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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: valueminded who wrote (74920)	1/31/2000 12:27:00 PM
From: Knighty Tin	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 132070

Chris, Good catch on the free E-Trade computer. I would much rather do something like that than get tied into an overpriced ISP. I assume they don't pay interest on the $1000, so that is another minor cost? I have no idea how anyone is making any money with these cheap PCs, and, when I look at the PC co. eps reports, I think the answer is they are not and will never. With E-Trade, they think that you will be so impressed that you will want to remain trading with them instead of Brown & Co., which is both cheaper and better. They may be right, but I doubt it. With the boxmakers, they often use these "free" pcs as comeons and then try to whack you with options, like car dealers do. "Yes, sir, the car is only $17,000. Oh, you want brakes and headlights with that? You should have told me. $27,000 now." <g> The difference is, there isn't that much difference between a fully loaded box and a cheapie. Especially if you use it mostly for Internet access and word processing. I have looked into some of the free ISPs. A couple look feasible, but I plan a long test period before telling 17 million people I have a new E-mail address. <g> In the meantime, I am trying to wean them over to my SI E-mail address. Just my luck, as soon as I get them all posting here, SI will either go down forever or SI Bob will suspend me for using up too much of the wave length. <g>

To: valueminded who wrote (74920)	2/1/2000 1:25:00 AM
From: Simba	Respond to of 132070

Chris: I have tried ( am trying) nearly all free ISPs out there. At last count I have 7 free ISP accounts. I have used them for the past half a year and I like the service considering it costs zip. Actually the availability is better sometimes than a full cost ISP, just rotate between the ISPs and 1 out of 7 is easy to connect in very short time. I like altavista for quick connections. Freei can take a few trials (average about 5 times on auto-dial mode) to connect but once connected the service is good. webspy.com also is great once connected. netzero also has quick connections but the service is a tad slower. freepc.com also connects quickly and has a service similar to netzero. Bluelight is good for quick connections and also service webspy is unique in that it does not flash ads on your montior. All others show ads but if you have a large enuff monitor it is not a big deal. In fact I like some of the ads as they direct me to cheapskate offers many times. On the whole I am surprised people are still on AOL and MSN. AOL also stuffs ads down the throat plus a fee of 24 bucks a month. I suggested the etrade offer and my sister got the $400 rebate. I think you can still get $400 rebate if you buy a celeron PC from myfavoritepc.com. They charge 550 bucks for the PC but give you $100 instant rebate plus $50 mail-in rebate, so you get the PC for only Ship/Handle fee. Simba