Slashback: What Dell Knew, China's Fusion, Vista 154
Dell knew of battery flaw last year. digihome writes, "Dell pinpointed the problem with faulty Sony notebook batteries almost a year ago but only called for a 22,000-unit recall at the time because it believed the problem was limited in scope. Only later, after more customers reported incidents of Dell laptops overheating or catching fire, did Dell realize that millions of its notebook PCs, not just thousands, could be at risk, according to government records and interviews with Dell spokesmen."
GNU/Linux to gain from Vista WGA crackdown? An anonymous reader writes, "Linux is set to take on the Desktop PC market with gusto. It is a well-known fact that most proprietary software companies lose a significant amount of their revenue because of illegal copying of their software. By deciding to clamp down on piracy in the forthcoming Vista OS, Microsoft is sending a clear message to pay up to use the software. The article suggests that a sizable group of people — especially in emerging countries — who do not care about the ideology of free software but expect the software and OS to be free will be swayed to embrace GNU/Linux."
China's fusion test was a hoax. dptalia writes, "On September 28th, China claimed to successfully initiate a fusion reaction. It has come out that the announcement was a hoax. In fact, no attempt to generate fusion was even made."
Vista startup chime will be optional. Seier writes, "Microsoft looks to have had a change of heart regarding its start-up chime. Weeks ago it was learned that the company was considering locking the startup sound down so that it could not be turned off. Ars Technica reports that Microsoft has added the option to disable the sound in the control panel. Meanwhile, Microsoft has still not revealed the startup sound, which will reportedly based on the guitar work of Robert Fripp."
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
yeah right.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry but yu guys misspelled FUD.
Microsoft became the king BECAUSE of piracy. the Dos and windows 3.11 days Microsoft products sucked. but they were the easiest to copy and spread like wildfire because free = better than buying it.
so get everyone using your products and guess what.... you get to be king.
500 kids using adobe photoshop = 500 new graphic artists that will want adobe photoshop at their job.
If you have the choice of the general populace using your product from piracy or a free alternative that is your competition, you bet your ass that you end up better off having all those people using your product.
Now, companies using illigit software? that IS a real damage to sales. as are the bootleg resellers.
not the 16 year old that wants to learn autocad, premier pro, SQL2000, or server 2003.
Re:Chinese PsiOps pwn American BS-detector (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Vista, Meet Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Not sure why you needed the CLI, as Ubuntu has Synaptic. Plus now there is EasyUbuntu [freecontrib.org] to get multimedia stuff working.
That said, I don't think "the masses" have the strong anti-CLI bent that geeks like to suggest they do. Many people who fit into "the masses" once used text-based programs--remember WordPerfect? Lotus 123? Just a few years ago all the students at my university used Pine for email, and nobody whined about how hard it was to use--maybe because it wasn't hard to use! Library catalogs all used to have text-based interfaces. Even now, many people use computer systems at work (ever heard of BPCS?) that have text-based interfaces. I've seen law librarians use the old text-based interfaces to Westlaw and Lexis.
If "the masses" hate CLI, why do they use Google? That involves formulating queries, typing them in. Why didn't they prefer the old Yahoo Directory way of picking from a menu of choices?
"The masses" have the same realization that geeks do: many GUI programs are designed for newbies. The problem is that you're not a newbie for long, but the GUI keeps you stuck in newbie mode. Long before I was a geek, I was frustrated when public libraries switched to GUI catalogs. GUI and web-based catalogs are easier to use when you're new, but you're not new for long, and after you're experienced clicking around with the mouse is very frustrating. That's why the law librarians use the text-based Lexis.
I often find CLI based programs to be easier to use, and I don't think "the masses" are any different.