Seems to me that more than anything else it's like the dead tree yellow pages. Everybody in town gets one or more of them free. Businesses pay to be listed there, everybody wins. I get a useful and complete directory, they buy advertising in it. _____________
I had digital cable from AT&T for a few months. I quit subscribing to the digital channels because all the channels with a number less than 100 were delivered to my set as the same analog signal regardless of if I was paying for the extra digital channels and settop box or not. At least in my area, none of the local channels, the discovery channel, TLC, history channel, cartoon network, anything that I'd actually watch, are delivered in digital signals. Only the movie channels and the really weird special interest channels come in digital. This kind of confused me. Why would they deliver the channels where most of the programming came from a camcorder in some guy's basement with dolby digital surround sound and DVD quality picture? Why why why? Why doesn't my local Fox station broadcast in stereo? I want my surround sound during the Simpsons! _____________
the "Send" button has a split in it where you can select your other addresses.
Hrm. Mine doesn't have that. Prehaps a different version for a corporate environment. *shrug*
Basic filters work ok here too. I can put things into a specific folder based on sender. What I haven't been able to figure out how to do is to permanently delete an incoming message. I would like to permanently delete messages from the IT group (they come a couple times a week and tell me which exchange servers they're going to reboot on Sunday morning) and anything with a.vbs attachemnt. If you have insight fill me in. I just look forward to 5:00 when I go home to Linux. _____________
There are, but the libraries required to run it are a bit on the large side. Also, it is a little bit difficult to get a big public key, like mine into the Palm. My key happens to be longer than is permitted by the memopad. If you have an 8 MB version it might be workable, with my IIIe it's just not that practical.
Outlook Express is a pretty different beast than Outlook. You really shouldn't confuse the two. OE has good support for multiple e-mail addresses, good filtering a decent newsreader and all that jazz. Outlook has no news reader, very poor support for multiple e-mail addresses (you have to restart the program to change your from address), and filters that are limited and very difficult to configure.
The real advantages to Outlook over OE are the PIM features. If you don't need some serious PIM stuff OE is by far the better program.
When you switch over to Linux, I'd recommend KMail as a good OE like e-mail client. I've been using it for a little more than a year now and have found it to be quite good. _____________
Bingo! Exactly how many users out there are actually using a legitimate licensed copy of Win9X on their home machines? I'd say about 60%.
What crack have you been smoking? I'd guess that the %age of win 9x home users who have a legit copy has got to be upwards of 97%. Do keep in mind that very few people ever upgrade their operating system. Even fewer build their own machine. If you didn't build your own machine it came with a legit (I assume that it's legit when you buy an e-machine or what have you) copy of win 9x. Now you've got a legit copy per machine, the only way that you could really start to pirate Windows is if you want to upgrade. The group that upgrades the OS is fairly small, the group that does it for free is a subset of that. It's just not very big. _____________
Good comments. In addition to having lots of laptop jacks in the classrooms and study areas, run cat 5 and 120v to the ceilings in these rooms. This will make things much easier for you when wireless really does take off. If you already have the cables and power in place it's just a matter of plugging in your access point to add wireless to your network. _____________
MS is never going to have a stable operating system if they allow 3rd parties to insert code into the kernel.
Doesn't sound all that different from Linux kernel modules if you ask me. It's even allowable to distribute binary only modules for device drivers and whatnot. The only real difference is that in Linux you can't insert modules into the running kernel unless you are root. _____________
ok, I don't like.coop at all. It took me quite a bit of thinking about it before I realized that it should be.co-op, a domain for cooperatives..coop just seems like a TLD suited for chickens and I don't know too many chickens who use computers. _____________
Here is the States (where party crackers aren't much of a tradition) the inner explosive can be purchased separately. I've found that tape is not usually sufficient to hold the string in place. Using a knot almost always works better. There are several good knots that any boy scout can teach you to attach regular string to invisible fish line. _____________
This article is not very different from complaining about a Ford logo on a Ford truck.
No, it's more like complaining about Ford installing a GPS unit on the dash the continuously tells you (probably using that same annoying voice that Nissan used in the '80s "Your Door Is A Jar. Your Door Is A Jar.") how to get to the nearest Ford dealer, Ford gas station, Ford grocery store, Ford drive thru liquor mart, Ford jewelry store, Ford poodle groomer, Ford laundramat, Ford opera house, Ford shopping mall, Ford amusement park, Ford pizza shack, Ford egg roll stand, Ford shoe shine, Ford savings bank, Ford video rental, Ford electronics supercenter, Ford home improvement mart and so forth. In addition to this there would be a large glowing button next to the brake pedal (Stop) that would cause your truck to drive itself immediately to the nearest Ford dealer (Shop).
Fortunately, Ford does not do this. On my Ford truck there is a smallish blue logo on the grill and tailgate and a small embossed logo on the airbag cover. These are the only really obvious logos on the truck. There are probably a few more like on the inspection sticker on the drivers door jam, but I don't notice them. This compares pretty well with IE. On the version of IE I use at work (5.5) there's an IE logo in the title bar and the animated one in the upper right corner of the window. There are probably also such logos in the about box and help files, but I never look at those so I don't remember.
I do notice however that in NS 4.73 the Stop button is right next to the Shop button which bugs the hell out of me since I like text buttons better than icons. Oh well, I'm using Konqueror now and liking it. _____________
Would it be possible to stuff a VCR player into two 5.25 inch bays?
I don't think so. A standard video tape is a little bit too large. The tape itself is more than 5-1/4" wide so you'd need to do a side load of the tape. Even if you were sideloading the tape you wouldn't have room for the heads. The heads on a VCR are actually pretty bulky, as is the mechanism to advance and wrap the tape about the head.
In general it's probably to your advantage to do your analog video recording outside of the computer case anyway. Less EMI and all that. _____________
That's not what I got out of it at all. Since this card also serves as a NIC for the host system I assume that it will require at least one IRQ and a base address. However, this may also mean that you have freed up an IRQ and base address by not having a stand alone NIC inside the machine. _____________
Hey what do you know. That's the same amount (give or take, exchange rates and all) That it costs me when I receive a call on my cell phone, except the first minute is free. 6 of one 1/2 a dozen of the other. It's not better worse, it's just different. _____________
surely one doesn't have to lose an 8-hour workday to cast a 5-minute vote.
Have to agree with you there. Voting really doesn't take all that long. I went right after work, didn't have to wait or anything. Took me a little more than 5 minutes to get finished, but I actually read my ballot. I didn't just go willy-nilly punching holes in it. _____________
You've stated exactly why the electoral college is a good thing. To win the presidency you have to be favored both by the most people and the most places. With this system each place (state) gets two votes and then one or more extras based on the number of people. Usually, someone manages to convince the most places and the most people that they are the best. What happened this year (well, I'm assuming that Bush is going to win in Florida, it looks that way now...) is that Bush convinced the most places and Gore won the most people. It just happens that our system gives a little tiny bit more influence to the places than it does to the people. Makes sense considering that this country is the United States of America and not the United Persons of America.
I'm not in anyway saying that I think the Electoral College is a completely fair system. It's just that no one has suggested a different system that is less unfair in every way. _____________
The only reason that Cheney got away with this is that he does maintain an address in Montana. It's pretty much his vacation cabin, but he does have a valid residence there by state standards. I suppose that 10,000 Texans might get away with claiming that they had a time-share in Florida, but probably not. _____________
I'd agree that there is certianly an amount of trust to be gained by requiring the buyer to purchase an account, but there is absolutely no way that I would pay in. You just cannot convince me that it's a good idea to pay for the priviledge of buying things. I don't join Sam's club, I don't join NetMarket, I don't pay to go shopping. There are one hell of a lot of places where I can shop for free and if I can't shop for free on the net then I won't do it. I'll just go to the mall in town where I can.
What I can be convinced to pay for is advertising what I have to sell. If I want to sell something I have a few options, I can buy an ad in the local paper (~$15), I can make 100 posters and stick them to telephone poles (~$8 + 2hours of my time), I could put a sign in my front yard and hope someone sees it (~$5 for paint, plywood etc.), but regardless all of these are going to cost me something. On the other hand, with any of these methods of selling things the advertising cost won't be payed directly by the buyer. There's no way that I could charge admission to look at the used car I want to sell. That's just not how business gets done.
_____________
Sorry to have come across as so harsh before. Your deal really doesn't seem to be all that different from what I get here in the states. I have a TDMA phone (same voice compression technology as GSM) for this I pay about $25/month and get 200 minutes of talking that I can use anytime I want. For an extra $3/month I could get another 500 minutes to use nights and weekends, mostly I'm home then so I don't bother. Incoming calls are free for the first minute. If it's a telemarketer (note: it's illegal for telemarketers to call cell phones in the US) or wrong number I can hang up and it won't cost me. If it's my girlfriend calling to ask me to pick up milk on my way home, it's still probably free. The difference is that she can call me from home and that's free too.
The conflict in frequencies is a little bit unfortunate. There's not too much that can be done about it however, 800 and 1900 MHz are the bands that have been set aside for mobile phones in the US, and I do believe that these were set aside before Europe made the 900, 1800 MHz standard. If you know that you will be traveling between the US and Europe (and non-Japan Asia, Japan is a whole different can of worms) then you get the phone that supports it. _____________
I heard that in Britian they eat their babies! Have you ever heard of such a backward place?
I'll try to inject a little truth here. If you come to the US with your GSM phone. It will work. At least in urban areas (Not just the big cities, my city has only about 100 kilopeople and we have GSM). As of right now GSM probably isn't the best choice for someone who does not plan to travel internationally very often. Most of the rural areas are served better by the TDMA digital system. That's right! We do have digital coverage pretty much everywhere.
We also have analog coverage still in place pretty much everywhere. I see this as a feature not a bug. Analog service performs much better in a weak signal situation. With an analog phone with a weak signal you get static. That's ok, you just have to yell. With a digital phone with a weak signal you get silence. You can yell all you like but you still can't communicate. _____________
Next check phone insurance and compare it to what you can get ANYWHERE else including your existing homeowners'.
This is a really good point. I had to use mine last month and it really saved me a lot of money. I bought my phone from Worst Buy(tm). They charged me $60 for the 3 year protection plan (better coverage than the $3-4/month plan that US Cell offers) and gave me a $50 gift certificate (worked well since I also needed a new microwave). Last month I dropped my phone onto the sidewalk. It landed on it's antenna and broke it off. I walked into Best Buy, told them what happened and kind of waved my service agreement at the kid behind the counter. He didn't ask me any questions or give me the third degree or anything. He just reached under the counter grabbed a box and said "Is this color OK?" Even threw in a brand new battery. 10 minutes later he had the phone programmed for me and I was out the door. This is by far the most impressed that I have ever been with a warranty repair/return. I was really surprised to find it coming from Best Buy. _____________
My experience with any CDMA company is that they rape you for roaming charges as soon as you leave a metro area. They will all say that they have a nationwide network with no roaming charges, but it's going to cost you big time when you aren't in a city that has their service.
My recommendation would be to go with a regional TDMA provider. In my area (Cedar Rapids, IA) it's US Cellular. I pay $25/month for 200 minutes with free longdistance. I can roam to 11 midwestern states without paying extra and if I wanted I could pay an extra $5/month and be able to roam anywhere in the country for free. Another big bonus is that they don't charge me for roaming if I'm making an analong tower. All you euro-snobs can make fun of me all you like, but when I've got a weak signal (remote location, in a steel building, tunnel, etc.) my Ericsson T18d switches right over to AMPS mode and keeps working. With analog you may have to shout over static, but at least you can hear something. So make sure that you get a tri-mode phone, then you really can cover the whole country.
The last big advantage of getting a national calling plan from a regional TDMA carrier is that AT&T uses TDMA so you are gauranteed good coverage in all the big cities that AT&T serves. _____________
Slashdot Mirror
Seems to me that more than anything else it's like the dead tree yellow pages. Everybody in town gets one or more of them free. Businesses pay to be listed there, everybody wins. I get a useful and complete directory, they buy advertising in it.
_____________
I had digital cable from AT&T for a few months. I quit subscribing to the digital channels because all the channels with a number less than 100 were delivered to my set as the same analog signal regardless of if I was paying for the extra digital channels and settop box or not. At least in my area, none of the local channels, the discovery channel, TLC, history channel, cartoon network, anything that I'd actually watch, are delivered in digital signals. Only the movie channels and the really weird special interest channels come in digital. This kind of confused me. Why would they deliver the channels where most of the programming came from a camcorder in some guy's basement with dolby digital surround sound and DVD quality picture? Why why why? Why doesn't my local Fox station broadcast in stereo? I want my surround sound during the Simpsons!
_____________
Hrm. Mine doesn't have that. Prehaps a different version for a corporate environment. *shrug*
Basic filters work ok here too. I can put things into a specific folder based on sender. What I haven't been able to figure out how to do is to permanently delete an incoming message. I would like to permanently delete messages from the IT group (they come a couple times a week and tell me which exchange servers they're going to reboot on Sunday morning) and anything with a .vbs attachemnt. If you have insight fill me in. I just look forward to 5:00 when I go home to Linux.
_____________
Here's ; a link.
_____________
The real advantages to Outlook over OE are the PIM features. If you don't need some serious PIM stuff OE is by far the better program.
When you switch over to Linux, I'd recommend KMail as a good OE like e-mail client. I've been using it for a little more than a year now and have found it to be quite good.
_____________
What crack have you been smoking? I'd guess that the %age of win 9x home users who have a legit copy has got to be upwards of 97%. Do keep in mind that very few people ever upgrade their operating system. Even fewer build their own machine. If you didn't build your own machine it came with a legit (I assume that it's legit when you buy an e-machine or what have you) copy of win 9x. Now you've got a legit copy per machine, the only way that you could really start to pirate Windows is if you want to upgrade. The group that upgrades the OS is fairly small, the group that does it for free is a subset of that. It's just not very big.
_____________
Good comments. In addition to having lots of laptop jacks in the classrooms and study areas, run cat 5 and 120v to the ceilings in these rooms. This will make things much easier for you when wireless really does take off. If you already have the cables and power in place it's just a matter of plugging in your access point to add wireless to your network.
_____________
Doesn't sound all that different from Linux kernel modules if you ask me. It's even allowable to distribute binary only modules for device drivers and whatnot. The only real difference is that in Linux you can't insert modules into the running kernel unless you are root.
_____________
ok, I don't like .coop at all. It took me quite a bit of thinking about it before I realized that it should be .co-op, a domain for cooperatives. .coop just seems like a TLD suited for chickens and I don't know too many chickens who use computers.
_____________
Suppose that you change your prices every time a customer comes to your site. Oh wait, someone already thought of that. :)
_____________
Here is the States (where party crackers aren't much of a tradition) the inner explosive can be purchased separately. I've found that tape is not usually sufficient to hold the string in place. Using a knot almost always works better. There are several good knots that any boy scout can teach you to attach regular string to invisible fish line.
_____________
No, it's more like complaining about Ford installing a GPS unit on the dash the continuously tells you (probably using that same annoying voice that Nissan used in the '80s "Your Door Is A Jar. Your Door Is A Jar.") how to get to the nearest Ford dealer, Ford gas station, Ford grocery store, Ford drive thru liquor mart, Ford jewelry store, Ford poodle groomer, Ford laundramat, Ford opera house, Ford shopping mall, Ford amusement park, Ford pizza shack, Ford egg roll stand, Ford shoe shine, Ford savings bank, Ford video rental, Ford electronics supercenter, Ford home improvement mart and so forth. In addition to this there would be a large glowing button next to the brake pedal (Stop) that would cause your truck to drive itself immediately to the nearest Ford dealer (Shop).
Fortunately, Ford does not do this. On my Ford truck there is a smallish blue logo on the grill and tailgate and a small embossed logo on the airbag cover. These are the only really obvious logos on the truck. There are probably a few more like on the inspection sticker on the drivers door jam, but I don't notice them. This compares pretty well with IE. On the version of IE I use at work (5.5) there's an IE logo in the title bar and the animated one in the upper right corner of the window. There are probably also such logos in the about box and help files, but I never look at those so I don't remember.
I do notice however that in NS 4.73 the Stop button is right next to the Shop button which bugs the hell out of me since I like text buttons better than icons. Oh well, I'm using Konqueror now and liking it.
_____________
I don't think so. A standard video tape is a little bit too large. The tape itself is more than 5-1/4" wide so you'd need to do a side load of the tape. Even if you were sideloading the tape you wouldn't have room for the heads. The heads on a VCR are actually pretty bulky, as is the mechanism to advance and wrap the tape about the head.
In general it's probably to your advantage to do your analog video recording outside of the computer case anyway. Less EMI and all that.
_____________
That's not what I got out of it at all. Since this card also serves as a NIC for the host system I assume that it will require at least one IRQ and a base address. However, this may also mean that you have freed up an IRQ and base address by not having a stand alone NIC inside the machine.
_____________
ooops... you're right. Sorry about that.
_____________
Hey what do you know. That's the same amount (give or take, exchange rates and all) That it costs me when I receive a call on my cell phone, except the first minute is free. 6 of one 1/2 a dozen of the other. It's not better worse, it's just different.
_____________
Have to agree with you there. Voting really doesn't take all that long. I went right after work, didn't have to wait or anything. Took me a little more than 5 minutes to get finished, but I actually read my ballot. I didn't just go willy-nilly punching holes in it.
_____________
I'm not in anyway saying that I think the Electoral College is a completely fair system. It's just that no one has suggested a different system that is less unfair in every way.
_____________
The only reason that Cheney got away with this is that he does maintain an address in Montana. It's pretty much his vacation cabin, but he does have a valid residence there by state standards. I suppose that 10,000 Texans might get away with claiming that they had a time-share in Florida, but probably not.
_____________
What I can be convinced to pay for is advertising what I have to sell. If I want to sell something I have a few options, I can buy an ad in the local paper (~$15), I can make 100 posters and stick them to telephone poles (~$8 + 2hours of my time), I could put a sign in my front yard and hope someone sees it (~$5 for paint, plywood etc.), but regardless all of these are going to cost me something. On the other hand, with any of these methods of selling things the advertising cost won't be payed directly by the buyer. There's no way that I could charge admission to look at the used car I want to sell. That's just not how business gets done.
_____________
The conflict in frequencies is a little bit unfortunate. There's not too much that can be done about it however, 800 and 1900 MHz are the bands that have been set aside for mobile phones in the US, and I do believe that these were set aside before Europe made the 900, 1800 MHz standard. If you know that you will be traveling between the US and Europe (and non-Japan Asia, Japan is a whole different can of worms) then you get the phone that supports it.
_____________
Quick reality check! How much does it cost you to call your next door neighbor from your landline phone?
_____________
I heard that in Britian they eat their babies! Have you ever heard of such a backward place?
I'll try to inject a little truth here. If you come to the US with your GSM phone. It will work. At least in urban areas (Not just the big cities, my city has only about 100 kilopeople and we have GSM). As of right now GSM probably isn't the best choice for someone who does not plan to travel internationally very often. Most of the rural areas are served better by the TDMA digital system. That's right! We do have digital coverage pretty much everywhere.
We also have analog coverage still in place pretty much everywhere. I see this as a feature not a bug. Analog service performs much better in a weak signal situation. With an analog phone with a weak signal you get static. That's ok, you just have to yell. With a digital phone with a weak signal you get silence. You can yell all you like but you still can't communicate.
_____________
This is a really good point. I had to use mine last month and it really saved me a lot of money. I bought my phone from Worst Buy(tm). They charged me $60 for the 3 year protection plan (better coverage than the $3-4/month plan that US Cell offers) and gave me a $50 gift certificate (worked well since I also needed a new microwave). Last month I dropped my phone onto the sidewalk. It landed on it's antenna and broke it off. I walked into Best Buy, told them what happened and kind of waved my service agreement at the kid behind the counter. He didn't ask me any questions or give me the third degree or anything. He just reached under the counter grabbed a box and said "Is this color OK?" Even threw in a brand new battery. 10 minutes later he had the phone programmed for me and I was out the door. This is by far the most impressed that I have ever been with a warranty repair/return. I was really surprised to find it coming from Best Buy.
_____________
My recommendation would be to go with a regional TDMA provider. In my area (Cedar Rapids, IA) it's US Cellular. I pay $25/month for 200 minutes with free longdistance. I can roam to 11 midwestern states without paying extra and if I wanted I could pay an extra $5/month and be able to roam anywhere in the country for free. Another big bonus is that they don't charge me for roaming if I'm making an analong tower. All you euro-snobs can make fun of me all you like, but when I've got a weak signal (remote location, in a steel building, tunnel, etc.) my Ericsson T18d switches right over to AMPS mode and keeps working. With analog you may have to shout over static, but at least you can hear something. So make sure that you get a tri-mode phone, then you really can cover the whole country.
The last big advantage of getting a national calling plan from a regional TDMA carrier is that AT&T uses TDMA so you are gauranteed good coverage in all the big cities that AT&T serves.
_____________