Nero Burning ROM is where it's at. It's hands down the best CD burning software there is. If you have a Plextor, CloneCD and Nero just don't upgrade ever, and you'll be straight.
The way I see all this stuff about people trying to enforce copyrights is this. Copyrighting things is a good idea, but corporate America is taking it too far. The law, in my eyes, is unjust in its present form. So I will disobey this law and download all the mp3s I want. Just as the African Americans disobeyed the unjust law that didn't let them drink from any waterfountain they wanted to. They'll never be able to stop me. There will always be some underground network on the internet where I will be able to get music for free. So until this law changes and becomes just, I will disobey it forever. All I have to do is keep my current ( soon to be legacy ) hardware, and not upgrade anything.
Scott Adams, Dilber Author, said it best. Stock options are just like lottery tickets. They have a chance at being valuable, but most of them are worthless.
If I ever got a job that offered stock options I would flat out refuse them in favor of being paid more cold hard cash. Cash is guaranteed to be worth something. As long as you aren't being paid in Russain rubles that is.
Besides, all the money I save by using free software plus the money they pay me extra means, more hardware!
First of all this guy is for memepool, not for slashdot. I read most of his site, and in my opinion he is insane. However I do have an interesting question to ask him.
Do you seriously believe that your immortality stuff works? If you do, then you are insane. However if you don't, I think you might actually be a pretty smart guy. You are doing what every evangelist and salesperson does. You are taking advantage of really stupid people by lying and selling stuff.
What I'm basically asking is this.
A) Do you believe that this stuff works or are you just a clever salesman?
B) If you believe this stuff works, what do you say to all the (intelligent) people who think you are insane?
C) If you believe this stuff works, what are you smoking, and can I have some? I don't do drugs, but, hell I'm immortal so I can do whatever drugs I want!
If you have old computers like 486s sell them on ebay. Me or someone else will pick them up. They're pretty handy. If you get 20 or more of them into some extremelinux or beowulf action it makes a dandy Tribes ][ server.
If you have other old computers, specifically apple][gs's, they are still good. If you didn't know the apple ][ gs can do everything that your pc you are using right now can do, except 3d stuff. It has tcpip, cd burners, games, AIM, ICQ, netscape, everything. It's slow, but it works. Did I forget to mention Wolfenstein 3d for the apple ][ gs? How about my C=64 with the 14.4 modem? Old computers are still good.
Yes we all hate Microsoft and we want to see the XBox fail. Ooh, their prototype crashed, big woop. I was just thinking about the XBox and I realized something. Everyone talks about it having a GeForce 3 and all kinds of other neat goodies in it. Even though it's an evil microsoft product, and I'm putting my money on the GameCube. ( Because it has special stuff with the GameBoy Advance, which I've played, and the GameBoy Advance is AMAZING). It's a whole computer! A whole computer complete with hard drive, memory, processor, video card, sound card, the whole thing. And it's really really cheap. So I'll probably buy one, take everything out, put it into a new case, and install linux. Think about it, you're getting a GeForce3 and some other stuff for the price of the card and a little more. Thanks Bill, I always love a hardware discount.
Anime fansubs distribution is done on numerous p2p networks. It's perfectly legal if you only trade fansubs. Some people trade bootleg pro shit, but they're fools. I share digital fansubs with all kinds of other people and it promotes anime. When people come to me and ask for pro stuff I tell them to buy it. I haven't gotten a lot of sleep because of a cs project. excuse my bad note writing.
I have a really bad feeling about this. It is absolutely horrible that someone so young an intelligent is dead. Think about the opportunity lost and what this kid could have programmed in the future...
What I have a bad feeling about is exactly what he did. Notice how they don't say exactly what he did or which files he accessed. If his high school is anything like mine was then anything could be considered hacking simply because the teachers don't understand the computers. In my school we ran a novell network connecting numerous windows 95 computers.
The extent of security was that if you logged on there were missing buttons in the start menu and desktop as well as the inability to run certain exe files like control.exe. If you pressed F3 while logged in the find files dialog was displayed from which you could launch the ADMIN APPLICATION. If you pressed control-esc before at the login screen you could get a run dialog and run any application.
I fear that what was considered hacking could have been something like changing the screen saver or the screen resolution. Something silly. If this is true then his death is for the same reason as so many others. Because of someone else's stupidity. Evertime you hear about a death think about the reason. It's usually because of the stupidity of the dead person or of someone else. Disease would be one of the few that breaks the mold.
I hope someone figures out what "hacking" this kid did. Because if it wasn't something like changing the grades of everyone in the school then the suspension was based on nothing. Oh I'm so sad now. I have to go to sleep.
Here at RIT we all have projects for Computer Science Class twice a quarter. They have a software program that roots out cheaters. Cheaters of course get appropriate punishment. However they have a large expensive software package that will only catch people who are definitley cheating on the projects. It sounds like this teacher wrote his own little program and I don't think his software is a valid determinant of who is cheating.
It could be possible the whole class is a bunch of cheats, but I seriously doubt it. Only about 3 or 4 people get caught cheating on the CS projects here.
I mean come on, doesn't the teacher read the papers? If he read them he would be able to tell which ones were similar to each other. Bad teacher methinks.
I still don't know why they don't create.xxx and.sex. Then make a law so all porn sites have to be on.xxx or.sex. Then block those! It would be absolutely flawless and easy. But noooooo. We have to do things the hard way. That's a major problem with the internet, the people using it know what's better for it than the people in charge.
Let Microsoft take napster. It will take attention away from the real way to get free music. OpenNAP and the new WinMX Peer Redirect. Microsoft coming into play is just going to keep the RIAA from noticing the underground. It's really silly actually. It will be impossible for them to stop every FTP server, every usenet group that has file attachments, hotline, e-mail, ICQ, IRC. Let the stupid napster take all the damage for breaking the archaic copyright laws. They'll never be able to arrest every single person with an mp3 on their computer. If napster goes out of business then we'll return to the nice cozy underground of the net where the warez, gamez, appz, ISOz, and the DivX;-) movies are. That's where they belong.
What I'm trying to say is that you can't set up a company to help distribute "copyrighted" material on the internet. It has to remain a peer to peer undergound thing. That way there is no target. The model for something like Hotline or WinMX can never be destroyed. Who cares if they attack hotline software? There are numerous other open source clients. Who cares if they take down trackers? We can put up new ones / static IPs.
I don't think you quite understand. This is fiber optics we're talking here. Here at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) we have two OC3s. One for the internet and one for I2. An OC3 is a huge fiber optic cable. If you were to slice open the cable you would not only be in big big trouble but you would find an interesting cross section. Hey? Where's the fiber? It's a small little circle in the middle of a pile of insulation. Fiber optic cable carries so much data so fast you only need a small bundle of it to get super high speed access. It just requires a lot of protection because it is so fragile.
Did it occurr to you to buy a seperate mouse? Most PCs have 2 PS/2 ports. Unless this is a fudged up keyboard it should only take up one of those ports. So you can easily call up logitech and order a sweet ass optical ergonomic mouse, which works excellent in any *nix system. I mean if you're willing to pay 300$ for a keyboard you can buy a seperate mouse if the mouse on the keyboard stinks. Besides, you can't play Tribes 2 with a touchpad!
yes there is a distro war again. But I must say that Mandrake 8 is the best distro I've ever used. The install is easy and intuitive. It supports all my hardware automatically. It comes with all the newest packages that I want so I don't have to scour the net for them. And the drakTools top the whole thing off with their control panel and the easy graphical package updater. I've used the newest debians and rehats and mandrake takes the cake. Good job to the guys who made it.
I think that the game Video Chess for the Atari 2600 is the hardest chess game ever. Heck it can beat anybody. You set the option so that it can think for the longest amount of time before making a move and it never ever loses. Emulate the program on a computer that has a processor so that it doesn't take hours and hours for each move and you've got it. Video Chess, Atari, best ever. If you don't believe me, try to beat it.
Again I must once again bring up Japan. And I hope the lawyers defending the video game companies do so as well.
In Japan there are horrible horrible things in TV and video games. Look at something like DragonBallZ which is for ages 10+ in USA is meant for 5 year olds in Japan. Video game popularity in Japan is so great that it is illegal to release an RPG on a school day because everyone will skip to get the game. Now remind me how many kids in Japan killed their classmates last year? Ok, good.
In Japan they have younger people watching more violent things, playing more violent games, and like 1 murder a year in the whole country. And that one is by accident. I persoally attribute it to the breakdown of the American Family. Who's fault is it? It's the fault of large large corporations, parents, and the government. Parents being at fault the most.
Has anyone thought about the fact that the AIM client has advertising in it? That's why AOL doesn't want you to use your own client like everybuddy or something. THey give away AIM for free because the little advertisements at the top of the buddylist pay for the big big server. If you use another client they lose money because you don't see ads.
Yes there are hacks to remove ads from AIM. But AOL owns ICQ too and that has ads. Then there are hacks to remove ads rom that as well. But AOL makes money even if you prevent the ads from being displayed. YOur client still requests them and the big AOL server things you saw it. Not so with another client. That is why AOL is doing this. There is no other reason.
On a side note, AOL is actually a pretty good internet service provider. They aren't horribly evil like microsoft just kind of evil. The main problem with AOL is that in order to connect to the internet using AOL as your ISP you have to load an enourmous piece of software. That thing eats up all your ram right away. Where as with other ISPs you load a 1k dial-up program, or no program because you are on a lan. If AOL had something like AOL lite where you just dial in, they would probably be the fastest provider there is given the size of their server farm.
This means that without paying money you can get a lot of channels with your antenna. And they want to stop this because, duh, you won't have to pay for cable; Just a fancy antenna which is rather in expensive. How come all the good things are squashed while all kinds of evil things out there are ok. Get your priorities straight everyone.
I have a Pentium III 450 with a TNT2 128MB RAM
Roomate has Pentium III 800 TNT2 256 MB RAM
I beat him in every 3d gaming benchmark in the world. Why? His is a Dell, mine was built by me. OEM systems bite, unless you're buying mainframes and things.
I am a former Red Hat user. I use Linux for all my computing applications other than gaming, for which I must still use win98. However most of my time is spent in linux. I always used Red Hat because it's installer was easy and flawless. I really didn't pay much attention to different distros, but because I got Red Hat to work I stuck with it from 6 to 7. The only problem I had with it was its lack of compatability with my Promise Ultra 66 card.
Then about a month ago I was told about Mandrake. I realized hey, Mandrake 8 beta blows red hat 7 out of the water. Heck Mandrak 7.2 blows red hat out of the water. Red hat 7 doesn't even have KDE2! And now you are charging people to use the auto package updater, which is an application many users (some wont admit) can't do without.
I ask you, why should I switch back to using Red Hat 7 rather than Mandrake or another distribution? Will Red Hat soon come with more up to date packages like KDE 2? Will it come with more hardware support? I would really like it to because it's installer is so intuitive, but I really can't go back from where I am now.
To summarize it for you. Why is the red hat distribution always behind the rest of the distributions in terms of hardware support, packages, kernel version upgrades, XFree86 upgrades, etc. ???
Microsoft is all about making software that idiots can use. They like things like only 1 desktop because then all the stupid computer users only have to learn it once and they can use every windows computer.
Most people learn computers in a procedural way. For example my grandma. She knows click on AOL, click sign on, wait, type in addresses. That's what she knows about computers. That's what most people know. They have a memorized procedure for each task they use their computers for. If you move their icons around they would be hopeless.
Microsoft likes it this way. They market their products as user-friendly. Which they are, stupid computer users can use microsoft products because they look the same as windows does and they will easily memorize the new procedures they have to follow to complete tasks.
We, as linux users, know how a computer works. It's an amazing thing. That means, gasp, we can figure things out! Microsoft doesn't like people who can figure things out. Because these people will realize hey, I can make my computer do what I want it to do, and I can use difficult software, even some command line stuff. And I don't have to pay hundreds of dollars for an office suite because I can use KOffice.
What we need to do is have television commercials. We need to promote the fact that hey, linux isn't that hard to use. It gives you choices, unlike windows. You can make your desktop be the way you want, not the way windows wants. And you don't have to pay 100$ for it. And it comes with all the software you'll ever need for free. No more buying software. Advertisements such as these will show people, hey windows sucks!
As for the issue of charging money for software and piracy. First of all if you are charging money for software that's ok. I mean if I coded something myself for a long time I would charge for it too. Open source stuff can be free because a lot of people worked a little bit on it and none of them expect to make money. However when you charge $100 for an operating system, that's higway robbery. So people pirate it. Piracy occurrs because of high software prices, not the reverse as you would be led to believe. Heck, look at all the 0 day warez. Those games cost 50$. Most 10 year olds who play these games haven't ever had that much money. If you look at a lot of those games months after they are release they now cost 20 or even 10 dollars. I can pick up a copy of half-life at media play for 10$(Counter strike retail is 30, it's pretty funny). If they would just charge 10 or 20$ in the first place then nobody would pirate it. They would just buy it.
Those who have too many morals to pirate software and are smart enough to know how computers work are us. The linux users. We get all our software free, legally. it's the only way to go.
NONE of our existing technology would be compatible with any alien technology. They are probably completely different beings, with completely different stuff. We probably couldn't communicate with them without years of research even with their help. However, just for us slashdotters, I would have to say that the first human alien translation program would probably be for Linux:)
The reason that Quake 3 Arena for linu didn't sell well is not just because it was release well after the windows version. There are numerous other factors that aren't even mentioned here.
The first thing is that the are selling a game for linux, that can already be played with wine quite easily. Anyone who wants to play games and uses linux, probably is already doing this. They should release a game like counterstrike which is difficult to get to run under wine. Or a game that is impossible to run under wine like Tribes 2 (I tried, maybe someone else succeeded).
Why should they pay money? Let's take it for granted that you aren't a software pirate. When new software comes out for windows you run out and pay 50$ for it. When new software comes out for linux you go to freshmeat and download it for free. Linux people don't like to pay for software. Linux is a high quality operating system for free, and windows is a low quality operating system for lots of money. That's what keeps linux alive is that it costs 0$. People don't want to pay money for linux software.
I propose that game companies release FREE linux versions of their games. Not their newest games, but games that are just old enough so that they aren't selling any more copies. Basically everything from abandonware up to the tomb raider series, final fantasy 7 + 8, Mechwarrior 1 - 3, etc. Every games from that time back should be made available free for linux. All the gamers would RUSH out to download mandrake and red hat so they could take advantage of the situation. Then Start releasing the new games for Linux and charge money. Claim that the game runs faster in linux and is more stable (it's true). Charge only 40$ instead of 50$. Watch the money fly in.
Making a DirectX equivalent for Linux is a good idea too. Duh.
Of course we are all thinking, good now they'll switch to Linux. It sure would be nice if they did, but you have to remember something. Businesses are run by businessmen. The words computer and Windows are interchangeable in their minds. They aren't going to change to linux, because they know NOTHING about computers. NOTHING.
It's sad to say, but this is why Microsoft is so successful. Bill Gates is both a computer guy AND a businessman. He probably knows, but wont admit, that windows is unstable as hell and that the things he does are evil. But he doesn't care, because it gets him more money.
A company isn't going to switch from windows to something like linux because microsoft harrasses them about licenses. It's just a way for microsoft to squeeze money out of its customers who can't or wont use another product. That's why it's called a MONOPOLY.
Here are some handy ways to abbreviate things.
! = not, duh.
+ = most, max, plus, very, etc.
- = least, min, minus, etc.
= more
@ = at.
d = the
e = he
# = number
^ = carrot
& = and
~ = tilde
? = huh, question, etc.
\. = slashdot
| = pipe
for hard words remove vowels and double consonants and such.
[] = box
: = colon
; = prefix semi like;cndctr = semiconductor
x = no
g = GEE!
o = oh
p = pee
$ = money
2 = to, too
8 = ate
6 = sex
Use acronyms as much as possible.
Slashdot Mirror
Nero Burning ROM is where it's at. It's hands down the best CD burning software there is. If you have a Plextor, CloneCD and Nero just don't upgrade ever, and you'll be straight.
The way I see all this stuff about people trying to enforce copyrights is this. Copyrighting things is a good idea, but corporate America is taking it too far. The law, in my eyes, is unjust in its present form. So I will disobey this law and download all the mp3s I want. Just as the African Americans disobeyed the unjust law that didn't let them drink from any waterfountain they wanted to. They'll never be able to stop me. There will always be some underground network on the internet where I will be able to get music for free. So until this law changes and becomes just, I will disobey it forever. All I have to do is keep my current ( soon to be legacy ) hardware, and not upgrade anything.
What are they going to do about it?
Scott Adams, Dilber Author, said it best. Stock options are just like lottery tickets. They have a chance at being valuable, but most of them are worthless.
If I ever got a job that offered stock options I would flat out refuse them in favor of being paid more cold hard cash. Cash is guaranteed to be worth something. As long as you aren't being paid in Russain rubles that is.
Besides, all the money I save by using free software plus the money they pay me extra means, more hardware!
First of all this guy is for memepool, not for slashdot. I read most of his site, and in my opinion he is insane. However I do have an interesting question to ask him.
Do you seriously believe that your immortality stuff works? If you do, then you are insane. However if you don't, I think you might actually be a pretty smart guy. You are doing what every evangelist and salesperson does. You are taking advantage of really stupid people by lying and selling stuff.
What I'm basically asking is this.
A) Do you believe that this stuff works or are you just a clever salesman?
B) If you believe this stuff works, what do you say to all the (intelligent) people who think you are insane?
C) If you believe this stuff works, what are you smoking, and can I have some? I don't do drugs, but, hell I'm immortal so I can do whatever drugs I want!
First of all, this is good news. I live in CT and didn't find out about this until now. But I am very happy to hear it.
Even more shocking is the fact that the ever idiotic Jon Katz wrote something moderately intelligent. I think the end of the world is coming tommorow.
If you have old computers like 486s sell them on ebay. Me or someone else will pick them up. They're pretty handy. If you get 20 or more of them into some extremelinux or beowulf action it makes a dandy Tribes ][ server.
If you have other old computers, specifically apple][gs's, they are still good. If you didn't know the apple ][ gs can do everything that your pc you are using right now can do, except 3d stuff. It has tcpip, cd burners, games, AIM, ICQ, netscape, everything. It's slow, but it works. Did I forget to mention Wolfenstein 3d for the apple ][ gs? How about my C=64 with the 14.4 modem? Old computers are still good.
Yes we all hate Microsoft and we want to see the XBox fail. Ooh, their prototype crashed, big woop. I was just thinking about the XBox and I realized something. Everyone talks about it having a GeForce 3 and all kinds of other neat goodies in it. Even though it's an evil microsoft product, and I'm putting my money on the GameCube. ( Because it has special stuff with the GameBoy Advance, which I've played, and the GameBoy Advance is AMAZING). It's a whole computer! A whole computer complete with hard drive, memory, processor, video card, sound card, the whole thing. And it's really really cheap. So I'll probably buy one, take everything out, put it into a new case, and install linux. Think about it, you're getting a GeForce3 and some other stuff for the price of the card and a little more. Thanks Bill, I always love a hardware discount.
Anime fansubs distribution is done on numerous p2p networks. It's perfectly legal if you only trade fansubs. Some people trade bootleg pro shit, but they're fools. I share digital fansubs with all kinds of other people and it promotes anime. When people come to me and ask for pro stuff I tell them to buy it. I haven't gotten a lot of sleep because of a cs project. excuse my bad note writing.
I have a really bad feeling about this. It is absolutely horrible that someone so young an intelligent is dead. Think about the opportunity lost and what this kid could have programmed in the future...
What I have a bad feeling about is exactly what he did. Notice how they don't say exactly what he did or which files he accessed. If his high school is anything like mine was then anything could be considered hacking simply because the teachers don't understand the computers. In my school we ran a novell network connecting numerous windows 95 computers.
The extent of security was that if you logged on there were missing buttons in the start menu and desktop as well as the inability to run certain exe files like control.exe. If you pressed F3 while logged in the find files dialog was displayed from which you could launch the ADMIN APPLICATION. If you pressed control-esc before at the login screen you could get a run dialog and run any application.
I fear that what was considered hacking could have been something like changing the screen saver or the screen resolution. Something silly. If this is true then his death is for the same reason as so many others. Because of someone else's stupidity. Evertime you hear about a death think about the reason. It's usually because of the stupidity of the dead person or of someone else. Disease would be one of the few that breaks the mold.
I hope someone figures out what "hacking" this kid did. Because if it wasn't something like changing the grades of everyone in the school then the suspension was based on nothing. Oh I'm so sad now. I have to go to sleep.
Here at RIT we all have projects for Computer Science Class twice a quarter. They have a software program that roots out cheaters. Cheaters of course get appropriate punishment. However they have a large expensive software package that will only catch people who are definitley cheating on the projects. It sounds like this teacher wrote his own little program and I don't think his software is a valid determinant of who is cheating.
It could be possible the whole class is a bunch of cheats, but I seriously doubt it. Only about 3 or 4 people get caught cheating on the CS projects here.
I mean come on, doesn't the teacher read the papers? If he read them he would be able to tell which ones were similar to each other. Bad teacher methinks.
I still don't know why they don't create .xxx and .sex. Then make a law so all porn sites have to be on .xxx or .sex. Then block those! It would be absolutely flawless and easy. But noooooo. We have to do things the hard way. That's a major problem with the internet, the people using it know what's better for it than the people in charge.
Let Microsoft take napster. It will take attention away from the real way to get free music. OpenNAP and the new WinMX Peer Redirect. Microsoft coming into play is just going to keep the RIAA from noticing the underground. It's really silly actually. It will be impossible for them to stop every FTP server, every usenet group that has file attachments, hotline, e-mail, ICQ, IRC. Let the stupid napster take all the damage for breaking the archaic copyright laws. They'll never be able to arrest every single person with an mp3 on their computer. If napster goes out of business then we'll return to the nice cozy underground of the net where the warez, gamez, appz, ISOz, and the DivX ;-) movies are. That's where they belong.
What I'm trying to say is that you can't set up a company to help distribute "copyrighted" material on the internet. It has to remain a peer to peer undergound thing. That way there is no target. The model for something like Hotline or WinMX can never be destroyed. Who cares if they attack hotline software? There are numerous other open source clients. Who cares if they take down trackers? We can put up new ones / static IPs.
I don't think you quite understand. This is fiber optics we're talking here. Here at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) we have two OC3s. One for the internet and one for I2. An OC3 is a huge fiber optic cable. If you were to slice open the cable you would not only be in big big trouble but you would find an interesting cross section. Hey? Where's the fiber? It's a small little circle in the middle of a pile of insulation. Fiber optic cable carries so much data so fast you only need a small bundle of it to get super high speed access. It just requires a lot of protection because it is so fragile.
Did it occurr to you to buy a seperate mouse? Most PCs have 2 PS/2 ports. Unless this is a fudged up keyboard it should only take up one of those ports. So you can easily call up logitech and order a sweet ass optical ergonomic mouse, which works excellent in any *nix system. I mean if you're willing to pay 300$ for a keyboard you can buy a seperate mouse if the mouse on the keyboard stinks. Besides, you can't play Tribes 2 with a touchpad!
yes there is a distro war again. But I must say that Mandrake 8 is the best distro I've ever used. The install is easy and intuitive. It supports all my hardware automatically. It comes with all the newest packages that I want so I don't have to scour the net for them. And the drakTools top the whole thing off with their control panel and the easy graphical package updater. I've used the newest debians and rehats and mandrake takes the cake. Good job to the guys who made it.
I think that the game Video Chess for the Atari 2600 is the hardest chess game ever. Heck it can beat anybody. You set the option so that it can think for the longest amount of time before making a move and it never ever loses. Emulate the program on a computer that has a processor so that it doesn't take hours and hours for each move and you've got it. Video Chess, Atari, best ever. If you don't believe me, try to beat it.
Again I must once again bring up Japan. And I hope the lawyers defending the video game companies do so as well.
In Japan there are horrible horrible things in TV and video games. Look at something like DragonBallZ which is for ages 10+ in USA is meant for 5 year olds in Japan. Video game popularity in Japan is so great that it is illegal to release an RPG on a school day because everyone will skip to get the game. Now remind me how many kids in Japan killed their classmates last year? Ok, good.
In Japan they have younger people watching more violent things, playing more violent games, and like 1 murder a year in the whole country. And that one is by accident. I persoally attribute it to the breakdown of the American Family. Who's fault is it? It's the fault of large large corporations, parents, and the government. Parents being at fault the most.
Has anyone thought about the fact that the AIM client has advertising in it? That's why AOL doesn't want you to use your own client like everybuddy or something. THey give away AIM for free because the little advertisements at the top of the buddylist pay for the big big server. If you use another client they lose money because you don't see ads.
Yes there are hacks to remove ads from AIM. But AOL owns ICQ too and that has ads. Then there are hacks to remove ads rom that as well. But AOL makes money even if you prevent the ads from being displayed. YOur client still requests them and the big AOL server things you saw it. Not so with another client. That is why AOL is doing this. There is no other reason.
On a side note, AOL is actually a pretty good internet service provider. They aren't horribly evil like microsoft just kind of evil. The main problem with AOL is that in order to connect to the internet using AOL as your ISP you have to load an enourmous piece of software. That thing eats up all your ram right away. Where as with other ISPs you load a 1k dial-up program, or no program because you are on a lan. If AOL had something like AOL lite where you just dial in, they would probably be the fastest provider there is given the size of their server farm.
That is all.
This means that without paying money you can get a lot of channels with your antenna. And they want to stop this because, duh, you won't have to pay for cable; Just a fancy antenna which is rather in expensive. How come all the good things are squashed while all kinds of evil things out there are ok. Get your priorities straight everyone.
DON'T BUY A DELL!!!
Let me put it this way.
I have a Pentium III 450 with a TNT2 128MB RAM
Roomate has Pentium III 800 TNT2 256 MB RAM
I beat him in every 3d gaming benchmark in the world. Why? His is a Dell, mine was built by me. OEM systems bite, unless you're buying mainframes and things.
I am a former Red Hat user. I use Linux for all my computing applications other than gaming, for which I must still use win98. However most of my time is spent in linux. I always used Red Hat because it's installer was easy and flawless. I really didn't pay much attention to different distros, but because I got Red Hat to work I stuck with it from 6 to 7. The only problem I had with it was its lack of compatability with my Promise Ultra 66 card.
Then about a month ago I was told about Mandrake. I realized hey, Mandrake 8 beta blows red hat 7 out of the water. Heck Mandrak 7.2 blows red hat out of the water. Red hat 7 doesn't even have KDE2! And now you are charging people to use the auto package updater, which is an application many users (some wont admit) can't do without.
I ask you, why should I switch back to using Red Hat 7 rather than Mandrake or another distribution? Will Red Hat soon come with more up to date packages like KDE 2? Will it come with more hardware support? I would really like it to because it's installer is so intuitive, but I really can't go back from where I am now.
To summarize it for you. Why is the red hat distribution always behind the rest of the distributions in terms of hardware support, packages, kernel version upgrades, XFree86 upgrades, etc. ???
Microsoft is all about making software that idiots can use. They like things like only 1 desktop because then all the stupid computer users only have to learn it once and they can use every windows computer.
Most people learn computers in a procedural way. For example my grandma. She knows click on AOL, click sign on, wait, type in addresses. That's what she knows about computers. That's what most people know. They have a memorized procedure for each task they use their computers for. If you move their icons around they would be hopeless.
Microsoft likes it this way. They market their products as user-friendly. Which they are, stupid computer users can use microsoft products because they look the same as windows does and they will easily memorize the new procedures they have to follow to complete tasks.
We, as linux users, know how a computer works. It's an amazing thing. That means, gasp, we can figure things out! Microsoft doesn't like people who can figure things out. Because these people will realize hey, I can make my computer do what I want it to do, and I can use difficult software, even some command line stuff. And I don't have to pay hundreds of dollars for an office suite because I can use KOffice.
What we need to do is have television commercials. We need to promote the fact that hey, linux isn't that hard to use. It gives you choices, unlike windows. You can make your desktop be the way you want, not the way windows wants. And you don't have to pay 100$ for it. And it comes with all the software you'll ever need for free. No more buying software. Advertisements such as these will show people, hey windows sucks!
As for the issue of charging money for software and piracy. First of all if you are charging money for software that's ok. I mean if I coded something myself for a long time I would charge for it too. Open source stuff can be free because a lot of people worked a little bit on it and none of them expect to make money. However when you charge $100 for an operating system, that's higway robbery. So people pirate it. Piracy occurrs because of high software prices, not the reverse as you would be led to believe. Heck, look at all the 0 day warez. Those games cost 50$. Most 10 year olds who play these games haven't ever had that much money. If you look at a lot of those games months after they are release they now cost 20 or even 10 dollars. I can pick up a copy of half-life at media play for 10$(Counter strike retail is 30, it's pretty funny). If they would just charge 10 or 20$ in the first place then nobody would pirate it. They would just buy it.
Those who have too many morals to pirate software and are smart enough to know how computers work are us. The linux users. We get all our software free, legally. it's the only way to go.
NONE of our existing technology would be compatible with any alien technology. They are probably completely different beings, with completely different stuff. We probably couldn't communicate with them without years of research even with their help. However, just for us slashdotters, I would have to say that the first human alien translation program would probably be for Linux :)
The reason that Quake 3 Arena for linu didn't sell well is not just because it was release well after the windows version. There are numerous other factors that aren't even mentioned here.
The first thing is that the are selling a game for linux, that can already be played with wine quite easily. Anyone who wants to play games and uses linux, probably is already doing this. They should release a game like counterstrike which is difficult to get to run under wine. Or a game that is impossible to run under wine like Tribes 2 (I tried, maybe someone else succeeded).
Why should they pay money? Let's take it for granted that you aren't a software pirate. When new software comes out for windows you run out and pay 50$ for it. When new software comes out for linux you go to freshmeat and download it for free. Linux people don't like to pay for software. Linux is a high quality operating system for free, and windows is a low quality operating system for lots of money. That's what keeps linux alive is that it costs 0$. People don't want to pay money for linux software.
I propose that game companies release FREE linux versions of their games. Not their newest games, but games that are just old enough so that they aren't selling any more copies. Basically everything from abandonware up to the tomb raider series, final fantasy 7 + 8, Mechwarrior 1 - 3, etc. Every games from that time back should be made available free for linux. All the gamers would RUSH out to download mandrake and red hat so they could take advantage of the situation. Then Start releasing the new games for Linux and charge money. Claim that the game runs faster in linux and is more stable (it's true). Charge only 40$ instead of 50$. Watch the money fly in.
Making a DirectX equivalent for Linux is a good idea too. Duh.
Of course we are all thinking, good now they'll switch to Linux. It sure would be nice if they did, but you have to remember something. Businesses are run by businessmen. The words computer and Windows are interchangeable in their minds. They aren't going to change to linux, because they know NOTHING about computers. NOTHING.
It's sad to say, but this is why Microsoft is so successful. Bill Gates is both a computer guy AND a businessman. He probably knows, but wont admit, that windows is unstable as hell and that the things he does are evil. But he doesn't care, because it gets him more money.
A company isn't going to switch from windows to something like linux because microsoft harrasses them about licenses. It's just a way for microsoft to squeeze money out of its customers who can't or wont use another product. That's why it's called a MONOPOLY.
Here are some handy ways to abbreviate things. ! = not, duh. + = most, max, plus, very, etc. - = least, min, minus, etc. = more @ = at. d = the e = he # = number ^ = carrot & = and ~ = tilde ? = huh, question, etc. \. = slashdot | = pipe for hard words remove vowels and double consonants and such. [] = box : = colon ; = prefix semi like ;cndctr = semiconductor
x = no
g = GEE!
o = oh
p = pee
$ = money
2 = to, too
8 = ate
6 = sex
Use acronyms as much as possible.