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Microsoft

Submission + - Mom blasts Ballmer over kid's crappy Vista OS (computerworld.com) 6

Submitted by
Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: "While on stage at a Gartner's ITxpo conference today, Ballmer got an ear-full from the mother of a 13-year-old girl who said after installing Vista on her daughter's computer she decided only two days later to switch back to XP because Vista was so difficult. Ballmer defended Vista saying: "Your daughter saw a lot of value"; to which the mother replied: "She's 13." Ballmer said that Vista is bigger than XP, and "for some people that's an issue, and it's not going to get smaller in any significant way in SP1. But machines are constantly getting bigger, and [it's] probably important to remember that as well." Says the mother: "Good, I'll let you come in and install it for me.""
The Internet

Journal Journal: Mouseovers - as bad as popups? 8

Journal by fyngyrz

Is anyone else as annoyed as I am by words and phrases in web articles that pop up boxes because my mouse pointer happened to cross them, temporarily hiding the content I was reading in the first place? I didn't click on anything, and consequently, I don't want a context change. I find these annoying to the point of noting what the site is and not going back. Anyone else feel the same? Anyone have a defense of the practice?

Portables (Apple)

Submission + - iPod/iPhone Nano with touch panel at the bottom

Submitted by
Staska
Staska writes: "New Apple patent filing shows new directions for Apple's touch interface design. For smaller devices like iPod Nano, touchscreen interface may not be feasible — the screen is just too small for touch operation. According to the patent, Apple can still make full screen iPods and put a touch panel on the backside of the device with transparent controls on the front screen. In addition to iPod, patent filing also describes controls for the phone. ZDNet even thinks that this patent can hint about touch interface for all Apple products."
IBM

Analysts Call IBM Layoff Estimates "Hogwash" 131

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the only-time-will-tell dept.
jbrodkin writes "Rumors have been floating around saying IBM will cut 150,000 U.S. jobs, but a Network World story attempts to set the record straight by quoting analysts who say this news, if true, would wipe out the company's entire U.S. operations and would make no sense since IBM is actually doing pretty well."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Temporarily Closes Video Site Soapbox

Submitted by
Weather Storm
Weather Storm writes: "CNET News.com reports that Microsoft will be closing its video-sharing site, Soapbox, to new users for up to two months so it can create better safeguards against pirated content. Since the test version of Soapbox was launched last month to distribute movies and TV shows for big media companies, the site has fill up with unauthorized clips. "No new subscribers will be accepted, but anyone who has already signed up for Soapbox can continue to access the site, said Adam Sohn, a director in Microsoft's online-services group." Is anyone really surprised?"
Bug

Journal Journal: OpenBSD's second remote hole in the default installation

Journal by Alioth

The OpenBSD project has just issued an advisory (and updated its website to reflect the change) that it now has its second remote root vulnerability in more than ten years. The exploit itself is performed with a specially crafted IPv6 ICMP packet, and is caused by a bug in the mbuf chains in the operating system kernel. The OpenBSD team have released a patch. The bug affects all versions of OpenBSD. Since
Music

Submission + - iTunes Staffers Becomes Music's New Gatekeepers

Submitted by
WSJdpatton
WSJdpatton writes: "From their Silicon Valley cubicles, Apple staffers have become music's unlikely power brokers. A look at how Apple has jettisoned some of the conventions of traditional music retailing — notably, the practice of selling prime promotional spots to recording companies willing to pay for better visibility for their acts. Still, behind the scenes there's plenty of horse-trading going on that influences which songs are seen and purchased by iTunes customers."
Businesses

Submission + - Best Buy Confirms 'secret' Website

Submitted by Iberian
Iberian writes: Courant.com confirms Best Buy does indeed maintain a second website for what one could only assume is for fraudulent purposes.
State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal ordered the investigation into Best Buy's practices on Feb. 9 after my column disclosed the website and showed how employees at two Connecticut stores used it to deny customers a $150 discount on a computer advertised on BestBuy.com.
Censorship

Submission + - Ads Displayed in Google are Free Speech Issue

Submitted by
WebHostingGuy
WebHostingGuy writes: "In a recent ruling from a U.S. Federal Court ads displayed by search engines are protected as free speech". In the court ruling Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft were sued by an individual demanding under the 14th Admendment that the search engines display his advertisements concerning fraud in North Carolina. The Court flatly said the search engines were exercising their 1st Admendent right of free speech in deciding what ads they want to display."
Education

Blackboard's "Pledge" Not to Sue Open Source Software 84

Posted by Zonk from the nice-monster-good-monster-stay-there-monster dept.
Another anonymous reader writes with a link to the Inside Higher Education site. Those folks are reporting on Blackboard's 'pledge' not to sue open source projects used by universities and colleges. The Blackboard patent on educational groupware filed last year has come under a lot of fire, with many organizations simply seeking an open-source alternative. This newest peace offering to higher education groups has the Sakai open source consortium more than a little bit nervous. If Blackboard meant to set people at ease, all it has managed to do was confirm to onlookers that it 'wants to keep its legal options open.' Blackboard insists that this new pledge affords universities a number of legal privileges, and is designed to make educators 'sleep easy at night.' Somehow, very few people seem reassured. Update: 02/02 17:34 GMT by Z : Bad first link fixed.
Microsoft

Vista Indicates A Shift in Microsoft's Priorities 499

Posted by Zonk from the end-users-at-the-end dept.
jcatcw writes "After hundreds of hours of testing Vista, Scot Finnie is supremely tired of it. And of Microsoft. Although 80% of the changes in Windows Vista are positive, there is nothing about Vista that is truly innovative or compelling; there's no transformational, gotta-have-it feature in Vista. But the real problem isn't with Vista. It's with Microsoft itself. His opinion is that Microsoft has stopped focusing on end users. They 'now seemingly make many decisions based on these two things: 1. Avoiding negative publicity (especially about security and software quality) 2. Making sure the largest enterprise customers are happy.'"
The Courts

Journal Journal: Sony prepares to settle with FTC over rootkits 133

Journal by Anonymous McCartneyf
The FTC is about to make a deal with Sony punishing Sony for the rootkits. This settlement is exactly like the Texas and California settlements--$150 a rootkit.
Cite: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6314443.stm
The settlement isn't final yet. There will be a 30-day public consultation. American citizens who read Slashdot might want to put in their two cents.
Privacy

Journal Journal: NJ Schools testing for weekend drinking. 1

Journal by vettenyy
So I came across this article on FoxNews.com. Apparently, in a New Jersey school district, they are testing student's urine for weekend drinking. From the article: "Under the program, students who test positive will not be kicked off teams or barred from extracurricular activities, Reynolds said. Instead, they will receive counseling -- and their parents will be notified." This to me is clearly a privacy issue, since the test is

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