Aug 17 2002 Modern PC News

Technical, Business and Product News from the Modern Computer World... Updated Once Per Month

On first glance Microsofts new VBTV can only be described as bizarre. However, if you watch it you will find that in addition to being quite entertaining it is loaded with useful intro tips on how to use Visual Basic .NET.

"...In Episode 1, learn the fundamentals of Visual Basic .NET from Ari, Chris, Veronica, Betty, Big Daddy, Visual Bucky, DJVB, and of course, the Head...."

"...Many people have congratulated us, prematurely, on our victory. While the judicial system did block their request to shut us down, a trial is looming for April 2003. At that time, the Judge (or jury) will decide whether Microsoft has a valid trademark for the word "windows" and whether the Lindows.com name is confusing. In the interim, we're moving through the legal process where Microsoft is demanding, as part of the discovery process, everything from our business plan to our list of partner companies.

As you can imagine, it's challenging for a 39-person company to compete with a Goliath that has hundreds of people--just in the legal department alone. This is where we could use a bit of help from our community of Insiders and those on our mailing list.

While Microsoft can outspend us with high-priced lawyers and experts, they cannot buy history. We know, of course, that the word "windows" had been used in the industry for years before Microsoft adopted it in the early 1980s for the name of its windowing interface product, Microsoft Windows 1.0. We could, however, use your help in gathering as much evidence as possible to show the usage of the words "windows", "window" and "windowing" before and after 1983, the date Microsoft first filed its trademark application.

If you have magazine or newspaper articles, academic papers, journal articles, product manuals, advertisements, textbooks, dictionaries, or anything else that uses the terms, we'd like to hear from you. We'd also like to hear from anyone who had personal experience in the industry during those early years and can recall the history of the early windowing products such as Xerox's Star, VisiCorp's VisiOn, Apple's Lisa, Digital Research's GEM, Quarterdeck's DesQ, IBM's TopView, and others. Please email all your findings to legal@lindows.com..."

The first half of 2002 has been an eerily quiet period for the computer experts on watch for worms and viruses, leaving some to trumpet their effectiveness even as their predictions of doom are now looking overblown.

Nobody has a bullet-proof explanation, but theories range from the introduction of enhanced anti-virus software to stiffer anti-hacker laws to more vigilant computer users.

Last year, security experts calculate, the Code Red, Nimda and Sircam worms caused billions of dollars worth of damage, knocking out computer networks for days and forcing companies to scramble for patches to prevent recurring attacks...

..."Klez is the biggest case of the year and that's it," said Mikko Hypponen, manager of anti-virus research at Finland's F-Secure. "That's a big surprise to us and to everybody else in the anti-virus community."

Hypponen last year warned viruses would spread to mobile computing devices, including pocket PCs and so-called smart phones, a prediction that has yet to materialize...

...In 2001, F-Secure issued nine "Level One" virus warnings, a label it uses to signify the most damaging outbreaks. This year the number is zero, Hypponen said...

I gotta tell ya... I just don't see anything in this 'new' operating system that is not already in a WinXP Home box that has an ATI All-In-Wonder video card. You be the judge, click HERE for a video promo overview.

You will no doubt be shocked to find out that Microsoft says it is "The new standard in performance and reliability".

A neat little utility from TrueSoft turns your Quick Launch bar into a fully functioned menu system. If you are one of the few still using the dreaded Office Launch Bar, wake up and smell the coffee.

Their web site states "...True Launch Bar will help you organize your shortcuts, by adding submenu's. Simply create the needed submenu's and add your shortcuts to them. We guarantee that you will forget about the Start button!..."

...Lindows.com has been working with a major retailer and hardware manufacturer and will be announcing, very soon, a newly-configured $199 computer. This barrier-breaking machine is a new, non-refurbished, computer package. For under $200 dollars, you’ll be able to browser the Internet, check email and run a variety of software products for far less than the price of most handheld devices! A certified version of LindowsOS will come bundled with the PC as well as a trial membership to the Click-N-Run Warehouse – a software hub that provides access to more than 1,600 software applications.

...This new price point is sure to spur many to pick up that second computer they’ve been wanting to buy. As with any hot product announcement, supply on these machines will be stretched during its introduction and we're sure they'll be a huge demand, so to be alerted the moment the $199 computer becomes available, please, sign-up at www.lindows.com/199. We'll make sure those who add their name to the list are the first to be notified of this event so you can be the first to try one out....

Apple Computer Inc. cut prices across the board on Tuesday, reacting to wary professionals who have been slow to buy during the economic downturn and tempting consumers with a cheaper price for a drive that writes DVDs.

The cut on the flat-panel display iMac, a consumer computer that looks a bit like a desk lamp, the screen floating above a half-globe base, reverses a $100 price rise in March that Cupertino, California-based Apple attributed to rising component costs. Those component prices have fallen since...

...Apple's eMac, the bottom of the line of new products rolled out in the past couple of years, now has a DVD drive at the entry point. But the line still starts at $1,099, above the magic $1,000 barrier some analysts have said is key to rousing consumer interest.

A useful overview of Lindows history and current situation can be had via an interview on National Public Radio in .MP3 format - Click HERE.

...IBM, based in Armonk, N.Y., said it will cut 14,213 jobs, mostly in its services business, which had about 150,000 employees as of the end of last year. IBM overall had about 320,000 employees at the end of 2001. Another 1,400 cuts will come from its microelectronics unit, IBM said. The company will be adding about 30,000 workers with its planned acquisition of consulting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers for $3.5 billion in cash and stock.

The job reductions -- analysts had been expecting about 10,000 -- at the world's largest computer maker are the company's biggest in more than a decade as IBM and other high-tech companies suffer under stagnant spending on information technology by corporate customers...

..The success stories are there for everyone to see—Linux and Apache, most notably. So are the projects that came up short, most obviously the Mozilla browser, which literally took years to come to fruition (although many would argue the fact that Mozilla still exists and managed to launch an open-source browser is a major success in its own right). Or StarOffice. While it is an interesting alternative to Microsoft Office, it has never gained traction as some had hoped. The same is true of Linux ( news - web sites)-on-the-desktop, which remains a niche phenomenon at best.

...But more than individual platforms or "products," the real revolution in open source is how it has changed how even commercial vendors deliver, price, and support their software. Developers are now much more likely to get software into their hands before they have to buy it. And the price they pay is much more likely to be reasonable. You say you want to charge me $100,000 for a full-blown J2EE application server? Well I've got this nice servlet container over here for no cost, so you'd better justify that functionality and price.