Hmm, if I build a newsstand at North Pole would I be then branded a monopolist?:-)
They are not a monopoly, IMO, as long as others can come and have a piece of their business. MS *is* a monopoly because nobody else can make Windows. And even then they got slapped not for being a monopoly (all s/w houses are), but for abusing this position.
Ask yourself this: how good a deal will Wal-Mart be when they have 90+% market share?
They are not a monopolist as MS, they are reseller. MS erected a huge barrier of entry, and even qualified participants (RedHat, Suse etc.) have problems climbing over it. However anyone can open a store and sell the same goods as Wal-Mart sells, for less or for whatever he pleases. There is no barrier of entry, and that is one crucial difference here.
And if you say that Wal-Mart gets to 99% of market share being the lowest cost provider, and *then* ups the price... the market will react, and the smaller merchants will fill the gap in no time. I would not go to a big store to pay more if I can get the same thing next door and for less! The key here again is "the same thing" - and Wal-Mart can not possibly monopolize resale of everything. MS focuses on one product, and that is their own product, so they can do that. Wal-Mart is a different story.
When the diversity is all gone, everyone will have to pay an extra dollar
I'd rather open a store and start selling milk (a locally produced product!) for less. I personally know people who would do that. It is much easier to own a shop than to hack C++ code.
To answer your question just think how many people from all sectors of society - and how often - buy from Microsoft vs. from Wal-Mart. Also think which company sells products that you *literally* can not live without. Also think which company sells generally decent stuff at bargain prices. Then you get the answer.
If they are cheap I can live with whatever little sturdiness they got. Normally notebooks are not that much abused, it's occasional drops on the floor that are a concern. A Thinkpad will crack the plastic but works. This one will crack the plastic and stops working... not a big deal: at that price I can buy three cheap notebooks instead of two or three expensive ones. And if you drop an expensive notebook it still takes damage, and you will want to repair or replace it anyway.
A government has no need to make a law. Just by de facto accepting and producing documents in OpenOffice (or other) formats, they will force the change.
This is not unique to Brazil. As I mentioned elsewhere, US Government requires its contractors, suppliers and anyone else it works with to use MS Office for all documents. So if you just happened to sell a bale of hay to US Cavalry, you have to invoice them with a MS Word document:-)
how is it that they have any say about what you do with your own property
Easy. They can't officially accuse him of posession, but in many states employer can dismiss anyone without any explanations whatsoever. If, for example, his boss is a woman who is scared of sex and/or rape, it would be even understandable.
If you do that, your kid will simply consider your setup br0ken, and will get his Web access elsewhere. Not that it would be particularly difficult... a WiFi equipped laptop + Starbucks would do it, for example, even if he can't connect anywhere else (which would be kinda strange.) A laptop would be $200 (any 3-4 y/o Thinkpad), the card - $50. Within buying power of a teen.
It is not obvious. Even the shortcut for services is buried deep in "Control Panel". And how would a home user know what services he needs or doesn't need? Services with names (and explanations) that he does not understand? Services that, "if disabled, will result in services depending on them to fail"? You can easily get your own BSOD by disabling essential services, and to get out of that mess you'd need to learn registry recovery (through F8 magic on bootup).
Fact is, configuration of services is not for home users. It is not even for many engineers who work with computers for a living.
Good programmers are in demand even now. Once the MS engineers exercise their stock options they have nothing else to wait for. And they are probably sick and tired of a "big company" routine where nothing can be done without lots of of red tape.
The best are likely to open their own companies, they are definitely qualified for that. They only need to team up with business development people -- which is not that difficult.
Fact is, companies grow old and die (insert SCO reference here.) MS is not ready to die yet, but the company is getting its first gray hairs.
I know there are some juicy government contracts out there, but are they really worth it?
Yes, if they are juicy. Some are, some are not. I heard about people who lost their shirts on such contracts. I heard other stories too. But regardless of stories, engineers rarely can dictate to PHBs what contracts they should [not] sign:-)
I haven't had trouble like what you are saying with OpenOffice, but then again, I haven't done government paperwork either.
Any paperwork will do:-) One simple example: "Index Heading 2" style (which was indented in OO 1.1) got the right tab in wrong position (equally indented). Another example: MS Word does not put captions into frames - and generally does not like frames. All frames got shifted from page to text margin, with disastrous results. This one is tough to fix, because the whole principle of doing captions differs between Word and OO.
If you have a small, simple document then you can save in.doc format easily. But if you have anything more complex than that, beware.
prepare the entire document in MS Word, as save it as straight text (Word can do that) and see what kind of argument they give you
Probably they would just call you and say that the document is corrupted ("everything is in the same strange font"), and would you please resend it within 5 minutes. And then you know what you will be doing in those 5 minutes:-)
Many, if not all, government contracts come with the clause: "All documents shall be prepared in MS Word format." And if you say "Save from OpenOffice as.doc format" - no, it does not work either, the conversion errors are numerous and glaring. It takes about half an hour to clean up a 50-page document... you can't do that each time you ship something to someone. I did just that yesterday, and it was painful.
The device, regardless of the OS, will not be adopted by corporate masses any time soon. The reason is that the PHBs are really conservative people. It took them 20 years to progress from pen and paper to a notebook. Expect 20 more years to move them to a wearable computer with HUD and voice recognition (by then it will be standard. You can have it even now if you want to.)
Consumers and early adopters are free to buy the thing, and they probably buy most of manufactured tablets already. They have too much money to burn, apparently, and for some students expenses are already so high that one or two more thousand does not matter. These tablets are used with varying success; some say that they hate writing, other say that they love it. Personally, I barely can write, and I would really hate to write on a heavy, bulky tablet (I could tolerate PDA's Graffiti until it gave up the ghost.)
The rest of tablets are used where they actually make sense - think about your average UPS or Fedex driver, for example. There are huge warehouses all over the country that are full of boxes. If you are in charge of that, you'd better keep track of every single box that goes in or out, because you can't check inventory often, and if any is missing you easily can owe to the owner more than you can earn during the rest of your life.
I don't use breadboards, they are too awfully unreliable. And it is actually easier to solder 0805's than through-hole parts. It is all Eagle for me, then Advanced Circuits, and a good Weller MicroTouch soldering station. Just add some milk, and you can't drag me away:-)
AVR is indeed good. My first MCU was 8080, then some flavors of 8051; before that was just TTL, lots of it. Got to practice with them when I was repairing IBM 360/370 at school. Today I like AVR a lot, they are simple and easy to use, and AVR-GCC is fairly reliable (haven't failed on me yet, at least.) The C code translates into machine commands quite well - AVR was marketed as RISC optimized for high level languages. I can believe that.
PIC... never worked with them; I treat them as dinosaurs of MCU world. But at previous job we had a portable device where a PIC (24-pin or something) was used. Why? Because the engineer knew PICs and had the tools. That's the only reason.
And with regard to Ford Pinto... I am not *that* old, thank you:-) I just read a lot. But I don't own anything Ford anyway, just in case:-) Prefer to stay with something more reliable (being dirt cheap helps too:-)
Well, the cost issues are a mixed bag. Much more depends on how much you buy, rather than what exactly it is. And OEMs of such mass market items definitely get everything at very favorable prices.
With regard to the MCU, I used ATMEGA32-16AI in TQFP package. There are cheaper AVR MCUs (I used 8535 before), but nowadays it does not make any sense to even bother with smaller ones, unless you really count pennies. And even if you do, being penny-wise is not always a smart move (as LG's example shows, and earlier Ford Pinto debacle).
I'll give you the benefit of my 20+ years of experience
Thanks, but I still remember some JCL myself:-)
Pseudocode is not cryptic Linix commands strung together but is, instead, designed to be descriptive and easily understood by humans
Depends on your definition of a human. Myself, I had no problem with the 'dd' example. What would be an easier way to illustrate copying of a block of data into a device?
You can't just copy new firmware to a peripheral once you flashed bad firmware to it
That is simply incorrect. Flash with r/o boot blocks exists for many years, and even many MCUs today come with this feature. My last project, based on some Atmel MCU, had it.
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They are not a monopoly, IMO, as long as others can come and have a piece of their business. MS *is* a monopoly because nobody else can make Windows. And even then they got slapped not for being a monopoly (all s/w houses are), but for abusing this position.
They are not a monopolist as MS, they are reseller. MS erected a huge barrier of entry, and even qualified participants (RedHat, Suse etc.) have problems climbing over it. However anyone can open a store and sell the same goods as Wal-Mart sells, for less or for whatever he pleases. There is no barrier of entry, and that is one crucial difference here.
And if you say that Wal-Mart gets to 99% of market share being the lowest cost provider, and *then* ups the price... the market will react, and the smaller merchants will fill the gap in no time. I would not go to a big store to pay more if I can get the same thing next door and for less! The key here again is "the same thing" - and Wal-Mart can not possibly monopolize resale of everything. MS focuses on one product, and that is their own product, so they can do that. Wal-Mart is a different story.
When the diversity is all gone, everyone will have to pay an extra dollar
I'd rather open a store and start selling milk (a locally produced product!) for less. I personally know people who would do that. It is much easier to own a shop than to hack C++ code.
Do they have any monopoly on anything whatsoever? I don't think so. It is not illegal to sell for less.
To answer your question just think how many people from all sectors of society - and how often - buy from Microsoft vs. from Wal-Mart. Also think which company sells products that you *literally* can not live without. Also think which company sells generally decent stuff at bargain prices. Then you get the answer.
If they are cheap I can live with whatever little sturdiness they got. Normally notebooks are not that much abused, it's occasional drops on the floor that are a concern. A Thinkpad will crack the plastic but works. This one will crack the plastic and stops working... not a big deal: at that price I can buy three cheap notebooks instead of two or three expensive ones. And if you drop an expensive notebook it still takes damage, and you will want to repair or replace it anyway.
There is a lot of free music on Internet, and it is not always obvious which one is which - especially if you are a teen girl, and not a lawyer.
This is not unique to Brazil. As I mentioned elsewhere, US Government requires its contractors, suppliers and anyone else it works with to use MS Office for all documents. So if you just happened to sell a bale of hay to US Cavalry, you have to invoice them with a MS Word document :-)
Easy. They can't officially accuse him of posession, but in many states employer can dismiss anyone without any explanations whatsoever. If, for example, his boss is a woman who is scared of sex and/or rape, it would be even understandable.
If you do that, your kid will simply consider your setup br0ken, and will get his Web access elsewhere. Not that it would be particularly difficult... a WiFi equipped laptop + Starbucks would do it, for example, even if he can't connect anywhere else (which would be kinda strange.) A laptop would be $200 (any 3-4 y/o Thinkpad), the card - $50. Within buying power of a teen.
Don't worry, nobody learns from other people's mistakes. You have to make your own.
They'd get gray hair by that time :-)
You don't have a problem if your child stumbles upon some of the most depraved things out there?
S/he will have to deal with it. Life is tough.
images that are incredibly degrading to women
Pity that the greatest artists of humankind were not told about that little fact.
If it's so normal, why do we instinctively hide our tracks?
We? How many of you are there?
The need to go out depends on the type of fun you plan to have. If I plan to read a book I would be much better off indoors.
Fact is, configuration of services is not for home users. It is not even for many engineers who work with computers for a living.
The best are likely to open their own companies, they are definitely qualified for that. They only need to team up with business development people -- which is not that difficult.
Fact is, companies grow old and die (insert SCO reference here.) MS is not ready to die yet, but the company is getting its first gray hairs.
Yes, if they are juicy. Some are, some are not. I heard about people who lost their shirts on such contracts. I heard other stories too. But regardless of stories, engineers rarely can dictate to PHBs what contracts they should [not] sign :-)
I haven't had trouble like what you are saying with OpenOffice, but then again, I haven't done government paperwork either.
Any paperwork will do :-) One simple example: "Index Heading 2" style (which was indented in OO 1.1) got the right tab in wrong position (equally indented). Another example: MS Word does not put captions into frames - and generally does not like frames. All frames got shifted from page to text margin, with disastrous results. This one is tough to fix, because the whole principle of doing captions differs between Word and OO.
If you have a small, simple document then you can save in .doc format easily. But if you have anything more complex than that, beware.
prepare the entire document in MS Word, as save it as straight text (Word can do that) and see what kind of argument they give you
Probably they would just call you and say that the document is corrupted ("everything is in the same strange font"), and would you please resend it within 5 minutes. And then you know what you will be doing in those 5 minutes :-)
So why don't you pay that money to yourself? Problem solved!
Try modeling something - the near field of your antenna, for example.
Many, if not all, government contracts come with the clause: "All documents shall be prepared in MS Word format." And if you say "Save from OpenOffice as .doc format" - no, it does not work either, the conversion errors are numerous and glaring. It takes about half an hour to clean up a 50-page document... you can't do that each time you ship something to someone. I did just that yesterday, and it was painful.
Consumers and early adopters are free to buy the thing, and they probably buy most of manufactured tablets already. They have too much money to burn, apparently, and for some students expenses are already so high that one or two more thousand does not matter. These tablets are used with varying success; some say that they hate writing, other say that they love it. Personally, I barely can write, and I would really hate to write on a heavy, bulky tablet (I could tolerate PDA's Graffiti until it gave up the ghost.)
The rest of tablets are used where they actually make sense - think about your average UPS or Fedex driver, for example. There are huge warehouses all over the country that are full of boxes. If you are in charge of that, you'd better keep track of every single box that goes in or out, because you can't check inventory often, and if any is missing you easily can owe to the owner more than you can earn during the rest of your life.
This is probably one of the most innovative parts of the posting :-) I don't recall anyone else claiming that before.
AVR is indeed good. My first MCU was 8080, then some flavors of 8051; before that was just TTL, lots of it. Got to practice with them when I was repairing IBM 360/370 at school. Today I like AVR a lot, they are simple and easy to use, and AVR-GCC is fairly reliable (haven't failed on me yet, at least.) The C code translates into machine commands quite well - AVR was marketed as RISC optimized for high level languages. I can believe that.
PIC ... never worked with them; I treat them as dinosaurs of MCU world. But at previous job we had a portable device where a PIC (24-pin or something) was used. Why? Because the engineer knew PICs and had the tools. That's the only reason.
And with regard to Ford Pinto ... I am not *that* old, thank you :-) I just read a lot. But I don't own anything Ford anyway, just in case :-) Prefer to stay with something more reliable (being dirt cheap helps too :-)
With regard to the MCU, I used ATMEGA32-16AI in TQFP package. There are cheaper AVR MCUs (I used 8535 before), but nowadays it does not make any sense to even bother with smaller ones, unless you really count pennies. And even if you do, being penny-wise is not always a smart move (as LG's example shows, and earlier Ford Pinto debacle).
Thanks, but I still remember some JCL myself :-)
Pseudocode is not cryptic Linix commands strung together but is, instead, designed to be descriptive and easily understood by humans
Depends on your definition of a human. Myself, I had no problem with the 'dd' example. What would be an easier way to illustrate copying of a block of data into a device?
You can't just copy new firmware to a peripheral once you flashed bad firmware to it
That is simply incorrect. Flash with r/o boot blocks exists for many years, and even many MCUs today come with this feature. My last project, based on some Atmel MCU, had it.
I guess you never heard about pseudocode then. Because that's what the original poster wrote.