BACbKA - Slashdot User

GoogleDocs, OpenOffice or Microsoft Office?

Submitted by

E. Stride

on Monday May 21 2007, @10:44AM

E. Stride writes "An office suite expert explains the differences between GoogleDocs, OpenOffice and Microsoft Office, and goes deeper into the OpenXML vs. OpenDocument debate."

Wi-Fi - Health Risk?

Submitted by Ynot_82 on Monday May 21 2007, @10:13AM

Ynot_82 writes "Yesterday, the UK Panorama programme ran a section on Wi-Fi and recent health concerns.
With some schools reportedly removing their Wi-Fi networks amid the concerns, many are calling for a detailed investigation into the safety of Wi-Fi Networks.Is this overkill, or are there real concerns here? Scientists are divided on the issue, and in the mean time, IT in the education sector looks to be taking the cautionary route."

British police raid allofmp3.com voucher seller

Submitted by

Gossi

on Monday May 21 2007, @10:05AM

Gossi writes "The Register reports a 25-year-old man has been arrested under the Fraud Act. His crime? "Advertising and selling allofmp3.com vouchers through auction sites such as eBay and the website allofmp3vouchers.co.uk". Apparently the bust followed an investigation by global recording industry body IFPI and the BPI. What's interesting about the case is that it's now a criminal offence in the UK under Section 2 of the Fraud Act 2006 to sell music without authorisation, rather than it being a civil matter, and that law is being used to target sellers of vouchers."

One Laptop Per Child using Microsoft OS

Submitted by pallmall1 on Monday May 21 2007, @08:42AM

pallmall1 writes "The One Laptop Per Child flagship XO laptop is going to roll off the assembly lines loaded with Microsoft embedded software. The recent price increase of the laptop to $173 is due in part to the hardware and licensing costs required to run the Microsoft software. According to Mary Lou Jepsen, CTO of the OLPC project, the "OLPC`s XO laptop series uses Microsoft`s embedded operating system, which requires special drivers to work. However, this increases the cost by nearly US$20 for the laptop, including US$3 for Microsoft`s operating system, and US$15 for a 2GB flash memory to drive the system".

So much for the statement from the OLPC project's President of Software and Content, which flatly denied any plans to incorporate Microsoft software by default."

NYT Shines a Light on Firefox's Financial Sucess

Submitted by

NewsCloud

on Monday May 21 2007, @03:03AM

NewsCloud writes "Noam Cohen raises the issue of Mozilla's amazing financial success with Firefox's Google relationship.:

"Thanks to the Google agreement, the Mozilla Foundation went from revenue of nearly $6 million in 2004 to more than $52 million the next year [similar revenue is expected in 2006]...In 2005, the foundation created a subsidiary, the for-profit Mozilla Corporation,...mainly to deal with the tax and other issues related to the Google contract...By creating a corporation to run the Firefox project, Mozilla was committing to be less transparent. In part, that is because Google insists on the secrecy of "its arrangement and agreements," said board member Mitch Kapor.

The article compares this approach to Wikipedia's ongoing fundraisers and raises the issue of transparency in open source projects. i.e. should Firefox's 1,000 to 2,000 developers and 80,000 evangelists have full knowledge of how revenue is spent as well as the extent to which Google is able to influence strategy vs. other stakeholders."