Let's try not to trigger any nuclear explosions on the moon now... no one wants the moon to break away from Earth orbit and go hurtling into the far reaches of space under the control of Martin Landau, now do we? Then again, meeting Maya might just be worth it... meow.
Maybe it's just me, but I've been on the Internet since 1994, and I've seen the ever amounting increase of spam, both porn and otherwise, and lovely porn pop-up ads. Now, I use Mozilla as my browser of choice, but my sister doesn't like it for some reason and is adamant on using Internet Explorer and all of its wonderful quirks. Quite a few times I've had to come over and shut down Internet Explorer 'cause my sister was being absolutely flooded with non-stop gay porn ads.
Between the non-stop porn, the non-stop spam, and especially the mix of the two, I would never, I repeat *NEVER*, let any child of mine access the Internet under the age of 16. I don't care how much he/she/they would bitch and moan, they ain't getting on, it's just *that* simple.
My cousins weren't allowed to watch television until they were 10 and I see that had a positive influence on them. I plan on following the set trend by my relatives and not allow my child(ren) (should I ever have any) to access the Internet, supervised or not. Just way too much crap out there. Supervising them can only do so much to protect them from stuff, the only foolproof method is to ban it altogether.
... And during this whole fiasco, Bill Gates is laughing and rolling around Microsoft Headquarters in hysterical fits as the Open Source community does his dirty work for him unwittingly by fighting and dragging each other down into the mud, while Microsoft(TM) and Internet Explorer shine ever so brightly.
Ironically enough, Marvel already has this... the super-hero's name is DareDevil. Lawyer at day, avenging super-hero at night. The "twist" is the character is blind, supposedly from an accident in his childhood, but I don't buy that. He really went blind from an internship at a law firm on hire by Microsoft. Reading all that legal mumbo-jumbo and helping Microsoft prevail against the Department of Justice would make anybody blind.
Ugh. Bush this, Bush that. Please think before you talk. Bush wasn't the one who enacted the DMCA. No, it was the one you liberal freaks all love... Bill Clinton. If you don't like the law, fine, but blame it on the right person at least. Bush has as much to do with the DMCA as Clinton does with the Patriot Act, i.e. nothing.
Too bad Clinton still isn't in office... maybe he could have pardoned the guy for the right amount of money, just like so many other criminals he pardoned.
Ah, thanks. I just read the full thread of that bug report, and some people are claiming it isn't just the installer the problem is with. So I guess I'll give up on Linux since XFree86 4.3 and nVidia video cards hooked up to LCD monitors via DVI don't work, and just stick to Windows 2000.
I guess Linux isn't ready for the desktop after all.
Too bad I couldn't get the bloody thing to work. I was finally convinced on giving Red Hat Linux a try, so I went so far as to buy a Red Hat Network subscription last week just so I could go ahead and download and burn Red Hat 9. Once that was done, I went ahead and started installing Red Hat 9. Once it reached the part fairly early on where the GUI installer was to take over, my monitor went blank, and it displayed an error message saying the video signal was out of range. I rebooted, and tried installing again, only to have the same thing happen all over again. No screen, no sound, no nothing. It was like my computer wasn't even on, but it was.
So I said, "Screw this," and went back and re-installed LindowsOS 3 instead, which, irony of all ironies, worked. I had video, I had sound, I had everything. Kinda ironic that the Linux distribution everyone loves to hate, Lindows, worked right out of the box when Red Hat 9 failed miserably. And there's nothing really special about my computer either... it's an AMD XP 2000+, 1 gigabyte of DDR-333 RAM, MSI nVidia GeForce 4 Ti 4200 video card with 64 megabytes of DDR Video RAM, SoundBlaster Audigy Platinum sound card, two 80 gigabyte Western Digital IDE hard drives, and an 18" Sony LCD monitor.
Re:Great... another April 1st joke....
on
BSDs to be Merged
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· Score: 0, Troll
Unfortunately, as a paid subscriber (I give over $50 a year to Slashdot), we have to put up with the April 1st jokes and dupe stories, just like everyone else.
And the problem with this is... what exactly? I don't see hordes of Microsoft users crying over Linux Central not selling software specifically geared for the Windows family of operating systems. I don't see why people should cry over Office Depot only selling hardware and software certified by Microsoft. It's a business decision, pure and simple. If it saves Office Depot money and/or makes for smoother customer service, so much the better. If you don't like it, shop somewhere else. It's called choice, it's what capitalism is all about.
This idea is all fine and dandy, but just asking for people to turn theirselves in won't work. It's all bark and no bite. It needs teeth. Now, if the police called me and said that if I didn't turn myself in by noon tomorrow, that they'd sic a naked Richard Simmons on me and have him follow me everywhere and even move into my house, *then* I'd want to turn myself into the authorities.
It may not work the first few times, people thinking it's a joke and no police force would be so cruel, but after the first few times it gets reported by the media and several suicides later, the criminals would get the hint.
After the iMacBeth is finished entertaining you for the evening, does it stab you to death while you're sleeping? Or is that only if you have the last name of Gates?
If I lived in or around San Francisco yesterday, I would have bought a bumper sticker for my car that reads, "So many protestors, so little time."
IMO, protesting is one thing, so long as it is done in a civil way. It's your right. But what was done in San Francisco yesterday, not to mention several other cities across the nation including Philadelphia, is downright illegal. They should be ashamed of theirselves, and, IMO, are nothing but a disgrace to America. They are just shy of being spit-on worthy. All these so-called "protestors" are doing is occupying the time of the FBI and police forces who could be out preventing terrorism and chasing terrorists, instead of spending their time chasing down little punkish morons putting newsstands out in the middle of the street and blocking access to federal buildings.
Of course, then again, nothing that happens in San Francisco should surprise me, especially where idiocy is concerned.
This is no surprise. I saw this coming months ago. In early December of 2002, I purchased a Sonicblue ReplayTV 5040 as an early Christmas present for myself. I set it up three weeks later, the week of Christmas. It worked fine for about a month, no problems. However, suddenly, while watching a recorded episode of "Enterprise" on Sunday, January 19th, about halfway through the episode, the ReplayTV got stuck, with no movement whatsoever. The unit failed to respond to any remote control-issued commands. I then turned the power off and back on, and it was stuck at the boot-up screen. I tried unplugging it altogether, replugging it, but got the same thing. I called Sonicblue technical support a few days later, and they agreed that the machine was broke, and asked me to send it in and I'd get a new ReplayTV 5040 unit in return ASAP.
I shipped out my broken ReplayTV 5040 unit, waited about two weeks, and did not hear or receive anything from Sonicblue, and noticed that my credit card was still being charged the monthly service fee. I called Sonicblue back up, and asked what was going on, and they said they were out of ReplayTV 5040s, and asked me to be patient while I wait to get mine. I noticed the last week of February, that I was charged another monthly service fee. I called Sonicblue back up for a third time, and they said they would suspend my account temporarily until I got my new ReplayTV, but they would not refund me the two months of service charges that I got no service for. When I asked what the status was of my new ReplayTV 5040 unit, I was told they still have not received any new units, and asked me to continue being patient and wait.
Well, it's a month later, two months after I sent my broken ReplayTV 5040 unit into Sonicblue, and I still haven't received a new or repaired unit. At this point, I doubt I ever will. Oh well, that was $320 wasted.:(
From what I hear, TiVo has been having similar trouble. It's a shame, DVR was a fantastic idea, but it doesn't appear to have really caught on with the consumers, and being fought by Hollywood and television executives didn't help any. I guess I should just go back to using a VCR and buy a Super VHS VCR in the meantime, heh.
I always wanted Bruce Boxleitner inside my machine... but then with a certain Bruce Boxleitner character's penchant for nuclear weapons, does my machine become a weapon of mass destruction?
The Auto-Install of Critical Updates is fine and dandy... but what is truly a critical update? Microsoft's Windows Update listed Internet Explorer 6, Service Pack 1 as a critical update while I was using Internet Explorer 5.5, Service Pack Two. Critical? Hardly.
... And by doing so, canceled whatever interest I may have had in "The Matrix." I have never seen the Matrix, but I heard great things about it. Seeing as how it seems to be gearing up to become a franchise, and seeing how studios are making those "no frills" regular edition DVDs and then releasing the super-duper DVDs with all the fixings a few months to a year later, I decided on holding off buying the original Matrix DVD, and I pre-ordered the Matrix Special Edition DVD so I could watch it and be ready for the new movie. However, since the Special Edition has now been canceled, and I'm not about to buy the regular edition DVD since yet another edition has been promised, there goes any interest I may have had in the Matrix, seeing as how I probably won't be able to understand what is going on in the new movies without watching the first Matrix beforehand.
Oh well, no big loss on my part, and I'm sure no big loss on their part either as they'll make millions without me.
Linux is the Jack of All Trades in the Operating System camp. It can be both a desktop and a server, but it doesn't excel in either. On the other hand, Windows 2000 can not be beat for a desktop, at least not anytime soon, and I'd much rather use FreeBSD as a server than Linux, it's more "qualified."
The article was interesting, and it had plenty of valid points. What it seemed to miss most however is: yes, Microsoft is an evil monopoly, yes, Microsoft can be bad. It's nice that there are alternatives to Windows so I don't have to rely on Microsoft for my computing experience. However, those Windows alternatives, sad to say, are just not ready for the desktop user. Installing drivers in Linux is a major pain. There's also no such thing as easy installation and removal of applications. Until those two requirements are met, Windows Millenium with the use of 98Lite Professional to strip out IE and the rest of the bloat, more than meets my needs, and the needs of anyone else I know. Yes, it's Microsoft, but it gets the job done, and in the end, that's the only thing that matters.
Hopefully, by the time Windows Millenium is EOLed, Linux will be able to easily install and remove applications and have an easier time with drivers. Until then...
When I was originally searching for Linux distrobutions to try a couple of months ago, I heard great things about Mandrake. I went to Mandrake's web site, and attempted to order Mandrake 9.0 boxed. But Mandrake's site told me that they were sold out and it may not be re-filled for a while.:( So I went to Xandros' web site and ordered Xandros instead. Too bad for Mandrake - they lost a potential customer, but I sure do like Xandros.
It's just like liberals to blow their money and then rely on others to save their ass.
Not All's Well that Ends Well ...
on
The Linux Uprising
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Here's a quote from one of the linked articles that I think sums up what most Linux advocates fail to realize:
"The revenue growth isn't particularly impressive," says Paul McEntire, portfolio manager of the Marketocracy Technology Plus Fund (TPFQX ), which has owned the stock in the past. Moreover, he says, Red Hat's financial results don't persuade him that it can be solidly profitable in the future. Mostly, he worries that it would take only a little price competition from Microsoft (MSFT ), which goes up against Linux in the operating-system market, to see the return of red ink. Notes McEntire: "Microsoft hasn't really responded to the Linux threat yet."
Should Microsoft ever truly respond to the Linux threat, say by slashing their prices of Windows XP/Windows 2003/Windows Whatever in half, and slash the prices of Microsoft Office in half (much as they have already done in a recent promotion for Apple Macintosh users), it's game over for Linux on the desktop. Xandros is $100. LindowsOS is $130. Hardly anyone would be willing to switch to Linux, when for just $20-$50 more, they can buy the latest and greatest version of Windows, and avoid that steep learning curve and lack of "critical applications" that Linux tends to bring.
I especially see this coming as the other divisions of Microsoft, such as MSN and the XBox, while still losing money, are not losing as much money as they used to, and thus Microsoft would no longer have to rely on Windows and Office as their cash cows so much as they have done in the past.
So, being a user of EarthLink DSL for the past two and a half years, does this mean I should start looking into Verizon's DSL price plans?:( It's a shame, EarthLink is far and above the best ISP I have ever had during my nine years on the Internet, ranging from both other national ISPs to regional ones.
Then, by that same token, Apple is just as guilty. Developers have been complaining for months that Apple is unfairly offering their own applications for needs that were previously met by software independently developed, and bundling it as part of the Macintosh platform. The latest kick to the groin of independent developers by Apple is Safari.
I find it ironic that Apple is just as guilty of the same behavior that Macintosh enthusiasts abhor about Microsoft. If Macintosh accounted for 90+% of desktop computer usage today, there's a good chance that the title of this article would be, "New Antitrust Complaint Filed Against Apple."
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Let's try not to trigger any nuclear explosions on the moon now... no one wants the moon to break away from Earth orbit and go hurtling into the far reaches of space under the control of Martin Landau, now do we? Then again, meeting Maya might just be worth it... meow.
Maybe it's just me, but I've been on the Internet since 1994, and I've seen the ever amounting increase of spam, both porn and otherwise, and lovely porn pop-up ads. Now, I use Mozilla as my browser of choice, but my sister doesn't like it for some reason and is adamant on using Internet Explorer and all of its wonderful quirks. Quite a few times I've had to come over and shut down Internet Explorer 'cause my sister was being absolutely flooded with non-stop gay porn ads.
Between the non-stop porn, the non-stop spam, and especially the mix of the two, I would never, I repeat *NEVER*, let any child of mine access the Internet under the age of 16. I don't care how much he/she/they would bitch and moan, they ain't getting on, it's just *that* simple.
My cousins weren't allowed to watch television until they were 10 and I see that had a positive influence on them. I plan on following the set trend by my relatives and not allow my child(ren) (should I ever have any) to access the Internet, supervised or not. Just way too much crap out there. Supervising them can only do so much to protect them from stuff, the only foolproof method is to ban it altogether.
... And during this whole fiasco, Bill Gates is laughing and rolling around Microsoft Headquarters in hysterical fits as the Open Source community does his dirty work for him unwittingly by fighting and dragging each other down into the mud, while Microsoft(TM) and Internet Explorer shine ever so brightly.
Free Pilot rolling ball gel pen to the first person who gives me their Slashdot password!
Ironically enough, Marvel already has this... the super-hero's name is DareDevil. Lawyer at day, avenging super-hero at night. The "twist" is the character is blind, supposedly from an accident in his childhood, but I don't buy that. He really went blind from an internship at a law firm on hire by Microsoft. Reading all that legal mumbo-jumbo and helping Microsoft prevail against the Department of Justice would make anybody blind.
This is a hoax made up by the Weekly World News, an Internet-based newspaper that's only slightly less factual and sleazier than the National Enquirer. Please see the
Today must have been a really slow newsday for Slashdot.
Ugh. Bush this, Bush that. Please think before you talk. Bush wasn't the one who enacted the DMCA. No, it was the one you liberal freaks all love... Bill Clinton. If you don't like the law, fine, but blame it on the right person at least. Bush has as much to do with the DMCA as Clinton does with the Patriot Act, i.e. nothing.
Too bad Clinton still isn't in office... maybe he could have pardoned the guy for the right amount of money, just like so many other criminals he pardoned.
Ah, thanks. I just read the full thread of that bug report, and some people are claiming it isn't just the installer the problem is with. So I guess I'll give up on Linux since XFree86 4.3 and nVidia video cards hooked up to LCD monitors via DVI don't work, and just stick to Windows 2000.
I guess Linux isn't ready for the desktop after all.
Too bad I couldn't get the bloody thing to work. I was finally convinced on giving Red Hat Linux a try, so I went so far as to buy a Red Hat Network subscription last week just so I could go ahead and download and burn Red Hat 9. Once that was done, I went ahead and started installing Red Hat 9. Once it reached the part fairly early on where the GUI installer was to take over, my monitor went blank, and it displayed an error message saying the video signal was out of range. I rebooted, and tried installing again, only to have the same thing happen all over again. No screen, no sound, no nothing. It was like my computer wasn't even on, but it was.
So I said, "Screw this," and went back and re-installed LindowsOS 3 instead, which, irony of all ironies, worked. I had video, I had sound, I had everything. Kinda ironic that the Linux distribution everyone loves to hate, Lindows, worked right out of the box when Red Hat 9 failed miserably. And there's nothing really special about my computer either... it's an AMD XP 2000+, 1 gigabyte of DDR-333 RAM, MSI nVidia GeForce 4 Ti 4200 video card with 64 megabytes of DDR Video RAM, SoundBlaster Audigy Platinum sound card, two 80 gigabyte Western Digital IDE hard drives, and an 18" Sony LCD monitor.
Unfortunately, as a paid subscriber (I give over $50 a year to Slashdot), we have to put up with the April 1st jokes and dupe stories, just like everyone else.
And the problem with this is... what exactly? I don't see hordes of Microsoft users crying over Linux Central not selling software specifically geared for the Windows family of operating systems. I don't see why people should cry over Office Depot only selling hardware and software certified by Microsoft. It's a business decision, pure and simple. If it saves Office Depot money and/or makes for smoother customer service, so much the better. If you don't like it, shop somewhere else. It's called choice, it's what capitalism is all about.
This idea is all fine and dandy, but just asking for people to turn theirselves in won't work. It's all bark and no bite. It needs teeth. Now, if the police called me and said that if I didn't turn myself in by noon tomorrow, that they'd sic a naked Richard Simmons on me and have him follow me everywhere and even move into my house, *then* I'd want to turn myself into the authorities.
It may not work the first few times, people thinking it's a joke and no police force would be so cruel, but after the first few times it gets reported by the media and several suicides later, the criminals would get the hint.
After the iMacBeth is finished entertaining you for the evening, does it stab you to death while you're sleeping? Or is that only if you have the last name of Gates?
If I lived in or around San Francisco yesterday, I would have bought a bumper sticker for my car that reads, "So many protestors, so little time."
IMO, protesting is one thing, so long as it is done in a civil way. It's your right. But what was done in San Francisco yesterday, not to mention several other cities across the nation including Philadelphia, is downright illegal. They should be ashamed of theirselves, and, IMO, are nothing but a disgrace to America. They are just shy of being spit-on worthy. All these so-called "protestors" are doing is occupying the time of the FBI and police forces who could be out preventing terrorism and chasing terrorists, instead of spending their time chasing down little punkish morons putting newsstands out in the middle of the street and blocking access to federal buildings.
Of course, then again, nothing that happens in San Francisco should surprise me, especially where idiocy is concerned.
This is no surprise. I saw this coming months ago. In early December of 2002, I purchased a Sonicblue ReplayTV 5040 as an early Christmas present for myself. I set it up three weeks later, the week of Christmas. It worked fine for about a month, no problems. However, suddenly, while watching a recorded episode of "Enterprise" on Sunday, January 19th, about halfway through the episode, the ReplayTV got stuck, with no movement whatsoever. The unit failed to respond to any remote control-issued commands. I then turned the power off and back on, and it was stuck at the boot-up screen. I tried unplugging it altogether, replugging it, but got the same thing. I called Sonicblue technical support a few days later, and they agreed that the machine was broke, and asked me to send it in and I'd get a new ReplayTV 5040 unit in return ASAP.
:(
I shipped out my broken ReplayTV 5040 unit, waited about two weeks, and did not hear or receive anything from Sonicblue, and noticed that my credit card was still being charged the monthly service fee. I called Sonicblue back up, and asked what was going on, and they said they were out of ReplayTV 5040s, and asked me to be patient while I wait to get mine. I noticed the last week of February, that I was charged another monthly service fee. I called Sonicblue back up for a third time, and they said they would suspend my account temporarily until I got my new ReplayTV, but they would not refund me the two months of service charges that I got no service for. When I asked what the status was of my new ReplayTV 5040 unit, I was told they still have not received any new units, and asked me to continue being patient and wait.
Well, it's a month later, two months after I sent my broken ReplayTV 5040 unit into Sonicblue, and I still haven't received a new or repaired unit. At this point, I doubt I ever will. Oh well, that was $320 wasted.
From what I hear, TiVo has been having similar trouble. It's a shame, DVR was a fantastic idea, but it doesn't appear to have really caught on with the consumers, and being fought by Hollywood and television executives didn't help any. I guess I should just go back to using a VCR and buy a Super VHS VCR in the meantime, heh.
I always wanted Bruce Boxleitner inside my machine ... but then with a certain Bruce Boxleitner character's penchant for nuclear weapons, does my machine become a weapon of mass destruction?
The Auto-Install of Critical Updates is fine and dandy ... but what is truly a critical update? Microsoft's Windows Update listed Internet Explorer 6, Service Pack 1 as a critical update while I was using Internet Explorer 5.5, Service Pack Two. Critical? Hardly.
... And by doing so, canceled whatever interest I may have had in "The Matrix." I have never seen the Matrix, but I heard great things about it. Seeing as how it seems to be gearing up to become a franchise, and seeing how studios are making those "no frills" regular edition DVDs and then releasing the super-duper DVDs with all the fixings a few months to a year later, I decided on holding off buying the original Matrix DVD, and I pre-ordered the Matrix Special Edition DVD so I could watch it and be ready for the new movie. However, since the Special Edition has now been canceled, and I'm not about to buy the regular edition DVD since yet another edition has been promised, there goes any interest I may have had in the Matrix, seeing as how I probably won't be able to understand what is going on in the new movies without watching the first Matrix beforehand.
Oh well, no big loss on my part, and I'm sure no big loss on their part either as they'll make millions without me.
Linux is the Jack of All Trades in the Operating System camp. It can be both a desktop and a server, but it doesn't excel in either. On the other hand, Windows 2000 can not be beat for a desktop, at least not anytime soon, and I'd much rather use FreeBSD as a server than Linux, it's more "qualified."
Flame away.
The article was interesting, and it had plenty of valid points. What it seemed to miss most however is: yes, Microsoft is an evil monopoly, yes, Microsoft can be bad. It's nice that there are alternatives to Windows so I don't have to rely on Microsoft for my computing experience. However, those Windows alternatives, sad to say, are just not ready for the desktop user. Installing drivers in Linux is a major pain. There's also no such thing as easy installation and removal of applications. Until those two requirements are met, Windows Millenium with the use of 98Lite Professional to strip out IE and the rest of the bloat, more than meets my needs, and the needs of anyone else I know. Yes, it's Microsoft, but it gets the job done, and in the end, that's the only thing that matters.
...
Hopefully, by the time Windows Millenium is EOLed, Linux will be able to easily install and remove applications and have an easier time with drivers. Until then
When I was originally searching for Linux distrobutions to try a couple of months ago, I heard great things about Mandrake. I went to Mandrake's web site, and attempted to order Mandrake 9.0 boxed. But Mandrake's site told me that they were sold out and it may not be re-filled for a while. :( So I went to Xandros' web site and ordered Xandros instead. Too bad for Mandrake - they lost a potential customer, but I sure do like Xandros.
It's just like liberals to blow their money and then rely on others to save their ass.
Here's a quote from one of the linked articles that I think sums up what most Linux advocates fail to realize:
"The revenue growth isn't particularly impressive," says Paul McEntire, portfolio manager of the Marketocracy Technology Plus Fund (TPFQX ), which has owned the stock in the past. Moreover, he says, Red Hat's financial results don't persuade him that it can be solidly profitable in the future. Mostly, he worries that it would take only a little price competition from Microsoft (MSFT ), which goes up against Linux in the operating-system market, to see the return of red ink. Notes McEntire: "Microsoft hasn't really responded to the Linux threat yet."
Should Microsoft ever truly respond to the Linux threat, say by slashing their prices of Windows XP/Windows 2003/Windows Whatever in half, and slash the prices of Microsoft Office in half (much as they have already done in a recent promotion for Apple Macintosh users), it's game over for Linux on the desktop. Xandros is $100. LindowsOS is $130. Hardly anyone would be willing to switch to Linux, when for just $20-$50 more, they can buy the latest and greatest version of Windows, and avoid that steep learning curve and lack of "critical applications" that Linux tends to bring.
I especially see this coming as the other divisions of Microsoft, such as MSN and the XBox, while still losing money, are not losing as much money as they used to, and thus Microsoft would no longer have to rely on Windows and Office as their cash cows so much as they have done in the past.
So, being a user of EarthLink DSL for the past two and a half years, does this mean I should start looking into Verizon's DSL price plans? :( It's a shame, EarthLink is far and above the best ISP I have ever had during my nine years on the Internet, ranging from both other national ISPs to regional ones.
Then, by that same token, Apple is just as guilty. Developers have been complaining for months that Apple is unfairly offering their own applications for needs that were previously met by software independently developed, and bundling it as part of the Macintosh platform. The latest kick to the groin of independent developers by Apple is Safari.
I find it ironic that Apple is just as guilty of the same behavior that Macintosh enthusiasts abhor about Microsoft. If Macintosh accounted for 90+% of desktop computer usage today, there's a good chance that the title of this article would be, "New Antitrust Complaint Filed Against Apple."