HP and Lenovo already ship systems with Firefox pre-installed. I have not yet seen it defaulted to Firefox, but the time will come! after the making it (or another) default it would not be a surprise to see IE excluded.
Having said that, I just installed IE8, my first impressions are:
1. WTF! who changed my default browser without asking me? (Obviously, MS as part of the install)
2. Opens a new tab if I type in the address I want to go to, I wont use IE much, but I like to open tabs or windows when I want. I may have to look and see if/how to change the default tab operation.
It strikes me that they have 3 years of funding in place, which simply means 3 years to get visitor numbers up to a sustainable level.
How do you get coverage on as many channels as possible to advertise your attraction without paying a penny? Is there any way to get a message out that Bletchley Park is open for visitors to see a working recreation of a colossus computer?
Oh hang on a minute, maybe spread some news of impending doom and see how many people report on it.
This is multi-level marketing, firstly to the general populous "Hey We're here!" and also to the myriad of funding bodies "We have important things here to protect and show the world".
I hope if generates a nice boost in their revenue as I for one would be sad to see the collection dispersed to other sites. These types of site always take time to build critical mass, it is always a race to see if they can before the money runs out.
Perhaps they should see about getting regular displays of things like James Bond movie props and other espionage related memorabilia.
Under the data protection act it is a criminal offense to knowing or recklessly try to obtain information that you are not legally entitled to.
I would contact the lawyers and point out that unless they have a court order demanding the release of the information that has lead to the recipient being sent the demand that they and the ISP are in trouble as they have committed a criminal act that may result in prison sentences or a very hefty fines.
I would also state that I had never been anywhere near such a file and look forward to receiving a copy of their evidence so that it can be refuted. I would also point out that when they send the evidence that they should include £5 to cover the costs you incurred to receive the outrageous allegations in the first place.
I would then finish by stating that a copy of the letter has been sent to your ISP and to the information commissioner as I take my privacy seriously and believe that someone has been granted access to information that personally identifies me without my consent in breach of the Data Protection Act.
If they refuse to provide the evidence write to them again, registered and include a cheque for £10 and a request under the data protection act for a copy of all information that they hold regarding him. They then have 38 days to comply, if they do not anything they produce would put them in direct and probably willful breach of the law. Possibly rendering any evidence not valid anyway. They have to include any internal emails, absolutely everything that has your name on it. (Although not sure how this works with legal actions, there may be some parts of the legislation that mean full disclosure does not apply.)
That may be a little harsh, but I do agree that without microsoft leveraging its desktop presence it would not have anything like the market share it has.
As for Linux, I guess the existence of Scalix has gone completely unnoticed by the original poster. Last time I used scalix, it was still a little awkward to install and configure, but it worked really well. It is built on HPs OpenMail and they have progressed it nicely and included a very good webmail client too.
I agree totally. How the test and free will were ever linked I will never understand. I mean if I stamp on someones foot I can predict with a better than 60% accuracy that they will probably move their foot and complain at me!
The only option in the test to exercise free will is when told 'push a button' is to refuse to push the button at all. However, when you set up with 'push the button on command with either you left or right hand' most people taking part in the test would follow the instructions and not plainly refuse to do anything on command.
It will probably make no difference at all to spam unfortunately.
I have long said that the best approach to stopping spam is to stop the spammer making money at all. My approach is to make the Credit Card companies responsible (you know Visa, MasterCard, Amex) if they get large fines for their customers sending spam they would include in their terms a condition preventing spamming. It is not perfect, but as tracking down the spammers is the hardest part removing that from the equation makes life easier. This also enables any one of the larger economies of the world pass a local law that has global reach.
Sadly, not all spam has a direct financial link but a good amount does.
Just my thoughts - again.
Just something that I have not seen noted anywhere yet, but google's dominance of the search market is earned and is also fragile. I remember using yahoo and thinking it was great, then I moved over to AltaVista, then onto google, my loyalty only exists as long as I do not find a better way of getting the answers I want.
Google is my preferred search engine and has been almost exclusively for quite some time now, but I am not tied to them in the same way I am with email and instant messaging. The potential merger between Yahoo and MicroSoft is not something I think would be good for anyone, will it improve searches? nope, MicroSoft spent a huge sum relaunching their search product, and I did try it but I still found google faster and returned the better information. As for advertising revenue, googles advertising model means they make the most money because most people use their service. Should they fail to be the best search engine, they will see drops in revenue to match. So I am not concerned by their advertising side.
I like Yahoo and use several of their services, I fear (which is unfounded except from MicroSoft's reputation and track record) that should they get control of Yahoo it will be a bad day for the internet. I fear it would not take very long before the feeling of being able to trust Yahoo is tarnished (whether fair or not) by Microsoft's reputation and actions.
Sadly with the premium that has been placed on Yahoo it may turn into a hostile take over by Microsoft as if they really want it who is really going to turn down the cash?
My hope is that Yahoo's board say no and Microsoft back off not wanting to add to their negative press and image. This could be good for Yahoo as it may show that Yahoo still has a high value suggesting time could be given to management to make the changes necessary to the business and have time for a return to be seen.
As for competition, 3 big companies trying to do the best search or 2, which gives the best environment for innovation?
The top 500 is not a very good measure of performance of supercomputers. But it is probably the only simple way of comparing them.
When you order a super computer you do not (or at least never used to) worry about benchmark performance, you were concerned about getting something to solve a problem. The two are not unlinked, just some design criteria do not translate well into generic benchmark performance.
That said, of course being a university the supercomputer may be intended to be tasked with many different problems and for that reason a more generalised configuration may be specified. I have been involved in several projects where very powerful setups have been purchased for a single task and once that task is completed the entire setup is disposed of (broken up and sold off) instead of being re-tasked, which I always felt was a large waste of money.
As for where the UK stands internationally, it would be nice to see a few more supercomputers on the list and certainly higher up, but traditionally the UK has been very good at creating new technologies and creative solutions on a low budget. I hope that the constant tinkering with our education system does not bring this wonderful tradition to an end.
The BSA send around letters offering to do free audits for companies, complete with scare stories about what happens if they are found to be using unlicensed software. Giving the impression that they are doing you a favour by enabling you to head off such a situation.
What they actually do is audit you and then threaten you if they find you short of licenses so you have to pay up. The audit is used to gather the evidence they would need for a court case.
Trading Standards have in the past advised businesses to bin the BSA letters, this still remains the best thing to do with software audit offers. You should do it yourself and that way no one can hold you to ransom over the findings. You should also make it clear to anyone who has the ability (log in permissions not necessarily technical) to never install anything without being able to show entitlement to do so.
Every employment contract I was ever given had clauses in I did not like. I crossed them out and wrote in my equivalents, trying to give the company basically the same condition just altered to guarantee that my point of view was allowed for.
Two examples spring to mind... Firstly as company car driver I did not like the clause that said I had to get the car serviced in my own time. I changed the condition to say I could use a garage of my choice as opposed to the designated company one. I lived a 2 hour drive away and servicing the car would cost me a day of my time otherwise. Secondly, there were invention terms in a contract I did not like similar to the OP. I changed them to something along the lines of 'any software created for the company in company time, the company may modify, use, sell and license as they see fit. However, any methods, including code, I come up with to resolve problems belong to me, as if faced with a similar problem in future I will likely use the same techniques to solve it.'
I go through every contract I sign carefully and have often crossed out terms in credit agreements I disagree with. On a few occasions this has resulted in a discussion to clarify my objections, but has never resulted in the new version being rejected. Also I guess when the sales guy goes off to get a drink while I insist on reading through all of the small print, they may not have paid much attention to the changes only caring that they see my signature and I have dated the document. On two occasions they have tried to enforce terms in credit agreements that I have crossed out, only for them to back down when they see that their copy of the contract no longer says what they thought it did!
Just my experience, but never sign anything you do not like. Explain what you find objectionable and suggest a rewording that you think you both should be able to live with.
5 months is less than the 6 month time limit UK sale of goods act places on assumed factory fault. They should replace it out of hand or full refund. There is no point looking at EU law as UK law is better in this case.
If you want a repair instead of a replacement/refund, remove the hard disk (usually just a couple of screws on the underside) as this component has nothing to do with the fault and contains confidential information that you do not trust them with.
If they are difficult get straight onto trading standards and get them to deal with it, PC World are breaking consumer law clearly in this case.
At least for me... Intelligence is the application of knowledge, not the possession of knowledge. People often confuse very knowledgeable people with intelligent people. It is also true that very intelligent people often have an absence of common sense. None of these things (intelligence/knowledge/common sense) are mutually exclusive.
Most people can undo a screw with a kitchen knife, without ever being told that you can use a knife as a screwdriver in some circumstances. This is a simple example of intelligence, applying what you know to a situation.
Applying what you know can generate more knowledge, but more knowledge does not make someone more intelligent.
I cannot think of an example in computing or robotics off the top of my head that would require the application of knowledge to solve a problem, but then I have not tried either!
As for the turing test, I have found myself in conversations with people who fail to demonstrate any form of intelligence! Meaning that if I had a three-way conversation with them and a machine, I would probably attribute more intelligence to the machine!
"WHAT A CROCK!" !! well its nice of you to dismiss it so quickly and easily. My friend was relieved to know that her delayed funeral was just a figment of her and my imagination.
I also said upto 10,000 times more effective, not just 1,000! This is the claim that outrages you so much. I can understand that as it does seam to good to be true, but then ketchup was reported in the national press (UK) earlier this year to be a very effective treatment for prostate cancer. Sadly I cannot remember the study they based that story on.
I let my friend know your comments and her response was to ask me to post the following information for you. Now upon reading it I notice that the reference is actually against one particular chemotherapy drug which I have no idea if it is the best one for the job or not.
The following quote is not from Johns Hopkins and in fact makes no mention of him/it.
Quote: Much of the recent research on Graviola has been on a novel set of phytochemicals that are found in the leaves, seeds and stem of Graviola which are cytotoxic against various cancer cells. In an 1976 plant screening program by the National Cancer Institute, the leaves and stem of Graviola showed active cytotoxicity against cancer cells and researchers have been following up on this research ever since.(21) Two separate research groups have isolated novel compounds in the seeds and leaves of the plant which have demonstrated significant anti-tumorous, anticancerous and selective toxicity against various types of cancer cells, publishing 8 clinical studies on their findings.(22 - 29) One study demonstrated that an isolated compound in Graviola was selectively cytotoxic to colon adenocarcinoma cells in which it was 10,000 times the potency of adriamycin (a chemotherapy drug).(23) Cancer research is ongoing on Graviola, and four new studies have been published in 1998 which further narrow down the specific phytochemicals which are demonstrating the strongest anticancerous and antiviral properties.(30 - 33) Footnotes:
1. de Feo, V. 1992. Medicinal and magical plants in the northern Peruvian Andes. Fitoterapia63: 417-440
2. Vasquez, M. R., 1990 Useful Plants of Amazonian Peru. Second Draft. Filed with USDA's National Agricultural Library. USA
3. Grenand, P., Moretti, C., Jacquemin, H., 1987. Pharmacopees taditionnels en Guyane: Créoles, Palikur, Wayãpi. Editorial l-ORSTROM, Coll. Mem No. 108. Paris, France
4. Branch, L.C. and da Silva, I.M.F. 1983. "Folk Medicine of Alter do Chao, Para, Brazil." Acta Amazonica 13(5/6):737-797.
5. de Almeida, E.R., 1993. Plantas Medicinais Brasileiras, Conhecimentos Populares E Cientificos. Hemus Editora Ltda.: Sau Paulo, Brazil.
6. Asprey, GF. & Thornton, P. 1955. Medicinal Plants of Jamaica. III West Indian Med J 4: 69-92
7. Ayensu, ES. 1978. Medicinal Plants of the West Indies. Unpublished manuscript: 110P-(1978) Office of Biological Conservation Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
8. Weniger, B. et.al., 1986. Popular Medicine of the Central Plateau of Haiti. 2. Ethnopharmacological Inventory J Ethnopharmacol 17 1: 13-30 (1986)
9. Feng, P.C. et.al., Pharmacological Screening of Some West Indian Medicinal Plants. J Pharm Pharmacol 14 : 556-561 (1962)
10. Meyer, TM. The Alkaloids of Annona Muricata. Ing Ned Indie 8 6: 64- (1941)
11. Carbajal, D., et.al., Pharmacological Screening of Plant Decoctions Commonly Used in Cuban Folk Medicine. J Ethnopharmacol 33 1/2: 21-24 (1991)
12. Misas, CAJ et.al., Contribution to the Biological Evaluation of Cuban Plants. IV. Rev Cub Med Trop 31 1: 29-35 (1979)
13. Sundarrao, K et.al., Preliminary Screening of Antibacterial and Antitumor Activities of Papua New Guinean Native Medicinal Plants. Int J Pharmacog 31 1: 3-6 (1993)
Graviola is shown to be upto 10000 times more effective than chemo on some cancers, but you are unlikely to find anyone recommending it as the drug companies are more interested in finding the active component and patenting it than helping cure people.
A friend of mine has cancer that was so bad she was warned that the treatment was more about managing the progress of the disease than curing it. After 6 months her doctor could not explain why her cancer was in remission. The reason she gives is the gaviola capsules she had been taking. Now whether it was not as bad as she believed in the first place or it was positive thinking or something else I do not know. But I do know I am prepared to be counted as a believer in herbal medicine.
If anyone wants to know where she got them from, I will find out and post here if requested. I think it was a small company in Bradford (UK).
The number of times I have lied my way through a support call.
I have even been too busy to sit with the equipment of some occasions and been driving at the time. You just work your way through the flow chart until you get to the point where they say 'its broken and needs to be replaced here are the RMA details' or 'it appears there is a fault on the line, I will get that reset for you'. I thought everyone did it! or at least those of us with a reasonable amount of knowledge about these darned computer type thingies. Just remember your pauses and stock phrases 'ok done that, no change' etc.
It must be years since I actually got through to someone straight away that actually knew anything about the system they were supporting.
Which is a similar type of system, except one of these was tested by BMW. All it uses is an aluminum wire and cylinder for electrolysis in a water bath. The only by product is alumina.
This suffers the same basic issue as the gallium solution: Recycling the alumina.
This prevents it being carbon neutral at present, but it may be very carbon efficient. Also, by thinking about a global economy based around providing aluminum and recycling the alumina it may be possible to reduce the carbon to almost, if not, zero. The efficiencies of the system suffer, but if using solar or wind energy to be the base power source, the overall efficiency does not matter with renewable/free power sources. The hard (and this may be very very hard) part is making the whole system competitive economically.
The general wisdom appears to be that once you pass 30% market share you can begin to have monopoly influence. How true this is depends on the nature of the rest of the market. Whilst Google are currently the number 1 search engine, they are constantly being challenged by competitors large and small.
Googles ability to make use of their power in the search market is limited by this. However, for them to fall foul of anti-competitive laws you would have thought that they would in the first instance have to do something to actively damage the prospects of competitors in other markets.
The headline caught my attention so I tested it in google.co.uk: keyword - result - sponsored Intranet - wikipedia - orchisoft.com spreadsheet - google - compasssoft.com documents - www.official-documents.gov.uk - simply-docs.co.uk calendar - timeanddate.com - google.com word processor - google.com - techready.co.uk email - yahoo.com - fasthosts.co.uk
Google manage to be the top search results for spreadsheets and word processor, and only calendar for the sponsored (i.e. adword) links. When you type in email, google dont appear on the results at all, yet one of their biggest competitors do. This appears to show the article is either flawed or google have adjusted already.
Whilst they may take advantage to place themselves higher in the results than they would otherwise merit and certainly appear to take the top sponsored link when they wish, this does not demonstrate any abuse for the simple reason they do not return only themselves. The results of any search appear fair so, I have no problem with them. It is something that people may need to be aware of, but as long as they continue to return search results that place their competitors highly it will be very hard to make a complaint stick.
What they are doing is no different to a TV or radio station advertising their other channels and programmes.
People have already mentioned Notes, so I wont bother with any more on that one.
I have to admit that exchange is probably one of the best email servers out there, it is hard to believe that this is a microsoft product. That said it is full of the usual short sighted design limits that are finally going away. The biggest problem is its complexity. I know that it will never be the easiest product to configure, but there are so many options that can be set in multiple locations that it is not clear which one has precidence and without checking all of the locations you cannot be sure you have all of the settings correct. Once configured and running, exchange is pretty robust and predictable.
As for alternatives, Scalix (http://www.scalix.com/) is very good. Then it should be it has HP OpenMail as a background. The scalix web interface is excellent and whilst it is not the easiest product to configure for smaller environments it is not a big problem and it has great performance and reliability. I am sure that Scalix will continue to grow as a serious contender to Exchange. Its a shame that Samsung never made the same go of it as Scalix are doing as the samsung name would probably have helped open doors.
Dont know which model you were looking for but a 30 second search of the internet gave a few hits of around £2150 for Pioneer PDP507XD-T1BU Plasma 50" that were in stock and available for next day delivery.
Microsoft have had a great deal more success in their fight against the EU system than most others. Typically with the EU courts, once a judgement has been made you have to comply even if you are appealing, the assumption is effectively that you will lose the appeal. MS have managed to get out of complying while they are appealing, but they have pressed the system as far as it is prepared to go.
They submitted over 10,000 pages before claiming that they were complying, but the independant expert (that MS accepted) simply clarified that whilst MS may have complied they have buried the information in so much rubbish as to make it impractical to get at. So, I expect the 8500 pages this time will result in another fine as this again sounds like trying to hide the relevant information, on integrating with their software, in a mass of useless information.
The EU are continuing to do what is best all round (you have no idea how difficult that was to say) - namely promoting fair play, to give the competition a reasonable chance. This chance should lead to more competition in all areas, which in turn should lead to better software. They are not telling MS to pull out of any market, they are just demanding that they do not use their 95% of desktop operating systems to lead to a default position where 95% of all software is MS (this is universally bad).
Dont forget that as a software company they benefit from economies of scale that other markets could only dream of. Every version of windows has been a bigger seller than the previous version, and every version has gone up in price quite heftily. These price rises have been swallowed for 2 reasons: firstly, no practical alternative to windows was around; secondly, new inbuilt features that you previously had to pay for. This second point is the critical one I keep coming back to, when they want to take over a new market segment, they bundle the software for 'free' and increase the cost of windows leaving them with the money whether you use the bundled software or not and making it very difficult for competitors to sell their versions.
If the EU wanted to really hurt MS they would press for all of the member governments to use open source software on all new systems/projects and the removal of all MS software (with the exclusion of Windows Whatever) from education. They would then use the money from the MS fines to promote the creation and growth of an EU open source library, buy a few licenses for the open source community in areas that are currently held back. The size of the EEC market is vast, its combined spend with MS is staggering, if tax breaks were given for using open source software then very quickly open source solutions would be forcing MS to become leaner and more competative (thus leading to better more innovative products), it gets away with what it does because of its size, it pulls competitors into a war of attrition which few can sustain for long once MS decide to take that market.
The reference to bombing abortion clinics reminded me of something I heard on a TV show (The Mark Thomas Comedy Product, I think).
When asked why he was pro-abortion he explained along these lines: You dont see me with a placquard chanting 'get rid of it!' outside the maternity ward do you? I'm pro choice, which is not the same as pro-abortion.
Still if it was possible to wipe paypal from the timeline, I would not hesitate. But then if I had that power, I would hope someone would remove the power before I got carried away!
I can see your point and the email system does need an overhaul, but there is one thing that I have been advocating for some time now that may not solve the problem but should reduce it significantly.
I have been asking to make Visa, Mastercard, Amex et al financially responsible for their customers illegal actions. So, if the USA can pass a law making it illegal to take card payments for online gambling, even if the processing bank is outside of the USA, why not pass a law to enable people to get compensation from the card companies for the receipt of spam?
The t&c's would quickly state 'no spamming' anyone who continued to offend would quickly be cut off, therefore no income from the spam, therefore no spam. The law only needs to be passed in a descent sized economy and it will impact on the entire world as Visa and friends would not likely pull out of a multi-billion market.
We would all forward our spam onto a government agency who would have people compile it and as soon as enough was received to prove it was spam an instant fine of £10,000 (or more) to visa and friends, this is each not between them, then all related spam for the next 2 weeks is collect and filed with the original. Any more after this is concidered a new offense!
Think about it... you try spamming to sell viagra and the card company wind up cutting you off and keep your money and sue you for any extra needed to pay the fine. No incentive to spam there, affilliate schemes that pay spammers shut down.
This does not tackle all spam, but it does directly attack spammers who use credit cards to get their money.
I wonder how long before someone actually goes after the cause of spam - namely making money. How many spams are just to annoy us? there are some, but most want our money.
I have had several chinese students board with me while going to college in the UK and spoken at length about many issues. We have spoken a great deal about the differences between living in China and living in the UK. Without exception all of the students have wanted China to have the same freedoms as are (and with this government, soon to be were) available to us. They admire a great deal of things in the 'west' and I have always tried to point out where our systems and way of life fails because China is heading in the same general direction as the UK but they lag behind. This lagging behind gives China a great chance to look closely at our failures and try to find a way forward that avoids the problems we have with our societies.
I do believe I live in a great country, but I also know it could be better. For all of our progress over the last 100 years we have paid a high price in the damage to the social fabric. China has not yet sacrificed too much and I hope it learns from our example so it can avoid it, maybe then we can learn from China how to have everything we really want and need in life.
Before anyone thinks the problems in the UK are related to immigration, they should remember that we have always had lots of immigrants. One of the things that has defined this country over the centuries is our willingness to adopt new ways of life and integrate them into our heritage. It is only recently we have become concerned about preserving traditions and values simply because they have been around for so long.
I'll stop there before I get any further off track.
I have written about this before I registered with slashdot and have tried to explain a miriad of times the following principal:
Windows XP Pro £240 (on amazon) + £30 firewall + £30 Antivirus + £20 anti-malware = £320 Windows Vista £400 (guess based on US pricing) but it does include free firewall, antivirus...
The problem with Microsoft bundling in extras is not whether it is convenient or not. It is that you buy the OS and are forced to pay for the bundled products like it or not. You want to run windows you have to pay for the other stuff too. I am not judging quality here (well at least not today), purely that you look at the economics of the situation, how can you compete when your software runs on top of an OS that each new version goes up in prices to cover the cost of competing (replacing) your product. This is the simple abuse of an effective monopoly to the detriment of everyone except Microsoft. When their competitors in security software have been crushed where will the innovation come from?
Microsoft should be forced to strip vista back down to a feature set akin to windows 95. This would enable them to concentrate on getting the core of the OS right, which in itself may kill off the security firms. Then their extra products could be bought by those who want them, making people choose which media player, anti-whatever and PDF solution promotes competition. Competition in most cases is a good thing for everyone, except Microsoft, as products get better because innovation is the key to survival.
A little inconvenience would hopefully pay off with better products and value for the end users.
Whilst flogging would make a great family day out and TV special once a month it doesnt really have the global impact I would want.
If you choose to read on, be warned I will unveil in the next paragraph a potential global solution to the spam problem, so you may wish to do something similar to all the politicians I have lobbied and put your fingers in your ears and say 'la la la' (or perhaps just cover your eyes for this one)!
Spam is about making money, remove the ability to make money and the spam goes away. Common sense and few people would disagree, there are always some though! What I feel is the most effective way to do this is go after the credit card clearing companies, make Visa, Mastercard, AmEx & Co responsible. If I receive spam where the spammer can accept credit card payment, I file a complaint and get £10 compensation each time. I would expect the banks very quickly to add terms to their contracts saying 'absolutely no spam', you give them a reasonable period to implement and without credit card ability the website almost certainly dies. Game Over. Will this happen? of course not, but I cannot think of a more effective way of solving this within the next 12 months. The compensation maybe should only apply if say 100 file a complaint about the same spammer within a 1 month period.
You can tweak the specifics to be as harsh or as reasonably fair as you wish. The point is to make a global entity (or few entities) responsible for some of the actions of their customers that they profit from. That way a UK only law could kill spam on a global basis. We dont have to care where the spam came from to get it to stop.
Just my thoughts, that reminds me anyone seen the box?
Slashdot Mirror
HP and Lenovo already ship systems with Firefox pre-installed. I have not yet seen it defaulted to Firefox, but the time will come! after the making it (or another) default it would not be a surprise to see IE excluded. Having said that, I just installed IE8, my first impressions are: 1. WTF! who changed my default browser without asking me? (Obviously, MS as part of the install) 2. Opens a new tab if I type in the address I want to go to, I wont use IE much, but I like to open tabs or windows when I want. I may have to look and see if/how to change the default tab operation.
It strikes me that they have 3 years of funding in place, which simply means 3 years to get visitor numbers up to a sustainable level. How do you get coverage on as many channels as possible to advertise your attraction without paying a penny? Is there any way to get a message out that Bletchley Park is open for visitors to see a working recreation of a colossus computer? Oh hang on a minute, maybe spread some news of impending doom and see how many people report on it. This is multi-level marketing, firstly to the general populous "Hey We're here!" and also to the myriad of funding bodies "We have important things here to protect and show the world". I hope if generates a nice boost in their revenue as I for one would be sad to see the collection dispersed to other sites. These types of site always take time to build critical mass, it is always a race to see if they can before the money runs out. Perhaps they should see about getting regular displays of things like James Bond movie props and other espionage related memorabilia.
To over simplify things ...
Under the data protection act it is a criminal offense to knowing or recklessly try to obtain information that you are not legally entitled to.
I would contact the lawyers and point out that unless they have a court order demanding the release of the information that has lead to the recipient being sent the demand that they and the ISP are in trouble as they have committed a criminal act that may result in prison sentences or a very hefty fines.
I would also state that I had never been anywhere near such a file and look forward to receiving a copy of their evidence so that it can be refuted. I would also point out that when they send the evidence that they should include £5 to cover the costs you incurred to receive the outrageous allegations in the first place.
I would then finish by stating that a copy of the letter has been sent to your ISP and to the information commissioner as I take my privacy seriously and believe that someone has been granted access to information that personally identifies me without my consent in breach of the Data Protection Act.
If they refuse to provide the evidence write to them again, registered and include a cheque for £10 and a request under the data protection act for a copy of all information that they hold regarding him. They then have 38 days to comply, if they do not anything they produce would put them in direct and probably willful breach of the law. Possibly rendering any evidence not valid anyway. They have to include any internal emails, absolutely everything that has your name on it. (Although not sure how this works with legal actions, there may be some parts of the legislation that mean full disclosure does not apply.)
Just my thoughts
That may be a little harsh, but I do agree that without microsoft leveraging its desktop presence it would not have anything like the market share it has. As for Linux, I guess the existence of Scalix has gone completely unnoticed by the original poster. Last time I used scalix, it was still a little awkward to install and configure, but it worked really well. It is built on HPs OpenMail and they have progressed it nicely and included a very good webmail client too.
I agree totally. How the test and free will were ever linked I will never understand. I mean if I stamp on someones foot I can predict with a better than 60% accuracy that they will probably move their foot and complain at me! The only option in the test to exercise free will is when told 'push a button' is to refuse to push the button at all. However, when you set up with 'push the button on command with either you left or right hand' most people taking part in the test would follow the instructions and not plainly refuse to do anything on command.
It will probably make no difference at all to spam unfortunately. I have long said that the best approach to stopping spam is to stop the spammer making money at all. My approach is to make the Credit Card companies responsible (you know Visa, MasterCard, Amex) if they get large fines for their customers sending spam they would include in their terms a condition preventing spamming. It is not perfect, but as tracking down the spammers is the hardest part removing that from the equation makes life easier. This also enables any one of the larger economies of the world pass a local law that has global reach. Sadly, not all spam has a direct financial link but a good amount does. Just my thoughts - again.
Just something that I have not seen noted anywhere yet, but google's dominance of the search market is earned and is also fragile. I remember using yahoo and thinking it was great, then I moved over to AltaVista, then onto google, my loyalty only exists as long as I do not find a better way of getting the answers I want.
Google is my preferred search engine and has been almost exclusively for quite some time now, but I am not tied to them in the same way I am with email and instant messaging. The potential merger between Yahoo and MicroSoft is not something I think would be good for anyone, will it improve searches? nope, MicroSoft spent a huge sum relaunching their search product, and I did try it but I still found google faster and returned the better information. As for advertising revenue, googles advertising model means they make the most money because most people use their service. Should they fail to be the best search engine, they will see drops in revenue to match. So I am not concerned by their advertising side.
I like Yahoo and use several of their services, I fear (which is unfounded except from MicroSoft's reputation and track record) that should they get control of Yahoo it will be a bad day for the internet. I fear it would not take very long before the feeling of being able to trust Yahoo is tarnished (whether fair or not) by Microsoft's reputation and actions.
Sadly with the premium that has been placed on Yahoo it may turn into a hostile take over by Microsoft as if they really want it who is really going to turn down the cash?
My hope is that Yahoo's board say no and Microsoft back off not wanting to add to their negative press and image. This could be good for Yahoo as it may show that Yahoo still has a high value suggesting time could be given to management to make the changes necessary to the business and have time for a return to be seen.
As for competition, 3 big companies trying to do the best search or 2, which gives the best environment for innovation?
Just my 7 pence
The top 500 is not a very good measure of performance of supercomputers. But it is probably the only simple way of comparing them.
When you order a super computer you do not (or at least never used to) worry about benchmark performance, you were concerned about getting something to solve a problem. The two are not unlinked, just some design criteria do not translate well into generic benchmark performance.
That said, of course being a university the supercomputer may be intended to be tasked with many different problems and for that reason a more generalised configuration may be specified. I have been involved in several projects where very powerful setups have been purchased for a single task and once that task is completed the entire setup is disposed of (broken up and sold off) instead of being re-tasked, which I always felt was a large waste of money.
As for where the UK stands internationally, it would be nice to see a few more supercomputers on the list and certainly higher up, but traditionally the UK has been very good at creating new technologies and creative solutions on a low budget. I hope that the constant tinkering with our education system does not bring this wonderful tradition to an end.
Oh, and a happy new year.
The BSA send around letters offering to do free audits for companies, complete with scare stories about what happens if they are found to be using unlicensed software. Giving the impression that they are doing you a favour by enabling you to head off such a situation.
What they actually do is audit you and then threaten you if they find you short of licenses so you have to pay up. The audit is used to gather the evidence they would need for a court case.
Trading Standards have in the past advised businesses to bin the BSA letters, this still remains the best thing to do with software audit offers. You should do it yourself and that way no one can hold you to ransom over the findings. You should also make it clear to anyone who has the ability (log in permissions not necessarily technical) to never install anything without being able to show entitlement to do so.
Every employment contract I was ever given had clauses in I did not like. I crossed them out and wrote in my equivalents, trying to give the company basically the same condition just altered to guarantee that my point of view was allowed for.
... Firstly as company car driver I did not like the clause that said I had to get the car serviced in my own time. I changed the condition to say I could use a garage of my choice as opposed to the designated company one. I lived a 2 hour drive away and servicing the car would cost me a day of my time otherwise.
Two examples spring to mind
Secondly, there were invention terms in a contract I did not like similar to the OP. I changed them to something along the lines of 'any software created for the company in company time, the company may modify, use, sell and license as they see fit. However, any methods, including code, I come up with to resolve problems belong to me, as if faced with a similar problem in future I will likely use the same techniques to solve it.'
I go through every contract I sign carefully and have often crossed out terms in credit agreements I disagree with. On a few occasions this has resulted in a discussion to clarify my objections, but has never resulted in the new version being rejected. Also I guess when the sales guy goes off to get a drink while I insist on reading through all of the small print, they may not have paid much attention to the changes only caring that they see my signature and I have dated the document. On two occasions they have tried to enforce terms in credit agreements that I have crossed out, only for them to back down when they see that their copy of the contract no longer says what they thought it did!
Just my experience, but never sign anything you do not like. Explain what you find objectionable and suggest a rewording that you think you both should be able to live with.
5 months is less than the 6 month time limit UK sale of goods act places on assumed factory fault. They should replace it out of hand or full refund. There is no point looking at EU law as UK law is better in this case.
If you want a repair instead of a replacement/refund, remove the hard disk (usually just a couple of screws on the underside) as this component has nothing to do with the fault and contains confidential information that you do not trust them with.
If they are difficult get straight onto trading standards and get them to deal with it, PC World are breaking consumer law clearly in this case.
Hope this helps
Simon
It is easy to define intelligence.
...
At least for me
Intelligence is the application of knowledge, not the possession of knowledge. People often confuse very knowledgeable people with intelligent people. It is also true that very intelligent people often have an absence of common sense. None of these things (intelligence/knowledge/common sense) are mutually exclusive.
Most people can undo a screw with a kitchen knife, without ever being told that you can use a knife as a screwdriver in some circumstances. This is a simple example of intelligence, applying what you know to a situation.
Applying what you know can generate more knowledge, but more knowledge does not make someone more intelligent.
I cannot think of an example in computing or robotics off the top of my head that would require the application of knowledge to solve a problem, but then I have not tried either!
As for the turing test, I have found myself in conversations with people who fail to demonstrate any form of intelligence! Meaning that if I had a three-way conversation with them and a machine, I would probably attribute more intelligence to the machine!
Just my thoughts.
Simon
"WHAT A CROCK!" !! well its nice of you to dismiss it so quickly and easily. My friend was relieved to know that her delayed funeral was just a figment of her and my imagination.
I also said upto 10,000 times more effective, not just 1,000! This is the claim that outrages you so much. I can understand that as it does seam to good to be true, but then ketchup was reported in the national press (UK) earlier this year to be a very effective treatment for prostate cancer. Sadly I cannot remember the study they based that story on.
I let my friend know your comments and her response was to ask me to post the following information for you. Now upon reading it I notice that the reference is actually against one particular chemotherapy drug which I have no idea if it is the best one for the job or not.
The following quote is not from Johns Hopkins and in fact makes no mention of him/it.
Quote:
Much of the recent research on Graviola has been on a novel set of phytochemicals that are found in the leaves, seeds and stem of Graviola which are cytotoxic against various cancer cells. In an 1976 plant screening program by the National Cancer Institute, the leaves and stem of Graviola showed active cytotoxicity against cancer cells and researchers have been following up on this research ever since.(21) Two separate research groups have isolated novel compounds in the seeds and leaves of the plant which have demonstrated significant anti-tumorous, anticancerous and selective toxicity against various types of cancer cells, publishing 8 clinical studies on their findings.(22 - 29) One study demonstrated that an isolated compound in Graviola was selectively cytotoxic to colon adenocarcinoma cells in which it was 10,000 times the potency of adriamycin (a chemotherapy drug).(23) Cancer research is ongoing on Graviola, and four new studies have been published in 1998 which further narrow down the specific phytochemicals which are demonstrating the strongest anticancerous and antiviral properties.(30 - 33)
Footnotes:
1. de Feo, V. 1992. Medicinal and magical plants in the northern Peruvian Andes. Fitoterapia63: 417-440
2. Vasquez, M. R., 1990 Useful Plants of Amazonian Peru. Second Draft. Filed with USDA's National Agricultural Library. USA
3. Grenand, P., Moretti, C., Jacquemin, H., 1987. Pharmacopees taditionnels en Guyane: Créoles, Palikur, Wayãpi. Editorial l-ORSTROM, Coll. Mem No. 108. Paris, France
4. Branch, L.C. and da Silva, I.M.F. 1983. "Folk Medicine of Alter do Chao, Para, Brazil." Acta Amazonica 13(5/6):737-797.
5. de Almeida, E.R., 1993. Plantas Medicinais Brasileiras, Conhecimentos Populares E Cientificos. Hemus Editora Ltda.: Sau Paulo, Brazil.
6. Asprey, GF. & Thornton, P. 1955. Medicinal Plants of Jamaica. III West Indian Med J 4: 69-92
7. Ayensu, ES. 1978. Medicinal Plants of the West Indies. Unpublished manuscript: 110P-(1978) Office of Biological Conservation Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
8. Weniger, B. et.al., 1986. Popular Medicine of the Central Plateau of Haiti. 2. Ethnopharmacological Inventory J Ethnopharmacol 17 1: 13-30 (1986)
9. Feng, P.C. et.al., Pharmacological Screening of Some West Indian Medicinal Plants. J Pharm Pharmacol 14 : 556-561 (1962)
10. Meyer, TM. The Alkaloids of Annona Muricata. Ing Ned Indie 8 6: 64- (1941)
11. Carbajal, D., et.al., Pharmacological Screening of Plant Decoctions Commonly Used in Cuban Folk Medicine. J Ethnopharmacol 33 1/2: 21-24 (1991)
12. Misas, CAJ et.al., Contribution to the Biological Evaluation of Cuban Plants. IV. Rev Cub Med Trop 31 1: 29-35 (1979)
13. Sundarrao, K et.al., Preliminary Screening of Antibacterial and Antitumor Activities of Papua New Guinean Native Medicinal Plants. Int J Pharmacog 31 1: 3-6 (1993)
Graviola is shown to be upto 10000 times more effective than chemo on some cancers, but you are unlikely to find anyone recommending it as the drug companies are more interested in finding the active component and patenting it than helping cure people.
A friend of mine has cancer that was so bad she was warned that the treatment was more about managing the progress of the disease than curing it. After 6 months her doctor could not explain why her cancer was in remission. The reason she gives is the gaviola capsules she had been taking. Now whether it was not as bad as she believed in the first place or it was positive thinking or something else I do not know. But I do know I am prepared to be counted as a believer in herbal medicine.
If anyone wants to know where she got them from, I will find out and post here if requested. I think it was a small company in Bradford (UK).
The number of times I have lied my way through a support call.
I have even been too busy to sit with the equipment of some occasions and been driving at the time. You just work your way through the flow chart until you get to the point where they say 'its broken and needs to be replaced here are the RMA details' or 'it appears there is a fault on the line, I will get that reset for you'. I thought everyone did it! or at least those of us with a reasonable amount of knowledge about these darned computer type thingies. Just remember your pauses and stock phrases 'ok done that, no change' etc.
It must be years since I actually got through to someone straight away that actually knew anything about the system they were supporting.
Just my 2 pence
A while ago I came across something called a Cornish Hydrogen Generator:
http://www.keelynet.com/energy/cornish.htm
Which is a similar type of system, except one of these was tested by BMW. All it uses is an aluminum wire and cylinder for electrolysis in a water bath. The only by product is alumina.
This suffers the same basic issue as the gallium solution:
Recycling the alumina.
This prevents it being carbon neutral at present, but it may be very carbon efficient. Also, by thinking about a global economy based around providing aluminum and recycling the alumina it may be possible to reduce the carbon to almost, if not, zero. The efficiencies of the system suffer, but if using solar or wind energy to be the base power source, the overall efficiency does not matter with renewable/free power sources. The hard (and this may be very very hard) part is making the whole system competitive economically.
The general wisdom appears to be that once you pass 30% market share you can begin to have monopoly influence. How true this is depends on the nature of the rest of the market. Whilst Google are currently the number 1 search engine, they are constantly being challenged by competitors large and small.
Googles ability to make use of their power in the search market is limited by this. However, for them to fall foul of anti-competitive laws you would have thought that they would in the first instance have to do something to actively damage the prospects of competitors in other markets.
The headline caught my attention so I tested it in google.co.uk:
keyword - result - sponsored
Intranet - wikipedia - orchisoft.com
spreadsheet - google - compasssoft.com
documents - www.official-documents.gov.uk - simply-docs.co.uk
calendar - timeanddate.com - google.com
word processor - google.com - techready.co.uk
email - yahoo.com - fasthosts.co.uk
Google manage to be the top search results for spreadsheets and word processor, and only calendar for the sponsored (i.e. adword) links. When you type in email, google dont appear on the results at all, yet one of their biggest competitors do. This appears to show the article is either flawed or google have adjusted already.
Whilst they may take advantage to place themselves higher in the results than they would otherwise merit and certainly appear to take the top sponsored link when they wish, this does not demonstrate any abuse for the simple reason they do not return only themselves. The results of any search appear fair so, I have no problem with them. It is something that people may need to be aware of, but as long as they continue to return search results that place their competitors highly it will be very hard to make a complaint stick.
What they are doing is no different to a TV or radio station advertising their other channels and programmes.
People have already mentioned Notes, so I wont bother with any more on that one.
I have to admit that exchange is probably one of the best email servers out there, it is hard to believe that this is a microsoft product. That said it is full of the usual short sighted design limits that are finally going away. The biggest problem is its complexity. I know that it will never be the easiest product to configure, but there are so many options that can be set in multiple locations that it is not clear which one has precidence and without checking all of the locations you cannot be sure you have all of the settings correct. Once configured and running, exchange is pretty robust and predictable.
As for alternatives, Scalix (http://www.scalix.com/) is very good. Then it should be it has HP OpenMail as a background. The scalix web interface is excellent and whilst it is not the easiest product to configure for smaller environments it is not a big problem and it has great performance and reliability. I am sure that Scalix will continue to grow as a serious contender to Exchange. Its a shame that Samsung never made the same go of it as Scalix are doing as the samsung name would probably have helped open doors.
Dont know which model you were looking for but a 30 second search of the internet gave a few hits of around £2150 for Pioneer PDP507XD-T1BU Plasma 50" that were in stock and available for next day delivery.
Microsoft have had a great deal more success in their fight against the EU system than most others. Typically with the EU courts, once a judgement has been made you have to comply even if you are appealing, the assumption is effectively that you will lose the appeal. MS have managed to get out of complying while they are appealing, but they have pressed the system as far as it is prepared to go.
They submitted over 10,000 pages before claiming that they were complying, but the independant expert (that MS accepted) simply clarified that whilst MS may have complied they have buried the information in so much rubbish as to make it impractical to get at. So, I expect the 8500 pages this time will result in another fine as this again sounds like trying to hide the relevant information, on integrating with their software, in a mass of useless information.
The EU are continuing to do what is best all round (you have no idea how difficult that was to say) - namely promoting fair play, to give the competition a reasonable chance. This chance should lead to more competition in all areas, which in turn should lead to better software. They are not telling MS to pull out of any market, they are just demanding that they do not use their 95% of desktop operating systems to lead to a default position where 95% of all software is MS (this is universally bad).
Dont forget that as a software company they benefit from economies of scale that other markets could only dream of. Every version of windows has been a bigger seller than the previous version, and every version has gone up in price quite heftily. These price rises have been swallowed for 2 reasons: firstly, no practical alternative to windows was around; secondly, new inbuilt features that you previously had to pay for. This second point is the critical one I keep coming back to, when they want to take over a new market segment, they bundle the software for 'free' and increase the cost of windows leaving them with the money whether you use the bundled software or not and making it very difficult for competitors to sell their versions.
If the EU wanted to really hurt MS they would press for all of the member governments to use open source software on all new systems/projects and the removal of all MS software (with the exclusion of Windows Whatever) from education. They would then use the money from the MS fines to promote the creation and growth of an EU open source library, buy a few licenses for the open source community in areas that are currently held back. The size of the EEC market is vast, its combined spend with MS is staggering, if tax breaks were given for using open source software then very quickly open source solutions would be forcing MS to become leaner and more competative (thus leading to better more innovative products), it gets away with what it does because of its size, it pulls competitors into a war of attrition which few can sustain for long once MS decide to take that market.
The reference to bombing abortion clinics reminded me of something I heard on a TV show (The Mark Thomas Comedy Product, I think).
When asked why he was pro-abortion he explained along these lines:
You dont see me with a placquard chanting 'get rid of it!' outside the maternity ward do you? I'm pro choice, which is not the same as pro-abortion.
Still if it was possible to wipe paypal from the timeline, I would not hesitate. But then if I had that power, I would hope someone would remove the power before I got carried away!
I can see your point and the email system does need an overhaul, but there is one thing that I have been advocating for some time now that may not solve the problem but should reduce it significantly.
... you try spamming to sell viagra and the card company wind up cutting you off and keep your money and sue you for any extra needed to pay the fine. No incentive to spam there, affilliate schemes that pay spammers shut down.
I have been asking to make Visa, Mastercard, Amex et al financially responsible for their customers illegal actions. So, if the USA can pass a law making it illegal to take card payments for online gambling, even if the processing bank is outside of the USA, why not pass a law to enable people to get compensation from the card companies for the receipt of spam?
The t&c's would quickly state 'no spamming' anyone who continued to offend would quickly be cut off, therefore no income from the spam, therefore no spam. The law only needs to be passed in a descent sized economy and it will impact on the entire world as Visa and friends would not likely pull out of a multi-billion market.
We would all forward our spam onto a government agency who would have people compile it and as soon as enough was received to prove it was spam an instant fine of £10,000 (or more) to visa and friends, this is each not between them, then all related spam for the next 2 weeks is collect and filed with the original. Any more after this is concidered a new offense!
Think about it
This does not tackle all spam, but it does directly attack spammers who use credit cards to get their money.
I wonder how long before someone actually goes after the cause of spam - namely making money. How many spams are just to annoy us? there are some, but most want our money.
I have had several chinese students board with me while going to college in the UK and spoken at length about many issues. We have spoken a great deal about the differences between living in China and living in the UK. Without exception all of the students have wanted China to have the same freedoms as are (and with this government, soon to be were) available to us. They admire a great deal of things in the 'west' and I have always tried to point out where our systems and way of life fails because China is heading in the same general direction as the UK but they lag behind. This lagging behind gives China a great chance to look closely at our failures and try to find a way forward that avoids the problems we have with our societies.
I do believe I live in a great country, but I also know it could be better. For all of our progress over the last 100 years we have paid a high price in the damage to the social fabric. China has not yet sacrificed too much and I hope it learns from our example so it can avoid it, maybe then we can learn from China how to have everything we really want and need in life.
Before anyone thinks the problems in the UK are related to immigration, they should remember that we have always had lots of immigrants. One of the things that has defined this country over the centuries is our willingness to adopt new ways of life and integrate them into our heritage. It is only recently we have become concerned about preserving traditions and values simply because they have been around for so long.
I'll stop there before I get any further off track.
I have written about this before I registered with slashdot and have tried to explain a miriad of times the following principal:
...
Windows XP Pro £240 (on amazon) + £30 firewall + £30 Antivirus + £20 anti-malware = £320
Windows Vista £400 (guess based on US pricing) but it does include free firewall, antivirus
The problem with Microsoft bundling in extras is not whether it is convenient or not. It is that you buy the OS and are forced to pay for the bundled products like it or not. You want to run windows you have to pay for the other stuff too. I am not judging quality here (well at least not today), purely that you look at the economics of the situation, how can you compete when your software runs on top of an OS that each new version goes up in prices to cover the cost of competing (replacing) your product. This is the simple abuse of an effective monopoly to the detriment of everyone except Microsoft. When their competitors in security software have been crushed where will the innovation come from?
Microsoft should be forced to strip vista back down to a feature set akin to windows 95. This would enable them to concentrate on getting the core of the OS right, which in itself may kill off the security firms. Then their extra products could be bought by those who want them, making people choose which media player, anti-whatever and PDF solution promotes competition. Competition in most cases is a good thing for everyone, except Microsoft, as products get better because innovation is the key to survival.
A little inconvenience would hopefully pay off with better products and value for the end users.
Just my recurring thoughts.
Whilst flogging would make a great family day out and TV special once a month it doesnt really have the global impact I would want.
If you choose to read on, be warned I will unveil in the next paragraph a potential global solution to the spam problem, so you may wish to do something similar to all the politicians I have lobbied and put your fingers in your ears and say 'la la la' (or perhaps just cover your eyes for this one)!
Spam is about making money, remove the ability to make money and the spam goes away. Common sense and few people would disagree, there are always some though! What I feel is the most effective way to do this is go after the credit card clearing companies, make Visa, Mastercard, AmEx & Co responsible. If I receive spam where the spammer can accept credit card payment, I file a complaint and get £10 compensation each time. I would expect the banks very quickly to add terms to their contracts saying 'absolutely no spam', you give them a reasonable period to implement and without credit card ability the website almost certainly dies. Game Over. Will this happen? of course not, but I cannot think of a more effective way of solving this within the next 12 months. The compensation maybe should only apply if say 100 file a complaint about the same spammer within a 1 month period.
You can tweak the specifics to be as harsh or as reasonably fair as you wish. The point is to make a global entity (or few entities) responsible for some of the actions of their customers that they profit from. That way a UK only law could kill spam on a global basis. We dont have to care where the spam came from to get it to stop.
Just my thoughts, that reminds me anyone seen the box?