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Slashback: Bits, Bytes, Words
Money changes everything. After numerous writeups about the hacking potential of their iOpener device, Netpliance changed their service model and even the design of the product itself. Sounds like that wasn't enough: Cy Guy writes: "Netpliance has announced that they are raising the price of the i-Opener from the introductory price of $99 to $399 (neither price reflects the $21.95/month cost of Netpliance's Internet service which must be used with the device.) In a c|net interview Netpliance president Kent Savage dismissed hacker modifications to the device as a factor in the price increase." As Ioldanach puts it, "Think its 'cause they finally realised it was cheaper to raise prices then 'hack-proof' their product?"
What I'd like to see is Netpliance package the LCD and CPU of the i-Opener and sell those packages to OEMs, so they could create custom housings, new uses, etc -- after all, lots of people would like a small LCD X-terminal.
MacGuyver, The A-Team, NASA ... Grave writes: "Looks like NASA got DS1 functioning again. A probe that was almost entirely made up of experimental technologies can be salvaged, yet two hopefully-soon-to-be-routine flights to Mars can't be. Ah, well, at least we know that Ion Engines are workable. Bring on the TIEs!"
TRUSTe dusts off the white hat for a bit? Last week, a story appeared which noted the alarming news that failed web-merchant Toysmart planned to sell its customer information in an effort to recover some money. According to this Standard story, "The nonprofit organization TRUSTe announced Friday it is planning to file a brief in bankruptcy court that will decide whether Toysmart.com can sell its customer lists." Jamie raises two points to consider:
- Time will tell what effect (if any) TRUSTe's planned brief will have on the Toysmart bankruptcy proceedings.
- The company that bought Boo.com insists they will continue to honor the old privacy policy for old customers.
Maybe we could combine this with 'Survivor'? jgalvin222 writes "APB Online, Inc. has filed for bankruptcy. This web site is known for offering in-depth breaking news, tons of information on ongoing investigations, and you can listen to live police scanners. This web site will surely be missed, and if you read the article, you can see that some of their techs have volunteered to post crime and safety articles over the next couple of weeks - without pay. If anything, you should peruse their video library, some of the clips are both amusing and interesting."
The Devil will find work for idle hands to do. Ryan writes: "Here is something to keep us Mac fans happy. Go2Mac reports that Diablo II has gone gold for Mac version, making this one of the quickest PC to Mac conversions ever." Here is the official announcement from Blizzard.
Bankruptcy is often the end of a business, but as with individuals, it's mainly a way to force creditors to renegotiate terms. APBNews.com is posting current content, though with staff cut by about 90%, it won't be as much or as good as it used to be.
Hopefully they can eke out a living long enough for a guardian angel to appear, though with the tech stock market in the tank that possibility is slimmer by far than it used to be. Still, news operations like UPI have hung on by a thread for sometimes decades! There's a lot of worthwhile content there, and even in the worst case perhaps another news site will acquire it.
Though the prognosis is not robust, I still wish APBnews.com a long and happy life.
----
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
At $100, I'd get this or something similar for my father-in-law for Christmas, and not feel bad about the extra $2/month he'd be paying (compared to other providers). At $400, a used computer fits the bill much better . . .
If you are going to miss apbnews.com, check out crime.com. They have many of the same features and a strong video library.
I'd say a number of the items mentioned are pretty extensive - making Marathon a lot different than Doom (and IMHO superior).
As for not seeing anything 'original', you aren't really seeing that on ANY platform. Rehashing old themes is pretty common.
On the plus side, the Mac spawned SimCity, and for that I am grateful.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
Two reasons. I am going to take it into a repair shop, but I have to find some way of getting it there first. I'm a student, so I don't have a car, and carrying the 40 pound iMac (handle or no) the mile to the bus stop isn't easy. I'm hoping to find a friend with a car who can drive me.
The other reason is I don't want to have to pay $200 to get a new AV board. If it just broke, yeah, my tough luck, should have bought the extended warranty. It didn't just break, though. It was designed incorrectly. I'd be willing to bet they're either using substandard components, or pusing components beyond what they're rated for. It wouldn't be the first time Apple has done something like that.
I don't think I should have to pay for someone else's design flaw.
What would be nice is if Apple would just ship me a new AV board, along with a box to return my broken one (which they would hopefully study to figure out how to prevent this in the future). Instead, I have to lug the whole goddamn computer into a dealer before they'll even tell me whether they'll cover it. It's obviously a known issue, they're just trying to shove it under the rug.
I had to go through the same crap when my CD-ROM drive died, and the idiot tech at the closest dealer wanted to reformat my hard drive to see if that was the problem. (No, I'm not taking it back to that place). Fortunately, it was on warranty then, so I didn't have to deal with too much crap.
I suppose this is what I deserve for buying an iMac.
Damn....my account isn't working... I can speak from experience on this. ... I am a MCSE.
What account? Your I-opener account? Your slashdot account? What would some Microsoft qualification have to do with either of those?
For the last time, Netpliance is a internet provider, not a hardware company!
I've seen many people expressing an opinion that Netpliance should manufacture "special" I-Openers for thin X-Window clients, etc. and tap into an emerging market. The problem is that Netpliance doesn't manufactuer the Iopener, and is losing money from every hardware sale.
What they really want to sell is the internet service; the hardware is purely secondary. I believe Quanta is the sub-contractor for the Iopener, these are the people you should approach for hardware.
There's a StaffMart Training Center in town that guarantess a $30,000+/yr to all graduates of their 8 month MSCE program. I know of a couple of HS grads that did it and had a choice of jobs. It may be a good time for MSCEs now but for how much longer?
1000 SlashDot sigs
ok here's the deal with the price going back up, i used to work for tech support so i had billions of these questions when they first dropped the price. The original price of the iopener was $399 in November of 99, then they dropped the price to $299 for the X-mas holidays. Then they had a Super bowl comercial that advertised a $199 so the price dropped again, they started selling so they dropped the price to $99 around late feb to try to flood the market before the other i-appliances got in. After Fathers day the pric whent back up to 299, and i guess now there is a such a demand for the POS that they are going back to the orig 399 sticker price, they are still loosing mony on it since its about 600 to make. Oh yea by the way, i tallked to a few of the hardware guys over there before i quit, seems that they are starting to think there are some seriour hardware design defects with thte modem, go figure, about 80% of my calls were i can't connect Issues.
I don't think you can deny Marathon as one of the best original games in the history of general computing, not just Macs.
No offense intended, but Marathon was DOOM for the Mac. It had a good story, yes, but the game itself was a DOOM mimic. Had Marathon been released first for the PC, instead of for a platform that hadn't received a DOOM port yet, Marathon would have been lumped in with all the other attempts to tack plots and stories onto DOOM (and, yes, there were many for the PC).
If it's a well-known defect that they refuse to repair, maybe you should get a lawyer and file a class action suit. For inspiration, check out this link from a previous SlashBack:
http://www.cdrecorderclassnotice.com/
This'll get you $200 if you owned an HP 4020 or similar CDR, and disposed of it. Due to a manufacturing defect that they refused to acknowledge/fix! Of course, the lawyers and plaintiff get a $million+...
Don't brand support good game on a platform you don't use/like as fanaticism just because you don't care about the differences. I've played with the doom source code and I've been working with the quake source every day since 22 December 1999. The difference in technologies is phenomenal.
(I don't have a mac and have never played marathon, I'm just taking the portion quoted in your message at face value - just as you did..)
NO WAY, DUDE! Marathon was so far ahead of Doom - Marathon had LOOK UP/DOWN... Marathon had TEAM PLAY. Marathon had MULTI-LEVEL ENVIRONMENTS, RAMPS and STAIRS. It even had Network Voice Taunting (or maybe that was M2) DOOM had none of this.
This is such classic Mac fanaticism it kills me. You're quibbling over details. It's like saying "Maelstrom has nothing at all to do with Asteroids, because it has rendered rocks."
On the plus side, the Mac spawned SimCity, and for that I am grateful.
Not true. It was originally developed on a Commodore 64 (no joke!), then re-worked and released first for the PC.
The raising of the price was in their plans all along, even before people started hacking on them. They were lost money selling the actual hardware and made money on the internet service. After the initial publicity push with the $99 dollar, and realising that they weren't turning the profits they liked, raising the price was necessary. The hardware hackers were just an extra annoyance.
-- demiurge
You find a file that appears important and obliterate it from memory!!!
Score one for the downtrodden hacker!
Damn....my account isn't working... I can speak from experience on this, despite it being GROSSLY off-topic. I am a MCSE...I would like to think I actually know NT and such...The problem is that there are A LOT of "paper MCSE's", people who have just crammed and crammed to get the piece of paper and who forget everything in a matter of weeks. MCP/MCSE Are becoming less and less 'prestigious' and more 'laughable'. That sad part is...your comment(ad) seems to encourage people to do just that....:( Ryan Pomaski, A+, MCP, MCSE
Deus Ex has also gone Gold, and you can preorder it directly from Aspyr
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
Linux needs to gain more coverage and aquire more games. This will increase the userbase, hardware coverage, and make many of us who use Linux now much more happy having games for Linux.
People fight and say the companies will still make games for Windows because they know Linux users will dualboot.. While this is true, don't you think that us Linux users would BUY MORE games if they were ALL for Linux?
Just some food for thought.. heh.
Who's the black private dick, who's a sex machine for all the chicks?
If only I could play Diablo II on my iMac... Unfortunately, my revision A iMac suffers from the infamous "Green Light Of Death" syndrome (GLOD). Moderators, yes, this is an off-topic rant, but I'm trying to help and warn others.
GLOD is due to problems with the analog video board (inside the monitor part of the iMac enclosure) that can make it impossible to switch monitor resolutions, use the monitor energy saver, or to reboot the iMac without unplugging it. In severe cases, it can make the computer unusable. A search for GLOD on the iMac discussion board in Apple's Tech Exchange uncovers dozens of posts in the past 60 days alone, yet somehow Apple Tech Support denies all knowledge of the problem.
If it was just me, it would have been a random hardware failure, and my tough luck since I'm off warranty. With the volume of complaints about it (and the articles on MacFixit), it's obvious it's a design flaw. It apparently also affects some of their monitors and other models of iMacs. I'm currently getting the run-around and the usual denials from Apple Customer Service. Either they're totally ignorant and don't read their discussion boards, or they're in denial mode so they don't have to recall a million iMacs...
Apple used to build really solid hardware. I've seen 128K Macs (the originals!) survive over 16 years. It's sad that my iMac has suffered two hardware problems in 16 months.
The moral of the story? Always buy the extended warranty if you have to buy a Mac... At least I can gut my iMac and turn it into a nice LinuxPPC box...
-YADMU (Yet Another Disgruntled Mac User).
Hey, everyone remember the big fluff when Earthlink and MSN started having trouble, and remember how the FTC started cracking down on "free" computers?
Do you think that might have figured in to Netpliance's decision, too?
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