First - let me say I don't write drivers either, and can't answer the first part.
>Or perhaps the Linux Kernel driver developers could figure out a way to adapt Windows drivers to run, perhaps in an >interpreted or emulated fashion, on Linux (ala Virtual PC). Just a thought.
This is done to some extent by ndiswrapper, which uses windows drivers and an "emulation" layer for wireless cards, also by the captive ntfs project to allow writes to NTFS filesystems. These are sometimes criticized as being a crutch, or wrong for Linux development. They are also sometimes criticized as being slow (captive) and not exposing all features (ndiswrapper vs. kismet, for example). Personally, I'm of the opinion that they're a good thing, and may drive adoption and/or just make life easier, but native Linux drivers in-kernel is even better, and easier, too!
Only for State Farm Insurance (or investments, etc) customers, but they'll give you a free federal and one state filing through Turbotax online. Just login to their webpage and it should be on the left of your account summary.
If you have a policy/account with them, but haven't signed up on the webpage, it will take a few hours to a couple of days after you register for the link to appear.
Minitab runs under crossover office (and maybe plain old wine, too). I haven't used it since two semesters ago. Check c4.codewavers.com for more information, but basically, you need ie6 and the arial font installed first. Also see frankscorner.org for info on running IE under plain old Wine, if that route suits you better.
I know the philosophical arguments against Wine, and to some extent, I agree, but if it lets me do my assignments without rebooting, it's valuable until companies do native ports.
Real's unix/linux player is at least linked from the front page now, and the free player is only 1 page deep. Much better than before, but a direct download link from the front page would be nice.
As someone else mentioned, to some extent, you'll need to pick two of the three of battery life, high-res (color) screen, and low price. That said, ebooks are my preferred format for most reading, unless I need to highlight as I read.
Over the last 5 years, I've used a Palm IIIxe, a low-res b/w Clie s360, and most recently, a Zaurus 5600. Of all of them, I'd pick the s360 as the best device for ebook reading.
The palm was fine on battery life, and replaceale batteries meant you could grab a set anywhere, with NiMH AAA's doing the bulk of the work for me. The s360's battery life was still good, but not as good as the palm. Zaurus battery life, on the 5600, (which has a larger battery than the 5500), is probably 5-6 hours straight with the backlight on a low setting, and several days worth if you only use it a few hours a day.
Pros
Palm - great battery life, easy to replace, several good readers, like cspotrun.
Clie - good battery life, good backlight, and most importantly, has the Jog Wheel for scrolling with one hand. This is the nicest feature, IMO. Same software as PalmIII series. The memory stick is great for carrying around more titles
Zaurus - Nice color screen, very good resolution, decent battery life, WiFi for grabbing new titles from Project Gutenberg, 2 expansion card options (SD & CF), and several good readers, such as QTReader, which supports many formats, and Gutenbrowser, which allows searching, downloading, and reading gutenberg ebooks in one nice little program. Overall, my favorite PDA so far.
Cons
All - No support for MS Reader.lit format. To deal with.lit files on other platforms, there's always open c-lit which works quite well.
Palm - low-res screen doesn't show as much text at a time, only a few font sizes available
Clie - same as above, plus, if batteries die, you can't pick up a fresh pair at a convenience store
Zaurus - Battery life only ok, spare batteries are available, but costly. No scroll wheel, or it would get my vote for the best.
Overall, the Jog Dial on the Clies get's them my vote for the best. I've also used my wife's high-res color Clie SJ-22 on occasion, and it seems ok, but small for my hands. For strictly ebook purposes, I'd suggest an older Clie, either low res, or high res b/w. For a general PDA, the Zaurus is great, and the lack of a Jog Dial isn't that big of a deal.
Having lived for 2 years in Austria, Switzerland, and Germany, I'd have to concur. It's not a greater appetite for porn in Europe, it's simply a more accepting view of the fact that "skin is skin", regardless of whom it may be attached to. We, in the US, on the other hand, act shocked about skin in non-sexual situations, but, as evidenced by spending on "adult entertainment", seem to have a great appetite for skin.
It's this dichotomy that really gets to me - raising a public outcry against it, while still consuming it.
Or, for those who are poor students, or otherwise fairly poor, there's Intuit's Taxfreedom site. It won't become live for the 2003 season until mid-January 2004, but it's for those who have less than a certain AGI; in 2002, less than $27,000. It provides free federal and state filing, and since it's essentially Turbotax for the web, it can do most, if not all forms. It's even Mozilla friendly, or was last year. A good resource for those who need it.
I won't claim that Linux would be the best, nor will I claim that XP would be the best, however, we're talking about a STANDARDIZED install here. That means it comes preloaded with whatever it needs, and all the drivers, and (presumably, from the article) built-in wireless, so no swapping out of cards, or modprobing anything. In fact, under no circumstances should they get administrator access under any OS if you want ease of administration. They will be browsing & writing, not developing & compiling.
You could have an efficient system with WinXP, all drivers installed, & MS Office, WinXP, all drivers installed & OpenOffice.org, or Linux, all drivers installed, & OpenOffice.org, or Linux, all drivers installed, & Koffice (assuming everyone is standardized, there won't be many.doc or.xls files to open).
To achieve low TCO, you just need a standard install, some type of imaging tool, and just re-image the laptop every time someone installs "unauthorized" software and fouls things up. How to get 6th graders to make backups will be the biggest issue.
The irony is that student tuition is income for the schools. They use it to pay teachers, get books, computer labs...and bandwidth as well. A lot of schools already took voluntary mesurements to limit the p2p bandwidth hogging. This i can understand.
Actually, tuition, as high as it may be, doesn't cover the full cost of keeping a student in school. Much of the difference comes from the taxpayers, hence, the disparity between in-state and out-of-state tuition. This (obviously) may not apply to private institutions, but for state-run universities, it certainly does.
That said, I also can certainly see why uni's are taking voluntary steps, bandwidth IS expensive, but they should not become police, judge and jury. Checks and balances are what our system was built on.
OK, the difference between using Wine & Codeweavers product is that you're getting a customized version of Wine that specifically WILL run MS Office products. I've played with regular wine, through many incarnations and versions, and never had any real success getting MS Office apps to run. OTOH, I have had great success with Codeweavers workstation product.
This product is used to serve up (via X) MS Office apps to multiple clients, as has been possible for years using a Windows Server and running MS Office over the network, a standard procedure in many companies. This makes it easy to upgrade, apply service packs, etc, as all you have to do is update 1 copy on the server, rather than all users copies on their workstations.
This product executes the Office app under wine on x86 Linux, and sends it to any given X server. Presumably, you could run a Win32 PC X server and run MS Office from an x86 Linux server to a Windows desktop, although, this would obviously be somewhat counterproductive.
Since wine only runs on Linux (and FreeBSD, to some extent) on x86 processors, as mentioned in FAQ #3 on the wine development site, this means that users of Solaris, LinuxPPC, sparc Linux, and other commercial UNIX users were left out in the cold as far as being able to run MS Office. Now, however, you simply need to set up a server with this product, install MS Office, and then setup accounts, etc. Users can simply run the program, and Word, et. al. will appear as a regular window on their X desktop.
PS. The level of what works/what doesn't varies a little among the Office family; Word & Excel are best, PPT/Access don't run as well, the last I checked. IE & Outlook are supposed to be great. (at least as great as said products can be:))
Waitress: Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it. Wife: I don't want ANY spam!
Wife: Could you do the egg bacon spam and sausage without the spam then? Waitress: Shut up! (Vikings stop) Bloody Vikings! You can't have egg bacon spam and sausage without the spam.
I don't wan't ANY ads! I didn't sign any contract obligating me to watch ads. I don't care if they're targeted, this doesn't make me more likely to want to watch them.
An advertiser pays on the basis of the statistical number of eyeballs likely to view a given commercial, thus, Super Bowl commercials are insanely expensive, late night TV spots are much cheaper. However, if any given consumer, or even a small minority of consumers (which is the current base of PVR users) skips the commercials, the statistics are not affected, due to the large sample size. How is this use of PVR's so much worse than what the average consumer does, i.e., hit the channel up/down button as soon as an ad comes on during your program? This behavior is much more likely to reduce the number of individuals seeing a given ad.
In any event, it boils down to Heinlein's idea of not going to the courts to defend an outdated business model. Why should the cable company, who is admittedly scared of the satellite/PVR model, get to dictate who may and and may not time shift, record on whatever device they choose, and skip commercials, any more than the satellite company may dictate the same thing. The advertisers pay on a statistical, not individual basis. If those statistics change, due to technology, then the pricing models should follow it in a supply & demand economy.
Re:Today's diesel engines are WAY better
on
239 MPG Car
·
· Score: 1
Just a few additional comments on this. I drove about 5 different VW diesels ranging in age from 1979 - 1984 (when they stopped producing them I think),from about 1985-1995, so they were older when I and my parents got them. They were solid cars, but noisy, slow acceleration, etc. In spite of the noise, they were great, they all went 150,000 miles plus, and one topped out near 300,000 when it finally died. The engines were all the same, if a body was shot, you could put the engine easily into another VW diesel car.
A lot of the US-made car diesels (not pickups) gave diesel a bad name in the early 80's, as they were mechanically junk. The VW's, however, were very reliable, and rock solid. If only their door handles could have been the same. I was always breaking those.
As to the points above.
/snip/ The only reason why diesels aren't common in the USA is the fact Diesel #2 fuel sold in most of the USA has sulfur compound levels of around 2,000 parts per million, which will quickly corrode fuel-delivery and exhaust emission control systems on European market diesel cars in very short order.
Of the cars mentioned above, I NEVER had to replace any exhaust system component. Compare this to my two gas cars since then, where I've had to replace the muffler and/or tailpipe sections at least once on each.
2. Yup, it's not too tough to find. It may not be at every station, but chances are, there's at least one within a couple of miles in any given town. Cross country trips are, of course, no problem, any truck stop has diesel, and with a range of 400 miles (old VW's) to 1100 miles (New Jetta/Beetle TDI's) per tank, there's not much problem of finding fuel.
3. Amen. Great engines, low vibration & noise, great economy, and I too can't wait until they bring that engine over. Putting it into the Eurovan and Passat would be great, too.
4. No problems on any except the 1979 model (and I honestly think it was ok, too), if I remember correctly. There is a fuel solenoid that cuts fuel when the ignition switch is turned off, thus cutting fuel to the pump and engine. Also, as long as you have enough current to keep that open, the engine will run. I once drove home (~120 miles) with a dead alternator, at night, on a deserted road, by only turning on the headlights when I saw an approaching vehicle, which I probably couldn't have done in a gas vehicle, simply because the plugs have to fire each time.
Most of these have been mentioned here, but a few reasons I stick with Windows are:
1. Homework - SPSS/LISREL for stats don't run well, if at all, under Wine, and there are a few other programs that I need for school that fall in the same category. MS office is NOT one of them. Openoffice, gnumeric, and abiword do what I need for virtually all office work. 2. Graphics - I use the Gimp a lot, but Photoshop still is the champ for some work. Same goes for video, there are some decent Linux packages, but overall, Windows wins here too. 3. Games - Some work under Linux, some don't, but overall, I'd say gaming under Windows is easier. 4. My wife - She doesn't like having to re-learn program names, etc, to do the few things she does. However, I've gotten her to the point she doesn't reboot from Linux to check her mail, or type a letter, or play solitaire - 99.999% of what she does on the computer - by setting up a simple KDE desktop with the apps she needs as links on the desktop. As an added bonus, she really likes the fact that the distro contains lots of little games that aren't available under Windows, like Shisen-so, Mahjonng, and many others.
That being said, while my desktop at home is usually booted to Windows, I use Linux on a dual-boot laptop for virtually all schoolwork - say 95% of the time. The remaining time is when I need stats software, or another Windows-only package.
Overall, Linux is great for me. It does what I want, works with all my hardware, and offers flexibility Windows doesn't. I often find myself wishing for certain Linux features (a decent commnand line!) when I'm working with Windows. But, there are times when Windows is superior. Long live dual-booting!
Leave urban wildlife alone - they aren't pets, and shouldn't be encouraged to live near your house, for your own and your pets' good. Just because they're cuter than rats doesn't mean they're less dangerous.
That said, you're right, many nasties can flourish in compost heaps, and the whole thing can be obnoxious to neighbors. But done properly, most compost heaps, even with food, can be almost scentless. And finally, even grass clippings can be a problem, as flies love them as they decompose, something about the scent they give off being similar to the fly's own pheremones.
In short, compost piles are great, but they need to be implemented properly. A good source of information is always your local Extension Service office, which can be found under the county listings in your phone book.
Columbia House will be selling these things with a hundred movies pre-installed for a penny. All that one needs to do is buy another six over the course of three years (*).
Moderated to funny? This could be a great moneymaker if/when the hardware is cheaper, and high-speed access is more common
If anyone can do it, Toyota (or Honda) can. The Japanese automakers still seem to be leading the US, as evidenced by their great ratings in car magazines and Consumer Reports.
Coupled with yesterdays news that gas mileage is continuing to drop in 2003 models, this is a great announcement.
What's to stop someone from simply hitting their webserver with every alpha-numeric combination possible.
Time mainly. It takes a long, long time to do even 5 or 6 character strings, of letters & numbers, and longer still if all printable characters are used. Stumbling across something in this manner is unlikely to be worth the time it takes.
Watch out on VMware to run kids games, as it doesn't support the 8-bit (256 colors) color depth that many kids games require. There is a way to turn on support for it, but believe me, it is horrid and unworkable.
I don't know about win4lin, and I've only tried a limited # of kids games under WINE, as many require quicktime.
In the end, a cheap machine for the kids is the best solution I can think of. An older pentium system, or a celeron/duron homebrew will run all the reader rabbit type games.
A final hint, with a medium size hard drive you can image it after you setup the system, and when they crash it, you can just ghost it back over.
Slashdot Mirror
First - let me say I don't write drivers either, and can't answer the first part.
>Or perhaps the Linux Kernel driver developers could figure out a way to adapt Windows drivers to run, perhaps in an >interpreted or emulated fashion, on Linux (ala Virtual PC). Just a thought.
This is done to some extent by ndiswrapper, which uses windows drivers and an "emulation" layer for wireless cards, also by the captive ntfs project to allow writes to NTFS filesystems. These are sometimes criticized as being a crutch, or wrong for Linux development. They are also sometimes criticized as being slow (captive) and not exposing all features (ndiswrapper vs. kismet, for example). Personally, I'm of the opinion that they're a good thing, and may drive adoption and/or just make life easier, but native Linux drivers in-kernel is even better, and easier, too!
Glad to see this announcement!
Only for State Farm Insurance (or investments, etc) customers, but they'll give you a free federal and one state filing through Turbotax online. Just login to their webpage and it should be on the left of your account summary.
If you have a policy/account with them, but haven't signed up on the webpage, it will take a few hours to a couple of days after you register for the link to appear.
Would you please share your diald modifications? I'd love to be able to extend the battery life & still use wireless.
Yup, I doubted it, and just had to try it. Leads right to CNET's IE6 SP1 download page.
Both are PCI hardware modems. I've used both under Linux, and they work great. Now migrated to DSL, but they're still going strong.
2976 is ~$40 at newegg.com
2977/5610 is ~$70 at newegg
(Not plugging newegg, especially, but I bought mine from them, and have had good luck with them on other hardware parts too)
I know the philosophical arguments against Wine, and to some extent, I agree, but if it lets me do my assignments without rebooting, it's valuable until companies do native ports.
Real's unix/linux player is at least linked from the front page now, and the free player is only 1 page deep. Much better than before, but a direct download link from the front page would be nice.
Over the last 5 years, I've used a Palm IIIxe, a low-res b/w Clie s360, and most recently, a Zaurus 5600. Of all of them, I'd pick the s360 as the best device for ebook reading.
The palm was fine on battery life, and replaceale batteries meant you could grab a set anywhere, with NiMH AAA's doing the bulk of the work for me. The s360's battery life was still good, but not as good as the palm. Zaurus battery life, on the 5600, (which has a larger battery than the 5500), is probably 5-6 hours straight with the backlight on a low setting, and several days worth if you only use it a few hours a day.
Pros
Cons
To deal with
Overall, the Jog Dial on the Clies get's them my vote for the best. I've also used my wife's high-res color Clie SJ-22 on occasion, and it seems ok, but small for my hands. For strictly ebook purposes, I'd suggest an older Clie, either low res, or high res b/w. For a general PDA, the Zaurus is great, and the lack of a Jog Dial isn't that big of a deal.
Having lived for 2 years in Austria, Switzerland, and Germany, I'd have to concur. It's not a greater appetite for porn in Europe, it's simply a more accepting view of the fact that "skin is skin", regardless of whom it may be attached to. We, in the US, on the other hand, act shocked about skin in non-sexual situations, but, as evidenced by spending on "adult entertainment", seem to have a great appetite for skin.
It's this dichotomy that really gets to me - raising a public outcry against it, while still consuming it.
Or, for those who are poor students, or otherwise fairly poor, there's Intuit's Taxfreedom site. It won't become live for the 2003 season until mid-January 2004, but it's for those who have less than a certain AGI; in 2002, less than $27,000. It provides free federal and state filing, and since it's essentially Turbotax for the web, it can do most, if not all forms. It's even Mozilla friendly, or was last year. A good resource for those who need it.
I won't claim that Linux would be the best, nor will I claim that XP would be the best, however, we're talking about a STANDARDIZED install here. That means it comes preloaded with whatever it needs, and all the drivers, and (presumably, from the article) built-in wireless, so no swapping out of cards, or modprobing anything. In fact, under no circumstances should they get administrator access under any OS if you want ease of administration. They will be browsing & writing, not developing & compiling.
.doc or .xls files to open).
You could have an efficient system with WinXP, all drivers installed, & MS Office, WinXP, all drivers installed & OpenOffice.org, or Linux, all drivers installed, & OpenOffice.org, or Linux, all drivers installed, & Koffice (assuming everyone is standardized, there won't be many
To achieve low TCO, you just need a standard install, some type of imaging tool, and just re-image the laptop every time someone installs "unauthorized" software and fouls things up. How to get 6th graders to make backups will be the biggest issue.
A lot of schools already took voluntary mesurements to limit the p2p bandwidth hogging. This i can understand.
Actually, tuition, as high as it may be, doesn't cover the full cost of keeping a student in school. Much of the difference comes from the taxpayers, hence, the disparity between in-state and out-of-state tuition. This (obviously) may not apply to private institutions, but for state-run universities, it certainly does.
That said, I also can certainly see why uni's are taking voluntary steps, bandwidth IS expensive, but they should not become police, judge and jury. Checks and balances are what our system was built on.
This product is used to serve up (via X) MS Office apps to multiple clients, as has been possible for years using a Windows Server and running MS Office over the network, a standard procedure in many companies. This makes it easy to upgrade, apply service packs, etc, as all you have to do is update 1 copy on the server, rather than all users copies on their workstations.
This product executes the Office app under wine on x86 Linux, and sends it to any given X server. Presumably, you could run a Win32 PC X server and run MS Office from an x86 Linux server to a Windows desktop, although, this would obviously be somewhat counterproductive.
Since wine only runs on Linux (and FreeBSD, to some extent) on x86 processors, as mentioned in FAQ #3 on the wine development site, this means that users of Solaris, LinuxPPC, sparc Linux, and other commercial UNIX users were left out in the cold as far as being able to run MS Office. Now, however, you simply need to set up a server with this product, install MS Office, and then setup accounts, etc. Users can simply run the program, and Word, et. al. will appear as a regular window on their X desktop.
PS. The level of what works/what doesn't varies a little among the Office family; Word & Excel are best, PPT/Access don't run as well, the last I checked. IE & Outlook are supposed to be great. (at least as great as said products can be
Waitress: Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Wife: I don't want ANY spam!
Wife: Could you do the egg bacon spam and sausage without the spam then?
Waitress: Shut up! (Vikings stop) Bloody Vikings! You can't have egg bacon spam and sausage without the spam.
I don't wan't ANY ads! I didn't sign any contract obligating me to watch ads. I don't care if they're targeted, this doesn't make me more likely to want to watch them.
An advertiser pays on the basis of the statistical number of eyeballs likely to view a given commercial, thus, Super Bowl commercials are insanely expensive, late night TV spots are much cheaper. However, if any given consumer, or even a small minority of consumers (which is the current base of PVR users) skips the commercials, the statistics are not affected, due to the large sample size. How is this use of PVR's so much worse than what the average consumer does, i.e., hit the channel up/down button as soon as an ad comes on during your program? This behavior is much more likely to reduce the number of individuals seeing a given ad.
In any event, it boils down to Heinlein's idea of not going to the courts to defend an outdated business model. Why should the cable company, who is admittedly scared of the satellite/PVR model, get to dictate who may and and may not time shift, record on whatever device they choose, and skip commercials, any more than the satellite company may dictate the same thing. The advertisers pay on a statistical, not individual basis. If those statistics change, due to technology, then the pricing models should follow it in a supply & demand economy.
A lot of the US-made car diesels (not pickups) gave diesel a bad name in the early 80's, as they were mechanically junk. The VW's, however, were very reliable, and rock solid. If only their door handles could have been the same. I was always breaking those.
As to the points above.
Of the cars mentioned above, I NEVER had to replace any exhaust system component. Compare this to my two gas cars since then, where I've had to replace the muffler and/or tailpipe sections at least once on each.
2. Yup, it's not too tough to find. It may not be at every station, but chances are, there's at least one within a couple of miles in any given town. Cross country trips are, of course, no problem, any truck stop has diesel, and with a range of 400 miles (old VW's) to 1100 miles (New Jetta/Beetle TDI's) per tank, there's not much problem of finding fuel.
3. Amen. Great engines, low vibration & noise, great economy, and I too can't wait until they bring that engine over. Putting it into the Eurovan and Passat would be great, too.
4. No problems on any except the 1979 model (and I honestly think it was ok, too), if I remember correctly. There is a fuel solenoid that cuts fuel when the ignition switch is turned off, thus cutting fuel to the pump and engine. Also, as long as you have enough current to keep that open, the engine will run. I once drove home (~120 miles) with a dead alternator, at night, on a deserted road, by only turning on the headlights when I saw an approaching vehicle, which I probably couldn't have done in a gas vehicle, simply because the plugs have to fire each time.
1. Homework - SPSS/LISREL for stats don't run well, if at all, under Wine, and there are a few other programs that I need for school that fall in the same category. MS office is NOT one of them. Openoffice, gnumeric, and abiword do what I need for virtually all office work.
2. Graphics - I use the Gimp a lot, but Photoshop still is the champ for some work. Same goes for video, there are some decent Linux packages, but overall, Windows wins here too.
3. Games - Some work under Linux, some don't, but overall, I'd say gaming under Windows is easier.
4. My wife - She doesn't like having to re-learn program names, etc, to do the few things she does. However, I've gotten her to the point she doesn't reboot from Linux to check her mail, or type a letter, or play solitaire - 99.999% of what she does on the computer - by setting up a simple KDE desktop with the apps she needs as links on the desktop. As an added bonus, she really likes the fact that the distro contains lots of little games that aren't available under Windows, like Shisen-so, Mahjonng, and many others.
That being said, while my desktop at home is usually booted to Windows, I use Linux on a dual-boot laptop for virtually all schoolwork - say 95% of the time. The remaining time is when I need stats software, or another Windows-only package.
Overall, Linux is great for me. It does what I want, works with all my hardware, and offers flexibility Windows doesn't. I often find myself wishing for certain Linux features (a decent commnand line!) when I'm working with Windows. But, there are times when Windows is superior. Long live dual-booting!
No? Racoons do have their share of fleas (I worked trapping them one winter as part of a masters project, and got first-hand evidence of their infestation), and they also have plenty of other diseases & pests. How about rabies, ascarids (a roundworm; which can cause blindness in humans), leptospirosis, canine distemper, and assorted other nasty diseases for humans and animals.
Leave urban wildlife alone - they aren't pets, and shouldn't be encouraged to live near your house, for your own and your pets' good. Just because they're cuter than rats doesn't mean they're less dangerous.
That said, you're right, many nasties can flourish in compost heaps, and the whole thing can be obnoxious to neighbors. But done properly, most compost heaps, even with food, can be almost scentless. And finally, even grass clippings can be a problem, as flies love them as they decompose, something about the scent they give off being similar to the fly's own pheremones.
In short, compost piles are great, but they need to be implemented properly. A good source of information is always your local Extension Service office, which can be found under the county listings in your phone book.
Moderated to funny? This could be a great moneymaker if/when the hardware is cheaper, and high-speed access is more common
Coupled with yesterdays news that gas mileage is continuing to drop in 2003 models, this is a great announcement.
Time mainly. It takes a long, long time to do even 5 or 6 character strings, of letters & numbers, and longer still if all printable characters are used. Stumbling across something in this manner is unlikely to be worth the time it takes.
Watch out on VMware to run kids games, as it doesn't support the 8-bit (256 colors) color depth that many kids games require. There is a way to turn on support for it, but believe me, it is horrid and unworkable.
I don't know about win4lin, and I've only tried a limited # of kids games under WINE, as many require quicktime.
In the end, a cheap machine for the kids is the best solution I can think of. An older pentium system, or a celeron/duron homebrew will run all the reader rabbit type games.
A final hint, with a medium size hard drive you can image it after you setup the system, and when they crash it, you can just ghost it back over.