^^ It doesn't help that you have companies who produce decent hardware (e.g., Archos produces PMP/mini-tablets with a triple-digit GB harddisk) and then royally screw up the software part of their Android products.
^^ Join the club. In my case it's usually memory leaks related to having previously handled large amounts of images and also some addons. Once Firefox has reached a critical mass between 1 and 1.5 GB it always finds ways to crash. Granted, it's a way of freeing up memory, but I'd prefer ones that don't include possible loss of data in open tabs.
Youtube is usually a good way to try some song whose title you've seen somewhere. But the all too common "This song is not available in your country" crap is usually a surefire way to not get me to buy anything related to that song. Of course it's easy to access it through a proxy but why should I then still give them money after they have intentionally broken something I wanted to use?
Considering in previous cases the recording industry felt justified to demand $22500 per song that would cost roughly $1 on iTunes that means the ISP's lawyer should go for at least 18 million bucks in that example case above.
Half? Seeing as how those companies want thousands of dollars for every shared song or movie it would only be fair for the ISPs to demand the local MAFIAA equivalent to pay a fee of at least 50000 dollars in advance before their employees lift a finger for such a request.
Our department was pushing a comparable HP system, but the guy in the finance department who had to sign off on it "knew someone" and the result was that Canon which cost half a grand less but caused problems whose costs had produced additional expenses in excess of that within the first 14 days.
Sure, if you need to access the funds from that account in a country where the regular bank card isn't accepted but credit cards are. It's to prevent the reverse of what you described (and for some online stores).
Germany abandoned the Eurocheque system in favor of Maestro within the last decade and their current cards are still hybrids (additionally the bank where I have my German account has its own additional international agreements and also throws in a free regular MasterCard).
Driver support hugely depends on the vendor (and sometimes even on the model).
For example, at a previous company we had some of those souped-up copiers Canon sells for twelve grand a piece. The kind that is supposed to do everything short of making coffee. Canon's management software for the Windows servers (rights management based on LDAP groups and stuff like that) must have been written by half-blind chronic drunks, but it still worked somehow. But Canon treated the Linux driver as the company's bastard child, leaving many in the tech department the odd men out. Printing usually worked, but occasionally only b/w or your printouts suddenly ended up on large A3 paper instead of regular A4-sized sheets. Creating booklets via the built-in stapler was mostly a game of chance and don't even get me started on scanning stuff straight a Linux share....
Germans don't have as much of a need for credit cards because they either prefer to pay cash or they use their bank cards (basically authorizes the store to debit the money straight from the respective bank account). Not that different from the US where people are still using checks but simply without the need to waste tons of paper and thanks to international agreements the electronic payments are possible across borders.
That's why credit cards are looked at in this manner. They're either used to buy something on credit (read: pay with money you don't have) or in most cases an inconvenient necessity to buy from foreign vendors or for the occasional foreign customers.
Slashdot Mirror
^^ It doesn't help that you have companies who produce decent hardware (e.g., Archos produces PMP/mini-tablets with a triple-digit GB harddisk) and then royally screw up the software part of their Android products.
At least buying a politician is more likely to achieve a change than voting for him.
My next PC? Somehow I don't see a toy like that replacing a triple-screen 3D workstation.
^^ Join the club.
In my case it's usually memory leaks related to having previously handled large amounts of images and also some addons.
Once Firefox has reached a critical mass between 1 and 1.5 GB it always finds ways to crash. Granted, it's a way of freeing up memory, but I'd prefer ones that don't include possible loss of data in open tabs.
Watched the movie, wasn't really impressed.
Someone doesn't want to wait until the next Pwn2Own?
Youtube is usually a good way to try some song whose title you've seen somewhere. But the all too common "This song is not available in your country" crap is usually a surefire way to not get me to buy anything related to that song.
Of course it's easy to access it through a proxy but why should I then still give them money after they have intentionally broken something I wanted to use?
Great, I love a good science fiction story!
Considering in previous cases the recording industry felt justified to demand $22500 per song that would cost roughly $1 on iTunes that means the ISP's lawyer should go for at least 18 million bucks in that example case above.
Thanks for the laugh!
Half?
Seeing as how those companies want thousands of dollars for every shared song or movie it would only be fair for the ISPs to demand the local MAFIAA equivalent to pay a fee of at least 50000 dollars in advance before their employees lift a finger for such a request.
So, Sony continues to shoot itself in the foot, but they managed to switch to tactical nukes?
Definitely makes Streisand look like a bloody amateur.
Good thing we still have Bruce Schneier jokes. ;)
Why bother?
With all that electromagnetic pollution our great-grandchildren will be born with at least three arms anyway.
Our department was pushing a comparable HP system, but the guy in the finance department who had to sign off on it "knew someone" and the result was that Canon which cost half a grand less but caused problems whose costs had produced additional expenses in excess of that within the first 14 days.
Sure, if you need to access the funds from that account in a country where the regular bank card isn't accepted but credit cards are.
It's to prevent the reverse of what you described (and for some online stores).
Lived there for several years.
Germany abandoned the Eurocheque system in favor of Maestro within the last decade and their current cards are still hybrids (additionally the bank where I have my German account has its own additional international agreements and also throws in a free regular MasterCard).
Nah, I'm sure it was our fault anyway for using something as exotic as Debian and Ubuntu. ;)
That was two companies ago. Live and learn ...
Driver support hugely depends on the vendor (and sometimes even on the model).
For example, at a previous company we had some of those souped-up copiers Canon sells for twelve grand a piece. The kind that is supposed to do everything short of making coffee.
Canon's management software for the Windows servers (rights management based on LDAP groups and stuff like that) must have been written by half-blind chronic drunks, but it still worked somehow. But Canon treated the Linux driver as the company's bastard child, leaving many in the tech department the odd men out. Printing usually worked, but occasionally only b/w or your printouts suddenly ended up on large A3 paper instead of regular A4-sized sheets. Creating booklets via the built-in stapler was mostly a game of chance and don't even get me started on scanning stuff straight a Linux share....
Apples and oranges.
Germans don't have as much of a need for credit cards because they either prefer to pay cash or they use their bank cards (basically authorizes the store to debit the money straight from the respective bank account). Not that different from the US where people are still using checks but simply without the need to waste tons of paper and thanks to international agreements the electronic payments are possible across borders.
That's why credit cards are looked at in this manner. They're either used to buy something on credit (read: pay with money you don't have) or in most cases an inconvenient necessity to buy from foreign vendors or for the occasional foreign customers.
Not really. I know plenty of so-called engineers whose work suggests that they must have found their degree in a Happy Meal.
How exactly is punishing your loyal (and still paying) customers a good business move?
Doesn't HP have something like Toshiba's "Tempro" utility to tell Joe Sixpack when to update his drivers and HP-related programs?
^^ Loved the football level. That game was so bad it was almost good again.
It definitely was an extreme case with its damage model.