Game developers are starting to using OGG, since they dont have to pay the costs for development kits, (And they are major opensource and computer hackers...)
Also Serious Sam plays OGG in game, go download the Serious Sam 2 demo..
I picked up a soundblaster audrey, and It comes with a dvd audio player. Now 5.1 dvd.ac3 audio rocks. Dont know if OGG supports it, but.ac3 rocks over.mp3.
I already have problems with the system, they want to teach my children about "Political Correctness" and other good little citizen values. I want my kids to think for themselves. I don't want the same people who tell me what my kids can and cant wear, eat, say, what to think or how to think.
This is a war of morals, My kids should be able to back up their games, eat peanut butter sandwiches, write stories about death/god, wear black, kiss, give gifts, tell a teacher they are incorrect, tell a grown up no, refuse to accept punishment.
Do I care if my kids are trading mp3's? No, they still buy CDs. I personally don't think an mp3 is much different than recording off the radio or cable music channel.
Warez.. Yes its wrong, you should always buy a game you like. Even the pirates say "If a game is worth playing, its worth buying..."
I got my Christmas gift, they turned off my DirectTV. I called in, they said I was past due, damn NFL ticket is over, price jumped from 45 to 90 bux a month! Oh well, at least they turned the service back on.
Cant sleep, back to some more perl coding and watching sci-fi.
Government in general is corrupt. It takes large amounts of money to run for office, and the steady of stream of favors just perpetuates our corrupt republic. District attorneys need to have high profile cases for promotions, Police departments need to take houses and cars from citizens for their police budgets. Senators and Congress are to busy with campaign funding, and re-elections. Judges plan for cushy jobs with law firms and big businesses when they are off the bench.
Dmitry was lucky that the government didn't want to continue with the case, the feds could of pushed it and won. Busting (Imaginary) hackers helps everyone in our corrupt government.
-
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. - Voltaire (1694 - 1778)
I was looking forward to meeting Randal at the "Learning Perl" class in portland, but he was sick. Thou a nice guy named Tad McClellan tought the class. We talked about Randal for a few minutes. Randal just used bad judgement, but there was never criminal intent.
I really hate how the laws are using this non-violent, non-profit hacking as a crime. He should of been fired for breaking company policy, but a crime? He didnt steal anything, a password file was used on a company computer to run crack, he was planing to use it for the good of the company.
I wish I owned a large enough company like microsoft or oracle, I could use my business and political weight to bring attention to matters like this. If Bill Gates announce he was moving all his companies from Oregon because of the way they treat thier citizens, maybe Randal would get a pardon. Look how Adobe called the FBI and they acted, the government supports the larger companies.
Is it me, or is the laws and poltical dealings of of our Goverment piss you off? If it wasnt for 911 goverment reform would be taking place. But now its Terrorist threats and cyber laws.
I better watch what I say, freedom of speech seems to be a passing fad.
Apartments with high-speed are nice, but you need a consierge or something. The really high tech apartments around here in seattle have a guy you can call for stuff. Food, Movies, Car wash...
Everyone at work used Kozmo till they went out of business. Was a shame, they sure had alot of business...
Of course the apartments that come with a consierge are 3x the price of a normal apartment. Doable if your 3 guys all working at startups. (-;
It pisses me off that Harddrive manufactures can lie and use (1000 per K not 1024 per K), thus a 100 Gigabyte drive is really only 97 Gigabytes. Seems like false advertising, even if they do add "In our world a gig is 1,000,000 bytes"
8 bits make 1 byte. 1024 bytes is 1K. 1 Gigabyte is 1024 Megabytes. 1 Megabyte is 1024 Kilobytes. 1 Kilobyte is 1024 bytes.
and
1Kbps is 1024bps. 56kbps is 57344 bytes per second, about 5K per second. A 128Kbps is really 13K per second of bandwidth. A 768K is 78K per second of bandwidth. A Megabyte is 1024K not 1000K.
I always found it frightening to talk to an Amiga user.
That is a rather troll statement. Since I was an old Amiga user and most of my friends where amiga users too. About 50% of them migrated to BSD, 25% migrated to MAC, and the other 25% (and myself) migrated to Linux. We all have windows boxes for games, but all the development and server applications run on a non-windows os.
Most of us had Amiga 1200's or 4000's with more expensive hardware than PC's cost, even today! You could start out with an afordable Amiga 500 for a few hundred bux that could do everything you want, then upgrade to a 4000 and a Toaster and do real production quality work. The toaster is out for PC now and people have migrated along with it.
Honestly, the shareware I bought for my amiga was better than most commerical software. MagicWB, and other workbench add'ons, and Internet apps where where better quality programs than anything out.
The only thing I hated about the Amiga, was some cool games where out for dos/windows that I couldnt play. If Linux could run all my software, I would switch to linux as my desktop. But until then, I have 2 computers on my desk. Windows for desktop and games, linux has file/print server, nat gateway and shell box.
In fact, AMI-TCP for the amiga is what got me addicted to linux, I learned about interfaces(ppp0), tcp, services, ports and the basic unix layout. After setting up AMI-TCP I was able to setup a linux box for dialup rather quickly, and then migrated over to applications. I then got a job for Amiga support at our local ISP, and became a full time sys-admin.
-
#Amiga - Spumoni | i've seen poag sightings as far back as '92, but my friend
bob says I'm seeing things. I tell you, they're real! I
even have a damn picture...out of focus but you can see the
bastard running through the forest
Ive been using mozilla for awhile now, and Im very very impressed with how it just gets better. It renders quicker the IE6 which is impressive, and the Tab feature (people call an Opera ripoff) is great. You can install it into a directory with an older version of mozilla, it doesnt create a new secure directory. That salt directory it made was rather annoying.
Using it as a daily browser for both work and home, I do have a few problems with it. Some javascripts dont work with internal business sites. (LiveLink and Eroom which we use for documents and communications) No spell checker yet. (But im told its coming.)
And at home, I cant use my online banking with it, but everything else seems to work fine.
Newsgroups reader seems to be work in progress, the nightly builds seem to have a few bugs. But I am downloading the daily builds and it could be me.
BTW, I could swear the 0.9.7 directory was on ftp.mozilla.org for the last couple days.
-
I'm too shy to express my sexual needs except over the phone to people I don't know. - Garry Shandling
in the changelong I noticed...
pre5 - Enable K7 SSE (John Clemens)
So we now have SSE for the K7 cpu? Does any programs on linux even take the extra speed of SSE/MMX/3D NOW? I have always wondered since these type of optimizations are only visible when the software application lists it, and most software is for windows.
A local town just passed a local law about distracting drivers while driving. They went beyond cell phones and includes, drinking coffee, talking to passengers, smoking and changing the radio stations. These laws take the lowest common denominator and encompasses it into a law. And the American attitude is to comply with these laws.
America the land of criminals. Until proven innocent.
I cant figure out which part I need, is it this model or this model? Oh, im on the wrong row!
Attending meetings remotely (and cheaply)
Sitting in a waiting area, watching some tv (with tivo!)
This is "Bob Johnson" from News 11, and we witnessing the Bank robbery LIVE!
Ok MOM, unplug that bundle of wires, ok, yes, the red stripe goes towards the power, ok, put back in the case and put the screws in. Ok, you now have a larger Harddrive.
The one service that gives you instant Wi-Fi access in hundreds of premium hotels, airports, coffee shops and other high-traffic public locations
Which makes sense, 300 feet nodes wouldnt cover all my apartment complex, and they would still need a Internet pipe. Whats bad is almost everyone in our apartment complex shared a T1 that an ISP put it, and ran cable modems to each unit. Then the ISP went out of business for over expansion. But they made thier money off us. And no DSL, we are over 19000 feet from our CO. Because the telco didnt plan growth, we are only 2000 feet from the central office up the street, if we were only put on that one, we would have have 1.5mbit dsl.
-
"There is no other Telephone Company" - Verizon
And the statistics. Companies pay ungodly amounts of money for statistics. They could either find a reseller or a maybe even an multi-billion dollar ad agency. They are the equivalent of selling people popup banners.
Hardest part is the contacts, many good businesses go out of businesses for not having contacts. Same goes for bad businesses, CEO's with contacts can get people to pump money into a worthless company.
I made a comment that Slashdot should have a jobs website, now they have one. (Id like to think it was my idea. lol) How about the same cartel take adcritic under the wing and get them up and running.
The install blows. Creative installation support should be shot. Also you cant install XP drivers on windows without installing its cd first. Come on. Just give me a zip file with the drivers damn it.
Re:What's wrong with Live!?
on
Testing the Audigy
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Hes right. If you have a dual board with a Via chipset, the sblive can skip and lock the system. This is a well known issue.
I couldnt run SBlive in either of my dual win2k/linux boxes, So I picked up a yamaha pci for 15 bux, and it works flawlessly.
I also picked up a Audigy, and no more skips. The only annoying thing now, is its startup logo the I cant seem to disable in windows. Im also camera shopping and I needed a firewire port for that, now I have one. The bass does sound a little weak, but that might just be me.
All in all, if you can pick one up for 50-60 bux, its worth it. (check pricewatch, seems 55 is the lowest)
Well, seems someone wants to argue my post. But thats ok. Even if you dont quote me right.
Selling a T1 and giving 128K is illegal. And very shady.
You cant get digital lines as cheaply in your basement, you need extra hardware and install costs per line can be very expensive.
Bigger companies dont lie as much, they try to offer a TOS and stick to it. But I do admit the TOS a company has isnt always the best, and thats what I was refering too.
And BTW, I was a founding member of the Spokane ISP Association. I still talk to other people in the field, and have friends working for bbnplanet, uunet, version, att, etc.. Alot of people start at smaller ISPs and tech support. It is a common theme that shady business practices occur.
But your experiences may very, life isnt in absolutes.
Its bread and butter time for the smaller ISPs, they almost live month to month when they first start out they cant have a burn rate.
Starting at a small BBS turned ISP (cet.com), I seen how the owner would sell a full T1 and split it a dozen ways, scam customers on software packages, replace broken hardware that wasnt broken. I moved onto another ISP, and saw how the salesmen reminded me of car salesmen, "Let me talk to the manager..."
People dont see whats going on behind the scenes, how the young kids are working thier ass off to keep the servers up cause they cant hire professional admins. The systems are always having outages and they blame the larger telcos as a "network problem..."
That was my biggest problem, I couldnt stand being dishonest to a customer, and you cant be a good salesmen without bending the truth, spreading on the bullshit like butter. Even with a good product, its thier job to sell or they dont eat.
Smaller ISP's have to cut costs too, I remember when all the ISPs in Spokane moved into the tel-west building so they could cut out the local exchange. Save 200 bux on federal taxes and transport fees. A T1 that costs 900 bux wholesale could be bought for 500, since all they had to do was run some cable down the hallway (overhead). Sell the T1 (frac) to 10 people paying you 300 bux, and they pay thier own costs, you could out bid. And then charge them for any hourly work needed. (You need help configuring your router? 10 hours billed) Another reason ISPs needed to move into the telco buildings was the digital lines, to have the 56K v90 modems, the ISP has to have digital lines. I remember how everyone and thier brother was buying livingston port masters and running radius. Every ISP was the same, except for the modems on the end of the portmasters.
I think most slashdotters can confirm the shady side of the ISPs. How some run out of computer stores in the back, or BBS's that turned ISP. H
Hell, one of the most popular ISPs Eskimo here in seattle runs out of his living room. When I moved over here to this side of washington state, I went over and met the guy. Typical homegrown ISP, but this guy has shitloads of customers.
Been there done that, now I work for a major wireless telco, millions of customers, and I never have to be shady. Drawbacks? Less ownership in the product. I get paid, but I dont make the choices. Management and Marketing does. Sometimes I just shake my head and say "Umm, if our stockholders only knew....)
Someday Im going to start another business, and try to keep the "mom and pop" attitude. Actually sell what the customer wants, and give it to them. Only thing stands in my way, People are cheap. (-;
-
There is nothing in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and he who considers price only is that man's lawful prey. - John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)
I tried to download the game, but of course Fileplanet is full, but they would nicely let me download it, if I signed up for thier service. Not today... Ok, lucky BluesNews had a link that worked. 3 hours later I was good to go.
Launched the server, didnt know how to tell it private, so I reduced it to 4 guys. Within 1 minute the server was full. Everyone also just downloaded and I was the only server that had a good ping in Seattle. lol Played for 2 hours, learning, then found a 12 person server, much better.
Likes..:)
Well, its not quake3 with powerups, you get killed quick. You have to watch yourself, its like more like CounterStrike in that respect. Good GFX, fast game play, the level was just made for deathmatch.
Respawn points are rooms in back, so you dont get spawn killed. That was a MAJOR change to most multiplayer games.
Dislikes:
The only level was kinda small, After getting killed by a damn sniper in a good spot, I switched to rockets, (only get 6 shots) and spamed hit window. Dead.:) Started to play it like quake3a and that was fun for awhile. I finally switched to the machine gun, started to do head shots, and stayed in the hallways. Thats when my points went up, and stopped getting killed. I think the shot gun should be tweaked, up closed dead, farther away, usless. Also taunting the enemy in german was a neat idea.
But all the new games, Serrious Sam 2 beta engine ROCKS. It actually lets you pick the refresh rate, and turn on all the options to make it look freaking awesome. Even plays OGG music files too.
Also, New York Racing came out, its about the movie the 5th element, but a race game with floating cars. Gotta pick that up, the demo was really good. Not alot of news about it, but read one on ISO News
Re:Site down, but google saves!
on
Uplink
·
· Score: 2
If you use the googlebar, google will index the site.
You will notice that with googlebar installed, you click a link in "ie" it actually gotos Google first then redirects to the url you wanted.
Its in the TOS but not how they do it, this is how websites that are not advertised are in google, and how a website your creating can have hits from google. (Explains that currious behavior!)
Slashdot Mirror
Game developers are starting to using OGG, since they dont have to pay the costs for development kits, (And they are major opensource and computer hackers...)
.ac3 audio rocks. Dont know if OGG supports it, but .ac3 rocks over .mp3.
Also Serious Sam plays OGG in game, go download the Serious Sam 2 demo..
I picked up a soundblaster audrey, and It comes with a dvd audio player. Now 5.1 dvd
I already have problems with the system, they want to teach my children about "Political Correctness" and other good little citizen values. I want my kids to think for themselves. I don't want the same people who tell me what my kids can and cant wear, eat, say, what to think or how to think.
This is a war of morals, My kids should be able to back up their games, eat peanut butter sandwiches, write stories about death/god, wear black, kiss, give gifts, tell a teacher they are incorrect, tell a grown up no, refuse to accept punishment.
Do I care if my kids are trading mp3's? No, they still buy CDs. I personally don't think an mp3 is much different than recording off the radio or cable music channel.
Warez.. Yes its wrong, you should always buy a game you like. Even the pirates say "If a game is worth playing, its worth buying..."
Make your own choice.
No, its not just a browser, its Email also. Im using Netscape 4.8 because I like it. Also, its nice to spell check input boxes. (Like Slashdot)
lol, spell checking everyones webpage, god, thats a job id hate.
I got my Christmas gift, they turned off my DirectTV. I called in, they said I was past due, damn NFL ticket is over, price jumped from 45 to 90 bux a month! Oh well, at least they turned the service back on.
Cant sleep, back to some more perl coding and watching sci-fi.
Government in general is corrupt. It takes large amounts of money to run for office, and the steady of stream of favors just perpetuates our corrupt republic. District attorneys need to have high profile cases for promotions, Police departments need to take houses and cars from citizens for their police budgets. Senators and Congress are to busy with campaign funding, and re-elections. Judges plan for cushy jobs with law firms and big businesses when they are off the bench.
Dmitry was lucky that the government didn't want to continue with the case, the feds could of pushed it and won. Busting (Imaginary) hackers helps everyone in our corrupt government.
-
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. - Voltaire (1694 - 1778)
I was looking forward to meeting Randal at the "Learning Perl" class in portland, but he was sick. Thou a nice guy named Tad McClellan tought the class. We talked about Randal for a few minutes. Randal just used bad judgement, but there was never criminal intent.
I really hate how the laws are using this non-violent, non-profit hacking as a crime. He should of been fired for breaking company policy, but a crime? He didnt steal anything, a password file was used on a company computer to run crack, he was planing to use it for the good of the company.
I wish I owned a large enough company like microsoft or oracle, I could use my business and political weight to bring attention to matters like this. If Bill Gates announce he was moving all his companies from Oregon because of the way they treat thier citizens, maybe Randal would get a pardon. Look how Adobe called the FBI and they acted, the government supports the larger companies.
Is it me, or is the laws and poltical dealings of of our Goverment piss you off? If it wasnt for 911 goverment reform would be taking place. But now its Terrorist threats and cyber laws.
I better watch what I say, freedom of speech seems to be a passing fad.
Apartments with high-speed are nice, but you need a consierge or something. The really high tech apartments around here in seattle have a guy you can call for stuff. Food, Movies, Car wash...
Everyone at work used Kozmo till they went out of business. Was a shame, they sure had alot of business...
Of course the apartments that come with a consierge are 3x the price of a normal apartment. Doable if your 3 guys all working at startups. (-;
Your not a TERRORIST until you commit the act of terrorism, until that date, its free speech.
But of course one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter.
It pisses me off that Harddrive manufactures can lie and use (1000 per K not 1024 per K), thus a 100 Gigabyte drive is really only 97 Gigabytes. Seems like false advertising, even if they do add "In our world a gig is 1,000,000 bytes"
8 bits make 1 byte. 1024 bytes is 1K. 1 Gigabyte is 1024 Megabytes. 1 Megabyte is 1024 Kilobytes. 1 Kilobyte is 1024 bytes.
and
1Kbps is 1024bps. 56kbps is 57344 bytes per second, about 5K per second. A 128Kbps is really 13K per second of bandwidth. A 768K is 78K per second of bandwidth. A Megabyte is 1024K not 1000K.
Check here for a good table.
-
Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well. - Samuel Butler (1835 - 1902)
I always found it frightening to talk to an Amiga user.
That is a rather troll statement. Since I was an old Amiga user and most of my friends where amiga users too. About 50% of them migrated to BSD, 25% migrated to MAC, and the other 25% (and myself) migrated to Linux. We all have windows boxes for games, but all the development and server applications run on a non-windows os.
Most of us had Amiga 1200's or 4000's with more expensive hardware than PC's cost, even today! You could start out with an afordable Amiga 500 for a few hundred bux that could do everything you want, then upgrade to a 4000 and a Toaster and do real production quality work. The toaster is out for PC now and people have migrated along with it.
Honestly, the shareware I bought for my amiga was better than most commerical software. MagicWB, and other workbench add'ons, and Internet apps where where better quality programs than anything out.
The only thing I hated about the Amiga, was some cool games where out for dos/windows that I couldnt play. If Linux could run all my software, I would switch to linux as my desktop. But until then, I have 2 computers on my desk. Windows for desktop and games, linux has file/print server, nat gateway and shell box.
In fact, AMI-TCP for the amiga is what got me addicted to linux, I learned about interfaces(ppp0), tcp, services, ports and the basic unix layout. After setting up AMI-TCP I was able to setup a linux box for dialup rather quickly, and then migrated over to applications. I then got a job for Amiga support at our local ISP, and became a full time sys-admin.
-
#Amiga - Spumoni | i've seen poag sightings as far back as '92, but my friend
bob says I'm seeing things. I tell you, they're real! I
even have a damn picture...out of focus but you can see the
bastard running through the forest
*Note, im talking about windows.
Ive been using mozilla for awhile now, and Im very very impressed with how it just gets better. It renders quicker the IE6 which is impressive, and the Tab feature (people call an Opera ripoff) is great. You can install it into a directory with an older version of mozilla, it doesnt create a new secure directory. That salt directory it made was rather annoying.
Using it as a daily browser for both work and home, I do have a few problems with it. Some javascripts dont work with internal business sites. (LiveLink and Eroom which we use for documents and communications) No spell checker yet. (But im told its coming.)
And at home, I cant use my online banking with it, but everything else seems to work fine.
Newsgroups reader seems to be work in progress, the nightly builds seem to have a few bugs. But I am downloading the daily builds and it could be me.
BTW, I could swear the 0.9.7 directory was on ftp.mozilla.org for the last couple days.
-
I'm too shy to express my sexual needs except over the phone to people I don't know. - Garry Shandling
Ya, I didnt want to say the town, the mayor admitted he cant dial a phone and drive, he ended up in the wrong lane. (Even idiots can become mayor...)
I can play quake3 arena, watch a DVD and still manage to cut off drivers on I5. See no problem!
in the changelong I noticed...
pre5 - Enable K7 SSE (John Clemens)
So we now have SSE for the K7 cpu? Does any programs on linux even take the extra speed of SSE/MMX/3D NOW? I have always wondered since these type of optimizations are only visible when the software application lists it, and most software is for windows.
A local town just passed a local law about distracting drivers while driving. They went beyond cell phones and includes, drinking coffee, talking to passengers, smoking and changing the radio stations. These laws take the lowest common denominator and encompasses it into a law. And the American attitude is to comply with these laws.
America the land of criminals. Until proven innocent.
I can tell someone didnt read the site.
They have a short demo of thier product, comparing
KT-Tech 32 Kbps, 8 fps
MPEG-1 56 Kbps, 8 fps
H.261 32 Kbps, 8 fps
KT-Tech looks better than MPEG1 and at lower bandwidth. This is what they are selling.
If everyone had FAT 1meg pipes, we could use another codec, but the idea is the lowest codec with realtime encoding, with a good picture.
Standards are not always the best choice.
I cant figure out which part I need, is it this model or this model? Oh, im on the wrong row!
Attending meetings remotely (and cheaply)
Sitting in a waiting area, watching some tv (with tivo!)
This is "Bob Johnson" from News 11, and we witnessing the Bank robbery LIVE!
Ok MOM, unplug that bundle of wires, ok, yes, the red stripe goes towards the power, ok, put back in the case and put the screws in. Ok, you now have a larger Harddrive.
The one service that gives you instant Wi-Fi access in hundreds of premium hotels, airports, coffee shops and other high-traffic public locations
Which makes sense, 300 feet nodes wouldnt cover all my apartment complex, and they would still need a Internet pipe. Whats bad is almost everyone in our apartment complex shared a T1 that an ISP put it, and ran cable modems to each unit. Then the ISP went out of business for over expansion. But they made thier money off us. And no DSL, we are over 19000 feet from our CO. Because the telco didnt plan growth, we are only 2000 feet from the central office up the street, if we were only put on that one, we would have have 1.5mbit dsl.
-
"There is no other Telephone Company" - Verizon
And the statistics. Companies pay ungodly amounts of money for statistics. They could either find a reseller or a maybe even an multi-billion dollar ad agency. They are the equivalent of selling people popup banners.
Hardest part is the contacts, many good businesses go out of businesses for not having contacts. Same goes for bad businesses, CEO's with contacts can get people to pump money into a worthless company.
I made a comment that Slashdot should have a jobs website, now they have one. (Id like to think it was my idea. lol) How about the same cartel take adcritic under the wing and get them up and running.
Cant believe I forgot one thing!
The install blows. Creative installation support should be shot. Also you cant install XP drivers on windows without installing its cd first. Come on. Just give me a zip file with the drivers damn it.
Hes right. If you have a dual board with a Via chipset, the sblive can skip and lock the system. This is a well known issue.
I couldnt run SBlive in either of my dual win2k/linux boxes, So I picked up a yamaha pci for 15 bux, and it works flawlessly.
I also picked up a Audigy, and no more skips. The only annoying thing now, is its startup logo the I cant seem to disable in windows. Im also camera shopping and I needed a firewire port for that, now I have one. The bass does sound a little weak, but that might just be me.
All in all, if you can pick one up for 50-60 bux, its worth it. (check pricewatch, seems 55 is the lowest)
Well, seems someone wants to argue my post. But thats ok. Even if you dont quote me right.
Selling a T1 and giving 128K is illegal. And very shady.
You cant get digital lines as cheaply in your basement, you need extra hardware and install costs per line can be very expensive.
Bigger companies dont lie as much, they try to offer a TOS and stick to it. But I do admit the TOS a company has isnt always the best, and thats what I was refering too.
And BTW, I was a founding member of the Spokane ISP Association. I still talk to other people in the field, and have friends working for bbnplanet, uunet, version, att, etc.. Alot of people start at smaller ISPs and tech support. It is a common theme that shady business practices occur.
But your experiences may very, life isnt in absolutes.
Its bread and butter time for the smaller ISPs, they almost live month to month when they first start out they cant have a burn rate.
Starting at a small BBS turned ISP (cet.com), I seen how the owner would sell a full T1 and split it a dozen ways, scam customers on software packages, replace broken hardware that wasnt broken. I moved onto another ISP, and saw how the salesmen reminded me of car salesmen, "Let me talk to the manager..."
People dont see whats going on behind the scenes, how the young kids are working thier ass off to keep the servers up cause they cant hire professional admins. The systems are always having outages and they blame the larger telcos as a "network problem..."
That was my biggest problem, I couldnt stand being dishonest to a customer, and you cant be a good salesmen without bending the truth, spreading on the bullshit like butter. Even with a good product, its thier job to sell or they dont eat.
Smaller ISP's have to cut costs too, I remember when all the ISPs in Spokane moved into the tel-west building so they could cut out the local exchange. Save 200 bux on federal taxes and transport fees. A T1 that costs 900 bux wholesale could be bought for 500, since all they had to do was run some cable down the hallway (overhead). Sell the T1 (frac) to 10 people paying you 300 bux, and they pay thier own costs, you could out bid. And then charge them for any hourly work needed. (You need help configuring your router? 10 hours billed) Another reason ISPs needed to move into the telco buildings was the digital lines, to have the 56K v90 modems, the ISP has to have digital lines. I remember how everyone and thier brother was buying livingston port masters and running radius. Every ISP was the same, except for the modems on the end of the portmasters.
I think most slashdotters can confirm the shady side of the ISPs. How some run out of computer stores in the back, or BBS's that turned ISP. H
Hell, one of the most popular ISPs Eskimo here in seattle runs out of his living room. When I moved over here to this side of washington state, I went over and met the guy. Typical homegrown ISP, but this guy has shitloads of customers.
Been there done that, now I work for a major wireless telco, millions of customers, and I never have to be shady. Drawbacks? Less ownership in the product. I get paid, but I dont make the choices. Management and Marketing does. Sometimes I just shake my head and say "Umm, if our stockholders only knew....)
Someday Im going to start another business, and try to keep the "mom and pop" attitude. Actually sell what the customer wants, and give it to them. Only thing stands in my way, People are cheap. (-;
-
There is nothing in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and he who considers price only is that man's lawful prey. - John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)
I tried to download the game, but of course Fileplanet is full, but they would nicely let me download it, if I signed up for thier service. Not today... Ok, lucky BluesNews had a link that worked. 3 hours later I was good to go.
:)
:) Started to play it like quake3a and that was fun for awhile. I finally switched to the machine gun, started to do head shots, and stayed in the hallways. Thats when my points went up, and stopped getting killed. I think the shot gun should be tweaked, up closed dead, farther away, usless. Also taunting the enemy in german was a neat idea.
Launched the server, didnt know how to tell it private, so I reduced it to 4 guys. Within 1 minute the server was full. Everyone also just downloaded and I was the only server that had a good ping in Seattle. lol Played for 2 hours, learning, then found a 12 person server, much better.
Likes..
Well, its not quake3 with powerups, you get killed quick. You have to watch yourself, its like more like CounterStrike in that respect. Good GFX, fast game play, the level was just made for deathmatch.
Respawn points are rooms in back, so you dont get spawn killed. That was a MAJOR change to most multiplayer games.
Dislikes:
The only level was kinda small, After getting killed by a damn sniper in a good spot, I switched to rockets, (only get 6 shots) and spamed hit window. Dead.
But all the new games, Serrious Sam 2 beta engine ROCKS. It actually lets you pick the refresh rate, and turn on all the options to make it look freaking awesome. Even plays OGG music files too.
Also, New York Racing came out, its about the movie the 5th element, but a race game with floating cars. Gotta pick that up, the demo was really good. Not alot of news about it, but read one on ISO News
If you use the googlebar, google will index the site.
You will notice that with googlebar installed, you click a link in "ie" it actually gotos Google first then redirects to the url you wanted.
Its in the TOS but not how they do it, this is how websites that are not advertised are in google, and how a website your creating can have hits from google. (Explains that currious behavior!)
Funny thing when a iso sites are better review sites than commerical websites sites.