I bought a new HP Pavilion with Vista on it for my business and tried for weeks to get a downgrade to XP Pro. The purchase was made before the end of the offer by Microsoft. Microsoft said I had to contact HP. HP said they didn't offer it. The vendor said to call Microsoft. I even called the regional Microsoft sales office. It wan't going to happen.
Everybody had their own reasons why it couldn't be done. Some people said it wouldn't work on the PC I bought. Microsoft said they "may" be able to do it if I upgraded to Vista Ultimate first. No guarantee though. HP tech support lied so much that I lost all respect for HP.
It didn't matter that this was a business system for a business and a business use. It didn't matter what the reasons were. Nobody cared because nobody offered this service. Nobody.
At every turn, I was told I had to pay full retail for XP Pro in order to get the free downgrade. Nobody was the provider of the XP downgrade. HP wouldn't do it, Microsoft wouldn't do it, the computer store wouldn't do it. Nobody.
So while this was advertised repeatedly and I was told multiple times by various people, not one of them could tell me how to accomplish this insurmountable task. I searched/. and other sites on the web and found a lot of people saying it could be done. I didn't find one article telling me *how* it could be done.
Now the time has passed and I'm stuck with Vista that crashes constantly (BSOD), won't run 35% of my existing software, can't get any media stuff to work right (no documentation from HP),...
I've pulled the drive to save it and I've put a new one on the system to run Linux with. After a lot of searching, I've located most drivers. If I can get the same business functionality out of Linux, then Windows is history in my shop. I am also considering a Mac solution.
Since so much of our software is "incompatible" with Vista, we will have buy all new anyway. This makes the cost of hardware or OS trivial and inconsequential. The application suites are what cost the most -- not the box and OS. Mac may just win out because of this.
Some things Microsoft and HP did just to be plain mean... 1. Won't let you recover files from a windows 2000 dynamic disk
(put disk in old system and transfer the data via the ethernet) 2. Won't let you add language packs without Ultimate.
(download the Windows Server 8000 packs for free) 3. Default settings are to notify HP and/or MS about everything
(wade through all this nonsense and disable it all)
Anyway, without a viable XP option, a non-windows solution is the best option.
I have a fortune wrapped up in audio, video and image editing software. These are the only programs that Vista will not let me install. I suspect the reason is all the DRM limitations and the fact that MS wants to control everything media related. I'd ask that MS lighten up a bit in that department. Let Corel Draw Suite work. Let CoolEdit Pro work. Let Adobe Premier work. Even small apps like MusicMatch Jukebox should be allowed to work.
Oh, and my computer doesn't need to keep telling people what I have and what I'm doing all the time. The IP address it keeps talking to is registered to Microsoft. Big brother is named Vista and he is watching!
Microsoft is telling people that the problem has to do with script blocking by various security/anti-virus/ad-malware products that are installed.
They say you need to uninstall your security software (McAfee, Norton, Symantec,...) BEFORE you install SP3. Then, you may reinstall your security software. While on the phone with one of their Indian or Pakistani speaking reps, they never once mentioned anything about network card, adaptors, drivers,.net, etc. It was all security product related.
No, seriously, I've had lots of calls today from people with post SP3 problems. These are not computer people -- they're my neighbors and friends and such. While the techies and the gurus understand Windoze, Micro$oft expects the common user to also. Well, Mr. Balmer, they don't! Take my neighbor, a retired military finance officer. He had the misfortune of installing SP3 on to his computer Wednesday and he hasn't used it since. Out of desperation, he called me.
Short story. He called the computer store and they told him to call Microsoft. Microsoft told him to search the Internet. What?!? He can't get on his computer so how is he going to get onto their web site? Typical of today's so called service.
I asked him to boot to safe mode and uninstall SP3 and then rollback to his previous state. He didn't understand.
What we have is hundreds of millions of users out there that are not computer people trying to look at their photos, send some E-mails to friends & family, look up stuff on the Internet.... They don't want to know computers any more than they want to know how to service their fuel injected multi-valve engine in their car. It isn't their world.
The real issue is, however, even computer savy people are getting burned by SP3. If these people can't get it to work right, how does Microsoft expect the common user to do it?
The local store here charges $200 to do a data recovery and reinstall. If I chared that, I would have made over $2000 just today! I was feeling good and didn't charge my friends but, what are their options in today's world? Nothing good when this sort of thing happens. Many of these common users don't even know about safe mode. Some systems don't come with CDs as the install is on the primary hard drive.
Microsoft wants everybody, including the millions of non-tech savy people to use their product but these people are incapable of doing anything but spending money and time when this sort of thing happens. Not a good place to be.
Xerox invents a paper where the printing disappears in a day. Not a bad idea for a copier company. Now you can make permanent copies from your prints and then reuse the print paper. Their new CEO is a lot like Carly!
I can't believe that the presidents and CEOs of the music labels and the RIAA are still in their positions. Blunder after blunder after blunder and they still have their jobs! I need to get a job like that (or weather man or stock analyst) where I can be wrong much more than I'm right and still have a job!
They tried to kill an evolving technology again. It has never worked before so they tried it again. Guess what? It didn't work again.
They then attacked their customers rather than innovate and provide a value added suite of add-ons to the music. It didn't work so they decide to continue the litigation game. Guess what? It didn't work again.
They could have kept the CD alive but they chose not to. The movie industry has managed to keep the DVD and even the VHS Tape world alive by giving the consumer more for less. The music industry decided long ago that greed was more precious than customer satisfaction.
Now DRM will kill some music forever in the future. Long after copyrights expire (if they aren't changed again), the music won't have DRM keys around to unlock it. Future generations will not have the music to enjoy. Was it worth the price?
My sites charges for advertising -- it is NOT free. If an ISP inserts ads into my pages, then I expect to be properly compensated for them.
If an ISP starts inserting ads of my competitors on any of my web sites, that would be totally unacceptable behavior.
Does this occur when a client's ISP passes traffic from my host to the customer's client? If so, I don't know how I could monitor that or even detect it unless the client user notified me.
We believe standards debate should always be carried out with respect for all parties, even when they strongly disagree
They want everybody to respect all parties yet, the ISO organization threw all respect out the window for the technical community. Pray tell, how can ISO demand respect for all parties after the slap in the face they just gave us?
Respect is a two-way street. ISO is starting to sound more and more like Microsoft -- we will tell you what you want and we will tell you how to do it.
And this surprises who? The RIAA and MediaSentry have repeatedly shown that they don't care about the law. Their gaming of the legal system is proof of that.
The problem is that our stupid courts don't put a stop to this illegal behavior right away and then, they continue to abuse the system. After a while, it becomes allowable behavior.
If our legal system would put a stop to this, it would stop. Since they continue to allow it, this behavior will also continue.
Microsoft has repeatedly shown that they really don't give a damn about rules. They are for everybody except Microsoft. Laws... The same thing.
Regarding Ethics, Morals, etc. Those are for wimps. These are not in the Microsoft vocabulary.
Microsoft expects to violate every norm of civilized society in order to maintain their market position. The world be damned.
It appears that only the EU has the balls to stand up to Microsoft and try and make them behave. Will it work? I doubt it but, it is making Microsoft stand up and notice. I see that MS has just released well over 50,000 pages of secret programming info to the EU so maybe (very small maybe) something good may come of this.
I really don't understand why any company needs to corrupt society as much as Microsoft does to maintain their position. Wouldn't it be cheaper to do provide a superior product honestly?
The United States has capped gas and oil wells all over Kansas, Oklahoma and other states. Those of us with gas and oil leases want to sell our fuels but the government says we cannot. The government pays us a small pittance to keep our wells capped. The US already has enough domestic fuel to provide for a significant part of our requirements.
The problem is refineries. We haven't built a new refinery in America in decades. We will probably never build another. The population keeps increasing. Our demand for diesel and gasoline keeps increasing but we cannot and will probably never build another refinery in America.
The reason: Ecological Impact.
So, we will pollute other countries and send billions of US dollars to the middle east rather than do anything domestically. If you want lower gas prices and heating costs, then we need to uncap all those wells across America and build some inland refineries to process those fuels.
FYI, the reason we import so much coal is because of sulfer content. US coal has more sulfer than that imported. We export as much coal as we import for that reason. We send our dirty coal for other countries to burn and we burn their cleaner coal.
I may never see it. This is what they promised for Vista. Remember? Well, look how late Vista was. I may not live long enough to ever see Windoze 7 roll out.
Comtrash advertised 6-Mbps here. They did all their comparisons to their 6-Mbps in their ads. They promoted 6-Mbps up one side and down the other.
Only one little problem... They only Delivered 1-Mbps!! After numerous complaints, I finally got a tech out here that told me they had reduced everybody's speed to make room for their TV, telephone and other products.
MIcrSOft Buys ISO Acceptance of OOXML
on
ISO Approves OOXML
·
· Score: 1
All the press releases have it wrong -- ECMA/ISO didn't approve MSOOXML as a standard. Approval means it was evaluated. The standard doesn't even exist yet. There are 6000 pages that have gone unread for the most part and lots of broken pieces. No, Microsoft bought off ECMA, ISO and the others to buy the standard.
Of course, in the process they totally destroyed any and all credibility of the ISO and the standards process. Thankfully, ODF is still a real standard that can be employed.
Microsoft is approving its own "standard", I'd say. We count 20 direct Microsoft participants:
1 BELGIUM Mr. Bruno SCHRODER MICROSOFT
2 BRAZIL Mr. Fernando GEBARA Microsoft Brazil
3 CANADA Mr. Paul COTTON Microsoft Canada
4 COTE D'IVOIRE * Mr. Wemba OPOTA MICROSOFT West and central Africa
5 CZECH REPUBLIC Mr. tepán BECHYNSKÝ Microsoft Czech Republic, Ltd
6 DENMARK Mr. Jasper Hedegaard BOJSEN Microsoft Denmark
7 FINLAND Mr. Kimmo BERGIUS Microsoft Ltd
8 GERMANY Mr. Mario WENDT Microsoft Deutschland GmbH
9 ISRAEL Mr. Shmuel YAIR Microsoft
10 ITALY Ing. Andrea VALBONI Microsoft Italy
11 JAPAN Mr. Naoki ISHIZAKA Microsoft
12 KENYA Mr. Emmanuel BIRECH Microsoft East Africa
13 NEW ZEALAND Mr. Brett ROBERTS Microsoft New Zealand
14 NORWAY Mr. Shahzad Rana Microsoft Norge AS
15 PORTUGAL * Prof. Miguel Sales DIAS MICROSOFT Portugal
16 SWITZERLAND Mr. Marc HOLITSCHER Microsoft Schweiz GmbH
17 UNITED STATES Mr. Doug MAHUGH Microsoft Corporation
18 Ecma International Mr. Brian JONES Microsoft
19 Ecma International * Mr. Jean PAOLI Microsoft Corporation
20 Assistant to Project Editor Mr. Tristan DAVIS Microsoft
Nope, there's no conflict of interest or ethics issues here. I don't know how anybody could think that Microsoft is influencing the ISO standards process.
Since Opera can identify itself as IE or another browser and, many people set it to be IE to get sites to let it operate, it is hard to get an accurate measure of the browser's position in the market.
This article ran in October of 2004 - nearly 3 1/2 years ago. While it may be (and probably is) true even today, I wonder why the story is being brought up today.
Well, the last time the DOJ was this stupid and allowed Boeing to purchase their only domestic competition, McDonnell Douglas, we saw how that turned out. Now look at who is building the next fleet of USAF refueling tankers.
Also Boeing purchased EVERY domestic fighter jet manufacturer except Lockheed/Martin and we have now seen how that has helped with cost and technology competition. Boeing doesn't make fighters!
When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?
I seriously doubt that your neighbors or even quadrant of the city are cutting into fiber optic bandwidth. OC-192 runs on fibre as do many other extremely high speed networks. 3 Mbps is nothing to fiber. Even 3 Gbps shouldn't be a problem. If it is, then somebody is running low bandwidth gear on a high-speed piece of glass.
I would suspect the issue is like comcast here. They reduced everybody's 6 Mbps cable feeds to 1 Mbps because, as one tech told me, "nobody ever checks their speeds anyway." Another tech said they were reducing the bandwidth for Internet to make room for some other digital services including high-def TV, IP telephony and more. I dropped comtrash for DSL and have been quite happy.
I did a study back in the early '80s about traffic congestion in Los Angeles, CA and based the study on standing waves. It described how turns in the road, and other features actually contributed to the inefficiency of traffic flow. It also explained the bunching up of traffic in a wave pattern where there are actually areas mostly free of cars every few miles while other areas are packed up very tight.
This article is finding many of the same conclusions I had back then. Is there a fix? I don't know but traffic on a large scale is fluid.
God help us when we have flying cars and we have to deal with idiot drivers above us and below us!
Well, Windows popup informed me that I had hit the limit of the number of times I could copy the DVD. I copyright them since I'm in the music biz and I distribute them to various entities just as a commercial DVD or CD would be done.
If Windows doesn't have this functionality, then I don't know where it is coming from because the only changes done to this box in many years (windows 2000 pro) have been the updates and, this just started recently.
All I know is that I used to be able to put a DVD I had authored into the system and copy it as many times as I wanted to but, recently, the pop-ups started and I can no longer use the Windows system to do this. If it isn't Windows doing this (media player or whatever is still windows to me), then I don't know what it is.
We have the different telcos, the cable company, and some private DSL carriers that all offer ISP services. TV is either antenna, cable (monopoly) or satellite services -- again the choice is there even if limited.
When Comtrash Internet dropped my speed from 6 Mbps to 1 Mbps but kept the rate at 6 times DSL, I dropped Comtrash and went with the 1.5 Mbps DSL from my local telco. I got 50% more than Comtrash was delivering at 1/6th the cost. No problem.
When Microsoft decided that I didn't own the rights to my own media and stopped me from being able to copy my own DVDs, I decided to drop them for my media development system and I switched to Linux and Apple. Microsoft doesn't want my business so I went with the people who do. No problem.
When my Long Distance company decided to charge over $1.00 per minute for International calls, I switched to AT&T and their 17 cents a minute program. No problem.
When Frigidaire washers charged extra for the warm water cycle but only give you 5 seconds of hot water and thus, never any, it was no problem to return the unit and buy a different brand. Sure, the salesman wasn't happy but, that is now his problem and not mine. I bought a different brand that did give me what they advertised and promised. No problem.
The list is endless and across all businesses and domains.
The point being is that there are alternatives but, many (or most) people are either too lazy to do anything about it or, like this article, they are too apathetic to do anything about it.
The choice is up to the consumer and, if the consumer would take action, the industry would have to adapt because the market demands it. So far, the market is willing to accept this and thus, the industry sees no reason to change. The less the consumer will accept for their dollar the less they will receive. That, is the problem.
In major campaigns, the National Guard (and Air National Guard) play a significant role and are often the front line service. How do you see the individual state Guard units participating? In addition, what Civilian roles will be both a part of the Guard and contracted to the Guard?
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I bought a new HP Pavilion with Vista on it for my business and tried for weeks to get a downgrade to XP Pro. The purchase was made before the end of the offer by Microsoft. Microsoft said I had to contact HP. HP said they didn't offer it. The vendor said to call Microsoft. I even called the regional Microsoft sales office. It wan't going to happen.
Everybody had their own reasons why it couldn't be done. Some people said it wouldn't work on the PC I bought. Microsoft said they "may" be able to do it if I upgraded to Vista Ultimate first. No guarantee though. HP tech support lied so much that I lost all respect for HP.
It didn't matter that this was a business system for a business and a business use. It didn't matter what the reasons were. Nobody cared because nobody offered this service. Nobody.
At every turn, I was told I had to pay full retail for XP Pro in order to get the free downgrade. Nobody was the provider of the XP downgrade. HP wouldn't do it, Microsoft wouldn't do it, the computer store wouldn't do it. Nobody.
So while this was advertised repeatedly and I was told multiple times by various people, not one of them could tell me how to accomplish this insurmountable task. I searched /. and other sites on the web and found a lot of people saying it could be done. I didn't find one article telling me *how* it could be done.
Now the time has passed and I'm stuck with Vista that crashes constantly (BSOD), won't run 35% of my existing software, can't get any media stuff to work right (no documentation from HP), ...
I've pulled the drive to save it and I've put a new one on the system to run Linux with. After a lot of searching, I've located most drivers. If I can get the same business functionality out of Linux, then Windows is history in my shop. I am also considering a Mac solution.
Since so much of our software is "incompatible" with Vista, we will have buy all new anyway. This makes the cost of hardware or OS trivial and inconsequential. The application suites are what cost the most -- not the box and OS. Mac may just win out because of this.
Some things Microsoft and HP did just to be plain mean...
1. Won't let you recover files from a windows 2000 dynamic disk
(put disk in old system and transfer the data via the ethernet)
2. Won't let you add language packs without Ultimate.
(download the Windows Server 8000 packs for free)
3. Default settings are to notify HP and/or MS about everything
(wade through all this nonsense and disable it all)
Anyway, without a viable XP option, a non-windows solution is the best option.
I have a fortune wrapped up in audio, video and image editing software. These are the only programs that Vista will not let me install. I suspect the reason is all the DRM limitations and the fact that MS wants to control everything media related. I'd ask that MS lighten up a bit in that department. Let Corel Draw Suite work. Let CoolEdit Pro work. Let Adobe Premier work. Even small apps like MusicMatch Jukebox should be allowed to work.
Oh, and my computer doesn't need to keep telling people what I have and what I'm doing all the time. The IP address it keeps talking to is registered to Microsoft. Big brother is named Vista and he is watching!
Microsoft is telling people that the problem has to do with script blocking by various security/anti-virus/ad-malware products that are installed.
...) BEFORE you install SP3. Then, you may reinstall your security software. While on the phone with one of their Indian or Pakistani speaking reps, they never once mentioned anything about network card, adaptors, drivers, .net, etc. It was all security product related.
They say you need to uninstall your security software (McAfee, Norton, Symantec,
No, seriously, I've had lots of calls today from people with post SP3 problems. These are not computer people -- they're my neighbors and friends and such. While the techies and the gurus understand Windoze, Micro$oft expects the common user to also. Well, Mr. Balmer, they don't! Take my neighbor, a retired military finance officer. He had the misfortune of installing SP3 on to his computer Wednesday and he hasn't used it since. Out of desperation, he called me.
Short story. He called the computer store and they told him to call Microsoft. Microsoft told him to search the Internet. What?!? He can't get on his computer so how is he going to get onto their web site? Typical of today's so called service.
I asked him to boot to safe mode and uninstall SP3 and then rollback to his previous state. He didn't understand.
What we have is hundreds of millions of users out there that are not computer people trying to look at their photos, send some E-mails to friends & family, look up stuff on the Internet.... They don't want to know computers any more than they want to know how to service their fuel injected multi-valve engine in their car. It isn't their world.
The real issue is, however, even computer savy people are getting burned by SP3. If these people can't get it to work right, how does Microsoft expect the common user to do it?
The local store here charges $200 to do a data recovery and reinstall. If I chared that, I would have made over $2000 just today! I was feeling good and didn't charge my friends but, what are their options in today's world? Nothing good when this sort of thing happens. Many of these common users don't even know about safe mode. Some systems don't come with CDs as the install is on the primary hard drive.
Microsoft wants everybody, including the millions of non-tech savy people to use their product but these people are incapable of doing anything but spending money and time when this sort of thing happens. Not a good place to be.
Xerox invents a paper where the printing disappears in a day. Not a bad idea for a copier company. Now you can make permanent copies from your prints and then reuse the print paper. Their new CEO is a lot like Carly!
I can't believe that the presidents and CEOs of the music labels and the RIAA are still in their positions. Blunder after blunder after blunder and they still have their jobs! I need to get a job like that (or weather man or stock analyst) where I can be wrong much more than I'm right and still have a job!
They tried to kill an evolving technology again. It has never worked before so they tried it again. Guess what? It didn't work again.
They then attacked their customers rather than innovate and provide a value added suite of add-ons to the music. It didn't work so they decide to continue the litigation game. Guess what? It didn't work again.
They could have kept the CD alive but they chose not to. The movie industry has managed to keep the DVD and even the VHS Tape world alive by giving the consumer more for less. The music industry decided long ago that greed was more precious than customer satisfaction.
Now DRM will kill some music forever in the future. Long after copyrights expire (if they aren't changed again), the music won't have DRM keys around to unlock it. Future generations will not have the music to enjoy. Was it worth the price?
My sites charges for advertising -- it is NOT free. If an ISP inserts ads into my pages, then I expect to be properly compensated for them.
If an ISP starts inserting ads of my competitors on any of my web sites, that would be totally unacceptable behavior.
Does this occur when a client's ISP passes traffic from my host to the customer's client? If so, I don't know how I could monitor that or even detect it unless the client user notified me.
I'd like to hear more on this subject.
They want everybody to respect all parties yet, the ISO organization threw all respect out the window for the technical community. Pray tell, how can ISO demand respect for all parties after the slap in the face they just gave us?
Respect is a two-way street. ISO is starting to sound more and more like Microsoft -- we will tell you what you want and we will tell you how to do it.
And this surprises who? The RIAA and MediaSentry have repeatedly shown that they don't care about the law. Their gaming of the legal system is proof of that.
The problem is that our stupid courts don't put a stop to this illegal behavior right away and then, they continue to abuse the system. After a while, it becomes allowable behavior.
If our legal system would put a stop to this, it would stop. Since they continue to allow it, this behavior will also continue.
Microsoft has repeatedly shown that they really don't give a damn about rules. They are for everybody except Microsoft. Laws... The same thing.
Regarding Ethics, Morals, etc. Those are for wimps. These are not in the Microsoft vocabulary.
Microsoft expects to violate every norm of civilized society in order to maintain their market position. The world be damned.
It appears that only the EU has the balls to stand up to Microsoft and try and make them behave. Will it work? I doubt it but, it is making Microsoft stand up and notice. I see that MS has just released well over 50,000 pages of secret programming info to the EU so maybe (very small maybe) something good may come of this.
I really don't understand why any company needs to corrupt society as much as Microsoft does to maintain their position. Wouldn't it be cheaper to do provide a superior product honestly?
The United States has capped gas and oil wells all over Kansas, Oklahoma and other states. Those of us with gas and oil leases want to sell our fuels but the government says we cannot. The government pays us a small pittance to keep our wells capped. The US already has enough domestic fuel to provide for a significant part of our requirements.
The problem is refineries. We haven't built a new refinery in America in decades. We will probably never build another. The population keeps increasing. Our demand for diesel and gasoline keeps increasing but we cannot and will probably never build another refinery in America.
The reason: Ecological Impact.
So, we will pollute other countries and send billions of US dollars to the middle east rather than do anything domestically. If you want lower gas prices and heating costs, then we need to uncap all those wells across America and build some inland refineries to process those fuels.
FYI, the reason we import so much coal is because of sulfer content. US coal has more sulfer than that imported. We export as much coal as we import for that reason. We send our dirty coal for other countries to burn and we burn their cleaner coal.
I may never see it. This is what they promised for Vista. Remember? Well, look how late Vista was. I may not live long enough to ever see Windoze 7 roll out.
Comtrash advertised 6-Mbps here. They did all their comparisons to their 6-Mbps in their ads. They promoted 6-Mbps up one side and down the other.
Only one little problem... They only Delivered 1-Mbps!! After numerous complaints, I finally got a tech out here that told me they had reduced everybody's speed to make room for their TV, telephone and other products.
All the press releases have it wrong -- ECMA/ISO didn't approve MSOOXML as a standard. Approval means it was evaluated. The standard doesn't even exist yet. There are 6000 pages that have gone unread for the most part and lots of broken pieces. No, Microsoft bought off ECMA, ISO and the others to buy the standard.
Of course, in the process they totally destroyed any and all credibility of the ISO and the standards process. Thankfully, ODF is still a real standard that can be employed.
Microsoft is approving its own "standard", I'd say. We count 20 direct Microsoft participants:
1 BELGIUM Mr. Bruno SCHRODER MICROSOFT
2 BRAZIL Mr. Fernando GEBARA Microsoft Brazil
3 CANADA Mr. Paul COTTON Microsoft Canada
4 COTE D'IVOIRE * Mr. Wemba OPOTA MICROSOFT West and central Africa
5 CZECH REPUBLIC Mr. tepán BECHYNSKÝ Microsoft Czech Republic, Ltd
6 DENMARK Mr. Jasper Hedegaard BOJSEN Microsoft Denmark
7 FINLAND Mr. Kimmo BERGIUS Microsoft Ltd
8 GERMANY Mr. Mario WENDT Microsoft Deutschland GmbH
9 ISRAEL Mr. Shmuel YAIR Microsoft
10 ITALY Ing. Andrea VALBONI Microsoft Italy
11 JAPAN Mr. Naoki ISHIZAKA Microsoft
12 KENYA Mr. Emmanuel BIRECH Microsoft East Africa
13 NEW ZEALAND Mr. Brett ROBERTS Microsoft New Zealand
14 NORWAY Mr. Shahzad Rana Microsoft Norge AS
15 PORTUGAL * Prof. Miguel Sales DIAS MICROSOFT Portugal
16 SWITZERLAND Mr. Marc HOLITSCHER Microsoft Schweiz GmbH
17 UNITED STATES Mr. Doug MAHUGH Microsoft Corporation
18 Ecma International Mr. Brian JONES Microsoft
19 Ecma International * Mr. Jean PAOLI Microsoft Corporation
20 Assistant to Project Editor Mr. Tristan DAVIS Microsoft
Nope, there's no conflict of interest or ethics issues here. I don't know how anybody could think that Microsoft is influencing the ISO standards process.
Since Opera can identify itself as IE or another browser and, many people set it to be IE to get sites to let it operate, it is hard to get an accurate measure of the browser's position in the market.
This article ran in October of 2004 - nearly 3 1/2 years ago. While it may be (and probably is) true even today, I wonder why the story is being brought up today.
Well, the last time the DOJ was this stupid and allowed Boeing to purchase their only domestic competition, McDonnell Douglas, we saw how that turned out. Now look at who is building the next fleet of USAF refueling tankers.
Also Boeing purchased EVERY domestic fighter jet manufacturer except Lockheed/Martin and we have now seen how that has helped with cost and technology competition. Boeing doesn't make fighters!
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
I found the articles fascinating and... Way Cool (pun intended).
The High-Velocity aspect of the fan v. volumes was also very interesting. Faster isn't always better.
I seriously doubt that your neighbors or even quadrant of the city are cutting into fiber optic bandwidth. OC-192 runs on fibre as do many other extremely high speed networks. 3 Mbps is nothing to fiber. Even 3 Gbps shouldn't be a problem. If it is, then somebody is running low bandwidth gear on a high-speed piece of glass.
I would suspect the issue is like comcast here. They reduced everybody's 6 Mbps cable feeds to 1 Mbps because, as one tech told me, "nobody ever checks their speeds anyway." Another tech said they were reducing the bandwidth for Internet to make room for some other digital services including high-def TV, IP telephony and more. I dropped comtrash for DSL and have been quite happy.
I did a study back in the early '80s about traffic congestion in Los Angeles, CA and based the study on standing waves. It described how turns in the road, and other features actually contributed to the inefficiency of traffic flow. It also explained the bunching up of traffic in a wave pattern where there are actually areas mostly free of cars every few miles while other areas are packed up very tight.
This article is finding many of the same conclusions I had back then. Is there a fix? I don't know but traffic on a large scale is fluid.
God help us when we have flying cars and we have to deal with idiot drivers above us and below us!
Well, Windows popup informed me that I had hit the limit of the number of times I could copy the DVD. I copyright them since I'm in the music biz and I distribute them to various entities just as a commercial DVD or CD would be done.
If Windows doesn't have this functionality, then I don't know where it is coming from because the only changes done to this box in many years (windows 2000 pro) have been the updates and, this just started recently.
All I know is that I used to be able to put a DVD I had authored into the system and copy it as many times as I wanted to but, recently, the pop-ups started and I can no longer use the Windows system to do this. If it isn't Windows doing this (media player or whatever is still windows to me), then I don't know what it is.
We have the different telcos, the cable company, and some private DSL carriers that all offer ISP services. TV is either antenna, cable (monopoly) or satellite services -- again the choice is there even if limited.
When Comtrash Internet dropped my speed from 6 Mbps to 1 Mbps but kept the rate at 6 times DSL, I dropped Comtrash and went with the 1.5 Mbps DSL from my local telco. I got 50% more than Comtrash was delivering at 1/6th the cost. No problem.
When Microsoft decided that I didn't own the rights to my own media and stopped me from being able to copy my own DVDs, I decided to drop them for my media development system and I switched to Linux and Apple. Microsoft doesn't want my business so I went with the people who do. No problem.
When my Long Distance company decided to charge over $1.00 per minute for International calls, I switched to AT&T and their 17 cents a minute program. No problem.
When Frigidaire washers charged extra for the warm water cycle but only give you 5 seconds of hot water and thus, never any, it was no problem to return the unit and buy a different brand. Sure, the salesman wasn't happy but, that is now his problem and not mine. I bought a different brand that did give me what they advertised and promised. No problem.
The list is endless and across all businesses and domains.
The point being is that there are alternatives but, many (or most) people are either too lazy to do anything about it or, like this article, they are too apathetic to do anything about it.
The choice is up to the consumer and, if the consumer would take action, the industry would have to adapt because the market demands it. So far, the market is willing to accept this and thus, the industry sees no reason to change. The less the consumer will accept for their dollar the less they will receive. That, is the problem.
Dear Gen Lord:
In major campaigns, the National Guard (and Air National Guard) play a significant role and are often the front line service. How do you see the individual state Guard units participating? In addition, what Civilian roles will be both a part of the Guard and contracted to the Guard?