many as in Taiwan.
Mr. Lam, however, hastens to add that Quanta will remain committed to Taiwan. He plans to build an architecturally splashy research and development center across the street from his headquarters. In addition to a hotel for Quanta's guests, it will house a museum devoted to science and technology.
"I love my country so much," Mr. Lam exclaimed suddenly, after the conversation drifted back to China. "I'm O.K. with our president."
Mr. Lam speaks with the patriotic fervor of an immigrant. He was born in Shanghai and raised in Hong Kong, where his father worked as an accountant at the Hong Kong Club, a watering hole for the city's British colonial elite.
When Mr. Lam failed his entrance examination for the University of Hong Kong, his father sent him to Taiwan to enroll at National Taiwan University. He graduated with a degree in electrical engineering and soon founded his first company, a pocket calculator maker that became the world's largest manufacturer. In 1988, he started Quanta.
Mr. Lam owns one-third of the company's shares, making him one of the richest men in Asia, with a fortune of about $1.7 billion. He says Taiwan's tradition of entrepreneurship will keep it ahead of China for the foreseeable future.
"You cannot build another Acer without Stan Shih," he said, referring to one of Taiwan's business leaders. "You cannot build another Quanta without Barry Lam."
Mr. Lam's art collection is the most obvious sign of his wealth, but he is no mere dabbler. He is regarded as the leading private collector of Zhang Daqian, and speaks fluently about the artist's work. Mr. Lam said that when he turns 59 -- which will coincide with Quanta's 20th anniversary -- he would retire to open a new art museum in Taiwan.
"Taiwan has been so well developed economically," Mr. Lam said. "But we are underdeveloped culturally."
Unfortunately, even with Ximian Connector, I still can't totally get rid of my Win2k box. Why, you may ask??
NT Authentication
I can use Linux for development, I can use Evolution now to integrate with Outlook, but I still need IE to be able to use my corporate intranet (some of my development work is for intranet applications, so I need to be able to test them). Unfortunately, my company runs IIS on the intranet servers, and only allows NT Challenge/Response for authentication. So, short of trying to get IE running under VMWare/Wine (Which I have not been able to successfully do yet), I'm stuck in Windows.
Does anyone know if there are any other web browsers that can do NT Authentication?? I'm guessing no, since it's a closed Microsoft protocol.
Can i have some screenshots? I couldn't find any of version 3 on kde.org.
/. effect in full swing!
Right Here. Of course, it's very slow loading now,
Exactly. Want to see how L. Ron Hubbard would deal with non-CoS members? Check out Scientology's plan for extermination. The CoS has a "tone scale", which they think everyone falls onto, and that you can predict someone's exact behavior based on where they fall on that scale. If you are a 2.0 or less on that scale, they believe you should have no civil rights at all. (Hubbard actually wrote that in one of his books, isn't that lovely?). You can read more on that scale here.
Also, you can see a copy of Scientology Related Deaths here (thanks google cache! ha!)
The Simpsons, as anyone who has seen even half of a season's worth of episodes knows, is full of constant social commentary, and many things get repeated. However, their math jokes always make me laugh, and never seem to get stale, IMHO. (Bill Amend's "Foxtrot" is the same way.)
;)
Several episodes besides those mentioned in the article contain mathematical formulas, etc. In the episode where Jay Sherman (of The Critic fame) comes to Springfield (the episode is entitled "A Star is Burns", #2F31 for anyone who cares), Homer has to decide which short movie made by fellow Springfieldians to vote on. Homer says "I've got some serious thinking to do", and then the camera pans to a shot of his brain, where two monkeys are doing natural logs and derivatives on a chalkboard!! (This of course was also a play on a previous brain-shot where two monkeys were doing nothing but picking fleas from each other)
They even manage to work in some references into those Butterfinger Shorts. My personal favorite was in a commercial for Butterfinger B.B.s, Bart's math book is entitled "Math For Underachievers"! Lisa tries helping him with math by asking "If you have 15 BB's, and I take 5, what do you have left?" Bart aptly replies "One less sister!" and raises a fist into the air. Even their shameless ads make me smile.
Offtopic, I know, but I would really like to see SHN (shorten) file support. Sure, you could transfer them on there, but I would like to see the iPod actually play them.
Mp3s are just too lossy for my liking. I could still fit a few losslessly compressed albums on a 5 or 10 gig iPod, which is fine by me! Anything to keep from bringing a battery-draining CD player and loads of discs.
Anyone know if that kind of hack is even possible? If it was, I'd buy one in a second.
I really have to disagree with that. Just because something works is not a good reason to continue using it. Especially with the circumstances he was commenting on.
Money is not the only factor here! Sure, spending money on replacing software that works might seem like a waste, but when you compare it to the benefits of the replacement, it doesn't seem so bad at all.
Benefits of a rewrite can include getting out of a code freeze, having a piece of software that is easily & readily maintainable, being able to offer better support or more functionality, I could go on. All these things need to be factored into replacing/rewriting a piece of software, and in my experience, usually those factors outweigh the cost of new development/product purchasing.
it's your damn fauly, if the servers were patched, the worm never would have spread! Don't just blame MS, their products, but lazy admins are a major part of the outlook/iis worm recipe.
While I agree that Admins need to keep on top of patches, Nimda can still spread even with patched servers. It self-propagates through Outlook (along with doing a ton of other things), so even having patched IIS servers won't totally stop it. Sure, it won't hurt, but it won't eliminate the threat either.
Where I work (5000+ people company), this is what we do:
Honestly, I think that is about the best you can do. IT needs the internet extensively; other departments not so much. Hell, my boss has said to me on more than one occasion that if
I must say that I don't think its a good idea to totally remove internet access though for entire departments. I mean, if you work 8-5, that's the largest portion of your day spent at the office. You do have a life outside of work, and sometimes you have to do something online during those hours. Same goes for the phone, you are going to need it for a personal call every now & again. Of course, if you abuse the privileges, then you should have them revoked, plain & simple. But basic access should be allowed, after proper training, etc. However, giving everyone in the company unrestricted access is just flat-out stupid.
From the end of the review:
He says right then & there that he was not viewing a final cut of the movie. Most likely, this will be like TPM, and not be complete until just before it hits the box office.
I'm not saying the review is true or not, but he does say it's not the final cut.
AoL is quite a large part of USA based ISP's but do you think EVERYBODY who has deviated from the de-facto standard of IE is going to change thier website so a bunch of AoL idiots can read it?
People will change their sites to fit the proper demographic. If their logs start to show that a large chunk of their hits are coming from Mozilla, they will make a change in their sites, or they will face losing customers.
If they are smart, they will make sure their site works in the browsers of their target audience. At the very least, they will make sure the site degrades smoothly for Moz.
Are there any sites actually using ActiveX? I've never ever encountered one.
Actually, outside of coporate intranets, neither have I, with one exception: MS Windows Update. That is honestly the only site I have ever been to with ActiveX components on it. And that kind of track record is fine by me.
I simply don't trust running ActiveX components anyway. I equate it to getting into a submarine with screen doors on it; its just not a good idea.
Ah, yes, but it's not just the entertainment industry that you have to deal with. They have lots of ties.
A very good point. Indeed, these companies are far bigger than many of us imagine. If you want to see a full list on what companies own what, take a look here:
http://www.cjr.org/owners/
Especially check out Clear Channel, it's amazing how many stations they own. Also, it's odd that under Disney, it shows that they have an investment in TiVo. Isn't Disney part of the same people trying to outlaw those types of technologies?!
Check this [rerf.or.jp] out for a study done by the Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare on the inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Basically, people in the initial blast zone are (obviously) fucked. Survivor's offspring will show a huge spike in cases of leukemia, and small spikes in other cancer types. The grandchildren of survivors show close to baseline birth defects, meaning nothing statistically significant.
Before you take into consideration ANY report from the results of the nukes dropped during WWII, keep in mind the STRENGTH of those nukes, vs. the strength of the nukes we have now. A lone megaton warhead would do far more damage to both current and subsequent generations than any kiloton warheads that we previously dropped.
That said, should we be using weapons that damage a survivor's offspring AT ALL?! I personally do not find a "huge spike in cases of leukemia" acceptable whatsoever.
Unless those are highly automatable (e.g. select a BUNCH of files to send via AIM with a shift-click or similar mechanism; I've never used AIM, so I wouldn't know how their file transfer system works), the sheer *pain* of doing that -- eek.
.ogg is the extension for Ogg Vorbis files.
FYI, using the OSCAR version of AIM (not TOC, which doesn't support file transfer), you can select entire directories to send to someone. Say you have all your MP3s on a Windows machine at c:\music. If you type in c:\music\ into the AIM file transfer window, it will send c:\music\*.* recursively to the other person. Sending 4000 files this way would be VERY, VERY easy, especially on a LAN.
Also, there is a Get List function, which grabs a list of all the files a person has available to share. (By default installed to c:\filelib) Provided the person allows lists to be grabbed from them, once you have the list, you can download anything off of it.
Lastly, yes,