Unfortunately selling an OS in the bargain bin is probably not going to work very well. I've never seen it be successful, at least not the bargain bins at Compusa and software etc.
It's fine to sell say a game in the bargain bin, but for an OS or a business application people want the most recent.
why? Well because the most recent is an upgrade that fixes problems and is just overall better. A key being interoperability with other apps, etc.
It was my impression when I looked at the RHCE that you could only take the tests at the Redhat offices in North Carolina?
Take into consideration travel, hotel and the one week class and it's like a $5,000 investment. Obtaining an MCSE or CNE is only like maybe $500-1000 to buy some books, self study and take the tests at the local Sylvan Learning Center.
If that's true that the certification only lasts basically two years. Hmm, that seems like kind of a rip.
Especially considering that RedHat hasn't really changed signifigantly from an install and administration point since the beginning of time. What's the point in this expiration?
I guess this is part of their revenue stream for their business. I rather doubt Microsoft or Novell ever make money off their certification program, except for ancillary sales of product.
Hmm, I've had to review a lot of resumes, and sit in on interviews. The certifications are no different from a college degree, they won't guarantee you a job, but they are a factor in a positive manner.
Having worked with a lot of really bad people in the IT industry, and some really talented ones. What I have found is that between the two groups... those who are certified and those who are not. Whether this be CNE, MCSE, RHCE, Cisco, etc. The group that is certified generally has a higher percentage of talented employees than the one which doesn't.
I think a large factor in that is those who take the time to read the books and obtain the certification are generally more committed to the profession, are more disciplined, are more interested in furthering themselves.
That's not always the case, but in general it holds true... similar to say having a college diploma... such that it's a factor in prescreening resumes. Not a sole factor, but it is a positive factor.
Oh, and BTW... I have a MCSE along with a BSCS.
Unfortunately I've found that those who argue against certifications are generally fairly new to the industry and don't have the experience to really be making that judgement. That's another stereotype, if you wish to dispute... send me email.
I agree with most all of your points. I have long thought that Linux was too "unstable".
I feel that Microsoft Windows NT is too "unstable" and it only changes major components once a year.
Major releases generally cause stress amongst IT shops, both trying to deploy upgrades as well as retest and develop software against the new changes. Ye olde Mainframe went for years without major changes, allowing IT to focus on solutions to problems rather than upgrades.
Now I have to correct your FUD...
Windows 98 is #2 in terms of retail sales of business software, at least according to www.pcdata.com. It's in the top 10 of all retail software sales.
Windows Me is supposed to ship this fall, not two years from now, more like two months...
RedHat 6.2 is #17 in business retail sales.
Windows 2000 is #18 on the retail sales charts.
As far as noone likes Windows 2000... That's not true. Personally my trials at home show it to be great. It's slow in sales right now only because corporations are slow to upgrade, due to the difficulties I pointed out above.
Also given that most sales of Windows are in the corporate and OEM markets, it's not doing bad at all...
Those RedHat boxes with the CD's and manuals and fancy color boxes probably cost more like about $10/each to package and put on the shelves. It's far more than a quarter. Even if the retailers can ship them back... they lose some money hiring a clerk to pull them off the shelve and ship them back. Then on top of that if RedHat is buying them back, they lose money by packaging worthless product.
Could you please contain your rants to current versions of products, or I'll have to get my cluestick out and beat you with my SLS distribution of Linux.
"If you're currently developing in java, you'd have to be crazy to downgrade to an unproven proprietary platform with a shakey future."
You mean like Java itself?
I'd say you better start brushing up on you C skills.
Re:Java-bastardizing-then-dumping bastards....
on
Microsoft PDC Journal
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· Score: 1
Microsoft has not been pushing Java since Sun launched their frivilous lawsuit back in '97. It's a dead language on the Microsoft platform and has been for quite some time.
I'm not going to bother going into great detail as to why Java managed by Sun is doomed for failure. But if you read Roger Sessions explanation and take the time to grok it, perhaps you'll understand...
http://www.objectwatch.com/Issue_7.htm
Actually Microsoft was part of the Motif team...
on
Happy Birthday, KDE
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· Score: 1
There was a number of companies that submitted proposals to the Motif working group, and one of them happened to be Microsoft.
They selected Microsoft's user interface design for Motif, along with a variety of things from DEC, HP, etc. to complete the design.
Courtney commends Lars throughout her article. She even goes so far as to mention morons like you who have villified Metallica for standing up for their rights.
They both made incredibly good points and both essentially said the same thing.
General Motors owns Hughes electronics and thus has direct access to a lot of satellites, including the ones which handle DirecTV.
One of GM's goals is to improve profits through value-add monthly subscription services in their cars.
Imagine if for $10-20/month you had a system in your car which would:
- help you contact someone in an emergency - provide maps for whatever destination and helped you get there - allowed you to check email and get on the internet - provided coast to coast radio programming with a variety of channels to suit various tastes
I don't see why you think it's a poor idea. GM has already been fairly successful with the On*Star service, and they've showed these other features in their prototypes at auto-shows.
Yes, but *I WANT* to buy CD's, and I don't think I'm the only one.
My fear is that all this piracy and theft will do nothing but inconvenience me who likes to buy CD's. Suddenly I'll be stuck with CDs that only work on special players or some stupid thing like that.
I have this suspicion(call it a hope) that this "Revolution" you speak of will be the same illconceived revolution that Amazon.com tried to sell us. We will put all the brick & mortar stores out of business by selling direct...
Definately. I can't stomach to listen to MP3 unless it's on a cheap tinny pair of speakers. Trying to listen with headphones or good quality stereo makes my stomach churn as I hear all the digital artifacts from the poor encoding process.
MP3's recording at 256kbps or higher, or WMA at 160kbps is tolerable.
I think if the recording industry were to work with the stereo retailers to help train people on how to listen critically, they'd be able to increase their sales of CD and DVD-audio. The problem today is that most people "can't" hear the difference in quality which is just sad.
I have always liked cdnow.com and such for buying music because I could hear samples of the music. It's even worse Realaudio quality, but it still helped to realize that a CD might have many good songs on it, not just a one-hit-wonder.
But why do you focus on the negatives? Who cares about Milli Vanilli(sp?), Backstreet Boys, etc?
I know I don't. I don't buy their music, I don't listen to their music.
But there have been a lot of artists who are really good who have had albums released by record labels. And there are artists who went out and formed their own recording labels to do their own thing and have been successful.
There's been a lot of really good music which has been promoted by record labels, so much so that I have not been able to purchase every CD that I would like to, and I already have several hundred.
I agree that the labels act as a filter. If you are good enough, you filter up to the top and someone notices you. Once you are noticed, someone will pay to promote you and then you really get noticed.
I don't see Napster doing this, I think MP3 tries to but I haven't been impressed with their results.
I heard that when Bill Gates of Microsoft receives a file in.PDF format he sends back a polite request which says, "Please just use the industry standard Microsoft Word format."
I heard that when Steve Jobs at Apple receives a file in.PDF format he has one of his underlings send back a polite request which says, "Can you please send this to me as a MacDraw bitmap... Steve only likes reading books with lot's of pictures."
and when Bill Joy at Sun Microsystems receives a file in.PDF format he sends back a polite request which says, "Can you send this to me as ASCII text, otherwise I can't read it with vi."
Didn't you stop and think that the CEO of Adobe might just be trying to plug his own product?
You really didn't answer my one question, which is where is WordPerfect's file format located on Corel's website?
Similarly is the Lotus WordPro file format located on the IBM website?
I guess both Corel and Lotus are using monopolistic practices to...
Oh wait a minute, you really don't know what you're talking about do you?
Personally I've never liked Office, but I don't think my like or dislike for a product should influence this discusison. Unfortunately your dislike for a product has blinded you to the reality of the industry.
Oh, and I don't know what difference restrictions will make. Even if they were to survive the appellate court.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately selling an OS in the bargain bin is probably not going to work very well. I've never seen it be successful, at least not the bargain bins at Compusa and software etc.
It's fine to sell say a game in the bargain bin, but for an OS or a business application people want the most recent.
why? Well because the most recent is an upgrade that fixes problems and is just overall better. A key being interoperability with other apps, etc.
It was my impression when I looked at the RHCE that you could only take the tests at the Redhat offices in North Carolina?
Take into consideration travel, hotel and the one week class and it's like a $5,000 investment. Obtaining an MCSE or CNE is only like maybe $500-1000 to buy some books, self study and take the tests at the local Sylvan Learning Center.
If that's true that the certification only lasts basically two years. Hmm, that seems like kind of a rip.
Especially considering that RedHat hasn't really changed signifigantly from an install and administration point since the beginning of time. What's the point in this expiration?
I guess this is part of their revenue stream for their business. I rather doubt Microsoft or Novell ever make money off their certification program, except for ancillary sales of product.
Hmm, I've had to review a lot of resumes, and sit in on interviews. The certifications are no different from a college degree, they won't guarantee you a job, but they are a factor in a positive manner.
Having worked with a lot of really bad people in the IT industry, and some really talented ones. What I have found is that between the two groups... those who are certified and those who are not. Whether this be CNE, MCSE, RHCE, Cisco, etc. The group that is certified generally has a higher percentage of talented employees than the one which doesn't.
I think a large factor in that is those who take the time to read the books and obtain the certification are generally more committed to the profession, are more disciplined, are more interested in furthering themselves.
That's not always the case, but in general it holds true... similar to say having a college diploma... such that it's a factor in prescreening resumes. Not a sole factor, but it is a positive factor.
Oh, and BTW... I have a MCSE along with a BSCS.
Unfortunately I've found that those who argue against certifications are generally fairly new to the industry and don't have the experience to really be making that judgement. That's another stereotype, if you wish to dispute... send me email.
I can't talk in geek speek, but if you are installing RedHat you just ain't cool.
You gotta install like something that nobody else does.
If you want to be really cool, get ahold of an SLS distribution from 1992, and run one of the early XFree86 versions.
Then you'd be really cool, and you could get close to your 3l33t friends!
I agree with most all of your points. I have long thought that Linux was too "unstable".
I feel that Microsoft Windows NT is too "unstable" and it only changes major components once a year.
Major releases generally cause stress amongst IT shops, both trying to deploy upgrades as well as retest and develop software against the new changes. Ye olde Mainframe went for years without major changes, allowing IT to focus on solutions to problems rather than upgrades.
Now I have to correct your FUD...
Windows 98 is #2 in terms of retail sales of business software, at least according to www.pcdata.com. It's in the top 10 of all retail software sales.
Windows Me is supposed to ship this fall, not two years from now, more like two months...
RedHat 6.2 is #17 in business retail sales.
Windows 2000 is #18 on the retail sales charts.
As far as noone likes Windows 2000... That's not true. Personally my trials at home show it to be great. It's slow in sales right now only because corporations are slow to upgrade, due to the difficulties I pointed out above.
Also given that most sales of Windows are in the corporate and OEM markets, it's not doing bad at all...
Those RedHat boxes with the CD's and manuals and fancy color boxes probably cost more like about $10/each to package and put on the shelves. It's far more than a quarter. Even if the retailers can ship them back... they lose some money hiring a clerk to pull them off the shelve and ship them back. Then on top of that if RedHat is buying them back, they lose money by packaging worthless product.
Under WinNT/2000 all files are assumed to have a . extension, even if they do not.
move t*.* would match
test
test.txt
test.com
test.doc
I won't argue if it's good or bad, that's just the way it is...
"/. will be posting stories about how Windows edged out Linux in yet another benchmark"
/. has been doing for the past two years?
Hmm, isn't that what
:-)
Ahh, but it is true... Where's all the office suites written in Java?
Java has evolved itself to writing components for the middle-tier, which is an interesting use but nowhere near the hype that Sun first tried to sell.
Could you please contain your rants to current versions of products, or I'll have to get my cluestick out and beat you with my SLS distribution of Linux.
IBM and Microsoft have been getting along just fine(see: SOAP).
Sun has always hated the upstart Microsoft because they were too stupid to realize themselves the importance of PC's in the computing world.
Oracle... well considering Larry Ellison is hiring private investigators to route through people's trash, the joke certain is on them.
With thousands of eyes looking at it, it *NEVER* has any bugs!
"If you're currently developing in java, you'd have to be crazy to downgrade to an unproven proprietary platform with a shakey future."
You mean like Java itself?
I'd say you better start brushing up on you C skills.
Microsoft has not been pushing Java since Sun launched their frivilous lawsuit back in '97. It's a dead language on the Microsoft platform and has been for quite some time.
I'm not going to bother going into great detail as to why Java managed by Sun is doomed for failure. But if you read Roger Sessions explanation and take the time to grok it, perhaps you'll understand...
http://www.objectwatch.com/Issue_7.htm
There was a number of companies that submitted proposals to the Motif working group, and one of them happened to be Microsoft.
They selected Microsoft's user interface design for Motif, along with a variety of things from DEC, HP, etc. to complete the design.
Are you ignorant?
Metallica isn't going against MP3s now... they are going against Napster.
Courtney commends Lars throughout her article. She even goes so far as to mention morons like you who have villified Metallica for standing up for their rights.
They both made incredibly good points and both essentially said the same thing.
Do you think maybe Larry Ellison hired the thugs to break in to the studio and steal the demo tape?
Perhaps this is the reason Ray Lane resigned here recently, he knew about the Napstergate tapes!
Have you never heard of On*Star?
General Motors owns Hughes electronics and thus has direct access to a lot of satellites, including the ones which handle DirecTV.
One of GM's goals is to improve profits through value-add monthly subscription services in their cars.
Imagine if for $10-20/month you had a system in your car which would:
- help you contact someone in an emergency
- provide maps for whatever destination and helped you get there
- allowed you to check email and get on the internet
- provided coast to coast radio programming with a variety of channels to suit various tastes
I don't see why you think it's a poor idea. GM has already been fairly successful with the On*Star service, and they've showed these other features in their prototypes at auto-shows.
It's not too far off in the future.
Cable TV started out with many channels with no commercials.
Now look at what we have today. You pay $50/month to get more commercials than on network television.
Yes, but *I WANT* to buy CD's, and I don't think I'm the only one.
My fear is that all this piracy and theft will do nothing but inconvenience me who likes to buy CD's. Suddenly I'll be stuck with CDs that only work on special players or some stupid thing like that.
I have this suspicion(call it a hope) that this "Revolution" you speak of will be the same illconceived revolution that Amazon.com tried to sell us. We will put all the brick & mortar stores out of business by selling direct...
Guess what, it didn't happen.
And all I can say is, "Thank God!"
Definately. I can't stomach to listen to MP3 unless it's on a cheap tinny pair of speakers. Trying to listen with headphones or good quality stereo makes my stomach churn as I hear all the digital artifacts from the poor encoding process.
MP3's recording at 256kbps or higher, or WMA at 160kbps is tolerable.
I think if the recording industry were to work with the stereo retailers to help train people on how to listen critically, they'd be able to increase their sales of CD and DVD-audio. The problem today is that most people "can't" hear the difference in quality which is just sad.
I have always liked cdnow.com and such for buying music because I could hear samples of the music. It's even worse Realaudio quality, but it still helped to realize that a CD might have many good songs on it, not just a one-hit-wonder.
I think you've really made some good points.
But why do you focus on the negatives? Who cares about Milli Vanilli(sp?), Backstreet Boys, etc?
I know I don't. I don't buy their music, I don't listen to their music.
But there have been a lot of artists who are really good who have had albums released by record labels. And there are artists who went out and formed their own recording labels to do their own thing and have been successful.
There's been a lot of really good music which has been promoted by record labels, so much so that I have not been able to purchase every CD that I would like to, and I already have several hundred.
I agree that the labels act as a filter. If you are good enough, you filter up to the top and someone notices you. Once you are noticed, someone will pay to promote you and then you really get noticed.
I don't see Napster doing this, I think MP3 tries to but I haven't been impressed with their results.
I heard that when Bill Gates of Microsoft receives a file in .PDF format he sends back a polite request which says, "Please just use the industry standard Microsoft Word format."
.PDF format he has one of his underlings send back a polite request which says, "Can you please send this to me as a MacDraw bitmap... Steve only likes reading books with lot's of pictures."
.PDF format he sends back a polite request which says, "Can you send this to me as ASCII text, otherwise I can't read it with vi."
I heard that when Steve Jobs at Apple receives a file in
and when Bill Joy at Sun Microsystems receives a file in
Didn't you stop and think that the CEO of Adobe might just be trying to plug his own product?
You really didn't answer my one question, which is where is WordPerfect's file format located on Corel's website?
Similarly is the Lotus WordPro file format located on the IBM website?
I guess both Corel and Lotus are using monopolistic practices to...
Oh wait a minute, you really don't know what you're talking about do you?
Personally I've never liked Office, but I don't think my like or dislike for a product should influence this discusison. Unfortunately your dislike for a product has blinded you to the reality of the industry.
Oh, and I don't know what difference restrictions will make. Even if they were to survive the appellate court.