Trinity Team Develops International Open Source Disaster Relief Software

This is the best idea for a university class software project that I have seen in a while. Perhaps ever. It's software to manage disaster relief. The article on the Trinity College web site can be accessed by the link above. The project home page is here.

This project is like a poster child for open source. No company could afford to develop a package like this because they would not have enough buyers to pay for the R&D at any reasonable price. i found it very interesting and have turned our local government onto it.

Jack

Microsoft Plans Vista Upgrade Coupon For Holiday PC Buying Season - Windows Vista, Express Upgrade - CRN

"Not all of the coupons will be for free upgrades. Customers who buy systems running Windows XP Home Edition can upgrade to Vista Home Basic Edition for a flat $49 fee and to the higher-end Windows Vista Home Premium Edition for a cost of $79."
The Windows Vista Technology Upgrade Program runs from Oct. 26, 2006, through March 15, 2007. Distributors are expected to have the new SKUs in house for system builders by Oct. 15. News of the planned coupon and promotion emerged in June.

Thanks SchmooBro from our chat for this info. If you see something you think is news and would like to share it with the listeners please send us an email. Our first name @ OnComputers.info

Joe

IE 7 MS download URL

Ok Jack here's the MS link for IE7
Tried commenting but, URL is too long.

IE 7 Final is OUT!!!

Internet Explorer is out in final form. The link above will take you to a download page at FlexBeta.

Oddly, the first available copies were from Yahoo and bundled with their mail app and some other things. FlexBeta's download page came up sometime after Yahoo's. There does not yet seem to be an official page at Microsoft.com, but I will bet they fix that in a hurry.

For those of you who wait and have automatic updates enabled in XP, you will have the new browser version pushed to you, unless you don't want it and sign off on it. Frankly, I can't see any reason not to get it. IE 7 is safer in many ways and by all accounts performs better than it's predecessors in nearly every way. Plus, it adheres to standards such as those for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) much more closely.

Enjoy;

Jack

» Surge of killer device drivers leave no OS safe | George Ou | ZDNet.com

"News came yesterday that Linux users who used NVIDIA's drivers were in danger of being remotely exploited because a zero-day exploit code was released last week. "
Not even Linux is safe these days! :(
AlaskaJoe

Fall Processor Forum 2006: IBM's POWER6

IBM's Power PC 6 processor is apparently really something. Performance is such that I (for one) regret that it will not make it into desktop or workstation machines. I still think that RISC has a place in serious machines for desktop usage, but no manufacturer seems to think that way. Should one wish such a machine, she/he is stuck either co-opting a machine meant for server usage or attempting to build a special machine for themselves.

My dreams have been crushed!

Jack

Battlefield 2142 comes with spyware

Electronic Arts must really not get it. They have included spyware in a new game that will deliver contextual advertising during game play. "Spyware" is the right term, too, as the software phones home to report what the user does online in order to deliver ads more accurately.

This is going to develop into a huge flap. Users who shell out serious money for a game are actually setting the publishing company up for more income and even at this early stage, the resentment is palpable. Check out game player's forums and see for yourself. The cries of "foul" are loud and growing in numbers.

To my way of thinking, this is simply another case of greed gone mad. Sadly, we will see more and more of this.

Jack

Windows virus worms onto some Apple iPods | Tech News on ZDNet

Apple Computer warned on Tuesday that some of its latest iPods have shipped with a Windows virus.
Is nothing safe?
I hope you have a good Anti-Virus on your Windows Computer.

Remember We sell NOD32 the Anti-Virus that WORKS! you can try a free trial for 30 days.

Microsoft to give Vista kernel access to security firms

This story is everywhere today, but it is important enough that it needs to be here. I think this is good news for all of us who don't want MS to be both our OS vendor and sole security vendor. From the article:

Today, Microsoft decided on a compromise: the company will develop new Windows Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that will give security companies access to the kernel.

Cisco gains patent on 'triple play'

This is proof positive, as if any were needed, that our patent system is horribly broken. Cisco has gained a patent on something people from literally hundreds of companies have been implementing for years.

The link will take you to a very short article at The Register, where they have posted the first paragraph of the patent claims, which seem to cover everything but childbirth videos.

Read it and weep.

Jack

OnComputers Radio show Podcast 10-15-06

This is the On Computers Radio show podcast for 10-15-06. You can listen live every Sunday from 10AM to 1PM Pacific thats 1PM to 4PM Eastern. If you prefer, you can download the same file here via ftp.