I worked for Compusa in Chandler, AZ (Store 249) for two summers and it was almost too much to bare. The sales people on the floor are generally lazy, dishonest, and unwilling to go out of their way for customers. We were in a relatively low traffic store because of our location. The managers were generally 23 year old kids in there to make their $35k a year until they got fired.
The thing I always was frustrated with was we were threatened into selling warranties that would not cover anything other than factory defect. For each warranty we sold we got anywhere from $1-$4 on cameras, peripherals and $5-$10 on computer warranties.
We almost never had anything in stock. Probably 50% of the questions we got we sent to other nearby stores.
The other problem I had was the amount of time it took for people to be able to buy laptops. Somebody would pick out a laptop, then I would need to check the stock on the item, then go back up to the front of the store grab a UPC sheet for that laptop for the person to get checked out, and we could only ring the person out through the tech shop, so I would need to page a manager to unlock the register and check them out. Usually it takes at least 5 minutes for the manager to come over, then the manager would raz you for not selling warranties as we walked over to laptop lockup. We had to Find the matching UPC laptop, which generally we could not find because somebody took that one already (in which case we would have to return and re-ring the poor guy's laptop), but if we do find it, we fill out a checkout form. walk out and hand it to the guy. This process usually takes 30 minutes if the store is at all busy.
The other thing was the stores stocked so much shit in them. Paper.. landscaping software.. desk gadgets..lame PC mod stuff & lame cases... off brand overpriced external drives.. offbrand networking devices.. Video Games.. Books.. We spent more time moving old shit around than we actually spent on the sales floor. They should should have less selection.. more stock. They needed to go through with a fine tooth comb and fix that.
It was a great job in the summer because it was indoors, pretty easy, the hours were flexible, the people were okay, but I have seen a big decline in the last few years.
everyone acuses theo of being an asshole eliteist.. take a look at his project. Openbsd is completely based on being secure. Do you want a coder using cheap hacks to get code working or some asshole bent on security? He's the right guy for the job
It's probably one of the greatest games I've ever played. The attention to detail is amazing, and I would suggest giving the game a try.
I came from playing DAoC religiously for 3 years, and after having not played it for a few months, when I started to play WoW again i start slipping into my long nights of no sleep;p
It's a great game, but it's still far too time consuming for the casual gamer.
Taking a chip.3 ghz higher than its factory clock will show a difference in speed.. And there is a l33t factor involved in this. Its kind of like putting a $5000 stereo system in an $800 car. People like to get the most of their rigs.
What is the point in putting debian on a dvd when there is such an awesome packaging system? Why in the hell would you want to install 200 packages, only to apt-get upgrade and download those same 200 packages again? Debian on a deskette or one of those mini business card cd's is what we need, not dvds.
Now I live in an intel family. At one time, half of my family was employed there, and they have taken care of us. Intel is one of those companies, like ibm, that will never die. It is going to be with us until the big asteroid slams into earth, and only cockroaches and cowboyneal will survive. Right now, intel has a surplus of money stored away for "a rainy day" that could buy AMD 8 times over. With AMD laying off this many people and losing their Gateway contract, partially because of the recent fall in the US stock market, AMD and alot of companies are going to to have a problem bouncing back like they have been able to do in the past. AMD will always be around, and there will always be loyal customers, but there is no way they could be "on top" of intel.
after they install backdoors in encryption, they will disarm us and start stripping americans of our rights. Why dont you just give everyone access to our private information? could we be any more vulnerable then? Americans are only agreeing with this because the present threat of the moment is the spread of Terrorism on us soil. They are blind as to what this actually means if it is to happen.
Most of these creators of the themes.org come off as rude and having an elitist attitude. The times ive been on irc.openprojects.net, ive been disgusted at how people are treated that dont "belong" to certain channels. This is the kind of thing that happens in irc servers all over the place, but it should not be happening on openprojects.net. The problem with it is, osdn is run by these same people. Its not a matter of "just leave the channel if you dont like how you are treated", because it goes further than that. It reaches into responses to comments and emails. These people do an excellent job maintaining osdn, but they need to learn how to deal with people. Being a "computer geek" (call it what you will) is no excuse for being an asshole.
When any army goes out to battle, they aren't trying to improve the environment, plant trees, save baby seals, or release killer whales from captivity.. They are there to destroy the enemy. I think its safe to say we are thankful that a few endangered birds could have been knocked out of a tree by a US tank as a result of Germany's defeat in WWII. I also think its safe to say every american is thankful that the atomic bomb was used on Japan at the end of WWII instead of there being a huge invasion of Japan by US forces and resulting in large loss of american lives.
People are saying we(humans and CowboyNeal) are destroying the environment. Hell, we are a part of the environment. In the wild, animals do whatever they need to do to stay alive and multiply. That is all humans have done, and that is what humans will be doing until the end of our exsitance.
When I think about what makes a a particular game fun to play, I think very little of the storyline. For most of the FPS games that people play nowadays, the storyline is just something we notice taking up space on the screen while waiting to connect to a multiplayer server. We'll take halflife for example. The reason the original halflife game didn't flourish was because of the story line getting in the way of the gameplay. It seemed every 5 minutes you would have to stop and wait for a character to talk to you for information on how do complete the mission. But if you look at all of the sucessful halflife mods out there (counterstrike, firearms, paintball), It shows that the creation of the halflife engine was a great success, and that is why halflife was game of the year for the past few years. So depending on the target audience, games with really strong storylines dont fly well with the FPS game movement.
There are alot of PalmOS applications that you will find on the net that will turn your palm/visor into a little workstation.
lftp- Ftp client for the palm.
Torpedo - html editor (use lftp to upload these pages)
mMail - the best pop3 email client for the palm
ptelnet - telnet client
PalmIRC - Palm irc client
TopGun ssh - ssh client
Palm httpd - httpd for palm
There is a large number of palm apps at http://palmgear.com if you are in search of some.
Visorcentral.com has alot of good info regarding handspring visors.
Ive been using my nokia 8290 and my visor deluxe to connect to the net for the last few months. I dont need to use a serial cable because the visor and the phone connect via infared. So i can/. on the go or do whatever..
I have got through 2 IBM stinkpads in the last year. I am really dissapointed by the construction and the performance of the machines.
I would check out http://www.reviewbooth.com/ before you make any major purchases on a notebook.
email from intel
on
Itanium Update
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I received this from one of my intel comrades which was sent to all of the intel eployees.
Speed is important. On Monday, Intel launched the Intel® Pentium® 4 processor at 2 GHz. Tuesday, during his keynote atthe Intel Developer Forum, Paul Otellini, executive vice president and general manager, Intel Architecture Group, demonstrated a processor operating at fully 3.5 GHz.
But that's not the half of it. Otellini went on to note that the Pentium4 microarchitecture is expected to scale to a whopping 10 GHz.
Now that's a "Wow!"
But, exciting as speed is, it isn't everything. While it is important,"it is not sufficient to drive the levels of growth and innovation that will allow our industry to prosper," Otellini said.
Speaking before an audience of 4,000 developers, designers, and executives Tuesday, Otellini noted that as the computing industry has grown and new technologies have evolved, purchasing criteria are changing. "We all need to change the pattern of our investments," he cautioned the crowd. "We need to think beyond gigahertz and build substantially better computers."
Buyers now look to a variety of features, noted Otellini: style, form factor, security, power consumption, reliability, communications functions, price, and overall user experience. Combinations of these and other features are driving end-user technology requirements in individual market segments. Intel plans to develop technologies that will help address these changing requirements in each of the key market segments.
Here are just a few of the ways Intel plans to go beyond gigahertz, as Otellini revealed in his keynote address:
It's like multiple processors on a single chip
Otellini introduced the audience to a breakthrough in processor design called hyper-threading. This technology allows microprocessors to handle more information at the same time by sharing computing resources more efficiently. The technology provides a 30 percent performance boost in certain server and workstation applications and will first appear next year in the Intel® Xeon[tm] processor family.
What your saying is nothing new. There are thousands of posts criticizing slashdot for everything, and you are complaining about stale and repetitions news? If anything, there is more participation with slashdot than there ever has been before.
Three years ago, Slashdot was "The Place" to go for computer news. Slashdot broke stories way before any other sites covered them.
Three years ago this was one of the only sites that broke news first. Since then people have become addicted to bleeding edge news and updates. In the wake of slashdot, many other sites where started in a snowball effect. I think slashdot has done a great job over the past few years.
That's the most disinterested, apathetic attitude I've seen in a long time. Get over it? Is that how you respond to valid criticisms?
My mother once told me "Sticks and stones may break your bones but words will never hurt you"
Cubes are just working areas for 8 hours of your day, not little appartments where you sleep. Its in interesting article but for the most part a cube is a cube is a cube.
The reason they are supporting free software is because they all see the possible marketing opportunities. They are going to milk this cow,err, I mean penguin dry until its dead.
Although I must admit they are developing some very cool technology.
Why are we trying to colonize mars when we have the moon soclose? Think about the possibilities.. If raw materials such as iron where to be refined, the cost to transfer the materials would be cheaper because of the short distance.
Even looking at it from a safety standpoint.. If something were to happen where an evacuation needed to take place, they are that much closer to home. I guess we are just trying to see how far humans can reach into space.
Slashdot Mirror
I worked for Compusa in Chandler, AZ (Store 249) for two summers and it was almost too much to bare. The sales people on the floor are generally lazy, dishonest, and unwilling to go out of their way for customers. We were in a relatively low traffic store because of our location. The managers were generally 23 year old kids in there to make their $35k a year until they got fired.
The thing I always was frustrated with was we were threatened into selling warranties that would not cover anything other than factory defect. For each warranty we sold we got anywhere from $1-$4 on cameras, peripherals and $5-$10 on computer warranties.
We almost never had anything in stock. Probably 50% of the questions we got we sent to other nearby stores.
The other problem I had was the amount of time it took for people to be able to buy laptops. Somebody would pick out a laptop, then I would need to check the stock on the item, then go back up to the front of the store grab a UPC sheet for that laptop for the person to get checked out, and we could only ring the person out through the tech shop, so I would need to page a manager to unlock the register and check them out. Usually it takes at least 5 minutes for the manager to come over, then the manager would raz you for not selling warranties as we walked over to laptop lockup. We had to Find the matching UPC laptop, which generally we could not find because somebody took that one already (in which case we would have to return and re-ring the poor guy's laptop), but if we do find it, we fill out a checkout form. walk out and hand it to the guy. This process usually takes 30 minutes if the store is at all busy.
The other thing was the stores stocked so much shit in them. Paper.. landscaping software.. desk gadgets..lame PC mod stuff & lame cases... off brand overpriced external drives.. offbrand networking devices.. Video Games.. Books.. We spent more time moving old shit around than we actually spent on the sales floor. They should should have less selection.. more stock. They needed to go through with a fine tooth comb and fix that.
It was a great job in the summer because it was indoors, pretty easy, the hours were flexible, the people were okay, but I have seen a big decline in the last few years.
everyone acuses theo of being an asshole eliteist.. take a look at his project. Openbsd is completely based on being secure. Do you want a coder using cheap hacks to get code working or some asshole bent on security? He's the right guy for the job
the AP's have to physically be located somewhere, and use electricity somebody is paying for. They'll need permits for all of this.
It's probably one of the greatest games I've ever played. The attention to detail is amazing, and I would suggest giving the game a try.
;p
I came from playing DAoC religiously for 3 years, and after having not played it for a few months, when I started to play WoW again i start slipping into my long nights of no sleep
It's a great game, but it's still far too time consuming for the casual gamer.
Taking a chip .3 ghz higher than its factory clock will show a difference in speed.. And there is a l33t factor involved in this. Its kind of like putting a $5000 stereo system in an $800 car. People like to get the most of their rigs.
What is the point in putting debian on a dvd when there is such an awesome packaging system? Why in the hell would you want to install 200 packages, only to apt-get upgrade and download those same 200 packages again? Debian on a deskette or one of those mini business card cd's is what we need, not dvds.
Now I live in an intel family. At one time, half of my family was employed there, and they have taken care of us. Intel is one of those companies, like ibm, that will never die. It is going to be with us until the big asteroid slams into earth, and only cockroaches and cowboyneal will survive. Right now, intel has a surplus of money stored away for "a rainy day" that could buy AMD 8 times over. With AMD laying off this many people and losing their Gateway contract, partially because of the recent fall in the US stock market, AMD and alot of companies are going to to have a problem bouncing back like they have been able to do in the past. AMD will always be around, and there will always be loyal customers, but there is no way they could be "on top" of intel.
That guy in the photo looks like Langly from the Lone gunmen.
after they install backdoors in encryption, they will disarm us and start stripping americans of our rights. Why dont you just give everyone access to our private information? could we be any more vulnerable then? Americans are only agreeing with this because the present threat of the moment is the spread of Terrorism on us soil. They are blind as to what this actually means if it is to happen.
There are similar potatoes at the local AJ's fine foods here in tempe. If you mash these purple potatoes, they look like lint from the dryer.
Most of these creators of the themes.org come off as rude and having an elitist attitude. The times ive been on irc.openprojects.net, ive been disgusted at how people are treated that dont "belong" to certain channels. This is the kind of thing that happens in irc servers all over the place, but it should not be happening on openprojects.net. The problem with it is, osdn is run by these same people. Its not a matter of "just leave the channel if you dont like how you are treated", because it goes further than that. It reaches into responses to comments and emails. These people do an excellent job maintaining osdn, but they need to learn how to deal with people. Being a "computer geek" (call it what you will) is no excuse for being an asshole.
I'll have plenty of time to sleep when im dead.
When any army goes out to battle, they aren't trying to improve the environment, plant trees, save baby seals, or release killer whales from captivity.. They are there to destroy the enemy. I think its safe to say we are thankful that a few endangered birds could have been knocked out of a tree by a US tank as a result of Germany's defeat in WWII. I also think its safe to say every american is thankful that the atomic bomb was used on Japan at the end of WWII instead of there being a huge invasion of Japan by US forces and resulting in large loss of american lives.
People are saying we(humans and CowboyNeal) are destroying the environment. Hell, we are a part of the environment. In the wild, animals do whatever they need to do to stay alive and multiply. That is all humans have done, and that is what humans will be doing until the end of our exsitance.
When I think about what makes a a particular game fun to play, I think very little of the storyline. For most of the FPS games that people play nowadays, the storyline is just something we notice taking up space on the screen while waiting to connect to a multiplayer server. We'll take halflife for example. The reason the original halflife game didn't flourish was because of the story line getting in the way of the gameplay. It seemed every 5 minutes you would have to stop and wait for a character to talk to you for information on how do complete the mission. But if you look at all of the sucessful halflife mods out there (counterstrike, firearms, paintball), It shows that the creation of the halflife engine was a great success, and that is why halflife was game of the year for the past few years. So depending on the target audience, games with really strong storylines dont fly well with the FPS game movement.
There are alot of PalmOS applications that you will find on the net that will turn your palm/visor into a little workstation.
lftp- Ftp client for the palm.
Torpedo - html editor (use lftp to upload these pages)
mMail - the best pop3 email client for the palm
ptelnet - telnet client
PalmIRC - Palm irc client
TopGun ssh - ssh client
Palm httpd - httpd for palm
There is a large number of palm apps at http://palmgear.com if you are in search of some.
Visorcentral.com has alot of good info regarding handspring visors.
Ive been using my nokia 8290 and my visor deluxe to connect to the net for the last few months. I dont need to use a serial cable because the visor and the phone connect via infared. So i can /. on the go or do whatever..
Here is debian.org on my visor. Im using palmscape for browsing.
if you have a 8290 and a visor deluxe, somebody wrote a guide on howto get them to work together.
I have got through 2 IBM stinkpads in the last year. I am really dissapointed by the construction and the performance of the machines.
I would check out http://www.reviewbooth.com/ before you make any major purchases on a notebook.
I received this from one of my intel comrades which was sent to all of the intel eployees.
Speed is important. On Monday, Intel launched the Intel® Pentium® 4 processor at 2 GHz. Tuesday, during his keynote atthe Intel Developer Forum, Paul Otellini, executive vice president and general manager, Intel Architecture Group, demonstrated a processor operating at fully 3.5 GHz.
But that's not the half of it. Otellini went on to note that the Pentium4 microarchitecture is expected to scale to a whopping 10 GHz.
Now that's a "Wow!"
But, exciting as speed is, it isn't everything. While it is important,"it is not sufficient to drive the levels of growth and innovation that will allow our industry to prosper," Otellini said.
Speaking before an audience of 4,000 developers, designers, and executives Tuesday, Otellini noted that as the computing industry has grown and new technologies have evolved, purchasing criteria are changing. "We all need to change the pattern of our investments," he cautioned the crowd. "We need to think beyond gigahertz and build substantially better computers."
Buyers now look to a variety of features, noted Otellini: style, form factor, security, power consumption, reliability, communications functions, price, and overall user experience. Combinations of these and other features are driving end-user technology requirements in individual market segments. Intel plans to develop technologies that will help address these changing requirements in each of the key market segments.
Here are just a few of the ways Intel plans to go beyond gigahertz, as Otellini revealed in his keynote address:
It's like multiple processors on a single chip
Otellini introduced the audience to a breakthrough in processor design called hyper-threading. This technology allows microprocessors to handle more information at the same time by sharing computing resources more efficiently. The technology provides a 30 percent performance boost in certain server and workstation applications and will first appear next year in the Intel® Xeon[tm] processor family.
Three years ago, Slashdot was "The Place" to go for computer news. Slashdot broke stories way before any other sites covered them.
Three years ago this was one of the only sites that broke news first. Since then people have become addicted to bleeding edge news and updates. In the wake of slashdot, many other sites where started in a snowball effect. I think slashdot has done a great job over the past few years.
That's the most disinterested, apathetic attitude I've seen in a long time. Get over it? Is that how you respond to valid criticisms?
My mother once told me "Sticks and stones may break your bones but words will never hurt you"
Cubes are just working areas for 8 hours of your day, not little appartments where you sleep. Its in interesting article but for the most part a cube is a cube is a cube.
The reason they are supporting free software is because they all see the possible marketing opportunities. They are going to milk this cow,err, I mean penguin dry until its dead.
Although I must admit they are developing some very cool technology.
'totally secure environments' exist when a product needs to be sold.
Please remember to remove your tux suit while in the woods during hunting season as not to confuse any drunk hunters.
Why are we trying to colonize mars when we have the moon soclose? Think about the possibilities.. If raw materials such as iron where to be refined, the cost to transfer the materials would be cheaper because of the short distance.
Even looking at it from a safety standpoint.. If something were to happen where an evacuation needed to take place, they are that much closer to home. I guess we are just trying to see how far humans can reach into space.
Why bother? People like you always seem to do a good job pointing it out to everyone.