Dell probably signed a sweetheart of a deal with MS for say 10 bucks per copy of OS they ship. However Dell has a built in per system cost for 50 bucks per OS into all builds. All companies do this, think you are getting a good deal on the car? They all make money.
So Dell signs a sweetheart deal. Adds 40 bucks of profit for each PC sold. No brainer for the bean counters. Cause they already ran the numbers and saw Linux support would cost them for more than selling Linux PC's would make them. I bought a few Linux servers from them and had to reinstall as soon as I got em. But then again who doesnt with any os?
MS still goes out on Dells as well. We should look at what the bennies are for Dell.
Two Things.
Dell says " 2. For OptiPlex and Precision - purchase one of the new "nSeries" products (offered for GX260, WS340 & WS530 - details in the attached FAQ) that are being created to address a different OS support requirement other than a current standard Microsoft OS."
Ok so they are addressing the issue and selling systems with other OS options than MS. OK, so the above means you can still go non-ms on certain systems.
I want to see the attached FAQ the email talked about before I start the barn burning.
Ok guy, I agree with you that Microsoft is an ungainly behemoth that needs a little reigning in. But some of your article was just down right wacky. I am not Microsoft pundit, I use it, I use Linux, and the *nixes. And I do prefer them for many things, and then windows for others.
Windows XP does have some heavy problems, but it is a fairly decent OS. I still use 2000 on some of my boxes and no real big issues. I run my nixes and windows fairly tight.
First rule of a sysadmin? Don't USE THE OS until it has been through at least 1-2 year period on the market so things can be ferreted out and fixed. This goes for service packs in windows and Linux Kernel updates(service pack). Ok, kernel updates to add funcionality but do fix and break things yeah. Anyone remember IBCS(or is it ICBS) dropped support from 6.2 to 7.
So unless you follow that rule do not bitch.
Your article is mainly rehashed summaries from other sources, which you reference. It is nice you put it all in one place, but adding spin is a whole nother animal.
As for the techinical issues you mentioned. XP does have them but they are easily resolved. All your 'problems' can be resolved on technet.
1. Sysprep, Riprep, Norton Ghost. Ghost been around for years. Easy system backups. And most OS's will freak if you move a hardrive to another system with different components.
2. Reg backups. Free software to do this. Hey it's free, what we all want right?
And yeah MS wants in your PC, but Apple owns your pc everytime you update. Good for the goose is good for the gander. But apple is *SPECIAL*
And the DOS issue. Yeah XP is not too great with DOS. But you know if you have ap that recquires it. Put 2000, put 98, forget about XP(see sysadmin rule #1). MS has been real clear about XP and DOS.
You have a lot lof legitame bitches that were garnered from others research no problem. But a lot of your article is skewed.
I want to see Linux get more recognition. But we fight the good fight, not THEIR fight of skewed facts and figures. We do it clean or we are no better.
And you might want to pick up some books from Amazon on OS's to learn a little more. Take a class or two.
For the record I am linux certified, a+, net+, and a MCSA. Who gives a shit. I am a tech, certs are part of the job. Did I mention my degree in IS? So while I am not a complete technical diety or claim to be I do feel comfortable enough to talk on the subject.
Two metal plates that are only several inches apart and near her hand. Her hand alwas rests on one plate with her fingers just shy of the second plate.
When she needs help she moves that tiny distance and her hand touches both plates and completes the circut which is then wired to any bell and whistle you might choose.
Jeez, nothing reported in that digital rag is exactly new. I knew most of those facts at the ripe old age of 10.
The article reads like a Readers Digest condensed version of the theory of relativity. Was it a slow day so he broke out a 1979 Geographic World Book and scammed their article?
"Motion, it turns out, slows time - one of the funny effects of the law of relativity. At low speeds, the effect is slight and makes no difference to our daily lives."
I learned this in the Superman flick when the Big S flew around the earth to save his sweetheart. Then went to the libray and read up on it.
Too many people in the academic world feel they must publish. Fine, do it, but don't rehash. Show me something new, groundbreaking.
I had a number of customers running their businesses with Quickbooks.
The long and short of it was I had a database go south on me and called Intuit and while on hold the voice mail machine announced to me that Intuit was a proud new member of the MS family.
My tech at Intuit was ecstatic cause of his options changing.
However, the acquisition was not allowed by the SEC because then MS would have had a monopoly on the personal finance software market.
The year was 1997. Maybe something to do with mac development.
Normally I would agree with you but when you hit your local bookstore and see the crap that the 'bestseller' list is rife with. Jackie Collins, Romance Novels, abd other shite, it makes you wonder if there is any correlation to talent or if the General reading public is truly a good representation to judge what is quality literature.
An Oprah Winfrey endorsement or even the book of the month club deal can drives sales up on what would normally be something that should be consigned to the bargain table at the end of the summer, or suitabale for wrapping fish. And we all know that Oprah is one of the literati. What kind of lemmings mentality have we come to where Oprah Winfrey can have a staff member read a book, tell the the Big O, Oprah, and the endorsement sells millions?
My point is that digital publish is great. I love it. Opens the medium to get more people reading. Although, as a newtwork engineer d00d I prefer to have the book in my hand than read it on a PDA. Call me retro. Can't imagine a long snooze in the tub with the good old PDA in hand.... I can always dry the book out.
And then taste is in the mouth, eyes, mind of the beholder. I for one look at the best seller lists and shudder. And to be fair, I will buy one at least once a month and read it, and sometimes I will be pleasantly surprised. Other times I choose to cringe in horror in the closet for a few days.
As for sci-fi. Neal Stephenson and Bruce Sterling seem to carry on the tradition well. Hard stuff with a sense of humor that is quite beleivable in a not so distant future. Allen Steel with this Moon backs a few years back were great as well. But I find more self on an ever increasing hunt for really good sc fi. How many Enders Game sequels can we have? Gibson needs to get off his ass and back to the Sprawl.
My point to this entire rant is that we need some quality to put on the medium for the would be publishers just start putting everything on to the insnanely popular shiny metal discs we all must have in our caves,homes. A bad book is a bad book no matter what the format.
I can't wait to get my DVD of the Ya Ya Sisterhood special edition with cutscenes, the book, the script, so I can put it on my Palm and have all the Ya Ya goodness whereever I go.
Put all the classics on the medium first. There is nothing worse than being on a plane or a trip with nothing to read, than having something bad to read.
You can always find pbx systems on E-bay relatively cheap. My house has a 15 year old system that I got out of an old office building. has 2 lines running into it, voice mail, and runs fine.
However, I want to kludge up something as well so here is my research for you. http://www.mtnsys.com/ Software http://www.openippbx.org/ Nix software http://www.virtualpbx.com/ More software.
I agree. I have in to free speech, free beer, free software as much as the next guy. But also I grain of salt evreything as well.
People have replied that teachers, independent artists, etc, have their medium out their for the masses. WTF? Who says " Want to download our stuff? Just hit Kazaa, Grokster, the most unprotected, virus laden network out there. A decent amount of webspace with almost unlimited bandwidth can be had for next to NOTHING! If I was an independent artist it would be on MP3.com or some other music venue. I agree these p2p's might be another way to get heard, but really, come off that. "Dude get my tune and Nimda all in one shot"
I would venture to guess that %5 of the traffic is legit warez. Only 5 though, and that is probably a way high estimate.
No time to rip a cd I already own? Hmmm, so when you sleep at night you can't pop it in a box and hit enter? But not busy enough to wade through Grokster to find a complete mp3 after ten minutes of searching?
I know if I want a full blown copy of something to try I will look on Kazaa, and if I just want a song on a cd I do not own, I will get it off the net.
I am up front about this. I buy many cd's and I leech many too. I have been on this scene since probably 1980 with boxen but the difference is we were a little more upfront with out 'piracy' try before you buy.
P2P should be allowed, but who is going to police us.
And you know what, people in the IT industry are the biggest pirates of all. "Need it? We got it at the office, I'll burn a copt, I'll rip an image".
How many people are downloading Rob Jeremy rips for backups? How many people here didnt leech AOTC? Are the Testkillers, Transcenders, Solaris guides?
I bought the MacroMedia suite this week, it hurt. But in a way it felt good.
Puto
Blair Witch Project ame from there too...
on
Live Via Satellite
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
All well and nice to commemorate this first signal and all....
But didn't the Blair Witch Project come outta those woods too? They must be cursed, cause the utter shite that movies was still gives me nightmares.
Ahhh, I had a vibrating Gilette about 5 years ago, took a A battery, didnt seem to work any better. Though the heft was better.
The turn table is old news too.
Maybe we are getting older and have already seen this things but then again maybe people are just not doing the proper research. here is one http://www.bluegoldusa.com/wholesale/designer_razo rs.shtml.
My oldest buddy from college is a manager at Enterprise. Now this is the guy who was always the designated driver, rarely got drunk, honest abe, abd never said a harsh word about anyone. Token goody two shoes of my less than desirable crowd.
There is not week that goes by where he does not call me with some rental horror story. Usually ending up with him and the police looking for a rental that someone refuses to bring back. Or there is a wreck in another state with one of his cars that was rented for local use.
And the lists goes on. The company owns the car and does need some form of protection. I know if I owned anagency I would want tracking.
Again the model where you can pay less with the tracking device or pay more without is a good idea.
The reason the companies are doing this is the lack of responsibility of the renters to respect the car and the contract. And remember very few agencies rent to people under 25.
Long ago when I was punching the clock at Verio and we were implenting DSL throughout the country was when I saw the numbers on DSL and other high bandwidth solutions that were just started to sell like hotcakes. Remember this was when DSL was 300 a month...
Well, the number jockeys estimated(not only Verio but Bell South and PacB) that for broadband to become profitable it would have to sell bandwidth at a loss for at least 10 years. The idea was to get the local consumer hooked so that DSL,Cable, would be like a telephone.
The internet wasn't so glutted with shite in those days so early adopters of DSL didnt have much to look at. MS service packs, some ISOs, lotsa geo cities crap, etc. Rest of the world was still on AOL.
We got the call to drop to 35$ a month, this was in 97 for DSL. 30 of it went to the Bells. But corporate wanted a broad band roll out for the investors. We had our fiber so it wasnt an issue, lotsa capacity.
IT WAS underestimated the amount of bandwidth that people would use in their homes. Our 300 DSL users were always saturating the lines, WTF? 97 what were they look at? They had it shared on lans, natting to the neighbors house, rigging the apartment buildings. You couldn't change the TOS after the fact.
So 10 years to begin to break even we were told in 97. BREAK even not pay for the new infrastructure, high costs of bandwidth..... And remember the numbers had initially been run for 300 a month.... So where are we now five years down the road. At a severe fucking loss.
Boradband prices for the home should have been hire out the gate with a bandwidth cap. But the companies all got on the unlimited bandwagon and we all got used to fat pipes at a low cost.
We could have taken a lessen from dial up days. 20 bucks a month for unlimited? People keeping the modem bank tied up for nineteen hours a pop at 28.8. Shit, there wasn't any flash in those days but still, nineteen hours.
I no longer work in the ISP end, hung it up cause I kinda saw all this coming.
We need a little reality check. Lose some fucking bandwidth, go outside, not fire up the console.
I just returned from a two year stint in South America. And the first month with no DSL was a like a herion junkie with the DT's. But I discovered paper books again, got back into fitness and some old hobbies, and learned to sit on my ass less in front of my boxen( though now that I am home I got DSL again and 802'ed the house.
Bandwidth isn't a god given right. We just convinced ourselves it is.
As someone who just returned from a two year stint in Colombia as a technical consultant(for coffee companies and web design). The article is heavily seeded with "factoids" to get support for our government to rush in there. Colombia needs help but to what extent?
1. "All of these anonymous callers were immediately identified, and they were killed," a former high-ranking DEA official says." No one narcs anyone out in Colombia, Colombians might hate the traffickers but there are a loyal people, they do not sell out. They know the consequences and have known for years. I don't deny there is serious injustice but no one there is that fucking stupid. Colombians are savvy, a civil war that lasts 40 years can teach you something. Who would call from their house anyway?
2. Tapping the phonelines? I concede the point, the local telcos are pretty easy to hack but they have some sophisticated tracking systems(phone systems are Dutch except for Bell-South cellular).
3. "So far, Colombian authorities have found only two drug subs, both of which were under construction. The most recent one, discovered 21 months ago outside Bogotá, was a 78-foot craft that cost an estimated $10 million"
The article mentions it had some Italian sub techs building it. Hmmm, as someone who was "in country" I seem to remember 4 Former US Naval techs who were arrested as well. Funny how that was not mentioned.
4. Damn right the Guerillas have all the hi tech gear. They can afford it. We are giving them Vietnam era choppers that are on their last legs. But they have to buy parts from the US. All the choppers have been retrofitted with computer guidance systems can contol surfaces that the parts can only be bought from US. Colombians prefer Soviet built choppers because they are computer-less and the parts can be milled locally instead of US mail order every-time something burns out.
5. "On a rainy night eight years ago in the Colombian city of Cali," Kinda late to be reporting this. Drum up our blood pressure a little. We are going to be in Colombia soon so we gotta on the bandwagon.
6. "$1.5 million IBM AS400" WOW, I would like to see the size of that bad boy. AS400's were running that much 8 years ago?
7. BUT THE FUNNIEST THING IS THIS ""A trafficker can bid on different rates -- 'I'll sell $1 million in cash in Miami,'" says the agent. "And he'll take the equivalent of $800,000 in pesos for it in Colombia."
$800,000 pesos is about $370 US. I would have been in that business quick.
Colombia has some great admins. When you have to work with the bare minimum you learn to really use what you have. My ex girlfriend there was certified in SCO, AIX, LINUX, RM-Cobol, and a slew of other things and she was 29. She could tie a knot in just about anyone, and she was damn good looking. So the talent pool they do have.
Colombia has a lotta problems. Poverty, social injustice, and a corrupt government. We need to help but you also gotta realize there are really good people there. 99.9 are dirt poor just trying to get a leg up and have nothing to do with the drug business. But until we really do something about it on our shores, should we stick our nose anywhere else?
The funniest thing I saw in Colombia were my fellow Americans. Looking for a little weed and coke. I saw a guy in a bar get convinced that a box of white chiclets were chewable cocaine and the guy gave him a $20 for it. I laughed my ass off. Considering that a gram is $5 US he really got taken.
So read between the lines. And if they clean it up, go to Colombia. Great people, good looking women. Ain't nothing like waking up 8k feet in the Andes and standing on top of the world
I have two cell phones. A Kyrocera tri-mode with Verizon that a client gave me for dedicated support that he charges with minutes. Pre-paid and he is assured he can get me anywhere in the US. The phone works anywhere in the us and any call is a local call even though the rates are 10-20 a minute. I am allowed to cruise on network and have yet to experience a roaming charge.
My other is a Cingular wireless with 500 anytime minutes and 4500 night and weekend. 39 a month. No roaming charges and I have been all over with it as well and it works great.
Voicestream has some features but the coverage and roaming sucks.
I do agree we need to agree on a standard though. My phones are tri-mode because I need total connectivity.
PS, both phones were free with the plans and are small and work well.
BUT I would love to have some of the bells and whistles Japan has. They simply do it better than us in those countries. Our government should step in and just say no to all the different standards and agree on one. But alas, we are driven by money.
First the article although informative was a little uninformed and written withmucho journalistic license.
Slidell is drained swampland. Not know in Louisiana for its bayous. Bayou towns are a little more south and west of new orleans and run along Highway 90. There is nary a cajun in those parts. Unless they are transplants.
Slidell is where you go to live when you can get outta the double wide. It is a white trash suburb(pardon if youlive there but it is not one of the nicest places in Louisiana. Reclaimed swamp that happens to be near a an ultra rich area, but not included.
Slidell is another case of people moving to the burbs and talking about how great it is. Slidell's greatedt claim to fame is it is a great place to piss off the interstate on your way to New Orleans.
As for the guy, yeah he is a shit. But he probably does make bank. Consider the sheer numbers of the unwashed still out there who still think the internet is a virtual gold mine. Say he gets 20 of those suckers a month to sign up at a grand a pop. Who is the real fool? Do the math 80 million email adresses are 80 potential million customers for him as well.
Sometimes people pay all of us ungodly amounts of cash for tech services(85 bucks an hour to install a printer or put the new Dell box on the lan.) Us tech guys do not have a stellar rep either.
Email campaigns do make money, for the person selling them. I have been offered good money to do them, and haven't, but depending on my job situation you never know.
Puto
Probably worth a read.... Statements are true.
on
Built For Use
·
· Score: 2, Informative
As an ad hoc web designer who is really a network engineer I agree with the comments about websites.
99% of web designers I know will take a companpies site and turn it into some wonder of Flash, css, java, and while it looks great is unsuable to the regular Joe due to bandwidth issues, plug-ins, are un navigable. Can we say frames anyone? echh.
I do websites with sidebar menus, no frames, and flash sparingly, and you can choose to see the flash or not.
Also site with musical intros without volume controls, intros without a skip button...
I also preview in Opera, Netscape, IE, and Mozilla.
I am not the most creative or knowledable designer. But I am finding my side web business is growing because of the no frills sites I do.
If you look it at althoug Suns stocks are down they are very profitable business and will be around for awhile. Red Hat couldn't touch Solaris in a profitability comparison( gotta get flamed for this, cause Linux is free, wait Red Hat aint, Linux none profit???)
If you look at HP as well there Nix makes them money in the high end markets.
And IBM, they have a number of OS's that have more than paid for the R&D that was put into them.
As an employee I have snatched my fair share of MP3's from the web while at work. Needed something to do waiting for the tech calls to come in and while on the calls:).
The funny thing is that my boss at the time was a funny guy. The first day I went to work and was being processed thorugh HR yada yada, I was sent to the sysadmin(this was at an ISP). He sat me down and handed me what he cooled my toolkit. An employee manual for the techs and an IDE removable drive bay with a five gig drive in and mount brackets.
The drive I was informed was so I could transfer large amounts of data between work and home with ease.
After getting to know him he explained to me it was easier buying a five gigger for every tech to keep his leeched WaRez/Mp3,p0rN, collection on instead of on the company servers. We each had to sign a waiver that the use of the drive was only for business use.... It was an intresting work around. A pretty cool boss. He loved music.
On the other hand as a sysadmin I agree with the legal issues. Keep it off my network. If you listen to music, you better have a job that doesn't recquire you to answer the phone or recquire any aural cues for your post.
I had another boss that didnt mind us listening to music but we all had to pool the cds and vote on them and only listen to one. Good policy.
But if anyone runs in an office with 200 workstations all with labtec speakers grunting out tinny tunes, Garth Brooks, Goo Dolls, Bare Naked, and a hodgepodge of others, is truly a virgin in an industry.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok I see this in two ways. MORE MS Monopoly, and
Dell probably signed a sweetheart of a deal with MS for say 10 bucks per copy of OS they ship. However Dell has a built in per system cost for 50 bucks per OS into all builds. All companies do this, think you are getting a good deal on the car? They all make money.
So Dell signs a sweetheart deal. Adds 40 bucks of profit for each PC sold. No brainer for the bean counters. Cause they already ran the numbers and saw Linux support would cost them for more than selling Linux PC's would make them. I bought a few Linux servers from them and had to reinstall as soon as I got em. But then again who doesnt with any os?
MS still goes out on Dells as well. We should look at what the bennies are for Dell.
Two Things.
Dell says " 2. For OptiPlex and Precision - purchase one of the new "nSeries" products (offered for GX260, WS340 & WS530 - details in the attached FAQ) that are being created to address a different OS support requirement other than a current standard Microsoft OS."
Ok so they are addressing the issue and selling systems with other OS options than MS. OK, so the above means you can still go non-ms on certain systems.
I want to see the attached FAQ the email talked about before I start the barn burning.
The whole story please.
Puto
Ok guy, I agree with you that Microsoft is an ungainly behemoth that needs a little reigning in. But some of your article was just down right wacky. I am not Microsoft pundit, I use it, I use Linux, and the *nixes. And I do prefer them for many things, and then windows for others.
Windows XP does have some heavy problems, but it is a fairly decent OS. I still use 2000 on some of my boxes and no real big issues. I run my nixes and windows fairly tight.
First rule of a sysadmin? Don't USE THE OS until it has been through at least 1-2 year period on the market so things can be ferreted out and fixed. This goes for service packs in windows and Linux Kernel updates(service pack). Ok, kernel updates to add funcionality but do fix and break things yeah. Anyone remember IBCS(or is it ICBS) dropped support from 6.2 to 7.
So unless you follow that rule do not bitch.
Your article is mainly rehashed summaries from other sources, which you reference. It is nice you put it all in one place, but adding spin is a whole nother animal.
As for the techinical issues you mentioned. XP does have them but they are easily resolved. All your 'problems' can be resolved on technet.
1. Sysprep, Riprep, Norton Ghost. Ghost been around for years. Easy system backups. And most OS's will freak if you move a hardrive to another system with different components.
2. Reg backups. Free software to do this. Hey it's free, what we all want right?
And yeah MS wants in your PC, but Apple owns your pc everytime you update. Good for the goose is good for the gander. But apple is *SPECIAL*
And the DOS issue. Yeah XP is not too great with DOS. But you know if you have ap that recquires it. Put 2000, put 98, forget about XP(see sysadmin rule #1). MS has been real clear about XP and DOS.
You have a lot lof legitame bitches that were garnered from others research no problem. But a lot of your article is skewed.
I want to see Linux get more recognition. But we fight the good fight, not THEIR fight of skewed facts and figures. We do it clean or we are no better.
And you might want to pick up some books from Amazon on OS's to learn a little more. Take a class or two.
For the record I am linux certified, a+, net+, and a MCSA. Who gives a shit. I am a tech, certs are part of the job. Did I mention my degree in IS? So while I am not a complete technical diety or claim to be I do feel comfortable enough to talk on the subject.
Fight it clean or do not fight at all.
Puto
Two metal plates that are only several inches apart and near her hand. Her hand alwas rests on one plate with her fingers just shy of the second plate.
When she needs help she moves that tiny distance and her hand touches both plates and completes the circut which is then wired to any bell and whistle you might choose.
Simple but effective and easy.
Puto
Jeez, nothing reported in that digital rag is exactly new. I knew most of those facts at the ripe old age of 10.
The article reads like a Readers Digest condensed version of the theory of relativity. Was it a slow day so he broke out a 1979 Geographic World Book and scammed their article?
"Motion, it turns out, slows time - one of the funny effects of the law of relativity. At low speeds, the effect is slight and makes no difference to our daily lives."
I learned this in the Superman flick when the Big S flew around the earth to save his sweetheart. Then went to the libray and read up on it.
Too many people in the academic world feel they must publish. Fine, do it, but don't rehash. Show me something new, groundbreaking.
BORED with the scientific community as of late.
Puto
Does the responsibility lie with the poster who submitted the story?
With the editor who let it pass?
Or the readers who know they will kill the box?
So I am saying we are all responsible for killing some box that is out there to help pilots. Not a Kewl view of the Alaskan landscape.
A little social responsibility is needed. You CAN be your brothers keeper by proxy.
Puto
I had a number of customers running their businesses with Quickbooks.
The long and short of it was I had a database go south on me and called Intuit and while on hold the voice mail machine announced to me that Intuit was a proud new member of the MS family.
My tech at Intuit was ecstatic cause of his options changing.
However, the acquisition was not allowed by the SEC because then MS would have had a monopoly on the personal finance software market.
The year was 1997. Maybe something to do with mac development.
Puto
There has been no honor in the computer industry for years. Money money money.
Boxen are my career and main interest in life(well booze and broads). But the industry has saddened me since the early 90's.
Ahhh fuck it.
Puto
Normally I would agree with you but when you hit your local bookstore and see the crap that the 'bestseller' list is rife with. Jackie Collins, Romance Novels, abd other shite, it makes you wonder if there is any correlation to talent or if the General reading public is truly a good representation to judge what is quality literature.
An Oprah Winfrey endorsement or even the book of the month club deal can drives sales up on what would normally be something that should be consigned to the bargain table at the end of the summer, or suitabale for wrapping fish. And we all know that Oprah is one of the literati. What kind of lemmings mentality have we come to where Oprah Winfrey can have a staff member read a book, tell the the Big O, Oprah, and the endorsement sells millions?
My point is that digital publish is great. I love it. Opens the medium to get more people reading. Although, as a newtwork engineer d00d I prefer to have the book in my hand than read it on a PDA. Call me retro. Can't imagine a long snooze in the tub with the good old PDA in hand.... I can always dry the book out.
And then taste is in the mouth, eyes, mind of the beholder. I for one look at the best seller lists and shudder. And to be fair, I will buy one at least once a month and read it, and sometimes I will be pleasantly surprised. Other times I choose to cringe in horror in the closet for a few days.
As for sci-fi. Neal Stephenson and Bruce Sterling seem to carry on the tradition well. Hard stuff with a sense of humor that is quite beleivable in a not so distant future. Allen Steel with this Moon backs a few years back were great as well. But I find more self on an ever increasing hunt for really good sc fi. How many Enders Game sequels can we have? Gibson needs to get off his ass and back to the Sprawl.
My point to this entire rant is that we need some quality to put on the medium for the would be publishers just start putting everything on to the insnanely popular shiny metal discs we all must have in our caves,homes. A bad book is a bad book no matter what the format.
I can't wait to get my DVD of the Ya Ya Sisterhood special edition with cutscenes, the book, the script, so I can put it on my Palm and have all the Ya Ya goodness whereever I go.
Put all the classics on the medium first. There is nothing worse than being on a plane or a trip with nothing to read, than having something bad to read.
Puto
What episode is that creature from holding the movie up?
Damn trekkies always getting dressed up.
You can always find pbx systems on E-bay relatively cheap. My house has a 15 year old system that I got out of an old office building. has 2 lines running into it, voice mail, and runs fine.
However, I want to kludge up something as well so here is my research for you.
http://www.mtnsys.com/ Software
http://www.openippbx.org/ Nix software
http://www.virtualpbx.com/ More software.
Hope this helps.
Puto
there is a remote desktop built into 2000 server via terminal server. Each copy of win 2000 server comes with a 1 user CAL for remote admin.
Puto
I agree. I have in to free speech, free beer, free software as much as the next guy. But also I grain of salt evreything as well.
People have replied that teachers, independent artists, etc, have their medium out their for the masses. WTF? Who says " Want to download our stuff? Just hit Kazaa, Grokster, the most unprotected, virus laden network out there. A decent amount of webspace with almost unlimited bandwidth can be had for next to NOTHING! If I was an independent artist it would be on MP3.com or some other music venue. I agree these p2p's might be another way to get heard, but really, come off that. "Dude get my tune and Nimda all in one shot"
I would venture to guess that %5 of the traffic is legit warez. Only 5 though, and that is probably a way high estimate.
No time to rip a cd I already own? Hmmm, so when you sleep at night you can't pop it in a box and hit enter? But not busy enough to wade through Grokster to find a complete mp3 after ten minutes of searching?
I know if I want a full blown copy of something to try I will look on Kazaa, and if I just want a song on a cd I do not own, I will get it off the net.
I am up front about this. I buy many cd's and I leech many too. I have been on this scene since probably 1980 with boxen but the difference is we were a little more upfront with out 'piracy' try before you buy.
P2P should be allowed, but who is going to police us.
And you know what, people in the IT industry are the biggest pirates of all. "Need it? We got it at the office, I'll burn a copt, I'll rip an image".
How many people are downloading Rob Jeremy rips for backups? How many people here didnt leech AOTC? Are the Testkillers, Transcenders, Solaris guides?
I bought the MacroMedia suite this week, it hurt. But in a way it felt good.
Puto
All well and nice to commemorate this first signal and all....
But didn't the Blair Witch Project come outta those woods too? They must be cursed, cause the utter shite that movies was still gives me nightmares.
I won't ever go back in the woods again.
Puto
Ahhh, I had a vibrating Gilette about 5 years ago, took a A battery, didnt seem to work any better. Though the heft was better.
o rs.shtml.
The turn table is old news too.
Maybe we are getting older and have already seen this things but then again maybe people are just not doing the proper research. here is one http://www.bluegoldusa.com/wholesale/designer_raz
Puto
My oldest buddy from college is a manager at Enterprise. Now this is the guy who was always the designated driver, rarely got drunk, honest abe, abd never said a harsh word about anyone. Token goody two shoes of my less than desirable crowd.
There is not week that goes by where he does not call me with some rental horror story. Usually ending up with him and the police looking for a rental that someone refuses to bring back. Or there is a wreck in another state with one of his cars that was rented for local use.
And the lists goes on. The company owns the car and does need some form of protection. I know if I owned anagency I would want tracking.
Again the model where you can pay less with the tracking device or pay more without is a good idea.
The reason the companies are doing this is the lack of responsibility of the renters to respect the car and the contract. And remember very few agencies rent to people under 25.
Puro
Now how come no one ever posts with that title? Her can't be to hard to fake. puto
Alphas were running at 500 megahertz at the time the P60,90 were out.
I remember becayse I almost bought one with the special version of NT for the Alpha. They only cost a small amount more and ran like scalded dogs.
The only problem was that there was very little peripheral support and huge driver issues. But most NT stuff ran on them and ran real fast.
AMD is the bastard child of the Alpha.
Puto
Long ago when I was punching the clock at Verio and we were implenting DSL throughout the country was when I saw the numbers on DSL and other high bandwidth solutions that were just started to sell like hotcakes. Remember this was when DSL was 300 a month...
Well, the number jockeys estimated(not only Verio but Bell South and PacB) that for broadband to become profitable it would have to sell bandwidth at a loss for at least 10 years. The idea was to get the local consumer hooked so that DSL,Cable, would be like a telephone.
The internet wasn't so glutted with shite in those days so early adopters of DSL didnt have much to look at. MS service packs, some ISOs, lotsa geo cities crap, etc. Rest of the world was still on AOL.
We got the call to drop to 35$ a month, this was in 97 for DSL. 30 of it went to the Bells. But corporate wanted a broad band roll out for the investors. We had our fiber so it wasnt an issue, lotsa capacity.
IT WAS underestimated the amount of bandwidth that people would use in their homes. Our 300 DSL users were always saturating the lines, WTF? 97 what were they look at? They had it shared on lans, natting to the neighbors house, rigging the apartment buildings. You couldn't change the TOS after the fact.
So 10 years to begin to break even we were told in 97. BREAK even not pay for the new infrastructure, high costs of bandwidth..... And remember the numbers had initially been run for 300 a month.... So where are we now five years down the road. At a severe fucking loss.
Boradband prices for the home should have been hire out the gate with a bandwidth cap. But the companies all got on the unlimited bandwagon and we all got used to fat pipes at a low cost.
We could have taken a lessen from dial up days. 20 bucks a month for unlimited? People keeping the modem bank tied up for nineteen hours a pop at 28.8. Shit, there wasn't any flash in those days but still, nineteen hours.
I no longer work in the ISP end, hung it up cause I kinda saw all this coming.
We need a little reality check. Lose some fucking bandwidth, go outside, not fire up the console.
I just returned from a two year stint in South America. And the first month with no DSL was a like a herion junkie with the DT's. But I discovered paper books again, got back into fitness and some old hobbies, and learned to sit on my ass less in front of my boxen( though now that I am home I got DSL again and 802'ed the house.
Bandwidth isn't a god given right. We just convinced ourselves it is.
Puto
Ok,
As someone who just returned from a two year stint in Colombia as a technical consultant(for coffee companies and web design). The article is heavily seeded with "factoids" to get support for our government to rush in there. Colombia needs help but to what extent?
1. "All of these anonymous callers were immediately identified, and they were killed," a former high-ranking DEA official says." No one narcs anyone out in Colombia, Colombians might hate the traffickers but there are a loyal people, they do not sell out. They know the consequences and have known for years. I don't deny there is serious injustice but no one there is that fucking stupid. Colombians are savvy, a civil war that lasts 40 years can teach you something. Who would call from their house anyway?
2. Tapping the phonelines? I concede the point, the local telcos are pretty easy to hack but they have some sophisticated tracking systems(phone systems are Dutch except for Bell-South cellular).
3. "So far, Colombian authorities have found only two drug subs, both of which were under construction. The most recent one, discovered 21 months ago outside Bogotá, was a 78-foot craft that cost an estimated $10 million"
The article mentions it had some Italian sub techs building it. Hmmm, as someone who was "in country" I seem to remember 4 Former US Naval techs who were arrested as well. Funny how that was not mentioned.
4. Damn right the Guerillas have all the hi tech gear. They can afford it. We are giving them Vietnam era choppers that are on their last legs. But they have to buy parts from the US. All the choppers have been retrofitted with computer guidance systems can contol surfaces that the parts can only be bought from US. Colombians prefer Soviet built choppers because they are computer-less and the parts can be milled locally instead of US mail order every-time something burns out.
5. "On a rainy night eight years ago in the Colombian city of Cali," Kinda late to be reporting this. Drum up our blood pressure a little. We are going to be in Colombia soon so we gotta on the bandwagon.
6. "$1.5 million IBM AS400" WOW, I would like to see the size of that bad boy. AS400's were running that much 8 years ago?
7. BUT THE FUNNIEST THING IS THIS ""A trafficker can bid on different rates -- 'I'll sell $1 million in cash in Miami,'" says the agent. "And he'll take the equivalent of $800,000 in pesos for it in Colombia."
$800,000 pesos is about $370 US. I would have been in that business quick.
Colombia has some great admins. When you have to work with the bare minimum you learn to really use what you have. My ex girlfriend there was certified in SCO, AIX, LINUX, RM-Cobol, and a slew of other things and she was 29. She could tie a knot in just about anyone, and she was damn good looking. So the talent pool they do have.
Colombia has a lotta problems. Poverty, social injustice, and a corrupt government. We need to help but you also gotta realize there are really good people there. 99.9 are dirt poor just trying to get a leg up and have nothing to do with the drug business. But until we really do something about it on our shores, should we stick our nose anywhere else?
The funniest thing I saw in Colombia were my fellow Americans. Looking for a little weed and coke. I saw a guy in a bar get convinced that a box of white chiclets were chewable cocaine and the guy gave him a $20 for it. I laughed my ass off. Considering that a gram is $5 US he really got taken.
So read between the lines. And if they clean it up, go to Colombia. Great people, good looking women. Ain't nothing like waking up 8k feet in the Andes and standing on top of the world
Puto
As a former employee of Pat Obriens in the French Quarter in New Orleans I can let you in on a little known fact.
They have the phrase "Have Fun!" copyrighted. So I guess you cant say it or have fun without dire results.
If you check their web-page out, look at the very bottome and you can read it in the blurb there.
http://www.patobriens.com/havefun.html
Just thought of something, if we slashdot their box, it is almost the equivalent of what their booz has been doing to people for years.
Puto
I have two cell phones. A Kyrocera tri-mode with Verizon that a client gave me for dedicated support that he charges with minutes. Pre-paid and he is assured he can get me anywhere in the US. The phone works anywhere in the us and any call is a local call even though the rates are 10-20 a minute. I am allowed to cruise on network and have yet to experience a roaming charge.
My other is a Cingular wireless with 500 anytime minutes and 4500 night and weekend. 39 a month. No roaming charges and I have been all over with it as well and it works great.
Voicestream has some features but the coverage and roaming sucks.
I do agree we need to agree on a standard though. My phones are tri-mode because I need total connectivity.
PS, both phones were free with the plans and are small and work well.
BUT I would love to have some of the bells and whistles Japan has. They simply do it better than us in those countries. Our government should step in and just say no to all the different standards and agree on one. But alas, we are driven by money.
Puto
First the article although informative was a little uninformed and written withmucho journalistic license.
Slidell is drained swampland. Not know in Louisiana for its bayous. Bayou towns are a little more south and west of new orleans and run along Highway 90. There is nary a cajun in those parts. Unless they are transplants.
Slidell is where you go to live when you can get outta the double wide. It is a white trash suburb(pardon if youlive there but it is not one of the nicest places in Louisiana. Reclaimed swamp that happens to be near a an ultra rich area, but not included.
Slidell is another case of people moving to the burbs and talking about how great it is. Slidell's greatedt claim to fame is it is a great place to piss off the interstate on your way to New Orleans.
As for the guy, yeah he is a shit. But he probably does make bank. Consider the sheer numbers of the unwashed still out there who still think the internet is a virtual gold mine. Say he gets 20 of those suckers a month to sign up at a grand a pop. Who is the real fool? Do the math 80 million email adresses are 80 potential million customers for him as well.
Sometimes people pay all of us ungodly amounts of cash for tech services(85 bucks an hour to install a printer or put the new Dell box on the lan.) Us tech guys do not have a stellar rep either.
Email campaigns do make money, for the person selling them. I have been offered good money to do them, and haven't, but depending on my job situation you never know.
Puto
As an ad hoc web designer who is really a network engineer I agree with the comments about websites.
99% of web designers I know will take a companpies site and turn it into some wonder of Flash, css, java, and while it looks great is unsuable to the regular Joe due to bandwidth issues, plug-ins, are un navigable. Can we say frames anyone? echh.
I do websites with sidebar menus, no frames, and flash sparingly, and you can choose to see the flash or not.
Also site with musical intros without volume controls, intros without a skip button...
I also preview in Opera, Netscape, IE, and Mozilla.
I am not the most creative or knowledable designer. But I am finding my side web business is growing because of the no frills sites I do.
Puto
If you look it at althoug Suns stocks are down they are very profitable business and will be around for awhile. Red Hat couldn't touch Solaris in a profitability comparison( gotta get flamed for this, cause Linux is free, wait Red Hat aint, Linux none profit???)
If you look at HP as well there Nix makes them money in the high end markets.
And IBM, they have a number of OS's that have more than paid for the R&D that was put into them.
And GASP, M$, seems to be as well.
Puto
As an employee I have snatched my fair share of MP3's from the web while at work. Needed something to do waiting for the tech calls to come in and while on the calls :).
The funny thing is that my boss at the time was a funny guy. The first day I went to work and was being processed thorugh HR yada yada, I was sent to the sysadmin(this was at an ISP). He sat me down and handed me what he cooled my toolkit. An employee manual for the techs and an IDE removable drive bay with a five gig drive in and mount brackets.
The drive I was informed was so I could transfer large amounts of data between work and home with ease.
After getting to know him he explained to me it was easier buying a five gigger for every tech to keep his leeched WaRez/Mp3,p0rN, collection on instead of on the company servers. We each had to sign a waiver that the use of the drive was only for business use.... It was an intresting work around. A pretty cool boss. He loved music.
On the other hand as a sysadmin I agree with the legal issues. Keep it off my network. If you listen to music, you better have a job that doesn't recquire you to answer the phone or recquire any aural cues for your post.
I had another boss that didnt mind us listening to music but we all had to pool the cds and vote on them and only listen to one. Good policy.
But if anyone runs in an office with 200 workstations all with labtec speakers grunting out tinny tunes, Garth Brooks, Goo Dolls, Bare Naked, and a hodgepodge of others, is truly a virgin in an industry.
Puto