I ordered it recently from Bookpool.com and although they claim that it's out of stock, I still ordered it and recevied it not too long after. Otherwise, if you'd rather get it a little sooner, try out Amazon.
Also, a very interesting resource is available through Pragmatic Programmer, a beta book which means you can get PDF updates as they are written until it is shipped in hard copy in Feb. 2006. Already a book of 160+ pages, they already had a section on creating your own version of Google Maps (and more relating to SAJAX and other PHP implementations). The beta book, while only a little extra, is highly recommended!
Somehow this article slipped through the/. MS filter and is not sufficient anti-MS! Quick, call Neo! Fortunately, having a free MSDN subscription that ended at the end of October got me just under the wire for the release of Team System Developer's Edition. Nevermind that I don't have the extra 3 GB to play around with right now...
We were all handed "free" (laptop + support paid in tuition) laptops as freshmen complete with Wifi, and we were one of the first campuses to implement Wi-fi throughout campus. I've seen the pros and cons firsthand and still I think it's generally more positive than negative to have one in class, although self control is required if you bring it.
In the massive lecture halls with rather boring lectures, having a laptop was great because you could do other work or emails, and at random times type up the notes the professor is putting on the board (which you'll have to regurgitate in a few weeks). Yes, I also noticed the problem of games, etc. which would distract those surrounding one individual, but that was quite rare actually and only for a few of the worst professors.
I suspect some professors actually fear the power of Google. I had humanities professors, for instance, who could get away with saying absolute BS because no one could immediately check, and bringing up old news wouldn't be nearly as effective. However, I've cross-checked and verified what the prof says so s/he cannot get away with anything! It keeps a professor honest and class discussions interesting.
Other professors, especially in CS, are so ridiculously old-fashioned by writing notes on the board. Rarely are pictures involved and thus it seems like a total waste (while if they are, I understand why using the board or markers on a blank slide on overhead would be preferable). All this mental energy is spent on keeping up with their writing rather than thinking critically about the problem at hand. Some of my better professors would write on the board (or use overheads) but insist that we do NOT copy down their notes (as they will make the notes available). I find that much preferable, and combined with the power of the Internet to provide examples or other lecture notes, I can build my list of resources during the lecture itself.
My alma mater (Stevens Institute of Technology) had a reputation for having students who take many credits at a time, and so I've seen multitasking among a few that I found absolutely amazing (side work being done in class while at the same time catching the drift of the class dicussion for example). The other students would often drop (or fail) out or switch majors, which is fine by me! The WiFi, which wasn't always used but has become more and more prevalent, has greater potential for good than for bad for the students who are there to learn. The others would sit around in their dorm and skip class or play games on a laptop - it really didn't much matter. BTW, I did graduate in 4 years with high honors with BS and MS in Computer Science, so my high level of laptop use did seemed to work out fine. YMMV
My little Microsoft Intellimouse fearlessly clicks where few other mice dare to click. But now my mouse is undergoing a serious identity crisis thanks to these silly scientists...
Yes, it seems it's likely someone on/., a Masters degree in CS with too much time on his hands. Well, apparently, souls are now for sale on Google Base. His soul is apparently worth slightly more than 2 cents to him. The philosophical questions raised by such a sale are numerous (as the parent has mentioned), but I took the shortcut and reported it to Google Base as a nonsaleable item, and a misleading post at that. Interestingly, GOogle Base would be a great place to hook up with the baser sort...
Fortunately u can get most of them on iTunes. Althought, that does have DRM for those who are purists when it comes to buying music. In that case, go to allofmp3.com
Although you spoke with rhetorical flourish, your entire post shows your ignorance of the issues at stake and is quite illogical. You know for a fact that when someone discovers that your software is running on their system (installed by someone else), there is no way they can have read your EULA and it's obvious that the anti-spyware researchers who may be examining their system are not aware of the EULA either. So, the burden of proof lies upon you to prove that they were pirating a version of your software and bypassing the EULA explicitly (if the EULA is in fact legally binding, which is another discussion). In fact, you have no evidence that they downloaded OR installed your program rather than witnessing it's effects on a system of someone who your software was spying upon. Hence, your whole argument based upon the EULA is bogus due to the very nature of the software you sell.
You furthermore have no control over whose system it is installed on. I could maliciously install YOUR SOFTWARE on a neighbor's computer and steal their personal information and credit card number, etc., because I have been on their computer for 5 minutes. Now, if that person discovers an identity theft and it is linked to your spying program, how would that be Sunbelt's fault? In fact, you even happen to encourage invasion of privacy (or even illegal activity) by suggesting, "Do you want to be a hacker like in the movies?" That, I'm afraid, has invasion of privacy and/or identity theft written all over it!
So, no, I'm afraid this isn't a case of a pirated version of Microsoft Windows. Furthermore, this program can be illegally bundled on someone's system without your knowledge with known spyware in order to do keylogging and other "innocent" things. I'm not necessarily saying you should be blamed for this necessarily, but you evidently don't see how black hat hackers love programs like yours for their own purposes and that could be where Sunbelt got involved. And the lack of professionalism of your website adds to their suspicion, rather than alleviates it.
The fact that you stonewalled Grisoft about it is neither here nor there. People threaten legal action over very silly things these days and often can bully their way into anything they desire, but that doesn't mean you have any further legal grounds for your argument.
Oh, and apparently you weren't aware when you registered as a Slashdot user - that by posting to this blog, you abdicate all legal rights to sue anti-spyware companies. Oh, you weren't aware of that? I'm really sorry...
No, let's leave that partisan rhetoric to the +4 and +5 Insightful comments...which usually target GWB and the Republicans. But I haven't seen you complain when/. editors post "news" in the political arena that often includes a summary that disses Bush & Republicans.
Alright, I think some people may have a very narrow view of science. Let's do some time travel, perhaps. Was Newton studying science per se since he happened to believe that God created the world? No, apparently, science began once Darwin came along. I've heard current philosophers/scientists bash pre-Darwinian science and what it accomplished, but with some of the technical shortcomings, political problems, and religious wars, it's really quite amazing to see what people came up with in an era where (surprise) most people believed in a Creator God.
I'd like to mention that I'm quite intellectual and yet I could be correctly labeled an evangelical Christian. I'm not sure how many posters above have met bona fide evangelical Christians who are also intellectuals - I hope we have a reputation for being selfless and considerate while at the same time zealous to learn. If anything, understanding that life has purpose and that universe is ordered makes it an amazing logical puzzle that challenges me to solve it...unlocking genetic codes and transfering them into genetic algorithms, discovering the amazing beauty and order in our human bodies, and so much more.
I've been fortunate to have had a mentor who's a genius in CS (Princeton grad, worked at Goldman Sachs, etc.), has a brilliant logical mind, and has a totally rational basis for his Christian faith. He's very down-to-earth, selfless, and a pleasure to be around and now sacrifices the $$ he could be making to teach in my old high school. I guess my love for learning came from his influence although my entire family has a love for education. I have a BS and MS degree in CS as well as a philosophy minor (and four siblings currently in college). However, I can promise you that my philosophy classes with this Christian philosopher/high-school teacher were better than all the other classes combined for my Philosophy minor by so-called experts in Philosophy. I've wondered why sometimes...
{Thinking aloud...}maybe it's the problem with the presupposition that "Science and dogma don't mix very well at all." Yeah, it sounds good because maybe your professor or mentor told you that (or you've said it enough times), but could you actually argue that Science and Postmodernist relativism mix better? I've seen a Postmo professor laud science, but sometimes I wonder why he can even assume that MUST be true when after all, how can we really know anything for sure? I find David Hume to be a very interesting philosopher, but for some reason, I don't see him as a cutting-edge scientist. I'd see an absolutist being a scientist much more readily than a relativist...even if only for the motivation to continue through all that painstaking effort if you know that the truth is indeed out there!
However, I'm not happy, when evangelicals (or naturalists for that matter) stop valuing learning and education and develop an escapist attitude. So, yeah, I can quote most of the recent evolutionary theories of how life originated (I hear it's down to a science now, but so far it's not been reproducable ).;) Conversely, how many of you can coherently explain and refute some of Dembski's arguments?
Now, I know I will probably get modded down...because I actually don't bash evangelicals. But maybe you might wish to hear from one for a change...
happened in Detroit in the last 24 hours. Apparently all ingoing/outgoing traffic to other Tier One ISPs had problems in that city. Also, Philadelphia had really slow traffic within Level3 (and slower to all the others), and had major problems connecting to Verio. San Diego also had some problems, especially within the Level3 network. St. Louis was the only area without major problems...
I'd say Pat Schroeder's perspective on this all is more dangerous than the others (RIAA/MPAA), and thus not completely comparable. For the most part, once you buy your overpriced CD/DVD, you can lend it to a friend and they can play it and so on as they wish. Now, once you buy your overpriced book from a publishing house, you can also lend it to a friend. However, she wants you not to be able to give it to a library so it can be lent to strangers or anyone. We're not talking about making copies, just borrowing the freakin' book! And unlike the CD, where you can oftentimes preview each track online, you can't always do that so easily with a book (except for something like Google Print or Amazon's growing preview section).
The great thing about Libraries is that they break down the elitist mindset of some booksellers who price a (usually hardcover) book at a ridiculous cost for something you have hardly even seen or "sampled". You can actually borrow the book for 3 weeks, do your research or reading of the latest best seller, and it costs you nothing! Furthermore, libraries go a LONG way in breaking down socio-economic barriers to success since they often provide free Internet access and a ton of books on loan so those who can't afford the high-priced information can now access it. Of course a successful library system means that the onus is on the publisher to come up with good literature so that people will actually want their own purchased copy...but apparently that's too much to ask for some publishers.
So your fiance is not a native in an African country? And last time I checked, West Africa is not a country in Africa. You reveal your ignorance of the divergence within Africa. Oh, and statistically, AIDS is a much bigger issue than anything within MS's domain...and they are doing their part to do research and work towards an HIV vaccine.
My brother spent part of his summer at a medical mission compound in northern Kenya (not far from the Sudanese border), and one thing he has noticed is that they don't like to be lumped into one big "African" umbrella. He has been able to differentiate between the Somalis, the local Kenyan tribespeople, and the Sudanese. He did have an always-on Internet connection at the compound as they rely much on Western support/contacts, while many local people came weekly to get water from the well on the compound. They used a generator quite a bit, apparently, so it's really a different way of life.
My dad spent a week in Zambia, which is unique in its own right. The one strange thing he found was that there was only a max of 2 hours of electricity per day (oftentimes less). And while many people around him had next to nothing, they were much more hospitable than many from the West.
I must beg to differ with your thought that Microsoft has "the power to make Africa a developing nation" (Africa != a nation) and to make the world a better place. If you think that throwing money...or software... at Africa will make it a better place, then you have a very simplistic view of the continent that is Africa. Throwing software at a 20-year civil war in Sudan won't make it disappear, just as throwing software at parts of Kenya won't make the roads turn into tarmac. I appreciate your zeal and interest in the betterment of Africa as a whole, but unless you have lived there and understood the culture in any specific country there, you do not begin to understand the problems that exist in the "country of Africa."
OK, some have argued well that an Encyclopedia is really not a valid source of information for writing an article worth publishing. So, in that sense, both Wikipedia and other Encyclopedias (Britannica, etc.) offer starting points to point you in the direction of other more relevant sources of information.
Experts, including dead-tree encyclopedia authors, are definitely biased despite their voluminous amount of knowledge. They will *refuse* to look into some areas of study any further because they don't want to do so. The "peer reviews" may simply be a group of people patting each other on the back and not seriously attempting to counter the bias. The advantage of Wikipedia is not that it is unbiased, but that, given some time and effort, you can use the diff tool to find out what else each other has written and determine the bias. In other words, authors can't necessarily hide behind their biases.
Wikipedia of course has its stronger areas and weaker areas, but it is one resource among many that can be useful when doing research. As some have mentioned, it is kind of like running a Google search on something.
Mod parent down! This book is offered on Amazon for only $16.47 (not $199). The article advertises a Palm Tungsten E2 Handheld, which is obviously not his book, but an ad for something else.
If I were Google, I'd be interested in AOL for the customer base and...their millions of IM users. Talk about scaling the number of Google Talk users! Next up, including automated context-sensitive ads on the side of the chat window (like with Gmail) rather than the (annoying) picture or video ads AOL puts up now.
Instead of writing it off based on screenshots...
on
Preview of New MSN Hotmail
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
why not create a temp Hotmail account and sign up for a beta? I'd like to test the new beta with Firefox (and Adblock on) and post my results. It might work well...or not (primarily depending on which team was working on it).
Note the following discoveries:
As early as iTunes 4.8, there was a resource file which contained iTunes video images. They include video purchase icons and the like - interesting...
especially since his book, "The Google Legacy" sells for $180.00 per download. If Google manages to dethrone MS by unseating Office (or even Windows) via a service-based approach, they open the floodgates to any new startup which could out-Google Google itself. Google is nice because it is simple and fast, but the minute someone else comes out with something having better UI (AJAX or something else) and still fast and accurate, I'm probably leaving.
Furthermore, there are definitely some privacy concerns that would cause me to stop testing Google's latest stuff...like the current linking of my Gmail account and personalized search patterns. And I still don't use my Gmail account primarily because I don't equate an honest display of ads with "Do no evil." I still don't know what they PLAN to do with the Gmail product as well as a ton of their other "free" services. Data mining, sell search info, something?
One problem, I would think, is that they (admittedly) use XML (SOAP) for communications between client/server. Obviously, that is bound to be slow because every SOAP message can be quite big. There should be another way - I'll have to check it out sometimes.
I think the web interface can be tweaked for performance so it reaches somewhere closer to the performance of Gmail because it doesn't have all that much more complexity.
Microsoft holds the yearly Imagine Cup, which has had thousands of participants who program all kinds of.NET projects. Each year, a set of Student Ambassadors to Microsoft are involved in promoting this competition and getting HS/college students interested in real-world programming projects which they continue to own and could potentially sell after demonstrating them to MS and INETA members. I was one such SA, and was priveleged to know others who were knowledgeable and motivated, but it was a constant battle because the Imagine Cup was poorly timed (because we all know MS is never late) both years I promoted it and didn't jive well with college Senior Design projects. Of all the SAs (in past years anyway), I know of very few who had offers and accepted them at MS, while others like my friend Gayle were more prominant in that they left MS for Google (Seattle Times) and had good reasons for it. I'm also definitely not working for Microsoft, and I can safely say we all saw MS to be massive and unwieldy with the coveted VS.NET devs hidden behind scores of contractors and PR people and PowerPoint Slides.
Slashdot Mirror
I ordered it recently from Bookpool.com and although they claim that it's out of stock, I still ordered it and recevied it not too long after. Otherwise, if you'd rather get it a little sooner, try out Amazon.
Also, a very interesting resource is available through Pragmatic Programmer, a beta book which means you can get PDF updates as they are written until it is shipped in hard copy in Feb. 2006. Already a book of 160+ pages, they already had a section on creating your own version of Google Maps (and more relating to SAJAX and other PHP implementations). The beta book, while only a little extra, is highly recommended!
Somehow this article slipped through the /. MS filter and is not sufficient anti-MS! Quick, call Neo! Fortunately, having a free MSDN subscription that ended at the end of October got me just under the wire for the release of Team System Developer's Edition. Nevermind that I don't have the extra 3 GB to play around with right now...
We were all handed "free" (laptop + support paid in tuition) laptops as freshmen complete with Wifi, and we were one of the first campuses to implement Wi-fi throughout campus. I've seen the pros and cons firsthand and still I think it's generally more positive than negative to have one in class, although self control is required if you bring it.
In the massive lecture halls with rather boring lectures, having a laptop was great because you could do other work or emails, and at random times type up the notes the professor is putting on the board (which you'll have to regurgitate in a few weeks). Yes, I also noticed the problem of games, etc. which would distract those surrounding one individual, but that was quite rare actually and only for a few of the worst professors.
I suspect some professors actually fear the power of Google. I had humanities professors, for instance, who could get away with saying absolute BS because no one could immediately check, and bringing up old news wouldn't be nearly as effective. However, I've cross-checked and verified what the prof says so s/he cannot get away with anything! It keeps a professor honest and class discussions interesting.
Other professors, especially in CS, are so ridiculously old-fashioned by writing notes on the board. Rarely are pictures involved and thus it seems like a total waste (while if they are, I understand why using the board or markers on a blank slide on overhead would be preferable). All this mental energy is spent on keeping up with their writing rather than thinking critically about the problem at hand. Some of my better professors would write on the board (or use overheads) but insist that we do NOT copy down their notes (as they will make the notes available). I find that much preferable, and combined with the power of the Internet to provide examples or other lecture notes, I can build my list of resources during the lecture itself.
My alma mater (Stevens Institute of Technology) had a reputation for having students who take many credits at a time, and so I've seen multitasking among a few that I found absolutely amazing (side work being done in class while at the same time catching the drift of the class dicussion for example). The other students would often drop (or fail) out or switch majors, which is fine by me! The WiFi, which wasn't always used but has become more and more prevalent, has greater potential for good than for bad for the students who are there to learn. The others would sit around in their dorm and skip class or play games on a laptop - it really didn't much matter. BTW, I did graduate in 4 years with high honors with BS and MS in Computer Science, so my high level of laptop use did seemed to work out fine. YMMV
My little Microsoft Intellimouse fearlessly clicks where few other mice dare to click. But now my mouse is undergoing a serious identity crisis thanks to these silly scientists...
Yes, it seems it's likely someone on /., a Masters degree in CS with too much time on his hands. Well, apparently, souls are now for sale on Google Base. His soul is apparently worth slightly more than 2 cents to him. The philosophical questions raised by such a sale are numerous (as the parent has mentioned), but I took the shortcut and reported it to Google Base as a nonsaleable item, and a misleading post at that. Interestingly, GOogle Base would be a great place to hook up with the baser sort...
Fortunately u can get most of them on iTunes. Althought, that does have DRM for those who are purists when it comes to buying music. In that case, go to allofmp3.com
Although you spoke with rhetorical flourish, your entire post shows your ignorance of the issues at stake and is quite illogical. You know for a fact that when someone discovers that your software is running on their system (installed by someone else), there is no way they can have read your EULA and it's obvious that the anti-spyware researchers who may be examining their system are not aware of the EULA either. So, the burden of proof lies upon you to prove that they were pirating a version of your software and bypassing the EULA explicitly (if the EULA is in fact legally binding, which is another discussion). In fact, you have no evidence that they downloaded OR installed your program rather than witnessing it's effects on a system of someone who your software was spying upon. Hence, your whole argument based upon the EULA is bogus due to the very nature of the software you sell.
You furthermore have no control over whose system it is installed on. I could maliciously install YOUR SOFTWARE on a neighbor's computer and steal their personal information and credit card number, etc., because I have been on their computer for 5 minutes. Now, if that person discovers an identity theft and it is linked to your spying program, how would that be Sunbelt's fault? In fact, you even happen to encourage invasion of privacy (or even illegal activity) by suggesting, "Do you want to be a hacker like in the movies?" That, I'm afraid, has invasion of privacy and/or identity theft written all over it!
So, no, I'm afraid this isn't a case of a pirated version of Microsoft Windows. Furthermore, this program can be illegally bundled on someone's system without your knowledge with known spyware in order to do keylogging and other "innocent" things. I'm not necessarily saying you should be blamed for this necessarily, but you evidently don't see how black hat hackers love programs like yours for their own purposes and that could be where Sunbelt got involved. And the lack of professionalism of your website adds to their suspicion, rather than alleviates it.
The fact that you stonewalled Grisoft about it is neither here nor there. People threaten legal action over very silly things these days and often can bully their way into anything they desire, but that doesn't mean you have any further legal grounds for your argument.
Oh, and apparently you weren't aware when you registered as a Slashdot user - that by posting to this blog, you abdicate all legal rights to sue anti-spyware companies. Oh, you weren't aware of that? I'm really sorry...
My favorite line from the Yahoos:
:)
From the Dude's Fish Store:
What we offer - We have better fish than our competitors.
Pretty cool
No, let's leave that partisan rhetoric to the +4 and +5 Insightful comments...which usually target GWB and the Republicans. But I haven't seen you complain when /. editors post "news" in the political arena that often includes a summary that disses Bush & Republicans.
- Music Video - Michael Jackson - Thriller
- TV Show -
...And Found - Lost
- Movie - For the Birds - Pixar
- Music Video - Fatboy Slim - Weapon of Choice
- TV Show - Man of Science, Man of Faith (Premiere) - Lost
- TV Show - They Asked Me Why I Believe in You - Desparate Housewives
- Music Video - Kanye West - Gold Digger
- Movie - Boundin' - Pixar
- Movie - Geri's Game - Pixar
- TV Show - Orientation - Lost
- TV Show - Everybody Hates Hugo - Lost
- TV Show - Adrift - Lost
- Music Video - Clint Eastwood - Gorillaz
- TV Show - Malum - Night Stalker
- Music Video - La Tortura - Shakira & Alejandro Sanz
For those really interested, you can see the Top 100 Videos (requires iTunes).Alright, I think some people may have a very narrow view of science. Let's do some time travel, perhaps. Was Newton studying science per se since he happened to believe that God created the world? No, apparently, science began once Darwin came along. I've heard current philosophers/scientists bash pre-Darwinian science and what it accomplished, but with some of the technical shortcomings, political problems, and religious wars, it's really quite amazing to see what people came up with in an era where (surprise) most people believed in a Creator God.
;) Conversely, how many of you can coherently explain and refute some of Dembski's arguments?
I'd like to mention that I'm quite intellectual and yet I could be correctly labeled an evangelical Christian. I'm not sure how many posters above have met bona fide evangelical Christians who are also intellectuals - I hope we have a reputation for being selfless and considerate while at the same time zealous to learn. If anything, understanding that life has purpose and that universe is ordered makes it an amazing logical puzzle that challenges me to solve it...unlocking genetic codes and transfering them into genetic algorithms, discovering the amazing beauty and order in our human bodies, and so much more.
I've been fortunate to have had a mentor who's a genius in CS (Princeton grad, worked at Goldman Sachs, etc.), has a brilliant logical mind, and has a totally rational basis for his Christian faith. He's very down-to-earth, selfless, and a pleasure to be around and now sacrifices the $$ he could be making to teach in my old high school. I guess my love for learning came from his influence although my entire family has a love for education. I have a BS and MS degree in CS as well as a philosophy minor (and four siblings currently in college). However, I can promise you that my philosophy classes with this Christian philosopher/high-school teacher were better than all the other classes combined for my Philosophy minor by so-called experts in Philosophy. I've wondered why sometimes...
{Thinking aloud...}maybe it's the problem with the presupposition that "Science and dogma don't mix very well at all." Yeah, it sounds good because maybe your professor or mentor told you that (or you've said it enough times), but could you actually argue that Science and Postmodernist relativism mix better? I've seen a Postmo professor laud science, but sometimes I wonder why he can even assume that MUST be true when after all, how can we really know anything for sure? I find David Hume to be a very interesting philosopher, but for some reason, I don't see him as a cutting-edge scientist. I'd see an absolutist being a scientist much more readily than a relativist...even if only for the motivation to continue through all that painstaking effort if you know that the truth is indeed out there!
However, I'm not happy, when evangelicals (or naturalists for that matter) stop valuing learning and education and develop an escapist attitude. So, yeah, I can quote most of the recent evolutionary theories of how life originated (I hear it's down to a science now, but so far it's not been reproducable ).
Now, I know I will probably get modded down...because I actually don't bash evangelicals. But maybe you might wish to hear from one for a change...
happened in Detroit in the last 24 hours. Apparently all ingoing/outgoing traffic to other Tier One ISPs had problems in that city. Also, Philadelphia had really slow traffic within Level3 (and slower to all the others), and had major problems connecting to Verio. San Diego also had some problems, especially within the Level3 network. St. Louis was the only area without major problems...
For a breakdown, check out this view of the data.
I'd say Pat Schroeder's perspective on this all is more dangerous than the others (RIAA/MPAA), and thus not completely comparable. For the most part, once you buy your overpriced CD/DVD, you can lend it to a friend and they can play it and so on as they wish. Now, once you buy your overpriced book from a publishing house, you can also lend it to a friend. However, she wants you not to be able to give it to a library so it can be lent to strangers or anyone. We're not talking about making copies, just borrowing the freakin' book! And unlike the CD, where you can oftentimes preview each track online, you can't always do that so easily with a book (except for something like Google Print or Amazon's growing preview section).
The great thing about Libraries is that they break down the elitist mindset of some booksellers who price a (usually hardcover) book at a ridiculous cost for something you have hardly even seen or "sampled". You can actually borrow the book for 3 weeks, do your research or reading of the latest best seller, and it costs you nothing! Furthermore, libraries go a LONG way in breaking down socio-economic barriers to success since they often provide free Internet access and a ton of books on loan so those who can't afford the high-priced information can now access it. Of course a successful library system means that the onus is on the publisher to come up with good literature so that people will actually want their own purchased copy...but apparently that's too much to ask for some publishers.
So your fiance is not a native in an African country? And last time I checked, West Africa is not a country in Africa. You reveal your ignorance of the divergence within Africa. Oh, and statistically, AIDS is a much bigger issue than anything within MS's domain...and they are doing their part to do research and work towards an HIV vaccine.
My brother spent part of his summer at a medical mission compound in northern Kenya (not far from the Sudanese border), and one thing he has noticed is that they don't like to be lumped into one big "African" umbrella. He has been able to differentiate between the Somalis, the local Kenyan tribespeople, and the Sudanese. He did have an always-on Internet connection at the compound as they rely much on Western support/contacts, while many local people came weekly to get water from the well on the compound. They used a generator quite a bit, apparently, so it's really a different way of life.
My dad spent a week in Zambia, which is unique in its own right. The one strange thing he found was that there was only a max of 2 hours of electricity per day (oftentimes less). And while many people around him had next to nothing, they were much more hospitable than many from the West.
I must beg to differ with your thought that Microsoft has "the power to make Africa a developing nation" (Africa != a nation) and to make the world a better place. If you think that throwing money...or software... at Africa will make it a better place, then you have a very simplistic view of the continent that is Africa. Throwing software at a 20-year civil war in Sudan won't make it disappear, just as throwing software at parts of Kenya won't make the roads turn into tarmac. I appreciate your zeal and interest in the betterment of Africa as a whole, but unless you have lived there and understood the culture in any specific country there, you do not begin to understand the problems that exist in the "country of Africa."
OK, some have argued well that an Encyclopedia is really not a valid source of information for writing an article worth publishing. So, in that sense, both Wikipedia and other Encyclopedias (Britannica, etc.) offer starting points to point you in the direction of other more relevant sources of information.
Experts, including dead-tree encyclopedia authors, are definitely biased despite their voluminous amount of knowledge. They will *refuse* to look into some areas of study any further because they don't want to do so. The "peer reviews" may simply be a group of people patting each other on the back and not seriously attempting to counter the bias. The advantage of Wikipedia is not that it is unbiased, but that, given some time and effort, you can use the diff tool to find out what else each other has written and determine the bias. In other words, authors can't necessarily hide behind their biases.
Wikipedia of course has its stronger areas and weaker areas, but it is one resource among many that can be useful when doing research. As some have mentioned, it is kind of like running a Google search on something.
Mod parent down! This book is offered on Amazon for only $16.47 (not $199). The article advertises a Palm Tungsten E2 Handheld, which is obviously not his book, but an ad for something else.
If I were Google, I'd be interested in AOL for the customer base and...their millions of IM users. Talk about scaling the number of Google Talk users! Next up, including automated context-sensitive ads on the side of the chat window (like with Gmail) rather than the (annoying) picture or video ads AOL puts up now.
why not create a temp Hotmail account and sign up for a beta? I'd like to test the new beta with Firefox (and Adblock on) and post my results. It might work well...or not (primarily depending on which team was working on it).
Note the following discoveries:
As early as iTunes 4.8, there was a resource file which contained iTunes video images. They include video purchase icons and the like - interesting...
Do you mean I can program against it in C#? If so, that'd be pretty cool...
especially since his book, "The Google Legacy" sells for $180.00 per download. If Google manages to dethrone MS by unseating Office (or even Windows) via a service-based approach, they open the floodgates to any new startup which could out-Google Google itself. Google is nice because it is simple and fast, but the minute someone else comes out with something having better UI (AJAX or something else) and still fast and accurate, I'm probably leaving.
Furthermore, there are definitely some privacy concerns that would cause me to stop testing Google's latest stuff...like the current linking of my Gmail account and personalized search patterns. And I still don't use my Gmail account primarily because I don't equate an honest display of ads with "Do no evil." I still don't know what they PLAN to do with the Gmail product as well as a ton of their other "free" services. Data mining, sell search info, something?
XML communication means it goes quickly? I would think not...
One problem, I would think, is that they (admittedly) use XML (SOAP) for communications between client/server. Obviously, that is bound to be slow because every SOAP message can be quite big. There should be another way - I'll have to check it out sometimes.
I think the web interface can be tweaked for performance so it reaches somewhere closer to the performance of Gmail because it doesn't have all that much more complexity.
Do not feed the trolls! Alternatively, oh Marxist Hacker, you could do better to stir up the proletariat to rebellion...
Microsoft holds the yearly Imagine Cup, which has had thousands of participants who program all kinds of .NET projects. Each year, a set of Student Ambassadors to Microsoft are involved in promoting this competition and getting HS/college students interested in real-world programming projects which they continue to own and could potentially sell after demonstrating them to MS and INETA members. I was one such SA, and was priveleged to know others who were knowledgeable and motivated, but it was a constant battle because the Imagine Cup was poorly timed (because we all know MS is never late) both years I promoted it and didn't jive well with college Senior Design projects. Of all the SAs (in past years anyway), I know of very few who had offers and accepted them at MS, while others like my friend Gayle were more prominant in that they left MS for Google (Seattle Times) and had good reasons for it. I'm also definitely not working for Microsoft, and I can safely say we all saw MS to be massive and unwieldy with the coveted VS.NET devs hidden behind scores of contractors and PR people and PowerPoint Slides.