Well I guess you could argue that the extra equipment people would buy (ie set top boxes, new tvs etc) would be part of the "public good" as it generates tax revenue (along the same lines as the story on/. a few weeks ago about people having their houses torn down for corporations which would generate more tax revenue), and the other thing would be the freeing up of the radio spectrum which the analogue signals currently occupy (I'm assuming that the replacement digital content would use less?) for something else (for what, I don't know though).
I've got a floppy drive on this machine, and the only reason for that is Windows requires SATA drivers to be given to it on a floppy disk during install. If MS let me use a CD or even a USB pen drive for that it wouldn't be necessary (it even asked for a floppy in the A: drive when no floppy drive was connected).
I doubt too many are going to "run out and buy longhorn when it comes out", if it's anything like XP then it will be gradually phased in due to being installed as default with most new store-bought computers.
I'm in the UK and I mainly use Ebuyer, Savastore.com and Clickonit. Ebuyer generally has the cheapest prices of the three, but Savastore sometimes beats Ebuyer. Clickonit usually delivers quickest of the three and usually seems to have cheapest delivery charges too, however their hardware is usually (although not always) the most expensive of the three.
You're using Firefox I guess? If firefox doesn't recognise a url entered as a url it does an "I'm Feeling Lucky" google search on the "url" entered. The link is broken and is starts with "http" and the first result on searching for http (and thus the I'm Feeling Lucky link) on Google is Microsoft.com.
In broadband uptake, yes the UK is probably more technologicaly backwards than a lot of western countries (fastest connection I can get here is 512kbps down/256kbps up due to distance from exchange and lack of cable internet), but computer hardware is not a problem - I'm writing this on a machine with a AMD64 3500 CPU, GeForce6600GT Graphics card, A8N-SLI DELUXE motherboard, total 520GB HD storage and 1GB PC4000 RAM.
Eclipse Internet (UK ADSL) - 8/10 (Outages fairly rare - and when they happen they're usually sorted out quickly (within 30 mins at very most, even during night time), good support (only called them 3 times, but all 3 times I didn't have to hold and contacted a technical knowledgable person straight away), no ports blocked, no download caps, low pings - only negatives is the cost which is relatively uncompetitive now with other ISPs although was only £1-3 higher than others when I subscribed).
Yeah I know about that, but I'd have to add my old contact list (ok not too bad on Trillian, it'll do it automatically if I just change the sign in details) to the new account and some people on the list don't need to know my proper email address (ie the kind of people who send "chain-emails" which fill with 2000+ address and probably end up getting harvested by spammers at some point).
Using Trillian I don't have to worry about the spam reports popping up (Just +1s the "new emails" notice), and GAIM isn't too bad either in that regard (can disable the feature I think).
Not even as long ago as when MS bought Hotmail - Hotmail has gone down in the last few months - buggy switching between accounts (at least on Firefox anyway - although it could possibly be a GAIM or Trillian problem from the places I've noticed the bug), changing the method of navigating between mails to javascript instead of a simple href (so you can't for example just middle-click on each email to open a tab with it in, at least by default in Firefox - maybe an extension can fix this), more timeouts on pages and pages not loading fully etc.
Hotmail wasn't too bad (main problem I'd say previously was spam and spam filters (many false positives)), but now it's got terrible and if I didn't know better I'd say MS was trying to kill it off.
Luckily I now use my GMail account for anything relatively important - I pretty much just keep my hotmail account around for MSN Messenger and places I may have forgottern to switch the email address over to.
True, however the sites the article mentioned are companies or government sites, not just random "here are my kittens" personal sites where that's to be expected.
This is the most blatent GPL violation I've ever seen, I mean come on:
This, compared to this, or this compared to this. Almost completely identical, you'd think that they'd at the very least change the names of the buttons, or at least make some attempt to hide what they've done. About the only thing I can see they've changed is added some icons and changed the main login picture - even the icons for "accounts", "sign on" etc are identical.
If it ever did get to court i'd say its an open and shut case, but hey I'm not in the legal business. Maybe the GAIM team should set up a legal fund, I'd donate at least something and I'm sure many others would too.
I've got a Canon PIXMA IP2000, it's a fairly decent printer but lack of support for Linux and 64-bit Windows is a PITA (IIRC people emailing support either got answers that 32-bit drivers work fine (they don't), they will be developed with XP-64 is released (it already is) and that they don't plan to support it). Can get it to print fine in both using BJC drivers, but still have to hook it up to my 32-bit Win laptop for cleaning print heads etc.
I'm running it on my Toshiba laptop with SP1, 2ghz celeron, 768MB RAM, not running any server services though, and it seems more responsive than XP SP2 was on the same machine. I usually leave it on overnight and before on XP SP2 it was a bit sluggish when using it in the morning, with server 2003 its much more responsive.
"in the UK I believe we do not have a freedom of speech. CAn someone confirm this?"
We don't: "Piggins is also charged with two counts of possession of the magazine Stormer". Charging people for posession of a damn magazine doesnt sound like freedom of speech to me - I can see why distributing the magazine would be illegal under "incitement to racial hatred" laws even if I disagree with them, but having people charged because they posess a magazine is absurd in my opinion.
Won't this proposal likely be rejected too then, seeing as IIRC a major reason the previous one was rejected was because it disallowed open source implementatins?
I'm fairly sure that won't work - well for one thing pressed DVDs are usually too big to fit on most DVD-Rs (ok you can get dual layer DVDs but they really aren't cost effective currently per gb) without using DVD-shrink or a similer program to shrink it down a bit.
I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong - but I think theres a CSS key which has to be placed on the backup DVD in a specific place for the DVD to be able to be decrypted - and most blank DVDs don't allow you to burn in this particular place. To back it up you really have to decrypt it (well I guess a software DVD player could be written which stores a DB of CSS keys for backup DVDs but I'm not aware of any at the moment).
IIRC they were found guilty of violating anti-monopoly laws (using MS Windows to push another monopoly using WMP) and one of their punishments is to allow further integration by releasing documentation to allow this.
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Well I guess you could argue that the extra equipment people would buy (ie set top boxes, new tvs etc) would be part of the "public good" as it generates tax revenue (along the same lines as the story on /. a few weeks ago about people having their houses torn down for corporations which would generate more tax revenue), and the other thing would be the freeing up of the radio spectrum which the analogue signals currently occupy (I'm assuming that the replacement digital content would use less?) for something else (for what, I don't know though).
OK then I've just found this which sounds like it should solve the problem of requiring a floppy drive. Hope someone else finds it useful too.
I've got a floppy drive on this machine, and the only reason for that is Windows requires SATA drivers to be given to it on a floppy disk during install. If MS let me use a CD or even a USB pen drive for that it wouldn't be necessary (it even asked for a floppy in the A: drive when no floppy drive was connected).
"Plus how are you supposed to draw mustaches and balls on all the pictures for the next class to see?"
Hack the server with the "text book" stored on?
I doubt too many are going to "run out and buy longhorn when it comes out", if it's anything like XP then it will be gradually phased in due to being installed as default with most new store-bought computers.
I'm in the UK and I mainly use Ebuyer, Savastore.com and Clickonit. Ebuyer generally has the cheapest prices of the three, but Savastore sometimes beats Ebuyer. Clickonit usually delivers quickest of the three and usually seems to have cheapest delivery charges too, however their hardware is usually (although not always) the most expensive of the three.
True. However on the other hand you wouldn't like it if you got sued for making hammers which could be used to break into workshops, among other uses.
Don't need to rewrite it in java, just use a java telnet or ssh client and connect to a box with Nethack on.
You're using Firefox I guess? If firefox doesn't recognise a url entered as a url it does an "I'm Feeling Lucky" google search on the "url" entered. The link is broken and is starts with "http" and the first result on searching for http (and thus the I'm Feeling Lucky link) on Google is Microsoft.com.
In broadband uptake, yes the UK is probably more technologicaly backwards than a lot of western countries (fastest connection I can get here is 512kbps down/256kbps up due to distance from exchange and lack of cable internet), but computer hardware is not a problem - I'm writing this on a machine with a AMD64 3500 CPU, GeForce6600GT Graphics card, A8N-SLI DELUXE motherboard, total 520GB HD storage and 1GB PC4000 RAM.
Eclipse Internet (UK ADSL) - 8/10 (Outages fairly rare - and when they happen they're usually sorted out quickly (within 30 mins at very most, even during night time), good support (only called them 3 times, but all 3 times I didn't have to hold and contacted a technical knowledgable person straight away), no ports blocked, no download caps, low pings - only negatives is the cost which is relatively uncompetitive now with other ISPs although was only £1-3 higher than others when I subscribed).
"Cool, does that mean the EU would fund development of new Finland drinking games too?"
Probably. IIRC they once clamped down on bananas which weren't bent at the correct angle.
tag to a
tag rather than some complicated hack that might be patentable"
Unfortunatly I wouldn't be surprised changing that
that was patentable.
Yeah I know about that, but I'd have to add my old contact list (ok not too bad on Trillian, it'll do it automatically if I just change the sign in details) to the new account and some people on the list don't need to know my proper email address (ie the kind of people who send "chain-emails" which fill with 2000+ address and probably end up getting harvested by spammers at some point).
Using Trillian I don't have to worry about the spam reports popping up (Just +1s the "new emails" notice), and GAIM isn't too bad either in that regard (can disable the feature I think).
Not even as long ago as when MS bought Hotmail - Hotmail has gone down in the last few months - buggy switching between accounts (at least on Firefox anyway - although it could possibly be a GAIM or Trillian problem from the places I've noticed the bug), changing the method of navigating between mails to javascript instead of a simple href (so you can't for example just middle-click on each email to open a tab with it in, at least by default in Firefox - maybe an extension can fix this), more timeouts on pages and pages not loading fully etc.
Hotmail wasn't too bad (main problem I'd say previously was spam and spam filters (many false positives)), but now it's got terrible and if I didn't know better I'd say MS was trying to kill it off.
Luckily I now use my GMail account for anything relatively important - I pretty much just keep my hotmail account around for MSN Messenger and places I may have forgottern to switch the email address over to.
True, however the sites the article mentioned are companies or government sites, not just random "here are my kittens" personal sites where that's to be expected.
This is the most blatent GPL violation I've ever seen, I mean come on:
This, compared to this, or this compared to this. Almost completely identical, you'd think that they'd at the very least change the names of the buttons, or at least make some attempt to hide what they've done. About the only thing I can see they've changed is added some icons and changed the main login picture - even the icons for "accounts", "sign on" etc are identical.
If it ever did get to court i'd say its an open and shut case, but hey I'm not in the legal business. Maybe the GAIM team should set up a legal fund, I'd donate at least something and I'm sure many others would too.
Wasn't it Winston Churchill who said "The best argument against democracy is a five minute chat with the average voter"?
I've got a Canon PIXMA IP2000, it's a fairly decent printer but lack of support for Linux and 64-bit Windows is a PITA (IIRC people emailing support either got answers that 32-bit drivers work fine (they don't), they will be developed with XP-64 is released (it already is) and that they don't plan to support it). Can get it to print fine in both using BJC drivers, but still have to hook it up to my 32-bit Win laptop for cleaning print heads etc.
I'm running it on my Toshiba laptop with SP1, 2ghz celeron, 768MB RAM, not running any server services though, and it seems more responsive than XP SP2 was on the same machine. I usually leave it on overnight and before on XP SP2 it was a bit sluggish when using it in the morning, with server 2003 its much more responsive.
"in the UK I believe we do not have a freedom of speech. CAn someone confirm this?"
We don't: "Piggins is also charged with two counts of possession of the magazine Stormer". Charging people for posession of a damn magazine doesnt sound like freedom of speech to me - I can see why distributing the magazine would be illegal under "incitement to racial hatred" laws even if I disagree with them, but having people charged because they posess a magazine is absurd in my opinion.
Won't this proposal likely be rejected too then, seeing as IIRC a major reason the previous one was rejected was because it disallowed open source implementatins?
Same, this is absurd, the rich don't need to get richer. UK people can find their MPs here.
I'm fairly sure that won't work - well for one thing pressed DVDs are usually too big to fit on most DVD-Rs (ok you can get dual layer DVDs but they really aren't cost effective currently per gb) without using DVD-shrink or a similer program to shrink it down a bit.
I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong - but I think theres a CSS key which has to be placed on the backup DVD in a specific place for the DVD to be able to be decrypted - and most blank DVDs don't allow you to burn in this particular place. To back it up you really have to decrypt it (well I guess a software DVD player could be written which stores a DB of CSS keys for backup DVDs but I'm not aware of any at the moment).
IIRC they were found guilty of violating anti-monopoly laws (using MS Windows to push another monopoly using WMP) and one of their punishments is to allow further integration by releasing documentation to allow this.