mjohnson13 's BestNetTech Comments

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  • On the post: Dell Warns Customers About Complications From Vista

    mjohnson13 ( profile ), 05 Jul, 2007 @ 07:30pm

    Surprised?

    Not me. I was mid-way through the life-cycle development of XP when I finally realized that virtually *anything* was better. Microsoft obtained its dominant status by virtue of marketing agreements with IBM that were perpetuated back when things were marketed as "IBM-Compatable." It's hard to believe that there was a when that actually *meant* something.

    Now that Dell, one of the major PC marketers, is now offering a no-shit alternative to XP/Vista, it's going to give other people a real... choice. Looking to save a few bucks? Get Ubuntu pre-loaded. See that there IS an alternative. Or, you could do what I did and go for the elegant Mac OS. I've been a happy Mac user for a couple of years now, and I can almost literally feel myself getting dumber between the hours of 8 and 5 when I have to use an XP box.

    Yeah, I'm sure that some M$ fanboy's going to get his wood wet just thinking about firing off a "MAC SUX!!11!" missive, but I have to expect that.

    Anyway though, Vista's nothing new. It's pretty much XP with all of the various patches and eye candy, and even that is only if you pony up and get something that's not the "basic" version. No thanks!

  • On the post: Stopping Terrorists… By Making It Illegal To Sell Them Domain Names?

    mjohnson13 ( profile ), 25 Feb, 2007 @ 09:41pm

    Re: Best way to combat terrorism

    The best way to combat terrorism is to quit funding it.

    Quit fighting the "War on Drugs", and just legalize and regulate them. That will remove the profit from that industry. Then spend the money saved on development of biodiesel, EV, and solar technologies. We only have to reduce our foreign oil dependence by about 25% in order to completely cut off the muslim OPEC countries.

    ------------------

    This will never happen as long as there is so much money to be made by owning stock in the large pharmaceutical companies... Eli Lilly has been trying to synthesize the chemicals that make pot what it is for years now, with only middlin' success.

  • On the post: Why Patent Trolls Worldwide Love Marshall, Texas

    mjohnson13 ( profile ), 23 Feb, 2007 @ 06:16pm

    Re:

    Awwww, but voting is HARD... There's that whole confusing thing about which sumbitch is less evil than the other sumbitch. And then there's that whole thing about having to drag ass off of the couch...

    Seriously though... This is a country where more people vote for American Idol than they do for the POTUS. If that doesn't scare the hell out of you, then you're not paying enough attention.

  • On the post: Why Patent Trolls Worldwide Love Marshall, Texas

    mjohnson13 ( profile ), 23 Feb, 2007 @ 06:12pm

    Re: Re: No Subject Given

    Oklahoma? Don't you mean Extreme North Texas?

  • On the post: iTunes Exposes Classical Music Hoax

    mjohnson13 ( profile ), 20 Feb, 2007 @ 08:11pm

    Re: first post! bam!

    KneeL, you're missing the point...

    What the article says is that Ms. Hutto had been taking recordings from other pianists AND PASSING THEM OFF AS HER OWN RECORDINGS.

    What you're thinking is, "Hm. So she's recorded Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5. Where's the foul?"

    The problem is that she has taken, say, Claudio Arrau's recordings, and then slapped her name on them and released them as being her performances.

    I can only imagine the fun that the lawyers will have on this one...

  • On the post: Steve Jobs Says Record Labels Should Ditch Their DRM

    mjohnson13 ( profile ), 06 Feb, 2007 @ 05:15pm

    Re:

    Jobs MAY be a hypocrite, but you're making an apples-and-oranges comparison between DRM and a closed-system architecture.

    One of the reasons why OSX tends to be more stable than, oh, say, Windows, is because they have a very limited number of video cards, etc. that they directly support. This means that Apple programmers, or at least people with a vested interest in product stability, write the drivers and do their damnedest to make sure that they, you know, WORK. Compare this to Windows, where the code for the peripherals don't necessarily receive the same diligence, and that's where a lot of the complaints (whether rational or not) surrounding Windows has been generated.

    If Apple Inc. wants to build their systems that way, then it's their right to do so. That's not DRM; that's a bottom-line saving measure that all but guarantees that they're not going to blow a wad of $$$ on a support technician because some jerk-off bought the $29.99 video card at Fry's and then wonders why it won't run Aero Glass.

    Don't like it? Want to customize your system to the nth degree? Then I suggest that you eBay your Apple and go buy (or build) yourself a box and then throw Windows or Linux on it.

    Incidentally, you are more than free to do whatever the hell you want to do with your Mac. Just don't count on Jobs & Co. to foot the bill for your ineptitude if you screw something up. Note also that a lot of the warranties for Windows boxes also carry similar caveats on their warranties against "home-user upgrades."

  • On the post: Netherlands Turns Off Analog TV; World Doesn't End

    mjohnson13 ( profile ), 11 Dec, 2006 @ 07:18pm

    Re: You're joking right?

    So the U.S. should be allowed to lag even further behind the rest of the developed world... because you and your family own a bunch of TVs that are so close to obsolesence that they can smell it? Because the "U.S. is rural," we should delay dumping the analog TV broadcasts?

    This same line of thinking would have meant that we would have delayed mass production of the automobile because a lot of people still rode horses and travelled by horse-drawn cart. It's also like saying that we aren't going to sell home computers because a few people got spooked by HAL in 2001.

    I'm sorry that you and your family own a colony of non-hi-def TVs, but I don't agree that they should delay (yet again) the change-over because you don't want to suck it up and face the inevitable: you are going to need to adapt to the new economic reality and either buy a new TV, a new converter, or cable service. Sorry, but that's the way that it happens.

    Don't like it? Then I don't know what to tell you other than stick to watching your VHS tapes.

    The sun will still rise in the East and set in the West... Kids will still be born, and people will still die, and George Bush will still be an idiot. The world won't end... Just your ability to watch it using technology that is rapidly hurtling towards total obsolensence.

    Cheers!

  • On the post: Verizon Uses HP Spying Flap As PR Bait

    mjohnson13 ( profile ), 29 Sep, 2006 @ 03:35pm

    BestNetTech...

    If it seems like BestNetTech is always coming down on the Telcos, it's usually because they're up to something. But in this case, I'm going to have to agree with the first few posts where they say that Verizon really had no way of knowing that it wasn't the person listed on the account when it leaked the information. The reality is that your super-secret, only-I-know-it password is not a hard absolute. If you were to call Verizon (and I know because I had to do this because I forgot my clever little six digit code) and had "forgotten" that code, then it's not too hard to get around it.

    Provided that you have enough information, you can get around just about any security measure. That's probably exactly what HP's goons did.

  • On the post: Hollywood's Own Paper Says Congress Shouldn't Protect Hollywood

    mjohnson13 ( profile ), 10 Jul, 2006 @ 09:57pm

    Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee

    You MUST be in Houston to make a reference to Ms. Lee.

    My favorite Lee-ism is STILL when she was in the control room at JSC when they had one of those Mars missions tooling around the surface. She asked the mission commander if it would be possible to drive the rover over to where Neil Armstrong landed.

    Ahhhh... Can you smell the democracy?

  • On the post: Married Man Sues To Get On Dating Site

    mjohnson13 ( profile ), 29 Mar, 2006 @ 10:10pm

    Re:

    Yeah, and when they mention Hitler, the IQ flatlines like a possum hit by an 18 wheeler.

    Thanks to the choad who brought THAT cliche to life!

    If eHarmony wishes to take an approach where it's only for single, heterosexual adults, then that is their perogative. The reality is, of course, that there are MANY sites (adultfriendfinder pops to mind) where there's a definite sense of "anything goes." If he's not happy with eHarmony's stance on his desire to play the field after the game's already over, then he should suck it up and drive on to the next website.

    I'm sick to death of this sense of entitlement that people of all races, genders and sexual preferences have built up around themselves, then use as a battering ram against other people, groups, corporate entities, etc.

    You are guaranteed the pursuit of happiness. Not actual happiness.

    Life sucks. Get a fuckin' helmet. eHarmony's within their rights to restrict their offerings to the group(s) of their choice. Don't like it? Then either start your own service, use someone else's, or try to buy yourself a seat on the corporate board.

    But quit wasting bandwidth whining about it.

  • On the post: If Other Businesses Billed The Way Telcos Bill

    mjohnson13 ( profile ), 29 Mar, 2006 @ 06:23pm

    Vonage Cancellation Fee

    Yeah, I got hit with that, too. Nice little way to say "fuck you" to the customer. Plus, it MORE than offsets that free month that they "give" to you in the beginning. I can't understand why they charge that, unless it's a punative measure designed to keep people from cancelling the service. Bastards... I will NEVER use their service again, and what's more, I'll tell everyone that I know not to, either. I'm realistic enough to know that this won't really affect their bottom line, but if I can keep my friends/colleauges/etc from getting hosed by the mystery fee, then I will.

    I hope that they choke on it.