Printers simplay ain't what they used to be. My current printer is about 13 months old and she died right on schedule. Tore her apart Monday and managed to resuscitate her for a while but I know it will be sooner rather than later that I will be making the effort again.
The only good news is that she can be fully disassembled with hardly anything, all of the plastic just clips here and there. Four screws are the only mechanical fasteners and they only really serve as locks to back up the plastic snaps.
I'm very tired of the printers "features" being blown out of porportion too. 2400x1200 sounds like much better resolution than 600 x 300 but in truth, they are the same thing. If I have a 4 color printer, each color capable of 600 x 300 dpi, then they can add all of these numbers together to come up with 2400 x 1200. Baloney, it is still 600 x 300! Fortunately, 600 x 300 is pretty darn good.
Every single application on TinyApps.org will fit on a single CD. There are a wide variety of applications and tools, most of them very easy to use. These applications mostly do one job but, they do it very well. With the entire collection, you would be well prepared to deal with almost anything Windows or DOS can throw at you (and I assume most of these boxes are Windows/DOS based).
If the space you have allows you to do this, I'd bring a bunch of copies of the CD and I'd leave behind a disk at each location. This way they would have a fighting chance to fix their own problems after you left.
I won't argue that it takes money to run goverment and I suppose that you could say that any responsible government would always be looking for sources of revenue to fund itself. From that perspective, perhaps taxing internet sales makes some sense.
But I will argue that internet commerce is still in it's infancy. The internet is a great new medium for commerce and it is far from realizing it's full potential. We have already seen the dot-bomb bust that caused many companies out of the medium. Some of them deserved to bomb but others probably had promise but died because of investor panic.
Commerce on the internet deserves to be incubated and allowed to grow. Taxing these sales will have the effect of slowing growth and making investment by business in the internet less attractive. This in turn will slow the maturing process. It will take longer, perhaps far longer, for internet commerce to become a mature medium.
To government, the slower growth means that the internet compaines in their communities will be less profitable, require smaller facilities, employ fewer people and make fewer local purchases. They will pay less in property taxes, pay fewer and lower salaries, and they will return far less in income taxes to the state.
Jobs in internet commerce are non-polluting, clean jobs. They are the kind of business any community loves to attract. With fewer jobs, competition by communities to attract these businesses into their towns will be far more intense. More money will be spent in the gamble to attract these businesses, Tax Increment Financing and other incentives will need to be used to "bribe" the businesses to come into a community and, in the end, it will cost government more to get less.
This is not the right time. Taxing sales on the internet will some day make sense. That day will come when the medium has matured and grown to the point where it won't stifle growth potential to impose the tax. That day is a ways down the road, it is not today, tomorrow, or next year.
Determining any criminal's punnishment is quite an excercise. It involves far more than just what is appropriate. Before the law is written a committiee of some sort who offer's their input on the sentence that the law should allow, next the law-makers weigh in and consider things that range from costs and prison populations to how dangerous the criminal is and how much damage they have done to the victim and to society. Once the law is passed the judge listens to both the prosicution and the defense and then determines an appropriate sentence.
At every step of this process, politics plays almost as much importance as right and wrong. We can universally agree that someone who kills someone deserves to pay significantly but when it comes down to capital punnishment, we divide sharply. For many people who are against capital punnishment, it is not that they are against it per se but that they feel that the system is so broken that it can not be trusted to the point where it can deprive someone of their life. That is a political opinion more than it is an ethical stance against capital punnishment.
On one hand computer criminals can cause real damage and people who do real damage deserve real punnishment. On the other hand, most black hat hackers are more like tresspassers who go someplace where they don't belong. Is someone who steals (and uses or sells) credit card numbers the same kind of criminal as someone who deletes data as an act of vandalisim? Should the be prosicuted under the same law? If someone downloads code for some product in development, and uses it as their own "beta copy" the same kind of criminal as someone who downloads the same code and packages it in their own product? Is an "explorer" the same as any of these people?
There are many laws that already exist that should be used as templates for computer crime laws. Tresspassing in the virtual world isn't really much different from tresspassing in the real world so why shouldn't the punnishment be about the same? Just because someone used a computer to steal credit cards, why should they be punnished differently than someone who stole them out of the dumpster?
Until we as a society have gained significant experience with computer crime, I think that judges should be given wide lattitude to deal with the criminals and should be encouraged to use similar sentences for non-computer related crimes (and perhaps prohibit some access to computers).
"Abandon All hope ye who enter here." "Bit Bucket" (if a MS shop) "Cost Center" "Lost and Found" (everyone loses data, it must be in here somewhere) "BYTE ZONE" "BOFH - Residence" "BOFH is IN/OUT" "Restricted Area: Access prohibited: Authorized Persons only: To request access please fill out form DoD/MIL/SUB/9834934521.7A (rev. F) and submit though your Dept head. Please allow 365 days for approval."
Spam will change with the times. The spam we see in five years will probably still bear a resemblance to the spam that we see today but a certain percentage of it will be "improved" if for no other reason, so that it will get past the latest and greatest filtering technologies. I would also suspect that some spam will become more welcomed by the masses because it will offer a real value to the recipient. Much like we tolerate the coupons in the Sunday paper.
I would not be surprised to see spam start to arrive to targeted audiences in a manner similar to those local advertising circulars that everyone gets on their doorstep. The targets may not live in a specific geograpical location but rather may share common interests. Perhaps Ford owners will receive ciriculars advertising deals targeted to them, Chevy owners would have a similar but different circular that would target them. Maybe people who like Coke products would get one ad but people who drink Pepsi, another.
I would hope that along with the spam, these targeted markets will receive information that both interests them and that they find valuable. In essence, it would be like a weekly paper. I would also hope that the advertizers would make much better use of the available technologies, perhaps personalizing each coupon, and making their ads an interactive experiece.
I do not want unsolicited commercial email to really succeed as a business model the way that it is today. That is not to say that I expect that it will fail. Business in the capitalist environment has a way of rewarding success and punnishing failure. That small percentage of spammers who are innovative enough and adaptable enough will succeed.
They are also the ones who will break the mold and make their product palatable to the masses.
In my book, the only way for spam to really succeed is to make it so applealing that people actually welcome it and look forward to both receiving it and using it. Nearly half the viewers of the Superbowl watch the show for the commercials, that is where spam needs to get to in order for it to succeed.
Won't mention any brand names cuz they are all equally lousy for various reasons.
The ultimate goal is what gets in the way of the process. You want the product to just appear on the desired computers. Sounds simple but is far more difficult than you ever expect. Even in a solid environment with a good network and nearly identical hardware you still have different software configurations to deal with. No two computers are alike and the packaging process that allows the installs to go in auto-magicaly causes the install to lose whatever intellegence it had.
Packaging is not the only weak point but it is the one that you will find to be the bugger. Every application is an opportunity for error. This is what hurts.
I have worked for two fairly large computer companies. At the first I worked in the "returns" department before I moved into Tech Support. What I saw there convinced me most people that buy computers are total idiots.
We had people return computers for many reasons. At least one a month came back for religious reasons. Several came back filled with rocks, which never made sense to me since they were paying the return shipping charges.
One customer tried to 30 day return their computer because it was flooded. The entire computer was still wet when we took it out of the box!
All too often they would stick cheap generic parts in and take out the high-end optional parts that they bought with the computer!
It never really bothered me when the computers came back as parts but all too often they came back without any form or protective packaging (and were totalled).
But the ones that really frosted me were the ID-10-t's that would pour a can of coke or something in the computer and try to return it!
Working tech-support I would help out one of the expediter's who had the task of arranging out of warranty repairs for laptops that were sent in for repair. One laptop was sent in for an estimate - it sank in a lake. Asked how that happened the customer explained "it was in the back seat of my car when it went in!" Another repair involved the removal of a frog off of the motherboard of a laptop. This customer had no explaination how that happened but suggested that his kids had better have an explaination!
Oh and then there was this time we had a whole mess of Fed-X returns. About 50 of our computers were in a Fed-X jet that had some problems on a runway and smashed into another plane. Almost all were a total loss.
I live in Minnesota where we have live bait machines in a variety of places, usually outside of bait shops where they offer 24/7 service for fishermen keeping odd hours.
But some of them are in strange locations. A liquor store in the heart of North Minneapolis (nowhere near a decent lake or river) has one.
Yes, I have bought minnows and crawlers from them. Yes, the bait was lively and fresh. They do work.
Now I am stuck here at work and would rather be fishing. Hate when that happens.
Many people in the Slashdot community have been following your efforts for many months now. Frankly, the "David VS Goliath" aspects of the case make this a very interesting story. I always love it when the little guy wins!
It seems that Qwest was more than a little unwilling and uncooperative with you. Many of us have been there and done that in much smaller doses. Those of us that have been there would love to change that - force the monopolys to deal with small entities or even individuals appropriately and fairly. Many of us are of the opinion that is a big reason why we have government in the first place (to protect the little guy and make sure he gets a fair shake).
As people - what can we do to make sure Qwest and similar entities are made to deal with us little folks more fairly?
This is the greatest idea since sliced bread. Better even! I do like the idea of making the corpus distributed but think that keeping a personal corpus of data is also a very good idea.
One added button can drive it all "Delete as spam" what a wonderful idea!
Comment: Some people would argue that M$ operating systems are already chock full of ads.
An ad-sponsored O/S could stand a chance provided:
- The ads would not get in the way
- The product was solid and stable
- The product offered something "extra"
or better than what is available elsewhere
- Privacy were assured
In order for it to succeed as an open-source product, it would also require a couple of additional things:
- A thorough understanding of the
established community (and a
willingness to play by the
established rules) - A "hook" that would allow access to
additional features (that are not
necessarily open-source) if the ads
were active.
Would I be willing to use an ad sponsored O/S? Yes, I watch commercial TV even though I find the commercials annoying, I understand they are necessary to provide me with the programming I want. I am less sure that I would use an ad sponsored O/S for business purposes. Perhaps I would if I could pay a fee to remove or reduce the ads. I do not know if I fall within the community norms with my take on this.
One vision that I have is that you buy your computer at Best Buy and you get a blue and yellow O/S with Best Buy tags all over - that would be annoying. But with the small profit margins, I can see how a mass-marketer could see this appeal. They could serve up their weekly deals to everyone who has bought a computer from them. They could offer MP3s of the CD or DVD you just ordered online and, they could offer you customized services based on your hardware/purchase history.
You are the only person in a position to know how everything balances out for you personally. Listen to yourself and come to some sort of understanding about how you feel about all of the issues.
Where do you stand as far as the ethics of accepting a counter-offer?
How much do you trust your current employer? How much do you trust the other guy? What are the odds of advancement?
You have not been in the job too long, in a sense you have been in an extended job interview. They know now what you are worth and are willing to pay you for it.
2. Various tapes and adhesives. Duct tape all around a door will keep it closed.
3. Stun gun (place a live network cable between the leads & watch what happens).
4. Spider-wire fishing line. Super thin, super strong.
Braid it and you can lift people with it! Wonderful stuff for practical jokes.
5. 1 baggie of crushed swimming pool shock treatment (chlorine)
1 baby food jar amoinia
1 can brake fluid
1 glass quart jar
instructions telling her to combine outdoors on concrete and get the hell away
You may want to review current laws on making this though. Phosgene gas and
smoke are looked down on by some members of the establishment these days.
6. Slim-jim (for car-doors) Open a car, fill it with whatever is available).
7. Cheap perfumes from the dollar store. Soak down someone's closet
I doubt it, the FDA will take eons to approve this.
The tech may all be close but medical testing and then approval will make this take a lot longer.
Ten percent of the spectrum needs to be open
on
Unlimited Airwaves
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Ten percent of the spectrum needs to be "open" for exparamentation, testing, and demonstration of new methods and technologies. This space needs to be broadly applied so that different technologies can be tried across a wide variety of bands.
This way when something better comes along, it can be proven and space made available for it where it best belongs.
I like the concept of spread-spectrum communications where enough redundancy is built in so that thousands of signals can share the same space without interference. From what I understand, the space of a single TV channel could handle an entire city's "personal communications" (two way radio, cellular, paging, SMS and etc.) needs with lots of room left over.
When you think about the un-used potential in the airwaves, you just gotta drool.
I am not a gamer but have recently been considering a PS2 - I really like my son's. I can't say that I am fully qualified to discuss the finer points of game systems. But that makes me like a whole lot of the people considering them doesn't it?
My thinking is that M$ is looking forward to a time where the box in the living room is more than a game machine and more like a home entertainment machine that integrates cable & broadcast tuner, DVD, gaming, and some.netish functions into a single easy to use with on-screen menus box.
They don't want the hardware, nor even really the software (although that may be a piece of the pie). They want to integrate their product into the living room just like they did the office & home PC.
This way they can make money in every direction. They will know what you watch, what you play, how long you play it. They will become your content provider. Note that I said content provider, not service provider - too much cash tied up in cable.
That little box that makes it into your home today is just a foot in the door. Sony is thinking the same thing, Nintendo is too.
I hope Sony wins, for some reason, I trust them a bit more.
Don't bother complaining to the BBB
on
Disconnecting
·
· Score: 1
Had many of the same issues when I wanted to cancel AOL - first tried online to a CS representitive and they told me they could not do that.
Figured out that it was either a very bored human or, a bot of some sort that responded to me because I kept them locked in to a circular conversation for many turns "Why can't I cancel here when I joined here?" That doesn't make sense, what additional security it required to cancel an account? Can I speak with a supervisor then? Over and over again...
Finally called the 800 number and had to give a reason why I wanted to cancel - they would not proceed without it (finally told them I didn't like the colors their screens have). Got canceled and was told all I had to do to re-join was log in again. Said I wanted this option removed. Told that could not be done. Again, asked for a supervisor, told none was available. Grrrrr.
Wrote the BBB. Some months later recieved a letter from the BBB and a copy of the form letter they sent AOL. Some weeks later rec'd letter from BBB with copy of a form letter AOL sent them telling them they have investigated and resolved the issue (without ever having talked to me!). Sent response back to BBB saying it was not resolved. Couple months later BBB sends me a letter telling me they have resolved the issue satisfactorily. At this point, I did not bother to respond as I viewed it as a waste of my time. I know I should have but why waste the energy?
Should never have had AOL in the first place but so many people I supported used it that I felt I had to use it to help them. Now I just tell them call AOL support or cancel and get a real ISP and then I will help them.
I simply refuse to do anything with AOL beyond take their free CD's and throw them away.
You can make a good living without going to college but I think that it opens doors that may otherwise be shut. That is especially true later in life when the better jobs are more management related. Perhaps the most efficient method would to be a "non-conventional" student where you get some training and certifications, go to work at a help desk (to get experience) and work your way into the System Admin job that you really want. Along the way, take some college courses that will help you and pave the way to a degree of some sort.
Degrees, resumes, and work history really do only one thing, that is they get your foot in the door. Once you are on the job, what you do, what you know, and who you are are what matter more.
There are some companies that will not consider people without the pre-requisites (degrees/certifications) even for in-house promotions. If you are stuck in one of those companies, you have two choices, get it or get out.
This is a great idea! But, free in and of itself is not enough. The software has to be good (and great would be better) but, there also needs to be a support mechanisim and, believe it or not some "marketing" done to make this software acceptable to major players (like businesses, schools, and government).
When you bring the disk to a decision maker in an IS department one of the first questions bound to be asked is "Who else is using it?" and that will be followed closely with other questions like "If I use it, how will I get support?" The person providing the software will need to have answers to these questions before it will be taken seriously by many managers. These answers can be provided on the CD-ROM and support can be provided via web pages or email.
Believe it or not, in some of the cases, the fact that it is free will cause concern. There are some managers out there who have the mindset that nothing that is free is worth anything. They just don't understand.
Computer viruses (including worms, trojans and so on) continue to be a real threat to many users (and yes, I will say especially Windows users). From my point-of-view this article did much more damage than good. It would be like writing a story saying that unprotected sex with strangers is okay because the odds of getting something aren't really all that great.
The fact is that the reason that the threat level from viruses is down is because more people are more aware and are taking preventitive measures. This reduces the spread of viruses in the wild but it does not stop them. I would argue that the fact that the spread of serious attacks being down demonstrates that what is being done is at least partly effective.
I'd also argue that even more still needs to be done. I'd suggest that when a company learns of an exploit involving their software, it is their responsibility to address it sooner rather than later - that by not doing so, they are part of the problem. I'd suggest that companies that allow the use of their resources by whatever means (ie:open relay, unfiltered email, access to systems and etc) also have responsibility. But most of all, I would argue that the vandals that write and knowingly distribute the software should be treated as felons and given appropriate sentences.
Even the aforementioned actions would not eliminate the need for protection in the form of secure systems, antivirus software, and due dilligence on the part of the user. But when all of these things are combined, we can keep the situation tolerable.
I agree that the human rights issue is something of extreme importance (this is why I refuse to buy Nike, Adidas, and etc). But on the other hand, even exploited workers are usually a step above unemployed workers. This is an ethical quandry of sorts and is something we should all take a look at. Hopefully Dell, Apple, and the other companies that use Quanta demand the right to inspect the plant and ensure that there is no child labor or "slave labor" being used.
The quality that Quanta is known for seems to indicate that they are a top-notch shop but, their presence in mainland-China is just starting. Who knows where this will go.
One thing we can do, is demand that our suppliers check on their suppliers to insure that no child labor is used. It would not do Apple's (or Dell's) reputation any good to be known as an exploiter of children.
There are some very good companies doing business in mainland-China. Some that I have read about build campuses that provide housing and food for their workers at reasonable costs, enforce regular work shifts and run an "honest" business. The rent they charge and the cost of the meals they serve is lower than they could find in the community-at-large and their pay is good by local standards. These companies are for the most part aligned with companies from other countries that have contracts that insist on these standards.
To the China based companies, it is not a question of right or wrong but more or less, a cost of doing business. Going wrong means losing lucrative contracts. This, they can not afford to do.
Customer: Will it __________? Vendor: Sure, as a matter of fact, not only will it _______ but it will do it far better than our competition! It is easier to do too! Not only that but it does it at a lower overall cost and we have people around to support you when something goes wrong and you can't get it to do what you want!
Customer: But it costs so much more than the other products we are looking at... Vendor: Well Bud, you get what you pay for, I'll admit that there are less expensive products out there but they either won't do what you want them to or, you will have to do so much more work to get from here to there than you will with ours... In the long run, your overall cost with our product will be lower because of increased productivity!
Customer: Will I need anything else to use it? Vendor: Nope, this is all you need. There are some additional optional modules but this is all you need to ________.
Customer: What about upgrade programs? Vendor: We will support the current version out of the box for 30 days. After that time you will need to enter into a support agreement with us for a nominal charge of $__,___.00 per year. This will cover the cost of support packs, version upgrades, and ongoing support (the ongoing support is almost mumbled).
Customer: What about extra seats? What will they cost me? Vendor: We encourage you to buy all the seats that you will need now as this is a one-time price. After this, you will pay the retail price for additional licensing. For (exhorborant sum) you can purchase an enterprise license.
Customer: Thanks but no thanks. Vendor: May I ask why?
Customer: I get all my software for free. It is called "Open-Source." Vendor: (shocked) What? You mean you will trust your business to that crap? Who will support you? How do you know it is safe and reliable? Are you sure there aren't any serious bugs? It is after all amature software! You can't trust a business to this can you?
Customer: Well, when you put it that way, can I see your source code?
Slashdot Mirror
Printers simplay ain't what they used to be. My current printer is about 13 months old and she died right on schedule. Tore her apart Monday and managed to resuscitate her for a while but I know it will be sooner rather than later that I will be making the effort again.
The only good news is that she can be fully disassembled with hardly anything, all of the plastic just clips here and there. Four screws are the only mechanical fasteners and they only really serve as locks to back up the plastic snaps.
I'm very tired of the printers "features" being blown out of porportion too. 2400x1200 sounds like much better resolution than 600 x 300 but in truth, they are the same thing. If I have a 4 color printer, each color capable of 600 x 300 dpi, then they can add all of these numbers together to come up with 2400 x 1200. Baloney, it is still 600 x 300! Fortunately, 600 x 300 is pretty darn good.
Every single application on TinyApps.org will fit on a single CD. There are a wide variety of applications and tools, most of them very easy to use. These applications mostly do one job but, they do it very well. With the entire collection, you would be well prepared to deal with almost anything Windows or DOS can throw at you (and I assume most of these boxes are Windows/DOS based).
If the space you have allows you to do this, I'd bring a bunch of copies of the CD and I'd leave behind a disk at each location. This way they would have a fighting chance to fix their own problems after you left.
I won't argue that it takes money to run goverment and I suppose that you could say that any responsible government would always be looking for sources of revenue to fund itself. From that perspective, perhaps taxing internet sales makes some sense.
But I will argue that internet commerce is still in it's infancy. The internet is a great new medium for commerce and it is far from realizing it's full potential. We have already seen the dot-bomb bust that caused many companies out of the medium. Some of them deserved to bomb but others probably had promise but died because of investor panic.
Commerce on the internet deserves to be incubated and allowed to grow. Taxing these sales will have the effect of slowing growth and making investment by business in the internet less attractive. This in turn will slow the maturing process. It will take longer, perhaps far longer, for internet commerce to become a mature medium.
To government, the slower growth means that the internet compaines in their communities will be less profitable, require smaller facilities, employ fewer people and make fewer local purchases. They will pay less in property taxes, pay fewer and lower salaries, and they will return far less in income taxes to the state.
Jobs in internet commerce are non-polluting, clean jobs. They are the kind of business any community loves to attract. With fewer jobs, competition by communities to attract these businesses into their towns will be far more intense. More money will be spent in the gamble to attract these businesses, Tax Increment Financing and other incentives will need to be used to "bribe" the businesses to come into a community and, in the end, it will cost government more to get less.
This is not the right time. Taxing sales on the internet will some day make sense. That day will come when the medium has matured and grown to the point where it won't stifle growth potential to impose the tax. That day is a ways down the road, it is not today, tomorrow, or next year.
Feed the bacteria, harvest the heat they generate and generate electricty from that.
Determining any criminal's punnishment is quite an excercise. It involves far more than just what is appropriate. Before the law is written a committiee of some sort who offer's their input on the sentence that the law should allow, next the law-makers weigh in and consider things that range from costs and prison populations to how dangerous the criminal is and how much damage they have done to the victim and to society. Once the law is passed the judge listens to both the prosicution and the defense and then determines an appropriate sentence.
At every step of this process, politics plays almost as much importance as right and wrong. We can universally agree that someone who kills someone deserves to pay significantly but when it comes down to capital punnishment, we divide sharply. For many people who are against capital punnishment, it is not that they are against it per se but that they feel that the system is so broken that it can not be trusted to the point where it can deprive someone of their life. That is a political opinion more than it is an ethical stance against capital punnishment.
On one hand computer criminals can cause real damage and people who do real damage deserve real punnishment. On the other hand, most black hat hackers are more like tresspassers who go someplace where they don't belong. Is someone who steals (and uses or sells) credit card numbers the same kind of criminal as someone who deletes data as an act of vandalisim? Should the be prosicuted under the same law? If someone downloads code for some product in development, and uses it as their own "beta copy" the same kind of criminal as someone who downloads the same code and packages it in their own product? Is an "explorer" the same as any of these people?
There are many laws that already exist that should be used as templates for computer crime laws. Tresspassing in the virtual world isn't really much different from tresspassing in the real world so why shouldn't the punnishment be about the same? Just because someone used a computer to steal credit cards, why should they be punnished differently than someone who stole them out of the dumpster?
Until we as a society have gained significant experience with computer crime, I think that judges should be given wide lattitude to deal with the criminals and should be encouraged to use similar sentences for non-computer related crimes (and perhaps prohibit some access to computers).
"Abandon All hope ye who enter here."
"Bit Bucket"
(if a MS shop) "Cost Center"
"Lost and Found" (everyone loses data, it must be in here somewhere)
"BYTE ZONE"
"BOFH - Residence"
"BOFH is IN/OUT"
"Restricted Area: Access prohibited: Authorized Persons only: To request access please fill out form DoD/MIL/SUB/9834934521.7A (rev. F) and submit though your Dept head. Please allow 365 days for approval."
Spam will change with the times. The spam we see in five years will probably still bear a resemblance to the spam that we see today but a
certain percentage of it will be "improved" if for no other reason, so that it will get past the latest and greatest filtering technologies. I
would also suspect that some spam will become more welcomed by the masses because it will offer a real value to the recipient. Much like
we tolerate the coupons in the Sunday paper.
I would not be surprised to see spam start to arrive to targeted audiences in a manner similar to those local advertising circulars that
everyone gets on their doorstep. The targets may not live in a specific geograpical location but rather may share common interests. Perhaps
Ford owners will receive ciriculars advertising deals targeted to them, Chevy owners would have a similar but different circular that would
target them. Maybe people who like Coke products would get one ad but people who drink Pepsi, another.
I would hope that along with the spam, these targeted markets will receive information that both interests them and that they find valuable. In essence, it would be like a weekly paper. I would also hope that the advertizers would make much better use of the available technologies, perhaps personalizing each coupon, and making their ads an interactive experiece.
I do not want unsolicited commercial email to really succeed as a business model the way that it is today. That is not to say that I expect that it will fail. Business in the capitalist environment has a way of rewarding success and punnishing failure. That small percentage of spammers who are innovative enough and adaptable enough will succeed.
They are also the ones who will break the mold and make their product palatable to the masses.
In my book, the only way for spam to really succeed is to make it so applealing that people actually welcome it and look forward to both
receiving it and using it. Nearly half the viewers of the Superbowl watch the show for the commercials, that is where spam needs to get to
in order for it to succeed.
Won't mention any brand names cuz they are all equally lousy for various reasons.
The ultimate goal is what gets in the way of the process. You want the product to just appear on the desired computers. Sounds simple but is far more difficult than you ever expect. Even in a solid environment with a good network and nearly identical hardware you still have different software configurations to deal with. No two computers are alike and the packaging process that allows the installs to go in auto-magicaly causes the install to lose whatever intellegence it had.
Packaging is not the only weak point but it is the one that you will find to be the bugger. Every application is an opportunity for error. This is what hurts.
ditto
I have worked for two fairly large computer companies. At the first I worked in the "returns" department before I moved into Tech Support. What I saw there convinced me most people that buy computers are total idiots.
We had people return computers for many reasons. At least one a month came back for religious reasons. Several came back filled with rocks, which never made sense to me since they were paying the return shipping charges.
One customer tried to 30 day return their computer because it was flooded. The entire computer was still wet when we took it out of the box!
All too often they would stick cheap generic parts in and take out the high-end optional parts that they bought with the computer!
It never really bothered me when the computers came back as parts but all too often they came back without any form or protective packaging (and were totalled).
But the ones that really frosted me were the ID-10-t's that would pour a can of coke or something in the computer and try to return it!
Working tech-support I would help out one of the expediter's who had the task of arranging out of warranty repairs for laptops that were sent in for repair. One laptop was sent in for an estimate - it sank in a lake. Asked how that happened the customer explained "it was in the back seat of my car when it went in!" Another repair involved the removal of a frog off of the motherboard of a laptop. This customer had no explaination how that happened but suggested that his kids had better have an explaination!
Oh and then there was this time we had a whole mess of Fed-X returns. About 50 of our computers were in a Fed-X jet that had some problems on a runway and smashed into another plane. Almost all were a total loss.
I live in Minnesota where we have live bait machines in a variety of places, usually outside of bait shops where they offer 24/7 service for fishermen keeping odd hours.
But some of them are in strange locations. A liquor store in the heart of North Minneapolis (nowhere near a decent lake or river) has one.
Yes, I have bought minnows and crawlers from them. Yes, the bait was lively and fresh. They do work.
Now I am stuck here at work and would rather be fishing. Hate when that happens.
Many people in the Slashdot community have been following your efforts for many months now. Frankly, the "David VS Goliath" aspects of the case make this a very interesting story. I always love it when the little guy wins!
It seems that Qwest was more than a little unwilling and uncooperative with you. Many of us have been there and done that in much smaller doses. Those of us that have been there would love to change that - force the monopolys to deal with small entities or even individuals appropriately and fairly. Many of us are of the opinion that is a big reason why we have government in the first place (to protect the little guy and make sure he gets a fair shake).
As people - what can we do to make sure Qwest and similar entities are made to deal with us little folks more fairly?
This is the greatest idea since sliced bread. Better even! I do like the idea of making the corpus distributed but think that keeping a personal corpus of data is also a very good idea.
One added button can drive it all "Delete as spam" what a wonderful idea!
I think the solution to spam has been found!
Comment: Some people would argue that M$ operating systems are already chock full of ads.
An ad-sponsored O/S could stand a chance provided:
- The ads would not get in the way
- The product was solid and stable
- The product offered something "extra"
or better than what is available elsewhere
- Privacy were assured
In order for it to succeed as an open-source product, it would also require a couple of additional things:
- A thorough understanding of the
established community (and a
willingness to play by the
established rules)
- A "hook" that would allow access to
additional features (that are not
necessarily open-source) if the ads
were active.
Would I be willing to use an ad sponsored O/S? Yes, I watch commercial TV even though I find the commercials annoying, I understand they are necessary to provide me with the programming I want. I am less sure that I would use an ad
sponsored O/S for business purposes. Perhaps I would if I could pay a fee to remove or reduce the ads. I do not know if I fall within the community norms with my take on this.
One vision that I have is that you buy your computer at Best Buy and you get a blue and yellow O/S with Best Buy tags all over - that would be annoying. But with the small profit margins, I can see how a mass-marketer could see this appeal. They could serve up their weekly
deals to everyone who has bought a computer from them. They could offer MP3s of the CD or DVD you just ordered online and, they could offer you customized services based on your hardware/purchase history.
You are the only person in a position to know how everything balances out for you personally. Listen to yourself and come to some sort of understanding about how you feel about all of the issues.
Where do you stand as far as the ethics of accepting a counter-offer?
How much do you trust your current employer? How much do you trust the other guy? What are the odds of advancement?
You have not been in the job too long, in a sense you have been in an extended job interview. They know now what you are worth and are willing to pay you for it.
You asked for subversive stuff...
1. Anarchist's cookbook
2. Various tapes and adhesives. Duct tape all around a door will keep it closed.
3. Stun gun (place a live network cable between the leads & watch what happens).
4. Spider-wire fishing line. Super thin, super strong.
Braid it and you can lift people with it! Wonderful stuff for practical jokes.
5. 1 baggie of crushed swimming pool shock treatment (chlorine)
1 baby food jar amoinia
1 can brake fluid
1 glass quart jar
instructions telling her to combine outdoors on concrete and get the hell away
You may want to review current laws on making this though. Phosgene gas and
smoke are looked down on by some members of the establishment these days.
6. Slim-jim (for car-doors) Open a car, fill it with whatever is available).
7. Cheap perfumes from the dollar store. Soak down someone's closet
8. Stinky foods - to hide in people's dorm rooms
I doubt it, the FDA will take eons to approve this.
The tech may all be close but medical testing and then approval will make this take a lot longer.
Ten percent of the spectrum needs to be "open" for exparamentation, testing, and demonstration of new methods and technologies. This space needs to be broadly applied so that different technologies can be tried across a wide variety of bands.
This way when something better comes along, it can be proven and space made available for it where it best belongs.
I like the concept of spread-spectrum communications where enough redundancy is built in so that thousands of signals can share the same space without interference. From what I understand, the space of a single TV channel could handle an entire city's "personal communications" (two way radio, cellular, paging, SMS and etc.) needs with lots of room left over.
When you think about the un-used potential in the airwaves, you just gotta drool.
I am not a gamer but have recently been considering a PS2 - I really like my son's. I can't say that I am fully qualified to discuss the finer points of game systems. But that makes me like a whole lot of the people considering them doesn't it?
.netish functions into a single easy to use with on-screen menus box.
My thinking is that M$ is looking forward to a time where the box in the living room is more than a game machine and more like a home entertainment machine that integrates cable & broadcast tuner, DVD, gaming, and some
They don't want the hardware, nor even really the software (although that may be a piece of the pie). They want to integrate their product into the living room just like they did the office & home PC.
This way they can make money in every direction. They will know what you watch, what you play, how long you play it. They will become your content provider. Note that I said content provider, not service provider - too much cash tied up in cable.
That little box that makes it into your home today is just a foot in the door. Sony is thinking the same thing, Nintendo is too.
I hope Sony wins, for some reason, I trust them a bit more.
Had many of the same issues when I wanted to cancel AOL - first tried online to a CS representitive and they told me they could not do that.
Figured out that it was either a very bored human or, a bot of some sort that responded to me because I kept them locked in to a circular conversation for many turns "Why can't I cancel here when I joined here?" That doesn't make sense, what additional security it required to cancel an account? Can I speak with a supervisor then? Over and over again...
Finally called the 800 number and had to give a reason why I wanted to cancel - they would not proceed without it (finally told them I didn't like the colors their screens have). Got canceled and was told all I had to do to re-join was log in again. Said I wanted this option removed. Told that could not be done. Again, asked for a supervisor, told none was available. Grrrrr.
Wrote the BBB. Some months later recieved a letter from the BBB and a copy of the form letter they sent AOL. Some weeks later rec'd letter from BBB with copy of a form letter AOL sent them telling them they have investigated and resolved the issue (without ever having talked to me!). Sent response back to BBB saying it was not resolved. Couple months later BBB sends me a letter telling me they have resolved the issue satisfactorily. At this point, I did not bother to respond as I viewed it as a waste of my time. I know I should have but why waste the energy?
Should never have had AOL in the first place but so many people I supported used it that I felt I had to use it to help them. Now I just tell them call AOL support or cancel and get a real ISP and then I will help them.
I simply refuse to do anything with AOL beyond take their free CD's and throw them away.
You can make a good living without going to college but I think that it opens doors that may otherwise be shut. That is especially true later in life when the better jobs are more management related. Perhaps the most efficient method would to be a "non-conventional" student where you get some training and certifications, go to work at a help desk (to get experience) and work your way into the System Admin job that you really want. Along the way, take some college courses that will help you and pave the way to a degree of some sort.
Degrees, resumes, and work history really do only one thing, that is they get your foot in the door. Once you are on the job, what you do, what you know, and who you are are what matter more.
There are some companies that will not consider people without the pre-requisites (degrees/certifications) even for in-house promotions. If you are stuck in one of those companies, you have two choices, get it or get out.
This is a great idea! But, free in and of itself is not enough. The software has to be good (and great would be better) but, there also needs to be a support mechanisim and, believe it or not some "marketing" done to make this software acceptable to major players (like businesses, schools, and government).
When you bring the disk to a decision maker in an IS department one of the first questions bound to be asked is "Who else is using it?" and that will be followed closely with other questions like "If I use it, how will I get support?" The person providing the software will need to have answers to these questions before it will be taken seriously by many managers. These answers can be provided on the CD-ROM and support can be provided via web pages or email.
Believe it or not, in some of the cases, the fact that it is free will cause concern. There are some managers out there who have the mindset that nothing that is free is worth anything. They just don't understand.
Computer viruses (including worms, trojans and so on) continue to be a real threat to many users (and yes, I will say especially Windows users). From my point-of-view this article did much more damage than good. It would be like writing a story saying that unprotected sex with strangers is okay because the odds of getting something aren't really all that great.
The fact is that the reason that the threat level from viruses is down is because more people are more aware and are taking preventitive measures. This reduces the spread of viruses in the wild but it does not stop them. I would argue that the fact that the spread of serious attacks being down demonstrates that what is being done is at least partly effective.
I'd also argue that even more still needs to be done. I'd suggest that when a company learns of an exploit involving their software, it is their responsibility to address it sooner rather than later - that by not doing so, they are part of the problem. I'd suggest that companies that allow the use of their resources by whatever means (ie:open relay, unfiltered email, access to systems and etc) also have responsibility. But most of all, I would argue that the vandals that write and knowingly distribute the software should be treated as felons and given appropriate sentences.
Even the aforementioned actions would not eliminate the need for protection in the form of secure systems, antivirus software, and due dilligence on the part of the user. But when all of these things are combined, we can keep the situation tolerable.
I agree that the human rights issue is something of extreme importance (this is why I refuse to buy Nike, Adidas, and etc). But on the other hand, even exploited workers are usually a step above unemployed workers. This is an ethical quandry of sorts and is something we should all take a look at. Hopefully Dell, Apple, and the other companies that use Quanta demand the right to inspect the plant and ensure that there is no child labor or "slave labor" being used.
The quality that Quanta is known for seems to indicate that they are a top-notch shop but, their presence in mainland-China is just starting. Who knows where this will go.
One thing we can do, is demand that our suppliers check on their suppliers to insure that no child labor is used. It would not do Apple's (or Dell's) reputation any good to be known as an exploiter of children.
There are some very good companies doing business in mainland-China. Some that I have read about build campuses that provide housing and food for their workers at reasonable costs, enforce regular work shifts and run an "honest" business. The rent they charge and the cost of the meals they serve is lower than they could find in the community-at-large and their pay is good by local standards. These companies are for the most part aligned with companies from other countries that have contracts that insist on these standards.
To the China based companies, it is not a question of right or wrong but more or less, a cost of doing business. Going wrong means losing lucrative contracts. This, they can not afford to do.
Customer: Will it __________?
Vendor: Sure, as a matter of fact, not only will it _______ but it will do it far better than our competition! It is easier to do too! Not only that but it does it at a lower overall cost and we have people around to support you when something goes wrong and you can't get it to do what you want!
Customer: But it costs so much more than the other products we are looking at...
Vendor: Well Bud, you get what you pay for, I'll admit that there are less expensive products out there but they either won't do what you want them to or, you will have to do so much more work to get from here to there than you will with ours... In the long run, your overall cost with our product will be lower because of increased productivity!
Customer: Will I need anything else to use it?
Vendor: Nope, this is all you need. There are some additional optional modules but this is all you need to ________.
Customer: What about upgrade programs?
Vendor: We will support the current version out of the box for 30 days. After that time you will need to enter into a support agreement with us for a nominal charge of $__,___.00 per year. This will cover the cost of support packs, version upgrades, and ongoing support (the ongoing support is almost mumbled).
Customer: What about extra seats? What will they cost me?
Vendor: We encourage you to buy all the seats that you will need now as this is a one-time price. After this, you will pay the retail price for additional licensing. For (exhorborant sum) you can purchase an enterprise license.
Customer: Thanks but no thanks.
Vendor: May I ask why?
Customer: I get all my software for free. It is called "Open-Source."
Vendor: (shocked) What? You mean you will trust your business to that crap? Who will support you? How do you know it is safe and reliable? Are you sure there aren't any serious bugs? It is after all amature software! You can't trust a business to this can you?
Customer: Well, when you put it that way, can I see your source code?