
Wait...
"The Norwegian open source browser maker said new features in Opera Mobile 9.7 include faster surfing using the firm’s Opera Turbo technology."
Opera is open source? Did I miss the memo on that one?
181 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Aug 2007
The solution is simple: 1. Make it so you *can* remove IE
2. Make it so the OEM version shipped to manufacturers comes without a browser, and let the OEMs choose which browser to put on it
Then it's simple. Those of us who are knowledgeable users will buy the full version, uninstall IE and add firefox/Opera/chrome/Lynx/w3c/<insert browser here> whilst the less knowledgeable users will get whatever the OEMs choose to bundle with it - be it IE, chrome, firefox or any other browser they choose. The same principle *can* (not necessarily should) be applied to any other component of the OS, from Media Player to Calculator.
Then (Theoretically) the playing field is levelled. N00bs are not confused by having to choose from several browsers, and all the browsers should be competing on a level playing field to get themselves bundled on the OEM machines. Businesses can still come with IE if they need it, but it may well lead to an increase in the number of FF installs.
Note: The same principle can be applied to Apple and linux as well, but as apple doesn't have OEMs, there'd be no change there, and as most linuxes don't ship a browser made by the same company, the issue is not the same.
...but shocking for signal. There is no reason I should have been losing signal in the centre of Birmingham, it's the second city of the UK for goodness sake! Moved to O2. Not as great price, but their 2g signal is unsurpassed in my experience. Still need a little work on their 3g network though :)
Apart from one bloody thing: Calc will not insert columns if it would be in the middle of a merged cell, something Excel has been able to do since at least Office XP (The oldest version I remember performing this task on!) My Ubuntu box has a virtual XP machine running office '07 on it for just this reason (and for the odd OpenXML file it malforms. Oh, and to play Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri ;))
Evil Jobs for no reason other than I havn't used that icon before :)
It's not hard! It's not the bundeling per say they're complaining about, or even the integration (as bad as that is).
It's the fact they bundled a *standards incompatible* browser with there near-monopoly OS. This encouraged designers to write sites that would show up well in IE, but which would look like a dead dog in browsers which followed the standards. Thusly, they were disadvantaging any other browser that was released onto the market, unless they spent hundreds of hours working to break its rendering as badly as IEs was.
But if you don't like it, fork it! It's OSS after all.
What's less clear and that I feel needs clearing up: When they say "drop support" for the older OS, does that just mean that the newer versions wont work on it, or that they'll stop patching the old ones? If the former, big deal. Run an old system, don't get full features. If the latter then it's a bigger issue that may need addressing. Dropping patching for a 4 year old os, is not a good plan!
...But a slight defence of Microsoft.
Yes, you are only going to be allowed three apps running at a time, but:
This does not include: antivirus, cmd, tskmgr, "Widgets" or (most importantly imo) explorer windows.
You can have as many copies of one program open as you want. e.g. 5 MSN windows, Three firefox windows and Microsoft office.
I'd still never use it, especially not with the plethora of designed-for-netbook Linux distros being released. But I feel people should not laugh at Microsoft's idiocy without knowing the facts. They should learn the facts THEN laugh at MSs idiocy!
1. In the event that a machine breaks (And printing incorrect slips counts as breaking!), this is reported to the officials *without* revealing your vote, and you are given a paper ballot. All ballots at this polling station are then manually counted. As everyone has voted by paper as well as electronically, all votes are still counted. Yes you could force a manual count, but the result would be the same.
2. So what if you do? If that ballot box isn't checked, your vote will be counted. If it is checked, a manual count will be performed, and you will have lost your vote. The only effect, apart from causing mass-recounting is to hinder your own agenda.
3. Tampering is irrelevant. If any large scale tampering is performed, it will be caught by the random sweeps, and the election would be reverted to a paper count. (This is not to say stringent methods shouldn't be put in place to protect them, there are several possible methods which would achieve this, but tampering would not affect the outcome.)
4. See above.
5. You can still follow the 10% ballot checking. If the random sample tallies up 100% with the electronic result, then the likelihood of tampering is low. Add in a rule that any party can force a full manual count if they are willing to pay for it (with a full refund being offered if any discrepancy is found) and the loss of accounting is low to none.
None of your examples above have a decent chance of affecting the outcome of an election, apart from removing your ballot paper. Apart from the fact the only person hindered there is yourself, you can already do this in the manual system today, throwing the result into doubt because the vote count is off.
Yes an organised campaign can cast doubt on the veracity of the software, but under the current paper and pen system an organised campaign can cast doubt on the result of an election! The only difference is the speed you find out the campaign has occurred.
Secure E-voting is NOT hard to set-up.
Place your vote on the machine, it prints out a slip with your vote on that you check, then put in a ballot box outside. End of the day, electronic results are printed. THEN 10% of the ballot boxes are randomly selected, and manually counted. Any discrepancy between any of those boxes and the printed results, and a FULL recount of the paper votes is performed. As everyone is assumed to have checked their paper slip, the manually count takes precedence over the electronic count.
Couple the above with releasing the software's source code for inspection, no access to the machines internals (For preference, the machine should be situated where the voter can't get at it, with just the touch-screen and printer in the booth with him/her)
Whether or not this is cost-effective is, of course, an entirely different matter.
...because: "The law... will display a 'Stop' sign to anyone who tries to access websites included on a list prepared by the police."
At least by telling you when something is blocked, it gives people a small ability to keep an eye on what is and isn't being blocked!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this will do nothing to the second hand market. Why? The scheme says you have to have owned the banger for a year. And the scheme only runs until March. Ergo, you can't buy a banger now and get the discount, and those of us already driving one are doubtful to be able to afford a new car. So this will achieve exactly what the government were after: Free headlines.
1. If a bad guy can persuade you to run his program on your computer, it's not your computer anymore.
2. If a bad guy can alter the operating system on your computer, it's not your computer anymore.
3. If a bad guy has unrestricted physical access to your computer, it's not your computer anymore.
4. If you allow a bad guy to upload programs to your Web site, it's not your Web site any more.
5. Weak passwords trump strong security.
6. A machine is only as secure as the administrator is trustworthy.
7. Encrypted data is only as secure as the decryption key.
8. An out-of-date virus scanner is only marginally better than no virus scanner at all.
9. Absolute anonymity isn't practical, in real life or on the Web.
10. Technology is not a panacea.
And these exploits violate either rule one or three, so it's no suprise they lead to problems.