It's great to hear that the world-wide media industry is getting more and more efficient over time. With only a few large players in the industry, billing can be consolidated and redundancy of equipment and programming can be minimized, saving globs of cash.
In the end, this is sure this will bring higher quality service and programming at significantly lower prices!
Alas, the savings and increase in quality will happen only over an extended period of time.
And with inflation and government regulations, we customers might perceive lower quality and higher prices.
But no... it'll be much better than it would've been... just look how radio has improved in the past 20 years!
This is a bad sign for all technology companies in the US. Clearly, many of the carriers are simply out of countrol - even a simple management function like "telephone number management" - a core concept in the business - becomes a major technical hurdle.
Note that all the legacy companies are the ones who screem the loudest - likly because their computer software infrastructure is long antiquated.
These are the same companys who found it difficult to go from 7 to 10 digit dialing. The same comapanies who couldn't support area codes witha "0" or "1" in the middle.
This regulation is not hard - it's been well known for years in the industry that this would happen. It's simply that Verizon and SBC and other old-school telecoms are simply not up to the task of their own technology.
This is the scary part: one of the reasons for the successfulness of this country is technology and innovation. Clearly the telecos have lost that edge. Where is the US going?
In 25 years, the US will be like it was 25 years ago. And the rest of the world will have moved on. The US is losing it's technological edge. This is just more evidence.
I think Open Source projects are certainly displacing the sale of Microsoft products.
I don't have all that much direct evidence, but I do know that my organization is moving to Apache for new web servers. So instead of making new services available through IIS, we're using Apache.
However, we're not tearing down IIS servers proactively. If they're running and reliable and performing a useful service, we're not messing with them. It's just more economical to leave things at status quo when possible.
Our biggest issue right now is the lack of support with NT4. Microsoft recently fired a warning shot regarding their ability to address security issues within NT4. Alas, most of our older IIS boxes run NT4, and now we have to take a hard look at each server and decide what to do. NT4 to 2000 is certainly a lower impact upgrade, but as any administrator knows, there is a real possibility that other upgrades will be necessary while making san OS upgrade.
So although I agree that both Linux and Apache are rising stars in my data center, my organization isn't just chucking all their previous investments in Microsoft - it just wouldn't be prudent at this juncture.
So Microsoft says that some day they might be able to out-do Google. Why is this news, and why should we believe them?
Let them show us. If their service is better than Google's, then I'll happily use it. I don't know if anyone has noticed, but Microsoft's track record in terms of service delivery hasn't been that impressive. Likely their only success is Hotmail (which has very worthy competitors, and which was a glowing success well before Microsoft bought them up)
That's it folks. Unless you do very low volume printing, a cheap printer can be mighty expensive to own.
That's why it's always smart to look at total cost of ownership for a printer.
Let me give you an example. I bought my HP laserjet some 6 years ago. It wasn't cheap. But it's printed a boatload of pages, and have yet to replace the toner cart.
My Ex's sister bought a cheap little HP inkjet. But she prints so little that she has yet to replace her ink cart.
My girlfriend's brother-in-law bought a cheap inkjet... and the ink costs nearly put him under. It was very very expensive to run that little piece of crap.
So remember! initial investment + price per page is what counts.
Imagine no debugging. Just hardcoded write statements.
That would suck. I remember using IBM debuggers some 20 years ago. We never had to resort to printing out diagnostics... that's what a debugger is for! You should learn how to use one on your platform.
Imagine top down programming. Structured? Sorta. No object-oriented nature at all. Being punished by people thirty years older than you for trying to use a function or some reusable code. Make a change to a program? Good - now change the 10 others sorta like it.
That's the real world - mainframe or not. I maintain a lot of really crappy Java code. 1000 different source code files, kinda of structured, but not too much. And then some native C code linked into it. Even worse.
Sometimes it's not worth refactoring a crappy program. The folks with 30 years of experience likely know better than you when it's worth fixing something up.
Now imagine that suddenly your clientele (college students in my case) suddenly want all their data to be accessible via the web. Now do you chuck the old busted system? No, you instead place more systems on top of it to interface it with your web system. Synchronization? Forget about it. Transactional data over the web? Not gonna happen.
Chuck an old busted system? Why not fix the thing. With 30 years of evolution in a system, it's hard to convince anyone to spend a few million to rewrite a system with a bug or two - especially considering that the system has been operating for the past who knows how many years without anyone getting fired over it.
Again, welcome to the real world. Do you really think that accounting packages are all written as web apps?
As for transaction management, well, no one does it better than IBM. Period. It isn't like the Web was a leap ahead in transaction management technology.
My colleague across the room from me is thirty years older than me, is nursing a bad back and refuses to learn anything new. He's the guy with a hammer who sees everything as a nail. He has a bizarre theory that the bad economy is good because it means the COBOL programmers of the world shall rise again (I'm pretty sure JFK and Roswell factor into his theory somewhere).
Well, it's better to stay with the tried and true versus switching to the latest and greatest, like Ingres, VB, PowerBuilder, NetDynamics, or Gupta.
What? Those are all obsolete pieces of crap? Oh yeah! But how many thousands of organizations are still supporting their once "advanced mainframe replacement computing environment(s)"?
It's easy to complain about things you don't understand. It's easy to complain about things that you don't like. But the fact is that IBM mainframe technology is finally getting around to other environments. And that's a great thing.
PS - I'm a C++, Java programmer who spends all his time in SolarisLand.
When you signed up to work for our organization, we made a contract. That contract states that you are not allowed to work on any other external project without our permission.
Not only have you decided to form a competetive product, but you're also trying to steal our people away. We can't have this nonsense at our company.
This organization has to protect it's financial interests. We can't have competition from within. We don't want you to take anything away from our premere product.
You're fired. You'll hear from our lawyers in regards to the anti-compete clause that you agreed to.
Why take a high risk job with such little career potential? The answer is easy: Because you are too stupid or too poor to do anything else!
I contend that many companies don't look at prior military service as an asset. Many companies don't operate like the military, and expertise in a large, bloated organization is usually exactly what managers DON'T need. They need fast, independent thinkers.
Most of the best and brightest people in government and industry have AVOIDED military service... and many fewer still have been enlistees.
See this document on the smart way to serve your country!
The problem with all of these combination devices is that no device is going to do everything well.
Nah, I think that there can be a device that does do everything well. Sure, there are trade-offs with all designs. And sure, you can always a top-of-the-line widget that does something better than another widget.
But the fact is that most of these devices are pretty much the same freakin' thing:
- Cell phone
- PDA
- mp3 player/recorder
- basic digital camera
- GPS (with WAIS and a good display of the clock!)
Basically, they all have this stuff in common:
A little case
A little keypad-type device
A little display
A battery
A little computer with memory
Audio input/output
I/O (USB? FW? 802.11? BT? IR?)
Various application-specific stuff:
- cell phone ic
- gps ic
- image sensor for camera
Once all those things are integrated into one device the size of my current cellphone, I'll be happy.
What? Too hard? Nah, I don't buy it. The hardest part is the UI and battery life. But with innovative people on the job, it certainly is possible. Maybe it won't be the best at everything anywhere. But I don't want that. I just want it to be good enough for me.
My dream isn't like the old "combo hi-fi" systems of the 70s, with 8 track, cassette, turntable, tuners, etc etc (basically, all different-but-related things in one box)
In my experience, the latest IE on Mac OS X is totally different than IE-anything under windows. I'd be shocked if they shared any code.
In any case, I find Mozilla is a much better browser. Period. As for Opera or Safari - to be honest, I haven't used them enough to know. I hear good things, but I'm happy with Mozilla 1.2.
But I'm still shocked about the poor quality of the latest IE. It amazes me how the public doesn't know any better! I guess that's what "monopoly" is all about...
The other day I started to configure Windows XP on my Girlfriend's new laptop.
It sucked. Lots of things just weren't right. And I had slow dial-up modem speeds. And her old USBserial adapter just wasn't recognized.
Not only that, but Office '97 didn't work right. And I had to download about 50 MB of software just to update XP so it would work in a more serure, more reliable manner.
It's been said before: Microsoft sucks. But now it's really true. They're history.
But still, why should I trust this bookseller? Sure, they claim that they won't manage any lists of customer purchases... but how do I, as a customer, know that they don't have some lists somewhere?
And even if they don't have lists, they might have knowledge in their heads or on scraps of paper or whatever. All this is fair game when it comes to the law... perhaps just not as accessible as an explicit list.
I remember when my sister was asked about her former (fired) boss by her new boss. "Don't worry", he said, "we'll seal all this so that you can talk freely".
Nothing was written down. But when the new boss took the stand, he discussed the details of what my sister had said.
So much for records; so much for corporate promises.
Although I originally thought "well hey, if your data center isn't secure, and you can't trust your operators, well, you're hosed!"
But then I got to thinking about this a little bit more. Microsoft's primary customer is the one that doesn't have a secure data center. Additionally, it's not out of the ordinary to reboot Windows XP computers.
Just think... I run a small business (about 10 people) and I electronically secure my XP server the best I can.
Then the secretary calls and says "oh, I just installed XYZ for you, so I rebooted the server". OK, no big deal.... that happens all the time.
But THEN, instead of simply rebooting, he manages to steal all of my corporate data...
Ouch!
So those who live in the datacenter might see this as a problem that we solve with physical security. But for the regular small XP shop, well, you just can't have physical security without spending $$$.
Of course, in my shop, we reboot on average once or twice a year. So it's a little harder to reboot with the goal of ripping data. Then again, our operators have root access...
It turns out that Microsoft had patented the Switcher ad in January 2001! The patent is known as "Marketing Device For Informing User Of The Low Quality Of Microsoft Products".
Microsoft attempted to prevent Apple and other vendors from performing competitive marketing.
Alas, Steve Jobs believed that there was prior art, namely in the Intellevision versus Atari marketing campaign. However, Microsoft claims that the Intellivision ads (1) do not address PCs, and (2) do not address Microsoft products. And therefore the patent IS valid.
In order to exercise their patent, Microsoft is (1) suing the ass off of Apple, in hopes that no one else will switch, (2) exercising their right to promote their patent in PRO-Microsoft marketing, and (3) creating products that generate documents that cannot work on Microsoft products.
. Therefore, Apple may no longer use it's switcher ads,
50 states? Plus all those non-state entities... cities and protectorates have sales tax too!
But you know what? The tax would be easy if it weren't for local rules... MA has 5% sales tax. Easy, eh? Well, it is until you consider the exceptions: The first $150 of clothing sales are tax free. Food is tax free (what is food?). Books? I forget. And that's an easy state. CT actually defines "luxury foods" that are taxed, like potato chips and soda! Think of it as a "poor tax".
We buy bandwidth from a very very large provider. To us, it's a fixed cost that we pass on to our customers. Infrastructure-related costs is the remaining expense that we pass onto our customers.
They do have to buy property, lay and maintain cable, buy and maintain infrastructure hardware and software, bill their customers, etc etc etc... it might be worthwhile to look at the annual reports of such providers.
Clearly we have an obligation to all our customers before any one single customer.
In any case, talk with your attorney... you'll likely hear that such blanket, unilateral clauses are legally much weaker than being clear and explicit.
For my organization, about 45% of the customer's cost goes to pay for bandwidth. The rest is mostly people costs.
- We provide very limited end-user technical support. - We provide a very specific service. We don't try to do "anything that could bring in a buck". I think a lot of ISPs get into the trap of "anything for money"... which results in a LOT of hidden costs. This should be MBA 101 stuff, but it's amazing how trapped people get doing things for zero benefit. - Before we implement anything, we look at the potential costs and benefits. - Everything has to have a complete process in place before we move it into production. Otherwise, on-going support costs skyrocket. - We have a very clear contract with our customers. We trust them; they tryust us; they don't misuse us, we don't misuse them.
This is simply basic IT business stuff. But most small bandwidth resellers (and many large providers) fail at it.
Tell me about it. I have the same situation. And it isn't as if I don't live within one of the top 10 metro areas in the US... and it isn't as if a major networking company, Cisco, doesn't have a major investment in the town where I live.
It's simply the owners of the local wires. The cable company doesn't support us ("Sorry, we're already giving you a great rate"), and the telco doesn't support us ("Sorry, your too far away").
I would think being a slashdot surfer you would know how to setup internet connection sharing or a linux box to do routing for your network and use dialup as the connection.
You're right! I do know how to do that!
But clearly the issue is bandwidth, not hardware: "XBOX Live" is clearly dependent on a high bandwidth, low latency network. Even a slashdot surfer can't overcome a limitation given a 56k dialup requirement.
Currently, my only choice is dialup or satellite (yuk). Satellite is expensive and high latency. DSL isn't offered in my area. And the cable TV company says "3 to 5 years".
A couple neighbors would like to start some kind of internet co-op using 802.11, but that takes a bunch of time, money and effort.
Slashdot Mirror
It's great to hear that the world-wide media industry is getting more and more efficient over time. With only a few large players in the industry, billing can be consolidated and redundancy of equipment and programming can be minimized, saving globs of cash.
In the end, this is sure this will bring higher quality service and programming at significantly lower prices!
Alas, the savings and increase in quality will happen only over an extended period of time.
And with inflation and government regulations, we customers might perceive lower quality and higher prices.
But no... it'll be much better than it would've been... just look how radio has improved in the past 20 years!
This is a bad sign for all technology companies in the US. Clearly, many of the carriers are simply out of countrol - even a simple management function like "telephone number management" - a core concept in the business - becomes a major technical hurdle.
Note that all the legacy companies are the ones who screem the loudest - likly because their computer software infrastructure is long antiquated.
These are the same companys who found it difficult to go from 7 to 10 digit dialing. The same comapanies who couldn't support area codes witha "0" or "1" in the middle.
This regulation is not hard - it's been well known for years in the industry that this would happen. It's simply that Verizon and SBC and other old-school telecoms are simply not up to the task of their own technology.
This is the scary part: one of the reasons for the successfulness of this country is technology and innovation. Clearly the telecos have lost that edge. Where is the US going?
In 25 years, the US will be like it was 25 years ago. And the rest of the world will have moved on. The US is losing it's technological edge. This is just more evidence.
I think Open Source projects are certainly displacing the sale of Microsoft products.
I don't have all that much direct evidence, but I do know that my organization is moving to Apache for new web servers. So instead of making new services available through IIS, we're using Apache.
However, we're not tearing down IIS servers proactively. If they're running and reliable and performing a useful service, we're not messing with them. It's just more economical to leave things at status quo when possible.
Our biggest issue right now is the lack of support with NT4. Microsoft recently fired a warning shot regarding their ability to address security issues within NT4. Alas, most of our older IIS boxes run NT4, and now we have to take a hard look at each server and decide what to do. NT4 to 2000 is certainly a lower impact upgrade, but as any administrator knows, there is a real possibility that other upgrades will be necessary while making san OS upgrade.
So although I agree that both Linux and Apache are rising stars in my data center, my organization isn't just chucking all their previous investments in Microsoft - it just wouldn't be prudent at this juncture.
So Microsoft says that some day they might be able to out-do Google. Why is this news, and why should we believe them?
Let them show us. If their service is better than Google's, then I'll happily use it. I don't know if anyone has noticed, but Microsoft's track record in terms of service delivery hasn't been that impressive. Likely their only success is Hotmail (which has very worthy competitors, and which was a glowing success well before Microsoft bought them up)
That's it folks. Unless you do very low volume printing, a cheap printer can be mighty expensive to own.
That's why it's always smart to look at total cost of ownership for a printer.
Let me give you an example. I bought my HP laserjet some 6 years ago. It wasn't cheap. But it's printed a boatload of pages, and have yet to replace the toner cart.
My Ex's sister bought a cheap little HP inkjet. But she prints so little that she has yet to replace her ink cart.
My girlfriend's brother-in-law bought a cheap inkjet... and the ink costs nearly put him under. It was very very expensive to run that little piece of crap.
So remember! initial investment + price per page is what counts.
That would suck. I remember using IBM debuggers some 20 years ago. We never had to resort to printing out diagnostics... that's what a debugger is for! You should learn how to use one on your platform.
Imagine top down programming. Structured? Sorta. No object-oriented nature at all. Being punished by people thirty years older than you for trying to use a function or some reusable code. Make a change to a program? Good - now change the 10 others sorta like it.
That's the real world - mainframe or not. I maintain a lot of really crappy Java code. 1000 different source code files, kinda of structured, but not too much. And then some native C code linked into it. Even worse.
Sometimes it's not worth refactoring a crappy program. The folks with 30 years of experience likely know better than you when it's worth fixing something up.
Now imagine that suddenly your clientele (college students in my case) suddenly want all their data to be accessible via the web. Now do you chuck the old busted system? No, you instead place more systems on top of it to interface it with your web system. Synchronization? Forget about it. Transactional data over the web? Not gonna happen.
Chuck an old busted system? Why not fix the thing. With 30 years of evolution in a system, it's hard to convince anyone to spend a few million to rewrite a system with a bug or two - especially considering that the system has been operating for the past who knows how many years without anyone getting fired over it.
Again, welcome to the real world. Do you really think that accounting packages are all written as web apps?
As for transaction management, well, no one does it better than IBM. Period. It isn't like the Web was a leap ahead in transaction management technology.
My colleague across the room from me is thirty years older than me, is nursing a bad back and refuses to learn anything new. He's the guy with a hammer who sees everything as a nail. He has a bizarre theory that the bad economy is good because it means the COBOL programmers of the world shall rise again (I'm pretty sure JFK and Roswell factor into his theory somewhere).
Well, it's better to stay with the tried and true versus switching to the latest and greatest, like Ingres, VB, PowerBuilder, NetDynamics, or Gupta.
What? Those are all obsolete pieces of crap? Oh yeah! But how many thousands of organizations are still supporting their once "advanced mainframe replacement computing environment(s)"?
It's easy to complain about things you don't understand. It's easy to complain about things that you don't like. But the fact is that IBM mainframe technology is finally getting around to other environments. And that's a great thing.
PS - I'm a C++, Java programmer who spends all his time in SolarisLand.
When you signed up to work for our organization, we made a contract. That contract states that you are not allowed to work on any other external project without our permission.
Not only have you decided to form a competetive product, but you're also trying to steal our people away. We can't have this nonsense at our company.
This organization has to protect it's financial interests. We can't have competition from within. We don't want you to take anything away from our premere product.
You're fired. You'll hear from our lawyers in regards to the anti-compete clause that you agreed to.
Sorry that I hurt you.
I'm just saying it like I see it. Please don't cry.
I contend that many companies don't look at prior military service as an asset. Many companies don't operate like the military, and expertise in a large, bloated organization is usually exactly what managers DON'T need. They need fast, independent thinkers.
Most of the best and brightest people in government and industry have AVOIDED military service... and many fewer still have been enlistees.
See this document on the smart way to serve your country!
The problem with all of these combination devices is that no device is going to do everything well.
Nah, I think that there can be a device that does do everything well. Sure, there are trade-offs with all designs. And sure, you can always a top-of-the-line widget that does something better than another widget.
But the fact is that most of these devices are pretty much the same freakin' thing:
- Cell phone
- PDA
- mp3 player/recorder
- basic digital camera
- GPS (with WAIS and a good display of the clock!)
Basically, they all have this stuff in common:
A little case
A little keypad-type device
A little display
A battery
A little computer with memory
Audio input/output
I/O (USB? FW? 802.11? BT? IR?)
Various application-specific stuff:
- cell phone ic
- gps ic
- image sensor for camera
Once all those things are integrated into one device the size of my current cellphone, I'll be happy.
What? Too hard? Nah, I don't buy it. The hardest part is the UI and battery life. But with innovative people on the job, it certainly is possible. Maybe it won't be the best at everything anywhere. But I don't want that. I just want it to be good enough for me.
My dream isn't like the old "combo hi-fi" systems of the 70s, with 8 track, cassette, turntable, tuners, etc etc (basically, all different-but-related things in one box)
"Dear Mom,
...
Want to grow your penis up to 5 times bigger? Here's a safe and proven method of doing so, drug free! And it only costs pennies a day!
"
You should learn how to read and interpret email header information. ;-)
In my experience, the latest IE on Mac OS X is totally different than IE-anything under windows. I'd be shocked if they shared any code.
In any case, I find Mozilla is a much better browser. Period. As for Opera or Safari - to be honest, I haven't used them enough to know. I hear good things, but I'm happy with Mozilla 1.2.
But I'm still shocked about the poor quality of the latest IE. It amazes me how the public doesn't know any better! I guess that's what "monopoly" is all about...
The other day I started to configure Windows XP on my Girlfriend's new laptop.
It sucked. Lots of things just weren't right. And I had slow dial-up modem speeds. And her old USBserial adapter just wasn't recognized.
Not only that, but Office '97 didn't work right. And I had to download about 50 MB of software just to update XP so it would work in a more serure, more reliable manner.
It's been said before: Microsoft sucks. But now it's really true. They're history.
But still, why should I trust this bookseller? Sure, they claim that they won't manage any lists of customer purchases... but how do I, as a customer, know that they don't have some lists somewhere?
And even if they don't have lists, they might have knowledge in their heads or on scraps of paper or whatever. All this is fair game when it comes to the law... perhaps just not as accessible as an explicit list.
I remember when my sister was asked about her former (fired) boss by her new boss. "Don't worry", he said, "we'll seal all this so that you can talk freely".
Nothing was written down. But when the new boss took the stand, he discussed the details of what my sister had said.
So much for records; so much for corporate promises.
I did the same... TaxCat does a great job for me, and no funny crap that gets in my way.
The ONLY funny thing it did was question me when I said I spent $14000/year on rent.
Gee, and I thought my apartment was a steal...
Although I originally thought "well hey, if your data center isn't secure, and you can't trust your operators, well, you're hosed!"
But then I got to thinking about this a little bit more. Microsoft's primary customer is the one that doesn't have a secure data center. Additionally, it's not out of the ordinary to reboot Windows XP computers.
Just think... I run a small business (about 10 people) and I electronically secure my XP server the best I can.
Then the secretary calls and says "oh, I just installed XYZ for you, so I rebooted the server". OK, no big deal.... that happens all the time.
But THEN, instead of simply rebooting, he manages to steal all of my corporate data...
Ouch!
So those who live in the datacenter might see this as a problem that we solve with physical security. But for the regular small XP shop, well, you just can't have physical security without spending $$$.
Of course, in my shop, we reboot on average once or twice a year. So it's a little harder to reboot with the goal of ripping data. Then again, our operators have root access...
It turns out that Microsoft had patented the Switcher ad in January 2001! The patent is known as "Marketing Device For Informing User Of The Low Quality Of Microsoft Products".
Microsoft attempted to prevent Apple and other vendors from performing competitive marketing.
Alas, Steve Jobs believed that there was prior art, namely in the Intellevision versus Atari marketing campaign. However, Microsoft claims that the Intellivision ads (1) do not address PCs, and (2) do not address Microsoft products. And therefore the patent IS valid.
In order to exercise their patent, Microsoft is (1) suing the ass off of Apple, in hopes that no one else will switch, (2) exercising their right to promote their patent in PRO-Microsoft marketing, and (3) creating products that generate documents that cannot work on Microsoft products.
. Therefore, Apple may no longer use it's switcher ads,
Hell yeah!
As I understand it, MS-Windows still has a lot of 20 year old internals... (especially the SMB stuff)... and that's still "supported"!
50 states? Plus all those non-state entities... cities and protectorates have sales tax too!
But you know what? The tax would be easy if it weren't for local rules... MA has 5% sales tax. Easy, eh? Well, it is until you consider the exceptions: The first $150 of clothing sales are tax free. Food is tax free (what is food?). Books? I forget. And that's an easy state. CT actually defines "luxury foods" that are taxed, like potato chips and soda! Think of it as a "poor tax".
Good question, and I don't know.
We buy bandwidth from a very very large provider. To us, it's a fixed cost that we pass on to our customers. Infrastructure-related costs is the remaining expense that we pass onto our customers.
They do have to buy property, lay and maintain cable, buy and maintain infrastructure hardware and software, bill their customers, etc etc etc... it might be worthwhile to look at the annual reports of such providers.
Clearly we have an obligation to all our customers before any one single customer.
In any case, talk with your attorney... you'll likely hear that such blanket, unilateral clauses are legally much weaker than being clear and explicit.
It's better to be explicit when possible.
For my organization, about 45% of the customer's cost goes to pay for bandwidth. The rest is mostly people costs.
- We provide very limited end-user technical support.
- We provide a very specific service. We don't try to do "anything that could bring in a buck". I think a lot of ISPs get into the trap of "anything for money"... which results in a LOT of hidden costs. This should be MBA 101 stuff, but it's amazing how trapped people get doing things for zero benefit.
- Before we implement anything, we look at the potential costs and benefits.
- Everything has to have a complete process in place before we move it into production. Otherwise, on-going support costs skyrocket.
- We have a very clear contract with our customers. We trust them; they tryust us; they don't misuse us, we don't misuse them.
This is simply basic IT business stuff. But most small bandwidth resellers (and many large providers) fail at it.
Tell me about it. I have the same situation. And it isn't as if I don't live within one of the top 10 metro areas in the US... and it isn't as if a major networking company, Cisco, doesn't have a major investment in the town where I live.
It's simply the owners of the local wires. The cable company doesn't support us ("Sorry, we're already giving you a great rate"), and the telco doesn't support us ("Sorry, your too far away").
I would think being a slashdot surfer you would know how to setup internet connection sharing or a linux box to do routing for your network and use dialup as the connection.
You're right! I do know how to do that!
But clearly the issue is bandwidth, not hardware: "XBOX Live" is clearly dependent on a high bandwidth, low latency network. Even a slashdot surfer can't overcome a limitation given a 56k dialup requirement.
Currently, my only choice is dialup or satellite (yuk). Satellite is expensive and high latency. DSL isn't offered in my area. And the cable TV company says "3 to 5 years".
A couple neighbors would like to start some kind of internet co-op using 802.11, but that takes a bunch of time, money and effort.