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During a recent meeting held at Macromedia's San Francisco headquarters, Silicon Valley companies asked a familiar question: What to do about Microsoft? But the strategy event, sponsored by the World Wide Web Consortium, differed significantly from so many others, at which participants have typically gathered to oppose the software giant's power. This time, Microsoft was the guest of honor. "There's no doubt that there are some people who are happy to see Microsoft get nailed for anything," said Dale Dougherty, a vice president at computer media company O'Reilly & Associates. "But for those of us who are part of the...

City Of Seattle Initiative No. 77 Espresso Tax Yes 13147 31.71% No 28307 68.29%

Seattle Voters Says "HELL NO!" To Expresso Tax By Tim Eyman, WA State Anti-Tax Guru I'm shocked but pleased to announce that Seattle voters finally found a tax they not only disliked, but viscerally hated:  the latte tax.  It went down in flames tonight with 68% of Seattle voters, that's right SEATTLE VOTERS, not saying "no" but "HELL NO!" This is clearly a turning point on taxes in Washington state.  We've always had non-Seattle voters on board our efforts toward more tax sanity.  But now it looks as if voters in Seattle have seen the light. Better late than never....

Seattle voters are defeating a 10 cent per cup espresso tax by a 68% negative vote. The tax was proposed to raise revenues- you guessed it - for the chilrun. Opponents argued that it's a little bit trivializing the important issues of child care, etc. with such a ridiculous, limited, and discriminatory tax. Of course Washington voters defeated the new stadium proposal twice before it was finally rammed down their throats anyways.

Sun may offer Java customers SCO relief By Michael Kanellos Staff Writer, CNET News.com September 10, 2003, 10:04 AM PT Can fear of SCO help Java grow? Sun Microsystems thinks it just might. Sun is contemplating adding an unusual provision to some of its Java licenses under which the company would agree to protect licensees from Linux-related lawsuits filed by the SCO Group. SCO earlier this year asserted that some of the code in Linux infringes on the intellectual property underlying Unix, the 20-plus-year-old operating system that has been owned at different times by AT&T, Novell and now SCO. "You...

So there I was....diggin' into my new laptop....and noticing all the little annoying nuances that have populated my home and download directories...when I came across a couple plugin_trace files. I narrowed these down to Java creations possibly generated by browser errors (primarily netscape). So I google'd "java plugin trace and came across the following discussion which can be found here http://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=226851 . The one post that struck me as odd was this one, however: (snip) The above re-assuring comments are incorrect. I too found these files appearing on my hard drive and they are indeed generated by Sun Java, however...

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy, a driving force behind the company's key technologies, said Tuesday he's leaving after 21 years. "I have decided the time is now right for me to move on to different challenges," Joy said in a press release. He was not immediately available for further comment. Sun shares fell 7 cents to $4.17 in early trading. The stock is up from a trough of $2.34 a share in October 2002, but is down from its 52-week peak of $5.64, set in June. Sun took its usual position among the Nasdaq Composite...

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Krakatoa, a volcanic island in the Sunda Strait between the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra, was said by natives to be the property of Orang Aliyeh, a Javan god who was said to breathe sulfur from his nostrils when all was not well on earth.

Microsoft wins appeal in Java case Windows will not have to include Sun product, court says A federal appeals court dealt a legal blow to Sun Microsystems on Thursday, tossing out most of a preliminary injunction requiring Microsoft to carry its rival's version of an interpreter for the Java programming language. But the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., upheld a requirement that Microsoft cease distributing certain copies of its own Java virtual machine, saying that Microsoft "exceeded the scope" of a January 2001 license agreement with Sun. The three-judge panel said the agreement only gives Microsoft the...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Sun Microsystems Inc. said Dell Computer Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. have agreed to ship Sun's Java software technology on personal computers, a boost to Sun's efforts to popularize the technology. Sun has been struggling to ensure widespread access among PC users to Java since late 2001, when rival Microsoft Corp. decided to stop shipping Java when it introduced its Windows XP operating system. The issue has figured prominently in an antitrust suit filed by Sun against Microsoft, which was prompted by Microsoft's actions against Java during the late 1990s. Java includes a programming language and a...

A brace of Microsoft security vulns pose risks for both home users and corporates. The more serious problem, involving Microsoft's virtual machine (Microsoft VM), which enables Java programs to run on Microsoft Windows, provides a mechanism for attackers to run amok on Windows PCs. Microsoft has released a fix designed to address the problem, which affects users of Windows 98, NT 4, Windows 2000, XP and Windows Me. Attacks including "changing data, loading and running programs, and reformatting the hard disk", might be possible, according to the low-fat version of Microsoft's alert. Well if that doesn't get consumers patching, what...

Bug leaves Windows open to Java attack12:30 Thursday 10th April 2003Matthew Broersma  Microsoft said that its Virtual Machine fails to catch certain malicious code in Java applets, allowing an attacker to take control of a PC Microsoft has warned of three new flaws affecting its software, the most serious of which would allow an attacker to gain full control of a user's PC using a Java applet. The three warnings, all issued on Wednesday, involve the Microsoft Virtual Machine for running Java applets on Windows; a cross-site scripting bug in a component of Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4.0; and a...

Media Release from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade 22 March 2003 - D4 Possible Terrorist Activity in Surabaya, Indonesia The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade advises that it has credible information that terrorist groups with a history of targeting Westerners and Western interests may be planning terrorist activity on or about 23 March in Surabaya, Indonesia. Australians are advised not to travel to Surabaya. Australians in Surabaya are advised to exercise extreme caution, to remain at home wherever possible and to avoid commercial and public places frequented by foreigners such as clubs, restaurants, bars, other...

Microsoft received a reprieve on Monday from a court order requiring the company to ship Sun Microsystems' Java software. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted Microsoft a stay of a Jan. 21 decision from U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz in Baltimore, who gave the company 120 days to begin including Sun's latest Java runtime environment in every copy of Windows and Internet Explorer. Earlier in the day, Microsoft had said that it would comply with Motz's order by beginning to ship an updated version of Windows XP Service Pack 1 that includes a more current Java...

BALTIMORE, Jan 15 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Microsoft Corp. to begin shipping Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Java program within 120 days, after the companies fought over implementing a ruling he made last month. U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz summoned lawyers for both sides in the private antitrust suit to a special hearing on their failure to agree on the exact terms of a preliminary injunction. "I can't sit here hearing after hearing," said Motz. "I want this done in 120 days." Motz ruled on Dec. 23 that Sun had a good chance of winning its...

BALTIMORE - Microsoft must include rival Sun Microsystem's Java programming language in its Windows operating system, a federal judge ruled Monday, handing Sun a victory as it pursues its private antitrust case. Sun had argued during a three-day hearing earlier this month before U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz that Microsoft has gained an unfair advantage by shipping Windows — used by more than 90 percent of the world's personal computers — with an outdated version of Java that's inconsistent for its users. "In the final analysis, the public interest in this case rests in assuring that free enterprise be...

INDONESIAN authorities have released the 'terror handbook' followed by the Bali bombers to kill almost 200 people. The chilling blueprint for the blasts – detailing step by step how to assemble and detonate the explosive devices – was revealed yesterday. Indonesian police said the manual, which was found at a house in Java during the arrest of massacre mastermind Mukhlas earlier this month, was followed to the letter by the bombers. "What is stated in the document, and the materials detailed in it, is exactly what was found [at the bomb site], so what has been done by this terrorist...

Judge Explores Sun Challenge of Microsoft By REUTERS BALTIMORE, Dec. 3 — A federal judge hearing Sun Microsystems' private antitrust suit against Microsoft said today that forcing Microsoft to carry Sun's Java software in the Windows operating system could be an attractive remedy. Judge J. Frederick Motz of Federal District Court had tough questions for both companies during opening arguments, but he seemed sympathetic to the idea of letting Sun's Java compete without "the distortions of the market wrought by the violations Microsoft has done." Microsoft dropped Java, a computer language designed to run on various operating systems, when it...

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- Indonesian police on Wednesday arrested the operations chief of an al-Qaida-linked terror group that has been blamed for the Oct. 12 bombings on Bali, media reports said. Officers arrested the suspect, identified as Mukhlas, in a pre-dawn raid in the central Javanese town of Solo, The Asian Wall Street Journal reported, citing intelligence officials. Last week, Indonesian police said Mukhlas had replaced Riduan Isamuddin, also known as Hambali, as operations chief of the Jemaah Islamiyah terror group. Regional and some Indonesian officials suspect the group, which has been linked to al-Qaida, was behind the Bali...

Delivery of Microsoft Corp's latest server operating system Windows .NET Server 2003 has slipped for a second time, as the company attempts to unify developers around its .NET strategy, writes Gavin Clarke. During his Comdex Fall 2002 opening keynote speech this week, Microsoft's chairman and chief executive Bill Gates finally pinned an official date on the release of the elusive operating system: April 2003. That date means, though, that Windows .NET Server 2003 has now slipped twice. The operating system was initially due "by the middle" of 2002 then "by the end" of 2002, according to Microsoft. The company traditionally...