I apologize to all teenage girls who are not swayed by all shoe ads and are software developers. I did not mean to seem offensive in my overbroad generalisation.
Let them connect with developers outside the company. (via blogs, mailing list, forums)
Don't censor them.
No email.
A very good online help system (wiki maybe) with feedback.
Good documentation. Document everything, including bugs, including stuff you're not sure about.
Work with O'Reilly to have one of your devs write a book on your system.
Involve outside developers in the design process, taking their feedback. Check out the gaming industry's record on that.
Make a complete toolkit available for free for "training and development"
Don't advertise in magazines. It's useless (see how far MS got with.NET advertising?), no amount of advertising can sway developers. We're not teenage girls and you're not selling shoes.
Make your company web site HTML4 or XHTML compliant, with accessibility in mind. Make it easy to navigate. Make it fast (limit dynamic pages please). Keep links forever. Don't go rearranging subdirectories every five days. Developers like good links (http://www.company.com/support/article001.html) and developers use Bookmarks (or Favorites ATCMB).
Oh, and no registration on your web site. There will be no teenage girls or corporate executives in the API Reference section in your site. I don't want to give you my name, email, address, phone and sexual preference just to download a zip file.
If you want to mail something out, then rethink that. Developers live on the net. If it's not on the net, we don't want it. (Sun sent me cubicle stuff once. I now trash all mail from them immediately, without looking at it.)
Oh, and the documentation should be in:
HTML downloadable. HTML browsable. PDF for printing. (make sure the margins are wide enough to hole punch the paper)
If they don't appreciate you or value your opinion, then don't give it.
It's only money.
It's only money to them. If you think otherwise you're deluding yourself.
If work is about more than money to you, you need to rethink. It should be only about money.
If you want to do something good for mankind, do it after work, and NEVER mention it at work, because it's none of their business. (because their business is only about money and this isn't).
It's unfair? Hell yeah.
Repeat after me: It's only money.
The vision is about money.
The teamwork is about money.
The appreciation lunches are about money.
Employee development is about money.
Training is about money.
The only thing that matters to a successful business is ROI (return on investment). Nothing else. NOTHING. Not you, not your opinion, not your likes, dislikes, happiness, sorrow, desires, aspiration, fears, nothing. Only Money.
This is why we are a capitalistic nation.
Capital=money -istic=the act, state, or theory of (related adjective form)
A nation that is money-istic.
And you wonder why people feel used...
(on an aside, ROI is translated KING in French, ironically)
Duh, if your company wanted best practice, they would provide the developer with the tools to research, design, implement, and deploy such "good practice"
These tools include:
-- Correct and up-to-date reference material (books or otherwise)
-- Time.
-- Peace and quiet.
-- Incentive to do it right (recognition from management, pay, long lunches, whatever)
-- connectivity tools (cell phone, weblog, newsgroups, business lunches with like-experienced people in other companies to pick their brain...isn't this what execs do?)
-- Help. This can be other developers, an assistant (to type all the documentation from the scratchy writing on yellow pad paper),
and last but not least:
-- a FUCKING BUDGET for ADEQUATE computer equipment (HW&SW). (you may detect a slight bit of frustration here)
As far as training, I get a lot more done with about 4 hours at Denny's (or starbux) and a Wrox or O'Reilly book than in front of a screen listening to some guy explain how at his last gig he did it this way and that.
Like soldiers can't be manipulated on the battlefield.
I would rather trust a room full of teenage killers full of redbull than soldiers who get cold, hungry, and questioning of orders (see IDF for commentary on the occupation)
Besides, if the encryption system is really good, then I don't see how they could. Besides, you could use anti-cheat technology, and have a relatively simple AI system take over if transmission is lost, to return to base with all possible speed, defend in place, etc.
Also, if they were powered via satlink, it would be relatively hard to jam, and one or two planes with a smart bomb could take out the jamming station. It would be easy to triangulate its location if you had hundreds of such devices in the field.
Besides, what lines? There would be no line.
Did you see a line in Afganistan?
Oh, sorry, it was the horizon. Everything below ground: Al Quaeda. Everythign above ground: US air force. In between? Well, innocent women and children.
That's why combat troops have their hair shaved so close. It's so the electrical defense system won't be detected by RPG-carrying (not RPG-playing mind you) terrorists.
In all honesty, however, I would think they should make the "urban warfare version of the tank. Something with an automatic 20mm cannon, one driver, armored, and low (like 3 feet off the ground) then make it for 100,000 dollars and instead of deploying 8 $25M tanks, they can deploy 2,000 of those. Actually, if they want to be really fancy (and the Brits fancy fancy it seems), they can have no driver and be driven by cyber-cafe 18-24 types via the net, as long (of course) as they can guarantee 100ms pings.
Then, all you need, is a maintenance/fueling/weaponry crew.
The other fun thing to do would be to allow the vehicles to become specialized in one other thing, such as mine clearing, or custom robotic arm, or plow, or maybe machine guns, or battlefield lasers, or rescue, etc.
Please be advised that calling me an idiot does not endear you to me.
Besides, I was born and grew up in France. My mother was almost killed by an American bomb in 1944. She was 1 year 2 months old.
On top of that, the millions who have died in Rwanda, china (remember 1852-6?) soviet russia, afghanistan, and so on ad nauseam and ad infinum were NOT the fault of any US policy. They were the fault of other policies, by the leadership of other countries. And in most cases, that leadership is still in place, and they are now our "good friends" and "customers". What are we to do? Nuke them? We can't do anything short of that, because they would nuke us first.
We live in a dangerous world, and some people are going to die.
Being French, I recall an argument I had with a teacher back there: Why did France with its 130 army divisions not invade germany in 1936-37 an put an end to Hitler? They could have. Everybody knows that. Hitler even knew that; that's why he kept his military developments very secret.
The teacher argued that no one really knew what Hitler was capable of until it was too late. Then France, who only in 1938 could have crushed Germany, was in fact atacked and forced to surrender in 1940, in less than 6 months of fighting.
If Hussein develops and tests nukes, then the US will just back off (who would allow Miami, FL to be nuked?) and the whole middle east will become a charred land, like europe was in 1945, after 50 million people died.
We have the capability to stop him now. We have knowledge of his intent, and we have (i hope) the moral obligation to save the lives of millions of people.
But the Europeans are saying wait.
Yes, and the europeans said wait in 1938 too.
So, being french, I can say to the europeans: Fuck them.
Let's take Saddam's regime out. Yes, many thousands may die, and yes, it may cost (i head on CPAN) something like 16 billion dollars. But it will surely be less expensive than rebuilding: --Turkey --Iran --Irak --Jordan - -Israel --Syria --Lebanon --Saudi Arabia --Kuwait --Barhain
Because you know that if Iraq gets nukes, Iran will have to get some too.
Iran is on the verge of revolution, and so is Iraq. Both of these countries are governed by dictatorships that don't have popular support and are seriously out-of-touch with the rest of the world. They will piss each other off, and nukes will detonate. (remember, they WANT to meet Allah and especially the virgins (I forget how many)).
Once that starts, one will "accidentally" level Tel-Aviv, and Israel will retaliate, and we'll be sucked into a war that will make vietnam seem like a Fort-Bragg exercise.
Oh, right... Because the janitor on the thrid floor was really a counter-terrorism specialist who had just come back from a super-secret mission inside afghanistan where she had singlehandedly killed 80 Al-Quaeda cadre.
What if you can't maintain peace and free trade without intervention?
Do you give up on peace and free trade for the sake of non-intervention or do you intervene in order to maintain free trade and peace?
You do realize that if you don't stand up to the bullies in other countries while they are in other countries, they eventually come spread mayhem here. (see 9/11--however sad--for some realism)
Smaller exchange servers: We're looking at that, but the reality is that we have one mail admin (no me thank god) who is also our network and router guru (and PDC admin, and server installer). He also likes to have his weekends. So one server is still a good idea. Plus, the compaq servers with tapes and RAID5 aren't cheap. (plus, someone has to feed the tapes at the locations)
No DMZ. Ultimately we want to allow zero incoming ports.
the user issue: exactly. We have to make things easy for the users. If things are easy for them, they are more efficient, the company makes more money, and we get paid more (back to the old business model)
If it is so standard compliant, then why is it a total beast to get other systems working with it?
Am I suggesting we ditch email? Well, it would be nice. It won't happen until we have something better, but something better will happen, and then it will happen inexorably. Who uses GOPHER anymore?
The whole concept of Exchange, in my opinion, is flawed. Each Exchange server recreates a mini-internet within a lan, that connects to other mini-internets within other lans, tied together by wans (or mans--as the case may be) and also tied together by the real internet [a nebulous definition goes here].
Here, we have one Exchange server for 150 people. But then there are 9 locations, from San Francisco to san Diego. They all hit the same server through the wan.
Remote users (15+) also use outlook web access (i't really Exchange web access if you think about it) to access their mail. We have to allow that traffic through the firewall.
And every single one of our people have one or more other email addresses (AOL, Earthlink, RR, whatever).
I would say: have better addressing handling.
Email was first created by geeks for geeks (at univs. and gov.) and served its purpose well. When the move was made to the company, the whole transition was just done wrong.
I say the Exchange servers should be totally eliminiated in favor of a non-lan/wan centric solution (watch your step, marketing words all around), namely a true internet application, shared, replicable, and reliable.
As far as calendaring is concerned, we don't use it much. Our corporate values promote face-time and intelligent conversation more than lines on a spreadsheet, so meetings are more dynamic, more fluid, and less apt tp be "scheduled". Usually it's a phone call.
Anyway, I digress.
But this may be the reason no open-sourcer wants to tackle that issue. It may subconsciously feel flawed to recreate the Exchange architecture.
Coming soon to a web-site near you: Slashdot, the Great Summary. Complete will all relevant tidbits and free of chaff. Oh, wait, O'Reilly already does that. They're called books.
Absolutely. If you don't like the book, return it. They give you 30 days no-question money-back refund. Do people actually do this? I don't doubt it. Do most? I don't think so. Why? Because if you actuall LIKE the book, you'll feel that you got your money's worth, and you'll keep it. You might even go buy MORE books from the same author.
make sure that when you do you use a black marker that goes through the shrink wrap and actually damages the book. It's passed off as "damage-in-transit" and there's nothing anybody can do about it.
Actually, I haven't sampled at amazon... Amazing huh?
Re:Some Java books are even worse
on
Shrinkwrapped Books
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
There is no law that says that you have to read "every single page" of a book you buy. You just say: I skipped those pages (I had a headache or something) They're going to ask why you skipped them, and you'll say: "It looked boring" to which there is of course no reply, because that would be the go-awful truth.
Get the book, go to the bathroom, unwrap the shrinkwrap with the license, then throw it away. When asked about the license, say: "What license?" I wonder how they're going to prove that you actually unwrapped the book yourself.
[I quote the whole thing because I hate snippets of quotes. They almost always mirepresent.]
"I guess you haven't been to a record store lately. A lot of them feature this really cool "wand" that you can swipe across the barcode of any CD in the bins - and you will immediately hear samples from the various tracks on that CD! It's really great.
Most record stores also feature "listening posts" where you can sample the music from CDs, but those are limited to the specific CDs being offered that month.
The Internet presents an unbelievable opportunity for sampling. Go to online music stores (like Tower, or Amazon, or loads of others) and click on the album you're interested in and you'll be able to hear samples all day long.
In short, everyone is better off when you, the consumer, get to know what you're buying before you buy it. You're a happier music fan, and we don't have an unhappy customer who feels ripped off."
---- First: I don't like to listen to 'samples'. I want to listen to the whole song, from beginning to end. and not just once, but several times.
Second: In the second paragraph, he states that there are listening booths that features the music being currently offered. I say that the 200+million files being shared on the net offer a slightly better selection. Besides, who wants to sit through "trash of the month" to find that ONE good track among the piles of BAD cds?
Third: Going to an online music store entails: - giving my information (name, email, etc) I hate that. - Being bombarded with popups and other spurious advertising (thank God for Moz) - see point one. I don't want to listen to a 30 seconds snippet at 128Kb when the whole song is available on KazaA at 192Kb, or sometimes at 320Kb.
Lastly: If I just listen to samples, I don't, in fact, know what I'm buying. The only way for me to know if I like a CD is to buy it, get home, turn the lights low, lay back in my sofa, put on the headphones, and listen to the whole album from start to finish. Then I'll be able to tell you if I like it. And if I don't, I want to be able to return it for a full refund.
As long as I can't return a CD for the full price, then I'm not a happy customer. And that's the fault of the recording industry (thanks Sony), and not the fault of the internet. It's a case of shooting oneself in the foot, if you ask me, then blaming everyone else for the bleeding foot when they have the smoking gun in hand.
You're right, of course. For the corporate customer, however, it's perfect. You get Dell support and warranty on parts, replacements, etc.
As far as the individual, it's less about what PC I would get for me, but what PC I would get for friends that don't 'trust' a no-name customized box but would trust a Dell... (Dude, You're getting a Dell, with Linux)
Slashdot Mirror
I apologize to all teenage girls who are not swayed by all shoe ads and are software developers. I did not mean to seem offensive in my overbroad generalisation.
I think his question is not on how to market the product, but rather how to create a dev community around their product.
You have developers in-house.
.NET advertising?), no amount of advertising can sway developers. We're not teenage girls and you're not selling shoes.
Let them connect with developers outside the company.
(via blogs, mailing list, forums)
Don't censor them.
No email.
A very good online help system (wiki maybe) with feedback.
Good documentation. Document everything, including bugs, including stuff you're not sure about.
Work with O'Reilly to have one of your devs write a book on your system.
Involve outside developers in the design process, taking their feedback. Check out the gaming industry's record on that.
Make a complete toolkit available for free for "training and development"
Don't advertise in magazines. It's useless (see how far MS got with
Make your company web site HTML4 or XHTML compliant, with accessibility in mind. Make it easy to navigate. Make it fast (limit dynamic pages please). Keep links forever. Don't go rearranging subdirectories every five days. Developers like good links (http://www.company.com/support/article001.html) and developers use Bookmarks (or Favorites ATCMB).
Oh, and no registration on your web site. There will be no teenage girls or corporate executives in the API Reference section in your site. I don't want to give you my name, email, address, phone and sexual preference just to download a zip file.
If you want to mail something out, then rethink that. Developers live on the net. If it's not on the net, we don't want it. (Sun sent me cubicle stuff once. I now trash all mail from them immediately, without looking at it.)
Oh, and the documentation should be in:
HTML downloadable.
HTML browsable.
PDF for printing. (make sure the margins are wide enough to hole punch the paper)
Never do someone else's job for them.
If they want to let you go, then fine.
If they don't appreciate you or value your opinion, then don't give it.
It's only money.
It's only money to them. If you think otherwise you're deluding yourself.
If work is about more than money to you, you need to rethink. It should be only about money.
If you want to do something good for mankind, do it after work, and NEVER mention it at work, because it's none of their business. (because their business is only about money and this isn't).
It's unfair? Hell yeah.
Repeat after me: It's only money.
The vision is about money.
The teamwork is about money.
The appreciation lunches are about money.
Employee development is about money.
Training is about money.
The only thing that matters to a successful business is ROI (return on investment). Nothing else. NOTHING. Not you, not your opinion, not your likes, dislikes, happiness, sorrow, desires, aspiration, fears, nothing. Only Money.
This is why we are a capitalistic nation.
Capital=money
-istic=the act, state, or theory of (related adjective form)
A nation that is money-istic.
And you wonder why people feel used...
(on an aside, ROI is translated KING in French, ironically)
Duh, if your company wanted best practice, they would provide the developer with the tools to research, design, implement, and deploy such "good practice"
These tools include:
-- Correct and up-to-date reference material (books or otherwise)
-- Time.
-- Peace and quiet.
-- Incentive to do it right (recognition from management, pay, long lunches, whatever)
-- connectivity tools (cell phone, weblog, newsgroups, business lunches with like-experienced people in other companies to pick their brain...isn't this what execs do?)
-- Help. This can be other developers, an assistant (to type all the documentation from the scratchy writing on yellow pad paper),
and last but not least:
-- a FUCKING BUDGET for ADEQUATE computer equipment (HW&SW). (you may detect a slight bit of frustration here)
As far as training, I get a lot more done with about 4 hours at Denny's (or starbux) and a Wrox or O'Reilly book than in front of a screen listening to some guy explain how at his last gig he did it this way and that.
Like soldiers can't be manipulated on the battlefield.
I would rather trust a room full of teenage killers full of redbull than soldiers who get cold, hungry, and questioning of orders (see IDF for commentary on the occupation)
Besides, if the encryption system is really good, then I don't see how they could. Besides, you could use anti-cheat technology, and have a relatively simple AI system take over if transmission is lost, to return to base with all possible speed, defend in place, etc.
Also, if they were powered via satlink, it would be relatively hard to jam, and one or two planes with a smart bomb could take out the jamming station. It would be easy to triangulate its location if you had hundreds of such devices in the field.
Besides, what lines? There would be no line.
Did you see a line in Afganistan?
Oh, sorry, it was the horizon. Everything below ground: Al Quaeda. Everythign above ground: US air force. In between? Well, innocent women and children.
That's why combat troops have their hair shaved so close. It's so the electrical defense system won't be detected by RPG-carrying (not RPG-playing mind you) terrorists.
In all honesty, however, I would think they should make the "urban warfare version of the tank. Something with an automatic 20mm cannon, one driver, armored, and low (like 3 feet off the ground) then make it for 100,000 dollars and instead of deploying 8 $25M tanks, they can deploy 2,000 of those. Actually, if they want to be really fancy (and the Brits fancy fancy it seems), they can have no driver and be driven by cyber-cafe 18-24 types via the net, as long (of course) as they can guarantee 100ms pings.
Then, all you need, is a maintenance/fueling/weaponry crew.
The other fun thing to do would be to allow the vehicles to become specialized in one other thing, such as mine clearing, or custom robotic arm, or plow, or maybe machine guns, or battlefield lasers, or rescue, etc.
Tabs? Spaces? Haven't you seen the DCSS code? That's real code... :|
Sorry, that was too obfuscated.
WTFPAC (World Technology Fund)
Please be advised that calling me an idiot does not endear you to me.
- -Israel
Besides, I was born and grew up in France. My mother was almost killed by an American bomb in 1944. She was 1 year 2 months old.
On top of that, the millions who have died in Rwanda, china (remember 1852-6?) soviet russia, afghanistan, and so on ad nauseam and ad infinum were NOT the fault of any US policy. They were the fault of other policies, by the leadership of other countries. And in most cases, that leadership is still in place, and they are now our "good friends" and "customers". What are we to do? Nuke them? We can't do anything short of that, because they would nuke us first.
We live in a dangerous world, and some people are going to die.
Being French, I recall an argument I had with a teacher back there: Why did France with its 130 army divisions not invade germany in 1936-37 an put an end to Hitler? They could have. Everybody knows that. Hitler even knew that; that's why he kept his military developments very secret.
The teacher argued that no one really knew what Hitler was capable of until it was too late. Then France, who only in 1938 could have crushed Germany, was in fact atacked and forced to surrender in 1940, in less than 6 months of fighting.
If Hussein develops and tests nukes, then the US will just back off (who would allow Miami, FL to be nuked?) and the whole middle east will become a charred land, like europe was in 1945, after 50 million people died.
We have the capability to stop him now. We have knowledge of his intent, and we have (i hope) the moral obligation to save the lives of millions of people.
But the Europeans are saying wait.
Yes, and the europeans said wait in 1938 too.
So, being french, I can say to the europeans: Fuck them.
Let's take Saddam's regime out. Yes, many thousands may die, and yes, it may cost (i head on CPAN) something like 16 billion dollars. But it will surely be less expensive than rebuilding:
--Turkey
--Iran
--Irak
--Jordan
--Syria
--Lebanon
--Saudi Arabia
--Kuwait
--Barhain
Because you know that if Iraq gets nukes, Iran will have to get some too.
Iran is on the verge of revolution, and so is Iraq. Both of these countries are governed by dictatorships that don't have popular support and are seriously out-of-touch with the rest of the world. They will piss each other off, and nukes will detonate. (remember, they WANT to meet Allah and especially the virgins (I forget how many)).
Once that starts, one will "accidentally" level Tel-Aviv, and Israel will retaliate, and we'll be sucked into a war that will make vietnam seem like a Fort-Bragg exercise.
Oh, right... Because the janitor on the thrid floor was really a counter-terrorism specialist who had just come back from a super-secret mission inside afghanistan where she had singlehandedly killed 80 Al-Quaeda cadre.
Coming soon to theatres everywhere.
How about "SixPAC"?
or "WFTPAC" (World Fund for Technology)
What if you can't maintain peace and free trade without intervention?
Do you give up on peace and free trade for the sake of non-intervention or do you intervene in order to maintain free trade and peace?
You do realize that if you don't stand up to the bullies in other countries while they are in other countries, they eventually come spread mayhem here. (see 9/11--however sad--for some realism)
Bad setup: Granted.
Smaller exchange servers: We're looking at that, but the reality is that we have one mail admin (no me thank god) who is also our network and router guru (and PDC admin, and server installer). He also likes to have his weekends. So one server is still a good idea. Plus, the compaq servers with tapes and RAID5 aren't cheap. (plus, someone has to feed the tapes at the locations)
No DMZ.
Ultimately we want to allow zero incoming ports.
the user issue: exactly. We have to make things easy for the users. If things are easy for them, they are more efficient, the company makes more money, and we get paid more (back to the old business model)
If it is so standard compliant, then why is it a total beast to get other systems working with it?
Am I suggesting we ditch email? Well, it would be nice. It won't happen until we have something better, but something better will happen, and then it will happen inexorably. Who uses GOPHER anymore?
Ok, you've got a point. For Email.
But the exchange server is far from just email. It becomes a single point of failure for a bunch of stuff. Plus is expensive as just a mail server.
The whole concept of Exchange, in my opinion, is flawed. Each Exchange server recreates a mini-internet within a lan, that connects to other mini-internets within other lans, tied together by wans (or mans--as the case may be) and also tied together by the real internet [a nebulous definition goes here].
Here, we have one Exchange server for 150 people. But then there are 9 locations, from San Francisco to san Diego. They all hit the same server through the wan.
Remote users (15+) also use outlook web access (i't really Exchange web access if you think about it) to access their mail. We have to allow that traffic through the firewall.
And every single one of our people have one or more other email addresses (AOL, Earthlink, RR, whatever).
I would say: have better addressing handling.
Email was first created by geeks for geeks (at univs. and gov.) and served its purpose well. When the move was made to the company, the whole transition was just done wrong.
I say the Exchange servers should be totally eliminiated in favor of a non-lan/wan centric solution (watch your step, marketing words all around), namely a true internet application, shared, replicable, and reliable.
As far as calendaring is concerned, we don't use it much. Our corporate values promote face-time and intelligent conversation more than lines on a spreadsheet, so meetings are more dynamic, more fluid, and less apt tp be "scheduled". Usually it's a phone call.
Anyway, I digress.
But this may be the reason no open-sourcer wants to tackle that issue. It may subconsciously feel flawed to recreate the Exchange architecture.
Coming soon to a web-site near you: Slashdot, the Great Summary.
Complete will all relevant tidbits and free of chaff.
Oh, wait, O'Reilly already does that. They're called books.
real japanese haiku (famous too) memorized (and even learned to write but forgot later) in Japan in 2000.
Yama Ji Kite
Nani yara yukashi
Sumire Gusa
(loose translation)
Upon a mountain road.
What I encounter?
A purple plant.
One of the things I know about japanese is that they use the present tense more.
Absolutely. If you don't like the book, return it. They give you 30 days no-question money-back refund.
Do people actually do this? I don't doubt it. Do most? I don't think so. Why? Because if you actuall LIKE the book, you'll feel that you got your money's worth, and you'll keep it. You might even go buy MORE books from the same author.
make sure that when you do you use a black marker that goes through the shrink wrap and actually damages the book. It's passed off as "damage-in-transit" and there's nothing anybody can do about it.
Actually, I haven't sampled at amazon... Amazing huh?
There is no law that says that you have to read "every single page" of a book you buy. You just say: I skipped those pages (I had a headache or something) They're going to ask why you skipped them, and you'll say: "It looked boring" to which there is of course no reply, because that would be the go-awful truth.
Get the book, go to the bathroom, unwrap the shrinkwrap with the license, then throw it away. When asked about the license, say: "What license?" I wonder how they're going to prove that you actually unwrapped the book yourself.
I love his statement:
[I quote the whole thing because I hate snippets of quotes. They almost always mirepresent.]
"I guess you haven't been to a record store lately. A lot of them feature this really cool "wand" that you can swipe across the barcode of any CD in the bins - and you will immediately hear samples from the various tracks on that CD! It's really great.
Most record stores also feature "listening posts" where you can sample the music from CDs, but those are limited to the specific CDs being offered that month.
The Internet presents an unbelievable opportunity for sampling. Go to online music stores (like Tower, or Amazon, or loads of others) and click on the album you're interested in and you'll be able to hear samples all day long.
In short, everyone is better off when you, the consumer, get to know what you're buying before you buy it. You're a happier music fan, and we don't have an unhappy customer who feels ripped off."
----
First:
I don't like to listen to 'samples'. I want to listen to the whole song, from beginning to end. and not just once, but several times.
Second: In the second paragraph, he states that there are listening booths that features the music being currently offered. I say that the 200+million files being shared on the net offer a slightly better selection. Besides, who wants to sit through "trash of the month" to find that ONE good track among the piles of BAD cds?
Third:
Going to an online music store entails:
- giving my information (name, email, etc) I hate that.
- Being bombarded with popups and other spurious advertising (thank God for Moz)
- see point one. I don't want to listen to a 30 seconds snippet at 128Kb when the whole song is available on KazaA at 192Kb, or sometimes at 320Kb.
Lastly:
If I just listen to samples, I don't, in fact, know what I'm buying. The only way for me to know if I like a CD is to buy it, get home, turn the lights low, lay back in my sofa, put on the headphones, and listen to the whole album from start to finish. Then I'll be able to tell you if I like it. And if I don't, I want to be able to return it for a full refund.
As long as I can't return a CD for the full price, then I'm not a happy customer. And that's the fault of the recording industry (thanks Sony), and not the fault of the internet. It's a case of shooting oneself in the foot, if you ask me, then blaming everyone else for the bleeding foot when they have the smoking gun in hand.
You're right, of course. For the corporate customer, however, it's perfect. You get Dell support and warranty on parts, replacements, etc.
... (Dude, You're getting a Dell, with Linux)
As far as the individual, it's less about what PC I would get for me, but what PC I would get for friends that don't 'trust' a no-name customized box but would trust a Dell