Posts by Paul Rivers

Microsoft at a loss in Word patent case?

Also, any of you LinuxBots....

Please refrain from dancing on Microsoft's grave. This patent is a serious danger to any Linux apps that store their data in a document and store the formatting in that same document. It's ludicrous.

The only way to avoid it is if the data storage is done in a compiled medium. That's how the previous versions of Word got away.

They only brought the case against Word because now that they've won, they can go back after all the Office Suite, any Linux apps, any custom written apps that store their data in the open XML formats.

Wow....

Anyone who read about this and did a search on the patent (one of the Tech Republic articles had the patent number) will understand why none of the tech articles are reporting on what the patent includes. Because the patent is so vague and poorly written it should never have been granted in the first place.

Basically, if you have a document and you want to store the data in a format where you declare the formatting and the document and where it starts and ends in a metadata storage medium you're in violation of the patent.

If you store your document as

<Document>

This patent SUCKS

</Document>

You're in violation.

If you store your document as

"Doc"

"Start"

"This patent " ***BOLD*** "SUCKS"

"End"

"Doc End"

You're still in violation.

It's like patenting the number 1.

It's insane.

Should never have been issued at all.

BOFH: Burying the hatchet

Wow....

Reminds me of a user I had a long time ago. I was supporting OS/2.

She called up and I needed her to give me some information in the OS/2 directory.

I told her to open a command prompt and type CD \os2

Well, THAT was a mistake.

It took me nearly 15 minutes to get her to actually double click on the OS/2 Command prompt.

Then, I told her to type it. She got an error.

I spelled it.

She typed.

Error.

Went through it one character at a time.

She typed.

Error.

Went through this 5 times.

I couldn't get her to put in CD \OS2

It just wasn't happening. So, I told her to hold on. Put the phones on transfer so the rest of the helpdesk could take the rest of the calls, and then walked to her desk.

About 15 minutes later, when I stopped laughing, I was able to get the information and fix her computer.

I saw her screen.

What she typed.....

CEE DEE SPACE SLASH OS/2

ce de space /os\2

cee d os\2

C D SPACE OS\2

C D SPACE os/2

As far as the ID10T comment for poor misguided Jim (who seems to be trying, unsuccessfully at humor (or humour))....

I was working at big blue. My boss told me that I needed to collect records of every desk visit and people had to sign off on them.

The Incident and Defect Tracking system was born.

ID 1 T Hardware failure

ID 2 T Hardware installation

ID 3 T Software installation

ID 4 T Software configuration

ID 5 T Operating System installation

ID 6 T Operating System Upgrade

ID 7 T Network configuration

ID 8 T Network cabling upgrade.

ID 9 T User training

ID 10 T User error.

Every user error tracking page signed off by a manager was taped to the wall in the lab. It took them 3 months to figure out.