gmac

http://www.guardian.co.uk/microsoft/Story/...1169861,00.html Looking good. Just so you understand the teeth this commission has, they have just told Germany that rules blocking a hostile takeover of Volkswagon are illegal and must be changed. It will be interesting to see what happens. There is the making of an all out trade war between the EEC and the US. This is just one small aspect of what's involved.

"I haven't heard of and British judges ( the local county court variety) reinterpreting your laws like they do in a few of ours. Maybe we should be moving towards your legal system instead." In the English system the legislature make the law and the judges apply i.e. interpret it sometimes by way of a test case to set precedents which will set the tone for future judgements. Sometimes badly written laws need to be clarified. It starts getting confusing because we have common law, statute law and now EEC law. Then again I'm not English so we have Scots law which differs in some significant areas, for instance we have not proven verdicts which you don't get elsewhere and owes more to statute. I hadn't quite appreciated the different attitudes between UK and US on these kinds of topics

Thanks, I was curious. I don't personally know any americans to get a viewpoint from-at least nor as erudite as you all seem to be. You do tend to get the impression from the media that there is no real political debate in the US and its all yaboo politics with money mattering more than anything else. In the UK just now there are proposals to introduce a politically selected supreme court along US lines, which is rather worrying. Our court system is far from perfact but at least they do act as an effective check on government. Cynically this might be the reason behind the supposed reform as the present and previous home secretaries have both been checked by the law lords for exceeding their authority. The bill has just been bounced back to the commons by the lords.

http://trends.newsforge.com/trends/04/03/0...8/0457259.shtml I'm curious how political is this in the states? Does the SEC have real teeth. I mean I was puzzled how a change of president gets microsoft an easier time? In the UK despite having a massive majority the government do ultimately answer to parliament and the electorate but they seem to forget that most of the time. The US has the toughest anti trust laws in the world but they don't seem to do much good.

"First I want to say that tyme and some other guys sounded a little rude and making laugh at me..." Know what you mean I am a newbie also, what I got initially was RTFM, which since I had asked how to get the monitor working was no help at all. For every smart alec there are four who will help so ignore the pillocks. I don't think they meant to be rude but rather it may be a language difference as in the way they use it. Some of them are american and can't even spell properly "ah yes, the extra time it gives you when you're defragging the hard drive for the 3rd time this month! " Actually I have to do it daily (defrag i mean) Must be the type of applications I am using. Document scanning seems to strain the poor thing

"I didn't have that many problem with the os, except in stability. But then, " Yeah its really good once you learn all the tricks you need to know to stop it freezing on you and learn that when things start slowing time its time to pause and do some maintenance to keep it going. Its really good being able to buy programmes that uninstall things properly for you because windows doesn't and those special fault finding programmes are really really good. Then its fun to update your office suite because the old one you have doesn't work with the newest version that people are sending you. But you need the old one as well in case somebody sends you a document from an old office app. What's PDF? windows doesn't have it so thats another £200 for adobe acrobat. alternatively go to pdf.com and download a converter. Having said that I know what you mean. Having gone through the learning curve with windows is it worth doing it again with a different operating system? My choice is windows XP or one of the Linux distributions. Since a computer is an essential tool now I prefer one where i can learn about what is going on as I use it. Who am I kidding I just want one that works. The thing is I can have built three new computers and put a different linux distribution on each one for the price of one preinstalled windows computer. If you don't want to switch to linux then try the open source software like open office, or if you need an equivalent of access etc try star office. a fraction of the price and much better. If you are buying your own computer have a look at the cost of your next upgrade. If you use the office suites have a look at the cost of the full professional suite. in the UK its £450 as against star office £60. (Its a pity they called it star office in the name smacks of the cheap and nasty.) I'll save my £450 and spend it on a back up computer just in case the windows one I'm still using fails on me completely. The learning curve for linux is maybe a but steeper but I think it will take you further.

"Microsoft's latest offer to end its long-running anti-trust case with the European Commission has been rejected, according to reports this week. The Redmond-based software giant had offered to settle the case by putting competitors' software on CD-ROMs sold with computers. But, according to sources quoted by Reuters earlier this week, the Commission believed that the CD-ROMs distributed with new computers would get little use and would be an ineffective channel for distribution. " http://www.guardian.co.uk/microsoft/Story/...1150951,00.html If their decision remains consistent they will rule against microsoft.

" I think it's smoke and mirrors. They say it, but can they do it? Not without your own government cooperating!" I think it is as well. It's a complex issue The trouble is our government like a lot of others is falling prey to this idea that businesses should be free to get on with things and interfering is bad for jobs resulting with decisions being made that shouldn't be. If business is king I'm on the parliament's side but I don't trust them either, maybe I'll join the consumers side. We live in interesting times as the saying goes. If the decision goes against them (microsoft that is) maybe they'll boycott Europe and we can live in a microsoft free zone.

"It is not now, nor has it ever been illegal in the US to sell a computer without an operating system. I can't imagine why anyone would do such a thing, but that's up to the individual nations." It isn't here either but windows is so endemic that in practice it is hard to get an ordinary desktop without windows. Indeed a lot if the staff in places like pc world are completely unaware that there is anything else to the extent some think you don't get a computer without windows, hence the source of that comment. In any case they won't supply a computer with no operating system you have to get them built or hunt the internet.. "Microsoft's ploy to suggest that the US court system is some kind of "international" body is ludicrous." Couldn't agree more but they do. "Every copy of Microsoft Windows, every copy of MS Office World and every Dell computer invoice carry demands, imposed on Microsoft and Dell by the US government, that the UK user or UK purchaser observes US criminal law (The US Export Control Act) here in the UK. Users are prohibited from taking their copies of the above to various countries disapproved of by the US and in some cases from taking software out of the UK." http://www.guardian.co.uk/microsoft/Story/...1001267,00.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/microsoft/Story/...1150951,00.html "Those kinds of choice of law provisions are not all that unusual" True but its the principle involved. Do you think the US would put up with Volkswagon insisting the guarantees and liability were only under German law and American law would not apply. By the way Volkswagon is the only car dealer in town. Actually in the US is the same situation in that you can't buy a new computer without windows? I can't buy a computer without windows installed (O.K I can get them made up) but if I have the installation cd from say my laptop that fails and I have to buy a new one and don't want XP. Can I get one without the windows operating system? Not easily in a shop like pC world. Nor can I reject the licence and ask the shop to remove it they won't do it. Quote from PC world salesman. "Its illegal to buy a computer without an operating system. Computers have come down a lot in price, were it not for windows they would be even cheaper. I have just found out I can't get broadband without upgrading from windows 98 to windows 98 second edition as a minimum. At the moment I can't afford a second box to really experiment with linux but evry day linux looks more and more attractive. "Not since Ronnie and Maggie have we bent over so far ....." I am no fan of Maggie but I doubt she would have lied to parliament the way Blair has. he either lied or he's an idiot.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/microsoft/Story/...1132834,00.html Microsofts business activities have been under investigation by the European commission for the last four years-for designing their products deliberately so they don't work with competitors and more recently that bundling their media player is deliberately designed to stop competition. A decision is due in March. The whole issue is a bit more complex than just microsoft. In the past the commission has not been averse to smacking down major european companies, most notably Volkswagon peugeot//citroen and renault to the major benefit of UK consumers where we have seen car prices drop dramatically-mainly because they declared it illegal for manufacturers to only sell through their own dealers. In real terms car prices have dropped considerably. There have also been several cases recently where electrical manufacturers have been fined for price fixing by refusing to supply discounters. They also fined the retailers involved. Companies have tried to stop retailers buying branded goods, such as designer fashion and perfume, outside the EEC and importing them for sale The jean manufactures lost because they had their iwn discount stores selling their goods cheaply, the perfumiers did not as exclusivity was seen as a main factor in what they were selling and buying expensive perfume off the shelf next to the beans the EEC agreed was detrimental to the business as exclusivity was a main value in the product that the perfumiers themselves had not undermined. The companies affected by microsoft are european and the microsoft approach of saying this has gone through the US courts and why are we being bothered by this has, hopefully, not won them any friends. Politics does come in to it in that being told what to do by america will antagonise every european government- except ours apparently. More to the point not to take action against microsoft would be inconsistent with the way they have treated similar issues in other industries. If microsoft lose and refuse to follow commission rules things could get quite entertaining. Entertaining in the sense that the EEC cannot afford to have a company like microsoft ignoring it. There are already issues with the microsoft licence in that a product bought in the UK is governed by US licensing laws. Just think of the reaction if it was tried the other way. We just put up with it. Who knows in the near future we may be able to buy chinese made computers with linux installed alongside microsoft installed ones in PC world. Eorpoe wants to tade with China as much as the US does.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/microsoft/Story/...1144755,00.html If european court orders microsoft to unbundle its browser software life could get interesting.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/microsoft/Story/...1148154,00.html Trouble is the mainstream press portray ms as the victim in a lot of the security scares, which I suppose they are. The danger os MS use this to portray an image of a successful company under attack. open source= unamerican. A cynic might suggets it was deliberate. If it isn't look forward to someone being named as the culprit. http://www.newsforge.com/software/04/02/13...8&tid=82&tid=94 http://www.newsforge.com/software/04/02/13...?tid=132&tid=82

I'm stuck with windows, there are programmes I need to use that are windows only with no plans for a linux version. I can't find the scanners and programmes I need in Linux so much as I would like to I am stuck

Got ot to work. Turns out I had a faulty installation disc (suse) I tried my mandrake one and it worked perfectly. Only thing is I coked up the installation and get get the graphical interface. I have tried SU then XFdrake but thgis is not working. When I put in SU it just stays with c/ I know it is something simple I am doing wrong but I can't for the life of me work it out. Any suggestions.

Why five man? I know two individuals set up on their own. One builds computers and sells on refurbishes laptops form home. I will buy a lap top from him and probably get him to build my next computer. Not least because he was smart enough to become one of my clients. The other I met when he was working part time as a student doing computer installations with a larger local company. He is now off on his own doing the same thing for small businesses, home server installations etc picking up regular work. Linux makes it easy for him because he can use the internet for support SUSE enthusiast as it happens. Lots of repeat business once you make the point that the level of service is good people tend to stick with you. Same with the guy building computers, not much margin but lots of repeat business and the chance to build in added value. I too work from home. part of a larger company but in a service industry. I am paying for an office and service that I no longer need and they do not get the point about scanning technology or the internet and are actually becoming a handicap. They still sit and phone up companies and wait twenty minutes in a queue in a call centre. I go online and get the information I want in about two minutes. I don't need to travel 23 miles to an office to use second rate computers. People e-mail me I need someone to answer calls and take messages but I have to deal with the queries anyway. Technology means i no longer need space for filing cabinets etc so why should I pay for it. They can spend the same and have quicker access to files and not pay for space to store the information. I should be able to go online to a central server to access information from where ever I am but I work with people that don't get it. So ultimately I will leave, earn the same but make more profit without the hassle. There are five guys in the office likely to do the same thats five people interested in I support on a local face to face level. There are a lot of business in the same position. There are a lot of businesses now starting that need technology run by people that are open to new ideas. They do not necessarily want expensive IT support but will pay a resonable fee to someone they feel they can trust. So to repeat my question. Why five man, why not one or two. People seem to think you have to build up a large company to be successful. You don't, all you need is make enough for what you want. Success is when you achieve what you decided you wanted to achieve, not what someone tells you it is.

Linux aleady has the windows compatable office suites. The games are a distraction the real future money is in small to medium businesses that will grow in to large companies and that at the moment use desktops. Get them off the windows habit and you are halfway there. Once you get beyond basic word processing and spreadsheets microsoft is not competitive pricewise or any otherwise the problem is people do not realise there is an alternative and buy the name they know. You see it in PC world, star office next to MS professional, one is £60 thereabouts the other £450. Despite the fact SO is actually better value nobody has heard of it or ability office and they want to be sure they are buying a good product so they go for the name they know. This may seem daft but for a small business the devil you know is better than taking the risk of screwing things up. Computing is not their business and very few will spend any time experimenting. They also accept computers crashing as par for the course. personally I find it intensely irritating and like to be able to fix things myself that's why I started experimenting with linux, for the simple reason that if my computer fails it costs me a lot of money waiting to get it fixed. The best analogy is perhaps cars. I know how a car works, given a manual and the time and inclination i can fix most things myself. I don't want to its not my hobby so I'll pay someone who fixes it in a fraction of the time. On the other hand I can spot a bullshitting mechanic a mile away because I know the basics. Its the same with computers, I get to know the basics decide what I want and then find somebody who I can depend on to help me set up small servers etc, I don't have the time or inclination to acquire that level of knowledge myself. But I can spot a bullshitter, commemts like microsoft is the standard, linux is a combination of windows and unix, linux is just a version of windows tend to be offputting. If you want to convert people there needs to be a network of support for business and that means people on the ground offering back up support not just to large businesses but to small as well. Forget phone support, how many small to medium busineesses do younthink have an IT guy? Every tom, dick or harry does windows, very few do linux. Maybe there isn't enough money in it?

"Main thing is probably do yourself a favour and pay for a ethernet DSL modem..... USB and networking .. I dunno its like not right!!!" Currently I have a cable connection that works fine with mandrake-once i worked out what i was doing. Its the broadband connection. I have BT and telewest phonelines, there are several ISP's I can use on the back of the bT line but telewest do a better phone package than BT and I was going to ditch them and the ordinary cable connection is cheaper. Other ISP's offer broadband connection but on the back of a BT line. I could use them but my phone bill goes up. I'm not aberse to upgrading my computer I just don't want to do it just now. I can live without broadband a little longer till I decide what I am going to do. Right now I'm skint.

Reply from telewest in case anybody is interested. The tech guys are not too bad, one of them recommended an open source spam blocker. Dear Sir , When we install broadband it is important that you are running a system that meets our minimum specification, This can be found here : http://www.telewest.co.uk/html/internet/fa...aqs/bbfaqs.htm# f.a.q no: 8 . This is to ensure our engineers are working with systems that they have been trained on and ones that we know will work well with our service. For example, Win 98 first edition will not correctly install the usb drivers for the cable modems we use hence we don't support it . However, once our engineer has left , you are free to run any system you like . There is no technical reason why you can't use Linux, you can, and it should work fine but we will not be able to offer you technical support whilst you are running it. So were you ever to have any technical problems, you would need to set back up on a supported system before calling us for help I hope this clears things up for you ,

"Is this telewest in the UK?" It is. I didn't believe him. I fail to see why it would be a problem. I succesfullly use my cable connection with telewest and linux, I just am at the point where broadband starts making sense. I don't game on line its purely business. More serious is beng told it is not compatable with windows 98 standard installation but needs to be second edition. If they are telling would be linux users that you can't use broadband with linux at best it is ignorance on the part of the call centre staff at worst they have been taking lessons from microsoft in customer bullshit.

"Well, I was referring to my layman friends who don't use their computers for business. I'm talking about bringing Linux to the home desktop." I take your point. Its a catch twenty two situation. There would be linux games if more people used linux, but people won't use linux because there are no games and games won't be developed if there are no games. I'm talking about bringing Linux to the home desktop." There is a phonomenal small business market out there that would use open source office suites if they realised they existed just because of the cost. The next step to a linus computer would be easy to take. It would be an interesting marketing problem you have a bertter mousetrap but only an idiot would expect people to beat a path to your door. Most people just want to use computers and the easier it is the better, that's where windows has an edge,p plus tye fact ots hard to buy a computer without windows. Doesn't the scansoftware work (kooka, ...)? Did look at it (kooka) the issue is the database tie in. Bear in mind i don't want to get in to designing my own although I am beginning to realise that I probably could it would be a distraction from earning a living-just like this board pleasant but I feel guilty for skiving and I'm self employed. Ideally I want an off the shelf one but ultimately I will probably use one of the windows ones. I need a small home server as well so probably use linux for that. I need to use this jkind of technology more and more, there is no getting away from it. Lots of small businesses are in the same posituion, those that can't adapt will fall by the wayside. You have to learn how to use windows anyway and dfeal with all the crashes etc. ;earning linux is only difficlt because of the dearth of material available. Bear in mind if you are computer literate using the internet to find information is quick and easy. If you are not where do you begin? "that's just short hand for "the broadband software we supply is for Windows and Mac only"." Thats why it didn't make any sense, there is no reason I can think of why it wouldn't, otherwise all the linux websites and servers wouldn't work. He also told me I would have to upgrade from windows 98 to at least second edition 98 and that since telewest was part owned by microsoft it was unlikely that they would ever support linux. I have a cable modem that works with both windows and linux. The quality of bullshit you get nowadays seems to be getting worse. If I didn't know any better that would be enough to stop me experimenting with Linux.

Sod the games. I am a business user. I want to use scanning technology so I have a paperless office, consequently I need software that will scan documents, with a multi page scanner as well as single page, and tie in to a database. All the ones I can find such as scan soft or scan to disk are compatable only with windows and none of them have any plans to take linux in to account. so i am stuck with windows. I have to use certain programmes guess what, no Linux equivalent available. Some of the web sites I use will not work with anything except internet explorer. OK I can dual boot and use linux in conjunction with windows. Yesterday I found i can't get broadband unless I upgrade to second edition windows 98 or XP whatever. The isp provider -telewest broadband tell me that they are not compatable with Linux. This latter bit I find hard to credit but have not yet investigated further. I don't want to upgrade windows, I resent the MS assumption that i may be dishonest and have an illegal xp installation, but it loks like I have little choice. I am not a computer geek, to me it is a tool I need to use, the easy option is to stay with microsoft but I find the business practices offensive and not good for the long term.I object to being stitched up. If Linux is serious about getting on to thr desktop they need to start getting a jump on windows in business applications, yes i use star office and mozilla I know they are better than the windows equivalents but they need to offer something not only better but convenient as well. I hope the EEC fine the bastards abd make them unbundle their software. If we are really licky microsoft might pull out of europe in protest.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/microsoft/Story/...1132282,00.html

Thanks I'll keep a note for future reference. At the moment i am still using windows for daily use.

Tried sygate but there seemed to be no facility for upgrades. I will probably go for the whole kit and caboodle but was experimenting first to see which i liked.