Leave it to Slashdot to find people who will seriously respond to my sarcastic comment.;) (For the record, as a geek, I think beamed energy is a great idea, but I did want to make the point that sometimes the simplest idea can be the most effective.) I learned that from growing up on a small farm.:)
Knowing what I know about today's computerized HR systems and how you pretty much have to be lucky to even make it past the first cut of candidates, I'd say that it would be better to stay where you are. That said, you should inquire about the position with your current superior, if you really want it. A lot of times, that's all it takes. Management wants to hire somebody with a "go-getter" attitude. If you just sit back and try to be anonymous and hope that somebody up there recognizes your achievements, you're screwed. Trying to get a new job is a lot like sales, execpt in this case you're selling yourself. Before I was promoted to my current position, I more or less started campaigning as soon as my current boss told me that he was looking. I was constantly asking for more and more advanced assignments and completing them as quickly as possible. In general, I was doing everything I could to make sure that management knew that I was the best man for the job. When the time came, I was the only candidate in anybody's mind.
In general, while it may go against the personalities of many in IT, you need to be assertive and outgoing. You have to make sure that management already knows who you are if you want the job.
Hahaha. OK, I should have said my work phone. That said, my parents have a combined total of 3 phone lines on which I should be able to reach them. They never answer any of them. Your comment is so very, very true.
Until I read this: I've been known to actually turn down offers of "two chicks at the same time."
Seriously though, I'd love to see the look on two girls' faces when this guy says, "Sorry ladies, I'm looking for a vi user, and you two look like you can't even use Word." Truthfully, it's not as good as you think it will be. Oh! Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't turn it down if given another opportunity, but as a geek, I have a hard enough time interacting with one woman, let alone two.
Actually, I hate my phone and only answer it about 10% of the time. Most of the time it is people who want something minor done, but who for some reason don't feel that they should have to go through the helpdesk. What they fail to comprehend is that the reason I hire those helpdesk people is to filter out all of the users' idiotic requests and make sure that only the really important things get to me. I would much prefer a "drinks at XYZ" email, personally.
Actually, this was a big problem for me when I had to replace my old Logitech wireless keyboard last year, which did have a standard layout. Almost all of the higher end wireless keyboards do something funky, from the F-Lock (*see rant below), to the poorly placed multimedia keys, to the rearranged Insert/Home/Page Up/etc. cluster that I could no longer use by feel. I finally found a cheaper model a Fry's, took it home, and found out that it was PS/2 only. Either they forgot to include the PS/2 to USB adapter, or it wasn't compatible with one. Who makes a PS/2 keyboard these days anyway? Whatever. I took it back and finally managed to get a slightly more expensive off brand. I wish I could remember the brand right now. The mouse that came with it sucks, but I have a Wireless Intellimouse Explorer that I prefer anyway. So far it's been the best wireless keyboard that I've ever owned.
Insert - I've never had a use for "write over mode." Has anyone? I'll use it periodically in a command prompt or elswhere using a fixed width font. I guess it's more of a preference thing. And I generally only use it for instances where I'll perform the same command multiple times but with slight variation in server names.
Windows - Almost useless, squeezed between useful keys. Fortunately my Linux systems ignore this key. Very useful if you use Windows and actually know many of the shortcut keys. I do, but most people probably don't. Some of my favorite include Windows+F for the Windows search function. Windows+L locks your computer immediately. Windows+D forces all applications to minimize. Anyway, you get the drift. And you can always bind the key to something else in Linux. I used to do that back when I used Linux more frequently.
Menu - I'll just right-click, thanks. Again, useful in the right situations. I tend to prefer to browse mail in Outlook using the keyboard. The menu key allows me to perform various functions on emails without having to grab for the mouse.
Num lock - Why won't this go away? Why do I need a way for my numeric keypad stop to working? Are the arrow keys hard to find? I agree with you 100% here. Especially as it's more of a problem than anything else. My support desk generally gets at least one call a day from somebody who accidentally turned off Num Lock and whose password is now being rejected.
I want to add one more: Scroll Lock. Yeah, it was useful back before the mouse became ubiquitous, but now I don't see much of a use for it. Especially not with scroll wheels being standard now. But I guess there are probably some old-hat guys who still use it for something, just like I still use Insert on occasion.
You bring up an interesting point about Joe Sixpack... but I still think that, without a price decrease, CFLs won't compete even if Joe Sixpack understands the difference.
I have CFLs in many places in my house. As current bulbs die, I've been buying CFLs, but I have noticed a few problems with them. For one, I used to have a lamp whose shade was too short for CFLs since most CFLs are taller than incadescents. I eventually threw the lamp away when I moved again last year, but I did continue to use incadescent bulbs in it until then.
Also, CFLs make financial sense when compared to savings over the effective life of the bulb. But what about a situation where the effective life of the bulb is essentially infinite. For instance, a few months ago the bulb in my closet went out. This is a light that's on for, maybe, 5 minutes each day. No, considering that I doubt I'll be in this house for another year, do I purchase the incadescent for $0.89 or the CFL for $3.99? I bought the incadescent, mostly becuase I'm cheap but not so cheap that I'd actually go around to all the fixtures before moving and take all the bulbs with me. I'll let the inefficient bulb be a cost problem for the next guy.
Oh there definitely was. That said, it was sad that they were replacing the terminals with Pentium II PCs and low-end PIIIs in 2005. They just didn't want to spend the money on new hardware, so the department was just stuck using 5 year old PC equipment. It got the job done, but they were on the low end of the performance curve where some of the new java applications were concerned.
In the end, I think they would have been better off replacing the terminals with new equipment with a longer life span. Thankfully, I'm not still there to try to support this old equipment.
There were a couple of reasons to replace them. First though, I need to correct myself. I meant to say twinax and not token ring. I had one foot in the bed when I wrote the comment last night. In fact, replacing a twinax network might make more sense to you.
That said: 1) The machines did perform their alloted tasks adequately, but did not perform the newer tasks that employees were required to perform. For one, email is increasingly becoming an integral part of intercorporation communications. These employees using the terminals did not otherwise have access to a PC to check their email. Furthermore, the hospital had newer software tools that, while not critical and necessary to their jobs, could help the employees perform their jobs more quickly. 2) The users were frustrated by their inability to check email and see notices posted on the hospital's intranet site. Their basic job duties weren't impeded, of course. 3) The cost of supporting 5250 terminals for us had risen past the point that they were a viable solution. Parts were becoming scarcer. IT personnel who actually knew anything about them were in short supply. It just didn't make sense to keep them around. And once you replace one in a department, you have to replace them all in order to prevent a riot. Employees are petty and once one employee gets something that another employee perceives as better (and yes a Pentium II, low end Pentium III was perceived as better), then you better make sure that all employees are happy.
I was going to make my own McKesson sucks comment, but instead I'll just second yours. They write Crap. Period. End of story.
I remember sitting in on a presentation they once made to one of our directors regarding some new patient records management system they were trying to pitch to us. Not one single screen shot was shown nor were any technical people on hand so that I could ask the difficult questions. In the end, when she asked me my opinion, the conversation went like this:
Me: Remember application X that you used to use at hospital Y? Her: Uh... yes. Me: They wrote it.
No, the spending wouldn't decrease at all. They would just reapportion the funds to equipment such as the latest digital X-Ray machines. Or the newest CAT scanner. Or the latest robotic surgical nurse.
You get the picture. In fact, in most of health care, that's just what happens already. They spend as little as possible on IT and reapportion the cost to areas of service that will directly benefit their ability to attract doctors and customers and therefore generate greater revenues.
Those reading this might think I'm kidding, but let me tell you this: I once replaced a token ring network with an ethernet network connecting Pentium IIs and IIIs. In 2005.
Actually, I teach standardized test preparation for the high school level (ACT and SAT) part time, and I would have to say that not all of the problems on those tests can be solved in 10 seconds. For a person well schooled in mathematics, definitely that question.
I just wanted to chime in that I do agree that their firmware can be kind of crap sometimes. My eNV has been known to reboot itself from time to time with the occasional hard lockup forcing me to remove the battery. I haven't lost any data yet, but I now try to keep everything on my memory card.
OT, but have you tried their phone book backup software that stores your phonebook on their servers? Granted, if you want to be paranoid you wouldn't use it, but I find it to be extremely convenient. I'm pretty sure its free with certain levels of phone and/or data plans.
Also, you know your account keeps track of the MP3's/Ringtones/Games you download from VZW. I can't say for certain, but I would imagine that if you bought something like that from them, they would provide for a way for you to redownload the content. I know Sprint provides for this.
(Posting without Karma due to OT nature of comment...)
My whole family has Verizon and I know that three of our phones have a calendar application: LG ENv, LG Chocolate, and LG 8350. I'm almost certain that Dad's Razr has one too, but don't hold me to that -- I haven't touched his phone in months. On the LG phones, simply pressing "down" on the directional pad from the standby screen accesses the calendar. I've played with a few others at the store as well that had calendars, but I will admit that they've all been LG phones, so maybe it's just the Motorola phones that are gimped like that? I mean, here's a CNET review that specificially mentions that the phone includes a calendar: http://reviews.cnet.com/cell-phones/motorola-krzr-k1m-verizon/4505-6454_7-31987124.html
Have you actually checked for it under the Settings and Tools > Tools menu? That's where it should be located if you don't have a shortcut key for it.
I'm not trying to say that you're intentionally spreading FUD, but I certainly haven't noticed the lack of a calendar on any of my family's phones.
(The red themed GUI is crap, but they've thankfully been moving away from that on some of the newer phones -- my eNV has an option for a blue GUI and it looks sooo much better.)
Just so you know, a lot of corporations would probably move from MSFT if the software vendors would move first. It's not that we're all dependent on the OS to get our work done. What we are dependent on is the industry standard software that will only run on said OS.
I usually try not to get involved in these cell phone provider witch hunt threads becuase they never seem to go anywhere.**
Anyway, Verizon just recently released their iPhone competitor, the LG Voyager. Without performing a full comparison, I think the most fair comparison is to say that it does lack WiFi and the slick multi-touch interface, but it opens on the side for a full tactile QWERTY keyboard (in addition to the software keyboard), will allow you to SMS more than one person at once, does have a touch screen on the outside, and will browse OTA at full 3G speeds. In short, it's almost everything the iPhone should have been. Actually, just the tactile keyboard is enough to sell me. Like I said, I won't go through a full comparison of the two, but in my opinion the Voyager is a better overall package.
**I am of the opinion that all providers are equally bad and that you just have to pick the one that works for you. In my case, that happens to be Verizon, but only because 1) I have a good friend who works for them and who can help me out with the usual account issues, 2) my house is on the edge of Sprint coverage and my Sprint phone spent more time bouncing between Sprint and Alltel towers than actually receiving calls, and 3) Cingular/AT&T screwed me bad in a past lifetime and I refuse to go back to them. T-Mobile doesn't have a license to operate in my area and Alltel is a consideration, but in the past I've found their coverage to be somewhat lacking once I got out of their "back yard".
Unfortunately, you're right. I've never worked with an automated caller (thank god!), but had a friend who worked for a collections company for a while. Absolutely everything was automated. If the caller hung up, he had a limited ammount of time to finish entering that information on the account before the computer automatically dialed the next number. He had no control over who or when the phone would dial, aside from the "Log Off" button. He hated the job and would have quit it sooner than he did, but the money was good for him.
Well, call me an elitist prick if you want to, but I despise shopping at Wal-Mart. Frankly, shopping at Wal-Mart is never a good experience for me and I can count the number of times I've been to my local Wal-Mart in the past year on one hand. And still have two fingers left over. Aside from the fact that the average Wal-Mart shopper is on the whole from a different socio-economic group than I, I tend to find it ridiculous that every time I go into a Wal-Mart, I have to spend 10 mintues waiting in a damn check out line. Even more ridiculous when you consider that it's likely 1:00 AM and I'm only there because it's the only store in town that's open 24 hours.
Sadly enough, sometimes you have to be able to come up with firm metrics to measure employees so that you have valid reason to terminate underperforming employees. In this day and age of litigious society, it's not unreasonable to think that somebody may attempt to press a lawsuit after being terminated. So, although the employees hate the metrics, creating and enforcing metrics are sometimes the only way you can give yourself enough ammo to fire a troublesome employee. It sucks, but I've had to do it for a group of my employees in my office, all because I need to cover my ass when I do finally fire my one troublesome employee.
While, it may not be ever present, municipal wi-fi is great when you can find it. The last time I took a trip, it occured to me that the hospitality industry has some money to lose as well, though. I went to St. Louis a few weeks ago and was rather annoyed that my expensive 4-star hotel room didn't include free internet access. Sure, the website advertised internet access, but you had to pay $9.99/night for it. When I travel, don't usually stay in expensive hotels and, believe it or not, the internet access issue is partly why. I tend to stay in places such as Comfort Inns which typically offer free Wi-Fi. I can forgo the benefits of a valet service or concierge service if it means free Wi-Fi. Besides, the walk from the parking lot will provide me with some much needed exercise.
Getting around to my point, though... In April of last year I met up with some old college friends in New Orleans. We decided to stay at the W Hotel downtown because, well, it looked really nice and we'd always wanted to stay there when we all actually used to live in New Orleans. We are also all computer nerds and had our laptops out within minutes, but the problem was that none of us really wanted to pay the W's exhorbitant internet extortion fees. That's when we remember that the city had set up a free Wi-Fi network as part of the rebuilding process after Katrina. Lo and behold, we were all geeking out and checking our emails within minutes.
Which brings me back to my last trip. I seriously considered paying the $9.99 fee for a bit. After all, it was considerably less than my bar tab that night, and do I really value alcohol that much more than internet anyway? Apparently, yes. But when I thought about it, the hospitality industry really does stand to lose revenue relatively quickly if they could no longer charge for internet access. The costs of maintaining a wireless network in a hotel are probably negligible and for most hotels I'm sure the initial equipment costs have been more than covered in wi-fi fees. That means that each $10/night/room fee is pure profit. In the case of my trip to St. Louis, that would have been an extra $20 profit from me. In the case of the W in New Orleans, we had two non-adjoining rooms and so it would have been $40 profit for them during our stay. That's not exactly chump change and I'm sure it's a revenue stream that the hotels would definitely not want to lose out on. Heck, $40 is what many households pay for their monthly DSL service.
So anyway, there it is. Some perspective on yet another (possibly overlooked) player not wishing to lose money from the establishment of free wi-fi networks.
I think my next watch purchase will be either their Barcode watch or the Twelve 5-9 L Version. I almost bought the latter when I placed my last order, but I decided I needed to save a bit of money.
You are so very right about teams in TFC only serving themselves. I can remember at least one occasion where my friends were ragging on my choice to use a Scout in one map. I forget the name, but it was the map where you had to capture several different flags and take them back to your base to win the map. They claimed that, because I was actually killing very few people, it didn't count that I was leading the map.
On the other hand, those rare moments where you do experience some cooperativity from your teammates, made the game that much better. I can recall one particular game on Badlands where I was able to hold the bridge as a sniper due to constant and diligent resupply by my team's medics and engineers. After a while, the enemy pretty much stopped trying to cross the bridge and stuck to the canyons... at which point I would occasionally get brave and take the occasional pot shot at them, but that was risky since enemy snipers were gunning for me if I ventured too far on the bridge. Point is: it was one of my most enjoyable games due to the constant support from the support classes on my team. Also, our working together was instrumental in our decimation of the other team. Since I was able to hold the bridge as a single man, that freed up the rest of my team to defend the lower levels and cap the enemy's flag.
I can only hope that there will be more of this in TF2. I might just have to go buy OB this weekend.
Slashdot Mirror
Leave it to Slashdot to find people who will seriously respond to my sarcastic comment. ;) (For the record, as a geek, I think beamed energy is a great idea, but I did want to make the point that sometimes the simplest idea can be the most effective.) I learned that from growing up on a small farm. :)
Except... if the ships are going to be tethered, you may as well hookup a tow rope. It'd be cheaper.
Knowing what I know about today's computerized HR systems and how you pretty much have to be lucky to even make it past the first cut of candidates, I'd say that it would be better to stay where you are. That said, you should inquire about the position with your current superior, if you really want it. A lot of times, that's all it takes. Management wants to hire somebody with a "go-getter" attitude. If you just sit back and try to be anonymous and hope that somebody up there recognizes your achievements, you're screwed. Trying to get a new job is a lot like sales, execpt in this case you're selling yourself. Before I was promoted to my current position, I more or less started campaigning as soon as my current boss told me that he was looking. I was constantly asking for more and more advanced assignments and completing them as quickly as possible. In general, I was doing everything I could to make sure that management knew that I was the best man for the job. When the time came, I was the only candidate in anybody's mind.
In general, while it may go against the personalities of many in IT, you need to be assertive and outgoing. You have to make sure that management already knows who you are if you want the job.
Hahaha. OK, I should have said my work phone. That said, my parents have a combined total of 3 phone lines on which I should be able to reach them. They never answer any of them. Your comment is so very, very true.
Seriously though, I'd love to see the look on two girls' faces when this guy says, "Sorry ladies, I'm looking for a vi user, and you two look like you can't even use Word." Truthfully, it's not as good as you think it will be. Oh! Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't turn it down if given another opportunity, but as a geek, I have a hard enough time interacting with one woman, let alone two.
Actually, I hate my phone and only answer it about 10% of the time. Most of the time it is people who want something minor done, but who for some reason don't feel that they should have to go through the helpdesk. What they fail to comprehend is that the reason I hire those helpdesk people is to filter out all of the users' idiotic requests and make sure that only the really important things get to me. I would much prefer a "drinks at XYZ" email, personally.
Actually, this was a big problem for me when I had to replace my old Logitech wireless keyboard last year, which did have a standard layout. Almost all of the higher end wireless keyboards do something funky, from the F-Lock (*see rant below), to the poorly placed multimedia keys, to the rearranged Insert/Home/Page Up/etc. cluster that I could no longer use by feel. I finally found a cheaper model a Fry's, took it home, and found out that it was PS/2 only. Either they forgot to include the PS/2 to USB adapter, or it wasn't compatible with one. Who makes a PS/2 keyboard these days anyway? Whatever. I took it back and finally managed to get a slightly more expensive off brand. I wish I could remember the brand right now. The mouse that came with it sucks, but I have a Wireless Intellimouse Explorer that I prefer anyway. So far it's been the best wireless keyboard that I've ever owned.
Insert - I've never had a use for "write over mode." Has anyone?
I'll use it periodically in a command prompt or elswhere using a fixed width font. I guess it's more of a preference thing. And I generally only use it for instances where I'll perform the same command multiple times but with slight variation in server names.
Windows - Almost useless, squeezed between useful keys. Fortunately my Linux systems ignore this key.
Very useful if you use Windows and actually know many of the shortcut keys. I do, but most people probably don't. Some of my favorite include Windows+F for the Windows search function. Windows+L locks your computer immediately. Windows+D forces all applications to minimize. Anyway, you get the drift. And you can always bind the key to something else in Linux. I used to do that back when I used Linux more frequently.
Menu - I'll just right-click, thanks.
Again, useful in the right situations. I tend to prefer to browse mail in Outlook using the keyboard. The menu key allows me to perform various functions on emails without having to grab for the mouse.
Num lock - Why won't this go away? Why do I need a way for my numeric keypad stop to working? Are the arrow keys hard to find?
I agree with you 100% here. Especially as it's more of a problem than anything else. My support desk generally gets at least one call a day from somebody who accidentally turned off Num Lock and whose password is now being rejected.
I want to add one more: Scroll Lock. Yeah, it was useful back before the mouse became ubiquitous, but now I don't see much of a use for it. Especially not with scroll wheels being standard now. But I guess there are probably some old-hat guys who still use it for something, just like I still use Insert on occasion.
You bring up an interesting point about Joe Sixpack... but I still think that, without a price decrease, CFLs won't compete even if Joe Sixpack understands the difference.
I have CFLs in many places in my house. As current bulbs die, I've been buying CFLs, but I have noticed a few problems with them. For one, I used to have a lamp whose shade was too short for CFLs since most CFLs are taller than incadescents. I eventually threw the lamp away when I moved again last year, but I did continue to use incadescent bulbs in it until then.
Also, CFLs make financial sense when compared to savings over the effective life of the bulb. But what about a situation where the effective life of the bulb is essentially infinite. For instance, a few months ago the bulb in my closet went out. This is a light that's on for, maybe, 5 minutes each day. No, considering that I doubt I'll be in this house for another year, do I purchase the incadescent for $0.89 or the CFL for $3.99? I bought the incadescent, mostly becuase I'm cheap but not so cheap that I'd actually go around to all the fixtures before moving and take all the bulbs with me. I'll let the inefficient bulb be a cost problem for the next guy.
Oh there definitely was. That said, it was sad that they were replacing the terminals with Pentium II PCs and low-end PIIIs in 2005. They just didn't want to spend the money on new hardware, so the department was just stuck using 5 year old PC equipment. It got the job done, but they were on the low end of the performance curve where some of the new java applications were concerned.
In the end, I think they would have been better off replacing the terminals with new equipment with a longer life span. Thankfully, I'm not still there to try to support this old equipment.
There were a couple of reasons to replace them. First though, I need to correct myself. I meant to say twinax and not token ring. I had one foot in the bed when I wrote the comment last night. In fact, replacing a twinax network might make more sense to you.
That said:
1) The machines did perform their alloted tasks adequately, but did not perform the newer tasks that employees were required to perform. For one, email is increasingly becoming an integral part of intercorporation communications. These employees using the terminals did not otherwise have access to a PC to check their email. Furthermore, the hospital had newer software tools that, while not critical and necessary to their jobs, could help the employees perform their jobs more quickly.
2) The users were frustrated by their inability to check email and see notices posted on the hospital's intranet site. Their basic job duties weren't impeded, of course.
3) The cost of supporting 5250 terminals for us had risen past the point that they were a viable solution. Parts were becoming scarcer. IT personnel who actually knew anything about them were in short supply. It just didn't make sense to keep them around. And once you replace one in a department, you have to replace them all in order to prevent a riot. Employees are petty and once one employee gets something that another employee perceives as better (and yes a Pentium II, low end Pentium III was perceived as better), then you better make sure that all employees are happy.
I was going to make my own McKesson sucks comment, but instead I'll just second yours. They write Crap. Period. End of story.
I remember sitting in on a presentation they once made to one of our directors regarding some new patient records management system they were trying to pitch to us. Not one single screen shot was shown nor were any technical people on hand so that I could ask the difficult questions. In the end, when she asked me my opinion, the conversation went like this:
Me: Remember application X that you used to use at hospital Y?
Her: Uh... yes.
Me: They wrote it.
We didn't buy the software.
No, the spending wouldn't decrease at all. They would just reapportion the funds to equipment such as the latest digital X-Ray machines. Or the newest CAT scanner. Or the latest robotic surgical nurse.
You get the picture. In fact, in most of health care, that's just what happens already. They spend as little as possible on IT and reapportion the cost to areas of service that will directly benefit their ability to attract doctors and customers and therefore generate greater revenues.
Those reading this might think I'm kidding, but let me tell you this: I once replaced a token ring network with an ethernet network connecting Pentium IIs and IIIs. In 2005.
-- A former healthcare IT worker.
Actually, I teach standardized test preparation for the high school level (ACT and SAT) part time, and I would have to say that not all of the problems on those tests can be solved in 10 seconds. For a person well schooled in mathematics, definitely that question.
Yeah, yeah... replying to my own reply.
I just wanted to chime in that I do agree that their firmware can be kind of crap sometimes. My eNV has been known to reboot itself from time to time with the occasional hard lockup forcing me to remove the battery. I haven't lost any data yet, but I now try to keep everything on my memory card.
OT, but have you tried their phone book backup software that stores your phonebook on their servers? Granted, if you want to be paranoid you wouldn't use it, but I find it to be extremely convenient. I'm pretty sure its free with certain levels of phone and/or data plans.
Also, you know your account keeps track of the MP3's/Ringtones/Games you download from VZW. I can't say for certain, but I would imagine that if you bought something like that from them, they would provide for a way for you to redownload the content. I know Sprint provides for this.
(Posting without Karma due to OT nature of comment...)
My whole family has Verizon and I know that three of our phones have a calendar application: LG ENv, LG Chocolate, and LG 8350. I'm almost certain that Dad's Razr has one too, but don't hold me to that -- I haven't touched his phone in months. On the LG phones, simply pressing "down" on the directional pad from the standby screen accesses the calendar. I've played with a few others at the store as well that had calendars, but I will admit that they've all been LG phones, so maybe it's just the Motorola phones that are gimped like that? I mean, here's a CNET review that specificially mentions that the phone includes a calendar: http://reviews.cnet.com/cell-phones/motorola-krzr-k1m-verizon/4505-6454_7-31987124.html
Have you actually checked for it under the Settings and Tools > Tools menu? That's where it should be located if you don't have a shortcut key for it.
I'm not trying to say that you're intentionally spreading FUD, but I certainly haven't noticed the lack of a calendar on any of my family's phones.
(The red themed GUI is crap, but they've thankfully been moving away from that on some of the newer phones -- my eNV has an option for a blue GUI and it looks sooo much better.)
Just so you know, a lot of corporations would probably move from MSFT if the software vendors would move first. It's not that we're all dependent on the OS to get our work done. What we are dependent on is the industry standard software that will only run on said OS.
I usually try not to get involved in these cell phone provider witch hunt threads becuase they never seem to go anywhere.**
Anyway, Verizon just recently released their iPhone competitor, the LG Voyager. Without performing a full comparison, I think the most fair comparison is to say that it does lack WiFi and the slick multi-touch interface, but it opens on the side for a full tactile QWERTY keyboard (in addition to the software keyboard), will allow you to SMS more than one person at once, does have a touch screen on the outside, and will browse OTA at full 3G speeds. In short, it's almost everything the iPhone should have been. Actually, just the tactile keyboard is enough to sell me. Like I said, I won't go through a full comparison of the two, but in my opinion the Voyager is a better overall package.
**I am of the opinion that all providers are equally bad and that you just have to pick the one that works for you. In my case, that happens to be Verizon, but only because 1) I have a good friend who works for them and who can help me out with the usual account issues, 2) my house is on the edge of Sprint coverage and my Sprint phone spent more time bouncing between Sprint and Alltel towers than actually receiving calls, and 3) Cingular/AT&T screwed me bad in a past lifetime and I refuse to go back to them. T-Mobile doesn't have a license to operate in my area and Alltel is a consideration, but in the past I've found their coverage to be somewhat lacking once I got out of their "back yard".
Unfortunately, you're right. I've never worked with an automated caller (thank god!), but had a friend who worked for a collections company for a while. Absolutely everything was automated. If the caller hung up, he had a limited ammount of time to finish entering that information on the account before the computer automatically dialed the next number. He had no control over who or when the phone would dial, aside from the "Log Off" button. He hated the job and would have quit it sooner than he did, but the money was good for him.
Well, call me an elitist prick if you want to, but I despise shopping at Wal-Mart. Frankly, shopping at Wal-Mart is never a good experience for me and I can count the number of times I've been to my local Wal-Mart in the past year on one hand. And still have two fingers left over. Aside from the fact that the average Wal-Mart shopper is on the whole from a different socio-economic group than I, I tend to find it ridiculous that every time I go into a Wal-Mart, I have to spend 10 mintues waiting in a damn check out line. Even more ridiculous when you consider that it's likely 1:00 AM and I'm only there because it's the only store in town that's open 24 hours.
Sadly enough, sometimes you have to be able to come up with firm metrics to measure employees so that you have valid reason to terminate underperforming employees. In this day and age of litigious society, it's not unreasonable to think that somebody may attempt to press a lawsuit after being terminated. So, although the employees hate the metrics, creating and enforcing metrics are sometimes the only way you can give yourself enough ammo to fire a troublesome employee. It sucks, but I've had to do it for a group of my employees in my office, all because I need to cover my ass when I do finally fire my one troublesome employee.
While, it may not be ever present, municipal wi-fi is great when you can find it. The last time I took a trip, it occured to me that the hospitality industry has some money to lose as well, though. I went to St. Louis a few weeks ago and was rather annoyed that my expensive 4-star hotel room didn't include free internet access. Sure, the website advertised internet access, but you had to pay $9.99/night for it. When I travel, don't usually stay in expensive hotels and, believe it or not, the internet access issue is partly why. I tend to stay in places such as Comfort Inns which typically offer free Wi-Fi. I can forgo the benefits of a valet service or concierge service if it means free Wi-Fi. Besides, the walk from the parking lot will provide me with some much needed exercise.
Getting around to my point, though... In April of last year I met up with some old college friends in New Orleans. We decided to stay at the W Hotel downtown because, well, it looked really nice and we'd always wanted to stay there when we all actually used to live in New Orleans. We are also all computer nerds and had our laptops out within minutes, but the problem was that none of us really wanted to pay the W's exhorbitant internet extortion fees. That's when we remember that the city had set up a free Wi-Fi network as part of the rebuilding process after Katrina. Lo and behold, we were all geeking out and checking our emails within minutes.
Which brings me back to my last trip. I seriously considered paying the $9.99 fee for a bit. After all, it was considerably less than my bar tab that night, and do I really value alcohol that much more than internet anyway? Apparently, yes. But when I thought about it, the hospitality industry really does stand to lose revenue relatively quickly if they could no longer charge for internet access. The costs of maintaining a wireless network in a hotel are probably negligible and for most hotels I'm sure the initial equipment costs have been more than covered in wi-fi fees. That means that each $10/night/room fee is pure profit. In the case of my trip to St. Louis, that would have been an extra $20 profit from me. In the case of the W in New Orleans, we had two non-adjoining rooms and so it would have been $40 profit for them during our stay. That's not exactly chump change and I'm sure it's a revenue stream that the hotels would definitely not want to lose out on. Heck, $40 is what many households pay for their monthly DSL service.
So anyway, there it is. Some perspective on yet another (possibly overlooked) player not wishing to lose money from the establishment of free wi-fi networks.
Alternatively, he can wear some shiny geek watches: http://www.tokyoflash.com/en/.
I think my next watch purchase will be either their Barcode watch or the Twelve 5-9 L Version. I almost bought the latter when I placed my last order, but I decided I needed to save a bit of money.
You are so very right about teams in TFC only serving themselves. I can remember at least one occasion where my friends were ragging on my choice to use a Scout in one map. I forget the name, but it was the map where you had to capture several different flags and take them back to your base to win the map. They claimed that, because I was actually killing very few people, it didn't count that I was leading the map.
On the other hand, those rare moments where you do experience some cooperativity from your teammates, made the game that much better. I can recall one particular game on Badlands where I was able to hold the bridge as a sniper due to constant and diligent resupply by my team's medics and engineers. After a while, the enemy pretty much stopped trying to cross the bridge and stuck to the canyons... at which point I would occasionally get brave and take the occasional pot shot at them, but that was risky since enemy snipers were gunning for me if I ventured too far on the bridge. Point is: it was one of my most enjoyable games due to the constant support from the support classes on my team. Also, our working together was instrumental in our decimation of the other team. Since I was able to hold the bridge as a single man, that freed up the rest of my team to defend the lower levels and cap the enemy's flag.
I can only hope that there will be more of this in TF2. I might just have to go buy OB this weekend.