astriusofbricia said -
"I assume, please correct me if I'm wrong, that you think that PJ.com is the greatest thing since sliced bread and that they perform a necessary and good service? Whether the problem is as bad as they like to claim or not, their methods have always bothered me. They are in reality nothing more than vigilantes using tactics that the police would likely not be able to use themselves."
I would say they are doing a mighty fine job. The alarming rate at which the underage profiles they get hit on with is certainly a statistic in themselves. Vigilante's are ones that work outside of the law and take it into their own hands. From the actions of PJ.com, there have been 52 convictions in a court of law, with Perverted-Justice.com assisting police and providing evidence of the crimes committed. Soliciting a child for sex, or one believed to be a child, is a federal offense. Many states also have their own statutes to cover this as well. Regardless if the person even physically attempts it, the act of solicitation is against the law, and it is wrong. Perverted-Justice.com has also supplied training to more than a handful of police agencies wishing to form their own anti-child predator units.
Did I mention also that with assistance of law enforcement, they have helped in the arrests of 108 predators since January alone? I think that is effective and that they are providing a good service. Any person who is anti-child predator would agree that putting predators behind bars is good, especially when PJ.com has a 100% conviction rate. That is right. There has not been even a single aqquital, even when defendants like Robert Andrews (formerly the President of the Greater Cincinnatti Criminal Defense Lawyer Association) had the best lawyers in their court, like Larry Flynt's personal counsel Sirkin. PJ.com has helped take down predators big and small, and the ball is still rolling.
The point is that in almost every conviction garnered against the predators that PJ.com has busted, the person had shown up to a predetermined place, with written or verbal declaration that their intention was to have sex, and many of them carried such lovely items like condoms, alcohol, lubricant, child porn, duct tape, rope, knives, and in one case; a gun. You cannot tell me that had a child actually been present that there would have not been a more serious crime beyond attempted molestation or rape. What is even more alarming is in the last 4 months, there have been 4 individuals that were arrested by police that had been picked up on the radar by PJ.com, and even after they were indicted and out on bail were found right back out in the chatrooms doing the same thing again. One man that was caught had just made a plea bargain for an unrelated child molestation charge just two days prior to being caught by PJ.com for the same damn thing. That, my friend, is beyond fucking scary. It makes me not want to have children at all.
Not trying to be a shill here, but just trying to spread some truth on the severity of the problem. For those that still don't believe it's true, please do the following: create a Yahoo chat profile that labels you as a 11-14 year old girl. Go into a regional chat room in the US and just sit there for 10 minutes. Don't say a word, just sit. When people message you, be sure to tell them your age right off the bat. You will be flabergasted at how many men will go straight into sexual grooming after having seen your age.
The statistic that 1 in 5 children have been solicted for sex online was from the NCMEC. I can not ascertain if they mean 1 in 5 children that have internet access, or if it's just 1 in 5 children period. Either way, millions of kids have internet access in the US alone. Even if it's 1 in 5 out of 1 million, that is still enough to warrant a huge public outcry and new focus on anti-predatory legislation.
You could not be more wrong than you are right now. The statistic is true that at least 1 in 5 children are solicited in the US by total strangers on the internet. While your statistic is the number of those molested, and thus subsequently killed, the statistic of how many children have been molested by a single pedophile before he's caught is in the average of 50. That is not only based off of interrogations, but self admissions of the pedophiles themselves.
Since this is the real statistic we are dealing with, there is obviously many children being not only molested by relatives, but by strangers whom groom them either IRL or over the internet, by adults in authority positions over them, and so on.
To learn more about how bad the problem really is, you should go over to Perverted-Justice.com. They helped Riverside CA. police arrest 50 men in 1 night whom showed up to have sex with what they thought was a 12-14 year old child. The organization also can claim responsiblity for the successful convictions of 52 other predators caught within the last year.
"All the different advantages (except actually having a disk) that it describes already exist in other models/brands of mp3 players (I've used my iRiver for recording and storage - which it gets read as an external hard drive, thus avoiding the issues the article has)... but don't exist in the ipod."
This is totally incorrect. I connect my iPod (1st Gen 10GB) to my Linux box and I can mount it as an external hard drive and store whatever I want on it up to it's capacity. The only thing that sucks about the generation of iPod I have is that it's ieee1394 only:\
Crash tests, maybe not. It's a concept car in all literal sense. The emissions would be greatly below any gasoline car, I can guarantee that. You see, even petroleum diesel creates less greenhouse gases than gasoline. The main byproduct of burning diesel is carbon, which does not stay airborne and is biodegradable. That is why you see the smoke from diesel vehicles float back down to the ground fairly quickly.
When you change from petroleum diesel to soybean or other organic biodiesel, you'll see even lower emmissions, especially in the sulfur content as well.
Crash tests is all about crunch zones, re-enforcements, and airbags. Those might add a bit of weight, but is missing the entire point of this project. The point is that a non-petroleum vehicle can be engineered by teenagers, which proves we could conceptually reduce our dependence on petroleum. If the electric motor on these cars were efficient enough, it could dramatically decrease the amount of fluid fuels that our cars need overall, meaning that even soy or other veggie based biodiesel could be feasible, and that turning 3/4 of the US into farmland wouldn't have to be the alternative.
Former 7th SFG (A) here. Looking at the practical use of an exoskeleton, I don't really see how it could be very usable even in conventional warfare. If the machinery deadlines in the middle of contact, you'd be severely screwed trying to get that thing off of you. With it's current speed of 6 ft/sec, that is not enough to be able to react to any sudden situations. You'd be smoked.
Also, if your only using it temporarily to traverse terrain that vehicles can't go, what are you going to do to stow it after you fuel runs out, or if you must continue on without it. That's one expensive piece of equipment to leave behind, especially to potentially fall in enemy hands.
Call me an old fashioned soldier, but some of this new infantry gadgetry that DARPA is trying to field is about as unrealistic as the OICW system which is over 18lbs.
If your running Fedora Core 4, the only way that your going to be able to simulate this exploit to run on your machine is either:
1.) Be running VMWare and install Windows into it,
2.) Dual boot into Windows and try it, if you have it installed.
This exploit, like nearly 99.9% of other Windows exploits don't apply to us Linux users. Even a better reason never to go back to M$ software, besides the fact that it costs far too much.
I'm actually quite suprised that SpyAxe isn't sued from MS for using the Windows Update icon for it's system tray item. I've removed this nasty spyware off of many computers, and the lengths that spyware companies will go to in order to look legitimate never ceases to amaze me.
The mere fact that you have to have "tool tips" to even figure out what the programs do in the first point for your most commonly used apps is pretty silly, if you ask me. For most all of my apps in KDE, it says right before the programs name what it does, such as "CD/DVD Burning (K3b)". I didn't have to hover over it to jog my memory as to what it was. Also, my "Start" menu doesn't organize my programs in the most impossible to find ways like Windows does (by company name), it organizes them by what they do in the first place, so I can spend less time searching through crap and more time getting done what I want to do.
I get all of that simplicity, AND I don't have to clean buttloads of spyware and viruses off my system like most of you Windoze users do. Oh, yeah...thats 2 more programs that I don't have to remember the names or functions to. See how easy it is:)
PS: My girlfriend recently install SuSE 10 Linux on her laptop without any help, and she's the most computer illiterate person I know.
Perhaps not many companies will, but I do think that it's commonly because of fear and ignorance. Likewise, it took America a long time and alot of money to switch from using asbestos insulation to alternatives, but it's paid off in the long run.
I remember when I made the switch a year ago. All of the software I needed, I was able to find a replacement for. Given a year's worth of licensing fee's for per seat Windows usage, a moderate to large sized company could have any specialized software ported to Linux by a team of programmers, and save hundreds of thousands if not millions in the long run.
How pathetic is it that you have to have your main web browser (IE) and email client (OE) banned because of it's horrendous security liability? Those two types of programs are the most important things to businesses short of word processing and spreadsheets! Might as well just give you a computer and say, "Don't turn it on. It's insecure. Use it as a paperweight, instead."
I wanted a OS and software that I can trust. With the FOSS community, I don't have to worry about corrupted business tactics, long patch delays, and lackluster empathy for my IT needs. I want to be able to go under the hood if necessary, or have a security auditor/programmer go in, find the problem and fix it if I can't wait more than a day or two. You cannot do that with Windows. You are at the mercy of M$, and your only other recourse besides them is to semi-cripple your systems in order to just stay up in the even of crisis.
Don't believe me? Do some research on the company, Ernie-Ball. They switched to Linux, and they are saving buttloads, not to mention having far better results. I do believe the owner himself said that he'd never go back to M$ ever again.
My argument makes perfect sense. While Debian and Redhat share many of the same features and kernel, there are various differences. It's like taking an Audi to a Nissan mechanic and saying "Look. It's a car. Your a mechanic. They both have engines, so you should be able to give me support." That's pretty ridiculous.
You really need to understand the differences between different distributions of Linux. Since it seems you've not used either one - Debian or Redhat - I wouldn't expect you to have the best grasp on it. You call Nissan when you need warrantied Nissan support. You call Audi when you need Audi support. Same thing with Debian and Redhat. You might be able to get a generalized answer regarding Linux in general, but don't expect Redhat to be able to troubleshoot your issues with YaST (a system administration tool) because they don't use it in their flavor of Linux, or vice-versa for Redhat's "Up2Date" utility. Just because they share the same kernel and general features does not make them identical or even close when you go above the kernel level of the OS.
"Yes, I can buy support from Red Hat, but can they guarantee that whatever they tell me will also work on Debian? I just want support for Linux, not for Red Hat Linux."
This makes no sense whatsoever. Will whatever they tell you about Server 2003 Enterprise work in Win CE? Redhat and Debian are like oranges and tangerines. At the genetic level, they are the same, but their particulars are different. For instance, Redhat uses RPM package management. Debian uses the dpkg.deb system, via APT. Many administrative tasks between Redhat and Debian, such as shell commands, will be the same. If you run Redhat Linux, you get Redhat support. If you run Debian, you get Debian support. You wouldn't call Apple to get Microsoft support, do you? I mean, they are both GUI OS's. Lets not build a straw man argument here, ok?
I run 10 SuSE workstations at my business, and one server. If I had a single problem with any of the software shipped with it, I was able to get an answer from SuSE and a fix within a very short amount of time. Usually, it was less than 3 days at best if it wasn't covered in their knowledgebase. Also, I hired a programmer to come in and customize several of my graphic editing machines and add some features to Blender 3D modeler that weren't previously there. I could've written the developer and asked him to include it in the next release, but since it was free and Open Source, my programmer was able to go into the source code, put in the feature I wanted, recompile and install it within 7 days. Can you do that with nearly any proprietary (which means all or nearly all) Microsoft product? Nope. Your at the mercy of doing things the Microsoft way, or no way at all. That is not computing. That is technological slavery. That is why I left M$ and never looked back. Needless to say, I save a bunch of money, get what I want, and go to sleep knowing that my security is alot better and that the latest worm that hit the net doesn't affect my business at all. My patches are seamless, and even my employees are happier, suprisingly. It's interesting...many of them have told me that they've switched their PC's to Linux. Even my near computer illiterate receptionist installed SuSE 9.3 on her iBook.
Imagine that.
PS - The initial reason I left MS was because of their horrible support. I've never been treated like such a useless number in my life, and received so little for so much. Once, they had me on the phone for 3 hours just to tell me in the end that I'd have to restore my Windows 2000 sever. Ridiculous! A restore is something that is nearly unheard of in the Linux world. It is no different than saying, "We don't know how to fix your issue. We made a system that we don't even fully understand. Thanks for your $430. Here is some useless advice."
Here is a copy of the letter I sent to my states Representative (CA);
Dear Congressman Radanovich,
I understand that you are supporting a Bill set forth to require the use of the Digital TV Broadcast Flag. While this has no direct benefit to the users of digital tv, it comes as a worriesome revelation to those of us who use and enjoy analog tv, and have no intention of soon switching over and purchasing digital tv sets.
I know that this bill is an effort to force people to purchase digital tv sets, and I know that Congress can't shut down analog television until 85 percent of American households buy digital sets. I feel that it is being done under a great amount of subterfuge in order to appease the MPAA in it's digital and IP copyright wars against those who choose to share digital media over the internet and other distribution channels. I feel that you've been fooled into thinking that this Bill will successfully regulate such use. In fact, it will have no effect on it seeing as how all pirated works of digital media are captured using analog computer capture cards and the analog out ports on their digital tv's and receivers. It also stifles the rights of Fair Use that some people choose to use in order to archive television shows for their own private home viewing, like the generations before us have done with no harm to the Film Industry.
I emplore you to look deeper than the surface on this issue. While it may seem to protect big business, and clears up analog airways to be sold to cell companies, it clearly violates Fair Use, incorporates unfair DRM (Digital Rights Management), and forces the public to switch to digital tv sets prematurely when there is no good reason to. Even if it were harmful to grandfather such things as analog tv, removing it's potential for the good of the public is like banning classic cars who don't meet California Emission standards. This is akin to forcing classic car owners to sell or buy new cars simply so car manufactures can make more money and consequentially incorporates technology that inhibits the normal person from being able to service their own vehicles without extremely pricey computer equipment and toolsets.
I do hope you rethink your stance on this issue, and look at it from all perspectives, not just that of the MPAA and big business, and what they have to gain from it. Always put the consumers demands and needs first, because it is us who keep your big business and supporters in operation. Businesses are here to provide service, not to ramrod us into litigations that deny our basic rights as customers, and those given to us under law. Big Business should be in servitude to the public, not the public in servitude to Big Business.
If your having GTKpod problems, especially when it deals with the mounting of the iPods internal hard drive, you might want to visit a tutorial on my blog. I used to have very similar problems, and found a solution to them.
http://www.superpatriot.net/blog/sky_monkey/?archi ve=465
"I have never understood this criticism. I have never had a problem installing and using FreeBSD on any hardware I have tried it on. By contrast, I have NEVER gotten sound to work in any Linux distro on any hardware I own."
I'm not too sure what distro's you've ran lately, but I've tested out Mandriva, Debian (Sarge), Ubuntu (Hoary), and also Suse (9.1-.3) and each and everyone detected my sound card without a hitch. It's an SB Audigy. KDE uses ARTs as it's sound management, and I've never had to fiddle with a.conf file to get it working. Old Linux distro's, of course, had issues with just about anything. The landscape has changed quite a bit since the last time you've tried it, I believe.
I once sold an iPod on eBay that had a broken firewire port on it (1st Gen 5GB) and got $70 for it. As far as batteries go, you can purchase a battery replacement very cheaply from a vast number of online stores, such as http://eshop.macsales.com/. Opening up the iPod is easy, and can be done with a small flathead screwdriver, or a set of nylon case openers. In fact, I've seen some kits come with the tools needed to open the case as well.
I'd try running Fluxbox, or IceWM as your windows manager (GUI). Gnome and KDE, in their latest versions, are really built to take advantage of faster hardware and provide more eye candy. Fedora Core is also a test-bed Linux project sponsored by Redhat for bleeding-edge hardware. Perhaps a better distro for you would be an older Debian release. Debian generally has less bloat, but is a little more difficult to install for the novice linux user.
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I would say they are doing a mighty fine job. The alarming rate at which the underage profiles they get hit on with is certainly a statistic in themselves. Vigilante's are ones that work outside of the law and take it into their own hands. From the actions of PJ.com, there have been 52 convictions in a court of law, with Perverted-Justice.com assisting police and providing evidence of the crimes committed. Soliciting a child for sex, or one believed to be a child, is a federal offense. Many states also have their own statutes to cover this as well. Regardless if the person even physically attempts it, the act of solicitation is against the law, and it is wrong. Perverted-Justice.com has also supplied training to more than a handful of police agencies wishing to form their own anti-child predator units.
Did I mention also that with assistance of law enforcement, they have helped in the arrests of 108 predators since January alone? I think that is effective and that they are providing a good service. Any person who is anti-child predator would agree that putting predators behind bars is good, especially when PJ.com has a 100% conviction rate. That is right. There has not been even a single aqquital, even when defendants like Robert Andrews (formerly the President of the Greater Cincinnatti Criminal Defense Lawyer Association) had the best lawyers in their court, like Larry Flynt's personal counsel Sirkin. PJ.com has helped take down predators big and small, and the ball is still rolling.
The point is that in almost every conviction garnered against the predators that PJ.com has busted, the person had shown up to a predetermined place, with written or verbal declaration that their intention was to have sex, and many of them carried such lovely items like condoms, alcohol, lubricant, child porn, duct tape, rope, knives, and in one case; a gun. You cannot tell me that had a child actually been present that there would have not been a more serious crime beyond attempted molestation or rape. What is even more alarming is in the last 4 months, there have been 4 individuals that were arrested by police that had been picked up on the radar by PJ.com, and even after they were indicted and out on bail were found right back out in the chatrooms doing the same thing again. One man that was caught had just made a plea bargain for an unrelated child molestation charge just two days prior to being caught by PJ.com for the same damn thing. That, my friend, is beyond fucking scary. It makes me not want to have children at all.
Don't believe me? Have a read: http://www.perverted-justice.com/opinions/?article =13
Not trying to be a shill here, but just trying to spread some truth on the severity of the problem. For those that still don't believe it's true, please do the following: create a Yahoo chat profile that labels you as a 11-14 year old girl. Go into a regional chat room in the US and just sit there for 10 minutes. Don't say a word, just sit. When people message you, be sure to tell them your age right off the bat. You will be flabergasted at how many men will go straight into sexual grooming after having seen your age.
The statistic that 1 in 5 children have been solicted for sex online was from the NCMEC. I can not ascertain if they mean 1 in 5 children that have internet access, or if it's just 1 in 5 children period. Either way, millions of kids have internet access in the US alone. Even if it's 1 in 5 out of 1 million, that is still enough to warrant a huge public outcry and new focus on anti-predatory legislation.
Since this is the real statistic we are dealing with, there is obviously many children being not only molested by relatives, but by strangers whom groom them either IRL or over the internet, by adults in authority positions over them, and so on.
To learn more about how bad the problem really is, you should go over to Perverted-Justice.com. They helped Riverside CA. police arrest 50 men in 1 night whom showed up to have sex with what they thought was a 12-14 year old child. The organization also can claim responsiblity for the successful convictions of 52 other predators caught within the last year.
"All the different advantages (except actually having a disk) that it describes already exist in other models/brands of mp3 players (I've used my iRiver for recording and storage - which it gets read as an external hard drive, thus avoiding the issues the article has)... but don't exist in the ipod."
:\
This is totally incorrect. I connect my iPod (1st Gen 10GB) to my Linux box and I can mount it as an external hard drive and store whatever I want on it up to it's capacity. The only thing that sucks about the generation of iPod I have is that it's ieee1394 only
Crash tests, maybe not. It's a concept car in all literal sense. The emissions would be greatly below any gasoline car, I can guarantee that. You see, even petroleum diesel creates less greenhouse gases than gasoline. The main byproduct of burning diesel is carbon, which does not stay airborne and is biodegradable. That is why you see the smoke from diesel vehicles float back down to the ground fairly quickly.
When you change from petroleum diesel to soybean or other organic biodiesel, you'll see even lower emmissions, especially in the sulfur content as well.
Crash tests is all about crunch zones, re-enforcements, and airbags. Those might add a bit of weight, but is missing the entire point of this project. The point is that a non-petroleum vehicle can be engineered by teenagers, which proves we could conceptually reduce our dependence on petroleum. If the electric motor on these cars were efficient enough, it could dramatically decrease the amount of fluid fuels that our cars need overall, meaning that even soy or other veggie based biodiesel could be feasible, and that turning 3/4 of the US into farmland wouldn't have to be the alternative.
Also, if your only using it temporarily to traverse terrain that vehicles can't go, what are you going to do to stow it after you fuel runs out, or if you must continue on without it. That's one expensive piece of equipment to leave behind, especially to potentially fall in enemy hands.
Call me an old fashioned soldier, but some of this new infantry gadgetry that DARPA is trying to field is about as unrealistic as the OICW system which is over 18lbs.
If your running Fedora Core 4, the only way that your going to be able to simulate this exploit to run on your machine is either: 1.) Be running VMWare and install Windows into it, 2.) Dual boot into Windows and try it, if you have it installed. This exploit, like nearly 99.9% of other Windows exploits don't apply to us Linux users. Even a better reason never to go back to M$ software, besides the fact that it costs far too much.
I'm actually quite suprised that SpyAxe isn't sued from MS for using the Windows Update icon for it's system tray item. I've removed this nasty spyware off of many computers, and the lengths that spyware companies will go to in order to look legitimate never ceases to amaze me.
The mere fact that you have to have "tool tips" to even figure out what the programs do in the first point for your most commonly used apps is pretty silly, if you ask me. For most all of my apps in KDE, it says right before the programs name what it does, such as "CD/DVD Burning (K3b)". I didn't have to hover over it to jog my memory as to what it was. Also, my "Start" menu doesn't organize my programs in the most impossible to find ways like Windows does (by company name), it organizes them by what they do in the first place, so I can spend less time searching through crap and more time getting done what I want to do. I get all of that simplicity, AND I don't have to clean buttloads of spyware and viruses off my system like most of you Windoze users do. Oh, yeah...thats 2 more programs that I don't have to remember the names or functions to. See how easy it is :)
PS: My girlfriend recently install SuSE 10 Linux on her laptop without any help, and she's the most computer illiterate person I know.
Perhaps not many companies will, but I do think that it's commonly because of fear and ignorance. Likewise, it took America a long time and alot of money to switch from using asbestos insulation to alternatives, but it's paid off in the long run.
I remember when I made the switch a year ago. All of the software I needed, I was able to find a replacement for. Given a year's worth of licensing fee's for per seat Windows usage, a moderate to large sized company could have any specialized software ported to Linux by a team of programmers, and save hundreds of thousands if not millions in the long run.
How pathetic is it that you have to have your main web browser (IE) and email client (OE) banned because of it's horrendous security liability? Those two types of programs are the most important things to businesses short of word processing and spreadsheets! Might as well just give you a computer and say, "Don't turn it on. It's insecure. Use it as a paperweight, instead."
I wanted a OS and software that I can trust. With the FOSS community, I don't have to worry about corrupted business tactics, long patch delays, and lackluster empathy for my IT needs. I want to be able to go under the hood if necessary, or have a security auditor/programmer go in, find the problem and fix it if I can't wait more than a day or two. You cannot do that with Windows. You are at the mercy of M$, and your only other recourse besides them is to semi-cripple your systems in order to just stay up in the even of crisis.
Don't believe me? Do some research on the company, Ernie-Ball. They switched to Linux, and they are saving buttloads, not to mention having far better results. I do believe the owner himself said that he'd never go back to M$ ever again.
My argument makes perfect sense. While Debian and Redhat share many of the same features and kernel, there are various differences. It's like taking an Audi to a Nissan mechanic and saying "Look. It's a car. Your a mechanic. They both have engines, so you should be able to give me support." That's pretty ridiculous.
You really need to understand the differences between different distributions of Linux. Since it seems you've not used either one - Debian or Redhat - I wouldn't expect you to have the best grasp on it. You call Nissan when you need warrantied Nissan support. You call Audi when you need Audi support. Same thing with Debian and Redhat. You might be able to get a generalized answer regarding Linux in general, but don't expect Redhat to be able to troubleshoot your issues with YaST (a system administration tool) because they don't use it in their flavor of Linux, or vice-versa for Redhat's "Up2Date" utility. Just because they share the same kernel and general features does not make them identical or even close when you go above the kernel level of the OS.
maunleon said:
.deb system, via APT. Many administrative tasks between Redhat and Debian, such as shell commands, will be the same. If you run Redhat Linux, you get Redhat support. If you run Debian, you get Debian support. You wouldn't call Apple to get Microsoft support, do you? I mean, they are both GUI OS's. Lets not build a straw man argument here, ok?
"Yes, I can buy support from Red Hat, but can they guarantee that whatever they tell me will also work on Debian? I just want support for Linux, not for Red Hat Linux."
This makes no sense whatsoever. Will whatever they tell you about Server 2003 Enterprise work in Win CE? Redhat and Debian are like oranges and tangerines. At the genetic level, they are the same, but their particulars are different. For instance, Redhat uses RPM package management. Debian uses the dpkg
I run 10 SuSE workstations at my business, and one server. If I had a single problem with any of the software shipped with it, I was able to get an answer from SuSE and a fix within a very short amount of time. Usually, it was less than 3 days at best if it wasn't covered in their knowledgebase. Also, I hired a programmer to come in and customize several of my graphic editing machines and add some features to Blender 3D modeler that weren't previously there. I could've written the developer and asked him to include it in the next release, but since it was free and Open Source, my programmer was able to go into the source code, put in the feature I wanted, recompile and install it within 7 days. Can you do that with nearly any proprietary (which means all or nearly all) Microsoft product? Nope. Your at the mercy of doing things the Microsoft way, or no way at all. That is not computing. That is technological slavery. That is why I left M$ and never looked back. Needless to say, I save a bunch of money, get what I want, and go to sleep knowing that my security is alot better and that the latest worm that hit the net doesn't affect my business at all. My patches are seamless, and even my employees are happier, suprisingly. It's interesting...many of them have told me that they've switched their PC's to Linux. Even my near computer illiterate receptionist installed SuSE 9.3 on her iBook.
Imagine that.
PS - The initial reason I left MS was because of their horrible support. I've never been treated like such a useless number in my life, and received so little for so much. Once, they had me on the phone for 3 hours just to tell me in the end that I'd have to restore my Windows 2000 sever. Ridiculous! A restore is something that is nearly unheard of in the Linux world. It is no different than saying, "We don't know how to fix your issue. We made a system that we don't even fully understand. Thanks for your $430. Here is some useless advice."
Dear Congressman Radanovich,
I understand that you are supporting a Bill set forth to require the use of the Digital TV Broadcast Flag. While this has no direct benefit to the users of digital tv, it comes as a worriesome revelation to those of us who use and enjoy analog tv, and have no intention of soon switching over and purchasing digital tv sets.
I know that this bill is an effort to force people to purchase digital tv sets, and I know that Congress can't shut down analog television until 85 percent of American households buy digital sets. I feel that it is being done under a great amount of subterfuge in order to appease the MPAA in it's digital and IP copyright wars against those who choose to share digital media over the internet and other distribution channels. I feel that you've been fooled into thinking that this Bill will successfully regulate such use. In fact, it will have no effect on it seeing as how all pirated works of digital media are captured using analog computer capture cards and the analog out ports on their digital tv's and receivers. It also stifles the rights of Fair Use that some people choose to use in order to archive television shows for their own private home viewing, like the generations before us have done with no harm to the Film Industry.
I emplore you to look deeper than the surface on this issue. While it may seem to protect big business, and clears up analog airways to be sold to cell companies, it clearly violates Fair Use, incorporates unfair DRM (Digital Rights Management), and forces the public to switch to digital tv sets prematurely when there is no good reason to. Even if it were harmful to grandfather such things as analog tv, removing it's potential for the good of the public is like banning classic cars who don't meet California Emission standards. This is akin to forcing classic car owners to sell or buy new cars simply so car manufactures can make more money and consequentially incorporates technology that inhibits the normal person from being able to service their own vehicles without extremely pricey computer equipment and toolsets.
I do hope you rethink your stance on this issue, and look at it from all perspectives, not just that of the MPAA and big business, and what they have to gain from it. Always put the consumers demands and needs first, because it is us who keep your big business and supporters in operation. Businesses are here to provide service, not to ramrod us into litigations that deny our basic rights as customers, and those given to us under law. Big Business should be in servitude to the public, not the public in servitude to Big Business.
If your having GTKpod problems, especially when it deals with the mounting of the iPods internal hard drive, you might want to visit a tutorial on my blog. I used to have very similar problems, and found a solution to them. http://www.superpatriot.net/blog/sky_monkey/?archi ve=465
How incredibly odd. What sound device are you using?
"I have never understood this criticism. I have never had a problem installing and using FreeBSD on any hardware I have tried it on. By contrast, I have NEVER gotten sound to work in any Linux distro on any hardware I own."
.conf file to get it working. Old Linux distro's, of course, had issues with just about anything. The landscape has changed quite a bit since the last time you've tried it, I believe.
I'm not too sure what distro's you've ran lately, but I've tested out Mandriva, Debian (Sarge), Ubuntu (Hoary), and also Suse (9.1-.3) and each and everyone detected my sound card without a hitch. It's an SB Audigy. KDE uses ARTs as it's sound management, and I've never had to fiddle with a
I once sold an iPod on eBay that had a broken firewire port on it (1st Gen 5GB) and got $70 for it. As far as batteries go, you can purchase a battery replacement very cheaply from a vast number of online stores, such as http://eshop.macsales.com/. Opening up the iPod is easy, and can be done with a small flathead screwdriver, or a set of nylon case openers. In fact, I've seen some kits come with the tools needed to open the case as well.
I'd try running Fluxbox, or IceWM as your windows manager (GUI). Gnome and KDE, in their latest versions, are really built to take advantage of faster hardware and provide more eye candy. Fedora Core is also a test-bed Linux project sponsored by Redhat for bleeding-edge hardware. Perhaps a better distro for you would be an older Debian release. Debian generally has less bloat, but is a little more difficult to install for the novice linux user.