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Comment No surprise (Score 3, Interesting) 280

by sucker_muts (#28066203) Attached to: Russia To Save Its ISS Modules
What's so difficult to understand about the fact that new products don't last as much as they used to? Back in the days the production and design processes were not as advanced as today, so a lot of margin of error was needed to produce equipment that worked the way it needed.

Today, there are a lot of different price categories for a lot of goods. So to give the people what they really want (cheap stuff), the components that are used in today's products are mostly the cheap ones that are produced without big margins of error for reliability purposes. This obviously means that they won't last forever, but boy are they cheap! Why should someone buy a very expensive TV that's garanteed to work for 50 years when in 15 years time there would be new models with a lot of new functionality anyway?

Sometimes I don't understand why some people are saying that that old equipment was so much better because it lasted forever, but I think the explanation to that is so simple.

Comment Re:Expected (Score 4, Informative) 1654

by sucker_muts (#26466553) Attached to: Woman Claims Ubuntu Kept Her From Online Classes
Part of the problem is that she did not understand it's possible to configure internet access without that Verizon cdrom, and she could easily work with OpenOffice instead of Word. Verizon even offered to send a technician to help with the connection, and the school said it has no problems with people using different software when following their couses.

Too bad the woman did not look for answers but simply blamed Dell instead out of ignorance. :(
Transportation

Compressed-Air Car Nears Trial 173

Posted by timothy from the under-pressure dept.
DeviceGuru writes "Air France and KLM have announced plans to conduct a six-month trial of a new zero-emission, compressed-air powered vehicle. The AirPod seats three, can do 28 mph, and goes about 135 miles on a tank of compressed air. Motor Development International, the vehicle's developer, expects the AirPod to reach production by mid-2009, and to sell for around 6,000 Euro. Initially, it will be manufactured in India by Tata Motors, and distributed in France and India."
Software

Submission + - Software price differences between USA & EU 1

Submitted by
Kensai7
Kensai7 writes: "A quick comparison between same versions of mainstream software sold in the USA and the EU markets show a big difference in the respective price tags. If you want to buy online [store.adobe.com] let's say Adobe's "Dreamweaver CS3" you'll have to pay $399 if you live in the States, but a whopping E570 (almost $900 in current exchange rates!!) if you happen to buy it in Germany. Same story for Microsoft's newest products [msstore.digitalriver.com]: "Expression Web 2" in America costs only $299 new, but try that in Italy and they will probably ask you no less than E366 ($576!).

How can such an abyssal difference be explained? I understand there are some added costs for the localized translated versions, but I also thought the Euro was supposed to be outbuying the Dollar. Where's the catch?!"
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft 'deprecates' features of MSOOXML for ISO

Submitted by
sucker_muts
sucker_muts writes: "Microsoft seems to be working to resolve all those comments about its OOXML format to get it approved by ISO, and they claim they nearly adressed 2/3 of them. But even with all the updates they are making to the format, lots of elements still remain to lock people to their platform and software of choice. Instead of removing or changing features, they simply deprecate them. This way Office 2007 will be able to read ISO MSOOXML files, but won't be able to save documents in that format.
From the article:
In an effort to win quick converts to its bid to have Microsoft Office Open XML (MOOXML) accepted as an ISO standard, Microsoft is deprecating parts of its widely-criticized MOOXML. But whatever the new Microsoft OOXML file format with deprecated parts will eventually look like (if such a format ever appears in an actual application), these cosmetic changes dont really make a difference for Microsoft or the world. Neither Microsoft Office 2007 or the version after that will ever likely produce a standards-compliant format. Besides, OpenDocument has been around now for a few years and is becoming widely supported in industry. However, there has been no meaningful movement from MS towards support. Actions speak louder than words."
Software

Submission + - Interview with Linus Torvalds

Submitted by sucker_muts
sucker_muts writes: It seems to have been a while, but there's an new interesting interview with Linus Torvalds. Covering important topics like what he thinks about gpl v3, Microsoft in general and the niches of linux. He considers the desktop to be the best place for developement since it has varied and complex usages, compared to servers and embedded devices.
But is Linus still doing it 'just for fun'? His words: "Yes. Its still why I do it. The parts I do that end up beign fun have been different over the years — it used to be purely about the coding, these days I dont write all that much code myself, and now its mostly about the organizational side: merging code, communicating with people, pointing people in the right direction, and then the occasional bugfixing myself."
Security

Submission + - IM & P2P Malware Packs Bigger Punch

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: From Earthtimes.org: FaceTime Communications announced its analysis of malware affecting today's enterprise networks through instant messaging, P2P file sharing, and chat applications. In an analysis of threats tracked or identified by FaceTime Security Labs, 1,224 unique threats on greynet applications were reported in the past year, with attacks over peer-to-peer networks increasing by 140 percent over 2005 and multi-channel attacks increasing from 18 percent in 2005 to 29 percent of all attacks in 2006. "The numbers alone don't tell the story," said Chris Boyd, director of malware research at FaceTime Security Labs. "It is more important to understand that, although major network disruptions don't seem to result from malware attacks propagated via IM, the sophistication, complexity and stealthy behavior of these threats make them far more dangerous. "Despite myriad security technologies employed by enterprise IT managers to block malicious attacks, the user is often the biggest vulnerability, especially on the real-time, socially-networked Web" said Frank Cabri, vice president of marketing for FaceTime Communications. "In 2007, the biggest security risk for organizations is likely to be their own users, as employees install consumer-oriented greynet applications onto their workplace computer faster than the IT team can keep up with the corresponding controls."
Privacy

Submission + - MySpace to offer spyware for parents

Submitted by mrspin
mrspin writes: Following continuing pressure from politicians (and parts of the media), MySpace is planning to offer parents the chance to download software which will monitor aspects of their children's activities on the social networking site. From a business point of view, the move appears to be a highly risky one. The young users of social networking sites are notorious for their lack of loyalty — and history suggests that a change like this could tempt many to abandon MySpace for the 'next cool thing'.

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