A Linux.com article asks the question. “Two years ago I was bold and naive enough to assert that my mother would be able
to switch to Linux by now. And if Linux were ready for her, I think there’s a pretty
good possibility that she would do just that. You see, she, like so many other people
with years of experience being an end user, despises Windows. Once a month she
routinely sends a 10-page essay on her latest Windows escapade, which frequently
ends with something like ‘and after 45 minutes on the phone with Compaq tech
support, they had me reinstall Windows and the problem seems to have gone away.’
She always jokes about being an old dog that can’t learn new tricks, but given a
feasible alternative to Windows, I think she’d jump.”

From Mercurycenter.com: “Hollywood has teamed up with some of the biggest players in computer storage
technology to build a copy-prevention scheme into every hard drive and
memory card — opening a new front in the war against online piracy.

If widely adopted, the technology would make it more difficult for consumers to
duplicate copyrighted files such as music and movies without the permission of
the companies that own the rights. Hard drives and memory cards are used to
store information on everything from personal computers and MP3 music
players to digital cameras and palm-size organizers.”

Wired.com reports on fears that ‘Tens of thousands of computer systems may have been secretly invaded by “zombies” that could suddenly spring to life over
the upcoming holiday weekend.
The zombie computers, controlled remotely by crackers, will then eat the brains of the Internet.” That paranoia is brought to you by the National Infrastructure Protection Center.

Reuters reports that 2001 may not turn out any better for Microsoft than 2000 did. Profit warnings from 2000 could carry over, and there’s still that little anti-trust legal matter hanging over the company’s head.

Reader garym sends this tidbit: “As much as I hate to slant someone’s poll, this one is too prominent to ignore: The Globe and Mail Technology site, easily one of Canada’s most influential and well-read business technology news sources, has just announced it’s new reader poll asking, ‘Have you ever used the Linux operating system?’ “

It’s a brave new world out there, reports ZDNET.co.uk – MIT’s Technology Review
magazine predicts what groundbreaking technology will lead
us into our cyberfuture

From ZDNET.co.uk: “Notebook manufacturing is rapidly migrating to mainland China, a
move that will inevitably lead to lower laptop prices.

The major Taiwanese notebook makers — which design and
manufacture a substantial portion of the notebook PCs sold
worldwide–have recently detailed plans to produce notebook
components and perform partial assembly in China next year.
These companies also are lobbying for laws that would allow them
to produce complete notebooks on the mainland — right now, it’s
illegal.”

Motor is a great new IDE for programming under Linux. In this
second part of the series, the author looks at more advanced issues
including debugging using the gdb front-end, CVS and some of the
new features in Motor 2.0. Tutorial here on FreeOS.com–Mayank

From ZDNET.co.uk: “IBM on Thursday proclaimed itself fastest of the fast in low-end
Unix uniprocessor workstations.

The company announced a pair of additions to its entry-level
RS/6000 44 P Model 170 Unix workstation, which the company
claims will make the machine fastest in its class.”

Apache Week holiday special feature: This is the first of two articles by Joe Orton on WebDAV, the distributed authoring protocol for HTTP. The first article explains what WebDAV is, and the current state of client and server support. The next article will describe how to add WebDAV support to your Apache server.