Heh, I thought it was
Disc, Tea at 2:00
But yours makes more sense.:)
You weren't the only one. I couldn't figure out what "Tea at 2:00" had to do with burning CDs. Unless Yamaha had been recently purchased by an British company or something.
Besides one friend of mine and the one sitting on my floor, I have not seen a custom built machine out in the wild for 4+ years.
That's largely a matter of your environment. Three of my five systems are custom built (of the others one is a laptop and the other I bought from work for $25). Two of my parents three computers are custom (the third I bought for them from work for $25). Out of the dozen or so friends that I have (most of which have multiple PCs) I only know of three non-custom systems. One of those is a laptop, one of them is another $25 "special" from work that I gave him for a firewall (that he uses with his 3 custom boxes), and the third is a Mac.
Outside of laptops and Macs, the only non-customs I see outside of work are ones that I bought from work on the cheap.
Do any/. readers have a white box computer? Were there any significant issues regarding warranty, price, or component quality? And most importantly, would you recommend a White Box over a Big Name for people looking to purchase a new computer?
I bought a white-box in 1994. At the time I felt that it was a better deal because I knew that I could go to someone locally and raise hell if I had any issues. At the time, the white-box builders were really the only people who were doing the "build to order" thing as well.
At the time the price and warranty were pretty comparable to the big brands. I imagine that the terms are comparable today. But the benefit of a Big Three (or is it Big Two now?) warranty is that it is often times an onsite warranty, which can be very much convenient. As far as component quality...well...it can be hit or miss. The key is finding a reliable screwdriver shop. The real issue is that it's hard to compete with the economy of scale that Dell or HPaq have, so usually the "pre-packaged" options from the local shop will be using less expensive components. Usually integrated motherboards with lower performing parts but sometimes they will be just plain substandard (PC Chips, anyone?). As long as you know what you are buying from a local shop, there shouldn't be much of an issue there.
As far as my recommendation, it depends. If you don't have a lot of computer knowledge or experience, I'd say go with one of the Big Three. They usually have different offerings tailored exactly to your needs (i.e., software bundles targetted at kids, home finances, etc). Most white-boxes don't come with any software besides the OS.
The Big Three also tend to be much better at supporting clueless newbie types. Plus, most of them offer 24/7 support lines while with a screwdriver shop you're usually left with the 9-5 guys. Also, for the less experienced it's usually better to have the onsite warranty than to drag your system in. Unplugging components tends to freak them out.
Some people say that the expandability of having a standard white-box PC will beat having non-standard components when it's time to upgrade. This is true, but only if you a) intend to upgrade at some point and b) have the knowledge to do it. Don't even get a newbie started on upgrading the processor or system board.
That being said, if you are a computer literate and you know what you want, and you know that you can largely support yourself, and you trust the shop then go white-box.
A good computer can cost as much as $4000 from a large computer corporation. If you buy the same PC you could expect to pay less (in the range of 250-500). This is quite a sum of money and most people will jump at the chance to save this on their new PC.
I think that you probably ought to qualify your statement by defining a "good computer." At the company where I work (45,000+ desktops) our standard PC is an IBM Netvista, and they usually run about $1000 each without a monitor. We do have a very limited number of Intellistation workstations that we use for financial modelling and forecasting, but even those don't cost us $4000.
If by "good computer" you mean a multiprocessor Pentium 4 Xeon system with RAID 5 Ultra160 SCSI, gigabit fiber NIC, 4 gigs of RAM, and a 128MB Nvidia super-duper-ooper video card and a DVD-R, then I could see your point. But I've seen systems advertised with an Athlon XP 2200+, 256 MB DDR RAM, 64 MB Nvidia card, 80 GB hard disk, a DVD-ROM, CDRW, and a 17" LCD display for around $2200, with an inkjet printer thrown in for kicks.
Back in 1993-1994 it was not uncommon for a "top of the line" desktop PC to cost $4000, but of course the "average" PC cost $2500-$3000 at the time. Nowdays the average PC retails for under $1000 with a monitor, and "top end" consumer or business models rarely go over $2000.
If you had an earlier VIA board, you might be singing a different tune.
I'm guessing that I wouldn't be since I've had other VIA boards and even mentioned that in my original post. I suspect you just glossed over it though.
In fact I had 3 different VIA boards before buying my current VIA board. They were an FIC PA-2007 (old-school socket 7), an FIC PA-2013 (Super Socket 7 ATX) and an FIC VA-503+ (Super Socket 7 AT). All of them worked fine for me and I've never used anything but Creative Labs sound cards in any of them. The SB Live!, SB 128, and even the old SB AWE32 that I have work fine in them. The PA-2007 was passed down from me to my father and he used it with his Creative sound card until he bought a new system last month. Now it's his webserver. Of the PA-2013 and the VA-503+, one of them is my webserver and the other is my "toy" box that I use to experiment with.
I first got turned onto VIA products when the PA-2007 was proclaimed the fastest Socket-7 board around. I ditched my old i430VX board for the PA-2007 shortly thereafter. Ever since then I've found their products to be stable, fast, compatible and considerably more affordable than other offerings. I've used nothing but VIA products ever since.
Why, what's wrong with VIA and Creative Labs? I've got an Epox board based on the VIA KT-266A and I've not had any problems with my old Soundblaster Live! I didn't have any problems with it when it was in my old VIA-based Socket-7 board either.
Yes, you can get mortgages for unbuilt structures. They have higher interest rates, but it's generally not a huge issue.
I don't know for sure, but I would expect that once the home was completed that you could conceivably get re-financed at a more normal rate. With the bonus that if your completed home is worth more than it cost to build (not all that uncommon I should think) you could end up with some automagic equity built in.
Among my immediate friends and acquaintances, *two* are still working in the IT field. Another is a certified Oracle DBA decorating cakes in a supermarket (last I heard), another is getting into marketing, a third is talking about opening a sub franchise store in the Middle East, and I'm signed up for some sysadmin training so I can get past the "ten years of related experience, but never in my job title" barrier. That's 66% unemployment, far beyond the unemployment rate in the great depression.
Really? Then by your own logic we have a 0% unemployment rate since all of my friends are gainfully employed in our chosen fields. Cool! I love this economy...
I guess what I'm trying to say here is that all statistics are lies, for the very reason that you demonstrated with your own "statistical analysis" of the situation.
I was acutally worked with James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau on prototyping this device, a fact left out in the article. The trickiest part was dialing. We initially settled on using a combination of light taps on the tooth with the tongue to initiate calls, but we ran into a problem. When I tried to pick up women in bars with the old "tying a cherry stem into a knot" trick, I inadvertantly rang up 9-1-1.
Specially when it's been announced today [bbc.co.uk] that mobile phones pose a health risk.
Yes, but then they've been reported to not be a health risk, and then they were a health risk, and then they weren't, and so on and so on and so on for a couple years now. Considering the amount of "health risk" the average person endures on a daily basis I think that it's silly to split hairs over mobile phones. Could they give you cancer? Possibly. But so does half the stuff I eat, secondhand smoke from bars, and electromagnetic radiation from any of a dozen other possible sources in my environment. Can they prove that my use of a cellphone will take a year off my life? 5 years? 10 years? If not, what's the point? I could use a cellphone for four hours a day every day and die in a car wreck at age 35.
If you look through the Slashdot archives, MSNBC has historically been one of the loudest mainstream (read: not theregister.co.uk) MSFT-criticisers. This is typical of them.
While it is certainly critical of Microsoft, the articles goes to great pains to praise all the things that MS is doing to improve the security and reliability of their products. What they didn't criticise is that after their two months of bug fixing they are STILL being hit with massive, exploitable bugs in their software.
I think the story was just an urban legend. For a geiger counter to be reading that high from across the street, the radiation near the source would have to be pretty intense.
You don't say? Well...perhaps if you had actually read the linked article rather than the 2 sentence blurb that describes it you would have known that the radiation at that point was quite intense. In fact, that's about the time that he decided that the reactor was dangerous and dismantled it.
It's seriously an old story, but it is nice to know that this guy is helping out the Navy with their reactors.
Seriously, who better to monitor these mothers than a guy who can make a backup on his own?
Except that he's not helping the Navy out with their reactors. He's just regular Joe Seaman, swabbing the decks and what-not. It was mentioned at the end of the article that it was probably for the best considering his past exposure to radiation.
If I remember my ancient history properly, Commodore thought a good way to get to the masses was to sell product through K-Mart.
All that got them was the same reputation that Kame-Apart's crappy TVs had.
It made them a non-business option for whole legions of companies when they were still considered a viable option for businesses.
Are you going to install Lindows based PCs in your Fortune 500 enterprise when Wal-Mart sells them? Probably not.
First off, I'd like to point out that Commodore computers were always targetted at the home market, not Fortune 500 businesses. It made good business sense to sell your home PCs where people shopped for things for their homes, ie, Kmart, Target, Sears, Service Merchandise, etc.
Secondly, Commodore's home PCs didn't have nearly the sort of negative connotation that you seem to think they did. Were they the choice of big businesses? No. Were they one of the best options available for the home market? Yes. Were they consistently ahead of the curve as far as features and capabilities in a home PC? Yes.
And finally, just because something is sold at Wal-Mart doesn't make it cheap. Wal-Mart sells quality brand-name products. I shop at WallyWorld somewhat regularly and I've never purchased anything from them but brand name products. Yes, there are Wal-Mart "generic" brands (like Sam's Choice and Equate and the like), but Kroger's and Giant Eagle and many other large retailers also have their house brands. Does that make a brand-name product purchased from them any less of a brand-name?
Here's a little secret for you...I used to work for a food company that made several well-known national brands of pasta, sauces, soups, etc. One of the larger portions of their business was also making "generic" store-brand products for the large chain stores that sold our brand-name products. The same quality control and recipes were used, but the packaging had a different name on it. So what you think is an inferior store-brand product is often times no different that what you're paying an extra 98 cents for.
Actually, that's NOT what the customer will do - they'll try to call the software company that MADE the product, whose 800# is right in the user manual and ask why the software isn't running.
It's obvious that you've been using Open Source for awhile. It's been years since I've seen a toll-free support line in a shrinkwrap software manual. There are plenty of 1-900 numbers though...
This software manufacturer will have one of a few unpalatable choices...>
He can tell the user to FO, causing user to return said package, causing WalMart to return said package , reducing revenues for himself.>
He can blame WalMart for selling "ersatz" Windows, getting WalMart PO'ed at him about finking them out to the user, ultimately losing the distro channel.>
They can get a copy of Lindows and rewrite their code so that it runs under Wine (maybe even contribute to Wine to get their software to run).
You're overly optimistic with your assessment I think. What is most likely to happen is that the user will spend a little bit of time and money getting in contact with the application vendor. The vendor's call center rep will ask which version of Windows they are running. The user will say "Lindows OS." The call center rep will say "I've not heard of that...is it Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows 2000, or Windows XP?" The user will say "Neither," and the call center rep will say "We only support this program on version of Microsoft Windows, I can't help you. Thanks for calling."
You see, Lindows may be a great idea. It may even be a great product. But it's not Windows and until the system requirements on the application's box say "runs on Lindows OS" then it doesn't matter how Windows-like it is.
Walmarts idea is probably something like this: they can save money on the computers this way, and they probably don't really care about what their customers use it for (do they have a reason to? Do they have to offer support etc.?), so that would explain things....
I think that this is the real reason. They don't want to catch 10 kinds of hell from MS about selling "naked" PCs, so they throw Lindows on it instead. Net cost to them? Nothing. Bitching from MS about selling naked PCs? None. Net loss to a consumer who wants a naked PC in order to install a pirated copy of Windows? None. Bitching from MS about selling PCs with a competitor's product? None, if MS doesn't want to put a neon sign over their collective heads that reads "illegal use of monopoly power".
Besides, what likely is going to happen is that a user will get it home with Lindows, find out that it isn't Windows and it won't run whatever game they want to play, and then they'll come back to WallyWorld to buy a full copy of Windows XP. That's a bigger sale to WalMart and a bigger sale for MS. The only people who really have anything to lose from it are the Lindows folks who stand to gain a fair amount of negative press if they piss off consumers. Instead of looking like a company that is trying to bring Linux to the mainstream user with an easy-to-use compatible Windows-like interface they run the risk of looking like someone peddling a cheap knock-off that is trying to trade on Microsoft's name.
The Wal-Mart crowd? I shop at Wal-Mart regularly and there is one in the suburb that I live in. I'd hardly consider myself or any of my neighbors to be rednecks, hillbillies, or "billy joe bobs". Sure, Wal-Mart had it's roots in rural communities in Arkansas, but they've gotten as big as they are by offering brand-name products at reasonable prices. They still sell Gamecubes and PS2s and Xboxes just like Best Buy. They've increased their marketshare and presence in urban areas and more upscale suburbs because they offer a good value proposition, just like any other store would. They are no longer the niche player that is only present in small town USA.
I know that this is an unpopular view, but you're supposed to be at college to study and earn a degree. Everything else--a distant second. While your daddy or the student loans are paying the bill, you're supposed to be getting an education, not "sharing" the latest flight-sim on the university dime.
Blah blah blah...here is someone who obvious didn't enjoy university life.
While I do believe that the primary purpose for attending university is to get an education, one would be a fool for thinking that there were not other secondary benefits of campus life that are equally as valuable or important in the development of individuals. When one is at college it is a moral imperative to avail oneself of everything that is a part of college life. Anything less will leave you highly educated and woefully maladjusted to reality.
If broadband companies would just block ports of the major P2P programs, it should curb the bandwidth usage greatly.
Yes, but then someone at Kazaa or Napster or whoever is the Next Big Thing changes the port that their application uses, and bow suddenly you have to keep running just to stay in place (Red Queen).
The current equation is supposedly "expenses > revenues". You have two options to shift the balance, either decrease expenses or increase revenues. But what if you can increase your revenues first and then decrease your expenses later on? Suddenly your profits go up even higher...
The broaband ISPs have no interest in reducing the usage of their customers. They just want to make more money off of the usage that is already there.
NTL in the UK allow servers, albeit not publicly advertised on the internet
Interesting. I wonder if accepting anonymous connections on port 80 is considered to be publicly advertising the existance of a server on the Internet...
I found it interesting that AOL/Time-Warner wasn't mentioned in this article, yet they are one of the biggest cable companies and broadband ISPs in the country. I also find it interesting that when advertising for their high speed RoadRunner or AOL Broadband service that they tout the virtue of being able to download streaming audio and video along with other bandwidth consuming entertainment option.
Is it just me, or are they caught in a bit of a "rock and a hard place" situation in that they are trying to develop business models that provide the bandwidth consuming content while still trying to make broadband profitable? Are consumers really willing to let AOL/TW ding them for exceeding transfer limits all the while having AOL/TW trying to charge them for the privilege of access to broadband content? I mean, it looks good in that they can charge for content AND the method of access to the content, but will people really pay them twice for it?
and how can you boycott by giving up cable? If you depend on highspeed, it's the only gig in town!
In some cities there are multiple cable companies servicing a given area. We have three cable companies in central Ohio, and most communities have some overlap between two of them. If you don't want either of them then there are the various satellite companies (Dish, DirecTV, etc) that are available just about anywhere in the country. If you want broadband we have several DSL options as well as cable (two of the three cable companies offer broadband service). Not only that, but the cable companies are supposed to have opened up their broadband networks to competition from other ISPs, i.e., if you have Time-Warner you can choose from RoadRunner, AOL, Earthlink or possibly even other ISPs over you cable lines.
think in this situation, a 'chunnel' or something like it would make more sense, not just because it would be more durable,
Except during times of high seismic activity, for which the area is known. The articles also stated that Sicily drifts northwards about 3 feet per century, and shifting that is likely much easier for a suspension bridge to cope with than a tunnel.
but because a big bridge like this will disrupt shipping lanes during construction,
If there are no pylons in the water as planned, disruption during construction should be minimal.
and possibly dangerous to ships after it is completed.
The articles stated that the bridge will be some 230+ feet above sea level which allows enough clearance for US aircraft carriers. That should leave plenty of room for cargo ships.
Slashdot Mirror
the only thing that could make this better is...making it external as well,
On the Yamaha site they show an internal and an external model...
Heh, I thought it was :)
Disc, Tea at 2:00
But yours makes more sense.
You weren't the only one. I couldn't figure out what "Tea at 2:00" had to do with burning CDs. Unless Yamaha had been recently purchased by an British company or something.
Besides one friend of mine and the one sitting on my floor, I have not seen a custom built machine out in the wild for 4+ years.
That's largely a matter of your environment. Three of my five systems are custom built (of the others one is a laptop and the other I bought from work for $25). Two of my parents three computers are custom (the third I bought for them from work for $25). Out of the dozen or so friends that I have (most of which have multiple PCs) I only know of three non-custom systems. One of those is a laptop, one of them is another $25 "special" from work that I gave him for a firewall (that he uses with his 3 custom boxes), and the third is a Mac.
Outside of laptops and Macs, the only non-customs I see outside of work are ones that I bought from work on the cheap.
Do any /. readers have a white box computer? Were there any significant issues regarding warranty, price, or component quality? And most importantly, would you recommend a White Box over a Big Name for people looking to purchase a new computer?
I bought a white-box in 1994. At the time I felt that it was a better deal because I knew that I could go to someone locally and raise hell if I had any issues. At the time, the white-box builders were really the only people who were doing the "build to order" thing as well.
At the time the price and warranty were pretty comparable to the big brands. I imagine that the terms are comparable today. But the benefit of a Big Three (or is it Big Two now?) warranty is that it is often times an onsite warranty, which can be very much convenient. As far as component quality...well...it can be hit or miss. The key is finding a reliable screwdriver shop. The real issue is that it's hard to compete with the economy of scale that Dell or HPaq have, so usually the "pre-packaged" options from the local shop will be using less expensive components. Usually integrated motherboards with lower performing parts but sometimes they will be just plain substandard (PC Chips, anyone?). As long as you know what you are buying from a local shop, there shouldn't be much of an issue there.
As far as my recommendation, it depends. If you don't have a lot of computer knowledge or experience, I'd say go with one of the Big Three. They usually have different offerings tailored exactly to your needs (i.e., software bundles targetted at kids, home finances, etc). Most white-boxes don't come with any software besides the OS.
The Big Three also tend to be much better at supporting clueless newbie types. Plus, most of them offer 24/7 support lines while with a screwdriver shop you're usually left with the 9-5 guys. Also, for the less experienced it's usually better to have the onsite warranty than to drag your system in. Unplugging components tends to freak them out.
Some people say that the expandability of having a standard white-box PC will beat having non-standard components when it's time to upgrade. This is true, but only if you a) intend to upgrade at some point and b) have the knowledge to do it. Don't even get a newbie started on upgrading the processor or system board.
That being said, if you are a computer literate and you know what you want, and you know that you can largely support yourself, and you trust the shop then go white-box.
A good computer can cost as much as $4000 from a large computer corporation. If you buy the same PC you could expect to pay less (in the range of 250-500). This is quite a sum of money and most people will jump at the chance to save this on their new PC.
I think that you probably ought to qualify your statement by defining a "good computer." At the company where I work (45,000+ desktops) our standard PC is an IBM Netvista, and they usually run about $1000 each without a monitor. We do have a very limited number of Intellistation workstations that we use for financial modelling and forecasting, but even those don't cost us $4000.
If by "good computer" you mean a multiprocessor Pentium 4 Xeon system with RAID 5 Ultra160 SCSI, gigabit fiber NIC, 4 gigs of RAM, and a 128MB Nvidia super-duper-ooper video card and a DVD-R, then I could see your point. But I've seen systems advertised with an Athlon XP 2200+, 256 MB DDR RAM, 64 MB Nvidia card, 80 GB hard disk, a DVD-ROM, CDRW, and a 17" LCD display for around $2200, with an inkjet printer thrown in for kicks.
Back in 1993-1994 it was not uncommon for a "top of the line" desktop PC to cost $4000, but of course the "average" PC cost $2500-$3000 at the time. Nowdays the average PC retails for under $1000 with a monitor, and "top end" consumer or business models rarely go over $2000.
If you had an earlier VIA board, you might be singing a different tune.
I'm guessing that I wouldn't be since I've had other VIA boards and even mentioned that in my original post. I suspect you just glossed over it though.
In fact I had 3 different VIA boards before buying my current VIA board. They were an FIC PA-2007 (old-school socket 7), an FIC PA-2013 (Super Socket 7 ATX) and an FIC VA-503+ (Super Socket 7 AT). All of them worked fine for me and I've never used anything but Creative Labs sound cards in any of them. The SB Live!, SB 128, and even the old SB AWE32 that I have work fine in them. The PA-2007 was passed down from me to my father and he used it with his Creative sound card until he bought a new system last month. Now it's his webserver. Of the PA-2013 and the VA-503+, one of them is my webserver and the other is my "toy" box that I use to experiment with.
I first got turned onto VIA products when the PA-2007 was proclaimed the fastest Socket-7 board around. I ditched my old i430VX board for the PA-2007 shortly thereafter. Ever since then I've found their products to be stable, fast, compatible and considerably more affordable than other offerings. I've used nothing but VIA products ever since.
Why, what's wrong with VIA and Creative Labs? I've got an Epox board based on the VIA KT-266A and I've not had any problems with my old Soundblaster Live! I didn't have any problems with it when it was in my old VIA-based Socket-7 board either.
Yes, you can get mortgages for unbuilt structures. They have higher interest rates, but it's generally not a huge issue.
I don't know for sure, but I would expect that once the home was completed that you could conceivably get re-financed at a more normal rate. With the bonus that if your completed home is worth more than it cost to build (not all that uncommon I should think) you could end up with some automagic equity built in.
Among my immediate friends and acquaintances, *two* are still working in the IT field. Another is a certified Oracle DBA decorating cakes in a supermarket (last I heard), another is getting into marketing, a third is talking about opening a sub franchise store in the Middle East, and I'm signed up for some sysadmin training so I can get past the "ten years of related experience, but never in my job title" barrier. That's 66% unemployment, far beyond the unemployment rate in the great depression.
Really? Then by your own logic we have a 0% unemployment rate since all of my friends are gainfully employed in our chosen fields. Cool! I love this economy...
I guess what I'm trying to say here is that all statistics are lies, for the very reason that you demonstrated with your own "statistical analysis" of the situation.
I was acutally worked with James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau on prototyping this device, a fact left out in the article. The trickiest part was dialing. We initially settled on using a combination of light taps on the tooth with the tongue to initiate calls, but we ran into a problem. When I tried to pick up women in bars with the old "tying a cherry stem into a knot" trick, I inadvertantly rang up 9-1-1.
Back to the drawing board.
Specially when it's been announced today [bbc.co.uk] that mobile phones pose a health risk.
Yes, but then they've been reported to not be a health risk, and then they were a health risk, and then they weren't, and so on and so on and so on for a couple years now. Considering the amount of "health risk" the average person endures on a daily basis I think that it's silly to split hairs over mobile phones. Could they give you cancer? Possibly. But so does half the stuff I eat, secondhand smoke from bars, and electromagnetic radiation from any of a dozen other possible sources in my environment. Can they prove that my use of a cellphone will take a year off my life? 5 years? 10 years? If not, what's the point? I could use a cellphone for four hours a day every day and die in a car wreck at age 35.
If you look through the Slashdot archives, MSNBC has historically been one of the loudest mainstream (read: not theregister.co.uk) MSFT-criticisers. This is typical of them.
While it is certainly critical of Microsoft, the articles goes to great pains to praise all the things that MS is doing to improve the security and reliability of their products. What they didn't criticise is that after their two months of bug fixing they are STILL being hit with massive, exploitable bugs in their software.
I think the story was just an urban legend. For a geiger counter to be reading that high from across the street, the radiation near the source would have to be pretty intense.
You don't say? Well...perhaps if you had actually read the linked article rather than the 2 sentence blurb that describes it you would have known that the radiation at that point was quite intense. In fact, that's about the time that he decided that the reactor was dangerous and dismantled it.
It's seriously an old story, but it is nice to know that this guy is helping out the Navy with their reactors.
Seriously, who better to monitor these mothers than a guy who can make a backup on his own?
Except that he's not helping the Navy out with their reactors. He's just regular Joe Seaman, swabbing the decks and what-not. It was mentioned at the end of the article that it was probably for the best considering his past exposure to radiation.
Why would Slashdot put this as news when it happened years ago and most of us remember it?
I had never heard of it and found it a quite interesting read.
If I remember my ancient history properly, Commodore thought a good way to get to the masses was to sell product through K-Mart.
All that got them was the same reputation that Kame-Apart's crappy TVs had.
It made them a non-business option for whole legions of companies when they were still considered a viable option for businesses.
Are you going to install Lindows based PCs in your Fortune 500 enterprise when Wal-Mart sells them? Probably not.
First off, I'd like to point out that Commodore computers were always targetted at the home market, not Fortune 500 businesses. It made good business sense to sell your home PCs where people shopped for things for their homes, ie, Kmart, Target, Sears, Service Merchandise, etc.
Secondly, Commodore's home PCs didn't have nearly the sort of negative connotation that you seem to think they did. Were they the choice of big businesses? No. Were they one of the best options available for the home market? Yes. Were they consistently ahead of the curve as far as features and capabilities in a home PC? Yes.
And finally, just because something is sold at Wal-Mart doesn't make it cheap. Wal-Mart sells quality brand-name products. I shop at WallyWorld somewhat regularly and I've never purchased anything from them but brand name products. Yes, there are Wal-Mart "generic" brands (like Sam's Choice and Equate and the like), but Kroger's and Giant Eagle and many other large retailers also have their house brands. Does that make a brand-name product purchased from them any less of a brand-name?
Here's a little secret for you...I used to work for a food company that made several well-known national brands of pasta, sauces, soups, etc. One of the larger portions of their business was also making "generic" store-brand products for the large chain stores that sold our brand-name products. The same quality control and recipes were used, but the packaging had a different name on it. So what you think is an inferior store-brand product is often times no different that what you're paying an extra 98 cents for.
Actually, that's NOT what the customer will do - they'll try to call the software company that MADE the product, whose 800# is right in the user manual and ask why the software isn't running.
It's obvious that you've been using Open Source for awhile. It's been years since I've seen a toll-free support line in a shrinkwrap software manual. There are plenty of 1-900 numbers though...
This software manufacturer will have one of a few unpalatable choices...>
He can tell the user to FO, causing user to return said package, causing WalMart to return said package , reducing revenues for himself.>
He can blame WalMart for selling "ersatz" Windows, getting WalMart PO'ed at him about finking them out to the user, ultimately losing the distro channel.>
They can get a copy of Lindows and rewrite their code so that it runs under Wine (maybe even contribute to Wine to get their software to run).
You're overly optimistic with your assessment I think. What is most likely to happen is that the user will spend a little bit of time and money getting in contact with the application vendor. The vendor's call center rep will ask which version of Windows they are running. The user will say "Lindows OS." The call center rep will say "I've not heard of that...is it Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows 2000, or Windows XP?" The user will say "Neither," and the call center rep will say "We only support this program on version of Microsoft Windows, I can't help you. Thanks for calling."
You see, Lindows may be a great idea. It may even be a great product. But it's not Windows and until the system requirements on the application's box say "runs on Lindows OS" then it doesn't matter how Windows-like it is.
Walmarts idea is probably something like this: they can save money on the computers this way, and they probably don't really care about what their customers use it for (do they have a reason to? Do they have to offer support etc.?), so that would explain things....
I think that this is the real reason. They don't want to catch 10 kinds of hell from MS about selling "naked" PCs, so they throw Lindows on it instead. Net cost to them? Nothing. Bitching from MS about selling naked PCs? None. Net loss to a consumer who wants a naked PC in order to install a pirated copy of Windows? None. Bitching from MS about selling PCs with a competitor's product? None, if MS doesn't want to put a neon sign over their collective heads that reads "illegal use of monopoly power".
Besides, what likely is going to happen is that a user will get it home with Lindows, find out that it isn't Windows and it won't run whatever game they want to play, and then they'll come back to WallyWorld to buy a full copy of Windows XP. That's a bigger sale to WalMart and a bigger sale for MS. The only people who really have anything to lose from it are the Lindows folks who stand to gain a fair amount of negative press if they piss off consumers. Instead of looking like a company that is trying to bring Linux to the mainstream user with an easy-to-use compatible Windows-like interface they run the risk of looking like someone peddling a cheap knock-off that is trying to trade on Microsoft's name.
The Wal-Mart crowd? I shop at Wal-Mart regularly and there is one in the suburb that I live in. I'd hardly consider myself or any of my neighbors to be rednecks, hillbillies, or "billy joe bobs". Sure, Wal-Mart had it's roots in rural communities in Arkansas, but they've gotten as big as they are by offering brand-name products at reasonable prices. They still sell Gamecubes and PS2s and Xboxes just like Best Buy. They've increased their marketshare and presence in urban areas and more upscale suburbs because they offer a good value proposition, just like any other store would. They are no longer the niche player that is only present in small town USA.
I know that this is an unpopular view, but you're supposed to be at college to study and earn a degree. Everything else--a distant second. While your daddy or the student loans are paying the bill, you're supposed to be getting an education, not "sharing" the latest flight-sim on the university dime.
Blah blah blah...here is someone who obvious didn't enjoy university life.
While I do believe that the primary purpose for attending university is to get an education, one would be a fool for thinking that there were not other secondary benefits of campus life that are equally as valuable or important in the development of individuals. When one is at college it is a moral imperative to avail oneself of everything that is a part of college life. Anything less will leave you highly educated and woefully maladjusted to reality.
If broadband companies would just block ports of the major P2P programs, it should curb the bandwidth usage greatly.
Yes, but then someone at Kazaa or Napster or whoever is the Next Big Thing changes the port that their application uses, and bow suddenly you have to keep running just to stay in place (Red Queen).
The current equation is supposedly "expenses > revenues". You have two options to shift the balance, either decrease expenses or increase revenues. But what if you can increase your revenues first and then decrease your expenses later on? Suddenly your profits go up even higher...
The broaband ISPs have no interest in reducing the usage of their customers. They just want to make more money off of the usage that is already there.
NTL in the UK allow servers, albeit not publicly advertised on the internet
Interesting. I wonder if accepting anonymous connections on port 80 is considered to be publicly advertising the existance of a server on the Internet...
I found it interesting that AOL/Time-Warner wasn't mentioned in this article, yet they are one of the biggest cable companies and broadband ISPs in the country. I also find it interesting that when advertising for their high speed RoadRunner or AOL Broadband service that they tout the virtue of being able to download streaming audio and video along with other bandwidth consuming entertainment option.
Is it just me, or are they caught in a bit of a "rock and a hard place" situation in that they are trying to develop business models that provide the bandwidth consuming content while still trying to make broadband profitable? Are consumers really willing to let AOL/TW ding them for exceeding transfer limits all the while having AOL/TW trying to charge them for the privilege of access to broadband content? I mean, it looks good in that they can charge for content AND the method of access to the content, but will people really pay them twice for it?
and how can you boycott by giving up cable? If you depend on highspeed, it's the only gig in town!
In some cities there are multiple cable companies servicing a given area. We have three cable companies in central Ohio, and most communities have some overlap between two of them. If you don't want either of them then there are the various satellite companies (Dish, DirecTV, etc) that are available just about anywhere in the country. If you want broadband we have several DSL options as well as cable (two of the three cable companies offer broadband service). Not only that, but the cable companies are supposed to have opened up their broadband networks to competition from other ISPs, i.e., if you have Time-Warner you can choose from RoadRunner, AOL, Earthlink or possibly even other ISPs over you cable lines.
think in this situation, a 'chunnel' or something like it would make more sense, not just because it would be more durable,
Except during times of high seismic activity, for which the area is known. The articles also stated that Sicily drifts northwards about 3 feet per century, and shifting that is likely much easier for a suspension bridge to cope with than a tunnel.
but because a big bridge like this will disrupt shipping lanes during construction,
If there are no pylons in the water as planned, disruption during construction should be minimal.
and possibly dangerous to ships after it is completed.
The articles stated that the bridge will be some 230+ feet above sea level which allows enough clearance for US aircraft carriers. That should leave plenty of room for cargo ships.