I'm going to spend the rest of the week thinking of something I can patent 
        so that I can do nothing and eventually sue the company that independently 
        comes up with and actually manages to produce my idea. 
      
Seriously, 
are 
        these guys at NTP
 geniuses, or what?    
      
 
	
Posted by Lee Pender on November 07, 20061 comments
          
	
 
            
                
                
 
    
    
	
    Microsoft finally has some allies in its ongoing battle with third-party security vendors.
With Symantec and McAfee still moaning about how hard Microsoft is making it for third parties to develop for Vista and how Redmond still hasn’t fully opened the Vista kernel for security vendors, one security player is wondering what all the complaining is about. 
 More
	Posted by Lee Pender on October 24, 20062 comments
          
	
 
            
                
                
 
    
    
	
    So they’re both out now, 
IE7
  and (the much 
cooler, apparently
) 
Firefox 2.0
 from Mozilla.
Let Browser War II begin! Or at least continue. Right? Well, sort of. It’s great that Firefox is around to kick Microsoft in the shins a little bit and get Redmond to improve its offering. That’s the benefit of competition coming to the fore.
 More
	Posted by Lee Pender on October 24, 20061 comments
          
	
 
            
                
                
 
    
    
	
    And 
he specified
 that half a billion of it will be spent in Europe ... ahem.
 
	
Posted by Lee Pender on October 17, 20060 comments
          
	
 
            
                
                
            
                
                
 
    
    
	
    "The simple things you see are all complicated
I look pretty young, but I'm just back-dated, yeah"
--from the song "Substitute" by The Who
I called my bookie today. OK, I'm not a gambler and don't have a bookie, but I found one to call, anyway. I had just had the greatest idea ever. Here’s how the conversation went down:
Bookie: "Yo. Whattaya want?"
 More
	Posted by Lee Pender on October 12, 20063 comments
          
	
 
            
                
                
            
                
                
 
    
    
	
    Seriously, do you think Steve Ballmer has ever 
watched a NASCAR race
? Just wondering ... maybe he’s a fan.    
 
	
Posted by Lee Pender on October 05, 20060 comments
          
	
 
            
                
                
 
    
    
	
    Not that they’re hurting or anything, but their 
bonuses were down a bit
 for fiscal 2006, partly because the company’s stock lost value due to delays in releasing Vista. Makes you wonder whether there was any coincidence with 
this story
 More
	Posted by Lee Pender on October 05, 20060 comments
          
	
 
            
                
                
 
    
    
	
    File 
this one
 under completely unsurprising news updates.   
 
	
Posted by Lee Pender on October 05, 20060 comments
          
	
 
            
                
                
 
    
    
	
    Oh dear.
As if the furor over Windows Genuine Advantage -- which just keeps going and going -- wasn’t enough, Microsoft said this week that Vista (and Longhorn server, if it ever comes out) will include a whole slew of new, built-in anti-piracy protections. Vista, with these new protections embedded in it, will shut down or severely cripple critical elements of the operating system (think Aero and Internet Explorer) if a user’s copy trips the anti-piracy alarm as being unregistered or improperly activated. And this isn’t just a consumer thing. Business users and partners are going to have to mess with the new activation scheme, too. In fact, the whole thing is quite complicated, as Mary Jo Foley’s excellent Q&A explains ... and it’s eventually coming to every Microsoft product.
 More
	Posted by Lee Pender on October 05, 20065 comments
          
	
 
            
                
                
 
    
    
	
    It’s getting nasty in Northern California. You know things are bad when your chairwoman and -- get this -- chief ethics officer (pause for laughter) 
face felony charges
. Right, HP? 
Then there’s Apple -- Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, where have you gone? -- where the stock-options scandal has led to a resignation.
 More
	Posted by Lee Pender on October 05, 20060 comments