 |
::: Friday, March 29 ::: |
|
|
::: Thursday, March 28 ::: |
Great: MS scarier than the CIA, Gateway exec says
It was my understanding that the concept of Fair Trade was to protect consumers and assure that they aren't paying prices higher than the market will bear. If the MS/DOJ settlement is approved it appears to me that, since Dell, Gateway, et al will be required to pay more for their Windows licenses, there is at least a good possibility that some of that cost will be passed to the consumer. In effect, the settlement allows Microsoft to collect more money from its monopoly than it would have been able to if it were never found guilty of having the monopoly in the first place. That, my friends, is irony of the highest caliber.
12:09 PM CST ::
|
|
::: Tuesday, March 26 ::: |
|
|
Whatever: Spammers lose in small-claims court
I know I should probably be happy about this sort of thing, but it's hard not to see it as merely a drop in the bucket. I receive somewhere between 100 and 200 pieces of spam per day. There have been maybe 5-10 court cases like this one where some tireless person fought their way through the courts over the period of a year or more just to prove a point to a spammer.
Countless hours of legal research and time spent in court to arrive at what amounts to a slap on the wrist. Meanwhile, the spammer uses their time to send millions upon millions of messages to other hapless e-mail users worldwide. Excuse me if I don't consider that to be a win for our side.
8:52 AM CST ::
|
|
Hmm: Gateway exec - Microsoft too powerful
I'm wondering if the simplest solution to the OEM issue would be to simply require all OEM to ship "sterile" PCs. No OS, no middleware, just a little system partition with drivers and utilities for multiple OS's. That way the consumer could decide what OS is the best fit and install it.
The problem with that proposal is that it moves Microsoft's focus one-step down the food chain. Stores like Best Buy, Circuit City, and Office Depot would suddenly find themselves being courted vigorously by Microsoft heavies. The opposing parties in the OS marketplace would certainly be at a disadvantage since most of the folks who run the stores have likely never seen Linux, BSD, etc. outside of a Bloomberg stock report.
When you really start to break this thing down, there isn't much anyone can do to Microsoft that both lowers their influence in the industry and protects their ability to run a profitable business. When it comes down to it the DOJ would have to put Microsoft out of business to truly level the playing field and that goes directly against the main tenet of capitalism. In short, the most powerful government in the world is powerless against Microsoft.
8:36 AM CST ::
|
|
::: Monday, March 25 ::: |
|
|
::: Friday, March 22 ::: |
|
|
Thppt: DRM hardware law gets new life, new name
What scares me most about this proposal is that unless hardware manufacturers can come up with a concensus on how to hobble their products to the detriment of their customers, and do so within a year, the FCC will step in and "decide" for them. Last I heard the FCC was a supervisory body who is meant to keep track of all the loose ends and to promote an even playing field in the communications arena. They are not, as the good Senator seems to believe, an electronic engineering braintrust.
8:37 AM CST ::
|
|
::: Wednesday, March 20 ::: |
|
|
Uhm, no: Small Disc Makes Big Music
This sounds like an interesting idea until you read the fine print:
"DataPlay discs are write-once, although new data can be continuously written to the disc until it's full."
Which makes them considerably less useful than Sony's MiniDisc. They then go on to say:
If there are no digital rights attached to the file, then DataPlay assumes none.
Which strips you of the rights to your music. Basically if your CD player isn't smart enough to understand digital rights then songs recorded from that device can't be moved to any other device. The road into DataPlay land is a one-way, dead-end street.
Lastly, although it wasn't specifically mentioned in the article, I assume that this is a spinning disk technology. Any spinning disk technology is likely to be plagued by vibration-related problems including skipping and damage to the disk surface. In short, stick with a hard drive or flash.
9:22 AM CST ::
|
|
Ugh: Pennsylvania orders ISPs to censor the Net
I'm wondering how AOL or MSN will handle this sort of thing? Is it even possible for them to know whether someone is connected from Pennsylvania? I suppose they have ways of determining which POP someone dials into, but I'm not sure if they can track that in real time.
9:02 AM CST ::
|
|
Hmm: Pay for Content? Ha, Say Users
I think the main problem with subscription based sites is that most people feel like they are already paying for the internet when they shill out their $20/month to AOL. Justifying a couple hundred bucks a year for the convenience of having the internet at your fingertips is easy. Justifying even $10/year per site gets a heck of a lot harder.
Personally, I've never found anything which required a subscription that wasn't available somewhere else for free in a comparable form. That may change at some point, but I doubt it will change overnight.
8:11 AM CST ::
|
|
::: Tuesday, March 19 ::: |
Amazing: Window v. Lindows - round one to underdog
I'd like to think this sort of judicial response to Microsoft's overblown complaints will start a trend. It certainly seems as though the courts are at least considering the evidence before falling squarely in Microsoft's camp. Perhaps I'm reading too much into this.
3:27 PM CST ::
|
|
::: Friday, March 15 ::: |
|
|
Hmm: EverQuest Dragged Into Dungeon
"We already have Dungeons & Dragons and the umpteen dozen manuals, modules, expansions and improvements," said Erik Denning, of Los Angeles. "EverQuest made a ton of great innovations for online playing, but I don't expect they'll come up with many new ideas for pen and paper."
I think that sums up my opinion nicely. Traditional RPG's have a much higher "prep time/play time" ratio, which is why EverCrack is so appealing to a lot of folks. People who love pen-and-paper RPG, love the preparation just as much -- and in some cases more -- than the play time.
9:23 AM CST ::
|
|
Great: High-speed ISPs to see less regulation
I guess that settles it. Since the FCC doesn't consider internet via cable modem a telecommunications service, that opens the door for very poor service from carriers. From what I understand consumers aren't allowed to file grievances with the FCC against carriers unless the service they provide is considered a telecommunications service.
Look at it this way, if you are running a business that depends upon reliable telephone service and your carrier is down for an extended period, you can file a complaint with the FCC. Such complaints in and of themselves aren't that scary for the carriers, but the research and documentation that the carrier is forced to provide to the FCC can cost thousands of dollars to produce. Thus, the carriers will do just about anything to avoid a complaint.
The situation should be similar if your business depends upon internet services delivered over cable, but it's not. Because complaints cannot be filed against cable services, ostensibly because they are merely an entertainment provider, the FCC can't keep the cable companies in line. Unfortunately, in a number of areas businesses are forced to use cable for broadband because DSL is unavailable and leased lines are far too expensive.
9:08 AM CST ::
|
|
Interesting: Gateway shifts retail strategy
When recommending pc's to friends and family (who aren't likely to build their own), I often make mention of Gateway, but always with the caveat that they won't be able to take their machine home. I suppose if this new plan works out then I won't have to offer that warning anymore. However, stale inventory is the bane of computer retailers and could end up biting Gateway in the long haul.
8:52 AM CST ::
|
|
::: Wednesday, March 13 ::: |
|
|
Hmm: Chained Melodies
This article is a good recap of the main issues regarding digital rights management. What the author doesn't point out, however, is that if a person uses the start time adjustment feature of AudioGrabber to rip a protected cd, then AudioGrabber itself will be liable for damages. By providing a method of side-stepping copy protection the software maker puts itself directly in the firing line of the DCMA even though the copy protection scheme in question likely didn't exist when they programmed that feature into their product. Yet another reason the DCMA is flawed.
3:01 PM CST ::
|
|
::: Friday, March 8 ::: |
w00t: ps -aux
Nari redesigned too! But her site is still blue... well, not blue exactly, but bluish. Perhaps I should think about doing a little remix myself. Anyone have any ideas? <snicker>
1:34 PM CST ::
|
|
Ooh, pretty: endquote.com
Josh redesigns again and it's not blue! I'm quite certain that a non-blue endquote is one of the signs of the apocolypse. If it's not, it should be.
Next thing you know Tenacious D will chart a single... dogs and cats living together... utter chaos. You have been warned.
12:22 PM CST ::
|
|
::: Thursday, March 7 ::: |
|
|
::: Wednesday, March 6 ::: |
|
|
::: Monday, March 4 ::: |
|
|
w00t: The USA Register
Finally, a US version of The Reg. Apparently the key difference is that articles of little interest to US readers will be side-lined. I'm reserving judgement until I see how this change affects their candor.
9:22 AM CST ::
|
|
::: Friday, March 1 ::: |
411: Complete List of 2002 Grammy Winners
I'm with zannah on this one... it's refreshing to just read through a list of winners. Everytime I flipped over to watch a few minutes of the Grammy broadcast I was bombarded by what seemed like hours of commercials. I think I saw U2 accept one of theirs, but given the absolutely startling number of times they show up in this list, that's hardly surprising.
What's really cool is that once you get past the hundred or so U2 and Alicia Keys categories, you discover that there is a whole world of Grammys that you never knew existed. Things like Polka Album or Small Ensemble Performance (with or without Conductor). Perhaps the best way to win a Grammy (other than being Bono, of course) would be to find a really obscure category and rock their world. It sure beats swallowing minnows to get attention.
3:59 PM CST ::
|
|
Look out below: MS takes a tilt at mid-market CRM
This is what Microsoft does best. The established market forces like PeopleSoft and SAP aren't going to perceive this product as a threat, just like Novell didn't consider LAN Manager a threat. However, somewhere between versions 3 and 4 Microsoft products generally are wide-spread enough to dominate the market. The Microsoft solution doesn't have to be better, or in most cases even as good, it still prevails in the end.
People love to eat steak, but if you shove better and better hamburgers at them by the dozens, eventually a lot of folks will develop a taste for hamburger.
1:29 PM CST ::
|
|
Ugh: PHP flaws pose hacker risk
"Please notice, that you are not only vulnerable if you run scripts that use uploaded files. You are vulnerable if you run any script! If you have PHP only installed but there is no script on your server you are not vulnerable."
That's rather puzzling. It would seem to me that just having PHP installed would be enough. My only guess is that the exploit involves modifying a script as it runs.
1:16 PM CST ::
|
|
|
dinoneil[at]newdream[dot]net
|
|
|
|
|
