Low End PC Archive for January 2003
Articles on Low End PC
Around the Web
- Opinion: The music industry
needs to embrace the digital age, reduce CD prices, and avoid copy cat
artists, Adam Robert Guha, Apple Archive, Low End Mac, 01.31. The
record companies need to stop blaming file sharing for their woes and
offer buyers good music at good prices.
- Analysis: Personal Computer Market
Share: 1975-2002, Jeremy Reimer, 01.30. Data shows how
IBM/DOS/Windows took over the personal computing market.
- Web: Visual
display of site traffic, James Spahr, designweenie.com, 01.27. If
you've ever wanted to visualize traffic within a website, you have got
to see this page.
- History:
The mouse that rolled, Jim Shelton, New Haven Register, 01.27.
"While today's computer mouse is as ever-present as the common can
opener, it was considered highly unusual back in 1983, when Apple
introduced its Lisa...."
- Analysis:
Worm exposes apathy, Microsoft flaws, Robert Lemos, Cnet, 01.26.
"That patch should have been applied--it's 6 months old now."
- Dark Side:
Comic relief of sorts, at Microsoft's expense, Rob McNair-Huff, Mac
Net Journal, 01.25. "...it was hilarious that Microsoft's own Windows
XP verification servers were offline today due to problems caused by
the SQL worm."
- Humor: Apple's market share drops
to one, Jeff Adkins, The Lite Side, Low End Mac, 01.28. Apple pulls
out of consumer market, shifts focus to highest-end consumers, boosts
profits.
- Advice: PhotoWorks: A low end
digital image solution for 35mm users, Charles W. Moore,
Miscellaneous Ramblings, Low End Mac, 01.27. Mail order photofinishing
service now offers prints, slides, and digital files from your 35mm
color print film.
- Web: ATMs,
ISPs hit by Slammer worm spread, John Leyden, The Register, 01.27.
"The bandwidth-crunching Slammer worm has causes all manner of damage
since its appearance on the Net in the early hours of Saturday
morning."
- Web: MS
SQL Server worm wreaking havoc, Slashdot, 01.25. Starting early
Saturday morning, this attack on Microsoft SQL Server effectively
disabled many servers, including some root Internet name servers.
- Web: Internet slowed
by suspected denial-of-service attack, Martyn Williams, MacCentral,
01.25. "...the problems appear to have centered around a vulnerability
in Microsoft's SQL Server and its server resolution service...."
- Dark Side: Microsoft
loses showdown in Houston, Byron Acohido, USA Today, 01.21. "The
nation's fourth-largest city rebuffed [Microsoft's] offer and has
embraced an obscure competitor called SimDesk."
- Opinion: iDisk public folder more
accessible with Windows than OS 9, Jeff Adkins, Mac Lab Report, Low
End Mac, 01.23. Mac OS X users and Windows users have read-write
access to .mac public folders, but Mac OS 9 users are second class
citizens.
- Tech: (Almost!) totally useless
megahertz overview, Frivolous Diversions, WhoPhD, 01.22. Graph of
PowerPC vs Pentium MHz ratings since 1994 shows Macs have been losing
the MHz race since 1998.
- Rights: California vs. Kazaa,
Andrew W. Hill, Aquatic Mac, Low End Mac, 01.22. Can a California court
have jurisdiction over an Australian software company?
- Humor: Judge uses Dell model for
sentencing, Jeff Adkins, The Lite Side, Low End Mac, 01.21. With
Dell using prison labor, judge decides to sentence criminals to
refurbish old Windows PCs.
- Spam: Will new filters save
us from spam?, Scarlet Pruitt, MacCentral, 01.20. "Their aim is to
find a spam filter so effective, that spammers would receive few, if
any, responses, making sending unsolicited bulk e-mail a financially
prohibitive task."
- History: The Lisa legacy,
Dan Knight, Mac Musings, Low End Mac, 01.20. On the Lisa's 20th
anniversary, we should remember how Apple's innovation paved the way
for all future computers - especially Windows ones.
- Rights: "I
poisoned P2P networks for the RIAA" - whistleblower, Andrew
Orlowski, The Register, 01.17. But hosting "poisoned" MP3s grew too
costly for the recording industry....
- Rights: Consumers: RIAA still
not thinking of us, Grant Gross, MacCentral, 01.16. "Wynkoop
remains concerned that the RIAA may try to take away such consumer
rights as making copies of songs for their own use...."
- Opinion: Webmail: The end of
email clients?, Adam Robert Guha, Apple Archive, Low End Mac,
01.17. Is webmail ready to replace traditional email client software?
It does have some advantages.
- Forum:
Killing others' malicious processes, Slashdot, 01.15. Is it right -
and should it be legal - to actively disable attacks on your
hardware?
- Web: Semantic
obsolescence, Mark Pilgrim, Dive Into Mark, 01.13. "After keeping
up with all the latest standards, painstakingly marking up all my
content, and validating every last page on my site, I'm still stuck in
a dead end."
- Rights: Why I should have the
right to kill a malicious process on your machine, Tim Mullen, The
Register, 01.14. "If anyone's rights are at issue here, it's yours and
mine - the people whose systems are being attacked by worms and viruses
running rampant on negligently unprotected machines."
- Advice: Don't use Sharpies on
CD-R, Mike Webb, Mac Lab Report, Low End Mac, 01.14. Using Sharpies
and other solvent-based markers to write on your burned CDs puts your
data at risk.
- Humor: Top 10 Internet
annoyances, Jeff Adkins, The Lite Side, Low End Mac, 01.14. Blogs,
pop-somewhere ads, chat room spelling, Microsoft innovation, buzzwords,
causes, and other annoying silliness on the Web and elsewhere.
- Spam: Hotmail:
A spammer's paradise?, Michelle Delio, Wired, 01.12. Hotmail and
MSN mail servers make no attempt to deflect "dictionary attacks" that
seek out valid email addresses.
- Rights:
Judge: Kazaa can be sued in U.S., Declan McCullagh, Cnet, 01.10.
Kazaa publisher based in Australia. Whole question of jurisdiction for
Internet issues is one messy, unresolved can of worms.
- Humor: Fans
outraged at new character in The Return of the King,
Brian Briggs, BBspot, 01.10. Tolkien purists less than happy as Star
Wars universe intersects Middle Earth in final LOTR episode.
- News: MPEG-4
backers protest Microsoft license, Stefanie Olsen, Cnet, 01.09.
Microsoft licensing Windows Media Player (on non-Windows platforms) at
half the cost of MPEG-4.
- Web:
New year resolutions: Fix archives, ban pop-ups, Steve Outing, Stop
the Presses!, Editor & Publisher, 01.08. "...the big fat problem
that most needs to be addressed is archiving and expired
hyperlinks."
- Advice: So you wanna build
a Macquarium, Low End Mac, 01.09. What else are you going to do
with an old dead Mac?
- Rights:
Canadians
burned by blank-CD levy, Michelle Delio, Wired, 01.08. Canadians
already paying 21¢ levy on blank CDs. Now industry wants to raise
levy - and tax recordable DVDs, Compact Flash, removable drives, and
more.
- Humor:
Top 10 reasons Macs suck!, iGeek, 01.07. 10. You can't use 5-1/4"
floppies....
- Tech:
Tilting at power lines, Christopher Helman, Yahoo/Forbes, 01.03.
"For years electric companies have dreamed of making their wires the
high-speed data pipe to your PC."
- Analysis:
Logitech proves no mouse among men, William Hall, Financial Times,
01.06. How Logitech survives, thrives, and grows its market at
Microsoft's expense.
- Dark Side: Microsoft's masterplan
to screw phone partner - full details, Andrew Orlowski, The
Register, 01.05. "Microsoft had far more to gain than it had to lose by
seeing its partner fall."
- Dark Side:
Why IE is so fast ... sometimes, Slashdot, 01.05. "Finally the
scoop on how IE 'cheats' a little to up its performance!"
- Web: The ethics of
linkage, zonker, Kuro5hin, 01.04. Should site such as Slashdot have
a responsibility to sites that encounter excessive bandwidth fees due
to their links?
- Analysis: Linux continues desktop
march, Matthew Broersma, ZDNet, 01.03. "IDC expects that Linux will
become the No. 2 desktop OS in the next year or two, surpassing the Mac
OS...."
- more in the December 2002 archive
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