There are two specific cases, however, in which a.NET Passport participating site will receive your profile information (except your password and secret question and secret answer) regardless of your check-box settings:
The participating site where you registered for your.NET Passport will receive the profile information you provided during registration.
If you registered an @msn.com, @hotmail.com, @webtv.net, or @compaq.net.NET Passport, then those e-mail domains will always receive your profile information when you visit their sites.
In general, the e-mail address associated with your.NET Passport account is not shared with.NET Passport participating sites or services. However, a few sites currently require your e-mail address in order to provide you their services. (For example, Hotmail requires your e-mail address to provide your requested e-mail services.) In those cases,.NET Passport will provide your e-mail address to those sites when you sign in to them.
So regardless of your check-box settings they may or may not provide your email address, and they WILL provide your info to the Microsoft sites (no surprise) and COMPAQ? If Compaq today, who will they add tomorrow? Do you really want to review the terms every time you surf the web, in case they've added someone else to that list?
My wife works at Microsoft and she's afraid to open a Passport account! (then again, she's tolerant of my Linux habit, so perhaps she's the exception)
Well, for starters I do not, and never will, have a Microsoft Passport. The reason is that I don't want them to have any info about me, period. I do not want them to know my address, for example.
But the point you seem to keep missing is that even if I were willing to share some of this info with Microsoft in order to access their game site, they would not share that info with anyone else. A Passport is different. They certainly DO share it with others -- they share it with any other Passport web site you visit, even if you wish to visit that site anonymously. Something you, as an Anonymous Coward, should appreciate. I'm surprised that you don't get it.
I assume you have to have a "MS Zone" account to play the games, what's the big deal about having a passport account instead?
It's a privacy thing. If you have a MS Zone account and you access some other site, that other site doesn't know who you are, let alone that you have a MS Zone account. Now, if you instead have a Passport in order to play at the MS Zone and go to that same other site, if they use Passport too then that other site not only knows who you are they know where you live and your phone number and your ISP and your credit card number(s) and any other info M$ has managed to collect about you. This may ease checkout at their online store, but if you're not there to buy anything why would you want them to know all this?
It remindes me of Tandy's long-bankrupt Incredible Universe, which wouldn't let you in the the door without a credit check. Hmm, I wonder why they're no longer in business?
You'd have to get fancy to get past 26 drive letters though,
Interestingly enough, in MS-DOS 1.0 you could have 64 block devices. M$ reduced the number to 26 in MS-DOS 2.0 (and then, in perhaps the first known example of their arrogance, claimed that DOS 2 was fully upward compatible with DOS 1) because they couldn't figure out how to identify numbers 27 through 64. I guess they didn't understand ASCII.
Besides, who on earth would want more than 26 block devices? [Uh, maybe the same folks who would want more than 640k of RAM? Naaah.]
So now, as then, if you want something out of the ordinary (i.e., something useful) don't use Micro$soft products. I think the suggestion of using Samba on Linux under VMWare to serve the ISO images to the host W2K box is your best bet.
You could really play some mind games. Copy the mag stripe info from your new Visa to your expired Texaco card, then wipe the Visa card blank. Thief steals your wallet, tosses the expired Texaco card and tries to use the Visa.:-)
You'll be lucky if the BIOS on that 486 can see beyond 4GB on an IDE drive.
You're right, the BIOS didn't support it. I used a Promise EIDEMAX 2 controller card (according to Pricewatch it's available for $22). Supports 2 drives up to 128Gig each. If your motherboard has PCI slots there are more choices.
Geeze, I didn't think it was that tough. I just used a Promise EIDEMAX 2 controller card (according to Pricewatch it's available for $22). Supports 2 drives up to 128Gig each. If your motherboard has PCI slots there are more choices.
That's what I use. As you said, "drives in the 10-20 gig range [are] only getting smaller and less expensive," so buy two and use one as a backup. If your box is full, put the backup drive in an old 486.
Actually, what I do is make the new (largest one I own) drive the backup drive, put the old backup drive into use as the primary drive, and retire the smallest one. Just make sure the new drive is as large as the others added together.
CD-R's are OK, but why bother with the hassle? Just run a cron job to copy the files every evening/hour/whatever.
You will not see that for at least a year. There are a few reasons:
1) X-Box is a product - if i can play the games elsewhere why should i buy an x-box? e.g. Halo looks like it rocks, and if the only place i can play it is on an X-Box then that means i have to buy one if i want to play it.
Geeze, is anyone paying attention? M$ looses money on every X-Box they sell. They make it up in royalties paid them for every game sold, which is why you won't see anyone come out with a simple CD/DVD that turns an X-Box into a general purpose Linux computer -- M$ would never grant you a license (i.e. give you a key to put on your CD/DVD), even if you did pay them the royalty. Hack/steal/reverse-engineer a key and they'll come after you with the DMCA.
So, given that the real money is in games and royalties from 3rd party games, why wouldn't they be happy if you bought X-Box games to play on your PC? But I'm guessing that the required video card (with the X-Box specific nVIDIA chip) would probably cost as much as an X-Box, so unless you really hate playing games on your television, why bother?
problem is getting an X server on windows...it would be easier to use VNC
No, the problem is getting a FREE X server for Windows. There are lots of commercial options, which, for a business, shouldn't be an issue. But for home, I'm with you -- I'm still looking for a good free X server!
Open a bank and credit card account just for paypal transactions and keep your operating capital in your main business account.
Isn't it a bit redundant to open a bank account just so you can use it to open a PayPal account?
I've used PayPal and worked as described. I was pleased and would use it more, but I'm at their introductory limit (I don't recall the amount -- $200?) and they won't let me continue without opening a regular PayPal account. OK, fair enough, but they won't let me do it with a simple credit card, it has to be my credit card *and* my checking account. My bank charges $5/month to set up an account for electronic payment, and I'm not about to do that just for PayPal. If I were interested in paying all my bills that way, maybe $5/month would be worth it, or maybe it would piss me off and I'd switch banks. But I'm not interested in electronic bill payment so I don't care if they charge $5 or $500/month.
The $5 aside, why should I give PayPal an open pipeline into my checking account when I intend to pay with my credit card? If they want a backup, I'd be happy to give them two credit card numbers, but I refuse to give them access to my checking account. And I don't see why I should open a 2nd checking account just for them.
But the problem is that you can't just "port to UNIX" You have to port to each and every one of them, and some even run on different archs (like sparc, x86, etc).
If you're running a stand-alone computer, yes. But in a business environment that's generally not the case. If you're stand-alone, run Star Office. If you need interoperability with other Micro$oft Office users you're probably in a business environment and have more than one computer running UNIX.
I used to work for a major aerospace company and we officially supported 3 UNIX flavors: HP, IBM, and Sun. You could also easily find others, including Cray! We wanted Office for UNIX -- *any* UNIX (we were Engineering; the other 80% of the company used Windoze/Office and we desired interoperability). The plan was to simply buy whatever box was needed to run Office for UNIX and let the clients access it via X-Windows. Ever hear of X-Windows? It's a really cool way to run UNIX software on one box and access it from another box -- and the other box doesn't even have to run UNIX, it can be a Windoze box if you prefer. Way cool technology, and we used it all the time to avoid having to port our code to all the "unofficial" UNIX platforms. You should try it.
Slashdot Mirror
My wife works at Microsoft and she's afraid to open a Passport account! (then again, she's tolerant of my Linux habit, so perhaps she's the exception)
But the point you seem to keep missing is that even if I were willing to share some of this info with Microsoft in order to access their game site, they would not share that info with anyone else. A Passport is different. They certainly DO share it with others -- they share it with any other Passport web site you visit, even if you wish to visit that site anonymously. Something you, as an Anonymous Coward, should appreciate. I'm surprised that you don't get it.
It remindes me of Tandy's long-bankrupt Incredible Universe, which wouldn't let you in the the door without a credit check. Hmm, I wonder why they're no longer in business?
Predictions:
Microsoft will block access to www.microsoft.com unless you have a Passport account.
When that happens, Slashdot will report it as 'news'.
Besides, who on earth would want more than 26 block devices? [Uh, maybe the same folks who would want more than 640k of RAM? Naaah.]
So now, as then, if you want something out of the ordinary (i.e., something useful) don't use Micro$soft products. I think the suggestion of using Samba on Linux under VMWare to serve the ISO images to the host W2K box is your best bet.
Actually, what I do is make the new (largest one I own) drive the backup drive, put the old backup drive into use as the primary drive, and retire the smallest one. Just make sure the new drive is as large as the others added together.
CD-R's are OK, but why bother with the hassle? Just run a cron job to copy the files every evening/hour/whatever.
So, given that the real money is in games and royalties from 3rd party games, why wouldn't they be happy if you bought X-Box games to play on your PC? But I'm guessing that the required video card (with the X-Box specific nVIDIA chip) would probably cost as much as an X-Box, so unless you really hate playing games on your television, why bother?
I've used PayPal and worked as described. I was pleased and would use it more, but I'm at their introductory limit (I don't recall the amount -- $200?) and they won't let me continue without opening a regular PayPal account. OK, fair enough, but they won't let me do it with a simple credit card, it has to be my credit card *and* my checking account. My bank charges $5/month to set up an account for electronic payment, and I'm not about to do that just for PayPal. If I were interested in paying all my bills that way, maybe $5/month would be worth it, or maybe it would piss me off and I'd switch banks. But I'm not interested in electronic bill payment so I don't care if they charge $5 or $500/month.
The $5 aside, why should I give PayPal an open pipeline into my checking account when I intend to pay with my credit card? If they want a backup, I'd be happy to give them two credit card numbers, but I refuse to give them access to my checking account. And I don't see why I should open a 2nd checking account just for them.
I used to work for a major aerospace company and we officially supported 3 UNIX flavors: HP, IBM, and Sun. You could also easily find others, including Cray! We wanted Office for UNIX -- *any* UNIX (we were Engineering; the other 80% of the company used Windoze/Office and we desired interoperability). The plan was to simply buy whatever box was needed to run Office for UNIX and let the clients access it via X-Windows. Ever hear of X-Windows? It's a really cool way to run UNIX software on one box and access it from another box -- and the other box doesn't even have to run UNIX, it can be a Windoze box if you prefer. Way cool technology, and we used it all the time to avoid having to port our code to all the "unofficial" UNIX platforms. You should try it.
If that means they have to distribute source that we then compile for our target OS/processor, so be it ;-)