I think there is room for a better search engine still but I don't think Bing is it. At least not for me. There is room for a better engine in niche areas too and maybe they are trying for the niche of web illiterate users.
Have you used Bing? It kind of sucks. I can only hope it gets better but I don't know - lots of people complain it won't index their websites although I've had no trouble in that area.
Or maybe I just search for things it isn't good at - things I want to buy and documentation mostly. The most amusing was the other day when I tried looking up information about Bing's spiders (that behave oddly - not always following robots.txt and changing their user agent to look like IE). Couldn't find a thing on Bing but Google found it right away. Conspiracy to hide the information or suckage?
That's another interesting point. Why is Bing hitting my site again and again and making it look like real users using simple one word searches but all from the Bing IP block? When I try to use the same searches to find the same pages I don't see my site come up. Hmmm. Either way it's easier for webmasters if everyone just licenses one or two major search engines (Google and Bing) so that you only have to optimize your content to be listed high on them. It's hard when they all work different and sometimes in conflicting ways.
What the heck are you writing? About the most writing I do is signing my name on credit card receipts and I don't even do that anymore (my last name is to long so I just sign the first couple letters and make a squiggle.)
On the other hand I have an iPod Touch in my pocket and I can type on that faster than many people can write and the text can actually be read (along with emailed, saved, etc). If I need to write something fancier I usually have my laptop with me (no further than the car at least).
I'm 31 and I learned to write cursive. I can't write it anymore because I never need it. Who cares? It's hard to read anyway. Print is more legible which is why they ask you to print on forms. For any long documents I type (and have for nearly twenty years).
This is like people whining that the Internet is changing language. Things change and become more efficient. Is it really a problem?
I've managed hundreds of computers from many vendors. In my experience most PCs are crap. I worked for one major vendor and their policy was to make and sell crap (yes it was an official policy). Gateway, Dell, IBM, HP, whatever they tend to be built really badly especially when you go cheap. You can't get something good for nothing.
Obviously even good products sometimes have problems but bad problems have a lot more problems. At least in my (considerable?) experience Macs last longer than PCs. Part of this is admittedly that people buy cheap crappy PCs. The other major factor is that vendors think that PC buyers don't notice if they use crappy parts and are probably right. I can't say how many times I've seen Windows blamed for bad hardware.
I don't think you're understanding the concept of TCO. How much time are you spending building, maintaining, and upgrading? How much data loss and time down do you suffer when your PC dies?
You may not use your computers near as hard as I do either so maybe for you computers don't wear out near as often. If so then a cheaper computer may work fine for you.
And I do still build my own servers although in that case I usually go with really high-end hardware so the Mac might actually be cheaper. (I have an AIX server too and that is pretty high dollar.)
If you buy a cheap PC most of the time it's components aren't as high quality as a Mac. It may be cheaper but it probably isn't going to last as long. My experience is that cheap PCs last me about a year where a Mac lasts me about five years under the same level of (ab)use. I count my hassle of switching systems (moving files, etc) as a cost. I count loss of data when a system dies as a large cost. Add that the Mac is cooler (not as hot) so I can use it on my lap, bed, etc without worry and easier to use (multitouch pad, nice power adapter) and yes an Apple is a premium system and a cheap PC isn't.
I think it compares more with the luxury car market. You pay more for a car that will last longer, look nicer, and run better. It's the same thing with computers. Apple only sells premium models so I know any Apple product I buy will be high quality. Last year's Mac hasn't devalued the way last year's PC has because people know the Mac isn't going to need replaced every other year.
I don't buy branded PCs. If I need one, usually for a Linux server, I build it. If I want a desktop computer I buy Apple. The hardware is better quality than most branded PCs and is highly similar between units so it can easily be tested and relied on. It also happens to look nicer and come with an OS that works a whole lot better. We use VMWare Fusion for those who need Windows or Linux desktops.
My Dell, which has a bigger screen and faster CPU than my MacBook, is mostly used by my wife and she is wanting to switch to a MacBook because it is so much easier to use and doesn't get to hot when used on your lap. My sister recently switched from PC to MacBook too.
A couple hundred dollars of cost upfront is a lot cheaper than TCO on a PC and in almost every way a Mac is better,
Right? It's there and there is nobody there to stop us. That is all the right we need. Might makes right and in this case there isn't even anyone to complain.
This planet is doomed anyway. If not by man then by nature it will eventually bite the dust. You stay here with all your eggs in one basket. I think mankind needs to hedge it's bets and expand as fast and far as possible. That's what a species that wants to survive would do.
Why live at all if you're going to live by some crazy rules set down by some nuts that don't even know what the frick they're talking about? Most greenies are hippies that don't know any actually science and it's all about being nice and in tune and that kind of crap. Then you get the second layer that just do it because it's politically correct and kind of cool right now. Obviously we all need to live within limits. That doesn't mean we can't use plastic, eat meat, or actually behave as human beings have a right to act like human beings (the most successful species ever to our knowledge).
Green living isn't going to do shit for mankind. It's to late to go back - the only way left is forward. We need to use chemistry, genetics, nanotech, and all those other 'evils' to leapfrog our own path of destruction. This is just one planet - we can make others habitable if needed.
It was always my impression that the Cell was designed to be used with more than one CPU per system and more cores than the PS3 has enabled per CPU. Instead of investing in a whole new CPU for next gen systems it seems they intended to be able to throw more CPUs in. Tweak up the processor speed a little and compete with a lot less invested. I remember them advertising that if other appliances were on the same network and had Cell processors that your PlayStation would be able to utilize that processing power.
I lost several domains I've had for years - I paid to renew them with Yi.org, the reseller and DNS host, and while they charged me they never did the job. I contacted eNom, the registrar, and they made excuses as to why they they couldn't help me. They still held the domains in my name - for some domains they offered to fix it if I paid $160 extra fee each and some they flat out claimed they could do nothing. In the end I lost some and finally figured out I could grab them back on their partner NameJet for a mere $69 extra each. I never got a refund from Yi either - they stopped responding to customer service requests.
Another place I had some domains at, 1&1, locked the domains so I couldn't use them, transfer them, or renew them because I canceled my hosted server I had with them. I think this was just a case of a really bad user-interface and customer service.
All in all I've had bad luck with domains in the past couple years. Before that, for the previous 10+ years with multiple registrars, I don't remember ever having an issue.
Cheap is different. Cheap and good don't always go together. I owned a few cheap Mac clones and they pretty much always sucked compared to a real Mac. They were cheaper but they lacked the quality of an Apple product.
I do think Apple can do a netbook cheaper than the Air but I don't think it'd be $300. A sub-$1000 product that hits a sweet spot between an iPod Touch and a netbook though could be really nice. People looking for cheap wouldn't want it though.
The "I'm a PC." ads from Microsoft are true. You can buy a bulky, ugly, low quality PC for less than you can buy an Apple product. You get what you pay for. A Ford Focus essentially does what a BMW does but it doesn't look as nice, run as well, or last as long. I do think Apple should license other companies to produce compatible, if crappy, clones. Sometimes crap is all you need. They just don't want to tarnish their brand selling crap themselves.
I see it everywhere - not just in computer stuff. Stupid politically correct bullshit. When I was in school it was proper grammar to use male pronouns for generic use. Women were special and got their own pronouns. Now we're so desperate to make women equal in everything that we can't honor women without it somehow being uncool. I'm surprised we can still call women Miss and don't have to refer to everyone as Sir.
I think we're going to start snipping newborn boys off at the root so that we can claim boys and girls are exactly the same.
I've been a developer for the XO since it was still in testing and Sugar is the #1 reason I've consistantly disliked the XO. The hardware is good. Every kid I've shown it to, and many adults, has loved the thing and it's taken a lot of abuse. My 13 month old daughter loves the XO. But why it doesn't run a normal distro I don't know. Even something like Android or the rumored Chrome OS could be a winner but Sugar is just slow, ugly, buggy, and lame.
Other than that I'd say the biggest error was not targeting it as a consumer device in the US. Screw selling it to third world governments and sell it to us parents that are dropping $80 for a crappy toy laptop that doesn't even do anything. A durable netbook for kids is a good idea and will sell. I let my daughter play with my iPod Touch ($300) and she has her own portable DVD player w/ screen ($200). I'm considering buying a CrunchPad or two for the family. I've hacked my PS2 to be a media player for her. I would spend a fair amount for a kids laptop and I doubt I'm alone.
The other bad thing about the XO was the lack of good documentation and tools for developers. It has always been confusing as to what could and couldn't be done with the XO and the best way to do it. I spent my $100 for an iPhone developer license, bought books, etc but no such resources existed for the XO. Often it felt like the software side of things was the bastard step child of the project.
Better than that - I've realized that I can clone/improve their products and ship them from China for a fraction of buying their item. In some cases I've seriously considered this option although I would rather sell products made in the US.
If I buy a product I can then do whatever the heck I want with it. If I want to sell it at a lose it's none of their business. If I want to paint it pink and treat it like my girl it's none of their business?
Really? I've looked multiple times. If it does run on Mac then it should be a lot easier to find out... Since you mentioned it I went back and looked and now see one line after about six clicks that shows it will run on Mac OS. They should have system specs easier to find.
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I think there is room for a better search engine still but I don't think Bing is it. At least not for me. There is room for a better engine in niche areas too and maybe they are trying for the niche of web illiterate users.
I think it's mostly a matter of time I think before Bing gets full of spam. From what I've seen it's more a factor of how small it's index still is.
Having the keyword in the domain is a major boost. ;)
Have you used Bing? It kind of sucks. I can only hope it gets better but I don't know - lots of people complain it won't index their websites although I've had no trouble in that area.
Or maybe I just search for things it isn't good at - things I want to buy and documentation mostly. The most amusing was the other day when I tried looking up information about Bing's spiders (that behave oddly - not always following robots.txt and changing their user agent to look like IE). Couldn't find a thing on Bing but Google found it right away. Conspiracy to hide the information or suckage?
That's another interesting point. Why is Bing hitting my site again and again and making it look like real users using simple one word searches but all from the Bing IP block? When I try to use the same searches to find the same pages I don't see my site come up. Hmmm. Either way it's easier for webmasters if everyone just licenses one or two major search engines (Google and Bing) so that you only have to optimize your content to be listed high on them. It's hard when they all work different and sometimes in conflicting ways.
What the heck are you writing? About the most writing I do is signing my name on credit card receipts and I don't even do that anymore (my last name is to long so I just sign the first couple letters and make a squiggle.)
On the other hand I have an iPod Touch in my pocket and I can type on that faster than many people can write and the text can actually be read (along with emailed, saved, etc). If I need to write something fancier I usually have my laptop with me (no further than the car at least).
I'm 31 and I learned to write cursive. I can't write it anymore because I never need it. Who cares? It's hard to read anyway. Print is more legible which is why they ask you to print on forms. For any long documents I type (and have for nearly twenty years).
This is like people whining that the Internet is changing language. Things change and become more efficient. Is it really a problem?
I've managed hundreds of computers from many vendors. In my experience most PCs are crap. I worked for one major vendor and their policy was to make and sell crap (yes it was an official policy). Gateway, Dell, IBM, HP, whatever they tend to be built really badly especially when you go cheap. You can't get something good for nothing.
Obviously even good products sometimes have problems but bad problems have a lot more problems. At least in my (considerable?) experience Macs last longer than PCs. Part of this is admittedly that people buy cheap crappy PCs. The other major factor is that vendors think that PC buyers don't notice if they use crappy parts and are probably right. I can't say how many times I've seen Windows blamed for bad hardware.
I don't think you're understanding the concept of TCO. How much time are you spending building, maintaining, and upgrading? How much data loss and time down do you suffer when your PC dies?
You may not use your computers near as hard as I do either so maybe for you computers don't wear out near as often. If so then a cheaper computer may work fine for you.
And I do still build my own servers although in that case I usually go with really high-end hardware so the Mac might actually be cheaper. (I have an AIX server too and that is pretty high dollar.)
If you buy a cheap PC most of the time it's components aren't as high quality as a Mac. It may be cheaper but it probably isn't going to last as long. My experience is that cheap PCs last me about a year where a Mac lasts me about five years under the same level of (ab)use. I count my hassle of switching systems (moving files, etc) as a cost. I count loss of data when a system dies as a large cost. Add that the Mac is cooler (not as hot) so I can use it on my lap, bed, etc without worry and easier to use (multitouch pad, nice power adapter) and yes an Apple is a premium system and a cheap PC isn't.
I think it compares more with the luxury car market. You pay more for a car that will last longer, look nicer, and run better. It's the same thing with computers. Apple only sells premium models so I know any Apple product I buy will be high quality. Last year's Mac hasn't devalued the way last year's PC has because people know the Mac isn't going to need replaced every other year.
I don't buy branded PCs. If I need one, usually for a Linux server, I build it. If I want a desktop computer I buy Apple. The hardware is better quality than most branded PCs and is highly similar between units so it can easily be tested and relied on. It also happens to look nicer and come with an OS that works a whole lot better. We use VMWare Fusion for those who need Windows or Linux desktops.
My Dell, which has a bigger screen and faster CPU than my MacBook, is mostly used by my wife and she is wanting to switch to a MacBook because it is so much easier to use and doesn't get to hot when used on your lap. My sister recently switched from PC to MacBook too.
A couple hundred dollars of cost upfront is a lot cheaper than TCO on a PC and in almost every way a Mac is better,
So said by species that are no longer with us.
Right? It's there and there is nobody there to stop us. That is all the right we need. Might makes right and in this case there isn't even anyone to complain.
This planet is doomed anyway. If not by man then by nature it will eventually bite the dust. You stay here with all your eggs in one basket. I think mankind needs to hedge it's bets and expand as fast and far as possible. That's what a species that wants to survive would do.
Why live at all if you're going to live by some crazy rules set down by some nuts that don't even know what the frick they're talking about? Most greenies are hippies that don't know any actually science and it's all about being nice and in tune and that kind of crap. Then you get the second layer that just do it because it's politically correct and kind of cool right now. Obviously we all need to live within limits. That doesn't mean we can't use plastic, eat meat, or actually behave as human beings have a right to act like human beings (the most successful species ever to our knowledge).
Green living isn't going to do shit for mankind. It's to late to go back - the only way left is forward. We need to use chemistry, genetics, nanotech, and all those other 'evils' to leapfrog our own path of destruction. This is just one planet - we can make others habitable if needed.
I should probably change my sig. I think it's been the same since the dawn of time. ...
In fact I just changed it. Once a decade sigs should change.
Besides, when I asked the P7 chips were way expensive on top of a server that already costs 10's of thousands of dollars.
It was always my impression that the Cell was designed to be used with more than one CPU per system and more cores than the PS3 has enabled per CPU. Instead of investing in a whole new CPU for next gen systems it seems they intended to be able to throw more CPUs in. Tweak up the processor speed a little and compete with a lot less invested. I remember them advertising that if other appliances were on the same network and had Cell processors that your PlayStation would be able to utilize that processing power.
And nobody ever bothered to learn to program a GPU either because specialized processors don't work and are to much trouble.
I lost several domains I've had for years - I paid to renew them with Yi.org, the reseller and DNS host, and while they charged me they never did the job. I contacted eNom, the registrar, and they made excuses as to why they they couldn't help me. They still held the domains in my name - for some domains they offered to fix it if I paid $160 extra fee each and some they flat out claimed they could do nothing. In the end I lost some and finally figured out I could grab them back on their partner NameJet for a mere $69 extra each. I never got a refund from Yi either - they stopped responding to customer service requests.
Another place I had some domains at, 1&1, locked the domains so I couldn't use them, transfer them, or renew them because I canceled my hosted server I had with them. I think this was just a case of a really bad user-interface and customer service.
All in all I've had bad luck with domains in the past couple years. Before that, for the previous 10+ years with multiple registrars, I don't remember ever having an issue.
Cheap is different. Cheap and good don't always go together. I owned a few cheap Mac clones and they pretty much always sucked compared to a real Mac. They were cheaper but they lacked the quality of an Apple product.
I do think Apple can do a netbook cheaper than the Air but I don't think it'd be $300. A sub-$1000 product that hits a sweet spot between an iPod Touch and a netbook though could be really nice. People looking for cheap wouldn't want it though.
The "I'm a PC." ads from Microsoft are true. You can buy a bulky, ugly, low quality PC for less than you can buy an Apple product. You get what you pay for. A Ford Focus essentially does what a BMW does but it doesn't look as nice, run as well, or last as long. I do think Apple should license other companies to produce compatible, if crappy, clones. Sometimes crap is all you need. They just don't want to tarnish their brand selling crap themselves.
Thank god someone else remembers. I was thinking of digging out my old grammar books.
I see it everywhere - not just in computer stuff. Stupid politically correct bullshit. When I was in school it was proper grammar to use male pronouns for generic use. Women were special and got their own pronouns. Now we're so desperate to make women equal in everything that we can't honor women without it somehow being uncool. I'm surprised we can still call women Miss and don't have to refer to everyone as Sir.
I think we're going to start snipping newborn boys off at the root so that we can claim boys and girls are exactly the same.
I've been a developer for the XO since it was still in testing and Sugar is the #1 reason I've consistantly disliked the XO. The hardware is good. Every kid I've shown it to, and many adults, has loved the thing and it's taken a lot of abuse. My 13 month old daughter loves the XO. But why it doesn't run a normal distro I don't know. Even something like Android or the rumored Chrome OS could be a winner but Sugar is just slow, ugly, buggy, and lame.
Other than that I'd say the biggest error was not targeting it as a consumer device in the US. Screw selling it to third world governments and sell it to us parents that are dropping $80 for a crappy toy laptop that doesn't even do anything. A durable netbook for kids is a good idea and will sell. I let my daughter play with my iPod Touch ($300) and she has her own portable DVD player w/ screen ($200). I'm considering buying a CrunchPad or two for the family. I've hacked my PS2 to be a media player for her. I would spend a fair amount for a kids laptop and I doubt I'm alone.
The other bad thing about the XO was the lack of good documentation and tools for developers. It has always been confusing as to what could and couldn't be done with the XO and the best way to do it. I spent my $100 for an iPhone developer license, bought books, etc but no such resources existed for the XO. Often it felt like the software side of things was the bastard step child of the project.
Better than that - I've realized that I can clone/improve their products and ship them from China for a fraction of buying their item. In some cases I've seriously considered this option although I would rather sell products made in the US.
If I buy a product I can then do whatever the heck I want with it. If I want to sell it at a lose it's none of their business. If I want to paint it pink and treat it like my girl it's none of their business?
Really? I've looked multiple times. If it does run on Mac then it should be a lot easier to find out... Since you mentioned it I went back and looked and now see one line after about six clicks that shows it will run on Mac OS. They should have system specs easier to find.
Thanks for the info though.