It doesn't matter that it takes 1 cent to press a disk. How much did it cost to make the software, and how many disks did you sell? If your development cost was 10 million dollars, and you sold 10 million copies, you would have to charge at least $10 per disk to break even -- simple math. Not to derail your point, but I'm sort of confused by your "simple math".
If it costs me $x and I sell x copies and I charge $10 per copy, then I ultimately charge $10x for my product, netting a "profit" of $9x. That'd be 900% return on investment. Not my definition of "break even".
Use MusicBrainz. All the cool kids are doing it! As per The Fine Summary, this isn't as simple as it seems. For instance, all of the multimedia radios in the Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep lineup use Gracenote. Harman-Becker are the only ones who can change how the data lookup works. End-users get screwed yet again.
*Admittedly it's possible Sony won't close off access to Gracenote for other companies.
Like 'FreakinSyco' says you can hover your mouse over the drop-down-list of options and press the delete button. This works for google search too, if you want to remove any search terms that, er, people shouldn't see.
Sorry, but that doesn't cut it because you can't get awesomebar to ignore your bookmarks without deleting them. What this feature needs is a bunch of options all to itself. For instance, you should be able to tell it to completely stop suggesting things from your history, leaving only a} bookmarks and b} things you've explicitly typed into the address bar. Also, you should be able to "tag" your bookmarks with "keystrings". I should be able to make a bookmark for slashdot, and set a keystring of "sla" to it. If I ever type sla into the addressbar, my bookmark absolutely should be the first pick, bar none, because I have a 100% match.
The awesomebar is an interesting idea, but it's very much 1.0 in terms of feature-set and usability. For now, it's annoying enough that I'm using the oldbar add-on, and keeping my history off. Sad that I have to reach that far to make Firefox work the way I want to work. And I'm not a dev, so hitting the source code myself isn't an option, like it isn't for most users.
You have a Sympatico account. You sign up for Techsavvy as a secondary. Doesn't the 'last mile' still come through Sympatico? And won't you still be subject to their throttling?
Not exactly. DSL services are handled by a division of Bell called Nexxia. ISPs, Sympatico included are all attached to the Nexxia infrastructure. If a consumer subscribes with an independent ISP, that ISP issues a service order to Bell to provision the copper 'last mile'. A Bell tech goes to the CO (Central Office) and hooks up some Nexxia gear to the subscriber's copper. Nexxia bills the ISP, the ISP bills the subscriber, and everyone's happy. Yes, Sympatico is a Bell Canada division as well, but they're effectively a subscriber to the Nexxia division just the same as any other DSL ISP.
An amusing aside to all of this is that the end-user technically can't call up Bell and request removal of services, for instance in the case that they wish to change providers. They aren't the purchaser of the DSL service. Twisted, but true. The subscriber needs the current ISP to issue a service-removal order to Bell/Nexxia.
I personally had an entertaining time moving off Sympatico to a local provider a few years ago. I called Sympatico and was told that there were exactly two days a month when I was ALLOWED to terminate my service, and I'd just missed my two days by a couple days. I'd be stuck another month. I told them I was content to lose the service for the remainder of the month and continue paying, but they wouldn't allow it. I spoke to Bell's DSL provisioning department, and they told me they couldn't accept service instructions from me. I talked to the owner of my (then) new ISP, and he placed a provisioning order anyway. A Bell tech went out, and disconnected my copper from Nexxia's DSLAM to one of his (this ISP has their own DSLAMs in some COs, still backend connected to Nexxia). The tech thought something was amiss but did the work. I was happy. My sync rates went up, everything was grand, and I started to wait until I could cancel Sympatico. Two days later, I lost sync. We made some calls. The tech had investigated and found out that I didn't have a cancel-service order from Sympatico, so went back and moved my copper back into Nexxia's DSLAM. My ISP made a phone call, spoke to the tech personally, who then re-corrected "illegally", and that tech knew to wait for and disregard the eventual Symaptico de-provisioning order when it came. Eventually I cancelled with Sympatico and everything's been heaven since.
I'm Canadian. Thing is... in my opinion getting a passport is a pain. I get it that it's supposed to be difficult for those who aren't entitled to have one to get one, but the process really doesn't support that. I evidently have to go get a specific-sized picture taken, then I have to get someone who's an accountant/pastor/judge/teacher or OTHER PASSPORT HOLDER to sign the back of the photo. Then I fill out a form, get that same someone who signed the photo to put his/her address on it. Finally, I mail all this crap physically to the government along with my existing ID (birth certificate). After some period of time passes, they'll send it all back to me with a passport.
I don't want to be without my ID for a month. Anyone who can get their hands on existing basic ID can manage this process, which ultimately means that existing ID is as good as a passport.
I want a local office I can visit in person, take my photo, state my information, show my ID, and leave. A couple weeks later I should be able to go back and pick up my passport. Or get detained for fraud.
I live in a major border city. There's huge incentive to cross the border casually for reasons like a} concerts/entertainment, b} access to a major airport, c} shopping. I can't be bothered with the current process of obtaining a passport.
Nowhere in the article does it say the CD came from a customer's hard drive. If you have personal information about the case, please provide it!
If, however, you're just ASSuming something, shut the hell up. Good news. Same argument applies. As a technician, you haven't any business using a customer's hardware to burn yourself copies of CDs, regardless of the source unless it falls under the umbrella of the service-actions you are being requested to perform. People don't get fired for duplicating AOL install CDs using customer hardware when they've been asked to "fix my burner". My point remains that we should be respectful of the property of our customers. If that property is digital, so be it. If it's physical, again so be it.
This is the valet car-park argument. You authorize a valet to park you car. Not take it for a spin. Not get it on with his girlfriend in the back seat. Not listen to your in-dash MP3 collection. Not read the paperback book you've got laying on the back seat.
We present ourselves to our customers as professionals. We should act professional. If that assertion offends you... well... it's not my place to offer you advice.
What CD has no copyright? Copyright is automatic, and not released unless expressly done so.
Methinks he means "free to copy", such as a CD full of BSD, GPL, etc license code. All such licenses maintain copyright, they have to. People keep asking that. I'm completely confused as to how it matters. A customer's computer and everything it contains is sacrosanct. A technician should have the ethical responsibility to consider everything on it property of the computer owner, and act only as they've been requested to. If the customer asks you to remove spyware, you're free to delete any files you deem to be spyware. Under no circumstances shy of "hey Mr. Technician, feel free to take a copy of the files I've got stored in C:\COPYME" are you in the right if you duplicate ANYTHING. It doesn't matter if it's the README.TXT for WinZip, or if it's SHELL32.DLL that comes as part of every WinXP install. It's not your data to duplicate, regardless of if the computer's owner has the right to let you duplicate it or not.
I don't live in the US so why has this advert been posted on the front page of an international web site? It should have been posted to Google Ads where it would have to be paid for.
So you're saying that Slashdot can only post stories about things that impact everyone at once? Well, we can skip copyright law changes in France or Canada. We can skip censorship in China. We don't have to know what's going on Sweden when police paid for by non-Swede cartels raid colocation facilities. We can skip news stories about any IT cybercrimes that are homed in Russia.
I don't know where you're from, but in my world, hearing about things like this offering is useful. While I'm NOT in the US, some day (soon?) this may be offered here. Now that I've heard about it, I can make informed inquiries to my ISPs, who will register my interest towards their future buildout plans.
Okay, so, what's the big deal here? Why doesn't this guy just activate Visio? Or uninstall it? Why would you have a piece of software installed on your computer if you're not going to use it? C'mon, I know this is Slashdot, but do you need Microsoft to "fix" minor issues so the truly incompetent don't have issues when going far out of their way to create problems?
Reality is that Microsoft has elected to term Visio an "Office Suite" product despite the fact there isn't an Office bundle that you can buy that contains Visio. Then you have a person who purchases one of the traditional Office bundles legitimately who is prevented from accessing extensions to it because he has an unactivated so-called Office product on his system.
Now, to answer your question directly, he may:
1} have a timed-trial of Visio he's evaluating and CAN'T activate. In this case, trying a different MS product has impacted his purchased product. Not nice.
2} have a 50-runs trial of Visio he's evaluating or using up to 50 times because he only needs to touch a Visio file a couple times a year and CAN'T activate. Again, his legitimate purchase is impacted.
3} have a purchased Visio license that he's temporarily installed on a 2nd machine to get some work done and CAN'T activate. Again, legitimate Office product is impacted unfairly.
4} have a purchased Visio license that he's installed in a virtual machine to test with that counts as a 2nd install and CAN'T activate. Yet again unfair impact to a purchased product.
5} have a purchased Visio license that he doesn't want to activate because he a fraktard whining complainer.
6} have a pirated Visio and CAN'T activate because he's a fraktard infringing bastard.
The key takeaway here is that while there are certainly explanations for his situation that make him a bad guy, there are also explanations that make MS the bad guy. We shouldn't write off their unfair policies just because someone MIGHT be a fraktard. Legitimate customers should never be meaningfully impacted by measures taken to stop illegitimate users. Entering the 25-digit-code-of-inevitable-typos is bad enough.
And really, the point here is that MS shouldn't view Visio as an Office app in this scenario. If MS wants to play the OGA game, they should treat each Office app individually. "Your Word is stolen, but your Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Visio, Publisher, Project, Access, InfoPath, OneNote, FrontPage, Accounting, Communicator, and Groove are all legal. You must fix your Word license before you will be allowed any Office Genuine Advantage Content." That's intensely mistreating a customer, but the way OGA has just been shown to work. Thank you MS.
If MS is guilty of anything, they are guilty of pushing and hyping and Vista too soon. What if "Vista" had been released sooner instead? What if there had been half as many arbitrary interface changes, half as many restrictive "features", and half as many different editions three years ago? Vista is too large a step in a direction nobody particularly feels the need to walk towards. Smaller, more frequent transitions are much easier to implement. We all hate the $upgrade$ game but it still gets you progress.
To be clearer, what I mean is that if there had been a release three years ago, with features halfway between WinXP and what was eventually released as Vista, people/businesses would be much more willing to accept Vista as it is.
Although like most US policy of the last 6 years, instead of fixing the issue they plan to take over others. Soon Canada, the U.S. and Mexico will share the "Amero" as currency within the North American Union.
Excuse me. Sorry to bother you, but um, seeing as how our dollar is probably going to be worth a bit more over the next little while, we've been thinking... shouldn't the unified currency start with the first letter of OUR country? You know, a "C"?
I was thinking about moving to a different State, but hadn't figured out which one. Now I'm down to 49 possibilities.
Given your subject line of "Ohio, eh?" and you're moving to a different state, and that you're down to 49 possibilities, I can only conclude you're one of those that view Canada as the 51st state. Come on up, we've got plenty of room, beer, and freshly-clubbed baby seals to go around. You do like hockey, eh?
Ages ago, Seagate bought Conner, who made good drives. Later, Maxtor bought Quantum, who made good drives. Recently, Seagate bought Maxtor. These days the real players are Seagate, Western Digital, Samsung, Fujitsu (SCSI only I believe) and Hitachi.
that when these transgressions are pointed out to them, they'll probably pay for license to use the images. When Joe Average infringes, most of the time it's deliberate, and he has no intention to pay.
I know I don't have proof to back either of these statements, but I suspect they ring true to those of us willing to be honest about our motivations.
Maybe I'm the only one, but I've reached a saturation point regarding advertising. It now makes me react strongly negatively. I fully expect any day now companies will start tattooing adverts on the inside of babies' eyelids.
We live in a world of massive information-availability. A consumer who wishes to consume is equipped to find the "best" product for the job, and often will. Brand-recognition is a weakening force and it's high time we stop polluting our senses with invasive advertising.
Try password protecting your zip file. Bad idea. A decent AV program integrated with an MTA will delete/quarantine any file it recognizes as a container that it can't open. Same thing goes for nested containers; at some point you've got to stop and give up. Same thing goes for any file that exceeds a set scanning time limitation. Basically, anything that hasn't been scanned gets dumped.
As the original poster was told, his best bet is to rename the file to something innocent. I've yet to hear of anyone who really blocks.DOC or.XLS for instance. A developer who can't or won't handle renaming a file twice - even several times a day - isn't the kind of guy I want writing code I need to run.
I have always kinda thought that this was at least one of the reasons why linux adoption is low among the 'mild computer user' crowd. It isn't easy to explain to them either, since there isn't a corollary in the "windows world" where nearly all of those users reside (with good reason).
This issue is actually one of the big reasons why every year fails to be the year Linux adoption takes off, but not in the obvious way. It's not a matter of a potential convert looking at the shelf and seeing so many choices they throw up their hands in the air in confusion and walk away. Rather, the issue is what it says about what's IN the distributions that there are so many.
There are two ways to look at choice. The example of "vi versus Emacs" is one of them. You've got two choices for text editors, and both choices are so good that neither can ever be ruled out. That's a massively rare thing in software though. The other way to look at choice is "neither option is good enough to have become a de-facto standard". Take window managers. Isn't it likely that if any of the window managers was really, truly great, the others would be weeded out? Or at least included as a "legacy/style option" only?
I find it hard to believe that all these distributions exist because every choice, every difference between them is in the "vi vs Emacs" category. It's all just so great, so easy to use, so powerful, so jam-packed with usability that the Linux community just can't bring themselves to pick which options are "best". Now, I'm not talking about things like freak-distributions, like ones that are designed to fit on a floppy disk, or ones that are designed to drop into a Linux router. I'm talking about desktop distributions. I'm also not talking about "well, this one is a smaller download because you have to download Open Office yourself". I'm talking about all the distributions that -- at least from the outside, to a non-Linux user -- look pretty much identical.
In my humble opinion, for there to ever be a chance of desktop domination, the Linux community needs to start weeding out options. Incorporate the unique (but fewer) features of package B into the unique (but greater in number) features of package A and only ship A. Choice - like water - is a good thing, but too much choice is too easy to drown in.
This is just another example of how Michael Bay's Transformers movie is completely ridiculous. Megatron wouldn't have had to send his Decepticons to break into the government's computers to steal the location of the all-spark.
As we can see, the DOD would likely just left that information open, available over the web.
Funny thing is that Optimus Prime claimed to have learned how to speak our languages on "the World Wide Web", but he didn't once use any l337 speak.
Yes, the ones that need this the most are also the ones that can hardly pay for it. So you, the healthy guy, spend more on your insurance than you'll ever get out of it, most likely. Still, I prefer being healthy and "ripped off" to being sick and "enjoying" my stay in the hospital on someone else's expense.
You're the closest I've seen to bringing home a point I see about national health care. Thing is that national health care is the ultimate HMO. Difference is that your monthly premium is a percentage of your income, not "how sick/old/risky are you". In the US, it doesn't matter how much you pay per month, if you ever have a claim, you're a freeloader. Just like the homeless bum who it'd be oh-so-horrible if he got treated on your dime. Because any (serious) claim in the US medical industry costs more than you'll likely ever pay out in premiums. So you're taking other people's money. That's how insurance works. Those with claims ride the coattails of those who don't have claims.
So. Why is it so hard to embrace the idea that everyone - even the deliberately lazy - deserve to live? It's just a tiny step further from where you are. Only a "national non-profit HMO" will be cheaper per-person despite the freeloaders because... it's NON-PROFIT. Yes, I know that's evil and alien, but maybe, just maybe, some essential services shouldn't make a few dozen people rich.
Disclosure: I'm Canadian. I get sick... I get fixed. I will do anything within my power to prevent my government from ever dismantling our system, including introducing any sort of two-tier health care.
I even changed my affiliation to Republican(from unaffiliated) so that I could vote for him in the primary. I'm Canadian. I'm kind of baffled by this statement. Throughout my life I've heard about "card-carrying Republicans" and "card-carrying Democrats", but this has always struck me as overzealous. I could go look up the details but a} this is Slashdot and b} I don't care THAT much but perhaps you can illuminate me...
What the hell?
Seriously. Change your affiliation? There must be a good reason why you folks do what you do but here in Canada, as long as the Census folks can find me, I get told a physical time and location I can vote at. I go there, I get a ballot, I fill it out, I leave. They check off a box that says I was there, so I can't vote twice. I never tell ANYONE who I'm going to vote for, or who I MIGHT vote for. We don't have these "primaries" which to a non-USian look like nothing more than a way to weed out the dudes with less advertising budget than the dudes who win.
So I ask again... what the hell? Why do you do it the way you do?
I am SO confused. I thought information wanted to be free? I thought we don't mind other people "sharing" data. I thought the person who puts their hands on the digital data is the one who decides what the creator should, or shouldn't be entitled to. I thought the copyright infringer is the one who gets to determine what sort of distribution methods are, or are not viable.
These students should be plenty happy. They get what they're "entitled" to out of their work: (good) grades. It's just greedy to be concerning yourself with the idea that some commercial entity which enables professors to MORE AFFORDABLY provide you your education (by way of spending less time simply checking for plagiarism) should be forking over some portion of their profits.
I know this'll be an unpopular viewpoint. Whatever side of copyright infringement a group of young student-types are on at the moment is the "right" one. My mistake.
When you hit grad-student levels and someone "steals" papers you'd otherwise publish, thereby depriving you of your livelihood, we'll talk. Otherwise hand in your damned homework, get your grades, pass you class, get your degree and go get a job.
Season 1 had 13 episodes. Season 2 had 22 episodes, with a long hiatus. Season 3 has 22 episodes, with a four-week hiatus.
A "normal" season for a television show is 26 episodes.
Don't get me wrong... I'd love to see year-round new episodes, 52 times a year, but it doesn't work that way in TV. Further, what SciFi has done with BSG is increasingly more like "normal" shows, so there's no trending towards "worse", I'm afraid.
Another element to the downward ratings movement may very well be that SciFi started Season 3's broadcast at the same time as the major networks began their new seasons, and a number of hit shows have "stolen" viewer interest. Shows like Heroes, for instance. There's only so much viewer-interest, regardless of how many good/great shows are broadcast. Couch-potatoes will, eventually, hit a TV saturation point.
That's one opinion, and it's not a horrible one, but there is another way to look at things.
Every episode the writers add new canon. They reveal new aspects of characters, back-story, colonial religion, Cylon goals, and secrets about Earth. The problem is that this show started off with a huge bang, and due to its uniqueness and high quality, a lot of viewers "fell in love" with various aspects of the characters or plot or even style of presentation. Today, it's virtually inevitable that every episode will introduce some element to "taint" the adoration and respect viewers have. Starbuck's recent behaviour? Helo's? Discovering the Cylons want Earth as well?
I guarantee that when the "Final Five" have their faces revealed, for every fan who says "that's neat!", there'll be some disgruntled soon-to-be-ex-fan who throws his hands up in the air and says "that's not what I would have done".
The show continues to be a very high-quality, well-written and well-acted one. I expect the ratings problem is due much more to unrealistic expectations of many, many fans that BSG will contain nothing but plot elements THEY adore.
Try caring more about what BSG IS instead of what it ISN'T, each episode. What it certainly is, is the best show on television.
Slashdot Mirror
If it costs me $x and I sell x copies and I charge $10 per copy, then I ultimately charge $10x for my product, netting a "profit" of $9x. That'd be 900% return on investment. Not my definition of "break even".
Or are you missing a 0 somewhere?
*Admittedly it's possible Sony won't close off access to Gracenote for other companies.
Sorry, but that doesn't cut it because you can't get awesomebar to ignore your bookmarks without deleting them. What this feature needs is a bunch of options all to itself. For instance, you should be able to tell it to completely stop suggesting things from your history, leaving only a} bookmarks and b} things you've explicitly typed into the address bar. Also, you should be able to "tag" your bookmarks with "keystrings". I should be able to make a bookmark for slashdot, and set a keystring of "sla" to it. If I ever type sla into the addressbar, my bookmark absolutely should be the first pick, bar none, because I have a 100% match.
The awesomebar is an interesting idea, but it's very much 1.0 in terms of feature-set and usability. For now, it's annoying enough that I'm using the oldbar add-on, and keeping my history off. Sad that I have to reach that far to make Firefox work the way I want to work. And I'm not a dev, so hitting the source code myself isn't an option, like it isn't for most users.
Not exactly. DSL services are handled by a division of Bell called Nexxia. ISPs, Sympatico included are all attached to the Nexxia infrastructure. If a consumer subscribes with an independent ISP, that ISP issues a service order to Bell to provision the copper 'last mile'. A Bell tech goes to the CO (Central Office) and hooks up some Nexxia gear to the subscriber's copper. Nexxia bills the ISP, the ISP bills the subscriber, and everyone's happy. Yes, Sympatico is a Bell Canada division as well, but they're effectively a subscriber to the Nexxia division just the same as any other DSL ISP.
An amusing aside to all of this is that the end-user technically can't call up Bell and request removal of services, for instance in the case that they wish to change providers. They aren't the purchaser of the DSL service. Twisted, but true. The subscriber needs the current ISP to issue a service-removal order to Bell/Nexxia.
I personally had an entertaining time moving off Sympatico to a local provider a few years ago. I called Sympatico and was told that there were exactly two days a month when I was ALLOWED to terminate my service, and I'd just missed my two days by a couple days. I'd be stuck another month. I told them I was content to lose the service for the remainder of the month and continue paying, but they wouldn't allow it. I spoke to Bell's DSL provisioning department, and they told me they couldn't accept service instructions from me. I talked to the owner of my (then) new ISP, and he placed a provisioning order anyway. A Bell tech went out, and disconnected my copper from Nexxia's DSLAM to one of his (this ISP has their own DSLAMs in some COs, still backend connected to Nexxia). The tech thought something was amiss but did the work. I was happy. My sync rates went up, everything was grand, and I started to wait until I could cancel Sympatico. Two days later, I lost sync. We made some calls. The tech had investigated and found out that I didn't have a cancel-service order from Sympatico, so went back and moved my copper back into Nexxia's DSLAM. My ISP made a phone call, spoke to the tech personally, who then re-corrected "illegally", and that tech knew to wait for and disregard the eventual Symaptico de-provisioning order when it came. Eventually I cancelled with Sympatico and everything's been heaven since.
I'm Canadian. Thing is... in my opinion getting a passport is a pain. I get it that it's supposed to be difficult for those who aren't entitled to have one to get one, but the process really doesn't support that. I evidently have to go get a specific-sized picture taken, then I have to get someone who's an accountant/pastor/judge/teacher or OTHER PASSPORT HOLDER to sign the back of the photo. Then I fill out a form, get that same someone who signed the photo to put his/her address on it. Finally, I mail all this crap physically to the government along with my existing ID (birth certificate). After some period of time passes, they'll send it all back to me with a passport.
I don't want to be without my ID for a month. Anyone who can get their hands on existing basic ID can manage this process, which ultimately means that existing ID is as good as a passport.
I want a local office I can visit in person, take my photo, state my information, show my ID, and leave. A couple weeks later I should be able to go back and pick up my passport. Or get detained for fraud.
I live in a major border city. There's huge incentive to cross the border casually for reasons like a} concerts/entertainment, b} access to a major airport, c} shopping. I can't be bothered with the current process of obtaining a passport.
If, however, you're just ASSuming something, shut the hell up. Good news. Same argument applies. As a technician, you haven't any business using a customer's hardware to burn yourself copies of CDs, regardless of the source unless it falls under the umbrella of the service-actions you are being requested to perform. People don't get fired for duplicating AOL install CDs using customer hardware when they've been asked to "fix my burner". My point remains that we should be respectful of the property of our customers. If that property is digital, so be it. If it's physical, again so be it.
This is the valet car-park argument. You authorize a valet to park you car. Not take it for a spin. Not get it on with his girlfriend in the back seat. Not listen to your in-dash MP3 collection. Not read the paperback book you've got laying on the back seat.
We present ourselves to our customers as professionals. We should act professional. If that assertion offends you... well... it's not my place to offer you advice.
So you're saying that Slashdot can only post stories about things that impact everyone at once? Well, we can skip copyright law changes in France or Canada. We can skip censorship in China. We don't have to know what's going on Sweden when police paid for by non-Swede cartels raid colocation facilities. We can skip news stories about any IT cybercrimes that are homed in Russia.
I don't know where you're from, but in my world, hearing about things like this offering is useful. While I'm NOT in the US, some day (soon?) this may be offered here. Now that I've heard about it, I can make informed inquiries to my ISPs, who will register my interest towards their future buildout plans.
Reality is that Microsoft has elected to term Visio an "Office Suite" product despite the fact there isn't an Office bundle that you can buy that contains Visio. Then you have a person who purchases one of the traditional Office bundles legitimately who is prevented from accessing extensions to it because he has an unactivated so-called Office product on his system.
Now, to answer your question directly, he may:
1} have a timed-trial of Visio he's evaluating and CAN'T activate. In this case, trying a different MS product has impacted his purchased product. Not nice.
2} have a 50-runs trial of Visio he's evaluating or using up to 50 times because he only needs to touch a Visio file a couple times a year and CAN'T activate. Again, his legitimate purchase is impacted.
3} have a purchased Visio license that he's temporarily installed on a 2nd machine to get some work done and CAN'T activate. Again, legitimate Office product is impacted unfairly.
4} have a purchased Visio license that he's installed in a virtual machine to test with that counts as a 2nd install and CAN'T activate. Yet again unfair impact to a purchased product.
5} have a purchased Visio license that he doesn't want to activate because he a fraktard whining complainer.
6} have a pirated Visio and CAN'T activate because he's a fraktard infringing bastard.
The key takeaway here is that while there are certainly explanations for his situation that make him a bad guy, there are also explanations that make MS the bad guy. We shouldn't write off their unfair policies just because someone MIGHT be a fraktard. Legitimate customers should never be meaningfully impacted by measures taken to stop illegitimate users. Entering the 25-digit-code-of-inevitable-typos is bad enough.
And really, the point here is that MS shouldn't view Visio as an Office app in this scenario. If MS wants to play the OGA game, they should treat each Office app individually. "Your Word is stolen, but your Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Visio, Publisher, Project, Access, InfoPath, OneNote, FrontPage, Accounting, Communicator, and Groove are all legal. You must fix your Word license before you will be allowed any Office Genuine Advantage Content." That's intensely mistreating a customer, but the way OGA has just been shown to work. Thank you MS.
To be clearer, what I mean is that if there had been a release three years ago, with features halfway between WinXP and what was eventually released as Vista, people/businesses would be much more willing to accept Vista as it is.
Excuse me. Sorry to bother you, but um, seeing as how our dollar is probably going to be worth a bit more over the next little while, we've been thinking... shouldn't the unified currency start with the first letter of OUR country? You know, a "C"?
We plan to call it the Camero.
Disclosure: I actually AM Canadian.
Given your subject line of "Ohio, eh?" and you're moving to a different state, and that you're down to 49 possibilities, I can only conclude you're one of those that view Canada as the 51st state. Come on up, we've got plenty of room, beer, and freshly-clubbed baby seals to go around. You do like hockey, eh?
Ages ago, Seagate bought Conner, who made good drives. Later, Maxtor bought Quantum, who made good drives. Recently, Seagate bought Maxtor. These days the real players are Seagate, Western Digital, Samsung, Fujitsu (SCSI only I believe) and Hitachi.
that when these transgressions are pointed out to them, they'll probably pay for license to use the images. When Joe Average infringes, most of the time it's deliberate, and he has no intention to pay.
I know I don't have proof to back either of these statements, but I suspect they ring true to those of us willing to be honest about our motivations.
Maybe I'm the only one, but I've reached a saturation point regarding advertising. It now makes me react strongly negatively. I fully expect any day now companies will start tattooing adverts on the inside of babies' eyelids.
We live in a world of massive information-availability. A consumer who wishes to consume is equipped to find the "best" product for the job, and often will. Brand-recognition is a weakening force and it's high time we stop polluting our senses with invasive advertising.
As the original poster was told, his best bet is to rename the file to something innocent. I've yet to hear of anyone who really blocks
This issue is actually one of the big reasons why every year fails to be the year Linux adoption takes off, but not in the obvious way. It's not a matter of a potential convert looking at the shelf and seeing so many choices they throw up their hands in the air in confusion and walk away. Rather, the issue is what it says about what's IN the distributions that there are so many.
There are two ways to look at choice. The example of "vi versus Emacs" is one of them. You've got two choices for text editors, and both choices are so good that neither can ever be ruled out. That's a massively rare thing in software though. The other way to look at choice is "neither option is good enough to have become a de-facto standard". Take window managers. Isn't it likely that if any of the window managers was really, truly great, the others would be weeded out? Or at least included as a "legacy/style option" only?
I find it hard to believe that all these distributions exist because every choice, every difference between them is in the "vi vs Emacs" category. It's all just so great, so easy to use, so powerful, so jam-packed with usability that the Linux community just can't bring themselves to pick which options are "best". Now, I'm not talking about things like freak-distributions, like ones that are designed to fit on a floppy disk, or ones that are designed to drop into a Linux router. I'm talking about desktop distributions. I'm also not talking about "well, this one is a smaller download because you have to download Open Office yourself". I'm talking about all the distributions that -- at least from the outside, to a non-Linux user -- look pretty much identical.
In my humble opinion, for there to ever be a chance of desktop domination, the Linux community needs to start weeding out options. Incorporate the unique (but fewer) features of package B into the unique (but greater in number) features of package A and only ship A. Choice - like water - is a good thing, but too much choice is too easy to drown in.
Funny thing is that Optimus Prime claimed to have learned how to speak our languages on "the World Wide Web", but he didn't once use any l337 speak.
You're the closest I've seen to bringing home a point I see about national health care. Thing is that national health care is the ultimate HMO. Difference is that your monthly premium is a percentage of your income, not "how sick/old/risky are you". In the US, it doesn't matter how much you pay per month, if you ever have a claim, you're a freeloader. Just like the homeless bum who it'd be oh-so-horrible if he got treated on your dime. Because any (serious) claim in the US medical industry costs more than you'll likely ever pay out in premiums. So you're taking other people's money. That's how insurance works. Those with claims ride the coattails of those who don't have claims.
So. Why is it so hard to embrace the idea that everyone - even the deliberately lazy - deserve to live? It's just a tiny step further from where you are. Only a "national non-profit HMO" will be cheaper per-person despite the freeloaders because... it's NON-PROFIT. Yes, I know that's evil and alien, but maybe, just maybe, some essential services shouldn't make a few dozen people rich.
Disclosure: I'm Canadian. I get sick... I get fixed. I will do anything within my power to prevent my government from ever dismantling our system, including introducing any sort of two-tier health care.
What the hell?
Seriously. Change your affiliation? There must be a good reason why you folks do what you do but here in Canada, as long as the Census folks can find me, I get told a physical time and location I can vote at. I go there, I get a ballot, I fill it out, I leave. They check off a box that says I was there, so I can't vote twice. I never tell ANYONE who I'm going to vote for, or who I MIGHT vote for. We don't have these "primaries" which to a non-USian look like nothing more than a way to weed out the dudes with less advertising budget than the dudes who win.
So I ask again... what the hell? Why do you do it the way you do?
Quiz: True or False -- On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your middle name?
False. On a scale of 1 to 10, what is not my middle name.
I am SO confused. I thought information wanted to be free? I thought we don't mind other people "sharing" data. I thought the person who puts their hands on the digital data is the one who decides what the creator should, or shouldn't be entitled to. I thought the copyright infringer is the one who gets to determine what sort of distribution methods are, or are not viable.
These students should be plenty happy. They get what they're "entitled" to out of their work: (good) grades. It's just greedy to be concerning yourself with the idea that some commercial entity which enables professors to MORE AFFORDABLY provide you your education (by way of spending less time simply checking for plagiarism) should be forking over some portion of their profits.
I know this'll be an unpopular viewpoint. Whatever side of copyright infringement a group of young student-types are on at the moment is the "right" one. My mistake.
When you hit grad-student levels and someone "steals" papers you'd otherwise publish, thereby depriving you of your livelihood, we'll talk. Otherwise hand in your damned homework, get your grades, pass you class, get your degree and go get a job.
http://www.ogrecave.com/archives/004519.shtml
Season 1 had 13 episodes.
Season 2 had 22 episodes, with a long hiatus.
Season 3 has 22 episodes, with a four-week hiatus.
A "normal" season for a television show is 26 episodes.
Don't get me wrong... I'd love to see year-round new episodes, 52 times a year, but it doesn't work that way in TV. Further, what SciFi has done with BSG is increasingly more like "normal" shows, so there's no trending towards "worse", I'm afraid.
Another element to the downward ratings movement may very well be that SciFi started Season 3's broadcast at the same time as the major networks began their new seasons, and a number of hit shows have "stolen" viewer interest. Shows like Heroes, for instance. There's only so much viewer-interest, regardless of how many good/great shows are broadcast. Couch-potatoes will, eventually, hit a TV saturation point.
That's one opinion, and it's not a horrible one, but there is another way to look at things.
Every episode the writers add new canon. They reveal new aspects of characters, back-story, colonial religion, Cylon goals, and secrets about Earth. The problem is that this show started off with a huge bang, and due to its uniqueness and high quality, a lot of viewers "fell in love" with various aspects of the characters or plot or even style of presentation. Today, it's virtually inevitable that every episode will introduce some element to "taint" the adoration and respect viewers have. Starbuck's recent behaviour? Helo's? Discovering the Cylons want Earth as well?
I guarantee that when the "Final Five" have their faces revealed, for every fan who says "that's neat!", there'll be some disgruntled soon-to-be-ex-fan who throws his hands up in the air and says "that's not what I would have done".
The show continues to be a very high-quality, well-written and well-acted one. I expect the ratings problem is due much more to unrealistic expectations of many, many fans that BSG will contain nothing but plot elements THEY adore.
Try caring more about what BSG IS instead of what it ISN'T, each episode. What it certainly is, is the best show on television.