With our continual coverage of fire and laptops, the Consumerist reported on a Dell laptop that is the most probable culprit in the fire that destroyed his home. Some aspect of the laptop apparently malfunctioned after he left for work, and the fire spread through the entire 130 year old farmhouse.
So far, Dell has yet to respond to the complaint with any degree of serious consideration. We will continue to monitor it for updates.
Continuing our coverage of Vista, we present this article, courtesy of Techrepublic on dispelling Vista myths, and our summary of it.
We are always looking for free and open-source alternatives to software that we would rather not pay for. Since keeping track of such programs is hard…we recently located Osalt.com…Open Source as Alternatives. Given a common piece of software, ie Photoshop…it will produce a lost of alternatives…ie GIMP.
Certainly useful…although it makes little judgement on the quality of the applications. That is up to you.
The other day, Apple’s Steve Jobs called on the four major record companies to start selling songs without digital rights management. “If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players. This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies…” and certainly a positive to Apple…who holds the market share.
Apple has been under pressure in Europe to make iTunes music compatible with players other than the iPod. Jobs suggested that the problem is not Apple, but the record companies it gets the music from. The songs sold are protected by Apple’s proprietary Fairplay software, which only works with iTunes and the iPod.
The Recording Industry Association of America(RIAA), who represents the record companies, suggested more DRM…suggesting they should license their technology to rivals. Analysts blame the software industry for its unwillingness to participate in creating an open and industrywide standard.
The overall idea behind Jobs recommendation is that piracy protection doesn’t work…and thus…if the industry accepts a certain level of piracy…then it will get greater profits from legitimate consumers. The idea works with CDs. Anyone can copy a CD and rip its music…then distribute it with a little bit of work.
Crunchgear reports that the video iPod line will transition completly from hard drive based storage to flash memory. Flash memory is more commonly used in some media players, including the iPod Nano line, due to its decreased power requirements and higher durability.
With increased features and functionality being in demand, and the decreasing cost and storage space of flash memory, the move can be a good one. But 32GB of flash memory is only as good as the lowest standard iPod storage space count…although the availability of larger flash memory modules is no doubt around the corner. Flash memory does have a shorter possible lifespan than hard drive storage, but the estimated lifespan is not that far off the warranty period of a standard hard drive.
We tend to prefer flash memory systems over hard drive ones. Mostly because we can’t foresee needing our entire music collection in our pocket at all times. With video…there is a need for more space to store each hour…but for those who need it…technology marches on.
We reported not long ago on free international calls available by calling Iowa. Now, AT&T has filed a lawsuit in Iowa saying that schemes like this have raised fees billed AT&T from two thousand a month to two million a month. Filed on January 29th, the lawsuit seeks to stop services from using regulatory-fee arbitage to provide international calls for only the price of a call to Iowa.
AT&T insists it is an attempt to bilk them to make a profit. Their main argument in the lawsuit is that since the calls are not really terminated in Iowa, since they are transferred overseas, they should have to pay the fees. We will monitor this as it develops.
