They must have played paintball with my friends, then. When I first got into paintball in Jr. High, I played with friends on our own property. We determined the rules, which involved a fair bit of chivalry. For instance, only firing from certain distances and other "don't be a dick" type rules. If you broke those rules, there was usually an argument and if you kept breaking those rules you might not be invited to play next time. We had one "friend" who was a habitual offender (a.k.a. an asshole). We eventually stopped inviting him. But if you go play at a commercial paintball place, it's a completely different story. Yes there are rules, but they are set by the operators/referees. These rules are also much more cut and dry and don't necessarily penalize someone who is just being dick. Also, you have to be caught by the referee. You are usually on the same team as your friends and you are against strangers. If a stranger is being an asshole, your team may bitch about it, but the opposing team will back-up their own player, and there's nothing really to stop that person from continuing to be an asshole if he's not breaking any specific rules. The same goes for online gaming. At a LAN party with friends, you might not take the cheap shots (re-spawn camping) or even cheats, lest you be ostracised from the group. Among strangers, you might take the cheap shots or take advantage of cheats, just because you can. You don't care if you piss off the anonymous opponent, or even anonymous teammate because it has no bearing on your social life.
You missed some important differentiating details about those ads and amount of content. Apple has only one ad and it is very clear. There is a specific call to action (sign up) and additional points on why this action should be taken. The remaining content, while there isn't much of it, is clearly displayed and is inviting. Microsoft's, on the other hand, had multiple ads, but two of which you couldn't see without user interaction. The content below was too busy and too boring (just small text links), which makes the user ask, "Why should I bother reading through these links, let alone click on one of them?". It's not about an Ad:Content ratio, it's about how the ads/content are displayed and what is expected of the user. I recently worked on a project that involved a lot of web page design from a wireframing/layout perspective (rather than the "ooh shiny!" perspective). What I learned from this experience is that you need to be very clear on what you expect the user to do upon visiting the site. That usually means keeping it simple. If the user is unsure what they are suppose to do or every feel lost or like the information they need is not at this site or on this page, you've lost them. I've used Microfts site from time to time and it's always a horrible experience. Something I was thinking about today when I was on their MSDN site. I always find it impossible to find what I need. With msdn.com I've figured out where I need to go by now, but the first few times were painful. I want to find where to download MS software and product keys (for example, a copy of Windows 7), so the first thing I do is click on the big "Downloads" menu. Bzzzt! Wrong! To download software, I don't go to the main downloads page I go to a separate link found in my account information box all the way over on the right side of the page. Even just finding normal free consumer software from their main microsoft.com page is impossible to find. When you think you found where the download link is, you are hit with marketing crap, but no link to download. I always have to do a search to find it. User's don't want to search, they want to browse.
The purpose is not practical. I'm not sure many here at Slashdot are familiar with these companies. The tours have nothing to do with ducks. It is simply a city tour on amphibious vehicles. You can find one in any major city that has some body of water. First you get a guided tour of the city streets, then you drive into the water and get a guided tour of the water (i.e. harbour, river, etc.). If you see a duck during the tour, it is purely coincidental. The duck name only comes from the amphibious style of the vehicle and tour. While I'm unsure about the duck call itself, the competitor is clearly ripping off the original. I would be mad if they were suing because the competitor also uses amphibious vehicles, but the competitor has completely stolen the duck oriented branding and experience. Now if instead the competitor chose frogs or otters or something, then that would be fine, but most people don't know the real name of the original company. All they know is "those stupid duck tours with the annoying duck calls that are always in my way". That's the only brand identity they have and the competitor is clearly stealing it. The duck call itself is just a tactic they have chosen to legally do something about it.
For an out-of-the-box MythTV product, check out this company: http://mythic.tv/index.php/dragon-v2-0.html. They essentially make a MythTV appliance. Even still, a lot of the MythTV focused linux distros are making a MythTV build more of an appliance experience. KnoppMyth, MythDora, and MythBuntu are all good options that allow you to get a MythTV system up and running in very little time. Personally, I use MythDora, and it has really made upgrading my MythTV system much easier. I used first install Fedora, and then install all of the packages on top, and then configure everything. Early on it was full day affair. Now you can go from a blank hard drive to watching tv in less than an hour. You don't really have to "roll your own" with MythTV anymore. You might also have luck with some of the other DIY DVR/Media Center solutinos like Windows Media Center, SageTV, ReplayTV, etc. Not familiar with those too much so can't comment on how they compare to MythTV.
Honestly, though, I am having a harder time justifying spending the time and money on my MythTV system from a DVR standpoint. As I see it, the DVR is really just a short term way of "hacking" live tv until we can we have a good on-demand solution. Every day we seem to get closer and closer to not needing live tv at all. Between Netflix Instant Watch, Hulu, all of the TV network's own sites, and more and more Internet only content, why pay for live tv anymore if you have a decent internet connection. But I'm not about to throw out my hardware just yet. I see my MythTV system slowly migrating to something more like Boxee. Where instead of recording shows, I stream TV from multiple internet sources through a common interface that can be controlled easily from my couch.
When I finally upgraded my work computer to have Office 2007, I was having a hard time at first, but soon I came to like the new PowerPoint a lot. At this time I was doing a lot of work in PowerPoint, so it's where I got the most exposure. The main reasons I liked it were the improvements in functionality of the tools themselves and some of the new tools. Smart Art is convenient, positioning objects is much smoother, auto-formatting of slides is smarter. I can whip up a very nice looking presentation without a lot of thought about formatting. Things are pleasing to the eye without having to study color theory first, because MS did the color theory part for you with their pre-defined color schemes that have consistent values, densities and complimentary colors. Word and Excel improved on their "intelligence" too. For instance, bullets and numbering just happens instead of it being an explicit instruction. However, when it comes to ribbon, I am torn.
In PowerPoint, the ribbon works. The reason for this is that the tools you use are very task specific. If I am inserting a picture, there is a certain set of tools that I always will use with a picture, but will rarely ever use with any other task. That way, the tools I need are right in front of me, and the tools I don't are hidden. However, in Word and Excel, the tools are not as task specific and the definition of what task I'm working on is very unclear. Furthermore, the tools used are not always perfectly described by an icon, which means it becomes very hard to find what you're looking for. This is especially the case in Excel, where ther are just so many tools available to you that turning everything into an icon on a ribbon just makes it impossible to find what you're looking for.
But the more I think about it, every time I switch back to older versions of Office, I don't miss the ribbon, I miss the other improvements. I can find may way around just as fast, if not faster in the old style than with the ribbon, and I've gotten pretty used to the ribbon now. While the new UI is completely bad, it really does not improve things overall the way it claims. Like I said, PowerPoint seems to be a good fit, but even still, I get by just fine with the old style.
I will second your disagreemnt on the bachelor party. As someone who has been married only 2 months now, I have lived through the fall-out from my bachelor party. I got in big trouble after my bachelor party. I was not unfaithful, I behaved myself. I had strippers at my party, but my fiance said she was ok with it (she had stippers at her party). The reality is, women are insecure. She says she's ok with it, but she's really not. She even thinks she's ok with it (i.e. this is not one of those tests, she really does want you to go out and have a good time), but when the reality of it all hits, she can't deal with it. But as I learned in talking to friends and colleagues who were already married, it's not just about whether you saw strippers or not. If there is one take-away to remember it is simply that no matter what happens, no matter what you do, you are going to be in the dog house the next day. You could be on your best behavior. Your bachelor party could consist of going to church. You are still going to get in trouble. You didn't do anything wrong, but you're in trouble. A colleague of mine had a fairly tame bachelor party that just consisted of going to dinner and some bars. Someone took a picture of him with another girl. His wife saw the picture and was pissed. Make no mistake, nothing happened with that girl. She was a random girl that posed for a picture, no hook-ups or anything, but he still got in trouble. The only sure fire way to not get in trouble is to not have a bachelor party at all. But what's the fun in that. This is really your last opportunity to go out and have a ridiculous night out with the boys. Mine was incredible and I know my buddies and I will be laughing our asses off about that night when we're in our eighties. But now that I'm married, I won't be striving for a repeat performance. That is a sure fire way to get yourself divorced, or at the very least a firm kick in the groin.
While it is true that some of these "staged faults" are a little out of the ordinary (your PATA ribbon being a good example), the RAM reseat IS very easy to identify even if it's unlikely to happen without human intervention. If a RAM module is not seated properly (or missing), the system will not boot at all, it will not get past POST. All you get is a series of beep codes. This immediatly points to a hardware issue and the beep codes indicate which piece of hardware is the likely culprit. Any computer repair tech should be familiar with this scenario and with what the beep codes mean. If they get a beep code indicating a memory issue, the first thing you are going to do is open up the machine and look at the RAM modules. In fact most troubleshooting guides specifically tell you to reseat the RAM as the first step.
But even if you can still argue that reseating the RAM is not obvious, the fact of the matter is that every single one of technicians in this expose immediately identified the issue and fixed it on the first try. Clearly it was not a tricky issue for them. The unscrupulous behavior came afterwards. Even though they fixed it, they made up motherboard problems, stole private data, and on one occasion sabatoged the computer by soldering a short into the motherboard! None of those activities have anything to do with technical competency, it's all moral competency.
With paying for the game, your wife at least has a reasonable objection, but I get nasty glares just for playing the games, even the ones my wife bought me (TF2/Portal was the best birthday ever!). She doesn't like competing with a game for my attention, and she finds watching me play Guitar Hero (FretsOnFire actually) incredibly irritating. Everytime I puck up the keyboard on our MythTV system I get "the stare". "No, I'm not going to play Guitar Hero, I'm fixing the NFS issue! Can't I just geek out in peace?!"
Now when people start to tell me directions I just tune out and know I'll just do what the gps says
Stop doing that! Seriously! When I say "The GPS will take you the wrong way, please follow my directions," for the love of god FOLLOW MY DIRECTIONS! I can't tell you how many times I've been held up by someone who followed their GPS when I specifically told them not to and now we are late for whatever it is we're doing. It's one thing relying on GPS if you have no local knowledge and no one is providing local knowledge. Sure it might take longer, but you'll get there, and in the end that's what matters. But if someone gives you local knowledge, or is sitting in the car with you, please listen to them. One time my sister in-law was visiting and we were going to the zoo. She was about to punch in the address in the GPS, when I said "Don't bother, I know how to get there." She insisted on using the GPS. Well the GPS didn't know that the way it wanted to go was through one of the worst neighborhoods in the city, and it took us at least 20 mins. longer.
I also have a Storm and Google Maps works perfectly with the GPS. However, it didn't at first. Two things you need to check:
1. Is the GPS set to "Location On"?. By default, it is set to "E911 Only". To change it, go to Options > Advanced Options > GPS. Neither Google Maps nor Blackberry Maps can use the GPS to pin-point your location unless this setting is enabled.
2. Do you have the latest version of Google Maps installed? I can't get to the exact version number at the moment, but it wasn't until I upgraded the Google Maps software to a newer release that it could use the GPS to pinpoint my exact location. Previously, it would use cell tower triangulation, and even now, it will use triangulation until a GPS signal is found.
As an aside, the I had the same story as the poster before you. My wife and I had been considering getting a standalone GPS, since we both have to drive to unfamiliar locations often for work. Printing out maps from Google was a waste of paper and if you made a wrong turn, it was more difficult to figure out where you went wrong. At the same time I wanted to get a Blackberry for work. Verizon's buy 1 get 1 free deal meant we both got Storms with built in GPS. While a Garmin or TomTom's turn by turn directions would be more convenient, this gets the job done with no additional cost to us (we would have gotten the phones even without the GPS). We could sign up for VZ Navigator for an extra fee, but it does not seem worth it to us.
A lot of people are bashing the idea of smartphones taking over the GPS market. I'm not sure why. Today, smartphones don't match the power or the features of GPS units, especially for boating/hiking type uses, but that's not to say they won't tomorrow. Some uses will require GPS to be more integrated into the vehicle, which is fine. That's not what this article is talking about. The article is talking about the people who just want the extra assistance in driving to that unknown location or getting around in a new city.
Web apps work very well for certain applications, and Google has shown that they can push the limits with dynamic content, but that does not mean the web application is an appropriate model for every damned application
Isn't that the point of Chrome OS, though? If Google really felt that you should be doing everything as a web-app, then they would just keep pushing Chrome browser and you would not need an OS. The way I read it, Google made Chrome Browser for web-apps, and Chrome OS for everything else. If you want to run native applications, then go right ahead (assuming your application has been ported over). Or, if you don't like it, just don't use it. I don't like Windows, so I don't use it. It's that simple.
I really have to second this idea, but not just painkillers. Every medication has a label with extremely specific guidelines on how to take it (or not take it). Those labels go through painstaking copy review to make sure that the user has the tools to take the medication safely. But almost nobody reads them. For example, one day my wife missed two days of her birth control and didn't know what to do, so she was just going to come up with something on her own. I told her she should read the label and see what it says. She's been taking birth control for years and has never bother to read it. I read it and it said exactly what to do in every type of situation of missed pills at various points in the cycle and each situation had different instructions. It's a good thing I read it because she was planning on doing what was NOT recommended. While she wasn't in danger of overdose or anything like that, this type of drug messes around with your cycles which can cause a whole mess of uncomfortable issues or pregnancy (totally not ready for that). Everyone has been in a situation where they weren't sure what to do with their meds so they just guessed, but if they read the damn label it would tell them exactly what to do. Every time you get a new medication, sit down and read the label. It can be a surprisingly interesting read.
I agree air travel is not fun, but I think a lot of people put too much blame on TSA for that. Sure TSA sucks. They yell at you, they make you take your shoes off, and you have to wait in line. None of that I consider fun. But since I've started travelling at lot, most of my TSA frustrations have subsided. Simply because I learned the ins and outs of gettign through security efficiently without being hassled. But air travel still sucks big time. Unless you're in first class (which most regional flights don't even have), you are stuck in a tiny seat for hours on end. They don't serve meals anymore without charging you extra. They stopped showing movies on domestic flights for a lot of carriers. That's just the beginning of the misery. Probably the biggest pain in the fact that your flight will be delayed and if you it's an indirect flight you will miss your connection. If you're in no hurry, it's just a pain and you'll have to wait around more and feel compelled to buy more eight dollar beers from the terminal bar. If you need to get somewhere by a certain time, you are stressed and frustrated. For work it was always the worst. I generally took direct flights, but it sucks that you wont' make the important meeting you have and on the way back, all you want to do is be home with your loved one, but everything is keeping you from it. Two recent flying experiences to share:
A friend was getting married and I was an ussher. Thanks to the weather taking place at my connecting city, my plane couldn't take off. I missed my connection. I missed the rehearsal. It took me longer to fly than it would have been to drive, and here I was trying to save the "pain" of driving seven hours.
Coming back from vacation, just this past weekend. Incoming flight was 2 hours late, missed my connection. It was the last flight out that night. Ended up being put up in a Microtel overnight. If you never stayed in a Microtel before, I don't recommend it. We slept with our clothes on and would only get changed in the bathroom because that giant mirror behind the bed looked way too tinted. We flew home first thing in the morning, but we missed my nephews birthday party.
My point is that while TSA is a major pain, it's just a small pain in the overall flying experience and I think people lose site of that. If you don't get a random screening and you follow proper procedure (no matter how ridiculous those procedures are) you can zip through security very quickly without hassle. It's the rest you have to worry about,
I had the same 1 year free offer from my favorite hotel chain but declined. And this was when I was flying weekly. A couple reasons why I didn't. First, a Clear line was available at my destination airport, but not at my home airport. My destination was relatively small and rarely did it take me more than five minutes to get through the normal security line. At my home airport, I would have loved such a service. My normal terminal was packed with commuters like myself every Monday morning, and my terminal didn't offer an express line for those with elite status. The service was available where I didn't need it and wasn't available where I did need it. Second, in order to sign up for the service, they wanted both retina scans and all ten fingerprints. Not only was I a little uncomfortable giveing this amount of personal info to the government (assumed it was government, private company is sooo much worse though), but with weekly travel, I didn't really have the time or feel like taking the time to go to one of their facilities to have the information taken. Interestingly enough I was talking about this program last night with a colleague. He had signed up for it and loved it, but he was also flying out of a busy airport that provided the service. I don't understand why they rolled it out to the airports it did. Initially, most of the airports were small and really didn't need an express line, yet some of the biggest hubs in the country didn't have them. I just couldn't see the value until a much bigger roll-out. Looks like that won't be happening.
Same thing happened to me. Beginning of the week, they had the XPS M1530N with Ubuntu, but by the time I put the order in, they remvoed it from the Ubuntu offerings and I had to get a Windows one instead (for more money). Then I checked a minute ago to see if they had brought any models back, but the opposite is true, there are less models with Ubuntu than there was a month ago. It looks as if they are liquidating their Ubuntu inventory. Now all you can get is the XPS 1330N, a Dimmension desktop and their netbook. They came out so strong and had some great deals on Ubuntu machines, and now their just letting it die.
I think you are underestimating how quickly textbooks genuinely need replacing. You seem to assume that the estimated costs for text books for a year means replacing every book so that no student ever has to learn from a used book. I think it is safe to say that the California public schools have a pretty good handle on what books cost them on a yearly basis. Books fall apart. Brand new books fall apart. You are going to have to replace some. This costs money. Just estimating, but I suspect 60% of a batch of brand new books will make it four years before the are just unusable.
You should also reconsider your opinion on whether primary and secondary school textbooks need updating. A lot has changed in the past 20 years. For example:
History - Who discovered America? Outdated history books will tell you Christopher Columbus, end of story. Updated history books will mention the vikings. They may also have a better answer for how you can discover a continent that already has people on it.
Math - While math itself has not changed much, I imagine the methods for teaching it have changed quite a bit. This goes for every subject. Apparently the way I was taught how to do long division is no longer being taught.
Literature - Yes you are going to stick to SOME of the classics, but if a better book comes along, shouldn't that be taught instead? This is subjective, but the teachers have a lot of say in what gets read. Plus, going back to the replacement cost issue, small paperbacks probably have the shortest life-span of all.
Science - You say there have been no significant advances in science in the past 20 years that would warrant a change in the text books. Wow. That is impressive for a Slashdot user. Well a good place to start proving you wrong would be in astronomy. Pretty sure 20 years ago they were saying Pluto is the 9th planet. Not only that, but there are not other planets known outside of our solar system. Now, Pluto is not a planet and it is generally accepted that there are many planets outside of our solar system. When I was in 6th grade (I'm 25) my science textbook was already laughably out of date. In a chapter about computers, they were referred to as something we might be seeing more of in the future. It also predicted that in the future computers might be small enough to fit inside a briefcase. By this point, not only were laptops pretty common, but there was a desktop computer in almost every classroom. Luckily that book was replaced the following year. These are two examples, there are so many more.
The current use of Twitter is dumb and not remotely useful. In fact I find it to be one of the most narcissistic things on the web today. Do you really think people care what you are up to this exact minute? Because I certainly don't. But the use will evolve into something that is useful. I think blogs, the big brother of Twitter, is the perfect example. When blogs came out, they were usually referred to as online journals. Drama queens would post what would otherwise be their diary for all to see, going on and on about what happened that day as if the whole world was actually interested. And no one was interested, so we found a better use. Now people actually write blogs for intended audiences and they resemble something closer to journalism. Editorials on current events, reviews of products, restaurants, concerts, etc. All of a sudden people that actually had something to say that was worth listening to were using blogs and the medium gained some legitimacy. Twitter, and Twitter-like services, will do the same.
But even more importantly, I think Twitter itself is doomed. Not necessarily the communication style, but the site Twitter. The functionality of Twitter is already mimiced in Facebook and other social networking sites/applications. If If setting a facebook status is the same as tweeting, why would I sign up for yet another online service when I can manage all of my social tools from one place? Twitter does not offer anything else, which makes the service pretty limited. Furthermore, just like with Friendster and MySpace, the next social networking flavor of the month is going to come along that is much cooler and hipper and doesn't have people seen as uncool talking about it (I think when Larry King starts posting on Twitter, it's already lost its street cred.)
So my advice to Twitter (if these rumours are event true) is to sell to sell and sell fast. If you think you're worth 250M and there's a 700M offer, don't even think about it, just sell it, because your days are numbered. Just take the money and run. The only people who survived the dot.com boom and bust were the ones who came up with a great idea, sold to the first interrested buyer and moved on. The rest crashed and burned.
Yes Balmer did in fact say that the biggest competition to Windows on the desktop was priated Windows. However, he did not say that Linux was a blip. He actually ranked Linux as the 2nd biggest competition while OSX was interestingly considered to be a very small threat to Windows. This prompted lively discussion here on Slashdot. He had this to say [sort of paraphrasing], "They have a great product and an unbeatable price." This explains a lot about why they feel Linux is the next biggest threat and also is telling about how arrogant they are over there at MS. The fact that an operating system is free (as in beer) is a huge selling point, especially in the developing world. MS feels that when you take away price, Windows will still triumph over Linux. Also, since OSX is not free and there is not a lot of pirating of it either (lots of technical hurdles involved), price is always a factor and OSX must stand on merit alone.
To clarify, this is what Balmer thinks, not me. I agree with some of his points, that free is hard to compete with, but he is definitely over estimating how many people are choosing Windows on the grounds of quality. Most people choose Windows becuase they "have to". They are stuck using an application that is only on Windows or maybe they dont' realize that there are other operating systems you can put on your computer (most don't know what an operating system is). He assumes that everyone using Windows has made a definitive choice to use it because they think its a great OS, but the reality is that many of those users are unhappy with their "choice" and would "switch if they could". Take away lock-in and ignorance and all of a sudden the OS market gets flipped on its head.
I just checked Google Finance and it appears that as of market closing (4/29) all three major indexes (Dow, S&P500, Nasdaq) are all in the negatives. Dow being the least negative with -23% since 1999 and the S&P the worst with -36% over the same period. Generally I would agree with you about stocks being positive over the long term, but the market's been a real bitch lately. If you expand the scope to 20 years, your theory is definitely correct(averaging around +200%!!)
Well according to one of my college professors, the three countries that are known to commit the most corporate espionage are:
1) China
2) Japan
3) France
As far as I know, France is considered "west". Granted this is corporate espionage and not government espionage, but I would imagine there is some correlation.
I can second this. As someone who ran track and cross-country during all four years of high school, I can attest that your choice of running shoe is a very personal decision. Everyone's foot is different and everyone's running form is different. For me, I have fairly narrow feet, so that means Adidas, which had a relatively wide toe box, did not feel right. On the other hand, Nike and Asics generally fit slimmer, so to me, they fit very nicely. This would generate a level of brand loyalty, but it had nothing to do with commercials, marketing or even price. But even still, then you have to figure out if you over/under-pronate or not. I had what was considered a "normal" form, so i didn't need any kind of motion control, nor did I require special arch support or any other corrective action. I'm also fairly light, so cushioning wasn't an issue. This always directed me towards the much lighter shoes, while someone who weighed more, would go for more cushioning. Every time I went to buy a new pair of shoes, I would go it saying I loved my Asics, but every time the guy at the store (this was a running specialty store) ALWAYS made me try on at leat three or four different brands just to make sure. I always ended up chosing the Asics, but I always gave the other brands a serious look. To me it was all about how the shoe felt, not about the logo on the side.
The only exception to the "buy for feel" rule would be when it comes to Nike. I originally bought Nike because they felt the best, but the shoe wouldn't last all the way through the season and I would have "blow-outs" in the middle of a run. That's when I decided to find an alternative. Something that felt as good as the Nike, but wouldn't fall apart. The owner of the running store I go to once told me that most competitive runners hate Nike for that very reason, and even the ones who are sponsored by Nike, only wear them during high profile races when the sponsor is looking. Any other time, they wear the shoe that's right for them, whether that be Nike or some other brand.
I never unerstood the teams that all had the same shoes, who pretty much got a deal from a manufacturer or a sponsorship. There is no one shoe for everybody. Everyone on my team shopped at the same store and rarely did two of us have the same shoe.
In regards to barefoot running, I'm conflicted. On the one hand, when I raced, the shoes we wore were much like being barefoot. Very little padding, put you on your toes a little more. The whole point being weight reduction. You put them on and you feel faster. But we were always told NEVER to train in your racing shoes because they did not provide the support necessary and you were more prone to injury. Times I had left my racing shoes on and walked around in them for a while, I noticed my calves would get sore, so I assumed that it was bad for me. However, this would make sense because I always "heel striked" in my regular shoes, but these shoes put me up on the balls of my feet more, thus using my calves more. I was sore because I wasn't used to it, not because it was bad for me.
A lot of people have been posting this. The ad doesn't tell you what Linux actually is, just that it's gives you freedom. But that's OK. That's actually what makes it a good ad. It focuses on a single concept. The problem is not the ad itself, it's those that are focusing on a single ad and not thinking about a wider marketing campaign. Unless the product is very self explanatory, you don't introduce something new with a single ad, you serve up multiple ads, possibly with an overall theme, each one highlighting something different about the product. To be simple, look at Apple's ads. Note that I use the plural form of ad. Each one talks about one thing. "Ease of use" is one ad. "No viruses" is another ad. "Interoperabilty" is another. They don't do this all in one ad, its impossible. Some of the entries tried to do this and it failed miserably. You only have thirty seconds to get your point across. Say too much and no one will get it.
So this is only the beginning of a campaign. It's the initial buzz creator. It gets people asking the questiong "what is this linux thing?". Some will go look it up, but they don't have to, because your next ads are coming out that go deeper. They use the same overall style, but instead of talking about freedom, they talk about security, or reliability, or open standards, or whatever. There's a lot of reasons Linux is great, but you have to pick only one reason per ad.
You really nailed the point of the commercial, which kinda makes this whole price/spec comparison irrelevent. The fact of the matter is that if you want to buy a laptop for under $1000 with a screen bigger than 13" (In the ad she mentions she found a sub-1k mac, but it had a 13" screen), then you are not going to find it at the Apple store. The only way you can argue with this ad is if you can find a 17" Macbook for under $1000. And you can't. That's what makes this ad so effective. It really does speak to the budget conscious consumer (and these days, who isn't). The difference between a $2000 Mac and $2000 Dell (or whatever) does not matter if you can't afford either.
After a long string of dud ads from Microsoft, I think they finally found a winner. While it doesn't have the hipness or humor of the "I'm a Mac/PC" ads, it gets a very clear message across (There's no inexpensive Macs) using a relatable character (budget conscious consumer that is around college age) and even takes the whole coolness of the mac down a knotch with her sarcastic "I guess I'm not cool enough to own a Mac" comment. I can see remixes of this ad where we see another person (maybe of a slightly different demographic with slightly different needs) takes on the same challenge, but this time does the shopping online through Dell (just so Best Buy and HP aren't the only ones featured). It may not have as much lasting power as some of Apple's ads, but it should serve its purpose well.
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They must have played paintball with my friends, then. When I first got into paintball in Jr. High, I played with friends on our own property. We determined the rules, which involved a fair bit of chivalry. For instance, only firing from certain distances and other "don't be a dick" type rules. If you broke those rules, there was usually an argument and if you kept breaking those rules you might not be invited to play next time. We had one "friend" who was a habitual offender (a.k.a. an asshole). We eventually stopped inviting him. But if you go play at a commercial paintball place, it's a completely different story. Yes there are rules, but they are set by the operators/referees. These rules are also much more cut and dry and don't necessarily penalize someone who is just being dick. Also, you have to be caught by the referee. You are usually on the same team as your friends and you are against strangers. If a stranger is being an asshole, your team may bitch about it, but the opposing team will back-up their own player, and there's nothing really to stop that person from continuing to be an asshole if he's not breaking any specific rules. The same goes for online gaming. At a LAN party with friends, you might not take the cheap shots (re-spawn camping) or even cheats, lest you be ostracised from the group. Among strangers, you might take the cheap shots or take advantage of cheats, just because you can. You don't care if you piss off the anonymous opponent, or even anonymous teammate because it has no bearing on your social life.
You missed some important differentiating details about those ads and amount of content. Apple has only one ad and it is very clear. There is a specific call to action (sign up) and additional points on why this action should be taken. The remaining content, while there isn't much of it, is clearly displayed and is inviting. Microsoft's, on the other hand, had multiple ads, but two of which you couldn't see without user interaction. The content below was too busy and too boring (just small text links), which makes the user ask, "Why should I bother reading through these links, let alone click on one of them?". It's not about an Ad:Content ratio, it's about how the ads/content are displayed and what is expected of the user. I recently worked on a project that involved a lot of web page design from a wireframing/layout perspective (rather than the "ooh shiny!" perspective). What I learned from this experience is that you need to be very clear on what you expect the user to do upon visiting the site. That usually means keeping it simple. If the user is unsure what they are suppose to do or every feel lost or like the information they need is not at this site or on this page, you've lost them. I've used Microfts site from time to time and it's always a horrible experience. Something I was thinking about today when I was on their MSDN site. I always find it impossible to find what I need. With msdn.com I've figured out where I need to go by now, but the first few times were painful. I want to find where to download MS software and product keys (for example, a copy of Windows 7), so the first thing I do is click on the big "Downloads" menu. Bzzzt! Wrong! To download software, I don't go to the main downloads page I go to a separate link found in my account information box all the way over on the right side of the page. Even just finding normal free consumer software from their main microsoft.com page is impossible to find. When you think you found where the download link is, you are hit with marketing crap, but no link to download. I always have to do a search to find it. User's don't want to search, they want to browse.
The purpose is not practical. I'm not sure many here at Slashdot are familiar with these companies. The tours have nothing to do with ducks. It is simply a city tour on amphibious vehicles. You can find one in any major city that has some body of water. First you get a guided tour of the city streets, then you drive into the water and get a guided tour of the water (i.e. harbour, river, etc.). If you see a duck during the tour, it is purely coincidental. The duck name only comes from the amphibious style of the vehicle and tour. While I'm unsure about the duck call itself, the competitor is clearly ripping off the original. I would be mad if they were suing because the competitor also uses amphibious vehicles, but the competitor has completely stolen the duck oriented branding and experience. Now if instead the competitor chose frogs or otters or something, then that would be fine, but most people don't know the real name of the original company. All they know is "those stupid duck tours with the annoying duck calls that are always in my way". That's the only brand identity they have and the competitor is clearly stealing it. The duck call itself is just a tactic they have chosen to legally do something about it.
For an out-of-the-box MythTV product, check out this company: http://mythic.tv/index.php/dragon-v2-0.html. They essentially make a MythTV appliance. Even still, a lot of the MythTV focused linux distros are making a MythTV build more of an appliance experience. KnoppMyth, MythDora, and MythBuntu are all good options that allow you to get a MythTV system up and running in very little time. Personally, I use MythDora, and it has really made upgrading my MythTV system much easier. I used first install Fedora, and then install all of the packages on top, and then configure everything. Early on it was full day affair. Now you can go from a blank hard drive to watching tv in less than an hour. You don't really have to "roll your own" with MythTV anymore. You might also have luck with some of the other DIY DVR/Media Center solutinos like Windows Media Center, SageTV, ReplayTV, etc. Not familiar with those too much so can't comment on how they compare to MythTV.
Honestly, though, I am having a harder time justifying spending the time and money on my MythTV system from a DVR standpoint. As I see it, the DVR is really just a short term way of "hacking" live tv until we can we have a good on-demand solution. Every day we seem to get closer and closer to not needing live tv at all. Between Netflix Instant Watch, Hulu, all of the TV network's own sites, and more and more Internet only content, why pay for live tv anymore if you have a decent internet connection. But I'm not about to throw out my hardware just yet. I see my MythTV system slowly migrating to something more like Boxee. Where instead of recording shows, I stream TV from multiple internet sources through a common interface that can be controlled easily from my couch.
Bills in someone's nose is nothing. I'm more concerned about where all of the pennies have been
When I finally upgraded my work computer to have Office 2007, I was having a hard time at first, but soon I came to like the new PowerPoint a lot. At this time I was doing a lot of work in PowerPoint, so it's where I got the most exposure. The main reasons I liked it were the improvements in functionality of the tools themselves and some of the new tools. Smart Art is convenient, positioning objects is much smoother, auto-formatting of slides is smarter. I can whip up a very nice looking presentation without a lot of thought about formatting. Things are pleasing to the eye without having to study color theory first, because MS did the color theory part for you with their pre-defined color schemes that have consistent values, densities and complimentary colors. Word and Excel improved on their "intelligence" too. For instance, bullets and numbering just happens instead of it being an explicit instruction. However, when it comes to ribbon, I am torn.
In PowerPoint, the ribbon works. The reason for this is that the tools you use are very task specific. If I am inserting a picture, there is a certain set of tools that I always will use with a picture, but will rarely ever use with any other task. That way, the tools I need are right in front of me, and the tools I don't are hidden. However, in Word and Excel, the tools are not as task specific and the definition of what task I'm working on is very unclear. Furthermore, the tools used are not always perfectly described by an icon, which means it becomes very hard to find what you're looking for. This is especially the case in Excel, where ther are just so many tools available to you that turning everything into an icon on a ribbon just makes it impossible to find what you're looking for.
But the more I think about it, every time I switch back to older versions of Office, I don't miss the ribbon, I miss the other improvements. I can find may way around just as fast, if not faster in the old style than with the ribbon, and I've gotten pretty used to the ribbon now. While the new UI is completely bad, it really does not improve things overall the way it claims. Like I said, PowerPoint seems to be a good fit, but even still, I get by just fine with the old style.
I will second your disagreemnt on the bachelor party. As someone who has been married only 2 months now, I have lived through the fall-out from my bachelor party. I got in big trouble after my bachelor party. I was not unfaithful, I behaved myself. I had strippers at my party, but my fiance said she was ok with it (she had stippers at her party). The reality is, women are insecure. She says she's ok with it, but she's really not. She even thinks she's ok with it (i.e. this is not one of those tests, she really does want you to go out and have a good time), but when the reality of it all hits, she can't deal with it. But as I learned in talking to friends and colleagues who were already married, it's not just about whether you saw strippers or not. If there is one take-away to remember it is simply that no matter what happens, no matter what you do, you are going to be in the dog house the next day. You could be on your best behavior. Your bachelor party could consist of going to church. You are still going to get in trouble. You didn't do anything wrong, but you're in trouble. A colleague of mine had a fairly tame bachelor party that just consisted of going to dinner and some bars. Someone took a picture of him with another girl. His wife saw the picture and was pissed. Make no mistake, nothing happened with that girl. She was a random girl that posed for a picture, no hook-ups or anything, but he still got in trouble. The only sure fire way to not get in trouble is to not have a bachelor party at all. But what's the fun in that. This is really your last opportunity to go out and have a ridiculous night out with the boys. Mine was incredible and I know my buddies and I will be laughing our asses off about that night when we're in our eighties. But now that I'm married, I won't be striving for a repeat performance. That is a sure fire way to get yourself divorced, or at the very least a firm kick in the groin.
While it is true that some of these "staged faults" are a little out of the ordinary (your PATA ribbon being a good example), the RAM reseat IS very easy to identify even if it's unlikely to happen without human intervention. If a RAM module is not seated properly (or missing), the system will not boot at all, it will not get past POST. All you get is a series of beep codes. This immediatly points to a hardware issue and the beep codes indicate which piece of hardware is the likely culprit. Any computer repair tech should be familiar with this scenario and with what the beep codes mean. If they get a beep code indicating a memory issue, the first thing you are going to do is open up the machine and look at the RAM modules. In fact most troubleshooting guides specifically tell you to reseat the RAM as the first step.
But even if you can still argue that reseating the RAM is not obvious, the fact of the matter is that every single one of technicians in this expose immediately identified the issue and fixed it on the first try. Clearly it was not a tricky issue for them. The unscrupulous behavior came afterwards. Even though they fixed it, they made up motherboard problems, stole private data, and on one occasion sabatoged the computer by soldering a short into the motherboard! None of those activities have anything to do with technical competency, it's all moral competency.
With paying for the game, your wife at least has a reasonable objection, but I get nasty glares just for playing the games, even the ones my wife bought me (TF2/Portal was the best birthday ever!). She doesn't like competing with a game for my attention, and she finds watching me play Guitar Hero (FretsOnFire actually) incredibly irritating. Everytime I puck up the keyboard on our MythTV system I get "the stare". "No, I'm not going to play Guitar Hero, I'm fixing the NFS issue! Can't I just geek out in peace?!"
Stop doing that! Seriously! When I say "The GPS will take you the wrong way, please follow my directions," for the love of god FOLLOW MY DIRECTIONS! I can't tell you how many times I've been held up by someone who followed their GPS when I specifically told them not to and now we are late for whatever it is we're doing. It's one thing relying on GPS if you have no local knowledge and no one is providing local knowledge. Sure it might take longer, but you'll get there, and in the end that's what matters. But if someone gives you local knowledge, or is sitting in the car with you, please listen to them. One time my sister in-law was visiting and we were going to the zoo. She was about to punch in the address in the GPS, when I said "Don't bother, I know how to get there." She insisted on using the GPS. Well the GPS didn't know that the way it wanted to go was through one of the worst neighborhoods in the city, and it took us at least 20 mins. longer.
I also have a Storm and Google Maps works perfectly with the GPS. However, it didn't at first. Two things you need to check:
1. Is the GPS set to "Location On"?. By default, it is set to "E911 Only". To change it, go to Options > Advanced Options > GPS. Neither Google Maps nor Blackberry Maps can use the GPS to pin-point your location unless this setting is enabled.
2. Do you have the latest version of Google Maps installed? I can't get to the exact version number at the moment, but it wasn't until I upgraded the Google Maps software to a newer release that it could use the GPS to pinpoint my exact location. Previously, it would use cell tower triangulation, and even now, it will use triangulation until a GPS signal is found.
As an aside, the I had the same story as the poster before you. My wife and I had been considering getting a standalone GPS, since we both have to drive to unfamiliar locations often for work. Printing out maps from Google was a waste of paper and if you made a wrong turn, it was more difficult to figure out where you went wrong. At the same time I wanted to get a Blackberry for work. Verizon's buy 1 get 1 free deal meant we both got Storms with built in GPS. While a Garmin or TomTom's turn by turn directions would be more convenient, this gets the job done with no additional cost to us (we would have gotten the phones even without the GPS). We could sign up for VZ Navigator for an extra fee, but it does not seem worth it to us.
A lot of people are bashing the idea of smartphones taking over the GPS market. I'm not sure why. Today, smartphones don't match the power or the features of GPS units, especially for boating/hiking type uses, but that's not to say they won't tomorrow. Some uses will require GPS to be more integrated into the vehicle, which is fine. That's not what this article is talking about. The article is talking about the people who just want the extra assistance in driving to that unknown location or getting around in a new city.
Isn't that the point of Chrome OS, though? If Google really felt that you should be doing everything as a web-app, then they would just keep pushing Chrome browser and you would not need an OS. The way I read it, Google made Chrome Browser for web-apps, and Chrome OS for everything else. If you want to run native applications, then go right ahead (assuming your application has been ported over). Or, if you don't like it, just don't use it. I don't like Windows, so I don't use it. It's that simple.
I really have to second this idea, but not just painkillers. Every medication has a label with extremely specific guidelines on how to take it (or not take it). Those labels go through painstaking copy review to make sure that the user has the tools to take the medication safely. But almost nobody reads them. For example, one day my wife missed two days of her birth control and didn't know what to do, so she was just going to come up with something on her own. I told her she should read the label and see what it says. She's been taking birth control for years and has never bother to read it. I read it and it said exactly what to do in every type of situation of missed pills at various points in the cycle and each situation had different instructions. It's a good thing I read it because she was planning on doing what was NOT recommended. While she wasn't in danger of overdose or anything like that, this type of drug messes around with your cycles which can cause a whole mess of uncomfortable issues or pregnancy (totally not ready for that). Everyone has been in a situation where they weren't sure what to do with their meds so they just guessed, but if they read the damn label it would tell them exactly what to do. Every time you get a new medication, sit down and read the label. It can be a surprisingly interesting read.
I agree air travel is not fun, but I think a lot of people put too much blame on TSA for that. Sure TSA sucks. They yell at you, they make you take your shoes off, and you have to wait in line. None of that I consider fun. But since I've started travelling at lot, most of my TSA frustrations have subsided. Simply because I learned the ins and outs of gettign through security efficiently without being hassled. But air travel still sucks big time. Unless you're in first class (which most regional flights don't even have), you are stuck in a tiny seat for hours on end. They don't serve meals anymore without charging you extra. They stopped showing movies on domestic flights for a lot of carriers. That's just the beginning of the misery. Probably the biggest pain in the fact that your flight will be delayed and if you it's an indirect flight you will miss your connection. If you're in no hurry, it's just a pain and you'll have to wait around more and feel compelled to buy more eight dollar beers from the terminal bar. If you need to get somewhere by a certain time, you are stressed and frustrated. For work it was always the worst. I generally took direct flights, but it sucks that you wont' make the important meeting you have and on the way back, all you want to do is be home with your loved one, but everything is keeping you from it. Two recent flying experiences to share:
A friend was getting married and I was an ussher. Thanks to the weather taking place at my connecting city, my plane couldn't take off. I missed my connection. I missed the rehearsal. It took me longer to fly than it would have been to drive, and here I was trying to save the "pain" of driving seven hours.
Coming back from vacation, just this past weekend. Incoming flight was 2 hours late, missed my connection. It was the last flight out that night. Ended up being put up in a Microtel overnight. If you never stayed in a Microtel before, I don't recommend it. We slept with our clothes on and would only get changed in the bathroom because that giant mirror behind the bed looked way too tinted. We flew home first thing in the morning, but we missed my nephews birthday party.
My point is that while TSA is a major pain, it's just a small pain in the overall flying experience and I think people lose site of that. If you don't get a random screening and you follow proper procedure (no matter how ridiculous those procedures are) you can zip through security very quickly without hassle. It's the rest you have to worry about,
I had the same 1 year free offer from my favorite hotel chain but declined. And this was when I was flying weekly. A couple reasons why I didn't. First, a Clear line was available at my destination airport, but not at my home airport. My destination was relatively small and rarely did it take me more than five minutes to get through the normal security line. At my home airport, I would have loved such a service. My normal terminal was packed with commuters like myself every Monday morning, and my terminal didn't offer an express line for those with elite status. The service was available where I didn't need it and wasn't available where I did need it. Second, in order to sign up for the service, they wanted both retina scans and all ten fingerprints. Not only was I a little uncomfortable giveing this amount of personal info to the government (assumed it was government, private company is sooo much worse though), but with weekly travel, I didn't really have the time or feel like taking the time to go to one of their facilities to have the information taken. Interestingly enough I was talking about this program last night with a colleague. He had signed up for it and loved it, but he was also flying out of a busy airport that provided the service. I don't understand why they rolled it out to the airports it did. Initially, most of the airports were small and really didn't need an express line, yet some of the biggest hubs in the country didn't have them. I just couldn't see the value until a much bigger roll-out. Looks like that won't be happening.
Same thing happened to me. Beginning of the week, they had the XPS M1530N with Ubuntu, but by the time I put the order in, they remvoed it from the Ubuntu offerings and I had to get a Windows one instead (for more money). Then I checked a minute ago to see if they had brought any models back, but the opposite is true, there are less models with Ubuntu than there was a month ago. It looks as if they are liquidating their Ubuntu inventory. Now all you can get is the XPS 1330N, a Dimmension desktop and their netbook. They came out so strong and had some great deals on Ubuntu machines, and now their just letting it die.
Who didn't cry at the end of that one!? I get a little misty just thinking about it.
I think you are underestimating how quickly textbooks genuinely need replacing. You seem to assume that the estimated costs for text books for a year means replacing every book so that no student ever has to learn from a used book. I think it is safe to say that the California public schools have a pretty good handle on what books cost them on a yearly basis. Books fall apart. Brand new books fall apart. You are going to have to replace some. This costs money. Just estimating, but I suspect 60% of a batch of brand new books will make it four years before the are just unusable.
You should also reconsider your opinion on whether primary and secondary school textbooks need updating. A lot has changed in the past 20 years. For example:
History - Who discovered America? Outdated history books will tell you Christopher Columbus, end of story. Updated history books will mention the vikings. They may also have a better answer for how you can discover a continent that already has people on it.
Math - While math itself has not changed much, I imagine the methods for teaching it have changed quite a bit. This goes for every subject. Apparently the way I was taught how to do long division is no longer being taught.
Literature - Yes you are going to stick to SOME of the classics, but if a better book comes along, shouldn't that be taught instead? This is subjective, but the teachers have a lot of say in what gets read. Plus, going back to the replacement cost issue, small paperbacks probably have the shortest life-span of all.
Science - You say there have been no significant advances in science in the past 20 years that would warrant a change in the text books. Wow. That is impressive for a Slashdot user. Well a good place to start proving you wrong would be in astronomy. Pretty sure 20 years ago they were saying Pluto is the 9th planet. Not only that, but there are not other planets known outside of our solar system. Now, Pluto is not a planet and it is generally accepted that there are many planets outside of our solar system. When I was in 6th grade (I'm 25) my science textbook was already laughably out of date. In a chapter about computers, they were referred to as something we might be seeing more of in the future. It also predicted that in the future computers might be small enough to fit inside a briefcase. By this point, not only were laptops pretty common, but there was a desktop computer in almost every classroom. Luckily that book was replaced the following year. These are two examples, there are so many more.
The current use of Twitter is dumb and not remotely useful. In fact I find it to be one of the most narcissistic things on the web today. Do you really think people care what you are up to this exact minute? Because I certainly don't. But the use will evolve into something that is useful. I think blogs, the big brother of Twitter, is the perfect example. When blogs came out, they were usually referred to as online journals. Drama queens would post what would otherwise be their diary for all to see, going on and on about what happened that day as if the whole world was actually interested. And no one was interested, so we found a better use. Now people actually write blogs for intended audiences and they resemble something closer to journalism. Editorials on current events, reviews of products, restaurants, concerts, etc. All of a sudden people that actually had something to say that was worth listening to were using blogs and the medium gained some legitimacy. Twitter, and Twitter-like services, will do the same.
But even more importantly, I think Twitter itself is doomed. Not necessarily the communication style, but the site Twitter. The functionality of Twitter is already mimiced in Facebook and other social networking sites/applications. If If setting a facebook status is the same as tweeting, why would I sign up for yet another online service when I can manage all of my social tools from one place? Twitter does not offer anything else, which makes the service pretty limited. Furthermore, just like with Friendster and MySpace, the next social networking flavor of the month is going to come along that is much cooler and hipper and doesn't have people seen as uncool talking about it (I think when Larry King starts posting on Twitter, it's already lost its street cred.)
So my advice to Twitter (if these rumours are event true) is to sell to sell and sell fast. If you think you're worth 250M and there's a 700M offer, don't even think about it, just sell it, because your days are numbered. Just take the money and run. The only people who survived the dot.com boom and bust were the ones who came up with a great idea, sold to the first interrested buyer and moved on. The rest crashed and burned.
Yes Balmer did in fact say that the biggest competition to Windows on the desktop was priated Windows. However, he did not say that Linux was a blip. He actually ranked Linux as the 2nd biggest competition while OSX was interestingly considered to be a very small threat to Windows. This prompted lively discussion here on Slashdot. He had this to say [sort of paraphrasing], "They have a great product and an unbeatable price." This explains a lot about why they feel Linux is the next biggest threat and also is telling about how arrogant they are over there at MS. The fact that an operating system is free (as in beer) is a huge selling point, especially in the developing world. MS feels that when you take away price, Windows will still triumph over Linux. Also, since OSX is not free and there is not a lot of pirating of it either (lots of technical hurdles involved), price is always a factor and OSX must stand on merit alone.
To clarify, this is what Balmer thinks, not me. I agree with some of his points, that free is hard to compete with, but he is definitely over estimating how many people are choosing Windows on the grounds of quality. Most people choose Windows becuase they "have to". They are stuck using an application that is only on Windows or maybe they dont' realize that there are other operating systems you can put on your computer (most don't know what an operating system is). He assumes that everyone using Windows has made a definitive choice to use it because they think its a great OS, but the reality is that many of those users are unhappy with their "choice" and would "switch if they could". Take away lock-in and ignorance and all of a sudden the OS market gets flipped on its head.
I just checked Google Finance and it appears that as of market closing (4/29) all three major indexes (Dow, S&P500, Nasdaq) are all in the negatives. Dow being the least negative with -23% since 1999 and the S&P the worst with -36% over the same period. Generally I would agree with you about stocks being positive over the long term, but the market's been a real bitch lately. If you expand the scope to 20 years, your theory is definitely correct(averaging around +200%!!)
Well according to one of my college professors, the three countries that are known to commit the most corporate espionage are:
1) China
2) Japan
3) France
As far as I know, France is considered "west". Granted this is corporate espionage and not government espionage, but I would imagine there is some correlation.
I can second this. As someone who ran track and cross-country during all four years of high school, I can attest that your choice of running shoe is a very personal decision. Everyone's foot is different and everyone's running form is different. For me, I have fairly narrow feet, so that means Adidas, which had a relatively wide toe box, did not feel right. On the other hand, Nike and Asics generally fit slimmer, so to me, they fit very nicely. This would generate a level of brand loyalty, but it had nothing to do with commercials, marketing or even price. But even still, then you have to figure out if you over/under-pronate or not. I had what was considered a "normal" form, so i didn't need any kind of motion control, nor did I require special arch support or any other corrective action. I'm also fairly light, so cushioning wasn't an issue. This always directed me towards the much lighter shoes, while someone who weighed more, would go for more cushioning. Every time I went to buy a new pair of shoes, I would go it saying I loved my Asics, but every time the guy at the store (this was a running specialty store) ALWAYS made me try on at leat three or four different brands just to make sure. I always ended up chosing the Asics, but I always gave the other brands a serious look. To me it was all about how the shoe felt, not about the logo on the side.
The only exception to the "buy for feel" rule would be when it comes to Nike. I originally bought Nike because they felt the best, but the shoe wouldn't last all the way through the season and I would have "blow-outs" in the middle of a run. That's when I decided to find an alternative. Something that felt as good as the Nike, but wouldn't fall apart. The owner of the running store I go to once told me that most competitive runners hate Nike for that very reason, and even the ones who are sponsored by Nike, only wear them during high profile races when the sponsor is looking. Any other time, they wear the shoe that's right for them, whether that be Nike or some other brand.
I never unerstood the teams that all had the same shoes, who pretty much got a deal from a manufacturer or a sponsorship. There is no one shoe for everybody. Everyone on my team shopped at the same store and rarely did two of us have the same shoe.
In regards to barefoot running, I'm conflicted. On the one hand, when I raced, the shoes we wore were much like being barefoot. Very little padding, put you on your toes a little more. The whole point being weight reduction. You put them on and you feel faster. But we were always told NEVER to train in your racing shoes because they did not provide the support necessary and you were more prone to injury. Times I had left my racing shoes on and walked around in them for a while, I noticed my calves would get sore, so I assumed that it was bad for me. However, this would make sense because I always "heel striked" in my regular shoes, but these shoes put me up on the balls of my feet more, thus using my calves more. I was sore because I wasn't used to it, not because it was bad for me.
A lot of people have been posting this. The ad doesn't tell you what Linux actually is, just that it's gives you freedom. But that's OK. That's actually what makes it a good ad. It focuses on a single concept. The problem is not the ad itself, it's those that are focusing on a single ad and not thinking about a wider marketing campaign. Unless the product is very self explanatory, you don't introduce something new with a single ad, you serve up multiple ads, possibly with an overall theme, each one highlighting something different about the product. To be simple, look at Apple's ads. Note that I use the plural form of ad. Each one talks about one thing. "Ease of use" is one ad. "No viruses" is another ad. "Interoperabilty" is another. They don't do this all in one ad, its impossible. Some of the entries tried to do this and it failed miserably. You only have thirty seconds to get your point across. Say too much and no one will get it.
So this is only the beginning of a campaign. It's the initial buzz creator. It gets people asking the questiong "what is this linux thing?". Some will go look it up, but they don't have to, because your next ads are coming out that go deeper. They use the same overall style, but instead of talking about freedom, they talk about security, or reliability, or open standards, or whatever. There's a lot of reasons Linux is great, but you have to pick only one reason per ad.
You really nailed the point of the commercial, which kinda makes this whole price/spec comparison irrelevent. The fact of the matter is that if you want to buy a laptop for under $1000 with a screen bigger than 13" (In the ad she mentions she found a sub-1k mac, but it had a 13" screen), then you are not going to find it at the Apple store. The only way you can argue with this ad is if you can find a 17" Macbook for under $1000. And you can't. That's what makes this ad so effective. It really does speak to the budget conscious consumer (and these days, who isn't). The difference between a $2000 Mac and $2000 Dell (or whatever) does not matter if you can't afford either.
After a long string of dud ads from Microsoft, I think they finally found a winner. While it doesn't have the hipness or humor of the "I'm a Mac/PC" ads, it gets a very clear message across (There's no inexpensive Macs) using a relatable character (budget conscious consumer that is around college age) and even takes the whole coolness of the mac down a knotch with her sarcastic "I guess I'm not cool enough to own a Mac" comment. I can see remixes of this ad where we see another person (maybe of a slightly different demographic with slightly different needs) takes on the same challenge, but this time does the shopping online through Dell (just so Best Buy and HP aren't the only ones featured). It may not have as much lasting power as some of Apple's ads, but it should serve its purpose well.