heavenlypennies - Slashdot User

MS Promotion Site Flagged By MS Anti-Phishing 279

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @07:35PM from the too-good-to-be-true dept.

Stony Stevenson writes "Microsoft has launched a marketing campaign that lets any student at an Australian university buy the Ultimate edition of Office 2007, usual price $1,150, for only $75 — a discount of about 93%. But when students go to the promotion site, Microsoft Live OneCare pops up a warning that the site may be a phishing scam. The warning reads: 'Phishing filter has determined this might be a phishing website. We recommend that you do not give any of your information to such websites. Phishing websites impersonate trustworthy websites for the purpose of obtaining your personal or financial information.'"

Submission + - Alternatives to Applecare ripoff?

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Thursday January 04, 2007 @05:45PM

Anonymous Coward writes: "In the high tech world, vendors often charge 10-20% per year for maintenance, which usually includes software updates. More importantly, it usually includes some level of SLA for repairs, typically somewhere between 24x7 to 3 day turnaround.

"Applecare" costs around 10-20% (for two years). It does not include software upgrades, but that is minor compared to their service record. A 1.5 year old machine has already been in the shop over 3 weeks between two different services and is not expected to be fixed any time soon. For this second repair it has been sitting for eight days and they have not even looked at it yet — and do not expect to anytime soon — "there's about 10 machines ahead of you". The Mac will soon have spent 5% of the time since purchase at "Applecare".

I run Linux for most things, but the Mac is used for Photoshop and the print drivers. It is needed to produce work for shows. So... are there service warranties for the mac from 3rd party providers that are worth anything?

Or is there any way of having Apple behave responsibly?"

Submission + - HDTV retro-gaming blues

Submitted by MadHatter on Thursday January 04, 2007 @02:22PM

MadHatter writes: I am a proud new owner of a LG 42 inch Plasma HDTV (42PC3D). However I was disturbed to find out that when I plugged my classic NES into it to play Mario on the big screen, I noticed a lag between the time I pressed the buttons and when he jumped. I thought maybe this was a bad controller, but after I tried the other one, the same thing happened. I tried different ratio aspects... no change. I started doing some research and found out that there is a large problem with HDTV's and older generation consoles. It has to do with the time it takes to upscale the image to the native resolution of the tv. Some tv's have a "game" mode that help a little, but mine does not. This seems to me a big problem that more people should know about when buying a HDTV — even some games on systems as new as PS2 have problems with it. I have read on some forums about VGA upscalers, but these are expensive themselves. Has anyone had any success with these and is it worth it to buy one? How have other people had success playing retro consoles on HDTV?

Vista and the Music Industry 438

Posted by kdawson on Monday January 01, 2007 @02:54AM from the locked-down dept.

BanjoBob writes "Vista locks down all the DRM functionality and actually reduces the quality of playback of some media. This includes both audio and video content. As a company creating music and video products, how can we use Vista to create, distribute, and use legal media? I have read nothing to indicate that Vista has a model to allow 'authorized' use without causing problems. Currently we use Windows 2000 and Linux products. If what we understand is true, Vista and future Microsoft products won't be viable options for us since prior to publication, media must be copied multiple times, edited, moved around, re-edited and often modified into various forms (trailers, etc.) before, during, and after production. This naturally includes backups and recovery. If Vista is intent on prohibiting these uses, then Microsoft is intent on keeping their products out of the realm of content creation and editing. How do others deal with these issues?"

What Will Happen in IT in 2007? 318

Posted by Zonk on Saturday December 30, 2006 @10:48PM from the exciting-times dept.

An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet's Paul Murphy has set out his IT predictions for 2007. Featured among the completely predictable, OpenSolaris overtaking Linux is apparently inevitable within one year. From the article: 'By the end of the year the OpenSolaris community will be widely recognized as larger and more active than the Linux community.' Is 2007 the year of the OpenSolaris desktop? Other 'inevitables' include Microsoft's success with Vista, the continuing phase-out of Itanium, and the Cell processor powering most of the world's super-computers."

Submission + - Seagate Founder Al Shugart Passes Away

Submitted by xocp on Thursday December 28, 2006 @08:56PM

xocp writes: Seagate Founder Al Shugart Passes Away

From the press release:
For those who had the rare and wonderful opportunity of knowing him, it's hard to imagine our world without Al Shugart in it to challenge the status quo, say things that were outrageously honest and achieve the remarkable.

He passed on December 12th, 2006.

Submission + - A medical open-source legal hell-hole

Submitted by calcutta001 on Thursday December 28, 2006 @02:25PM

calcutta001 writes: To open-source or not to open-source was never in question as far as Steve Shreeve, founding CEO and largest shareholder of Medsphere Systems Corp., was concerned. So, this summer, Steve, self-proclaimed open-source software leader, and his twin-brother Scott, released the company's matured code on SourceForge under the GPL.

Their reward? They were then sued for $50 million by their company.

To be exact, they were hit by a $50 million, 12-count lawsuit charging them with misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract, breach of duty of loyalty, violations of the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization) Act, commission of computer crimes, intentional interference with contract relations, unfair competition, and still more complaints by their company.

Follow the story here http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS7891815881.html

Vista vs. Cairo - A Microsoft History Lesson 194

Posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday December 17, 2006 @11:44AM from the something-to-read dept.

avocade writes "Here is a nice history lesson by (the unfortunately infamous) Daniel Eran, arguing why the Longhorn/Vista road is very similar to the NT/Cairo road that Microsoft took in the 90's, effectively trying their best to discourage competition in the marketplace."

New Stargate Series In the Works 294

Posted by CowboyNeal on Friday December 15, 2006 @01:44AM from the on-the-horizon dept.

Skythe writes "Gateworld reports that an exclusive, third Stargate series is in the works: 'The new series is in the concept phase, and is being actively worked on by the Vancouver creatives behind Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. No concept for the show has yet been revealed.' Gateworld also reports despite the cancellation of SG-1, the series is likely for a 2007 debut. I wonder if the direct-to-dvd movies will any influence on the new series, and what the concept behind the show will be?"

Why Does Everyone Hate Microsoft? 1540

Posted by Cliff on Thursday December 14, 2006 @11:42PM from the don't-hold-back dept.

MrSplog asks: "I'm doing a short project on Microsoft and its impact on society. A considerable part of this project has been looking into people's perceptions of Microsoft and the heavily negative bias of that perception. Since Slashdot is one of the world's forefront leaders on Microsoft hatred, I wanted to know: just why do you hate Microsoft? Please be as descriptive and as thorough as you like. Counter arguments and positive comments are also appreciated."

Open Source Laser Business Opens In New York 96

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 12, 2006 @08:55PM from the burn-baby-burn dept.

ptorrone writes "If you can't stand the idea of a cookie-cutter laptop and you live in New York City, you have a new option: laser-etching. Phil Torrone, an editor at Make magazine, and Limor Fried, a former fellow at the tech-focused art studio Eyebeam R&D, are working together on Adafruit Laser Services, a new, by-appointment-only business in Manhattan that etches custom artwork onto customers' laptops, iPods, cell phones, and other gadgets." The entire business will be open source. From the Adafruit Laser Services site: "We are publishing how to use the high powered laser system, set up, techniques, business practices and templates. You could start your own laser business, we'll even help you."

'Leak' Test of 21 Personal Firewalls 104

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday December 12, 2006 @11:19AM from the keep-the-hold-sealed-there-lad dept.

mork writes "Matousec.com, as part of a larger analysis of personal firewalls on Windows, has conducted a thorough leak test of 21 pieces of firewall software. Leak tests imitate common methods used by trojans or spyware to send your information from your computer. Windows Firewall XP SP2 fails every test, so the fears that the days of third party firewall software was over seem groundless. Surprisingly the two top programs are both freeware." From the article: "Some firewalls totally failed tests made against their default settings but their results on the highest security settings were much better. Kaspersky Internet Security 6.0.0.303 is the product with the biggest difference between the default settings score and the highest security settings score. Another such product is Safety.Net. Some products like BitDefender, F-Secure, McAfee, Panda, etc. include antivirus engines. The sad and funny thing in once is that lots of them mark leak-testing software as viruses or malware."

Microsoft Releases Book Search 108

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday December 07, 2006 @01:27PM from the bill-can-find-that-book dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft is releasing its Live Search Books, a rival to Google's Book Search, in test, or beta, version in the US. The digital archive will include books from the collections of the British Library, the University of California and the University of Toronto. Books from three other institutions will be added in January 2007. All the books currently included in the project will be non-copyrighted but later it will also add copyrighted work that publishers have given permission to include in the project."

Vista Designed to Make Malware Easy 311

Posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday December 03, 2006 @01:02PM from the it-wasn't-that-hard-in-xp-either dept.

SlinkySausage writes "Trojan horses masquerading as 'cracks for Vista' are starting to appear on pirate boards. More worrying though, Microsoft has confirmed that Vista's image-based install process is designed to allow third-party software to be slipstreamed into the installation DVD. Great for corporate deployment of Vista with software pre-installed, but also a huge benefit for malware writers, who can distribute Vista images with deeply-rooted malware."

John Dvorak On Vista's Launch 382

Posted by Zonk on Thursday November 30, 2006 @02:54PM from the he-said-lunch-not-launch dept.

An anonymous reader writes "John is at it again, this time with his take on the launch of Microsoft's Vista operating system. John covers the reality from a market perspective, looking at whether the release will affect PC sales, peripherals ... or even Microsoft." From the article: "While there is no way that Vista will be a flop, since all new computers will come with Vista pre-installed, there seems to be no excitement level at all. And there does not seem to be any compelling reason for people to upgrade to Vista. In fact, the observers I chat with who follow corporate licensing do not see any large installations of Windows-based computers upgrading anytime soon. The word I keep hearing is 'stagnation.' Industry manufacturers are not too thrilled either. One CEO who supplies a critical component for all computers says he sees a normal fourth quarter then nothing special in the first quarter for the segment. Dullsville."

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