A user can afford to spend $100-$200 for a legal copy of Windows in the US, but in India due to the exchange rate it becomes a huge amount!
I think I know what you are trying to say but this sentance makes little sense. The reason people in India cannot purchase Windows at US prices is because the average person's buying power in India is significantly lower. GDP per capita in the US is $40,100 while in India it is $3,100, an order of magnitude difference. But the exchange rate has only a minor impact on the Indian's ability to purchase "imported" goods at US prices. Mostly it's that most Indians are still too poor to purchase the software.
MS is attempting to prevent arbitrage but seemingly ends up cutting off their nose since their intended customers can't really purchase the product at the higher prices. Truthfully though, I don't think MS is that dumb. They won't admit it but a certain amount of piracy is good as far as they are concerned because as India develops they will have an installed base to sell to. They aren't really out any money from someone who pirates the software who wouldn't have bought it anyway (despite what the BSA claims) but there is the potential of big profits in years to come.
While I agree that cellphones are sort of the logical target for convergence there are some huge obstacles to overcome. I agree that the iPod's days are numbered in its current form. I think many people would be very happy to just carry one device and a smartphone of some sort seems the ideal candidate. (Personally I prefer best of breed devices linked by Bluetooth but I think I'm in the minority there.) It's already an audio focused device and there are sufficient storage solutions. The main technical obstacles are battery life and a good user interface but those will be overcome in time I think. Of course the iPod is unlikely to remain in its current form unless Steve Jobs & Co have a collective stroke. But the real obstacles are not technical ones but market ones.
Cell phones are not yet a commodity product the same way PCs are. There are at least 3-4 major operating systems, there is no dominant hardware platform, incompatible radio technologies, and the main buyers of cell phones (cellular providers) are far less fragmented and more powerful than any buyer of PCs. It's a very different market. The only way I can see a iPod-replacement-phone taking off is if it if the developer (Palm, MS, Motorola, Nokia, etc) can somehow get the carriers to fight each other for it.
A huge problem with cell phones replacing the iPod is that there is almost zero financial incentive for the cellular providers (Cingular, Verizon, etc) to offer iPod/iTunes functionality on their networks unless they can make money off it. I don't see them being flexible enough to make that happen. They'll want a business like the ringtone business and they'll want it captive so you have to buy it from them. Witness Verizon with their disabled bluetooth functionality on one of their phones. They have no interest in services they can't charge for and are afraid of subsidizing development on a service one of their competitors will benefit from. One of the main reason's the iPod is successful is that you don't have to rely on any third party to use it. You can *choose* to use iTunes, etc but you aren't forced to. This is the exact opposite of how the carriers think.
Another factor is that most phones are subsidized by the providers. Now it's possible someone might produce a device people are willing to buy without subsidizing but I think they can't charge much more than an iPod or Treo. People are obviously willing to carry devices that cost as much as $400-$500US (Treo, some iPods) but if the cost is more than that, I think you are getting outside the sweet spot and most want devices that are much cheaper. It's possible it could happen, I'm just dubious it will happen if the cellular providers have much say in the matter.
Hear me out on this. I doubt they will do this since Dell it's a little too creative for Dell's business model, but imagine if this were marketed as a tablet pc aimed at artists/engineers. With a stylus and high rez touch sensitive screen you now have a decent sized portable system which I would think would be very useful for graphic artists. It's large enough to work comfortably on but also reasonably portable (if a bit heavy). It should be possible to cram a LOT of batteries into it to keep the battery life respectable.
Possibly good for CAD work too for engineers who need a larger screen and occasional portability. I've done a lot of CAD work myself and I could see such a device being pretty handy. Graphic artists will have to comment about the utility of such a device for them since I'm not one.
* Social security cards have just a name and an address on them (mine is 25 years old, so I could be wrong on this point).
Actually they don't have an address on them (mine doesn't anyway, just the name and SSN) and it would be quickly out of date if it did. And mine's well over 30 years old if we're comparing. But all that's beside the point. Have you ever held a job? It's one of the valid forms of ID when combined with a driver's license required by the IRS on their W2 form (I think that's the right one) in order to prove authorization to work in the US. There are alternatives but it's widely accepted and used.
* There are at least 50 disparate driver's licensing systems in this country
Each of which is a perfectly valid form of ID, issued by a governmental (just not federal) agency. I see no need for another one from the federal government.
* Ditto for birth certificates. You carry yours around?
When needed. I've been asked for it to get a passport, for background checks, and when I was a kid to prove my age at sporting events.
* Credit cards are not identification, even if Bank of America put your picture on the front.
Sure they are. I've seen companies accept credit cards as a form of valid ID. Admitedly they usually (but not always) require some form of government picture ID as well.
* Ditto for your video card, insurance card, health insurance card, and AAA card.
Again, all valid forms of ID to the parties who are interested. Not widely accepted but required here and there.
It sounds to me like you really have two gripes: Two much crap in your wallet and identity theft. There's a simple way to fix the first problem, and I sympathize with the second.
No I have a lot more gripes than that. Give me some credit.:-) Those are just among the ones I listed.
The reality is, though, that because individual states value their own autonomy, there is not currently a federally administered identification method.
And what's wrong with that? There's a reason this country is called the United STATES of America. Centralizing everything with the federal government is needless, wasteful, and frankly kind of scary.
One more unnecessary piece of identification that everyone will ask for and thieves to steal. I already have a social security card, driver's licence, passport, birth certificate, two credit cards, video rental card, insurance card, health insurance card, AAA card and somehow this isn't enough? How on earth is one more ID card, administered by one more bureacracy going to accomplish anything other than making it easier for thieves to steal my identity. Hell I'll have to present all the above cards to "prove" that I am who I say I am despite the fact that all of those can be (and regularly are) forged/stolen.
Gotta love our lawmakers. Solving problems nobody asked them to.
Pardon my venting but I've never entirely understood this confusion between religion and science. They don't have all that much to do with each other. What is clear to me is that most people seem very uncomfortable with admitting that it is ok to not understand everything. As a result they create mythologies as a sort of catch-all to reassure themselves. Worse, people seem even more uncomfortable with the idea that their "explaination" based on their religious teachings isn't the "right" one and they engage in all sorts of absurd and even cruel behavior as a result. As a result we get events like the Scopes Monkey Trial.
Science is simply the act of creating models of what we observe. Science does not answer appear to be capable of answering fundamental questions of why, it simply is a process which tries to create models of what we mutually observe with predictive utility. The only time religion and science "conflict" is when some group of people have created a mythology to explain some physical phenomenon they don't understand. But if we later figure something out, these same people are often loathe to admit that their might be a better way to describe/predict an event than invoking a deity.
As far as I'm concerned, it's ok to believe in a deity of some sort if that helps somehow to get through the day. But belief is not necessarily fact. And trying to insist that a belief in a supernatural being (or however you define your unknowable deity) is a common fact everyone can agree upon is never going to work. I do not believe in a deity, certainly not in the judeo-christian sense of the word. Any argument that utilizes the bible or any religious text as a basis for an arguement is likely to be immediately discounted as nonsense by me.
The only way to have a stable agreement between any two people is to base it upon common facts that both can agree to. This is why we separate church and state in the US. It forces us to create laws based upon mutually agreeable facts, instead of unprovable and irrational beliefs that differ from person to person. Even if these folks in Kansas are successful in their pursuit of putting intelligent design into textbooks, there are no common facts about it we can agree to and as such it is a fundamentally unstable situation.
Posted anonymously because I don't want to tip anyone off.
Thats fine but don't get too paranoid. I don't mean to be rude but if you think no one has thought of your idea before, you're probably wrong. Check any ideas of getting VCs to sign NDAs at the door because they won't do it. You don't have to tell people all the technical details but its ok to tell the story.
So how do you find one of these guys?
It's not hard. One easy way is if you live in a town with a big university, go speak to some folks at their business school. You'll find them quick enough. VCs tend to specialize in a particular field. If you want to get their money you'll have to find one who specializes in your niche. For instance where I live we have a lot of biotech oriented VC firms and a few manufacturing ones.
I'd like to run my own business, and I've got the technical wherewithal to pull it off, but I lack the short-term funding to pay for equipment, overhead, and my salary until the business could support it. Some sort of VC investment would be perfect - I think.
Actually unless you think you have a really big idea that needs a ton of money up front, chances are good you do NOT want VC funding. VCs are looking for the next Google. Big ideas that require a large investments on the order of tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. And in return for the big money and the advice they provide they are going to demand a large share of the company stock. Probably more than 50%. And they also will probably replace you with a professional CEO. Still interested?
More likely you will want to find what are called Angel investors. Wealthy individuals or friends who are willing to take a chance on your idea, but more importantly on you. Yes, you. They rarely will understand the business idea and many will just be evaluating you as a person. How do you find them? Ask the people you know. Doctors, lawyers, executives, friends, family. Ask them and don't be shy. (but never rude!)
Better still if you can manage to pay the interest is to take out loans. That's right, debt is good! Why? Because you don't have to give up any equity. And believe it or not, debt is usually cheaper in the long run than equity. Plus it has some nice tax benefits. The only real downside is that if you are just starting out, you may have to sign over your house/car/whatever as colateral which means don't screw up.
Best of all is to have an idea that is self funding. If you have to start small, so be it.
I won't kid you though, raising money is a TON of work. Forget about running the technical part of your business if you need to raise money like this. You won't have time. The CEO has three main jobs: setting strategy, raising money and selling product. I know a guy who has raised almost $4 million in increments usually around $20k since 2001 selling a product based on SNORT. It's basically been his full time job as president of his company. His partner handles all the tech stuff. If you aren't a sales guy like that and don't think you can raise the money, get a partner who is.
How do you fid these guys? Are they all weasels?
Actually most of them are decidedly not weasels. They realize it's a partnership. However that doesn't mean they are soft negotiators. Their primary obligation is to make a return for their investors and it's their job to wring as much profit out of your company as they can. They'll take as much of your company as they can get. If you involve VCs there is a VERY good chance you'll find yourself on the sidelines. After all, to raise the money you sold some or even most of the company to them so they have every right to do that.
Don't a large portion of ventures fail? Perhaps not directly related to them being open source.
I deal with VCs pretty regularly. The basic rule of thumb is that out of 10 investments most VCs make, 1-3 will be total busts, 7-8 will be close to breakeven or make a small profit and 1-2 will be home runs. The key is that the home runs are big enough that they make up for the rest of the investments that go no where. In some ways it's high risk but they also have a lot more control over the investments than a mutual fund.
Things get tough for VCs when there is too much money chasing too few good opportunties. Venture funds are very much like the mutual funds we all own except the companies the fund owns aren't usually traded on a stock exchange. Rich individuals and companies/organizations contribute money to a pool which the VC then invests in companies. (could be start ups but not necessarily) They then either take these companies public or sell them to a larger company and return the profits to the investors. I've seen lots of people who think VCs were stupid during the.com boom but I know quite a few and they are invariably very smart people. They knew what was going on perfectly well. The problem they had was they had money they had to invest and there was no where sane to put it. They just had to hope that they could cash out before everything blew up.
what good is bluetooth if there's nothing you'd want to get out from the phone or to the phone?
I have a Nokia 6310i. I don't care about pictures, ringtones, music, or games. But I do use my phone as a GPRS modem via bluetooth for my Palm Tungsten T3 and Thinkpad laptop. Lets me download email and surf the web (slowly) without any cables required from pretty much anywhere in the world. I don't need bluetooth for transfering anything to the phone itself, but rather to use the phone as a conduit to the internet. I've been doing this for quite a while now and it's invaluable.
I'm definitely not the target market for this new phone. With a hard drive I gotta think the battery life is gonna suck and heaven forbid you drop it. If I needed that much storage I'd rather have an SD slot in the phone personally but I digress... My point is I just want a triband GSM phone with good battery life, text messaging and bluetooth for wireless modeming. No cameras, no crappy PDA features, no hard drive, etc. I'd like something like the Nokia 6810 but it's not sold in the US (only the 6800 and 6820 are carried here) and even it has more features than I actually need/want.
even the most basic of cell phones have had adequate PDA capabilities for years now. My Nokia 3588i certainly does. But I don't use it because Nokia wants to rape me to the tune of $50 for a data cable [nokiausa.com]. Then I have to get proprietary software. So I don't use this functionality and never will.
I think you are right about the greed part but "adequate PDA capabilities"? I use a Palm Tungsten for a PDA (connected via bluetooth to my phone) and wouldn't dream that my Nokia would be able to replace it. Same with the Treos some of my friends have. I suppose it depends on your needs but my Nokia 6310i has (roughly) the same capabilities as your 3588i and it's utterly useless as a PDA. Why? Several reasons.
You already touched on crappy, proprietary software. Nokia's software on the PC sucks. No really, it's horrifically bad. It barely works, has a crappy interface, doesn't integrate with the system unless you happen to be an Outlook user, and consumes lots of resources without really doing much of anything useful.
Navigation. The screen size/fonts are not sized usefully for efficient navigation except for the simplest information. You can't usually see more than a 10 digit phone number which makes viewing addresses (email or otherwise) awkward. It's not bad for appointment notification but you can't use it because of the afformentioned crappy software.
Interface. I have bluetooth and infrared with my Nokia which saves me the trouble of getting the overpriced data cable. But even then, I had to get a firmware update for Nokia's bluetooth to cooperate with my Thinkpad. The infrared worked fine but it doesn't matter because of point #1 (Nokia software = crappy) I don't even have a problem with them selling the cable separate but when they do sell you a cable, it's some absurd proprietary cable instead of firewire/usb which would be actually useful.
Most importantly, Nokia doesn't care about end users much. You aren't their main customer, the carriers are. Most phones are subsidized by the carriers and it isn't really in the carrier's interest to pay for a phone with the added cost of a decent PDA type system they won't make any money from. They don't want to pay for the tech support, they don't want to pay for the development cost and they don't want to pay for hardware. The only thing they do want is enough PDA-like features so they can put it on a check list so that their competitors can't claim their phone does more.
What the complainers don't realize, is that they only make up a small percentage of the users, and the other 95% use the system and are fairly happy.
How do you know? I don't ask to be trite. I've worked tech support and having been in your position myself I do really sympathize with having to deal with that annoying 5%. But there is a huge difference between offering a free service (like you do - and bravo for it) and a for-profit company like Microsoft. A free service doesn't have to care about that 5%. Use it or don't. It doesn't matter. But if you genuinely are interested in providing a service your users find valuable (and Microsoft is), how do you know what they want?
This isn't an idle or easy question. The entire field of marketing is the art/science of finding out what it is people want. (As opposed to sales which is figuring out how to convince them you have what they want - and yes, they overlap) While there are a lot of people who have a severely outsized sense of entitlement (more that a few are here at/.) companies need to listen very carefully to their customers, especially those who are actually speaking up. Most customers don't tell you they are unhappy, they simply stop using your product and never say a word. Sure you run into the occasional jack-ass who thinks you are his personal butler. But it's still worth listening to such people because sometimes they tell you something worthwhile. Apple has done a remarkably good job of this lately with online music whereas the RIAA companies have done a really poor job.
I've worked as a Malcolm Baldrige examiner and one of the things we ask companies is how they know what their customers want. WAY too many firms basically take the approach of "well, no one has complained so we must be doing something right". That approach is usually a swift route to poor performance if not bankruptcy. The firms that do well go WAY out of their way to figure out what customers want, even before the customers are conciously aware of it.
Of course in the case of Microsoft the motives are a bit more sinister. They're almost certainly more interested in customer lock via proprietary formats than anything else. We know it and MS knows we know it. So people are giving them a hard time about it. After all, it really isn't in my best interest as an end user to use a proprietary Microsoft format if there are any alternatives. So it shouldn't be at all surprising that people are complaining. It's in their (and likely your) interest to do so.
Most proprietary software is rigorously tested on the lamen to see how well he/she can negotiate around it. Where as all but the most popular open source projects, frankly, don't give a shit.
While I agree generally with the thrust of your argument I think it may go a little to far. I do think many open source folks care about the interface. They just aren't very good at it and lack the resources. Serious interface testing requires a lot of resources that many open source projects find difficult to come by. They need to be able to observe how people use the product and that's not always easy.
I do think there is an opportunity for someone to create some open-source tools to help open source (and closed) with interface testing. (Maybe this exists, I'm just not aware of it) Imagine a tool which essentially records (screen capture) movies of users conducting certain tasks and also provides statistical data about things like time between button clicks, which menus were looked at and for how long, etc. I'm thinking something along the lines of a set of debugging tools (vaguely similar to a profiler I guess but for actions instead of code) which are oriented towards user interface work. The results could then be sent back to the programmers similar to how Mozilla uses TalkBack. This would solve at least one of the problems open source projects have in getting information about user interface problems.
Of course that doesn't mean the programmers will necessarily do anything with the data but at least it provides a method for those who take interfaces seriously to get some data to improve theirs.
I used the service with a Palm Tungsten T3 through a Nokia 6310i via Cingular.
Short version: Works great. Wish I had it years ago. The maps need to be larger to be useful on a 320x400 screen. The layout of the page could be optimized a bit. The Google logo at the top pushes data too far down. Google should either shrink the logo or relocate it.
Long version: I've been looking for a service like this for a long time. I tried Avantgo for a while but it was cumbersome, and of limited use if you needed to find info on the fly. MapQuest allows you to download maps and directions using Avantgo but it doesn't work as well as Google Local.
I've alread mentioned my main criticisms of Google Local. It gives a map but seems targeted at 160x160 screens. (understandably) A larger map option would be nice as the maps are a little small to be genuinely useful IMO. You can zoom in/out and scroll around via buttons. Not as smooth as the regular Google Maps but perfectly adequate for on the road. Driving directions are always available and work great. Once you've located what you are looking for you simply select driving directions and enter your From: address. Simple and logical and it works pretty much exactly as you expect it to.
Speed of the service is fine. I have a GPRS connection (not EDGE) which isn't speedy but download speeds were satisfactory. If you have a Treo or a Tungsten type device (like me) you should have no trouble finding regular uses for the service.
That your point about "nothing" happening here due to the Japanese auto manufacturers was nonsense. I basically agree with the conclusions of your stance but claiming that nothing happened just isn't true. The Japanese shook US manufacturing to its core and the effects are still being felt. Perhaps I'm being a touch pedantic but I think it's an important point. The Chinese and Indians are going to change things. We don't know exactly how yet and as you rightly pointed out, the US isn't about to become a third world nation. But we can say that the only thing that won't happen is nothing.
The Just-in-time, lean manufacturing were not 'invented' by the Japanese
I didn't say invented, I said "pioneered". I'm well aware that many modern manufacturing concepts were not invented by the Japanese. But the Japanese were without question the first to implement them on a wide scale. Hence my use of the word pioneer instead of invent. Perhaps I should have phrased things more clearly.
The same things were said when Japan made a move to dominate the car industry, so what happened?
The US manufacturers have steadily lost market share. Toyota passed Ford to become the #2 automaker (based on worldwide sales) and is steadily gaining on GM for #1. Further Toyota is about to pass Chrysler in the US market (~11% vs ~12% market share respectively) Chrysler nearly went bankrupt and was eventually bought by Daimler-Benz. Lexus (Toyota again) passed Cadillac and Lincoln to become the #1 selling luxury car brand in the US. US automakers sell nearly every small/compact car for a loss because of inefficient manufacuturing and high labor/pension costs. Toyota and Honda are leading the charge into hybrid automobiles, well ahead of US auto firms. Hybrids are very likely to be the next dominant technology in autos. The light auto segment the US manufacturers have held onto is pickups/SUVs that have accounted for the majority of their profits in recent years, and they are starting to lose their death grip on that segment too. Recent gas prices won't help SUV sales either.
While I'm painting a bit more bleak picture than it actually is for Ford and GM but if you think nothing happened in the industry due to the Japanese, you simply don't understand the industry. I wouldn't say the Japanese or US manufacturers dominate (no one does) but I can say that Japanese automakers have had a HUGE impact on the industry, largely at the expense of the US manufacturers. Most of the recent innovations in manufacturing processes (Just-in-time, lean manufacuturing, etc) were pioneered by Japanese manufacturers. I'm a manufacturing operations engineer and I've been to and conducted statstical analysis of plants for most of the big auto companies and the Japanese simply are better manufacturers overall. You don't even have to take my word for it, there is plenty of evidence out there to support me. But I've been there and I can tell you that Ford & GM are playing catch up. The reason they haven't lost (read gone-bankrupt/aquired) is that auto manufacuturing isn't strictly a price game. Styling, dealer/sales networks, and historical buying preferences matter. And the US manufacturers aren't complete incompetents. But if it were strictly a matter of price/performance GM and Ford would already be gone.
Renting is more expensive than leasing because you can halt the contract with short notice.
The difference between renting and leasing. Short version. A lease is a contract. Renting isn't. You can halt a contract if the terms of the contract permit it. (or don't prohibit it in some cases) If you rent without a lease, you can exit the arrangement at will. Because there is the option of leaving a renting-without-lease arrangement early, one would expect renting to be more expensive as the property owner is not assured of the cash flows.
Buying means spending more money to start with.
Usually but it depends on the terms of the sale. I can sell you something in small monthly installments if we agree to it.
Borrowing money to buy instead of leasing would be the obvious choice IF the lender knows that you will succeed. If there is doubt about whether you will succeed with your new company, it will be very expensive to borrow the money to buy the stuff, and then leasing is cheaper.
This usually is true but not always. Lenders never really "know" that you will succeed. That's why we have credit ratings and even those don't always help. Enron had a solid investment grade credit rating, right up until it went bust. Besides, while what you said may be true in general, in reality sometimes one can find really good deals. When leasing is more attractive is usually because it has tax advantages related to depreciation. It also can have cash flow advantages depending on the terms. Whether leasing is preferable to buying depends entirely on the terms of the deal. If someone wants to sell something at a steep discount, no buyer is going to take a lease just because the cost of capital is normally better with leasing.
Since flash based sites are annoying for a variety of reasons (read about them in other posts) I've taken to using the mobile versions of websites. For instance Hollywood.com is a useful site for finding movie showtimes but it's heavily flash/shockwave based and very annoying to view. So I use their version for mobile devices which has the information I actually care about (movie locations and showtimes) without all the extra fluff. There's nothing preventing you from viewing these on a regular browser and they are MUCH faster. True, they don't have all the features of the regular sites but if you just need the basics they are great. These sites also will help those of people who constantly whine about how bloated everything is. (you know who you are...)
While only a few cab companies are participating and it's in select cities (mine is one fortunately) this looks to be a pretty neat little service. I don't know that it will be hugely valuable without more information and cab companies participating. A few ideas for how to use it come to mind.
Obviously it could be useful to figure out which cab company to call based on who's closest for rides to the airport or for picking someone up. Also tells where particular cab companies tend to operate.
Could be a way to track the location of someone if you know they are in a cab from a particular company. Voluntary of course but potentially useful.
Simple way to know what cab companies operate in the area and who might be reputable.
Beyond that I'm not sure yet. If it gets integrated with traffic/weather reports or works on mobile devices it would be more useful. It's definitely a pretty cool hack no matter what.
Just view the sites on a regualr computer when it's more convenient.
Except that it's not. I travel a fair bit professionally, often internationally, and when I'm on the road I use my Palm Tungsten T3 to check email and check information on a few vital websites. (Weather, Airline status, maps and a few others are invaluable) It is HIGHLY inconvenient for me to use my laptop, much less my desktop, whenever I'm on the road or in meetings. If you sit at your desk all day (nothing wrong with that), then being able to use the web on your PDA/phone probably isn't useful. But for those of us who don't, being able to use the web to get driving directions when I'm in the middle of nowhere is invaluable.
Fortunately many websites have a PDA friendly version of their site. Accuweather, Amazon, American Airlines (and several other airlines), Mapquest, eBay, Hollywood.com, UPS, FedEx, Slashdot and my broker all have Palm friendly versions which are very light and work great. I connect my T3 through a Nokia 6310i using Cingular. Has worked great in the US, Mexico and parts of Southeast Asia. (expensive overseas though...) Data packages are still overpriced but competition is bringing the cost down.
Anyway the point is, just because it isn't useful to you personally doesn't mean it isn't useful period. For those of us who spend a lot of time on the road, the mobile internet can be a godsend.
There has been a lot of speculation that Apple never designed the Shuffle but bought it in from outside, guess we will find out if and when Apple sue over it.
Unless Apple was brain dead, whether it was manufactured or even designed by Apple is irrelevant. Apple should have at minimum taken out design patents which cover the look of the device. We're more familiar with utility patents which are what most of us think of when we think of patents. But for something that is purely ornamental one can take out a design patent which protects the visual design. Doesn't provide the protection of a utility patent but still effective in a case like this. Plus it's entirely possible they have one or more utility patents and there probably are some copyright issues involved as well. Virtually all consumer electronics are manufactured outside the US but this has no bearing on whether a company can build a visually identical knockoff.
Ob Disclaimer IANAL. Source: Legal Aspects of Engineering Law by Richard C. Vaughn.
While I'm impressed that they actually bothered to measure the sound coming from their case, their final measurement of 31.7db hardly counts as silent. In fact I personally regard that as fairly noisy, though I'm perhaps pickier than most. Realistically how much noise one can tolerate is a personal thing. If it bothers you it's too loud no matter what the acoustic measurements might tell you. And what bothers me might not bother you. I have just listened carefully to my machine and whichever component made the most noise got replaced.
The only way to have a truly silent case is to have no fans and an idle hard drive. If that isn't possible fans like Pabst 8412 NGL are the next best thing. They don't move much air but they're very quiet. And a better solution IMO than the hard drive enclosures which drive up heat and reduce reliability is vibration isolators combined with a naturally quiet drive like Seagates. There are some fanless and semi-fanless (doesn't run unless it gets hot) power supplies out there like the SilentMaxx Semifanless. And replace those stupd 60mm fans that they insist on using for CPUs and GPUs with big headsinks and/or heatpipes. Also install neoprene or other washers and use rubber to deaden case vibrations. Home Depot is a great source for a lot of this stuff.
SCSI, in its current form, is just opening itself up to becoming antiquated.
Perhaps, though personally I've had far more trouble getting SATA (and IDE) drives to work than SCSI drives and I've used both extensively. Driver issues mostly. SCSI's performance is better in multi-user systems, it's easy to set up, drivers tend to be less problematic especially on systems other than Windows, and it can have more devices attached. People claim it's more reliable though I have no evidence of this, and frankly am a bit dubious of the claim. SATA is also easy to set up and is a lot cheaper, though the drivers are still less ubiquitous than with SCSI and performance doesn't match SCSI yet for multi-user systems. (on a single user system it doesn't matter much)
That said, the next generation of SCSI is Serial Attached SCSI which is compatible with SATA. A SAS controller will be able to use SATA drives if you don't need the extra features of SAS. SCSI isn't going away, it's just adapting.
While I've admittedly not read the entire article (it's really long) I couldn't find much info about drivers. It seems the author basically assumed one would be running windows, which for servers (the most likely place for a RAID array) is a pretty poor assumption. I've tried a number of SATA RAID cards on my linux server (SuSE 9.1) and keep getting driven back to SCSI due to crappy/non-existant driver issues. Thank god for Addonics SATA-SCSI adaptors which work great and have saved me a bunch of money.
It's a nice article comparing performance but without a serious analysis of drivers along with it for Windows AND linux (and Mac if applicable) the article isn't complete. I don't really care which one is fastest if I can't run it on my system.
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A user can afford to spend $100-$200 for a legal copy of Windows in the US, but in India due to the exchange rate it becomes a huge amount!
I think I know what you are trying to say but this sentance makes little sense. The reason people in India cannot purchase Windows at US prices is because the average person's buying power in India is significantly lower. GDP per capita in the US is $40,100 while in India it is $3,100, an order of magnitude difference. But the exchange rate has only a minor impact on the Indian's ability to purchase "imported" goods at US prices. Mostly it's that most Indians are still too poor to purchase the software.
MS is attempting to prevent arbitrage but seemingly ends up cutting off their nose since their intended customers can't really purchase the product at the higher prices. Truthfully though, I don't think MS is that dumb. They won't admit it but a certain amount of piracy is good as far as they are concerned because as India develops they will have an installed base to sell to. They aren't really out any money from someone who pirates the software who wouldn't have bought it anyway (despite what the BSA claims) but there is the potential of big profits in years to come.
While I agree that cellphones are sort of the logical target for convergence there are some huge obstacles to overcome. I agree that the iPod's days are numbered in its current form. I think many people would be very happy to just carry one device and a smartphone of some sort seems the ideal candidate. (Personally I prefer best of breed devices linked by Bluetooth but I think I'm in the minority there.) It's already an audio focused device and there are sufficient storage solutions. The main technical obstacles are battery life and a good user interface but those will be overcome in time I think. Of course the iPod is unlikely to remain in its current form unless Steve Jobs & Co have a collective stroke. But the real obstacles are not technical ones but market ones.
Cell phones are not yet a commodity product the same way PCs are. There are at least 3-4 major operating systems, there is no dominant hardware platform, incompatible radio technologies, and the main buyers of cell phones (cellular providers) are far less fragmented and more powerful than any buyer of PCs. It's a very different market. The only way I can see a iPod-replacement-phone taking off is if it if the developer (Palm, MS, Motorola, Nokia, etc) can somehow get the carriers to fight each other for it.
A huge problem with cell phones replacing the iPod is that there is almost zero financial incentive for the cellular providers (Cingular, Verizon, etc) to offer iPod/iTunes functionality on their networks unless they can make money off it. I don't see them being flexible enough to make that happen. They'll want a business like the ringtone business and they'll want it captive so you have to buy it from them. Witness Verizon with their disabled bluetooth functionality on one of their phones. They have no interest in services they can't charge for and are afraid of subsidizing development on a service one of their competitors will benefit from. One of the main reason's the iPod is successful is that you don't have to rely on any third party to use it. You can *choose* to use iTunes, etc but you aren't forced to. This is the exact opposite of how the carriers think.
Another factor is that most phones are subsidized by the providers. Now it's possible someone might produce a device people are willing to buy without subsidizing but I think they can't charge much more than an iPod or Treo. People are obviously willing to carry devices that cost as much as $400-$500US (Treo, some iPods) but if the cost is more than that, I think you are getting outside the sweet spot and most want devices that are much cheaper. It's possible it could happen, I'm just dubious it will happen if the cellular providers have much say in the matter.
Hear me out on this. I doubt they will do this since Dell it's a little too creative for Dell's business model, but imagine if this were marketed as a tablet pc aimed at artists/engineers. With a stylus and high rez touch sensitive screen you now have a decent sized portable system which I would think would be very useful for graphic artists. It's large enough to work comfortably on but also reasonably portable (if a bit heavy). It should be possible to cram a LOT of batteries into it to keep the battery life respectable.
Possibly good for CAD work too for engineers who need a larger screen and occasional portability. I've done a lot of CAD work myself and I could see such a device being pretty handy. Graphic artists will have to comment about the utility of such a device for them since I'm not one.
* Social security cards have just a name and an address on them (mine is 25 years old, so I could be wrong on this point).
:-) Those are just among the ones I listed.
Actually they don't have an address on them (mine doesn't anyway, just the name and SSN) and it would be quickly out of date if it did. And mine's well over 30 years old if we're comparing. But all that's beside the point. Have you ever held a job? It's one of the valid forms of ID when combined with a driver's license required by the IRS on their W2 form (I think that's the right one) in order to prove authorization to work in the US. There are alternatives but it's widely accepted and used.
* There are at least 50 disparate driver's licensing systems in this country
Each of which is a perfectly valid form of ID, issued by a governmental (just not federal) agency. I see no need for another one from the federal government.
* Ditto for birth certificates. You carry yours around?
When needed. I've been asked for it to get a passport, for background checks, and when I was a kid to prove my age at sporting events.
* Credit cards are not identification, even if Bank of America put your picture on the front.
Sure they are. I've seen companies accept credit cards as a form of valid ID. Admitedly they usually (but not always) require some form of government picture ID as well.
* Ditto for your video card, insurance card, health insurance card, and AAA card.
Again, all valid forms of ID to the parties who are interested. Not widely accepted but required here and there.
It sounds to me like you really have two gripes: Two much crap in your wallet and identity theft. There's a simple way to fix the first problem, and I sympathize with the second.
No I have a lot more gripes than that. Give me some credit.
The reality is, though, that because individual states value their own autonomy, there is not currently a federally administered identification method.
And what's wrong with that? There's a reason this country is called the United STATES of America. Centralizing everything with the federal government is needless, wasteful, and frankly kind of scary.
One more unnecessary piece of identification that everyone will ask for and thieves to steal. I already have a social security card, driver's licence, passport, birth certificate, two credit cards, video rental card, insurance card, health insurance card, AAA card and somehow this isn't enough? How on earth is one more ID card, administered by one more bureacracy going to accomplish anything other than making it easier for thieves to steal my identity. Hell I'll have to present all the above cards to "prove" that I am who I say I am despite the fact that all of those can be (and regularly are) forged/stolen.
Gotta love our lawmakers. Solving problems nobody asked them to.
Pardon my venting but I've never entirely understood this confusion between religion and science. They don't have all that much to do with each other. What is clear to me is that most people seem very uncomfortable with admitting that it is ok to not understand everything. As a result they create mythologies as a sort of catch-all to reassure themselves. Worse, people seem even more uncomfortable with the idea that their "explaination" based on their religious teachings isn't the "right" one and they engage in all sorts of absurd and even cruel behavior as a result. As a result we get events like the Scopes Monkey Trial.
Science is simply the act of creating models of what we observe. Science does not answer appear to be capable of answering fundamental questions of why, it simply is a process which tries to create models of what we mutually observe with predictive utility. The only time religion and science "conflict" is when some group of people have created a mythology to explain some physical phenomenon they don't understand. But if we later figure something out, these same people are often loathe to admit that their might be a better way to describe/predict an event than invoking a deity.
As far as I'm concerned, it's ok to believe in a deity of some sort if that helps somehow to get through the day. But belief is not necessarily fact. And trying to insist that a belief in a supernatural being (or however you define your unknowable deity) is a common fact everyone can agree upon is never going to work. I do not believe in a deity, certainly not in the judeo-christian sense of the word. Any argument that utilizes the bible or any religious text as a basis for an arguement is likely to be immediately discounted as nonsense by me.
The only way to have a stable agreement between any two people is to base it upon common facts that both can agree to. This is why we separate church and state in the US. It forces us to create laws based upon mutually agreeable facts, instead of unprovable and irrational beliefs that differ from person to person. Even if these folks in Kansas are successful in their pursuit of putting intelligent design into textbooks, there are no common facts about it we can agree to and as such it is a fundamentally unstable situation.
Posted anonymously because I don't want to tip anyone off.
Thats fine but don't get too paranoid. I don't mean to be rude but if you think no one has thought of your idea before, you're probably wrong. Check any ideas of getting VCs to sign NDAs at the door because they won't do it. You don't have to tell people all the technical details but its ok to tell the story.
So how do you find one of these guys?
It's not hard. One easy way is if you live in a town with a big university, go speak to some folks at their business school. You'll find them quick enough. VCs tend to specialize in a particular field. If you want to get their money you'll have to find one who specializes in your niche. For instance where I live we have a lot of biotech oriented VC firms and a few manufacturing ones.
I'd like to run my own business, and I've got the technical wherewithal to pull it off, but I lack the short-term funding to pay for equipment, overhead, and my salary until the business could support it. Some sort of VC investment would be perfect - I think.
Actually unless you think you have a really big idea that needs a ton of money up front, chances are good you do NOT want VC funding. VCs are looking for the next Google. Big ideas that require a large investments on the order of tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. And in return for the big money and the advice they provide they are going to demand a large share of the company stock. Probably more than 50%. And they also will probably replace you with a professional CEO. Still interested?
More likely you will want to find what are called Angel investors. Wealthy individuals or friends who are willing to take a chance on your idea, but more importantly on you. Yes, you. They rarely will understand the business idea and many will just be evaluating you as a person. How do you find them? Ask the people you know. Doctors, lawyers, executives, friends, family. Ask them and don't be shy. (but never rude!)
Better still if you can manage to pay the interest is to take out loans. That's right, debt is good! Why? Because you don't have to give up any equity. And believe it or not, debt is usually cheaper in the long run than equity. Plus it has some nice tax benefits. The only real downside is that if you are just starting out, you may have to sign over your house/car/whatever as colateral which means don't screw up.
Best of all is to have an idea that is self funding. If you have to start small, so be it.
I won't kid you though, raising money is a TON of work. Forget about running the technical part of your business if you need to raise money like this. You won't have time. The CEO has three main jobs: setting strategy, raising money and selling product. I know a guy who has raised almost $4 million in increments usually around $20k since 2001 selling a product based on SNORT. It's basically been his full time job as president of his company. His partner handles all the tech stuff. If you aren't a sales guy like that and don't think you can raise the money, get a partner who is.
How do you fid these guys? Are they all weasels?
Actually most of them are decidedly not weasels. They realize it's a partnership. However that doesn't mean they are soft negotiators. Their primary obligation is to make a return for their investors and it's their job to wring as much profit out of your company as they can. They'll take as much of your company as they can get. If you involve VCs there is a VERY good chance you'll find yourself on the sidelines. After all, to raise the money you sold some or even most of the company to them so they have every right to do that.
At the very least it looks like it will be far and away superior to the last couple of Batman films.
Talk about damning with faint praise...
Don't a large portion of ventures fail? Perhaps not directly related to them being open source.
I deal with VCs pretty regularly. The basic rule of thumb is that out of 10 investments most VCs make, 1-3 will be total busts, 7-8 will be close to breakeven or make a small profit and 1-2 will be home runs. The key is that the home runs are big enough that they make up for the rest of the investments that go no where. In some ways it's high risk but they also have a lot more control over the investments than a mutual fund.
Things get tough for VCs when there is too much money chasing too few good opportunties. Venture funds are very much like the mutual funds we all own except the companies the fund owns aren't usually traded on a stock exchange. Rich individuals and companies/organizations contribute money to a pool which the VC then invests in companies. (could be start ups but not necessarily) They then either take these companies public or sell them to a larger company and return the profits to the investors. I've seen lots of people who think VCs were stupid during the
what good is bluetooth if there's nothing you'd want to get out from the phone or to the phone?
I have a Nokia 6310i. I don't care about pictures, ringtones, music, or games. But I do use my phone as a GPRS modem via bluetooth for my Palm Tungsten T3 and Thinkpad laptop. Lets me download email and surf the web (slowly) without any cables required from pretty much anywhere in the world. I don't need bluetooth for transfering anything to the phone itself, but rather to use the phone as a conduit to the internet. I've been doing this for quite a while now and it's invaluable.
I'm definitely not the target market for this new phone. With a hard drive I gotta think the battery life is gonna suck and heaven forbid you drop it. If I needed that much storage I'd rather have an SD slot in the phone personally but I digress... My point is I just want a triband GSM phone with good battery life, text messaging and bluetooth for wireless modeming. No cameras, no crappy PDA features, no hard drive, etc. I'd like something like the Nokia 6810 but it's not sold in the US (only the 6800 and 6820 are carried here) and even it has more features than I actually need/want.
I think you are right about the greed part but "adequate PDA capabilities"? I use a Palm Tungsten for a PDA (connected via bluetooth to my phone) and wouldn't dream that my Nokia would be able to replace it. Same with the Treos some of my friends have. I suppose it depends on your needs but my Nokia 6310i has (roughly) the same capabilities as your 3588i and it's utterly useless as a PDA. Why? Several reasons.
What the complainers don't realize, is that they only make up a small percentage of the users, and the other 95% use the system and are fairly happy.
/.) companies need to listen very carefully to their customers, especially those who are actually speaking up. Most customers don't tell you they are unhappy, they simply stop using your product and never say a word. Sure you run into the occasional jack-ass who thinks you are his personal butler. But it's still worth listening to such people because sometimes they tell you something worthwhile. Apple has done a remarkably good job of this lately with online music whereas the RIAA companies have done a really poor job.
How do you know? I don't ask to be trite. I've worked tech support and having been in your position myself I do really sympathize with having to deal with that annoying 5%. But there is a huge difference between offering a free service (like you do - and bravo for it) and a for-profit company like Microsoft. A free service doesn't have to care about that 5%. Use it or don't. It doesn't matter. But if you genuinely are interested in providing a service your users find valuable (and Microsoft is), how do you know what they want?
This isn't an idle or easy question. The entire field of marketing is the art/science of finding out what it is people want. (As opposed to sales which is figuring out how to convince them you have what they want - and yes, they overlap) While there are a lot of people who have a severely outsized sense of entitlement (more that a few are here at
I've worked as a Malcolm Baldrige examiner and one of the things we ask companies is how they know what their customers want. WAY too many firms basically take the approach of "well, no one has complained so we must be doing something right". That approach is usually a swift route to poor performance if not bankruptcy. The firms that do well go WAY out of their way to figure out what customers want, even before the customers are conciously aware of it.
Of course in the case of Microsoft the motives are a bit more sinister. They're almost certainly more interested in customer lock via proprietary formats than anything else. We know it and MS knows we know it. So people are giving them a hard time about it. After all, it really isn't in my best interest as an end user to use a proprietary Microsoft format if there are any alternatives. So it shouldn't be at all surprising that people are complaining. It's in their (and likely your) interest to do so.
Most proprietary software is rigorously tested on the lamen to see how well he/she can negotiate around it. Where as all but the most popular open source projects, frankly, don't give a shit.
While I agree generally with the thrust of your argument I think it may go a little to far. I do think many open source folks care about the interface. They just aren't very good at it and lack the resources. Serious interface testing requires a lot of resources that many open source projects find difficult to come by. They need to be able to observe how people use the product and that's not always easy.
I do think there is an opportunity for someone to create some open-source tools to help open source (and closed) with interface testing. (Maybe this exists, I'm just not aware of it) Imagine a tool which essentially records (screen capture) movies of users conducting certain tasks and also provides statistical data about things like time between button clicks, which menus were looked at and for how long, etc. I'm thinking something along the lines of a set of debugging tools (vaguely similar to a profiler I guess but for actions instead of code) which are oriented towards user interface work. The results could then be sent back to the programmers similar to how Mozilla uses TalkBack. This would solve at least one of the problems open source projects have in getting information about user interface problems.
Of course that doesn't mean the programmers will necessarily do anything with the data but at least it provides a method for those who take interfaces seriously to get some data to improve theirs.
I used the service with a Palm Tungsten T3 through a Nokia 6310i via Cingular.
Short version:
Works great. Wish I had it years ago.
The maps need to be larger to be useful on a 320x400 screen.
The layout of the page could be optimized a bit. The Google logo at the top pushes data too far down. Google should either shrink the logo or relocate it.
Long version:
I've been looking for a service like this for a long time. I tried Avantgo for a while but it was cumbersome, and of limited use if you needed to find info on the fly. MapQuest allows you to download maps and directions using Avantgo but it doesn't work as well as Google Local.
I've alread mentioned my main criticisms of Google Local. It gives a map but seems targeted at 160x160 screens. (understandably) A larger map option would be nice as the maps are a little small to be genuinely useful IMO. You can zoom in/out and scroll around via buttons. Not as smooth as the regular Google Maps but perfectly adequate for on the road. Driving directions are always available and work great. Once you've located what you are looking for you simply select driving directions and enter your From: address. Simple and logical and it works pretty much exactly as you expect it to.
Speed of the service is fine. I have a GPRS connection (not EDGE) which isn't speedy but download speeds were satisfactory. If you have a Treo or a Tungsten type device (like me) you should have no trouble finding regular uses for the service.
So, what's your point?
That your point about "nothing" happening here due to the Japanese auto manufacturers was nonsense. I basically agree with the conclusions of your stance but claiming that nothing happened just isn't true. The Japanese shook US manufacturing to its core and the effects are still being felt. Perhaps I'm being a touch pedantic but I think it's an important point. The Chinese and Indians are going to change things. We don't know exactly how yet and as you rightly pointed out, the US isn't about to become a third world nation. But we can say that the only thing that won't happen is nothing.
The Just-in-time, lean manufacturing were not 'invented' by the Japanese
I didn't say invented, I said "pioneered". I'm well aware that many modern manufacturing concepts were not invented by the Japanese. But the Japanese were without question the first to implement them on a wide scale. Hence my use of the word pioneer instead of invent. Perhaps I should have phrased things more clearly.
The same things were said when Japan made a move to dominate the car industry, so what happened?
The US manufacturers have steadily lost market share. Toyota passed Ford to become the #2 automaker (based on worldwide sales) and is steadily gaining on GM for #1. Further Toyota is about to pass Chrysler in the US market (~11% vs ~12% market share respectively) Chrysler nearly went bankrupt and was eventually bought by Daimler-Benz. Lexus (Toyota again) passed Cadillac and Lincoln to become the #1 selling luxury car brand in the US. US automakers sell nearly every small/compact car for a loss because of inefficient manufacuturing and high labor/pension costs. Toyota and Honda are leading the charge into hybrid automobiles, well ahead of US auto firms. Hybrids are very likely to be the next dominant technology in autos. The light auto segment the US manufacturers have held onto is pickups/SUVs that have accounted for the majority of their profits in recent years, and they are starting to lose their death grip on that segment too. Recent gas prices won't help SUV sales either.
While I'm painting a bit more bleak picture than it actually is for Ford and GM but if you think nothing happened in the industry due to the Japanese, you simply don't understand the industry. I wouldn't say the Japanese or US manufacturers dominate (no one does) but I can say that Japanese automakers have had a HUGE impact on the industry, largely at the expense of the US manufacturers. Most of the recent innovations in manufacturing processes (Just-in-time, lean manufacuturing, etc) were pioneered by Japanese manufacturers. I'm a manufacturing operations engineer and I've been to and conducted statstical analysis of plants for most of the big auto companies and the Japanese simply are better manufacturers overall. You don't even have to take my word for it, there is plenty of evidence out there to support me. But I've been there and I can tell you that Ford & GM are playing catch up. The reason they haven't lost (read gone-bankrupt/aquired) is that auto manufacuturing isn't strictly a price game. Styling, dealer/sales networks, and historical buying preferences matter. And the US manufacturers aren't complete incompetents. But if it were strictly a matter of price/performance GM and Ford would already be gone.
Renting is more expensive than leasing because you can halt the contract with short notice.
The difference between renting and leasing. Short version. A lease is a contract. Renting isn't. You can halt a contract if the terms of the contract permit it. (or don't prohibit it in some cases) If you rent without a lease, you can exit the arrangement at will. Because there is the option of leaving a renting-without-lease arrangement early, one would expect renting to be more expensive as the property owner is not assured of the cash flows.
Buying means spending more money to start with.
Usually but it depends on the terms of the sale. I can sell you something in small monthly installments if we agree to it.
Borrowing money to buy instead of leasing would be the obvious choice IF the lender knows that you will succeed. If there is doubt about whether you will succeed with your new company, it will be very expensive to borrow the money to buy the stuff, and then leasing is cheaper.
This usually is true but not always. Lenders never really "know" that you will succeed. That's why we have credit ratings and even those don't always help. Enron had a solid investment grade credit rating, right up until it went bust. Besides, while what you said may be true in general, in reality sometimes one can find really good deals. When leasing is more attractive is usually because it has tax advantages related to depreciation. It also can have cash flow advantages depending on the terms. Whether leasing is preferable to buying depends entirely on the terms of the deal. If someone wants to sell something at a steep discount, no buyer is going to take a lease just because the cost of capital is normally better with leasing.
Since flash based sites are annoying for a variety of reasons (read about them in other posts) I've taken to using the mobile versions of websites. For instance Hollywood.com is a useful site for finding movie showtimes but it's heavily flash/shockwave based and very annoying to view. So I use their version for mobile devices which has the information I actually care about (movie locations and showtimes) without all the extra fluff. There's nothing preventing you from viewing these on a regular browser and they are MUCH faster. True, they don't have all the features of the regular sites but if you just need the basics they are great. These sites also will help those of people who constantly whine about how bloated everything is. (you know who you are...)
Some others include:
Amazon.com
American Airlines
Slashdot
Beyond that I'm not sure yet. If it gets integrated with traffic/weather reports or works on mobile devices it would be more useful. It's definitely a pretty cool hack no matter what.
Just view the sites on a regualr computer when it's more convenient.
Except that it's not. I travel a fair bit professionally, often internationally, and when I'm on the road I use my Palm Tungsten T3 to check email and check information on a few vital websites. (Weather, Airline status, maps and a few others are invaluable) It is HIGHLY inconvenient for me to use my laptop, much less my desktop, whenever I'm on the road or in meetings. If you sit at your desk all day (nothing wrong with that), then being able to use the web on your PDA/phone probably isn't useful. But for those of us who don't, being able to use the web to get driving directions when I'm in the middle of nowhere is invaluable.
Fortunately many websites have a PDA friendly version of their site. Accuweather, Amazon, American Airlines (and several other airlines), Mapquest, eBay, Hollywood.com, UPS, FedEx, Slashdot and my broker all have Palm friendly versions which are very light and work great. I connect my T3 through a Nokia 6310i using Cingular. Has worked great in the US, Mexico and parts of Southeast Asia. (expensive overseas though...) Data packages are still overpriced but competition is bringing the cost down.
Anyway the point is, just because it isn't useful to you personally doesn't mean it isn't useful period. For those of us who spend a lot of time on the road, the mobile internet can be a godsend.
There has been a lot of speculation that Apple never designed the Shuffle but bought it in from outside, guess we will find out if and when Apple sue over it.
Unless Apple was brain dead, whether it was manufactured or even designed by Apple is irrelevant. Apple should have at minimum taken out design patents which cover the look of the device. We're more familiar with utility patents which are what most of us think of when we think of patents. But for something that is purely ornamental one can take out a design patent which protects the visual design. Doesn't provide the protection of a utility patent but still effective in a case like this. Plus it's entirely possible they have one or more utility patents and there probably are some copyright issues involved as well. Virtually all consumer electronics are manufactured outside the US but this has no bearing on whether a company can build a visually identical knockoff.
Ob Disclaimer IANAL. Source: Legal Aspects of Engineering Law by Richard C. Vaughn.
While I'm impressed that they actually bothered to measure the sound coming from their case, their final measurement of 31.7db hardly counts as silent. In fact I personally regard that as fairly noisy, though I'm perhaps pickier than most. Realistically how much noise one can tolerate is a personal thing. If it bothers you it's too loud no matter what the acoustic measurements might tell you. And what bothers me might not bother you. I have just listened carefully to my machine and whichever component made the most noise got replaced.
The only way to have a truly silent case is to have no fans and an idle hard drive. If that isn't possible fans like Pabst 8412 NGL are the next best thing. They don't move much air but they're very quiet. And a better solution IMO than the hard drive enclosures which drive up heat and reduce reliability is vibration isolators combined with a naturally quiet drive like Seagates. There are some fanless and semi-fanless (doesn't run unless it gets hot) power supplies out there like the SilentMaxx Semifanless. And replace those stupd 60mm fans that they insist on using for CPUs and GPUs with big headsinks and/or heatpipes. Also install neoprene or other washers and use rubber to deaden case vibrations. Home Depot is a great source for a lot of this stuff.
SCSI, in its current form, is just opening itself up to becoming antiquated.
Perhaps, though personally I've had far more trouble getting SATA (and IDE) drives to work than SCSI drives and I've used both extensively. Driver issues mostly. SCSI's performance is better in multi-user systems, it's easy to set up, drivers tend to be less problematic especially on systems other than Windows, and it can have more devices attached. People claim it's more reliable though I have no evidence of this, and frankly am a bit dubious of the claim. SATA is also easy to set up and is a lot cheaper, though the drivers are still less ubiquitous than with SCSI and performance doesn't match SCSI yet for multi-user systems. (on a single user system it doesn't matter much)
That said, the next generation of SCSI is Serial Attached SCSI which is compatible with SATA. A SAS controller will be able to use SATA drives if you don't need the extra features of SAS. SCSI isn't going away, it's just adapting.
While I've admittedly not read the entire article (it's really long) I couldn't find much info about drivers. It seems the author basically assumed one would be running windows, which for servers (the most likely place for a RAID array) is a pretty poor assumption. I've tried a number of SATA RAID cards on my linux server (SuSE 9.1) and keep getting driven back to SCSI due to crappy/non-existant driver issues. Thank god for Addonics SATA-SCSI adaptors which work great and have saved me a bunch of money.
It's a nice article comparing performance but without a serious analysis of drivers along with it for Windows AND linux (and Mac if applicable) the article isn't complete. I don't really care which one is fastest if I can't run it on my system.