Thanks for the tip. Do you know of any DIY web references that describe anything similar to what you did with the refrigerator screen? A quick Googling only found me coat hanger or other copper tubing.
I've been a DirecTV customer for over a decade and this past year I finally purchased an HDTV that has apps for Netflix, Amazon Prime, and most recently Hulu Plus. Since I upgraded my receivers to DVR in the last year I have a little over a year now to my contract to try to figure out if I can get an antenna working for my locals, and seriously consider dropping satellite in favor of the 3 services.
I haven't had a problem with Netflix's policies lately, I was a streaming only customer anyway. I'll just be mindful of any price increases. I originally got Prime for the 2 day shipping, so the content plan there is just a bonus, and it is convenient as a substitute for rentals if I really want to see something new. I haven't tried Hulu yet, but have looked at their lineup. With the apparent lack of CBS shows, and for only having the last couple of episodes of things like Burn Notice, I could probably get by with it once I got used to how it works, but I do like saving shows on my DVR to rewatch episodes or the previous season before the new season starts.
Currently, I figure that I'd save about $50/mo after dropping satellite and picking up Hulu in addition to Netflix and Prime that I'm already paying for. To me, that makes it worth experimenting with the change when I get the time.
The Final Fantasy series started its slow death from what made it unique since VI, which I still think is the greatest of the series. The thing that VI started the beginning of the end was the Espers. Up to that point each character was a unique class and only had special abilities. Once everyone could start using Espers Square slowly widdled away the uniqueness of the characters and the other things that made the series fun. For example...
VII- started the single type of weapon system. Character A has a big sword, character B has a gun for a hand, etc... The materia system made characters less unique, everyone could use magic, anyone could become a thief, anyone could summon monsters, etc... The only thing that set characters apart was the weapon that they used.
VIII- Again the only thing that set each character apart was the weapon that they used. Everyone again could use magic, but each character did have a unique attack that was somehow based on the uniqueness of their weapon.
IX- Went a little more traditional with character classes, unique roles and skills, etc... Since I'm an item hoarder when I play the games I even liked how in one area weapons and armors inverted, where if you had a strong weapon and armor the were actively weak, but weak weapons and armors were strong.
X, X-2- I did like the story of X, X2 not so well. Here we took a much larger turn away from what I've liked about the series. The skills system allowed for truly unmemorable characters as far as abilities. Each character was a blank slate aside from their special weapon that each was strong against a certain enemy characteristic. I have a game where my Black and White mage characters hit harder than who is supposed to be my ultimate warrior, and my thief can cast Ultima spells as strong as the black mage. Here we also lost the fun of wold exploration by losing the airship. Sure, there is still an airship or two in the game, but you don't actually fly them, you just point and click to go to your destination. No more leveling or skill building "Islands Closest to Heaven/Hell" like in VIII.
XI- Never played, didn't think the series would carry over into a MMO world
XII- Again, no more character uniqueness, taken even farther in that you can let your spell casters use heavy armor or heavy melee weapons. As gameplay went on I got tired of the live action battles because instead of being able to sit back and enjoy the action I was too busy trying to keep track of my characters health, trying to figure out why the archer wasn't engaging the enemy, or why the healer wasn't curing anyone. Kind of had the same problem with Arkham Asylum, I'm too busy watching the goons trying to attack to pay attention to the moves that Batman was actually doing, I ended up missing more than I got to see.
XIII/XIV- Haven't played either but they never appealed to me. XIII did away with exploring, period. Whatever they did with that linear gameplay had way too many reviewers up in arms that I didn't even want to play it because of the fond memories of the series. They also did something with the shops if I remember correctly that was a break from the past titles too
With today's gaming, I'd like to see a FFVI-X style game come back but also bring back a few features that have gone by the wayside.
Bring back truly unique character classes. Don't let the ninja become a spellcaster in the way that a mage is, but ninjas can have their deceptive type of "magic" if you still want to include it.
Bring back explorable worlds, enough said.
Take the airship to a whole new level. While flying have visible flying enemies or other monsters for "random encounters" or challenges. Remember Doom Gaze? Create a battle platform for while on the airship. How is it that a fleet of airships with canons on them can't turn the canon around and shoot a freaking bird that has landed on the deck? Add a crash system. We can create these great 3D worlds now that would be great to explore or even have planned crashes
Any company with a sense of customer service, even a poor one, wouldn't drop support to existing products like that. You'd be more likely to see whatever was already in the production channels come to market depending on how much was invested in them before you'd see the company change gears to make devices with their own OS...as long as they weren't purchasing it just for the IP. They won't just sign a deal and say the next day that they absolutely won't support their existing products.
I'd love to see HTC pick up WebOS, but I'm not going to hold my breath on it.
It all depends on the workplace policy for telecommuting. Where I'm currently at, we offer telecommuting and flextime. I don't participate in either since being the sysadmin if something blows up, you have to come in anyway no matter what your schedule is.
That being said, I wouldn't mind working from home a couple of days a week since the majority of my day is monitoring systems or researching, I can do that easily from my couch. But that is where the catch is in our organization. To remote work or telecommute, the person needs to have a dedicated workspace to just their work related activities, a secured location to save work materials, and "isolation" from the rest of the house. So as a number of other people have mentioned things like saving on daycare and such, if it is discovered that your kids are playing on your work system or you are supplementing daycare by working at home those are grounds for revoking the teleworking if not a full firing.
Sure there are holes in the system, like managers that want to stay the employee's friend and not enforce the policies. I have several employees that we know for a fact are supplementing daycare or out golfing when they are "telecommuting." Unfortunately there isn't anything that can be done about a manager that refuses to enforce their own policies.
Thanks to Stumble Upon, once upon a time I ran across a cartoon talking about cell phone falls. Sure it can fall 1000 ft. It be thrown off of a skyscraper, it can survive reentry from space without a scratch. But if it falls off a 3 foot counter top, it shatters into millions of pieces. Moral of the story, drop it from a plane, don't drop it trying to put it back in your pocket.
I quit Facebook a few months ago so don't really know if it is still the case, but back then I noticed that if someone you were friends with responded to an invite, even if that invite wasn't originally to "me" I could everyone who was invited and their comments to the event. It happened to be one of those "I forgot my phone number" events and I couldn't believe how many people just posted their phone numbers for anyone in the world to see. Let the friends that I actually knew know that their info was publicly viewable and they immediately removed it. Yet another case of people not knowing how little FB cares about your personal information.
I've never had a problem with the bloatware on any new computers that I've purchased for myself or helped friends/family purchase. Thanks to my job I have copies of the OEM discs for Dell and HP so the first thing that gets done after taking the computer out of the packaging is a full wipe of the OS and a reinstall of just Windows only, no bloat.
Sure this takes a little additional time to set up the computer, but not having to deal with all of that bloatware BS is well worth it.
You'd like to think most of us have moved beyond Jr. High, but judging from the number of people on Facebook and what they post...No, we haven't moved beyond it.
This has been happening for a while. I've had some lawyer friends of mine ask me about some Facebook stuff as they are dealing with a custody issue where a mother wants more alimony from the father. The father's lawyers are mining the FB updates because every weekend that the mother has custody she is updating that the kid at wherever it was dropped off so she can go out with the girls, go out with they new guy, get drunk, whatever...
And I don't really have a problem with FB being used like that. If you're stupid enough to be using FB and post stuff like that out there you deserve what is coming.
I dropped my FB account a few months ago because I finally decided that it wasn't worth it, and it ticked me off that I had an almost obsessive urge to check my phone for updates every 3 minutes. For someone like me the social login wouldn't be too bad, I made it a point to only friend people that I know in the real world. Depending on how the login works I don't know or remember their full names so if it is looking for the person's full name or just first name that makes a difference. My last name is 12 characters, so good luck trying to remember that or typing that in correctly.
Now lets talk about some of the other folks that I knew on FB, mostly women/girls that would friend anyone and everyone that they had a class with, met at a party, etc... in other words, a bunch of people that they don't know. This is going to to over great for them because they won't have a clue who some of the pictures are, not to mention most pictures are group shots with several people in them anyway...which one is the person they are supposed to ID. Maybe its FB's way of getting people to only post pics of themselves as their profile pic. I personally hated it when someone would use pics of their kids because when you think you know who the person was but the pic is absolutely no help I just moved along. Maybe FB is trying to curb users from friending anyone that sends a request. I think this is going to cause more outrage than acceptance on the site, and is yet another reason that I'm glad I'm no longer a member.
I have an Apple fanboy friend that I recently talked to about his thoughts on the iPhone 4 problems, and he is a true to the kool-aid follower and replied that it wasn't a real problem just a bunch of isolated incidents. He has not yet upgraded though since he waits for the initial bugs to get worked out before jumping in on a new technology. So anyway he was trying to argue that the iPhones didn't have a real problem and that getting the protector was an adequate fix, that Apple shouldn't have to pay for it.
I'm not a mechanic but tried to make a car comparison. What if some company sold a car and shortly after they sold millions of that car they found that a wheel would fall off whenever you made a left turn. Instead of fixing the problem, the car company said everyone needed to buy a giant bumper that fit around the car that would hold the tire in place when they turn left, but the trade off is that the car is not a little bigger, might not fit in the garage or parking places quite right, etc...
People would demand that the car company fix the car itself and not offer a workaround which covers the real problem. Its like treating the symptoms of an illness instead of the illness itself. You can drink all the chicken soup or take all the cough syrup you want but that isn't going to cure Pneumonia. Apple currently has a defective product, it is their responsibility to fix their product's defect, not the consumer's to buy a protective shield, not Apple's to give all users a shield either. They need to FIX their problem at the source. If it takes a redesign to protect the antenna and recall/replace all of them in circulation, so be it. For some reason people are giving Apple a free ride over a critical flaw in one of their major products when they've gone after other companies in other industries for much less serious flaws in their related products.
If/when the iPhone moves to Verizon it won't create a large increase of new iPhone customers. I'd be surprised if the customer base increases 10%. Most people that really want an iPhone already switched to AT&T to get one and I don't really think that the Verizon carrier holdouts are that many.
What will happen though is that Apple will make a ton of money because everyone that is dissatisfied with AT&T will jump ship over to Verizon. Verizon sales will jump because of it, and AT&T might drop a position in the cell phone carriers rankings. Apple will probably release press statements about how they are the world's awesomest phone because they sold 1.x million new phones on Verizon in addition to what they have on AT&T, but fail to report the 1.x million-y that they lost from AT&T because they switched to Verizon and the "official numbers have not been determined yet."
A coworker of mine has a similar issue with her cell phone at her house. When she gets within 2 blocks of her home her phone loses its signal, and she has confirmed with her neighbors that also have the same carrier that they have the same problem. She recently got a new phone thinking that it was a problem with the phone, but the problem continues. Other people with the same carrier can come over and their phones on the same network work with a full signal, but everyone that lives there continues to have trouble.
She and her neighbors have called the carrier, done the tower update codes and everything else that they make you do and the carrier continues to claim that there is no problem and they have to live with it.
If Adobe was really upset with how Apple is conducting themselves, maybe they'll start dropping support (or seriously delaying it) for their products on Apple platforms. Granted it could backfire and cause webmasters to rewrite their sites to drop flash, but think about the other programs? Other than switching to MS, to get apps like Photoshop or CS, what would Mac users do? Anyone arguing that alternate apps exist that do just as good of a job, why haven't they run Photoshop a run for their money? I'm looking at GIMP as an example.
What would be the backlash if after the next OS X/Safari update, Adobe announced no more Mac support for PDF, Flash, Photoshop, CS, etc... Throw in the mobile support for flash that is supposed to be coming to most other big name non-Apple mobile devices this year, they can try to hurt Apple where it would hurt the most, their users.
But like I said, it could completely backfire, and Adobe might come back with their tail between their legs and ask Steve Jobs for forgiveness.
I was reading something on this topic a few months ago and the way that I remember it is that under the current laws the volume of the commercials cannot exceed the highest decibel level of the program it is with. There is no restriction on what portion of the program the "loud" commercials are aired with, they can't be louder than the loudest part of the show. So if you are watching a movie that ends in a loud explosion at the end, you get to hear Billy Mays yelling at you every commercial break.
I'm on satellite TV and have an older pre-digital conversion television, and I have to say that FX is one of the worst offenders of this. Most channels that I watch I can comfortably have the volume set at just under the 50% marker at a level of 22-25. If I watch anything on FX I need to turn the volume up to at least 30 to make the program hearable at the same level as the other channels, but when a commercial comes on I need to drop the volume back down otherwise it is insanely loud. Its almost like FX airs the show at the lowest decibel of their commercials, then air their commercials at the normal level.
Just wait for someone to realize that they are missing a huge advertising market by not advertising on mobile (phone) browsers. Lots of sites these days are making their "mobile" page as a "watered down" version of their main pages, and as far as I can tell that primarily means removing lots of ads. There are some sites that I actually like better in their mobile versions than the real versions and change my User Agent in FireFox to a mobile browser to get that page. I'm not a trendsetter so I know that if I'm doing this there are others doing this as well, and once the developers catch on it is only a matter of time before we start seeing more ads on our mobile phones when we're browsing. Better hope you have an unlimited data plan when this happens.
Come on, doesn't everyone know the impressive history of Apple brand systems as gaming units? Think about Oregon Trail, Where in [wherever] is Carmen Sandiago, and lets not forget all of the educational games like Math Blaster and Reader Rabbit. This might have changed since I haven't used a Mac as a gaming system since I left elementary school in the early 90's, but I'm just not seeing too many Apple compatible games at the store.
The consoles and computers have nothing to fear from the iPhone or any other hand held mobile as a gaming device. I've had several different smart phones and the only thing that their games are good for are time fillers when I'm waiting for a flight, auto repair, meeting someone, etc... They are great for that, if you are suddenly done waiting, you can quick turn it off, and depending on the game pick it back up where you left off.
Outside of signing one's name to a check, I think that cursive writing has lost all practical value. Most cursive looks like chicken scratching and adds to the amount of time that it takes to convey the message. Look at doctor's writing for an example. I've actually had the pharmacy call the doctor back to find out what the prescription was for because all they could read was the doc's name.
I also have a PC tech over 40, a good 10 years plus over my age, and she only writes in cursive. It isn't bad like a doctor, but I can only read every 3rd word, and I'm always asking her questions like, "is this an E or a C." I also keep sending her back to just send me an email with what she needs done, since she thinks a posted note on the pile of papers on my desk will stand out versus an email that I can literally copy and paste the issue in to a search. Yeah, I might be lazy, but when speed and accuracy are a part of the job, it disqualifies cursive, no matter what they said in school.
I think that Avatar is going to shake things up, not necessarily in a good way. A lot of people are going to take their kids to the movie expecting the "Airbender" Avatar version of the movie that M. Night Shyamalan is making, not a James Cameron original. Even when the movie was first announced and Cameron was tied to it, several movie outlets were showing pictures of the Airbender, and I'll even admit to seeing the trailer for Airbender at G.I.Joe and a kid behind me was freaking out that the name of the movie was wrong, that the preview was supposed to be Avatar. I can hear the news stories already about parents taking their kids to the movie and walking out because it wasn't what they expected.
I've been reading this story and posts since this morning and I'm more surprised about the outrage it generated than the fact that they were gathering this information. Like many other posters said, I thought cell companies were doing this anyway. I'm not going to get rid of my Pre or change my habits because of it.
What you were saying about the GPS settings, I have mine turned off by default. I figured that it would be a drain on the battery for being on all of the time, and I wanted to know what apps were GPS dependent. I have noticed several times with Google Maps that if I hop around using it, the first map to appear has been the location of the last time that I used the application. It also takes a minute for it to update with my current location and sometimes the map is off. I was using it for driving directions last weekend more so for an accuracy test of the map, and it had me running in parallel of the highway that I was on, in what would be the equivalent of driving through a field. The directions were still accurate.
Because I don't feel like making another post, I'll just go on to ask who says that GPS location sometimes won't determine why an app crashes? Maybe the "last known location" put it on the path to a known dead zone, so instead of an engineer having to read through code they can determine that the crash was because of location. The engineer won't have to waste time trying to fix that error, they can work on one that they can actually fix.
I'm probably going to get posted a troll for this, but I'm putting it out there anyway. The only people that I know that have Segways near the small town in Michigan where I live also happen to be Mac owners/Apple Fanboys. I've talked, more so joked with co-workers in IT, and they all agree, there always seems to be an aura of smug around Mac users that when they come to us for help they come to us with an attitude of superiority, talk down to us when asking for help, and act like they are doing us a favor by giving us the opportunity to work on their system. Now I can't say that every Segway owner is also a Mac user and acts this way, I'm only speaking from my own experience, and maybe the two products just happen to appeal to the same smug people.
I spent a week in UT a couple of years ago and I am from MI, where most people take up drinking in the winter months. I was aware of the odd drinking laws going in to the bars, they just carded me, saw that I was from out of state and waved me on through. I can't really say that the beer was any weaker than back home, drank both bottled and draft. It might just be the places that I went, but it seemed like the local businesses knew how to cater to patrons from out of state like a normal state would instead of making visitors jump through all of the hoops that locals need to go through. Then again, that was a few years ago so things might be different now.
What teachers really need is :
- Basic computer training. You would be amazed as to how many still can't figure out basic things like email, powerpoint or other similar 'basic' applications
Not just teachers, everyone needs this. I've worked in schools, financial and now non-profit and in every environment you ran across the people that were computer illiterate. I'm not talking the 40 year old and over, but the fresh out of college first job employees as well.
Computers have been around longer than me and for someone to not have the basic level of knowledge is unacceptable, especially in a professional environment. There is no hiding from it, his "fad" is not going to go away. Too bad businesses don't include technical aptitude with the testing before hiring new employees. It could save lots of time and money getting the candidate that knows how to use the tools for their job vs. having to train and have someone hold their hand for months while they learn to push the buttons.
I used to work in a school about 5 years ago when I started getting involved with Linux. I used the desktop, brought in servers, started changing the network backbone to Linux in my school, but when I talked to the neighboring schools, they wanted nothing to do with it. I was a newbie in the tech departments at the time so when we had the regional tech department meetings, they wouldn't listen to me. I'd demo a feature that my school was using, everyone was buying in to it but as soon as I said it ran off of Linux, they all shut down. The existing Linux "expert" was a single person department that had no time to do any testing that said he installed it once, had a problem and never looked back. Being a school and a Novell shop, I found out that he was using SUSE 8 and 10 just came out at the time. He refused to look at it citing the amount of time and his previous Linux experience.
Another big factor is the teaching mentality. I actively tried to push OpenOffice in our school, which I was denied because...and I quote,"The rest of the world uses Microsoft, so thats what we need to teach." They aren't trying to teach word processing, spreadsheet use, database design and management, etc...they are teaching Word, Excel, Access, and all of the other applications. From my experience, people that learn the application are locked in to the Word and Excel, but teaching word processing and how to use a spreadsheet someone can use Word, OpenOffice, Excel, Notes, and pretty much any other office suite out there.
Bottom line what it comes down to is budget strapped school systems can't afford a sizable tech department that can take the time to research and develop new systems to cut costs and do the job better. It is often a single person that is swamped with requests and can also share duties as a teacher, librarian, or some other role and is only concerned with fixing what is broken, upgrading to the newest version, and keeping the status quo. Since Linux is outside of their knowledge and comfort zone, these "admins" are never going to switch to anything outside of Microsoft.
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Thanks for the tip. Do you know of any DIY web references that describe anything similar to what you did with the refrigerator screen? A quick Googling only found me coat hanger or other copper tubing.
I've been a DirecTV customer for over a decade and this past year I finally purchased an HDTV that has apps for Netflix, Amazon Prime, and most recently Hulu Plus. Since I upgraded my receivers to DVR in the last year I have a little over a year now to my contract to try to figure out if I can get an antenna working for my locals, and seriously consider dropping satellite in favor of the 3 services.
I haven't had a problem with Netflix's policies lately, I was a streaming only customer anyway. I'll just be mindful of any price increases. I originally got Prime for the 2 day shipping, so the content plan there is just a bonus, and it is convenient as a substitute for rentals if I really want to see something new. I haven't tried Hulu yet, but have looked at their lineup. With the apparent lack of CBS shows, and for only having the last couple of episodes of things like Burn Notice, I could probably get by with it once I got used to how it works, but I do like saving shows on my DVR to rewatch episodes or the previous season before the new season starts.
Currently, I figure that I'd save about $50/mo after dropping satellite and picking up Hulu in addition to Netflix and Prime that I'm already paying for. To me, that makes it worth experimenting with the change when I get the time.
The Final Fantasy series started its slow death from what made it unique since VI, which I still think is the greatest of the series. The thing that VI started the beginning of the end was the Espers. Up to that point each character was a unique class and only had special abilities. Once everyone could start using Espers Square slowly widdled away the uniqueness of the characters and the other things that made the series fun. For example...
VII- started the single type of weapon system. Character A has a big sword, character B has a gun for a hand, etc... The materia system made characters less unique, everyone could use magic, anyone could become a thief, anyone could summon monsters, etc... The only thing that set characters apart was the weapon that they used.
VIII- Again the only thing that set each character apart was the weapon that they used. Everyone again could use magic, but each character did have a unique attack that was somehow based on the uniqueness of their weapon.
IX- Went a little more traditional with character classes, unique roles and skills, etc... Since I'm an item hoarder when I play the games I even liked how in one area weapons and armors inverted, where if you had a strong weapon and armor the were actively weak, but weak weapons and armors were strong.
X, X-2- I did like the story of X, X2 not so well. Here we took a much larger turn away from what I've liked about the series. The skills system allowed for truly unmemorable characters as far as abilities. Each character was a blank slate aside from their special weapon that each was strong against a certain enemy characteristic. I have a game where my Black and White mage characters hit harder than who is supposed to be my ultimate warrior, and my thief can cast Ultima spells as strong as the black mage. Here we also lost the fun of wold exploration by losing the airship. Sure, there is still an airship or two in the game, but you don't actually fly them, you just point and click to go to your destination. No more leveling or skill building "Islands Closest to Heaven/Hell" like in VIII.
XI- Never played, didn't think the series would carry over into a MMO world
XII- Again, no more character uniqueness, taken even farther in that you can let your spell casters use heavy armor or heavy melee weapons. As gameplay went on I got tired of the live action battles because instead of being able to sit back and enjoy the action I was too busy trying to keep track of my characters health, trying to figure out why the archer wasn't engaging the enemy, or why the healer wasn't curing anyone. Kind of had the same problem with Arkham Asylum, I'm too busy watching the goons trying to attack to pay attention to the moves that Batman was actually doing, I ended up missing more than I got to see.
XIII/XIV- Haven't played either but they never appealed to me. XIII did away with exploring, period. Whatever they did with that linear gameplay had way too many reviewers up in arms that I didn't even want to play it because of the fond memories of the series. They also did something with the shops if I remember correctly that was a break from the past titles too
With today's gaming, I'd like to see a FFVI-X style game come back but also bring back a few features that have gone by the wayside.
Bring back truly unique character classes. Don't let the ninja become a spellcaster in the way that a mage is, but ninjas can have their deceptive type of "magic" if you still want to include it.
Bring back explorable worlds, enough said.
Take the airship to a whole new level. While flying have visible flying enemies or other monsters for "random encounters" or challenges. Remember Doom Gaze? Create a battle platform for while on the airship. How is it that a fleet of airships with canons on them can't turn the canon around and shoot a freaking bird that has landed on the deck? Add a crash system. We can create these great 3D worlds now that would be great to explore or even have planned crashes
Any company with a sense of customer service, even a poor one, wouldn't drop support to existing products like that. You'd be more likely to see whatever was already in the production channels come to market depending on how much was invested in them before you'd see the company change gears to make devices with their own OS...as long as they weren't purchasing it just for the IP. They won't just sign a deal and say the next day that they absolutely won't support their existing products.
I'd love to see HTC pick up WebOS, but I'm not going to hold my breath on it.
It all depends on the workplace policy for telecommuting. Where I'm currently at, we offer telecommuting and flextime. I don't participate in either since being the sysadmin if something blows up, you have to come in anyway no matter what your schedule is.
That being said, I wouldn't mind working from home a couple of days a week since the majority of my day is monitoring systems or researching, I can do that easily from my couch. But that is where the catch is in our organization. To remote work or telecommute, the person needs to have a dedicated workspace to just their work related activities, a secured location to save work materials, and "isolation" from the rest of the house. So as a number of other people have mentioned things like saving on daycare and such, if it is discovered that your kids are playing on your work system or you are supplementing daycare by working at home those are grounds for revoking the teleworking if not a full firing.
Sure there are holes in the system, like managers that want to stay the employee's friend and not enforce the policies. I have several employees that we know for a fact are supplementing daycare or out golfing when they are "telecommuting." Unfortunately there isn't anything that can be done about a manager that refuses to enforce their own policies.
Thanks to Stumble Upon, once upon a time I ran across a cartoon talking about cell phone falls. Sure it can fall 1000 ft. It be thrown off of a skyscraper, it can survive reentry from space without a scratch. But if it falls off a 3 foot counter top, it shatters into millions of pieces. Moral of the story, drop it from a plane, don't drop it trying to put it back in your pocket.
I quit Facebook a few months ago so don't really know if it is still the case, but back then I noticed that if someone you were friends with responded to an invite, even if that invite wasn't originally to "me" I could everyone who was invited and their comments to the event. It happened to be one of those "I forgot my phone number" events and I couldn't believe how many people just posted their phone numbers for anyone in the world to see. Let the friends that I actually knew know that their info was publicly viewable and they immediately removed it. Yet another case of people not knowing how little FB cares about your personal information.
I've never had a problem with the bloatware on any new computers that I've purchased for myself or helped friends/family purchase. Thanks to my job I have copies of the OEM discs for Dell and HP so the first thing that gets done after taking the computer out of the packaging is a full wipe of the OS and a reinstall of just Windows only, no bloat.
Sure this takes a little additional time to set up the computer, but not having to deal with all of that bloatware BS is well worth it.
You'd like to think most of us have moved beyond Jr. High, but judging from the number of people on Facebook and what they post...No, we haven't moved beyond it.
This has been happening for a while. I've had some lawyer friends of mine ask me about some Facebook stuff as they are dealing with a custody issue where a mother wants more alimony from the father. The father's lawyers are mining the FB updates because every weekend that the mother has custody she is updating that the kid at wherever it was dropped off so she can go out with the girls, go out with they new guy, get drunk, whatever...
And I don't really have a problem with FB being used like that. If you're stupid enough to be using FB and post stuff like that out there you deserve what is coming.
I dropped my FB account a few months ago because I finally decided that it wasn't worth it, and it ticked me off that I had an almost obsessive urge to check my phone for updates every 3 minutes. For someone like me the social login wouldn't be too bad, I made it a point to only friend people that I know in the real world. Depending on how the login works I don't know or remember their full names so if it is looking for the person's full name or just first name that makes a difference. My last name is 12 characters, so good luck trying to remember that or typing that in correctly.
Now lets talk about some of the other folks that I knew on FB, mostly women/girls that would friend anyone and everyone that they had a class with, met at a party, etc... in other words, a bunch of people that they don't know. This is going to to over great for them because they won't have a clue who some of the pictures are, not to mention most pictures are group shots with several people in them anyway...which one is the person they are supposed to ID. Maybe its FB's way of getting people to only post pics of themselves as their profile pic. I personally hated it when someone would use pics of their kids because when you think you know who the person was but the pic is absolutely no help I just moved along. Maybe FB is trying to curb users from friending anyone that sends a request. I think this is going to cause more outrage than acceptance on the site, and is yet another reason that I'm glad I'm no longer a member.
I have an Apple fanboy friend that I recently talked to about his thoughts on the iPhone 4 problems, and he is a true to the kool-aid follower and replied that it wasn't a real problem just a bunch of isolated incidents. He has not yet upgraded though since he waits for the initial bugs to get worked out before jumping in on a new technology. So anyway he was trying to argue that the iPhones didn't have a real problem and that getting the protector was an adequate fix, that Apple shouldn't have to pay for it.
I'm not a mechanic but tried to make a car comparison. What if some company sold a car and shortly after they sold millions of that car they found that a wheel would fall off whenever you made a left turn. Instead of fixing the problem, the car company said everyone needed to buy a giant bumper that fit around the car that would hold the tire in place when they turn left, but the trade off is that the car is not a little bigger, might not fit in the garage or parking places quite right, etc...
People would demand that the car company fix the car itself and not offer a workaround which covers the real problem. Its like treating the symptoms of an illness instead of the illness itself. You can drink all the chicken soup or take all the cough syrup you want but that isn't going to cure Pneumonia. Apple currently has a defective product, it is their responsibility to fix their product's defect, not the consumer's to buy a protective shield, not Apple's to give all users a shield either. They need to FIX their problem at the source. If it takes a redesign to protect the antenna and recall/replace all of them in circulation, so be it. For some reason people are giving Apple a free ride over a critical flaw in one of their major products when they've gone after other companies in other industries for much less serious flaws in their related products.
If/when the iPhone moves to Verizon it won't create a large increase of new iPhone customers. I'd be surprised if the customer base increases 10%. Most people that really want an iPhone already switched to AT&T to get one and I don't really think that the Verizon carrier holdouts are that many.
What will happen though is that Apple will make a ton of money because everyone that is dissatisfied with AT&T will jump ship over to Verizon. Verizon sales will jump because of it, and AT&T might drop a position in the cell phone carriers rankings. Apple will probably release press statements about how they are the world's awesomest phone because they sold 1.x million new phones on Verizon in addition to what they have on AT&T, but fail to report the 1.x million-y that they lost from AT&T because they switched to Verizon and the "official numbers have not been determined yet."
A coworker of mine has a similar issue with her cell phone at her house. When she gets within 2 blocks of her home her phone loses its signal, and she has confirmed with her neighbors that also have the same carrier that they have the same problem. She recently got a new phone thinking that it was a problem with the phone, but the problem continues. Other people with the same carrier can come over and their phones on the same network work with a full signal, but everyone that lives there continues to have trouble. She and her neighbors have called the carrier, done the tower update codes and everything else that they make you do and the carrier continues to claim that there is no problem and they have to live with it.
If Adobe was really upset with how Apple is conducting themselves, maybe they'll start dropping support (or seriously delaying it) for their products on Apple platforms. Granted it could backfire and cause webmasters to rewrite their sites to drop flash, but think about the other programs? Other than switching to MS, to get apps like Photoshop or CS, what would Mac users do? Anyone arguing that alternate apps exist that do just as good of a job, why haven't they run Photoshop a run for their money? I'm looking at GIMP as an example.
What would be the backlash if after the next OS X/Safari update, Adobe announced no more Mac support for PDF, Flash, Photoshop, CS, etc... Throw in the mobile support for flash that is supposed to be coming to most other big name non-Apple mobile devices this year, they can try to hurt Apple where it would hurt the most, their users.
But like I said, it could completely backfire, and Adobe might come back with their tail between their legs and ask Steve Jobs for forgiveness.
I was reading something on this topic a few months ago and the way that I remember it is that under the current laws the volume of the commercials cannot exceed the highest decibel level of the program it is with. There is no restriction on what portion of the program the "loud" commercials are aired with, they can't be louder than the loudest part of the show. So if you are watching a movie that ends in a loud explosion at the end, you get to hear Billy Mays yelling at you every commercial break. I'm on satellite TV and have an older pre-digital conversion television, and I have to say that FX is one of the worst offenders of this. Most channels that I watch I can comfortably have the volume set at just under the 50% marker at a level of 22-25. If I watch anything on FX I need to turn the volume up to at least 30 to make the program hearable at the same level as the other channels, but when a commercial comes on I need to drop the volume back down otherwise it is insanely loud. Its almost like FX airs the show at the lowest decibel of their commercials, then air their commercials at the normal level.
Just wait for someone to realize that they are missing a huge advertising market by not advertising on mobile (phone) browsers. Lots of sites these days are making their "mobile" page as a "watered down" version of their main pages, and as far as I can tell that primarily means removing lots of ads. There are some sites that I actually like better in their mobile versions than the real versions and change my User Agent in FireFox to a mobile browser to get that page. I'm not a trendsetter so I know that if I'm doing this there are others doing this as well, and once the developers catch on it is only a matter of time before we start seeing more ads on our mobile phones when we're browsing. Better hope you have an unlimited data plan when this happens.
Come on, doesn't everyone know the impressive history of Apple brand systems as gaming units? Think about Oregon Trail, Where in [wherever] is Carmen Sandiago, and lets not forget all of the educational games like Math Blaster and Reader Rabbit. This might have changed since I haven't used a Mac as a gaming system since I left elementary school in the early 90's, but I'm just not seeing too many Apple compatible games at the store. The consoles and computers have nothing to fear from the iPhone or any other hand held mobile as a gaming device. I've had several different smart phones and the only thing that their games are good for are time fillers when I'm waiting for a flight, auto repair, meeting someone, etc... They are great for that, if you are suddenly done waiting, you can quick turn it off, and depending on the game pick it back up where you left off.
Outside of signing one's name to a check, I think that cursive writing has lost all practical value. Most cursive looks like chicken scratching and adds to the amount of time that it takes to convey the message. Look at doctor's writing for an example. I've actually had the pharmacy call the doctor back to find out what the prescription was for because all they could read was the doc's name.
I also have a PC tech over 40, a good 10 years plus over my age, and she only writes in cursive. It isn't bad like a doctor, but I can only read every 3rd word, and I'm always asking her questions like, "is this an E or a C." I also keep sending her back to just send me an email with what she needs done, since she thinks a posted note on the pile of papers on my desk will stand out versus an email that I can literally copy and paste the issue in to a search. Yeah, I might be lazy, but when speed and accuracy are a part of the job, it disqualifies cursive, no matter what they said in school.
I think that Avatar is going to shake things up, not necessarily in a good way. A lot of people are going to take their kids to the movie expecting the "Airbender" Avatar version of the movie that M. Night Shyamalan is making, not a James Cameron original. Even when the movie was first announced and Cameron was tied to it, several movie outlets were showing pictures of the Airbender, and I'll even admit to seeing the trailer for Airbender at G.I.Joe and a kid behind me was freaking out that the name of the movie was wrong, that the preview was supposed to be Avatar. I can hear the news stories already about parents taking their kids to the movie and walking out because it wasn't what they expected.
I've been reading this story and posts since this morning and I'm more surprised about the outrage it generated than the fact that they were gathering this information. Like many other posters said, I thought cell companies were doing this anyway. I'm not going to get rid of my Pre or change my habits because of it. What you were saying about the GPS settings, I have mine turned off by default. I figured that it would be a drain on the battery for being on all of the time, and I wanted to know what apps were GPS dependent. I have noticed several times with Google Maps that if I hop around using it, the first map to appear has been the location of the last time that I used the application. It also takes a minute for it to update with my current location and sometimes the map is off. I was using it for driving directions last weekend more so for an accuracy test of the map, and it had me running in parallel of the highway that I was on, in what would be the equivalent of driving through a field. The directions were still accurate. Because I don't feel like making another post, I'll just go on to ask who says that GPS location sometimes won't determine why an app crashes? Maybe the "last known location" put it on the path to a known dead zone, so instead of an engineer having to read through code they can determine that the crash was because of location. The engineer won't have to waste time trying to fix that error, they can work on one that they can actually fix.
I'm probably going to get posted a troll for this, but I'm putting it out there anyway. The only people that I know that have Segways near the small town in Michigan where I live also happen to be Mac owners/Apple Fanboys. I've talked, more so joked with co-workers in IT, and they all agree, there always seems to be an aura of smug around Mac users that when they come to us for help they come to us with an attitude of superiority, talk down to us when asking for help, and act like they are doing us a favor by giving us the opportunity to work on their system. Now I can't say that every Segway owner is also a Mac user and acts this way, I'm only speaking from my own experience, and maybe the two products just happen to appeal to the same smug people.
I spent a week in UT a couple of years ago and I am from MI, where most people take up drinking in the winter months. I was aware of the odd drinking laws going in to the bars, they just carded me, saw that I was from out of state and waved me on through. I can't really say that the beer was any weaker than back home, drank both bottled and draft. It might just be the places that I went, but it seemed like the local businesses knew how to cater to patrons from out of state like a normal state would instead of making visitors jump through all of the hoops that locals need to go through. Then again, that was a few years ago so things might be different now.
What teachers really need is : - Basic computer training. You would be amazed as to how many still can't figure out basic things like email, powerpoint or other similar 'basic' applications
Not just teachers, everyone needs this. I've worked in schools, financial and now non-profit and in every environment you ran across the people that were computer illiterate. I'm not talking the 40 year old and over, but the fresh out of college first job employees as well.
Computers have been around longer than me and for someone to not have the basic level of knowledge is unacceptable, especially in a professional environment. There is no hiding from it, his "fad" is not going to go away. Too bad businesses don't include technical aptitude with the testing before hiring new employees. It could save lots of time and money getting the candidate that knows how to use the tools for their job vs. having to train and have someone hold their hand for months while they learn to push the buttons.
I used to work in a school about 5 years ago when I started getting involved with Linux. I used the desktop, brought in servers, started changing the network backbone to Linux in my school, but when I talked to the neighboring schools, they wanted nothing to do with it. I was a newbie in the tech departments at the time so when we had the regional tech department meetings, they wouldn't listen to me. I'd demo a feature that my school was using, everyone was buying in to it but as soon as I said it ran off of Linux, they all shut down. The existing Linux "expert" was a single person department that had no time to do any testing that said he installed it once, had a problem and never looked back. Being a school and a Novell shop, I found out that he was using SUSE 8 and 10 just came out at the time. He refused to look at it citing the amount of time and his previous Linux experience.
Another big factor is the teaching mentality. I actively tried to push OpenOffice in our school, which I was denied because...and I quote,"The rest of the world uses Microsoft, so thats what we need to teach." They aren't trying to teach word processing, spreadsheet use, database design and management, etc...they are teaching Word, Excel, Access, and all of the other applications. From my experience, people that learn the application are locked in to the Word and Excel, but teaching word processing and how to use a spreadsheet someone can use Word, OpenOffice, Excel, Notes, and pretty much any other office suite out there.
Bottom line what it comes down to is budget strapped school systems can't afford a sizable tech department that can take the time to research and develop new systems to cut costs and do the job better. It is often a single person that is swamped with requests and can also share duties as a teacher, librarian, or some other role and is only concerned with fixing what is broken, upgrading to the newest version, and keeping the status quo. Since Linux is outside of their knowledge and comfort zone, these "admins" are never going to switch to anything outside of Microsoft.