Just imagine all of the PR points you could win just by letting us space nerds in on what you're doing. We'll work most of it out anyway, but take us through all the technical gore. What you are doing seems like the closest thing to launching a fully fledged rocket from your backyard using nothing but spare parts lying around, so we can definitely relate with you here.

The records are longer than the legal maximum retention period. You can't expect hospitals to keep every X-Ray you ever had forever, not only is there privacy issues (some people don't like the idea) the cost of unlimited data retention is enormous. He should have requested it while it was still within the legal time for it to be kept, otherwise anything more is just a favour to him that they can get it to him at all even with the fee, because it costs money to bring an obsolete system back online, as it was decommissioned since it is no longer required (past the legal maximum).

I'm sure the obsolete system was running just fine in parallel in new system while the records were still under legal obligation and without expensive fees.

It's better than most places that they will still have the obsolete system at all that CAN be bought online. Most places would have destroyed the data by now.

Apple for example, completely wiped the MobileMe data as soon as MobileMe was switched off. Actual conversion I had with them for someone else who didn't know it was been Shut Off until it actually stopped working:
Apple: Yes Sir the Service has just stopped working because it has been decommissioned for iCloud.
Me: How do I get the data back?
Apple: Well we have put out notices to your MobileMe email (that they never use) for months that it is going to be shut down and you need to transition before then, now it's been shut down and we can't transition the data anymore.
Me: How do I get the data back now?
Apple: The data has been physically wiped from the servers and can't be retrieved even if we wanted to.

Microsoft have done it too with Microsoft Office Live Small Business.

Or Google, switch it off so you can see it's not working and then normally give you a year to download your data from a killed product.

Not fair to ask the CEO to cover the cost of his extraordinary required. If these records are important to him, pay, If not that important, don't. The choice is his.

Yes I'm sure that Network Security
Specialists enjoy anything related to the word
CYBER, it is like the New Wave era of
HACKING (not to be confused with
cracking)... or something like that

So their T&Cs is invalid because of a technicality, not because it limits consumer rights.

There needs to be baseline laws that guarantee a minimum amount of consumer protection, that can't be trumped by T&Cs, as Law > T&Cs.

Basically, as it stands now, a website could put in T&Cs that gives them the right to kill you and your pets for non-payment of services. Or more realistically, terms for $1,000,000 per day penalty for late payment on an account worth $10,000 in it's total life.

The excuse that we should settle with "you should have read the T&Cs" is unacceptable, not eveyone does, maybe it is because some people in our community find them too hard to understand or can not afford a lawyer to check it, is too trusting, or whatever the case may be, and it doesnt mean that these people deserve to be taken advantage of.

We need to look at Australia's consumer laws as a model for the world. These laws are just common sense for what a consumer would expect from a retailer, but put out in law that can't be trumped or rights taken away except in very specific circumstances where there is a fair reason to (not just trying to limit their liability for their own fuck ups) and this waiver has been made crystal clear to them by a requirement to explain this to the consumer until they understand, and sign a standardised form that says in big letters across the top "YOU ARE WAIVING SOME OF YOUR RIGHTS IN THIS TRANSACTION, PLEASE READ CAREFULLY" or to that effect.

Sounds like the standard procurement process for a major scientific project these days.

"Hey, is experiment sounds like it needs lots of RAM, lets just buy all the RAM now and worry about the rest of the hardware/software later; Slashdot will help us with that."

It makes me feel good inside to know that I am creating revenue for the website that I visit, which helps cover the cost of providing that website. Tracking a user and giving targeting advertising increases the value of the advertising campaigns, which translates into more money for the website.

If we didn't have this, the web is going to become subscription-only very quickly.

Slashdot gives me the option to "Disable Advertising" for having positive Karma, but I choose not to use this.

What is annoying, is that the tracking wouldn't be an issue if the online advertising industry would be more honest to consumers about their practices from be beginning so that it would have been accepted early on, and also not give online advertising a bad name by not tricking websites into displaying ads that the web developer has said not to, and also allowing intrusive or misleading advertising (like how many fake 'Download' buttons do you see on Download sites for example).

It sounds like he came across a fortune through illegal means, bought a beginner metal detector someplace (really who spends 135 quid on a beginner item, he must have been certain he would find something worth at least that value) and then played dumb when he says that he "found" it.

He reports it in, nobody will claim, and he will get to keep it legally. Easy way to "legalise" something you shouldn't have. Works for bags of money some people "dig up" in their backyard too (which is really their drug money they need to bring off the black market to make a legitimate purchase). Just hope that nobody else can make a plausible enough claim for it.

I see what you did there.

The distribution being used was called DBAN

When I tried to set up a password "FuckingAce" (not used for anything anymore), it wouldn't let me, I worked out that it wouldn't allow the word fuck and a range of other swear words. Thanks Microsoft!

First, it was already posted: http://it.slashdot.org/story/12/09/15/0130219/google-kills-apps-support-for-internet-explorer-8

Second, IE8 is being dropped, not Windows XP.
IE8 does not equal Windows XP.

IE8 is a web browser.
XP is an operating system that supports many web browsers and applications, and more than one at the same time.

There are plenty of other SUPPORTED ways to access Google Apps on Windows XP:
- Google Chrome
- Mozilla Firefox
- Apple Safari
- Google Chrome Frame
- Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook

With all of the above solutions, Internet Explorer 8 will still work on the computer for other websites that are required (whether that is a technical requirement or user preference). These solutions work in ADDITION to Internet Explorer, they do NOT replace Internet Explorer.

If the organisations IT policy is so rigid that they can't allow any of these solutions onto their network but still use Windows XP, then I doubt that this kind of organisation would be using such progressive and relatively new (compared to on-premise) solutions such as Google Apps in the first place.

I think that if they are so change-resistent that they can't even deploy Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome Frame or Google Apps Sync for Outlook (all of the supported options) then what chance is there that they would even move to Google Apps at all.

But not really at an affordable level to almost every premises. This is piggybacking onto an existing fibre service (when it gets installed over the next 10 years) without a separate line needing to be installed. The same Fibre can be used for Internet, TV & Voice. This is an enhancement to the Voice traffic to make sure the Internet and TV traffic does not take priority which would reduce call quality.

I think that it is quite clear by now that the laws don't really matter in cases like this. The MAFIAA will get him one way or another.

Even though the project has been costed at $43 billion.