Almost ALL telemarketing calls have four things that indentify them immediately. 1. No name in the CALLER ID. 2. "Hi, how are you doing to today, Mr. Mrs [insert last name here]?" 3. You answer the phone, "Hello?" and either there is a pause much longer than normal, or you hear someone on the other end answering with "Hello?". 4. When they do come on, you hear that it's a call center. I am usually very polite. They ask to speak to me, and I very politely say, something like "just a sec", or "one moment". I then quietly set the phone down, fully intending to get back to them. It's just that by the time I do manage to pick up the phone again, they've already hung up. I just don't get it.
I guess porting it to XUL is an interesting change, but I still see a very narrow mindset with respect to what an "event" is. Not all "events" have a start time and a stop time. With some, you just want to note the date and time they occurred (past tense), and are completely uninterested in anything related to duration. I hope that someone will take an innovative step in the design of this (or other OS calendaring software) that will allow users to define events however they want.
Consider this little snippet from the article: Mostly the Windows boxes cost up to $230 less when you factor in the big "instant discounts" which are available only on the Windows boxes.
Isn't using stuff like "instant discounts", which could vary wildly from day to day and vendor to vendor, every bit as misleading as some of the other tactics he mentions at the very beginning of the article?
Any CTO who is worth the paper on which his/her stock options are enumerated, should see it the same way. Unfortunately, as we've seen, there are many in upper echelons of management that are quite clueless. All anyone has to do is ask, "How much choice do I have using Microsoft products? Let's see...there's Microsoft, Microsoft.....and Microsoft!".
And Mr. Gates is doing everything in his power to see that Linux/OSS remains as uninteroperable with Windows as possible- let alone other competing interests.
...marketing? Even on their own website, Linare says it comes with 128MB of memory, but 256MB is recommended. Would it KILL them to add another 128MB? What a turnoff.
I'd agree - it's all about perception, and changing them in one's favor.
Also, even though Microsoft might become a second-runner, it still has the massive name recognition from it's abusively dominant position in the software market.
Since I consider myself a person of principle, it will be a cold day in hell before I use MSN over Google. Google did it right on a number of counts from the very start- Taking into account Microsoft's liberal use of the word "innovative" to describe what it does, I'm not expecting anything that's even incrementally better than Google.
...seemingly pointless this article is. Hell, at the onset of the PC revolution, nobody thought that we would ever need more than 640K RAM. I don't believe for a SECOND that people have all the software they will ever need. Research and home-brew experimentation will march forward- it's conceivable that at some point, someone will come up with a way to re-revolutionize the PC, much the way Apple did with the Macintosh.
I suspect that in order to take advantage of this offer, one needs to buy stuff from Amazon. I never have, and keeping true to my belief in the evil of software patents, I will not Amazon until they release that rediculous "one-click" patent into the public domain. An apology wouldn't hurt, either.
I'm amazed at how much lip service Slashdot readers are willing to pay when it comes to software patents, but then turn right around and feed companies that have abused them.
The co-called competitive advantages you speak of are what drive innovation. Being first in the market place with an idea or a process that nets a specific result carries a lot of weight as it is. A second (or third, or fourth runner) is already facing an uphill battle. That being the case, they can't just do what you're doing, they have to make it even better- that's where the innovation comes from.
If you think that it's just a matter of paying a licensing fee to the one who allegedly originated a specific method, that, along with the patent itself, will make it pretty difficult for competitors from the start. I'd argue that companies that aren't interested in competition, don't belong in a competitive marketplace.
It's conceivable that someone could throw together a script that will start at a certain web page (maybe from a collection of stored URLs), and then in some logical order, randomly visit a series of links. Add some random delays so that it can appear as though a real person is surfing. Set this to kick in a various times (cron maybe?), and continue for various lengths of time. I don't think they'd have any way of knowing if it's real or not,
Re:Apple has had many quality problems...
on
Top 10 Apple Flops
·
· Score: 1
Anyone who had an original 128K mac (or even later models) was well familiar with the power supply problems. Later hardware, like the studio monitors, also had problems, and I'd be willing to bet that there are others. I don't think Apple is anything special when it comes to quality. Trendy, perhaps a bit innovative, yes. But based on my own experience, I'd say it's quite average.
The basic idea of an "IT project" is to implement something that has never been implemented before, or to replace something wholesale.
I believe that you can have success either way- it just depends on how it's implemented. There is some important groundwork to laid, either way - first and foremost, you need to have organizational "buy-in". In other words, if the entity you're working with is not on board (as in, unsure of what is going on, or resistent to the proposed changes), it's going to make things far worse. Second, if you use methods like parallel implementation over "turning one off and the other on," you will be afforded an experience where things are much more resilient when stuff goes wrong. This may sound like common sense, but based on what I've been hearing about a particular project recently, I'm willing to bet that it isn't used near as often as it probably shoudld.
However, I think he's off-base on his suggestion to allow the customer to "own everything".
What I've typically done is include a clause to the effect that "Company reserves the right to re-use certain portions...etc, etc," If I'm ever asked, I simply explain that technical work (like programming) to a large degree, is based on collective knowledge. The more collective knowledge, the better the service. No one customer can take ownership of the means used to provide the service being offered- it's simply not feasible.
When it comes to the finished product, however, it varies - most of the time they will own it, but I've had one or two situations where they agreed to joint copyright so long as I did not use the software for, or market it to, competing entities.
I can easily see Microsoft lapsing into the same kind of "saturated market mentality" that afflicts other industries. Instead of focusing on innovation and providing real value, they'll focus on ways to use the same medium to extract more cash- increased licensing fees, unbundling of certain components, software-as-a-service, annual subscriptions, and countless other possibilities that will require payment over and above the base cost.
I wish there were greater mindshare in this respect, but people are too interested in tending to their music habits like bad cases of crack addiction.
I also refuse to buy, steal, download, use, or listen to mainstream music produced and promoted by RIAA companies. What's funny about all this is it truly is empowering to be able to make this kind of choice.
It's not as easy, because it's like comparing Photoshop to MS Paint. They're different animals intended to solve entirely different problems. If you want a real communications system, you use something like Asterisk.
Note that this requires that the QOS device has ultimate control over all data running in and out of the business,
All this means is that the traffic can get tied up somewhere else. What you need is an end-to-end network dedicated to the proper management of VOIP traffic.
Which is why I now always pay at the pump, and try to avoid any situation where my card will be in the hands of someone else.
Once the number leaves your hands in ANY form, it's subject to abuse. With at-the-register POS teriminals, you really have no idea where informations goes before heading to the bank for approval.
There's a real easy solution to this...no, really. It's these little green paper things. Cash...yeah, that's what it's called. I use it all the time. In fact, I'm so watchful of any potential that some company might be tracking or retaining information on what I do, I avoid anything that can lead to identification. It's not quite as convenient as whipping out a piece of plastic every 10 minutes, but it's a hell of a lot more reassuring.
Now that IBM and SUN have released patents under various conditions, I think it's high time that Amazon redeem itself. Ditch that stupid "one-click" patent and admit how retarded it was to pursue it in the first place. I still have yet to purchase a single thing from Amazon- and the best part about it is that it simply hasn't mattered.
The last isn't even a problem - if any editing is limited to the first 5 minutes or so after the post, AND any mod points are forfeited, this would seem to address the concerns that people have raised.
Don't forget that software patents are very new- they've only been allowed since about 1996 or so. They don't promote innovation at all - they stifle it. They allow the one thing that's bad for consumers- limited choice and a greater potential for vendor lock-in. They make it difficult for competition, since "licensing fees" could easily result in a net loss for anyone attempting to offer products or services in the same market. Since this provides patent holders with a larger captive market (not by consumer choice, mind you), there is less incentive to invest in things that matter- like providing good customer service and a good quality product.
Slashdot Mirror
You have access to a Friends list, as well as a game locator that matches you up with other players looking for the same kind of game.
Almost ALL telemarketing calls have four things that indentify them immediately. 1. No name in the CALLER ID. 2. "Hi, how are you doing to today, Mr. Mrs [insert last name here]?" 3. You answer the phone, "Hello?" and either there is a pause much longer than normal, or you hear someone on the other end answering with "Hello?". 4. When they do come on, you hear that it's a call center. I am usually very polite. They ask to speak to me, and I very politely say, something like "just a sec", or "one moment". I then quietly set the phone down, fully intending to get back to them. It's just that by the time I do manage to pick up the phone again, they've already hung up. I just don't get it.
I guess porting it to XUL is an interesting change, but I still see a very narrow mindset with respect to what an "event" is. Not all "events" have a start time and a stop time. With some, you just want to note the date and time they occurred (past tense), and are completely uninterested in anything related to duration. I hope that someone will take an innovative step in the design of this (or other OS calendaring software) that will allow users to define events however they want.
Consider this little snippet from the article:
Mostly the Windows boxes cost up to $230 less when you factor in the big "instant discounts" which are available only on the Windows boxes.
Isn't using stuff like "instant discounts", which could vary wildly from day to day and vendor to vendor, every bit as misleading as some of the other tactics he mentions at the very beginning of the article?
Any CTO who is worth the paper on which his/her stock options are enumerated, should see it the same way. Unfortunately, as we've seen, there are many in upper echelons of management that are quite clueless. All anyone has to do is ask, "How much choice do I have using Microsoft products? Let's see...there's Microsoft, Microsoft.....and Microsoft!".
And Mr. Gates is doing everything in his power to see that Linux/OSS remains as uninteroperable with Windows as possible- let alone other competing interests.
...marketing? Even on their own website, Linare says it comes with 128MB of memory, but 256MB is recommended. Would it KILL them to add another 128MB? What a turnoff.
I'd agree - it's all about perception, and changing them in one's favor.
Also, even though Microsoft might become a second-runner, it still has the massive name recognition from it's abusively dominant position in the software market.
Since I consider myself a person of principle, it will be a cold day in hell before I use MSN over Google. Google did it right on a number of counts from the very start- Taking into account Microsoft's liberal use of the word "innovative" to describe what it does, I'm not expecting anything that's even incrementally better than Google.
lol - guilty as charged. Notice the sig. : )
I suspect that in order to take advantage of this offer, one needs to buy stuff from Amazon. I never have, and keeping true to my belief in the evil of software patents, I will not Amazon until they release that rediculous "one-click" patent into the public domain. An apology wouldn't hurt, either.
I'm amazed at how much lip service Slashdot readers are willing to pay when it comes to software patents, but then turn right around and feed companies that have abused them.
The co-called competitive advantages you speak of are what drive innovation. Being first in the market place with an idea or a process that nets a specific result carries a lot of weight as it is. A second (or third, or fourth runner) is already facing an uphill battle. That being the case, they can't just do what you're doing, they have to make it even better- that's where the innovation comes from.
If you think that it's just a matter of paying a licensing fee to the one who allegedly originated a specific method, that, along with the patent itself, will make it pretty difficult for competitors from the start. I'd argue that companies that aren't interested in competition, don't belong in a competitive marketplace.
It's conceivable that someone could throw together a script that will start at a certain web page (maybe from a collection of stored URLs), and then in some logical order, randomly visit a series of links. Add some random delays so that it can appear as though a real person is surfing. Set this to kick in a various times (cron maybe?), and continue for various lengths of time. I don't think they'd have any way of knowing if it's real or not,
Anyone who had an original 128K mac (or even later models) was well familiar with the power supply problems. Later hardware, like the studio monitors, also had problems, and I'd be willing to bet that there are others. I don't think Apple is anything special when it comes to quality. Trendy, perhaps a bit innovative, yes. But based on my own experience, I'd say it's quite average.
The basic idea of an "IT project" is to implement something that has never been implemented before, or to replace something wholesale.
I believe that you can have success either way- it just depends on how it's implemented. There is some important groundwork to laid, either way - first and foremost, you need to have organizational "buy-in". In other words, if the entity you're working with is not on board (as in, unsure of what is going on, or resistent to the proposed changes), it's going to make things far worse. Second, if you use methods like parallel implementation over "turning one off and the other on," you will be afforded an experience where things are much more resilient when stuff goes wrong. This may sound like common sense, but based on what I've been hearing about a particular project recently, I'm willing to bet that it isn't used near as often as it probably shoudld.
However, I think he's off-base on his suggestion to allow the customer to "own everything".
What I've typically done is include a clause to the effect that "Company reserves the right to re-use certain portions...etc, etc," If I'm ever asked, I simply explain that technical work (like programming) to a large degree, is based on collective knowledge. The more collective knowledge, the better the service. No one customer can take ownership of the means used to provide the service being offered- it's simply not feasible.
When it comes to the finished product, however, it varies - most of the time they will own it, but I've had one or two situations where they agreed to joint copyright so long as I did not use the software for, or market it to, competing entities.
I can easily see Microsoft lapsing into the same kind of "saturated market mentality" that afflicts other industries. Instead of focusing on innovation and providing real value, they'll focus on ways to use the same medium to extract more cash- increased licensing fees, unbundling of certain components, software-as-a-service, annual subscriptions, and countless other possibilities that will require payment over and above the base cost.
I wish there were greater mindshare in this respect, but people are too interested in tending to their music habits like bad cases of crack addiction.
I also refuse to buy, steal, download, use, or listen to mainstream music produced and promoted by RIAA companies. What's funny about all this is it truly is empowering to be able to make this kind of choice.
Asterisk is not as easy to setup as Skype.
It's not as easy, because it's like comparing Photoshop to MS Paint. They're different animals intended to solve entirely different problems. If you want a real communications system, you use something like Asterisk.
Note that this requires that the QOS device has ultimate control over all data running in and out of the business,
All this means is that the traffic can get tied up somewhere else. What you need is an end-to-end network dedicated to the proper management of VOIP traffic.
You are correct. I am mainly referring to small-ticket items - grocery store, etc. For larger items, I'd probably get a cashier's check.
Which is why I now always pay at the pump, and try to avoid any situation where my card will be in the hands of someone else.
Once the number leaves your hands in ANY form, it's subject to abuse. With at-the-register POS teriminals, you really have no idea where informations goes before heading to the bank for approval.
There's a real easy solution to this...no, really. It's these little green paper things. Cash...yeah, that's what it's called. I use it all the time. In fact, I'm so watchful of any potential that some company might be tracking or retaining information on what I do, I avoid anything that can lead to identification. It's not quite as convenient as whipping out a piece of plastic every 10 minutes, but it's a hell of a lot more reassuring.
Now that IBM and SUN have released patents under various conditions, I think it's high time that Amazon redeem itself. Ditch that stupid "one-click" patent and admit how retarded it was to pursue it in the first place. I still have yet to purchase a single thing from Amazon- and the best part about it is that it simply hasn't mattered.
The last isn't even a problem - if any editing is limited to the first 5 minutes or so after the post, AND any mod points are forfeited, this would seem to address the concerns that people have raised.
Don't forget that software patents are very new- they've only been allowed since about 1996 or so. They don't promote innovation at all - they stifle it. They allow the one thing that's bad for consumers- limited choice and a greater potential for vendor lock-in. They make it difficult for competition, since "licensing fees" could easily result in a net loss for anyone attempting to offer products or services in the same market. Since this provides patent holders with a larger captive market (not by consumer choice, mind you), there is less incentive to invest in things that matter- like providing good customer service and a good quality product.