Unlike cars, computers, or refrigerators, each movie is a unique product. Yes, even the remakes. As a unique product it cannot be substituted for a similar product that costs less. For example, if you wanted to replace a car part you usually have options to buy that part from the car manufacturer or from 3rd party parts suppliers. However, if you wanted to watch Mission Impossible there isn't any other option. It's not like the movie studio takes the same script and hires Bollywood actors to produce a less expensive version. As others have noted, it's the same with buying books.
As a result of each movie being a unique product, the movie theaters price them the same. Whether you consider a movie "better" than another is a personal opinion and has no relevance on pricing. In fact, it usually isn't until a movie has been showing for a week or so that the studios know whether they have a hit on their hands or not.
Another property of unique products is that, as you have found out, pricing is inelastic. This is business 101.
Most mature organizations have reached the point of understanding that custom solutions cost too much to maintain and support unless they are core to the business. Organizations make do to with off-shelf-solutions and support. As for integration, more and more organizations are also buying software suites instead of standalone products or relying on contractors for integration.
In fact, custom solutions actually makes organizations less nimble by tying them to their customized in-house infrastructure. By buying off-the-shelf solutions, it is easy to change products and migrate data, as competitors provide tools to make transition from competitor products easy. Migrating data from a customized solution, especially a large one, takes takes at least twice as much time and resources. In addition, if the homegrown solution relies on a few gurus to support it, what happens when they leave? At least off-the-shelf solutions have a support organization that understands the product throughout it's lifecycle.
I do agree with Paul Venezia that it is difficult to measure the trade-offs. But most organizations that have lived through the customization era of the 80's and 90's went to off-the-shelf solutions during the Year 2000 upgrade cycle and haven't looked back since. It was during Y2K that they realized just how much all of that customization was going to cost them. The trade-offs, at least at that point, favored off-the-shelf solutions. My thought is that they still do.....
I wonder if this has anything to do with smoking rather than simple speak patterns. According to Wikipedia, approximately 30% of college students smoke. Most smokers I know have "fry" speech patterns. At the back of my mind I seem to remember that smoking was increasing among women, but I could be wrong as I can't find any recent studies with a quick Google search.
Don't take it out on others just because you're imperfect and ignore all of the S.M.A.R.T. and controller warnings... Some of us tech Gurus do religiously tend to our flock of hard-drives and recognize when they are in spiritual, and physical, need of replacement....
I have both the Touchpad and the iPad 2. I like the Touchpad interface better than the iPad interface.
That being said, you have to understand that there are a limited number of Apps for WebOS. So you won't be able to find WebOS versions of your favorite apps. But it is a great for browsing, email, twitter, facebook, and can be used as a picture frame / photo viewer as it has a slideshow mode when plugged in. This alone is worth the $$.
You currently have the option to dual boot to an older version of Andriod (Cyanogenmod) that has been developed. It's still in beta, so there are bugs to be worked out. On the horizon is the pot-of-gold at the end of the rainbow, Ice Cream Sandwich. It is anticipated that a version of Ice Cream Sandwich for the Touchpad will be available before March of 2012. This opens up the Touchpad to the Andriod marketplace and makes it a cheap modern table.
Well, that's the problem, isn't it? Lazy programmers aren't writing efficient code, they're just relying on Moore's Law to push them through. Of course, I don't think the average consumers understand much about efficiency, seeing as eyecandy is so popular, even a selling point.
Of course the biggest offender of relying on Moores Law is JAVA...
I live North West of Boston. The closest charge station to where I live is the next town over. There are none listed in Maine, none listed near where I work in Framingham, and none listed in the Nashua, NH area. Plus, there are none in Atlantic Canada (where I am originally from), maybe due to the cold winters.
Until electric vehicles can be recharged quickly, either through a fuel cell or a large capacitor, they will not be an option for my next purchase. I do enough long range driving for them to be impractical.
As has been mentioned, begin with making sure that you have backups of EVERYTHING. Backup, perform test restores, fix any backup issues, rinse, repeat.
1. Backups: Backup, perform test restores to VMs, fix any backup issues, rinse, repeat. Make sure to examine backup logs every day for the first month or so, and at least once a week thereafter.
2. Monitoring: Implement basic monitoring, including your backup system.
3. Infrastructure: Use the monitoring to fix any infrastructure issues such as overloaded servers (high CPU, memory), overloaded network uplinks or slowdowns (high bandwidth usage, incorrect speed and duplex settings), etc.
4. Applications: Use the monitoring to find application issues. Some may go away as a result of fixing infrastructure issues. Others will require support calls to vendors.
I agree. I used to buy Sony because they had good products. They have become so entrenched in their own formats and have fallen behind, technology wise in electronics. I was sad to see when the Sony format Bluray won the video format wars. Of course, this all started when Sony expanded into the entertainment industry and became Sony Pictures. Now, they are doing everything they can to screw over the customer in an effort to protect their entertainment profits. They really need to spin off their electronics division as an independent organization. Otherwise it is just going to die a slow death.
...from memory. Just make sure to create new files and copy and past the information into it. Create the documents in new formats (i.e. Word 2010, PDF, etc.) Otherwise you could get screwed by the creation and modified dates or old formats.
Wait, you're silly enough to run OWA on the same server as your email data? Way back when I was doing exchange 5.5 administration I knew enough not to put OWA on the same box as the user's email. If something goes wrong with OWA you can then either restore from backup or reinstall it without affecting anything else. I believe that in exchange 2007 this called a front-end server.
In my opinion, 99% of the issues that occur with microsoft server products are due to administrator inexperience and poor planning. This article, and most of the posts so far here on slashdot, continues to bear this out.
I, like you, have moved up and sideways a few times. I've worked doing point-of-sale and pump controller installation and support, then email design and support, then server and application implementation and support, then network support. I am currently a senior network engineer doing LAN, WAN, VPN, and WiFi architecture, design, and engineering. My experience makes me a better network engineer and, eventually, will make me a better manager.
..it depends on what you call a tech worker. The article seems to divide a tech worker from operations. So, by inference, a tech worker is anyone at level 1 tech support. The article explains that this "half-life" is due to workers gaining experience or getting fed up and moving on to other positions or jobs in IT or elsewhere.
Well, Duh!
in a normal job market, if you are still at level 1 tech and in your late 20's early 30's and have 3 or more years of experience, you are likely doing something wrong. You should be taking all of the training that you can. You should be looking around for people who are willing to mentor you in an area that you are interested in. You should be playing around with stuff and working on certifications. That being said, I have known people who are happy just doing desktop tech support and who have no other ambitions.
All AC appliances and DC power adapters use a standard voltage of 110v in US/Canada/etc., 220v in other parts of the world (UK/etc.). To implement DC in the house, you would either have to standardize on a specific DC voltage or create a smart power standard (i.e. similar to POE for network gear). Today, most devices that require AC/DC adapters, convert to different DC voltages. That being said, most mobile devices have been standardized to the USB standard of 5V.
I applaud this move by Apple. I'm a big proponet of solar power. The more companies that integrate solar into their energy needs, the less expensive the technology becomes. It's finally getting to the point where an average homeowner can break even on an investment in solar.
I placed two orders. The first was using the cart trick when HP was saying that they were out of stock and was for 3 touchpads. The second was the next day just after HP had updated their SMB site to say that they were out of 16GB models but still had 32GB models and it was also for 3 touchpads.
The reason for the second order was just in case the first order was cancelled. At least with the second order I could argue that HP was advertising stock at the time I placed the order. I ended up getting all 6. All of them are spoken for as gifts for friends and family.
Personally, after using WebOS for the last 3 weeks, I prefer it over Apple's iOS. I have an iPad 2 from work which I have been using for the last 3 months. Of course, the big difference is the lack of apps for WebOS. If HP had followed their PC model and sold the Touchpad for just over cost, they would have had a good chance of competing with Apple. But HP doesn't seem to be able to get out of their own way these days.
Now I await the cyanogenmod version of Ice Cream Sandwich so that I can load my favorite apps. Until then, I will be using the Touchpad for email, web, and social media, which is 80% of my online activity from my couch.
But again, it was left up to employees, not security, to escort the "fire marshall". Employees should only escort people that they personally have business with. All others should be escorted by security, people who are trained to verify credentials, contain access, etc.
Leaving this job to employees is an abdication the responsibility of security by management. It's a way of reducing costs while putting the responsibility on the average employee who doesn't have the right training to handle these situations. Of course, it's always the employee who gets blamed when these types of breaches occur, and not the management policy that was the root cause.
If management can't be bothered to hire enough security personnel to take care of this at the door, then they need to take responsibility for anyone who enters the facility without the proper credentials. This is a security job, not an employee responsibility.
However, I do agree that an employees should report suspicious activity.
Physical security and access is not the job of the standard employee. The only job the employee has is to ensure that their credentials are only used for thier access, either physical or digital, and that they are kept secure.
I once was working for a company that had higher a new CIO. The area where the IT people sit was secured with keycards, and was just outside of the server room, which had its own keycard. There was never any problem with letting visitors and other employees in and out to discuss IT projects, etc. In other words, while it had keycard access, it wasn't considered a security zone. The CIO came to visit the IT area and I let him in without knowing who he was. He was then buzzed into the Sever room by one of the operators who did know who he was. Of course, he made a big stink about the whole thing. The funny thing of course, is that nothing changed. He was just trying to make a big splash.
The point is, I am not a security guard. I am not about to put my physical safety in jeopardy for the sake of corporate secrets. I do not have the necessary skills to vett or interrogate every new visitor wandering our halls, nor do I have the authority or tools to throw them out. You can chew out your employees for allowing physical access to this "fireman" but the problem is management not spending the money to have proper security at the door, not the lack of vigilance by the employees.
I will keep my passwords secret, I will choose complex passwords, I will not allow people to tailgate on my keycard access, and I will inform IT security if any of my corporate devices goes missing. I will do all of this, but I will not be your security guard, there are people who do this who are much better at than I could ever be...
You know when a company has run out of ideas and has stopped innovating when they resort to law suits to protect their market...
On the plus side, WebOS uses a random slide to unlink and not a "predefined" method. As such, WebOS should be fine. It's just too bad that HP is running it into the ground...
Slashdot Mirror
Unlike cars, computers, or refrigerators, each movie is a unique product. Yes, even the remakes. As a unique product it cannot be substituted for a similar product that costs less. For example, if you wanted to replace a car part you usually have options to buy that part from the car manufacturer or from 3rd party parts suppliers. However, if you wanted to watch Mission Impossible there isn't any other option. It's not like the movie studio takes the same script and hires Bollywood actors to produce a less expensive version. As others have noted, it's the same with buying books.
As a result of each movie being a unique product, the movie theaters price them the same. Whether you consider a movie "better" than another is a personal opinion and has no relevance on pricing. In fact, it usually isn't until a movie has been showing for a week or so that the studios know whether they have a hit on their hands or not.
Another property of unique products is that, as you have found out, pricing is inelastic. This is business 101.
Most mature organizations have reached the point of understanding that custom solutions cost too much to maintain and support unless they are core to the business. Organizations make do to with off-shelf-solutions and support. As for integration, more and more organizations are also buying software suites instead of standalone products or relying on contractors for integration.
In fact, custom solutions actually makes organizations less nimble by tying them to their customized in-house infrastructure. By buying off-the-shelf solutions, it is easy to change products and migrate data, as competitors provide tools to make transition from competitor products easy. Migrating data from a customized solution, especially a large one, takes takes at least twice as much time and resources. In addition, if the homegrown solution relies on a few gurus to support it, what happens when they leave? At least off-the-shelf solutions have a support organization that understands the product throughout it's lifecycle.
I do agree with Paul Venezia that it is difficult to measure the trade-offs. But most organizations that have lived through the customization era of the 80's and 90's went to off-the-shelf solutions during the Year 2000 upgrade cycle and haven't looked back since. It was during Y2K that they realized just how much all of that customization was going to cost them. The trade-offs, at least at that point, favored off-the-shelf solutions. My thought is that they still do.....
I wonder if this has anything to do with smoking rather than simple speak patterns. According to Wikipedia, approximately 30% of college students smoke. Most smokers I know have "fry" speech patterns. At the back of my mind I seem to remember that smoking was increasing among women, but I could be wrong as I can't find any recent studies with a quick Google search.
Don't take it out on others just because you're imperfect and ignore all of the S.M.A.R.T. and controller warnings... Some of us tech Gurus do religiously tend to our flock of hard-drives and recognize when they are in spiritual, and physical, need of replacement....
I have both the Touchpad and the iPad 2. I like the Touchpad interface better than the iPad interface.
That being said, you have to understand that there are a limited number of Apps for WebOS. So you won't be able to find WebOS versions of your favorite apps. But it is a great for browsing, email, twitter, facebook, and can be used as a picture frame / photo viewer as it has a slideshow mode when plugged in. This alone is worth the $$.
You currently have the option to dual boot to an older version of Andriod (Cyanogenmod) that has been developed. It's still in beta, so there are bugs to be worked out. On the horizon is the pot-of-gold at the end of the rainbow, Ice Cream Sandwich. It is anticipated that a version of Ice Cream Sandwich for the Touchpad will be available before March of 2012. This opens up the Touchpad to the Andriod marketplace and makes it a cheap modern table.
Well, that's the problem, isn't it? Lazy programmers aren't writing efficient code, they're just relying on Moore's Law to push them through. Of course, I don't think the average consumers understand much about efficiency, seeing as eyecandy is so popular, even a selling point.
Of course the biggest offender of relying on Moores Law is JAVA...
I live North West of Boston. The closest charge station to where I live is the next town over. There are none listed in Maine, none listed near where I work in Framingham, and none listed in the Nashua, NH area. Plus, there are none in Atlantic Canada (where I am originally from), maybe due to the cold winters.
For a clickable map, see here: http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/fuels/electricity_locations.html
Until electric vehicles can be recharged quickly, either through a fuel cell or a large capacitor, they will not be an option for my next purchase. I do enough long range driving for them to be impractical.
As has been mentioned, begin with making sure that you have backups of EVERYTHING. Backup, perform test restores, fix any backup issues, rinse, repeat.
1. Backups: Backup, perform test restores to VMs, fix any backup issues, rinse, repeat. Make sure to examine backup logs every day for the first month or so, and at least once a week thereafter.
2. Monitoring: Implement basic monitoring, including your backup system.
3. Infrastructure: Use the monitoring to fix any infrastructure issues such as overloaded servers (high CPU, memory), overloaded network uplinks or slowdowns (high bandwidth usage, incorrect speed and duplex settings), etc.
4. Applications: Use the monitoring to find application issues. Some may go away as a result of fixing infrastructure issues. Others will require support calls to vendors.
I agree. I used to buy Sony because they had good products. They have become so entrenched in their own formats and have fallen behind, technology wise in electronics. I was sad to see when the Sony format Bluray won the video format wars. Of course, this all started when Sony expanded into the entertainment industry and became Sony Pictures. Now, they are doing everything they can to screw over the customer in an effort to protect their entertainment profits. They really need to spin off their electronics division as an independent organization. Otherwise it is just going to die a slow death.
...from memory. Just make sure to create new files and copy and past the information into it. Create the documents in new formats (i.e. Word 2010, PDF, etc.) Otherwise you could get screwed by the creation and modified dates or old formats.
Wait, you're silly enough to run OWA on the same server as your email data? Way back when I was doing exchange 5.5 administration I knew enough not to put OWA on the same box as the user's email. If something goes wrong with OWA you can then either restore from backup or reinstall it without affecting anything else. I believe that in exchange 2007 this called a front-end server.
In my opinion, 99% of the issues that occur with microsoft server products are due to administrator inexperience and poor planning. This article, and most of the posts so far here on slashdot, continues to bear this out.
I, like you, have moved up and sideways a few times. I've worked doing point-of-sale and pump controller installation and support, then email design and support, then server and application implementation and support, then network support. I am currently a senior network engineer doing LAN, WAN, VPN, and WiFi architecture, design, and engineering. My experience makes me a better network engineer and, eventually, will make me a better manager.
..it depends on what you call a tech worker. The article seems to divide a tech worker from operations. So, by inference, a tech worker is anyone at level 1 tech support. The article explains that this "half-life" is due to workers gaining experience or getting fed up and moving on to other positions or jobs in IT or elsewhere.
Well, Duh!
in a normal job market, if you are still at level 1 tech and in your late 20's early 30's and have 3 or more years of experience, you are likely doing something wrong. You should be taking all of the training that you can. You should be looking around for people who are willing to mentor you in an area that you are interested in. You should be playing around with stuff and working on certifications. That being said, I have known people who are happy just doing desktop tech support and who have no other ambitions.
All AC appliances and DC power adapters use a standard voltage of 110v in US/Canada/etc., 220v in other parts of the world (UK/etc.). To implement DC in the house, you would either have to standardize on a specific DC voltage or create a smart power standard (i.e. similar to POE for network gear). Today, most devices that require AC/DC adapters, convert to different DC voltages. That being said, most mobile devices have been standardized to the USB standard of 5V.
You mean it won't burn a hole through the earth's crust and cause all sorts of science fiction type disasters??? awwww....
.. they are called mothers, wives, and girlfriends...
"Got milk" is just shortened from "Honey, did you remember to pick up some milk"...
If these work on acceptable ranges, will they also ticket drivers who are causing hazardous conditions by driving too slow?
I applaud this move by Apple. I'm a big proponet of solar power. The more companies that integrate solar into their energy needs, the less expensive the technology becomes. It's finally getting to the point where an average homeowner can break even on an investment in solar.
Does this mean that emergency kits will now come with shotguns and shells?
Yes. I received the out of stock message late last night. So the message is confirmed.
I placed two orders. The first was using the cart trick when HP was saying that they were out of stock and was for 3 touchpads. The second was the next day just after HP had updated their SMB site to say that they were out of 16GB models but still had 32GB models and it was also for 3 touchpads.
The reason for the second order was just in case the first order was cancelled. At least with the second order I could argue that HP was advertising stock at the time I placed the order. I ended up getting all 6. All of them are spoken for as gifts for friends and family.
Personally, after using WebOS for the last 3 weeks, I prefer it over Apple's iOS. I have an iPad 2 from work which I have been using for the last 3 months. Of course, the big difference is the lack of apps for WebOS. If HP had followed their PC model and sold the Touchpad for just over cost, they would have had a good chance of competing with Apple. But HP doesn't seem to be able to get out of their own way these days.
Now I await the cyanogenmod version of Ice Cream Sandwich so that I can load my favorite apps. Until then, I will be using the Touchpad for email, web, and social media, which is 80% of my online activity from my couch.
But again, it was left up to employees, not security, to escort the "fire marshall". Employees should only escort people that they personally have business with. All others should be escorted by security, people who are trained to verify credentials, contain access, etc.
Leaving this job to employees is an abdication the responsibility of security by management. It's a way of reducing costs while putting the responsibility on the average employee who doesn't have the right training to handle these situations. Of course, it's always the employee who gets blamed when these types of breaches occur, and not the management policy that was the root cause.
If management can't be bothered to hire enough security personnel to take care of this at the door, then they need to take responsibility for anyone who enters the facility without the proper credentials. This is a security job, not an employee responsibility.
However, I do agree that an employees should report suspicious activity.
Physical security and access is not the job of the standard employee. The only job the employee has is to ensure that their credentials are only used for thier access, either physical or digital, and that they are kept secure.
I once was working for a company that had higher a new CIO. The area where the IT people sit was secured with keycards, and was just outside of the server room, which had its own keycard. There was never any problem with letting visitors and other employees in and out to discuss IT projects, etc. In other words, while it had keycard access, it wasn't considered a security zone. The CIO came to visit the IT area and I let him in without knowing who he was. He was then buzzed into the Sever room by one of the operators who did know who he was. Of course, he made a big stink about the whole thing. The funny thing of course, is that nothing changed. He was just trying to make a big splash.
The point is, I am not a security guard. I am not about to put my physical safety in jeopardy for the sake of corporate secrets. I do not have the necessary skills to vett or interrogate every new visitor wandering our halls, nor do I have the authority or tools to throw them out. You can chew out your employees for allowing physical access to this "fireman" but the problem is management not spending the money to have proper security at the door, not the lack of vigilance by the employees.
I will keep my passwords secret, I will choose complex passwords, I will not allow people to tailgate on my keycard access, and I will inform IT security if any of my corporate devices goes missing. I will do all of this, but I will not be your security guard, there are people who do this who are much better at than I could ever be...
You know when a company has run out of ideas and has stopped innovating when they resort to law suits to protect their market...
On the plus side, WebOS uses a random slide to unlink and not a "predefined" method. As such, WebOS should be fine. It's just too bad that HP is running it into the ground...