Ticketmaster is proposing links are illegal? How long before we need disclaimers on hyperlinks? Before clicking this link please sign this contract. Posting a link, any link, is no different that posting a shipping address. After all you are not posting any proprietary data, just a link to someone elses data. By their same reasoning you could sue the post office.
It has been perfectly acceptable for car manufactures to quote their competitions product, price, and features for years. They are providing information about a competing product, the same information any consumer could get. By providing a link, you are doing the same thing. The only potential abuse for this is to claim their work as your own, a simple disclaimer ought to take care of that.
The fundamental question is one of reproducing an original. The only debate is the form that original takes. They are trying to claim that it is ok to "play" a song, as this is not transmitting data. Transmitting digital data is transmitting digital data.
If the NAB wins, than they may have cleared the way for "transmitting" other files. Your only left dealing with semantics on what constitutes music, which is nothing more than data. In other words, if they win, we could transmit all sorts of useful data with their same arguement. Wish them the best.
I used to work support for a very large company that did not trust (with good reason) it's franchisees. They used items like this that captured the video signal from the monitor. It was about 2 mm deep and sat in-between the video card and the cable for the monitor. You wouldn't know it was there unless you were looking for it. Even most experienced technicians servicing the computers would never even notice. You could tell the sharp ones, because they would ask.
Now I should state that it used a small antenna to send the signal up to the ceiling where a vcr would record everything on the screen. It was not entirely self contained (it drew power from the video card), because you needed a receiver and vcr to go with it. But, it worked very very well. Unless you physically look it is never going to be found. Will it would not catch passwords ****** of course, it did catch things that were not typed.
Oh yeah, this was in use 3 years ago. Big brother is watching...
It's too bad about the change in policy. I was going to pick one up to use as a command interface for my car stereo. I think it would fit, and the keyboard was perfect. I was going to set one up with mini-linux or probably BSD to control my car stereo for competition.
When is AMD going to get off there arses and make their processors friendly to the whole multiprocessor shindig? Translation, when do we get Athlon in a beowolf or SMP? If AMD is serious about wanting to compete with Intel than they need to start working on proof of concept projects like this. Second question is what is going to be the practical difference between a supercomputer and a beowolf cluster. They are both starting to be made more and more like each other. More to the point, how do you define a supercomputer? This is very important for things like export controls.
Shortage of people with 7 years of JAVA? How about a shortage of people with 2 years in Windows 2000, or 6 years in NT 4.0? How many times have you seen want'ads requiring a combination of experience that 5 people on the planet have? How many times have you seen want ads that require a bachelors degree? Yet someone with real world experience gets passed over for someone with a degree in forestry (happened at Honeywell). Than their are requirements for more more experience on a product than it has been around. You would not qualify for many of these jobs unless you wrote the original product!
The shortage is artificial. This is nothing more than an attempt to bring in foreign labor cheaper than local market labor. It is the same thing that the trucking companies do. I mean this as no slam on those IT professionals outside the US, but the reality is they are viewed by IT managers (not my view neccasarily) as a "cheap import". Yes, I realize many of these people are certainly not cheap or unskilled, but 98 times out of a 100 they are brought in because they are cheaper. That is the bottom line.
Companies complain about not having enough "qualified" tech workers. I wonder how many of these companies are willing to train their internal employees? I imagine very few. My company provides under $2K a year for school. That doesn't go very far. The fact that I (or anyone in my position) will recieve no pay increase when finished shows a shortage of vision on the part of management.
The shortage could easily be alleviated by companies looking within. When companies raise artificial obstacles (4 yr degree, and 3 years exp for 30K) they are going to suffer. If a company wants a trained & skilled IT workforce they should look at realistic hiring requirements, new people without experience (everybody has to start somewhere), training those employees they do have, and more to the point, keeping them. I have no sympathy for people who throw stones in glass houses and complain of windows breaking...
Disclaimer: Yes, I could pass "just the Networking Essentials" portion of thest test.
Then why didn't you? Surely someone as smart as you must be aware that by obtaining an MSCE your average salary will increase by an average of $X. And for a mere $Y dollars, it certainly seems like a good deal to me! If the majority of/.'s could pass the test, they would for the money. Saying there smart enough for one but not smart enough to take "easy" money is insulting the intelligence of those that read slashdot.
Your error is in assuming that/.ers have no other experience with MCSE's or other certifications. I know a lot of MCSE's, and I would definitely say that the vast majority of them lack a lot of knowledge. ("Looks like you need to
MSCEs, or MCPs? I happen to know a few MCSEs myself, and they're definately no slouches. reinstall Windows." Way to ascertain the root cause, dude!) I worked for an MCSE once, and it quickly became apparent that she know virtually nothing about TCP/IP. Considering that she was the Manager of Internet Operations at an ISP,
Well, did she get certified in TCP/IP? Maybe you're not aware that to be MSCE you only need to pass the 4 core exams and 2 electives. TCP/IP is not a core exam. Also, saying that being knowledgeable in TCP/IP = being knowledgable in computers is the same as saying that knowing how to use a stick shift on your car will make you an expert driver (ie: you can do NASCAR). that was a severe handicap. And there are countless more examples. I would say that easily 80% of the MCSE's I've run into know crap, not even including the jokers who are studying for it now.
How many MSCEs do you know? If you know 5, then that's not really a good judge of MSCEs on the whole. Companies are paying $X more for MSCE certified people, this is publically-available information. There's a reason for that, I'm sure, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on why they'd be paying so much for people with such a low skill level.
The point remains that there are too many MCSE's out there who know next to...
There's 140,000. Divide that into the 250 million people in the US. Consider now the incredible demand for IT workers. Also note that there are over 350k people who have slashdot accounts, and that slashdot gets more than that in hits each day. Too many? I say too few. nothing for the rest of us to be able to put any credibility into that certification. Other certifications may not necessarily work you harder, but my...
Sir, the number of people who are certified has absolutely zero bearing on how comprehensive a test is. If this was the case, your IQ would be directly proportional to how many neighbors your had. Look at the material, not the numbers. You might as well say becoming a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) is easy. There are certainly a lot of those around!
experience has generally been that admins certified on, say, Solaris, typically know more and are more competent, even if the test isn't massively harder.
Here again you're taking two unrelated facts and trying to arrive at a conclusion. In order to prove/disprove your assertion, we would need a sufficiently large random cross-section of the IT community, and have them seperated into three groups - Solaris, MCSE, and the control group. Then we'd need to come up with a metric measuring how 'competent' they are. This alone would take years of research. It would be akin to comparing apples and oranges. But, if you happen to have a report from somebody who did this handy, I'd love to see it. By your own admission, you state that the tests could be of comparable difficulty yet the people who are certified may or may not have the same level of competence when they are finished! After all how do you compare what someone certified on Solaris knows versus somebody certified in NT?
I see that you considered "getting" your certification. It is quite apparent you have not actually done so. You say about 1/3 of the test is advertising. I have at this point taken 5 of the tests and have yet to see anything to the effect that "netbuei is better" or "buy microsoft".
We still need to know about limitations on cable lengths and the like, but knowing that makes you a "network engineer" no more than being able to change the oil in your car makes you a "engine engineer" ready for an exciting new career in Detroit or Seattle (Boeing).
I agree, and so does MS. When you pass your Networking Essentails (cable lengths, OSI model and so on) you have earned your "Networking Essentails" certification. This does not even give you the MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional). But it is required groundwork to obtain the MCSE. At this point, 6 exams later, MS calls you a "Software engineer". I do not recall anything in their advertisements claiming this makes you an avionics engineer. Please look at the material before discussing it (and bashing it).
If you are getting "Microsoft not only has the best protocols, they're the fastest and they'll even find you a date for Saturday. Use the outdated, flawed protocols used by Unix, Novell, Apple, or others and you'll be shunned by friends, rejected by lovers, and have your car repossessed." out of your studies than you obviously weren't studying for the test. Perhaps if you had studied for the test you might have learned things like how to work with Unix or Novell. I seem to recall a bit about Unix, and a significant amount about Novell.
You also state that the rest of the exam actually contains "useful" information. Your own argument defeats itself. 1/3rd being crap is alot better than what most universities will have you learn, FYI. You might want to try doing more than skimming the book at the bookstore before you make such a judgement.
I find it amusing how many people on Slashdot rip on MCSE's. I wonder how many of these people could pass just the Networking Essentails test. Just because someone has taken the time and expense to earn a certification in the biggest players product does not mean that person endorses, or particulary even likes the product. That many slashdotters make the correlation that MCSE = easy to get is laughable. If that was the case you could hire one at $7.50 an hour.
The other thing that I find amusing is that if you have certifications from certain other vendors such as SUN, Novell, or Banyon Vines, you don't have to take as many certification tests to obtain the MCSE. That is because they (their competition) are aware of just what it takes to get the certification. This also works in reverse. The reality of the IT environment is that you are going to run into MS products. Wither or not you like their products or business practices is really not relevant. It's no different than learning Cisco if you want to get into WAN's and routers.
Save the flames, I have and am learning to use Linux.
Now we just need to get banks, schools, state governments, to follow suit. I wonder how long it is going to take people to realize that they should own their own information. Companies like doubleclick, wells fargo, and trw have the unfortunate viewpoint that they own those pieces of your life.
The only way to stop companies like these from selling, renting, and trading this is to make it illegal. The legislature here in Minnesota started to look at making these kinds of transactions illegal. It was very popular with the public. Now of course the lobbyists have stepped in and convinced the legislature that the economy will collapse if that does happen.
Europeans have very strong privacy legislation and benefit from it. I think it is absurd that our government has gone head to head with EU to get around this. People need to contact their governments and let them know that this is important.
Smart move on AOL's part. The net community was almost unaminous in there opposition of the merger. They just took teeth out of that arguement. Now the only questions are os's allowed, etc. Guess the consumer can benefit from politics after all. Must be a cold day in hell.
For most people their harddrive is their #2 bottleneck right behind a lack of memory. If you have enough memory than it is the bottleneck. The thing I like to see here is the average access time of 3.9 ms, and either a SCSI 160 or 2GB fiber interface. Unfortunately I could not find any other details about other features of the drive. Improvements of this magnitude will have a greater effect on the average computer than an extra $200 spent for that last 50 mhz of processor speed.
I wonder how long "trickle down technology" will take to get this to John Q Public? It is unfortunate that technology like this is never released on a broad basis. How long do we have to wait for someone to make something like this in a large scale? Whoever does so will quickly capture a substantial portion of market share if they can just make enough...
Lowest Common Denominator. You would slow down to 10 mbps. That's what the auto-negotiation handles. You can get away with cat 5 (per article) but you still have to have a hub or switch that can handle it. That will be the big (economic) roadblock.
I wonder who will buy more, business for their use, or gamers? Let's face it, who doesn't want one. Now we have to wait and see how much the final product is going to cost. Also I did not see anything about drivers or the like. The other big question is getting a switch for one that doesn't cost more than the computer... Anybody know a good switch to go with it???
Most of the spying that goes on in the world is bears no resemblence to a James Bond style UK vs USSR flick. The majority of information gathering has always been, and always will be for commercial purposes.
Historical examples abound from Chinas' loss of the silkworm, Englands loss of cotton farming techniques, to Syria's loss of Damascus Steel. Like it or not, commerce has always been the driving force behind most of the worlds history (one could argue religion).
The point is that nations have always spied on nations, wither they are frinedly or not. Does Echelon really exist? I don't know, maybe, maybe not, but it makes a nice sounding "Big Brother" name. After all it easier to name a program than an individual. Who would ever believe that a single person could make or break a multi-billion dollar deal? Doesn't sound nearly as good as a mysterious international consiparicy...
Look at the information behind the headlines. France is suffering over 12% unemployment, and those who are employed can't even work a 40 hour work week at one job. France knows they are never going to collect a dime. But if the political leaders over there can blame the evil "foreigners", than they look better. History is full of such examples from Hitler, to the newly elected extremists in Austria.
You don't hear about most corporate espionage for the same reason you don't hear about 99% of compromised corporate systems, image. If anyone would like a reality check, or a good book to reference, I would recommend "The sword and the shield, the Mitrokhin archive, the secret history of the KGB". (Pub by Basic Books, author Christopher Andrew) The book is very recent and has been endorsed by unique sources. Look behind the headlines, the rest is nothing more than smoke.
The issue is that their is no "manual" or warning of the implications of this. They go far beyond being a default ISP or browser with what they do. It's like pulling up to Amoco, someone ask's "fill 'er up?", you say yes, and discover that they decided to replace the fluid in your transmission. As for the "mindless sheep", should they spend several years learning to be computer gurus like your average slashdot reader?
What people need to understand is the potential implications of a case like this. We had the recent case against Toshiba, settled for a paltry 2 billion dollars. And even then not everyone took part in the settlement. If this case suceeds it is going to shake the entire software industry. The implications that software manufactures can be responsible for what they do to someone's computer would be a fundamental change in thinking for almost every software company. This is really no different than Quicken installing Internet Explorer, or a dozen other such programs. This is just the first time that a lawsuit has gained class action status. In a nutshell, if AOL loses, it is going to force software manufacturers to be responsible for what they have created. Software that is carelessly written, documented, or creates security holes will be an open invitation to sue. Perhaps this country is too sue happy, but what does it take to make software manufactures to stop their lackluster quality control. (I work for a software co by the way). This is not really that different than what other industries have gone through. The result of this may be that software will come with warning labels. Imagine, "Installation of Personal Web Server will leave your system open to security risks at the following ports..." I think a lawsuit of this nature is overdue. There is no other industry where shipping a product with 100's of flaws is considered acceptable.
Here's what I'd advise that you buy For the motherboard You simply aren't going to find a board that will support that much RAM bus memory (RIMM Slots). The prices are enough that it would start to approach the SGI... I would heavily recommend going with the PC133. You can spend the saved money on better quality components. Supermicro Super PIIIDM6 http://www.supermicro.com/PRODUCT/MotherBoards/840 /PIIIDM6.htm For the 9 GB hard drive: Quantum Atlas IV For the 36 GB hard drive: Quantum Atlas 10K As for the sound and DVD, I wonder if you are using these for re-enactments. If so, the Soundblaster should be fine. I don't see any reason for the DVD though. I find it extremely unlikely that you are wanting to record data on DVD. And for all intents and purposes you would have to buy a dedicated industrial grade recorder if you did. The only reason I can think of to buy DVD is for training films. So I would go with a good high quality SCSI CD-ROM instead. I would recomend the Logitech Mouse Man Wheel. It is much more ergonomical, has better quality and better support. I just don't see Microsoft offering Linux support on their mouse. Your going to have a lot of heat with the fast spinning hard drives and dual processor arrangement. I would recommend that you install more as many case fans as you can physically fit. I would recommend a RAID controller for speed and redundancy for control. A good controller that will support the SCSI 160 is the Mylex extreme raid 2000. I don't think that you can find a SCSI 160 card that will work on a standard 32 bit PCI slot. I don't know of any motherboard out there that would meet the rest of your requirements and has 64 bit pci slots. I would wait a month or so and see if something comes out in that area.
Slashdot Mirror
It has been perfectly acceptable for car manufactures to quote their competitions product, price, and features for years. They are providing information about a competing product, the same information any consumer could get. By providing a link, you are doing the same thing. The only potential abuse for this is to claim their work as your own, a simple disclaimer ought to take care of that.
If the NAB wins, than they may have cleared the way for "transmitting" other files. Your only left dealing with semantics on what constitutes music, which is nothing more than data. In other words, if they win, we could transmit all sorts of useful data with their same arguement. Wish them the best.
Now I should state that it used a small antenna to send the signal up to the ceiling where a vcr would record everything on the screen. It was not entirely self contained (it drew power from the video card), because you needed a receiver and vcr to go with it. But, it worked very very well. Unless you physically look it is never going to be found. Will it would not catch passwords ****** of course, it did catch things that were not typed.
Oh yeah, this was in use 3 years ago. Big brother is watching...
It's too bad about the change in policy. I was going to pick one up to use as a command interface for my car stereo. I think it would fit, and the keyboard was perfect. I was going to set one up with mini-linux or probably BSD to control my car stereo for competition.
When is AMD going to get off there arses and make their processors friendly to the whole multiprocessor shindig? Translation, when do we get Athlon in a beowolf or SMP? If AMD is serious about wanting to compete with Intel than they need to start working on proof of concept projects like this. Second question is what is going to be the practical difference between a supercomputer and a beowolf cluster. They are both starting to be made more and more like each other. More to the point, how do you define a supercomputer? This is very important for things like export controls.
The shortage is artificial. This is nothing more than an attempt to bring in foreign labor cheaper than local market labor. It is the same thing that the trucking companies do. I mean this as no slam on those IT professionals outside the US, but the reality is they are viewed by IT managers (not my view neccasarily) as a "cheap import". Yes, I realize many of these people are certainly not cheap or unskilled, but 98 times out of a 100 they are brought in because they are cheaper. That is the bottom line.
Companies complain about not having enough "qualified" tech workers. I wonder how many of these companies are willing to train their internal employees? I imagine very few. My company provides under $2K a year for school. That doesn't go very far. The fact that I (or anyone in my position) will recieve no pay increase when finished shows a shortage of vision on the part of management.
The shortage could easily be alleviated by companies looking within. When companies raise artificial obstacles (4 yr degree, and 3 years exp for 30K) they are going to suffer. If a company wants a trained & skilled IT workforce they should look at realistic hiring requirements, new people without experience (everybody has to start somewhere), training those employees they do have, and more to the point, keeping them. I have no sympathy for people who throw stones in glass houses and complain of windows breaking...
That would be correct.
Then why didn't you? Surely someone as smart as you must be aware that by obtaining an MSCE your average salary will increase by an average of $X. And for a mere $Y dollars, it certainly seems like a good deal to me! If the majority of /.'s could pass the test, they would for the money. Saying there smart enough for one but not smart enough to take "easy" money is insulting the intelligence of those that read slashdot.
Your error is in assuming that /.ers have no other experience with MCSE's or other certifications. I know a lot of MCSE's, and I would definitely say that the vast majority of them lack a lot of knowledge. ("Looks like you need to
MSCEs, or MCPs? I happen to know a few MCSEs myself, and they're definately no slouches. reinstall Windows." Way to ascertain the root cause, dude!) I worked for an MCSE once, and it quickly became apparent that she know virtually nothing about TCP/IP. Considering that she was the Manager of Internet Operations at an ISP,
Well, did she get certified in TCP/IP? Maybe you're not aware that to be MSCE you only need to pass the 4 core exams and 2 electives. TCP/IP is not a core exam. Also, saying that being knowledgeable in TCP/IP = being knowledgable in computers is the same as saying that knowing how to use a stick shift on your car will make you an expert driver (ie: you can do NASCAR). that was a severe handicap. And there are countless more examples. I would say that easily 80% of the MCSE's I've run into know crap, not even including the jokers who are studying for it now.
How many MSCEs do you know? If you know 5, then that's not really a good judge of MSCEs on the whole. Companies are paying $X more for MSCE certified people, this is publically-available information. There's a reason for that, I'm sure, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on why they'd be paying so much for people with such a low skill level.
The point remains that there are too many MCSE's out there who know next to...
There's 140,000. Divide that into the 250 million people in the US. Consider now the incredible demand for IT workers. Also note that there are over 350k people who have slashdot accounts, and that slashdot gets more than that in hits each day. Too many? I say too few. nothing for the rest of us to be able to put any credibility into that certification. Other certifications may not necessarily work you harder, but my...
Sir, the number of people who are certified has absolutely zero bearing on how comprehensive a test is. If this was the case, your IQ would be directly proportional to how many neighbors your had. Look at the material, not the numbers. You might as well say becoming a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) is easy. There are certainly a lot of those around!
experience has generally been that admins certified on, say, Solaris, typically know more and are more competent, even if the test isn't massively harder.
Here again you're taking two unrelated facts and trying to arrive at a conclusion. In order to prove/disprove your assertion, we would need a sufficiently large random cross-section of the IT community, and have them seperated into three groups - Solaris, MCSE, and the control group. Then we'd need to come up with a metric measuring how 'competent' they are. This alone would take years of research. It would be akin to comparing apples and oranges. But, if you happen to have a report from somebody who did this handy, I'd love to see it. By your own admission, you state that the tests could be of comparable difficulty yet the people who are certified may or may not have the same level of competence when they are finished! After all how do you compare what someone certified on Solaris knows versus somebody certified in NT?
In short, you don't have a leg to stand on.
We still need to know about limitations on cable lengths and the like, but knowing that makes you a "network engineer" no more than being able to change the oil in your car makes you a "engine engineer" ready for an exciting new career in Detroit or Seattle (Boeing).
I agree, and so does MS. When you pass your Networking Essentails (cable lengths, OSI model and so on) you have earned your "Networking Essentails" certification. This does not even give you the MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional). But it is required groundwork to obtain the MCSE. At this point, 6 exams later, MS calls you a "Software engineer". I do not recall anything in their advertisements claiming this makes you an avionics engineer. Please look at the material before discussing it (and bashing it).
If you are getting "Microsoft not only has the best protocols, they're the fastest and they'll even find you a date for Saturday. Use the outdated, flawed protocols used by Unix, Novell, Apple, or others and you'll be shunned by friends, rejected by lovers, and have your car repossessed." out of your studies than you obviously weren't studying for the test. Perhaps if you had studied for the test you might have learned things like how to work with Unix or Novell. I seem to recall a bit about Unix, and a significant amount about Novell.
You also state that the rest of the exam actually contains "useful" information. Your own argument defeats itself. 1/3rd being crap is alot better than what most universities will have you learn, FYI. You might want to try doing more than skimming the book at the bookstore before you make such a judgement.
Put your money where your mouth is. Go take the test, today. Lets us know how you did.
The other thing that I find amusing is that if you have certifications from certain other vendors such as SUN, Novell, or Banyon Vines, you don't have to take as many certification tests to obtain the MCSE. That is because they (their competition) are aware of just what it takes to get the certification. This also works in reverse. The reality of the IT environment is that you are going to run into MS products. Wither or not you like their products or business practices is really not relevant. It's no different than learning Cisco if you want to get into WAN's and routers.
Save the flames, I have and am learning to use Linux.
The only way to stop companies like these from selling, renting, and trading this is to make it illegal. The legislature here in Minnesota started to look at making these kinds of transactions illegal. It was very popular with the public. Now of course the lobbyists have stepped in and convinced the legislature that the economy will collapse if that does happen.
Europeans have very strong privacy legislation and benefit from it. I think it is absurd that our government has gone head to head with EU to get around this. People need to contact their governments and let them know that this is important.
Smart move on AOL's part. The net community was almost unaminous in there opposition of the merger. They just took teeth out of that arguement. Now the only questions are os's allowed, etc. Guess the consumer can benefit from politics after all. Must be a cold day in hell.
I wonder how long "trickle down technology" will take to get this to John Q Public? It is unfortunate that technology like this is never released on a broad basis. How long do we have to wait for someone to make something like this in a large scale? Whoever does so will quickly capture a substantial portion of market share if they can just make enough...
Lowest Common Denominator. You would slow down to 10 mbps. That's what the auto-negotiation handles. You can get away with cat 5 (per article) but you still have to have a hub or switch that can handle it. That will be the big (economic) roadblock.
I wonder who will buy more, business for their use, or gamers? Let's face it, who doesn't want one. Now we have to wait and see how much the final product is going to cost. Also I did not see anything about drivers or the like. The other big question is getting a switch for one that doesn't cost more than the computer... Anybody know a good switch to go with it???
Historical examples abound from Chinas' loss of the silkworm, Englands loss of cotton farming techniques, to Syria's loss of Damascus Steel. Like it or not, commerce has always been the driving force behind most of the worlds history (one could argue religion).
The point is that nations have always spied on nations, wither they are frinedly or not. Does Echelon really exist? I don't know, maybe, maybe not, but it makes a nice sounding "Big Brother" name. After all it easier to name a program than an individual. Who would ever believe that a single person could make or break a multi-billion dollar deal? Doesn't sound nearly as good as a mysterious international consiparicy...
Look at the information behind the headlines. France is suffering over 12% unemployment, and those who are employed can't even work a 40 hour work week at one job. France knows they are never going to collect a dime. But if the political leaders over there can blame the evil "foreigners", than they look better. History is full of such examples from Hitler, to the newly elected extremists in Austria.
You don't hear about most corporate espionage for the same reason you don't hear about 99% of compromised corporate systems, image. If anyone would like a reality check, or a good book to reference, I would recommend "The sword and the shield, the Mitrokhin archive, the secret history of the KGB". (Pub by Basic Books, author Christopher Andrew) The book is very recent and has been endorsed by unique sources. Look behind the headlines, the rest is nothing more than smoke.
The issue is that their is no "manual" or warning of the implications of this. They go far beyond being a default ISP or browser with what they do. It's like pulling up to Amoco, someone ask's "fill 'er up?", you say yes, and discover that they decided to replace the fluid in your transmission. As for the "mindless sheep", should they spend several years learning to be computer gurus like your average slashdot reader?
What people need to understand is the potential implications of a case like this. We had the recent case against Toshiba, settled for a paltry 2 billion dollars. And even then not everyone took part in the settlement. If this case suceeds it is going to shake the entire software industry. The implications that software manufactures can be responsible for what they do to someone's computer would be a fundamental change in thinking for almost every software company. This is really no different than Quicken installing Internet Explorer, or a dozen other such programs. This is just the first time that a lawsuit has gained class action status. In a nutshell, if AOL loses, it is going to force software manufacturers to be responsible for what they have created. Software that is carelessly written, documented, or creates security holes will be an open invitation to sue. Perhaps this country is too sue happy, but what does it take to make software manufactures to stop their lackluster quality control. (I work for a software co by the way). This is not really that different than what other industries have gone through. The result of this may be that software will come with warning labels. Imagine, "Installation of Personal Web Server will leave your system open to security risks at the following ports..." I think a lawsuit of this nature is overdue. There is no other industry where shipping a product with 100's of flaws is considered acceptable.
Here's what I'd advise that you buy For the motherboard You simply aren't going to find a board that will support that much RAM bus memory (RIMM Slots). The prices are enough that it would start to approach the SGI... I would heavily recommend going with the PC133. You can spend the saved money on better quality components. Supermicro Super PIIIDM6 http://www.supermicro.com/PRODUCT/MotherBoards/840 /PIIIDM6.htm For the 9 GB hard drive: Quantum Atlas IV For the 36 GB hard drive: Quantum Atlas 10K As for the sound and DVD, I wonder if you are using these for re-enactments. If so, the Soundblaster should be fine. I don't see any reason for the DVD though. I find it extremely unlikely that you are wanting to record data on DVD. And for all intents and purposes you would have to buy a dedicated industrial grade recorder if you did. The only reason I can think of to buy DVD is for training films. So I would go with a good high quality SCSI CD-ROM instead. I would recomend the Logitech Mouse Man Wheel. It is much more ergonomical, has better quality and better support. I just don't see Microsoft offering Linux support on their mouse. Your going to have a lot of heat with the fast spinning hard drives and dual processor arrangement. I would recommend that you install more as many case fans as you can physically fit. I would recommend a RAID controller for speed and redundancy for control. A good controller that will support the SCSI 160 is the Mylex extreme raid 2000. I don't think that you can find a SCSI 160 card that will work on a standard 32 bit PCI slot. I don't know of any motherboard out there that would meet the rest of your requirements and has 64 bit pci slots. I would wait a month or so and see if something comes out in that area.