Seems like a kludge to use DST when you could just shift timezones where appropriate.
Try changing timezones on all of the desktop computers in your company, and it ain't as easy as it looks. Let alone in a national company with offices in a few timezones, roaming users on laptops, network devices at various switching facilities, etc. There is no "just shift timezones" twice a year.
No matter, why should I take a check from you when I gave you cash?
Because I deposited your cash in the bank, and the bank has 2-3 days before that cash is available to me. Therefore, I write you a check so you can get the funds as quickly as I do. Think in terms of Christmas season: you can have hundreds of people buy big-ticket items, only to turn around and return them when the store simply doesn't have the cash on hand. I'd have two choices: keep an abnormally large amount of cash on hand so I can meet cash refund needs at the start of every business day, or I can write you a check.
And since I don't have to worry about losing your business (since you're already returning the item anyway, and not using a store credit to spend the money in my store) why would I inconvenience myself? Heck no, buddy, if you want your money back from me, you can have it when the banks give it to me, and that's why you get a check.
I've noticed one big difference. When a geek asks me what I do, I've been able to give the same answer since 1998: "I work full time for a company maintaining their sites with ASP and SQL Server." Here's a chronology of the responses:
1998: "What's ASP?"
1999: "ASP sucks, man. It's too hard."
2000: "Wow, can I learn ASP? How hard is it? Because I've never done computer work, but I hear it makes a lot of money."
2001: "Ha! ASP? You suck, that's so old-school. You won't have a job in a couple of years. I got a job at Pets.com making twice your salary, and I'm just a receptionist."
2002: "ASP sucks, man. It's all about.NET these days. Besides, you'll be laid off in a week just like me. And Oracle's the bomb, it's worth every penny."
2003: "ASP sucks, man. It's all about PHP these days. And MySQL's the bomb. It'll have stored procedures any day now." (Sorry, just had to throw that one in.)
2004: "ASP sucks, man. It's all about J2EE these days."
2005: "Wow, you have a full time job? Because I'm a programmer and I can't find a job to save my ass."
We've got one of the 7000 units, bought during the heady dot-com days.
The Windows-based management tool sucks, lemme just say that. But the cool part is that it can share a virtual drive on the network, and then when people make folders off the root directory, those folders are archived as DVD's. So you can let your users set up their own folders and archives without having to manage anything. The system will automatically burn them when they reach DVD capacity, or when you specify to do it in the management tool. If you use these virtual folders in combination with your own apps, you can do some slick stuff, like making your own backup utility that copies folders to the virtual drive.
The hardware itself has a few shortcomings. Don't plan on swapping a lot of disks in and out of the changer. Whenever the 50-disk cartridges are changed, and new DVD's are put in the cartridges, the changer has to read every single DVD to build the table of contents to know which files are in which drives. It takes an agonizingly long time to read 50 DVD's.
While the cabinet can indeed house a lot of DVD readers, there's only one robotic arm to actually change the DVD's. In our company, somebody originally planned to use it to serve images over the internet - problem was, the robotic arm couldn't swap DVD's fast enough to keep up with demand, so we switched to a hard-drive based system instead. The system works well if you don't have a lot of simultaneous reads from different DVD's, but if your usage scenario involves each user changing DVD's more than once every 2-3 minutes, look elsewhere.
Let's say each user plans to look at a series of files on a DVD, and then change DVD's and look at other files every 60 seconds. And let's say you're planning for ten simultaneous users. That means the system will need to switch DVD's an average of once every 6 seconds. But the robot's "maximum disc change time" is 9 seconds. You might be able to skate by in this scenario, but we weren't able to - especially when users wouldn't adjust their work habits to looking at the same DVD - instead, they would jump around. Your client applications will start timing out because Mr. Roboto can't change DVD's in time to service their requests.
Otherwise, the hardware is nice and reliable. Looks impressive in a data center.
Watch a typical Windows user sometime. What's the first thing they do to whatever application they open? If you said "Maximize it!", then you're right!
Take a look at that typical Windows user's monitor. It's usually 1024x768, and if you try to set it at a higher resolution, you'll find that it's got a crummy dot pitch or it interlaces. Not to defend Windows users, but there's a reason they maximize - they work with crummy gear.
I know I'm generalizing, but the people who appreciate the value of a 1600x1200 flat panel setup (and actually pay to get it) aren't your typical Windows users. If they're willing to use Windows, they're probably also willing to get the cheapest monitor in town, often from Sam's Club or Wal-Mart, because they think 17" is 17".
In my primary field of work, 'shit happens' is just not an acceptable excuse, I'm a pilot. We use checklists precisely for that reason, to make sure that shit doesn't happen.
Oh, so if you don't mind, why exactly do airplanes crash and kill hundreds of people?
In related news, FlyByNight Inc has announced that it will begin offering Outlook Express in a new reverse-subscription method. "We'll give users $59.95 per year to use this email program without antivirus software. Just install it, and we'll put your check in the mail right away," FlyByNight's Vice President of Public Relations, I. 0wnzJ00 explained.
Steve Ballmer initially acknowledged FlyByNight's efforts, stating, "We haven't been able to give it away - we bundled it with Windows, and people go out of their way to uninstall Outlook Express. We applaud FlyByNight's new distribution methods."
Whenever anybody says their product is really similar to iPod or Tivo except for a few tiny differences, I can guarantee you what the differences are.
Usability, physical beauty, and simplicity.
News flash: those little things are the reason people are buying a an iPod, buying a Tivo, etc, and not your product, Creative. My girlfriend didn't want to carry around something that looked like an angry PDA, so I got her an iPod and she's happy, and her friends are buying them now. My parents didn't want a home media center computer in their living room because they can barely handle their current computer, so I got them a Tivo and they're happy, and their friends are buying them now.
Are there cheaper products out that do the same dang thing? Sure. But they're not as usable, not as attractive, and not as simple. And sorry, Creative, but putting a "Mesmerizing Blue LED Back Light" isn't going to cut it. Those were "Mesmerizing" back in 2002. You're not going to get money out of my pocket by looking like a rice-boy's Civic dashboard.
And as long as the Zen Micro has a blatant pair of nipples on the touchpad, my girlfriend's not going to use it either.
I second that, but with a twist. I telecommute full time, but I prefer spending a couple of days a week at a coffee shop for the same reasons you suggest.
But I can't imagine working in a coffee shop WITH my coworkers. That would kill my ability to focus. The second any of them want to take a break, it would automatically make everybody else want to stop and talk, because the surroundings are too close.
Lemme get this straight: for just $6,000, I can start my own telecom, just like the big boys? I can bleed millions of dollars in red ink and employ mindless unionized drones who provide horrendous customer service while simultaneously driving my customers away? I can run miles of fiber through the neighborhood only to provide people with 384k upload speeds?
One of my lifetime career goals is to establish myself on some decent level or another as a well-rounded, (mostly) standards-based web designer with some backroom web development knowhow.
Lifetime goal? Either you're twelve years old, or you're setting your sights really, really, really low. Or both.
Web design used to be tough a long, long time ago. These days, saying that you're going to be a well-rounded web designer is like saying you're going to be a well-rounded word processor user or desktop publisher. Off-the-shelf tools like Dreamweaver can produce web code more than good enough to get by. The challenge is no longer the tool, but the content: businesses have a greater need to put together sensible content that users want to consume, rather than just putting together a well-formatted web site.
If you want to build a set of lifetime career goals, get a role model and ask them what skills they use in their daily job. Don't make the mistake of asking them how they got their start, because lots of us got started in web design because it was tough ten years ago. It's not tough anymore, and it's not a great place to start now.
If you want to make money on the web, don't get started with design - get started with content. Find a subject that you're an expert on, and build out your content using any run-of-the-mill web site management system like Plone or Xoops. Forget getting good at HTML - any monkey can do that. Get good at providing content that users want to return to, and then you have a shot at making money.
All the folks at Apple have to do is build complete Macintosh systems onto ATX form factor motherboards. System builders all over the world would buy them up and build Apple-compatible computers.
I want them to do this for a different reason - so I can take my PC components and put them into a sexy Apple case. For that reason alone, I doubt Apple would ever go the ATX route.
Everybody who says they would never buy one of the current Macs, but would buy this one for $500 out of impulse, is a damn liar. You can already buy a headless G4 Mac for under $600. Just go to eBay and buy an old G4 tower from about two years ago.
The whole point of buying a Mac (in my opinion) is to get the software. An old G4 tower from about two years ago will have old software from about two years ago. That's not the way I want to get started on a Mac journey.
One of the largest drawbacks for macs for people buying PC's for the first time is their cost. People love the way they look, but don't want to shell out the extra cash. If they can compete on an even field, I bet their marketshare will go up dramatically.
Here come the trolls, but you're missing the point. Even if Macs were priced 20% cheaper than PCs, Apple's market share would not rise as long as their cheapest desirable product is in the $1300 range. (The CRT-based eMac is not desirable, except by the guys who put phrases like "BBW" in their personal ads.)
But put a PC out in the $500 range, and suddenly nobody cares whether it's 20-30% slower than the eMachines $500 PC, or whether it doesn't have as much ram or hard drive space. People will just want to buy it, because it's an impulse-level purchase.
I've never bought an Apple computer because the prices are too high to be an impulse purchase. At $500, though, I would pick one up along with a $50 keyboard/monitor switch and start playing around with it.
Plus, at $500, geeks can afford to buy it and find out if it's easy to get their work done on it. The easier it is to switch my day-to-day work over gradually to an Apple, the more likely I'd be to do it. I'm sure I'll have a couple/few apps that I have to run on Windows, but if you put them both on my desk and let me toy with both, I bet I'd be more likely to run my MS-only stuff on a virtual machine.
Could I get a $500 used Mac with a CRT monitor? Sure, but who wants that big bulky thing around? Instead, give me something I can use with a USB KVM switch, and then I can explore it on my own pace.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately I didn't get to see my own spunk.
Does that mean you mean you looked at someone ELSE'S spunk under an electron microscope?!?
Seems like a kludge to use DST when you could just shift timezones where appropriate.
Try changing timezones on all of the desktop computers in your company, and it ain't as easy as it looks. Let alone in a national company with offices in a few timezones, roaming users on laptops, network devices at various switching facilities, etc. There is no "just shift timezones" twice a year.
No matter, why should I take a check from you when I gave you cash?
Because I deposited your cash in the bank, and the bank has 2-3 days before that cash is available to me. Therefore, I write you a check so you can get the funds as quickly as I do. Think in terms of Christmas season: you can have hundreds of people buy big-ticket items, only to turn around and return them when the store simply doesn't have the cash on hand. I'd have two choices: keep an abnormally large amount of cash on hand so I can meet cash refund needs at the start of every business day, or I can write you a check.
And since I don't have to worry about losing your business (since you're already returning the item anyway, and not using a store credit to spend the money in my store) why would I inconvenience myself? Heck no, buddy, if you want your money back from me, you can have it when the banks give it to me, and that's why you get a check.
Personally I'd hate your job, but you do have a good point.
Who said I liked my job?
I've noticed one big difference. When a geek asks me what I do, I've been able to give the same answer since 1998: "I work full time for a company maintaining their sites with ASP and SQL Server." Here's a chronology of the responses:
.NET these days. Besides, you'll be laid off in a week just like me. And Oracle's the bomb, it's worth every penny."
1998: "What's ASP?"
1999: "ASP sucks, man. It's too hard."
2000: "Wow, can I learn ASP? How hard is it? Because I've never done computer work, but I hear it makes a lot of money."
2001: "Ha! ASP? You suck, that's so old-school. You won't have a job in a couple of years. I got a job at Pets.com making twice your salary, and I'm just a receptionist."
2002: "ASP sucks, man. It's all about
2003: "ASP sucks, man. It's all about PHP these days. And MySQL's the bomb. It'll have stored procedures any day now." (Sorry, just had to throw that one in.)
2004: "ASP sucks, man. It's all about J2EE these days."
2005: "Wow, you have a full time job? Because I'm a programmer and I can't find a job to save my ass."
We've got one of the 7000 units, bought during the heady dot-com days.
The Windows-based management tool sucks, lemme just say that. But the cool part is that it can share a virtual drive on the network, and then when people make folders off the root directory, those folders are archived as DVD's. So you can let your users set up their own folders and archives without having to manage anything. The system will automatically burn them when they reach DVD capacity, or when you specify to do it in the management tool. If you use these virtual folders in combination with your own apps, you can do some slick stuff, like making your own backup utility that copies folders to the virtual drive.
The hardware itself has a few shortcomings. Don't plan on swapping a lot of disks in and out of the changer. Whenever the 50-disk cartridges are changed, and new DVD's are put in the cartridges, the changer has to read every single DVD to build the table of contents to know which files are in which drives. It takes an agonizingly long time to read 50 DVD's.
While the cabinet can indeed house a lot of DVD readers, there's only one robotic arm to actually change the DVD's. In our company, somebody originally planned to use it to serve images over the internet - problem was, the robotic arm couldn't swap DVD's fast enough to keep up with demand, so we switched to a hard-drive based system instead. The system works well if you don't have a lot of simultaneous reads from different DVD's, but if your usage scenario involves each user changing DVD's more than once every 2-3 minutes, look elsewhere.
Let's say each user plans to look at a series of files on a DVD, and then change DVD's and look at other files every 60 seconds. And let's say you're planning for ten simultaneous users. That means the system will need to switch DVD's an average of once every 6 seconds. But the robot's "maximum disc change time" is 9 seconds. You might be able to skate by in this scenario, but we weren't able to - especially when users wouldn't adjust their work habits to looking at the same DVD - instead, they would jump around. Your client applications will start timing out because Mr. Roboto can't change DVD's in time to service their requests.
Otherwise, the hardware is nice and reliable. Looks impressive in a data center.
4. No matter how hard you shake it, the last drop always rolls down your pant leg.
Actually, it sounds much better this way:
No matter how much you shake and dance, the last few drops go in your pants.
Watch a typical Windows user sometime. What's the first thing they do to whatever application they open? If you said "Maximize it!", then you're right!
Take a look at that typical Windows user's monitor. It's usually 1024x768, and if you try to set it at a higher resolution, you'll find that it's got a crummy dot pitch or it interlaces. Not to defend Windows users, but there's a reason they maximize - they work with crummy gear.
I know I'm generalizing, but the people who appreciate the value of a 1600x1200 flat panel setup (and actually pay to get it) aren't your typical Windows users. If they're willing to use Windows, they're probably also willing to get the cheapest monitor in town, often from Sam's Club or Wal-Mart, because they think 17" is 17".
Now, let's chop that down to $0.05 instead of $0.99. Let's break it down this way:
Label: $0.03
Apple: $0.02
Artist: $0.1
That adds up to fourteen cents, not five. Wait - you're not the guy who's in charge of the current CD pricing structure, are you?
Somebody ship this man a free Windows PocketPC phone and see whether he's a high-class technology escort, or a low-down crack technology whore.
Alright, Sony, now let's talk about this Memory Stick...
In my primary field of work, 'shit happens' is just not an acceptable excuse, I'm a pilot. We use checklists precisely for that reason, to make sure that shit doesn't happen.
Oh, so if you don't mind, why exactly do airplanes crash and kill hundreds of people?
In related news, FlyByNight Inc has announced that it will begin offering Outlook Express in a new reverse-subscription method. "We'll give users $59.95 per year to use this email program without antivirus software. Just install it, and we'll put your check in the mail right away," FlyByNight's Vice President of Public Relations, I. 0wnzJ00 explained.
Steve Ballmer initially acknowledged FlyByNight's efforts, stating, "We haven't been able to give it away - we bundled it with Windows, and people go out of their way to uninstall Outlook Express. We applaud FlyByNight's new distribution methods."
As somebody who loves the speed and elegance of hand coding, the thought of having to hand-code XML is horrifying.
When designing programming languages, try to relieve your users from carpal tunnel, not contribute to it.
Those aren't nipples, dude, they're where you attach the aftermarket wings.
Hahaha, good one. Now you're thinking like a real iPod killer.
So your girlfriend is shallow and obsessed with beauty,
I'm not sure what that says about me, but I think I like it.
Whenever anybody says their product is really similar to iPod or Tivo except for a few tiny differences, I can guarantee you what the differences are.
Usability, physical beauty, and simplicity.
News flash: those little things are the reason people are buying a an iPod, buying a Tivo, etc, and not your product, Creative. My girlfriend didn't want to carry around something that looked like an angry PDA, so I got her an iPod and she's happy, and her friends are buying them now. My parents didn't want a home media center computer in their living room because they can barely handle their current computer, so I got them a Tivo and they're happy, and their friends are buying them now.
Are there cheaper products out that do the same dang thing? Sure. But they're not as usable, not as attractive, and not as simple. And sorry, Creative, but putting a "Mesmerizing Blue LED Back Light" isn't going to cut it. Those were "Mesmerizing" back in 2002. You're not going to get money out of my pocket by looking like a rice-boy's Civic dashboard.
And as long as the Zen Micro has a blatant pair of nipples on the touchpad, my girlfriend's not going to use it either.
I second that, but with a twist. I telecommute full time, but I prefer spending a couple of days a week at a coffee shop for the same reasons you suggest.
But I can't imagine working in a coffee shop WITH my coworkers. That would kill my ability to focus. The second any of them want to take a break, it would automatically make everybody else want to stop and talk, because the surroundings are too close.
Lemme get this straight: for just $6,000, I can start my own telecom, just like the big boys? I can bleed millions of dollars in red ink and employ mindless unionized drones who provide horrendous customer service while simultaneously driving my customers away? I can run miles of fiber through the neighborhood only to provide people with 384k upload speeds?
Wow, where do I sign up?
One of my lifetime career goals is to establish myself on some decent level or another as a well-rounded, (mostly) standards-based web designer with some backroom web development knowhow.
Lifetime goal? Either you're twelve years old, or you're setting your sights really, really, really low. Or both.
Web design used to be tough a long, long time ago. These days, saying that you're going to be a well-rounded web designer is like saying you're going to be a well-rounded word processor user or desktop publisher. Off-the-shelf tools like Dreamweaver can produce web code more than good enough to get by. The challenge is no longer the tool, but the content: businesses have a greater need to put together sensible content that users want to consume, rather than just putting together a well-formatted web site.
If you want to build a set of lifetime career goals, get a role model and ask them what skills they use in their daily job. Don't make the mistake of asking them how they got their start, because lots of us got started in web design because it was tough ten years ago. It's not tough anymore, and it's not a great place to start now.
If you want to make money on the web, don't get started with design - get started with content. Find a subject that you're an expert on, and build out your content using any run-of-the-mill web site management system like Plone or Xoops. Forget getting good at HTML - any monkey can do that. Get good at providing content that users want to return to, and then you have a shot at making money.
All the folks at Apple have to do is build complete Macintosh systems onto ATX form factor motherboards. System builders all over the world would buy them up and build Apple-compatible computers.
I want them to do this for a different reason - so I can take my PC components and put them into a sexy Apple case. For that reason alone, I doubt Apple would ever go the ATX route.
Everybody who says they would never buy one of the current Macs, but would buy this one for $500 out of impulse, is a damn liar. You can already buy a headless G4 Mac for under $600. Just go to eBay and buy an old G4 tower from about two years ago.
The whole point of buying a Mac (in my opinion) is to get the software. An old G4 tower from about two years ago will have old software from about two years ago. That's not the way I want to get started on a Mac journey.
One of the largest drawbacks for macs for people buying PC's for the first time is their cost. People love the way they look, but don't want to shell out the extra cash. If they can compete on an even field, I bet their marketshare will go up dramatically.
Here come the trolls, but you're missing the point. Even if Macs were priced 20% cheaper than PCs, Apple's market share would not rise as long as their cheapest desirable product is in the $1300 range. (The CRT-based eMac is not desirable, except by the guys who put phrases like "BBW" in their personal ads.)
But put a PC out in the $500 range, and suddenly nobody cares whether it's 20-30% slower than the eMachines $500 PC, or whether it doesn't have as much ram or hard drive space. People will just want to buy it, because it's an impulse-level purchase.
I've never bought an Apple computer because the prices are too high to be an impulse purchase. At $500, though, I would pick one up along with a $50 keyboard/monitor switch and start playing around with it.
Plus, at $500, geeks can afford to buy it and find out if it's easy to get their work done on it. The easier it is to switch my day-to-day work over gradually to an Apple, the more likely I'd be to do it. I'm sure I'll have a couple/few apps that I have to run on Windows, but if you put them both on my desk and let me toy with both, I bet I'd be more likely to run my MS-only stuff on a virtual machine.
Could I get a $500 used Mac with a CRT monitor? Sure, but who wants that big bulky thing around? Instead, give me something I can use with a USB KVM switch, and then I can explore it on my own pace.
Do you also go around stores twisting off soda bottle caps so that they will get flat?
You...you've seen me? Damn. Now I must kill you.