pretty much any desirable mainstream content is encrypted or scrambled now (at least in the us), even on the 'big dish'. there are, of course ways around it.. but that's a whole different ball game and isn't exactly 'free' when you get caught either..
back in 'the day', it wasn't uncommon to find network feeds (being sent to affilliates ahead of the actual air date, very popular among bab5 & trek fans) and raw feeds from sporting events. bulletin boards (bbs's) that were dedicated to this 'hobby' were around so you could find out where and when to point your dish to pick those signals. but last i was in front of a big dish, most of those things were scrambled. most everything is digital (and also encrypted) these days..
i can remember spending time out in the backhills of west virginia. there was a huge cottage industry involving setting up a 'free' dish and 'broken' receiver. dunno if it's like that today (this was ~10 yrs ago), probably not as the move to digital (which is theoretically easier to protect) was just kicking into high gear about then. i just found it rather amusing to see pickup trucks, to numerous to count, hauling around 6 foot dishes and going door-to-door.
craigslist is not a newspaper. if the law is that specific, then however flawed it may be today, it still does not apply.
also, from the article:
EBay Inc. owns 25 percent of Craigslist.
perhaps someone is just smelling easy money?
The site last month added a yellow link on each housing ad warning that "Stating a discriminatory preference in a housing post is illegal." When clicked, users get information about the Fair Housing Act and guidance on how to write ads that comply.
that, along with a disclaimer stating that postings are the property and sole responsibility of the poster should remove craiglist's legal responsibility; however they can be good net citizens by taking some editorial control over listings (which they've also done); *especially* if they're being paid for the listing.
Several Internet law experts said the suit seems likely to fail, citing a 1996 federal law that says an online service provider isn't considered a publisher or a speaker when it merely passes along information provided by someone else.
this could come back to bite blogs right in the ass, because blogs are looking for credibility as news publishers. many contain summaries and links of other blogs, so they're just 'passing along' information as well; and they feature interactive services (such as comments, polls, and other content like a portal or other 'service provider')... yet a successful defense by craigslist on this ground would shoot that all to hell.
It has come to our attention that your internet access subscribers are utilizing bandwidth purchased by Google, Inc. for the operation of our servers and services in order to access those services.
This is simply unacceptable. Verizon shall be liable for all bandwidth costs incurred by Google, Inc. in providing services that are accessed by Verizon subscribers.
Enclosed please find your monthly invoice for services provided to your internet access subscribers.
Please note that this first invoice contains charges retroactive to September, 1998 when Google, Inc. was founded.
Please remit payment immediately to ensure continued and uninterrupted access to our services for your subscribers.
through many years of experience and making a fair living out of other people's ignorance, i've gotten spyware and virus removal down to this process:
i start by hooking up the infested hard drive to a clean system and running initial scans from there: adaware and antivirus.
then i manually delete (from all the machine's user accounts) temp folders, temporary internet files, downloaded program files (the ie's activex cache), restore folders (in xp and me), and then go through program files folder and remove the (believe me, get good at it over time, especially if you do this often) obvious stuff.
a casual scan through windows and windows\system (or windows\system32, depending on windows version) can also yield many files that you can outright delete.
if i see anything suspicious but not ready to delete them, i'll google to see if i can find any further information on it.. and then if i'm still not ready to delete something, i'll zip it up and then delete it.
once those are done, i copy over my collection of antivirus and spyware utilities and definitions. (the usual ones.. but most times, all i need is adaware, spybot s&d, hijack this and reglite).
once the drive is back in the host system.. it's off to safe mode, where i run every scan from every configured user. and i show no mercy in anything detected -- it all goes. i'll also uninstall any questionable programs and clean up the add/remove programs entries (of things that were manually removed).
when those scans are done and realtime protection is enabled (usually through spybot's ie plugin and teatimer, and spywareblaster's been installed and enabled).. then i will boot up normally. 9 times out of 10, i'm done at this point. but i will browse a bit with ie and then run through the scans once more just to make sure. and again, i check all configured user accounts. somewhere along the line any applicable udpates for windows and their installed antivirus will get installed.
i then install firefox:) with adblock plus and the filterset.g updater. and demonstrate to the user (via a virtual machine on my test system) the difference between ie and firefox when browsing to a page that's loaded with spyware installers, and another that's got tons of ads on it. that demo is more than enough to get the user to switch to firefox.:) and finally, i give them a list of programs and their web site addresses so they can look up more information on their own (or purchase, in the case of adaware or spywareblaster's update service, etc)
only rarely do i resort to a format and reinstallation of the operating system.. and i can usually tell right away if that's the easier and faster way to go.
besides google searches, http://www.spywarewarrior.com/ is my 1st source for info and links. of particular note is their listing of 'rogue' spyware applications.
they should use some small-town hick television station or ad agency instead of some slick big city operation... no better way to "look" like a mom-and-pop joint than to have their ads look like one did the ad.
if you've never watched small-town television you won't know what i mean.. but small town commercials on tv are just awful. a six-year-old with a handicam can run circles around some of those schmucks.
maybe they should change their name to "unca' bill's software shack"
find a supplier or two that you do trust, and that you develop good relationships with their reps.. and then REMAIN LOYAL to them. so what if the doodoo widget costs a little more there than you found from some hick on pricewatch. if you are loyal to your suppliers, they will be loyal to you, and will drop everything to get a needed part out in a rush if you need it. if they catch wind that you're buying certain things elsewhere and not from them, they may be less willing to pull all the strings needed when you're in a fix. you scratch their back, they'll massage yours.
we are a small shop in a small town, and we rely upon the relationships we've built over the last five years or so with a couple of vendors, and they get 90% of my parts business (the rest goes elsewhere because i cannot get what i need for a special order from them). if i need something, i absolutely know i will have it tomorrow. and if tomorrow isn't fast enough, my vendors (and more importantly, their warehouses) are only an afternoon's drive away (and we've made that drive a time or two over the years). if i see prices a little high from my vendors than i can get elsewhere, or another vendor is really pushing the sales pitch, i let them know.. they usually work with us on pricing issues, and we know we're getting a decent price along with the service we've trusted for years.
so, when you've got good vendors, keep them happy and they'll keep you happy.
as far as "mission critical" applications go; you cannot underestimate the value of spare equipment. whether it's a server that keeps an entire office running or just a spare workstation in an office of 50. even if it's as simple as a pre-imaged hard drive or an extra router. depending upon the customer, i include the spare equipment right into the project quotation and sell the merits of having it on hand. if they don't take the bait there and it's a substantial project, i'll just pick up a suitable spare anyway myself and keep it on hand for awhile. i can always sell it later or put it to use in the office.
this is the *2006* awards.. eq's been out since 1999, wtf?
the two people who won are "lifetime awards" it says nothing about the game titles being "lifetime awards" as well.. shouldn't this year's awards be for, i dunno, NEW games?
oh, wait... run by / sponsored by / enshrined at a division of sony.. that explains everhack's "win".
debian isn't hard to set up a functional desktop. there are a lot of online references for both sarge and etch/testing. google is your friend here. just append "debian sarge" to whatever you're looking for, e.g: dvd playback debian sarge. the marillat repository comes in handy, it's one-stop shopping for all the goodies the debian repositories don't have.
if you've got a half-ways decent net connection, skip the whole cd's (there's like 14 of them, but you don't need them all. the first 2 or 3 is enough for a basic gnome or kde desktop) and get the netinst image instead. you'll be up and running before you even get mandrake^H^H^H^Hriva iso's downloaded. the ubuntu single-cd install isn't a bad place to start either, and nets you (over sarge) newer desktop environment, xorg (in place of sarge's xfree86), oo2, and a few extra packages in it's repos that aren't in debian's "official" ones.
the last deb-based desktop i set up was my own (i've recently set up several others). i used ubuntu breezy instead of debian this go around, for easier upgrade to dapper (and it's extended support cycle) in the spring.
installation, including additional packages, configuration and testing (installing a few things at a time; and several reboots) including nvidia drivers, dvd playback and ripping, mp3 playback and ripping, usb scanner, digital camera, acrobat, realplayer, flash, java, additional media players and cd burning tools, additional apps like abiword & gnumeric; all installed, configured and tested, it took less than 90 minutes. or a bit less than the time it would take me to download 3 iso's at my full download speed.
a similar sarge setup would take about 20 minutes longer to download the packages that are already present on a breezy cd.
to illustrate the additional packages available in "official" breezy repos; the only packages i took from marillat (etch) repo was libdvdcss2, w32codecs (which wasn't needed, libdvdread3 has a script in it's docs directory to install them), and realplayer (to get version 10 vs 8 in multiverse). with a debian install, you'd have to install more from there and i think fetch java runtime from blackdown to configure it similarily.
one of the nice things about ubuntu (besides the far superior apt vs rpm) is you can download a single cd installation for either gnome or kde (one for xfce4 is in the works too, and they all use the same repos). which means, when downloading the install image, you're getting only what you need, so it's faster to download and faster to install. i don't see much point in having duplicate apps in an install (i.e. 5 browsers or email clients, etc). a little common sense and restraint by the developers translates to a more convenient install process and an uncluttered desktop for the end user.
OMFG! it's d-i with a mouse. so they put a different interface on the same friggin' questions. whooop-dee-friggin-do. if you couldn't navigate the sarge installer, what the hell are you doing with linux in the first place. go play in an open window instead.
there's already a windows security software line called bit defender. that's the first thing i thought of when i saw the word 'defender' in the news w/ microsoft. i had thought ms bought them out or something.
purchased individually, though... what parts *wouldn't* you buy, even at 50 a season?
at ahem, NORMAL pricing... 28 total seasons @ 49.95 10 feature films @ 19.95 comes to a grand total of: 1598.10 so they've over priced it by 900 bucks. they must still be trying to recoup losses from enterprise or something. if it (upn) wasn't on a pissy little low-power uhf around here, i would probably have watched it (reception lousy even on digicable). (btw, the enterprise dvd sets must be selling well if startrek.com only had 10 copies to give away in a recent promotion http://www.startrek.com/custom/exclude/giveaways/0 51004_enterprise/detail.jsp)
a more fan-friendly company might even discount the whole set a bit over separate prices to encourage sales of it, otherwise people would just purchase the individual items periodically as sort of a payment plan to getting the whole set. 20 percent off "my" total would be about half what amazon's charging.
the movies by themselves at amazon (se versions) is 122. which means at 2500 you're paying 85 for each and every season. a very generous discount from tptb, don't ya think? when mainstream tv series sell for 35-50 a season and have been spotted at 20 or less on sale lately.
considering the cost to duplicate, package and distribute, they could sell for 499 and still be in the black. the star trek empire has already paid for itself many times over (and no wonder with the prices they charge).. so why not do something crazy like deep discounts on an "ultimate collection" for a holiday season.. star trek could even end up being more popular than elmo dolls instead of being something only a google shareholder can afford.
they could even do it on hd-dvd or bluray instead and bundle a player. all for 399. that'd be one way to really get the new players on the market real quick. if this could get rolling and out the door before new format players hit the general market, whatever format they pick could very easily wind up being the "winner". even if priced at a loss, the future revenue for the hardware makers (& studios themselves by folks buying 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th formats of other movies they already have) over the next 20 years is huge and more than enough to subsidize a promo like this.
you answered your own question: to discourage people from reading it...
but what is really frustrating is not being able to SEE the license until AFTER PURCHASE; and then yes, it is in very inconvenient form during the actual install process; and that's after you've opened the product and voided any return/refund policy with the retailer.
but it's hard, darn near impossible sometimes, to find an EULA to software **before** you purchase it. and often, especially for consultants, it is important to examine a license before making decisions or recommendations.
microsoft has them posted (i was *shocked* to find).. they don't go out of their way to make it known, but they're there (for retail software). and only *two* clicks from their home page.. http://www.microsoft.com/legal/useterms/ their volume licenses are accessible elsewhere, but their oem/dsp eula's are a bit harder to track down.
how many other companies make it *easy* to find them before you commit to the purchase? not very many.
well they did hit 22 named storms before they could come up with something better than alpha, beta...
i would expect they'll have to retire the greek alphabet named ones if an affected country petitions for it, just like they do for the 'regular' named ones.
considering this is the first time they've run out of names in the atlantic, the chances of exausting and retiring all the greek letters in addition to using up the first 21 names, while there is still anyone left alive to even name storms in the first place, is pretty unlikely.
but they could just add a few more names like they did in the pacific back in '85 (when they did in fact run out of names)
if they had the common sense to add names to the pacific lists..... why not in the atlantic? after (or during) 1995's season of nineteen named storms (out of 21 names) would have been the time to add the extra names... and in august of this year, when the "experts" predicted up to a record-tying 21 storms could happen, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Atlantic_hurrica ne_season#Mid-season_outlook , they had another chance to add additional names (just like they did in '85 for the pacific).
the two most populated nations, china and india, each have a single time zone across their entire country. no dst, no time changes, period... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_zone#Trivia
so what if pakistan/china border has a 3:30 time difference.. that's less relevent here because there's nothing but water on both sides.
makes sense to me....
a single time zone, with no dst, for the entire "lower 48" and (at least) the southern canadian provinces. base it on "high noon" on the summer solstice somewhere smack in the middle.. and for a lack of a better point of reference.. how about using TIME, ILLINOIS?!? at the junction of north, south, east, and west streets. http://tinyurl.com/dcra3
if eastern canada still wants to be screwed up, they can join puerto rico and be +2 hours. alaska and hawaii should be on the same time anyway, they're approximately the same longitude.. make them -2 hours.
definately simplify travel.. no more "2 hour" flights from toronto to vancouver and "7 hour" flights on the way back.
easier yes.. but then the conspiracy between the feds and phone makers would be broken... put a face to a phone number and then the feds get said face whenever they scream "patriot act"... the "terrorists", drug dealers, soccer moms, etc.. thinking they're protecting their phones end up just giving the feds a good, clear, and current, mug shot.
a fingerprint pad makes so much more sense and would be more universally accepted.. camera phones are banned in many places, many customers don't want camera phones.. the technology is easier to implement, requires less computing power to authenticate or store the data, and is a tad harder to fake using just a photograph.:)
and would be a lot less awkward to use, even if a phone has *two* cameras.... i can just see some bozo driving down the freeway holding his phone in front of his face... that's worse than just talking on it.. sheesh.
Slashdot Mirror
It could be worse. They could have Oswald doing the Monday Night Football play-by-play.
dennis miller?
Can't wait for someone to do it right.
1. turn off computer
2. go outside
3. experience the FIRST LIFE.
it's already been done.
pretty much any desirable mainstream content is encrypted or scrambled now (at least in the us), even on the 'big dish'. there are, of course ways around it.. but that's a whole different ball game and isn't exactly 'free' when you get caught either..
back in 'the day', it wasn't uncommon to find network feeds (being sent to affilliates ahead of the actual air date, very popular among bab5 & trek fans) and raw feeds from sporting events. bulletin boards (bbs's) that were dedicated to this 'hobby' were around so you could find out where and when to point your dish to pick those signals. but last i was in front of a big dish, most of those things were scrambled. most everything is digital (and also encrypted) these days..
i can remember spending time out in the backhills of west virginia. there was a huge cottage industry involving setting up a 'free' dish and 'broken' receiver. dunno if it's like that today (this was ~10 yrs ago), probably not as the move to digital (which is theoretically easier to protect) was just kicking into high gear about then. i just found it rather amusing to see pickup trucks, to numerous to count, hauling around 6 foot dishes and going door-to-door.
craigslist is not a newspaper. if the law is that specific, then however flawed it may be today, it still does not apply.
also, from the article:
EBay Inc. owns 25 percent of Craigslist.
perhaps someone is just smelling easy money?
The site last month added a yellow link on each housing ad warning that "Stating a discriminatory preference in a housing post is illegal." When clicked, users get information about the Fair Housing Act and guidance on how to write ads that comply.
that, along with a disclaimer stating that postings are the property and sole responsibility of the poster should remove craiglist's legal responsibility; however they can be good net citizens by taking some editorial control over listings (which they've also done); *especially* if they're being paid for the listing.
Several Internet law experts said the suit seems likely to fail, citing a 1996 federal law that says an online service provider isn't considered a publisher or a speaker when it merely passes along information provided by someone else.
this could come back to bite blogs right in the ass, because blogs are looking for credibility as news publishers. many contain summaries and links of other blogs, so they're just 'passing along' information as well; and they feature interactive services (such as comments, polls, and other content like a portal or other 'service provider')... yet a successful defense by craigslist on this ground would shoot that all to hell.
urnials are already self-cleaning!
send royalty payments to...
Dear Verizon,
It has come to our attention that your internet access subscribers are utilizing bandwidth purchased by Google, Inc. for the operation of our servers and services in order to access those services.
This is simply unacceptable. Verizon shall be liable for all bandwidth costs incurred by Google, Inc. in providing services that are accessed by Verizon subscribers.
Enclosed please find your monthly invoice for services provided to your internet access subscribers.
Please note that this first invoice contains charges retroactive to September, 1998 when Google, Inc. was founded.
Please remit payment immediately to ensure continued and uninterrupted access to our services for your subscribers.
Sincerely,
Google, Inc.
through many years of experience and making a fair living out of other people's ignorance, i've gotten spyware and virus removal down to this process:
:) with adblock plus and the filterset.g updater. and demonstrate to the user (via a virtual machine on my test system) the difference between ie and firefox when browsing to a page that's loaded with spyware installers, and another that's got tons of ads on it. that demo is more than enough to get the user to switch to firefox. :) and finally, i give them a list of programs and their web site addresses so they can look up more information on their own (or purchase, in the case of adaware or spywareblaster's update service, etc)
i start by hooking up the infested hard drive to a clean system and running initial scans from there: adaware and antivirus.
then i manually delete (from all the machine's user accounts) temp folders, temporary internet files, downloaded program files (the ie's activex cache), restore folders (in xp and me), and then go through program files folder and remove the (believe me, get good at it over time, especially if you do this often) obvious stuff.
a casual scan through windows and windows\system (or windows\system32, depending on windows version) can also yield many files that you can outright delete.
if i see anything suspicious but not ready to delete them, i'll google to see if i can find any further information on it.. and then if i'm still not ready to delete something, i'll zip it up and then delete it.
once those are done, i copy over my collection of antivirus and spyware utilities and definitions. (the usual ones.. but most times, all i need is adaware, spybot s&d, hijack this and reglite).
once the drive is back in the host system.. it's off to safe mode, where i run every scan from every configured user. and i show no mercy in anything detected -- it all goes. i'll also uninstall any questionable programs and clean up the add/remove programs entries (of things that were manually removed).
when those scans are done and realtime protection is enabled (usually through spybot's ie plugin and teatimer, and spywareblaster's been installed and enabled).. then i will boot up normally. 9 times out of 10, i'm done at this point. but i will browse a bit with ie and then run through the scans once more just to make sure. and again, i check all configured user accounts. somewhere along the line any applicable udpates for windows and their installed antivirus will get installed.
i then install firefox
only rarely do i resort to a format and reinstallation of the operating system.. and i can usually tell right away if that's the easier and faster way to go.
besides google searches, http://www.spywarewarrior.com/ is my 1st source for info and links. of particular note is their listing of 'rogue' spyware applications.
they should use some small-town hick television station or ad agency instead of some slick big city operation... no better way to "look" like a mom-and-pop joint than to have their ads look like one did the ad.
if you've never watched small-town television you won't know what i mean.. but small town commercials on tv are just awful. a six-year-old with a handicam can run circles around some of those schmucks.
maybe they should change their name to "unca' bill's software shack"
and twenty-six of those were found at the u.s. capitol building... the other was at some old white house on penn ave.
and windows is more secure than linux.. then we'll talk about dell using non-intel chips.
find a supplier or two that you do trust, and that you develop good relationships with their reps.. and then REMAIN LOYAL to them. so what if the doodoo widget costs a little more there than you found from some hick on pricewatch. if you are loyal to your suppliers, they will be loyal to you, and will drop everything to get a needed part out in a rush if you need it. if they catch wind that you're buying certain things elsewhere and not from them, they may be less willing to pull all the strings needed when you're in a fix. you scratch their back, they'll massage yours.
we are a small shop in a small town, and we rely upon the relationships we've built over the last five years or so with a couple of vendors, and they get 90% of my parts business (the rest goes elsewhere because i cannot get what i need for a special order from them). if i need something, i absolutely know i will have it tomorrow. and if tomorrow isn't fast enough, my vendors (and more importantly, their warehouses) are only an afternoon's drive away (and we've made that drive a time or two over the years). if i see prices a little high from my vendors than i can get elsewhere, or another vendor is really pushing the sales pitch, i let them know.. they usually work with us on pricing issues, and we know we're getting a decent price along with the service we've trusted for years.
so, when you've got good vendors, keep them happy and they'll keep you happy.
as far as "mission critical" applications go; you cannot underestimate the value of spare equipment. whether it's a server that keeps an entire office running or just a spare workstation in an office of 50. even if it's as simple as a pre-imaged hard drive or an extra router. depending upon the customer, i include the spare equipment right into the project quotation and sell the merits of having it on hand. if they don't take the bait there and it's a substantial project, i'll just pick up a suitable spare anyway myself and keep it on hand for awhile. i can always sell it later or put it to use in the office.
maybe they just forgot to put categories next to the winners...
everhack... most hacked
boob raider... most overrated
both perhaps squeeeeking past valve for the wins (cs for most hacked, hl2 for most overrated. good yes, but still overrated).
if will wright doesn't sweep next year (2 games/series: simcity and thesims, and a lifetime award), the whole thing's a sham. period.
this is the *2006* awards.. eq's been out since 1999, wtf?
the two people who won are "lifetime awards" it says nothing about the game titles being "lifetime awards" as well.. shouldn't this year's awards be for, i dunno, NEW games?
oh, wait... run by / sponsored by / enshrined at a division of sony.. that explains everhack's "win".
http://www.metreon.com/
brings to mind the age-old joke ...
q. "why do i need to buy a new computer?"
a. "so you can reboot windows faster."
debian isn't hard to set up a functional desktop. there are a lot of online references for both sarge and etch/testing. google is your friend here. just append "debian sarge" to whatever you're looking for, e.g: dvd playback debian sarge. the marillat repository comes in handy, it's one-stop shopping for all the goodies the debian repositories don't have.
if you've got a half-ways decent net connection, skip the whole cd's (there's like 14 of them, but you don't need them all. the first 2 or 3 is enough for a basic gnome or kde desktop) and get the netinst image instead. you'll be up and running before you even get mandrake^H^H^H^Hriva iso's downloaded. the ubuntu single-cd install isn't a bad place to start either, and nets you (over sarge) newer desktop environment, xorg (in place of sarge's xfree86), oo2, and a few extra packages in it's repos that aren't in debian's "official" ones.
the last deb-based desktop i set up was my own (i've recently set up several others). i used ubuntu breezy instead of debian this go around, for easier upgrade to dapper (and it's extended support cycle) in the spring.
installation, including additional packages, configuration and testing (installing a few things at a time; and several reboots) including nvidia drivers, dvd playback and ripping, mp3 playback and ripping, usb scanner, digital camera, acrobat, realplayer, flash, java, additional media players and cd burning tools, additional apps like abiword & gnumeric; all installed, configured and tested, it took less than 90 minutes. or a bit less than the time it would take me to download 3 iso's at my full download speed.
a similar sarge setup would take about 20 minutes longer to download the packages that are already present on a breezy cd.
to illustrate the additional packages available in "official" breezy repos; the only packages i took from marillat (etch) repo was libdvdcss2, w32codecs (which wasn't needed, libdvdread3 has a script in it's docs directory to install them), and realplayer (to get version 10 vs 8 in multiverse). with a debian install, you'd have to install more from there and i think fetch java runtime from blackdown to configure it similarily.
one of the nice things about ubuntu (besides the far superior apt vs rpm) is you can download a single cd installation for either gnome or kde (one for xfce4 is in the works too, and they all use the same repos). which means, when downloading the install image, you're getting only what you need, so it's faster to download and faster to install. i don't see much point in having duplicate apps in an install (i.e. 5 browsers or email clients, etc). a little common sense and restraint by the developers translates to a more convenient install process and an uncluttered desktop for the end user.
OMFG! it's d-i with a mouse. so they put a different interface on the same friggin' questions. whooop-dee-friggin-do. if you couldn't navigate the sarge installer, what the hell are you doing with linux in the first place. go play in an open window instead.
now what are cheeseheads gonna do for fun?
besides many already mentioned, like adblock (with filterset.g updater), copy plain text, user agent switcher, etc..
p ?id=82
p ?id=253
p ?id=827
http://bookmarkshome.mozdev.org/
creates a nice start page with your bookmarks (and live bookmarks)
https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.ph
cookie culler (better cookie management)
https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.ph
magpie (media leecher)
https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.ph
dnsstuff.com toolbar (easy access to network tools)
and not an extension, but very handy..
http://tinyurl.com/ bookmarklet
there's already a windows security software line called bit defender. that's the first thing i thought of when i saw the word 'defender' in the news w/ microsoft. i had thought ms bought them out or something.
http://www.bitdefender.com/
purchased individually, though... what parts *wouldn't* you buy, even at 50 a season?
0 51004_enterprise/detail.jsp)
at ahem, NORMAL pricing...
28 total seasons @ 49.95
10 feature films @ 19.95
comes to a grand total of: 1598.10
so they've over priced it by 900 bucks. they must still be trying to recoup losses from enterprise or something. if it (upn) wasn't on a pissy little low-power uhf around here, i would probably have watched it (reception lousy even on digicable). (btw, the enterprise dvd sets must be selling well if startrek.com only had 10 copies to give away in a recent promotion http://www.startrek.com/custom/exclude/giveaways/
a more fan-friendly company might even discount the whole set a bit over separate prices to encourage sales of it, otherwise people would just purchase the individual items periodically as sort of a payment plan to getting the whole set. 20 percent off "my" total would be about half what amazon's charging.
the movies by themselves at amazon (se versions) is 122. which means at 2500 you're paying 85 for each and every season. a very generous discount from tptb, don't ya think? when mainstream tv series sell for 35-50 a season and have been spotted at 20 or less on sale lately.
considering the cost to duplicate, package and distribute, they could sell for 499 and still be in the black. the star trek empire has already paid for itself many times over (and no wonder with the prices they charge).. so why not do something crazy like deep discounts on an "ultimate collection" for a holiday season.. star trek could even end up being more popular than elmo dolls instead of being something only a google shareholder can afford.
they could even do it on hd-dvd or bluray instead and bundle a player. all for 399. that'd be one way to really get the new players on the market real quick. if this could get rolling and out the door before new format players hit the general market, whatever format they pick could very easily wind up being the "winner". even if priced at a loss, the future revenue for the hardware makers (& studios themselves by folks buying 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th formats of other movies they already have) over the next 20 years is huge and more than enough to subsidize a promo like this.
you answered your own question: to discourage people from reading it...
but what is really frustrating is not being able to SEE the license until AFTER PURCHASE; and then yes, it is in very inconvenient form during the actual install process; and that's after you've opened the product and voided any return/refund policy with the retailer.
but it's hard, darn near impossible sometimes, to find an EULA to software **before** you purchase it. and often, especially for consultants, it is important to examine a license before making decisions or recommendations.
microsoft has them posted (i was *shocked* to find).. they don't go out of their way to make it known, but they're there (for retail software). and only *two* clicks from their home page..
http://www.microsoft.com/legal/useterms/
their volume licenses are accessible elsewhere, but their oem/dsp eula's are a bit harder to track down.
how many other companies make it *easy* to find them before you commit to the purchase? not very many.
well they did hit 22 named storms before they could come up with something better than alpha, beta...
n e_seasonc lone_names#North_Pacific_east_of_140W
a ne_season#Mid-season_outlook , they had another chance to add additional names (just like they did in '85 for the pacific).
i would expect they'll have to retire the greek alphabet named ones if an affected country petitions for it, just like they do for the 'regular' named ones.
considering this is the first time they've run out of names in the atlantic, the chances of exausting and retiring all the greek letters in addition to using up the first 21 names, while there is still anyone left alive to even name storms in the first place, is pretty unlikely.
but they could just add a few more names like they did in the pacific back in '85 (when they did in fact run out of names)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Pacific_hurrica
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_tropical_cy
if they had the common sense to add names to the pacific lists..... why not in the atlantic? after (or during) 1995's season of nineteen named storms (out of 21 names) would have been the time to add the extra names... and in august of this year, when the "experts" predicted up to a record-tying 21 storms could happen, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Atlantic_hurric
... it's more than just all the p0rn you can eat..
usenet has most of the benefits of p2p, with none of the legal hassles (with the right provider), especially if all you do is lurk and download.
the two most populated nations, china and india, each have a single time zone across their entire country. no dst, no time changes, period... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_zone#Trivia
so what if pakistan/china border has a 3:30 time difference.. that's less relevent here because there's nothing but water on both sides.
makes sense to me....
a single time zone, with no dst, for the entire "lower 48" and (at least) the southern canadian provinces. base it on "high noon" on the summer solstice somewhere smack in the middle.. and for a lack of a better point of reference.. how about using TIME, ILLINOIS?!? at the junction of north, south, east, and west streets. http://tinyurl.com/dcra3
if eastern canada still wants to be screwed up, they can join puerto rico and be +2 hours. alaska and hawaii should be on the same time anyway, they're approximately the same longitude.. make them -2 hours.
definately simplify travel.. no more "2 hour" flights from toronto to vancouver and "7 hour" flights on the way back.
easier yes.. but then the conspiracy between the feds and phone makers would be broken... put a face to a phone number and then the feds get said face whenever they scream "patriot act"... the "terrorists", drug dealers, soccer moms, etc.. thinking they're protecting their phones end up just giving the feds a good, clear, and current, mug shot.
:)
a fingerprint pad makes so much more sense and would be more universally accepted.. camera phones are banned in many places, many customers don't want camera phones.. the technology is easier to implement, requires less computing power to authenticate or store the data, and is a tad harder to fake using just a photograph.
and would be a lot less awkward to use, even if a phone has *two* cameras.... i can just see some bozo driving down the freeway holding his phone in front of his face... that's worse than just talking on it.. sheesh.