Actually, a lot of the companies that are outsourcing get huge tax breaks from the government, something John Kerry wants to eliminate. So they are outsourcing, AND we aren't getting their taxes!
I agree 100%! There has been so much complaining about the quality of our education system in America, and how we need better teahcers, etc. yet they continue to be paid such pitiful salaries. I was shocked to see that the average salary for teachers actually went DOWN! I can't wait until this country actually starts to respect educators the way they are in other countries. There is so much emphasis on teahcers' accountability for how well the students perform, yet they get zero support.
I disagree 100%. The problem usually is that users DO NOT figure things out. Either they don't have the time, or don't know how to figure out the interface. That is why good interface design is so important. Creating a simple, intuitive interface that takes zero time to figure out is much more beneficial than a complex, technical interface that the users can't figure out or that takes too much time and effort to figure out. In my experience, when an interface requires the users to spend their time figuring out the interface, rather than doing their job, the users tend to reject the application.
You might take alook at the Kyocera 7135. It is a phone first, with PDA functionality. MP3 player too. And, unlike the Samsung i500, it has a Secure Digital card slot and speakerphone. Another cool feature is the pager style display on the top of the phone. It runs on Palm OS 4.1 and so far works great for me. Here is a review from PC Magazine.
Actually, if you take a look at the Preference UI, you have two different options with refinements for each. You can allow all popups w/ exculsions, or you can disallow all popups w/ exclusions. This is WAY better than just blocking everything. I happen to use this new system to diallow all popups except for a few sites (like my work domain) where popups are necessary.
I had a very bad experience with my Yamaha CD Burner. Basically, it never worked. I would get "Calibration Area Full" errors. I tried everything their paltry support pages recommended. Nothing worked. I even sent it back to them, but they sent it back after doing some routine maintenance and said it was working. Nope. Still didn't work. Their customer support was not helpful at all in resolving my problems. I didn't start trying to burn CDs until about 6 months after I bought the drive, so the 1 year warranty quickly ran out before I was able to get the thing fixed. I kept getting the runaround about sending it back in, or trying something else. Good riddance!
I know this isn't exactly about the article (software related), but I saw a television program on Discovery or TLC or something recently about the Big Dig, which described the ventilation system would make the air INSIDE the tunnels CLEANER than the air OUTSIDE!
Has anyone wondered why the RIAA and music labels don't figure out why people continue to download, and not buy CDs? It seems to me that P2P file sharing would decrease if we all had more incentive to actually buy CDs. I think the issues here are music quality (currently the majority sucks) and CD price (way too expensive). If the RIAA just took a short term hit, lowered CD prices, and produced higher quality music, people might go back to buying CDs, which would in turn make the record companies make more money again.
If he filed his patents in '95, why the hell has it taken so long to bring this to court? Ebay has been around, and very popular for many years now.
Re:CNet Review - "Don't switch browsers"
on
Netscape 7.0 is Out
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Its funny that their review of IE 6 scored the same as Netscape 7, 7 out of 10. It is funny to read the review because it pretty much says what the Netscape 7 review says, but for IE. "Don't switch if you like Netscape", "No startling improvements or features", etc. What I would like to see is an update to the IE 6 review that makes new comparisons to NS 7 instead of 6.1 and see what he thinks then. His review of Netscape 7 just didn't do that.
Ask me how shocked I was when my IT group installed a 64MB GeForce 4 card in a coworker's desktop because her old card was bad? All we do here is simple web programming. Talk about overkill, and overspending!?!
It would have been nice if they actually gave examples of what they felt was wrong with the UI. Basically, all they said was that the colors and icon sizes didn't work. What does that mean? Since when do all Windows applications have the same interface? Anyone ever use Photoshop? No buttons, tabbed palettes, etc. Not very "Windows-like", whatever that means. If they want to say the UI is not up to snuff, they need to provide reasons. I use Mozilla every day. It has all the "default widgets", menu bar, drop-downs (bookmarks), etc. I really don't understand what the problem they had was. The UI is simple, concise, and not much different than any other browser on the market. So you can't rearrange the navigation buttons. So what! Mozilla keeps it simple.
I have to say I was very disappointed with this article's review of the interface. The rest was great. It is like that aspect of the article was an afterthought, just like they described the browser being a Mozilla afterthought.
First, find out from them what the problem is. Do they actually know how to code? If not, you might ask (management) why they were put on the project. Do they really understand the items they are trying to address? Are they overwhelmed with the amount of deliverables they are responsible for? Is this their first project?
Second, notify your management AND the project leader/sponser. The sooner they know about possible delay issues the easier it is to figure out how to correct the situation.
This is a hard question to answer. Is it motivation they need, or do they just not know what to do? If you are responsible for their contributions, you might be wary of contacting management before finding out what all of the issues are. If you aren't, then a mangement update is in order.
There are probably two reasons for their lack of completed work. 1) They are not doing their jobs, or 2) they do not know how to do their jobs (ie they do not understand how to work on a project, or they are not technically qualified. Either way, they should be removed to do something they are capable of doing).
This older article at CNet has a quote from HP saying "Dell's business represented an 'insignificant' portion of HP's total printing and imaging business, equal to only a few days' sales per year." For all of the posts saying HP is shooting itself in the foot, or are making a bad decision, ask yourself, what would you do if one of your partners, who sells your products, decided to make their own version of your product and sell that too? HP is making most of their money in the printing industry elsewhere, so why not drop Dell?
This graphic from The Telegraph article shows where Pioneer 10 is (outside of our Solar System). It also shows pictures it took of Jupiter (1973), Saturn (1979) and Pluto (1983). It has been almost 20 years since it left our Solar System. Apparently it is heading towards the "Eye" of the Taurus Bull constellation, and will take 2 million years to reach it. however it is slowing down by some "mysterious" force.
The following is my opinion on how this domain name mess can be resolved.
First, all domain names get registered under a country code (.us,.uk,.au, etc.).
Second, companies (Inc, LLC, Co, etc.) get domains registerd under a.com.us type domain. If they are international corporations, they register under each country they are in.
Third,.org.us type domains go to non-profits, churches, and general organizations like discussion groups, clubs, etc.
Fourth, schools would get.edu.us type domains.
Fifth, individuals who want to put up a site could get a.per.us (personal), or a generic.www.us domain. Sonething that distinguishes them from corporate or non-profit or organized entities.
If a company has a trademark on a slogan or phrase, and they want to use it as a domain name, it goes under.com.us types.
Domains get registered where they should, no more cross TLD registrations because entities have a specific classification.
Additionally, the oversight group would need to be able to verify the correct classification of a domain if a problem arose.
The two reasons why I haven't bought cds recently are because the quality of music these days is at an all time low, yet the price of cds continues to increase. Go visit riaa.org and read their article about what it costs to make a cd. The main reason they give for cds costing so much is the ever increasing cost of promoting them. They even say that the cost to physically manufacture a cd is dropping. One would wonder if it wouldn't cost so much to promote the music if every new band didn't sound the same, actually had some original talent, and didn't create "new" music by sampling old successful music. I can't remember a time when current music was as lame as it is now. Reeling in the beginnings of a rant, my point is that if the music studios actually spent a little of the promotion money to work on upgrading the talent pool of recording artists, maybe the quality of music would sell them, not the promotion. Quality sells product. Then they wouldn't have to be spending so much on a self promoting product, which in turn would mean they could reduce the price of the cds. Everyone wins.
On the Moulin Rouge DVD, Fatboy Slim, aka Norman Cook, talks a bit about how he uses his Atari Computer to do his electronic music. He said that he uses it because it's all he knows how to use. Plus, it still works great, so why upgrade?
All of the remarks concerning showing Gandalf in the trailer as a major spoiler are valid, however Peter Jackson said in an interview (which I can't seem to find) about the teaser trailer that he polled fans about what they wanted to see in a teaser trailer, and Gandalf was towards the top of the list. That is why we see Gandalf in the teaser. He gave the fans what they wanted. His reasoning also was that the people who would be staying for the trailer when it was after FOTR would be the hardcore fans who already knew Gandalf comes back.
Slashdot Mirror
Not anymore.
Actually, a lot of the companies that are outsourcing get huge tax breaks from the government, something John Kerry wants to eliminate. So they are outsourcing, AND we aren't getting their taxes!
I agree 100%! There has been so much complaining about the quality of our education system in America, and how we need better teahcers, etc. yet they continue to be paid such pitiful salaries. I was shocked to see that the average salary for teachers actually went DOWN! I can't wait until this country actually starts to respect educators the way they are in other countries. There is so much emphasis on teahcers' accountability for how well the students perform, yet they get zero support.
I disagree 100%. The problem usually is that users DO NOT figure things out. Either they don't have the time, or don't know how to figure out the interface. That is why good interface design is so important. Creating a simple, intuitive interface that takes zero time to figure out is much more beneficial than a complex, technical interface that the users can't figure out or that takes too much time and effort to figure out. In my experience, when an interface requires the users to spend their time figuring out the interface, rather than doing their job, the users tend to reject the application.
You might take alook at the Kyocera 7135. It is a phone first, with PDA functionality. MP3 player too. And, unlike the Samsung i500, it has a Secure Digital card slot and speakerphone. Another cool feature is the pager style display on the top of the phone. It runs on Palm OS 4.1 and so far works great for me. Here is a review from PC Magazine.
Actually, if you take a look at the Preference UI, you have two different options with refinements for each. You can allow all popups w/ exculsions, or you can disallow all popups w/ exclusions. This is WAY better than just blocking everything. I happen to use this new system to diallow all popups except for a few sites (like my work domain) where popups are necessary.
I had a very bad experience with my Yamaha CD Burner. Basically, it never worked. I would get "Calibration Area Full" errors. I tried everything their paltry support pages recommended. Nothing worked. I even sent it back to them, but they sent it back after doing some routine maintenance and said it was working. Nope. Still didn't work. Their customer support was not helpful at all in resolving my problems. I didn't start trying to burn CDs until about 6 months after I bought the drive, so the 1 year warranty quickly ran out before I was able to get the thing fixed. I kept getting the runaround about sending it back in, or trying something else. Good riddance!
I may be mistaken, but didn't the 1.2 beta have a pop-up blocking white list preference? I don't see it now.
I am not exactly sure why the images are not showing, but it would be nice if the pages actually had , and tags to make them valid HTML documents.
Subject says it all.
l
http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/home/scotland/britain.htm
I know this isn't exactly about the article (software related), but I saw a television program on Discovery or TLC or something recently about the Big Dig, which described the ventilation system would make the air INSIDE the tunnels CLEANER than the air OUTSIDE!
Has anyone wondered why the RIAA and music labels don't figure out why people continue to download, and not buy CDs? It seems to me that P2P file sharing would decrease if we all had more incentive to actually buy CDs. I think the issues here are music quality (currently the majority sucks) and CD price (way too expensive). If the RIAA just took a short term hit, lowered CD prices, and produced higher quality music, people might go back to buying CDs, which would in turn make the record companies make more money again.
If he filed his patents in '95, why the hell has it taken so long to bring this to court? Ebay has been around, and very popular for many years now.
Its funny that their review of IE 6 scored the same as Netscape 7, 7 out of 10. It is funny to read the review because it pretty much says what the Netscape 7 review says, but for IE. "Don't switch if you like Netscape", "No startling improvements or features", etc. What I would like to see is an update to the IE 6 review that makes new comparisons to NS 7 instead of 6.1 and see what he thinks then. His review of Netscape 7 just didn't do that.
Ask me how shocked I was when my IT group installed a 64MB GeForce 4 card in a coworker's desktop because her old card was bad? All we do here is simple web programming. Talk about overkill, and overspending!?!
You can actually buy it here.
It would have been nice if they actually gave examples of what they felt was wrong with the UI. Basically, all they said was that the colors and icon sizes didn't work. What does that mean? Since when do all Windows applications have the same interface? Anyone ever use Photoshop? No buttons, tabbed palettes, etc. Not very "Windows-like", whatever that means. If they want to say the UI is not up to snuff, they need to provide reasons. I use Mozilla every day. It has all the "default widgets", menu bar, drop-downs (bookmarks), etc. I really don't understand what the problem they had was. The UI is simple, concise, and not much different than any other browser on the market. So you can't rearrange the navigation buttons. So what! Mozilla keeps it simple.
I have to say I was very disappointed with this article's review of the interface. The rest was great. It is like that aspect of the article was an afterthought, just like they described the browser being a Mozilla afterthought.
First, find out from them what the problem is. Do they actually know how to code? If not, you might ask (management) why they were put on the project. Do they really understand the items they are trying to address? Are they overwhelmed with the amount of deliverables they are responsible for? Is this their first project?
Second, notify your management AND the project leader/sponser. The sooner they know about possible delay issues the easier it is to figure out how to correct the situation.
This is a hard question to answer. Is it motivation they need, or do they just not know what to do? If you are responsible for their contributions, you might be wary of contacting management before finding out what all of the issues are. If you aren't, then a mangement update is in order.
There are probably two reasons for their lack of completed work. 1) They are not doing their jobs, or 2) they do not know how to do their jobs (ie they do not understand how to work on a project, or they are not technically qualified. Either way, they should be removed to do something they are capable of doing).
Good luck.
This older article at CNet has a quote from HP saying "Dell's business represented an 'insignificant' portion of HP's total printing and imaging business, equal to only a few days' sales per year." For all of the posts saying HP is shooting itself in the foot, or are making a bad decision, ask yourself, what would you do if one of your partners, who sells your products, decided to make their own version of your product and sell that too? HP is making most of their money in the printing industry elsewhere, so why not drop Dell?
This graphic from The Telegraph article shows where Pioneer 10 is (outside of our Solar System). It also shows pictures it took of Jupiter (1973), Saturn (1979) and Pluto (1983). It has been almost 20 years since it left our Solar System. Apparently it is heading towards the "Eye" of the Taurus Bull constellation, and will take 2 million years to reach it. however it is slowing down by some "mysterious" force.
I think Lego Mindstorms would qualify as the Erector Sets of today.
The following is my opinion on how this domain name mess can be resolved.
.uk, .au, etc.).
.com.us type domain. If they are international corporations, they register under each country they are in.
.org.us type domains go to non-profits, churches, and general organizations like discussion groups, clubs, etc.
.edu.us type domains.
.per.us (personal), or a generic .www.us domain. Sonething that distinguishes them from corporate or non-profit or organized entities.
.com.us types.
First, all domain names get registered under a country code (.us,
Second, companies (Inc, LLC, Co, etc.) get domains registerd under a
Third,
Fourth, schools would get
Fifth, individuals who want to put up a site could get a
If a company has a trademark on a slogan or phrase, and they want to use it as a domain name, it goes under
Domains get registered where they should, no more cross TLD registrations because entities have a specific classification.
Additionally, the oversight group would need to be able to verify the correct classification of a domain if a problem arose.
Again, just my opinion.
The two reasons why I haven't bought cds recently are because the quality of music these days is at an all time low, yet the price of cds continues to increase. Go visit riaa.org and read their article about what it costs to make a cd. The main reason they give for cds costing so much is the ever increasing cost of promoting them. They even say that the cost to physically manufacture a cd is dropping. One would wonder if it wouldn't cost so much to promote the music if every new band didn't sound the same, actually had some original talent, and didn't create "new" music by sampling old successful music. I can't remember a time when current music was as lame as it is now. Reeling in the beginnings of a rant, my point is that if the music studios actually spent a little of the promotion money to work on upgrading the talent pool of recording artists, maybe the quality of music would sell them, not the promotion. Quality sells product. Then they wouldn't have to be spending so much on a self promoting product, which in turn would mean they could reduce the price of the cds. Everyone wins.
On the Moulin Rouge DVD, Fatboy Slim, aka Norman Cook, talks a bit about how he uses his Atari Computer to do his electronic music. He said that he uses it because it's all he knows how to use. Plus, it still works great, so why upgrade?
All of the remarks concerning showing Gandalf in the trailer as a major spoiler are valid, however Peter Jackson said in an interview (which I can't seem to find) about the teaser trailer that he polled fans about what they wanted to see in a teaser trailer, and Gandalf was towards the top of the list. That is why we see Gandalf in the teaser. He gave the fans what they wanted. His reasoning also was that the people who would be staying for the trailer when it was after FOTR would be the hardcore fans who already knew Gandalf comes back.