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According to slashdot it comes with new versions of IE & OE. They don’t mention the numbers but it’s got to be at least 6.1.

As I understand it, if you have a licensing question you can call customer service. They *should not* charge your credit card for a licensing question-but they require that you give them the number before they’ll listen to your question. I guess they do that just in case the question leads into an area for which they do charge support.

As for the ‘logic’ of buying a second copy, Microsoft intends that you think of Office as a single program. In those terms you can remove all of Office Standard from the first machine & install it on the 2nd. The reason for buying a second copy is because the OEM license for Office Basic doesn’t allow you to install it on the 1st. Not Microsoft’s issue in this case-I know of OEM’s who don’t use a restrictive license for their versions of Office. (White box OEM’s-and I don’t recall whether or not their versions of Office are OEM or Retail. It’s been a couple of years since I last bought Office pre-installed.)

As I understand it, if you have a licensing question you can call customer service. They *should not* charge your credit card for a licensing question-but they require that you give them the number before they’ll listen to your question. I guess they do that just in case the question leads into an area for which they do charge support.

As for the ‘logic’ of buying a second copy, Microsoft intends that you think of Office as a single program. In those terms you can remove all of Office Standard from the first machine & install it on the 2nd. The reason for buying a second copy is because the OEM license for Office Basic doesn’t allow you to install it on the 1st. Not Microsoft’s issue in this case-I know of OEM’s who don’t use a restrictive license for their versions of Office. (White box OEM’s-and I don’t recall whether or not their versions of Office are OEM or Retail. It’s been a couple of years since I last bought Office pre-installed.)

A lot of this advice can be summarized as ‘be suspicious’. Not bad advice IMO but not advice that a lot of people are inclined to follow. (Even I feel that there’s already too much paranoia in our world. But then I seem to be able to treat suspicion as ‘wait & see’ while most people I know treat suspicion as ‘be afraid’.)

Anyway, what I think is needed is changes by the institutions most impersonated. Too many of them seem dedicated to making it hard to contact them-either no email address at all or an email address to which nobody responds. The last time I tried to contact eBay about a possible fraud I spent a good 10 minutes figuring out how-and even then it was a form, not an email. Apparently the only fraud in which they are interested is if it concerns an auction. (Even worse, many people dislike ‘reporting’ something as fraud when all they really want to do is ask whether or not it is a fraud.)

Toolbars showing actual sites are OK, but I’d rather stay away from a phishing site vs. go there & then find out what it is.

A lot of this advice can be summarized as ‘be suspicious’. Not bad advice IMO but not advice that a lot of people are inclined to follow. (Even I feel that there’s already too much paranoia in our world. But then I seem to be able to treat suspicion as ‘wait & see’ while most people I know treat suspicion as ‘be afraid’.)

Anyway, what I think is needed is changes by the institutions most impersonated. Too many of them seem dedicated to making it hard to contact them-either no email address at all or an email address to which nobody responds. The last time I tried to contact eBay about a possible fraud I spent a good 10 minutes figuring out how-and even then it was a form, not an email. Apparently the only fraud in which they are interested is if it concerns an auction. (Even worse, many people dislike ‘reporting’ something as fraud when all they really want to do is ask whether or not it is a fraud.)

Toolbars showing actual sites are OK, but I’d rather stay away from a phishing site vs. go there & then find out what it is.

I find the classification of frozen food as ‘fresh’ mush stranger than the fruit/vegetable problem.

I tried going to the link to see if it mentioned the reasoning behind this (mis)classification but it seems to be down. Or busy. Or something-whatever the cause I couldn’t reach the site right now.

I find the classification of frozen food as ‘fresh’ mush stranger than the fruit/vegetable problem.

I tried going to the link to see if it mentioned the reasoning behind this (mis)classification but it seems to be down. Or busy. Or something-whatever the cause I couldn’t reach the site right now.

AFAIK fruit is both a botanical & a culinary designation-and there’s no reason why the two designations need to coincide. (Of course I’m not into cooking-I’m into eating-so maybe I’m wrong about the culinary designation. What’s the culinary designation of an apple?)

AFAIK fruit is both a botanical & a culinary designation-and there’s no reason why the two designations need to coincide. (Of course I’m not into cooking-I’m into eating-so maybe I’m wrong about the culinary designation. What’s the culinary designation of an apple?)

Difficult to implement due to the existence of several different formats for the same media. Not impossible though-they did it for floppies (Mac-formatted floppies were, for years, identified by PC’s as ‘unformatted’). My personal suspicion is that MS couldn’t find a proprietary format they could use so opted not to use any by default.

Difficult to implement due to the existence of several different formats for the same media. Not impossible though-they did it for floppies (Mac-formatted floppies were, for years, identified by PC’s as ‘unformatted’). My personal suspicion is that MS couldn’t find a proprietary format they could use so opted not to use any by default.

FWIW we’ve had better luck networking ‘non-networkable’ printers using external print servers than going thru workstations. Theoretically there’s no difference, but in practice it just seems to work better that way. Of course we’re on a mixed network & all our printers are on Netware so I can’t help you directly-just thought I’d mention an alternative.

FWIW we’ve had better luck networking ‘non-networkable’ printers using external print servers than going thru workstations. Theoretically there’s no difference, but in practice it just seems to work better that way. Of course we’re on a mixed network & all our printers are on Netware so I can’t help you directly-just thought I’d mention an alternative.

I don’t mind disagreement. Probability increases with time so the only thing I see in your reasoning that isn’t in mine is the pooling-and the entire question of insurance is whether or not the cost of pooling is worth the benefit, i.e. ROI. If the premiums are low & the risk is high then insurance certainly has a high ROI and is worthwhile. I haven’t found that to be the case however.

While pooling spreads the risk it also spreads the cost. In my experience insurance, over time, costs at least as much as the occurrence against which it insures. Since I don’t think I’m any better at calculating the odds than the insurers are I doubt if I can make any sort of profit from them-and a profit can come as easily from reduced expenses as from increased income. If the odds are good that I’ll be facing a ruinous patent infringement lawsuit then the premium for insuring against that will be ruinous as well-anything else & it’ll be the insurance company that goes belly up.

If lawsuits are going to be rare enough for the insurance company to make a profit without charging a ruinous premium then the odds that I’ll be facing one are also low. The basic idea of insurance is that some things are so ruinous that you should ignore the odds. I disagree-I’m always willing to place a bet on whichever side the odds favor as long as the return matches the odds. If it doesn’t then it’s not a fair game-and that’s the way insurance looks to me.

I don’t mind disagreement. Probability increases with time so the only thing I see in your reasoning that isn’t in mine is the pooling-and the entire question of insurance is whether or not the cost of pooling is worth the benefit, i.e. ROI. If the premiums are low & the risk is high then insurance certainly has a high ROI and is worthwhile. I haven’t found that to be the case however.

While pooling spreads the risk it also spreads the cost. In my experience insurance, over time, costs at least as much as the occurrence against which it insures. Since I don’t think I’m any better at calculating the odds than the insurers are I doubt if I can make any sort of profit from them-and a profit can come as easily from reduced expenses as from increased income. If the odds are good that I’ll be facing a ruinous patent infringement lawsuit then the premium for insuring against that will be ruinous as well-anything else & it’ll be the insurance company that goes belly up.

If lawsuits are going to be rare enough for the insurance company to make a profit without charging a ruinous premium then the odds that I’ll be facing one are also low. The basic idea of insurance is that some things are so ruinous that you should ignore the odds. I disagree-I’m always willing to place a bet on whichever side the odds favor as long as the return matches the odds. If it doesn’t then it’s not a fair game-and that’s the way insurance looks to me.