I have to say, I've been using ISA for 2+ years now and am very familiar with its capabilities & performance.
ISA's proxying is great, but does cost $$$ on top of your Windows 2K licensing and Hardware. Here's the setup of every ISA box I've spec'd in teh last few months:
1. Dell GX50 Celeron 1GHz, 1GB RAM, 20GB 7.2k RPM HD, Adaptec 4-port NIC. About $900 2. Windows 2000 Server. About $800 3. MS ISA Server. About $1100
Total: about $2800
That said, it's expensive for use as "just a proxy". ISA offers much much more which is why I recommend using it in a more fully featured fashion. If you're planning on leveraging the Firewall, VPN, Secure-NAT, and PPTP Pass through capabilities at the same time, by all means, I can't recommend a better small/medium business security device.
(FWIW: ISA is the only commercial firewall I know that can do both PPTP and L2TP/IPSec in a NAT configuration with more than 1 connection at a time on the same external IP address - true that PIXs and similar ones can do PPTP through NAT, but you need a 1:1 mapping ratio for private to public IPs to do it. I've had over 150 private IPs set up simultaneous PPTPs through my ISA box on a single external IP, but I digress...)
ISA's proxying is suprisingly fully-featured. Want to scan all uploads & download for viruses? No problem, ISA's got a ton of plugins. Want to harden security on a single box instead of 10 individual web servers? No problem, apply all kinds of rules to the proxy service and block or allow things at the file or even mime-type level. Want to use NT/AD user certificates on Apache or non-IIS servers? No problem... with Feature Pack 1, ISA will provide authentication based on all these and "non-MS-ize" the auth data to your backend servers. Want redundancy? Just add another ISA server in array mode - 2 boxes, single config point, double the performance,
There's so many other ISA features to mention. I can't say enough good things about it. My only wish list item is better logging.
Re:You expect Grandma to Write her Own Drivers?
on
Windows 98 Phased Out
·
· Score: 1
You're not following my point - the people who have low end PCs *will* do that and *will* support themselves. Grandma won't and shouldn't have to, that's why the people claiming that OSS is the perfect answer to this problem are off base.
You expect Grandma to Write her Own Drivers?
on
Windows 98 Phased Out
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
To all the idiots that claim that OSS is the one and only way to "keep yourself supported" - consider this: Grandma's not going to learn C and kernel development just to get her webcam working, or to keep her dot matrix printer churning out recipies.
Imagine 2 sets of people - those still running Windows 98, *exclusively*, for day to day work and those who can fully, without-a-doubt understand their favorite OSS and code their way through a new printer driver (or whatever). Now, show me the intersection of those 2 sets. Not a big resultant set is it? Does that set even exist?
"According to Bailes, the centre records 13TB of data per day, which gets processed in real time down to 30GB and then compressed further to 3KB."
OK, can someone to explain to me that either yes, there is a lot of redundant data that can have crazy-good compression rates, or that no, this quote is wrong...
I'm in the same predicament here. We're a small company (~500) but handle more email than most 10,000 shops - mostly customer service-related mails.
Anyway, first off, I'd like to say that if you have a 10,000 person organization, and you'renot running AD yet, handle that first. I'd guess that you're looking at at *least* 4 months for planning and implementation of your AD environment.
Also, you might as well go right to Windows 2003 (AD 2.0) since Exchange 2003 can only run in an AD 2.0 environment and on Windows 2003 server.
Finally, yes, Exchange 2003 routing is much better than 5.5 (which was hooooriiiible). Now, if you're familiar with sendmail routing, who cares?:-) The only way you're going to be able to do the Exchange 2k3 (or 2k) routing you require is to program some custom COM event sinks in a.NET language.
If you question is "can it be done" the answer is "sure it can". Just remember that just like any major infrastructure change, it ain't gonna be easy or quick to do.
Luckily, we were able to upgrade to Exchange 2k3 with little trouble. I'm still trying to get the hang of the custom event sinks, but it's coming along. I'm a perl guy and trying my best to use Perl.NET but there's few resources out there to help out with the nook I've created for myself.
If you're looking for spam/anti-virus management - definitely check out Postini (www.postini.com) - they rock and are pretty cheap ($1.25/month/user). Setting us up with this service removed 4 front-end mail relays from my DMZ and dropped our spam over 90%.
No lie - we needed an HP heatsink to replace one that was (ahem) "dropped". Turns out that the heatsink costs $3 more than the processor (P3 1Ghz) itself (which CAME WITH A HEATSINK).
Thanks for proving my point that people who want to complain about spam will do so incessantly and blindly.
Companies DO respect the consumer - they have to. Of course some don't, and I bet there are a lot of brick-and-morter businesses near you that don't, as well. Email does not make a bad person - it's only a tool. It's up to the person who uses the tool to be a gentleman, or an asshole.
If I say I'm doing a double opt-in, I'm doing a double opt-in. If you don't believe me, fine - I'll win (and keep) more than my share of customers with my online integrity and reputation than I'll lose from sending out what people think are UCEs.
You are simply lying to yourself and us if you belive that an opt-out methadology can ever co-exist with the desire to only send email to those that really want it.
Exactly. I don't believe that an opt-out methodology can co-exist with the desire to send email to those who truly want it. A simple example: I hate Real Networks's registration that hides 4 checkboxes at the bottom of a scrolled list.
Re-read my original message... how else do you think that I'd know that even a double-opt-in solution still has problems?:-)
My main point is and always will be - let someone try to clean up email marketing - until it's as accepted and as "regulated" as regular TV marketing, you're just gomma have a bunch of people complaining about it.
Hey, I agree with a majority of your points - don't get me wrong. You'd never see ads for porn and dildos on TV, and that's kinda my point. If it was as easy to create and air a TV commercial as it was to send an email, you'd see titties all over the place between Futurama and Family Guy, and I'd be pissed about that too.
"Classic" spammers? I'm sure I hate them as much as you do... my point still stands, though, that if the whole "email marketing" gig were cleaned up, spam would not create the same level of outrage that it does now.
Too often on/. people tend to have a predetermined response to everything. "EMAIL ADVERTISEMENTS?!?!?! BAD. CORPORATIONS?!?!?! BAD. Both together T E R R I B L E!" and it's that kind of thinking that's only keeping things where they are.
Actually the whole spam / cost analysis thing was an aside, a P.S., if you will, and I wasn't prepared to havea full fledged debate about it, because there's no real way to quantify things like this.
Everyone's going to have their own formulae and constants and ultimately a conversation like that would deteriorate into your run of the mill "I'm right, you're wrong" type of thing, and that's not what I'm up for right now.
Again, I will say, though, that the problems youhave getting off some lists are NOT the people that are trying to getter the system here - I have as much disdain for "actual" smallers as you do.
Understood, and I agree (to a certain extent - not so sure about the higher ISP costs, but that's another discussion).
But you missed the point of the comparison... it was not meant to be a comparison between two symbiotic business arrangements. It was meant to illustrate the point that people (in general) will deal with TV commercials, but get super-annoyed by spam?
Why do you think this is the case? It's not because someone's trying sell you something...
If you see an ad for something that you WANT or LIKE on TV, you might go buy it, and thus, you help the company that is advertising. But if you saw a lot of ANNOYING commercials for crap you didn't want, commercials would be much less tolerable than they are now, and you'd be LESS likely to buy ANY product on any commercial out of spite, even if it was a commercial for a product you might actually consider buying.
If fly-by-night commercial producers were able to induce the same type of "anti-AD" feelings in TV viewers that spammers induce in email users, you can bet that the TV Marketing Association would be doing everything they could do to get rid of the menace.
TV's been a round a LOT longer than email, and had to go through similar growing pains when it first started. The only difference (well, one of the differences is that society in general didn't expect a free lunch - they didn't expect to be able to get all this free programming without some kind of corporate subsidy.
Flash forward 50 years - coddled sissy internet users are confusing free (as in speech) networks with the free (as in beer) access to that network. Ads aren't going away at all, so let's give some props to the people that are trying to make it at least more tolerable for the rest of us.
As an aside, if you want to make an issue of the negligible effect that spam has on your wallet, let's calculate all the money you COULD have earned while you were watching commercials. Someone making $20 an hour would "lose" about $3.33 an hour by watching 10 minutes of commercials. That's a far cry from the $0.001 it might cost you to receive a spam. Do you get 3,300 spams a day?:-) That's your break even point.
Just because you get an email from one of these companies in your inbox doesn't automatically quantify it as spam.
God forbid that you, as an individual, forget to uncheck a box when you bought your last DVD or CD or book or whatever online. God forbid that you own up to your own impatience and your click click click lifestyle that results in you glazing over or not even caring about the terms and conditions of your latest purchase.
Does it suck that it's so easy to get signed up for some mailing lists? Absolutely. But you know what? The fact remains that even if you make it as easy as possible and have DOUBLE-opt-IN mailing lists, it's inevitable that someone will complain and accuse you of spamming them. It's human nature. I know from experience.
Are there shady companies scouring around for email addresses? Sure, but any established company with a decent bankroll, employees, investors, would NEVER stoop to such levels - it's too much of a risk. You wouldn't believe the legal mumbo-jumbo I have to go through just to send out my monthly newsletters - and I'm not even considering myself one of those "established companies". All conspiracy theories and "Well I had a bad time with..." experiences aside, as a majority, companies DO respect your wishes when it comes to receiving email - they DO respect your wishes to keep your address private - and they DO make sure that you're happy with the way you're treated. They have too much at stake to behave like children and rebels when it comes to mailing you.
Like a number of other issues bouncing around this world today, the SPAM problem seems to have taken on a life of its own. Everyone's all about jumping on the anti-SPAM bandwagon and complaining on message boards about "The Man" and his itchy SMTP trigger finger. Is spam annoying? Sure. I'll be the first to say that something really needs to be done about all the huge penis emails I get every day - I'm fine with my super-python - leave me alone already!!!:-P
Well you know what? These people that do email for a living ARE trying to do something about it and what do we hear on/. ??? The classic "(insert name here) is trying to take our rights away and make money off of us and they suck. Open source forever and Linus rules my world and does email suck so much when blogging is the communication method of the future".
These companies know that they need email to survive, and so they're making sure that classic penis/Viagra/Nigeria spam doesn't give them a bad name. Pure and simple. You should be glad that something like this is happening. It might not cut down on the solicitations you get in your email, but at least all those ads will be for things you like, or have signed up for. Ever wonder why you don't see commercials for Gerritol & Depends on Cartoon Network at 2:00am? No old people are up watching it because the advertisers have a well-defined and mature methodology of knowing where and how to promote their products on TV and they don't have to worry about their audience getting annoyed by ads for things that they don't want.
Marketing and advertising is here to stay for good, people - it's everywhere, including email. Even if this plan isn't perfect, we should at least be applauding someone for doing something proactively about the issue instead of reactively. Not all ads are "evil". Spam sucks, targeted marketing about things I'M interested in is welcome - if there's no easy way to filter out the good from the bad everyone loses.
I bought one of these when they first came out - without a doubt there's no better card out there for the money. However, Creative's still got e VERY annoying software set that may or may not really piss you off... consider:
1. The software on the Creative website (soundblaster.com) are only updates. You CANNOT download full applications or drivers (that only work if you have the card, mind you). So if you lose your original install CD, you're hosed unless you poly up the $25 they want for a new CD
2. The software that gets installed (the mixer, EAX control panels, speaker calibrators, etc.) is a) a HUGE memory hog (we're taling > 92MB on XP Pro with all the bells & whistles loaded) and b) slow, because they chose not to use the standard Windows toolbox to build it. All kinds of unnecessary stuff is in there - transparent drop downs (like OS X), etc...
3. If you install the full software suite - it's ALWAYS there... at one point or another, every 10 minutes you'll be reminded of the fact that you have a CREATIVE card in your rig... and that stupid splash screen at every startup / login is one of the most annoying things... if you can find out how to shut it off the first time in less than 15 minutes of searching, I'll give you a cookie. Chocolate chip, even.
As always, this is My $0.02, so YMMV. Me? I get around this by installing the drivers only and the individual apps as necessary (which is rare since most of their offerings have better share/freeware counterparts).
"Slashdot said it was OK" ain't gonna hodl up in court. Do yourself a favor and contact an MS licensing rep.
Most OEM versions of 98 were tied to the PC, meaning you couldn't legally move them to another PC. This is fixed recently, but the older licences, I'm sure, still hold.
Linux is never ever EVER the correct choice for 100% of the people 100% of the time. Neither is any other OS / chip / RAM type / network protocol / pizza topping / illegal drug.
I REALLY hope you meant to say "in hopes of helping them to make the correct choice about Linux and whether or not its a good fit for them."
It's called a firewall -- block port 139 and shut the hell up you whiny baby.
Do you lock your car when you leave it at night? No? Let's find a way to take back your driveway!! I wonder what we could do?
Do you keep cookies in a jar where the kids can get to it? No? Let's find away to take back the Oreos and Chips Ahoys!!! I wonder if the slashdot community can help you?
Stop worrying about "taking back the internet" when you, personally, never had it in the first place. Last I checked, it's not illegal to send packets or emails or whetever to random people on whetever port you want to.
These kinds of things will happen if you're stupid about how you connect your computer to a hostile environment. Get you rear out of your arse and plug the hole instead of rising up on some majestic soapbox as a wannabe internet vigilante.
Valley Compact Disc Repair Inc. introduces the world's first and only fully automatic CD repair machine. The only machine available designed for performing CD repair as a business. The Disc-Go-Mech can repair up to 100 heavily damaged CD's per hour, unmanned!
Slashdot Mirror
I have to say, I've been using ISA for 2+ years now and am very familiar with its capabilities & performance.
ISA's proxying is great, but does cost $$$ on top of your Windows 2K licensing and Hardware. Here's the setup of every ISA box I've spec'd in teh last few months:
1. Dell GX50 Celeron 1GHz, 1GB RAM, 20GB 7.2k RPM HD, Adaptec 4-port NIC. About $900
2. Windows 2000 Server. About $800
3. MS ISA Server. About $1100
Total: about $2800
That said, it's expensive for use as "just a proxy". ISA offers much much more which is why I recommend using it in a more fully featured fashion. If you're planning on leveraging the Firewall, VPN, Secure-NAT, and PPTP Pass through capabilities at the same time, by all means, I can't recommend a better small/medium business security device.
(FWIW: ISA is the only commercial firewall I know that can do both PPTP and L2TP/IPSec in a NAT configuration with more than 1 connection at a time on the same external IP address - true that PIXs and similar ones can do PPTP through NAT, but you need a 1:1 mapping ratio for private to public IPs to do it. I've had over 150 private IPs set up simultaneous PPTPs through my ISA box on a single external IP, but I digress...)
ISA's proxying is suprisingly fully-featured. Want to scan all uploads & download for viruses? No problem, ISA's got a ton of plugins. Want to harden security on a single box instead of 10 individual web servers? No problem, apply all kinds of rules to the proxy service and block or allow things at the file or even mime-type level. Want to use NT/AD user certificates on Apache or non-IIS servers? No problem... with Feature Pack 1, ISA will provide authentication based on all these and "non-MS-ize" the auth data to your backend servers. Want redundancy? Just add another ISA server in array mode - 2 boxes, single config point, double the performance,
There's so many other ISA features to mention. I can't say enough good things about it. My only wish list item is better logging.
You're not following my point - the people who have low end PCs *will* do that and *will* support themselves. Grandma won't and shouldn't have to, that's why the people claiming that OSS is the perfect answer to this problem are off base.
To all the idiots that claim that OSS is the one and only way to "keep yourself supported" - consider this: Grandma's not going to learn C and kernel development just to get her webcam working, or to keep her dot matrix printer churning out recipies.
Imagine 2 sets of people - those still running Windows 98, *exclusively*, for day to day work and those who can fully, without-a-doubt understand their favorite OSS and code their way through a new printer driver (or whatever). Now, show me the intersection of those 2 sets. Not a big resultant set is it? Does that set even exist?
"According to Bailes, the centre records 13TB of data per day, which gets processed in real time down to 30GB and then compressed further to 3KB."
OK, can someone to explain to me that either yes, there is a lot of redundant data that can have crazy-good compression rates, or that no, this quote is wrong...
I'm in the same predicament here. We're a small company (~500) but handle more email than most 10,000 shops - mostly customer service-related mails.
:-) The only way you're going to be able to do the Exchange 2k3 (or 2k) routing you require is to program some custom COM event sinks in a .NET language.
Anyway, first off, I'd like to say that if you have a 10,000 person organization, and you'renot running AD yet, handle that first. I'd guess that you're looking at at *least* 4 months for planning and implementation of your AD environment.
Also, you might as well go right to Windows 2003 (AD 2.0) since Exchange 2003 can only run in an AD 2.0 environment and on Windows 2003 server.
Finally, yes, Exchange 2003 routing is much better than 5.5 (which was hooooriiiible). Now, if you're familiar with sendmail routing, who cares?
If you question is "can it be done" the answer is "sure it can". Just remember that just like any major infrastructure change, it ain't gonna be easy or quick to do.
Luckily, we were able to upgrade to Exchange 2k3 with little trouble. I'm still trying to get the hang of the custom event sinks, but it's coming along. I'm a perl guy and trying my best to use Perl.NET but there's few resources out there to help out with the nook I've created for myself.
If you're looking for spam/anti-virus management - definitely check out Postini (www.postini.com) - they rock and are pretty cheap ($1.25/month/user). Setting us up with this service removed 4 front-end mail relays from my DMZ and dropped our spam over 90%.
That's my $0.02.
No lie - we needed an HP heatsink to replace one that was (ahem) "dropped". Turns out that the heatsink costs $3 more than the processor (P3 1Ghz) itself (which CAME WITH A HEATSINK).
I just don't get it.
Linux isn't the only free software out there...
Just like /. to go off and assume the worst.
Maybe the maps were buggy and to save d/l time they put the incomplete maps on the disc, and the patches to the map on XBox Live.
XBL is still a fantastic service. The fact that MS runs it should in no way detract from that.
Thanks for proving my point that people who want to complain about spam will do so incessantly and blindly.
Companies DO respect the consumer - they have to. Of course some don't, and I bet there are a lot of brick-and-morter businesses near you that don't, as well. Email does not make a bad person - it's only a tool. It's up to the person who uses the tool to be a gentleman, or an asshole.
If I say I'm doing a double opt-in, I'm doing a double opt-in. If you don't believe me, fine - I'll win (and keep) more than my share of customers with my online integrity and reputation than I'll lose from sending out what people think are UCEs.
Re-read my original message... how else do you think that I'd know that even a double-opt-in solution still has problems?
My main point is and always will be - let someone try to clean up email marketing - until it's as accepted and as "regulated" as regular TV marketing, you're just gomma have a bunch of people complaining about it.
Hey, I agree with a majority of your points - don't get me wrong. You'd never see ads for porn and dildos on TV, and that's kinda my point. If it was as easy to create and air a TV commercial as it was to send an email, you'd see titties all over the place between Futurama and Family Guy, and I'd be pissed about that too.
/. people tend to have a predetermined response to everything. "EMAIL ADVERTISEMENTS?!?!?! BAD. CORPORATIONS?!?!?! BAD. Both together T E R R I B L E!" and it's that kind of thinking that's only keeping things where they are.
"Classic" spammers? I'm sure I hate them as much as you do... my point still stands, though, that if the whole "email marketing" gig were cleaned up, spam would not create the same level of outrage that it does now.
Too often on
Actually the whole spam / cost analysis thing was an aside, a P.S., if you will, and I wasn't prepared to havea full fledged debate about it, because there's no real way to quantify things like this.
Everyone's going to have their own formulae and constants and ultimately a conversation like that would deteriorate into your run of the mill "I'm right, you're wrong" type of thing, and that's not what I'm up for right now.
Again, I will say, though, that the problems youhave getting off some lists are NOT the people that are trying to getter the system here - I have as much disdain for "actual" smallers as you do.
Understood, and I agree (to a certain extent - not so sure about the higher ISP costs, but that's another discussion).
:-) That's your break even point.
But you missed the point of the comparison... it was not meant to be a comparison between two symbiotic business arrangements. It was meant to illustrate the point that people (in general) will deal with TV commercials, but get super-annoyed by spam?
Why do you think this is the case? It's not because someone's trying sell you something...
If you see an ad for something that you WANT or LIKE on TV, you might go buy it, and thus, you help the company that is advertising. But if you saw a lot of ANNOYING commercials for crap you didn't want, commercials would be much less tolerable than they are now, and you'd be LESS likely to buy ANY product on any commercial out of spite, even if it was a commercial for a product you might actually consider buying.
If fly-by-night commercial producers were able to induce the same type of "anti-AD" feelings in TV viewers that spammers induce in email users, you can bet that the TV Marketing Association would be doing everything they could do to get rid of the menace.
TV's been a round a LOT longer than email, and had to go through similar growing pains when it first started. The only difference (well, one of the differences is that society in general didn't expect a free lunch - they didn't expect to be able to get all this free programming without some kind of corporate subsidy.
Flash forward 50 years - coddled sissy internet users are confusing free (as in speech) networks with the free (as in beer) access to that network. Ads aren't going away at all, so let's give some props to the people that are trying to make it at least more tolerable for the rest of us.
As an aside, if you want to make an issue of the negligible effect that spam has on your wallet, let's calculate all the money you COULD have earned while you were watching commercials. Someone making $20 an hour would "lose" about $3.33 an hour by watching 10 minutes of commercials. That's a far cry from the $0.001 it might cost you to receive a spam. Do you get 3,300 spams a day?
Just because you get an email from one of these companies in your inbox doesn't automatically quantify it as spam.
:-P
/. ??? The classic "(insert name here) is trying to take our rights away and make money off of us and they suck. Open source forever and Linus rules my world and does email suck so much when blogging is the communication method of the future".
God forbid that you, as an individual, forget to uncheck a box when you bought your last DVD or CD or book or whatever online. God forbid that you own up to your own impatience and your click click click lifestyle that results in you glazing over or not even caring about the terms and conditions of your latest purchase.
Does it suck that it's so easy to get signed up for some mailing lists? Absolutely. But you know what? The fact remains that even if you make it as easy as possible and have DOUBLE-opt-IN mailing lists, it's inevitable that someone will complain and accuse you of spamming them. It's human nature. I know from experience.
Are there shady companies scouring around for email addresses? Sure, but any established company with a decent bankroll, employees, investors, would NEVER stoop to such levels - it's too much of a risk. You wouldn't believe the legal mumbo-jumbo I have to go through just to send out my monthly newsletters - and I'm not even considering myself one of those "established companies". All conspiracy theories and "Well I had a bad time with..." experiences aside, as a majority, companies DO respect your wishes when it comes to receiving email - they DO respect your wishes to keep your address private - and they DO make sure that you're happy with the way you're treated. They have too much at stake to behave like children and rebels when it comes to mailing you.
Like a number of other issues bouncing around this world today, the SPAM problem seems to have taken on a life of its own. Everyone's all about jumping on the anti-SPAM bandwagon and complaining on message boards about "The Man" and his itchy SMTP trigger finger. Is spam annoying? Sure. I'll be the first to say that something really needs to be done about all the huge penis emails I get every day - I'm fine with my super-python - leave me alone already!!!
Well you know what? These people that do email for a living ARE trying to do something about it and what do we hear on
These companies know that they need email to survive, and so they're making sure that classic penis/Viagra/Nigeria spam doesn't give them a bad name. Pure and simple. You should be glad that something like this is happening. It might not cut down on the solicitations you get in your email, but at least all those ads will be for things you like, or have signed up for. Ever wonder why you don't see commercials for Gerritol & Depends on Cartoon Network at 2:00am? No old people are up watching it because the advertisers have a well-defined and mature methodology of knowing where and how to promote their products on TV and they don't have to worry about their audience getting annoyed by ads for things that they don't want.
Marketing and advertising is here to stay for good, people - it's everywhere, including email. Even if this plan isn't perfect, we should at least be applauding someone for doing something proactively about the issue instead of reactively. Not all ads are "evil". Spam sucks, targeted marketing about things I'M interested in is welcome - if there's no easy way to filter out the good from the bad everyone loses.
You'd really have spent $1,200 more on a system to save yourself from an eventual $300 upgrade. What a deal!
XP itself doesn't have the Audigy 2 drivers. Windows update does, but I've learned my lesson about grabbing drivers from that particular "source".
I bought one of these when they first came out - without a doubt there's no better card out there for the money. However, Creative's still got e VERY annoying software set that may or may not really piss you off... consider:
1. The software on the Creative website (soundblaster.com) are only updates. You CANNOT download full applications or drivers (that only work if you have the card, mind you). So if you lose your original install CD, you're hosed unless you poly up the $25 they want for a new CD
2. The software that gets installed (the mixer, EAX control panels, speaker calibrators, etc.) is a) a HUGE memory hog (we're taling > 92MB on XP Pro with all the bells & whistles loaded) and b) slow, because they chose not to use the standard Windows toolbox to build it. All kinds of unnecessary stuff is in there - transparent drop downs (like OS X), etc...
3. If you install the full software suite - it's ALWAYS there... at one point or another, every 10 minutes you'll be reminded of the fact that you have a CREATIVE card in your rig... and that stupid splash screen at every startup / login is one of the most annoying things... if you can find out how to shut it off the first time in less than 15 minutes of searching, I'll give you a cookie. Chocolate chip, even.
As always, this is My $0.02, so YMMV. Me? I get around this by installing the drivers only and the individual apps as necessary (which is rare since most of their offerings have better share/freeware counterparts).
OK, so I meant to say power STRIP not power supply. My bad.
My original troll still stands, though.
So basically, you told your mom to send you the computer so you could fix it. She sent the power supply instead. Ha ha FUNNY STUFF!
/. story again?
How is this worthy of a front page
"Slashdot said it was OK" ain't gonna hodl up in court. Do yourself a favor and contact an MS licensing rep.
Most OEM versions of 98 were tied to the PC, meaning you couldn't legally move them to another PC. This is fixed recently, but the older licences, I'm sure, still hold.
Classic Slashdot... good times, good times.
Linux is never ever EVER the correct choice for 100% of the people 100% of the time. Neither is any other OS / chip / RAM type / network protocol / pizza topping / illegal drug.
I REALLY hope you meant to say "in hopes of helping them to make the correct choice about Linux and whether or not its a good fit for them."
Yes, but when will kitchen waste be able to power my Flux Capacitor?
It's called a firewall -- block port 139 and shut the hell up you whiny baby.
Do you lock your car when you leave it at night? No? Let's find a way to take back your driveway!! I wonder what we could do?
Do you keep cookies in a jar where the kids can get to it? No? Let's find away to take back the Oreos and Chips Ahoys!!! I wonder if the slashdot community can help you?
Stop worrying about "taking back the internet" when you, personally, never had it in the first place. Last I checked, it's not illegal to send packets or emails or whetever to random people on whetever port you want to.
These kinds of things will happen if you're stupid about how you connect your computer to a hostile environment. Get you rear out of your arse and plug the hole instead of rising up on some majestic soapbox as a wannabe internet vigilante.
http://www.vcdr.com/CD%20Machine.htm
Valley Compact Disc Repair Inc. introduces the world's first and only fully automatic CD repair machine. The only machine available designed for performing CD repair as a business. The Disc-Go-Mech can repair up to 100 heavily damaged CD's per hour, unmanned!
Why not just get a decent UPS (APC 1400 comes to mind) and plug into that?