The stores that branched out into music gear probably moved in the right direction, but all of the ones I know of that did built their stores next door to a Guitar Center, which is a stick-the-pistol-in-your-mouth-and-pull-it kind of move because Guitar Center has a high customer loyalty.
I have never heard anyone say they were loyal to Guitar Center.
Among all the guitar players I know (including me) they are a necessary evil. They hammered local shops and beat a lot of them out of business. Their prices are not great. Locally, they are partnered with an outfit for their repair services that does not have a good reputation.
On the plus side, their sales staff actually is relatively knowledgeable, and guitars and amps are things that you really want to try out in person first. Best Buy doesn't have either advantage.
In the music area of the local best buy, there's usually one employee and no customers, a pretty limited selection, and it's rare that any price breaks are available. I can't see myself buying anything there.
It's no wonder the carriers didn't want to do anything to suppress phone theft: if your phone is stolen, you're back at the AT&T store, buying a new phone at full unsubsidized price.
The old canard about how much more expensive gas is in Europe...
In Europe you also have mass transit options which don't exist in the US except in a handful of places, and people don't commute as far on the average because Europe is more densely populated.
It's not like we in America like dumping $50USD into our car's gas tank and then spending 30 minutes in the car in the morning to get to work. I'd sacrifice a goat if it would get a subway system in my city, but it's not practical in most areas.
If you aren't willing to pay decent (commissioned) sales staff, why have a sales staff at all?
Why not just be like Target, and have few or no salespeople? It's not like the staff at Best Buy are helpful or knowledgeable, they are one of the primary reasons people avoid the store.
I can't name a locally owned and operated business where I could buy a television. Neither can I name one where I could buy, say, a home theater setup. (Well, there's a hi-fi store, but for those of us who are more Toyota than Lexus, it's not an option)
Your choices are between any number of national chains. I bought my last TV at Target. Why? There was one on clearance in my price range, I checked the model number on Amazon and saw a similar price. Who cares whether it comes from Publicly Traded Corp A, B, or C?
My problem with Best Buy is that it's such a painful experience to shop there.
The last time I was in the store, I was there on release day to buy a Kindle Fire. The saleskid made two strong attempts to persuade me to buy $200 beats headphones, like the ones he was wearing around the store, to compliment my $200 tablet. Then of course you have to contend with the hard sell on the warranty and any number of other add-ons. And heaven help you if you're buying a large electronic device, especially if you aren't all that tech savy. They sent my parents out of the store with $200 of tack on Monster nonsense. Basically, taking advantage of old people.
Best Buy needs to make their shopping experience not akin to a trip to the dentist. Stop with the aggressive push for add-ons. Stop with the gun to the head warranty pushes. (You can buy an extended warranty on a CD, did you know that?) Work on customer service. Fire the disinterested teenagers. Reward knowledgeable stales staff. Develop knowledgeable sales staff.
Basically, stop being what most people think Best Buy is. Start being what Amazon is - an easy, convenient, stress-free shopping experience.
Re:Electronics and music hugely profitable
on
Sony Slashes 10,000 Jobs
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· Score: 5, Informative
but the article does mention the LCD operations shut down
No, it doesn't mention "the LCD operations shut down", but TFA mentions "mak[ing] cuts within its small and midsize LCD operations" to better compete with Samsung. So this is a reconfiguration of business designed to increase their investment and competitiveness in that market, pretty much the opposite of what you write.
I've used both platforms, and both seem to have an 'approved' appstore and both can access others by jailbreaking (sic). Even the android phones I used were locked down by the carrier to only use the 'real' appstore. I don't see what the substantive difference is in those kinds of cases.
I'm having a hard time understanding why anyone would install the typical greyware apps from a random source outside of the android market... seems pretty risky.
I realize it's the usual/. religion bashing, but tablets of course lend themselves wonderfully to this application - needing something to perform a few simple functions like looking up scripture references and note taking - at a level even the elderly can handle and do this via mobile. They can also entertain otherwise noisy and unruly children.
I've seen far more objection in the corporate academic settings. At the company I used to work for, some would mandate that everyone close their laptop during a meeting, to keep people from doing email or otherwise redeeming wasted time in useless meetings. The same was true when I was finishing my master's degree in 2008 - some professors would tell everyone to turn their screens off while they lectured.
I have never seen anyone have a reaction other than "cool!" at church.
I'm a member of a very conservative Baptist congregation, and ipads, smartphones with the YouVersion Bible app, as well as Kindles abound. It's been that way for years now.
I'm confused, because when it comes to piracy/file sharing/etc., the prevailing opinion on/. is that where your servers are located should get you out of following the law someplace else. But when it's Amazon and taxes, this logic doesn't seem to apply.
Can someone explain this in terms of Libraries of Congress?
This doesn't work as well in today's non-desktop world. Most people's laptops are sleeping when the lid is closed, which it often is at night.
I think for the most part you'd find that people have the laptop asleep unless they're actively using it, which makes updates annoying and more likely to be canceled by the user.
I'm sure you will see posts soon like "My grandpa uses (a) Linux (PC i set up for him, which he turns on once a month, and he doesn't know the difference)!"
For the novice user, they are safer with a Mac, I don't think that is any less true than it's been for a while. There are less vulnerabilities overall, there's less malware overall, there's no chance they are using IE when on a Mac, the process of keeping updated is more dummy-proof... dummy users are safer on Macs.
And this is just for people using full PCs. Increasingly these novice users are spending all their computing time in iOS which is even less vulnerable.
To be fair this is a Java exploit, and it's already been closed by Apple.
The dullard users are probably receiving security updates automatically, and so they'd have been updated as of Tuesday.
Aside from this, the general public does not seem vulnerable:
Security researchers have uncovered yet another Mac Trojan in the wild, this time hiding inside pirated versions of the Mac OS X image editing application GraphicConverter.
The pirated copy of GraphicConverter 7.4 is being actively distributed on file-sharing networks and torrent sites like Pirate Bay and contains the DevilRobber Trojan, Sophos researchers reported on 29 October. Once on the Mac OS X, DevilRobber creates a backdoor for remote access and installs a Bitcoin miner that uses up spare system resources and steals the content of the user’s Bitcoin wallet, according to Sophos.
Slashdot Mirror
The stores that branched out into music gear probably moved in the right direction, but all of the ones I know of that did built their stores next door to a Guitar Center, which is a stick-the-pistol-in-your-mouth-and-pull-it kind of move because Guitar Center has a high customer loyalty.
I have never heard anyone say they were loyal to Guitar Center.
Among all the guitar players I know (including me) they are a necessary evil. They hammered local shops and beat a lot of them out of business. Their prices are not great. Locally, they are partnered with an outfit for their repair services that does not have a good reputation.
On the plus side, their sales staff actually is relatively knowledgeable, and guitars and amps are things that you really want to try out in person first. Best Buy doesn't have either advantage.
In the music area of the local best buy, there's usually one employee and no customers, a pretty limited selection, and it's rare that any price breaks are available. I can't see myself buying anything there.
Amazon doesn't have any problem offering their "Amazon basics" cables which are very reasonable.
I'm guessing Amazon doesn't have people making these cables, and that they are contract manufactured in China like every other cable is.
Consider this a divorce!
It's no wonder the carriers didn't want to do anything to suppress phone theft: if your phone is stolen, you're back at the AT&T store, buying a new phone at full unsubsidized price.
Why would a carrier want to stop that?
Who the hell wants to listen to the droning of an engine or uniform wind noise for hours on end?
The old canard about how much more expensive gas is in Europe...
In Europe you also have mass transit options which don't exist in the US except in a handful of places, and people don't commute as far on the average because Europe is more densely populated.
It's not like we in America like dumping $50USD into our car's gas tank and then spending 30 minutes in the car in the morning to get to work. I'd sacrifice a goat if it would get a subway system in my city, but it's not practical in most areas.
If you aren't willing to pay decent (commissioned) sales staff, why have a sales staff at all?
Why not just be like Target, and have few or no salespeople? It's not like the staff at Best Buy are helpful or knowledgeable, they are one of the primary reasons people avoid the store.
Because there isn't any "buying locally" anymore.
I can't name a locally owned and operated business where I could buy a television. Neither can I name one where I could buy, say, a home theater setup. (Well, there's a hi-fi store, but for those of us who are more Toyota than Lexus, it's not an option)
Your choices are between any number of national chains. I bought my last TV at Target. Why? There was one on clearance in my price range, I checked the model number on Amazon and saw a similar price. Who cares whether it comes from Publicly Traded Corp A, B, or C?
Someone should tell BBY that :)
My problem with Best Buy is that it's such a painful experience to shop there.
The last time I was in the store, I was there on release day to buy a Kindle Fire. The saleskid made two strong attempts to persuade me to buy $200 beats headphones, like the ones he was wearing around the store, to compliment my $200 tablet. Then of course you have to contend with the hard sell on the warranty and any number of other add-ons. And heaven help you if you're buying a large electronic device, especially if you aren't all that tech savy. They sent my parents out of the store with $200 of tack on Monster nonsense. Basically, taking advantage of old people.
Best Buy needs to make their shopping experience not akin to a trip to the dentist. Stop with the aggressive push for add-ons. Stop with the gun to the head warranty pushes. (You can buy an extended warranty on a CD, did you know that?) Work on customer service. Fire the disinterested teenagers. Reward knowledgeable stales staff. Develop knowledgeable sales staff.
Basically, stop being what most people think Best Buy is. Start being what Amazon is - an easy, convenient, stress-free shopping experience.
but the article does mention the LCD operations shut down
No, it doesn't mention "the LCD operations shut down", but TFA mentions "mak[ing] cuts within its small and midsize LCD operations" to better compete with Samsung. So this is a reconfiguration of business designed to increase their investment and competitiveness in that market, pretty much the opposite of what you write.
I've used both platforms, and both seem to have an 'approved' appstore and both can access others by jailbreaking (sic). Even the android phones I used were locked down by the carrier to only use the 'real' appstore. I don't see what the substantive difference is in those kinds of cases.
I'm having a hard time understanding why anyone would install the typical greyware apps from a random source outside of the android market... seems pretty risky.
I realize it's the usual /. religion bashing, but tablets of course lend themselves wonderfully to this application - needing something to perform a few simple functions like looking up scripture references and note taking - at a level even the elderly can handle and do this via mobile. They can also entertain otherwise noisy and unruly children.
I've seen far more objection in the corporate academic settings. At the company I used to work for, some would mandate that everyone close their laptop during a meeting, to keep people from doing email or otherwise redeeming wasted time in useless meetings. The same was true when I was finishing my master's degree in 2008 - some professors would tell everyone to turn their screens off while they lectured.
I have never seen anyone have a reaction other than "cool!" at church.
I'm a member of a very conservative Baptist congregation, and ipads, smartphones with the YouVersion Bible app, as well as Kindles abound. It's been that way for years now.
Damn it, I knew I should have asked for cars.
I'm confused, because when it comes to piracy/file sharing/etc., the prevailing opinion on /. is that where your servers are located should get you out of following the law someplace else. But when it's Amazon and taxes, this logic doesn't seem to apply.
Can someone explain this in terms of Libraries of Congress?
This doesn't work as well in today's non-desktop world. Most people's laptops are sleeping when the lid is closed, which it often is at night.
I think for the most part you'd find that people have the laptop asleep unless they're actively using it, which makes updates annoying and more likely to be canceled by the user.
Agree totally. There's no need to pirate closed-source software when good open source solutions exist.
Also, Linux has roughly the same market share as Mac; with a 5%-6% share.
I would certainly question the number of humans using OSX every day being roughly equal to the number using Linux.
I'm sure you will see posts soon like "My grandpa uses (a) Linux (PC i set up for him, which he turns on once a month, and he doesn't know the difference)!"
Certainly these things are true.
For the novice user, they are safer with a Mac, I don't think that is any less true than it's been for a while. There are less vulnerabilities overall, there's less malware overall, there's no chance they are using IE when on a Mac, the process of keeping updated is more dummy-proof... dummy users are safer on Macs.
And this is just for people using full PCs. Increasingly these novice users are spending all their computing time in iOS which is even less vulnerable.
(after reading more closely, that appears to be a trojan that exploited the same vulnerability.)
To be fair this is a Java exploit, and it's already been closed by Apple.
The dullard users are probably receiving security updates automatically, and so they'd have been updated as of Tuesday.
Aside from this, the general public does not seem vulnerable:
Security researchers have uncovered yet another Mac Trojan in the wild, this time hiding inside pirated versions of the Mac OS X image editing application GraphicConverter.
The pirated copy of GraphicConverter 7.4 is being actively distributed on file-sharing networks and torrent sites like Pirate Bay and contains the DevilRobber Trojan, Sophos researchers reported on 29 October. Once on the Mac OS X, DevilRobber creates a backdoor for remote access and installs a Bitcoin miner that uses up spare system resources and steals the content of the user’s Bitcoin wallet, according to Sophos.
We're talking about the price of this car, not the price of other cars.
Here's an article where Edmunds said they paid $49,000 out-the-door for a Volt
http://www.insideline.com/chevrolet/volt/2011/long-term-test-2011-chevrolet-volt.html
They may have given away some leverage, but they clearly did not get the car for $30,000 as some have claimed.