Jon

BT is a British company so they do not have a Security Research Center, they have a Security Research Centre.

This may sound like a small thing but really it's disrespect for cultural differences.

What I find most interesting about this whole tale is NOT the problems he had setting up his Surface and NOT the storm in a teacup raging in the Engadget comments section but the fact that Microsoft phoned him and he pulled the original article. He didn't add an update, he deleted the entire thing. Gone.

Now, either the author's not particularly experienced in blogging or else Microsoft leant on him until he "saw things their way".

Anybody have a cached copy they'd like to post somewhere?

I guess I'm the only person who misread the headline in the RSS feed as "Apple 2e gets taken for a test drive" and came here looking for some Crysis benchmarks.

Thank you. I knew BAN must have a list somewhere on their website. They did a frigging good job of hiding it though - I couldn't find it when I searched before.

I think an email to them is called for suggesting they make it more prominent.

Fantastic idea.

I've never seen an Engadget post that's had the community get behind it as well as this one. There's been barely a single negative post (he says, immediately triggering a deluge).

Sorry that you got bitten by this, - there's a lot of smooth talkers in this business. Watch the CBC documentary to see more companies exposed: http://www.cbc.ca/national/blog/video/environmentscience/ewaste_dumping_ground.html

Avoiding the sharks is not easy. You have to ask them for proof. Ask them who they deal with downstream, get documentation and check it out. Make yourself annoying and see how open they are.

But at the end of the day you can't be visiting the smelters yourself - you have to trust someone's word. And someone who's making money from your e-waste is not necessarily a reliable source. I was assuming that the Basel Action Network would have a list of recyclers that they'd personally vetted - but I'm disappointed that I can't find anything on their website.

Microsoft also has a dozen or so routes that they do this on for employees at Redmond.

If you're even half as productive on the bus as you would be in the office, you're still overall getting more time at home overall. And you don't have the stress of battling the traffic yourself. And the bus gets to go in the car-pool lanes.

Thanks for posting this Thomas.

As consumers we CAN do something about this. We can be more careful about what we do with our electronics when we're finished with them. DO NOT thrown them in the garbage (this may even be illegal depending on where you live). DO NOT simply give them to the first e-waste recycler who offers to take them off your hands. Ask them where they send their e-waste, ask them for the name of their downstream recycler. Ask them if they've been checked out by the Basel Action Network (http://www.ban.org/). Ask for proof. Make yourself annoying.

If they're doing what they say they are and they're truly above board then they'll be happy to tell you. If they're not happy to share this information with you then walk away.

Look for an organization near you that's doing something better with old computers than just tearing them apart and melting them down. Find out if there's a "Computers For Schools" type organization near you that you can donate your old computer to. Or, even better, a Free Geek (see http://freegeek.org/ and http://freegeek.org/family.php). Free Geek are a non-profit organization that'll take all your old computer equipment off your hands, ethically recycle the stuff that can't be reused and rebuild the rest into new computers loaded with Open Source software which they give away to other non-profits or sell at rock-bottom prices to people who maybe couldn't afford to buy a computer from a store. All the while providing computer education for the volunteers who work there. 24 hours volunteering and you get a free computer and a training course on how to use it.

This is the way it will have to be in the future. We can't go on using China to build our cheap technology and then dumping it back on them when we're finished with it. It's time to step up to the plate and take some responsibility for the impact we're having on the environment.

>but have no clue how to make Linux play DivX movies

With Ubuntu, you just attempt to play the DivX file, it says "hey, I don't have the codecs for that, would you like to install them?", you click the checkboxes, it whirrs a bit & downloads them, then it plays.

At least I think it was that easy. You might have to go to the package manager and search for DivX but I THINK the movie player was smart enough to recognize the codec issue.

The package manager in Ubuntu really sets it head & shoulders above Windows. You don't have to search hundreds of websites to find software that does what you want - it's all referenced through there. And if you install through the package manager then it keeps track of bug-fix updates for you automatically.

My personal story... my XP machine was falling apart and I needed to build a new one. Couldn't see the point installing XP on the new one... XP is the past, it's going to go away sooner or later so I might as well find something new.

Vista... too many issues... stability, speed, incompatibilities etc etc So what do I switch to?
OSX? Sure it's reliable and it's pretty. But I need to learn a whole new operating system AND I'm constrained about what hardware I can buy.
Linux? Reliable - yes. Pretty - yes. I have to learn a whole new operating system BUT I can use whatever hardware I want. Oh, and don't forget the fact that it's free and the advantages of open source.

Choice is pretty clear. I switched to Ubuntu and haven't looked back.