The fact is, consumers will go on buying all sorts of products that do much worse things than get viruses or spyware.
Ah yes, they will. But most people, if they have a bad experience with a particular brand of product, will often choose a different brand for the next purchase. Only in the product category of 'Computer OS', is that not feasible. Heck most people are barely aware that it is a seperate category from 'Computer', due to MS' backhanded tactics with the OEM's
"... policies in place to ensure that MS can't have monopolies... "
LOL. What weird neo-world are you living in? In the world I live in, MS has maintained an illegal monopoly and continues to do so even after being convicted of doing so.
The reason people still use Windows is that
Some people are sheep - they use whatever they get and are fo the most part unaware that there is anything else. MS has 'agreements' with most major 'consumer' computer sellers that ensure Windows is included on every x86 machine sold. Some people go beyond merely being led by the nose and actually beleive Windows is better because its so 'popular' - they don't understand the difference between 'popular' and 'monopoloy', especially when it comes to proprietary file formats ("Word", "Excel", etc) that MS has managed to wedge into the business world as pseudo 'standards'.
A true 'standard' document format would be one that was fully and freely documented so that anyone that wanted to could write their own software to be able to fully interpret and create data in that format, and not require use of a specific brand of software or OS - keeps the details of the 'Word' and other formats secret - the little ability that other apps have to use them comes from reverse engineering/guesswork, or use of MS libs (which of course only works for software that runs on Windows systems)
Basically, the problem is that too many people support MS' monopoly, some passively, some actively, but in both cases out of ignorance (in some cases greed, for instance the MCSE's out there who wouldn't be able to get jobs as easily if businesses started phasing out legacy MS systems.
The only way the MS monopoly will be broken is if more and more people start refusing to be led by the nose. Refuse to accept 'DOC' files, refuse to provide them (send PDF's instead). The next time you buy a PC from a 'big name' company, demand that they sell you only hardware, and refuse to pay for a bundled copy of Windows - if they refuse, make as much noise about it as you can - if possible, buy from another vendor that will, or find a local shop that will build you one - often you'll end up with a better machine anyway.
If you are unable to have a conversation with the occupants of your car without weaving around like a drunk driver, then you definitely should not attempt to do so (either that or perhaps you need to choose different occupants and/or topics of discussion)
I would offer that one should not be having any sort of conversation that would distract you from the road, either with occupants or a cellphone. One should *definately* not try to use a handheld phone while driving for any sort of conversation - with the possible exception of a 5 second "Im on my way home" type of call, preferrably while you are stopped at a red light.
Then I would suggest drivers not do that either. Presumably a child old enough to converse with would at least have an awareness of your driving (or if they didnt, you'd be willing and able to ignore them if keeping the car out of an accident and them alive warranted it).
And yes, I've seen parents turning around while driving and yelling at kids while driving too - and would certainly agree that its just as dangerous (And would hope that if a cop saw someone doing that they would pull them over and at least chew them out, it certainly qualifies as 'reckless driving' IMNSO)
Perhaps rather than making a new law saying you can't use your cellphone, just allow the definition of 'reckless driving' to include cellphone use.
You are the second person with that point - see my eariler reply on the same topic - basically, the people in the car are aware of the road, and that their life depends on the driver not ramming a semi-head on, and arent going to distract the driver, and may even call attention to hazards they see. Someone at the other end of a cell can't do that, even assuming the driver has made them aware that he is in fact driving.
I would suspect that most use of On-Star was limited to emergencies, where you are either already stopped in an accident (possibly due to someone talking on a cellphone:), or you are reporting a road hazard, or something else directly related to your driving. You aren't going to be having conversations with the operators - they surely realize that you are in a vehicle, and may even be able to tell if you are moving or not, and prompt you to pay attention to the road if needed.
Basically, OnStar *is* a cellphone, but 1. its always handsfree, and 2. Its not a phone you can call your gf, wife, lawyer, client, boss, co-worker, etc, on and jabber away oblivious to the road and other cars, like people do with their cells.
The other occupants of the car are far more acutely aware of the driving environment, and have the sense to not stop talking if the road conditions suddenly demand the drivers full attention. The driver is aware of this, so doesnt have to explain why they suddenly stopped talking. In fact other occupants of the vehicle, might even be able to shout 'HEY! Watch out for that semi!', if the driver was busy talking and didnt notice it.
The person at the end of the cellphone may not even be aware that their conversation partner is in the middle of driving down the highway unless specifically told, and even then arent as nearly acutely aware of the drivers need to pay attention to the road, nor are their lives as directly and immediately dependent on it, as other occupants of the car would be.
Except for very short, very quick, non-conversation type calls, if you are driving you should *NOT* be talking on the damn phone. And even then only if you are a very experienced driver, driving on familiar roads in familiar traffic. And if you arent sure wether you qualify - you dont - pull over to make your call.
Even if you manage not to kill yourself, you are sure as hell annoying people around you - I cant count the times Ive been stuck behind some idiot crusing along in the left lane with a phone glued to his ear.
My point was that my solution for eliminating windows security risks was to eliminate windows entirely. Actually, eliminate might be the wrong word, since the last time I installed windows on a machine owned my myself was when windows 3.1 was the current version - I needed something that supported PPP so that I could connect to the net and download the slackware disk images.
I run mozilla, and its 100% disconnected from any and all security weaknesses in Windows - I run it on Linux (and occasionally FreeBSD). Windows itself *is* a security weakness.
Most web hosting contracts specifically include language to the effect of "we can terminate you for anything we get a wild hair about, and you agreee to this as a condition of service with us".
I don't doubt non-governmental entities can be evil (heck look at MS). But that doesnt change the fact that a private company is under no obligation to continue services to a customer it doesnt like, for pretty much any reason, especially when the services involved use private infrastructure (eg networks) owned by that company, and when there is a thriving competitive market for the provision of those services (eg, the customer can easily find someone else to provide them)
ThePlanet does not have the capability to censor - since it does not control any means of publishing other than its own. It does however have the full right to choose what it will *participate* in the publishing of, and I dont consider it's exercising that right censorship of any kind.
Even government's ability to suppress material they don't like is getting pretty thin, although I would agree that 'Censorship' would be the appropriate term for a governent attempting to do so, regardless of wether the attempt was successful.
There a simple solution to that. And one thats entirely reasonable - restrict connectivity on college networks to properly licensed software (where that could be either non-pirated windows, or FOSS, which is licensed for use to anyone that wants it)
This may well drive home the point to more and more people about the costs associated with using proprietary software in general, and Windows in particular.
Censorship would only be an appropriate term if it was a *government* preventing access to information.
PRIVATE COMPANIES (such as ThePlanet) *ARE* free to choose to provide, or not provide, their services (hosting, connectivity) to whoever they want, using just about any criteria they want.
They should just post the image of the floppy, and linux users could download that, and dd it to a floppy. Heck if they linked to RAWRITE.EXE they could ditch the 'tool' and anyone could use it.
It always seemed to me to be silly to distribute a 'program' to create a floppy rather than just distributing the floppy image itself.
I think perhaps it would be more accurate if one said, that in any market MS enters, they force the existing players to lower their prices by either selling cheap 'good enough' software (that has wide open holes, but the PHB types buying it don't realize that until later) or even giving it away, until those existing players are first forced to lower prices, and then are lucky if they arent forced to abandon the market completely.
MS isn't about making better products at reasonable prices, or even about fair competition.
MS has the unfair advantage of having a near stranglehold on the 'consumer' desktop OS (and that includes business 'consumers' as well), and if they decide they want to control a market, anyone currently in that market is doomed. (With one exception being if they decide to buy one of the existing companies, in which case the owner(s) will make a few bucks, but the employees will eventually be shafted - and any other competitors will still be screwed)
Why not take their money selling them ads on a site where the users will never beleive their hype? OSDN gets money, MS gets nothing. Sounds like a good deal to me.
Uhm.. Ordered to show them what, exactly? Pretty much every bit of Linux source code is and was GPL and available to anyone that wanted it. Anything that IBM hasnt made public, isn't part of Linux.
A. 'Propogation' is a myth. Changes do not 'propogate'. What there actually is is 'caching'. *IF* a users ISP had previously queried for some info, it will cache it, and if it is changed at the auth server before the cached data times out, then the user will continue to see the old data until it does. But if a change is made for a domain, and you then go to an ISP at which no one has accessed that site, you will immediately get the new data.
B. The root servers wouldnt be the target, individual resolvers at ISP's or company networks would, the attacker would only be changing the info that users of *that* ISP/company were seeing, the rest of the net (and the target bank/etc) wouldnt know the difference. In fact modifying the 'hosts' file is basically that, but it only affects that one machine.
C. Yes, check the certificates. And if a legit site has a bad cert, dont use it, and instead call the company running the site and scream at them to fix it, becuase as far as you are concerned its down.
I would hope everyone that visits slashdot probably knows most of this, but may not know how to explain it clearly to a non-savvy relative or friend. I beleive this advice is the best available for such folk, I give permission for it to be copied, pasted, printed, etc, by anyone hoping to help anyone they know avoid being taken in by a scammer.
-----
DO NOT click on links in any email you receive that purports to be from any organization or company that has anything to do with your finances, credit, identity, or security.
If you receive such an email, and you are not 100% sure that you know how to check it for authenticity (which involves checking the full headers of the message, as well as the full source of the message to see the *actual* URL of any included links [which in a phish email, may differ greatly from the URL your end-user email program displays in the message]), then DO NOT CLICK.
If you suspect such a message may really from who it purports to be, then call them directly, and explain that you are concerned about the email and ask that they confirm its content as legitimate (most of the time, that would mean calling them - if the email says not to call, thats a pretty good sign that its fake - no legitimate company would discourage calling to verify the legitimacy of such an email.) It may also be a good idea to suggest that they avoid using email in that manner, to avoid any possibility of their customers falling victim to forgeries.
If the message claims your account or access is suspended, *STILL* DO NOT CLICK. Instead, close the message, open a *NEW* browser window, and TYPE IN BY HAND the normal URL that you use to access that account or site, (and if the site involves money, or SSN's, that URL should start with https://, NOT http:// (note the 's'), and log in normally. If your account works and no notices are shown about it being suspended or whatever, thats a pretty good sign the email was a fake. Again, if you are remotely unsure, *CALL* them and ask. If its a bank, you should have a way to call them.
Two popular targets for the scammers are eBay and Paypal - email from either of those two sites will *always* include your full real name, it will NEVER say 'Dear PayPal user' or 'Deay valued ebay customer', or anything like that. If you are John Henry Smith, the email will say exactly that - 'Dear John Henry Smith'. Any email from either of those that doesnt have your full real name is pretty much guaranteed to be a fake.
Er, yes, I am aware of the existence of radar activated brake systems, but what does that have to do with my post, which was attempting to point out the significant change of meaning that occurs if one uses 'break' where one probably means to use 'brake'...
Selected definitions for 'break' (v):
1. To cause to separate into pieces suddenly or violently; smash.
2. To divide into pieces, as by bending or cutting: break crackers for a baby.
Selected definitions for 'brake' (n):
1. A device for slowing or stopping motion, as of a vehicle, especially by contact friction.
2. Something that slows or stops action.
Selected definition for 'brake' (v):
To reduce the speed of with or as if with a brake.
Although it would be handy to have a radar controlled system to brake the car to slow it down if it detected a potential collision.
Am I being nitpicky? I don't think so - keep in mind this wasn't posted by some random/. reader, it was posted by someone purporting to hold the title 'editor' - one of the primary duties of such a position is not only to not *make* mistakes (including common spelling errors), but to actually catch and correct them prior to 'publishing' material written by others.
You could theoretically set your site to add this to links by default for any anon posts, as well as 'new users', and come up with some criteria for posters before allowing them to post without the attribute (like a probationary period of a month or two, during which each users activity is evaluated (perhaps (semi)automatically), and then they are granted the ability to post links without the attribute. Perhaps even give those that have passed the probation the option to have the attribute or not (eg, if they want to post a 'hey here is a site that has it all wrong, they could leave it in to avoid increasing that sites rank)
Oops. I guess I'm not, since I'm in a Charter area, and (with the exception of a very few dense urban areas) you dont have a choice of cable company.
Cable vs DSL is better than nothing, and in some cases where one is in an area served by one of the large ILEC's (SBC, Verizon), you might even have a choice between multiple DSL providers, but when one is stuck in an area served by a small independent telco, which is exempt since it isnt defined as a 'monopoly', (even thought it really is, its just a smaller one) and isnt obligated to allow 3rd party DSL providers in, then you either have no DSL, or you have only incredibly expensive DSL from them.
Heck, if you wanted to really go overboard, you could buy or build one (or more) of the recently discussed 'digital picture frames', put it/them in his place, and set it up for remote picture loading.
I'm assuming there are no other relatives nearby that you could send the images to that are able/willing to print them on inkjet (or use one of those photo-print deals) and take them to him physically.
The unix box that you could log into remotely, place upload the pictures to (ftp, scp, whatever floats your boat), and then remote control to show them onscreen (or heck you could hook an inkjet printer to it, leave a supply of ink cartridges, and the paper and ink loading instructions next to, and you could just remotely print each image, and the local staff could tape them up in his room (and reload the printer supplies as needed)
You could even do both, have a printer, as well as a remote-control (or automated) slideshow.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah yes, they will. But most people, if they have a bad experience with a particular brand of product, will often choose a different brand for the next purchase. Only in the product category of 'Computer OS', is that not feasible. Heck most people are barely aware that it is a seperate category from 'Computer', due to MS' backhanded tactics with the OEM's
" ... policies in place to ensure that MS can't have monopolies ... "
LOL. What weird neo-world are you living in? In the world I live in, MS has maintained an illegal monopoly and continues to do so even after being convicted of doing so.
The reason people still use Windows is that
Some people are sheep - they use whatever they get and are fo the most part unaware that there is anything else. MS has 'agreements' with most major 'consumer' computer sellers that ensure Windows is included on every x86 machine sold. Some people go beyond merely being led by the nose and actually beleive Windows is better because its so 'popular' - they don't understand the difference between 'popular' and 'monopoloy', especially when it comes to proprietary file formats ("Word", "Excel", etc) that MS has managed to wedge into the business world as pseudo 'standards'.
A true 'standard' document format would be one that was fully and freely documented so that anyone that wanted to could write their own software to be able to fully interpret and create data in that format, and not require use of a specific brand of software or OS - keeps the details of the 'Word' and other formats secret - the little ability that other apps have to use them comes from reverse engineering/guesswork, or use of MS libs (which of course only works for software that runs on Windows systems)
Basically, the problem is that too many people support MS' monopoly, some passively, some actively, but in both cases out of ignorance (in some cases greed, for instance the MCSE's out there who wouldn't be able to get jobs as easily if businesses started phasing out legacy MS systems.
The only way the MS monopoly will be broken is if more and more people start refusing to be led by the nose. Refuse to accept 'DOC' files, refuse to provide them (send PDF's instead). The next time you buy a PC from a 'big name' company, demand that they sell you only hardware, and refuse to pay for a bundled copy of Windows - if they refuse, make as much noise about it as you can - if possible, buy from another vendor that will, or find a local shop that will build you one - often you'll end up with a better machine anyway.
If you are unable to have a conversation with the occupants of your car without weaving around like a drunk driver, then you definitely should not attempt to do so (either that or perhaps you need to choose different occupants and/or topics of discussion)
I would offer that one should not be having any sort of conversation that would distract you from the road, either with occupants or a cellphone. One should *definately* not try to use a handheld phone while driving for any sort of conversation - with the possible exception of a 5 second "Im on my way home" type of call, preferrably while you are stopped at a red light.
Then I would suggest drivers not do that either. Presumably a child old enough to converse with would at least have an awareness of your driving (or if they didnt, you'd be willing and able to ignore them if keeping the car out of an accident and them alive warranted it).
And yes, I've seen parents turning around while driving and yelling at kids while driving too - and would certainly agree that its just as dangerous (And would hope that if a cop saw someone doing that they would pull them over and at least chew them out, it certainly qualifies as 'reckless driving' IMNSO)
Perhaps rather than making a new law saying you can't use your cellphone, just allow the definition of 'reckless driving' to include cellphone use.
You are the second person with that point - see my eariler reply on the same topic - basically, the people in the car are aware of the road, and that their life depends on the driver not ramming a semi-head on, and arent going to distract the driver, and may even call attention to hazards they see. Someone at the other end of a cell can't do that, even assuming the driver has made them aware that he is in fact driving.
I would suspect that most use of On-Star was limited to emergencies, where you are either already stopped in an accident (possibly due to someone talking on a cellphone :), or you are reporting a road hazard, or something else directly related to your driving. You aren't going to be having conversations with the operators - they surely realize that you are in a vehicle, and may even be able to tell if you are moving or not, and prompt you to pay attention to the road if needed.
Basically, OnStar *is* a cellphone, but 1. its always handsfree, and 2. Its not a phone you can call your gf, wife, lawyer, client, boss, co-worker, etc, on and jabber away oblivious to the road and other cars, like people do with their cells.
The other occupants of the car are far more acutely aware of the driving environment, and have the sense to not stop talking if the road conditions suddenly demand the drivers full attention. The driver is aware of this, so doesnt have to explain why they suddenly stopped talking. In fact other occupants of the vehicle, might even be able to shout 'HEY! Watch out for that semi!', if the driver was busy talking and didnt notice it.
The person at the end of the cellphone may not even be aware that their conversation partner is in the middle of driving down the highway unless specifically told, and even then arent as nearly acutely aware of the drivers need to pay attention to the road, nor are their lives as directly and immediately dependent on it, as other occupants of the car would be.
Except for very short, very quick, non-conversation type calls, if you are driving you should *NOT* be talking on the damn phone. And even then only if you are a very experienced driver, driving on familiar roads in familiar traffic. And if you arent sure wether you qualify - you dont - pull over to make your call.
Even if you manage not to kill yourself, you are sure as hell annoying people around you - I cant count the times Ive been stuck behind some idiot crusing along in the left lane with a phone glued to his ear.
My point was that my solution for eliminating windows security risks was to eliminate windows entirely. Actually, eliminate might be the wrong word, since the last time I installed windows on a machine owned my myself was when windows 3.1 was the current version - I needed something that supported PPP so that I could connect to the net and download the slackware disk images.
I run mozilla, and its 100% disconnected from any and all security weaknesses in Windows - I run it on Linux (and occasionally FreeBSD). Windows itself *is* a security weakness.
Most web hosting contracts specifically include language to the effect of "we can terminate you for anything we get a wild hair about, and you agreee to this as a condition of service with us".
I don't doubt non-governmental entities can be evil (heck look at MS). But that doesnt change the fact that a private company is under no obligation to continue services to a customer it doesnt like, for pretty much any reason, especially when the services involved use private infrastructure (eg networks) owned by that company, and when there is a thriving competitive market for the provision of those services (eg, the customer can easily find someone else to provide them)
ThePlanet does not have the capability to censor - since it does not control any means of publishing other than its own. It does however have the full right to choose what it will *participate* in the publishing of, and I dont consider it's exercising that right censorship of any kind.
Even government's ability to suppress material they don't like is getting pretty thin, although I would agree that 'Censorship' would be the appropriate term for a governent attempting to do so, regardless of wether the attempt was successful.
There a simple solution to that. And one thats entirely reasonable - restrict connectivity on college networks to properly licensed software (where that could be either non-pirated windows, or FOSS, which is licensed for use to anyone that wants it)
This may well drive home the point to more and more people about the costs associated with using proprietary software in general, and Windows in particular.
Censorship would only be an appropriate term if it was a *government* preventing access to information.
PRIVATE COMPANIES (such as ThePlanet) *ARE* free to choose to provide, or not provide, their services (hosting, connectivity) to whoever they want, using just about any criteria they want.
Why do you need a 'tool' to 'create' a floppy?
They should just post the image of the floppy, and linux users could download that, and dd it to a floppy. Heck if they linked to RAWRITE.EXE they could ditch the 'tool' and anyone could use it.
It always seemed to me to be silly to distribute a 'program' to create a floppy rather than just distributing the floppy image itself.
I think perhaps it would be more accurate if one said, that in any market MS enters, they force the existing players to lower their prices by either selling cheap 'good enough' software (that has wide open holes, but the PHB types buying it don't realize that until later) or even giving it away, until those existing players are first forced to lower prices, and then are lucky if they arent forced to abandon the market completely.
MS isn't about making better products at reasonable prices, or even about fair competition.
MS has the unfair advantage of having a near stranglehold on the 'consumer' desktop OS (and that includes business 'consumers' as well), and if they decide they want to control a market, anyone currently in that market is doomed. (With one exception being if they decide to buy one of the existing companies, in which case the owner(s) will make a few bucks, but the employees will eventually be shafted - and any other competitors will still be screwed)
Why not take their money selling them ads on a site where the users will never beleive their hype? OSDN gets money, MS gets nothing. Sounds like a good deal to me.
Uhm.. Ordered to show them what, exactly? Pretty much every bit of Linux source code is and was GPL and available to anyone that wanted it. Anything that IBM hasnt made public, isn't part of Linux.
A. 'Propogation' is a myth. Changes do not 'propogate'. What there actually is is 'caching'. *IF* a users ISP had previously queried for some info, it will cache it, and if it is changed at the auth server before the cached data times out, then the user will continue to see the old data until it does. But if a change is made for a domain, and you then go to an ISP at which no one has accessed that site, you will immediately get the new data.
B. The root servers wouldnt be the target, individual resolvers at ISP's or company networks would, the attacker would only be changing the info that users of *that* ISP/company were seeing, the rest of the net (and the target bank/etc) wouldnt know the difference. In fact modifying the 'hosts' file is basically that, but it only affects that one machine.
C. Yes, check the certificates. And if a legit site has a bad cert, dont use it, and instead call the company running the site and scream at them to fix it, becuase as far as you are concerned its down.
I would hope everyone that visits slashdot probably knows most of this, but may not know how to explain it clearly to a non-savvy relative or friend. I beleive this advice is the best available for such folk, I give permission for it to be copied, pasted, printed, etc, by anyone hoping to help anyone they know avoid being taken in by a scammer.
-----
DO NOT click on links in any email you receive that purports to be from any organization or company that has anything to do with your finances, credit, identity, or security.
If you receive such an email, and you are not 100% sure that you know how to check it for authenticity (which involves checking the full headers of the message, as well as the full source of the message to see the *actual* URL of any included links [which in a phish email, may differ greatly from the URL your end-user email program displays in the message]), then DO NOT CLICK.
If you suspect such a message may really from who it purports to be, then call them directly, and explain that you are concerned about the email and ask that they confirm its content as legitimate (most of the time, that would mean calling them - if the email says not to call, thats a pretty good sign that its fake - no legitimate company would discourage calling to verify the legitimacy of such an email.) It may also be a good idea to suggest that they avoid using email in that manner, to avoid any possibility of their customers falling victim to forgeries.
If the message claims your account or access is suspended, *STILL* DO NOT CLICK. Instead, close the message, open a *NEW* browser window, and TYPE IN BY HAND the normal URL that you use to access that account or site, (and if the site involves money, or SSN's, that URL should start with https://, NOT http:// (note the 's'), and log in normally. If your account works and no notices are shown about it being suspended or whatever, thats a pretty good sign the email was a fake. Again, if you are remotely unsure, *CALL* them and ask. If its a bank, you should have a way to call them.
Two popular targets for the scammers are eBay and Paypal - email from either of those two sites will *always* include your full real name, it will NEVER say 'Dear PayPal user' or 'Deay valued ebay customer', or anything like that. If you are John Henry Smith, the email will say exactly that - 'Dear John Henry Smith'. Any email from either of those that doesnt have your full real name is pretty much guaranteed to be a fake.
Er, yes, I am aware of the existence of radar activated brake systems, but what does that have to do with my post, which was attempting to point out the significant change of meaning that occurs if one uses 'break' where one probably means to use 'brake'...
Selected definitions for 'break' (v):
1. To cause to separate into pieces suddenly or violently; smash.
2. To divide into pieces, as by bending or cutting: break crackers for a baby.
Selected definitions for 'brake' (n):
1. A device for slowing or stopping motion, as of a vehicle, especially by contact friction.
2. Something that slows or stops action.
Selected definition for 'brake' (v):
To reduce the speed of with or as if with a brake.
Although it would be handy to have a radar controlled system to brake the car to slow it down if it detected a potential collision.
Am I being nitpicky? I don't think so - keep in mind this wasn't posted by some random
You could theoretically set your site to add this to links by default for any anon posts, as well as 'new users', and come up with some criteria for posters before allowing them to post without the attribute (like a probationary period of a month or two, during which each users activity is evaluated (perhaps (semi)automatically), and then they are granted the ability to post links without the attribute. Perhaps even give those that have passed the probation the option to have the attribute or not (eg, if they want to post a 'hey here is a site that has it all wrong, they could leave it in to avoid increasing that sites rank)
If you are using IE, I'd be scared to follow any link if I were you.
Oops. I guess I'm not, since I'm in a Charter area, and (with the exception of a very few dense urban areas) you dont have a choice of cable company.
Cable vs DSL is better than nothing, and in some cases where one is in an area served by one of the large ILEC's (SBC, Verizon), you might even have a choice between multiple DSL providers, but when one is stuck in an area served by a small independent telco, which is exempt since it isnt defined as a 'monopoly', (even thought it really is, its just a smaller one) and isnt obligated to allow 3rd party DSL providers in, then you either have no DSL, or you have only incredibly expensive DSL from them.
Heck, if you wanted to really go overboard, you could buy or build one (or more) of the recently discussed 'digital picture frames', put it/them in his place, and set it up for remote picture loading.
I'm assuming there are no other relatives nearby that you could send the images to that are able/willing to print them on inkjet (or use one of those photo-print deals) and take them to him physically.
The unix box that you could log into remotely, place upload the pictures to (ftp, scp, whatever floats your boat), and then remote control to show them onscreen (or heck you could hook an inkjet printer to it, leave a supply of ink cartridges, and the paper and ink loading instructions next to, and you could just remotely print each image, and the local staff could tape them up in his room (and reload the printer supplies as needed)
You could even do both, have a printer, as well as a remote-control (or automated) slideshow.