Canadians could be thrown in jail for watching TV

Letter to Ed, er, Mike.

The Canadian (sic) Liberal (sic) government (sic) - in between spending $2 billion dollars for an old '486 PC to register a few dozen (mostly harmless) long guns, and then siphoning off a few hundred million 'sponsorship' dollars for their friends - is now embarking on building a new version of the Berlin Wall.

Believe it or not, they're actually planning to make it a criminal offence to watch certain TV channels.

Here.

"Under Bill C-2, anyone who subscribes to a foreign satellite television service could face criminal penalties, including the possibility of a year in prison."

Canadians will henceforth be permitted to watch only those TV channels approved by the Canadian (sic) Radio and Television Commission (CRTC) and carried on the two authorized Canadian satellite systems (or Cable - lol).

Here is our situation. My wife happens to be a cute little lady of non-WASP ethnicity. To keep her happy, in addition to our totally-legitimate Canadian satellite system for which we pay about $60 per month, we also subscribe to another non-Canadian (based off-shore) 'ethnic' satellite system to provide several TV and radio channels in her native language.

These type of 'ethnic' channels will likely never be available on a Canadian satellite system due to the minority interest and limited bandwidth of the Canadian systems.

The only alternatives are: 1) don't watch these 'ethnic' TV channels, or 2) risk going to jail.

We would appreciate you bringing this obvious and completely ridiculous injustice to the world's attention as soon as possible.

Please do not publish my name or e-mail address. The hovering of black helicopters and the kicking-in of doors might wake the children.

Name supplied.

Chenbro's Prescott cases are "thermally advantaged"

Hi!

On your mentioned Intel-website they say :

"Intel recommends that you use a chassis that can maintain an internal ambient temperature below 38oC"

and

"These chassis were tested at an ambient room temperature of 35°C"

I wonder what insane airflow you need to get rid of the heat produced by 130-150W if you only have a 3C temperature diff. Pewrhaps they mean 25 C ambient?

Regards
Lars F

Microsoft attempts to patent virtual desktops

Hi,

Actually, there were virtual graphical desktops long before linux had them. Long before either Gnome or KDE existed.

There were programs to accomplish the same thing for Macintoshes 10 years or more ago. One such program, called "Virtual Desktop", strangely enough was available for Mac OS 7. It can still be found here : http://www.magma.ca/~awolsp/

There is currently one available for Mac OS X, called "VirtualDesktop Pro". It i here: http://www.codetek.com/ctvd/

So, give credit where credit is due.... which is definitely NOT with Microsoft, which hasn't ever really invented anything. In fact, you could reasonably argue that Microsoft has held up progress in the IT world for at least 10 years...

Cheers,
Maarten

More virtuality

With respect to the USPTO procedures (MPEP 608.02(g)):

Figures showing the prior art are usually unnecessary and should be canceled. Ex parte Elliott, 1904 C.D. 103, 109 O.G. 1337 (Comm'r Pat. 1904). However, where needed to understand applicant's invention, they may be retained if designated by a legend such as “Prior Art.”

Figures 1A, 1B, and 1C are admitted as prior art in the description of the drawings section of the application; however, they lack the required "Prior Art" label. Microsoft will receive an objection to the drawings requiring that the label be added.

I doubt that MS is trying to patent the prior art, but that does not mean that the patent application is not MS BS. After working for a Silicon Valley law firm and writing/prosecuting patent applications for HPQ and others, I suspect that MS can shovel it with the best of them.

Regards,
Dean

Solaris, oh oh, Slowaris, oh oh oh oh

The generalization that Solaris + Clustering is the same as Solaris is a bug, Mike. Solaris is very stable, but I don't know if the same can be said about the clustering software layered on top of Solaris.

If you believe the article, then IBM and HP have better uptime with their clustering products than Sun. But taking that and generalizing that it must be the "OS" is like comparing apples and oranges.

David

Which laptop? Which notebook?

Hiya Mike,

It's coming up to my birthday, and I want to treat myself, a laptop seems in order. But, I like bucking trends, I dont need all the stuff the centrino offers (READ: If I could afford it I would love it!), nor do I need windows! I dont need to be running windows on the move. Infact Im moving away from windows like ancient egyptans moved away from leppers.

But, you think I can find any retailer that is UK based that supplies laptops with either differing Linux distributions pre-installed, or, no OS installed at all?

Dell is in the MS camp, firmly, they tried selling desktops without. That lasted long. All the major retailers of anything computer related that sell laptops sell them with windows XP preinstalled, and a load of other software to boot. My friend tried to purcahse a laptop from PCWorld without the OS or the other software included.

Think he could manage it?

The law says, if you do not agree to the EULA's you: A] Cannot use the software, and B] Do not have to pay.

Now, do I really want to go through the trouble of getting a refund, or do I simply go to a retailer that sells laptops without an OS preinstalled. The choice is simple, you go where they dont preinstall, or atleast, there is an option NOT to isntall any OS or any other software onto the laptops HDD.

If only it were as simple as building a desktop; motherboard, CPU, memory, graphics, HardDrive, optical drives and finally something to house it all in.

If only...

IF only I could find a retailer that is UK based, that is also willing to sell me a laptop without all the extra crap!

Anyway, thanks for reading this phlegm, I'm sure it amused you!

Nathan

HP doesn't know why it's best for dealers

Mike

The report today in The Inquirer dated 16th February by Ms Glass "HP doesn't know why it's best for dealers" contains errors.

You state that your report dated February 13th "was based on a Context report ..., because it was only available to hacks, for the purpose of more publicity."

This is wrong. The information you were sent:

1- was a press release, not a Context report (it said so in the release)
2- is based on a regular monthly series of reports called Channel Facts (again, it said so in the release)
Finally, the Context Channel Facts reports are freely available on subscription and many companies buy them.

I'd appreciate you setting the record straight as soon as possible.

regards
Jeremy Davies, Senior Partner - Context

Old Computers and Microsoft

This is a observation from a old timer in the computer world - bought my first computer in 1982 (Intel 512 above-board, tallgrass streaming tape backup system, 28.8 modem {US Robotics}, etc and Toshiba dot matrix printer P1351 with the tractor drive on it, extra,and other software no longer around because of protection systems they put on them, was $18,000+) was developing a broker portfolio mangement system.

The computer operating system was CP/M the first commercial operating system for the desktop computer. Then in the spring or summer of the year 1982 bought myself an 8088 desktop computer from IBM came with IBM DOS, think it was the Version . 1 Later got the version IBM DOS 2.

Then bought myself a 286 just before the release of the 386 computer this had the the VGA monitor which was considered by the industry to be a lower cost answer to the CGA monitor that came with the first IBM computer and was in colour. The most important development to come along at that time was the new security that limited the number of times you could put the software on the hard disk. This was becoming a major sore spot with users - this sort of remained the defacto standard in the software industry until MicroSoft took it off all their software and the software industry boomed for them.

By the time the competition took it off it was too late, Microsoft had a very large supportive following and the trend was set for the next two decades. But it seems they have forgotten the loyal following they developed with that move because they are now run by a lot of lawyers who all they want to to is sue everybody.

They seem to think they work for a company that is so large they can tell the world to go to hell and do what they want. Guess the upper management has forgotten how hard they worked to get the consumer support without which they would just be a very small company. Netscape had 80% of the browser market at one time, they took Microsoft to court which seems to be the start of all Microsoft's problems in being a mono-lithic company.

Has Microsoft forgotten this? They could be the predominant player, but NOT if they continue to offend the consumer. Remember that people vote with their dollars. (buy what seems to be fair value for the dollar spent)

Bob Sutton