Zune was rumoured to have a “copyright cop” built in and the same goes for Xbox, where kill switches allegedly exist. But it is not just a Microsoft issue. Apple does the same thing and Amazon’s Kindle has already put to bad use its remote deletion capability.
“Free software puts the user, as opposed to some hostile programmer, in charge.”The latest news is that, according to Ars Technica, Microsoft finally confirms the existence of kill switches (and remote application deletion abilities) that apply to Windows Marketplace for Mobile.
It is stuff like this which occasionally serves as a reminder of the importance of Free software. Free software puts the user, as opposed to some hostile programmer, in charge. █
“We’ve had DRM in Windows for years. The most common format of music on an iPod is “stolen”.”
–Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO
“DRM is the future.”
–Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO
“We’ve been very focused on producing a DRM system. [...] We think DRM is important”
Summary: Microsoft pays members of the public to become stealth marketers of its products
LAST week we showed that Microsoft offers little bribes to people who create Vista 7 hype, artificially [1, 2]. As Information Week now reveals, Microsoft has taken it further by offering prizes to people who merely mention this operating system. This is a case where money pollutes communication hubs, turning them into marketing channels in disguise.
Microsoft is continuing its social media campaign to promote Windows 7. Twitter users who search for the #WinWin7 tag can win pizzas, candy, gaming keyboards and other “somewhat goofy” prizes, a spokesman said.
Microsoft does not quite stop there. We previously wrote about Microsoft’s Twitter AstroTurf in:
Microsoft has developed a social media analytics tool that’s designed, among other things, to improve a marketing organization’s ability to adjust to social media phenomena on the fly.
Called “Looking Glass,” the product is still in prototype and will only be available to a few companies in the near term. It sends e-mail alerts when social media activity picks up considerably. The sentiment (i.e., negative or positive) of that chatter and the influence level of the content creator are reported in the alert. Digital flow charts show what days of the week generate the most activity on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, and other social media sites.
Today Microsoft is taking the wraps off a new platform called Looking Glass, a social-media aggregator and monitoring tool that’s still in “proof of concept” stage, meaning it’s not yet in the market and will be open to a very small group of testers next month.
Microsoft is very paranoid about what people say on the Web — something which characterises a company which understands the impact of its disgusing actions to present. Watch what blogs are doing to Microsoft’s image. From a new article at the Financial Times:
Mini Microsoft, the anonymous blogger widely believed to be a well-informed employee working at the software company’s Redmond headquarters, heavily criticised this year’s Microsoft annual employee meeting. He gave a two-zero rating to Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, and described Stephen Elop, head of Microsoft’s business division, as “suck[ing] the life out of the entire stadium”.
Steve Ballmer pretends that Vista 7 will save the day (for Microsoft) and marketing is now approaching sickly levels (Microsoft has attempted to outsource it to the public using incentives). It was the same with Windows Vista when Microsoft asked people to write “Show me your Wow” letters and had India serve “Vista” coffee. Those corny and obtrusive ads aremaking a comeback for Vista 7 and more tasteless advertising (worse than Gates|Seinfeld even) leaves people rather shocked. Examples:
Microsoft has produced its share of quirky marketing messages, but a YouTube clip produced to promote a series of Windows 7 launch parties is a special sort of odd. Oh, so very special.
[...]
By two minutes into the video, I could only hold my head in my hands, cringing and saying, “No, no, no, this can’t possibly be real!” before giggling helplessly at how high these six minutes and 14 seconds of video ranked on the Unintentional Comedy Scale.
On first view we were tempted to think it might be parody, but the classic commercial set house was just too perfect.
We joked about that advertisement yesterday. Was it intentionally made lame so as to increase its reach (viral marketing)? Microsoft did this before. █
Summary: Microsoft ‘secures’ its latest operating systems in the face of critical flaws not by patching by though disablement
OVER the past week, having glanced at “Microsoft” news, only 2 sets of headlines mentioned Vista (compared to 16 about “Windows 7″), in both cases regarding serious security issues. Microsoft still has not patched a severe problem that enables remote BSoD and complete hijack.
Windows Vista users (and IT folks taking care of Server 2008 computers) should watch out for a new security hole involving Windows file sharing. A remote attacker could assume full control of a vulnerable computer by exploiting a flaw in the SMB protocol for Windows file and printer sharing. Most home users should already have a firewall in place that blocks attempts to reach the ports that SMB uses (139 and 445). Microsoft may have a patch available by the time you read this, but as of this writing no fix was yet available. For more details, see Microsoft’s security advisory.
Microsoft has released an automated tool to disable its Server Message Block 2 (SMB2) protocol in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. SMB2 has a flaw that Microsoft is preparing to patch in the coming weeks.
Summary: Sales of Xbox 360 take a dive as new roadblocks appear and Microsoft’s losses will likely continue to increase
IT WOULD only be natural to ask, why bother keeping track of Xbox 360? How does that affect Free software and GNU/Linux? Well, the answer ought to be intuitive. No company comes anywhere near to Microsoft when it comes to bullying its "most potent competitor", namely GNU/Linux. Xbox has made vanish billions of dollars from Microsoft’s coffers, so the longer it goes on for, the less capable Microsoft will be in its eternal fight to suppress Free software adoption. Lack of resources and financial stress lead to cancellation of products, as we last saw yesterday.
Betheseda Thinks Microsoft Screwed Up With Halo 3: ODST Marketing Strategy
It’s been awhile since I wrote about some industry drama, a developer popping off at the mouth, personal drama (like my logic board needing to be replaced), or anything of that sort, so here goes! Ashley Cheng has written on his blog that he feels that Microsoft and Bungie really missed the mark with their advertising and promotion of Halo 3: ODST. He cites the fact that a lot of “reviewers” are complaining that the game may not be worth $60, for what was advertised as “a standalone expansion pack”.
“A standalone expansion pack” is also a good description for Vista 7.
Speaking to Business Week, Microsoft’s general manager of global content acquisition and strategy, Ross Honey, painted a somewhat bleak picture for web content on Xbox Live.
The 250GB Xbox 360 is a mistake, and it’s one that the PS3 should avoid making
[...]
The Xbox 360 Arcade has been a joke since day one. It is the cheap model, and it allows Microsoft to say that they have the cheapest console, but it sacrifices nearly everything that modern console gaming is about in the process.
How much longer can Xbox find a foot to stand on? It still operates at a loss. Xbox is like a burden Microsoft cannot afford to unload. The same goes for the embattled Zune and Windows Mobile, for example. █
Summary: Dynamics Mobile is officially dead and Microsoft decides to betray Windows Mobile partners by launching own phones
AT Microsoft, there are many dead products that keep being revealed (several per month for quite some time now). Here is the latest addition to this long list:
Microsoft on Thursday said it has discontinued the mobile versions of its Dynamics ERP (enterprise resource planning) products.
“[When] Microsoft released Zune everyone stopped making CE based media players other than Microsoft.” –OiaohmJust days ago, Steve Ballmer was quoted as saying that Windows Mobile is something Microsoft “screwed up with.” Microsoft seems to have decided to go it alone with phones and sell hardware, not just software. There are already leaked photos of rather ugly gadgets (Zune showed that Microsoft lacks style) which are said to be in the works and are reportedly months away.
“Think music players,” writes Oiaohm. “[When] Microsoft released Zune everyone stopped making CE-based media players other than Microsoft.”
Oiaohm says the same goes for the AV market, where Microsoft decided that it was worth betraying and agitating partners.
One of the biggest challenges with using Ubuntu on a MacBook is getting used to all the “fun features” offered by the Synaptics touchpad, especially if you have big, clumsy hands like I do.
Having many labs, some of our manuals have 60 labs, are essential for learning in small segments. Labs should provide clear directions on how to accomplish precise goals. The labs need to lead the student on a road that they clearly understand leads to success. Having created labs to be used in a training situation over 11 years now, one thing I learned was that the labs need to be short, something that can be accomplished in 15-20 minutes. That length of time provides a challenge and offers reward based on one goal not multiple goals. One thing that I have seen with the 45 minute labs is that some students struggle early in the lab and bail out by not finishing the lab. Face it, learning Linux, especially from the command line is a real challenge for today’s graphically orientated users.
At the Ohio LinuxFest yesterday, two Linux geeks were married — or had their projects merged into a single trunk, as the officiant, Lord Drachenblut, put it. The wedding of Randy Noseworthy (proprietor of the Juiced Penguin) and Janet Edmonson was announced last week and was live-tweeted by at least one attendee — here’s his photo of the happy couple.
Thus I am now starting to wonder if at the end of this recession it will be Linux that will become a dominate operating system? I am thinking that Linux in conjunction with Google are going to be the next juggernaut. I know Nokia with its N900 has completely jumped on the bandwagon with Linux.
Does this mean I will buy Redhat at these lofty levels? No. But it does mean I am kicking myself for not paying more attention to Redhat.
These needs could be financial, philosophical, technological or even educational (lets just call them al . For financial I don’t just mean struggling businesses or people. Countries and governments also have a financial need. This was one of the reasons behind the OLPC project. Poor and third world countries can greatly benefit from Linux to help give them a leg up into the modern world.
Peter Hutterer, who has been working on the X.Org input code for some time and is the developer behind MPX, late into the X.Org 7.5 release cycle decided to step up to the plate and personally get this important X.Org update out the door. Peter is not stopping after X Server 1.7, but has already made a proposal regarding the release and development changes going forward for X Server 1.8 and into the future.
Groupware software (or collaborative software) is designed to enable users to collaborate, regardless of location, via the internet or a corporate intranet and to work together in a virtual atmosphere.
In an organisation, productivity rests on the intranet, and a groupware or collaboration server is what helps to make the intranet productive. This type of software provides critical services like email and address books, and establish communication via instant messaging.
Although it was already possible to enable Flash support in Chromium quite easily, the developers have now implemented the Flash player out of the box so you won’t have to configure anything after installing it.
I meant to post this quite some time ago, but that’s moving for you: Rock, Paper, Shotgun posted a preview of Heroes of Newerth, the DoTA-inspired multiplayer strategy game from the Linux-friendly developers S2 Games.
This week you’ll get both hosts of the show in one package. Philippe (southern France) and I (northern Germany) discuss the results of the Double Book Challenge in the “From Scratch” section. We use Skype and the connection is not as good as we were used to it between Chile and Germany. So expect some funny noises added to the accents.
Here you will find links to the topics we cover as well as links to software, websites articles, and other resources mentioned in the episodes of Going Linux.
I recorded it in Portland a couple of days ago but there was some trouble with my server and I had a lot of traveling to do, so the release has been delayed.
Just recently, an advertisement has been running on Texas Radio stations for Linux! It explains what Linux is, why it’s awesome, and where to find more info!
Seven days after the release of the Tech Preview 1, we released the latest stable Windows build of Fotowall [1] that was based on Qt 4.6. Somebody could argue that this is a bit imprudent. We did that because the benefits of the 4.6 release are worth the risk of the move!
I’ve always felt that PCLOS was receiving too much hype for what it was worth, but man was I mistaken. I love living on the bleeding-edge of software and PCLinuxOS 2009.2 certainly caters to that.
Canonical, the business arm of Ubuntu, has one of the most promising business models in the Linux world, and also the most misunderstood. First of all, Ubuntu is in a market termed by economists as a perfectly competitive market. This means that it cannot charge any price beyond that which is determined by the market. The only way to make profit, as has rightly been identified by Canonical is to create an ecosystem of products and services around Ubuntu, which would complement the functions of the OS.
Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical and Ubuntu, sat for a video interview with Dell Cloud Computing Evangelist Barton George. In it, Shuttleworth takes a “service pack” shot at Windows 7 and covers numerous questions about Canonical’s business and cloud strategy. Here’s the video — plus some perspectives from WorksWithU.
* Command and Conquer
* How-To: Program in Python – Part 3, LAMP Server – Part 2, Virtual Private Networking.
* My Story – One Man’s Journey, and Walk With Ubuntu.
* Review – Kompozer.
* MOTU Interview – Iulian Udrea.
* Top 5 – Physics Games.
* Ubuntu Games, as well as all the usual goodness!
Linux has been an emerging operating system for quite some time now, but its use has been limited mostly to back office servers, embedded devices, and geeks. More recently, Ubuntu linux has taken the lead in the desktop Linux area. Many enthusiasts hope that Ubuntu will revolutionize the way we use our computers. Unfortunately, with all the hype there are a lot of misconceptions about Ubuntu and Linux in general and I thought I’d take some time to expose them.
* Stick using Gnome 2.0
* “Sleek and stylish” new theme.
* Harnessing the power of Upstart
* Few new “features”
* Stable
* Bigger better Software Centre replacing, well, everything.
* User Interface Improvements
* Implement features that weren’t able to make it into Karmic (Wine Integration, Gwibber, etc)
Emlix, a company specializing in providing free and open software, embedded, has prepared a package of BSP (Board Support Package), designed for devices equipped with x86 processors.
Openmoko is a geek’s delight. Its not yet targeted at general users and is currently recommended to advanced users only (read developers and techies!).
Its got everything a geek could dream of (well almost everything)
Our final write-up regarding Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix and the Moblin Netbook Remix will come in October. Beta releases of all the distributions in the Ubuntu family are planned for the first of October followed by the final releases on the 29th of October.
UNR Karmic contains both the excellent Messaging and Session Indicators. The message indicator allows you to quickly see how many unread emails/IM messages/Twitter replies you have. The session indicator allows you to easily set your IM presence and also lets you switch users (if you hardware supports it) and log out easily.
There may well be something I’m not getting here, but I honestly can’t see what the big deal is about this new Jolicloud distro.
I should point out that my experience was with an installation of Jolicloud within Easy Peasy, another netbook Linux with Ubuntu Netbook Remix. But I did try out Jolicloud proper on a previous occasion, and it didn’t seem any different…
To get the perfect Web site with all the functionality that you require for your particular application may take additional time and effort, but with the Joomla! Community support that is available and the many Third Party Developers actively creating and releasing new Extensions for the 1.5 platform on an almost daily basis, there is likely to be something out there to meet your needs. Or you could develop your own Extensions and make these available to the rest of the community.
ILUG Cochin September 2009 Meeting to be held at Jay’s Internet Club, Broadway on 27 Sep 2009. The meetup being an all day event, will begin by 9.00 AM in the morning and will continue till 5.30 PM in the evening.
OWC will also host the European Open Source Think Tank 2009 and the Open Innovation Summit, along with a FLOSS Communities Summit, an Open CIO Summit and a FLOSS Competence Centers Summit.
If we read this right it means there is real local government preference for Open Source. Now right now they’re going into because of costs instead of control, but I think a taste of freedom tends to stick around once you’ve deployed a FOSS solution and it’ll be more difficult for Microsoft or even IBM, Novell etc to get back in without offering serious concessions.
I also like that they are informing people that students can take advantage of OpenOffice, because it’s free too and supports all the same formats. That’s very good news as it’s an aspect of Free Software in schools which is often overlooked (that what is taught can be taken home without pressuring poor students to buy expensive software).
My final solution to “software piracy”? Leave the PCSS behind and do a complete switch to FOSS. Ernie Ball Incorporated did and as far as I can tell from all reports I can find they are better off after doing so.
LWN last talked to Leslie Hawthorn, Google’s Open Source Program Coordinator, in September, 2007 about the Google Summer of Code (GSoC). GSoC is a project where Google pays students to work with a mentor to write open-source code. The 2009 Google Summer of Code recently concluded, marking the end of the project’s fifth year.
Google Summer of Code has again been a huge success for KDE this year. 37 out of 38 projects were finished successfully. Much of the work done during these projects is already merged into trunk and will be available for the users with the KDE 4.4 release in January 2010. Thanks to all students and mentors for their great work! Below you will find a short interview with each of the students, asking them about the cool things they have been working on for the past few months.
Just a month after Pfizer came under fire for allegedly using strong-arm tactics against a potential key witness in the multidistrict litigation over its Neurontin anti-seizure medication, the pharmaceutical giant lodged a similar complaint against a plaintiffs expert.
And TI’s DMCA claim fails for another reason, as well: running software of your choice on your calculator has no “nexus” with copyright infringement. The courts have made it clear (1, 2) that you need a nexus with infringement if you want your DMCA claim to stick. This is not about decrypting copyrighted code so that you can distribute it to the four corners of the Internet. This is about running your own software on your own calculator. So where’s the copyright infringement in that?
Surprisingly, AT&T has reversed its position, and is now passionately supportive of net neutrality. What, you may ask, caused this dramatic shift? Why, Google, of course. AT&T filed a letter with the FCC today complaining that Google Voice blocks calls to certain rural locations. According to AT&T, blocking phone calls is a violation of net neutrality — dictionary, anyone? — and thus Google is in violation of the rules that aren’t rules which AT&T vehemently despised but now passionately adores.
“We are concerned, however, that the FCC appears ready to extend the entire array of Net neutrality requirements to what is perhaps the most competitive consumer market in America: wireless services,” he said.
He argues that wireless networks differ from wireline broadband networks because bandwidth is more limited on a wireless network. And he said that imposing new rules on how carriers operate their wireless networks would stifle investment.
Summary: Microsoft pays people for house parties that create an illusion of anticipation; Silverlight adoption by Intel/Moblin a sign of Microsoft grasping at straws to gain at Adobe’s expense
In my opinion the desperation of Microsoft in wanting you to use its products is displayed perfectly in the Windows 7 Party campaign (below video) where it takes a Tupperware/Ann Summers type approach to try and get YOU to promote its software with the enticement of chances to win prizes etc (IMO). As I’ve said before, it appears to me that Microsoft gets its advocacy by enticements. A little different to someone who recommends Linux eh?
The above also mentions ITV dumping Silver Lie. It is one among many departures from Silver Lie (“cross-platform” is a lie), which Microsoft is now trying to advance with Intel’s help [1, 2], not just Novell’s.
So another trend of hype has constantly surrounded Microsoft’s Silver Lie (phrases like “Flash killer” thrown out and about), which as Sean Michael Kerner puts it, is hardly required by anyone.
Does anyone really need Silverlight on Linux?
For better or for worse, the vast majority of video content online today is delivered via Adobe’s Flash media. Silverlight is still the underdog in that fight and is likely to remain so for the immediate future.
As one person has just put it, “mono proponents should focus on explaining why we should trust Microsoft and stop complaining about @rms”
Send this to a friend 
. For financial I don’t just mean struggling businesses or people. Countries and governments also have a financial need. This was one of the reasons behind the OLPC project. Poor and third world countries can greatly benefit from Linux to help give them a leg up into the modern world.
