What's Microsoft Up To? 744
So, today's one of those days when every bit of news is dominated by Microsoft. To spare you six different stories about the Borg, we'll assimilate them all into this one. You have seen the stupid Passport hole in an earlier story; also the iLoo, although that hasn't stopped you from submitting stories about it, oh no. New news: a report paid for by Microsoft shows that Windows is a better server than Red Hat. A class-action suit has been filed charging that MSN and Best Buy combined to scam customers. The WINHEC conference is ongoing - Steve Ballmer says DRM is an opportunity, not a prison, the Xbox is going to be your home communications center, Wired talks about how hardware will be changed to imprison users, and once you're locked in to Microsoft you get to pay more each year. An article describes why user desktops are locked down. Oh, and here's another on DRM, just because.
sing with me (Score:3, Funny)
Miiiicrosoft gets...
Re:sing with me (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, we all know that it's true.
And they're certain to want to rope off pieces of pie for themselves.
Despite all this, though, I think the general idea of a PC with the functionality of "Athena" is a good idea. If MS uses it's big cudgel to bring down the PC decibel level (you can hear `em whining already - "but we gotta cool our 4 GHz chips!"), increase the reliability (go ahead and use cheap capacitors - we won't let you put a quad-color sticker on the outside), and standardize hardware interfaces for telephony, then that would be a largely positive move.
Of course, as Linux user, I'd like to see all these new standards published openly and available for free to anyone who thinks they could implement them.
iLoo dupe? (Score:5, Funny)
We know you're easily tricked
WINHEC (Score:5, Funny)
WINHEL (Score:5, Funny)
Re:WINHEC (Score:5, Funny)
No, Windows pirates (arr!) are forced to run Windows ME in the afterlife. In Hell of course, but I repeat myself..
Re:WINHEC (Score:5, Funny)
No, that's where you go when you install Windows.
pots and kettles (Score:5, Funny)
With all due respect, it never stopped you posting stories about them either
Henry
Re:pots and kettles (Score:5, Funny)
Pot calling kettle
Come in kettle
Re:pots and kettles (Score:5, Insightful)
The sad truth is that Slashbork would be exactly nowhere without Microsoft.
No, you're not even close. /. would be a quirky online news site where there would be holy wars about trivial topics (Linux vs BSD vs UNIX) and other things.
MS has only caused a vast majority of those quirky people to come together in jihad against a company whose business ethics are non-existant and whose products are of dubious quality. Although they have a STELLAR marketing group.
Re:pots and kettles (Score:5, Funny)
If only we could test that hypothesis.
So... (Score:3, Insightful)
I dont think "there has been lots of news about MS in Slashdot" counts as news.
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
What Happened to the tabletPC? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What Happened to the tabletPC? (Score:5, Informative)
Tablets are alive and probably replacing a laptop near you.
Re:What Happened to the tabletPC? (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because they're manufacturing them doesn't mean we're buying them. Stacks of Tablet PCs will probably be on clearance at a retailer near you.
Re:What Happened to the tabletPC? (Score:5, Insightful)
With all due respect, bullshit.
I test drove two tablet PCs recently (one from Motion Computing, the other I can't remember) for about a week each. They were certainly cool, and they invoked much drooling and exclamations of "ooh, shiny!" from my co-workers, but boy did they suck for daily work.
Here's a brief summary of my testing:
Pros:
Cons:
Of course, they don't run Linux (there is some testing going on, and I found one person who got a kernel to boot, but no usable distros yet), but that's not that big of a deal for me. I'm concerned with usability primarily, and tablets failed that test.
They will not replace laptops anytime soon. What might replace laptops are those laptops that double as tablets (where the monitor rotates, and then folds, so the laptop is closed, but the monitor faces out). Those might catch on. But laptops will not be replaced by tablets until handwriting recognition becomes just as fast (if not faster) than typing, with reduced errors.
What tablets will replace are notepads (the dead tree kind, I mean) and legal pads and the like. The one use I found for the tablet was for taking notes in meetings. I can go back and write on the upper part of the screen, if there's something I missed, rather than having to PgUp and delete and re-type. I can then digitize the notes later, or print them out as images. Tablets are great for that. I predict they'll be used mostly by PHB types or folks who attend lots of meetings and need to take notes. They will not replace conventional laptops for a long, long time, if ever.
Re:What Happened to the tabletPC? (Score:5, Insightful)
They are currently a niche product, sure, but they're great on a sales floor or to take quick notes in the field.
The home inspector who did my walkthrough had a tablet PC, and it suited him fine for checking off boxes, jotting a few notes, making some quick sketches, and then printing me a hard copy.
This is the hardest thing for computer geeks to understand: not everyone has the same demands of a computer that they do.
For many people, a tablet PC is a much better fit than a laptop. Comparing the two is like comparing a PDA with Gameboy Advance.
Re:What Happened to the tabletPC? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's because passwords (as used at the moment) are designed for keyboard use. Once the use of devices like this becomes common, alternatives will arise. Passwords can be replaced by drawing complex abstract patterns (kind of like a signature). For remote access, the pattern would be processed through some kind of hashing function to produce an alphanumeric password.
Re:What Happened to the tabletPC? (Score:5, Funny)
"Tablet is the wrong word for this - the whole experience has more in common with a suppository."
Re:What Happened to the tabletPC? (Score:3, Insightful)
The home inspector I used had one. He could just jot down notes and check boxes without having to find a seat. I don't know if the recognition was flawless or not, there were a few misspellings in my hard report, but it was readable. (Moreso than your average slashdot article, in fact)
I'm sure if you use your imagination you could think of more people and professions that would prefer one to a laptop or PD
Re:What Happened to the tabletPC? (Score:3, Insightful)
For text, a keyboard is much better and faster than handwriting, the only thing where a pencil is great is sketches, pictures, etc. - but only very few people need that.
Re:What Happened to the tabletPC? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What Happened to the tabletPC? (Score:4, Interesting)
Replace charts in hospitals, the ability to pull up 3d image of an architect design while walking around a site, warehouse so you can compare inventory lists to actual product, at home so you could carry into the kitchen for recipes, stream some music to it, lok up something about your favorite tv show. I can see many ses for them, but the cost is just too high. If the could gut the cost to less then 400 bucks with color and a decent spec, they wuld start appearing everywhere.
Re:What Happened to the tabletPC? (Score:5, Interesting)
The nurses will lose the damn pens, and I'm not sure but I don't think that replacing them will be on the scale of replacing a bic, the pen on a Compaq tablet has a battery.
The nurses will lose, drop, or spill something over the devices. When we first rolled out pagers to nurses many came back broken and still do, a fairly large number ended up in toilets (poorly designed clips were the problem there). The point is that most health care workers have physically demanding, mobile jobs.
Most importantly the battery life of this generation of tablets is nowhere near the length neccessary. Most of our nurses work 12 hour shifts, they are not going to want to have to charge or swap batteries every day.
If anyone out there works in a hospital and have tested or rolled out these devices I would love to hear about your experiences.
Re:What Happened to the tabletPC? (Score:4, Insightful)
At the moment, there is a profound lack of IT Infrastructure to accomodate these systems. Issues of security are HUGE, involving things like wireless data transmission encryptions, client/server interaction (and *licensing* --per seat? per device? per user? per connection? You figure it out). Then there are the purely technical issues, like implementing the wireless hardware with appropriate coverage (and security there too -- drive-by WAN, anyone?) , acquiring new IPs and subnetting issues, not to mention the fact that the strength and weakness of these things is that someone can just up an walk away with them... Then there are the personal issues you brought up, plus training and support considerations.
Dear Lord, save me from this kind of starry-eyed Star Trek wanna-be hallucination of the future. $1000 for a glorified clipboard? I can't think of any health care department in the state that could justify that.
And that's only for the two hours that the tablets can actually run on given the battery life. So now we need multiple battery packs and charging stations on every floor...
Kill me.
GMFTatsujin
Re:What Happened to the tabletPC? (Score:4, Interesting)
I must say, it was pretty hot. I took it into class, I loaded up the journal program and took notes with it, I had the day's reading (which had been distributed via electronic reserve) loaded into acrobat reader, and it worked well. The best was, of course, the wireless internet, and as we were discussing the latest nigerian elections I was able to pull up nyt.com and report on the latest news from the region.
On the other hand, I found the handwriting recognition horrible (it's supposed to learn your handwriting as you use it, which is why it always works so well for the demo people). The process of converting my three pages of notes from the journal program to ascii text took about a half hour - it would have been faster to retype them. Battery was almost dead after a 2 hour class, and I couldn't have used it in more than one class. Taking notes is fine, cause you can clean it up later, but basic input is very difficult (entering nyt.com via handwriting took about 60 seconds, and then I had to enter my username and password - and since the password was **** starred out, I didn't really know whether it had correctly interpereted my handwriting until I got the big error screen from the times.
My conclusion: TabletPCs are the future for academic environments, but not for three or four generations of the products, and not until apple makes one :-p.
What does Bill Gates use? (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft Prototype Crawler (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Microsoft Prototype Crawler (Score:3, Interesting)
The interesting variables in this equation have nothing to do with the quality of MSN's sear
Re:Microsoft Prototype Crawler (Score:4, Insightful)
so where do you want to go tomorrow? (Score:4, Funny)
to the iLoo?
Re:so where do you want to go tomorrow? (Score:3, Funny)
Both Sides of the Fence (Score:5, Interesting)
"Consumers shouldn't be worried that Microsoft Corp.'s new security technology will wrest control of their PCs and give it to media companies, Bill Gates said this week. They can always choose not to use it, he said."
Holy poopy-poop, that's misleading. People are going to read this and think "they" means "them." As in "the consumer can always choose not to use it." It, of course, doesn't. It means the creators of the content. And there goes fair use. And while I'm on it, can someone who is a lawyer tell me if we have a right to fair use or is it merely a thing that we've enjoyed because copyright holders couldn't ever get such a firm grip on it enough to effectively control it?
But anyway, back to the issue. In the same article further down, we see:
"Gates said the format of digital content is up to their creators, and Microsoft is only providing a platform on which record labels and movie studios -- as well as others -- can build."
This is a fairly reasonable argument, not so different from the people who run Kazaa saying "hey, we're just an indexer, blame the end-user." Perhaps Microsoft isn't culpable here, either. What they're creating here is a valid tool, one that can allow people a strong form of encryption. The blame for the abuse of that tool, I think, does not rightfull belong in Microsoft's lap.
You might correctly argue that MS is doing this knowing full well that abuse is going to occur and stands to profit from it. Again, Napster et al. We cannot play both sides of the fence here.
The "right" of fair use (from a lawyer) (Score:5, Informative)
I am a lawyer. I am not completely sure on this issue, as I have not had a lot of time to research it. It appears as though the issue is split. Some courts refer to fair use as a right, some as a privelege.
Fair use is provided by statute, not the Constitution:
107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include --
1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.
The Supreme Court has described it as follows: "Any individual may reproduce a copyrighted work for a 'fair use'; the copyright owner does not possess the exclusive right to such a use." Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 433, 78 L. Ed. 2d 574, 104 S. Ct. 774 (1984).
I don't think the issue has been presented to the courts in this manner (there haven't been many copy protection schemes for thinks like books, e.g., they aren't printed on red paper to stop photcopying). I would say that a court would hodl a content producer can use DRM, but if you hack the DRM, thus allowing you to make copies, you can make copies for various fair uses. However, the hacking itself (i.e, bypassing the DRM) may be illegal under the DMCA. This probably trumps the fair use right (remember, its source is statutory -- not constitutional) in that if you can't make copies legally, you can't exercise your fair use right/privilege.
Alas... the problem is that the various statutes are either out of date (e.g., Copyright Act) or responses to an uncertain environment, goaded by lobbyists (e.g., DMCA).
Windows is better than RedHat (Score:4, Insightful)
Cost:
Windows: Expensive (especially if you count licenses)
RedHat: You either pay or don't (download). It's Linux.
Support:
Windows: Support costs you hell a lot of money
RedHat: If you can't afford to pay RedHat, it's Linux for God's sake. There're thousands of people on the net willing to help you.
Documentation:
Windows: None
RedHat: It's Linux, damn it. RTFM
Source code:
Windows: None
RedHat: It's Linux. You get the source code.
Patches:
Windows: Waiting for patches if Microsoft has the time and mood to fix it. Service packs come out once in a blue moon.
RedHat: It's Linux. Thousands of people have access to the source code. Bug fixes come out rapidly.
Hmm.... Windows is better than RedHat?
Re:Windows is better than RedHat (Score:5, Insightful)
The 'cost' of Windows is not as straight forward as 'buying' a Windows 2K server license or downloading Red Hat. I know in my area that someone who is a real expert in W2K will cost around £30k/year and I'd have a choice of them, yet the cost for a Red Hat specialist is -far- more expensive. It's more in the £40k region at least, and I'd not have many to choose from. Therefore, the cost of the software is beset by the personnel costs.
Support wise: I agree that there's enough information on the web for RH but also Windows. However, unless your a large organisation you shouldn't rely on a support contract. I'd not hire a £45k Red Hat expert to run the servers and expect him to rely on a support contract.
Documentation? You don't need it really do you? Do I need a manual for C#? SQL Server? Notepad? IE?
Source code: Ok, you get the source code. For me, that's not a selling point. For some it is though, I conceed.
Patches: 2K server is very stable. If you secure a 2K machine and make sure that it's properly patched you're not likely to get into trouble. Sorry, you might not like to hear it but it's true. Badly patched machines - whether Linux, Mac or Windows boxes are badly patched machines.
I don't think that the RH vs Windows is as simple as you make it. I am not a great fan of MS but some of the stuff they are doing is damned impressive - and I use RH.
Re:Windows is better than RedHat (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Windows is better than RedHat (Score:5, Insightful)
Documentation:
Windows: None
There is more documentation for windows than i can shake a stick at. To this day, i haven't met one issue that i didn't resolve via MSDN, KB or Google/Newsgroups.
Support:
Windows: Support costs you hell a lot of money
RedHat: If you can't afford to pay RedHat, it's Linux for God's sake. There're thousands of people on the net willing to help you.
Considering you rarely need any support with Windows, and setting up the simplest things on Linux is a torture. Do we also want to spend the time figuing out something that the program creator should have?
Patches:
Windows: Waiting for patches if Microsoft has the time and mood to fix it. Service packs come out once in a blue moon.
RedHat: It's Linux. Thousands of people have access to the source code. Bug fixes come out rapidly.
This is just pure FUD bullshit. MS is very responsive to bugs, especially nowadays. Fixes are released sometimes hours after bugs are found. Subscribe to the security newsletter [microsoft.com] and find out for yourself.
Windows also reports less annual bugs than Linux, this [zdnet.com.au] is an old article, but the pattern continues to this day. A little search on SecurityFocus will show you.
Hmm.... Windows is better than RedHat?
Depends on your background. Don't be a stupid troll.
Re:Windows is better than RedHat (Score:3, Informative)
Windows: Support costs you hell a lot of moneybr> RedHat: If you can't afford to pay RedHat, it's Linux for God's sake. There're thousands of people on the net willing to help you.
I think you meant...
RedHat: If you can't afford to pay RedHat, it's Linux for God's sake. There're thousands of people on the net willing to help you install Debian, BSD, Gentoo, Mandrake or some other distro that won't charge you out the ass for Eratta support.
So In The File Server Test... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bob
Re:So In The File Server Test... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, not really. SAMBA is a valid requirement since in most instances the clients accessing the server will be Windoze. Any hope of "real world" testing would take this into account. The reverse is not true however, the odds of a Win2k3 server serving up a bunch of non Windoze machines is pretty slim (and pity the person who has to rely on NFS for any kind of performance).
Re:So In The File Server Test... (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately they also left much of the Linux network stack untuned even though they altered all of two settings in samba's config file.
They then proceeded to tune the hell out of the Windows server, altering things like file locking semantics, network timeouts and dormant file limits in order to eke out more speed.
Hope someone else has picked up on this imbalance in the optimisation of the systems....
Re:So In The File Server Test... (Score:4, Informative)
They turned off the last file access on the Windows servers, but not the Linux servers. Every file hit on Linux got turned into an I-Node update that didn't occur to Windows.
This can be done by "mount -o noatime
I'm always skeptical when someone tries to sell... (Score:5, Insightful)
I see nothing in the report that they had a Red Hat guru optimize the Red Hat server. It is easy to get the results you want. If I don't see proof that Red Hat was configured by a Red Hat guru, as I am sure that Windows 2003 was optimized by a Microsoft guru, then the tests are bunk.
-Brent
Re:I'm always skeptical when someone tries to sell (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I'm always skeptical when someone tries to sell (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe there are some cases where a fileserver is connected to several separate ethernet networks, but in my mind, that's an unusual configuration. I wonder if
Re:I'm always skeptical when someone tries to sell (Score:3, Informative)
The subtitle ("Test report prepared under contract from Microsoft") definitely makes me think, "Take these results with a very LARGE grain of salt." Don't get me wrong
287th Rule of Acquisition (Score:5, Funny)
Proof [no-ip.com].
Best Buy's agressive sales staff (Score:5, Interesting)
Now I'll be the first to note that the man should have paid closer attention to his receipt, but this is definitely not uncommon at many Best Buys.
The Best Buy corporation likes to make a marketting bullet point about how their salespeople are not paid commissions and therefore aren't going to pressure you into sales you don't need. However, they conveniently forget to mention that the sales records of these employees are carefully tracked and while they don't get the positive re-enforcement of a commission income, they get plenty of negative re-enforcement for failing to push MSN, Netflix, service plans or anything else the corporate HQ wants customers to buy into.
Besides seeing such happen as a customer, I worked myself at a Best Buy for an entire eight hours in their computer department a year back and watched one the saleskids first try to push the MSN subscription on a customer who refused it the eight times it was asked, and then had it put on his credit card by the worker anyways.
When I asked the sales manager about the legality of this he merely muttered something about it being the customer's responsibility to keep track of their receipt and that he rewarded such agressive tactics.
I quit that job right then and there.
More horror stories [bestbuysux.org] for those look for an entertaining, though depressing read.
Re:Best Buy's agressive sales staff (Score:5, Funny)
Mmmm, okayyy, but 15 is the *minimum* number of pieces of flair. Do you want to be satisfied just doing the minimum? I thought you said you wanted to express youself -- like Brian over there...
Re:Best Buy's agressive sales staff (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Best Buy's agressive sales staff (Score:5, Informative)
That's one reason employees avoid eMachines like the plague - they're tough to sell service plans on. Who wants to pay $99 for a service plan on a $300 computer? Most people buy a $300 computer to be a throw-away anyway.
So next time you're in Best Buy and you say no to the addons and service plan, just remember the employee hates you more than you probably hate him/her.
With EVERY computer, we were REQUIRED and harassed beyond belief if we did not try to sell the following with each computer: Printer, paper, blank CDRs, software from the "discount rack", Norton anti-virus, UPS, $30 USB cable, Service Plans (on the computer, monitor AND printer), extra toner cartridges, MSN, and my personal favorite, "system optimization" for like $30, which included them deleting a few AOL icons off the desktop (Best Buy only offered Earthlink and MSN at the time) and running defragment. woot!
Best Buy lackey: "Did you get service on that?"
Me: "No."
Lackey: "Why not?"
Me: "They weren't interested."
Lackey: "What did you tell them?"
Me: (the usual spiel) "I told them that if the thing died on them they would have to deal with the manufacturer (lie), but with the service plan we would take care of it. I told them how the integrated CD-ROM is often times the first thing to go, which is $100 for eMachines. I told them about our no-lemon policy and how one service call would probably take care of the cost of the plan."
Lackey: "So what did they say."
Me: "They said that if it broke they would just buy a new one and that they don't believe in service plans."
Lackey: "Well, did you get any software out on it?"
Me: "Nope, they said they have all the software they need."
Lackey: "How about a surge supressor or some blank CDR's?"
Me: "Nope, they said the were just interested in the computer and that's it"
Lackey: "Did they at least put it on their Best Buy card?"
Me: "They said their Visa works just as fine."
Now for the best part. Pick your insult:
1. Lackey: "Well, if they didn't want that stuff, you must not have sold it right."
2. Lackey: "If I would have done the sale, I gaurentee they would be walking out of here with at least a battery backup or Norton"
3. Lackey: "You're ruining our numbers for the night! Come on! You gotta get those addons!"
I won't even want to get started on the bitching I would get if the computer didn't go out with an MSN subscription. Most of the time we were suppose to tell them that it was required with the purchase, and if they threatened to leave the store, THEN tell them, "Ok, I guess I can make an acception in your case."
Now that is a scam (Score:5, Informative)
DRM an opportunity? (Score:5, Funny)
It gets funnier than that... (Score:3)
Intranet content. A manager with a toy manufacturing company uses its enterprise information portal to see year-over-year sales data on screen. The company has confidence in posting this sensitive information because specific usage restrictions have been applied to it. The manager gets the information she needs, conveniently, but because she cannot print, copy or paste it, sensitive sales data are protected from inadvertent (or deliberate) sharing with a competitor.
Email communic
Knowing where to stop reading.. (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft afraid to be benchmarked on AMD chip? (Score:5, Interesting)
Okay, so it is rather redundant to say, but any benchmarking / testing paid for by a party is pretty much guaranteed to be biased in favor of that party.
Anyway, what is up with all the (ONLY 3?) testing systems being PIII Xeons? Where are the AMD chips for comparison? Sounds like Microsoft made sure the systems and benchmarks were very thoroughly optimized in their favor.
Amusing prediction of where MS will go (Score:4, Funny)
(Locking desktops) Definition of "stability" (Score:5, Insightful)
We need a new definition of OS stability.
Today, "stability" basically refers to the ability of an OS to run without crashing _in the absense of configuration changes_.
In the real world, there are ongoing needs to install new software, apply patches, updates, etc.
In a system that had proper modular design, it should be possible to install something new or change a legitimate setting without feeling that you're playing Russian Roulette.
CERTAINLY it should be possible to install vendor-recommended updates with a high level of confidence that it's not going to break something.
Remember all that stuff a few years back, that implied that the problem with stability was that people weren't keeping their systems properly updated and that "self-healing" systems would fix that? Well, now, we all but have them, and, in fact, it's made things worse.
Article Overload (Score:4, Interesting)
I like
- posting
- reading articles
- reading posts
- thinking about posts
But there is too much here in this article that covers a lot of different ground. I think I'll give this topic a break and read a book today during my break.(It's like last couple of
File server shoot-out? You're kidding, right? (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, this is just one part of Microsoft's strategy against Linux and OSS. But I'm pretty sure that this salvo will fall on deaf ears.
Re:File server shoot-out? You're kidding, right? (Score:3, Insightful)
You're right. Nobody has been listening to the Samba people claim their server was faster.
This was more of a pride thing to Microsoft. They saw an article showing their server was not the fastest one out there, and so they went to their developers and said "fix this."
And so they did. Now it's not just faster, it's signifigantly faster.
That's the nature of compet
Misleading Measurements in Benchmark (Score:3, Interesting)
MSFT Stock (Score:5, Insightful)
But no, this company is not a monopoly at all.
Looking at the Wired article (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I'm glad .NET is so secure (Score:5, Interesting)
From Security Focus link:
It is so simple that it is funny.
All you got to do is hit the following in your browser:
https://register.passport.net/emailpwdr
I can verify that it does work (just now changed my own password). No authentication required at all.
Hey, um, What's Bill's address?
Great marketing...Nexus? (Score:3, Interesting)
But who came up with "nexus"? Sounding slightly like "matrix", it conjures up images of Dr. Evil laughing maniacally as he launches his latest plot. (Come to think of it, Balmer also reminds me of Dr. Evil.)
In other news... (Score:3, Funny)
Microsoft CEO and Foreign Minister Steve Ballmer said, "This transformation marks the beginning of a new era for Microsoft. Becoming an independent nation will allow us to streamline our operations beyond what has previously been possible. Besides, our net yearly revenue already exceeds the GDP of 60% of the world's other countries, and we employ approximately as many people as live in Greenland. Plus, we didn't have to think very hard to come up with a flag."
Attorney General Brad Smith was quick to point out that, since so many of the laws passed into US statute have been heavily influenced by Microsoft, the transformation of the Legal department into the new Department of Justice would be relatively straightforward.
Environmental groups were dismayed by the sale of the North Atlantic islands, which they say contain some of the last remaining habitats of the Paralouatta Varonai monkey. Microsoft Environment Minister Ken DiPietro insisted that "every effort" would be made to safeguard the wellbeing of the primates, although he sought to play down rumours that some might be offered jobs in the country's Department of Trustworthy Computing.
Construction work has already begun on the smallest island of the complex, where a village of eleven mud huts has been erected. This will house the Departments of Software Testing, Quality Assurance and Customer Service. The remaining 95% of the landmass will house the Departments of Justice, the Treasury and the Department of Marketing and Tourism.
The move has caused widespread concern among industry analysts, many of whom are predicting severe economic repercussions. A spokesperson said, "Many people [at] Microsoft are of the opinion that we have been carrying the whole US economy for some time now. Well, as of today, that's no longer our problem."
It seems that the incorporation of an armed defence force does not figure in Microsoft's plan. Intelligence sources suspect that the country may be content with the strategic advantage they already have, by virtue of posessing a back door into the computer systems of almost every government in the world.
When asked about the potential perception of Microsoft's actions as anti-American, Ballmer said, "[that] is preposterous. All of our subjects will be offered dual nationality, and may retain their US passport in addition to their new Microsoft Passports and other documentation." Examination of the EULA for Windows XP Service Pack 2 reveals an extra clause allowing Microsoft to "upgrade" users in other countries to Microsoft citizenship automatically.
About the whole MSN thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, if a customer signs up for the 30 day free trial, yes they have to give a creditcard number, but they have to call and cancel the account even if they don't sign on. I had that problem but I called MSN and got this resolved and my money refunded immediately.
Now, the problem is that some bestbuy clerks don't bother to tell the customers this. I've had customers outright refuse the msn and i said that's fine and just don't go through with ringing it up. I always mentioned it to all the customers I talked to, and if they just didn't want it, I never scanned it. This class action probably won't work, but I hope this guy gets his money back.
Anyway that's my piece!
Re:About the whole MSN thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? Because you told a story about how you didn't scam the customers? That doesn't change the fact that other employees did scam the customers. And it appears that they had pressure to do so. This lawsuit not only sounds like it will work, but it sounds like a slam-dunk. The activity at Best Buy appears to be wholly illegal, even if you didn't participate in it.
Users won't upgrade? HELLO?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
"This is scary stuff," said a developer who asked that his name be withheld. "I could see a lot of people sticking with their old computers, operating systems and media players to avoid all this permission crap. Any geek who does use Windows is going to stick with Windows 2000; most of them are already not thrilled with XP anyway."
Mmm hmm...yea. The same thing was said about Internet Explorer 4.0 & Windows 98 (just substitute the words "web browser integration" in for "permission", and it should bring back memories). No one was going to upgrade because no one wanted their internet integrated into the operating system. But whoever was saying such a thing didn't think about this key issue:
The average joe does not care, let alone know about integrating a web browser into an OS. It doesn't matter if the nerd police showed up on the opening day of Windows 98 to tell people how evil it was.
Joe wants a new computer with all the new bells and whistles. If Longhorn says that "it will make the internet come alive with all sorts of new technologies...all you need is Longhorn", then so be it, Joe's going to get Longhorn, because the internet is "cool".
Flawed testing methodology / conflict of interest (Score:5, Informative)
First, they said they conducted each test twice to ensure the "repeatability" and "accuracy." First of all, running a test only twice in no way gives you enough data to claim accuracy. Second of all, "repeatability" is meaningless in terms of determining statistically significant results. The terms you want to claim are *reliability* and *validity*, not accuracy and repeatability.
Simply averaging the results of two tests is idiotic in terms of sound scientific methods. That's the kind of testing I would expect from a grade school chemistry experiment, not an expensive "commissioned" test of a real-life installed system of this kind of complexity.
The other thing they said, which directly contradicts what they said in the main highlights in the beginning of the report, is that "Our investigation showed that, with some minor tweaks, the default configuration values set for SAMBA generated the best overall performance in our configuration." I'm not sure if this means just their linux configuration, or if they tuned linux and discovered that it was faster and just published the slower non-tweaked numbers.
Here are some interesting URLs that help to reveal the obvious conflict of interest here:
http://www.etestinglabs.com/about/news/press/li
http://www.etestinglabs.com/about/news/press/pr
These two show how LionBridge, the parent company of VeriTest, has a long-standing and EXTREMELY lucrative contract with MicroSoft.
http://boston.internet.com/news/article.php/137
http://boston.internet.com/news/article.php/148
Here's some more interesting info:
Fidelity Management and Research Co. is Microsoft's top institutional shareholder, and is LionBridge's 6th largest institutional shareholder.
Barclays Global Investors Int'l is #2 for Microsoft and #9 for LionBridge.
Morgan Stanley Investment Mgmt is #13 for Microsoft and #3 for LionBridge.
State Street is #3 for MicroSoft, #8 for LionBridge.
So, the top 3 institutional shareholders of Microsoft own a very significant chunk of LionBridge, which shows lots of common interest between the two.
I could probably go on, but this should be enough..
The one thing I want to know... (Score:3, Insightful)
Translation (Score:5, Funny)
Quote: "Any government department is quite at liberty to run only Windows 2000 server. There's nothing forcing them to upgrade to Server 2003," [Microsoft senior consultant Alex Balcanquall] said.
Translation: We haven't quite figured out how to break compatibility yet... but we should have that ready for SP1.
Yeah...right (Score:3, Funny)
Don't they also keep saying its not a bug its a feature???
One of those days... (Score:5, Funny)
There are no hackers in Hotmail (Score:5, Funny)
"My feelings - as usual - we will kill them all"
"Our initial assessment is that they will all die"
"I blame Slashdot - they are marketing for the Linux kernel!"
"God will roast their stomachs in hell at the hands of Microsoft."
"They're coming to surrender or be burned in their computerr rooms."
"No I am not scared, and neither should you be!"
"Be assured. Passport is safe, protected"
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!"
"We are not afraid of the hackers. Allah has condemned them. They are stupid. They are stupid" (dramatic pause) "and they are condemned."
"The hackers, they always depend on a method what I call
"I can say, and I am responsible for what I am saying, that they have started to commit suicide under the walls of Hotmail. We will encourage them to commit suicide more quickly."
"I can assure you that those villains will recognize, will discover in appropriate time in the future how stupid they are and how they are pretending things which have never taken place."
"The authority of the Microsoft... issued a warning to the civilian population not to pick up any of those Linux Distrobutions because they are booby traps," he said, adding that Hackers were "immoral mercenaries" and "criminals" for such behavior.
"I am not talking about the American people and the British people," he said. "I am talking about Hackers.
"We have them surrounded in their computer rooms"
"Muhammad Faisal Rauf Danka is all about lies! All he tells is lies, lies and more lies!"
"I have detailed information about the situation...which completely proves that what they allege are illusions . . . They lie every day."
"Lying is forbidden in Microsoft. Microsoft lawyers will tolerate nothing but truthfulness as they are men of great honor and integrity. Everyone is encouraged to speak freely of the truths evidenced in their eyes and hearts."
"Now even the Hacker command is under siege. We are hitting it from the north, east, south and west. We chase them here and they chase us there. But at the end we are the people who are laying siege to them. And it is not them who are besieging us."
Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf
Microsoft Information Minister
What Steve Meant to say (Score:3, Redundant)
I think he meant to say that DRM is an opportunity to BE imprisoned.
Star Trek Prophesies The rise of Microsoft (Score:3, Funny)
Below are some actual Star Trek quotes by and about the borg, Just replace borg with M$, Locutus with Balmer, and Ship with PC -- and you have a pretty good description of M$.
Why is it that so many things in Star Trek come true?
I can only hope that we overcome the M$ levithan, like in ST
Translating MS to English... (Score:4, Funny)
We're excited about partnering with a wide range of content owners, authors and industry vendors on these crucial technologies, particularly as broadband continues to expand the opportunities for delivering digital media content worldwide, and as rights management is recognized by businesses large and small as an opportunity to protect copyrights, confidentiality and personal privacy while promoting innovation, creating opportunity and empowering customers."
in English....
"This.... is a shit sandwich. You are going to eat this. You can put mustard on it, you can even cut it in half and eat it in two pieces. But you are going to eat it."
Netbench benchmarked flawed (Score:4, Insightful)
For instance, they're comparing Win2k3 vs. Samba 2.2.7. We're rather close to the 3.0 release of Samba and the 2.2 base hasn't really been worked on in a long time.
Moreover, RHAS is actually slightly older than RH8.0 (a lot older than RH9.0). That's why the one benchmark with all three systems showed RH8 beating RHAS. I believe that RHAS didn't ship the O(1) scheduler.
I've also heard claims that the real reason behind the difference in throughput was the poor software raid used in the benchmark machines. Had a supported hardware RAID been used, things would have been pretty different.
Not to mention the "tuning" done to the two systems. The socket buffers were tweaked and the file descriptors increased on the linux side while a bunch of strange registry options were set on the Windows side. There could have been a lot more tuning done on the linux side to improve performance.
Of course, what would you expect from a study commissioned by Microsoft. What someone should do is let the Samba team set up a machine and some Microsoft folks set up another machine. Then we'll see who outperforms who.
Re:Linux has drm! (Score:5, Funny)
It's called chmod!
Slow down there, cowboy. Wait till Stallman comes out with GNU/DLM - Digital Lefts Management
So does Windows (Score:3, Informative)
It's called setfacl (Solaris 8, HP-UX 10, etc.) (Score:3, Informative)
usage:
setfacl [-r] -f aclfile file
setfacl [-r] -d acl_entries file
setfacl [-r] -m acl_entries file
setfacl [-r] -s acl_entries file
Also available for linux [bestbits.at]
Re:Next we tested IIS on both Linux and Windows (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the test was commissioned and paid for by Microsoft. They knew the results before they paid for the test - the test was ordered in such a way as to make the results a forgone conclusion.
If you were going to contruct a biased test of Linux vs. Microsoft, wanting Linux to prove better - you'd choose products and tests that would favor Linux... just as Microsoft did here. Take a native protocol to Microsoft and stack it up against a re-implementation on another operating system... sounds pretty weighted against Linux to me.
Of course there are lots of ways to make an unbiased performance comparison - such as using multiple protocols, etc... but why would Microsoft pay for that? I'm not saying that either system was better or worse than the other - just that this particular test doesn't prove anything except that Microsoft know how to spec a test so that their products appear faster.
Re:Next we tested IIS on both Linux and Windows (Score:3)
Re:Next we tested IIS on both Linux and Windows (Score:3, Insightful)
I just realized: does this mean Microsoft officially recognizes Samba as legitimate competition?
Re:Next we tested IIS on both Linux and Windows (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd like to see how these performance features they've added to Win2k3 makes it faster than Linux at performing disk I/O with a loaded CPU or two.
One test I performed last night was kinda cool. Linux can stream 4 720x480 MPEG4/ogg ogm videos
Several issues (Score:4, Insightful)
Secondly, note that no real test results were provided; the report merely states that MS-Windows provided a higher *peak* throughput. Please realize that real-world performance does not rely on peak throughput as much as it relies on aggregate *sustained* throughput.
It could be that Samba still knocks the socks off MS-Windows in that more-important category. But, until some legitimate benchmarks are run, Microsoft will continue to pay for FUD.
BTW: several quibbles with testing methodology. First, no optimisations were done to the Linux box (no noatime option on the filesystem mount, for instance). Second, they didn't test against an optimized kernel (which is fair, I guess, as most people will stick with a stock install; however, most people won't do those MS-Windows tweaks, either). Finally, this was tested against an aging 2.4 kernel, and not against either the newer 2.4 kernel, or against any of the later 2.5 builds. With the SMP, low-latency, and I/O buffs in the new 2.5 series, I imagine the outcome would be quite different.
But, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Re:Next we tested IIS on both Linux and Windows (Score:4, Interesting)
Now having said all this, I'm not surprised, I've been reading performance comparisons for 25 years and strangely enough, the sponsoring company's hardware/software/operating systems always seem to come out on top. This started with comparing the 8086 to the 68000 and has continued on to the present day.
The important/best thing about the review is that it states very clearly at the top that the test was sponsored by Microsoft.
myke
...But wait, there's more! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:KDE 3.2 will have lockdown features (Score:3, Informative)
You are talking of two totally different kinds of lockdown features.
Windows lockdown is locking the customer to one perticular vendor (windows in this case), and forcing them to upgrade and pay more and more money every year.
The KDE 3.2 lockdown features are for locking certain aspects of KDE from the users by administrators. Typical application would be kikos where you want multiple users to use the applications but not change the configurations.
Re:sheepdot (Score:3, Funny)
I thought it was "GNUs for HURDs."
Re:Complete the Microsoft Slam (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Complete the Microsoft Slam (Score:4, Informative)
VA Software [marketguide.com], Red Hat [marketguide.com]
You were saying?
Re:Childish... just pathetic (Score:4, Informative)
Click this [slashdot.org]. Then click the box next to michael. Then scroll to the bottom and click save. Voila, no michael.
I don't have a problem with michael, but it's sure nice that if I did, I wouldn't have to read his posts. The tools exist, use 'em.
Re:Childish... just pathetic (Score:4, Insightful)
You position, assuming that he's attacking Microsoft and that therefore he's making Linux users look bad, speaks of the worst sort of arrogance. The articles have not been misrepresented. When he says "although that hasn't stopped you from submitting stories about it, oh no," that strikes me as a jab at all those who grumble about dupes. Sure, an editor posted it, but someone submitted it in the first place. That someone probably has more time to check for a dupe than the editor. Personally, I always do.
I see references to Seth Finkelstein appearing already. With any Michael thread this is no surprise. I don't know who was right or who was wrong, but I do know that it has no bearing on Digital Rights Management. It's a private spat, let it stay that way. Taco clearly feels confident in Michael Sims and frankly, it's Taco's call.
Finally, I'd mod you down too. Why? Because I've seen this rant far to often. It's the ultimate meta-dupe, and a troll to boot. Given the responses you've provoked, I'd say it's a fair bet to call it flamebait. Finally, you've added nothing useful to the discussion. If your post were exorcised from the site nothing would have been lost.
If you don't like what the editors do, vote with your browser and go somewhere else. You aren't locked in to Slashdot. I'm sure Kuro5hin would welcome another Slashdot hater...
~Chazzf
Re:Childish... just pathetic (Score:3, Insightful)
Most of the comments that I read from the actual hackers state quite clearly that they could care less what Microsoft is doing and what percentage market share that Linux has. Honestly who other than the whiners and posters give a damn about controlling the desktop?
The hackers write code because they enjoy i
Re:Childish... just pathetic (Score:4, Insightful)
Dig around a bit. Taco has often stated that they maintain complete editorial separation from OSDN's marketing. That is to say, Marketing doesn't dictate the flavor of their articles and they don't dictate who can advertise (that also explaines the "Slashdot Cruiser" marketing flop). No wonder Slashdot serves up the occasional Doubleclick banner or Microsoft ad.
Along those lines, I don't see how accepting funding from Microsoft while criticizing them is hypocrisy. Now - if they're critical on some aspect and then change their tune because of ad funding, then you might have something.