I think that they (Novell) looked at the approach that Red Hat has used and thought that it makes sense. RHES has less frequent releases, designed to be more stable, while Fedora is updated much more often. Novell is just doing the same thing with SLES and SUSE Linux 10.0.
Compare:
So if you want a more stable release, then both Red Hat and Novell want you to pay for it. If you use the free versions, you get new features more often, but sacrifice some stability. And you aren't forced to upgrade immediately. It's still more stable than some other operating systems.
When creating the installation package you can offer the person performing the installation a choice - install for "All Users", or just the current user.
If you install for "All Users" in your example, the program won't be "gone" when you log in as a regular user.
So its not the installation model that's flawed, its the installation packages that (some) software developers choose to create. It's really a problem of education (of developers and users).
It is a bad idea to block email based solely on one RBL, or on multiple RBLs that share databases. Unfortunately, this is how a lot of software was designed, a few years ago - you could only block mail based on an RBL, and it was all-or-nothing.
I'm sympathetic to the original poster, and agree with the parent to some extent. The reason that services like MAPS have to block such broad ranges of addresses is because spammers try to evade them. It's bad that "innocent" addresses are caught in the crossfire, but the RBL administrators also view this as placing pressure on ISPs to stop doing business with the spammers. If your email is blocked because your ISP hosts spammers, you might be motivated to switch ISPs.
But there's another component to the "failure" of RBLs, and it is the fault of the administrators of spam filters: placing total confidence in the contents of an RBL. Some spam filters are configured such that they will block a message simply because the sender is on one RBL. This is not a good practice, in my opinion.
What I do is to use multiple, independent RBLs and assign a weighting to each one. If a message's sending server is listed on an RBL, then it gets that RBL's weighting added to its "spam score". This is added to whatever weighting is assigned by other message contents (trigger phrases, and other behaviors). If the overall weighting reaches a certain threshold, the message is blocked.
This has made RBLs much more effective for me - as one component in a blended solution.
Fry's probably won't listen, as this a major reason many people buy from them (or Outpost.com), and the rebates don't really come out of their pockets. Rebates are really easy for stores like Fry's, CompUSA, etc. because the store gets full credit for the sales figures, which is what the bean-counters want to see.
I think that it's great that Best Buy is taking a stand on this, and I agree that it would be great if more retailers follow suit. But I am skeptical that Fry's will be one of them.
For myself, I've been burned too many times with rebates and the hassle posted above. I'm not ever considering rebates as a means of saving money on a purchase. I'll go with the lowest up-front price that I can find.
You can check off your list with the Squeezebox by Slim Devices (http://www.slimdevices.com/index.html), although it only has two "native" input formats - MP3 and WAV. The SlimServer software (free and multi-platform) can be set up to convert various other formats (AAC, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, etc.) on the fly to stream to one or more Squeezeboxes, either individually or in synch.
Getting back on topic, the MP3Beamer also supports streaming to the Squeezebox client. From my reading of the MP3Beamer FAQ, however, it only works with the MP3 format, "...since that is the universally supported format..."
I think that you need to look at it from the viewpoint of, "What are the basic functions that Grandma needs?"
If you limit it to just email and web browsing, then I think Linux is ready for this, if you set it up properly.
You can do your taxes over the web with Intuit's TurboTax online version.
If you add in that Grandma needs a word processor, spreadsheet, photo processing (got to get the grandkids pictures), etc. then the problem is a lot more difficult because you run into compatibility issues with different applications.
Is Windows XP really any easier to use when you get to that point?
Re:Thousands per year
on
Paid To Spam
·
· Score: 1
I'm not so sure they would allow you to have multiple systems going...
Reading their terms of service (here), in section 2, "Payment", it says, "You will be paid by SENDMAILS CORPORATION $1 (one dollar) for every
Central Processing Unit Hour ("CPU HOUR") used by the VirtualMDA software located
on your personal or business computer(s) (either or both of which shall be the
"Installed Computer(s)") is actively connected to the internet ("Online"). The
Installed Computer may accumulate a maximum of 24 CPU HOUR's in one day. If
your UID logs more than 24 CPU HOURS in one 24 hour period, your account
may be suspended or terminated for unusual or suspicious activity." [emphasis added by me]
What this might be saying is that no matter how many systems you run their agent on, it is treated as one "Installed Computer" and they'll only pay you for up to 24 CPU hours in a day. I could be wrong, but it makes sense to me that they wouldn't want people setting up arrays of systems in order to maximize income - their approach works better if you just have one computer that is "flying low under the radar" of blocklists.
Slashdot Mirror
VMware ESX runs on "bare metal" - see this page: http://www.vmware.com/products/vi/esx/
I think that they (Novell) looked at the approach that Red Hat has used and thought that it makes sense. RHES has less frequent releases, designed to be more stable, while Fedora is updated much more often. Novell is just doing the same thing with SLES and SUSE Linux 10.0.
Compare:
SUSE Linux 10.0 Comparative Features and Benefits
Enterprise Linux or Fedora?
So if you want a more stable release, then both Red Hat and Novell want you to pay for it. If you use the free versions, you get new features more often, but sacrifice some stability. And you aren't forced to upgrade immediately. It's still more stable than some other operating systems.
When creating the installation package you can offer the person performing the installation a choice - install for "All Users", or just the current user.
If you install for "All Users" in your example, the program won't be "gone" when you log in as a regular user.
So its not the installation model that's flawed, its the installation packages that (some) software developers choose to create. It's really a problem of education (of developers and users).
It is a bad idea to block email based solely on one RBL, or on multiple RBLs that share databases. Unfortunately, this is how a lot of software was designed, a few years ago - you could only block mail based on an RBL, and it was all-or-nothing.
I'm sympathetic to the original poster, and agree with the parent to some extent. The reason that services like MAPS have to block such broad ranges of addresses is because spammers try to evade them. It's bad that "innocent" addresses are caught in the crossfire, but the RBL administrators also view this as placing pressure on ISPs to stop doing business with the spammers. If your email is blocked because your ISP hosts spammers, you might be motivated to switch ISPs.
But there's another component to the "failure" of RBLs, and it is the fault of the administrators of spam filters: placing total confidence in the contents of an RBL. Some spam filters are configured such that they will block a message simply because the sender is on one RBL. This is not a good practice, in my opinion.
What I do is to use multiple, independent RBLs and assign a weighting to each one. If a message's sending server is listed on an RBL, then it gets that RBL's weighting added to its "spam score". This is added to whatever weighting is assigned by other message contents (trigger phrases, and other behaviors). If the overall weighting reaches a certain threshold, the message is blocked.
This has made RBLs much more effective for me - as one component in a blended solution.
Fry's probably won't listen, as this a major reason many people buy from them (or Outpost.com), and the rebates don't really come out of their pockets. Rebates are really easy for stores like Fry's, CompUSA, etc. because the store gets full credit for the sales figures, which is what the bean-counters want to see.
I think that it's great that Best Buy is taking a stand on this, and I agree that it would be great if more retailers follow suit. But I am skeptical that Fry's will be one of them.
For myself, I've been burned too many times with rebates and the hassle posted above. I'm not ever considering rebates as a means of saving money on a purchase. I'll go with the lowest up-front price that I can find.
I don't work for Slim Devices, but...
You can check off your list with the Squeezebox by Slim Devices (http://www.slimdevices.com/index.html), although it only has two "native" input formats - MP3 and WAV. The SlimServer software (free and multi-platform) can be set up to convert various other formats (AAC, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, etc.) on the fly to stream to one or more Squeezeboxes, either individually or in synch. Getting back on topic, the MP3Beamer also supports streaming to the Squeezebox client. From my reading of the MP3Beamer FAQ, however, it only works with the MP3 format, "...since that is the universally supported format..."
Don't worry - it's likely that you'll start seeing some spam offering products to "enhance your size"...
I think that you need to look at it from the viewpoint of, "What are the basic functions that Grandma needs?"
If you limit it to just email and web browsing, then I think Linux is ready for this, if you set it up properly.
You can do your taxes over the web with Intuit's TurboTax online version.
If you add in that Grandma needs a word processor, spreadsheet, photo processing (got to get the grandkids pictures), etc. then the problem is a lot more difficult because you run into compatibility issues with different applications.
Is Windows XP really any easier to use when you get to that point?
I'm not so sure they would allow you to have multiple systems going... Reading their terms of service (here), in section 2, "Payment", it says, "You will be paid by SENDMAILS CORPORATION $1 (one dollar) for every Central Processing Unit Hour ("CPU HOUR") used by the VirtualMDA software located on your personal or business computer(s) (either or both of which shall be the "Installed Computer(s)") is actively connected to the internet ("Online"). The Installed Computer may accumulate a maximum of 24 CPU HOUR's in one day. If your UID logs more than 24 CPU HOURS in one 24 hour period, your account may be suspended or terminated for unusual or suspicious activity." [emphasis added by me] What this might be saying is that no matter how many systems you run their agent on, it is treated as one "Installed Computer" and they'll only pay you for up to 24 CPU hours in a day. I could be wrong, but it makes sense to me that they wouldn't want people setting up arrays of systems in order to maximize income - their approach works better if you just have one computer that is "flying low under the radar" of blocklists.