but why would you need to have a file dated in the 17th century?
I deal with data whose comprehensiveness and detail (generally) increases with time. I work in a subject where important, empirical data has been collected and recorded (and taxed) since Roman times. I can perfectly well see that I'd specify applications for reporting the changing state of our understanding of a particular area. And one place to put the "this record was generated at this time" meta data would be in the file timestamp.
Or how about leave the created/modified/access time stamps alone and introduce your own meta data field? You're probably working with specialized files already, so make it a part of the inherent work instead of doing something that a mere file copy will break.
I mean, it's not like YYYYMMDD is an ISO Standard or anything, right?
Actually it is...
Sorry, that was me being sarcastic (I guess I should have wrapped it in a <sarc> thingy or sumfin), but thanks for the wikipedia link. I'm going to enjoy reading that again.
I wish the likes of Microsoft would read it (and read it, and read it,...).
I kind of figured; but you'd be surprised how many people didn't know about it. I wish most American's would read it; especially computer programmers!
Like many, I took the Internet for granted as a geek-only thing and was surprised when it caught on with the general public in the mid-90's. One explanation I've heard for its sudden adoption is that the web brought pictures to the Internet for the first time. And the 100x100 3-bit Wizard and the Princess graphics shown in this Viewtron don't count.
Something else that was a big factor in the Internet taking off was the emergence of "unlimited" modem time for accessing the Internet at a cheap rate. (We paid $20/month.) Yes, they did have a time limit, but it was high enough that most everyone was unlikely to hit it.
...it's hardly surprising.
Seriously, Microsoft has numerous date formats within their system with which to work. Want to the know the current time? You have to use SYSTEMTIME. Need to know the date-time stamp for a file? Then you need to use FILETIME; but why would you need to have a file dated in the 17th century?
A few years ago, one of the fixes I made to a front end security tool was to change all the YYYYDDMMs to YYYYMMDDs, to match up with all the other YYYYMMDDs elsewhere in the code.
It's astonishing to me that having gone through Y2k, some people are *still* failing miserably at handling dates. I mean, it's not like YYYYMMDD is an ISO Standard or anything, right?
Of these generic domains, five are international in nature, and two are restricted to use by entities in the United States.
Well, that's a 1994 RFC, and one that doesn't seem to be honored very well.
For instance, not just anyone can register an ORG domain - you have to meet certain requirements (typically non-commercial, but it's not very well enforced). Wikipedia does have some good info on it.
Or for instance, Groklaw does not meet the definition you provided; but it has a NET domain registered.
I typically buy the entire series for what I like - e.g. I've bought all of Star Gate, Pretender, and 5 or 6 other TV series. However, the Star Trek series is just way too expensive. Star Gate was at most $40/season and even then I typically only paid $20-25. The cheapest Star Trek I've seen (even on BD) is still $60/season, and typically far higher than that.
Though if the DVDs were really that poor of quality, it makes on wonder just how sad/abused/etc the Star Trekkies are to pay that much for such poor quality, especially if they did so little to convert it. Glad to see they're doing the right thing for the BD editions, but they really should lower the price considerably.
Until then...I'll just enjoy any Star Trek on NetFlix/Hulu/etc, or skip it entirely.
Haven't picked up a tablet yet; but when the time comes, I'll probably replace my N1 with a tablet as opposed to another phone. Why?
Well, I'd really like to be able to type up documents on the N1, only there is no keyboard to do so, and the screen size just doesn't work well for it. A tablet would be just about right to do so; however, a physical keyboard would still be a must as the virtual keyboards simply have no tactile feed back to aid with knowing where you are on the keyboard by simple touch. Tablets are coming along nicely with working with wireless keyboards.
I also watch a lot of movies (Netflix) on my N1 and the slightly larger display would be a bit easier on the eyes.
All that said, the content industry (e.g. RIAA and MPAA) has made it hard for colleges to run their networks as well. So you can put some of the blame there too.
Incredibly hard. To say that they've forced universities ( at least here in Australia ) to perform witch-hunts regularly is probably putting it lightly. But here, of course, laws are different - and education facilities are not covered by safe harbor.
Not sure whether or not they are covered by the Safe-Harbor clauses in the US, but the RIAA/MPAA have forced a few collegiant institutions to do filtering on their network for them, which is just wrong. I don't know how many have agreed without it getting made public (or at least have it come out in the press); but I would expect that there is at least pressure there to do so. It's a sad situation.
Well, I'll add a little.
I do agree with the GoLGY; however, the university/college must also adhere to its values and pick an appropriate solution.
For instance, my college instituted the N2H2 Bess Filter designed for K-12 after some students used the network for porn; well, they used the system in the public labs in the dormatories. However, that is not an appropriate solution for a collegiant institution; and it was implemented campus wide - on all computers; it was also very difficult to get things approved as not being needed to filter. (E.g. I needed access to RightStuf as I had a license to be able to use their media for our media related club; but they wouldn't approve the site; despite it not meeting their policy requirements for being blocked.)
Of course, the real kicker was that it was the policy of the college to teach kids reponsibility. Their use of the filter did not meet adhere to that policy. The main reason for the policy? Politics and alumni relations (e.g. money) as the incident that led to it was rather high profile to at least some alumni groups.
Perhaps the better solution would simply to have required students to login to a proxy; and then hold them accountable for the sites retrieved through the proxy; and by default, everyone has to login. (Or perhaps, allow the login to by-pass the filter.)
All that said, the content industry (e.g. RIAA and MPAA) has made it hard for colleges to run their networks as well. So you can put some of the blame there too.
It's amazingly stable on a chart that goes from 0 to 288. However when was the last time it was 459.67 degrees where you live? Of course, if the average global temperature drops by 5 degrees for a persistent period we end up with an ice age and 1 mile thick glacier across much of the area that North Americans currently live in. So 1 degree Kelvin is 20% of the difference between an ice age and our modern climate. Suddenly a 20% divergence doesn't quite look so stable, does it?
What happens when the temperature goes up 5 degrees instead? We don't know for sure, but most of the evidence points towards massive disruption to human societies. We can hope that it won't be as devastating a change as the one going in the opposite direction. During the Permian-Triassic changeover massive climate change killed off 90% of the earth's biomass, but we hope our results aren't won't be as extreme.
However, a 1 degree difference does not itself point to human activity, which is part the point that was being made by the person that called it "amazingly stable".
Now, if it had gone up (or down) by 2 degrees or 3 degrees then that would be a different thing.
Perhaps the normal global temperature ought to be like the tropics. If that is the case, then according to Wikipedia (yeah I know, not best source) that would leave the global temperature at 18 degrees Celcius, or 291 Kelvin on the year for the average - or nearly 3 degrees higher. In such case, the earth could just be moving back to its normal global temperature after many years of fluxuation due to Ice Ages, etc; and again, it points away from human activity being the cause of any warming. But, that's just a hypothesis.
Also, FRAND said "Fair and Reasonable". Who defines "fair" and "reasonable"? The seller, or the buyer?
I believe it is a case-by-case basis, but even so, typically the seller (e.g. the one who holds the patents).
And, I believe someone (Groklaw?) pointed out that there is no definition what is "fair" or "reasonable" for FRAND by anyone.
Thus, if the seller ultimately determines that the only "fair" and "reasonable" price is $1Billion USD, then even if no one wanted to pay that, that's what the price would be, and it'd be hard to say it's not "fair" or "unreasonable" since they seller would just specify why they believe it indeed is, and well, they hold the patents so you're out of luck.
It's not so much KDE pruning the list, as Qt. The OpenGL 1.x support is very difficult to maintain in Qt; and they changed things quite a bit for 2.x. KDE adopting Qt5 (to be released later this year) will mean an EOL on OpenGL 1.x support. So they're kind of forced along.
However, if your graphics chip can't quite chop it; then you just have to switch to a software OpenGL renderer that can support it. So you're not SOL; it just might be a little bit slower.
No need to switch. KDE will work fine, you just won't have all the fancy effects you may have become accustomed to.
That depends. I have a R250 chipset in my laptop (no ability to change it there). It just means I'll have to switch from the hardware OpenGL support to a software OpenGL support. Wait? I may have done that already....all effects still working.
As for climate science. The Earth CERTAINLY is warming. Why is not completely understood, but it appears to be strongly correlated with human activity.
As one author I read put it (paraphrased):
the earth has changed by ~1 degree Kelvin in 150 years. That is amazingly stable.
And that is, in all the years that humanity has been at its worse in polluting the environment (e.g. the late industrial revolution to present day); it has had an impact of at most 1 degree Kelvin (from 288.0 Kelvin to 288.8 Kelvin). So there doesn't seem to be any necessary link to "human activity" other than what environmentalists wants to politicall make it. At least, it's certainly not a scientific link.
(While not the author I read, this author refers to some of the same statements the author I read referred to; so good enough for quotation here.)
I have never had a country ask for my return ticket or any details about how long I would be staying upon entry. Ever. That includes China (who asked NOTHING whatever).
Every time I have gone through foreign customs they always ask about how long I plan on being there - Spain, Italy, Turkey, Canada. They never asked to see my return iterary (in the case of Canada, I didn't even have one) but I do usually present my travel information with my passport.
Leaving your passport with the management of whatever hotel/hostel you are staying at is standard operating procedure. At least, it is standard in Eastern Europe. Try telling them that you won't hand over your passport, and you'll be left sleeping on the streets, because there is NO other option ANYWHERE.
The hotels I've been to in Spain, Italy, and Turkey both require it; you get it back quickly. But they have to make a copy, and verify it for their records. I usually got it back next time I was at the desk - e.g. on my way out of the hotel.
Well, the whole CAPTCHA system is itself flawed - it's putting all the data in one place. The only way to make it harder would be to have multiple data sources for users to have to put information through - e.g. not simply one CAPTCHA to verify, but 3 or 4 separately loaded, and all indepent of each other. (Even 2 would be an improvement.)
Still, it would only be a matter of time before the bots figured out how to track all the CAPTCHAs and thereby defeat it yet again.
Seems like you really have to go through hoops to get a decent deal in the U.S.
When I bought by Samsung Galaxy S in 2010, I got it on a contract from one provider, which meant I had to take a subscription too. Luckily the cheapest one is only 69 cents a month (just minute-by-minute voice calls). Wanna guess what I did then? I went to another provider, bought the plan I liked and popped in the SIM card in my phone. This is how it's supposed to work. This is the reason the SIM card is a SIM *card*, so that you can actually take it out and put it into other phones.
Exactly, and you can do that with phones in the US, provided they have a SIM card too. However, they are a bit more picky about it, especially if they subsidized the phone.
Talking about buying a phone without a subscription. Over here it's of course possible (every phone is sold without a subscription, and no the prices aren't completely ridiculous), but it's much smarter to get a contract and pay it off all at once. I got a ZTE Blade for my girlfriend last year, it cost 4,90€ / month on a two year plan (plus the aforementioned 69c / month mandatory subscription), which is a bit under 120 euros. You can pay it all at once and the phone is yours. Meanwhile the retail price is 189 euros.
I'm sure you could probably try to pay the contract off like that; but they probably won't let you. Typically if you pay too much, they give you an immediate refund, or credit on the overage. (They don't like to hold onto too much money.)
Also, contracts in the US typically are costly enough that doing it that way would be more expensive than just buying the phone outright.
For example, if you buy a new iPhone you get a contract that will probably run you about $80/month - $50 standard +$30 data plan. Over the life of the contract - 12-36 months (sometimes longer), the data plan alone more than pays for the phone; and you may have paid $199 to a newer model.
Now what is not stated, is that if you don't want the data plan then they will let you cancel it during the contract; but how long before they will let you cancel it depends on the device. For an iPhone, you can't cancel it. For a feature phone with full keyboard, you probably have to wait 3-6 months. Other phones are in between - it all depends on the subsidies on the device and they won't tell you up-front what that time-period is.
Only good for WiFi networks as it doesn't provide voice cell service.
Indeed. He asked for a wifi-only device, that can't access the 3g network...
No. He asked for a cell phone that only did data over the WiFi network. That is much different.
Wanting to be on the 3g network for voice and not data (not what was asked, but still) would be as simple as buying a 3g plan with voice only and no data (Only AT&T and Verizon do this bundled forced-data thing on 3G in the US that I am aware)
And the bundled issue is the problem. There are aways around it, which is what I pointed out.
I have a Nexus One that I got a full price, outside of AT&T, without a contract, and simply moved my SIM card over from my previous 2G phone. I even went into AT&T and got them to replace the 2G SIM card with a 3G SIM card. I have no data plan, and have disabled the (Celluar) Data Network access on the phone, so I only get data via WiFi.
You sir have violated the terms of service of your contract. If AT&T finds out (and that's not particularly hard to do, they just compare your actual IMEI to the IMEI registered to your SIM) they can retroactively bill you for the required data plan in their TOS and cancel your service (with penalties if you're under contract), probably in that order.
No I haven't, and no I am not in violation of the contract. That's the point of having a SIM card to start with. They also have the N1 listed online, so I know they already know about it. I'm also pretty sure I renewed my contract after making that change - namely for the other lines on my account, otherwise I'd just operate it without the contract. I also never upgraded the original phone (a Motorola v180) that I got back in 2004.
And if they did try to do that, I would promptly move to another provider, taking all 4 phones and phone numbers with me; and not pay above my normal bill.
On the Apple side, it's called iPod Touch + VoIP / SIP / Skype apps.
Only good for WiFi networks as it doesn't provide voice cell service.
On the Android side, you used to be able to get a Nexus One this way, I believe they were intended for developers to test apps on but didn't want/need a data plan.
Last I checked, you can still get a Nexus One, but only as a registered developer for the Android. However, as a registered Android developer there are other phones available too under the same scheme.
I bet a lot of smart phones will operate without a SIM in them as well.
You can buy a used Android phone off ebay or what ever, and pop the SIM out (assuming it came with one in the first place)
Yes, they'll operate without a SIM card. In that mode, they can still make emergency phone calls as required by law for all cell phones.
Slashdot Mirror
I deal with data whose comprehensiveness and detail (generally) increases with time. I work in a subject where important, empirical data has been collected and recorded (and taxed) since Roman times. I can perfectly well see that I'd specify applications for reporting the changing state of our understanding of a particular area. And one place to put the "this record was generated at this time" meta data would be in the file timestamp.
Or how about leave the created/modified/access time stamps alone and introduce your own meta data field? You're probably working with specialized files already, so make it a part of the inherent work instead of doing something that a mere file copy will break.
I mean, it's not like YYYYMMDD is an ISO Standard or anything, right?
Actually it is ...
Sorry, that was me being sarcastic (I guess I should have wrapped it in a <sarc> thingy or sumfin), but thanks for the wikipedia link. I'm going to enjoy reading that again.
I wish the likes of Microsoft would read it (and read it, and read it, ...).
I kind of figured; but you'd be surprised how many people didn't know about it. I wish most American's would read it; especially computer programmers!
Like many, I took the Internet for granted as a geek-only thing and was surprised when it caught on with the general public in the mid-90's. One explanation I've heard for its sudden adoption is that the web brought pictures to the Internet for the first time. And the 100x100 3-bit Wizard and the Princess graphics shown in this Viewtron don't count.
Something else that was a big factor in the Internet taking off was the emergence of "unlimited" modem time for accessing the Internet at a cheap rate. (We paid $20/month.) Yes, they did have a time limit, but it was high enough that most everyone was unlikely to hit it.
...it's hardly surprising. Seriously, Microsoft has numerous date formats within their system with which to work. Want to the know the current time? You have to use SYSTEMTIME. Need to know the date-time stamp for a file? Then you need to use FILETIME; but why would you need to have a file dated in the 17th century?
... Convert date to char in YYYYDDMM format ...
A few years ago, one of the fixes I made to a front end security tool was to change all the YYYYDDMMs to YYYYMMDDs, to match up with all the other YYYYMMDDs elsewhere in the code.
It's astonishing to me that having gone through Y2k, some people are *still* failing miserably at handling dates. I mean, it's not like YYYYMMDD is an ISO Standard or anything, right?
Actually it is, along with a few other date notations - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601.
No, your completely wrong. .com, .net, .org are, and always have been, US domains
RFC 1591:
Of these generic domains, five are international in nature, and two are restricted to use by entities in the United States.
Well, that's a 1994 RFC, and one that doesn't seem to be honored very well.
For instance, not just anyone can register an ORG domain - you have to meet certain requirements (typically non-commercial, but it's not very well enforced). Wikipedia does have some good info on it.
Or for instance, Groklaw does not meet the definition you provided; but it has a NET domain registered.
I typically buy the entire series for what I like - e.g. I've bought all of Star Gate, Pretender, and 5 or 6 other TV series. However, the Star Trek series is just way too expensive. Star Gate was at most $40/season and even then I typically only paid $20-25. The cheapest Star Trek I've seen (even on BD) is still $60/season, and typically far higher than that.
Though if the DVDs were really that poor of quality, it makes on wonder just how sad/abused/etc the Star Trekkies are to pay that much for such poor quality, especially if they did so little to convert it. Glad to see they're doing the right thing for the BD editions, but they really should lower the price considerably.
Until then...I'll just enjoy any Star Trek on NetFlix/Hulu/etc, or skip it entirely.
Haven't picked up a tablet yet; but when the time comes, I'll probably replace my N1 with a tablet as opposed to another phone. Why?
Well, I'd really like to be able to type up documents on the N1, only there is no keyboard to do so, and the screen size just doesn't work well for it. A tablet would be just about right to do so; however, a physical keyboard would still be a must as the virtual keyboards simply have no tactile feed back to aid with knowing where you are on the keyboard by simple touch. Tablets are coming along nicely with working with wireless keyboards.
I also watch a lot of movies (Netflix) on my N1 and the slightly larger display would be a bit easier on the eyes.
Yes, its a little more bulky; but I think I can live with that - at least until we get a nice set of cyberware, wet-ware, etc..
All that said, the content industry (e.g. RIAA and MPAA) has made it hard for colleges to run their networks as well. So you can put some of the blame there too.
Incredibly hard. To say that they've forced universities ( at least here in Australia ) to perform witch-hunts regularly is probably putting it lightly. But here, of course, laws are different - and education facilities are not covered by safe harbor.
Not sure whether or not they are covered by the Safe-Harbor clauses in the US, but the RIAA/MPAA have forced a few collegiant institutions to do filtering on their network for them, which is just wrong. I don't know how many have agreed without it getting made public (or at least have it come out in the press); but I would expect that there is at least pressure there to do so. It's a sad situation.
Well, I'll add a little. I do agree with the GoLGY; however, the university/college must also adhere to its values and pick an appropriate solution.
For instance, my college instituted the N2H2 Bess Filter designed for K-12 after some students used the network for porn; well, they used the system in the public labs in the dormatories. However, that is not an appropriate solution for a collegiant institution; and it was implemented campus wide - on all computers; it was also very difficult to get things approved as not being needed to filter. (E.g. I needed access to RightStuf as I had a license to be able to use their media for our media related club; but they wouldn't approve the site; despite it not meeting their policy requirements for being blocked.)
Of course, the real kicker was that it was the policy of the college to teach kids reponsibility. Their use of the filter did not meet adhere to that policy. The main reason for the policy? Politics and alumni relations (e.g. money) as the incident that led to it was rather high profile to at least some alumni groups.
Perhaps the better solution would simply to have required students to login to a proxy; and then hold them accountable for the sites retrieved through the proxy; and by default, everyone has to login. (Or perhaps, allow the login to by-pass the filter.)
All that said, the content industry (e.g. RIAA and MPAA) has made it hard for colleges to run their networks as well. So you can put some of the blame there too.
What's interesting is that the person that did make the comment is somewhat qualified - far more than anyone here on slashdot.
It's amazingly stable on a chart that goes from 0 to 288. However when was the last time it was 459.67 degrees where you live? Of course, if the average global temperature drops by 5 degrees for a persistent period we end up with an ice age and 1 mile thick glacier across much of the area that North Americans currently live in. So 1 degree Kelvin is 20% of the difference between an ice age and our modern climate. Suddenly a 20% divergence doesn't quite look so stable, does it?
What happens when the temperature goes up 5 degrees instead? We don't know for sure, but most of the evidence points towards massive disruption to human societies. We can hope that it won't be as devastating a change as the one going in the opposite direction. During the Permian-Triassic changeover massive climate change killed off 90% of the earth's biomass, but we hope our results aren't won't be as extreme.
However, a 1 degree difference does not itself point to human activity, which is part the point that was being made by the person that called it "amazingly stable".
Now, if it had gone up (or down) by 2 degrees or 3 degrees then that would be a different thing.
Perhaps the normal global temperature ought to be like the tropics. If that is the case, then according to Wikipedia (yeah I know, not best source) that would leave the global temperature at 18 degrees Celcius, or 291 Kelvin on the year for the average - or nearly 3 degrees higher. In such case, the earth could just be moving back to its normal global temperature after many years of fluxuation due to Ice Ages, etc; and again, it points away from human activity being the cause of any warming. But, that's just a hypothesis.
I believe it is a case-by-case basis, but even so, typically the seller (e.g. the one who holds the patents).
And, I believe someone (Groklaw?) pointed out that there is no definition what is "fair" or "reasonable" for FRAND by anyone.
Thus, if the seller ultimately determines that the only "fair" and "reasonable" price is $1Billion USD, then even if no one wanted to pay that, that's what the price would be, and it'd be hard to say it's not "fair" or "unreasonable" since they seller would just specify why they believe it indeed is, and well, they hold the patents so you're out of luck.
It's not so much KDE pruning the list, as Qt. The OpenGL 1.x support is very difficult to maintain in Qt; and they changed things quite a bit for 2.x. KDE adopting Qt5 (to be released later this year) will mean an EOL on OpenGL 1.x support. So they're kind of forced along.
However, if your graphics chip can't quite chop it; then you just have to switch to a software OpenGL renderer that can support it. So you're not SOL; it just might be a little bit slower.
No need to switch. KDE will work fine, you just won't have all the fancy effects you may have become accustomed to.
That depends. I have a R250 chipset in my laptop (no ability to change it there). It just means I'll have to switch from the hardware OpenGL support to a software OpenGL support. Wait? I may have done that already....all effects still working.
As one author I read put it (paraphrased):
the earth has changed by ~1 degree Kelvin in 150 years. That is amazingly stable.
And that is, in all the years that humanity has been at its worse in polluting the environment (e.g. the late industrial revolution to present day); it has had an impact of at most 1 degree Kelvin (from 288.0 Kelvin to 288.8 Kelvin). So there doesn't seem to be any necessary link to "human activity" other than what environmentalists wants to politicall make it. At least, it's certainly not a scientific link.
(While not the author I read, this author refers to some of the same statements the author I read referred to; so good enough for quotation here.)
Every time I have gone through foreign customs they always ask about how long I plan on being there - Spain, Italy, Turkey, Canada. They never asked to see my return iterary (in the case of Canada, I didn't even have one) but I do usually present my travel information with my passport.
Still, US customs is the worse.
Leaving your passport with the management of whatever hotel/hostel you are staying at is standard operating procedure. At least, it is standard in Eastern Europe. Try telling them that you won't hand over your passport, and you'll be left sleeping on the streets, because there is NO other option ANYWHERE.
The hotels I've been to in Spain, Italy, and Turkey both require it; you get it back quickly. But they have to make a copy, and verify it for their records. I usually got it back next time I was at the desk - e.g. on my way out of the hotel.
Well, the whole CAPTCHA system is itself flawed - it's putting all the data in one place. The only way to make it harder would be to have multiple data sources for users to have to put information through - e.g. not simply one CAPTCHA to verify, but 3 or 4 separately loaded, and all indepent of each other. (Even 2 would be an improvement.)
Still, it would only be a matter of time before the bots figured out how to track all the CAPTCHAs and thereby defeat it yet again.
Yes, because god used a shareware version of Genome Creator.
Only for the first model. The second model was made with Cutie Creator.
Seems like you really have to go through hoops to get a decent deal in the U.S.
When I bought by Samsung Galaxy S in 2010, I got it on a contract from one provider, which meant I had to take a subscription too. Luckily the cheapest one is only 69 cents a month (just minute-by-minute voice calls). Wanna guess what I did then? I went to another provider, bought the plan I liked and popped in the SIM card in my phone. This is how it's supposed to work. This is the reason the SIM card is a SIM *card*, so that you can actually take it out and put it into other phones.
Exactly, and you can do that with phones in the US, provided they have a SIM card too. However, they are a bit more picky about it, especially if they subsidized the phone.
Talking about buying a phone without a subscription. Over here it's of course possible (every phone is sold without a subscription, and no the prices aren't completely ridiculous), but it's much smarter to get a contract and pay it off all at once. I got a ZTE Blade for my girlfriend last year, it cost 4,90€ / month on a two year plan (plus the aforementioned 69c / month mandatory subscription), which is a bit under 120 euros. You can pay it all at once and the phone is yours. Meanwhile the retail price is 189 euros.
I'm sure you could probably try to pay the contract off like that; but they probably won't let you. Typically if you pay too much, they give you an immediate refund, or credit on the overage. (They don't like to hold onto too much money.)
Also, contracts in the US typically are costly enough that doing it that way would be more expensive than just buying the phone outright.
For example, if you buy a new iPhone you get a contract that will probably run you about $80/month - $50 standard +$30 data plan. Over the life of the contract - 12-36 months (sometimes longer), the data plan alone more than pays for the phone; and you may have paid $199 to a newer model.
Now what is not stated, is that if you don't want the data plan then they will let you cancel it during the contract; but how long before they will let you cancel it depends on the device. For an iPhone, you can't cancel it. For a feature phone with full keyboard, you probably have to wait 3-6 months. Other phones are in between - it all depends on the subsidies on the device and they won't tell you up-front what that time-period is.
Only good for WiFi networks as it doesn't provide voice cell service.
Indeed. He asked for a wifi-only device, that can't access the 3g network...
No. He asked for a cell phone that only did data over the WiFi network. That is much different.
Wanting to be on the 3g network for voice and not data (not what was asked, but still) would be as simple as buying a 3g plan with voice only and no data (Only AT&T and Verizon do this bundled forced-data thing on 3G in the US that I am aware)
And the bundled issue is the problem. There are aways around it, which is what I pointed out.
Forgot to mention in my other reply - the N1 is the registered device for the 3G SIM. ;-)
You sir have violated the terms of service of your contract. If AT&T finds out (and that's not particularly hard to do, they just compare your actual IMEI to the IMEI registered to your SIM) they can retroactively bill you for the required data plan in their TOS and cancel your service (with penalties if you're under contract), probably in that order.
No I haven't, and no I am not in violation of the contract. That's the point of having a SIM card to start with. They also have the N1 listed online, so I know they already know about it. I'm also pretty sure I renewed my contract after making that change - namely for the other lines on my account, otherwise I'd just operate it without the contract. I also never upgraded the original phone (a Motorola v180) that I got back in 2004.
And if they did try to do that, I would promptly move to another provider, taking all 4 phones and phone numbers with me; and not pay above my normal bill.
Only good for WiFi networks as it doesn't provide voice cell service.
Last I checked, you can still get a Nexus One, but only as a registered developer for the Android. However, as a registered Android developer there are other phones available too under the same scheme.
Yes, they'll operate without a SIM card. In that mode, they can still make emergency phone calls as required by law for all cell phones.