Microsoft capitulated to customer pressure and announced that it will continue extended support for Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition and Windows Millennium Edition until June 30, 2006.

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Until DS finds a new home (or possibly even afterward if it turns out that that new home isn't carried in many parts of the country) why don't we follow along with the releases of the DS episodes on DVD? If you check out the forum's January calendar, you'll see that I've already set up a schedule (today's entry for Ep #558 coincides with the montage currently displayed on the BoardIndex). And because the DVD sets each contain 40 episodes and are being released every other month, I've limited things to one episode per weekday (with a few pre-emptions here and there so we don't run out of episodes before the next set gets released  ).

Those of you who aren't buying the DVDs can watch your MPI tapes or tapes that you may have made from watching on Sci-Fi. And those who may not have any tapes can follow along by reading the illustrated Robservations summaries, which will be reposted to coincide with the schedule.

Just because the Sci-Fi channel doesn't want to run DS anymore, there's absolutely no reason why we should let that stop us from watching and discussing our favorite show as a group, right? 

From now until New Years the 12 Nights of Christmas montages will be displayed on the BoardIndex and all the regular montages for the DS episodes will be displayed atop Current Talk.

Yes, we'd seen a couple (Carolyn and Jeb) in bed before, but there was never the absolute indication that they'd ever had sex. (Poor Jeb, well, who knows what sort of affect being persued by everyone's "favorite" effect, the shadow of death, might have had on his, uh, "manly abilities" - particularly considering that for all intents and purposes he should have already been dead.  ).

But in episode #1202, there's absolutely nothing left unawswered - Bramwell and Catherine! - yes, two DS characters!! - actually had sex!!!! 

Unlike their fellow smileys, these poor smileys have no memorable names.   Please save them from this terrible tragedy by suggesting better names for them in this topic (though you might want to check the fine print below first). Simply type their number, followed by your suggestion.

I'm sure the smileys would thank you if they could...

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But the REALLY exciting part is in the fine print: Once all the smileys have been given a new name, one lucky participant in this thread will be chosen at random to document each and every post in the forum's well over 40,000 that these poor, unfortunate smileys have already appeared in so that each and every one of those posts' YaBBC codes may be changed to reflect the smileys new, more memorable code name. 

Have fun renaming!  And good luck at being that lucky participant!!

2004: The Year Linux Grows Up *
By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
November 26, 2003

eWEEK.com's Linux & Open-Source Center Editor Steven Vaughn-Nichols really likes what he sees for the server, corporate and retail desktop horizon for 2004. He boldly predicts that major vendors will start producing Linux PCs for the low-end retail market, and that your grandmother will love it.


2004 will be the year of Linux.

SCO may still be heading for the courts, but instead of charging forward, the anti-Linux company will be wobbling forward as the courts start knocking out its arguments. As a result, Linux will be free to grow more quickly than ever in businesses.

In fact, Linux will be growing so fast that Microsoft will have to abandon its attempts to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) about it in the server market. Instead, Microsoft will have to start reworking their licensing agreements and not offer special deals for customers who are showing public interest in Linux. In particular, I think Server 2003 and major server applications like Exchange 2003 and SharePoint Portal Server will see price drops.

Why? I think Microsoft is pricing itself out of the market. The economy is getting better, it's not getting great. NT and W2K-based CIOs may want to upgrade, but not at Microsoft's prices. And, Microsoft's new wave of client to server lock-in deals aren't going to warm the hearts of IT buyers either. For example, to get the any substantive advantage from Office 2003 you need to buy pricey Office System backend programs like SharePoint Portal Server and Live Communication Server.

No, Linux is already attractive on the server. And the new generation of Linux 2.6-based servers from Novell/SuSE and Red Hat (by the summer of 2003) will be even more attractive with SCO receding from the picture and Microsoft pricing itself out of the market.

I also think that businesses like Progeny Linux Systems Inc., which specialize in integrating and customizing Linux to a particular company's needs will do well. Such companies will enable businesses that want Linux but don't have the in-house expertise to start using Linux without needing to replace their existing IT personnel.

I also expect Linux to finally make some real in-roads on the corporate desktop. Three companies will drive this. Sun and Novell/SuSE will provide desktop Linux systems, the Java Desktop System (JDS) and a SuSE desktop Linux giving a choice of a Ximian Gnome or KDE-based interface. In addition, both companies will be pushing its desktops through established direct and reseller channels. At the same time, Oracle will be strongly encouraging its customers to switch to a Linux desktop.

On the consumer side, JDS and SuSE will play roles in making the Linux desktop more interesting. Lindows and smaller Linux desktop specialists such as Art Linux, Libranet and Xandros are just as likely, I think, to bring grandma to Linux.

It's not, of course, that grandma really cares about what operating system is on her computer. She just wants to send e-mail to the kids and follow her retirement plan. But she is going to want an inexpensive computer, and since XP Home is the single most expensive single element on a PC, it strikes me that major vendors will start following such smaller hardware OEMs as Microtel and CPUBuilders into producing Linux PCs for the low-end retail market.

As for the advance of open source in general, there's little to say except that open source has already won. The most popular Web server in the world is Apache. One of the most used application servers is the open-source Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) JBoss. Look just about anywhere on the server side of life and you'll find a high-quality, open-source program that is either a reasonable alternative or the dominant player to proprietary programs.

When you add it all together, I don't think there can be any doubt about it: 2004 will be Linux's year.


(* reproduced with the permision of eWEEK, of which I'm a subscriber and corporate partner (which is just a fancy way of saying that they sometimes solicit my opinion and I fill out surveys for them  )  - but I swear I had nothing to do with the writing of or opinions expressed in this article.  )

The new Sysbug Trojan, which is hidden in an e-mail claiming to be carrying pornographic pictures (not that anyone here on the forum would be interested in such things, I'm sure  ), provides its creator with the backdoor into infected systems running Windows from 95 through XP.

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