Look, a sub $101 computer isn't rocket science. There are landfills full of say 500Mhz and below machines...
A 400Mhz machine, even a 166Mhz machine is suffice to run lots of stuff...
Face it, we all use to use them...
A 400 Mhz machine with 128mb RAM is quite a lot of machine for what the average person wants it for:
1. Word processing 2. Calculator 3. Web browser 4. Lousy paint program
A majority of cycles are wasted with the user sitting there..
Here's an old Dell that meets your lofty needs:) $99 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem &cate gory=51110&item=5133297107&rd=1
For $200 you could get the keyboard, mouse and LCD monitor all in the nice form of a portable computer. Be it 500Mhz or so, Linux will run just fine.
What the hell does everyone need a 1Ghz or 2Ghz spec'd machine for? It produces tons of heat, typically noise too and eats up tons of electric with that huge power supply you all want...
Idiots trying to make a fast buck will always squeeze their slimy message into enough people's boxes to be annoying...
Intelligent filtering can only go so far... a false positive where you miss email could be increasingly damaging to you/your company. Why continue to try to tech computers complex recognition when there are simple 101 ways to greatly reduce this to a mere trickle now?
Forcing email to be labeled as an advertisement is already required I believe under California law thus the ADV: prepending to some email.
The best soulutions to kill spam now:
1. Block all email that contains HTML.. I mean how exciting can a text email be:)... Kills the marketing BS.
2. Institute a block all email except where you have whitelisted the sender...
3. Allow the sender to get prioritized by requiring them the first time to respond to an email and identify who they are and why they are contacting you.
This approach is very similar to the approach employed by various firewalls. Ignore all except where otherwise told to.
so you like to store phone numbers and other things that are mostly in everyone else's heads?
Radioshack has sold tiny memory things forever.. little tiny calculators that store small useless data... Heck they even connect to your PC now.. I even once had a watch that stored data. Save yourself a lot of cash and head over there.
The point though is - is that interface you describe like the Palm, or other PDAs worth anything? Aside from connecting more devices (wifi, GPS, etc.) the base unit is a glorified blackbook that many people carry in the paper form still... the PDA costs $100+ the paper black book costs sub $10.
Adding the GPS, wifi, adds cost and you might as well buy a subnotebook... Adding all that stuff for 90% of the public is like polishing a turd - it's useless, bulky and stinky.
Reduced computing needs to be lost cost and provide a nice interface for input... Otherwise if it fails to have means of input that is above average then minimal computing is only best tasked for runnng small processes to monitor your car, play your MP3s or something else trivial in nature...
PDAs are uninteresting and lack alot - otherwise phone+PDA combos wouldn't be taking the remaining marketshare... PDA's are as the beeper industry is- history- except in limited niche markets/industries.
some people will bitch about phones having tiny little mini chicklet sized keys that their big adult fingers can't comfortably navigate...
PDAs have been an expensive failure since way back in the days of GRID... how many hundreds of millions of dollars do we need to spend to learn that a calculator with poor input devices just isn't going to cut it...
In order for PDA or phones or any other ultra portables to truly exist and work well there needs to be better input devices available, full color and larger screens (even if simulated through maginification)...
Palm has the right general size/factor - but lacks real input devices, memory, ability to run real applications...
PDAs have been for the past decade what the bean counters and other wannabes carry around to impose their status... Useless consumer items, like their owners.
It's about time that government and other publically financed entities make a cognizant decision to fully explore open-source alternatives.
Limited closed-systems like Microsofts should have no place in: schools, government or non-profits.
Closed systems are best suited in the market that drives them - that being for-profit money-driven companies and in the homes of the drones that power such.
The United States finds itself in a pickle. While education instituitions abroad find a great adoption of open source in schools and governments, in the United States peope are chemically and financially dependent upon Redmond/Microsoft for their technical survival. Microsofts latest advance to ITify Philadelphia's schools and essentially create Microsoft High will create nothing more than more MS drones with useless certifications - and more IT folks who barely understand how things work, but rather have mastered how to navigate the finite steps of being a Microsoft IT person.
I'd much rather see schools use open source exclusively and encourage creativity and independent thinking. We don't need another generation of Mavis Beacon's secreatarial enhanced typewriting drones.
The less we encourage open source within schools the more ground the US loses to foreign countries where open-source is becoming common place.
As for the core issue of government - How can you have a homeland defense department that allows the vaarious branches to endorse and use MS products when major security issues and patches are a weekly issue that requires reboots and downtime?? Using Microsoft products in such settings is dangerous and un-American. There are alternatives - unfortunately, too many Microsoft drones would lose their jobs and have to learn new things if open source was recommended and accepted. Unfortunately, making good decisions and learning is un-American to most of the people out of the academic womb stage.
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Look, a sub $101 computer isn't rocket science. There are landfills full of say 500Mhz and below machines...
:) $99m &cate gory=51110&item=5133297107&rd=1
A 400Mhz machine, even a 166Mhz machine is suffice to run lots of stuff...
Face it, we all use to use them...
A 400 Mhz machine with 128mb RAM is quite a lot of machine for what the average person wants it for:
1. Word processing
2. Calculator
3. Web browser
4. Lousy paint program
A majority of cycles are wasted with the user sitting there..
Here's an old Dell that meets your lofty needs
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewIte
For $200 you could get the keyboard, mouse and LCD monitor all in the nice form of a portable computer. Be it 500Mhz or so, Linux will run just fine.
What the hell does everyone need a 1Ghz or 2Ghz spec'd machine for? It produces tons of heat, typically noise too and eats up tons of electric with that huge power supply you all want...
It's futile...
:)... Kills the marketing BS.
Idiots trying to make a fast buck will always squeeze their slimy message into enough people's boxes to be annoying...
Intelligent filtering can only go so far... a false positive where you miss email could be increasingly damaging to you/your company. Why continue to try to tech computers complex recognition when there are simple 101 ways to greatly reduce this to a mere trickle now?
Forcing email to be labeled as an advertisement is already required I believe under California law thus the ADV: prepending to some email.
The best soulutions to kill spam now:
1. Block all email that contains HTML.. I mean how exciting can a text email be
2. Institute a block all email except where you have whitelisted the sender...
3. Allow the sender to get prioritized by requiring them the first time to respond to an email and identify who they are and why they are contacting you.
This approach is very similar to the approach employed by various firewalls. Ignore all except where otherwise told to.
so you like to store phone numbers and other things that are mostly in everyone else's heads?
Radioshack has sold tiny memory things forever.. little tiny calculators that store small useless data... Heck they even connect to your PC now..
I even once had a watch that stored data. Save yourself a lot of cash and head over there.
The point though is - is that interface you describe like the Palm, or other PDAs worth anything? Aside from connecting more devices (wifi, GPS, etc.) the base unit is a glorified blackbook that many people carry in the paper form still... the PDA costs $100+ the paper black book costs sub $10.
Adding the GPS, wifi, adds cost and you might as well buy a subnotebook... Adding all that stuff for 90% of the public is like polishing a turd - it's useless, bulky and stinky.
Reduced computing needs to be lost cost and provide a nice interface for input... Otherwise if it fails to have means of input that is above average then minimal computing is only best tasked for runnng small processes to monitor your car, play your MP3s or something else trivial in nature...
PDAs are uninteresting and lack alot - otherwise phone+PDA combos wouldn't be taking the remaining marketshare... PDA's are as the beeper industry is- history- except in limited niche markets/industries.
some people will bitch about phones having tiny little mini chicklet sized keys that their big adult fingers can't comfortably navigate...
PDAs have been an expensive failure since way back in the days of GRID... how many hundreds of millions of dollars do we need to spend to learn that a calculator with poor input devices just isn't going to cut it...
In order for PDA or phones or any other ultra portables to truly exist and work well there needs to be better input devices available, full color and larger screens (even if simulated through maginification)...
Palm has the right general size/factor - but lacks real input devices, memory, ability to run real applications...
PDAs have been for the past decade what the bean counters and other wannabes carry around to impose their status... Useless consumer items, like their owners.
It's about time that government and other publically financed entities make a cognizant decision to fully explore open-source alternatives.
Limited closed-systems like Microsofts should have no place in:
schools, government or non-profits.
Closed systems are best suited in the market that drives them - that being for-profit money-driven companies and in the homes of the drones that power such.
The United States finds itself in a pickle. While education instituitions abroad find a great adoption of open source in schools and governments, in the United States peope are chemically and financially dependent upon Redmond/Microsoft for their technical survival. Microsofts latest advance to ITify Philadelphia's schools and essentially create Microsoft High will create nothing more than more MS drones with useless certifications - and more IT folks who barely understand how things work, but rather have mastered how to navigate the finite steps of being a Microsoft IT person.
I'd much rather see schools use open source exclusively and encourage creativity and independent thinking. We don't need another generation of Mavis Beacon's secreatarial enhanced typewriting drones.
The less we encourage open source within schools the more ground the US loses to foreign countries where open-source is becoming common place.
As for the core issue of government - How can you have a homeland defense department that allows the vaarious branches to endorse and use MS products when major security issues and patches are a weekly issue that requires reboots and downtime?? Using Microsoft products in such settings is dangerous and un-American. There are alternatives - unfortunately, too many Microsoft drones would lose their jobs and have to learn new things if open source was recommended and accepted. Unfortunately, making good decisions and learning is un-American to most of the people out of the academic womb stage.
Maya is a local shop... bunch of intellectuals...
heads up their butts...
nice pretty stuff... but too expensive and such niche crap with grave consequences if adopted...
$300 remote... people balk at a $30 universal remote...
dumb dumb dumb