[50/50]

http://www.metronomy.com/

Put your name down on the site, and they will give you a new pc for free. Only catch is you have to look at adds for 1min every 20min.


more info
http://www.scotlandonsunday.com/busi...?id=1370012003

What have you got to lose ?

[buns]

but you arent allowed to use it with broadband!

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[50/50]

I think you are. There is a discussion on another forum about that matter, and one members emailed metronomy. They replied saying that broadband can be used.
Broadband still counts as a dial up isp by definition.

[buns]

oh well thats not so bad..... what i dont understand is what stops someone coming along and partitioning off the hard drive, load a second OS and dual boot it. Then one day a month you boot to the original OS and leave it connected all day for 2 days..... by this point you have done your 30 hours, so now for the rest of the month, boot to the new OS and dont worry about the ads!!

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[uczmeg]

Originally posted by buns
oh well thats not so bad..... what i dont understand is what stops someone coming along and partitioning off the hard drive, load a second OS and dual boot it. Then one day a month you boot to the original OS and leave it connected all day for 2 days..... by this point you have done your 30 hours, so now for the rest of the month, boot to the new OS and dont worry about the ads!!

ad

I give it less than a month from release that there will be detailed instructions on the web on how to do this...

[mjn]

just use partiton magic, make the existing C$ smaller, in the free space, create a D$ drive, then install Windows on that drive.

[JimmytheSaint]

What have you got to lose ?



Your Soul!!!

[General Skanky]

Aren't you limited to their ISP's? Ie, I use NTL. I don't want to use another.

Otherwise my mind is going bonkers on how to make the pc all mine and less theirs. Don't like giving it back etc.

[uczmeg]

Filled in the form, they don't care what ISP you use, or whether it is broadband or not.

Basically the adverts come on a CD you must install each month, not over the internet. They just need it on the internet once a month so they can check your usage stats.

Cheers
Marc

[woody67]

It appears that adverts will appear every 20 minutes and will require you to click an accept or delay button.

This would seem to prevent you just leaving the machine on to clock up your usage - you may have to acually watch the adverts

[buns]

it strill sounds pretty amazing..... if you want a pc for the kids.... im going to look into this. Does it have office or anything? Are you limited in what you can actually do to it?

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[gingercat]

Originally posted by woody67
It appears that adverts will appear every 20 minutes and will require you to click an accept or delay button.

As long as they don't randomly change the text on the accept / delay buttons, you can write a small app to automatically dismiss these dialogs...

[Mr_Belowski]

Which will probably put you in breach of the agreement you made when you got the PC. I've not looked at the site or the wording of the agreement, but they might be entitled to charge you for the PC if they find out that you've been writing little windows scripting apps to watch the adverts for you.

Still, it's a good idea, but if your credit card details are on your PC, your WSH apps might run up a huge bill buying viagra and all other random stuff they see in the advertisments. You'd have to code it to be cynical, or to lead an 'alternative non-consumer lifestyle' (which means it'd have to have stinky dreadlocks and wash in it's own pee).

I shut up now.

[Supra]

I think i may have to register for this, sounds ideal for kids to use.

[pj]

has anyone had/heard anything from them yet?
what if u just reinstall windows on it? et voila new pc?

[uczmeg]

Not heard a thing, but didn't they say March?

I'd forgotten about it to be honest.

I guess if you install a new operating system then you are breaking the agreement when it doesn't connect the once a month to upload your usage stats, thus you'll probably owe them for a pc.

I suggest installing a second operating system and dual booting, ensuring you just put in enough time on the one they installed.

Cheers
Marc

[Chaos Star]

Take the pc from them from £800 - buy a junk pc worth £100 and use it with there software and montly CDs. Now you have an fully usuable £800 pc for £100

[uczmeg]

I believe they collect and replace the PC after 3 years.

But it's been a while since I've read the terms....

[AndyFov]

They'll have gone the same way as Ondigital in 3 yrs.

It's never an £800 machine though. I recently bought a P4 2.66 with XP Pro, MS Office, 80 gig, 256MB ram, DVD + CDR for £390 plus VAT from Dell. No monitor mind.

[calscot]

Why not accept the free computer and just watch the adverts, is it that hard? It's half the amount of adverts on ITV and ITV don't give you a free telly...

Supposing you use the computer for aprox 1hr per day - that's 3 minutes of ads. That's about 1000 minutes a year and so about 3000 minutes or 50hrs over 3 years. For a £500 computer that's the equivalent of being payed about £10 per hour to do a really hard job - watching adverts....

[John F]

its a scam, computer active have a list of the T&C and its going to cost between £500-600 on telephone calls their isp is not a normal dial up number.

[uczmeg]

I don't think you have to use their dial-up at all, I'm positive I read that you could use your broadband connection.

The adverts are provided on CD each month, not downloaded.

I can well believe there is a catch somewhere, but I'm not sure this is it.

Cheers
Marc

[General Skanky]

I agree. You can use your own isp.

I too have been looking for the catch. Just waiting for someone here to be the guinea pig.

[uczmeg]

I signed up when this first came about.

I'm happy to take a look at it.

Not totaly convinced it will ever arrive though...

Cheers
Marc

[General Skanky]

It's the sort of thing to get national news coverage. Free pc. Unheard of really.

I hope it does come to fruition, it's essentially a bloody good idea.

I'd agree that it isn't a £800 pc. But still free. That's the keyword. (Assuming no catch of course).

[uczmeg]

It states minimun spec. That probably was closer to an £800 PC at the time everyone started talking about it.

If it doesn't come for a few more months then it will be hard to get a PC that slow...

Cheers
Marc

[General Skanky]

You can have mine.

[jag1967]

Check out a brief write up at The Register (a solid source for tech news). Concludes that it won't last.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/51/34509.html

[General Skanky]

The glaring point was the 'type' of people , read demographic, which are most likely to want it, and by their very nature are the least likely to be of use to the advertisers! Unless I read that wrong of course.

[Dystran]

Ive no idea - but I can say that i applied for a similar offer a while ago (in the uk)

You got a decent PC or £100 - all you did was fill in a market research questionaire every month and email it to them, The questionarie took 30-40 minutes, and you had to do it for 2 years (ie 24 questionaires over the 24 month period.

The firm went belly up - only because of a legal technicality - i still got my PC though, and kept it! yay

It kind of makes sense though. If you go to a market research event for an hour, you get paid about £15-£20. Multiply that by 24 and thats most of the PC paid for. Plus they didnt need to hire a room, pay for someone to run a market research debate, and by having the PC with the consumers they can almost guarantee that they will get the information they need.

Was a good idea, the information gained was sold to large organisations. It failed though in the end as it was closed down due to legal technicalities.