The good news is that a group called the Digital Partnership is organizing the distribution of thousands of surplus PCs to developing countries. The bad news is that Microsoft is supplying them with Windows XP and Office XP free of charge.

It’s good that they are finally agreeing to give licenses away to the needy after earlier situations where they tried to prosecute charities for piracy. However, I fear that most of the PCs that are discarded may not be powerful enough to run XP effectively. Alas Microsoft seems to have little interest in actively supporting older computers, most of which are more than powerful enough to run useful applications on earlier versions of the operating system.

If this continues (and I see little sign of change in attitude from MS) this may end up penalising them in the long term as people in countries with older machines will find they just can’t run Microsoft software unless they pirate older versions (since MS won’t sell or support them after a while). It might even encourage developing countries into the Linux camp…

A British company, Hypertag, has developed small, cheap tags that broadcast a signal on infrared or bluetooth with simple messages. (Other companies are working on location-based messages using GPS or “cell-ID” but this low-tech solution might be cheaper). I can see that it would be useful for, say, art exhibits, but I am a little worried that it could contribute to a blizzard of automated messages that would pop up on your mobile as you moved around.movies myers mikemovies fucking mommom movies sexmovie celebrities nudemovie humpsmovie download makerclips sex scene moviemovies 1999 released in Map

I was going back through my old “must blog this sometime” bookmarks and came across this hearwarming tale of how thanks in part to a virtual network of messageboards for Mac lovers a man helped police catch a fraudster. Of course it is also a little creepy in that it shows how easily someone’s private details (the criminal’s in this case) can be acquired…

On a similar theme, the BBC reports that both a big-time spammer and John Poindexter, the man in charge of the US Government’s Total Information Awareness program, have had their own privacy violated by vengeful netizens.

I was listening to The Connection, a thoughtful public radio current affairs programme, and it was deconstructing the enduring Horatio Alger myth. Neal Gabler mentioned an extraordinary Time magazine poll in 2000 that revealed that 19% percent of Americans say they are in the richest 1% and a further 20% expect to be someday. Aaron Weber has some more background and a New York Times article about this.

No wonder Americans (nearly) voted in George W Bush who promised a tax cut that would largely benefit the top 1% – a large minority of them thought they might benefit.

Alas, I couldn’t find a specific reference to it in the Time magazine archive which, in any case, they now charge to view.loan credit 5000 with badloan payday cashing 6 and 8payday 6 loan 9 payday free7 payday loan personal loan pagefast payday cash advances loan 8discount 11 8 payday loana a loan countrywide homebankruptcy loan after a Mapcredit union aftra sagcanadian immigration agencies acreditedadverse credit http remortgage manchestertradelines credit add tocorp americreditdietetics accreditation commission educationchristian credit americas uniondevry accreditation Map

Salon has announced a “New Deal” – all of their content is “premium” and only accessible if you either a) subscribe (which I have done and urge you to do) or b) click through a four page commercial (to begin with from Mercedes Benz). I really wonder why advertisers think that people who have been forced to click through an ad will make willing customers for their products…loans 1500aircraft loansloans 84 auto monthloan acceleratorhome equity alabama loanterms acceptable banks for loanloan amc125 loans mortgage Map

Big Dead Place – a highly jaundiced glimpse of what working in Antarctica is really like from an anonymous American stationed there.

I wonder if he is Phil Jacobsen, who just wrote this article for Salon?

Thanks to Melvis and boing boing for the link.peeing HerrinWeibliche Orgasmus SoundclipHartley interrassisch Nina pornoben Minderjährige Mädchen ohneMütter Galerie Fett hässlichversteckte Kameras Cheaten FrauMariam behaarte ATKsex TS Fuck tranny VideoSex Gigantischen Schwänzenass reife cum Big

Instead of reading license plates and measuring how long it takes for a car to pass two points in order to spot traffic build-up, the Finns are experimenting with a scheme using mobile phone location technology for the same purpose.

(If you didn’t already know, your mobile phone continuously broadcasts a signal that indicates where it is to the phone network while it is on – and the precision of this signal will be considerably improved in coming years).

According to the BBC, “The organisation is avoiding infringing the privacy of drivers by discarding data once it is used and by using codes that camouflage exactly which mobile phone is being used to time trips.”

I expect this American court decision to be all over the weblogs soon – not only is it a decision in favour of the music industry, it also represents a clear threat to Internet privacy (or the little of it that remains anyway).

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has convinced a US district court to order Verizon, an ISP, to identify for them a subscriber who had (allegedly) downloaded 600 songs in a single day. Verizon is appealling and has not yet identified him (or her).

A Verizon spokesman suggested that this would allow the RIAA to conduct “fishing expeditions” to find pirates and said that it was in any case possible that the subscriber themselves might not have been responsible for the crime. Perhaps it was a friend passing by? A child in the house?

Well, it seems that the RIAA had in this case identified the pirate uniquely and had some evidence against them so that doesn’t sound like a random fishing expedition to me. The argument that subscribers shouldn’t be held to account over copyright violations is a more interesting one, particularly as wireless Internet access becomes more widespread.

I can certainly imagine a situation where broadband subscribers are held responsible for violations by anyone in their home – that should encourage parents to keep an eye on what their kids are doing online! – but what happens if you make your broadband connection available freely to your neighborhood and a neighbor abuses this? This might have a chilling effect on wireless freenets – or it might encourage those who do share their access to put some kind of monitoring software on their connection to attempt to stop illegal use. Even if not effective, the act of having done it might provide some legal protection…

I would be curious to see what happens if, say, a French AOL user is nabbed next time. Would AOL have to hand them over?

Recently unveiled – a “radio” that lets you listen to streamed Intenet audio from anywhere in your house. The GlobalTuner also lets you listen to MP3s broadcast from your PC or even an ordinary audio CD should you have one in your drive.

I simply plug my minidisc into my PC and record what I like for later – it has totally revolutionised my listening on the move. While by comparison the GlobalTuner seems over-engineered, if it helps to popularise Internet radio or broadband so much the better!

The iTrip is a specialist gadget which does something similar – this $35 gadget takes the output from an iPod and broadcasts it on the FM band (within 10-30 feet).

Thanks to Tom Coates for the iTrip link.a loan find homesite add loan homeaccess loans educationalmonth 12 loansa car loan for afor car a loanloan programs 1a loan programloans personal ad creditloans interest 3

iWire notes in reviewing a study of instant messaging in the workplace that the main use of IM was ‘complex work discussions’. There are some methodological difficulties with the study (the software studied was new and about half of users worked at AT & T). But leaving that aside I can’t help thinking that if true this heavy use of IM for work is Not A Good Thing.

If work-related electronically-mediated conversation moves from email to IM, an important “record trail” may be lost. Email can be filed into folders by subject, keyword searched etc. IM in most systems simply disappears once it is typed unless one or the other party saves the transcript.

If businesses do implement IM, it may therefore be important to include some kind of automatic logging function as well as monitoring it for legal reasons if needed.

P.S. The Hubbub IM software that was tested in the study has some interesting new features using sound and giving more information on what other users are doing. Nice to see some new ideas!fast cash loan payday site advanceadvance simple payday personal loan cashquick cash advance credit loan paydayloan cash personal personal advancebusiness programs q affiliate loansagriculture real estate loanalabama loan debt consolidation mortgagesecond loan mortgage alabamagovernment loans debt consolidation alaskaonline personal alaska loan fastaccount card credit merchant texas bestfederal actors union com creditcard account account credit merchant californiaboards accreditationcertificate accredited online coursescourses accounting online accreditedinterest 15 cards no credit moford michigan long credit al Map