Personally, I spent the last several years nursing an upgraded Beige G3. The G5 was the Apple platform I was waiting for. You can put faster CPU's in the previous platforms all you want, and it does help, and they are VERY flexible to this sort of modification - but you can't overcome the bus bottleneck. (ie. you can't polish a turd).
I ditched my G3, and bought my first power mac in over 5 years, because Apple FINALLY addressed the bus bottleneck. I wouldn't recommend buying and upgrading an old G4 even to someone I didn't like.
I'm also, not at all disappointed with any aspect of my dualie 2ghz. Except maybe it's incompatability with my old hard drives. SATA helped me get over that heartache tho;)
A masochist prefers being on the receiving end of a spanking. A sadist, understands that in matters of pain, it is far better to give, than to receive.
This is a measure designed to delay brown-skinned people. (notice, the average skin-color in the exempt countries).
The brown-skinned people will be delayed in boarding, and thus will end up with seats in the back of the plane. Segregation, 1950's style. The way Strom Thrumond would have wanted. . .
This fingerprinting scheme aint going to fix anything.
Sure it will! It will fix several problems: - Biometrics companies will get federal funding, which in turn will go back into Republican Presidential Election coffers in the form of campaign contributions. - Uneducated rednecks will fail to realize the details of the plan, and the loopholes in those 28 exempt countries, and this plan will make them feel safer, even if they aren't, which will make them confident that Bush is doing something to protect them from evil terrorism, thus winning more reelection votes. - FoxNews will have another "happy" story to report. - The FBI will be able to more accurately track the travel of known porn downloaders and democrats, and other supporters of terrorism.
I'm a longtime Dish customer. Yes, I suffered through the long HELL that was the DishPlayer.
Incidentally, my DishPlayer is still in service, and since they fixed the software bugs, it's actually quite reliable. My only complaints, really, are sometimes poor menu response time, and the fact that it's a rather noisy box. I'm sure some extra storage capacity would be nice, but the thing's like 4 years old.
Anyway, EchoStar bought the DishPlayer (their first PVR) technology from Microsoft. (who had, in turn, bought it from another company, as a vehicle for getting WebTV subscribers hooked on MSN - guess what? didn't work! almost zero DishPlayer subscribers I know online actually subscribe to WebTV).
The DishPlayer itself is a rather nice, and simple interface. It doesn't really do much. But what it does is simple to use. It's "OS" is BSD unix. But the client software had some really really nasty bugs a few years back. I was talking with a lawyer who was seriously considering a class action against Dish. But they backed down after Dish finally fixed the problems. Dish actually sued Microsoft and got a settlement from them for their crappy buggy-ass WebTV client software, which was killing the PVR software during schedule downloads.
So I'm wondering if they're suing EchoStar for the implementation in DishPlayer, or the implementation in the later 501 or 721 boxes - whose software was written by EchoStar, and not based on the original DishPlayer stuff.
iDVD-Jon? Maybe if he did one or both of two things: - Break the 90-minute limit in iDVD. (figures, just about all of my movie projects end up at around 1:45 for some reason. . . ) - Break the internal-superdrive limitation in iDVD. (not that that matters to me now, because after two years of screwing around, I finally broke down and bought a new Power Mac).
Dear Mister Hussein, Please provide evidence that you are in compliance with UN Resolution 3177, and that you have no active programs to develop WMI, and that you are not in posession of any WMI or WMI delivery systems.
Failure to provide evidence will result in a massive invasion of your country by US Laywer forces, shock and awe, resulting in the eventual extraction of your carcass from a spider-hole.
One of the main things that separates iPod from all of it's competitors is the FireWire interface. Everything else is USB2. Tinfoil hat or no, it's kind of strange how iPod is the ONLY FireWire media player.
But superior transfer speeds, reliability, and convenience (battery recharge) issues taken into account, I don't see how this new device would be more desirable, overall, if it was USB2.
We don't want no stinkin growth in the tech industry.
There aren't enough jobs to go around as it is.
Why don't you change your major to an industry that IS growing, like IP Law. Or Linguist for some obscure 3rd world country. Actually, you should try to find the poorest nation out there, and learn it's language. In 4 years, you'll be helping US firms hire them in droves.
The problem here is one of market perception. Due to the high degree of stock compensation for executives and board members, the focus is mainly on stock performance.
In the late 1990's the market perception was: If Company A is a high-tech company, like Netscape, in a new and innovative internet-related field, and if Company A was ramping their headcount, and if Company A agressively compensates it's employees - then they MUST be doing well, or perhaps, will be doing well a few quarters down the road, and in fact, could very well become the next Microsoft.
Now, the market perception is: Companies like Company A were all overhyped, and the agressive compensation was bleeding them dry because they were hiring bonehead "web-designers". Company A will do better in a few quarters if they outsource instead. They'll still get bonehead "web-designers" but they won't be quite so expensive. In fact, they could very well become the next Microsoft.
Companies gear to take advantage of this market perception. They want to inflate the stock price, and whether or not the decision to hire boneheads is good does not matter. The only thing that matters is if the company is following the latest trend that market watchers watch.
"and that's scary. If I'm saving say $400 for outsourcing but paying $200 in downtime because an admin is a moron, $100 in downtime waiting for the idiot admin to get a reply from a mailing list,"
That's a big problem alright - and the source of the problem, I'd say, is that there's no real good yardstick the industry can use to measure Tech Support. Even when vendors spent a lot on support, and didn't charge, it ranged from terrible to appallingly bad. Quality didn't suffer when it went overseas. But the main thing is - companies that spent more, and did better, didn't necessarily get much milage in the marketplace out of it.
Sure, there was the occasional JD Powers type surveys, and there were companies like IBM and Sun and Digital, whose reputations were built on their quality field service organizations. But they were unable to gain more marketshare based on those reputations, and based on their products. It was all robbed by Microsoft.
"Why not just concentrate on making OpenOffice better and better?"
Because we're all much better off when three or four teams of talented programmers compete with eachother to make ALL of their solutions better and better.
With your logic, one could just as easily say; "Microsoft Office is the best! I use it in my office every day to produce tons of heavily formatted documentss. It saved me. I'm never going back to Open Office. KOffice was not as useful as Microsoft Office when I tried to switch before. Why not just concentrate on making Microsoft Office better and better?"
"Ebay has just taken the traditional auction and used the internet to automate much of the process."
Actually - that's only a small part of it. The REAL economic factor going on with eBay, once we get over the gee-whiz factor of the Internet and it's ability to touch such a wide market, while targeting small, specific interests - it's all about the shipping. Fed Ex and UPS are the REAL winners with the eBay and Amazon story.
And since with Fed Ex and UPS, the profit all depends on Energy input for their trucks and planes - the REAL winners are the oil companies. Any wonder why we were all exited about this cool new internet thing back in the 90's - and all of a sudden, starting with Hugo Chavez, it became "all about the oil"?
That's why. You don't sell SHIT on the internet without oil to fuel transport. Unless you're talking about Intellectual Property. You can sell that too. As long as you have enough draconian unconstitutional laws to support that. It's either that or oil.
"Basically, what I'm saying is, is that I believe customer service is still the most important aspect, so the company that succeeds in this arena will come out on top."
This is SO true - and is a great example of what is so great about free market capitalism.
The darker side of that is - when a company gets to be the size of a Dell or an HP, and it's seen as more profitable, since there's so little competition, to instead, loot their market. Which is what Dell is doing.
That's why, politically, we've got to keep our eye on when free market politics crosses the line and becomes anarcho-capitalism, and reign that shit in.
I'd like to take this opportunity to complain about the utter lack of options wherever drinks are sold.
Coke machines, restaurants - you're always given a choice of three options: 1. horrible tasting sewer water with floaties. 2. caffeine-free beverages with enough sugar to cause your pancreas to explode. 3. sugar-free beverages with enough caffeine to make your adrenal gland explode.
If you want something that tastes good, and won't kill you with sugar or caffeine, you can only find such beverages at the grocery store, or at home. It's like there's a conspiracy among beverage vendors to force people who are trying to beat a caffeine adiction to become obese (or vice versa).
I hate it - it drives me crazy, and the people who are responsible for this will be found when I am made emporer. They will be found, and they will be the first ones up against the wall. Okay, maybe the second ones, after the accountants and MBAs. . .
"And before you could escape, you'd have aircraft all over you and they'd blow your ass out of the water."
Let's hope we're not talking about the US Eastern Seaboard - because as was PROVED when we were attacked on 9/11/2001, it takes quite a while for ANY response out of the US Military.
Unless there was an intentional delay. You don't believe THAT nonsense, do you?
Oh - it WILL happen. Probably later rather than sooner. But it's inevitable.
The US economy is just beginning a long slow decline. When these companies - particularly the big pharmaceuticals, finish their offshoring, and gut the US economy to the point where Americans will no longer be able to afford their overpriced products, the US will have no choice but to socialize medicine.
Assuming we don't get tangled up in some godawful nuclear war by then. . .
Slashdot Mirror
1. Recover bodies from first Manned Mars Mission. .
2. Recover Beagle 2
3. Recover other failed Mars probe missions. .
4. Science
Personally, I spent the last several years nursing an upgraded Beige G3.
;)
The G5 was the Apple platform I was waiting for. You can put faster CPU's in the previous platforms all you want, and it does help, and they are VERY flexible to this sort of modification - but you can't overcome the bus bottleneck. (ie. you can't polish a turd).
I ditched my G3, and bought my first power mac in over 5 years, because Apple FINALLY addressed the bus bottleneck. I wouldn't recommend buying and upgrading an old G4 even to someone I didn't like.
I'm also, not at all disappointed with any aspect of my dualie 2ghz. Except maybe it's incompatability with my old hard drives. SATA helped me get over that heartache tho
More likely, it was designed by a sadist.
A masochist prefers being on the receiving end of a spanking.
A sadist, understands that in matters of pain, it is far better to give, than to receive.
Rosa Parks - style.. .
This is a measure designed to delay brown-skinned people. (notice, the average skin-color in the exempt countries).
The brown-skinned people will be delayed in boarding, and thus will end up with seats in the back of the plane. Segregation, 1950's style. The way Strom Thrumond would have wanted. . .
This fingerprinting scheme aint going to fix anything.
Sure it will!
It will fix several problems:
- Biometrics companies will get federal funding, which in turn will go back into Republican Presidential Election coffers in the form of campaign contributions.
- Uneducated rednecks will fail to realize the details of the plan, and the loopholes in those 28 exempt countries, and this plan will make them feel safer, even if they aren't, which will make them confident that Bush is doing something to protect them from evil terrorism, thus winning more reelection votes.
- FoxNews will have another "happy" story to report.
- The FBI will be able to more accurately track the travel of known porn downloaders and democrats, and other supporters of terrorism.
I'm a longtime Dish customer. Yes, I suffered through the long HELL that was the DishPlayer.
Incidentally, my DishPlayer is still in service, and since they fixed the software bugs, it's actually quite reliable. My only complaints, really, are sometimes poor menu response time, and the fact that it's a rather noisy box. I'm sure some extra storage capacity would be nice, but the thing's like 4 years old.
Anyway, EchoStar bought the DishPlayer (their first PVR) technology from Microsoft. (who had, in turn, bought it from another company, as a vehicle for getting WebTV subscribers hooked on MSN - guess what? didn't work! almost zero DishPlayer subscribers I know online actually subscribe to WebTV).
The DishPlayer itself is a rather nice, and simple interface. It doesn't really do much. But what it does is simple to use. It's "OS" is BSD unix. But the client software had some really really nasty bugs a few years back. I was talking with a lawyer who was seriously considering a class action against Dish. But they backed down after Dish finally fixed the problems. Dish actually sued Microsoft and got a settlement from them for their crappy buggy-ass WebTV client software, which was killing the PVR software during schedule downloads.
So I'm wondering if they're suing EchoStar for the implementation in DishPlayer, or the implementation in the later 501 or 721 boxes - whose software was written by EchoStar, and not based on the original DishPlayer stuff.
also VERY happy that iDVD finally broke the 90-minute limit.
"but I think cheaper would have been more exciting."
I think Steve Jobs' message here is;
"get a job, hippy."
4gb @ $260
15gb @ $300
The form factor is the item here. Attractive, to me, because I've always considered the iPod a tad too large.
But still, a tad too expensive.
remember kiddies. . .
nothing says "poor workmanship" like wrinkles in the duct tape. . .
iDVD-Jon?
Maybe if he did one or both of two things:
- Break the 90-minute limit in iDVD. (figures, just about all of my movie projects end up at around 1:45 for some reason. . . )
- Break the internal-superdrive limitation in iDVD. (not that that matters to me now, because after two years of screwing around, I finally broke down and bought a new Power Mac).
Dear Mister Hussein,
Please provide evidence that you are in compliance with UN Resolution 3177, and that you have no active programs to develop WMI, and that you are not in posession of any WMI or WMI delivery systems.
Failure to provide evidence will result in a massive invasion of your country by US Laywer forces, shock and awe, resulting in the eventual extraction of your carcass from a spider-hole.
Sincerely,
Darl McBush
One of the main things that separates iPod from all of it's competitors is the FireWire interface. Everything else is USB2. Tinfoil hat or no, it's kind of strange how iPod is the ONLY FireWire media player.
But superior transfer speeds, reliability, and convenience (battery recharge) issues taken into account, I don't see how this new device would be more desirable, overall, if it was USB2.
We don't want no stinkin growth in the tech industry.
There aren't enough jobs to go around as it is.
Why don't you change your major to an industry that IS growing, like IP Law. Or Linguist for some obscure 3rd world country. Actually, you should try to find the poorest nation out there, and learn it's language. In 4 years, you'll be helping US firms hire them in droves.
The problem here is one of market perception. Due to the high degree of stock compensation for executives and board members, the focus is mainly on stock performance.
In the late 1990's the market perception was:
If Company A is a high-tech company, like Netscape, in a new and innovative internet-related field, and if Company A was ramping their headcount, and if Company A agressively compensates it's employees - then they MUST be doing well, or perhaps, will be doing well a few quarters down the road, and in fact, could very well become the next Microsoft.
Now, the market perception is:
Companies like Company A were all overhyped, and the agressive compensation was bleeding them dry because they were hiring bonehead "web-designers". Company A will do better in a few quarters if they outsource instead. They'll still get bonehead "web-designers" but they won't be quite so expensive. In fact, they could very well become the next Microsoft.
Companies gear to take advantage of this market perception. They want to inflate the stock price, and whether or not the decision to hire boneheads is good does not matter. The only thing that matters is if the company is following the latest trend that market watchers watch.
"and that's scary. If I'm saving say $400 for outsourcing but paying $200 in downtime because an admin is a moron, $100 in downtime waiting for the idiot admin to get a reply from a mailing list,"
That's a big problem alright - and the source of the problem, I'd say, is that there's no real good yardstick the industry can use to measure Tech Support. Even when vendors spent a lot on support, and didn't charge, it ranged from terrible to appallingly bad. Quality didn't suffer when it went overseas. But the main thing is - companies that spent more, and did better, didn't necessarily get much milage in the marketplace out of it.
Sure, there was the occasional JD Powers type surveys, and there were companies like IBM and Sun and Digital, whose reputations were built on their quality field service organizations. But they were unable to gain more marketshare based on those reputations, and based on their products. It was all robbed by Microsoft.
Hey, I'm all for nuclear energy.
As long as we store the waste in YOUR back yard. And YOU can personally guarantee it will STAY there for 12 million years.
"Why not just concentrate on making OpenOffice better and better?"
Because we're all much better off when three or four teams of talented programmers compete with eachother to make ALL of their solutions better and better.
With your logic, one could just as easily say; "Microsoft Office is the best! I use it in my office every day to produce tons of heavily formatted documentss. It saved me. I'm never going back to Open Office. KOffice was not as useful as Microsoft Office when I tried to switch before. Why not just concentrate on making Microsoft Office better and better?"
see?
"Ebay has just taken the traditional auction and used the internet to automate much of the process."
Actually - that's only a small part of it.
The REAL economic factor going on with eBay, once we get over the gee-whiz factor of the Internet and it's ability to touch such a wide market, while targeting small, specific interests - it's all about the shipping. Fed Ex and UPS are the REAL winners with the eBay and Amazon story.
And since with Fed Ex and UPS, the profit all depends on Energy input for their trucks and planes - the REAL winners are the oil companies. Any wonder why we were all exited about this cool new internet thing back in the 90's - and all of a sudden, starting with Hugo Chavez, it became "all about the oil"?
That's why. You don't sell SHIT on the internet without oil to fuel transport. Unless you're talking about Intellectual Property. You can sell that too. As long as you have enough draconian unconstitutional laws to support that. It's either that or oil.
"Basically, what I'm saying is, is that I believe customer service is still the most important aspect, so the company that succeeds in this arena will come out on top."
This is SO true - and is a great example of what is so great about free market capitalism.
The darker side of that is - when a company gets to be the size of a Dell or an HP, and it's seen as more profitable, since there's so little competition, to instead, loot their market. Which is what Dell is doing.
That's why, politically, we've got to keep our eye on when free market politics crosses the line and becomes anarcho-capitalism, and reign that shit in.
I'd like to take this opportunity to complain about the utter lack of options wherever drinks are sold.
Coke machines, restaurants - you're always given a choice of three options:
1. horrible tasting sewer water with floaties.
2. caffeine-free beverages with enough sugar to cause your pancreas to explode.
3. sugar-free beverages with enough caffeine to make your adrenal gland explode.
If you want something that tastes good, and won't kill you with sugar or caffeine, you can only find such beverages at the grocery store, or at home. It's like there's a conspiracy among beverage vendors to force people who are trying to beat a caffeine adiction to become obese (or vice versa).
I hate it - it drives me crazy, and the people who are responsible for this will be found when I am made emporer. They will be found, and they will be the first ones up against the wall. Okay, maybe the second ones, after the accountants and MBAs. . .
The problem is -
bottled water is a hell of a lot more expensive than diet cokes.
"And before you could escape, you'd have aircraft all over you and they'd blow your ass out of the water."
Let's hope we're not talking about the US Eastern Seaboard - because as was PROVED when we were attacked on 9/11/2001, it takes quite a while for ANY response out of the US Military.
Unless there was an intentional delay. You don't believe THAT nonsense, do you?
By the way, nice caste system you got there. . .
Oh - it WILL happen. Probably later rather than sooner. But it's inevitable.
The US economy is just beginning a long slow decline. When these companies - particularly the big pharmaceuticals, finish their offshoring, and gut the US economy to the point where Americans will no longer be able to afford their overpriced products, the US will have no choice but to socialize medicine.
Assuming we don't get tangled up in some godawful nuclear war by then. . .