Stan's List

Ars Technica has a fantastic article that looks back at the most popular personal computers from the last 30 years. It covers everything from the Altair to the 8- and 16-bit eras to where we are today.

PayPal, the Western Union of online payments, is offering givers of iTunes Music Store gift certificates an incentive to make their purchases through the service. The gist of their come on is straight forward—give music and get some music to keep for yourself.

Here’s what they’re offering:

• Get 10 songs when you give a $20 iTMS gift certificate
• Get 25 songs when you give a $50 iTMS gift certificate

All you need to do is select PayPal as your means of payment at iTunes Music Store and then purchase buy a $20 or $50 gift certificate.

The Boston Globe quotes a Microsoft representative as saying that the company will use an open-data format as required by the commonwealth of Massachusetts. Naturally, the commonwealth’s government has mandated using the open-source OpenDocument format, which is set to be formally adopted on Jan 1, ‘07.

Lest you think Redmond has gone soft or changed its hardball tactics, you should know the company plans its own open-document format—Open XML. This move was trumpeted by the company as a way of strengthening the open standards movement.