If you already have an iPad, you can get grandfathered in, and AT&T/can not/ legally change your plan once you're on it (read your terms and conditions, it's in there. slamming and cramming = bad). Grandfathered plans/will not/ be removed unless the feature actually gets removed from your account.. and you (or someone with access to your account.. don't give out your SSN and/or passcode) are the only one who can authorize that.. (and if it gets removed by accident and it WASN'T authorized.. well.. it/can/ be added back.. you just need to get a manager to override it).
Furthermore.. iPhone tethering has always been available.. it's called a jailbreak. It's not hard. Just google "spirit jailbreak" and in less than 10 minutes you'll have Cydia and can download the tethering app of your choice, whether AT&T likes it or not. Poof, iPhone tethering with unlimited data, no need to wait for Apple to release OS4 to the iPhone and then get put on a 2gb plan for the iPhone as well -- keep your iphone unlimited data forever if you want. 3
In fact, it doesn't even have to ring at all. With my Treo (which, of course, is GSM), it does that any time it does anything with the network. This includes incoming texts, checking email, or even just renegotiating with the nearest tower.
I have to say that the quality of XM's audio has significantly decreased since I got the service in 2002. It resembles a poorly encoded 96k MP3 now. It could be that they have too many channels and they had to drop the bandwidth...but it sounds AWFUL.
Well, you know, Sirius sort of has this whole Statistical Multiplexing thing going on to ensure against that....
Well, I could write a novel on my BBS memories, but I'll condense it.
Most of my boarding occured in Texas, most notably on After Hours BBS, Adrenalyze (later just called Adren), and Adam's Garden.
Through these boards, I made the best friends of my teens, some of which I still talk to now (and others, I've lost contact with for eons, and then seemed to re-meet 8 years later on some random MUD). I also recall having two short-lived boards of my own, one running Renegade, the other running MajorBBS (which later came to be called WorldGroup -- about the same time they put a windows GUI to it).
The most special, however, after getting over the "Oooh I'm special cuz I'm a SYSOP like everybody else", was playing MajorMUD, and then Adren started hosting something similar to MajorMUD, a place called Realms of Thoth, that later became a telnet MUD.
I've been addicted to text-based RPG's ever since then. (amaranth.wehostmuds.com port 4080.. we're not hack-n-slash, we require brains!)
Someone took a picture of one of the hotels, I believe it was the MGM Grand, and it had bluescreened on it's big marquee. Also, I've seen them at the onscreen arrival/departure screens in DFW Airport on numerous occasions.
They still have yet to get any of The Sims expansion packs to work, after making such a big deal out of providing The Sims for the Mandrake Gaming Edition. Furthermore, The Sims Online seems to have been completely forgotten by the project as a whole.
Their official site, (www.knoppix.org boldly states: "In the next few days, the European Parliament will decide about the legalisation and adoption of so-called "software patents" in Europe, which are already used by large companies in other countries to put competitors out of business. This can lead to the termination of many software projects such as KNOPPIX..."
So, I'm gonna stick to my own home-made rescue disks for the time being, tyvm.
Allright, from a company standpoint, I can see how what they're doing can be a good idea. HOWEVER, here's the problem as I see it.
I have EchoStar at home, and I'm quite happy with it. I've switched out the HD in it and now can have several weeks worth of programs saved for me to view at my leisure. I can't remember the last time I bothered to watch a commercial, and as a consumer, I *like* this idea. I also like the idea of being able to watch my saved shows even on those very rare occasions that weather and other things decide to block out my signal. Furthermore, I don't feel like giving up any of these for a service that won't even let me record certain shows. Why I would choose to have my shows on some server, maintained by AOL-Time Warner of all people, where the likelyhood of even being able to ACCESS my shows whenever I want them (we all know how AOL runs their servers for anything, why would this be different) is pretty slim?
Now, although obviously I am not every consumer in America, I am unable to see what this service has to offer, and what they honestly believe will make people choose their service over something else the consumer can have much more control over.
Much fun. The only reason I still have a windows partition is because the sims (AND EXPANSION PACKS) won't run under linux.. yet. SuSE sounds promising, however. The day is coming, soon I won't need windows on my home machine anymore at all. w00t.
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OK guys, calm down.
If you already have an iPad, you can get grandfathered in, and AT&T /can not/ legally change your plan once you're on it (read your terms and conditions, it's in there. slamming and cramming = bad). Grandfathered plans /will not/ be removed unless the feature actually gets removed from your account.. and you (or someone with access to your account.. don't give out your SSN and/or passcode) are the only one who can authorize that.. (and if it gets removed by accident and it WASN'T authorized.. well.. it /can/ be added back.. you just need to get a manager to override it).
Furthermore.. iPhone tethering has always been available.. it's called a jailbreak. It's not hard. Just google "spirit jailbreak" and in less than 10 minutes you'll have Cydia and can download the tethering app of your choice, whether AT&T likes it or not. Poof, iPhone tethering with unlimited data, no need to wait for Apple to release OS4 to the iPhone and then get put on a 2gb plan for the iPhone as well -- keep your iphone unlimited data forever if you want. 3
In fact, it doesn't even have to ring at all. With my Treo (which, of course, is GSM), it does that any time it does anything with the network. This includes incoming texts, checking email, or even just renegotiating with the nearest tower.
I have to say that the quality of XM's audio has significantly decreased since I got the service in 2002. It resembles a poorly encoded 96k MP3 now. It could be that they have too many channels and they had to drop the bandwidth...but it sounds AWFUL.
Well, you know, Sirius sort of has this whole Statistical Multiplexing thing going on to ensure against that....
Well, I could write a novel on my BBS memories, but I'll condense it.
Most of my boarding occured in Texas, most notably on After Hours BBS, Adrenalyze (later just called Adren), and Adam's Garden.
Through these boards, I made the best friends of my teens, some of which I still talk to now (and others, I've lost contact with for eons, and then seemed to re-meet 8 years later on some random MUD). I also recall having two short-lived boards of my own, one running Renegade, the other running MajorBBS (which later came to be called WorldGroup -- about the same time they put a windows GUI to it).
The most special, however, after getting over the "Oooh I'm special cuz I'm a SYSOP like everybody else", was playing MajorMUD, and then Adren started hosting something similar to MajorMUD, a place called Realms of Thoth, that later became a telnet MUD.
I've been addicted to text-based RPG's ever since then. (amaranth.wehostmuds.com port 4080.. we're not hack-n-slash, we require brains!)
Someone took a picture of one of the hotels, I believe it was the MGM Grand, and it had bluescreened on it's big marquee. Also, I've seen them at the onscreen arrival/departure screens in DFW Airport on numerous occasions.
They still have yet to get any of The Sims expansion packs to work, after making such a big deal out of providing The Sims for the Mandrake Gaming Edition. Furthermore, The Sims Online seems to have been completely forgotten by the project as a whole.
Their official site, (www.knoppix.org boldly states: "In the next few days, the European Parliament will decide about the legalisation and adoption of so-called "software patents" in Europe, which are already used by large companies in other countries to put competitors out of business. This can lead to the termination of many software projects such as KNOPPIX..."
So, I'm gonna stick to my own home-made rescue disks for the time being, tyvm.
This just reaffirms the reasoning for sticking to text-based MMORPGs. The '000h k3w1 gr4af1x' generation simply misses the point.
Of course not, Echostar would smack it down.
Yes, because everyone wants to buy Rio, right?
Now, although obviously I am not every consumer in America, I am unable to see what this service has to offer, and what they honestly believe will make people choose their service over something else the consumer can have much more control over.
Allright that was amusing. It said "Authorization Error", then forwarded me to the actual article anyway.
Much fun. The only reason I still have a windows partition is because the sims (AND EXPANSION PACKS) won't run under linux.. yet. SuSE sounds promising, however. The day is coming, soon I won't need windows on my home machine anymore at all. w00t.