Flash can print... unless you want to get to the nitty gritty details of the technology. Technically, ActionScript (the language for all Flash apps) can leverage print drivers on a user's system, which of course prints content.
As for releasing apps, if they do, nothing would be bundled as Flash. Adobe is considering the release of a lightweight version of Photoshop though... kind of a SaaS model. I'm sure the idea is to get people hooked to increase purchases.
I have been an independent IT contractor since I was 18, and started what is now a strong small IT consulting business when I was 20. Now 25, I still have alot of grad student friends who would love to make a quick $10. However, I'd throw them out of my office if they tried to sell me this. We get tons of solicitors despite the "No Solicitation" signs in our office park and it distracts my staff from doing their job.
Furthermore, I actually view a Google listing as detrimental to our credibility within the scope of the consulting we do. We work with several major companies and partners and provide services to C-level executives. They all do background checks on their suppliers, and when we're listed with a shop doing PC technician work, our clients get the wrong impression of what we do. Disclaimer: there's nothing wrong w/ PC technician work, but CIO's don't care about those deals when they're looking for strategy consultants. Google listings misrepresent us simply because we're small.
Aside from the fact a business can move, there are alot of businesses that don't have one physical location. www.regis.com sells virtual office space (among others). Lot's of new companies are going the virtual route to save money, but they're never in the office even though they're open for business. They have to schedule time after talking with a potential client, but the client can't come to them.
Having been a contractor, I also know there are alot of ramifications of the W-9 tax situation. A W-9 is basically a corp-to-corp agreement. This is what makes me feel Google is feeding on ignorance. Most people don't understand that once you receive income on a W-9 basis you are legally a sole-proprietorship subject to business taxation rates. That means you and all of your assets are at risk. While a small business probably won't file a suit against you, there is still a liabilty that Google is passing off to the individual. Basically, they aren't responsible for anything, and they're paying you less than minimum wage, which is what it would cost them to send out reps. On a W-9, you also have to file quarterly taxes if you hit a certain dollar value. However; you have to take into account everything you may earn at a normal job. With amounts this small, the IRS probably won't care, but you're still taking a risk with taxes. I should also point out I worked for a very well known credit card company at one point, and tax records do play a role in calculating your credit or acceptance. I took several finance classes in college, sat down with my lawyers/accountants/tax advisors, and it still took me quite a long time to initially figure out how all this stuff works... so I doubt the general public or your normal college student is going to know what they're getting into. Not to mention insurance... and you're even more screwed if you send people out to do the work for you because now you're employing people (and you have to meet minimum wage).
Anyhow, perhaps I'm blowing this out of proportion, but this seems like a very shady practice to circumvent legal and ethical business practices. Kind of reminds me a little of telemarketing without the do-not-call lists. Plus, what's stopping Google from selling these listings when they "legally" attained a product from another company? The whole thing just bothers me. Sorry for ranting (therapeutic for me).
I agree with Dr. Crumb. Perhaps "standard browser engine" was a poor choice of words to describe my point, which was more in the vein that browser vendors don't promote standard releases. Of course we have standards, one only need look at the W3C. While browser vendors are getting better about supporting such standards, there are still inconsistencies between which version of a standard is supported across multiple browsers. It's a pipe dream to think every vendor will agree to release versions that support new standards in unison, mostly because they're all trying to beat their competition to the market. Again, I won't hold my breath.
Whether intentional or not, I believe Dr. Crumb highlights a point too. How much market share FF has is irrelevant to the usage statistics within IE. That's one good example of why I feel stories like these are slanted. They just don't hit the real concerns, rather they encourage the "selfish reasons" mentioned above by taking formulated results out of context.
Just to clarify, my comments were not targeted at the readers of/., rather the quality of stories being posted. If I want to see how the OSS community compares to the proprietary market, I'd rather see a comprehensive story about the controversy in commercial OSS or what percentage of a Fortune 1K company is OSS vs. Proprietary apps. FF is just too small to base an opinion on, yet stories about it pop up all the time.
To me, as a web engineer in the BI-industry, I get really tired of these browser stories in general. I especially grow tired of Firefox vs. IE stories. Not only are they often presented out of context, but they glamorize a one browser over another. When I read these stories, it almost always seems slanted towards Firefox promotion. For example, if you rearrange the headline to say "Firefox up to 28% market share", the gains it makes don't seem as impressive as the loss IE takes, if it is even accurate. That aside, who really cares what browser others use? Web developers. So, to the development community, what is the "stuff that matters" and what is just childish bickering? FF market share doesn't alleviate the fact developers still have to deal with the inconsistencies between browsers. Even if FF had 90% of the market, we'd still have to accomodate te other 10%. Believing 100% FF adoption is possible to alleviate these burdens by posting slanted stories is naive.
I would much rather see stories about progress towards a standard browser engine, something that will display code the same way no matter which browser you use. Let non-critical user features fuel the browser war. I won't hold my breath for that, but in the meantime it'd be nice to see these trivial (at least to me) stories drop off.
It seems this agenda follows a common Microsoft theme of attracting/buying qualified outside resources rather than making them in-house. That may work for capitalist strategies, but not societal change. All we have is "our house".
I agree that education needs a boost, but outsourcing jobs only scares kids away from industry. With a decrease in technology/science majors, US foreign resource dependency increases. Like leeches, we won't remain very high on the political food chain if our host weakens. Leverage comes from self-sufficiency. Throwing ourselves at the mercy of other countries seems a naive strategy to me.
Why not increase funding for the arts in our schools? Oh wait, that's a useless subject. I forgot, it only influences youth creativity, independent thinking, and fresh approaches to managing life. New thought patterns couldn't possibly fuel US business.
Slashdot Mirror
Flash can print... unless you want to get to the nitty gritty details of the technology. Technically, ActionScript (the language for all Flash apps) can leverage print drivers on a user's system, which of course prints content.
As for releasing apps, if they do, nothing would be bundled as Flash. Adobe is considering the release of a lightweight version of Photoshop though... kind of a SaaS model. I'm sure the idea is to get people hooked to increase purchases.
I have been an independent IT contractor since I was 18, and started what is now a strong small IT consulting business when I was 20. Now 25, I still have alot of grad student friends who would love to make a quick $10. However, I'd throw them out of my office if they tried to sell me this. We get tons of solicitors despite the "No Solicitation" signs in our office park and it distracts my staff from doing their job.
Furthermore, I actually view a Google listing as detrimental to our credibility within the scope of the consulting we do. We work with several major companies and partners and provide services to C-level executives. They all do background checks on their suppliers, and when we're listed with a shop doing PC technician work, our clients get the wrong impression of what we do. Disclaimer: there's nothing wrong w/ PC technician work, but CIO's don't care about those deals when they're looking for strategy consultants. Google listings misrepresent us simply because we're small.
Aside from the fact a business can move, there are alot of businesses that don't have one physical location. www.regis.com sells virtual office space (among others). Lot's of new companies are going the virtual route to save money, but they're never in the office even though they're open for business. They have to schedule time after talking with a potential client, but the client can't come to them.
Having been a contractor, I also know there are alot of ramifications of the W-9 tax situation. A W-9 is basically a corp-to-corp agreement. This is what makes me feel Google is feeding on ignorance. Most people don't understand that once you receive income on a W-9 basis you are legally a sole-proprietorship subject to business taxation rates. That means you and all of your assets are at risk. While a small business probably won't file a suit against you, there is still a liabilty that Google is passing off to the individual. Basically, they aren't responsible for anything, and they're paying you less than minimum wage, which is what it would cost them to send out reps. On a W-9, you also have to file quarterly taxes if you hit a certain dollar value. However; you have to take into account everything you may earn at a normal job. With amounts this small, the IRS probably won't care, but you're still taking a risk with taxes. I should also point out I worked for a very well known credit card company at one point, and tax records do play a role in calculating your credit or acceptance. I took several finance classes in college, sat down with my lawyers/accountants/tax advisors, and it still took me quite a long time to initially figure out how all this stuff works... so I doubt the general public or your normal college student is going to know what they're getting into. Not to mention insurance... and you're even more screwed if you send people out to do the work for you because now you're employing people (and you have to meet minimum wage).
Anyhow, perhaps I'm blowing this out of proportion, but this seems like a very shady practice to circumvent legal and ethical business practices. Kind of reminds me a little of telemarketing without the do-not-call lists. Plus, what's stopping Google from selling these listings when they "legally" attained a product from another company? The whole thing just bothers me. Sorry for ranting (therapeutic for me).
I agree with Dr. Crumb. Perhaps "standard browser engine" was a poor choice of words to describe my point, which was more in the vein that browser vendors don't promote standard releases. Of course we have standards, one only need look at the W3C. While browser vendors are getting better about supporting such standards, there are still inconsistencies between which version of a standard is supported across multiple browsers. It's a pipe dream to think every vendor will agree to release versions that support new standards in unison, mostly because they're all trying to beat their competition to the market. Again, I won't hold my breath.
/., rather the quality of stories being posted. If I want to see how the OSS community compares to the proprietary market, I'd rather see a comprehensive story about the controversy in commercial OSS or what percentage of a Fortune 1K company is OSS vs. Proprietary apps. FF is just too small to base an opinion on, yet stories about it pop up all the time.
Whether intentional or not, I believe Dr. Crumb highlights a point too. How much market share FF has is irrelevant to the usage statistics within IE. That's one good example of why I feel stories like these are slanted. They just don't hit the real concerns, rather they encourage the "selfish reasons" mentioned above by taking formulated results out of context.
Just to clarify, my comments were not targeted at the readers of
To me, as a web engineer in the BI-industry, I get really tired of these browser stories in general. I especially grow tired of Firefox vs. IE stories. Not only are they often presented out of context, but they glamorize a one browser over another. When I read these stories, it almost always seems slanted towards Firefox promotion. For example, if you rearrange the headline to say "Firefox up to 28% market share", the gains it makes don't seem as impressive as the loss IE takes, if it is even accurate. That aside, who really cares what browser others use? Web developers. So, to the development community, what is the "stuff that matters" and what is just childish bickering? FF market share doesn't alleviate the fact developers still have to deal with the inconsistencies between browsers. Even if FF had 90% of the market, we'd still have to accomodate te other 10%. Believing 100% FF adoption is possible to alleviate these burdens by posting slanted stories is naive.
I would much rather see stories about progress towards a standard browser engine, something that will display code the same way no matter which browser you use. Let non-critical user features fuel the browser war. I won't hold my breath for that, but in the meantime it'd be nice to see these trivial (at least to me) stories drop off.
It seems this agenda follows a common Microsoft theme of attracting/buying qualified outside resources rather than making them in-house. That may work for capitalist strategies, but not societal change. All we have is "our house".
I agree that education needs a boost, but outsourcing jobs only scares kids away from industry. With a decrease in technology/science majors, US foreign resource dependency increases. Like leeches, we won't remain very high on the political food chain if our host weakens. Leverage comes from self-sufficiency. Throwing ourselves at the mercy of other countries seems a naive strategy to me.
Why not increase funding for the arts in our schools? Oh wait, that's a useless subject. I forgot, it only influences youth creativity, independent thinking, and fresh approaches to managing life. New thought patterns couldn't possibly fuel US business.