In the last few days, I've been posting a number of replies to articles but apparently Slashdot has decided that they are not worth displaying because when I go back and reload the page they are not there anymore, even after giving it some time in case there is an automatic moderation overlord that might need some time to "approve" them...
Anyone care to comment or explain?

It would appear that censorship in Australia has married the anti-"fair use" campaign by the *RIAA...
I wonder if by reporting the issue that would also be considered indirect linking to the harmful content (well, supposed harmful...)
I also wonder how they can make sure that the intermediate links are still active and thus bring to the offending page without breaking the chain at some point - maybe they use some sort of link-checker for HTML websites? - otherwise it wouldn't be offending anymore, right?

The software giant is finally admitting its defeat: "Where do you want to go today?" seems more of an answer to themselves than a slogan for the community of paying customers...
(They already admitted defeat a while ago in the hardware department)
Here's a list of what "good" competition brings to the users:
OOXML Microsoft is adding full support for OpenDocument (ODF) file format to their Office suite of business productivity software with SP2, were not for the competition (already 10% of the market) that they are receiving from OpenOffice.org (now owned by Oracle).
Windows 7 for netbooks
Who would have thought that an OS that normally retails in the few hundred dollars would be able to be included in computers of roughly the same cost? (these days netbooks tend to be more on the $400-$500 range than the original $200 for the EEE PC 701, but anyway...)
Try before you buy
Vista was in beta for 1 year, and Windows 7 release candidate will also be free to use until 1st June 2010. You have to admit, it's a pretty big win for users (due to competition from Apple MacOS X and GNU/Linux), even though corporate ones always had it the easy way.

Where do you think the industry could be if in the last 20 years Microsoft would have not been allowed to persevere in its illegal activities? (remind yourself of the court proceedings before proclaiming them innocent...)

It would appear that there isn't right to privacy anymore on "the tubes": FBI spyware

Why on Earth a US court would have jurisdiction to authorise access on computers of people leaving abroad or using third-countries proxies is beyond me...

[original post from 19th April 2009]

Seeing the recent trends of:
- Firefox users quickly upgrading to the latest version
- Internet Explorer users stuck with company policies and the likes

I can easily predict the prompt jump of Firefox 3.5 to the top spot in all of the 5 continents (or 6 continents, depending on how many fingers there are in your hands) as the single most used browser version, followed by Internet Explorer 7 & 8 and a few monsters still using version 6. Do not also forget the growing share of Safari users, already over 5%, as iPhone and iPod Touch users account for 50% of mobile Web access...

Long live the king

(btw, that would be summer in the northern emisphere... those in latin America, Africa & Oceania will have to wait until Christmas)

[update on 9th September 2009]
The prediction is well underway, with Europe as the first continent where it happens: http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-eu-daily-20090810-20090908

[update on 23rd November 2009]
The day that it happened: on 22nd November 2009, Firefox 3.5 was the most used browser version worldwide !!! http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-daily-20091105-20091122

The USA finally took the top spot in a category no one would want to be: the country where most Internet attacks are coming from: link

today I was browsing some job offers and I came across one where Expedia is looking for software developers and in the job description it specifically mentions they are required for the migration of all their software written in C# towards a new worldwide platform to be written in Java
guess that shows when and why businesses choose what in the first place...

Yesterday I was applying for a job and one of the first pages in the application had a big title saying:
Resume Upload
at which I thought "gee, I haven't started yet and already it asks me to resume the upload of a file ?!"
while instead it was attempting to mean "upload of your resume" (which is another word for CV)...

Microsoft is now competing with its own products:
- IE 7 has just passed the 50% mark of the total IE share (remind yourself that it's a mandatory update so users must *explicitly* prevent its installation) and they're almost ready to roll IE 8
- Vista has barely passed the 10% mark (don't believe their hype, many have plainly got Vista OEM/Corporate but installed and used XP on their computer) and Windows 7 is already on the xmas shopping list

Funny what I found on the homepage of a job board (link) today:

- adverts mentioning the keyword "Windows" = 4202
- adverts mentioning the keyword "Linux" = 1555
- adverts mentioning the keyword "UNIX" = 2301

then:
- adverts mentioning the keyword "SQL Server" = 4344
- adverts mentioning the keyword "SQL" = 7206
- adverts mentioning the keyword "Oracle" = 3378

then:
- adverts mentioning the keyword ".NET" = 3100
- adverts mentioning the keyword "Java" = 3346

This might not be the year of Linux or Open Source (yet) but it's definetely not the year of Microsoft...