No piracy could hurt MS more than piracy

THERE WAS an interesting point made by one of your readers regarding piracy and Microsoft. He basically said he wasn't even going to pirate MS software any more because it had a beneficial effect on Microsoft - eg, if people stopped using MS Word as the default format for CVs and documents and turned to, say Rich Text or XML then the need to buy MS products would decrease. It sounds obvious but the reason why Word is the most common format is because everyone has it because everyone else uses it.

It is no justification for piracy - in fact, its the exact opposite. People who hate Microsoft should STOP pirating their products!

Jon

Re: "...anyone who thinks that you can't do "serious math" on an x86 cpu is an idiot."

Luckily for us and them as well, all the people who *do* "do serious math" aren't bound by their stupidity. And have been using PCs to do "serious math" since, well, since the PC has been in existence. In what may be a shocking revelation to them, scientists were doing "serious math" on the ENIAC back in WWII, with its 10-digit decimal integer representation...5kHz clock...and complete absence of random-access memory or floating-point unit...do you think that perhaps they could do "serious math" on a 8Mhz 16-bit 8088 microprocessor, even without an 80-bit floating-point coprocessor in the 8087? They *might* even have been doing "serious math" on the 4044!!!

...or do they think that AMD will really have that great an impact on the PC universe? I can see von Neuman now, "well, this ENIAC thing is great, but we really can't do "serious math" without the ability to store a 64-bit integer in a single register of the ALU. Sadly, this 20-ton monstrosity will only be useful for ballistics calculations, weather prediction, atomic energy calculations, cosmic ray studies, thermal ignition, random-number studies, wind tunnel design, and, oh yes, nuclear-weapons simulations for the Manhattan Project,. Better inform the War Department before they get their hopes too high."

Email address supplied

In response to Patrick's letter from Wednesday, just a couple of small points. I certainly don't want to disparage his remarks, indeed Malaysia should be defended for its efforts despite one unfortunate episode.

However, the following claim I take issue with: "No other country has ever successfully achieve what Malaysia government did in order to unite various races (we have close to 10 races in our country). That is a fact." That is not a fact. For one example among others, Canada is I believe the most multicultural nation in the world. I would not be at all surprised if there were Canadian citizens of every race in the world - certainly far more than 10. Any who doubt that should take a visit to Toronto. =)
Here's a lovely government propaganda page on the subject

I am also forced to disagree with this: "Personally, i feel that with the 100% practise of human rights in local community may not be the best solution to unite everyone from different races in this country." If people are treated differently, it only gives reason for them to dislike one another.

Peace, and equality,
Tom from Canada (admitting his bias)

For the 50th time this week Microsloth has issued a security bulletin.

I'm not worried, even if I am still running Win98 (probably the best of a bad lot) with a cable modem.

1) I never use Internet Explorer 2) I never even installed Outlook Express 3) I run Zonealarm as a Firewall, and the only apps allowed to call out are the Telnet Client, Browser, Email Client, and IM Client. 4) Auto-Update is disabled 5) Computer is behind a router, which only allows incoming connections to the server on the Telnet and HTTP ports.

Almost all of the security problems that Microsnot has in desktop products are related to Internet Explorer and Outlook Outlook Express. Get rid of them, and you are relatively safe.

Unless of our you have a computer running Win2K SP3 or WinXP. If you are I pity you.

Wayne

Subject: Apple cuts prices but Dell spectre looms

I'm not sure how the two processors compare in real world tests, nor the Video and Audio software. But to compare the Dell to eMac, you have to raise the PC to the eMac's Baseline.

To be fair you'd have to offer the same features in each machine. A Dell D2350 with a Celeron 2GHz processor is off in several measures. I went to Dell's site and configured the system with XP Pro (Add $60), -- the home edition isn't equivalent to OS X in functionality. Add another $130 for Dell Movie Studio Plus with Roxio VideoWave Movie Creator™ to match iMovie which is included in all macs. Also, don't forget $30 for the optical mouse. The total before the rebate is $1,069 ($919 after). The Video card is nowhere near the nVidia card in the Mac, so add $80 for an equivalent video card. Also, add another $80 for a Firewire Card, and the grand total in more than the eMac.

Perhaps the difference in price gets eaten up is processor speed or some other place. But either way, the comparison is lopsided.

Email address supplied

Subject: Using in their professional lives.

So they are going to be using a P4 Celeron 2.0 Dell running Windows XP in 5 to 10 years when they start working in the real world? Chances are the computer and the OS will not resemble either the Windows/Dell box or the Mac/Unix box. Either system will prepare them for the future.

Email address supplied

I read your story on Apple and Dell...and Apple's price-droppings on the eMac. A school district with which I was formerly affiliated bought over 100 eMacs late last year. Over half of them have suffered a video-card burnout, and have been shipped back to Apple. The person is charge is planning to pre-emptively send back ALL of the eMacs and get a replacement. This has not soured Apple's reputation in his mind, because he is an Applephile through and through...but it has tarnished its reputation forever for many people that I know. I will not willingly buy any Apple product for quite some time. Every (other) district that I know of his running pell-mell to Dell, with a smattering of Gateway. HPaq and IBM are no longer even in the picture.

Some more thoughts from the education front...

Email address supplied

Subject: Bollocks

— it may be Apple's turn to either find a way to definitively reverse its losses to the PC (almost all of which involve adopting x86 hardware or a Windows operating system) or find other products and niches to exploit as the company's education market continues to shrink.µ

Most of your article makes lots of logical sense (unfortunately), but adopting X86 hardware or a Windoze OS - please think a little further than the end of your nose!

Huw Evans

Subject: Microsoft paints Opteron as Itanium's equal

I don't know if that's a compliment or an insult.

Sincerely,
Shonn

Re: Security bug in Microsoft software lets attackers format
hard drives

> The problem applies to Windows 98, ME, NT 4.0, W2K and Windows XP.

Actually, the problem also applies to Windows 95 (from MS security bulletin ) but no patch was issued for Windows 95 because it isn't supported any more.

B.J.

Subject: Mageek needs a little harassment once in awhile...

Eva,

Don't feel pity for Mageeky over a little heat about Supermicro/Serverworks. Mageeky can have another pint and just ignore the whole matter until the AMD servers show up at InHell Central and then Mageek's reputation for accurate, honest, objective, (sic) reporting will be restored!

:>)

Randy Hubbard

RE: Ah the flames of Itanium....

After some rest (we're doing lots of WLAN testing in the labs this week), I thought further to find that I made the mistake of not coming to a point. The point is that the White Chocolate Chip makers are so not-outside-of-the-box that 64-bit CPUs are really a new flavour of the same old cookie, looking for a hungry audience. No partnerships exist to prevent blue screens/crashes/dumps/security problems. Nothing is really new here, save a few novel sprinkles of innovation.

AMD's wafers continue to be round, while the Intel biscuit is becoming square and therefore doesn't fit the old packaging.

Ah, metaphor on a Thursday.

Best,
Tom

I pulled up your article WinXP Eval cracked to Corp Ed in 2001. Can you help me find a corp serial number. I have someone who will give me a Corp copy but I have to find a Serial Number cause he can't give me that. ThankYou

Judy

Subject: OS X Service Pack

Snort - just took a look at the Inq item (doesn't apply to me) and was tickled to see the "Upgrade to Jaguar." page. The CD price for the 2.5 upgrade suggests that "The Leper can't change its spots." would be a more apt description. That $19.95 certainly reflects the standard Apple rip-off pricing for something that costs Apple - at most - a couple of bucks, including postage.

John

Subject: Microsoft Anvil

First of all, you have to forgive me about my english...I'm brazilian and
don't speak a very good english.
Have you ever tought that Intel won't do anything about Microsoft producing the x86-64 operating system? And it won't even get angry. Why? Beacause when it realeases its own x86-64 chip, it will already have a Microsoft OS to support it.
[]'s
Leo.

µ