Well, you are both wrong. If you have opened the retail package, or used the software on the computer it was pre-installed on, you automatically agreed to the terms of the license. The license states that you must purchase a new copy for each computer, and that the license is non transferable.
I believe that such licensing practices are wrong and should be illegal. This does not alter the fact that if you agreed to the terms of the license, you are bound by it.
So while you can sell an un-opened retail copy, you cannot legally sell an OEM copy, nor can you legally sell a retail copy after opening the box.
Doesn't anyone pay any attention to the license agreement, or the sticker on the box that states "by breaking this seal, you agree to the terms of the license"?
"If a company is done with a product, consumers do not have a right to force them to keep supplying it."
I Disagree. We DO have the right to demand the products we want. With the features we want. If we don't get them, we should vote with our wallets. I have done so for many years now. If enough of us did, we would get the products we want, or the companies involved would go broke.
I have no problerm with anyone blocking/filtering messages from Gmail users, as I have been doing this every since I found out that replies to Gmail users are archived, and Google also records the IP that the replies come from if it can. If you use Google's search engine, they try to tie your IP and email address to your search history, which is also archived.
Of course, it helps that none of my friends use Gmail.
Oh, and a tip to help filter spam in your email client: Send any emails that are not to your specific email address (or addresses) to the trash. It seems that most of the spam I was (still am) getting is not addressed to my specific email addresses.
I am of the opinion that the end user be given ONLY the access to rescources to do thier job in acordance with their job descri[ption. End users should NEVER be alloowed to install software. and they must not have a way to be able to copy anything to a flash drive, or CD-R/CD-RW/DVD-R/DVD-RW media. No internet access if it is not reqiored for their job. No access to email outside the company unlees they need it to do their job.
I realize that someone's responsibilities may change, and therefore they need access to more rescources to do their job (or maybe less!). Of course, all machines in the company MUST run Linux, and for the most part run only free and open source software.
Maybe I shouldn't have read The Bastard Operator From Hell (BOFH)!
Its really sad that M$ can and has totally corruped the ISO aproval process. M$ has just made being an ISO standard totally worthless. Hopefully, everyone will see how M$ has corrupted the ISO aproval process, and will see just how usless OOXML is, and that it is not really an "open" standard. The only way that the ISO bodies can regain any mesaure of respect is to make changes to make sure that corporations such as M$ do not have the chance to corrupt the ISO aprova process, and that only truly open file formats are aproved as ISO standards. That OOXML was even considered was just wrong, when ODF is already aproved as an open standard. Once this happened, there should have been no other file specifications considered that duplicate the same capabilities.
I truley hope that (as some have predicted) M$ has shot themselves in the foot on this one. BTW, I do not hate M$. I do not like the way that they have done (and are doing) business, and the way that they treat their customers. I would aplaud M$ if they would decide to compete honestly, stop their monopolistic practices, and produce a quality product with features that their customers want. I know that this is not likley to happen though.
Actually, quality content would be nice...instead of 1 or 2 good songs on a CD and the rest are fillers...and the whole things is overcompressed and overprocessed until the audio quality is no better than a 64 KBS MP3 file!
And the movie DVDs are getting just as bad sometimes...there haven't been many really good movies made in the last 10 years or so. And quality is not very good sometimes...I have taken back newe DVDs for having audio and video "skips" and "dropouts"...and they were brans new and clean with not a visible scratch or defect.
I happen to have two Compaq Armada 41XX series laptop that are still working, and I know of at least 3 others that are still in service. They are quite old (as computers go). The first models came with Win95, later ones with Win98. They have no internal fans...the internal Titanium case is part of the CPU heat sink. The main problem that I have had with these laptops is with the screen hinges (Compaq calls them clutches), or rather the cheap grease used to lubricate them. After a few years the grease dries out, and the hinges are damaged, causing the screen/lid to be harder to open and close. This eventually causes the plastic of the lid near the hinges to break. On the ones that I have, I managed to replace the dried grease with Slick-50 One Grease. This is usually used on cars, but works great on the hinges and hasn't showed any signs of drying out yet. I know that these laptops are slow and ancient. I use them for reading ebooks, and a few other things. I have modems for them, but I don't go online with them anymore because they run windows (too little memory to run Linux with any decent desktop).
The point is that these laptops are pretty well built compaired to some newer laptops. If I were to replace them today, I would probably buy IBM/Leverno, as they have the best reputation for being built to last.
The best defense against phishing attacks is to be informed, and suspicious. Sites such as PayPal and eBay ( I have had numerous phishing emails that claimed to be from these two sites) clearly state that they will not ever ask for your information via an email. Do not click on a link in an email. Period. EVER! Report suspicious emails...ALWAYS!
Also, never open email attachments...EVER! No matter who it is from, or what it claims to be, DON"T OPEN IT! Delete all email attachments ASAP!
But you ar all mussung a point...These banks and lending institutions would not want to publish any such figures. Why? Because if they are not the safest, or in the top 3, it would cause their customers to go elsewhere. This hurts profits. Banks are big businesses. They care more about profits than they do customers! The most extreme examples of big businesses that care more about profits than customers are : Microsoft RIAA members MPAA members Microsoft
For me, Netscape died when AOHELL bought it. I personnally saw AOHELL destroy the contents of too many hard drives when it was uninstalled after the free XXXX hours (in a month). I tried to warn friends against AOHELL, but many got sucked in. (But its free for a month! they would say). I saw the trouble they had unsubscribing (AOHELL made it very dificult to get away from them), and the results of uninstalling the AOHELL software. Usually all of the contents of your hard drive were so trashed that the only option was to format the drive and start from scratch. AOHELL also had far too few phone lines in the local area, so that busy signals for hours on end were the rule with them. I used a local ISP at the time, and had far better service at a lower price!
All of this made me distrust anything that AOHELL touched. I immediatley switched to other browsers, and email clients. At the point that AOHELL bought Netscape, Netscape might have been bloated, but it was still faster and far superior to IE.
No one factor made Netscape fall from popularity, it was a combination of factors.
The RIAA and MPAA need to get their shit together.
1-When I rip songs from a legally purchased CD to OGG files on my computer, that is NOT piracy, anymore than making a compilation CD of my favorite songs from my collection of legally purchased CD is.
2- Recording from radio and TV stations that are broadcasting over the air has always been allowed...it is NOT piracy.
3-P2P downloads of music and movies have been shown to increase sales of music and movies...People don't like to buy something that they haven't heard/seen. Downloading copyrighted movies and music via P2P IS piracy, but it is not hurting the movie or music industry as much as they are hurting themselves by trying to hang on to their outdated business model, and treating their customers like they are ALL criminals.
4-This is the Big One...The RIAA, and MPAA need to go after the big pirates...you know...the ones who are making hundreds of thousands of illegal copies of copyrighted movies and music, and selling them all over the world.
Of course, I am not saying anything that the folks on/. don't know...
The best solution to the problem is to NOT USE A WIRELESS NETWORK AT ALL! Its that simple. You can choose to have the security of not using wireless networking, or the convenience of using it, but having a much less secure network.
Yep. Kinda like in the BBS days, a friend and I were co-sysops on a local BBS. Just for fun, we put a "Sysop Access" option in the main menu of the BBS. All that this option did was give the user a warning message, we just did it to see how many users would select that option. Very few users didn't try it at least once!
In a marginally related story, we later on set up a program on the BBS called AIchat. This was an AI program that took the place of the sysop when the user wanted to chat. The program's responses could be edited. We set this up because of one very annoying teenager that wanted to chat whenever he logged in, reguardless of the time or any other factor. If anyone ever caught on that it was'nt a real person they were chatting with, they never said anything.
I guess I am not a geek! 98% of all of the television shows put out in the last 10 years are shear crap! Add that to the fact (yes I have timed this out a a friends house!) that we now see more than 30 minutes of comercials per hour, and you see why I do not watch broadcast/cable TV/satellite TV at home. I do not have cable or satellite TV service, and since all of the broadcasters in the area have reduced power, I cannot pick any local stations up. I watch DVDs ( and VHS tapes) that I buy, rent, or check out from the local library. I also find myself reading more books, and spending more time on my hobbies insetad of vegging out in front of the TV.
I really do not miss anything, as the shows I used to watch on Cable TV are all available on DVD. I get my news via the Shortwave radio, and also some other interesting stuff.
I don't watch commercial ridden TV anymore...and I have a life!
Well while dropping DRM is a start, the RIAA and MPAA and their members need to totally overhaul their business models. They need to stop producing music CDs with only (maybe)1 or 2 good tracks where the rest of the CD is trash that should never have been recorded (and also produce CDs where the music is not overdriven, and overcompressed). They need to come up with some GOOD and ORIGINAL ideas for new movies, instead of endless sequels to Rocky and Rambo! What the consumers really want is quality content at a reasonable price. The RIAA and MPAA and their members can't seem to get that through their tiny minds. and BTW, I consider anything over $7.00 for a music CD or DVD is unreasonable.
They are talking about security flaws. Other types of flaws? Lets start with the built in DRM, the exremely annoying UAC prompts, the HUGE amount of software that ran fine with XP that doesn't run with Vista, the HUGE amount of system rescources needed to get decent performance...Well, thats enough to start with...
If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?
This country (The U.S.A.) also allows some of the worst religious hatemongers to spew their message of hate, religious intolerence etc...over the shortwave radio spectrum. Is hate speech free speech?
You are dead wrong on all counts! The morse code has been rightly recognozed as just another mode of operation. It has nothing to do with how good or bad an operator someone is. There are young people, and indeed people of all ages that are attracted to Amateur Radio. Amateur radio is not dead, not dying, and is in fact as healthy as it ever was. But things do change. Not just in Amateur Radio, but everywhere areound us. Its those that are resistant to benificial change (such as the Morse Code testing requirement being dropped) that are the biggest problem. Please note that morse cosd has not been eliminated...only the requirement that a code test be passed to get an Amateir Radio License. Morse code is alive and well on the air, and will continue to be used as long as anyone wants to use it. As to the testing beimg "diluted", that is not true either. The testing to get an Amateur Radio License has been changed to reflect more practical matters, as well as being adapted to better cover current technology.
Amateur Radio is here to stay!
Hi Guys. Try searching on NF5B in your favorite search engine. You will get quite a few results, but a few are links to stories about NF5B and his role in saving lives during Katrina. I am fortunate enough to be a good friend of Richard and Kathleed. This legally blind musician and his Lady (who is wheelchair bound most of the time) are true heros, as are many others who seldome get the press coverage, or the recognition that they deserve. Richard and Kathleed also participate in the Maritime Mobile Service Net. This net is composed of Amateir Operators who give their time and use their radio equipment to help ships at sea, and also others in parts of the world who have no other means of communication except for Amateur Radio. The members of this net have saved many lives, and helped countless mariners communicate with loved ones. I monitor this net when conditions permit.
There are many unsung heros among the ranks of Amateur Radio operators.
Get real! No matter how much you polish a turd, its still a turd! And Vista is the bigest MS turd to date. Bottom line: Usres want a new OS to run faster not slower on their current hardware. Users do not want to buy new hardware just to run a new OS. Usters want security, but want it to not be extremely bothersome. Users do NOT want DRM.
MS does not care what users want. They only care about profits. They do not realize that giving users what they want is the path to greater profits in the long run.
Don't get me wrong, I do NOT hate MS. I do not like their operating systems nor do I like their software. I do not like their business and marketing practices.
I have the choice not to buy or use MS products, and I have chosen not to (use any MS products). I respect others righst to use the OS and software products of their choice. My only beef is that too many others make their choice without all of the facts, and without looking at alternatives to MS products. That is, that they are making an uninformed choise. Take the time to look at ALL of the alternatives and choices before you choose. You will make the right choice for your needs that way whether that choice is MS or something else.
These prices are outragous! $400.00 for something that can only display ebooks!? For less than that I can get a used thinkpad on eBay, that can do all kinds of stuff beside read an ebook. And it looks to me like they expect to rent you the ebook for the same price as to buy a physical book. And of course it will be in some weird proprietory format and DRMed too. The ebooks should be priced at no more than $1.00. After all, 99% of books these days are created on a word processor. From that stage creating an ebook is quick and simple with very little cost involved at all. It doesn't have to be printed, packaged, and hauled on trucks to stores like a physical book.
I will not be buying into any scheme so stupid. When they sell me a copy of the ebook for $1.00 or less, that I can read using software that I already have on my PC like a text editor, PDF reader, or word processor, I might think about it. Until then, its just toys for a few idiots that have more money than brains!
WRONG! What is pathetic is the huge numbers of idiots with cell phones that insist on the extremely rude and obnoxious act of NOT turning the damned things OFF when entering a store, restuarant, movie theater, etc...
HAH! Maybe at the national level or at your local store Wal-Fart "does not like to run out of stuff". The local store here doesn't give a rats ass! Empty shelves for days or weeks are a common sight, in some cases months. This is on common items, not special purchases or anything. I know several employees, and they say that the store here is more concerned with keeping costs down by not hireing enough checkers (and not paying enough to keep them) According to these employees and my own observations, they could keep costs down by eliminating the management people who stand around BSing with each other instead of doing any work. I see them whenever I go there, and they are not talking aboutstore business. Also, I think that the BS inventory system is partly to blame. Most employees spend most of their shifts scanning items for their department in the back room instead of keeping shelves stocked.
All things considered, Wal-Fart here sucks. Still, us poor people are forced to go where we get the lowest prices.
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Well, you are both wrong. If you have opened the retail package, or used the software on the computer it was pre-installed on, you automatically agreed to the terms of the license. The license states that you must purchase a new copy for each computer, and that the license is non transferable. I believe that such licensing practices are wrong and should be illegal. This does not alter the fact that if you agreed to the terms of the license, you are bound by it. So while you can sell an un-opened retail copy, you cannot legally sell an OEM copy, nor can you legally sell a retail copy after opening the box. Doesn't anyone pay any attention to the license agreement, or the sticker on the box that states "by breaking this seal, you agree to the terms of the license"?
"If a company is done with a product, consumers do not have a right to force them to keep supplying it." I Disagree. We DO have the right to demand the products we want. With the features we want. If we don't get them, we should vote with our wallets. I have done so for many years now. If enough of us did, we would get the products we want, or the companies involved would go broke.
I have no problerm with anyone blocking/filtering messages from Gmail users, as I have been doing this every since I found out that replies to Gmail users are archived, and Google also records the IP that the replies come from if it can. If you use Google's search engine, they try to tie your IP and email address to your search history, which is also archived. Of course, it helps that none of my friends use Gmail. Oh, and a tip to help filter spam in your email client: Send any emails that are not to your specific email address (or addresses) to the trash. It seems that most of the spam I was (still am) getting is not addressed to my specific email addresses.
I am of the opinion that the end user be given ONLY the access to rescources to do thier job in acordance with their job descri[ption. End users should NEVER be alloowed to install software. and they must not have a way to be able to copy anything to a flash drive, or CD-R/CD-RW/DVD-R/DVD-RW media. No internet access if it is not reqiored for their job. No access to email outside the company unlees they need it to do their job.
I realize that someone's responsibilities may change, and therefore they need access to more rescources to do their job (or maybe less!). Of course, all machines in the company MUST run Linux, and for the most part run only free and open source software.
Maybe I shouldn't have read The Bastard Operator From Hell (BOFH)!
Shame on Creative indeed! They should be making him a job offer instead of what they did!!
Its really sad that M$ can and has totally corruped the ISO aproval process. M$ has just made being an ISO standard totally worthless. Hopefully, everyone will see how M$ has corrupted the ISO aproval process, and will see just how usless OOXML is, and that it is not really an "open" standard. The only way that the ISO bodies can regain any mesaure of respect is to make changes to make sure that corporations such as M$ do not have the chance to corrupt the ISO aprova process, and that only truly open file formats are aproved as ISO standards. That OOXML was even considered was just wrong, when ODF is already aproved as an open standard. Once this happened, there should have been no other file specifications considered that duplicate the same capabilities.
I truley hope that (as some have predicted) M$ has shot themselves in the foot on this one. BTW, I do not hate M$. I do not like the way that they have done (and are doing) business, and the way that they treat their customers. I would aplaud M$ if they would decide to compete honestly, stop their monopolistic practices, and produce a quality product with features that their customers want. I know that this is not likley to happen though.
Actually, quality content would be nice...instead of 1 or 2 good songs on a CD and the rest are fillers...and the whole things is overcompressed and overprocessed until the audio quality is no better than a 64 KBS MP3 file!
And the movie DVDs are getting just as bad sometimes...there haven't been many really good movies made in the last 10 years or so. And quality is not very good sometimes...I have taken back newe DVDs for having audio and video "skips" and "dropouts"...and they were brans new and clean with not a visible scratch or defect.
I happen to have two Compaq Armada 41XX series laptop that are still working, and I know of at least 3 others that are still in service. They are quite old (as computers go). The first models came with Win95, later ones with Win98. They have no internal fans...the internal Titanium case is part of the CPU heat sink. The main problem that I have had with these laptops is with the screen hinges (Compaq calls them clutches), or rather the cheap grease used to lubricate them. After a few years the grease dries out, and the hinges are damaged, causing the screen/lid to be harder to open and close. This eventually causes the plastic of the lid near the hinges to break. On the ones that I have, I managed to replace the dried grease with Slick-50 One Grease. This is usually used on cars, but works great on the hinges and hasn't showed any signs of drying out yet. I know that these laptops are slow and ancient. I use them for reading ebooks, and a few other things. I have modems for them, but I don't go online with them anymore because they run windows (too little memory to run Linux with any decent desktop). The point is that these laptops are pretty well built compaired to some newer laptops. If I were to replace them today, I would probably buy IBM/Leverno, as they have the best reputation for being built to last.
The best defense against phishing attacks is to be informed, and suspicious. Sites such as PayPal and eBay ( I have had numerous phishing emails that claimed to be from these two sites) clearly state that they will not ever ask for your information via an email. Do not click on a link in an email. Period. EVER! Report suspicious emails...ALWAYS! Also, never open email attachments...EVER! No matter who it is from, or what it claims to be, DON"T OPEN IT! Delete all email attachments ASAP!
But you ar all mussung a point...These banks and lending institutions would not want to publish any such figures. Why? Because if they are not the safest, or in the top 3, it would cause their customers to go elsewhere. This hurts profits. Banks are big businesses. They care more about profits than they do customers! The most extreme examples of big businesses that care more about profits than customers are :
Microsoft
RIAA members
MPAA members
Microsoft
For me, Netscape died when AOHELL bought it. I personnally saw AOHELL destroy the contents of too many hard drives when it was uninstalled after the free XXXX hours (in a month). I tried to warn friends against AOHELL, but many got sucked in. (But its free for a month! they would say). I saw the trouble they had unsubscribing (AOHELL made it very dificult to get away from them), and the results of uninstalling the AOHELL software. Usually all of the contents of your hard drive were so trashed that the only option was to format the drive and start from scratch. AOHELL also had far too few phone lines in the local area, so that busy signals for hours on end were the rule with them. I used a local ISP at the time, and had far better service at a lower price!
All of this made me distrust anything that AOHELL touched. I immediatley switched to other browsers, and email clients. At the point that AOHELL bought Netscape, Netscape might have been bloated, but it was still faster and far superior to IE.
No one factor made Netscape fall from popularity, it was a combination of factors.
The RIAA and MPAA need to get their shit together.
/. don't know...
1-When I rip songs from a legally purchased CD to OGG files on my computer, that is NOT piracy, anymore than making a compilation CD of my favorite songs from my collection of legally purchased CD is.
2- Recording from radio and TV stations that are broadcasting over the air has always been allowed...it is NOT piracy.
3-P2P downloads of music and movies have been shown to increase sales of music and movies...People don't like to buy something that they haven't heard/seen. Downloading copyrighted movies and music via P2P IS piracy, but it is not hurting the movie or music industry as much as they are hurting themselves by trying to hang on to their outdated business model, and treating their customers like they are ALL criminals.
4-This is the Big One...The RIAA, and MPAA need to go after the big pirates...you know...the ones who are making hundreds of thousands of illegal copies of copyrighted movies and music, and selling them all over the world.
Of course, I am not saying anything that the folks on
The best solution to the problem is to NOT USE A WIRELESS NETWORK AT ALL! Its that simple. You can choose to have the security of not using wireless networking, or the convenience of using it, but having a much less secure network.
At the present time, you can't have both.
Your choice.
Yep. Kinda like in the BBS days, a friend and I were co-sysops on a local BBS. Just for fun, we put a "Sysop Access" option in the main menu of the BBS. All that this option did was give the user a warning message, we just did it to see how many users would select that option. Very few users didn't try it at least once!
In a marginally related story, we later on set up a program on the BBS called AIchat. This was an AI program that took the place of the sysop when the user wanted to chat. The program's responses could be edited. We set this up because of one very annoying teenager that wanted to chat whenever he logged in, reguardless of the time or any other factor. If anyone ever caught on that it was'nt a real person they were chatting with, they never said anything.
I guess I am not a geek! 98% of all of the television shows put out in the last 10 years are shear crap! Add that to the fact (yes I have timed this out a a friends house!) that we now see more than 30 minutes of comercials per hour, and you see why I do not watch broadcast/cable TV/satellite TV at home. I do not have cable or satellite TV service, and since all of the broadcasters in the area have reduced power, I cannot pick any local stations up. I watch DVDs ( and VHS tapes) that I buy, rent, or check out from the local library. I also find myself reading more books, and spending more time on my hobbies insetad of vegging out in front of the TV.
I really do not miss anything, as the shows I used to watch on Cable TV are all available on DVD. I get my news via the Shortwave radio, and also some other interesting stuff.
I don't watch commercial ridden TV anymore...and I have a life!
Uh Dude...there Really IS a town in Iceland named Hell...and it freezes over nearly every year!
If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?
Well while dropping DRM is a start, the RIAA and MPAA and their members need to totally overhaul their business models. They need to stop producing music CDs with only (maybe)1 or 2 good tracks where the rest of the CD is trash that should never have been recorded (and also produce CDs where the music is not overdriven, and overcompressed). They need to come up with some GOOD and ORIGINAL ideas for new movies, instead of endless sequels to Rocky and Rambo! What the consumers really want is quality content at a reasonable price. The RIAA and MPAA and their members can't seem to get that through their tiny minds. and BTW, I consider anything over $7.00 for a music CD or DVD is unreasonable.
They are talking about security flaws. Other types of flaws? Lets start with the built in DRM, the exremely annoying UAC prompts, the HUGE amount of software that ran fine with XP that doesn't run with Vista, the HUGE amount of system rescources needed to get decent performance...Well, thats enough to start with...
If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?
This country (The U.S.A.) also allows some of the worst religious hatemongers to spew their message of hate, religious intolerence etc...over the shortwave radio spectrum. Is hate speech free speech?
You are dead wrong on all counts! The morse code has been rightly recognozed as just another mode of operation. It has nothing to do with how good or bad an operator someone is. There are young people, and indeed people of all ages that are attracted to Amateur Radio. Amateur radio is not dead, not dying, and is in fact as healthy as it ever was. But things do change. Not just in Amateur Radio, but everywhere areound us. Its those that are resistant to benificial change (such as the Morse Code testing requirement being dropped) that are the biggest problem. Please note that morse cosd has not been eliminated...only the requirement that a code test be passed to get an Amateir Radio License. Morse code is alive and well on the air, and will continue to be used as long as anyone wants to use it. As to the testing beimg "diluted", that is not true either. The testing to get an Amateur Radio License has been changed to reflect more practical matters, as well as being adapted to better cover current technology. Amateur Radio is here to stay!
Hi Guys. Try searching on NF5B in your favorite search engine. You will get quite a few results, but a few are links to stories about NF5B and his role in saving lives during Katrina. I am fortunate enough to be a good friend of Richard and Kathleed. This legally blind musician and his Lady (who is wheelchair bound most of the time) are true heros, as are many others who seldome get the press coverage, or the recognition that they deserve. Richard and Kathleed also participate in the Maritime Mobile Service Net. This net is composed of Amateir Operators who give their time and use their radio equipment to help ships at sea, and also others in parts of the world who have no other means of communication except for Amateur Radio. The members of this net have saved many lives, and helped countless mariners communicate with loved ones. I monitor this net when conditions permit.
There are many unsung heros among the ranks of Amateur Radio operators.
Get real! No matter how much you polish a turd, its still a turd! And Vista is the bigest MS turd to date. Bottom line: Usres want a new OS to run faster not slower on their current hardware. Users do not want to buy new hardware just to run a new OS. Usters want security, but want it to not be extremely bothersome. Users do NOT want DRM.
MS does not care what users want. They only care about profits. They do not realize that giving users what they want is the path to greater profits in the long run.
Don't get me wrong, I do NOT hate MS. I do not like their operating systems nor do I like their software. I do not like their business and marketing practices.
I have the choice not to buy or use MS products, and I have chosen not to (use any MS products). I respect others righst to use the OS and software products of their choice. My only beef is that too many others make their choice without all of the facts, and without looking at alternatives to MS products. That is, that they are making an uninformed choise. Take the time to look at ALL of the alternatives and choices before you choose. You will make the right choice for your needs that way whether that choice is MS or something else.
Make an informed choice!
These prices are outragous! $400.00 for something that can only display ebooks!? For less than that I can get a used thinkpad on eBay, that can do all kinds of stuff beside read an ebook. And it looks to me like they expect to rent you the ebook for the same price as to buy a physical book. And of course it will be in some weird proprietory format and DRMed too. The ebooks should be priced at no more than $1.00. After all, 99% of books these days are created on a word processor. From that stage creating an ebook is quick and simple with very little cost involved at all. It doesn't have to be printed, packaged, and hauled on trucks to stores like a physical book.
I will not be buying into any scheme so stupid. When they sell me a copy of the ebook for $1.00 or less, that I can read using software that I already have on my PC like a text editor, PDF reader, or word processor, I might think about it. Until then, its just toys for a few idiots that have more money than brains!
WRONG! What is pathetic is the huge numbers of idiots with cell phones that insist on the extremely rude and obnoxious act of NOT turning the damned things OFF when entering a store, restuarant, movie theater, etc...
HAH! Maybe at the national level or at your local store Wal-Fart "does not like to run out of stuff". The local store here doesn't give a rats ass! Empty shelves for days or weeks are a common sight, in some cases months. This is on common items, not special purchases or anything. I know several employees, and they say that the store here is more concerned with keeping costs down by not hireing enough checkers (and not paying enough to keep them) According to these employees and my own observations, they could keep costs down by eliminating the management people who stand around BSing with each other instead of doing any work. I see them whenever I go there, and they are not talking aboutstore business. Also, I think that the BS inventory system is partly to blame. Most employees spend most of their shifts scanning items for their department in the back room instead of keeping shelves stocked.
All things considered, Wal-Fart here sucks. Still, us poor people are forced to go where we get the lowest prices.