free PCs

[rocketpcguy]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/12/17/free.pc.reut/index.html

how will it work then? windows only? hardware? how did they mange to modify the hardware? could we re-flash the bios?

[X_console]

This reminds me so much of those free ISPs with the "little" ad banner. All I can say is, you get what you pay for.

[AndrewLubinus89]

Originally posted by X_console
This reminds me so much of those free ISPs with the "little" ad banner. All I can say is, you get what you pay for. I agree, for one thing this has to be somehow messed up to keep you from hacking out the ads or running linux on it. Also would they take the computer away from you if you did run linux on it? (well, if they can make sure you use it for 30 hours a week they can probably check that too). I hate ads.

[jrbishop79]

a commercial for every 20 mins of use? that would suck if I was involved in a game, especially one that I was winning. I'm not sure this is going to really take off...

[root.veg]

That's just plain wrong!

Surely their target market would be better served by re-cycling old Pentium-class boxes that people would otherwise throw away (because Windows XP is such a resource-hog), and sticking a web-browser and e-mail client on them... But no corporation stands to make a profit out of that so it doesn't happen :(

[MartinB]

Sounds interesting, even if it is only Windows XP.

Living in the UK, I think I'm going to register for one. I'll set it up as an SMB server, put it away somewhere and use it for the extra space. 40GB of local network storage is nothing to complain about. :)

[rocketpcguy]

it might be good if the company was dumb. like the one that sold a 'security' mesure in audio-cd to stop copies and ripping. it turned out to be a autorun program.

[Trogdor]

Originally posted by rocketpcguy
it might be good if the company was dumb. like the one that sold a 'security' mesure in audio-cd to stop copies and ripping. it turned out to be a autorun program.

Oh yeah. I remember that. :P

I would sign up for one, then replace the BIOS chip with a different one. Or flash it.

EDIT: My above idea is totally wrong. See my next post to see why.

[bosox79]

Originally posted by X_console
This reminds me so much of those free ISPs with the "little" ad banner. All I can say is, you get what you pay for.

I agree this would be really annoying. how would this work if you were in the middle of a UT frag match would you get booted from the game to watch adds?:(

[AndrewLubinus89]

Originally posted by bosox79
I agree this would be really annoying. how would this work if you were in the middle of a UT frag match would you get booted from the game to watch adds?:( Hopefully they are more like ad banners than full screen things. I agree with MartinB, 40 gig of network space wouldn't be too bad. Not to mention if you use it for a server computer that wouldn't matter so much.

[JamminJoeyB]

Even if you can't flash the bios. Get a new mobo for around $50. Swap everything over. You have nice little FS with some considerable ghz under the hood. Heck throw in a nvidia card and this thing will game pretty well too.

[Trogdor]

No. At the risk of sounding harsh, all your ideas are wrong.

I have done my homework, and I found that Metronomy Desktop Marketing (http://www.metronomy.com/) makes sure that you actually see the ads (you have to press an accept button), otherwise, they will take the computer from you (it is on loan). Also, it is done in windows. So here's my solution: the first 30 hours of every month, run Winblows, but set up Phantom for Windows (http://www.p1.com/P1PhantomForWindowsPage.htm) to click the area where the "accept" button is, over and over again. Then, for the rest of the time, you got yourself a dedicated Tux Racer gameing machine, or a dedicated Netris or Atlantik server, or a Gentoo server, or whatever.

Just my $ 0.02.