They do profit from your data. However, being that it is publically available on an HTTP server, that's pretty much their right. That's like you handing me $5 for me to tell you which magazines you might like to buy.
And MSN crawling Google's site is really no different. As long as the Google data is on a public server, it is fair game to crawl.
Many, and I mean MANY more people each month are starting to receive their email not just on their desktops, but wirelessly via their Cellphones, Smartphones, Blackberry, SMS, Pager, or what have you.
Some of these people have a message limit, or some kind of per-message or per-kb charge.
SPAM has the ability to kill the wireless email industry, and the devices that support it.
Now, more than ever, SPAM really does arrive "postage due", and is not as simple as "clicking delete"... the way it supposedly used to be.
This is reason that telemarketing is supposed to be disallowed on cellphones. The recipient is paying for it.
As wireless communication proliferates, SPAM becomes more than just a nuisance, and represents a real and tangible cost to the end user.
When you multiply these charges x millions of people, this is not an insignificant cost. One spam to 1 million people can cost a couple thousand dollars for EACH mailing.
Certainly much more costly than shoplifting or knocking over a 7-11.
How many people who arent geeks like us will spend the time to download another browser and learn how to integrate it with their os
I've done it for eight family members, and two small businesses. I am directly responsible for about 40 people using Firefox.
Once you download and install it for them... you would be surprised at how quickly they adapt (I haven't met a person yet who didn't love the tabs and popup blocking). Show them how easy it is to install and remove extentions.
All it takes is one "in the know" person per "circle of influence" to put some real critical mass into Firefox.
It's really not a "geek" browser. People just don't know that much about it. After a couple of days, it's really very user-friendly and it's a browser even a grandmother could love.
Flash and Java are still external plugins that are developped by third parties. They could crash your Linux Firefox very easily, trust me on that one.
Pieroxy,
You may be 100% correct. But the open source developement of Firefox has renewed my interest in open source development (something that Mozilla was unable to accomplish).
It's a bit of the "coat tails" theory that I am employing.
If the open source project put out a product this incredibly superior to IE on Microsoft's own OS, then I have a stronger confidence that the associated plugins and capabilities have evolved considerably since I abandoned Linux on the Desktop.
My point was not that everything would work perfectly all of a sudden, my point is that my interest in giving it another go has been given a big booster shot.
AMD64 optimization started the interest. Then I switched to Open Office and deleted MS Office completely from my workstation, that pushed it some more. I have used the GIMP since it's inception, and still do to this day. I use the Windows port of it. I have no other image editing program. Then a couple of months ago I simply deleted the IE shortcut and use Firefox exclusively. I also use Thunderbird for email now (never used Outlook).
It seems that I use open source or GPL-like stuff for everything. So, i'm scratching my head... why am I still running Windows at all?
The reason used to be "no stable web browser". However, I am not sure if this is the case anymore.
Given all of the above, I think it just makes sense to reconsider my position, and at least give Linux another good shot at my desktop.
Maybe it will work, and maybe it won't - but open source has shown me enough super-quality work in the last few years, to at least merit some effort on my part to put that work to good use.
I never shop at Best Buy anymore. Every time during the last year I went in, my experiences were abysmal.
I cannot detail them all, but once I waited 20 minutes for someone to show me a $2000 HDTV. Sure, it wasn't the most expensive unit, but something like that had to have a margin. It was not on sale. After I had been forgotten,standing there in front of the unit I just wanted turned on, I walked out. Nobody notice. I went a mile down the road, and got it for $200 less from Circuit City (were it just happened to be on sale).
One time I went in to buy a 23" $2000 LCD monitor. The salesmonkey didn't have time to show it to me, but after 10 minutes a department manager came over. When I ask her to show it to me in it's 1600x1200 Native Resolution, she said "we can't do that".
Me: You Can't Do that?
Her: No.
Me: Okay, thanks. (I proceeded out the door)
I purchased the unit an hour later from Comp USA at full retail price.
Another time I went in to get a 1Gb SD card. The salesmonkey told me that they "didn't carry those kinds of cards, but we have flash memory". When she stepped 3 feet to the left, I found the SD cards right behind her. They didn't have 1GB though. I got it at Fry's an hour later. Full retail price.
I went in for a hard drive and some other accessories. It took the salesmonkey 45 minutes (no, I am not kidding) to find the key to the cage that the hard drive was in.
I bought that mechandise, but that is the last purchase I made at Best Buy.
Now, the folks at the local Circuit City know me by name. I buy decent-margin stuff every month.
I don't return things, and I don't buy rebate scams.
I'm sure Best Buy has no idea that i'm gone, but I personally have no idea how they stay in business. I couldn't get them to take my money on the largest ticket items!?!
Granted, I don't dress like a Barry or Buzz or whatever. I'll go in sweats to buy a laptop. I don't care what the salesmonkey's think of me (should I?). Do they get extra margin if you buy it while wearing a tie? I just want to get what I came for and leave. I can't do that at Best Buy.
For the record, the Best Buys I am speaking of are in Atwater Villiage and West Hollywood in LA.
Maybe it's different elsewhere, or maybe I just smell really bad (I bathe daily, but maybe they prefer cologne).
All of the salesmonkeys seem utterly clueless and disinterested, and seem to detest the fact that they work in Best Buy. As a matter of fact, they seem to detest the fact that I exist on the planet. The most rudimentary question is met with a blank stare or an utterly ridiculous incorrect answer (yeah, sometimes I ask when I already know because I like to know if the salemonkey is shooting me straight).
I've been using Timbuk2 bags since my days as an actual bike messenger (early 90's). I have the Bolo Bag. I bought it in 1995.
It has been in use every day for nearly the last 10 years (I know have a Vespa scooter).
I have carried 100lbs in the bag under extreme conditions (you wouldn't believe the things they used to expect BICYCLE messengers to carry), and it has yet to pop a stitch.
If their quality is the same today, and they haven't sold out their original bike messenger clientele in favor of mass-production, you will be able to pass a Timbuk2 bag down to your grandchildren.
Hell, much like cockroaches, Tibuk2 bags will probably one of the last items to remain on this planet, because they cannot be destroyed. Try as you might.
Get a Zero Halliburton [zerohalliburton.com] case and a set of matching hand cuffs to tie it into your wrist. You'll be surprised as to how many women will sleep with you (and your laptop) based on the "mystery factor" alone.
Why on earth would anybody design a word processor to hold candles?
LOL.
Actualy, I use Open Office each and every day. And I use it ALOT. It is the only office suite on my machine. I have yet to run into anything that it *cannot* do that Word *can* do.... besides holding a candle.
Open Office does have a nifty option to hold my coffee mug, though. More useful than a candle holder if you ask me.
There is a common consumer lawyer saying with which few people are aware.
"The Fine Print cannot taketh away what the Big Print giveth".
Pointing to the fine print is usually sufficient to scare off Joe and Jane Soccermom, but if someone were to take the time and initiative to pursue the matter in a legal venue, they would win 9 out of 10 times.
And don't forget, what the salesperson TELLS you, is indeed a VERBAL CONTRACT. Verbal Contracts are valid and legally and 100% enforcable in all 50 states. Just as valid as written contracts. Especially if you have a witness (always handy to bring one with you to corroborate the verbal contract). If a salesperson TELLS you that it covers everything, then it legally must. At least purely in the legal sense... if you wish to take it that far.
Most stores will acquiese if you sound like you know what you are talking about since you will only represent 1% of the customer-base.
The point is to get you to knuckle-under when pointing to paragraph 15 on page 5 of the contract which is written in legalese.
If you know what you're doing, you can use the fine print for toilet paper. It cannot legally invalidate the main advertising pitch.
I was fully convinced that this suit was frivolous until I clicked on their "placeholder" link.
8 popup/under/departure windows???!!!... the browser gets completely hijacked??!!!
Yikes!!!!
They should pay any internet user who ever visited any of those links for intentionally interfering with the use of a remote computer.
That is beyond the pale. A simple "sponsored by register.com" or similar placeholder could easily be overlooked and understood, but they used other people's purchased domains to web-spam on an extremely abusive level, and generated who knows how much revenue, and crashed who knows how many browsers under someone else name.
It's the first time I changed my mind about a lawsuit within 5 seconds of clicking a single link.
Downright parasitic, offensive, and potentially libelous and defamatory to the legitimate owner of the domain. I would never return to such a domain, or do business with anyone who ran such a site. How would the average user know that the domain owner themselves did not put those pop/up/unders there to generate spam revenue while they were building their site?
This is also an issue of potential reputation damage to the domain holder.
My opinion is now that Register.com got off real, real, light.
If I was a business that ever used these folks, I would consider opting out of the class just so I could sue them myself for defamation and slander.
>I had one thru the City of Martinez for quite >some time. Performance was poor, support and >service worse.
Now *this* is true. Wireless Web Connect, the ISP that Metricom farmed out it's tech and customer support too was simply awful, and IMHO, contributed to Ricochet not being more widely adopted. You were truly alone if you had problem, but luckily I worked them out myself, and when I did, my speeds were very fast.
I'm assuming Aeri are going to take care of the service and support tasks themselves. If they throw it back to WWC forget it.
>I remember the Ricochet specs, the modems top >out at 128kb/s (actual speeds were significantly >less).
Au contrare. I was a die-hard Los Angeles Ricochet user before they shut it down.
I never saw speeds as low as 128Kbps. With my Aircard 400, I had consistent speeds of 200-300Kbps, with bursts on long downloads to around 320Kbps.
That's about double the speed of ISDN... wirelessly. It beats the hell out of any other mobile solution you get right now, which is what? Sharing the minutes on your mobile phone for 19.2K throughput?
Sure, it's not cable or DSL, but with a couple of batteries in your laptop, and a Ricochet modem, you have a completely untethered near-broadband connection anywhere you go.
It's a great product, and it's faster than 128K. I'm not sure why they market it at that speed.
Yeah, I have DPWeb (paid for it), and have used probably every pqa developed.
It's not the apps, the apps are great... the network is slow (to be generous) and/or unavailable quite often.
If you have found it to be fast and readily available, then I have obviously never used my VII anwhere near your home or office. While I have found some spots in the country to be better than others, I have found few in which I could just download to my heart's content without long waits, retry's, and plent of 1413 errors. Even when showing 100% signla strength.
This has been the experience of my collegues too.
I don't doubt there is the occasional area in which the palm network excels, but unfortunately, I haven't found that area yet.
I could care less if this item has no colour screen or less memory than an IPAQ, it has built in wireless networking with a reasonable cost for the service.
I have had the palm.net service since 1999, via the Palm VII.
You really can't push more than a 500K through the service in a month, even if you tried (I have). The network is extremely slow (less than 300bps, no typo), and unreliable. On average, it takes me 5-10 attempts, and 3-5 minutes to check my email. Even longer during rush hours and peak cellphone usage periods.
If you have had palm.net for any length of time, you are undoubtedly familiar with the number 1413. This is the error code that you get when the network is busy or unavailable. I get it daily, from all different parts of the country, and even from right under the receiver antennae.
Palm.net piggybacks on Southwest Bell's cellular network, and is put on a "lowest priority" switch. Meaning that the network will drop you or not let you on at all if it needs the bandwidth for a cellular call, which it often does in most of the busier parts of the country.
$40 bucks for less than 500K of data/month is exceptional profit for PALM, when you consider that 500K of data probably equals one 30 second voice call. However, since palm.net's inception, the subscriber base has been contracting.
Why do I still have it? I bought the unit, and the nature of my connectivity dictates that I need to be able to send and check email wirelessly. Even if it takes me 5 tries and 5 minutes to check my email, I still have to put up with it. I used to have Ricochet... but we all know what happened to that.
For what I would estimate to be 99.999 of people, palm.net is not a viable network. It usually doesn't work, and when it does, it is painfully slow and frustrating. You'll find yourself using it when you absolutely have to (and dread using it in advance), not when you want to, because you simply won't want to retry your packet requests several times, and wait several minutes, for 1 screenful of data. The value and usefulness for the consumer, and corporate user is very low.
I am speaking as a three year user, who has used the service from almost every corner of the U.S.
Before Palm launches a viable wireless device, they need to find a viable wireless network on which it will work.
I posted the article about Safeweb closing down, almost at the moment that Safeweb closed down. It was ignored.
A day or two later, the exact same revelation came across under someone else's headline.
I don't think anybody here assumes that the author of an article is the first person to report the event. If they do, they shouldn't. They could be the 58th person to report it. Luck of the draw, os something else, I suppose.
It's a private site, they choose who they want, when they want.
I used Linux as my only dektop platorm for 4 years (first FVWM, then WindowMaker).
It's great, except for one glaring problem. There is no stable web browser for Linux. Lately, I need to run alot of Java apps, with multiple windows.
Let's face it, we all have to kill -9/usr/lib/netscape more often than we have to restart IE on Windows 2000.
Therefore I have moved to Win 2000 on the Desktop, but still use Linux on the server.
Netscape on Linux is the most unreliable web browser on any platform.
It belies the stability of the underlying OS... but when the browser has hung for the 5th time in as many hours, it doesn't really matter how stable the underlying OS is. The apps need to be stable as well.
This is the main shortcoming of Linux on the desktop, IMHO.
Slashdot Mirror
Robots.txt or no robots.txt.
And MSN crawling Google's site is really no different. As long as the Google data is on a public server, it is fair game to crawl.
Some of these people have a message limit, or some kind of per-message or per-kb charge.
SPAM has the ability to kill the wireless email industry, and the devices that support it.
Now, more than ever, SPAM really does arrive "postage due", and is not as simple as "clicking delete" ... the way it supposedly used to be.
This is reason that telemarketing is supposed to be disallowed on cellphones. The recipient is paying for it.
As wireless communication proliferates, SPAM becomes more than just a nuisance, and represents a real and tangible cost to the end user.
When you multiply these charges x millions of people, this is not an insignificant cost. One spam to 1 million people can cost a couple thousand dollars for EACH mailing.
Certainly much more costly than shoplifting or knocking over a 7-11.
I've done it for eight family members, and two small businesses. I am directly responsible for about 40 people using Firefox.
Once you download and install it for them ... you would be surprised at how quickly they adapt (I haven't met a person yet who didn't love the tabs and popup blocking). Show them how easy it is to install and remove extentions.
All it takes is one "in the know" person per "circle of influence" to put some real critical mass into Firefox.
It's really not a "geek" browser. People just don't know that much about it. After a couple of days, it's really very user-friendly and it's a browser even a grandmother could love.
Pieroxy,
You may be 100% correct. But the open source developement of Firefox has renewed my interest in open source development (something that Mozilla was unable to accomplish).
It's a bit of the "coat tails" theory that I am employing.
If the open source project put out a product this incredibly superior to IE on Microsoft's own OS, then I have a stronger confidence that the associated plugins and capabilities have evolved considerably since I abandoned Linux on the Desktop.
My point was not that everything would work perfectly all of a sudden, my point is that my interest in giving it another go has been given a big booster shot.
AMD64 optimization started the interest. Then I switched to Open Office and deleted MS Office completely from my workstation, that pushed it some more. I have used the GIMP since it's inception, and still do to this day. I use the Windows port of it. I have no other image editing program. Then a couple of months ago I simply deleted the IE shortcut and use Firefox exclusively. I also use Thunderbird for email now (never used Outlook).
It seems that I use open source or GPL-like stuff for everything. So, i'm scratching my head ... why am I still running Windows at all?
The reason used to be "no stable web browser". However, I am not sure if this is the case anymore.
Given all of the above, I think it just makes sense to reconsider my position, and at least give Linux another good shot at my desktop.
Maybe it will work, and maybe it won't - but open source has shown me enough super-quality work in the last few years, to at least merit some effort on my part to put that work to good use.
I ran Linux exclusively from 1995-2000, and the lack of a STABLE web browser than would handle LOTS of Java, Flash, etc ... it sent me to Windows 2000.
I kept Linux on the server, but Windows on the Desktop.
I was really not expecting much when I downloaded Firefox 5 months ago, as I had been using IE exclusively for 4 years.
What an incredible surprise. I have not used IE at all for three months, and am considering a switch back to Linux on the desktop.
Firefox has the potential to really open some doors to not only "alterntative" browsers, but "alternative" OS'es as well.
Call me old fashioned, but I do brick and mortar.
When I want something, I want it now. And if it's DOA, I want it replaced today.
Yeah it costs a little more, but time is money.
I cannot detail them all, but once I waited 20 minutes for someone to show me a $2000 HDTV. Sure, it wasn't the most expensive unit, but something like that had to have a margin. It was not on sale. After I had been forgotten ,standing there in front of the unit I just wanted turned on, I walked out. Nobody notice. I went a mile down the road, and got it for $200 less from Circuit City (were it just happened to be on sale).
One time I went in to buy a 23" $2000 LCD monitor. The salesmonkey didn't have time to show it to me, but after 10 minutes a department manager came over. When I ask her to show it to me in it's 1600x1200 Native Resolution, she said "we can't do that".
Me: You Can't Do that?
Her: No.
Me: Okay, thanks. (I proceeded out the door)
I purchased the unit an hour later from Comp USA at full retail price.
Another time I went in to get a 1Gb SD card. The salesmonkey told me that they "didn't carry those kinds of cards, but we have flash memory". When she stepped 3 feet to the left, I found the SD cards right behind her. They didn't have 1GB though. I got it at Fry's an hour later. Full retail price.
I went in for a hard drive and some other accessories. It took the salesmonkey 45 minutes (no, I am not kidding) to find the key to the cage that the hard drive was in.
I bought that mechandise, but that is the last purchase I made at Best Buy.
Now, the folks at the local Circuit City know me by name. I buy decent-margin stuff every month.
I don't return things, and I don't buy rebate scams.
I'm sure Best Buy has no idea that i'm gone, but I personally have no idea how they stay in business. I couldn't get them to take my money on the largest ticket items!?!
Granted, I don't dress like a Barry or Buzz or whatever. I'll go in sweats to buy a laptop. I don't care what the salesmonkey's think of me (should I?). Do they get extra margin if you buy it while wearing a tie? I just want to get what I came for and leave. I can't do that at Best Buy.
For the record, the Best Buys I am speaking of are in Atwater Villiage and West Hollywood in LA.
Maybe it's different elsewhere, or maybe I just smell really bad (I bathe daily, but maybe they prefer cologne).
All of the salesmonkeys seem utterly clueless and disinterested, and seem to detest the fact that they work in Best Buy. As a matter of fact, they seem to detest the fact that I exist on the planet. The most rudimentary question is met with a blank stare or an utterly ridiculous incorrect answer (yeah, sometimes I ask when I already know because I like to know if the salemonkey is shooting me straight).
Thank goodness for the competitive market.
Uuuh did not have sex with that wommin .... miss lewinsky.
It has been in use every day for nearly the last 10 years (I know have a Vespa scooter).
I have carried 100lbs in the bag under extreme conditions (you wouldn't believe the things they used to expect BICYCLE messengers to carry), and it has yet to pop a stitch.
If their quality is the same today, and they haven't sold out their original bike messenger clientele in favor of mass-production, you will be able to pass a Timbuk2 bag down to your grandchildren.
Hell, much like cockroaches, Tibuk2 bags will probably one of the last items to remain on this planet, because they cannot be destroyed. Try as you might.
I thought I was the only one that did this.
LOL.
Actualy, I use Open Office each and every day. And I use it ALOT. It is the only office suite on my machine. I have yet to run into anything that it *cannot* do that Word *can* do .... besides holding a candle.
Open Office does have a nifty option to hold my coffee mug, though. More useful than a candle holder if you ask me.
"The Fine Print cannot taketh away what the Big Print giveth".
Pointing to the fine print is usually sufficient to scare off Joe and Jane Soccermom, but if someone were to take the time and initiative to pursue the matter in a legal venue, they would win 9 out of 10 times.
And don't forget, what the salesperson TELLS you, is indeed a VERBAL CONTRACT. Verbal Contracts are valid and legally and 100% enforcable in all 50 states. Just as valid as written contracts. Especially if you have a witness (always handy to bring one with you to corroborate the verbal contract). If a salesperson TELLS you that it covers everything, then it legally must. At least purely in the legal sense ... if you wish to take it that far.
Most stores will acquiese if you sound like you know what you are talking about since you will only represent 1% of the customer-base.
The point is to get you to knuckle-under when pointing to paragraph 15 on page 5 of the contract which is written in legalese.
If you know what you're doing, you can use the fine print for toilet paper. It cannot legally invalidate the main advertising pitch.
(I am not an Anymous Coward!!!!!)
SCO is trying to be the RIAA of Open Source.
I was fully convinced that this suit was frivolous until I clicked on their "placeholder" link.
... the browser gets completely hijacked??!!!
8 popup/under/departure windows???!!!
Yikes!!!!
They should pay any internet user who ever visited any of those links for intentionally interfering with the use of a remote computer.
That is beyond the pale. A simple "sponsored by register.com" or similar placeholder could easily be overlooked and understood, but they used other people's purchased domains to web-spam on an extremely abusive level, and generated who knows how much revenue, and crashed who knows how many browsers under someone else name.
It's the first time I changed my mind about a lawsuit within 5 seconds of clicking a single link.
Downright parasitic, offensive, and potentially libelous and defamatory to the legitimate owner of the domain. I would never return to such a domain, or do business with anyone who ran such a site. How would the average user know that the domain owner themselves did not put those pop/up/unders there to generate spam revenue while they were building their site?
This is also an issue of potential reputation damage to the domain holder.
My opinion is now that Register.com got off real, real, light.
If I was a business that ever used these folks, I would consider opting out of the class just so I could sue them myself for defamation and slander.
They exist at the whim and amusement of every other country on earth.
Once someone, anyone, even 5 guys and a hound dog decide that they want sealand to exist no more, sealand will no longer exist.
If you don't have a national defense, you exist solely by the permission of others. A sovereign nation cannot exist in such a manner.
The royal family of Sealand knows this, and when Britan tells them to jump, they will respectfully ask "how high?"
>some time. Performance was poor, support and
>service worse.
Now *this* is true. Wireless Web Connect, the ISP that Metricom farmed out it's tech and customer support too was simply awful, and IMHO, contributed to Ricochet not being more widely adopted. You were truly alone if you had problem, but luckily I worked them out myself, and when I did, my speeds were very fast.
I'm assuming Aeri are going to take care of the service and support tasks themselves. If they throw it back to WWC forget it.
>out at 128kb/s (actual speeds were significantly
>less).
Au contrare. I was a die-hard Los Angeles Ricochet user before they shut it down.
I never saw speeds as low as 128Kbps. With my Aircard 400, I had consistent speeds of 200-300Kbps, with bursts on long downloads to around 320Kbps.
That's about double the speed of ISDN ... wirelessly. It beats the hell out of any other mobile solution you get right now, which is what? Sharing the minutes on your mobile phone for 19.2K throughput?
Sure, it's not cable or DSL, but with a couple of batteries in your laptop, and a Ricochet modem, you have a completely untethered near-broadband connection anywhere you go.
It's a great product, and it's faster than 128K. I'm not sure why they market it at that speed.
It's not the apps, the apps are great ... the network is slow (to be generous) and/or unavailable quite often.
If you have found it to be fast and readily available, then I have obviously never used my VII anwhere near your home or office. While I have found some spots in the country to be better than others, I have found few in which I could just download to my heart's content without long waits, retry's, and plent of 1413 errors. Even when showing 100% signla strength.
This has been the experience of my collegues too.
I don't doubt there is the occasional area in which the palm network excels, but unfortunately, I haven't found that area yet.
Congrats on your having done so.
You've obviously not used the service.
You really can't push more than a 500K through the service in a month, even if you tried (I have). The network is extremely slow (less than 300bps, no typo), and unreliable. On average, it takes me 5-10 attempts, and 3-5 minutes to check my email. Even longer during rush hours and peak cellphone usage periods.
If you have had palm.net for any length of time, you are undoubtedly familiar with the number 1413. This is the error code that you get when the network is busy or unavailable. I get it daily, from all different parts of the country, and even from right under the receiver antennae.
Palm.net piggybacks on Southwest Bell's cellular network, and is put on a "lowest priority" switch. Meaning that the network will drop you or not let you on at all if it needs the bandwidth for a cellular call, which it often does in most of the busier parts of the country.
$40 bucks for less than 500K of data/month is exceptional profit for PALM, when you consider that 500K of data probably equals one 30 second voice call. However, since palm.net's inception, the subscriber base has been contracting.
Why do I still have it? I bought the unit, and the nature of my connectivity dictates that I need to be able to send and check email wirelessly. Even if it takes me 5 tries and 5 minutes to check my email, I still have to put up with it. I used to have Ricochet ... but we all know what happened to that.
For what I would estimate to be 99.999 of people, palm.net is not a viable network. It usually doesn't work, and when it does, it is painfully slow and frustrating. You'll find yourself using it when you absolutely have to (and dread using it in advance), not when you want to, because you simply won't want to retry your packet requests several times, and wait several minutes, for 1 screenful of data. The value and usefulness for the consumer, and corporate user is very low.
I am speaking as a three year user, who has used the service from almost every corner of the U.S.
Before Palm launches a viable wireless device, they need to find a viable wireless network on which it will work.
Palm.net is not it.
I posted the article about Safeweb closing down, almost at the moment that Safeweb closed down. It was ignored.
A day or two later, the exact same revelation came across under someone else's headline.
I don't think anybody here assumes that the author of an article is the first person to report the event. If they do, they shouldn't. They could be the 58th person to report it. Luck of the draw, os something else, I suppose.
It's a private site, they choose who they want, when they want.
That's the benefit of running one's own show.
It was not any of the user's fault.
What are we supposed to do, put cash in an envelope, write "SafeWeb" on the front, and drop it in a mailbox?
If SafeWeb was cash-strapped, they could have notified users as such, and provided ways to contrinute and/or subscribe.
They didn't. Who are you going to blame?
I guess they prefered the AC's notification to mine.
Whatever. I usually just lurk anyway.
I used Linux as my only dektop platorm for 4 years (first FVWM, then WindowMaker). It's great, except for one glaring problem. There is no stable web browser for Linux. Lately, I need to run alot of Java apps, with multiple windows. Let's face it, we all have to kill -9 /usr/lib/netscape more often than we have to restart IE on Windows 2000.
Therefore I have moved to Win 2000 on the Desktop, but still use Linux on the server.
Netscape on Linux is the most unreliable web browser on any platform.
It belies the stability of the underlying OS ... but when the browser has hung for the 5th time in as many hours, it doesn't really matter how stable the underlying OS is. The apps need to be stable as well.
This is the main shortcoming of Linux on the desktop, IMHO.