Pioneer makes a device which allows you to record television shows and movies to DVD from your cable network. How is this any different than me using the same cable network, to download and burn music to cd's? Movies can't be copyrighted? Am I gonna get a little cease and desist popup on my television now?
Great! Now all the people that can't drive and talk on a cell phone at the same time get to drive, talk and drive on a cell phone all at the same time.... I'm giving up my license now and going home.......
HUH? Who pays for the unsolicited cds to reach your mailbox? AOL! Who pays for unsolicited emails to reach your inbox? AOL! So they are willing to fight against spam because of the real costs to them to combat it but YET they are continuing their huge ad campaign and mailing everyone and their uncle a cd to join (if this isn't hypcritical, I don't know what is) So what I think I hear you saying is that it would be okay to get unsolicited emails as long as the company that was spamming paid for it? That's not alright with me. What it boils down to, is that it's still unsolicited email and postal mail, that I end up having to pay for, whether eventually(costs being passed along to me) or immediately(the cost of my garbage bill, etc) I'm very well aware of what the *real* issues at hand are. What the real issue of spam is to you, won't necessarily be the real issue to me. To me, at least right now, it's a global cost rather than a personal cost. Regardless of how you feel about spam, the bottom line is it's unsolicited and it going to have a real impact on the internet...JUST like their cd's are unsolicited and are going to have a real impact on the environment. Doesn't matter who paid for it to get to my house.
AOL is essentially using my bandwidth (I'm using bandwidth as a metaphor) and a lot of other peoples since the last time I checked, I wasn't being paid for throwing away their useless, unsolicited crap. To say that it's a nominal fee to throw away one of their cd's isn't the point either. Take this collectively across the nation and it adds up to one hell of a bill to throw this garbage out. Hell factor in the environmental impact and it rises even more..
I stand by my original assertion that they are HYPOCRITES!
Our clients use Lotus Notes. When an Outlook user sends someone an email with an attachment and chooses to send it in exchange rich text format, Lotus Notes doesn't play nice with that and converts the attachments to c.dat file. Our clients can't do anything with this c.dat file and the only option we have is for them to contact the sender and have them unselect exchange rich text format and everything works fine. My point being is that M$ has always had a proprietary way of going about things. Give them enough rope and eventually they will hang themselves on their proprietary ways. Don't think that companies are looking at open source as a viable alternative to M$ just because it's fun and different. It's because people are tired of being locked into M$ products and the constant layout of cash to get upgrades and *features* that nobody wants or needs.
that the biggest purveyor of filling my postal mail box with crap that I haven't signed up for or asked for (ie: cd's and cd holders that are worthless), is now fighting spam. Give me a break! How about they stop mailing those stupid #@%@$%^& cd's and filling the landfills with garbage that doesn't degrade. They are hypocrites!
How the hell would I prove that a telemarketer called me? Is it my word against their word? Do I obtain phone records? Does the government obtain phone records? Now granted, my cell phone does a pretty good job of breaking calls down to incoming and outgoing, but I don't recall if it tells you the phone number of the incoming call on the bill Seems like yet another political feel good move that the government has no way of enforcing. Hey if it works and the iron the kinks out, then sign me up! Hell lets figure out how to do the same thing as spammers, since I think that cause more pain and cost more money.
Funny thing this article. When the whole napster fiasco started, I thought that the record companies should work WITH napster instead of suing them into oblivion. I for one would use a for pay service, if said service were reasonable and fair. Here we are, several years into this peer to peer file sharing, and they are starting to see it as another business model. Somehow, I don't see the RIAA doing what's in the best interest of the artists. I do however, see them doing what's going to fill their pockets the fastest. I remember the days when Metallica was a fledgling band and would have LOVED something like Napster to get their sound out to their fans. Seems to me like this is a great way to build your fan base. More so than radio.
One thing that I haven't heard mentioned yet is the time/cost factor of retraining all of these individuals. Any idea how hard it is going to be to retrain a Windows user to use a Linux gui? How many times is tech support gonna hear..."where's the Start button?"...or "how do I do this in Koffice?" I'm all for a changing of the tide, but it's not going to be all fun and games. There is going to be some SERIOUS cost involved in retraining end users and hiring more helpdesk personnel. Porting the organization I work for over to Linux would initially give me some serious nightmares. I mean we have end users that can't even operate a f**king mouse so migrating them to Linux just sounds like a major headache.
I would look at making the original network more reliable and what the hell, if the hospital has money to burn, redundancy is a good thing. I didn't read the article. Was this caused by some knucklehead that was testing in a production environment?
I used Mozilla and reported what I thought was a bug. I was surprised and elated by the response that I got in order to try to fix it. Not that this will be a terribly exciting post for other/.ers but that was my experience. However, I want to like Mozilla....really I do.
I purchased a COA from buymstar.com. Which to my knowledge was perfectly legit. Well they 'accidentally' sold me two(2) and refused to refund my money on one of them because I'd already seen the product key. So I head on over to ebay to auction the other Certificate of Authenticity (the product key has never been registered, etc.) and my auction gets cancelled because I'm not selling a EULA along with the COA or the software. I tell Microsoft, "wait a minute! I bought it this way, why can't I sell it this way?" Here is their answer:
"Hello,
First, I have forwarded buymstar.com to our investigators for further
review. They could not sell the license without the EULA, because the
EULA (End User License Agreement) is the license. It appears they have
sold you the COA or COAL which is not the license. These cannot be
distributed without the software.
The COA is a security certificate that accompanies all Microsoft OEM
products. The COA label (COAL) is a security label that accompanies all
Retail products and can be found on the spine of the retail box. The
COAL may also be found on the cable cord of OEM hardware products such
as the Natural Keyboard, Mouse and IntelliMouse. The COA is used to
assure the end user that the software program is not counterfeit. For
instance, if you purchased a computer system from a computer store and
it came with Windows 95 operating system software preinstalled on its
hard drive, the COA should also be included. See below link for examples
of both the OEM and Retail COAs.
Additionally, the COA contains anti-counterfeiting devices, such as a
latent image, to prevent the production of counterfeit Microsoft
products. If you have not received a COA with your OEM or retail
product, or if your COA appears to be counterfeit or distributed through
unauthorized channels, please call 1-800-RU-LEGIT or e-mail
piracy@microsoft.com or contact your local Microsoft sales office or
subsidiary.
Basically, I copied the last two paragraphs from the following link.
This link may also help in my explanation.
http://www.microsoft.com/education/license/eula.as p#8
I would suggest you return the COAs for a full refund and report
buymstar.com to the above anti-piracy sites.
If you have any further question, please contact us.
Thanks again,
Daren
Internet Auction Monitoring Team"
They haven't answered my question regarding the EULA that you have to answer (by hitting F8) when installing XP...
I was refurbishing aircraft interiors when I decided to finish my degree in Fire Protection. My hours at work were running anywhere from 40-70 hours a week and I was juggling 12-20 credit hours per quarter. It wasn't easy and eventually something HAD to break. I made the choice that school HAD to be finished and I quit my job (they wouldn't work with me around my school schedule). I didn't regret quitting my job as I wasn't payed all that much anyway. Not much advice except that once you decide you can juggle owning a business and school and you make both of those vitally important to you, you'll find a way to make it work. I hope that you don't have the added pressures of familial obligations on top of all that. If you do, your significant other better be VERRRRRYYYY understanding.
If you don't think that Red Hat, Mandrake or any other distro of Linux doesn't want to take a share of Microsoft's domination, then perhaps we are kidding ourselves when we say who cares. My opinion is that I DON'T want to live in a M$ dominated world anymore than I would want to live in a Linux dominated world. Choices are key to a healthy economy, however, and you may not want to hear this, the M$ gui works. Now, whether this was because of strong arm tactics on Microsoft's behalf or because it intuitively makes sense, is anyones guess. This could turn into a whole which came first argument.
I certainly understand the point you make about you not thinking it's going to affect you and that you'll always have a job writing code for unix boxes, but, what happens if Red Hat dominates 45% of the end user desktops and your company is running Suse? Each flavor of Linux is just that...another flavor. Or because of some business agreement that you can't fathom and have NO control over, your company switches to all Windows platforms? What then? Burying your head in the sand and keeping the 'who cares' attitude only makes things worse for everybody. Spend some time taking support calls and this quote "why should I care if some random joe off the street can run the stuff I crank out?" will take on a whole new meaning......
This is a great time for me to mention this. Linux will NEVER make the inroads it wants to user desktops until it becomes more like Windows. That's right! I said it! I've been in computer tech support for the last 5 years at an advanced level and learned to program on a TRS-80 pc and Alpha Micro Midframe almost 20 years ago, so I feel qualified in saying this. The masses of end-users are experienced in the way that Windows functions. It's gui as become synonymous with "ease of use" and is as ubiquitous as Coke, Fisher Price, and AOL. In otherwords, Windows is the standard people. Most everyone can buy a television and turn it on with the remote and maybe even change the channels and volume without resorting to reading a huge technical manual to figure it out. This is 'good enough' for most people because there is a standard set that the market bears in design on tv's. Now....this is not to say that a gadget freak or someone who cares would like said, basic tv. These are the people who would dive headfirst into HDTV, Dolby 5.1 surround with 150 watts to each channel, etc., etc., etc, without breaking a sweat. All I'm saying is that an os will have a greater market share if it's 'dumbed down'. If you don't believe me, look at AOL. Most of us on the inside of the computer field, don't consider AOL to be a 'real' isp, but they have something on the order of 30 gazillion users. A blind monkey with no arms and a stick stuck to his forehead could use it. Does it make it right? NO! I'm not a real fan of dumbing anything down for the sake of money but it's a fact of life. Unless you care about the inner workings of a pc, Linux doesn't matter to you...unless they can dumb it down for the masses. Lindows sounds like it's making some sort of attempt at doing this by making the icons 'double clickable' and "There is even an icon labelled "C:", which is actually equivalent to the/home directory in a normal Linux installation." I'm sure I've offended all of you Linux users. Hey, I even dual boot between Windows XP and Linux. I happen to LOVE Linux, but then again, I'm a self confessed computer nerd. Just my 2cents.....
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Pioneer makes a device which allows you to record television shows and movies to DVD from your cable network. How is this any different than me using the same cable network, to download and burn music to cd's? Movies can't be copyrighted? Am I gonna get a little cease and desist popup on my television now?
I surrender....
I am posting this from my cellphone whilst cruising down the interstate at 85.4 miles per hour. Weehawww........
Great! Now all the people that can't drive and talk on a cell phone at the same time get to drive, talk and drive on a cell phone all at the same time.... I'm giving up my license now and going home.......
HUH? Who pays for the unsolicited cds to reach your mailbox? AOL! Who pays for unsolicited emails to reach your inbox? AOL! So they are willing to fight against spam because of the real costs to them to combat it but YET they are continuing their huge ad campaign and mailing everyone and their uncle a cd to join (if this isn't hypcritical, I don't know what is) So what I think I hear you saying is that it would be okay to get unsolicited emails as long as the company that was spamming paid for it? That's not alright with me. What it boils down to, is that it's still unsolicited email and postal mail, that I end up having to pay for, whether eventually(costs being passed along to me) or immediately(the cost of my garbage bill, etc) I'm very well aware of what the *real* issues at hand are. What the real issue of spam is to you, won't necessarily be the real issue to me. To me, at least right now, it's a global cost rather than a personal cost. Regardless of how you feel about spam, the bottom line is it's unsolicited and it going to have a real impact on the internet...JUST like their cd's are unsolicited and are going to have a real impact on the environment. Doesn't matter who paid for it to get to my house.
AOL is essentially using my bandwidth (I'm using bandwidth as a metaphor) and a lot of other peoples since the last time I checked, I wasn't being paid for throwing away their useless, unsolicited crap. To say that it's a nominal fee to throw away one of their cd's isn't the point either. Take this collectively across the nation and it adds up to one hell of a bill to throw this garbage out. Hell factor in the environmental impact and it rises even more.. I stand by my original assertion that they are HYPOCRITES!
Our clients use Lotus Notes. When an Outlook user sends someone an email with an attachment and chooses to send it in exchange rich text format, Lotus Notes doesn't play nice with that and converts the attachments to c.dat file. Our clients can't do anything with this c.dat file and the only option we have is for them to contact the sender and have them unselect exchange rich text format and everything works fine. My point being is that M$ has always had a proprietary way of going about things. Give them enough rope and eventually they will hang themselves on their proprietary ways. Don't think that companies are looking at open source as a viable alternative to M$ just because it's fun and different. It's because people are tired of being locked into M$ products and the constant layout of cash to get upgrades and *features* that nobody wants or needs.
that the biggest purveyor of filling my postal mail box with crap that I haven't signed up for or asked for (ie: cd's and cd holders that are worthless), is now fighting spam. Give me a break! How about they stop mailing those stupid #@%@$%^& cd's and filling the landfills with garbage that doesn't degrade. They are hypocrites!
Hell to think that I was happy my crayons and paste were non toxic........oh crap! is playdoh?
How the hell would I prove that a telemarketer called me? Is it my word against their word? Do I obtain phone records? Does the government obtain phone records? Now granted, my cell phone does a pretty good job of breaking calls down to incoming and outgoing, but I don't recall if it tells you the phone number of the incoming call on the bill Seems like yet another political feel good move that the government has no way of enforcing. Hey if it works and the iron the kinks out, then sign me up! Hell lets figure out how to do the same thing as spammers, since I think that cause more pain and cost more money.
?? This isn't any better than buying the cd.
Funny thing this article. When the whole napster fiasco started, I thought that the record companies should work WITH napster instead of suing them into oblivion. I for one would use a for pay service, if said service were reasonable and fair. Here we are, several years into this peer to peer file sharing, and they are starting to see it as another business model. Somehow, I don't see the RIAA doing what's in the best interest of the artists. I do however, see them doing what's going to fill their pockets the fastest. I remember the days when Metallica was a fledgling band and would have LOVED something like Napster to get their sound out to their fans. Seems to me like this is a great way to build your fan base. More so than radio.
Point well made however, you have to admit, going from NT to Linux is different than going from NT to XP or even win2k
One thing that I haven't heard mentioned yet is the time/cost factor of retraining all of these individuals. Any idea how hard it is going to be to retrain a Windows user to use a Linux gui? How many times is tech support gonna hear..."where's the Start button?"...or "how do I do this in Koffice?" I'm all for a changing of the tide, but it's not going to be all fun and games. There is going to be some SERIOUS cost involved in retraining end users and hiring more helpdesk personnel. Porting the organization I work for over to Linux would initially give me some serious nightmares. I mean we have end users that can't even operate a f**king mouse so migrating them to Linux just sounds like a major headache.
I would look at making the original network more reliable and what the hell, if the hospital has money to burn, redundancy is a good thing. I didn't read the article. Was this caused by some knucklehead that was testing in a production environment?
fighting M$ at every little turn. What ever happened to boycotting. Wouldn't the lawsuit fees be better spent switching from M$ products?
I used Mozilla and reported what I thought was a bug. I was surprised and elated by the response that I got in order to try to fix it. Not that this will be a terribly exciting post for other /.ers but that was my experience. However, I want to like Mozilla....really I do.
I purchased a COA from buymstar.com. Which to my knowledge was perfectly legit. Well they 'accidentally' sold me two(2) and refused to refund my money on one of them because I'd already seen the product key. So I head on over to ebay to auction the other Certificate of Authenticity (the product key has never been registered, etc.) and my auction gets cancelled because I'm not selling a EULA along with the COA or the software. I tell Microsoft, "wait a minute! I bought it this way, why can't I sell it this way?" Here is their answer: "Hello, First, I have forwarded buymstar.com to our investigators for further review. They could not sell the license without the EULA, because the EULA (End User License Agreement) is the license. It appears they have sold you the COA or COAL which is not the license. These cannot be distributed without the software. The COA is a security certificate that accompanies all Microsoft OEM products. The COA label (COAL) is a security label that accompanies all Retail products and can be found on the spine of the retail box. The COAL may also be found on the cable cord of OEM hardware products such as the Natural Keyboard, Mouse and IntelliMouse. The COA is used to assure the end user that the software program is not counterfeit. For instance, if you purchased a computer system from a computer store and it came with Windows 95 operating system software preinstalled on its hard drive, the COA should also be included. See below link for examples of both the OEM and Retail COAs. Additionally, the COA contains anti-counterfeiting devices, such as a latent image, to prevent the production of counterfeit Microsoft products. If you have not received a COA with your OEM or retail product, or if your COA appears to be counterfeit or distributed through unauthorized channels, please call 1-800-RU-LEGIT or e-mail piracy@microsoft.com or contact your local Microsoft sales office or subsidiary. Basically, I copied the last two paragraphs from the following link. This link may also help in my explanation. http://www.microsoft.com/education/license/eula.as p#8
I would suggest you return the COAs for a full refund and report
buymstar.com to the above anti-piracy sites.
If you have any further question, please contact us.
Thanks again,
Daren
Internet Auction Monitoring Team"
They haven't answered my question regarding the EULA that you have to answer (by hitting F8) when installing XP...
My job is really lax as far as attire...pretty much everything goes except jeans with holes and shorts..
I can just see it now..... "Is that a notebook in your pocket?"
Hell, I'm putting dos on mine! wo0t!
I was refurbishing aircraft interiors when I decided to finish my degree in Fire Protection. My hours at work were running anywhere from 40-70 hours a week and I was juggling 12-20 credit hours per quarter. It wasn't easy and eventually something HAD to break. I made the choice that school HAD to be finished and I quit my job (they wouldn't work with me around my school schedule). I didn't regret quitting my job as I wasn't payed all that much anyway. Not much advice except that once you decide you can juggle owning a business and school and you make both of those vitally important to you, you'll find a way to make it work. I hope that you don't have the added pressures of familial obligations on top of all that. If you do, your significant other better be VERRRRRYYYY understanding.
If you don't think that Red Hat, Mandrake or any other distro of Linux doesn't want to take a share of Microsoft's domination, then perhaps we are kidding ourselves when we say who cares. My opinion is that I DON'T want to live in a M$ dominated world anymore than I would want to live in a Linux dominated world. Choices are key to a healthy economy, however, and you may not want to hear this, the M$ gui works. Now, whether this was because of strong arm tactics on Microsoft's behalf or because it intuitively makes sense, is anyones guess. This could turn into a whole which came first argument. I certainly understand the point you make about you not thinking it's going to affect you and that you'll always have a job writing code for unix boxes, but, what happens if Red Hat dominates 45% of the end user desktops and your company is running Suse? Each flavor of Linux is just that...another flavor. Or because of some business agreement that you can't fathom and have NO control over, your company switches to all Windows platforms? What then? Burying your head in the sand and keeping the 'who cares' attitude only makes things worse for everybody. Spend some time taking support calls and this quote "why should I care if some random joe off the street can run the stuff I crank out?" will take on a whole new meaning......
This is a great time for me to mention this. Linux will NEVER make the inroads it wants to user desktops until it becomes more like Windows. That's right! I said it! I've been in computer tech support for the last 5 years at an advanced level and learned to program on a TRS-80 pc and Alpha Micro Midframe almost 20 years ago, so I feel qualified in saying this. The masses of end-users are experienced in the way that Windows functions. It's gui as become synonymous with "ease of use" and is as ubiquitous as Coke, Fisher Price, and AOL. In otherwords, Windows is the standard people. Most everyone can buy a television and turn it on with the remote and maybe even change the channels and volume without resorting to reading a huge technical manual to figure it out. This is 'good enough' for most people because there is a standard set that the market bears in design on tv's. Now....this is not to say that a gadget freak or someone who cares would like said, basic tv. These are the people who would dive headfirst into HDTV, Dolby 5.1 surround with 150 watts to each channel, etc., etc., etc, without breaking a sweat. All I'm saying is that an os will have a greater market share if it's 'dumbed down'. If you don't believe me, look at AOL. Most of us on the inside of the computer field, don't consider AOL to be a 'real' isp, but they have something on the order of 30 gazillion users. A blind monkey with no arms and a stick stuck to his forehead could use it. Does it make it right? NO! I'm not a real fan of dumbing anything down for the sake of money but it's a fact of life. Unless you care about the inner workings of a pc, Linux doesn't matter to you...unless they can dumb it down for the masses. Lindows sounds like it's making some sort of attempt at doing this by making the icons 'double clickable' and "There is even an icon labelled "C:", which is actually equivalent to the /home directory in a normal Linux installation." I'm sure I've offended all of you Linux users. Hey, I even dual boot between Windows XP and Linux. I happen to LOVE Linux, but then again, I'm a self confessed computer nerd. Just my 2cents.....