is there such thing as a USB extension cord without buying a hub? Yes, they're cheaply available, and they also come free in the box with many items, some USB keys included. Although a cheap, bus-powered hub with a 3' cord attached may be better--and virtually the same price--in the case of that aunt's computer with only 2 ports.
You can install Windows using a bootable CD as long as your BIOS isn't ancient and supports booting from CD. I've used that method for quite some time. Haven't used a floppy for booting the install disc since Windows 98.
No. They're not. Using a floppy disk to store data is like storing your possessions outside under a 6-foot-by-6-foot blue tarp with a rock on each corner--you could, and tarps are readily available, but with so many more convenient, safer, and more capacious places to put your data, why would you?
Get a USB key (under $30). Let me know next time you need a floppy disk.
(not the OP but...) Ummm... No. Actually alt-f4 is not a call to Explorer. It also does not quit an app. It closes the front window, assuming said front window isn't a modal dialog that doesn't have an enabled close box ("X" button).
I think it's a call to the window manager, but definitely not explorer, which is just a file manager. End Explorer's process and alt-f4 still works as normal.
The equivalent on the Mac is Command-W.
I find the Mac way much more useful for the clueful user, because on Windows, it's impossible to have some programs open without having a document open. Examples are web browsers, MS Office apps, and other apps designed with an SDI interface. MDI programs have a big useless gray window when you have no documents open, because with the Windows design you'd have nowhere else to put the menu bar.
The reason I say clueful user is because clueless users have no idea what a program is, let alone whether it's running. So on Windows when the user's done with his word documents he closes them all and Word auto-quits as you close the last document. Then when he opens a 3d game or whatever, Word isn't sitting there running wasting resources. On Mac OS X, however, a clueless user will end up with every app on the system running, after a few minutes, because they close the documents when they finish and they don't realize they need to close the app.
As an advanced user, however, I like being able to choose between "close document/window" and quitting the program. For example, I can close the iTunes window. Not minimize it, just close it. And the music keeps on playing. And when I click its Dock icon, it comes back (this is a HIG that says when you click an app's Dock icon, it should activate its most recently used window, and if it has none, to create a new one). I also close my web browser windows, but always leave the browser open so it's instantaneous when I need to open it again. Mail is always running to get new mail, but its window gets closed when I'm not using it. To do this on Windows, I'd have to have a cluttered taskbar of minimized mail client, browser, calendar program, etc. Or a bunch of daemons that run all the time and tray icons to control each one...
Apple is moving slightly away from this paradigm, however. On Panther, System Preferences, iPhoto, and iMovie (that I can think of right now) auto-quit when you close their main window. Should be easier to grasp for new users, and those aren't the kind of apps you'd really want to keep running in the background anyway.
Actually, at everywhere I've worked, it is submitted before payment is made. Some places (most McDonald's included) it's submitted to the kitchen even before the order's been totaled/completed.
I guess you've never worked in a fast food joint. Very good for you;-)
> I don't know what state you are in but in my state, Colorado, we pay taxes for our interstates
Okay, let's put one ridiculous debate to rest.
Everyone here knows that all the money the government spends must derive from taxes. Until the government can take a job and earn its keep stocking shelves at Safeway [Attention! Joke!], it will continue to tax the public for its revenue. This is normal. This neither needs to be restated nor debated. So clearly the roads are not truly "free" whether they're funded by the government or by tolls.
The point of the ancestor posts on this topic (in my estimation) is to explore the difficult question: Should roads be publicly funded (paid for and owned, in theory, by each American) or should they be funded by those who use the roads. As a non-driver, I think I'd probably prefer the roads to be funded by those who use them, since that would probably save me a lot of money. However, I also understand the economies of scale of certain things, and I'd hate to have to pay $10 to go to the grocery store if I lived somewhere with no access to mass transit. Therefore, I'm not actually saying that we should suddenly make all roads turnpikes. Just that the funding of roads is something to consider as we run out of oil and wonder where to go from there.
I agree that they are ads; we discussed this at the store and this was why they commissioned a custom, Java-based POS system to run on a Mac instead of going with a plain-vanilla NCR or IBM solution, but they were pretty slow to replace floor models when they had revisions. The floor display eMacs when I left in May were still the old eMac. The display PowerBooks were a revision behind. The POS PowerBooks were still Titanium.
I've been to older, non-flagship Apple Stores where they still have CRT iMacs at POS. I guess we'll see what happens.
I have the Brenthaven messenger-style laptop bag for my 12" PowerBook. I resisted getting a "laptop bag" before for this reason, and instead used an average-looking $30 Gap messenger with a detachable laptop sleeve.
What changed my mind is the Brenthaven bag provides a lot more protection for my computer. Since it's a messenger, I just keep it strapped to my shoulder like any other messenger and thus prevent theft that way.
Still, if you like backpacks better than messengers and you can find a backpack that provides good protection without being conspicuous, the parent is great advice.
I used to work in Apple's flagship retail store in San Francisco. All the POS systems ("cash registers," 7 of them) are iMac G4's, about one revision before the last ones. Just from the way the customers behaved when I worked there, I know that if they don't hurry up and replace those with a currently-shipping model, the customers are going to constantly be asking about them and they won't care what kind of processor, they'll be pissed. Some people are just going to still like the 'lampshade' iMacs better and of course my former coworkers are going to have to tell them they're not for sale. Oh man.
Oh, and the "internet cafe" computers are also G4 iMacs. I also wonder if they're going to replace those. I think there are 16 of them. I think they should, in the interest of not getting people jazzed about a model you no longer sell.
> In fact, I really can't think of a single down side to using a webapp for instant messaging.
Ok. I'll help you:
- I don't want a damn browser running all the time just to have access to IM! - I don't want to have to be online just to review a chat log! - Either "A," "B," or "C" below: --A. On MSIE/Win, every time MSIE crashes, I'd prefer it not take down my IM client too. And vice versa. --B. On non-msie/Win, I'd like to have a notification icon in the "tray." --C. On my Mac, I'd prefer the IM client have its own Dock icon rather than being yet another browser window. I'd also like a menu-bar extra (similar to MS "tray" icons). - I'd like sound notifications, and little temporary pop-up notifications. And not little browser popups. How are you going to handle notifications? Just to get sound, you'd need to be running a damn plugin or FLASH just to provide a sound notification! Holy bloat, batman! - Maybe I'd like to run a script locally when a certain contact signs on. How could you securely implement a browser-based IM client that could do that? - The same reason I hate the webmail-as-the-only-interface-to-email trend--I don't want to have to load a bunch of redundant and inefficient HTML and ads for every single message I open, every time I look back at the inbox. But change "message I open" to "message I send or receive." - Maybe I'd like audio and video chat. No, WITHOUT a bunch of unreliable and highly unstable browser "plugins" or ActiveX controls. - One refresh of the buddy-list window goes bad and you're looking at an error message in your buddy-list window instead of an IM client. A real client can continue trying to reconnect. - Unlike e-mail, IM requires lots of dynamic-ness. So you can guarantee yourself that if ANYONE implements a web-based, feature-rich IM client, it'll be highly proprietary. Read "highly-IE-only." - And if you're going to use Java to do achieve some of those aims without stooping to stupid ActiveX, IE lock-in, etc? Why not just offer it as a normal executable too then?
> Personally, I don't mind that. At least I'd know that ALL settings and history are saved between machines instead of the classic issue
Whoa there, two very different ideas here: Storing contacts and settings on the server (like Jabber does): Good. I'm all for it. Making the interface server-side and translating it to HTML, and making that the only interface to the service: Very, very bad. You don't need to do the latter to accomplish the former.
What's humorous is that the only 2nd-generation (1st-gen was ICQ, and perhaps pre-AIM AOL Buddy List) instant messenger platform I've used that's ever given me significant spam ("spim," right?) is Yahoo! Messenger. Also the one who keeps thrashing violently to block out third-party clients. (Die, Yahoo. Die now and save us all a lot of annoyance.) So I'd suspect that the "supports interoperability" quality has no connection to the "fosters spammers" quality.
> The shell in Windows sucked a couple of years ago (it might still - haven't used it).
Well, since there hasn't been a substantive update to Windows in longer than that, and won't be for another, what was it, two years?...I'm guessing the shell still sucks.
I'm not the OP, but Citibank's site works 90% of the time under Mozilla (actually, Firefox or Camino is what I normally use).
What maddens me, though, is that many sections of it won't work in Safari. (I'd say you can get about 40% functionality in Safari.) Sometimes the broken sections will work under Safari, if I spoof "Windows MSIE 6." Calling the bank yielded "On a Mac, you have to use Use MSIE 5.* or Netscape 4.7."
On User vs. Administrator for the clueless.
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When I set up my grandma's PC (running WinXP), I set her as a User and setup an Administrator called "Installing Software" for occasions when I would have to let her have admin. "Installing Software," designed after a great idea I saw on here, has a bright red background (locked with policies), reading "WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! Only use this account for installing software! Click Start, then "LOG OFF" NOW!" All the UI elements are white/red, or yellow/black, and about one size bigger than would be comfortable. Every system sound event is mapped to the "Critical Battery Alert" sound (which sounds like a computer's version of "OMG") so that every menu click, opening or closing program, etc. triggers the noise. iexplore.exe is also chmod 000--even if she could stand using that account any longer than necessary, no iexplore! (Firefox is her default browser, but I've got all the bases covered anyway).
Oh, and the Video Poker game I got her at Kmart (which has a Linux version on the same CD, so you'd think the developers would have a clue) crashes on opening if you're not an administrator. I worked around that using runas.exe.
When I go to real.com using Safari 1.2, I get a page about RealPlayer 10, which makes no mention of, and has no links to, RealPlayer music store or Harmony. When I visit the same URL, spoofing as "Windows MSIE 6.0" (aka "TEH INTARWEB BROWZOR") I get a big promo about Harmony and the.49/song sale.
Pretty sure there's no Mac OS X version of this whole Harmony thing.
Does anybody know how this Harmony thing works? Does it import the songs into iTunes so you can play them in iTunes/sync them to iPod as normal? Or does it make you do a separate sync to put the Real songs on the iPod, restricting you to playing them only on the iPod and RealPlayer?
if somehow you can work your way into a sales model where, as happens with an auction, or with car sales, you're somehow able to tailor your price to what exactly each individual customer is willing to pay.
This is known in the world of microeconomics as "perfect price discrimination" and is indeed a very good thing. Also in the "Price Discrimination" category are "student discounts," and those "travel discount guides" you see at every [US] fast food place, with coupons for motels at a few dollars below the normal rate. All firms would like to achieve perfect price discrimination, where each individual pays the maximum he's willing to pay for the good or service.
I guess it's time for Microsoft to start winding down operations. Once the Malaysian government has spoken, there's really no point in contesting it anymore. OSS has finally won the battle..
You're right on with everything, except one tiny detail: as much as your explanation of the origin of the word "antitrust" makes sense, it is actually that way because when the Sherman Antitrust Act was passed, it was an effort to combat huge "trusts"--holding companies that controlled bunches of railroads, etc.--that were abusing their monopoly power.
My original point was that the email hosting itself is available to everyone (and if it's not you need to switch ISPs).
I clarified in the grandparent, that if you also want a persistent e-mail address, you can get that too by buying a domain (which costs $8 per year and takes five minutes to buy + three days to go live--why are you trying to make it sound like a big deal?)
> [insert tired 1997 reasoning for using crappy "free e-mail" service]
The easy answer is to get one's own domain.
That you CAN keep forever, and $8/year is WORTH not having to worry about tiny mailbox size, those damn little ads that go on every outbound message, and *ahem* not having to go to a bloated, ad-filled web-interface just to check your e-mail even when you're at home on your own computer!!
I say 1997 reasoning because it wasn't a value for most people to do that kind of thing back when a domain cost maybe $25 or $30 a year just for the registration. But I pay $8/year for the domain and $49/year for "1gbhosting.com" which provides 1GB of webspace/mailbox space and unlimited IMAP/POP accounts. For the average newbie, however, a cheap solution can be found with a few minutes' research: Domain, $8 (GoDaddy). E-mail forwarding: Free. Forward to you@isp-of-the-month.com and voila. Instant, non-sucky, POP/IMAP account that not onl is completely personalized, but also doesn't serve as a billboard for some asshole company every time you give it out: Priceless.
> So none of the emails i send with [Hotmail] have my official name as the sender.
Well to make you feel better, something tells me the other 2 billion Hotmail accounts out there aren't using their official names either. Just ask sk8r_boy34564_2003@hotmail.com and his friend ev4nessen5e_r00lz@hotmail.com.
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is there such thing as a USB extension cord without buying a hub?
Yes, they're cheaply available, and they also come free in the box with many items, some USB keys included. Although a cheap, bus-powered hub with a 3' cord attached may be better--and virtually the same price--in the case of that aunt's computer with only 2 ports.
You can install Windows using a bootable CD as long as your BIOS isn't ancient and supports booting from CD. I've used that method for quite some time. Haven't used a floppy for booting the install disc since Windows 98.
No. They're not. Using a floppy disk to store data is like storing your possessions outside under a 6-foot-by-6-foot blue tarp with a rock on each corner--you could, and tarps are readily available, but with so many more convenient, safer, and more capacious places to put your data, why would you?
Get a USB key (under $30). Let me know next time you need a floppy disk.
...While an evil CPU will run faster and faster the more it overheats!! Bwahahahahaaa!
(not the OP but...)
Ummm... No. Actually alt-f4 is not a call to Explorer. It also does not quit an app. It closes the front window, assuming said front window isn't a modal dialog that doesn't have an enabled close box ("X" button).
I think it's a call to the window manager, but definitely not explorer, which is just a file manager. End Explorer's process and alt-f4 still works as normal.
The equivalent on the Mac is Command-W.
I find the Mac way much more useful for the clueful user, because on Windows, it's impossible to have some programs open without having a document open. Examples are web browsers, MS Office apps, and other apps designed with an SDI interface. MDI programs have a big useless gray window when you have no documents open, because with the Windows design you'd have nowhere else to put the menu bar.
The reason I say clueful user is because clueless users have no idea what a program is, let alone whether it's running. So on Windows when the user's done with his word documents he closes them all and Word auto-quits as you close the last document. Then when he opens a 3d game or whatever, Word isn't sitting there running wasting resources. On Mac OS X, however, a clueless user will end up with every app on the system running, after a few minutes, because they close the documents when they finish and they don't realize they need to close the app.
As an advanced user, however, I like being able to choose between "close document/window" and quitting the program. For example, I can close the iTunes window. Not minimize it, just close it. And the music keeps on playing. And when I click its Dock icon, it comes back (this is a HIG that says when you click an app's Dock icon, it should activate its most recently used window, and if it has none, to create a new one). I also close my web browser windows, but always leave the browser open so it's instantaneous when I need to open it again. Mail is always running to get new mail, but its window gets closed when I'm not using it. To do this on Windows, I'd have to have a cluttered taskbar of minimized mail client, browser, calendar program, etc. Or a bunch of daemons that run all the time and tray icons to control each one...
Apple is moving slightly away from this paradigm, however. On Panther, System Preferences, iPhoto, and iMovie (that I can think of right now) auto-quit when you close their main window. Should be easier to grasp for new users, and those aren't the kind of apps you'd really want to keep running in the background anyway.
Actually, at everywhere I've worked, it is submitted before payment is made. Some places (most McDonald's included) it's submitted to the kitchen even before the order's been totaled/completed.
;-)
I guess you've never worked in a fast food joint. Very good for you
Everyone here knows that all the money the government spends must derive from taxes. Until the government can take a job and earn its keep stocking shelves at Safeway [Attention! Joke!], it will continue to tax the public for its revenue. This is normal. This neither needs to be restated nor debated. So clearly the roads are not truly "free" whether they're funded by the government or by tolls.
The point of the ancestor posts on this topic (in my estimation) is to explore the difficult question: Should roads be publicly funded (paid for and owned, in theory, by each American) or should they be funded by those who use the roads. As a non-driver, I think I'd probably prefer the roads to be funded by those who use them, since that would probably save me a lot of money. However, I also understand the economies of scale of certain things, and I'd hate to have to pay $10 to go to the grocery store if I lived somewhere with no access to mass transit. Therefore, I'm not actually saying that we should suddenly make all roads turnpikes. Just that the funding of roads is something to consider as we run out of oil and wonder where to go from there.
I agree that they are ads; we discussed this at the store and this was why they commissioned a custom, Java-based POS system to run on a Mac instead of going with a plain-vanilla NCR or IBM solution, but they were pretty slow to replace floor models when they had revisions. The floor display eMacs when I left in May were still the old eMac. The display PowerBooks were a revision behind. The POS PowerBooks were still Titanium.
I've been to older, non-flagship Apple Stores where they still have CRT iMacs at POS. I guess we'll see what happens.
I have the Brenthaven messenger-style laptop bag for my 12" PowerBook. I resisted getting a "laptop bag" before for this reason, and instead used an average-looking $30 Gap messenger with a detachable laptop sleeve.
What changed my mind is the Brenthaven bag provides a lot more protection for my computer. Since it's a messenger, I just keep it strapped to my shoulder like any other messenger and thus prevent theft that way.
Still, if you like backpacks better than messengers and you can find a backpack that provides good protection without being conspicuous, the parent is great advice.
-Dan
I used to work in Apple's flagship retail store in San Francisco. All the POS systems ("cash registers," 7 of them) are iMac G4's, about one revision before the last ones. Just from the way the customers behaved when I worked there, I know that if they don't hurry up and replace those with a currently-shipping model, the customers are going to constantly be asking about them and they won't care what kind of processor, they'll be pissed. Some people are just going to still like the 'lampshade' iMacs better and of course my former coworkers are going to have to tell them they're not for sale. Oh man.
Oh, and the "internet cafe" computers are also G4 iMacs. I also wonder if they're going to replace those. I think there are 16 of them. I think they should, in the interest of not getting people jazzed about a model you no longer sell.
> In fact, I really can't think of a single down side to using a webapp for instant messaging.
Ok. I'll help you:
- I don't want a damn browser running all the time just to have access to IM!
- I don't want to have to be online just to review a chat log!
- Either "A," "B," or "C" below:
--A. On MSIE/Win, every time MSIE crashes, I'd prefer it not take down my IM client too. And vice versa.
--B. On non-msie/Win, I'd like to have a notification icon in the "tray."
--C. On my Mac, I'd prefer the IM client have its own Dock icon rather than being yet another browser window. I'd also like a menu-bar extra (similar to MS "tray" icons).
- I'd like sound notifications, and little temporary pop-up notifications. And not little browser popups. How are you going to handle notifications? Just to get sound, you'd need to be running a damn plugin or FLASH just to provide a sound notification! Holy bloat, batman!
- Maybe I'd like to run a script locally when a certain contact signs on. How could you securely implement a browser-based IM client that could do that?
- The same reason I hate the webmail-as-the-only-interface-to-email trend--I don't want to have to load a bunch of redundant and inefficient HTML and ads for every single message I open, every time I look back at the inbox. But change "message I open" to "message I send or receive."
- Maybe I'd like audio and video chat. No, WITHOUT a bunch of unreliable and highly unstable browser "plugins" or ActiveX controls.
- One refresh of the buddy-list window goes bad and you're looking at an error message in your buddy-list window instead of an IM client. A real client can continue trying to reconnect.
- Unlike e-mail, IM requires lots of dynamic-ness. So you can guarantee yourself that if ANYONE implements a web-based, feature-rich IM client, it'll be highly proprietary. Read "highly-IE-only."
- And if you're going to use Java to do achieve some of those aims without stooping to stupid ActiveX, IE lock-in, etc? Why not just offer it as a normal executable too then?
> Personally, I don't mind that. At least I'd know that ALL settings and history are saved between machines instead of the classic issue
Whoa there, two very different ideas here:
Storing contacts and settings on the server (like Jabber does): Good. I'm all for it.
Making the interface server-side and translating it to HTML, and making that the only interface to the service: Very, very bad.
You don't need to do the latter to accomplish the former.
That was SOOOOO cool. If someone ever does that, I'm so there. Too bad I'm not capable of writing it either.
-Dan
What's humorous is that the only 2nd-generation (1st-gen was ICQ, and perhaps pre-AIM AOL Buddy List) instant messenger platform I've used that's ever given me significant spam ("spim," right?) is Yahoo! Messenger. Also the one who keeps thrashing violently to block out third-party clients. (Die, Yahoo. Die now and save us all a lot of annoyance.) So I'd suspect that the "supports interoperability" quality has no connection to the "fosters spammers" quality.
> The shell in Windows sucked a couple of years ago (it might still - haven't used it).
Well, since there hasn't been a substantive update to Windows in longer than that, and won't be for another, what was it, two years?...I'm guessing the shell still sucks.
I'm not the OP, but Citibank's site works 90% of the time under Mozilla (actually, Firefox or Camino is what I normally use).
What maddens me, though, is that many sections of it won't work in Safari. (I'd say you can get about 40% functionality in Safari.) Sometimes the broken sections will work under Safari, if I spoof "Windows MSIE 6." Calling the bank yielded "On a Mac, you have to use Use MSIE 5.* or Netscape 4.7."
When I set up my grandma's PC (running WinXP), I set her as a User and setup an Administrator called "Installing Software" for occasions when I would have to let her have admin. "Installing Software," designed after a great idea I saw on here, has a bright red background (locked with policies), reading "WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! Only use this account for installing software! Click Start, then "LOG OFF" NOW!" All the UI elements are white/red, or yellow/black, and about one size bigger than would be comfortable. Every system sound event is mapped to the "Critical Battery Alert" sound (which sounds like a computer's version of "OMG") so that every menu click, opening or closing program, etc. triggers the noise. iexplore.exe is also chmod 000--even if she could stand using that account any longer than necessary, no iexplore! (Firefox is her default browser, but I've got all the bases covered anyway).
Oh, and the Video Poker game I got her at Kmart (which has a Linux version on the same CD, so you'd think the developers would have a clue) crashes on opening if you're not an administrator. I worked around that using runas.exe.
When I go to real.com using Safari 1.2, I get a page about RealPlayer 10, which makes no mention of, and has no links to, RealPlayer music store or Harmony. When I visit the same URL, spoofing as "Windows MSIE 6.0" (aka "TEH INTARWEB BROWZOR") I get a big promo about Harmony and the .49/song sale.
Pretty sure there's no Mac OS X version of this whole Harmony thing.
Does anybody know how this Harmony thing works? Does it import the songs into iTunes so you can play them in iTunes/sync them to iPod as normal? Or does it make you do a separate sync to put the Real songs on the iPod, restricting you to playing them only on the iPod and RealPlayer?
if somehow you can work your way into a sales model where, as happens with an auction, or with car sales, you're somehow able to tailor your price to what exactly each individual customer is willing to pay.
This is known in the world of microeconomics as "perfect price discrimination" and is indeed a very good thing. Also in the "Price Discrimination" category are "student discounts," and those "travel discount guides" you see at every [US] fast food place, with coupons for motels at a few dollars below the normal rate. All firms would like to achieve perfect price discrimination, where each individual pays the maximum he's willing to pay for the good or service.
I guess it's time for Microsoft to start winding down operations. Once the Malaysian government has spoken, there's really no point in contesting it anymore. OSS has finally won the battle..
Interesting URL (I spent about fifteen minutes reading about lojban, but next time please make a link.
the number one nastiest thing to hit livejournal: ratings communities
Word. They're shameless and disgusting.
(on-topic)
I'm tired of those.
You're right on with everything, except one tiny detail: as much as your explanation of the origin of the word "antitrust" makes sense, it is actually that way because when the Sherman Antitrust Act was passed, it was an effort to combat huge "trusts"--holding companies that controlled bunches of railroads, etc.--that were abusing their monopoly power.
My original point was that the email hosting itself is available to everyone (and if it's not you need to switch ISPs).
I clarified in the grandparent, that if you also want a persistent e-mail address, you can get that too by buying a domain (which costs $8 per year and takes five minutes to buy + three days to go live--why are you trying to make it sound like a big deal?)
> [insert tired 1997 reasoning for using crappy "free e-mail" service]
The easy answer is to get one's own domain.
That you CAN keep forever, and $8/year is WORTH not having to worry about tiny mailbox size, those damn little ads that go on every outbound message, and *ahem* not having to go to a bloated, ad-filled web-interface just to check your e-mail even when you're at home on your own computer!!
I say 1997 reasoning because it wasn't a value for most people to do that kind of thing back when a domain cost maybe $25 or $30 a year just for the registration. But I pay $8/year for the domain and $49/year for "1gbhosting.com" which provides 1GB of webspace/mailbox space and unlimited IMAP/POP accounts. For the average newbie, however, a cheap solution can be found with a few minutes' research: Domain, $8 (GoDaddy). E-mail forwarding: Free. Forward to you@isp-of-the-month.com and voila. Instant, non-sucky, POP/IMAP account that not onl is completely personalized, but also doesn't serve as a billboard for some asshole company every time you give it out: Priceless.
> So none of the emails i send with [Hotmail] have my official name as the sender.
Well to make you feel better, something tells me the other 2 billion Hotmail accounts out there aren't using their official names either. Just ask sk8r_boy34564_2003@hotmail.com and his friend ev4nessen5e_r00lz@hotmail.com.