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HP turns away from Windows Home Server
Microsoft has pulled a Windows Vista on its Windows Home Server. A series of unspecified bug fixes and feature enhancements will push back the launch of the first appliances by up to 4 months.
Consumers will still be able to get their hands on the software by late September, but HP has decided that it would rather wait for a future update before it starts shipping its MediaSmart Server.
The consumer availability spares Microsoft from the embarrassment of an official delay. But HP's refusal to put its logo on the first product says enough.
If your willing to wade through shoulder deep marketing BS in a Microsoft blog posting, you can also detect a flat-out admission of guilt:
"We’ve identified a number of ways to make the product even better since the initial release, as with most Microsoft products, updates to Windows Home Server will be automatically available throughout the lifecycle of the product and the WHS team is working on an update that will be available in September. These updates will enhance the usability and improve the out-of-the-box experience of home server solutions. Additional updates will occur over the lifespan of the product as we receive feedback from the user community, our hardware partners and software partners. Microsoft’s current plan is to make this update available as part of the monthly Windows Updates process in September."
Translation: we know that the current product is horrible. But hey, when did Microsoft ever do a proper version one release that didn’t suffer from horrible bug and equally bad usability? It took us 10 years to get Windows to a version that didn't make you throw up in disgust (that was Windows 3.1, in case you were wondering), and still made billions of dollars. Why would Windows Home server be any different?
August 31, 2007 at 11:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Is plagiarism protected by copyright law?
Viacom demanded that Youtube took down a video from a TV show on VH1 that pastes together Youtube videos.
Youtube as usual rolled over, begging for a belly rub.
The issue however is that VH1 hadn't asked the copyright owner of the video featured in its show hadn't asked for permission. As Fark.com summarized so eloquently:
"Man posts video about his video on YouTube. Viacom pulls video about their video about his video because of copyright violations, even though they violated his copyright by using his video in their video."
It time to put those lawyers at the RIAA to good use. We finally have a waterproof case of copyright violation.
The video that Viacom decided to brand as its own
August 31, 2007 at 01:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Microsoft loses Swedish support for OOXML
Sweden has nullified its vote on the Office Open XML standard, robbing Microsoft of a vote in favor of the standard before the ISO.
The decision comes after Microsoft was accused of stuffing the Swedish ballot box. The company had been caught sending out emails offering "marketing support" to partners that would join the local standards body and vote on the OOXML topic.
Microsoft stressed that the email was a mistake, that the recipients had been asked to ignore the message and the Swedish Standard Institute had been notified of the "slip-up". But that didn't sound very honest coming from a convicted monopolist who used unfair bundling practices to kill Netscape.
The Swedes claim that the nullification was caused by voter fraud: one of its members allegedly casted more than one vote. But with the conspiracy machine in full motion, most critics believe that it is just a way to allow Microsoft to save face.
Dividing the world by sponsoring Microsoft's vision of unity
August 31, 2007 at 01:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Free Software Foundation cocks its GPLv3 gun, points it at Microsoft's head
The Free Software Foundation today issued its most serious threat to Microsoft to date.
"We will ensure--and, to the extent of our resources, assist other GPLv3 licensors in ensuring--that Microsoft respects our copyrights and complies with our licenses," the group said today in a note posted on its website.
The statement is just one of many moves in the chess game between open source and Microsoft, but it's a relevant move nonetheless.
The FSF has not only come out and officially stated that it believes that Microsoft is distributing Linux code as part of last year's Novell partnership, the group is also is threatening to enforce the license.
The stakes are huge because it could set of a chain reaction. If Microsoft is considered a distributor of open source code, it has to abide by the GPLv3. It will have to grant a loyalty free patent licence to open source developers and users, effectively robbing it from the opportunity to ask any money for its patent portfolio.
The problem is that this entire battle is taking place in a legal grey area. Even lawyers who are considered to be in the open source camp aren't sure. Sure if Microsoft can legally be considered a distributor of open source software. Or if the firm can unilaterally revoke the terms of the Novell SuSE coupons that it has been handing out to customers.
With the stakes being this high, the battle will have to ultimately end
up in a court room, where it will be dragged out over years of rulings
and appeals. Pull up a comfortable chair and get ready for a long sit.
The FSF and Microsoft are old friends
August 29, 2007 at 12:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Meet Microsoft's next PR star
No we're not picking on Microsoft. It's just that if she would be with Apple PR, she wouldn't have said anything. As an AMD spokesperson she would have started complaining about Intel's monopoly and Intel PR would have pointed out the missing benchmark data.
Microsoft just happens to excel at providing comments that provide no insight whatsoever. Btw, the video is from the Miss Teen USA pageant with Miss South Carolina showing off her ability to blow hot air.
August 28, 2007 at 05:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Fins think up fierce phone flinging feud
The fine folks in Finland put their long hours of summer sun to good use last weekend with the eight annual Mobile Phone Throwing Championships.
The sport is still lacking from proper international competition, resulting in yet another victory for the Fins themselves. This year Tommi Huotari flinged his Nokia (or so we assume) over a distance of 89.62 metres (98.04 yards).
Athletes can choose from a variety of cellphone models, allowing them to pick the optimal shape and weight for the best flinging experience.
Those lacking a proper throwing technique can still resort to the Freestyle completion, where style prevails over distance. We all know that you shouldn't debate style. That's why the competition was won by a toddler dressed up in a cow suite as well as a dude who is capable of "walking by his hands" – which must be an entirely new walking technique that has yet to reach Silicon Valley.
Don't be fooled by the seeming absurdness of the this exercise. To the 30,400 residents of host city Savolinna this event is only second to the annual opera festival in its economic importance. At least, that is judging by the €100 fee for photos of the phone jugglers – and which is why we can't present you with any images of this event.
They even have an old fortress! This place just keeps getting better and better
August 28, 2007 at 01:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Using technology to thwart the government
Convicted movie thief Scott McCausland is prohibited from using Ubuntu because authorities are unable to monitor the system.
McCausland had to agree to have his internet usage monitored as part of a 2005 conviction into movie pirating. But US authorities only have such software for Windows and McCausland is running Ubuntu.
The convicted movie thief seems ready to take his case to court again. Because he agreed to be monitored, but the ruling didn't say anything about him being required to run Windows exclusively.
The Department of Justice could easily solve this and any future issues by developing an appliance that eardrops on the network connection instead of relying on software. Just prohibit him to encrypting his network traffic and use a proxy server, and you're set.
August 25, 2007 at 12:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The rise of the fakes
It didn't take long for the copycats to grab on to the concept behind the Fake Steve Jobs blog.
These days we have a Fake Larry Ellison Blog, a Fake Jonathan Schwartz Blog, and of course Fake Steve Ballmer and Fake Bill Gates blogs.
The Steve Jobs blog works because it's witty. The writer crawled into the Apple executive's character and pretends to view the world through his eyes. Reading the blog is like listening to a well done Steve Jobs impersonation by a comedian.
None of the other "fake" blogs come close. But when presented with the opportunity to copy, why not have a go at it.
There are still several executives available for a fake blog. In the
tech industry alone, there are opportunities for Paul Otellini, Hector
Ruiz and John Chambers impersonators, as well as the Google boys: Larry
Page, Eric Schmidt and Sergey Brin (although he does have a fake home page).
Outside the world of geeks, you'd be surprised that Donald Trump still is a Greenfield opportunity. You'd figure that the camera hungry entrepreneur would have set up a fake blog himself at least.
August 24, 2007 at 11:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Microsoft found in state of virtualization denial
In the world according to Microsoft, mature technologies are defined as those for which Microsoft is shipping products. Any other technology is by definition immature.
If you keep that thought in the back of your head, this interview with Mike Neil, Microsoft's general manager for virtualization, becomes hilarious.
His core points: Microsoft isn't behind VMware because server virtualization is still a developing market and confined to (unnamed) niche markets. Only Microsoft can give virtualization an appeal to a "wider swath of the industry".
The brief answer: just look at VMware's $20bn market capitalization and the $500m Xensource acquisition by Citrix. Investors don’t seems to consider this a "developing" market.
Next point: Users don’t need advanced technologies like live migration of workloads, which are supported by VMware and XenSource, but that Microsoft's upcoming "Viridian" product will lack. "It is a sexy feature and sounds really exciting," but customers don't use it and don't ask for it.
The brief answer: customers are asking for it, and rely on this technology for their "Walhalla" data center scenarios. It's just that the management software for moving around these virtual workloads is still very immature. But even if firms don't deploy it, it will be a checkbox item.
Microsoft as usual is contradicting itself to crawl out of its self-dug hole. When the company first delayed Viridian, it claimed that providing support for 32 cores was key, when developers said that they were incapable of building the software on time, they went back to 16 cores and claimed that anything beyond that was merely a sexy feature.
In the world according to Microsoft, mature technologies are defined as those for which Microsoft is shipping products. Any other technology is by definition immature.
Just pretending to hang out with the big boys
August 22, 2007 at 08:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Geek test
This photo is funny. But to get the joke, you have to be of the cellar or attic dwelling kind that writes code (or did so at some point).
So take this as your geek litmus test. If you don't get the joke, you're a poser. Scroll down for an explanation crawl back into your closed source world where the only Apple logo you have is on your iPod.
"It's a feature, not a bug," is a common programming term. It essentially indicates that a software failure can't be redflagged because it was put in there intentionally. This can be accomplished by describing the "feature" in the manual.
This VW Beetle (aka: VW Bug) is a feature, judging by its license plate.
August 22, 2007 at 08:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Spanish
