Ummm...this is IRM not DRM. The difference being that IRM is a rights management deal for Office documents, targeted at corporate environments. The download lets you view IRM protected documents without having Office 2003 installed, this isn't DRM, doesn't have anything to do with MPAA/RIAA, and is optional. So stop with the whining.
In the case of a 6 year old with a gun you might have a point. In this case your argument is ridiculous, any 14/16 year old that isn't mentally retarded knows a gun can kill, and the kill means dead now and always. I remember being younger than these two and a kid down the street indiscriminately shooting rifles into a group of trees behind his house, a group of trees a lot of kids played in, and I knew what he was doing was dangerous and irresponsible. I think I was 10-12 at that point. Understanding what guns can do and how death works doesn't take all that long. Nobody should be apologizing for these two, somebody is dead because of these shitheads.
It's part of my job to beta test Office 2003, and unless a company is going to get all up into the collaboration software deal there isn't much new. Almost all of the new features have something to do with SharePoint or Exchange. The most noticeable user feature is new icons and a few new templates for Access. IRM, at least in the beta, requires Passport, and I would assume if you want to use it on your intranet you're buying some type of server software. Basically the feature set for the core Office apps has plateaued, and both Office XP/2003 try to push you into wizbang server purchases. That said OOo needs to deal better with Office document weirdness better, find an Access replacement, and sex up the interface before it's going anywhere.
I had a 600e a few months back, fairly old laptop, got it from eBay, beat to hell, worked perfect. I was very impressed with both the durability of the Thinkpad as well as the performance given the specs. I just got a Dell, but only because I can't afford(finance) a current Thinkpad.
I think I'm replying to a troll, but what the hell...
This is software we're talking about, nothing life or death! If you want to play HL2, boot into Windows and play it. There will be Linux native games when Linux has a critical mass of desktops, and a few geeks not buying a game isn't going to bring that critical mass any quicker.
I prefer to just wait 4-5 years on software, that way it runs fan-fucking-tastic on whatever hardware I own at the time. Quake II/III run great on my machine, settings turned up and everything.
I'm begninning to be in favor of these kind of policies. Make anything rated M 18+, make sure every store complies with this, blame parents when some kid pulls the videogame made me do it thing out of his ass.
There is obviously something very wrong with both of these kids. 16 and 14 year olds know what they are doing, know right/wrong. And they definitely know that saying GTA made them do it takes focus off of them. It would seem the parents didn't do their job, but as old as these two are I say most of the blame should fall on their head.
Voice recognition has improved, TellMe for instance works pretty well, and Cingular has either used their tech or bought something just as good. What I don't like about it in the case of Cingular is that I can't just use keys to navigate the menu, I have to use voice navigation, and that is annoying when I know what menu I want already, it slows navigation down considerably.
Voice dialing is the sux0rs. I had a phone from Sprint about 4 years ago with that feature, and it was more like scream dialing. From hearing people who still try to use it I don't think it's improved much.
Another annoying thing voice related lately is voice recognition customer service menus, so you have to call in absolute silence and can't (in some instances) navigate through using numbers anymore.
What do you expect from a struggling company that is largely catering to joe sixpack/PHBs? Slashdot is definately not unbiased either, you have to look at what you are reading and put it in context. I'd say the best site for unbiased tech news is Arstechnica.
Re:They're 10? I thought they died long ago!
on
CNET News.com Turns 7
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· Score: 2, Interesting
While I agree that CNET isn't particularly good, I don't think they are overly MS biased. You see a lot of Linux and Apple articles on there as well, and MS is the biggest player in software at the moment. And as far as quality goes, they're sort of the AP of the tech news world, you see it there early on, and then find a better article a few hours later.
And slashdot would have significantly less links/stories if cnet were to die.
In a Windows environment you could use a Knoppix CD to grab files off an unbootable windows install. Knoppix would have been great for me when I had that happen, but at the time I had to put mandrake on a second partition and mount the ntfs partition, burn needed files, and then reinstall everything.
From what I have read, and it could very well be bullshit, our gov wanted to attack Afganistan prior to Sept 11, that just gave them a good excuse. Something about an oil pipeline and Halliburton(sp).
This is a bit offtopic but somewhat similar to the above thread. What happens when spammers start spamming cellphones the are text message ready (and I think most are now)? My current provider charges ten cents per message, and that could get nasty if I didn't have that "feature" disabled.
I use Mozilla daily builds at work for 95% of my browsing. My work box is XP/P4 2.2Ghz/512/80GB. I figure that's a fairly low end box by today's standards. I have no complaints at all about Mozilla's speed. It starts quickly (I don't use quick launch), it doesn't crash much, it renders almost everything correctly. Firebird does seem a bit quicker, but it renders a fair amount of things incorrectly, and tends to crash a bit more than Moz. At any rate I don't get where the speed complaints come from.
I think if they are going to exist they should be pretty short (3 years). If someone truely comes up with a new idea, give them the time to get it to market, make some cash, but don't let that patent stifle innovation.
In the past I would have agreed with the article's point. However as I see it now I think Linux on the desktop, for most people, will be controlled by one entity. My guess would be Redhat or SuSe. Whatever they choose will become the 'standard', geeks will continue to use whatever they please, non-geeks will have their unified Redhat/SuSe desktop experience (and never know they could alter it if so inclined), everyone will be happy.
Slashdot Mirror
Ummm...this is IRM not DRM. The difference being that IRM is a rights management deal for Office documents, targeted at corporate environments. The download lets you view IRM protected documents without having Office 2003 installed, this isn't DRM, doesn't have anything to do with MPAA/RIAA, and is optional. So stop with the whining.
In the case of a 6 year old with a gun you might have a point. In this case your argument is ridiculous, any 14/16 year old that isn't mentally retarded knows a gun can kill, and the kill means dead now and always. I remember being younger than these two and a kid down the street indiscriminately shooting rifles into a group of trees behind his house, a group of trees a lot of kids played in, and I knew what he was doing was dangerous and irresponsible. I think I was 10-12 at that point. Understanding what guns can do and how death works doesn't take all that long. Nobody should be apologizing for these two, somebody is dead because of these shitheads.
It's part of my job to beta test Office 2003, and unless a company is going to get all up into the collaboration software deal there isn't much new. Almost all of the new features have something to do with SharePoint or Exchange. The most noticeable user feature is new icons and a few new templates for Access. IRM, at least in the beta, requires Passport, and I would assume if you want to use it on your intranet you're buying some type of server software. Basically the feature set for the core Office apps has plateaued, and both Office XP/2003 try to push you into wizbang server purchases. That said OOo needs to deal better with Office document weirdness better, find an Access replacement, and sex up the interface before it's going anywhere.
I had a 600e a few months back, fairly old laptop, got it from eBay, beat to hell, worked perfect. I was very impressed with both the durability of the Thinkpad as well as the performance given the specs. I just got a Dell, but only because I can't afford(finance) a current Thinkpad.
I actually prefer the AIM Linux client to the Windows one, it's pretty much pure IM, no fluff/ads. Different strokes for different folks I guess.
I think I'm replying to a troll, but what the hell...
This is software we're talking about, nothing life or death! If you want to play HL2, boot into Windows and play it. There will be Linux native games when Linux has a critical mass of desktops, and a few geeks not buying a game isn't going to bring that critical mass any quicker.
Probably censorship debate, as well as the same debate going on now.
I prefer to just wait 4-5 years on software, that way it runs fan-fucking-tastic on whatever hardware I own at the time. Quake II/III run great on my machine, settings turned up and everything.
I'm begninning to be in favor of these kind of policies. Make anything rated M 18+, make sure every store complies with this, blame parents when some kid pulls the videogame made me do it thing out of his ass.
There is obviously something very wrong with both of these kids. 16 and 14 year olds know what they are doing, know right/wrong. And they definitely know that saying GTA made them do it takes focus off of them. It would seem the parents didn't do their job, but as old as these two are I say most of the blame should fall on their head.
Voice recognition has improved, TellMe for instance works pretty well, and Cingular has either used their tech or bought something just as good. What I don't like about it in the case of Cingular is that I can't just use keys to navigate the menu, I have to use voice navigation, and that is annoying when I know what menu I want already, it slows navigation down considerably.
Voice dialing is the sux0rs. I had a phone from Sprint about 4 years ago with that feature, and it was more like scream dialing. From hearing people who still try to use it I don't think it's improved much.
Another annoying thing voice related lately is voice recognition customer service menus, so you have to call in absolute silence and can't (in some instances) navigate through using numbers anymore.
That's what I thought, and it upset me that I didn't understand the Allah array joke at all, not l33t enough I guess...
What do you expect from a struggling company that is largely catering to joe sixpack/PHBs? Slashdot is definately not unbiased either, you have to look at what you are reading and put it in context. I'd say the best site for unbiased tech news is Arstechnica.
While I agree that CNET isn't particularly good, I don't think they are overly MS biased. You see a lot of Linux and Apple articles on there as well, and MS is the biggest player in software at the moment. And as far as quality goes, they're sort of the AP of the tech news world, you see it there early on, and then find a better article a few hours later.
And slashdot would have significantly less links/stories if cnet were to die.
In a Windows environment you could use a Knoppix CD to grab files off an unbootable windows install. Knoppix would have been great for me when I had that happen, but at the time I had to put mandrake on a second partition and mount the ntfs partition, burn needed files, and then reinstall everything.
From what I have read, and it could very well be bullshit, our gov wanted to attack Afganistan prior to Sept 11, that just gave them a good excuse. Something about an oil pipeline and Halliburton(sp).
I've seen CRTs go a little weird when my phone rings as well.
And I thought I was pissed when I dropped my iBook...
This is a bit offtopic but somewhat similar to the above thread. What happens when spammers start spamming cellphones the are text message ready (and I think most are now)? My current provider charges ten cents per message, and that could get nasty if I didn't have that "feature" disabled.
I'd think you would just do your evil from a RAM disk, then no worries.
I use Mozilla daily builds at work for 95% of my browsing. My work box is XP/P4 2.2Ghz/512/80GB. I figure that's a fairly low end box by today's standards. I have no complaints at all about Mozilla's speed. It starts quickly (I don't use quick launch), it doesn't crash much, it renders almost everything correctly. Firebird does seem a bit quicker, but it renders a fair amount of things incorrectly, and tends to crash a bit more than Moz. At any rate I don't get where the speed complaints come from.
I think if they are going to exist they should be pretty short (3 years). If someone truely comes up with a new idea, give them the time to get it to market, make some cash, but don't let that patent stifle innovation.
In the past I would have agreed with the article's point. However as I see it now I think Linux on the desktop, for most people, will be controlled by one entity. My guess would be Redhat or SuSe. Whatever they choose will become the 'standard', geeks will continue to use whatever they please, non-geeks will have their unified Redhat/SuSe desktop experience (and never know they could alter it if so inclined), everyone will be happy.
Yeah, then all you'd have to do is get the code for the Windows apps you want to use, and compile for PPC.