Brought to you each week by
the 84 Online Team, a loose collection of volunteers from around the Kentuckiana
region.
84 Online is broadcast live
each Sunday from 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM (EDT) on WHAS radio, 840 AM. You may call the show directly during
this time period at 502-571-8484 or toll free at 1-800-444-8484. You may also interact with the team
online by visiting www.84online.com and
clicking on Chat Room. IRC users
can access the room through server ucanweb.com, channel #84online. Chat hours match the show on Sunday and
generally some of the members are in weeknights from 8:00 to 9:00 PM
EDT.
Vol. 1, No.
9
6-12-01
Last week Juno and NetZero announced that they were merging into one company called United Online. This merger will move the new merged provider into second place nationally with 7 million active subscribers. Only AOL has more.
This leaves users of both
services asking “What does this mean to me?” The answer may be “not what you might
think.”
For the time being the two
companies apparently plan to spin the “free” access users to NetZero while
making its paid services available under Juno. This might mean an email address change
for Juno users but that’s about it.
Ah, but much more goes on behind the scenes.
Back in February Juno
announced its “Virtual Supercomputer Project”, which would harness the wasted
CPU cycles of Juno subscribers to analyze data from un-named sources. Following on the heels of the success of
the “SETI@Home” model for distributed computing,
Juno hoped to force users of their free service into participating in the same
activity, basically hijacking the user’s PCs into cyber-servitude to analyze
data from un-named corporations and “phone home” when the analysis was
complete. Once your PC digested
that chunk of data, Juno would force-feed another chunk to you and the process
would start all over again.
The addition to Juno’s Terms
of Service reads:
“2.5. You expressly permit
and authorize Juno to (i) download to your computer one or more pieces of
software (the "Computational Software") designed to perform computations, which
may be unrelated to the operation of the Service, on behalf of Juno (or on
behalf of such third parties as may be authorized by Juno, subject to the
Privacy Statement), (ii) run the Computational Software on your computer to
perform and store the results of such computations, and (iii) upload such
results to Juno’s central computers during a subsequent connection, whether
initiated by you in the course of using the Service or by the Computational
Software as further described below. In connection with downloading and running
the Computational Software, Juno may require you to leave your computer turned
on at all times, and may replace the "screen saver" software that runs on your
computer while the computer is turned on but you are not using
it.”
In a nutshell what this
means is that users of the free Juno service might have been required to leave
their PCs on 24/7, accept downloads of data and programs without question and
pay for any long-distance phone calls originating from said programs.
NetZero users will likely
see this “distributed computing” codicil added to their Terms of Service
shortly, since they will now become the “free” side of United
Online.
The scariest part of this
whole episode is that there is a consortium of companies who actually want a
“distributed computing” standard established and want it made a part of all
operating systems. The consortium
(http://www.newproductivity.org/npi_in.html)
would like to see this functionality built into everything from Windows to
Linux.
Big Brother is alive and
well and living in your ISP. ANY
ISP that forces you to use their software can easily impose this activity on you
during “upgrades” which you have no control over.
If you want to read more
about what this means you can visit the following
sites:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-3586486.html
http://www.genomeweb.com/articles/view-article.asp?Article=200151113026
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-4689725.html
http://www.idg.net/english/crd_juno_483002.html
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-201-4700390-0.html
http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2001/2001-02-08.htm
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-6220173.html?tag=owv
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2681625,00.html
http://www.t3online.com/010202_n_juno.html
While worthwhile causes
abound amongst the distributed computing community (including AIDS and Cancer
research) the idea of these projects usurping my PC without my express
permission is a bit frightening. If
they need transportation should they be able to take my car? If they need shelter can they take my
house?
The obvious answer is “No”,
and the folks at Juno need to realize this. We may volunteer to participate in a
worthy cause but tricking unsuspecting, often technically naïve users into
participation through dense legal jargon pasted into a TOS is questionable at
best.
Kevin Mefford,
Editor
Do This Before You
Exit
A few weeks back we received
an email from a listener who wanted his computer to shutdown automatically after
performing its maintenance programs.
Well, after searching
extensively, I am really happy to announce this
find.
The program is called
Exits95 from Moon in June Software and can be downloaded from
http://come.to/windowsexits . This is
freeware, one of those rapidly disappearing
rarities.
Don’t let the name put you
off, Exits95 runs just fine with Windows98 and ME, though not with NT or
2000.
Exits95 is a little tricky
to install. After unzipping the files and saving them to a folder, right-click
the file named exits95.inf,
select "Install" and follow the prompts from there. To make Exits95 run programs
before shutting down, right-click the program’s icon in your system tray and
select <Options<Run before Exit. The dialog box, which lets you select
four programs to run in sequential order, is very easy to figure
out.
To prevent an accidental
shutdown, right-click the system tray icon and select <Toggles<Confirm
Exit. To remove Exits95 from your system tray, right-click the icon and select
<Options<Create Shortcut. Enter the location where you want the shortcut
to appear, and click OK twice. Right-click the icon one more time and select
<Change Settings. Select <Save current settings to the registry>,
uncheck <Enable auto-run from registry at startup>, and click OK
twice.
Now, when you click the
Exits95 icon, it will run your maintenance programs and then shut the PC down.
To load Exits95 so you can change your settings, select <Start<Run, type
"exits95.exe" (without the quotes), and press
enter.
I really like this program
and recommend it highly.
Art Maley
You go to sign onto AOL and
the sound of the modem dialing, ringing, etc. is MUCH too loud! Is there
anything you can do? Yes.
You can adjust the sound
that your modem makes:
How To Change Your Modem
Sounds:
1. On the AOL Sign On
screen, click Setup. A new window pops up.
2. Click Expert Setup.
3. Click the Devices tab to
bring it to the front.
4. Double-click on your
modem in the list. The Expert Edit Modem screen
appears.
5. Choose the volume you
want for your modem from the Speaker Volume: field
6. Click
Save
Red
Computer and Internet terms
often sound like a foreign language to new computers. Megabyte, emoticon, encryption, query,
WYSIWYG. What the heck does all
that mean?!? Visit http://www.netlingo.com and find out. Netlingo is an online dictionary of the
esoteric language of technospeak.
Q: I was thinking of buying a motherboard
and CPU combo off price watch. Do I need to watch my self on this site? Do you
think that AMD 1.3 gig 266 is a good chip?
A: To answer your
first question, generally sellers on pricewatch.com are
very reliable.
Pricewatch requires very strenuous conditions to be met
before a dealer is
allowed to post their information (i.e. a dedicated 800
number, accepting
major credit cards, as well as being in business at least
1 year ... you can
view the exact requirements for listing at
http://www.pricewatch.com/dinfo.htm).
However, with this in mind, also keep
in mind that there are no guarantees on
Pricewatch’s part. Personally, I
have absolutely no reservations in
purchasing from a seller advertised in
Pricewatch. In fact, when it
comes to the 1.3 gig 266, I looked at all the
lowest prices, and I have
personally purchased from the every one of sites
offering the 5 lowest prices
(just a point of reference).
Now, there is one thing that
you need to watch out for -- SHIPPING.
Many of these stores can rip you off
in shipping ... charging $15 to ship
something that costs $5 to ship.
So, watch out for that, because it can
really tack on a huge
percentage.
As for the chip, I believe that the AMD 266
series is the best chip out
there, and the 1.33 gig is no exception.
The only thing that I have to say
is to try to go with a DDR motherboard and
DDR RAM. Although the
motherboards may be a little bit more expensive,
the price for the ram
itself is almost exactly he same (memory is one thing
that I will not buy at
Pricewatch because there are some really poorly made
chips out there ... I
prefer Crucial [crucial.com ... Micron memory] for all
of my memory
purchasing) ... the performance on DDR systems, although not
always
extraordinarily greater, is worth the extra few bucks (I would expect
to pay
around $30 more total at most for a DDR
package).
Hope that helps!
Kyle
Harmon
If you have tech support
questions or ideas and/or submissions for our newsletter please email them to bob@iglou.com .
Copyright 2001, The 84
Online Team. All rights
reserved. Publication, rebroadcast
or storage is prohibited without prior consent, however you may freely forward
this publication to friends as long as A) it is forwarded in its entirety and B)
no fee is charged.
Information provided in this
publication is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, either expressed
or implied. Although the
information provided is known to work on most systems, it may not work on ALL
systems. Make use of any
information supplied at your own risk.
The 84 Online Team is a
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