I think at least in Handspring's case, they've had a philosophy of planned obsolescense by building their products with hard ROMs.
Obviously, they can't be upgraded that way, so in their all knowing marketing minds, they're hoping users will continue to upgrade to newer products from Handspring.
Originally, they claimed that the lack of a flash ROM was a price saving measure, but I tend to think that in some cases, a flash rom would actually be cheaper.
Now that the treo has a flash rom, and they're lying about it, what do they expect? Of course users are going to make use of that 'hidden feature' now!
Handspring, you ought to 'embrace and extend' now that the gig's up.
I agree! In my case, I work in a color deprived office I lovingly refer to as "prison". The entire office is 1 single color!! I'm not kidding either... walls are gray, ceiling is gray, carpet is gray, desks are gray, cubicles are gray, computers are gray... even the doors are gray. If there was ever a color known to suck the life out of man, its gray.
I think my boss (gray haired staunch old guy) has an office fetish. He has an unhealthy love for the fax machine, and is definetely into conformity. Shirt and tie all day long, and this isn't even a public place!!
I don't have my own stapler. But they did allow me some scotch tape (gray) and a gray mousepad.
I think office space means a lot to those of us that live it!
I took interest in the story of Sealand about 2 years ago. There's plenty of reading material available on the web..
try www.sealandgov.com... excellent historical information, including Sealand's first naval battle.
Also,www.fruitsofthesea.demon.co.uk/sealand/ has a decent picture gallery so you can visualize just how small this platform is.
I had an email conversation with somebody at sealand back when I first heard of the place. I kept the email... funny thing, it usually took them a few months to reply. Being that havenco is very security oriented, I'm sure they use latency to their advantage for communications. Interesting rule of Havenco... customers aren't allowed to supply their own machines in the sake of security.
Overall, the article was a good read. But, I must point to the following observation..
"... The problem with Linux is that it's an open source system, so if you are having issues or difficulties with its stability, it's like pushing on a rope; there's no single vendor to deal with...."
The very next paragraph...
"Weta had just taken delivery of 25 Linux workstations from IBM and Labrie reported that IBM and Hewlett Packard were the frontrunners for additional Linux workstation upgrades."
Alright, so... what am I missing here? You've got IBM behind your efforts. Whats the problem?
Perhaps the comment was referring to specific pieces of software, although my experience has been that dealing with a group of open developers is far more useful than dealing with a single inept vendor. When the vendor is full of crap, where else can you turn?
The first paragraph I mentioned continues...
"You have to be self-deterministic in terms of how things work. You have to make your own choices and do your own tests on motherboards, graphics cards, applications, operating system releases, all those kinds of things."
Again, I'm not buying this comment either... afterall, you have IBM behind you! Don't they test the motherboards, graphics cards, operating system releases, and all those kind of things?
Obviously Linux has been a good solution for them because they're using it. They're having success with it, and its saving them loads of $$ versus using an alternative proprietary system.
I don't want to sound stupid, but I've apparently been left out of the loop on the "wi-fi" thing. I didn't get the memo... can somebody please, just tell me what "wi-fi" is?
Honestly, I bet "better testing" probably would cost the US economy more than $59b.
1. Longer time to market = longer ROI 2. Additional costs of testing = higher package price
Given that we exist in a free market society, I'm willing to bet that free market principles are in effect and $59b in software bugs is a good balance.
"The anti-counterfeit measures are basically non-existant"...
... except for the watermarks, microprint, iridescent markings, micro engraved printing process, blue and red fibers embedded in the linen paper, and the micro-thin plastic strip embedded in each bill.
I wish *they* would let us vote on it... I'd vote against adding color to US Currency.
Although the article states the current bills as a "boon to swindlers" because the bills are hard to distinguish, I disagree. I know the difference between a 1, 5, 10, etc. If you're too stupid to be able to distinguish your money, you deserve to have it stolen.
Regardless, I believe one of the attributes that makes US currency recognizable around the world is its simple color scheme. Its powerful, and looks like no other currency. When color is added to US currency, I fully expect the value of the dolor to drop because it will no longer have the bold, simple 2 color scheme. It will be just like every other paper currency on the world market.
I recently watched a documentary on the History Channel, which contained a segment about the federal reserve. A federal reserve employee expressed these very sentiments, even before the idea of adding color to US bills became a serious prospect.
I agree! The latest version of PostNuke is very different than the earlier versions, specifically after forking from PHPNuke.
I don't recommend PHPNuke, for the very reasons expressed in the parent post.
I've been using PostNuke for almost 1 year now. I started with the.6 series. It truly is shaping up to become a top notch open source CMS, with a strong vision of the future and a roadmap for getting there.
Honestly, PostNuke really shouldn't be considered among the *nuke derivitives any longer, because its now very different and will only further set itself apart in the future.
Here's my theory. If the word was spread that mozilla can block pop-up ads by simply checking a checkbox in the preferences, then I bet people would come to mozilla by the millions.
Unfortunately, most people are completely unaware of that simple, yet extremely powerful feature.
There has been a VNC client for PalmOS for a while now. I'm not sure about PocketPC, but intuition tells me there is probably a remote access solution like this also.
Here's an idea. Kinda obvious to some, not as obvious to megacorps with "whats good for us" goggles on.
First of all, the US is the greatest country in the world. At the very least, especially if we intend on being the most technically advanced society on earth, we should have more than enough bandwidth. We should be bandwidth gluttons, with extra bandwidth out the waazoo.
Here's what I don't understand... the phone company comes to my house and hooks up a wire. The cable company comes to my house and hooks up another wire. Damn it! Why don't they just get together, stop duplicating each other's work, and run a single fiber line right to my doorstep!! Why does bandwidth have to cost so much money? I don't understand. If we all had a single unified fiber line for telephone, cable TV, internet, music, etc, then bandwidth wouldn't be an issue. We'd be the society we should be, with more than enough bandwidth to suit our needs. If we had fiber connected to the back of every computer in the US, then bandwidth would practically be free.
I guess I don't understand why bandwidth costs so much money to begin with. If mega bandwidth didn't cost what it currently does (for no apparent reason), then we wouldn't even be having this discussion.
I don't agree. My gut instinct tells me these measures aren't going to stop "sharing". Regardless, a pricing scheme based on bandwidth usage is going to have other effects depending on how ridiculous these pricing schemes become:
1. Penalization for legitimate uses, such as downloading RedHat.ISOs for example.
2. Broadband customers faced with penalization for bandwidth usage may stop using streaming audio and video, thus hurting the already ailing internet radio industry.
3. The price of broadband is unattractive to some. I doubt this type of pricing scheme will help to put broadband in more homes.
When the rates go up, there will be less demand on these companies. I think people will seek alternative ISPs. Maybe this is a good thing for smaller ISPs the truly serve customers interests, because they stand a good chance of undercutting the competition when "big broadband" customers start jumping ship. If demand does indeed decrease, then the supply of bandwidth will effectively increase upsetting the balance. They're going to have a hard time justifying screwy price arrangements with too much supply and not enough demand.
Slashdot Mirror
I think at least in Handspring's case, they've had a philosophy of planned obsolescense by building their products with hard ROMs.
Obviously, they can't be upgraded that way, so in their all knowing marketing minds, they're hoping users will continue to upgrade to newer products from Handspring.
Originally, they claimed that the lack of a flash ROM was a price saving measure, but I tend to think that in some cases, a flash rom would actually be cheaper.
Now that the treo has a flash rom, and they're lying about it, what do they expect? Of course users are going to make use of that 'hidden feature' now!
Handspring, you ought to 'embrace and extend' now that the gig's up.
Suddenly today, my karma changed to 'excellent'. Could this be from the future?
maybe this post will reduce my karma to 'not so excellent'. Only time will tell.
I agree! In my case, I work in a color deprived office I lovingly refer to as "prison". The entire office is 1 single color!! I'm not kidding either... walls are gray, ceiling is gray, carpet is gray, desks are gray, cubicles are gray, computers are gray... even the doors are gray. If there was ever a color known to suck the life out of man, its gray.
I think my boss (gray haired staunch old guy) has an office fetish. He has an unhealthy love for the fax machine, and is definetely into conformity. Shirt and tie all day long, and this isn't even a public place!!
I don't have my own stapler. But they did allow me some scotch tape (gray) and a gray mousepad.
I think office space means a lot to those of us that live it!
I was referring to the 3 month human latency in responding to email.
I took interest in the story of Sealand about 2 years ago. There's plenty of reading material available on the web..
try www.sealandgov.com... excellent historical information, including Sealand's first naval battle.
Also,www.fruitsofthesea.demon.co.uk/sealand/ has a decent picture gallery so you can visualize just how small this platform is.
I had an email conversation with somebody at sealand back when I first heard of the place. I kept the email... funny thing, it usually took them a few months to reply. Being that havenco is very security oriented, I'm sure they use latency to their advantage for communications. Interesting rule of Havenco... customers aren't allowed to supply their own machines in the sake of security.
Overall, the article was a good read. But, I must point to the following observation..
..."
"... The problem with Linux is that it's an open source system, so if you are having issues or difficulties with its stability, it's like pushing on a rope; there's no single vendor to deal with.
The very next paragraph...
"Weta had just taken delivery of 25 Linux workstations from IBM and Labrie reported that IBM and Hewlett Packard were the frontrunners for additional Linux workstation upgrades."
Alright, so... what am I missing here? You've got IBM behind your efforts. Whats the problem?
Perhaps the comment was referring to specific pieces of software, although my experience has been that dealing with a group of open developers is far more useful than dealing with a single inept vendor. When the vendor is full of crap, where else can you turn?
The first paragraph I mentioned continues...
"You have to be self-deterministic in terms of how things work. You have to make your own choices and do your own tests on motherboards, graphics cards, applications, operating system releases, all those kinds of things."
Again, I'm not buying this comment either... afterall, you have IBM behind you! Don't they test the motherboards, graphics cards, operating system releases, and all those kind of things?
Obviously Linux has been a good solution for them because they're using it. They're having success with it, and its saving them loads of $$ versus using an alternative proprietary system.
Can't wait to see this installment of LOTR!
Better yet, script up your own personal anonymizer at put it on a server that isn't blocked. Seems pretty simple to get around the stupid filter!
/. a while back about a couple of kids that were able to tunnel http through smtp. Pretty slick move.
I also remember an article here on
did you try it through an http tunneling tool such as anonymizer.com??
When I saw this movie, the large amount of blatant product placements was sickening.
There were others not mentioned in the article...
Nokia had a huge spot, with their logo placed on every electronic device for an entire scene.
Burger king is also a whore, with their logo being well within plain view during a mall scene.
The first ad to catch my eye, was Aquafina. I guess they're still packaging aquafina water in 2054 with the same package design and logo.
I don't want to sound stupid, but I've apparently been left out of the loop on the "wi-fi" thing. I didn't get the memo... can somebody please, just tell me what "wi-fi" is?
thanks
Honestly, I bet "better testing" probably would cost the US economy more than $59b.
1. Longer time to market = longer ROI
2. Additional costs of testing = higher package price
Given that we exist in a free market society, I'm willing to bet that free market principles are in effect and $59b in software bugs is a good balance.
Yeah, and 1 US dollar = 9.92756 Mexican Pesos... whats your point?
"The anti-counterfeit measures are basically non-existant"...
... except for the watermarks, microprint, iridescent markings, micro engraved printing process, blue and red fibers embedded in the linen paper, and the micro-thin plastic strip embedded in each bill.
I wish *they* would let us vote on it... I'd vote against adding color to US Currency.
Although the article states the current bills as a "boon to swindlers" because the bills are hard to distinguish, I disagree. I know the difference between a 1, 5, 10, etc. If you're too stupid to be able to distinguish your money, you deserve to have it stolen.
Regardless, I believe one of the attributes that makes US currency recognizable around the world is its simple color scheme. Its powerful, and looks like no other currency. When color is added to US currency, I fully expect the value of the dolor to drop because it will no longer have the bold, simple 2 color scheme. It will be just like every other paper currency on the world market.
I recently watched a documentary on the History Channel, which contained a segment about the federal reserve. A federal reserve employee expressed these very sentiments, even before the idea of adding color to US bills became a serious prospect.
I agree! The latest version of PostNuke is very different than the earlier versions, specifically after forking from PHPNuke.
.6 series. It truly is shaping up to become a top notch open source CMS, with a strong vision of the future and a roadmap for getting there.
I don't recommend PHPNuke, for the very reasons expressed in the parent post.
I've been using PostNuke for almost 1 year now. I started with the
Honestly, PostNuke really shouldn't be considered among the *nuke derivitives any longer, because its now very different and will only further set itself apart in the future.
Has anybody figured out how to dial the implant phone?
/. dream chick? do they exist?
Here's my theory. If the word was spread that mozilla can block pop-up ads by simply checking a checkbox in the preferences, then I bet people would come to mozilla by the millions.
Unfortunately, most people are completely unaware of that simple, yet extremely powerful feature.
There has been a VNC client for PalmOS for a while now. I'm not sure about PocketPC, but intuition tells me there is probably a remote access solution like this also.
f m? prodID=7778
http://www.palmgear.com/software/showsoftware.c
Not a new idea!
More pages means more crap and shitty search results. Similar to programming, more lines of code doesn't mean better.
In 2000, I was asked (and paid) to write a large application, in DOS, with quickbasic, and btrieve.
After living through that experience, I shouldn't have even entertained the idea.
Here's an idea. Kinda obvious to some, not as obvious to megacorps with "whats good for us" goggles on.
First of all, the US is the greatest country in the world. At the very least, especially if we intend on being the most technically advanced society on earth, we should have more than enough bandwidth. We should be bandwidth gluttons, with extra bandwidth out the waazoo.
Here's what I don't understand... the phone company comes to my house and hooks up a wire. The cable company comes to my house and hooks up another wire. Damn it! Why don't they just get together, stop duplicating each other's work, and run a single fiber line right to my doorstep!! Why does bandwidth have to cost so much money? I don't understand. If we all had a single unified fiber line for telephone, cable TV, internet, music, etc, then bandwidth wouldn't be an issue. We'd be the society we should be, with more than enough bandwidth to suit our needs. If we had fiber connected to the back of every computer in the US, then bandwidth would practically be free.
I guess I don't understand why bandwidth costs so much money to begin with. If mega bandwidth didn't cost what it currently does (for no apparent reason), then we wouldn't even be having this discussion.
I don't agree. My gut instinct tells me these measures aren't going to stop "sharing". Regardless, a pricing scheme based on bandwidth usage is going to have other effects depending on how ridiculous these pricing schemes become:
.ISOs for example.
1. Penalization for legitimate uses, such as downloading RedHat
2. Broadband customers faced with penalization for bandwidth usage may stop using streaming audio and video, thus hurting the already ailing internet radio industry.
3. The price of broadband is unattractive to some. I doubt this type of pricing scheme will help to put broadband in more homes.
When the rates go up, there will be less demand on these companies. I think people will seek alternative ISPs. Maybe this is a good thing for smaller ISPs the truly serve customers interests, because they stand a good chance of undercutting the competition when "big broadband" customers start jumping ship. If demand does indeed decrease, then the supply of bandwidth will effectively increase upsetting the balance. They're going to have a hard time justifying screwy price arrangements with too much supply and not enough demand.
Been meaning to read it for a while.
$5 says michael's broke.