I heard on TV yesterday that to appease those annoyed at having paid the original price, MS offer a "Thank-You Package". If you bought your console before the 26th April and you apply before the 1st July you can get the package which gives you two games and a controller for free. Sounds good. UK only, AFAIK.
But a word of warning to anyone else running Win98 on a P133 with 64MB RAM. This thing nuts your machine. I can't get it off my desktop. I'm gonna have to reboot again.. arg.
I've tried Mandrake before and as far as I recall, it wasn't a case of "boot-from-cd, click click click click...", but more "boot-from-cd, type, type, click click click clik...". Admittedly that was a while ago (6+ months).
I know GUI installation is slow and foolish but for first time users it's ideal. In fact, as an experienced windows user, I'd love a command-based installer, now that I'm familiar with the OS. But if you've never used windows, a command-based installer would be too daunting. And when I say "you've" I'm speaking of a broader crowd than the largely experienced Slashdot bunch.
I'm a windows user. I use windows at work and run it on my computers at home. I've always wanted to install Linux on one of my machines (There is only so much drooling over nice KDE screenshots that I can take.)
I'm fortunate enough to have "Linux friend" who helps me.. but more often than not they type and I watch. I've made attempts at installing Slackware, Gentoo and Debian. The most recent attempt (successful) involved my friend spending quite a bit of time battling away at the console to download the latest Debian bits. So I now have a working KDE system that I can play around with to learn the ropes. And this is what I wanted.
But the biggest problem I faced when trying to learn Linux is the installation process. It's discouraged me no end. In my defense, I'm not stupid, I'm actually a software engineer, although yes.. purely windows (and no, not VB).
My point (getting there) is that you can say what you will about windows but it beats Linux hands down on the installation. Until the Linux installation process becomes as simple as booting from a CD and clicking "Next" a few hundred times, it will not have the user base it deserves.
I know there's plenty of documentation, help, support, walkthroughs etc.. etc.. but it's just not enough. I haven't found a distribution with a one-off graphical installer (and neither has my friend). There's always a bunch of commands you're going to have to learn and instructions to follow. For many (including myself), this is too daunting, and I don't want to spend a great deal of time reading up on something beforehand.
I'm not trying to troll here I just think that until we see more distributions with simpler-than-simple installers, Linux will very much remain "underground".
So if there's no distribution that does this already, can a Linux code-monkey write an app for windows that downloads and burns the desired Linux, then having booted from the CD, walks you through from start to finish, clicking on "Next" and "OK" etc..?
I'm not stealing at all, but rather, I'm taking full advantage of the service that I pay for.
I see this sort of stuff more and more. You get slapped an extra charge because you're one of the few that actually uses the entirety of what you pay for.
It's not my fault that ISPs etc.. take on more clients under the assumption that not everyone will be using the bandwidth they pay for at a given time. The assumption is correct, but when ISPs get greedy, they stretch their estimates of peak usage and take on too many clients. As a result, clients end up with a degraded service, more so if some of them actually use the entire bandwidth they pay for.
Hence ISPs get annoyed by the bandwidth "hogs" and slap on an extra charge to cover the cost of expansion.
This isn't limited to ISPs, I see this with other services too although none spring to mind just now (time for more coffee methinks).
You visit your local pharmacy... "Hello, I'd like something for a sore throat" "Sure, take some FDAnadol" "Haven't you got anything else?" "No, the FDA have outlawed chipless drugs." "But I don't want 'chipped' drugs!" "Why? Are you a terrorist?" "Urm no... Well I guess I have no choice then."
Later... "What's that buzzing in my ear? Hold on.. what?? No I do not want to consolidate debt! WTF?!? No I would not like to learn how to enlarge my penis! Get away!!"
Am I the only one who thinks these P2P apps are evil?
I used Grokster on my networked Win2K box at home. This box contains my personal files, such as financial info and I also use it to do online banking. So my privacy really matters. I also use this box for work and I have it streamlined and tweaked to run as efficiently as possible. No foolish system tray or startup apps etc...
Well it seems that P2P apps like Kazaa or Grokster work hard to breach my privacy and fudge my system. I've never known software to be so malicious. First, I see that Grokster has web-based ad support. Okay, that's tolerable, they need some form of revenue. But don't think I haven't noticed your "secret" stash of cached ads in my system directory, Mr Grokster. Then I notice the popup ads. Also annoying.. but again I tolerate. I didn't run Grokster for longer than a day and my system can handle twenty browser windows. But then, incredibly, it turns out that the required advert component also sends out information about me, including my browser history. Big no-no, Mr Grokster. Now I have to spend time to counteract this. I found a replacement set of libraries which do not send personal information. From that point on, I figured I was safe. Oh no... this weekend, after a Grokster session, I spotted a strange "extract.exe" on my desktop. Hmmm. How did that get there? I took a look inside and found various executables and libraries. How quaint. I most certainly did not download it. So I searched my system and lo and behold, it seems some ActiveX has automatically downloaded and run this program for me, spreading half a dozen files around my system. Looking through the registry I see that in fact it's installed a browser toolbar. Oh lovely.. just what I wanted. Took me a good half hour to rid my system of it's leeches.
The moral of the story, don't run Grokster. Well fine, I've learnt my lesson and I'm fortunate enough to have another disposable machine to unleash the Grok on. But my concern is the X million people who don't have a clue. The sort who click on "www.yahoo.com.exe". They see Grokster or Kazaa on download.com or whatever, download it and use it blissfully ignorant of what I consider to be a virus. In fact, the only difference I see between Grokster, Kazaa etc.. and viruses is a service. Package your virus as an application and you earn amnesty from antivirus software.
Slashdot articles and anti-spyware sites keep us geeks in the loop, but that doesn't help the masses. Only laws help the masses. There must be some law somewhere that states such practices to be illegal. Tricks used by these programs such as placing independent components in the system directory posing as actual system files, running programs without permission, not informing users of these hidden "features" and so on, are clearly malicious.
I'm for P2P networks, but clients such as these seriously rub me the wrong way and I'll be glad when the RIAA eats them. I just pray for a nicer client to take their place.
I'm sure a crowd of people slipping around is a very amusing sight, but what happens if someone gets seriously injured? How would the ambulance crew get to them without being injured themselves?
Personally, I'd like to see Kazaa, Grokster & Morpheus taken down. Don't get me wrong, I'm an avid Grokker, but every time a popular P2P service gets taken down, a newer and better one rises to the top.
When people wanted more than Napster, Scour appeared. When they both stopped, Kazaa etc.. hit the scene.
It's only a matter of time before Kazaa etc.. are stopped completely and I look forward to the "next big thing". Although annoying, this leads to progress and I hope it'll end up with a P2P network that you *can't* kill and that's better than Gnutella.
Well that's nice, but I've never installed AudioGalaxy and I found webhancer installed. I'm the sole user of my box and I've never seen anything telling me what webhancer is/does and whether I want to install it or not.
I realise Napster is no different to other P2P apps and merely facilitates file transfer. But when you said "Any failure to comply with our copyright laws is not only unamerican, it's an obvious attempt to undermine the US economy!", it made me chuckle because it seems to me that was the reason Napster was taken to court in the first place.
I don't like the idea of having all my appliances networked, mainly because I don't trust the manufacturers' engineering skills. Like the washing machine example previously posted. But I do like the idea of specialist appliances. For example, an alarm-clock sized device giving you temperature, cpu activity etc.. readout would be very useful. The potential for distributing mp3s / divxs round the house is interesting too.
A couple of queries though:
How will this affect my eletricity bill?
How will this connect to my PC? I sometimes need to disconnect my box and if that means unplugging the power, then it's of no use to me.
Slashdot Mirror
Urm yah. The link. (Flash required)
Because it's *cough*clearly*cough* stated in the EULA that Joe Avg. clicked to accept.
It's lame, but that's how it is. For now at least.
And if good ol' MS ever eats up Apple, we'll see BillGMacs or BigMacs for short.
I heard on TV yesterday that to appease those annoyed at having paid the original price, MS offer a "Thank-You Package". If you bought your console before the 26th April and you apply before the 1st July you can get the package which gives you two games and a controller for free. Sounds good. UK only, AFAIK.
But a word of warning to anyone else running Win98 on a P133 with 64MB RAM. This thing nuts your machine. I can't get it off my desktop. I'm gonna have to reboot again.. arg.
OK, seems Mandrake is the unanimous choice for a newbie so I'll give it a go.
Thanks!
I've tried Mandrake before and as far as I recall, it wasn't a case of "boot-from-cd, click click click click...", but more "boot-from-cd, type, type, click click click clik...".
Admittedly that was a while ago (6+ months).
I know GUI installation is slow and foolish but for first time users it's ideal. In fact, as an experienced windows user, I'd love a command-based installer, now that I'm familiar with the OS. But if you've never used windows, a command-based installer would be too daunting. And when I say "you've" I'm speaking of a broader crowd than the largely experienced Slashdot bunch.
I'm a windows user. I use windows at work and run it on my computers at home. I've always wanted to install Linux on one of my machines (There is only so much drooling over nice KDE screenshots that I can take.)
I'm fortunate enough to have "Linux friend" who helps me.. but more often than not they type and I watch. I've made attempts at installing Slackware, Gentoo and Debian. The most recent attempt (successful) involved my friend spending quite a bit of time battling away at the console to download the latest Debian bits. So I now have a working KDE system that I can play around with to learn the ropes. And this is what I wanted.
But the biggest problem I faced when trying to learn Linux is the installation process. It's discouraged me no end. In my defense, I'm not stupid, I'm actually a software engineer, although yes.. purely windows (and no, not VB).
My point (getting there) is that you can say what you will about windows but it beats Linux hands down on the installation. Until the Linux installation process becomes as simple as booting from a CD and clicking "Next" a few hundred times, it will not have the user base it deserves.
I know there's plenty of documentation, help, support, walkthroughs etc.. etc.. but it's just not enough. I haven't found a distribution with a one-off graphical installer (and neither has my friend). There's always a bunch of commands you're going to have to learn and instructions to follow. For many (including myself), this is too daunting, and I don't want to spend a great deal of time reading up on something beforehand.
I'm not trying to troll here I just think that until we see more distributions with simpler-than-simple installers, Linux will very much remain "underground".
So if there's no distribution that does this already, can a Linux code-monkey write an app for windows that downloads and burns the desired Linux, then having booted from the CD, walks you through from start to finish, clicking on "Next" and "OK" etc..?
I'm not stealing at all, but rather, I'm taking full advantage of the service that I pay for.
I see this sort of stuff more and more. You get slapped an extra charge because you're one of the few that actually uses the entirety of what you pay for.
It's not my fault that ISPs etc.. take on more clients under the assumption that not everyone will be using the bandwidth they pay for at a given time. The assumption is correct, but when ISPs get greedy, they stretch their estimates of peak usage and take on too many clients. As a result, clients end up with a degraded service, more so if some of them actually use the entire bandwidth they pay for.
Hence ISPs get annoyed by the bandwidth "hogs" and slap on an extra charge to cover the cost of expansion.
This isn't limited to ISPs, I see this with other services too although none spring to mind just now (time for more coffee methinks).
</rant>
You visit your local pharmacy...
"Hello, I'd like something for a sore throat"
"Sure, take some FDAnadol"
"Haven't you got anything else?"
"No, the FDA have outlawed chipless drugs."
"But I don't want 'chipped' drugs!"
"Why? Are you a terrorist?"
"Urm no... Well I guess I have no choice then."
Later...
"What's that buzzing in my ear? Hold on.. what?? No I do not want to consolidate debt! WTF?!? No I would not like to learn how to enlarge my penis! Get away!!"
Am I the only one who thinks these P2P apps are evil?
I used Grokster on my networked Win2K box at home. This box contains my personal files, such as financial info and I also use it to do online banking. So my privacy really matters. I also use this box for work and I have it streamlined and tweaked to run as efficiently as possible. No foolish system tray or startup apps etc...
Well it seems that P2P apps like Kazaa or Grokster work hard to breach my privacy and fudge my system. I've never known software to be so malicious. First, I see that Grokster has web-based ad support. Okay, that's tolerable, they need some form of revenue. But don't think I haven't noticed your "secret" stash of cached ads in my system directory, Mr Grokster. Then I notice the popup ads. Also annoying.. but again I tolerate. I didn't run Grokster for longer than a day and my system can handle twenty browser windows. But then, incredibly, it turns out that the required advert component also sends out information about me, including my browser history. Big no-no, Mr Grokster. Now I have to spend time to counteract this. I found a replacement set of libraries which do not send personal information. From that point on, I figured I was safe. Oh no... this weekend, after a Grokster session, I spotted a strange "extract.exe" on my desktop. Hmmm. How did that get there? I took a look inside and found various executables and libraries. How quaint. I most certainly did not download it. So I searched my system and lo and behold, it seems some ActiveX has automatically downloaded and run this program for me, spreading half a dozen files around my system. Looking through the registry I see that in fact it's installed a browser toolbar. Oh lovely.. just what I wanted. Took me a good half hour to rid my system of it's leeches.
The moral of the story, don't run Grokster. Well fine, I've learnt my lesson and I'm fortunate enough to have another disposable machine to unleash the Grok on. But my concern is the X million people who don't have a clue. The sort who click on "www.yahoo.com.exe". They see Grokster or Kazaa on download.com or whatever, download it and use it blissfully ignorant of what I consider to be a virus. In fact, the only difference I see between Grokster, Kazaa etc.. and viruses is a service. Package your virus as an application and you earn amnesty from antivirus software.
Slashdot articles and anti-spyware sites keep us geeks in the loop, but that doesn't help the masses. Only laws help the masses. There must be some law somewhere that states such practices to be illegal. Tricks used by these programs such as placing independent components in the system directory posing as actual system files, running programs without permission, not informing users of these hidden "features" and so on, are clearly malicious.
I'm for P2P networks, but clients such as these seriously rub me the wrong way and I'll be glad when the RIAA eats them. I just pray for a nicer client to take their place.
Hmmm. I dunno... there's something about Mary...
(sorry, couldn't resist)
I'm sure a crowd of people slipping around is a very amusing sight, but what happens if someone gets seriously injured? How would the ambulance crew get to them without being injured themselves?
Someone should have thrown him a dot net.
Yeah.. call it CacheDot.
Arg. Where's Google's cache? Oh.. wait.. nevermind.
Personally, I'd like to see Kazaa, Grokster & Morpheus taken down. Don't get me wrong, I'm an avid Grokker, but every time a popular P2P service gets taken down, a newer and better one rises to the top.
When people wanted more than Napster, Scour appeared. When they both stopped, Kazaa etc.. hit the scene.
It's only a matter of time before Kazaa etc.. are stopped completely and I look forward to the "next big thing". Although annoying, this leads to progress and I hope it'll end up with a P2P network that you *can't* kill and that's better than Gnutella.
infoSync has an article with big pictures.
How long will it be before someone makes a USB CD writer mod and starts spreading near-perfect copies of TV programmes?
If that happened the $hit would hit the fan for TiVo, surely..
Well that's nice, but I've never installed AudioGalaxy and I found webhancer installed. I'm the sole user of my box and I've never seen anything telling me what webhancer is/does and whether I want to install it or not.
I thought this was the first look.
I realise Napster is no different to other P2P apps and merely facilitates file transfer. But when you said "Any failure to comply with our copyright laws is not only unamerican, it's an obvious attempt to undermine the US economy!", it made me chuckle because it seems to me that was the reason Napster was taken to court in the first place.
Any failure to comply with our copyright laws is not only unamerican, it's an obvious attempt to undermine the US economy!
Oh, so you admit the old Napster client was illegal. Took you long enough, chuckle.
It would be interesting to see a statistic on how many pages which are technically non-functional still exist...
I'll have a guess. Ooh, 99%?
I don't like the idea of having all my appliances networked, mainly because I don't trust the manufacturers' engineering skills. Like the washing machine example previously posted. But I do like the idea of specialist appliances. For example, an alarm-clock sized device giving you temperature, cpu activity etc.. readout would be very useful. The potential for distributing mp3s / divxs round the house is interesting too.
A couple of queries though:
How will this affect my eletricity bill?
How will this connect to my PC? I sometimes need to disconnect my box and if that means unplugging the power, then it's of no use to me.