At $400 for one laptop and one to give away I would hope you could select the country to donate to from a list on countries or refugees that are the most unable to afford the laptops. Could I select a laptop for a country that has had over 50% unemployment for multiple years (i.e. Haiti) or the refugees from Sudan in refugee camps of neighboring countries? If the laptops go to countries that might otherwise be able to afford the laptops it will lower the number of developing countries buying the laptop, but if the criteria for the free laptops is over 3 years of unemployment over 50% (lower by 5% increments when all countries over 50% that are stable have a laptop) then few leaders would be able to keep the country stable with that high of an unemployment rate so few would attempt it without getting killed.
Does the USA version still have the capability to generate energy for the battery/PC by hand/foot? An option to not have to search for an available outlet or work outside far from outlets for 8+ hours could be a great option compare to most laptops sold. My laptop doesn't have a good battery and the replacements don't last long and cost nearly $100 each, so working remotely without a standard battery/electrical outlet would be great.
It won't change any time soon, unless the FCC allows companies that purchased the old analog spectrum (a few years ago and then lost use through TV network extension of use of spectrum) "to use unused and unlicensed TV spectrum (the so-called 'white space') for wireless broadband" of Internet service. I worked for a rural wireless service provider that had purchased the use of some of the old analog spectrum for Internet service and couldn't use it. They purchased equipment to use the spectrum and can't use it the intended way because FCC is still letting broadcast TV stations use the airspace. The FCC even made them degrade their service for the benefit of the interfering TV stations. Now if the FCC would allow them to use the 'white space' for Internet service until the complete switch the broadcasters might not drag their feet so much (Tuesday the 11th's "Broadcasters Oppose Wireless Net Service" http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/07/09/11/0143231.shtml/).
There is a world wide shortage of nurses. Why not include Nurses and give an even bigger bonus to Nurses who go back to school and become instructors in Nursing Programs. In the USA many colleges have to turn away qualified applicants for Nursing Programs because they don't have enough staff to handle more students and places for Nurses to get quality training (i.e. teaching hospitals). There are plenty of people with degrees in technology programs in USA that can't find jobs. Since the demand in Nursing extends to multiple countries if the USA student can't find a job in USA they can move to another country for a job in the field.
I also heard of a demand for highly qualified mechanics that understand the electronics in the vehicle and the mechanical end, also. The demand isn't as strong in multiple countries, but just as high in USA as generic demand for BS degrees in Science and Engineering.
Just ask them if they want a *.docx file, since the newest MS-Office Word version no longer defaults to saving in *.DOC format. Also note the Word 97-2003 format option and that it translates it. Ask them if they say they haven't switched over yet what format they are currently looking at switching to (i.e. ODT, PDF, DOCX,...). MS is making it easier for the Linux/Free software / Open Source crowd to question whether saying with MS is a wise decision.
With statements like:
Hardware drivers for Linux now out number MS 2007 OS for most hardware they currently own.
Hardware upgrades to run MS 2007 OS are very likely to include most PC's, new OS or MAC dual boot more attractive to consider.
DOS emulation with Linux might work better than under newest MS OS for software from vendors that went out of business years ago and business can't find a good replacement for.
If you need to find replacement software, you might as well look at everything that is available.
Bargaining power for cheaper price is best when you can show that the threat to drop MS is a real possibility.
Think of hybrid in a larger sense. Willums in the article is stated to have previously made money through a solar energy company. Think about using solar for energy (i.e. solar panels on hood and/or trunk), the electrical plug idea doesn't work good for most renters and not many companies have parking spots with electric plugs in North America.
A solar panel for energy would energize a car with a dead hybrid battery (during daylight hours) that is alongside the road and for most people charge it while they are at work or shopping. It is good to clean snow off the hood of your car, so most people would have a change of getting a charge during the cold weather driving. Diesel would make a good backup for long trips or when the battery is running low.
Or perform proper maintenance. The author mentioned large differences even with the same model of printer, I would guess part of it was use and maintenance. I forgot the exact sheet count, but photocopiers and some printers have filters to replace to reduce ozone emissions. A random Google search of +"ozone filter" +"laser printer" gave over 800 results including http://www.laserkare.com/tips.htm which listed changing the filter "At 10,000 prints, the air flow through your printer is cut in half." Of course, the maintenance guide is likely to contain when to do service and if not the information is likely to be with a replacement part and some parts may have longer service times than others.
Also note that older products might have been manufactured to lower environmental standards.
The only reason I can think of is the additional font sets. Some of those font sets are supposed to be easier for most people to read on a monitor for prolonged hours at a time. Supposedly they come with both Vista and Office 2007. The bad part of Office 2007 is the new format *.docx isn't as big of a corporate standard as even *.odt (OpenOffice.org default standard that can be changed to MS-Office 97-2003 standard on saving). Anything were Works would mostly work OpenOffice is a great substitute, for other projects one would need to consider other software and keep in mind what would be required for the software to work for their needs. Could a class project add it to the software? Is there a bright programmer who would love to add to the project needs that would make it closer for some extra credit [Computer Science class or class related to the project (i.e. Grammar modules in OO.o for English class, adding history sections with correct information to a game,...).
Don't forget the argument about getting students/classes involved in FOSS projects. Imagine the feather in a school districts cap if their school is mentioned as a source that improved some software that is used around the world. Sun does or did have a link on using StarOffice for curriculum objectives in various states and Sun was offering the commercial software for free to school (i.e. grade schools and colleges). Parents can move back and forth between the two with few compatibility problems. Of course, there are other FOSS projects that might be used for various tasks including Linux with edutainment FOSS and alternatives to WordPerfect, MS Office, StarOffice and OpenOffice, also.
You could use the argument that getting students involved with open source is one way to increase interest in computer science. Even MS is starting to recruit people, but I don't know how the credit for involvement in those projects will evolve.
Side note is MS counting Beta versions or only software out of Beta? If they are counting Beta versions it is possible patent infringements might temporarily be in the software briefly until someone notices it and either removes it or posts a work around that everyone uses.
Also if a vastly improved technique was found to find software patent problems what would be the best way to release it? A commercial software product that requires developers to purchase/use it, sell it to the various patent offices for their and/or developers to check on patent issues, or open source for even MS to use?
For example, what if those bogus trial versions of Microsoft (MS) software had open holes that people were unintentionally or intentenionally using that allowed them use to MS patents. If MS makes a deal with several hardware vendors to put trial versions every Windows PC without a fuller version and that trial-ware puts resources on computers that give access to the copy or modifies copy of developer, would MS be to blame.
Yes, it might be a stretch that MS be dangling tools or software that they would allow to work for most purposes and disallow for others, but it is possible. Adobe was allowing open source use of some functionality for PDF, but didn't want to openly allow MS for fear it would go beyond what they were allowing open source to do. MS invested some hefty dollars toward better fonts for both the printable and onscreen use. As was noted before IEEE Spectrum May 2007 issue mentioned the new VISTA/2007 Office version have some new fonts that can increase productivity from winners of a 2004 competition. Could MS tied the prize to giving up the work and doing any work tied with it, even if the work was in use on an open source project prior to the prize? If MS did then there could be patent issues. In the IEEE Spectrum article they mention Verdana was released in 1996, how long can only hold a patent on a font? In addition, since MS fought to prevent the Lindows name because it sounded to close to Windows would they have issue with similar names for equivalent fonts developed for Linux versions that don't have a deal with (i.e. not Novell/SuSE, but Red Hat/Fedora, Debian, Mandrake, Ubuntu,...)?
Stepware already sells a product (AceReader) for speed reading and has options to split the text in phrases and other text sizes with a option to flash the text at the center of the screen, so your eyes don't have to move or the regular way of seeing text. Stepware doesn't have to option of adding colored text for parts of speech to part of the older company. Hope they have an option to change the colours as needed to help students who have some degree of color blindness or bold/font changes.
Also note as was posted earlier, IEEE put out an article on how some of the newer ClearType fonts from MS are easier to read online than the older fonts like Verdana and Times. There are lots of things that can improve ones reading, but this seems like mostly a marketing tool. Save money adjust the window to a narrower width, increase font size and use auto-scrolling. In addition, there are plug-ins/ handicap accessibility options to read text on the screen for people who read slower than subvocalization problems cause.
Sounds like a great business idea to hype a new company and get lots of free advertising by getting it on slashdot, also. The marketing person did a great job kudos.
I think they only have to if it is brought to their attention. I don't think Google is going to actively search for students inappropriately using the term. Now if the student was writing in a contest and wins it using the term incorrectly, Google might be forced to take legal action to have extra verbage added to correct the mistake.
I saw a disclaimer for Velcro (TM) hook and loop fastener products and they explained the issue well. Unfortunately, I tossed out the packaging. I like the hook and loop fasteners that have one side that is the hook and other that is the loop side that they sell and don't think they would have continued innovating if other companies could have edged in to their market selling low cost versions of the same thing and made people more uncertain of the quality of the products. Consumers can get the cheaper version from other companies, but the higher quality and innovation of the main player keeps the standard for the product from getting too low.
Maybe moving to an open format will help health care it allowing free/open software to be developed that use the free standard to devise ways to improve health care and save money in the long run over expensive upgrades.
Electronic submission of
prescriptions to pharmacies/hospitals/... to overcome bad
handwriting
Data mining to find out common
sources of illnesses in outbreaks
More jobs in making improvements
to software to improve peoples livelihood so they can help others
live better and healthier lives
Schools including
colleges/universities could use the standards in projects to reach
out to communities with high rates in some disease categories,
especially institutions that teach health care professionals. Find
the best way to reach out to groups with high rates AIDS, SIDS,
heart disease, or any other disease and share the information with
others.
Help health industry equipment
manufacturers know the full standard so they can add networking
features that can be updated and useful in hospitals or emergency
triage centers.
Promote schools having students
use the new standard in sharing health care concerns with others
(parent(s), nurse, doctor,...) and on a state-wide website. Also
promote having all citizens use the website, monitor the kids side
to watch out for molesters and such. Have the website be a gauge of
health concerns to pass on to the health care department(s).
Get input from the health
departments on how to use technology to make improvements to the
health care system and concerns they have in using technology. A concern could be keeping information private on a patient, but still tracking information in a way that only the relevant parts are shared to improve treatment or stop an outbreak.
Technology can be good and used to better the lives of mankind/(people everywhere). Improvements shared can improve lives in other areas, especially when people get to the point they see the only way they can improve is by helping others.
Clusty is very good at what they do, but the survey people don't know enough to include it. I also use clusty.com about half of the time. I don't think clusty was a choice, so if they asked me I would have to say Google. Google has a big advantage the default home page (USA download) http://www.google.com/firefox?client=firefox-a&rls =org.mozilla:en-US:official and toolbar for Firefox. If you vary the sites you go to often who cares what website(s) you default to, just make it one you are likely to find useful (on a Windows PC a default page for updates would be good/useful for IE browser). A few years back when I worked as a student in a campus computer lab I usually could point fellow students and others to websites for information they wanted without going to any search engine (used the web enough to know the good websites without having to look them up). Google used to be listed as being in clusty's meta-searches, but now isn't listed in the FAQ.
On Google's side they do come up with lots of results and some of the papers they use in their news section are ones I normally open when I read online papers and gives a pretty good versions of other websites that are the best. It you don't know about the better alternative(s) that already exist for areas Google moves into, like http://www.ipl.org/ or http://www.gutenberg.org/ then when it comes to reading out of copyright books then the Google book project sounds very well meaning and good. Go to Amazon.com to read inside copyright books http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/catalog-guide /guide/-/506469/104-8484589-7689549, before the Google book project they had free excerpts for most books that anyone could view without signing up. If you don't want to find the best and trust Google, then like the Microsoft supporters you we use them except when you need something better and usually Google does a very job. I have toolbar for both Google and Clusty.
If I wanted to go with the easiest computer operating system to use, that is heavy on graphical user interface, I would pick a Mac. It said in the ranking list: "System X
1100 Dual 2.3 GHz Apple XServe/Mellanox Infiniband 4X/Cisco GigE / 2200
Self-made"
Is that with the newest 2.0 release or an earlier release of OpenOffice? I found similar problems moving from documents on Windows9x with Word97 to newer Word2K+ on newer NT/Windows 2000 and newer PC's a few years ago at college. The operating system may play a factor in your problem. Instead of using trial ware version of MS Office on a new PC (Windows box) I installed my copy of MS Office 97 (other windows PC's are parts or need part). To install MS Office I had to make it emmulate that it was running on an older version of Windows. With the emmulation it does a better job on reading newer files. I currently use OpenOffice 2.0 to read/save/work on MS Office documents. In the next month I will remove the software because of the security risks involved with possibly missing some patches needed. Both do a pretty good job with reading newer MS Word documents, but only OpenOffice is likely to continue support for older versions of MS Office documents. Of course, once the demand disappears the volunteer programs are likely to work on other things.
Since I can't afford commercial software for everything and don't believe in stealing people's means to support themselves, I use linux on PC's that I have owned beyond MS OS patch support service. So when I get a replacement harddrive for my laptop, I will try to reinstall the OEM software and get updates, but if I can't or protection software is expired it will become a linux box to replace another PC with a bad motherboard (i.e. impregnated capacitors,...). I miss Linux, but don't want to void warranty on PC and need one PC for checking how things come over on Windows, following where the problem is for family that uses Windows OS's. Course, 2-3 years from now it has to switch to another operating system OpenSolaris/Linux/..., budget and features available will decide, maybe the newest Mac flavor. Were you moving across different types of Operating Systems?
With the GUI modes in Linux the interface can be very graphical and not that hard for someone to learn. An older friend of mine who doesn't own a PC used some PC with older Windows software and had an easier time learning Solaris to do a new job and like several other people were she works the switch to Windows made several tasks harder to do. During the newer training to Windows she had several questions of "with UNIX we can do... to fix a customers problem how do we do it with Windows" and the trainer gave it can't be done or I don't know quite a few times. A few years later when they had a strike I asked her if the managers had to try and use Windows to complete the tasks and she said was suprized I remembered what she said earlier and said "No, they pulled out some UNIX boxes and they used them".
Note every major OS upgrade requires learning new skills, and with Windows Office software compatiblity to older versions stops after a few upgrade versions. He stated that he needed support that would work with older features, OpenOffice.org has people who continually work on improving some of the backward compatiable conversion. I have found OpenOffice to work good when I owned Office97 and went to a school that used Office2000 and possibly some newer versions in some labs I used, it had some quirks in the earlier versions but now does an excellent job compared to MS Office between different versions 97 and 2000 on different OS's Windows 98, and newer versions like NT, 2000,.... When my motherboard had a proprietary part die and I found out the OEM copy of Windows 98 would no longer install since I upgraded my hard drive and gave the old one away, I had to switch to my Linux box and StarOffice/OpenOffice (buying it StarOffice was cheaper than new OS/motherboard). I played with StarOffice when it was a free Beta and wish they would bring back the calendaring software, but with Evolution on Linux it doesn't matter. Not everyone gets a raise every year and for further training sometimes you don't make as much as before. Also note he was getting tired of the upgrades that sometimes gave him less of the features he had before or broke other things.
Note support for most operating systems can to done by Googling for the right solution. I like Clusty http://clusty.com/ because the subgroup the general terms into smaller groups automatically and yes they have a toolbar for your browser. Learning is good and the backup of files is a good practice everyone should be doing (should be done for every major software upgrade). Note like my switch from Windows 3.1 to 95 being able to switch back because things don't work is a good thing just in case. Windows/hard drive didn't like switching between OS's a dozen times and Linux found my Dell monitor better than Windows 95. I had to disable the monitor and on the second try windows finally worked, tech support didn't give any help. Use Clusty to find the answers and pick the cluster on the left to narrow selection to the right answer.
A worse problem then stealing one dog tag and using it to pass as good guy exists (they can be found out and eliminated). In the past enemies have reverse engineered technology of their enemy. Just think of the havoc of capturing the robot and changing the instructions to point out all of the dog tags to fire at them. Yes, there was a speaker at Wayne State University who spoke of such technology to assist medics for retrieving injured soldiers (better purpose is for nursing home patients). But the same problem exists, the technology is dependent on knowing at all times who the good guys are. How can you make sure an enemy can't crack your code or pay someone off to figure out how to do surveillance on you through your technology? Through the surveillance they could find best time to attack or place bombs. How can it differentiate a 12-year old suicide bomber from a 12-year old playing with realistic toy guns/weapons? Also a soldier could be behind enemy lines and having used up all of his ammo starts using captured/dead enemies weapons, the robot can't trust on weapon to be sure person is the enemy.
A robot can't read peoples thoughts and motives. To think an enemy who doesn't have as high of a background in your area can't find someone who can work on defeat of your expertise is true vanity. Note United States got help in their Independence with help of a country that was against their country. People have to be vain to think an enemy couldn't use this to greatly attack them more than the benefit of the sniper detector. Someone who studied wars in detail could probably tear this apart much easier than me. Might be good for police departments to track a sniper, though.
If you think your school would want some support initially or long term consider StarOffice. SUN has a deal where schools, students, researchers, staff, or faculty members can download StarOffice for free from Sun's Software Download Center for computers the school district owns, otherwise use OpenOffice.org. The marketing information is at http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/edu/soluti ons/staroffice.html
and from there you can go to links for free training resources for both students and staff. There is a charge for regular phone support. In addition, the link has a link to K-12 lesson plans using StarOffice. Note the lesson plans have a break down for grade levels, subjects, and for some states teaching to the state standards.
Note StarOffice has a train the trainer initiative. It is stated as a 3 day curriculum taught by teachers who use StarOffice. http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/edu/soluti ons/staroffice/leadership.html is the link. There has to be a catch if your district isn't close to another one with trainers, but I am missing it.
If you still want to try OpenOffice.org use the information and contacts on OpenOffice.org's website for the school initiative http://marketing.openoffice.org/education/schools/
I would probably push for StarOffice first (includes filter for WordPerfect files) and then if more budget cuts come and support is all online or better price for OpenOffice.org switch to it. As for the grammar checker issue, proofreading a document is good practice for young kids/adults and most standardized tests won't let students run their essays through a grammar checker. Sorry to skip the proofreading.
I use Konqueror on Linux, too. The extra IE website functions seem to work better with Konquerer (I set it up to pretend to be a Windows PC with IE). The setting is under Change Browser Identification under Tools. On my MS PC I use Firefox, usually and sometimes IE, Mozilla or even Netscape. The MS PC doesn't have hardware as good as the Linux box, so it isn't used as often.
At work they banded us from using Firefox, so I use Netscape most of the time and IE for the applications where integration with Outlook is helpful or I suspect they might disapprove/integration problems could exist. I am way more efficient when I can open a set of tabs at once according to the problem at hand (you can have settings to replace all tabs at once or add the extra tabs).
Since MS requires IE for their update downloads, it won't go away any time soon. At least they did a few years ago when I needed an update. If a court says they have to allow people to get software patches/updates with competing browsers, the share of browsers not IE would likely grow even faster. If company needs at least one PC with IE for patches/updates it is harder to force everyone to give it up and if support department wants their life easier they probably try to minimize the software on PC's they manage. I am glad Netscape was included on the last PC image I had at work, but I can't promote it for fear they may decide to take it away. I am not saying Netscape is better though (I just like the tabs) and am uncertain I will use the beta version when it becomes final.
Last note the big race where people here suggested the best browser will fix the "Multiple Browsers Window Injection Vulnerability Test" first. I believe Konquerer beat the Firefox with fixing it and Netscape and IE didn't fix it yet, double check at http://secunia.com/multiple_browsers_window_inject ion_vulnerability_test/ and select the browser in question.
I think there still is innovation possible for word processors, but to get to the innovative stuff you need to work on stuff that is under valued. One example is possibly having a translator incorporated with a word processor that with change a document into another language or modify language to another regional dialect. You would probably want to give the document a look over by someone from the targeted region (check for cultural mistakes), but it would probably save a lot of time.
Before you can do neat stuff like that you need a really good grammar checker and you need to think went you develop it of how it will fit in with future cooler projects. Technical questions about what are all parts of speech possible in all languages that will be translated need to be known. In some languages one word can be used as more than one part of speech (noun, verb, preposition, interjection, adverb, adjective, conjunction,...), an example is form. One needs to be able to add new words to the program and have a way to correctly add possible parts of speech of the new word and note if the answer given is not verified. Ideally, one could pick the URL of an online dictionary, parse out the part of speech, and verify the spelling or if the user doesn't have internet access at the time mark it for either nothing (temporary ignore word), let user add it with what they know/think it is (good help menus on grammar needed) and modify it if needed, or skip the word in the analysis.
I think WordPerfect would have the easiest time with this. They bought out Grammatik back in the 90's (possibly mid 90's). I had an old academic DOS version 5 copy and would love to upgrade it to something that can read the newer proprietary formats (I save files in RTF). It is great for reviewing if your grammar is becoming sloppy. This old program finds mistakes like switching from and form around, has modes for style of writing (i.e. will flag slang and phrases/words that aren't politically correct in business writing). It all fits on one 3.5" floppy. In the last ten years I never noticed grammar typos like with form and from from people using WordPerfect, but every few months notice them in online newspapers. I think OpenOffice.org has the potential to do the translation stuff, but it will be hard to come up with the right standards and find people who are well versed in multiple languages (i.e. Chinese, Arbic, Spanish, English,....). Note also, in some languages one word/character might stand for more than one part of speech at a time.
I don't have the full background in multiple languages to help, but hope someone else does and will volunteer. I also don't know if Open Source projects can use people who worked on old proprietary software for similar problems without risk of patent problems down the road.
I think you have a mistake in your logic (use an OR not AND), in converting the IF THEN ELSE statement, you made an illogical assumption that can never be TRUE. To make it possible you would have to have a time delay between each condition where the thing you are testing/trying to show TRUE must become FALSE. But that could backfire to GPL not being Valid when SCO used it. Then Valid after SCO used it, but only to later user(s). You gave them a decent agrument:
"IF the GPL is Valid then SCO has violated Copyright law.
AND
IF the GPL is InValid then SCO has violated Copyright law.
THEREFORE: SCO has violated Copyright law.
QED ...
Poetic justice based on hard Logic. Gotta love it."
That isn't hard logic and is some thing that could be used to confuse a jury enough to let SCO off.
If you set an AND condition for the same input to be both TRUE AND FALSE at the SAME TIME the condition will always give you a FALSE condition. If you replaced the AND with an OR in your logic (excluding tri-state logic) then: A TRUE state OR'd with anything (a FALSE, unstable condition or another TRUE) will always give a TRUE, as any decent student who has graduated or taken a few years of Electronic classes should know. Even in high school electronics classes, one learns about the unstable state between TRUE AND FALSE at the hardware level.
Of course, the courts can completely put any logic in a Tri-State Condition, even with OR logic and that makes the inputs useless. Note the Tri-State Condition basically disables a logic gate or in programmers terms jumps over/bypasses the logic.:(
If there are killer desktop apps that only run on a true 64-bit operating system, then many places will be replacing computers anyways and switching to a new totally different OS won't seem so bad.
If a competitor of MS wants to fight MS dominance, they should try to make great tools for making software for their emerging 64-bit OS (ideally cheap or free software tools) and offer a contest for new best of software in area they are not dominant in. Contest could award the top 20 eligible applications at the end of OS's 1 year anniversery and another reward for the top ten sold on the initial release date (this group is also in running for the other awards, to promote early releases). Additionally, if a company has a dominate lead in an area or idea that the company really wants the company could offer free computers to do the developement work for their OS (discretion left to company on awards) and possibly have time limits on progress stages of the software.
In reference to #3 "Who are "people"? Define who you are talking about and present evidence. I know of noone who uses a piece of software simply because some other unknown/irrelevent group of people do so. But then again, I don't live in fantasy land."
People do use MS-Word and its family for unknown groups of people, especially when job hunting. Companies requiring resume submissions in MS-Word is so popular that Monster now has an option to submit your resume in MS-Word. I am not sure who the original "people" refered to are, but if you are a recent college graduate in the United States you are expected in most cases to use MS-Word for electronic form of your resume. Recruiters tend to have MS-Word and therefore prefer it to text files or PDF files that are usually larger files. Personally I perfer PDF since they retain the fonts and spacing of the original document and OpenOffice has free software for creating PDF's (need to save in another format to modify with OpenOffice later).
I had MS-Works on my only MS PC, completely removed it from system to free up memory. Later I replaced it with StarOffice. I can save files in MS-Word format, but the spacing and styles are sometimes different. As a check I used MS-Office 97, which I can't get updates for. Funny thing is some places still use MS-Office 95 (talked to recruiter for a city government at a job fair), so my version might not look right either.
Computer Technology Major Looking for Work in a Highly Ethical Company: 1. Treat people who you do business with (both internally and externally) as you would like to be treated. 2. Never do anything or tell anyone else to do anything that isn't fully legal.
Microsoft:"Better business alignment with straightforward licensing and clarity of intellectual property ownership. "
Just think of it as Microsoft saying "MINE, MINE, MINE, MINE! It is all for ME. I get all the rights to the property and licensing in my terms. MINE, MINE, MINE, MINE! If you want to know the current rules just go to me because it is ALL MINE, MINE, MINE, MINE! "
See Microsoft is being honest. "From a certain point of view.", Obi Wan. IT IS THE BETTER BUSINESS ALIGNMENT FOR MICROSOFT.
Slashdot Mirror
At $400 for one laptop and one to give away I would hope you could select the country to donate to from a list on countries or refugees that are the most unable to afford the laptops. Could I select a laptop for a country that has had over 50% unemployment for multiple years (i.e. Haiti) or the refugees from Sudan in refugee camps of neighboring countries? If the laptops go to countries that might otherwise be able to afford the laptops it will lower the number of developing countries buying the laptop, but if the criteria for the free laptops is over 3 years of unemployment over 50% (lower by 5% increments when all countries over 50% that are stable have a laptop) then few leaders would be able to keep the country stable with that high of an unemployment rate so few would attempt it without getting killed.
Does the USA version still have the capability to generate energy for the battery/PC by hand/foot? An option to not have to search for an available outlet or work outside far from outlets for 8+ hours could be a great option compare to most laptops sold. My laptop doesn't have a good battery and the replacements don't last long and cost nearly $100 each, so working remotely without a standard battery/electrical outlet would be great.
It won't change any time soon, unless the FCC allows companies that purchased the old analog spectrum (a few years ago and then lost use through TV network extension of use of spectrum) "to use unused and unlicensed TV spectrum (the so-called 'white space') for wireless broadband" of Internet service. I worked for a rural wireless service provider that had purchased the use of some of the old analog spectrum for Internet service and couldn't use it. They purchased equipment to use the spectrum and can't use it the intended way because FCC is still letting broadcast TV stations use the airspace. The FCC even made them degrade their service for the benefit of the interfering TV stations. Now if the FCC would allow them to use the 'white space' for Internet service until the complete switch the broadcasters might not drag their feet so much (Tuesday the 11th's "Broadcasters Oppose Wireless Net Service" http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/07/09/11/0143231.shtml/).
There is a world wide shortage of nurses. Why not include Nurses and give an even bigger bonus to Nurses who go back to school and become instructors in Nursing Programs. In the USA many colleges have to turn away qualified applicants for Nursing Programs because they don't have enough staff to handle more students and places for Nurses to get quality training (i.e. teaching hospitals). There are plenty of people with degrees in technology programs in USA that can't find jobs. Since the demand in Nursing extends to multiple countries if the USA student can't find a job in USA they can move to another country for a job in the field.
I also heard of a demand for highly qualified mechanics that understand the electronics in the vehicle and the mechanical end, also. The demand isn't as strong in multiple countries, but just as high in USA as generic demand for BS degrees in Science and Engineering.
With statements like:
Hardware drivers for Linux now out number MS 2007 OS for most hardware they currently own.
Hardware upgrades to run MS 2007 OS are very likely to include most PC's, new OS or MAC dual boot more attractive to consider.
DOS emulation with Linux might work better than under newest MS OS for software from vendors that went out of business years ago and business can't find a good replacement for.
If you need to find replacement software, you might as well look at everything that is available.
Bargaining power for cheaper price is best when you can show that the threat to drop MS is a real possibility.
Think of hybrid in a larger sense. Willums in the article is stated to have previously made money through a solar energy company. Think about using solar for energy (i.e. solar panels on hood and/or trunk), the electrical plug idea doesn't work good for most renters and not many companies have parking spots with electric plugs in North America.
A solar panel for energy would energize a car with a dead hybrid battery (during daylight hours) that is alongside the road and for most people charge it while they are at work or shopping. It is good to clean snow off the hood of your car, so most people would have a change of getting a charge during the cold weather driving. Diesel would make a good backup for long trips or when the battery is running low.
Or perform proper maintenance. The author mentioned large differences even with the same model of printer, I would guess part of it was use and maintenance. I forgot the exact sheet count, but photocopiers and some printers have filters to replace to reduce ozone emissions. A random Google search of +"ozone filter" +"laser printer" gave over 800 results including http://www.laserkare.com/tips.htm which listed changing the filter "At 10,000 prints, the air flow through your printer is cut in half." Of course, the maintenance guide is likely to contain when to do service and if not the information is likely to be with a replacement part and some parts may have longer service times than others.
Also note that older products might have been manufactured to lower environmental standards.
The only reason I can think of is the additional font sets. Some of those font sets are supposed to be easier for most people to read on a monitor for prolonged hours at a time. Supposedly they come with both Vista and Office 2007. The bad part of Office 2007 is the new format *.docx isn't as big of a corporate standard as even *.odt (OpenOffice.org default standard that can be changed to MS-Office 97-2003 standard on saving). Anything were Works would mostly work OpenOffice is a great substitute, for other projects one would need to consider other software and keep in mind what would be required for the software to work for their needs. Could a class project add it to the software? Is there a bright programmer who would love to add to the project needs that would make it closer for some extra credit [Computer Science class or class related to the project (i.e. Grammar modules in OO.o for English class, adding history sections with correct information to a game, ...).
Don't forget the argument about getting students/classes involved in FOSS projects. Imagine the feather in a school districts cap if their school is mentioned as a source that improved some software that is used around the world. Sun does or did have a link on using StarOffice for curriculum objectives in various states and Sun was offering the commercial software for free to school (i.e. grade schools and colleges). Parents can move back and forth between the two with few compatibility problems. Of course, there are other FOSS projects that might be used for various tasks including Linux with edutainment FOSS and alternatives to WordPerfect, MS Office, StarOffice and OpenOffice, also.
You could use the argument that getting students involved with open source is one way to increase interest in computer science. Even MS is starting to recruit people, but I don't know how the credit for involvement in those projects will evolve.
Side note is MS counting Beta versions or only software out of Beta? If they are counting Beta versions it is possible patent infringements might temporarily be in the software briefly until someone notices it and either removes it or posts a work around that everyone uses.
Also if a vastly improved technique was found to find software patent problems what would be the best way to release it? A commercial software product that requires developers to purchase/use it, sell it to the various patent offices for their and/or developers to check on patent issues, or open source for even MS to use?
For example, what if those bogus trial versions of Microsoft (MS) software had open holes that people were unintentionally or intentenionally using that allowed them use to MS patents. If MS makes a deal with several hardware vendors to put trial versions every Windows PC without a fuller version and that trial-ware puts resources on computers that give access to the copy or modifies copy of developer, would MS be to blame.
Yes, it might be a stretch that MS be dangling tools or software that they would allow to work for most purposes and disallow for others, but it is possible. Adobe was allowing open source use of some functionality for PDF, but didn't want to openly allow MS for fear it would go beyond what they were allowing open source to do. MS invested some hefty dollars toward better fonts for both the printable and onscreen use. As was noted before IEEE Spectrum May 2007 issue mentioned the new VISTA/2007 Office version have some new fonts that can increase productivity from winners of a 2004 competition. Could MS tied the prize to giving up the work and doing any work tied with it, even if the work was in use on an open source project prior to the prize? If MS did then there could be patent issues. In the IEEE Spectrum article they mention Verdana was released in 1996, how long can only hold a patent on a font? In addition, since MS fought to prevent the Lindows name because it sounded to close to Windows would they have issue with similar names for equivalent fonts developed for Linux versions that don't have a deal with (i.e. not Novell/SuSE, but Red Hat/Fedora, Debian, Mandrake, Ubuntu,...)?
Stepware already sells a product (AceReader) for speed reading and has options to split the text in phrases and other text sizes with a option to flash the text at the center of the screen, so your eyes don't have to move or the regular way of seeing text. Stepware doesn't have to option of adding colored text for parts of speech to part of the older company. Hope they have an option to change the colours as needed to help students who have some degree of color blindness or bold/font changes.
Also note as was posted earlier, IEEE put out an article on how some of the newer ClearType fonts from MS are easier to read online than the older fonts like Verdana and Times. There are lots of things that can improve ones reading, but this seems like mostly a marketing tool. Save money adjust the window to a narrower width, increase font size and use auto-scrolling. In addition, there are plug-ins/ handicap accessibility options to read text on the screen for people who read slower than subvocalization problems cause.
Sounds like a great business idea to hype a new company and get lots of free advertising by getting it on slashdot, also. The marketing person did a great job kudos.
I think they only have to if it is brought to their attention. I don't think Google is going to actively search for students inappropriately using the term. Now if the student was writing in a contest and wins it using the term incorrectly, Google might be forced to take legal action to have extra verbage added to correct the mistake.
I saw a disclaimer for Velcro (TM) hook and loop fastener products and they explained the issue well. Unfortunately, I tossed out the packaging. I like the hook and loop fasteners that have one side that is the hook and other that is the loop side that they sell and don't think they would have continued innovating if other companies could have edged in to their market selling low cost versions of the same thing and made people more uncertain of the quality of the products. Consumers can get the cheaper version from other companies, but the higher quality and innovation of the main player keeps the standard for the product from getting too low.
Maybe moving to an open format will help health care it allowing free/open software to be developed that use the free standard to devise ways to improve health care and save money in the long run over expensive upgrades.
Technology can be good and used to better the lives of mankind/(people everywhere). Improvements shared can improve lives in other areas, especially when people get to the point they see the only way they can improve is by helping others.
Clusty is very good at what they do, but the survey people don't know enough to include it. I also use clusty.com about half of the time. I don't think clusty was a choice, so if they asked me I would have to say Google. Google has a big advantage the default home page (USA download) http://www.google.com/firefox?client=firefox-a&rls =org.mozilla:en-US:official and toolbar for Firefox. If you vary the sites you go to often who cares what website(s) you default to, just make it one you are likely to find useful (on a Windows PC a default page for updates would be good/useful for IE browser). A few years back when I worked as a student in a campus computer lab I usually could point fellow students and others to websites for information they wanted without going to any search engine (used the web enough to know the good websites without having to look them up). Google used to be listed as being in clusty's meta-searches, but now isn't listed in the FAQ.
On Google's side they do come up with lots of results and some of the papers they use in their news section are ones I normally open when I read online papers and gives a pretty good versions of other websites that are the best. It you don't know about the better alternative(s) that already exist for areas Google moves into, like http://www.ipl.org/ or http://www.gutenberg.org/ then when it comes to reading out of copyright books then the Google book project sounds very well meaning and good. Go to Amazon.com to read inside copyright books http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/catalog-guide /guide/-/506469/104-8484589-7689549, before the Google book project they had free excerpts for most books that anyone could view without signing up. If you don't want to find the best and trust Google, then like the Microsoft supporters you we use them except when you need something better and usually Google does a very job. I have toolbar for both Google and Clusty.
A year ago Apple computers made number 7 it the top list of supercomputers http://www.top500.org/lists/plists.php?Y=2004&M=11 the story of them losing ground when they were higher is http://www.macnn.com/articles/04/11/08/vt.falls.to .7th/
If I wanted to go with the easiest computer operating system to use, that is heavy on graphical user interface, I would pick a Mac. It said in the ranking list: "System X 1100 Dual 2.3 GHz Apple XServe/Mellanox Infiniband 4X/Cisco GigE / 2200 Self-made"
Got to go.
Is that with the newest 2.0 release or an earlier release of OpenOffice? I found similar problems moving from documents on Windows9x with Word97 to newer Word2K+ on newer NT/Windows 2000 and newer PC's a few years ago at college. The operating system may play a factor in your problem. Instead of using trial ware version of MS Office on a new PC (Windows box) I installed my copy of MS Office 97 (other windows PC's are parts or need part). To install MS Office I had to make it emmulate that it was running on an older version of Windows. With the emmulation it does a better job on reading newer files. I currently use OpenOffice 2.0 to read/save/work on MS Office documents. In the next month I will remove the software because of the security risks involved with possibly missing some patches needed. Both do a pretty good job with reading newer MS Word documents, but only OpenOffice is likely to continue support for older versions of MS Office documents. Of course, once the demand disappears the volunteer programs are likely to work on other things.
Since I can't afford commercial software for everything and don't believe in stealing people's means to support themselves, I use linux on PC's that I have owned beyond MS OS patch support service. So when I get a replacement harddrive for my laptop, I will try to reinstall the OEM software and get updates, but if I can't or protection software is expired it will become a linux box to replace another PC with a bad motherboard (i.e. impregnated capacitors,...). I miss Linux, but don't want to void warranty on PC and need one PC for checking how things come over on Windows, following where the problem is for family that uses Windows OS's. Course, 2-3 years from now it has to switch to another operating system OpenSolaris/Linux/..., budget and features available will decide, maybe the newest Mac flavor. Were you moving across different types of Operating Systems?
With the GUI modes in Linux the interface can be very graphical and not that hard for someone to learn. An older friend of mine who doesn't own a PC used some PC with older Windows software and had an easier time learning Solaris to do a new job and like several other people were she works the switch to Windows made several tasks harder to do. During the newer training to Windows she had several questions of "with UNIX we can do ... to fix a customers problem how do we do it with Windows" and the trainer gave it can't be done or I don't know quite a few times. A few years later when they had a strike I asked her if the managers had to try and use Windows to complete the tasks and she said was suprized I remembered what she said earlier and said "No, they pulled out some UNIX boxes and they used them".
Note every major OS upgrade requires learning new skills, and with Windows Office software compatiblity to older versions stops after a few upgrade versions. He stated that he needed support that would work with older features, OpenOffice.org has people who continually work on improving some of the backward compatiable conversion. I have found OpenOffice to work good when I owned Office97 and went to a school that used Office2000 and possibly some newer versions in some labs I used, it had some quirks in the earlier versions but now does an excellent job compared to MS Office between different versions 97 and 2000 on different OS's Windows 98, and newer versions like NT, 2000,.... When my motherboard had a proprietary part die and I found out the OEM copy of Windows 98 would no longer install since I upgraded my hard drive and gave the old one away, I had to switch to my Linux box and StarOffice /OpenOffice (buying it StarOffice was cheaper than new OS/motherboard). I played with StarOffice when it was a free Beta and wish they would bring back the calendaring software, but with Evolution on Linux it doesn't matter. Not everyone gets a raise every year and for further training sometimes you don't make as much as before. Also note he was getting tired of the upgrades that sometimes gave him less of the features he had before or broke other things.
Note support for most operating systems can to done by Googling for the right solution. I like Clusty http://clusty.com/ because the subgroup the general terms into smaller groups automatically and yes they have a toolbar for your browser. Learning is good and the backup of files is a good practice everyone should be doing (should be done for every major software upgrade). Note like my switch from Windows 3.1 to 95 being able to switch back because things don't work is a good thing just in case. Windows/hard drive didn't like switching between OS's a dozen times and Linux found my Dell monitor better than Windows 95. I had to disable the monitor and on the second try windows finally worked, tech support didn't give any help. Use Clusty to find the answers and pick the cluster on the left to narrow selection to the right answer.
A worse problem then stealing one dog tag and using it to pass as good guy exists (they can be found out and eliminated). In the past enemies have reverse engineered technology of their enemy. Just think of the havoc of capturing the robot and changing the instructions to point out all of the dog tags to fire at them. Yes, there was a speaker at Wayne State University who spoke of such technology to assist medics for retrieving injured soldiers (better purpose is for nursing home patients). But the same problem exists, the technology is dependent on knowing at all times who the good guys are. How can you make sure an enemy can't crack your code or pay someone off to figure out how to do surveillance on you through your technology? Through the surveillance they could find best time to attack or place bombs. How can it differentiate a 12-year old suicide bomber from a 12-year old playing with realistic toy guns/weapons? Also a soldier could be behind enemy lines and having used up all of his ammo starts using captured/dead enemies weapons, the robot can't trust on weapon to be sure person is the enemy.
A robot can't read peoples thoughts and motives. To think an enemy who doesn't have as high of a background in your area can't find someone who can work on defeat of your expertise is true vanity. Note United States got help in their Independence with help of a country that was against their country. People have to be vain to think an enemy couldn't use this to greatly attack them more than the benefit of the sniper detector. Someone who studied wars in detail could probably tear this apart much easier than me. Might be good for police departments to track a sniper, though.
If you think your school would want some support initially or long term consider StarOffice. SUN has a deal where schools, students, researchers, staff, or faculty members can download StarOffice for free from Sun's Software Download Center for computers the school district owns, otherwise use OpenOffice.org. The marketing information is at http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/edu/soluti ons/staroffice.html
and from there you can go to links for free training resources for both students and staff. There is a charge for regular phone support. In addition, the link has a link to K-12 lesson plans using StarOffice. Note the lesson plans have a break down for grade levels, subjects, and for some states teaching to the state standards.
Note StarOffice has a train the trainer initiative. It is stated as a 3 day curriculum taught by teachers who use StarOffice. http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/edu/soluti ons/staroffice/leadership.html is the link. There has to be a catch if your district isn't close to another one with trainers, but I am missing it.
If you still want to try OpenOffice.org use the information and contacts on OpenOffice.org's website for the school initiative http://marketing.openoffice.org/education/schools/
I would probably push for StarOffice first (includes filter for WordPerfect files) and then if more budget cuts come and support is all online or better price for OpenOffice.org switch to it. As for the grammar checker issue, proofreading a document is good practice for young kids/adults and most standardized tests won't let students run their essays through a grammar checker. Sorry to skip the proofreading.
I use Konqueror on Linux, too. The extra IE website functions seem to work better with Konquerer (I set it up to pretend to be a Windows PC with IE). The setting is under Change Browser Identification under Tools. On my MS PC I use Firefox, usually and sometimes IE, Mozilla or even Netscape. The MS PC doesn't have hardware as good as the Linux box, so it isn't used as often.
At work they banded us from using Firefox, so I use Netscape most of the time and IE for the applications where integration with Outlook is helpful or I suspect they might disapprove/integration problems could exist. I am way more efficient when I can open a set of tabs at once according to the problem at hand (you can have settings to replace all tabs at once or add the extra tabs).
Since MS requires IE for their update downloads, it won't go away any time soon. At least they did a few years ago when I needed an update. If a court says they have to allow people to get software patches/updates with competing browsers, the share of browsers not IE would likely grow even faster. If company needs at least one PC with IE for patches/updates it is harder to force everyone to give it up and if support department wants their life easier they probably try to minimize the software on PC's they manage. I am glad Netscape was included on the last PC image I had at work, but I can't promote it for fear they may decide to take it away. I am not saying Netscape is better though (I just like the tabs) and am uncertain I will use the beta version when it becomes final.
Last note the big race where people here suggested the best browser will fix the "Multiple Browsers Window Injection Vulnerability Test" first. I believe Konquerer beat the Firefox with fixing it and Netscape and IE didn't fix it yet, double check at http://secunia.com/multiple_browsers_window_inject ion_vulnerability_test/ and select the browser in question.
I think there still is innovation possible for word processors, but to get to the innovative stuff you need to work on stuff that is under valued. One example is possibly having a translator incorporated with a word processor that with change a document into another language or modify language to another regional dialect. You would probably want to give the document a look over by someone from the targeted region (check for cultural mistakes), but it would probably save a lot of time.
Before you can do neat stuff like that you need a really good grammar checker and you need to think went you develop it of how it will fit in with future cooler projects. Technical questions about what are all parts of speech possible in all languages that will be translated need to be known. In some languages one word can be used as more than one part of speech (noun, verb, preposition, interjection, adverb, adjective, conjunction,...), an example is form. One needs to be able to add new words to the program and have a way to correctly add possible parts of speech of the new word and note if the answer given is not verified. Ideally, one could pick the URL of an online dictionary, parse out the part of speech, and verify the spelling or if the user doesn't have internet access at the time mark it for either nothing (temporary ignore word), let user add it with what they know/think it is (good help menus on grammar needed) and modify it if needed, or skip the word in the analysis.
I think WordPerfect would have the easiest time with this. They bought out Grammatik back in the 90's (possibly mid 90's). I had an old academic DOS version 5 copy and would love to upgrade it to something that can read the newer proprietary formats (I save files in RTF). It is great for reviewing if your grammar is becoming sloppy. This old program finds mistakes like switching from and form around, has modes for style of writing (i.e. will flag slang and phrases/words that aren't politically correct in business writing). It all fits on one 3.5" floppy. In the last ten years I never noticed grammar typos like with form and from from people using WordPerfect, but every few months notice them in online newspapers. I think OpenOffice.org has the potential to do the translation stuff, but it will be hard to come up with the right standards and find people who are well versed in multiple languages (i.e. Chinese, Arbic, Spanish, English,....). Note also, in some languages one word/character might stand for more than one part of speech at a time.
I don't have the full background in multiple languages to help, but hope someone else does and will volunteer. I also don't know if Open Source projects can use people who worked on old proprietary software for similar problems without risk of patent problems down the road.
I think you have a mistake in your logic (use an OR not AND), in converting the IF THEN ELSE statement, you made an illogical assumption that can never be TRUE. To make it possible you would have to have a time delay between each condition where the thing you are testing/trying to show TRUE must become FALSE. But that could backfire to GPL not being Valid when SCO used it. Then Valid after SCO used it, but only to later user(s). You gave them a decent agrument:
"IF the GPL is Valid then SCO has violated Copyright law.
If you set an AND condition for the same input to be both TRUE AND FALSE at the SAME TIME the condition will always give you a FALSE condition. If you replaced the AND with an OR in your logic (excluding tri-state logic) then: A TRUE state OR'd with anything (a FALSE, unstable condition or another TRUE) will always give a TRUE, as any decent student who has graduated or taken a few years of Electronic classes should know. Even in high school electronics classes, one learns about the unstable state between TRUE AND FALSE at the hardware level.AND
IF the GPL is InValid then SCO has violated Copyright law. THEREFORE: SCO has violated Copyright law. QED
...
Poetic justice based on hard Logic. Gotta love it."
That isn't hard logic and is some thing that could be used to confuse a jury enough to let SCO off.
Of course, the courts can completely put any logic in a Tri-State Condition, even with OR logic and that makes the inputs useless. Note the Tri-State Condition basically disables a logic gate or in programmers terms jumps over/bypasses the logic. :(
If there are killer desktop apps that only run on a true 64-bit operating system, then many places will be replacing computers anyways and switching to a new totally different OS won't seem so bad.
If a competitor of MS wants to fight MS dominance, they should try to make great tools for making software for their emerging 64-bit OS (ideally cheap or free software tools) and offer a contest for new best of software in area they are not dominant in. Contest could award the top 20 eligible applications at the end of OS's 1 year anniversery and another reward for the top ten sold on the initial release date (this group is also in running for the other awards, to promote early releases). Additionally, if a company has a dominate lead in an area or idea that the company really wants the company could offer free computers to do the developement work for their OS (discretion left to company on awards) and possibly have time limits on progress stages of the software.
In reference to #3 "Who are "people"? Define who you are talking about and present evidence. I know of noone who uses a piece of software simply because some other unknown/irrelevent group of people do so. But then again, I don't live in fantasy land."
People do use MS-Word and its family for unknown groups of people, especially when job hunting. Companies requiring resume submissions in MS-Word is so popular that Monster now has an option to submit your resume in MS-Word. I am not sure who the original "people" refered to are, but if you are a recent college graduate in the United States you are expected in most cases to use MS-Word for electronic form of your resume. Recruiters tend to have MS-Word and therefore prefer it to text files or PDF files that are usually larger files. Personally I perfer PDF since they retain the fonts and spacing of the original document and OpenOffice has free software for creating PDF's (need to save in another format to modify with OpenOffice later).
I had MS-Works on my only MS PC, completely removed it from system to free up memory. Later I replaced it with StarOffice. I can save files in MS-Word format, but the spacing and styles are sometimes different. As a check I used MS-Office 97, which I can't get updates for. Funny thing is some places still use MS-Office 95 (talked to recruiter for a city government at a job fair), so my version might not look right either.
Computer Technology Major Looking for Work in a Highly Ethical Company:
1. Treat people who you do business with (both internally and externally) as you would like to be treated.
2. Never do anything or tell anyone else to do anything that isn't fully legal.
Microsoft:"Better business alignment with straightforward licensing and clarity of intellectual property ownership. "
Just think of it as Microsoft saying "MINE, MINE, MINE, MINE! It is all for ME. I get all the rights to the property and licensing in my terms.
MINE, MINE, MINE, MINE! If you want to know the current rules just go to me because it is ALL MINE, MINE, MINE, MINE! "
See Microsoft is being honest. "From a certain point of view.", Obi Wan. IT IS THE BETTER BUSINESS ALIGNMENT FOR MICROSOFT.