as, under today's laws, recordings from Allofmp3 are
Actualy that is under question. If the site had a nice listing of Russian artists, there would be no questions. However, the site is loaded with American RIAA owned stuff. That's where the legality of the whole mess comes into question. They never obtained permission to sell any RIAA members product. If they did not have any RIAA stuff, then they couldn't be touched as the RIAA would have no infringement to complain about. The 150K per song would amount to 15K times nothing. A quick visit to the site shows this is not the case. They primarly sell RIAA controlled tracks.
If you're in a country that has extra fees attached to blank media to cover the possibility that you might use it for piracy, doesn't that mean you've already paid the **AA their money?
Yes. In the US the Data CDR is a computer data device. The Music CDR on the other hand is a music storage medium and has been taxed. Be sure to store all your pirated copies properly on Music CDR's, not on Data CDR's. If I paid for it in the tax then I have the permission.
My daughter has a Nano. My son has an RCA Lyra and a Creative Zen. I have a Panasonic and a Coby. The only format that works in a mixed environment and works on all my PC's including the Linux box is MP3, the format they won't sell.
What ever happened to meeting consumer demand?
The consumer is always right and votes with his wallet. I am not an I-tunes customer. I can't play their product anywhere except on my wife's PC.
Fine, just go to the Cayman Islands. Visit the Turtle farm. Have some turtle stew. Buy a turtle shell. Try to get through customs on the way back... Not everything you buy overseas is legal in import to the USA.
As in "you can't uninstall and reinstall a broken service without reloading the entire OS".
One of the biggest reasons I'm migrating away from OEM machines. Had one where the driver for the CD burner became corrupt. Uninstalled the CD Burner software using add remove. Tried adding it back. Found the CD was a Norton Ghost image. Not wishing to reformat to reinstall an application, I became a pirate and borrowed a copy and used it for 6 months untill the next system rebuild due to unstability. Sorry Easy CD Creator. Please convince OEM's to put the applications on a seprate CD so they can be reinstalled on OEM harware without wiping out everyting else on the drive such as all my e-mail, network settings, games, and 3rd party applications. A reinstall of CD burning should not require a disk wipe.
Why is he using desktop hardware to build a server?
Uniformity of harware and cost. Look at the number of clients on the server. He does not have a server load problem. I use a Simple Share NAS on my LAN and I have even more clients.
Running Linux on the server is never crashed solution for me also with the exception of a power outage longer than the UPS battery life.
Big name vendor + non-supported hardware. Any system consultant with a few years of experience should be able to tell you "don't do that"
Which is why all my older boxes get upgraded to Ubuntu. As motherboards and hard drives die and get replaced by modern ones from a local vendor (not OEM who sell direct replacements, not upgrades) the OS will not reinstall because it's not supported hardware. Instead of buying a second copy of the old OS for the upgraded hardware, I migrate. Many cases are fine with a new afermarket motherboard, power supply, and hard drive, but the OEM OS is not.
My next project is a 1 Ghz Pentium III that is going to be upgraded to a Core 2 Duo E6700. Needless to say, the OEM software and Windows License will die with the old motherboard. It will be getting Ubuntu. I am doing my part to keep the amount headed to a landfill to a minimum.
I have several copies of Windows that died due to this manufacturing defect. It's funny because I do have one machine running Windows 98 because it will install on the replacement harware. It's used to support a legacy application.
A ton of Slashdotters use it because they think it's a good business model and they feel like they're doing something legal
And many ignore that even if pirate CD's (physical ones) are legal in some country, importing them into the US is not legal. Even if All of MP3 is legal in russis, Importing the MP3's into the US is not legal. There are import restrictions on imported pirated materials.
The question is, "Is the lawsuit proper against the AllofMP3?". I think the real lawsuit should be against the illegal importers of the MP3's (US consumers of AllofMP3). Lawyers are involved, so the target right or wrong is the big pot with possible deep pockets even though they are out of the USA.
OK, so I'm being a bit sarcastic but both cases are basically the same and both are classic cases of FUD
I am going to stick with FUD. Have you ever opened several tabs and found some website globaly turned off right click to keep you from snaging a photo. Now none of the tabs have a working right click. I expect Vista to have the same issues with protected content in one application shutting down proper operation of other applications simply becasue the drivers get hammered for the hardware. It's in the specifications. It's more than FUD. It's very likely.
On the other side of the continent, someone jumped over the guard rail on Interstate 84 in Oregon. Unfortunately, it was on a bridge. It was 50 feet down to the creekbed.
Unprotected media should be entirely unaffected by it.
Since Vista is locking down the secure media paths, and degrades paths or shuts them down at the kernel level, I don't think I would want to be in the middle of a Skype call and visit a website with a protected content video of the latest news broadcast that degrades or shuts off the analog hole.
Maybe it's FUD, Maybe the Fear is real. Can visiting a website degrade or disable your analog audio out, even if it is being used for something else? I'm going to wait on this one. Real details are somewhat limited. The hard details is if protected media is present (doesn't say if it includes web content) the analog path may be degraded or disabled.
Is it possible to be cut off a Skype call just by visiting a website? Call it FUD if you wish, but the doubt remains until proven otherwise. In the meantime, I don't plan to bleed to death by cutting edge technology. I'll stick with something that is known to work.
and... wait... um... all my iTunes "infested crap" still works!
Welcome to single vendor lock-in. My music plays on my Panasonic, Coby, my kids Nano, my other kids Lyra and Zen. In addition my music will play on all my PC's including the Linux machine. DRM files simply don't work in a mixed environment.
Apple sells tunes to a few who accept a monoculture. The rest of us are waiting for a legal I-tunes type store that sells plain vanilla MP3's. In the meantime we rip our CD's and our friends CD's because there is no place to buy the MP3's.
Want to have fun.. Give a gift of the SONY online music store to an I-Pod user. An I-Tunes gift card to a Zen user, etc. It would be much easer to give a gift card to an MP3 store. MP3's play on Sony, RCA, Creative, I-river, Apple, and many other manufactures players. DRM is playing the VHS vs BETA war all over again when MP3 has already won. DRM sells only because enough buy it. It would die like Rainbow Dongles if it had the same universal marketplace rejection.
I have been learning to find legal MP3's online including Public Domain and creative commons material and stuff released by the BBC. I just finished enjoying The Cinamon Bear. It is in the public domain with an original air date of 1937.
Someday maybe the music industry will learn and begin to sell music again. I am waiting but not forever. Too many people are sold on the idea that the abliley to play DRM is an asset, not a liability. Wow, it's compatible with the I-Tunes store, Zune Store, Yahoo Music, etc. I'm more impressed with MP3's, they play on almost anything. Want to sell me music?, offer it in MP3.
aha! i'd heard of this but had no idea what the terminology was called my knowledge on networks is quite weak. i thought it was bridging
Bridging mode is to connect two networks together for example a bunch of wired PC's in the house tied to broadband can be bridged to the shop so PC's in the shop can share the internet, printers and other lan resources. To bridge, both access points must be set up to bridge. In this mode, they are no longer access points that your laptop can connect to.
I mentioned Client mode. Client mode is for one PC to connect to an access point along with the rest of your laptops. Client mode does not bridge 2 networks together. It enables a clint to attach to a wireless access point.
I've used this mode to connect a Windows 95 laptop without wireless and laptops running a live CD while on the road. Who wants to mess with trying to get a live distro to use a wireless card. It's much easier to connect and use the web interface on the wireless access point to configure it's client mode to connect to the hotel's free wireless. No hastles with trying to get a wireless card to work. The bonus is the access point has a better antenna and sensitivity and can be set anywhere with a good signal such as in the window to leach off the apartment nearby instead for better speed. (oops, I didn't recommend stealing a signal did I?)
I'm curious if you just used a cigarette lighter inverter or wired one into a higher capacit circuit
A 1,000 watt inverter assuming 100% effeciency fully loaded would draw 1,000 watts. At 12 volts would be 83-1/3 amps of current draw which is a little more than any lighter socket. The inverter is mounted in the trunk next to the battery with welding cable and lugs for connection. I seldom run under full load. I sized the system so it would be able to handle surges of the freezer and fridge starting without shutting down the inverter due to voltage drop or overload.
The lighter socket is only good for 10 amps or 120 watts max.
Many itmes on the car are electric and not needed while parked. The power can then be dirverted to the iverter without overloading the existing electrical system. Items not used when used as a generator are, Headlights, Heater blower, rear window defroster, power brake compressor, electric power steering, and a few other loads that are off while parked. It is easy to draw 500-800 watts off the car without overloading the electrical system.
The ionosphere bounce is most often like a flat mirror in the sky much like seeing the sky reflected on a hot road in the desert (looks like water on the road). Even though the direction of the wave appears to be from a few degrees above the horizon, the azmith is not skewed much most of the time. Most of the CDAA antennas have the delays set to focus not on signals from the horizon, but from a few degrees above the horizon. The more antennas you have which are spread out increases the antenna apature and much of the drift gets averaged out providing a reasonably accurate line of bearing. The sky wave is dynamic. The longer a signal is present, the more samples can be integrated also increasing the accuracy. With many coordinated stations, the circle you get on the map that may contain the source of the transmission becomes quite small.
I have done some HF amature radio hidden transmitter hunts in the 28 MHZ range. The bearing you get as you get close is pretty good. A couple guys working together sharing information can locate the final area very quickly. It is a lot of fun to see how many people you can beat to the hidden transmitter.
shouldn't it be fairly straightforward to locate the origin of these transmissions?
Yes. Automatic radio direction finding is common and was often used in the cold war. The spectrum is constantly monitored and when a new broadcast pops up, it is automaticaly DF'ed and logged. When several DF sites pickup the same broadcast, triangulation to the source is a simple task.
Here is what a typical DF site looks like. Both the US and Russia have them.
(I'm not going to Format my C: drive straight away).
So have you tried to run off a live CD? Freespire comes with the codecs that are not included in most Linux distributions that can be installed later. The problem is they are not installed when you run most live CD's so much online content won't play such as flash, MP3's, PDF's, and many movie formats.
Things like DRM just hurt customers, they simply haven't realized that yet.
That is the sad state of affairs. Some consumers are going wow, it works with I-tunes store or Yahoo Music. They see the ability to play DRM sources as a feature, not a liability. Wait for 2-3 hardware upgrade cycles and see what the tune is then when their paid for library simply won't play anymore and mine plays just fine.
so i look around to find a usb wifi adapter that will work with ubuntu. had tried a pci card but that will not get a good enough signal so it has to be a usb adapter which can be at the end of a 2 metre usb cable.
Forget the trouble of USB and drivers. I picked up a Dlink Access Point. It can be put into client mode. Nice. Plug in a Cat 5 cable and pretend it's a hardwired network jack. I even tested it with my ancient Windows 95 laptop which has no USB and only 16 bit cardbus. I connected to my LAN without any trouble. It connected with no modifications. The access point in client mode can be treated just like a wired network jack.
From there the access point can be located anywhere to get a good signal and it has better than average sensitivity and power.
3) I hate to say it, but Windows XP actually runs consistently faster under load on my laptop than Ubuntu. The GUI in particular is more responsive under load than GNOME or KDE.
I found the oposite to be true for machines that spend most of the time online. If you share a machine with teenagers, the Windows machine quickly becomes bogged down and requires rebuilding every 3-6 months. I stuck on Ubuntu Breexy Badger and later upgraded to Dapper Drake. For the 99% online stuff they do, it simply doesn't bog down and die over time. They would be happy with just Firefox, Gaim, Banshee, and a few other entertainment applications. They use it as a web box and music machine. We have found it best to have more than one machine. Linux is used online and Windows is reserved for offline applications such as a MIDI workshop. There are more good MIDI programs for Windows than for Linux. Same for DMX512 light control. There is not a Linux equivelant for Freestyler yet.
For these reasons we have both Windows and Linux machines.
MIDI tools such as patches, capture & playback, and other utilities are good in Linux.
At first they didn't like the fact they could not run the software that came with their I-Pod and Zen. A quick Google search showed the programs that replace the original software and enabled loading their players.
but not a normal user who uses their machine for anything other than things like office functions and web browsing.
That is what the Linux machine is great for. Office functions and web browsing. Add in the free SIP Phone, the Photo editor Gimp, multi-protocol chat Gaim, and it becomes very useful.
The best part is it won't run the Windows DRM programs on CD's and won't run Windows trojans online.
The installed base of software is much better than all the crippled limited trial software typicaly bundled on a Dell machine.
It comes with a fully functioning Photo Editor, CD burning software, Office Suite, Soft SIP or Netmeeting phone, and lots more.
With Windows, you need to buy Photoshop Elements, Office, full version of Nero or other CD burner software (to burn ISO's). The simple to use limited edition software included with Windows is just about useless. What gives with all that bundled trial ware? It's much better pre-installed and fully functional, not crippled.
Slashdot Mirror
That said, I buy 'em because they last longer.
Last time I was in Wal-Mart a few weeks ago I saw the display and thought wow, now the prices will come down. Then I looked at the price.
Conclusion, continue buying them at Home Depot.
And I'm goin' win the big lottery!
I already did. I have several e-mails to prove it. Someday I'm going to have to call and ask when they are sending the money.
as, under today's laws, recordings from Allofmp3 are
Actualy that is under question. If the site had a nice listing of Russian artists, there would be no questions. However, the site is loaded with American RIAA owned stuff. That's where the legality of the whole mess comes into question. They never obtained permission to sell any RIAA members product. If they did not have any RIAA stuff, then they couldn't be touched as the RIAA would have no infringement to complain about. The 150K per song would amount to 15K times nothing. A quick visit to the site shows this is not the case. They primarly sell RIAA controlled tracks.
Next time, use this [cdburnerxp.se].
Thanks. Too bad this came out about a year after my trouble with the Windows 98 Pentium III machine. In the meantime, It's converted to Ubuntu.
If you're in a country that has extra fees attached to blank media to cover the possibility that you might use it for piracy, doesn't that mean you've already paid the **AA their money?
Yes. In the US the Data CDR is a computer data device. The Music CDR on the other hand is a music storage medium and has been taxed. Be sure to store all your pirated copies properly on Music CDR's, not on Data CDR's. If I paid for it in the tax then I have the permission.
OFFER FUCKING DRM FREE MUSIC
I prefer the term "Compatible music".
My daughter has a Nano. My son has an RCA Lyra and a Creative Zen. I have a Panasonic and a Coby. The only format that works in a mixed environment and works on all my PC's including the Linux box is MP3, the format they won't sell.
What ever happened to meeting consumer demand?
The consumer is always right and votes with his wallet. I am not an I-tunes customer. I can't play their product anywhere except on my wife's PC.
In other words, "Show me the MP3".
Importing your own property is legal
Fine, just go to the Cayman Islands. Visit the Turtle farm. Have some turtle stew. Buy a turtle shell. Try to get through customs on the way back... Not everything you buy overseas is legal in import to the USA.
As in "you can't uninstall and reinstall a broken service without reloading the entire OS".
One of the biggest reasons I'm migrating away from OEM machines. Had one where the driver for the CD burner became corrupt. Uninstalled the CD Burner software using add remove. Tried adding it back. Found the CD was a Norton Ghost image. Not wishing to reformat to reinstall an application, I became a pirate and borrowed a copy and used it for 6 months untill the next system rebuild due to unstability. Sorry Easy CD Creator. Please convince OEM's to put the applications on a seprate CD so they can be reinstalled on OEM harware without wiping out everyting else on the drive such as all my e-mail, network settings, games, and 3rd party applications. A reinstall of CD burning should not require a disk wipe.
Why is he using desktop hardware to build a server?
Uniformity of harware and cost. Look at the number of clients on the server. He does not have a server load problem. I use a Simple Share NAS on my LAN and I have even more clients.
Running Linux on the server is never crashed solution for me also with the exception of a power outage longer than the UPS battery life.
Big name vendor + non-supported hardware. Any system consultant with a few years of experience should be able to tell you "don't do that"
Which is why all my older boxes get upgraded to Ubuntu. As motherboards and hard drives die and get replaced by modern ones from a local vendor (not OEM who sell direct replacements, not upgrades) the OS will not reinstall because it's not supported hardware. Instead of buying a second copy of the old OS for the upgraded hardware, I migrate. Many cases are fine with a new afermarket motherboard, power supply, and hard drive, but the OEM OS is not.
My next project is a 1 Ghz Pentium III that is going to be upgraded to a Core 2 Duo E6700. Needless to say, the OEM software and Windows License will die with the old motherboard. It will be getting Ubuntu. I am doing my part to keep the amount headed to a landfill to a minimum.
I have several copies of Windows that died due to this manufacturing defect. It's funny because I do have one machine running Windows 98 because it will install on the replacement harware. It's used to support a legacy application.
A ton of Slashdotters use it because they think it's a good business model and they feel like they're doing something legal
And many ignore that even if pirate CD's (physical ones) are legal in some country, importing them into the US is not legal. Even if All of MP3 is legal in russis, Importing the MP3's into the US is not legal. There are import restrictions on imported pirated materials.
The question is, "Is the lawsuit proper against the AllofMP3?". I think the real lawsuit should be against the illegal importers of the MP3's (US consumers of AllofMP3). Lawyers are involved, so the target right or wrong is the big pot with possible deep pockets even though they are out of the USA.
OK, so I'm being a bit sarcastic but both cases are basically the same and both are classic cases of FUD
I am going to stick with FUD. Have you ever opened several tabs and found some website globaly turned off right click to keep you from snaging a photo. Now none of the tabs have a working right click. I expect Vista to have the same issues with protected content in one application shutting down proper operation of other applications simply becasue the drivers get hammered for the hardware. It's in the specifications. It's more than FUD. It's very likely.
On the other side of the continent, someone jumped over the guard rail on Interstate 84 in Oregon. Unfortunately, it was on a bridge. It was 50 feet down to the creekbed.
n ews_samaritan_death.5f838aa0.html
Refrence.. Gladly
http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_122906_
Check snopes.. it's a fake. The linked article also lists it as urban legend.
Unprotected media should be entirely unaffected by it.
Since Vista is locking down the secure media paths, and degrades paths or shuts them down at the kernel level, I don't think I would want to be in the middle of a Skype call and visit a website with a protected content video of the latest news broadcast that degrades or shuts off the analog hole.
Maybe it's FUD, Maybe the Fear is real. Can visiting a website degrade or disable your analog audio out, even if it is being used for something else? I'm going to wait on this one. Real details are somewhat limited. The hard details is if protected media is present (doesn't say if it includes web content) the analog path may be degraded or disabled.
Is it possible to be cut off a Skype call just by visiting a website? Call it FUD if you wish, but the doubt remains until proven otherwise. In the meantime, I don't plan to bleed to death by cutting edge technology. I'll stick with something that is known to work.
and ... wait... um... all my iTunes "infested crap" still works!
Welcome to single vendor lock-in. My music plays on my Panasonic, Coby, my kids Nano, my other kids Lyra and Zen. In addition my music will play on all my PC's including the Linux machine. DRM files simply don't work in a mixed environment.
Apple sells tunes to a few who accept a monoculture. The rest of us are waiting for a legal I-tunes type store that sells plain vanilla MP3's. In the meantime we rip our CD's and our friends CD's because there is no place to buy the MP3's.
Want to have fun.. Give a gift of the SONY online music store to an I-Pod user. An I-Tunes gift card to a Zen user, etc. It would be much easer to give a gift card to an MP3 store. MP3's play on Sony, RCA, Creative, I-river, Apple, and many other manufactures players. DRM is playing the VHS vs BETA war all over again when MP3 has already won. DRM sells only because enough buy it. It would die like Rainbow Dongles if it had the same universal marketplace rejection.
I have been learning to find legal MP3's online including Public Domain and creative commons material and stuff released by the BBC. I just finished enjoying The Cinamon Bear. It is in the public domain with an original air date of 1937.
Someday maybe the music industry will learn and begin to sell music again. I am waiting but not forever. Too many people are sold on the idea that the abliley to play DRM is an asset, not a liability. Wow, it's compatible with the I-Tunes store, Zune Store, Yahoo Music, etc. I'm more impressed with MP3's, they play on almost anything. Want to sell me music?, offer it in MP3.
aha! i'd heard of this but had no idea what the terminology was called my knowledge on networks is quite weak. i thought it was bridging
Bridging mode is to connect two networks together for example a bunch of wired PC's in the house tied to broadband can be bridged to the shop so PC's in the shop can share the internet, printers and other lan resources. To bridge, both access points must be set up to bridge. In this mode, they are no longer access points that your laptop can connect to.
I mentioned Client mode. Client mode is for one PC to connect to an access point along with the rest of your laptops. Client mode does not bridge 2 networks together. It enables a clint to attach to a wireless access point.
I've used this mode to connect a Windows 95 laptop without wireless and laptops running a live CD while on the road.
Who wants to mess with trying to get a live distro to use a wireless card. It's much easier to connect and use the web interface on the wireless access point to configure it's client mode to connect to the hotel's free wireless. No hastles with trying to get a wireless card to work. The bonus is the access point has a better antenna and sensitivity and can be set anywhere with a good signal such as in the window to leach off the apartment nearby instead for better speed. (oops, I didn't recommend stealing a signal did I?)
I'm curious if you just used a cigarette lighter inverter or wired one into a higher capacit circuit
A 1,000 watt inverter assuming 100% effeciency fully loaded would draw 1,000 watts. At 12 volts would be 83-1/3 amps of current draw which is a little more than any lighter socket. The inverter is mounted in the trunk next to the battery with welding cable and lugs for connection. I seldom run under full load. I sized the system so it would be able to handle surges of the freezer and fridge starting without shutting down the inverter due to voltage drop or overload.
The lighter socket is only good for 10 amps or 120 watts max.
Many itmes on the car are electric and not needed while parked. The power can then be dirverted to the iverter without overloading the existing electrical system. Items not used when used as a generator are, Headlights, Heater blower, rear window defroster, power brake compressor, electric power steering, and a few other loads that are off while parked. It is easy to draw 500-800 watts off the car without overloading the electrical system.
The ionosphere bounce is most often like a flat mirror in the sky much like seeing the sky reflected on a hot road in the desert (looks like water on the road). Even though the direction of the wave appears to be from a few degrees above the horizon, the azmith is not skewed much most of the time. Most of the CDAA antennas have the delays set to focus not on signals from the horizon, but from a few degrees above the horizon. The more antennas you have which are spread out increases the antenna apature and much of the drift gets averaged out providing a reasonably accurate line of bearing. The sky wave is dynamic. The longer a signal is present, the more samples can be integrated also increasing the accuracy. With many coordinated stations, the circle you get on the map that may contain the source of the transmission becomes quite small.
I have done some HF amature radio hidden transmitter hunts in the 28 MHZ range. The bearing you get as you get close is pretty good. A couple guys working together sharing information can locate the final area very quickly. It is a lot of fun to see how many people you can beat to the hidden transmitter.
shouldn't it be fairly straightforward to locate the origin of these transmissions?
Yes. Automatic radio direction finding is common and was often used in the cold war. The spectrum is constantly monitored and when a new broadcast pops up, it is automaticaly DF'ed and logged. When several DF sites pickup the same broadcast, triangulation to the source is a simple task.
Here is what a typical DF site looks like. Both the US and Russia have them.
http://www1.shore.net/~mfoster/FLA_Wullen.htm
(I'm not going to Format my C: drive straight away).
So have you tried to run off a live CD? Freespire comes with the codecs that are not included in most Linux distributions that can be installed later. The problem is they are not installed when you run most live CD's so much online content won't play such as flash, MP3's, PDF's, and many movie formats.
Things like DRM just hurt customers, they simply haven't realized that yet.
That is the sad state of affairs. Some consumers are going wow, it works with I-tunes store or Yahoo Music. They see the ability to play DRM sources as a feature, not a liability. Wait for 2-3 hardware upgrade cycles and see what the tune is then when their paid for library simply won't play anymore and mine plays just fine.
so i look around to find a usb wifi adapter that will work with ubuntu. had tried a pci card but that will not get a good enough signal so it has to be a usb adapter which can be at the end of a 2 metre usb cable.
Forget the trouble of USB and drivers. I picked up a Dlink Access Point. It can be put into client mode. Nice. Plug in a Cat 5 cable and pretend it's a hardwired network jack. I even tested it with my ancient Windows 95 laptop which has no USB and only 16 bit cardbus. I connected to my LAN without any trouble. It connected with no modifications. The access point in client mode can be treated just like a wired network jack.
From there the access point can be located anywhere to get a good signal and it has better than average sensitivity and power.
3) I hate to say it, but Windows XP actually runs consistently faster under load on my laptop than Ubuntu. The GUI in particular is more responsive under load than GNOME or KDE.
I found the oposite to be true for machines that spend most of the time online. If you share a machine with teenagers, the Windows machine quickly becomes bogged down and requires rebuilding every 3-6 months. I stuck on Ubuntu Breexy Badger and later upgraded to Dapper Drake. For the 99% online stuff they do, it simply doesn't bog down and die over time. They would be happy with just Firefox, Gaim, Banshee, and a few other entertainment applications. They use it as a web box and music machine. We have found it best to have more than one machine. Linux is used online and Windows is reserved for offline applications such as a MIDI workshop. There are more good MIDI programs for Windows than for Linux. Same for DMX512 light control. There is not a Linux equivelant for Freestyler yet.
For these reasons we have both Windows and Linux machines.
MIDI tools such as patches, capture & playback, and other utilities are good in Linux.
At first they didn't like the fact they could not run the software that came with their I-Pod and Zen. A quick Google search showed the programs that replace the original software and enabled loading their players.
but not a normal user who uses their machine for anything other than things like office functions and web browsing.
That is what the Linux machine is great for. Office functions and web browsing. Add in the free SIP Phone, the Photo editor Gimp, multi-protocol chat Gaim, and it becomes very useful.
The best part is it won't run the Windows DRM programs on CD's and won't run Windows trojans online.
The installed base of software is much better than all the crippled limited trial software typicaly bundled on a Dell machine.
It comes with a fully functioning Photo Editor, CD burning software, Office Suite, Soft SIP or Netmeeting phone, and lots more.
With Windows, you need to buy Photoshop Elements, Office, full version of Nero or other CD burner software (to burn ISO's). The simple to use limited edition software included with Windows is just about useless. What gives with all that bundled trial ware? It's much better pre-installed and fully functional, not crippled.
Not all reports are nice. Seattle had less than steller results with hybrid buses.
0 9_metro13.html
- 18-NR-Hybrid.pdf
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/transportation/2035
I found that while trying to find real numbers for the creep and go of mail carriers.
Reports of taxi driving has been excelent where they spend a fair amount of time in heavy downtown traffic or sitting waiting with the car on.
http://www.fraserbasin.bc.ca/news/documents/04-11