You guys have to realize, this is called marketing.
To get your "free" server you need to signup with their trying out thing. Which seriously, I'm pretty sure that they ask for credit information or money sources if you don't return it on time. This itself proves that they are wanting to push the whole "Buy it... And return it if you don't like it" theory.
And also, I higly doubt that they'll be distributing these around like candy. They'll probably be only 10 big blogs who will win a servers and all the others will have to suck up and return the servers. I would be impressed if they'd actually be giving out many of these units.
I've talked to my superiors, and nobody seemed to fall in for this.
Ah, if I was older, if I had more time and if I had my blog online... But, once again, nothing is free in business.
I'll be waiting for comments and checking this story. I'm really interested to know what people think of this.
I am pretty sure that they use your local ISP to offer the broadcand. Their broadand is based on DSL and will mostly go through your telecom company.
In Montreal, all DSL companies must go through Bell (our local telephone line provider) to allow people to use DSL. It uses all the same networking equipment as well as switches and backbone as I would get from the local ISP.
The problem mostly is that technical support is going to lack a lot. I know AOL is AOL, but now they'll tell you "Oh, you have to wait five business days because we need to contact your local ISP to get the problem fixed. We'll call you back (NOT!) for updates)
And plus, it's AOL. So yeah. I'm still waiting for FIOS-like fiber in Montreal. I heard some good rumors about that.
It's not much, but it's sure worth it. I'm always very caring towards eectric bills and consumption:
{Names of the peripheral on the network} Description [Indicates where it is connected to]
1) {MODEM} DSL Router SpeadStream 5000 series (Unsure of exact number, normal residential 200KBps) [hooked up to the "router"'s eth0] 2) {ROUTER} 200MHz Pentium 1 MMX, 2GB HDD and 48MB RAM running a Linux router distribution. Doubles as a webserver. (Yes, it's ipcop) 3) {SWITCH1} 5 port 100mbit modded* D-Link switch [hooked to eth1 on the router] 4) {LOGGY} 800MHz P3, 256MB RAM, 3 HDDs (110GB total) storage/torrent/VNC box running CentOS 4.2 [SWITCH1] 5) {iMac} 233MHz, 256MB RAM, 40GB HDD shoutcast radio [SWITCH1] 6) {PauliusMac} 1.25GHz G4, 1GB RAM, 40GB HDD. Mac mini. Main computer (I'm writing this post on it!) [SWITCH1] 7) {SWITCH2} Modded* Microsoft MN-520 wireless access point and switch. [connected to switch1] 8) {FAMILY} Gaming computer. 3GHz P4, 1.5GB RAM, 80GB SATA, X600 PCI-E. Dual boots XP with CentOS. [SWITCH2] 9) {PauliusLap} Laptop. AMD 2500+, 512MB RAM, 60GB. CentOS 4.2 [Wireless to SWITCH2] 10) {Grandma} Grandma's computer. P3 450MHz, 128MB RAM, 40GB HDD. Windows XP SP2 (switching to Linux when I'll have time) [Wireless to SWITCH2] 11) {AREA51} Testing server. 400MHz Celeron, 128MB RAM, 4.2GB HDD (Yes!). Windows Server 2003 (Arrgh!) [SWITCH2] 12} {HPC} Miniature Jornada 680e. 133MHz SH-3, 16MB RAM, 128MB CF HDD. Linux 2.6 busybox. [Wireless to SWITCH2] 13) {SWITCH3} 8 port 100mbit switch. Reserved for future use. Unmodded. 14) {TINY} 500MHz P3, 128MB RAM, 30GB HDD. CentOS Linux testbed. [Probably to SWITCH1]
That's all. Yes, it took me a long time to write and it's confusing.
* Modded means that the processor of the switch was equiped with a heatsink and a fan has been carved in the plastic case. Both the two switches are on top of the another so they share the same fan. The fan is a old CPU fan which has a MOLEX adapter taken from LOGGY because LOGGY is the closest 24/7 machine to it with a decent PSU.
You call that an article? I was expecting something with screenshots or even movies. And a bit longer than two tiny pages.
While I'm in the rant, I might as well add my own thoughs. Ready for it?
I think that gaming on cellphones is pointless. Back in 1998 or in the 90s, it was fun. But right now, it just seems like one big scam to make money. Games on cellphones cost $5 for a piece of crap, they don't last and you don't even have proper ownership of the game (i.e.: buy a new phone, you have to buy everything again!) And speaking of that, most companies also make you charge for the bandwidth that you use to download the game!
I would better like more intelligent cellphones with a nicer interface. Not a crappy Java interface which lags behind evey button use.
Cellphones are so much commecialized. I want something that I can TALK, not take photos (for 25 cents) and send videos (50 cents) to "friends".
I might be able to explain this. I think that most teenage gamers are now constantly finding new ways of getting these games illegally, for free. With the recent explosion of Bit-Torrent sites, pirating just got easier. These "kiddies" can now communicate easily and rate which files work and which don't.
I've interacted with many gamers in my life, and most of them never buy games. And no, there aren't a lot of people who will buy the game to support the company. In fact, some have become very very ignorant of the community and care only for money (Yes, I'm pointing to all these games with shared buggy engines)
As for The Sims 2, I would presume that their main public are girls. They don't exactly know or want to know the computer knowledge required to pirate games.
Now, I've seen SW-Soft at work numerous reasons and I don't quite agree with their principles of development. Just check out their forums, they have an awesome community of people asking features in their higer end products and they never want to implement those. Instead, they're creating some kinds of "solution" to allow "lower TCO" and "easier management", at an extra cost of course. I've used their software, and it's quite buggy.
Now, Virtuozzo is one of their most awesome products, but I still don't feel right about having a company control over a piece of software embedded into a kernel. I have a chilly feeling about what they might do next and about what they're actually gaining by enabling this.
Just my two cents, I'm sure I'll get many replies of people disagreeing.
Working is probably not the problem... There are many jobs you can do from home (computer tech support, programming, administration, etc.) and VO-IP is a godsend.
Although, you migth need to worry more about desieases and healthcare. Most tropical islands have bugs and other conditions where your body is not used to. And making it worse, they don't have expertise doctors on hand so it may be quite a pain.
Yeah, I'll be able to host you. I've met you on the chat and I've also added your AIM name.
Seems that it's fully taken down your Internet connection, so when you'll be back, feel free to talk to me. If you need it, my AIM name is "pauliuslabs"
I disagree with the comment because a interface is not just done for ease of use.
Sure, easy of use provides benefits for swtichers but the most important thing is to make something INTELLIGENT and something that works with your mentality, not against you.
Ever had one of these long and annoying dialogs on Windows? You get only Yes, No and Cancel buttons. On a Mac, you get buttons sensitive to context and making your work faster and more effective.
But for Windows, uTorrent is the best. It's small (115KB), uses not alot of RAM (~5mb) and has most of the features that Azureus has! It even has a bandwidth scheduling function.
While I like Firefox a lot, I do believe that it's becoming bloated in a way. Running Opera gives me way better performance but I just can't stand how Opera looks and feels. Firefox sometimes spasms all over my RAM or CPU and ever crashes out of thin air, both on my Windows and CentOS Linux computers.
Now, I have quite some friends which I recommended Firefox and other OSS products.
One of my friends was getting just annoyed by the amounts of spyware that he saw using IE. He wasn't a computer geek, nor a computer beginner. I gave him the link to Firefox and he's been using it since a pre-1.0 release! Now, I told him to upgrade to 1.5, and this is what happened:
"Ah! All my bookmarks are gone, the Google search bar on the top doesn't work. I can't save bookmarks and all the menus are 'screwed' up"
So, I told him to get the British version because it was still at 1.0.7. And it worked perfectly! So there's your story.
Also, believe it or not, my Grandma uses Firefox. I've installed 1.0.7 on her computer (didn't have time to try 1.5.0 yet) and Firefox had bouncing menus! Yes, the menus bounced, literally! Up and down all the toolbars of all the Windows. So I was forced to install Opera, which doesn't have great additions such as adblock.
Firefox is great, but what about the whole performance and bugs prospect? Although, it's still the browser I use on all my non-Mac computers.
Unsecure: N. 1. An unsecure operating system such as Microsoft Windows ex: "I use Microsoft's Windows to make computing pointless". 2. An unsecure browser such as Internet Explorer ex: "I used Internet Explorer to get my daily dose of spyware"
Step 1: Think of all the viruses you have gotten. Step 2: Remember all the spyware that you got. Step 3: Remember of all the BSODs you have gotten. Step 4: Think of all the documents you have lost. Step 5: Think of the countless white nights you have spent. Step 6: Think of the time you have wasted. Step 7: Think of the monopole that Microsoft has created. Step 8: Think of the money that you have wasted. Step 9: Think of the RAM that has been wasted without caching. Step 10: Think of all the hard disk drives wasted through defragmentation. Step 11: Think of the children!
I'm happy that they did close down the chat rooms for under 18.
Apparently, none of you have been in a Yahoo! Chat room. Let me sum it up for you: Yahoo chat is none like IRC. It's because any newbie can actually go into the chat and start chatting. This is why it's always full of weird people.
I've entered some popular rooms on some occasions (General Lounge and Voice chatting) rooms and guess what... Within a few seconds, I received a PM from some guy who asked me "How old are you".
I think that this is proof that something needs to be locked down. I fully believe that Yahoo chatrooms are a popular place for these kinds of people to hang out on.
Slashdot Mirror
You guys have to realize, this is called marketing.
To get your "free" server you need to signup with their trying out thing. Which seriously, I'm pretty sure that they ask for credit information or money sources if you don't return it on time. This itself proves that they are wanting to push the whole "Buy it... And return it if you don't like it" theory.
And also, I higly doubt that they'll be distributing these around like candy. They'll probably be only 10 big blogs who will win a servers and all the others will have to suck up and return the servers. I would be impressed if they'd actually be giving out many of these units.
I've talked to my superiors, and nobody seemed to fall in for this.
Ah, if I was older, if I had more time and if I had my blog online...
But, once again, nothing is free in business.
I'll be waiting for comments and checking this story. I'm really interested to know what people think of this.
I am pretty sure that they use your local ISP to offer the broadcand. Their broadand is based on DSL and will mostly go through your telecom company.
In Montreal, all DSL companies must go through Bell (our local telephone line provider) to allow people to use DSL. It uses all the same networking equipment as well as switches and backbone as I would get from the local ISP.
The problem mostly is that technical support is going to lack a lot. I know AOL is AOL, but now they'll tell you "Oh, you have to wait five business days because we need to contact your local ISP to get the problem fixed. We'll call you back (NOT!) for updates)
And plus, it's AOL. So yeah. I'm still waiting for FIOS-like fiber in Montreal. I heard some good rumors about that.
It's not much, but it's sure worth it. I'm always very caring towards eectric bills and consumption:
{Names of the peripheral on the network}
Description
[Indicates where it is connected to]
1) {MODEM} DSL Router SpeadStream 5000 series (Unsure of exact number, normal residential 200KBps) [hooked up to the "router"'s eth0]
2) {ROUTER} 200MHz Pentium 1 MMX, 2GB HDD and 48MB RAM running a Linux router distribution. Doubles as a webserver. (Yes, it's ipcop)
3) {SWITCH1} 5 port 100mbit modded* D-Link switch [hooked to eth1 on the router]
4) {LOGGY} 800MHz P3, 256MB RAM, 3 HDDs (110GB total) storage/torrent/VNC box running CentOS 4.2 [SWITCH1]
5) {iMac} 233MHz, 256MB RAM, 40GB HDD shoutcast radio [SWITCH1]
6) {PauliusMac} 1.25GHz G4, 1GB RAM, 40GB HDD. Mac mini. Main computer (I'm writing this post on it!) [SWITCH1]
7) {SWITCH2} Modded* Microsoft MN-520 wireless access point and switch. [connected to switch1]
8) {FAMILY} Gaming computer. 3GHz P4, 1.5GB RAM, 80GB SATA, X600 PCI-E. Dual boots XP with CentOS. [SWITCH2]
9) {PauliusLap} Laptop. AMD 2500+, 512MB RAM, 60GB. CentOS 4.2 [Wireless to SWITCH2]
10) {Grandma} Grandma's computer. P3 450MHz, 128MB RAM, 40GB HDD. Windows XP SP2 (switching to Linux when I'll have time) [Wireless to SWITCH2]
11) {AREA51} Testing server. 400MHz Celeron, 128MB RAM, 4.2GB HDD (Yes!). Windows Server 2003 (Arrgh!) [SWITCH2]
12} {HPC} Miniature Jornada 680e. 133MHz SH-3, 16MB RAM, 128MB CF HDD. Linux 2.6 busybox. [Wireless to SWITCH2]
13) {SWITCH3} 8 port 100mbit switch. Reserved for future use. Unmodded.
14) {TINY} 500MHz P3, 128MB RAM, 30GB HDD. CentOS Linux testbed. [Probably to SWITCH1]
That's all. Yes, it took me a long time to write and it's confusing.
* Modded means that the processor of the switch was equiped with a heatsink and a fan has been carved in the plastic case. Both the two switches are on top of the another so they share the same fan. The fan is a old CPU fan which has a MOLEX adapter taken from LOGGY because LOGGY is the closest 24/7 machine to it with a decent PSU.
You call that an article? I was expecting something with screenshots or even movies. And a bit longer than two tiny pages.
While I'm in the rant, I might as well add my own thoughs. Ready for it?
I think that gaming on cellphones is pointless. Back in 1998 or in the 90s, it was fun. But right now, it just seems like one big scam to make money. Games on cellphones cost $5 for a piece of crap, they don't last and you don't even have proper ownership of the game (i.e.: buy a new phone, you have to buy everything again!) And speaking of that, most companies also make you charge for the bandwidth that you use to download the game!
I would better like more intelligent cellphones with a nicer interface. Not a crappy Java interface which lags behind evey button use.
Cellphones are so much commecialized. I want something that I can TALK, not take photos (for 25 cents) and send videos (50 cents) to "friends".
I might be able to explain this. I think that most teenage gamers are now constantly finding new ways of getting these games illegally, for free. With the recent explosion of Bit-Torrent sites, pirating just got easier. These "kiddies" can now communicate easily and rate which files work and which don't.
I've interacted with many gamers in my life, and most of them never buy games. And no, there aren't a lot of people who will buy the game to support the company. In fact, some have become very very ignorant of the community and care only for money (Yes, I'm pointing to all these games with shared buggy engines)
As for The Sims 2, I would presume that their main public are girls. They don't exactly know or want to know the computer knowledge required to pirate games.
You do realize that when you buy Red Hat Enterprise, you're actually paying for technical support.
RHE is based on CentOS (http://www.centos.org/ It's also my favorite distro for both desktops and servers! So go try it out.
Now, I've seen SW-Soft at work numerous reasons and I don't quite agree with their principles of development. Just check out their forums, they have an awesome community of people asking features in their higer end products and they never want to implement those. Instead, they're creating some kinds of "solution" to allow "lower TCO" and "easier management", at an extra cost of course. I've used their software, and it's quite buggy.
Now, Virtuozzo is one of their most awesome products, but I still don't feel right about having a company control over a piece of software embedded into a kernel. I have a chilly feeling about what they might do next and about what they're actually gaining by enabling this.
Just my two cents, I'm sure I'll get many replies of people disagreeing.
Working is probably not the problem... There are many jobs you can do from home (computer tech support, programming, administration, etc.) and VO-IP is a godsend.
Although, you migth need to worry more about desieases and healthcare. Most tropical islands have bugs and other conditions where your body is not used to. And making it worse, they don't have expertise doctors on hand so it may be quite a pain.
Agreed. And it's also something that is easily do-able.
Yeah, I'll be able to host you. I've met you on the chat and I've also added your AIM name.
Seems that it's fully taken down your Internet connection, so when you'll be back, feel free to talk to me. If you need it, my AIM name is "pauliuslabs"
Cheers
Return to kindergarten, "dogg".
"Troy?"
Yes.
Hey, I presume that you guys use no firewall now. And you have Windows servers on the netowork! What kind of city is that?
:-P
Maybe I could make myself president of some company, or heck, be a mayor
I disagree with the comment because a interface is not just done for ease of use.
Sure, easy of use provides benefits for swtichers but the most important thing is to make something INTELLIGENT and something that works with your mentality, not against you.
Ever had one of these long and annoying dialogs on Windows? You get only Yes, No and Cancel buttons. On a Mac, you get buttons sensitive to context and making your work faster and more effective.
I didn't say it was a browser :-)
Seriously, I think that Yahoo is making a step further here.
I like the idea of information at your finger tips.
Can google top it off.
Oh come on. We had the exact same link posted before...
Dupe!
(I can't find the link now because the search page doesn't load on this IE 6.0 P.o.S. computer!)
Azureus is the best for multi-platform.
But for Windows, uTorrent is the best. It's small (115KB), uses not alot of RAM (~5mb) and has most of the features that Azureus has! It even has a bandwidth scheduling function.
While I like Firefox a lot, I do believe that it's becoming bloated in a way. Running Opera gives me way better performance but I just can't stand how Opera looks and feels. Firefox sometimes spasms all over my RAM or CPU and ever crashes out of thin air, both on my Windows and CentOS Linux computers.
Now, I have quite some friends which I recommended Firefox and other OSS products.
One of my friends was getting just annoyed by the amounts of spyware that he saw using IE. He wasn't a computer geek, nor a computer beginner. I gave him the link to Firefox and he's been using it since a pre-1.0 release! Now, I told him to upgrade to 1.5, and this is what happened:
"Ah! All my bookmarks are gone, the Google search bar on the top doesn't work. I can't save bookmarks and all the menus are 'screwed' up"
So, I told him to get the British version because it was still at 1.0.7. And it worked perfectly! So there's your story.
Also, believe it or not, my Grandma uses Firefox. I've installed 1.0.7 on her computer (didn't have time to try 1.5.0 yet) and Firefox had bouncing menus!
Yes, the menus bounced, literally! Up and down all the toolbars of all the Windows. So I was forced to install Opera, which doesn't have great additions such as adblock.
Firefox is great, but what about the whole performance and bugs prospect? Although, it's still the browser I use on all my non-Mac computers.
Unsecure: N. 1. An unsecure operating system such as Microsoft Windows ex: "I use Microsoft's Windows to make computing pointless". 2. An unsecure browser such as Internet Explorer ex: "I used Internet Explorer to get my daily dose of spyware"
This virus is not really a big deal, you just have to have half a brain to deal with it.
:-)
And you need a fourth of a brain to write a coherent comment
Is this another reason to switch? (Linux or Mac, I don't care)
Or even use another client? (Miranda or GAIM)
Hail Windows! Security holes galore.
I understand banning names that have "admin" or "f***" in them or other offencial remarks.
But, because it clashes with their internal scripts? That's a no no! That's some bad coding, right there.
Well sure, I hope that people from Blizzard are reading this. And blog entries or rants from CmdrTaco are also very interesting to read.
Step 1: Think of all the viruses you have gotten.
Step 2: Remember all the spyware that you got.
Step 3: Remember of all the BSODs you have gotten.
Step 4: Think of all the documents you have lost.
Step 5: Think of the countless white nights you have spent.
Step 6: Think of the time you have wasted.
Step 7: Think of the monopole that Microsoft has created.
Step 8: Think of the money that you have wasted.
Step 9: Think of the RAM that has been wasted without caching.
Step 10: Think of all the hard disk drives wasted through defragmentation.
Step 11: Think of the children!
And then....
Step 12: Install Linux
Yup...
I'm happy that they did close down the chat rooms for under 18.
Apparently, none of you have been in a Yahoo! Chat room. Let me sum it up for you:
Yahoo chat is none like IRC. It's because any newbie can actually go into the chat and start chatting. This is why it's always full of weird people.
I've entered some popular rooms on some occasions (General Lounge and Voice chatting) rooms and guess what... Within a few seconds, I received a PM from some guy who asked me "How old are you".
I think that this is proof that something needs to be locked down. I fully believe that Yahoo chatrooms are a popular place for these kinds of people to hang out on.
That was my 0.02$