Edition #25

DID ANYTHING ELSE HAPPEN LAST WEEK?
Well after the bombshell news about Xtra's site last week it's hard to believe that anything else happened in the industry. Unfortunately following that story swallowed up a fair amount of Aardvark time this week so this page is a little thinner than usual. Should be back to normal next week though.

I'm not going to make any comments regarding the Xtra situation except to say that I hope you'll be completing the survey mentioned in Monday's Aardvark Daily.

GO FOR IT ORIELLY!
What is the true value of a piece of software? I guess it depends on what name you give it.

Let's take Microsoft's NT operating system for example. It comes in two flavours - NT Workstation and NT Server. According to Microsoft, NT Server has been developed to meet the rigorous demands of server-type applications while NT Workstation is designed with different objectives in mind. If they aren't the same product then one would expect that the different prices (and it's quite a significant difference) would reflect the difference in development costs and anticpanted sales volumes - right?

Well maybe not...

O'Rielly and Associates, a US publishing company is preparing to release details of how NT workstation can be converted to NT Server simply by making some minor changes to the registry.

Although Microsoft insists that the two products are designed differently for distinctly different roles, O'Rielly is adamant that they've found an undocumented method of turning the workstation version into the server version.

Apparently, despite Microsofts assertions that the two versions have quite distinct differences, the key operating system components, NTOSKRNL.EXE, KERNEL32.DLL, TCPIP.SYS, SRV.SYS and HAL.DLL are identical between workstation and server releases.

This information will be published on Monday (US time) at http://software.ora.com/news.

Mark Russinovich, a consulting associate for Open Systems Resources Inc has written a utility to perform the registry changes and this has been tested and verified by PC Week Labs in the USA.

It sure looks as if O'Rielly have it in for Microsoft on this one, they're comming out with all guns blazing with a web page which reads "How O'Rielly is Defending Web Users From Microsoft's Anti-Web Practices". I can see litigation looming here!

Microsoft have not yet commented on whether they intend to take any action over this matter.

ONLY IN THE USA?
Last week Aardvark Daily reported that AOL was planning to block the delivery of junk email sent to its subscribers. Horray!!! was the cry of thousands. Unfortunately the junk emailers were not impressed and decided take court action. Well they won an injunction that prohibited AOL from installing such blocks.

It seems that the main offender, Cyber Promotions regularly sends up to a total of 1.8 million pieces of unsolicited email to AOL each and every day!

AOL plans to appeal the ruling and the case will be heard in November.

IS A PENTIUM A PENTIUM A PENTIUM?
So you've just bought a brand new PC with a Pentium processor. Did you realise that not all Pentium CPUs are created equally? You might have really good one, or you might have a "really crusty" one. What are the differences and how can you tell? Well take a look at this site for some inside info. Perhaps it might be worthwhile being a little more specific when you order that new PC.

RIGHT OF REPLY
Anyone mentioned by Aardvark who feels that they have been misrepresented or who wish a "right of reply" are invited to send email to me at ror@aardvark.co.nz and the contents of that email will be printed verbatim for all to read.

FROM THE "I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S TRUE" DEPARTMENT: This is the site of the company which is currently sending almost two million unsolicited junk-emails per day to AOL subscribers. Can you believe that they are offering to teach you the truth about responsible bulk e-mail???? Cyber Promotions Note: this site has been up and down a bit, if you can't get through, try again later.

So You Don't Forget!
Click here if you want an email each time a new issue of Aardvark is published.

CONFIDENTIALITY: Note that your email address will be kept totally confidential and not released to any third parties for any reason. Aardvark values the patronage of its readers and won't be compromising that patronage for the sake of a quick buck! (besides which it's probably illegal under the privacy act :-)

Feel free to drop me a line if you have any comments on this publication or interesting news you think might appeal to Aardvark readers.. I'm always keen to receive criticism (constructive or otherwise).

The entire contents of this publication are copyright 1996 to Bruce Simpson, all rights reserved. Don't copy it without my permission - just ask, I'm unlikely to refuse any reasonable request.

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