Posts by Ian Michael Gumby

Investment firm looks for Sun's true value

The irony...

Sun is always a bit late to the party.

Sure they have given us great technology back in the 90's when DEC owned the campuses.

They also gave us Java (Just didn't capitalize on it as a way to make revenue)

Now they spend 1billion for MySQL? (Rather their latest forray after supporting JavaDB/Cloudscape/Derby)

Hey! Back in 2000/2001 they could have bought Informix Software (The database division of the "reversed" merger Ascential aka 'Ass-n-tail') for a Billion or so dollars.

Instead IBM bought them and of course life has been miserable as the bastard step son to Janet Perna's DB2. (Now that Janet has left the building, Informix is getting some more attention).

But I digress.

Informix had about $100 million in revenues when they were bought. How much revenues did MySQL have? And has Sun been able to convert those sites which run MySQL in production yet fail to pay for the product?

Sun Microsystems would have been better off purchasing a company that supported an advanced version of Postgress which would have been more competitive with IBM and Oracle.

There they could have further aligned the engine with their advances in core cpu improvements.

Then they would have JavaDB as a lightweight engine, and SPDB as their core engine.

(SPDB = Sun/Postgress DataBase).

This would have allowed them to develop a services/consulting arm and database technology that could compete on the OLTP and distributed DW front.

Now the best engine is IBM's IDS (Informix Dynamic Server). Its the greenest engine (efficient) and probably the best suited to take advantage of the Rock generation of CPUs.

And you heard it hear first.

The pirate... Its not to late to have Sun change course and take charge.

Taliban extends mobile shutdown order

I think Tim got it right....

If you read the last section of the article, the Afghan source said that it was most likely to stop the locals from ratting out the Taliban.

Makes more sense.

Of course if the locals are given sat phones, it would be easy to identify collaborators and then the locals get shot.

I agree that there are other cost effective solutions.

I don't want to say anything in case they are being implemented.

Hustler demands to know Who’s Nailin’ Paylin?

Aw C'mon! This is perfect!

If you saw the vid, you'd recognize that the actors are all old time porn stars from the 80's and even early 90's.

Ok so they had their clothes on, but you have to admit its a great parody and its a great way for some money to flow back to the older stars who now have to play straight acting roles in porn.

For those who take this thing too seriously, get a Life!

BTW, the old porn stars could actually act a little. Today's porn, there is no acting, just straight to the point.

A smile because you have to laugh at the Hilary line!

‘You can Google Checkout any time you like, but you can never leave...’

Pretty lame if you ask me...

I'm sorry, but lets look at the facts...

1) You failed to close the deal on "Emma".

2) You got Google and some Aussie peeved at a joke that went over their heads.

3) You should have thought about a more convincing line before the "they're going to kill us".

4) You forgot the first rule of the "spy game". You get the girl and everyone around you to get drunk while you stay relatively sober. This way, you keep a clear head about you so you can take advantage of the situation.

Oh and in hindsight, you could have diffused the situation by asking the "Californian" if he knew the song "Hotel California". If he said no, then tell him he needs to do a penalty shot and to go google the lyrics up on the 'net. Tell him to look for the verse "You can always check out but you can never leave." Tell him that you're having a swell time as such a swank place, and that you feel like you're staying at the hotel California. Then tell him he needs a second penalty shot for interrupting your conversation with "Emma".

Then you could have gone back to "Emma" had your conversation, and maybe closed the deal.

C'mon man! Where's your game!

Google demanding Intel's hottest chips?

Why don't they go underground?

Once you get down below the frost layer (usually 36" of top soil), you're going to find that the earth's temperature is pretty much constant year round.

So if you build your data center using the earth as a heat sink, and then use other passive cooling techniques, you can run your data center and still reduce cooling costs.

The trick then is to make sure that even below ground, you are above sea level, away from flood prone areas, and that the land around the site is graded away from the building.

There are a couple of other passive things that could be designed in, and if you use solar power (black silicon when it becomes available) you can use this energy to power any auxiliary fans to help with the air flow.

Sun, Novell, and Cray - Time to go private?

Going private isn't as simple as the author suggests....

Someone lending Sun Micro 1.5 billion so that it can take itself private?

Its possible, however, consider what the interest will be on such a loan.

While Sun wouldn't have to worry about qtr by qtr growth, they need to make sure that they are earning enough to pay off their debt. A couple of bad qtrs, and wow. They can go down.

Think of what will happen if they file for bankruptcy?

As to the poster amanfromMars... ?Huh? What he said was pure gibberish.

Cry havoc and let slip the SSD dogs of war

Interesting.

If I read the story correctly, you would have the disks (SSDs) mounted like regular disks, on a PCIe controller.

It sounds like RAID is in the future, or possibly some combination of SSD to a RAID SATA/SAS configuration.

I wonder if you could create a "hot swappable" configuration. Based on the size of the SSD, your mission critical database would be comprised on a mix of SSD and SAS/SATA drives.

There is still a lot of hype factor at work, but would love to see it in a system.

Judge Dredd smartshell shotguns to hit Iraq in '09

Nothing new here.

As the author admits, this is 90's technology. The trick is the lock up between the laser guided range finder and the ammo itself.

The concept is that if you can shoot through a window or over a bunker, the round would explode in the room or over the barrier and nail the occupant hiding. Even a flash bang would have some effect.

As to the recoil, its going to be minimum. (Try firing a 12ga pump over a 12ga auto loader.) Add padding from the flak jacket/vest. The main weight difference is going to be due to the optics/rangefinder and the link to the shells in the chamber.

It wouldn't be the fastest firing weapon on the field, but it would be able to limit collateral damage and potential over penetration.

Its neat technology, but the story is a decade late.

Nokia's Communicator to make a comeback?

As an E90 owner...

I have the E90.

I purchased the phone, here in the States, as an unlocked model. (Kinda pricey).

The reason for the purchase was that it had GPS and that it also had a large QWERTY keyboard. Something that is a bit of a necessity for someone who does more e-mail/texting than phone calls.

With respect to calls, I can use either the head phones or a blue tooth head set while my phone is in my computer bag's outer pocket.

I like the idea of two screens. The truth is that the outer screen is ok for a quick look up of a contact, a quick mapview, or a quick look at your calendar. But to read any e-mails, look at a pdf or web page, forget about it. The inner screen is a must have.

I'd like to comment about the built in camera on the inside. In the states, its useless. There needs to be an app that allows you to do vid conferencing while connected to a wi-fi. (Ok, I'll wager there is one, but I haven't seen it.) Or a decent IM package that would let you do vid conferencing. I'd also like to see a better wi-fi arrangement because the phone tends to drop the wi-fi connection or "time out" when you're reading a web page and not making wi-fi requests.

Overall, it does what I need it for, but its still far from perfection.

It is big. Friends call it a brick.

There phone is on 24/7 and I sometimes have to reboot the phone on occasion to get it to work.

If Nokia was working on something, I'd rather see the N810 successor that has wi-max/wi-fi capabilities, a cell phone (not wi-fi only telecommunications), and some expandability. (Heck wouldn't it be nice to be able to plug in modules like telephone service, wifi or wimax depending on where in the world you live? A USB port, and some external memory.

IMHO, while the 810 is bigger than a phone, its still usable in most situations where one can carry it in a purse (ladies), a backpack/briefcase/laptop bag, and use a blue tooth component to access it. Its definitely not for the "petite" phone first crowd, but for the businessman who doesn't want to carry a laptop and its components around everywhere, plus a cell/blackberry.

Thumbs up because the E90 and the N810 show convergence of technologies that isn't aimed at your traditional tiny hand consumer.

Melamine, poisons and the misappliance of science

No Need to Panic...

This is what you get from globalization.

The junior exec who brings in these chemicals from the west is heralded as a genius at price cutting and increasing profits from global sourcing.

Then when the shite hits the fan, he has some plausible denial in that he trusted his Chinese source. So the West blames the Chinese. And so on. Only the consumer gets hurt, if only in a couple of these events.

The point is that until you have laws that are equivalent in each country, you will always have this risk.

Sometimes getting the cheaper product is not the best thing nor the most cost effective. As industries learn this from paying lawyers millions and the mass groups of plaintiffs, along with the loss of trust and sales, there will be a shift away from the global economy. Cheaper products of dubious sources... will hopefully be a thing of the past.

Lets hope that the B-Schools track these issues and bee-itch slap it in to their current crop of grad students. Being penny wise and pound foolish doesn't work.

HP waves goodbye to 9,300 EMEA employees

Screw the unions, but that still doesn't hid e the fact...

Sorry but Unions are not in sync with today's economy.

Outside of that, HP/EDS is shedding jobs but its a pretty good bet that they will create new jobs too. Care to guess what countries that will be? And of course they'll offshore/onshore the workers to the UK or the US.

Axon takes 100mpg wonder car for a spin

Playing with carbon fiber bodies?

I'm not sure how novel the technology is.

I've seen some shows on the science channel which showed some innovative ways of pressing carbon fiber sheets in to shaped body parts.

I've always wondered how they joined these parts together.

(Imagine trying to duplicate the spot/seam welding of the metal parts.)

I do think that its an interesting technology, I wonder how it will perform in crash tests and how they plan on recycling the carbon fiber/resin panels.

Wall Street shudders under Lehman collapse

Lehman wasn't 152 years old..

This was pointed out by someone else, but American Express bought and then later spun off Lehman Brothers.

Furse should not resign, she should be sacked

What a crock!

While I do agree that the senior execs of the exchange should be held accountable, there is no reason for this type of failure to happen.

Depending on how much money you want to spend in creating redundant hardware, you can achieve the 6 9's of uptime.

Using IBM's IDS as a database in a configuration of local failover and then remote failover will give you the protection you will need.

Its unfortunate that IBM has the database technology, the hardware technology, yet not the marketing sense to go to the exchanges and pitch the idea.

Of course even if they were, the cost would be high and it would have to be justified against the risk. (Redundancy upon redundancy upon redundancy will give you a fairly high level of uptime, with planned down time allowed.

Google launching its own navy?

It would be a crime if this patent is allowed...

First there is nothing new nor novel about this patent.

As other posters point out... Data Centers in a Box. *yawn* been there done that.

Using the sea/ocean/lake's water temperature to help cool the equipment. Again nothing novel, nothing new.

Using the wave motion to power a generator? Hmmm don't think Google's got the patent on that technology...

So as you can see, its a combination of things that are obvious... if you can get the wave generators to work.

As to ship to shore communication... Low earth sats, or even wi-max if you want a sustainable presence off shore of a major city on the water's edge....

I did a quick glance... Did they also add solar or wind turbines too for power?

Maybe a small nuke generator? ...

British boffins perfect process to make any item '100% waterproof'

Not a goretex killer, but still has some applications.

The trouble with goretex is that it will not always keep you dry.

(See a bunch of comments above)

But if you layer your clothing right, or rather the materials right, you can make a fairly water repellent rain gear that does breath. The inner layer is goretex and the outer layer is your water proof fabric, where you have vents to allow the coat to breathe.

So you stay dry for the most part.

MetaRAM now pumping 288GB of memory into Intel boxes

I think some have missed the point...

Sun Kit has a lot of memory slots.

Most "server" motherboards have a lot of memory slots.

But the idea is that you can take a "pc" motherboard which has a couple of slots and pack in more memory.

Its very interesting. Especially if one wanted to take an office full of PCs, that double as desktops and then as part of a "cloud" (background processing).

Or am I missing something?

Google flicks pennies down geothermal well

PV=nRT

Simple little physics equation.

As long as you have gravity, you will have "hot" rocks at a certain depth.

You are not drilling down to the mantel.

And if you didn't take high school physics, keeping volume constant, the greater the pressure, the greater the temperature. So the deeper you go, the greater the pressure on the rocks, so the greater the temperature.

Arctic ice refuses to melt as ordered

The true secret of "global warming"...

You want a good conspiracy?

Try this one on for size...

Al "I invented the internet" Gore gets a bunch of his rich buddies together and then they decide to invest heavily in to alternative energy projects. They figure that if they can get enough panic or fear started, then others will look to alternatives on CO2 production. Also he's working with his banker/trader buddies to cook up a carbon trading schemes so that companies that can not afford to make the radical shift in cleaning up their act can then ease the pain by trading carbon credits. (Also allowing companies that don't produce carbon byproducts can then make some extra cash.) (And the traders make money in an artificial economy)

So what you have is a group of rich people making more money from a public which gets their facts from Wikipedia.

Now is it a good idea to clean up our act? Sure. Will we act unless driven in to a hysterical panic? Probably not. So while these unnamed "gore-ites" get rich, they can ease their conscious that they are doing good by being environmental con-men.

T-Boon Pickens an oil man just looking to cash in on his huge investments in wind power productions.

Oops! I've said too much!

Sun may or may not be about to obliterate Oracle and Microsoft

Kids today just don't think.

Threading is not hard. It just requires a little bit of play and a lot of thought.

Maybe its because I'm relatively old by today's script kiddie programmers perspective. Maybe its because I stuck around the university an extra couple of quarters to take classes in OS theory and design. (Showing my age... I learned on Xenu (Doug Comer's teaching OS). )

Today's students have a lot more tools at their disposal. Some of these tools tend to dull the mind. Its easier to implement a Gof Pattern than to think about what it really represents.

If I were in a University setting, I'd try an experiment. Take a Gof pattern, define the problem, the constraints and let the student come up with their own unique solution, code it and then explain what they did and why. This way then are forced to think about the problem and a solution.

Software engineers should be taught to think rather than regurgitate. Most of the team of developers I work with today are in their 20's with maybe one over 30. Most are H1B. Most don't think about their work. That's your problem.

Just my "expurt" opinion.

-G

Screwgle™ - Google's new ad revenue model

Interesting in the lack of candicy on the part of Google.

The fact that this program has been leaked and Google has yet to be forthcoming on their analyst calls could be considered a violation of Rule FD. (Meaning that some know about the program in some detail while others do not.) Google would be protected under SafeHarbor since any talk of revenues or expectations would be a forward looking statement.

Google may be safe because of Schmidt's comments that it would be too soon to speculate.

I would imagine that Google is quiet because they fear the backlash from this and a loss of advertising revenue.

An advertiser may reduce their budget and risk the loss of some eyes rather than have a higher budget that automatically gets spent.

Either way it is a material event and kudos to the analysts who try and tackle this "sekret" program.

Thumbs up on the analyst and the reporter. Thumbs down on Google.

SAP user group foments revolt over massive price hike

SAP will do what SAP wants.

Listen to their users?

If they did that, then they would still continue to support Informix (Now IBM's IDS) on their new releases of software.

Security shocker: 75% of US bank websites have flaws

Just a small nit...

I don't know if the author is an UK transplant or just ignorant.

When I read the headline, it said US Bank then the article talks about US Banks.

As in multiple financial institutions. There is a bank called US Bank, so you can see why there is a little bit of confusion.

Considering that US Bank is west coast based, it is a wonder why the author didn't catch this.

With respect to security, this is what you get when you have companies rush to get their presence on the net and higher the cheapest labor they can find. (Ever deal with a bank's procurement process on contracting resources? ;-)

Rogue SF sysadmin coughs up passwords

BOFH in training?

One has to ask what was he thinking?

Of course had he read the entire saga of BOFH, he wouldn't have made the mistakes that he did.

Convicted spammer goes AWOL from federal prison

This is old news...

Sorry but this have been on NANAE for a couple of days now.

According to the news reports, he was at a minimum security prison. With a 21 month sentence he'd be out in short manner.

He didn't just walk out, apparently his wife was there (visiting maybe?), he reportedly forced his way in to her car, drove to their house, got changed in to new clothes and then took off to whereabouts unknown.

Here's a free clue to the feds. If you've recovered some gold coins from your convict, the odds are that there are more that you haven't yet found. So he should be a flight risk. He's also a known identity thief so you can bet he'll have a couple of stolen identities that you're not aware of. He's a flight risk.

What's dumb is that he could have done the time in club fed and then split. 21 months less time off for good behavior?

IBM misses memo on economic slowdown during Q2

2+ on a PBC? YOU SLACKER!

Unless they changed the PBC ratings, in my day, you needed a 1 to get any sort of raise. A 2 meant that you were doing a good job and a 3 meant you had a job for now, but you need to improve your performance.

Yes IBM works the carp out of you and expects you to be grateful.

Do your time and move on to a better company.

SCO ordered to pay Novell $2.5m Unix royalties

Just to clarify some of the facts.

If you get to the point where your debts greatly outweigh your assets and potential assets, you have to file for Chapter 13 which means the company is insolvent.

(That's the end of SCO).

Before this can happen, IBM would have to either settle or go for a summary judgement based on the outcome of this decision. (Provided that SCO doesn't appeal.)

With respect to those who purchased "blackmail licenses", for the lack of a better term, there is no recourse. What they were purchasing was insurance, and they knew it.

With respect to SoX, it won't go criminal. You'd have to show that the lawyers and the C level execs and board knew that they were misleading the public and that there was no misinterpretation of the contract. (The fact that it went to trial and a judge had to decide kind of blows that argument away.)

This leaves Sun and their open sourcing of Solaris. Sun signed a contract that at the time appeared to be valid and in good faith. (I believe this was done prior to all of the lawsuits, no?) So at best, I think Novell could sue Sun to stop their effort, but at the same time, I don't think it would be in Novell's interest and it would be a waste of money.

So there you have it. One happy lawyer, and alll those in the tech industry heading off to the bar to either have a victory drink, or drown their sorrows.

You kind of miss the point..

2.5 million would be enough to cause SCO to file for bankrupcy.

What you're watching is the end of SCO.

Congress accuses American Phorm of 'beating consumers'

Regarding the Bootnote...

Google collects the information when you go to Google's site and use Google's search engine.

If you used Yahoo!, then Google wouldn't track your searches.

This is different from NetbuAd aka "American Phorm" which the ISP will track everything that you do over their networks, without your consent.

Google releases serialization scheme

Now I'm confused.

Maybe its my age, but if the point is to do object portability, wasn't this first addressed by CORBA?

So what is truly exciting and new here?

Paris Hilton cause maybe I'm having a brain fart.

Green-loving California may dodge utility bill bullet

If the premise were true...

... then you'd see PG&E would be building nuclear power plants.

Oh wait, that's right. They can't because most of California is on unstable ground.

It takes about 10-15 years to build a new power plant so if you wanted to be ahead of the curve you'd have kept an active nuclear power generation program. The only *country* to do this are the French.

Yes, yet another reason to hate the French because of their smugness and forethought.

DARPA calls for 'DUDE' combo infra-nightscope

Clearly the lack of fire arms in the UK have caused this misconception...

"Then, quite apart from all this, there are ordinary visual aiming scopes often enough. These, like the other gunsights, need to have their aiming reticules "boresighted" - that is, accurately aligned with the gun barrel - every time they get attached to a weapon. (Movie scenes where people gaily snick aiming attachments on and off weapons and never bother to zero them on the range are strictly creative licence.)"

There exist quick detach scope mounts that do not shift your zero when the scope is removed and then re-attached. Of course depending on your scope, and how much abuse you put the detached scope through, your mileage will vary.

Its not just movie fiction.

Nokia pays 8 2* years' royalties in advance

Its a smart gamble but an expesnive one...

Look at it this way.

I have a Nokia E90.

I got it because it had the largest keyboard and I tend to use my phone more for e-mail and some web surfing.

Its a nice platform, but the applications... well they work but lack the elegance one would expect.

So you have Nokia, selling a nice handset, but marginal apps.

By opening up Symbian, they're gambling that there will be a community that will first improve the OS, write more apps, and thus sell more handsets.

Their competition will come from those who already use Symbian and potentially Motorola. (More on Moto later). So there isn't any increase in competition by releasing Symbian as open source. It in fact makes the platform more competitive against Apple and Android.

Moto could be a wild card. With their shake up in management, any new management has the freedom to innovate and re-create their future handsets from the ground up.

Also note that Nokia has implemented Linux on some of their products. Think what could have happened if the N810 had a phone built in, and external storage capabilities....

HSBC scripting flaws play into the hands of phishers

Global Bank + global workforce = ...

Clueless-ness on a global level.

This is what happens when you have teams of people who don't know more than the basics and are used to thinking of security as an afterthought.

Want someone to blame? Blame Microsoft. Yeah Microsoft. Not because they use Microsoft's products but because Microsoft was the first major software company who's mantra was "Rush to be first to market, then clean up the mess later."

Merchants call credit card industry's bluff on compliance

PCI compliance?

Hmmm

The Anonymous Coward is right. That he should post as an anonymous coward.

Here's how you can comply and not have the problems.

You get a second machine to handle your database and CC information/processing.

You shut down all unnecessary ports, including port 80 and you only allow communication in to your box and out of your box to handle the cc processing.

You also make sure your site doesn't allow SQL injections. Then you'll be closer to PCI compliance.

Its a joke to expect to have web sites be PCI compliant and contain the web/app server and your back end data processing.

Sorry, but you're a sorry excuse for an architect if you couldn't see that.

Sun's Niagara 3 will have 16-cores and 16 threads per core

The problem with Sun...

Sun was and still is late to the ball game with a GUI for system administration.

Sure the old hacks (myself included) knew the command lines by heart. (I go way back to Sun 3/60 days in the late 80's.)

But IBM and HP had SWIT and SAM making life a lot easier. HP also brought in OpenView to help make it easier to monitor the network.

Where's Sun?

Do they have a graphical console app to help manage the system?

Thats the first key.

The second would be the ease of adding third party apps, disks and monitoring.

The fourth? Partner with a database company or pick up PostgresSQL and make it their own to do hi performance parallel computing. (Along the lines of Informix's XPS.) Or work out a deal with IBM because IDS was the basic database platform that could actually take advantage of the massive parallelization of Sun's new cores.

CERN declares Large Hadron Collider perfectly safe

Safe?

Wasn't there a Larry Niven Sci-Fi story (now I *am* showing my age) where some guy cut the power to an alien device that had a mini sub-atomic black hole in the device. By cutting the power, the black hole dropped out, killed the guy and sunk to the center of the earth.

In effect dooming the earth to an "early" demise as the black hole slowly grew, by sucking in the earth's matter?

Yet one more reason to hate the Swiss. :-P

Mandriva's Linux on a stick will wow all the ladies this Summer

*Yawn* been there and done that...

C'mon

Last year, a couple of IBMer types loaded up Ubuntu on a stick, along with a full copy of Informix (IDS) fully functioning on a stick.

Could pen-sized GPS jammers paralyse UK shipping?

LORAN-C makes perfect sense.

Mind you that GPS is probably the best way to get an accurate fix. GPS in survey work can be as accurate as a couple of cm. (You need to set up a base station and let it set for a while... ~48 hours or so)

But for the bigger picture. What happens if there's a huge solar flare and you knock out a chunk of your GPS sats?

LORAN-C is a cost effective viable alternative for navigation services.

Sure it won't help you navigate within a port, however it will *get* you to the port.

No fear mongering or FUD here.

e-LORAN as the next generation? Maybe. But lets face it. When you have a ship that's 100m long, knowing your position within 200m is accurate enough to get you where you are going.

THINK REDUNDANCY AS A GOOD THING.

Firefox 3 downloads hit 7m despite server FAIL

Works fine for me!

Hey!

I waited a bit until a co-worker said to check it out.

For what I use it for, its faster than firefox2 and works ok.

Maybe I'm just not going to the right sites where all those fancy features tell me I'm borked?

Stunned commuter finds more secret papers on train

@Mike Smith

Did it ever occur to anyone that if the government wanted to get certain information in to public light without having to make any formal announcement or authenticate the information, that this would be the perfect way?

Not so much a conspiracy theory, but that certain people in the government wanted this to happen in the first place?

US nuke boffins smash petaflop barrier with 'Roadrunner'

@TC

I think AMD would argue that they could, if given the chance, build the same size machine that would perform better on less power. Of course, you'd need to build the beast to prove/disprove their point.

The cell architecture is interesting.

Some friends at IBM did an Informix port to Sony's cell based PS3. (Ok, someone had too much free time on their hands,,,) Somehow I don't think you *can* do this to a GPU.

So I'd say AMD's calling for the Cell's death a tad premature.

The penguin... because I believe they also ported Linux to the PS3 too. ;-)

RSPCA calls for dog chipping

Those who are against chipping dogs don't own dogs.

As an owner of 4 dogs, yes *4* dogs in the city, I would say that chipping your pet is the smartest thing you can do.

If your dog gets loose, and someone catches it, it may not have its collar. So the chip is the best way to id that your dog is your dog.

Its cheap, relatively painless, and it could save you from a lot of misery if your dog goes missing.

Oh and if someone snatches your dog and tries to resell it? The chip is going to be a way to identify the missing pooch.

They have been doing this for years here in the US. So think about it....

Indian gov: Let us into BlackBerry or we'll shut you down

This is the perfect opportunity to test the theory of capitalism vs govt control...

On one side, you have the capitalistic marketplace which love their crackberries.

Business users feel more productive and that they have a technical edge over their competition with their crackberry.

I'll admit, I had one until it died after 4 years of service. I switched to the Nokia E90 because I wanted a larger keyboard.

On the other hand, you have a governement that is caught in a catch 22 position.

They want/need to protect their country and unless they can intercept bad guys, they don't feel safe. On the other hand, they don't want to limit their new found capitalism.

Which wins out? The desire to "protect" their boarders, to to grow their economy?

Whatever RIM does, I hope they don't cave in...

Deadly Oz snake bites tourist's todger

And where does the African Black Mamba fit on your scale?

You list a bunch of nasty venomous snakes saying that they were the deadliest in the world. I'm just curious about where the black mamba snake is on your list.

And where's the IT angle on this? Unless the guy was a spammer, then I'd smack the snake and ask how it could have missed?

Dell guilty of defrauding New York customers

Silly boy! Tricks are for kids..

The trouble with any publicly traded company is that they constantly have to look at the short term in an effort to keep their stock price up.

Sales down? Cut costs. Only what happens when you can't cut costs?

Answer: You go on a building spree of new centers in economically depressed areas in an effort to get tax credits so you can reduce your operating costs.

After that, you move your call center to India. Ooops! There's a negative backlash. So then you segment your product line, so that the PCs on the low end, you have to call India for support. The higher end (read higher priced) you can get on-site and US based support. (OK, so I'm an American. So that would explain the American centric viewpoint. ;-)

The point is that while I'm talking about a Dell, this could be true of any PC maker.

As someone pointed out earlier... If you're not in a position to build your own box from scratch, then you should buy the machine locally. Then you have a guy whom you know and trust (maybe) to fix your machine. I did this for my dad, and my uncle when I bought them their pcs. (Saved me from trying to fix their machines remotely.)

With respect to the article, I don't think that NY is wrong and I do think that Dell will have to eat some crow before this is over. The longer it lasts, the worse the PR gaff.

Its also important to point out that to get a good PC, you're still going to have to shell out $1,000.00 (USD) or so regardless of the brand. (That money covers the machine, the OS (Windows NT, not Vista) and some basic Microsoft Office. Again, if you want to build your own, you'll end up spending your savings on more memory, upgraded video cards, better disk subsystems, etc... Oh and for free, Open SuSE or Ubuntu.... ;-)

But hey! What do I know? My first "pc" was an Ohio Scientific C3a. Oh and the factory happened to be a 20 min drive from home. (circa 1978)

FCC boss mulls free* wireless for all

uh huh...

Ok,

So if you have a "free" wireless network supported by advertising...

How can you force me to see the advertising if I'm using the "free" wi-fi for VOIP calls? I could then toss my mobile contract, and set up a SIP router on one of my land lines. (Which I should be doing anyway.. ;-)

Or if I use the "free" wi-fi to manage my servers remotely?

The point is that there will be people like me, or others who will willfully filter out the ads that are supposed to subsidize this "free" network, so I don't see any company doing this staying in business very long.

If the govt wanted "free" "wi-fi" then they should consider a WI-MAX infrastructure with a tier system, the lowest tier being free. Want more bandwidth, pay for a premium account.

The music biz's digital flops - a short history

Talk about being old..

You want old?

Lets talk about vinyl records. Lets talk about spending the extra bucks on a Digital Master Recording because it was a better copy than plain vinyl. Instead of ripping, you copied the record to a high end grade tape on a good tape deck. You dreamed about nice hi end stereo equipment you'd love to own, but alas, its out of your price range.

Today?

The quality of the music you rip to your ipod or mp3 player just doesn't cut it.

Back then, you enjoyed sitting down and really listening to the music.

Today?

You listen to it while you run at the gym, on your daily commute. Its background noise so you don't have to communicate.

If the record companies were smart, they'd take more of their cut from the live performances than the cds. Or rather than promote shitty bands via money to play and marketing, they should just produce the music, and put it out there.

That would be an interesting concept.

Wireless links to be trialled in Gulfstream flight controls

I wouldn't trust it, but in the case of an emergency, you have no choice..

The issue is using something to attempt to gain control after the power linkage has been cut.

Back in the day, this would mean you lost pressure in your hydraulics.

Today that means loss in your "wire". Tomorrow, optical fiber.

The interesting thing is that you can build redundancy in your optical links, but even in the event of a catastrophic failure, I doubt that wi-fi or its equivalent will help much.

As to the GPS signal, encrypted or unencrypted, you have the same issues regarding accuracy. GPS (Civilian) is accurate enough. Not flaky at all. But no, its not used to direct "the landing". (BTW, GPS is very accurate when used in farming. But there you have a base station.)

I think that its interesting that they would try a short haul wireless concept. Definitely not my first choice of a back up.

Tux because you know the network routers *will* use a flavor of Linux. ;-)

Illinois gal gives Street View an eyeful

Hey! You've got to luv it here in Chicago! SOUTH SIDE!

If you follow the van down May Street, you can see what actually happened.

The "van" was traveling South down May Street. The girl watched the van approach and then flashes them.

Unfortunately, the timing wasn't good. But you have to admit that Chicago girls have spirit!

For those who don't live in the US, with the dollar down, and summer on its way, Chicago is a blast! (It makes up for the winters here.)

And yes, this should be a new sport!

Paris? Why? Cause she's jealous that this girl's set is bigger than her's. 8^)