I keep a crossbow (loaded, with saftey on) in my freezer (back of house, easy to get to in the event of a confrontation... my office is two rooms over, where they would most likely be trying to steal one or more of my computers, hi-res cameras, digital cameras, video and dv cameras and miscellanous gadgets), and a glove handy so the metal doesn't stick to my hands.
Mostly used to scare off religious zealots, but has been necessary to point it at one too many humans. That person tried to file charges for my pointing the weapon at them (safety was on), but didn't when they realized I had a witness and a recording showing that they were trying to break down my door.
(By one too many, I mean I've only actually needed it for my own safety once).
I keep a crossbow (loaded) in the freezer, and a glove handy so the metal doesn't stick to my hands.
Mostly used to scare off religious zealots, but has been necessary to point it at one too many humans. That person tried to file charges for my pointing the weapon at them (safety was on), but didn't when they realized I had a witness and a recording showing that they were trying to break down my door.
(By one too many, I mean I've only actually needed it for my own safety once).
What _I_ don't want is for the US government to track anything that I am doing.
Why? I'm not a US citizen, nor do I live in the US, nor do I have any close-ish US relatives - that I know of.
Point is: If I don't have the right to vote Bush out of office (and I KNOW if they let international voters in, then Bush would be outed - he pisses too many people off), then Bush and his Feds can not have the right to track me...
I would say that the reason you can't install programs across platform is because although say, Redhat and Slackware are under the Linux umbrella, they are still effectively different operating systems.
Unless the streaming server and/or bandwidth supply gets slashdotted. And even connected to [one of, if not the] fastest commercial broadband (not Telco/ISP grade) NZ has to offer, AKA citylink (citylink.co.nz) slashdotting it wouldn't be hard. LTIL, you get a 10-100MBPS connection, assuming you're in the right building(s).
Didn't you see Futurama? In Y3k they are going to get Bender (and all the other Robots) to use his exhaust vent to maneuvre the earth further away from the Sun... geez.
I bet the appropriate PHBs in most Fortune 500s don't realize that most distros of Linux - no matter which Desktop you choose to use (KDE/Gnome, mostly) - come with more games. Like Tux Racer - which is way more fun than solitaire. Though, last I looked, it came with solitaire and a bunch of other games, too.
No... Linux already had a huge share of the market. With their claims of "95% Desktop Market Share", what Microsoft didn't count on was that even though IBM/HP/CPQ/Dell/Packard Bell/NEC/Sharp/Acer/etc was/are selling Windows pre-installed machines, users are finally wising up and are re-installing X-Windows or even Linspire - (Linux, not Windows) straight after their new purchase.
Point being that they are getting their 95% market share from units-shipped (pre installed on PC's) - not actual usage:)
Or at least, thats how it was in my fantasy world.
Yeah man, that MS Word "standard" pisses me off. I have applied for jobs (in the past) with companies requiring extensive knowledge of *nix (HP UX/Solaris or any given Linux variant) - only to be requested to send the document (eg my Cover Letter and CV/Resume) in MS Word Format.
I always have to explain to them that there isn't a Linux version of Microsoft Office... do you mind if I send it in PDF? (or the quasi-office compatible.doc format produced by OpenOffice)...
Well, for a start, after Windows XP's most excellent run with not having to be patched *ahem*, I've noticed _some_ phb's realizing that using MS software isn't always such a good idea. Around here, fewer and fewer companies are using exchange as their mail handler. I really hope this continues.
I suppose if they do implement this, however, we won't be able to email anyone daft enough to have a @msn.com or @hotmail.com email address... I'm sure that would go down well with msn/hotmail users who all-of-a-sudden are receiving little to no email than before
Then again, they might just think that MS has beefed up the anti-spam tools. Thats probably the BS they would receive from MS as an explanation too, I bet...
I don't exactly use Sender-ID for my businesses domains, but I have implemented (or at least tried...) the Sender Policy Framework (http://spf.pobox.com) so that in the event my mail server get's owned, my dns server has TXT entries for only the IP addresses and related networks that are allowed to send mail.
For me, it means there is less chance of my domains being blacklisted for sending SPAM... it means my message will mostly likely get through, and it means that complaints will be heard faster... because services like SpamCop to figure out that "since its not from this IP and/or email address combo, it's probably a forged return/sending address"... and so on. I think THAT, for me is a good idea.
Not that I send out too many emails a day - a hundred on a long horrible day at best... plus auto-generated monthly invoices to customers... but they're sent from another machine in the cluster anyway, so that won't usually bring up any red-flags unless someone manages to execute like CGIEmail or something... so they would have to own that machine and chmod to 777 or something like that anyway, so I figure there isn't too much to worry about, considering the network is monitored pretty closely and stuff.
We'll see how it pans out in a couple years, though.
Last time I looked, I was able to import WMA files into iTunes/Win32 - it just converted them to MP3 and stored them in the iTunes music library folder under my documents.
I know, by default it converts to AAC, but if you just take 10 seconds and change the default encoder to "MP3" in preferences, it seems to do it all quite nicely.
If you really wanted to convert from (insert non-mp3 format here) to MP3, there are plenty of freeware audio converters around, some of which probably let you strip any DRM which has been added in.
All else failing, just use the Disk-Writer plug in included in WinAmp, or the WAV encoder included in iTunes to convert a high-quality (=+256kbps) audio file to Stereo, 44.1KHz WAV file, and use your favorite MP3 encoder to encode the file to Stereo 44.1KHz 128/160/192kbps MP3. [Not as good as the real thing, but if you start out with a VHQ copy, you should get a reasonable result in the end]
Personally, I like the Creative Encoder included in Creative Playcenter Software (distributed with most creative products, or available for Download from their website... I don't know if it checks for creative hardware or not so...) because it's fast, and doesn't seem to add any extra BS in (such as DRM).
If it doesn't automatically stick ID3 tags into your new MP3's, use Musicmatch's supertagging (version 7.x or 8.x) and it should do it for you.
I know all that sounds complicated, but... if you so desperately want to get around DRM and so on... well, you gotta do what you gotta do.
I tried that at my old work [Switching everyone to Firefox]. Unfortunately they are both Intel AND Microsoft Gold Partners.
As you can probably imagine, it didn't go down too well.
And then, I was thinking about installing Firefox and using the big stupid "e" icon for IE on new OS installations. I left shortly before I was to check whether or not I could implement that.
I probably would have got fired if I had done it at all. I suppose they just wanted people to bring in their machines full of spyware for the $34 half hourly labour fee (Thats about US$20)
I bet SCO should be sh*tting themselves knowing that almost every linux distribution available at the moment could be sent between CalTech and CERN in 17 minutes!
Ahh! Now they can pirate our copyrighted code faster than before!
Wait a minute... it was a Win2k3 box. Heh. "Windows Server 2003 - now 0wned 600% faster than before."
Heh. You know what would be really funny? If that W2k3 Server had been owned... Then the kiddie (or CalTech student in their dorm room) owning the box could watch the full rate DVD porn stream. Hell, they could stream holographic porn. Or BluRay DVDs.
Having recently left a fairly major ISP in my country, I feel obligated to correct both the Microsoft bashers and the Microsoft sympathizers on some of the key points.
The thing is this: Microsoft Servers are Win2k3/IIS (for the most part. There may be some left on Win2k).
In part it has to do with bandwidth distribution, particularly when dealing with international downloads.
What happens when a million users (conservative estimate) go to download a 170MB file, such as Service Pack 2 (redist) all at once? Rather than having their server farm saturated with a million users, they use Akamai caching servers to distribute the files. Lets say they have an OC48 - 2.4GBPS which IIRC costs like $100k/month for a half decent one (conservative estimate for that kind of server farm, but you get my point). At a million users, you would be averaging about 2.4kbps. Not good. 56k users wouldn't notice, but us broadband users definately would.
So, what happens is, major ISPs whom happen to have partnerships with Akamai to distribute content, have these caching servers in their data centers all around the world.
What happens is effectively this: a client goes 'Hey! windowsupdate. microsoft.com! I need microsofthugeservicepack.exe', and since MS has a partnership with Akamai, the server passes it on like 'Wait a second... I've got a file here, but since your hostname is 202.202.202.202. newzealandisp.co.nz, you would be way better off getting it from nz01.windowsupdate.cache.akamai.net, cause that will save a shitload of international bandwidth'
So, in fact, it's not a "Microsoft Servers can't handle the load" scenario, it's more like "Using Akamai saves us a buttload of money and has a far better distribution network in place, so why don't we pay them like $100,000 a month, rather than building and maintaining one ourselves, which, despite being very cool, would be pretty much pointless and not as cost effective"...
Think - 1: Use Akamai bandwidth (like a transparent mirror, whose little yellow boxes just happen to run Linux or sometimes Solaris or BSD) for like $100,000 a month (guess), reach like 150 countries and 1-5 major ISPs in each country depending on it's size OR
2: Use your own for like $100,000 (guess) a month, have it go really slow at peak times, or even
3: Build own distribution network, for like $1,000,000 up front (say, 1000 servers @ $1,000 each, plus bandwidth costs from US, plus bandwidth costs for each country that has a mirror which could probably easily be $1,000 a month (conservative) in each country meaning ~$150,000 a month over all)
I mean, come on. They "duck and cover" behind Akamai for the very reason that when you, their user, is trying to download something off of their website/ftp server/auto update server, you want it to come through as quickly as possible. Microsoft, being the multi-billion-dollar corp that it is, is expected to deliver. You should be able to download that Service pack at 150KBps, so they utilize the aggregate bandwidth available from (in this case akamai) to deliver.
Just like when you go to major websites such as CNN, AOL, Google (et al ad infinitum), they too all use Akamai. The OS that the host machine itself runs is thus irrelavent. Netcraft basically does a fingerprint, and if their finger gets relegated off to an Akamai box, it could be because its a high traffic period, or, the Windows Server simply delegates finger probes (I know that sounds bad, but you know what I mean) to the Akamai box to perhaps give some sort of false impression.
You Linux Zealots should know better! I'll use Redhat as an example, here (though most other distros distribute their ISO images in a similar manner)
I know if I try to, for example, download the ISO or even any updates, off of say, the Ukranian Mirror for RH, it's not going to go as fast as if I downloaded off one of the New Zealand or Australian Mirrors. The only real difference here (in terms of who is using who) is that: Mirrors for L
I think what they are really advertising is the BROWSER part of the Mozilla package.
They are saying - Hey - in under 5 megs (about the size of a couple of Windows/IE Updates) you can have a better, faster, more secure*, popup-blocking, tabbed-browsing, skinnable browser. *Speaking broadly
(Hey - Skins are important to some people. Like my girlfriend. (Yes, she is three-dimensional and I have met her offline. Now here's something that might scare some of you - we live together... in the same house... Actually, that reminds me, must get her one of those "I heart my geek" t-shirts from thinkgeek next time she needs some clothes...))
Firefox is being advertised as like, a lean, mean browsing machine. Mozilla is for those who also want a fully featured [quote]Web-browser built for 2004, advanced e-mail and newsgroup client, IRC chat client, and HTML editing made simple.[/quote].
Myself, I rarely use newsgroups (Sometimes I just gotta sleep), and I already use [insert text editor based on whatever OS I am using that day] for HTML. Except sometimes when I'm required to use Windows - then I use Dreamweaver and Topstyle. And most of the Adobe and Macromedia Studio packages. Freehand. Director... that pretty much covers it. I think.
In fact, I must confess. I have a Windows machine. I own a brand name laptop. (Not HP, Dell, Compaq, IBM, NEC, Packard Bell, Sharp, Gateway... or more obviously Apple). For those sick of guessing, it's an Acer. All the aforementioned Win Apps are on it.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, Mozilla. Good browser. IE not bad, but broken enough for it to annoy me when people are like... how does spyware get on my machine and how do I stop popups.
Oh, and don't get me started with how MSN explorer is default in WinXP even in New Zealand where MSN Explorer is TOTALLY AND UTTERLY USELESS!!!!!!!!! Actually IIRC, it asks you when you create a new user profile and most people have no idea... so they click yes. I almost always have to fix the damn problem everytime someone I know buys a new machine. (I expect it is useless in other countries too, but you know... I'm not there, so...)
Mozilla. Less than 5 megs. Thats 15-20 minutes ish on dialup? Assuming that you have a decent line of course. Save yourself the trouble of IE. Download it. Use it. Most banking sites here handle it OK. Chances are, you will never have to use IE again.
Except for Windows Update, but most people rely on automatic updates if they have it turned on (rare) or don't know that Windows does need updating. They miss the "Windows Update" thing completely even though its in like 4 places in IE/Windows/Start Menu.
Anyway, basically, I don't think Mozilla will be superceded per se, but it won't be as popular for people looking for JUST an alternative browser. It will be the (hopefully obvious) choice for those looking for mail, news, and all that other stuff - to essentially replace the Microsoft suite (IE/Outlook/Frontpage Express).
Man, I should have just written that last paragraph.
Did you notice the faster connections available (OCX) - OC12 622MBPS for $19,999 per month. This is more what I would expect a medium-large ISP to have.
At 750Kbps you could have 829 users, which I imagine is a few blocks in most places. That would make your offering closer to a little over $24 a month.
Assuming you didn't want to make any money off of it, of course.
Personally, I would still charge $35 for the service - then not only does everyone have cheaper-than-the-big-boys-broadband, but I am then making $8290 a month profit (less other overheads such as rent, equipment, power, support etcetera).
Thats $100,000 a year (less aforementioned overheads.)
Not a bad plan, I would say. Now if only I can convince my local wholesale pipe provider to give me a pipe that big for that low low price.
Slashdot Mirror
Heh. Thats a troll if ever I saw one.
I'm a New Zealander. I've never had any issues with Voice Recognition software. We have no accents. :)
(It's true though: We dont slant our vowels like the Australians, the British and especially the Americans.)
I keep a crossbow (loaded, with saftey on) in my freezer (back of house, easy to get to in the event of a confrontation... my office is two rooms over, where they would most likely be trying to steal one or more of my computers, hi-res cameras, digital cameras, video and dv cameras and miscellanous gadgets), and a glove handy so the metal doesn't stick to my hands.
Mostly used to scare off religious zealots, but has been necessary to point it at one too many humans. That person tried to file charges for my pointing the weapon at them (safety was on), but didn't when they realized I had a witness and a recording showing that they were trying to break down my door.
(By one too many, I mean I've only actually needed it for my own safety once).
I keep a crossbow (loaded) in the freezer, and a glove handy so the metal doesn't stick to my hands.
Mostly used to scare off religious zealots, but has been necessary to point it at one too many humans. That person tried to file charges for my pointing the weapon at them (safety was on), but didn't when they realized I had a witness and a recording showing that they were trying to break down my door.
(By one too many, I mean I've only actually needed it for my own safety once).
Yeah. They don't want everyone to see how they fudge the drivers to tip the balance in their favour for hardware reviews
What _I_ don't want is for the US government to track anything that I am doing.
Why? I'm not a US citizen, nor do I live in the US, nor do I have any close-ish US relatives - that I know of.
Point is: If I don't have the right to vote Bush out of office (and I KNOW if they let international voters in, then Bush would be outed - he pisses too many people off), then Bush and his Feds can not have the right to track me...
I would say that the reason you can't install programs across platform is because although say, Redhat and Slackware are under the Linux umbrella, they are still effectively different operating systems.
Man. I wonder how many copies of the LOTR Deluxe DVD set could be stored in RAM?
Unless the streaming server and/or bandwidth supply gets slashdotted. And even connected to [one of, if not the] fastest commercial broadband (not Telco/ISP grade) NZ has to offer, AKA citylink (citylink.co.nz) slashdotting it wouldn't be hard. LTIL, you get a 10-100MBPS connection, assuming you're in the right building(s).
Didn't you see Futurama? In Y3k they are going to get Bender (and all the other Robots) to use his exhaust vent to maneuvre the earth further away from the Sun... geez.
What happens to the guy walking back to his car from the Adult Section of the video store...?
Ad: You could use some KY Jelly to go with that video.
That wouldn't work for the British or Rednecks... what, with their lack of teeth and all.
Software Patents are bad... mmmkay?
I bet the appropriate PHBs in most Fortune 500s don't realize that most distros of Linux - no matter which Desktop you choose to use (KDE/Gnome, mostly) - come with more games. Like Tux Racer - which is way more fun than solitaire. Though, last I looked, it came with solitaire and a bunch of other games, too.
No... Linux already had a huge share of the market. With their claims of "95% Desktop Market Share", what Microsoft didn't count on was that even though IBM/HP/CPQ/Dell/Packard Bell/NEC/Sharp/Acer/etc was/are selling Windows pre-installed machines, users are finally wising up and are re-installing X-Windows or even Linspire - (Linux, not Windows) straight after their new purchase.
:)
Point being that they are getting their 95% market share from units-shipped (pre installed on PC's) - not actual usage
Or at least, thats how it was in my fantasy world.
Yeah man, that MS Word "standard" pisses me off. I have applied for jobs (in the past) with companies requiring extensive knowledge of *nix (HP UX/Solaris or any given Linux variant) - only to be requested to send the document (eg my Cover Letter and CV/Resume) in MS Word Format.
.doc format produced by OpenOffice)...
I always have to explain to them that there isn't a Linux version of Microsoft Office... do you mind if I send it in PDF? (or the quasi-office compatible
Well, for a start, after Windows XP's most excellent run with not having to be patched *ahem*, I've noticed _some_ phb's realizing that using MS software isn't always such a good idea. Around here, fewer and fewer companies are using exchange as their mail handler. I really hope this continues.
I suppose if they do implement this, however, we won't be able to email anyone daft enough to have a @msn.com or @hotmail.com email address... I'm sure that would go down well with msn/hotmail users who all-of-a-sudden are receiving little to no email than before
Then again, they might just think that MS has beefed up the anti-spam tools. Thats probably the BS they would receive from MS as an explanation too, I bet...
I don't exactly use Sender-ID for my businesses domains, but I have implemented (or at least tried...) the Sender Policy Framework (http://spf.pobox.com) so that in the event my mail server get's owned, my dns server has TXT entries for only the IP addresses and related networks that are allowed to send mail.
For me, it means there is less chance of my domains being blacklisted for sending SPAM... it means my message will mostly likely get through, and it means that complaints will be heard faster... because services like SpamCop to figure out that "since its not from this IP and/or email address combo, it's probably a forged return/sending address"... and so on. I think THAT, for me is a good idea.
Not that I send out too many emails a day - a hundred on a long horrible day at best... plus auto-generated monthly invoices to customers... but they're sent from another machine in the cluster anyway, so that won't usually bring up any red-flags unless someone manages to execute like CGIEmail or something... so they would have to own that machine and chmod to 777 or something like that anyway, so I figure there isn't too much to worry about, considering the network is monitored pretty closely and stuff.
We'll see how it pans out in a couple years, though.
Last time I looked, I was able to import WMA files into iTunes/Win32 - it just converted them to MP3 and stored them in the iTunes music library folder under my documents.
I know, by default it converts to AAC, but if you just take 10 seconds and change the default encoder to "MP3" in preferences, it seems to do it all quite nicely.
If you really wanted to convert from (insert non-mp3 format here) to MP3, there are plenty of freeware audio converters around, some of which probably let you strip any DRM which has been added in.
All else failing, just use the Disk-Writer plug in included in WinAmp, or the WAV encoder included in iTunes to convert a high-quality (=+256kbps) audio file to Stereo, 44.1KHz WAV file, and use your favorite MP3 encoder to encode the file to Stereo 44.1KHz 128/160/192kbps MP3. [Not as good as the real thing, but if you start out with a VHQ copy, you should get a reasonable result in the end]
Personally, I like the Creative Encoder included in Creative Playcenter Software (distributed with most creative products, or available for Download from their website... I don't know if it checks for creative hardware or not so...) because it's fast, and doesn't seem to add any extra BS in (such as DRM).
If it doesn't automatically stick ID3 tags into your new MP3's, use Musicmatch's supertagging (version 7.x or 8.x) and it should do it for you.
I know all that sounds complicated, but... if you so desperately want to get around DRM and so on... well, you gotta do what you gotta do.
WinAmp had a version 4? Why didn't I get a copy!? And here I was thinking that Winamp2 + Winamp3 = Winamp5.
I tried that at my old work [Switching everyone to Firefox]. Unfortunately they are both Intel AND Microsoft Gold Partners.
As you can probably imagine, it didn't go down too well.
And then, I was thinking about installing Firefox and using the big stupid "e" icon for IE on new OS installations. I left shortly before I was to check whether or not I could implement that.
I probably would have got fired if I had done it at all. I suppose they just wanted people to bring in their machines full of spyware for the $34 half hourly labour fee (Thats about US$20)
I bet SCO should be sh*tting themselves knowing that almost every linux distribution available at the moment could be sent between CalTech and CERN in 17 minutes!
Ahh! Now they can pirate our copyrighted code faster than before!
Wait a minute... it was a Win2k3 box. Heh. "Windows Server 2003 - now 0wned 600% faster than before."
Heh. You know what would be really funny? If that W2k3 Server had been owned... Then the kiddie (or CalTech student in their dorm room) owning the box could watch the full rate DVD porn stream. Hell, they could stream holographic porn. Or BluRay DVDs.
THAT.... would be pretty cool.
Having recently left a fairly major ISP in my country, I feel obligated to correct both the Microsoft bashers and the Microsoft sympathizers on some of the key points.
The thing is this:
Microsoft Servers are Win2k3/IIS (for the most part. There may be some left on Win2k).
In part it has to do with bandwidth distribution, particularly when dealing with international downloads.
What happens when a million users (conservative estimate) go to download a 170MB file, such as Service Pack 2 (redist) all at once? Rather than having their server farm saturated with a million users, they use Akamai caching servers to distribute the files. Lets say they have an OC48 - 2.4GBPS which IIRC costs like $100k/month for a half decent one (conservative estimate for that kind of server farm, but you get my point). At a million users, you would be averaging about 2.4kbps. Not good. 56k users wouldn't notice, but us broadband users definately would.
So, what happens is, major ISPs whom happen to have partnerships with Akamai to distribute content, have these caching servers in their data centers all around the world.
What happens is effectively this: a client goes 'Hey! windowsupdate. microsoft.com! I need microsofthugeservicepack.exe', and since MS has a partnership with Akamai, the server passes it on like 'Wait a second... I've got a file here, but since your hostname is 202.202.202.202. newzealandisp.co.nz, you would be way better off getting it from nz01.windowsupdate.cache.akamai.net, cause that will save a shitload of international bandwidth'
So, in fact, it's not a "Microsoft Servers can't handle the load" scenario, it's more like "Using Akamai saves us a buttload of money and has a far better distribution network in place, so why don't we pay them like $100,000 a month, rather than building and maintaining one ourselves, which, despite being very cool, would be pretty much pointless and not as cost effective"...
Think -
1: Use Akamai bandwidth (like a transparent mirror, whose little yellow boxes just happen to run Linux or sometimes Solaris or BSD) for like $100,000 a month (guess), reach like 150 countries and 1-5 major ISPs in each country depending on it's size OR
2: Use your own for like $100,000 (guess) a month, have it go really slow at peak times, or even
3: Build own distribution network, for like $1,000,000 up front (say, 1000 servers @ $1,000 each, plus bandwidth costs from US, plus bandwidth costs for each country that has a mirror which could probably easily be $1,000 a month (conservative) in each country meaning ~$150,000 a month over all)
I mean, come on. They "duck and cover" behind Akamai for the very reason that when you, their user, is trying to download something off of their website/ftp server/auto update server, you want it to come through as quickly as possible. Microsoft, being the multi-billion-dollar corp that it is, is expected to deliver. You should be able to download that Service pack at 150KBps, so they utilize the aggregate bandwidth available from (in this case akamai) to deliver.
Just like when you go to major websites such as CNN, AOL, Google (et al ad infinitum), they too all use Akamai. The OS that the host machine itself runs is thus irrelavent. Netcraft basically does a fingerprint, and if their finger gets relegated off to an Akamai box, it could be because its a high traffic period, or, the Windows Server simply delegates finger probes (I know that sounds bad, but you know what I mean) to the Akamai box to perhaps give some sort of false impression.
You Linux Zealots should know better! I'll use Redhat as an example, here (though most other distros distribute their ISO images in a similar manner)
I know if I try to, for example, download the ISO or even any updates, off of say, the Ukranian Mirror for RH, it's not going to go as fast as if I downloaded off one of the New Zealand or Australian Mirrors. The only real difference here (in terms of who is using who) is that: Mirrors for L
I think what they are really advertising is the BROWSER part of the Mozilla package.
They are saying - Hey - in under 5 megs (about the size of a couple of Windows/IE Updates) you can have a better, faster, more secure*, popup-blocking, tabbed-browsing, skinnable browser.
*Speaking broadly
(Hey - Skins are important to some people. Like my girlfriend. (Yes, she is three-dimensional and I have met her offline. Now here's something that might scare some of you - we live together... in the same house... Actually, that reminds me, must get her one of those "I heart my geek" t-shirts from thinkgeek next time she needs some clothes...))
Firefox is being advertised as like, a lean, mean browsing machine. Mozilla is for those who also want a fully featured [quote]Web-browser built for 2004, advanced e-mail and newsgroup client, IRC chat client, and HTML editing made simple.[/quote].
Myself, I rarely use newsgroups (Sometimes I just gotta sleep), and I already use [insert text editor based on whatever OS I am using that day] for HTML. Except sometimes when I'm required to use Windows - then I use Dreamweaver and Topstyle. And most of the Adobe and Macromedia Studio packages. Freehand. Director... that pretty much covers it. I think.
In fact, I must confess. I have a Windows machine. I own a brand name laptop. (Not HP, Dell, Compaq, IBM, NEC, Packard Bell, Sharp, Gateway... or more obviously Apple). For those sick of guessing, it's an Acer. All the aforementioned Win Apps are on it.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, Mozilla. Good browser. IE not bad, but broken enough for it to annoy me when people are like... how does spyware get on my machine and how do I stop popups.
Oh, and don't get me started with how MSN explorer is default in WinXP even in New Zealand where MSN Explorer is TOTALLY AND UTTERLY USELESS!!!!!!!!!
Actually IIRC, it asks you when you create a new user profile and most people have no idea... so they click yes. I almost always have to fix the damn problem everytime someone I know buys a new machine.
(I expect it is useless in other countries too, but you know... I'm not there, so...)
Mozilla. Less than 5 megs. Thats 15-20 minutes ish on dialup? Assuming that you have a decent line of course. Save yourself the trouble of IE. Download it. Use it. Most banking sites here handle it OK. Chances are, you will never have to use IE again.
Except for Windows Update, but most people rely on automatic updates if they have it turned on (rare) or don't know that Windows does need updating. They miss the "Windows Update" thing completely even though its in like 4 places in IE/Windows/Start Menu.
Anyway, basically, I don't think Mozilla will be superceded per se, but it won't be as popular for people looking for JUST an alternative browser. It will be the (hopefully obvious) choice for those looking for mail, news, and all that other stuff - to essentially replace the Microsoft suite (IE/Outlook/Frontpage Express).
Man, I should have just written that last paragraph.
Did you notice the faster connections available (OCX) - OC12 622MBPS for $19,999 per month. This is more what I would expect a medium-large ISP to have.
At 750Kbps you could have 829 users, which I imagine is a few blocks in most places. That would make your offering closer to a little over $24 a month.
Assuming you didn't want to make any money off of it, of course.
Personally, I would still charge $35 for the service - then not only does everyone have cheaper-than-the-big-boys-broadband, but I am then making $8290 a month profit (less other overheads such as rent, equipment, power, support etcetera).
Thats $100,000 a year (less aforementioned overheads.)
Not a bad plan, I would say. Now if only I can convince my local wholesale pipe provider to give me a pipe that big for that low low price.