I posted on this last night, but I saw the debate on cspan. According to the only two folks who I saw mention "this might not be a good idea" - Ah, found it....
Mr. LEAHY.....
In here it says, on wiretapping, pen registers, trap and trace
devices, if the court finds that a State investigator or law
enforcement officer--it could just be an investigator; I don't know if
this means a private investigator, a licensed PI--if they certify to
the court that the information is relevant, if they just came in and
said: Your Honor, I certify this is going to be relevant; I am a State
investigator; I am the deputy sheriff of East Washtub--I apologize to
anybody if there is such a town, East Washtub. Let's say I am a deputy
sheriff on weekends and a mechanic the rest of the time, and I certify
we need this, a State officer. Does that mean a Federal judge is going
to stop things and give them the order?
I have worked with some very good deputy sheriffs in my time. I am
not sure that even with the best--some of them were darned good when I
was a prosecutor--any of them are going to go into Federal court and
say: I want to certify I need this wiretap or this pen register, trap
and trace.
I think we ought to at least know what that is, going into people's
computers because the local investigator says, "I want to." I am not
sure if the authorities, under normal going into court, asking for a
court order, having a hearing, can go into my computer; that is one
thing. But if somebody goes out there, for example, and sees me having
target practice outside my house--I have a pistol range out back of my
house--and they say: I wonder how many guns he has; I want to go into
his computer to find out just in case he has listed his ammunition
purchases. Should they be allowed to? I would think some of those who
are concerned about the rights of gun owners might be a little bit
concerned about this provision. I am a gun owner. I am concerned.
Authority to do wiretaps. It says here that we will redesignate
paragraph (p), as so redesignated by section 434(2) of the
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Public Law 104-
132; 110 Stat. 1274, as paragraph (r); and (2) by inserting after
paragraph (p) as so redesignated by section 201(3) of the Illegal
Immigration
[[Page S9376]]
Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, division C of Public
Law 104-208; 110 Stat. 3009-565, the following new paragraph:
(q) any criminal violations of sections 2332, 2332a, 2332b,
2332d, 2339A, or 2339B of this title (relating to terrorism).
. . .
Does anybody want to tell me what that means? I thought we were here
to give help to our law enforcement and our antiterrorist authority to
go after people. I thought we were here to try to finish up a bill that
the Senator from South Carolina and the Senator from New Hampshire have
worked on very closely--and the Senator from West Virginia and the
Senator from Alaska--that would give money to our law enforcement
agencies so we could go ahead and work and try to get the money which
the city of New York and the State of New York desperately need after
the horrific, murderous terrorist acts in that city. I thought that was
what we were here for.
I will not reread what I said, but to do something that nobody here
on the floor can understand or explain, including the people who
introduced the amendment.
Now maybe somewhere there is a press release in there. Why don't we
all send out a press release, a generic one that says we are against
terrorists? No Member of the Senate is for terrorists. Why don't we say
we are against murder? Of course we are. But then why don't we say what
we are doing here? We are going to amend our wiretap laws so we can
look into anybody's computers.
If we are going to change all these things, if we are going to direct
the Director of the CIA and, in effect, direct the President to change
the rules of the CIA, something the President could have them do just
like that, if the President really wants to--if we are going to do all
that here, with no hearing, what does this do to help the men and women
who were injured or killed in the Pentagon--and their families? What
does this do to help the men and women in New York and their families
and those children who were orphans in an instant, a horrible instant?
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of children became orphans
instantaneously. What does that do for them?
Somewhere we ought to ask ourselves: Do we totally ignore the normal
ways of doing business in the Senate? If we do that, what is going to
happen when we get down to the really difficult questions?
Maybe the Senate wants to just go ahead and adopt new abilities to
wiretap our citizens. Maybe they want to adopt new abilities to go into
people's computers. Maybe that will make us feel safer. Maybe. And
maybe what the terrorists have done made us a little bit less safe.
Maybe they have increased Big Brother in this country.
If that is what the Senate wants, we can vote for it. But do we
really show respect to the American people by slapping something
together, something that nobody on the floor can explain, and say we
are changing the duties of the Attorney General, the Director of the
CIA, the U.S. attorneys, we are going to change your rights as
Americans, your rights to privacy? We are going to do it with no
hearings, no debate. We are going to do it with numbers on a page that
nobody can understand.
We are both at fault here. I used Micros~1 word to spell check my post, but since I use Mozilla to browse, I don't have the ?'s issue when reading posts. I fired up NN 4.7 (solaris) and sure enough, it has some serious issues rendering. Try Mozilla, however, if you are still using a 4.x version of NN. It is MUCH better.
and saw the discussions on this. My jaw just hit the floor watching the debates - which Hatch(?) basically ranted on how we need to give our law enforcement agencies all the tools they could possibly use, damn the cost of freedom. Mind you, I'm Republican, and I watched in horror as he equated what happened with the hijacked aircraft at the same level as "cyber" terrorism. The judiciary chairman (?) was on the other side of the debate - he more or less resigned himself that this was going to be voted in, but commented
1)This affected all wiretapping, not just "terrorist" cases.
2)There are no guidelines for what a terrorist was.
3)Most frightening - any yahoo who was an "expert" could tell the judge they think it is connected
to a criminal activity and the judge would be forced to sign the warrant. These people did not have to be law enforcement personnel.
This was one of the few chances I've had to watch the Senate in action lately. I think I need to take a shower....
Looking at where those flights were headed -- east coast to west coast, they were all fueled up when they hit their targets. Talk about a mess. Not only did they pick the targets for max psyc damage, but also for max physical damage. I wonder how many managed to get out of the buildings when liquid fire was raining from the upper floors...
I was watching CNN as I got ready for work when the the planes piled in - saw the second one happen live. I'm sure the news folks will have some better info out there shortly, but it looked like a 737 to me. Grey paint, so maybee Continental. It hit fast and they were too busy to show a re-run of the impact.
Man, I was just in that plaza last week. Tons of people on the street in that area. My heart goes out to those people.
Actually, I've won a few and lost a few... I dumped a chunk of MSFT because it rebounded faster than I thought it would from the end of last year. World according to me, it will be another year or so before it starts to grow again. But heck, I also thought Yahoo would never be worth more than $50 a share when I picked it up ~30. I won't even start with SUNW & ORCL(wimper).
I think it is bad news for MSFT. The DoJ is looking to do some damage, and is willing to fastrack and go for what some consider a lesser path rather than the years of court battles they would face to get a break-up enacted. Personally, I don't think MSFT/OS and MSFT/OFFICE would be any less troublesome, though the news would find it easier to fit into sound bites... When they did anounce MSFT was guilty, they took small hit. Some adjustments came afterwards, including the appeals.
I sold several months ago, based largly on the fact that I did not expect it to hit the 70's so fast and I doubted it would continue to grow into the 80+ anytime soon. Trade on today's news... please...
Anyhow, MSFT is not out of the woods yet. I don't see companies moving to OffXP by October, so lord knows what is going to happen when they try to slam them with full price (or an enterprise agreement) because they did not move off Off97-2K fast enough. The rental thing looks to have failed (short term). Way to many companies are still running WinNT rather than 2K, and I have yet to bump into one who planned to move this year - few who _might_ move next year..NET seems to be little other than marketing fluff (though folks are using MS SOAP a bit more than I expected). Server side, they are having a hard time shaking the "low end" server mindset, though they are making progress based on just getting their foot in the door. Wish I saw more Linux wins this way...
So AC, what do you think MSFT stock will do in the next year? Why? Forget the evil empire jokes... TODAY, and looking out over the next 12 months or so where do you think the stock will be? I say slow enough growth that I should have that cash working somewhere else...
Now picture that with a software vendor. Or more probable, my marketing department
Man, you just gave me flashbacks to some of the things our business groups were asking for - all the makings of a good Python sketch.... just add the words "Use case".
News.com said... "Although many legal experts were not surprised to see the Bush administration relenting on a position strongly advocated by Clinton trustbusters, the apparent support of the state attorneys general for that move did catch them off guard. "
While popping over the pond to www.theregister.co.uk gives you a bit different view.
"Although the DoJ's statement last week was seen in some areas as the Bush administration letting Microsoft off, as yet there's no justification for such an intepretation. Unless the powers that be in the DoJ are lying (which is of course is possible), then they are simply trying to speed up the imposition of adequate and achievable remedies, while abandoning the tricky, dubious and legally lengthy ones. A Microsoft break-up always seemed a dubious and probably unworkable solution, and there was a fair bit of justification to Microsoft's claims that it would have destroyed the company. You and we might think that'd be richly deserved and a good thing for the industry anyway, but the US legal process is only supposed to be stopping Microsoft abusing its monopoly position."
While GWB may be an easy target these days, I'll take Wall Street's reaction to what the DoJ did as better insight - stock prices dropped rather than jumped when they said they were going to do some behavior modification rather than just break them into two baby bills. You really think the DoJ is going to call off the dogs and let them off easy? Buy stock. I for one think they are going to get it in the ass and am grateful to have jumped out when it hit the 70's....
I make enough that some of my income is taxed at 36% -- next to the highest bracket.
That put you somewhere around $160-290K then (marriage assumption here, never looked at a single person's rate) for taxable income. Some of your income is at 36%, some probably dodged the capital gains bullet by holding the stock for twelve months. Fiscally responsible in my book, but why not sell before then and treat it like income? Because it cost you an extra 15% or so in taxes to sell early? Did you itemize? Anyhow, I guess my point is this: You feel your tax burden, after optimization, is fair - that does not really put you in a position to say those who are carrying more of the burden feel it is fair, however. Its not a moral question, it's a political one. I would be tempted to say my money is better spent on paying employees and running a business directly, than running it through many government filters before it reaches the masses. Granted, I have a civic responsibility as you, but my willingness to take more risks that happened to work out should not correlate to such a burden.
Personally, I think our country would be much better off learning fiscal responsibility rather than just "making more". As a country, one of the larger swords hanging over our head is the national debt. Imagine the money we waste in interest going to NASA, etc.
I don't think increasing my children's allowance if they were acting irresponsible is a good idea. The same goes for a company's budget. Wish the same applied to our government.
Nope. I'm a winner. I have a good job, the respect of my colleagues, good friends, and sleep well at night. The reason that you hear the same argument over and over is because it is based in fact. Republicans, in general, are greedy, self-centered, give-me-a-tax-cut-and-to-hell-with-everyone-else types. They don't care about the "greater good."
OK, I'll bite as a non-AC....
You probably don't make enough to care yet. Would you say 75-100K is a lot of cash? Lets say your wife works, and makes about the same. Do you know where that puts you in the tax scale? Do you know where that fits statistically in the US? When they talk about tax breaks that help the top 2-3%, it may surprise you to find out who is in there.
Here is my beef. Lets say you make 50K and I make 200K. Its not like we both pay a 35% tax here, I would pay a higher percentage in addition to paying on more money. God forbid I ask to pay the same tax rate as you. Illusions of the "rich" (and I use that term loosely) being able to shelter all their income does not work for those of us in the.05-3% of the curve. Fine then, as once you start to hit the point where every break everyone else gets is "prorated" and the sliding scale makes it harder and harder to grow, then preach to me about tax cuts for the rich.
As for the greater good, you know what? I think the government does a crappy job of doling out support. I chose my charities based on what they give back to the community - looking for a return of investment in the form of people helped/money committed. I suspect you can count the really good government programs on one hand - I could not think of any examples, while I can think of several non-profits locally that do a fantastic job.
Mind you, this is not a personal slam.... just a difference of opinion.
Yes, but neither lands in residential areas quite as frequently.
I might take that bet...
I grew up in North Dakota - stop the "residential" snickering, I'm way ahead of you already - and you had B52's and B1's buzzing around all the time. Always fun to watch them fly over you as they touched down. I'm sure other cities with bases near by shared the same problem. The only place the Concord flew out of was Coastal cities, though at $5K a seat, I don't really know what areas they service.
If it means I can lock my folks out of installing all those "501 shareware games", hork with drivers, and otherwise lock the machine down so they can NOT fiddle with it, I'm in.
I like the idea of not giving my Mom or Dad Admin rights to a box, which was real hard to do with the Win9x versions. Win2K, much easier, but they balked at purchasing a "business OS" for home. This time, it has the right amount of sugar coating.... fluffy "home" version, still runs Office, and I'll never have to remove icons from the control pannel after my dad blasted an app rather than uninstalling it. The days of keeping a backup of my folk's registery settings is almost over!
Can someone provide examples of things m$ did that constitute original, innovative work?
How about Code Red? First thing that comes to my mind would be the original, innovative PR and possibly the legal work. When it comes to spinning the ugly stuff, these guys beat out Clinton (so far).... since most people believe them.
Bob: Hey, we have over $47M left in our marketing budget!
Jane: Better spend it, or we won't get it again next year. Worse, it might go to another department...
Bob: How about we send out logo'ed thing-a-ma-jigs, like more of those sit on them, and they make you sound like you have gas?
Jane: Nope, to close to an actual product. We are trying to steer people away from thinking they "own" anything - they license, and give a ways don't promote that.
Bob: I'm stuck - no more creative juices after killing off clippy and then bringing him back.
later in PR....
Alice: We just got $47M - Lets start another grass roots campaign!
Ok, I just don't buy the "it was not tested, so they did not include it". I code mostly Java these days, and I'll be damned if they have not horked up most of the RH 6.9+ releases - I even had to make a symb link to cut in 7.1 (I think, been a while now). GCC was a bit of a mess to for the C++ work, and Oracle continues to be its own special place in install hell.. Anyhow, as a workstation class OS, you would think things like that would catch someone's eye rather than some obscure FID like error.... smells like politics to me...
As for betting your job on new technology, cutting edge still pays better than the stable stuff - kidding here, I know what you are trying to say - if the cutting edge is not greased with the blood of developers, its the ops folks who are next in line for the sacrifice... A bit more QA might be in order between final cuts. Guess I should grab those 7.2b ISO's and get testing again. {Grin}
and here I thought I just got burned on a daily CVS build of Mozilla.... now nothing builds, my browsers horked from me trying to "fix" it when slash had the problem, and I'll have to re-set every cookie I blasted away.
Thank god I did not think it was a kernel problem....
When I was in college, I had a maroon Jaguar XJS. Loved that car.... The first two weeks I owned it, I got pulled over almost every other day for random things - you took that exit a little fast, you were driving 56 in a 55 (serious here), etc.
I ran a quick errand on foot and thought I saw my car parked a block away. I was furious thinking one of my roommates took it out without asking. Turns out the first (or last, don't remember anymore) three letters of the plate were different and it was a bit cleaner - the differences ended there. Fortunately, when I got new license plates (from North Dakota since I was going to school at the U of Mn ) I never got pulled over again. Go figure.
If I could get a static IP address via DSL, I would care not who wants to put their name on the front of the ISP. Alas, they did not run enough copper in my area -- thank god for cable modems.
Ah, try VMWare if you get the chance... and you ever need to run something in Windows when your primary box is Linux. Its a fantastic program.
My IBM Z-pro came with WinNT - not a problem since I was rebuilding the box into a linux workstation anyhow. As things grew, we ended up with a PHB that "had" to have his MS Project files used by the development team. Whatever, we complied, ordered copies of Project, copies of VMWare, and figured we were set. We got a license and CD with the box, so no need to puchase another copy, right? IBM, like so many others these days set up the bloody recovery disk to check the hardware, which is exactly what VMWare emulates...
Just so you know, those full version CD's of Office 97, Win98SE, or NT might be worth sticking in a safe spot - lord knows it will be hard to find a full version of any micros~1 product in another couple years, and it will cost you much more the second time you buy them... My copy of OfficeXP will be registered to VMWare hardware when I phone it in.
Slashdot Mirror
We are both at fault here. I used Micros~1 word to spell check my post, but since I use Mozilla to browse, I don't have the ?'s issue when reading posts. I fired up NN 4.7 (solaris) and sure enough, it has some serious issues rendering. Try Mozilla, however, if you are still using a 4.x version of NN. It is MUCH better.
and saw the discussions on this. My jaw just hit the floor watching the debates - which Hatch(?) basically ranted on how we need to give our law enforcement agencies all the tools they could possibly use, damn the cost of freedom. Mind you, I'm Republican, and I watched in horror as he equated what happened with the hijacked aircraft at the same level as "cyber" terrorism. The judiciary chairman (?) was on the other side of the debate - he more or less resigned himself that this was going to be voted in, but commented
1)This affected all wiretapping, not just "terrorist" cases.
2)There are no guidelines for what a terrorist was.
3)Most frightening - any yahoo who was an "expert" could tell the judge they think it is connected
to a criminal activity and the judge would be forced to sign the warrant. These people did not have to be law enforcement personnel.
This was one of the few chances I've had to watch the Senate in action lately. I think I need to take a shower....
Looking at where those flights were headed -- east coast to west coast, they were all fueled up when they hit their targets. Talk about a mess. Not only did they pick the targets for max psyc damage, but also for max physical damage. I wonder how many managed to get out of the buildings when liquid fire was raining from the upper floors...
I was watching CNN as I got ready for work when the the planes piled in - saw the second one happen live. I'm sure the news folks will have some better info out there shortly, but it looked like a 737 to me. Grey paint, so maybee Continental. It hit fast and they were too busy to show a re-run of the impact.
Man, I was just in that plaza last week. Tons of people on the street in that area. My heart goes out to those people.
Actually, I've won a few and lost a few... I dumped a chunk of MSFT because it rebounded faster than I thought it would from the end of last year. World according to me, it will be another year or so before it starts to grow again. But heck, I also thought Yahoo would never be worth more than $50 a share when I picked it up ~30. I won't even start with SUNW & ORCL(wimper).
.NET seems to be little other than marketing fluff (though folks are using MS SOAP a bit more than I expected). Server side, they are having a hard time shaking the "low end" server mindset, though they are making progress based on just getting their foot in the door. Wish I saw more Linux wins this way...
I think it is bad news for MSFT. The DoJ is looking to do some damage, and is willing to fastrack and go for what some consider a lesser path rather than the years of court battles they would face to get a break-up enacted. Personally, I don't think MSFT/OS and MSFT/OFFICE would be any less troublesome, though the news would find it easier to fit into sound bites... When they did anounce MSFT was guilty, they took small hit. Some adjustments came afterwards, including the appeals.
I sold several months ago, based largly on the fact that I did not expect it to hit the 70's so fast and I doubted it would continue to grow into the 80+ anytime soon. Trade on today's news... please...
Anyhow, MSFT is not out of the woods yet. I don't see companies moving to OffXP by October, so lord knows what is going to happen when they try to slam them with full price (or an enterprise agreement) because they did not move off Off97-2K fast enough. The rental thing looks to have failed (short term). Way to many companies are still running WinNT rather than 2K, and I have yet to bump into one who planned to move this year - few who _might_ move next year.
So AC, what do you think MSFT stock will do in the next year? Why? Forget the evil empire jokes... TODAY, and looking out over the next 12 months or so where do you think the stock will be? I say slow enough growth that I should have that cash working somewhere else...
Now picture that with a software vendor.
Or more probable, my marketing department
Man, you just gave me flashbacks to some of the things our business groups were asking for - all the makings of a good Python sketch.... just add the words "Use case".
News.com said...
"Although many legal experts were not surprised to see the Bush administration relenting on a position strongly advocated by Clinton trustbusters, the apparent support of the state attorneys general for that move did catch them off guard. "
While popping over the pond to www.theregister.co.uk gives you a bit different view.
"Although the DoJ's statement last week was seen in some areas as the Bush administration letting Microsoft off, as yet there's no justification for such an intepretation. Unless the powers that be in the DoJ are lying (which is of course is possible), then they are simply trying to speed up the imposition of adequate and achievable remedies, while abandoning the tricky, dubious and legally lengthy ones. A Microsoft break-up always seemed a dubious and probably unworkable solution, and there was a fair bit of justification to Microsoft's claims that it would have destroyed the company. You and we might think that'd be richly deserved and a good thing for the industry anyway, but the US legal process is only supposed to be stopping Microsoft abusing its monopoly position."
While GWB may be an easy target these days, I'll take Wall Street's reaction to what the DoJ did as better insight - stock prices dropped rather than jumped when they said they were going to do some behavior modification rather than just break them into two baby bills. You really think the DoJ is going to call off the dogs and let them off easy? Buy stock. I for one think they are going to get it in the ass and am grateful to have jumped out when it hit the 70's....
That put you somewhere around $160-290K then (marriage assumption here, never looked at a single person's rate) for taxable income. Some of your income is at 36%, some probably dodged the capital gains bullet by holding the stock for twelve months. Fiscally responsible in my book, but why not sell before then and treat it like income? Because it cost you an extra 15% or so in taxes to sell early? Did you itemize? Anyhow, I guess my point is this: You feel your tax burden, after optimization, is fair - that does not really put you in a position to say those who are carrying more of the burden feel it is fair, however. Its not a moral question, it's a political one. I would be tempted to say my money is better spent on paying employees and running a business directly, than running it through many government filters before it reaches the masses. Granted, I have a civic responsibility as you, but my willingness to take more risks that happened to work out should not correlate to such a burden.
Personally, I think our country would be much better off learning fiscal responsibility rather than just "making more". As a country, one of the larger swords hanging over our head is the national debt. Imagine the money we waste in interest going to NASA, etc.
I don't think increasing my children's allowance if they were acting irresponsible is a good idea. The same goes for a company's budget. Wish the same applied to our government.
OK, I'll bite as a non-AC....
You probably don't make enough to care yet. Would you say 75-100K is a lot of cash? Lets say your wife works, and makes about the same. Do you know where that puts you in the tax scale? Do you know where that fits statistically in the US? When they talk about tax breaks that help the top 2-3%, it may surprise you to find out who is in there.
Here is my beef. Lets say you make 50K and I make 200K. Its not like we both pay a 35% tax here, I would pay a higher percentage in addition to paying on more money. God forbid I ask to pay the same tax rate as you. Illusions of the "rich" (and I use that term loosely) being able to shelter all their income does not work for those of us in the .05-3% of the curve. Fine then, as once you start to hit the point where every break everyone else gets is "prorated" and the sliding scale makes it harder and harder to grow, then preach to me about tax cuts for the rich.
As for the greater good, you know what? I think the government does a crappy job of doling out support. I chose my charities based on what they give back to the community - looking for a return of investment in the form of people helped/money committed. I suspect you can count the really good government programs on one hand - I could not think of any examples, while I can think of several non-profits locally that do a fantastic job.
Mind you, this is not a personal slam.... just a difference of opinion.
I might take that bet...
I grew up in North Dakota - stop the "residential" snickering, I'm way ahead of you already - and you had B52's and B1's buzzing around all the time. Always fun to watch them fly over you as they touched down. I'm sure other cities with bases near by shared the same problem. The only place the Concord flew out of was Coastal cities, though at $5K a seat, I don't really know what areas they service.
do you have a link?
I like the idea of not giving my Mom or Dad Admin rights to a box, which was real hard to do with the Win9x versions. Win2K, much easier, but they balked at purchasing a "business OS" for home. This time, it has the right amount of sugar coating.... fluffy "home" version, still runs Office, and I'll never have to remove icons from the control pannel after my dad blasted an app rather than uninstalling it. The days of keeping a backup of my folk's registery settings is almost over!
How about Code Red? First thing that comes to my mind would be the original, innovative PR and possibly the legal work. When it comes to spinning the ugly stuff, these guys beat out Clinton (so far).... since most people believe them.
Jane: Better spend it, or we won't get it again next year. Worse, it might go to another department...
Bob: How about we send out logo'ed thing-a-ma-jigs, like more of those sit on them, and they make you sound like you have gas?
Jane: Nope, to close to an actual product. We are trying to steer people away from thinking they "own" anything - they license, and give a ways don't promote that.
Bob: I'm stuck - no more creative juices after killing off clippy and then bringing him back.
later in PR....
Alice: We just got $47M - Lets start another grass roots campaign!
As for betting your job on new technology, cutting edge still pays better than the stable stuff - kidding here, I know what you are trying to say - if the cutting edge is not greased with the blood of developers, its the ops folks who are next in line for the sacrifice... A bit more QA might be in order between final cuts. Guess I should grab those 7.2b ISO's and get testing again. {Grin}
Thats the porn one, right? [100 pop up windows later] Yup, that is exactly what I meant...
Thank god I did not think it was a kernel problem....
Or better, be shocked when they get a follow-up email from bush@whitehouse.com.
I ran a quick errand on foot and thought I saw my car parked a block away. I was furious thinking one of my roommates took it out without asking. Turns out the first (or last, don't remember anymore) three letters of the plate were different and it was a bit cleaner - the differences ended there. Fortunately, when I got new license plates (from North Dakota since I was going to school at the U of Mn ) I never got pulled over again. Go figure.
If I could get a static IP address via DSL, I would care not who wants to put their name on the front of the ISP. Alas, they did not run enough copper in my area -- thank god for cable modems.
I know I spent a ton on books for Linux. Not counting COM - I can't really think of any Windows books I've purchased.
Ah, try VMWare if you get the chance... and you ever need to run something in Windows when your primary box is Linux. Its a fantastic program.
My IBM Z-pro came with WinNT - not a problem since I was rebuilding the box into a linux workstation anyhow. As things grew, we ended up with a PHB that "had" to have his MS Project files used by the development team. Whatever, we complied, ordered copies of Project, copies of VMWare, and figured we were set. We got a license and CD with the box, so no need to puchase another copy, right? IBM, like so many others these days set up the bloody recovery disk to check the hardware, which is exactly what VMWare emulates...
Just so you know, those full version CD's of Office 97, Win98SE, or NT might be worth sticking in a safe spot - lord knows it will be hard to find a full version of any micros~1 product in another couple years, and it will cost you much more the second time you buy them... My copy of OfficeXP will be registered to VMWare hardware when I phone it in.
what you would use it for - to fill in the "further funding is required" checkbox on a grant....
for my car's MP3 controller?