I've just come back from a nice dinner with a woman (and her fella) who
owns a PC that runs MICROS~1 ME.

Electronics guys like me get used to being chatted up by all and sundry
and I know the conversation will usually be steered towards something
that doesn't work.

She's a nearby neighbor and wanted me to help her get her MICROS~1 PC
back on the Internet, because it had been refusing to connect for a
*month*.

A mature woman, she has almost completed a certificate at the local
technical school that gives her "help desk" qualifications and she's
quite well trained so far. She knows what interrupts and memory io
addresses are, she knows what "PCI" means, she can install and remove
drivers etc.

Her problem is the kind of junk that MICROS~1 make, and the fact that
she's unlucky enough to own some.

Her machine was BSOD, it had been since last night when she tried to
reinstall the modem driver from the nice CD wallet that came with her
machine, she hadn't got to bed till around 7am.

She wasn't happy, you know the look, red eyes and the kind of demeanour
that says "my self worth has been crushed, I'm not so sure about the
world anymore"

Ok, I haven't seen a MICROS~1 Windows ME machine before let alone used
one, and my most recent Windows experience was with W95, back in 1997
when I went to the GNU/Linux desktop full time.

But I use GNU/Linux, my self confidence is unshakable.

The machine was totally stuck in the BSOD screen and the PC had no
"reset" switch so it was a cold boot and into "safe mode". Icons
everywhere and 4 color mode, yep it's safe mode alright, completely safe
from being *used*!

I delete the modem drivers and reboot, now it's back into "unsafe mode
(tm)" and looks more like the "toys-r-us" image I've come to loathe 
over the years. It didn't say anything about drivers or modem, in fact
it didn't give a clue about *why* it was in same mode, and she had
followed every step by the brain dead wizard, many times and always
found herself back at the BSOD. It was a viscous circle she couldn't
escape from

Hence the red eyes.

I just happened to have a Mepis Live-CD with me, and as she's a
struggling student who I'm not going to charge, and as she asked oh so
sweetly ( the way girls *do*) I decided her price would be to sit thru
a Mepis GNU/Linux session on her machine.

Naturally it booted and found everything except the "Agilent "soft
modem" otherwise known as a "Winmodem". Up popped a nice KDE desktop,
.... goodbye toys-r-us.

I took the time to show her her word docs in OO, how she can save them
in 3 Word doc formats. Impressed would be an understatement on her
part.

OO calc is very Excel like and she was familiar with it right away

I showed her Mozilla with tabs, Xmms, Xine, the Gimp and the KDE
hardware viewer, we browsed the menus, packed as they are with goodies.

"How can I get one of those CD's" she asked eagerly ?

"I just copy this one and give it to you" I replied, and she was
astounded *and* worried that it would be an "illegal" copy she was
receiving. After explaining the concepts of the GPL to her I could tell
she loved the notion of Free Software, made available by a community
working together. When her course is finished soon, I see another
GNU/Linux convert, and it's no surprise really.

So what happened to fix her machine ?

Toys-R-us kept going around in cicles, bad driver, segfault, manual
shutdown (wait for ages for shutdown to actually happen) etc.

Finally I just disabled the drivers for the modem so Toys-R-us wouldn't
keep finding "new hardware" and wanting the CD with the bad drivers.

I installed new hardware, a "std serial port external modem",
bwahahahah what a joke, connected my old 28.8k external serial modem
and she's in business again.

It was fun seeing Mephis running on her machine from the CD, reading
her files on her hard drive in OO, and tea wasn't bad either :)




-- 
              Kind Regards from Terry 
    My Desktop is powered by GNU/LinuX, Gentoo-1.4_rc2   
         New Homepage: http://milkstone.d2.net.au/          
 ** Linux Registration Number: 103931,  http://counter.li.org **

Terry wrote:
> I've just come back from a nice dinner with a woman (and her fella) who
> owns a PC that runs MICROS~1 ME.
> 
> Electronics guys like me get used to being chatted up by all and sundry
> and I know the conversation will usually be steered towards something
> that doesn't work.
> 
> She's a nearby neighbor and wanted me to help her get her MICROS~1 PC
> back on the Internet, because it had been refusing to connect for a
> *month*.
> 
> A mature woman, she has almost completed a certificate at the local
> technical school that gives her "help desk" qualifications and she's
> quite well trained so far. She knows what interrupts and memory io
> addresses are, she knows what "PCI" means, she can install and remove
> drivers etc.
> 
> Her problem is the kind of junk that MICROS~1 make, and the fact that
> she's unlucky enough to own some.
> 
> Her machine was BSOD, it had been since last night when she tried to
> reinstall the modem driver from the nice CD wallet that came with her
> machine, she hadn't got to bed till around 7am.
> 
> She wasn't happy, you know the look, red eyes and the kind of demeanour
> that says "my self worth has been crushed, I'm not so sure about the
> world anymore"
> 
> Ok, I haven't seen a MICROS~1 Windows ME machine before let alone used
> one, and my most recent Windows experience was with W95, back in 1997
> when I went to the GNU/Linux desktop full time.
> 
> But I use GNU/Linux, my self confidence is unshakable.
> 
> The machine was totally stuck in the BSOD screen and the PC had no
> "reset" switch so it was a cold boot and into "safe mode". Icons
> everywhere and 4 color mode, yep it's safe mode alright, completely safe
> from being *used*!
> 
> I delete the modem drivers and reboot, now it's back into "unsafe mode
> (tm)" and looks more like the "toys-r-us" image I've come to loathe 
> over the years. It didn't say anything about drivers or modem, in fact
> it didn't give a clue about *why* it was in same mode, and she had
> followed every step by the brain dead wizard, many times and always
> found herself back at the BSOD. It was a viscous circle she couldn't
> escape from
> 
> Hence the red eyes.
> 
> I just happened to have a Mepis Live-CD with me, and as she's a
> struggling student who I'm not going to charge, and as she asked oh so
> sweetly ( the way girls *do*) I decided her price would be to sit thru
> a Mepis GNU/Linux session on her machine.
> 
> Naturally it booted and found everything except the "Agilent "soft
> modem" otherwise known as a "Winmodem". Up popped a nice KDE desktop,
> ... goodbye toys-r-us.
> 
> I took the time to show her her word docs in OO, how she can save them
> in 3 Word doc formats. Impressed would be an understatement on her
> part.
> 
> OO calc is very Excel like and she was familiar with it right away
> 
> I showed her Mozilla with tabs, Xmms, Xine, the Gimp and the KDE
> hardware viewer, we browsed the menus, packed as they are with goodies.
> 
> "How can I get one of those CD's" she asked eagerly ?
> 
> "I just copy this one and give it to you" I replied, and she was
> astounded *and* worried that it would be an "illegal" copy she was
> receiving. After explaining the concepts of the GPL to her I could tell
> she loved the notion of Free Software, made available by a community
> working together. When her course is finished soon, I see another
> GNU/Linux convert, and it's no surprise really.
> 
> So what happened to fix her machine ?
> 
> Toys-R-us kept going around in cicles, bad driver, segfault, manual
> shutdown (wait for ages for shutdown to actually happen) etc.
> 
> Finally I just disabled the drivers for the modem so Toys-R-us wouldn't
> keep finding "new hardware" and wanting the CD with the bad drivers.
> 
> I installed new hardware, a "std serial port external modem",
> bwahahahah what a joke, connected my old 28.8k external serial modem
> and she's in business again.
> 
> It was fun seeing Mephis running on her machine from the CD, reading
> her files on her hard drive in OO, and tea wasn't bad either :)

She sounds like she would have gone down on you.

Maybe that /cant connect to the Internet/ crap was a ruse to get some 
_satisfaction_

Terry wrote:

<snip>

Windows, it's own worst enemy.

Terry wrote:

> I've just come back from a nice dinner with a woman (and her fella) who
> owns a PC that runs MICROS~1 ME.
> 
> Electronics guys like me get used to being chatted up by all and sundry
> and I know the conversation will usually be steered towards something
> that doesn't work.
> 
> She's a nearby neighbor and wanted me to help her get her MICROS~1 PC
> back on the Internet, because it had been refusing to connect for a
> *month*.
> 
> A mature woman, she has almost completed a certificate at the local
> technical school that gives her "help desk" qualifications and she's
> quite well trained so far. She knows what interrupts and memory io
> addresses are, she knows what "PCI" means, she can install and remove
> drivers etc.
> 
> Her problem is the kind of junk that MICROS~1 make, and the fact that
> she's unlucky enough to own some.
> 
> Her machine was BSOD, it had been since last night when she tried to
> reinstall the modem driver from the nice CD wallet that came with her
> machine, she hadn't got to bed till around 7am.
> 
> She wasn't happy, you know the look, red eyes and the kind of demeanour
> that says "my self worth has been crushed, I'm not so sure about the
> world anymore"
> 
> Ok, I haven't seen a MICROS~1 Windows ME machine before let alone used
> one, and my most recent Windows experience was with W95, back in 1997
> when I went to the GNU/Linux desktop full time.
> 
> But I use GNU/Linux, my self confidence is unshakable.
> 
> The machine was totally stuck in the BSOD screen and the PC had no
> "reset" switch so it was a cold boot and into "safe mode". Icons
> everywhere and 4 color mode, yep it's safe mode alright, completely safe
> from being *used*!
> 
> I delete the modem drivers and reboot, now it's back into "unsafe mode
> (tm)" and looks more like the "toys-r-us" image I've come to loathe
> over the years. It didn't say anything about drivers or modem, in fact
> it didn't give a clue about *why* it was in same mode, and she had
> followed every step by the brain dead wizard, many times and always
> found herself back at the BSOD. It was a viscous circle she couldn't
> escape from
> 
> Hence the red eyes.
> 
> I just happened to have a Mepis Live-CD with me, and as she's a
> struggling student who I'm not going to charge, and as she asked oh so
> sweetly ( the way girls *do*) I decided her price would be to sit thru
> a Mepis GNU/Linux session on her machine.
> 
> Naturally it booted and found everything except the "Agilent "soft
> modem" otherwise known as a "Winmodem". Up popped a nice KDE desktop,
> ... goodbye toys-r-us.
> 
> I took the time to show her her word docs in OO, how she can save them
> in 3 Word doc formats. Impressed would be an understatement on her
> part.
> 
> OO calc is very Excel like and she was familiar with it right away
> 
> I showed her Mozilla with tabs, Xmms, Xine, the Gimp and the KDE
> hardware viewer, we browsed the menus, packed as they are with goodies.
> 
> "How can I get one of those CD's" she asked eagerly ?
> 
> "I just copy this one and give it to you" I replied, and she was
> astounded *and* worried that it would be an "illegal" copy she was
> receiving. After explaining the concepts of the GPL to her I could tell
> she loved the notion of Free Software, made available by a community
> working together. When her course is finished soon, I see another
> GNU/Linux convert, and it's no surprise really.
> 
> So what happened to fix her machine ?
> 
> Toys-R-us kept going around in cicles, bad driver, segfault, manual
> shutdown (wait for ages for shutdown to actually happen) etc.
> 
> Finally I just disabled the drivers for the modem so Toys-R-us wouldn't
> keep finding "new hardware" and wanting the CD with the bad drivers.
> 
> I installed new hardware, a "std serial port external modem",
> bwahahahah what a joke, connected my old 28.8k external serial modem
> and she's in business again.
> 
> It was fun seeing Mephis running on her machine from the CD, reading
> her files on her hard drive in OO, and tea wasn't bad either :)
> 

I've found that, too. Once people see KDE and how easy it is to use Linux,
and hear about is resistance to worms and viruses, they invariably want to
have it.

Terry wrote:

> I showed her Mozilla with tabs, Xmms, Xine, the Gimp and the KDE
> hardware viewer, we browsed the menus, packed as they are with goodies.

A lot of people I've met recently keep asking me if I use AIM.  Well, 
I've never really tried it, but I did remember that there are a goodly 
amount of open source IM clients.  One of these days, I'm going to have 
to give gaim a try.  Does she use AIM or MSN Messenger?  If so, there 
are plenty of IM clients available for Linux.



-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----==  Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =-----

On Mon, 12 Jan 2004 16:12:27 +0000, John wrote:

<snip>

> I've found that, too. Once people see KDE and how easy it is to use
> Linux, and hear about is resistance to worms and viruses, they
> invariably want to have it.

IME sometimes they want it, sometimes they don't. Depends on the person.
The biggest barrier seems to be inertia and laziness. Sometimes they don't
even see how crappy Windows is, much less see the need to use anything
better.

-- 
Powered by Mandrake Linux!
Registered Linux user 337927 - http://counter.li.org/

On 2004-01-12, Terry <tjporter@gronk.porter.net> blubbered:
> I've just come back from a nice dinner with a woman (and her fella) who
> owns a PC that runs MICROS~1 ME.
>
> Electronics guys like me get used to being chatted up by all and sundry
> and I know the conversation will usually be steered towards something
> that doesn't work.
>
> She's a nearby neighbor and wanted me to help her get her MICROS~1 PC
> back on the Internet, because it had been refusing to connect for a
> *month*.
>
> A mature woman, she has almost completed a certificate at the local
> technical school that gives her "help desk" qualifications and she's
> quite well trained so far. She knows what interrupts and memory io
> addresses are, she knows what "PCI" means, she can install and remove
> drivers etc.
>
> Her problem is the kind of junk that MICROS~1 make, and the fact that
> she's unlucky enough to own some.
>
> Her machine was BSOD, it had been since last night when she tried to
> reinstall the modem driver from the nice CD wallet that came with her
> machine, she hadn't got to bed till around 7am.
>
> She wasn't happy, you know the look, red eyes and the kind of demeanour
> that says "my self worth has been crushed, I'm not so sure about the
> world anymore"
>
> Ok, I haven't seen a MICROS~1 Windows ME machine before let alone used
> one, and my most recent Windows experience was with W95, back in 1997
> when I went to the GNU/Linux desktop full time.
>
> But I use GNU/Linux, my self confidence is unshakable.
>
> The machine was totally stuck in the BSOD screen and the PC had no
> "reset" switch so it was a cold boot and into "safe mode". Icons
> everywhere and 4 color mode, yep it's safe mode alright, completely safe
> from being *used*!
>
> I delete the modem drivers and reboot, now it's back into "unsafe mode
> (tm)" and looks more like the "toys-r-us" image I've come to loathe 
> over the years. It didn't say anything about drivers or modem, in fact
> it didn't give a clue about *why* it was in same mode, and she had
> followed every step by the brain dead wizard, many times and always
> found herself back at the BSOD. It was a viscous circle she couldn't
> escape from
>
> Hence the red eyes.
>
> I just happened to have a Mepis Live-CD with me, and as she's a
> struggling student who I'm not going to charge, and as she asked oh so
> sweetly ( the way girls *do*) I decided her price would be to sit thru
> a Mepis GNU/Linux session on her machine.
>
> Naturally it booted and found everything except the "Agilent "soft
> modem" otherwise known as a "Winmodem". Up popped a nice KDE desktop,
> ... goodbye toys-r-us.
>
> I took the time to show her her word docs in OO, how she can save them
> in 3 Word doc formats. Impressed would be an understatement on her
> part.
>
> OO calc is very Excel like and she was familiar with it right away
>
> I showed her Mozilla with tabs, Xmms, Xine, the Gimp and the KDE
> hardware viewer, we browsed the menus, packed as they are with goodies.
>
> "How can I get one of those CD's" she asked eagerly ?
>
> "I just copy this one and give it to you" I replied, and she was
> astounded *and* worried that it would be an "illegal" copy she was
> receiving. After explaining the concepts of the GPL to her I could tell
> she loved the notion of Free Software, made available by a community
> working together. When her course is finished soon, I see another
> GNU/Linux convert, and it's no surprise really.
>
> So what happened to fix her machine ?
>
> Toys-R-us kept going around in cicles, bad driver, segfault, manual
> shutdown (wait for ages for shutdown to actually happen) etc.
>
> Finally I just disabled the drivers for the modem so Toys-R-us wouldn't
> keep finding "new hardware" and wanting the CD with the bad drivers.
>
> I installed new hardware, a "std serial port external modem",
> bwahahahah what a joke, connected my old 28.8k external serial modem
> and she's in business again.
>
> It was fun seeing Mephis running on her machine from the CD, reading
> her files on her hard drive in OO, and tea wasn't bad either :)

Excellent story, Terry. However, I see 2 really big problems with this
post. Allow me::

1. The Winders users who want to see OSS spread around the world and
keep reminding us of it by saying we should do more to spread the word
won't see it, and they'll use their (intentional) blindness to claim
nobody here does anything except talk.

2. The winbigots can see through your little facade!! It took me a long
time, but I was finally able to decode the hidden message that said
only linux could have solved this problem. The Windoozies don't even
need a decoder ring. They'll see it immediately, no matter how hard you
try to hide it in there. So expect them to challenge your hidden
message fiercely.

If Dickbell shows up and sees it, I'm betting he'll go after you for
not deleting some stuff, or for not using the b0rken drivers properly.

-- 
Exxon sponsored ecology videos, Kraft sponsored nutrition videos...
I'd be surprised if Microsoft isn't sponsoring technology classes.

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 00:19:43 +1100, Terry <tjporter@gronk.porter.net>
wrote:

>It was fun seeing Mephis running on her machine from the CD, reading
>her files on her hard drive in OO, and tea wasn't bad either :)

 But did you get in her pants? 

Terry wrote:

> I delete the modem drivers and reboot, now it's back into "unsafe mode
> (tm)" and looks more like the "toys-r-us" image I've come to loathe

Wrong - the correct name for it is Toys-R-OS ;-)

-- 
Nigel Feltham - spanking trolls since 1999

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 00:19:43 +1100, Terry <tjporter@gronk.porter.net> wrote:


>But I use GNU/Linux, my self confidence is unshakable.

Like this guy?

https://www.slomins.com/forhome/home_alarm.html

Sorry, but I couldn't resist!!!

Snip==============

>Hence the red eyes.

Not to mention tights :)

flatfish+++

Sinister Midget wrote:
> On 2004-01-12, Terry <tjporter@gronk.porter.net> blubbered:
>>
>> It was a viscous
>> circle she couldn't escape from
>>
>> Hence the red eyes.


Sounds like an interesting evening. Bailo will be envious.



> 2. The winbigots can see through your little facade!! It took me a
> long time, but I was finally able to decode the hidden message that
> said only linux could have solved this problem.



How very perceptive.

Knight rides into town on his white Arabian steed.

Finds damsel in distress.

Rescues her with the help of GNU/Linux

They live happily ever after in an OSS paradise.

Terry omitted the important words "useful" and "productive". I'm sure he'll
correct that in a future thread.

In article <fgjad1-etj.ln1@gronk.porter.net>, Terry wrote:
> I've just come back from a nice dinner with a woman (and her fella) who
> owns a PC that runs MICROS~1 ME.
> 
> Electronics guys like me get used to being chatted up by all and sundry
> and I know the conversation will usually be steered towards something
> that doesn't work.
> 
> She's a nearby neighbor and wanted me to help her get her MICROS~1 PC
> back on the Internet, because it had been refusing to connect for a
> *month*.
> 
> A mature woman, she has almost completed a certificate at the local
> technical school that gives her "help desk" qualifications and she's
> quite well trained so far. She knows what interrupts and memory io
> addresses are, she knows what "PCI" means, she can install and remove
> drivers etc.
> 
> Her problem is the kind of junk that MICROS~1 make, and the fact that
> she's unlucky enough to own some.
> 
> Her machine was BSOD, it had been since last night when she tried to
> reinstall the modem driver from the nice CD wallet that came with her
> machine, she hadn't got to bed till around 7am.
> 
> She wasn't happy, you know the look, red eyes and the kind of demeanour
> that says "my self worth has been crushed, I'm not so sure about the
> world anymore"
> 
> Ok, I haven't seen a MICROS~1 Windows ME machine before let alone used
> one, and my most recent Windows experience was with W95, back in 1997
> when I went to the GNU/Linux desktop full time.
> 
> But I use GNU/Linux, my self confidence is unshakable.
> 
> The machine was totally stuck in the BSOD screen and the PC had no
> "reset" switch so it was a cold boot and into "safe mode". Icons
> everywhere and 4 color mode, yep it's safe mode alright, completely safe
> from being *used*!
> 
> I delete the modem drivers and reboot, now it's back into "unsafe mode
> (tm)" and looks more like the "toys-r-us" image I've come to loathe 
> over the years. It didn't say anything about drivers or modem, in fact
> it didn't give a clue about *why* it was in same mode, and she had
> followed every step by the brain dead wizard, many times and always
> found herself back at the BSOD. It was a viscous circle she couldn't
> escape from
> 
> Hence the red eyes.
> 
> I just happened to have a Mepis Live-CD with me, and as she's a
> struggling student who I'm not going to charge, and as she asked oh so
> sweetly ( the way girls *do*) I decided her price would be to sit thru
> a Mepis GNU/Linux session on her machine.
> 
> Naturally it booted and found everything except the "Agilent "soft
> modem" otherwise known as a "Winmodem". Up popped a nice KDE desktop,
> ... goodbye toys-r-us.
> 
> I took the time to show her her word docs in OO, how she can save them
> in 3 Word doc formats. Impressed would be an understatement on her
> part.
> 
> OO calc is very Excel like and she was familiar with it right away
> 
> I showed her Mozilla with tabs, Xmms, Xine, the Gimp and the KDE
> hardware viewer, we browsed the menus, packed as they are with goodies.
> 
> "How can I get one of those CD's" she asked eagerly ?
> 
> "I just copy this one and give it to you" I replied, and she was
> astounded *and* worried that it would be an "illegal" copy she was
> receiving. After explaining the concepts of the GPL to her I could tell
> she loved the notion of Free Software, made available by a community
> working together. When her course is finished soon, I see another
> GNU/Linux convert, and it's no surprise really.
> 
> So what happened to fix her machine ?
> 
> Toys-R-us kept going around in cicles, bad driver, segfault, manual
> shutdown (wait for ages for shutdown to actually happen) etc.
> 
> Finally I just disabled the drivers for the modem so Toys-R-us wouldn't
> keep finding "new hardware" and wanting the CD with the bad drivers.
> 
> I installed new hardware, a "std serial port external modem",
> bwahahahah what a joke, connected my old 28.8k external serial modem
> and she's in business again.
> 
> It was fun seeing Mephis running on her machine from the CD, reading
> her files on her hard drive in OO, and tea wasn't bad either :)
> 

Let me preface this by empatically stating that ME is the biggest POS to
ever be foisted upon the consumer.  I have often thought that MS should
be fined simply for realeasing that sorry excuse for an OS on an unsuspecting
world.  I'm no 9x fan, but at least 98SE was at least semi-stable...

As for the modem issue - did it ever occur to you that this may be a
hardware issue?  You obviously couldn't test this thing on Linux,
because it was a soft modem (over the last couple of months I have come
to think of winmodems as the ME of the hardware world).  If I were your
friend, I would go to my local computer shop and purchase an internal
USR modem (the real one, like mine at home).  It has been completly
trouble free on both Linux and Windows (I think I spent around $30USD).

-- 
Tom Shelton
OS Name:                   Microsoft Windows XP Professional
OS Version:                5.1.2600 Service Pack 1 Build 2600
System Up Time:            16 Days, 5 Hours, 59 Minutes, 34 Seconds

Terry wrote:


> I installed new hardware, a "std serial port external modem",
> bwahahahah what a joke, connected my old 28.8k external serial modem
> and she's in business again.
Terry I have a couple of 56k modems spare and I would be happy to donate one
to her.
AS for ME...someone once said "the only reason you would put ME on a
computer is if you wanted to slow it down". In a word, it's crap.
WX (Gary)

Sinister Midget threw some tea leaves on the floor
 and this is what they wrote:

> On 2004-01-12, Terry <tjporter@gronk.porter.net> blubbered:
[...] 
>> It was fun seeing Mephis running on her machine from the CD, reading
>> her files on her hard drive in OO, and tea wasn't bad either :)
>
> Excellent story, Terry. However, I see 2 really big problems with this
> post. Allow me::
>
> 1. The Winders users who want to see OSS spread around the world and
> keep reminding us of it by saying we should do more to spread the word
> won't see it, and they'll use their (intentional) blindness to claim
> nobody here does anything except talk.

I guess they're right, I did a lot of talk in my GNU/Linux show and
tell last night :)

>
> 2. The winbigots can see through your little facade!! It took me a long
> time, but I was finally able to decode the hidden message that said
> only linux could have solved this problem. The Windoozies don't even
> need a decoder ring. They'll see it immediately, no matter how hard you
> try to hide it in there. So expect them to challenge your hidden
> message fiercely.

No problem but they will take a lot longer than you because Linus hasn't
sent *them* a secret decoder ring!

>
> If Dickbell shows up and sees it, I'm betting he'll go after you for
> not deleting some stuff, or for not using the b0rken drivers properly.

I expect some Windroid experts to start criticising my total lack of
Windows admin knowledge, but I've already admitted this is the first
time I've ever used it. Besides, I've kept some ammo in reserve.

-- 
              Kind Regards from Terry 
    My Desktop is powered by GNU/LinuX, Gentoo-1.4_rc2   
         New Homepage: http://milkstone.d2.net.au/          
 ** Linux Registration Number: 103931,  http://counter.li.org **

S.Heenan threw some tea leaves on the floor
 and this is what they wrote:

> Sinister Midget wrote:
>> On 2004-01-12, Terry <tjporter@gronk.porter.net> blubbered:
>>>
>>> It was a viscous
>>> circle she couldn't escape from
>>>
>>> Hence the red eyes.
>
>
> Sounds like an interesting evening. Bailo will be envious.

Poor John Bailo, forever locked in the prison of himself.

>
>
>
>> 2. The winbigots can see through your little facade!! It took me a
>> long time, but I was finally able to decode the hidden message that
>> said only linux could have solved this problem.
>
>
>
> How very perceptive.
>
> Knight rides into town on his white Arabian steed.
>
> Finds damsel in distress.
>
> Rescues her with the help of GNU/Linux

True so far!

>
> They live happily ever after in an OSS paradise.

The Free Software paradise around here is growing.

>
> Terry omitted the important words "useful" and "productive". I'm sure he'll
> correct that in a future thread.

Heh, I just saw her as she left or college and that is one happy woman
this morning.


-- 
              Kind Regards from Terry 
    My Desktop is powered by GNU/LinuX, Gentoo-1.4_rc2   
         New Homepage: http://milkstone.d2.net.au/          
 ** Linux Registration Number: 103931,  http://counter.li.org **

Donn Miller threw some tea leaves on the floor
 and this is what they wrote:

> Terry wrote:
>
>> I showed her Mozilla with tabs, Xmms, Xine, the Gimp and the KDE
>> hardware viewer, we browsed the menus, packed as they are with goodies.
>
> A lot of people I've met recently keep asking me if I use AIM.  Well, 
> I've never really tried it, but I did remember that there are a goodly 
> amount of open source IM clients.  One of these days, I'm going to have 
> to give gaim a try.  Does she use AIM or MSN Messenger?  If so, there 
> are plenty of IM clients available for Linux.

Actually I've no idea, we didn't go that far.

She described her Internet use as "researching her IT course", I don't
think she is a real net head.

Before I show GNU/Linux to people I always ask " what do you do with
your computer ?"

If the answer is " browse, email, IRC, write some docs" then I consider them
a 90% successful GNU/Linux  candidate.

If it's, "play all the latest cool Windows games man", I just move on to
the next potential convert and leave them with their Wintendo.

-- 
              Kind Regards from Terry 
    My Desktop is powered by GNU/LinuX, Gentoo-1.4_rc2   
         New Homepage: http://milkstone.d2.net.au/          
 ** Linux Registration Number: 103931,  http://counter.li.org **

Nigel Feltham threw some tea leaves on the floor
 and this is what they wrote:

> Terry wrote:
>
>> I delete the modem drivers and reboot, now it's back into "unsafe mode
>> (tm)" and looks more like the "toys-r-us" image I've come to loathe
>
> Wrong - the correct name for it is Toys-R-OS ;-)

Hahahah, actually i think the first use of "toys-R-us" in relation to
MICROS~1 Windows here, was by Peter K ?



-- 
              Kind Regards from Terry 
    My Desktop is powered by GNU/LinuX, Gentoo-1.4_rc2   
         New Homepage: http://milkstone.d2.net.au/          
 ** Linux Registration Number: 103931,  http://counter.li.org **

Tom Shelton threw some tea leaves on the floor
 and this is what they wrote:

[...] 
> Let me preface this by empatically stating that ME is the biggest POS to
> ever be foisted upon the consumer.

Actually even Erik Funkenbusch said the same thing, often!

> I have often thought that MS should
> be fined simply for realeasing that sorry excuse for an OS on an unsuspecting
> world.  I'm no 9x fan, but at least 98SE was at least semi-stable...

Hahahah, sorry Tom, I can't resist it, "all Windows OS's look alike to
me" ;-)

>
> As for the modem issue - did it ever occur to you that this may be a
> hardware issue?

Yes it did, but the machine is apparently under warranty and this
prevented me from opening the case to have a look.

It has been working since new until it was powered off until being
shutdown, (I think).

> You obviously couldn't test this thing on Linux,
> because it was a soft modem

I couldn't test it, but I could se it in the GNU/Linux /proc hardware
related files, I could se it's PCI addresses etc.

>(over the last couple of months I have come
> to think of winmodems as the ME of the hardware world).

Actually the term on the CD was "soft modem", what a total con job!
It's such a nice warm touchy feely name "soft".

A more accurate term would be "CPU cycle blood sucking vampire modem"

> If I were your
> friend, I would go to my local computer shop and purchase an internal
> USR modem (the real one, like mine at home).  It has been completly
> trouble free on both Linux and Windows (I think I spent around $30USD).

She's going to purchase an external modem, they're cheap enough and
almost given away secondhand.

I hate internal modems myself and she has a free serial port anyway.

As an aside, she had been offered a cracked copy of XP by someone at
tech and refused it as she's one of those people who has fairly high
moral standards. Then again perhaps her IT course stresses that illegal
copying is a bad thing.

Either way, she refused it and told me so.

-- 
              Kind Regards from Terry 
    My Desktop is powered by GNU/LinuX, Gentoo-1.4_rc2   
         New Homepage: http://milkstone.d2.net.au/          
 ** Linux Registration Number: 103931,  http://counter.li.org **

WX threw some tea leaves on the floor
 and this is what they wrote:

> Terry wrote:
>
>
>> I installed new hardware, a "std serial port external modem",
>> bwahahahah what a joke, connected my old 28.8k external serial modem
>> and she's in business again.
> Terry I have a couple of 56k modems spare and I would be happy to donate one
> to her.

You're a kind soul Gary :)

I offered to do the same thing for Dr Square once.

She's going to pick up a second hand 33.3K external modem,
(remember we live in Australia) and will never get the full
use of a 56k modem as her line is "pair gained" like mine by our
Australian telco monopoly Tel$tra!

> AS for ME...someone once said "the only reason you would put ME on a
> computer is if you wanted to slow it down". In a word, it's crap.
> WX (Gary)

Yeah, of course it's crap, it's made by MICROS~1 !


-- 
              Kind Regards from Terry 
    My Desktop is powered by GNU/LinuX, Gentoo-1.4_rc2   
         New Homepage: http://milkstone.d2.net.au/          
 ** Linux Registration Number: 103931,  http://counter.li.org **

262bffca threw some tea leaves on the floor
 and this is what they wrote:

>> It was fun seeing Mephis running on her machine from the CD, reading
>> her files on her hard drive in OO, and tea wasn't bad either :)
>
> She sounds like she would have gone down on you.

No John Bailo, she has a man, I have a woman.

>
> Maybe that /cant connect to the Internet/ crap was a ruse to get some 
> _satisfaction_

Heh, the BSOD, the dead Winmodem, the red eyes ?

Sure ...

-- 
              Kind Regards from Terry 
    My Desktop is powered by GNU/LinuX, Gentoo-1.4_rc2   
         New Homepage: http://milkstone.d2.net.au/          
 ** Linux Registration Number: 103931,  http://counter.li.org **

John threw some tea leaves on the floor
 and this is what they wrote:

[...]

>> It was fun seeing Mephis running on her machine from the CD, reading
>> her files on her hard drive in OO, and tea wasn't bad either :)
>> 
>
> I've found that, too. Once people see KDE and how easy it is to use Linux,
> and hear about is resistance to worms and viruses, they invariably want to
> have it.
>

Who can blame them ?

Mephis is like letting a kid loose in a candy shop, take what you want!

I have criticised KDE in the past for being Windows like, but I'd like
to retract that now, KDE makes Windows look like well ... toys-R-us!

When I saw her this morning, she seemed different, and I've just
figured out what it was, she is *confident* again!

Ho boy are her tutors at tech going to get a hard time from her now ?

-- 
              Kind Regards from Terry 
    My Desktop is powered by GNU/LinuX, Gentoo-1.4_rc2   
         New Homepage: http://milkstone.d2.net.au/          
 ** Linux Registration Number: 103931,  http://counter.li.org **

flatfish+++ threw some tea leaves on the floor
 and this is what they wrote:

> On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 00:19:43 +1100, Terry <tjporter@gronk.porter.net> wrote:
>
>
>>But I use GNU/Linux, my self confidence is unshakable.
>
> Like this guy?
>
> https://www.slomins.com/forhome/home_alarm.html
>
> Sorry, but I couldn't resist!!!

Bwahahahahah, you always had a great sense of humour Flatfish :)

>
> Snip==============
>
>>Hence the red eyes.
>
> Not to mention tights :)

LOL, that's probably how she sees me but I have to thank my "GNU/Linux
tuff-guy-admin workout machine" for my current mental physique  ;-)


>
> flatfish+++


-- 
              Kind Regards from Terry 
    My Desktop is powered by GNU/LinuX, Gentoo-1.4_rc2   
         New Homepage: http://milkstone.d2.net.au/          
 ** Linux Registration Number: 103931,  http://counter.li.org **

Terry wrote:


> I showed her Mozilla with tabs,

  That must have been impressive without an internet connection.

  P.S. Did you at least get blown?

-- 
wq!

begin  <roevtb.9qv.ln@192.168.1.75>,
	Bill Fuckin Gates <bill.gates@ms.com> writes:
> Terry wrote:
> 
>> I showed her Mozilla with tabs,
> 
>   That must have been impressive without an internet connection.

Ignorance is bliss. 'File->Open File...', open new tab, 'File->Open
File...'  ...

Roy Culley threw some tea leaves on the floor
 and this is what they wrote:

> begin  <roevtb.9qv.ln@192.168.1.75>,
> 	Bill Fuckin Gates <bill.gates@ms.com> writes:
>> Terry wrote:
>> 
>>> I showed her Mozilla with tabs,
>> 
>>   That must have been impressive without an internet connection.
>
> Ignorance is bliss. 'File->Open File...', open new tab, 'File->Open
> File...'  ...

Exactly, in fact with Mephis, Mozilla opens up in a Mephis html
doc on the CD by default.

Wintrolls have been so conditioned to think that browswers are only any
use on the Internet, when in fact they read HTML, and text *anywhere*
from a hard drive, to a CD, a floppy a USB thumbdrive etc.

One can't blame them I suppose as MICROS~1 uses a proprietary compressed
form of HTML as its help system, locking in the minds and imaginations
of it's users.

At least half of my on-system docs are in HTML and open up in Dillo
when I select them from my custom ICEwm menu.



-- 
              Kind Regards from Terry 
    My Desktop is powered by GNU/LinuX, Gentoo-1.4_rc2   
         New Homepage: http://milkstone.d2.net.au/          
 ** Linux Registration Number: 103931,  http://counter.li.org **

Roy Culley wrote:

> begin  <roevtb.9qv.ln@192.168.1.75>,
> Bill Fuckin Gates <bill.gates@ms.com> writes:
>> Terry wrote:
>> 
>>> I showed her Mozilla with tabs,
>> 
>>   That must have been impressive without an internet connection.
> 
> Ignorance is bliss. 'File->Open File...', open new tab, 'File->Open
> File...'  ...

  No shit.

-- 
wq!

On 2004-01-12, S.Heenan <sheenan@wahs.ac> blubbered:
> Sinister Midget wrote:
>> On 2004-01-12, Terry <tjporter@gronk.porter.net> blubbered:
>>>
>>> It was a viscous
>>> circle she couldn't escape from
>>>
>>> Hence the red eyes.
>
>
> Sounds like an interesting evening. Bailo will be envious.
>
>
>
>> 2. The winbigots can see through your little facade!! It took me a
>> long time, but I was finally able to decode the hidden message that
>> said only linux could have solved this problem.
>
>
>
> How very perceptive.
>
> Knight rides into town on his white Arabian steed.
>
> Finds damsel in distress.
>
> Rescues her with the help of GNU/Linux
>
> They live happily ever after in an OSS paradise.
>
> Terry omitted the important words "useful" and "productive". I'm sure he'll
> correct that in a future thread.

I forgot that there're numbers 3 and 4 for the list (probably 5, 6 and
more, too):

3. WinDozers actually believe decoder rings and secret encoded messages
exist.

4. Windersians aren't smart enough to avoid putting themselves directly
in the line of fire, even after a blatant point about their being so
clueless that they actually believe in secret decoder rings, secret
encoded messages and no mention of the words they need to prove
conspiracy.

Lemmings!

-- 
Klez - Innovative Microsoft peer-to-peer software.

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Terry
<tjporter@gronk.porter.net>
 wrote
on Tue, 13 Jan 2004 00:19:43 +1100
<fgjad1-etj.ln1@gronk.porter.net>:
> I've just come back from a nice dinner with a woman (and her fella) who
> owns a PC that runs MICROS~1 ME.
> 
> Electronics guys like me get used to being chatted up by all and sundry
> and I know the conversation will usually be steered towards something
> that doesn't work.
> 
> She's a nearby neighbor and wanted me to help her get her MICROS~1 PC
> back on the Internet, because it had been refusing to connect for a
> *month*.

[snip modem sob story for brevity:  Toys-R-Us = Windows ME]

> Toys-R-us kept going around in cicles, bad driver, segfault, manual
> shutdown (wait for ages for shutdown to actually happen) etc.
> 
> Finally I just disabled the drivers for the modem so Toys-R-us wouldn't
> keep finding "new hardware" and wanting the CD with the bad drivers.
> 
> I installed new hardware, a "std serial port external modem",
> bwahahahah what a joke, connected my old 28.8k external serial modem
> and she's in business again.
> 
> It was fun seeing Mephis running on her machine from the CD, reading
> her files on her hard drive in OO, and tea wasn't bad either :)
> 

There is hope in the world -- one desktop at a time.  But that
would take too long -- for 10 million desktops, 1 desktop a night
would take 274 centuries.

Perhaps if IBM unleashed its "desktop converters"? :-)

-- 
#191, ewill3@earthlink.net
It's still legal to go .sigless.

On 2004-01-13, Terry <tjporter@gronk.porter.net> wrote:
> Tom Shelton threw some tea leaves on the floor
>  and this is what they wrote:
>
> [...] 
>> Let me preface this by empatically stating that ME is the biggest POS to
>> ever be foisted upon the consumer.
>
> Actually even Erik Funkenbusch said the same thing, often!
>

I don't think you'll find many windows fans that liked ME.  I have yet
to meet one anyway...

>> I have often thought that MS should
>> be fined simply for realeasing that sorry excuse for an OS on an unsuspecting
>> world.  I'm no 9x fan, but at least 98SE was at least semi-stable...
>
> Hahahah, sorry Tom, I can't resist it, "all Windows OS's look alike to
> me" ;-)
>

Ha, Ha!.. <g>

>>
>> As for the modem issue - did it ever occur to you that this may be a
>> hardware issue?
>
> Yes it did, but the machine is apparently under warranty and this
> prevented me from opening the case to have a look.
>
> It has been working since new until it was powered off until being
> shutdown, (I think).
>

So, if it's under warenty, why doesn't she just take it back and let
them fix it? :)

>> You obviously couldn't test this thing on Linux,
>> because it was a soft modem
>
> I couldn't test it, but I could se it in the GNU/Linux /proc hardware
> related files, I could se it's PCI addresses etc.
>

Well, I would expect you would - but that doesn't prove it actually
works...  Even windows saw that it was there...

>>(over the last couple of months I have come
>> to think of winmodems as the ME of the hardware world).
>
> Actually the term on the CD was "soft modem", what a total con job!
> It's such a nice warm touchy feely name "soft".
>
> A more accurate term would be "CPU cycle blood sucking vampire modem"
>

<G>

>> If I were your
>> friend, I would go to my local computer shop and purchase an internal
>> USR modem (the real one, like mine at home).  It has been completly
>> trouble free on both Linux and Windows (I think I spent around $30USD).
>
> She's going to purchase an external modem, they're cheap enough and
> almost given away secondhand.
>

That works.  I use an external at work.

> I hate internal modems myself and she has a free serial port anyway.
>

I used to hate them myself...  There are times when a simple flick of
the modem switch can solve a whole world of ills :)  Kind of hard to do
that with an internal.  But, this USR has been really good.

> As an aside, she had been offered a cracked copy of XP by someone at
> tech and refused it as she's one of those people who has fairly high
> moral standards. Then again perhaps her IT course stresses that illegal
> copying is a bad thing.
>
> Either way, she refused it and told me so.
>

Well good for her.  I don't hold much with piracy.  If I were here, I
would try to either A) purchase an XP upgrade or B) find a copy of 98
some where and downgrade.  ME is completely and totally useless.

-- 
Tom Shelton

Tom Shelton threw some tea leaves on the floor
 and this is what they wrote:

> On 2004-01-13, Terry <tjporter@gronk.porter.net> wrote:
>> Tom Shelton threw some tea leaves on the floor
>>  and this is what they wrote:
>>
>> [...] 
>>> Let me preface this by empatically stating that ME is the biggest POS to
>>> ever be foisted upon the consumer.
>>
>> Actually even Erik Funkenbusch said the same thing, often!
>>
>
> I don't think you'll find many windows fans that liked ME.  I have yet
> to meet one anyway...
>
>>> I have often thought that MS should
>>> be fined simply for realeasing that sorry excuse for an OS on an unsuspecting
>>> world.  I'm no 9x fan, but at least 98SE was at least semi-stable...
>>
>> Hahahah, sorry Tom, I can't resist it, "all Windows OS's look alike to
>> me" ;-)
>>
>
> Ha, Ha!.. <g>
>
>>>
>>> As for the modem issue - did it ever occur to you that this may be a
>>> hardware issue?
>>
>> Yes it did, but the machine is apparently under warranty and this
>> prevented me from opening the case to have a look.
>>
>> It has been working since new until it was powered off until being
>> shutdown, (I think).
>>
>
> So, if it's under warenty, why doesn't she just take it back and let
> them fix it? :)

That's the bit off ammo I kept back. The warranty is supposed to be on
site, and when she rang them their database didn't agree with her
invoice and they claimed her warranty had expired.

She complained etc, and they tried to fix it over the phone. Before
this the machine worked fine, the modem just refused to dial.

Following their instructions, the machine BSOD and they said they would
get their *expert* to call her back. He never did, and that was 3 days
ago.

>
>>> You obviously couldn't test this thing on Linux,
>>> because it was a soft modem
>>
>> I couldn't test it, but I could se it in the GNU/Linux /proc hardware
>> related files, I could se it's PCI addresses etc.
>>
>
> Well, I would expect you would - but that doesn't prove it actually
> works...  Even windows saw that it was there...

True.

>
>>>(over the last couple of months I have come
>>> to think of winmodems as the ME of the hardware world).
>>
>> Actually the term on the CD was "soft modem", what a total con job!
>> It's such a nice warm touchy feely name "soft".
>>
>> A more accurate term would be "CPU cycle blood sucking vampire modem"
>>
>
><G>
>
>>> If I were your
>>> friend, I would go to my local computer shop and purchase an internal
>>> USR modem (the real one, like mine at home).  It has been completly
>>> trouble free on both Linux and Windows (I think I spent around $30USD).
>>
>> She's going to purchase an external modem, they're cheap enough and
>> almost given away secondhand.
>>
>
> That works.  I use an external at work.
>
>> I hate internal modems myself and she has a free serial port anyway.
>>
>
> I used to hate them myself...  There are times when a simple flick of
> the modem switch can solve a whole world of ills :)  Kind of hard to do
> that with an internal.  But, this USR has been really good.

US Robotics has always had a great name :)

>
>> As an aside, she had been offered a cracked copy of XP by someone at
>> tech and refused it as she's one of those people who has fairly high
>> moral standards. Then again perhaps her IT course stresses that illegal
>> copying is a bad thing.
>>
>> Either way, she refused it and told me so.
>>
>
> Well good for her.  I don't hold much with piracy.  If I were here,

(you are here, err .. there, well you know what I mean :-)

> I
> would try to either A) purchase an XP upgrade or B) find a copy of 98
> some where and downgrade.

or B) Install Mepis, and the correct answer is ...... ?

> ME is completely and totally useless.

No argument from me there!

She's a dead certain GNU/Linux convert, why would she want any Windows,
when she has seen that Mepis boots and runs nicely on her machine ?

She gets Word 2000, 89 and 6 compatibility with OO, she gets Excel
compatibility, she gets a browser with tabs, she gets a heap of other
cool software and it's Free.

Want to suggest reasons why A) or B) have advantages over C) ?

P.S. I know it's a loaded question and I'm not asking it to hassle you,
I'm just wondering if I've overlooked anything?

-- 
              Kind Regards from Terry 
    My Desktop is powered by GNU/LinuX, Gentoo-1.4_rc2   
         New Homepage: http://milkstone.d2.net.au/          
 ** Linux Registration Number: 103931,  http://counter.li.org **

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 04:39:34 GMT, Sinister Midget wrote:
> 3. WinDozers actually believe decoder rings and secret encoded messages
> exist.

Loonixers apparently have short memories for things like cereal boxes and
crackerjack boxes which came with secret decoder rings in the bottom of the
box.

http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_decoder_ring

They just let you create simple modular ciphers - like a Caesar cipher or
the more complex Vignere cipher.
-- 
People in the killfile (and whose posts I won't read) as of 1/12/2004
11:37:55 PM:
Peter Kohlmann, T.Max Devlin. Matt Templeton (scored down)

> 
> A more accurate term would be "CPU cycle blood sucking vampire modem"
I like that 
{:<=
WX

Terry wrote:

>> Let me preface this by empatically stating that ME is the biggest POS
>> to ever be foisted upon the consumer.
> 
> Actually even Erik Funkenbusch said the same thing, often!

After once having to eradicate Klez from a WinME computer (I noticed it
tried to upload something in my share which was specifically set up to
catch such things), I have to concur.  Even after the virus was removed,
the system ran slow as molasses on Antarctica.  Of course I failed to
remove the virus on the first attempt, as the brain dead system restore
functionality actually protected the malware!

>> I have often thought that MS should be fined simply for realeasing
>> that sorry excuse for an OS on an unsuspecting world.

Seems like it wasn't really released ... Escaped is a more proper word.

>> I'm no 9x fan, but at least 98SE was at least semi-stable...
> 
> Hahahah, sorry Tom, I can't resist it, "all Windows OS's look alike to
> me" ;-)

Well, I'll have to agree with Tom.  98SE *is* the most useful Windows
I've "enjoyed".  These days it's only a game loader for me, but it has
been many moons since I last turned it on.  In fact, I think it's still
running on daylight savings time ...

However, Microsoft should never have charged for 98SE, as it's mostly a
service pack for 98.

>> You obviously couldn't test this thing on Linux, because it was a
>> soft modem
> 
> I couldn't test it, but I could se it in the GNU/Linux /proc hardware
> related files, I could se it's PCI addresses etc.

That tells very little.  Let me tell a short story about what happened
recently.  It all started when my power supply exploded (quite
literally), and I had to replace it.  Well, the replacement went fine,
though I had to force the ATX cable a bit (bent connectors).  The
computer booted fine, until it got to the part about bringing eth0 up.
Then it froze hard.  Eeep!

Well, I booted to single user mode, and tried manually bringing eth0 up.
Still frozen.  /proc and lspci showed everything in working order, and
so did the kernel boot messages.  By now I'm thinking "oh crap, I fried
the network card", but on a hunch I took it out and placed it in another
PCI slot.  Then it worked fine!  I must have fried something on the
motherboard!

What this goes to show is that while a piece of hardware may look fine,
it may also give unexpected problems when you actually start to use it.
A badly seated AGP card once gave me similar headaches.  It worked fine,
until a resolution change was attempted.  Then it died.  Horribly.

>> (over the last couple of months I have come to think of winmodems as
>> the ME of the hardware world).
> 
> Actually the term on the CD was "soft modem", what a total con job!
> It's such a nice warm touchy feely name "soft".

Marketing departments love such crap.

> A more accurate term would be "CPU cycle blood sucking vampire modem"

Good one, I'll have to use that one the next time someone asks me about
modems :-)

Not that this happens a lot lately.  Most people are using broadband
connections these days.

>> If I were your friend, I would go to my local computer shop and
>> purchase an internal USR modem (the real one, like mine at home).  It
>> has been completly trouble free on both Linux and Windows (I think I
>> spent around $30USD).
> 
> She's going to purchase an external modem, they're cheap enough and
> almost given away secondhand.
> 
> I hate internal modems myself and she has a free serial port anyway.

Well, you use Linux.  The money you save on Windows will more than pay
for a good hardware modem :-)

> As an aside, she had been offered a cracked copy of XP by someone at
> tech and refused it as she's one of those people who has fairly high
> moral standards. Then again perhaps her IT course stresses that
> illegal copying is a bad thing.
> 
> Either way, she refused it and told me so.

I could see early on that I would never consider paying for something as
crappy as XP, but software piracy conflicts with my programming
profession.  That was as good a reason as any to migrate to Linux.
Also, I could see where the future is ...

-- 
PeKaJe

phosflink: To flick a bulb on and off when it burns out (as if, somehow,
that will bring it back to life).  -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 05:01:50 GMT,
 The Ghost In The Machine <ewill@sirius.athghost7038suus.net> wrote:
> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Terry
><tjporter@gronk.porter.net>
>  wrote
> on Tue, 13 Jan 2004 00:19:43 +1100
><fgjad1-etj.ln1@gronk.porter.net>:
>> I've just come back from a nice dinner with a woman (and her fella) who
>> owns a PC that runs MICROS~1 ME.
>> 
>> Electronics guys like me get used to being chatted up by all and sundry
>> and I know the conversation will usually be steered towards something
>> that doesn't work.
>> 
>> She's a nearby neighbor and wanted me to help her get her MICROS~1 PC
>> back on the Internet, because it had been refusing to connect for a
>> *month*.
>
> [snip modem sob story for brevity:  Toys-R-Us = Windows ME]
>
>> Toys-R-us kept going around in cicles, bad driver, segfault, manual
>> shutdown (wait for ages for shutdown to actually happen) etc.
>> 
>> Finally I just disabled the drivers for the modem so Toys-R-us wouldn't
>> keep finding "new hardware" and wanting the CD with the bad drivers.
>> 
>> I installed new hardware, a "std serial port external modem",
>> bwahahahah what a joke, connected my old 28.8k external serial modem
>> and she's in business again.
>> 
>> It was fun seeing Mephis running on her machine from the CD, reading
>> her files on her hard drive in OO, and tea wasn't bad either :)
>> 
>
> There is hope in the world -- one desktop at a time.  But that
> would take too long -- for 10 million desktops, 1 desktop a night
> would take 274 centuries.
>
> Perhaps if IBM unleashed its "desktop converters"? :-)
>

What about 1 desktop per week? *per* *advocate*? :)

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFAA7Oud90bcYOAWPYRAnjIAJ0UVJf8gEQTUlgoMnQu02QthrMDYACgkfaC
UaTlhMTOGQaAZlx172uSaAU=
=B4Dr
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

-- 
Jim Richardson     http://www.eskimo.com/~warlock
If you can't laugh at yourself, someone else is going to do it for you, and
you're not going to enjoy it nearly as much.

Milo T. wrote:

> http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_decoder_ring
> 
> They just let you create simple modular ciphers - like a Caesar cipher
> or the more complex Vignere cipher.

Don't US anti-terrorism laws prohibit the use of encryption for sending
messages?

Naq qbrfa'g gur QZPN cebuvovg qrpelcgvba?  Bu qrne, vs lbh'er ernqvat
guvf, lbh'ir penpxrq zl rapelcgvba, lbh, lbh, lbh ... pevzvany! :-)

-- 
PeKaJe

Bus error -- please leave by the rear door.

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 09:21:21 +0000, Peter Jensen wrote:

> Milo T. wrote:
> 
>> http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_decoder_ring
>> 
>> They just let you create simple modular ciphers - like a Caesar cipher
>> or the more complex Vignere cipher.
> 
> Don't US anti-terrorism laws prohibit the use of encryption for sending
> messages?

No.
IANAL but, AIUI, US law only prohibits selling/providing encryption 
techniques to "enemies of the state"*.

*My wording.

> 
> Naq qbrfa'g gur QZPN cebuvovg qrpelcgvba?  Bu qrne, vs lbh'er ernqvat
> guvf, lbh'ir penpxrq zl rapelcgvba, lbh, lbh, lbh ... pevzvany! :-)

Gelvat gb ragenc zr?

Jimbo wrote:

>> Don't US anti-terrorism laws prohibit the use of encryption for
>> sending messages?
> 
> IANAL but, AIUI, US law only prohibits selling/providing encryption
> techniques to "enemies of the state"*.

So what if a terrorist picks up a box of cereal with such a decoder
ring?  Wouldn't that be considered "providing encryption techniques to
enemies of the state"?

>> Naq qbrfa'g gur QZPN cebuvovg qrpelcgvba?  Bu qrne, vs lbh'er ernqvat
>> guvf, lbh'ir penpxrq zl rapelcgvba, lbh, lbh, lbh ... pevzvany! :-)
> 
> Gelvat gb ragenc zr?

Lbh whfg *unq* gb ybbx, qvqa'g lbh ... ;-)

-- 
PeKaJe

Mathematicians take it to the limit.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 13 Jan 2004 09:21:21 GMT,
 Peter Jensen <usenet@pekajemaps.homeip.net> wrote:
> Milo T. wrote:
>
>> http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_decoder_ring
>> 
>> They just let you create simple modular ciphers - like a Caesar cipher
>> or the more complex Vignere cipher.
>
> Don't US anti-terrorism laws prohibit the use of encryption for sending
> messages?
>

No. 

> Naq qbrfa'g gur QZPN cebuvovg qrpelcgvba?  Bu qrne, vs lbh'er ernqvat
> guvf, lbh'ir penpxrq zl rapelcgvba, lbh, lbh, lbh ... pevzvany! :-)
>

No, decryption is not prohibited in toto, they tried to prohibit reverse
engineering, but that's a (slightly) different issue. 

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFAA8G7d90bcYOAWPYRAptIAKDT6PhfvKgsXR/yeuXfiTYcgewKBwCfSYBI
zTSBoevlMMPxWe/PNhDmQIg=
=tzRS
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

-- 
Jim Richardson     http://www.eskimo.com/~warlock
		Proud Member of THRUSH:
the Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables
 and the Subjugation of Humanity

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 09:43:58 +0000, Peter Jensen wrote:

> Jimbo wrote:
> 
>>> Don't US anti-terrorism laws prohibit the use of encryption for sending
>>> messages?
>> 
>> IANAL but, AIUI, US law only prohibits selling/providing encryption
>> techniques to "enemies of the state"*.
> 
> So what if a terrorist picks up a box of cereal with such a decoder ring? 
> Wouldn't that be considered "providing encryption techniques to enemies of
> the state"?

I totally missed the context there.
Missed the mark as well. We are limited to the level of encryption we can
use. Also, if any agency produces a warrant demanding our private jey, we
must surrender it. Kind of flies in the face of the 4th and 5th(and
possibly 1st) ammendments.
As for "providing encryption techniques", there are limitations to those
laws and you don't break those laws until you go beyond those limitations.

> 
>>> Naq qbrfa'g gur QZPN cebuvovg qrpelcgvba?  Bu qrne, vs lbh'er ernqvat
>>> guvf, lbh'ir penpxrq zl rapelcgvba, lbh, lbh, lbh ... pevzvany! :-)
>> 
>> Gelvat gb ragenc zr?
> 
> Lbh whfg *unq* gb ybbx, qvqa'g lbh ... ;-)

:-)

Peter Jensen threw some tea leaves on the floor
 and this is what they wrote:

> Terry wrote:
[...] 
>> Hahahah, sorry Tom, I can't resist it, "all Windows OS's look alike to
>> me" ;-)
>
> Well, I'll have to agree with Tom.  98SE *is* the most useful Windows
> I've "enjoyed".  These days it's only a game loader for me, but it has
> been many moons since I last turned it on.  In fact, I think it's still
> running on daylight savings time ...
>
> However, Microsoft should never have charged for 98SE, as it's mostly a
> service pack for 98.
>
>>> You obviously couldn't test this thing on Linux, because it was a
>>> soft modem
>> 
>> I couldn't test it, but I could se it in the GNU/Linux /proc hardware
>> related files, I could se it's PCI addresses etc.
>
> That tells very little.

True, but I could see as much as Windows, as Tom said.

> Let me tell a short story about what happened
> recently.  It all started when my power supply exploded (quite
> literally), and I had to replace it.  Well, the replacement went fine,
> though I had to force the ATX cable a bit (bent connectors).  The
> computer booted fine, until it got to the part about bringing eth0 up.
> Then it froze hard.  Eeep!
>
> Well, I booted to single user mode, and tried manually bringing eth0 up.
> Still frozen.  /proc and lspci showed everything in working order, and
> so did the kernel boot messages.  By now I'm thinking "oh crap, I fried
> the network card", but on a hunch I took it out and placed it in another
> PCI slot.  Then it worked fine!  I must have fried something on the
> motherboard!
>
> What this goes to show is that while a piece of hardware may look fine,
> it may also give unexpected problems when you actually start to use it.
> A badly seated AGP card once gave me similar headaches.  It worked fine,
> until a resolution change was attempted.  Then it died.  Horribly.

Good point.

>
>>> (over the last couple of months I have come to think of winmodems as
>>> the ME of the hardware world).
>> 
>> Actually the term on the CD was "soft modem", what a total con job!
>> It's such a nice warm touchy feely name "soft".
>
> Marketing departments love such crap.
>
>> A more accurate term would be "CPU cycle blood sucking vampire modem"
>
> Good one, I'll have to use that one the next time someone asks me about
> modems :-)

Hehe, it's a bit wordy, I know someone else here could do a lot better!


>
> Not that this happens a lot lately.  Most people are using broadband
> connections these days.
>
>>> If I were your friend, I would go to my local computer shop and
>>> purchase an internal USR modem (the real one, like mine at home).  It
>>> has been completly trouble free on both Linux and Windows (I think I
>>> spent around $30USD).
>> 
>> She's going to purchase an external modem, they're cheap enough and
>> almost given away secondhand.
>> 
>> I hate internal modems myself and she has a free serial port anyway.
>
> Well, you use Linux.  The money you save on Windows will more than pay
> for a good hardware modem :-)

Yeah, so true!

>
>> As an aside, she had been offered a cracked copy of XP by someone at
>> tech and refused it as she's one of those people who has fairly high
>> moral standards. Then again perhaps her IT course stresses that
>> illegal copying is a bad thing.
>> 
>> Either way, she refused it and told me so.
>
> I could see early on that I would never consider paying for something as
> crappy as XP, but software piracy conflicts with my programming
> profession.  That was as good a reason as any to migrate to Linux.
> Also, I could see where the future is ...

It's great to be a part of that future :)



-- 
              Kind Regards from Terry 
    My Desktop is powered by GNU/LinuX, Gentoo-1.4_rc2   
         New Homepage: http://milkstone.d2.net.au/          
 ** Linux Registration Number: 103931,  http://counter.li.org **

Datagram from Jim Richardson incoming on netlink socket
<emocd1-afq.ln1@grendel.myth>. Dumping datagram.
>
> What about 1 desktop per week? *per* *advocate*? :)

And soon some of converts will turn into advocates and turn
more. And thus we have exponential growth. 

And one characteristic of exponential growth is that it is
slow until short time before it really blows up...

-Ilari
-- 
Nothing's truly free (in price) in this world... There are only 
approximations of it. Free (in price) is unattainable idealization. 
-- Ilari Liusvaara
Linux LK_Perkele_IV9 2.4.23-selinux1 #2 Mon Jan 5 20:12:55 EET 2004 i686 unknown
  4:26pm  up 7 days, 20:02,  5 users,  load average: 0.07, 0.03, 0.00

Datagram from Terry incoming on netlink socket
<pcqbd1-4qr.ln1@gronk.porter.net>. Dumping datagram.
>
> Actually the term on the CD was "soft modem", what a total con job!
> It's such a nice warm touchy feely name "soft".
>
> A more accurate term would be "CPU cycle blood sucking vampire modem"

I use term "Line adapter" for those, and reserve "Modem" (without 
qualifiers) to analog modems that do modulation/demodulation with 
hardware and contain the command interpretting circuitry.

Also, "System decelerating modem".

-Ilari
-- 
Firewall ? Isn't that something that uses clock cycles and memory and 
gives false reports and does not do anything useful ? -- cfswestern
Linux LK_Perkele_IV9 2.4.23-selinux1 #2 Mon Jan 5 20:12:55 EET 2004 i686 unknown
  4:30pm  up 7 days, 20:07,  5 users,  load average: 0.05, 0.03, 0.00

Datagram from Terry incoming on netlink socket
<pcqbd1-4qr.ln1@gronk.porter.net>. Dumping datagram.
>
>> You obviously couldn't test this thing on Linux,
>> because it was a soft modem
>
> I couldn't test it, but I could se it in the GNU/Linux /proc hardware
> related files, I could se it's PCI addresses etc.

BTW: One of computers I have at home (Knoppix CDs are great) has a line
adapter (system decelerating modem) that Linux does not see at all! At 
least Linux sees the line adapter in this computer as PCI device, but 
on that another computer, it just won't detect it (proc files show 
nothing related to that device.) Odd.

-Ilari
-- 
Hey, my secret plan is to make sure those IDE people are kept in 
check, by having AL flame them to smithereens if they do something 
stupid.. -- Linus Torvalds
Linux LK_Perkele_IV9 2.4.23-selinux1 #2 Mon Jan 5 20:12:55 EET 2004 i686 unknown
  4:35pm  up 7 days, 20:12,  5 users,  load average: 0.05, 0.05, 0.01

On 13 Jan 2004 09:21:21 GMT, Peter Jensen wrote:

> Milo T. wrote:
> 
>> http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_decoder_ring
>> 
>> They just let you create simple modular ciphers - like a Caesar cipher
>> or the more complex Vignere cipher.
> 
> Don't US anti-terrorism laws prohibit the use of encryption for sending
> messages?

Bit difficult to really enforce that when the encryption method is 2000
years old.

-- 
People in the killfile (and whose posts I won't read) as of 1/13/2004
9:01:07 AM:
Peter Kohlmann, T.Max Devlin. Matt Templeton (scored down)

On 13 Jan 2004 08:22:26 GMT, Peter Jensen wrote:
> Well, I'll have to agree with Tom.  98SE *is* the most useful Windows
> I've "enjoyed".  These days it's only a game loader for me, but it has
> been many moons since I last turned it on.  In fact, I think it's still
> running on daylight savings time ...
> 
> However, Microsoft should never have charged for 98SE, as it's mostly a
> service pack for 98.

Microsoft didn't charge for the service pack for 98; it was available as a
free download.

You could have just installed the SP, and been on your merry way.

98SE was 98 with the service pack (which you could get for free from them)
and some additional functionality (which you had to buy 98SE if you wanted
it).
-- 
People in the killfile (and whose posts I won't read) as of 1/13/2004
9:05:37 AM:
Peter Kohlmann, T.Max Devlin. Matt Templeton (scored down)

On 2004-01-13, Terry <tjporter@gronk.porter.net> wrote:
> Tom Shelton threw some tea leaves on the floor
>  and this is what they wrote:
>
>> On 2004-01-13, Terry <tjporter@gronk.porter.net> wrote:
>>> Tom Shelton threw some tea leaves on the floor
>>>  and this is what they wrote:
>>>
>>> [...] 
>>>> Let me preface this by empatically stating that ME is the biggest POS to
>>>> ever be foisted upon the consumer.

<snip>

>> So, if it's under warenty, why doesn't she just take it back and let
>> them fix it? :)
>
> That's the bit off ammo I kept back. The warranty is supposed to be on
> site, and when she rang them their database didn't agree with her
> invoice and they claimed her warranty had expired.
>
> She complained etc, and they tried to fix it over the phone. Before
> this the machine worked fine, the modem just refused to dial.
>
> Following their instructions, the machine BSOD and they said they would
> get their *expert* to call her back. He never did, and that was 3 days
> ago.
>

Jerks...  That's one reason I build my own.

>>

<snip>

>> I used to hate them myself...  There are times when a simple flick of
>> the modem switch can solve a whole world of ills :)  Kind of hard to do
>> that with an internal.  But, this USR has been really good.
>
> US Robotics has always had a great name :)
>

That's why I bought it :)

>>
>>> As an aside, she had been offered a cracked copy of XP by someone at
>>> tech and refused it as she's one of those people who has fairly high
>>> moral standards. Then again perhaps her IT course stresses that illegal
>>> copying is a bad thing.
>>>
>>> Either way, she refused it and told me so.
>>>
>>
>> Well good for her.  I don't hold much with piracy.  If I were here,
>
> (you are here, err .. there, well you know what I mean :-)
>

oops - I meant her...

>> I
>> would try to either A) purchase an XP upgrade or B) find a copy of 98
>> some where and downgrade.
>
> or B) Install Mepis, and the correct answer is ...... ?
>
>> ME is completely and totally useless.
>
> No argument from me there!
>
> She's a dead certain GNU/Linux convert, why would she want any Windows,
> when she has seen that Mepis boots and runs nicely on her machine ?
>
> She gets Word 2000, 89 and 6 compatibility with OO, she gets Excel
> compatibility, she gets a browser with tabs, she gets a heap of other
> cool software and it's Free.
>
> Want to suggest reasons why A) or B) have advantages over C) ?
>
> P.S. I know it's a loaded question and I'm not asking it to hassle you,
> I'm just wondering if I've overlooked anything?
>

Well, C is a fine answer too.  I quess it really depends on what she
needs.

-- 
Tom Shelton

Milo T. wrote:

>> However, Microsoft should never have charged for 98SE, as it's mostly
>> a service pack for 98.
> 
> Microsoft didn't charge for the service pack for 98; it was available
> as a free download.

Duh!  That's not really what I was talking about.

> You could have just installed the SP, and been on your merry way.

It wouldn't be Win98SE, now would it?

> 98SE was 98 with the service pack (which you could get for free from
> them) and some additional functionality (which you had to buy 98SE if
> you wanted it).

What additional functionality would that be?  It sure as hell didn't
seem like nearly enough to warrant the cost of upgrading from Win98.
Win98SE should have been free for anyone who bought Win98, since it was
mostly a bug-fix.

It's interesting to see that Win98SE still remains popular years after
WinME, Win2k, and WinXP were released.  I guess the few upgrades aren't
enough to make the price-tag seem reasonable.  Oh well, I'll just keep
enjoying this permanently updated system, which only costs me what I
want to pay for it :-)

-- 
PeKaJe

We place two copies of PEOPLE magazine in a DARK, HUMID mobile home.
45 minutes later CYNDI LAUPER emerges wearing a BIRD CAGE on her head!

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 20:22:34 +0000, Peter Jensen wrote:

> Milo T. wrote:
> 
>>> However, Microsoft should never have charged for 98SE, as it's mostly
>>> a service pack for 98.
>> 
>> Microsoft didn't charge for the service pack for 98; it was available
>> as a free download.
> 
> Duh!  That's not really what I was talking about.
> 
>> You could have just installed the SP, and been on your merry way.
> 
> It wouldn't be Win98SE, now would it?
> 
>> 98SE was 98 with the service pack (which you could get for free from
>> them) and some additional functionality (which you had to buy 98SE if
>> you wanted it).
> 
> What additional functionality would that be?  It sure as hell didn't
> seem like nearly enough to warrant the cost of upgrading from Win98.
> Win98SE should have been free for anyone who bought Win98, since it was
> mostly a bug-fix.
> 
> It's interesting to see that Win98SE still remains popular years after
> WinME, Win2k, and WinXP were released.  I guess the few upgrades aren't
> enough to make the price-tag seem reasonable.  Oh well, I'll just keep
> enjoying this permanently updated system, which only costs me what I
> want to pay for it :-)

the "really good" extra feature that was introduced with Win98SE was
Internet Connection Sharing...

or should I say, "NAT based routing", cos we'd had it for some time...

Plain Jane Win98 with all the Service Packs doesn't have it.

-- 
Has your ms-windows computer been turned into a SPAM server???
<http://www.computerweekly.com/Article123378.htm>

Ilari Liusvaara threw some tea leaves on the floor
 and this is what they wrote:

> Datagram from Jim Richardson incoming on netlink socket
><emocd1-afq.ln1@grendel.myth>. Dumping datagram.
>>
>> What about 1 desktop per week? *per* *advocate*? :)
>
> And soon some of converts will turn into advocates and turn
> more. And thus we have exponential growth. 
>
> And one characteristic of exponential growth is that it is
> slow until short time before it really blows up...

Hence Bill Gates fear that the end for MICROS~1 will come so fast. he
won't even have time to see it happening.

Personally I think that GNU/Linux is somewhere up the base of
that exponential curve right now.

-- 
              Kind Regards from Terry 
    My Desktop is powered by GNU/LinuX, Gentoo-1.4_rc2   
         New Homepage: http://milkstone.d2.net.au/          
 ** Linux Registration Number: 103931,  http://counter.li.org **

Ilari Liusvaara threw some tea leaves on the floor
 and this is what they wrote:

> Datagram from Terry incoming on netlink socket
><pcqbd1-4qr.ln1@gronk.porter.net>. Dumping datagram.
>>
>> Actually the term on the CD was "soft modem", what a total con job!
>> It's such a nice warm touchy feely name "soft".
>>
>> A more accurate term would be "CPU cycle blood sucking vampire modem"
>
> I use term "Line adapter"

A far more correct term!

> for those, and reserve "Modem" (without 
> qualifiers) to analog modems that do modulation/demodulation with 
> hardware and contain the command interpretting circuitry.
>
> Also, "System decelerating modem".


-- 
              Kind Regards from Terry 
    My Desktop is powered by GNU/LinuX, Gentoo-1.4_rc2   
         New Homepage: http://milkstone.d2.net.au/          
 ** Linux Registration Number: 103931,  http://counter.li.org **

Ilari Liusvaara threw some tea leaves on the floor
 and this is what they wrote:

> Datagram from Terry incoming on netlink socket
><pcqbd1-4qr.ln1@gronk.porter.net>. Dumping datagram.
>>
>>> You obviously couldn't test this thing on Linux,
>>> because it was a soft modem
>>
>> I couldn't test it, but I could se it in the GNU/Linux /proc hardware
>> related files, I could se it's PCI addresses etc.
>
> BTW: One of computers I have at home (Knoppix CDs are great) has a line
> adapter (system decelerating modem) that Linux does not see at all! At 
> least Linux sees the line adapter in this computer as PCI device, but 
> on that another computer, it just won't detect it (proc files show 
> nothing related to that device.) Odd.

Yes, it's very odd. A GNU/Linux stealth line adaptor!

-- 
              Kind Regards from Terry 
    My Desktop is powered by GNU/LinuX, Gentoo-1.4_rc2   
         New Homepage: http://milkstone.d2.net.au/          
 ** Linux Registration Number: 103931,  http://counter.li.org **

Tom Shelton threw some tea leaves on the floor
 and this is what they wrote:

> On 2004-01-13, Terry <tjporter@gronk.porter.net> wrote:
[...] 
>> Following their instructions, the machine BSOD and they said they would
>> get their *expert* to call her back. He never did, and that was 3 days
>> ago.
>>
>
> Jerks...  That's one reason I build my own.

Yeah. the first computer I built was a 1 b1t unit based on the
Motorolla 50001 ?, 1 bit micro!

PC's are like Leggo, they're just to easy to assemble yourself.

>
>>>
>
><snip>
>
>>> I used to hate them myself...  There are times when a simple flick of
>>> the modem switch can solve a whole world of ills :)  Kind of hard to do
>>> that with an internal.  But, this USR has been really good.
>>
>> US Robotics has always had a great name :)
>>
>
> That's why I bought it :)

I'd buy one myself if I found one here in Oz.

[...] 
>>> would try to either A) purchase an XP upgrade or B) find a copy of 98
>>> some where and downgrade.
>>
>> or B) Install Mepis, and the correct answer is ...... ?
>>
>>> ME is completely and totally useless.
>>
>> No argument from me there!
>>
>> She's a dead certain GNU/Linux convert, why would she want any Windows,
>> when she has seen that Mepis boots and runs nicely on her machine ?
>>
>> She gets Word 2000, 89 and 6 compatibility with OO, she gets Excel
>> compatibility, she gets a browser with tabs, she gets a heap of other
>> cool software and it's Free.
>>
>> Want to suggest reasons why A) or B) have advantages over C) ?
>>
>> P.S. I know it's a loaded question and I'm not asking it to hassle you,
>> I'm just wondering if I've overlooked anything?
>>
>
> Well, C is a fine answer too.  I quess it really depends on what she
> needs.

She needs:- Word 2000, 89 and 6 compatibility, Excel
compatibility, Internet facilities, browser, email, dial out, and of
course reliability. As she's a struggling student she doesn't have much
of a budget either.

My choice would be C) in this case. Actually it would be C) in every
case I confess ;)



-- 
              Kind Regards from Terry 
    My Desktop is powered by GNU/LinuX, Gentoo-1.4_rc2   
         New Homepage: http://milkstone.d2.net.au/          
 ** Linux Registration Number: 103931,  http://counter.li.org **

begin  <k98ed1-1rm.ln1@gronk.porter.net>,
	Terry <tjporter@gronk.porter.net> writes:
> Ilari Liusvaara threw some tea leaves on the floor
>  and this is what they wrote:
> 
>> Datagram from Jim Richardson incoming on netlink socket
>><emocd1-afq.ln1@grendel.myth>. Dumping datagram.
>>>
>>> What about 1 desktop per week? *per* *advocate*? :)
>>
>> And soon some of converts will turn into advocates and turn
>> more. And thus we have exponential growth. 
>>
>> And one characteristic of exponential growth is that it is
>> slow until short time before it really blows up...
> 
> Hence Bill Gates fear that the end for MICROS~1 will come so fast. he
> won't even have time to see it happening.

Doubt Gates has a clue about exponential growth. He's still working on
factoring prime numbers. :-)

[snips]

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 03:33:05 -0600, Jimbo wrote:

> No.
> IANAL but, AIUI, US law only prohibits selling/providing encryption 
> techniques to "enemies of the state"*.

IAANAL, but... it's a little weirder than that from what I've seen.  You
can't sell a strong encryption _tool_ to someone, but you can print out
the source code and mail it to them.  Do this in a computer-readable font,
have them scan it in and compile it and voila.

Why is it this way?  Who can figure out the military, lawyers, or, worse,
military lawyers? :)

begin  <pan.2004.01.13.23.44.44.8985@lightspeed.bc.ca>,
	Kelsey Bjarnason <kelseyb@lightspeed.bc.ca> writes:
> [snips]
> 
> On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 03:33:05 -0600, Jimbo wrote:
> 
>> No.
>> IANAL but, AIUI, US law only prohibits selling/providing encryption 
>> techniques to "enemies of the state"*.
> 
> IAANAL, but... it's a little weirder than that from what I've seen.  You
> can't sell a strong encryption _tool_ to someone, but you can print out
> the source code and mail it to them.  Do this in a computer-readable font,
> have them scan it in and compile it and voila.
> 
> Why is it this way?  Who can figure out the military, lawyers, or, worse,
> military lawyers? :)

That's how Phil Zimmermann got pgp out of the US. A book, or was it
two, of the src code was published. The book[s] were scanned and
voila, pgp for all. It took a long time to scan it all and during that
time people were scouring the code looking for bugs, security flaws,
etc. That is why I stick with pgp 2.6.3i most of the time as I believe
it is the only version that has been highly audited. I use gpg when I
must.

-- 
wjbell the plagiarist: http://snipurl.com/1tg
wjbell the liar:       http://snipurl.com/3o1n
wjbell the troll:      http://snipurl.com/3rgh

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Peter Jensen
<usenet@pekajemaps.homeip.net>
 wrote
on 13 Jan 2004 09:21:21 GMT
<4003b891$0$29385$edfadb0f@dread15.news.tele.dk>:
> Milo T. wrote:
> 
>> http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_decoder_ring
>> 
>> They just let you create simple modular ciphers - like a Caesar cipher
>> or the more complex Vignere cipher.
> 
> Don't US anti-terrorism laws prohibit the use of encryption for sending
> messages?
> 
> Naq qbrfa'g gur QZPN cebuvovg qrpelcgvba?  Bu qrne, vs lbh'er ernqvat
> guvf, lbh'ir penpxrq zl rapelcgvba, lbh, lbh, lbh ... pevzvany! :-)
> 

That's just 'cuz you're not using the new
Double-Encrypted-Rot13 variant. :-)

-- 
#191, ewill3@earthlink.net
It's still legal to go .sigless.

On 2004-01-13, Peter Jensen <usenet@pekajemaps.homeip.net> blubbered:
> Milo T. wrote:
>
>> http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_decoder_ring
>> 
>> They just let you create simple modular ciphers - like a Caesar cipher
>> or the more complex Vignere cipher.
>
> Don't US anti-terrorism laws prohibit the use of encryption for sending
> messages?
>
> Naq qbrfa'g gur QZPN cebuvovg qrpelcgvba?

Only of everything that's encrypted. So it would seem the US govt could
be in violation, for example, depending on who's methods they enact.

>  Bu qrne, vs lbh'er ernqvat guvf, lbh'ir penpxrq zl rapelcgvba, lbh,
> lbh, lbh ... pevzvany! :-)

You forget. I'm a linux user, and I have a Linus-authorized decoder
ring.

-- 
"I'm not one of those who think Bill Gates is the devil. I simply suspect
that if Microsoft ever met up with the devil, it wouldn't need
an interpreter.

On 13 Jan 2004 20:22:34 GMT, Peter Jensen wrote:

> Milo T. wrote:
> 
>>> However, Microsoft should never have charged for 98SE, as it's mostly
>>> a service pack for 98.
>> 
>> Microsoft didn't charge for the service pack for 98; it was available
>> as a free download.
> 
> Duh!  That's not really what I was talking about.

No, but you did bring it up.
 
>> You could have just installed the SP, and been on your merry way.
> 
> It wouldn't be Win98SE, now would it?

No, it wouldn't. It'd be Windows 98 with the service pack installed. Which
wouldn't cost you anything.
 
>> 98SE was 98 with the service pack (which you could get for free from
>> them) and some additional functionality (which you had to buy 98SE if
>> you wanted it).
> 
> What additional functionality would that be?

Why don't you do some research and find out?

> It sure as hell didn't
> seem like nearly enough to warrant the cost of upgrading from Win98.

Then why would you buy it? I mean, instead of doing the intelligent thing
and just downloading the service pack for 98 from their website?

> Win98SE should have been free for anyone who bought Win98, since it was
> mostly a bug-fix.

The service pack for 98 that brought it up to 98SE levels *was* free. If
you were happy with 98 and you applied the service pack, then you didn't
*need* to pay to upgrade to 98SE.

That guy in the software store really saw you coming.
-- 
People in the killfile (and whose posts I won't read) as of 1/13/2004
8:31:19 PM:
Peter Kohlmann, T.Max Devlin. Matt Templeton (scored down)

Milo T. wrote:

>>>> However, Microsoft should never have charged for 98SE, as it's
>>>> mostly a service pack for 98.
>>> 
>>> Microsoft didn't charge for the service pack for 98; it was
>>> available as a free download.
>> 
>> Duh!  That's not really what I was talking about.
> 
> No, but you did bring it up.

I'm just saying that they made a whole new version, which was *mostly* a
service pack.  *That* seems dishonest.

>>> You could have just installed the SP, and been on your merry way.
>> 
>> It wouldn't be Win98SE, now would it?
> 
> No, it wouldn't. It'd be Windows 98 with the service pack installed.
> Which wouldn't cost you anything.

And would give me trouble when something expects Win98SE.  Not that the
functionality would be different, but tell that to a brain-dead
installer.

>>> 98SE was 98 with the service pack (which you could get for free from
>>> them) and some additional functionality (which you had to buy 98SE
>>> if you wanted it).
>> 
>> What additional functionality would that be?
> 
> Why don't you do some research and find out?

Nope.  You made the claim, you do the homework.  I'm under the
impression that there was little of any worth added with SE (apart from
bugfixes).  You claim there was, so prove it.

>> It sure as hell didn't seem like nearly enough to warrant the cost of
>> upgrading from Win98.
> 
> Then why would you buy it? I mean, instead of doing the intelligent
> thing and just downloading the service pack for 98 from their website?

*I* didn't *have* Win98, I had Win98SE.  An upgrade would still have
been cheaper, though, seeing as how my modem was 14.4kbit at that time,
and on-line time was quite expensive then.

>> Win98SE should have been free for anyone who bought Win98, since it
>> was mostly a bug-fix.
> 
> The service pack for 98 that brought it up to 98SE levels *was* free.
> If you were happy with 98 and you applied the service pack, then you
> didn't *need* to pay to upgrade to 98SE.
> 
> That guy in the software store really saw you coming.

What makes you think I was affected by this?  I've only ever bought
Win95A and Win98SE.  My *brothers* computer, however, came with Win98,
and after I bought my own computer with Win98SE (a while later), I
simply couldn't find any justification for paying the upgrade cost if I
already had Win98.  I have no doubts, however, that Microsoft intended
people to upgrade ...

BTW, that Win98 machine is getting wiped and refitted this weekend (it
was collecting dust, and I had scavenged some parts of it).  I'm loading
Linux on it and giving it as a gift to a family that can't afford a
computer.  Together with an old printer I was once given, it should
provide them with a basic working computer for simple games, word
processing, and Internet use.  If they want to, I can even administrate
the computer for them.  It's not like it takes forever to set up update
scripts with e-mail alerts when I occasionally have to oversee some
update.

-- 
PeKaJe

prom_printf("Detected PenguinPages, getting out of here.\n");
	2.0.38 /usr/src/linux/arch/sparc/mm/srmmu.c

On 14 Jan 2004 06:59:13 GMT, Peter Jensen wrote:

> Milo T. wrote:
> 
>>>>> However, Microsoft should never have charged for 98SE, as it's
>>>>> mostly a service pack for 98.
>>>> 
>>>> Microsoft didn't charge for the service pack for 98; it was
>>>> available as a free download.
>>> 
>>> Duh!  That's not really what I was talking about.
>> 
>> No, but you did bring it up.
> 
> I'm just saying that they made a whole new version, which was *mostly* a
> service pack.  *That* seems dishonest.
> 
>>>> You could have just installed the SP, and been on your merry way.
>>> 
>>> It wouldn't be Win98SE, now would it?
>> 
>> No, it wouldn't. It'd be Windows 98 with the service pack installed.
>> Which wouldn't cost you anything.
> 
> And would give me trouble when something expects Win98SE.  Not that the
> functionality would be different, but tell that to a brain-dead
> installer.

Windows 98 and 98SE are both version 4.1 of Windows. The only difference is
in the build number - which is not typically checked by installers.

Just FYI.
 
>>>> 98SE was 98 with the service pack (which you could get for free from
>>>> them) and some additional functionality (which you had to buy 98SE
>>>> if you wanted it).
>>> 
>>> What additional functionality would that be?
>> 
>> Why don't you do some research and find out?
> 
> Nope.  You made the claim, you do the homework.  I'm under the
> impression that there was little of any worth added with SE (apart from
> bugfixes).  You claim there was, so prove it.

No, I have said all along that there was some extra functionality, which if
you wanted, you could upgrade to get, and if you didn't, you could instead
download the service pack for free.
 
>>> It sure as hell didn't seem like nearly enough to warrant the cost of
>>> upgrading from Win98.
>> 
>> Then why would you buy it? I mean, instead of doing the intelligent
>> thing and just downloading the service pack for 98 from their website?
> 
> *I* didn't *have* Win98, I had Win98SE.  An upgrade would still have
> been cheaper, though, seeing as how my modem was 14.4kbit at that time,
> and on-line time was quite expensive then.

.... or you could just order a CD for cost of shipping and handling with the
service pack on it.
 
>>> Win98SE should have been free for anyone who bought Win98, since it
>>> was mostly a bug-fix.
>> 
>> The service pack for 98 that brought it up to 98SE levels *was* free.
>> If you were happy with 98 and you applied the service pack, then you
>> didn't *need* to pay to upgrade to 98SE.
>> 
>> That guy in the software store really saw you coming.
> 
> What makes you think I was affected by this?  I've only ever bought
> Win95A and Win98SE.  My *brothers* computer, however, came with Win98,
> and after I bought my own computer with Win98SE (a while later), I
> simply couldn't find any justification for paying the upgrade cost if I
> already had Win98.  I have no doubts, however, that Microsoft intended
> people to upgrade ...

If that were the case, then why would they release a service pack with all
of the bug fixes between 98 and 98SE in it for *free* for 98 users to
install?
 
> BTW, that Win98 machine is getting wiped and refitted this weekend (it
> was collecting dust, and I had scavenged some parts of it).  I'm loading
> Linux on it and giving it as a gift to a family that can't afford a
> computer. 

Cool.
-- 
People in the killfile (and whose posts I won't read) as of 1/14/2004
12:01:59 AM:
Peter Kohlmann, T.Max Devlin. Matt Templeton (scored down)

On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 09:43:59 +1100, Terry <tjporter@gronk.porter.net> wrote:

>Tom Shelton threw some tea leaves on the floor
> and this is what they wrote:
>
>> On 2004-01-13, Terry <tjporter@gronk.porter.net> wrote:
>[...] 
>>> Following their instructions, the machine BSOD and they said they would
>>> get their *expert* to call her back. He never did, and that was 3 days
>>> ago.
>>>
>>
>> Jerks...  That's one reason I build my own.
>
>Yeah. the first computer I built was a 1 b1t unit based on the
>Motorolla 50001 ?, 1 bit micro!

I built a KIM 1 6502 in college.
Programmed it using switches.

I can still hear the professor yelling, "You have to load the accumulator
first!!!"


flatfish+++

flatfish+++ threw some tea leaves on the floor
 and this is what they wrote:

> On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 09:43:59 +1100, Terry <tjporter@gronk.porter.net> wrote:
>
>>Tom Shelton threw some tea leaves on the floor
>> and this is what they wrote:
>>
>>> On 2004-01-13, Terry <tjporter@gronk.porter.net> wrote:
>>[...] 
>>>> Following their instructions, the machine BSOD and they said they would
>>>> get their *expert* to call her back. He never did, and that was 3 days
>>>> ago.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Jerks...  That's one reason I build my own.
>>
>>Yeah. the first computer I built was a 1 b1t unit based on the
>>Motorolla 50001 ?, 1 bit micro!
>
> I built a KIM 1 6502 in college.
> Programmed it using switches.

You were *LUCKY*!
I couldnt keep up my payments so they reposessed 7 of my 8 bits!

>
> I can still hear the professor yelling, "You have to load the accumulator
> first!!!"

Hahahahah!

My first "computer" was the above mentioned 1 bit alu. I made the
keyboard with aluminium foil and plastic, much like the now common
plastic film touch keyboards.

I made the digital section (alu, registers, ram, latches) chassis, psu,
led outputs etc.

It was a good learning tool but it never made any decent projects.

Many people don't believe there is such a thing as a 1 bit micro, but
they were very common in calculators, and probably still are.


-- 
              Kind Regards from Terry 
    My Desktop is powered by GNU/LinuX, Gentoo-1.4_rc2   
         New Homepage: http://milkstone.d2.net.au/          
 ** Linux Registration Number: 103931,  http://counter.li.org **