Of course *if* more Sony titles begin requiring a subscription fee, then all of this could change, but right now that's a big IF to make a solid conlusion about the "Value added" of a product.
How much was your PS2 Network Adaptor?
$40
How much was your memory card?
$20
You've spent $60 to play online games on your Sony PS2. Xbox owners have spent $50 to play online games for a year.
So, even if you're lucky and all PS2 games remain free for the next 12 months, the cost for getting online with the two systems is still a wash for year one.
Been playing PS2 SOCOM U.S. Navy Seals online for a week with no subscription required. Took just minutes to set up and join an ongoing session (and there was a long list of games in progress and locales to choose from). No problems and right into play. The game was $60.00 and included a headset.
And we Xbox owners have been able to play Halo and other games online for several months now with no subscription required.
And now I'm playing Mech Assault, Unreal Championship, and others for about $5 a month. Sure, it might go up after this initial offer, but I'm still getting my $50 worth over the next 12 months regardless. It's a great deal.
btw...how much was that PS2 network adaptor you're using to play all those Free games? Oh and you need a memory card as well don't you?
So I buy an Xbox, have it connect through a sniffing proxy (a linux box with a modem and a serial nullmodem connection). Then I mod it, do the same. At this point, I should be able to start spoofing Xboxen, with fake or even strategically chosen GUIDs.
Hell, you might even just start carpet-bombing things.
Okay, so let's suppose you get these GUIDs and you.....?
What? What do you do with it? Connect to Xbox Live? Okay, but first you have to buy an Xbox Live starter kit, so you can get a subscription code and the required software. Not just one either, but one for each unique GUID you plan to sabotage. $50 a pop.
Okay, but you're a real genius and against all odds you figure out how to spoof subscription codes, and simply copy the software off of the net. Sure it's illegal, you're stealing $50 with each code, plus you've illegally copied the software, but you're determined. So install your stolen software, connect with your fake GUID, enter your fraudulent subscription code....
What's this? You need a credit card number to sign on. Damn, now you're looking at breaking real laws. The type that get you sent to Federal Pound Me In The Ass prison, but hey, you're messing with Microsoft, so I'm sure it's worth the risk to you.
Knowing how things always seem to happen, lets see how long it is before someone comes up with a way to make your X-Box report a different ID than it's original one, giving those people who got banned many extra chances.
The problem is that your Xbox's unique identifier co-exists with your unique credit card and your unique Xbox Live subscription number.
Change the Xbox's identifier and I bet you can't log on. Makes sense, as far as Microsoft is concerned it looks like someone is trying to log on to your account with their Xbox. I'm sure if you buy a new Xbox, you can call up Microsoft and work around this, but that's little help if you're not legit.
So maybe you can figure out a hack around the Xbox's identifier, but you better have another credit card and Xbox Live subscription to make use of it.
Free software --> Ability for poor countries to develop programmers --> Jobs --> Better Economy --> money for hospitals, doctors, medicine, HMO's
And during the 20 years or so while this plan of yours possibly pans out, should we just let the hungry and diseased starve and die? Or would you be okay if in the meantime Bill Gates give a few billion here and there to help those unable to currently help themselves?
Which do you think is more important to a kid at high risk of contracting meningitis. A vaccination, or a laptop with Linux? I'm thinking a vaccination, because Windows and Linux both suck when you're dead.
I think your presumption that just because those file formats all end in ".DOC", that they are in fact, the same. They are not. MS adds new features, and file-format supersets, to each new upgraded version of Word. If you didn't know that, then I'm sorry. You are rather ignorant then.
No, I don't presume at all that a file ending in ".doc" is the same format just based on that one fact.
Type a letter in Word XP
Open it in Word 95
Does it open without a converter? It sure does. Anything possible in Word 95 is still possible in Word XP and opens in both versions without a converter - that's because the share the same file format. Yes there are features in XP that won't show up when opened in 95, but those are new features and unless you invent a time machine, or relase new versions of a product that don't differ from the old there's no way around that.
Type a letter in Word XP
Open it in Word 6.0
Does it open with a converter? No it does not, becuase that was the last time the file format was different.
It wouldn't be so bad if MS just continued to improve their core (kinda like every other OS on the planet does), but it seems that with every revision or so they replace core functionality,radically change look and feel, interfaces
Windows 95, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows ME all shared the same interface/look and feel.
That's August 95 until November 2001, or 6 years without changing the interface/look and feel, so you may want to rethink your statement.
They haven't (as they traditionally do) changed it to make it incompatable? If I don't upgrade, and someone sends me a file saved in the new format, then yes I have lost functionality.
Word 95, Word 97, Word 98, Word 2000, Word XP
Q: What do the last 5 versions of Word have in common A: The share the same file format.
7 years, same file format. Changing the format doesn't seem like a tradtion to me.
Hitler did wonderful things for unemployment in germany but i have a hard time liking him better because of that. All the donations are also deductable and since Microsoft hardly pays any taxes it pretty much is a nullsum game.
Just as soon as you show me proof that either Bill Gates or Microsoft is responsible for the gruesome deaths of millions of people and other atrocities, I'll concede you have a point. Until then you just sound like every other insensitive idiot who compares their pet peeve to Hitler.
Next time you get the urge to compare Bill Gates to Hitler, why don't you visit the web site below. Perhaps it'll help you put things in perspective.
Are you suggesting that's all the Gates Foundation gave to charity this year?
You're dreaming if you think that's the case. Just go to the front page of their website and there's news of a $4 million grant to the Sacramento City Unified School District.
Being a reader of Slashdot, I'd hope you'd be able to use the website and easily find the following information:
Somehow I know you could have found this information, but chose to play stupid because it didn't suit your agenda. Go ahead, look at the above link, you'll see several multi million dollar donations that occured in just the last year.
Microsoft has been perjuring itself under oath and illegally maintaining its illegal monopoly (yes both the act and the monopoly are illegal) for quite some time.
Wrong. Microsoft was not found to have an illegal monopoly. They were found to be illegally maintaining a legal monopoly. It's a dangerous thing to get all your facts from posts on Slashdot. News.com isn't much better, but at least it's a reasonably accurate.
These were the four key issues before the appeals court and how it ruled:
Issue: Microsoft used illegal and anti-competitive means to maintain its monopoly in Intel-based operating systems.
Ruling: The court largely ruled in favor of the government, agreeing that Microsoft indeed maintained a monopoly in this area.
Issue: Microsoft attempted to extend that monopoly into the browser market.
Ruling: The court disagreed, reversing the previous ruling on attempted monopolization.
Issue: Microsoft's act of tying, or "bolting," its Internet Explorer Web browser to Windows 95 and 98 was an anti-competitive act.
Ruling: The court sent the tying section back to the trial court for review.
Issue: U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson failed to give Microsoft due process in determining his remedy, which resulted in an order breaking Microsoft into two companies.
Ruling: The court threw out the breakup order and removed Jackson from the case.
I can't find the source so quickly, but I seem to remember that Judge Jackson did not express any bias prior to the trial. At worst he expressed bias during, but I seem to remember he gave only interviews after the trial.
He gave interviews during the trial. Actually the trial is ongoing, so even if he gave a interview today he would be giving an interview during the trial. What he did was even worse, Jackson gave an interview while he was still hearing the case - that is the reason his impartiality is suspect.
In speeches and interviews with reporters after his historic ruling, Jackson made a number of remarks directed at Gates and Microsoft, but the interviews he granted during the trial left government lawyers scrambling to counteract the charge that Jackson was biased against the company and over-eager to punish it.
The interviews Jackson gave during the trial were embargoed, meaning they were not to be published until the trial's conclusion.
"The system would be a sham if all judges went around doing this," Edwards said. "The public has something at stake, it's the integrity of the system."
That your parents love you and could tell that Linux and Open Source ware very important to you, so they decided to give it a try because they knew it would make you happy?
Perhaps you mean to say Microsoft did the right thing, but not necessarily for the right reason.
Of course you can say that about anyone, except for maybe Jebus, but even he may have acted as he did just to promote his father's views. Who's to say?
Whether you want to produce professional documents, create stunning graphics, surf the Internet or simply update your résumé, Kinko's makes it easy and affordable, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
When you rent one of our Macintosh or Windows PC computer workstations, you'll be using state-of-the art machines loaded with popular operating systems, software, typefaces and Web browsers. Most Kinko's locations even have high-end design workstations with special software and high-resolution scanners for image manipulation.
Here is a list of software available on the rental computers at all Kinko's stores. If you don't see exactly what you're looking for, call your local store to see if they have it.
... Adobe Photoshop This photo-manipulation and design tool lets you produce compelling images for the printed page, the Web and virtually any other medium.
My estimate would be closer to the $3 than to the $100. Old technology and Intel has I'm sure long ago made back the investment on the fabs. Similarly with the graphics chip, although that probably costs more than the CPU.
The DVD-ROM drive is probably less than $10 (you can buy cheap ones retail for less than $40, you can buy a consumer DVD player for well under $100. The hard drive might be a little more but not much. The case is a few cents worth of plastic, and so on.
Stop it you're ruining the fantasy! Linux on the Xbox will too bankrupt Microsoft! I'm going to put my hands over my eyes and chant "La La La La" so I don't have to hear this!
>Don't you realize the potential of having a cheap web server farm? these boxes are worth 450
Go to pricewatch and put together the closest PC you can that approximates an Xbox. It costs no where near $400 (closer to about $275) and it'll come with a decent sized hard drive, standard USB ports, standard VGA out, and you don't have to remove and solder anything from/to the motherboard.
As a academic challenge, getting Linux on the Xbox is a worthwhile endeaver. As a way to hurt Microsoft, it's a complete waste of time. Few people will bother, and those that do will end up costing Microsoft hardly anthing at all.
Not to mention, Microsoft will no doubt find some way to tweak the Xbox that screws up all your hard work.
Yes. Computers are a tool for learning. Learning is more important than handing out money.
When you're child is dying before your eyes from lack of food or medicine I'm sure that a simputer will come in handy. Afterall, you could always trade it for food or medicine - at $200 a pop it should be worth a least a bag a rice and some multi vitamins.
Slashdot Mirror
How much was your PS2 Network Adaptor?
$40
How much was your memory card?
$20
You've spent $60 to play online games on your Sony PS2. Xbox owners have spent $50 to play online games for a year.
So, even if you're lucky and all PS2 games remain free for the next 12 months, the cost for getting online with the two systems is still a wash for year one.
And we Xbox owners have been able to play Halo and other games online for several months now with no subscription required.
And now I'm playing Mech Assault, Unreal Championship, and others for about $5 a month. Sure, it might go up after this initial offer, but I'm still getting my $50 worth over the next 12 months regardless. It's a great deal.
btw...how much was that PS2 network adaptor you're using to play all those Free games? Oh and you need a memory card as well don't you?
Hell, you might even just start carpet-bombing things.
Okay, so let's suppose you get these GUIDs and you.....?
What? What do you do with it? Connect to Xbox Live? Okay, but first you have to buy an Xbox Live starter kit, so you can get a subscription code and the required software. Not just one either, but one for each unique GUID you plan to sabotage. $50 a pop.
Okay, but you're a real genius and against all odds you figure out how to spoof subscription codes, and simply copy the software off of the net. Sure it's illegal, you're stealing $50 with each code, plus you've illegally copied the software, but you're determined. So install your stolen software, connect with your fake GUID, enter your fraudulent subscription code....
What's this? You need a credit card number to sign on. Damn, now you're looking at breaking real laws. The type that get you sent to Federal Pound Me In The Ass prison, but hey, you're messing with Microsoft, so I'm sure it's worth the risk to you.
The problem is that your Xbox's unique identifier co-exists with your unique credit card and your unique Xbox Live subscription number.
Change the Xbox's identifier and I bet you can't log on. Makes sense, as far as Microsoft is concerned it looks like someone is trying to log on to your account with their Xbox. I'm sure if you buy a new Xbox, you can call up Microsoft and work around this, but that's little help if you're not legit.
So maybe you can figure out a hack around the Xbox's identifier, but you better have another credit card and Xbox Live subscription to make use of it.
Media Page
And during the 20 years or so while this plan of yours possibly pans out, should we just let the hungry and diseased starve and die? Or would you be okay if in the meantime Bill Gates give a few billion here and there to help those unable to currently help themselves?
Which do you think is more important to a kid at high risk of contracting meningitis. A vaccination, or a laptop with Linux? I'm thinking a vaccination, because Windows and Linux both suck when you're dead.
Q: If I create a file in Word XP will it open without a converter in Word 95. .doc file format has not been changed since 1995.
A: Yes. Because the
No, I don't presume at all that a file ending in ".doc" is the same format just based on that one fact.
Type a letter in Word XP
Open it in Word 95
Does it open without a converter? It sure does. Anything possible in Word 95 is still possible in Word XP and opens in both versions without a converter - that's because the share the same file format. Yes there are features in XP that won't show up when opened in 95, but those are new features and unless you invent a time machine, or relase new versions of a product that don't differ from the old there's no way around that.
Type a letter in Word XP
Open it in Word 6.0
Does it open with a converter? No it does not, becuase that was the last time the file format was different.
Windows 95, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows ME all shared the same interface/look and feel.
That's August 95 until November 2001, or 6 years without changing the interface/look and feel, so you may want to rethink your statement.
If they don't like you, they eat you. Plain and simple.
One of Transmeta's major investors is Paul Allen, a.k.a. Co-Found of Microsoft, so I imagine things will be cordial.
Buzz Aldrin Punches Moon-landing Conspiracy Theorist
btw...The video is pretty funny!
Word 95, Word 97, Word 98, Word 2000, Word XP
Q: What do the last 5 versions of Word have in common
A: The share the same file format.
7 years, same file format. Changing the format doesn't seem like a tradtion to me.
Just as soon as you show me proof that either Bill Gates or Microsoft is responsible for the gruesome deaths of millions of people and other atrocities, I'll concede you have a point. Until then you just sound like every other insensitive idiot who compares their pet peeve to Hitler.
Next time you get the urge to compare Bill Gates to Hitler, why don't you visit the web site below. Perhaps it'll help you put things in perspective.
Photos: Germans Confront Nazi Atrocities
Are you suggesting that's all the Gates Foundation gave to charity this year?
You're dreaming if you think that's the case. Just go to the front page of their website and there's news of a $4 million grant to the Sacramento City Unified School District.
Being a reader of Slashdot, I'd hope you'd be able to use the website and easily find the following information:
Foundation Grants total 5.5 billion dollars.
Somehow I know you could have found this information, but chose to play stupid because it didn't suit your agenda. Go ahead, look at the above link, you'll see several multi million dollar donations that occured in just the last year.
Wrong. Microsoft was not found to have an illegal monopoly. They were found to be illegally maintaining a legal monopoly. It's a dangerous thing to get all your facts from posts on Slashdot. News.com isn't much better, but at least it's a reasonably accurate.
The decision: A breakdown
These were the four key issues before the appeals court and how it ruled:
Issue: Microsoft used illegal and anti-competitive means to maintain its monopoly in Intel-based operating systems.
Ruling: The court largely ruled in favor of the government, agreeing that Microsoft indeed maintained a monopoly in this area.
Issue: Microsoft attempted to extend that monopoly into the browser market.
Ruling: The court disagreed, reversing the previous ruling on attempted monopolization.
Issue: Microsoft's act of tying, or "bolting," its Internet Explorer Web browser to Windows 95 and 98 was an anti-competitive act.
Ruling: The court sent the tying section back to the trial court for review.
Issue: U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson failed to give Microsoft due process in determining his remedy, which resulted in an order breaking Microsoft into two companies.
Ruling: The court threw out the breakup order and removed Jackson from the case.
He gave interviews during the trial. Actually the trial is ongoing, so even if he gave a interview today he would be giving an interview during the trial. What he did was even worse, Jackson gave an interview while he was still hearing the case - that is the reason his impartiality is suspect.
Microsoft Appeal Panel Blasts Judge Jackson
In speeches and interviews with reporters after his historic ruling, Jackson made a number of remarks directed at Gates and Microsoft, but the interviews he granted during the trial left government lawyers scrambling to counteract the charge that Jackson was biased against the company and over-eager to punish it.
The interviews Jackson gave during the trial were embargoed, meaning they were not to be published until the trial's conclusion.
"The system would be a sham if all judges went around doing this," Edwards said. "The public has something at stake, it's the integrity of the system."
That your parents love you and could tell that Linux and Open Source ware very important to you, so they decided to give it a try because they knew it would make you happy?
Would you cut it out with those hepful suggestions? We're trying to complain about Microsoft here! We don't need no stinking facts getting in the way!
Perhaps you mean to say Microsoft did the right thing, but not necessarily for the right reason.
Of course you can say that about anyone, except for maybe Jebus, but even he may have acted as he did just to promote his father's views. Who's to say?
XBox has managed to take to number 2 slot in this market, although closely followed by the GameCube.
Nintendo hasn't even been all that close the last two months according to the sales figures from C.S. First Boston.
Xbox Sales
May - 229,000
Jun - 265,000
GameCube Sales
May - 111,000
Jun - 213,000
I think I see what you're getting at.
So do others...
Kinko's Computer Rental
Whether you want to produce professional documents, create stunning graphics, surf the Internet or simply update your résumé, Kinko's makes it easy and affordable, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
When you rent one of our Macintosh or Windows PC computer workstations, you'll be using state-of-the art machines loaded with popular operating systems, software, typefaces and Web browsers. Most Kinko's locations even have high-end design workstations with special software and high-resolution scanners for image manipulation.
Here is a list of software available on the rental computers at all Kinko's stores. If you don't see exactly what you're looking for, call your local store to see if they have it.
Adobe Photoshop
This photo-manipulation and design tool lets you produce compelling images for the printed page, the Web and virtually any other medium.
The irony...
The DVD-ROM drive is probably less than $10 (you can buy cheap ones retail for less than $40, you can buy a consumer DVD player for well under $100. The hard drive might be a little more but not much. The case is a few cents worth of plastic, and so on.
Stop it you're ruining the fantasy! Linux on the Xbox will too bankrupt Microsoft! I'm going to put my hands over my eyes and chant "La La La La" so I don't have to hear this!
Go to pricewatch and put together the closest PC you can that approximates an Xbox. It costs no where near $400 (closer to about $275) and it'll come with a decent sized hard drive, standard USB ports, standard VGA out, and you don't have to remove and solder anything from/to the motherboard.
As a academic challenge, getting Linux on the Xbox is a worthwhile endeaver. As a way to hurt Microsoft, it's a complete waste of time. Few people will bother, and those that do will end up costing Microsoft hardly anthing at all.
Not to mention, Microsoft will no doubt find some way to tweak the Xbox that screws up all your hard work.
When you're child is dying before your eyes from lack of food or medicine I'm sure that a simputer will come in handy. Afterall, you could always trade it for food or medicine - at $200 a pop it should be worth a least a bag a rice and some multi vitamins.