"Also this week, the Recording Industry Association of America published data saying that music sales were down 10 percent last year and online piracy and CD burning were a "large factor contributing to the decrease."
I suppose a Global recession, the conversion to Euro's in Europe, and the resulting chaos from the Sept 11 attack probally didn't concern CD buyers. [or the fact that the red cross had an ad campaign playing on the radio.. something along the lines of 'for the price of one CD, you can give assistance to aiding the victoms of this grevious event.']
Seems to me that maybe good-ol` America had better things to spend their disposable income on around the holiday seasons last year.
As for requiring devices to have imbedded encryption devices in them.. lets assume for a second that no one would be able to hack them [regardless of all the results you get if you google 'cable descramblers'] How would this benifit the 'Average' American.
Just how does protecting Disney's IP [or Warnerbrother-aol-wwf] help the farmers in the midwest who grow the wheat for Eisner's mid afternoon power-bagel. From what I have seen latley (Return to Neverland, and the upcoming Cinderella sequil) Disney IP isn't exactly cutting edge anymore. Walt - the man who wouldnt let Izzy Isbourne recycle cels in their OLD animation must be pacing his cryo-chamber in angst at not only recycling cels.. but WHOLE MOVIES.
Why corporations like these folks can decide a SECURITY LAW for the rest of america bothers me. Intel hit it right on the nose with their statement. It will not benifit the average consumer.. and to add to that.. WHY ARE COMMUNICATIONS companies deciding what is good for COMPUTER COMPANIES ?? Do they REALLY believe that I use the net (or.. chuckle . the web) to watch movies? Do they think my burning desire is to ignore the big TV box downstairs, or.. god forbid.. the movie theatre, and download a grainy pan&scan that some college kid made with a cam corder ?
I mean.. Broadband must not be widespread because of this.. it can't have anything to do with cable companies haveing exclusivity in their areas with no-competition clauses.. or the fact that when you combine a $40 Broadband charge with your normal $50-60 TV bill.. that puts it out of the reach of the average income family.
They want to see broadband in every house ? drop the fees to $20 a month.
Poor Piro, The same nervous guy who came to an anime convention and wasn't quite ready to believe the amount of people that showed up to see him.
He does have some points though.
I think he is dead on with how people think of 'value for dollar' its the same problem linux sometimes faces. The "Did-you-spit-on-that-or-something?-problem" that you see in 5th grade lunchrooms. [you know.. you offer to give some snack that you *HATE* to a friend and thay are immediatly suspicious.
And i definatly agree with his take on the whole banner-ad.. pimpin` for ca$h type of site.
but while i agree.. my soul is torn. I Like fred & rodney's work, I want to see more of it, while I understand they have dead time [as all artists do] I still want to read more. I like the fact that I go to their site, and see.. their stuff.. thats it. But then I look at sites like Penny Arcade.. new stuff all the time.. and for a while there.. they were pimpin` like mad. Would I get my fix of MT more regularly if there were $$ in it for them ? [apparanty not, since piro is the art behind it.. and it would make him feel bad]
Personally.. I prefer the swag method. Buy me a teddybear to support our site. [I personally have 2 megatokyo mugs on my desk here at work.. and the girl has a handful of t's to sleep in] They get a cut from caffe press, and the office/school publicity of having their image shown about - the user gets something that is hopefully not 2-sizes too small for them. [and definatly doent have darth vader on it]
Its already been mentioneed that/. might want to follow this model.. I would pay good $$ for a zippo with/. etched on it. [It goes without saying my coffee table would be sitting in style with a hardcover compelation of MT on it too.]
Question: "Your website is being/.'ed.. pushing your bandwith costs into the sky.. what do you do ? *WHAT* do you do ?" Answer : "I think of snow."
you silly naysayers: 'Why do I wan't an operating system that looks like windows?' or 'where do they get off charging $30?' but this has got me to stand up and look.
I use free bsd/linux for servers.. and in my opinion.. nothing beats em. But linux on the desktop has always been.. lacking.. for the practical world.
the world that NEEDS photoshop, because its what all your business contacts use.. the folks that NEED visual interdev cause your office is in bed with M$.
THIS.. in MHO.. is a step in the right direction if all hales as they have reported. I'm willing to spend $30 to find out.. I have been holding off on running a non MS workstation because wine isnt very stable on either of my server boxes. [just a small segway, sometimes people are very suspicious of free things, and in America at least, something with a price tag hold value with the consumer.. seems silly, but we're programmed that way here from birth.]
i especially like the sound of the installer.. sure.. I breathe ozone for breakfast, but my 80 year old mom can't even install windows - who here thinks she can install mandrake ?
The fact that the 2 main kicks in the article are about its web-browser and e-mail warms my heart, since this is what the average joe in the world uses their computer for anyways. Appealing to the folks who are afraid of anything new is a good step i think.
As for who would want a desktop that looks like windows ? How about every existing customer who currently USES windows ? Folks who 'poo-poo'the windows look and feel should get off their college-I-need-a-crusade-I-will-commit-myself-to-t he-underdog outlook, and take a look at the world around you.
Most people out of college (lets say.. conservativly 70%) are sheep, they don't want to learn new things.. they want the world to be comfortable and safe, and to act how they already know it to act. These are not the people who install a new operating system "just-to-see" these are folks that run a p200 into the ground becuase to them its just another 'magic box' that gets them e-mail.
so anything that can get the mass market less afraid is a victory in my opinion.
I dunno about that, I can count 20 people off my head easy whom I know have, and use frequently mp3 players of various types. [only about 4 of them are computer geeks, a lot are just people who were sick of cd players skipping, or loved to dl music off napster]
I think that Diamond, a tleast has sold *MANY* of these units, enough for them to be banned at my wife's school (a VERY low income middle school)
Of course the logic also applies that if diamond didnt sell enough of the rio 300.. they wouldn't be on the rio 600 now.
But i digress, keep in mind im talking 'mass-market' here. Folks that own a pII 300, and use AOL on a 56k dialup. Early adopting (fools) like myself *grin* know hopefully what we are getting into. I expect about 1/3 of the crap i buy to be useless: I cite OmniSky, Adlib Sound Cards, and EISA card supporting motherboards as my biggest gripes *chuckle* But to your average american consumer.. the power AOL user.. who just now are starting to get into the DVD market. Trust takes a while.
mp3 is easy, its been in so many newspapers, and all over the media. I mean, its been in use since when 92' 93' ? (and earlier if you used mp2) Its what the non technical american feels comfortable with.
I'm not dissing KT at all.. good work on them, to improve on a compression format as popular as mp3 is better than i can do.. the idea of that math makes my eyes water.
My point was just that, the mass market knows mp3. and the cold,hard,(sad) truth of the matter is that unless something is either sierously marketed.. or REALLY is a tremendous improvement over the existing model.. its not going to get main-stream attention.
I'm not sure if this is gonna be the next golden egg. Mp3 by hook or by crook, is now well entrenched into the market.
I do notice some differences at the lower levels.. KT sounds better than mp3 at 32k.. but who has mp3's under 128k ?
As much as it hurts to say this, having multiple compeating forms is gonna be hard in the digital music world. How many non-geeks have a diamond rio.
If you bought into the mp3 craze for $286.00 (a few years ago) and spent a month making yourself computer literate enough to use the rio for your morning workouts at the gym. What are the odds that you are going to be willing to shell out more $$.. for a product you have to relearn, just cause it sounds a little better.
I think the mass market [the same folks buying into the m-life hype] is going to be a little less inclined to jump on a band wagon.. especially the mpe-sceners.. who were weened on free music. Anyone who was buying music in the 80's remember how long you waited before buying your first CD? (at $45.00 for 'The Wall' i didn't buy a second for quite some time)
I think this falls under the 10X rule again. [the 10X rule being that something either has to be 10X cheaper.. or 10X more efficient to make a world-changing difference in an established market.]
you know.. thats a very good idea.. lemmi take a few days to clean it up.. [its currantly ugly and hacked . i took it from some code i wrote to display e-bay auctions and their status on a web page i was developing for someone.. ]
its not as useful as it used to be.. since e-bay doen't keep sale auction info around longer than 2-3 months anymore.. but i don't mind handing it out.. maybe someone can make it more useful.. and have a website that houses a database of such patterns:) [i dont have the BW to do it]
before i bid on anything on e-bay.. i run a simple php script that searches their selling bids, and looks for patterns :
(it also recursivly checks any patterns of individuals found by examining their feedback ratings for patterns)
this is what i found on his last 4 auctions: all of these bids were placed on the last day of the auction.. and most we're less than 3 away from the final bid.
while this doesn't mean this guy (whos account im not posting.. because it could just be an honest e-bay thing) a shiller on e-bay [and he assured me via e-mail that he wasn't after i told him i didn't want to risk bidding on his auctions based on my search].. it certainly makes me wonder why 2 people chose to bid on each of his last 4 auctions, consecutivily, and in some cases.. the same exact amount of time apart on seperate auctions.
before people shout 'thats not what the article is talking about' let me point out.. that if this guy (who had over a 90 rating on ebay) WAS doing this.. he has been doing it for at least 6 months. its relativly cheap to win your own e-bay auction.. like 1% or so.. and build up false creadibilty.
My wife works with one of the 'doctors' who wrote a section of that book. He is a middle school english teacher.. and has nothing to do with human-interaction research.
[incidently.. he works in one of the worse schools in the district, even though he has a doctorate, where he was rather 'suddenly' transfered from his rather cushy county school job.. mid year.. that ought to set off some warning bells.]
my point being.. just beacuse someone has their name in print, doesn't mean they are doing more than BS'ing.
[still though.. there were parts in that book that were general enough to make me say.. 'yeah.. yeah..i can see that']
hmm.. GW was considering a suit.. i remember:) I sat in a meeting when it was brought up:P [I worked in the Nottingham/Eastwood office]
they could have made a case.. but honestly.. they didn't because they figured 'its only a computer game.. no one will ever really see it.'
[remember.. warcraft was quite some time ago:P]
and they did approach gw with licencing rights.. before naming it warcraft.. they wanted to call it warhammer.. Really, its probally better Blizzard went their own way.. since GW keeps a strangehold on its IP..
at the time the guys who became blizzard we're kinda bitter about that.. its funny that it looking to go full circle.
heh.. still.. i liked them anyways.. enough of this.. before it goes off topic:P
that 90% of their games are a direct rip off of games-workshop products. [A fact that blizzard has admitted to me personally of course. ]
At one point.. Blizzard had approached Games-Workshop [when I was still working there] saying something to the tune of: 'We really like your games, and look.. we have been putting together a computer game like them.. do you want to give us a licence?'
GW said no (foolish) and had microprose do it instead.. (again.. foolish) lets take a look at some evidence:
Warcraft --> Warhammer Fantasy Battle [most orcs in tolken, d&d etc are brown.. only games-workshop orcs (and orks if you play 40k) are green.]
Starcraft --> don't those little alien buggers look like Eldar and Tyranids ? down to the colouring ?
Diablo --> Direct rip off of the G-W game Dungeon Quest.. (prior art record of about 6-7 years)
What is my point in this rambling accusation ?
That blizzard should take a look at what their business operations are doing.. GW could have sued the pants off them several times.. but the board of directors [who.. if nothing else.. are shrewd] thought 'hey.. this is only going to help us in the long run.. the more kids that like THESE games . the bigger the piece of our pie will get.'
Blizzard ought to consider stepping out of the small business mindset of 'I need to take all the customers in my market' and step into the fortune 500 mindset of 'I need to MAKE more customers for my market'
now..i totally agree with you on your point of expecting microsoft to do a 180 on marketing.
EXCEPT (big except) they are the ones touting the 'we're gonna be more secure' stick. I wouldn't mind so much, if they haven't been hypocritical about it in the past. Any other supplier who made similar clames, has been held responsible.
Back to the bank analogy:
first.. FDIC only covers 100,000:P after that the rest is history. [just incase you didn't know]
second: if your bank was running a system that was represented to them as the most secure [how are they to know how to sort propaganda from cold hard facts.. easy for us geeks to see.. but not so easy for a 65 year old vested bank owner who finished college with an old IBM typewriter.]
lets assume only for the sake of this argument, that somehow the 32 billion (or whatever its at today) propaganda machine of M$ managed to convince a bank owner that not only is windows BankXP more secure than anything out there.. but it will automagically patch itself to fix any discovered bugs.
lets say the bank owner buys in.. and then.. 3 weeks later.. is destroyed through an exploit in the system. Do you hold the bank responsible ? [for using the most popular operating system which 1/2 its employees probally grew up with ?]
or do you hold the company who made the software, and was 'creativly' avoiding mentioning thats its not REALLY as secure as you can make it.
and who does the bank blame ?
how about the supreme court ?
(which is where it would wind up eventually)
*sigh* its all a mess.. isnt it ?
I totally agree that MS isnt going to change any time soon.. no matter how much they hold up a plaquard saying 'more secure, less code'.
It only irks me that the odds of them announcing their 'safer' frame of mind is probally more lip service than anything:( And even more so that they can get AWAY with it.
[and just for the record.. most banks -as of about 5 years ago - use a combination of Digital/Unisys systems.. programmed with Batch COBOL. I spent 5 years as a COBOL programmer for a branch of the FED.. *shudder* still causes me night tremmers.]
not really childish..
they are asking them to make good on the promises they have been telling the general public (and Wall street btw)
I mean.. would YOU want your bank running a windows server to keep track of your $$ ? how about one hooked up to the internet so they can communicate with their other branches ?
well.. just a cold shock of reality here.. but you should be very worried, not only does microsoft WANT this to happen, they have been agressivly trying to GET it to happen for the last 2-3 years.
imagine how quickly ONE security flaw in a bank server could render you broke.
The trick is, as the author points out... how honest are they being ? Is this a dog & pony show ? or do they REALLY mean to change the way they work.
Almost all the concepts presented were ones I learned in college [I graduated a few years before windows 95 came out.. and almost all my programming experience was on a mainframe.] It was considered a basic concept of design to keep your data abstract from your code..
of course.. it wasn't as simple as clicking 'view source' back then either *grin*
As much as I love *NIX for a server environmet, I have to say.. M$ is still got everyone [cept apple.. but i dont have one] beat in the 'average american' user market.
I always use the "My Mom" theory when determining if something is easy to use. My mom is almost 80 years old.. and cant program her VCR.. but if she can figure out how to use AOLIM for instance, then its probally safe to say its easy.
Windows passes the My Mom test.. and that would be great.. if it wasn't so easy to break. every time it breaks.. the 3rd tier tech support guru's at microsoft tell her to re-install the software. Not exactly instilling confidence that they know what the hell they are talking about.
If M$ can get actually accomplish even these seven steps, they honestly..will become a much better product.
The real telling point would be , if they had to evolve far enough to MAKE these changes, would they grow up as a company ?
I can't imagine how anyone in their right mind would want to read an E-book.
As a programmer/Web developer.. I spend 8-9 hours at work in front of a moniter, and another 2-3 at LEAST at home. [be it contract work or Counter Strike]
My one love of the evening.. is for about an hour before I go to sleep, I read. I read.. and I read like the wind.. [120 pages an hour EASY.. sometimes up to 300]
I consider this *RESTING* my eyes after a day of irradiating them. E-books, not matter how much the geeky quirky appeal they have to me.. will never replace a simple $6.99 paperback.
First off.. an e-book reader runs about $269.00 when i last checked [a pal bought one]. Assuming that E-books were either warez or free.. I would have to read about 40 books to make that cheaper than buying paperbacks. [about 2-3 months.. i read over 120 books a year easy].
For me that give it a chance at being a $$ savings (if we forget about the pleasure of holding a book), but what about my fieance` who reads like 5 books a year ? would never be worth it!
The other big selling point of a normal book, is i can give it to someone else. [or.. if i know they destroy books, its cheap enough to buy them their own copy.] Unless my pal's family all have e-readers, thats pretty hard to do with a digital book.
e-paper would make me doubt my stance.. but not for long.. there is still the classic charm of a physical book to consider.
maybe you should reconsider moving into management.
Im a geek.. I code, and I do it for a fortune 500.
I don't wear a suit.. jeans and something presentable do me just fine. [no one seems to have a problem with my atire.]
I'm married, she is a teacher - kids will come eventually, but why I should schedule my life and work around someone else's kids is a mystery to me.
I don't work 8:00-6:00.. I work 9:30 ish to 7:00 ish.. generally I skip lunch.. so the company makes out on the deal. I have been known to come in at 2:00 when a server goes down, or work 16 hour days if there is a big deadline on the block.
The issue I have with your little outburst here is that you immediatly classify anyone who doen't fit into the 1940's view of the business world as someone who can't function 'NORMALLY' in society.
Sorry to break this to you man.. but the VP of this company wears dockers and a sweater to work, is under 35, and seems to get by fine without his power suit.
When the chips are down, as long as I make/break deadlines - my boss wouldn't care if I painted myself purple every morning and coded sitting on a pillow. I was hired to program, not to entertain clients, not to market product, not to be a 'company' man, and go with the flow. I was hired to produce results, and as anyone who has been in the big business world knows, thats usually solved with a lot of shouting at one another across a board-table untill everyone figures out the best way to go.
2 jobs ago I was fired for coming to work on time.. but not haveing my tie on until I sat down. I was the 3rd best salesman in that company.. $3-4 million a year in sales average for my 3 years there. My boss sounded a lot like you.. in his 40's and stuck in the 'old way' the world works.
Sorry for the semi-agressive flame.. but this guy was asking for CONSTRUCTIVE advice.. not critizism.
oh.. im sorry.. several people can point out my 'geographical mistake' and get modded up.. but when i laughingly poke fun at my own mistake i get modded down..
well.. lets spend some more karma here:)
if you want to mod my previous responce down.. at least be consistant and mod EVERYONE down a point.. rather than picking the last food on the chain.
I should have said :
'Great Britain/Wales/Scotland/Ireland' as well as
'The continental European nations including France, Spain et.al' '
point being, part of Europe or not,
don't have the same amount of web-bullshit that we seem to cultivate here in the U.S.
be that economy, or society driven.
[or even if its because they are too busy fighting about wether or not Britain should be Euro:P]
on a personal note (tounge firmly in cheek)
I always separate them simply because they are geographically separate from the continent, and have always striven to govern their isle separately from Europe.
point and case.. they still use the pound stirling. using a different currency than the rest of 'now united' Europe only firms this up in my mind.
of course, that's not insinuating that my mind is a neat and orderly place:P After all, I'm just a bloody American, everyone knows we're all ego-centric. Europe's that place where they put the new Disneyland right ?
errr.. last i checked.. Microsoft was the heart of.NET(tm)
unless your talking about the World Wide Web.. if so.. then [being an American myself] I suggest you try looking outside the borders of our country.. 90% of the web's BullShit not only concerns only the U.S... but it happens in our borders.
Both the U.K. and Europe in general have a great deal more of an 'information' presence.
of course.. this could be because you still pay per min when using a phone over there.
Hehe.. thats not me.. but I have a 5 moniter setup:P
1 agp and 4 voodoo 3 3500's
great when your doing web-work.
Err a few people are forgetting something..
on
AOL vs. Trillian
·
· Score: 1
AOLIM is free .
I have it, and I havent had an active AOL account since 1995. When you used to be charged per min.
I just go in , sign up for an aol name.. and done.
I use that on one machine at home.. everything else uses trillian (whom I have sent 3 donations to via paypal of $15 each.. ) because there product is very smooth, works well.
I also have not had any issues with aol.. but that could be the autoupdate thing kicking in.
People here are screaming for both sides.. AOL needs the ad revenue, Trillian is better. What I think a lot of folks also forget is.. there is NO WAY [at least as far as i can figure out] that aol can tell if someone is using trillian. I mean.. My Girlfriend uses aol 4.5 or something.. and that IM client still works.. so they haven't changed anything important.. right ?
Im sure trillian.. or the 4-5 linux aol interfaces.. don't advertise by sending extra stuff on the stream.
If aol is really worried about it.. charge a 1 time fee for user names. I mean.. we're talking about a company that doesnt even RECYCLE usernames when someone cancels the service.
[unless someone can explain to me how I can still log in with my 1995 aol account name as 'guest']
sure.. maybe its a troll comment..
but PRAISING retailers who deep discount ?
what is he thinking ? why does he THINK that dot.com's went out of business.. you cant live on a 10% profit margin.
Only small potatoes retilers can afford to do that for long.. before they piss their distributor chains off.
Manufacturing companies like the one I work for.. sell either at retail.. or sell 'reconditioned - or sub-standard products. [nick ad ding stuff] if we were to sell retail quality stuff discounted.. every single one of our channel sale accounts would drop us.. the two biggest (which im sure almost everyone in here has shopped in.. in most countries too) have it written into their contract.
Slashdot Mirror
I suppose a Global recession, the conversion to Euro's in Europe, and the resulting chaos from the Sept 11 attack probally didn't concern CD buyers. [or the fact that the red cross had an ad campaign playing on the radio .. something along the lines of 'for the price of one CD, you can give assistance to aiding the victoms of this grevious event.']
Seems to me that maybe good-ol` America had better things to spend their disposable income on around the holiday seasons last year.
As for requiring devices to have imbedded encryption devices in them .. lets assume for a second that no one would be able to hack them [regardless of all the results you get if you google 'cable descramblers'] How would this benifit the 'Average' American.
Just how does protecting Disney's IP [or Warnerbrother-aol-wwf] help the farmers in the midwest who grow the wheat for Eisner's mid afternoon power-bagel. From what I have seen latley (Return to Neverland, and the upcoming Cinderella sequil) Disney IP isn't exactly cutting edge anymore. Walt - the man who wouldnt let Izzy Isbourne recycle cels in their OLD animation must be pacing his cryo-chamber in angst at not only recycling cels .. but WHOLE MOVIES.
Why corporations like these folks can decide a SECURITY LAW for the rest of america bothers me. Intel hit it right on the nose with their statement. It will not benifit the average consumer .. and to add to that .. WHY ARE COMMUNICATIONS companies deciding what is good for COMPUTER COMPANIES ?? Do they REALLY believe that I use the net (or .. chuckle . the web) to watch movies? Do they think my burning desire is to ignore the big TV box downstairs, or .. god forbid .. the movie theatre, and download a grainy pan&scan that some college kid made with a cam corder ?
I mean .. Broadband must not be widespread because of this .. it can't have anything to do with cable companies haveing exclusivity in their areas with no-competition clauses .. or the fact that when you combine a $40 Broadband charge with your normal $50-60 TV bill .. that puts it out of the reach of the average income family.
They want to see broadband in every house ? drop the fees to $20 a month.
Poor Piro,
.. you offer to give some snack that you *HATE* to a friend and thay are immediatly suspicious.
.. pimpin` for ca$h type of site.
.. my soul is torn. I Like fred & rodney's work, I want to see more of it, while I understand they have dead time [as all artists do] I still want to read more. I like the fact that I go to their site, and see .. their stuff .. thats it. But then I look at sites like Penny Arcade .. new stuff all the time .. and for a while there .. they were pimpin` like mad. Would I get my fix of MT more regularly if there were $$ in it for them ? [apparanty not, since piro is the art behind it .. and it would make him feel bad]
.. I prefer the swag method. Buy me a teddybear to support our site. [I personally have 2 megatokyo mugs on my desk here at work .. and the girl has a handful of t's to sleep in] They get a cut from caffe press, and the office/school publicity of having their image shown about - the user gets something that is hopefully not 2-sizes too small for them. [and definatly doent have darth vader on it]
/. might want to follow this model .. I would pay good $$ for a zippo with /. etched on it. [It goes without saying my coffee table would be sitting in style with a hardcover compelation of MT on it too.]
/.'ed .. pushing your bandwith costs into the sky .. what do you do ? *WHAT* do you do ?"
The same nervous guy who came to an anime convention and wasn't quite ready to believe the amount of people that showed up to see him.
He does have some points though.
I think he is dead on with how people think of 'value for dollar' its the same problem linux sometimes faces. The "Did-you-spit-on-that-or-something?-problem" that you see in 5th grade lunchrooms. [you know
And i definatly agree with his take on the whole banner-ad
but while i agree
Personally
Its already been mentioneed that
Question: "Your website is being
Answer : "I think of snow."
you silly naysayers:
.. and in my opinion .. nothing beats em. But linux on the desktop has always been .. lacking .. for the practical world.
.. the folks that NEED visual interdev cause your office is in bed with M$.
.. in MHO .. is a step in the right direction if all hales as they have reported. I'm willing to spend $30 to find out .. I have been holding off on running a non MS workstation because wine isnt very stable on either of my server boxes. [just a small segway, sometimes people are very suspicious of free things, and in America at least, something with a price tag hold value with the consumer .. seems silly, but we're programmed that way here from birth.]
.. sure .. I breathe ozone for breakfast, but my 80 year old mom can't even install windows - who here thinks she can install mandrake ?
t he-underdog outlook, and take a look at the world around you.
.. conservativly 70%) are sheep, they don't want to learn new things.. they want the world to be comfortable and safe, and to act how they already know it to act. These are not the people who install a new operating system "just-to-see" these are folks that run a p200 into the ground becuase to them its just another 'magic box' that gets them e-mail.
'Why do I wan't an operating system that looks like windows?' or 'where do they get off charging $30?' but this has got me to stand up and look.
I use free bsd/linux for servers
the world that NEEDS photoshop, because its what all your business contacts use
THIS
i especially like the sound of the installer
The fact that the 2 main kicks in the article are about its web-browser and e-mail warms my heart, since this is what the average joe in the world uses their computer for anyways. Appealing to the folks who are afraid of anything new is a good step i think.
As for who would want a desktop that looks like windows ? How about every existing customer who currently USES windows ? Folks who 'poo-poo'the windows look and feel should get off their college-I-need-a-crusade-I-will-commit-myself-to-
Most people out of college (lets say
so anything that can get the mass market less afraid is a victory in my opinion.
"Ah, but most people don't own MP3 players..."
.. they wouldn't be on the rio 600 now.
.. good work on them, to improve on a compression format as popular as mp3 is better than i can do .. the idea of that math makes my eyes water.
.. or REALLY is a tremendous improvement over the existing model .. its not going to get main-stream attention.
I dunno about that, I can count 20 people off my head easy whom I know have, and use frequently mp3 players of various types. [only about 4 of them are computer geeks, a lot are just people who were sick of cd players skipping, or loved to dl music off napster]
I think that Diamond, a tleast has sold *MANY* of these units, enough for them to be banned at my wife's school (a VERY low income middle school)
Of course the logic also applies that if diamond didnt sell enough of the rio 300
But i digress, keep in mind im talking 'mass-market' here. Folks that own a pII 300, and use AOL on a 56k dialup. Early adopting (fools) like myself *grin* know hopefully what we are getting into. I expect about 1/3 of the crap i buy to be useless: I cite OmniSky, Adlib Sound Cards, and EISA card supporting motherboards as my biggest gripes *chuckle* But to your average american consumer.. the power AOL user.. who just now are starting to get into the DVD market. Trust takes a while.
mp3 is easy, its been in so many newspapers, and all over the media. I mean, its been in use since when 92' 93' ? (and earlier if you used mp2) Its what the non technical american feels comfortable with.
I'm not dissing KT at all
My point was just that, the mass market knows mp3. and the cold,hard,(sad) truth of the matter is that unless something is either sierously marketed
I'm not sure if this is gonna be the next golden egg. Mp3 by hook or by crook, is now well entrenched into the market.
.. KT sounds better than mp3 at 32k .. but who has mp3's under 128k ?
.. for a product you have to relearn, just cause it sounds a little better.
.. especially the mpe-sceners .. who were weened on free music. Anyone who was buying music in the 80's remember how long you waited before buying your first CD? (at $45.00 for 'The Wall' i didn't buy a second for quite some time)
.. or 10X more efficient to make a world-changing difference in an established market.]
I do notice some differences at the lower levels
As much as it hurts to say this, having multiple compeating forms is gonna be hard in the digital music world. How many non-geeks have a diamond rio.
If you bought into the mp3 craze for $286.00 (a few years ago) and spent a month making yourself computer literate enough to use the rio for your morning workouts at the gym. What are the odds that you are going to be willing to shell out more $$
I think the mass market [the same folks buying into the m-life hype] is going to be a little less inclined to jump on a band wagon
I think this falls under the 10X rule again.
[the 10X rule being that something either has to be 10X cheaper
its best interpreted as :
"Don't you DARE format my hard drive, its not a fatal error !"
you know .. thats a very good idea .. .. .. ]
.. since e-bay doen't keep sale auction info around longer than 2-3 months anymore .. but i don't mind handing it out .. maybe someone can make it more useful .. and have a website that houses a database of such patterns :) [i dont have the BW to do it]
lemmi take a few days to clean it up
[its currantly ugly and hacked . i took it from some code i wrote to display e-bay auctions and their status on a web page i was developing for someone
its not as useful as it used to be
(it also recursivly checks any patterns of individuals found by examining their feedback ratings for patterns)
this is what i found on his last 4 auctions: all of these bids were placed on the last day of the auction
edster007 (19) $20.00 Nov-30-01 07:46:45 PST
tennisdoc (416) $21.06 Nov-30-01 12:55:09 PST
edster007 (19) $30.00 Nov-30-01 07:46:07 PST
tennisdoc (416) $32.99 Nov-30-01 12:53:48 PST
edster007 (19) $30.00 Nov-30-01 14:00:09 PST
tennisdoc (416) $31.99 Nov-30-01 12:52:38 PST
edster007 (19) $25.00 Nov-30-01 07:44:09 PST
tennisdoc (416) $31.52 Nov-30-01 12:56:20 PST
while this doesn't mean this guy (whos account im not posting
before people shout 'thats not what the article is talking about' let me point out .. that if this guy (who had over a 90 rating on ebay) WAS doing this .. he has been doing it for at least 6 months. its relativly cheap to win your own e-bay auction .. like 1% or so .. and build up false creadibilty.
My wife works with one of the 'doctors' who wrote a section of that book. He is a middle school english teacher .. and has nothing to do with human-interaction research.
.. he works in one of the worse schools in the district, even though he has a doctorate, where he was rather 'suddenly' transfered from his rather cushy county school job .. mid year .. that ought to set off some warning bells.]
.. just beacuse someone has their name in print, doesn't mean they are doing more than BS'ing.
.. there were parts in that book that were general enough to make me say .. 'yeah.. yeah ..i can see that']
[incidently
my point being
[still though
hmm .. GW was considering a suit .. i remember :) I sat in a meeting when it was brought up :P
.. but honestly .. they didn't because they figured 'its only a computer game .. no one will ever really see it.'
.. warcraft was quite some time ago :P]
.. before naming it warcraft .. they wanted to call it warhammer .. Really, its probally better Blizzard went their own way .. since GW keeps a strangehold on its IP ..
.. its funny that it looking to go full circle.
.. still .. i liked them anyways .. enough of this .. before it goes off topic :P
[I worked in the Nottingham/Eastwood office]
they could have made a case
[remember
and they did approach gw with licencing rights
at the time the guys who became blizzard we're kinda bitter about that
heh
that 90% of their games are a direct rip off of games-workshop products. [A fact that blizzard has admitted to me personally of course. ]
.. Blizzard had approached Games-Workshop [when I was still working there] saying something to the tune of: 'We really like your games, and look .. we have been putting together a computer game like them .. do you want to give us a licence?'
.. (again .. foolish) lets take a look at some evidence:
.. only games-workshop orcs (and orks if you play 40k) are green.]
.. (prior art record of about 6-7 years)
.. GW could have sued the pants off them several times .. but the board of directors [who .. if nothing else .. are shrewd] thought 'hey .. this is only going to help us in the long run .. the more kids that like THESE games . the bigger the piece of our pie will get.'
At one point
GW said no (foolish) and had microprose do it instead
Warcraft --> Warhammer Fantasy Battle [most orcs in tolken, d&d etc are brown
Starcraft --> don't those little alien buggers look like Eldar and Tyranids ? down to the colouring ?
Diablo --> Direct rip off of the G-W game Dungeon Quest
What is my point in this rambling accusation ?
That blizzard should take a look at what their business operations are doing
Blizzard ought to consider stepping out of the small business mindset of 'I need to take all the customers in my market' and step into the fortune 500 mindset of 'I need to MAKE more customers for my market'
now ..i totally agree with you on your point of expecting microsoft to do a 180 on marketing.
.. FDIC only covers 100,000 :P after that the rest is history. [just incase you didn't know]
.. easy for us geeks to see .. but not so easy for a 65 year old vested bank owner who finished college with an old IBM typewriter.]
.. but it will automagically patch itself to fix any discovered bugs.
.. and then .. 3 weeks later .. is destroyed through an exploit in the system. Do you hold the bank responsible ? [for using the most popular operating system which 1/2 its employees probally grew up with ?]
.. isnt it ?
.. no matter how much they hold up a plaquard saying 'more secure, less code'.
:( And even more so that they can get AWAY with it.
.. most banks -as of about 5 years ago - use a combination of Digital/Unisys systems .. programmed with Batch COBOL. I spent 5 years as a COBOL programmer for a branch of the FED .. *shudder* still causes me night tremmers.]
EXCEPT (big except) they are the ones touting the 'we're gonna be more secure' stick. I wouldn't mind so much, if they haven't been hypocritical about it in the past. Any other supplier who made similar clames, has been held responsible.
Back to the bank analogy:
first
second: if your bank was running a system that was represented to them as the most secure [how are they to know how to sort propaganda from cold hard facts
lets assume only for the sake of this argument, that somehow the 32 billion (or whatever its at today) propaganda machine of M$ managed to convince a bank owner that not only is windows BankXP more secure than anything out there
lets say the bank owner buys in
or do you hold the company who made the software, and was 'creativly' avoiding mentioning thats its not REALLY as secure as you can make it.
and who does the bank blame ?
how about the supreme court ?
(which is where it would wind up eventually)
*sigh* its all a mess
I totally agree that MS isnt going to change any time soon
It only irks me that the odds of them announcing their 'safer' frame of mind is probally more lip service than anything
[and just for the record
not really childish ..
.. would YOU want your bank running a windows server to keep track of your $$ ? how about one hooked up to the internet so they can communicate with their other branches ?
.. just a cold shock of reality here .. but you should be very worried, not only does microsoft WANT this to happen, they have been agressivly trying to GET it to happen for the last 2-3 years.
they are asking them to make good on the promises they have been telling the general public (and Wall street btw)
I mean
well
imagine how quickly ONE security flaw in a bank server could render you broke.
The trick is, as the author points out ... how honest are they being ? Is this a dog & pony show ? or do they REALLY mean to change the way they work.
.. and almost all my programming experience was on a mainframe.] It was considered a basic concept of design to keep your data abstract from your code ..
.. it wasn't as simple as clicking 'view source' back then either *grin*
.. M$ is still got everyone [cept apple .. but i dont have one] beat in the 'average american' user market.
.. and cant program her VCR .. but if she can figure out how to use AOLIM for instance, then its probally safe to say its easy.
.. and that would be great .. if it wasn't so easy to break. every time it breaks .. the 3rd tier tech support guru's at microsoft tell her to re-install the software. Not exactly instilling confidence that they know what the hell they are talking about.
..will become a much better product.
Almost all the concepts presented were ones I learned in college [I graduated a few years before windows 95 came out
of course
As much as I love *NIX for a server environmet, I have to say
I always use the "My Mom" theory when determining if something is easy to use. My mom is almost 80 years old
Windows passes the My Mom test
If M$ can get actually accomplish even these seven steps, they honestly
The real telling point would be , if they had to evolve far enough to MAKE these changes, would they grow up as a company ?
I can't imagine how anyone in their right mind would want to read an E-book.
.. I spend 8-9 hours at work in front of a moniter, and another 2-3 at LEAST at home. [be it contract work or Counter Strike]
.. is for about an hour before I go to sleep, I read. I read .. and I read like the wind .. [120 pages an hour EASY .. sometimes up to 300]
.. will never replace a simple $6.99 paperback.
.. an e-book reader runs about $269.00 when i last checked [a pal bought one]. Assuming that E-books were either warez or free .. I would have to read about 40 books to make that cheaper than buying paperbacks. [about 2-3 months .. i read over 120 books a year easy].
.. if i know they destroy books, its cheap enough to buy them their own copy.] Unless my pal's family all have e-readers, thats pretty hard to do with a digital book.
.. but not for long .. there is still the classic charm of a physical book to consider.
As a programmer/Web developer
My one love of the evening
I consider this *RESTING* my eyes after a day of irradiating them. E-books, not matter how much the geeky quirky appeal they have to me
First off
For me that give it a chance at being a $$ savings (if we forget about the pleasure of holding a book), but what about my fieance` who reads like 5 books a year ? would never be worth it!
The other big selling point of a normal book, is i can give it to someone else. [or
e-paper would make me doubt my stance
What about M.C. Escher who used math/math concepts extensivly in his artwork.
or Movies, a purely technological entertainment/artform only been around since the early 1900's
And we should probally gloss right over the printing press, ignoring the hundreds of thousands of stories/ideas it allowed writers to create.
*sigh*
Wow .. such anger ..
.. I code, and I do it for a fortune 500.
.. jeans and something presentable do me just fine. [no one seems to have a problem with my atire.]
.. I work 9:30 ish to 7:00 ish .. generally I skip lunch .. so the company makes out on the deal. I have been known to come in at 2:00 when a server goes down, or work 16 hour days if there is a big deadline on the block.
.. but the VP of this company wears dockers and a sweater to work, is under 35, and seems to get by fine without his power suit.
.. but not haveing my tie on until I sat down. I was the 3rd best salesman in that company .. $3-4 million a year in sales average for my 3 years there. My boss sounded a lot like you .. in his 40's and stuck in the 'old way' the world works.
.. but this guy was asking for CONSTRUCTIVE advice .. not critizism.
maybe you should reconsider moving into management.
Im a geek
I don't wear a suit
I'm married, she is a teacher - kids will come eventually, but why I should schedule my life and work around someone else's kids is a mystery to me.
I don't work 8:00-6:00
The issue I have with your little outburst here is that you immediatly classify anyone who doen't fit into the 1940's view of the business world as someone who can't function 'NORMALLY' in society.
Sorry to break this to you man
When the chips are down, as long as I make/break deadlines - my boss wouldn't care if I painted myself purple every morning and coded sitting on a pillow. I was hired to program, not to entertain clients, not to market product, not to be a 'company' man, and go with the flow. I was hired to produce results, and as anyone who has been in the big business world knows, thats usually solved with a lot of shouting at one another across a board-table untill everyone figures out the best way to go.
2 jobs ago I was fired for coming to work on time
Sorry for the semi-agressive flame
oh .. im sorry .. several people can point out my 'geographical mistake' and get modded up .. but when i laughingly poke fun at my own mistake i get modded down ..
.. lets spend some more karma here :)
.. at least be consistant and mod EVERYONE down a point .. rather than picking the last food on the chain.
well
if you want to mod my previous responce down
thats just petty.
*chuckle*
:P]
.. they still use the pound stirling. using a different currency than the rest of 'now united' Europe only firms this up in my mind.
:P After all, I'm just a bloody American, everyone knows we're all ego-centric. Europe's that place where they put the new Disneyland right ?
I should have said :
'Great Britain/Wales/Scotland/Ireland' as well as
'The continental European nations including France, Spain et.al' '
point being, part of Europe or not,
don't have the same amount of web-bullshit that we seem to cultivate here in the U.S.
be that economy, or society driven.
[or even if its because they are too busy fighting about wether or not Britain should be Euro
on a personal note (tounge firmly in cheek)
I always separate them simply because they are geographically separate from the continent, and have always striven to govern their isle separately from Europe.
point and case
of course, that's not insinuating that my mind is a neat and orderly place
actually i was referring to the dot.bombs .. and things like 'penis enlargement pills' or 'Become an ordained minister and marry your brother' e-mails.
even though SUN is in the US, I don't know if we can legitamatly claim java errors *grin*
chuckle .. your in Britian ..and you admidt to being part of europe ? your better than most of the folks i lived/worked with over there heh.
:P
just taking the piss . but do you use the Euro or the Sterling ? *grin*
part of europe indeed
errr .. last i checked .. Microsoft was the heart of .NET(tm)
.. if so .. then [being an American myself] I suggest you try looking outside the borders of our country .. 90% of the web's BullShit not only concerns only the U.S. .. but it happens in our borders.
.. this could be because you still pay per min when using a phone over there.
unless your talking about the World Wide Web
Both the U.K. and Europe in general have a great deal more of an 'information' presence.
of course
Kats, Kats, Who Let the Katz out ?
Hehe .. thats not me .. but I have a 5 moniter setup :P
1 agp and 4 voodoo 3 3500's
great when your doing web-work.
AOLIM is free .
.. and done.
.. everything else uses trillian (whom I have sent 3 donations to via paypal of $15 each .. ) because there product is very smooth, works well.
.. but that could be the autoupdate thing kicking in.
.. AOL needs the ad revenue, Trillian is better. What I think a lot of folks also forget is .. there is NO WAY [at least as far as i can figure out] that aol can tell if someone is using trillian. I mean .. My Girlfriend uses aol 4.5 or something .. and that IM client still works .. so they haven't changed anything important .. right ?
.. or the 4-5 linux aol interfaces .. don't advertise by sending extra stuff on the stream.
.. charge a 1 time fee for user names. I mean .. we're talking about a company that doesnt even RECYCLE usernames when someone cancels the service.
I have it, and I havent had an active AOL account since 1995. When you used to be charged per min.
I just go in , sign up for an aol name
I use that on one machine at home
I also have not had any issues with aol
People here are screaming for both sides
Im sure trillian
If aol is really worried about it
[unless someone can explain to me how I can still log in with my 1995 aol account name as 'guest']
sure .. maybe its a troll comment ..
.. you cant live on a 10% profit margin.
.. before they piss their distributor chains off.
.. sell either at retail .. or sell 'reconditioned - or sub-standard products. [nick ad ding stuff] if we were to sell retail quality stuff discounted .. every single one of our channel sale accounts would drop us .. the two biggest (which im sure almost everyone in here has shopped in .. in most countries too) have it written into their contract.
but PRAISING retailers who deep discount ?
what is he thinking ? why does he THINK that dot.com's went out of business
Only small potatoes retilers can afford to do that for long
Manufacturing companies like the one I work for