I just pulled out my official Genuine Microsoft Office 2003 CD from 13-years ago from Microsoft Licensing and it has Office 2003,Publisher, Visio etc... I have always worked at places with Volume Licensing, so I guess I never realized they were all sold separately because they were all on the MS Office Professional Enterprise Edition 2003 install CD. Wikipedia shows Visio as sold separately in the Enterprise Edition, but it clearly on the install CD. Very strange.

It is neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things, but my point is that if you ship everything on one CD and the VLK (volume license key) allows the use of all the software, I am not going to repurchase something equivalent, even if it is slightly better.

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Senior Red Hat Certified Engineer

AmiPro was better than Word. Wordperfect was best for experienced clerical staff and task Automation (macro programming).

I agree, the reason that MS won was the Microsoft Office Pro Package which bundled Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access, Viso, and Project. Once MS crushed the competition products began to slowly become "sold separately" as we see today with Viso and Project. I think a recent strategical error of Microsoft's was not releasing a version of Office for iOS, but it looks like they will try to play catch-up in 2014 with an iPad release. I truly believe that Balmer thought the iPad would fail to gain marketshare and mocked it.

Microsoft is in no immediate danger, but in my opinion they are overplaying their hand by trying too squeeze to tight. They need to adopt the Amazon model of giving more than the customer expects. Instead of charge more than the customer expects as in the case of their new licensing model.

Apple has also made a few blunders, the iPad is not a full laptop replacement (to protect the Air) and their cloud services are a disaster. If Apple gave the iPad the ability to replace a desktop and shored up the cloud backend, it could almost be checkmate. Meanwhile, Chrome books are gaining market share while both companies calculate their next moves.

It will be interesting to see this play out and I am particularly interested in the next XBOX and the "always on" Internet requirement.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/18944/bill-gates-frustrated-windows

I agree. I think my graphics card cost more than the motherboard, CPU, and RAM. :)

That sir, is funny.

I know there is a lot of speculation into the PC Sales dip, but let's face it, it is the same old song and dance in PC land. If I buy a new PC it has Windows 8 it comes loaded with crapware and doesn't do very much of what most people want to do. Tonight I went to Staples to browse and most of the Windows 8 machines were stuck on "Your protection expired XX days ago. Would you like to purchase Norton." AND I STILL CAN'T CREATE AND EDIT A VIDEO OUT OF THE BOX. However MS-Paint, Calculator, and Notepad are still hanging in from 1987, but to be fair, MS-Paint did get a facelift.

Flash forward to the iPad. I can give grandma an iPad with iMovie within 15 minutes she has first amazing video trailer of the grandkids on YouTube. Yes, I know the PC has robust suites like Adobe, Roxio, and Vegas but they aren't simple. Grandma has to figure out the Camera, take the SDHC card out, import the video, setup a project (hmm.... does grandma want DV-NTSC Standard-48Khz or DV-NTSC-Widescreen-48Khz, or maybe AVCHD-1080i(50i) Anamorphic) , import the video segments into timelines and on and on until she gives up. It is far too painful, just opening the door to the SDHC card can be a 15 minute project.

The problem with the PC is it hasn't gotten simpler. It hasn't gotten less painful to use, and grandma still can't get her video onto YouTube. One a daily basis on I use Linux, Windows 7, iPad, and MacOS/X. To me they have just become tools to get different jobs done. The clear winner for ease of use, efficiency, and convenience is the iPad tablet where I can get my video onto YouTube without crapware popping up telling me I need to update or am unprotected.

Oh and one more reason. SSDs. I can put an SSD in an old box, and suddenly, it becomes a vibrant fast box, even with all the crapware.

And MS, if you are listening. Put some useful WOW factor, polished software into your OS. Make the consumer feel like they really got something high value for their dollar or just keep doing what your doing. And if you keep on the same path, make sure you knee-cap the next XBOX with always on Internet required for play. Also, if you decided to launch a phone, make sure you abandon all your early adopters and ensure that the phone has no polished apps. Does anyone at MS still know how to code beyond rearranging the UI? Just asking.

The real question is should our government buy counterfeit military replacement parts from China?

Until we as a people decide that our national security depends on our manufacturing base and manufacturing capability then what difference does it make? It's all coming from China no matter how you look at it. The subcontractor of my subcontractor of my subcontractor is Chairman Mao. And when you play in a commodity market, the lowest bidding supplier with a stolen formula for capacitors wins as in the case of Dell.

Really? I have to tell you I am totally ignorant of the Book of Mormon, but I don't think that genetically engineering high IQ children to fight an Alien Assimilation of earth is in there, maybe I am wrong, but I am going to go with the wikipedia [[ citation needed ]] on your post. Perhaps you could share a few parallels and educate us all. It has been awhile since I read the book, but I didn't sense any Mormonism.

The USA is a restricted or limited Democracy, "Majority rule with minority protections and whatever legislation lobbyists can buy with their first amendment freedom of speech through cash and whatever law enforcement can get away with in the name of national security and the war on (Fill in the Blank) including killing Americans on US Soil with drones.

Unfortunately, we now exist in a polarized era where the masses tend not believe in absolute truths, and that how we individually "feel" about something makes it TRUE or FALSE. We have entered an era of moral relativism and are on a race to moral bottom as evidenced by our media, the Internet (Reddit/4Chan), and our national priorities. Our society has devalued the worth of the individual and removed all respect from how we view our leaders. Following the logic presented by earlier posters, if we had to pick and choose our movies/media on the basis of the writes, actors, and producers morals, beliefs, and ethos I am sure we could always find something offensive. Many celebrities are whacko as evidenced by Cruise and Sheen. Echoing others, I am voting with my wallet and refuse to watch any more reality TV, watch any senseless drug/death/sex/shootem-up movies, and have stopped buying the FPS shoot-em-up video games.

Maybe you stand for whatever makes you happy. Maybe you want a culture that doesn't care about human life and further makes all women bitches and hoes. Maybe you think we should all carry guns and shoot idiots who drive too slow. Maybe you think what goes on over at Reddit and 4Chan is how a civil society should operate. Maybe "it's all ok bro" and we should all just do whatever we want with our unlimited freedom and exercise zero personal responsibility.

Perhaps the only way out of this maze is to stop having people tell us what we think and clearly define and examine our own personal moral codes and ethos then live them out. Perhaps everyone could devote a mere 5 minutes a day to meditation and reflection of their lives, believes, and actions. Written above the temple of Delphi in ancient Greece were the words "Know thyself." To me, it is refreshing to see someone like Orson Scott Card stand up for what they feel is an absolute truth, whether or not you agree with it. He truly knows himself and has demonstrated this repeatedly and consistently. I would ask all of you reading this, "What do you stand for? What kind of country/culture to you want to live in? What is your personal truth and what do you base it on?"

Sorry to be downer tonight....

Lock incoming connections down by MAC address and disable your SSID. This will probably make them go away. Also, run WPA2+AES and pick a longish WIFI key.

If you have an ASUS Dark Knight router you can setup multiple SSIDs (guest networks) that disconnect every 60 seconds and name them "StopStealingMyWifi". This way you real SSID is hidden and your multiple guest networks are visible, but are unusable. You can also set hours of operations for your radios on the ASUS and turn off your radios at night and when you are not home. Lastly, if you are running dual band, turn off the 2.4 Ghz and run on the 5Ghz band. The 5Ghz signal travels poorly outside your home. WIFI is tough to secure with all of the WIFI hacking tools, but get a good router and rotate shield frequencies and should go away.

Lastly, here is an article on the subject.... this article disagrees with me on disabling your SSID and I am sure others will have an opinion....
http://www.wikihow.com/Secure-Your-Wireless-Home-Network

What technology will you build after answering them?

We have made quite a few novel technologies from exploiting the electromagnetic fields, but gravity eludes us. Imagine if we could use our electromagnetic technologies to play with gravity fields. We could generate gravity and build amazing trash compactors and possibly even fusion generators, in addition to a whole new realm of practical jokes. Just imagine the practical jokes you could play with a gravity field generator, Additionally, we could possibly generate gravity shielding to reduce the weight of cars, space launch vehicles, and if it could be made small enough, I could put it in the soles of my shoes.

I took the quantum class and would argue that we have the equations and understand how particles behave in their relativistic nature, but the best definition we can give for something like magnetism is, "it's a field", or "it's a virtual massless photon". Even the wave-particle duality of the electron is a mystery.

Do the magnetic or electromagnetic fields even exist or are they simply a property of space time? I think we have a pretty good handle on electric charge and physical properties, but truly understanding, not just describing phenomena like fields still seems out of our reach. And of course, the Grand Unified Field Theory still eludes us. Have we even found all the field phenomena? If it wasn't for some poor shepherd playing with rocks (lodestone) and identifying an edge case we might still not know about the magnetic field. Actually with the discovery of metals and acids we probably would have stumbled up on it.

I look at us as a collection of brilliant computer hackers. We can write code that exploits the system and create slick apps, but we are ignorant of the underlying architecture, circuitry, electronics and complex manufacturing processes that went into creating the device on which our apps do (theoretically) useful things.

And of course, the ultimate technologies would be force fields, warp drives, transporters, and photo torpedos.... right after the Holideck. I am not sure that lightsabers will ever be possible :)

Answer any of the following and you too can win a Nobel prize...

1. What is a magnetic field?
2. What is a electric field?
3. What is gravity?
4. Do tachyons exist?
5. Does the Higgs Boson exist?
6. Does matter decay?
7. Is a magnetic field really a field or is it just another property of space-time?
8. In how any dimensions does the Universe or multiverse exist? (The basic question of string theory)
9. Can magnetic and electric fields be quantized or are they continuous?
10. Can time and space be quantized or is it continuous?
11. Why can't we all just get along?
12. Is the universe a giant predetermined simulation playing out or do we have free will.

We are a species that just recently wandered in off the Sahara. We know a lot about a little. Our knowledge is like Swiss cheese, full of holes, gaps, and inconsistencies. There are things we observe but can't explain and things we can explain but can't observe. Go watch this video from Fenyman...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsgBtOVzHKI

Forget the UNO, Get an Arduino MEGA!

If you have a lawn irrigation system, consider this your first Arduino project! Open Sprinkler: http://rayshobby.net/?page_id=160

I concur, and am using the ASUS Dark Knight to cover the house and .5 acres built into a hill. The ASUS products might start off a little rough when they are just released, mostly buggy firmware, but ASUS does get it right and the hardware is solid. The ASUS never needs rebooting and takes daily streaming abuse. I bought my mother-in-law a $80 Belkin for Christmas and it needs resets every couple of weeks. Why didn't I just buy the $160 ASUS and save myself the hassle?

I am not down on the WRT54G, it just can't handle the traffic load in 2013. Even after loading DD-WRT, it and it still couldn't keep up with the incoming 30Mbps connection. I still have it as a backup, but it is not streaming capable.