funny, I just looked at it a bit closer and they call it "enhanced error results". Clever. Also at the bottom of the page is a link called "Visitor Agreement", which if you click on takes you to a terms of service for using this "service". Of course cox customers are literally forced to this page everytime they mistype a domain name. for their part, though, after doing a bit of digging through the "about this service link" I did find that there is a way to "opt out". They way of opting is for the user to configure their IPv4 adapter to use different DNS server addresses. instructions: http://support.cox.com/sdccommon/asp/contentredirect.asp?sprt_cid=c8daf50a-61ba-442d-90b9-8d2e18ceb58d

COX has been doing this for a while. Although it is not 'ad-laden', it is sponsored by Yahoo and 'suggests' some alternatives. When you mistype a domain name, or just make something up that doesn't exist, COX Cable redirects you to the following page: http://finder.cox.net/

Ya, the "Live" of Ubuntu 9.04 was worthless for us, too. Luckily, I figured it just didn't like to work off the CD drive and gave it a fair chance and installed it. Please see the next post, "my wife is now using linux" and you'll know how happy we are that we didn't dismiss it offhand because of the lousy live performance. I'm sure it works better for some people out there, or else they would abandon the "live" idea completely if they could have seen it on her computer when it was just trying to work off the CD. It's great when it is installed on the hard drive. You can also change the theme (colors)once you have it installed if they bug you.

No, it's only been 2 days and she's happy with what is already loaded, but for the sake of curiosity I should give it a shot on her computer and see how it goes with a couple programs. I appreciate the feedback. If I knew that I could run Photoshop and Outlook without any problems, I'd be considering Linux for my own computer.

The best way to phrase it is probably to say one's email needs are general or specific. If you need to use Outlook for handling your work email, for example, then your needs are specific. Specifically, your email needs to be managed by Outlook. If someone's email needs are just the general need to use email, then your needs are pretty basic. But, no I don't think there are varying levels of complexity in email messages -- just varying needs for how one interacts with them.

The last time I tried to install a linux distro was back in 2000 on an old parts computer I had laying around. It was a total disaster, nothing worked and I wasted a good deal of time. That was enough for me to steer clear until 2 days ago. My wife's computer is used mostly for email, facebook, youtube, and light word processing. It had been running windows XP until I got tired of cleaning viruses off her computer. A couple days ago, it was really the last straw and I'd heard about Ubuntu 9.04 being a pretty good distro, so we gave it a shot. I was dreading trying to get it to work with her linksys wusb54gc network adapter and worried about the prospects of getting it to work with our networked lexmark laser printer. I remember my reaction when everything worked without a hitch. I just laughed at how brainlessly easy it all was. This is the kind of experience that is going to bring linux to the mainstream. I don't know if I just got lucky, but for anyone who does not require specific software programs such as outlook and adobe photoshop -- for people like my wife, who use a computer for internet access and basic email and light wordprocessing -- this is the type of experience that Linux needs to maintain and expand on. She loves it and hasn't had any problems -- I got flash installed without a hitch and as far as she's concerned, her computer does exactly what it did before linux, only now it is faster. From my perspective, not having to spend so much time maintaining/fixing her computer is a welcome relief.

Agreed, brother.