Was it? I always thought it was a novel idea. When I was channel surfing from the network stations because they were on commercial there was always something on TBS because they were always 5 minutes late.
I guess it's a simple typo but you meant to say "Mozilla Firefox is good for keeping those pesky cookies from getting onto your machine in the first place."
Considering that SpywareBlaster includes rules for Firefox as well as IE I think that it wasn't a typo.
Yeah, it's free, and it's great for people that have a "Clue". It's not so good for people that don't have any idea of what they are doing with a computer.
Most people don't have a Clue and they don't want to. That's why they are infected with Spyware in the first place. I would NEVER recommend hijackThis to anyone except someone I was KNEW was very good with computers and what they should and should not see running.
While it is difficult to get Spyware when you can't start your computer correctly it is also annoying;)
Nathan Shafer, answering our e-mail message to Spyware Stormer, challenged our test methodology. Shafer wrote that Spyware Stormer detects "over 20,000 variants of spyware and adware," and that its performance with the six applications we chose was therefore "hardly representative in any way."
They are absolutely correct here although there are only four programs you should ever install for combating spyware: Adaware, SpyBot S&D, SpywareBlaster, and a good software firewall package (preferably one that tells you when something is trying to connect out to the Internet like ZoneAlarm). You need to keep these programs updated on a regular basis and you need to make sure that they run regularly. Unfortunately only SpyBot S&D runs w/o user intervention if you set it up to do so.
SpyBot, while being a great program, isn't updated nearly as often as AdAware and doesn't find all those pesky cookies that AdAware does. SpywareBlaster is good for keeping those pesky cookies from getting onto your machine in the first place.
We were unable to reach NoAdware, but the Better Business Bureau of Upstate New York reported that it had received 22 complaints about the company, which is not a member of the BBB, by early October. Network Dynamics has a clean record as a member of Southern California's BBB. The BBB's complaint database contained no record of complaints for the remainder of the companies whose products we tested.
The BBB has fallen into worthlessness in recent years (I don't know about years passed). They have little to no pull and sometimes they even go so far as to ignore complaints against their companies. I would ignore any comments in regards to BBB related businesses.
Basically you need to research what you are installing on your machine. That means using google, word of mouth, and your own deep digging before you put any "cleaning" program on your machine. You also need to do some research into making sure that you are using what you can to combat Spyware.
Sadly, most people out there don't know, care, or care to know. That's why they end up w/it in the first place. If people DID care about what they were installing on their computer AND took the time to do a quick google search they would find out exactly what they need to know.
It has gotten to the point where I seriously believe that MSFT is doing this on purpose in order to show the public why they NEED to use "protected computing".
Copyright owners are declaring boundries across which their content cannot move freely, and they're going to crush any technology that threatens to make it easy to break those lines.
Copyright owners still have to abide by fairuse. If someone records something at home on whatever media they choose they have the option of viewing that media at a later time.
This just changes the type of media we are using.
It's not going to go anywhere anyway. Not enough people are going to pay $6500+ for a proprietary system that delivers their TV shows elsewhere. You can get much less expensive alternatives that use software to do exactly the same thing.
What is the most inexpensive hardware with enough OOMPH to run this?
I wonder if because it was based on the XBox version if a sub 1Ghz machine with very little RAM would suffice?
I would be very interested in seeing a barebones media center application that ran on minimal hardware. MythTV remains out of reach for me as I would have to build a machine specifically for it that is 100x more powerful than my current fastest machine.
Besides, no one's going to download your creations. What everyone wants is the popular crap. And that's what's traded on Kazaa.
I fail to see how that matters. Just because something *CAN* and *IS* used for something illegal does not mean that was its original intent.
No matter what Kazaa does to "stop" the piracy from going on it's going to continue because the users will always find a way around it.
Just because you have "adult protection" and it removes words that contain "adult words" does not mean that the users won't just circumvent that (like when Napster started doing it and people just went ahead and encoded full albums to MP3).
It's a transmission medium just like any other and it should be treated as such. Case closed.
But Speck's hundo was the smallest coin exchanged on this day. With 5 legal teams in total, the amount being spent is inconceivable. Some QCs are on as much as $10000 a day and Dispatch hears that Bannon alone is on $6000 a day, but his performance is said to be worth it.
If only the MPAA would realize how worthwhile this could be for them! They could take these "actors" who are charging such low rates as $6000 a day and use a prewritten, sensationalist script already available in electronic form, and go ahead and produce this "movie" for everyone to see.
It's already funny, full of fictionalized reality, and cheap! They can take it right now off of the Internet and reproduce it for their own personal use! People might actually go and see this remake. It would certainly be better than the recent remake of Walking Tall with The Rock. I'm sure he charges more than $6000 a day to carry around a huge cedar 4x6 in the bed of a pickup truck.
I always thought that Firefox was meant to streamline the webbrowsing experience? The first thing that I noticed when installing the browser is that it asked for my zipcode for weather reports. Ugh, no thanks, 90210 here I come. It also asks for a reboot after install. For what? What do I need to reboot after an install of a webbrowser for? What are they installing?
It defaults to ONE ugly screen with a tab opened, a headlines ticker going, a "money" ticker going, and the menu bar on the opposite side of the window than I am used to. There's a "new tab" option on the left side of the browsing area instead of leaving the main tab open there. You think new users are going to like this? I don't.
At least I don't see any AOL icons installed to my desktop or my favorites (yet). They might come after a restart though.
It's nice to see the backing of AOL/Netscape on Firefox. People might recognize those two names before Firefox and they might switch. Especially if it can render the IE-only pages 100%.
Come on folks. Only on select sites such as this one are people like those mentioned in the article considered heroes. Joe Average, as a rule, doesn't even know what Open Source is let alone that it exists.
I think that we could say that even though most people don't know about Open Source "heros" that what these people do on a daily basis ends up impacting everyone else even if only indirectly.
If it wasn't for the rise of Linux who knows where MSFT would be heading...
Linux distributions have a big problem with package installation and management from an end user point of view. They are a MAJOR pain in the ass, even for experienced users like myself.
Then why are we bothering to have users have to search all over the net for different packages? Why can't the individual distributions handle their own package distribution?
I haven't bothered with anything other than a kernel tarball since moving to Debian several years ago. The only downside I see to apt-get is that I find myself less knowledgeable about my system because I am never installing anything or configuring anything. Everything is setup to go right out of the box.
Let's not worry about a single "base" and let's just let the distributions handle everything for themselves.
People who are cracking your CDs have made a conscious decision that a) you made something of value b) they want it c) they would rather steal it than pay for it.
I don't agree with your statement. People who steal software aren't doing it to make a profit thus they see no value in it. They are stealing the software for various reasons known only to them... I will go out on a limb to say that they are either doing it just because they can or because they don't feel that it is worth whatever Valve is requiring them to pay for it.
The thieves (or "infringers" - the technicalities of the language are not important) probably deserve punishmnet.
And your point is what? I never mentioned that they were right in stealing the software. I just said that Valve was childish.
Given that Valve is acting with restraint, they certainly have the right to be as preachy as they want.
Yup, and I can certainly counter them by saying that their comments were completely unprofessional and remind me that I have no interest in buying their products now or in the future.
Please, do not post your plea or your story or how sorry you are on the forums. If you follow the link in the post above to the FAQ document, you will find information on just how you can contact Valve if you wish.
I find this to be an arrogant/childish statement. It goes hand in hand with their recommendation that if your mother, brother, or cousin did it you should speak to them... Yeah, people who are cracking your CDs are being stupid but that doesn't mean that you have to act like a bunch of assholes about it.
People are discovering that when you buy any product that is subject to "activation", you haven't really bought anything.
They bought something but that doesn't mean that they own what they bought. People knew what they were getting in to when they just HAD TO HAVE HL2. Personally, I'm glad that I have no interest in the product. It seems like an awful big hassle to deal with the fucktards that apparently inhabit Valve.
the difference is that we americans pay for it right out of our pockets whereas in many of these countries where it seems so great that everyone has low-cost high-speed internet access, they're paying for it with taxes and subsidies, so in the end it really evens out.
What do you think those franchise fees and random taxes attached to your X services are for? Exactly. Funding line upgrades, service extensions, and rural users' 28.8k dialup connections.
It is the same reason why a lot of people buy crappy cheapo PCs that will break and improperly run software vs. spending the extra money and buy something that is more reliable. Because Americans have a hard time quantifying Value for a product vs. the Cost of the product.
Excuse me? Somehow this just doesn't compute for me. Inexpensive PCs don't equal problems you know. Everyone has problems w/ALL PCs, regardless of original cost, mostly because they don't know how (or care to know how) to take care of them.
Take anyone who goes and buys the top of the line PC from Store X. It's wicked fast, has all the extras, and is great for two months until they fill it full of worthless programs, Spyware, and fail to do even the most basic maintenance.
It's like a car... Regular mainteance and care and the car will likely run well into the 100s of thousands. If you push either car to 10+k miles on each oil change, never bring it in for regular service, and let the tires bald you are going to end up with more problems.
Some experts said growth was disappointing, far behind countries that include South Korea, Taiwan and Canada. The report also identified troubling figures for use or availability of high-speed Internet services among blacks, Hispanics and people in rural areas.
"It shows we continue to have a significant divide between urban and rural America in the infrastructure for the economy of the 21st century," said Gregory L. Rohde, who was top telecommunications adviser under President Clinton.
What it shows is that competition rarely exists when it comes to broadband and when it does the price/speed ratio isn't even close to what we see in foreign countries.
Significant numbers of rural Americans said they couldn't subscribe to high-speed services because none was available. Most Americans who did not use fast connections said service was either too expensive or they did not need it.
3000/256 in a neighboring area for Comcast at 45.95 (with cable) or 63.95 (without). 3000/256 in my area for Charter (with all it's port blocking glory) at 39.95 2048/256 in my area for Frontier (line) at $51.95 (not including the required telephone service which is ~$30)
We hear these great stories of inexpensive HIGH SPEED service in the countries listed in the article all the time here on Slashdot yet here in the States we have all this "competition" yet we are stuck w/slow speeds, sometimes unreliable service, and high costs (comparatively).
Once the prices drop to a reasonable level a larger percentage of people will likely switch. Right now you usually have to pay the same for dialup service that other countries pay for high-speed (and you need to have a phone line to boot).
"This is lousy," said Harris Miller, head of the Information Technology Association of America, a leading industry trade group in Washington. "We're just not keeping up with our competitors. We're not even keeping up with countries we don't consider competitors. It's not acceptable."
Yet the government continues to allow monopolies like Comcast and the local phone companies to take over areas and hog the available broadband transmission mediums. How are we supposed to compete with other countries when individual businesses don't have to compete with themselves because of government sponsored monopolies?
While fans of the dead Casey Donovan might be upset, this seems to be a legitimate thing bigpond to do.
Seems to me that if the Casey Donovan site was paying by traffic they really shouldn't be upset that they don't have to fork over the cash for THAT bandwith bill.
Mr Donovan's site, which has been running for a number of years, features a naked frontal picture of the erstwhile adult star. A government source looking into the matter described an aspect of the picture of Mr Donovan as "frighteningly large".
The same source added that "heads will roll" over the incident.
"Frightenly large full frontal nude porn" and "heads will roll" all in the same sentence.
Linux on the other hand, I can muck around in the code myself however I like. I can include other people's patches that Linus *does not* approve, or I can even change it myself (though between you and me, don't expect it to do a damn thing other than crash).
Exactly. If Linus' version (for whatever reason) became so outdated and unnecessary anyone else could fork it off (from any point) and maintain it however they wanted.
If someone thinks that a panel of people is so much better at making descisions for the future of "Linux" so be it. Enjoy maintaining the kernel. Honestly, Linux has been doing amazingly well with Linus at the wheel and I really can't see it changing anytime soon.
Yeah, there's tiffs here and there about what gets put in and what doesn't but it's his fork and he can maintain it however he wants.
"there is no uploading/downloading of music, Felser explained, citing the legal issues associated with sharing of copyrighted works."
Let's see the entire quote as that isn't fully correct:
Currently in beta, Grouper limits private networks to 30 members. While file sharing is a key feature in the application, there is no uploading/downloading of music, Felser explained, citing the legal issues associated with sharing of copyrighted works.
By limiting music sharing to streams in small groups, Felser said Grouper simply enables "private performances," which is protected by U.S. Copyright Law.
"We're not a public file-sharing network. What we offer is a way to connect to hard drives within a group in a safe, encrypted environment," he said.
"Our technology turns the computer into a private server that allows you to share files securely in a small, invite-only group," Felser said in an interview with eWEEK.com. Each group becomes an encrypted peer-to-peer network that allows one-click access to browse and download files.
The reason that P2P networks are useful is because the speeds are fast and there is a TON of material out there. I'm sorry but a private network that is invite only just won't cut it.
Running Grouper through university networks can save Internet bandwidth costs because file transfers are done between machines on the local network (unlike other P2P networks).
Most Universities probably don't want ANY filesharing. A lot of them have limited bandwith for P2P applications as it is. Do you think that really want it going on at all? Probably not. Too many problems w/the RIAA and the MPAA.
However, Felser said Grouper's emphasis on being a small, private, encrypted network minimizes the risk. "We're a heck of a lot safer to the business because we target very small groups of people who already know and trust each other. And we have a very firm anti-spyware policy. We'll never add spyware or adware of any kind."
However, to outsiders (RIAA/MPAA) encryption means hiding data that doesn't belong to you. They will counter any argument with that statement.
P2P is fine with the free alternatives. I'm sorry but I just don't think this program is going anywhere. Maybe if it was created 5 or 6 years ago.
I'm not karma whoring; I'm trying to get this important information in response to each ignorant post that gets modded up to +5 that doesn't mention there is a BILL ON THE TABLE THAT WILL FIX ALL THE PROBLEMS, i.e., give us a paper trail AND open source code on the systems themselves. Why no one mentions this, and insists on acting like nothing is being done and we're just hopelessly going down this paperless, proprietary road so that evil Republicans can steal all the elections, instead of simply working to fix the problems and supporting the bills that will, is beyond me.
Because if the allegations (no matter how paranoid and unlikely) are true then the Republicans ALREADY did what they wanted and "stole" the election.
My post was NOT ignorant mind you. I have ABSOLUTELY NO FAITH in e-voting (for obvious reasons that I mentioned) and I *REFUSE* to vote via that method. Just because the elections will be "fixed" by a bill at a later date does not mean that this one should just be ignored as a mistake.
The paper trail is a red herring, if you ask me. What is really needed is publicly-available source code that anyone can view.
What's to stop them from changing the code on enough of the machines to win? We'd never know what happens after we inspect the code. In the right area they COULD possibly win with only a handful of doctored machines.
Wouldn't counting the actual votes be the way to tell if he got too many votes?
Tough to do that when the votes were counted by machines that have no paper audit trail. If you are saying that we should trust the data "gathered" from the machines themselves then you have missed the point.
I do agree that their methods were silly and pointless but the fact that we SHOULD have had paper audit trails AND the option to NOT use these machines is inexcusable.
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This was extremely irritating when Turner did it.
Was it? I always thought it was a novel idea. When I was channel surfing from the network stations because they were on commercial there was always something on TBS because they were always 5 minutes late.
I guess it's a simple typo but you meant to say "Mozilla Firefox is good for keeping those pesky cookies from getting onto your machine in the first place."
Considering that SpywareBlaster includes rules for Firefox as well as IE I think that it wasn't a typo.
Wow, great post until you ventured into foil-hat land.
You have a better explanation as to why they continue to do nothing about the problem?
Yeah, it's free, and it's great for people that have a "Clue". It's not so good for people that don't have any idea of what they are doing with a computer.
;)
Most people don't have a Clue and they don't want to. That's why they are infected with Spyware in the first place. I would NEVER recommend hijackThis to anyone except someone I was KNEW was very good with computers and what they should and should not see running.
While it is difficult to get Spyware when you can't start your computer correctly it is also annoying
Nathan Shafer, answering our e-mail message to Spyware Stormer, challenged our test methodology. Shafer wrote that Spyware Stormer detects "over 20,000 variants of spyware and adware," and that its performance with the six applications we chose was therefore "hardly representative in any way."
They are absolutely correct here although there are only four programs you should ever install for combating spyware: Adaware, SpyBot S&D, SpywareBlaster, and a good software firewall package (preferably one that tells you when something is trying to connect out to the Internet like ZoneAlarm). You need to keep these programs updated on a regular basis and you need to make sure that they run regularly. Unfortunately only SpyBot S&D runs w/o user intervention if you set it up to do so.
SpyBot, while being a great program, isn't updated nearly as often as AdAware and doesn't find all those pesky cookies that AdAware does. SpywareBlaster is good for keeping those pesky cookies from getting onto your machine in the first place.
We were unable to reach NoAdware, but the Better Business Bureau of Upstate New York reported that it had received 22 complaints about the company, which is not a member of the BBB, by early October. Network Dynamics has a clean record as a member of Southern California's BBB. The BBB's complaint database contained no record of complaints for the remainder of the companies whose products we tested.
The BBB has fallen into worthlessness in recent years (I don't know about years passed). They have little to no pull and sometimes they even go so far as to ignore complaints against their companies. I would ignore any comments in regards to BBB related businesses.
Basically you need to research what you are installing on your machine. That means using google, word of mouth, and your own deep digging before you put any "cleaning" program on your machine. You also need to do some research into making sure that you are using what you can to combat Spyware.
Sadly, most people out there don't know, care, or care to know. That's why they end up w/it in the first place. If people DID care about what they were installing on their computer AND took the time to do a quick google search they would find out exactly what they need to know.
It has gotten to the point where I seriously believe that MSFT is doing this on purpose in order to show the public why they NEED to use "protected computing".
Copyright owners are declaring boundries across which their content cannot move freely, and they're going to crush any technology that threatens to make it easy to break those lines.
Copyright owners still have to abide by fairuse. If someone records something at home on whatever media they choose they have the option of viewing that media at a later time.
This just changes the type of media we are using.
It's not going to go anywhere anyway. Not enough people are going to pay $6500+ for a proprietary system that delivers their TV shows elsewhere. You can get much less expensive alternatives that use software to do exactly the same thing.
What is the most inexpensive hardware with enough OOMPH to run this?
I wonder if because it was based on the XBox version if a sub 1Ghz machine with very little RAM would suffice?
I would be very interested in seeing a barebones media center application that ran on minimal hardware. MythTV remains out of reach for me as I would have to build a machine specifically for it that is 100x more powerful than my current fastest machine.
Besides, no one's going to download your creations. What everyone wants is the popular crap. And that's what's traded on Kazaa.
I fail to see how that matters. Just because something *CAN* and *IS* used for something illegal does not mean that was its original intent.
No matter what Kazaa does to "stop" the piracy from going on it's going to continue because the users will always find a way around it.
Just because you have "adult protection" and it removes words that contain "adult words" does not mean that the users won't just circumvent that (like when Napster started doing it and people just went ahead and encoded full albums to MP3).
It's a transmission medium just like any other and it should be treated as such. Case closed.
But Speck's hundo was the smallest coin exchanged on this day. With 5 legal teams in total, the amount being spent is inconceivable. Some QCs are on as much as $10000 a day and Dispatch hears that Bannon alone is on $6000 a day, but his performance is said to be worth it.
If only the MPAA would realize how worthwhile this could be for them! They could take these "actors" who are charging such low rates as $6000 a day and use a prewritten, sensationalist script already available in electronic form, and go ahead and produce this "movie" for everyone to see.
It's already funny, full of fictionalized reality, and cheap! They can take it right now off of the Internet and reproduce it for their own personal use! People might actually go and see this remake. It would certainly be better than the recent remake of Walking Tall with The Rock. I'm sure he charges more than $6000 a day to carry around a huge cedar 4x6 in the bed of a pickup truck.
Just a thought.
I always thought that Firefox was meant to streamline the webbrowsing experience? The first thing that I noticed when installing the browser is that it asked for my zipcode for weather reports. Ugh, no thanks, 90210 here I come. It also asks for a reboot after install. For what? What do I need to reboot after an install of a webbrowser for? What are they installing?
It defaults to ONE ugly screen with a tab opened, a headlines ticker going, a "money" ticker going, and the menu bar on the opposite side of the window than I am used to. There's a "new tab" option on the left side of the browsing area instead of leaving the main tab open there. You think new users are going to like this? I don't.
At least I don't see any AOL icons installed to my desktop or my favorites (yet). They might come after a restart though.
It's nice to see the backing of AOL/Netscape on Firefox. People might recognize those two names before Firefox and they might switch. Especially if it can render the IE-only pages 100%.
Come on folks. Only on select sites such as this one are people like those mentioned in the article considered heroes. Joe Average, as a rule, doesn't even know what Open Source is let alone that it exists.
I think that we could say that even though most people don't know about Open Source "heros" that what these people do on a daily basis ends up impacting everyone else even if only indirectly.
If it wasn't for the rise of Linux who knows where MSFT would be heading...
Linux distributions have a big problem with package installation and management from an end user point of view. They are a MAJOR pain in the ass, even for experienced users like myself.
Then why are we bothering to have users have to search all over the net for different packages? Why can't the individual distributions handle their own package distribution?
I haven't bothered with anything other than a kernel tarball since moving to Debian several years ago. The only downside I see to apt-get is that I find myself less knowledgeable about my system because I am never installing anything or configuring anything. Everything is setup to go right out of the box.
Let's not worry about a single "base" and let's just let the distributions handle everything for themselves.
People who are cracking your CDs have made a conscious decision that a) you made something of value b) they want it c) they would rather steal it than pay for it.
I don't agree with your statement. People who steal software aren't doing it to make a profit thus they see no value in it. They are stealing the software for various reasons known only to them... I will go out on a limb to say that they are either doing it just because they can or because they don't feel that it is worth whatever Valve is requiring them to pay for it.
The thieves (or "infringers" - the technicalities of the language are not important) probably deserve punishmnet.
And your point is what? I never mentioned that they were right in stealing the software. I just said that Valve was childish.
Given that Valve is acting with restraint, they certainly have the right to be as preachy as they want.
Yup, and I can certainly counter them by saying that their comments were completely unprofessional and remind me that I have no interest in buying their products now or in the future.
Please, do not post your plea or your story or how sorry you are on the forums. If you follow the link in the post above to the FAQ document, you will find information on just how you can contact Valve if you wish.
I find this to be an arrogant/childish statement. It goes hand in hand with their recommendation that if your mother, brother, or cousin did it you should speak to them... Yeah, people who are cracking your CDs are being stupid but that doesn't mean that you have to act like a bunch of assholes about it.
People are discovering that when you buy any product that is subject to "activation", you haven't really bought anything.
They bought something but that doesn't mean that they own what they bought. People knew what they were getting in to when they just HAD TO HAVE HL2. Personally, I'm glad that I have no interest in the product. It seems like an awful big hassle to deal with the fucktards that apparently inhabit Valve.
the difference is that we americans pay for it right out of our pockets whereas in many of these countries where it seems so great that everyone has low-cost high-speed internet access, they're paying for it with taxes and subsidies, so in the end it really evens out.
What do you think those franchise fees and random taxes attached to your X services are for? Exactly. Funding line upgrades, service extensions, and rural users' 28.8k dialup connections.
It is the same reason why a lot of people buy crappy cheapo PCs that will break and improperly run software vs. spending the extra money and buy something that is more reliable. Because Americans have a hard time quantifying Value for a product vs. the Cost of the product.
Excuse me? Somehow this just doesn't compute for me. Inexpensive PCs don't equal problems you know. Everyone has problems w/ALL PCs, regardless of original cost, mostly because they don't know how (or care to know how) to take care of them.
Take anyone who goes and buys the top of the line PC from Store X. It's wicked fast, has all the extras, and is great for two months until they fill it full of worthless programs, Spyware, and fail to do even the most basic maintenance.
It's like a car... Regular mainteance and care and the car will likely run well into the 100s of thousands. If you push either car to 10+k miles on each oil change, never bring it in for regular service, and let the tires bald you are going to end up with more problems.
Some experts said growth was disappointing, far behind countries that include South Korea, Taiwan and Canada. The report also identified troubling figures for use or availability of high-speed Internet services among blacks, Hispanics and people in rural areas.
"It shows we continue to have a significant divide between urban and rural America in the infrastructure for the economy of the 21st century," said Gregory L. Rohde, who was top telecommunications adviser under President Clinton.
What it shows is that competition rarely exists when it comes to broadband and when it does the price/speed ratio isn't even close to what we see in foreign countries.
Significant numbers of rural Americans said they couldn't subscribe to high-speed services because none was available. Most Americans who did not use fast connections said service was either too expensive or they did not need it.
3000/256 in a neighboring area for Comcast at 45.95 (with cable) or 63.95 (without).
3000/256 in my area for Charter (with all it's port blocking glory) at 39.95
2048/256 in my area for Frontier (line) at $51.95 (not including the required telephone service which is ~$30)
We hear these great stories of inexpensive HIGH SPEED service in the countries listed in the article all the time here on Slashdot yet here in the States we have all this "competition" yet we are stuck w/slow speeds, sometimes unreliable service, and high costs (comparatively).
Once the prices drop to a reasonable level a larger percentage of people will likely switch. Right now you usually have to pay the same for dialup service that other countries pay for high-speed (and you need to have a phone line to boot).
"This is lousy," said Harris Miller, head of the Information Technology Association of America, a leading industry trade group in Washington. "We're just not keeping up with our competitors. We're not even keeping up with countries we don't consider competitors. It's not acceptable."
Yet the government continues to allow monopolies like Comcast and the local phone companies to take over areas and hog the available broadband transmission mediums. How are we supposed to compete with other countries when individual businesses don't have to compete with themselves because of government sponsored monopolies?
While fans of the dead Casey Donovan might be upset, this seems to be a legitimate thing bigpond to do.
Seems to me that if the Casey Donovan site was paying by traffic they really shouldn't be upset that they don't have to fork over the cash for THAT bandwith bill.
Mr Donovan's site, which has been running for a number of years, features a naked frontal picture of the erstwhile adult star. A government source looking into the matter described an aspect of the picture of Mr Donovan as "frighteningly large".
The same source added that "heads will roll" over the incident.
"Frightenly large full frontal nude porn" and "heads will roll" all in the same sentence.
*ouch*.
Linux on the other hand, I can muck around in the code myself however I like. I can include other people's patches that Linus *does not* approve, or I can even change it myself (though between you and me, don't expect it to do a damn thing other than crash).
Exactly. If Linus' version (for whatever reason) became so outdated and unnecessary anyone else could fork it off (from any point) and maintain it however they wanted.
If someone thinks that a panel of people is so much better at making descisions for the future of "Linux" so be it. Enjoy maintaining the kernel. Honestly, Linux has been doing amazingly well with Linus at the wheel and I really can't see it changing anytime soon.
Yeah, there's tiffs here and there about what gets put in and what doesn't but it's his fork and he can maintain it however he wants.
"there is no uploading/downloading of music, Felser explained, citing the legal issues associated with sharing of copyrighted works."
Let's see the entire quote as that isn't fully correct:
Currently in beta, Grouper limits private networks to 30 members. While file sharing is a key feature in the application, there is no uploading/downloading of music, Felser explained, citing the legal issues associated with sharing of copyrighted works.
By limiting music sharing to streams in small groups, Felser said Grouper simply enables "private performances," which is protected by U.S. Copyright Law.
"We're not a public file-sharing network. What we offer is a way to connect to hard drives within a group in a safe, encrypted environment," he said.
So they do or they don't? Which is it?
"Our technology turns the computer into a private server that allows you to share files securely in a small, invite-only group," Felser said in an interview with eWEEK.com. Each group becomes an encrypted peer-to-peer network that allows one-click access to browse and download files.
The reason that P2P networks are useful is because the speeds are fast and there is a TON of material out there. I'm sorry but a private network that is invite only just won't cut it.
Running Grouper through university networks can save Internet bandwidth costs because file transfers are done between machines on the local network (unlike other P2P networks).
Most Universities probably don't want ANY filesharing. A lot of them have limited bandwith for P2P applications as it is. Do you think that really want it going on at all? Probably not. Too many problems w/the RIAA and the MPAA.
However, Felser said Grouper's emphasis on being a small, private, encrypted network minimizes the risk. "We're a heck of a lot safer to the business because we target very small groups of people who already know and trust each other. And we have a very firm anti-spyware policy. We'll never add spyware or adware of any kind."
However, to outsiders (RIAA/MPAA) encryption means hiding data that doesn't belong to you. They will counter any argument with that statement.
P2P is fine with the free alternatives. I'm sorry but I just don't think this program is going anywhere. Maybe if it was created 5 or 6 years ago.
I'm not karma whoring; I'm trying to get this important information in response to each ignorant post that gets modded up to +5 that doesn't mention there is a BILL ON THE TABLE THAT WILL FIX ALL THE PROBLEMS, i.e., give us a paper trail AND open source code on the systems themselves. Why no one mentions this, and insists on acting like nothing is being done and we're just hopelessly going down this paperless, proprietary road so that evil Republicans can steal all the elections, instead of simply working to fix the problems and supporting the bills that will, is beyond me.
Because if the allegations (no matter how paranoid and unlikely) are true then the Republicans ALREADY did what they wanted and "stole" the election.
My post was NOT ignorant mind you. I have ABSOLUTELY NO FAITH in e-voting (for obvious reasons that I mentioned) and I *REFUSE* to vote via that method. Just because the elections will be "fixed" by a bill at a later date does not mean that this one should just be ignored as a mistake.
The paper trail is a red herring, if you ask me. What is really needed is publicly-available source code that anyone can view.
What's to stop them from changing the code on enough of the machines to win? We'd never know what happens after we inspect the code. In the right area they COULD possibly win with only a handful of doctored machines.
Wouldn't counting the actual votes be the way to tell if he got too many votes?
Tough to do that when the votes were counted by machines that have no paper audit trail. If you are saying that we should trust the data "gathered" from the machines themselves then you have missed the point.
I do agree that their methods were silly and pointless but the fact that we SHOULD have had paper audit trails AND the option to NOT use these machines is inexcusable.