I'm not sure I buy into this argument. When I go to a theater to see a film, it's because I want the theater experience of seeing a film - the giant screen and the surround sound.
Watching low-quality (or even high quality!) copies over the internet isn't the same. And if it's the sort of movie where it's okay to see it, tiny and fuzzy, on my computer monitor rather than on a theater screen, it's not the sort of movie I'll see in a theater, anyway.
Not that this is the sort of logic I'd expect to make it by any politician. But going to a theater, you're definately paying for something other than just film content.
> Having to use Sony's software to add > songs...isn't that what you do with > iPod, add songs through iTunes?
All you have to do with iTunes is tell it what folder you keep your MP3s in and it slurps them up and syncs them with the iPod. No conversion to another format, and no DRM added to your files.
If you buy songs from iTunes, however, they are protected with DRM, but you can still (1) download them to your iPod (or any other iPods that might mysteriously end up plugged in to your computer), (2) burn them to CD, and (3) share them with other computers in the household (specific numbers and limitations to this apply, of course). I don't buy from iTunes frequently, but I don't find the restrictions unreasonable.
I didn't see details on Sony's site, but it sounds like they might actually be converting your MP3s to their own format before allowing them to be transfered.
I have a dual monitor LCD set-up with two Dell 1800FPs. One monitor runs off of my video card's digital input, and the other monitor runs off of the card's analog input. However, I've never seen a problem like this with either monitor, after having the setup for about a year.
My office and some of our client's offices use LCDs for day to day work, and I've never seen this problem on them, either.
Maybe there's a hardware problem with the monitor itself, or even the video card? That's definately not normal behavior for an LCD monitor.
And also none of the Alamo Drafthouse locations allow kids under age 18 inside without a parent, regardless of what the movie is rated. Something to do with the fact that they serve alcohol, I guess. For the venue, the adult content seems entirely appropriate.
Is that while many of the readers here equate this with a "blacklist" of individuals who have filed frivolous lawsuits, it is not. This is merely a listing of individuals who have sued, and the site makes no claims of judgment. From the site itself: "We acknowledge that many of the people in this database may be involved in meritorious malpractice suits." And "DoctorsKnow.Us does not judge fitness of claims." However, by making no claims (and, from the information I see, providing no details about the lawsuit), this site puts clients who filed lawsuits with merit alongside those who filed frivolous lawsuits. The implication seems to be that these are people Doctors need to know about and possibly be wary of.
The site's "Group Monitor" function, which regularly scans the DoctorsKnow.US database for specific names suggests that it's important that doctors need to be aware of any legal proceedings on the part of their patients, without placing any importance on the legitimacy of the claims.
Yes, this is merely a database of publicly available information, but by grouping the information in such a way, in such a venue, the suggestion is that doctors need to be careful about taking these individuals as patients, regardless of whether their case had merit. The thought that doctors could be using this information to turn down patients is highly disturbing.
Though there are, without a doubt, people who abuse the system, but this database groups the innocent with the guilty without any sort of discrimination. Do we really expect the doctors to, after finding a name here, to go and do further research as to whether or not the case was legitimate? Doctors are busy people and their staff are busy too. I fear that such a database will hurt the innocent who have exercised their legal rights just as much (if not more) than it will punish the guilty.
My office is (lately) almost exclusively Dell, and I've had plenty of people break bezels, break keyboard keys, etc, etc, so I've gone all through the steps of buying and replacing parts - and getting Dell to do it. If you get the three year warranty with next (business) day on-site support (standard, iirc - and if not, it's worth the upgrade cost), all you have to do is get on the phone with tech support and say "The plastic bezel molding around my LCD has snapped. Replace it." Sure, you have to play twenty questions as they go through their usual diagnostics script, but with a bit of patience you'll get a technician on your doorstep the next day to install parts. (Be warned, however, that these technicians are not always particularly clever, and I've known them to break working things in an attempt to fix whatever your problem is - and of course, then you just have to call tech support again and start over.) I've never seen them refuse anything, regardless of how obvious it is user error. (Like the certian someone who manages to magically make her laptop keyboard stop functioning every thirty days - replaced it four times and counting!)
Of course, all of this assumes a warrenty of some sort. Dell's is fortunately pretty decent. (Since I've seen plenty of perfectly good Dell boxes die after six months, eight months, etc, for no reason in particular, I consider this a good thing!)
Even the so-called "MSCSE CIOs" aren't vulnerable unless they've thrown caution to the wind. Even Microsoft shops running 2003 Server and Exchange have excellent (third-party) anti-virus solutions and protection. An Exchange server (or better, SMTP gateway) running an anti-virus e-mail filter solves any problem you might have with SoBig infection. (Note: this is addressing only the aspect of a computer getting infected; there is still the issue of major network traffic congestion caused by such a fast spreading virus.) Most large organizations have some sort of system in place to prevent virii from hitting the user's desktop. There are products from all of the major anti-virus vendors, not to mention organizations like MessageLabs that specialize in stripping messages of spam and virii. My company's mail filter is catching a few hundred SoBig.F hits a day and keeping them off the desktop level and away from users who don't know any better.
In honesty, this problem has nothing do with Windows usage or lack thereof (though this is happens to be, like most, a Windows-specific virus) - it has to do with taking basic precautions to avoid catastrophic consequences. If every home computer ran anti-virus, this would not be a problem - but they don't. If every corporate network had virus filtering on their mail server or desktops this wouldn't be a problem - but people don't take these basic precautions.
The problem is not Windows - the problem is user and administrator education on basic steps required to prevent dangerous code and malware from getting to desktop computers.
I, personally, very much doubt that the market can ever be saturated due to the simple fact that it takes a very specific type of person to put up with people need constant hand-holding and can't tell you if they're running Windows or MacOS. The person who's going to suceed in this field needs to be patient, preservering, and polite ON TOP of having all of the requisite technical skills.
Lots of people have the former (customer servie) and lots of people have the latter (programming geek), but it's a hard combination, especially due to the fact that many computer folks have anti-social tendencies.
I simply don't see there being that many people like that out there. I work tech support and tend to enjoy it, but there's a lot of things I can't put up with and I'm more tolerant than most people in my department, who laugh and call users names as soon as they walk out of the office. Joking and/or tearing out your hair is not going to endeer you to any client, because even if you do it behind their back it tends to show.
A lot of people tell you not to vote for a third party because it would "waste" your vote. But, really, the waste of your vote is to vote for a more "mainstream" candidate that you don't really believe in.
Bush and Gore both seem the same to me and they both sicken me. Did you see the debates? They were even wearing the same suit!
So, please, take a look at third parties and independents out there. These people aren't so politically entrenched as the major parties, and have some very insightful ideas about what to do with our country.
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I'm not sure I buy into this argument. When I go to a theater to see a film, it's because I want the theater experience of seeing a film - the giant screen and the surround sound.
Watching low-quality (or even high quality!) copies over the internet isn't the same. And if it's the sort of movie where it's okay to see it, tiny and fuzzy, on my computer monitor rather than on a theater screen, it's not the sort of movie I'll see in a theater, anyway.
Not that this is the sort of logic I'd expect to make it by any politician. But going to a theater, you're definately paying for something other than just film content.
> Having to use Sony's software to add
> songs...isn't that what you do with
> iPod, add songs through iTunes?
All you have to do with iTunes is tell it what folder you keep your MP3s in and it slurps them up and syncs them with the iPod. No conversion to another format, and no DRM added to your files.
If you buy songs from iTunes, however, they are protected with DRM, but you can still (1) download them to your iPod (or any other iPods that might mysteriously end up plugged in to your computer), (2) burn them to CD, and (3) share them with other computers in the household (specific numbers and limitations to this apply, of course). I don't buy from iTunes frequently, but I don't find the restrictions unreasonable.
I didn't see details on Sony's site, but it sounds like they might actually be converting your MP3s to their own format before allowing them to be transfered.
I have a dual monitor LCD set-up with two Dell 1800FPs. One monitor runs off of my video card's digital input, and the other monitor runs off of the card's analog input. However, I've never seen a problem like this with either monitor, after having the setup for about a year.
My office and some of our client's offices use LCDs for day to day work, and I've never seen this problem on them, either.
Maybe there's a hardware problem with the monitor itself, or even the video card? That's definately not normal behavior for an LCD monitor.
And also none of the Alamo Drafthouse locations allow kids under age 18 inside without a parent, regardless of what the movie is rated. Something to do with the fact that they serve alcohol, I guess. For the venue, the adult content seems entirely appropriate.
Is that while many of the readers here equate this with a "blacklist" of individuals who have filed frivolous lawsuits, it is not. This is merely a listing of individuals who have sued, and the site makes no claims of judgment. From the site itself: "We acknowledge that many of the people in this database may be involved in meritorious malpractice suits." And "DoctorsKnow.Us does not judge fitness of claims." However, by making no claims (and, from the information I see, providing no details about the lawsuit), this site puts clients who filed lawsuits with merit alongside those who filed frivolous lawsuits. The implication seems to be that these are people Doctors need to know about and possibly be wary of.
The site's "Group Monitor" function, which regularly scans the DoctorsKnow.US database for specific names suggests that it's important that doctors need to be aware of any legal proceedings on the part of their patients, without placing any importance on the legitimacy of the claims.
Yes, this is merely a database of publicly available information, but by grouping the information in such a way, in such a venue, the suggestion is that doctors need to be careful about taking these individuals as patients, regardless of whether their case had merit. The thought that doctors could be using this information to turn down patients is highly disturbing.
Though there are, without a doubt, people who abuse the system, but this database groups the innocent with the guilty without any sort of discrimination. Do we really expect the doctors to, after finding a name here, to go and do further research as to whether or not the case was legitimate? Doctors are busy people and their staff are busy too. I fear that such a database will hurt the innocent who have exercised their legal rights just as much (if not more) than it will punish the guilty.
My office is (lately) almost exclusively Dell, and I've had plenty of people break bezels, break keyboard keys, etc, etc, so I've gone all through the steps of buying and replacing parts - and getting Dell to do it. If you get the three year warranty with next (business) day on-site support (standard, iirc - and if not, it's worth the upgrade cost), all you have to do is get on the phone with tech support and say "The plastic bezel molding around my LCD has snapped. Replace it." Sure, you have to play twenty questions as they go through their usual diagnostics script, but with a bit of patience you'll get a technician on your doorstep the next day to install parts. (Be warned, however, that these technicians are not always particularly clever, and I've known them to break working things in an attempt to fix whatever your problem is - and of course, then you just have to call tech support again and start over.) I've never seen them refuse anything, regardless of how obvious it is user error. (Like the certian someone who manages to magically make her laptop keyboard stop functioning every thirty days - replaced it four times and counting!)
Of course, all of this assumes a warrenty of some sort. Dell's is fortunately pretty decent. (Since I've seen plenty of perfectly good Dell boxes die after six months, eight months, etc, for no reason in particular, I consider this a good thing!)
Even the so-called "MSCSE CIOs" aren't vulnerable unless they've thrown caution to the wind. Even Microsoft shops running 2003 Server and Exchange have excellent (third-party) anti-virus solutions and protection. An Exchange server (or better, SMTP gateway) running an anti-virus e-mail filter solves any problem you might have with SoBig infection. (Note: this is addressing only the aspect of a computer getting infected; there is still the issue of major network traffic congestion caused by such a fast spreading virus.) Most large organizations have some sort of system in place to prevent virii from hitting the user's desktop. There are products from all of the major anti-virus vendors, not to mention organizations like MessageLabs that specialize in stripping messages of spam and virii. My company's mail filter is catching a few hundred SoBig.F hits a day and keeping them off the desktop level and away from users who don't know any better.
In honesty, this problem has nothing do with Windows usage or lack thereof (though this is happens to be, like most, a Windows-specific virus) - it has to do with taking basic precautions to avoid catastrophic consequences. If every home computer ran anti-virus, this would not be a problem - but they don't. If every corporate network had virus filtering on their mail server or desktops this wouldn't be a problem - but people don't take these basic precautions.
The problem is not Windows - the problem is user and administrator education on basic steps required to prevent dangerous code and malware from getting to desktop computers.
I, personally, very much doubt that the market can ever be saturated due to the simple fact that it takes a very specific type of person to put up with people need constant hand-holding and can't tell you if they're running Windows or MacOS. The person who's going to suceed in this field needs to be patient, preservering, and polite ON TOP of having all of the requisite technical skills.
Lots of people have the former (customer servie) and lots of people have the latter (programming geek), but it's a hard combination, especially due to the fact that many computer folks have anti-social tendencies.
I simply don't see there being that many people like that out there. I work tech support and tend to enjoy it, but there's a lot of things I can't put up with and I'm more tolerant than most people in my department, who laugh and call users names as soon as they walk out of the office. Joking and/or tearing out your hair is not going to endeer you to any client, because even if you do it behind their back it tends to show.
A lot of people tell you not to vote for a third party because it would "waste" your vote. But, really, the waste of your vote is to vote for a more "mainstream" candidate that you don't really believe in.
Bush and Gore both seem the same to me and they both sicken me. Did you see the debates? They were even wearing the same suit!
So, please, take a look at third parties and independents out there. These people aren't so politically entrenched as the major parties, and have some very insightful ideas about what to do with our country.
Don't waste your vote.
Ralph Nader, Green Party (also endorsed by the Reform Party)
Harry Browne, Libertarian
Pat Buchanan, Reform Party (sort of)
John Hagelin, Natural Law Party (sort of)
Howard Phillips, Constitution Party