Apple is competing against Microsoft's offerings, but it's not a retail software battle. Apple is using its integrated software to eat up the prime portions of the PC hardware market.
Nonsense. If they are chasing the corporate market, the key is MS Office, not one OS or the other. The minute that Office for the Mac starts to slip significantly behind in compatibility with the Windows version there will be few corporations that will chose Macs over PCs.
Regardless of what the fanboys believe there's nothing in the Mac's "integrated software" that's a make or break Corporate feature.
First, keep whatever mail and address you already use and leave the uni one just for uni announcements. Check it once a week - no big deal.
Second,a cursory glance at the Windows Live website finds the Windows Live Mail Desk top Beta, which appears to be a standalone (Windows only of course) client that will download the Live mail messages. The claim that e-mail can only be accessed via web mail seems to be not correct.
Really, I can't think that this is a real problem for this guy. What with hotmail, yahoo mail, gmail etc he can pretty much have his main address and e-mail anywhere he likes. He could even pay for a regular ISP account and manage all of his mail any way that he chooses.
I was under the impression that the idea of subliminal advertising was debunked some thirty years ago when Subliminal Seduction burst upon the scene.
What's really interesting in casinos is the soundscape. Most sound just settles into a constant wash of beeps and talking and mechanical noise.
Except for the sound of coin hitting the payout tray under the slot machine. That has a pitch and timbre so striking and unique that it jumps out at you every time.
Well, the summary makes it sound divine - one link, one bit of software that accesses P2P, FTP etc interchangeably to maximize download speed.
That seems like a logical growth of Bittorrent.
Trying to figure out exactly what is needed though was another matter. After a half hour and three or four web sites I wound up with the wxDownload Fast Windows download manager and a Metamirrors Firefox plugin.
Is it all working as advertised? Well, stuff is downloading (OpenSUSE 10.2) but I have no idea of it's faster, or even if it's also uploading in P2P fashion.
For God's sake, is it too much to ask that the people behind stuff like this include a simple checklist?
To download using Metalinks you needs a) A download client (here are links to a few), b) This Firefox plugin and c) then do THIS.
I would think it highly optimistic to think that Wikipedia can't be sued.
Even if there's an argument that Jimmy Wales and the Wikimedia Foundation aren't responsible for the content - and I'm a bit skeptical about that - there will still be people who will launch suits just to get information removed.
Ultimately Wikipedia will either wind up caving to anyone who complains, or spending many, many thousands of dollars on lawyers defending themselves.
Hobbyists and free software advocates have succeeded where Bill Gates said they could not. They have put out a usable, alternative to solution to just about everything.
"Hobbyists and free software advocates?" Like who?
Red Hat/Fedora - large corporation that had built a brand name on Linux. Novell/SUSE - large corporation that had built a brand name on Linux.
Ok, that's just two examples, but let's accept that Linux reached the point of being a commercial thing years ago.
It would interesting to see how much if the real work on Linux is being done by hobbyists, and how much comes out of paid developers at a handful of medium to large corporations.
Exactly. I don't think an event 37 years ago, traumatic though it may have been, is a reasonable excuse for not following the rules. Imagine, if you will, that his chosen method of coping with PTSD was drinking two pints of cheap gin a day. If, after showing up to work drunk and being warned this was not OK, he continued to do so, would not IBM be justified in canning him then?
Just to be clear, I do have friends who suffer from PTSD and even 40 years later (they were in Viet Nam early on) it has a daily impact on their lives.
I'm sure that if the guy could demonstrate a legitimate medical issue IBM would have had the resources to find a way to deal with it.
I would never discount the problems associated with PTSD, or the years and decades that they remain a problem, but I think that this guy is less than a good example.
His lawyer... says Pacenza never visited pornographic sites at work, violated no written IBM rule...
International Business Machines Corp.... (says)... its policy against surfing sexual Web sites is clear. It also claims Pacenza was told he could lose his job after an incident four months earlier, which Pacenza denies.
Seems pretty obvious. If IBM can produce those written policies, and has kept a written record of the previous warnings, Pacenza doesn't have a leg to stand on.
References to his past history in the military don't really seem all that relevant. Yes, many vets of Viet Name and other action carry the scars with them but that does not give them a right to totally ignore their employer's direction.
If Canada wanted to choose some other dates, that would be fine with everyone... except anyone trying to communicate cross-border.
Oh c'mon, this a global economy. I regularly communicate with people in several North American time zones, Europe, and India, and have no problem figuring out what time it is at the other end.
Even if you make allowances for Just In Time delivery it isn't much of a challenge to have trucks leave Flint (or wherever) an hour earlier or later.
Remember, we're not just talking about border cities like Windsor or Vancouver, we're talking about many towns and cities farther north where this change makes absolutely no sense and will be a pain in the ass for average people.
Canada and Bermuda are conforming to the U.S.-mandated change
Even though the Canadian government rolled over and is forcing us into a dubious and probably un-needed change to our DST, I feel obliged to point out that the US does not "mandate" time zones in other countries (well, perhaps in Iraq, and I wonder if they're also changing how they handle DST)
Certainly the US tried to strong arm Canadian businesses and government on this one, but in theory at least we still control our own clocks.
The one feeling that I've always had with my 12" G4 Powerbook is that OS X just doesn't work on that smaller screen. It always feels like OS X was designed for 15" or 17" screens, and everything takes up more real estate that would be desirable on the 12".
Don't know why Apple couldn't tweak the OS to make it more usable on the smaller computer.
I can remember ten years ago being told that you have to trim every extraneous character from messages, refrain from quoting more than one sentence, and keep your sig to three lines, all because we were worried that we were gobbling up precious bandwidth.
Now I routinely e-mail 5 meg attachments and download DVDs and movies (PD of course).
The machines currently cost $130, but with that kind of volume the original goal of $100 a machine may be viable.
Really, this kind of comment is rather meaningless for a product that will ship to countries outside of the US. The rise in relative price from $100 to $130 could just reflect the decline in the $US on International exchange markets.
Seriously though, the argument that population is too decentralized to support broadband doesn't wash. As we speak wireless broadband is being made available to every community in Nunavut, and you don't get a population density lower than that.
It's a question of political will and nothing else.
You have an existing accounting system that works, and the only thing that would change is that they wish to use Windows instead of Linux as an OS?
And you're suggesting moving the entire accounting system into a new software package just so you can keep it in Linux?
I'm betting you haven't discussed this with your boss, or with anyone who has ever moved accounting systems between packages.
Keep what works and don't complicate people's lives. Instead going on wild goose chases, take a couple of days and learn the basics of administering the new Vista or XP box.
...t'd be like getting arrested because I was hanging out with some dealers, but they never saw me using, buying, or selling any drugs."
Hmmph - sounds like you're on the side of the Terrorists!
There once was a crazy ass country that had laws about "innocent until proven guilty", but in these Terroristic times it's just so much safer to fall back on "Suspicion of being under suspicion."
A good public library is one of the great resources anywhere. I love them.
Entertainment, information, fun, enlightenment, all for free.
Plus, even in these Internet days, you can still phone the library with a question and they will look up the answer!
Our local library has a really amazing collection of DVDs, both recent and classic and foreign films. Kind of like NetFlix without paying a monthly subscription fee.
It is inconceivable that one could create such an institution these days. No politician would ever - EVER - support the idea today. Can you imagine how the MPAA or RIAA would fight to prevent the free loans of their products? Could book publishers be far behind?
I too used joker.com for years, but have had problems in recent times. Specifically we had an autoforwarded address which suddenly started having long delays in mail delivery.
Turns out according to our ISP (who I do have a lot of faith in) that a significant amount of what comes out of the joker.com mailservers is spam, and joker seems disinclined to do anything about it. Consequently our ISP had been throttling back mail from joker.
I've also found in the last year or so that mail to joker support simply goes unanswered.
I'm moving our domains, and client domains away from joker.
Over the last year I've been moving between Windows, OS X on a Powerbook, and a relatively recent SUSE install on a PC.
The truth is that each of them has shortcomings. The good news I guess is that most of these are irritating, not fatal.
Windows IMHO is not a long term option because of the creeping DRM and the obsessive control of the computing environment that MS seems to want. Frankly I have this horrible feeling that Vista will open a can of worms that will never end.
OS X just has too many irritating or dumb features, or lack thereof, that drive me around the bend. I'm not talking about things that are different from Windows, I'm talking about boneheaded design and UI mistakes that no-one in Mac land seems to be willing to admit are a problem.
Linux, well at this point for me it works 90% out of the box, much better than a few years ago, but that last 10% can be a nightmare. As always with Linux, if it works it's lovely, but if it doesn't you're off into that hell of MAN pages and web forums, filled with half answers, slightly incorrect assumptions, and Linux arrogance.
I'm weary of tinkering with computers. I just want to turn it on and have it do what I want easily and without irritation. And I want to be able to TURN OFF "features" that annoy me.
Slashdot Mirror
From TFA:
Apple is competing against Microsoft's offerings, but it's not a retail software battle. Apple is using its integrated software to eat up the prime portions of the PC hardware market.
Nonsense. If they are chasing the corporate market, the key is MS Office, not one OS or the other. The minute that Office for the Mac starts to slip significantly behind in compatibility with the Windows version there will be few corporations that will chose Macs over PCs.
Regardless of what the fanboys believe there's nothing in the Mac's "integrated software" that's a make or break Corporate feature.
(ps - comment written on a G4 Powerbook)
First, keep whatever mail and address you already use and leave the uni one just for uni announcements. Check it once a week - no big deal.
Second,a cursory glance at the Windows Live website finds the Windows Live Mail Desk top Beta, which appears to be a standalone (Windows only of course) client that will download the Live mail messages. The claim that e-mail can only be accessed via web mail seems to be not correct.
Really, I can't think that this is a real problem for this guy. What with hotmail, yahoo mail, gmail etc he can pretty much have his main address and e-mail anywhere he likes. He could even pay for a regular ISP account and manage all of his mail any way that he chooses.
Once again I praise e-music.com for a really great range of music, great prices, and a pretty good user experience. And no DRM.
You won't find The Eagles or Brittney or other Top 40 stuff, but if you're the least bit adventurous* in your tastes it's well worth a look.
* Johnny Cash, James Brown, African music, Bjork etc...
I was under the impression that the idea of subliminal advertising was debunked some thirty years ago when Subliminal Seduction burst upon the scene.
What's really interesting in casinos is the soundscape. Most sound just settles into a constant wash of beeps and talking and mechanical noise.
Except for the sound of coin hitting the payout tray under the slot machine. That has a pitch and timbre so striking and unique that it jumps out at you every time.
Well, the summary makes it sound divine - one link, one bit of software that accesses P2P, FTP etc interchangeably to maximize download speed.
That seems like a logical growth of Bittorrent.
Trying to figure out exactly what is needed though was another matter. After a half hour and three or four web sites I wound up with the wxDownload Fast Windows download manager and a Metamirrors Firefox plugin.
Is it all working as advertised? Well, stuff is downloading (OpenSUSE 10.2) but I have no idea of it's faster, or even if it's also uploading in P2P fashion.
For God's sake, is it too much to ask that the people behind stuff like this include a simple checklist?
To download using Metalinks you needs
a) A download client (here are links to a few),
b) This Firefox plugin and
c) then do THIS.
... and they all moved away from me on the bench......
I would think it highly optimistic to think that Wikipedia can't be sued.
Even if there's an argument that Jimmy Wales and the Wikimedia Foundation aren't responsible for the content - and I'm a bit skeptical about that - there will still be people who will launch suits just to get information removed.
Ultimately Wikipedia will either wind up caving to anyone who complains, or spending many, many thousands of dollars on lawyers defending themselves.
Hobbyists and free software advocates have succeeded where Bill Gates said they could not. They have put out a usable, alternative to solution to just about everything.
"Hobbyists and free software advocates?" Like who?
Red Hat/Fedora - large corporation that had built a brand name on Linux.
Novell/SUSE - large corporation that had built a brand name on Linux.
Ok, that's just two examples, but let's accept that Linux reached the point of being a commercial thing years ago.
It would interesting to see how much if the real work on Linux is being done by hobbyists, and how much comes out of paid developers at a handful of medium to large corporations.
Exactly. I don't think an event 37 years ago, traumatic though it may have been, is a reasonable excuse for not following the rules. Imagine, if you will, that his chosen method of coping with PTSD was drinking two pints of cheap gin a day. If, after showing up to work drunk and being warned this was not OK, he continued to do so, would not IBM be justified in canning him then?
Just to be clear, I do have friends who suffer from PTSD and even 40 years later (they were in Viet Nam early on) it has a daily impact on their lives.
I'm sure that if the guy could demonstrate a legitimate medical issue IBM would have had the resources to find a way to deal with it.
I would never discount the problems associated with PTSD, or the years and decades that they remain a problem, but I think that this guy is less than a good example.
The twinkie defense would have been a better choice...
His lawyer ... says Pacenza never visited pornographic sites at work, violated no written IBM rule ...
... (says) ... its policy against surfing sexual Web sites is clear. It also claims Pacenza was told he could lose his job after an incident four months earlier, which Pacenza denies.
International Business Machines Corp.
Seems pretty obvious. If IBM can produce those written policies, and has kept a written record of the previous warnings, Pacenza doesn't have a leg to stand on.
References to his past history in the military don't really seem all that relevant. Yes, many vets of Viet Name and other action carry the scars with them but that does not give them a right to totally ignore their employer's direction.
If Canada wanted to choose some other dates, that would be fine with everyone ... except anyone trying to communicate cross-border.
Oh c'mon, this a global economy. I regularly communicate with people in several North American time zones, Europe, and India, and have no problem figuring out what time it is at the other end.
Even if you make allowances for Just In Time delivery it isn't much of a challenge to have trucks leave Flint (or wherever) an hour earlier or later.
Remember, we're not just talking about border cities like Windsor or Vancouver, we're talking about many towns and cities farther north where this change makes absolutely no sense and will be a pain in the ass for average people.
Canada and Bermuda are conforming to the U.S.-mandated change
Even though the Canadian government rolled over and is forcing us into a dubious and probably un-needed change to our DST, I feel obliged to point out that the US does not "mandate" time zones in other countries (well, perhaps in Iraq, and I wonder if they're also changing how they handle DST)
Certainly the US tried to strong arm Canadian businesses and government on this one, but in theory at least we still control our own clocks.
The one feeling that I've always had with my 12" G4 Powerbook is that OS X just doesn't work on that smaller screen. It always feels like OS X was designed for 15" or 17" screens, and everything takes up more real estate that would be desirable on the 12".
Don't know why Apple couldn't tweak the OS to make it more usable on the smaller computer.
Obviously you young'uns never had to deal with the bandwidth nazis back in the good old days. A five line sig would get you flamed mercilessly!
We gotta save bandwidth!
I can remember ten years ago being told that you have to trim every extraneous character from messages, refrain from quoting more than one sentence, and keep your sig to three lines, all because we were worried that we were gobbling up precious bandwidth.
Now I routinely e-mail 5 meg attachments and download DVDs and movies (PD of course).
Why am I not worried?
The machines currently cost $130, but with that kind of volume the original goal of $100 a machine may be viable.
Really, this kind of comment is rather meaningless for a product that will ship to countries outside of the US. The rise in relative price from $100 to $130 could just reflect the decline in the $US on International exchange markets.
medical care... Kyoto... gun control...
Seriously though, the argument that population is too decentralized to support broadband doesn't wash. As we speak wireless broadband is being made available to every community in Nunavut, and you don't get a population density lower than that.
It's a question of political will and nothing else.
You have an existing accounting system that works, and the only thing that would change is that they wish to use Windows instead of Linux as an OS?
And you're suggesting moving the entire accounting system into a new software package just so you can keep it in Linux?
I'm betting you haven't discussed this with your boss, or with anyone who has ever moved accounting systems between packages.
Keep what works and don't complicate people's lives. Instead going on wild goose chases, take a couple of days and learn the basics of administering the new Vista or XP box.
Right, like there is no possibility that two male astronauts might decide to get naught during a long space trip...
...t'd be like getting arrested because I was hanging out with some dealers, but they never saw me using, buying, or selling any drugs."
Hmmph - sounds like you're on the side of the Terrorists!
There once was a crazy ass country that had laws about "innocent until proven guilty", but in these Terroristic times it's just so much safer to fall back on "Suspicion of being under suspicion."
A good public library is one of the great resources anywhere. I love them.
Entertainment, information, fun, enlightenment, all for free.
Plus, even in these Internet days, you can still phone the library with a question and they will look up the answer!
Our local library has a really amazing collection of DVDs, both recent and classic and foreign films. Kind of like NetFlix without paying a monthly subscription fee.
It is inconceivable that one could create such an institution these days. No politician would ever - EVER - support the idea today. Can you imagine how the MPAA or RIAA would fight to prevent the free loans of their products? Could book publishers be far behind?
Libraries - gotta love them.
"...that will likely read and write the most common formats like Microsoft PowerPoint and Open Office Impress."
Ah, it's a bit much to use the words "common" and "Impress" in the same sentence...
I too used joker.com for years, but have had problems in recent times. Specifically we had an autoforwarded address which suddenly started having long delays in mail delivery.
Turns out according to our ISP (who I do have a lot of faith in) that a significant amount of what comes out of the joker.com mailservers is spam, and joker seems disinclined to do anything about it. Consequently our ISP had been throttling back mail from joker.
I've also found in the last year or so that mail to joker support simply goes unanswered.
I'm moving our domains, and client domains away from joker.
Seriously, find a display company who can design a proper trade show booth for you. Think ahead and plan to use it for many functions.
Booth says legitimate. A 6' table with cardboard sign says rinky dink.
And dress like a successful business, not a geek
Over the last year I've been moving between Windows, OS X on a Powerbook, and a relatively recent SUSE install on a PC.
The truth is that each of them has shortcomings. The good news I guess is that most of these are irritating, not fatal.
Windows IMHO is not a long term option because of the creeping DRM and the obsessive control of the computing environment that MS seems to want. Frankly I have this horrible feeling that Vista will open a can of worms that will never end.
OS X just has too many irritating or dumb features, or lack thereof, that drive me around the bend. I'm not talking about things that are different from Windows, I'm talking about boneheaded design and UI mistakes that no-one in Mac land seems to be willing to admit are a problem.
Linux, well at this point for me it works 90% out of the box, much better than a few years ago, but that last 10% can be a nightmare. As always with Linux, if it works it's lovely, but if it doesn't you're off into that hell of MAN pages and web forums, filled with half answers, slightly incorrect assumptions, and Linux arrogance.
I'm weary of tinkering with computers. I just want to turn it on and have it do what I want easily and without irritation. And I want to be able to TURN OFF "features" that annoy me.
No OS does that yet.