No no no. When the Imacs were first introduced... when in LA they had the big poster with John Lennon and Yoko Ono waking up in bed with a rainbow of imacs logo titled "think different." I could just imagine John Lennon's balloon saying, "piece of crypto fascist Bourgeois crap" and Yoko Ono saying, "I kind of like it". That is fugly.
This new Asus barebones on the other hand is only as ugly as that plastic tool box by Black and Decker. I understand where they are coming from trying to sorta merge the beige box with classic black hifi equipment. Unfortunatly in this case it's about as pretty as a black powder coated toaster. But by no means is it fugly.
However, there are three factors that (though subject to differing interpretations) are common to all such definitions: a trade secret is some sort of information that (a) is not generally known to the relevant portion of the public, (b) confers some sort of economic benefit on its holder (where, note well, this benefit must derive specifically from the fact that it is not generally known, not just from the value of the information itself), and (c) is the subject of reasonable efforts to maintain its secrecy.
Are e-mail addresses trade secrets?
a) Not known to the relevant portion of the public? E-mail addresses are a form of contact information that are given out by their very design.
b) Does AOLs user list confer some sort of economic benefit on the holder? You could argue this but according to the marketing AOL say they don't sell their user list so in a way they are saying they accept no economic benefit of their user directory.
c) Does AOL maintain reasonable efforts to maintain their user's e-mail addresses private? This is something that could be argued. One the one hand they don't sell their userlist to spammers but at the same time any old Joe can e-mail an AOL user at anytime.
As defined, I can see how one might argue one way or another, but let us ask ourselves this.
1) Is a list of phone numbers a trade secret? 2) Is a list of mobile numbers a trade secret? 3) Is a list of e-mail addresses a trade secret?
No, this is more like giving you a key to our boss's house, without his permission. And, our boss has contracts with everyone on his phone list that ensure that our company will not sell their phone number. And our boss probably made us sign a paper when we started working for him saying we would never sell/give out confidential company info.
It sounds like a breach of contract to me, not a criminal act.
In fact, there's no guarantee that the other employee GAVE him his access code. He could have found the post-it under his keyboard or whathaveyou. Regardless, since it was not HIS access code, he had no permission from the company to access this data in the first place.
You don't know for a fact that he had no permission from the company to access this data. If another employee gave him the access code they are, like it or not, they are being granted a license to access what ever data and resources are associated with that account. This would be *stupid* and ground for dismissal but in it self hardly a criminal act.
If they got the password from a post-it under the keyboard who exactly was deceived? It's true someone was a dumbass putting it there in the first place, but this is hardly illegal. Immoral perhaps, but like it or not they were an employee with the right to be there. You could say they violated the company's trust, you say they broke their contract, and you can say they accessed resources they were not given express permission to, but it's much more difficult to prove criminal wrong doing when you grant permission to your property and resources. No more criminal than finding the access code to the executive bathroom and taking a dump.
Maybe a crime hasn't been committed against this (obscure) law, but stealing critical info from the company you're working for and selling it to the highest bidder (or in this case, spammer) sure is. Was he accused of the wrong thing or what?
Is a userlist critical info? If he copied propriority information and sold it I can see where that might apply. If he sold a password list I can see how that might apply. But a user list isn't critical, proprietary, or even copyrighted.
I don't understand how this is not deceptive, fraudulent and illegal...
Perhaps it should be, but it's not. No one was actually deceived, the guy flat out used someone else's access code to gain access to a mail list and sell it. For example, if you gave a key to your house and I used it to go in and copy your phone list and sell it to a telemarketer. It's not trespass or breaking and entering because you gave me a key. It might not be deceptive because you might have given me the key to feed your cat and I might not have intended to copy your phone list at that time. And it's not theft because I only made a copy of your phone list. And there is no violation of copyright because a list of names and contact info can't be copyrighted.
I might be guilty of violating your trust but I don't see how any crime was committed.
Why are they always the benchmark that everyone tries to meet or beat?
Because like it or not Starbucks put coffee on the map as it were. While you can be critical of the quality of their product (Starbucks Italian Roast bleck) they did take it upon them selves to see an existing trend and push it to the extreme. They are directly responsible for opening up coffee houses all over the world and are arguably responsible for raising standards on coffee.
And like it or not, Starbucks is used as a base line standard for coffee simply because that is often what people are introduced to as coffee.
Whether or not people who use P2P to acquire works without paying for them would ever go into a store or not is irrellevant. It is copyright infringement, period, regardless of whether or not the copyright holders may have "lost a sale". Copyright infringement doesn't have to be theft to still be illegal.
Illegal =! immoral
And you are correct, copyright violations on p2p are totally 100% irrelevant to the morality of returning software to a store. I would call it very immoral to buy a product exclusively to copy it and return it. It's just as immoral to use the excuse that someone has the ability to pirate software they are trying to return as an excuse for not giving the customer their money back, esp. when the EULA agreement inside the software says to "you *must* return it to the store if you don't agree to these terms". In fact, it's because of lack of integrity that some people choose to go p2p first before even considering plopping down money. After all in most places you can't return software. This would be a *violation* of copyright in lue of having your rights violated.
Your estimate on the integrity of humanity is not supported by the fact that there are an absolutely _huge_ number of people out there using P2P software to share and obtain files without respect for copyright.
So you are saying that software you buy shouldn't be able to be returned based on the possibility that the person returning the software might pirate it? I would argue this in it self is the very thesis of a lack of integrity. Why would anyone want to shop somewhere where they are so amoral they would refuse to take back a product under the assumption that you are a thief without any evidence? To expect one to agree to a set of terms they have never seen shows a true lack of integrity.
Perhaps the huge number of people running P2P software getting works without paying for would never go into the store in the first place to buy it? Perhaps they feel they are doing someone a favor by sharing copyrighted works? You can not say the absolutely _huge_ number of people lack integrity. There are even those who are under the firm believe that you should try before you buy. I would have never bought Diablo II, Pirates!, or Quake without seeing it first. By your logic I bought software because as a direct result someone else's lack of integrity.
Near as I can tell P2P has nothing at all to do with fraud at any specific store. Either there is an even more _huge_ number of people paying for the software or the price on the box takes this into account.
Now, what if that map cost you $50-70? (such as a game)
Like two or three Thomas Guides?
Games near as i'm aware often have copy protection and require the CD to run. Why would one go into a store and buy a game just to copy it and return it when you could download the game and a crack off some P2P service? The point is moot.
What if it cost you $100-250 (such as a business application/suite) What if it cost you $800-900 (such as for a professional graphics suite)
Why would one even go into a store when one could download a copy off the net? The point is moot. If you ask how can stores stay in business if it's so easy to defraud them the answer is simple... either the number of honest people far outweigh the number of scummy ones or they take some form of shrinkage into account when they mark up their prices.
Thanks for the feedback. The leap between the Pentium III 500 and 766 isn't all that much, except I believe the 500 was a Secc2 with 512k of cache. In fact the only reason I bought a 766 was my 500 blew and it was cheaper than a replacement 500 at the time. I'm willing to believe that a 500 would also be barely adquate to playback mpeg-4 encodes. By this I mean what you said, play the video but jack shit running in the background.
I don't believe one needs a GHz+ cpu to decode videos, I simply don't know if the 1GHz VIA C3 would be up to snuff.
If they allow consumers to return software after it has been opened, the floodgates open up for absolutely HUGE amounts of software piracy... people would buy software, install it (and probably duplicate the CD), then return it claiming they didn't agree with the EULA on install. What's to stop them? Getting rid of EULA's completely?
How do places that sell tools for example stay in business when the floodgates are already open to people who buy a tool for one time use and return it for a full refund?
I could for example go to the local gas station and buy a map and in theory return it after i'm done using it. I could take the map and go to my local Kinkos, copy it, then return it if I wanted to. Why don't I? Not only is this the apex of scummyness but the work required outweighs the reward of a free map.
This has a faster processor, bigger disk and more RAM than a standard PC from three years ago; what applications have turned up since then that require more than this?
Windows Media Player?
This is not ment as a flame, but I question whether this laptop would be adquate to play anything above and beyond mpeg-2. From my understanding the 1GHz VIA C3 peforms much like a medium speed pentium III and I found that a pentium III 766 was barely adquate for some divx-4 and xvid encodes.
On a side note Texas Instruments were pioneers in computer generated speech. The Speak & Spell was a product of the 70s and in the 80s I enjoyed text to speech on the TI-99/4a via the "Terminal Emulator II" cartridge. I did show this to a couple of blind users and they were very much in awe by the fact that they could actually interact with online resources such as Compu$erve.
I find it shocking that technology that was available as early as 1982 has progressed so little and isn't widely available.
my canon pixma ip4000 (170 euro) can print on Specially coated cd's/dvd's just fine in full color.
The Primera Signature Z1 looks like an option that is not limited to printable discs and not subject to the issues of the ink disapearing under your fingertips.
Why invent something new for something that already exists?
Inkjet printing on CDs can be sloppy to say the least.
Does anyone really need laser etched CDs? Can't you just buy a printer that supports direct to CD printing?
This makes me think of the thermal printers that were popular in the late 80s early 90s. Thermal paper was very popular in faxes for a good long time as well as libraries but eventually people figured out that it was cheaper to go with regular paper and ink/toner than buying chemically treated paper. I owned a nice wide carriage printer that used a thermal transfer ribbon that I was incredibly happy with, except for the cost of the ribbon of course.
This is what it boils down too... cost per unit. Inkjets that can print to a CD is a viable solution but inkjets are sloppy, the ink can smear, and even on specially coated discs is not very durable. Thermal transfer CD/DVD printers exist but require ribbons that are about $20 a pop. I don't know how many disks you can print per ribbon. And now this laser system advertised on Slashdot which looks like it's monochrome. This could be an acceptable solution for when the job is too small for silk screening to be cost effective but it's impossible to judge without some concept of price per disc.
The propability that there wouldn't be one complete copy spread in a swarm of thousands is very unlikely.
This would depend on how popular the seed was and if there are enough fragments to construct a complete download. This has not happened to me often but it has happened. If someone is observant enough to see this and nice enough to re-seed it is easy enough to resolve.
Despite this small flaw my experience with BT has been far more enjoyable than with other file distribution systems.
Re:Trillian is nice, but gaim has cross platform s
on
Trillian 3.0 Released
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· Score: 1
Profiles are a nice solution to this (and implemented properly in 3.0). You can even password protect them!
Profiles sound good if for example Bob and Mary live together and use the same PC. But let's say for example you want the ability to login to IM from a remote location without importing your list to the computer permanently? Unless something has changed in 3.0 Trillian doesn't handle this well.
The point is even with "profiles" using Trillian assumes that anyone using it is a permanent user. It stores contact lists locally. Upon seeing a new entry it automatically sends out a request to be added to someone's list regardless of whether they are ignored or exist in your list already. It has no real provisions for a guest user to login and just temporarily use it without storing the list locally or seeing the contact list is "new to it" and sending out a bunch of requests to be added to the list.
Unless 3.0 has a profile for a guest user that would not save the list, nor auto "be my friend" everyone.
Re:Trillian is nice, but gaim has cross platform s
on
Trillian 3.0 Released
·
· Score: 1
You can use the multiple contact list feature. It's exclusive to Pro though, but it works.
Unfortunately this is indicative of Trillian... basic stuff is non-intuitive buried deeply or in the pay version and unpredicted results for everyday stuff. As sited in my example, Bob uses Trillian, but Mary uses it too. If both Bob and Mary simply login to MSN via Trillian their contact lists will be merged at least from my experience with the product. I believe that Aim, Yahoo, and MSN messenger all allow you to login as someone else and does not assume you want the contact list from the prior user. I'm not saying the ability to import contact lists from other users isn't useful, simply it shouldn't automatically query everyone on the list. I.e. it does shit without asking.
Re:Trillian is nice, but gaim has cross platform s
on
Trillian 3.0 Released
·
· Score: 1
While I do like Trillian it does have some bugs(features) that simply annoy me. For example it seems to remember your contact list. This in it self isn't so bad, but let's say for example you login to someone else's trillian. When I did this, it automatically took *their* contact list and assumed I wanted to add everyone on my contact list. Needless to say this wasn't desired.
Maybe it's a regional thing, not just an age thing.. I'm guessing you're talking about people carrying around car phones or briefcase phones in a bag, but the closest I've ever seen to a "phone in a bag" was the phone in the briefcase.
Yes, Motorola took their car phone and put it into a bag, added a bracket that plugged directly into the db-25 pin port on the phone's transceiver allowing collection to both a small camcorder battery and a hook for the phone's handset. They were typically configured to I believe 1.1watt operation but could be configured to 3watt. I saw them for sale just about everywhere that handheld phones were sold but as you can imagine there is little reason to get a big bulky bag phone if you had good reception with a handheld.
It was basically the phone they installed in a car.
Actually the Motorola Bag phones were the exact same thing they installed in cars. The only key difference is the fact that bag phones were configured to use 1.1watt IIRC, didn't come with a car antenna, and came with a clip that could use just about any acid camcorder battery. If you knew which pin to ground you could configure the unit to 1.1watt or 3watt. There was a TDMA 800 version but from what I'm told they are hard to find. I'm also told there was a digital brick phone but I know nothing about it.
Then get a iBook or Powerbook for laptop purposes. Apple now ships EVERY new laptop with AirPort Extreme cards built in.
Thanks for the advice. Not a day goes by that I don't hear someone telling me about the iBook. However I don't consider something that costs so little to be a deciding factor for a notebook purchase. Mini PCI WiFi adapters start at under $50. USB start under $30 and Cardbus start under $20. And the budget notebooks I spoke about mainly the Dell Insperion 1000 and the cheepo walmart Balance special are presently shipping with at least 802.11b.
A printer or a printing machine reproduce their input, while a professional can look at a negative and decide whether to alter the contrast, color balance, burn or dodge, etc.
Actually professionals I know employ the use of either a 35mm scanner or camera with inverse video to evaluate adjustments before they print. This helps to save on test strips let alone paper and chemistry. While a professional can make valued judgments based on what they can see on a negative use of these tools are very helpful not only to achieve consistent results but actually communicate with the client and have them choose what they want.
Why bother, most if not all new laptops have WiFi. Are you going to lug your desktop PC onto a plane now?
All new laptops don't come with WiFi. I'll agree most do but most base models and a few here and there don't come with WiFi on board. For anything pentium II and above this shouldn't be an issue as WiFi adapters are quite cheap esp USB or cardbus. What might be an issue are pentium series laptops without USB or CardBus. 16bit PCcard WiFi adapters do exist but they are few, far between, and very difficult to spot in a crowd.
Slashdot Mirror
Digitally Signed Coffee
Is this the coffee maker that forms a windows logo in the froth and goes tada when done?
who looks at that and thinks "damn that's fugly"
No no no. When the Imacs were first introduced... when in LA they had the big poster with John Lennon and Yoko Ono waking up in bed with a rainbow of imacs logo titled "think different." I could just imagine John Lennon's balloon saying, "piece of crypto fascist Bourgeois crap" and Yoko Ono saying, "I kind of like it". That is fugly.
This new Asus barebones on the other hand is only as ugly as that plastic tool box by Black and Decker. I understand where they are coming from trying to sorta merge the beige box with classic black hifi equipment. Unfortunatly in this case it's about as pretty as a black powder coated toaster. But by no means is it fugly.
Are e-mail addresses trade secrets?
a) Not known to the relevant portion of the public? E-mail addresses are a form of contact information that are given out by their very design.
b) Does AOLs user list confer some sort of economic benefit on the holder? You could argue this but according to the marketing AOL say they don't sell their user list so in a way they are saying they accept no economic benefit of their user directory.
c) Does AOL maintain reasonable efforts to maintain their user's e-mail addresses private? This is something that could be argued. One the one hand they don't sell their userlist to spammers but at the same time any old Joe can e-mail an AOL user at anytime.
As defined, I can see how one might argue one way or another, but let us ask ourselves this.
1) Is a list of phone numbers a trade secret?
2) Is a list of mobile numbers a trade secret?
3) Is a list of e-mail addresses a trade secret?
No, this is more like giving you a key to our boss's house, without his permission. And, our boss has contracts with everyone on his phone list that ensure that our company will not sell their phone number. And our boss probably made us sign a paper when we started working for him saying we would never sell/give out confidential company info.
It sounds like a breach of contract to me, not a criminal act.
In fact, there's no guarantee that the other employee GAVE him his access code. He could have found the post-it under his keyboard or whathaveyou. Regardless, since it was not HIS access code, he had no permission from the company to access this data in the first place.
You don't know for a fact that he had no permission from the company to access this data. If another employee gave him the access code they are, like it or not, they are being granted a license to access what ever data and resources are associated with that account. This would be *stupid* and ground for dismissal but in it self hardly a criminal act.
If they got the password from a post-it under the keyboard who exactly was deceived? It's true someone was a dumbass putting it there in the first place, but this is hardly illegal. Immoral perhaps, but like it or not they were an employee with the right to be there. You could say they violated the company's trust, you say they broke their contract, and you can say they accessed resources they were not given express permission to, but it's much more difficult to prove criminal wrong doing when you grant permission to your property and resources. No more criminal than finding the access code to the executive bathroom and taking a dump.
Maybe a crime hasn't been committed against this (obscure) law, but stealing critical info from the company you're working for and selling it to the highest bidder (or in this case, spammer) sure is. Was he accused of the wrong thing or what?
Is a userlist critical info? If he copied propriority information and sold it I can see where that might apply. If he sold a password list I can see how that might apply. But a user list isn't critical, proprietary, or even copyrighted.
I don't understand how this is not deceptive, fraudulent and illegal...
Perhaps it should be, but it's not. No one was actually deceived, the guy flat out used someone else's access code to gain access to a mail list and sell it. For example, if you gave a key to your house and I used it to go in and copy your phone list and sell it to a telemarketer. It's not trespass or breaking and entering because you gave me a key. It might not be deceptive because you might have given me the key to feed your cat and I might not have intended to copy your phone list at that time. And it's not theft because I only made a copy of your phone list. And there is no violation of copyright because a list of names and contact info can't be copyrighted.
I might be guilty of violating your trust but I don't see how any crime was committed.
Why are they always the benchmark that everyone tries to meet or beat?
Because like it or not Starbucks put coffee on the map as it were. While you can be critical of the quality of their product (Starbucks Italian Roast bleck) they did take it upon them selves to see an existing trend and push it to the extreme. They are directly responsible for opening up coffee houses all over the world and are arguably responsible for raising standards on coffee.
And like it or not, Starbucks is used as a base line standard for coffee simply because that is often what people are introduced to as coffee.
Whether or not people who use P2P to acquire works without paying for them would ever go into a store or not is irrellevant. It is copyright infringement, period, regardless of whether or not the copyright holders may have "lost a sale". Copyright infringement doesn't have to be theft to still be illegal.
Illegal =! immoral
And you are correct, copyright violations on p2p are totally 100% irrelevant to the morality of returning software to a store. I would call it very immoral to buy a product exclusively to copy it and return it. It's just as immoral to use the excuse that someone has the ability to pirate software they are trying to return as an excuse for not giving the customer their money back, esp. when the EULA agreement inside the software says to "you *must* return it to the store if you don't agree to these terms". In fact, it's because of lack of integrity that some people choose to go p2p first before even considering plopping down money. After all in most places you can't return software. This would be a *violation* of copyright in lue of having your rights violated.
Your estimate on the integrity of humanity is not supported by the fact that there are an absolutely _huge_ number of people out there using P2P software to share and obtain files without respect for copyright.
So you are saying that software you buy shouldn't be able to be returned based on the possibility that the person returning the software might pirate it? I would argue this in it self is the very thesis of a lack of integrity. Why would anyone want to shop somewhere where they are so amoral they would refuse to take back a product under the assumption that you are a thief without any evidence? To expect one to agree to a set of terms they have never seen shows a true lack of integrity.
Perhaps the huge number of people running P2P software getting works without paying for would never go into the store in the first place to buy it? Perhaps they feel they are doing someone a favor by sharing copyrighted works? You can not say the absolutely _huge_ number of people lack integrity. There are even those who are under the firm believe that you should try before you buy. I would have never bought Diablo II, Pirates!, or Quake without seeing it first. By your logic I bought software because as a direct result someone else's lack of integrity.
Near as I can tell P2P has nothing at all to do with fraud at any specific store. Either there is an even more _huge_ number of people paying for the software or the price on the box takes this into account.
Now, what if that map cost you $50-70? (such as a game)
Like two or three Thomas Guides?
Games near as i'm aware often have copy protection and require the CD to run. Why would one go into a store and buy a game just to copy it and return it when you could download the game and a crack off some P2P service? The point is moot.
What if it cost you $100-250 (such as a business application/suite) What if it cost you $800-900 (such as for a professional graphics suite)
Why would one even go into a store when one could download a copy off the net? The point is moot. If you ask how can stores stay in business if it's so easy to defraud them the answer is simple... either the number of honest people far outweigh the number of scummy ones or they take some form of shrinkage into account when they mark up their prices.
Thanks for the feedback. The leap between the Pentium III 500 and 766 isn't all that much, except I believe the 500 was a Secc2 with 512k of cache. In fact the only reason I bought a 766 was my 500 blew and it was cheaper than a replacement 500 at the time. I'm willing to believe that a 500 would also be barely adquate to playback mpeg-4 encodes. By this I mean what you said, play the video but jack shit running in the background.
I don't believe one needs a GHz+ cpu to decode videos, I simply don't know if the 1GHz VIA C3 would be up to snuff.
If they allow consumers to return software after it has been opened, the floodgates open up for absolutely HUGE amounts of software piracy... people would buy software, install it (and probably duplicate the CD), then return it claiming they didn't agree with the EULA on install. What's to stop them? Getting rid of EULA's completely?
How do places that sell tools for example stay in business when the floodgates are already open to people who buy a tool for one time use and return it for a full refund?
I could for example go to the local gas station and buy a map and in theory return it after i'm done using it. I could take the map and go to my local Kinkos, copy it, then return it if I wanted to. Why don't I? Not only is this the apex of scummyness but the work required outweighs the reward of a free map.
This has a faster processor, bigger disk and more RAM than a standard PC from three years ago; what applications have turned up since then that require more than this?
Windows Media Player?
This is not ment as a flame, but I question whether this laptop would be adquate to play anything above and beyond mpeg-2. From my understanding the 1GHz VIA C3 peforms much like a medium speed pentium III and I found that a pentium III 766 was barely adquate for some divx-4 and xvid encodes.
On a side note Texas Instruments were pioneers in computer generated speech. The Speak & Spell was a product of the 70s and in the 80s I enjoyed text to speech on the TI-99/4a via the "Terminal Emulator II" cartridge. I did show this to a couple of blind users and they were very much in awe by the fact that they could actually interact with online resources such as Compu$erve.
I find it shocking that technology that was available as early as 1982 has progressed so little and isn't widely available.
my canon pixma ip4000 (170 euro) can print on Specially coated cd's/dvd's just fine in full color.
The Primera Signature Z1 looks like an option that is not limited to printable discs and not subject to the issues of the ink disapearing under your fingertips.
Why invent something new for something that already exists?
Inkjet printing on CDs can be sloppy to say the least.
Does anyone really need laser etched CDs? Can't you just buy a printer that supports direct to CD printing?
This makes me think of the thermal printers that were popular in the late 80s early 90s. Thermal paper was very popular in faxes for a good long time as well as libraries but eventually people figured out that it was cheaper to go with regular paper and ink/toner than buying chemically treated paper. I owned a nice wide carriage printer that used a thermal transfer ribbon that I was incredibly happy with, except for the cost of the ribbon of course.
This is what it boils down too... cost per unit. Inkjets that can print to a CD is a viable solution but inkjets are sloppy, the ink can smear, and even on specially coated discs is not very durable. Thermal transfer CD/DVD printers exist but require ribbons that are about $20 a pop. I don't know how many disks you can print per ribbon. And now this laser system advertised on Slashdot which looks like it's monochrome. This could be an acceptable solution for when the job is too small for silk screening to be cost effective but it's impossible to judge without some concept of price per disc.
The propability that there wouldn't be one complete copy spread in a swarm of thousands is very unlikely.
This would depend on how popular the seed was and if there are enough fragments to construct a complete download. This has not happened to me often but it has happened. If someone is observant enough to see this and nice enough to re-seed it is easy enough to resolve.
Despite this small flaw my experience with BT has been far more enjoyable than with other file distribution systems.
Profiles are a nice solution to this (and implemented properly in 3.0). You can even password protect them!
Profiles sound good if for example Bob and Mary live together and use the same PC. But let's say for example you want the ability to login to IM from a remote location without importing your list to the computer permanently? Unless something has changed in 3.0 Trillian doesn't handle this well.
The point is even with "profiles" using Trillian assumes that anyone using it is a permanent user. It stores contact lists locally. Upon seeing a new entry it automatically sends out a request to be added to someone's list regardless of whether they are ignored or exist in your list already. It has no real provisions for a guest user to login and just temporarily use it without storing the list locally or seeing the contact list is "new to it" and sending out a bunch of requests to be added to the list.
Unless 3.0 has a profile for a guest user that would not save the list, nor auto "be my friend" everyone.
You can use the multiple contact list feature. It's exclusive to Pro though, but it works.
Unfortunately this is indicative of Trillian... basic stuff is non-intuitive buried deeply or in the pay version and unpredicted results for everyday stuff. As sited in my example, Bob uses Trillian, but Mary uses it too. If both Bob and Mary simply login to MSN via Trillian their contact lists will be merged at least from my experience with the product. I believe that Aim, Yahoo, and MSN messenger all allow you to login as someone else and does not assume you want the contact list from the prior user. I'm not saying the ability to import contact lists from other users isn't useful, simply it shouldn't automatically query everyone on the list. I.e. it does shit without asking.
While I do like Trillian it does have some bugs(features) that simply annoy me. For example it seems to remember your contact list. This in it self isn't so bad, but let's say for example you login to someone else's trillian. When I did this, it automatically took *their* contact list and assumed I wanted to add everyone on my contact list. Needless to say this wasn't desired.
Maybe it's a regional thing, not just an age thing..
I'm guessing you're talking about people carrying around car phones or briefcase phones in a bag, but the closest I've ever seen to a "phone in a bag" was the phone in the briefcase.
Ebay image of bag phone
Another image of bag phone
Yes, Motorola took their car phone and put it into a bag, added a bracket that plugged directly into the db-25 pin port on the phone's transceiver allowing collection to both a small camcorder battery and a hook for the phone's handset. They were typically configured to I believe 1.1watt operation but could be configured to 3watt. I saw them for sale just about everywhere that handheld phones were sold but as you can imagine there is little reason to get a big bulky bag phone if you had good reception with a handheld.
It was basically the phone they installed in a car.
Actually the Motorola Bag phones were the exact same thing they installed in cars. The only key difference is the fact that bag phones were configured to use 1.1watt IIRC, didn't come with a car antenna, and came with a clip that could use just about any acid camcorder battery. If you knew which pin to ground you could configure the unit to 1.1watt or 3watt. There was a TDMA 800 version but from what I'm told they are hard to find. I'm also told there was a digital brick phone but I know nothing about it.
They are not exactly in fashion these days.
Then get a iBook or Powerbook for laptop purposes. Apple now ships EVERY new laptop with AirPort Extreme cards built in.
Thanks for the advice. Not a day goes by that I don't hear someone telling me about the iBook. However I don't consider something that costs so little to be a deciding factor for a notebook purchase. Mini PCI WiFi adapters start at under $50. USB start under $30 and Cardbus start under $20. And the budget notebooks I spoke about mainly the Dell Insperion 1000 and the cheepo walmart Balance special are presently shipping with at least 802.11b.
A printer or a printing machine reproduce their input, while a professional can look at a negative and decide whether to alter the contrast, color balance, burn or dodge, etc.
Actually professionals I know employ the use of either a 35mm scanner or camera with inverse video to evaluate adjustments before they print. This helps to save on test strips let alone paper and chemistry. While a professional can make valued judgments based on what they can see on a negative use of these tools are very helpful not only to achieve consistent results but actually communicate with the client and have them choose what they want.
Why bother, most if not all new laptops have WiFi. Are you going to lug your desktop PC onto a plane now?
All new laptops don't come with WiFi. I'll agree most do but most base models and a few here and there don't come with WiFi on board. For anything pentium II and above this shouldn't be an issue as WiFi adapters are quite cheap esp USB or cardbus. What might be an issue are pentium series laptops without USB or CardBus. 16bit PCcard WiFi adapters do exist but they are few, far between, and very difficult to spot in a crowd.