I spent two hours fixing my ex-landlady's computer on Tuesday night. For some unknown reason, Windows had decided it was an illegal copy and started throwing up "Your Windows is not genuine" messages all over the place and generally acting truculent.

It's not had that much press (for the general public, that is), but Microsoft recently added a ( Read more... )

BBC News reports: Apple faces iPod patent disputeIn a nutshell, Creative are suing Apple over the software interface used on the iPod; specifically, the multi-level method by which a user browses through their music ( Read more... )

BBC News: Software patent bill thrown out
Well, thank jiminy for that. The US has already demonstrated what a monumental mess it would cause.

It is a scary, scary thing to discover, when tracking down the source of a computer problem, that one of your Windows registry keys has the value of "(invalid value)".

I am now engaged in backing-up everything of vague importance, in case this is a sign that my windows install is about to go kaboom.

I've just arrived home after attending a debate jointly hosted by the Oxfordshire branch of the British Computer Society and the Oxford University Computer Society, on the motion "This house believes that the enthusiasm for Linux and Open Source is a triumph of hope over reality".

( A (rather lengthy) summary of the proceedings... )

Interesting. Tonight, the Oxfordshire branch of the British Computer Society has a debate on the motion "This house believes that the enthusiasm for Linux and Open Source is a triumph of hope over reality", with speakers from Microsoft, HP, SuSE, and Sun.

Sounds good. Now I just need to decide if I can be bothered to go...

According to the BBC News website, Microsoft are planning to prevent users of pirated copies of Windows XP from applying the Service Pack 2 update.
( My opinion... )