If you neeed a virtual machine, use qemu+kvm !! is free, it works, it is fast

Of course, you also need linux!! :D

You really don't want CA that aren't trusted in your browser... even if it breaks some sites... a broken CA can break ALL your https sites

We should have killed SSL3 years ago, but to avoid breaking some sites, we found later that SSL3 bug could break all sites, even if they had already TLS1.2
When something should die, let it die or you will pay for it later

Agree, the hypercube is the missing option!! :)

simple... AMD have not enough money to pay others to do that.

When you have profits, you can do that, when you are losing money, downsizing and trying to recover. That money should be used to PR the game studios for better optimization and improve the drivers (that they know that have problems in several places)

samsung lcd's also are built like crap. one after another, their electrolytics die (fake china caps; like so many others).
(...)
but dammit samsung, why do you have to be SO cheap??

Because when something fails, most users will buy a new one instead of repairing the last one... and guess what... probably they will buy another samsung device! So instead of selling one TV each 15 years, they sell one each 3-5 years... even if just 1/3 of original buyers buy again samsung, it is still a win situation for then.

Of course, the solution is to first repair the old devices (samsung is also making sure that it is harder and harder to do that! thin devices is the excuse to use hard to replace hardware... see apple and how to repair their devices) and when buying, choose a little more expensive tv (many of times just 20$ to 50$ more) from other good brand. If something fail in short time, complain to that brand and buy from another brand.

If known brands use the same quality from cheap chinese brands, then there is no need to buy known brands

Yeh right, then all the security problems with Acrobat reader plugin were my imagination!!
I still don't understand why a READ-ONLY print format needs a programming language and interactivity (hint: it doesn't! and that is why almost all other pdf reader ignore that)

India is both a rich and poor country... is acts like a rich country when doing big projects and acts like a poor country when requesting money and support. The true is that they have very rich people and very poor people... and the power usually don't care much about the poor (other than it is cheap labor)

or titanic!!

Then try a clean firefox profile, without extensions. I too have a lot of tabs opens for weeks and i have got any crash for months...
both firefox and thunderbird crashing may point to a common (system) file that is broken.

Also check your smart status (smartctl -a /dev/sd?) and do some tests.

Ubuntu have it own problems, but you case is clear: you have something broken in your system, with so many different systems failing, including known stable apps like firefox, thunderbird and rsync, you have a corrupted system.... something like rsync will not lockup in any system, so is something below (ie: the kernel, the filesystem or the hardware) that is failing i. Try:

1 run a mentest86 for some hours... if it reports any error, your hardware is broken... you can try to play with the bios settings to see if something is pushing too much the system. The AHCI will not be detected by mentest86, but also try to revert that and test... you should check for corrupted FS (fsck from a liveCD) and files (debsums) after that, as is AHCI is giving errors, you may have corrupted files
2 try to reset your profile - login as a different user, move your current user home to /home/username.backup and create a new home (mkdir /home/username ; cp -r /home/skel/ /home/username/ ; chown -R username /home/username) - and test
3 try to clean your system, upgrade any package, check if any ppa is messing (installing) new or older version of libraries
4 if all fails, reinstall ubuntu
5 if still fails, install a LTS ubuntu and test
6 if still fails, install again 10.04 ubuntu and test
7 if still fails, sorry, but something is broken in your hardware... after 10 years is not surprising if something like RAM, cpu capacitors or power source start to give problems

good luck

They are doing that, that is why the H264 battle is being abandoned, it's a waste of resources, mostly because the hardware support on phones and a W3C taking way too long to decide what format will be the standard (each day waiting is one more victory to H264).

So mozilla is using this solution as a good workaround, the closed source plugin can be controlled, the code reviewed, only the patent is still a issue. they will now try to setup the next battle in better ground.

mozilla have a project (can't recall its name, sorry) to play most flash without plugin, using html5 and javascript. it can already play many of the flash out there, but not yet the flash videos and more complex flash games

Mozilla, as a US based company/foundation, can't directly add a patent code, but can add support to use external tools.
They already have done that for all major OS, but at least in android is a problem, as you can't install "other" tools to help firefox (for normal users, a rooted device you can always do other things)

OGG Vorbis changed the license to BSD to try to push if to replace mp3 and other closed source formats. It is much better than mp3 is similar to most closed source audio format... yet most of the hardware and software out there still don't support it... all of then support the weaker and patented lock mp3 format.

Timing have always to be perfect to gain the critical mass, but with all groups trying to reach the same goal, it's very hard to change this

So no, the problem is not the license, it's the groups behind each format and their power. Apple with macosx/safari and iphones, MS with windows and iexplorer, and google with youtube have the power to allow or block a format. Apple and MS both have shares in the H264 patent owners, so they clearly don't want to support any other format.

google could try to battle others (and with a good probability of winning) by first downgrade H264 quality over open formats and warn users to use chrome and firefox (to pressure MS and Apple to support the open formats) or install some plugin to support it. As youtube is so big and important, it is the perfect weapon for this. Of course, W3C should also be pressured to finally define the (correct) video standard. Sadly google is playing both sides, it's not doing enough to counter H264 nor promoting open formats and that makes Apple and MS stronger in to blocking any other open formats and leave Mozilla alone, fighting for open standards.

Alone, the open source community will have a hard time trying to fight this closed source/patented formats, as there are always lack of resources to developer as fast as companies that their only work is that. With support from big companies, friendly to open source, like google, cisco, ibm, facebook, twitter, redhat, etc, things could be better, but those companies always have dual standards and not always really support the open standards

Don't forget that the GMP only have access to a certain number of firefox functions and runs inside a sandbox. That code is treated as insecure and as it have a very defined objective, is easier to sandbox (ie: no filesystem access, no network, etc).

Yes, is not perfect, but it's a good workaround for those software patents and DRM.

Those that still don't trust it, can choose to not install the Cisco OpenH264, its a "plugin" after all