So Ballmer's saying: "since our software offerings are mediocre at best, we're going to start offering [more] mediocre devices and services"?
Hey, Steve! Here's a clue: why don't you stick with what you [should] know: operating systems and office apps. You [still] have a customer base there. It might be a good idea to work hard and try to keep it (you may be able to claw back some market share on servers from Linux if you hurry). Improve the quality of your software. Skip the annual releases of the new desktop OS with the "all new and exciting" UI, and go back to what your customers want: stability, security and predictability (remember all the fuss about EOL on XP? Wonder why?). Make your money on business and OEM licensing and don't sweat the end user piracy (think of it as a marketing expense, and make your money on support). Become known as the premier provider of a stable and secure OS that everyone knows and depends on.
Seeing an opportunity to take money from TSA (if they can get them to buy into this crazy scheme), they've put out some feelers. After all, who doesn't like nice shiny new tech gadgets? Like those backscatter scanners over there!
//can't cry any more, must laugh at the absurdity of it all
And without significant success: IrDA. The culprits were the inverse square law, multipath and capacitance. It's hard to detect a flickering LED in the mass of light we typically use to avoid running ourselves into doorframes. A light source focussed and concentrated on a detector works well, a detector scanning a large angle, not so well. Walls reflect light and pulses equally well, and the further you are from the light source, the harder it will be to pick out the right signal in all the noise. Lastly, to get a high data rate, you need high speed LEDs and high current drivers. These are more expensive than DC driven light emitters.
I had no idea there was a "global strategic maple syrup reserve".
Other possible Global Strategic Reserves we don't know about:
Bacon?
Poutine?
BEER???
Seriously. If he's that vulnerable, it will probably happen again. I have had good success with the "basic computer users" I support. They are motivated to climb the learning curve because I explain that even if I reformat their hard drive and reinstall all the AV software, I cannot guarantee it won't happen again. Then I tell them that the AV software chews up some of their processor bandwidth and if we run Linux, they won't need it. So they will be getting more out of the machine.
And to rescue the machine? USB drive, bootable Linux live CD and copy the data from the original HDD onto the USB drive, nuke the original drive, reformat, install OS of your choice and copy the data back.
You do realize sexual harassment, of *any* type (innuendos, double entendres definitely included) is illegal and can subject *you* as a manager, and your company to lawsuits and fines?
As constructive criticism, I would suggest that you immediately call a meeting with your team and make it crystal clear what constitutes harassment and what the penalties are for the first occurrence. If you don't know, you'd better find out, and fast. As others have said, we're not in the 70s any more and if your team can't act like adult professionals, they need to look elsewhere for work.
I don't buy Skil, or even Craftsman. DeWalt is my minimum and when my old Craftsman power drill died, I upgraded to a Milwaukee. You can actually feel the difference in quality. I will admit buying some "single use" tools at Harbor Freight (actually not a bad choice if you know you'll only need it for one job), but I make it a point to go to my local hardware store for random nuts and bolts (they have one of those wonderfui walls of drawers where you can buy any hardware item one piece at a time) because I want to keep him going in the face of the big box places (even though he's a True Value franchise)
For the exotic materials, I agree with "arth1", they're getting really hard to find. Internet orders work...I just found some stainless hooks I needed online. Probably Chinese origin, but I could get a bulk pack of 100, rather than ten cards of 10. When you think about it though, it makes sense. Not many people come into Lowes looking for brass wire. It makes more sense to order that over the net, where it can be centrally stocked and distributed. Same with things like drip irrigation parts. Lowes wouldn't sell enough to justify the shelf space. Online I can order from the catalog and have it inside a week for the cost of the gas I'd spend going from Lowes to Lowes looking for the part I'm missing.
I think my one wish would be the elimination of the stuff that's so cheap it breaks the second time you try to use it. Cup hooks made out of brass-plated white metal and such. I'll pay 50% more for them if they are real brass, because it means I won't have to go back and buy more when the first lot corrode or break. Same with hinges -- they seem not to be available in brass any more -- only brass plated, which is not very good if they get wet.
Epoxy? JB Weld. The stuff is great. Made by a US company, too. I just wish they'd beef up their caps so the plastic doesn't break.
It's getting hard to find anything but pre-pack import junk at Lowes and Home Depot. "Brass" fittings are cheaply plated steel that rusts when you look at it sideways, Kobalt tools are half plastic -- it's like a branch of Wal-Mart. If my local hardware guy doesn't have it, I mail order. The only things I go to Lowes for are immediate needs.
Ho, hum. Another forced upgrade from a dying company.
Seriously, though, I recently read a post that claimed "Office functionality has peaked". It's true, you can only have so many features in a word processor before you're adding "fluff"; and when you finish adding all the fluff you can think of, then you start to rearrange the UI. After "ribbon", there's not much left. And you still need to maintain or increase your revenue contribution. This means selling copies of a new version, because everyone on the planet who needs a word processor already has a copy of Word.
So, for no good reason other than revenue flow (which is probably a very good reason), we have yet another forced upgrade. Ho, hum.
There has definitely been an increase. A few years ago, I started getting them on my cell phone.
It's pretty clear they are using outsourced autodialing, there's a distinct "prompt" phase: "Hello, press one to learn about valuable credit card information, press two to be added to our do not call list". On pressing 1, you get the actual boiler room. The CID is from all over the country, never the same number twice. Of course, all my phones are on the federal DNC list...makes no difference to these scum.
And the stuff they're pushing is scammer-ific. Credit card interest rates, nonexistent cruises, all kinds of scams to get your credit card number. I played along on one for a while to see what they were after. Scams, all of them. So definitely not legitimate US-based call centers...they'd be shut down in a flash for disregarding the DNC list. Offshore autodialler makes lots of sense, then transfer to a US-based boiler room. VOIP I would guess, leaving no connection between the calling number (spoofed anyway, one would assume) and the scammer.
Yes, I pin most of my commonly used apps to the quick launch bar. BUT -- those are not the only apps I use. Only the ones I use most frequently go on the quick launch bar. The rest, and there are many of them, need to be accessed somehow, and the START button is a very convenient way to get to them.
You know what would be great? If you designed your UI so that we had a CHOICE about whether to adopt your latest "great idea", or just keep using the system we've grown used to. You know...the way we're most productive?
Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by stupidity...
Doubling, tripling; sounds to me like it could be explained by an untrained operator not receiving feedback that an operation has been completed, and so clicking again on the button which initiates the operation. Combine that extremely plausible scenario with software which doesn't bother to check before re-accumulating totals, and you have a likely explanation.
"No thank you" to an offer to pay $99 to allow me to configure hardware and firmware that I have already paid for.
I know which PCs I will not be purchasing.
Well you don't seem to understand the issue, if you want to run a signed bootloader you need a key, you have to pay $99 to Verisign for that. Alternatively you turn secureboot off and continue as normal.
I think the real issue is that you may not have authorization to turn off secureboot....which, on machines supplied running a Microsoft OS, would be on by default (per Microsoft) .
"No thank you" to an offer to pay $99 to allow me to configure hardware and firmware that I have already paid for.
I know which PCs I will not be purchasing.
TomTom's main claim to being better than OSM seems to be the care and effort they put into keeping their database accurate.
My experience with Navteq and TeleAtlas in trying to get an accurate depiction of the road I live on leads me to question this assertion.
My road is broken in the middle by a dirt jeep trail, impassable to all but 4WD, high clearance vehicles, which was not shown in database, causing routing software to believe a route existed from one end of my road to the other. I can't tell you how many delivery drivers claimed my house didn't exist, because apparently their routing software took them in at the "low number end" of the street, assuming they could drive through to my house (which is on the "high number" end). Delayed packages, airport limos that didn't show up, friends coming over and calling to report they couldn't find the house -- apparently, all the GPS companies, including Google and Yahoo maps, are based on the same data.
The good thing about this, is that I only had to convince two database companies that there was a change needed. The bad part was that it took literally *years* of submitting the same change to these two companies (and receiving acknowledgements) before they did anything, and another year before I saw the change reflected in Google and Yahoo databases. GPS units which haven't been updated with a new database will still take folks the wrong way, but at least I get my packages now. We still need to tell delivery people to come in from the "high number" end. And their dispatchers still fail to note that on their delivery sheets, so we still get the phone calls. But not as often.
I call BS on TonTom's assertion that their database is somehow more accurate than the crowdsourced one.
The two words you have to say are "Opt Out". They are required to hand search you. If they refuse, make a fuss. Get arrested if necessary. Even better, call the press on your cell phone. They'd love a story like this.
Isn't the Vatican supposed to be all about "The Truth Shall Set Thee Free" because, erm, Christian belief mandates it?
You forgot the *first* commandment of any large organization:
- The organization does whatever is necessary to insure its own survival.
True at IBM, true at Merrill Lynch, true at Halliburton, true in the Oval Office and true at the Vatican. // except that these plumbers stop leaks of "holy water", I guess
Slashdot Mirror
So Ballmer's saying: "since our software offerings are mediocre at best, we're going to start offering [more] mediocre devices and services"?
//fat lot of good all the above will do
Hey, Steve! Here's a clue: why don't you stick with what you [should] know: operating systems and office apps. You [still] have a customer base there. It might be a good idea to work hard and try to keep it (you may be able to claw back some market share on servers from Linux if you hurry). Improve the quality of your software. Skip the annual releases of the new desktop OS with the "all new and exciting" UI, and go back to what your customers want: stability, security and predictability (remember all the fuss about EOL on XP? Wonder why?). Make your money on business and OEM licensing and don't sweat the end user piracy (think of it as a marketing expense, and make your money on support). Become known as the premier provider of a stable and secure OS that everyone knows and depends on.
Seeing an opportunity to take money from TSA (if they can get them to buy into this crazy scheme), they've put out some feelers. After all, who doesn't like nice shiny new tech gadgets? Like those backscatter scanners over there!
//can't cry any more, must laugh at the absurdity of it all
Will come when they do a survery of the moon's *magnetic* field.
And without significant success: IrDA. The culprits were the inverse square law, multipath and capacitance. It's hard to detect a flickering LED in the mass of light we typically use to avoid running ourselves into doorframes. A light source focussed and concentrated on a detector works well, a detector scanning a large angle, not so well. Walls reflect light and pulses equally well, and the further you are from the light source, the harder it will be to pick out the right signal in all the noise. Lastly, to get a high data rate, you need high speed LEDs and high current drivers. These are more expensive than DC driven light emitters.
I had no idea there was a "global strategic maple syrup reserve". Other possible Global Strategic Reserves we don't know about: Bacon? Poutine? BEER???
Tacos or burritos?
Seriously. If he's that vulnerable, it will probably happen again. I have had good success with the "basic computer users" I support. They are motivated to climb the learning curve because I explain that even if I reformat their hard drive and reinstall all the AV software, I cannot guarantee it won't happen again. Then I tell them that the AV software chews up some of their processor bandwidth and if we run Linux, they won't need it. So they will be getting more out of the machine. And to rescue the machine? USB drive, bootable Linux live CD and copy the data from the original HDD onto the USB drive, nuke the original drive, reformat, install OS of your choice and copy the data back.
You do realize sexual harassment, of *any* type (innuendos, double entendres definitely included) is illegal and can subject *you* as a manager, and your company to lawsuits and fines?
As constructive criticism, I would suggest that you immediately call a meeting with your team and make it crystal clear what constitutes harassment and what the penalties are for the first occurrence. If you don't know, you'd better find out, and fast. As others have said, we're not in the 70s any more and if your team can't act like adult professionals, they need to look elsewhere for work.
I don't buy Skil, or even Craftsman. DeWalt is my minimum and when my old Craftsman power drill died, I upgraded to a Milwaukee. You can actually feel the difference in quality. I will admit buying some "single use" tools at Harbor Freight (actually not a bad choice if you know you'll only need it for one job), but I make it a point to go to my local hardware store for random nuts and bolts (they have one of those wonderfui walls of drawers where you can buy any hardware item one piece at a time) because I want to keep him going in the face of the big box places (even though he's a True Value franchise)
For the exotic materials, I agree with "arth1", they're getting really hard to find. Internet orders work...I just found some stainless hooks I needed online. Probably Chinese origin, but I could get a bulk pack of 100, rather than ten cards of 10. When you think about it though, it makes sense. Not many people come into Lowes looking for brass wire. It makes more sense to order that over the net, where it can be centrally stocked and distributed. Same with things like drip irrigation parts. Lowes wouldn't sell enough to justify the shelf space. Online I can order from the catalog and have it inside a week for the cost of the gas I'd spend going from Lowes to Lowes looking for the part I'm missing.
I think my one wish would be the elimination of the stuff that's so cheap it breaks the second time you try to use it. Cup hooks made out of brass-plated white metal and such. I'll pay 50% more for them if they are real brass, because it means I won't have to go back and buy more when the first lot corrode or break. Same with hinges -- they seem not to be available in brass any more -- only brass plated, which is not very good if they get wet.
Epoxy? JB Weld. The stuff is great. Made by a US company, too. I just wish they'd beef up their caps so the plastic doesn't break.
It's getting hard to find anything but pre-pack import junk at Lowes and Home Depot. "Brass" fittings are cheaply plated steel that rusts when you look at it sideways, Kobalt tools are half plastic -- it's like a branch of Wal-Mart. If my local hardware guy doesn't have it, I mail order. The only things I go to Lowes for are immediate needs.
Perhaps it was Castle Anthrax?
Ho, hum. Another forced upgrade from a dying company.
Seriously, though, I recently read a post that claimed "Office functionality has peaked". It's true, you can only have so many features in a word processor before you're adding "fluff"; and when you finish adding all the fluff you can think of, then you start to rearrange the UI. After "ribbon", there's not much left. And you still need to maintain or increase your revenue contribution. This means selling copies of a new version, because everyone on the planet who needs a word processor already has a copy of Word.
So, for no good reason other than revenue flow (which is probably a very good reason), we have yet another forced upgrade. Ho, hum.
There has definitely been an increase. A few years ago, I started getting them on my cell phone.
It's pretty clear they are using outsourced autodialing, there's a distinct "prompt" phase: "Hello, press one to learn about valuable credit card information, press two to be added to our do not call list". On pressing 1, you get the actual boiler room. The CID is from all over the country, never the same number twice. Of course, all my phones are on the federal DNC list...makes no difference to these scum.
And the stuff they're pushing is scammer-ific. Credit card interest rates, nonexistent cruises, all kinds of scams to get your credit card number. I played along on one for a while to see what they were after. Scams, all of them. So definitely not legitimate US-based call centers...they'd be shut down in a flash for disregarding the DNC list. Offshore autodialler makes lots of sense, then transfer to a US-based boiler room. VOIP I would guess, leaving no connection between the calling number (spoofed anyway, one would assume) and the scammer.
Does anyone make *positive* comments about the Church on Slashdot?
Go down to the basement. Quick, cheap way to drop the temp by 10 degrees or more.
Yes, I pin most of my commonly used apps to the quick launch bar. BUT -- those are not the only apps I use. Only the ones I use most frequently go on the quick launch bar. The rest, and there are many of them, need to be accessed somehow, and the START button is a very convenient way to get to them.
You know what would be great? If you designed your UI so that we had a CHOICE about whether to adopt your latest "great idea", or just keep using the system we've grown used to. You know...the way we're most productive?
Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by stupidity... Doubling, tripling; sounds to me like it could be explained by an untrained operator not receiving feedback that an operation has been completed, and so clicking again on the button which initiates the operation. Combine that extremely plausible scenario with software which doesn't bother to check before re-accumulating totals, and you have a likely explanation.
"No thank you" to an offer to pay $99 to allow me to configure hardware and firmware that I have already paid for. I know which PCs I will not be purchasing.
Well you don't seem to understand the issue, if you want to run a signed bootloader you need a key, you have to pay $99 to Verisign for that. Alternatively you turn secureboot off and continue as normal.
I think the real issue is that you may not have authorization to turn off secureboot. ...which, on machines supplied running a Microsoft OS, would be on by default (per Microsoft) .
"No thank you" to an offer to pay $99 to allow me to configure hardware and firmware that I have already paid for. I know which PCs I will not be purchasing.
TomTom's main claim to being better than OSM seems to be the care and effort they put into keeping their database accurate.
My experience with Navteq and TeleAtlas in trying to get an accurate depiction of the road I live on leads me to question this assertion. My road is broken in the middle by a dirt jeep trail, impassable to all but 4WD, high clearance vehicles, which was not shown in database, causing routing software to believe a route existed from one end of my road to the other. I can't tell you how many delivery drivers claimed my house didn't exist, because apparently their routing software took them in at the "low number end" of the street, assuming they could drive through to my house (which is on the "high number" end). Delayed packages, airport limos that didn't show up, friends coming over and calling to report they couldn't find the house -- apparently, all the GPS companies, including Google and Yahoo maps, are based on the same data.
The good thing about this, is that I only had to convince two database companies that there was a change needed. The bad part was that it took literally *years* of submitting the same change to these two companies (and receiving acknowledgements) before they did anything, and another year before I saw the change reflected in Google and Yahoo databases. GPS units which haven't been updated with a new database will still take folks the wrong way, but at least I get my packages now. We still need to tell delivery people to come in from the "high number" end. And their dispatchers still fail to note that on their delivery sheets, so we still get the phone calls. But not as often.
I call BS on TonTom's assertion that their database is somehow more accurate than the crowdsourced one.
I'm going to get me a free Hasselblad and a rover to drive around in.
They uncover a large black monolith with dimensions of 1:2:4...
The two words you have to say are "Opt Out". They are required to hand search you. If they refuse, make a fuss. Get arrested if necessary. Even better, call the press on your cell phone. They'd love a story like this.
and send them to my son when he was in Iraq. He said they got passed around a lot. They liked the latest TV stuff even more than movies.
Isn't the Vatican supposed to be all about "The Truth Shall Set Thee Free" because, erm, Christian belief mandates it?
You forgot the *first* commandment of any large organization:
// except that these plumbers stop leaks of "holy water", I guess
- The organization does whatever is necessary to insure its own survival.
True at IBM, true at Merrill Lynch, true at Halliburton, true in the Oval Office and true at the Vatican.