... pay for an office package these days? Private or commercial use there's no need.

OpenOffice.org, OxygenOffice (OpenOffice with added extras), Lotus Symphony (OpenOffice with IBM's added features), Novell's edition of OpenOffice. Take your pick, they are all free!

Note to Microsoft:

Free, definition of:

Adjective describing something given or supplied without payment, adjective describing freedom from restrictive licenses, DRM, proprietory formats.

Note to El Reg:

Can't we have an icon showing that very British two-digit salute?? Please??

......Oh for open, internationally recognised development standards..

What? They exist?

They why the feck isn't Parcelforce using them??

The idea of banning the use of mobile phones in car is two-fold:

to try to get the idiots who use their phones non-handsfree to use what remains of their braincells on concentrating on the road, their car and other road users, and

to make it easier to keep control of the car.

Picture, for example, while you are quietly peddaling your nice Saracen or Trek bike down the road, some pillock (possibly called Wayne or Becky) is yapping away on his/her latest bit of technology bling, when said driver suddenly spots you and on-coming traffic. Git driver needs to slow down, change gear and steer round cyclist. But, oh, what to do with only one free hand and expensive gadget to keep safe? No time to evolve into a three-armed creature, no time to slip phone down carefully so as not to scratch the shiney touch screen. No problem, give the right pedal some welly speed past, through an ever-narrowing gap between obstacles. Sorted.

Except not. 1 broken arm, 1 broken leg and a bent bike later, the Police show driver up as an idiot who shouldn't be in control of his/her own breathing, let alone a powerful car.

Wise up, people, it's fecking dangerous!

As of 2008 (I think) animals must be securely restrained in cars, so the pet stoat is a no-no.

Likewise, my mates in the Police are now prosecuting people who drive while consuming their happy meals or tall,skinny lattes.

Drivers (and yes I also drive) need to realise the consequences of their actions and accept the punishment if they break the law.

Did one upgrade, on a 3 year old Dell laptop, and a fresh install on a homebuilt PC sporting Gigabit mainboard, Nvidia graphics card, two SATAs.

No problems on either box, and got the 2.6.31 kernel.

go shoot yourself in the other foot. You can use my weapon if you like.

... affect Microsoft's sham "Office Open XML" document format by any chance??

So, the Nano sprouts a FM radio? It's only taken several years for you to catch up with iRiver, Cowon, Creative, Sony, Philips, anonymous Chinese manufacturers. Heck, even Alba put FM radios in their music players!

iPod has always been a bit of a one-trick pony.

All you need now is Ogg support and iTunes on Linux, and you'll be on my list of "useful gadget manufacturers".

Will Microsoft never learn to use open standards?

Will Microsoft ever learn that they don't own the world's computers, and can't just take what they want?

When diesel engines can easily give more mpg and power per cc, why do manufacturers of hybrid vehicles always dump a petrol engine in their models?

Ha! Will MS ever be able to finally kill off XP??

Here's a tip: Knock it's head off.

It's good to laugh at a MS story on a Friday morning, it sets me up for the weekend.

So now we know, IE8 doesn't comply with standards, and is bloated with MS-unique features. What other malware does it contain?

Are MS going to pay for web devs to be trained to deploy these "features" on sites? No, thought not.

Are we going to see a rise in the number of IE-only sites, just when web devs are abiding to W3 standards, and the number of browser-specific sites is diminishing?

I'll stick with my Linux/Firefox desktop, thankyou. MS can stick their cash where the sun don't shine.

The Penguin, the answer.