Monk e-business BY JULIO OJEDA-ZAPATA Pioneer Press More photos JIM GEHRZ PHOTO The Rev. Bernard McCoy heads up LaserMonks -- when he isn't praying, of course.
SPARTA, Wis. -- Phone calls to LaserMonks' rural headquarters are sometimes tinged with caution or outright suspicion.
Those are awfully good prices for generic inkjet or laser-printer cartridges, a caller might remark after checking the offerings at www.lasermonks.com.
What's the catch?
And, c'mon, you aren't really monks, are you?
A recent caller lost seven years of savings to an online scam artist after trying to book a cruise for herself and her daughters. She vowed never to buy anything else on the Internet.
But with three printers churning out student papers in her Pennsylvania home, she couldn't ignore discounts of up to 90 percent over name-brand cartridges. Look, she told LaserMonks, she had trust issues. She needed the firm to set her mind at ease.
LaserMonks' response helps explain why the two-year-old e-commerce venture based at the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Spring Bank -- yes, with actual Catholic monks -- appears to be on a stratospheric business trajectory.
At a time when online printer-cartridge vendors can trigger mistrust because of some questionable offers clogging inboxes, LaserMonks has seen its gross revenue soar from about $2,000 in 2002 to about $500,000 in 2003. Projected 2004 sales are three to four times higher still.
To pull off this e-tailing feat, LaserMonks has had to win over disbelievers with high-quality products and top-flight customer service along with rock-bottom prices, not to mention small but meaningful gestures its clients don't expect.
The skeptical Pennsylvania mother, for instance, got four cartridges on speculation. Try 'em out, LaserMonks said. If you like them, consider sending us a few bucks. No hurry, take a few months to think it over.
The company soon got paid in full for the shipment, along with a second order for four cartridges.
ORA ET LABORA
The 75-year-old abbey, which has been at its current location about 130 miles southeast of St. Paul for 19 years, isn't the sort of place that screams "e-commerce hotbed."
Perched on a wooded hill, just up an unpaved road and through a decorative gateway, the low-slung composite-stone structure seems bereft of life -- until Gregorian chanting tips off a visitor that white-and-black-robed inhabitants are somewhere about.
Inside a small chapel, a few Cistercian priests melodiously remind themselves of the Latin dictum ora et labora -- prayer and work, always in that order.
Only then does the 36-year-old Rev. Bernard McCoy trod through a carpeted hallway to his modest office -- the LaserMonks nerve center. From there, he oversees a nationwide network of people and facilities in his practical role as the abbey's "steward of temporal affairs."
McCoy's key role: generating cash to support the abbey along with its complex array of charitable causes around the world. That also means overseeing a modest portfolio of real-estate holdings. One recent day, he haggled good-naturedly with the local tax assessor over one property's perceived value.
Before LaserMonks came about, McCoy obsessed over other ideas for turning his perennially cash-strapped monastery into a money machine. Until last year, he sold spiritual books and other religious items on the Web. For a while, he oversaw a program to move and renovate homes due for demolition. He has considered cultivating shiitake mushrooms, building a golf resort and breeding Christmas trees.
This is a common issue for monasteries, convents and other such communities, which typically must support themselves.
Trappistine nuns in Dubuque, Iowa, make candy. Nearby Trappist monks build caskets. Oregon Trappists warehouse wine. Massachusetts Trappists make jams and jellies. Belgian Trappists brew beer. Filipino monks and nuns make fruit concoctions d
this may or may not get modded to hell based on you're personal religous and spiritual orientation.
Monk e-business
BY JULIO OJEDA-ZAPATA
Pioneer Press
More photos JIM GEHRZ PHOTO
The Rev. Bernard McCoy heads up LaserMonks -- when he isn't praying, of course.
SPARTA, Wis. -- Phone calls to LaserMonks' rural headquarters are sometimes tinged with caution or outright suspicion.
Those are awfully good prices for generic inkjet or laser-printer cartridges, a caller might remark after checking the offerings at www.lasermonks.com.
What's the catch?
And, c'mon, you aren't really monks, are you?
A recent caller lost seven years of savings to an online scam artist after trying to book a cruise for herself and her daughters. She vowed never to buy anything else on the Internet.
But with three printers churning out student papers in her Pennsylvania home, she couldn't ignore discounts of up to 90 percent over name-brand cartridges. Look, she told LaserMonks, she had trust issues. She needed the firm to set her mind at ease.
LaserMonks' response helps explain why the two-year-old e-commerce venture based at the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Spring Bank -- yes, with actual Catholic monks -- appears to be on a stratospheric business trajectory.
At a time when online printer-cartridge vendors can trigger mistrust because of some questionable offers clogging inboxes, LaserMonks has seen its gross revenue soar from about $2,000 in 2002 to about $500,000 in 2003. Projected 2004 sales are three to four times higher still.
To pull off this e-tailing feat, LaserMonks has had to win over disbelievers with high-quality products and top-flight customer service along with rock-bottom prices, not to mention small but meaningful gestures its clients don't expect.
The skeptical Pennsylvania mother, for instance, got four cartridges on speculation. Try 'em out, LaserMonks said. If you like them, consider sending us a few bucks. No hurry, take a few months to think it over.
The company soon got paid in full for the shipment, along with a second order for four cartridges.
ORA ET LABORA
The 75-year-old abbey, which has been at its current location about 130 miles southeast of St. Paul for 19 years, isn't the sort of place that screams "e-commerce hotbed."
Perched on a wooded hill, just up an unpaved road and through a decorative gateway, the low-slung composite-stone structure seems bereft of life -- until Gregorian chanting tips off a visitor that white-and-black-robed inhabitants are somewhere about.
Inside a small chapel, a few Cistercian priests melodiously remind themselves of the Latin dictum ora et labora -- prayer and work, always in that order.
Only then does the 36-year-old Rev. Bernard McCoy trod through a carpeted hallway to his modest office -- the LaserMonks nerve center. From there, he oversees a nationwide network of people and facilities in his practical role as the abbey's "steward of temporal affairs."
McCoy's key role: generating cash to support the abbey along with its complex array of charitable causes around the world. That also means overseeing a modest portfolio of real-estate holdings. One recent day, he haggled good-naturedly with the local tax assessor over one property's perceived value.
Before LaserMonks came about, McCoy obsessed over other ideas for turning his perennially cash-strapped monastery into a money machine. Until last year, he sold spiritual books and other religious items on the Web. For a while, he oversaw a program to move and renovate homes due for demolition. He has considered cultivating shiitake mushrooms, building a golf resort and breeding Christmas trees.
This is a common issue for monasteries, convents and other such communities, which typically must support themselves.
Trappistine nuns in Dubuque, Iowa, make candy. Nearby Trappist monks build caskets. Oregon Trappists warehouse wine. Massachusetts Trappists make jams and jellies. Belgian Trappists brew beer. Filipino monks and nuns make fruit concoctions dubbed Food for the Soul. Greek Orthodox monks in Resaca, Ga., sell han
Next year just may be the year that desktop Linux emerges as a viable alternative to Windows.
Inspired by stirrings among corporate users for desktop Linux and with Microsoft's forthcoming Longhorn operating system not expected on desktops until 2005, IBM, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell are augmenting their corporate Linux desktop wares. Novell and Red Hat also are assembling Linux desktops.
IBM's Global Services unit, for instance, intends to put in place next year a broad-based technical support program for Linux on corporate desktops. What figures to add even more momentum is that HP and Dell are expected to announce technical support programs early next year, according to an industry executive familiar with both companies' plans, who requested anonymity.
"You are going to see similar announcements from HP and Dell around the [late January] LinuxWorld timeframe. If IBM is going to stand behind Linux on the desktop, that is something those two will have to do as well," the source said.
Sun, too, has been pushing desktop Linux and its StarOffice suite.
"Customers now have a few strong reasons to consider alternatives to Windows desktops," said Hal Stern, CTO of Sun Services.
First, the cost of Microsoft software and licensing terms are considerably higher than that for Linux, Stern said. Second, desktop and user provisioning with Linux has improved. And third, a proliferation of stateless clients, such as Sun Ray systems, offers users non-Windows choices for desktops.
Red Hat, for its part, is taking steps toward a widespread desktop offering.
"You don't see a lot of companies making a conversion to Linux desktops across administrative staff and general employees. But you'll see a lot more of that in 2004. I think it will get enormous momentum in 2005," said John Young, Red Hat's vice president of marketing.
In the meantime, Red Hat is working to better integrate Linux with existing infrastructure products.
"There are still a lot of improvements we can make to the desktop environment, and we are focusing on things like better security and profile management,'' Young said.
IBM officials said some large accounts are interested in desktop Linux as part of a broader plan to change their overall architecture and lower total cost of ownership.
"No question there is an increase in the inquiries about Linux on the desktop," said Scott Handy, vice president of IBM's Linux strategy and market development. "Most users will swap out a Windows desktop for Linux as part of a three- to five-year architectural change, not a one-year decision to save money in 2004."
Perhaps the most intriguing possibility for a stronger Linux desktop environment, however, lies with Novell and its plans to tie together its stable of server-based applications and services with the newly acquired SuSE version of Linux and Ximian's Linux desktop and management software.
"There are some pretty interesting things we could do in terms of integrating [SuSE Linux and Ximian Desktop 2.0] as a way to offer better solutions and better hardware interoperability. We intend to deliver on that soon," said Nat Friedman, vice president of product development at Novell's Ximian group.
Sources said that once the acquisition is finalized early next year, the company will tightly stitch the Ximian Desktop with an enhanced version of SuSE 9.0, which would enable smooth connections to Novell's GroupWise collaboration server, ZENworks resource manager, and security and integration products. The company also claimed that it will more than double the number of engineers working on the Ximian Desktop and will focus on improving the Gnome desktop environment, the OpenOffice suite, and Mozilla browser.
"The best way to compete on the [Linux] desktop is to offer an end-to-end architecture that works across handhelds, desktops, and servers," said Dana Gardner, a senior analyst at The Yankee Group.
for one, there is no worldwide wireless ISP whereas with HAM one can communicate with pretty much anyone on the globe from pretty much any point so for unpopulated areas wanting a way of communicating long distances HAM is the only way to communicate with the outside world and ships only long range communication.
there are rollers moving at 2 kp/h at the beggining and endpoints of the travelator, so acceleration is first 0 mph (or walking speed) then 2 kp/h then 9 kp/h 9-2 = 7 so highest acceleration is 7 k/ph. It seems to me that this is really a question of learning how to use a new device.
Slashdot Mirror
malglico@gmail.com please please please... I really want to use Gmail.
It isn't an operating system, it's just a kernel.
lazy...
Monk e-business
BY JULIO OJEDA-ZAPATA
Pioneer Press
More photos JIM GEHRZ PHOTO
The Rev. Bernard McCoy heads up LaserMonks -- when he isn't praying, of course.
SPARTA, Wis. -- Phone calls to LaserMonks' rural headquarters are sometimes tinged with caution or outright suspicion.
Those are awfully good prices for generic inkjet or laser-printer cartridges, a caller might remark after checking the offerings at www.lasermonks.com.
What's the catch?
And, c'mon, you aren't really monks, are you?
A recent caller lost seven years of savings to an online scam artist after trying to book a cruise for herself and her daughters. She vowed never to buy anything else on the Internet.
But with three printers churning out student papers in her Pennsylvania home, she couldn't ignore discounts of up to 90 percent over name-brand cartridges. Look, she told LaserMonks, she had trust issues. She needed the firm to set her mind at ease.
LaserMonks' response helps explain why the two-year-old e-commerce venture based at the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Spring Bank -- yes, with actual Catholic monks -- appears to be on a stratospheric business trajectory.
At a time when online printer-cartridge vendors can trigger mistrust because of some questionable offers clogging inboxes, LaserMonks has seen its gross revenue soar from about $2,000 in 2002 to about $500,000 in 2003. Projected 2004 sales are three to four times higher still.
To pull off this e-tailing feat, LaserMonks has had to win over disbelievers with high-quality products and top-flight customer service along with rock-bottom prices, not to mention small but meaningful gestures its clients don't expect.
The skeptical Pennsylvania mother, for instance, got four cartridges on speculation. Try 'em out, LaserMonks said. If you like them, consider sending us a few bucks. No hurry, take a few months to think it over.
The company soon got paid in full for the shipment, along with a second order for four cartridges.
ORA ET LABORA
The 75-year-old abbey, which has been at its current location about 130 miles southeast of St. Paul for 19 years, isn't the sort of place that screams "e-commerce hotbed."
Perched on a wooded hill, just up an unpaved road and through a decorative gateway, the low-slung composite-stone structure seems bereft of life -- until Gregorian chanting tips off a visitor that white-and-black-robed inhabitants are somewhere about.
Inside a small chapel, a few Cistercian priests melodiously remind themselves of the Latin dictum ora et labora -- prayer and work, always in that order.
Only then does the 36-year-old Rev. Bernard McCoy trod through a carpeted hallway to his modest office -- the LaserMonks nerve center. From there, he oversees a nationwide network of people and facilities in his practical role as the abbey's "steward of temporal affairs."
McCoy's key role: generating cash to support the abbey along with its complex array of charitable causes around the world. That also means overseeing a modest portfolio of real-estate holdings. One recent day, he haggled good-naturedly with the local tax assessor over one property's perceived value.
Before LaserMonks came about, McCoy obsessed over other ideas for turning his perennially cash-strapped monastery into a money machine. Until last year, he sold spiritual books and other religious items on the Web. For a while, he oversaw a program to move and renovate homes due for demolition. He has considered cultivating shiitake mushrooms, building a golf resort and breeding Christmas trees.
This is a common issue for monasteries, convents and other such communities, which typically must support themselves.
Trappistine nuns in Dubuque, Iowa, make candy. Nearby Trappist monks build caskets. Oregon Trappists warehouse wine. Massachusetts Trappists make jams and jellies. Belgian Trappists brew beer. Filipino monks and nuns make fruit concoctions d
this may or may not get modded to hell based on you're personal religous and spiritual orientation. Monk e-business BY JULIO OJEDA-ZAPATA Pioneer Press More photos JIM GEHRZ PHOTO The Rev. Bernard McCoy heads up LaserMonks -- when he isn't praying, of course. SPARTA, Wis. -- Phone calls to LaserMonks' rural headquarters are sometimes tinged with caution or outright suspicion. Those are awfully good prices for generic inkjet or laser-printer cartridges, a caller might remark after checking the offerings at www.lasermonks.com. What's the catch? And, c'mon, you aren't really monks, are you? A recent caller lost seven years of savings to an online scam artist after trying to book a cruise for herself and her daughters. She vowed never to buy anything else on the Internet. But with three printers churning out student papers in her Pennsylvania home, she couldn't ignore discounts of up to 90 percent over name-brand cartridges. Look, she told LaserMonks, she had trust issues. She needed the firm to set her mind at ease. LaserMonks' response helps explain why the two-year-old e-commerce venture based at the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Spring Bank -- yes, with actual Catholic monks -- appears to be on a stratospheric business trajectory. At a time when online printer-cartridge vendors can trigger mistrust because of some questionable offers clogging inboxes, LaserMonks has seen its gross revenue soar from about $2,000 in 2002 to about $500,000 in 2003. Projected 2004 sales are three to four times higher still. To pull off this e-tailing feat, LaserMonks has had to win over disbelievers with high-quality products and top-flight customer service along with rock-bottom prices, not to mention small but meaningful gestures its clients don't expect. The skeptical Pennsylvania mother, for instance, got four cartridges on speculation. Try 'em out, LaserMonks said. If you like them, consider sending us a few bucks. No hurry, take a few months to think it over. The company soon got paid in full for the shipment, along with a second order for four cartridges. ORA ET LABORA The 75-year-old abbey, which has been at its current location about 130 miles southeast of St. Paul for 19 years, isn't the sort of place that screams "e-commerce hotbed." Perched on a wooded hill, just up an unpaved road and through a decorative gateway, the low-slung composite-stone structure seems bereft of life -- until Gregorian chanting tips off a visitor that white-and-black-robed inhabitants are somewhere about. Inside a small chapel, a few Cistercian priests melodiously remind themselves of the Latin dictum ora et labora -- prayer and work, always in that order. Only then does the 36-year-old Rev. Bernard McCoy trod through a carpeted hallway to his modest office -- the LaserMonks nerve center. From there, he oversees a nationwide network of people and facilities in his practical role as the abbey's "steward of temporal affairs." McCoy's key role: generating cash to support the abbey along with its complex array of charitable causes around the world. That also means overseeing a modest portfolio of real-estate holdings. One recent day, he haggled good-naturedly with the local tax assessor over one property's perceived value. Before LaserMonks came about, McCoy obsessed over other ideas for turning his perennially cash-strapped monastery into a money machine. Until last year, he sold spiritual books and other religious items on the Web. For a while, he oversaw a program to move and renovate homes due for demolition. He has considered cultivating shiitake mushrooms, building a golf resort and breeding Christmas trees. This is a common issue for monasteries, convents and other such communities, which typically must support themselves. Trappistine nuns in Dubuque, Iowa, make candy. Nearby Trappist monks build caskets. Oregon Trappists warehouse wine. Massachusetts Trappists make jams and jellies. Belgian Trappists brew beer. Filipino monks and nuns make fruit concoctions dubbed Food for the Soul. Greek Orthodox monks in Resaca, Ga., sell han
in case of slashdotting
Next year just may be the year that desktop Linux emerges as a viable alternative to Windows.
Inspired by stirrings among corporate users for desktop Linux and with Microsoft's forthcoming Longhorn operating system not expected on desktops until 2005, IBM, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell are augmenting their corporate Linux desktop wares. Novell and Red Hat also are assembling Linux desktops.
IBM's Global Services unit, for instance, intends to put in place next year a broad-based technical support program for Linux on corporate desktops.
What figures to add even more momentum is that HP and Dell are expected to announce technical support programs early next year, according to an industry executive familiar with both companies' plans, who requested anonymity.
"You are going to see similar announcements from HP and Dell around the [late January] LinuxWorld timeframe. If IBM is going to stand behind Linux on the desktop, that is something those two will have to do as well," the source said.
Sun, too, has been pushing desktop Linux and its StarOffice suite.
"Customers now have a few strong reasons to consider alternatives to Windows desktops," said Hal Stern, CTO of Sun Services.
First, the cost of Microsoft software and licensing terms are considerably higher than that for Linux, Stern said. Second, desktop and user provisioning with Linux has improved. And third, a proliferation of stateless clients, such as Sun Ray systems, offers users non-Windows choices for desktops.
Red Hat, for its part, is taking steps toward a widespread desktop offering.
"You don't see a lot of companies making a conversion to Linux desktops across administrative staff and general employees. But you'll see a lot more of that in 2004. I think it will get enormous momentum in 2005," said John Young, Red Hat's vice president of marketing.
In the meantime, Red Hat is working to better integrate Linux with existing infrastructure products.
"There are still a lot of improvements we can make to the desktop environment, and we are focusing on things like better security and profile management,'' Young said.
IBM officials said some large accounts are interested in desktop Linux as part of a broader plan to change their overall architecture and lower total cost of ownership.
"No question there is an increase in the inquiries about Linux on the desktop," said Scott Handy, vice president of IBM's Linux strategy and market development. "Most users will swap out a Windows desktop for Linux as part of a three- to five-year architectural change, not a one-year decision to save money in 2004."
Perhaps the most intriguing possibility for a stronger Linux desktop environment, however, lies with Novell and its plans to tie together its stable of server-based applications and services with the newly acquired SuSE version of Linux and Ximian's Linux desktop and management software.
"There are some pretty interesting things we could do in terms of integrating [SuSE Linux and Ximian Desktop 2.0] as a way to offer better solutions and better hardware interoperability. We intend to deliver on that soon," said Nat Friedman, vice president of product development at Novell's Ximian group.
Sources said that once the acquisition is finalized early next year, the company will tightly stitch the Ximian Desktop with an enhanced version of SuSE 9.0, which would enable smooth connections to Novell's GroupWise collaboration server, ZENworks resource manager, and security and integration products. The company also claimed that it will more than double the number of engineers working on the Ximian Desktop and will focus on improving the Gnome desktop environment, the OpenOffice suite, and Mozilla browser.
"The best way to compete on the [Linux] desktop is to offer an end-to-end architecture that works across handhelds, desktops, and servers," said Dana Gardner, a senior analyst at The Yankee Group.
Furthe
err... Gentoo lets it's users compile whatever kernel they want, it just provides ebuilds of some to make it easier.
for one, there is no worldwide wireless ISP whereas with HAM one can communicate with pretty much anyone on the globe from pretty much any point so for unpopulated areas wanting a way of communicating long distances HAM is the only way to communicate with the outside world and ships only long range communication.
there are rollers moving at 2 kp/h at the beggining and endpoints of the travelator, so acceleration is first 0 mph (or walking speed) then 2 kp/h then 9 kp/h 9-2 = 7 so highest acceleration is 7 k/ph. It seems to me that this is really a question of learning how to use a new device.