Microsoft Strongly Recommends XP Users to Upgrade

Since only one year of Windows XP support is left, Microsoft again asks users of this OS to upgrade to something not so ancient. One of the most stable operating systems ever developed by Microsoft has been around for ten years and is still used on 15-20% of PCs worldwide, including mine.

The software giant is going to cut off support for the venerable OS on 8 April 2014, thus giving users one year to either upgrade or get ready to face more vulnerabilities and security risks. Nevertheless, XP is still incredibly popular, particularly among SMBs and home users. All of them feel it gets the job done and therefore don’t see a point in upgrading to Windows 7. But you should understand that Windows XP is older than iOS, Android, Facebook and YouTube.

In addition, the problem is that Microsoft sold millions of XP licenses for first generation nettops and netbooks based on Atom processors, this being years after XP stopped shipping on regular desktops and laptops. Apparently, upgrading these systems to Windows 7 may not be an option for most users.

In the meanwhile, the software giant insists that the only way for users to stay safe is to upgrade to a new operating system. The cutoff date is only a year from now, so time is already running out. It seems that Microsoft does not care that users of ancient XP PCs might choose to upgrade to something else, for instance Linux or even Chrome and Android. As for me, I might take it as a sign to buy myself new Macbook and switch to MacOS X.

With so many XP boxes out there, the experts predict that many users will simply ignore Microsoft’s warnings. The company’s decision to ditch XP could also lead to more opportunities for peddlers of alternative low cost systems based on free OS.

Top American Tech Firms Face Class Action

Media reports point out that the well-known names of the tech business are now facing a class action over what is called a trade cartel to control employee movements. Recently, the US judge Lucy Koh has opened the way for a class action lawsuit against such tech giants as Intel, Adobe, Apple, Google, Pixar, Lucasfilm and Intuit.

Lucy Koh pointed out that there was enough evidence of a sustained personal effort by the above mentioned companies’ own CEOs to monitor and enforce no headhunting rules on their workers. The judge named and shamed Apple chief executive Steve Jobs, Google’s Eric Schmidt, Pixar President Ed Catmull, Intuit Chairman Bill Campbell and Intel CEO Paul Otellini. Koh recommended the lawyers for the plaintiffs to restructure their case against the multinational corporations and re-file it in order to instigate a major class-action suit. Once they are done with this, the judge will hear it.

In the meanwhile, the plaintiffs’ lawyers are hoping that 100,000 employees of the defendant corporations will become their clients. However, it is not as if the tech firms aren’t aware that something is afoot – instead, they have already settled similar antitrust claims against them with the Department of Justice of the United States. This could cost them a fortune and force the defendants to start regarding their employees as people rather than objects.

In the event that the case is proved, it will mean that the corporations ran some secret agreement not to poach each other’s employees and to stop their experts defecting to other companies. Such agreement, if existed, could save the tech companies a fortune, because they didn’t have to pay extra money to keep employees who had no alternatives.

ছাত্র শিবিরের ওয়েবসাইট হ্যাক

                 

ঢাকা: ছাত্র শিবিরের ওয়েবসাইট হ্যাক করে তা শাহবাগ আন্দোলনের নামে উৎসর্গ করেছে XTOR নামের এক হ্যাকার।

শুক্রবার রাতে শিবিরের ওয়েবসাইট (www.shibir.org.bd) হ্যাক করে হোম পেইজে ইংরেজিতে লেখা হয়, “দিস হ্যাকড ইজ ডেডিকেটেড টু শাহাবাগ। মাই ওয়ার ইজ ডিক্লেয়ার এগেইনস্ট ইউ।

হ্যাকর তার পরিচয় দিয়েছেন ‘XTOR’। এছাড়া লাল অক্ষরে লেখা আছে প্রাউড টু বি এ বাংলাদেশি।

বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতার বিরোধীতাকারী দল জামায়াত ও শিবিরকে নিষিদ্ধ করা এবং যুদ্ধাপরাধীদের সর্বোচ্চ শাস্তির দাবিতে শাহবাগের আন্দোলনের মধ্যেই এ ওয়েবসাইট হ্যাক করা হলো।