37% seems very low considering 95% of all new machines supposedly ship with Vista. This means people are going out of there way to avoid it, which is a drastic change in consumer habits when it comes to just accepting Microsoft stuff. Sure, there will be the hoardes of sheeple who'll just take another one from MS (and probably say, "please sir, may I have another"), but ANY long-term loss in MS OS share is a "good thing" in my book.
Five years on, because there are more new computers (pre-loaded with Vista) going into the system than when XP rolled out, Vista is labelled as a smashing success? Sounds like a business plan with lots of longevity!
"Decent standard" for me would be anything that I don't actually have to install any sort of extra stuff for my browser just to view content. With Microsoft's track-record, I'm a bit leery they are just trying to force yet another MS proprietary format on us, without actually offering anything better or new; just Microsoft.
Silverslight may be great, but I won't know, because I don't want to get fired for installing yet another Internet plug-in at work. Maybe I'll try it at home? Maybe I'll just move along to the next site that doesn't require the plug-in? Maybe it will become sort of defacto standard...someday?
While I can't wait for the death of physical media either, my cable HD-on-Demand is awful, and I haven't seen a viable on-line service that can deliver HD video on demand yet. I just want an HD player to rent movies, mostly. I haven't been in a video rental store in years, though, nor am I sure if Netflix has HD rentals? I might buy the occassional GREAT movie, since I have little time to sit through fluff Hollywood stuff once, let alone over and over again.
And yes, I fit the 35+ demographic, but there are many like me;-)
Ahh, but the genius of it all... In 10 years, people will point to Bill G. stepping down as the cause of the MS implosion, completely forgetting about the Vista flop. Or the MS apologists will just cry "Perfect Storm" with the rise of OSX and Linux alternatives over the next several years.
I'm at work. Will I get fired for downloading Silverlight? Don't take this as a troll/flame/whatever, but do we really need another Microsoft imposed Standard, when there are already decent standards in place? I guess I'll never know what this story is about.
It's not about picking specific sites or me pointing you to ones "I" think are good. Learn how to determine if a source is valid and reliable and you'll never have to ask others whether or not your source passes the test. If you have access to academic online libraries, such as EBSCOhost, use materials from there instead of politically charged sites like Democracy Now! You can find tons of free, basic lectures online. Try the search term "accessing reliability and validity".
It's not that I'm narrow minded, it's that every person I know who is religious doesn't seem to understand everyday events (easily explained by science) so they revert to relgion to help make meaning in their lives. I'm not saying they are right or wrong because that would be narrow minded. Make your own inferences.
The notion that 'God' is an explanation for all the things that science and reason has not yet adequately explained is a common one, but rather out-dated.
True, but to make it more accurate, you should say "God is an explanaiton for all the things that people don't understand". Science has adequately explained many things in the world, but there are a lot of stupid people who don't understand science.
I'm pretty tolerant against people with any kind of religion
Against is a pretty ironic choice of preposition. If you were tolerant "towards" people of religion, your entire post would take on a more earnest tone;-)
Everything is directly related to science as science is a human concept that helps us understand EVERYTHING. People who lack the ability to understand things scientifically revert to religious explanations.
Your sources reek of political bias and lack any sort of neutrality. Take a research class in college and read up on validity and reliability. There are also some good books and websites about how to determine a web page's authority as well. Your references fail a lot of basics when it comes to passing the 5-second "is it reliable?" test.
That's all a very legit situation you described...for yourself. The problem I have with most people with your background, however, is your never-ending attempt to dissuade common users (and even some power users) from EVER using anything from Apple, merely because you are ideologically oppposed to the concept of hardware lock-in. While there is nothing wrong with wanting hardware choice, behaviors associated with this movement can sometimes seem vehement and irrational. This is becoming more truthful every day, as Apple hardware becomes more compatible, continues to be competitive in price, and generally leads all major brands in nearly every category of customer satisfaction and quality. In otherwords, even if you are locked-in, at least you are getting a good piece of hardware at competitive prices. This alone is good enough for most people.
While we are in the business of talking about our careers, I hold an MAEd in Computer Education, and all I can say is your attempt to belittle Apple's efforts in the area of education is way of base.
Perhaps I didn't explain too clearly. When I joined the military in 1993 (two years after the first Iraq war) they were struggling to recruit and train Arabic linguists. I went through Arabic training, but nearly 2/3rds of the people I served with were in school for Russian. Even two years AFTER we realized we had an extreme shortage of Arab linguists, the government was still dragging their feet, plodding along with the Cold-War mentality, that was obviously inconsistent with the new threat. My point being that if we focus solely on the current threat (i.e. the Cold War in 1989), we'll be totally unprepared for future threats (Iraq invading Kuwait in August of 1990).
Of course, I don't totally disagree with your editorialization that the latest Iraq war has been imagined by government itself, but you'd at least concede that the entire Iraq fiasco has been mostly due to the fact we didn't take care of it back in 1991?
Ah, but was the war machine built to combat the Russians not used in Iraq?
Yes, and that's why we are still there 17 years later. The military is always one battle behind. By the time we get a hold on the Middle East, the next flare-up will kick in, and we'll be totally unprepared for it as well, because we focused entirely on the Middle East, and didn't consider other potential threats.
But your tech points are right on, and I love the analogy re-use as well;-)
Well we were fighting the "existing security problems" of the Russians when the Gulf War kicked off. Perhaps had we been working on "imaginary" problems like Iraq and Saddam Hussein in 1990, we wouldn't be in this 18-year cycle of off-and-on War with Iraq?
Just so you know: you can't use an iPod to download music from iTMS either.
Yes you can. With an iPod Touch (or an iPhone) and a WiFi connection, you can purchase songs from the iTunes store using the iTunes button on the device.
>>>the fact that Apple is a for-profit company
Ding ding ding...we have a winner! But unfortunately for the Apple haters out there, this isn't illegal. I'd argue that it isn't even a bad thing, as the end user experience is very polished.
As for the injury to consumers, the complaint says that Apple's pricing is "monopolistic, excessive, and arbitrary," citing how a wholesale $5.52 price difference between 1-Gbyte ($4.15) and 4-Gbyte ($9.67) NAND flash memory modules results in a $100 retail price difference between 1-Gbyte iPod Nano and a 4-Gbyte Nano.
All this shows is that these people don't understand how retail pricing based on demand works. So by their logic, an 4-Gig Nano should only be sold for $5 more than a 1-Gig? How can computer companies charge $500 more for a modest cpu speed bump from 2.16 to 2.33 Ghz, when it doesn't cost $500 more to include the faster processor, for example? Talk about clueless (and a bit desperate). How about comparing Apple prices to similar competition's prices and see if they are competitive? Or even better, how about letting a company charge WHATEVER THE HELL THEY FEEL LIKE, and letting the consumer decide if it is too expensive or not.
Slashdot Mirror
37% seems very low considering 95% of all new machines supposedly ship with Vista. This means people are going out of there way to avoid it, which is a drastic change in consumer habits when it comes to just accepting Microsoft stuff. Sure, there will be the hoardes of sheeple who'll just take another one from MS (and probably say, "please sir, may I have another"), but ANY long-term loss in MS OS share is a "good thing" in my book.
Five years on, because there are more new computers (pre-loaded with Vista) going into the system than when XP rolled out, Vista is labelled as a smashing success? Sounds like a business plan with lots of longevity!
Silverslight may be great, but I won't know, because I don't want to get fired for installing yet another Internet plug-in at work. Maybe I'll try it at home? Maybe I'll just move along to the next site that doesn't require the plug-in? Maybe it will become sort of defacto standard...someday?
And yes, I fit the 35+ demographic, but there are many like me ;-)
Ahh, but the genius of it all... In 10 years, people will point to Bill G. stepping down as the cause of the MS implosion, completely forgetting about the Vista flop. Or the MS apologists will just cry "Perfect Storm" with the rise of OSX and Linux alternatives over the next several years.
I'm at work. Will I get fired for downloading Silverlight? Don't take this as a troll/flame/whatever, but do we really need another Microsoft imposed Standard, when there are already decent standards in place? I guess I'll never know what this story is about.
It's not about picking specific sites or me pointing you to ones "I" think are good. Learn how to determine if a source is valid and reliable and you'll never have to ask others whether or not your source passes the test. If you have access to academic online libraries, such as EBSCOhost, use materials from there instead of politically charged sites like Democracy Now! You can find tons of free, basic lectures online. Try the search term "accessing reliability and validity".
It's not that I'm narrow minded, it's that every person I know who is religious doesn't seem to understand everyday events (easily explained by science) so they revert to relgion to help make meaning in their lives. I'm not saying they are right or wrong because that would be narrow minded. Make your own inferences.
Yep. The article evokes "slippery slope" fallacies for me.
Negative numbers of Gods sounds good to me. Or even better yet, IMAGINARY numbers of Gods is ideal.
Your sources reek of political bias and lack any sort of neutrality. Take a research class in college and read up on validity and reliability. There are also some good books and websites about how to determine a web page's authority as well. Your references fail a lot of basics when it comes to passing the 5-second "is it reliable?" test.
While we are in the business of talking about our careers, I hold an MAEd in Computer Education, and all I can say is your attempt to belittle Apple's efforts in the area of education is way of base.
And if Apple made the best hardware ever invented, and gave away free beer, you'd still say "Apple hardware never". Sigh.
Of course, I don't totally disagree with your editorialization that the latest Iraq war has been imagined by government itself, but you'd at least concede that the entire Iraq fiasco has been mostly due to the fact we didn't take care of it back in 1991?
Ooops...Way off topic now.
But your tech points are right on, and I love the analogy re-use as well ;-)
Well we were fighting the "existing security problems" of the Russians when the Gulf War kicked off. Perhaps had we been working on "imaginary" problems like Iraq and Saddam Hussein in 1990, we wouldn't be in this 18-year cycle of off-and-on War with Iraq?
>>>the fact that Apple is a for-profit company Ding ding ding...we have a winner! But unfortunately for the Apple haters out there, this isn't illegal. I'd argue that it isn't even a bad thing, as the end user experience is very polished.
Since the advent of Win95, Microsoft has had a free test bed of subjects for this frustration patent!
I'm not much of a programmer, but your script was perfectly clear to me! Great post!