I had a problem with 10.3 authenticating to a W2k3 AD server and mounting shares. Turned out I had to modify the Domain Controller Security Policy on the server and set Microsoft Network Server: Digitally Sign Communications (always) to Disabled. I am now running 10.4 and I have no problems connecting to this w2k3 server.
I got this solution from here by the way. Thanks to Drew McLelland.
Not much of a rebuttal if you ask me. No answer to points made in the original article such as waste of CPU power, use of basic applications and security issues. He just says 'it's a cog'! Ha!
One interesting thing he did was to call PDA's and phones PC's. They are not PC's. You can't argue that PC's are a 'cog' because PDAs and phones are. PDAs and especially phones are 'cogs' in the information delivery of the future. But they are not PC's.
Personally I agree with the first article. He makes an excellent point in that PC's are the centre of home computing but just a nuisance in business. They are under-utilised and take too much effort to support for what they provide.
I'm sure a lot of readers have or do work in large enterprises. What the original article said rings true. The applications you use on a PC are basically e-mail, MS-Office, browsing and helpdesk. IMHO it's Office that keeps us on PC's.
Is there anything happening on the anti-spyware/malware front for Linux and MacOS X? The usual argument I hear is that the *nixes are more secure as they don't allow root privilege access by default as Windows does. However, spyware, malware and other crapware doesn't need root privilege does it? I have enough privileges on MacOS X to have spyware install rogue apps and have them start when I login. Same goes for linux. These *wares don't need to run as root to cause damage.
So what's happening in the *nix world to ensure that all this crapware doesn't affect us? Not having root access is not the solution.
This is where I totally disagree with the Church, and I think that it should take a back seat to logic. If it is proven that people are born homosexual, then the church should be FORCED to accept them, because that's how God created them
I don't think the church (officially at least) has ever not accepted homosexuals. The church's objection is basically to men having sex with other men as sex is sacred and ultimately used for creation of life. You can be gay. No problem. The key is celibacy.
I found my first phone that doubles as a viable PDA - a Nokia 6600. The screen is big enough to read a decent amount of text at a time or show photos to my friends. The symbian OS is great and I've downloaded some useful apps like AvantGo, Opera and PuTTY (well, PuTTY is really just to show off...). The address book and calendar sync's with iSync no probs. Bluetooth is invaluable for shuffling pics back and forth. It has LOUD alarms and I can snooze them too (but only for 5 mins at a time). I don't use the to-do list so much so I can't comment on that.
Only downside is battery life - about 2days. I got around this by having a charger at work as well as at home.
FBI/CIA even investigated reports of muslims taking flying lessons and not being intrested in learning to land.
This whole not learning how to land thing strikes me as a bit bizzarre. Don't you think it'd be pretty much the #1 way to bring attention to yourself? These people weren't stupid. I wonder how true this is or if it's just a story?
Landing's a big part of learning how to fly. I flew straight and level on my first introductory flight. I think I took off every flight after that. I was at about 6 hours when I started to land. It was exciting too (there was a ditch parallel to the runway). I solo'd after about 12 hours (I still remember it *sigh* - I don't fly any more)
Anyway, here's my point. To say you don't want to land, well, that's stupid and I don't think these guys were stupid.
OK, let's try to meet at a minimum common opinion. Would you agree that a compensation for a work done should be sufficient to live a life as decent as the investors?
An honest day's work for an honest day's pay yes. No need to tie it in with what investors get....do you think threatening people by taking their jobs away and making them to agree to low wages this way is fundamentally different from slavery, ie. forcing them to work without sufficient compensation?
First of all, slavery is much more than that. Second of all, you overestimate what's happening. We're not talking about slavery - just outsourcing from a wealthy country to a poor one. Low wages is a relative term. Your wages are sky-high compared to some countries Finally, this question is rhetorical. Of course the answer is no!
Expand its scope a bit. It means that everyone in the world has a right to live a life as decent as yours. What are you going to do about it? You have to bring them up to your level before you can better your own life.
But none of this is a 'right' and that's my point. We are *privileged* to live as we do. We don't have a right to live as we do. We don't have a right to live life 'as decent as the investors'. We are lucky to have what we have. Most of the world doesn't have what we have.
Every human being has a right to live a decent life. You do not have to earn it, if it is denied to you by underpaying for your abilities, yes! you are being cheated
Really? You really think? A 'right' you say?
What's decent? Is having a house, a car and a TV decent? What about just a roof? How about enough to eat? How about just not starving?
You have a much better life than you think. Job or no job. The quality of your life far exceeds your 'right' to a decent life - job or no job. Think outside your country.
Life is a gift - not a right. To live is a privilege. Most people in this world only survive.
You can tell it's the Time Warner people now running AOLTW and not the AOL people. This decision is made by people running a movie company - not a software company. And when you think about it, it benefits them:
they get to continue using IE - so they don't need to develop a new client around a new browser engine. The current one works OK. Why spend $$$ to change?
they get into windows media. Keeps Real on their toes and gives them a foothold into one of the most popular (if not the most popular) media format. Also, MS have their DRM sorted which would appeal to a movie company
they get $750mil. They need money. M$ has stacks of it. So why not hand some over?
But this begs the question. What does a media company need with an open source browser company?
Is this the beginning of the end for AOL? What does a media company need with an ISP anyway? Once their content is on MS technologies, they can arrange to distribute it over MSN. No need for AOL any more.
Is it me or is HP getting closer and closer to Microsoft? I've noticed this especially since the merger.
MS have a good idea - they need to take control of the hardware in order to put out a better product. This is what Apple does and it works for Apple. But M$ don't make hardware. Enter HP. I think HP are after some kind of 'special relationship' with M$. If HP becomes Microsoft's hardware arm it lifts them above all other PC vendors - if you want a 'real' Microsoft PC you'll need to buy HP. Everyone else - Dell, IBM etc will become 2nd tier vendors. HP will be the preferred PC vendor Microsoft products - and therefore the preferred PC vendor period.
MS gets to control the hardware platform. HP get to provide the hardware platform - maybe even exclusively or definitely first to market. Boosts their PC sales.
All this makes me more reluctant to buy HP-UX boxes or HP linux boxes. I'm sure there will be less and less energy directed to this line over time.
Oh, really? Then why is it that it's only the worker's jobs that get offshored? American companies could save many millions of dollars per year by offshoring management jobs, but that never happens.
There's some truth in what you say. Management will never move themselves offshore - much like politicians will never give themselves a pay cut. However, just given the number of managers vs number of workers, you're going to save more money moving workers. Moving 10,000 workers will save you more than moving 100 managers.
There is another alternative. Work for less. $35/hr isn't as good as $50/hour but it's better than $0/hour. You may have to alter your lifestyle - buy cheaper things, sell your house even. But it's not your employer's duty to fund your lifestyle.
On a tangent: How long can this last? All the manufacturing jobs went to china and the US (and other 'developed' countries) said we had to re-shape ourselves into a 'knowledge' economy (like we're inherently smarter than Indians!!). Now the 'knowledge' jobs are moving offshore and now we're being told to focus on higher-level stuff like R&D. But we don't have a mortgage on intelligence. So what happens?
Sorry chaps, don't get your hopes up. MS will appeal this decision. Then if (when?) they lose the appeal, they'll appeal again and again and again until it reaches the Supreme Court or whatever the head honcho court in the US is. It'll take years and years and in the meantime there'll be no Java on XP and its successors and by the time the case is resolved it won't matter anyway.
When I was in Australia I never lost an SMS. The same goes pretty much for Hong Kong also. But I have lost one or 2 international SMS (Oz -> HK and HK -> Oz) messages. Nothing like 7% though.
I have to agree with some other posters that maybe the over-the-top attitude ("strong experience-based opininos") is a little annoying.
I think you're mistaking 'strong experience-based opinions' to be 'close-mindedness'. I'm not sure this is the case.
That particular statement is one I could strongly identify with. I've been a Sys admin for 12 years and my experience is the foundation for all my opinions! I think that's what he's saying. My BSc didn't help much with the formation of any opinion on anything. It's all been on-the-job learning - both technical and non-technical skills.
An example...
I took my first sysadmin job about 5 months after I graduated (I was a COBOL programmer - yuck!) back at the University I graduated from but in the physics department. Anyway, one of the students came in a few days after I started and told me that the swap space was filling up on one of their new Sparc 1+ boxes (this was 1990). I remember telling him I'd look at it and then thinking - what the (*#)@ is swap space?!? I remembered something about virtual memory from my (still fresh) studies but nothing useful. That's how useful my degree was:-) In the end the SunOS (it was 4.0.3 back then) System and Network Admin manual saved me. This was back in the day when manuals came in folders that took up a shelf or two.
Or haven't you noticed how close Federal elections have been, at all levels, for the past two voting cycles?
Actually, the last 2 elections weren't that close at all. The last one (Oct? 2001) was won convincingly by the Liberals and the result was known in a few hours. The liberals ran on the post 9/11 insecurity and on an anti-immigration ticket in particular that saw them win an increased majority.
The election before that (1998) was close. However it saw one of the largest swings ever to an opposition party - although it was not enough to have them win government. This election was fought over a new tax system which the liberals wanted to (and have since) introduced.
The election before that (1996) saw the biggest swing ever to an opposition party. This was the election that brought the current liberal government into power after 13 years of a Labor government.
What if I don't like any of my candidates (which is quite often the case)? Should I still be forced to vote for one of them? When I choose not to vote, I am basically casting a vote against the current system and stating my disgust with it. In the Australian system, there is no way to do this.
You have a good point and it's one that is often discussed in Australia. The way our voting system works (preferential voting as well as compulsory voting) for the federal system and also for my state (South Australia) means that you have to vote for everybody. You have give each name on the ballot a number indicating your preference - ie: 1 for the guy you want, 2 for the guy you'd want if your first preference doesn't get in etc. There are often complaints that there's no option not to vote for someone. If there are 5 names on the card, we must enter 1 to 5 or our vote is invalid. So if there's a Nazi party candidate on my paper, I must vote for him - even if it's only voting last for him!
The federal system makes us work this way and my state (South Australia) as I said above. However some states (Tasmania I think) have what's called 'optional preferential voting'. It's just like what I described above but you don't have to assign each candidate a number ie: you can not vote for someone. In Tas. I could just mark my ballot paper with a '1' for the guy I wanted and leave the rest empty. Or I think I could just leave the whole paper empty if I wanted to.
Then you have lazy, ignorant, and just plain stupid people voting just becuase they have to and circling a random name on the ballot.
Australia has compulsory voting. We have it at the federal and state levels. It hasn't bred the random name thingy you mention - in fact, quite the opposite. People become dyed-in-the-wool Labor (kinda like Democrats but more leftish) or Liberal (kinda like Rebups but more leftish) voters. Most elections are left up to a small percentage of 'swinging' voters to determine who forms government. This may sound bad but it's actually quite good. Why? Because, as people are becoming more educated and aware of the impact of the government on their lives they are starting to think more about their vote. As a result, the amount of swinging voters is growing which is a good thing - it keeps the government on its toes. Doing so has led to a Labor government implementing rightist policies (selling off our nationalised bank and airlines in the 80's) and has led the Liberal government to implement leftist policies (increasing tax on the rich (in for form of the super guarantee and medicare levy for those over $x,000 with no private insurance)).
Having compulsory voting makes you vote. This in turn makes you pay more attention to what the government does. And judging by the increasing number of swinging voters, people care. Making voting compulsory has removed the barrier of voter apathy (to an extent at least).
I guess there's not too many Hong Kong people on at the moment.
HK Salaries vary wildly. From around $US450/month to tens of thousands of $US per month. Most of the people I know even those making $HK10k/month ($US1200/month) can still afford broadband.
Next, tax is about 17T of your income. The first $US2500 (I think) is tax free. The tax base is all income tax - no sales tax or any other taxes worth mentioning
As for broadband, well it's pretty much the standard thing here. A good example is this. I'm currently typing this to you from a 3Mbit DSL connection. I Pay $HK198 == $US25/month for it. It's an _unlimited_ connection - no download limits, no connection limits. No disconnects either. I could have chosen between 1.5, 3 or 6Mbit DSL. I also had the choice of 10Mbit xDSL. There are (at least) 3 telcos (including HGC) that provide DSL. My deal is a pretty good one for DSL. A 'standard' deal would see me paying $HK300 ($US37.50) for a 3Mbit link with only (I think) 100 hours per month. Or I could have chosen an (up to) 10Mbit cable connection from the sole cable provider in Hong Kong (iCable). They wanted $HK260/month ($US35) but it was unlimited. But if there's too many people on cable you don't get anything like the 10Mbit they advertise. Or some telcos provide 10Mbit ethernet in my apartment complex. Some of them start at around $HK48 ($US6)/month. But again you take the risk re: bandwidth sharing.
So, the bandwidth and price on offer doesn't seem too hot when you look at it in context. Also, the trial is happening in an apartment complex owned by Li Ka Shing who's the same guy that owns Hutchison. Seems logical.
Finally, Hong Kong is a small place with 6.5 million people and we quite literally live on top of each other. It's easy to roll out a cheap broadband service as a result. Infrastructure costs per person reached would be much smaller than the US or Australia (my old home).
But consider how much you have to piss-fart aoround with WPE to get a good config - partially because no-one uses it - and compare that with 'locking down' a linux box ie:
secure it - and most linuxes are reasonably secure out-the-box these days
set a strong root password. Give the students limited sudo access if necessary
Probably a little bit of hardware stuff (disable floppy booting etc)
Maybe setting up a restricted shell or GUI environment
But basically, students would be pretty safe on a linux box without root access. And it's simple and well-known to set up. Compare that with Windows Policy Editor. Does anyone really use it? Maybe a few but I'm sure it's not as well documented or as well tested and probably not as robust as simply locking out root access to a linux box.
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All I know is that it works with it disabled. Haven't re-enabled it since getting 10.4
I got this solution from here by the way. Thanks to Drew McLelland.
Not much of a rebuttal if you ask me. No answer to points made in the original article such as waste of CPU power, use of basic applications and security issues. He just says 'it's a cog'! Ha!
One interesting thing he did was to call PDA's and phones PC's. They are not PC's. You can't argue that PC's are a 'cog' because PDAs and phones are. PDAs and especially phones are 'cogs' in the information delivery of the future. But they are not PC's.
Personally I agree with the first article. He makes an excellent point in that PC's are the centre of home computing but just a nuisance in business. They are under-utilised and take too much effort to support for what they provide.
I'm sure a lot of readers have or do work in large enterprises. What the original article said rings true. The applications you use on a PC are basically e-mail, MS-Office, browsing and helpdesk. IMHO it's Office that keeps us on PC's.
Mark
Maybe he doesn't know his planes that well. They're both 4-engined long-range airliners that seat about the same number of people.
Is there anything happening on the anti-spyware/malware front for Linux and MacOS X? The usual argument I hear is that the *nixes are more secure as they don't allow root privilege access by default as Windows does. However, spyware, malware and other crapware doesn't need root privilege does it? I have enough privileges on MacOS X to have spyware install rogue apps and have them start when I login. Same goes for linux. These *wares don't need to run as root to cause damage.
So what's happening in the *nix world to ensure that all this crapware doesn't affect us? Not having root access is not the solution.
I don't think the church (officially at least) has ever not accepted homosexuals. The church's objection is basically to men having sex with other men as sex is sacred and ultimately used for creation of life. You can be gay. No problem. The key is celibacy.
What about drop-and-drag?
It's what I do with my suitcase when I travel...
Am I right or am I right? Picasa looks like an iPhoto clone. Same look and feel pretty much. Not as pretty tho'
I found my first phone that doubles as a viable PDA - a Nokia 6600. The screen is big enough to read a decent amount of text at a time or show photos to my friends. The symbian OS is great and I've downloaded some useful apps like AvantGo, Opera and PuTTY (well, PuTTY is really just to show off...). The address book and calendar sync's with iSync no probs. Bluetooth is invaluable for shuffling pics back and forth. It has LOUD alarms and I can snooze them too (but only for 5 mins at a time). I don't use the to-do list so much so I can't comment on that.
Only downside is battery life - about 2days. I got around this by having a charger at work as well as at home.
FBI/CIA even investigated reports of muslims taking flying lessons and not being intrested in learning to land.
This whole not learning how to land thing strikes me as a bit bizzarre. Don't you think it'd be pretty much the #1 way to bring attention to yourself? These people weren't stupid. I wonder how true this is or if it's just a story?
Landing's a big part of learning how to fly. I flew straight and level on my first introductory flight. I think I took off every flight after that. I was at about 6 hours when I started to land. It was exciting too (there was a ditch parallel to the runway). I solo'd after about 12 hours (I still remember it *sigh* - I don't fly any more)
Anyway, here's my point. To say you don't want to land, well, that's stupid and I don't think these guys were stupid.
OK, let's try to meet at a minimum common opinion. Would you agree that a compensation for a work done should be sufficient to live a life as decent as the investors?
...do you think threatening people by taking their jobs away and making them to agree to low wages this way is fundamentally different from slavery, ie. forcing them to work without sufficient compensation?
An honest day's work for an honest day's pay yes. No need to tie it in with what investors get.
First of all, slavery is much more than that.
Second of all, you overestimate what's happening. We're not talking about slavery - just outsourcing from a wealthy country to a poor one. Low wages is a relative term. Your wages are sky-high compared to some countries
Finally, this question is rhetorical. Of course the answer is no!
Expand its scope a bit. It means that everyone in the world has a right to live a life as decent as yours. What are you going to do about it? You have to bring them up to your level before you can better your own life.
But none of this is a 'right' and that's my point. We are *privileged* to live as we do. We don't have a right to live as we do. We don't have a right to live life 'as decent as the investors'. We are lucky to have what we have. Most of the world doesn't have what we have.
Every human being has a right to live a decent life. You do not have to earn it, if it is denied to you by underpaying for your abilities, yes! you are being cheated
Really? You really think? A 'right' you say?
What's decent? Is having a house, a car and a TV decent? What about just a roof? How about enough to eat? How about just not starving?
You have a much better life than you think. Job or no job. The quality of your life far exceeds your 'right' to a decent life - job or no job. Think outside your country.
Life is a gift - not a right. To live is a privilege. Most people in this world only survive.
Everybody knows AIX aIn't uniX
But this begs the question. What does a media company need with an open source browser company?
Is this the beginning of the end for AOL? What does a media company need with an ISP anyway? Once their content is on MS technologies, they can arrange to distribute it over MSN. No need for AOL any more.
Is it me or is HP getting closer and closer to Microsoft? I've noticed this especially since the merger.
MS have a good idea - they need to take control of the hardware in order to put out a better product. This is what Apple does and it works for Apple. But M$ don't make hardware. Enter HP. I think HP are after some kind of 'special relationship' with M$. If HP becomes Microsoft's hardware arm it lifts them above all other PC vendors - if you want a 'real' Microsoft PC you'll need to buy HP. Everyone else - Dell, IBM etc will become 2nd tier vendors. HP will be the preferred PC vendor Microsoft products - and therefore the preferred PC vendor period.
MS gets to control the hardware platform.
HP get to provide the hardware platform - maybe even exclusively or definitely first to market. Boosts their PC sales.
All this makes me more reluctant to buy HP-UX boxes or HP linux boxes. I'm sure there will be less and less energy directed to this line over time.
Mark
Oh, really? Then why is it that it's only the worker's jobs that get offshored? American companies could save many millions of dollars per year by offshoring management jobs, but that never happens.
There's some truth in what you say. Management will never move themselves offshore - much like politicians will never give themselves a pay cut. However, just given the number of managers vs number of workers, you're going to save more money moving workers. Moving 10,000 workers will save you more than moving 100 managers.
There is another alternative. Work for less. $35/hr isn't as good as $50/hour but it's better than $0/hour. You may have to alter your lifestyle - buy cheaper things, sell your house even. But it's not your employer's duty to fund your lifestyle.
On a tangent: How long can this last? All the manufacturing jobs went to china and the US (and other 'developed' countries) said we had to re-shape ourselves into a 'knowledge' economy (like we're inherently smarter than Indians!!). Now the 'knowledge' jobs are moving offshore and now we're being told to focus on higher-level stuff like R&D. But we don't have a mortgage on intelligence. So what happens?
Sorry chaps, don't get your hopes up. MS will appeal this decision. Then if (when?) they lose the appeal, they'll appeal again and again and again until it reaches the Supreme Court or whatever the head honcho court in the US is. It'll take years and years and in the meantime there'll be no Java on XP and its successors and by the time the case is resolved it won't matter anyway.
I haven't got my hopes up on this one. Sorry.
When I was in Australia I never lost an SMS. The same goes pretty much for Hong Kong also. But I have lost one or 2 international SMS (Oz -> HK and HK -> Oz) messages. Nothing like 7% though.
I have to agree with some other posters that maybe the over-the-top attitude ("strong experience-based opininos") is a little annoying.
:-) In the end the SunOS (it was 4.0.3 back then) System and Network Admin manual saved me. This was back in the day when manuals came in folders that took up a shelf or two.
I think you're mistaking 'strong experience-based opinions' to be 'close-mindedness'. I'm not sure this is the case.
That particular statement is one I could strongly identify with. I've been a Sys admin for 12 years and my experience is the foundation for all my opinions! I think that's what he's saying. My BSc didn't help much with the formation of any opinion on anything. It's all been on-the-job learning - both technical and non-technical skills.
An example...
I took my first sysadmin job about 5 months after I graduated (I was a COBOL programmer - yuck!) back at the University I graduated from but in the physics department. Anyway, one of the students came in a few days after I started and told me that the swap space was filling up on one of their new Sparc 1+ boxes (this was 1990). I remember telling him I'd look at it and then thinking - what the (*#)@ is swap space?!? I remembered something about virtual memory from my (still fresh) studies but nothing useful. That's how useful my degree was
Or haven't you noticed how close Federal elections have been, at all levels, for the past two voting cycles?
Actually, the last 2 elections weren't that close at all. The last one (Oct? 2001) was won convincingly by the Liberals and the result was known in a few hours. The liberals ran on the post 9/11 insecurity and on an anti-immigration ticket in particular that saw them win an increased majority.
The election before that (1998) was close. However it saw one of the largest swings ever to an opposition party - although it was not enough to have them win government. This election was fought over a new tax system which the liberals wanted to (and have since) introduced.
The election before that (1996) saw the biggest swing ever to an opposition party. This was the election that brought the current liberal government into power after 13 years of a Labor government.
We haven't had a close result in a while.
What if I don't like any of my candidates (which is quite often the case)? Should I still be forced to vote for one of them? When I choose not to vote, I am basically casting a vote against the current system and stating my disgust with it. In the Australian system, there is no way to do this.
You have a good point and it's one that is often discussed in Australia. The way our voting system works (preferential voting as well as compulsory voting) for the federal system and also for my state (South Australia) means that you have to vote for everybody. You have give each name on the ballot a number indicating your preference - ie: 1 for the guy you want, 2 for the guy you'd want if your first preference doesn't get in etc. There are often complaints that there's no option not to vote for someone. If there are 5 names on the card, we must enter 1 to 5 or our vote is invalid. So if there's a Nazi party candidate on my paper, I must vote for him - even if it's only voting last for him!
The federal system makes us work this way and my state (South Australia) as I said above. However some states (Tasmania I think) have what's called 'optional preferential voting'. It's just like what I described above but you don't have to assign each candidate a number ie: you can not vote for someone. In Tas. I could just mark my ballot paper with a '1' for the guy I wanted and leave the rest empty. Or I think I could just leave the whole paper empty if I wanted to.
IMHO this is a better system.
Australia has compulsory voting. We have it at the federal and state levels. It hasn't bred the random name thingy you mention - in fact, quite the opposite. People become dyed-in-the-wool Labor (kinda like Democrats but more leftish) or Liberal (kinda like Rebups but more leftish) voters. Most elections are left up to a small percentage of 'swinging' voters to determine who forms government. This may sound bad but it's actually quite good. Why? Because, as people are becoming more educated and aware of the impact of the government on their lives they are starting to think more about their vote. As a result, the amount of swinging voters is growing which is a good thing - it keeps the government on its toes. Doing so has led to a Labor government implementing rightist policies (selling off our nationalised bank and airlines in the 80's) and has led the Liberal government to implement leftist policies (increasing tax on the rich (in for form of the super guarantee and medicare levy for those over $x,000 with no private insurance)).
Having compulsory voting makes you vote. This in turn makes you pay more attention to what the government does. And judging by the increasing number of swinging voters, people care. Making voting compulsory has removed the barrier of voter apathy (to an extent at least).
I guess there's not too many Hong Kong people on at the moment.
HK Salaries vary wildly. From around $US450/month to tens of thousands of $US per month. Most of the people I know even those making $HK10k/month ($US1200/month) can still afford broadband.
Next, tax is about 17T of your income. The first $US2500 (I think) is tax free. The tax base is all income tax - no sales tax or any other taxes worth mentioning
As for broadband, well it's pretty much the standard thing here. A good example is this. I'm currently typing this to you from a 3Mbit DSL connection. I Pay $HK198 == $US25/month for it. It's an _unlimited_ connection - no download limits, no connection limits. No disconnects either. I could have chosen between 1.5, 3 or 6Mbit DSL. I also had the choice of 10Mbit xDSL. There are (at least) 3 telcos (including HGC) that provide DSL. My deal is a pretty good one for DSL. A 'standard' deal would see me paying $HK300 ($US37.50) for a 3Mbit link with only (I think) 100 hours per month. Or I could have chosen an (up to) 10Mbit cable connection from the sole cable provider in Hong Kong (iCable). They wanted $HK260/month ($US35) but it was unlimited. But if there's too many people on cable you don't get anything like the 10Mbit they advertise. Or some telcos provide 10Mbit ethernet in my apartment complex. Some of them start at around $HK48 ($US6)/month. But again you take the risk re: bandwidth sharing.
So, the bandwidth and price on offer doesn't seem too hot when you look at it in context. Also, the trial is happening in an apartment complex owned by Li Ka Shing who's the same guy that owns Hutchison. Seems logical.
Finally, Hong Kong is a small place with 6.5 million people and we quite literally live on top of each other. It's easy to roll out a cheap broadband service as a result. Infrastructure costs per person reached would be much smaller than the US or Australia (my old home).
Hope this helps.
- secure it - and most linuxes are reasonably secure out-the-box these days
- set a strong root password. Give the students limited sudo access if necessary
- Probably a little bit of hardware stuff (disable floppy booting etc)
- Maybe setting up a restricted shell or GUI environment
But basically, students would be pretty safe on a linux box without root access. And it's simple and well-known to set up. Compare that with Windows Policy Editor. Does anyone really use it? Maybe a few but I'm sure it's not as well documented or as well tested and probably not as robust as simply locking out root access to a linux box.