But you can reload the main html page much faster than that without getting banned, which seems insane.
I cannot speak for them, but my thinking is they figure they are displaying ads (or charging for paid page views) every time the front page loads in a browser. On the other hand, they are not generating any revenue from RSS reloads and you know if there was no limit set some people would just reload the RSS feed every 5-10 seconds. Also, by far the most RSS reloads would/do not generate any clicks and page loads that in turn generate revenue.
So, in short, it probably has to do with cutting costs while still allowing you to get the RSS feed every half an hour or so.
Of course, you could write your own small script that gets the front page HTML and parses the titles and links out of it and generate your own front page feed. Then you could reload it as often as you wanted and it seems like/. would not ban you.
The new one that can integrate with Kontact is called Akregator. You should always cache your headlines and update them every 40 minutes (or their limit + 5-10 minute window) to avoid getting banned from/.
Essentially, don't blame the players, blame the game...
Yes, except that the players have the biggest influence on the rules of the game. Do you think IBM, after going through the cost of patenting thousands (or whatever number) of patents each year, will take a rule change to no software patents kindly? HP? Microsoft? Those companies are generating significant revenues from their software patent licensing - they have a legal responsibility to their shareholders to engage in legal bribery of the government(s) to improve their revenue streams. The only direction the biggest players in the industry will lobby for is more enforcement, more patents for large corporations, less access for little guys, and more legal junk so they can threaten legal action anyone at any time.
Besides, you should blame the players because they are the ones that lobbied for the software patents in the first place.
Screenshots look terrible to me. The GUI is not friendly to the eye; icon shading looks amateurish; widgets look like those from KDE 1 or 2; Firefox screenshots show probably the worst font anti-aliasing jobs I've seen on any OS.
The hardware compatibility list mostly consists of user reports of whether something works, somewhat works, or doesn't work. This is not very helpful when you want to make sure your video card will have proper 2D and 3D acceleration, resolutions, your sound card, printer, scanner, etc. features are supported or not.
If I want something that will run on an old PC I'll take a small Linux distro and use a lightweight WM. On a more decent PC I am going with the most recent X.org and KDE 3.4. Is there any reason why anyone would use Zeta OS other than curiosity?
Some Linux kernel projects refuse to support any backporting. Of course you *can* do this yourself, but you're on your own...
Quite a few systems (and embedded products) are based on more mature kernels like, say, 2.4.18. Changing to 2.6.x is not realistic for these people.
That's not a good analogy because there are a lot of fixes and improvements that are getting backported from 2.6 to 2.4. There are developers out there that still maintain 2.2 and 2.0 branches as well. You have to realize that not all features can be backported - that's why new branches were created in the first place.
The difference is if you wanted to port a specific featureset or fix specific issues in an OSS product you could always hire its developers or programmers in that field to do the job. That doesn't work the same way when you are dealing with a closed source product - usually its source code, use and modification is restricted, developers are under NDAs, and all kinds of other legal and technical limitations exist.
Hmm... I didn't know that they did that. I'll try and look for a preferences setting on flickr that will turn off flash for my flickr browsing. I think that would be a useful feature/setting (in a cookie, or account database) if they don't have it already.
As far as why I have the flash plugin installed - because there are other sites that use flash that I'd like to view and that don't crash the plugin. I'm not religiously against flash in general, but I just don't see why they needed to use it to display images.
Maybe, but that "cross" does not cross to anything I use.
First off, as I said before, I don't know what flickr does with Flash, or most importantly - why they bother using it - but images don't display in either Firefox or Konqueror for me - they crash the flash plugin (Konq survives the plugin crash while Firefox goes with it but that's another browser issue). I question the use of the flash plugin to display images altogether. Zoto.com displays images as they are without using any flash and uses DHTML drag and drop interface that works in IE, Firefox, Opera, KHTML (Safari and Konqueror) and any other browser that is based on one of those. It has many drag and drop features besides categorizing and picture management as well like Zwipe, blog publishing, etc. For me flash plugin crashing doesn't qualify as cross-browser.
As far as cross-platform, again not for me. From the flickr help page:
We provide a range of uploading tools to help you get your photos into Flickr, for both Windows and Mac users. (emphasis mine)
That's like saying a European auto service garage fixes both European cars - BMWs and Volkswagens - as if those are the only 2. While Zoto.com upload/sync client page besides having a Windows and Mac port has a Qt/Python port as well making it closer to truly cross-platform implementation.
I tried flickr. It failed to upload my images about 15 times saying server was too busy and there was nothing I could do but wait for few hours and see if something got uploaded or not. At some point, finally, one picture got through - I tried to view it - it tried to load the picture in flash and crashed my browsers. I kept asking myself why they would do such a horrible job, and then I found zoto.com. It has the best user interface that works cross-platform, cross-browser (yes, even with Konqueror) with simple drag and drop capabilities. You can upload pictures via the browser or via a PC client - yes, even a Linux client - that will keep your pictures directory synchronized with your zoto.com account.
Overall, I like zoto.com way better than flickr, as you can tell.
Of course, why AOL hasn't converted now is beyond me.
Because now the new deal is:
AOL - lets Mozilla go; - is free to make deals with OEMs for the desktop icon/preinstalled software; - will use IE as their browser for the next 5 (?) years;
and Microsoft - will not bother OEMs or force them to remove AOL offers as a condition for getting a better price for Windows.
AOL is just letting Microsoft making AOL more and more irrelevant each passing day. They know it - they'd rather have it that way than be proactive, fight "competition," and take more risks.
However, the license itself plainly states you are not allowed to sub-license.
Great. Then you cannot allow redistribution of your program without Microsoft's permission. i.e. it's not compatible with GPL and many other open source licenses.
If you read the fine print, just by putting the link to MS' license and a one-line statement about "this product contains Microsoft stuff..." that is acceptance of the license.
This is similar to what MS tried to do with other licenses (Sender ID) in the past as well when they try to pass something as "open." Well, technically, it's "open" but it's not usable in the Free and Open Source Software environments. If I cannot sublicense the patent, then I cannot allow redistribution of the program without Microsoft's permission.
IOW, if Microsoft decides to change its patent terms at some point in the future and make them stricter, which they are free to do, any new or newly derived programs would have to be bound by that new patent license. For example, if developer A accepted the MS patent license now and wrote a program, then MS changed their license to a more strict wording to disallow free implementations, etc., then developer B tried to improve the program written by developer A, developer B would be liable for patent infringement unless he separately licenses the patent from Microsoft under the new licensing arrangement possibly disallowing free redistribution, etc. i.e. try to make your format a de facto standard, then change patent licensing agreement and exclude everyone who you don't like.
At the very least the patent license has to be sub-licenseable, but most likely irrevocable too to be considered a truly open standard that is freely redistributeable now and in the future.
Under the patent license for the Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas, Microsoft offers royalty-free rights both to its issued patents and patents that may be issued in the future as an outcome of the patent process.
I don't see the magic words there like: sub-licensable, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable. Maybe they do this in the actual license, but it doesn't say that in the paragraph that you quoted. Without it being sub-licensable and irrevocable, it's no good for GPLed and other free software.
Your post gave me a thought that one thing governments could do is require all software makers to have an active patent insurance to be a fully licensed and bonded software distributor. BSA or similar "industry group" could bribe their way into such a bill. That would put those GNU hippies out of business in a nanosecond.
Of course, the next thing after that the governments will require will be a copyright insurance before you are allowed to speak courtesy of honest patriotic "industry groups" such as RIAA and MPAA.
Actually, I found the plum keyboard (by looking, no experience using it) easy to learn and type on. You can actually type common things very easily on it: do, on, this, his, no, the and many other words are easier to type than they are on qwerty. It looks like the learning curve is not steep either.
I also like the backspace and tab key locations - I think I could get used to those. Enter key is also in a more natural location. It also looks like they took less used letters out of more easily reachable locations - for example, you don't need k and j right under your fingertips, you'd rather have t and h there instead. The plum keyboard definitely looks better than the kids' toy the article was about.
beyond the ease of creating active-x controls vs. Java applets at the time (late 1996 or so).. beyond this, the layer model in Netscape sucked, and IE4 + Active-X + scripting was way better than Java and any browser integration... sorry, but you don't seem to remember, or are too young to remember web development back then.
No need to be sorry for me, because it is you that has the timeline confused. In 1996 MS put out IE3 which was not really a complete web browser by any stretch of imagination - i.e. nobody used it seriously and most websites didn't work with it properly. IE4 came out in late 1997 and even when it did, it was "unproven" and Netscape was still a major player in the market. Really, MS gained major market share and started "winning" the browser wars at the end of IE4 and with IE5 - which was around 1998-99. This was also the time when Java applets and flash plugins had gotten significant improvements in their functionalities such as 3D rendering, improved video, sound, etc. They also loaded and ran faster due to improvements in hardware (CPU, memory, etc.) at the time. Besides, the "MS Virtual Machine" never had a problem of loading slowly and Java was a de facto standard for applet-type plugins.
I actually had an option of testing and using an ActiveX control in an organization with IE in late '97 or early '98 for data entry and presentation. It looked pretty with a local app interface and direct database connection - only the application itself served by the web server. But quite frankly, other than the fact that it was new and looked pretty, it had nothing else going for it - it was an IE-only locked in technology, a new browser and a new architecture that nobody knew how long would survive, and how reliable it would be with future upgrades. You can guess that I didn't end up implementing it, even though I did give it a shot successfully in a test environment.
Given the browser and associated software timeline, there was never a point in time when implementing anything in ActiveX actually made sense in any context. There always were better cross-browser, cross-platform alternatives except maybe in early stages of ActiveX when IE didn't matter as much.
By redundant I mean that it is already in the constitution, so why write another law?
Because there will always be a "family-values" campaigning, self-promoting, bribed and corrupt politician/prosecutor/whoever who will argue that the Constitution has to be balanced against legitimate government "interests," one of them being maintaining morality of its citizens (hmm... what does this remind me of?). In this case, the more redundant the legislation and regulations, and abundant the common law, the better for people's freedoms.
The point I was making is that professional programmers work to specifications and if the spec says "use ACME's ActiveX charting control" then that's exactly what you do kiddo! You don't whine and bitch about it, you get on and do it.
Well, my point was not about the people who solely program and implement, but about the people who make those technological decisions. Some of these are one and the same. In a lot of cases like yours, I am guessing, they were not. IOW, you are right in what you are saying - if you are a paid contractor or employee programmer and you are told to implement something, then the most you can do without losing your job or contract is to make a suggestion, and if the decision-maker doesn't agree with you then you have to go on with whatever decisions he/she already made.
To give a real world example, I have often had to use sophisticated 3D charting contols and frankly, the Java applet ones suck mightily IMHO in terms of features and performance compared to the ActiveX ones.
Ever try free-spinning a large 3D surface plot on any axis by click-and-drag using a Java applet? Yeah, I thought not.
I don't know what your specifications were, so I cannot give you a specific answer to a general question. Even if I tried, then you'd nail me with "Aah... but my specs also said..." since you have all the information.
Having said that, I have never tried spinning anything in 3D in any tool, but I do remember Java has had a very nice 3D graphics support for quite awhile now and so has Flash. There is also VRML, and now most recently - SVG. Also, if it can be done in ActiveX, it can be done in a small easily portable native application - not requiring IE/ActiveX lockdown chain and associated insecurity (or costs of extra security) for the affected users, department, and the organization itself.
Again, none of this is relevant if you are not the decision maker. I wouldn't expect many developers/programmers to quit their jobs over an ActiveX control or some other plugin for that matter.
I think it's unfair to a lot of good, professional developers who had no choice other than to use ActiveX because a particular component (a grid, graphing tool, whatever) was actully required in the project specification.
If you can find a "grid, graphing tool, whatever" in ActiveX, you can find 10 times the selection implemented in Java applets. Considering that Microsoft came out with ActiveX in response to Java applets, there was no reason to use that platform-specific, locked in, insecure tool from day 1. Unless you are talking something very Windows-specific that you absolutely need to do to a workstation over the Intranet . . . OK, that doesn't even make sense - then you use directory services (distributed, if necessary) for most of that.
IANAL, and I am not sure about the download-only scenario, but as I read the article, the idea of the system is to go after sharers. While BayTSP may have some limited rights to download and distribute some RIAA and MPAA content for the purposes of identifying the sharers, this doesn't automatically mean that people who downloaded from them and started sharing have such rights as well. e.g. a store can sell you a copy of a book, but that doesn't give you a right to make copies of it and distribute them on your own. AFAIK, many bittorrent clients automatically share whatever they are downloading - so that is potentially a problem with unauthorized copyrighted content in this case.
Unless turrents allow downloading without uploading anything, the MPAA attack dogs are just as guilty of doing what they are accusing the ohter end user of.
Unless, of course, they have contracts with copyright holders and their permission to download and upload their copyrighted content for the purpose of identifying unauthorized sharers.
What I really wish would happen is someone would turn my cell phone, pda, and iPod into 1 good product that doesn't require me to take out a loan.
The answers are outthere. Your cell phone service provider doesn't want you to have them easily because it's potentially cutting into their add-on services revenues. You can get the E680 for about $300-$400 (if you look) without your typical U.S. 2-year service contract bullshit.
If you want an extension model with some practical features, the world has already settled on a few, most notably PHP and Java. These can be secured, and can be considered "safe" extensions when properly implemented.
. .. Internet Explorer and ASP IS the "bug".
You are making mistakes that are 10 times worse the original author made - what do PHP and ASP have to do with your browser extensions? If you write silly things like these, your arguments will at best lose credibility, at worst considered a mud-throwing flamebait.
On my Mac, I just drag the "Internet Explorer" icon from my/Applications folder to the trash.
On my Linux I just go to Crossover Office setup, highlight IE entry and click on the Repair/Remove button. I'm just wondering why I installed it there in the first place.
They released an update to NT years ago. Right around 2000. They called it windows something. Based on the same portable code of NT.
So? I do not get your point. Upgrade of an OS != new OS.
Strictly speaking nt4.0 wasn't designed to be portable, NT was the first version of which was 3.5.
No, you are wrong as you will see below.
Maybe you're confused because it was the only one that was marketed for other non x86 processors.
Nah, I just blocked out whole NT 3.xx series out of my mind for some reason - maybe because I just saw them as development versions of what was to come.
But the new server 2003 version is availiable for Itanium, they are releasing a new version for the AMD_64 instruction set, and a modified version of windows will power the power pc based Xbox 2. So basically , in no sense what-so-ever are you correct.
Sorry to be so nitpickingly correct, but I've got to get my slashdot fix while I can at this point.
If you want to be "nitpickingly correct" then the first version of Windows NT was Windows NT 3.1, not 3.5. Still, 3.1, 3.5, and 3.51 were not, in my mind, viable finished OS products on the market. Of course, you may argue otherwise - I do not have to agree.
Slashdot Mirror
I cannot speak for them, but my thinking is they figure they are displaying ads (or charging for paid page views) every time the front page loads in a browser. On the other hand, they are not generating any revenue from RSS reloads and you know if there was no limit set some people would just reload the RSS feed every 5-10 seconds. Also, by far the most RSS reloads would/do not generate any clicks and page loads that in turn generate revenue.
So, in short, it probably has to do with cutting costs while still allowing you to get the RSS feed every half an hour or so.
Of course, you could write your own small script that gets the front page HTML and parses the titles and links out of it and generate your own front page feed. Then you could reload it as often as you wanted and it seems like
The new one that can integrate with Kontact is called Akregator. You should always cache your headlines and update them every 40 minutes (or their limit + 5-10 minute window) to avoid getting banned from /.
Yes, except that the players have the biggest influence on the rules of the game. Do you think IBM, after going through the cost of patenting thousands (or whatever number) of patents each year, will take a rule change to no software patents kindly? HP? Microsoft? Those companies are generating significant revenues from their software patent licensing - they have a legal responsibility to their shareholders to engage in legal bribery of the government(s) to improve their revenue streams. The only direction the biggest players in the industry will lobby for is more enforcement, more patents for large corporations, less access for little guys, and more legal junk so they can threaten legal action anyone at any time.
Besides, you should blame the players because they are the ones that lobbied for the software patents in the first place.
Screenshots look terrible to me. The GUI is not friendly to the eye; icon shading looks amateurish; widgets look like those from KDE 1 or 2; Firefox screenshots show probably the worst font anti-aliasing jobs I've seen on any OS.
The hardware compatibility list mostly consists of user reports of whether something works, somewhat works, or doesn't work. This is not very helpful when you want to make sure your video card will have proper 2D and 3D acceleration, resolutions, your sound card, printer, scanner, etc. features are supported or not.
If I want something that will run on an old PC I'll take a small Linux distro and use a lightweight WM. On a more decent PC I am going with the most recent X.org and KDE 3.4. Is there any reason why anyone would use Zeta OS other than curiosity?
That's not a good analogy because there are a lot of fixes and improvements that are getting backported from 2.6 to 2.4. There are developers out there that still maintain 2.2 and 2.0 branches as well. You have to realize that not all features can be backported - that's why new branches were created in the first place.
The difference is if you wanted to port a specific featureset or fix specific issues in an OSS product you could always hire its developers or programmers in that field to do the job. That doesn't work the same way when you are dealing with a closed source product - usually its source code, use and modification is restricted, developers are under NDAs, and all kinds of other legal and technical limitations exist.
Hmm... I didn't know that they did that. I'll try and look for a preferences setting on flickr that will turn off flash for my flickr browsing. I think that would be a useful feature/setting (in a cookie, or account database) if they don't have it already.
As far as why I have the flash plugin installed - because there are other sites that use flash that I'd like to view and that don't crash the plugin. I'm not religiously against flash in general, but I just don't see why they needed to use it to display images.
Maybe, but that "cross" does not cross to anything I use.
First off, as I said before, I don't know what flickr does with Flash, or most importantly - why they bother using it - but images don't display in either Firefox or Konqueror for me - they crash the flash plugin (Konq survives the plugin crash while Firefox goes with it but that's another browser issue). I question the use of the flash plugin to display images altogether. Zoto.com displays images as they are without using any flash and uses DHTML drag and drop interface that works in IE, Firefox, Opera, KHTML (Safari and Konqueror) and any other browser that is based on one of those. It has many drag and drop features besides categorizing and picture management as well like Zwipe, blog publishing, etc. For me flash plugin crashing doesn't qualify as cross-browser.
As far as cross-platform, again not for me. From the flickr help page:
We provide a range of uploading tools to help you get your photos into Flickr, for both Windows and Mac users. (emphasis mine)
That's like saying a European auto service garage fixes both European cars - BMWs and Volkswagens - as if those are the only 2. While Zoto.com upload/sync client page besides having a Windows and Mac port has a Qt/Python port as well making it closer to truly cross-platform implementation.
I tried flickr. It failed to upload my images about 15 times saying server was too busy and there was nothing I could do but wait for few hours and see if something got uploaded or not. At some point, finally, one picture got through - I tried to view it - it tried to load the picture in flash and crashed my browsers. I kept asking myself why they would do such a horrible job, and then I found zoto.com. It has the best user interface that works cross-platform, cross-browser (yes, even with Konqueror) with simple drag and drop capabilities. You can upload pictures via the browser or via a PC client - yes, even a Linux client - that will keep your pictures directory synchronized with your zoto.com account.
Overall, I like zoto.com way better than flickr, as you can tell.
Because now the new deal is:
AOL
- lets Mozilla go;
- is free to make deals with OEMs for the desktop icon/preinstalled software;
- will use IE as their browser for the next 5 (?) years;
and Microsoft
- will not bother OEMs or force them to remove AOL offers as a condition for getting a better price for Windows.
AOL is just letting Microsoft making AOL more and more irrelevant each passing day. They know it - they'd rather have it that way than be proactive, fight "competition," and take more risks.
Great. Then you cannot allow redistribution of your program without Microsoft's permission. i.e. it's not compatible with GPL and many other open source licenses.
This is similar to what MS tried to do with other licenses (Sender ID) in the past as well when they try to pass something as "open." Well, technically, it's "open" but it's not usable in the Free and Open Source Software environments. If I cannot sublicense the patent, then I cannot allow redistribution of the program without Microsoft's permission.
IOW, if Microsoft decides to change its patent terms at some point in the future and make them stricter, which they are free to do, any new or newly derived programs would have to be bound by that new patent license. For example, if developer A accepted the MS patent license now and wrote a program, then MS changed their license to a more strict wording to disallow free implementations, etc., then developer B tried to improve the program written by developer A, developer B would be liable for patent infringement unless he separately licenses the patent from Microsoft under the new licensing arrangement possibly disallowing free redistribution, etc. i.e. try to make your format a de facto standard, then change patent licensing agreement and exclude everyone who you don't like.
At the very least the patent license has to be sub-licenseable, but most likely irrevocable too to be considered a truly open standard that is freely redistributeable now and in the future.
I don't see the magic words there like: sub-licensable, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable. Maybe they do this in the actual license, but it doesn't say that in the paragraph that you quoted. Without it being sub-licensable and irrevocable, it's no good for GPLed and other free software.
Your post gave me a thought that one thing governments could do is require all software makers to have an active patent insurance to be a fully licensed and bonded software distributor. BSA or similar "industry group" could bribe their way into such a bill. That would put those GNU hippies out of business in a nanosecond.
Of course, the next thing after that the governments will require will be a copyright insurance before you are allowed to speak courtesy of honest patriotic "industry groups" such as RIAA and MPAA.
Actually, I found the plum keyboard (by looking, no experience using it) easy to learn and type on. You can actually type common things very easily on it: do, on, this, his, no, the and many other words are easier to type than they are on qwerty. It looks like the learning curve is not steep either.
I also like the backspace and tab key locations - I think I could get used to those. Enter key is also in a more natural location. It also looks like they took less used letters out of more easily reachable locations - for example, you don't need k and j right under your fingertips, you'd rather have t and h there instead. The plum keyboard definitely looks better than the kids' toy the article was about.
No need to be sorry for me, because it is you that has the timeline confused. In 1996 MS put out IE3 which was not really a complete web browser by any stretch of imagination - i.e. nobody used it seriously and most websites didn't work with it properly. IE4 came out in late 1997 and even when it did, it was "unproven" and Netscape was still a major player in the market. Really, MS gained major market share and started "winning" the browser wars at the end of IE4 and with IE5 - which was around 1998-99. This was also the time when Java applets and flash plugins had gotten significant improvements in their functionalities such as 3D rendering, improved video, sound, etc. They also loaded and ran faster due to improvements in hardware (CPU, memory, etc.) at the time. Besides, the "MS Virtual Machine" never had a problem of loading slowly and Java was a de facto standard for applet-type plugins.
I actually had an option of testing and using an ActiveX control in an organization with IE in late '97 or early '98 for data entry and presentation. It looked pretty with a local app interface and direct database connection - only the application itself served by the web server. But quite frankly, other than the fact that it was new and looked pretty, it had nothing else going for it - it was an IE-only locked in technology, a new browser and a new architecture that nobody knew how long would survive, and how reliable it would be with future upgrades. You can guess that I didn't end up implementing it, even though I did give it a shot successfully in a test environment.
Given the browser and associated software timeline, there was never a point in time when implementing anything in ActiveX actually made sense in any context. There always were better cross-browser, cross-platform alternatives except maybe in early stages of ActiveX when IE didn't matter as much.
Because there will always be a "family-values" campaigning, self-promoting, bribed and corrupt politician/prosecutor/whoever who will argue that the Constitution has to be balanced against legitimate government "interests," one of them being maintaining morality of its citizens (hmm... what does this remind me of?). In this case, the more redundant the legislation and regulations, and abundant the common law, the better for people's freedoms.
Well, my point was not about the people who solely program and implement, but about the people who make those technological decisions. Some of these are one and the same. In a lot of cases like yours, I am guessing, they were not. IOW, you are right in what you are saying - if you are a paid contractor or employee programmer and you are told to implement something, then the most you can do without losing your job or contract is to make a suggestion, and if the decision-maker doesn't agree with you then you have to go on with whatever decisions he/she already made.
I don't know what your specifications were, so I cannot give you a specific answer to a general question. Even if I tried, then you'd nail me with "Aah... but my specs also said
Having said that, I have never tried spinning anything in 3D in any tool, but I do remember Java has had a very nice 3D graphics support for quite awhile now and so has Flash. There is also VRML, and now most recently - SVG. Also, if it can be done in ActiveX, it can be done in a small easily portable native application - not requiring IE/ActiveX lockdown chain and associated insecurity (or costs of extra security) for the affected users, department, and the organization itself.
Again, none of this is relevant if you are not the decision maker. I wouldn't expect many developers/programmers to quit their jobs over an ActiveX control or some other plugin for that matter.
If you can find a "grid, graphing tool, whatever" in ActiveX, you can find 10 times the selection implemented in Java applets. Considering that Microsoft came out with ActiveX in response to Java applets, there was no reason to use that platform-specific, locked in, insecure tool from day 1. Unless you are talking something very Windows-specific that you absolutely need to do to a workstation over the Intranet . . . OK, that doesn't even make sense - then you use directory services (distributed, if necessary) for most of that.
Yes, but don't misquote: many != some.
IANAL, and I am not sure about the download-only scenario, but as I read the article, the idea of the system is to go after sharers. While BayTSP may have some limited rights to download and distribute some RIAA and MPAA content for the purposes of identifying the sharers, this doesn't automatically mean that people who downloaded from them and started sharing have such rights as well. e.g. a store can sell you a copy of a book, but that doesn't give you a right to make copies of it and distribute them on your own. AFAIK, many bittorrent clients automatically share whatever they are downloading - so that is potentially a problem with unauthorized copyrighted content in this case.
Unless, of course, they have contracts with copyright holders and their permission to download and upload their copyrighted content for the purpose of identifying unauthorized sharers.
The answers are out there. Your cell phone service provider doesn't want you to have them easily because it's potentially cutting into their add-on services revenues. You can get the E680 for about $300-$400 (if you look) without your typical U.S. 2-year service contract bullshit.
You are making mistakes that are 10 times worse the original author made - what do PHP and ASP have to do with your browser extensions? If you write silly things like these, your arguments will at best lose credibility, at worst considered a mud-throwing flamebait.
On my Linux I just go to Crossover Office setup, highlight IE entry and click on the Repair/Remove button. I'm just wondering why I installed it there in the first place.
So? I do not get your point. Upgrade of an OS != new OS.
No, you are wrong as you will see below.
Nah, I just blocked out whole NT 3.xx series out of my mind for some reason - maybe because I just saw them as development versions of what was to come.
If you want to be "nitpickingly correct" then the first version of Windows NT was Windows NT 3.1, not 3.5. Still, 3.1, 3.5, and 3.51 were not, in my mind, viable finished OS products on the market. Of course, you may argue otherwise - I do not have to agree.