I bought a new Metro back in '93. I commute 40 miles to and from work every day where I regularly get 35 - 40 mpg when I drive reasonably. When I'm in a hurry my milage goes down to approx 30mpg. Unfortunately, the damn thing is wearing out and some of the major parts arent designed to be replaced. The lower ball joints are welded into the lower control arm thus requiring the replacement of the whole assembly. I suspect that the newer hybrid cars are constructed in the same way to shave weight off the design. A lot of money to spend for a trick throw away vehicle.
Direcway has recently switched over to their DW6000 adapter that has these same snooping features. I think that in the future they want to be able to charge you on a "per device" basis. I stuck a hardware firewall between the sat modem and my network. Only one outside observable IP that way. Seems to be working, so far...
In response to your first point: I don't know if I agree with your statement but what I do know for a fact is that governments and municipalities have little need for "state of the art" equipment. For the engineering departments of these organizations that may have a need, there are superior choices to PC/Windows for these applications. these systems are generally even more expensive (ESRI ARC running on a SUN runs into the many thousands of dollars). So you buy cheep hardware (The best Dell is still cheaper than a middle of the line SUN) and bitch about the OS being, in your opinion, too expensive.
As to your other arguments: I have never defended MS's marketing tactics. I am simply saying that what you and others perceive as being overpriced is actually cheaper in the long run. Having a multitude of application software to choose from that is specifically designed for a MS platform has value. Third party vendors do not have to pay to support other operating systems, which lowers their costs that get passed on to you as cheap software choices. If you want to complain about over priced products, try looking at licensing costs for engineering packages such as Autodesk Inventor.
As I have said before, other choices have always been available, they are just usually more expensive than a PC/Windows package.
I'd like fries with my burger and coke, please...
Any university student worth his salt will figure a war around this spyware. After all, that's what it really is, isn't it?
p.s. I'll be putting on my aluminum foil hat soon.
No other companies make notebook computers that use another OS besided Windows? What about Mac? Oh, wait... They overcharge for both their hardware and OS... Actually, during the time in question there were (and still are) companies that sold generic laptops with no OS. If you wanted to go with the big name (Dell et al), you got what you got. The point still stands, you make your choices, live with them.
I can make the same comments about computer hardware. Dell, Compaq, Gateway, etc... were/are not the only place to buy computers. I don't know about you, but I believe the only "real" reason to go with a big mfgr. is for the customer support. I have been building my own pc systems since before windows 3.1. I have made the choice of having control of what hardware and software goes into the box over having an overseas technician at my beck and call. I have had that decision bite me a few times (hardware compatibility) in the past but I live by my decisions and accept the consequences, which is really my point.
We live in a free market society. If I put a $1,000,000 price tag on my 1974 Pontiac and you feel that you need it soooo bad that you are willing to pay for it, hey shame on you. My point is, there was other software available during the time in question. If the decision was made my the govt. of MN that with all things considered it was cheaper to buy MS than to switch over to something else they should live with their decision.
There was other software available. The desktop users may have not wanted to try and learn new/other software or had an IT dept. that was willing to administer multiple party apps., point being that we should learn to live with our decisions instead of suing over them... Something to think about.
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I bought a new Metro back in '93. I commute 40 miles to and from work every day where I regularly get 35 - 40 mpg when I drive reasonably. When I'm in a hurry my milage goes down to approx 30mpg. Unfortunately, the damn thing is wearing out and some of the major parts arent designed to be replaced. The lower ball joints are welded into the lower control arm thus requiring the replacement of the whole assembly. I suspect that the newer hybrid cars are constructed in the same way to shave weight off the design. A lot of money to spend for a trick throw away vehicle.
Direcway has recently switched over to their DW6000 adapter that has these same snooping features. I think that in the future they want to be able to charge you on a "per device" basis. I stuck a hardware firewall between the sat modem and my network. Only one outside observable IP that way. Seems to be working, so far...
In response to your first point: I don't know if I agree with your statement but what I do know for a fact is that governments and municipalities have little need for "state of the art" equipment. For the engineering departments of these organizations that may have a need, there are superior choices to PC/Windows for these applications. these systems are generally even more expensive (ESRI ARC running on a SUN runs into the many thousands of dollars). So you buy cheep hardware (The best Dell is still cheaper than a middle of the line SUN) and bitch about the OS being, in your opinion, too expensive.
As to your other arguments: I have never defended MS's marketing tactics. I am simply saying that what you and others perceive as being overpriced is actually cheaper in the long run. Having a multitude of application software to choose from that is specifically designed for a MS platform has value. Third party vendors do not have to pay to support other operating systems, which lowers their costs that get passed on to you as cheap software choices. If you want to complain about over priced products, try looking at licensing costs for engineering packages such as Autodesk Inventor.
As I have said before, other choices have always been available, they are just usually more expensive than a PC/Windows package.
I'd like fries with my burger and coke, please... Any university student worth his salt will figure a war around this spyware. After all, that's what it really is, isn't it? p.s. I'll be putting on my aluminum foil hat soon.
No other companies make notebook computers that use another OS besided Windows? What about Mac? Oh, wait... They overcharge for both their hardware and OS... Actually, during the time in question there were (and still are) companies that sold generic laptops with no OS. If you wanted to go with the big name (Dell et al), you got what you got. The point still stands, you make your choices, live with them.
I can make the same comments about computer hardware. Dell, Compaq, Gateway, etc... were/are not the only place to buy computers. I don't know about you, but I believe the only "real" reason to go with a big mfgr. is for the customer support. I have been building my own pc systems since before windows 3.1. I have made the choice of having control of what hardware and software goes into the box over having an overseas technician at my beck and call. I have had that decision bite me a few times (hardware compatibility) in the past but I live by my decisions and accept the consequences, which is really my point.
We live in a free market society. If I put a $1,000,000 price tag on my 1974 Pontiac and you feel that you need it soooo bad that you are willing to pay for it, hey shame on you. My point is, there was other software available during the time in question. If the decision was made my the govt. of MN that with all things considered it was cheaper to buy MS than to switch over to something else they should live with their decision.
There was other software available. The desktop users may have not wanted to try and learn new/other software or had an IT dept. that was willing to administer multiple party apps., point being that we should learn to live with our decisions instead of suing over them... Something to think about.
I'm sure I can type the word corinthian faster than I can draw a corinthian column
True, Ad-Aware does find cookies, but every now and then it finds Alexa or Keybot. I'll deal with some false positives to get rid of the baddies.