Actually, here in the UK, it's illegal for under-18s to have credit cards (Consumer Credit Act).
Actually, I think this is a Good Thing (TM)... for a start, it means you can't run up huge fictitious debts... (as an example, why not take Bart Simpson, who in one episode got sent a credit card application addressed to his dog?)
And as for ICQ doing this...what about those of us who aren't in the good ol' US of A? I'm 15, so this doesn't count, and I don't use ICQ or AIM or, indeed, any AOL produce (apart from Winamp), but this kind of thing scares me. Why can't we just teach our children not to enter in personal information, or not to trust that tempting 12-year old 49-year old who wants to meet with you? That would certainly be better than locking them out of services that would be useful to them... like ICQ.
I have never, ever used store-bought systems (direct mail or custom-build) but I know a couple of people who own a Packard Bell machine. Let's just say it's a pile of junk. Get ready for some shock...
It's a Pentium-60!!!
That's right, kids! Packard Bell sold to these people, in 1995, a machine with a Pentium-60!
Not only is it not upgradeable in any way (Intel changed voltage from 5V to 3.3V when the P75 and P90 came out) but it has horizontally-mounted cards (in a destop case), one PCI slot, which is not filled, only one 3.5" HDD bay (I gave up trying to fit another), and many other annoying features, such as its wonderful ISA video card or its excre^L^Lllent on-board video!
This, of course, was after NEC bought Packard Bell and made them see some sense (by retiring the brand name). Even now, however, I would not hesitate to tell someone not to buy from them. (*And* the name's not exactly retired yet in the UK - there's a machine in my local Currys.)
So, a pity they're coming back. But will they do better than before?
I'm running Windows 2000 with IE 5 (build 2920). At the current second, I have a command prompt window, Outlook, a newsreader, a folder window and this Slashdot window. I have 128Mb of RAM. My usage is 164048K, and my copy of 2000 is seriously clogged (I'm going to reinstall soon.) When I reduce it to a blank desktop, it uses around 80-90Mb (not including your standard unreleased malloc()s and other memory leaks.)
Therefore, I think you need to reinstall Windows... (but of course, you don't have to do that with Linux. The memory, however, can easily be replicated by typing netscape & and pressing RETURN under KDE2, or GNOME/Enlightenment. Try it sometime.)
Brazil wasn't anything to do with satisfying viewers in both the US and the UK. For example, a similar kind of thing happens in Life, the Universe, and Everything, where Arthur Dent turns up at the universe's longest running party. It is some kind of awards ceremony where people are being given a "Rory" award. In the US version, it is being given out for
"The Most Gratuitous Use Of The Word 'Belgium' In A Serious Screenplay"
while in the UK version, it is being given out for
"The Most Gratuitious Use Of The Word 'Fuck' In A Serious Screenplay"
which is a very different kettle of fish altogether. In the US version, it gives a load of explanatory information about the word 'Belgium' (ripped from Episode 10 of the radio series, but with an edit over the F-word), while in the UK version, it just gets to the point. Let's face it, it wasn't particularly funny in the radio series (although my tape copy provided some unintentional humour by saying "un-f(bleeped)up personality" in respect to use of dirty words in public.)
This happened to Gilliam's Brazil as well. Gilliam wanted the original edit of the film, but Universal were too queasy about letting it out. Gilliam managed to sell the European rights to other people (Warner in the UK) so a 'European cut' of Brazil was released, with much more violence than there is in the original US version. Gilliam managed to force the release of his original US version instead of Sidney Sheinburg's cut version, which would have been a disaster.
The Sheinburg version is available in Criterion's excellent Brazil box set, on both LD and DVD. It is an interesting entity in its own right, because it's utterly terrible, ending with a *happy ending*. Er, Universal, it's a depressing movie, as the poster above pointed out. But did they care? No, they nearly put it out! (It's even been seen on cable in the US a couple of times.)
However, the US version of the film, as it was officially released (the newest Criterion cut is better and newer than either) is different to the European version in many of these respects. A film this also reminds me of is Blade Runner, which also was mucked up ending-wise (with the permission of Ridley Scott, however, because of the film's poor test scores - which shows the fallacy of test scores.)
All are about failures in society and the person, and usually both. That's the thing.
[NOTE: All opinions expressed in this following message are my own. Sorry.]
I don't think ILOVEYOU is entirely MSFT's fault.
ILOVEYOU exploits:
a) User gullibility b) Windows Scripting Host (Windows 98 onwards) [and finally] c) VBScript (although it could just have easily been JavaScript)
WSH, my point b), is the Windows replacement for the batch file that not many people know about. Basically, it allows script files written in VBScript (a cut down version of Visual Basic language) or JavaScript to be run from the desktop.
The ILOVEYOU worm [because that is what it is] is a file written in VBScript, one of the two languages supported as standard. It is attached to an e-mail. This email was sent out from the Phillipines a couple of nights ago. Whenever a gullible user double-clicks on the file with a SCRIPT ICON and with the extension.VBS, the Windows Scripting Host will launch.
So, what does ILOVEYOU teach us?
a) A VBS file means that you're looking at a program. It could be damaging. Don't click on it. b) Microsoft was stupid not to make WSH more obvious. c) ILOVEYOU is basically the modern equivalent of an ANSI bomb. Remember those? d) THIS DOES *NOT* ONLY AFFECT OUTLOOK! It affects any email clients which allow you to run.VBS or.JS (JavaScript) files from inside the program. It also affects gullible users who DL them *then* run them. e) Other operating systems, such as MacOS (AppleScript), could be affected in the same way.
ILOVEYOU only took a matter of time to create. Remember this.
On the topic of the Open Source, anyway, I may well browse under Microsloth IE, because Netscape doesn't work and I can't pay for Opera. I only have a 56K modem so am loath to download Netscape 6 or Mozilla builds, and even with a PII-266 and 128Mb of RAM, Netscape moves along like a slug on crack. It's terrifying, especially when you realise that NS is owned by a company I loathe and despise, i.e. AOL, a company compared to which Microsoft looks like a sacrificial lamb.
There are no open-source browser projects under Win2K or Linux - excepting Lynx, of course, due to its non-graphical ability - which support modern features to the full.
My 56K modem is a Conexant/Rockwell HCF, so I can only browse under Win2K or 9x. That's ridiculous as well.
Of course, I wish KDE2 good luck - maybe Konqueror might turn out to be the IE-Beater, which would be excellent (and maybe persuade me to save up for a proper, 3Com USR external modem.) I've even tested Linux projects for Corel. I don't hate Open Source - on the contrary, it's an excellent idea. But at the moment, I need to do things under MS Office 2000 (and yes, I do know about StarOffice) and other programs for my student purposes. I can't avoid this. I've just started to program under Linux (KDevelop v1.0 feels similar to MS Visual C++, which helps soothe the transition leap) and hope to learn. WINE is an excellent resource, even for non-Linux users.
So, this is what Open Source is to me - a great idea. APACHE, FTPD, SENDMAIL...we can't survive without them. So why ban them? Why?
--------------------------------- ROSS TREGASKIS Caldera OpenLinux eDesktop 2.4 Corel Beta Tester
Unfortunately (for you and me) raw bit copies of DVDs are not possible - the bit on the DVD where the CSS key goes is written over (with 0s) on a DVD-R - it's in the licensing. Sorry.
I've always thought that Intel is more of an anticompetitive company than MSFT - at least Microsoft doesn't try to get SAMBA banned because it uses their coveted SMB protocol.
Intel, in the past, have done some terribly anticompetitive things: they've sued AMD, in the past, for using the Intel instructions under a license Intel granted them, they have spread a large amount of FUD about AMD, Cyrix, Rise, NexGen processors in the past (which is why AMD bought NexGen and Cyrix and Rise both went to VIA, which is the entire point of this article.) Intel also tries to lock people into using Intel processors, but they decided to pay off the DOJ so they can keep on doing this. Even if I want to buy an Athlon (I do), it's very hard to get hold of one because Intel threaten Dell, Gateway etc. with removal of price quotas if they even dare to go for a better chip. The Pentium III is a privacy-stealing kludge.
And remember - Intel wasn't chosen for the original PC because it was the best (IBM were aiming for the Motorola 68000 or some National Semiconductor chip, now forgotten), but because the 8088 supported 8080 hardware and there were no other chips available. In effect, Intel were chosen because they were the worst.
I feel that VIA, and AMD, and the other companies which try to fight against Intel (and AMD win on speed and, especially, price) should be encouraged and supported, just like anti-Microsoft efforts (such as BeOS [I'm getting 5.0!], the Linux support base etc.) because of their own anticompetitive collusions. It's the same thing - freedom from the large corporations, who want to rule your life. Intel is the Microsoft of hardware, which however doesn't care as much about PR because they know at least 50% of the non-Internet connected users (figure unknown) don't even know there's an alternative. Remember that.
AOL and Time Warner: a match made in hell
on
AOL Nation
·
· Score: 1
I have been a subscriber to CompuServe since April 1994.
Finally, in January 2000, I'm on my final tether, close to leaving. I'm filled with nostalgia, but AOL has turned my pleasant ISP into a hellhole.
They didn't start off right - their service was, at first, fairly hard to use and charged £5 an hour - but once they corrected these problems - I can still remember the days of paying £10 for a free five hours, a package which AOL uses to this day - and released the NetWinder software, everything changed. Now, I could dial CSi and get a real, *real*, PPP Net connection. (I set up CSi manually under Windows 95 and NT4.0beta2. I once was able to connect under Slackware Linux (v3.2). No more.)
Version 3.0 of the software came out, the first to be supplied with a real browser. It had a lovely, blue interface that not many people appreciated at the time. It had a fast connection time. It was fast on the Net.
And then AOL intruded into my world. I had once used one of their trial disks, and threw it away after two days. The circumstances of the takeover were humiliating: WorldCom bought CompuServe, and then gave AOL CSi plus a hundred and twenty million dollars in exchange for AOL's networks. To this day, I have a real hatred for MCI WorldCom.
There were not many changes, until last year. They introduced the "CompuServe 2000" service. In practise, this means: "The AOL software with new icons." It shares the AOL membership database and AOL's telephone number. It is AOL, except without a hideously coloured login screen or any content whatsoever.
I'm still paying a hideously large amount of money every month for unlimited access to CompuServe, but I have an account with a free ISP (Freeserve - I'm in the UK) and plan to fly very soon. It will be a pity to see the nostalgia go, but the merger has decided it. I'm going before my nice service becomes a dumping ground for sound files of Bugs Bunny saying "You've got mail."
I think that's all I can explain, except that there are still many people on the service who feel like me (the beta forum is full of people saying "Which ISP should I go to now?") and that CompuServe are people who deserve to be left. Because now, only the newbies who are persuaded by huge, lying-scum marketing budgets will be living here. Don't pity me, AOL - I'm just the messenger.
You must be joking! I have a 56K Winmodem (Rockwell HCF - I got taken in, and I hate it - BTW, Winmodem is a trademark of 3Com USRobotics) and I get as little as 4.3Kb/s, max. The specifications supplied with it *demand* a Pentium 166MMX - I'm using a Pentium II-266 - and it's still slow on my system, and uses huge amounts of CPU. I've even got slow text display on IE. Sorry, but I can't accept this.
Newsgroups? I love newsgroups! And as it happens, those idiots/b[deleted]s/sysadmins at AOL/CompuServe appear to be *prohibiting* my access to public news servers. Each and every time I try to access one I either don't get connected or get a "forbidden" message - and I'd bet you it's not from the news server. So deja.com is all I have. The service appears to be stopping people from using the Net, and I think this is why I'm going to try and leave CSi any time soon. Why, oh why, did they give in?
As a CSi user, I am afraid for a Time/Warner merger. Because now AOL have loads of cash to chuck on advertising. And believe me, they need advertising desperately. In the UK, people are abandoning them in droves for the free-subscription ISPs, and I plan to go with the flow. And AOL/CSi can now spread lies about being the "No.1" (they're not, Freeserve is) over national TV even more of the time. And idiotic consumers will sign on, not realising that they can get more webspace (20Mb compared to 14Mb) and better connection times from any of Telinco's services, including the new one that gives 0800 access every third week. This is why I'm posting this using Freeserve. (CSi's software bugs out on me regularly, although using Microsoft beta software [IE5.5] definitely helps as well.)
So, to summarise, I am afraid for non-users, because with a huge company, marketing muscle can push out the little, small ISPs and make everyone use one big ISP, with which people can censor and prohibit access at will. This is why I hope the FTC will oppose the deal (if that is possible), because we don't have any other hope.
As someone who was forced onto a service owned by AOL when my ISP (CompuServe) was bought out, I have to disagree with you in my personal case.
I run RedHat 6.1 on a separate partition. I tried Corel but didn't think much of it. I can't run my modem under Linux because it's a Rockwell HCF (why, Rockwell, why?) - otherwise, I'd probably move. I use Windows [a Beta 2 version, guess which project I'm on] mostly for games and MSWord. I'm trying to learn C and C++ in a UNIX context. I spent days trying to make svgalib work under Linux, eventually discovering I needed to download v1.4 (RedHat 5.2 had supplied v1.2.1.)
My online service provider is now using a modified version of the AOL software, with new graphics. (I'm typing this using a Freeserve account, as it regularly refuses access to USENET or to/., claiming a timeout.) My email and file download screens are festooned with adverts for E-BAY. The only thing I use it for is the Web, and I get a rather slow connection which disconnects me around every twenty minutes and which takes several minutes to download a 100K attached file. I'm close to leaving.
I agree with several points here: AOL does indeed want to [EDITED] you over for ad revenue, and the OS is indeed second rate compared to Linux or even MacOS. But I need to keep it, because the world does not run on Linux, or MacOS, or even UNIXes as a whole. 70% of computers in the world (I'm not sure about this) run on MSFT software. If I want a computing job, I have to work with it.
And that is the saddest thing of all, as people like l0pht help to advance our knowledge of computer security systems and inner workings of computers, things which would really help the rest of us. But instead, most of the world's population just wants to play several rounds of Solitaire and write a letter to their grandmother on MSFT software, and this is why they are on top. Not because of any interesting reason, but because people have placed them there.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, here in the UK, it's illegal for under-18s to have credit cards (Consumer Credit Act).
... like ICQ.
Actually, I think this is a Good Thing (TM)... for a start, it means you can't run up huge fictitious debts... (as an example, why not take Bart Simpson, who in one episode got sent a credit card application addressed to his dog?)
And as for ICQ doing this...what about those of us who aren't in the good ol' US of A? I'm 15, so this doesn't count, and I don't use ICQ or AIM or, indeed, any AOL produce (apart from Winamp), but this kind of thing scares me. Why can't we just teach our children not to enter in personal information, or not to trust that tempting 12-year old 49-year old who wants to meet with you? That would certainly be better than locking them out of services that would be useful to them
Does anyone else say overkill? I do.
Ah... Packard Bell.
I have never, ever used store-bought systems (direct mail or custom-build) but I know a couple of people who own a Packard Bell machine. Let's just say it's a pile of junk. Get ready for some shock...
It's a Pentium-60!!!
That's right, kids! Packard Bell sold to these people, in 1995, a machine with a Pentium-60!
Not only is it not upgradeable in any way (Intel changed voltage from 5V to 3.3V when the P75 and P90 came out) but it has horizontally-mounted cards (in a destop case), one PCI slot, which is not filled, only one 3.5" HDD bay (I gave up trying to fit another), and many other annoying features, such as its wonderful ISA video card or its excre^L^Lllent on-board video!
This, of course, was after NEC bought Packard Bell and made them see some sense (by retiring the brand name). Even now, however, I would not hesitate to tell someone not to buy from them. (*And* the name's not exactly retired yet in the UK - there's a machine in my local Currys.)
So, a pity they're coming back. But will they do better than before?
Only time will tell.
I'm running Windows 2000 with IE 5 (build 2920). At the current second, I have a command prompt window, Outlook, a newsreader, a folder window and this Slashdot window. I have 128Mb of RAM. My usage is 164048K, and my copy of 2000 is seriously clogged (I'm going to reinstall soon.) When I reduce it to a blank desktop, it uses around 80-90Mb (not including your standard unreleased malloc()s and other memory leaks.)
Therefore, I think you need to reinstall Windows... (but of course, you don't have to do that with Linux. The memory, however, can easily be replicated by typing netscape & and pressing RETURN under KDE2, or GNOME/Enlightenment. Try it sometime.)
while in the UK version, it is being given out for
which is a very different kettle of fish altogether. In the US version, it gives a load of explanatory information about the word 'Belgium' (ripped from Episode 10 of the radio series, but with an edit over the F-word), while in the UK version, it just gets to the point. Let's face it, it wasn't particularly funny in the radio series (although my tape copy provided some unintentional humour by saying "un-f(bleeped)up personality" in respect to use of dirty words in public.)
This happened to Gilliam's Brazil as well. Gilliam wanted the original edit of the film, but Universal were too queasy about letting it out. Gilliam managed to sell the European rights to other people (Warner in the UK) so a 'European cut' of Brazil was released, with much more violence than there is in the original US version. Gilliam managed to force the release of his original US version instead of Sidney Sheinburg's cut version, which would have been a disaster.
The Sheinburg version is available in Criterion's excellent Brazil box set, on both LD and DVD. It is an interesting entity in its own right, because it's utterly terrible, ending with a *happy ending*. Er, Universal, it's a depressing movie, as the poster above pointed out. But did they care? No, they nearly put it out! (It's even been seen on cable in the US a couple of times.)
However, the US version of the film, as it was officially released (the newest Criterion cut is better and newer than either) is different to the European version in many of these respects. A film this also reminds me of is Blade Runner, which also was mucked up ending-wise (with the permission of Ridley Scott, however, because of the film's poor test scores - which shows the fallacy of test scores.)
All are about failures in society and the person, and usually both. That's the thing.
[NOTE: All opinions expressed in this following message are my own. Sorry.]
.VBS, the Windows Scripting Host will launch.
.VBS or .JS (JavaScript) files from inside the program. It also affects gullible users who DL them *then* run them.
I don't think ILOVEYOU is entirely MSFT's fault.
ILOVEYOU exploits:
a) User gullibility
b) Windows Scripting Host (Windows 98 onwards)
[and finally]
c) VBScript (although it could just have easily been JavaScript)
WSH, my point b), is the Windows replacement for the batch file that not many people know about. Basically, it allows script files written in VBScript (a cut down version of Visual Basic language) or JavaScript to be run from the desktop.
The ILOVEYOU worm [because that is what it is] is a file written in VBScript, one of the two languages supported as standard. It is attached to an e-mail. This email was sent out from the Phillipines a couple of nights ago. Whenever a gullible user double-clicks on the file with a SCRIPT ICON and with the extension
So, what does ILOVEYOU teach us?
a) A VBS file means that you're looking at a program. It could be damaging. Don't click on it.
b) Microsoft was stupid not to make WSH more obvious.
c) ILOVEYOU is basically the modern equivalent of an ANSI bomb. Remember those?
d) THIS DOES *NOT* ONLY AFFECT OUTLOOK! It affects any email clients which allow you to run
e) Other operating systems, such as MacOS (AppleScript), could be affected in the same way.
ILOVEYOU only took a matter of time to create. Remember this.
On the topic of the Open Source, anyway, I may well browse under Microsloth IE, because Netscape doesn't work and I can't pay for Opera. I only have a 56K modem so am loath to download Netscape 6 or Mozilla builds, and even with a PII-266 and 128Mb of RAM, Netscape moves along like a slug on crack. It's terrifying, especially when you realise that NS is owned by a company I loathe and despise, i.e. AOL, a company compared to which Microsoft looks like a sacrificial lamb.
There are no open-source browser projects under Win2K or Linux - excepting Lynx, of course, due to its non-graphical ability - which support modern features to the full.
My 56K modem is a Conexant/Rockwell HCF, so I can only browse under Win2K or 9x. That's ridiculous as well.
Of course, I wish KDE2 good luck - maybe Konqueror might turn out to be the IE-Beater, which would be excellent (and maybe persuade me to save up for a proper, 3Com USR external modem.) I've even tested Linux projects for Corel. I don't hate Open Source - on the contrary, it's an excellent idea. But at the moment, I need to do things under MS Office 2000 (and yes, I do know about StarOffice) and other programs for my student purposes. I can't avoid this. I've just started to program under Linux (KDevelop v1.0 feels similar to MS Visual C++, which helps soothe the transition leap) and hope to learn. WINE is an excellent resource, even for non-Linux users.
So, this is what Open Source is to me - a great idea. APACHE, FTPD, SENDMAIL...we can't survive without them. So why ban them? Why?
---------------------------------
ROSS TREGASKIS
Caldera OpenLinux eDesktop 2.4
Corel Beta Tester
Unfortunately (for you and me) raw bit copies of DVDs are not possible - the bit on the DVD where the CSS key goes is written over (with 0s) on a DVD-R - it's in the licensing. Sorry.
I've always thought that Intel is more of an anticompetitive company than MSFT - at least Microsoft doesn't try to get SAMBA banned because it uses their coveted SMB protocol.
Intel, in the past, have done some terribly anticompetitive things: they've sued AMD, in the past, for using the Intel instructions under a license Intel granted them, they have spread a large amount of FUD about AMD, Cyrix, Rise, NexGen processors in the past (which is why AMD bought NexGen and Cyrix and Rise both went to VIA, which is the entire point of this article.) Intel also tries to lock people into using Intel processors, but they decided to pay off the DOJ so they can keep on doing this. Even if I want to buy an Athlon (I do), it's very hard to get hold of one because Intel threaten Dell, Gateway etc. with removal of price quotas if they even dare to go for a better chip. The Pentium III is a privacy-stealing kludge.
And remember - Intel wasn't chosen for the original PC because it was the best (IBM were aiming for the Motorola 68000 or some National Semiconductor chip, now forgotten), but because the 8088 supported 8080 hardware and there were no other chips available. In effect, Intel were chosen because they were the worst.
I feel that VIA, and AMD, and the other companies which try to fight against Intel (and AMD win on speed and, especially, price) should be encouraged and supported, just like anti-Microsoft efforts (such as BeOS [I'm getting 5.0!], the Linux support base etc.) because of their own anticompetitive collusions. It's the same thing - freedom from the large corporations, who want to rule your life. Intel is the Microsoft of hardware, which however doesn't care as much about PR because they know at least 50% of the non-Internet connected users (figure unknown) don't even know there's an alternative. Remember that.
I have been a subscriber to CompuServe since April 1994.
Finally, in January 2000, I'm on my final tether, close to leaving. I'm filled with nostalgia, but AOL has turned my pleasant ISP into a hellhole.
They didn't start off right - their service was, at first, fairly hard to use and charged £5 an hour - but once they corrected these problems - I can still remember the days of paying £10 for a free five hours, a package which AOL uses to this day - and released the NetWinder software, everything changed. Now, I could dial CSi and get a real, *real*, PPP Net connection. (I set up CSi manually under Windows 95 and NT4.0beta2. I once was able to connect under Slackware Linux (v3.2). No more.)
Version 3.0 of the software came out, the first to be supplied with a real browser. It had a lovely, blue interface that not many people appreciated at the time. It had a fast connection time. It was fast on the Net.
And then AOL intruded into my world. I had once used one of their trial disks, and threw it away after two days. The circumstances of the takeover were humiliating: WorldCom bought CompuServe, and then gave AOL CSi plus a hundred and twenty million dollars in exchange for AOL's networks. To this day, I have a real hatred for MCI WorldCom.
There were not many changes, until last year. They introduced the "CompuServe 2000" service. In practise, this means: "The AOL software with new icons." It shares the AOL membership database and AOL's telephone number. It is AOL, except without a hideously coloured login screen or any content whatsoever.
I'm still paying a hideously large amount of money every month for unlimited access to CompuServe, but I have an account with a free ISP (Freeserve - I'm in the UK) and plan to fly very soon. It will be a pity to see the nostalgia go, but the merger has decided it. I'm going before my nice service becomes a dumping ground for sound files of Bugs Bunny saying "You've got mail."
I think that's all I can explain, except that there are still many people on the service who feel like me (the beta forum is full of people saying "Which ISP should I go to now?") and that CompuServe are people who deserve to be left. Because now, only the newbies who are persuaded by huge, lying-scum marketing budgets will be living here. Don't pity me, AOL - I'm just the messenger.
You must be joking! I have a 56K Winmodem (Rockwell HCF - I got taken in, and I hate it - BTW, Winmodem is a trademark of 3Com USRobotics) and I get as little as 4.3Kb/s, max. The specifications supplied with it *demand* a Pentium 166MMX - I'm using a Pentium II-266 - and it's still slow on my system, and uses huge amounts of CPU. I've even got slow text display on IE. Sorry, but I can't accept this.
Newsgroups? I love newsgroups! And as it happens, those idiots/b[deleted]s/sysadmins at AOL/CompuServe appear to be *prohibiting* my access to public news servers. Each and every time I try to access one I either don't get connected or get a "forbidden" message - and I'd bet you it's not from the news server. So deja.com is all I have. The service appears to be stopping people from using the Net, and I think this is why I'm going to try and leave CSi any time soon. Why, oh why, did they give in?
As a CSi user, I am afraid for a Time/Warner merger. Because now AOL have loads of cash to chuck on advertising. And believe me, they need advertising desperately. In the UK, people are abandoning them in droves for the free-subscription ISPs, and I plan to go with the flow. And AOL/CSi can now spread lies about being the "No.1" (they're not, Freeserve is) over national TV even more of the time. And idiotic consumers will sign on, not realising that they can get more webspace (20Mb compared to 14Mb) and better connection times from any of Telinco's services, including the new one that gives 0800 access every third week. This is why I'm posting this using Freeserve. (CSi's software bugs out on me regularly, although using Microsoft beta software [IE5.5] definitely helps as well.)
So, to summarise, I am afraid for non-users, because with a huge company, marketing muscle can push out the little, small ISPs and make everyone use one big ISP, with which people can censor and prohibit access at will. This is why I hope the FTC will oppose the deal (if that is possible), because we don't have any other hope.
As someone who was forced onto a service owned by AOL when my ISP (CompuServe) was bought out, I have to disagree with you in my personal case.
/., claiming a timeout.) My email and file download screens are festooned with adverts for E-BAY. The only thing I use it for is the Web, and I get a rather slow connection which disconnects me around every twenty minutes and which takes several minutes to download a 100K attached file. I'm close to leaving.
I run RedHat 6.1 on a separate partition. I tried Corel but didn't think much of it. I can't run my modem under Linux because it's a Rockwell HCF (why, Rockwell, why?) - otherwise, I'd probably move. I use Windows [a Beta 2 version, guess which project I'm on] mostly for games and MSWord. I'm trying to learn C and C++ in a UNIX context. I spent days trying to make svgalib work under Linux, eventually discovering I needed to download v1.4 (RedHat 5.2 had supplied v1.2.1.)
My online service provider is now using a modified version of the AOL software, with new graphics. (I'm typing this using a Freeserve account, as it regularly refuses access to USENET or to
I agree with several points here: AOL does indeed want to [EDITED] you over for ad revenue, and the OS is indeed second rate compared to Linux or even MacOS. But I need to keep it, because the world does not run on Linux, or MacOS, or even UNIXes as a whole. 70% of computers in the world (I'm not sure about this) run on MSFT software. If I want a computing job, I have to work with it.
And that is the saddest thing of all, as people like l0pht help to advance our knowledge of computer security systems and inner workings of computers, things which would really help the rest of us. But instead, most of the world's population just wants to play several rounds of Solitaire and write a letter to their grandmother on MSFT software, and this is why they are on top. Not because of any interesting reason, but because people have placed them there.