Sad to hear. It's all too common to hear "we can't be at the mercy of single individuals" as an argument to invest in expensive systems provided by a vendor. In my experience this only means the company is at the mercy of the vendors instead and the vendors are often notoriously bad at retaining skills themselves. So you get a situation where you're relying on a single or a few inhouse individuals who interface with the vendor and the vendor in turn rely on a few individuals to keep track of your requirements and history. It's a double fail and costs skyrocket.
In the end it's about avoiding personal risk. If the inhouse staff solves the problem directly, inhouse, they are solely responsible for it and any problems/further needs that arise falls on their lap. It's far more convenient to shift that responsibility to someone else. That way inhouse staff can grab credit for successes and shift blame to the vendor when things go pearshaped.
Spot on. I see this all the time. The company buys application X to do task A. X does A well but can also do B, C & D well with proper configuration and some glue in place. Now company realizes they need to do B. In comes application Y which does task B well but also can do A, C & maybe even D if properly configured, yadayada...
Buying tools is easy and FUN. Using them requires skill. Skill is hard to to acquire and takes time away from shopping around for tools.
Of course they can. Just reinstate XP as an option and inertia will keep the money rolling in. Honestly, I kind of wonder why they bother trying to develop "the next windows" instead of just polishing what they have. Maybe they should try a "plus pack" if they're yearning for upgrade cash.
It just boggles the mind how incredibly narrow minded and short sighted the music industry is.
Here's a service that has the potential to increase paid streaming, sales through downloads and physical goods as well as promoting events to an international audience. All with the help and contribution of the actual consumers.
What do they do? Rigidly try to enforce rules to adhere to some artificial market they created fifty years ago!
What sets last.fm apart is the great community effort and recommendation engine. I use it all the time to find and - actually - BUY new music as well as finding out about events that I might otherwise have missed.
Spotify is great when you already know what you want to listen to but I find the music discovery factor of Spotify to be sorely lacking.
Can't wait 'til Spotify provides an open API and someone provides a nice mashup to stream my last.fm recommendations through Spotify!
(I've seen some hacks based on Spotifys Google Docs spreadsheets providing parts of this functionality already.)
As it stands, EUR 3 for last.fm recommendations and free radio streaming is just "OK". Spotifys EUR 10 for on-demand streaming is also just "OK".
I'd pay last.fm EUR 10 a month in a heartbeat if they'd combine their recommendation with Spotifys ad free on-demand streaming.
I'm located in Sweden but regularly buy CDs from Amazon.co.uk after following links of recommendations on last.fm.
That's a referral, isn't it?
Besides, I just can't believe event promoters aren't flocking to the service and then paying last.fm based on the number of "I attended this event" or some such.
Considering the potential gold mine that last.fm surely must be I can only speculate that this move was intentional to avoid hefty infrastructure investments for markets with only marginal direct contribution to the bottom line.
The older I get, the more convinced I become that many people gifted with truly exceptional intellects are frequently so discouraged by life that they essentially withdraw from society, functioning at what might be considered a "bare minimum" for most of their lives.
I think you could easily generalize this to include any individual that is not in the right place. Doesn't matter if it's maths, sports, crafts, arts, music or whatever else their good at. A good environment which fosters diversity and recognizes special skills makes all the difference.
Unfortunately it's probably impossible to cater to those that fall very far from the center of the mainstream.
What I'm trying to say is that society should - IMHO - constantly strive to encourage and recognize diversity.
While that for sure is true for Sweden (some +80% of the population live in the southern 3rd of the country) there is still decent connectivity in rural areas around here since the former government implemented a plan to subsidise the buildout of broadband in rural areas.
Thus, I have friends living in the middle of absolutely nowhere (10+ km to the nearest town - pop ~4'000) who enjoy 24mbit ADSL connectivity.
There's something to be said for government intervention at times. Unfortunately, the very same friends would probably have to wait 30 minutes or more for an ambulance if they'd ever be unfortunate enough to need one.
And you can always switch to Ruby on Rails. It is a good example of framework that helps doing things the right way and gets in the way when you want to do something wrong.
In my experience people will often go out of their way to do things the wrong way. Not saying having a platform that encourages/discourages certain practices is a bad thing but without a strong leadership setting and enforcing standards I believe the impact would be minimal.
The original idea of the "internet fee" was that you could receive internet streams from the websites of the public broadcast services... It simply does not matter if you actually do receive those streams, all that counts is that you are able to recevie them.
I live in Sweden and can access german public broadcasts over the internet or even satellite. Should I too pay the GEZ fee for Germany then? Of course not! It simply doesn't make any sense as with this line of reasoning I could end up paying TV licenses for every country in the world!
In Sweden there's been an ongoing debate for several years to remove the TV license fee in favour of a "TV tax". This makes far more sense IMHO as that more closely describes what it actually is. Scrapping public service or finding other means of funding is hardly an option considering how vitally important it is for a country to maintain its own public service infrastructure for use in emergencies such as natural catastrophies, war and not least independence.
I experienced my first panic attack "out of the blue" almost twenty years ago. Over the years I learnt to recognize and somewhat limit their impact. To reduce the number of attacks I'd generally avoid stressful situations and just generally try to slow down. Like the parent says, find the triggers and remove them.
It was only quite recently (five years ago) that I finally rooted out the major trigger - caffeine! Ever since I completely removed my caffeine intake I haven't even been close to triggering an attack. Stressful situations that used to trigger attacks are no longer a problem after abolishing caffeine. I also find my physical and mental stamina to be way better without caffeine than with it. In addition, the hit I get from the caffeine the few odd times I use it is way more effective and controllable.
So, if you're a habitual user of caffeine; drop the habit and see if it helps. Just remember that caffeine exists in so many more places than coffee and soft drinks!
Are these your own experiences or can you point me to an article/test/analysis document somewhere? We're about to fall into the Exchange trap at work and I'd love to have some more data on this.
People aren't THAT stupid anymore, at least majority - sure, they don't know precisely what is this all internet thingy is, but they want 'to google'. MSN can't beat that - and with their attitude I'm sure they won't.
That's not my experience. More than half of the computers I come across when doing the regular neighbour-friendofafriend-yadda-yadda-support has MSN set as the start page. Search the internet? Yeah, sure. Just type your query into the address bar of IE and go - using MSN. It's a sad, sad world.
Since MS is arguing that IE is an integral part of the OS, couldn't the Spyglass owners argue for a 5% share of a percentage of the Windows profits? That'd be a nice pile of cash to collect for being "royally fucked over"!
Slashdot Mirror
As far as I know the standard Apple calculator does not a scientific option.
Sure it does. Just put your phone into landscape mode.
How can this be modded 5, Funny?
Parent is spot on INSIGHTFUL.
A truly sad state of affairs.
Sad to hear. It's all too common to hear "we can't be at the mercy of single individuals" as an argument to invest in expensive systems provided by a vendor. In my experience this only means the company is at the mercy of the vendors instead and the vendors are often notoriously bad at retaining skills themselves. So you get a situation where you're relying on a single or a few inhouse individuals who interface with the vendor and the vendor in turn rely on a few individuals to keep track of your requirements and history. It's a double fail and costs skyrocket.
In the end it's about avoiding personal risk. If the inhouse staff solves the problem directly, inhouse, they are solely responsible for it and any problems/further needs that arise falls on their lap. It's far more convenient to shift that responsibility to someone else. That way inhouse staff can grab credit for successes and shift blame to the vendor when things go pearshaped.
Spot on. I see this all the time. The company buys application X to do task A. X does A well but can also do B, C & D well with proper configuration and some glue in place. Now company realizes they need to do B. In comes application Y which does task B well but also can do A, C & maybe even D if properly configured, yadayada...
Buying tools is easy and FUN. Using them requires skill. Skill is hard to to acquire and takes time away from shopping around for tools.
Now, this entire "Silly Words" thread should be modded insightful. There can be no better illustration of "How to think like a programmer". Hilarious.
Of course they can. Just reinstate XP as an option and inertia will keep the money rolling in. Honestly, I kind of wonder why they bother trying to develop "the next windows" instead of just polishing what they have. Maybe they should try a "plus pack" if they're yearning for upgrade cash.
Check your mail.
I'm inclined to agree with you here.
It just boggles the mind how incredibly narrow minded and short sighted the music industry is.
Here's a service that has the potential to increase paid streaming, sales through downloads and physical goods as well as promoting events to an international audience. All with the help and contribution of the actual consumers.
What do they do? Rigidly try to enforce rules to adhere to some artificial market they created fifty years ago!
Sad, really.
In a mailbox near you.
Spotify and last.fm aren't even that similar.
What sets last.fm apart is the great community effort and recommendation engine. I use it all the time to find and - actually - BUY new music as well as finding out about events that I might otherwise have missed.
Spotify is great when you already know what you want to listen to but I find the music discovery factor of Spotify to be sorely lacking.
Can't wait 'til Spotify provides an open API and someone provides a nice mashup to stream my last.fm recommendations through Spotify!
(I've seen some hacks based on Spotifys Google Docs spreadsheets providing parts of this functionality already.)
As it stands, EUR 3 for last.fm recommendations and free radio streaming is just "OK". Spotifys EUR 10 for on-demand streaming is also just "OK".
I'd pay last.fm EUR 10 a month in a heartbeat if they'd combine their recommendation with Spotifys ad free on-demand streaming.
A partnership brewing, perhaps?
I'm located in Sweden but regularly buy CDs from Amazon.co.uk after following links of recommendations on last.fm.
That's a referral, isn't it?
Besides, I just can't believe event promoters aren't flocking to the service and then paying last.fm based on the number of "I attended this event" or some such.
Considering the potential gold mine that last.fm surely must be I can only speculate that this move was intentional to avoid hefty infrastructure investments for markets with only marginal direct contribution to the bottom line.
Short term - great move.
Long term - it'll be just another MTV.
The older I get, the more convinced I become that many people gifted with truly exceptional intellects are frequently so discouraged by life that they essentially withdraw from society, functioning at what might be considered a "bare minimum" for most of their lives.
I think you could easily generalize this to include any individual that is not in the right place. Doesn't matter if it's maths, sports, crafts, arts, music or whatever else their good at. A good environment which fosters diversity and recognizes special skills makes all the difference.
Unfortunately it's probably impossible to cater to those that fall very far from the center of the mainstream.
What I'm trying to say is that society should - IMHO - constantly strive to encourage and recognize diversity.
While that for sure is true for Sweden (some +80% of the population live in the southern 3rd of the country) there is still decent connectivity in rural areas around here since the former government implemented a plan to subsidise the buildout of broadband in rural areas.
Thus, I have friends living in the middle of absolutely nowhere (10+ km to the nearest town - pop ~4'000) who enjoy 24mbit ADSL connectivity.
There's something to be said for government intervention at times. Unfortunately, the very same friends would probably have to wait 30 minutes or more for an ambulance if they'd ever be unfortunate enough to need one.
I can't believe noone's mentioned the website of the most popular tabloid in Sweden here. Try this one on for size.
So what are you doing reading Slashdot then? Get off to work!
And you can always switch to Ruby on Rails. It is a good example of framework that helps doing things the right way and gets in the way when you want to do something wrong.
In my experience people will often go out of their way to do things the wrong way. Not saying having a platform that encourages/discourages certain practices is a bad thing but without a strong leadership setting and enforcing standards I believe the impact would be minimal.
The original idea of the "internet fee" was that you could receive internet streams from the websites of the public broadcast services ... It simply does not matter if you actually do receive those streams, all that counts is that you are able to recevie them.
I live in Sweden and can access german public broadcasts over the internet or even satellite. Should I too pay the GEZ fee for Germany then? Of course not! It simply doesn't make any sense as with this line of reasoning I could end up paying TV licenses for every country in the world!
In Sweden there's been an ongoing debate for several years to remove the TV license fee in favour of a "TV tax". This makes far more sense IMHO as that more closely describes what it actually is. Scrapping public service or finding other means of funding is hardly an option considering how vitally important it is for a country to maintain its own public service infrastructure for use in emergencies such as natural catastrophies, war and not least independence.
According to the information in the pdf file the author was someone named 'akotsopoulus'.
a sp?AgencyID=9&city=95&qid=-1
A quick google does turn up someone with that name working for a PR firm called Brodeur Worldwide in Boston. A coincidence?'
http://www.prfirms.org/findafirm/company_details.
Wouldn't losing the caps lock key be terribly painful for anyone typing out those endless EULAs and such?
What are we waiting for?
Very good advice!
I experienced my first panic attack "out of the blue" almost twenty years ago. Over the years I learnt to recognize and somewhat limit their impact. To reduce the number of attacks I'd generally avoid stressful situations and just generally try to slow down. Like the parent says, find the triggers and remove them.
It was only quite recently (five years ago) that I finally rooted out the major trigger - caffeine! Ever since I completely removed my caffeine intake I haven't even been close to triggering an attack. Stressful situations that used to trigger attacks are no longer a problem after abolishing caffeine. I also find my physical and mental stamina to be way better without caffeine than with it. In addition, the hit I get from the caffeine the few odd times I use it is way more effective and controllable.
So, if you're a habitual user of caffeine; drop the habit and see if it helps. Just remember that caffeine exists in so many more places than coffee and soft drinks!
I'll have every chance to influence that decision so I'll make sure it will be done.
Apart from that... company is <200 users in four locations so I'm not sure how well Oracle scales down to our size.
Are these your own experiences or can you point me to an article/test/analysis document somewhere? We're about to fall into the Exchange trap at work and I'd love to have some more data on this.
People aren't THAT stupid anymore, at least majority - sure, they don't know precisely what is this all internet thingy is, but they want 'to google'. MSN can't beat that - and with their attitude I'm sure they won't.
That's not my experience. More than half of the computers I come across when doing the regular neighbour-friendofafriend-yadda-yadda-support has MSN set as the start page. Search the internet? Yeah, sure. Just type your query into the address bar of IE and go - using MSN. It's a sad, sad world.
I suggest we equip earth with a pair of giant cooling fins radiating the heat into outer space!
Alternatively, why can't we just get Zalman on the case to build us a properly sized fan?
Since MS is arguing that IE is an integral part of the OS, couldn't the Spyglass owners argue for a 5% share of a percentage of the Windows profits? That'd be a nice pile of cash to collect for being "royally fucked over"!