I bought an Mac Mini and an iPod, but I haven't "switched" per se. At the time I bought the Mini, I also bought a Dell for my parents. One of the things I liked about the Mac was it wasn't flooded with all sorts of "crap". I didn't have to remove a dozen or so software packages that were included (i.e. AOL, Netscape, dozens of trial and crippleware packages.)
The Mac just started up, and worked. Things couldn't have been easier. In fact after a month I was wishing I had bought the Mac for my parents.
Generally, the reason why the credit card companies don't care is because card fraud in the US is absurdly low compared to the rest of the world. Basically, the system of comparing your buying patterns works.
In Europe, Visa and Mastercard are mandating a new Pin based card system with encryption. Fraud became so bad there that they moved to a whole new card system, requiring every merchant to get a new terminal. (Technically, you can use your old terminal, but the card companies are dropping all the merchant protections).
Very few US merchants care about the sig line. It just makes the lines go slower, they'll eat the fraud to get the sales volume. The only place I've seen that cares is the U.S. Postal Service. Which WILL require the signature panel be signed, and WILL NOT accept "SEE ID". Although, more or less all they are doing is following the same merchant agreement every other merchant is supposed to follow.
You don't have to have a hope of prevailing. That's the problem. You only have to have more money than the other person so that they cannot defend their rights.
For instance, if he'd used GPL code in his project, but never distributed that project, his company would have rights to it, and could keep it in house, and keep him from distributing it. Even if he lived in a state with laws against that had laws against that, he'd still have to muster tens of thousands of dollars to go after his employer.
There lies the problem with Civil IP cases. The lay person does not have the money to defend let alone assert those rights.
His only saving grace might be that he used GPL code from IBM, which has a multi-billion dollar investment in the GPL and OSI communities. They also have a HUGE IP porfolio.
Then again, this guy may be between a rock and a hard place of his NDA. Again, he may have protections, but it costs money to assert them.
Having gone through this situation with a major bank just a couple months ago I can tell you exactly what my lawyer told me. It won't matter if they can't win the case. The documents you signed are actionable in court. Meaning, it's not likely that it would get through out right away.
The cost to defend or persue an IP case is in the tens of thousands of dollars. If fact, if your idea or software is worth enough money, THEY WILL PUT THE MONEY INTO TAKING THE IDEA.
Now, in my case, I got the bank to make some changes to the agreement. You'll find, if you're not affraid to ask, you can actually make some changes.
As for this poor guy. First, you have to decide if you want to work their still. Then, retain a lawyer. Find out if whistle blower status applies to you, and what the ramifacations are for breaking your NDA. If it's all clear, then you should inform the USTPO about the previous art/stolen derivative. Then you should let the interested parties in the GPL and/or IBM know their work has basically been stolen. A minor GPL violation with a software package isn't likely to get much from IBM. But putting a patent on their code.... That's a whole different game.
Good luck.
Apple can make Tivo Cheaper
on
Apple to Buy TiVo?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Apple could help transform Tivo where it needs the most help. Hardware R&D. If there is a company that knowns how to making PowerPC hardware smaller and cheaper it's Apple.
Take a $499 Mac Mini form factor. Remove the CD-RW, lower the processor speed, and use less expensive single purpose GFX hardware. You'll likely get hardware that is actually sold at cost instead of below cost.
Add to the mix the fact that you're reseting the company, and can visit media partners you'd previously blown it with.
Add to the mix being able to add the Tivo Software (Linux on PowerPC) to Mac (BSD-Like on PowerPC).
Leverage Apples Media and Content distribution services.
Apple is not likely to actually take this to court. The fact is it would cost Apple far more money to sue him than they could ever recover. He's a college student. It's unlikely that he has any assets.
In the mid 90's Microsoft sued their first person (as opposed to company) for putting a crack for MS Office on the web. The crack turned a $3.99 demo version of Office into the full blown product. In the end MS saw that you can't squeeze blood from a turnip, and offered a settlement that I'm told involved little to no cash.
While I realize Steve Jobs has a reputation for holding serious grudges on security leaks, the fact is taking this kid down to the mat does not enhance the shareholder bottom line.
This case will likely disappear after a month with a private settlement.
It's an interesting point. I think a certain level of ease is expected. But may not be everything to a prospective software company. For example, developers for the Sega Dreamcast could choose between writing a native game, OR writing it in Windows CE. The vast majority of games where written natively.
Tha vast majority of programs do not deal with concurrentcy. i.e. Multi-Thread, Multi-CPU. Having multiple threads in a program is not that hard. You have a lot of that in the Java and.Net world already. In particular with web based programming. But making it so the threads actually talk to each other AND being able to antipate parallelization? Don't confuse a task manager/scheduler at the OS level being SMP aware to a true SMP aware application. That's a whole different animal. Dr. Dobbs Journal has a great article on why CPU's have hit the wall, and why concurrent programming is VERY hard, and done by so few developers. This was posted to slashdot a couple weeks ago:
http://www.gotw.ca/publications/concurrency-ddj. ht m
In todays Windows World I haven't found any games that actually take advantage of Multi-proccessor. You may gain a little bit of speed from the OS's scheduler, but it's not like 2 1Ghz CPUs will yield a machine that as fast as a 2Ghz machine.
DirectX is a factor, but it's not as clear cut as you think. The next generation of consoles will gets it's speed from having multiple processors. This is because we've essentially hit the wall for processor speed. If we'd kept pace with the jumps in CPU speeds we had in the 90's we'd be up to a 8-10Ghz CPU by now.
That being said, directX is not going to address the fact that writing code that actually takes advantage of the multiple CPU's is not easy. Even seasoned developers find this kind of programming hard. You have to deal with a whole range of bugs that aren't a factor with single CPU aware programs. This is has been covered by slashdot a number of times. As the common PC moves towards SMP developers (Java, C++,.Net, etc.) will have to take a hard look at how they are doing things.
While it is true, the XBox is easier to program than Playstation, it should be noted that the success of the Playstation was because Sony provided a well crafted SDK and development platform. It was reported that the Playstation was much easier to write for compared to Nintendo and Sega at the time.
To sum up, your plan of waiting and seeing is a good idea. And I think it's the plan that Sony is counting on.
At some level, the business needs to take ownership for what things cost. If IT is paying for toner and ink, start charging them back. Departments that use resources should pay for those resources. Look hard at your service contracts. How often are you using that support? Would you be better off with a per incident system? If you have a lot of unathenticed file storage why pay for MS licenses? Get it over to something free. Look at where your costs are going and cut them.
The base skill level needed to Admin a Unix Box is much higher than that of a Windows Admin. So from that stand point, yes, at an entry level the Unix person WILL make more money. To address this comercial distros have included fairly good GUI based tools to do common tasks. However, I don't think the salaries are much different once you get to a Senior level person.
That being said, I've seen relatively small teams manage hundreds of Unix boxes on a world wide scope. All you need is a few high level people that can impliment the framework and automation. There may be some cases where TCO is more or less given a certain criteria.
Bottom line, the better Quality your IT people are the more likely the TCO will be less with Unix.
Beware what you ask for. Support has a habbit of driving even the most mild computer geek crazy.
I used to use a sliding scale, based on how much of a pain in the butt the customer was likely to be. In particular if you have a lot of unbillable trip time. Back in the 90's by take home working for a very large on-site support and repair company was in the low $20s/hr (Midwest Area). I think they billed us around $40/50 an hour. I got a little bit of a bump because I was also certified to do warrantee work, and I could order parts and whatnot.
Flat rate places like "Geek Squad" charge $100-200 per service offered (Install a card, unpack and setup a computer, install a software title). Here's there price list for inhome service:
http://www.geeksquad.com/_assets/pdf/GS_Home_Pri ce s.pdf
Find a price under that you can live with. I HIGHLY recommend converting their price a per hour however.
Trek's problem isn't Trek, or the actors, or the SF, it's Rick Berman. Since he's taken the helm from Gene he's run the ship into the ground. If you've watched an Enterprise episode that was sub par, there's a good chance he's the one that wrote it. He IS the problem with Star Trek.
There are two types of canidates a business hires. "College Hires" and "Experienced" hires. Your college only matters for that first job. And even then, as a person who's done a couple dozen interviews with college students, we're really only looking grade, and how well you'll fit into the enviroment. You don't get many education questions after you've been doing the job for a while.
However, this is not to say the college you choose doesn't matter, it does. But not for the reasons you think. The key to landing a good out of college gig is targeting employers, and finding out what college job fairs they attend. And it's not all about an ivy league school either. Plenty of state institutions attract some good employers.
Final thought for you. In many markets, there are more open positions for experienced IT professionals than people here to do them. This is NOT the case for college hires. In fact it's a very bad thing for the long term viability of US IT job market. We're not added new blood into the system. We're off shoring the lower end jobs.
Get in on a college hire at a company that's willing to make an investment in you. It's the best thing for your long term career goals, and honestly, you're make a lot more than you would working for a start up or small company that expects a college hire to do experienced employee work.
Trek is fine, the Exec Producers are NOT
on
Should Star Trek Die?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
It's not that Trek itself is bad, it's the exec producers. Mainly Rick Berman. His direction for the series has been all wrong. Hand the helm over to someone else.
Is this different than the trailer Sci-Fi has been playing during their normal rotation? I only watch two shows on Sci-Fi, and I see that trailer, along with the Galactica mini series at least two times per show. And that's been at least a month now.
What's ironic is Seagate is crying foul about this when they have been on the other side of court for this issue. Back in the 90's I was told a story from a seagate employee who had been present for one of the famious Alan Shugart (then CEO) lunch room chats. Alan liked talking to the rank and file casually.
Apparently back in the mid-late 90's seagate was getting their butts kicks in price because of IP. They were paying companies like Hutchingson Technologies to make parts because they lacked the internal IP and expertise. This outsourcing was costing them money. So they hired engineers from a competing company, IBM. This gave seagate a nice edge... until IBM sued. That basically created another drain on the company that negated any cost savings they had found.
After that I'm told Alan Shugart said "this time around we hired the right engineers." I would assume they covered their bases by hiring a broad range of engineers, or going overseas where it's much harder to sue a US company.
At any rate the defendant would do well to look up Seagates own cases. I'm guessing he can defend himself with their own words.
Sure, there is a threat in the Open Source movement. But, how is that threat compared to offshoring? I don't think they are any different. Yet, when a threat is something that enhances the bottom line, security concerns are not raised.
Last time I was responcible for 24/7 support (on a global WAN with 300+ servers in 30+ countries) the responcibility was clear. A seperate phone line was installed and billed directly to the company. A Laptop was provided, along with a cellphone and pager. In my view that's the right way to do things. And to be honest, it's a lot less than paying IBM to support your servers 24/7.
I disagree on the whole "company connection" liability. You're not paying the vendor. You're reimbursing the employee for resources you're using. Unless you're directly paying the broadband provider it's not your liability nor would you want to tell the employee how to use it as it may make it your liability.
The original 721 had a sub par conflict screen. You got a very "diff command" like conflict screen. Last year they updated the conflict screen and it's really snazy. One of the few things they actually did better than Tivo actually.
As far as bugs, as a Tivo early adapter I'd say the general bash of Dish on bugs is way over stated. Dish has things they need to do, but Tivo is far from the second comming of christ when it comes to zero defect software.
921 will be firewire in april. JVC is a hard ware partner with Dish, it's not like they don't have the resources to connect the 921 to a DVHS deck. DVHS will be released in April when the FCC firewire mandate to cable companies comes up.
I stick with Dish because of HD. The HD-DirecTivo doesn't cut it. Plus I get the 921 heavily discounted from Dish because I was a Dish 5000+ HD Modulator owner. If DirecTV wasn't so anti firewire I'd jump ship. But they aren't and Dish has really good HD deals.
Dish Network has two dual tuner PVR/DRV's. The Dish 721, and the Dish 522. The 721 is quite a lot, the 522 is free for new customers who sign up for the DHA (basically you lease it) hardware. One interesting thing the 522 does that Tivo doesn't is it can be set up in two seperate modes. One does Picture in Picture with the two tuners, the other mode allows a for another TV to watch a seperate program via the RF out. In fact the 522 ships with two remote controls.
While the it does have a PVR fee, the 522 can be used on two televisions at once, but there is no additional outlet fees, so it ends up as a wash.
Still, Tivo has better software.
I'll tell you where Dish really does well. Getting HD on the cheap. A new customer can get up to 2 Dish 811 HD STBs for free.
http://www.vmcsatellite.com/?aid=60731
With DirecTV, it's gonna' cost ya. And Dish doesn't recompress their HD channels so they look sub par like DirecTV does. (Although the tides PQ can change quicky with DBS, let's hope DirecTV does something about it.)
Honestly, HD is the only reason I'm with Dish. If it was just SD programming I'd drop the DVR721 for a DirecTivo. The Dish921 (extremely hard to find) time shifts HD and SD programming and has firewire wire outputs (that should be enabled soon) that will allow a customer to archive HD to tape, saving hard drive space. The HD DirecTivo is comming out this summer, but no firewire means no deal for me. I've been timeshifting HD for sometime, and 250GB hard drive goes fast.
Re:Today only, free access courtesy of Slashdot
on
Orwellian Tech Support
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Sounds like stream too. I would like to blame them for the problem, but companies like HP/Compaq and IBM monitor and make test calls. They know exactly what the score is.
I worked at a call center that lost a contract to stream. The computer maker knew we were better than stream, in fact their own call QA person said we scored better than any other center, including internal centers that delt with high end business customers. But it's all about money. In our case, we could get under 12 minute calls, but weren't extracting enough $35 non-supported help fees.
I suggest rying your cable company first. The reason is it usually doesn't cost you much if anything to get cable, and you can usually cancel at any time with no penalty.
Digital cable channels are typically about the same or slightly less quality than a DBS system. The problem is most of your channels on cable aren't digital. They are analog. While analog can actually be really high quality, on most cable systems it isn't.
DVRs is a different topic. The cable company usually has a free or cheap DVR solution, however, the interface usually isn't the greatest.
Tivo is the Top dog for quality and interface. Dish Network (which has more DVR's deployed than anyone else) is second, cable is third. For best (non-HD) picture quality both Dish and DirecTV's DVRs are the best. DirecTV get's a boost because they license Tivo currently.
HD is a different story. You have Voom, DirecTV, and Dish Network to choose from on DBS and your local cable company. Your cable Co may or may not have a better selection of channels based on your location. The DBS provides will all require an ant for local reception. (Exception, Dish Network offers a National CBS feed in 14 O&O markets).
For HD Dish network costs the least. You should be able to get Dishnetwork with a HD STB for free, however, because of it's popularity it's back ordered in many places. The cable company should also be leasing a HD STB for next to nothing. If you have Comcast demand the Motorola 5100 series, and for Time Warner you want a Scitific Atlanta 8000 series. Anything less worthless.
But what if you want HD DVR?
Okay, right now, one choice, Dish 921, for a mean $999 you can get this linux powered DVR that will record both local OTA HD and DBS HD (3 tuners total). DirecTV should have a DirecTivo HD Q2, voom is going for a media center approach, one main box with tuners and a hard drive, with small boxes connected to the main box on other TVs. The cable company is test marketing HD-DVRs in certain areas.
Only the Dish Network STB is confirmed to have firewire out for digital archiving, but some of the cable STBs are supposed to have firewire. HD Tivo is confirmed not too.
Still, try the cable company first, see what they have to offer. Wait until Q2 to compare DBS offering.
Small plastic parts like hinges and bezels can almost always be ordered one part at a time. The problem is you have to know what to order and who to order it from. The guy at the service shop has a parts/depot person. For major brands like Compaq, HP, Dell etc you call up a parts department give them a tech number and billing code and they'd overnight the parts to you. Hell, all you needed was the part number off the dealie and they'd do the lookup.
For the consumer you're at the mercy of vendor. Many don't want to be in the business of dealing with credit card numbers. They want to send a company an invoice and get paid.
You're almost better off dealing with a computer maker that has a large consumber division that already does parts sales to consumers.
Yeah, Dishplayer (Software by Microsoft) was subpar. The 500 series PVR's is pretty much OpenTV on Dish. That is to say other than some look and feel stuff it operates on the same software many cable company STBs/PVRs do. However, judging from your comments you've never used the 721 (which is linux based).
It's ships with a 120 GB hard drive, has two tuners, Picture in Picture, is actually pretty fast and has a 10+ day guide. And has similar stability to Tivo 1-2 year after introduction.
Hacking on the 721 has been pretty minimal to be honest. I upgraded my original Philips Tivo because it didn't ship with much Hard Drive space. Since the 721 had a fairly large Hard Drive space from the get go not a lot of people have wanted to crack it open.
You want Ethernet? Hook it up the USB port. Not that you can do much with it, but you can hook up extra hard drives, net cards, etc. The application that actually runs the box doesn't do anything with them, but the Linux Kernel is compiled with support for most devices. Keyboard support is reconized however, handy for searching the 10+ day guide.
The "self healing" features of the 721 make major software changes hard. If certain filesystems fail a checksum it redeploys the PVR. It does make hacking hard, but it also makes minor software glitches recoverable. I ended up giving away my SA Tivo because every few months some data on the Hard Drive would garble and unless you'd cracked the case and made a back up you're SOL.
Is the 721 better than the DirecTivo? No, the name based timmers make it better. Is the DirecTivo HD better than the 921. Wait and see. You need absolutely huge ammounts of Hard Drive space to store HD Content. 20 hours is not enough.
I could drill a hole in a $2 SVHS tape and use it in a DVHS deck to archive a movie. Five HD movies for $10. Assuming the HD Tivo could take an extra hard drive, that's about $99 for the same five movies.
My point is the PVRs the thread is acutally talking about are not as bad as you think. The problem is the 721 was never that popular. The major retailers that carried dish (Sears, Sams, Suncoast, etc.) never carried it. The cheap/free 500 series is what got pushed and that's what skews peoples impression of the Dish Network DVR/PVRs.
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I bought an Mac Mini and an iPod, but I haven't "switched" per se. At the time I bought the Mini, I also bought a Dell for my parents. One of the things I liked about the Mac was it wasn't flooded with all sorts of "crap". I didn't have to remove a dozen or so software packages that were included (i.e. AOL, Netscape, dozens of trial and crippleware packages.)
The Mac just started up, and worked. Things couldn't have been easier. In fact after a month I was wishing I had bought the Mac for my parents.
Generally, the reason why the credit card companies don't care is because card fraud in the US is absurdly low compared to the rest of the world. Basically, the system of comparing your buying patterns works.
In Europe, Visa and Mastercard are mandating a new Pin based card system with encryption. Fraud became so bad there that they moved to a whole new card system, requiring every merchant to get a new terminal. (Technically, you can use your old terminal, but the card companies are dropping all the merchant protections).
Very few US merchants care about the sig line. It just makes the lines go slower, they'll eat the fraud to get the sales volume. The only place I've seen that cares is the U.S. Postal Service. Which WILL require the signature panel be signed, and WILL NOT accept "SEE ID". Although, more or less all they are doing is following the same merchant agreement every other merchant is supposed to follow.
You don't have to have a hope of prevailing. That's the problem. You only have to have more money than the other person so that they cannot defend their rights.
For instance, if he'd used GPL code in his project, but never distributed that project, his company would have rights to it, and could keep it in house, and keep him from distributing it. Even if he lived in a state with laws against that had laws against that, he'd still have to muster tens of thousands of dollars to go after his employer.
There lies the problem with Civil IP cases. The lay person does not have the money to defend let alone assert those rights.
His only saving grace might be that he used GPL code from IBM, which has a multi-billion dollar investment in the GPL and OSI communities. They also have a HUGE IP porfolio.
Then again, this guy may be between a rock and a hard place of his NDA. Again, he may have protections, but it costs money to assert them.
Having gone through this situation with a major bank just a couple months ago I can tell you exactly what my lawyer told me. It won't matter if they can't win the case. The documents you signed are actionable in court. Meaning, it's not likely that it would get through out right away.
The cost to defend or persue an IP case is in the tens of thousands of dollars. If fact, if your idea or software is worth enough money, THEY WILL PUT THE MONEY INTO TAKING THE IDEA.
Now, in my case, I got the bank to make some changes to the agreement. You'll find, if you're not affraid to ask, you can actually make some changes.
As for this poor guy. First, you have to decide if you want to work their still. Then, retain a lawyer. Find out if whistle blower status applies to you, and what the ramifacations are for breaking your NDA. If it's all clear, then you should inform the USTPO about the previous art/stolen derivative. Then you should let the interested parties in the GPL and/or IBM know their work has basically been stolen. A minor GPL violation with a software package isn't likely to get much from IBM. But putting a patent on their code.... That's a whole different game.
Good luck.
Apple could help transform Tivo where it needs the most help. Hardware R&D. If there is a company that knowns how to making PowerPC hardware smaller and cheaper it's Apple.
Take a $499 Mac Mini form factor. Remove the CD-RW, lower the processor speed, and use less expensive single purpose GFX hardware. You'll likely get hardware that is actually sold at cost instead of below cost.
Add to the mix the fact that you're reseting the company, and can visit media partners you'd previously blown it with.
Add to the mix being able to add the Tivo Software (Linux on PowerPC) to Mac (BSD-Like on PowerPC).
Leverage Apples Media and Content distribution services.
It might just work.
Apple is not likely to actually take this to court. The fact is it would cost Apple far more money to sue him than they could ever recover. He's a college student. It's unlikely that he has any assets.
In the mid 90's Microsoft sued their first person (as opposed to company) for putting a crack for MS Office on the web. The crack turned a $3.99 demo version of Office into the full blown product. In the end MS saw that you can't squeeze blood from a turnip, and offered a settlement that I'm told involved little to no cash.
While I realize Steve Jobs has a reputation for holding serious grudges on security leaks, the fact is taking this kid down to the mat does not enhance the shareholder bottom line.
This case will likely disappear after a month with a private settlement.
It's an interesting point. I think a certain level of ease is expected. But may not be everything to a prospective software company. For example, developers for the Sega Dreamcast could choose between writing a native game, OR writing it in Windows CE. The vast majority of games where written natively.
Tha vast majority of programs do not deal with concurrentcy. i.e. Multi-Thread, Multi-CPU. Having multiple threads in a program is not that hard. You have a lot of that in the Java and .Net world already. In particular with web based programming. But making it so the threads actually talk to each other AND being able to antipate parallelization? Don't confuse a task manager/scheduler at the OS level being SMP aware to a true SMP aware application. That's a whole different animal. Dr. Dobbs Journal has a great article on why CPU's have hit the wall, and why concurrent programming is VERY hard, and done by so few developers. This was posted to slashdot a couple weeks ago:
. ht m
http://www.gotw.ca/publications/concurrency-ddj
In todays Windows World I haven't found any games that actually take advantage of Multi-proccessor. You may gain a little bit of speed from the OS's scheduler, but it's not like 2 1Ghz CPUs will yield a machine that as fast as a 2Ghz machine.
DirectX is a factor, but it's not as clear cut as you think. The next generation of consoles will gets it's speed from having multiple processors. This is because we've essentially hit the wall for processor speed. If we'd kept pace with the jumps in CPU speeds we had in the 90's we'd be up to a 8-10Ghz CPU by now.
.Net, etc.) will have to take a hard look at how they are doing things.
That being said, directX is not going to address the fact that writing code that actually takes advantage of the multiple CPU's is not easy. Even seasoned developers find this kind of programming hard. You have to deal with a whole range of bugs that aren't a factor with single CPU aware programs. This is has been covered by slashdot a number of times. As the common PC moves towards SMP developers (Java, C++,
While it is true, the XBox is easier to program than Playstation, it should be noted that the success of the Playstation was because Sony provided a well crafted SDK and development platform. It was reported that the Playstation was much easier to write for compared to Nintendo and Sega at the time.
To sum up, your plan of waiting and seeing is a good idea. And I think it's the plan that Sony is counting on.
At some level, the business needs to take ownership for what things cost. If IT is paying for toner and ink, start charging them back. Departments that use resources should pay for those resources. Look hard at your service contracts. How often are you using that support? Would you be better off with a per incident system? If you have a lot of
unathenticed file storage why pay for MS licenses? Get it over to something free. Look at where your costs are going and cut them.
The base skill level needed to Admin a Unix Box is much higher than that of a Windows Admin. So from that stand point, yes, at an entry level the Unix person WILL make more money. To address this comercial distros have included fairly good GUI based tools to do common tasks. However, I don't think the salaries are much different once you get to a Senior level person.
That being said, I've seen relatively small teams manage hundreds of Unix boxes on a world wide scope. All you need is a few high level people that can impliment the framework and automation.
There may be some cases where TCO is more or less given a certain criteria.
Bottom line, the better Quality your IT people are the more likely the TCO will be less with Unix.
Beware what you ask for. Support has a habbit of driving even the most mild computer geek crazy.
i ce s.pdf
I used to use a sliding scale, based on how much of a pain in the butt the customer was likely to be. In particular if you have a lot of unbillable trip time. Back in the 90's by take home working for a very large on-site support and repair company was in the low $20s/hr (Midwest Area). I think they billed us around $40/50 an hour. I got a little bit of a bump because I was also certified to do warrantee work, and I could order parts and whatnot.
Flat rate places like "Geek Squad" charge $100-200 per service offered (Install a card, unpack and setup a computer, install a software title). Here's there price list for inhome service:
http://www.geeksquad.com/_assets/pdf/GS_Home_Pr
Find a price under that you can live with. I HIGHLY recommend converting their price a per hour however.
Trek's problem isn't Trek, or the actors, or the SF, it's Rick Berman. Since he's taken the helm from Gene he's run the ship into the ground. If you've watched an Enterprise episode that was sub par, there's a good chance he's the one that wrote it. He IS the problem with Star Trek.
There are two types of canidates a business hires. "College Hires" and "Experienced" hires. Your college only matters for that first job. And even then, as a person who's done a couple dozen interviews with college students, we're really only looking grade, and how well you'll fit into the enviroment. You don't get many education questions after you've been doing the job for a while.
However, this is not to say the college you choose doesn't matter, it does. But not for the reasons you think. The key to landing a good out of college gig is targeting employers, and finding out what college job fairs they attend. And it's not all about an ivy league school either. Plenty of state institutions attract some good employers.
Final thought for you. In many markets, there are more open positions for experienced IT professionals than people here to do them. This is NOT the case for college hires. In fact it's a very bad thing for the long term viability of US IT job market. We're not added new blood into the system. We're off shoring the lower end jobs.
Get in on a college hire at a company that's willing to make an investment in you. It's the best thing for your long term career goals, and honestly, you're make a lot more than you would working for a start up or small company that expects a college hire to do experienced employee work.
It's not that Trek itself is bad, it's the exec producers. Mainly Rick Berman. His direction for the series has been all wrong. Hand the helm over to someone else.
Is this different than the trailer Sci-Fi has been playing during their normal rotation? I only watch two shows on Sci-Fi, and I see that trailer, along with the Galactica mini series at least two times per show. And that's been at least a month now.
What's ironic is Seagate is crying foul about this when they have been on the other side of court for this issue. Back in the 90's I was told a story from a seagate employee who had been present for one of the famious Alan Shugart (then CEO) lunch room chats. Alan liked talking to the rank and file casually.
Apparently back in the mid-late 90's seagate was getting their butts kicks in price because of IP. They were paying companies like Hutchingson Technologies to make parts because they lacked the internal IP and expertise. This outsourcing was costing them money. So they hired engineers from a competing company, IBM. This gave seagate a nice edge... until IBM sued. That basically created another drain on the company that negated any cost savings they had found.
After that I'm told Alan Shugart said "this time around we hired the right engineers." I would assume they covered their bases by hiring a broad range of engineers, or going overseas where it's much harder to sue a US company.
At any rate the defendant would do well to look up Seagates own cases. I'm guessing he can defend himself with their own words.
Sure, there is a threat in the Open Source movement. But, how is that threat compared to offshoring? I don't think they are any different. Yet, when a threat is something that enhances the bottom line, security concerns are not raised.
Last time I was responcible for 24/7 support (on a global WAN with 300+ servers in 30+ countries) the responcibility was clear. A seperate phone line was installed and billed directly to the company. A Laptop was provided, along with a cellphone and pager. In my view that's the right way to do things. And to be honest, it's a lot less than paying IBM to support your servers 24/7.
I disagree on the whole "company connection" liability. You're not paying the vendor. You're reimbursing the employee for resources you're using. Unless you're directly paying the broadband provider it's not your liability nor would you want to tell the employee how to use it as it may make it your liability.
The original 721 had a sub par conflict screen. You got a very "diff command" like conflict screen. Last year they updated the conflict screen and it's really snazy. One of the few things they actually did better than Tivo actually.
As far as bugs, as a Tivo early adapter I'd say the general bash of Dish on bugs is way over stated. Dish has things they need to do, but Tivo is far from the second comming of christ when it comes to zero defect software.
921 will be firewire in april. JVC is a hard ware partner with Dish, it's not like they don't have the resources to connect the 921 to a DVHS deck. DVHS will be released in April when the FCC firewire mandate to cable companies comes up.
I stick with Dish because of HD. The HD-DirecTivo doesn't cut it. Plus I get the 921 heavily discounted from Dish because I was a Dish 5000+ HD Modulator owner. If DirecTV wasn't so anti firewire I'd jump ship. But they aren't and Dish has really good HD deals.
Dish Network has two dual tuner PVR/DRV's. The Dish 721, and the Dish 522. The 721 is quite a lot, the 522 is free for new customers who sign up for the DHA (basically you lease it) hardware. One interesting thing the 522 does that Tivo doesn't is it can be set up in two seperate modes. One does Picture in Picture with the two tuners, the other mode allows a for another TV to watch a seperate program via the RF out. In fact the 522 ships with two remote controls.
While the it does have a PVR fee, the 522 can be used on two televisions at once, but there is no additional outlet fees, so it ends up as a wash.
Still, Tivo has better software.
I'll tell you where Dish really does well. Getting HD on the cheap. A new customer can get up to 2 Dish 811 HD STBs for free.
http://www.vmcsatellite.com/?aid=60731
With DirecTV, it's gonna' cost ya. And Dish doesn't recompress their HD channels so they look sub par like DirecTV does. (Although the tides PQ can change quicky with DBS, let's hope DirecTV does something about it.)
Honestly, HD is the only reason I'm with Dish. If it was just SD programming I'd drop the DVR721 for a DirecTivo. The Dish921 (extremely hard to find) time shifts HD and SD programming and has firewire wire outputs (that should be enabled soon) that will allow a customer to archive HD to tape, saving hard drive space. The HD DirecTivo is comming out this summer, but no firewire means no deal for me. I've been timeshifting HD for sometime, and 250GB hard drive goes fast.
Sounds like stream too. I would like to blame them for the problem, but companies like HP/Compaq and IBM monitor and make test calls. They know exactly what the score is.
I worked at a call center that lost a contract to stream. The computer maker knew we were better than stream, in fact their own call QA person said we scored better than any other center, including internal centers that delt with high end business customers. But it's all about money. In our case, we could get under 12 minute calls, but weren't extracting enough $35 non-supported help fees.
I suggest rying your cable company first. The reason is it usually doesn't cost you much if anything to get cable, and you can usually cancel at any time with no penalty.
Digital cable channels are typically about the same or slightly less quality than a DBS system. The problem is most of your channels on cable aren't digital. They are analog. While analog can actually be really high quality, on most cable systems it isn't.
DVRs is a different topic. The cable company usually has a free or cheap DVR solution, however, the interface usually isn't the greatest.
Tivo is the Top dog for quality and interface. Dish Network (which has more DVR's deployed than anyone else) is second, cable is third. For best (non-HD) picture quality both Dish and DirecTV's DVRs are the best. DirecTV get's a boost because they license Tivo currently.
HD is a different story. You have Voom, DirecTV, and Dish Network to choose from on DBS and your local cable company. Your cable Co may or may not have a better selection of channels based on your location. The DBS provides will all require an ant for local reception. (Exception, Dish Network offers a National CBS feed in 14 O&O markets).
For HD Dish network costs the least. You should be able to get Dishnetwork with a HD STB for free, however, because of it's popularity it's back ordered in many places. The cable company should also be leasing a HD STB for next to nothing. If you have Comcast demand the Motorola 5100 series, and for Time Warner you want a Scitific Atlanta 8000 series. Anything less worthless.
But what if you want HD DVR?
Okay, right now, one choice, Dish 921, for a mean $999 you can get this linux powered DVR that will record both local OTA HD and DBS HD (3 tuners total). DirecTV should have a DirecTivo HD Q2, voom is going for a media center approach, one main box with tuners and a hard drive, with small boxes connected to the main box on other TVs. The cable company is test marketing HD-DVRs in certain areas.
Only the Dish Network STB is confirmed to have firewire out for digital archiving, but some of the cable STBs are supposed to have firewire. HD Tivo is confirmed not too.
Still, try the cable company first, see what they have to offer. Wait until Q2 to compare DBS offering.
Small plastic parts like hinges and bezels can almost always be ordered one part at a time. The problem is you have to know what to order and who to order it from. The guy at the service shop has a parts/depot person. For major brands like Compaq, HP, Dell etc you call up a parts department give them a tech number and billing code and they'd overnight the parts to you. Hell, all you needed was the part number off the dealie and they'd do the lookup.
For the consumer you're at the mercy of vendor. Many don't want to be in the business of dealing with credit card numbers. They want to send a company an invoice and get paid.
You're almost better off dealing with a computer maker that has a large consumber division that already does parts sales to consumers.
Yeah, Dishplayer (Software by Microsoft) was subpar. The 500 series PVR's is pretty much OpenTV on Dish. That is to say other than some look and feel stuff it operates on the same software many cable company STBs/PVRs do. However, judging from your comments you've never used the 721 (which is linux based).
It's ships with a 120 GB hard drive, has two tuners, Picture in Picture, is actually pretty fast and has a 10+ day guide. And has similar stability to Tivo 1-2 year after introduction.
Hacking on the 721 has been pretty minimal to be honest. I upgraded my original Philips Tivo because it didn't ship with much Hard Drive space. Since the 721 had a fairly large Hard Drive space from the get go not a lot of people have wanted to crack it open.
You want Ethernet? Hook it up the USB port. Not that you can do much with it, but you can hook up extra hard drives, net cards, etc. The application that actually runs the box doesn't do anything with them, but the Linux Kernel is compiled with support for most devices. Keyboard support is reconized however, handy for searching the 10+ day guide.
The "self healing" features of the 721 make major software changes hard. If certain filesystems fail a checksum it redeploys the PVR. It does make hacking hard, but it also makes minor software glitches recoverable. I ended up giving away my SA Tivo because every few months some data on the Hard Drive would garble and unless you'd cracked the case and made a back up you're SOL.
Is the 721 better than the DirecTivo? No, the name based timmers make it better. Is the DirecTivo HD better than the 921. Wait and see. You need absolutely huge ammounts of Hard Drive space to store HD Content. 20 hours is not enough.
I could drill a hole in a $2 SVHS tape and use it in a DVHS deck to archive a movie. Five HD movies for $10. Assuming the HD Tivo could take an extra hard drive, that's about $99 for the same five movies.
My point is the PVRs the thread is acutally talking about are not as bad as you think. The problem is the 721 was never that popular. The major retailers that carried dish (Sears, Sams, Suncoast, etc.) never carried it. The cheap/free 500 series is what got pushed and that's what skews peoples impression of the Dish Network DVR/PVRs.