The link at the end of the story that points to freedesktop.com should probably point to freedesktop.org (or even www.freedesktop.org since the non-www version seems to cause trouble for some people). Unless, of course, slashdot really meant to provide some free advertising to the lucky folks at freedesktop.com.
Last week, Secret Service agents in New York arrested three men and seized 35,000 illegally copied music discs, 10,000 movies on DVD and 421 compact disc burners that are used to make the counterfeit products.
as RIAA FUD. It was effectively 421 burners (i.e. 156 burners, but some of them were really fast).
"Anyone know how (or why) they would make such a generic file platform-specific -- what business advantage does Intuit (or my bank) have in restricting how I use this information?"
Yeah, I can see the business meeting now:
Intuit Programmer: "OK. We have written software that works on all possible platforms. It's all debugged and ready to go."
Intuit Business Guy: "Really? It runs perfectly on all platforms, and you're done with the whole debugging cycle? Didn't that cost a whole lot more than just writing code for the one platform that 99% of our users use?"
Intuit Programmer: "No. The magical code elves wrote all of the extra code for us. The code gnomes tested it. We paid them in fairy dust; no actual money involved."
Intuit Buisness Guy: "Hmmn.. well.. that's great, but I think we can get a real business advantage by keeping all of that stuff secret and not using it. Let's just ship the Windows version."
The question you should be asking is "how much of a business advantage would Intuit gain from investing the resources to develop this stuff for multiple platforms?" My guess is that it's just not worth it to them at this point. But who knows.. they might be working on it. My guess is that the smart thing to do is develop Windows stuff first, make 99% of your users happy, and develop other stuff later.
Apparently it's more advanced and doesn't censor the entire webpage, just portions.
Actually, the Yahoo article says that it blocks portions of websites rather than whole websites. Blocking parts of individual webpages would be a bit tougher:).
Re:AOL cancel operators
on
Disconnecting
·
· Score: 3, Informative
"They usually offer another free month"
This is actually quite useful. I've had free AOL for the last two years or so. Each time I call to cancel, they give me another free month or two.
"Would you stay with AOL if we gave you a month free?"
"Well.. I forgot to pay last month.. could you cancel that charge and give me another two months free?"
Do you really need your laptop? If not, don't bring it.
I spent three months hitchhiking and backpacking around Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Spain and Germany. Unless you're in really small towns, it should be very easy to find an internet cafe. I kept an online journal, kept up with my email, etc. And I never had to deal with the hassle of a laptop (do you really trust your hotel room/tent to be safe? If not, do you really want to lug the laptop everywhere you go?).
On the other hand, I also brought a Handspring Visor along. Smaller than a laptop, but useful for typing up journal entries anywhere and uploading them to the online journal later.
Another side note: if you'll be going to a few different countries, make sure you have power adapters for each.
Trust me, you want to avoid the hassle of a laptop if you can.
Setting up Linux on my laptop was kind of a bear. A few releases ago, I tried to upgrade (update? I can't remember what it's called) from a previous version of Mandrake, and my whole system was trashed so badly I had to reinstall from scratch.
Anybody had any luck with this recently, or should I just reinstall from scratch again?
"Is the net a serious news source. Certainly not."
This is not quite true. Take, for example, Salon. A number of people may be upset that they've started charging for quite a bit of their content now, but the fact remains that they have some of the best coverage that I've seen of recent events.
-Henri
P.S. I'm impressed that Salon made it so long without charging. They still make *half* of their money from ads. That's pretty impressive.
Slashdot Mirror
The link at the end of the story that points to freedesktop.com should probably point to freedesktop.org (or even www.freedesktop.org since the non-www version seems to cause trouble for some people). Unless, of course, slashdot really meant to provide some free advertising to the lucky folks at freedesktop.com.
as RIAA FUD. It was effectively 421 burners (i.e. 156 burners, but some of them were really fast).
"Anyone know how (or why) they would make such a generic file platform-specific -- what business advantage does Intuit (or my bank) have in restricting how I use this information?"
.. well .. that's great, but I think we can get a real business advantage by keeping all of that stuff secret and not using it. Let's just ship the Windows version."
.. they might be working on it. My guess is that the smart thing to do is develop Windows stuff first, make 99% of your users happy, and develop other stuff later.
Yeah, I can see the business meeting now:
Intuit Programmer: "OK. We have written software that works on all possible platforms. It's all debugged and ready to go."
Intuit Business Guy: "Really? It runs perfectly on all platforms, and you're done with the whole debugging cycle? Didn't that cost a whole lot more than just writing code for the one platform that 99% of our users use?"
Intuit Programmer: "No. The magical code elves wrote all of the extra code for us. The code gnomes tested it. We paid them in fairy dust; no actual money involved."
Intuit Buisness Guy: "Hmmn
The question you should be asking is "how much of a business advantage would Intuit gain from investing the resources to develop this stuff for multiple platforms?" My guess is that it's just not worth it to them at this point. But who knows
I'd give up $19.95 a month.
Actually, the Yahoo article says that it blocks portions of websites rather than whole websites. Blocking parts of individual webpages would be a bit tougher
"They usually offer another free month"
.. I forgot to pay last month .. could you cancel that charge and give me another two months free?"
:).
This is actually quite useful. I've had free AOL for the last two years or so. Each time I call to cancel, they give me another free month or two.
"Would you stay with AOL if we gave you a month free?"
"Well
"No problem."
Believe it or not, that actually happened
Kia's main page redirects to www.kia.com/index-netscape6.shtml when I look at it in mozilla.
;).
Not earth shattering, I know, but still kinda cool.
Clearly, if I were in the market for a new car, this would be the deciding factor
Do you really need your laptop? If not, don't bring it.
I spent three months hitchhiking and backpacking around Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Spain and Germany. Unless you're in really small towns, it should be very easy to find an internet cafe. I kept an online journal, kept up with my email, etc. And I never had to deal with the hassle of a laptop (do you really trust your hotel room/tent to be safe? If not, do you really want to lug the laptop everywhere you go?).
On the other hand, I also brought a Handspring Visor along. Smaller than a laptop, but useful for typing up journal entries anywhere and uploading them to the online journal later.
Another side note: if you'll be going to a few different countries, make sure you have power adapters for each.
Trust me, you want to avoid the hassle of a laptop if you can.
-Henri
Setting up Linux on my laptop was kind of a bear. A few releases ago, I tried to upgrade (update? I can't remember what it's called) from a previous version of Mandrake, and my whole system was trashed so badly I had to reinstall from scratch.
Anybody had any luck with this recently, or should I just reinstall from scratch again?
This is not quite true. Take, for example, Salon. A number of people may be upset that they've started charging for quite a bit of their content now, but the fact remains that they have some of the best coverage that I've seen of recent events.
-Henri
P.S. I'm impressed that Salon made it so long without charging. They still make *half* of their money from ads. That's pretty impressive.