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Thread ID: 42401 2004-02-10 03:35:00 OT A Good Idea? Megaman (344) Press F1
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214216 2004-02-10 03:35:00 i have just had an idea

can you people tell me if it's any good?

1. I move my windows xp computer into the garage
2. i get older computers running windows 95 or higher
3 i network them to the windows xp computer, and use that as an internet gateway
4 i set up a pay internet service

and as soon as i recover the costs of getting the equipment, the service becomes free

what do you think?
Megaman (344)
214217 2004-02-10 04:44:00 It will never be able to become free, because of your ongoing ISP costs for internet bandwidth. Also, doing this will breach most ISP's "Terms of Use" agreement.

When you say getting older computer & networking them, do you mean as in older computers in your house? in your neighbourhood? flat?
somebody (208)
214218 2004-02-10 05:41:00 i have flat rate dial up (possibly getting 256k flat rate broadband from clearnet)

and was planning on getting old computers, windows 95or up, with internet explorer, putting all of them in the garage, along with my windows xp computer, set up the xp as an internet gateway, and have a cyber cafe complete with msn messanger and yahoo messenger
Megaman (344)
214219 2004-02-10 05:50:00 This would be a business, which might have tax problems. If you didn't have full time supervision it might be treated as a "free" garage sale of computer equipment.

I don't think it's a way to get rich; nor even a very practical social service.
Graham L (2)
214220 2004-02-10 05:57:00 > This would be a business, which might have tax
> problems. If you didn't have full time supervision
> it might be treated as a "free" garage sale of
> computer equipment.
>
> I don't think it's a way to get rich; nor even a very
> practical social service.

someone brought me back down to earth ;)

but when i'm not around, i could always close the garage door :p

than the only way in would be through the side door, and 2 dogs :D
Megaman (344)
214221 2004-02-10 07:43:00 There are many ways to overcome dogs. They are but a bump in the way of a crook. agent (30)
214222 2004-02-10 07:47:00 i could also lock the side door... Megaman (344)
214223 2004-02-10 08:20:00 Perhaps a smaller bump? The ability to pick locks is real, though dead bolts would be harder. But a decent set of tools should be able to cut around those in any case.

Next thing ot think of might be demand for such a service - does it exist in your area?
agent (30)
214224 2004-02-10 08:27:00 they are old computers. windows 95 and no cd drive. thay aren't worth stealing. what would be better, a) to go to the tip or b) be used for me to get a bit of extra cash?

and if they aren't used, i could use them in my nana's twizel holiday house or the akaroa holiday house
Megaman (344)
214225 2004-02-10 10:36:00 How about distributed computing? You could put all those old machines to use running the client program, working to break the RSA challenges. I think www.distributed.org and ww.rsa.com would have more information on that.

Hint: there's prize money involved, so it would technically be [possibly] making you a substantially larger amount of cash...

;)
agent (30)
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