The Great Geek Manual

1990
The Chicago Task Force raids the home of Richard Andrews, an alleged computer hacker. Read more in Bruce Sterling’s The Hacker Crackdown online.

1992
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Violations” first airs. (No. 512) In it, Troi becomes the victim of telepathic violations. Memory Alpha entry

1994
NASA launches the Space Shuttle Discovery on a the first mission of the joint Russian-U.S. Shuttle-Mir program, carrying Sergei K. Krikalev, the first Russian cosmonaut to fly aboard a U.S. Space Shuttle. (STS-60) Visit the mission’s official website.

1995
IBM discontinues its formal dress code in favor of casual wear. Visit the official IBM website.

NASA launches the Space Shuttle Discovery on a mission to rendezvous with the Russian space station Mir for the first time ever. (STS-63) During the course of the mission, Eileen Collins becomes the first woman to pilot a Space Shuttle mission. Visit the mission’s official website.

1997
Hackers spoof the website of Eastern Avionics to steal credit card numbers.

Red Hat releases version 4.1 (Vanderbilt) of the Red Hat Linux operating system.

1998
Apple Computer announces plans to phase out distribution of computers through major computer retailers, including Best Buy, Circuit City, Computer City, Office Max, and Sears, in order to focus on distribution through the 148 stores of CompUSA. Visit the official website of Apple Computer.

1999
Microsoft agrees to reproduce a video demonstration that was proven flawed by a government attorney in the suit filed by the Justice Department and nineteen states against Microsoft. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson called the video supposedly created to show problems with the government’s modified version of WINDOWS ’98 “very troubling”. Mr. David Bois, representing the government, discovered that the video that Microsoft said was produced by one computer, actually displayed different desktop arrangements. The difference indicated that two or more computers were actually used in contradiction to Microsoft’s claim. The discrepancy cast doubt on the validity of the remaining value of the tape.

2000
The Ford Motor Company announces the it will give each of its 350,000 employees a free Hewlett-Packard (HP) computer and Internet access discounted to US$5 a month. According to Ford Chairman William Clay Ford, Jr., “The Internet will be the equilavent of the moving assembly line of the 21st Century.” Visit the official website of the Ford Motor Company.

Free-PC announces that it will no longer give away free computers or free Internet service. The company has given away about twenty-five thousand computers in the past year.

Microsoft announces that its next consumer-targeted operating system will be named “Windows ME,” short for Windows Millenium Edition.

Telecommunications giant Vodafone AirTouch PLC of Britain acquires Mannesmann AG of Germany for a record US$170 billion in stock.

2003
Microsoft releases Windows Service Pack 1 (SP1). The release removes Microsoft’s Java virtual machine as per court order following the lawsuit brought against Microsoft by Sun Microsystem.

2004
The Mydoom.B computer worm launches its distributed denial-of-service attack (DDOS) against Microsoft. To avoid any disruption in its customer service, Microsoft launches an alternative website which will not be affected by the worm, information.microsoft.com; however, despite an overwhelming amount of media hype, the attack will have a minimal effect on Microsoft’s website, microsoft.com largely due to the B variant’s failure to spread due to a glitch in its programming.

2005
RunUO Software releases version 1.0.0 or RunUO, an open source Ultima Online server based on Microsoft .NET based. Visit the official RunUO website.

2006
The Nyxem worm begins effecting computers by disabling filesharing and security software, then destroying all files of certain types, including Microsoft Office files. The worm is designed to continue doing so on the third of every month.

2010
Avatar becomes the highest grossing film in North America and surpasses the two billion dollars mark in global sales.

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