Fixed rate shipping on media (cd's, books, dvd's, etc), while it sounds good, in many cases their maximum allowed shipping and handling cost is several dollars less than the USPS flat rate box which is currently the cheapest way to ship. Their "faq" basically suggests that sellers just raise their prices. This leaves book rate as the only viable option, but try explaining to customers that they mey not get thier item for a month.
IMHO this is nothing more than a further attempt to deter the mom and pop businesses they have been so eager to push out over the past couple years.
If you read further you will also find they are eventually going to get rid of 3rd party checkout as well so regarless of whether you have your own credit card processing you will have to use ebay checkout.
DSR's (Detailed Seller Ratings) are required at 4.3 or higher..which is great, but it has to be that way in the last 30 days...so you have to constantly sell things in order to keep it maintained. Bought a new laptop and want to sell the old one? You are no longer welcome at ebay and have to find a consigner.
Ebay has forgotten who made it what it is, I dont know why they feel the need to be Amazon (actually amazon is more welcoming to the small seller) but I have a feeling this may finally be the push over the edge the rest of the old timers needed to bail on ebay and find something else to do.
Ebay has been going downhill since it decided it was more interested in being a big box store than a place where people could buy and sell their wares. I had an ebay business for a couple years closed with the first big fee increase a few years back, the last person I knew that was still a seller gave up and packed it in a few months back. Unfortunately with ebay's 25% stake in Craigslist if ebay went completely under it would likely do its best to ensure that it took CL with it.
While "unlimited" sounds nice from a marketing perspective, when its clear that it is not the case why isnt advertising it as such not concidered fraud? I have no problem with a phone service or an isp for that matter blocking anything they want, its their network but I want it all spelled out for me in writing before I decide to use their service or not.
Umm I picked up one for my kids at Microcenter for $279 after a $100 rebate, they arent that hard to find. Its an Acer Aspire AS5315-2122, total garbage laptop but for kids its great...and it did have vista at least for an hour or so before I paved it.
What bookstore is he shopping in? The bookstores around here have far more "Learn Linux" and Programming Linux books than ones specifying Unix in the title. I have a shelf full of "linux" books on my bookshelf now and only one has Unix in the title its "Programming for Unix/AIX". Unix today is almost an afterthought when it comes to publishing.
I ran into the same situation a few years back. I was burned out on what I thought was IT but it ended up that I was burned out with corporate life. I basically dropped out for a couple months, took my savings and started ramping up for a consulting business. My initial intention was to do it long enough to support getting another degree, I'm still doing it now. Consulting is a good route but its hard work. Supporting lots of smaller clients rather than one big one gives you flexabilty in hours and enough variety to keep things interesting. If you are people friendly being able to speak both geek and human will get you an easy foot in the door with little effort. I have found the rewards are way beyond monetary (though the money isnt bad either), and my success or failure is totally in my own hands rather than next weeks decision by the shareholders.
Early on when I was broke and just starting out I thought domains should be cheaper now that they are I wish they were at least more than an impulse purchase. Drop Catching has turned into nothing more than legalized extortion. I was similarly stung by godaddy...it wasnt a url that anyone else would likely want so I decided not to play that game and let it go.
They already announced at CES the latest plan to make their 1st and 2nd generation Blu-Ray players obsolete, BD Live is coming for interactivity on Blu-Ray unfortunately it requires an Ethernet connection that most of the first 2 generations of players are missing.
Wait for CableLabs, Phillips, Comcast, MS and others to announce the future of Tru2way (formerly known as Opencable) at CES this week. Then the war can begin anew. Tru2way is MS's inroad to the US cable systems and will allow their IPTV to be brought stateside, their launch with British Telecom is scheduled for this week as well. All the major cable providers are onboard including Time Warner. This all may just be playing into MS hands after all.
I didnt forget Autoduel...in fact I still have it though I lack a 1541 to read them, if the disks are still good:)
I want full on Car Wars with a modern RTS full 3D view (the twisted metal series was like poor mans car wars but fell woefully short since carwars is about strategy more than action)...with the real rules with fully upgradable cars and weapons, lots of maps arenas, highways, canyons, etc. Hell they could even bring on the ballons and helicopters. Though I admit, I'd even settle for a remake of Autoduel with modern graphics.
I agree about Battletech in light of the new online version of Talisman coming out you would think that Battletech, Starfleet Battles and others in its genres would be the perfect games for MS to bring to Live perferable as true to the original board and miniatures battles as possible.
On a side note, what ever happened to Gurps? Im surprised that nothing from the Gurps world made it to video games. Car Wars would have been perfect for Live and PSN as well, and seeing Cyberpunk, Ogre or Illuminati would be great as well. The last I heard of them was when I ran across a card game years ago called Chez Geek.
The problem I see with the OLPC initiative is that they are restricting themselves into near certain failure. The Asus Eee has shown that there is a decent market for a product like OLPC offers, mass production would just bring the costs down. Competition in the form of Classmate and other similar products would benefit the goals of OLPC as technology could have funneled down to it. The B2G1 program was a good start but even that was limited by country and time making it a near pointless effort. What could have perpetually funded the program ended up being a token at best and an eBay scam at worst.
OLPC already started on a shaky support base, many felt that other issues such as the educational systems themselves had more importance than providing laptops. It sounds to me like the people running OLPC are more concerned with their positions within the program than the actual implementation of the program itself. If their real goal is improving education and opportunity to developing nations why should it matter if there were more players involved?
I have about 2/3 of potential clients balk at my rates, but of those over half usually end up calling me after making a costly mistake. I charge around the same as Geek Squad but there are tons of little "computer guys" charging nearly half around here. My newest client figured out you get what you pay for when troublshooting a network file server problem, one of the local guys spend 12 hours working on the problem and half-ass worked around the issue after being unable to find the real problem. I showed up monday morning, found the problem in 15 minutes and had things working properly in about an hour and a half total. What matters most isnt the rate they charge upfront but what your going to be charged when the work is done, an incompetent tech is going to cost more nearly every time regarless of their rate.
I dont think its a bad idea at all, people will be more likely to take a $30 chance with a console they already own than a $360 chance on one they dont. If they like Mistwalkers games they will be more likely to take the big plunge later.
Its not really that Heavenly Sword is bad...its just a rather repetative beat-em-up like most are. The biggest beef has been that there isnt enough variation in the enemies and you can complete the entire game in around 6 hours.
I really dont get the media companies, they force more and more restrictions that only affect the people who legitimately purchase the product. Simple copy protection is sufficient to discourage the "casual copying" that the average consumer might attempt. Those that want to pirate it for more devious plans will find a way regardless so in effect the only people punished are those that suddenly find they cant move the file from their desktop to their laptop, back it up to a disk, run it from a media server, etc.
When those comments were made at E3 Live was still a closed system. MS announced their Xbox Live Silver Program which allows 3rd party companies to maintain, manage and update from their own servers rather than from MS. When asked if that would allow a company like Epic to allow PC to 360 maps and level editors it was stated that that was indeed one of the reasons for the new service.
Thats true but detractors will say its a FPS regardless. I'm a story driven gamer, give me a good story and I dont care if its 3rd person twice removed I'll play it. The story for this one seems different enough to get me into it, but then I was one a handful that absolutely loved Prey for the same reason, it was just twistedly different.
This was in the last issue of Gamepro its the entire basis of the BioShock is definately coming to the PS3 fanboy mantra thats been going on for a couple weeks....
GP: Also, another comment you might not be too open to talking about, but will we be seeing or hearing anything about Bioshock on the PS3 down the road?
LEVINE: Right now we're totally focused on making the game for Xbox 360. Microsoft has been a great partner, we love the platform, and we get to make a PC game as well. That's great because we come from the PC side, but right now we're focused on getting the game out the door on the platform that we're on and that we love.
Thats it...I guess its open ended enough to leave a glimmer of hope for ps3 fans but geez...that response was so generic that NGage fans (are there any?) could declare it was going there too.
Slashdot Mirror
http://pages.ebay.com/sell/August2008Update/OtherFAQ/#3
Fixed rate shipping on media (cd's, books, dvd's, etc), while it sounds good, in many cases their maximum allowed shipping and handling cost is several dollars less than the USPS flat rate box which is currently the cheapest way to ship. Their "faq" basically suggests that sellers just raise their prices. This leaves book rate as the only viable option, but try explaining to customers that they mey not get thier item for a month.
IMHO this is nothing more than a further attempt to deter the mom and pop businesses they have been so eager to push out over the past couple years.
If you read further you will also find they are eventually going to get rid of 3rd party checkout as well so regarless of whether you have your own credit card processing you will have to use ebay checkout.
DSR's (Detailed Seller Ratings) are required at 4.3 or higher..which is great, but it has to be that way in the last 30 days...so you have to constantly sell things in order to keep it maintained. Bought a new laptop and want to sell the old one? You are no longer welcome at ebay and have to find a consigner.
Ebay has forgotten who made it what it is, I dont know why they feel the need to be Amazon (actually amazon is more welcoming to the small seller) but I have a feeling this may finally be the push over the edge the rest of the old timers needed to bail on ebay and find something else to do.
Ebay has been going downhill since it decided it was more interested in being a big box store than a place where people could buy and sell their wares. I had an ebay business for a couple years closed with the first big fee increase a few years back, the last person I knew that was still a seller gave up and packed it in a few months back. Unfortunately with ebay's 25% stake in Craigslist if ebay went completely under it would likely do its best to ensure that it took CL with it.
While "unlimited" sounds nice from a marketing perspective, when its clear that it is not the case why isnt advertising it as such not concidered fraud? I have no problem with a phone service or an isp for that matter blocking anything they want, its their network but I want it all spelled out for me in writing before I decide to use their service or not.
Umm I picked up one for my kids at Microcenter for $279 after a $100 rebate, they arent that hard to find. Its an Acer Aspire AS5315-2122, total garbage laptop but for kids its great...and it did have vista at least for an hour or so before I paved it.
What bookstore is he shopping in? The bookstores around here have far more "Learn Linux" and Programming Linux books than ones specifying Unix in the title. I have a shelf full of "linux" books on my bookshelf now and only one has Unix in the title its "Programming for Unix/AIX". Unix today is almost an afterthought when it comes to publishing.
I ran into the same situation a few years back. I was burned out on what I thought was IT but it ended up that I was burned out with corporate life. I basically dropped out for a couple months, took my savings and started ramping up for a consulting business. My initial intention was to do it long enough to support getting another degree, I'm still doing it now. Consulting is a good route but its hard work. Supporting lots of smaller clients rather than one big one gives you flexabilty in hours and enough variety to keep things interesting. If you are people friendly being able to speak both geek and human will get you an easy foot in the door with little effort. I have found the rewards are way beyond monetary (though the money isnt bad either), and my success or failure is totally in my own hands rather than next weeks decision by the shareholders.
Spridle and Chim Chim are going to have a much harder time getting past the airport screeners than they did getting past Pops and Trixie.
Is this now a yearly tradition for churches to whine about their Superbowl parties...
Here is last years article same story, different church:
http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/category/miami-football/2007/02/01/nfl-orders-church-to-cancel-super-bowl-party/
Early on when I was broke and just starting out I thought domains should be cheaper now that they are I wish they were at least more than an impulse purchase. Drop Catching has turned into nothing more than legalized extortion. I was similarly stung by godaddy...it wasnt a url that anyone else would likely want so I decided not to play that game and let it go.
Thats pretty easy actually...use http://www.vlite.net/Vlite
They already announced at CES the latest plan to make their 1st and 2nd generation Blu-Ray players obsolete, BD Live is coming for interactivity on Blu-Ray unfortunately it requires an Ethernet connection that most of the first 2 generations of players are missing.
Wait for CableLabs, Phillips, Comcast, MS and others to announce the future of Tru2way (formerly known as Opencable) at CES this week. Then the war can begin anew. Tru2way is MS's inroad to the US cable systems and will allow their IPTV to be brought stateside, their launch with British Telecom is scheduled for this week as well. All the major cable providers are onboard including Time Warner. This all may just be playing into MS hands after all.
I didnt forget Autoduel...in fact I still have it though I lack a 1541 to read them, if the disks are still good :)
I want full on Car Wars with a modern RTS full 3D view (the twisted metal series was like poor mans car wars but fell woefully short since carwars is about strategy more than action)...with the real rules with fully upgradable cars and weapons, lots of maps arenas, highways, canyons, etc. Hell they could even bring on the ballons and helicopters. Though I admit, I'd even settle for a remake of Autoduel with modern graphics.
I agree about Battletech in light of the new online version of Talisman coming out you would think that Battletech, Starfleet Battles and others in its genres would be the perfect games for MS to bring to Live perferable as true to the original board and miniatures battles as possible.
On a side note, what ever happened to Gurps? Im surprised that nothing from the Gurps world made it to video games. Car Wars would have been perfect for Live and PSN as well, and seeing Cyberpunk, Ogre or Illuminati would be great as well. The last I heard of them was when I ran across a card game years ago called Chez Geek.
The problem I see with the OLPC initiative is that they are restricting themselves into near certain failure. The Asus Eee has shown that there is a decent market for a product like OLPC offers, mass production would just bring the costs down. Competition in the form of Classmate and other similar products would benefit the goals of OLPC as technology could have funneled down to it. The B2G1 program was a good start but even that was limited by country and time making it a near pointless effort. What could have perpetually funded the program ended up being a token at best and an eBay scam at worst.
OLPC already started on a shaky support base, many felt that other issues such as the educational systems themselves had more importance than providing laptops. It sounds to me like the people running OLPC are more concerned with their positions within the program than the actual implementation of the program itself. If their real goal is improving education and opportunity to developing nations why should it matter if there were more players involved?
Hmm Lets See...
3DO:
The most expensive console of its day (and probably of all time if adjusted for inflation)
Poor game selection out of the gate and little support afterwards.
Trip Hawking was too obsessed with making it a multimedia setup box rather than focusing on games.
Advertising was nearly non-existent and focused on the wrong aspects.
A horrible controller and only one controller port so controllers had to be daisy chained together.
No real exclusives other than an early jump on Street Fighter 2 turbo.
3DO never manufactured its own console it only licensed the platform, which meant all of them were starting from scratch.
Other than those...yep it sounds just like 3D0....
I have about 2/3 of potential clients balk at my rates, but of those over half usually end up calling me after making a costly mistake. I charge around the same as Geek Squad but there are tons of little "computer guys" charging nearly half around here. My newest client figured out you get what you pay for when troublshooting a network file server problem, one of the local guys spend 12 hours working on the problem and half-ass worked around the issue after being unable to find the real problem. I showed up monday morning, found the problem in 15 minutes and had things working properly in about an hour and a half total. What matters most isnt the rate they charge upfront but what your going to be charged when the work is done, an incompetent tech is going to cost more nearly every time regarless of their rate.
I dont think its a bad idea at all, people will be more likely to take a $30 chance with a console they already own than a $360 chance on one they dont. If they like Mistwalkers games they will be more likely to take the big plunge later.
Its not really that Heavenly Sword is bad...its just a rather repetative beat-em-up like most are. The biggest beef has been that there isnt enough variation in the enemies and you can complete the entire game in around 6 hours.
I really dont get the media companies, they force more and more restrictions that only affect the people who legitimately purchase the product. Simple copy protection is sufficient to discourage the "casual copying" that the average consumer might attempt. Those that want to pirate it for more devious plans will find a way regardless so in effect the only people punished are those that suddenly find they cant move the file from their desktop to their laptop, back it up to a disk, run it from a media server, etc.
When those comments were made at E3 Live was still a closed system. MS announced their Xbox Live Silver Program which allows 3rd party companies to maintain, manage and update from their own servers rather than from MS. When asked if that would allow a company like Epic to allow PC to 360 maps and level editors it was stated that that was indeed one of the reasons for the new service.
Its been consolidated to one member?
Ugghh your right, I forgot about that...though anyone who would waste the bandwidth deserves the badness.
Thats true but detractors will say its a FPS regardless. I'm a story driven gamer, give me a good story and I dont care if its 3rd person twice removed I'll play it. The story for this one seems different enough to get me into it, but then I was one a handful that absolutely loved Prey for the same reason, it was just twistedly different.
This was in the last issue of Gamepro its the entire basis of the BioShock is definately coming to the PS3 fanboy mantra thats been going on for a couple weeks....
GP: Also, another comment you might not be too open to talking about, but will we be seeing or hearing anything about Bioshock on the PS3 down the road?
LEVINE: Right now we're totally focused on making the game for Xbox 360. Microsoft has been a great partner, we love the platform, and we get to make a PC game as well. That's great because we come from the PC side, but right now we're focused on getting the game out the door on the platform that we're on and that we love.
Thats it...I guess its open ended enough to leave a glimmer of hope for ps3 fans but geez...that response was so generic that NGage fans (are there any?) could declare it was going there too.