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Slashback: Sidekick Justice, Free WebTV, Office Patent 88

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the trial-by-public-opinion dept.
Slashback tonight brings some clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories including, justice for a stolen sidekick victim, free WebTV test a hit, SUSE 10.1 release postponed, Microsoft loses Office patent appeal, and PayPal fixes their phishing hole -- Read on for details.

Justice for stolen Sidekick victim. chroma writes "Remember the stolen Sidekick from a few days back? When the girl uploaded photos of herself to T-Mobile's service and bragged on IM about having the stolen PDA? Well, after creating a webpage that gathered 400,000 links in less than two weeks, and much runaround from the NYPD, justice has finally been served: the perpetrator has been arrested and the PDA returned. Further information is also available from The New York Times."

Free WebTV test a hit. An anonymous reader writes "Disney has said that their recent ABC free WebTV was a real hit with viewers and advertisers alike. Shows posted on the site received more than 11 million hits in the first month alone. From the article: 'An online exit survey posted the first week of the two-month trial showed that 87 percent of respondents could recall the advertisers that sponsored the episodes they watched. That compares with typical ad recall of about 40 percent for commercials viewed on television, industry sources said.'"

SUSE 10.1 release postponed. An anonymous reader writes "According to a confidential memo, the next release of both the server and desktop versions of SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 will be delayed. The delay is apparently to allow Novell 'to address final issues with our new package management, registration, and update system and also fix the remaining blocker defects.' From the article: 'SUSE has a new update and package management system, which has not worked well in its initial release in the free, community OpenSUSE 10.1 release. Unfortunately, even after a recent set of fixes was released, SUSE's update and new program installation system is still giving many users trouble.'"

Microsoft loses Office patent appeal. xwipeoutx writes to tell us ITNews.com is reporting that Microsoft has lost their appeal in US Federal court over a judgement handed down saying they violated a patent by Guatemalan inventor Carlos Armando Amado. The original judgement stipulated that Micosoft was to pay Amado $6.1 million for violating a patent covering a means to link spreadsheets and databases.

Paypal fixes their phishing hole. Juha-Matti Laurio writes "News.com is providing new information to the previous PayPal XSS hole and reporting that the hole is now fixed." From the article: "By exploiting the flaw, attackers were able to redirect people from a PayPal Web page to an online trap located in South Korea, a representative for the service said. The page actually has a real PayPal URL, but hosts malicious code that presents a message warning members that their account had been compromised. It then redirects them to a 'phishing' Web site."

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Slashback: Sidekick Justice, Free WebTV, Office Patent More

Slashback: Sidekick Justice, Free WebTV, Office Patent

Comments Filter:

  • Sidekick Justice! (Score:5, Funny)

    by mpathetiq ( 726625 ) on Wednesday June 21, 2006 @08:01PM (#15579517) Homepage
    Finally, Batman gets what's coming to him.
  • Shows posted on the site received more than 11 million hits in the first month alone. From the article: 'An online exit survey posted the first week of the two-month trial showed that 87 percent of respondents could recall the advertisers that sponsored the episodes they watched. That compares with typical ad recall of about 40 percent for commercials viewed on television, industry sources said.

    This doesn't surprise me one bit. I find that when I have a computer with me while I'm watching TV, I'm much more likely to visit an advertiser's page. I find myself poking at the product pages for products that I'd never buy, like the Toyota Yaris or internet services that compete with my own. This leads me to believe that, if TiVo really wants to fill the gap caused by ad-skipping, they should create interactive ads that viewers can poke and prod.

  • Good advertising campaign for a superhero (Score:5, Funny)

    by Geoffreyerffoeg ( 729040 ) on Wednesday June 21, 2006 @08:07PM (#15579534)
    Our trusty sidekick will recover your trusty Sidekick!

  • Honest Question (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Frogbert ( 589961 ) <frogbert@gmail . c om> on Wednesday June 21, 2006 @08:09PM (#15579541)
    This is an honest question, I'm not trying to be a troll here but seriously... Is SUSE really relevant anymore? I mean this may be a case of I don't use it so no one must but I don't know anyone who is using it, or has even tried it. What is its "killer app"?

    • Re:Honest Question (Score:5, Informative)

      by Poppler ( 822173 ) on Wednesday June 21, 2006 @08:28PM (#15579616) Journal
      I'm in the same boat as you (I don't use Suse), however I'd like to point out that it is still at number 2 on Distrowatch. Apparantly someone's still interested.

    • Re:Honest Answer (Score:5, Interesting)

      by BootNinja ( 743040 ) <mack.mcneely@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Wednesday June 21, 2006 @08:35PM (#15579638) Homepage
      Suse's Killer App is YaST. In my experience, Yast is by far the simplest, most intuitive system configuration tool of any linux distro. I myself use gentoo these days, but SuSe was my first linux distro, and will always hold a soft spot in my heart. If you want a simple linux, then SuSe is probably the closest you'll get. They also ship with a large assortment of wireless drivers, making it very simple to configure your wireless card.
      • If you want a simple linux, then SuSe is probably the closest you'll get. They also ship with a large assortment of wireless drivers, making it very simple to configure your wireless card.
        Is there a live 'security' SuSe distro?

        I've tried Knoppix & various live security oriented distros... none of them work with the three USB & 2 internal laptop wifi cards I have access to.

        What can I say, I'm looking for something that just works.

    • Re:Honest Question (Score:3, Insightful)

      by desNotes ( 900643 )
      I have used SUSE 10 snce it came out and found it to install easily, no configuration problems and run quickly. I recently installed Ubuntu server and like it a lot but I wouldn't drop my SUSE desktop. When the last few kinks are worked out I will be upgrading.
      • Honest question in response:
        Why is SUSE 10 so damn slow?

        I tried it. I liked it, everything went smooth in the (1.5 freaking hour) install,
        updates worked well (eventually, took an eternity, but it worked)

        I tried both the std installer and the ""GM" demo DVD. both worked well, except...

        The only issues I could NOT overlook/overcome were actual speed of DOING anything---
        my perviously speedy-enough 2800+ Barton box was suddenly filled with molasses.
        OO.org tool even LONGER to load, Mozilla took ~2X as long, etc.

        I

    • Re:Honest Question (Score:3, Interesting)

      by a_greer2005 ( 863926 )
      Open Enterprise integration: A buddy was showing me what could be done with suse desktops and a Novel Open Enterprise server; really easy managment, webmail, PIM and colaboration, so the answer to your question is: Suse is worthless unless you are going to spend $$$ on Novell open enterprise...it is just a loss leader now.

    • Re:Honest Question (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by frisket ( 149522 )
      Not so much whether SUSE is relevant, but WTF are they doing inventing Yet Another Package System? I'm not saying apt-get or RPM/yum is flawless, but fer f'sake guys, don't reinvent another goddam wheel...jump in the pool and help us improve the existing ones. Is the new packager just a piece of conceit from the lard-asses in Marketing? Or does it have some real stand-alone merit?
      • I'm not a SUSE user, but your comment strikes me as daft. In spite of your interpretation of its name, Yast is not new; it's been around for ages, and I don't think I'm incorrect in saying that it was the very first RPM manager that was both grandma-friendly and GUI-oriented. When I did some reading up on comparative reviews of package managers some time ago (roundabout the time of Mandrake 9.2), Yast was consistently rated as the very best of all package managers.

    • Re:Honest Question (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MO! ( 13886 )
      SuSE's used extensively where I work because the closest business-oriented distro - RedHat - was rejected after RedHat support personnel royally ticked off our admins/management. Right now, only SuSE and Redhat are supported by some of the IBM software we use in the data center. So once RedHat lost the contract due to poor support, Novell was only alternative.

    • SuSE is extremely viable (Score:5, Insightful)

      by arete ( 170676 ) <xigarete+slashdot@nosPam.gmail.com> on Wednesday June 21, 2006 @09:12PM (#15579765) Homepage
      We use it, but we're not a terrific data point. We haven't moved to 10 yet at all. But here are some basics:

      I'm an Apple fan, and in my opinion SuSE is the Apple of Linux. (Of course, Apple is itself the Apple of *nix-like OSes.) They are not the earliest adopters of new technology, but they do a good job of integrating it. But moreover they make it easy to use and administer.*

      Big business wants a Vendor, not a community. In the giant world that's pretty much RH and SuSE, or IBM selling someone else's.

      Novell also makes a good business selling networking solutions for you whole office, not making you put them together youself.

      SuSE will happily ship with the best available drivers and software, even if those are proprietary. For some people this is a reason not to use SuSE - zealots have their place, and I would not want the strictly OSS distros to go away - but if you are more interested in Linux-as-a-current-tool than Linux-as-a-political-statement to force vendors to open drivers, this is the right choice philosophy for you.

      *Let me define "easy to use and administer" more: YaST puts a nice front end on whatever you're doing (package management and basically all other system administration) - with enough power to configure whatever you want however you want and enough guidance that you can do it even if it's not your speciality and you've been awake too long. It's the perfect kind of system that LETS you be knowledgeable but does not REQUIRE you to be knowledgeable. You can seamlessly escalate simple point and click management to advanced point and click management to tweaking files by hand that it then won't screw up.

      So to me, "easy to use" means that I can use, in each instance, a system that is as automatic or as manual as I want, based on how much expertise I have in that area, and how much time and attention I have for the issue "right now"

      Configuration entirely by manually touching files/registries/whatever is a little like walking through a minefield... get too tired, make a typo and all sorts of stuff might explode, and you've making a large number of changes. But I'd take it any day over a Windows GUI-only system where IF it explodes and, say, doesn't boot you have a much harder time putting it back together than you do with a text editor. But YaST is the ideal hybrid - it reduces your chances of stupid mistakes without limiting your power. You edit what you want, let YaST edit what you don't. It's not by far the only piece of software to do this, but I think it's a good example.

      ( I think much of OS X is similar. Can you enter complex firewall and packet forwarding configurations in their little GUI? No. Does their GUI work for most people? Yep. Does their GUI still use the standard BSD firewall, which you can configure however you want? Yep. )

    • Re:Honest Question (Score:4, Interesting)

      by imemyself ( 757318 ) on Wednesday June 21, 2006 @09:16PM (#15579787)
      SUSE's probably one of the most relevant distros out there. Novell's Open Enterprise server has a lot of really nice and sometimes easy to use features that make it a lot more of an alternative to Windows Server/AD than Debian, Gentoo, or even RedHat are. I'm talking about eDirectory/Novell Client, iFolder, iPrint, Zenworks, etc. And all of that is in addition to SuSE/NLD being a damn fine desktop/laptop system. I love SuSE 10.0 on my laptop (and 10.1 looks pretty nice in VMware apart from some rough edges surrounding the new Zenworks updater). Some of the screenshots and stuff that I've seen from SUSE Enterprise 10 look pretty nice too. Also, SUSE Enterprise 10 should be able to do some cool stuff with Xen. I think I've read somewhere that it will let you use Xen to run stuff that was made for the Netware kernel to help their people migrate from Netware to Linux.


      And please don't take this as a flame, but what distros were you thinking were more relevant? I mean, for servers, RedHat and Debian would arguably be, Ubuntu maybe for some home-user desktops, I can't think of too much else that would actually be used by normal companies too much.
      Of course, I'm sure a lot of people will go on about how they love Gentoo or Slackware, but how many businesses really use those distros? I'm not saying they aren't fine distros (I personally wasn't impressed too much by Slackware, and I don't have time to install Gentoo), but outside of the really hardcore Linux people, I don't think they get much usage.

    • Has nothing to do with the OS itself (Score:4, Informative)

      by porkThreeWays ( 895269 ) on Wednesday June 21, 2006 @09:37PM (#15579849)
      Our decesion to go with Suse has nothing to do with the quality or killer app of the OS. It's ok, nothing super special. However, we are a mostly netware shop. We got all our Suse licenses for free including support and didn't have to pay a penny more. I'm guessing other Novell shops are in a similiar situtation. This was REALLY smart of them, otherwise we'd probably have just gone with Debian. But it was just as expensive to go with Suse (free) and at least this way we get support on the off chance we need it. Also, a lot of propierty vendors support Suse and Redhat. Last, OES seems to just run on a regular SLES 9 install. Once we lose our Netware boxes to OES it will be nice just to have Suse Linux across the board (meaning consisant internal adminitration documentation for things like network configuration, printing, and other things that are the same for every server).
    • This is an honest question, I'm not trying to be a troll here but seriously... Is SUSE really relevant anymore? I mean this may be a case of I don't use it so no one must but I don't know anyone who is using it, or has even tried it. What is its "killer app"?

      SUSE is the other very well known (because of Novell) corporate choice besides Redhat.

      This alone is attractive - yes, one could have used Debian, Ubuntu or Slackware, but it is a lot easier to explain to business people that you go with Novell, if yo

    • Its big in other places than the US, Germany for instance. In the US its not so big, I would guess about #3, maybe #4. Less than RedHat for sure, but possibly more user base than debian.. in the US. Check your local retail store like Best Buy, they will have RedHat, Mandrake?, and SUSE. Or at least, last time I checked.

      Q. What is its "killer app"?

      A. Linux.
    • No clue. I dual booted SuSe 9.1 for a while and really enjoyed how it "felt" ; however the apparent lack of dual head support for my radeon 9800 makes me unwilling to spend much time on it.
  • The irony, if true, according to what Inquirer article claims http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=32528 [theinquirer.net] is that Microsoft paid THE WRONG PERSON.

  • ABC's shows online done well... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by posterlogo ( 943853 ) on Wednesday June 21, 2006 @08:35PM (#15579644)
    ABC's use of the web to stream their most popular shows online worked out well because it was done well. It offers what it promises -- the latest shows, soon after they air, with minimally intrusive advertising. I found myself watching shows that I had missed and forgotten to tape, shows while I was staying late at work waiting for stuff to finish up, or shows that I wanted to rewatch parts of (remember the accidental boob-grope of evangeline lilly in the last episode of lost...that was wierd). I would not go there exclusively because 1) The quality is better on TV, or even better, on HDTV and 2) The website design is still a bit sluggish. I think there is plenty of room for improvement, but it appears atleast one network is on the right track.

  • Patent loss (Score:3, Informative)

    by frostoftheblack ( 955294 ) on Wednesday June 21, 2006 @08:48PM (#15579698) Homepage
    In 2005, Microsoft was told to pay Amado $US6.1 million for violating Amado's patent, which covered technology to link spreadsheets and databases.

    You mean they just thought of that last year?

    It was the first time that Microsoft had updated its software for purely legal reasons.

    It may have been the first time Microsoft had to update the software for legal reasons, but lest we forget the antitrust case. The settlement of United States v Microsoft did not require Microsoft to change any of its code, although Microsoft did have to make its own concessions. The article makes it seem like it's Microsoft's first run-in with the courts.

  • what's wrong with this picture? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jaymzter ( 452402 ) on Wednesday June 21, 2006 @08:55PM (#15579715) Homepage
    Concerning the Sidekick saga, how is it Digg got a shout out in the New York Slimes and ./ didn't?
    • Mostly because Digg had the story first. They were the ones who took this from nothing to huge internet exposure.

      It seems that in order to get a particular type of story up on slashdot it must be submitted by many people. This way the editors get a vote of confidence about stories they would not normally publish. Rest asssured that there is no way Slashdot would have led the pack on this one.

  • Sigh... Pathetic mother (Score:5, Insightful)

    by technoextreme ( 885694 ) on Wednesday June 21, 2006 @09:31PM (#15579823)
    "They told him to come pick it up," said Ms. Gomez, speaking in the apartment of her building's superintendent last Thursday. She said she had bought the phone for $50 on a subway platform in Queens and had given it to her daughter. "We said he could have it if he gave the money we paid for it," she added.

    Why? It's his property. He has every right to get back because it's his!!!!!!!! Not yours. You have no right to charge anyone money because YOU GOT RIPPED OFF.

    • Re:Sigh... Pathetic mother (Score:5, Insightful)

      by porkThreeWays ( 895269 ) on Wednesday June 21, 2006 @10:02PM (#15579977)
      Common sense, ethics, and the law are completely lost on these trashy people. I visit our PD sometimes (I work in municipal gov't), and there are actually people who believe if they paid 50 bucks for a stolen sidekick from a guy on a subway they should get their money back. At the same time, this girl was pregnant at 15 (maybe 14), writes like a bumbling idiot, and probably won't graduate high school. No, Evan doesn't need the law, this girl's real life has been punishment enough.

      • Re:Sigh... Pathetic mother (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Apotsy ( 84148 ) on Wednesday June 21, 2006 @10:19PM (#15580061)
        Actually, they do deserve their money back ... from the guy who sold it to them in the subway. And he should be charged with sale of stolen property.

        Too bad they'll never catch him.

        • Odds on, the "I bought it" is more of a pathetic ruse to cover up for the
          fact that they pocketed it themselves.

          Too many of the interchanges, obviously not contested by them, and the
          conflicting stories from them lead one to believe that Luigi or mom
          pocketed the Sidekick, not thinking that they'd get caught up with.

        • Re:Sigh... Pathetic mother (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Svartalf ( 2997 ) on Wednesday June 21, 2006 @11:08PM (#15580231) Homepage
          Oh, and buying a $400-500 retail phone from a "psst...wanna buy a cell phone" type vendor in the Subway
          constitutes purchasing stolen goods if it is in fact not the person's to sell- it's a known or should
          have known" issue which means "Mom" is guilty of a misdemeanor or worse (depending on how NY views that
          sort of thing) herself- and she should clam up and count herself lucky that the NYPD doesn't have an
          interest in pursuing her alleged trafficing in stolen goods (The purchase or sale is that- both sides
          are typically actionable on that little equation, but an honest mistake on the part of the purchaser
          is a defense to prosecution. She's got nothing of the sort to lean back on...).
          • Oh, and buying a $400-500 retail phone from a "psst...wanna buy a cell phone" type vendor in the Subway constitutes purchasing stolen goods if it is in fact not the person's to sell- it's a known or should have known" issue

            I don't know that it's that simple.

            The base retail price of a brand new Sidekick may be around $350, but with rebates and new service contract deals, it's not unreasonable that one could obtain a handset for a net cost of under $100. Heck, when I signed up with T-Mobile for my Sidekick s
            • It is that simple.

              Those deals are being made by the legitimate seller to get you to buy the service- the razor versus the razor blades deal.
              In the case of the dude in the subway, there's NO good reason to be selling a phone to a random stranger for $50 under
              most circumstances- because typically, a brand new Sidekick is attached to 2 year service contracts for that special
              price, subject to penalties or the like if you close out your account prematurely- except under extenuating circumstances
              such as going som
      • Ok, first off, if you read the updates on the stolen sidekick site, the $50 on a subway platform story is bogus. They told the guy running the site that they had paid $100 for it, and from a cabby. Secondly, if they wanted money for it, they had their chance. A reward was offered at the beginning of the whole thing for the return of the sidekick. The offer was retracted due to the way the thieves handled the situation, but they had their chance to get paid and they screwed it up. Also, lastly, the addr
    • I can't go to Walmart and buy a giant home theater system. The account is not mine.

      I can use the card as an ice scraper, a coaster, or a shim for a wobbly appliance. The physical item (piece of plastic) is mine.

      There are certain exceptions. Real property (land) does not become mine as I discover it. Neither do the bushes and trees planted on the property. Vehicles are conventionally left parked on the street, and thus do not become mine. Humans are special too, and not really owned in any case.

      Cell phones a
      • Except for the fact that a rectangular piece of plastic has little or no intrinsic value, as evidenced by your suggestion to use it as a ice scraper, a coaster, or a shim. A mobile phone _does_ have intrinsic value which is made obvious by the fact that later the mother claimed that she bought it ($50 worth of intrinsic value) from a shady subway merchant. (There have been many stories as to how the sidekick wound up in the possession of the girl, none of which I can believe because they are so wildly div
        • "On a side note, I think this "disposable mentality" that one would simply dispose of a valuable electronic device because it requires the least amount of effort is quite a sad statement about both a man's respect for other men (and their possessions), and man's respect for the environment."
          -----------------

          Quit picking on men, bub. It was a woman who left her valuable device in the cab.

          And if it were so damn valuable, why dispose of it in a cab?

          (And do you think she claimed it as an insured loss?)
      • In some places, real estate *can* become yours if you pay the property tax for a certain number of years continuously.

        Vehicles left on the street longer than 3 days (in some places) can be towed and stored and if not claimed within a certain period, sold to pay storage fees.

        Slavery still exists, but if you leave humans parked on the street they tend to wander off.

        The point is, property owners have certain responsibilities, and one of those is to secure their possessions. Society has no expectation that it h

  • SuSE 10.1 Update (Score:4, Interesting)

    by AaronW ( 33736 ) on Wednesday June 21, 2006 @10:30PM (#15580092) Homepage
    The online update support for SuSE 10.1 is horrible compared to past versions. It is *extremely* slow. Adding a new repository took well over 30 minutes to process it, the CPU remaining busy the entire time. Granted, the machine is only a 1.5GHz P4, but it should take nowhere near this amount of time.

    Bringing up the software install tool takes 150MB of RAM. This is excessive.

    Then OpenSuse keeps moving repositories around, or deleting them. They removed the KDE 3.5.3 repository recently, for example.

    I'm almost ready to switch to another distribution, maybe Kubuntu or some other up-to-date KDE based distro.
    • Well you're right suse 10.1 quite a few problems

      https://bugzilla.novell.com/buglist.cgi?query_form at=specific&order=relevance+desc&bug_status=__all_ _&product=&content=suse+10.1 [novell.com]

      I used to be a long time Suse user but as you pointed out they have a few problems to iron out.

      Linuxquestion's suse forum has long discution related to the way yast workse these days.

      I'm testing ArchLinux rightnow. Installing KDE is a bit tricky . If you do go the archlinux rout qtpckg,srcpack and aurbuild

  • SIDEKICK (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 21, 2006 @10:53PM (#15580176)
    This bad publicity is really going to cut into my business of selling Sidekicks off of subway platforms! ;-) *JK*

    ~

    Actually, here's another recent story. My girlfriend, who works as a cashier at a local Dollar General, just got interviewed by the police and FBI for selling 25 cellphones to some customer. I assume they were Tracphones or such pay as you go things.

    The question is, why would they be interested in such things. Maybe he needs them as a contractor for his business, maybe he resells them to imigrants who can't speak English (and he can, say for example, speak spanish), maybe they were at a great deal and he's going to resell them elsewhere. Since when is it illegal to buy cell phones?

    I told her not to tell them anything. For one, its none of their business. For two, Dollar General hired her to ring up merchandice they sold and that's what she did, her job. There is no policy about how many of anything to sell to anybody, or anything singling out cell phones. She said they were all sweet and so and called her sweetheart and sweetie... I told her the only person that has any business doing that is me, her boyfriend, and that they are two faced scumbags looking for anything to prosecute her who has nothing to do with anything, just is just a cashier like a dozen others there.

    • Re:SIDEKICK (Score:4, Informative)

      by feijai ( 898706 ) on Thursday June 22, 2006 @09:31AM (#15581843)
      The question is, why would they be interested in such things.

      The FBI now believes that throw-away cellphones are now the primary communication mechanism for terrorist cells in the United States, as they are disposable and generally untraceable.

      How hard was that to google?

    • Since when is it illegal to buy cell phones?

      Did they say it was illegal?

      I told her not to tell them anything. For one, its none of their business.

      It apparently is their business, otherwise they wouldn't have been asking her.

      they are two faced scumbags looking for anything to prosecute her who has nothing to do with anything

      Really? When was the last time you heard of a Dollar General cashier being arrested for selling cell phones? Do you think the FBI has nothing better to do than talk to your g

    • She said they were all sweet and so and called her sweetheart and sweetie...
      That's sexual harrassment. She should call in and report them. If she was called those things while at her work she can report the incident to her supervisor and they are required by law to follow up on it.
  • Funny the Slashdot editors didn't fix their dumb ass mistake with the whole Caldera Linux X thing. Not only did they fail to admit that they were both wrong and that they removed text from the original Slashdot submission about it that indicated that it could be fake or not real, they also rejected a story I submitted saying that Caldera Linux X is fake. At least on Digg, when a lot of readers indicate a story could be phony, it is fixed and a new story indicating that it is fake is posted within a day. I t
    • This has been going on for YEARS. It's funny, because I was just thinking to myself how stale my account here is, so I log in and what do you know, people are still complaining about the same editorial bullshit.

      This place has always been only useful as a means to waste time. I'm not sure it's ever had any relevance as an actual site for NEWS. Everything is so half assed here I'm surprised it's still around. At least they finally updated the design. Now it only feels two years out of date instead of 10.

  • Alternative Sidekick Source (Score:5, Informative)

    by gihan_ripper ( 785510 ) on Thursday June 22, 2006 @04:46AM (#15581134) Homepage

    If you want to read the Sidekick story without having to log in at the NY Times, the same reporter (Nicholas Confessore) has written another article [iht.com], delivered up by the good folks over at the International Herald Tribune.

    Support login-free reading on the Internet!

    • I see the International Herald Tribune doesn't mask the identities of minors charged with misdemeanor crimes.

      They do protect the names of adults who have weddings planned, apparently. Must be a strange Engagements page!
  • Sure, it's nice that they've found a bug and fixed it. But I want Paypal and EBay to start using SPF or some similar mail source identifier mechanism so that my mail client can discard 99% of the mail I receive that purports to be from Paypal without making me run it through Bayesian filters or read the Subject line or whatever to kill it. (My actual Paypal spam ratio is lower than that, but only because I occasionally submit phishes I've received to their spoof addresses, and those generate robo-response
  • WebTV was the old ISP-using-proprietary-hardware-and-your-TV technology that Microsoft acquired. That has nothing to do with the article linked to. The article is about downloading TV episodes over the Web, which has nothing to do with WebTV. Criminy, people just love CamelCasing words, and will do so on the thinnest excuse.

  • I was confused about why the Slashback headline and story summary both mentioned WebTV. Microsoft renamed that product to "MSN TV" years ago, and it didn't make any sense that ABC would be giving out hardware for free.

    It wasn't until I read the source article that I discovered that they meant "web TV" (television programming watched over the web) rather than "WebTV" (the underpowered and obsolete set-top email and web browsing box).

    Thanks for making the story less clear than it actually was, Slashdot. I a

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