Absolutely, totally, without question, no f***ing way! I am a huge proponent of the eBook concept and have a number of them in my collection already. However it is because of such moronic thinking that they are all either in an open format or are unmodified PDF's. I will never purchase an eBook that has been modified in such a crass and unspeakable manner. Why don't we just recut all of our classic media - movies, newspapers, books, music, etc. and put in ads for everything from Hooters to Joe's Pizza Shack?
So far my eBook reader of choice has been the Fujitsu p1630 series tablet but I have been eyeing the Kindle for its size, weight and library of books. This right here just changed my mind - the Kindle and its bloody advertising can just keep Bezos warm in his office, I'm sticking with the Fujitsu!
I've been interested in eBooks for quite a while now, but the problems I have with all of them are not the small controls, or the lack of natural page flip options (though the idea here is rather cool).
My biggest problems with all current eBook readers is the very limited (and usually highly proprietary) formats that they support, and when they do support other formats the lack of efficiency in way they deal with it. For example the Sony eBook reader will read PDF's, but the further you go into a PDF the slower the page flips get. The same problem is not evident, of course!, when using the Sony default (and highly DRM'ed) format. Also the eInk technology is still rather slow in the page updates... Have not used a Kindle yet, so cannot comment on how it behaves or the efficiency of their alternate format supports.
So far the best reader I have found are the Fujitsu P1510/1610/1620 series of small form factor tablets. Using a standard OS on it, I can load any eBook reader software I want, and still be able to use it as a travelling computer when I need it. Of course the weight is much heavier then the "real" eBook readers, but at least I'm not restricted to their formats.
Give me a break! Both reading the transcript of the scene and watching it proves that nothing "naughty" was shown only implied. Last time I checked it was not against any law to imply anything sexual, whereas actually showing it could be considered obscene. But they did not show anything!!!!!
I am getting extremely tired of the right-wing, morally superior elements of this country dictating the kinds of things that we can see, hear or even read about. Grow up and open you damn eyes! This is the real world where people do have sex (shocking!), talk about it and even actually get some! A two second shot of a nipple, or an implied suggestion of an orgy will not destroy the moral fiber of anyone... Just get over it. The show was about teenagers, who probably talk about sex even more than any other age group. Any show about them that shows it is only being honest.
Compared to the rest of the world America is among the most prudest countries.... What's next, hajibs for all the women?...me
I am actually looking to buy a new PC sometime in the next month or so... I've always purchases systems from local shops, either in parts for self-assembly or if I did not have enough time for them to assemble it, so at least I do not have to worry about what the big guys will put into their systems.
Therefore leaving out the Dell's and HP's of the world, what generic components are safe to purchase which are (for now) DRM free? Asus boards, MSI boards, etc?
One way we could all fight back would be to compile and keep a list of non-DRM'd hardware and only purchase from those companies...
Are these shows in Las Vegas (aka the USA for those that forgot it) or somewhere in the Middle East? Last time I checked we had Freedom of Expression and Speech in this country and we do not dictate what our women can or cannot wear!
If somebody is willing to pay a beautiful woman to wear a skimpy outfit, and she is willing, then hey so be it! As for those that do not like it, do not look at them or go to these shows! Remember freedom of choice applies to you as well!
Amen to that! But this applies not only to OS/App/Document, but also to basic networking. My father has a cable modem at his house but a DSL line at his business. His email is via the DSL provider, so anytime anything goes wrong with email he always calls the DSL provider's help guy. (Who is luckily a nice guy and puts up with all this and always ends up calling me.)
This has happend not only when his cable modem at home went down, but the last time he was on a business trip and the network at the hotel was out, he called the DSL provider because his "email was down"!
A nice simple breakdown of the major components of a network based service (end user app->end user device->local LAN->internet->service provider) would be well worth the pages!
While I am always up for more things being free, in this case I think having some cost, preferably variable, would make more sense.
I personally have never been able to justify the cost for the what I would get, considering that many of those services I already have from other sources. I do not need their email (have 4 of them already), do not need virus checking (have Symantec for that that), do not need data storage (have tons of space available to me at my various client sites and at home), and so on. However I would appreciate the.Mac account for things like the iChat programs, and the access to the news/information there.
I think they should have a structured system where some users could elect to get all the functions for the full cost, others could have only a subset for a smaller amount.
That being said, if the entire service were say about $50/yr I would sign up for it.
By users paying only $0.99 per song, think how much more we could have made if all those people had purchased the entire album at $14.95... We have to call our lawyers/lobbyists/bought politicians and put a stop to all this thievery!
There is a small company in Bothell WA that makes (or used to make?) a line of POTS, ISDN and T1 simulators as of at least three years ago. You can usually find their products on eBay for reasonable costs. Last I heard their products are quite good and have been used by other's in your position in the past.
Peter
I had a similar problem at a client of mine that runs primarly on Mac's. They not only wanted multiple shared calendars, but also wanted shared contact information. As you, I looked into ways of sharing both iCal and Address Book, but came up with short comings to both.
After poking around the net for a while, I found these guys http://www.xcnetwork.com/index.jsp. Ok, so its costs money but it solves all the issues, and best of all it is cross-platform.
Their various plug-ins run on the Mac, Windows and Unix platforms as do the server back end. Basically the local plug-in allows them to put the respective data onto the local software, while still letting your system think that you are the only user of it.
Even though we finally did not use them (the owner purchased a comprehensive office product that among other functions has both a calendaring and a contact management system in it), the demo that I setup was functional.
Peter
The U.S. Secret Service admitted that the tracking information is part of a deal struck with selected color laser printer manufacturers, ostensibly to identify counterfeiters.
Ok, so anyone have a list of which manufacturers and printer models are part of this "selected" set?
And this is why I get up every two hours and nuke my pillows in the microwave... Never give the little buggers a chance to get a foothold (do they even have feet?!) As a nice fringe benefit, during the winter months the warm pillow is rather nice to sleep on.
...I immediately format any name brand PC that I have setup for anyone, myself included. Gets rid of all that junk the mfg's love to put on, any potential spyware, etc.
I smell a potential business here! You can startup a business where you keep old systems and software around to read old data, transfer it to a modern computer and burn it out to the portable medium of the day...
Wait, everyone ignore that - I don't want the competition...
Seriously, even today if you have an old record in some weird format you can always find a company that can transfer the data off somehow and put it onto a newer format so you can use it. In fact, wasn't there an article out here a year or so ago about a couple of university kids that were working on system by which they could put an old LP onto a flatbed scanner, scan an image of it, and then feed that image into some software that could "read" the grooves and turn it into WAV files? Basically this is going to be a viable business for the future, where sucess is measured by how old your equipment is...
You are right, the majority of people will not know what the "DRM Security Features" actually imply, but these usually are the same people who have such little to no computer skills that they are most likely to buy what somebody they know or trust recommends them. For most this is likely to be their kids, a friend or possibly a co-worker. These are the people that we can talk to, show them the issues (if they understand them) and then install an alternative OS and teach them that.
I personally have worked for MS in the early days of my career, have always had a Windows system as my primary desktop and have even recommended to new users (including my parents) that they buy a PC with Windows for the simply reason of compatibility to my equipment as well as to their friends. However I have also been working with the Macintosh OS for the last few years and been learning/using *BSD for even longer. As each of these restrictive elements of Longhorn come out, I become more and more convinced that not only will I never purchase/install it, but will switch my home network, family systems, and all of my clients to non-Microsoft solutions.
I am a freelance network consultant dealing with small businesses and home users, the large majority of which have purchased equipment and software on my recommendation alone. I am hardly likely to recommend that they use something that I am not willing to use myself. MS may not really think that us little guys are capable of affecting their business, but as more and more people start to steer their clients/friends/family away from MS products, it will start to affect larger and larger customers as well - and that they will notice.
Obviously MS will always have plenty of clients (huge companies are not likely to switch no matter what), but it will affect their bottom line and that even MS will have to notice and respond to.
Suprisingly well, but then again it only has to support two users. Currently it has 384M of RAM and an 80G IDE hard drive and a few months ago I threw an older SCSI card into it and connected an external 35G DLT backup drive. I primarly use it for authentication for the Windows clients (two desktops and two laptops), printer sharing and data storage.
With such a light load it actually works extremely well. The interface is snappy, resource usage is light and other than running out of space on my data drive I am quite happy with it.
..to outdue my datacenter. At the moment it is made up of one P100 OpenBSD Apache server, a P3/933 Windoze box, a P3/550 Win 2k3 test server and another P3/550 that I haven't decided what to do with...
Ok, so this is a home "datacenter" but at least its mine...:-)
While I am all for using technology in schools, god knows they need 'em, it seems like each time they do this the systems get locked down really tight, but when one sharp kid finds a way around that they just get busted for it. One heck of a way to disourage using your brain...
Which just goes to prove how out of touch with technology and the future the Court really is. And if that is not depressing enough, just think how much worse it will be when Bush puts in a real conservative fuddy-duddy in place of whoever retires next...
So the guy who makes his money by forcing these ads on us is complaning that the Internet will perish if ads are blocked? Riiiight. I think he meant his business will perish when more people discover the ability to permanently kill annoying ads...
I personally do not even believe that content on the 'net will dry up if ad revenue goes away. For one there will always be some sort of ads, maybe even embedded into the story/data/whatever similar to the way movies and TV shows have various product placements, but more importantly as the web gains in influence people will find other ways to generate revenue.
The only difference I expect to see if DoubleClick dies out is that my firewall's rulebase becomes a few lines shorter!
Peter
Slashdot Mirror
Absolutely, totally, without question, no f***ing way! I am a huge proponent of the eBook concept and have a number of them in my collection already. However it is because of such moronic thinking that they are all either in an open format or are unmodified PDF's. I will never purchase an eBook that has been modified in such a crass and unspeakable manner. Why don't we just recut all of our classic media - movies, newspapers, books, music, etc. and put in ads for everything from Hooters to Joe's Pizza Shack? So far my eBook reader of choice has been the Fujitsu p1630 series tablet but I have been eyeing the Kindle for its size, weight and library of books. This right here just changed my mind - the Kindle and its bloody advertising can just keep Bezos warm in his office, I'm sticking with the Fujitsu!
I've been interested in eBooks for quite a while now, but the problems I have with all of them are not the small controls, or the lack of natural page flip options (though the idea here is rather cool).
My biggest problems with all current eBook readers is the very limited (and usually highly proprietary) formats that they support, and when they do support other formats the lack of efficiency in way they deal with it. For example the Sony eBook reader will read PDF's, but the further you go into a PDF the slower the page flips get. The same problem is not evident, of course!, when using the Sony default (and highly DRM'ed) format. Also the eInk technology is still rather slow in the page updates... Have not used a Kindle yet, so cannot comment on how it behaves or the efficiency of their alternate format supports.
So far the best reader I have found are the Fujitsu P1510/1610/1620 series of small form factor tablets. Using a standard OS on it, I can load any eBook reader software I want, and still be able to use it as a travelling computer when I need it. Of course the weight is much heavier then the "real" eBook readers, but at least I'm not restricted to their formats.
Give me a break! Both reading the transcript of the scene and watching it proves that nothing "naughty" was shown only implied. Last time I checked it was not against any law to imply anything sexual, whereas actually showing it could be considered obscene. But they did not show anything!!!!!
...me
I am getting extremely tired of the right-wing, morally superior elements of this country dictating the kinds of things that we can see, hear or even read about. Grow up and open you damn eyes! This is the real world where people do have sex (shocking!), talk about it and even actually get some! A two second shot of a nipple, or an implied suggestion of an orgy will not destroy the moral fiber of anyone... Just get over it. The show was about teenagers, who probably talk about sex even more than any other age group. Any show about them that shows it is only being honest.
Compared to the rest of the world America is among the most prudest countries.... What's next, hajibs for all the women?
So this is what you get when you uninstall your Anti-Virus software?
I am actually looking to buy a new PC sometime in the next month or so... I've always purchases systems from local shops, either in parts for self-assembly or if I did not have enough time for them to assemble it, so at least I do not have to worry about what the big guys will put into their systems.
Therefore leaving out the Dell's and HP's of the world, what generic components are safe to purchase which are (for now) DRM free? Asus boards, MSI boards, etc?
One way we could all fight back would be to compile and keep a list of non-DRM'd hardware and only purchase from those companies...
Peter
"My that was a tasty slime mold"....
:-)
Well somebody had to do it!
Are these shows in Las Vegas (aka the USA for those that forgot it) or somewhere in the Middle East? Last time I checked we had Freedom of Expression and Speech in this country and we do not dictate what our women can or cannot wear!
If somebody is willing to pay a beautiful woman to wear a skimpy outfit, and she is willing, then hey so be it! As for those that do not like it, do not look at them or go to these shows! Remember freedom of choice applies to you as well!
...klaatu barada nikto...
Amen to that! But this applies not only to OS/App/Document, but also to basic networking. My father has a cable modem at his house but a DSL line at his business. His email is via the DSL provider, so anytime anything goes wrong with email he always calls the DSL provider's help guy. (Who is luckily a nice guy and puts up with all this and always ends up calling me.)
This has happend not only when his cable modem at home went down, but the last time he was on a business trip and the network at the hotel was out, he called the DSL provider because his "email was down"!
A nice simple breakdown of the major components of a network based service (end user app->end user device->local LAN->internet->service provider) would be well worth the pages!
Peter
While I am always up for more things being free, in this case I think having some cost, preferably variable, would make more sense.
.Mac account for things like the iChat programs, and the access to the news/information there.
I personally have never been able to justify the cost for the what I would get, considering that many of those services I already have from other sources. I do not need their email (have 4 of them already), do not need virus checking (have Symantec for that that), do not need data storage (have tons of space available to me at my various client sites and at home), and so on. However I would appreciate the
I think they should have a structured system where some users could elect to get all the functions for the full cost, others could have only a subset for a smaller amount.
That being said, if the entire service were say about $50/yr I would sign up for it.
Peter
Oh that's easy...
By users paying only $0.99 per song, think how much more we could have made if all those people had purchased the entire album at $14.95... We have to call our lawyers/lobbyists/bought politicians and put a stop to all this thievery!
There is a small company in Bothell WA that makes (or used to make?) a line of POTS, ISDN and T1 simulators as of at least three years ago. You can usually find their products on eBay for reasonable costs. Last I heard their products are quite good and have been used by other's in your position in the past. Peter
After poking around the net for a while, I found these guys http://www.xcnetwork.com/index.jsp. Ok, so its costs money but it solves all the issues, and best of all it is cross-platform.
Their various plug-ins run on the Mac, Windows and Unix platforms as do the server back end. Basically the local plug-in allows them to put the respective data onto the local software, while still letting your system think that you are the only user of it.
Even though we finally did not use them (the owner purchased a comprehensive office product that among other functions has both a calendaring and a contact management system in it), the demo that I setup was functional. Peter
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/list.php/
Ok, so anyone have a list of which manufacturers and printer models are part of this "selected" set?
And this is why I get up every two hours and nuke my pillows in the microwave... Never give the little buggers a chance to get a foothold (do they even have feet?!) As a nice fringe benefit, during the winter months the warm pillow is rather nice to sleep on.
...I immediately format any name brand PC that I have setup for anyone, myself included. Gets rid of all that junk the mfg's love to put on, any potential spyware, etc.
Wait, everyone ignore that - I don't want the competition...
Seriously, even today if you have an old record in some weird format you can always find a company that can transfer the data off somehow and put it onto a newer format so you can use it. In fact, wasn't there an article out here a year or so ago about a couple of university kids that were working on system by which they could put an old LP onto a flatbed scanner, scan an image of it, and then feed that image into some software that could "read" the grooves and turn it into WAV files? Basically this is going to be a viable business for the future, where sucess is measured by how old your equipment is...
I kid, I kid....
I personally have worked for MS in the early days of my career, have always had a Windows system as my primary desktop and have even recommended to new users (including my parents) that they buy a PC with Windows for the simply reason of compatibility to my equipment as well as to their friends. However I have also been working with the Macintosh OS for the last few years and been learning/using *BSD for even longer. As each of these restrictive elements of Longhorn come out, I become more and more convinced that not only will I never purchase/install it, but will switch my home network, family systems, and all of my clients to non-Microsoft solutions.
I am a freelance network consultant dealing with small businesses and home users, the large majority of which have purchased equipment and software on my recommendation alone. I am hardly likely to recommend that they use something that I am not willing to use myself. MS may not really think that us little guys are capable of affecting their business, but as more and more people start to steer their clients/friends/family away from MS products, it will start to affect larger and larger customers as well - and that they will notice.
Obviously MS will always have plenty of clients (huge companies are not likely to switch no matter what), but it will affect their bottom line and that even MS will have to notice and respond to.
With such a light load it actually works extremely well. The interface is snappy, resource usage is light and other than running out of space on my data drive I am quite happy with it.
Ok, so this is a home "datacenter" but at least its mine... :-)
While I am all for using technology in schools, god knows they need 'em, it seems like each time they do this the systems get locked down really tight, but when one sharp kid finds a way around that they just get busted for it. One heck of a way to disourage using your brain...
Which just goes to prove how out of touch with technology and the future the Court really is. And if that is not depressing enough, just think how much worse it will be when Bush puts in a real conservative fuddy-duddy in place of whoever retires next...
I personally do not even believe that content on the 'net will dry up if ad revenue goes away. For one there will always be some sort of ads, maybe even embedded into the story/data/whatever similar to the way movies and TV shows have various product placements, but more importantly as the web gains in influence people will find other ways to generate revenue.
The only difference I expect to see if DoubleClick dies out is that my firewall's rulebase becomes a few lines shorter! Peter