India is beating them on call centers because many Indians are willing to learn English and have a chance to do so- something most Mexicans can not or will not.
Lots of Mexicans learn English. You need look no further than how many English schools (and bilingual schools for children) there are in Mexico. It just so happens that those Mexicans that learn English tend to do more productive and lucrative things than work at call centers.
I lived in Mexico for 10 years. I don't doubt that there is better phone service in Mexico now, but Mexico's Telmex phone service (land line and cellular) is crazy expensive compared to the U.S. I was so happy to move back to the U.S. in 2006 and basically be able to ignore telecomm costs. In Mexico, US$100/month for not-so-fast DSL, US$0.15 per phone call of "servicio medido" (including local, but also for long-distance and 1-800 numbers), and cellular phone costs of, what, $0.50 per minute???
I'm willing to pay for a good service, but the price of phone service in Mexico is disgustingly expensive. And that's, in large part, why Slim is as rich as he is.
That's the most obvious solution I've been thinking about since I first heard of this Comcast RST problem. The technology exists to get around this 100%. Use it!
I've had Vista for 6 months and the OS hasn't crashed even once. I'm no Microsoft fan, but the cold hard truth is that I haven't had any crashing problems with Vista.
I don't care how much "talent" and "originality" someone has if I don't like what they produce. I don't want to listen to Snoop Dog and I don't want to listen to Led Zeppelin either. Zeppelin might have more "talent" and "originality" but, in the end, I don't want to listen to either. On the other hand, I may very well like a nice catchy tune that is neither original or particularly talented, but it's enjoyable to listen to.
The odds of blowing up are pretty low, but you don't really want to risk it just so you can save a minute washing the windshield while you fill up.
I'd be more concerned with fueling my car during a thunderstorm than worrying about static charge building up because I let go of the pump during fueling. And I'd be no more concerned with fueling my car in a thunderstorm than doing anything else outside in a thunderstorm.
People worry so much about things that are entirely improbable... then they turn around and tail-gate someone at 70mph or talk on their cell phone while driving in rush hour traffic. It's silly.
OK, genius, how does debt forgiveness keep us from fixing global warming?
It doesn't keep us from "fixing global warming," but it simply doesn't help. That's the whole point. Kyoto obviously wasn't about the environment. It was about giving the developing countries advantages they wouldn't otherwise have.
If so they would end up constantly replacing those things but they seem to be cheap to make though.
From the article: "Each float weights 25kg and is 2 metres in height (including its aerial) and costs around £15,000 to operate over its lifetime." $30,000 doesn't seem too cheap for something that goes around washing up on the shore.
Were these the same floats that initially indicated that the oceans were *cooling* and not warming, but which were later recalibrated to report "accurate" temperature data?
Hey, as long as keep accepting "heating" readings and keep rejecting or massaging "cooling" readings, we can keep up the global warming scam for at least another 5-10 years!
On the "non-activated card" scam, I was waiting for the "gotcha" moment. Apparently, though, the "gotcha" is that consumers don't open their friggin' mail! I'm sorry, if you open an account for "Card XYZ", you get a plastic card from "Card XYZ" and cut it up and throw it away, and you keep getting mail from Card XYZ, would it cross your mind to maybe open the friggin' mail and see what's going on? I agree that the opt-out is devious and I agree that charges shouldn't be posted to non-activated accounts... but come on, the consumer has some responsibility here. OPEN THE FRIGGIN' MAIL!
I open every piece of mail I get. Loose publicity gets thrown away. Anything that looks to have even the slightest possibility of being sensitive (credit card offers, etc.) gets opened and I extract the part of the contents that needs to be shredded and throw away the rest. If I got something that looked like a statement, I'd immediately take care of that business.
PEOPLE THROW AWAY MAIL WITHOUT LOOKING AT IT AT THEIR OWN PERIL. That's NOT the fault of credit card companies (though they might be taking advantage of the stupid people that do it... but there's one born every minute).
ME: Never going to happen, not even with an iPhone, unless you're prepared to carry around a 12" monitor with you. [...] But I'm not going to do any serious browsing on anything with a screen size of the Treo or iPhone.
You: That's what I'm telling you. It *has* happened. I don't know if you've played with the iPhone for any length of time, but it has a virtual 1024 pixel-wide screen that scales the image to the phone screen. You see the whole page, then can zoom into the area that you want.
No, it hasn't happened. On a PC, I don't have to do that. And continually zooming in and moving around isn't my idea of a comfortable way to browse the Internet. On the Blazer browser, you have the choice if you want to use the full-screen mode or an optimized mode. In full-screen mode, you have a virtual wide-screen normal web page--without the iPhone zooming, granted, but you can generally see web pages as they were meant to look and just scroll horizontally and vertically. But I normally don't use that mode. I use optimized mode where the webpage is optimized for mobile reading. I can usually just start reading a page and press the page down button when I'm ready for the next page. No, it doesn't look like the website. But I can read sites with just my thumb occasionally pressing the page up or down button as I walk down the street or as I carry a piece of luggage in my other hand.
But what really makes the iPhone different is that for the first time it feels like a real computer that happens to have a phone, rather than the other way around. It's pretty damn cool to load on the BSD tools, bring up a shell and have a full Unix computer at my command.
I guess that might be kind of cool in a geeky kind of way. Personally, I have no such desire. My Treo does have an SSH client, though, so I can SSH into my Internet server and manage it from a shell prompt. That, to me, is useful. Whether or not I can get a prompt out of my phone just doesn't turn me on. I guess it might have been interesting to me about 12 years ago when I was much younger, but these days I pretty much want a phone to let me make phone calls and give me some reasonable connectivity when I need it.
Which, quite frankly, is not very often. When do I check my mail on the phone? Pretty much only if I'm at the airport and have just enough time to check email but not quite enough time to get my laptop out. When do I use web browsing? Pretty much if I'm out to dinner with my wife and we want to check on movie times, or if we're at Blockbuster and want to check IMDB for movie reviews. On a regular basis, that's really pretty much it. I've always had SSH installed so that if I'm on vacation with no computer handy and there are server problems, I can SSH in. Hasn't happened to-date.
Like I've said, I don't deny that the iPhone is a neat toy. But like I've also said, there are neat toys that have been doing all of this for years. And as someone else has said, wake me up when it has integrated GPS. Give me that and I'll be in line for one. Not because it's pretty and shiny but because it's giving me some useful functionality I don't already have.
They "take" from special interests, usually not from government coffers. I can't imagine how taxing labor is in the interest of either party, although it does sound like something Democrats would do due to their lack of understanding of economics. Republicans overspend because they're addicted. Democrats do it because they think it's actually a good idea.
Stupid taxes are still stupid, but is this one good or bad for the IT sector in general?
Does it matter? I don't trust the legislature to make consulting/full-time decisions for the sector. That should be decided by the employees and employers.
Taxing should be used to raise the absolute minimum for legitimate and constitutional government functions, not for social engineering. Taxing something is always a bad idea. The only possible exception to this is tariffs on imported goods, in some cases, to compensate for reciprocally high tariffs of the other country in question, or for inequivalent labor/environmental regulations that put them at an unreasonable advantage when compared to domestic companies that have to worry about those things.
Other than that, it is absurd to think that taxing something will actually help it in the market.
On the Treo, move physical switch to "off" position. I usually do this without looking at the phone or taking it out of its holster on my belt. And all noises are silenced, not just the ringer.
* easy to call an arbitrary number
Wake up Treo into phone mode, dial the number on-screen.
* easy to enter a new number/contact
Wake up Treo in phone mode, hit "Contacts" then "New Contact." Then enter your information. Done.
easy to call a contact
Wake up Treo in phone mode, start typing the name of the contact on the real tactile keyboard as the list of contacts gets reduced based on what you have entered so far. I usually can reach any of my contacts by typing no more than the first 2 letters of what I'm looking for. I recently had to dial my wife's Razr and search for a contact. *Shudder*
I don't know how the iPhone does these things, but I have zero complaints about those exact features on my Treo. And I agree with you they are the most important aspects of a phone.
Seriously - the iPhone is a nice 1.0 product. Wake me when it has GPS and a high-speed connection. iPhone 2.0 is likely a phone I will be buying... but 1.0 just didn't cut it.
Exactly! I'm looking for features. The iPhone looks nice but doesn't give me anything I didn't already have in terms of functionality. Now if you give me a nice-looking shiny product with features I don't have then you might have a winner!
Here's hoping the iPhone 2.0 is it. iPhone 1.0 was more about catching up with state-of-the art rather than defining it.
I shopped for a phone recently, and my #1 requirement was that it have a browser that was absolutely, perfectly equivalent to a desktop browser.
Never going to happen, not even with an iPhone, unless you're prepared to carry around a 12" monitor with you.
Say what you want about the iPhone, but the browser works exactly like a desktop.
Y'think? I don't consider "multitouch" and "zooming and panning different parts of a website" to be working "exactly like a desktop."
In any case, as I and others have said, it's not that the iPhone isn't cool. It's nice and all. It just isn't particularly new technology. They just packaged it up in a way some people like. Good for them. The iPod wasn't new technology either and even though I have one and hate the interface, others love it. But any way you cut it, the iPod wasn't new technology and neither is the iPhone.
I used to use a wireless laptop on my couch for nighttime browsing, and my iPhone has actually replaced it. It's nice and light, and surprisingly effective at browsing any web site.
I use my Treo for the same thing if I want to quickly check something as I go to bed (my Treo is my alarm clock so it's right next to my bed at night). But I'm not going to do any serious browsing on anything with a screen size of the Treo or iPhone. If I have a computer within 20 seconds of me (which just about anywhere in my house is), any serious browsing will be done on a full-sized screen.
People don't want one more thing to sync, to charge, to update, to carry, to protect.
That's why I have a Treo, and have had it for years. It can do all the things you mentioned--web browsing, email, MP3 player, video player. In the end, what I value is the phone, the Palm aspect (its calendar, etc.), and I occasionally use the web browsing and email. I used the video player and MP3 player to see that it worked. Then I was done with that. I usually use an Mp3 player when I'm biking and have the MP3 player strapped to my arm, I wouldn't really want my entire life in a $500 unit that could fall off my arm and break. That's what my $150 iPod Nano is for.
My problem with the iPhone isn't that it isn't a cool toy. It's just nothing particularly exciting considering that similar toys have been available for quite some time.
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Lots of Mexicans learn English. You need look no further than how many English schools (and bilingual schools for children) there are in Mexico. It just so happens that those Mexicans that learn English tend to do more productive and lucrative things than work at call centers.
I lived in Mexico for 10 years. I don't doubt that there is better phone service in Mexico now, but Mexico's Telmex phone service (land line and cellular) is crazy expensive compared to the U.S. I was so happy to move back to the U.S. in 2006 and basically be able to ignore telecomm costs. In Mexico, US$100/month for not-so-fast DSL, US$0.15 per phone call of "servicio medido" (including local, but also for long-distance and 1-800 numbers), and cellular phone costs of, what, $0.50 per minute???
I'm willing to pay for a good service, but the price of phone service in Mexico is disgustingly expensive. And that's, in large part, why Slim is as rich as he is.
True. I tend to use dirt clods myself since rocks can damage the house the nest is attached to.
That's the most obvious solution I've been thinking about since I first heard of this Comcast RST problem. The technology exists to get around this 100%. Use it!
I've had Vista for 6 months and the OS hasn't crashed even once. I'm no Microsoft fan, but the cold hard truth is that I haven't had any crashing problems with Vista.
I don't care how much "talent" and "originality" someone has if I don't like what they produce. I don't want to listen to Snoop Dog and I don't want to listen to Led Zeppelin either. Zeppelin might have more "talent" and "originality" but, in the end, I don't want to listen to either. On the other hand, I may very well like a nice catchy tune that is neither original or particularly talented, but it's enjoyable to listen to.
I'd be more concerned with fueling my car during a thunderstorm than worrying about static charge building up because I let go of the pump during fueling. And I'd be no more concerned with fueling my car in a thunderstorm than doing anything else outside in a thunderstorm.
People worry so much about things that are entirely improbable... then they turn around and tail-gate someone at 70mph or talk on their cell phone while driving in rush hour traffic. It's silly.
Not everyone likes Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, or even the Beatles. Of course, I don't like rappers either.
I don't have a copy of ROTJ handy, but I'm pretty sure they were called "Ewoks" in the end credits, weren't they?
It doesn't keep us from "fixing global warming," but it simply doesn't help. That's the whole point. Kyoto obviously wasn't about the environment. It was about giving the developing countries advantages they wouldn't otherwise have.
From the article: "Each float weights 25kg and is 2 metres in height (including its aerial) and costs around £15,000 to operate over its lifetime." $30,000 doesn't seem too cheap for something that goes around washing up on the shore.
Hey, as long as keep accepting "heating" readings and keep rejecting or massaging "cooling" readings, we can keep up the global warming scam for at least another 5-10 years!
I re-iterate: You throw away mail unopened at your own peril. Especially mail from companies you have done business with.
On the "non-activated card" scam, I was waiting for the "gotcha" moment. Apparently, though, the "gotcha" is that consumers don't open their friggin' mail! I'm sorry, if you open an account for "Card XYZ", you get a plastic card from "Card XYZ" and cut it up and throw it away, and you keep getting mail from Card XYZ, would it cross your mind to maybe open the friggin' mail and see what's going on? I agree that the opt-out is devious and I agree that charges shouldn't be posted to non-activated accounts... but come on, the consumer has some responsibility here. OPEN THE FRIGGIN' MAIL!
I open every piece of mail I get. Loose publicity gets thrown away. Anything that looks to have even the slightest possibility of being sensitive (credit card offers, etc.) gets opened and I extract the part of the contents that needs to be shredded and throw away the rest. If I got something that looked like a statement, I'd immediately take care of that business.
PEOPLE THROW AWAY MAIL WITHOUT LOOKING AT IT AT THEIR OWN PERIL. That's NOT the fault of credit card companies (though they might be taking advantage of the stupid people that do it... but there's one born every minute).
No, it hasn't happened. On a PC, I don't have to do that. And continually zooming in and moving around isn't my idea of a comfortable way to browse the Internet. On the Blazer browser, you have the choice if you want to use the full-screen mode or an optimized mode. In full-screen mode, you have a virtual wide-screen normal web page--without the iPhone zooming, granted, but you can generally see web pages as they were meant to look and just scroll horizontally and vertically. But I normally don't use that mode. I use optimized mode where the webpage is optimized for mobile reading. I can usually just start reading a page and press the page down button when I'm ready for the next page. No, it doesn't look like the website. But I can read sites with just my thumb occasionally pressing the page up or down button as I walk down the street or as I carry a piece of luggage in my other hand.
I guess that might be kind of cool in a geeky kind of way. Personally, I have no such desire. My Treo does have an SSH client, though, so I can SSH into my Internet server and manage it from a shell prompt. That, to me, is useful. Whether or not I can get a prompt out of my phone just doesn't turn me on. I guess it might have been interesting to me about 12 years ago when I was much younger, but these days I pretty much want a phone to let me make phone calls and give me some reasonable connectivity when I need it.
Which, quite frankly, is not very often. When do I check my mail on the phone? Pretty much only if I'm at the airport and have just enough time to check email but not quite enough time to get my laptop out. When do I use web browsing? Pretty much if I'm out to dinner with my wife and we want to check on movie times, or if we're at Blockbuster and want to check IMDB for movie reviews. On a regular basis, that's really pretty much it. I've always had SSH installed so that if I'm on vacation with no computer handy and there are server problems, I can SSH in. Hasn't happened to-date.
Like I've said, I don't deny that the iPhone is a neat toy. But like I've also said, there are neat toys that have been doing all of this for years. And as someone else has said, wake me up when it has integrated GPS. Give me that and I'll be in line for one. Not because it's pretty and shiny but because it's giving me some useful functionality I don't already have.
They "take" from special interests, usually not from government coffers. I can't imagine how taxing labor is in the interest of either party, although it does sound like something Democrats would do due to their lack of understanding of economics. Republicans overspend because they're addicted. Democrats do it because they think it's actually a good idea.
I don't. I said that compensating for that is the only exception, where using taxes for social engineering is reasonable.
Out of curiosity, then, is this the brainchild of the Democrats or the Republicans?
Does it matter? I don't trust the legislature to make consulting/full-time decisions for the sector. That should be decided by the employees and employers.
Taxing should be used to raise the absolute minimum for legitimate and constitutional government functions, not for social engineering. Taxing something is always a bad idea. The only possible exception to this is tariffs on imported goods, in some cases, to compensate for reciprocally high tariffs of the other country in question, or for inequivalent labor/environmental regulations that put them at an unreasonable advantage when compared to domestic companies that have to worry about those things.
Other than that, it is absurd to think that taxing something will actually help it in the market.
No taxes on services/labor in Colorado, either.
On the Treo, press green button.
On the Treo, move physical switch to "off" position. I usually do this without looking at the phone or taking it out of its holster on my belt. And all noises are silenced, not just the ringer.
Wake up Treo into phone mode, dial the number on-screen.
Wake up Treo in phone mode, hit "Contacts" then "New Contact." Then enter your information. Done.
Wake up Treo in phone mode, start typing the name of the contact on the real tactile keyboard as the list of contacts gets reduced based on what you have entered so far. I usually can reach any of my contacts by typing no more than the first 2 letters of what I'm looking for. I recently had to dial my wife's Razr and search for a contact. *Shudder*
I don't know how the iPhone does these things, but I have zero complaints about those exact features on my Treo. And I agree with you they are the most important aspects of a phone.
Exactly! I'm looking for features. The iPhone looks nice but doesn't give me anything I didn't already have in terms of functionality. Now if you give me a nice-looking shiny product with features I don't have then you might have a winner!
Here's hoping the iPhone 2.0 is it. iPhone 1.0 was more about catching up with state-of-the art rather than defining it.
Treo 650 with the standard Blazer browser.
Never going to happen, not even with an iPhone, unless you're prepared to carry around a 12" monitor with you.
Y'think? I don't consider "multitouch" and "zooming and panning different parts of a website" to be working "exactly like a desktop."
In any case, as I and others have said, it's not that the iPhone isn't cool. It's nice and all. It just isn't particularly new technology. They just packaged it up in a way some people like. Good for them. The iPod wasn't new technology either and even though I have one and hate the interface, others love it. But any way you cut it, the iPod wasn't new technology and neither is the iPhone.
I use my Treo for the same thing if I want to quickly check something as I go to bed (my Treo is my alarm clock so it's right next to my bed at night). But I'm not going to do any serious browsing on anything with a screen size of the Treo or iPhone. If I have a computer within 20 seconds of me (which just about anywhere in my house is), any serious browsing will be done on a full-sized screen.
Funny, I wish nothing had Flash. :)
You didn't read the last line of my post, did you?
That's why I have a Treo, and have had it for years. It can do all the things you mentioned--web browsing, email, MP3 player, video player. In the end, what I value is the phone, the Palm aspect (its calendar, etc.), and I occasionally use the web browsing and email. I used the video player and MP3 player to see that it worked. Then I was done with that. I usually use an Mp3 player when I'm biking and have the MP3 player strapped to my arm, I wouldn't really want my entire life in a $500 unit that could fall off my arm and break. That's what my $150 iPod Nano is for.
My problem with the iPhone isn't that it isn't a cool toy. It's just nothing particularly exciting considering that similar toys have been available for quite some time.