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 Fix Your Business Network - Fast (February 13, 2008)Source: John Martial bookmark (http://tips4u.tazlog.com/)  Communication: Check In With Clients To Avoid Problems (October 13, 2007)Source: Lifehacker (http://lifehacker.com) | You can avoid many possible miscommunication issues with the people you work with simply by checking in frequently. Productivity blog Bootstrapper has more: Whether it's a simple e-mail once a week... |
 Voting Problems Persist (November 26, 2006)Source: Taegan Goddard's Political Wire (http://politicalwire.com/) "After six years of technological research, more than $4 billion spent by Washington on new machinery and a widespread overhaul of the nation’s voting system, this month’s midterm election revealed that the country is still far from able to ensure that every vote counts," reports the New York Times.
"Tens of thousands of voters, scattered across more than 25 states, encountered serious problems at the polls, including failures in sophisticated new voting machines and confusion over new identification rules."
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 A list of scandalous problems with Mail.app (October 28, 2006)Source: Hawk Wings (http://www.hawkwings.net) | The owner of rtfa.net has posted a list of the things that are annoying, broken or just plain scandalous about Mail.app.
He is an unhappy Apple Mail user: “Well, if Thunderbird integrated with spotlight and OSX address book, it’d be a no-brainer. However, I’m entrenched.”
And life in the trenches with Mail.app is not good.
Three [...] |
Announcement of EU's Microsoft fines delayed by construction problems with huge vault (July 10, 2006)Source: GMSV (http://svextra.com/blogs/gmsv) | If Microsoft feels the European Commission's fines against it were "unjust" at 2 million Euros a day, what will it think when they reach 3 million? We may soon find out. Sources close to the European Commission tell Reuters that... |
Computer Problems at the NSA (May 11, 2006)Source: Schneier on Security (http://www.schneier.com/blog/) | Interesting: Computers are integral to everything NSA does, yet it is not uncommon for the agency's unstable computer system to freeze for hours, unlike the previous system, which had a backup mechanism that enabled analysts to continue their work, said... |
OS X safer than Windows, Macs fuel academic turnaround, potential restore from backup problems, and more, Mac News Review (May 10, 2006)Source: Low End Mac (http://lowendmac.com/) | Future monitors may look back, DisplayPort standard, Apple Keyboard Update for Macintel, 750 GB miniStack, Mac mini coverage, an iMac review, and a digital audio PCIe card for Power Macs. |
1.25 Ghz eMacs Plagued By Capacitor Problems (May 3, 2006)Source: Cult of Mac (http://blog.wired.com/cultofmac/)
Reader Robert wrote into share the problems of his employed with faulty capacitors in a large crop of 1.25 Ghz eMacs, most purchased between July and Sept. 2004.
About July/August of last year, we began seeing a pattern of failures - garbled video, system freezes (like in the OS 9 days - very uncharacteristic of OS X). We first troubleshot this problem as software - reinstalling, reapplying combo updates, et. al. We found that leaving the screen saver turned off seemed to reduce, but not eliminate, the frequency of failures. One machine was luckily repaired a month out of warranty, but we've had 3 more fail since then (and I'm sure we'd find more defective machines if we took them apart and started examining motherboards).
At the same time, his company's Dell OptiPlexes started to fail; some searching uncovered that this was a known issue with Dells of the time. They popped open the broken eMacs, and the same problem with those machines.
We examined the afflicted machines, and sure enough, the capacitors were bulging or broken/leaking. Dell came right out and replaced all of the afflicted machines, warranty or no.
Apple does have a warranty extension program for iMac G5s but nothing for the eMac. It's a big problem when it's present, and judging from continued discussion at MacFixIt and MacInTouch, it's not uncommon, either.
Robert reports an Apple engineer did talk with him briefly, but he's heard nothing for a few months. It's a shame that an industry-wide issue is hitting Macs these days.
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Microsoft Looking Into Patch Problems (April 18, 2006)Source: BetaNews.Com (http://www.betanews.com/) | Microsoft on Tuesday acknowledged that a patch released as part of its monthly updates last week could block some users from accessing "My Documents" or "My Pictures," and crash applications when the "Open" dialog is activated. The problem affects systems with certain HP software and older Nvidia drivers. |
 Another Example Of Patents Holding Back Innovation (April 12, 2006)Source: Techdirt (http://www.techdirt.com/) | Over the years, as we've pointed out the various problems with the patent system, it's never ceased to amaze me that defenders of the system repeatedly like to claim that the patent system only puts in place incentives to innovate. Repeatedly, we've tried to point out that it clearly has two competing forces -- one that adds incentives for some kinds of innovation, and others that hinders innovation. The question is how these two forces balance. For a variety of reasons, it appears that the hindering of innovation is weighing way too heavily on the patent system these days, and that's what we keep trying to point out. To deny that there's any disincentive from the patent system is to willfully ignore basic economics concerning monopoly power (and, perhaps, common sense). Someone who prefers to remain anonymous has passed on the latest such example of the disincentive from the patent system, pointing to the story of a guy who was unable to build an open source proxy system, because it ran afoul of someone's patents even though it appears the idea was created independently. Here's a clear case where the net benefit probably would have been much higher had the guy been allowed to create his software. Obviously, that's not true in every case -- but the point of bringing examples like this up are to show where the patent system fails, and where it can be improved. |
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