Comments: Only "Illegal" Beatles Music on the Internet? John H. Farr 10/14/2003 There's a rather confusing article about online Beatle music at BBC.com, not hard to understand per se, but difficult to penetrate as far as understanding everyone's motives is concerned. In a nutshell, the Beatles' Apple Corps music company has apparently decided not to facilitate legitimate digital music sales online. If so, that's one bargaining chip of Steve Jobs' that's been taken off the table.
Israeli Government Suspends All Contracts with Microsoft John H. Farr 10/14/2003 According to the Register, Israeli Antitrust Authority director general Dror Strum "has finally acknowledged that Microsoft is a monopoly." As a consequence, the Ministry of Commerce has banned all governmental contracts with Microsoft untl 2005.The Register also says that the Israeli Ministry of Commerce is "said to be" looking into OpenOffice as an alternative to Microsoft's Office suite.
Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! Charles W. Moore 10/13/2003 I don’t recall spending any Canadian Thanksgiving Sundays in the hot sun at the beach before, but that’s where I went yesterday
Comments: Spammer Dirty Pool John H. Farr 10/09/2003 We'll keep this one short. There are lots of kinds of junk emails, and many of them attempt to deceive you into opening them.But one kind of message we've been getting lately would rate a punch in the nose if someone tried it on us in person.
New Cooling Technology for Chips John H. Farr 10/07/2003 It would appear that a group of mechanical engineering professors at Stanford University have hit the jackpot in more ways than one. Their company, Cooligy Inc., has developed a passive, closed-loop cooling system for high-speed computer chips that's been tested and approved by Apple, Intel, and AMD (plus the Defense Department).
Apple Pen Antics John H. Farr 10/03/2003 Hah! So what if there isn't any news, we'll just make up our own! See this? We found it on Steve Jobs' desk and stole it for our cat to play with. Maybe you'd like one, too. That's fine, but you'll have to ask Hobbes. And no, you can't buy one. We had to steal ours, remember.
Tidbit: WMD Search Funding Squabbles & What the Money's For John H. Farr 10/02/2003 A news story at the New York Times site has a computer industry tie-in, so we thought we'd lay it out for you. First you need to know that the government wants another $600 million to fund more searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, this on top of the $300 million already spent. The Army is jealous, too, and for good reason
RIAA Will be "Nice" Now, Sort Of John H. Farr 10/01/2003 The Recording Industry Association of America has decided to talk to fileswappers before they sue them, according to the Washington Post. That's the good news.
Comments: IE Security Hole a "Gold Mine for Hackers" John H. Farr 09/29/2003 There's something very disturbing about the latest chapter in the unending story of how inviting most Microsoft apps are for those who would do digital harm. According to ComputerWorld, the "long-ignored" Internet Explorer vulnerability is allowing malicious hackers to install software on PCs through hacked Web sites and instant messaging programs. What's even worse, though, is Microsoft's apparent inability to get its act together and issue a workable patch.
