And it really doesn't matter hardware wise- to make the device a reasonable purchase, you have to add Amazon Prime for $79/year, and I'm sure you'll manage to buy a book or two. Hardware selling at a loss to sell software/add-ons is hardly a new concept- If they could really build them for close to cost, I'm surprised they didn't either low the price more to drive buyers towards it or include a year of amazon prime in the price to make it more attractive to buyers.
There are a few games a year I look forward to, whether console or PC, that I will buy on release date, and purchase for $50-$60. Many other purchases are games that may be recommended later by friends, or games that looked interesting, but not interesting enough to pay the asking price for, so I'll wait until the price comes down.
We've discussed this before, and the consensus is easy to spot: many games are not worth the asking price. You'll sell more games if at 1-3 months after launch, you simply drop the price point to an appropriate range, depending on the total units you sold at launch and the total expected units. It's been proven- some games sell well years and years after release for a discounted price.
Of course, this has two impacts- if you enjoy selling games back to places like gamestop, their resell value will be diminished, as the retail price will be lowered quickly. Also, unless you have a strong opening for your game, you simply won't sell them at full retail if you have created the expectation of lowered prices shortly in the future.
I'm willing to pay $20 for new games giving the developers and publishers the profit, rather than pay $15-18 for a used copy.
Actually, no, they don't. I own a cellular phone store. Since early 2008, you cannot use your last 4 of your SSN for identification, you have to create a separate 6-10 digit PIN to access your account with Sprint. Contracts that must be retained by both the carrier and the store must be held on file for the length of your contract, which is typically 2 years. This contains no personal information aside from name/address. The application which contains information must be held for 30 days, and then destroyed. Sprint is one of the better carriers for this, actually. They will audit locations about once a month to check that the proper documents are stored and shredded.
Also, should you wish to get a cellular account without supplying your social security number, the individual at the store should have been able to do it for you. It is not a difficult process, but will require you to place the carrier's maximum deposit limit, typically $400-$500. You were simply at the wrong store, with uninformed people.
I have been in a similar situation- and there is no simple answer. You have to talk to your HR department, simply because you have no other recourse that could come with a positive outcome for you. The only other option with a positive outcome is to contact your new employer and ask for an extension, but in this job market, I would definitely seek out a response from the HR department first. Did this statement come from your boss or higher up the chain? How large a company is this?
In my situation, it was a smaller company (50 employees, give or take), and it came from the top. I ended up pulling my contract and backing the employer down, simply by pointing out that my contract required 30 days of notice, and I provided more than that. I had also let them know I was looking before I found a new employer, and already had a glowing letter of recommendation from the company, so I had proof that any negative feedback was biased and silly compared to the official recommendation. Did you provide your notice in written format, and keep a copy? Did you sign a contract when you started?
You and I are playing a very different version of the same game. I play in a couple of realism leagues in both CoD4 and CoD:WaW, and believe me, teamwork is critical. We use the open warfare mod http://www.openwarfaremod.com/ to make the game far more realistic, and remove the hardpoints and perks that make the game cartoonish and silly. You can also check out our realism league: http://www.realism1.com/ for our rules and gameplay. Basically if you can't do it real life, wearing an 80lb pack on your back, you can't do it. That includes jumping from the second story, shooting from the hip accurately, getting shot without it hurting your character, bunny hopping or dolphin diving, etc. Check it out, there are a ton of gamers and clans out there who only play realism style- I'm one of them.
I buy them at Christmas, for friends and relatives who enjoy playing online games, and get a break from paying for it themselves. A $30 WoW card give the person 2 months of play, so it is a reasonable return for a gift. This is one of the things that never disappears off my brother's amazon wish list.
Today, the week after they are released, they are not too far out of line with the current top end lineup of other major PC vendors offerings. 6 months from now, when they still have the same specs and price point, they will be far more out of line. We see one of these articles every time a new lineup is out.
Try doing the same price comparison on the previous lineup before the announcement. I bought a Dell Vostro last year for $850, with plenty of power and comparable specs to the MBP at the time. I didn't need it right away, so I was able to shop around and wait for the right offer to come up, and eventually bought it when I got $300 off and 4gb of memory for the price I was willing to pay. You can't do that with Apple, unless you want refurb of closeout machines that are several steps behind the current technology curve. I had a G3 ibook that went strong for several years, I just couldn't afford to replace it with another Apple product, I couldn't put up with crappy integrated graphics, which meant the MBP, which I wasn't willing to pay for.
The article is basically fodder. It'll just bring out the Apple fanbois and bashers, and let them sharpen their knives. Have fun guys!
You really should control your own backup processes, you know. Even MS lets you do it! It's free and easy!
Realistically, I've had Vista Home premium since shortly after the release. I built my own system, and installed a purchased OEM edition. My cold boot time is 20 seconds, I never have any crashes or hangups, and all the background processes running ARE ONES I CHOSE TO RUN. I reboot only when neccessary from updates, and I have yet to see bad driver hangups, instability, or major problems. I'm a gamer. I play in a couple of competitive leagues, and use top end tech, and as such can never move away from MS software, but for a slashdot poster to be complaining about your "background processes eating your precious 8gb of RAM", you need to get a grip on yourself. My Vista doesn't even stutter with a measly 4gb of RAM.
And before you drooling fanboys attack me, I also use GNU/Linux and OS X on my ibook, run a myth TV box for my PVR, and I still have a working VIC-20 and Commodore 64 hooked up as well.
My next door neighbor is a high school teacher at a local public high school. He teaches Chemistry, and also coaches the track team. He pulled in $160k last year. He's been on the job for 23 years, which has a huge impact on a teacher's salary, and he makes a little extra for the coaching gig, but not a bad salary for the 9 months of work. While teaching may have a low entry level salary, their raises and bumps for tenure are nothing to sneeze at, and can support a fine lifestyle.
I have a custom made windows xp disk with sp2, firefox, Ad-aware and AVG corporate edition, and no bloatware, just for this task. Setup takes about 30 minutes, and driver installs usually take another 15-30 minutes. I buy Dell laptops fairly regularly for my workforce, and always do this. It takes an hour of my time, and makes laptop set perfectly for our needs (we have Windows software that can't be replaced with any Open Source program yet), and they are designed and set up with the proper spyware, anti-virus, and firewall settings.
Most competent IT teams do the same thing. Now as an individual, I would always recommend a clean install- Dell actually includes the OS disk seperate from the bloatware/drivers disks. Do a clean install of the OS, stick in the driver disk and load the proper drivers, without installing the extras you don't want(which are clearly labelled as extras on the disk).
I just bought a Dell Vostro 1500 for $800 last month.
specs:
Intel Core 2 Duo T7250 (2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
Genuine Windows XP Home Edition
1 Year Basic Limited Warranty plus 1 Year Mail-in Service
15.4 in Wide Screen XGA+LCD Display w/TrueLife
2GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz, 2 DIMM
8X CD/DVD+RW Read and Burn CD and DVD
256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
160GB 5400RPM Hard Drive
Dell Wireless 1395 802.11g Wi-Fi Internal Card
Integrated 2.0 mega pixel Web Camera
85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
Very close in specs to the MBP, slower and slightly smaller HD, 2ghz to 2.5ghz processor.
Plays games, watches movies, excellent battery life (4.5 hours as a dvd player with full screen brightness). Oh, and it triple boots OS X, windows, and slackware without a problem.
I had a g3 ibook, and it lasted a long time (got lucky with a good logic board), but I couldn't shell out $2-3k for a laptop and be pleased with the purchase. I couldn't take the dedicated card in the MB, so the MBP was my only legit choice, and it couldn't compare with the dell. I love my vostro, excellent build quality, good battery life, and getting it working with OS X was not a big problem, either. (Thanks insanely mac forums!) My only issue is the laptop doesn't sleep in OS X, everything else is functioning as it should.
I would by a licensed, legit copy of OS X to install. Apple can't/won't do it, they have never been about licensing software, and supporting multiple hardware configurations, and they aren't about to now.
Let's face it, the general workforce is in no way prepared to handle their own systems.
The lack of proper firewall and security software of the machines connected to your network should be enough to give any IT staff pause. Add in piracy, and you have opened a pandora's box no company wants to be left holding.
If you run a small business of tech savvy individuals, you could try this out and see how it went. For any company that has information important to itself and the shareholders, it is not a realistic option.
While I understand the concept, the risks are too high to consider it an actual IT plan or solution.
I was browsing through circuit city's online weekend sales after thanksgiving, and came upon the 30gb version 1 zune for $99. I threw it in my cart, and went to pick it up in store, and they didn't have one, so they gave me version 2 (in black instead of the horrid brown) for the same $99, and threw in a $24 gift card for free to boot, because I bought it in store.
I own a 2gb nano that is great for working out at the gym, but I wanted something bigger to store video on for longer trips. The Zune software works just as well as itunes, and since all of my music and movies are ripped from cd's and dvd's, I have no DRM issues with either player. A 30 gb video/music player, which has a nice screen and good earbuds, built in FM radio, and a standard stereo cable so it can plug into my car stereo just like my ipod could, for less than half the price of an ipod classic, was a good deal, and I took it.
For a guy like me who buys his music and dvd's in actual disk form, the software to load it onto a specific player is going to be the same hassle if it is for the ipod or the zune. I just have it all loaded onto a spare drive, and both of them look into the folders I tell them to, and sync accordingly. Less than $70 (since the gift card went towards some dvd's I was buying at the time anyways) was a great deal, and the online order/in-store pickup system meant I had to get one after they told me I had one, got me an even better deal than most, even though I still would have been willing to pay the $99 for the rev. 1. Getting a nicer color and a true glass screen instead of plastic was just a lucky bonus. Good sound, build quality, and controls, and I'm happy with my purchase.
If Apple made a consumer level tower with upgradable components, I'd gladly buy one. I just don't feel like spending 2.5-3k on a tower and still having to replace the video card and upgrade the memory.
I love my ibook, and its a great walk around us the internet type a paper device, but an Apple tower is still well outside the price point of your average home user.
The imac isn't robust enough to be a gaming rig for more than a 6 month life cycle, and can't be upgraded where it needs to be, and the Pro is too pricey for a home rig, unless you are running a business off one, or have plenty of extra income you don't mind parting with.
I imagine most hardcore starcraft nerds will unhappily upgrade to Vista, and DX10 hardware, becuase you can currently build or buy a top of the line DX10 tower for 1-1.5k without breaking a sweat, or upgrade their current system for much less.
Wii needs the TV as a dislpay screen. Wii has no use for Television programming, which is what the article is stating the execs feel threatened by. Nobody watching your shows=lower ad revenue=less money in your pocket.
I have an LG fusic with sprint service. It has a micro sd slot, which currently houses a 2gb card. It also has a built in radio transmitter, to wirelessly beam my mp3's onto any car stereo tuned to the right frequency.
I have never had the desire to watch full length movies on my phone, and the "limited" mobile web features are about all I'd ever think to use it for- I've looked up addresses and phone numbers, got directions, checked movie times and sports scores, and checked my gmail.
The iphone looks like a cool toy, I just don't need the extra features, or have the desire to spend extra money to switch providers and everything else.
P.S.- 90%+ of the "media" phones out there have the same micro (or mini) sd slot mine does, thus making the amount of memory a moot point. I could put a movie on my 2gb card, I've just never seen a reason to.
I play multiple online games, with punkbuster support- and the simple fact is that 99% of the people cheating are untrained dupes who download trainers which also contain a number of viruses, and they aren't doing it to get an advantage in the game. They are just doing it to get a rise out of the honest players.
The 1% that are smart enough to write their own scripts and use it for an advantage, are usually terrible enough at the game that their "advantage" doesn't matter much anyways. Most respectable servers will boot these people in a short amount of time, and they have zero effect on anyone else. So why would I pay for a terrible hardware solution to a problem that doesn't affect me, or 99% of the population? If you want to force it on big money tournaments go right ahead, but the average game player has no need or desire for this type of product, and won't use it.
Slashdot Mirror
And it really doesn't matter hardware wise- to make the device a reasonable purchase, you have to add Amazon Prime for $79/year, and I'm sure you'll manage to buy a book or two. Hardware selling at a loss to sell software/add-ons is hardly a new concept- If they could really build them for close to cost, I'm surprised they didn't either low the price more to drive buyers towards it or include a year of amazon prime in the price to make it more attractive to buyers.
There are a few games a year I look forward to, whether console or PC, that I will buy on release date, and purchase for $50-$60. Many other purchases are games that may be recommended later by friends, or games that looked interesting, but not interesting enough to pay the asking price for, so I'll wait until the price comes down.
http://games.slashdot.org/story/09/02/20/0750203/Do-Video-Games-Cost-Too-Much/
We've discussed this before, and the consensus is easy to spot: many games are not worth the asking price. You'll sell more games if at 1-3 months after launch, you simply drop the price point to an appropriate range, depending on the total units you sold at launch and the total expected units. It's been proven- some games sell well years and years after release for a discounted price.
Of course, this has two impacts- if you enjoy selling games back to places like gamestop, their resell value will be diminished, as the retail price will be lowered quickly. Also, unless you have a strong opening for your game, you simply won't sell them at full retail if you have created the expectation of lowered prices shortly in the future.
I'm willing to pay $20 for new games giving the developers and publishers the profit, rather than pay $15-18 for a used copy.
Actually, no, they don't. I own a cellular phone store. Since early 2008, you cannot use your last 4 of your SSN for identification, you have to create a separate 6-10 digit PIN to access your account with Sprint. Contracts that must be retained by both the carrier and the store must be held on file for the length of your contract, which is typically 2 years. This contains no personal information aside from name/address. The application which contains information must be held for 30 days, and then destroyed. Sprint is one of the better carriers for this, actually. They will audit locations about once a month to check that the proper documents are stored and shredded.
Also, should you wish to get a cellular account without supplying your social security number, the individual at the store should have been able to do it for you. It is not a difficult process, but will require you to place the carrier's maximum deposit limit, typically $400-$500. You were simply at the wrong store, with uninformed people.
I have been in a similar situation- and there is no simple answer. You have to talk to your HR department, simply because you have no other recourse that could come with a positive outcome for you. The only other option with a positive outcome is to contact your new employer and ask for an extension, but in this job market, I would definitely seek out a response from the HR department first. Did this statement come from your boss or higher up the chain? How large a company is this?
In my situation, it was a smaller company (50 employees, give or take), and it came from the top. I ended up pulling my contract and backing the employer down, simply by pointing out that my contract required 30 days of notice, and I provided more than that. I had also let them know I was looking before I found a new employer, and already had a glowing letter of recommendation from the company, so I had proof that any negative feedback was biased and silly compared to the official recommendation. Did you provide your notice in written format, and keep a copy? Did you sign a contract when you started?
You and I are playing a very different version of the same game. I play in a couple of realism leagues in both CoD4 and CoD:WaW, and believe me, teamwork is critical. We use the open warfare mod http://www.openwarfaremod.com/ to make the game far more realistic, and remove the hardpoints and perks that make the game cartoonish and silly. You can also check out our realism league: http://www.realism1.com/ for our rules and gameplay. Basically if you can't do it real life, wearing an 80lb pack on your back, you can't do it. That includes jumping from the second story, shooting from the hip accurately, getting shot without it hurting your character, bunny hopping or dolphin diving, etc. Check it out, there are a ton of gamers and clans out there who only play realism style- I'm one of them.
I buy them at Christmas, for friends and relatives who enjoy playing online games, and get a break from paying for it themselves. A $30 WoW card give the person 2 months of play, so it is a reasonable return for a gift. This is one of the things that never disappears off my brother's amazon wish list.
Today, the week after they are released, they are not too far out of line with the current top end lineup of other major PC vendors offerings. 6 months from now, when they still have the same specs and price point, they will be far more out of line. We see one of these articles every time a new lineup is out.
Try doing the same price comparison on the previous lineup before the announcement. I bought a Dell Vostro last year for $850, with plenty of power and comparable specs to the MBP at the time. I didn't need it right away, so I was able to shop around and wait for the right offer to come up, and eventually bought it when I got $300 off and 4gb of memory for the price I was willing to pay. You can't do that with Apple, unless you want refurb of closeout machines that are several steps behind the current technology curve. I had a G3 ibook that went strong for several years, I just couldn't afford to replace it with another Apple product, I couldn't put up with crappy integrated graphics, which meant the MBP, which I wasn't willing to pay for.
The article is basically fodder. It'll just bring out the Apple fanbois and bashers, and let them sharpen their knives. Have fun guys!
You really should control your own backup processes, you know. Even MS lets you do it! It's free and easy!
Realistically, I've had Vista Home premium since shortly after the release. I built my own system, and installed a purchased OEM edition. My cold boot time is 20 seconds, I never have any crashes or hangups, and all the background processes running ARE ONES I CHOSE TO RUN. I reboot only when neccessary from updates, and I have yet to see bad driver hangups, instability, or major problems. I'm a gamer. I play in a couple of competitive leagues, and use top end tech, and as such can never move away from MS software, but for a slashdot poster to be complaining about your "background processes eating your precious 8gb of RAM", you need to get a grip on yourself. My Vista doesn't even stutter with a measly 4gb of RAM.
And before you drooling fanboys attack me, I also use GNU/Linux and OS X on my ibook, run a myth TV box for my PVR, and I still have a working VIC-20 and Commodore 64 hooked up as well.
My next door neighbor is a high school teacher at a local public high school. He teaches Chemistry, and also coaches the track team. He pulled in $160k last year. He's been on the job for 23 years, which has a huge impact on a teacher's salary, and he makes a little extra for the coaching gig, but not a bad salary for the 9 months of work. While teaching may have a low entry level salary, their raises and bumps for tenure are nothing to sneeze at, and can support a fine lifestyle.
I have a custom made windows xp disk with sp2, firefox, Ad-aware and AVG corporate edition, and no bloatware, just for this task. Setup takes about 30 minutes, and driver installs usually take another 15-30 minutes. I buy Dell laptops fairly regularly for my workforce, and always do this. It takes an hour of my time, and makes laptop set perfectly for our needs (we have Windows software that can't be replaced with any Open Source program yet), and they are designed and set up with the proper spyware, anti-virus, and firewall settings.
Most competent IT teams do the same thing. Now as an individual, I would always recommend a clean install- Dell actually includes the OS disk seperate from the bloatware/drivers disks. Do a clean install of the OS, stick in the driver disk and load the proper drivers, without installing the extras you don't want(which are clearly labelled as extras on the disk).
I just bought a Dell Vostro 1500 for $800 last month.
specs: Intel Core 2 Duo T7250 (2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
Genuine Windows XP Home Edition
1 Year Basic Limited Warranty plus 1 Year Mail-in Service
15.4 in Wide Screen XGA+LCD Display w/TrueLife
2GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz, 2 DIMM
8X CD/DVD+RW Read and Burn CD and DVD
256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
160GB 5400RPM Hard Drive
Dell Wireless 1395 802.11g Wi-Fi Internal Card
Integrated 2.0 mega pixel Web Camera
85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
Very close in specs to the MBP, slower and slightly smaller HD, 2ghz to 2.5ghz processor.
Plays games, watches movies, excellent battery life (4.5 hours as a dvd player with full screen brightness). Oh, and it triple boots OS X, windows, and slackware without a problem.
I had a g3 ibook, and it lasted a long time (got lucky with a good logic board), but I couldn't shell out $2-3k for a laptop and be pleased with the purchase. I couldn't take the dedicated card in the MB, so the MBP was my only legit choice, and it couldn't compare with the dell. I love my vostro, excellent build quality, good battery life, and getting it working with OS X was not a big problem, either. (Thanks insanely mac forums!) My only issue is the laptop doesn't sleep in OS X, everything else is functioning as it should.
I would by a licensed, legit copy of OS X to install. Apple can't/won't do it, they have never been about licensing software, and supporting multiple hardware configurations, and they aren't about to now.
Let's face it, the general workforce is in no way prepared to handle their own systems.
The lack of proper firewall and security software of the machines connected to your network should be enough to give any IT staff pause. Add in piracy, and you have opened a pandora's box no company wants to be left holding.
If you run a small business of tech savvy individuals, you could try this out and see how it went. For any company that has information important to itself and the shareholders, it is not a realistic option.
While I understand the concept, the risks are too high to consider it an actual IT plan or solution.
I was browsing through circuit city's online weekend sales after thanksgiving, and came upon the 30gb version 1 zune for $99. I threw it in my cart, and went to pick it up in store, and they didn't have one, so they gave me version 2 (in black instead of the horrid brown) for the same $99, and threw in a $24 gift card for free to boot, because I bought it in store.
I own a 2gb nano that is great for working out at the gym, but I wanted something bigger to store video on for longer trips. The Zune software works just as well as itunes, and since all of my music and movies are ripped from cd's and dvd's, I have no DRM issues with either player. A 30 gb video/music player, which has a nice screen and good earbuds, built in FM radio, and a standard stereo cable so it can plug into my car stereo just like my ipod could, for less than half the price of an ipod classic, was a good deal, and I took it.
For a guy like me who buys his music and dvd's in actual disk form, the software to load it onto a specific player is going to be the same hassle if it is for the ipod or the zune. I just have it all loaded onto a spare drive, and both of them look into the folders I tell them to, and sync accordingly. Less than $70 (since the gift card went towards some dvd's I was buying at the time anyways) was a great deal, and the online order/in-store pickup system meant I had to get one after they told me I had one, got me an even better deal than most, even though I still would have been willing to pay the $99 for the rev. 1. Getting a nicer color and a true glass screen instead of plastic was just a lucky bonus. Good sound, build quality, and controls, and I'm happy with my purchase.
If Apple made a consumer level tower with upgradable components, I'd gladly buy one. I just don't feel like spending 2.5-3k on a tower and still having to replace the video card and upgrade the memory.
I love my ibook, and its a great walk around us the internet type a paper device, but an Apple tower is still well outside the price point of your average home user.
The imac isn't robust enough to be a gaming rig for more than a 6 month life cycle, and can't be upgraded where it needs to be, and the Pro is too pricey for a home rig, unless you are running a business off one, or have plenty of extra income you don't mind parting with.
I imagine most hardcore starcraft nerds will unhappily upgrade to Vista, and DX10 hardware, becuase you can currently build or buy a top of the line DX10 tower for 1-1.5k without breaking a sweat, or upgrade their current system for much less.
Wii needs the TV as a dislpay screen. Wii has no use for Television programming, which is what the article is stating the execs feel threatened by. Nobody watching your shows=lower ad revenue=less money in your pocket.
I have an LG fusic with sprint service. It has a micro sd slot, which currently houses a 2gb card. It also has a built in radio transmitter, to wirelessly beam my mp3's onto any car stereo tuned to the right frequency.
I have never had the desire to watch full length movies on my phone, and the "limited" mobile web features are about all I'd ever think to use it for- I've looked up addresses and phone numbers, got directions, checked movie times and sports scores, and checked my gmail.
The iphone looks like a cool toy, I just don't need the extra features, or have the desire to spend extra money to switch providers and everything else. P.S.- 90%+ of the "media" phones out there have the same micro (or mini) sd slot mine does, thus making the amount of memory a moot point. I could put a movie on my 2gb card, I've just never seen a reason to.
I play multiple online games, with punkbuster support- and the simple fact is that 99% of the people cheating are untrained dupes who download trainers which also contain a number of viruses, and they aren't doing it to get an advantage in the game. They are just doing it to get a rise out of the honest players. The 1% that are smart enough to write their own scripts and use it for an advantage, are usually terrible enough at the game that their "advantage" doesn't matter much anyways. Most respectable servers will boot these people in a short amount of time, and they have zero effect on anyone else. So why would I pay for a terrible hardware solution to a problem that doesn't affect me, or 99% of the population? If you want to force it on big money tournaments go right ahead, but the average game player has no need or desire for this type of product, and won't use it.