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-------------------http://www.zdnet.com/eweek/stories/general/0,11011,2799103,00.html----------------------------
Gates plays games with rivals,
Java
By Spencer F. Katt July 27, 2001 1:54 PM ET
Ever wonder what Bill Gates does in his spare time?
The Kitty found out it might all be fun and games. At a recent Microsoft
Global Sales conference in Miami, Mr. Bill displayed an old computer game that
he wrote in BASIC several years ago. In the game, a driver tries to avoid
oncoming donkeys. Gates showed the crowd that he's spiced up his old creation
with a little XML here and a little .Net there. With the addition of the XML and
some development tools from Visual Studio .Net, Gates showed that his old BASIC
game was now a dynamic 3-D game where the driver travels over varied terrain and
the donkeys can be turned into different characters. So, whom did he turn the
donkeys into, you may ask? None other than Larry Ellison and Scott McNealy. "At
least he didn't actually make asses out of them," quipped the Kitty.
His Hirsuteness chuckled at Symantec's attempt to capitalize on all the
security worries around Microsoft's Windows products. Launching a clever PR
campaign last week, the anti-virus
software
maker sent out an interesting package with a CD containing Build 31c of
Symantec's Norton Anti Virus 2002, which includes "protection" for Windows XP. A
note accompanying the package stated, "You are without protection due to the
fact that it [Windows XP] is still a beta product. We at Norton feel it is
important to protect your system during your evaluation of Windows XP."
"Me-ouch," mused the Mouser.
Future XP users who intend to download Java from Microsoft's Web site may
want a security blanket of their own, according to a friend of the Furry One.
Although it's common knowledge that Microsoft is dropping support for Java in
XP, the tattler claims what hasn't been widely reported is that Microsoft has
supposedly raised the security classification of Java from medium risk to high
risk. That could mean that Java applets may not run in the Windows XP version of
Internet Explorer if the security settings are set too high.
The tipster added that he's found that Java doesn't run at all under Outlook
or Outlook Express if they are running the default settings. According to the
tattler, users might find that it may not be just a matter of downloading the
Java engine—users might actually have to reconfigure their machines and drop
their security settings to run Java.
It seems Microsoft may be considering closing the San Francisco office of
bCentral, its small-business portal operation. A Katt crony claims that a
spokeswoman for Redmond confirmed last week that it was indeed evaluating its
resources at the bCentral office in San Francisco, which contains some 40
people, but said no final decision on a closing had been made. "The San
Francisco office is the only office being evaluated as far as I'm aware," said
the spokeswoman.
While surfing the Web, El Gato spotted a site called makeashorterlink.com.
This Web site provides a simple service--when you find a page on the Web whose
address is too long to paste into an e-mail or other document, you can use this
free service to generate a shorter, simpler address. The site claims that you
can pass that shorter URL on to colleagues by e-mail confident that most e-mail
clients will recognize it as a URL and turn it into a clickable
item. Regards, Peter E Luke ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mere Meaningless Diversions? Or what's really happening? Visit or Sign Up Today & Find Out! Website: http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html To Get on the Bus: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Diversionz ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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