As much as I would love to see Microsoft die, the company is far from dead. Corporate death usually implies both financial insolvency and the loss of the ability to innovate. While Microsoft's domination is waning (I think many will agree with that) and its innovations are lessening, the company has the assets of a medium sized country's Gross Domestic Product. With a financial indication such as that, Microsoft may be able to turn around faster. When a company such as Microsoft resorts to legal threats and intimidation, we see the psychology of the company. The intimidation factor is indicative of significant fear of being outmoded and outdone. Much of Microsoft's bluster has little or no merit, save technologies that they have patent protections on. And even then, patents can be challenged. In order to facilitate a turnaround, Microsoft would need to drop the superiority complex and focus on issues such as interoperability and maybe even open sourcing some. Red Hat and other companies have proven that open source technology can turn a profit. Maybe a good strategy would be to drop the NT Kernel and piggy-back its interface on to top of Linux or BSD and open source Active Directory. I think Red Hat and others have discovered that costs of development come down when you have the community doing a lion's share side of your development for you. I happen to like the UI of Windows, I just hate the NT Kernel and troubleshooting it.
1: She was an Evil landlord. She evicted someone. She deserved it.
2: Karma returned to her what she deserved.
3: It was a rental property. She can afford to replace everything.
4: She left the property unlocked. She deserved what she got.
5: Crime is nothing new. This is nothing new. Laugh all you want.
How do you know that she was evil? Imagine if that had been your property and your tenant was delinquent on the rent? When the tables are turned, suddenly it does not appear so evil anymore. Also, the Fair Housing Acts prevent someone from being evicted until all legal means of collecting rent money have been exhausted. Also, unless you are a corporation, property maintenance is very expensive. There is nothing funny about this and if it had happened to you, I don't think you'd be laughing. You only know one side of the story so before you go ahead and commit libel, make certain you know the whole story. Also, try and have a little understanding, you may be in that same place one day.
That most of us could have told George W. Bush that adjusting daylight savings time would not solve the energy problem or result in any savings and this should come as no surprise. I believe many of us saw right through this. After all, there are still twenty four hours in a day and by making it darker in the morning, you need more light to get ready so any savings are automatically offset. Rather than saving energy, energy usage patterns simply shifted. You want to talk energy savings, let's look at lessening greenhouse gases to keep our summers cooler so we don't have to run our air conditioners at peak load. Let's look at the promotion of more energy efficient building materials. I could go on and on. Instead of bull shitting around the issue, let's tackle it head on.
Planes are cramped enough as it is. They manage to shoe horn people into coach (steerage) at six total people per row (minus two at the emergency exit) on a medium range jet like an A320, 737, or 757. So, things are fairly claustrophobic and, mix in the woman that yaks endlessly about nothing for hours at a time and you have a recipe for air rage. I for one would be ready to yank the cell phone out of her hand and smash it against my knee. I am sure that cracking sound would be accompanied by the applause and hoots and hollers of a few passengers. So, yes, VoIP should be blocked. A simple matter really, use bandwidth throttling or port blocking. If people want to use their cell phones, make them pay for first class where it is less instrusive. Folks, flying sucks enough now, why make it worse?
I think the article was making the point, not about requiring turbo charged hardware, but about the dearth of drivers available for Vista. The lawsuit may have merits based on this because the operating system does have to work and support the hardware it is designed to support. Now, that isn't entirely Microsoft's fault as some manufacturers have dragged their feet. However, when your leading graphics chip manufacturers' drivers aren't really ready and your system is heavily dependent upon graphics, well, it stands to reason that a delay is necessary. This merit is, however slim.
I think this is a sad thing because it shows we are regressing to thought patterns more common to turn of the 20th century thinking. This is more regression than progression. What's next? Will we re-enact laws making it illegal to teach evolution in the classroom? As other slashdotters have remarked, this is very sad. Evolution happens on both macro and microcosmic scales; it is really more than just a theory. I thought we put this issue to bed decades ago. Apparently, we have people so fervently religious that they are blinded to any view that would contradict the bible. Personally, I would like to believe that there was some mix of the two. I think a higher power did something to set the evolution dynamics in motion. But, after the dynamics were set in motion, life takes on its own forms and changes independently. This is my compromise to the different set of beliefs. I do not dispute Evolution at all but something was needed to trigger life and it is difficult to believe that life started randomly. It would have to be a 1 in several trillion chance occurrence. That said, I would not say the Bible tells the entire story either. The world was not created in seven days and our fossil and other (much more reliable) geological records attest to that. This may be the unanswerable question . . . at least with our current technology.
Yes calendar and directory too. The only thing that seems a little flaky is shared contact lists but those are seldom used in my organization. Generally, someone sends me a text file with contacts when I need it but this only happens twice a year at most.
You would also need to convince the citizens to get direct connections to your servers and start assigning IP addresses, much in the same way that IANA does. This is, in theory, wholly possible. Then you could have a separate internet that gets away from government regulation. But, Homeland Security may get suspicious and you might see one of the infamous National Security letters forcing you to open your network or face imprisonment and fines. Either way, as long as King George has his way, privacy will continue to go down the tube.
I definitely agree with you there and I am a U.S. Citizen. At this point, I think by making ICANN and IANA independent of U.S. control we are safeguarding our own rights what with the wild abuses of the Patriot Act, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security. I hope ICANN doesn't capitulate. ICANN shouldn't give them shit.
Evolution as an email client works fine with the Exchange Server. At my job, I am given the freedom to run whatever operating system I choose so long as I can interface with Exchange and I use Evolution without a hitch. You may also be able to use OWA (Outlook Web Access.) I am the lone ranger in my department. Everyone else loves their Windows XP and my other mates think I am insane but the boss can't argue with my troubleshooting productivity. In fact, some of my peers have gone to me when they need text-based testing tools. I managed to convince the head systems admin to enable straight LDAP connections to active directory so I can search and update via LDAPS.
This is the one of the most flagrant and egregious acts I have ever heard of. Corporate America has sunk to new all time lows. Well, Circuit City won't be getting my business (not that it really amounts to much anyway.) Have you ever noticed how the company asks, no demands, absolute loyalty from its employees but shows no reciprocity? At least in Japan, as a salaryman, you are shown the reciprocal amount of loyalty that you invest. Well, I can only hope that the media will spread this story like a firestorm and cause Circuit City to get a monster-sized case of acid indigestion. This has to be also one of the most ill-conceived plans to have ever been drafted. Was there that much utter disregard to the public relations nightmare that would ensue? Some heads will roll over this one.
You make an excellent point. As long as Dell simply certifies that their hardware will run on Linux, then pre-installed systems are really not necessary. These days, the installers for the mainstream Linux distributions are very user friendly. Gone are the days where you really needed some expertise to get the base system installed. Even the act of partitioning is simple enough. But that said, Michael Dell really did like Linux and was heard expressing so. I don't necessarily think they'll be successful in getting further concessions from Microsoft. I get the feeling that Dell might be shifting strategies somewhat. You are also right, IdeaStorm is a marketing/PR stunt. Those who would think it is solely about open source advocacy are naive. I don't use Linux or Windows. I use OpenBSD and FreeBSD but Dell speaks nothing of them . . . . this is another indicator that IdeaStorm is a PR stunt. Dell refuses to acknowledge the BSDs because they are not quit as public mainstream as Linux.
On its face, this seems like a good idea. But, there are bound to be problems related to interoperability with the various SMTP server implementations. Don't everyone groan at once when I mention M$ Exchange. I have thought of suggesting using OpenPGP but any joe blow could create a PGP public/private key-pair that purports to be from Paypal and use that key to send out phishing emails. I suppose Paypal could include a fingerprint of its key but I am not really sure. S/MIME might also be another option for digital signing.
I hear a lot of complaints about Vista and love to read about them because it makes the case stronger for competing open source operating systems. Remember, M$ did not put a gun to the collective heads to upgrade to Vista. If you upgraded, it was your decision. When you are an early adopter, you can expect bugs like these and many more to come. I personally wouldn't touch Vista at all as I discovered the wonders of FreeBSD on the desktop and have not looked back.
Remember, you aren't as "joined at the hip" to Microsoft as many people might think. Do a little research, take some small risks, and actually learn about your computer instead of only using it. The rewards are many and I have a desktop machine that is just about functionally equivalent to an XP box. I get some quirks with websites but that is because the website might have been built in an MS-centric technology. Even Firefox on Windows might have difficulty handling that website. I can use video streaming, mp3s, edit digital photos and more. Moreover, I do not suffer from the same security woes of Windows. While Windows XP has over a 100 patches for its fairly base OS, a look at FreeBSD's website reveals far fewer patches. FreeBSD also gives me more accessible control over the kernel so I can set certain TCP flags to timeout a connection sooner thus not leaving ports open. The firewalling/packet filtering facilities are also immeasurably better than Microsoft's. I can keep on going.
Hey, that's kind of cool. I didn't know about freebsd-update and I am a FreeBSD admin. That's the cool thing about UNIX like systems. There is always learning. I usually do a cvsup if I want to upgrade the whole thing. For just bugs in BIND or other programs, I grab the patch file.
Most open source operating systems deliver their patches primarily as source code. I know Free and Net BSD and Linux provide source based patches. In fact, if you track the FreeBSD security announcements and errata information, you download a source code patch in the form of a diff file. To apply the patch, simply make certain you have downloaded the source code in the/usr/src directory and use the patch command. From there, the diffs are applied and you can run make to recompile the patched section. The commercial Linux vendors like Red Hat and SuSE provide binary patches for convenience purposes. The author of this article really should do more homework before making the statement that he did. Personally, I like the patch and compile method. I do know that this is a more secure way of supplying patches because you can read the source code and it makes delivering malware harder. I like to see what is going on behind the scenes.
I noticed that Flickster or whatever also scans your sent items and any email addresses that have been cached. I was very dismayed to find out that some business contacts of mine were sent these invites after a friend sent me an invite. This is out and out bad.
Wow, this is very disconcerting. Did you know that Warner was founded as a company to protect and provide employment for Jewish actors, cartoonists, and musicians in an era rampant with discrimination? In the 20s and 30s, Jewish cartoonists were refused work at Disney. I am Jewish and the actions of Warner against Schwartz and Scantlebury are unconscionable. It seems like humanity is constantly condemned to repeat history it has never learned. Jews have a specific duty, as I see it, to protect the downtrodden; especially after what we as a people have been through. The two lawsuits mentioned are an absolute abomination. Although, there may be another angle, albeit improbable, that the RIAA applied considerable pressure to bring these lawsuits and Warner capitulated.
These honorary degrees are nothing but another PR stunt. Hey, maybe this is troll material, but having Bill Gates as a potential wealthy donor on your side never hurt anyone. Give him the honorary degree, make him feel very good, and donations, donations, donations. Had Bill Gates not risen to become the chairman of Microsoft, Harvard would have paid him no more mind than a fly on the wall. As other slashdotters have pointed out, Steve Wozniak went back to college and earned his degree.
I think a lot of people smelled this one coming and it was only a matter of time before it hits. Many industries are going to outsourcing and nowhere is the impact more visible than on the devoted employee. I checked one of the links and was sickened by the fact that the appeal to Bill Gates for assistance from a quasi-temp with brain cancer and raising a family as a single parent went unheeded. If I was even a minor functionary at Microsoft and I saw that letter, I would make certain it got routed to the Chairman somehow. Are we so self-preserving that we cannot help out another human being? This even sickens me further because Gates runs a charitable foundation. I guess it must only be "en vogue" to help foreign countries because a blind eye was turned to a legitimate plea here at home.
I am not a particularly religious person but a rabbi once lectured on charity and its importance to being a good citizen. He even said that, "The highest form of charity is the anonymous donation." He said also said that true charity is not supporting a cause celebre. My cheers to those who stepped in to help that quasi-Microsoft employee. Your assistance was in the true spirit of charity.
Unfortunately, I would have to say Microsoft's actions are largely irrelevant. FoxPro was fantastic in its hay day but it is a bygone technology. I am not terribly familiar with FoxPro but I would wager, in its present inception, that it does not scale nearly as well as SQL. If the license is GPL or BSD, it could find a new lease on life in UNIX, FreeBSD, and Linux. I could see FoxPro being adapted as an LDAP backend or a configuration backend. But much beyond that, Microsoft is open sourcing FoxPro because there is little or no threat posed as the technology is, as the tag line points out, abandonware.
Please don't be to harsh when you mod me for this speculation: What if Microsoft open sources this product with a different goal in mind? For instance, maybe M$ is curious to see what new ideas become of their abandonware? Perhaps, the community might give it a new lease on life and re-develop a market for it? Should that happen M$ could close the source again, if the license is not GPL, LGPL, or BSD. Just my thoughts anyway
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As much as I would love to see Microsoft die, the company is far from dead. Corporate death usually implies both financial insolvency and the loss of the ability to innovate. While Microsoft's domination is waning (I think many will agree with that) and its innovations are lessening, the company has the assets of a medium sized country's Gross Domestic Product. With a financial indication such as that, Microsoft may be able to turn around faster. When a company such as Microsoft resorts to legal threats and intimidation, we see the psychology of the company. The intimidation factor is indicative of significant fear of being outmoded and outdone. Much of Microsoft's bluster has little or no merit, save technologies that they have patent protections on. And even then, patents can be challenged. In order to facilitate a turnaround, Microsoft would need to drop the superiority complex and focus on issues such as interoperability and maybe even open sourcing some. Red Hat and other companies have proven that open source technology can turn a profit. Maybe a good strategy would be to drop the NT Kernel and piggy-back its interface on to top of Linux or BSD and open source Active Directory. I think Red Hat and others have discovered that costs of development come down when you have the community doing a lion's share side of your development for you. I happen to like the UI of Windows, I just hate the NT Kernel and troubleshooting it.
How do you know that she was evil? Imagine if that had been your property and your tenant was delinquent on the rent? When the tables are turned, suddenly it does not appear so evil anymore. Also, the Fair Housing Acts prevent someone from being evicted until all legal means of collecting rent money have been exhausted. Also, unless you are a corporation, property maintenance is very expensive. There is nothing funny about this and if it had happened to you, I don't think you'd be laughing. You only know one side of the story so before you go ahead and commit libel, make certain you know the whole story. Also, try and have a little understanding, you may be in that same place one day.
That most of us could have told George W. Bush that adjusting daylight savings time would not solve the energy problem or result in any savings and this should come as no surprise. I believe many of us saw right through this. After all, there are still twenty four hours in a day and by making it darker in the morning, you need more light to get ready so any savings are automatically offset. Rather than saving energy, energy usage patterns simply shifted. You want to talk energy savings, let's look at lessening greenhouse gases to keep our summers cooler so we don't have to run our air conditioners at peak load. Let's look at the promotion of more energy efficient building materials. I could go on and on. Instead of bull shitting around the issue, let's tackle it head on.
Planes are cramped enough as it is. They manage to shoe horn people into coach (steerage) at six total people per row (minus two at the emergency exit) on a medium range jet like an A320, 737, or 757. So, things are fairly claustrophobic and, mix in the woman that yaks endlessly about nothing for hours at a time and you have a recipe for air rage. I for one would be ready to yank the cell phone out of her hand and smash it against my knee. I am sure that cracking sound would be accompanied by the applause and hoots and hollers of a few passengers. So, yes, VoIP should be blocked. A simple matter really, use bandwidth throttling or port blocking. If people want to use their cell phones, make them pay for first class where it is less instrusive. Folks, flying sucks enough now, why make it worse?
I think the article was making the point, not about requiring turbo charged hardware, but about the dearth of drivers available for Vista. The lawsuit may have merits based on this because the operating system does have to work and support the hardware it is designed to support. Now, that isn't entirely Microsoft's fault as some manufacturers have dragged their feet. However, when your leading graphics chip manufacturers' drivers aren't really ready and your system is heavily dependent upon graphics, well, it stands to reason that a delay is necessary. This merit is, however slim.
I think this is a sad thing because it shows we are regressing to thought patterns more common to turn of the 20th century thinking. This is more regression than progression. What's next? Will we re-enact laws making it illegal to teach evolution in the classroom? As other slashdotters have remarked, this is very sad. Evolution happens on both macro and microcosmic scales; it is really more than just a theory. I thought we put this issue to bed decades ago. Apparently, we have people so fervently religious that they are blinded to any view that would contradict the bible. Personally, I would like to believe that there was some mix of the two. I think a higher power did something to set the evolution dynamics in motion. But, after the dynamics were set in motion, life takes on its own forms and changes independently. This is my compromise to the different set of beliefs. I do not dispute Evolution at all but something was needed to trigger life and it is difficult to believe that life started randomly. It would have to be a 1 in several trillion chance occurrence. That said, I would not say the Bible tells the entire story either. The world was not created in seven days and our fossil and other (much more reliable) geological records attest to that. This may be the unanswerable question . . . at least with our current technology.
Yes calendar and directory too. The only thing that seems a little flaky is shared contact lists but those are seldom used in my organization. Generally, someone sends me a text file with contacts when I need it but this only happens twice a year at most.
You would also need to convince the citizens to get direct connections to your servers and start assigning IP addresses, much in the same way that IANA does. This is, in theory, wholly possible. Then you could have a separate internet that gets away from government regulation. But, Homeland Security may get suspicious and you might see one of the infamous National Security letters forcing you to open your network or face imprisonment and fines. Either way, as long as King George has his way, privacy will continue to go down the tube.
I definitely agree with you there and I am a U.S. Citizen. At this point, I think by making ICANN and IANA independent of U.S. control we are safeguarding our own rights what with the wild abuses of the Patriot Act, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security. I hope ICANN doesn't capitulate. ICANN shouldn't give them shit.
Evolution as an email client works fine with the Exchange Server. At my job, I am given the freedom to run whatever operating system I choose so long as I can interface with Exchange and I use Evolution without a hitch. You may also be able to use OWA (Outlook Web Access.) I am the lone ranger in my department. Everyone else loves their Windows XP and my other mates think I am insane but the boss can't argue with my troubleshooting productivity. In fact, some of my peers have gone to me when they need text-based testing tools. I managed to convince the head systems admin to enable straight LDAP connections to active directory so I can search and update via LDAPS.
This is the one of the most flagrant and egregious acts I have ever heard of. Corporate America has sunk to new all time lows. Well, Circuit City won't be getting my business (not that it really amounts to much anyway.) Have you ever noticed how the company asks, no demands, absolute loyalty from its employees but shows no reciprocity? At least in Japan, as a salaryman, you are shown the reciprocal amount of loyalty that you invest. Well, I can only hope that the media will spread this story like a firestorm and cause Circuit City to get a monster-sized case of acid indigestion. This has to be also one of the most ill-conceived plans to have ever been drafted. Was there that much utter disregard to the public relations nightmare that would ensue? Some heads will roll over this one.
You make an excellent point. As long as Dell simply certifies that their hardware will run on Linux, then pre-installed systems are really not necessary. These days, the installers for the mainstream Linux distributions are very user friendly. Gone are the days where you really needed some expertise to get the base system installed. Even the act of partitioning is simple enough. But that said, Michael Dell really did like Linux and was heard expressing so. I don't necessarily think they'll be successful in getting further concessions from Microsoft. I get the feeling that Dell might be shifting strategies somewhat. You are also right, IdeaStorm is a marketing/PR stunt. Those who would think it is solely about open source advocacy are naive. I don't use Linux or Windows. I use OpenBSD and FreeBSD but Dell speaks nothing of them . . . . this is another indicator that IdeaStorm is a PR stunt. Dell refuses to acknowledge the BSDs because they are not quit as public mainstream as Linux.
On its face, this seems like a good idea. But, there are bound to be problems related to interoperability with the various SMTP server implementations. Don't everyone groan at once when I mention M$ Exchange. I have thought of suggesting using OpenPGP but any joe blow could create a PGP public/private key-pair that purports to be from Paypal and use that key to send out phishing emails. I suppose Paypal could include a fingerprint of its key but I am not really sure. S/MIME might also be another option for digital signing.
FUCK THE RIAA! HAHA! Guess you boys aren't above the law
Remember, you aren't as "joined at the hip" to Microsoft as many people might think. Do a little research, take some small risks, and actually learn about your computer instead of only using it. The rewards are many and I have a desktop machine that is just about functionally equivalent to an XP box. I get some quirks with websites but that is because the website might have been built in an MS-centric technology. Even Firefox on Windows might have difficulty handling that website. I can use video streaming, mp3s, edit digital photos and more. Moreover, I do not suffer from the same security woes of Windows. While Windows XP has over a 100 patches for its fairly base OS, a look at FreeBSD's website reveals far fewer patches. FreeBSD also gives me more accessible control over the kernel so I can set certain TCP flags to timeout a connection sooner thus not leaving ports open. The firewalling/packet filtering facilities are also immeasurably better than Microsoft's. I can keep on going.
Hey, that's kind of cool. I didn't know about freebsd-update and I am a FreeBSD admin. That's the cool thing about UNIX like systems. There is always learning. I usually do a cvsup if I want to upgrade the whole thing. For just bugs in BIND or other programs, I grab the patch file.
Most open source operating systems deliver their patches primarily as source code. I know Free and Net BSD and Linux provide source based patches. In fact, if you track the FreeBSD security announcements and errata information, you download a source code patch in the form of a diff file. To apply the patch, simply make certain you have downloaded the source code in the /usr/src directory and use the patch command. From there, the diffs are applied and you can run make to recompile the patched section. The commercial Linux vendors like Red Hat and SuSE provide binary patches for convenience purposes. The author of this article really should do more homework before making the statement that he did. Personally, I like the patch and compile method. I do know that this is a more secure way of supplying patches because you can read the source code and it makes delivering malware harder. I like to see what is going on behind the scenes.
I noticed that Flickster or whatever also scans your sent items and any email addresses that have been cached. I was very dismayed to find out that some business contacts of mine were sent these invites after a friend sent me an invite. This is out and out bad.
Wow, this is very disconcerting. Did you know that Warner was founded as a company to protect and provide employment for Jewish actors, cartoonists, and musicians in an era rampant with discrimination? In the 20s and 30s, Jewish cartoonists were refused work at Disney. I am Jewish and the actions of Warner against Schwartz and Scantlebury are unconscionable. It seems like humanity is constantly condemned to repeat history it has never learned. Jews have a specific duty, as I see it, to protect the downtrodden; especially after what we as a people have been through. The two lawsuits mentioned are an absolute abomination. Although, there may be another angle, albeit improbable, that the RIAA applied considerable pressure to bring these lawsuits and Warner capitulated.
These honorary degrees are nothing but another PR stunt. Hey, maybe this is troll material, but having Bill Gates as a potential wealthy donor on your side never hurt anyone. Give him the honorary degree, make him feel very good, and donations, donations, donations. Had Bill Gates not risen to become the chairman of Microsoft, Harvard would have paid him no more mind than a fly on the wall. As other slashdotters have pointed out, Steve Wozniak went back to college and earned his degree.
I am sorry to hear that your mom got cancer and I hope that she is well now, or if not there yet then, on the road to recovery. I am also glad to hear that she got the assistance for the treatment that she so deserved. Cancer is a condition I wish on no person. Did you see the link: ? I am sorry to sound cynical but I suspect Microsoft is not being altruistic but reacting to bad press and a previous lawsuit. The laws governing permanent temporary employees are very muddied.
I am not a particularly religious person but a rabbi once lectured on charity and its importance to being a good citizen. He even said that, "The highest form of charity is the anonymous donation." He said also said that true charity is not supporting a cause celebre. My cheers to those who stepped in to help that quasi-Microsoft employee. Your assistance was in the true spirit of charity.
Personally, I like Bob's "Box-o-Discs." Easier, cheesier, and square . . . .
Oh great, another worthless certification! I am so sick of these
Please don't be to harsh when you mod me for this speculation: What if Microsoft open sources this product with a different goal in mind? For instance, maybe M$ is curious to see what new ideas become of their abandonware? Perhaps, the community might give it a new lease on life and re-develop a market for it? Should that happen M$ could close the source again, if the license is not GPL, LGPL, or BSD. Just my thoughts anyway