That said, the locations of the Home/End/Insert/Delete are just atrocious. There really is no getting used to it, I've worked daily with this machine the past 10 months and still I can't reliably use them without actually looking. On top of that the PgUp & PgDown keys have been placed adjacent to the arrows causing me to jump up and down code/documents/.. in the most unpleasant ways =(
This has been the same on almost all laptops I've tried with numeric keypads - there's no standard to it, they bung them wherever they feel like, and often in a very inconvenient place. So frustrating having to look down at the keyboard!
This is for my accountant to use Excel and QuickBooks on. She needs a keypad built in to the laptop, it's as simple as that. I want to get her a laptop that's not going to fall apart in a couple of weeks. She doesn't need a quad-core i7, 8GB RAM and a 2GB graphics card. She does need a decent sized screen (in particular vertical resolution is very important for Excel) and she does use the laptop on the move all the time, so not having a plug-in USB keypad (which I'll admit was my first response to her requirements) is important as there will often be nowhere for her to place it.
This is something which, sad to say it, the/. crowd will not be able to assist. Your best option is to take miss accountant to a computer shop like MLN in North Melbourne or Richmond with a plethora of laptops available, and have her try the keyboards on each of them. Since this is the most important factor, how she feels about each keypad is important, and getting her to try before you buy is vital, otherwise when she hates it after 3 hrs, it's your fault.
For what it's worth, two of the 3 Asus laptops I've used lately have had absolutely awful numeric keypads (and keyboards in general). But the third one has a great keyboard and numeric pad - it's one of the rare laptop keyboards that doesn't have the raised and separated keys in the Macbook style, which IMO only Apple gets right.
So for people who put down the $30 to pre-order or $50 to pre-order the collectors edition have lost that cash. So I'd hardly say it's business as usual... My wife plans to pick up a few games from there but I'm still of the opinion that we should just get them from ebay or ozgameshop.com where it's cheaper anyway.
Couldn't agree more, the cash cow of SMS messaging is dying. Now if we can just convince the majority of ISPs that excess data downloads shouldn't be its replacement, that'll be fantastic. My boss just received a $8000 excess data usage bill for his home account... *shakes head*
Which is what happens in Australia - to stop frivolous lawsuits. A very recent example - AFACT vs iiNet, costs were awarded to iiNet meaning the MAFIAA had to pay their (multimillion dollar) legal bill.
Bull yourself. $1-8 games don't count as most retailers won't stock them anyway. An example: COD:MW3 - $66.99 USD at the moment with it's 33% off for this weekend sale. Versus $65 Aus in a bricks and mortar store - which considering the 2% currency conversion charge on credit cards makes it cheaper. Ozgameshop.com has it for $44.99 with free shipping, charged in $AU. Guess where I'd buy it from?
As I just said above - the printing costs of a paperback are negligible in comparison with the editorial process that occurs with each book. Look for my post above and click the link in it to discover why:)
Good example - I just started reading it yesterday:)
The printing costs of a book are negligible in comparison with the editorial, typesetting, proof-reading and other costs associatd with releasing a book. Go and read Charlie Stross's essays on common misconceptions about publishing to discover WHY it's impractical.
As an aside - games on Steam are almost always more expensive than the copy I buy with a disk from a store, with the exception of when the steam sales are on.
I spend around 10hrs a week on public transport going to and from work - it's the price I pay for living in a forest outside of the city - which consequently allows me around 10hrs a week of reading time. I could be playing games on my phone, or my tablet - but most of the time, I'm reading.
On the rare occasions I look up from my book, it seems I'm not alone. At least a half of the passengers on the train are reading something.
Charles Stross also has an explanation of why reducing ebook costs to that level is impractical... it's a part of his series of essays regarding common misconceptions about the publishing industry. Very much worth a read.
I don't have a problem with paying $60-70 for a game. Have been happy to purchase at that price point for quite a few years. The problem is that brand new games here in Australia come out at $100, often up to $180 for a collectors edition, and that, I do have a problem with paying.
I also expect that a game I spend a decent amount of money on can be played by me, or my wife, or my kids. You have no idea how pissed off at Ubisoft I was when the DLC for Assassins Creed Brotherhood came out and was tied to the one xbox 360 account which initially downloaded it - my wife's account - and that I couldn't play the DLC without re-purchasing it.
I believe that someone using an anonymous account is a lawyer as much as I believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy... sign in so I can verify your existence, and legal background and I'll change my tune;)
My lawyer friend is overseas on holiday... the bastard! However my previous experiences in civil litigation 17 years ago resulted in my legal fees being deducted from the amount hence my statement. However, in my case it didn't get to court, which is probably why this happened... after the settlement and the subtraction of legal fees, there wasn't a lot left.
Whilst IANAL, I'm pretty sure that it's not a default position, but it is definitely an option that can be applied for. Will check with a lawyer friend...
I wouldn't have stuck with Netspace for 8 years if they weren't fantastic. It was a terrible shame to see them get so badly stuffed up.
On leaving them, they sent me a survey to fill out to tell them why I'd left, the link for which didn't work, so I emailed the customer service people back, cc'ing Michael Malone, explaining how as a long term customer of Netspace that it was with regret I was leaving after 8 years as a customer, but in 4 paragraphs exactly how they drove me away.
The next morning, I got a phone call from a senior customer service person at iiNet, who apologised for everything that happened and gave me an undertaking that iiNet were going to endeavour to make sure what had happened to me didn't happen with their future acquisitions. Whilst it was too late for me as I'd already churned away, I hope that they stuck to their word.
So everyone tells me, but my experience of iiNet after they borged Netspace was the complete opposite. Network went to crap when I was moved from an Optus DSLAM to a Telstra one, the customer service stuffed up, and the price increased.
In this particular case, I'm pretty sure that somewhere in the terms of service, you have to agree to let them sell information about you to whoever they want, whenever they want, with a copy of your first born's DNA signature, with rights to use it in perpetuity for 100 million years after your death. Or words to that effect. It possibly even has the full details of the scam - I only partially read it. I say pretty sure, because I know for a fact that I didn't fully read, and certainly didn't agree to the terms and conditions of using their website, and those terms have probably changed at least forty times since I partially read them.
Scamming people and parting fools with their money is a perfectly legitimate and viable business model, and as long as the company doing it pays their taxes, perfectly legal.
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That said, the locations of the Home/End/Insert/Delete are just atrocious. There really is no getting used to it, I've worked daily with this machine the past 10 months and still I can't reliably use them without actually looking. On top of that the PgUp & PgDown keys have been placed adjacent to the arrows causing me to jump up and down code/documents/.. in the most unpleasant ways =(
This has been the same on almost all laptops I've tried with numeric keypads - there's no standard to it, they bung them wherever they feel like, and often in a very inconvenient place. So frustrating having to look down at the keyboard!
This is for my accountant to use Excel and QuickBooks on. She needs a keypad built in to the laptop, it's as simple as that. I want to get her a laptop that's not going to fall apart in a couple of weeks. She doesn't need a quad-core i7, 8GB RAM and a 2GB graphics card. She does need a decent sized screen (in particular vertical resolution is very important for Excel) and she does use the laptop on the move all the time, so not having a plug-in USB keypad (which I'll admit was my first response to her requirements) is important as there will often be nowhere for her to place it.
This is something which, sad to say it, the /. crowd will not be able to assist. Your best option is to take miss accountant to a computer shop like MLN in North Melbourne or Richmond with a plethora of laptops available, and have her try the keyboards on each of them. Since this is the most important factor, how she feels about each keypad is important, and getting her to try before you buy is vital, otherwise when she hates it after 3 hrs, it's your fault.
For what it's worth, two of the 3 Asus laptops I've used lately have had absolutely awful numeric keypads (and keyboards in general). But the third one has a great keyboard and numeric pad - it's one of the rare laptop keyboards that doesn't have the raised and separated keys in the Macbook style, which IMO only Apple gets right.
Some idiots like the special pre-order DLC that becomes available to them for doing so...
So for people who put down the $30 to pre-order or $50 to pre-order the collectors edition have lost that cash. So I'd hardly say it's business as usual... My wife plans to pick up a few games from there but I'm still of the opinion that we should just get them from ebay or ozgameshop.com where it's cheaper anyway.
Isn't there a better plan for you to go onto? I get 2gb of data with my $49.95 plan, and the most I've ever used has been 900mb in a month...
Couldn't agree more, the cash cow of SMS messaging is dying. Now if we can just convince the majority of ISPs that excess data downloads shouldn't be its replacement, that'll be fantastic. My boss just received a $8000 excess data usage bill for his home account... *shakes head*
Which is what happens in Australia - to stop frivolous lawsuits. A very recent example - AFACT vs iiNet, costs were awarded to iiNet meaning the MAFIAA had to pay their (multimillion dollar) legal bill.
... and get it.
Bull yourself. $1-8 games don't count as most retailers won't stock them anyway. An example: COD:MW3 - $66.99 USD at the moment with it's 33% off for this weekend sale. Versus $65 Aus in a bricks and mortar store - which considering the 2% currency conversion charge on credit cards makes it cheaper. Ozgameshop.com has it for $44.99 with free shipping, charged in $AU. Guess where I'd buy it from?
Good example - I just started reading it yesterday :)
As an aside - games on Steam are almost always more expensive than the copy I buy with a disk from a store, with the exception of when the steam sales are on.
Point 3 should be point 1 - since it already exists: http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/steam-mobile/id495369748?mt=8
Literacy in Australia (where I am) is actually quite high... so I'd say yes (with the caveat that we have a lot of private schools here too!).
www.damnyouautocorrect.com ? :)
I spend around 10hrs a week on public transport going to and from work - it's the price I pay for living in a forest outside of the city - which consequently allows me around 10hrs a week of reading time. I could be playing games on my phone, or my tablet - but most of the time, I'm reading.
On the rare occasions I look up from my book, it seems I'm not alone. At least a half of the passengers on the train are reading something.
Charles Stross also has an explanation of why reducing ebook costs to that level is impractical... it's a part of his series of essays regarding common misconceptions about the publishing industry. Very much worth a read.
I don't have a problem with paying $60-70 for a game. Have been happy to purchase at that price point for quite a few years. The problem is that brand new games here in Australia come out at $100, often up to $180 for a collectors edition, and that, I do have a problem with paying.
I also expect that a game I spend a decent amount of money on can be played by me, or my wife, or my kids. You have no idea how pissed off at Ubisoft I was when the DLC for Assassins Creed Brotherhood came out and was tied to the one xbox 360 account which initially downloaded it - my wife's account - and that I couldn't play the DLC without re-purchasing it.
This is a very good point, and honestly I'm really surprised that no-one else has pointed this out before!
I believe that someone using an anonymous account is a lawyer as much as I believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy... sign in so I can verify your existence, and legal background and I'll change my tune ;)
My lawyer friend is overseas on holiday... the bastard! However my previous experiences in civil litigation 17 years ago resulted in my legal fees being deducted from the amount hence my statement. However, in my case it didn't get to court, which is probably why this happened... after the settlement and the subtraction of legal fees, there wasn't a lot left.
Whilst IANAL, I'm pretty sure that it's not a default position, but it is definitely an option that can be applied for. Will check with a lawyer friend...
I wouldn't have stuck with Netspace for 8 years if they weren't fantastic. It was a terrible shame to see them get so badly stuffed up.
On leaving them, they sent me a survey to fill out to tell them why I'd left, the link for which didn't work, so I emailed the customer service people back, cc'ing Michael Malone, explaining how as a long term customer of Netspace that it was with regret I was leaving after 8 years as a customer, but in 4 paragraphs exactly how they drove me away.
The next morning, I got a phone call from a senior customer service person at iiNet, who apologised for everything that happened and gave me an undertaking that iiNet were going to endeavour to make sure what had happened to me didn't happen with their future acquisitions. Whilst it was too late for me as I'd already churned away, I hope that they stuck to their word.
Also, very glad to see that the High court awarded costs in iiNet's favour - translation, the MAFIAA have to pay all of iiNet's lawyers bill!!!
So everyone tells me, but my experience of iiNet after they borged Netspace was the complete opposite. Network went to crap when I was moved from an Optus DSLAM to a Telstra one, the customer service stuffed up, and the price increased.
In this particular case, I'm pretty sure that somewhere in the terms of service, you have to agree to let them sell information about you to whoever they want, whenever they want, with a copy of your first born's DNA signature, with rights to use it in perpetuity for 100 million years after your death. Or words to that effect. It possibly even has the full details of the scam - I only partially read it. I say pretty sure, because I know for a fact that I didn't fully read, and certainly didn't agree to the terms and conditions of using their website, and those terms have probably changed at least forty times since I partially read them.
Scamming people and parting fools with their money is a perfectly legitimate and viable business model, and as long as the company doing it pays their taxes, perfectly legal.
Completely unethical, but perfectly legal.