ITBusiness.ca

Letters to the editor

Re: Canadian enterprises mull XP upgrades (Oct. 24)

I am writing in regards to your article published Oct. 24 Our company does not divulge the numbers of clients or any details pertaining to our IT infrastructure. The number of clients quoted within the article was incorrect and I would state that a more accurate number is in the thousands, as opposed to a definitive 18,000.

Roman M. Coba
Senior Vice President
Loblaw Companies
Information Services Division


Re: Dot-com veterans plan to revive failed startups (Oct. 24)

ITM Investments may want to consider changing its name. The first thing I thought of when I saw ITM, was “itemus”, and thought that someone was trying to revive it. There are many angry investors and employees that were burned by itemus, whose symbol was ITM on the TSE. itemus also had a line of business, based in Vancouver, by the name of itemus ventures.

Scott Collinson
Compaq Global Services


Re: Days of Wine and Windows (Oct. 24)

Have you really looked at what GNU/linux really is? The GNU/linux OS has tons of applications for its operating system. Word processing, spread sheets, database and presentation/graphic apps are just a few of the resources available that are better than anything Microsoft can come up with. Some of these packages are fully and seamlessly integrated together, making for an enjoyable experience. To say one would benefit from the Microsoft range of applications is a joke. Have you ever tried the Corel distro 1.2 (kernel 2.2.16), I’d say it is even better than XP home addition and it is almost 2 years old.

Kevin Power


Re: Days of Wine and Windows (Oct. 24)

“(the name, supposedly, means “Wine Is Not an Emulator, but as an acronym that doesn’t really make sense, does it?).”

This appears to be an example of a “recursive acronym” (a pun on the term “recursive algorithm”, meaning an algorithm that invokes itself). The classical example is “GNU”, which supposedly stands for “Gnu’s Not Unix”.

Jim Robb


Re: Ouch! I’ve spammed myself! (Oct. 23)

The tactics around getting people to open an e-mail seem endless, don’t they? I’m left wondering what happened to the Realtime Blackhole list. It seemed like such a powerful idea when I first read about it.

I guess, given the strength of the idea, I don’t see why more ISPs and site hosts don’t sign on. Are there technical/legal/moral/business problems with using the service?

Steve Lane


Re: Ouch! I’ve spammed myself! (Oct. 23)

I enjoyed your article on SPAM! Recently I tried to contact Yahoo! about an email I received that was clearly fraudulent. After 30 minutes on their site trying to find a place to report this I gave up. Maybe these bottom feeders have discovered Yahoo! doesn’t care if they piggyback their crap on Yahoo’s infrastructure.

This can’t be good for Yahoo’s brand integrity, but in the case of most .COM Companies they don’t care.

Rick McCutcheon
EVP Business Development
Delfour Corporation


Re: Ouch! I’ve spammed myself! (Oct. 23)

I couldn’t agree more with your article on SPAM! It seems as though in the last 6-12 months the SPAM I receive has gone through the roof! As the postmaster I get all of the undeliverable. I know this greatly affects the amount I receive. However, I have been the Postmaster for several years now and only recently do I get bombarded with this !**@#!! stuff. As you say they are like the people who call at dinner time. NO WAY will I buy/trade talk etc. with the likes of them. How can we stop this? Legislation?

Thank you for your insightful articles, it is nice to know others are just as disgusted.

Jeff Race


Re: Ouch! I’ve spammed myself! (Oct. 23)

I too am fighting my own spam war. I’ve found that using the SpamCopservice makes you feel at least you are part of the resolution.

Unless you subscribe to their services, it does absolutely nothing to reduce the amount of spam you receive; however, by submiting each spam to them you are making the lives of the spammers more difficult as they must change ISP’s, email address, etc.

When you submit your first spam, be sure to check off the “show technical details” box. Its really cool to see their program identify the ISPs and get beyond the fraudulent addresses to report the spam to ISPs on your behalf – all while keeping your personal email address secure.

Cynthia Weeden
Opalis Software


Re: Benchmark test–Notebook nod goes to IBM (Oct. 19)

I have been a subscriber to Computing Canada for ages, but I have always felt that the evaluations of equipment are off the mark.

The reason?

Most comments ignore the reality of service and reliability, a significant issue when making a purchasing decision.

I think you need to add historic reliability and service play a part in any “benchmark” article otherwise its just another commercial, and what is a publication without credibility?

Robert Forbes


Re: Benchmark test–Notebook nod goes to IBM (Oct. 19)

Once in a while it would be great to have a benchmark comparison between Apple and other PC’s. Don’t PC users deserve to know the truth about their products in relation to Apple? Most might not care, but I meet lots of PC users who are interested in a comparison. Don’t you think your readers might be interested in this even if they are committed to buying or selling one particular platform?

And what about those who are genuinely looking at all their alternatives? When you present a laptop benchmark comparison like this it gives the impression that it is covering the whole range of options on the market. If you don’t include Apple, even for information’s sake, aren’t you doing your customers a disservice? I think you are.

Meg Jordan

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