My company is an ASP for the major computer vendors. In the shop itself, I use Mandrake Linux 9.0 on my work machine, haven't ran any MS for years. Besides my machine, we use a Mandrake Linux 8.2 machine to access our FACTS software that runs on a SCO box, with the secondary purpose to test Epson and HP scanners, network printers of all makes and models, and an example to customers so they can see what else is out there.
The software ordered is for a customer of ours. They use Mandrake Linux 8.2 for SMB filesharing for their PeachTree application, serving printers, DHCP, Internet connection, mail server, web server, etc. The Samba filesharing has turned out really nice, and has a considerable performance increase, as well as stability, over their Novell 4.12 server. The network connectivity has never been better, running their own mail server has proved very valuable, and the remote administration through Webmin and ssh is a priceless commodity.
At home, I run Mandrake Linux 9.0 as my main OS, dual booting to WinXP ONLY for MechWarrior 4 and Hitman 2: Silent Assasin. The rest of my games I run in Linux, including Unreal Tournament 2003, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and Jedi Knight 2. I also use OpenOffice constantly, do PHP web design, program up some Python, and frown whenever my WineX doesn't run a game, so I have to boot into XP.
I started my Linux experience back in 94 with Slackware, moved to Red Hat, tried a plethora of other distro's, and wouldn't go back to any of them, not since finding Mandrake Linux!
In The Sun magazine, there is an interview with someone named Carolyn Raffensperger. This lady wants to do some radical and awful things to scientific development in the guise of applying "the precautionary principle"to the research agenda.
This is the wronnnng way to go about things. Scientists should be completely independent, as much from business as from government or "society." The key to public interest involvement in scientific development is getting the corporate control out of the media, politics, and other information vectors.
They force you to use their dialer, meaning you can't do simple dial-up networking sharing, auto-dialing. Other ISPs use these but still allow you to set up an (unsupported) PPP connection using standard tools
Said dialer software is full of adverts. AOL/Time Warner removed popup handling abilities from Netscape for this reason, I believe.
At one point, you had to use their own browser
It forces you to have Real Player installed (evil) and complains every time you dial in if you remove it
They ask for your credit card during the trail for verification etc then automatically start billing you without warning. Cancelling used to be difficult and often went "wrong".
You are paying over the odds because the service has great customer help, which is useless to techies. (I'd recommend it to non-techies for this reason tho)
They send junk mail. Lot's of it. Regularly. To the same people.
Said junk mail is not just recyclable paper, it's a cd-rom and a complete waste of resources and bad for environment as it needs to be disposed of in landfills.
Typically, lamers and newbies were on AOL. A large majority of HTML posts to usenet are from AOL and other anti-social net activites are common, hence the term AOLamer
They encourage parents to give up responsibility for their children's safety into the hands of parental controls in software.
They encourage parents to give up responsibility for helping their children with their education since "homework help is just a breeze on AOL"
Their business model depends on people no realising that they are out of free hours and are going to be charged unless they perform some frustrating and time-hungry tasks to cancel the service. Essentially, they depend on the users thinking they know the whole story when really, they don't until they are forced to pay more.
They give a misconception of 'the internet' to new users. Some people think that surfing aol:// addresses means they are on the internet.
They are an ecological menace. Most of the CDs they send out are trashed. Also, consider the waste put out to make the components of the CDs and electricity expended to make something which just fills our landfills faster.
They reward ignorance. They make it acceptable for you to know nothing about computers and be happy with it even though you are using them as an integral part of your life. (Please no automobile analogies.)
The stifle choice. Supposedly part of the big news for AOL 8 is that you can now choose between 8 welcome screens and change the colours of your AOL interface... oooooh....
It takes a everything short of a lawsuit to make them stop billing you.
AOL does not introduce people to the Internet, it dumbs down the Internet, thereby hurting the users in the process. 90% of the AOL users I've had to deal with think their Web Browser is the "Internet". And after years of thinking this, it is almost impossible to get them to understand the truth.
AOL harbors undesirable individuals much like certain middle eastern nations harbor militant terrorists. What's worse, with all the free 1000 hour disks floating about, individuals who mean ill to the 'Net at large can easily gain free access over and over to do more damage.
The service is crap. But since most AOL users have been coddled for so long, they CAN'T learn to use anything else; they are stuck w/ sub par service...
If I think of some more reasons (I know there's a few more)... I'll post another response...:P
Slashdot Mirror
I'll help you out. I am neither male nor skanky, and I'm horny as hell. Call me at (216) 321-3546 sometime.
;-)
Esther Sassaman
2776 Hampshire Blvd #B1
Cleveland Heights, OH 44106
Talk to you soon!
My company is an ASP for the major computer vendors. In the shop itself, I use Mandrake Linux 9.0 on my work machine, haven't ran any MS for years. Besides my machine, we use a Mandrake Linux 8.2 machine to access our FACTS software that runs on a SCO box, with the secondary purpose to test Epson and HP scanners, network printers of all makes and models, and an example to customers so they can see what else is out there.
The software ordered is for a customer of ours. They use Mandrake Linux 8.2 for SMB filesharing for their PeachTree application, serving printers, DHCP, Internet connection, mail server, web server, etc. The Samba filesharing has turned out really nice, and has a considerable performance increase, as well as stability, over their Novell 4.12 server. The network connectivity has never been better, running their own mail server has proved very valuable, and the remote administration through Webmin and ssh is a priceless commodity.
At home, I run Mandrake Linux 9.0 as my main OS, dual booting to WinXP ONLY for MechWarrior 4 and Hitman 2: Silent Assasin. The rest of my games I run in Linux, including Unreal Tournament 2003, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and Jedi Knight 2. I also use OpenOffice constantly, do PHP web design, program up some Python, and frown whenever my WineX doesn't run a game, so I have to boot into XP.
I started my Linux experience back in 94 with Slackware, moved to Red Hat, tried a plethora of other distro's, and wouldn't go back to any of them, not since finding Mandrake Linux!
In The Sun magazine, there is an interview with someone named Carolyn Raffensperger. This lady wants to do some radical and awful things to scientific development in the guise of applying "the precautionary principle"to the research agenda.
This is the wronnnng way to go about things. Scientists should be completely independent, as much from business as from government or "society." The key to public interest involvement in scientific development is getting the corporate control out of the media, politics, and other information vectors.
They force you to use their dialer, meaning you can't do simple dial-up networking sharing, auto-dialing. Other ISPs use these but still allow you to set up an (unsupported) PPP connection using standard tools
Said dialer software is full of adverts. AOL/Time Warner removed popup handling abilities from Netscape for this reason, I believe.
At one point, you had to use their own browser
It forces you to have Real Player installed (evil) and complains every time you dial in if you remove it
They ask for your credit card during the trail for verification etc then automatically start billing you without warning. Cancelling used to be difficult and often went "wrong".
You are paying over the odds because the service has great customer help, which is useless to techies. (I'd recommend it to non-techies for this reason tho)
They send junk mail. Lot's of it. Regularly. To the same people.
Said junk mail is not just recyclable paper, it's a cd-rom and a complete waste of resources and bad for environment as it needs to be disposed of in landfills.
Typically, lamers and newbies were on AOL. A large majority of HTML posts to usenet are from AOL and other anti-social net activites are common, hence the term AOLamer
They encourage parents to give up responsibility for their children's safety into the hands of parental controls in software.
They encourage parents to give up responsibility for helping their children with their education since "homework help is just a breeze on AOL"
Their business model depends on people no realising that they are out of free hours and are going to be charged unless they perform some frustrating and time-hungry tasks to cancel the service. Essentially, they depend on the users thinking they know the whole story when really, they don't until they are forced to pay more.
They give a misconception of 'the internet' to new users. Some people think that surfing aol:// addresses means they are on the internet.
They are an ecological menace. Most of the CDs they send out are trashed. Also, consider the waste put out to make the components of the CDs and electricity expended to make something which just fills our landfills faster.
They reward ignorance. They make it acceptable for you to know nothing about computers and be happy with it even though you are using them as an integral part of your life. (Please no automobile analogies.)
The stifle choice. Supposedly part of the big news for AOL 8 is that you can now choose between 8 welcome screens and change the colours of your AOL interface ... oooooh ....
It takes a everything short of a lawsuit to make them stop billing you.
AOL does not introduce people to the Internet, it dumbs down the Internet, thereby hurting the users in the process. 90% of the AOL users I've had to deal with think their Web Browser is the "Internet". And after years of thinking this, it is almost impossible to get them to understand the truth.
AOL harbors undesirable individuals much like certain middle eastern nations harbor militant terrorists. What's worse, with all the free 1000 hour disks floating about, individuals who mean ill to the 'Net at large can easily gain free access over and over to do more damage.
The service is crap. But since most AOL users have been coddled for so long, they CAN'T learn to use anything else; they are stuck w/ sub par service...
If I think of some more reasons (I know there's a few more)... I'll post another response... :P
;-)
Just a few thoughts from the top of my head...