Yeah, I would have never noticed this bullshit either, but I started entering the dates in the calendar, and it made no f'n sense.
They had it 7 days for payment from time of it being sent, but if you tried to guess at it and were a day early, it was counted for the previous month.
I learned the tricks for this shit too -- if you can get an automated payment, set it up to do the bare minimum and nothing more. Send in the extra once you get the bill. That way ya should have everything in the bank and not have to worry...
Its like politicians, some will do anything to screw over big business, others will do anything to stick it to the little guy because they believe everyone is black and white and the business is just trying to make a living. You are lucky in the US of Fucking A to find a decent centrist that is actually looking at the facts and trying to follow the law as written instead of being, as Republicans are often happy to use the word Constructivism judges (i.e., making up their own laws), but this bullshit is both sides of the road.
Several of the cards I ended up with buy outs...they tell me they were going to sell the debt to another collector that is much tougher, and then offer to sell it for a quarter of the price.
Its all a part of negotiating tactics, thinking you wouldn't have paid them off in the first place, so they make their own destiny by adding all these fees just to play the nice guy 2 years later.
I paid it all off...I paid more than I should have all in all, but its behind me now and I own a home and as long as I keep the payments coming on that, I'm happy:-)
"Telling them not to call YOU doesn't mean that they stop. They call your friends, your family, your boss, your co-workers, your babysitters, anyone..."
Yup...I had credit problems about 10 years back as a young 20 something with too many credit cards and not enough selfwill and no friends willing to kick me in the ass. I've since taken personal finance classes and had a stint dealing with credit councling and kept my record clean since then...
BUT in my quest to get out of the debt that was actually impossible to do on my own (when the vampires move you to 26% interest, and then move your bill to a irregular schedule where you have 7 days from the time its mailed to pay or you will be considered late with a $30 late fee, and BTW we just lowered your credit, so you are now over the limit and thats another $30 over the limit fee and a few months later, your original $1000 in credit card fees is now $3500 without charging anything -- I'd consider that impossible to get out of).
But during my time in debt, I had asked these guys to never contact me again -- in writting -- and asked them to take up the debt with my credit councellors or my attorney (who is a friend and I trade work for services with).
So what happens, they legally have to stop contacting me -- but they threatened to sue both my parents living in seperate states, even though they weren't connected to me financially -- but it was noted one of my bank accounts from when I was under 18 had their sigs on it ($15 in there that I didn't know about), and then they started calling the neighbors. My two neighbors on both sides of me claimed that a credit agency was calling to see if they had any information on me they could share, but 'legally' they couldn't give them any information about what they were contacting them for other than they were with "You Skipped Town And Owe Us Credit Recovery Corporation" (it was actually something sleezy like that). They did this with my employeers as well, but the human resources department didn't give a fuck (they actually called to let me know and said they had forms I could fill out if they wanted the company not to call at work). I don't think they broke any laws, but they were in plenty of grey areas.
So, and noting this is off topic with the article but very on topic to the parent post, if you feel like telling them to stop contacting you, do so. But do it at your own risk. Its better just to get into a program to pay the stuff off and do it as soon as you can...just don't get into one owned by the same corps (like CCC).
Yeah, I have one of the wireless intellimeeses and it looks great. I picked up one of the limited edition ultraglossy white ones they were selling towards the Mac market. I wanted to pick up a second one for my PC, but unfortunately, by the time I found the same edition again, it was the Mouse / Keyboard combo.
But it is actually as beautiful as anything Apple has put out. Understated and not pretentious at all. Simple looks, limited styling -- then again, thats probably what makes it great.
Then again, I also have a few products by Starke (or as he puts it here s + arke). Some are fucking elegant...the Juicy Salif is a perfect compliment to the kitchen (it is a war of the world looking juicer -- like a piece of modern art that is also functional). This shit of a rodent looks like it was slapped together as a prototype designed for comments to be redesigned later, with the M$ twits saying We'll Take 20 Thousand Please. I've done it myself -- designed something shitty because I wanted to have the client guide the process as opposed to putting all my work into something that was going to be scrapped...only to love the piece of shit, even over my protests.
"It is redundant to say, but this is one of the main reasons many WP users still choose WordPerfect over Word and OpenOffice."
Or maybe, WP Users use WP because WP Users user WP?
Huh? Make sense? You use what you know?
I use Word and I like it. Its one of the few M$ products that make sense to me. Give me Word, Exchange (there are not server apps that function as both an email, calendaring and group collaborative app like this -- I've tried to find one and we've tried a dozen commercial programs -- and a few very lacking OS ones) and finally Project (see Exchange).
Fuck the rest of M$'s line up...I don't need it. I use Word on the Mac and its light years ahead of the PC product (again) the way it was in the beginning when M$ staked their reputation on this product alone. The PC version ain't half bad either. I can get anything a WP user needs done, done. Those reveal formatting codes can get done (and no, I'm not offering lessons for the one dumbass that will say prove it). I have friends in law offices that use WP because they know thats what the clerks offices use and they think it gives them an advantage, but WP feels like it lags behind -- then again, I'm a Word person.
"actually, communicators are more like radio communication... you don't dial any number..."
Why more like radio?
My email is smart enough that if I start typing the first 2 or 3 letters of an email, it can guess at who I want to send it to and be accurate most of the time. I don't need to know the email addresses of anyone involved these days unless I don't have them in my address book which is sync'd between my phone, 2 PCs and 3 Macs. All work about the same.
So you don't dial a number, but you do say "Sulu, Can We Get A Fix On..." and the internal processing realizes that since he didn't refer to a specific Sulu, he must mean the default one and routes it appropriately.
My Cell is smart enough that if I hold a button on the side and say the name it can dial about a dozen numbers. Battery life and processing speeds preclude it from listening all the time.
So, are you saying that because our technology isn't very sufficient today, theirs too must be as unadvanced. I've seen attainable advancements in 10 years that make 20 years ago look like the stone ages. In another 10 years, maybe we will just speak into a phone, and it will wait until it figures out who we are talking too and route accordingly. Who knows. Maybe we will all be back to fighting wars with sticks and stones.
"Actually, I consider myself a pragmatic libertarian, in that, I vote republican."
I can see this...Libretarians are generally more attached to the republicans for some reason...
"Basically libertarians have to choose whether they care more about social issues (then vote democrat) or economic issues (then vote republican). Or throw your vote away (vote libertarian)."
Ok, now this is where I don't get it? Vote Republican for the economic issues? Did you not understand what the last 3 Republican administrations have done? I'm not saying anything is wrong with them...I thought Reagan was a great president all in all and George, Father of the King, wasn't half bad (he wasn't half good either).
All in all, none of these guys did anything for the economic side of the Republican party. George the First put us on course for doubling our debt. What? No new taxes? This was *AFTER* the cold war was fought and won. I can forgive Reagan for his part in it, because it was because of the final push of his spending that finally killed the former soviet republics (he shouldn't get all the credit as most conservatives give him -- if it weren't for him, it would have taken another 10 years, but they would have gotten to the same place).
But now, King George...he was the whole reason I finally got off my ass and switched political affiliations. Pragmatically, Clinton has done more for the economy than the Republicans have in my lifetime (be that only 30 some years). A liberal cocksuckee that didn't give a fuck about religion that pissed off all the social conservatives because of his philanderings. The lowest growth in gov't in the last 50 years.
And quite honestly, even with Bushie's tax cuts, I'm still paying a lot more towards the gov't. Mainly because I'm not doing my gawd given part of having a dozen children and raising them in a socially conservative way. Its amazing that having a child is now no longer a personal choice, but one that has to be shared with the rest of the country. I pay more per child to go to school than any one in my state that has children (well on average).
In my state, they claim it costs around $750 to put a child through public education. Bushie past a law early on that gives parents a $500 discount. Lets see, if you just take the one issue, the now spend $250 per child towards my $750. I don't want to hear any bullshit that it costs more to raise a child -- thats a personal choice. Remember -- we are talking purely from a libertarian standpoint -- nothing else.
So, what *HAVE* the republicans done from a economic standpoint that would make Libertarians happy? Nothing. They have their own social programs that are getting spent even if they don't want to call it that. Its welfare for folks that make personal choices.
I don't ever want to hear Bushie talk about smaller gov'ts...I'm starting to think he was brought up in one of those one two many types of languages, but inversely proportioned because the every time he says smaller, it means more gov't agencies replicating what others are already doing.
So...if you want to vote Republican for the social issues, you have my respect (I don't understand it, but I respect it). If you want hard economics, get someone in like Clinton again and put a rotating list of chubby chicks under his desk.
Generally with volume pricing, it is expected there will be some climate of internal user support at the company you are selling it to.
For instance, at my employer, I have no less that 5 technical lists that I have to be signed up to for the support of specific packages we use (and a few dozen outside of that lest anyone think I'm a slacker:)
We generally try to find the solutions to the problems as a group before calling in the big guns...generally we have a higher level of tech support off the bat than the standard idiot reading from a script, but only a few of us access it.
So it *IS* more efficient for a company to offer volume pricing than it is to sell to every joe on the street that demands to talk to the president of the company each and every time he feels that reading the manual is out of reach for him and an online FAQ? You gotta be kidding. No one on one support is MUCH harder than volume groups because we can help each other...
And I'm stating, yes, it is my right to say that if you are going to use my content you should be man enough to actually help me pay my bills by accepting the advertisement is shown in your screen.
I don't think (nor would I want to press the issue) that legally I should be able to force them to, but you'd think anyone with any morals at all would realize that this is morally wrong to do to someone you care about getting value from.
If you don't want the services, morally you shouldn't take them. I invite folks that don't like my site to leave all the time. It isn't like there aren't dozens of other alternatives out there. Maybe not so organized or professional, but if you aren't paying the price of admission, that shouldn't be a problem.
No, because highly targetted ads do not need to be clicked to be effective.
I don't sell towards click through rates any more than a television ad is sold through the amount of customers that call right now for an important message.
The ads are for specific services or products that are within the range of my users -- at least on my site. These are items that would definately interest them and help their worklife out considerably -- if not, I don't accept the ad. I respect my users too much to do otherwise.
I can imagine not paying attention to ads that have no specific use towards the user -- but these add mindshare and show the user something else exists.
Even if they never click on it, they will know what the product is and it will benefit my clients (both the reader and the advertiser are clients in my book).
I'd definately say Tivo needed banned if it took out the commercials automatically for you and marketted it as a service.
It doesn't. You have to skip the ads yourself.
As for free choice, you have the right not to go to sites that try to force yourself to be the good trained consumer.
You are such a fucking rebel dude. You are one in a trillion, no one else is just like you. You are an island, and as such, you don't need my services or anyone elses services that force you to consume. Get over it and learn to be a nonconsumer and stop trying to be both with an attitude.
You are a consumer robot if you must resort to stealing to get the same thing everyone else is getting.
You think you are outside the loop, but you are more of the problem with sheep than others -- instead of actually paying money for shit, you think you need it enough to steal for it.
Not only do you have to consume the filth the masses are giving to you, you have to lose your morality in the process.
Don't like that? Make your own games. Make your own music. Support indepentend developers and otherwise. Can't be bothered with that, then you are the same mindless fuck of an idiot I discribed above.
I know on my site, we have 2 ads down the side of the site.
My general manager wants more. I say no, and as I hold almost a majority of the interest in the site, all I have to do is to get one of the partners to agree with me, and its cool.
I've also been told this is why folks don't want to partner with us:P I'm very picky about the folks we do business with and I ask for review products before I ever consider taking the advertisement. I've sent both the check and the product back when they were shit.
Honestly, I don't know why other sites can't do this too.
Any site that has 8 or 9 ads down the side isn't one that is too interested in quality. As such, why visit them. You are going there for hardware reviews...are you really getting anything out of a review site that blatently whores itself to each and every advertiser that shows up?
No.
Go somewhere else. Just don't fuck with the inline content -- of which banner advertisements are a part of (not popups aren't inline -- I have no problem with blocking those because I use to be quick with the close key command anyways and never saw them).
So an ad here or there isn't a problem. Its reality. Even more isn't a problem -- take a look at a newspaper -- some pages are nothing but ads with a single article in the middle. I don't read these papers, but you get the point.
Vote with your dollars. Don't go to these sites. Fuck them if they don't respect you. Just because they don't respect you, doesn't give you the right to not to respect their requirements for admission to the site -- the advertisements.
I might see it differently if I didn't product content -- and for years I was against advertising on my own site -- but you have to pay the bills some how (and a hobby can only stay interesting so long before you get pissed about the credit card bills).
"Does AdBlock block ads such as, err, I dunno, the one in my sig?"
Some of these systems do.
My day job is as a researcher at a university. Over the last two months I've been tearing my hair out because one of the evaluation tools we'd been using online has not been working right for the subjects. They get to a link and all of a sudden its not there. I had been trying to replicate this on a dozen browsers, going through all the validation services and unfortunately, these people are not the most technically advanced in the world.
Well, it all came down to our default DDNS names...at Indiana University, they are hostname.ads.iu.edu.
That ADS means Active Directory Services...not ADvertisementS.
Yes, Microsoft runs much of the back end of our campus, sadly, but its just a tool like anything else.
Anywho, it seems that any links that have this ADS name in it were being removed wholesale from the pages. Meaning my survey instrument was not working for idiots that ran this software. I'm told the Symantec internet protection tools (I forget the name) is actually sold on 7 out of 10 laptops in the US these days (lucky its probably only a 30 day demo).
This has pissed me off to no extent. Here I've been blamed for it not working, yet its these ad blockers that are ruining the content to purify things for idiots that can't be bothered with an ad here or there are the sole cause. You know what Symantecs answer to this was? Change your URL.
Fuck you symantec.
On the side, I run a website dedicated to music technology that is advertising based. Even my own stuff that we sell is using the same ad servers. I never wanted to have a whore'd link that said Store in the menubar, but after researching the pervasiveness of this at my university setting, I realized I had to. Otherwise, it would be destroyed in the content.
I can understand why folks kill popups. you control your browser and as such, should be able to say if you want a window to show up or not. You shouldn't, however, be killing inline ads if you want the information from the source you are getting it at.
Right now, I am running nonstandard sized banners on my site, much to my clients despise, but when I explain this to them, they are generally happy with it and send me a modified ad. I am thinking of using Apache's rewrite commands on my ad server so that nothing involved looks like a url coming from this particular software.
These few changes I've made have made several users ask me when I started postings ads, as well as my page views and my banner views are now coming into parity for this last month. I have a feeling its going to be an endless battle with the moochers of society vs. those of us that provide content.
So to answer your question, yes these fucking adblocking softwares do block as innocuous items as inline text so long as its pointing as something that looks like it might be an advertisement to the software.
The publishers do nothing? They don't front the cash to make certain the game is going to be funded? They don't take the chance that its going to be another Daitakata and sell nothing (well I hoe that game sold nothing -- it probably made billions), they don't make certain that a developer can actually focus on the game as opposed to doing a few other cash cow projects in the meantime (I know one company that actively makes military systems to pay for their games -- a good friend of mine said fuck this shit and quit because he's a pacifist -- well in real life, you wouldn't want to go head to head with him).
The publisher makes everything possible is most cases.
Why does ID use a publisher these days as opposed to going it on their own -- they certainly are big enough to do so. They do so to limit the risks knowing someone else will take the heat if something bad goes down.
So, voting with your wallet? No, you are stealing and a stupid motherfucker. You are trying to renegotiate contracts that the developer thought were good enough to put their name down on an get the benefits from.
This is as moronic as the motherfuckers that steal music from P2P services and then claim to send money in through other services that claim to send the money to the artists (without realizing that it fucks over folks like me that tech for artists, occasionaly doing backup work, all in all making them sound good, or my best friend that is a killer songwriter but lost most of his vocal capacity a few years ago and now accumulates his gold and platnium albums solely via writting the songs for these idiots. Its stealing from people like him and me.
Again, this is a direct analogue to what you are saying. And I can guarantee that you've *NEVER* sent a single dime to a developer. Thats voting with your wallet. Its fucking idiots like you that are the cause of copy protection on software.
Having said this, yes, I use to use cracked software -- only after I owned the original software. I had done this as far back as the commodore 64 where the copy protection involved banging the 1541's drives to read normally unreadable tracks. No more. If the copy protection is not something I like on my computer, I don't use it. This is why my main music software uses a dongle as opposed to disc protection -- or challenge response (either calling the company or lugging a 600 page manual trying to find the pages to type a phrase) -- I can live with that because it means I can install it on as many computers as I want an I just pull out my key ring and pop the dongle in the USB slot when I need to use it.
I understand why some use copyprotection and the idiot above is a perfect example. Unfortunately, I've see too many companies go under or bought out for pennies on the dollar by companies that just wanted another feather in their cap solely because of piracy. I know one music software company that has been teetering on the edge of bankruptcy for a year or two now, even though everyone has a copy of their software. Its a shame I run into so few that actually own it. Each and everytime folks claim that they aren't doing anything wrong, they aren't using it for monetary gain.
Sadly, this is the same excuse I hear when motherfuckers give cracked copies of games to their friends...after I'm finished with a game, I give it to friends, but not until after. Just like a book not as in here's the key to the bookstore.
I'll have to ask if they received their quarterlies from the international markets yet. Sometimes you have to 'apply' for this stuff, but they can get breakdowns on sales down to the single album (song) in what country. I can guarantee that they won't be there...one of my friends is big enough he generally does a few weeks in Europe every year and the ONLY time he ever sees album sales in Russia are at the show he does and they are sold by him (thus not reported).
I was surprised to see the one in there at all because he sells his albums via his own personal label (which happens to have a few dozen others on it)...he has *NO* international distribution other than selling CDs directly to specialty stores. He doesn't need to deal with royalties because he gets paid when the stores buy them.
Yet, his albums and his labelmates albums are there. Wierd. How does this work? Someone just bought an album and decided to rip it to the service. When I mentioned it to him, he stated he's heard from fans all over the world and as he makes his living as a documentary producer, he isn't too upset about it...its shit he does for fun. Not everyone in the biz can afford to just give their music away. Nor should they be expected to.
So, how is this guy getting distributed when he's never signed a contract with them nor is registered with russia's RIAA equivelent?
Whats the nerd phrase I hear always cried across slashdot? I call bullshit? Yeah, I want to smack every dumb motherfucker that uses this phrase because I've NEVER heard anyone that wasn't a nerd use it.
Bah! The music companies are actually getting paid unlike the pirates at all of mp3 dot com. You REALLY don't think its legit do you? Seriously? Its out of the same country where you can buy adobe products for $5 each from sites that look just like this and claim they are all legit as well. You can get photoshop in lossless formats as well!
I work for musicians...they don't get paid anywhere near the amounts people think they do -- and they have to pay for people like me. Fucking slashdotters get pissed off that the mean ol' record companies are screwing over the artists -- of which, I've never heard ANY of them bitch except the superrich crack heads like Courtney Fucking Love that wasted all her money on smack and wonders where it went (rehab is a bitch, and costs a lot). Yet, the minute it becomes opportune to rip off the same artists, we do so in a heart beat.
"Apple has said their Music Store is not meant as a profit center"
No, but it is nice when it is...
And I believe last quarter, they actually made about a million on their iTMS division. Its chump change compared to everything else, and not much when you consider what they are spending, but its still nothing to sneeze at because it is profitable.
Past that, if you buy from Real, you can use any music player. If you buy from Apple, you can use the iPod alone unless you are willing to burn to CD first.
Personally, I don't see the problem with what Apple is doing. Apple gives anyone the right to put music on their machine in a number of different ways. If they want to protect their content, maybe they should build something into the iPod that doesn't require the use of Apple's intellectual properties. After all, its a bit hypocritical to steal someone elses IP to protect your own.
I've never seen Apple get pissed off at the Linux on iPod project...I know at least one Apple guy that has this running on one of his iPods and thinks its cool. So -- if you want to build your own OS for the device, Apple isn't stopping you...
But I agree with ya -- Apple's online service is much better than the competitors who all had much longer in the business of content delivery including paid content delivery and most of these companies were the 'big dogs' (how fucking hillbilly is that phrase) before Apple decided they were going to get into the system.
Apple didn't force their way to #1 -- they made the better product both in hardware and software.
I run one of the largest users groups for Emagic's Logic audio as well as running the largest users group for a piece of hardware that use to be the first choice for sound design. There are geeks in both areas -- as well as professionals that experiments / build / design for both the mass market as well as the hobbiest market (err...or for their own pleasure)...I started that back at the same time/. was started (wasn't even called/. back then) -- so yeah, its afforded me the opportunity to meet a lot more folks than when I was a recording artist (hell, it was supposed to be a hobby to keep in touch with the industry after I gave it up in disgust, and now I've been sucked back in the industry as much as I ever was).
But there is a lot of reasons to do this stuff...for fun or for profit. Few actually use nonstandard means for anything but fun...
As for being efficient or buying the standards. Whats you job? To be artistic or to get the job done? It depends. If its to add an artistic touch, efficiency is not an issue as much as a standard tech that is hired to do a specific job and to fulfill their clients requests.
Standards? Its only needed if you want to have a community built around supporting you. if you want to go off on your own, feel free to gain all the knowledge needed to get the job done. I'm always amazed at folks in the industry that consider me an expert in some areas (and pay me accordingly) -- I constantly tell them almost to the point of professional suicide that its not that I know about this stuff, its that I have a few thousand common folks that might know a specific piece of knowledge and I have made my communities easy enough to search both on and offline (something I've been meaning to put on CD for my people one of these days -- I got it, but that only helps me) -- without standard -- it would be a lot harder to deal with.
For instance, Apple bought up Emagic a few years back...we were already an Emagic site and I ran the software on PC and Mac (mostly PC at the time). The Windows Hardware support forums were 10x as busy as the Mac hardware support forums -- and with a lot more unanswered questions (we actually kept hardware around in a communal library donated by companies to see if we could emulate problems). The lack of standards on the Windows side made it a LOT harder to come up with solutions. As for the 10x Windows hardware -- a poll at the time showed Mac users were slightly more into the platform than the PC users -- at least on my site. I think it was like 56% Mac / 44% PC. Big disparity in problems between platforms considering the userbases.
Again, standards are only needed if you want to build on what others have around you.
Personally, I deal with the more creative end of things when I'm not in professional mode -- that allows me to be nonefficient and fuck around all I want. I have a few of those WACOM tablets -- good for drawing waveforms as much as it in Painter or Photoshop. Its all dependent on what folks are asking you to do.
The 20 hours was a troll. Sorry about that. But even 2 hours a week, means I could have earned another $200 towards a better machine.
I say productivity -- I don't say doesn't crash. Crashes a lot less than a Windows Machine. Crashes more than my Linux Boxes (then again, I don't install new software weekly on my Linux boxes...I just upgraded MySQL a few weeks ago, and it downed the box somehow...so the idea that installing new packages and crashing a machine is probably somewhat similar).
I have pretty crash proof PCs compared to most/.'rs but it is still noticeable to the point that I get annoyed by it. I use my Powerbook MUCH more than my PCs because its always with me, even when I'm doing my day job and its getting a lot of use.
As for customizing the OS??? I can't cease to be amazed by folks that talk about things like surface customizations -- oh I can have a different windows manager. Did ya know you can run Gnome or KDE on OS X? Sounds pretty customizable to me. Hardware? What? Are you building your own devices? So you have some lock in. Big deal. Only those that can't afford the hardware will find this a problem. I find it a problem when a professional tells me he can't afford the tools of his trade.
Performance? The performance of my machines is good enough for me. Compared with what I was doing 5 years ago, I can get MUCH more done -- on either platform. its just not an issue.
As for WETA -- why did they go with Linux? Because when they bought Shake it was on 3 platforms -- Windows, Iris and Linux. They built around the Windows platform because it was the cheapest at the time compared to the talent they had. They had a render farm that was big enough at the time to be in the Top 500 Supercomputer, if I remember the interview correctly. Why did they choose to move to Linux? They had the hardware and Windows wasn't an upgradable option once Apple bought the package.
Had nothing to do with being more customizable. had everything to do with having the hardware. Did ya expect them to throw out a few thousand machines? From what I've heard, their next production is using Xserves as well...nothing to do with customizability...
On another subject, how many video editors do you know that are willing to hack software and hardware. The most efficient ones I've ever met always bought package deals no matter what OS / Hardware manufacturer they went with and used them as is. Same with audio editors...I've known a few geeks that were dissatisfied that they wrote their own software -- but these were OS geeks that weren't after better software, but free software (as in liberte as opposed to beer). I've never been happy with their software, but I support them because they are friends and because they are trying to change the world.
The noncustomizable stuff has ALWAYS been better...at least so far.
Video editors on the PC side *DO* need to know both ends.
If you want to spend time tweaking your hardware when you could simply use the hardware that came to you, go ahead. Some of us would rather not ever have to tweak our machines. PCs, I'll tweak the hell out of, Macs -- I don't even bother with upgrade cards because its lost productivity to deal with it when if I need a new machine I just buy it.
My day job I program PCs for a living and managing a department that does the same. We have to work with the hardware at times to see why things aren't working correctly.
My side job as a music tech / audio editor -- I end up making enough that its easy to get new machines. I've never understood the guys that do it professionally that can't get these gigs -- especially since I don't hold any punches just because this isn't a full time job...if I want to call myself a professional, I charge as much as a professional (and sometimes more because I have enough other things going on that I try to bill out at a rate that weeds out the idiots -- I'm always being told someone is charging less than I do and I simply tell them if they think the other guys work is as good as mine and he's charging less, they should go with them and not bother me).
But again, a part time job that does add income to my life still affords buying a machine every year or two and I can get my work done just as well as anyone else -- even on these 'older' machines. Hell, I had an 8600 AV that I used until recently for certain tasks. It wasn't the most powerful, but it served its need and did so without needing tweaks.
Ease of use isn't just the OS, but the fact you don't need to fuck with the hardware. Certain geeks don't get this because they like working with the hardware and don't think that taking a work machine down for a few hours just to throw something new into it isn't a bad thing. I have friends that do the same thing to their cars...I helped a guy change out a perfectly good carb the other day for one that worked slightly better (he wanted one that didn't deal with having to calibrate dual webers ever few weeks -- even though I had the same ones in my vintage car and *NEVER* fucked with the carbs).
So, if you don't mind dealing with it, cool. you *STILL* need to calculate the time you work on this stuff when you charge your clients...if not for billing them, but so that you actually understand how much time you are dealing with this.
Then again, what do I know...I only work with this stuff part time. Maybe because I use Macs, I can get away with it and don't have to spend 20 hours a week to "try out different configurations of machines".
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Yeah, I would have never noticed this bullshit either, but I started entering the dates in the calendar, and it made no f'n sense.
They had it 7 days for payment from time of it being sent, but if you tried to guess at it and were a day early, it was counted for the previous month.
I learned the tricks for this shit too -- if you can get an automated payment, set it up to do the bare minimum and nothing more. Send in the extra once you get the bill. That way ya should have everything in the bank and not have to worry...
It really depends on what judge you get.
:-)
Its like politicians, some will do anything to screw over big business, others will do anything to stick it to the little guy because they believe everyone is black and white and the business is just trying to make a living. You are lucky in the US of Fucking A to find a decent centrist that is actually looking at the facts and trying to follow the law as written instead of being, as Republicans are often happy to use the word Constructivism judges (i.e., making up their own laws), but this bullshit is both sides of the road.
Several of the cards I ended up with buy outs...they tell me they were going to sell the debt to another collector that is much tougher, and then offer to sell it for a quarter of the price.
Its all a part of negotiating tactics, thinking you wouldn't have paid them off in the first place, so they make their own destiny by adding all these fees just to play the nice guy 2 years later.
I paid it all off...I paid more than I should have all in all, but its behind me now and I own a home and as long as I keep the payments coming on that, I'm happy
"Telling them not to call YOU doesn't mean that they stop. They call your friends, your family, your boss, your co-workers, your babysitters, anyone..."
Yup...I had credit problems about 10 years back as a young 20 something with too many credit cards and not enough selfwill and no friends willing to kick me in the ass. I've since taken personal finance classes and had a stint dealing with credit councling and kept my record clean since then...
BUT in my quest to get out of the debt that was actually impossible to do on my own (when the vampires move you to 26% interest, and then move your bill to a irregular schedule where you have 7 days from the time its mailed to pay or you will be considered late with a $30 late fee, and BTW we just lowered your credit, so you are now over the limit and thats another $30 over the limit fee and a few months later, your original $1000 in credit card fees is now $3500 without charging anything -- I'd consider that impossible to get out of).
But during my time in debt, I had asked these guys to never contact me again -- in writting -- and asked them to take up the debt with my credit councellors or my attorney (who is a friend and I trade work for services with).
So what happens, they legally have to stop contacting me -- but they threatened to sue both my parents living in seperate states, even though they weren't connected to me financially -- but it was noted one of my bank accounts from when I was under 18 had their sigs on it ($15 in there that I didn't know about), and then they started calling the neighbors. My two neighbors on both sides of me claimed that a credit agency was calling to see if they had any information on me they could share, but 'legally' they couldn't give them any information about what they were contacting them for other than they were with "You Skipped Town And Owe Us Credit Recovery Corporation" (it was actually something sleezy like that). They did this with my employeers as well, but the human resources department didn't give a fuck (they actually called to let me know and said they had forms I could fill out if they wanted the company not to call at work). I don't think they broke any laws, but they were in plenty of grey areas.
So, and noting this is off topic with the article but very on topic to the parent post, if you feel like telling them to stop contacting you, do so. But do it at your own risk. Its better just to get into a program to pay the stuff off and do it as soon as you can...just don't get into one owned by the same corps (like CCC).
Yeah, I have one of the wireless intellimeeses and it looks great. I picked up one of the limited edition ultraglossy white ones they were selling towards the Mac market. I wanted to pick up a second one for my PC, but unfortunately, by the time I found the same edition again, it was the Mouse / Keyboard combo.
But it is actually as beautiful as anything Apple has put out. Understated and not pretentious at all. Simple looks, limited styling -- then again, thats probably what makes it great.
Then again, I also have a few products by Starke (or as he puts it here s + arke). Some are fucking elegant...the Juicy Salif is a perfect compliment to the kitchen (it is a war of the world looking juicer -- like a piece of modern art that is also functional). This shit of a rodent looks like it was slapped together as a prototype designed for comments to be redesigned later, with the M$ twits saying We'll Take 20 Thousand Please. I've done it myself -- designed something shitty because I wanted to have the client guide the process as opposed to putting all my work into something that was going to be scrapped...only to love the piece of shit, even over my protests.
I can only hope that is what happened here...
"It is redundant to say, but this is one of the main reasons many WP users still choose WordPerfect over Word and OpenOffice."
Or maybe, WP Users use WP because WP Users user WP?
Huh? Make sense? You use what you know?
I use Word and I like it. Its one of the few M$ products that make sense to me. Give me Word, Exchange (there are not server apps that function as both an email, calendaring and group collaborative app like this -- I've tried to find one and we've tried a dozen commercial programs -- and a few very lacking OS ones) and finally Project (see Exchange).
Fuck the rest of M$'s line up...I don't need it. I use Word on the Mac and its light years ahead of the PC product (again) the way it was in the beginning when M$ staked their reputation on this product alone. The PC version ain't half bad either. I can get anything a WP user needs done, done. Those reveal formatting codes can get done (and no, I'm not offering lessons for the one dumbass that will say prove it). I have friends in law offices that use WP because they know thats what the clerks offices use and they think it gives them an advantage, but WP feels like it lags behind -- then again, I'm a Word person.
"actually, communicators are more like radio communication ... you don't dial any number ..."
Why more like radio?
My email is smart enough that if I start typing the first 2 or 3 letters of an email, it can guess at who I want to send it to and be accurate most of the time. I don't need to know the email addresses of anyone involved these days unless I don't have them in my address book which is sync'd between my phone, 2 PCs and 3 Macs. All work about the same.
So you don't dial a number, but you do say "Sulu, Can We Get A Fix On..." and the internal processing realizes that since he didn't refer to a specific Sulu, he must mean the default one and routes it appropriately.
My Cell is smart enough that if I hold a button on the side and say the name it can dial about a dozen numbers. Battery life and processing speeds preclude it from listening all the time.
So, are you saying that because our technology isn't very sufficient today, theirs too must be as unadvanced. I've seen attainable advancements in 10 years that make 20 years ago look like the stone ages. In another 10 years, maybe we will just speak into a phone, and it will wait until it figures out who we are talking too and route accordingly. Who knows. Maybe we will all be back to fighting wars with sticks and stones.
"Actually, I consider myself a pragmatic libertarian, in that, I vote republican."
I can see this...Libretarians are generally more attached to the republicans for some reason...
"Basically libertarians have to choose whether they care more about social issues (then vote democrat) or economic issues (then vote republican). Or throw your vote away (vote libertarian)."
Ok, now this is where I don't get it? Vote Republican for the economic issues? Did you not understand what the last 3 Republican administrations have done? I'm not saying anything is wrong with them...I thought Reagan was a great president all in all and George, Father of the King, wasn't half bad (he wasn't half good either).
All in all, none of these guys did anything for the economic side of the Republican party. George the First put us on course for doubling our debt. What? No new taxes? This was *AFTER* the cold war was fought and won. I can forgive Reagan for his part in it, because it was because of the final push of his spending that finally killed the former soviet republics (he shouldn't get all the credit as most conservatives give him -- if it weren't for him, it would have taken another 10 years, but they would have gotten to the same place).
But now, King George...he was the whole reason I finally got off my ass and switched political affiliations. Pragmatically, Clinton has done more for the economy than the Republicans have in my lifetime (be that only 30 some years). A liberal cocksuckee that didn't give a fuck about religion that pissed off all the social conservatives because of his philanderings. The lowest growth in gov't in the last 50 years.
And quite honestly, even with Bushie's tax cuts, I'm still paying a lot more towards the gov't. Mainly because I'm not doing my gawd given part of having a dozen children and raising them in a socially conservative way. Its amazing that having a child is now no longer a personal choice, but one that has to be shared with the rest of the country. I pay more per child to go to school than any one in my state that has children (well on average).
In my state, they claim it costs around $750 to put a child through public education. Bushie past a law early on that gives parents a $500 discount. Lets see, if you just take the one issue, the now spend $250 per child towards my $750. I don't want to hear any bullshit that it costs more to raise a child -- thats a personal choice. Remember -- we are talking purely from a libertarian standpoint -- nothing else.
So, what *HAVE* the republicans done from a economic standpoint that would make Libertarians happy? Nothing. They have their own social programs that are getting spent even if they don't want to call it that. Its welfare for folks that make personal choices.
I don't ever want to hear Bushie talk about smaller gov'ts...I'm starting to think he was brought up in one of those one two many types of languages, but inversely proportioned because the every time he says smaller, it means more gov't agencies replicating what others are already doing.
So...if you want to vote Republican for the social issues, you have my respect (I don't understand it, but I respect it). If you want hard economics, get someone in like Clinton again and put a rotating list of chubby chicks under his desk.
Generally with volume pricing, it is expected there will be some climate of internal user support at the company you are selling it to.
:)
For instance, at my employer, I have no less that 5 technical lists that I have to be signed up to for the support of specific packages we use (and a few dozen outside of that lest anyone think I'm a slacker
We generally try to find the solutions to the problems as a group before calling in the big guns...generally we have a higher level of tech support off the bat than the standard idiot reading from a script, but only a few of us access it.
So it *IS* more efficient for a company to offer volume pricing than it is to sell to every joe on the street that demands to talk to the president of the company each and every time he feels that reading the manual is out of reach for him and an online FAQ? You gotta be kidding. No one on one support is MUCH harder than volume groups because we can help each other...
:-)
I love idiots that can't be bothered to put their own name to the works to post online.
Small children should not be allowed on the internet -- please ask mommy next time you plug the mo-dum in the wall.
And I'm stating, yes, it is my right to say that if you are going to use my content you should be man enough to actually help me pay my bills by accepting the advertisement is shown in your screen.
I don't think (nor would I want to press the issue) that legally I should be able to force them to, but you'd think anyone with any morals at all would realize that this is morally wrong to do to someone you care about getting value from.
If you don't want the services, morally you shouldn't take them. I invite folks that don't like my site to leave all the time. It isn't like there aren't dozens of other alternatives out there. Maybe not so organized or professional, but if you aren't paying the price of admission, that shouldn't be a problem.
No, because highly targetted ads do not need to be clicked to be effective.
I don't sell towards click through rates any more than a television ad is sold through the amount of customers that call right now for an important message.
The ads are for specific services or products that are within the range of my users -- at least on my site. These are items that would definately interest them and help their worklife out considerably -- if not, I don't accept the ad. I respect my users too much to do otherwise.
I can imagine not paying attention to ads that have no specific use towards the user -- but these add mindshare and show the user something else exists.
Even if they never click on it, they will know what the product is and it will benefit my clients (both the reader and the advertiser are clients in my book).
So, no, you are not doing anyone any favors.
I'd definately say Tivo needed banned if it took out the commercials automatically for you and marketted it as a service.
It doesn't. You have to skip the ads yourself.
As for free choice, you have the right not to go to sites that try to force yourself to be the good trained consumer.
You are such a fucking rebel dude. You are one in a trillion, no one else is just like you. You are an island, and as such, you don't need my services or anyone elses services that force you to consume. Get over it and learn to be a nonconsumer and stop trying to be both with an attitude.
Here at Indiana University and its 8 campuses, about 30k worth of machines with potential webservices.
Multiply this with all the other microsoft based universities that use the same nomenclature.
Its not reasonable to block inline content of any sort.
You are a consumer robot if you must resort to stealing to get the same thing everyone else is getting.
You think you are outside the loop, but you are more of the problem with sheep than others -- instead of actually paying money for shit, you think you need it enough to steal for it.
Not only do you have to consume the filth the masses are giving to you, you have to lose your morality in the process.
Don't like that? Make your own games. Make your own music. Support indepentend developers and otherwise. Can't be bothered with that, then you are the same mindless fuck of an idiot I discribed above.
I know on my site, we have 2 ads down the side of the site.
:P I'm very picky about the folks we do business with and I ask for review products before I ever consider taking the advertisement. I've sent both the check and the product back when they were shit.
My general manager wants more. I say no, and as I hold almost a majority of the interest in the site, all I have to do is to get one of the partners to agree with me, and its cool.
I've also been told this is why folks don't want to partner with us
Honestly, I don't know why other sites can't do this too.
Any site that has 8 or 9 ads down the side isn't one that is too interested in quality. As such, why visit them. You are going there for hardware reviews...are you really getting anything out of a review site that blatently whores itself to each and every advertiser that shows up?
No.
Go somewhere else. Just don't fuck with the inline content -- of which banner advertisements are a part of (not popups aren't inline -- I have no problem with blocking those because I use to be quick with the close key command anyways and never saw them).
So an ad here or there isn't a problem. Its reality. Even more isn't a problem -- take a look at a newspaper -- some pages are nothing but ads with a single article in the middle. I don't read these papers, but you get the point.
Vote with your dollars. Don't go to these sites. Fuck them if they don't respect you. Just because they don't respect you, doesn't give you the right to not to respect their requirements for admission to the site -- the advertisements.
I might see it differently if I didn't product content -- and for years I was against advertising on my own site -- but you have to pay the bills some how (and a hobby can only stay interesting so long before you get pissed about the credit card bills).
"Does AdBlock block ads such as, err, I dunno, the one in my sig?"
Some of these systems do.
My day job is as a researcher at a university. Over the last two months I've been tearing my hair out because one of the evaluation tools we'd been using online has not been working right for the subjects. They get to a link and all of a sudden its not there. I had been trying to replicate this on a dozen browsers, going through all the validation services and unfortunately, these people are not the most technically advanced in the world.
Well, it all came down to our default DDNS names...at Indiana University, they are hostname.ads.iu.edu.
That ADS means Active Directory Services...not ADvertisementS.
Yes, Microsoft runs much of the back end of our campus, sadly, but its just a tool like anything else.
Anywho, it seems that any links that have this ADS name in it were being removed wholesale from the pages. Meaning my survey instrument was not working for idiots that ran this software. I'm told the Symantec internet protection tools (I forget the name) is actually sold on 7 out of 10 laptops in the US these days (lucky its probably only a 30 day demo).
This has pissed me off to no extent. Here I've been blamed for it not working, yet its these ad blockers that are ruining the content to purify things for idiots that can't be bothered with an ad here or there are the sole cause. You know what Symantecs answer to this was? Change your URL.
Fuck you symantec.
On the side, I run a website dedicated to music technology that is advertising based. Even my own stuff that we sell is using the same ad servers. I never wanted to have a whore'd link that said Store in the menubar, but after researching the pervasiveness of this at my university setting, I realized I had to. Otherwise, it would be destroyed in the content.
I can understand why folks kill popups. you control your browser and as such, should be able to say if you want a window to show up or not. You shouldn't, however, be killing inline ads if you want the information from the source you are getting it at.
Right now, I am running nonstandard sized banners on my site, much to my clients despise, but when I explain this to them, they are generally happy with it and send me a modified ad. I am thinking of using Apache's rewrite commands on my ad server so that nothing involved looks like a url coming from this particular software.
These few changes I've made have made several users ask me when I started postings ads, as well as my page views and my banner views are now coming into parity for this last month. I have a feeling its going to be an endless battle with the moochers of society vs. those of us that provide content.
So to answer your question, yes these fucking adblocking softwares do block as innocuous items as inline text so long as its pointing as something that looks like it might be an advertisement to the software.
So Grid,
The publishers do nothing? They don't front the cash to make certain the game is going to be funded? They don't take the chance that its going to be another Daitakata and sell nothing (well I hoe that game sold nothing -- it probably made billions), they don't make certain that a developer can actually focus on the game as opposed to doing a few other cash cow projects in the meantime (I know one company that actively makes military systems to pay for their games -- a good friend of mine said fuck this shit and quit because he's a pacifist -- well in real life, you wouldn't want to go head to head with him).
The publisher makes everything possible is most cases.
Why does ID use a publisher these days as opposed to going it on their own -- they certainly are big enough to do so. They do so to limit the risks knowing someone else will take the heat if something bad goes down.
So, voting with your wallet? No, you are stealing and a stupid motherfucker. You are trying to renegotiate contracts that the developer thought were good enough to put their name down on an get the benefits from.
This is as moronic as the motherfuckers that steal music from P2P services and then claim to send money in through other services that claim to send the money to the artists (without realizing that it fucks over folks like me that tech for artists, occasionaly doing backup work, all in all making them sound good, or my best friend that is a killer songwriter but lost most of his vocal capacity a few years ago and now accumulates his gold and platnium albums solely via writting the songs for these idiots. Its stealing from people like him and me.
Again, this is a direct analogue to what you are saying. And I can guarantee that you've *NEVER* sent a single dime to a developer. Thats voting with your wallet. Its fucking idiots like you that are the cause of copy protection on software.
Having said this, yes, I use to use cracked software -- only after I owned the original software. I had done this as far back as the commodore 64 where the copy protection involved banging the 1541's drives to read normally unreadable tracks. No more. If the copy protection is not something I like on my computer, I don't use it. This is why my main music software uses a dongle as opposed to disc protection -- or challenge response (either calling the company or lugging a 600 page manual trying to find the pages to type a phrase) -- I can live with that because it means I can install it on as many computers as I want an I just pull out my key ring and pop the dongle in the USB slot when I need to use it.
I understand why some use copyprotection and the idiot above is a perfect example. Unfortunately, I've see too many companies go under or bought out for pennies on the dollar by companies that just wanted another feather in their cap solely because of piracy. I know one music software company that has been teetering on the edge of bankruptcy for a year or two now, even though everyone has a copy of their software. Its a shame I run into so few that actually own it. Each and everytime folks claim that they aren't doing anything wrong, they aren't using it for monetary gain.
Sadly, this is the same excuse I hear when motherfuckers give cracked copies of games to their friends...after I'm finished with a game, I give it to friends, but not until after. Just like a book not as in here's the key to the bookstore.
I know several friends music that is on the site.
I'll have to ask if they received their quarterlies from the international markets yet. Sometimes you have to 'apply' for this stuff, but they can get breakdowns on sales down to the single album (song) in what country. I can guarantee that they won't be there...one of my friends is big enough he generally does a few weeks in Europe every year and the ONLY time he ever sees album sales in Russia are at the show he does and they are sold by him (thus not reported).
I was surprised to see the one in there at all because he sells his albums via his own personal label (which happens to have a few dozen others on it)...he has *NO* international distribution other than selling CDs directly to specialty stores. He doesn't need to deal with royalties because he gets paid when the stores buy them.
Yet, his albums and his labelmates albums are there. Wierd. How does this work? Someone just bought an album and decided to rip it to the service. When I mentioned it to him, he stated he's heard from fans all over the world and as he makes his living as a documentary producer, he isn't too upset about it...its shit he does for fun. Not everyone in the biz can afford to just give their music away. Nor should they be expected to.
So, how is this guy getting distributed when he's never signed a contract with them nor is registered with russia's RIAA equivelent?
Whats the nerd phrase I hear always cried across slashdot? I call bullshit? Yeah, I want to smack every dumb motherfucker that uses this phrase because I've NEVER heard anyone that wasn't a nerd use it.
"Bah! Still ~10x higher than allofmp3.com. "
Bah! The music companies are actually getting paid unlike the pirates at all of mp3 dot com. You REALLY don't think its legit do you? Seriously? Its out of the same country where you can buy adobe products for $5 each from sites that look just like this and claim they are all legit as well. You can get photoshop in lossless formats as well!
I work for musicians...they don't get paid anywhere near the amounts people think they do -- and they have to pay for people like me. Fucking slashdotters get pissed off that the mean ol' record companies are screwing over the artists -- of which, I've never heard ANY of them bitch except the superrich crack heads like Courtney Fucking Love that wasted all her money on smack and wonders where it went (rehab is a bitch, and costs a lot). Yet, the minute it becomes opportune to rip off the same artists, we do so in a heart beat.
Hypocrites.
"Apple has said their Music Store is not meant as a profit center"
No, but it is nice when it is...
And I believe last quarter, they actually made about a million on their iTMS division. Its chump change compared to everything else, and not much when you consider what they are spending, but its still nothing to sneeze at because it is profitable.
Past that, if you buy from Real, you can use any music player. If you buy from Apple, you can use the iPod alone unless you are willing to burn to CD first.
Personally, I don't see the problem with what Apple is doing. Apple gives anyone the right to put music on their machine in a number of different ways. If they want to protect their content, maybe they should build something into the iPod that doesn't require the use of Apple's intellectual properties. After all, its a bit hypocritical to steal someone elses IP to protect your own.
I've never seen Apple get pissed off at the Linux on iPod project...I know at least one Apple guy that has this running on one of his iPods and thinks its cool. So -- if you want to build your own OS for the device, Apple isn't stopping you...
But I agree with ya -- Apple's online service is much better than the competitors who all had much longer in the business of content delivery including paid content delivery and most of these companies were the 'big dogs' (how fucking hillbilly is that phrase) before Apple decided they were going to get into the system.
Apple didn't force their way to #1 -- they made the better product both in hardware and software.
As for hacking hardware / software --
/. was started (wasn't even called /. back then) -- so yeah, its afforded me the opportunity to meet a lot more folks than when I was a recording artist (hell, it was supposed to be a hobby to keep in touch with the industry after I gave it up in disgust, and now I've been sucked back in the industry as much as I ever was).
I run one of the largest users groups for Emagic's Logic audio as well as running the largest users group for a piece of hardware that use to be the first choice for sound design. There are geeks in both areas -- as well as professionals that experiments / build / design for both the mass market as well as the hobbiest market (err...or for their own pleasure)...I started that back at the same time
But there is a lot of reasons to do this stuff...for fun or for profit. Few actually use nonstandard means for anything but fun...
As for being efficient or buying the standards. Whats you job? To be artistic or to get the job done? It depends. If its to add an artistic touch, efficiency is not an issue as much as a standard tech that is hired to do a specific job and to fulfill their clients requests.
Standards? Its only needed if you want to have a community built around supporting you. if you want to go off on your own, feel free to gain all the knowledge needed to get the job done. I'm always amazed at folks in the industry that consider me an expert in some areas (and pay me accordingly) -- I constantly tell them almost to the point of professional suicide that its not that I know about this stuff, its that I have a few thousand common folks that might know a specific piece of knowledge and I have made my communities easy enough to search both on and offline (something I've been meaning to put on CD for my people one of these days -- I got it, but that only helps me) -- without standard -- it would be a lot harder to deal with.
For instance, Apple bought up Emagic a few years back...we were already an Emagic site and I ran the software on PC and Mac (mostly PC at the time). The Windows Hardware support forums were 10x as busy as the Mac hardware support forums -- and with a lot more unanswered questions (we actually kept hardware around in a communal library donated by companies to see if we could emulate problems). The lack of standards on the Windows side made it a LOT harder to come up with solutions. As for the 10x Windows hardware -- a poll at the time showed Mac users were slightly more into the platform than the PC users -- at least on my site. I think it was like 56% Mac / 44% PC. Big disparity in problems between platforms considering the userbases.
Again, standards are only needed if you want to build on what others have around you.
Personally, I deal with the more creative end of things when I'm not in professional mode -- that allows me to be nonefficient and fuck around all I want. I have a few of those WACOM tablets -- good for drawing waveforms as much as it in Painter or Photoshop. Its all dependent on what folks are asking you to do.
The 20 hours was a troll. Sorry about that. But even 2 hours a week, means I could have earned another $200 towards a better machine.
/.'rs but it is still noticeable to the point that I get annoyed by it. I use my Powerbook MUCH more than my PCs because its always with me, even when I'm doing my day job and its getting a lot of use.
I say productivity -- I don't say doesn't crash. Crashes a lot less than a Windows Machine. Crashes more than my Linux Boxes (then again, I don't install new software weekly on my Linux boxes...I just upgraded MySQL a few weeks ago, and it downed the box somehow...so the idea that installing new packages and crashing a machine is probably somewhat similar).
I have pretty crash proof PCs compared to most
As for customizing the OS??? I can't cease to be amazed by folks that talk about things like surface customizations -- oh I can have a different windows manager. Did ya know you can run Gnome or KDE on OS X? Sounds pretty customizable to me. Hardware? What? Are you building your own devices? So you have some lock in. Big deal. Only those that can't afford the hardware will find this a problem. I find it a problem when a professional tells me he can't afford the tools of his trade.
Performance? The performance of my machines is good enough for me. Compared with what I was doing 5 years ago, I can get MUCH more done -- on either platform. its just not an issue.
As for WETA -- why did they go with Linux? Because when they bought Shake it was on 3 platforms -- Windows, Iris and Linux. They built around the Windows platform because it was the cheapest at the time compared to the talent they had. They had a render farm that was big enough at the time to be in the Top 500 Supercomputer, if I remember the interview correctly. Why did they choose to move to Linux? They had the hardware and Windows wasn't an upgradable option once Apple bought the package.
Had nothing to do with being more customizable. had everything to do with having the hardware. Did ya expect them to throw out a few thousand machines? From what I've heard, their next production is using Xserves as well...nothing to do with customizability...
On another subject, how many video editors do you know that are willing to hack software and hardware. The most efficient ones I've ever met always bought package deals no matter what OS / Hardware manufacturer they went with and used them as is. Same with audio editors...I've known a few geeks that were dissatisfied that they wrote their own software -- but these were OS geeks that weren't after better software, but free software (as in liberte as opposed to beer). I've never been happy with their software, but I support them because they are friends and because they are trying to change the world.
The noncustomizable stuff has ALWAYS been better...at least so far.
Sadly,
Video editors on the PC side *DO* need to know both ends.
If you want to spend time tweaking your hardware when you could simply use the hardware that came to you, go ahead. Some of us would rather not ever have to tweak our machines. PCs, I'll tweak the hell out of, Macs -- I don't even bother with upgrade cards because its lost productivity to deal with it when if I need a new machine I just buy it.
My day job I program PCs for a living and managing a department that does the same. We have to work with the hardware at times to see why things aren't working correctly.
My side job as a music tech / audio editor -- I end up making enough that its easy to get new machines. I've never understood the guys that do it professionally that can't get these gigs -- especially since I don't hold any punches just because this isn't a full time job...if I want to call myself a professional, I charge as much as a professional (and sometimes more because I have enough other things going on that I try to bill out at a rate that weeds out the idiots -- I'm always being told someone is charging less than I do and I simply tell them if they think the other guys work is as good as mine and he's charging less, they should go with them and not bother me).
But again, a part time job that does add income to my life still affords buying a machine every year or two and I can get my work done just as well as anyone else -- even on these 'older' machines. Hell, I had an 8600 AV that I used until recently for certain tasks. It wasn't the most powerful, but it served its need and did so without needing tweaks.
Ease of use isn't just the OS, but the fact you don't need to fuck with the hardware. Certain geeks don't get this because they like working with the hardware and don't think that taking a work machine down for a few hours just to throw something new into it isn't a bad thing. I have friends that do the same thing to their cars...I helped a guy change out a perfectly good carb the other day for one that worked slightly better (he wanted one that didn't deal with having to calibrate dual webers ever few weeks -- even though I had the same ones in my vintage car and *NEVER* fucked with the carbs).
So, if you don't mind dealing with it, cool. you *STILL* need to calculate the time you work on this stuff when you charge your clients...if not for billing them, but so that you actually understand how much time you are dealing with this.
Then again, what do I know...I only work with this stuff part time. Maybe because I use Macs, I can get away with it and don't have to spend 20 hours a week to "try out different configurations of machines".
Looks damn fine on either machine.
Maybe it looks better with the other stuff...I'm not missing a thing.
Errr...I've never seen a game that was designed for fragging each other having all the options on.
Its cool to take a walk around and check out the sites, but cripes, even when I was a heavy PC gamer, I shut that stuff down.
So, no, not all the graphics options are on...I've never even tried...I turned half these off before even trying to game.