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Submission + - Usability Features in the Upcoming Beryl 0.2.0

Anonymous Coward writes: "The Beryl project has often been criticised as being nothing more than eyecandy for the sake of eyecandy. However, there are numerous features in Beryl which could improve usability and workflow. In this series of three articles, some of the new usability features in Beryl 0.2.0 are highlighted and explained (article I, article II, and article III)."
Windows

Submission + - Microsoft offers 107k Windows Vista licences

carvalhao writes: "Microsoft has pledged to offer 107 000 (that's right, 107k) Windows vista licences to Portuguese college students, without a copy limit as long as it's for academic/research use (portuguese article here). This offer will be made to scientific, engineering and technology universities across Portugal.

Got a better way to lock the next generation of IT users to your OS?"
Microsoft

Vista Sales Expectations Too High, Office Doing Well 320

PetManimal writes "A comparison of first-week retail sales of Vista compared to first-week sales of XP back in 2001 found that Vista sales were 60% lower. Steve Ballmer has admitted that earlier sales forecasts were 'overly aggressive,' but at least there is some good news for Microsoft: early Office 2007 sales were very strong compared to the early sales of Office 2003, despite almost no advertising or marketing until the retail launch at the end of January."
Education

Submission + - Russian schools abandon Windows?

atamyrat writes: "http://www.rlhc.net/blog/?p=272

From the article

In a strange twist of events which include former Russian President and Nobel Prize winner, Mikhail Gorbachev, calling Bill Gates and current Russian President Vladimir Putin making comments on software piracy, Russian school may be moving to Linux very soon. It almost sounds like a cold war spy novel. Anyways, the Russian school system is looking to move to ASPLinux, a localized Linux disto, to combat software piracy.
http://eng.cnews.ru/news/top/indexEn.shtml?2007/02 /05/234178

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37 460"
Movies

Submission + - Camcorder piracy overestimated, says Geist.

EWAdams writes: The BBC News website has published an article by Internet law professor Michael Geist, in which he argues that the MPAA is overstating the amount of camcorder piracy of movies going on and misrepresenting the economic damage that it causes... or at best, obfuscating the reality of the situation (small surprise). An excerpt:

First, the camcorder claims have themselves involved wildly different figures. For example, over the past two weeks, reports have pegged the Canadian percentage of global camcording at either 40 or 50%. Yet the International Intellectual Property Alliance, a U.S. lobby group that includes the MPAA, advised the US government in late September that Canadians were the source for 23% of camcorded copies of DVDs. Not surprisingly, none of these figures have been subject to independent audit or review. In fact, AT&T Labs, which conducted the last major public study on movie piracy in 2003, concluded that 77 percent of pirated movies actually originate from industry insiders and advance screener copies provided to movie reviewers.
AMD

Submission + - ATI is not supporting the All-in-Wonder in Vista

Working-Person writes: Thinking about using your expensive All-in-Wonder with Vista? Think again. Here's the response from ATI when looking for Vista drivers "The product you purchased was not advertised or broadcasted as Vista Compliant it is fully functional and supported on the specified Operating Systems. The tuner on the board doesn't meet Windows Vista's requirements and is not compatable. That means it will not be supported and there will be no drivers or software release for the tuner on the ALL IN WONDER Board."
Novell

Submission + - No truth to Samba rumor

lisah writes: "Linux.com is reporting this morning that recent rumors of a mass exodus of Samba developers fleeing to Red Hat because they are irate over the Microsoft/Novell agreement are unfounded. Though well known Samba team member Jeremy Allison recently left Novell for Google, Novell spokesperson Kevan Barney says reports that the entire Samba team has imploded are 'incorrect'."
Patents

Submission + - Yahoo patents Web 2.0!!!

nbmonger writes: As reported on Techcrunch and CrunchGear — Yahoo was recently issued a patent focused on Web 2.0 that could have a serious impact for websites (and developers) which allow users to create customizable pages. An analysis of the patent and the 20+ companies which could be affected is covered on PatentMonkey. Interestingly, Yahoo sued Google back in 2004 with a patent Yahoo obtained when they acquired Overture. The net result was Yahoo owning 5% of Google. Perhaps Yahoo will use the patent to take a 5% stake in all the MashUps knowing some will pay off handomsly.
The Courts

Submission + - In Alabama, Sex Toys are Just Like Prostitution

An anonymous reader writes: A federal appeals court has upheld an Alabama law banning the sale of sex toys against a claim that the law conflicted with the Supreme Court's prior holding that private sexuality is protected by the Constitution. The court reasoned that, because sex toys are bought and sold in "public" transactions, selling them is just like prostitution, and therefore it could be banned.
Windows

Submission + - Vista "express" upgrade program bungled

Josh M. writes: Thousands of customers who purchased new Windows PCs this past Christmas are still waiting on their promised Windows Vista upgrades, despite the Vista launch occurring more than two weeks ago. Ars reports that Dell and HP have both pushed their shipping dates 6-8 weeks back after launch, meaning some people won't get their upgrades well into April. It turns out that because those customers get free Vista support, the OEMs are waiting for better driver support, hence the delay. So much for "express."
Security

Submission + - 2 JavaScript holes (with exploits) this week

An anonymous reader writes: Double strike this week for Michal Zalewski, who published JavaScript based exploits for two new web browser vulnerabilities. The one disclosed on Monday allows attacker to read sensitive local files on your computer without your explicit permission, and affects both IE 7 and Firefox 2.0.0.1. The other one allows malicious websites to manipulate authentication cookies for third-party sites, and to possibly do other nasty things as well. A patch for the latter bug, notified to Mozilla on Wednesday, has already been developed and will likely be available in a 2.0.0.2 security upgrade. Obviously enough, users of the NoScript Firefox extension are immune from both these attack vectors.
Mozilla

Over 27% of Firefox Patches Come from Volunteers 107

dolphinling writes "Everyone is aware that the Mozilla Corporation makes some money, and employs some people now. Google has full-time employees working on Firefox too, as do a number of other places. Yet despite that, in the six months up to Firefox 2 some 27% of the patches to Firefox were submitted by key volunteers, and those patches represent 24% of changes made to the source code. What's more, those numbers only counted contributers with 50 patches or more, so the actual numbers are probably quite a bit higher. It's good to see that even as Mozilla does so well in the business world, it can still keep its ties to the community so strong." They were running these number to find out who they need to start offering support to. So: contribute to Firefox, and you know you'll get a hand up. Nice work, folks.

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