To use some internet acronyms;

OMG.

WTF.

LOL.

It might be that the commercial is so US that makes it so absurdly funny. At the same time it makes me pity two of the worlds best paid people. Strange feeling

This was just too wonderful

Seems like a laptop used for “dietary schedules” and “occasional e-mail communication back to earth” was infected with the gaming worm/trojan W32.Gammima.AG and then brought onto the International Space Station (ISS).

Found it through Bruce Schneier and more information is here, here and here.

The guys behind this malware must be laughing themselves to pieces

Seriously, who runs the QA at NASA?

Hahaha Most comical/tragical news in a while:

From ZDNet:

Microsoft has been granted a patent on ‘Page Up’ and ‘Page Down’ keystrokes.

The software giant applied for the patent in 2005, and was granted it on August 19, 2008. US patent number 7,415,666 describes “a method and system in a document viewer for scrolling a substantially exact increment in a document, such as one page, regardless of whether the zoom is such that some, all or one page is currently being viewed”.

More comments on this here and here…

From Richi Jennings (via Security Bloggers Network):

“Suddenly, things are getting interesting again in the Exchange-alternatives market.

The quintessential growth-by-acquisition specialist, Cisco (CSCO), has just announced that it’s acquiring PostPath.
[...]
Of all the other Exchange alternatives, PostPath has the most interesting architecture. And I say that as one who has years emotionally invested in the HP OpenMail technology

All the others rely on additional software on the desktop. In the case of OpenMail/SamsungContact/Scalix/Domino/etc., a MAPI service provider “plugin”. Or, like Bynari/OpenXchange/etc., a separate app that synchronized an IMAP store with an Outlook.PST (personal store file).”

Time for a switch?

My co-worker just got his Acer Aspire One and it’s just delicious

Unfortunately he choose the WinXP one, as I would really have liked to have a lookie-feelie at the Linpus Linux interface.

Thirsting for one of these but at the same time wondering if I should just wait for the EEE 901 that’s going to start shipping in Sweden soon… But the Aspire is more beautiful.. power or appearance ? arghhh….

Decisions, decisions.. going insane trying to decide Anyone got any ideas or recommendations?

An IBM press-release announces that they have joined forces with Canonical (Ubuntu), RedHat and SuSe/Novell in order to bring an alternate desktop solution to the market.

From the press-release:

“Citing shifting market forces and the growing demand for economical alternatives to costly Windows and Office-based computers, the four leaders sense an ideal set of circumstances allowing Linux-based desktops to proliferate in the coming year. Linux is far more profitable for a PC vendor and the operating system is better equipped to work with lower cost hardware than new Microsoft technology.”
[...]
“The four leaders are working with their local business partners in markets around the world to build and distribute a pre-loaded PC offering that features IBM’s Open Collaboration Client Solution (OCCS) (http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/library/occs-overview/) including Lotus Notes, Lotus Symphony and Lotus Sametime; the Linux operating system of each distributor; and software applications and installation services from the local partners in each market. The final product will be branded by the local IT firms that bring it to market. In addition, customers, independent software vendors (ISVs) and systems integrators have the choice of developing applications using Lotus Expeditor based on the open source Eclipse programming model.”

This fits in great right now as the economy is turning down and if CTO’s can cut license costs a bit, they will.

In my opinion, this is not one second too late and hopefully this initiative will open companies eyes to the world of Linux and “free” software.

Meanwhile, Microsoft dyes hair orange to cheer SQL Server 2008 release. Good luck with that.

More at The Register.

My feeling is that Microsoft is slipping in a lot of areas right now and alternatives are being examined where there is possibility to do so.

Vista is/was probably a big mistake, and key features are being turned off in a lot of larger environments for the sake of compatibility with older applications.

The problems companies are facing with this operating system is not very far from what they would be facing if switching to an open source solution as many components need to be rewritten in whole.

The world is changing and there are alternatives to resource-hogging and expensive software. You wanna stay in the game? Then get with it.