no, actually the previous poster was correct (sort of) the original meaning of SUNW was Stanford University Network Workstation. (Sun's original product line was mainly engineering workstations)
But the meaning has been updated for the new business direction that the company is focused on and it now stands for "Sun Worldwide"
My question is if paying for the 3Mbs is going to come with any quality of service guarantees. I have the normal AT&T cable service now and you can tell the difference in bandwidth at different times of the day. Why would I want to pay double what I am paying now if at peak usage times I am going to get pulled down to what I am getting for bandwidth currently. I don't want to be paying more then everyone else and also have to do my downloads at 3am to get the performance I paid for.
This sounds like the local water company coming by the house and installing faucets with openings twice the size of my current ones but not doing anything to increase the capacity of the water mains in the town, and then sending me a bill for twice as much as last month.
probably asking for it by saying this but, why doesn't AOL just release an AOL dist. of linux? If they had their out dist. they could support AOL on linux and would not have to worry about supporting umpteen thousand linux distros. They would support their own (it could just be a customized version of RH etc..) with the AOL access built in. No reason to sell stripped down "internet appliances" there are probably millions of old pc's that would work great with a stripped down version of linux installed. So when your parents/grandmother is looking to get on the net so they can use email just toss in an AOL-linux cd and install an old box that was replaced by a newer system and poof! grandma is on the net for short $$ and AOL gets another customer. Or they could partner with these companies you see selling $399 boxes at bestbuy etc. to preinstall their AOL client OS instead of Windows and cut back the cost of a new pc even further by not cutting MS a check for each box they sell. (they could almost give these boxes away if they got a 3 years of AOL usage contract signed) Sounds like a win-win to me.
AOL already mails out millions of cd's to everyone and their brother so getting the dist. out would not be a problem. And if a user calls in with a problem on their pc you could have a very simple fix/restore procedure that would fix corrupted files etc right off the cd (or off a main AOL server since they would have the source). I dare say it just might be a support person's dream. Possibility of getting files destroyed could be minimized because the user would never use the box as root.(root would only be used during upgrading or support fixes, not normal use)
This of course would not be a distro for most that read slashdot. but for someone that really does not care what is inside the "funny beige box" I think it would work out pretty good. And they could release the source to the client that gets embedded so if somebody really wanted to use AOL on their own Linux box they could hack away but get no support of course.
I might be wrong but I am pretty sure that the spammers know enough not to send their crap to any address that ends in.gov The email spiders they use probably screen it out so that the addresses never get put onto their lists.
Of course if some unscrupulous person were to set up some fake email addresses in hotmail,yahoo etc etc.. and set them up to forward anything sent to the addresses to the senators email the results might be interesting. especially after using the fake email addresses in a few select newsgroups.
The reason that blizzard wants to shut them down is simple.
Battle.net is the way that blizzard is able to control piracy of their games. Yes you could copy the cdrom and use it in single player mode but if you tried to use the same copy/serial number on battle.net you had problems. And the real reason people buy their games is for the battle.net usage, single player mode is not the selling point of the games. With a battle.net server clone they no longer had control over the net usage of their games. You could buy a copy of their latest release and then make 10 copies and give them to your friends then hop on a bnetd server and play away by only paying for one copy. Before bnetd all 11 of you would have had to shell out $ to be able to get on battle.net to play against each other. in this scenario they would be out 10 sales.
this is why they acted. bnetd will take the control that blizzard has always had away from them and that is not good for their business.
I live in the Boston area and have been using netflix about a year. Cost wise it was like this- looked at my cable bill and realized I was paying way too much so I canceled some of the movie chanels that I never watched because I could never schedule myself to watch movies at exactly 8:00 or 10:00 etc.. (yeah I know I could have looked into a tivo). So I saved ~25 bucks and instead of paying the cable company I pay netflix 20 and save 5 for popcorn.
The time delay for living on the east coast can be a little annoying at times but I don't watch so many movies that it is really a factor (I'd love to see this eastcoast dist center rumored though). I am also one of those people that always ended up paying late fees to blockbuster. (BB is out of my way to get to but I drive right by a drive up mailbox on my way to work so this is a plus for the NF service for me)
bottom line is that the service is good depending on your viewing habits. For some its good for others it is not. You need to try it and see if it fits for you.
BTW- blockbuster has a deal around here where you can get one rental a day for a flat rate of around $20. of course the last time I was in there I don't think I could find enough movies that I would take the time to sit down and watch to really take advantage of the offer and there would be those late fees again:(
The real answer depends on what you want in the end.
If you are looking to maximize your cash intake then just take what you can get now. IANAL but my rough thoughts on the amount of money you get work out this way:
1- you take the money offered - you end up with 50% of what is owed
2- you sue - most lawyers are probably going to take 1/3 of the settlement, plus there are court costs, your time and agravation, the chance that by the time the courts hear your case there is a company left to sue or they have any money left to take. if you're lucky you may end up getting a little more than the 50% they offered, you may end up getting less or nothing at all and you spent alot of effort to get it.
of course if you are looking for satisfaction and the cash is not a big factor then sue the bastards and make life tough for them.
actually single-ended narrow scsi gives you 6 Meters (not feet) but you need to take into account the length of the bus on the devices attached and the controller itself too.
if you really wanted to get a good length you'd have to go w/ differential scsi which starts at 25M but I haven't seen any diff. cdrom drives
any way you slice it that would be an awful lot of cabling for a car.
I believe Sun already released a distributed resource package called "Sun Gridware"
http://www.sun.com/software/gridware/
looks like it is available for download already and the page says the code is slated to be released under an "industry-accepted open source license" I know that phrase will probably raise a few hackles but its better than what you'll get from most companies.
I just renewed the registration for my boat trailer the other day over the internet. At least here in Massachusetts you can renew online and you get a $5 discount to boot. http://www.magnet.state.ma.us/rmv
I saw part of the broadcast yesterday and the answer is yes, Dell (gateway, compaq VA linux sys. etc etc etc....) could preload and ship staroffice for no fee. (as long as they do not charge for it, if they charge for it then they probably need to give some sort of kickback - but who would pay for it?) and the gist I got from the talk was that Sun would be very happy for resellers to do just that. I think I heard the idea even thrown out about getting the staroffice package put on the AOL cdroms that aol blankets the US mail with wouldn't that be a kick? finally the possibility of useful software on an aol cdrom.
Slashdot Mirror
no, actually the previous poster was correct (sort of)
m l#04
the original meaning of SUNW was Stanford University Network Workstation.
(Sun's original product line was mainly engineering workstations)
But the meaning has been updated for the new business direction that the
company is focused on and it now stands for "Sun Worldwide"
http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/investor/faq/index.ht
My question is if paying for the 3Mbs is going to come with any quality of service guarantees.
I have the normal AT&T cable service now and you can tell the difference in bandwidth at different
times of the day. Why would I want to pay double what I am paying now if at peak usage times I am
going to get pulled down to what I am getting for bandwidth currently. I don't want to be paying
more then everyone else and also have to do my downloads at 3am to get the performance I paid for.
This sounds like the local water company coming by the house and installing faucets with openings
twice the size of my current ones but not doing anything to increase the capacity of the water
mains in the town, and then sending me a bill for twice as much as last month.
I think I'll stick with what i've got.
probably asking for it by saying this but, why doesn't AOL just release an AOL dist. of linux? If they had their out dist. they could support AOL on linux and would not have to worry about supporting umpteen thousand linux distros. They would support their own (it could just be a customized version of RH etc..) with the AOL access built in. No reason to sell stripped down "internet appliances" there are probably millions of old pc's that would work great with a stripped down version of linux installed. So when your parents/grandmother is looking to get on the net so they can use email just toss in an AOL-linux cd and install an old box that was replaced by a newer system and poof! grandma is on the net for short $$ and AOL gets another customer. Or they could partner with these companies you see selling $399 boxes at bestbuy etc. to preinstall their AOL client OS instead of Windows and cut back the cost of a new pc even further by not cutting MS a check for each box they sell. (they could almost give these boxes away if they got a 3 years of AOL usage contract signed) Sounds like a win-win to me.
AOL already mails out millions of cd's to everyone and their brother so getting the dist. out would not be a problem. And if a user calls in with a problem on their pc you could have a very simple fix/restore procedure that would fix corrupted files etc right off the cd (or off a main AOL server since they would have the source). I dare say it just might be a support person's dream. Possibility of getting files destroyed could be minimized because the user would never use the box as root.(root would only be used during upgrading or support fixes, not normal use)
This of course would not be a distro for most that read slashdot. but for someone that really does not care what is inside the "funny beige box" I think it would work out pretty good. And they could release the source to the client that gets embedded so if somebody really wanted to use AOL on their own Linux box they could hack away but get no support of course.
probably never happen...
I might be wrong but I am pretty sure that the spammers know enough not to send their crap to any address that ends in .gov The email spiders they use probably screen it out so that the addresses never get put onto their lists.
Of course if some unscrupulous person were to set up some fake email addresses in hotmail,yahoo etc etc.. and set them up to forward anything sent to the addresses to the senators email the results might be interesting. especially after using the fake email addresses in a few select newsgroups.
The reason that blizzard wants to shut them down is simple.
Battle.net is the way that blizzard is able to control piracy of their games. Yes you could copy the cdrom and use it in single player mode but if you tried to use the same copy/serial number on battle.net you had problems. And the real reason people buy their games is for the battle.net usage, single player mode is not the selling point of the games. With a battle.net server clone they no longer had control over the net usage of their games. You could buy a copy of their latest release and then make 10 copies and give them to your friends then hop on a bnetd server and play away by only paying for one copy. Before bnetd all 11 of you would have had to shell out $ to be able to get on battle.net to play against each other. in this scenario they would be out 10 sales.
this is why they acted. bnetd will take the control that blizzard has always had away from them and that is not good for their business.
I live in the Boston area and have been using netflix about a year. Cost wise it was like this- looked at my cable bill and realized I was paying way too much so I canceled some of the movie chanels that I never watched because I could never schedule myself to watch movies at exactly 8:00 or 10:00 etc.. (yeah I know I could have looked into a tivo). So I saved ~25 bucks and instead of paying the cable company I pay netflix 20 and save 5 for popcorn.
:(
The time delay for living on the east coast can be a little annoying at times but I don't watch so many movies that it is really a factor (I'd love to see this eastcoast dist center rumored though). I am also one of those people that always ended up paying late fees to blockbuster. (BB is out of my way to get to but I drive right by a drive up mailbox on my way to work so this is a plus for the NF service for me)
bottom line is that the service is good depending on your viewing habits. For some its good for others it is not. You need to try it and see if it fits for you.
BTW- blockbuster has a deal around here where you can get one rental a day for a flat rate of around $20. of course the last time I was in there I don't think I could find enough movies that I would take the time to sit down and watch to really take advantage of the offer and there would be those late fees again
The real answer depends on what you want in the end.
If you are looking to maximize your cash intake then just take what you can get now. IANAL but my rough thoughts on the amount of money you get work out this way:
1- you take the money offered - you end up with 50% of what is owed
2- you sue - most lawyers are probably going to take 1/3 of the settlement, plus there are court costs, your time and agravation, the chance that by the time the courts hear your case there is a company left to sue or they have any money left to take. if you're lucky you may end up getting a little more than the 50% they offered, you may end up getting less or nothing at all and you spent alot of effort to get it.
of course if you are looking for satisfaction and the cash is not a big factor then sue the bastards and make life tough for them.
actually single-ended narrow scsi gives you 6 Meters (not feet) but you need to take into account the length of the bus on the devices attached and the controller itself too.
if you really wanted to get a good length you'd have to go w/ differential scsi which starts at 25M but I haven't seen any diff. cdrom drives
any way you slice it that would be an awful lot of cabling for a car.
I believe Sun already released a distributed resource package called "Sun Gridware"
http://www.sun.com/software/gridware/
looks like it is available for download already and the page says the code is slated to be released under an "industry-accepted open source license" I know that phrase will probably raise a few hackles but its better than what you'll get from most companies.
I just renewed the registration for my boat trailer the other day over the internet.
At least here in Massachusetts you can renew online and you get a $5 discount to boot.
http://www.magnet.state.ma.us/rmv
I saw part of the broadcast yesterday and the answer is yes, Dell (gateway, compaq VA linux sys. etc etc etc....) could preload and ship staroffice for no fee. (as long as they do not charge for it, if they charge for it then they probably need to give some sort of kickback - but who would pay for it?) and the gist I got from the talk was that Sun would be very happy for resellers to do just that. I think I heard the idea even thrown out about getting the staroffice package put on the AOL cdroms that aol blankets the US mail with wouldn't that be a kick? finally the possibility of useful software on an aol cdrom.