One thing that was glaringly missing from the illustrated guide is what to do with excess/scratched/worthless CDs. While some people might immediately think "frisbee", the real fun is in the microwave. Place a CD, data side up, in the microwave for 10 seconds. After about 5 seconds, you get a spectacular light show on the surface of the disk. When this stops, IMMEDIATELY stop the microwave. This will prevent it from smelling really bad. I've done this with dozens of CDs on many microwaves, and it does no damage. Besides, when it's done, there's a really cool pattern on the surface (and you can still use it as a frisbee).
If such a ruling would pass, what would it mean for search engines? As one person pointed out earlier, the ruling would only mean that it is illegial to link to illegial material. However, don't search engines link to things (for the most part) indescriminately? I'm sure there's several things besides just deCSS on the web that are illegial, but does that stop bots from adding them to search databases? If 2600 must take down their links to deCSS mirrors, I wonder what Google is going to do with their more than 7,333 links relating to deCSS!
Our school has been "wired" for the past 5 years. Each year the rules get increasingly more strict. The "official" policy is a limit of 30 megs/day off-campus, and 300 megs/day on campus. However, they don't seem to strictly follow these (I'd imagine you could generate 30 megs of traffic doing some heavy long-term web browsing!). Every now and then someone will get busted for extraordinary traffic (in exceess of 1GB/week or so), and various other crimes that fall under the term of "copyright infringement".
As far as I know, they havn't blocked any specific software here (yet), although change is in the wind. However, one interesting thing that they started blocking a few years back is pings coming onto campus. While not exactly the end of the world, it can be an annoyance at times.
I finally got sick of stacking up keyboards and monitors on a tiny little desk at work, so we finally got a switch for it. I've been very, very pleased with the results so far (controlling 2 linux boxes and one NT box). Here's the setup and costs from buy.com when I bought them:
I think there are ones available that have greater than 4 ports, but I'm not sure. You can check out Belkan's site for all the details on the switch, but this thing is a great product for the money!
I wonder how many of the people that voted "No" or "I disagree" are Microsoft employees or shareholders... After all, if Microsoft stock takes a major hit, there will be a lot more people besides just Bill G. hurting.
Many of the comments I have read have pointed out how "Orwellian" the policy of usage monitoring is. Comments have been made about disabling such software, and even "faking" a replacement. On the whole, I agree with all of that. I don't believe that an employer has the right to monitor every click and keystroke and keystroke an employee makes, any more than they have to monitor every conversation with every co-woker. However, there is one point that I have not seen discussed: what about the employer's rights? Don't they have the right to know that their propriatary software or data, which they may have spent millions on, is not being stolen by a disgruntled employee? For example, the article mentioned about one employee that was transferring data to a floppy disk. The best way such an action could be found is by montoring usage closely. The only other alternatives are a constant video survailance, or a search of personal belongings when one leaves work (both of which, I belive, are worse).
Therefore, as long as the software is being used in a *controlled* manner, and only for very limited periods of time, on people who are suspected of wrongdoing, I could agree with it's usage. I'd rather be proven innocent by being monitored, then automatically assumed guilty!
Slashdot Mirror
Is there really any better use for an AOL CD?
Just imagine the implications for them...
As far as I know, they havn't blocked any specific software here (yet), although change is in the wind. However, one interesting thing that they started blocking a few years back is pings coming onto campus. While not exactly the end of the world, it can be an annoyance at times.
1 - Belkan Omnicube KVM 4-port switch @ $93
4 - Belkan 6ft KVM cables @ $7 each.
I think there are ones available that have greater than 4 ports, but I'm not sure. You can check out Belkan's site for all the details on the switch, but this thing is a great product for the money!
I wonder how many of the people that voted "No" or "I disagree" are Microsoft employees or shareholders... After all, if Microsoft stock takes a major hit, there will be a lot more people besides just Bill G. hurting.
Therefore, as long as the software is being used in a *controlled* manner, and only for very limited periods of time, on people who are suspected of wrongdoing, I could agree with it's usage. I'd rather be proven innocent by being monitored, then automatically assumed guilty!