You might be on to something if somebody can come up with a slightly less annoying/intrusive way of doing it. If you think about it, the real target audience here isn't the average Slashdot-grandmother even but the person who'll click on/download anything that a website tells them to. That might be the best way to get Firefox where it is needed most.
Anybody have a reference that'll prove it's illegal to use a SSN as an ID number? I'm at a University that requires me to produce my SSN pretty much constantly. It's my student ID number, generally the number used to post exam scores online so as to "hide the identity" of the student receiving each grade. Last week I had to write it on the top of every page of a many-paged exam so that an army of TAs could use it to keep track of my pages during grading. Scary shit... I'd love to be able to put a stop to that with a legal reference.
It seems to me Google is too smart to do something that intrusive. I think it would likely be something akin to Gmail - just a small, text-based ad located somewhere on the chat window.
I'm not too afraid of Google (yet) because they seem smart enough to realize they're not Microsoft - they need to keep up their tradition of not sucking if they want to keep growing.
As far as PDF capabilities go, I've found that OO works much better than the Word/Acrobat combination I'd used in the past. I've actually switched a few people over to OO for that reason alone - 'Print to PDF' wasn't reliable in Word, but it works great in OO.
I can't speak for your situation, but at my university the school has gone all PC/MS for financial reasons. Even an IT purchasing department with the best of intentions can't turn down the free software and equipment deals they get from MS and the like. Those companies want students hooked on their products before they enter the real world, so they're willing to give away all kinds of stuff. Opensource might be free, but somebody's still got to pay for the hardware - better a gigantic corporation than the university, eh?
I too used ATI's MMC because it came with my ATI TV Tuner, but the software was horrid. I was going to return the tuner and buy a TiVo but I came across Intervideo WinDVR. It still has some quirks, but it definitely made the PC DVR option at least tolerable. I can't speak for MCE, but if there isn't a significantly more stable piece of software out there I'll be going for a TiVo next time around.
I can't speak for everyone else, but I think Gmail's intrusion is more benign because I was informed about it up front and it is something I have to accept with a free service. An ISP providing a paid service that I entered into with at least slightly more of an expectation of privacy....that's a different story.
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what an 'ipod-killer' is? Never heard that term before...
You might be on to something if somebody can come up with a slightly less annoying/intrusive way of doing it. If you think about it, the real target audience here isn't the average Slashdot-grandmother even but the person who'll click on/download anything that a website tells them to. That might be the best way to get Firefox where it is needed most.
Anybody have a reference that'll prove it's illegal to use a SSN as an ID number? I'm at a University that requires me to produce my SSN pretty much constantly. It's my student ID number, generally the number used to post exam scores online so as to "hide the identity" of the student receiving each grade. Last week I had to write it on the top of every page of a many-paged exam so that an army of TAs could use it to keep track of my pages during grading. Scary shit ... I'd love to be able to put a stop to that with a legal reference.
It seems to me Google is too smart to do something that intrusive. I think it would likely be something akin to Gmail - just a small, text-based ad located somewhere on the chat window. I'm not too afraid of Google (yet) because they seem smart enough to realize they're not Microsoft - they need to keep up their tradition of not sucking if they want to keep growing.
It's about time somebody saved me the hassle of having to hit that CC button, my efficiency is going to skyrocket now.
As far as PDF capabilities go, I've found that OO works much better than the Word/Acrobat combination I'd used in the past. I've actually switched a few people over to OO for that reason alone - 'Print to PDF' wasn't reliable in Word, but it works great in OO.
I can't speak for your situation, but at my university the school has gone all PC/MS for financial reasons. Even an IT purchasing department with the best of intentions can't turn down the free software and equipment deals they get from MS and the like. Those companies want students hooked on their products before they enter the real world, so they're willing to give away all kinds of stuff. Opensource might be free, but somebody's still got to pay for the hardware - better a gigantic corporation than the university, eh?
I too used ATI's MMC because it came with my ATI TV Tuner, but the software was horrid. I was going to return the tuner and buy a TiVo but I came across Intervideo WinDVR. It still has some quirks, but it definitely made the PC DVR option at least tolerable. I can't speak for MCE, but if there isn't a significantly more stable piece of software out there I'll be going for a TiVo next time around.
I can't speak for everyone else, but I think Gmail's intrusion is more benign because I was informed about it up front and it is something I have to accept with a free service. An ISP providing a paid service that I entered into with at least slightly more of an expectation of privacy....that's a different story.