You can...
Or at least, you can purchase your computer using your MS site licence agreement, and have the installed OS be covered under that site licence.
I can't be bothered to look up the URL, but I know I've seen it...
On the other hand, I can see how the DRM restrictions would be the number one reason why this is the format the distributors are looking at...
I mean, with film, it'd be pretty cost prohibitive and difficult to smuggle out thousands of feet of film to get a screen quality transfer done to export to the middle east to run on hundreds of screens over there.
On the other hand, if it's in MPEG4, you just bring in a firewire hard drive, copy the movie over, and not only can you send it off to wherever to run on actual movie screens with no money going to the distributors and movie makers, but you have a perfect quality thing to do black market mass duplicated DVD's with the same quality as the ones the studios will eventually release in six months within days of the movie coming to the theatre - not to mention real nice DIVX versions on Kazzaa.
Yeah, they'd never go for it. Without DRM, you will never get digital movies on any large scale. Won't happen.
I often end up going to client/Parent/Relative/Friend/Friends Parents sites to fix their computers where they may have something pretty hoss and when I ask them what their processor is, they say "Windows" or "20 Gigawhatsits" when I ask them how much memory they had.
So, I thought nobody would ever notice if I just sort of upgraded my machine sequentially with bits from their machines - like traded my 1.8 with their 2.0, which I'd trade with a 2.2 at the next site or something. They'd never notice, right? Who's the poorer for it?
Sigh. Stupid morals.
Re:I've done something similar... here's why
on
Baked Apple
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I used a hair dryer on a 20K mixing console and a $5K digital piano that got caught on stage when one heck of a sudden rainstorm (you know, one of those ones that starts raining horozontally so the stage roof doesn't do anytyhing) came up without any warning.
The digital piano actually got taken into a trailer before it got too wet, but unfortunately it was left directly under a leak in the trailer. When we picked it up later the water ran out in big streams. It worked just fine.
The sound console was mostly fine, we just lost one of the aux returns on it. No problem. Gotta love Mackie.
The company will declare bankrupcy, sell all the assets to a brand new company which just happens to have the same president as the old one, and be back sending spam out within a month.
At least it's a moral victory I suppose... But you're naive if you think it'll make a dent in the spam that's going out, or in the spammer's bank account for that matter.
Design applications. Pure and simple.
I don't know why, but there just isn't an acceptable version of ANY of the applications I need to make my mortgage payments:
Photoshop, (and the tons of plug-ins I've spent money on)
Illustrator,
Quark
Flash
(etc. Ad Nausium)
Do I know why? No, but until those come my way Linux just isn't even an option.
Slashdot Mirror
You can... Or at least, you can purchase your computer using your MS site licence agreement, and have the installed OS be covered under that site licence. I can't be bothered to look up the URL, but I know I've seen it...
Ok, it's not very "educational" per se, but it's a real fun site if the kids are (or might be) fans of Canada's single best selling author.
Best part about it, is that he doesn't try to sell you anything, not even his books. I respect that for some reason... URL: www.robertmunsch.com
On the other hand, I can see how the DRM restrictions would be the number one reason why this is the format the distributors are looking at...
I mean, with film, it'd be pretty cost prohibitive and difficult to smuggle out thousands of feet of film to get a screen quality transfer done to export to the middle east to run on hundreds of screens over there.
On the other hand, if it's in MPEG4, you just bring in a firewire hard drive, copy the movie over, and not only can you send it off to wherever to run on actual movie screens with no money going to the distributors and movie makers, but you have a perfect quality thing to do black market mass duplicated DVD's with the same quality as the ones the studios will eventually release in six months within days of the movie coming to the theatre - not to mention real nice DIVX versions on Kazzaa.
Yeah, they'd never go for it. Without DRM, you will never get digital movies on any large scale. Won't happen.
I often end up going to client/Parent/Relative/Friend/Friends Parents sites to fix their computers where they may have something pretty hoss and when I ask them what their processor is, they say "Windows" or "20 Gigawhatsits" when I ask them how much memory they had. So, I thought nobody would ever notice if I just sort of upgraded my machine sequentially with bits from their machines - like traded my 1.8 with their 2.0, which I'd trade with a 2.2 at the next site or something. They'd never notice, right? Who's the poorer for it? Sigh. Stupid morals.
I used a hair dryer on a 20K mixing console and a $5K digital piano that got caught on stage when one heck of a sudden rainstorm (you know, one of those ones that starts raining horozontally so the stage roof doesn't do anytyhing) came up without any warning.
The digital piano actually got taken into a trailer before it got too wet, but unfortunately it was left directly under a leak in the trailer. When we picked it up later the water ran out in big streams. It worked just fine.
The sound console was mostly fine, we just lost one of the aux returns on it. No problem. Gotta love Mackie.
The company will declare bankrupcy, sell all the assets to a brand new company which just happens to have the same president as the old one, and be back sending spam out within a month.
At least it's a moral victory I suppose... But you're naive if you think it'll make a dent in the spam that's going out, or in the spammer's bank account for that matter.
Design applications. Pure and simple. I don't know why, but there just isn't an acceptable version of ANY of the applications I need to make my mortgage payments: Photoshop, (and the tons of plug-ins I've spent money on) Illustrator, Quark Flash (etc. Ad Nausium) Do I know why? No, but until those come my way Linux just isn't even an option.