You saw them on the selves so clearly they are making money for someone, and if they were to be open sourced they would not. Losing money seems like a reason for management not to give away a game to me!
As for the issue of old games and support - tell me about it - this is why consoles are so damned popular, pick up and play old games - the only issue is ugly graphics!
As for frontier - great game, when you could get it to work that is...
Dont forget - old games never die they just get forgotten about, then put out on budget release, then used as part of a combination pack and then finally they become those 2.99 specials you spot at super-markets.
Basically games may get old but they never really stop making money until they stop being sold in any way shape or form.
"For a realm that was supposed to thrive at stunning speeds, the world of online music sure seems stuck in a kiddie crawl."
How much of an empty statement is this?
Yes, certainly the major players are virtually standing still on the matter but that is by their own doing - there is a saying "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink" which is pretty apt here as these major players are too afraid of the technology to even consider using it.
The smaller players are moving at a pace that befits their limited amounts of available money, but they are moving e.g. bands releasing several high quality tracks through their websites which aren't on the CD they are preparing to launch.
This is probably one of the best ways to meet the technology half-way - let people have a unique preview (ahead of time) of what they are getting if they buy the CD - and for free. If they like what they get and think that the CD will contain more of the same then there is no reason they should not buy the CD.
However the only hole in this plan is that your bands must be;
+ of a decent musical quality to make people actually want to buy the thing
+ of a decent technical sound quality as otherwise its simpler to wait for it to hit the p2p systems and grab a quality copy from there
+ releasing material that will not be on the CD (as otherwise you risk wasting the best track, and once you do that why do I need to buy your CD?)
I seem to remember a statistic back in the old napster days that the majority of the people were freeloaders e.g. they just downloaded without offering anything themselves.
Now if we apply this swiss theory to p2p applications you know what will happen?
1) if the majority of the users are freeloaders then there is little chance that they are going to kick other freeloading users off the service
2) assuming that only contributors to the community get a vote then they will be faced with a massive task of getting rid of the freeloaders
3) once you lose all the freeloaders you are left with the people who adopted early and helped the service become massive, but you will have lost the majority of the userbase
4) once a service gets a bad reputation it sticks, and since these services gain popularity through word of mouth rather than regular channels you lose a lot of the potential users
5) lastly a particular p2p service may be good but there are a large number of services which are just as good and which wouldn't support this concept of co-operation.
Okay, after reading that article you get the impression that targetting ads based on data capture doesn't work.
First off because of the pain/cost of getting a decent level (read both accurate and large coverage) of data in the first place (e.g. i'd imagine if you were the sort who spends large amounts online frequently you would have opted out either through the regular channels or by simply ignoring all their attempts to track you)
Secondly because their clients couldn't justify the cost of buying a properly targetted ad with the return it generates (it cost approximately 400% more than the standard ad type but only gives an improved yield in the range of 200%-300% if you target it right).
When compared to regular mail advertising, banners will lose out because mail;
a) can be far more targetted/available for most demographics
b) has better coverage
c) has a better chance of being read rather than ignored, skipped or stopped by other means
d) available for most demographics
So what have we learnt from all this?
Well that dblclick may have the technology but the customers will not buy despite the promises, or perhaps the fact that the cost increase was not proportionate to the performance increase. Instead their consumers preferred to go with a random assortment of less targetted ads.
I think you will actually find that the DMA (direct marketing association) do not *personally* want the right to send spam, they want their *fee paying* members to have the right to send spam...
"Seriously, there should be a law that laws/EULAs/whaever come with a common English translation attached."
Management reasons why not:
1) You have to *honestly* and *fully* translate your existing legal-ese into everyday language. Your new document is not the summary guide - it is a legally binding document.
2) Do you know how many customers that would drive away if they really knew what was the deal was?
3) You don't get to hide details in the small print anymore.
Yes, but that is really a secondary issue of can joe public understand it - this was simply a legal "cover our ass" manouver.
A caring company (or one who wants to seem caring and doesnt have any nasties lurking in their that their competitors dont) will spell it out nice, simple and in big print, like my insurance company chose to this year.
The problem here looks to be that they wish to start using those loopholes they left in the legal-ese the first time around so they can bring in extra revenue. Now to do this without getting ripped to shreds by the "i didnt know" crowd they are making it known that these are their terms which in some way or other all customers have accepted. That then leaves them cleanly covered as far as legal goes - "But judge honestly we told them all. Persons X, Y and Z chose not to opt-out like we said they could, so thats why we used their details".
Quote : "Although the mailer only describes their privacy policy as it currently exists, apparently it's caught a few people by surprise."
Just like puppies are not just for xmas, online agreements are not just for clicking through without giving the slightest glance!
Seriously, if you sign a contract and then cried foul when you realise you what you just signed, but then claimed your excuse was "but i didnt read it, i just accepted it!", all but the most money grabbing of lawyers (i mean that in a nice way guys) would laugh at you.
If you really dislike it that much use another provider - otherwise keep quiet and remember to have "I will always make sure to read the click-thru contract" tattooed onto the back on your eyelids for the next time something like this happens.
Have a happy new year all!
PS. the lack of sympathy could just be me or the booze, ask again in 24 hours...
Many moons ago I seem to remember playing quake 1 at a lan party - no cd required except to do the install.
IMHO its still good, honest, fast, frag-tastic fun.
Sure the later additions looked nicer, but they required a CD and really didnt add that much extra in terms of deathmatches.
On the non-fragging front many of the rts games support multiplayer spawning e.g. a very limited install, this does have some downsides but - hey it lets you have a game
"Maintaining Session State on Your Web Farm"
by Marco Tabini
IIS and ASP provide several methods to track a user's session on the server. But when you have several servers running concurrently, you have to modify your approach.
Looking at this I do have to wonder will UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) be the next IIS in terms of exploits, viruses and worms?
This issue is the second major *known* problem with UPnP in as many months, both involving buffer overflows of some kinds (MS01-059 & MS01-054).
Since UPnP runs as a service with a SYSTEM level authority, rooting it gives you god-like control over the system, so this falls under the heading of a bad thing. I seem to remember that it is installed by default (currently running w2k so i cant check if it is or not).
So what we have here is a service that seems to be exploitable, running a protocol similar to http (assuming that what was posted to ntbugtraq was actually content), that is installed by default and will be a total pain to turn off, assuming of course that johnny average user even realises it is turned on!
Getting the average user convinced to download patches for this sort of thing are going to be a hard sell (unless they make it say something along the lines of "would you like to open file porn.jpg.vbs from " which as the last year has shown us half the planet will happily click).
IIS had similar problems, not to mention a raft of exploits (i imagine these UPnP exploits are just the tip of the iceberg) and look what that became - one of the more popular webservers - both to host sites *and* to write worms for...
The one that always asks for a reboot, then leaves the machine in a state where it can't start again / doesn't recognise certain pieces of hardware / stops critical services from running is clearly from microsoft.
If it comes back to life *after* the patch then start to suspect script kiddies!
Looking at this I do have to wonder will UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) be the next IIS in terms of exploits, viruses and worms?
This issue is the second major *known* problem with UPnP in as many months, both involving buffer overflows of some kinds (MS01-059 & MS01-054).
Since UPnP runs as a service with a SYSTEM level authority, rooting it gives you god-like control over the system, so this falls under the heading of a bad thing. I seem to remember that it is installed by default (currently running w2k so i cant check if it is or not).
So what we have here is a service that seems to be exploitable, running a protocol similar to http, that is installed by default and will be a total pain to turn off, assuming of course that johnny average user even realises it is turned on!
Getting the average user convinced to download patches for this sort of thing are going to be a hard sell as there is no perceived benefit from downloading a file which corrects a fault in something you don't know is running, and even if you did you don't fully understand the purpose of.
IIS had similar problems, not to mention a raft of exploits (i imagine these UPnP exploits are just the tip of the iceberg) and look what that became - one of the more popular webservers - both to host sites and to write worms for...
The days of buying a product for a fixed fee with which includes lifetime support and upgrades are over.
Even as cynical as I am it's obvious that particular business model wont work, even as much as I like it.
The purchase model is continually trying to be killed off and replaced with the subscription based model as this allows for much more consistent balance sheets - take the two cases:
you have X users each paying Y every year
you have X users who paid Y for our product and if they like it they might pay Z in the future, but only if they choose to upgrade.
Which one do you think sounds more palatable to the board - one off payments or regular payments?
Counter-arguements such as the model for products like WinZip spring to mind - they still provide a cheap registration with lifetime support and upgrades but I'd imagine their mission is to get at least some of that massive userbase to register.
Realistically I'd be happy to have a product that I buy then pay to upgrade every few years (cough cough windows) but i start to resent that upgrade cost when it is almost identical to the cost of buying a new copy (cough cough windows).
Also you have to bear in mind that whenever a new windows version comes along the UI changes and so there is a mad clamour to change your programs to make them feel like they too are part of this new UI. Products that look ugly don't sell well to the masses so it pays to keep your software looking neat, tidy and user-friendly.
If you will try to sell me a product and then a year or two along the line try to offer me a cheap upgrade (e.g. Paint Shop Pro) then fine, I'll buy if you've added new features - however if you haven't and it's the same product in a new bundle with a.01 added to the version number, I'm sure your competition has been working on better features in the meantime {evil grin}.
What I really resent is this latest trend of having to buy a physical product AS WELL AS pay a subscription fee (most PVR's) - either choose one method or the other if you want me as a customer, as both simply leaves me to look at your competition.
Yes, but the main issue with open source for mission critical applications / services is the lack of a legally binding contract.
At least with a faceless corporation you have a piece of paper saying what both parties are legally obliged to do - you know for a fact that their definitions are supposed to be updated with X frequency etc. You also get a guaranteed level of support, someone to blame when it goes wrong and a company with deep pockets to sue if they are negligent!
Now with open source, aside from the contract problem you get another issue - if it all goes horribly wrong the blame can't be passed external to the company, the person that allowed this software to be deployed gets the blame!
Once it comes down to "spend all the money I requested and have my ass covered" or "save the company money but risk being the scapegoat if it fails" which option would you choose, bearing in mind that it's not your money and you doubtlessly have enough to cover the cost of a proper installation...
In situations like this the free open source will not prevail because there are no safety nets such as someone external to blame, no support contract, no guarantees, and no faceless entity with deep pockets to sue.
The thing about big business and critical applications is that it's less about cost of ownership than it is about being able to shift the blame if it all goes wrong...
I've just gone and had a look at their demos and sat their thinking "hey those images are poor", and then i loaded another demo and said "hey those images are poor too". While I waited for the second demo to load I tried to click a few of the links... only to find that the entire page was a shockwave file.
Since they claim to be the actual ads I'm more than a little puzzled as to what these things really are...
My favourite quote from the press release was "rich media ad format" - in other words here's a pretty advert that will take you too long to download but which is trying to see you broadband.
If i had broadband that ad is unlikely to be of use to me, and if i didn't I would probably be cursing the fact that you have some damned new advert that wastes my meagre modem bandwidth!
You will not see that for at least a year. There are a few reasons:
1) X-Box is a product - if i can play the games elsewhere why should i buy an x-box? e.g. Halo looks like it rocks, and if the only place i can play it is on an X-Box then that means i have to buy one if i want to play it.
2) X-Box is an appliance with a roadmap already laid out for it - if i remember the goal is to get it to become a home multi-media station, if you give people a reason not to buy one then you risk losing a market segment.
3) Assuming a 3rd party does this then they will be sued to hell and back by MS - this guy got a telephone message within 12 hours for releasing something only the most techie of people would have a use for. What do you think they would do if/when someone releases an emulator.
I suggest a year simply because after this people and the company will see exactly who won the console war - if anyone, if it is the x-box that won then you can release an emulator in the hopes of getting people hooked and eventually buying a console.
If the x-box didn't win then you release an emulator to keep the devolopers happy that they can still sell games.
The only problem is if it all ends in a draw between X-box and another console - in that case you want to produce the best games you can and make sure you can only play them on your machine!
There is a place in the UK that specialises in ROM modifications for cars - they seem to think that pretty much any car can be "chipped" which for me kind of suggests hacking car's "black boxes" is not just a manufacturer only thing...
They also have a category called "American Cars" under the "can my car be chipped" area so you are going to be sadly disspointed if you think this is a UK only thing...
http://www.superchips.co.uk/car/frameset.htm
If a manufacturer like ford makes cars that can be chipped by a 3rd party then I guess there is still hope.
"If you're a software company, there are lots of great business reasons to love bloatware. For one, if programmers don't have to worry about how large their code is, they can ship it sooner. And that means you get more features, and features make users' lives better (if they use them) and don't usually hurt (if they don't)."
The thing about bloat is that it's not a bad thing until it *kills* your product.
Lets say my product has been through several major versions and has a reasonable userbase - but is bloated & the majority of the users complain about it seeming slow.
Now according to that interview we should just learn to deal with this via moore's law rather than actually having the vender write code more responsibly.
However if my competitor introduces a smaller, less bloated product with more features than your product that also runs faster, then you run the risk of having the userbase start to convert.
Once that happens if you follow the rules from this interview you are doomed - you cannot rewrite to reduce bloat, you are not supposed to be interested in reducing bloat.
The only exceptions are :
the userbase has to be smart enough to appreciate what advantage any change would bring, otherwise they just act like sheep (the AOL arguement).
the product is not "sticky" - e.g. i can just copy all my existing content into the new system, meaning transition is painless.
cost of ownership is high - if i have to spend $200 to buy my product then i will naturally be reluctant to waste my investment / look stupid.
Moral of this story - only build bloated software if you have stupid users, or you have them pinned in a corner with no-where else to go, or if they paid through the nose to buy it.
It has to happen sooner or later - someone leaves a pot of sugar by the router and next thing you know you have waaay too many virtual ants on a sugar rush.
"And the best way to determine how many problems are going to be in a piece of software is to count how many lines of code it has. The simple metric goes like this: More lines, more bugs."
No the best method also factors in competancy of management, competancy of engineers, and the cost of failure.
Lets take as example nuclear power plants than have operation control code behind them - how many lines of code do they have? I'd suggest 10's of millions.
Why don't we see crashes of these systems widely reported?
1) They are safety critical, if an error occurs anywhere the surrounding code must fail closed meaning that it should not result in false results being produced.
2) If you screw up you can't just say "hey we'll fix it in the next version" - if you are lucky you'll simply get your day in court for negligence and you will no longer have a place in the safety critical market. If you are unlucky that still happens but you then get the ass sued off you by the relatives of anyone injured, maimed or killed by your software bug.
You have to admit the second point really is one hell of an incentive not to screw up!
Start by figuring out where you went wrong, or by what is making you depressed. Ask yourself the following questions...
Can you prevent it in the future? (e.g. if it was that you didn't check something, can you schedule and automated check in future so that it doesn't get overlooked)
Can you do anything to halt the problem now? (e.g. I'm stressed because of project XYZ, can i delegate some of the tasks leaving me with less to concentrate on. If this stress is caused by others mistakes then educate them, if that fails then eliminate them)
As for me I'm waiting to finish a project then I have a holiday so that's my coutner-measure.
So does this mean all our future telepresent medical aces will also be counterstrike frag-meisters?
Given they have to deal with lag they would have a natural advantage over the non-online-gamers...
"Nurse I'm going to aim marginally ahead of the organ with the scalpel this time because i have a feeling in my gut that there is some lag coming down the line."
{buzz - disconnect}
{sound of much hitting of redial}
"Doctor... hes... dead!"
"Oh well he must have been a low-ping-b*st*rd... that'll teach him for using a cheap winmodem!"
Slashdot Mirror
You saw them on the selves so clearly they are making money for someone, and if they were to be open sourced they would not. Losing money seems like a reason for management not to give away a game to me!
As for the issue of old games and support - tell me about it - this is why consoles are so damned popular, pick up and play old games - the only issue is ugly graphics!
As for frontier - great game, when you could get it to work that is...
Dont forget - old games never die they just get forgotten about, then put out on budget release, then used as part of a combination pack and then finally they become those 2.99 specials you spot at super-markets.
Basically games may get old but they never really stop making money until they stop being sold in any way shape or form.
"For a realm that was supposed to thrive at stunning speeds, the world of online music sure seems stuck in a kiddie crawl."
How much of an empty statement is this?
Yes, certainly the major players are virtually standing still on the matter but that is by their own doing - there is a saying "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink" which is pretty apt here as these major players are too afraid of the technology to even consider using it.
The smaller players are moving at a pace that befits their limited amounts of available money, but they are moving e.g. bands releasing several high quality tracks through their websites which aren't on the CD they are preparing to launch.
This is probably one of the best ways to meet the technology half-way - let people have a unique preview (ahead of time) of what they are getting if they buy the CD - and for free. If they like what they get and think that the CD will contain more of the same then there is no reason they should not buy the CD.
However the only hole in this plan is that your bands must be;
+ of a decent musical quality to make people actually want to buy the thing
+ of a decent technical sound quality as otherwise its simpler to wait for it to hit the p2p systems and grab a quality copy from there
+ releasing material that will not be on the CD (as otherwise you risk wasting the best track, and once you do that why do I need to buy your CD?)
I seem to remember a statistic back in the old napster days that the majority of the people were freeloaders e.g. they just downloaded without offering anything themselves.
Now if we apply this swiss theory to p2p applications you know what will happen?
1) if the majority of the users are freeloaders then there is little chance that they are going to kick other freeloading users off the service
2) assuming that only contributors to the community get a vote then they will be faced with a massive task of getting rid of the freeloaders
3) once you lose all the freeloaders you are left with the people who adopted early and helped the service become massive, but you will have lost the majority of the userbase
4) once a service gets a bad reputation it sticks, and since these services gain popularity through word of mouth rather than regular channels you lose a lot of the potential users
5) lastly a particular p2p service may be good but there are a large number of services which are just as good and which wouldn't support this concept of co-operation.
Just my 2c
Okay, after reading that article you get the impression that targetting ads based on data capture doesn't work.
First off because of the pain/cost of getting a decent level (read both accurate and large coverage) of data in the first place (e.g. i'd imagine if you were the sort who spends large amounts online frequently you would have opted out either through the regular channels or by simply ignoring all their attempts to track you)
Secondly because their clients couldn't justify the cost of buying a properly targetted ad with the return it generates (it cost approximately 400% more than the standard ad type but only gives an improved yield in the range of 200%-300% if you target it right).
When compared to regular mail advertising, banners will lose out because mail;
a) can be far more targetted/available for most demographics
b) has better coverage
c) has a better chance of being read rather than ignored, skipped or stopped by other means
d) available for most demographics
So what have we learnt from all this?
Well that dblclick may have the technology but the customers will not buy despite the promises, or perhaps the fact that the cost increase was not proportionate to the performance increase. Instead their consumers preferred to go with a random assortment of less targetted ads.
Well that's marketeers for you!
I think you will actually find that the DMA (direct marketing association) do not *personally* want the right to send spam, they want their *fee paying* members to have the right to send spam...
"Seriously, there should be a law that laws/EULAs/whaever come with a common English translation attached."
Management reasons why not:
1) You have to *honestly* and *fully* translate your existing legal-ese into everyday language. Your new document is not the summary guide - it is a legally binding document.
2) Do you know how many customers that would drive away if they really knew what was the deal was?
3) You don't get to hide details in the small print anymore.
Yes, but that is really a secondary issue of can joe public understand it - this was simply a legal "cover our ass" manouver.
A caring company (or one who wants to seem caring and doesnt have any nasties lurking in their that their competitors dont) will spell it out nice, simple and in big print, like my insurance company chose to this year.
The problem here looks to be that they wish to start using those loopholes they left in the legal-ese the first time around so they can bring in extra revenue. Now to do this without getting ripped to shreds by the "i didnt know" crowd they are making it known that these are their terms which in some way or other all customers have accepted. That then leaves them cleanly covered as far as legal goes - "But judge honestly we told them all. Persons X, Y and Z chose not to opt-out like we said they could, so thats why we used their details".
Quote : "Although the mailer only describes their privacy policy as it currently exists, apparently it's caught a few people by surprise."
Just like puppies are not just for xmas, online agreements are not just for clicking through without giving the slightest glance!
Seriously, if you sign a contract and then cried foul when you realise you what you just signed, but then claimed your excuse was "but i didnt read it, i just accepted it!", all but the most money grabbing of lawyers (i mean that in a nice way guys) would laugh at you.
If you really dislike it that much use another provider - otherwise keep quiet and remember to have "I will always make sure to read the click-thru contract" tattooed onto the back on your eyelids for the next time something like this happens.
Have a happy new year all!
PS. the lack of sympathy could just be me or the booze, ask again in 24 hours...
Many moons ago I seem to remember playing quake 1 at a lan party - no cd required except to do the install.
IMHO its still good, honest, fast, frag-tastic fun.
Sure the later additions looked nicer, but they required a CD and really didnt add that much extra in terms of deathmatches.
On the non-fragging front many of the rts games support multiplayer spawning e.g. a very limited install, this does have some downsides but - hey it lets you have a game
"Maintaining Session State on Your Web Farm"
9 /h tml/session1099.asp
by Marco Tabini
IIS and ASP provide several methods to track a user's session on the server. But when you have several servers running concurrently, you have to modify your approach.
URL :
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnmind9
This suggests one way of doing it from a few years ago, which isn't to say it's the right way, but it should give you some ideas...
Looking at this I do have to wonder will UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) be the next IIS in terms of exploits, viruses and worms?
This issue is the second major *known* problem with UPnP in as many months, both involving buffer overflows of some kinds (MS01-059 & MS01-054).
Since UPnP runs as a service with a SYSTEM level authority, rooting it gives you god-like control over the system, so this falls under the heading of a bad thing. I seem to remember that it is installed by default (currently running w2k so i cant check if it is or not).
So what we have here is a service that seems to be exploitable, running a protocol similar to http (assuming that what was posted to ntbugtraq was actually content), that is installed by default and will be a total pain to turn off, assuming of course that johnny average user even realises it is turned on!
Getting the average user convinced to download patches for this sort of thing are going to be a hard sell (unless they make it say something along the lines of "would you like to open file porn.jpg.vbs from " which as the last year has shown us half the planet will happily click).
IIS had similar problems, not to mention a raft of exploits (i imagine these UPnP exploits are just the tip of the iceberg) and look what that became - one of the more popular webservers - both to host sites *and* to write worms for...
Simple...
The one that always asks for a reboot, then leaves the machine in a state where it can't start again / doesn't recognise certain pieces of hardware / stops critical services from running is clearly from microsoft.
If it comes back to life *after* the patch then start to suspect script kiddies!
Looking at this I do have to wonder will UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) be the next IIS in terms of exploits, viruses and worms?
This issue is the second major *known* problem with UPnP in as many months, both involving buffer overflows of some kinds (MS01-059 & MS01-054).
Since UPnP runs as a service with a SYSTEM level authority, rooting it gives you god-like control over the system, so this falls under the heading of a bad thing. I seem to remember that it is installed by default (currently running w2k so i cant check if it is or not).
So what we have here is a service that seems to be exploitable, running a protocol similar to http, that is installed by default and will be a total pain to turn off, assuming of course that johnny average user even realises it is turned on!
Getting the average user convinced to download patches for this sort of thing are going to be a hard sell as there is no perceived benefit from downloading a file which corrects a fault in something you don't know is running, and even if you did you don't fully understand the purpose of.
IIS had similar problems, not to mention a raft of exploits (i imagine these UPnP exploits are just the tip of the iceberg) and look what that became - one of the more popular webservers - both to host sites and to write worms for...
As much as it pains me to point this out:
.01 added to the version number, I'm sure your competition has been working on better features in the meantime {evil grin}.
The days of buying a product for a fixed fee with which includes lifetime support and upgrades are over.
Even as cynical as I am it's obvious that particular business model wont work, even as much as I like it.
The purchase model is continually trying to be killed off and replaced with the subscription based model as this allows for much more consistent balance sheets - take the two cases:
you have X users each paying Y every year
you have X users who paid Y for our product and if they like it they might pay Z in the future, but only if they choose to upgrade.
Which one do you think sounds more palatable to the board - one off payments or regular payments?
Counter-arguements such as the model for products like WinZip spring to mind - they still provide a cheap registration with lifetime support and upgrades but I'd imagine their mission is to get at least some of that massive userbase to register.
Realistically I'd be happy to have a product that I buy then pay to upgrade every few years (cough cough windows) but i start to resent that upgrade cost when it is almost identical to the cost of buying a new copy (cough cough windows).
Also you have to bear in mind that whenever a new windows version comes along the UI changes and so there is a mad clamour to change your programs to make them feel like they too are part of this new UI. Products that look ugly don't sell well to the masses so it pays to keep your software looking neat, tidy and user-friendly.
If you will try to sell me a product and then a year or two along the line try to offer me a cheap upgrade (e.g. Paint Shop Pro) then fine, I'll buy if you've added new features - however if you haven't and it's the same product in a new bundle with a
What I really resent is this latest trend of having to buy a physical product AS WELL AS pay a subscription fee (most PVR's) - either choose one method or the other if you want me as a customer, as both simply leaves me to look at your competition.
Yes, but the main issue with open source for mission critical applications / services is the lack of a legally binding contract.
At least with a faceless corporation you have a piece of paper saying what both parties are legally obliged to do - you know for a fact that their definitions are supposed to be updated with X frequency etc. You also get a guaranteed level of support, someone to blame when it goes wrong and a company with deep pockets to sue if they are negligent!
Now with open source, aside from the contract problem you get another issue - if it all goes horribly wrong the blame can't be passed external to the company, the person that allowed this software to be deployed gets the blame!
Once it comes down to "spend all the money I requested and have my ass covered" or "save the company money but risk being the scapegoat if it fails" which option would you choose, bearing in mind that it's not your money and you doubtlessly have enough to cover the cost of a proper installation...
In situations like this the free open source will not prevail because there are no safety nets such as someone external to blame, no support contract, no guarantees, and no faceless entity with deep pockets to sue.
The thing about big business and critical applications is that it's less about cost of ownership than it is about being able to shift the blame if it all goes wrong...
but when the previous guys went bust selling the same service for a higher price than you intend to retail at, this may not be the wisest move...
I've just gone and had a look at their demos and sat their thinking "hey those images are poor", and then i loaded another demo and said "hey those images are poor too". While I waited for the second demo to load I tried to click a few of the links... only to find that the entire page was a shockwave file.
Since they claim to be the actual ads I'm more than a little puzzled as to what these things really are...
My favourite quote from the press release was "rich media ad format" - in other words here's a pretty advert that will take you too long to download but which is trying to see you broadband.
If i had broadband that ad is unlikely to be of use to me, and if i didn't I would probably be cursing the fact that you have some damned new advert that wastes my meagre modem bandwidth!
Hmm X-Box games on a PC?
You will not see that for at least a year. There are a few reasons:
1) X-Box is a product - if i can play the games elsewhere why should i buy an x-box? e.g. Halo looks like it rocks, and if the only place i can play it is on an X-Box then that means i have to buy one if i want to play it.
2) X-Box is an appliance with a roadmap already laid out for it - if i remember the goal is to get it to become a home multi-media station, if you give people a reason not to buy one then you risk losing a market segment.
3) Assuming a 3rd party does this then they will be sued to hell and back by MS - this guy got a telephone message within 12 hours for releasing something only the most techie of people would have a use for. What do you think they would do if/when someone releases an emulator.
I suggest a year simply because after this people and the company will see exactly who won the console war - if anyone, if it is the x-box that won then you can release an emulator in the hopes of getting people hooked and eventually buying a console.
If the x-box didn't win then you release an emulator to keep the devolopers happy that they can still sell games.
The only problem is if it all ends in a draw between X-box and another console - in that case you want to produce the best games you can and make sure you can only play them on your machine!
There is a place in the UK that specialises in ROM modifications for cars - they seem to think that pretty much any car can be "chipped" which for me kind of suggests hacking car's "black boxes" is not just a manufacturer only thing...
They also have a category called "American Cars" under the "can my car be chipped" area so you are going to be sadly disspointed if you think this is a UK only thing...
http://www.superchips.co.uk/car/frameset.htm
If a manufacturer like ford makes cars that can be chipped by a 3rd party then I guess there is still hope.
"If you're a software company, there are lots of great business reasons to love bloatware. For one, if programmers don't have to worry about how large their code is, they can ship it sooner. And that means you get more features, and features make users' lives better (if they use them) and don't usually hurt (if they don't)."
The thing about bloat is that it's not a bad thing until it *kills* your product.
Lets say my product has been through several major versions and has a reasonable userbase - but is bloated & the majority of the users complain about it seeming slow.
Now according to that interview we should just learn to deal with this via moore's law rather than actually having the vender write code more responsibly.
However if my competitor introduces a smaller, less bloated product with more features than your product that also runs faster, then you run the risk of having the userbase start to convert.
Once that happens if you follow the rules from this interview you are doomed - you cannot rewrite to reduce bloat, you are not supposed to be interested in reducing bloat.
The only exceptions are :
the userbase has to be smart enough to appreciate what advantage any change would bring, otherwise they just act like sheep (the AOL arguement).
the product is not "sticky" - e.g. i can just copy all my existing content into the new system, meaning transition is painless.
cost of ownership is high - if i have to spend $200 to buy my product then i will naturally be reluctant to waste my investment / look stupid.
Moral of this story - only build bloated software if you have stupid users, or you have them pinned in a corner with no-where else to go, or if they paid through the nose to buy it.
It has to happen sooner or later - someone leaves a pot of sugar by the router and next thing you know you have waaay too many virtual ants on a sugar rush.
"And the best way to determine how many problems are going to be in a piece of software is to count how many lines of code it has. The simple metric goes like this: More lines, more bugs."
No the best method also factors in competancy of management, competancy of engineers, and the cost of failure.
Lets take as example nuclear power plants than have operation control code behind them - how many lines of code do they have? I'd suggest 10's of millions.
Why don't we see crashes of these systems widely reported?
1) They are safety critical, if an error occurs anywhere the surrounding code must fail closed meaning that it should not result in false results being produced.
2) If you screw up you can't just say "hey we'll fix it in the next version" - if you are lucky you'll simply get your day in court for negligence and you will no longer have a place in the safety critical market. If you are unlucky that still happens but you then get the ass sued off you by the relatives of anyone injured, maimed or killed by your software bug.
You have to admit the second point really is one hell of an incentive not to screw up!
Start by figuring out where you went wrong, or by what is making you depressed. Ask yourself the following questions...
Can you prevent it in the future? (e.g. if it was that you didn't check something, can you schedule and automated check in future so that it doesn't get overlooked)
Can you do anything to halt the problem now? (e.g. I'm stressed because of project XYZ, can i delegate some of the tasks leaving me with less to concentrate on. If this stress is caused by others mistakes then educate them, if that fails then eliminate them)
As for me I'm waiting to finish a project then I have a holiday so that's my coutner-measure.
So does this mean all our future telepresent medical aces will also be counterstrike frag-meisters?
Given they have to deal with lag they would have a natural advantage over the non-online-gamers...
"Nurse I'm going to aim marginally ahead of the organ with the scalpel this time because i have a feeling in my gut that there is some lag coming down the line."
{buzz - disconnect}
{sound of much hitting of redial}
"Doctor... hes... dead!"
"Oh well he must have been a low-ping-b*st*rd... that'll teach him for using a cheap winmodem!"