Anonymous Reader writes “Interview with the CEO of The Sync and author of “/etc: GeekTV”,
Thomas Edwards.

http://www.linuxfreak.org/articles.db/03/15/2001/647.html“

The CBC reports that a simple tool dropped a few days ago by the crew of the space shuttle Discovery and Space Station Alpha came back to haunt the space-craft pair Wednesday, when it threatened to come within 100 metres of the spacecraft traveling at over 28,000 kilometres per hour.

highlander writes “Talk about browser and all that the users can think of is IE or Netscape. And, if you dare to look for something other than the big two, chances are that youll land up with their clever clones. But, here’s a browser that could teach the biggies a thing or two about features. …
Read more about CrystalPort, here“

Linux Journal has an open letter to ICANN, the Internet Corporiation for Assigned Names and Nmubers, arguing that restrictions should not be put on the .org top-level domain, as exists on .edu, .mil and .gov.

Intel has released its math kernel library for Linux. Version 5.1 Beta features BLAS, FFTs, LAPACK, and VML. Registration is required.

From CNET News.com: “In a move some are calling the height of chutzpah, a plaintiff identified only as an Indianapolis-based “Anonymous Publicly Traded Company” sued AOL Time Warner’s America Online in an attempt to learn the names of five people who posted criticism of the company on AOL message boards. The company said the John Does posted “defamatory and disparaging material misrepresentations.”” The Virginia Supreme Court was not amused; the company was told to identify itself or drop the matter.

From Slashdot: “evenprime writes “In this zdnet column, Evan Leibovitch responds to linux critics who say that Caldera and Red Hat will be the only distributions to survive. Evan points out that the diversity of available distributions, and the ability to roll your own, is a great strength.” The arguement Evan makes is one that, IMHO, is correct – and people need to remember that the diversity of the distributions isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sure, maybe the commericial variants will move down to a couple, but I think for the overall community, diversity is a strength. “

The San Francisco Chronicle (via Computer News Daily) reports that Bay Area women’s professional group Gracenet awarded Big Blue its DisGraceful Award in Advertising. The raspberry was granted for promoting subsidiary Lotus with a print ad “that shows a man, working on a laptop, who has just learned discounted cash flow techniques with 40 other analysts, while the woman, doing a crossword puzzle, has just learned a five-letter word for belly button.” IBM says that it hasn’t received any other complaints about the ad.

Crisis? What crisis? “At a time when many technology customers are scaling back, International Business Machines says it is boosting its ad budget by 17 percent, or $110 million, in a move to increase sales and market share of its software products.” From the Wall Street Journal (via ZDNet News).

ZDNet News reports that Microsoft will add appointment scheduling features to its .Net lineup. The new services will likely be repurposed from WebAppoint.com, a privately held Silicon Valley startup that Microsoft purchased without fanfare late last year.