I think there is a bit of a story in the fact that while in function, it is extremely simple though in result/appearance it creates what most perceive to be a complex maze of passages. The code puts out random positive space objects while the mind sees a single, complex negative space.
It sort of reminds me of similar little tricks used to generate landscapes and other such things... mandelbrot comes to mind.
What difference does it make if it's ALSO distributed through other means? Bit Torrent is a way to share. It provides leechers with a way to give back and also a way to download things much faster than singular providers/hosts can.
No one will convince you of anything contrary to your beliefs. That's just fine. Reality will go on without you.
Things are changing. The events of today are eerily similar to those that precede major changes. But with the existence of political movements in support of change, it might well result in changes without blood being spilled. But the [ab]use of police force against little girls with "Pooh" laptops will eventually trigger some things I hope I'm not there to watch.
Like you, there is an army of people who have less and less to lose. We are waiting for the moment of escallation. That moment when some ridiculous, misunderstood, miscommunicated event tips things off in the wrong direction and we have a large event where civilians and government enforcers clash... and then another, and another. It will take a few of these before people get motivated to actually defend themselves. We are slow and depend on our tainted news services.
Nevertheless, it is a moment which is approaching. I'll be one of those armed with sticks, stones and bare hands... I don't own a gun and am starting to wish I did.
But as we all have less and less to lose, fighting back becomes an easier option for consideration.
If the government is listening (and we know they are) the best way to stop it is to ensure we all have something to lose... hopefully, it will be nice things which make our lives more comfortable or less stressful. I'd be a much better slave/prisoner if I were comfortable and stress free you know.
Microsoft is proving they don't get it. They are proving they aren't looking at what is going on our there or what interests users. How long before the stock traders take notice and the stock value fails? (I know when that will happen... when they show losses, which won't happen for a very, very long time. No way business is going to get rid of Microsoft any time soon as much as I would like to see otherwise... but the PC is the new typewriter... again. *ONLY* business people will use them... and then, only those who "work.")
I hold that the mission is currently wrong. It was wrong when I was in... I just didn't know it at the time. The fact is, we aren't fighting for our freedom. We're fighting for someone's continued profit and domination and to ensure that the US remains the dominant power and by extension, the people who use the US's power to their will. I think everyone, regardless of the side of the issue they may have, agrees that the US and the US military have exceeded its purpose under the constitution. "Private interests" are now the current mission of the US military and the US government.
Though we are a "Windows Shop" here at my company, we have more Linux servers than Windows servers. How can that be? Turns out, our storage appliances, our Cisco phone system, our VMWare servers and lots more if you include the multi-function copiers and stuff are all Linux machines. We also have a small collection of Linux machines I put together which just run and run and run...
At one time, we were in a meeting talking about various topics and someone made the statement about Linux being a hobbyist system and blah blah blah... I was silent for a moment and then pointed out the largest professional server deployments on the planet are running under Linux.... and oh yeah, so are most of our servers... voicemail, virtual hosts, storage and all that. How, exactly, is Linux just a hobbyist system?
Linux, itself, is very widely accepted, used and relied upon. It is very proven.
What is needed now is serious added push for the SaMBa project to embrace and extend on Microsoft's AD. Take it over and make it better. After all, it's a bunch of services. There's a lot of really smart people out there who are quite capable and looking for a good project to get involved in. I'd like to point in SaMBa's direction. One thing it seriously lacks is a dumbass configuration tool.
I get that we can tweak on config files all day long and the SWAT thing is kinda nice. But we need to compete with the Windows domain server GUI tools and all that. The functionality is very much there. Now we just need something that dumbasses can use.
I think you hit on EXACTLY why the price is higher. Not some 'deal with Microsoft' that, if uncovered would mean a world of hurt for both Dell and Microsoft, but that they are losing a revenue stream by not having crapware installed! Things are beginning to make a little more sense now.
Just how much does Dell get from installing crapware?
Then Dell is doing it wrong. They obviously did not learn the lesson from Acer I believe it was. There was a netbook which had some other graphics chip, I forget which but someone here will likely chime in, that had a single driver binary compiled for a single version of the Linux kernel. After the kernel was updated, it wouldn't work any more. People did various creative things to hack functionality out of it, but in the end, the graphics-clowns screwed pretty much everyone over on the deal and I don't think anyone is using their chips any more.
You don't customize the Linux to the machine. You select the hardware which is best known to work with Linux. It's not particularly hard to make such selections and it better guarantees a long and positive user experience.
THIS is exactly what I believe as well. They do not do this to entertain the rest of the world, but to promote confidence of their people in their government. Iran has little defense from the likes of Israel or the US. But it would be unseemly for the US or Israel to attack Iran at the moment. So Iran's primary concern is its own people and they need to remain calm, productive and confident. Quite a problem considering the economic pressures on them at the moment.
It is a bit hard. Not for me... not for people with self control and a little understanding of what goes on out there. The weak link is humans.
But that said, there is some blame in the design of Windows. I think the Apache web server needs to be stripped of its name to have it awarded to Windows. I think it might make Windows cooler somehow.
People want to claim there is no original code from DOS/Windows in the current versions of Windows. That may be true. Part of the problem is design. It still harbors the design of a single user, single tasking OS which was added upon for more than a decade of incremental changes, patches and fearure improvements, one after the other after the other. It's amazing it's not messier than it already is.
Would you rather drive a car that started out as a go-cart or a car which started out with stability and security in mind when the plans were drawn up?
Microsoft didn't have a plan in mind for Windows when it created DOS. It didn't even have Windows95 in mind when it created Windows 3. It's all a pile on top of a pile on top of a pile.
Not the way they want to do it. They want a web portal and web applications. It's not web if it needs more than a standards compliant web browser to access it. Now it's something else.
And spending as little as possible per desktop is the current order of the day. We've got serious budget cutbacks right now. I don't have the right people listening just yet. If they want to deploy Sharepoint, let it be 2007. I know exactly what to expect after 2010 gets more use and it will be EXPENSIVE.
Yeah, but people are waking up... and quicker than they did before.
I have set people up on Linux to help them past their constant virus problems. I couldn't educate them about what not to do... they did the things they shouldn't anyway. All they did was email and web. Linux did and does those things quite well. I still help them with their stuff once in a while, but Ubutnu (I am not an Ubuntu user but they are) makes it easy enough they figure most of the stuff out themselves. Also, no more crashing and slowness... no more viruses though they still see these warnings from time to time... they laugh them off now.
And their iPhones, iPads and android devices... they aren't "computers" but they sure deliver on their content cravings. Now people are realizing they don't need a PC as much as before... some people don't need PCs at all!!
Things are changing. The whole landscape is changing. If people are still talking about personal computers as if there is no other thing, they haven't been paying attention. Microsoft has been paying attention though. It's why they are pushing so desperately to be in those new markets. Problem is? Microsoft thought people loved them and are still coming to grips with the reality that people have hated them for a very long time and these viable alternatives are a relief... an escape.
Before long, "the stuff they want to run" will no longer be a compelling reason to stay with Windows. And the BYOD thing that's going on in offices all over? Oh yeah... Huge threat. Give a PHB with an iPad the ability to print his emails and everything else? Just watch what happens next.
DogDude. You're just wrong. The sales of Windows phones and tablets show how wrong.
Actually, I hold that it is fair to include applications in with crashiness to a degree. Technically, no. But practically, yes. As you pointed out, users don't know the difference. Worse, there is a culture which Microsoft helped to create and participated in. The development culture in MS Windows-land is horrible. And the OS should be able to defend against a bad application or a bad device driver. Windows doesn't do enough to protect against those threats. Just today I saw something that I haven't seen in a long time... a blue screen of death caused by AV software.
It's okay if a program crashes... well it's not...but it shouldn't take the OS with it and the program shouldn't have open file handles and memory lost either... the OS should be able to tidy those things up once a program dies. I don't see that happening often enough.
There is just so much wrong with Windows and the Microsoft environment that could have been prevented with mature consideration. But Microsoft had other motives in mind. They had competition to kill. IBM, Lotus, Novell and more. Once they flooded the market with their critical mass, they created so much crap that being able to keep things going became exponentially more complicated for Microsoft and for the users.
I think you know my point. Microsoft was a failure in the MP3 player business. I said iPod because it was an artful and efficient way to make my point. They wanted to compete with iPod and couldn't. They wanted to put their own spin on it...their own lock-down and lock-in. Didn't go over so well. Besides, "Zune" wasn't cool. Microsoft doesn't know what it means. If you didn't know what I meant or the message I was putting across, I'm sorry. There may be a social program you are eligible for...
It was easier when everything was new. They were lighter and more nimble. There were loads of problems which could be solved with a little more Microsoft magic. But these days, the problems are with Microsoft stuff and it's not so easy any more.
For example, it wasn't long ago when Office 2003 was the standard in my company. But my boss could not get beyond "but OEM is cheaper!!" I said "no it's not..." He simply couldn't get past how the OEMs price things. Well, he's not my boss any longer... anyway... so we had a mix of 2003 and 2007 and it was... "not good." Finally we got someone in that would listen and understand. So it was Office 2007 all around and all was good... but Office 2010 was out. Oh crap... here we go again. Forunately there was no compelling reason to force the matter... for a while.
My old boss was promoted sideways... moved out of the way if you will... somewhere he won't be able to cause so much harm. Well, not quite true. He was put in charge of "enterprise applications." Guess what? He's doing Sharepoint! Ah... Sharepoint 2010 was his selection... without any consultation with the rest of IT. No concern or consideration about what that sort of decision or deployment could make and with NO particular need for anything 2010 offers.... it's just "the newest." So it's best right? Oh god... someone in IT who hasn't gotten past the early 90s. We've already run into serious problems with Office 2007 and Office 2010 components trying to live together on the same machine... they don't do so well. (Try Visio 2010 pro and MS Acess 2007 on the same machine and see what happens.) The short of it is that these people don't have a clue about running a stable Microsoft shop. Newer? Better! Screw that. Hasn't been true for a very long time. Now newer is more expensive with a lot of collateral costs and expenses that have to go along with it.
Microsoft is now heavy. Planning an upgrade is no simple matter. Everything is tied together so much that moving one thing means moving a lot of things. Vendor lock-in was their goal and purpose and they have achieved it. But look! Someone deploys something that's supposed to be web and now people want to use MS Office with it.
People can't keep up without spending stupid amounts of money. And the return on investment? Shockingly low. Now keeping up is not an investment anyway... it has become a cost of doing business. Nice work Microsoft.... nice work.
A current problem in the US system is that the rich and powerful *ARE* the government and they (the rich and the government) are the few. And those few take the resources of the many and spend it any way they like... usually government taking from the poor and giving it to the rich by buying expensive crap we don't need.
And when their time in government is up, they walk through the revolving door and start collecting money... lots of it.
Microsoft has completely lost its head. It's as if they are looking at the world around them for the first time ever and are trying to be like everyone else around them without actually understanding why they are doing what they are doing.
Microsoft needs to understand not only its current customers, but the customers they want to have. I know this is not particularly Steve Jobsian, but Microsoft needs to understand what people want... or at LEAST what they don't want.
Why is Microsoft a failure in the iPod business? Where to begin? Why is Microsoft a failure in the phone and tablet business? Well? It should be obvious -- people don't want what they have come to expect from Microsoft on their phones... rebooting, slowness, crashiness and vulnerability. If Microsoft EVER wanted to participate in the phone/tablet market, they first need to address the problems people have with their current OS and Office products. The missing ingredient? USER CONFIDENCE.
In contrast, Microsoft has done well in gaming. Extremely well. I know my tiny sample of observation isn't sufficient to form a conclusion, but I can say, the Saturday after Black Friday, there were still Wii and PS3 game units for sale where I heard store people talking about how fast XBox360 disappeared. That was huge, in my opinion.
So if Microsoft wanted to make something handheld? I'd say they should make a handheld game system. Do it up like Android. Game market online and all that... a PSP competitor. I think they'd do well. Morph that into a phone and a tablet and they have their in. But don't turn Windows into a phone or a tablet. We don't want it.
And we don't want constant changes in the workplace.
The US of A is merely a land mass from which human people do the things they do. Under similar circumstance and opportunity other humans will do similarly. This is a fact of human nature. It has nothing to do with nationality. Let's be clear on this point.
That the rich and powerful of the US are abusing the rest of the world, I will not deny. The older I get, the more I awaken to it. But this is not really US Americans so much as it is a select group of people within the US. They seem to live in another plane of existence where the law and everything else treats them differently, protected in a cloak of money. They can harm the global economy without trouble to themselves, but a person can shop lift and get prison. I think the notion is clear enough.
It all happens because of greed you know. China wants more so they sell out their own people and pollute without shame. The US industries have done the same though within a tighter framework of law for centuries. (http://www.wvminesafety.org/disaster.htm) The link just points out one state and one type of industry, but you can pretty much guarantee this is not isolated. It is important to note that the people making decisions and money are completely isolated from problems which may result from their decisions in most cases. For example, several people in the BP incident were charged and convicted of crimes, but not the real decision makers... not the ones at the top.
But greed... greed... a human condition, not one which is exclusive to residents of a particular land mass. These are crimes of opportunity, not of character.
I hate to point this out but it is essentially and in practice quite true: Civilization is most advanced when we counter our own nature with a system of law and keep it enforced fairly and without exception. In order to be fair, law must be in the interests of the masses, not in the interests of the few. So religious law and law which supports the interests of a few need to go.
If anyone thinks "the US" is the problem, they need to look at where the people of the US came from and what those people, when allowed, have done to their world in the past and what they are doing at present. There are a lot of pots calling kettles black.
We should accept what we are and what we know of our nature. We should acknowledge we already have an effective solution to our weaknesses which we call a framework of constitutional law... and support it. When people protest government, people should demand that law and order prevail. Many people are. But we should focus on the causes here and this is, as I see it, the real cause when you exclude "human nature."
Google is where it is and is what it is because it's really good at its core business.
If the data exists on the internet and it is accessible to Google, then Google should capture the data. It is what they do and what we depend on them to do.
On the other hand, if the data is not relevant or currently accurate, then Google should have no problem purging cached results. So for example, a libelous comment or news article was made available online and then was retracted or removed by request and yet still appears in Google's searches, then Google should be obliged to remove it by request as it no longer reflects what is available.
From a purely functional standpoint, Google is a net positive for the internet. (For other reasons, I am less of a Google fan than you might think!)
I'm with you. I think Australia's business community would come together after being removed from Google for any amount of time and the government will have to rethink who is responsible for what speech.
Slashdot Mirror
I think there is a bit of a story in the fact that while in function, it is extremely simple though in result/appearance it creates what most perceive to be a complex maze of passages. The code puts out random positive space objects while the mind sees a single, complex negative space.
It sort of reminds me of similar little tricks used to generate landscapes and other such things... mandelbrot comes to mind.
What difference does it make if it's ALSO distributed through other means? Bit Torrent is a way to share. It provides leechers with a way to give back and also a way to download things much faster than singular providers/hosts can.
No one will convince you of anything contrary to your beliefs. That's just fine. Reality will go on without you.
Things are changing. The events of today are eerily similar to those that precede major changes. But with the existence of political movements in support of change, it might well result in changes without blood being spilled. But the [ab]use of police force against little girls with "Pooh" laptops will eventually trigger some things I hope I'm not there to watch.
You get what you pay for in this world most of the time... unless you are buying from the RIAA (BPI and others)
The DPI setting will scale your fonts and other items to look good on your screen.
Usually, I am reducing the DPI on high-definition screens so I can get smaller fonts and icons, but the opposite should also work.
Like you, there is an army of people who have less and less to lose. We are waiting for the moment of escallation. That moment when some ridiculous, misunderstood, miscommunicated event tips things off in the wrong direction and we have a large event where civilians and government enforcers clash... and then another, and another. It will take a few of these before people get motivated to actually defend themselves. We are slow and depend on our tainted news services.
Nevertheless, it is a moment which is approaching. I'll be one of those armed with sticks, stones and bare hands... I don't own a gun and am starting to wish I did.
But as we all have less and less to lose, fighting back becomes an easier option for consideration.
If the government is listening (and we know they are) the best way to stop it is to ensure we all have something to lose... hopefully, it will be nice things which make our lives more comfortable or less stressful. I'd be a much better slave/prisoner if I were comfortable and stress free you know.
... than to open your mouth and prove it.
Message for Microsoft above.
Microsoft is proving they don't get it. They are proving they aren't looking at what is going on our there or what interests users. How long before the stock traders take notice and the stock value fails? (I know when that will happen... when they show losses, which won't happen for a very, very long time. No way business is going to get rid of Microsoft any time soon as much as I would like to see otherwise... but the PC is the new typewriter... again. *ONLY* business people will use them... and then, only those who "work.")
A veteran here too.
I hold that the mission is currently wrong. It was wrong when I was in... I just didn't know it at the time. The fact is, we aren't fighting for our freedom. We're fighting for someone's continued profit and domination and to ensure that the US remains the dominant power and by extension, the people who use the US's power to their will. I think everyone, regardless of the side of the issue they may have, agrees that the US and the US military have exceeded its purpose under the constitution. "Private interests" are now the current mission of the US military and the US government.
So yes. The mission is wrong.
Seriously people. Linux is frikken everywhere.
Though we are a "Windows Shop" here at my company, we have more Linux servers than Windows servers. How can that be? Turns out, our storage appliances, our Cisco phone system, our VMWare servers and lots more if you include the multi-function copiers and stuff are all Linux machines. We also have a small collection of Linux machines I put together which just run and run and run...
At one time, we were in a meeting talking about various topics and someone made the statement about Linux being a hobbyist system and blah blah blah... I was silent for a moment and then pointed out the largest professional server deployments on the planet are running under Linux. ... and oh yeah, so are most of our servers... voicemail, virtual hosts, storage and all that. How, exactly, is Linux just a hobbyist system?
Linux, itself, is very widely accepted, used and relied upon. It is very proven.
What is needed now is serious added push for the SaMBa project to embrace and extend on Microsoft's AD. Take it over and make it better. After all, it's a bunch of services. There's a lot of really smart people out there who are quite capable and looking for a good project to get involved in. I'd like to point in SaMBa's direction. One thing it seriously lacks is a dumbass configuration tool.
I get that we can tweak on config files all day long and the SWAT thing is kinda nice. But we need to compete with the Windows domain server GUI tools and all that. The functionality is very much there. Now we just need something that dumbasses can use.
AH!!!!
I think you hit on EXACTLY why the price is higher. Not some 'deal with Microsoft' that, if uncovered would mean a world of hurt for both Dell and Microsoft, but that they are losing a revenue stream by not having crapware installed! Things are beginning to make a little more sense now.
Just how much does Dell get from installing crapware?
Then Dell is doing it wrong. They obviously did not learn the lesson from Acer I believe it was. There was a netbook which had some other graphics chip, I forget which but someone here will likely chime in, that had a single driver binary compiled for a single version of the Linux kernel. After the kernel was updated, it wouldn't work any more. People did various creative things to hack functionality out of it, but in the end, the graphics-clowns screwed pretty much everyone over on the deal and I don't think anyone is using their chips any more.
You don't customize the Linux to the machine. You select the hardware which is best known to work with Linux. It's not particularly hard to make such selections and it better guarantees a long and positive user experience.
THIS is exactly what I believe as well. They do not do this to entertain the rest of the world, but to promote confidence of their people in their government. Iran has little defense from the likes of Israel or the US. But it would be unseemly for the US or Israel to attack Iran at the moment. So Iran's primary concern is its own people and they need to remain calm, productive and confident. Quite a problem considering the economic pressures on them at the moment.
It all reminds me somewhat of N.Korea.
It is a bit hard. Not for me... not for people with self control and a little understanding of what goes on out there. The weak link is humans.
But that said, there is some blame in the design of Windows. I think the Apache web server needs to be stripped of its name to have it awarded to Windows. I think it might make Windows cooler somehow.
People want to claim there is no original code from DOS/Windows in the current versions of Windows. That may be true. Part of the problem is design. It still harbors the design of a single user, single tasking OS which was added upon for more than a decade of incremental changes, patches and fearure improvements, one after the other after the other. It's amazing it's not messier than it already is.
Would you rather drive a car that started out as a go-cart or a car which started out with stability and security in mind when the plans were drawn up?
Microsoft didn't have a plan in mind for Windows when it created DOS. It didn't even have Windows95 in mind when it created Windows 3. It's all a pile on top of a pile on top of a pile.
There is a document management group... just about 5 people in it though... company about 300.
Also, for sharing and workflows? We've already "standardized" on Documentum. Nice eh? Nobody plans anything any more.
Not the way they want to do it. They want a web portal and web applications. It's not web if it needs more than a standards compliant web browser to access it. Now it's something else.
And spending as little as possible per desktop is the current order of the day. We've got serious budget cutbacks right now. I don't have the right people listening just yet. If they want to deploy Sharepoint, let it be 2007. I know exactly what to expect after 2010 gets more use and it will be EXPENSIVE.
Yeah, but people are waking up... and quicker than they did before.
I have set people up on Linux to help them past their constant virus problems. I couldn't educate them about what not to do... they did the things they shouldn't anyway. All they did was email and web. Linux did and does those things quite well. I still help them with their stuff once in a while, but Ubutnu (I am not an Ubuntu user but they are) makes it easy enough they figure most of the stuff out themselves. Also, no more crashing and slowness... no more viruses though they still see these warnings from time to time... they laugh them off now.
And their iPhones, iPads and android devices... they aren't "computers" but they sure deliver on their content cravings. Now people are realizing they don't need a PC as much as before... some people don't need PCs at all!!
Things are changing. The whole landscape is changing. If people are still talking about personal computers as if there is no other thing, they haven't been paying attention. Microsoft has been paying attention though. It's why they are pushing so desperately to be in those new markets. Problem is? Microsoft thought people loved them and are still coming to grips with the reality that people have hated them for a very long time and these viable alternatives are a relief... an escape.
Before long, "the stuff they want to run" will no longer be a compelling reason to stay with Windows. And the BYOD thing that's going on in offices all over? Oh yeah... Huge threat. Give a PHB with an iPad the ability to print his emails and everything else? Just watch what happens next.
DogDude. You're just wrong. The sales of Windows phones and tablets show how wrong.
Actually, I hold that it is fair to include applications in with crashiness to a degree. Technically, no. But practically, yes. As you pointed out, users don't know the difference. Worse, there is a culture which Microsoft helped to create and participated in. The development culture in MS Windows-land is horrible. And the OS should be able to defend against a bad application or a bad device driver. Windows doesn't do enough to protect against those threats. Just today I saw something that I haven't seen in a long time... a blue screen of death caused by AV software.
It's okay if a program crashes... well it's not...but it shouldn't take the OS with it and the program shouldn't have open file handles and memory lost either... the OS should be able to tidy those things up once a program dies. I don't see that happening often enough.
There is just so much wrong with Windows and the Microsoft environment that could have been prevented with mature consideration. But Microsoft had other motives in mind. They had competition to kill. IBM, Lotus, Novell and more. Once they flooded the market with their critical mass, they created so much crap that being able to keep things going became exponentially more complicated for Microsoft and for the users.
I think you know my point. Microsoft was a failure in the MP3 player business. I said iPod because it was an artful and efficient way to make my point. They wanted to compete with iPod and couldn't. They wanted to put their own spin on it.. .their own lock-down and lock-in. Didn't go over so well. Besides, "Zune" wasn't cool. Microsoft doesn't know what it means. If you didn't know what I meant or the message I was putting across, I'm sorry. There may be a social program you are eligible for...
It was easier when everything was new. They were lighter and more nimble. There were loads of problems which could be solved with a little more Microsoft magic. But these days, the problems are with Microsoft stuff and it's not so easy any more.
For example, it wasn't long ago when Office 2003 was the standard in my company. But my boss could not get beyond "but OEM is cheaper!!" I said "no it's not..." He simply couldn't get past how the OEMs price things. Well, he's not my boss any longer... anyway... so we had a mix of 2003 and 2007 and it was ... "not good." Finally we got someone in that would listen and understand. So it was Office 2007 all around and all was good... but Office 2010 was out. Oh crap... here we go again. Forunately there was no compelling reason to force the matter... for a while.
My old boss was promoted sideways... moved out of the way if you will... somewhere he won't be able to cause so much harm. Well, not quite true. He was put in charge of "enterprise applications." Guess what? He's doing Sharepoint! Ah... Sharepoint 2010 was his selection... without any consultation with the rest of IT. No concern or consideration about what that sort of decision or deployment could make and with NO particular need for anything 2010 offers.... it's just "the newest." So it's best right? Oh god... someone in IT who hasn't gotten past the early 90s. We've already run into serious problems with Office 2007 and Office 2010 components trying to live together on the same machine... they don't do so well. (Try Visio 2010 pro and MS Acess 2007 on the same machine and see what happens.) The short of it is that these people don't have a clue about running a stable Microsoft shop. Newer? Better! Screw that. Hasn't been true for a very long time. Now newer is more expensive with a lot of collateral costs and expenses that have to go along with it.
Microsoft is now heavy. Planning an upgrade is no simple matter. Everything is tied together so much that moving one thing means moving a lot of things. Vendor lock-in was their goal and purpose and they have achieved it. But look! Someone deploys something that's supposed to be web and now people want to use MS Office with it.
People can't keep up without spending stupid amounts of money. And the return on investment? Shockingly low. Now keeping up is not an investment anyway... it has become a cost of doing business. Nice work Microsoft.... nice work.
A current problem in the US system is that the rich and powerful *ARE* the government and they (the rich and the government) are the few. And those few take the resources of the many and spend it any way they like... usually government taking from the poor and giving it to the rich by buying expensive crap we don't need.
And when their time in government is up, they walk through the revolving door and start collecting money... lots of it.
And a completely horrid thing for business users.
Microsoft has completely lost its head. It's as if they are looking at the world around them for the first time ever and are trying to be like everyone else around them without actually understanding why they are doing what they are doing.
Microsoft needs to understand not only its current customers, but the customers they want to have. I know this is not particularly Steve Jobsian, but Microsoft needs to understand what people want... or at LEAST what they don't want.
Why is Microsoft a failure in the iPod business? Where to begin? Why is Microsoft a failure in the phone and tablet business? Well? It should be obvious -- people don't want what they have come to expect from Microsoft on their phones... rebooting, slowness, crashiness and vulnerability. If Microsoft EVER wanted to participate in the phone/tablet market, they first need to address the problems people have with their current OS and Office products. The missing ingredient? USER CONFIDENCE.
In contrast, Microsoft has done well in gaming. Extremely well. I know my tiny sample of observation isn't sufficient to form a conclusion, but I can say, the Saturday after Black Friday, there were still Wii and PS3 game units for sale where I heard store people talking about how fast XBox360 disappeared. That was huge, in my opinion.
So if Microsoft wanted to make something handheld? I'd say they should make a handheld game system. Do it up like Android. Game market online and all that... a PSP competitor. I think they'd do well. Morph that into a phone and a tablet and they have their in. But don't turn Windows into a phone or a tablet. We don't want it.
And we don't want constant changes in the workplace.
Yet another reason to consider moving to Canada...
The US of A is merely a land mass from which human people do the things they do. Under similar circumstance and opportunity other humans will do similarly. This is a fact of human nature. It has nothing to do with nationality. Let's be clear on this point.
That the rich and powerful of the US are abusing the rest of the world, I will not deny. The older I get, the more I awaken to it. But this is not really US Americans so much as it is a select group of people within the US. They seem to live in another plane of existence where the law and everything else treats them differently, protected in a cloak of money. They can harm the global economy without trouble to themselves, but a person can shop lift and get prison. I think the notion is clear enough.
It all happens because of greed you know. China wants more so they sell out their own people and pollute without shame. The US industries have done the same though within a tighter framework of law for centuries. (http://www.wvminesafety.org/disaster.htm) The link just points out one state and one type of industry, but you can pretty much guarantee this is not isolated. It is important to note that the people making decisions and money are completely isolated from problems which may result from their decisions in most cases. For example, several people in the BP incident were charged and convicted of crimes, but not the real decision makers... not the ones at the top.
But greed... greed... a human condition, not one which is exclusive to residents of a particular land mass. These are crimes of opportunity, not of character.
I hate to point this out but it is essentially and in practice quite true: Civilization is most advanced when we counter our own nature with a system of law and keep it enforced fairly and without exception. In order to be fair, law must be in the interests of the masses, not in the interests of the few. So religious law and law which supports the interests of a few need to go.
If anyone thinks "the US" is the problem, they need to look at where the people of the US came from and what those people, when allowed, have done to their world in the past and what they are doing at present. There are a lot of pots calling kettles black.
We should accept what we are and what we know of our nature. We should acknowledge we already have an effective solution to our weaknesses which we call a framework of constitutional law... and support it. When people protest government, people should demand that law and order prevail. Many people are. But we should focus on the causes here and this is, as I see it, the real cause when you exclude "human nature."
I do and I don't.
Google is where it is and is what it is because it's really good at its core business.
If the data exists on the internet and it is accessible to Google, then Google should capture the data. It is what they do and what we depend on them to do.
On the other hand, if the data is not relevant or currently accurate, then Google should have no problem purging cached results. So for example, a libelous comment or news article was made available online and then was retracted or removed by request and yet still appears in Google's searches, then Google should be obliged to remove it by request as it no longer reflects what is available.
From a purely functional standpoint, Google is a net positive for the internet. (For other reasons, I am less of a Google fan than you might think!)
I'm with you. I think Australia's business community would come together after being removed from Google for any amount of time and the government will have to rethink who is responsible for what speech.