As it stands now the cost of the machine and the cost of the tapes doom it's success, BUT remember that the Betamax was in EXACTLY the same price range when it came out (adjusted for inflation even higher!) and the cost slowly came down. If DVHS catches on history will repeat. All tv's will have to have the necessary interface, but this too can happen. Remember SVHS? It required that special svideo 4 pin din connector on the tv. Now you can't find a TV set with a 25" or larger tube that DOESN'T have that svideo input.
What JVC has done is to put a copy once feature in this recorder that would allow you to tape off the air, but NOT dub the tapes. I would hope for an analog output as well (perhaps at a low res) to allow for downstream consumer gadgets as well as backward compatibility. Also true videophiles will like the lack of compression which can distort the picture. Some still think that Laserdiscs look better than DVD because of the compression.
In short, I think this may fly. It remains to be determined if the standard will be picked up by enough tv makers and for the price to fall with volume production. But in this day vhs size tapes are so HUGH! That's the big step backwards.
Where I used to work we had evaluated Windows NT on some Motorola PPC boxes. I don't remember the exact model but they were in boxes looking alot like the old Dell Dimension cases, MB had multiple PCI slots, SCSI and sound on board. After MS dropped PPC support for NT I got to try and install Linux on these boxes. The hardest part was figuring out which boot floppy image to download and how to tell the bios to boot from the floppy! Anyway it seems that there are many custom PPC systems how do you get the installer to deal with this?
Hope you are recovering well and sue the bastards ass off! No way you should have to dig into your pockets to pay to make yourself whole again!
One of the points mentioned is that rambus memory is poor at random access, but good for sequencial access. This actually makes rambus memory good for crt refresh applications, since a crt buffer DOES access sequencial locations as the screen is refreshed. I wonder if any graphic card designers are using rambus memories in their units.
G.W.B. is probably the worst prepared candidate for the presidental election in quite a while. His lack of experience is amazing. As a Businessman he is a failure (mostly LOST money) except for what he latched onto riding on daddy's coattails. Listening to him speak sounds like hearing someone with the IQ of a highschool dropout.
Now A.G. has take credit for alot of stuff he had nothing to do with (except maybe for NOT getting in the way), but at least he UNDERSTANDS technology. Actually I sort of wish that the vice presidental candidates would swap places with the presidental ones. I was more impressed with the running mates.
Now considering everything, I guess I'll have to vote for A.G.
While the Linux / BSD crowd will have plenty to say about this page, it's actually a well written bit of advise to the average PC sales shop. Let's face it most PC's bought today are bought with some flavor of windows, and this is REALLY what the customer wanted. If you want to install Linux on your new computer you will probably HAVE to do it yourself, or buy the computer from one of the few mail order firms that sell Linux configured machines (hey, the list is growing even IBM and Dell will do this for you now --- don't know about Gateway). And there ARE many 'Tiwan Row' computer shops selling Naked PC's or will install a Pirate copy of windows. That's who this piece is aimed at (not that they will see it though).
I live about 18k feet from ma bell so I can't get their adsl. At the time only flashcom was offering a lower speed connection at a home user price. I now have their 144k/144k idsl (isdl?) connection at $59/mo which is about at the top end of my budget for this. Getting connected took about 3 months thanks to bell south's refusal to nail down an appointment time. They want to show up whenever they want without notice and if you are not there, tough shit your order is canceled!
Took Covad acting as a middle man to get them to connect me! Then Covad and Flashcom played musical ip addresses on me (assigning the same ip and email address to several people!). Also there was a bad DSLAM somewhere in the circuit that took a few weeks to get replaced. Then the network logic had to be rebuild several times till they got it right.
Finally they never sent me a bill since May! I called and they gave me a balance due for two months service (which I payed). Flashcom said they are still re-building their billing system and not to worry about it! I'll call again if I don't get another bill in a month or two, at least they won't be charging any late fees! (What a way to run a business!)
I did have to sign a two year contract, but I was given a verbal that I could upgrade to faster service anytime it became available. It's been about 3/4 a year now and nothing better is available with no prospect that true adsl or cable modem service will be available in my neighborhood during my contract period so the contract was not a bad move on my part. (As far as I am concerned the contract period started when I 'signed up' NOT when they finally got me connected.)
I've been connected since May now without a hitch. Email server went down for a few hours on several occasions, but is stable now. Guess this was just a learning experience for all involved. I'm hoping that ma bell will move an 'outhouse' closer to me so I can upgrade in speed.
It sounds like Sun should be forced to delete the actual GPL'ed code source from their kit and be allowed to tell the user where it may be downloaded from (sounds like the DeCss ruling). If Sun does not actually provide the GPL'ed code and only the tools then they will keep their hands clean.
Seems to me that a set top box designed to allow reception of digital tv signals MUST convert the signal to NTSC video output in order for the old tv set to receive it, and this same signal is VERY recordable on my current VCR. They could Macrovision the output and fuck up the signal, but then there are ways to remove this shit. So at least recording the signals in 4x5 format will still work.
I don't think HBO, Cinamax, and Showtime will block recording of their signals since they know people time shift this stuff. Same for network TV (hell they WANT you to record the commericals!). Pay Per View, and sportcasts are another story though.
KDE vs Gnome, KDE FIX YOUR LICENSE!!!!!!!
on
KDE Strikes Back
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· Score: 1
The reason KDE gets flamed is because of the use of QT. Now that QT has an (almost) free license this would have gone away except for one small problem.... the QPL is incompatable with the GPL, you CAN'T legally link QPL code with GPL code. The KDE team can fix this in one of two ways:
1: relicense KDE under the QPL.
2: Add a clause to their license statement to allow linking their GPL'ed code with the QT lib.
It sounds too simple, but the fact is that you MUST have that clause in your license or the full GPL applies, and prohibits linking with QT because the GPL 'infects' the QPL'ed code. You may argue that this is a problem with the GPL, but that is the license that KDE chose, so it is THEIR fault. As long as they keep their heads shoved up their asses and ignore the problem it won't go away. A few month's ago someone offered KDE a 'reward' to fix their license so Debian would include KDE. They ignored it. Debian may be picking nits here, but they are REAL nits to the letter of the law (or copyleft). If the KDE guys would wake up and insert a few lines into their license statement they could wipe Gnome away, or at least compete on a feature basis instead of a political one.
My ISP also seems to 'prohibit' NAT on the network. HOWEVER they don't have a problem with my installing a FIREWALL between the DSL modem and my computer. (Other than to point out that my dsl modem can act as a firewall and router...it has 3 10baseT ports). My FIREWALL is an old P100 running Coyote linux. It IS doing NAT between my DSL and my local network. The firewall is a filter firewall, not a proxy type. Do to the way it is set up I don't think anyone COULD tell that NAT is going on, besides I am NOT generating enough traffic for anyone to tell if there are one, two, or even three computers on the lan. I think their real concern is that they don't want me running a server, or re-selling my bandwidth. They would LOVE to sell me more IP's, but won't press the issue.
Some sites only appear to lock out the back button. What they actually do is open up a new window. If the Back button is grayed out then just close the window! I'd actually like to know what the special html code is to cause a link to be displayed in a new window, but some sites do have this. For sites that actually lock the back button I have just used the history list (IE) or just display the sites I've gone to with the go button or the goto window (NS) and get the hell out of there. Some of this may be intended, in other cases just sloppy coding.
Sounds like Bob Truax (I know I am miss-spelling his name) the ex nasa engineer who designed Evil Kinevil's sky cycle that didn't make it over the snake river. Bob was the inspiration for the Andy Griffith Salvage One character. He was also planning on building his own rocket, for a sub-orbital flight. Only he wasn't fool enough to fly it. Maybe these two should have gotten together....
Debian is correct about the QT vs GPL license issue, however they ARE picking nits. The fact that KDE NEEDS to be linked against QT means that it is IMPLIED that it is OK to do so. The KDE team would NEVER take task against anyone who distributed KDE under the terms of it's license (GPL). Any distro that includes KDE has a snow ball's chance in hell of being sued. Debian knows this. They are making a stand here against licenses that are not 100% free. In this case it's a mix of licenses that don't play well with each other. There probably are non-offical.deb's of kde so anyone who wants to use KDE in debian can. Ask on debian-user and someone will probably even give you the url.
Having said all that, I am using Gnome. I have seen both (redhat has both, default is gnome) and I just like gnome better. (It's 'geekier'). I like debian, but I sometimes feel that they are politicaly too left wing to my taste. The underpinings of debian is sound though, and I can easily add whatever software I feel correct, even if it is NOT strickly 'free'. 'nuff said!
The 'contrib' section of debian is for any package that itself is totally free, but depends on a non-free package. Lyx is such a package. If the non-free libs required by lyx are not supplied, then while lyx could still be in contrib, it would be useless. Even worse, it couldn't be tested so how would you report any bugs against it? The user would have to get the non-free forms lib tarball from its' homepage and then install lyx from the debian archive.
Also in contrib are installers for non-free packages such as staroffice (isn't that free now?) and netscape. These packages require you to first get the non-free tarball into a temp dir and then run the installer package. This at least sets up the non-free program into the debian dir structure correctly and points various menus at it (such as in gnome). Other contrib packages are various wrappers around seti@home. At least seti@home is a good cause, even if the software is not open source...we should support the on going work here. (Yeah I would like to find a message from some little green men).
I hope they will continue to have these contrib packages in the archive, even though they do require non-free software. Mozilla does not replace netscape (it still sucks).
BTW did you know you can run Internet Explorer on linux under wine? YUCK!
I work for an ASP (application service provider). We host application software for our clients. We partner with MicroSoft. Microsoft is VERY interested in this model of software 'sales' because they do NOTHING but collect the money. We do all the 'dirty' work. ASP's save their customers money by outsourcing their IT departments. Soon anyone that DOESN'T compute by ASP will be shafted by the software providers.
Hey, for the corporate world, this is a not a bad thing. Business wants to USE their computers, not MAINTAIN them. But for the home user it SUCKS. Maybe MS wants to force HOME users into the ASP model. AOL would LOVE this!
If Abbie Hoffman had published 'Steal this book' today would the book be banned and all copies burned because the government didn't want the information in there public? They couldn't do that then and they can't do that now because a little thing like the first ammendment gets in the way. No law can override the First Ammendment. This sort of thing needs a supreme court case real soon!
DVD contents are ALREADY compressed. How much more can 'mp4' actually compress it without destroying it? This IS comming at a bad time since now there IS some argument to the claim that DeCSS could be used for piracy. While 350mb is still a little too large for downloads (though many are downloading.iso images of Redhat 6.2, etc) it can be done overnight on an ISDN or 56K modem link. Also with CDR blanks now less than $0.50 a pop and burners under $200 there is yet another way to distribute pirated movies. The only hope for the people who cracked the DeCss is to overturn the DMCRA and claim fair use.
I think ebay is shooting itself in the foot. If I had items for sale on ebay I'd WANT search engines to find my auction and bring me business! The more bidders, the higher a price I can get, and ebay gets more commission! What are they complaining about. They can afford to buy faster computers! Real stupid on their part.
Before you say NEVER, consider the fact that Microsoft DOES port it's apps to a platform (OS) that it DOESN'T earn any income from. In fact some of MS's apps first appeared on this platform before they were available on Windows. A platform BTW that many still think MS wanted to destroy. And yet today you can still get the latest MS apps on the Mac. Very soon now Linux will command a larger market share than the Mac. What will MS do then? If MS apps on Mac make good sense to MS then porting them to Linux must also make good sense.
What is being done to speed up the process of signing up new developers to Debian, and when will it be back on line?
Something needs to be done to get new releases of Debian out sooner. As it now stands by the time Potato is out (with a 2.2 kernel), the 2.4 kernel will have been released. Debian is the ONLY distro out now still shipping with the 2.0 kernel standard. If the entire distro can't be released sooner, the at least have a means to get major 'world wide' linux updates packaged.
I have an old HPLJIII purchased second hand for about $250. Toner for these warhorses runs between $50-$100 depending on where you buy and if you get HP brand or a refilled pack. Xerox now makes a toner cartridge for this printer and it's cheap. My only regret...I had a chance to get the IIID model (prints on both sides) for about $100 more and passed it up. Wish I had gotten that one instead. Saves a lot of trees! Works great with GS.
There is a good reason why computer cases are made of metal, RF sheilding. While mother boards are getting better in being self-sheilding, the case is still part of the equation. Bet a computer built in a plexiglas case won't meet clase B fcc regs, let alone class A! You CAN make a case out of plastic, but usually must spray the inside with graphite or other rf conducting material. (Open up a Mac and see what I mean). If there is such a material that is also trasparent (I don't think so!) then this might work. Why should you care about rf sheilding? Wait till your roomate tries to listen to his radio or TV. Or the CB'er next door keys up and reboots your computer!
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As it stands now the cost of the machine and the cost of the tapes doom it's success, BUT remember that the Betamax was in EXACTLY the same price range when it came out (adjusted for inflation even higher!) and the cost slowly came down. If DVHS catches on history will repeat. All tv's will have to have the necessary interface, but this too can happen. Remember SVHS? It required that special svideo 4 pin din connector on the tv. Now you can't find a TV set with a 25" or larger tube that DOESN'T have that svideo input.
What JVC has done is to put a copy once feature in this recorder that would allow you to tape off the air, but NOT dub the tapes. I would hope for an analog output as well (perhaps at a low res) to allow for downstream consumer gadgets as well as backward compatibility. Also true videophiles will like the lack of compression which can distort the picture. Some still think that Laserdiscs look better than DVD because of the compression.
In short, I think this may fly. It remains to be determined if the standard will be picked up by enough tv makers and for the price to fall with volume production. But in this day vhs size tapes are so HUGH! That's the big step backwards.
Where I used to work we had evaluated Windows NT on some Motorola PPC boxes. I don't remember the exact model but they were in boxes looking alot like the old Dell Dimension cases, MB had multiple PCI slots, SCSI and sound on board. After MS dropped PPC support for NT I got to try and install Linux on these boxes. The hardest part was figuring out which boot floppy image to download and how to tell the bios to boot from the floppy! Anyway it seems that there are many custom PPC systems how do you get the installer to deal with this?
Hope you are recovering well and sue the bastards ass off! No way you should have to dig into your pockets to pay to make yourself whole again!
One of the points mentioned is that rambus memory is poor at random access, but good for sequencial access. This actually makes rambus memory good for crt refresh applications, since a crt buffer DOES access sequencial locations as the screen is refreshed. I wonder if any graphic card designers are using rambus memories in their units.
G.W.B. is probably the worst prepared candidate for the presidental election in quite a while. His lack of experience is amazing. As a Businessman he is a failure (mostly LOST money) except for what he latched onto riding on daddy's coattails. Listening to him speak sounds like hearing someone with the IQ of a highschool dropout.
Now A.G. has take credit for alot of stuff he had nothing to do with (except maybe for NOT getting in the way), but at least he UNDERSTANDS technology. Actually I sort of wish that the vice presidental candidates would swap places with the presidental ones. I was more impressed with the running mates.
Now considering everything, I guess I'll have to vote for A.G.
While the Linux / BSD crowd will have plenty to say about this page, it's actually a well written bit of advise to the average PC sales shop. Let's face it most PC's bought today are bought with some flavor of windows, and this is REALLY what the customer wanted. If you want to install Linux on your new computer you will probably HAVE to do it yourself, or buy the computer from one of the few mail order firms that sell Linux configured machines (hey, the list is growing even IBM and Dell will do this for you now --- don't know about Gateway). And there ARE many 'Tiwan Row' computer shops selling Naked PC's or will install a Pirate copy of windows. That's who this piece is aimed at (not that they will see it though).
I avoid Amazon whenever possible. Actually for computer books, bookpool.com is cheaper!
I live about 18k feet from ma bell so I can't get their adsl. At the time only flashcom was offering a lower speed connection at a home user price. I now have their 144k/144k idsl (isdl?) connection at $59/mo which is about at the top end of my budget for this. Getting connected took about 3 months thanks to bell south's refusal to nail down an appointment time. They want to show up whenever they want without notice and if you are not there, tough shit your order is canceled!
Took Covad acting as a middle man to get them to connect me! Then Covad and Flashcom played musical ip addresses on me (assigning the same ip and email address to several people!). Also there was a bad DSLAM somewhere in the circuit that took a few weeks to get replaced. Then the network logic had to be rebuild several times till they got it right.
Finally they never sent me a bill since May! I called and they gave me a balance due for two months service (which I payed). Flashcom said they are still re-building their billing system and not to worry about it! I'll call again if I don't get another bill in a month or two, at least they won't be charging any late fees! (What a way to run a business!)
I did have to sign a two year contract, but I was given a verbal that I could upgrade to faster service anytime it became available. It's been about 3/4 a year now and nothing better is available with no prospect that true adsl or cable modem service will be available in my neighborhood during my contract period so the contract was not a bad move on my part. (As far as I am concerned the contract period started when I 'signed up' NOT when they finally got me connected.)
I've been connected since May now without a hitch. Email server went down for a few hours on several occasions, but is stable now. Guess this was just a learning experience for all involved. I'm hoping that ma bell will move an 'outhouse' closer to me so I can upgrade in speed.
It sounds like Sun should be forced to delete the actual GPL'ed code source from their kit and be allowed to tell the user where it may be downloaded from (sounds like the DeCss ruling). If Sun does not actually provide the GPL'ed code and only the tools then they will keep their hands clean.
Seems to me that a set top box designed to allow reception of digital tv signals MUST convert the signal to NTSC video output in order for the old tv set to receive it, and this same signal is VERY recordable on my current VCR. They could Macrovision the output and fuck up the signal, but then there are ways to remove this shit. So at least recording the signals in 4x5 format will still work.
I don't think HBO, Cinamax, and Showtime will block recording of their signals since they know people time shift this stuff. Same for network TV (hell they WANT you to record the commericals!). Pay Per View, and sportcasts are another story though.
The reason KDE gets flamed is because of the use of QT. Now that QT has an (almost) free license this would have gone away except for one small problem.... the QPL is incompatable with the GPL, you CAN'T legally link QPL code with GPL code. The KDE team can fix this in one of two ways:
1: relicense KDE under the QPL.
2: Add a clause to their license statement to allow linking their GPL'ed code with the QT lib.
It sounds too simple, but the fact is that you MUST have that clause in your license or the full GPL applies, and prohibits linking with QT because the GPL 'infects' the QPL'ed code. You may argue that this is a problem with the GPL, but that is the license that KDE chose, so it is THEIR fault. As long as they keep their heads shoved up their asses and ignore the problem it won't go away. A few month's ago someone offered KDE a 'reward' to fix their license so Debian would include KDE. They ignored it. Debian may be picking nits here, but they are REAL nits to the letter of the law (or copyleft). If the KDE guys would wake up and insert a few lines into their license statement they could wipe Gnome away, or at least compete on a feature basis instead of a political one.
Nuff' said!
My ISP also seems to 'prohibit' NAT on the network. HOWEVER they don't have a problem with my installing a FIREWALL between the DSL modem and my computer. (Other than to point out that my dsl modem can act as a firewall and router...it has 3 10baseT ports). My FIREWALL is an old P100 running Coyote linux. It IS doing NAT between my DSL and my local network. The firewall is a filter firewall, not a proxy type. Do to the way it is set up I don't think anyone COULD tell that NAT is going on, besides I am NOT generating enough traffic for anyone to tell if there are one, two, or even three computers on the lan. I think their real concern is that they don't want me running a server, or re-selling my bandwidth. They would LOVE to sell me more IP's, but won't press the issue.
Some sites only appear to lock out the back button. What they actually do is open up a new window. If the Back button is grayed out then just close the window! I'd actually like to know what the special html code is to cause a link to be displayed in a new window, but some sites do have this. For sites that actually lock the back button I have just used the history list (IE) or just display the sites I've gone to with the go button or the goto window (NS) and get the hell out of there. Some of this may be intended, in other cases just sloppy coding.
Sounds like Bob Truax (I know I am miss-spelling his name) the ex nasa engineer who designed Evil Kinevil's sky cycle that didn't make it over the snake river. Bob was the inspiration for the Andy Griffith Salvage One character. He was also planning on building his own rocket, for a sub-orbital flight. Only he wasn't fool enough to fly it. Maybe these two should have gotten together....
Debian is correct about the QT vs GPL license issue, however they ARE picking nits. The fact that KDE NEEDS to be linked against QT means that it is IMPLIED that it is OK to do so. The KDE team would NEVER take task against anyone who distributed KDE under the terms of it's license (GPL). Any distro that includes KDE has a snow ball's chance in hell of being sued. Debian knows this. They are making a stand here against licenses that are not 100% free. In this case it's a mix of licenses that don't play well with each other. There probably are non-offical .deb's of kde so anyone who wants to use KDE in debian can. Ask on debian-user and someone will probably even give you the url.
Having said all that, I am using Gnome. I have seen both (redhat has both, default is gnome) and I just like gnome better. (It's 'geekier'). I like debian, but I sometimes feel that they are politicaly too left wing to my taste. The underpinings of debian is sound though, and I can easily add whatever software I feel correct, even if it is NOT strickly 'free'. 'nuff said!
The 'contrib' section of debian is for any package that itself is totally free, but depends on a non-free package. Lyx is such a package. If the non-free libs required by lyx are not supplied, then while lyx could still be in contrib, it would be useless. Even worse, it couldn't be tested so how would you report any bugs against it? The user would have to get the non-free forms lib tarball from its' homepage and then install lyx from the debian archive.
Also in contrib are installers for non-free packages such as staroffice (isn't that free now?) and netscape. These packages require you to first get the non-free tarball into a temp dir and then run the installer package. This at least sets up the non-free program into the debian dir structure correctly and points various menus at it (such as in gnome). Other contrib packages are various wrappers around seti@home. At least seti@home is a good cause, even if the software is not open source...we should support the on going work here. (Yeah I would like to find a message from some little green men).
I hope they will continue to have these contrib packages in the archive, even though they do require non-free software. Mozilla does not replace netscape (it still sucks).
BTW did you know you can run Internet Explorer on linux under wine? YUCK!
I work for an ASP (application service provider). We host application software for our clients. We partner with MicroSoft. Microsoft is VERY interested in this model of software 'sales' because they do NOTHING but collect the money. We do all the 'dirty' work. ASP's save their customers money by outsourcing their IT departments. Soon anyone that DOESN'T compute by ASP will be shafted by the software providers.
Hey, for the corporate world, this is a not a bad thing. Business wants to USE their computers, not MAINTAIN them. But for the home user it SUCKS. Maybe MS wants to force HOME users into the ASP model. AOL would LOVE this!
Maybe MS is driving all home users to LINUX?
If Abbie Hoffman had published 'Steal this book' today would the book be banned and all copies burned because the government didn't want the information in there public? They couldn't do that then and they can't do that now because a little thing like the first ammendment gets in the way. No law can override the First Ammendment. This sort of thing needs a supreme court case real soon!
DVD contents are ALREADY compressed. How much more can 'mp4' actually compress it without destroying it? This IS comming at a bad time since now there IS some argument to the claim that DeCSS could be used for piracy. While 350mb is still a little too large for downloads (though many are downloading .iso images of Redhat 6.2, etc) it can be done overnight on an ISDN or 56K modem link. Also with CDR blanks now less than $0.50 a pop and burners under $200 there is yet another way to distribute pirated movies. The only hope for the people who cracked the DeCss is to overturn the DMCRA and claim fair use.
I think ebay is shooting itself in the foot. If I had items for sale on ebay I'd WANT search engines to find my auction and bring me business! The more bidders, the higher a price I can get, and ebay gets more commission! What are they complaining about. They can afford to buy faster computers! Real stupid on their part.
Don't forget that there is also bladeenc which being developed in sweeden where software patents don't seem to apply is also available.
Before you say NEVER, consider the fact that Microsoft DOES port it's apps to a platform (OS) that it DOESN'T earn any income from. In fact some of MS's apps first appeared on this platform before they were available on Windows. A platform BTW that many still think MS wanted to destroy. And yet today you can still get the latest MS apps on the Mac. Very soon now Linux will command a larger market share than the Mac. What will MS do then? If MS apps on Mac make good sense to MS then porting them to Linux must also make good sense.
What is being done to speed up the process of signing up new developers to Debian, and when will it be back on line?
Something needs to be done to get new releases of Debian out sooner. As it now stands by the time Potato is out (with a 2.2 kernel), the 2.4 kernel will have been released. Debian is the ONLY distro out now still shipping with the 2.0 kernel standard. If the entire distro can't be released sooner, the at least have a means to get major 'world wide' linux updates packaged.
I have an old HPLJIII purchased second hand for about $250. Toner for these warhorses runs between $50-$100 depending on where you buy and if you get HP brand or a refilled pack. Xerox now makes a toner cartridge for this printer and it's cheap. My only regret...I had a chance to get the IIID model (prints on both sides) for about $100 more and passed it up. Wish I had gotten that one instead. Saves a lot of trees! Works great with GS.
Besides, doesn't the e-one come with a WinModem?
There is a good reason why computer cases are made of metal, RF sheilding. While mother boards are getting better in being self-sheilding, the case is still part of the equation. Bet a computer built in a plexiglas case won't meet clase B fcc regs, let alone class A! You CAN make a case out of plastic, but usually must spray the inside with graphite or other rf conducting material. (Open up a Mac and see what I mean). If there is such a material that is also trasparent (I don't think so!) then this might work. Why should you care about rf sheilding? Wait till your roomate tries to listen to his radio or TV. Or the CB'er next door keys up and reboots your computer!