Since I've searched through the feedback and have yet to find a review, here's mine:
Background:
I'm a long time palm user with too much money. Hence I got a Pilot 5000 when it came out, a III, V, IIIc. I finally decided to pick up a Visor Prism so I could get color with the OmniSky. Long story short, get the Prism, Minstrel S outta stock. Sunday evening surf over to handspring and.... "Whoa!"
I've been a customer of PacBell Mobile for several years (too many handsets to mention) so I figure, 'what the hell' and shell out the $540 for it. (Yeah, yeah, I know)
Mister FedEx drops it off Tuesday. My first impression, was cool but awkward to use, after carrying a tiny Nokia 8290 for the last couple months. Then it was, this thing sucks.... but now that I've got all the numbers transferred from my SIM and AddressBook integrated... this is slick.
Killer Feature:
The SMS, hands down. Grafiti is faster than any predictive text input on any phone. Especially when I break out the StowAway KB.
Bonus feature:
Data calls. Yeah it's only 9600, but email flows, and SSH is passable. Rather than a cell phone and a $40/mo. CDPD solution. I've got the advantages of both without the extra device and cost.
Design Points:
Unified charging. Just drop it in the cradle and it charges the Prism and the phone battery. Fire and Forget.
Downsides:
Somewhat awkward to put to your ear, but the speaker is _damn_ loud. (I've been using it speakerphone style in front of me, as the seperation between mic and speaker eliminates feedback)
The ear piece's microphone is highly succeptable to background noise (which is routed back into the ear piece (OUTCH!))
The screen gets greasy from fingers and the face, so I threw a WriteRight screen protector on, and that resolved the issue.
A note on Price:
Price is a matter of opinion, so I don't count it as a Pro or Con. You have to evaluate if that $$ will simplify your life in the most efficient manner.
Closing:
All I can say is this thing is slick and well thought out. I personally can't wait to see what people come up with once the API is released. I'm only 2 days into this eval, but I see great things.
Since I've searched through the feedback and haven't found a review here's mine:
Background, I'm a long time palm user with too much money. Hence I got a Pilot 5000 when it came out, a III, V, IIIc. I finally decided to pick up a Visor Prism so I could get color with the OmniSky. Long story short, get the Prism, Minstrel S outta stock. Sunday evening surf over to handspring and.... "Whoa!"
I've been a customer of PacBell Mobile for several years (too many handsets to mention) so I figure, 'what the hell' and shell out the $540 for it. (Yeah, yeah, I know)
Mister FedEx drops it off Tuesday. My first impression, was cool but awkward to use, after carrying a tiny Nokia 8290 for the last couple months. Then it was, this thing sucks.... but now that I've got all the numbers transferred from my SIM and AddressBook integrated... this is slick.
Fav Feature: The SMS, hands down. Grafiti is faster than any predictive text input on any phone. Especially when I break out the StowAway KB.
Killer feature: Data calls. Yeah it's only 9600, but email flows, and SSH is passable. Rather than a cell phone and a $40/mo. CDPD solution. I've got the advantages of both without the extra device and cost.
Bonus Points: Unified charging. Just drop it in the cradle and it charges the Prism and the phone battery. Fire and Forget.
Downsides:
Somewhat awkward to put to your ear, but the speaker is _damn_ loud. (I've been using it speakerphone style in front of me, as the seperation between mic and speaker eliminates feedback)
The Ear piece's microphone is highly succeptable to background noise (which is routed back into the earpiece (OUTCH!))
The screen gets greasy from fingers and the face, so I threw a WriteRight screen protector on, and that resolved the issue.
A note on Price:
Price is a matter of opinion, so I don't count it as a Pro or Con. You have to evaluate if that $$ will simplify your life in the most efficient manner.
Closing:
All I can say is this thing is slick and well thought out. I personally can't wait to see what people come up with once the API is released. I'm only 2 days into this eval, but I see great things.
Re:Usability? - Info from a VisorPhone User
on
Visor Phone Released
·
· Score: 1
I've had the VisorPhone since Tuesday morning... god love FedEx. That afternoon I went and bought some WriteRight screen protectors. Works great, especially since I find myself using my fingers to dial instead of the stylus.
BTW: The headset it funky, too much ambient noise back into the earpiece. But otherwise much more slick than using IR to my Nokia 8890.
After serious thought, I'd like to offer up some information on what is happening.
In 1998 the Gartner Group put out a report that basically re-defined the security marketplace. Symantec saw that it had no product for consumers or Corporations that would do content scanning and URL Blocking (These are the Gartner terms).
I was charged with evaluating every sever-based solution on the market. After several months, my research had found that I-Gear was the most advanced solution on the market (and still is). Hell they even had a version out for Red Hat Linux over a year ago. So the deal was hammered out, and Symantec acquired UR Labs in Virginia.
Now I-Gear and Mail-Gear (the companion mail product) do blocking based on URL lists and a heuristic engine that examines the text content. Now comes the zinger: It is completely end-user customizable. You can block URLs, you can explicitly allow access, you can have different user accounts/ groups/ and individual rules for each person, even different rules based on time and day!
This product enables sites (this is a web proxy, not a desktop product) to set security policies as they see fit. The courts have already proven that a corporation can choose what sites to allow their employees to visit. I see no issue in this whatsoever. If a site is inadvertantly blocked... then ask the admin to allow it, don't go kill the manufacturer!
Now I DO NOT agree that the URL lists should be hidden. I left Symantec soon after the acquisition because I didn't agree with the direction that they were taking. I had the pleasure of talking with Bennet while staffing DEFCON, and agree with the tenents of PeaceFire, if not their practices.
What it boils down to is that filtering is not an out of box solution, but it is viewed that way. Similar to a Firewall or Mail Server, the default config isn't going to suit every company's individual needs and tastes. PeaceFire should work with vendors of server-side filtering products to increase awareness about the need for proper administration and vendors, such as Symantec, need to realize that cease and desist letters are not the best way to iron out their differences.
I beg to differ. I too, spent several years in the development side @ Symantec. However for the last few years, I have been consulting on Security (especially AV) and have to disagree.
Striker and Bloodhound technologies do work. They work quite well as a FIRST line of defense against the #1 problem right now. That problem is Macro viruses. 90% of the common viruses propigated are of this type. The other 10% are worms that exploit MS mail clients. To not use an AV system in an Exchange environment is tantamount to suicide.
I do agree that if you are a security concious user (as you are) then you are not likely to need an AV product to scan all your files, only those that are suspect.
McAfee's Uses a different method of updating the virus definition files. While Symantec's products do a scheduled pull from an FTP or Web site, VirusScan uses an agent that gets the new file pushed to it, when it becomes available. Alternatively you can manually download the new defs from the mcafee.com website if preferred.
Ok so the grammar check isn't implemented yet. But c'mon, over 10 misspellings in a single post... that's either bad keyboarding skills or someone who failed to even bother to check their work. MOTD: Girls turn 18 every day... and if that isn't a reason to celebrate, I don't know what is.
As someone who wrote HTML filtering software in a previous life... I endeavour to ensure that my post are not blocked by such fascist-ware. And yes I did quit because the whole concept of censorship made me sick on a daily basis.
#1 Props for being a fellow Ricochet user. #2 Use a fscking spell checker! You're post was beyond atrocious. #3 You have a valid point that one cannot exist in our society without experiencing "computing-related" devices and processes. However this does not mean that this equates with an active interaction. Simply walking through a metal detector does not mean that I am controlling the embedded logic processor. This is the fine line that Kevin and others will have to face after these convictions.
Hell look at Poulsen, he's not doing so bad for himself. The only draconian restriction I see is that he cannot assimilate computer information... and that was his vice. I've heard that he is a changed man after this experience, so hopefully he will be able to live-up to the terms of his plea-bargain, and continue his life.
According to a good friend of mine who performs environmental remediation of gas stations for TASCO and Unocal (Arco & 76 respecively), MTBE is actually produced as a by-product of the refining process, so it doesn't cost the oil refineries a dime to add to gasoline since it:
1.) Adds to the volume of gasoline by diluting it. 2.) Eliminates additional cost of disposing of MTBE as hazardous waste.
Additionally, since oxygenating gasoline reduces its efficiency at the cost of lower emmissions, people burn more gasoline traveling the same distance. The oil companies win again.
Oxygenation adds to deposits forming in the fuel-injector assemblies in pre-1994 CPI and MPI engines. So the oil companines get to sell injector cleaner and additives, lest people have to replace their injecion manifolds.
All in all this is either a conspiracy, or more likely our asinine government's attempt to appear more eco-centric.
This approach to assembly has been tried before. Take a look at an old Kinetix product called Hyperwire. It was a Java dev tool aimed at users. Similar to using Visio to program. I don't know what happened to that product, but it might be a good jumping off point.
In an interview over at the ZDTV booth today, Linus was asked what the hardest task that he is planning on adding into the Kernel. He stated NUMA (Non-Uniform memory access), and who uses ccNUMA? SGI.
I've got the feeling that SGI and Linus are well in communication.
Does anybody actually follow the constitution anymore, or do they just pick and choose the parts they want to pay attention to?
Sadly it looks as if people are not deserving of the freedoms that our country has fought so long for. The 2nd Amendment is totally ignored, only criminal defense attorneys give a shit about the 4th. Congress has run rough-shod over the basic tenants of this country for far too long. I agree that there should be some sort of organization to take care of this sort of thing. But why in the hell isn't the whole constitution being protected like it's supposed to be?
Sadly it seems that neither of the 2 major parties seem to give a damn about the Constitution. The closest thing right now are the Libertarian party. All we need to do is get involved. Things are not doomed, they can be un-done. At the very least I hope that everyone can respect the memory of the millions that fought and died for the freedoms that we take for granted today, and go excercise your right to vote. It is inexcusable that people can't take an hour to go vote once a year, but spend countless hours on the net ranting.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Well there are really two questions here. If you violate your terms of service (TOS) the simplest solution is to disconnect you. Now basically by asking you to hand over your keys they can only be harbouring suspiscions over your traffic. For the most part the only way that they could demand them is if that is part of the contract between you and them, or else they take you to court. Should this be a criminal matter, you cannot be compelled to provide incriminating information (5th Amendment). This infomation could certainly include your key-rings and passphrases. However should a search warrant be served, and you private ring discovered, it's only a matter of time until you are caught.
The moral of this story? Encryption is not enough, a good pass-phrase is not enough. What is needed is a good security policy, such as keeping the keys on a removable media, and keeping that in a secure and hard-to-find place.
Actually, 4 NICs are quite common for mission critical web servers. You have a routable IP on one NIC and a non-routable IP on the other to communicate with the application server, or database, etc. That alone requires 2 NICs. Now for basic redundancy you need 4 NICs in total.
Distribuited.net's approach to brute-force cracking works fine, so long as you know how the message was encrypted, but just neet to find the proper key to decrypt it.
What Amazon has done is to give people the cypher-text and challenged them to recover the plain-text.
This is why crytanalysis is SOOO interesting. This is more of a "real-world" scenario. You get some stuff and have to find out how it was encrypted and what it says.
Amazon's challenge is much more difficult than the RSA challenges. RSA tells you what encryption algorythm is used and what the beginning of the plain-text message is.... all that's left is key-recovery. Here people will have to think about how to attack the problem first, then try breaking the code.
HINT: Presuming that Amazon's message is in English, and is most likely a cypher (be it block, substitution, output feedback) with standard math knowedge necessary, I can offer the following assumptions for all the budding crypoanalysts on/.::
It is most likely a subtitution cypher
It is somewhat likely that these are not added modulus anything. (Due to the high range of values)
A good starting point would be to compare the recurring numbers within the cyphertext with common letters in the English language.
Most of all: Have fun...At least you don't do this for $$
I agree that this would be an optimal solution... that's why Scott McNeely and Larry Ellison are pushing a return to mainframes (thin-clients, web-clients).
However, you shouldn't underestimate the number of PC's deployed in small-mid sized companies. Most just have one server and an I.S. person to help people un-box and un fsck systems.
Additionally don't forget that what people use at work, they like to use at home.
Yes Linux numbers are on the rise. The analogy here is that the "Linux Movement" (not just the s/w) is to Microsoft a Dark Figure looming in an alleyway.
Think this through:
Since you don't know his purpose, you don't let them know you are scared. This fear comes from a lack of knowledge of this person.
You immediately tense up, and try to look fierce to ward off a possible attack.(READ: FUD)
When you realize that you would be pummelled by this large hulk-of-a-man, you attempt to make peace. (READ: Carving up the market w/ Netscape)
If you can't beat them, you join them. (READ: MS-Linux)
These concepts are straight out of a street fight, and they definately fit Microsoft's business practices.
The point of a lack of a standard desktop set-up is definately valid. Training lusers how to configure and use a windowing environment can have a large cost. Without some way of heavily leveraging the paradigms from Microsoft, I don't see that Linux will gain market share on the productivity desktop. (Even though users would be more productive without daily system crashes.)
Hopefully Corel's distribution will change this by creating a standard install including an office suite.
Slashdot Mirror
Since I've searched through the feedback and have yet to find a review, here's mine: Background: I'm a long time palm user with too much money. Hence I got a Pilot 5000 when it came out, a III, V, IIIc. I finally decided to pick up a Visor Prism so I could get color with the OmniSky. Long story short, get the Prism, Minstrel S outta stock. Sunday evening surf over to handspring and.... "Whoa!" I've been a customer of PacBell Mobile for several years (too many handsets to mention) so I figure, 'what the hell' and shell out the $540 for it. (Yeah, yeah, I know) Mister FedEx drops it off Tuesday. My first impression, was cool but awkward to use, after carrying a tiny Nokia 8290 for the last couple months. Then it was, this thing sucks.... but now that I've got all the numbers transferred from my SIM and AddressBook integrated... this is slick. Killer Feature: The SMS, hands down. Grafiti is faster than any predictive text input on any phone. Especially when I break out the StowAway KB. Bonus feature: Data calls. Yeah it's only 9600, but email flows, and SSH is passable. Rather than a cell phone and a $40/mo. CDPD solution. I've got the advantages of both without the extra device and cost. Design Points: Unified charging. Just drop it in the cradle and it charges the Prism and the phone battery. Fire and Forget. Downsides: Somewhat awkward to put to your ear, but the speaker is _damn_ loud. (I've been using it speakerphone style in front of me, as the seperation between mic and speaker eliminates feedback) The ear piece's microphone is highly succeptable to background noise (which is routed back into the ear piece (OUTCH!)) The screen gets greasy from fingers and the face, so I threw a WriteRight screen protector on, and that resolved the issue. A note on Price: Price is a matter of opinion, so I don't count it as a Pro or Con. You have to evaluate if that $$ will simplify your life in the most efficient manner. Closing: All I can say is this thing is slick and well thought out. I personally can't wait to see what people come up with once the API is released. I'm only 2 days into this eval, but I see great things.
Since I've searched through the feedback and haven't found a review here's mine: Background, I'm a long time palm user with too much money. Hence I got a Pilot 5000 when it came out, a III, V, IIIc. I finally decided to pick up a Visor Prism so I could get color with the OmniSky. Long story short, get the Prism, Minstrel S outta stock. Sunday evening surf over to handspring and.... "Whoa!" I've been a customer of PacBell Mobile for several years (too many handsets to mention) so I figure, 'what the hell' and shell out the $540 for it. (Yeah, yeah, I know) Mister FedEx drops it off Tuesday. My first impression, was cool but awkward to use, after carrying a tiny Nokia 8290 for the last couple months. Then it was, this thing sucks.... but now that I've got all the numbers transferred from my SIM and AddressBook integrated... this is slick. Fav Feature: The SMS, hands down. Grafiti is faster than any predictive text input on any phone. Especially when I break out the StowAway KB. Killer feature: Data calls. Yeah it's only 9600, but email flows, and SSH is passable. Rather than a cell phone and a $40/mo. CDPD solution. I've got the advantages of both without the extra device and cost. Bonus Points: Unified charging. Just drop it in the cradle and it charges the Prism and the phone battery. Fire and Forget. Downsides: Somewhat awkward to put to your ear, but the speaker is _damn_ loud. (I've been using it speakerphone style in front of me, as the seperation between mic and speaker eliminates feedback) The Ear piece's microphone is highly succeptable to background noise (which is routed back into the earpiece (OUTCH!)) The screen gets greasy from fingers and the face, so I threw a WriteRight screen protector on, and that resolved the issue. A note on Price: Price is a matter of opinion, so I don't count it as a Pro or Con. You have to evaluate if that $$ will simplify your life in the most efficient manner. Closing: All I can say is this thing is slick and well thought out. I personally can't wait to see what people come up with once the API is released. I'm only 2 days into this eval, but I see great things.
I've had the VisorPhone since Tuesday morning... god love FedEx. That afternoon I went and bought some WriteRight screen protectors. Works great, especially since I find myself using my fingers to dial instead of the stylus. BTW: The headset it funky, too much ambient noise back into the earpiece. But otherwise much more slick than using IR to my Nokia 8890.
After serious thought, I'd like to offer up some information on what is happening.
In 1998 the Gartner Group put out a report that basically re-defined the security marketplace. Symantec saw that it had no product for consumers or Corporations that would do content scanning and URL Blocking (These are the Gartner terms).
I was charged with evaluating every sever-based solution on the market. After several months, my research had found that I-Gear was the most advanced solution on the market (and still is). Hell they even had a version out for Red Hat Linux over a year ago. So the deal was hammered out, and Symantec acquired UR Labs in Virginia.
Now I-Gear and Mail-Gear (the companion mail product) do blocking based on URL lists and a heuristic engine that examines the text content. Now comes the zinger: It is completely end-user customizable. You can block URLs, you can explicitly allow access, you can have different user accounts/ groups/ and individual rules for each person, even different rules based on time and day!
This product enables sites (this is a web proxy, not a desktop product) to set security policies as they see fit. The courts have already proven that a corporation can choose what sites to allow their employees to visit. I see no issue in this whatsoever. If a site is inadvertantly blocked... then ask the admin to allow it, don't go kill the manufacturer!
Now I DO NOT agree that the URL lists should be hidden. I left Symantec soon after the acquisition because I didn't agree with the direction that they were taking. I had the pleasure of talking with Bennet while staffing DEFCON, and agree with the tenents of PeaceFire, if not their practices.
What it boils down to is that filtering is not an out of box solution, but it is viewed that way. Similar to a Firewall or Mail Server, the default config isn't going to suit every company's individual needs and tastes. PeaceFire should work with vendors of server-side filtering products to increase awareness about the need for proper administration and vendors, such as Symantec, need to realize that cease and desist letters are not the best way to iron out their differences.
I beg to differ. I too, spent several years in the development side @ Symantec. However for the last few years, I have been consulting on Security (especially AV) and have to disagree.
Striker and Bloodhound technologies do work. They work quite well as a FIRST line of defense against the #1 problem right now. That problem is Macro viruses. 90% of the common viruses propigated are of this type. The other 10% are worms that exploit MS mail clients. To not use an AV system in an Exchange environment is tantamount to suicide.
I do agree that if you are a security concious user (as you are) then you are not likely to need an AV product to scan all your files, only those that are suspect.
McAfee's Uses a different method of updating the virus definition files. While Symantec's products do a scheduled pull from an FTP or Web site, VirusScan uses an agent that gets the new file pushed to it, when it becomes available. Alternatively you can manually download the new defs from the mcafee.com website if preferred.
Incorrect, the "SlimTop" which the press release refers to is a desktop product, not a laptop.
I said the same thing 15 years ago about my 10 MB MFM drive.
Ok so the grammar check isn't implemented yet. But c'mon, over 10 misspellings in a single post... that's either bad keyboarding skills or someone who failed to even bother to check their work. MOTD: Girls turn 18 every day... and if that isn't a reason to celebrate, I don't know what is.
As someone who wrote HTML filtering software in a previous life... I endeavour to ensure that my post are not blocked by such fascist-ware. And yes I did quit because the whole concept of censorship made me sick on a daily basis.
#1 Props for being a fellow Ricochet user.
#2 Use a fscking spell checker! You're post was beyond atrocious.
#3 You have a valid point that one cannot exist in our society without experiencing "computing-related" devices and processes. However this does not mean that this equates with an active interaction. Simply walking through a metal detector does not mean that I am controlling the embedded logic processor. This is the fine line that Kevin and others will have to face after these convictions.
Hell look at Poulsen, he's not doing so bad for himself. The only draconian restriction I see is that he cannot assimilate computer information... and that was his vice. I've heard that he is a changed man after this experience, so hopefully he will be able to live-up to the terms of his plea-bargain, and continue his life.
According to a good friend of mine who performs environmental remediation of gas stations for TASCO and Unocal (Arco & 76 respecively), MTBE is actually produced as a by-product of the refining process, so it doesn't cost the oil refineries a dime to add to gasoline since it:
1.) Adds to the volume of gasoline by diluting it.
2.) Eliminates additional cost of disposing of MTBE as hazardous waste.
Additionally, since oxygenating gasoline reduces its efficiency at the cost of lower emmissions, people burn more gasoline traveling the same distance. The oil companies win again.
Oxygenation adds to deposits forming in the fuel-injector assemblies in pre-1994 CPI and MPI engines. So the oil companines get to sell injector cleaner and additives, lest people have to replace their injecion manifolds.
All in all this is either a conspiracy, or more likely our asinine government's attempt to appear more eco-centric.
This approach to assembly has been tried before. Take a look at an old Kinetix product called Hyperwire. It was a Java dev tool aimed at users. Similar to using Visio to program. I don't know what happened to that product, but it might be a good jumping off point.
In an interview over at the ZDTV booth today, Linus was asked what the hardest task that he is planning on adding into the Kernel. He stated NUMA (Non-Uniform memory access), and who uses ccNUMA? SGI.
I've got the feeling that SGI and Linus are well in communication.
Au Contraire: IE on SPARC was the biggest POS software to ever emerge from Redmond IMHO.
Does anybody actually follow the constitution anymore, or do they just pick and choose the parts they want to pay attention to?
Sadly it looks as if people are not deserving of the freedoms that our country has fought so long for. The 2nd Amendment is totally ignored, only criminal defense attorneys give a shit about the 4th. Congress has run rough-shod over the basic tenants of this country for far too long. I agree that there should be some sort of organization to take care of this sort of thing. But why in the hell isn't the whole constitution being protected like it's supposed to be?
Sadly it seems that neither of the 2 major parties seem to give a damn about the Constitution. The closest thing right now are the Libertarian party. All we need to do is get involved. Things are not doomed, they can be un-done. At the very least I hope that everyone can respect the memory of the millions that fought and died for the freedoms that we take for granted today, and go excercise your right to vote. It is inexcusable that people can't take an hour to go vote once a year, but spend countless hours on the net ranting.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-Benjamin Franklin
Well there are really two questions here. If you violate your terms of service (TOS) the simplest solution is to disconnect you. Now basically by asking you to hand over your keys they can only be harbouring suspiscions over your traffic.
For the most part the only way that they could demand them is if that is part of the contract between you and them, or else they take you to court.
Should this be a criminal matter, you cannot be compelled to provide incriminating information (5th Amendment). This infomation could certainly include your key-rings and passphrases. However should a search warrant be served, and you private ring discovered, it's only a matter of time until you are caught.
The moral of this story? Encryption is not enough, a good pass-phrase is not enough. What is needed is a good security policy, such as keeping the keys on a removable media, and keeping that in a secure and hard-to-find place.
Actually, 4 NICs are quite common for mission critical web servers. You have a routable IP on one NIC and a non-routable IP on the other to communicate with the application server, or database, etc. That alone requires 2 NICs. Now for basic redundancy you need 4 NICs in total.
This would be the perfect format for the Guide project. A lot of useful data at your fingertips.
Actually it was Little Orphan Annie.
What Amazon has done is to give people the cypher-text and challenged them to recover the plain-text.
This is why crytanalysis is SOOO interesting. This is more of a "real-world" scenario. You get some stuff and have to find out how it was encrypted and what it says.
Amazon's challenge is much more difficult than the RSA challenges. RSA tells you what encryption algorythm is used and what the beginning of the plain-text message is.... all that's left is key-recovery. Here people will have to think about how to attack the problem first, then try breaking the code.
HINT: Presuming that Amazon's message is in English, and is most likely a cypher (be it block, substitution, output feedback) with standard math knowedge necessary, I can offer the following assumptions for all the budding crypoanalysts on
It is most likely a subtitution cypher
It is somewhat likely that these are not added modulus anything. (Due to the high range of values)
A good starting point would be to compare the recurring numbers within the cyphertext with common letters in the English language.
Most of all: Have fun...At least you don't do this for $$
I agree that this would be an optimal solution... that's why Scott McNeely and Larry Ellison are pushing a return to mainframes (thin-clients, web-clients).
However, you shouldn't underestimate the number of PC's deployed in small-mid sized companies. Most just have one server and an I.S. person to help people un-box and un fsck systems.
Additionally don't forget that what people use at work, they like to use at home.
Yes Linux numbers are on the rise. The analogy here is that the "Linux Movement" (not just the s/w) is to Microsoft a Dark Figure looming in an alleyway.
Think this through:
Since you don't know his purpose, you don't let them know you are scared. This fear comes from a lack of knowledge of this person.
You immediately tense up, and try to look fierce to ward off a possible attack.(READ: FUD)
When you realize that you would be pummelled by this large hulk-of-a-man, you attempt to make peace. (READ: Carving up the market w/ Netscape)
If you can't beat them, you join them. (READ: MS-Linux)
These concepts are straight out of a street fight, and they definately fit Microsoft's business practices.
The point of a lack of a standard desktop set-up is definately valid. Training lusers how to configure and use a windowing environment can have a large cost. Without some way of heavily leveraging the paradigms from Microsoft, I don't see that Linux will gain market share on the productivity desktop. (Even though users would be more productive without daily system crashes.)
Hopefully Corel's distribution will change this by creating a standard install including an office suite.
He? Why does everyone think that only males read /. There are a few females too. ;-)