AbsoluteVista

Tear gas laced with explosives?

Off topic, but again, teargas laced with explosives?

Are you freakin’ kiddin’?

Come to find out that the particular brand of teargas favored by the constabulary in Bangkok comes (conveniently) preloaded with RDX.

Hello?

I know cheap is good, but, dammit, isn’t anyone minding the store over there?

What is the doused victims suddenly, you know, explode?

Memo to self: never protest anything, anything at all, in Thailand!

iBrick lawsuit to go on

Where were the adults at #1, Infinite Loop when the incredibly boneheaded decision to brick unlocked iPhones were made?

Where were they?

In my post here, I laughed it off, calling it malware.

In a subsequent post here, I warned IT managers not to take the plunge, noting that buyers had rights that were being trampled on by Apple.

As expected, an enterprising buyer contacted an ambulance chaser attorney and proceeded to file a lawsuit, claiming the very thing.

Now, US Judge James Ware has greenlighted the lawsuit brought against Apple and AT&T.

A bad idea which should cost Apple real money.

Good!

Original link from Neowin.net

Hey Jerry, how about that $31 per share offer?

Kinda looks real good right now, eh?

When the cash portion was  about 22 a share, or the blue sky scenario of $34 per in cash, you turned it down.

For what?

A white flag of surrender to pie-in-the-sky ‘arrangement’ with Google.

Are you kidding me?

My betters have all weighed in on this, and to a person, thought it was a genius idea. But only if your business and regulatory IQ was under 70!

Enjoy it while it lasts, Jer.

Very soon, Carl will let you know why he is affectionately called a corporate raider.

About that $31/share offer from Microsoft?

<<John falls to the floor, laughing>>

‘Nuff said!!!

Making Friends 101: Annoy Mega-Telco

There is nothing more in telling about an arriviste company than when they suddenly try to bite off more than they can chew.

Case in point is Google.

If this report in ComputerWorld in correct, and I have no reason to doubt that magazine, then Google wants to take on Mega-Telco by, get this, coming up with a system allowing

mobile operators to compete in an auction for the chance to offer you service and then switching from one operator to the next multiple times a day to get the best rate or more bandwidth.

Stop it! I’m so not making it up!

Is this arrogance, hubris, confidence in your technology, assurance in the righteousness of your now-discredited mission statement*, faith in your barrister, a belief in your manifest destiny, or worse, a deadly combination of all of the above?

Like death and taxes, one of the certainties of life in these United States is the sacrosanct nature of the business practices of Mega-Corp, each in their own spaces: Mega-Telco, Mega-Oilco, Mega-Energyco.

In no jurisdiction of Terra have these companies ever being reigned in. Even the United States government couldn’t do jack: hasn’t AT&T reconstituted?

In plain English, you just don’t Fuck with them.

Now come these clowns from the Googleplex in Mountain View trying to accomplish a Sisyphean task of taking down Mega-Telco!

If they think that Microsoft is a formidable opponent, then taking down Mega-Telco is tantamount to the difference between playing with a slingshot, and undertaking an interplanetary Earth-return mission to Jupiter.

FYI, Mega-Telco co-wrote the book on bribery lobbying!

They never play fair, and they are very proactive in squashing gnats.

I am gleefully looking forward to seeing how this unfolds.

*Mission Statement: Do no Evil. Do no evil my a$$!

US Court of Appeals: What $1.5 billion, Alcatel-Lucent?

Aka, go away.

On Thursday, September 25, 2008, a three judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., confirmed what I called back in August of 2007, namely, there isn’t any $1.52 billion payday for Alcatel-Lucent.

Maybe now, that former bastion of innovation can go back to doing what they were known for at one time, innovate, and develop market-leading products. Actually, even middling products.

Too bad Patti and Sergei are not here to cry into a hankie.

How buggy is Firefox 3?

I have about had it with Firefox 3.

Yes, I do use it as browser #2.

For goodness sakes, the incessant shutdowns, the page errors, sheeez!

I’m back

Light posting for the past several weeks due to being sick and completing a major migration at the day job.

I’ll be retro-posting on issues on my mind during that time.

Two new Gates-Seinfeld TV ads

As I post this, Microsoft will be releasing two new spots in the Gates-Seinfeld TV ad campaign for Microsoft.

Ad #2 will air on TV tonight, and #3 tomorrow.

However, you can see both ads right now if you troff over to the following sites:

• http://www.windows.com/
• http://www.windowsvistablog.com/
• http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/windows/default.aspx

Nice, eh?

Well, the true storytelling about Windows unfolds…..

Thanks Chris!

A Zero-G flight

Mauricio Freitas, Editor-in-Chief of Geekzone, New Zealand’s most trafficked tech (and, probably most trafficked overall) website, has been invited to Lost Wages for a Zero-G flight either this weekend or next week.

A Zero-G flight!

There is a lot of truth to the rumor that I am jealous.

For I have had those kinds of aspirations for nearly 3 decades!

Have fun in Las Vegas, M!

Intel releases new, faster CPUs

Nice. And fast too.

“The quad-core Intel Xeon Processor 5400 Series consists of the new X5492, X5470, and L5430 processors, the fastest of which claims a clock speed of 3.4 GHz”

Now look at the graphic below:

I have been zooming along with a dual-socket Intel Xeon X5492 (dual quad core) system for the past several weeks!

Hello!

I like being me!

All jokes aside, these systems redefine the word ‘fast’.

This is the fastest system I have ever used. Ever. Even in my dreams!

The HP xw8600 Personal Workstation: The Maybach Excelero of workstations.

HP xw4600 Personal Workstation Giveaway Winner

adacosta (Andre da Costa) has been selected as the winner of the HP xw4600 Personal Workstation Giveaway by AbsoluteVista.com.

Congratulations, adacosta!

Trio of goodies released by Microsoft

The Microsoft SharePoint Administrator’s Toolkit v2.0, the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, and the Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2 (eval) have been released into the wild by Microsoft.

At LogikLabs, we use the MDOP, and are evaluation the entire System Center family for integration into our operations. As a result, these two tools are very welcome.

At this stage, we are users of SharePoint. However, we see SharePoint as a strategic offering going forward, and we are looking to either obtain expert status in it or acquire the services of someone expert in it very shortly. The SharePoint Administration Toolkit is available in x64, and x86 flavors.

Yea, that’s how short my vacation was. Now it is back to ‘da grind’.

Initial link from Steve Bink at Bink.nu

Download Links:

• Microsoft SharePoint Administrator’s Toolkit; x64, x86
• Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack
• Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager

Linux & The Phalanx2 rootkit: it’s our fault?

According to a yum-yum on Cnet, it is a problem with people, not the code.

Say what now?

Describing Phalanx2 as "a self-injecting kernel rootkit designed for the Linux 2.6 branch that hides files, processes and sockets and includes tools for sniffing a tty program and connecting to it with a backdoor."

Okay…..

This drone then goes on to try to explain that while Linux may be ‘inherently more secure than Windows, as long as admins fail to secure it, it will be just as vulnerable.

That so, Sherlock?

Isn’t it amazing how the cattle try to moonwalk away from the truth every time?

Listen, dodo, that explanation holds true for every operating system.

However, since Microsoft has made ‘Secure by Design’  an architectural priority in Windows, the attack surface has decreased, and the number of vulns reported for Windows has been the best of any OS these past couple of years.

Contrast that to your stuff, yoyo!

You can now see why Linux, however much these clown bray about it, can never get traction with regular humans.

Can you imagine telling a business owner that the reason some criminal in some former Cold War country made off with their data is because it’s all about the people, not the code?

If you installed Linux as the operating system for your business, or your clients' business for that matter, he's right: it's your fault!

Linux, the favorite of the ‘live-under-the-stairs-in-my-grandma’s-basement’ crowd.

Not ready for business, Linux is!

Going OTG for the next few days

With my familia, I will be going off-the grid for the next few days.

I’m packed for sightseeing:

• Canon Rebel XTi DSLR, with normal and zoom lenses
• Canon HV20 HD camcorder,
• Canon 12x36 Image Stabilization II Binoculars
• Nikon CoolPix S52c point-and-click camera,
• HP Mini-Note 2133,
• DOXA Sun 750 Caribbean
• (2) 8GB CF cards for the DSLR
• (1) 16GB SDHC and (1) 4GB SDHC cards for the CoolPix

Should I take a laptop along at all?

Mike (Reyes) says '’No”, emphatically. To him OTG means OTG!

Unless I’m so moved, posting will be almost non-existent.

Ubuntu and kernel security: another one bites the dust

It is getting harder and harder to do the Christian thing.

You know, turn the other cheek, and look away.

For years, we have heard the derogatory buzzwords chanted by the freetards (thanks, RDL) at Microsoft Windows: bloatware, insecure, porous.

I, and a few right-thinking people have tried as much as possible to set the record straight.

However, these desmids have kept up their blather, equating the security failings of Windows pre-XP, and that of Windows Vista despite real evidence to the contrary.

However, gravity is such a constant thing: what goes up, must come down!

A few days ago, it was Red RHAT crying uncle because of a breach that has the potential to still shake tat company, and its products to their very roots.

Today, it is Ubuntu.

I understand that Linux distro is telling its cattle to beware as the kernel could be easily hacked!

Are you kiddin?

Isn’t this Linux anymore?

What, just what, is going on here.

Particularly telling is the supportive responses of these frontrunners to the freetards, namely a company in Armonk, and another in Redwood City.

Actually, their silence is deafening.

In all of this, where is the Penguin?

Unbreakable? Yeah, right!

What they (the freetards) had been unknowingly enjoying was the lack of market share, and the attendant eyeballs on their baby.

With the herd getting more vocal and market share approaching 1% or so globally, come scrutiny.

And it seems that they cannot stand the heat.

What does tomorrow hold, for my enjoyment?

PS. There is absolutely no truth to the invidious rumor that I am jealous of (Ubuntu founder) Mark Shuttleworth’s space adventure. None whatsoever!

Tiger Woods & EA: Response Marketing at its best!

One of the best things to do when faced with either a relentless competitor or admiring fans, is to create a timely and effective response marketing campaign to either countermand the wrongful perception, or in the case of admiring fans, move the needle forward.

Case in point is the video embedded below.

Created in response to a fan’s movie about fanciful gameplay in EA’s Tiger Woods game, it is a sign of a company that gets ‘it’, ‘it’ being Social Media and the power of the Groundswell Effect.

How nice is that?

Now, contrast that with Microsoft’s no-show on nearly two years of Windows Vista bashing by Apple and the rest of the retards in the mainstream IT media.

Yes, Microsoft has been doing the Ostrich Boogie. You know, see danger, bury your head in the sand, hope and pray that said danger automagically goes away.

And they (#1, Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA), wonder why the perception about Vista is so negative?

Props, Eldrick & EA!

The video is here.

Thanks to Mary Jo Foley for the link.

The video’s URL is here.

Google drops Bluetooth and other features from Android

O Oh!

I guess it isn’t a cakewalk to produce an OS, any OS, is it?

When those arrivistes from 1600 Amphitheater Parkway in Mountain View announced their all-encompassing mobile phone OS sometime in the past year, the mainstream media harlots went agog with joy, branding the new OS as the winner in the phone sweepstakes.

Are you kidding me?

The mind boggled at this phenomenon.

Actually, it shouldn’t have.

In my capacity as your humble, very opinionated Editor of SmallBizVista.com and this blog, I receive, on a daily basis, several ‘invites’ to blog a press release.

Needless to say, I pass on all those invites.

Evidently, that is not the same situation with a lot of these mainstream media types. What is particularly alarming is that unlike me, these yum-yums are graduates of journalism schools (supposedly), and unlike me, they have no ethics.

How else can you explain these embarrassing fawning?

However, I digress.

Getting back to Android.

The announcement of a new OS by a company which I have described in my many posts as a one-trick pony, an Internet company with about as much of a pedigree –at that time – in operating systems as any of my late grandmothers, GOD rest their souls, was taken by these yobs as Gospel, and immediately, they started forecasting the death of current players in the mobile OS space.

Again, I ask, are you freakin’ kiddin’ me?

To compound it all, second-rate players (names omitted to protect the guilty irrelevant) in the cellphone space jumped on the bandwagon hoping to get some mindshare traction with Wall Street.

Thankfully, Wall Street went into its own version of Self Immolation – A Financier’s Odyssey, and the dimwits in the financial press have seen themselves defanged by their ability, or lack of thereof, to predict anything with any greater reliability than Madamme Cleo.

With no one to egg them on, or mask the fact creating an OS, any OS, was a Herculean task, Android got unmasked!

First were the delays. Today the announcement that features are being stripped from the OS.

Very soon, those same frontrunners and cheerleaders will begin to flee from the announced OS with the agility displayed by rats escaping from sinking ships.

The glow is coming off.

Welcome to the real world, GOOG.

The AbsoluteVista.com HP Touchsmart IQ506 Review

In January of 2007, HP announced, and shipped the first generation of TouchSmart PCs. Positioned squarely at the entertainment and lifestyle spaces; it was far reaching in its potential, and probably just slightly ahead of its time.

The IQ506 represents the next generation of TouchSmart computers, and it shows in this stylish, yet functional system. The current TouchSmart software is more fluid in use, and provides seamless, yet dynamic tactile controls to the user.

Since August 5, 2008, I have been using the HP TouchSmart IQ506 personal computer.

This system is a single piece system with wireless mouse and keyboard combo. Touch functionality is enabled throughout.

Unboxing/OOBE
The TouchSmart IQ506 came in a very distinctive, and attractive yellow shipping box made of some plastic/composite material. This huge box, and with, a first for me on a system box, Velcro® bindings, contained the TouchSmart IQ506, the easily attached base, and an wireless keyboard and mouse combo in the well-padded case.

(NOTE: This yellow box is special packaging for the review units, as they have to withstand several packing and re-packing cycles during the course of the reviews.)

The OOBE setup manual, a TouchSmart user manual, and the usual support and licensing documentation were in the box as well. All required cables and cords were also in the box. A screen-wiping cloth completed the items therein.

I snapped the base onto the monitor/system unit, connected the power, and got the show started.

First impressions
I had shied away from all-in-one personal computers in the past since I assumed, correctly, that the tradeoffs were not worth the convenience of a multi-piece system.

No longer.

A look at the specs on this system reveals why:

• 22” HP Brightview™ touch screen monitor, with a tilt angle of up to 40°
• Intel Core 2 Duo T5850, 2.16 GHz
• 4GB DDR2-667 RAM
• 256MB Nvidia GeForce 9300M
• 500GB 7,200 rpm SATA drive
• Windows Vista Home Premium Service Pack 1, 64-bit
• 802.11 a/b/g/n wireless
• Bluetooth
• ATSC/NTSC TV tuner and Windows Media Center remote
• 5-in-1 memory card reader
• Slot-loading DVD burner
• Built-in webcam and microphone array
• One IEEE 1394 and 5 USB 2.0 ports
• GigE Ethernet

All that in an all-in-one unit!

Testing Scenario: Entertainment
Since entertainment is one of the segments targeted by the TouchSmart, I decided to test it using lots of audio, video, and photographic content.

I went t the archives in The Floating O’odua, and transferred nearly 20,000 songs to a folder on the hard drive. I broke down my already sorted directory structure, and had WMP re-sort the files.

I copied movies to the hard drive, ripped some movies, and copied raw footage of movies, my animated movie I have been working on. I also copied several gigabytes of photographs to this system

Media Hub using HP TouchSmart Software
The HP TouchSmart system is a two-factor solution: apart from the touch functionality embedded in the TouchSmart PC hardware, HP TouchSmart software also drives this system.

The TouchSmart Software Suite is optimized for entertainment, and consists of the following components: music, video, pictures, RSS feeds, calendar, notes, and is controlled by the Touch Browser, an icon of which is embedded into the front of the system and a shortcut placed on the desktop.

Touch Browser. This allows two-finger scrolling, and single-finger selection of items. I was able to scroll easily through content listings, and select as easily.

TouchSmart Music. This is an easy-to-use music player. It presented my music in two album views that were customizable, and made the creation of playlists as simple as (finger) drag and drop. All music controls using the player were within a finger’s touch away.

TouchSmart Video. As simple to learn and use as the Music Player. It takes advantage of the embedded webcam and array microphones to enable the creation, which can be uploaded directly to YouTube.

TouchSmart Photo. TouchSmart Photo gives uses editing capabilities, with viewing, resizing, album creation, and slideshows at one’s fingertips. I found the use of touch to be much more intuitive in content creation than using the mouse.

Media hub, using Windows Media Center
After using the TouchSmart software, I connected the system to a cable feed and turned it into a media hub.

As a Windows Media Center device, the IQ506 performed as expected. DVR, HD content shone.

Media creation
In order to create content, I installed my consumer stalwarts on the system: Pinnacle Systems Studio 12, CyberLink DVDsuite, Reallusion iClone Studio 2.5 and CrazyTalk Pro 5.

Original video content was shot using a Canon HV20 HD digital camcorder, while a Canon Rebel XTi DSLR and a Nikon S52c point-and-click camera were used for still photography.

I created a movie containing animation from iClone Studio, HD content from the camcorder, and still pictures.

I then had Studio 12 transcode for Blu-Ray, regular DVD, and the Zune.

(Please look my forays into high-end content creation using the HP xw8600 and Adobe Premiere Pro shortly….)

In a word: sweet!

Unintended use: The Small Business Desktop
Why should consumers have all the fun?

One of the reasons I was intrigued by the TouchSmart series was touch functionality.

I have been a proponent of (Microsoft Windows-based) Tablet PCs since I realized the productivity gains afforded by the Tablet functionality while using them. As a result, I wanted to see if those sort of gains could be realized using the TouchSmart.

I am pleased to report that the TouchSmart does provide those productivity gains.

In my tests of the HP TouchSmart IQ506 in a small and medium business setting, from a business executive’s desktop, to an inside salesperson’s system, and culminating as a physician’s desktop adjunct to a laptop/mobile system, the IQ506 shone. Brightly, too!

It was fast, capable, ran Windows Vista™ smoothly, and didn’t create or run into incompatibility issues with software written for Windows XP.

For these business scenarios, the IQ506 met or exceeded expectations.

For the executive, being able t manipulate data and information directly using his/her own digits is without a doubt, a godsend. Perusing BI and CRM dashboards using Microsoft Office Excel and Microsoft CRM is a lot easier when you can point and select directly with your finger.

The salesperson is able to view several pieces of information, and move through several levels of that information effortlessly.

Finally, for an ongoing project, our test subjects the physicians actually preferred the TouchSmart to a standard PC since it presented the same interface as their Tablet PCs. In fact, I was informed that replacing all desktops used by the physicians and mid-level providers was under consideration, and might make it into their budget in 2008 EOY for fiscal 2009. Yeah, it was that good!

For this scenario, I installed Microsoft Research’s InkSeine.

Missing/wish list
Despite all this, the TouchSmart seemed to be missing the following:

1. Touch pen or stylus
2. A larger screen, in the 30” range
3. Windows Media Connect functionality

I found myself wanting to augment the use of my fingers for close-in work, and using a stylus from one of my Tablet PCs for most of my business desktop trials.

Conclusion
The HP TouchSmart IQ500 series of systems should be your next media hub, and lifestyle system.

It is currently the best all-in-one system on the market, with the innovative TouchSmart technology serving to improve your entertainment experience.

It passes the OOBE test exceptionally, and then goes on to deliver more than expected based on that same combination of Windows Vista and HP TouchSmart functionality.

We award the HP TouchSmart IQ500-series the SmallBizVista.com Business Ready Award of Excellence.

I went into the test of this system looking to see if I could bring the benefits of TouchSmart technology to by core constituency, the small and medium business spaces.

I believe this system will deliver to the business desktop the same gains in productivity we now see in the use of Tablet PCs, of which my personal favorite is the HP tx2500 series.

I am looking forward to pitching the value represented in this device to my clients, also making them aware of the future proofing built into the IQ500 series: the Touch functionality that will be inherent in Windows 7.

System highlights
In addition to the system specs listed above,

• A beautiful, functional design
• Grand piano-style black, with ‘Espresso’ accents,
• Slim form factor,
• A truly silent system. From the xw6600 to this, how com only HP seems to have a handle on noise attenuation?
• Ambient light control
• Full-function remote control
• Single power cord

Acknowledgements
My review of this system was speedy, and very much unexpected, for which I thank Marco Pena unconditionally. All it took for him to facilitate this review was a request.

Furthermore, he and Andy Lutzky were able to make Garrett Gargan, the Product Manager for the IQ500-series at HP, available to brief me personally on this worthy device.

SyncToy 2.0 released!

One of the best PowerToys out there has been SyncToy, formerly in version 1,4

Now, SyncToy v2.0 has been released.

Check out these capabilities:

• Dynamic Drive Letter Assignment: Drive letter reassignment will now be detected and updated in the folder pair definition.
• True Folder Sync: Folder creates, renames and deletes are now synchronized for all SyncToy actions.
• Exclusion Filtering Based on Name: File exclusion based on name with exact or fuzzy matching.
• Filtering Based on File Attributes: The ability to exclude files based on one or more file attributes (Read-Only, System, Hidden).
• Unattended Folder Pair Execution: Addressed issues related to running scheduled folder pairs while logged off.
• Folder Pairs With Shared Endpoints: Ability for folder pairs associated with the same or different instances of SyncToy to share end-points.
• Command line enhancements: Added the ability to manage folder pairs via the command line interface.
• Re-Architect Sync Engine: The SyncToy engine has been rearchitected to provide scalability and the ability to add significant enhancements in future releases.
• Sync engine is also more robust insomuch that many single, file level errors are skipped without affecting the entire sync operation.
• Sync Encrypted Files: Sync of Encrypted files works when local folder and files are encrypted, which addresses the common scenario involving sync between local, encrypted laptop PC folder and remote, unencrypted desktop PC folder.
• 64-Bit Support: SyncToy now has a native 64-bit build (x64 only) for 64-bit versions of Windows.
• Folder pair rename
• Sub-folder Exclusion Enhancements: Descendents created under excluded sub-folders are automatically excluded. Usability improvements for the sub-folder exclusion dialog.
• Folder Pair Metadata Moved: Folder pair metadata removed from MyDocuments to resolve any issues with server-based folder pair re-direction setup.
• Setup Improvements: Integrated setup with single self-extracting archive file and no extra downloads if you already have .NET Framework 2.0 installed. Enabled silent install for the SyncToy Installer file (see readme.txt file for more information). Removed combine and subscribe actions.
• Removed combine and subscribe actions.

…and all for free!

Download away.

Windows Small Business Server 2008 RTMs!

How cool is this?

According to Dean Paron, Group Program Manager for SBS 2008, the following are what to expect from SBS 2008:

For IT managers and technology consultants: 

• Microsoft’s newest server technologies: Powerful and more secure infrastructure that was rebuilt from the ground up.
• IT made easy:  Deployment, setup and administration is dramatically simplified and improved. New tools to manage domain names and data folders.  New single CALs make SBS 2008 licensing more flexible and cost-effective.
• Improved Manageability: Monitoring across both servers and client PCs. Customizable, remotely-accessible reports via e-mail and mobile devices
• Application Platform: SBS 2008 Premium Edition is an ideal platform for critical business applications, via SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 on a second hardware server

For small business owners and employees: 

• Greater security: Trial subscriptions to Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server and Windows Live OneCare for Server. Extensibility model for easy reporting of 3^rd party protection applications.
• Better data protection: New block-based server protection technologies that can complete backing up your server in minutes rather than hours.
• Simple, easy online marketing and commerce: Integration with Microsoft Office Live Small Business
• Better productivity:  Improved Remote Web Workplace, integration of the new SharePoint and support for the newest Windows Mobile devices

They have done their work.

Now it is up to us to test, re-test, architect, and develop solutions for SBS 2008.

My implementation plans await.

Gotta go!

Apple pays ringers to stand in line for iPhone

I am so NOT surprised!

That is a revelation I had thought about for a while. Especially for the US.

For the basic inexplicable reason that in this financial climate, how do all these yobless morons scrounge up the sktratch to purchase the admittedly high-end device.

For real, you look at the footage shown on the silly box by the willing cattle in the mainstream media, and you wonder how many coin bottles are stored in the grannies’ basements those losers inhabit.

Now, I know!

So this is the way the loops at #1, Infinite Loop, in Cupertino, USA, do their demand generation thing?

Round up a few losers, seed them with gift cards or whatever ducats you trust them with, have them go into the store and come out with placebo boxes of the device?

Genius!

Pure genius!

Go ahead and take a bow, Steve. You did it again.

Red RHAT says servers hacked

They were?

Weren’t they Linux systems?

That supposedly unbreachable system?

To compound it all, the intruders gained access to systems used to sign Fedora packages.

How titillating!

How does that old adage go again? Something about people, glass house, and stones?

Heal yourself, Red Rodent, before trying to mouth off!

More on Taiwan’s antitrust craziness

In comments to my post, Taiwan starts orbiting the silly galaxy, reader ‘adacosta’ feels it is a sovereignty issue, while reader ‘Michael Turton’ starts back down that tired line of Windows Vista is bad.

Since I spent quite a few minutes on my reply, I decided to expand it into a follow-on post. (The original comments can be found by following the link above.)

@Michael Turton: Did you, Mike? Did you truly ‘research’ this topic? Honestly, did you?

In what way is Microsoft punishing consumers? What is the ‘inferior’ product?

Right here, your ignorance of operating systems, Windows Vista, consumers, and trade betrays you.

I see you are an educator. Why don’t you do what you exhort your students to do, that is, learn about stuff before regurgitating whatever you read without actually knowing what you are talking about?

Actually, to tone it down, I would like you to tell me what your issues are with Windows Vista™, so that I might help you resolve them. For free. Pro bono. Avail yourself of my years of experience with Windows Vista™.

No one forced you to purchase anything. Microsoft has the right to improve on a product. You have the right to vote with your money. You chose not to exercise that right. If you do not like the Microsoft product available, go to another vendor.

Why didn’t you purchase Windows XP?

Or ask you vendor to sell you a system with XP?

In the real world, as opposed to life in the ‘Ivory Towers’, products get obsolete, and replacements are created.

In this case, Microsoft, as is their right, came up with a replacement for Windows XP. They announced an end-of-life date for Windows XP several years ago.

It is up to consumers to do three things:

1. Either come up with a replacement operating system when they need a new computer;
2. Purchase a new license or copy for the OS they are familiar, enamored, or tethered to;
3. Use their current copy of their OS on the new system, if they have a retail copy and/or the license allows them that option, and

Or complain.

While I am not good at analogies, I’ll try to make one.

You purchase a car, and it reaches EOL.

When you purchase a new car, do you require that it come with same engine from the old vehicle? A new unit, not the same old unit.

As to antitrust, the people of Taiwan can do whatever.

While IANAL, I don’t see why, short of any guaranties, warranties, covenants, or promises Microsoft may have made, that requires them to sell Windows XP to the Taiwanese in perpetuity. Nothing in the public domain states that.

As far as Microsoft is concerned, Windows XP has reached the end of life. Period.

If the government of Taiwan wants to reach an agreement with Microsoft to prolong the life of Windows XP, then they should do so.

What they should NOT do is couch their desire in the shroud of antitrust.

That is stupid, and makes them look silly.

Very silly, indeed!

@adacosta: it is one thing to determine before the fact what your citizens should be subjected to. It quite another thing to come up with a bogus antitrust investigation because you do not want to upgrade already purchased material.

What is next?

Do not allow Taiwanese citizens to upgrade their Nokia phones? Ask Daimler to only ship Mercedes-Benz cars with the 1970’s era 6.9 litre V8 engines?

Where does this madness stop?

It is not a sovereignty issue.

It is about bureaucratic overreach and prosecutorial stupidity by the antitrust watchdogs, of which Kroes in the EU is the prima ballerina of that insane comedy.

Taiwan starts orbiting the silly galaxy

Just when you think it is safe to go outside comes the news of another formerly sensible country entering the silly constellation.

This time it is Taiwan!

In news straight out of Mad magazine, the powers that be at that manufacturing powerhouse have decided it is time to get into legislating/regulating the appropriate end-of-life for software!

Say what now?

The free trade apparatchiks in Taipei have decided to attempt to force Microsoft to continue to provide new systems with Windows XP, since, there isn’t a local alternative.

<John waits while the guffaws subside>

Really.

Really?

Erhh, mopes, last time I checked, Microsoft does not make any hardware.

Where is the antitrust violation here?

So, the next thing the inhabitants of that office want to do is legislate the actual EOY for Windows XP, leaving things in a sort of software stare decisis et quieta non movere!

This is competition?

Really though, just what is going on with these bureaucrats worldwide?

Looks like we have to blame Michael Nesmith’s late mom for inventing Liquid Paper or White-Out, one of which, no doubt, these droids are sniffing!

Open XML wins again

What did the ISO and the IEC say to the anti-OOXML crowd?

“Go away, losers.”

In four different languages, no less.

Open XML is here to stay,  yum-yums*.

Get over it!

Now, can we all just get along?

*How must those troglodytes Sutor, Updegrove, and Jones feel right now?

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