Tag: General

Reported by the AP:

“Last week, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates (news – web sites) confirmed plans to sell antivirus products to both consumers and big businesses by the end of the year. But the Redmond company is mum on cost and features.

Speaking at a security conference, Gates also said the company would give consumers a free tool for combating spyware, a pesky and growing threat that can monitor users’ activities, hinder computer performance and create other hassles. Microsoft also will sell a more sophisticated antispyware product to businesses.”

It’s nice of them to give the end user a free tool to combat spyware. But turning around and charging people and businesses for antivirus and the professional version of the spyware tool is the most ludicrous thing I have ever heard.

Why are they charging you to fix their unsecure software???

I do not see how they can get away with this. This would be similar to a contractor charging you for the shingles he forgot to put on the roof of your house and pay to repair the furniture damaged by the rain that got in.

Unfortunately, President Bush signed the law that limits class action lawsuits last week, so there is not much hope of doing anything about this.

That Mac Mini is looking better and better every day.

For some time I have cringed every time I heard someone using the phrase “mano a mano” incorrectly. You often hear people using it mistakenly in a confrontational tone: “C’mon buddy let’s take this outside. It’s you and me, mano a mano.”

You see, the very first record I bought as a kid in third grade, Hall & Oate’s Private Eyes, had a song called “Mano a Mano”. It was the only song on the album that John Hall sang on, and the lyrics went something like “Mano a mano, hand to hand.” It had to do with world peace or something.

Something told me to place my faith in Hall & Oates rather than American colloquialisms on this one. I was right.

I discovered that Cecil Adams, the author of the Straight Dope series of books, maintains a web site, and had a topic on this issue. Cecil says that it’s understandable that people think the term has to do with confrontation, since “hand to hand”, the translation of the Spanish “mano a mano”, could be mistaken for “hand to hand combat”.

Anyway…just had to get that off my chest. Now back to goat herding.