I'm a Mac partisan--but I have to agree. Unless you back these opinions with hard numbers and a point by point rebuttal, you're just trolling. Furthermore:
Maybe our IT dept. is just on the ball, but they don't care whether you have a PC or a MAC - they support and maintain both.
I think that's exactly the right attitude to have--IT is a service business; our job is to provide the tools that the users want to use and find useful. A tech that wants to take away the tool that I find useful isn't doing his job. Bully for you and your IT dept.
A decade ago, was Windows talking tcp/ip? In 1993?
Since OS X, OS 9 even, Macs talk regular tcp/ip. If you have an issue with AppleTalk, you can turn those services off. Active Directory can cause some trouble, sure. But OS X is getting smarter about that too.
You really wouldn't have any more trouble putting an OS X machine on a corporate network than a Linux machine--they all run the same services, afterall.
Oh, bullshit. Unclick the "AppleTalk" button in the Network System Preference, then; no more AppleTalk. Now it's just talking tcp/ip, so no excuses.
So that's the case for OS X--and you can turn off AppleTalk in OS 9 also, one click. Since, I think 8.5 (about 5 years ago) it would then be able to talk tcp/ip as well.
You may have issues getting your Macs on the network, but AT ain't it.
As much as I hate this device in particular, I hope that/. has their IP logs subpoenaed and you are sent to jail. Then you can learn about the "exciting" side of an ass-raping.
I think admitting to portscanning and tech pranks on/. is one thing, but it is entirely another to proclaim yourself a "semi-pro" criminal in a public forum. What you are doing is illegal, and you should stop. And/. should not broadcast your message.
Funny they don't require this before they take your money. Maybe they should be subject to my lie detector when I subscribe with them: are they really going to be there 24 hours a day with a hold time of under 10 minutes? Will they settle all of my claims, or just the claims that they feel are reasonable? If a natural disaster occurs, and several $Billions are filed simultaneously, will I still be covered, or will they simply go bankrupt? Will they really save me 15% or more?
Really, brillant strategy. Take money, and then decline service later. Maybe computer techs should be in the same business: I'll take your money now, but when you need service I'll just blame it on you and continue to post to/.
Well, frankly, that's the wrong attitude. They aren't "protecting their profit stream"; rather, they're alienating and diminishing the very stream that they want to protect.
I'm sure it's a great service. But $70, the inconvenience and compatibility issues of a dongle, AND a monthly? The question is: what are they going to do with these satellites if they fail to get a subscriber base?
I'm glad you like them, really. I hope they do well; well enough, in fact, to hand Clear Channel's ass to them and demonstrate that customers really do appreciate quality, diversity, and some unusual music. But I don't think that they're going to do it this way. It's like trying to sell computer users Windows if Linux had 90% of the market and was still free.
I agree 100%. If they've already put together the service, why not make it available to as many folks as possible? Why require this funky dongle, instead of just an MP3 stream that I can get anywhere that I have internet access?
If the streams were good enough, yeah, I might be willing to pay the $10/month or whatever. But I sure as hell am not going to buy more hardware. I suppose it's there to prevent rebroadcast of their signal--but that would take more work to circumvent than I think most people would be willing to put forth.
The art for this game is sure to be spectacular. However, I wish that the designer would spend less time resolving which art is more true to the books, and more time figuring out how to keep the PCs more in character with the books.
As a thread above this points out, the real problem with MMORPGs is that they much less to do with RPG and more to do with the O. I would prefer art that didn't quite smack of my recollection of the books, if the designers found a way to eliminate 'leet speaking gamers, and OOC gaming in general. That breaks my sense of involvement with an MMORPG more than the dubious art ever will.
I wish I had an ID card I could swipe on my phone that would ID me as compenent
Those are usually available, doncha know--they're called Professional Support Contracts. What separates the callers on those lines from your Joe Sixpacks is the pricetag, usually several thousands of dollars. Naturally only useful if you need support on something you admin regularly.
I do a little bit of support in addition to my primary duties as a developer (so I can keep in touch with the customers and their requests/etc)
That's a nice idea; not being a developer myself, I don't know if it's common, but it's not a bad way to get in touch with the user base.
I'm also going to use your position as a developer to bring up a point: let's not kid ourselves, computers don't always work the way the brochure said they would. We as techs and phone support understand this, and maybe accept it more than we should--but users, who have purchased many other things and they have almost always met the expectations put forth by the marketing, suddenly find computers and related gear to fail to meet those expectations by 20%. And a lot of the frustration found on the phone can be traced to that, being basically deceived by technical marketing--and then not having a fallback strategy since the users don't have the knowledge to design one.
The solution, I guess, is to stop misrepresenting in the marketing--but I will only after you will. And so it goes.
You didn't just lie, and say "sure, we ran the test; it reports an error"?
OTOH, and you'll see this more later in the thread, it's impossible for tech support to distinguish between idiots and clueful users. Experience has shown that most callers are indeed idiots, so that's a reasonable assumption. I've worked on both ends of the phone, and I can vouch for the reasonableness of that assumption.
The best way to get better support, in my experience, is to have a support contract with a professional price tag--for instance, $1-2K. That line tends to be answered by better techs, and people that pay that amount for support usually know more about what they're doing--but not always. There's still the stupid admin in an otherwise competent admin center that will call the pro line and say stupid things.
For instance--I work as a Mac Admin; I've worked with varying qualities of other Mac Admins. I worked with another Mac Tech once who called Apple Pro Support to complain that he couldn't cut-n-paste between classic and cocoa apps (a well known issue in the early X versions; since fixed, I believe.) The Apple Pro people, to their credit, explained that it was being "worked on" and my co-worker was satisfied that he had discovered and reported a previously unknown bug to Apple, who repaid him by alerting their development team.
On another hand, I currently work with complex biomedical gear with attached computers; although I know much about the computers themselves, I know zilch about the bio gear. I actually don't know how to turn it on. I need to call tech support for the bio gear occasionally--on the aforementioned pro support hotline--and I'm sure that I sound just as stupid to them.
Don't make the assumption that everybody at Oracle is a code writer... there are LOTS, and I mean LOTS, of non-technical people working there. Just because it's a software company doesn't mean that every, or even most, employees are technical.
I understand that; I would agree that only a sizable minority of the employees are technically inclined. I should have said so in my previous post.
That's about as much of a non-technical workforce as you can get in modern business, even though they may have technical components
However, I don't see that as being true. You don't think that Geico has less technical knowledge in it's corporate culture than does Oracle? Or even Ford? I think so, and I think one of those conversions would be much more interesting, and relevant, to more corporations. When Munich gets deployed, and feedback comes in, is when Linux proponents will know how likely Penguin World Domination really is.
Undeniably, a large loss for Sun, too. But this migration fails to demonstrate what many want: that a non-technical workforce can move from Windows to Linux. You have neither a non-technical workforce, nor a workforce that is trained and comfortable with Windows.
Wake me when Geico moves their entire org, including sales agents, to Linux. Until then, while these moves are good, it only demonstrates the preference of engineer types, not marketing types. Unfortunately, there are a lot more marketing types than engineer types in the world.
Since you've done work for someone else--that they should be willing to pay for--I would argue that you should be compensated. However, I would also recommend legal counsel as to how you can present this offer without it sounding like extortion. And, even if you're willing to give it away, I would still seek said counsel--consider charging the application manufacturer only enough to cover your counsel.
I would watch it, because you could certainly get into legal trouble--I believe that the Russian hackers mentioned a while back only wanted to work in IT, but made clumsy attempts to break into the field. It's easy to take a genuine offer as an extortion, although I think by rights you are due compensation.
So, since MSFT supports SCO's copyright, will they also be paying $699 for every installation of Linux they install? Maybe not, but watch for this number to appear in their TCO whitepapers...
"100% of the users" liked the "design of the desktop interface and programs"
I guess MSFT is smarter about that than I ever gave them credit for--that's not what I've been hearing here, so it's interesting that 20 out of 20 people who hadn't used XP before liked it. I presume that they came from previous Windows experience.
That said, will someone please tell me how you can learn the GODDAMN IP address that a given Windows box is using? And if it's set for DHCP or static? Every time I look in control panels, but I don't find it often enough to remember where it's at. I mean, why hide such a thing?
Simply paying for content isn't enough to make it unbiased; I pay for subscriptions to Electronic Gaming Monthly and IGN, and that doesn't guarantee bias-free reporting.
The only thing that would help is to have ad-free mags, which means that the readers would have to pay enough to support the entire costs of the mag, and I don't see that happening with micropayments. And even at that, it would only be part of the puzzle--developers would still be able to hold out carrots like "privileged access to employees", "exclusive first reviews" and access to games and hardware to hold over the head of reviewers they don't agree with.
Just curious, when I bought my iBook two weeks ago the guy at CompUSA tried to talk me into buying my airport and memory there saying installing it myself voided the warranty. I'm assuming what he really meant was, if I install both and break it, then the warranty doesn't cover the damages.
He was either ignorant or lying, in order to sell you either AppleCare or CompUSA's own plan. Of course you can install your own memory and AirPort. nb: if you use any memory besides "apple" branded memory, the first thing a tech will do is remove it to eliminate it from being an issue. Beyond that, it has no impact on your warranty. (naturally, the RAM wouldn't be covered by either by warranty or AppleCare. The Airport card, installed by you or someone else, would be covered by AppleCare. As would a base station.)
Also, I'm thinking about getting Appelcare, but noticed you said all non-abusive repairs for iBooks are $280? Retail for Applecare is $250 -- so assuming I had one major malfunction while owning it, a $280 flat rate to fix it might not bother me that much.
That's a strategy. However, as I said above, AppleCare would also extend to the Airport card (never goes bad), but also the AirPort base station "used with the computer to which AppleCare is attached." At least when I left, you didn't need to register your base station or any thing else to take advantage of the AppleCare. Base stations to go bad--they are much better now, but there was a run of bad ones a few years ago. (Scenario: you explain to the Apple Support Rep that your base station has gone bad, but that you have applecare; he looks up your iBook, sees the AppleCare, and says yep! Where would you like the new base station sent?)
I get Apple parts from my Apple service center all the time.
You well may, but I wouldn't let Apple know that. Seriously. They've pulled a vendor's right to sell or repair Macs for just that reason. Know that they are doing you a huge favor, and could get shut down if selling Macs is mostly what they do.
there's nothing that says you have to replace apple parts with apple parts. even slot loading DVD-Rs and DVD/CD-RWs are available from places like MacResq and OWC.
Absolutely. Knock yourself out.:) If you prefer that, and don't mind scrounging for a power supply or eating a logic board once in a while, sure, the HD is what fails most and is easily replaced, particularly in desktops. So you can even the odds in your favor. But one processor is a fail on a desktop that I wouldn't want to buy.
I believe you were misquoted. I've seen that issue, and your cost should have fallen under flat-rate charges for PowerBooks, which is $310 + shipping. Unless it was abused--and whoever gave you that quote would be better able to make that determination, to be sure--the flat rate should apply, LCD or no.
I'll be happy to discuss this off list, if you care to. email is above.
i've never met a latop that i couldn't bust open and replace a hard drive or an optical drive.
I would guess that you've never repaired an iBook. Not for the faint of heart. Admittedly, a Powerbook HD and optical drive are easy to replace, but I don't know about finding the PowerBook optical drive aftermarket, and Apple won't sell you just the part, either.
btw--AppleCare would include coverage of the not easily replaced parts, such as the LCD and MLB, as long as those units were not "abused." And the MLB isn't replaceable by you, screwdriver aware or no. (unless you salvage old machines, I guess.)
Slashdot Mirror
piece of flame-bait bull-shit I have ever read
I'm a Mac partisan--but I have to agree. Unless you back these opinions with hard numbers and a point by point rebuttal, you're just trolling. Furthermore:
Maybe our IT dept. is just on the ball, but they don't care whether you have a PC or a MAC - they support and maintain both.
I think that's exactly the right attitude to have--IT is a service business; our job is to provide the tools that the users want to use and find useful. A tech that wants to take away the tool that I find useful isn't doing his job. Bully for you and your IT dept.
A decade ago, was Windows talking tcp/ip? In 1993?
Since OS X, OS 9 even, Macs talk regular tcp/ip. If you have an issue with AppleTalk, you can turn those services off. Active Directory can cause some trouble, sure. But OS X is getting smarter about that too.
You really wouldn't have any more trouble putting an OS X machine on a corporate network than a Linux machine--they all run the same services, afterall.
Oh, bullshit. Unclick the "AppleTalk" button in the Network System Preference, then; no more AppleTalk. Now it's just talking tcp/ip, so no excuses.
So that's the case for OS X--and you can turn off AppleTalk in OS 9 also, one click. Since, I think 8.5 (about 5 years ago) it would then be able to talk tcp/ip as well.
You may have issues getting your Macs on the network, but AT ain't it.
There is no Mac Publisher, either. Or at least not for awhile. So there you go.
As much as I hate this device in particular, I hope that
I think admitting to portscanning and tech pranks on
Funny they don't require this before they take your money. Maybe they should be subject to my lie detector when I subscribe with them: are they really going to be there 24 hours a day with a hold time of under 10 minutes? Will they settle all of my claims, or just the claims that they feel are reasonable? If a natural disaster occurs, and several $Billions are filed simultaneously, will I still be covered, or will they simply go bankrupt? Will they really save me 15% or more?
Really, brillant strategy. Take money, and then decline service later. Maybe computer techs should be in the same business: I'll take your money now, but when you need service I'll just blame it on you and continue to post to
Well, frankly, that's the wrong attitude. They aren't "protecting their profit stream"; rather, they're alienating and diminishing the very stream that they want to protect.
I'm sure it's a great service. But $70, the inconvenience and compatibility issues of a dongle, AND a monthly? The question is: what are they going to do with these satellites if they fail to get a subscriber base?
I'm glad you like them, really. I hope they do well; well enough, in fact, to hand Clear Channel's ass to them and demonstrate that customers really do appreciate quality, diversity, and some unusual music. But I don't think that they're going to do it this way. It's like trying to sell computer users Windows if Linux had 90% of the market and was still free.
MacCentral reports that Finale for OS X will be available in October of this year.
I'm not a musician, so I have no idea of the quality of this software; but the timeframe was in question, so now you know.
I agree 100%. If they've already put together the service, why not make it available to as many folks as possible? Why require this funky dongle, instead of just an MP3 stream that I can get anywhere that I have internet access?
If the streams were good enough, yeah, I might be willing to pay the $10/month or whatever. But I sure as hell am not going to buy more hardware. I suppose it's there to prevent rebroadcast of their signal--but that would take more work to circumvent than I think most people would be willing to put forth.
The art for this game is sure to be spectacular. However, I wish that the designer would spend less time resolving which art is more true to the books, and more time figuring out how to keep the PCs more in character with the books.
As a thread above this points out, the real problem with MMORPGs is that they much less to do with RPG and more to do with the O. I would prefer art that didn't quite smack of my recollection of the books, if the designers found a way to eliminate 'leet speaking gamers, and OOC gaming in general. That breaks my sense of involvement with an MMORPG more than the dubious art ever will.
In Space, Galaxies eat YOU!
I wish I had an ID card I could swipe on my phone that would ID me as compenent
Those are usually available, doncha know--they're called Professional Support Contracts. What separates the callers on those lines from your Joe Sixpacks is the pricetag, usually several thousands of dollars. Naturally only useful if you need support on something you admin regularly.
I do a little bit of support in addition to my primary duties as a developer (so I can keep in touch with the customers and their requests/etc)
That's a nice idea; not being a developer myself, I don't know if it's common, but it's not a bad way to get in touch with the user base.
I'm also going to use your position as a developer to bring up a point: let's not kid ourselves, computers don't always work the way the brochure said they would. We as techs and phone support understand this, and maybe accept it more than we should--but users, who have purchased many other things and they have almost always met the expectations put forth by the marketing, suddenly find computers and related gear to fail to meet those expectations by 20%. And a lot of the frustration found on the phone can be traced to that, being basically deceived by technical marketing--and then not having a fallback strategy since the users don't have the knowledge to design one.
The solution, I guess, is to stop misrepresenting in the marketing--but I will only after you will. And so it goes.
You didn't just lie, and say "sure, we ran the test; it reports an error"?
OTOH, and you'll see this more later in the thread, it's impossible for tech support to distinguish between idiots and clueful users. Experience has shown that most callers are indeed idiots, so that's a reasonable assumption. I've worked on both ends of the phone, and I can vouch for the reasonableness of that assumption.
The best way to get better support, in my experience, is to have a support contract with a professional price tag--for instance, $1-2K. That line tends to be answered by better techs, and people that pay that amount for support usually know more about what they're doing--but not always. There's still the stupid admin in an otherwise competent admin center that will call the pro line and say stupid things.
For instance--I work as a Mac Admin; I've worked with varying qualities of other Mac Admins. I worked with another Mac Tech once who called Apple Pro Support to complain that he couldn't cut-n-paste between classic and cocoa apps (a well known issue in the early X versions; since fixed, I believe.) The Apple Pro people, to their credit, explained that it was being "worked on" and my co-worker was satisfied that he had discovered and reported a previously unknown bug to Apple, who repaid him by alerting their development team.
On another hand, I currently work with complex biomedical gear with attached computers; although I know much about the computers themselves, I know zilch about the bio gear. I actually don't know how to turn it on. I need to call tech support for the bio gear occasionally--on the aforementioned pro support hotline--and I'm sure that I sound just as stupid to them.
Don't make the assumption that everybody at Oracle is a code writer... there are LOTS, and I mean LOTS, of non-technical people working there. Just because it's a software company doesn't mean that every, or even most, employees are technical.
I understand that; I would agree that only a sizable minority of the employees are technically inclined. I should have said so in my previous post.
That's about as much of a non-technical workforce as you can get in modern business, even though they may have technical components
However, I don't see that as being true. You don't think that Geico has less technical knowledge in it's corporate culture than does Oracle? Or even Ford? I think so, and I think one of those conversions would be much more interesting, and relevant, to more corporations. When Munich gets deployed, and feedback comes in, is when Linux proponents will know how likely Penguin World Domination really is.
Undeniably, a large loss for Sun, too. But this migration fails to demonstrate what many want: that a non-technical workforce can move from Windows to Linux. You have neither a non-technical workforce, nor a workforce that is trained and comfortable with Windows.
Wake me when Geico moves their entire org, including sales agents, to Linux. Until then, while these moves are good, it only demonstrates the preference of engineer types, not marketing types. Unfortunately, there are a lot more marketing types than engineer types in the world.
Since you've done work for someone else--that they should be willing to pay for--I would argue that you should be compensated. However, I would also recommend legal counsel as to how you can present this offer without it sounding like extortion. And, even if you're willing to give it away, I would still seek said counsel--consider charging the application manufacturer only enough to cover your counsel.
I would watch it, because you could certainly get into legal trouble--I believe that the Russian hackers mentioned a while back only wanted to work in IT, but made clumsy attempts to break into the field. It's easy to take a genuine offer as an extortion, although I think by rights you are due compensation.
So, since MSFT supports SCO's copyright, will they also be paying $699 for every installation of Linux they install? Maybe not, but watch for this number to appear in their TCO whitepapers...
"100% of the users" liked the "design of the desktop interface and programs"
I guess MSFT is smarter about that than I ever gave them credit for--that's not what I've been hearing here, so it's interesting that 20 out of 20 people who hadn't used XP before liked it. I presume that they came from previous Windows experience.
That said, will someone please tell me how you can learn the GODDAMN IP address that a given Windows box is using? And if it's set for DHCP or static? Every time I look in control panels, but I don't find it often enough to remember where it's at. I mean, why hide such a thing?
Bungie was (once) known for this, too. You might try Myth--a slower pace, to be sure, but more rewarding all the same.
For FragFest Fun, you probably won't do better than Unreal. Try getting new maps and mods to change up the fun; or try team combat.
Can Ghost Recon be played multiplayer?
Simply paying for content isn't enough to make it unbiased; I pay for subscriptions to Electronic Gaming Monthly and IGN, and that doesn't guarantee bias-free reporting.
The only thing that would help is to have ad-free mags, which means that the readers would have to pay enough to support the entire costs of the mag, and I don't see that happening with micropayments. And even at that, it would only be part of the puzzle--developers would still be able to hold out carrots like "privileged access to employees", "exclusive first reviews" and access to games and hardware to hold over the head of reviewers they don't agree with.
Just curious, when I bought my iBook two weeks ago the guy at CompUSA tried to talk me into buying my airport and memory there saying installing it myself voided the warranty. I'm assuming what he really meant was, if I install both and break it, then the warranty doesn't cover the damages.
He was either ignorant or lying, in order to sell you either AppleCare or CompUSA's own plan. Of course you can install your own memory and AirPort. nb: if you use any memory besides "apple" branded memory, the first thing a tech will do is remove it to eliminate it from being an issue. Beyond that, it has no impact on your warranty. (naturally, the RAM wouldn't be covered by either by warranty or AppleCare. The Airport card, installed by you or someone else, would be covered by AppleCare. As would a base station.)
Also, I'm thinking about getting Appelcare, but noticed you said all non-abusive repairs for iBooks are $280? Retail for Applecare is $250 -- so assuming I had one major malfunction while owning it, a $280 flat rate to fix it might not bother me that much.
That's a strategy. However, as I said above, AppleCare would also extend to the Airport card (never goes bad), but also the AirPort base station "used with the computer to which AppleCare is attached." At least when I left, you didn't need to register your base station or any thing else to take advantage of the AppleCare. Base stations to go bad--they are much better now, but there was a run of bad ones a few years ago. (Scenario: you explain to the Apple Support Rep that your base station has gone bad, but that you have applecare; he looks up your iBook, sees the AppleCare, and says yep! Where would you like the new base station sent?)
Hope this helps.
I get Apple parts from my Apple service center all the time.
You well may, but I wouldn't let Apple know that. Seriously. They've pulled a vendor's right to sell or repair Macs for just that reason. Know that they are doing you a huge favor, and could get shut down if selling Macs is mostly what they do.
there's nothing that says you have to replace apple parts with apple parts. even slot loading DVD-Rs and DVD/CD-RWs are available from places like MacResq and OWC.
Absolutely. Knock yourself out.
I believe you were misquoted. I've seen that issue, and your cost should have fallen under flat-rate charges for PowerBooks, which is $310 + shipping. Unless it was abused--and whoever gave you that quote would be better able to make that determination, to be sure--the flat rate should apply, LCD or no.
I'll be happy to discuss this off list, if you care to. email is above.
i've never met a latop that i couldn't bust open and replace a hard drive or an optical drive.
I would guess that you've never repaired an iBook. Not for the faint of heart. Admittedly, a Powerbook HD and optical drive are easy to replace, but I don't know about finding the PowerBook optical drive aftermarket, and Apple won't sell you just the part, either.
btw--AppleCare would include coverage of the not easily replaced parts, such as the LCD and MLB, as long as those units were not "abused." And the MLB isn't replaceable by you, screwdriver aware or no. (unless you salvage old machines, I guess.)