Dude... Sprint roams onto Verizon's network (with both voice and data) when you're out of a Sprint service area. Hence, Sprint's coverage area is no less than Verizon's.
Unfortunately, a lot of this roaming is at 1xRTT speeds which is a little slow. Sprint also has 3G speed issues in some markets but Network Vision is helping with this, along with bringing LTE which will be a big improvement over Clear's spotty 2500MHz WiMAX network.
The only other issue with roaming is that the phone will desperately hold on to a weak Sprint signal over a stronger Verizon (or US Cellular, or local provider) signal which can still cause missed calls and poor call quality. This is usually only a problem in some buildings, and is partly due to 1900MHz not penetrating buildings as well as 800MHz. Thankfully, it isn't a common issue and they can often be talked into providing a free femtocell (unlike Verizon)
Despite these issues, Sprint is still a very good carrier in a lot of ways. Their customer service has improved a lot and they are working on their network.
It should not surprise anyone that Verizon is going to eventually push people off the unlimited plans. However, if you have unlimited data now, you should not worry until you upgrade your device (or your contract expires). They do retain the rights to change plans and pricing at any time, but they would have to let everyone out of their contract. They will just wait out the current contracts rather than let everyone out since the "issue" of unlimited will work itself out in less than 2 years from the date they stop allowing contract renewals on the old unlimited plans. If they want to boot the users who burn through ridiculous amounts of data such as 1TB a month now, they can deal with those on a case by case basis.
Right now, the only un-throttled unlimited service in the US is with Sprint, who isn't known for fast 3G speeds, and is just getting ready to launch LTE in a handful of markets. Rural customers will be waiting quite some time for Sprint LTE and some may never see it. Also, Sprint may decide to drop unlimited someday. AT&T has caps and overages (and places still stuck on EDGE), and T-Mobile has caps + throttling, and limited coverage in rural areas (also has places stuck on EDGE). The value oriented prepaid carriers all cap or throttle as far as I know. Leaving Verizon just to prove a point isn't likely to accomplish any more than leaving AT&T.
To the carriers defense, there's only so much capacity to go around. LTE will help, but usage continues to grow. More spectrum helps (but this complicates device design and roaming). More cell sites would help too, but they are becoming next to impossible to build in urban and suburban areas, where they are needed most, due to ridiculous health concerns, aesthetic / property value concerns (which is silly since most people want their mobile phones to work at home), and general local government roadblocks for permits.
Verizon users used to pay around $40 for unlimited data on a BlackBerry or Windows Mobile device. This was before the iPhone, and before streaming video and music was common over wireless networks. In fact, I seem to recall that streaming was blocked in the terms of service. Typical usage was low - mine was less than 100MB. The browsers on most devices were terrible and couldn't load a full site without crashing or rendering it in an unreadable mess, so it was hard to use a lot without tethering which was also not allowed. Now, 2 GB for $30 seems a little high, but it is more value for the money than what was available just a few years ago.
I don't want to give up my unlimited plan any more than anyone else, but I never expected it to last forever either. At the end of the day, the carriers are seeing a shift away from voice usage and towards data usage. That's why you can now get an unlimited voice plan for about the same cost as 1,000 minutes a few years ago. Voice isn't the money maker anymore. The wireless carriers are in business to make money, and will make sure that continues to happen. And before anyone suggests having the government run the networks, think of the last time you dealt with the DMV, IRS, or any other government oriented operation. Then look at just about any politician to see the very definition of greed.
Cap & Trade won't swap smokestacks for windmills. Instead, it will just push energy costs through the roof and push most manufacturing jobs that are left overseas where there are no pollution controls at all. For anyone who is left here, all of these costs will be pushed right on to the consumer, as no business can afford to absorb this massive tax increase, nor should they be expected to absorb it even if they could.
It won't push people into smaller cars. Americans spend too much time in our cars to drive around in a micro car. Not all of us live in big cities with public transportation and easy access to stores. The Smart Fortwo couldn't even fit a one week load of groceries for the average American family. We have states that are larger than entire countries in other parts of the world - what works for them doesn't work for us.
All of this for reducing Carbon Dioxide - which is not proven to be a pollutant, and for reducing global warming - even when there is no proof that human activities are impacting climate.
No. This is about people making cell phones not work in places that they would otherwise work. It is also about broadcasting on a frequency in a way that you have no legal right to. It is also about potentially disrupting service in places nearby your establishment, such as the immediate area outside or the business next door.
So people who are on call don't deserve to have some sort of life? A surgeon with special skills (there are many types of surgeons), or a sysadmin for a small company?
Any decent phone is going to have vibrate mode, which is an easy solution to a lot of problems.
All jamming cell phone signals does is annoy customers, and cause potentially dangerous situations in case of an emergency. That is exactly why it is illegal. Remember that emergency responders might need to use phones, too. Also, many public radio systems in the US broadcast somewhere in the 800MHz range if I recall correctly. You certainly wouldn't want to jam those. Although the cell phone jamming devices might not be intending on jamming those, I somehow doubt that these devices are being made with much consideration of other nearby frequencies given the fact that they are illegal in the first place and there is obviously no regulatory approval on these.
Besides, I don't see that many people being overly rude with their phones. Sure, some people talk loudly and have loud/annoying ring tones. But I just don't see that much of it (and when I do, they are the same ones that talk loudly to the person sitting across the table from them). What bothers me more is when people bring their kids and they cry, scream (the high pitched ones are especially annoying), and in the case of restaurants, make a mess. Then, they just either ignore the kid or think it is "cute". That behavior is far more rude and distracting than anyone I have seen using a mobile phone.
I have a Samsung ML-2251N printer and the installer also replaces the standard lpr command by symlinking it to a script called slpr, which brings up a windows-like print GUI when you try to print things. This is highly annoying as it doesn't behave exactly like lpr and requires a GUI. It may also be SUID as well.
You can remove all of the SUID crap and point/usr/bin/lpr back to the right place. The proprietary driver still works and is much more secure. It prints faster with the Samsung driver than with the open source PCL driver. One day I might add true PostScript capabilities to it to try to work around both issues.
Keep in mind that the printer driver's control panel and other stuff that Samsung installs is also SUID. The SUID garbage happens even when installing a regular printer without the scanning capabilities.
I like that they at least tried to write a Linux driver, which is many steps further than a lot of companies, but it does need to stop stomping all over the system like a Windows application would.
But sheeple are more than happy to spend money on a Kia or Hyundai, in full knowledge of the quality control issues because they read Consumer Reports, but it's cheap and gets good gas mileage, and has all kinds of neat features, right?
Actually, both have been showing signs of improving. Some recent studies have shown some of the Hyundai products to be right up there with Toyota and Honda in reliability. See Google.
They make a black version with gray keys as well as a USB version. They also have one with the Windows keys which I have re-mapped to other functions in Linux.
How, exactly, is this news? Basically, the article says you can overload a server and slow it down, or have major issues if the whole system goes down and takes all associated virtual machines down with it.
How is this different than overloading a system without virtualization? Too many databases on one physical machine will kill performance whether or not virtualization is used. Sure, products like VMWare cause some overhead, but it isn't that much on newer systems. As for the bandwidth, I agree with everyone else that says throw another NIC in. It doesn't get much easier than that. Again, bandwidth can be an issue with or without the use of virtual machines.
Virtualization is great for a lot of things... especially Windows systems. I manage some Windows servers at clients that don't have that many users (and have a very low load as a result), but can't put much else on them because things start stomping on each other and breaking. Virtualization solves this problem. Once load increases to the point where a new server is needed, it is almost trivial to move the virtual machine over.
Oh, I almost forgot about licensing proprietary apps in this environment. It is a pain, just like it is without virtual machines.
I had to argue with them to activate additional Terminal Server licenses on a server that already had some activated from a few months ago. They insisted that the information I was giving them was incorrect, and that I should speak to support. I finally tried this hoping to get someone with a clue, and they tried to charge me over $200 to open a support case. I told them that this wasn't going to happen and tried calling back again.
It turns out that their servers dealing with volume licenses were down and not everyone knew about it. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I finally got it out, but it wasted well over an hour of my time and annoyed the hell out of me. And before someone says volume licenses don't require activation, that is not always true. Terminal services licenses do require activation even under volume licensing programs.
Then, there was the time that they insisted I needed to buy a new copy of XP
even though I was just re-installing it on the same system it came on. After a
few minutes of arguing, they hung up on me. On the second call, I was able to
talk to someone with a clue, but ththis situation wasted time and annoyed the hell out of me.
I'm sick of having to ask for permission to use software that has already been paid for, and even more sick of dealing with bullshit like this. If I have to implement a Linux server very quickly without advance notice, I know I can actually do it without running into issues like this.
One of the reasons I bought the phone I have (RAZR V3c) is that it was the only reasonably priced phone on my carrier that had a mini USB interface. I picked up a cable for $5 instead of $40 so I could hook it up to my computer and charge using that. I use the same cable for many other devices and don't have to carry a charger around with me.
We all know that Linux is great for slower computers if it is set up properly. GNOME and KDE will be slow most of the time, but a small window manager will work fine.
Windows XP can run fine on older hardware if you disable all of the extra crap, like the themes and the side panes on Windows Explorer. Getting rid of extra services will also help. The key is to disable everything that makes it pretty. Sure, it will look more like Windows NT 4 or 2000, but it will run fairly well.
The problem with Windows and Linux isn't the OS and included programs as much as it is the other applications. Every program keeps getting more bloated. Let's use AOL Instant Messenger as an example: every release adds more and more crap that really isn't necessary. More and more programs are doing this. Most people don't know about Gaim, so they continue to use AIM. OpenOffice.org runs slow for me on real old hardware, while Microsoft Office for Windows 95 runs fine. That would probably be the real reasoning for running applications from a central server.
Linux is great. I use it whenever possible because it is a better OS in terms of code quality, efficiency, and features. However, the applications seem to cause most of the problems on both sides.
When I'm talking about Windows, I mean the NT based versions. The old 9x/Me releases were not good operating systems.
Road Runner has already implemented a limit on outgoing messages. You can send e-mail through the SMTP server to up to 1,000 addresses per IP address per day. If you go over the limit, the message will bounce and you will be directed to this page.
You can still use the Web Mail server (https://webmail.yourcitycode.rr.com) to send mail if you go over the limit. Another alternative is Dial Access. You can use the free dialup service to send additional e-mail through the SMTP server.
Slashdot Mirror
Dude... Sprint roams onto Verizon's network (with both voice and data) when you're out of a Sprint service area. Hence, Sprint's coverage area is no less than Verizon's.
Unfortunately, a lot of this roaming is at 1xRTT speeds which is a little slow. Sprint also has 3G speed issues in some markets but Network Vision is helping with this, along with bringing LTE which will be a big improvement over Clear's spotty 2500MHz WiMAX network.
The only other issue with roaming is that the phone will desperately hold on to a weak Sprint signal over a stronger Verizon (or US Cellular, or local provider) signal which can still cause missed calls and poor call quality. This is usually only a problem in some buildings, and is partly due to 1900MHz not penetrating buildings as well as 800MHz. Thankfully, it isn't a common issue and they can often be talked into providing a free femtocell (unlike Verizon)
Despite these issues, Sprint is still a very good carrier in a lot of ways. Their customer service has improved a lot and they are working on their network.
It should not surprise anyone that Verizon is going to eventually push people off the unlimited plans. However, if you have unlimited data now, you should not worry until you upgrade your device (or your contract expires). They do retain the rights to change plans and pricing at any time, but they would have to let everyone out of their contract. They will just wait out the current contracts rather than let everyone out since the "issue" of unlimited will work itself out in less than 2 years from the date they stop allowing contract renewals on the old unlimited plans. If they want to boot the users who burn through ridiculous amounts of data such as 1TB a month now, they can deal with those on a case by case basis.
Right now, the only un-throttled unlimited service in the US is with Sprint, who isn't known for fast 3G speeds, and is just getting ready to launch LTE in a handful of markets. Rural customers will be waiting quite some time for Sprint LTE and some may never see it. Also, Sprint may decide to drop unlimited someday. AT&T has caps and overages (and places still stuck on EDGE), and T-Mobile has caps + throttling, and limited coverage in rural areas (also has places stuck on EDGE). The value oriented prepaid carriers all cap or throttle as far as I know. Leaving Verizon just to prove a point isn't likely to accomplish any more than leaving AT&T.
To the carriers defense, there's only so much capacity to go around. LTE will help, but usage continues to grow. More spectrum helps (but this complicates device design and roaming). More cell sites would help too, but they are becoming next to impossible to build in urban and suburban areas, where they are needed most, due to ridiculous health concerns, aesthetic / property value concerns (which is silly since most people want their mobile phones to work at home), and general local government roadblocks for permits.
Verizon users used to pay around $40 for unlimited data on a BlackBerry or Windows Mobile device. This was before the iPhone, and before streaming video and music was common over wireless networks. In fact, I seem to recall that streaming was blocked in the terms of service. Typical usage was low - mine was less than 100MB. The browsers on most devices were terrible and couldn't load a full site without crashing or rendering it in an unreadable mess, so it was hard to use a lot without tethering which was also not allowed. Now, 2 GB for $30 seems a little high, but it is more value for the money than what was available just a few years ago.
I don't want to give up my unlimited plan any more than anyone else, but I never expected it to last forever either. At the end of the day, the carriers are seeing a shift away from voice usage and towards data usage. That's why you can now get an unlimited voice plan for about the same cost as 1,000 minutes a few years ago. Voice isn't the money maker anymore. The wireless carriers are in business to make money, and will make sure that continues to happen. And before anyone suggests having the government run the networks, think of the last time you dealt with the DMV, IRS, or any other government oriented operation. Then look at just about any politician to see the very definition of greed.
Cap & Trade won't swap smokestacks for windmills. Instead, it will just push energy costs through the roof and push most manufacturing jobs that are left overseas where there are no pollution controls at all. For anyone who is left here, all of these costs will be pushed right on to the consumer, as no business can afford to absorb this massive tax increase, nor should they be expected to absorb it even if they could.
It won't push people into smaller cars. Americans spend too much time in our cars to drive around in a micro car. Not all of us live in big cities with public transportation and easy access to stores. The Smart Fortwo couldn't even fit a one week load of groceries for the average American family. We have states that are larger than entire countries in other parts of the world - what works for them doesn't work for us.
All of this for reducing Carbon Dioxide - which is not proven to be a pollutant, and for reducing global warming - even when there is no proof that human activities are impacting climate.
Ludicrous speed, of course.
That's not the problem. The problem is when the kid screams for 15 minutes and the parents don't do anything about it.
No. This is about people making cell phones not work in places that they would otherwise work. It is also about broadcasting on a frequency in a way that you have no legal right to. It is also about potentially disrupting service in places nearby your establishment, such as the immediate area outside or the business next door.
So people who are on call don't deserve to have some sort of life? A surgeon with special skills (there are many types of surgeons), or a sysadmin for a small company?
Any decent phone is going to have vibrate mode, which is an easy solution to a lot of problems.
All jamming cell phone signals does is annoy customers, and cause potentially dangerous situations in case of an emergency. That is exactly why it is illegal. Remember that emergency responders might need to use phones, too. Also, many public radio systems in the US broadcast somewhere in the 800MHz range if I recall correctly. You certainly wouldn't want to jam those. Although the cell phone jamming devices might not be intending on jamming those, I somehow doubt that these devices are being made with much consideration of other nearby frequencies given the fact that they are illegal in the first place and there is obviously no regulatory approval on these.
Besides, I don't see that many people being overly rude with their phones. Sure, some people talk loudly and have loud/annoying ring tones. But I just don't see that much of it (and when I do, they are the same ones that talk loudly to the person sitting across the table from them). What bothers me more is when people bring their kids and they cry, scream (the high pitched ones are especially annoying), and in the case of restaurants, make a mess. Then, they just either ignore the kid or think it is "cute". That behavior is far more rude and distracting than anyone I have seen using a mobile phone.
I have a Samsung ML-2251N printer and the installer also replaces the standard lpr command by symlinking it to a script called slpr, which brings up a windows-like print GUI when you try to print things. This is highly annoying as it doesn't behave exactly like lpr and requires a GUI. It may also be SUID as well.
/usr/bin/lpr back to the right place. The proprietary driver still works and is much more secure. It prints faster with the Samsung driver than with the open source PCL driver. One day I might add true PostScript capabilities to it to try to work around both issues.
You can remove all of the SUID crap and point
Keep in mind that the printer driver's control panel and other stuff that Samsung installs is also SUID. The SUID garbage happens even when installing a regular printer without the scanning capabilities.
I like that they at least tried to write a Linux driver, which is many steps further than a lot of companies, but it does need to stop stomping all over the system like a Windows application would.
Actually, both have been showing signs of improving. Some recent studies have shown some of the Hyundai products to be right up there with Toyota and Honda in reliability. See Google.
They make a black version with gray keys as well as a USB version. They also have one with the Windows keys which I have re-mapped to other functions in Linux.
Clicky keyboards are nice, but why pay $80 for the Das Keyboard when you can get a newly manufactured Model M for less money?
How, exactly, is this news? Basically, the article says you can overload a server and slow it down, or have major issues if the whole system goes down and takes all associated virtual machines down with it.
How is this different than overloading a system without virtualization? Too many databases on one physical machine will kill performance whether or not virtualization is used. Sure, products like VMWare cause some overhead, but it isn't that much on newer systems. As for the bandwidth, I agree with everyone else that says throw another NIC in. It doesn't get much easier than that. Again, bandwidth can be an issue with or without the use of virtual machines.
Virtualization is great for a lot of things... especially Windows systems. I manage some Windows servers at clients that don't have that many users (and have a very low load as a result), but can't put much else on them because things start stomping on each other and breaking. Virtualization solves this problem. Once load increases to the point where a new server is needed, it is almost trivial to move the virtual machine over.
Oh, I almost forgot about licensing proprietary apps in this environment. It is a pain, just like it is without virtual machines.
It turns out that their servers dealing with volume licenses were down and not everyone knew about it. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I finally got it out, but it wasted well over an hour of my time and annoyed the hell out of me. And before someone says volume licenses don't require activation, that is not always true. Terminal services licenses do require activation even under volume licensing programs.
Then, there was the time that they insisted I needed to buy a new copy of XP even though I was just re-installing it on the same system it came on. After a few minutes of arguing, they hung up on me. On the second call, I was able to talk to someone with a clue, but ththis situation wasted time and annoyed the hell out of me.
I'm sick of having to ask for permission to use software that has already been paid for, and even more sick of dealing with bullshit like this. If I have to implement a Linux server very quickly without advance notice, I know I can actually do it without running into issues like this.
Probably.
Licenses will probably be required for passengers as well.
One of the reasons I bought the phone I have (RAZR V3c) is that it was the only reasonably priced phone on my carrier that had a mini USB interface. I picked up a cable for $5 instead of $40 so I could hook it up to my computer and charge using that. I use the same cable for many other devices and don't have to carry a charger around with me.
I don't have any experience with Sprint, but it doesn't take a week with Verizon Wireless. It is a simple process:
1. Get the ESN from the back of the phone, under the battery.
2. Call them or go to the online account management site. Go to the appropiate line and you will be able to enter the ESN there.
3. Wait a few minutes. Then, dial *228 then Send from the wireless phone. Select option 1 when prompted.
4. The phone is now programmed.
We all know that Linux is great for slower computers if it is set up properly. GNOME and KDE will be slow most of the time, but a small window manager will work fine.
Windows XP can run fine on older hardware if you disable all of the extra crap, like the themes and the side panes on Windows Explorer. Getting rid of extra services will also help. The key is to disable everything that makes it pretty. Sure, it will look more like Windows NT 4 or 2000, but it will run fairly well.
The problem with Windows and Linux isn't the OS and included programs as much as it is the other applications. Every program keeps getting more bloated. Let's use AOL Instant Messenger as an example: every release adds more and more crap that really isn't necessary. More and more programs are doing this. Most people don't know about Gaim, so they continue to use AIM. OpenOffice.org runs slow for me on real old hardware, while Microsoft Office for Windows 95 runs fine. That would probably be the real reasoning for running applications from a central server.
Linux is great. I use it whenever possible because it is a better OS in terms of code quality, efficiency, and features. However, the applications seem to cause most of the problems on both sides.
When I'm talking about Windows, I mean the NT based versions. The old 9x/Me releases were not good operating systems.
I think there's another way: Having your web site linked to by Slashdot.
It's driving me Krazy!
You can still use the Web Mail server (https://webmail.yourcitycode.rr.com) to send mail if you go over the limit. Another alternative is Dial Access. You can use the free dialup service to send additional e-mail through the SMTP server.
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