I might be wrong here but.. When you buy a computer pre installed with OEM Windows, the support comes from the vendor, not MS. Ever see an OEM disk? It specifically states to contact the vendor for support. How would allowing a vendor to install whatever make it harder on MS? If the vendor installs it, the vendor supports it. This is no different for OEM hardware. MS will help you if you call them but you will pay for it. Sounds like MS is trying to increase the FUD factor for a practice that has already been in existance for years.
Can you point to a specific EULA that includes text of this nature? I can not find one. I am interested in how this is worded. I searched Microsoft with Google and MS's own internal search engine and can not find an EULA posted online. I found a eula.txt in the system32 directory on my 2000 machine at work and it mentions nothing about allowing an audit.
General points to ponder... I just walked through the entire process of buying WinXP from shop.microsoft.com and NO WHERE was I given a chance, a link, or even a hint of an EULA that I would be binding too when I open the software. How could they not include this license in the buying process? There is no excuse for not making this a part of the purchasing process.
What is the minimum amount of documentation I should keep to prove my software products are legally licensed? All legally licensed Microsoft products should contain an End-User License Agreement (EULA), which is your primary proof that you own a legally acquired product. However, it is also recommended that you keep the original user's manual (or at least the cover and first page of the manual), the product disks, the Certificate of Authenticity, and your purchase receipt.
This EULA they speak of, is this a hardcopy of some sort? That seems to be all that they require. What is with the should and recommended? Sounds shaky to me.
Actually, I think you'll find that a lot of American shows are based on older shows from the UK.
That may be the case. France is the only country I've been to outside of North America. In the few days I was there visiting I saw several soap operas and quite a few of the current US prime time shows that were being broadcast. I do not know the % of what comes from where as I don't follow the entertainment industry at all. I just thought it was odd to see so many US shows. The only shows I've ever seen in the US that were dubbed over were old Godzilla like flicks.
More games, more games, more games. Then lower the price of the games. People are not buying a console because it looks cool, was made by a certain company or simply just to have another one. You buy it to play games. I bought a Dreamcast in December and have bought at least 20 games for it since then. Why? Its a decent console, connects to the internet, and most of the games still left are under $10. I have spent less for my DC and all 20 games combined then the Xbox and one controller costs. $50-60 for one freaking Xbox game is over 2X above what I will ever pay for a console game, therefore my kids and I will stick to our PC's, Dreamcast and PS1.
The gamers and must-haves will always buy new, they already have the Xbox and now its up to the general public to keep it floating.
The author pictured in the title story looks a lot like Mike Holgram. Who just so happens to coach the Seattle Seahawks.. Coincedence? I don't think so. Looks like MS marketing screwed up with a 6th day violation..;)
The most recent complaint given to Google from the COS deals with Googles own Usenet archive. The process of transferring the burden over to the original web site owner works for web pages. What about the potential for copyrighted material in Google's own Usenet archive? Do they have to contact the original author of the messages which in turn would have to file a counter complaint to keep it in the archive?
This whole thing seems to be going in the direction of the MS case, abortions rights, and campaign finance reform. A lot of time and money put into both ends but nothing coming out. The winner will be the one that had largest resource pool.
Try All Electronics. They have it online here for $40, they also have store fronts in Van Nuys and LA. I've been mail ordering stuff from this place for well over 10 years..
then they tack on some very dubious "taxes" and "surcharges" onto my bill to recoup their losses
Choices.. I had this same issue with Verizon. I recently switched to AT&T calling cards that I got from from a warehouse club. Costco and Sams each have similar plans, Costco is MCI or Sprint, Sams is AT&T. Anyway I pay only.034/minute with absolutely no surchages, taxes, fees and limits, I can use them anywhere and they are rechargable via CC at the same rate. This is much better then the.05 I was paying with MCI home service that after fees, taxes and other mysterious sucharges averaged out to over.15/minute.
To the point. After cancelling my MCI LD service on my line, I started getting extra charges by Verizon. $5/month for an interstate access fee, described via a customer service rep as "a fee authorized by the FCC that we charge because we [Verizon] are an interstate provider" and another fee for not having a LD provider, this was described as "a fee to block long distance calls, which could be avoided if I choose Verizon as my in-state LD provider" which in fact, has a higher per minute rate then my AT&T access card. These are added to the growing list of monthly charges that I also pay for being unlisted and unpublished, tone dialing, the ability to cancel call waiting, access to run lines via public "right-of-way" which happens to run past underground on MY PROPERTY (so I pay them to let them use my yard) and whatever else they decide to add. You can not win when it comes to the phone company. Sorry for the rant, the more I thought about this the more angry I got.
How do you design a railway that is immune to sabotage?! Have you ever seen a railway before?
I seperated myself from the railroad thing a bit but my point was consistant with yours... There are many ways for destruction or tampering to occur. Trying to coverup or mute those who expose a method is not going to hinder someone that has a goal to cause harm... I do not agree or condone the actions of these activists either, but shutting down a few web sites is not going to make a radioactive transfer over rail secure. They should take the money they are wasteing on law suits and hire some more physical security that may actually be able to stop someone.
IBM and Toshiba had a joint interest in a large chip fab for DRAM until last year when they pulled out of that. Looks like they are still trying to rid themselves of potentially unprofitable businesses and "lean" up. Normally when businesses are doing this they are trying to stay alive...
Second, imagine some radical group in the US. posting instructions on how to hijack some planes and fly them into skyscrapers on the internet
Security via obscurity does not work. Your example is very flawed. This exact thing happened and I bet the the idea did not come from a search of Google on the internet. Had the idea of this nature been made more public then it would have opened peoples eyes to this fact and maybe something would have been done before hand to prevent it. If the German railway has a bad design and is open to attack, it will be attacked by a motivated individual. Hiding the flaw from the "general" public does not stop this. If you were a frequent user of the German railroad don't you think you should have the right to know about this?
It's as simple as this. Because the record industry is no longer adding value they are losing market share.
The convienence of unrestricted MP3 adds more value then any thing I think would come from the RIAA. Mp3's make up over 75% of my listening time but IMHO they do not come close to the actual CD quality. Each person is different but it boils down to quality vs convienence. I use MP3's primarily on my handheld player, and at any of the networked computers in my house. My car is split between mp3's and audio cds and my home stereo, although capable of mp3 playback via my DVD player or my networked laptop, rarely plays anything but an audio cd. Each one of these locations is fully capable of both audio disk and compressed audio. In my car and home stereo, I have decent equipment and I am listening for the pure enjoyment and prefer the relative quality of the raw uncompressed audio, with everything else, convienence is the main factor. The cd's I purchase are a delicate balance between price and quality of the audio. A change in price or inital quality could swing my habits drastically in the other direction.
More power to'em. But when a book published in April 2002 already has a used book link offer up *right beside* the new book.. that strikes me as hurting the author and the publisher.
Take a trip over to www.cars.com. You can find hundreds of barely used 2002 cars for sale, there are even some used 2003 models already. Take a look at the classified section of your favorite newspaper, tons of used stuff for sale.
The sale and resale of real property is part of doing business and living in America. The internet has expanded this somewhat by massing larger amounts of people to barter. If a business feels threatened by this, they have two options. Stop selling books and move on or switch to some electronically locked one use/limited use method to milk the consumer via pay-per-read for a few years and then put it in print later.
I do get a bit creeped out by the "buy it used" button on Amazon.
They are responding to a demand. If it wasnt a specific button it would be placed somewhere else on the site. If it was too hard to find the average consumer will shop elsewhere. Some portion of thier sales and traffic are coming from consumers specifically looking for these used book options and they would not be there without it. This was one of the problems that the early.bombs failed to realize. Other shopping sites are 5 seconds and a few keystrokes away.
On that same note.. My Ford Aspire has 68HP and I can still exceed the legal speed limit in every single part of the US (except going uphill in Montana). One of the recent trends with automakers is to add even more power. Are they encouraging people to drive faster and with less responsibility? Strange how when its digital or computer related the rules somehow change.
Interesting to see a large corporation take a side and be actively involved in such a debate. I'm sure other companies feel the same but are remaining passive to test the waters first. Businesses tend to choose sides based on what other businesses want first, the consumer usually gets what is left over. I wonder if Compaq would be so outspoken and in support of consumers rights if one of thier suppliers had a different opinion, like Intel or Microsoft. I would like to believe that a company has a true care to please the the consumer but in the real world, business decisions always come first.
I rarely hit the 150 hour limit. I am there for the outstanding news feed which is accessible from any IP with my name/pass, IMHO that alone is worth the $17 a month even if I wasn't using thier dialup.
Broadband had no effect at all. You could always buy package deals of RH's latest (and Slackware, Mandrake, FreeBSD etc..) for $5-10 online at copy shops like Cheapbytes.com and Walnut Creek, and it is included in just about every Linux for Dummies book.
I have GTE (now Verizon) dialup that is limited to 150 hours a month. They do send emails out to warn you when you are approaching this limit. Problem is the email arrives 5 to 7 days after the fact. A little to late to do anything about it. I have since modified my diald.conf
When you are on a long distance call you are being charged for the TIME you are on, which can be referenced by any clock, or a metered calling card. Charging per megabyte is not easy to reference. This would be like the phone company charging you for each spoken word when you are using long distance.
The more the advertisers concentrate on less knowledgeable consumer, the longer I can get access to content for free. Eventually even the questionable advertisers will figure out that it just doesn't work. People only have $x to spend a month. I gave an in-law a computer to get on the internet about a year ago. I saw it the other day and WOW.. HD is full, desktop completely full of icons, task bar stretches the length of the screen, pop-ups,downs,overs,unders,arounds, computer automatically dials out at random and connects to casino and porn sites, junk email, even has active desktop enabled with random advertisements on the screen when he first gets into windows. All I wanted to do was to check my ISP's web mail, I decided not to after seeing all that. It's truely sad and even scary that people accept these practices as a normal part of browsing the internet and using a computer.
My wife in front and the kids in booster seats in the back. We were moving from Seattle to Honolulu with a 3 month school in South Carolina. My house got packed up and everything shipped from Seattle. We had to fill the hatch with everything we would need from March (cold) until the early July (Hot)and make the trip from Seattle to San Francisco via South Carolina. The time was split between relatives and motels. The whole evolution went perfect and we all enjoyed it. You don't have to have a suv/minivan to travel. I still have the Mustang (160k+ miles)and also have a minivan and a suv too..
Slashdot Mirror
I might be wrong here but..
When you buy a computer pre installed with OEM Windows, the support comes from the vendor, not MS. Ever see an OEM disk? It specifically states to contact the vendor for support. How would allowing a vendor to install whatever make it harder on MS? If the vendor installs it, the vendor supports it. This is no different for OEM hardware. MS will help you if you call them but you will pay for it. Sounds like MS is trying to increase the FUD factor for a practice that has already been in existance for years.
Can you point to a specific EULA that includes text of this nature? I can not find one. I am interested in how this is worded. I searched Microsoft with Google and MS's own internal search engine and can not find an EULA posted online. I found a eula.txt in the system32 directory on my 2000 machine at work and it mentions nothing about allowing an audit.
General points to ponder...
I just walked through the entire process of buying WinXP from shop.microsoft.com and NO WHERE was I given a chance, a link, or even a hint of an EULA that I would be binding too when I open the software. How could they not include this license in the buying process? There is no excuse for not making this a part of the purchasing process.
Microsoft statements about "piracy" and license agreements
What is the minimum amount of documentation I should keep to prove my software products are legally licensed?
All legally licensed Microsoft products should contain an End-User License Agreement (EULA), which is your primary proof that you own a legally acquired product. However, it is also recommended that you keep the original user's manual (or at least the cover and first page of the manual), the product disks, the Certificate of Authenticity, and your purchase receipt.
This EULA they speak of, is this a hardcopy of some sort? That seems to be all that they require. What is with the should and recommended? Sounds shaky to me.
Actually, I think you'll find that a lot of American shows are based on older shows from the UK.
That may be the case. France is the only country I've been to outside of North America. In the few days I was there visiting I saw several soap operas and quite a few of the current US prime time shows that were being broadcast. I do not know the % of what comes from where as I don't follow the entertainment industry at all. I just thought it was odd to see so many US shows. The only shows I've ever seen in the US that were dubbed over were old Godzilla like flicks.
Aren't all the soaps in Europe from the US and simply dubbed over? Maybe they should do this with CSpan coverage.
More games, more games, more games. Then lower the price of the games. People are not buying a console because it looks cool, was made by a certain company or simply just to have another one. You buy it to play games.
I bought a Dreamcast in December and have bought at least 20 games for it since then. Why? Its a decent console, connects to the internet, and most of the games still left are under $10. I have spent less for my DC and all 20 games combined then the Xbox and one controller costs. $50-60 for one freaking Xbox game is over 2X above what I will ever pay for a console game, therefore my kids and I will stick to our PC's, Dreamcast and PS1.
The gamers and must-haves will always buy new, they already have the Xbox and now its up to the general public to keep it floating.
IT execs only know MS products, MS services, and IBM compatible computers.
If IT managers actually had to make a choice of what products to purchase and use, maybe there would not be so many clueless IT managers.
The author pictured in the title story looks a lot like Mike Holgram. Who just so happens to coach the Seattle Seahawks.. Coincedence? I don't think so. Looks like MS marketing screwed up with a 6th day violation.. ;)
The most recent complaint given to Google from the COS deals with Googles own Usenet archive. The process of transferring the burden over to the original web site owner works for web pages. What about the potential for copyrighted material in Google's own Usenet archive? Do they have to contact the original author of the messages which in turn would have to file a counter complaint to keep it in the archive?
This whole thing seems to be going in the direction of the MS case, abortions rights, and campaign finance reform. A lot of time and money put into both ends but nothing coming out. The winner will be the one that had largest resource pool.
Try All Electronics. They have it online here for $40, they also have store fronts in Van Nuys and LA. I've been mail ordering stuff from this place for well over 10 years..
then they tack on some very dubious "taxes" and "surcharges" onto my bill to recoup their losses
.034/minute with absolutely no surchages, taxes, fees and limits, I can use them anywhere and they are rechargable via CC at the same rate. .05 I was paying with MCI home service that after fees, taxes and other mysterious sucharges averaged out to over .15/minute.
Choices..
I had this same issue with Verizon. I recently switched to AT&T calling cards that I got from from a warehouse club. Costco and Sams each have similar plans, Costco is MCI or Sprint, Sams is AT&T. Anyway I pay only
This is much better then the
To the point. After cancelling my MCI LD service on my line, I started getting extra charges by Verizon. $5/month for an interstate access fee, described via a customer service rep as "a fee authorized by the FCC that we charge because we [Verizon] are an interstate provider" and another fee for not having a LD provider, this was described as "a fee to block long distance calls, which could be avoided if I choose Verizon as my in-state LD provider" which in fact, has a higher per minute rate then my AT&T access card.
These are added to the growing list of monthly charges that I also pay for being unlisted and unpublished, tone dialing, the ability to cancel call waiting, access to run lines via public "right-of-way" which happens to run past underground on MY PROPERTY (so I pay them to let them use my yard) and whatever else they decide to add.
You can not win when it comes to the phone company.
Sorry for the rant, the more I thought about this the more angry I got.
How do you design a railway that is immune to sabotage?! Have you ever seen a railway before?
I seperated myself from the railroad thing a bit but my point was consistant with yours...
There are many ways for destruction or tampering to occur. Trying to coverup or mute those who expose a method is not going to hinder someone that has a goal to cause harm...
I do not agree or condone the actions of these activists either, but shutting down a few web sites is not going to make a radioactive transfer over rail secure. They should take the money they are wasteing on law suits and hire some more physical security that may actually be able to stop someone.
IBM and Toshiba had a joint interest in a large chip fab for DRAM until last year when they pulled out of that. Looks like they are still trying to rid themselves of potentially unprofitable businesses and "lean" up. Normally when businesses are doing this they are trying to stay alive...
+5 Insightful?
Second, imagine some radical group in the US. posting instructions on how to hijack some planes and fly them into skyscrapers on the internet
Security via obscurity does not work. Your example is very flawed. This exact thing happened and I bet the the idea did not come from a search of Google on the internet. Had the idea of this nature been made more public then it would have opened peoples eyes to this fact and maybe something would have been done before hand to prevent it. If the German railway has a bad design and is open to attack, it will be attacked by a motivated individual. Hiding the flaw from the "general" public does not stop this. If you were a frequent user of the German railroad don't you think you should have the right to know about this?
It's as simple as this. Because the record industry is no longer adding value they are losing market share.
The convienence of unrestricted MP3 adds more value then any thing I think would come from the RIAA.
Mp3's make up over 75% of my listening time but IMHO they do not come close to the actual CD quality. Each person is different but it boils down to quality vs convienence. I use MP3's primarily on my handheld player, and at any of the networked computers in my house. My car is split between mp3's and audio cds and my home stereo, although capable of mp3 playback via my DVD player or my networked laptop, rarely plays anything but an audio cd. Each one of these locations is fully capable of both audio disk and compressed audio. In my car and home stereo, I have decent equipment and I am listening for the pure enjoyment and prefer the relative quality of the raw uncompressed audio, with everything else, convienence is the main factor. The cd's I purchase are a delicate balance between price and quality of the audio. A change in price or inital quality could swing my habits drastically in the other direction.
More power to'em. But when a book published in April 2002 already has a used book link offer up *right beside* the new book.. that strikes me as hurting the author and the publisher.
Take a trip over to www.cars.com. You can find hundreds of barely used 2002 cars for sale, there are even some used 2003 models already. Take a look at the classified section of your favorite newspaper, tons of used stuff for sale.
The sale and resale of real property is part of doing business and living in America. The internet has expanded this somewhat by massing larger amounts of people to barter. If a business feels threatened by this, they have two options.
Stop selling books and move on or switch to some electronically locked one use/limited use method to milk the consumer via pay-per-read for a few years and then put it in print later.
I do get a bit creeped out by the "buy it used" button on Amazon.
.bombs failed to realize. Other shopping sites are 5 seconds and a few keystrokes away.
They are responding to a demand. If it wasnt a specific button it would be placed somewhere else on the site. If it was too hard to find the average consumer will shop elsewhere. Some portion of thier sales and traffic are coming from consumers specifically looking for these used book options and they would not be there without it. This was one of the problems that the early
95 was last..
On that same note..
My Ford Aspire has 68HP and I can still exceed the legal speed limit in every single part of the US (except going uphill in Montana). One of the recent trends with automakers is to add even more power. Are they encouraging people to drive faster and with less responsibility? Strange how when its digital or computer related the rules somehow change.
Interesting to see a large corporation take a side and be actively involved in such a debate. I'm sure other companies feel the same but are remaining passive to test the waters first. Businesses tend to choose sides based on what other businesses want first, the consumer usually gets what is left over.
I wonder if Compaq would be so outspoken and in support of consumers rights if one of thier suppliers had a different opinion, like Intel or Microsoft. I would like to believe that a company has a true care to please the the consumer but in the real world, business decisions always come first.
I rarely hit the 150 hour limit. I am there for the outstanding news feed which is accessible from any IP with my name/pass, IMHO that alone is worth the $17 a month even if I wasn't using thier dialup.
Broadband had no effect at all. You could always buy package deals of RH's latest (and Slackware, Mandrake, FreeBSD etc..) for $5-10 online at copy shops like Cheapbytes.com and Walnut Creek, and it is included in just about every Linux for Dummies book.
I have GTE (now Verizon) dialup that is limited to 150 hours a month. They do send emails out to warn you when you are approaching this limit. Problem is the email arrives 5 to 7 days after the fact. A little to late to do anything about it. I have since modified my diald.conf
When you are on a long distance call you are being charged for the TIME you are on, which can be referenced by any clock, or a metered calling card. Charging per megabyte is not easy to reference. This would be like the phone company charging you for each spoken word when you are using long distance.
The more the advertisers concentrate on less knowledgeable consumer, the longer I can get access to content for free.
Eventually even the questionable advertisers will figure out that it just doesn't work. People only have $x to spend a month.
I gave an in-law a computer to get on the internet about a year ago. I saw it the other day and WOW.. HD is full, desktop completely full of icons, task bar stretches the length of the screen, pop-ups,downs,overs,unders,arounds, computer automatically dials out at random and connects to casino and porn sites, junk email, even has active desktop enabled with random advertisements on the screen when he first gets into windows. All I wanted to do was to check my ISP's web mail, I decided not to after seeing all that.
It's truely sad and even scary that people accept these practices as a normal part of browsing the internet and using a computer.
My wife in front and the kids in booster seats in the back. We were moving from Seattle to Honolulu with a 3 month school in South Carolina. My house got packed up and everything shipped from Seattle. We had to fill the hatch with everything we would need from March (cold) until the early July (Hot)and make the trip from Seattle to San Francisco via South Carolina. The time was split between relatives and motels. The whole evolution went perfect and we all enjoyed it. You don't have to have a suv/minivan to travel. I still have the Mustang (160k+ miles)and also have a minivan and a suv too..