At one point shortly after the dot com crash, I took a tech support job with a 3rd party company contracted by a major manufacturer. We did a good job. Well above average, in fact. Our call times were longer on average, but overall satisfaction was higher as well. So the local management started pushing for higher wages in order to reduce turnover and keep the quality people.
What happens? Head office lays off the entire building instead. We were stunned. It was the last thing we had expected after the effort we had put in.
So yeah, the next time you call tech support, just remember that solving the problem is actually a *secondary* concern to getting you off the phone as quickly as possible. If tech support companies could get away with having an array of phones, and Dippy Birds that took the call, and then hung up again, they probably would.
There are no words to describe the level of contempt I feel for outsourced support companies, They drive their people as hard as they can, for as little reward as they can, and then spit out the burned out husk without so much as a by-your-leave cause there's always some poor sap in line waiting their turn to enter the grinder.
I had an S3. There was only a couple of minor updates, and certainly no major version update. Between that, and all the shovelwear they put on it, I ended up having to root it and install cyanogenmod on it just so the phone would be usable.
This is inexcusable behaviour from a major manufacturer that was supposedly peddling a "flagship" phone.
I learned the hard way not to trust Dell with mobile device support, when I bought one of their Windows CE devices, specifically because they said that they were going to put out an update to the next major version. It never came.
If you want to buy any kind of mobile device, and want it to be supported, you don't buy it from Dell. Ditto with Samsung.
And now a whole bunch more people have now learned that lesson the hard way as well.
Symantec is the elephant graveyard of software. Any software that Symantec acquires, no matter how good it was originally, will turn to crap. We saw it with Norton Antivirus, Norton Utilities, a couple other things.
For a while their enterprise antivirus product bucked the curve and actually did reasonably well, but I guess that was just a statistical anomaly that Symantec has since corrected.
It's fascinating to watch Microsoft become more and more desperate as people start to avoid them wholesale. It looks like Microsoft has finally pissed people off so much that they basically can't do *anything* anymore, because people won't buy what they sell.
People will continue to buy Windows because they need computers, and those computers will most likely need Windows. Office has become synonymous with word processing and spreadsheets, so people buy that too because they don't really feel they have a choice.
Every other things they make has collapsed. They've tried mobile several times now. Nobody will bite. Same with their mp3 players, their tablets, their gaming consoles... They haven't been able to gain traction on *anything* outside their core monopoly business. Or if they do, it's only temporary and it quickly dies off again.
Their only real hope had been to basically hold out until the previous generation basically retired, and people forgot all their shenanigans of the past. But things like the Windows 10 shitshow have done an excellent job of demonstrating to an entirely new generation of people that they really haven't changed at all. They're still the same "We'll fuck you over at the earliest opportunity" bastards they've been since Bill Gates founded the company.
I can't even fathom what logical obstacle course you had to run through to get to that conclusion. The country just had a major referendum, with the biggest turnout in decades, possibly ever.
They just participated in one of the biggest democratic events in recent British history. And they voted to leave. Done. Finito.
My complaint is that many of the Leavers voted for idiotic reasons, including "I didn't think it was actually going to happen." And large swaths of people only started doing research *after* the fact. They *chose* to be idiots. They *chose* to not even spend a moment considering what the possible ramifications would be, yet still *chose* to leave.
How you got from there, to "wanting to scrap democracy", I still can't figure out.
Their Prime Minister has already resigned as a result of this referendum. The ball has already started rolling. If they want to stop that ball, then all the power to them, but it's going to be orders of magnitude harder to stop it now, compared to if they had simply chose not to push it in the first place.
You know what? Tough shit. You had plenty of time to research the issue *before* the vote. But no, it only occurred people to even do something as paltry as a freaking google search, AFTER the vote had already taken place.
It's about fucking time people actually started taking responsibility for their actions. It's this "Oh whoopsie! I didn't mean to do that! I want backsies!" bullshit that is the reason why the entire world is deteriorating before our very eyes.... because people can't be bothered to spend two lousy seconds to stop and think about what they're going to do, before they actually do it.
What's the phrase? Measure twice, cut once? Well guess what... That little rule applies to a hell of a lot more than just cutting wood.
But of course, I'm just pissing in the wind. (Which is amazingly difficult to do from a squatting position, let me assure you...) The average person isn't going to make any effort to change, and the world is going to get even more fucked up than it is now.
The only thing that is going to happen is that those with both the foresight and the means to protect themselves, will hunker down and wait while everyone else blows a gasket and likely start killing each other.
How is it that they haven't had their issuer's license revoked already? They've already been found wanting as a cert provider, since they seem to have no qualms about issuing fraudulent certificates.
And now they're trying to fraudulently use someone else's trademark?
How much more fraud will they be allowed to perform before someone gives them a serious slap?
Oh, wait, what am I thinking... This is the US. As long as their shareholders are happy they could rape, pillage and burn entire towns and no one would care.
Another slashdotter argued that I was being paranoia over the idea that Windows 10 grants Microsoft carte blanche access your computer without needing your permission or knowledge.
Well well well, look at that other shoe that just dropped! Now all the gov't needs to do is give the word and Microsoft can/will hoover everything and anything they want off your machine. This brings dragnet spying to a whole new level.
Not everything needs to be encrypted. If the gov't finds out that I told my friend that my kitty did the cutest thing with a tissue, who cares? If I need to give someone a password to an account I set up for them on a server, then I have the option to encrypt. It would be nice if Telegram switched to using Signal's protocol for encrypted communications, cause Signal appears to be the benchmark that all other protocols are compared to, and I know there have been issues expressed with Telegram's encryption protocol.
Other features that are important: Broad spectrum platform support. That means Windows, OSX, iOS, Android, Linux. That's ultimately what killed BBM. You *had* to have a Blackberry to use it. Once Blackberry started dying, everyone abandoned BBM as well. By the time Blackberry saw the light, it was too little, too late. IMO, Whats App went from being a childrens toy, to a seriously useful tool, the second they added desktop support.
Other critical feature: Sync history between clients. I have multiple desktops, a tablet, and a phone. The idea of not being able to switch from one to another and still continue my conversation is flat out idiotic in todays connected age. I prefer to type on an actual keyboard when I can, so if I'm in front of a desktop, I use the desktop to message with. But it's not unusual that I then have to go somewhere, but I don't want to abandon the conversation, so I switch to a mobile device. I *expect* my history to follow me so that I can continue where I left off.
Finally, it *has* to be easy. I would have loved to see XMPP become the defacto messaging protocol, cause it's just so powerful. But setting up an XMPP client is a PITA. Sure, *I* could set it up just fine, because I have the skill to do so. The average person doesn't, which guarantees that the overwhelming majority of people won't use it, which defeats the whole purpose of having a universal messaging protocol.
I thought Microsoft is abandoning the mobile platform entirely, because of overwhelmingly poor sales.
Also... considering their hideous track record for security in general (Most recently: https://threatpost.com/office-... which was nothing short of breathtakingly boneheaded...), even if I had a Windows Phone (which I never will), I would never trust it to hold something as important as my credit card details.
I don't care of gives me the ability to poop gold bullion. I'm never going to use it. It's a Windows-only browser that was written by Microsoft, and not only that it's only available for Windows 10.
Microsoft already demonstrated with Internet Explorer, that they will happily turn the internet into a filthy Windows-centric cesspool the second they are given the opportunity. The last thing we want to do is give them the opportunity to try again. The fact that it only works on Windows 10 (which is another nightmare for reasons already well stated by many) whose adoption rate is basically grinding to a halt, means that it is basically irrelevant.
You are right, however that isn't going to stop me from holding Google accountable for this privacy mess. Abusive apps that slurp up your data has existed for a very long time. Manufacturers that don't provide updates to their devices has been an ongoing issue for a very long time.
All these issues (and more) are things that Google *could* have addressed a long time ago, and chose not to, so they are responsible for creating this "Landfill Android" ecosystem whether they like it or not. This is a major reason why I have abandoned the entire Android platform in it's entirety, and actively discourage everyone I know from getting an Android device.
I'm glad that Google is finally getting their heads out of their asses and finally locking down Android, but this is something that should have happened a long time ago. As it stands, it will take *years* before Android M becomes the dominant OS version (Heck, v4 still has over 30% market share.) and in the mean time, the overwhelming majority of Android users are still screwed.
Most people keep their phones on them at all times, because it's just too useful, so no, that's not really an option.
Disabling location tracking? If you're using an Apple iDevice, then yes, this is possible. If you are using an Android, then no, it's not possible, because Google has specifically and conspicuously not granted users fine-grained controls over what an application is allowed to do.
This is apparently changing in the most recent versions of android, but considering how poor the penetration is for said most recent versions, they don't really count yet.
I have an iPhone and an iPad, and I long ago denied Facebook access to pretty much everything. No contacts, no location, no nothing. The only reason I even use Facebook is the same as why I use Microsoft Office. Cause everyone I know uses it, and it's the simplest way to work with them.
Facebook needs to believe that all video, all the time, is the right way to go. That way, when they wipe themselves out and go bankrupt, it will not only finally get Facebook out of... well... our faces, but it will demonstrate quite clearly that video is *not* the be all and end all of media consumption.
I personally despise how things are going more and more video. Especially supposedly professional video that is poorly edited, and even more poorly scripted where the person is saying "Um" and "Uh" all the time because it hadn't even occurred to them that they should plan out what they were going to say.
I know... Let's put a mac with the new OSX^H^H^H MacOS side by side with a Windows 10 machine. That way Siri and Cortana can commiserate about how nobody actually wants them.
Seriously, the last thing I need is to have half the office staring at me worriedly because I'm screaming at Siri because it made a reminder for me to "Eat Up Martha" instead of what I actually wanted.
This actually sounds like a really good feature. There are times when I'm twiddling with my iPad, only to realizing I could be doing it much more easily on Mac. Being able to easily move data from one to the other would be very valuable.
I'd like to complain about how Apple should have supported Bluetooth OBEX right from the beginning, but considering almost every single vendor that provides Bluetooth functionality somehow botches up OBEX, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Apple didn't even bother trying.
Yeah, that's exactly what I was afraid you were going to say.
Personally, I no longer use *any* software that relies on interpreted code, such as PHP, Perl, etc. (NodeJS scares the pants off me from a security standpoint). That means I no longer use Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, or the bajillion other CMSes that are PHP-based. Something that is, say, Java-based is going to be much more resource intensive, and thus have higher hardware requirements than it's PHP equivalent, but that system is far more likely to be robust and hacker-resistant unless the developer does something particularly bone-headed. Generally speaking, Java has a much higher barrier to entry, which means the developers need to be (theoretically) more skilled in software development to put out a product.
Another advantage of componentizing and loosely coupling your services... When you update them, you don't have to update everything at once. You can upgrade just that one piece. As long as that piece still communicates with the rest of your stuff the way it's supposed to, you're good.
I'm seeing people jawing over how much/little space is saved on your iphone or ipad by being able to delete the apps, but I'm happy for a different reason:
More control of my home screen.
When I got my iPhone, I had to create a folder called "Useless crap" and drag all these icons into it because that was my only option. Being able to get rid of these applications will free a little bit of storage, but more importantly it allows me to unclutter my home screen. When you have a limited amount of visual space to work with, this is a big usability improvement.
The most expensive bluetooth set I have purchased thus far has only be 40 bucks, so I guess by headphone standards that still qualifies for the "shit" range. I have used it with both an ipad and an iphone, and I have issues with both. With the iphone, at it's worst, I literally literally (not figuratively literally) have to keep the phone no more than 24 inches away or the sound repeatedly cuts out. It's extremely variable as to when it where it happens too, so short of walking around with an RF measuring device, I can't predict when I'm going to have problems.
The headphones are Jabra BT620s, and while trying to search for the exact model (I couldn't remember at first) I ran into a review that was scathing about it's hideous connection performance. So apparently I managed to pick a real lemon.:)
What you are asking for is a pretty complex setup. I'm sure it's possible to do this using wordpress or drupal or whathave you, but I advise against taking the 'easy' route because, as I said, while you'd get yourself up and running relatively quickly, you'd be doing that at the cost of having a maintenance nightmare in the future.
The biggest issue to consider is maintenance. I know I've said that multiple times, but I cannot stress it enough. 2 years from now, you're going to have plenty of other things on your plate and you're not going to want to spend resources having to reimplement a major portion of your system because it turns out you use a plugin that has since gone into disuse and is no longer maintained. It's even worse when you're talking about, say, having to upgrade the core code due to a dangerous security vulnerability, but upgrading the core code breaks half the plugins you used.
It sounds to me like you should take a good hard look on what features you want to provide, and whether or not it is appropriate to segregate the functionality into separate systems, possibly having each one dependent on a centralized user database. I don't have any specific tools in mind because I can't think of any that does exactly what you're looking for, but from an architectural point of view I would try to componentize as much as possible. A dedicated tool for user management, with possibly some kind of extension to track purchased features Another for handling accounting/purchasing, which updates the user table when things are purchased.
Something like webmin/virtualmin can handle website creation/accounting. The blog type stuff *could* be done using something like Wordpress, but with their hideous history of security vulnerabilities I would research and pick something that has a better handle on security.
The key bit here would be to make sure user information and accounting are managed by separately, loosely coupled systems so that if the blog or any of the subdomains get compromised, then at least there's still another barrier that the hackers would need to cross before getting to the truely dangerous data.
TL;DR version: A CMS will let you get a very nice website up faster, but you pay for that with with a long term maintenance nightmare. Go static unless you specifically and absolutely need dynamic content.
The problem with virtually all CMSes is that they security-hole ridden messes. If you use, say Wordpres, you have to be prepared to babysit the thing on a daily basis because new vulnerabilities are being found and fixed constantly. And heaven forbid that an update to the core code base breaks a plugin you happen to use, and that plugin is no longer maintained.
It's just not worth the effort. There are plenty of tools out there that will let you work on your website locally as if it were a CMS, but the final output is plain static pages. Unless your site specifically *needs* dynamic content, such as being able to allow users to make comments on articles, etc, a CMS is unnecessary.
A classic tool is dreamweaver. There are plenty of open source static CMS generators you can find, with just a little googling.
Slashdot Mirror
At one point shortly after the dot com crash, I took a tech support job with a 3rd party company contracted by a major manufacturer. We did a good job. Well above average, in fact. Our call times were longer on average, but overall satisfaction was higher as well. So the local management started pushing for higher wages in order to reduce turnover and keep the quality people.
What happens? Head office lays off the entire building instead. We were stunned. It was the last thing we had expected after the effort we had put in.
So yeah, the next time you call tech support, just remember that solving the problem is actually a *secondary* concern to getting you off the phone as quickly as possible. If tech support companies could get away with having an array of phones, and Dippy Birds that took the call, and then hung up again, they probably would.
There are no words to describe the level of contempt I feel for outsourced support companies, They drive their people as hard as they can, for as little reward as they can, and then spit out the burned out husk without so much as a by-your-leave cause there's always some poor sap in line waiting their turn to enter the grinder.
I had an S3. There was only a couple of minor updates, and certainly no major version update. Between that, and all the shovelwear they put on it, I ended up having to root it and install cyanogenmod on it just so the phone would be usable.
This is inexcusable behaviour from a major manufacturer that was supposedly peddling a "flagship" phone.
I learned the hard way not to trust Dell with mobile device support, when I bought one of their Windows CE devices, specifically because they said that they were going to put out an update to the next major version. It never came.
If you want to buy any kind of mobile device, and want it to be supported, you don't buy it from Dell. Ditto with Samsung.
And now a whole bunch more people have now learned that lesson the hard way as well.
Symantec is the elephant graveyard of software. Any software that Symantec acquires, no matter how good it was originally, will turn to crap. We saw it with Norton Antivirus, Norton Utilities, a couple other things.
For a while their enterprise antivirus product bucked the curve and actually did reasonably well, but I guess that was just a statistical anomaly that Symantec has since corrected.
It's fascinating to watch Microsoft become more and more desperate as people start to avoid them wholesale. It looks like Microsoft has finally pissed people off so much that they basically can't do *anything* anymore, because people won't buy what they sell.
People will continue to buy Windows because they need computers, and those computers will most likely need Windows. Office has become synonymous with word processing and spreadsheets, so people buy that too because they don't really feel they have a choice.
Every other things they make has collapsed. They've tried mobile several times now. Nobody will bite. Same with their mp3 players, their tablets, their gaming consoles... They haven't been able to gain traction on *anything* outside their core monopoly business. Or if they do, it's only temporary and it quickly dies off again.
Their only real hope had been to basically hold out until the previous generation basically retired, and people forgot all their shenanigans of the past. But things like the Windows 10 shitshow have done an excellent job of demonstrating to an entirely new generation of people that they really haven't changed at all. They're still the same "We'll fuck you over at the earliest opportunity" bastards they've been since Bill Gates founded the company.
*blink*
I can't even fathom what logical obstacle course you had to run through to get to that conclusion. The country just had a major referendum, with the biggest turnout in decades, possibly ever.
They just participated in one of the biggest democratic events in recent British history. And they voted to leave. Done. Finito.
My complaint is that many of the Leavers voted for idiotic reasons, including "I didn't think it was actually going to happen." And large swaths of people only started doing research *after* the fact. They *chose* to be idiots. They *chose* to not even spend a moment considering what the possible ramifications would be, yet still *chose* to leave.
How you got from there, to "wanting to scrap democracy", I still can't figure out.
Their Prime Minister has already resigned as a result of this referendum. The ball has already started rolling. If they want to stop that ball, then all the power to them, but it's going to be orders of magnitude harder to stop it now, compared to if they had simply chose not to push it in the first place.
You know what? Tough shit. You had plenty of time to research the issue *before* the vote. But no, it only occurred people to even do something as paltry as a freaking google search, AFTER the vote had already taken place.
It's about fucking time people actually started taking responsibility for their actions. It's this "Oh whoopsie! I didn't mean to do that! I want backsies!" bullshit that is the reason why the entire world is deteriorating before our very eyes.... because people can't be bothered to spend two lousy seconds to stop and think about what they're going to do, before they actually do it.
What's the phrase? Measure twice, cut once? Well guess what... That little rule applies to a hell of a lot more than just cutting wood.
But of course, I'm just pissing in the wind. (Which is amazingly difficult to do from a squatting position, let me assure you...) The average person isn't going to make any effort to change, and the world is going to get even more fucked up than it is now.
The only thing that is going to happen is that those with both the foresight and the means to protect themselves, will hunker down and wait while everyone else blows a gasket and likely start killing each other.
I thought it was a fantastic idea, and I really wanted one. I just wasn't going to pay a cool grand for it.
How is it that they haven't had their issuer's license revoked already? They've already been found wanting as a cert provider, since they seem to have no qualms about issuing fraudulent certificates.
And now they're trying to fraudulently use someone else's trademark?
How much more fraud will they be allowed to perform before someone gives them a serious slap?
Oh, wait, what am I thinking... This is the US. As long as their shareholders are happy they could rape, pillage and burn entire towns and no one would care.
Another slashdotter argued that I was being paranoia over the idea that Windows 10 grants Microsoft carte blanche access your computer without needing your permission or knowledge.
Well well well, look at that other shoe that just dropped! Now all the gov't needs to do is give the word and Microsoft can/will hoover everything and anything they want off your machine. This brings dragnet spying to a whole new level.
Telegram is a good compromise for all my needs.
Not everything needs to be encrypted. If the gov't finds out that I told my friend that my kitty did the cutest thing with a tissue, who cares? If I need to give someone a password to an account I set up for them on a server, then I have the option to encrypt. It would be nice if Telegram switched to using Signal's protocol for encrypted communications, cause Signal appears to be the benchmark that all other protocols are compared to, and I know there have been issues expressed with Telegram's encryption protocol.
Other features that are important: Broad spectrum platform support. That means Windows, OSX, iOS, Android, Linux. That's ultimately what killed BBM. You *had* to have a Blackberry to use it. Once Blackberry started dying, everyone abandoned BBM as well. By the time Blackberry saw the light, it was too little, too late. IMO, Whats App went from being a childrens toy, to a seriously useful tool, the second they added desktop support.
Other critical feature: Sync history between clients. I have multiple desktops, a tablet, and a phone. The idea of not being able to switch from one to another and still continue my conversation is flat out idiotic in todays connected age. I prefer to type on an actual keyboard when I can, so if I'm in front of a desktop, I use the desktop to message with. But it's not unusual that I then have to go somewhere, but I don't want to abandon the conversation, so I switch to a mobile device. I *expect* my history to follow me so that I can continue where I left off.
Finally, it *has* to be easy. I would have loved to see XMPP become the defacto messaging protocol, cause it's just so powerful. But setting up an XMPP client is a PITA. Sure, *I* could set it up just fine, because I have the skill to do so. The average person doesn't, which guarantees that the overwhelming majority of people won't use it, which defeats the whole purpose of having a universal messaging protocol.
I thought Microsoft is abandoning the mobile platform entirely, because of overwhelmingly poor sales.
Also... considering their hideous track record for security in general (Most recently: https://threatpost.com/office-... which was nothing short of breathtakingly boneheaded...), even if I had a Windows Phone (which I never will), I would never trust it to hold something as important as my credit card details.
Sounds like these companies need to implement the game code equivalent of CRLs.
Lets just say that colonoscopies won't be a problem anymore.
Neither will farts... they'll be more like, gaspy coughs.
I don't care of gives me the ability to poop gold bullion. I'm never going to use it. It's a Windows-only browser that was written by Microsoft, and not only that it's only available for Windows 10.
Microsoft already demonstrated with Internet Explorer, that they will happily turn the internet into a filthy Windows-centric cesspool the second they are given the opportunity. The last thing we want to do is give them the opportunity to try again. The fact that it only works on Windows 10 (which is another nightmare for reasons already well stated by many) whose adoption rate is basically grinding to a halt, means that it is basically irrelevant.
You are right, however that isn't going to stop me from holding Google accountable for this privacy mess. Abusive apps that slurp up your data has existed for a very long time. Manufacturers that don't provide updates to their devices has been an ongoing issue for a very long time.
All these issues (and more) are things that Google *could* have addressed a long time ago, and chose not to, so they are responsible for creating this "Landfill Android" ecosystem whether they like it or not. This is a major reason why I have abandoned the entire Android platform in it's entirety, and actively discourage everyone I know from getting an Android device.
I'm glad that Google is finally getting their heads out of their asses and finally locking down Android, but this is something that should have happened a long time ago. As it stands, it will take *years* before Android M becomes the dominant OS version (Heck, v4 still has over 30% market share.) and in the mean time, the overwhelming majority of Android users are still screwed.
Most people keep their phones on them at all times, because it's just too useful, so no, that's not really an option.
Disabling location tracking? If you're using an Apple iDevice, then yes, this is possible. If you are using an Android, then no, it's not possible, because Google has specifically and conspicuously not granted users fine-grained controls over what an application is allowed to do.
This is apparently changing in the most recent versions of android, but considering how poor the penetration is for said most recent versions, they don't really count yet.
I have an iPhone and an iPad, and I long ago denied Facebook access to pretty much everything. No contacts, no location, no nothing. The only reason I even use Facebook is the same as why I use Microsoft Office. Cause everyone I know uses it, and it's the simplest way to work with them.
Facebook needs to believe that all video, all the time, is the right way to go. That way, when they wipe themselves out and go bankrupt, it will not only finally get Facebook out of... well... our faces, but it will demonstrate quite clearly that video is *not* the be all and end all of media consumption.
I personally despise how things are going more and more video. Especially supposedly professional video that is poorly edited, and even more poorly scripted where the person is saying "Um" and "Uh" all the time because it hadn't even occurred to them that they should plan out what they were going to say.
I know... Let's put a mac with the new OSX^H^H^H MacOS side by side with a Windows 10 machine. That way Siri and Cortana can commiserate about how nobody actually wants them.
Seriously, the last thing I need is to have half the office staring at me worriedly because I'm screaming at Siri because it made a reminder for me to "Eat Up Martha" instead of what I actually wanted.
This actually sounds like a really good feature. There are times when I'm twiddling with my iPad, only to realizing I could be doing it much more easily on Mac. Being able to easily move data from one to the other would be very valuable.
I'd like to complain about how Apple should have supported Bluetooth OBEX right from the beginning, but considering almost every single vendor that provides Bluetooth functionality somehow botches up OBEX, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Apple didn't even bother trying.
*mutter mutter*
Yeah, that's exactly what I was afraid you were going to say.
Personally, I no longer use *any* software that relies on interpreted code, such as PHP, Perl, etc. (NodeJS scares the pants off me from a security standpoint). That means I no longer use Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, or the bajillion other CMSes that are PHP-based. Something that is, say, Java-based is going to be much more resource intensive, and thus have higher hardware requirements than it's PHP equivalent, but that system is far more likely to be robust and hacker-resistant unless the developer does something particularly bone-headed. Generally speaking, Java has a much higher barrier to entry, which means the developers need to be (theoretically) more skilled in software development to put out a product.
Another advantage of componentizing and loosely coupling your services... When you update them, you don't have to update everything at once. You can upgrade just that one piece. As long as that piece still communicates with the rest of your stuff the way it's supposed to, you're good.
I'm seeing people jawing over how much/little space is saved on your iphone or ipad by being able to delete the apps, but I'm happy for a different reason:
More control of my home screen.
When I got my iPhone, I had to create a folder called "Useless crap" and drag all these icons into it because that was my only option. Being able to get rid of these applications will free a little bit of storage, but more importantly it allows me to unclutter my home screen. When you have a limited amount of visual space to work with, this is a big usability improvement.
The most expensive bluetooth set I have purchased thus far has only be 40 bucks, so I guess by headphone standards that still qualifies for the "shit" range. I have used it with both an ipad and an iphone, and I have issues with both. With the iphone, at it's worst, I literally literally (not figuratively literally) have to keep the phone no more than 24 inches away or the sound repeatedly cuts out. It's extremely variable as to when it where it happens too, so short of walking around with an RF measuring device, I can't predict when I'm going to have problems.
The headphones are Jabra BT620s, and while trying to search for the exact model (I couldn't remember at first) I ran into a review that was scathing about it's hideous connection performance. So apparently I managed to pick a real lemon. :)
What you are asking for is a pretty complex setup. I'm sure it's possible to do this using wordpress or drupal or whathave you, but I advise against taking the 'easy' route because, as I said, while you'd get yourself up and running relatively quickly, you'd be doing that at the cost of having a maintenance nightmare in the future.
The biggest issue to consider is maintenance. I know I've said that multiple times, but I cannot stress it enough. 2 years from now, you're going to have plenty of other things on your plate and you're not going to want to spend resources having to reimplement a major portion of your system because it turns out you use a plugin that has since gone into disuse and is no longer maintained. It's even worse when you're talking about, say, having to upgrade the core code due to a dangerous security vulnerability, but upgrading the core code breaks half the plugins you used.
It sounds to me like you should take a good hard look on what features you want to provide, and whether or not it is appropriate to segregate the functionality into separate systems, possibly having each one dependent on a centralized user database. I don't have any specific tools in mind because I can't think of any that does exactly what you're looking for, but from an architectural point of view I would try to componentize as much as possible. A dedicated tool for user management, with possibly some kind of extension to track purchased features Another for handling accounting/purchasing, which updates the user table when things are purchased.
Something like webmin/virtualmin can handle website creation/accounting. The blog type stuff *could* be done using something like Wordpress, but with their hideous history of security vulnerabilities I would research and pick something that has a better handle on security.
The key bit here would be to make sure user information and accounting are managed by separately, loosely coupled systems so that if the blog or any of the subdomains get compromised, then at least there's still another barrier that the hackers would need to cross before getting to the truely dangerous data.
TL;DR version: A CMS will let you get a very nice website up faster, but you pay for that with with a long term maintenance nightmare. Go static unless you specifically and absolutely need dynamic content.
The problem with virtually all CMSes is that they security-hole ridden messes. If you use, say Wordpres, you have to be prepared to babysit the thing on a daily basis because new vulnerabilities are being found and fixed constantly. And heaven forbid that an update to the core code base breaks a plugin you happen to use, and that plugin is no longer maintained.
It's just not worth the effort. There are plenty of tools out there that will let you work on your website locally as if it were a CMS, but the final output is plain static pages. Unless your site specifically *needs* dynamic content, such as being able to allow users to make comments on articles, etc, a CMS is unnecessary.
A classic tool is dreamweaver. There are plenty of open source static CMS generators you can find, with just a little googling.