You're right about the platforms thing. Publisher used to be very consistent during the time frame I mentioned... I edited magazines and newsletters on one version and the publishing contractors were almost always using another (They kept upgrading, our school had one lame copy) and I never faced any problems. I'd guess that my experience just anecdotally proves backward compatibility, but as a general rule, I'd guess that pub files play better than docs. If it's degraded, it needs to be fixed (Publisher used to be one of MS's better products). Then again, Microsoft works in mysterious ways.
I agree with most of what you're saying. To preserve immaculate formatting, file sizes would have to increase, but I think I'll live with that. Perhaps they can have options for different types of users. Or come up with an.fnf (formatting nazi file) extension:).
One of my professors also does the same PDF routine. Except he manages to comes across as a badass by telling us he wants PDFs because it is not proprietary. He also accepts W3C compliant HTML. Add to this that he is a really brilliant guy, and I am perfectly happy looking up to him. Ironically, he is a mechanical engineering professor and most students bitched about how he wouldn't accept "normal" Word documents and derided him as an Adobe fanboi. I, on the other hand, ended up picking him for senior design and hopefully he'll accede to be my advisor for graduate school if I end up doing Robotics.
My feeling is this - you create your document 'easily' using standard Office suite interfaces. It saves it like it would a publisher file which lays out your doc and specifies EXACTLY where everythign goes. When you open it again, it is formatted perfectly and you keep editing until the cycle repeats. Not sure why this wouldn't be possible. Like the reply below you suggests, uniting office level of control with a desktop publishing level of precision might lead to a killer application.
I am not sure why neither one of these formats approaches the consistency of Publisher files or Pagemaker files when it comes to retaining formatting across platforms and versions. pub files and pagemaker files (I forget what they were called) were much more consistent across versions back in 2002 (Last time I was an editor for anything was 2003). Anybody know why? Granted that pub files were enormous, but in today's day and age, size matters lesser than it did before (My girlfriend tells me that every night)
But you do need to justify it, as much as any action that has an impact on others Every breath you take Every move you make Every bond you break Every step you take Has an impact on others
Most of your actions you do not have to justify. This is called freedom. There DO exist actions that you have to justify, but that's what the constitution is for.
Not that I condemn vegetarianism, but I treat vegging out as something akin to social service - in that you make voluntary sacrifices to help society/other animals. I do social service as part of GT-IDEA (check us out!), you do it by going vegetarian. I don't ask you to make the same sacrifices that I am making and I do not expect you to justify *NOT* doing all the volunteer opportunities available to you. A lot of animal rights activists don't promote vegetarianism, but try to make you feel horrible about eating meat[1]. This is why PETA is extremely unpopular.
[1] I am not accusing you of this. In fact, your post is a very civilised, sane response. I am simply offering my perspective.
I for one have been struggling to find decent mobility with online access. Although slightly off tangent to the topic of a Web 3.0, I have switched to a UMPC (3lb vaio that goes on for about 6-8 hrs on a single charge), and tried PAM with my phone. Although satisfactory, intensive online tasks are still a pain as is computing power. Perhaps if we focused on having a powerful computer at home with a portable client, it would satisfy several needs. 3G down speeds are reasonable to make this realistic (EVDO rev A shows promise and DSM networks can go with European technology). Upload speeds required aren't very high. Minimal processing power needed on hand, which will allow extremely portable machines to be carried around with the processing done remotely.
Web 3.0 centred around all the processing you need available from Google-like services (online office suite, calendar etc..) would be nice, but that may take a while with more development work required than for my pipedream above
True that... I also love the sound of 'gibibytes'. Regardless, that's why is said 'in lay contexts'. It really doesn't make a difference to your avg joe except those who go "OMG! I paid for 40 gigs and I only got 34.6gigs" without realizing that a good bit of that difference is due to a factory partition.
Although guilty of using all these terms interchangeably in my own posts, the difference between gB, GB, gb and Gb are significant only when there is a 'ps' following the acronym. In other lay contexts, it's fairly unambiguous.
I think sony figured (as we did) that nobody would buy the 80GB version if they got a 60 gig version for a 100 dollars lesser. My feeling is that they'll keep trying to sell it at $600 with a game (worth - according to Sony - $60) and then come Christmas, move down to $500 and maybe release a higher capacity version (250 gig anyone?) for $600. Of course, it is also possible that the price structure will change to a $400/$500 business model around Xmas if PS3 doesn't become the shit then owing to their games (they are probably counting on this). Alternatively, if the PS3 DOES become the shit, then they don't have to price-cut the 80GB version (bad move in terms of economies of scale IMHO). The way they are probably buying these 80g HDDs from their EMSes needs for them to adopt a few different business strategies and I think this current move is just for them to adapt and study the trends of pricing using 60gb HDDs that they're possibly no longer ordering.
Becasue it is not available through their website. Here's what I would do. Buy the most expensive free phone you can find for the carrier you want to use (through amazon/wirefly). Sell that phone...brand new (and unlocked) on eBay. (T-Mobile) will unlock the phone if you tell them you are leaving the country and going to India (or any other country with no T-Mobile). You recoup $150 - $200 and the openmoko costs you about $100. And this is the scenario without rebates. If you DO feel like messing with rebates, you can probably recoup the phone's cost. I myself am selling my Motorola Q and debating a move to GSM (from Sprint) just for Openmoko. But I have to make my mind up quick before they bump the OM's price up.
But why is the Surgeon General talking about global warming? Maybe since he wanted to tell us what effects it has on our health? Of course, we do not know about these effects because he was censored.
Interesting observation: PS3 has been selling at the same rate as the XBox360 if you look at the initial as well as current slopes. And the Wii has been selling roughly more than twice as fast. Which essentially means that the revenue generated by the Wii is probably comparable to that generated by the PS3 and the Xbox. Of course, MS and Sony have been taking losses on their console sales while Nintendo has been making a profit. Cheers!
Actually, I have been thinking about this for the longest time (every time I buy a CD for my car that does not play burnt discs). It might actually be profitable if you use it as an additional selling point. Consumer satisfaction improves and that counts for something. Maybe the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD war can be resolved if either Sony or MS introduces this concept?
Yes. If actually making the car costs less that 1% of the price it is selling for and if it is not a consumable good. Seldom do people actually buy the same CD/DVD over and over because they scratched the one they had. And companies do not rely on this for their profitability. And the added marketing boost might actually make it worth it all.
No. This was an original exclusive. Someone said "This is like an advertisement" and someone else ragged on them becasue "It WAS an advertisement" and I was just amused at the pedantry.
One thing I have never understood is why anybody who sells their shit on optical media doesn't institute a return program for scratched discs. You give me a scratched disc (with a holographic seal of authenticity) and I'll replace it free. Given that the disc itself is cheap to produce (unlike floppy disks), this should ensure TOTAL consumer happiness. In fact, they could even (if possible) clean and sell mildly scratched discs as refurbished/pre-owned and make a profit out of this whole cycle.
Ahhh... I completely ignored the fact that there might be a Linux user who is not a fanboi. I have used Linux on a few separate occasions (most of the time not even knowing/caring about the flavor), but to me again, it really there was no noticeable difference in the flavors for really basic tasks as long as you're using Gnome/KDE or something. The other stuff, I had to figure out, so I cannot really comment on ease of use since it could have been due to my ignorance. FC6 is probably the only Linux disto I am (rather, used to be) remotely familiar with. Most linux users I talk to drool about the particular flavor of Linux they're using.
P.S. Funny story about me at an Apple store with my friend trying to talk him out of buying a Mac (he wanted it because it looked cool and wasn't ever going to do anything but Office apps on it and I wanted him to get a UMPC). The Apple rep comes over eavesdrops on us. I was telling my friend that a tiny laptop turns more heads and is a lot more convenient and portable and that it suited him better. The Apple guy interjects and debates with me for about 5 minutes about how Apples are superawesome. Eventually, he goes "Sir if you do not mind but tell me what OS you have on your PC" and I reply with "FC6" and the guy says... "Ok. Well, I guess you know what you are talking about and I'll let you guys continue" and leaves. That was hilarious!! Unfortunately, the flood of milky white goodness overcame my buddy and he took home a MacBook and inspite of my crusade for the next 14 days, he didn't do it because it looked so shiny. Now he runs Windows XP on it (like I had predicted) and suffers from poor battery life. *sigh*
Slashdot Mirror
You're right about the platforms thing. Publisher used to be very consistent during the time frame I mentioned... I edited magazines and newsletters on one version and the publishing contractors were almost always using another (They kept upgrading, our school had one lame copy) and I never faced any problems. I'd guess that my experience just anecdotally proves backward compatibility, but as a general rule, I'd guess that pub files play better than docs. If it's degraded, it needs to be fixed (Publisher used to be one of MS's better products). Then again, Microsoft works in mysterious ways.
Cheers!
I agree with most of what you're saying. To preserve immaculate formatting, file sizes would have to increase, but I think I'll live with that. Perhaps they can have options for different types of users. Or come up with an .fnf (formatting nazi file) extension :).
One of my professors also does the same PDF routine. Except he manages to comes across as a badass by telling us he wants PDFs because it is not proprietary. He also accepts W3C compliant HTML. Add to this that he is a really brilliant guy, and I am perfectly happy looking up to him. Ironically, he is a mechanical engineering professor and most students bitched about how he wouldn't accept "normal" Word documents and derided him as an Adobe fanboi. I, on the other hand, ended up picking him for senior design and hopefully he'll accede to be my advisor for graduate school if I end up doing Robotics.
Good times...
Cheers!
Please read my reply to the first reply to my OP.
Cheers!
My feeling is this - you create your document 'easily' using standard Office suite interfaces. It saves it like it would a publisher file which lays out your doc and specifies EXACTLY where everythign goes. When you open it again, it is formatted perfectly and you keep editing until the cycle repeats. Not sure why this wouldn't be possible. Like the reply below you suggests, uniting office level of control with a desktop publishing level of precision might lead to a killer application.
Cheers!
I am not sure why neither one of these formats approaches the consistency of Publisher files or Pagemaker files when it comes to retaining formatting across platforms and versions. pub files and pagemaker files (I forget what they were called) were much more consistent across versions back in 2002 (Last time I was an editor for anything was 2003). Anybody know why? Granted that pub files were enormous, but in today's day and age, size matters lesser than it did before (My girlfriend tells me that every night)
Cheers!
Every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
Has an impact on others
Most of your actions you do not have to justify. This is called freedom. There DO exist actions that you have to justify, but that's what the constitution is for.
Cheers!
Not that I condemn vegetarianism, but I treat vegging out as something akin to social service - in that you make voluntary sacrifices to help society/other animals. I do social service as part of GT-IDEA (check us out!), you do it by going vegetarian. I don't ask you to make the same sacrifices that I am making and I do not expect you to justify *NOT* doing all the volunteer opportunities available to you. A lot of animal rights activists don't promote vegetarianism, but try to make you feel horrible about eating meat[1]. This is why PETA is extremely unpopular.
[1] I am not accusing you of this. In fact, your post is a very civilised, sane response. I am simply offering my perspective.
Cheers!
I for one have been struggling to find decent mobility with online access. Although slightly off tangent to the topic of a Web 3.0, I have switched to a UMPC (3lb vaio that goes on for about 6-8 hrs on a single charge), and tried PAM with my phone. Although satisfactory, intensive online tasks are still a pain as is computing power. Perhaps if we focused on having a powerful computer at home with a portable client, it would satisfy several needs. 3G down speeds are reasonable to make this realistic (EVDO rev A shows promise and DSM networks can go with European technology). Upload speeds required aren't very high. Minimal processing power needed on hand, which will allow extremely portable machines to be carried around with the processing done remotely.
Web 3.0 centred around all the processing you need available from Google-like services (online office suite, calendar etc..) would be nice, but that may take a while with more development work required than for my pipedream above
Any takers?
Cheers!
--
Vig
Cheers!
Oddly enough, you wouldn't have been infected if you had used a trojan
Cheers!
Surely, you must mean 'their'?
-Your friendly neighbor from the 'hood and atrocious grammer nazi
is that the viruses for it are traditionally written by 9th graders who use the B: drive...
There are no imaginary imaginary numbers whose squares are 1.
This makes these numbers imaginary...
Cheers!
--
Vig
True that... I also love the sound of 'gibibytes'. Regardless, that's why is said 'in lay contexts'. It really doesn't make a difference to your avg joe except those who go "OMG! I paid for 40 gigs and I only got 34.6gigs" without realizing that a good bit of that difference is due to a factory partition.
Cheers!
Although guilty of using all these terms interchangeably in my own posts, the difference between gB, GB, gb and Gb are significant only when there is a 'ps' following the acronym. In other lay contexts, it's fairly unambiguous.
Cheers!
I think sony figured (as we did) that nobody would buy the 80GB version if they got a 60 gig version for a 100 dollars lesser. My feeling is that they'll keep trying to sell it at $600 with a game (worth - according to Sony - $60) and then come Christmas, move down to $500 and maybe release a higher capacity version (250 gig anyone?) for $600. Of course, it is also possible that the price structure will change to a $400/$500 business model around Xmas if PS3 doesn't become the shit then owing to their games (they are probably counting on this). Alternatively, if the PS3 DOES become the shit, then they don't have to price-cut the 80GB version (bad move in terms of economies of scale IMHO). The way they are probably buying these 80g HDDs from their EMSes needs for them to adopt a few different business strategies and I think this current move is just for them to adapt and study the trends of pricing using 60gb HDDs that they're possibly no longer ordering.
Cheers!
Becasue it is not available through their website. Here's what I would do. Buy the most expensive free phone you can find for the carrier you want to use (through amazon/wirefly). Sell that phone...brand new (and unlocked) on eBay. (T-Mobile) will unlock the phone if you tell them you are leaving the country and going to India (or any other country with no T-Mobile). You recoup $150 - $200 and the openmoko costs you about $100. And this is the scenario without rebates. If you DO feel like messing with rebates, you can probably recoup the phone's cost. I myself am selling my Motorola Q and debating a move to GSM (from Sprint) just for Openmoko. But I have to make my mind up quick before they bump the OM's price up.
Cheers!
Wait... the answer to a rhetorical question gets modded Informative?
Cheers!
Cheers!
Interesting observation: PS3 has been selling at the same rate as the XBox360 if you look at the initial as well as current slopes. And the Wii has been selling roughly more than twice as fast. Which essentially means that the revenue generated by the Wii is probably comparable to that generated by the PS3 and the Xbox. Of course, MS and Sony have been taking losses on their console sales while Nintendo has been making a profit.
Cheers!
Actually, I have been thinking about this for the longest time (every time I buy a CD for my car that does not play burnt discs). It might actually be profitable if you use it as an additional selling point. Consumer satisfaction improves and that counts for something. Maybe the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD war can be resolved if either Sony or MS introduces this concept?
If they do, you saw it here first!!
Cheers!
Yes. If actually making the car costs less that 1% of the price it is selling for and if it is not a consumable good. Seldom do people actually buy the same CD/DVD over and over because they scratched the one they had. And companies do not rely on this for their profitability. And the added marketing boost might actually make it worth it all.
Cheers!
No. This was an original exclusive. Someone said "This is like an advertisement" and someone else ragged on them becasue "It WAS an advertisement" and I was just amused at the pedantry.
Cheers!
One thing I have never understood is why anybody who sells their shit on optical media doesn't institute a return program for scratched discs. You give me a scratched disc (with a holographic seal of authenticity) and I'll replace it free. Given that the disc itself is cheap to produce (unlike floppy disks), this should ensure TOTAL consumer happiness. In fact, they could even (if possible) clean and sell mildly scratched discs as refurbished/pre-owned and make a profit out of this whole cycle.
Cheers!
Ahhh... I completely ignored the fact that there might be a Linux user who is not a fanboi. I have used Linux on a few separate occasions (most of the time not even knowing/caring about the flavor), but to me again, it really there was no noticeable difference in the flavors for really basic tasks as long as you're using Gnome/KDE or something. The other stuff, I had to figure out, so I cannot really comment on ease of use since it could have been due to my ignorance. FC6 is probably the only Linux disto I am (rather, used to be) remotely familiar with. Most linux users I talk to drool about the particular flavor of Linux they're using.
P.S. Funny story about me at an Apple store with my friend trying to talk him out of buying a Mac (he wanted it because it looked cool and wasn't ever going to do anything but Office apps on it and I wanted him to get a UMPC). The Apple rep comes over eavesdrops on us. I was telling my friend that a tiny laptop turns more heads and is a lot more convenient and portable and that it suited him better. The Apple guy interjects and debates with me for about 5 minutes about how Apples are superawesome. Eventually, he goes "Sir if you do not mind but tell me what OS you have on your PC" and I reply with "FC6" and the guy says... "Ok. Well, I guess you know what you are talking about and I'll let you guys continue" and leaves. That was hilarious!! Unfortunately, the flood of milky white goodness overcame my buddy and he took home a MacBook and inspite of my crusade for the next 14 days, he didn't do it because it looked so shiny. Now he runs Windows XP on it (like I had predicted) and suffers from poor battery life. *sigh*
Cheers!