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Microsoft Loan to Help Dell While Avoiding Favoritism | 223 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Microsoft Dell deal would restore PC makers' confidence?
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, February 03 2013 @ 08:09 PM EST
"the world’s third biggest PC maker is expected to announce a $20bn leveraged buyout, taking it off the stock market and putting it back into private hands"

"Microsoft, along with VC Silver Lake Partners, is reported to have lined up $15bn from UK and US banks to finance a deal, making them minority investors in a private Dell. Reports value an estimated $3bn Microsoft contribution as a 10 per cent stake" link

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Files That Last
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, February 03 2013 @ 11:54 PM EST

I've traded a couple of emails with Gary, the guy behind the 'Files That Last' KickStarter Project. It's a great project, Gary knows what he is doing, and I strongly suggest that anyone who hasn't looked at it do so. Yes, he made funding, but I'd really like to see this go Gold.

Gary's got a great idea, and he needs our support.

Files That Last

Wayne
http://madhatter.ca

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

XKCD - Expedition
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, February 04 2013 @ 08:38 AM EST

XKCD Expedition

Enjoy.

Wayne
http://madhatter.ca

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Detailed Analysis of Bilbo’s Contract in The Hobbit
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, February 04 2013 @ 09:17 AM EST
Link to Wired Article
Specialist equipment required in the execution of duties in his professional role as Burglar shall be purchased, procured, purlioned [sic] or obtained by Burglar, by whatsoever method Burglar sees fit..

... so Bilbo gets to keep the one Ring by virtue of his Contract, however apparently Bilbo himself wasen't so sure about that part because he always kept the one Ring secret from the Company (I never understood that part till I read this analysis of his contract .... ) But one might also say he won the one Ring fair and square in the Riddle challenge with Gollum, although I am sure that Gollum would vehemently disagree. At any rate Bilbo avoided any contractual squabbles about his acquisition of the one Ring by keeping it secret from the Dwarves and the rest of the Company ... smart move, No? :-)

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Novell’s Brainshare conference begins Monday
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, February 04 2013 @ 03:10 PM EST
Utah County-based software company hosts annual convention at Salt Palace.

Novell’s Brainshare conference begins Monday

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Attacks on news sites - new names for hackers
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, February 04 2013 @ 05:00 PM EST
A number of articles have appeared in relation to various attacks on news sites.
In a number of them they have talked about hackers (of the oriental variety)
doing the work.

I have been thinking that we should expand our standing terminology for the
perpetrators as follows:

Hackers - normal people who do interesting things with software and hardware
Crackers - Criminal people who do nefarious things with software and hardware
Gackers - Government people who do government (possibly illegal) things with
software and hardware
Mackers - Military people who do military (possibly illegal) things with
software and hardware
Wackers - Weirdo people who do crazy/weird things with software and hardware

Can we think of any more

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Stickam goes buh-bye
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, February 04 2013 @ 07:56 PM EST
http://www.stickam.com/

After seven wonderful years we are incredibly sad to have to say goodbye. We did everything we could to keep this dream alive, but unfortunately you are reading this message.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Taren Kate Stinebrickner-Kauffman wries about Aaron Swartz
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, February 04 2013 @ 08:24 PM EST
I met and fell in love with programmer, writer, activist, thinker, lover, world-changer Aaron Swartz.

We started dating in June 2011, just weeks before he was indicted by the federal government for downloading too many academic journal articles. We moved to New York together in 2012 and were living together in January 2013, at the time of his suicide, while he was facing federal felony charges potentially amounting to over 35 years in prison and $4 million in fines.

This blog is about Aaron’s life, death, and the aftermath thereof, as well as about my life, work, and the many things we both cared about.

Why Aaron Died

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

The best research money can buy?
Authored by: pem on Tuesday, February 05 2013 @ 12:38 AM EST
Apparently the punters are clamoring for Windows tablets! I think I'll go buy some Microsoft sock now. Or maybe just some put options.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Meet the groundbreaking new encryption app set to revolutionize privacy and freak out the feds
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, February 05 2013 @ 11:41 AM EST
Back in October, the startup tech firm Silent Circle ruffled governments’ feathers with a “surveillance-proof” smartphone app to allow people to make secure phone calls and send texts easily.

Now, the company is pushing things even further—with a groundbreaking encrypted data transfer app that will enable people to send files securely from a smartphone or tablet at the touch of a button. (For now, it’s just being released for iPhones and iPads, though Android versions should come soon.) That means photographs, videos, spreadsheets, you name it—sent scrambled from one person to another in a matter of seconds.

“This has never been done before,” boasts Mike Janke, Silent Circle’s CEO. “It’s going to revolutionize the ease of privacy and security.”

Ryan Gallagher, Slate

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Computer giant Dell goes private in complex $24.4B deal
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, February 05 2013 @ 11:50 AM EST
Dell stockholders will be paid $13.65 per share to leave the company on its own. That’s 25 percent more than the $10.88 the stock was going for before word of the buyout talks trickled out last month.

But it’s a steep markdown from the shares’ price of $26 less than five years ago, when the company’s eponymous founder Michael Dell returned for a second go-round as CEO.

Computer giant Dell goes private in complex $24.4B deal

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Novell exec opens Brainshare with promise for better days
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, February 05 2013 @ 12:02 PM EST
Nice photos in the photo gallery including shots of the worst air quality currently in the nation. Come on Motz... you know you want to come back!

Novell exec opens Brainshare with promise for better days

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

New UK Copyright Research Center
Authored by: sciamiko on Tuesday, February 05 2013 @ 01:34 PM EST
I've just seen this, but it may old news to you.

Glyn Moody reports on the launch of a new research centre looking for real evidence on copyright (Techdirt) :

One of the things it hopes to do is to bring some objectivity to the notoriously contentious field of copyright studies by looking at what the evidence really says; so it was perhaps inevitable that it too would meet some resistance from the extremist wing of the copyright world. What's surprising is that it seems to have happened during the launch itself, as Paul Bernal, an academic who was there, reports.
s.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Microsoft Loan to Help Dell While Avoiding Favoritism
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, February 05 2013 @ 04:56 PM EST
Microsoft is using a $2 billion loan to help finance Dell's $24.4 billion buyout to bolster one of the largest makers of computers using Windows software and fend off competition from Google Inc. and Apple Inc.

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive officer, discussed the loan with Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell, according to two people familiar with the negotiations. Microsoft opted for a loan rather than an equity investment to avoid rankling other personal-computer makers that use Windows, said one of the people, who asked not to be named because the matter isn’t public.

Microsoft Loan to Help Dell While Avoiding Favoritism

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Off Topic threads
Authored by: charlie Turner on Tuesday, February 05 2013 @ 07:31 PM EST
Just read that Oracle buys Acme (Packet) for $1.7 Billion. Can't wait for Wile
E. Coyote to take on Larry!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Blackberry - Patent Trolls Cost Phone Industry $30 Billion Per Year
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, February 05 2013 @ 07:33 PM EST

In a story in the CBC on the launch of Blackberry's new Z10 phone, (BlackBerry launches new Z10 phone across Canada) , Thorstein Heins, the head of Blackberry said:

Heins also spoke on Tuesday at Toronto's Empire Club, making a point to discuss how legal battles over patents, especially in the United States, have been detrimental to the mobile technology industry.

"This past year, our sector spent almost $30 billion in courtrooms — particularly in U.S. courtrooms — defending cases against non-practicing entities — or 'patent trolls' — who produce nothing," he said in prepared remarks.

"Patent trolls hold genuine innovators hostage and patents have become weapons in an international technology arms race. This is crazy. We have to shift our resources from litigation back to innovation, investment and job creation."

Let's hope that people listen to him.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

DoE 'Linux' server hacked? ..
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, February 05 2013 @ 10:03 PM EST
"The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) is the latest federal agency to become the victim of a cyberattack while not immediately being aware of it".

"Gertz reported that the sources told him that 14 computer servers and 20 workstations were penetrated, that personally identifiable information of several hundred employees was compromised, but that no classified information was exposed"

'Tommy Stiansen, CTO of Norse, said McCallum is correct, "given the information I can get from the Internet, I'm personally sure .. The DoE server, their Linux box, tells me they're not security minded .. The box is outdated, not hardened and there is not adequate security in front of it" ' link

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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