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Comment Re:Article summary (Score 4, Insightful) 1174

by astralbat (#29986280) Attached to: Plug vs. Plug — Which Nation's Socket Is Best?
You suspect humour? I suspect that Americans do not understand it at all! I was laughing all the way! But maybe that's because I'm British and I understand that this is really just a complete piss take on the rest of the world. If I had wanted to read a serious comparison, I would have read Wikipedia

Comment Solution is simple (Score 1) 911

by astralbat (#26968459) Attached to: EU Says MS Must Offer Other Browsers; Now What?
1. Force Microsoft to uncouple IE with Windows, allowing the user to uninstall it.
2. Vendors like Dell are then free to sell an alternative browser if they wish.

Perhaps at first manufacturers will just stick with IE, but once they realise the potential of others (e.g. Firefox has more features, Safarai is faster on netbooks etc.), they'll sell machines with alternatives. Then it's all about market forces.

As one commenter on here put it, if you try and make people choose, then you are trying to force people to not be sheep! This will never work!
Networking

Ubuntu Download Speeds Beat Windows XP's 515

Posted by timothy from the aggregated-circumstances dept.
narramissic writes "Doing a download speed test of his Time Warner cable connection, James Gaskin discovered something odd, something that he is quick to note isn't a rigorous benchmarked lab test. The discovery: His Ubuntu machine 'returned a rating from the Bandwidth.com test of 22-25mbps over several tests' while the same test done from a Windows XP PC returned a rating of 12-14mbps. The two computers used in the test are 'almost identical: both off-lease Compaq small form factor D515s, part of the very popular corporate desktop D500 family. Both have Pentium 4 processors running at 2GHz. The Ubuntu machine has 768MB of RAM, while the XP box has only 512MB of RAM. Both run Firefox 3 as their browser.' Gaskin's question: Can a little extra RAM make that much difference in Internet download speeds or does Ubuntu handles networking that much faster than Windows XP?"

Comment Re:Call me cynical but... (Score 1) 123

by astralbat (#26356437) Attached to: Groklaw Shifts Gears, Now Stressing Preservation

Why in hell should a person subject their identity and private information to the whim of the trolls on the Internet in any capacity, just to "prove" they aren't hiding something sinister? Try proving there WAS something sinister, I'll certainly take that complaint more credibly.

You've got the wrong end of the stick entirely. I wasn't suggesting that she reveal her identity. I was merely outlining an alternative truth. Personally, I can choose and decide for myself what to believe and I'm nothing like a "conspiracy nut" as you so delicately put it. The fact of the matter is Groklaw is quite an extensive source when it comes to the SCO case details. Perhaps it's just a blog, but some people might see it as more than that.

Let's suppose for a moment that she was/is under some kind of financial agreement with IBM, then that changes things entirely. I am by no means suggesting this is the case but regarding it as a possibility - especially given the bias in her posts.

Maybe my post was trolling, but it's something I have the right to do and you should not undermine. Something more constructive towards the debate would have been appreciated rather than contempt and mockery.
Games

Activision Blizzard Announces Guitar Hero 5, New Call of Duty 85

Posted by Soulskill from the axes-and-guns dept.
MTV's Multiplayer Blog reports on recent announcements from Activision Blizzard which confirm that sequels to several popular franchises are on the way. The games include a new Guitar Hero, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and a new Tony Hawk, which will use some kind of non-standard controller. "At the meeting, Activision Blizzard showcased new games that would make sense for in-game ads, including the vaguely titled "Guitar Hero 5," which included a screen shot of gameplay with a Burger King ad to the right of the note highway."

Comment Re:I knew IE7 was bad, but... (Score 1) 370

by astralbat (#22784436) Attached to: Firefox 3 May Be More Memory Efficient Than Either IE or Opera

I'm sorry buddy, but it ain't a myth. What do you think runs the Windows shell? IE is explorer + html rendering engine.
Wrong. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_7#Features_and_changes. This seems to be a change in IE7, although I thought the entire process had been decoupled within IE6... Anyhow, I'm referring to memory usage and as the graphs show, IE has no memory advantage over rival browsers.
Novell

Submission + - Novell says desktop Linux costs 10% of Vista

Submitted by Robert
Robert writes: Novell Inc might have signed a patent and interoperability deal with Microsoft Corp but it is not about to give up competing with the software giant and last week released a study that suggests its Linux desktop product is better value than Windows Vista. The Waltham, Massachusetts-based company's competitive guide compares SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop with Windows Vista and claims that the Linux product provides 90% of Vista's functionality and 10% of the price.
Announcements

Submission + - Three UK cancels roaming costs in 7 countries

Submitted by pieggi
pieggi writes: I report you an article seen on 21talks.net (http://21talks.net/voip/3-roaming-fees) via voipblog.it:
"British mobile provider 3 has made an impressive step into the deregulation of the telecoms market. It abolished roaming charges for its UK customers in seven nations, meaning its UK users won't be charged for calling or receiving calls or text message on their regular cellphone when on trip."

The seven countries are Italy, Australia, the Republic of Ireland, Austria, Hong Kong, Sweden and Denmark.

The article links also a BBC article http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6263699.stm

Jimmy Wales Resigns Chair at Wikipedia 71

Posted by Zonk from the curious dept.
user24 writes "As reported by Wikipedia's Signpost ezine, 'The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees has moved forward with a step in restructuring the organization by reorganizing itself. Following a planning retreat in Frankfurt, Jimmy Wales stepped down as Chair of the board, and Florence Nibart-Devouard was chosen to replace him ... Wales, meanwhile, will continue to serve on the board and assume the honorary title of Chairman Emeritus. He will remain active in Wikimedia projects, but chose to pass on the responsibility of heading the board, due in part to his commitments to outside projects.'"

Politicians Have Poor Grasp of Technology? 349

Posted by Zonk from the but-i-thought-they-were-all-knowing dept.
Alfred Lee Deon writes "Chris Patten, a former EU Commissioner, was speaking at the three-day conference in Nice, France, on European business and technology. 'Many politicians don't understand the technology issues that could affect government IT schemes,' he said.' Politicians have no sound grasp of technology issues — but politicians don't necessarily have a profound grasp of any issue.' He was especially critical of UK's government's ID card scheme — a scheme he felt would not achieve one of its possible objectives of making borders more secure."

Caller ID Watches 239

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the pricepoint-will-decide dept.
kbielefe writes "On Thursday, Sony Ericsson and Fossil Inc. announced a line of bluetooth watches that vibrate when a call comes in on your cell phone, display the number of the caller, and allow you to press a button to send the call to voicemail. No more digging around in your pocket or purse before deciding if the call is important enough to interrupt a meeting."

Experts Fear Future Will be Like Sci-Fi Movies 374

Posted by Zonk from the oh-no-robots dept.
segphault writes "In the year 2020, Luddite terrorists attack technology infrastructure and artificial intelligences dominate earth! Or at least that's what 700 experts predict in the latest poll conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project (pdf). Is the future really going to be like a science fiction movie? Ars Technica provides a humorous overview of the survey results. From the article: 'Are these scenarios really indicative of future trends? Given the prevalence of many of these concepts in science fiction content, it is obvious that the ideas themselves are at least relevant enough to warrant consideration. That said, the nature of the survey and the way that the scenarios are presented makes the entire thing seem less plausible. In looking at classic science fiction films of the past, from Blade Runner to Soylent Green, one realizes that few of them really predict with any accuracy the world we live in today. Culture and technology can change in radically unpredictable ways, and today's experts may lack the foresight to perceive the future with the clarity of Hari Seldon.'"

Inside Vista's Image-Based Install Process 519

Posted by Hemos from the how-the-whole-bloody-thing-works dept.
KrispyGlider writes "Vista's installation process is dramatically different from any previous version of Windows: rather than being an 'installer,' the install DVD is actually a preinstalled copy of Windows that simply gets decompressed onto your PC. It is hardware agnostic, so it can adjust to different systems, and you can also install your own apps into it so that your Vista install becomes a full system image install. APCMag.com has published an interview with a Microsoft Australia tech specialist on the inner workings of it as well as a story that looks at some of the pros and cons of image-based installs."

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