Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is one that is in desperate need of this feature. When you press Start from the title screen it will make you sit through a 2 minute cinema of scenes from the game -- the opening title sequence -- and you can't skip it. "Thanks, asshats. I own the game and I know how cool it is and how cool Sam Fisher is. Can we please skip the damn movie so I can get on Live! and play some co-op with a friend?"
One of the Farcrys for the XBox does the same thing if you don't have any saved games on your harddrive. "Yeah. Thanks. I don't need to see a commercial. I already bought the damn game. You've already got my money. Why can't we just skip the BS so I can start playing it, you jerks?"
I like to think that there's a special place reserved in hell for the developers who do this.
I was aware that Dell power supplies tend to be non-standard (or have been, depending on the year and model). But I thought that had to do with case layout only (and it does affect case layout - standard power supplies on some Dells will not have the power connector accessible without cutting a slot on the case.) So I checked and discovered that I was unaware that Dell power supplies in many cases were not merely non-standard in layout, but have different pinouts. Meaning that if you put a standard power supply in such a Dell, you will FRY YOUR MOTHERBOARD! Dell has NO warnings on the case about this!
I double-checked the model number on the client's system inventory I took, and determined that it is Dell 8300, which is one that DOES take a standard ATX power supply. However, had it been the 8400 machine NEXT to the 8300 machine, it would NOT. It's funny that you mention that about the 8300. The power supply in my 8300 went out after my last move. (According to my power supply tester, the +5v lead to the motherboard was marginal -- it would work if you jiggled the wire around, but you of course can't do that when the PS is mounted inside your case.) Contrary to your reaction, I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that it was a standard ATX case. When I buy an OEM PC, I just expect the fact that many of the parts won't be standard. I thought everybody knew that Dell power supplies had non-standard pinouts, though. For the record, I also own a Compaq and a Micron PC and neither one of those machines use standard ATX power supplies, either. (After I learned that the 8300 PS was standard ATX I was hoping to use one of those power supplies in my 8300 until I could get to the store and buy a new one.) I did have to cut the back of the case to fit the new power supply, but only because the new PS also had a master power switch on the rear of the PS. It's just a fact of life when you buy an OEM PC that some stuff will be to the OEM's standard and not ATX (or BTX or whatever). You notice when you buy a PC from them, they don't claim conformity to any case standards on their sites, so you shouldn't be surprised when their machines do turn up different. I'm just thankful that none of the manufacturers force you to use proprietary RAM like in my parents' old Pentium generation Compaq.
That said, I will be the first to admit that Dell's quality does seem to have gone down hill over the last decade. The last several PCs that my friends and family have bought from Dell have required repairs of some sort within a year of purchase. I guess that's what happens when you buy a cheap computer...
Just think about it, folks! The accounting software that practically every small business and small business accounting firm uses to keep track of your books, your transactions, and your credit card numbers is that one software that runs on Windows in ADMINISTRATOR MODE AT ALL TIMES! Tell me again about "security is job one" That's really Intuit's fault for writing crappy software. Granted, Windows should force a "sudo" type situation for Quickbooks, but it is in no way Microsoft's fault that Intuit wrote their software that way.
Probably depends on the state and the laws involved. I remember reading an article in a paper in GA last year, about a local Atlanta woman who is still registered as a sex offender because she gave some other kid a blow job in a high school classroom when they were both minors. She was now being forced to move due to a new GA law which prohibited registered sex offenders from living within 15 miles of a school bus stop. I don't remember the details, but apparently her case was complicated by the fact that she was technically performing an act of sodomy. IIRC, More recent ammendments to the sodomy law would allow future offenders to drop their registration after a time period, but her case was not grandfathered in.
So, getting back to the point, hopefully these two teens will be allowed to stop registering at some point in their lives.
(On a personal note, I don't feel that we should punish women for giving blow jobs. In fact, I feel quite the opposite. Any woman who routinely gives blow jobs deserves to be rewarded!:-P)
I did it day in and day out for about 8 months at my previous job. The big difference was that I had a cabal of close friends with whom I worked and with whom I could express my discontentment. I was searching for a new job off and on for those 8 months, but I was looking in another state and it's hard to go on job interviews 13 hours away when you only have a limited number of days off. In the end, when I decided that I'd finally had enough, I went to lunch one Thursday and came back having made the decision to just say "forget it" and leave. I put in my two weeks notice the following Monday, and everybody in the office was surprised because they all thought I was so happy there.
But yes. It does wear on you. That's why I would take 1.5 - 2 hour lunches every day - just to get the f--k away from that place and recompose myself for the rest of the day.
I used one of those new keyboards extensively at work for a few weeks and I HATED it. It was especially hard to use since all of my keyboards at home are PC standard layout. Delete wasn't hard to find, but I also always seemed to find the Delete key whenever I was trying to hit the End key. (Notice how, with the directional keys shifted left, Delete is also located directly above Up. I always reach for End from the directional keys, hitting Delete instead of End on the new keyboard.) Moving the Insert key was a huge loss as well, as I had set it up to run a macro in my 5250 emulator. I had a similar problem with the Print Screen key. On those key keyboards, you have to turn on the Fucking F-Lock key in order to use the upper keys as function keys. Those are keys that you generally NEED when using older software written for terminals. The caveat is that the Print Screen key will not work with F-Lock on. This really hampered my productivity when performing some administrative duties on our AS/400, as our 5250 emulator software utilized the Print Screen key to send a screen capture to the printer. Instead, I found myself running my Insert macro.
That said, I do prefer the Caps key in its PC standard position, but only becuase I actually find it EASIER to hit the left control key in its current position. I broke my left pinky playing high school football and now it won't stretch as far out as it should. With the left control in its current position, I can operate it with the little ridge on the outside of my hand. In fact, I always found it painful when I worked on a Sun machine due to the location of the Control key.
I need pictures taken of several local residential and business locations. You must have transportation and a good quality DIGITAL camera.
I'm offering $1.00 per picture to be paid via Paypal.I expect that 4-6 will be needed for each location
respond to this ad
Now, that ad may not be from that Canadian company, but what's to stop said company from posting their own ads like this and getting the average American to do their "dirty" work for them?
...it's easy to find something cheaper with the same CPU and RAM which is noticeably inferior in other ways, but try and find something which is actually equivalent and see what it costs in Windows-land. Maybe Apple is missing out then by not catering to those people who wish to purchase a lower end laptop. It seems to me that since everybody complains that Macs are too expensive, then Apple might be able to sell a few more units if they provide their own notebooks with inferior specs.
LOL. I really don't think it exists. That has always been my counter-example to my friends' claims that you can find anyting on the internet. In fact, I once offered up a prize of first, a case of beer, but later upped it to $100 to any one of my group friends who could legitimately find porn with cheerios on the internet. Nobody won the bet. (Of course, I was also drunk so it may have just been that nobody believed I would actually follow through on my bet.:)
Bingo. When I moved last year, The movers weren't allowed to move the lights with the bulbs installed and so removed all of the bulbs and handed them to me... which I forgot in my rush to get on the road. Anyway, I decided to replace my forgotten light bulbs with CFLs. It was a great idea, except the CFLs seemed to be just tall enough in two of my lamps that they protruded above the lamp shades. So much for diffused light.
CFLs aren't perfect for all purposes yet. A bill that would outright ban them is a little short-sighted, IMO.
Actually, on my LG 9900 (Verizon markets it as the enV, I think) I can change every one of the D-Pad shortcuts and by default the only one that links directly to a paid service is the Up key which links to the browser. (Internet access is something I gladly pay for on my monthly bill, anyway.) From what I understand, Verizon is changing the menu systems on all of their new phones to the version of the menus that is on my phone -- I assume that this will include the D-Pad remapping.
Additionally, the following bluetooth profiles are supported on my phone: 1. Headset 2. Handsfree 3. Dial Up Networking 4. Stereo 5. Basic Printing 6. Object Push 7. File Transfer 8. Human Interface
I can only assume that VZW got smart by offereing more Bluetooth profiles, including the File Transfer profile, because people were complaining and switching to other carriers. Again, I'm assuming that these changes to Bluetooth are going to filter down to all of their new phones. Are there other Bluetooth profiles that my phone may still be missing? (I would genuinely like to know as this is my first phone with Bluetooth anything on it.)
Open standards are great and I do love the fact that, were I with a GSM provider, I could pruchase any unlocked phone, swap in my SIM, and I'd be good to go. And if T-Mobile had coverage at my house, I would use them. (Cingular is on my personal shitlist, so I refuse to give my money to them.) That said, why is a closed standard such as CDMA/IS-856 (1xEVDO, the current CDMA standard in use by Verizon phones) necessarily considered a bad thing? People on/. seem to think that a company is inherently evil if it tries to make a profit. That's an inherently socialist point of view, if you ask me. If some company develops a technology that people feel is worth paying for, then why should the company be under any obligation to give away that technology for free? That's simply capitalism. Nobody forced Verizon to use CDMA -- there were other competing standards at the time that Verizon standardized on CDMA. They could switch to GSM if they felt it would be benificial (if not cost prohibitive). It just happened that Verizon (and Sprint) felt that it was the better technology at the time 2G services were rolling out in America. (Nobody's ever explained to me why Cingular, AT&T, et al rolled out TDMA instead of GSM in the first place...)
In short, the closed standards argument is a stupid one, in the case of cell phones. Now, were CDMA the only standard around or if it had sufficient market share such that it generated an anti-competitive environment, then I feel that Qualcomm should be compelled to open up the standard. (Kind of like Adobe is doing with the PDF standard now.)
Anyway, from looking at the features on my phone, it appears that Verizon is starting to shape up a bit in regards to customer friendliness. But what you didn't mention was the fact that you can't run generic java (BREW?) apps on a Verizon phone. That sucks, but I deal with it since I've yet to find that killer app that would make me demand the support on my phone. I've also been told that I can't use an MP3 saved on my Verizon phone as a ringtone like with many phones from other providers. I haven't bought a MicroSD card yet so I haven't bothered copying any MP3 files over to coroborate that fact yet.
As I said before, in general cell companys all suck. To be honest, Sprint treated me the best out of all of the providers I've used. The only reason I'm with Verizon now is becuase (1) they offer the best coverage at my house out of the big 4 (excluding the aformentioned shitlisted Cingular) and (2) a good friend is an operations manager at a Verizon store so he usually deals with customer assistance issues for me.
(I would also be a hypocrite if I didn't mention that the gains from my sales of Qualcomm stock paid for 3 out of 4 years of my college education.)
You must be new, or you would have known The Internet's motto: "Yes, there's porn of that." I don't know. I still haven't found any Cheerios porn, and I've had a connection to the internet since 1996.:(
And on the plus side, they are going to start pro-rating the contract cancellation fees.
That said, I just love how every article that mentions Verizon has to have at least one person griping about how they are such an evil company./sarcasm. In my personal experience, the rest of them aren't much better. It really just seems to come down to a six of one, half a dozen of another situation. Just pick what gets you the best coverage at the best price, and be done with it.
Now those are sentiments I agree with. I was merely attempting to point out circumstances under which your dogmatic advice might not necessarily apply. Most of my friends are already in debt up to their knees and have nothing to show for it. I really don't get the reasoning behind buying a $3000 TV on credit... My $150 TV serves me just fine. Although I do hope to pay my car off soon. (1st car after college.:)
What I love about satellite radio is that they have several stations serving up more niche genres that rarely, if ever, get played on the air. XM42 is a good example. It plays the metal bands that are too heavy to get FM radio air play. You'll never hear bands like Vampire Moose or Crowbar or Sky Eats Airplane or Goatwhore on the broadcast airwaves. The same goes for XM 80-84, the electroica channels. Except for the rare few dance tracks that do get really popular, most of the stuff on those channels will never get any FM air play. Channels 42 and 81 just happen to be the two channels I listen to the most, but there are plenty of other niche genres covered out there which rarely get played on FM, especially in smaller markets such as where I live. That right there makes XM worth the money to me. Well, that and no commercials.
Now if I can just get them to put the progressive rock station back on the air...
I had this more or less happen to me after hurricane Katrina. Chalk it up to youthful ignorance. I was sitting in Houston after the hurricane when my boss and his boss called me and asked me if I would go to Atlanta temporarily. They told me to keep all of my receipts for fuel/moving expenses becuase they would pay for the relocation, AND they would see what they could do to get me some money from the relief fund our company set up in order to help me replace anything that may have been lost. Of course, I agreed. I was happy to still have a job, and they could have just as easily told me to move without any sort of moving expenses if I wanted to keep my job.
Long story short, corporate was dragging their feet about the whole deal, and it got to the point where I either had to start paying rent at my place in New Orleans again, or find one in Atlanta and move my stuff out there. I litereally had ~2.5 weeks to find an apartment in Atlanta and arrange to have everything moved in to it, which wasn't easy considering every moving company in New Orleans was booked solid. It was only several weeks after I had moved that I was told that my company would not, in fact, pay my moving expenses per se and that all I would receive was a nominal ammount from the relief fund. It didn't even cover the cost of the moving company, let alone meals, gas, hotel, etc. Several weeks later I was also told that Atlanta didn't warrant a cost of living upgrade either, despite the client I was working for deciding otherwise for their employees who came from New Orleans.
Basically, I felt like I got used. They'd been trying to find somebody else for the Atlanta office, and they managed to get an already trained and knowledgeable employeee at no extra cost to them. (The relief fund was funded by employee donations.) I stuck it out longer than I should have in Atlanta. It took a long hard look at my financial situation for me to realize that they weren't doing me any favors, so I quit. I did have a "wage increase" discussion with my manager when I put in my notice, but when he told me that the best they'd be able to do is a few percent, I basically told him not to bother. When your rent alone has gone up by nearly $4000, an extra $1000 a year just isn't going to make a huge difference.
Anyway, I learned my lesson: to be sure I got it in writing the next time I was offered any sort of relocation package.
I said it's rare, but it's not impossible. Galactic Civ worked the first time out of the box... but there were already patches out by the time I bought it, so of course I had to download and install the patches before I started to play. Flight Simulator X worked the first time as well. But, I still had to tweak the graphics to find that happy medium. Out of the box, the game had the visual settings cranked way down and... well, it looked like crap. Yeah, it's not that huge a deal to have to tweak the visual settings during first play, but it's something that I don't have to do whenever I put in a new XBox game.:-P When I only have 15 minutes to play a game, I really don't want to spend half of that tweaking the graphics. Getting a game to work on a console is just more simple. (Well, unless it's my vintage NES. Then I have to hyperventilate myself just to get Double Dragon 2 to work. Kind of.)
Not to mention, consoles are the simpler/easier choice. It's rare that I can buy a new PC game, and not have to make some tweaks/install new drivers/perform a rain dance to get it to run right the very first time. At the very least, I usually end up adjusting the graphics options to find that perfect balance between playability and eye candy.
With a console, with the exception of a very few, rare occasions I have never had to do anything more than put in a disc and hit Power/Reset. No troubleshooting. No patches to download. No drivers to update. Consoles just work. For somebody like me who sometimes has a hard time carving out gaming time, the ability to just sit down and immediately play is important for me.
(Note: the rare exceptions I spoke of were 1)a bad burn of a disc. No biggie -- shit happens. I just exchanged it for anotother copy at the store. 2) RE4 for the PS2 didn't like my 3rd party memory card. First time I've ever had an issue with the card, but I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later with a 3rd party peripheral...)
This actually reminds me of a discussion I had with some of my friends. Is it possible to dress too nice/fashionable for a tech job interview?
Some of my friends seem to be of the opinion that if you dress too fashionable for a job interview, the interviewer may be less likely to take you seriously as a computer geek. In other words, they think that you should be presentable, but not dress like you're interviewing for an investment job on Wall Street because a "true" geek wouldn't take that much care in his appearance. I think that's not entirely correct, but during my last round of interviewing for a job I did taylor my dress back and dress a bit more conservatively (more traditional cut dress shirt instead of "fitted" cut dress shirt in a lighter, less bold color, and more conservative tie). I'm not sure if it made a difference, but some of my friends think it does.
I actually use my faster laptop with WiFi from the couch to VNC into and remote control my slower laptop connected to the PC. It works beautifully for me and lets me keep my lazy ass on the couch when watching videos on the TV.
That said, getting to the GP's point, my experience is that many consumer level PCs still don't have S-Video out direct from the factory. I've recently worked with several comptuers bought within the last 6 months and none of them have S-Video out. These have all been sub-$500 range PCs, which is probably fairly representative of the type of computer the majority of consumers are purchasing these days. (Laptops are another story -- every laptop I've seen in the past 8 years has had S-Video onboard.)
The other hurdle is getting people to recognize and use the PC as a home theater device. Most people tend to think of computers and home theaters as two wholly seperate entities. Recently when I suggested to my dad that I should hook up my laptop to the TV in order to play a video for them, he gave me a weird look along the lines of "I never thought about doing that." Not to mention that most people keep their computers in a seperate room, usually far removed from their TV and I can guarantee you that the average computer owner won't want to move their computer from one room to the next just to stream Superman to their TV. In short, we still have a way to go to get the masses to accept the computer as a full featured multimedia device that you can connect to your home theater.
Not entirely correct. I bought a DVD set from Best Buy and then promptly lost the receipt. I opened the DVD set and it is missing the last disc, but Best Buy won't even let me exchange it since I don't have the receipt. Yet another reason I don't shop at Best Buy.
I don't know about you, but from personal observations, made while I go about my daily business, I tend to think that those Americans with a good grasp of the English language are vastly the minority. I would guess that at least 2 out of every three people I meet seem to butcher the English language in some way during even a short, 2 or 3 sentence conversation.
But maybe it just seems like that because I live in Arkansas.;)
Uhh... "Our high school guidance counselor used to ask us what you'd do if you had a million dollars and you didn't have to work. And invariably what you'd say was supposed to be your career. So, if you wanted to fix old cars then you're supposed to be an auto mechanic.";)
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Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is one that is in desperate need of this feature. When you press Start from the title screen it will make you sit through a 2 minute cinema of scenes from the game -- the opening title sequence -- and you can't skip it. "Thanks, asshats. I own the game and I know how cool it is and how cool Sam Fisher is. Can we please skip the damn movie so I can get on Live! and play some co-op with a friend?"
One of the Farcrys for the XBox does the same thing if you don't have any saved games on your harddrive. "Yeah. Thanks. I don't need to see a commercial. I already bought the damn game. You've already got my money. Why can't we just skip the BS so I can start playing it, you jerks?"
I like to think that there's a special place reserved in hell for the developers who do this.
I double-checked the model number on the client's system inventory I took, and determined that it is Dell 8300, which is one that DOES take a standard ATX power supply. However, had it been the 8400 machine NEXT to the 8300 machine, it would NOT. It's funny that you mention that about the 8300. The power supply in my 8300 went out after my last move. (According to my power supply tester, the +5v lead to the motherboard was marginal -- it would work if you jiggled the wire around, but you of course can't do that when the PS is mounted inside your case.) Contrary to your reaction, I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that it was a standard ATX case. When I buy an OEM PC, I just expect the fact that many of the parts won't be standard. I thought everybody knew that Dell power supplies had non-standard pinouts, though. For the record, I also own a Compaq and a Micron PC and neither one of those machines use standard ATX power supplies, either. (After I learned that the 8300 PS was standard ATX I was hoping to use one of those power supplies in my 8300 until I could get to the store and buy a new one.) I did have to cut the back of the case to fit the new power supply, but only because the new PS also had a master power switch on the rear of the PS. It's just a fact of life when you buy an OEM PC that some stuff will be to the OEM's standard and not ATX (or BTX or whatever). You notice when you buy a PC from them, they don't claim conformity to any case standards on their sites, so you shouldn't be surprised when their machines do turn up different. I'm just thankful that none of the manufacturers force you to use proprietary RAM like in my parents' old Pentium generation Compaq.
That said, I will be the first to admit that Dell's quality does seem to have gone down hill over the last decade. The last several PCs that my friends and family have bought from Dell have required repairs of some sort within a year of purchase. I guess that's what happens when you buy a cheap computer... Just think about it, folks! The accounting software that practically every small business and small business accounting firm uses to keep track of your books, your transactions, and your credit card numbers is that one software that runs on Windows in ADMINISTRATOR MODE AT ALL TIMES! Tell me again about "security is job one" That's really Intuit's fault for writing crappy software. Granted, Windows should force a "sudo" type situation for Quickbooks, but it is in no way Microsoft's fault that Intuit wrote their software that way.
Probably depends on the state and the laws involved. I remember reading an article in a paper in GA last year, about a local Atlanta woman who is still registered as a sex offender because she gave some other kid a blow job in a high school classroom when they were both minors. She was now being forced to move due to a new GA law which prohibited registered sex offenders from living within 15 miles of a school bus stop. I don't remember the details, but apparently her case was complicated by the fact that she was technically performing an act of sodomy. IIRC, More recent ammendments to the sodomy law would allow future offenders to drop their registration after a time period, but her case was not grandfathered in.
:-P)
So, getting back to the point, hopefully these two teens will be allowed to stop registering at some point in their lives.
(On a personal note, I don't feel that we should punish women for giving blow jobs. In fact, I feel quite the opposite. Any woman who routinely gives blow jobs deserves to be rewarded!
I did it day in and day out for about 8 months at my previous job. The big difference was that I had a cabal of close friends with whom I worked and with whom I could express my discontentment. I was searching for a new job off and on for those 8 months, but I was looking in another state and it's hard to go on job interviews 13 hours away when you only have a limited number of days off. In the end, when I decided that I'd finally had enough, I went to lunch one Thursday and came back having made the decision to just say "forget it" and leave. I put in my two weeks notice the following Monday, and everybody in the office was surprised because they all thought I was so happy there.
But yes. It does wear on you. That's why I would take 1.5 - 2 hour lunches every day - just to get the f--k away from that place and recompose myself for the rest of the day.
I used one of those new keyboards extensively at work for a few weeks and I HATED it. It was especially hard to use since all of my keyboards at home are PC standard layout. Delete wasn't hard to find, but I also always seemed to find the Delete key whenever I was trying to hit the End key. (Notice how, with the directional keys shifted left, Delete is also located directly above Up. I always reach for End from the directional keys, hitting Delete instead of End on the new keyboard.) Moving the Insert key was a huge loss as well, as I had set it up to run a macro in my 5250 emulator. I had a similar problem with the Print Screen key. On those key keyboards, you have to turn on the Fucking F-Lock key in order to use the upper keys as function keys. Those are keys that you generally NEED when using older software written for terminals. The caveat is that the Print Screen key will not work with F-Lock on. This really hampered my productivity when performing some administrative duties on our AS/400, as our 5250 emulator software utilized the Print Screen key to send a screen capture to the printer. Instead, I found myself running my Insert macro.
That said, I do prefer the Caps key in its PC standard position, but only becuase I actually find it EASIER to hit the left control key in its current position. I broke my left pinky playing high school football and now it won't stretch as far out as it should. With the left control in its current position, I can operate it with the little ridge on the outside of my hand. In fact, I always found it painful when I worked on a Sun machine due to the location of the Control key.
Thanks for the idea. ;)
http://littlerock.craigslist.org/etc/271792246.ht
Link to a printable version of the article (without 10 damn pages of ads): http://www.hardware.info/print/article_print.php?i d=amdnY2pvZGOa&pageid=1
...it's easy to find something cheaper with the same CPU and RAM which is noticeably inferior in other ways, but try and find something which is actually equivalent and see what it costs in Windows-land. Maybe Apple is missing out then by not catering to those people who wish to purchase a lower end laptop. It seems to me that since everybody complains that Macs are too expensive, then Apple might be able to sell a few more units if they provide their own notebooks with inferior specs.It's a thought, anyway.
LOL. I really don't think it exists. That has always been my counter-example to my friends' claims that you can find anyting on the internet. In fact, I once offered up a prize of first, a case of beer, but later upped it to $100 to any one of my group friends who could legitimately find porn with cheerios on the internet. Nobody won the bet. (Of course, I was also drunk so it may have just been that nobody believed I would actually follow through on my bet. :)
Bingo. When I moved last year, The movers weren't allowed to move the lights with the bulbs installed and so removed all of the bulbs and handed them to me... which I forgot in my rush to get on the road. Anyway, I decided to replace my forgotten light bulbs with CFLs. It was a great idea, except the CFLs seemed to be just tall enough in two of my lamps that they protruded above the lamp shades. So much for diffused light.
CFLs aren't perfect for all purposes yet. A bill that would outright ban them is a little short-sighted, IMO.
Actually, on my LG 9900 (Verizon markets it as the enV, I think) I can change every one of the D-Pad shortcuts and by default the only one that links directly to a paid service is the Up key which links to the browser. (Internet access is something I gladly pay for on my monthly bill, anyway.) From what I understand, Verizon is changing the menu systems on all of their new phones to the version of the menus that is on my phone -- I assume that this will include the D-Pad remapping.
/. seem to think that a company is inherently evil if it tries to make a profit. That's an inherently socialist point of view, if you ask me. If some company develops a technology that people feel is worth paying for, then why should the company be under any obligation to give away that technology for free? That's simply capitalism. Nobody forced Verizon to use CDMA -- there were other competing standards at the time that Verizon standardized on CDMA. They could switch to GSM if they felt it would be benificial (if not cost prohibitive). It just happened that Verizon (and Sprint) felt that it was the better technology at the time 2G services were rolling out in America. (Nobody's ever explained to me why Cingular, AT&T, et al rolled out TDMA instead of GSM in the first place...)
Additionally, the following bluetooth profiles are supported on my phone:
1. Headset
2. Handsfree
3. Dial Up Networking
4. Stereo
5. Basic Printing
6. Object Push
7. File Transfer
8. Human Interface
I can only assume that VZW got smart by offereing more Bluetooth profiles, including the File Transfer profile, because people were complaining and switching to other carriers. Again, I'm assuming that these changes to Bluetooth are going to filter down to all of their new phones. Are there other Bluetooth profiles that my phone may still be missing? (I would genuinely like to know as this is my first phone with Bluetooth anything on it.)
Open standards are great and I do love the fact that, were I with a GSM provider, I could pruchase any unlocked phone, swap in my SIM, and I'd be good to go. And if T-Mobile had coverage at my house, I would use them. (Cingular is on my personal shitlist, so I refuse to give my money to them.) That said, why is a closed standard such as CDMA/IS-856 (1xEVDO, the current CDMA standard in use by Verizon phones) necessarily considered a bad thing? People on
In short, the closed standards argument is a stupid one, in the case of cell phones. Now, were CDMA the only standard around or if it had sufficient market share such that it generated an anti-competitive environment, then I feel that Qualcomm should be compelled to open up the standard. (Kind of like Adobe is doing with the PDF standard now.)
Anyway, from looking at the features on my phone, it appears that Verizon is starting to shape up a bit in regards to customer friendliness. But what you didn't mention was the fact that you can't run generic java (BREW?) apps on a Verizon phone. That sucks, but I deal with it since I've yet to find that killer app that would make me demand the support on my phone. I've also been told that I can't use an MP3 saved on my Verizon phone as a ringtone like with many phones from other providers. I haven't bought a MicroSD card yet so I haven't bothered copying any MP3 files over to coroborate that fact yet.
As I said before, in general cell companys all suck. To be honest, Sprint treated me the best out of all of the providers I've used. The only reason I'm with Verizon now is becuase (1) they offer the best coverage at my house out of the big 4 (excluding the aformentioned shitlisted Cingular) and (2) a good friend is an operations manager at a Verizon store so he usually deals with customer assistance issues for me.
(I would also be a hypocrite if I didn't mention that the gains from my sales of Qualcomm stock paid for 3 out of 4 years of my college education.)
And on the plus side, they are going to start pro-rating the contract cancellation fees.
/sarcasm. In my personal experience, the rest of them aren't much better. It really just seems to come down to a six of one, half a dozen of another situation. Just pick what gets you the best coverage at the best price, and be done with it.
That said, I just love how every article that mentions Verizon has to have at least one person griping about how they are such an evil company.
Now those are sentiments I agree with. I was merely attempting to point out circumstances under which your dogmatic advice might not necessarily apply. Most of my friends are already in debt up to their knees and have nothing to show for it. I really don't get the reasoning behind buying a $3000 TV on credit... My $150 TV serves me just fine. Although I do hope to pay my car off soon. (1st car after college. :)
Or maybe you haven't yet earned enough income to purchase the reliable, quality transportation that will enable you to keep your job.
What I love about satellite radio is that they have several stations serving up more niche genres that rarely, if ever, get played on the air. XM42 is a good example. It plays the metal bands that are too heavy to get FM radio air play. You'll never hear bands like Vampire Moose or Crowbar or Sky Eats Airplane or Goatwhore on the broadcast airwaves. The same goes for XM 80-84, the electroica channels. Except for the rare few dance tracks that do get really popular, most of the stuff on those channels will never get any FM air play. Channels 42 and 81 just happen to be the two channels I listen to the most, but there are plenty of other niche genres covered out there which rarely get played on FM, especially in smaller markets such as where I live. That right there makes XM worth the money to me. Well, that and no commercials.
Now if I can just get them to put the progressive rock station back on the air...
I had this more or less happen to me after hurricane Katrina. Chalk it up to youthful ignorance. I was sitting in Houston after the hurricane when my boss and his boss called me and asked me if I would go to Atlanta temporarily. They told me to keep all of my receipts for fuel/moving expenses becuase they would pay for the relocation, AND they would see what they could do to get me some money from the relief fund our company set up in order to help me replace anything that may have been lost. Of course, I agreed. I was happy to still have a job, and they could have just as easily told me to move without any sort of moving expenses if I wanted to keep my job.
Long story short, corporate was dragging their feet about the whole deal, and it got to the point where I either had to start paying rent at my place in New Orleans again, or find one in Atlanta and move my stuff out there. I litereally had ~2.5 weeks to find an apartment in Atlanta and arrange to have everything moved in to it, which wasn't easy considering every moving company in New Orleans was booked solid. It was only several weeks after I had moved that I was told that my company would not, in fact, pay my moving expenses per se and that all I would receive was a nominal ammount from the relief fund. It didn't even cover the cost of the moving company, let alone meals, gas, hotel, etc. Several weeks later I was also told that Atlanta didn't warrant a cost of living upgrade either, despite the client I was working for deciding otherwise for their employees who came from New Orleans.
Basically, I felt like I got used. They'd been trying to find somebody else for the Atlanta office, and they managed to get an already trained and knowledgeable employeee at no extra cost to them. (The relief fund was funded by employee donations.) I stuck it out longer than I should have in Atlanta. It took a long hard look at my financial situation for me to realize that they weren't doing me any favors, so I quit. I did have a "wage increase" discussion with my manager when I put in my notice, but when he told me that the best they'd be able to do is a few percent, I basically told him not to bother. When your rent alone has gone up by nearly $4000, an extra $1000 a year just isn't going to make a huge difference.
Anyway, I learned my lesson: to be sure I got it in writing the next time I was offered any sort of relocation package.
I said it's rare, but it's not impossible. Galactic Civ worked the first time out of the box... but there were already patches out by the time I bought it, so of course I had to download and install the patches before I started to play. Flight Simulator X worked the first time as well. But, I still had to tweak the graphics to find that happy medium. Out of the box, the game had the visual settings cranked way down and... well, it looked like crap. Yeah, it's not that huge a deal to have to tweak the visual settings during first play, but it's something that I don't have to do whenever I put in a new XBox game. :-P When I only have 15 minutes to play a game, I really don't want to spend half of that tweaking the graphics. Getting a game to work on a console is just more simple. (Well, unless it's my vintage NES. Then I have to hyperventilate myself just to get Double Dragon 2 to work. Kind of.)
Not to mention, consoles are the simpler/easier choice. It's rare that I can buy a new PC game, and not have to make some tweaks/install new drivers/perform a rain dance to get it to run right the very first time. At the very least, I usually end up adjusting the graphics options to find that perfect balance between playability and eye candy.
With a console, with the exception of a very few, rare occasions I have never had to do anything more than put in a disc and hit Power/Reset. No troubleshooting. No patches to download. No drivers to update. Consoles just work. For somebody like me who sometimes has a hard time carving out gaming time, the ability to just sit down and immediately play is important for me.
(Note: the rare exceptions I spoke of were 1)a bad burn of a disc. No biggie -- shit happens. I just exchanged it for anotother copy at the store. 2) RE4 for the PS2 didn't like my 3rd party memory card. First time I've ever had an issue with the card, but I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later with a 3rd party peripheral...)
This actually reminds me of a discussion I had with some of my friends. Is it possible to dress too nice/fashionable for a tech job interview?
Some of my friends seem to be of the opinion that if you dress too fashionable for a job interview, the interviewer may be less likely to take you seriously as a computer geek. In other words, they think that you should be presentable, but not dress like you're interviewing for an investment job on Wall Street because a "true" geek wouldn't take that much care in his appearance. I think that's not entirely correct, but during my last round of interviewing for a job I did taylor my dress back and dress a bit more conservatively (more traditional cut dress shirt instead of "fitted" cut dress shirt in a lighter, less bold color, and more conservative tie). I'm not sure if it made a difference, but some of my friends think it does.
I actually use my faster laptop with WiFi from the couch to VNC into and remote control my slower laptop connected to the PC. It works beautifully for me and lets me keep my lazy ass on the couch when watching videos on the TV.
That said, getting to the GP's point, my experience is that many consumer level PCs still don't have S-Video out direct from the factory. I've recently worked with several comptuers bought within the last 6 months and none of them have S-Video out. These have all been sub-$500 range PCs, which is probably fairly representative of the type of computer the majority of consumers are purchasing these days. (Laptops are another story -- every laptop I've seen in the past 8 years has had S-Video onboard.)
The other hurdle is getting people to recognize and use the PC as a home theater device. Most people tend to think of computers and home theaters as two wholly seperate entities. Recently when I suggested to my dad that I should hook up my laptop to the TV in order to play a video for them, he gave me a weird look along the lines of "I never thought about doing that." Not to mention that most people keep their computers in a seperate room, usually far removed from their TV and I can guarantee you that the average computer owner won't want to move their computer from one room to the next just to stream Superman to their TV. In short, we still have a way to go to get the masses to accept the computer as a full featured multimedia device that you can connect to your home theater.
Not entirely correct. I bought a DVD set from Best Buy and then promptly lost the receipt. I opened the DVD set and it is missing the last disc, but Best Buy won't even let me exchange it since I don't have the receipt. Yet another reason I don't shop at Best Buy.
I don't know about you, but from personal observations, made while I go about my daily business, I tend to think that those Americans with a good grasp of the English language are vastly the minority. I would guess that at least 2 out of every three people I meet seem to butcher the English language in some way during even a short, 2 or 3 sentence conversation.
;)
But maybe it just seems like that because I live in Arkansas.
Uhh... "Our high school guidance counselor used to ask us what you'd do if you had a million dollars and you didn't have to work. And invariably what you'd say was supposed to be your career. So, if you wanted to fix old cars then you're supposed to be an auto mechanic." ;)