Why the hell does everyone think that taking the US rate and doing a currency conversion is a valid comparison in price? Do you morons think that the Australian (or other countries) record labels have the same cost structure? They're negotiating the price with the record labels people, not picking a number out of a hat and deciding that it's fine.
"He gave Bush a five-page, handwritten letter in which he stated, 'The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved.'"
I hope he attached an audio book version to the letter.
"Once, in this country, companies were expected to train their employees to keep their investements up to date. Now, employees are expected to work 60+ hours a week and are supposed to train themselves in their free time. The fruits of this method are just becoming evident; tens of thousands of "obsolete" IT people, and tens of thousands of H1B imports. That's a shitty national policy, something that will derail this country's economy."
It's not just the US, it's at least Australia too. This is pretty standard and I think it's just the end result of the free market. It's a cheaper thing. Why pay an employee and train them when you could get someone cheaper who will train themselves.
I've got 10 years (or thereabouts) IT experience but no degree (currently studying), I don't feel like I have much chance getting work in the US after just having moved here from Australia. I have a greencard but still it seems like I'll be pushing it to get a job.
Daniel
I was a Telstra user and then an Optus user, now I live in the US. Damn caps are following me!
The problem with the caps that were put in was that they didn't account for the variability of usage.
For example, like some others have mentioned, some months I might decide to download FreeBSD or something large, when you have a 3GB cap, you might not be able to do this.
Proir to Optus implementing their cap they had a system whereby your usage was monitored over a 14 day period, if your average usage was 10 times the average of all users your account got cancelled.
Although that seemed harsh it was like 80MB/day so in a 14 day period that was a lot. Then they went and introduced their cap which was a hard cap. I always wondered why they didn't just change the max usage from 10 to 5 or whatever. That model seemed like a fair way of levelling out usage - it was directly related to the average user. It also took into account that people don't download the same amount of data everyday.
I don't think I would object to a system like that, but I agree with an earlier poster that said that if downloads/uploads are capped (uploads should never be capped!) then bandwidth should not be capped, that just sucks.
I was with Telstra when they introduced their cap (as I said earlier), in the 6 months leading up to the caps introduction my average usage was just over 2GB (if I remember correctly), but I had 2 months in that period that were about double the cap limit (I had downloaded Mandrake & Redhat), my bill for the top month would have been in the region of AU$900 which of course is absolutly ridiculous.
I don't mind caps as long as either bandwidth or downloads (not both) are capped and they are equitable (averaging & reflect actualy system usage).
Just keep these things in mind: under the Telstra capping AUP (acceptable use policy) I could have reached my cap if I downloaded at full speed for approximately 1 hour per day. This is not equitable and certainly not "Broadband". Microsoft was an active campaigner against Broadband caps because it would make them less money. The ACCC (competition regulator) ruled that calling a capped service "unlimited" was false advertising.
I have a 667 TiBook with 10.2.1. I don't find it slow. It certainly isn't as fast as windows as Steve would have you believe but it's fast enough for what I do. I rarely find myself frustrated. I am much happier with this machine than with my windows machines.
Was a windows user (had tried linux (RH|Mandrake) on a number of occasions but it didn't stick) for about 8 years or so I guess. Switched in May 2002 to a 667 DVI G4 PowerBook w 512MB RAM and 60GB HDD. I added an airport afterwards. Bought Jagwire.
Good Stuff: *nix goodness - I'm studying comp sci externally (work full time) and I need a *nix machine for that, I also need a box that I can do the usual PC stuff with (word docs, spreadsheets, etc), the PB is that.:) No, really, it just works. The other thing it does is just not work! It basically ignores stuff that it doesn't understand. For example I installed a 3COM nic PC Card in the card slot. It tells you that it's there but there are no drivers for it so you can't do anything with it. I would love to get a *nix driver for an extra NIC if there aren't osx drivers but I'm using multi-homing for now. Point is that it doesn't crash or complain. MS software - Like it or loath it, MS software is a requirement for some people, I am one of them (yes that's right I don't want to worry about compatibility with open office or apple works). Stress level - gone way down when using my PB as opposed to my PC at home or work. (I've sold my PC)
Bad Stuff: One button - personal preference of course but the one button just annoys the hell out of me. No Drivers - now that is annoying, I want to add an IR port (BT just works thank goodness) but I can't find anywhere that has drivers for any IR on OSX. Waiting - waiting for new versions of stuff that has been out for a while is just annoying. UI - some of the GUI is a bit evil (those damn window buttons are too small for my liking). Button combinations for different stuff (shift + opt + cmd +...) is often hidden and sometimes not standard (Preferences in apps: cmd + y or cmd + ; or nothing) Mhz - 667 G4 != 2.0Ghz P4m, no marketing (lies perhaps) please, it's just plain wrong. It might be like a 1Ghz PIII if I'm lucky, perhaps a little more but that's it.
Summary: Overall the performance is excellent. I only have the 667 but it really does run fast enough at the moment. Of course of if you put me infront of a quad 3Ghz+ Hammer I'm sure I'd notice, but I don't care. Battery life rocks, Try playing a whole DVD and then still having 30% battery life (I had 52% left once but I'm ignoring the outlyers). The TiBook is an excellent machine, if you can spare the $$$(^3) of course.
I did it this way: Windows + Outlook + fusionOne + T39 Sync T39 with Outlook (If your phone doesn't have BT then replace the following with IR instead of BT) Get Bluetooth for Mac Get MobileSync (http://homepage.mac.com/jonassalling/Shareware - Excellent software!) Sync Mac with Phone. Yay I have a subset of my calendar. (I also imported this stuff into iCal)
Just please eveyone log with fusionOne that you want a MacOSX client! It is excellent software. (http://www.fusionOne.com/)
Slashdot Mirror
Why the hell does everyone think that taking the US rate and doing a currency conversion is a valid comparison in price? Do you morons think that the Australian (or other countries) record labels have the same cost structure? They're negotiating the price with the record labels people, not picking a number out of a hat and deciding that it's fine.
I hope we don't hear from this person's significant other soon...
"He gave Bush a five-page, handwritten letter in which he stated, 'The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved.'"
I hope he attached an audio book version to the letter.
I'm sure te results would be more intersting if the site was up, I guess it's currently being slashdotted.
daniel
"Once, in this country, companies were expected to train their employees to keep their investements up to date. Now, employees are expected to work 60+ hours a week and are supposed to train themselves in their free time. The fruits of this method are just becoming evident; tens of thousands of "obsolete" IT people, and tens of thousands of H1B imports. That's a shitty national policy, something that will derail this country's economy." It's not just the US, it's at least Australia too. This is pretty standard and I think it's just the end result of the free market. It's a cheaper thing. Why pay an employee and train them when you could get someone cheaper who will train themselves. I've got 10 years (or thereabouts) IT experience but no degree (currently studying), I don't feel like I have much chance getting work in the US after just having moved here from Australia. I have a greencard but still it seems like I'll be pushing it to get a job. Daniel
I was a Telstra user and then an Optus user, now I live in the US. Damn caps are following me!
The problem with the caps that were put in was that they didn't account for the variability of usage.
For example, like some others have mentioned, some months I might decide to download FreeBSD or something large, when you have a 3GB cap, you might not be able to do this.
Proir to Optus implementing their cap they had a system whereby your usage was monitored over a 14 day period, if your average usage was 10 times the average of all users your account got cancelled.
Although that seemed harsh it was like 80MB/day so in a 14 day period that was a lot. Then they went and introduced their cap which was a hard cap. I always wondered why they didn't just change the max usage from 10 to 5 or whatever. That model seemed like a fair way of levelling out usage - it was directly related to the average user. It also took into account that people don't download the same amount of data everyday.
I don't think I would object to a system like that, but I agree with an earlier poster that said that if downloads/uploads are capped (uploads should never be capped!) then bandwidth should not be capped, that just sucks.
I was with Telstra when they introduced their cap (as I said earlier), in the 6 months leading up to the caps introduction my average usage was just over 2GB (if I remember correctly), but I had 2 months in that period that were about double the cap limit (I had downloaded Mandrake & Redhat), my bill for the top month would have been in the region of AU$900 which of course is absolutly ridiculous.
I don't mind caps as long as either bandwidth or downloads (not both) are capped and they are equitable (averaging & reflect actualy system usage).
Just keep these things in mind:
under the Telstra capping AUP (acceptable use policy) I could have reached my cap if I downloaded at full speed for approximately 1 hour per day. This is not equitable and certainly not "Broadband".
Microsoft was an active campaigner against Broadband caps because it would make them less money.
The ACCC (competition regulator) ruled that calling a capped service "unlimited" was false advertising.
Make it fair or don't go there.
Daniel
I have a 667 TiBook with 10.2.1. I don't find it slow. It certainly isn't as fast as windows as Steve would have you believe but it's fast enough for what I do. I rarely find myself frustrated. I am much happier with this machine than with my windows machines.
Was a windows user (had tried linux (RH|Mandrake) on a number of occasions but it didn't stick) for about 8 years or so I guess.
:)
...) is often hidden and sometimes not standard (Preferences in apps: cmd + y or cmd + ; or nothing)
Switched in May 2002 to a 667 DVI G4 PowerBook w 512MB RAM and 60GB HDD. I added an airport afterwards. Bought Jagwire.
Good Stuff:
*nix goodness - I'm studying comp sci externally (work full time) and I need a *nix machine for that, I also need a box that I can do the usual PC stuff with (word docs, spreadsheets, etc), the PB is that.
No, really, it just works. The other thing it does is just not work! It basically ignores stuff that it doesn't understand. For example I installed a 3COM nic PC Card in the card slot. It tells you that it's there but there are no drivers for it so you can't do anything with it. I would love to get a *nix driver for an extra NIC if there aren't osx drivers but I'm using multi-homing for now. Point is that it doesn't crash or complain.
MS software - Like it or loath it, MS software is a requirement for some people, I am one of them (yes that's right I don't want to worry about compatibility with open office or apple works).
Stress level - gone way down when using my PB as opposed to my PC at home or work. (I've sold my PC)
Bad Stuff:
One button - personal preference of course but the one button just annoys the hell out of me.
No Drivers - now that is annoying, I want to add an IR port (BT just works thank goodness) but I can't find anywhere that has drivers for any IR on OSX.
Waiting - waiting for new versions of stuff that has been out for a while is just annoying.
UI - some of the GUI is a bit evil (those damn window buttons are too small for my liking). Button combinations for different stuff (shift + opt + cmd +
Mhz - 667 G4 != 2.0Ghz P4m, no marketing (lies perhaps) please, it's just plain wrong. It might be like a 1Ghz PIII if I'm lucky, perhaps a little more but that's it.
Summary:
Overall the performance is excellent. I only have the 667 but it really does run fast enough at the moment. Of course of if you put me infront of a quad 3Ghz+ Hammer I'm sure I'd notice, but I don't care. Battery life rocks, Try playing a whole DVD and then still having 30% battery life (I had 52% left once but I'm ignoring the outlyers). The TiBook is an excellent machine, if you can spare the $$$(^3) of course.
I did it this way:
Windows + Outlook + fusionOne + T39
Sync T39 with Outlook
(If your phone doesn't have BT then replace the following with IR instead of BT)
Get Bluetooth for Mac
Get MobileSync (http://homepage.mac.com/jonassalling/Shareware - Excellent software!)
Sync Mac with Phone.
Yay I have a subset of my calendar.
(I also imported this stuff into iCal)
Just please eveyone log with fusionOne that you want a MacOSX client! It is excellent software. (http://www.fusionOne.com/)
And good luck!
/. please!
Let's not have your honeymoon on
Rega1rds,
Daniel