Bonum Certa Men Certa

Eye on Microsoft: Less Money, Mo' Problems

Blues Over the Olympic Games



The Los Angeles Times (Blogs) has published this complaint about Silverlight and the Olympics.

NBC's Olympic video site leaves many out to dry



[...]

And computers running the Linux operating system -- an open-source alternative to Windows -- were also left out of the mix. When unlucky users try to fire up the video player to catch a few rounds of pingpong, they'll instead be greeted by a screenful of technical requirements that their computer doesn't meet. Next time you'll call it table tennis...

[...]

But in dozens of comments on our initial post, unhappy Mac and Linux users thought NBC still should've provided a way for all Web surfers to watch Olympic clips.


Watch some of the comments:

NBC Olympics not only cheated iMAC+Linux users it cheated Windows users too. The video does not play at all. All in the name of quality. NBC and GE will not go free!!

[...]

It's infuriating to be summarily left out just because I choose to use a superior OS, Linux, instead of the crap M$ puts out. Oh well, I guess NBC doesn't care how many viewers--and, yes, we ARE viewers as well, not just people online--they're alienating by their idiotic decision to go with a Micro$oft only application. What morons...


SJVN writes about the gigantic blue screen of death and he ends it with another shrewd nugget of information.

Why? Because, according to the Morning Herald, both the Beijing Olympics committee and Lenovo, a major backer of the games, had deliberately chosen to run XP operating system on the games' PC because they didn't trust Vista. Turns out they shouldn't have trusted XP either, but they should have known that. Best of all, Lenovo chairman, Yang Yuanqing, said Lenovo had chosen not to use Vista because, "If it's not stable, it could have some problems."

So, next time you go to an online PC sales Web site and you see that line about "We recommend Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium," just remember: They're lying.


Axe Over Windows



Did you know that "Midori" is actually GNU/Linux?

It's true: Microsoft has confirmed that it's abandoning Windows as we know it. Cagey as ever, the Microsofties won't say when it'll happen, but they have talked a little bit about what the next OS is going to look like--or not look like.

[...]

Midori for Linux?

One of my smarter-than-me buddies, Gary F., told me that Linus Torvalds worked on something called Midori a few years ago, an embedded Linux for mobile devices: "I doubt Microsoft would ever release something that could be traced back to Linux, but if I recall correctly, Transmeta's Midori had some rudimentary 'cloud computing' features vaguely similar to Microsoft's Midori." Read "Details emerge on Transmeta's "Mobile Linux" and "Transmeta Exports Midori Linux to China" for details.


Paul at InfoWorld is rather dissatisfied with Windows Vista.

However, I'm not going to be staying in Vista-land. Since I do have other choices, I still prefer Mac OS X and Linux.

The Start menu in Vista (and all other iterations) has become far too ornery for me. Navigating to new apps, or to find apps is annoying and too clumsy.

[...]

I was quite annoyed that when common devices such as mice, USB flash drives, and so on were inserted into the system, it takes Vista quite a long time to locate and install the drivers. In Linux and Mac OS X, these devices are usable nearly instantly.


Microsoft is Down



Watch this eye-opener.

Summer traffic up for Google, down for Microsoft



The lazy days of summer on the Internet seem to be a boon for Google and Yahoo, but not Microsoft.


Spotting the trend yet? According to this, MSN search sank from 9.85% in June 2007 to just 5.46% last month.

Microsoft Under Fire



26 new flaws and 6 "critical" patches yesterday.

"People are going to be quite busy with this load," said Jason Miller, security data team leader for Shavlik Technologies, a patch-management software provider in St. Paul, Minnesota.


Security-wise, Vista is a mess. Here's what Bruce Schneier said about the latest blow:

This is huge...


Google tries cleaning up the mess that Windows zombies are leaving (over 100,000,000,000 SPAM per day).

Anyone wanting to learn more about related issues has been invited to attend a webinar called "How spam is changing your inbox, and what to do about it."


These Windows zombies are not only used to SPAM people. They are being used to suspend entire countries. It's like cyber-war.

Danchev and others have found evidence that points to a self-starting militia composed of volunteer hackers and cyber criminals who control large-scale bots, or collections of previously-compromised computers, as behind the escalating attacks that have knocked Georgian sites offline.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

The 'Culture Wars' in Free Software Have Gone Out of Control
Social control media amplifies such utterly infantile discourse
10 Out of 10: RMS Attracts Massive Audience in Göteborg, Sweden (All Seats Occupied, Some People Standing)
a 55-second clip of his talk
The Lawsuit by Clients of Brett Wilson LLP Against Brett Wilson LLP is Officially On, It is Progressing, The 'Experts' Pick Outside Law Firms (RPC and Mills & Reeve) to Spare Them From Litigants in Person
So it is probably quite potent
Slopwatch: Plagiarism and "Linux" Articles by Bots
Sites that do this won't survive; many of them rely on slop services (suppliers) that will cease to exist after the bubble bursts
 
Microsoft Cancelling Another Datacentre is a Sign of Financial Trouble and Lack of Growth
The debt continues to grow
Gemini Links 11/10/2025: An Evening at the Fair and Fast Fourier Friday
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 10, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 10, 2025
Geminispace is Very Large
The word continues to spread and the number of participants grows
Teaser: To Compensate for the Fact Our Clients Are Terrible Human Beings Who Strangle Women (While on Microsoft's Payroll) and We Get Paid by Mystery Parties We Bombard You and Your Wife With Almost 10 Kilograms of Legal Papers
If you can't win an argument, then drown the other side with papers?
Another Wave of Microsoft Layoffs, This Time During National Day Holiday
This time it's China again
Staying Happy in Times of Crackdowns on Civil Society
Optimism in this sort of "new reality" or "new normal" seems like something for the irrational person
"Nobel" Exploited Posthumously for "AI" Hype, Now They Do the Same With "Quantum"
ere have been many jokes about "Nobel" for peace (often granted to pro-war people) and a fake one for "Economics" (establishment propaganda)
Distinguished Lecture by Richard Stallman This Coming Monday in Rome
After "Free software, Crucial for Freedom in a Digital World"
Links 10/10/2025: Putin Admits Russia Downed Azerbaijan Airlines Jet, More New Heat Records
Links for the day
Noteworthy Claim That IBM is Firing a Lot of Lawyers This Week (RAs in the Legal Department)
A lot of what they do is patent 'trolling' or lawyering up against their own staff (e.g. HR disputes)
Links 10/10/2025: US Judge Bars Attacks by ICE On Journalists and Protesters; “We Took The Freedom of Speech Away” Says the President
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Serial Sloppers, Google News Gifting Slopfarms, and Fake News/Plagiarism About "Linux"
Google itself is a slop pusher these days
Qualcomm, the New Owner of Arduino, Blasted for Its Software Patents Tax on 'Smartphones'
A lot of Qualcomm's patents are on software. We wrote about this in prior years.
XBox Layoffs Rumours, Downtime, and Criticism From XBox Co-Founder
"everyone is ditching the xbox."
Links 10/10/2025: Honoring The Legacy Of Robert Murray-Smith, Many Articles on the Hey Hi (AI) Bubble
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: October Gothic and Reading Middle Earth Role Playing; C and Ada
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 09, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 09, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Farewell to Jane Goodall, California Bans Algorithmic Price-Fixing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Lost Wages and a Saga Of Continuing To Use Palm PDAs
Links for the day
Richard Stallman's Talk in Helsinki is Done. Tomorrow Göteborg.
There are scarce details in Finnish about Dr. Stallman's talk
New XBox Leaks Probably Serve to Confirm XBox's Collapse (Many More Layoffs)
It's very much consistent with what many other sites have reported lately
The Slop Song
The train wreck marches on
LLM Slop/Advanced Plagiarism Flooding the Zone With Capital That Does Not Exist
Many publishers out there still participate in this bubble instead of calling it what it is
Links 09/10/2025: Sacked Microsoft Workers Make "Sackbird", IBM Taps CockroachDB for PostgreSQL
Links for the day
"Happy Hacking Day" Richard Stallman Talk This Afternoon (From 14:00 to 16:00) at Haaga-Helia University in Pasila
Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
Links for the day