I'm one of the Technet users that got a hold of SP1 after we all rioted. They sent it to their vendors and business/corporate customers but wouldnt release it to the Technet and MSDN networks. Considering we have to pay $500 plus a year for our subscriptions, we were highly ticked off we couldnt get access at the same time as RTM like we do with every other product (though ironically, Home Server isnt offered to us either).
I downloaded it and installed SP1 on a Vista Ultimate 32bit system, it took an hour on a Intel Q6400 3gb of ram system to run the update, as well as 3 reboots. The file sizes are 460mb for the 32 bit patch, 720mb for the 64bit patch, and 1.13gb for an ISO dvd image of both on one media.
Immediately after it was done Office 2007 failed to work anymore. Outlook would continually crash. I updated it, I went through all of Microsofts trouble shooting steps, all the technet forums, ensured there was no third party plug-ins. After exhausting everything else I went to the last link someone suggested to me, it was the pay for support line. Considering their patch broke their product, paying them to fix it was not an acceptable solution for me.
I also noticed the systems score dropped, it went from an overall rating for 5.2 (tested just before the install) down to 5.0 after the install of the service pack. Granted it was only a 0.2 drop, but for a service pack thats suppose to improve the systems efficency to lower the systems scores, you have to wonder...
I finally wiped the machine and reinstalled XP on it. I posted that as my final solution to the issue on the Technet forums and stated I will not recommend Vista to business customers. Since then I have been getting calls twice a day from Microsoft... I'm just not answering to see what they want.
Proof: Number calling me: (800) 526.8683 Whocalled.us lookup: Microsoft Technet
There has been a huge backlash in the Technet forums about not getting the RTM Service pack for Vista. Several people have gone as far as to state they will not be renewing their memberships. If they cant get the files they are paying for at the same time businesses and OEM's are, there is little value left in the subcription you have to pay $500 plus a year.
Furthermore the downloads on the Technet Page aren't working. Many people aren't getting the download links, and Microsoft has admitted they have no idea why its happening, or not happening in this case...
And those of us that are getting the download links are having issues actually downloading the service packs. My Windows Vista machine could not download the service packs at all, even following all of Microsofts trouble-shooting texts. The irony is my Windows XP sp2 workstation had no trouble downloading the files...
Now it appears if you have installed any add-on language packs, you can not install the 1.13gb patch via dvd.
The Vista 32 bit.exe patch is 460mb, and the 64 bit.exe is 730mb. The ISO containing both is 1.13gb.
Released a lack luster Operating System thats falling flat on its face, and the "fix" is proving hard to get and wont install on companys with machines setup to support multiple languages... So much for multinational corporations that may have been considering finally switching to Vista...
I have Comcast cable internet at home thanks to my work... For years I have had issues connecting to sites that are related to my work... Unable to find or very slow response time. When the Pirate Bay went down i switched to OpenDNS... Suddenly I found many sites, not just the Pirate Bay, that I had trouble connecting to before suddenly opening up without any problems and 10 times faster...
Censorship by ISP's it the wrong way to go about it. Censoring DNS servers should be outright criminal...
RTFA... There are three major internet backbone lines connecting them, sepperated 1.8km apart. Two main use and one backup (redundant) line. The two main lines were both severed off the coast of Egypt. Different news outlets are offering conflicting stories, though the most prominent so far is that several ships were anchored in the wrong area and their anchors were dropped on the lines severing the lines in multiple places.
The lines are constantly getting damaged by dragnet fishing operations in other parts of the world, so not to surprising this happened off the coast of Egypt. Though it is curious to lines almost 2km appart were both damaged.
We use to tell our users to NOT turn off their computers nightly. Dont know if it still holds true with modern computers but with older systems just the shock of turning off and on the computer nightly could wear out the power button contacts or cause premature failure of the system... Out of habbit we still recommend only powering down on weekends.
Actually there was another book I read back in the early 90's that went over this same precept... In it they were called "Flingers" instead of Jumpers... And while they could teleport to any destination that they had been to before, they were also limited to 918kg's max weight. They couldnt figure out why that was the max. They would practice with weights then put a feather on it and that one ounce caused them to not be able to move it. All of the flingers were brainwashed at the acadameys, and new ones were found when the elder ones heard a ringing near them... The counter part to Flingers were "Anchors", people that somehow naturally negated the flingers abilities. If an anchor was near by when a flinger tried to teleport, they were sucked to the anchor... Actually a really good book. When I saw the first movie trailers I though it was a rip off of that novell.
The Startrek.com website has been a bit of a joke for the last few years. With no new StarTrek shows or movies, there really hasn't been any fresh information on it. Instead they rehash old interviews and articles and shuffle stuff around. Looks more like the staff was just trying to do busy work to make it look like they were doing stuff to keep their jobs. CBS has finally caught on, they pretty much have killed the franchise... The new movie will probably be the last Trek movie anyone will see or hear of for a very long time if ever again.
I sometimes run alcohol sales for special events. While getting out liquor license for an event at the Cow Palace in San Francisco we learned that while its called the San Francisco Cow Palace, its really in Daily City. But when you call 911 and tell them you have a problem there, they still dispatch San Francisco Police which come from farther away and are slow to respond. The Chief of Police for Daily City actually told us to NEVER call 911 while doing an event there and gave us the direct number to dispatch...
All cell phone 911 calls in Northern California actually goes to the CHP (California Highway Patrol) dispatcher in Vacaville. Half the time you sit on hold for 5 minutes before getting an operator.
So instead of actually fixxing the system to recognize who the closer public services are and dispatch them, you have legislators adding idiotic and completely fubar new regulations which will effectively deter people from using the emergency services during crimes. I'm sure there are criminals all over lauding this new "feature".
Of course after I post the link to the Treasury is added to the article... Still going to piss off a lot of people. Especially the scared of big brother types that are against any tracking of their purchases...
I'm sure we are going to hear of someone sooner or later filing a complaint or lawsuit against Apple over requiring resellers to no longer accept cash... As printed on all U.S. Currancy, "THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE"... That statement alone could be used to fight the no cash payment options at least here in the states... Apple just keeps shooting themselves in the foot over the I-phone both with negative P.R. and legal mis-steps...
Reason RIAA is running scared before a Jury trial is that typically a Jury will side more often with the underdog. RIAA is a corporation while the defendant is a lonely individual trying to fight off the beast. That alone wins over part of the jury.
RIAA has gotten a ton of negative press over the years, and well deserved negative press - dont get me wrong, but as such, they have been shown in the media/news acting like gangsters and trying to strong arm and intimidate people into coughing up extortion money. No one, except people getting their paycheck from RIAA or its partners, have a favorable view of them... Its also been pointed out that RIAA doesnt appear to pass on any of the money they recover back to the "artists" that they are sueing on behalf of... How isnt that extortion? They sue you because you didnt legally buy the music on the grounds the studio and artist didnt get their fair earned money. Yet after you pay, they dont recoup the artists... Hmm maybe we need some artists to file lawsuits against RIAA to get their proceeds back, now that would make an interesting story and case...
Still, RIAA is well perceived as the evil empire. Its highly likely a jury of every day people will side with a corporation that then know is thats to villianize them for profit. Regardless if RIAA has a good strong case or not, they will loose it on the grounds of human empathy and disdain for their past public actions. RIAA's only hope in the case going to Jury is to file motion for the judge to throw out the jury decission based on bias, or to keep appealing the decission, just dragging the whole thing out and ramping up costs.
It might just be your local isp...
I have Comcast in the San Francisco Area and have had the same connection since 2000 when it was @Home. Comcast needs the MAC address of the Cable modem in their database for you to use their service. Basically its an access list. Dont pay your bill, they stop allowing your Modems MAC address.
@Home had compatibility issues and their install techs not the most able people. I bought the exact modem they told me to and then they couldnt get it to work. They finally gave up and game me their modem and off I went. Just last year I had to change out to a new modem, not bad run for 6 years...
With two different cable modems on the same cable network for 7 years and I have NEVER had to install any software or inform Comcast of any of my MAC addresses for any device. I routinely test out firewalls I program before shipping them to clients and simply drop them inline in place of my firewall. The only thing I have to do is power cycle the cable modem and it detects the firewalls MAC address and is happy and I am surfing. Then I swap back in mine or another one and power cycle the modem again.
The modems do NOT store your pc or firewalls MAC address between power cycles or reboots. Comcasts access database stores your CABLE MODEMS MAC address, but do not require your personal computer information to be registered with them.
If you call them with a Linux system they simply tell you they dont support it. Then you have to do the phone suffle till you find a tech that will help you.
I live in an appartment complex that refused to install a $1 million dollar repeater to support cable broadband a few years back. So most of the people living here have DSL only because of a deal between the phone company and the appartment complex that locks you into one provider. Ironically, my building is the point the cable system enters the entire complex (10 buildings). So only people in my building can get cable modems according to the cable companies installers. So even though I am only paying for the basic 384kbs up/ 6mbs down, my actually speeds are typically 30mb down, 2mb up tested to several different test sites. So I'm happy with it. The downside will be when I finally move and suddenly I am down to the same speeds as everyone else...:(
When it was @Home running it speeds were locked at 128k up, 3mb down. When AT&T took over they raised it to 192k up but left it at 3mb down. Comcast took over from AT&T and raised down to 5 mb, and last year is when it appears they removed any artifical locks and speeds increased. On the flipside, Comcast throttles P2P traffic and slows down any P2P connections to the point that programs like Limewire are just painful to use.
SWG had many other issues that have kept it from really becoming a hit. The number of locations you could travel was much less than you were promised. It wasnt until like 2 paid for add-ons before you could get a space ship. Duh, shouldnt that have been something in the base game? And then they nerfed everything and at the one year mark suddenly made it easy as hell to get a force character, just make one... That was a major FU to the people that paid and played the first year and all that time in beta and still did not have a force capable charater or had only just gotten to that point. Suddenly that $15/month plus $30 to buy the game ($150 or more for a year) was wasted because some guy that waited a year pays the $30 into price and suddenly has a force character...
User Generated worlds do work, look at Second Life. Granted I dont play it, I did log in to check out all the hoopla and it wasnt my thing. I'm more a FPS and strategy player... Yet Second Life is doing so well that even the IRS now has accounts and has been working with the parent company to explore the world and determine if they want to start taxing peoples virtual accounts... There are tons of articles about people that have quit their real jobs to run businesses soley in second life and are making thousands of dollars a month...
SWG might have worked if they had actually given the users the baseline they promised pre-release and not the bastardized stripped down crap they actually launched with...
Crap by any other name still smells just as bad...
Seriously how nieve are some of these execs? "People dont like it... I know, we'll just call it a different name..." Oh yeah, thats the ticket... Lets add more confusion to the customer base...
And this from a company who's CEO had to quit before he got fired days before the board meeting... Does this idiot really think misleading the public is a good idea especially at this time?
Seams this whole thing against her is more vindictive than a justifiable issue. More likely either a facilty member or a fellow student who reported her to the facilty had a personal grudge with her and is using some trumped up alligations to keep her from achieving her goal of becoming a teacher herself.
Could be something as simple as personalities clash or she spurned someones advances... Who knows, but this is clearly another example of the system being abused to punish someone else because of some other irrelevant personal issue. If its a facilty member then we are also looking at abuse of power or position...
Regardless, the school has errored in its action and its likely she will win her case. Sadly the damage is done and this all public record so she'll still have a hard time finding a job teaching anywhere...
This kid is not going to have to worry about college tuition... His family will sue and they will be awarded a large settlement because of this... Just you wait and see...
Alas, but that doesnt help users with Exchange... Part of the $4000 hotfix kit you buy includes the DST updates for Exchange 2000 (which still are not freely available)
And sadly, yes, I know several companys still sitting on Exchange 2000. It works for them and they dont see why they should pay the Microsoft tax three times over (Exchange 2003, Windows 2003R2 64bit and Exchange 2007). Luckily most are using them soley as spam filters or frontends for webmail access. Though a few poor souls are still using it as their principle mail server. Some people refuse to spend money on IT until they absolutely have to...
The whole thing has been a joke and a colossal waste of money and resources... Personally I'd rather see Daylight savings time be tossed out entirely... Though Microsoft is loving it.
If you still had a Windows 2000 server on your network you had to either buy new software and give microsoft your money or pay $4000 to buy the DST hotfixes. Ironically leading up to change and for atleast one week afterwords you had to pay the $4000 fee to receive the hot fix. Now 3 weeks later they offer you a free manual update utility or the option to buy the $4000 hotfix. *The free manual utility was NOT available when everyone was rushing to update their older servers* Links to the old tech bulletin that only offered the pay for hotfix is no longer valid.
So out of curriosity, how much money did Microsoft make off the daylight savings change?
The problem falls into the way MS promoted Vista... Sure the base line systems can run Vista Basic or Vista without the Aero turned on, but at the same time Microsoft featured the Aero interface and even claim it as part of the "Vista Experiance". So on a technicallity the law suit does of merrit which shows how screwed up our legal system is.
Though I am not surprised I have been saying for months now that its total market spin and double talk the way Microsoft has been routinely pushing the features only available in the Enterprise and Ultimate versions of Vista (such as the bitlocker and Aero, etc) yet constantly focus on the price and specs of the Basic version. This causes market confusion and misleads their customers. Microsoft even engaged in this same deceptive marketting spin at their New Day Vista launch events.
Vista also has a nice little utility built in that lets you purchase Incremental Upgrades to your version. Oh, you bought basic but wanted the Aero? here pay us x and you get a new key to turn that on. Oh you want Media Center now, oh, pay us more... Also the piece meal upgrade system ends up costing much more than simply buying the version you wanted outright. This "feature" of Vista actually supports suspicion Microsoft intentionally entered into a bait and switch marketting scheme to defraud users.
All of the Sid Meirs Civilization games cheat. To prove it, get one of the trainer and save game editors. Save the game each round and look at the the AI players citys and units. They will produce two units at once and instantly without spending money to "buy" them. The cities dont suffer ill effects of to many troops or to long of a war. The higher the level you set the game at the more the AI cheats.
The companys still have some offices here, and some may still have their headquarters here, but much less "innovation" is done in the bay area anymore. When Texas started offering companys incentives such as no corporate taxes for x number of years and lower utility and land costs, many either moved entirely or large portions of their establishments there. There was an article awhile back that I just feel like looking for about how the IT field in North Carolina was growing at a faster rate than Sillicon Valley as well. Many people I use to work with left to either take better jobs or follow their jobs to other places with lower costs of living.
Just because a company is Headquartered in an area doesnt mean thats where its main research and development are taking place. Many of the companys in the bay area either outsource or have setup offices in other states and countries where costs of operating are much cheeper. India's IT base is growing by leaps and bounds.
Even as far back as 2004 India was set to over take Silicon Valley in importance in the IT Field.
As for it being illegal to harvest stem cells, I wasnt clear enough I suppose. Yes you can harvest new Stem Cells if you are NOT receiving Federal Grant money. There are companys out there that are putting money into research. But not as many as there would be if there were matching availble grants from the Government. The Government has hampered innovation in the field by not supporting it. Granted these problems aren't all from Bush. Ironically Clinton signed the initial rules in 1996 that said they could not be used at all. Bush relaxed those rules by saying non-destructive and only if they were from before 2001. That still limits the availble pool for university and other organizations that rely on grants from the government to support their programs and endevors.
I live in the Sillicon Valley and we use to be the big Tech center, after the Dot Com burst people began shunning Technology based companys. Now the big focus in the area seams to be BioTech companys. They are quickly out pacing the IT companys in the area. But thanks to short sighted politicians there are to many bans and restrictions in this country on this type of technology.
Something like only 20% of the availble stock of Stem Cells are still viable but the government makes it illegal to harvest more. Maybe I missed something, but every article I have seen on the process seams to make it appear no life is destroyed getting the stem cells. Its simply the old Science vs. Religion debate and the Religious Zeolots are winning and running the country into a sad deluded existance.
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I'm one of the Technet users that got a hold of SP1 after we all rioted. They sent it to their vendors and business/corporate customers but wouldnt release it to the Technet and MSDN networks. Considering we have to pay $500 plus a year for our subscriptions, we were highly ticked off we couldnt get access at the same time as RTM like we do with every other product (though ironically, Home Server isnt offered to us either).
I downloaded it and installed SP1 on a Vista Ultimate 32bit system, it took an hour on a Intel Q6400 3gb of ram system to run the update, as well as 3 reboots. The file sizes are 460mb for the 32 bit patch, 720mb for the 64bit patch, and 1.13gb for an ISO dvd image of both on one media.
Immediately after it was done Office 2007 failed to work anymore. Outlook would continually crash. I updated it, I went through all of Microsofts trouble shooting steps, all the technet forums, ensured there was no third party plug-ins. After exhausting everything else I went to the last link someone suggested to me, it was the pay for support line. Considering their patch broke their product, paying them to fix it was not an acceptable solution for me.
I also noticed the systems score dropped, it went from an overall rating for 5.2 (tested just before the install) down to 5.0 after the install of the service pack. Granted it was only a 0.2 drop, but for a service pack thats suppose to improve the systems efficency to lower the systems scores, you have to wonder...
I finally wiped the machine and reinstalled XP on it. I posted that as my final solution to the issue on the Technet forums and stated I will not recommend Vista to business customers. Since then I have been getting calls twice a day from Microsoft... I'm just not answering to see what they want.
Proof: Number calling me: (800) 526.8683
Whocalled.us lookup: Microsoft Technet
There has been a huge backlash in the Technet forums about not getting the RTM Service pack for Vista. Several people have gone as far as to state they will not be renewing their memberships. If they cant get the files they are paying for at the same time businesses and OEM's are, there is little value left in the subcription you have to pay $500 plus a year.
.exe patch is 460mb, and the 64 bit .exe is 730mb. The ISO containing both is 1.13gb.
Furthermore the downloads on the Technet Page aren't working. Many people aren't getting the download links, and Microsoft has admitted they have no idea why its happening, or not happening in this case...
And those of us that are getting the download links are having issues actually downloading the service packs. My Windows Vista machine could not download the service packs at all, even following all of Microsofts trouble-shooting texts. The irony is my Windows XP sp2 workstation had no trouble downloading the files...
Now it appears if you have installed any add-on language packs, you can not install the 1.13gb patch via dvd.
The Vista 32 bit
Released a lack luster Operating System thats falling flat on its face, and the "fix" is proving hard to get and wont install on companys with machines setup to support multiple languages... So much for multinational corporations that may have been considering finally switching to Vista...
I have Comcast cable internet at home thanks to my work... For years I have had issues connecting to sites that are related to my work... Unable to find or very slow response time. When the Pirate Bay went down i switched to OpenDNS... Suddenly I found many sites, not just the Pirate Bay, that I had trouble connecting to before suddenly opening up without any problems and 10 times faster... Censorship by ISP's it the wrong way to go about it. Censoring DNS servers should be outright criminal...
RTFA... There are three major internet backbone lines connecting them, sepperated 1.8km apart. Two main use and one backup (redundant) line. The two main lines were both severed off the coast of Egypt. Different news outlets are offering conflicting stories, though the most prominent so far is that several ships were anchored in the wrong area and their anchors were dropped on the lines severing the lines in multiple places.
The lines are constantly getting damaged by dragnet fishing operations in other parts of the world, so not to surprising this happened off the coast of Egypt. Though it is curious to lines almost 2km appart were both damaged.
We use to tell our users to NOT turn off their computers nightly. Dont know if it still holds true with modern computers but with older systems just the shock of turning off and on the computer nightly could wear out the power button contacts or cause premature failure of the system... Out of habbit we still recommend only powering down on weekends.
Actually there was another book I read back in the early 90's that went over this same precept... In it they were called "Flingers" instead of Jumpers... And while they could teleport to any destination that they had been to before, they were also limited to 918kg's max weight. They couldnt figure out why that was the max. They would practice with weights then put a feather on it and that one ounce caused them to not be able to move it. All of the flingers were brainwashed at the acadameys, and new ones were found when the elder ones heard a ringing near them... The counter part to Flingers were "Anchors", people that somehow naturally negated the flingers abilities. If an anchor was near by when a flinger tried to teleport, they were sucked to the anchor... Actually a really good book. When I saw the first movie trailers I though it was a rip off of that novell.
wrongly? Sounds about right to me...
The Startrek.com website has been a bit of a joke for the last few years. With no new StarTrek shows or movies, there really hasn't been any fresh information on it. Instead they rehash old interviews and articles and shuffle stuff around. Looks more like the staff was just trying to do busy work to make it look like they were doing stuff to keep their jobs. CBS has finally caught on, they pretty much have killed the franchise... The new movie will probably be the last Trek movie anyone will see or hear of for a very long time if ever again.
I sometimes run alcohol sales for special events. While getting out liquor license for an event at the Cow Palace in San Francisco we learned that while its called the San Francisco Cow Palace, its really in Daily City. But when you call 911 and tell them you have a problem there, they still dispatch San Francisco Police which come from farther away and are slow to respond. The Chief of Police for Daily City actually told us to NEVER call 911 while doing an event there and gave us the direct number to dispatch...
All cell phone 911 calls in Northern California actually goes to the CHP (California Highway Patrol) dispatcher in Vacaville. Half the time you sit on hold for 5 minutes before getting an operator.
So instead of actually fixxing the system to recognize who the closer public services are and dispatch them, you have legislators adding idiotic and completely fubar new regulations which will effectively deter people from using the emergency services during crimes. I'm sure there are criminals all over lauding this new "feature".
Of course after I post the link to the Treasury is added to the article... Still going to piss off a lot of people. Especially the scared of big brother types that are against any tracking of their purchases...
I'm sure we are going to hear of someone sooner or later filing a complaint or lawsuit against Apple over requiring resellers to no longer accept cash... As printed on all U.S. Currancy, "THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE"... That statement alone could be used to fight the no cash payment options at least here in the states... Apple just keeps shooting themselves in the foot over the I-phone both with negative P.R. and legal mis-steps...
Reason RIAA is running scared before a Jury trial is that typically a Jury will side more often with the underdog. RIAA is a corporation while the defendant is a lonely individual trying to fight off the beast. That alone wins over part of the jury.
RIAA has gotten a ton of negative press over the years, and well deserved negative press - dont get me wrong, but as such, they have been shown in the media/news acting like gangsters and trying to strong arm and intimidate people into coughing up extortion money. No one, except people getting their paycheck from RIAA or its partners, have a favorable view of them... Its also been pointed out that RIAA doesnt appear to pass on any of the money they recover back to the "artists" that they are sueing on behalf of... How isnt that extortion? They sue you because you didnt legally buy the music on the grounds the studio and artist didnt get their fair earned money. Yet after you pay, they dont recoup the artists... Hmm maybe we need some artists to file lawsuits against RIAA to get their proceeds back, now that would make an interesting story and case...
Still, RIAA is well perceived as the evil empire. Its highly likely a jury of every day people will side with a corporation that then know is thats to villianize them for profit. Regardless if RIAA has a good strong case or not, they will loose it on the grounds of human empathy and disdain for their past public actions. RIAA's only hope in the case going to Jury is to file motion for the judge to throw out the jury decission based on bias, or to keep appealing the decission, just dragging the whole thing out and ramping up costs.
It might just be your local isp... I have Comcast in the San Francisco Area and have had the same connection since 2000 when it was @Home. Comcast needs the MAC address of the Cable modem in their database for you to use their service. Basically its an access list. Dont pay your bill, they stop allowing your Modems MAC address. @Home had compatibility issues and their install techs not the most able people. I bought the exact modem they told me to and then they couldnt get it to work. They finally gave up and game me their modem and off I went. Just last year I had to change out to a new modem, not bad run for 6 years... With two different cable modems on the same cable network for 7 years and I have NEVER had to install any software or inform Comcast of any of my MAC addresses for any device. I routinely test out firewalls I program before shipping them to clients and simply drop them inline in place of my firewall. The only thing I have to do is power cycle the cable modem and it detects the firewalls MAC address and is happy and I am surfing. Then I swap back in mine or another one and power cycle the modem again. The modems do NOT store your pc or firewalls MAC address between power cycles or reboots. Comcasts access database stores your CABLE MODEMS MAC address, but do not require your personal computer information to be registered with them. If you call them with a Linux system they simply tell you they dont support it. Then you have to do the phone suffle till you find a tech that will help you.
I live in an appartment complex that refused to install a $1 million dollar repeater to support cable broadband a few years back. So most of the people living here have DSL only because of a deal between the phone company and the appartment complex that locks you into one provider. Ironically, my building is the point the cable system enters the entire complex (10 buildings). So only people in my building can get cable modems according to the cable companies installers. So even though I am only paying for the basic 384kbs up/ 6mbs down, my actually speeds are typically 30mb down, 2mb up tested to several different test sites. So I'm happy with it. The downside will be when I finally move and suddenly I am down to the same speeds as everyone else... :(
When it was @Home running it speeds were locked at 128k up, 3mb down. When AT&T took over they raised it to 192k up but left it at 3mb down. Comcast took over from AT&T and raised down to 5 mb, and last year is when it appears they removed any artifical locks and speeds increased. On the flipside, Comcast throttles P2P traffic and slows down any P2P connections to the point that programs like Limewire are just painful to use.
Yet second life is thriving...
SWG had many other issues that have kept it from really becoming a hit. The number of locations you could travel was much less than you were promised. It wasnt until like 2 paid for add-ons before you could get a space ship. Duh, shouldnt that have been something in the base game? And then they nerfed everything and at the one year mark suddenly made it easy as hell to get a force character, just make one... That was a major FU to the people that paid and played the first year and all that time in beta and still did not have a force capable charater or had only just gotten to that point. Suddenly that $15/month plus $30 to buy the game ($150 or more for a year) was wasted because some guy that waited a year pays the $30 into price and suddenly has a force character...
User Generated worlds do work, look at Second Life. Granted I dont play it, I did log in to check out all the hoopla and it wasnt my thing. I'm more a FPS and strategy player... Yet Second Life is doing so well that even the IRS now has accounts and has been working with the parent company to explore the world and determine if they want to start taxing peoples virtual accounts... There are tons of articles about people that have quit their real jobs to run businesses soley in second life and are making thousands of dollars a month...
SWG might have worked if they had actually given the users the baseline they promised pre-release and not the bastardized stripped down crap they actually launched with...
Crap by any other name still smells just as bad...
Seriously how nieve are some of these execs? "People dont like it... I know, we'll just call it a different name..." Oh yeah, thats the ticket... Lets add more confusion to the customer base...
And this from a company who's CEO had to quit before he got fired days before the board meeting... Does this idiot really think misleading the public is a good idea especially at this time?
Seams this whole thing against her is more vindictive than a justifiable issue. More likely either a facilty member or a fellow student who reported her to the facilty had a personal grudge with her and is using some trumped up alligations to keep her from achieving her goal of becoming a teacher herself.
Could be something as simple as personalities clash or she spurned someones advances... Who knows, but this is clearly another example of the system being abused to punish someone else because of some other irrelevant personal issue. If its a facilty member then we are also looking at abuse of power or position...
Regardless, the school has errored in its action and its likely she will win her case. Sadly the damage is done and this all public record so she'll still have a hard time finding a job teaching anywhere...
This kid is not going to have to worry about college tuition... His family will sue and they will be awarded a large settlement because of this... Just you wait and see...
You cant let them buy it!!! We want to buy it!!!
Alas, but that doesnt help users with Exchange... Part of the $4000 hotfix kit you buy includes the DST updates for Exchange 2000 (which still are not freely available)
And sadly, yes, I know several companys still sitting on Exchange 2000. It works for them and they dont see why they should pay the Microsoft tax three times over (Exchange 2003, Windows 2003R2 64bit and Exchange 2007). Luckily most are using them soley as spam filters or frontends for webmail access. Though a few poor souls are still using it as their principle mail server. Some people refuse to spend money on IT until they absolutely have to...
The whole thing has been a joke and a colossal waste of money and resources... Personally I'd rather see Daylight savings time be tossed out entirely... Though Microsoft is loving it.
http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifean22
If you still had a Windows 2000 server on your network you had to either buy new software and give microsoft your money or pay $4000 to buy the DST hotfixes. Ironically leading up to change and for atleast one week afterwords you had to pay the $4000 fee to receive the hot fix. Now 3 weeks later they offer you a free manual update utility or the option to buy the $4000 hotfix. *The free manual utility was NOT available when everyone was rushing to update their older servers* Links to the old tech bulletin that only offered the pay for hotfix is no longer valid.
So out of curriosity, how much money did Microsoft make off the daylight savings change?
The problem falls into the way MS promoted Vista... Sure the base line systems can run Vista Basic or Vista without the Aero turned on, but at the same time Microsoft featured the Aero interface and even claim it as part of the "Vista Experiance". So on a technicallity the law suit does of merrit which shows how screwed up our legal system is.
Though I am not surprised I have been saying for months now that its total market spin and double talk the way Microsoft has been routinely pushing the features only available in the Enterprise and Ultimate versions of Vista (such as the bitlocker and Aero, etc) yet constantly focus on the price and specs of the Basic version. This causes market confusion and misleads their customers. Microsoft even engaged in this same deceptive marketting spin at their New Day Vista launch events.
Vista also has a nice little utility built in that lets you purchase Incremental Upgrades to your version. Oh, you bought basic but wanted the Aero? here pay us x and you get a new key to turn that on. Oh you want Media Center now, oh, pay us more... Also the piece meal upgrade system ends up costing much more than simply buying the version you wanted outright. This "feature" of Vista actually supports suspicion Microsoft intentionally entered into a bait and switch marketting scheme to defraud users.
All of the Sid Meirs Civilization games cheat. To prove it, get one of the trainer and save game editors. Save the game each round and look at the the AI players citys and units. They will produce two units at once and instantly without spending money to "buy" them. The cities dont suffer ill effects of to many troops or to long of a war. The higher the level you set the game at the more the AI cheats.
The companys still have some offices here, and some may still have their headquarters here, but much less "innovation" is done in the bay area anymore. When Texas started offering companys incentives such as no corporate taxes for x number of years and lower utility and land costs, many either moved entirely or large portions of their establishments there. There was an article awhile back that I just feel like looking for about how the IT field in North Carolina was growing at a faster rate than Sillicon Valley as well. Many people I use to work with left to either take better jobs or follow their jobs to other places with lower costs of living.
p dfc on+Valley%3F/2100-1022_3-5287616.html
Just because a company is Headquartered in an area doesnt mean thats where its main research and development are taking place. Many of the companys in the bay area either outsource or have setup offices in other states and countries where costs of operating are much cheeper. India's IT base is growing by leaps and bounds.
Even as far back as 2004 India was set to over take Silicon Valley in importance in the IT Field.
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/35443.html
http://www.paulinaborsook.com/Doco/disappearedSV.
http://news.com.com/Is+Bangalore+bigger+than+Sili
As for it being illegal to harvest stem cells, I wasnt clear enough I suppose. Yes you can harvest new Stem Cells if you are NOT receiving Federal Grant money. There are companys out there that are putting money into research. But not as many as there would be if there were matching availble grants from the Government. The Government has hampered innovation in the field by not supporting it. Granted these problems aren't all from Bush. Ironically Clinton signed the initial rules in 1996 that said they could not be used at all. Bush relaxed those rules by saying non-destructive and only if they were from before 2001. That still limits the availble pool for university and other organizations that rely on grants from the government to support their programs and endevors.
I live in the Sillicon Valley and we use to be the big Tech center, after the Dot Com burst people began shunning Technology based companys. Now the big focus in the area seams to be BioTech companys. They are quickly out pacing the IT companys in the area. But thanks to short sighted politicians there are to many bans and restrictions in this country on this type of technology.
Something like only 20% of the availble stock of Stem Cells are still viable but the government makes it illegal to harvest more. Maybe I missed something, but every article I have seen on the process seams to make it appear no life is destroyed getting the stem cells. Its simply the old Science vs. Religion debate and the Religious Zeolots are winning and running the country into a sad deluded existance.