This agreement covers all software that is distributed with the Dell computer, for which there is no separate license agreement between you and the manufacturer or owner of the software (collectively the "Software").
the GPL is considered a separate license agreement between you and the manufacturer or owner of the software so that agreement does not apply to the GPL'd stuff installed.
my website features many downloads and I wanted to keep other sites from leeching my downloads. many of these people were running personal firewall software, and all of those people were unable to download anything from my site because it would flip them back to the homepage when they clicked the download link. these people would not understand how to disable thier referrer filter and got paranoid when i said to disable thier firewall. finally i gave in and simply got rid of the referrer checking.
but referrer filters mess this up. alot of personal firewall software removes the referrers from the http requests. if this referrer check was done on every article on the web site, then anyone running such a firewall would get kicked back to the homepage (if that's what it does to people who are not coming from thier site) because they can not verify that it was linked to from within the site itself.
however he does say that even if the law says you can't copy things for personal use, that the restiction should be placed in lawbooks, not in the software or hardware itself, limiting the usefulness of your computer.
And I have very serious problems with punishing the technology. And that is precisely what the DMCA seeks to do. We should punish people who engage in acts of piracy. We should not punish the technology which can be used for infringing purposes but also for substantial noninfringing purposes.
Finally a man that understands that!
With all of the talk about digital rights management stuff coming out of washington and MPAA/RIAA it is a refreshing change of pace to see at least one person in a place of authority with a little intelligence.
amsung is not known for hard drives, however there is nothing inherently wrong with samsung hard drives. I have one in my wife's machine, and lots of laptops use samsung drives with no problems.
as for microstar, they are very reliable boards for the price. If i was forced to use an integrated board I would choose microstar. although the shared memory is kinda bad. Microstar beats the hell outta amptron.
Overall i think the wal mart low end system is GREAT for the price. 1 GHz value CPU, 40GB hard drive, 128 MB RAM for only $349? sounds great to me.
one of the best articles on the subject that I have seen at slashdot lately.
The PC I have now plays DivX files, mp3's and everything else just fine. I download my share of media from the net, and I am sure if they start putting watermarks in TC shows, the warez community will find some way to strip it out and make it availalbe, but the downside is that the new pc's that come out after this watermarking technology will not allow you to play unwatermarked content. I will therefor keep my current working PC as an entertainment box. By the time this happens, my PC will probably not be the one I want to use on my desk anymore, but it is more than capable of playing Hi-Res divx, mp3's and such. Tis would be the time i set up my roll-your-own PVR
One final problem though. Tecnology overlap. they launch all of this new watermarked content. No one is going to have PCs capable of playing the content. Why would anybody buy a PC that can only play watermarked content before the content becomes availalbe. They would be unable to play any content since none of the exiting content would have watermarks. Also, after the content is available even if some people upgrade to the newer stuff, not everyone will unless there is a VERY compelling reason to ditch all thier old working content in favor of getting ONLY the new watermarked content.
The picture quality is great but if it starts to rain, or it gets any condensation on the antenna you can kiss your signal goodbye. the picture is either perfect, or non-existant.
The box is made by nokia
a company called powernet also uses the same antennas and recievers for high speed internet access.
Ans in swedish the technology has a catchy name anyway... DigitalParabol
Whe have something like this in sweden. basically we attatch a little box to the bottom of our tv antenna (the roof mounted one) with a cable leading to a set top box. we point it at the transmitter (which is on top of the water tower here) and we get about 20 different cable channels. What is the most interesting part is that you can also hook up a modem or ethernet to the back, and interact with other people also watching the same programs (specific interactive shows only). there was a game you play with the remote control, trying to touch people's asses. (the pointer was a hand) You connect with the box, play around, and try to win. you can still play without connecting the modem/ethernet, but you can't compete.
Anyway, for more info on this stuff, check out boxer.se but be warned, it's all in swedish.
another suggestion would be to simply upgrade the ram on all the machines. a 400 with 512MB of ram is more than sufficient for any office task outside of video editing. instead of $600, you would only spend around $100 per machine.
i did the same thing you are thinking about doing now. I think the man-hours involved with building the machines ends up costing mre than buying complete machines. It depends on the amound of machines. We had 30 to build. All identical, so we just applied the same image to all of them. the long part was building them. In the end we would have saved money and time if we had simply ordered them.
Have you ever actually been to Irvine? It's a quiet place with a ton of office buildings. The Irvine Spectrum is actually way on the outskirts in the middle of nowhere. And it is more than a theatre. It is a whole entertainment center. A giant arcade, a Dave & Busters, street merchants... And I worked in Irvine as weel. TONS of high tech companies. I have never seen an act of violence or police brutality.
Oh wait... i get it. you want the theatre to yourself. and after typing all of this.. damn, i feel dumb.
Apple also released a machine called the centris back in the 680x0 days. it was basically a quadra without the AV stuff, and available to education only. Remember, apple used to give schools heavy discounts and sometimes free machines which it why they are so entrenched in the education sector. Now they are simply trying to keep that with this machine, which seems good to me, however... I want one too:)
they DO sell linux, and it's fine with the GPL. I can go ahead and download redhat, slap a sticker on it that says GutBomb linux, and go ahead and sell it. I don't have to make it available for free at all. only source. But then someone can make an ISO of my GutBomb linux put it up on the net, and sit is still legal. you CAN sell GPL software. otherwise, redhat is selling you a piece of media for $175
this place has more information, and the code for free download. it's only a 4MB download so it won't take long. let's see how fast it gets slashdotted...
This is a great development actually. It took many years for the doom, quake, quake 2, and abuse source to hit the net (well, maybe not quake's since it was stolen)
But out of all of those games, the only one that i have in my "waiting to play" file. that's right, i have been too busy with other things to actually play this game. This is finally the opportunity to start playing... well, maybe after i beat JK2:)
the article mentions the fact that they were flirting with the idea of passing a bill that would require the e-mexico initiative to use opensource technology. I don't think this is the right direction. forcing free software on people defeats the purpose of free software. I thought it was all about free to choose what you want not forced to use non-microsoft tools.
sometimes this does not help. I for one lease a server from rackshack and sell hosting accounts on that server to others under the name of zortera. If you search for zortera on a spam list you will not see it, but rackshack may be on that list. my point, try to find out yor hosting company's upstream provider and see if THEY are on the spam lists.
for older computers, such as the vic-20, some of the really old apple 2 clones, and atari or TI machines, i used to go to the Mile High Flea market in denver. they always had really good selections on the old stuff. last year I picked up a vic-20, cassette player, vicmodem (300 baud even!), and a couple games on tape for $11. then I found a 1541 drive a cople booths over for an additional $5. every time going down there I have seen lots of computers from that era. I picked up a mac plus there once for $14 too:) They have 386s and crap too, and once i found an AT&T machine. it ran some kind of unix. the salesman said it was DOS, but... he pronounced DOS like DOSE:)
I saw another one of these a couple days ago, don't remember where I got the link, but I think this one is much nicer, with an lcd screen and all. I think he is using the mac mouse and keyboard too... (not sure)
Slashdot Mirror
it is apple DEVELOPERS that are not sharing aqua. it is some apple USERS that are badmouthing X window system.
This agreement covers all software that is distributed with the Dell computer, for which there is no separate license agreement between you and the manufacturer or owner of the software (collectively the "Software").
the GPL is considered a separate license agreement between you and the manufacturer or owner of the software so that agreement does not apply to the GPL'd stuff installed.
my website features many downloads and I wanted to keep other sites from leeching my downloads. many of these people were running personal firewall software, and all of those people were unable to download anything from my site because it would flip them back to the homepage when they clicked the download link. these people would not understand how to disable thier referrer filter and got paranoid when i said to disable thier firewall. finally i gave in and simply got rid of the referrer checking.
but referrer filters mess this up. alot of personal firewall software removes the referrers from the http requests. if this referrer check was done on every article on the web site, then anyone running such a firewall would get kicked back to the homepage (if that's what it does to people who are not coming from thier site) because they can not verify that it was linked to from within the site itself.
however he does say that even if the law says you can't copy things for personal use, that the restiction should be placed in lawbooks, not in the software or hardware itself, limiting the usefulness of your computer.
you can send him email at Ninthnet@mail.house.gov or you can contact him via phone or mail at:
188 East Main Street
Abingdon, Virginia 24210
276-628-1145
112 North Washington Avenue
Pulaski, Virginia 24301
540-980-4310
1 Cloverleaf Square, Suite C-1
Big Stone Gap, Virginia 24219
276-523-5450
2187 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
202-225-3861
finally, you can visit his web site at http://www.house.gov/boucher
And I have very serious problems with punishing the technology. And that is precisely what the DMCA seeks to do. We should punish people who engage in acts of piracy. We should not punish the technology which can be used for infringing purposes but also for substantial noninfringing purposes. Finally a man that understands that! With all of the talk about digital rights management stuff coming out of washington and MPAA/RIAA it is a refreshing change of pace to see at least one person in a place of authority with a little intelligence.
amsung is not known for hard drives, however there is nothing inherently wrong with samsung hard drives. I have one in my wife's machine, and lots of laptops use samsung drives with no problems. as for microstar, they are very reliable boards for the price. If i was forced to use an integrated board I would choose microstar. although the shared memory is kinda bad. Microstar beats the hell outta amptron. Overall i think the wal mart low end system is GREAT for the price. 1 GHz value CPU, 40GB hard drive, 128 MB RAM for only $349? sounds great to me.
one of the best articles on the subject that I have seen at slashdot lately.
The PC I have now plays DivX files, mp3's and everything else just fine. I download my share of media from the net, and I am sure if they start putting watermarks in TC shows, the warez community will find some way to strip it out and make it availalbe, but the downside is that the new pc's that come out after this watermarking technology will not allow you to play unwatermarked content. I will therefor keep my current working PC as an entertainment box. By the time this happens, my PC will probably not be the one I want to use on my desk anymore, but it is more than capable of playing Hi-Res divx, mp3's and such. Tis would be the time i set up my roll-your-own PVR
One final problem though. Tecnology overlap. they launch all of this new watermarked content. No one is going to have PCs capable of playing the content. Why would anybody buy a PC that can only play watermarked content before the content becomes availalbe. They would be unable to play any content since none of the exiting content would have watermarks. Also, after the content is available even if some people upgrade to the newer stuff, not everyone will unless there is a VERY compelling reason to ditch all thier old working content in favor of getting ONLY the new watermarked content.
actually, some more info...
The picture quality is great but if it starts to rain, or it gets any condensation on the antenna you can kiss your signal goodbye. the picture is either perfect, or non-existant.
The box is made by nokia
a company called powernet also uses the same antennas and recievers for high speed internet access.
Ans in swedish the technology has a catchy name anyway... DigitalParabol
Whe have something like this in sweden. basically we attatch a little box to the bottom of our tv antenna (the roof mounted one) with a cable leading to a set top box. we point it at the transmitter (which is on top of the water tower here) and we get about 20 different cable channels. What is the most interesting part is that you can also hook up a modem or ethernet to the back, and interact with other people also watching the same programs (specific interactive shows only). there was a game you play with the remote control, trying to touch people's asses. (the pointer was a hand) You connect with the box, play around, and try to win. you can still play without connecting the modem/ethernet, but you can't compete.
Anyway, for more info on this stuff, check out boxer.se but be warned, it's all in swedish.
another suggestion would be to simply upgrade the ram on all the machines. a 400 with 512MB of ram is more than sufficient for any office task outside of video editing. instead of $600, you would only spend around $100 per machine.
i did the same thing you are thinking about doing now. I think the man-hours involved with building the machines ends up costing mre than buying complete machines. It depends on the amound of machines. We had 30 to build. All identical, so we just applied the same image to all of them. the long part was building them. In the end we would have saved money and time if we had simply ordered them.
Have you ever actually been to Irvine? It's a quiet place with a ton of office buildings. The Irvine Spectrum is actually way on the outskirts in the middle of nowhere. And it is more than a theatre. It is a whole entertainment center. A giant arcade, a Dave & Busters, street merchants... And I worked in Irvine as weel. TONS of high tech companies. I have never seen an act of violence or police brutality. Oh wait... i get it. you want the theatre to yourself. and after typing all of this.. damn, i feel dumb.
Apple also released a machine called the centris back in the 680x0 days. it was basically a quadra without the AV stuff, and available to education only. Remember, apple used to give schools heavy discounts and sometimes free machines which it why they are so entrenched in the education sector. Now they are simply trying to keep that with this machine, which seems good to me, however... I want one too :)
they DO sell linux, and it's fine with the GPL. I can go ahead and download redhat, slap a sticker on it that says GutBomb linux, and go ahead and sell it. I don't have to make it available for free at all. only source. But then someone can make an ISO of my GutBomb linux put it up on the net, and sit is still legal. you CAN sell GPL software. otherwise, redhat is selling you a piece of media for $175
why don't they just fire one of the keyboard monkeys and get the damn service contract?
this place has more information, and the code for free download. it's only a 4MB download so it won't take long. let's see how fast it gets slashdotted...
http://www.freespace-2.com/ddn/sources/freespace2
This is a great development actually. It took many years for the doom, quake, quake 2, and abuse source to hit the net (well, maybe not quake's since it was stolen) But out of all of those games, the only one that i have in my "waiting to play" file. that's right, i have been too busy with other things to actually play this game. This is finally the opportunity to start playing... well, maybe after i beat JK2 :)
I have found that using duct tape to connect my ipaw to my mobile phone is much more cost effective.
the article mentions the fact that they were flirting with the idea of passing a bill that would require the e-mexico initiative to use opensource technology. I don't think this is the right direction. forcing free software on people defeats the purpose of free software. I thought it was all about free to choose what you want not forced to use non-microsoft tools.
http://www.majcher.com/nytview.html
sometimes this does not help. I for one lease a server from rackshack and sell hosting accounts on that server to others under the name of zortera. If you search for zortera on a spam list you will not see it, but rackshack may be on that list. my point, try to find out yor hosting company's upstream provider and see if THEY are on the spam lists.
for older computers, such as the vic-20, some of the really old apple 2 clones, and atari or TI machines, i used to go to the Mile High Flea market in denver. they always had really good selections on the old stuff. last year I picked up a vic-20, cassette player, vicmodem (300 baud even!), and a couple games on tape for $11. then I found a 1541 drive a cople booths over for an additional $5. every time going down there I have seen lots of computers from that era. I picked up a mac plus there once for $14 too :) They have 386s and crap too, and once i found an AT&T machine. it ran some kind of unix. the salesman said it was DOS, but... he pronounced DOS like DOSE :)
I saw another one of these a couple days ago, don't remember where I got the link, but I think this one is much nicer, with an lcd screen and all. I think he is using the mac mouse and keyboard too... (not sure)