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I think you're confused on the point of "attack".

For example, I can post a link to this page. Google can now see the page. Of course, it could get to that page from within shopper.cnet.com, anyway, but the robots.txt file or NOINDEX/NOFOLLOW tags may be warning it off. (So Google has to walk the URL back up to http://shopper.cnet.com/robots.txt, to make sure, and it may not see http://www.shopper.com/robots.txt, by the way.)

More to the point, I can post a link to this page of a search result on shopper.com. Then Google can see that search. And, in an hour or two, it might show up in a google search of "wall wart servers", which would be useless, but anyway.

I can post a link to this query, however, and, not only might Google's spider collect it (from here), but it might not even have to get it from here. I'm probably not the first person to search shopper.com for "Small office home office server".

I can't see there being an ethical issue here, because those links feed people to shopper.com. In fact, cnet likely has some agreements with Google on that. And many such search sites (well, smaller ones) deliberately use Google's search engines to save themselves a bit of infrastructure cost.

Google, on the other hand, may prefer not to put some of those small search sites results on their general search pages, but that's a side issue.

Now, how do you suppose that bing picks up a query like, "m4-7734-6al 63363r"? Unless someone posts that (like I just did), how does bing get that query just from my using it in a Google search a few minutes ago?

To say this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black, you'd be accusing google of planting code in Chrome that watches for bing search results and feeds them back to google's search engine optimizer on the sly. (A new way for a browser to call home!) And/or of making deals with the Mozilla team. But the evidence you mention doesn't really support that, as someone else points out.

shopper.com is what Computer Shopper used to be, because that's who it is.

Personally, for my uses, I'm use the computer for the latter purpose and have been quite happy running Linux on a cheap Cyrix 300 MHz system. I do lot of surfing, writing, and spreadsheet analysis with StarOffice (actually, I've just upgraded to OpenOffice 1.0). However, I have built a number of systems in the past and have found these links are a must:

Pricegrabber

Pricewatch

CNET's price comparison site

Techbargains (if you are patient enough to wait for that perfect machine to be affordable)

Your time is really worth the money, and when it comes down to it, those cheap systems from Dell, Compgeeks, or Walmart are actually worth the heartache that you may encounter later when you find out that the motherboard you bought has spotty USB support in Windows 98. And if you add up how much you'd spend to make a comparable system, you'll find out that you're only saving a miniscule amount, if that. But again, if you wanted a high-end machine, then building your own will definitely be worth the time and effort to find the right parts and putting them together.

Brick and mortar stores have cheaper prices than online, eh?

• I guess that
• these sites have
• a lot to learn
• about that then ;-)

And at only $87/user client access license (courtesy of Shopper.com), it's a STEAL...

(oh, plus Win2000)...

(oh, plus a machine with at LEAST 256-512MB RAM)...

(oh, plus a backup solution to backup the DB live)...

(oh, plus some sort of a firewall/gateway... you wouldn't want this DIRECTLY on the 'NET..!)

Very interesting post. But how come Buy.com and BarnesandNoble.com haven't taken advantage of this latest uproar of an Amazon policy. If I was ecommerce director of either competitor, I would have links to the CNet article on the front page of my website. Not only that, but price comparision search engines (PriceScan MySimon PriceWatch DealTime Shopper) should be having a field day with this!

Perhaps Buy and Barnes & Noble are conducting the SAME experiment but at a more discreet level?!?!

• Threads, in SMP-capable operating systems, are split among available processors and run in parallel. Therefore, long-running and easily parallelizable jobs will be more suited for a dual-processor system. Make (with the -j3 argument) forks itself to run at least two gccs at a time, and therefore takes full advantage of this.
  
  
• Processes (sometimes these implement threads) are split among the available processors as well. Because Linux/UNIX relies heavily on running numerous concurrent processes, a dual-processor system is probably more suited for it than a more monolithic or sequential workflow (e.g. a single non-threaded client application).
  
  
• On a uniprocessor machine, concurrency among processes is simulated in a synchronous manner. Given 40 individual tasks, the processor iterates through each one, giving it a certain "quanta" of time and taking into account priorities and nice values. Though a bit oversimplified, a dual-processor configuration would allocate 20 tasks for each processor to iterate through. The result, in ideal configurations, is a perceived doubling in speed. In actuality, I/O and bus contention decreases this figure somewhat.

This was a few weeks (or maybe months...) ago, checking a bunch of the local computer stores (chains, a few of the smaller shops in town) for prices on the boxed PII and PIII processors...

I think I remember the PIII prices being ~$270 and the PII's being ~$290 at the time... Actually, I'm sure it was a few months ago. Anyways, there wasn't a significant differance in price over the week or two I was looking (I think the online prices were about $20-$30 less for the PIII and maybe $10 less for the PII), so I decided to go ahead w/ the PIII.

I figured, "What do I have to lose? $20 and the nonexistance of an extra 'I'?"

BTW: I generally use CNet's shopper.com, so I'm not sure if it's price searches are generally better or worse than PriceWatch...

It is actually a 2.5GB, and the 5GB is after compression.

I got it faily cheap (700 Saudi Riyals March 1999 ~ 187$). I saw it cheaper on some internet sites (can't remember which, but try www.shopper.com).

Worked straight out the box on the first try. Did not need to do any kernel recompilation, nor download any drivers...

The only drawback so far, is that it seems the media is a bit hard to find (at times) in the local market (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia)

Good luck.

I have this running fine under WINDOWS NT. It also seemed to work under win9x.

Creative Encore 5x with Dxr3 and the latest drivers downloaded from Creative's web-site.

Somebody earlier on complained about not being able to avoid the installation of the PcFriendly software... perhaps that person was new to computers? I have been able to install, unintstall it, avoid the installation, and even play the disk with Creative's player instead.

If there are problems with the software DVD player, try with the DVD player that came with your hardware. Of course, you'll miss all of the cool features. Next, check your hardware manufacturer for updated firmware and software drivers. Also, have a look at the PC Friendly Matrix Help

Gateway owners, your drives might be Matsushita, so check out Panasonic.

BTW, if you want a good drive at a good price, and one that will work with NT, may I recommend Creative's PC-DVD Encore 5X DXR3 5Xdvd-ROM Drive DXR3 Decoder Board OEM starting at $128? The the slightly older drive is a faster CD-ROM than the newer model, but more importantly this comes with the newer decoder card. The NT drivers must be downloaded though.

I got mine (a 505F) through c/net when it was retailing for $1,900 for only $1,400 from a company in California. Check their site, it really steers you to the good buys! Go here.

There are two companies offering Fast, FDX Ethernet switches for $25/port, not $50/port. They are:

• D-Link DSS-8+

• NetGear FS108

The Fast Ethernet switch market has been competing hard lately around the 8-port switch models - that's the sweet spot. Go check out the prices on CNET's Shopper.com; they even show the state where the mail order company is based so that you can avoid sales taxes.

Enjoy!

As a Rocket eBook owner, I can say that, while it ain't exactly a PADD, it's the closest thing to it, and for about $275 at HardwareStreet.com. Do a search on Check Rocket ebook at Shopper.com for the current cheapest price.

The screen is great. Clear and easy to read except in really bright sun. Battery lasts 20 hours or more with the backlight on. More than 40 hours without the backlight.

Feels good when I hold it. The curve for the batteries fits my hand perfectly. Almost sexy.

Copyright is no problem because the RocketLibrary server encrypts the document and keys it to each individual Rocket e-reader. The document is always encrypted, even on the e-reader. Even if you give someone a copy of the encrypted document, they can't read it because their e-reader has a different key.

Rocket eBooks have 4MB flash RAM now, enough to hold at least 10 books. But I'm sure they'll come out with a memory upgrade to 32MB or so. if so,that would let you store more than 100 books!

As a Rocket eBook owner, I can say that, while it ain't exactly a PADD, it's the closest thing to it, and for about $275 at HardwareStreet.com. Do a search on Check Rocket ebook at Shopper.com for the current cheapest price.

The screen is great. Clear and easy to read except in really bright sun. Battery lasts 20 hours or more with the backlight on. More than 40 hours without the backlight.

Feels good when I hold it. The curve for the batteries fits my hand perfectly. Almost sexy.

Copyright is no problem because the RocketLibrary server encrypts the document and keys it to each individual Rocket e-reader. The document is always encrypted, even on the e-reader. Even if you give someone a copy of the encrypted document, they can't read it because their e-reader has a different key.

Rocket eBooks have 4MB flash RAM now, enough to hold at least 10 books. But I'm sure they'll come out with a memory upgrade to 32MB or so. if so,that would let you store more than 100 books!

1. Got to www.shopper.com and search for "Rio" to find the lowest pre-rebate price; last time I checked it was $124 from shopping.com .
2. Order it!
3. Mail the rebate form from Diamond along with the UPC from the Rio box, and wait for your $50.

Check http://www.shopper.com (search "palm iii") first. Buycomp is usually the cheapest but their shipping is high and if you live in California, it might be worth it to buy elsewhere to avoid tax. Also, they don't ship internationally, but others (CMPExpress?) do. Also, price wars pop up every week or two. :)