Netscape didn't innovate anything. They just assumed they were entitled to money for nothing.
Netscape invented multi-threaded browsing, didn't they? I thought that was the whole point of "mozilla..." it was mosaic, only bigger, and capable of doing more at once.
By your reasoning, Linux should be illegal, because Microsoft is entitled since they got there first with a commercial product. Yeah, doesn't sound so reasonable when your logic is applied there does it?
Er, no, that's not my logic at all. I'm not even sure how to begin explaining why, since it bears no resemblance to what I said. "Linux" is not a huge company with a domination over a given market, pouring lots of money into trying to shut down Microsoft. The Sherman Act has absolutely nothing to say about Linux. There's a lot more to it all than "One is free, the other costs money."
if you are serious about doing business, you need to lay down the capital. If the better presentation makes only a few more sells, well, that's worth the money.
Primarily I create presentations for non-profit organizations or government agencies. When your only goal is to let the FTA know you haven't been wasting their money for the last three months, it's hard to justify any capital investment.;-)
Presentations aren't only for selling things. They're for communicating all sorts of ideas, for all sorts of reasons.
I actually like OO Impress much more than the other components (I don't like Writer at all). I used it several years ago (still StarOffice 5.2) to do several presentations and I cannot stand PowerPoint since then. Impress is a great piece of software and very intuitive. Making presentations with it is a breeze. Every time I have to do a presentation in PowerPoint nowadays, it turns to be a frustrating experience.
If I was creating presentations from scratch to present on my own laptop, this might be an option. Unfortunately, what I get paid to do (on a free-lance basis) is create presentations that will be presented somewhere else by someone else, on whatever computer is there. Most of the time these are variations on presentations created earlier, so it saves a lot of time (and my client a lot of money) for me to just edit an existing file.
When I've tried editing my powerpoint files in Impress, the animation has gotten very garbled, and some images have disappeared completely. If I spent a lot of time with it, I might be able to work it out, but then I'd still have to test it in PowerPoint afterward, and quite possibly tweak it a lot to make it work. So, until the cross-platform compatibility is there (to the same degree it is in Calc and Writer) I use PowerPoint, much as I'd rather not.
Yes, but I think everyone will get the point that OO makes PDF files, and Word doesn't.
OO makes PDF files? What the heck am I messing around with Distiller for, then? (Besides all the other programs I do stuff in, that is.)
As far as I can tell, there's no way to make a PDF file from OO except the old fashioned print-to-Distiller method. Word at least has that nifty toolbar button, which works fairly well. I don't generally feel like I *need* it, so I never even thought about the fact that I don't have it until just now, but your assertion seems way off.
PDF files are MUCH less likely to cause problems, because they can contain the fonts they use. I don't think that is available in Word. In most cases, you don't want the person to whom you send the file to be able to change it, and maybe later forget and think it is his.
Amen to that. Though there is a checkbox for embedding fonts in Word. It's obscure, though, and probably platform-dependent. I've never really tried to use it, and since I don't have Word installed anymore, I can't try it now.
I would LOVE to see someone make a similar two-page brochure, formatted exactly the same way, that would provide all the arguments for using OO. Here's one: Word is quirky; it often does things that you don't expect, like put footers at the head of the next page.
Hm... I've never had that happen in Word. Or in Open Office, for that matter (though it took me a while to get used to the fact that if I didn't change my margins, OO would stick my headers and footers into my page space).
I'd really like to use something other than microsoft office, but I am simply chained down because on most college campuses, everything is "powerpoint lecture" or the syllabus is a Word.doc file. If there was an open source alternative to powerpoint that was significantly better and for efficient with an editor that was extremely simplistic (anyone can pick it up) it may have a chance of taking over powerpoint, but it just seems that so many people think of presenting lectures automatically think powerpoint.
On my computer, I have OO for all my word processing and spreadsheet needs (and have gotten through two terms without any longing for Word or Excel), but I had to install PowerPoint to do freelance presentation design work. If I can figure out how to actually submit comments to bugs on the OO site, I will feedback Impress religiously in hopes that it becomes as facile an alternative as the others.
With respect to word processing and spreadsheets, I've shared files back and forth with MS Office, whether using it myself at school or having a partner editing the same files. The only problem I ever really noticed with.xls was that sometimes when a friend opened my spreadsheets in Office XP, she'd have strange split windows she had to turn off. There was some formatting weirdness with sharing a.doc file with a partner for a memo assignment, but in addition to using a different program, she was on Mac (so, whole different font system, etc.) Still, in neither case was it a show-stopper.
But, dude, just because you can't replace PowerPoint yet doesn't mean you have to install ALL of MS Office. Get away with what you can!
Blocking entire domains is a used in certain companies and universities just to avoid spam.
-1, redundant... this is exactly what the entire article is about. Problem is, rather than an admin making a decision to block a domain, a small committee of AOL users are able to do this... by accident.
There are resources on the 'net for a list of companies that Gates has purchase or "acquired" over the last 20 years and if you look at it closely, it's scary. I can't find the link, maybe someone else can.
Try The Microsoft File by Wendy Goldman Rohm. She combined all the research she did about MS as a Washington Post (I think?) reporter and came up with a riveting book about broken contracts, industrial espionage, and all kinds of dirty deeds.
Man, you can always use macromedia flash and a web browser... that's what I do.
Macromedia Flaxh MX 2004 (Not professional, just regular): $499
MS Office 2003 Professional, PowerPoint included: $499
Sooo... how do you talk your boss into doubling your software expenditures (since you probably already bought Office) so that you can develop a niftier presentation?
If you work in a place that already uses Flash, you'll have no problem. But for most folks, this is way out of reach. Creating flash animation is still a bit more complicated than PowerPoint, even if you use Swish to dumb it down. Finally, while the computer you're running your presentation with is almost certain to have at least the PowerPoint Viewer installed, you may have more trouble getting the Flash plug-in installed, especially if the system is locked down. (This isn't an issue if you're running off your own machine, but can be if you're using a built-in system in an auditorium.)
If there had been a competitor for PowerPoint (for a while, a lot of folks were using Visio for that... I'm still not sure how it wasn't illegal market domination for MS to buy them), then we might have something like Flash-based presentation tools that work in a web browser that have the same ease-of-use and availability as PowerPoint. But we don't, and I'm quite sad about that.
Hopefully, one of these days, I'll be able to spend some quality time with OO Impress and then submit a ton of bug reports/feature requests, in hopes that it will be a decent substitute. But to create stuff professionally, I still get stuck using PowerPoint for now.
Maybe he's not just displeased with MS but with his so called "friends" that don't have the tact to not ask a highly paid professional for free work.
So, do what I do: set rates, and charge everyone. My *mom* pays me $40 an hour to fix her computer issues. And usually makes me dinner, too. If she recommends me to a friend, I know that she's told them my rates already.
Not only does it cut down on the stupid stuff, but if they're paying for your time, they're more respectful of it, and what you do. If they don't want to pay, tell them to go pay CompUSA to do it instead or something. Ask them for free [whatever] from their business... works even better if they're a doctor or a lawyer.
In the era of DRDOS, I was using an Apple IIe, but I suspect its failure had more to do with it not offering any clear advantage over MSDOS.
And MSDOS offered no clear advantage over DRDOS... except that, as far as anyone could tell, it was more compatible with Windows. This was based on error messages that Windows beta testers got if they tried to run Windows on machines with DRDOS. Error messages that were, by the way, completely fake.
Netscape killed themselves by not adding anything significant to their browser for years after they first released Communicator. Communicator was better than IE3, but not IE4,
How is it that everyone totally forgets that, while IE4 was in development, IE3 was being given away for free and Netscape was suddenly out a revenue source? This has everything to do with the sudden drop in innovation. MS had entire operating system and office productivity departments to fund their browser with; Netscape had their server software (which was still doing quite well at the time). "Here, we're going to give our competing product away for free... *now* try developing yours!"
Truth is, Communicator should have been open-sourced right about then, and then it would have kept pace nicely. But, seriously, taking away a company's revenue stream and then jeering at *them* for not innovating is a bit... er, misguided.
Many of them are PAYING CUSTOMERS. Just because you are sending regular e-mail to paying customers does not mean it is not spam.
No, but just because you contacted the customer out-of-band and *confirmed* that they marked the message in error, does mean it is not spam (as stated in the original post).
And, for that matter, if you agree to get emails from a party, they're not spam. If you let them know you don't want emails anymore and keep getting them, they become spam... but reporting them such that the entire *ISP* gets blacklisted (too bad for anyone else using the same domain who actually *wants* those emails) isn't the first-string approach.
Well, here's the awful truth. Frequently, I'll buy something from a site, and as part of that purchase they'll make the completely unrealistic demand that I agree to receive emails from anyone they deem fit to sell the address to, or maybe even just from themselves whenever they like.
You're buying from the wrong places. Reputable, decent vendors give you the opportunity to opt out of any third-party or even first-party non-transaction-related emails. Ever since I bought something online from Macy's, I get mail from them every time they have a sale, but I don't get mail from anyone else who is their "partner." I'm careful what I click, and read the messages (sometimes it's "check here if you want us to send you tons of email" and sometimes it's "check here if you DON'T want us to send you tons of email"). If they're not giving you that option, don't buy from them, for pete's sake.
Oh, and, how can I tell whether my spam is from "partners" or from scum-sucking bottom dwellers? Whether they call me "pixel" or "Monica." The companies I actually do business with know my name.
Yep. He was quoted by a columnist in Entertainment Weekly, when the anti-piracy ads were first coming out. here's a link, but I have the original story in print still, just to prove it.
Competition is now entering the market? The Mac and Linux didn't exist until now?
Sorry, here's the version for those with lower reading comprehension scores:
"Microsoft is now seeing some competition entering the market traditionally dominated by Windows; i.e. the mass-market prebuilt desktop x86-PCs that are most commonly bought by business and home users."
Also, the statement still stands if the competition was there, but they didn't really see it until now. Furthermore, even if they had some competition before (and many would argue that Apple is now a niche market, and not so much a direct competitor of Microsoft), that doesn't stop new competition from entering now, in the form of someone providing mass-market x86 PCs with Another Operating System.
When I was in grad school most of the stipends and scholarships were being given to foreign students. It bothered me then and now that my tax money and my tuition money was being used to educate people who aren't Americans.
Maybe you can give a few more details to back up that anecdote. The foreign students in my program are (1) paying more tuition even than the out-of-state American students; (2) eligible only for a handful of private or international fellowships. They can't get CalGrants, Pell Grants, or even qualify for a lot of the student loans out there. I'm in Urban Planning, and some of them are actually being funded by the government agencies they work for back home. One is on a Fulbright scholarship, which is basically a one-for-one exchange program operated by the US government.
So if you want to quote some figures, like how many students were in your program, how many were receiving aid from the US (or local) government, and how many of those were foreign students, please do... but consider that you may have received a distorted impression of what was actually going on.
If you're decent and you're willing to go where the cash is getting a job doesn't take much work. The key is; follow the cash. We hire kids out of college at ~$40k. That's basically Foster City rates.
And a fresh graduate with a crisp, shiny teaching credential and no special qualifications makes $41,177 teaching in LAUSD. And gets three months off per year.
So, the grandparent's assertion that, right out of college, he can make more than a teacher will after five years is not borne out by your statement.
I hear that in 2010 the US will face a shortage of 10 million-odd workers, though I haven't heard what industries those shortages will be in. If it's in computer science-related areas, then I can only imagine that the remaining 81% of people pursuing these degrees will be stoked.
That will be from the baby-boomers retiring in droves, so the jobs will not much be in CS. Maybe a few, but not significant numbers. They'll be more likely to be in things that we're already short on, like nursing, teaching, etc. I'm hoping a lot of them are public-sector, so that my MA in Urban Planning will be worth something (assuming I actually finish it by June...;-)
Yes, applications to US Universities are down in EE and CS, but you'll find the biggest drop was in international student applications.
The University of California, system-wide, had an overall drop of 4.5% in applications this year (mostly because fees were raised 30% by one governor and then 40% by the next). But applications for international students dropped by 18%, mostly because they've had the devil's own time getting here to go to school. Some have missed an entire term after going home for the holidays and getting held up for no explainable reason when returning. (I'm sure there's an explanation, somewhere, but the students themselves apparently don't have the clearance to know why they're not allowed back after a two-week vacation.)
>> The other problem is that most of what is taught in comp-sci these days is not so great. There is a tendency to focus on algorithms (get them out of a book) rather than how to contribute to building large projects that work.
> Personally, I think this is what distinguishes the second-tier from the higher-tier schools. The lower tier schools will always teach you a certain technology. The higher tier schools will always teach you the theory and expect you to teach yourself the specific technology.
When I read the phrase "how to contribute to building large projects that work," I interpreted it as teamwork skills, project management, etc. These *are* pretty important things to learn.
You're right that it doesn't do all that much good to teach you a few programming languages and set you loose; you'll get a lot more from learning the algorithms and theory, because then you can pick up whatever language is required (and critique the hell out of it, too, if you're anything like my husband). But what I think many, many programs -- engineering and otherwise -- lack, is functional skills that will help you work with others on projects. *Why* is documenting your code important? *How* can you divide up a project into components that can be done by different people, and then put it together into something that works? You're not going to learn that if all the projects you do for school are things you write by yourself from scratch.
The people who major in sociology get jobs just like the people who major in other fields.
Or get laid off from them, as I did in 2000. Which is why I'm working on a master's in Transportation Planning.
But, yeah, Sociology degree with a Specialization in Computing (that means three C++ classes and two sociology classes that were heavily computer-dependent), and I was having fun with tech support, really. But I'm enjoying the transportation field even more.
I am going to be making more in my first job out of university (Computer Engineering, graduate this year) than most school teachers will after 5 years.
And you already have this job lined up?
Otherwise, in five years, you might still be looking for an entry-level CE job (and working as a substitute teacher to pay the bills). On the other hand, anyone with a teaching credential is hired in a second, at least here in California where we have a serious shortage of teachers.
Ah yes. The exciting world of Software Engineering.. Why become a doctor and save lifes, why be a stockbroker and make millions, why even think about being an international man of mystery who has to fight of women with a stick, when you can get a CS degree and spend the next 40 years of your life programming banksoftware in a cubicle?
Doctor => 10 years of school, internship, residency, etc.
Stockbroker => 6 years of school (need an MBA to be taken seriously)
International Man of Mystery => Have to be Mike Meyers sometimes *shudder*
Codemonkey => You mean you finished all four years? You're special!
Also, if you code bank software, you are not very likely to be sued for what the software does. Doctors have to buy insurance against being sued for malpractice, and stockbrokers... well, check out the headlines these days.
However, if all countries did that, then countries which are currently export positive, such as the USA, Australia, Japan etc, won't have a market to sell to.
Maybe Australia and Japan are export-positive, but the US is far from it. Check out our monstrous trade deficit.
Funny thing is, when you break the US down into regions (i.e. Southwest, Northwest, Northeast, Southeast, South, Midwest) only the Southwest region has a positive trade balance. This is in spite of the fact that we (us being California and the states right around us) account for the vast majority of imports, due to the extremely busy Los Angeles/Long Beach Port Complex. We still manufacture a heck of a lot in Southern California that goes overseas. But even though we come out ahead by a couple billion, the other regions are buying way more than they're sending out.
Slashdot Mirror
Netscape didn't innovate anything. They just assumed they were entitled to money for nothing.
Netscape invented multi-threaded browsing, didn't they? I thought that was the whole point of "mozilla..." it was mosaic, only bigger, and capable of doing more at once.
By your reasoning, Linux should be illegal, because Microsoft is entitled since they got there first with a commercial product. Yeah, doesn't sound so reasonable when your logic is applied there does it?
Er, no, that's not my logic at all. I'm not even sure how to begin explaining why, since it bears no resemblance to what I said. "Linux" is not a huge company with a domination over a given market, pouring lots of money into trying to shut down Microsoft. The Sherman Act has absolutely nothing to say about Linux. There's a lot more to it all than "One is free, the other costs money."
if you are serious about doing business, you need to lay down the capital. If the better presentation makes only a few more sells, well, that's worth the money.
;-)
Primarily I create presentations for non-profit organizations or government agencies. When your only goal is to let the FTA know you haven't been wasting their money for the last three months, it's hard to justify any capital investment.
Presentations aren't only for selling things. They're for communicating all sorts of ideas, for all sorts of reasons.
I actually like OO Impress much more than the other components (I don't like Writer at all). I used it several years ago (still StarOffice 5.2) to do several presentations and I cannot stand PowerPoint since then. Impress is a great piece of software and very intuitive. Making presentations with it is a breeze. Every time I have to do a presentation in PowerPoint nowadays, it turns to be a frustrating experience.
If I was creating presentations from scratch to present on my own laptop, this might be an option. Unfortunately, what I get paid to do (on a free-lance basis) is create presentations that will be presented somewhere else by someone else, on whatever computer is there. Most of the time these are variations on presentations created earlier, so it saves a lot of time (and my client a lot of money) for me to just edit an existing file.
When I've tried editing my powerpoint files in Impress, the animation has gotten very garbled, and some images have disappeared completely. If I spent a lot of time with it, I might be able to work it out, but then I'd still have to test it in PowerPoint afterward, and quite possibly tweak it a lot to make it work. So, until the cross-platform compatibility is there (to the same degree it is in Calc and Writer) I use PowerPoint, much as I'd rather not.
You can submit your OO.o bugs, etc. here.
That took me all of 12 seconds to find. If you don't count the time I spent writing this comment.
Yes, thank you, I found that page. And I used it to find the bug I was looking for. Now, how do I ADD a comment to an existing bug?
If you think it's appropriate, I could just enter a duplicate with more details, but...
Yes, but I think everyone will get the point that OO makes PDF files, and Word doesn't.
OO makes PDF files? What the heck am I messing around with Distiller for, then? (Besides all the other programs I do stuff in, that is.)
As far as I can tell, there's no way to make a PDF file from OO except the old fashioned print-to-Distiller method. Word at least has that nifty toolbar button, which works fairly well. I don't generally feel like I *need* it, so I never even thought about the fact that I don't have it until just now, but your assertion seems way off.
PDF files are MUCH less likely to cause problems, because they can contain the fonts they use. I don't think that is available in Word. In most cases, you don't want the person to whom you send the file to be able to change it, and maybe later forget and think it is his.
Amen to that. Though there is a checkbox for embedding fonts in Word. It's obscure, though, and probably platform-dependent. I've never really tried to use it, and since I don't have Word installed anymore, I can't try it now.
I would LOVE to see someone make a similar two-page brochure, formatted exactly the same way, that would provide all the arguments for using OO. Here's one: Word is quirky; it often does things that you don't expect, like put footers at the head of the next page.
Hm... I've never had that happen in Word. Or in Open Office, for that matter (though it took me a while to get used to the fact that if I didn't change my margins, OO would stick my headers and footers into my page space).
I'd really like to use something other than microsoft office, but I am simply chained down because on most college campuses, everything is "powerpoint lecture" or the syllabus is a Word .doc file. If there was an open source alternative to powerpoint that was significantly better and for efficient with an editor that was extremely simplistic (anyone can pick it up) it may have a chance of taking over powerpoint, but it just seems that so many people think of presenting lectures automatically think powerpoint.
.xls was that sometimes when a friend opened my spreadsheets in Office XP, she'd have strange split windows she had to turn off. There was some formatting weirdness with sharing a .doc file with a partner for a memo assignment, but in addition to using a different program, she was on Mac (so, whole different font system, etc.) Still, in neither case was it a show-stopper.
On my computer, I have OO for all my word processing and spreadsheet needs (and have gotten through two terms without any longing for Word or Excel), but I had to install PowerPoint to do freelance presentation design work. If I can figure out how to actually submit comments to bugs on the OO site, I will feedback Impress religiously in hopes that it becomes as facile an alternative as the others.
With respect to word processing and spreadsheets, I've shared files back and forth with MS Office, whether using it myself at school or having a partner editing the same files. The only problem I ever really noticed with
But, dude, just because you can't replace PowerPoint yet doesn't mean you have to install ALL of MS Office. Get away with what you can!
Blocking entire domains is a used in certain companies and universities just to avoid spam.
-1, redundant... this is exactly what the entire article is about. Problem is, rather than an admin making a decision to block a domain, a small committee of AOL users are able to do this... by accident.
There are resources on the 'net for a list of companies that Gates has purchase or "acquired" over the last 20 years and if you look at it closely, it's scary. I can't find the link, maybe someone else can.
Try The Microsoft File by Wendy Goldman Rohm. She combined all the research she did about MS as a Washington Post (I think?) reporter and came up with a riveting book about broken contracts, industrial espionage, and all kinds of dirty deeds.
Man, you can always use macromedia flash and a web browser... that's what I do.
Macromedia Flaxh MX 2004 (Not professional, just regular): $499
MS Office 2003 Professional, PowerPoint included: $499
Sooo... how do you talk your boss into doubling your software expenditures (since you probably already bought Office) so that you can develop a niftier presentation?
If you work in a place that already uses Flash, you'll have no problem. But for most folks, this is way out of reach. Creating flash animation is still a bit more complicated than PowerPoint, even if you use Swish to dumb it down. Finally, while the computer you're running your presentation with is almost certain to have at least the PowerPoint Viewer installed, you may have more trouble getting the Flash plug-in installed, especially if the system is locked down. (This isn't an issue if you're running off your own machine, but can be if you're using a built-in system in an auditorium.)
If there had been a competitor for PowerPoint (for a while, a lot of folks were using Visio for that... I'm still not sure how it wasn't illegal market domination for MS to buy them), then we might have something like Flash-based presentation tools that work in a web browser that have the same ease-of-use and availability as PowerPoint. But we don't, and I'm quite sad about that.
Hopefully, one of these days, I'll be able to spend some quality time with OO Impress and then submit a ton of bug reports/feature requests, in hopes that it will be a decent substitute. But to create stuff professionally, I still get stuck using PowerPoint for now.
Maybe he's not just displeased with MS but with his so called "friends" that don't have the tact to not ask a highly paid professional for free work.
So, do what I do: set rates, and charge everyone. My *mom* pays me $40 an hour to fix her computer issues. And usually makes me dinner, too. If she recommends me to a friend, I know that she's told them my rates already.
Not only does it cut down on the stupid stuff, but if they're paying for your time, they're more respectful of it, and what you do. If they don't want to pay, tell them to go pay CompUSA to do it instead or something. Ask them for free [whatever] from their business... works even better if they're a doctor or a lawyer.
In the era of DRDOS, I was using an Apple IIe, but I suspect its failure had more to do with it not offering any clear advantage over MSDOS.
And MSDOS offered no clear advantage over DRDOS... except that, as far as anyone could tell, it was more compatible with Windows. This was based on error messages that Windows beta testers got if they tried to run Windows on machines with DRDOS. Error messages that were, by the way, completely fake.
Netscape killed themselves by not adding anything significant to their browser for years after they first released Communicator. Communicator was better than IE3, but not IE4,
How is it that everyone totally forgets that, while IE4 was in development, IE3 was being given away for free and Netscape was suddenly out a revenue source? This has everything to do with the sudden drop in innovation. MS had entire operating system and office productivity departments to fund their browser with; Netscape had their server software (which was still doing quite well at the time). "Here, we're going to give our competing product away for free... *now* try developing yours!"
Truth is, Communicator should have been open-sourced right about then, and then it would have kept pace nicely. But, seriously, taking away a company's revenue stream and then jeering at *them* for not innovating is a bit... er, misguided.
Many of them are PAYING CUSTOMERS. Just because you are sending regular e-mail to paying customers does not mean it is not spam.
No, but just because you contacted the customer out-of-band and *confirmed* that they marked the message in error, does mean it is not spam (as stated in the original post).
And, for that matter, if you agree to get emails from a party, they're not spam. If you let them know you don't want emails anymore and keep getting them, they become spam... but reporting them such that the entire *ISP* gets blacklisted (too bad for anyone else using the same domain who actually *wants* those emails) isn't the first-string approach.
Well, here's the awful truth. Frequently, I'll buy something from a site, and as part of that purchase they'll make the completely unrealistic demand that I agree to receive emails from anyone they deem fit to sell the address to, or maybe even just from themselves whenever they like.
You're buying from the wrong places. Reputable, decent vendors give you the opportunity to opt out of any third-party or even first-party non-transaction-related emails. Ever since I bought something online from Macy's, I get mail from them every time they have a sale, but I don't get mail from anyone else who is their "partner." I'm careful what I click, and read the messages (sometimes it's "check here if you want us to send you tons of email" and sometimes it's "check here if you DON'T want us to send you tons of email"). If they're not giving you that option, don't buy from them, for pete's sake.
Oh, and, how can I tell whether my spam is from "partners" or from scum-sucking bottom dwellers? Whether they call me "pixel" or "Monica." The companies I actually do business with know my name.
Heh heh. Nice sig. Valenti really said that?
Yep. He was quoted by a columnist in Entertainment Weekly, when the anti-piracy ads were first coming out. here's a link, but I have the original story in print still, just to prove it.
Competition is now entering the market? The Mac and Linux didn't exist until now?
Sorry, here's the version for those with lower reading comprehension scores:
"Microsoft is now seeing some competition entering the market traditionally dominated by Windows; i.e. the mass-market prebuilt desktop x86-PCs that are most commonly bought by business and home users."
Also, the statement still stands if the competition was there, but they didn't really see it until now. Furthermore, even if they had some competition before (and many would argue that Apple is now a niche market, and not so much a direct competitor of Microsoft), that doesn't stop new competition from entering now, in the form of someone providing mass-market x86 PCs with Another Operating System.
When I was in grad school most of the stipends and scholarships were being given to foreign students. It bothered me then and now that my tax money and my tuition money was being used to educate people who aren't Americans.
Maybe you can give a few more details to back up that anecdote. The foreign students in my program are (1) paying more tuition even than the out-of-state American students; (2) eligible only for a handful of private or international fellowships. They can't get CalGrants, Pell Grants, or even qualify for a lot of the student loans out there. I'm in Urban Planning, and some of them are actually being funded by the government agencies they work for back home. One is on a Fulbright scholarship, which is basically a one-for-one exchange program operated by the US government.
So if you want to quote some figures, like how many students were in your program, how many were receiving aid from the US (or local) government, and how many of those were foreign students, please do... but consider that you may have received a distorted impression of what was actually going on.
I know there will always be a place for pure programmers, but I also hope to see more programmer-minded people in different fields.
I agree that tech-minded people absolutely need to get out of the IT rut.
If you're decent and you're willing to go where the cash is getting a job doesn't take much work. The key is; follow the cash. We hire kids out of college at ~$40k. That's basically Foster City rates.
And a fresh graduate with a crisp, shiny teaching credential and no special qualifications makes $41,177 teaching in LAUSD. And gets three months off per year.
So, the grandparent's assertion that, right out of college, he can make more than a teacher will after five years is not borne out by your statement.
I hear that in 2010 the US will face a shortage of 10 million-odd workers, though I haven't heard what industries those shortages will be in. If it's in computer science-related areas, then I can only imagine that the remaining 81% of people pursuing these degrees will be stoked.
;-)
That will be from the baby-boomers retiring in droves, so the jobs will not much be in CS. Maybe a few, but not significant numbers. They'll be more likely to be in things that we're already short on, like nursing, teaching, etc. I'm hoping a lot of them are public-sector, so that my MA in Urban Planning will be worth something (assuming I actually finish it by June...
Yes, applications to US Universities are down in EE and CS, but you'll find the biggest drop was in international student applications.
The University of California, system-wide, had an overall drop of 4.5% in applications this year (mostly because fees were raised 30% by one governor and then 40% by the next). But applications for international students dropped by 18%, mostly because they've had the devil's own time getting here to go to school. Some have missed an entire term after going home for the holidays and getting held up for no explainable reason when returning. (I'm sure there's an explanation, somewhere, but the students themselves apparently don't have the clearance to know why they're not allowed back after a two-week vacation.)
>> The other problem is that most of what is taught in comp-sci these days is not so great. There is a tendency to focus on algorithms (get them out of a book) rather than how to contribute to building large projects that work.
> Personally, I think this is what distinguishes the second-tier from the higher-tier schools. The lower tier schools will always teach you a certain technology. The higher tier schools will always teach you the theory and expect you to teach yourself the specific technology.
When I read the phrase "how to contribute to building large projects that work," I interpreted it as teamwork skills, project management, etc. These *are* pretty important things to learn.
You're right that it doesn't do all that much good to teach you a few programming languages and set you loose; you'll get a lot more from learning the algorithms and theory, because then you can pick up whatever language is required (and critique the hell out of it, too, if you're anything like my husband). But what I think many, many programs -- engineering and otherwise -- lack, is functional skills that will help you work with others on projects. *Why* is documenting your code important? *How* can you divide up a project into components that can be done by different people, and then put it together into something that works? You're not going to learn that if all the projects you do for school are things you write by yourself from scratch.
The people who major in sociology get jobs just like the people who major in other fields.
Or get laid off from them, as I did in 2000. Which is why I'm working on a master's in Transportation Planning.
But, yeah, Sociology degree with a Specialization in Computing (that means three C++ classes and two sociology classes that were heavily computer-dependent), and I was having fun with tech support, really. But I'm enjoying the transportation field even more.
I am going to be making more in my first job out of university (Computer Engineering, graduate this year) than most school teachers will after 5 years.
And you already have this job lined up?
Otherwise, in five years, you might still be looking for an entry-level CE job (and working as a substitute teacher to pay the bills). On the other hand, anyone with a teaching credential is hired in a second, at least here in California where we have a serious shortage of teachers.
Ah yes. The exciting world of Software Engineering.. Why become a doctor and save lifes, why be a stockbroker and make millions, why even think about being an international man of mystery who has to fight of women with a stick, when you can get a CS degree and spend the next 40 years of your life programming banksoftware in a cubicle?
Doctor => 10 years of school, internship, residency, etc.
Stockbroker => 6 years of school (need an MBA to be taken seriously)
International Man of Mystery => Have to be Mike Meyers sometimes *shudder*
Codemonkey => You mean you finished all four years? You're special!
Also, if you code bank software, you are not very likely to be sued for what the software does. Doctors have to buy insurance against being sued for malpractice, and stockbrokers... well, check out the headlines these days.
However, if all countries did that, then countries which are currently export positive, such as the USA, Australia, Japan etc, won't have a market to sell to.
Maybe Australia and Japan are export-positive, but the US is far from it. Check out our monstrous trade deficit.
Funny thing is, when you break the US down into regions (i.e. Southwest, Northwest, Northeast, Southeast, South, Midwest) only the Southwest region has a positive trade balance. This is in spite of the fact that we (us being California and the states right around us) account for the vast majority of imports, due to the extremely busy Los Angeles/Long Beach Port Complex. We still manufacture a heck of a lot in Southern California that goes overseas. But even though we come out ahead by a couple billion, the other regions are buying way more than they're sending out.