Actually, what I've found with the people I've dealt with is that most US based people tend to say Sequel whilst over in Europe it tends to be S Q L. I've just got into the habit of pronouncing it however the other person wants to refer to it, as I'm more than happy to use it either way.
I know whenever I'm at a Microsoft event it's been pronounced the Sequel way, but I'm not sure if Oracle or IBM do.
I remember doing exactly the same thing when I was in my early teens, although I did write quite a bit. I even had a response from one company that they were interested just before they vanished from existance. At one point my friend and I managed to get a really cool ice hockey game written and ported to both a ZX Spectrum and C64, but both of us couldn't draw so we were waiting for some other guy to do the graphics he'd promised he'd do so we could finish.... that was over 15 years ago and we're still waiting! It looks like things are in a similar state now, except with the Internet you are able to have a potential audiance of millions, not just a handful of friends in the playground. But it looks like the same situation of programmers not having that artistic connection to give their results the final polish they need to get them into the mainstream. When I moved back from the States to England a few years ago I did look into getting a developers job at a few game houses, but wife became pregnant and all of a sudden a higher salary and (slightly moe) regular working hours became more important......
My wife bought this for me, and yes it does say it doesn't play on a PC or MAC.
However, she did buy this in Tesco (grocery store) and it was placed in the middle of a bunch of CD's.
What I was thinking of doing was complaining to the trading standards people. If you sell something which looks like a CD, tucked in amongst CD's with a tiny little warning on the front which someone isn't going to notice unless they actually look for this, this is deceptive marketing. I don't know if they'd be able to do anything, but if enough people did this, it might start making it into the mainstream media.
It looks like Yahoo will only be using this search for documents which are likely to be used for research in some way. Maybe for accademic stuff, this isn't that good a value, but I'm sure if this has documents which are useful to Lawyers and its not easily searchable anywhere else, its got the ability to make some kind of profit. $5 is nothing if you think of an hourly rate if it means you are not going to spend 10-20 minutes searching through crap on the web. It sounds like this is going to be targetted at the people who aren't web experts and might not know the best way to do a search, or to use Google in the first place.
If they market this right it could get them entrenched in a niche area which could be all they want for now, especially if that niche includes a large group to whom $5 for a search isn't going to be a problem.
I've also got a 1600x1200 Dell Inspirion I use all day at work, and quite often into the evening. Even though the screen is only 14.1", it is a lot clearer than some of the other people in the office who have 19" CRT monitors and are only running 1024x768. I find I get a lot less eye strain now than I used to get when I was using a CRT all day.
Refresh rate is perfectly okay on this for playing DVD's or Quake or whatever, with no noticable ghosting.
The only two problems I see with the current LCD displays are that contrast is poor at the high and low ends of the spectrum, so if you have a light picture on a white background it's almost invisible, or a dark image on a black background. The other problem is that although the viewing angle has improved a lot over previous displays, you still have the problem of the colours changing slightly depending on the viewing angle. This means if I have a full screen with a single colour it looks more like there is a subtle gradient between two tones.
This does kind of make CRT the only choice for any serious graphics as I find I can get a colour scheme set up on the laptop which looks much too overpowering when viewed on a regular CRT.
Looking at whats in the screen shot, I get the impression that it could be referring to the fact that this book doesn't contain any information for it to be read aloud by the program.
I'm fairly sure that a big use for ebooks will be blind/paritially sighted people and for people who don't feel like reading at the moment. If a reader has a text to speech routine this would be easy, and it could be Adobe is just flagging the fact this text doesn't have any additional information to allow this.
Or it could be they are trying to impose draconian license agreements, but I couldn't really understand why they'd do this with such an old book.
I'm one of the lucky few who actually has a high speed link via a cable modem. Even if I did want a DSL link, I can't even get an estimated date of when it would be available in my area.
To make matters worse, BT cannot easily install DSL to anyone who has a IDSN link, they need to disconnect this first before they can even check to see if the line is suitable for DSL.
This has the unfortunate effect however of removing a lot of the competition that cable modems should otherwise have, which means there is little or not competition in the UK at the moment for high speed home internet connections, which in turn means we are paying more than we should, so it is in everyones interest for DSL to roll out as soon as possible and by as many people as possible.
As someone who does manage developers on a day to day basis, I think I'd be the most hated person in the North West of England if I implemented any of this. It sounds like he wants to have slaves, not developers working for him. Developers have a life too. Quite a few developers already spend too much time alone in front of a keyboard instead of socializing with other live human beings.
I enjoy my job, but it doesn't mean I'd like to spend any more time in the office when I need to. I've got a wife and 7 month old boy, and if anyone even suggested that work was more important than them, I'd instantly lose any respect and confidence in that person.
People work for money to do what they want. Lucky people get to work doing something they enjoy to earn that money. I've been forced to work long hours, and in that situation the things you tend to work on are how you are going to spend the money they'd better give you soon and where you want to work next.
I do sometimes have to work late now, but its usually due to problems getting a release out on time or critical work to get an account. Having to work late because management thing they can wring more time out of me just rubs me up the wrong way. If the developers working for a project manager don't respect them or have any confidence in them, doing practically everything in the article is just going to drive the people who do have a life outside work to quit. And as for shipping the whole program team off to do extra work so they won't go off enjoying themselves at the weekend, I know just where he could shove that! And I'm sure my wife would be even less pleased.
Or it could be that the article was actually about how to lose your best developers to companies who actually give a damn about their staff!
Actually, I've already seen this. If you go to the McDonalds about halfway up International Drive in Orlando, they have a robotic arm type machine that makes all the fries. Not quite a generic multipurpose robot, but it did make a change from the usual.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, what I've found with the people I've dealt with is that most US based people tend to say Sequel whilst over in Europe it tends to be S Q L. I've just got into the habit of pronouncing it however the other person wants to refer to it, as I'm more than happy to use it either way.
I know whenever I'm at a Microsoft event it's been pronounced the Sequel way, but I'm not sure if Oracle or IBM do.
I remember doing exactly the same thing when I was in my early teens, although I did write quite a bit. I even had a response from one company that they were interested just before they vanished from existance.
At one point my friend and I managed to get a really cool ice hockey game written and ported to both a ZX Spectrum and C64, but both of us couldn't draw so we were waiting for some other guy to do the graphics he'd promised he'd do so we could finish.... that was over 15 years ago and we're still waiting!
It looks like things are in a similar state now, except with the Internet you are able to have a potential audiance of millions, not just a handful of friends in the playground. But it looks like the same situation of programmers not having that artistic connection to give their results the final polish they need to get them into the mainstream.
When I moved back from the States to England a few years ago I did look into getting a developers job at a few game houses, but wife became pregnant and all of a sudden a higher salary and (slightly moe) regular working hours became more important......
My wife bought this for me, and yes it does say it doesn't play on a PC or MAC. However, she did buy this in Tesco (grocery store) and it was placed in the middle of a bunch of CD's.
What I was thinking of doing was complaining to the trading standards people. If you sell something which looks like a CD, tucked in amongst CD's with a tiny little warning on the front which someone isn't going to notice unless they actually look for this, this is deceptive marketing. I don't know if they'd be able to do anything, but if enough people did this, it might start making it into the mainstream media.
It looks like Yahoo will only be using this search for documents which are likely to be used for research in some way. Maybe for accademic stuff, this isn't that good a value, but I'm sure if this has documents which are useful to Lawyers and its not easily searchable anywhere else, its got the ability to make some kind of profit. $5 is nothing if you think of an hourly rate if it means you are not going to spend 10-20 minutes searching through crap on the web. It sounds like this is going to be targetted at the people who aren't web experts and might not know the best way to do a search, or to use Google in the first place.
If they market this right it could get them entrenched in a niche area which could be all they want for now, especially if that niche includes a large group to whom $5 for a search isn't going to be a problem.
I've also got a 1600x1200 Dell Inspirion I use all day at work, and quite often into the evening. Even though the screen is only 14.1", it is a lot clearer than some of the other people in the office who have 19" CRT monitors and are only running 1024x768. I find I get a lot less eye strain now than I used to get when I was using a CRT all day.
Refresh rate is perfectly okay on this for playing DVD's or Quake or whatever, with no noticable ghosting.
The only two problems I see with the current LCD displays are that contrast is poor at the high and low ends of the spectrum, so if you have a light picture on a white background it's almost invisible, or a dark image on a black background. The other problem is that although the viewing angle has improved a lot over previous displays, you still have the problem of the colours changing slightly depending on the viewing angle. This means if I have a full screen with a single colour it looks more like there is a subtle gradient between two tones.
This does kind of make CRT the only choice for any serious graphics as I find I can get a colour scheme set up on the laptop which looks much too overpowering when viewed on a regular CRT.
Looking at whats in the screen shot, I get the impression that it could be referring to the fact that this book doesn't contain any information for it to be read aloud by the program.
I'm fairly sure that a big use for ebooks will be blind/paritially sighted people and for people who don't feel like reading at the moment. If a reader has a text to speech routine this would be easy, and it could be Adobe is just flagging the fact this text doesn't have any additional information to allow this.
Or it could be they are trying to impose draconian license agreements, but I couldn't really understand why they'd do this with such an old book.
Carl
I'm one of the lucky few who actually has a high speed link via a cable modem. Even if I did want a DSL link, I can't even get an estimated date of when it would be available in my area. To make matters worse, BT cannot easily install DSL to anyone who has a IDSN link, they need to disconnect this first before they can even check to see if the line is suitable for DSL.
This has the unfortunate effect however of removing a lot of the competition that cable modems should otherwise have, which means there is little or not competition in the UK at the moment for high speed home internet connections, which in turn means we are paying more than we should, so it is in everyones interest for DSL to roll out as soon as possible and by as many people as possible.
I enjoy my job, but it doesn't mean I'd like to spend any more time in the office when I need to. I've got a wife and 7 month old boy, and if anyone even suggested that work was more important than them, I'd instantly lose any respect and confidence in that person.
People work for money to do what they want. Lucky people get to work doing something they enjoy to earn that money. I've been forced to work long hours, and in that situation the things you tend to work on are how you are going to spend the money they'd better give you soon and where you want to work next.
I do sometimes have to work late now, but its usually due to problems getting a release out on time or critical work to get an account. Having to work late because management thing they can wring more time out of me just rubs me up the wrong way. If the developers working for a project manager don't respect them or have any confidence in them, doing practically everything in the article is just going to drive the people who do have a life outside work to quit. And as for shipping the whole program team off to do extra work so they won't go off enjoying themselves at the weekend, I know just where he could shove that! And I'm sure my wife would be even less pleased.
Or it could be that the article was actually about how to lose your best developers to companies who actually give a damn about their staff!
Actually, I've already seen this. If you go to the McDonalds about halfway up International Drive in Orlando, they have a robotic arm type machine that makes all the fries. Not quite a generic multipurpose robot, but it did make a change from the usual.