Dr. Bill | The Computer Curmudgeon

They’ve already delayed Vista, now it is MS-Office 2007. Is it just me, or is Microsoft suffering from it’s own software bloat issues?

MS-Office 2007 Delayed!

“Talk about getting your wires crossed. In the same week that Microsoft sounded the trumpets for the arrival of their online preview for Office 2007, they’re now announcing a shipping delay for the office suite. ‘Based on internal testing and the beta 2 feedback around product performance, we are revising our development schedule to deliver the 2007 system release by the end of year 2006, with broad general availability in early 2007,’ a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars Technica.”

It hasn’t been voted on in the full Senate yet, but a bill that may destroy the free Internet as we have come to know it, that had already passed the Congress, is now on a fast track to pass through the Senate. We are in for dark days ahead unless the Senate can be made to see that we all benefit from a free an open Internet that is not “faster” for some, and “slower” to the “backwaters” of Internet users that won’t be able to pay gouging prices to be “in the fast lane!”

BBC Article – “Open net calls fall on deaf ears”

“Internet campaigners have failed in a bid to prevent plans for a so-called ‘two-tier’ Internet from going ahead. A US Senate committee has approved a bill which aims to let internet service providers provide some customers – and companies – with preferential services. Under the plans, providers would be allowed to give customers faster Internet access for a fee. ‘Net neutrality’ campaigners have attacked the plan, saying there should be equal access for all web users. The critics argue that the wildfire growth of online services has been driven by the ability to deliver services to anyone.”

Here’s “Ask a Ninja” on Net Neutrality!

Ask a Ninja – Special on Internet Neutrality!

A cool techo-tip! Are you bothered by telemarketers with “auto-dialers?” Well, beat them at their own game!

How to Stop Telemarketer’s Predictive Dialers!

“Most Telemarketers use what is called Predictive Dialers, which are PCs with software that dials every number in a phone exchange until it gets ‘lucky.’ Now you can use their own technology against them, and it’s legal! Here is how their system works: the dialer calls your number, you answer, and you have probably notice the line appears dead after you said, ‘Hello.’ What their computer is doing is listening for a short burst of audio, your ‘HELLO,’ followed by a period of silence. With this heard, it will log your phone number as valid and transfer the call to an available telemarketer, the reason for the delay before someone comes on line… If you call a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service you will hear 3 short tones, ‘doo…dah…dee,’ thanks to Ma-Bell. Each time you Refresh this page you should hear, ‘doo…dah…dee.’ The actual frequency of these tones are 985.2 Hz, 1370.6 Hz, and 1776.7 Hz. Guess what the telemarketers’ software does when it detects these 3 tones at the beginning of your outgoing message? It thinks it has reached a line that is disconnected or is no longer in service. So, it disconnects and does not log your phone number as a working number. BINGO!”

These pictures say it all! Whoa! It is a good thing no one was actually sitting in front of it, when it “went off!”

Dell Laptop Explodes in Flames!

“At a conference in Japan, a Dell laptop suddenly exploded into flames, and lucky for its owner the fiery blast occurred while the PC was sitting on a table and not in his lap. An onlooker reported that the notebook continued to burn, producing several more explosions over the course of about five minutes.”

Here’s a Blog for all the folks leaving Microsoft!

Microsoft Employee’s Blog Message

Cute!

This is a Photoshop tutorial that explains how to rid your photo’s subjects of those unslightly blemishes… it is also instructive that all those good looking ladies that you see in magazines, actually DON’T have perfect skin! (Makes us normal looking people feel better, anyway!)

Photoshop Tutorial – Achieving “Perfect Skin”

The author says, “Hello everyone! I thought I would put this tutorial together, as it seems every time I post an image that I have processed in this way, everyone wants to know how I did it. Rather than explain everytime, I thought I would give something back to the community and submit my own tutorial. I hope some of you out there find it useful.”

A study tells us what we already suspected. 86% of everything running through our e-mail servers today is JUNK!

86% of E-mail is Spam

“‘Of the 25 billion messages we processed in May, an astounding 86 percent were malicious or spam,’ said Andrew Lochart, senior director of marketing for Postini, a messaging security firm based in San Carlos, Calif. As if that wasn’t enough of a headache for corporate IT departments, instant messaging spam soared by 500 percent last month, just as businesses are embracing the technology for customer communications, and increasing their own usage of IM by 138 percent.”

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols seems to think so… he makes the case that Bill Gates is the driving personality behind Microsoft’s “win at all cost” attitude. With him gone, will M$ fade?

Is Gates’ retirement Linux’s chance?

Vaughan-Nichols says, “It was Gates’ vision and his win-at-any-cost drive that pushed Microsoft from being just one of many 1970s software companies to being the Godzilla of software. Anyone who has really looked at Microsoft’s rise knows it was Gates’ business tactics, and not the quality of Microsoft’s software, that made the company what it is today. Can it still be that company without him at the helm? I don’t see it. I don’t see it at all.”