Previous comments have noted that design patents are relatively easy to get around, but you have to wonder where the line in the sand should be drawn. Is this patent really that different than if Toshiba had tried to patent a tablet x86, or a tablet computer in general? I mean to be quite honest, other than the nicely rounded corners it really doesn't look that much differnet than a Toshiba. How specific do the design patents need to be in order to be enforcable? Are simple sketches like those included in the patent application really enough?
Actually, yes, I would like one of these. I am a resident of the District of Columbia - a full U.S. Citizen by birth, but no voting representation in Congress. Would I like voting representation? You betcha.
Actually, yes, I think the Usenet PHP culture does have a more inclusive attitude. In alt.php, the whole "Help, I upgraded to PHP 4.2.x and now my script doesn't work because I didn't read the release notes which clearly state that Register_globals is off by default" does get a bit old, but the question gets answered every time. With that one possible exception, the alt.php / alt.comp.lang.php groups are extremely friendly to new users, willing to go over people's code to find problems / suggest improvements, and the likes. While I would not say that we yern for a flood of newbie posts and Regiser_global posts, I would like to think that the PHP-Usenet community is friendly and willing to help people at all levels of PHP-proficiency.
Would a vulnerability still exist if a user wrote a page that redirected the browser to some page with malicious code in the target, and then, with a little bit of javascript set the location to javascript:history.back() (i.e. on mouse movement or whatever). Would this cause the javascript to run under the improper security settings, or does the user actually have to hit the "back" button?
doesn't mean that the rest of it isn't rotten. Frankly, OS X is highly overrated. Perhaps the only redeeming feature would be the ability to use a Mac version of IE on a *nix distro. (I love Konqueror, but let's be honest... for advanced features such as CSS2, XML etc IE's got it all.) Anyhow, I wouldn't touch OS X with a 10' pole unless I had no other choice. Is it a step up from OS 9.1? Yes, I suppose it is. The apple is still rotten, however. Apple might as well just give up; their time is past.
The world can now be revolutionized! We can get Google searches on Microsoft.com! The pigeons will come out of their cages and peck the buttons on the Microsoft servers, thus shutting down the evil megacorporation! Hail Google for saving the world! The pigeons will save us all, hail the open API!
I know it's easter, and the Queen Mother died, and the Pope is facing serious health issues, but come on... Linus stepping down is as horrific as the pope having a sex change and becoming the new Queen Mother! We can't let this happen!
I personally find the subject to be quite scary. The internet is no place for lawyers... I don't want some MS person bribing a government official to make a law ala DMCA saying that if I'm not running Windoze I can't run a DNS server or something... Personally, I think that lawyers and politicians need to keep their hands off of the 'net because they simply fail to understand it on a level necessary to make intelligent laws. If you want to pass a law saying no tax on the net, that's fine with me, but if you want to start regulating how I can use the net, you can just go to http://www.disney.com and talk to Mickey.
Comcast also is screwing the pooch. They bought out my ISP, MediaOne, among others, and are cutting bandwidth as well as increasing rates. I posted a lengthy article about it on my site here. Really sucks. Article I posted conveniently reproduced below, to prevent my site from getting \.'d, although I think it should be able to handle it.
ell, I typically don't do things like this, but I'm really pissed off. Comcast bought out my current ISP, MediaOne. They are changing my email address with one week's notice... and I absolutely *love* my new email address. It is being changed from xxxx@mediaone.net to xxxxxx(six totally random numbers here)MI@comcast.net.... what fun. I just found out my new email address today. That means I have a week to give everybody my new email address, to get my domains moved over, to change all my accounts everywhere, and so forth.... the old email is getting de-activated in a week.... what would it cost them to keep the old servers running for another year? Probably a few hundred dollars... thousands of users getting screwed.... less than a dollar a person... and what do I pay for this new and improved service? Well, first let's take a look at this service. My current upstream speed is 384kbps with 3mpbs downstream. Comcast@Home has a speed of 128kbps upstream and 1.5mbps downstream. Do I get a price break? No, my price is getting increased $10/mo. Not only this, but I used to have 3 email addresses, now I'm only going to have 1 for the next two months.... So... decreased speeds, randomly generated email address ala AOL, fewer email addresses, change of address with a week's notice, and a $10/mo rate hike.... gee, I feel like I'm getting such wonderful service. I'm so glad that "As you may already know, your Road Runner service is changing to Comcast High-Speed Internet. In order to provide you with reliable and high-quality service, Comcast is transitioning all customers to an improved, all-Comcast managed Internet service." I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.Comcast Sucks.
I think that it really depends on your skill level, and what you've done for the company. If you have developed a major part of a company's product, then certainly you are far more valuable to the company, and to others, and therefore should be getting at least 200% if they're not letting you work for another company for X months. OTOH, if you are just a peon, then they might as well let you go, and you're lucky to get 100% if they are even holding you back from working at another company. I think that each case needs to be handled on an individual basis, and that we cannot just slap a sticker on all of the contracts that say "X% for Y months"
My $.02
Sure, I don't care for broken content, but there is broken content and then there is shortcut content. Internet explorer has no problem with someone just throwing an , however netscape craps out on it if there is no . Don't even get me started on a:hover (CSS), cause netscrap doesn't even support it:-(
While email obtained illegally could be used to tip off another agency (i.e. NSA, local cops, whatever) any judge would throw away any evidence obtained by that method as fruit of a poisioned tree. In other words, that evidence would not have been found if not for the illegal email sniffing / whatever, and therefore is unuseable. But still, I encrypt **all** email, except to those people who **still** dont have PGP, and those people I harass and tell them to get it:-)
Call your ISP and ask them about their policy! Ask them if they have ever been asked to install it, what their policy is on devices like it, and if they would install it if asked. You might be suprised (or not). My ISP transferred me to five different people, after which I was told to mail the abuse department. (I was told a bunch of BS first, like that Carnivore is not installed on their network, but rather somewhere else and therefore they can do nothing about it etc...). Interesting ain't it? CALL THEM AND FIND OUT! And encrypt everything! It will make scanning impractical. And to those people without a PGP key, get one! There's no reason not to! Absolutely no cost at all...
Actually, I found Active Setup to be convenient. And as far as the Pa$$port, what do you need it for? It has no use.... and as far as IM goes, it's ICQ or nothing. No damn adds except for that wierd lil thing at startup, but that's nothing.
Hmm never really thought about that, but then again I never really had a need to (except at home...). The point is, if you don't do anything stupid, then you have nothing to worry about.
If you're stupid enough to use either of the companies servers for mail, well.... I use my own SMTP / POP3 server, and I encrypt all messages that I possibly can (some fools still dont have dig. IDs). I know that the RSA-encryption can be cracked, but I doubt the admin even knows how to capture the email going through the company router to my SMTP server at home, much less crack the encryption...
I must admit, it is frightening that at work, the admin could have installed a program on my computer that runs in the background as a service that records my every keystroak... but then again, if you're careful, you don't have to worry about it! Don't go downloading porn on the company computer, and you don't have to worry about it! Bring it in on a disk!:-) And as far as companies reading your email, well, if you're stupid enough to use your corporate email account for personal mail.... but if you use something like Hotmail, or your POP3 account from home, you've really nothing to worry about. And, if you are worried about people installing things on your comp, especially the admin, then (assumming you are using NT) log on and LOCK THE COMPUTER (crtl alt del) and don't shut it off. The admin can unlock it, but you'll know if he did because he can't log on as you. A little bit of caution and common sense goes a long way towards protecting your privacy on the net. -Agelmar
I would have to agree... in my school we had this god-awful room that smelled like crap (they actually converted a restroom area into the computer room) where they shoved the computers. While everyone else was playing Oregon Trail (the mac version actually let you move when you were hunting, not just turn:-) I hid in the corner and programmed various things in COBOL (my uncle taught it to me when I got my first computer at age 7.... we skipped right over LOGO and BASIC... I mean, who uses them? 75% of all existing code today still in use, by volume, is in COBOL.) I got kicked out because I wasn't playing Oregon Trail like all of the other kids. So I found this UNIX box, and thats when I started having fun:-) On the monitor there was this sticky-note, that said root on the top and password (yes, the root password was actually "password"). So after a few seconds I figured out how to log in, and I started having fun with root access:-) Then I got discovered, and kicked off the computers for a year for "hacking" into the school network. Gimme a break.... the cracker-jack "admin" had NO sekurity-senses at all.... making the root password "password" and then putting it on a sticky-note on a monitor.... eesh. At age nine I learned C, and at age ten my uncle and I delved into C++. All the other ten-yaer-olds in school were playing that wierd little game with the troggles and the math problems (I can't remember the name)... educational? No...
I think that computers in the classroom would be great if they were used for a constructive purpose. By all means, teach kids how to surf the web PRODUCTIVELY, and yeah, sure, they need to know how to use Word, but also sit them infront of a UNIX box, or shove Linux on one of those nice P3-500's and teach them how computers actually WORK, and teach the kids how to make them WORK and not just how to use them. Guess what I do for a living now? Well, my official job-title is "Software Engineer" but I do a lot more than that...:-)
Well, luckily my IIIc isn't one of the affected ones:-) But even if it were, I would still be happy with it. They have a patch which fixes the issue, and they have a GREAT OS. The overhead is soooooo much less than that of M$FT's CE, the OS is faster (true, hardware is slower, but I dont need to be able to watch MPEGs on my Palm, I need to store addresses etc.) and the Grafitti is great. I love my Palm, and would buy another one any day... well, maybe after I get one of those Compaq iPAQ H3600... handheld with 206mhz Intel StrongARM processor, 32mb of ram, the thig is soooo sexy... but oh well:-) -Agelmar
Ack! I forgot to set my threshold to 5.... that post was already at zero... Correction to previous psot: I can't believe you're still at zero... some moderator should knock you down to -1 Sorry -Agelmar
Whoa there... I'm a Palm IIIc user and proud of it! Not all the screens are monochrome my friend.. this baby has beautiful color, gets great battery life, and has the BEST handheld OS around (Palm OS is a LOT better than CE - much smaller footprint, overhead, program overhead...). And the screen is not "smudgy", it's actually quite clear. And graffiti is a wonderful method of data input. Go get yourself a Palm and learn what you are talking about before you go post on Slashdot. I can't believe you got a 5.... some moderator must be crazy, you should be at -1 for not knowing what you're talking about. -Agelmar
I think it's about time MSFT does something like this. I work at a computer company, and we do a lot of software development. Currently, we are developing for Windows CE, and I have to say, I was really ticked when I learned I couldn't just d/l the SDK... I actually had to **order** it off of the developer store (Now true, it was free, but I still had to pay $7 s/h and wait 3 weeks to get the darned thing). Although this is a bit late in coming, it is a welcome addition. It will really help in programming for Windows 2000 sekurity. Better late than never! Agelmar
Slashdot Mirror
Previous comments have noted that design patents are relatively easy to get around, but you have to wonder where the line in the sand should be drawn. Is this patent really that different than if Toshiba had tried to patent a tablet x86, or a tablet computer in general? I mean to be quite honest, other than the nicely rounded corners it really doesn't look that much differnet than a Toshiba. How specific do the design patents need to be in order to be enforcable? Are simple sketches like those included in the patent application really enough?
Actually, yes, I would like one of these. I am a resident of the District of Columbia - a full U.S. Citizen by birth, but no voting representation in Congress. Would I like voting representation? You betcha.
Actually, yes, I think the Usenet PHP culture does have a more inclusive attitude. In alt.php, the whole "Help, I upgraded to PHP 4.2.x and now my script doesn't work because I didn't read the release notes which clearly state that Register_globals is off by default" does get a bit old, but the question gets answered every time. With that one possible exception, the alt.php / alt.comp.lang.php groups are extremely friendly to new users, willing to go over people's code to find problems / suggest improvements, and the likes. While I would not say that we yern for a flood of newbie posts and Regiser_global posts, I would like to think that the PHP-Usenet community is friendly and willing to help people at all levels of PHP-proficiency.
Would a vulnerability still exist if a user wrote a page that redirected the browser to some page with malicious code in the target, and then, with a little bit of javascript set the location to javascript:history.back() (i.e. on mouse movement or whatever). Would this cause the javascript to run under the improper security settings, or does the user actually have to hit the "back" button?
doesn't mean that the rest of it isn't rotten. Frankly, OS X is highly overrated. Perhaps the only redeeming feature would be the ability to use a Mac version of IE on a *nix distro. (I love Konqueror, but let's be honest... for advanced features such as CSS2, XML etc IE's got it all.) Anyhow, I wouldn't touch OS X with a 10' pole unless I had no other choice. Is it a step up from OS 9.1? Yes, I suppose it is. The apple is still rotten, however. Apple might as well just give up; their time is past.
The world can now be revolutionized! We can get Google searches on Microsoft.com! The pigeons will come out of their cages and peck the buttons on the Microsoft servers, thus shutting down the evil megacorporation! Hail Google for saving the world! The pigeons will save us all, hail the open API!
I know it's easter, and the Queen Mother died, and the Pope is facing serious health issues, but come on... Linus stepping down is as horrific as the pope having a sex change and becoming the new Queen Mother! We can't let this happen!
I personally find the subject to be quite scary. The internet is no place for lawyers... I don't want some MS person bribing a government official to make a law ala DMCA saying that if I'm not running Windoze I can't run a DNS server or something... Personally, I think that lawyers and politicians need to keep their hands off of the 'net because they simply fail to understand it on a level necessary to make intelligent laws. If you want to pass a law saying no tax on the net, that's fine with me, but if you want to start regulating how I can use the net, you can just go to http://www.disney.com and talk to Mickey.
Comcast also is screwing the pooch. They bought out my ISP, MediaOne, among others, and are cutting bandwidth as well as increasing rates. I posted a lengthy article about it on my site here. Really sucks. Article I posted conveniently reproduced below, to prevent my site from getting \.'d, although I think it should be able to handle it.
ell, I typically don't do things like this, but I'm really pissed off. Comcast bought out my current ISP, MediaOne. They are changing my email address with one week's notice... and I absolutely *love* my new email address. It is being changed from xxxx@mediaone.net to xxxxxx(six totally random numbers here)MI@comcast.net.... what fun. I just found out my new email address today. That means I have a week to give everybody my new email address, to get my domains moved over, to change all my accounts everywhere, and so forth.... the old email is getting de-activated in a week.... what would it cost them to keep the old servers running for another year? Probably a few hundred dollars... thousands of users getting screwed.... less than a dollar a person... and what do I pay for this new and improved service? Well, first let's take a look at this service. My current upstream speed is 384kbps with 3mpbs downstream. Comcast@Home has a speed of 128kbps upstream and 1.5mbps downstream. Do I get a price break? No, my price is getting increased $10/mo. Not only this, but I used to have 3 email addresses, now I'm only going to have 1 for the next two months.... So... decreased speeds, randomly generated email address ala AOL, fewer email addresses, change of address with a week's notice, and a $10/mo rate hike.... gee, I feel like I'm getting such wonderful service. I'm so glad that "As you may already know, your Road Runner service is changing to Comcast High-Speed Internet. In order to provide you with reliable and high-quality service, Comcast is transitioning all customers to an improved, all-Comcast managed Internet service." I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.Comcast Sucks.
I think that it really depends on your skill level, and what you've done for the company. If you have developed a major part of a company's product, then certainly you are far more valuable to the company, and to others, and therefore should be getting at least 200% if they're not letting you work for another company for X months. OTOH, if you are just a peon, then they might as well let you go, and you're lucky to get 100% if they are even holding you back from working at another company. I think that each case needs to be handled on an individual basis, and that we cannot just slap a sticker on all of the contracts that say "X% for Y months" My $.02
Sure, I don't care for broken content, but there is broken content and then there is shortcut content. Internet explorer has no problem with someone just throwing an , however netscape craps out on it if there is no . Don't even get me started on a:hover (CSS), cause netscrap doesn't even support it :-(
Yes, they can. Nabisco is a trademark of the National Biscut Company, for example.
While email obtained illegally could be used to tip off another agency (i.e. NSA, local cops, whatever) any judge would throw away any evidence obtained by that method as fruit of a poisioned tree. In other words, that evidence would not have been found if not for the illegal email sniffing / whatever, and therefore is unuseable. But still, I encrypt **all** email, except to those people who **still** dont have PGP, and those people I harass and tell them to get it :-)
Call your ISP and ask them about their policy! Ask them if they have ever been asked to install it, what their policy is on devices like it, and if they would install it if asked. You might be suprised (or not). My ISP transferred me to five different people, after which I was told to mail the abuse department. (I was told a bunch of BS first, like that Carnivore is not installed on their network, but rather somewhere else and therefore they can do nothing about it etc...). Interesting ain't it? CALL THEM AND FIND OUT! And encrypt everything! It will make scanning impractical. And to those people without a PGP key, get one! There's no reason not to! Absolutely no cost at all...
Actually, I found Active Setup to be convenient. And as far as the Pa$$port, what do you need it for? It has no use.... and as far as IM goes, it's ICQ or nothing. No damn adds except for that wierd lil thing at startup, but that's nothing.
Hmm never really thought about that, but then again I never really had a need to (except at home...). The point is, if you don't do anything stupid, then you have nothing to worry about.
If you're stupid enough to use either of the companies servers for mail, well.... I use my own SMTP / POP3 server, and I encrypt all messages that I possibly can (some fools still dont have dig. IDs). I know that the RSA-encryption can be cracked, but I doubt the admin even knows how to capture the email going through the company router to my SMTP server at home, much less crack the encryption...
I must admit, it is frightening that at work, the admin could have installed a program on my computer that runs in the background as a service that records my every keystroak... but then again, if you're careful, you don't have to worry about it! Don't go downloading porn on the company computer, and you don't have to worry about it! Bring it in on a disk! :-) And as far as companies reading your email, well, if you're stupid enough to use your corporate email account for personal mail.... but if you use something like Hotmail, or your POP3 account from home, you've really nothing to worry about. And, if you are worried about people installing things on your comp, especially the admin, then (assumming you are using NT) log on and LOCK THE COMPUTER (crtl alt del) and don't shut it off. The admin can unlock it, but you'll know if he did because he can't log on as you. A little bit of caution and common sense goes a long way towards protecting your privacy on the net.
-Agelmar
Guess what I do for a living now? Well, my official job-title is "Software Engineer" but I do a lot more than that...
Well, luckily my IIIc isn't one of the affected ones :-) But even if it were, I would still be happy with it. They have a patch which fixes the issue, and they have a GREAT OS. The overhead is soooooo much less than that of M$FT's CE, the OS is faster (true, hardware is slower, but I dont need to be able to watch MPEGs on my Palm, I need to store addresses etc.) and the Grafitti is great. I love my Palm, and would buy another one any day... well, maybe after I get one of those Compaq iPAQ H3600... handheld with 206mhz Intel StrongARM processor, 32mb of ram, the thig is soooo sexy... but oh well :-)
-Agelmar
Ack! I forgot to set my threshold to 5.... that post was already at zero... Correction to previous psot: I can't believe you're still at zero... some moderator should knock you down to -1
Sorry
-Agelmar
Whoa there... I'm a Palm IIIc user and proud of it! Not all the screens are monochrome my friend.. this baby has beautiful color, gets great battery life, and has the BEST handheld OS around (Palm OS is a LOT better than CE - much smaller footprint, overhead, program overhead...). And the screen is not "smudgy", it's actually quite clear. And graffiti is a wonderful method of data input. Go get yourself a Palm and learn what you are talking about before you go post on Slashdot. I can't believe you got a 5.... some moderator must be crazy, you should be at -1 for not knowing what you're talking about.
-Agelmar
I think it's about time MSFT does something like this. I work at a computer company, and we do a lot of software development. Currently, we are developing for Windows CE, and I have to say, I was really ticked when I learned I couldn't just d/l the SDK... I actually had to **order** it off of the developer store (Now true, it was free, but I still had to pay $7 s/h and wait 3 weeks to get the darned thing). Although this is a bit late in coming, it is a welcome addition. It will really help in programming for Windows 2000 sekurity. Better late than never!
Agelmar