On 17 Apr 2001, at 20:25, Aaron Blosser wrote:
>
> This also begs an interesting question of what happens if the
> "scientific software" conflicts with something on your system.
Now I don't want to be seen to be supporting Juno's terms of service,
but you do have a choice:
Either you live with the conflict, or you find a different ISP.
>
> As much as I just love GIMPS, there is one interesting little bugaboo
> that I don't know if it's been mentioned: Anyone else out there use
> Netmeeting to do videoconferencing? If so, have you noticed that if
> NTPRIME (the NT service version) is running, your video will go REALLY
> REALLY slow? I don't know of Prime95 has the same effect or not, but
> I'd guess so.
Well, I try _very_ hard to avoid using Microsoft applications, and in
any case I find I have no use for videoconferencing, but ...
Did you try changing the priority of Netmeeting, or at least its
codec thread? The problem may well be that, to avoid VC running away
with system resources & making the whole system unresponsive, it
could run its codec thread at idle priority. In this case it would be
unable to get CPU resources until the prime service expires its time
allocation, but might then have to give up its own time slot early
pending the availability of data to process. Result, Netmeeting runs
slowly. If I'm right about this, then another application requiring
access to the video would operate normally even whilst Netmeeting is
crawling. If you were to raise the priority of the Netmeeting codec
thread to one above the prime service, the problem would go away.
But DON'T go above 4, you might start to impact your control of the
system through the console!
>
> So again, what happens if Juno's software starts interfering with your
> other apps, even when your not connected?
Caveat emptor. So long as you can get rid of it reasonably easily if
you decide you want to transfer to another ISP, or even Juno's
charged service.
>
> Is it even fair that your free internet connection would actually use
> your computer even when you're not using your free connection? Even
> the Juno banner ads only show up while you're actually online.
> Imagine if Juno said those ads would now show up all through the day
> whether you're dialed in or not.
This has been said many, many times in the past. But, to mix
metaphors, you should definitely look a gift horse in the mouth
before you try to carve a free lunch off it. If it has teeth, it will
probably try to carve a free lunch off you!
However I'd be amazed if there wasn't some free-to-use software in
existence for preventing the display of those ads - either
suppressing their download by fooling the upstream server that a
local copy already exists, or removing the files after they've been
downloaded, or replacing them with something harmless like a
transparent 1x1 GIF.
>
> Well, electricity costs and what not are still likely to be less than
> even the cheapest ISP on a per-month basis.
Here in the UK energy is much more expensive than it is in the US. My
local utility charges 9.40 pence per KWh net, i.e. 9.87 pence after
applying VAT at 5%. A typical system running 24 hours per day
consumes about 100 KWh per month, i.e. the electricity costs around
10 pounds.
The local utility is a monopoly supplier, I have no alternative.
I can get a decent ISP service not dependent on advertising for 25
pounds a _year_ (plus connect charge of 1p per minute, off-peak, paid
to the telephone utility). Also, I need only one ISP, however many
systems I'm running.
>
> They should call it a "push install" or something, whereas you're
> right, downloading is more of a pull (user initiated). Besides
> various incidents in the past, I am in the biz of doing software
> installs on large networks, and that's the general terminology we'd
> use for a server based install being forced on clients: a push. If
> it's advertised to workstations but not mandatory, pull is
> appropriate.
Right. And, even if you're pushing software upgrades with the consent
of your users, you should only do so during system downtime, or at
least only during advertised "service at risk" periods.
>
> And even then, we have to be careful. Some installs require a reboot.
Nice design, Microsoft. Thank you!
To give them their due, Win 2K seems to be a lot less demanding of
reboots following application installs than Win 9x was, though many
installers still seem to demand system reboots following completion.
Maybe this is as much the fault of the installer as it is of the OS.
However I still fail to see why anything other than a replacement of
the OS kernel code should require a reboot. Even loadable modules
(DLLs) should be upgradable on a running system. Linux manages, why
can't Windows?
Regards
Brian Beesley
_________________________________________________________________________
Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
