As an SysAdmin, I'm waiting for something like this to knock off all my "secretary" PCs. This has almost enough guts for 90% of office workers needs. Definately would meet student's needs. But other posters are right, it's WAY overpriced. This should be $500-$700 tops. and it's got no NIC! I'd really like a PalmOS version of this though. That would bring Palm into the bigtime, and there are already lots of apps ready. Remember, it's time for simplicity over cool features!
We're looking at the Post-PC age. PC power is now a commodity, most productivity software can be found OSS, there's not really a need for the general user for faster, we're at the point it just needs to WORK. Like a TV, day after day, the same thing. Combine this with the Rumba server [from down below] and PS2 and you could actually be 100% connected WITHOUT actally owning any PC hardware! That's a great thing, if disconcerting for/.ers.
that current comercial DVD's were dual-layer standard. The current spec allows for dual-layer, dual-sided DVDs right now, but typically you still have to physically flip the disc. Phillips new -r should play in normal DVD players...that's the point of being compatible.
Also, I thought that commercial movies were well over the 4.5Gb per side limit. They add enough stuff to the movie [trailers, BTS, etc] to fill up the disk to use two layers. They can also get sloppy with the compression [which improves picture on cheap players] as well as make the disc non-ripable to a standard recordable DVD. That and the "key" block? [for CSS?] on recordables is preburned so you can never make an exact disc copy even if you wanted. Your copy won't be "seen" as a commercial DVD?
And there are far more upset Toddlers than people with AIDS. The government has a mandate in the preamble to promote the "Domestic Tranquility" and reducing the number of broken cookie incidents directly falls under that mandate.
yeah really, If the govt has mortars and bazookas, why can't I. The point of the amendment was to allow citizens self defence against invaders. At the time, the Brits were rounding up all the guns and forcing colonists to WAIT for the British Army if they were attacked. That did a lot of good? Without guns you didn't stand a chance against a band of Indians [sorry, nonPC] trying to scalp you. For a matter of fact, this whole "war on terrorism" thing flys directly against the framers intentions for the second amendment. The people are SUPPOSED to defend themselves. It's not a RIGHT, it's a RESPONSIBLITY!
Everybody should have one, it weeds out stupid people! All this talk of terrorists is overrated. The only thing that can stop terrorists is PEOPLE. The citizens have to be prepared...unless they want "Big Brother" to save them all the time. Most terrorists don't stand a chance against an angry mob...we really need more of them! [angry mobs]
As far as terrorists using this, WHY, they typically have access to the Classified US Army hardware already. It's just like "gun control" For a matter of fact, pretty much anybody that wants RPGs, Stingers, land mines, etc can get older model US ones on the black market. Only honest US citizens can't.
But if he's taking the subway then he's got to take it all with him! After all, how many of us keep all the toys in the car? CD collections, gameboys, etc. Walking everywhere is both good and bad. You actually have time [and need] to USE the devices [you can't in suburbian traffic] while you wait for public trasportation, but you do have to keep it all with you, all the time.
frankly, I'd get a courier bag. It's a nice professional alternative to a breif case. And also has room for actual WORK, magazines, and a change of clothes should you ever have cause to spend the nite with a girl. [with all those toys unlikely to happen soon though]
This is Why MS Product Activation is GOOD, as well as the RIAA/MPAA crackdown on filesharing.
After all, the current events are really getting the discussion going for proper copyright honoring online. Most people kinda know they aren't supposed to download copyrighted software, but it's always been a grey area. Now that MS and the RIAA is cracking down is a GREAT time to start exposing OSS/ free software! We really need to use this to our advantage. Maybe even offer up a few PSAs touting the advantage of GNU/Linux...and start marketing cute Tux toys to kids. We really should get some kind of media push to mention OSS everytime they mention RIAA crackdowns, etc...Then people will finally see the need for OSS and start to seek it out!
My shop is guilty of that for one. The majority of our PCs are still at 97. We have a few 2000 and some XP, but honestly it's getting way too expensive. We're one of those SMBs there's no way in heck we're signing up for any "Software Assurance" or other Lock-in system. We want to buy it off the shelf so we "own" it. Frankly, MS has given no reason to upgrade to XP across the board, and if it ever came down to that, we'd have to switch to OO.org overnight.
When my BigBoss caught me spending $300 on an OEM copy of OfficeXP PRO for the VP [he uses it alot!] he about flipped out. SMB bosses refuse to be pushed around...most of them could still survive on pencil and paper if they really had too...And they like it that way!
That would jive with the idea of being Open Sources too. After all, you're still a student. While I wouldn't recommend getting screwed, you have to look at the bigger picture.
You may be the first OSS person they have delt with. Determine what they REALLY want, then expain how OSS will work...Up front. You're still in school and new at this, so I'd try to come up with a number that they could "afford" to loose. Not that you'll mess up, but such that it's seen as a trial, and not met with professional demands.
If you start out small and work with them, you'll build confidence on both sides as well as good will toward eachother and OSS. Right now the Good Will is much more important...It's building professional contacts that can help AFTER school.
Exactly opposite to what's going on right now! After all, It's OK for MS to have outsourcing to India and lay off US workers as long as the buck flow here. It NOT ok for us to buy BMWs or Hondas build in the US by US workers because the profit flows back to Japan...get the picture.
After all, why should the asians buy from MS anyway. They are already using cheap asian labor to make the software then sell it back at inflated american prices. Why not just skip the MS middleman and "pay" their own people..and save a buck or two. When American companies pay cheap labor in asia it's "outsorucing", when Asian companies pay cheap asian labor in asia it's "unfair" competition...see.
I think you're right on about Globalism though. American companies aren't making JOBS for americans, they're just using it as an excuse to get free work. OSS changes the focus [back] from buying a canned "product" to buying experience and know-how. Corporations like MS have spent years trying to "bottle" knowladge from others and sell it real cheap. OSS lets YOU use knowladge to improve your situation. MS is really in the same racket as the RIAA or MPAA. While they are really popular, they don't make anything people can't live without. That OSS is even an issue shows how quickly software became "Corpratist". After all, we don't have debates about independant music or film, yet independant [free] software is somehow inferior or wrong? It's a great brainwashing job!
But that's an internal case again. You can only use in instead of a traditional wired phone system. The difference is like said above, these are Cable or DSL companies that are providing REAL phone numbers, and alternate non-telco based lines...not just VOIP service.
This is really no different than calling cell phone companies "phone companies", why not when the only difference is that they don't have wires...same thing here. This isn't an attack on general VOIP chat...yet?
There are a large number of Cable companies getting in on the VOIP thing, and perhaps wireless or others. Cable Companies don't pay all those state & federal fees like telcos do. They are end-running the system and using their "protected" status to get into telephony. In a way this is actually good. Once Cable companies count as phone companies, the double-standard will break down and there will be more competition for cable services opened up!
Java really is best for enterprise level web work. Enterprise is a completely different ballgame compared to/. level stuff. ON/. you loose a bunch of trolls, in an enterprise you loose real $$ every time there's a mistake! and you HAVE to fix it.
Java seems to have the most hooks to the really cool database functions necessary for enterprise web. This isn't MySql land anymore. You absolutely need persistance and triggers and a DB that takes care of itself. Right now that's a terrible hack in PHP to even use that stuff, worse if you try to hack it on to MySql. It can be done, but even the writers of it will tell you not to put too much faith in it. It's not good or bad, just not the right tool for the job.
Frankly, IBM is where to be for enterprise web development. The stuff is designed to Just Work. You don't even have to use the expensive websphere products for everything, it's the fact that IBM has really embeded Java into their servers...in the same way Perl is woven into Linux. Java hook into all of their "marketspeak" products.
At the risk of sounding silly, look into IBM iSeries machines! [check out www.search400.com for iSeries happenings] Yes, they are BOOORRRRING, but in the enterprise server world boring is good! Seriously, they have almost every feature that a stock Linux box has.. out of the box. Sort of like BSD, a lot of stuff has to be turned on...lots of iSeries sit with LOTS of potential dark nowdays, IBM has really dropped the ball. The coolest feature is the Embeded DB2 that's built like a tank! All the replication, syncing, sharing machines is stock IBM code for you to use. Catch is they are REALLY, REALLY expensive to purchase....but REALLY cheap to operate! That make it a hard sell, but again, it's about the RIGHT tools for the job...an things go smoothly.
How about You working some problems and posting the answers...or better yet, creating problems. Get the idea. The point of MIT doing this is as a seedling for an entirely online educational community.
It's up to everyone else to make SOMETHING out of it!
Bush's daughters are Wild...and the news Media is EXTREMELY DISCRETE when they handle them...but they have to report when the girls are thrown in Jail repeatedly! Jeb's kids are just as bad....Must be that "experimenting" with cocaine George did in college.
For all the screwing up [and down and which way] the Clinton's did, Chelsea turned out well. She's graduated from Harvard[?] now and has a job! You NEVER heard about her doing anything like the Bush girls. As People they had to do something right. What un-nerves me is that Bush and the "Right" seem to want to push their morals [I don't entirely disagree, but] on the rest of us with Drunk driving crackdown, Drug War, Iraq War, Homeland security, TIA but they can't even keep control of their OWN CHILDREN! [Bush Sr seemed to have the same issues with Jr too] These guys are supposed to increase "law" enforcement and lower crime?
Honestly, The above isn't an insult in any way, it's fact [and very, very few] published in the newspaper. If THAT is going on [and the media are fairly nice to the prez family] how bad are they really? How can someone seriously be expected to run a COUNTRY when they can't seem to control their own selves?
This is a great idea. Google is great for random information especially third-party info on something, but getting to an exact document can be very difficult.
Many people are well trained in looking things up in massive dead tree tomes of tenichal documents, Library drawers, etc. If you know how to use the Dewey Decimal system for example, you can find a book in a card catalog at a library even faster than using Google! It's all about the right tool for the job.
Also, unlike Google, these are very specific identifiers. Exactly one company has rights to a registered IBSN book, Or one company sets the standard of indexing [dewey decimal]. This could be good for government documents and forms, RFC/ANSI/ISO/SAE specs, and manufacturer part numbers.
My step-dad works in the QC department at a electronics assembler and constantly needs to look up component specs for verification. He's looking for an exact document from an exact company, times hundreds of components at a time...Google doesn't cut it here...too much clutter. Typically [back in the 80's] companies used to produce entire techinical libraries of technical documentation [and have to update it YEARLY] now we have the web, but we've lost the simple ability to just "grab a book" and be done with it...this scheme would help with that.
That said, They should have just gone to Google with it. It'd make a great "google hack" that google could even profit from! Who knows, maybe Google will still beat them to it!
Not really, The/. boards are fairly reasonable compared to the rest of the web [and yes, I mean both right and left]. I've read stuff on Yahoo and AOL message boards in replies to news items that would have CMDRTaco banning IPs from the site. People out there are outrageously bigoted and hateful....after reading some postings, I've been embarassed to BE american! The same things exist on many of the online game chatrooms as well...
So yes, surveying those communities [and many are AMERICANS mind you!] would be a valid way to see inside the terrorist Psyche. Although the denziens of the games are too chicken to act like that in Real Life, they certianly like to talk it up...an I suspect many would act like that given a chance to get away with it.....wittness the news lately!
We slashdotters that don't like the administration's policies can think of every single possible thing the Iraquies could do to "interrupt" our forces. [said game would require security clearance as many CS & stratagy gamers would probably be playing several levels above actual Iraquies for overall meanspiritedness and tactics! We wouldn't want the Iraqies getting ideas would we?] Then dump THAT game on the analysts. It could even be online so that as they beat it we can change the rules so they can NEVER WIN....just like in the real world!
from a mideast [or native american late 1800's?] point of view yes. After all, you're paying somebody to stay down. Typically you're paying something you can live without [even millions of american $$ are a drop in the bucket] to get people to "lay down" and just barely be alive, but not enough to actually get out of the situation....Not that the "helping power" would ever WANT them out of the situation.
That leads to anger, hate, violence, more suffering...
of course you can make the same claim about Corperate Welfare as well...MS monopoly, Enron, Worldcom, S&L 90's, DMCA, UTCIA...Just like the slums they accept it, demand it, then grow to hate you for giveing it to them too!
from raw material to manufacturing cost is 3X markup. From Manufacturer to Distributor is 3X markup. From Distributor to Retailer is 3X markup. From Retailer to YOU is 3X markup.
the hard drive is right on, but the cable is a bit high...but it's a convienance item...so the markup is higher.
Yeah, but again, you have the overhead issue. I used to work at an ECM [Electronics Contract Manufacture] and yeah, pieces were in the fraction of a penny a piece.....on a full reel of 10,000....bought a dozen reel at a time. After dealing with that stuff,[and crawl on the floor to find one sot23 because we delt with engineering samples of EXACT PIECES...go figure] I wouldn't wish anyone to have to package all those little Radio Shack packs....that's insane...
in your case, ram is tied to performance & and IBM includes that increase in your "support and service" cost. IBM is really the all time master of the hardware markup, and the locked-in customer racket. What's worse is that IBM's software cost based on hardware features...go faster and pay more $$$$.
On the flip side, I'm addicted to IBM iSeries [as400] They absolutly rock. They "just work" like no mear PC [or AMD/Intel] harware can match. But they are REALLY, REALLY PRICY. But it's no different than dealing with a Cisco or SGI...If you need the power, you get what you pay for and be willing to pay it.
#6 is the slipery slope!
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NYT on RFID
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#6 is the slipery slope! When Social Security numbers were created this was the fear...so they made it a law you couldn't reqire people to offer it....Yeah right. You can't buy a house, car, any kind of loan, get employment or insurance unless you offer up that number...of course your compliance is completely "voluntary"...
As for busisses requiring it, look at the rise of zero-cash businesses..there are zero cash "club" gas stations that accept only their credit card for service. I'd expect the Wholesale Group warehouse clubs owned by certian large retailers to be the next to go to this innovation. Sure, they have to take cash, but that doesn't mean that the manager's not going to just make change from his wallet for you [or the store's small stash, because he don't carry money] Look at travel, try making any type of reservation without a Credit card [or other electronic id] it won't happen, they won't gaurantee you anything.
One day all the 'dissenters' from this stuff will magically vanish. The world will actually be a happy place...for a while. All the big ideas about "controling" people and being "one world" no matter what will happen almost overnight. Then the whole thing will turn into a huge mess just as fast. I won't be here!
It's ironic that a SOFTWARE company won't accept electronic filings! Doesn't MS actually SELL software for just such a thing?
Still, kudos to Lindows...this is Clasic used-car salesman one-upmanship at it's finest! After all, drive into a Chevy dealer with a Ford, and they'll give you extra incentive to get you out of that ford and behind the Chevy wheel! Pizza places honor each others coupons all the time...and maybe even +10%.
This is great marketing! MS has got to hate it. After all, MS has perfected giving away free software to kill competiton. Lindows is doing one better by giving away Microsoft's money to give away free software to kill competition! All's fair in Love 'n War...that's what MS has said for years. This is hillarious!
After all, Lindow is accepting the risk of the settlements being rejected. As long as they "eat" the cost if they loose, they haven't committed any fraud...Just trying to help people out. Of course, they are draging people away from windows...that's the real problem. Using the MS settlement to get dollars into customers hands and into LINDOWS pockets.
MS should really be hoping to LOOSE THIS. If Lindows does loose, they can just send out the proper forms, have the people sign them and mail them in anyway. If Lindows eats the first round of "misfiled" forms, and lets people have the product for free, who's product will they perhaps purchase with the checks? This is genius marketing here!
On the other hand, what will MS send with the settlement checks, coupons, rebates, special deals, demo software. Wouldn't that be equally misleading as well? Has anybody gotten a rebate check to answer this?
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We're looking at the Post-PC age. PC power is now a commodity, most productivity software can be found OSS, there's not really a need for the general user for faster, we're at the point it just needs to WORK. Like a TV, day after day, the same thing. Combine this with the Rumba server [from down below] and PS2 and you could actually be 100% connected WITHOUT actally owning any PC hardware! That's a great thing, if disconcerting for /.ers.
Also, I thought that commercial movies were well over the 4.5Gb per side limit. They add enough stuff to the movie [trailers, BTS, etc] to fill up the disk to use two layers. They can also get sloppy with the compression [which improves picture on cheap players] as well as make the disc non-ripable to a standard recordable DVD. That and the "key" block? [for CSS?] on recordables is preburned so you can never make an exact disc copy even if you wanted. Your copy won't be "seen" as a commercial DVD?
And there are far more upset Toddlers than people with AIDS. The government has a mandate in the preamble to promote the "Domestic Tranquility" and reducing the number of broken cookie incidents directly falls under that mandate.
yeah really, If the govt has mortars and bazookas, why can't I. The point of the amendment was to allow citizens self defence against invaders. At the time, the Brits were rounding up all the guns and forcing colonists to WAIT for the British Army if they were attacked. That did a lot of good? Without guns you didn't stand a chance against a band of Indians [sorry, nonPC] trying to scalp you. For a matter of fact, this whole "war on terrorism" thing flys directly against the framers intentions for the second amendment. The people are SUPPOSED to defend themselves. It's not a RIGHT, it's a RESPONSIBLITY!
As far as terrorists using this, WHY, they typically have access to the Classified US Army hardware already. It's just like "gun control" For a matter of fact, pretty much anybody that wants RPGs, Stingers, land mines, etc can get older model US ones on the black market. Only honest US citizens can't.
frankly, I'd get a courier bag. It's a nice professional alternative to a breif case. And also has room for actual WORK, magazines, and a change of clothes should you ever have cause to spend the nite with a girl. [with all those toys unlikely to happen soon though]
After all, the current events are really getting the discussion going for proper copyright honoring online. Most people kinda know they aren't supposed to download copyrighted software, but it's always been a grey area. Now that MS and the RIAA is cracking down is a GREAT time to start exposing OSS/ free software! We really need to use this to our advantage. Maybe even offer up a few PSAs touting the advantage of GNU/Linux...and start marketing cute Tux toys to kids. We really should get some kind of media push to mention OSS everytime they mention RIAA crackdowns, etc...Then people will finally see the need for OSS and start to seek it out!
When my BigBoss caught me spending $300 on an OEM copy of OfficeXP PRO for the VP [he uses it alot!] he about flipped out. SMB bosses refuse to be pushed around...most of them could still survive on pencil and paper if they really had too...And they like it that way!
You may be the first OSS person they have delt with. Determine what they REALLY want, then expain how OSS will work...Up front. You're still in school and new at this, so I'd try to come up with a number that they could "afford" to loose. Not that you'll mess up, but such that it's seen as a trial, and not met with professional demands.
If you start out small and work with them, you'll build confidence on both sides as well as good will toward eachother and OSS. Right now the Good Will is much more important...It's building professional contacts that can help AFTER school.
After all, why should the asians buy from MS anyway. They are already using cheap asian labor to make the software then sell it back at inflated american prices. Why not just skip the MS middleman and "pay" their own people..and save a buck or two. When American companies pay cheap labor in asia it's "outsorucing", when Asian companies pay cheap asian labor in asia it's "unfair" competition...see.
I think you're right on about Globalism though. American companies aren't making JOBS for americans, they're just using it as an excuse to get free work. OSS changes the focus [back] from buying a canned "product" to buying experience and know-how. Corporations like MS have spent years trying to "bottle" knowladge from others and sell it real cheap. OSS lets YOU use knowladge to improve your situation. MS is really in the same racket as the RIAA or MPAA. While they are really popular, they don't make anything people can't live without. That OSS is even an issue shows how quickly software became "Corpratist". After all, we don't have debates about independant music or film, yet independant [free] software is somehow inferior or wrong? It's a great brainwashing job!
This is really no different than calling cell phone companies "phone companies", why not when the only difference is that they don't have wires...same thing here. This isn't an attack on general VOIP chat...yet?
There are a large number of Cable companies getting in on the VOIP thing, and perhaps wireless or others. Cable Companies don't pay all those state & federal fees like telcos do. They are end-running the system and using their "protected" status to get into telephony. In a way this is actually good. Once Cable companies count as phone companies, the double-standard will break down and there will be more competition for cable services opened up!
Java seems to have the most hooks to the really cool database functions necessary for enterprise web. This isn't MySql land anymore. You absolutely need persistance and triggers and a DB that takes care of itself. Right now that's a terrible hack in PHP to even use that stuff, worse if you try to hack it on to MySql. It can be done, but even the writers of it will tell you not to put too much faith in it. It's not good or bad, just not the right tool for the job.
Frankly, IBM is where to be for enterprise web development. The stuff is designed to Just Work. You don't even have to use the expensive websphere products for everything, it's the fact that IBM has really embeded Java into their servers...in the same way Perl is woven into Linux. Java hook into all of their "marketspeak" products.
At the risk of sounding silly, look into IBM iSeries machines! [check out www.search400.com for iSeries happenings] Yes, they are BOOORRRRING, but in the enterprise server world boring is good! Seriously, they have almost every feature that a stock Linux box has.. out of the box. Sort of like BSD, a lot of stuff has to be turned on...lots of iSeries sit with LOTS of potential dark nowdays, IBM has really dropped the ball. The coolest feature is the Embeded DB2 that's built like a tank! All the replication, syncing, sharing machines is stock IBM code for you to use. Catch is they are REALLY, REALLY expensive to purchase....but REALLY cheap to operate! That make it a hard sell, but again, it's about the RIGHT tools for the job...an things go smoothly.
It's up to everyone else to make SOMETHING out of it!
For all the screwing up [and down and which way] the Clinton's did, Chelsea turned out well. She's graduated from Harvard[?] now and has a job! You NEVER heard about her doing anything like the Bush girls. As People they had to do something right. What un-nerves me is that Bush and the "Right" seem to want to push their morals [I don't entirely disagree, but] on the rest of us with Drunk driving crackdown, Drug War, Iraq War, Homeland security, TIA but they can't even keep control of their OWN CHILDREN! [Bush Sr seemed to have the same issues with Jr too] These guys are supposed to increase "law" enforcement and lower crime?
Honestly, The above isn't an insult in any way, it's fact [and very, very few] published in the newspaper. If THAT is going on [and the media are fairly nice to the prez family] how bad are they really? How can someone seriously be expected to run a COUNTRY when they can't seem to control their own selves?
Many people are well trained in looking things up in massive dead tree tomes of tenichal documents, Library drawers, etc. If you know how to use the Dewey Decimal system for example, you can find a book in a card catalog at a library even faster than using Google! It's all about the right tool for the job.
Also, unlike Google, these are very specific identifiers. Exactly one company has rights to a registered IBSN book, Or one company sets the standard of indexing [dewey decimal]. This could be good for government documents and forms, RFC/ANSI/ISO/SAE specs, and manufacturer part numbers.
My step-dad works in the QC department at a electronics assembler and constantly needs to look up component specs for verification. He's looking for an exact document from an exact company, times hundreds of components at a time...Google doesn't cut it here...too much clutter. Typically [back in the 80's] companies used to produce entire techinical libraries of technical documentation [and have to update it YEARLY] now we have the web, but we've lost the simple ability to just "grab a book" and be done with it...this scheme would help with that.
That said, They should have just gone to Google with it. It'd make a great "google hack" that google could even profit from! Who knows, maybe Google will still beat them to it!
So yes, surveying those communities [and many are AMERICANS mind you!] would be a valid way to see inside the terrorist Psyche. Although the denziens of the games are too chicken to act like that in Real Life, they certianly like to talk it up...an I suspect many would act like that given a chance to get away with it.....wittness the news lately!
We slashdotters that don't like the administration's policies can think of every single possible thing the Iraquies could do to "interrupt" our forces. [said game would require security clearance as many CS & stratagy gamers would probably be playing several levels above actual Iraquies for overall meanspiritedness and tactics! We wouldn't want the Iraqies getting ideas would we?] Then dump THAT game on the analysts. It could even be online so that as they beat it we can change the rules so they can NEVER WIN....just like in the real world!
That leads to anger, hate, violence, more suffering...
of course you can make the same claim about Corperate Welfare as well...MS monopoly, Enron, Worldcom, S&L 90's, DMCA, UTCIA...Just like the slums they accept it, demand it, then grow to hate you for giveing it to them too!
the hard drive is right on, but the cable is a bit high...but it's a convienance item...so the markup is higher.
Yeah, but again, you have the overhead issue. I used to work at an ECM [Electronics Contract Manufacture] and yeah, pieces were in the fraction of a penny a piece.....on a full reel of 10,000....bought a dozen reel at a time. After dealing with that stuff,[and crawl on the floor to find one sot23 because we delt with engineering samples of EXACT PIECES...go figure] I wouldn't wish anyone to have to package all those little Radio Shack packs....that's insane...
On the flip side, I'm addicted to IBM iSeries [as400] They absolutly rock. They "just work" like no mear PC [or AMD/Intel] harware can match. But they are REALLY, REALLY PRICY. But it's no different than dealing with a Cisco or SGI...If you need the power, you get what you pay for and be willing to pay it.
As for busisses requiring it, look at the rise of zero-cash businesses..there are zero cash "club" gas stations that accept only their credit card for service. I'd expect the Wholesale Group warehouse clubs owned by certian large retailers to be the next to go to this innovation. Sure, they have to take cash, but that doesn't mean that the manager's not going to just make change from his wallet for you [or the store's small stash, because he don't carry money] Look at travel, try making any type of reservation without a Credit card [or other electronic id] it won't happen, they won't gaurantee you anything.
One day all the 'dissenters' from this stuff will magically vanish. The world will actually be a happy place...for a while. All the big ideas about "controling" people and being "one world" no matter what will happen almost overnight. Then the whole thing will turn into a huge mess just as fast. I won't be here!
Still, kudos to Lindows...this is Clasic used-car salesman one-upmanship at it's finest! After all, drive into a Chevy dealer with a Ford, and they'll give you extra incentive to get you out of that ford and behind the Chevy wheel! Pizza places honor each others coupons all the time...and maybe even +10%.
This is great marketing! MS has got to hate it. After all, MS has perfected giving away free software to kill competiton. Lindows is doing one better by giving away Microsoft's money to give away free software to kill competition! All's fair in Love 'n War...that's what MS has said for years. This is hillarious!
After all, Lindow is accepting the risk of the settlements being rejected. As long as they "eat" the cost if they loose, they haven't committed any fraud...Just trying to help people out. Of course, they are draging people away from windows...that's the real problem. Using the MS settlement to get dollars into customers hands and into LINDOWS pockets.
MS should really be hoping to LOOSE THIS. If Lindows does loose, they can just send out the proper forms, have the people sign them and mail them in anyway. If Lindows eats the first round of "misfiled" forms, and lets people have the product for free, who's product will they perhaps purchase with the checks? This is genius marketing here!
On the other hand, what will MS send with the settlement checks, coupons, rebates, special deals, demo software. Wouldn't that be equally misleading as well? Has anybody gotten a rebate check to answer this?