Because users are lazy and management doesn't always listen. At my last admin job (a school district), I wanted to use it, but staff was dead set against using strong passwords, or even changing passwords. Never mind that it was the same password for the user's pop email account, which was sent in cleartext. In vain, I complained loudly to administration that there needed to be changes to password policy and the email system.
When I left, I'm pretty sure passwords were being compromised by some of the more technically inclined students. Eh, not my problem anymore.
I'm just waiting for "grades for sale" popping up in the local news.
When I look at Microsoft that way, I think of the first Predator movie, with the well armed troops, shooting around at random, and hitting nothing.
But one of those "well armed troops" eventually kills that which he cannot at first see. Microsoft, so well armed (lots of cash), could really mess stuff up before the end if it gets backed into a corner and becomes desperate.
If Windows became open source we would see £100 knock down on the price of every single PC.
This would then make more people buy PCs, which would help the whole industry except Microsoft.
Microsoft isn't going to do anything that won't help Microsoft. They have an obligation to shareholders to increase profits and market share (dominating as they are). Of course, this is only the case with their current business model.
Now, if they switched to a service contract type business model and open sourced Windows, things might be different. Think of those people that still have Windows 98. What if they had been paying, say, $10-$15 a year since then for support? Microsoft would have made more on them than the customer's initial purchase of Windows (assuming an OEM installed Windows, not Retail).
The customer doesn't have to get support, but lots of people pirate Windows anyway. Might as well release it to everyone and work on *really* good tech support.
Maybe I'm simplifying things too much. I'm sure someone will correct me.
So burn the network install for SP2 to a CD. Then you don't have to download it again. Or, better yet, slipstream that service pack into a new reinstallation disc. There's no reason to download it twice.
It's got nothing to lose, because it's lost it all already.
Yeah. When I hear about a study that raises Microsoft up above another product, I always find myself thinking, "Yeah, because they paid for it."
I'm not a Linux or Apple zealot by any means. I use the best tool for the job, be it Microsoft, Linux, Apple, etc.
But when I don't even check to see if Microsoft did pay for a positive study, I just assume it, Microsoft has lost all credibility for me, at least on studies.
My iRiver 20GB player doesn't skip at all when it's bouncing around.
It even survived a 115 mph car crash. Somehow, it ended up in the trunk, covered with water when the night's rain came in through the non-existant rear window on my hatchback car. I couldn't get to it for a few days, since my buddy and I were taken to the ER, and my car (what was left, anyway) was taken to an impound lot on a flatbed.
My buddy will never drive any of my cars again, but my iRiver still works great.
Huh? What are you talking about? When I worked at RadioShack, the actual cost to the company for midrange phones is somewhere around 150 to 200 dollars. Sure, the cheap and discontinued phones are 50 bucks or less, but the new phones are not cheap. The regular phones become profitable to sell at those prices only when you get a contract, because the service provider gives a credit back to the RadioShack.
Even then, the margin is not that much, and we were pushed hard to add accessories onto the sale in order to increase that margin. That plastic holster you're getting for 15 bucks? The actual cost is 2 bucks. That car charger for 30 bucks? 10 bucks. It used to be different a decade ago, and margins were greater on the phone itself, but the market wasn't saturated with cell phones back then.
Windows 98 had pretty much exactly the same functionality as Windows 95, yet a load of people upgraded to it. Why do you think that was?
I'll tell you why. Windows 98 was more stable than Windows 95, plus it had a bunch of multimedia enhancements...uh...I mean...uh...
NO! My happy little world is undone! Curse you Microsoft! Curse you and your marketing strategies that have brainwashed me! I'm just a User! How could you?!
At my previous job, a K-12 District, we *hated* computer donations. They don't conform to a standard hard drive image, so they require special attention. They have no warranty, and the techs to work on them as they die end up costing more than a new machine would have.
Management of dissimilar hardware costs a lot.
Now, if your District isn't to that level of management, they'll probably be pleased with anything they can get. When I started there, we were ecstatic to get extra hardware. But as time wore on, we spent the majority of our time on these donations. When I left, the District had switched over to a completely Leased solution. It ends up much easier to manage from a budget perspective if there is a fixed amount spent on hardware every year in the lease.
I agree with the poster above:
Ask your District if they want them. If you go over to drop them off, they may just refuse them, and now you've packed up all those old machines for nothing.
Yeah. Back in the day when the name and address thing was going on, (when I was working there) I had real trouble asking for it. I was paranoid about my information myself, and I felt like I was slapping the customer in the face every time I asked it.
Some things require your name and address, sure, like cell phone service or extended warranties, but for an eight pack of batteries and a fuse? No way. And to make things worse, as an employee, your "Name and Address Hit Rate" was something that was tracked. Achieve less than an 80% hit rate (I think) and you got talked to. Don't fix it in a few weeks, and you got fired. Crazy.
They have since changed their tune with it though. They've moved on to getting just a zip code from a customer now, and they don't care about the hit rate. Now they just blanket the highest percentage zip codes with flyers in the mail.
Oh, but make sure you pay with cash if you care about keeping your address to yourself. If you pay with a check your address is on it (or needs to be recorded), and your address can be extracted if you pay with a credit card. Not unlike many (if not most) other retail stores, I guess.
We have a radioshack here, but it's very understocked and the employees aren't all that well versed in much other than their main sell points.
RadioShack would have to pay their employees more in order to get people that are knowledgeable about that sort of stuff. They pay minimum wage and you get some commission on sales. Parts are not one of those "good sale" items. Good for addons, but that's about it, from a money making perspective. Once someone starts knowing more about that sort of stuff, they leave, because they can make more money somewehere else. If they paid more money, and so expected more of their sales staff, it would help those matters greatly.
It's almost an insult to make $5.15 an hour and for half the day there are no customers in the store. Better sell enough stuff, otherwise you won't get commission, and you just made $41.20 minus taxes for your eight hour day. As a full time job? That won't even cover rent around here.
Fact is, unless you work at a *really* busy store, you can't make a decent living from that job as a "Sales Associate". Look at the employees that work there. Mostly younger guys. Some geeks that know what they are doing, but they are few. Gotta push those cell phones first, and often. It's pretty much the only way to make money there, and RadioShack pushes their employees to sell them. Hard.
Just my thoughts; I used to work there a few times while in between jobs.
Yeah. Kinda sucks when all that money goes to "administrative" positions making six figures.
Just a single example, but when you have a principal and an assistant principal at each school, both making 100,000+ $USD, that money gets used up in a hurry. Why don't they spend some of that money on teachers to lower class size? It's a bunch of stupid politics, and the students continue to suffer for it. There are dozens of other positions like that. I can see a need for a single principal, but what about all these other stupid positions?
In the High School at the K-12 district where I worked before, the "assistant principal" fixed his three sons' grades before he got caught and had to "resign to pursue other opportunities", and the "normal principal" was caught (by me) surfing porn after hours. Fucking brilliant.
[sarcasm] If only we had tougher IP laws! This cycle could end, and we would have only new, creative ideas. A panacea I tell you! War, famine, and disease would be distant memories! [/sarcasm]
And people wonder why US tech jobs are being outsourced.
"Yes, just one moment, sir. I understand that you can't get your email but I've got this killer post I've just got to get done before too many other people post. My Karma is at stake here!"
New statistics state that there are 379 million people in Europe, with a growth rate of 0.3%.
How many people in North America are there? Let's see. The number of North America versus European posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 379x5 = 1.895 billion North American users. Asian posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of North American posts.
Therefore there are about 900 million people in Asia. A recent article put Australia at about 80 percent of the Usenet market. Therefore there are (1895+379+900)x4 = 12.6 billion worldwide Usenet users. This is consistent with the number of worldwide Usenet posts.
Due to population growth in other countries around the world, such as:
Compare this with the 0.3% annual population increase of Europe, and it becomes clear that all too soon, it will become statistically insignificant.
All major surveys show that Europe has steadily declined in global population share. Europe is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Europe is to survive at all it will be among government hobbyists, dabblers, and dilettantes. Europe continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Europe is dead.
But FF:CC *could* have been done without the GBAs. Yes...it might have been more cumbersome than *with* the GBA. But the developers could have allowed both. It's not an inherently either-or situation.
Part of what makes FF:CC such a social multiplayer game is the information displayed on your screen. It's difficult to describe if you haven't played it. Players must be communicating with each other (usually verbally) what is on their screen. If you have four players, one gets a terrain map, one gets an enemy radar, one gets a treasure radar, and one gets an enemy stat screen. It is *these* integral parts that can't be replicated to the screen where everyone can see them. Players must communicate what they know. It is *this* that makes the game such a multiplayer masterpiece.
I've got my own beef with some users with low UIDs, but only those that sell their accounts. It isn't like I really believe that a low UID gives a person authority or anything, but newbies to slashdot will see those low UIDs and automatically give respect, even if it's subconscious. Most will wise up eventually, but I hate it when somebody would sell a low UID account to someone who wants "street cred" with their "peers". Something about that just irritates me.
Still, doesn't seem to be worth getting excessively upset over crap like this unless the government starts making laws based on it.
Getting upset about something after a law is made doesn't really help anymore. All sorts of people (mostly on slashdot) are upset about the DMCA, but all of our whining in the world won't take care of it. Better to kill these bad ideas before they get momentum (and lobbying dollars) behind them and passing laws from them becomes a formality.
Slashdot Mirror
Because users are lazy and management doesn't always listen. At my last admin job (a school district), I wanted to use it, but staff was dead set against using strong passwords, or even changing passwords. Never mind that it was the same password for the user's pop email account, which was sent in cleartext. In vain, I complained loudly to administration that there needed to be changes to password policy and the email system.
When I left, I'm pretty sure passwords were being compromised by some of the more technically inclined students. Eh, not my problem anymore.
I'm just waiting for "grades for sale" popping up in the local news.
But one of those "well armed troops" eventually kills that which he cannot at first see. Microsoft, so well armed (lots of cash), could really mess stuff up before the end if it gets backed into a corner and becomes desperate.
Look at your post.
If Windows became open source we would see £100 knock down on the price of every single PC.
This would then make more people buy PCs, which would help the whole industry except Microsoft.
Microsoft isn't going to do anything that won't help Microsoft. They have an obligation to shareholders to increase profits and market share (dominating as they are). Of course, this is only the case with their current business model.
Now, if they switched to a service contract type business model and open sourced Windows, things might be different. Think of those people that still have Windows 98. What if they had been paying, say, $10-$15 a year since then for support? Microsoft would have made more on them than the customer's initial purchase of Windows (assuming an OEM installed Windows, not Retail).
The customer doesn't have to get support, but lots of people pirate Windows anyway. Might as well release it to everyone and work on *really* good tech support.
Maybe I'm simplifying things too much. I'm sure someone will correct me.
So burn the network install for SP2 to a CD. Then you don't have to download it again. Or, better yet, slipstream that service pack into a new reinstallation disc. There's no reason to download it twice.
Yeah. When I hear about a study that raises Microsoft up above another product, I always find myself thinking, "Yeah, because they paid for it."
I'm not a Linux or Apple zealot by any means. I use the best tool for the job, be it Microsoft, Linux, Apple, etc.
But when I don't even check to see if Microsoft did pay for a positive study, I just assume it, Microsoft has lost all credibility for me, at least on studies.
It even survived a 115 mph car crash. Somehow, it ended up in the trunk, covered with water when the night's rain came in through the non-existant rear window on my hatchback car. I couldn't get to it for a few days, since my buddy and I were taken to the ER, and my car (what was left, anyway) was taken to an impound lot on a flatbed.
My buddy will never drive any of my cars again, but my iRiver still works great.
Even then, the margin is not that much, and we were pushed hard to add accessories onto the sale in order to increase that margin. That plastic holster you're getting for 15 bucks? The actual cost is 2 bucks. That car charger for 30 bucks? 10 bucks. It used to be different a decade ago, and margins were greater on the phone itself, but the market wasn't saturated with cell phones back then.
I'll tell you why. Windows 98 was more stable than Windows 95, plus it had a bunch of multimedia enhancements...uh...I mean...uh...
NO! My happy little world is undone! Curse you Microsoft! Curse you and your marketing strategies that have brainwashed me! I'm just a User! How could you?!
*cries in corner*
At my previous job, a K-12 District, we *hated* computer donations. They don't conform to a standard hard drive image, so they require special attention. They have no warranty, and the techs to work on them as they die end up costing more than a new machine would have.
Management of dissimilar hardware costs a lot.
Now, if your District isn't to that level of management, they'll probably be pleased with anything they can get. When I started there, we were ecstatic to get extra hardware. But as time wore on, we spent the majority of our time on these donations. When I left, the District had switched over to a completely Leased solution. It ends up much easier to manage from a budget perspective if there is a fixed amount spent on hardware every year in the lease.
I agree with the poster above:
Ask your District if they want them. If you go over to drop them off, they may just refuse them, and now you've packed up all those old machines for nothing.
Some things require your name and address, sure, like cell phone service or extended warranties, but for an eight pack of batteries and a fuse? No way. And to make things worse, as an employee, your "Name and Address Hit Rate" was something that was tracked. Achieve less than an 80% hit rate (I think) and you got talked to. Don't fix it in a few weeks, and you got fired. Crazy.
They have since changed their tune with it though. They've moved on to getting just a zip code from a customer now, and they don't care about the hit rate. Now they just blanket the highest percentage zip codes with flyers in the mail.
Oh, but make sure you pay with cash if you care about keeping your address to yourself. If you pay with a check your address is on it (or needs to be recorded), and your address can be extracted if you pay with a credit card. Not unlike many (if not most) other retail stores, I guess.
RadioShack would have to pay their employees more in order to get people that are knowledgeable about that sort of stuff. They pay minimum wage and you get some commission on sales. Parts are not one of those "good sale" items. Good for addons, but that's about it, from a money making perspective. Once someone starts knowing more about that sort of stuff, they leave, because they can make more money somewehere else. If they paid more money, and so expected more of their sales staff, it would help those matters greatly.
It's almost an insult to make $5.15 an hour and for half the day there are no customers in the store. Better sell enough stuff, otherwise you won't get commission, and you just made $41.20 minus taxes for your eight hour day. As a full time job? That won't even cover rent around here.
Fact is, unless you work at a *really* busy store, you can't make a decent living from that job as a "Sales Associate". Look at the employees that work there. Mostly younger guys. Some geeks that know what they are doing, but they are few. Gotta push those cell phones first, and often. It's pretty much the only way to make money there, and RadioShack pushes their employees to sell them. Hard.
Just my thoughts; I used to work there a few times while in between jobs.
Just a single example, but when you have a principal and an assistant principal at each school, both making 100,000+ $USD, that money gets used up in a hurry. Why don't they spend some of that money on teachers to lower class size? It's a bunch of stupid politics, and the students continue to suffer for it. There are dozens of other positions like that. I can see a need for a single principal, but what about all these other stupid positions?
In the High School at the K-12 district where I worked before, the "assistant principal" fixed his three sons' grades before he got caught and had to "resign to pursue other opportunities", and the "normal principal" was caught (by me) surfing porn after hours. Fucking brilliant.
Can you tell I'm jaded?
[sarcasm]
If only we had tougher IP laws! This cycle could end, and we would have only new, creative ideas. A panacea I tell you! War, famine, and disease would be distant memories!
[/sarcasm]
Yeah, real crazy in a galaxy far, far away where evil people can throw lighting from their hands.
It's a movie. Switch most of your brain off during the film, that's what I'm going to do.
Here.
And here.
And people wonder why US tech jobs are being outsourced.
"Yes, just one moment, sir. I understand that you can't get your email but I've got this killer post I've just got to get done before too many other people post. My Karma is at stake here!"
Moo? That's a cow. I thought people were sheep?
You do, of course, mean hundreds of thousands, right?
How many people in North America are there? Let's see. The number of North America versus European posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 379x5 = 1.895 billion North American users. Asian posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of North American posts.
Therefore there are about 900 million people in Asia. A recent article put Australia at about 80 percent of the Usenet market. Therefore there are (1895+379+900)x4 = 12.6 billion worldwide Usenet users. This is consistent with the number of worldwide Usenet posts.
Due to population growth in other countries around the world, such as:
North America at 5.1%
Asia at 60.8%
Australia at 32.1%
Africa at 58.3%
Compare this with the 0.3% annual population increase of Europe, and it becomes clear that all too soon, it will become statistically insignificant.
All major surveys show that Europe has steadily declined in global population share. Europe is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Europe is to survive at all it will be among government hobbyists, dabblers, and dilettantes. Europe continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Europe is dead.
All the proof you'll need.
Part of what makes FF:CC such a social multiplayer game is the information displayed on your screen. It's difficult to describe if you haven't played it. Players must be communicating with each other (usually verbally) what is on their screen. If you have four players, one gets a terrain map, one gets an enemy radar, one gets a treasure radar, and one gets an enemy stat screen. It is *these* integral parts that can't be replicated to the screen where everyone can see them. Players must communicate what they know. It is *this* that makes the game such a multiplayer masterpiece.
I've got my own beef with some users with low UIDs, but only those that sell their accounts. It isn't like I really believe that a low UID gives a person authority or anything, but newbies to slashdot will see those low UIDs and automatically give respect, even if it's subconscious. Most will wise up eventually, but I hate it when somebody would sell a low UID account to someone who wants "street cred" with their "peers". Something about that just irritates me.
My custom plates are PC FXR. Yes, I am a dork.
Getting upset about something after a law is made doesn't really help anymore. All sorts of people (mostly on slashdot) are upset about the DMCA, but all of our whining in the world won't take care of it. Better to kill these bad ideas before they get momentum (and lobbying dollars) behind them and passing laws from them becomes a formality.
What I should have said is "any serious self-respecting gamer". That's closer to what I was getting at.
What spoiler? I saw no spoiler. I saw only... words.