From the consumer point of view, they're not blocking specific types of ads, they're blocking ALL adds (or at least as many as they can) -- thats their goal, and adblock and the like are pretty good at it.
For me the ads simply got in the way. It was like opening a newspaper, starting to read the news and the guy next to me slapped a flyer right into the newspaper over what I was trying to read and then held it there and wouldn't let me move it out of the way. If dead tree advertising intruded like on-line advertising, I would shred the dead tree edition for the same reasons.
Hint to advertisers... There is a classifieds. Online there is search. Try Froogle. Be there when I search for your product. Don't slam things over my newspaper article. Yahoo, are you listening. Yahoo is the reason I loaded a hosts file.
Frankly I don't really care about 20-50 megabytes of memory, or 5% of my processor usage, or even 100% of my idle processor usage. Those numbers are all low enough that you'd more than likely never notice or miss those resources.
I do care however when my home network gateway traffic is consumed and I want to load a web page or something. The remaining bandwidth is a kick back into dial up speeds for the family.
Having a spare PC to donate idle CPU time with is not the problem. The problem is I don't have an extra broadband connection I would like to donate to the cause. I use my bandwidth. My internet gateway is my bandwidth choke point. I would like more bandwidth, not less.
A simple consumer firewall between your skype-running PC and the internet will prevent Skype from using your PC as a 'supernode'.
And the traffic gets re-routed to some other sucker. We had a problem with a surge in traffic on the corporate LAN. It initialy got flagged as a worm or virus attack due to the large number of packets. The packets were traced to individual PC's (tracking the jabbering bandwidth hogs as possible botnet nodes) and found the drain on the system was the new version of Skype which was just released. A company wide memo went out detailing the issue with instructions to not run the new version of Skype until the bandwidth issues were resolved.
The system will not work without supernodes and supernodes are system bandwidth hogs.
As more business protect their bandwidth, the number of supernode possibilities dwindle placing an even higher demand on the few remaining. Supernodes will bo away or become hard to find just like open mail relays. The few remaining ones will be buried in bandwidth consumption.
Where are cube farms illegal? I'll move there too.
I'm not sure cube farms are illegal like gambeling, nudity, and playboy magazines, but I never encountered a cubicle in the Cayman Islands while I was there.
They don't have very many programmers there however.
From the article "He did not know when, where or how, but Tenet felt there was too much noise in the intelligence systems."
This is well known to anyone who has been paying attention. To me this is nothing more than pre-election no holds barred mud.
The point is nobody knew when where or how. Do you want to go into panic attack nationwide? Inteligence didn't just switch off and ignore this. If there was any hint of when, where, or how, thing would have been rolling. I've known about this for years. This old news article was released at this time for political reasons only.
Granted, your $5 128M mp3 player may not be able to play it, but WinAmp, XMMS, WindowsMediaPlayer all can play AAC last I checked. Hell, there are even command line tools that can.
Hmmm.. I have been sleeping in keepin up. I standardised on MP3 when my living room DVD, Car stereo, and portable CD player would all play MP3's and some would play one other format sometimes WAV, sometimes WMA, and sometimes AAC. The only common format is MP3.
Are they making car stereos and DVD players that now play AAC files? I don't count a device with an I-Pod cradle/dock as an AAC player. It's a player with an external connector such as a 1/4 inch jack, 1/8th inch jack, RCA jack, XLR jack, I-pod dock, etc.
Not all Plays For Sure tm players are $5 or contain only 128 meg of memory. However most of them will play MP3's and connect as a USB mass storage device. No special drivers needed except to support DRM files. As such you can copy to and from the device at USB speeds, not the speed of the devices sync program.
I expect a lot more people have TV's than computers, too
There are a lot of people with one tv and lots of computers. We have a 20 inch tv and a 12 inch TV/VCR combo unit for travel. My wife and I have both a laptop and desktop. I have 2 PC's set up for the kids.
Let's face it. The stuff on most TV has degenerated to the lowest common denominator of sex, violence, and commercials. When we moved last year, I didn't even bother to put up an antenna. TV is for videos. Due to advances in technology, Computers get replaced to upgrade, not because they failed (except hard drives). I'll bet your main PC is less than 3 years old. I just looked, my TV was manufactured in November 1990. The PC I'm using now just got a new motherboard and CPU this year. (I kept my box and drives in my own recycling program)
Soon when over the air digital TV (DTV) is the only TV on the air in the USA, who will bother to put up an antenna to get over the air digital tv? Want some fun. Drive through any city where broadband is commonplace and count the TV antennas on houses (not dishes). The only part of the country with a substantial TV antenna population is where there is no broadband.
At least you can block ads on the internet and research what you want. You can view at any time. No TIVO required to select content and skip commercials.
It may be a better offer if you could include computers from any source, not just dell, right?
My Wife's computer came with a Dell Printer. The printer came with a return pre-paid shipping label in the box so I could "recycle" my old printer. I set up the new printer, installed the cartridges and connected it. I found the cartridges were about 1/4 the size of the old printer but cost the same. I could not get cartridges at a local store so they had to be directly ordered from Dell + shipping and handeling. To compound matters my old printer is on my LAN serving all my machines from the Linux box, to a ME laptop, to (I still use it due to built in MIDI port) a Windows 95 laptop and a Windows 98 machine. The new printer came with drivers for Windows 2000 and Winows XP and nothing else. Needless to say when it ran out of ink I kept the old printer and recycled the new one.
later and to my surprise I discovered an 80gb ATA133 7200RPM drive
Funny thing happened to me. I have an older HP PC with an IBM drive. The drive died in warranty. HP sent me 2 replacements. Somehow my request got duplicated in the system. I was honest and sent one of the new drives back after contacting them so the new drive shipped back wouldn't be scrapped as defective. All shipping costs was on their expense. The new drives came with UPS stickers for return shipping.
You don't have to worry about this, however, as it is easy to distinguish two different users but probably difficult to pick you out of a crowd.
Actualy I'm quite easy to identify from my clicks. I typicaly use a bookmark and go to Slashdot where I log in. From there I click on Technician and check if I have any replies to my posts. Now in reality, how many people log into Slashdot and click Technician. I hope it is not very many of you...
Maybe a lot of you log in as Technician and click Technician. Maybe that is why my Karma is Excelent.;-)
My son just learned the hard way there are incompatible file formats for audio. He just got an RCA Lyra player (much cheaper than a Nano and easly expande by an SD card slot unlike a Nano. The took the MP3's from his computer CD rips and stuffed them on. It worked Stuffed in some WMA files and headed over to his GF's home to show off the new toy. She has a Nano. She likes some of his music and he likes some of hers. It was just natural for them to connect the player to her computer and copy off some music and copy some other music onto the player. (I love players that attach as a flash drive) They discovered MP3's are compatible and WMA files won't play on a Nano and AAC files won't play on the Lyra. I sugested she use CDex for ripping her CD's and I suggested to my son to do the same instead of using Windows Media Player some of the time. They caught on very quickly what does not work and MP3's do. Users of the Zune will quickly catch on also. Lyra can connect as a USB flash drive and you can copy non-DRM files to and from the device. If the Zune won't do the same wirelessly but installs with a 3 day 3 play trial, then Zune users will use a PC and load MP3's instead by a cable. Kids on a limited income are smart enough to find and use what works.
I think everyone here at Slashdot recognizes the dangers that these new DRM-infested devices are introducing
Word it correctly so everyone understands the first time.. Use words such as the new format is incompatible with MP3 players. Peoplel will get the idea. The new format is not compatible with their DVD player, I-pod, RCA Lyra, Car Stereo, RIO player, Winamp Jukebox, Musicmatch jukebox, I-tunes jukebox, Linux with Lame, etc.... The list goes on and on and on. MP3's work. Other formats are incompatible and won't play for sure.
You know if you like the music sharing, but hate the DRM, there are other solutions.
If you have an I-pod loaded with MP3,s instead of AAC files, connect it ot your Linux box with Banchee. It does more than just put files onto an I-pod. It extracts them so you can share with your I-pod. The trick it to keep in a format that is the common denominator between players. Incompatible formats such as Apple AAC, SONY ATRAC, Microsoft WMA and other files are simply incompatible between players. Most everything will play an MP3 and most players with the right software permit transfering from and to the players. Crossing format fences is an attempt in futility. Crossing DRM fences is even worse. Who needs a WMA file that won't play on a Plays for Sure player, or an AAC file that won't play on an I-pod? Stick with stuff that works and reject the broken files.
For the Apple fans, I believe I-tunes player can rip CD's to MP3. Windows fans can use CDex or any number of CD rippers. Linux users will need to download the LAME encoder due to the MP3 lisence issues and use one of the Linux CD rippers.
*Everything* has a ripple effect on the economy. That's why it's called "the economy" as a whole. You can't expect a noticeable shift in traditional cash flow to not have at least some sort of chain reaction or reactions elsewhere.
Entirely true. The money spent on CD's, DVD's, Video Games, Movie tickets is not spent at Applebees, Disneyworld, Six Flags, US Forest Service, etc. The consumer has a limited income. It is either saved for retirement, spent on the requirements such as shelter, food, clothing, or entertainment. The expendible portion and it's ripple effect is a two way street. It makes a diffrence where the consumer spends the money. It is not a one way street of if the consumer spends the money or not.
If the percieved value for the money is not there and there is a piracy way to acquire the music, Then the money will be spent on someting of tangible value such as a concert ticket or an I-Pod.
I for one would seriously not want to perform desktop support in an environment that has just switched from Windows to Linux. A large portion of these users have a hard enough time adjusting to Windows. You through them a curve ball like Linux and suddenly the whole office goes to shit as nobody can find the start button anymore, their "Word" and "Excel" documents don't "look the same" and various other nitpicky comments. The productivity in the office goes to shit, and the IT manager is left to answer for why revenue decreased by 5% last month becuse nobody could use their computers. IT manager gets sacked and company brings in a consultant to switch them back to Windows.
Same excuise I hear for not wanting MAC's, until a few workers get them in an office, then everyone wants one.
(I tried googling for it but could not find something relevant to what you said)
In Windows all your family members have root privilages as in the ability to install any program such as add a printer driver, new video codec, update Macromedia Flash or other installs. Some software instalation can run in the background without your knowledge. Some of these programs are started by simply visiting a webpage.
The term you are looking for is "Drive by download"
Some trojans are known to the AV folks and you get a warning. The AV people react to new threats after they are out.
Even playing a music CD can install a rootkit on your PC without even asking. Google for SONY rootkit.
Some virus stuff constantly changes to evade AV detection. Google for Polymorphic virus. If your Windows 98 goes online and follows links from a Google search, then you are a sitting duck. The firewall tries to keep the outside from making connections to the inside. The firewall does not stop the inside from reaching to the outside which is where the hole is. You are safe behind the firewall as long as you don't open a window to go outside.
I run an OS that prompts for the administrator password before any software is permitted to install. I don't have to rebuild it every 3 months or so like I did with Windows 98 when the kids used the computer for web browsing.
Or the even more obvious - "I didn't know I couldn't install my copy of Office on every computer I own.
I actualy was aware of it when I got Office 97. With being married and having kids getting older, I ran into "we need a computer for everyone". Spending over a 1000 dollars to outfit my network of computers with Office wasn't an option when I found Star Office came with the lisence I needed for less than 100 dollars. It came with a site lisence for home use (MS are you paying attention?) which is why my LAN of machnes ran Star Office. Nice! I have since upgraded to Open Office (At about the same time I moved from coax to 10/100 base T networking for my family collection with the exception of Office 2000 on one machine.
Now, Office, on the other hand is too expensive for most home users... it doubles the price of your PC! I always assumed that this pricing was deliberate to milk the corporate market, and that they wanted to encourage people to take it home to increase their market share. The move to enforce WGA on Office completely nullifies that argument, doesn't it? Do home users actually buy Office?
If you work for the right corporation, they may have an agreement with Microsoft for employee versions of Office.
For a while I could sign up and get a free copy of Office to use at home. That is how I recieved Office 97 and Office 2000.
This last round of offers now have a charge for the media of somewher in the $35 price range. I didn't bother for several reasons, I didn't need the features in the new version. It was for install on a single machine only. I have desktop and laptop machines for myself and my wife. I didn't need another version of Office in the mix. I bought (several years ago) a retail copy of Starr Office to fill in the gape legaly on our machines (about $60) and the lisence was a site lisence for home use. I was legaly free to install it on all my machines. Later it has been replaced by Open Office. There was no reason to get yet another copy (version) of MS Office.
Open office is installed on all the machines including the Ubuntu box. My Wife's XP box has the copy of Office 2K which can be used for compatibility reasons with the borg world.
The question is, Do you realy need the MS version of Office? There are affordable alternives. There is no longer a reason to pirate MS Software. Go Legit!
After 2 hours on the phone with clueless MS reps, I was "accidentally" disconnected by the tech without being given a resolution. 5 minutes on Google and I "resolved" the issue on my own.
So how well do you like Ubuntu? I have had no problems with it myself.
Oh, please just grow up. What competitor? What other OS runs MasterCAM, Autodesk Inventor, JobBOSS, Quickbooks and all the other software companies like ours depend on to keep revenue coming in and the IRS satisfied?
Great, you gave a valid reason for 10% of the office to run a paticular vendor's OS. How about the rest of the office? It's time to get something that is reliable.
Slashdot Mirror
From the consumer point of view, they're not blocking specific types of ads, they're blocking ALL adds (or at least as many as they can) -- thats their goal, and adblock and the like are pretty good at it.
For me the ads simply got in the way. It was like opening a newspaper, starting to read the news and the guy next to me slapped a flyer right into the newspaper over what I was trying to read and then held it there and wouldn't let me move it out of the way. If dead tree advertising intruded like on-line advertising, I would shred the dead tree edition for the same reasons.
Hint to advertisers... There is a classifieds. Online there is search. Try Froogle. Be there when I search for your product. Don't slam things over my newspaper article. Yahoo, are you listening. Yahoo is the reason I loaded a hosts file.
Frankly I don't really care about 20-50 megabytes of memory, or 5% of my processor usage, or even 100% of my idle processor usage. Those numbers are all low enough that you'd more than likely never notice or miss those resources.
I do care however when my home network gateway traffic is consumed and I want to load a web page or something. The remaining bandwidth is a kick back into dial up speeds for the family.
Having a spare PC to donate idle CPU time with is not the problem. The problem is I don't have an extra broadband connection I would like to donate to the cause. I use my bandwidth. My internet gateway is my bandwidth choke point. I would like more bandwidth, not less.
A simple consumer firewall between your skype-running PC and the internet will prevent Skype from using your PC as a 'supernode'.
And the traffic gets re-routed to some other sucker. We had a problem with a surge in traffic on the corporate LAN. It initialy got flagged as a worm or virus attack due to the large number of packets. The packets were traced to individual PC's (tracking the jabbering bandwidth hogs as possible botnet nodes) and found the drain on the system was the new version of Skype which was just released. A company wide memo went out detailing the issue with instructions to not run the new version of Skype until the bandwidth issues were resolved.
The system will not work without supernodes and supernodes are system bandwidth hogs.
As more business protect their bandwidth, the number of supernode possibilities dwindle placing an even higher demand on the few remaining. Supernodes will bo away or become hard to find just like open mail relays. The few remaining ones will be buried in bandwidth consumption.
Where are cube farms illegal? I'll move there too.
I'm not sure cube farms are illegal like gambeling, nudity, and playboy magazines, but I never encountered a cubicle in the Cayman Islands while I was there.
They don't have very many programmers there however.
Ask Slashdot: should I wear my green T-shirt or my yellow one?
Wear your pink one.
http://pinkforoctober.org/ Real men wear pink.
I now have a pink one. My wife washed it with a red shirt.
in fact, the whole room, the floor, let's do away with flat.
Good idea, start here;
http://www.monolithic.com/
From the article "He did not know when, where or how, but Tenet felt there was too much noise in the intelligence systems."
This is well known to anyone who has been paying attention. To me this is nothing more than pre-election no holds barred mud.
The point is nobody knew when where or how. Do you want to go into panic attack nationwide? Inteligence didn't just switch off and ignore this. If there was any hint of when, where, or how, thing would have been rolling. I've known about this for years. This old news article was released at this time for political reasons only.
Granted, your $5 128M mp3 player may not be able to play it, but WinAmp, XMMS, WindowsMediaPlayer all can play AAC last I checked. Hell, there are even command line tools that can.
Hmmm.. I have been sleeping in keepin up. I standardised on MP3 when my living room DVD, Car stereo, and portable CD player would all play MP3's and some would play one other format sometimes WAV, sometimes WMA, and sometimes AAC. The only common format is MP3.
Are they making car stereos and DVD players that now play AAC files? I don't count a device with an I-Pod cradle/dock as an AAC player. It's a player with an external connector such as a 1/4 inch jack, 1/8th inch jack, RCA jack, XLR jack, I-pod dock, etc.
Not all Plays For Sure tm players are $5 or contain only 128 meg of memory. However most of them will play MP3's and connect as a USB mass storage device. No special drivers needed except to support DRM files. As such you can copy to and from the device at USB speeds, not the speed of the devices sync program.
I expect a lot more people have TV's than computers, too
There are a lot of people with one tv and lots of computers. We have a 20 inch tv and a 12 inch TV/VCR combo unit for travel. My wife and I have both a laptop and desktop. I have 2 PC's set up for the kids.
Let's face it. The stuff on most TV has degenerated to the lowest common denominator of sex, violence, and commercials. When we moved last year, I didn't even bother to put up an antenna. TV is for videos. Due to advances in technology, Computers get replaced to upgrade, not because they failed (except hard drives). I'll bet your main PC is less than 3 years old. I just looked, my TV was manufactured in November 1990. The PC I'm using now just got a new motherboard and CPU this year. (I kept my box and drives in my own recycling program)
Soon when over the air digital TV (DTV) is the only TV on the air in the USA, who will bother to put up an antenna to get over the air digital tv? Want some fun. Drive through any city where broadband is commonplace and count the TV antennas on houses (not dishes). The only part of the country with a substantial TV antenna population is where there is no broadband.
At least you can block ads on the internet and research what you want. You can view at any time. No TIVO required to select content and skip commercials.
It may be a better offer if you could include computers from any source, not just dell, right?
My Wife's computer came with a Dell Printer. The printer came with a return pre-paid shipping label in the box so I could "recycle" my old printer. I set up the new printer, installed the cartridges and connected it. I found the cartridges were about 1/4 the size of the old printer but cost the same. I could not get cartridges at a local store so they had to be directly ordered from Dell + shipping and handeling. To compound matters my old printer is on my LAN serving all my machines from the Linux box, to a ME laptop, to (I still use it due to built in MIDI port) a Windows 95 laptop and a Windows 98 machine. The new printer came with drivers for Windows 2000 and Winows XP and nothing else. Needless to say when it ran out of ink I kept the old printer and recycled the new one.
later and to my surprise I discovered an 80gb ATA133 7200RPM drive
Funny thing happened to me. I have an older HP PC with an IBM drive. The drive died in warranty. HP sent me 2 replacements. Somehow my request got duplicated in the system. I was honest and sent one of the new drives back after contacting them so the new drive shipped back wouldn't be scrapped as defective. All shipping costs was on their expense. The new drives came with UPS stickers for return shipping.
You don't have to worry about this, however, as it is easy to distinguish two different users but probably difficult to pick you out of a crowd.
;-)
Actualy I'm quite easy to identify from my clicks. I typicaly use a bookmark and go to Slashdot where I log in. From there I click on Technician and check if I have any replies to my posts. Now in reality, how many people log into Slashdot and click Technician. I hope it is not very many of you...
Maybe a lot of you log in as Technician and click Technician. Maybe that is why my Karma is Excelent.
My son just learned the hard way there are incompatible file formats for audio. He just got an RCA Lyra player (much cheaper than a Nano and easly expande by an SD card slot unlike a Nano. The took the MP3's from his computer CD rips and stuffed them on. It worked Stuffed in some WMA files and headed over to his GF's home to show off the new toy. She has a Nano. She likes some of his music and he likes some of hers. It was just natural for them to connect the player to her computer and copy off some music and copy some other music onto the player. (I love players that attach as a flash drive) They discovered MP3's are compatible and WMA files won't play on a Nano and AAC files won't play on the Lyra. I sugested she use CDex for ripping her CD's and I suggested to my son to do the same instead of using Windows Media Player some of the time. They caught on very quickly what does not work and MP3's do. Users of the Zune will quickly catch on also. Lyra can connect as a USB flash drive and you can copy non-DRM files to and from the device. If the Zune won't do the same wirelessly but installs with a 3 day 3 play trial, then Zune users will use a PC and load MP3's instead by a cable. Kids on a limited income are smart enough to find and use what works.
I think everyone here at Slashdot recognizes the dangers that these new DRM-infested devices are introducing
Word it correctly so everyone understands the first time.. Use words such as the new format is incompatible with MP3 players. Peoplel will get the idea. The new format is not compatible with their DVD player, I-pod, RCA Lyra, Car Stereo, RIO player, Winamp Jukebox, Musicmatch jukebox, I-tunes jukebox, Linux with Lame, etc.... The list goes on and on and on. MP3's work. Other formats are incompatible and won't play for sure.
You know if you like the music sharing, but hate the DRM, there are other solutions.
If you have an I-pod loaded with MP3,s instead of AAC files, connect it ot your Linux box with Banchee. It does more than just put files onto an I-pod. It extracts them so you can share with your I-pod. The trick it to keep in a format that is the common denominator between players. Incompatible formats such as Apple AAC, SONY ATRAC, Microsoft WMA and other files are simply incompatible between players. Most everything will play an MP3 and most players with the right software permit transfering from and to the players. Crossing format fences is an attempt in futility. Crossing DRM fences is even worse. Who needs a WMA file that won't play on a Plays for Sure player, or an AAC file that won't play on an I-pod? Stick with stuff that works and reject the broken files.
For the Apple fans, I believe I-tunes player can rip CD's to MP3. Windows fans can use CDex or any number of CD rippers. Linux users will need to download the LAME encoder due to the MP3 lisence issues and use one of the Linux CD rippers.
*Everything* has a ripple effect on the economy. That's why it's called "the economy" as a whole. You can't expect a noticeable shift in traditional cash flow to not have at least some sort of chain reaction or reactions elsewhere.
Entirely true. The money spent on CD's, DVD's, Video Games, Movie tickets is not spent at Applebees, Disneyworld, Six Flags, US Forest Service, etc. The consumer has a limited income. It is either saved for retirement, spent on the requirements such as shelter, food, clothing, or entertainment. The expendible portion and it's ripple effect is a two way street. It makes a diffrence where the consumer spends the money. It is not a one way street of if the consumer spends the money or not.
If the percieved value for the money is not there and there is a piracy way to acquire the music, Then the money will be spent on someting of tangible value such as a concert ticket or an I-Pod.
One thing: Mac's have the advantage of having MS Office support.
Ever heard of WINE?
http://www.winehq.com/
I for one would seriously not want to perform desktop support in an environment that has just switched from Windows to Linux. A large portion of these users have a hard enough time adjusting to Windows. You through them a curve ball like Linux and suddenly the whole office goes to shit as nobody can find the start button anymore, their "Word" and "Excel" documents don't "look the same" and various other nitpicky comments. The productivity in the office goes to shit, and the IT manager is left to answer for why revenue decreased by 5% last month becuse nobody could use their computers. IT manager gets sacked and company brings in a consultant to switch them back to Windows.
Same excuise I hear for not wanting MAC's, until a few workers get them in an office, then everyone wants one.
(I tried googling for it but could not find something relevant to what you said)
In Windows all your family members have root privilages as in the ability to install any program such as add a printer driver, new video codec, update Macromedia Flash or other installs. Some software instalation can run in the background without your knowledge. Some of these programs are started by simply visiting a webpage.
The term you are looking for is "Drive by download"
Some trojans are known to the AV folks and you get a warning. The AV people react to new threats after they are out.
Even playing a music CD can install a rootkit on your PC without even asking. Google for SONY rootkit.
Some virus stuff constantly changes to evade AV detection. Google for Polymorphic virus. If your Windows 98 goes online and follows links from a Google search, then you are a sitting duck. The firewall tries to keep the outside from making connections to the inside. The firewall does not stop the inside from reaching to the outside which is where the hole is. You are safe behind the firewall as long as you don't open a window to go outside.
I run an OS that prompts for the administrator password before any software is permitted to install. I don't have to rebuild it every 3 months or so like I did with Windows 98 when the kids used the computer for web browsing.
Or the even more obvious - "I didn't know I couldn't install my copy of Office on every computer I own.
I actualy was aware of it when I got Office 97. With being married and having kids getting older, I ran into "we need a computer for everyone". Spending over a 1000 dollars to outfit my network of computers with Office wasn't an option when I found Star Office came with the lisence I needed for less than 100 dollars. It came with a site lisence for home use (MS are you paying attention?) which is why my LAN of machnes ran Star Office. Nice! I have since upgraded to Open Office (At about the same time I moved from coax to 10/100 base T networking for my family collection with the exception of Office 2000 on one machine.
Now, Office, on the other hand is too expensive for most home users... it doubles the price of your PC! I always assumed that this pricing was deliberate to milk the corporate market, and that they wanted to encourage people to take it home to increase their market share. The move to enforce WGA on Office completely nullifies that argument, doesn't it? Do home users actually buy Office?
If you work for the right corporation, they may have an agreement with Microsoft for employee versions of Office.
For a while I could sign up and get a free copy of Office to use at home. That is how I recieved Office 97 and Office 2000.
This last round of offers now have a charge for the media of somewher in the $35 price range. I didn't bother for several reasons, I didn't need the features in the new version. It was for install on a single machine only. I have desktop and laptop machines for myself and my wife. I didn't need another version of Office in the mix. I bought (several years ago) a retail copy of Starr Office to fill in the gape legaly on our machines (about $60) and the lisence was a site lisence for home use. I was legaly free to install it on all my machines. Later it has been replaced by Open Office. There was no reason to get yet another copy (version) of MS Office.
Open office is installed on all the machines including the Ubuntu box. My Wife's XP box has the copy of Office 2K which can be used for compatibility reasons with the borg world.
The question is, Do you realy need the MS version of Office? There are affordable alternives. There is no longer a reason to pirate MS Software. Go Legit!
After 2 hours on the phone with clueless MS reps, I was "accidentally" disconnected by the tech without being given a resolution. 5 minutes on Google and I "resolved" the issue on my own.
So how well do you like Ubuntu? I have had no problems with it myself.
This weekend, both of the other PC's will get their XP partitions deleted and go back to dual boot Win98se and Ubuntu only.
Please tell me you have removed the NIC driver from the Windows 98 partition.. Please don't put it online to be part of a botnet.
Oh, please just grow up. What competitor? What other OS runs MasterCAM, Autodesk Inventor, JobBOSS, Quickbooks and all the other software companies like ours depend on to keep revenue coming in and the IRS satisfied?
Great, you gave a valid reason for 10% of the office to run a paticular vendor's OS. How about the rest of the office? It's time to get something that is reliable.
From reading in between the lines in the article I draw the following conclusion..
His Valid CD key for Office 2000 Pro has been registered or attempted to be registered by other parties.
Can you say keygen?