It would be great if the terminal was just a browser, but to all intents and purposes you need a PC, running an OS to get a browser. That surely is a large part of the cost/management/security overhead. Such products already exist. They go by the name of Thin Client, among others. The thin clients I have had experience with I have found lacking. They each lacked the ability to be easily upgraded to keep up with current web technology. To use AJAX and other fancy web-based apps, you need an up-to-date browser that can be easily upgraded with the next new piece of technology comes out. *shrug* Just run linux on a PC and you can avoid the cost of a Windows PC being a terminal.
Does the checkout girl at the grocery store need email?
How about the house painter?
Or the guy that tears tickets in half at the movie theater?
Short answer: Yes.
If all of your employees were e-mail connected, you could save money on printing when it comes time to make announcements. The employees are then all able to communicate with each other in a way that they may not be able to at work. Please, do not underestimate the value of encouraging good morale in a workforce. Money is not always the driving force behind a worker. Sometimes, it is about the workplace. Having a good boss, with good work conditions, with good communication can inspire an employee to feel valued. Everyone wants to feel like they are valued by the company.
Let's take the girl working the check-out lane, for example. Her manager could ask for and accept vacation and preferred shifts requests. This creates a paper trail which protects everyone. The manager can then create the shift schedules for the next time period and post it by e-mail and even update a calendar that shows everyone's schedule. Let's say this young lady has an emergency come up. She can post a message to EVERYONE and ask for someone to cover her, exchange shifts, etc.
Forget about the pricing scheme, there is another aspect of this that I find repugnant.
I find the notion that anyone who owns an iPod is found automatically guilty of piracy and is therefore paying a tax for that piracy, whether it has happened or may happen. This is absolutely absurd. That is like having a car owner pay $1000 when they buy the car to cover their speeding tickets...before they even drive, "because you will certainly break the law, so we are going to collect the fine ahead of time, even if we never catch you."
Nothing to see here, move along.Too small to see, keep moving. Come on! Keep moving! Yet...so...cool!
At that size, a creative engineer could cluster a bunch together to create a really dense cluster PC. You could pack a bunch of them into a briefcase and have a mobile beowulf cluster. Ah, the return of the luggable.
The possibilities are endless!
Why is software development so difficult? I know the answer to this one!
The answer is...management. How can anything get written when the software requirements are changed one a week and totally re-written when the new CIO is hired so he can make his presence known?
*cough* Games? And don't give me that lame "well, you get an Xbox/Playstation/Wii/whatever for those!" answer to that question.
There is no better controller combo in FPS games than WASD + mouse. Period.
I would partially agree with this. Game makers are now optimizing their games for new graphics cards, most of which are not x86 CPUs. These GPUs are custom and fast. They target the broadest market to garner the most money, which currently means M$ Windows, which means an x86 CPU. I firmly believe that if M$ ported Windows to the Cell processor and maintained a way to run the older apps, that Cell processor would become the new worldwide standard.
Maybe the perfect computer is a computer powered by a Cell processor with 16Gb of RAM running several virtual machines. For that matter, with virtualization, anyone could create their own virtual architecture and run it as if it really existed in hardware.
Just because some intrusive technology was used for good at one occasion, doesn't mean that it completely turnes the tides on the discussion. it's still an intrusive technology. Well said! It just doesn't make sense to trample on the privacy right of 1000 people to catch just 1.
Obviously you don't remember the pissing and moaning here about the end of support for Windows 98 and 2000. Lots of/.ers expect everything to be supported forever for free. I still lament the day that support for DOS 6.22 was discontinued.
Google is mother. Google is father. Google knows all, sees all. If Google says that you don't need that e-mail message anymore, then you don't need it. Resistance is futile. You will be indexed.
Most companies have limited budgets and simply do not upgrade just for the sake of upgrading. My company has no business need for Vista and have zero plans on upgrading to it. Our IT needs are not very complex and even Windows XP is overkill. We are one of those companies that are still running Windows 98. Want to know why? Because it still works. It runs Firefox just fine and views the intranet without any problems. MS Office 2000 runs on it (which in of itself is overkill for our needs). Simply put, I question if Vista is solution to a non-existent problem?
"Here, you need this upgrade!" "Why?" "Because it is more stable!" "What we are running now is stable." "It offers more features!" "We disable those features now for security purposes." "Because we want your money!" "And there is the door. Don't let it smack you on the way out."
At least it isn't what happened to poor Clark Griswold, getting a "Jelly of the Month" certificate for a Christmas bonus. Jelly of the Month would be nice compared to getting a boot to the head each month. http://beagleweb.com/fun-taekwanleap.html
And of course, the Safari/Konqueror love was nonexistent. Works perfectly in Firefox, obviously, but you can't create new or edit existing blog posts in Safari/Konqueror with or without the WYSIWYG editor. You can set the blogger features to allow you to e-mail your posts to it. You can also publish posts from Writely (Docs & Spreadsheets).
So....shouldn't RIAA being suing the licensing organization, instead? Oh, right, the American philosophy is to file a suit shotgun style and see how many people to whom you can get it to stick.
Yes, there are people who still use an ordinary PDA. There are people who still have a beeper. There are people have a cell phone that is just a phone, not an MP3 player. And, AND there are people who still use a device is just an MP3 player.
While some may argue that function convergence is the future, I would argue that it is not the end-all-be-all that it could be. Different users have different needs. The problem I see with glomming all of these functions into ONE device is that the provider then raises the price. The end-user pays for more than what they want. Personally, I want a cell phone that is just a phone. I don't want web access, I don't need a crappy digital camera function AND I certainly don't want to play MP3's. As result, I don't own a cell phone. I refuse to pay for functions I don't want and won't use.
Function Convergence is good for some and bad for some. There is room in the market for both types of users and those in between.
> > > In which case they make larger profits. > > Which is bad how, exactly? > At the expense of equal access, public infrastructure, and realistic phone rates to go along with those > benefits.
You need to think into the future.
If in a given field, a company is making excessive profits, the fact that that field is so profitable naturally leads it to draw in other companies. This is correct for businesses with low upfront costs. In the telephone and cable industry, there is a high upfront cost to running wire and cable. That upfront cost would off-set and annihilate any chance at profit in the near term. Customers tend to also be apathetic: They will stick with what they have because it involves the least amount of work, even when they hate it. So, any new cable provider in a city would have to offer such deeply cut rates to entice these lazy consumers as to make it not worth the business effort.
This behavior is consistent with monopolistic thinking: we own the market,... The thing is, Autodesk doesn't own the market. AutoCAD may be more well known to the common user, but there are many other products in use for mechanical and electrical design. Microstation, CAM350, PADS, SolidEdge, etc. None of which use the DWG format. Ultimately, this is a non-issue.
Weed doesn't make people stupid... But it certainly reinforces the level of stupidity the person had before starting. And here is Foamy's thoughts on the matter: "Drugs in your head" http://www.illwillpress.com/vault.html, bottom left corner area.
Hopefully we'll get decently up-to-date satellite photos for Google Earth now. I'm tired of seeing my town as some vaguely greenish-brown blur. I you certain that is not just a sad statement of the reality that is your hometown? It certainly is of mine.
Java can be used for more than just web pages. I use a great little program called FreeMind that is written in Java. It is a stand-alone app. Java has a lot more uses for it and it is being used more wide-spread than some might believe.
Slashdot Mirror
How about the house painter?
Or the guy that tears tickets in half at the movie theater?
Short answer: Yes.
If all of your employees were e-mail connected, you could save money on printing when it comes time to make announcements. The employees are then all able to communicate with each other in a way that they may not be able to at work. Please, do not underestimate the value of encouraging good morale in a workforce. Money is not always the driving force behind a worker. Sometimes, it is about the workplace. Having a good boss, with good work conditions, with good communication can inspire an employee to feel valued. Everyone wants to feel like they are valued by the company.
Let's take the girl working the check-out lane, for example. Her manager could ask for and accept vacation and preferred shifts requests. This creates a paper trail which protects everyone. The manager can then create the shift schedules for the next time period and post it by e-mail and even update a calendar that shows everyone's schedule. Let's say this young lady has an emergency come up. She can post a message to EVERYONE and ask for someone to cover her, exchange shifts, etc.
It all comes down to enabling communication.
Forget about the pricing scheme, there is another aspect of this that I find repugnant.
I find the notion that anyone who owns an iPod is found automatically guilty of piracy and is therefore paying a tax for that piracy, whether it has happened or may happen. This is absolutely absurd. That is like having a car owner pay $1000 when they buy the car to cover their speeding tickets...before they even drive, "because you will certainly break the law, so we are going to collect the fine ahead of time, even if we never catch you."
I am shocked at such news. And here I thought Billy Gates was such a nice young man.
Why is software development so difficult? I know the answer to this one!
The answer is...management. How can anything get written when the software requirements are changed one a week and totally re-written when the new CIO is hired so he can make his presence known?
Woo hoo! I get a ignore these games a second time around! Thank you, Sony et al!
*shaking of head*
This is as sad as those aging musicians who keep releasing "The Best of..." albums instead of recording something, oh, I don't know...NEW?
There is no better controller combo in FPS games than WASD + mouse. Period.
I would partially agree with this. Game makers are now optimizing their games for new graphics cards, most of which are not x86 CPUs. These GPUs are custom and fast. They target the broadest market to garner the most money, which currently means M$ Windows, which means an x86 CPU. I firmly believe that if M$ ported Windows to the Cell processor and maintained a way to run the older apps, that Cell processor would become the new worldwide standard.
Maybe the perfect computer is a computer powered by a Cell processor with 16Gb of RAM running several virtual machines. For that matter, with virtualization, anyone could create their own virtual architecture and run it as if it really existed in hardware.
Where is the Turing Authority when you need them?
Google is mother. Google is father. Google knows all, sees all. If Google says that you don't need that e-mail message anymore, then you don't need it. Resistance is futile. You will be indexed.
Most companies have limited budgets and simply do not upgrade just for the sake of upgrading. My company has no business need for Vista and have zero plans on upgrading to it. Our IT needs are not very complex and even Windows XP is overkill. We are one of those companies that are still running Windows 98. Want to know why? Because it still works. It runs Firefox just fine and views the intranet without any problems. MS Office 2000 runs on it (which in of itself is overkill for our needs). Simply put, I question if Vista is solution to a non-existent problem?
"Here, you need this upgrade!"
"Why?"
"Because it is more stable!"
"What we are running now is stable."
"It offers more features!"
"We disable those features now for security purposes."
"Because we want your money!"
"And there is the door. Don't let it smack you on the way out."
In other words, between the Hollywood mafia and the Russian mafia?
My ruble is on the Russuan mafia.So....shouldn't RIAA being suing the licensing organization, instead? Oh, right, the American philosophy is to file a suit shotgun style and see how many people to whom you can get it to stick.
Yes, there are people who still use an ordinary PDA. There are people who still have a beeper. There are people have a cell phone that is just a phone, not an MP3 player. And, AND there are people who still use a device is just an MP3 player.
While some may argue that function convergence is the future, I would argue that it is not the end-all-be-all that it could be. Different users have different needs. The problem I see with glomming all of these functions into ONE device is that the provider then raises the price. The end-user pays for more than what they want. Personally, I want a cell phone that is just a phone. I don't want web access, I don't need a crappy digital camera function AND I certainly don't want to play MP3's. As result, I don't own a cell phone. I refuse to pay for functions I don't want and won't use.
Function Convergence is good for some and bad for some. There is room in the market for both types of users and those in between.
> > Which is bad how, exactly?
> At the expense of equal access, public infrastructure, and realistic phone rates to go along with those
> benefits.
You need to think into the future.
If in a given field, a company is making excessive profits, the fact that that field is so profitable naturally leads it to draw in other companies. This is correct for businesses with low upfront costs. In the telephone and cable industry, there is a high upfront cost to running wire and cable. That upfront cost would off-set and annihilate any chance at profit in the near term. Customers tend to also be apathetic: They will stick with what they have because it involves the least amount of work, even when they hate it. So, any new cable provider in a city would have to offer such deeply cut rates to entice these lazy consumers as to make it not worth the business effort.
I, for one, welcome our new search engine overlord.
Java can be used for more than just web pages. I use a great little program called FreeMind that is written in Java. It is a stand-alone app. Java has a lot more uses for it and it is being used more wide-spread than some might believe.