Posts by Darren7160

Contractors and managers hit in Alcatel-Lucent layoffs

I am so confused?

Well, here in America it was the darlings of the conservatives, those might warriors of Wall Street that brought the economy to its knees. I can't believe that someone who was on the "dole" could possibly cost society enough to take out those $billions of dollars.

Oh, but by all means! Please, as you always have, ignore the truth and wait for the next time. And... there will be a next time! S&L, insider trading, ENRON, Global Crossing, TYCO, internet bubble, wall street melt down, WEB 2.0 melt down. Sure, it is all the fault of someone getting something for nothing... like food for their kids.

You see, in America, people are finally getting wise to that garbage. Blame the workers, chase the woman using food stamps to see what kind of car she is driving... while we were being robbed blind to the tune of $billions... tens of $billions... hundreds of $billions!

That is why the Repubs and Conservatives got their butts handed to them in 2006 and 2008. We just ain't buying it anymore. Sadly, I doubt if my friends there blaming "Labor" can deal with something that doesn't fit on a bumper sticker.

Your American Cousin!

Nvidia pitches Tesla GPU-as-CPU tech 'personal supercomputer'

Perceptions

It is interesting to read the perceptions of price. I seem to remember paying thousands for my first computer which was a pretty good deal for a 20 Mghz 386SX. I also remember reading about the 386DX and the hot new 486 but they were up over $10,000.

For you younger people, have fun and go out and look for old computer advertisements.

Kentucky judge OKs 141-site net casino land grab

What an idiot!

Okay. He believes that he can do this? Great! Now, we get some judge in Iran to demand the removal of all the Christian websites. Cool. Hey, they are both judges of a sovereign nation. Right? God, you let someone wear a robe and it really does tend to go to their head. I think that we should create a law somewhere that outlaws stupid states and we start with Kentucky.

The netbook newbie's guide to Linux

Education and Constructionsit Learning

Education is my primary focus. From there I use it as a means to help people learn what they need to know. Whether it is at work or with something such as using a computer. This usually entails an overview so a person is able to see how things relate to, rather than describing the forest by detailing individual trees.

I appreciate the intro to the Terminal. I have often been frustrated when instructed to go to the Terminal and do something that I don't understand.

However, I would love to see a regular article that begins with an overview of the system and how they relate, then the individual parts and then onto higher level tasks.

For example, though I have been using computers since the VIC 20 I have yet to really understand the file structure of Linux. It just doesn't make sense because with c:\ I know that I am (most likely) seeing a physical drive from its root. If I want to know where programs are I can look in c:\programs, etc.

I lost my Windows Vista install (no great loss, but a loss none the less) because I screwed up not understanding how Ubuntu and Windows can coexist on a hard drive because of the confusing file structure and terminology. I am not saying that Linux is a bad structure or anything, just confusing to someone who has no previous knowledge of it as is coming at it from a DOS/Windows background.

I can install a program and it doesn't load an icon on the desktop or appear on my start menu I know I can go to the c:\programs directory and look for a directory that has the program I just installed and drag the application to my desktop... When I somehow manage to install a program from a distribution not loaded with my Add/Remove it is 50-50 whether or not I will be able to get it on my Applications menu. OppenOffice 3.0 is an example. I was able to load it by installing it from copying and pasting the process from someones tutorial on the internet... but it didn't "update" 2.4 it just loaded it onto my computer somewhere. I was able to finally get it (sort of) on my menu, but I could not figure out a way to see associations from 2.4 to 3.0.

These types of things need to be addressed. An overview of Linux, its file structure, what the different directories and how they work, etc. Then getting into the Terminal to do things to the system.

I love my Ubuntu I have loaded on my Acer Aspire 5100 and enjoy tinkering and learning... but the frustration of people assuming we have knowledge we don't posses is frustrating.

My point is, in education, I never assume that a person has the requisite knowledge. In person I can ask, in writing I presume that they don't. The same with Linux. I would really love to see a weekly article starting from the beginning. Just like the old days when computer magazines would give tips and tutorials on how to use programs.

Good article.

GooTube snubs McCain's call for DMCA favoritism

I love it!

Oh please, violate the law just for us! I'm sorry, but didn't the story say that the site must wait 10 to 14 days before they can make a determination? If that is so, then asking YouTube to do otherwise is asking them to violate the law. Republicans? Oh, right. Never mind. Laws don't apply to them. My bad.

Mine's the camouflaged one with the Disabled Vet patch and Obama bumper sticker across the back.

Emails show journalist rigged Wikipedia's naked shorts

The stock market as so little to do with...

Capitalism. The private ownership of capital. Whether it is manufacturing or anything else. Sure, the stock market is where a company is supposed to sell a portion of ownership to raise money, it has become so much more. It is a slot machine without a handle to pull.

Like futures, yes, orange juice makers or oil companies are supposed to use this market to fix in a price for a commodity it needs in the future. The producer of the commodity can then be assured of a known return and the buyer can plan on costs and availability of the commodity in the future when they need it. However, it has become a change for people who will never produce, deliver or use a commodity to jump in and try to make a profit. That, it seems to me, would be gambling.

Short selling is fine, as long as you don't manipulate the market in an attempt to make the stock price fall to make your profit. Simple, huh? Naked short selling should never ever be allowed. If you don't have it and you sell it, well, that seems to me to be fraud. "Oh, I was selling a bridge... it wasn't fraud officer. I planned on buying one to sell it. See? I just ran out of funds and couldn't buy it to sell what I had promised."

Idiots on the stock market looking for short term profits and companies doing questionable or even out right illegal things to meet market expectations each quarter leads to the US loaning the US automakers $25 Billion dollars (with another possible $25 Billion) to retool. Why? Because they were chasing the short term, high margin profits of gas guzzling SUVs.

Once again, we have to bail out those who should be drawn and quartered.

Anyone that uses WIKI as an accredited source is no longer worthy of listening to. They lost their credibility. Granted, I use it as a source... for football players history.

This won't be the end of capitalism. We keep bailing it out.

Indian chief exec murder 'a warning for management'

Sometimes....

Sometimes companies make decisions that just can't be justified. Here in America we have a company that is closing a plant... they refuse to keep the plant open and they refuse to sell the plant. 600 workers losing their jobs, a small city is having to deal with 600 families losing their livelihood. An empty building becoming a source of blight within a small town.

Why? Who knows yet. Possibly wanting to sell the parts at a bit more money than if sold as a whole? To prevent a competitor in their market? For years employees and the city have been a source of income and profit for this company and now they are cast aside without so much as a backwards glance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJNIDjmEgmc

Was what they did right? Of course not.

IBM tries its hand in the lawn sprinkler biz

They have to be kidding?

I worked for the TORO company many years ago. Back in the very early 90's we were building a device that measured the moisture of the soil and determined whether or not to water. The NET8000 system did everything that this patent is supposing 20 years ago. It took national weather information, types of grass and degrees of slope on the courses and automatically adjusted run times.

Oh well. TORO long ago decided they didn't care about the controllers they built and sent them to China. They would rather focus on making the little water poppy-up thingys.

'I can see dinosaurs from my back porch'

It isn't a problem with science...

For years I have been saying that America doesn't have a problem teaching science... we have a serious problem teaching critical thinking. We need to teach students how to be critical consumers of information.

While America's religious conservatives worship religion and mock science's theory of evolution the fiscal conservatives worship an economic theory as though it is a religion. That is part of the problem with trying to make our economic system work... because any attempt to deal with the reality of tempering greed and stupidity is seen as sinful because reality doesn't match their "theory". Once again we are paying the price for their worship of deregulation. Remember the Savings and Load (thank you Mr. McCain) bail out of $billions, the loss to investors from TYCO, Global Crossing, ENRON, etc. and now the current crisis.

As long as they can keep the simple people arguing over the number of angles that can dance on the head of a pin, or who their neighbor is having sex with... well, they are free to run this country into the ground.

SiCortex cranks clocks on mega MIPS machines

Can I be the one?

To ask, or predict that this might actually run Vista? Wow. Where is my checkbook? Ooops. In the coat that someone just walked out with.

First Android phone to retail for $199

Better than a Lib-Dem how about...

How about if we go for the truth? Let's call it the conservative-republican phone? Absolutely empty and worthless inside... No substance. Just a phrase, a ditty, a mindless blathering of bankrupt nannering.

$billions of dollars (welcome to the United Socialist States of America) to cover the greed and ineptitude of the private market? Oh yes! Please, continue thinking based upon dated and very pathetic attempts to rhetorically attack Libs-Dems. Yes! Chase down your neighbor to make sure they are only having sex with the "proper" other sex! Chase down a woman using food stamps, a child eating a free lunch at school and see what kind of car the family owns. Ignore the $billion in the Savings and Loans of the 80's, the ENRON, Global Crossings, TYCOs and the meltdown of the economy based upon the deregulation and "free market" that is costing us. Yes, please continue to blather on sounding like the mindless minion that they want/need. Geeez. Some people find any excuse to try to slam Libs-Dems and they continually show their stupidity. It is so sad. Give it a break. It ain't cute, it ain't witty. It is presenting your stupidity to the whole world. Sad.

(Moderator, I am sorry, but this crap is really really getting to be a pain. Snide comments that should be answered. I didn't start it... but I sure as hell refuse to sit back and let it pass.)

Anti-Kremlin website owner shot dead in police custody

Sadly

Sadly, the leader of the Republican party (he has never been the President of the United States, he never made that transition) has destroyed his, and thus our credibility in the world. He mocked and disregarded, if not out right slandered the very institutions that are needed. His unilateralist approach being whispered into McSame's ear by the neo-con advisors mean 4 more years of the same bankrupt moral stance.

Many look at Putin (who Bush said he saw a kindred spirit in his eyes... God how apropos) and Bush and see little difference. What do the Republican's offer as the future? A 72 year old man and a bimbo who just a couple of years ago was a local councilwoman...

It really is time for Europe to take the lead, if they are waiting for leadership from this country, unless Obama wins, you ain't gonna get it. Good luck!

Twitter falls silent in the UK

Why is it so expensive?

As has been mentioned... because they can. A voice call stays connected for the duration, there is information being conveyed at all times, even if it is silence. A text message can be sent, queued, and then delivered over lines, that if not passing traffic are still being paid for... so, the cost is the value of what they can get away with charging... so when they say that it costs x amount that isn't real dollars, that is just what they value it at. Think of placing a value of $1000 on on my time... if I take 8 hours off then I am losing $8000! However, if you hire me at $20 an hour, I am losing $880 an hour but look at the value you will be getting!!!!

I hate accounting. Ask any actor if he would be willing to take a percentage of Net!

Verizon faces 65,000 worker walkout

Benveolent companies for Solomon Grundy

Yes Mr. Grundy. It is all the fault of the unions! We know that. Companies, from the goodness of their hearts are more than willing to share in the benefits of being successful. That is why IBM is DROPPING the wages of their factory workers by 20% after attaining RECORD PROFITS! Please, please, please, drop the knee jerk rhetoric spoon fed to the public by corporate sponsored politicians.

Think. Think for yourself. Open your eyes and investigate the reality of the world and see for yourself whether or not it corresponds with the propaganda.

Not only has IBM done this to the factory workers, please, Google what IBM (as well as many other record profit making companies) did to their workers retirement packages about a year ago.

Oh... but blame the unions because they are the bad guys. Dear God, protect me from parrots that don't use critical thinking, just mimicking something that they are told.

We, in American, don't have a problem in education teaching science and math, we have a problem in teaching critical thinking and being critical consumers of information. It might appear that England has the same problem. Think for yourself!!!!!!!!

Mines the one with the leather patches on the elbows.

ASA slaps down Vodafone 'unlimited' data claims

We need to take back that English language

I am tired to politicians and advertisers (yes, I am an American as per my spelling). We need to take back our language, where words have a common and well established meaning.

I read the ad and if I were asked, I would have said, that "any" means each and every one available or at whatever time or duration I chose. I would not have interpreted it as meaning a small portion.

My ex wife considers me a pessimist, I consider myself a skeptic. When I ask the kids to tell me who is more accurate in their prediction of the probability of being screwed by a politician or an advertisement, their opinion is that my view point is more in touch with reality.

Nothing is free and no one gives anyone "any"thing for nothing. Now if I can just get interwebs access to a nice secluded hermit's cabin in the mountains I would be set.

Paypal glitch hits merchants with 12-day headache

Nothing on their site?

I find it interesting that there is nothing on their site. If I hadn't read this article I could be setting up an account at this moment that would cause me to loose money as soon as I started receiving orders. Hmmmmm.

Shouldn't there be a front page announcement that vendors could refer the customer to that would verify that it was a PayPay error and not the vedor's?

Oh wait! How stupid of me. That would require respect of the PayPals customer and honesty... not a high commodity in today's business environment. Deny, deny, deny.

Why not Paris?

No-fly list grounds US Air Marshals

That is why...

People should be concerned about the wide net cast. An innocent person can have their name entered for any reason. It will forever effect your life and you will have absolutely no idea it is there. But, by the theory of six degrees of separation you are probably guilty anyhow. That is why I believe we should have just bombed Aaron Bacon for 9/11.

US teen cuffed for disposable camera 'Taser'

Isn't politics funny?

One person seems to think that it is the left leaning "liberals" who are responsible for this stupidity, while my thought was that it was the right-wing control freaks that want to criminalize anything not within their idea of what is "right". Please, as we review the depth of stupidity and loss of reason and freedom, remember, this is because of the right-wing conservatives were in power... not the "liberals" to which some want to attribute all life's ills. When it comes to fear and protecting us from the world of "What if's..." it is the fear mongering patrons of our National Village Idiot who are responsible. Not us liberals.

Mine is the raincoat, because everyone is trying to tell me it is raining while they are in fact...

Want to snoop on your neighbors? Come and work in Wisconsin

Those Darn Socialists!

They are so darn sneaky. To really mess with people they intentionally manipulated the election not once, but twice! Just so the Republic(ans) would win and no one would suspect that the socialists were messing with things. Then, to be really realy sneaky they went and manipulated the Repubic(ans) into wiretapping without court orders! Then they try to deflect our attention on whether a woman is using food stamps by causing poor company executives to commit $billions of dollars of fraud. Yeppers, those darn socialists sure are sneaky. Thank God we have clear thinking and rational people able to lay it all out for us.

Pardon the flame, but I am so tired to inane rhetoric being passed off as rational political discourse.

Court lifts lid on Saudi terror threat claim

The price of everything, the value of nothing.

I love the idea that anything is okay as long as it means making money, or can be justified as, "They are doing it too!" Here in America that is typical of the Republican party and their "conservatives." While values and morality are absolutes when it comes to sexuality and who a person is allowed to love, anything else if up for grabs if there is a buck behind it. Bribes undercut the very basis of the capitalistic economy, TRUST. Misinterpreted ideas (more of a middle school understanding than an full adult perspective) of capitalism allow people to take shortcuts and make some money... but oh how they fall. Unfortunately the take so many with them.. innocent investors who trusted that the company would be managed in a long term manner, workers who lose their jobs,... Why do we expect our people to play fair when others don't? Because, we are RESPONSIBLE for that we do.

Becta excludes Vista, Office - again

Regarding Software Operation

I always hated the "Must know computers..." posted in jobs. What they mean (or should mean) is can you operate a word processor or spread sheet or database? Seriously, if a person can create a document in Word they can do it in OpenOffice. File, Open, Save, Cut, Paste, whatever, it is all the same. What differences their might be can be learned within seconds.

This is the reality and what businesses must learn. Why pay $100's of dollars for operating systems and more $100's of dollars for software, opening yourself up to audits by the software police when the majority of computer users can do all they need to with Ubuntu and OpenOffice.

For the job interview when they ask can you operate MS Office and you tell them that you are quite familiar with OpenOffice, instead of letting them go, "WTF?" inform them of what OpenOffice is and show them your knowledge of software in general.

US warrantless wiretapping predates 9/11

Wonderful, You Don't Care

How about the fact that this information, of all sorts, gets dumped into databases... it is never verified or vetted for accuracy or relevance. Instead, just tons and tons of data gets put into databases.

A.C. You are presuming that there is some sort of filter on the intelligence gathering. Since you are a foreigner in the eyes of this country, you are considered fair game. How many degrees of separation do you have to have to be considered a "person of interest"?

Now, your name, or your wife's name or your child's name gets into it. You don't know it is there, you have no way of ever finding out. There are so many ways to get your name into there. Similar names, recycled phone numbers, a friend of a friend in a chat room. God knows! Well, God and the NSA. You never will. However, your life can be altered because of it and you will never know why.

Fortunately, our country was founded by braver men than we seem to have today. They believed that it was better to live with some insecurity than to give up our freedoms.

Our leaders acted cowardly and attacked a country that had nothing to do with our being attacked on 9-11. That broad brush has killed tens of thousands, cost billions and has thrown the world into chaos and ruined our standing in the world.

We need to be a bit more restrained and use the gifts given to us by our founding fathers to deal with challenges that confront us in a mature and legal way. They have served us well... something that this administration hasn't. Of course, there will always be cowards, even anonymous ones, that can be counted on surrendering everything that real American cherish because they can be lulled into believing that THIS ONE THING will make them safe.

Rove investigator erases his PCs - to kill computer virus

I wish that they would

I wish they would cover their traces... it would show a bit of respect for America. Instead, they just don't care and they seem to be getting away with it. Our politics have been reduced to platitudes and bumper-sticker sized rhetoric. The Republican party of Nixon's era is long gone. They are now on a religious jihad to purge government of infidels and nothing is unjustifed in their view.

They just don't give a damn who finds out what they do (unless it has to do with gay sex) because if push comes to shove, Ol' daddy Bush will just pardon them or they will retire to take care of their family and go to work for Fox News.

Make me want to cry actually.

US judge debenched for jailing entire courtroom

Fascinating!

I find it fascinating that some see no problem with this, "Because the person had their phone on in court." or some other inane logic. People, please! The issue is penalizing ALL people based upon the actions of one! Duh!

Has logic and common sense suffered so terribly in such a short period of time? It makes me want to cry that some are so anxious to PUNISH people that they couldn't care less about the rationality or the lack of limits.

This is the same exact mentality that lead us into Iraq! No rational person, based upon the evidence presented, could see a connection between Iraq and 9-11, or terrorism or anything else. However, like spoiled immature children, this country wanted to strike out in blind rage...

Really, it isn't cute, it isn't witty or anything else. It is nothing more than a childish response to push everyone because you are unable or cowardly unable to deal with the real trouble maker.

Choice breeds complexity for Linux desktop

Not because it is cool...

Which, if I think about it, it is... but that isn't the reason I am running Ubuntu-64 on my shiny new laptop. I am running it because I am tired of every new computer I ever buy not being "quite enough" to run the latest and greatest operating system from MS. It seems that I am always behind the curve unless I am willing to pay a couple of hundred more than I am willing to pay.

My $500 Acer 5100 chokes on Vista! With a dual core Athalon, 1 gig of memory and I am sitting here watching my HD light more than I am the screen. So, I load up Ubuntu and WOW. I can access the internet, get my e-mail, and do just about everything else I want at blazing speeds.

Hopefully as more computer companies load Linux on their computers the customer will not have to worry about drivers for wireless adapters, graphics cards, etc.

Then as we get more users we can start getting support from hardware vendors to support Linux.

Hey. Now that I think about it... it is COOL to be able to run my laptop instead of watching the HD light.

Facebook and ABC News get political

Don't count us out yet!

A couple of comments. While only 2 parties may not give us a lot of choice, it does help prevent the tail wagging the dog when a small faction joins a larger faction to create a government. You end up with a very small group dictating policy. We have the same problem with the religious-right/neo-conservative whackos in the Republican party... I pray that someday the Republican party goes back to being a sane party dedicated to doing what is right, rather than what it must do to appease these idiots.

No one party will always maintain power. This is the blind spot of the Republican party and their puppet masters Carl Rove, Tom Delay, Newt Gingrich and all non-indicted co-conspiritors... Even with redistricting of congressional districts, purging of voter records, K-Street money and stuffing of the judical branch, they still lost the last election by historical numbers!

What gives me hope, and lets me sleep at night is knowing that one day, maybe soon, we will have a Democrat (possibly Hillary) in the White House with ALL that power that the Republicans have been so eager to give to the President.

America does not have a crisis with its education of math and science as cited by the pundits, it has a civics crisis where students are not taught how to be critical consumers of information and judge the information based upon real American values as set forth within the Constitution... such as popular speech does not require protection, it is the unpopular speech that does (Watch Dixie Chicks video "I'm Not Ready To Make Nice") or the protection of the minority from the tyranny of the majority... or the separation of Church and state!

Can you believe in a recent Presidential debate the candidates were asked what their favorite BIBLE PASSAGE was? It made my stomach turn... I would have answered, Render unto Cease that which is Ceaser's and unto God, that which is Gods!"

Linux desktops grow and grow and grow

My Wireless

Hi Ash, I hope you read this. I tried numerous flavors of Linux and settled on the 64-bit version of Ubuntu for my Acer laptop. None of them would recognize my Broadcom wirelss... I found out how to get it to work.. I aped the instructions give and could not tell you how I did it... but there are forums out there that can do it! Please don't give up. I was also able to get my actual ATI graphics card to work instead of using a vanilla driver.

I love my Linux! It boots fast, runs fast and does everything I want it to do. It makes it possible for me to enjoy the benefits of my memory and dual core processor. My Vista boot sucks... it takes forever to load, seems to lose my preferences so I have to continually set them for directory sharing and other options.

After downloading and installing CA protection software available through my ISP my Vista no longer boots. Sigh. I could never get my old Win XP on my desktop to go past SP1 and it crahsed and burned so many times I have to call India to get a license number to reload it. Why bother? I have Ubuntu on it too now.

Growth is the same issue as with game machines. If there aren't a lot of machines progammers don't want to make games for it. Without the games, people don't want to buy the macine. Give Linux a chance... it will only get stronger and bigger which will attract the hardware venors and push them towards supporting Linux. They are not going to want to lose customers who buy based on some other companies being able to support linux.

It will not happen over night, but that is fine.

E-voting vendor sued over machine change

Just a symptom of so much more...

The Republicans really believed they would always be in power. Contrary to over 200 years of history, they believed that this time they would take over the country once and for all. They redistricted congressional seats to minimize minorities and Democrats. They had almost unlimited funding through their K-Street project with lobbiests, they gutted the Justice Departments voting rights department, purged voter rolls in minority areas, threated people with jail for voting if they have ANY criminal record... you name it, they did it.

I honestly believe that the e-voting machines were just another part of it. They would put more than sufficent numbers in heavily Republican polling places and seemed to have "problems" with quantity and operating the ones in Democratic precincts. Hmmm.

We also need to finally get rid of the electoral college and go straight to the winner of the popular vote being the winner. Alas.

What keeps me sane is knowing that no one party has ever maintained power... so when neocons yammer on about Unitary Presidental powers and how we all need to roll over for the President... I just laugh and think about giving all that power one day to Hillary!!!!

It saddens me so much at times that the American people are so ignorant and so easily manipulated by the shiny distrations that political puppet masters dangle before them. Entire worldwide issues boiled down to a bumper sticker sized quip.

Thank God we have someone who is standing up and saying that there is a line in the sand! I don't care if they change versions .000001%.

What's Auntie for, exactly?

Fellow Travelers

Unfortunately, along with the "reasonable" skeptics of global warming, we also must take into account many of their fellow travelers. These are the people who, while maybe not admitting that they think the world is flat, they DO believe that the earth is 6,000 years old, that the world was created in an actual 6 days and that evolution is a fraud.

These people join up together and it is nearly impossible to separate them. They introduce Intelligent Design (ID) as a supposedly rational explanation for phenomena to which science doesn't have an answer to yet. When asked, if there is an Intelligent Design responsible because nature could not create this, then who created the Intelligent Designer? I get blank stares.

Many who wish to discount global warming do not want to do it based upon science and the lack of "proof", they want to discount it for political reasons.

Note the rabid way the anti-global warming proponents attack, belittle and try to dismiss any research.

Best Buy sells 'last Wii' twice

Short Term...

To those that believe that it is so wonderful to manipulate a customer are the same that can so easily cross the line. A customer used to be someone who was valued, a company cared about its reputation. Nowdays? It is all in the fine print and ways to rationalize bad behavior. Its for maximizing profit? Then no problem. No need to think any further.

Is it any wonder that American car companies chased the quaterly profits at the expense of long term planning? Oooops. Who would have expected? Gee, I don't know, Honda, Toyota, Nissan? Or American banks going after subprime loans... who would have figured that in a couple of years when rates went up people wouldn't be able to pay the $600 to $800 more a month?

It really saddens me when people are not only supportive but applauding behavior from a company that they would not tolerate in a person such as a friend, family member or neighbor.

Really, I am sorry, but if you absolutely must deceive a customer to maximize your profits then that speaks volumes of how you value me as a customer. Hmmmm, just possibly there are other stores that I will be willing to go to instead? Ones that don't see me as a mark, but as someone to build a relationship with. How old fashioned.

How a bread truck invented the internet

I know it is meant to be funny...

Okay, just to show that I have a sense of humor, Hahaha. There, now, if we can avoid being pawns of politically generated rhetoric can we pretend to think for ourselves?

It amazes me, and deeply saddens me too, that the American people can be dazzled by the shiny toy of inane hair cut costs, tips paid or not paid or whether Al Gore really said that HE invented the internet. It is shameful that my 6 month old kitten is smarter than to be so distracted.

When in the military I used to maintain a communications switching van where you could actually watch the flip-flops light up with neon lamps. It was like sitting inside of a computer. My VIC 20 had more capability. This would have been about the same time that this was all being done. Well, at least we have advanced in technology if not in political sophistication. Sigh

UK iPhone customers to get fairer usage

Good Luck

Okay, I am old and out of date. I just hate how the customer has been turned into being seen as nothing more than a potential mark. Someone to exploit based on slipping something over on them.

I tell my kids how Free used to mean without cost. Unlimited used to mean without limits.Today it means an opportunity to confuse and manipulate someone into paying for something they don't know about.

Phone plans are intentionally confusing. No one company sells the same amount of access as the other so a customer can compare apples to apples. The fine print is there to screw the customer, not to clarify the responsibilities of the seller.

A person should not require a spreadsheet, magnifying glass, dictionary and an appointment with a lawyer simply to prevent someone from being made a victim by supposedly honest businesses.

I am sorry, but I refuse to surrender myself to cynicism and sit back and say that this is all right and is a part of being a modern consumer society.

Like rebates, if the company wasn't banking on the chance that the victim, er, customer not getting the rebate for any reason, they would simply offer the item on sale.

Good luck people with your iPhone.

HP goes octal with workstations

Also rans...

We need articles about technology or products from the "also-rans" (whoever they may be). If only the latest and the first were reported then there would be only half the articles to enjoy.

That would mean only half as many chances to enjoy the snarky comments, the feigned indifference (while salivating all the while) and the chance to champion a person's favorite hardware/software choice. It does remind me sometimes of a local sports bar on game day.

Besides, none of the articles are overly long, so it isn't as if a great investment was made. Keep doing what you are doing writers and I will continue to enjoy it on my Acer 5100 with Ubuntu 7.10 64-bit.

Yeah, I rock!!!!!!!!

Freedom of speech 'safe' as Europe tackles the terror web

There Yah Go!

To me, it is relatively simple. Pandering idiots such as Newt Gingrich (American politician famous for his lack of integrity) was spewing all this rhetoric about finding and shutting down all access to the internet used by terrorists.

To me, it seems it would be much better to monitor and investigate the people accessing these sites to find out who the terrorists were. No, instead his idea was to push them further underground, thus making them even harder to monitor.

I agree with people here that there are more than enough opportunities for abuse of this system.. I am curious and a look at my browsing history would cause some to wonder. My God, during the illegal invasion of Iraq I was also accessing foreign news sources.

The stories we hear about (such as the gentleman in India held for 50 days because of an ISP mix up) are just the tip of the problem. Your life can be ruined not by some government agent knocking on your door, but by an anonymous entry into a database resulting from a site you visited. You would never know it was there... it would never be audited for validity or accuracy... it would just sit there waiting for your name to be searched for any particular reason.

Yikes!

Thousands snared by malware warning from big-name websites

Not New

My complaint (or observation) isn't anything new. I remember reading John Dvorak writing about this back in Compute Magazine (1983 or 1964). That was in the days when I was typing in pages of machine code nto my Vic20 and saving it on my tape drive to get the programs out of the magazines. Ahoy, Compute, Compute Gazette...

I dual boot Ubuntu and Windows Vista (running Ubuntu about 90% of the time, but let's not go there) because I love to play around and try different operating systems and software.

Actually, for the next few years, my prototypical user is valid. Yes, some professors in college act as though they just discovered the interweb...but most kids can get along fine. Though, many too are simply users who want to write term papers, chat, browse or create a MySpace. Jave, Flash, ports. TCP/IP, Active X... they couldn't care less and I still contend that they shouldn't have to to be able to enjoy the benefits of operating a computer.

A toaster really isn't on the same level as a computer... more like a VCR with a blinking light. I wish computers were as simple as a toaster... which is my point actually.

I have been involved in electronics, teaching and technical writing. I take it as an axiom that a person's inability to understand what I am saying isn't their fault, I just haven't found the right way to express something so they understand.

Anyone interested should check out Garner's Multiple Intelligences. It helps explain why, even after readying the manual (or RTFM, if you please) the person still has no idea. Are they a visual learner? Was the manual written clearly, guiding the person to the proper location to find the answer?

My points were simple, simplify aspects of the computer, tighten up the system against exploitation and generate the same legislative interests that spam invoked.

Are these all inclusive? Probably not. But, I for one, try not to think unkindly of a person (such as my parents or family) who just want to do the common things on the computer such as the ones I have mentioned.

If only...

For years I have wondered about the frothing at the mouth of the evils of spam. Yes, I do understand the resources used/stolen by mass e-mailings. What I saw was the spam was costing companies money and they could convince the public and government that spam was the worst thing on the internet... because it was costing them money. Users were not incredibly directly effected other than having to remove a bunch of garbage e-mail.

When it came to all the malicious spyware, maleware and phishing everyone was relatively quiet. This seemed to me to be because so many were making money from these activities. Vendors selling anti-whatever software... But until someone other than the hapless users are effected then not much is heard.

This is an IT site and I enjoy dropping by 2 or 3 times a day to see what are the latest articles and comments, but to me, IT is about providing information to the end user, whether it is someone sitting at a desk in a company or someone at their home wanting to use their computer.

I cannot, and will not, expect them to have an understand of technology such as most people here have. It is about providing information to the fleshware so it can be used... not a geeky, joyful appreciation of the latest shiny gizmo.

As the prototypical user I think of members of my family wanting to browse news stories, play online games and e-mail. They should not be considered "suckers" for being victimized by not knowing about firewalls, activating or deactivating scripts or any other such nonsense.

I know that this is "pie-in-the-sky" thinking and not seen as realistic by those in the know, but that is where we should aim for... to make the experience/use of information as available as possible, regardless of the level of expertise.

Hyperic charges after disgruntled Ubuntu upgraders

Used most of them

I have used the 32 and the 64 bit on my Acer 5100. I am now using the 64 bit and loving it! At this moment I am downloading the Edubuntu just because I want to try it. I have used the Gnome and Kde... just about every combination I can think of. Why? Just for fun.

I really do love the 64 bit Gnome flavor. I am finally able to use this high powered laptop without wasting all the time and computer resources running just to keep Vista fed and running. I mean, my desktop is available in seconds, my wifi is running before I can click my Firefox. With Vista I can get a cup of coffee while Vista is still starting.

I do wish that better documentation concerning Linux was available. One where people really assume that a new user doesn't know diddly about the terminal, or the slightly different file structure or how to install programs that aren't available through Add?Remove or some other graphical means... Oh, yeah, I got one of those, but it tells me I don't have access rights to run it. Yikes! Another hour online trying to find out about that.

Please don't say that I am too stupid to be using Linux. I know it, but I run it anyway. I just am saying that if you really really want it to become mainstream then it has to be as easy as Windows to install programs.