Crap. WinRar is $29 and WinZip is $29. Yet they are incredibly heavily pirated. You think all those warez dudes actually paid for WinRar and almost all their warez are in Rar. Therefore, that software being too expensive is crap. $29 isn't too much money. Not any different than $2,900 if it's still cracked or serial generators are easily findable with a simple search on your favorite "security" related search site.
The article says it's $0.75 per decoder and at the very bottom of the page, it says there is also a $15,000 a year minimum license fee payable each January.
Some of IE's components are a part of Windows, witness ComCtl32.ocx etc... but for the most part, like with Office, they have a different trick that speeds things up... they have a "DELAYLOAD" option set at compile-time. Basically, rather than static-linking the supporting DLL's and loading them at application initialization-time, it'll only load the library the first time it's used in code... therefore, it may have 50 DLL's supporting it, but if only 3 or 4 are need to get IE started, it'll only load those 3 or 4 and the rest untouched until needed. That is the optimization trick that IE and Office uses to to achieve fast boot times. I've used the switch and it really does significanly help. Windows XP has a similar trick, it only uses things when needed but not until then, that's how they make it boot so much faster.
The last two companies I worked for hired foreign workers for programming positions. I don't know what they were paid. I don't care. I will say this, some of the brightest programmers and other IT technical people I've ever met (and certainly worked with) were Russian, Indian, Persian, or German (mostly Indian and Russian, tho).
They work harder and find few excuses and are so detail oriented that when compared with the other American workers there, put the Americans to shame. I, am American. I even found myself lazy compared to them.
The company only required 35 hours a week (my salary was $72 -- I was R&D). We had two hour lunches. They didn't hardly care much about being in-tune with their work, as I on the other hand, devoted my life to squeezing every last bit of performance out of whatever I could and reading trade magazines and buying every book on the shelf about programming out of my pocket. I game my all, but not all my hours.
They, gave all their hours (when not required to) and often did exemplary work in their projects. I must say, I see no harm in foreign workers. Americans (as I've seen but I haven't seen them all) are simply lazy when compared to them. Again, based on what I've seen which is by no means exhaustive. I'm proud to have met those people and watched 1 Indian and 1 Russian become and American citizen as a result of corporate sponsorship.
You've obviously been brainwashed by the RIAA/MPAA, or are affiliated with them.
Actually, it's not obvious. I'm certainly no supporter of the music piracy scene, or the software warez scene. But moreso, I'm in no way even a remote supporter of the *IAA cartels or the BSA, or Fritz Hollings, Disney, DRM or anything like that.
A lie is a lie, an excuse is an excuse, and infringement is infringement. I hear more crap about how people want to justify this behavior, rather than about how people want to actually inflict change. By posting the response I did, I'm actually exposing people's hypocracy.
Just because I don't say what you want to hear, or because I don't support the behaviors of many, doesn't mean I'm a supporter of the cartels. It just means that right is right, wrong is wrong, and excuses are excuses. To be frank, I don't support either camps.
If the price of a CD was $11 a CD many people in here probly would still rather download the MP3's instead of go buy it. If the price was $8.99 most people would be more likely to buy the CD but still, would be just as likely to download the song if it was convenient to do so especially if they just happened to notice to lower price CD after they spent $60 on new DVD's or something.
The arguement "if the prices of CD's were cheaper" really was true, than we'd all be buying the bargain CD's (even of popular tunes) off the shelf, but as it stands, I browse through music stores here and there and notice not too many people lining up to the the latest hit CD for the bargain of $9.99.
The same excuse is used with software. Reality is, people pirate $5 shareware just as much as they do $500 commercialware. Don't believe me? Do a search on your favorite "security related search site" and every piece of software comes up listed. Some of it is even freeware but requires you send a postcard to get a reg key and people still request serials for the software. If this excuse was really an arguement worth it's weight in gold, then there would be no serial or crack for any software less than $50 listed on any file trading network, serial 9000 archive, ASTALAVISTA, or usenet. But alas, WinZip $29 is listed, to name only one. This excuse is as much crap for music as it is software.
If the artists were being paid more
If the artists were to recieve more money and the CD's still cost $16-18 a piece, you'd still not be happy that not 50% or more is going to the artist and you'd still download music because it may still be more convenient, again, if you just spent $60 on new DVD's, $30 for a porn renewal, car payment, rent, whatever, you'd think, "I'll just download the (1) song I want". Yep, and 1 becomes 2, and then 3, and then 3000 songs are in your collection.
I may not be speaking for everyone, but lets face it, while there are those who would gladly support their favorite indy band or whatever, $16 is still $16. If you're a college student struggling and have a hard time paying $16 a CD now, how are you going to afford it if more percentage went to the artist? When was the last time you donated $x to your favorite band because you felt like they needed more money? Uh huh. That's what I thought.
I won't buy a CD because there's only 1 or 2 songs I like on the album
Yeah, and when the newest Britney Spears song appeared on a Single you were the first person to go purchase it instead of download it, right? Or I know for a fact some of you do, and not everyone who uses this excuse does. Why, because when you run a keyword search and the song pops up in the list, it's just too tempting not to download it... after all, that $2.99 for the single can buy a beer, or something, right? Or it all adds up if they happen to have to 30 favorite singles you like for sale, you'll spend $2.99 x 30 for all of them, right?
If the cost of a song was $1 to download without restrictions
For many, not all, if you can download an unrestricted song for $1 each, would you really go an download the same 3,000 songs you have in your MP3 catalog currently? Hmm... that's what I thought. If you're friend downloaded some $1 songs and happened to offer you a copy of that "unrestricted" song file, would you happily say "no, I'd rather buy it myself" or would you say "sure, here's the blank CD".
What if the songs were instead $2.50 per download, unrestricted. Lets say you have 1,500 MP3's in your collection, would you go happily replace them with legit purchased copies at $2.50? What if you have 250 MP3's, would you go spend $625 for 250 unrestricted files at $2.50 each?
What if the price was $0.25 per song but with some copy restrictions in place (only works on Windows, perhaps all OS's but only Brand X player, limited only to the purchasing PC, etc.)... would you even purchase 10 songs at 1/4 of $1?
I'm a poor college student, so I have to download them...
No you don't. If you don't have money the grocery store will not give you free groceries. The car dealer won't give you a free car. Mircosoft won't give you a free Windows. Your insurance company won't give you a free month's premium credit. Your electricity company won't keep your lights on if you don't pay the bill. The gas station won't give you a free tank of gas. So why do you feel like you need to download music (for free) if you won't do it in other aspects of life?
It's simple. If you can't afford it, wait until you can.
I will pay to support indy labels
So you'll pay $16 for your indy labels who you don't even know if they are paying the artists better or worse than the cartels, but still complaining about RIAA $16 CD's because they're
too expensive and you're a starving college student who only wants to hear that 1 song, even on the indy CD? Yeah... okay...
While there's a free alternative I'll just use that instead
I actually agree with you there. You will download it for free, even if there was $1 unrestricted song per download and the cartels or indies paid more to artists. Why? Because everything is just an excuse. Because you won't pay $1 per song for all 3,000 songs in your archive (not in the same year, anyway). Because you're a starving student. Becaues it's too expensive. Because the system sucks. Because you're a deliberate copyright infringer.
I already own the CD
Good, then purchase a MP3 converting program (usually $39 or less, after all, if software was cheaper, you'd buy it, right?) then convert your song to MP3 or OGG or whatever, then you won't have to propigate statistics buy downloading them when you
already own them right?
You see, when you get right down to the point, it's all just a bunch of excuses. No real substance.
If you can go the Maya route, they have the Maya Real-Time SDK (which is basically a tool for converting Maya worlds into a game). I think Maya RT-SDK is a game engine. Anyway, last I checked, about a year ago, it cost $250,000 (not sure if it was per-seat or site)...
"The young adult viewers whom advertisers are most interested in may be among the most likely to accept the idea of watching commercials and shows simultaneously, said Lichter of the Center for Media and Public Affairs. After all, he said, they are comfortable with a multi-tasking TV screen a la CNN's Headline News, where video and headlines are always sharing space and dividing attention.
"The news [networks] have shown us that people will accept all sorts of things going on on their screens," he said."
The pop-up ads on TNT didn't spark a wave of angry phone calls or e-mails from viewers, said Koonin, who considers the ads a success.
It seems that because that because news networks do this, that people must have "gotten used" to it. Of course, I don't watch the news, or CNN... so I'm not in their statistic. What if the add blocks an important part of the movie? Consider...
Martha's son just been found dead. The investigators search through the house looking for clues. The move books around and find what appears to be a suicide note. The camera displays a full screen view of a portion of the note and you begin reading it... all of the sudden a 25% add pops up "Thinking about committing suicide? Call the teen suicide hotline and [number]" and bam!!! you've just missed because it was obsured and now you are going to sit through another hour of court trials proving a note in the stead of a person on trial for murder that you could have read...
Oh well, guess it had to come to this. I can't think of an ad that has an impact on me lately. It's a pitty.
The key in this, is that people didn't call up angry and screaming so the assume it's okay. For the most part, it must be, because people didn't complain. We should change that instead of just writing about what we should do, we should actually do what we write about we should do... and call them and complain...
I agree that many, if not most, standards and standard protocols were developed for free, and free for all the use, open-source, or simply restriction free, and that's no dispute. However, saying that 'only' open-source insterests can 'innovate' or 'set standards' that everyone else must use is certainly anti-capitolist.
First of all, a lot of the open source efforts I see today really are only trying to emulate what closed-source commercial software vendors are profiting from, therefore, I don't see much innovation in the open-source world right now. Perhaps I'm wrong. Also, since commercial interests are at the forefront of having to come up with new ways to communicate and so on, is the open-source community really up to the same tasks? Are they that much in tune with big business' clients needs? Seems all the open-source talk I hear these days are regurgitations of what we already here in the press and so on.. where's the reall innovaters and thinkers?
My second point is that saying only open-source interests can set standards or innovate sounds just as much like an open-source fanatic oppurtunist rant as the FBI on terrorism to proclaim 'their' cause, as well.
Third, why have a federal committee set in place to govern standards on a global front? If you're in Europe do you want the US to impose upon you, as a software engineer, how you should 'innovate'?? If you're in the US, do you want the government or a European (or global body) to impose upon you, as a software engineer, how you can 'innovate'? Who decides the rules, how do you prevent from the controlling interests becoming corrupt?
Personally, I don't think that any commercial interest cares about any community other than their own primary shareholders. But to say that only open-source interests can innovate networking protocols is a bit extreme, as well. I don't have a better answer. Everything is going corporate so I don't think there's likely to be any change in the area of consumer interest anytime soon. If the government starts to oversee any of the software industry, it'll be tough to get entry as a garage-kid programmer, enterprenuer... (think auto industry, aerospace, pharmasuticals, civil engineering, maritime, etc.)...
Don't know if this will be read but... the networks should provide a way to specify a checksum of a legit file so if it doesn't match, then don't download. Due to the decentralized nature of some, this might be hard to do, but users should be able to "vote" if it's a crap file or legit... this would help weed out the "crap" from the actual...
Well, probly because they already have said customers business, and said customer is probly already bound by a 12-24 month contract they can't get out of without paying up. The new customer, on the other hand, isn't paying up so they make it look "more attractive" to "lure" the potential customer into a 12-24 month contract.
It's not the best way to to business, but if people keep doing business that way, then appearantly it's not bothering too many people. I suspect that's why they make it so difficult to get set up and why the lengthy contracts... so people don't want to go elsewhere or can't...
How recent was the 2MG cap? I've been using a hotmail account since late 1997 and it's been 2MB at least that I can remember, 1998... that's why I started using Outlook Express to store the messages on my system... in fact, I don't remember the 10MB limit (so it's not been in effect since at least early 1998 since I've been a member)...
It's certainly better to levy more "irrelevant" fees than to activate sssca and similar... now, if both take place then there should be grounds for removing one or the other...
We need to focus our attention on making it difficult for corporations to donate, or contribute. Moreso, especially if it's in the direct interest of the company against the people. And maybe try to get some regulations in place that make it strict punishment for corporations to push or lobby for something that violates the constitution. A system needs to be put in place that ensures more protection for the people, not the corporatations. While money is involved, we will always know who'll win.
I've had an email address for about a year that was not once used for any reason at all. Never received, never sent. One day, I sent an email to a relative who had just got their email account and was excited to be on the web.
A month later, I got forwarded one of those "send this to x people and Bill Gates will send you $3,014 for each 3rd person... no really, it's true, just the other day I recevied my $10 million dollar check from..."
I replied and told her never to do that again or she will be blocked and I'll never email her. I explained to her why she shouldn't do that. It's because someone somewhere along the line will get the 30 times forwarded message and will glean the 100's of emails that are a part of the message body from all the forwards and put you on a list.
Now, everyday I get 1 or 2 Univerity Diplomas emails, they just don't stop sending them, Every day Janna wants to know what I was doing last night, King Kong keeps wanting me to buy some Herbal Viagra alternatives, FBI snooper detection prevention software, and a chance to win a free 3 carot dimand after I send $2,000 to sponser some foundation... yeah... uh huh...
I'll tell you, those funnies you send and recieve everyday is a really good way.
The other way is to reply to a spam to be removed from a mailing list. In the same mail account, I replied to a few to be removed from the list and shortly after the volume of messages recived almost doubled. Now it's a useless email account that receives over 600 emails per week. It's sad because I've only sent and recieved less than 10 legitimate messages from that account in the past 5 years and this is what I get in return for it.
Bottom line:
* Warn your friends and family not to send
you forwarded email. Explain to them
that most of those messages are hoaxes,
anyway. Companies don't pay to you to blast
the Internet with messages.
* Second, don't reply to spams when you do
receive them or it will just confirm an
active account. I used to spoof returned
mail notices but those don't help any,
they also make it worse.
* Third, if you do recieve a mass-forward,
you're already at odds.
* Each time you sign up to a new web-site, read
the privacy statement. Usually, you're info
will be shared with a partner. Check that
partners privacy, because usually that partner
will share your info with a partner and so on.
Your email address is usually not kept secret
anymore. They make too much money by selling
to people. If they are European based, then
it might be more secure because of privacy
laws.
* Opt-out of those "important updates from the
company and their partners". This will just
generate more unwanted messages than you'll
care about. I've opted-in to some in the past
that were supposed to be monthy tech news
updates on important issues. Well, one day it
became daily. They changed their policy with
out notifying me.
* Most sites reserve the right to change their
privacy policies at-will and with no obligation
to notify you. They expect you to keep up
on this yourself. The best advice is to do
so. I've cancelled membership to some sites
because of this. My data is not theirs to
profit from while I profit nothing from it.
* Obvious names, such as "kitty@domain.com,
bmwlover@domain.com, studmuff@domain.com, etc"
are likely culprits. Sometimes they perform
dictionary based attacks on many domains and
it may just be your lucky number. What's
worse, is that they CC so all emails are there
and other spammers gather those emails and then
you are placed on another list.
* Anything else not mentioned. Keep in mind,
these are only spam "reduction" techniques. I
think it's very difficult and next to
impossible to not be spammed. Being aware of
certain actions that will trigger a result and
preventing those actions, will help greatly.
* If they leave a return address, sometimes you
can complain and have their account revoked.
This won't stop them, they'll open another
account and continue.
* Push for a law that allows the sponsor of the
spam to be sued for damages and inconveniences
rather than the sender. For example, I've
recived over 200 unvirsity diplomas messages
which all have the same phone number, but each
message is from a different sender. If we can
sue the owner of the phone number, than that
would go a great distance because it would
make people afraid to market in that mannor.
I started programming from hobby and love. I spend over $2-15k per year in hardware, software and books and whatever else to stay on top and pay for my own MSDN subscription. I've busted my behind working for remedial tech support jobs and programming in what spare time the company would allocate. I then left the company to be a programmer 5 years ago. Still worked for a living programming, studied for a living other hours. My knowledge increased.
I began consulting for various Law Enforcement agencies writing custom software for tracking various aspects of their job. I even make some royalties.
I'm now a Research & Development programmer for a large company with no contract or IP agreements and am almost completely automomous, work 40/hr weeks, great benefits, $70k+ salary, easy commute, and they send all the IT people to training. At first, the classes are assigned based on how they feel you need. Start with Beg, then Intermediate, then Advanced classes in all topics you need.
Now, there's a free-for-all-pre-approved-in-your-own-time-classes we can sign up for. Again, no obligations. But we must pass, and all classes apply towards certification. That's a great offer and one which I'm greatfully accepting, as are the other 20 IT people here and managers. Again, this is the exception rather than the rule. It's never been like this in any aspect of education, tuition reimbursement, or work environment anywhere I've ever worked before and we're not a dot-anything. We've been around since 1921 and are very stable and growing. This is my 15th month here.
My advice on it, tho, is don't expect your employer to be responsible for what should be you're own motivations. If you make your efforts, your own endeavors, sacrifice your own time, then it'll pay off more-so. However, if you really need training indeed for your job, then accept what they will provide. If they won't provide, then take a cold-hard look at how much you really want to do what you do and how important you think you are to the company. Perhaps you are important but that responsibility should be yours. Who knows, but don't *EXPECT* others to foot your bill.
Keep yourself motivated and up-to-date and you'll excell far more in life. You're job, and you're relevance is you're responsibility.
yOu haVE beeN GiVEN manY OppURtunItiES tO puRchASE proDuct X viA thE MILlioNS of emAilS YOu reCieVE eAch wEEk. You HAVe refuSED. We NOw HavE YoUR EmaiLS RansOM. If YOu FAil to puRChasE braND X by SundOWn FridAY usINg InterNET eXplorER 5.01 or HigHER WitH WindOWs 2000 SeCURity SETtings MimIMUm... You'LL neVeR SeE youR EmailS agAiN;)). You ARe PRevEnTIng Us froM UsinG You As a StatiStIC. We HOPe YoU wiLL dO the riGhT ThinG.
Lemon law or not, I do believe (unless I understand UCITA incorrectly) that if UCITA is in effect in their state, that it doesn't matter. They're not responsible for it nor are they obligated to care. =((
Simple solution: instead of gripe about here, send a letter to your congressman or whoever, attach $100. If enough people do this, then the'll begin to take notice. Sending a $100 is cheaper than paying the RIAA CD-ROM Tax because you might copy a CD, or other increased commerce fees because of all the needless litigation, or the litigation you may end up in because you used Napster one too many times. But no one will do that. That's why things won't change.
I have done contract programming in the past, mainly, I put some LA Police Depts. evidence (paper trails) room on an automated, barcode, account required, blockbuster type of system. I've written other things for them.
I did not write the contract in Legal mumbo-jumbo because I couldn't afford an attorney to do so. So I wrote one in plain English. I scored contract after contract, they felt like they knew what they were getting and I felt like I understood that they understood.
Lesson Learned: the evidence project was supposed to be 90 days at valued roughly $60k. Rather than quoting the project fee, they wanted to to break certain "key areas of functionality" into smaller chucks of cash so they can see where the money is really going. So I broke it down and it changed so much (some of which was accounted for in negotiations) that it really took 180 days.
They day we were to deploy it, they changed their mind about many of the "key areas of functionality" and stated they were "optional" from the beginning. The bottom line, is that I ended up receiving $2,400 for the whole project based on loop-holes in our agreement. Namely, the areas of functionality never stated optional or required, just that they were "eliments" and not "product". Then, agreed early on, they database structure and barcode libraries I could not retain the rights to, simply because they needed to interface with their own proprietary system that I could not gain access to as a developer (for security reasons). So all the software I wrote, they scrapped and kept the database structure and some of the API's, and they kept the barcode stuff (because I couldn't control whether they did or not).
I've sinced changed my contract to two things: 1) quote by hours of labor instead of project based, therefore it gives them less incentive to keep dragging it out, since time-is-money. This usually forces things to be thought through more efficiently before hand. 2) when I do quote by the contract, I have certain fail-safes in place: namely, if I write any portion of an element of functionality listed in the contract and at any point they decide to cann it, instead of paying the agreed upon price for that or those elements, they must pay for my hourly effort at standard consulting fees. I find, it's much more difficult to strike an agreement with that in their, they usually opt for the hourly-based fee instead -- because changing their mind doesn't jack the price up significantly from the fixed project price agreed upon. $2k for a feature, or $4,500 for labor, there is a price difference if I don't estimate my hours correctly and put much time into it and they change their mind.
They are allowed to make changes to the spec, as long as the features are already mentioned in the project proposal. Anything removed (and already worked on) gets paid for, because of the time (invested), or because of the time (if it's a project-based proposal), and anything added not specifically mentioned much be negotiated.
Also, now, in all cases, I retain the copyright and rights to use the software for anything I want, commercial or not, so long as anything specific to their organization is not discussed or included. They also have a right to the source code, but they must sign an NDA and any person directly or indirectly accessing that source, cannot create a competing product based on anything in my source.
As far as bugs and training goes, you have to make sure that you agree to fix bugs but aren't responsible for loss of data, system down time, or whatever. You also have to define that bugs in windows of office isn't your responsibility. You also have to define what the difference between a glitch in the intended purpose of functionality, and what an enhancement is so they don't think that because you didn't agree to list 100 items on a screen instead of 1 is not a bug, but rather an enhancement that was not originally agreed upon.
Training should be fee-based, however, usually it's not important if you don't get creative and stick to their specs or ideals, they should already have a grasp. Some contracts mandated that I figure out how to make things work so for that, training is necessary, a simple walkthrough and explanation is required, but training the users themselves is fee-based. That requires time, patience, and usually ends up in a list of chagnes. So please, cover your ass.
This covers my ass, and makes them happy. The down side is that it's harder to land a contract these days with such strict payment and licensing terms. But I will not go 6 months on a project only to get paid for what I now make in one week. When the contracts are complete, there is a much greater since of satisfaction between two parties and a good business relationship as opposed to my loose agreements before, we both carried bitter feelings against each other. That's another plus that's priceless.
Remember, if you write a contract like an amateur and they exploit the loopholes, they'll treat you and think of you as an amatuer. Presenting a water-tight and satisfactory agreement which they have difficulties exploiting, makes them feel like you are professional and have experience, and they'll respect that.
Bottom line: do your homework and try to think of everything you can to strike a medium between covering your ass, and protecting their investment. Your payment collection should never be compromised, or as I've learned, in 3 contracts not specifying clearly enough, they will find the loopholes and exploit them to their fulleset advantage if it effects their bottom line.
I think with the MPAA, it's just a matter of "the louder you cry, the more likely someone will be sympathetic".
Piracy may or may not be a "real" problem to them. But if they bring enough cases to court and make enough publicity about the matter, then eventually, the perception becomes, "hey, this is a real serious problem and we need to create laws to protect the 'rights' of the media companies".
I think they are just crying like babies to the point where they can get the courts to mandate laws on their behalf (read: to benefit them at the absolute cost of the consumer) when indeed, the problem probly doesn't exist like they are portraying it.
Another problem, is that just because someone else is breaking the law (and of course, some of the advantages the Internet provide for such people), they have to automatically treat every comsumer like a criminal and treat them as such. It's not "innocent until proven guilty", it's "guilty because you're a potential pirate".
The media has too much power. I somehow doubt enough people will refrain from purchasing such products enough to persuade them. What will happen is if that happens, they'll just say "see, because of these pirates, sales are down xx%" (read: we need more laws and to take away more rights of the consumer). All these laws and cases that happen to protect the companies and harm the consumers, why we never have any say-so in the matter?
I guess if we each send $100 bill (a few thousand of us) with our letters to congress about the matter, we can, too, buy our own laws... he he.. but we'd rather spend that same $100 on porn memberships, that's why this won't change in our behalf. And the matter will only get worse. People always bitch about companies buying their politician, people can too, just send money along with your letter of protest, enough people do it, someone will listen. Until we do, things won't change.
I think with the MPAA, it's just a matter of "the louder you cry, the more likely someone will be sympathetic".
Piracy may or may not be a "real" problem to them. But if they bring enough cases to court and make enough publicity about the matter, then eventually, the perception becomes, "hey, this is a real serious problem and we need to create laws to protect the 'rights' of the media companies".
I think they are just crying like babies to the point where they can get the courts to mandate laws on their behalf (read: to benefit them at the absolute cost of the consumer) when indeed, the problem probly doesn't exist like they are portraying it.
Another problem, is that just because someone else is breaking the law (and of course, some of the advantages the Internet provide for such people), they have to automatically treat every comsumer like a criminal and treat them as such. It's not "innocent until proven guilty", it's "guilty because you're a potential pirate".
The media has too much power. I somehow doubt enough people will refrain from purchasing such products enough to persuade them. What will happen is if that happens, they'll just say "see, because of these pirates, sales are down xx%" (read: we need more laws and to take away more rights of the consumer). All these laws and cases that happen to protect the companies and harm the consumers, why we never have any say-so in the matter?
I guess if we each send $100 bill (a few thousand of us) with our letters to congress about the matter, we can, too, buy our own laws... he he.. but we'd rather spend that same $100 on porn memberships, that's why this won't change in our behalf. And the matter will only get worse. People always bitch about companies buying their politician, people can too, just send money along with your letter of protest, enough people do it, someone will listen. Until we do, things won't change.
Slashdot Mirror
Crap. WinRar is $29 and WinZip is $29. Yet they are incredibly heavily pirated. You think all those warez dudes actually paid for WinRar and almost all their warez are in Rar. Therefore, that software being too expensive is crap. $29 isn't too much money. Not any different than $2,900 if it's still cracked or serial generators are easily findable with a simple search on your favorite "security" related search site.
Thanks,
Me
The article says it's $0.75 per decoder and at the very bottom of the page, it says there is also a $15,000 a year minimum license fee payable each January.
Thanks,
Me
Some of IE's components are a part of Windows, witness ComCtl32.ocx etc... but for the most part, like with Office, they have a different trick that speeds things up... they have a "DELAYLOAD" option set at compile-time. Basically, rather than static-linking the supporting DLL's and loading them at application initialization-time, it'll only load the library the first time it's used in code... therefore, it may have 50 DLL's supporting it, but if only 3 or 4 are need to get IE started, it'll only load those 3 or 4 and the rest untouched until needed. That is the optimization trick that IE and Office uses to to achieve fast boot times. I've used the switch and it really does significanly help. Windows XP has a similar trick, it only uses things when needed but not until then, that's how they make it boot so much faster.
Thanks,
Me
The last two companies I worked for hired foreign workers for programming positions. I don't know what they were paid. I don't care. I will say this, some of the brightest programmers and other IT technical people I've ever met (and certainly worked with) were Russian, Indian, Persian, or German (mostly Indian and Russian, tho).
They work harder and find few excuses and are so detail oriented that when compared with the other American workers there, put the Americans to shame. I, am American. I even found myself lazy compared to them.
The company only required 35 hours a week (my salary was $72 -- I was R&D). We had two hour lunches. They didn't hardly care much about being in-tune with their work, as I on the other hand, devoted my life to squeezing every last bit of performance out of whatever I could and reading trade magazines and buying every book on the shelf about programming out of my pocket. I game my all, but not all my hours.
They, gave all their hours (when not required to) and often did exemplary work in their projects. I must say, I see no harm in foreign workers. Americans (as I've seen but I haven't seen them all) are simply lazy when compared to them. Again, based on what I've seen which is by no means exhaustive. I'm proud to have met those people and watched 1 Indian and 1 Russian become and American citizen as a result of corporate sponsorship.
Thanks,
Me
Actually, it's not obvious. I'm certainly no supporter of the music piracy scene, or the software warez scene. But moreso, I'm in no way even a remote supporter of the *IAA cartels or the BSA, or Fritz Hollings, Disney, DRM or anything like that.
A lie is a lie, an excuse is an excuse, and infringement is infringement. I hear more crap about how people want to justify this behavior, rather than about how people want to actually inflict change. By posting the response I did, I'm actually exposing people's hypocracy.
Just because I don't say what you want to hear, or because I don't support the behaviors of many, doesn't mean I'm a supporter of the cartels. It just means that right is right, wrong is wrong, and excuses are excuses. To be frank, I don't support either camps.
Thanks, Me
If the artists were being paid more
I won't buy a CD because there's only 1 or 2 songs I like on the album
If the cost of a song was $1 to download without restrictions
I'm a poor college student, so I have to download them...
I will pay to support indy labels
While there's a free alternative I'll just use that instead
I already own the CD
You see, when you get right down to the point, it's all just a bunch of excuses. No real substance.
Thanks, Me
If you can go the Maya route, they have the Maya Real-Time SDK (which is basically a tool for converting Maya worlds into a game). I think Maya RT-SDK is a game engine. Anyway, last I checked, about a year ago, it cost $250,000 (not sure if it was per-seat or site)...
Thanks,
Me
It seems that because that because news networks do this, that people must have "gotten used" to it. Of course, I don't watch the news, or CNN... so I'm not in their statistic. What if the add blocks an important part of the movie? Consider...
Martha's son just been found dead. The investigators search through the house looking for clues. The move books around and find what appears to be a suicide note. The camera displays a full screen view of a portion of the note and you begin reading it... all of the sudden a 25% add pops up "Thinking about committing suicide? Call the teen suicide hotline and [number]" and bam!!! you've just missed because it was obsured and now you are going to sit through another hour of court trials proving a note in the stead of a person on trial for murder that you could have read...
Oh well, guess it had to come to this. I can't think of an ad that has an impact on me lately. It's a pitty.
The key in this, is that people didn't call up angry and screaming so the assume it's okay. For the most part, it must be, because people didn't complain. We should change that instead of just writing about what we should do, we should actually do what we write about we should do... and call them and complain...
Thanks, Me
Mod me down if you must, but...
I agree that many, if not most, standards and standard protocols were developed for free, and free for all the use, open-source, or simply restriction free, and that's no dispute. However, saying that 'only' open-source insterests can 'innovate' or 'set standards' that everyone else must use is certainly anti-capitolist.
First of all, a lot of the open source efforts I see today really are only trying to emulate what closed-source commercial software vendors are profiting from, therefore, I don't see much innovation in the open-source world right now. Perhaps I'm wrong. Also, since commercial interests are at the forefront of having to come up with new ways to communicate and so on, is the open-source community really up to the same tasks? Are they that much in tune with big business' clients needs? Seems all the open-source talk I hear these days are regurgitations of what we already here in the press and so on.. where's the reall innovaters and thinkers?
My second point is that saying only open-source interests can set standards or innovate sounds just as much like an open-source fanatic oppurtunist rant as the FBI on terrorism to proclaim 'their' cause, as well.
Third, why have a federal committee set in place to govern standards on a global front? If you're in Europe do you want the US to impose upon you, as a software engineer, how you should 'innovate'?? If you're in the US, do you want the government or a European (or global body) to impose upon you, as a software engineer, how you can 'innovate'? Who decides the rules, how do you prevent from the controlling interests becoming corrupt?
Personally, I don't think that any commercial interest cares about any community other than their own primary shareholders. But to say that only open-source interests can innovate networking protocols is a bit extreme, as well. I don't have a better answer. Everything is going corporate so I don't think there's likely to be any change in the area of consumer interest anytime soon. If the government starts to oversee any of the software industry, it'll be tough to get entry as a garage-kid programmer, enterprenuer... (think auto industry, aerospace, pharmasuticals, civil engineering, maritime, etc.)...
My $.02
Don't know if this will be read but... the networks should provide a way to specify a checksum of a legit file so if it doesn't match, then don't download. Due to the decentralized nature of some, this might be hard to do, but users should be able to "vote" if it's a crap file or legit... this would help weed out the "crap" from the actual...
Thanks
Well, probly because they already have said customers business, and said customer is probly already bound by a 12-24 month contract they can't get out of without paying up. The new customer, on the other hand, isn't paying up so they make it look "more attractive" to "lure" the potential customer into a 12-24 month contract.
It's not the best way to to business, but if people keep doing business that way, then appearantly it's not bothering too many people. I suspect that's why they make it so difficult to get set up and why the lengthy contracts... so people don't want to go elsewhere or can't...
Thanks
How recent was the 2MG cap? I've been using a hotmail account since late 1997 and it's been 2MB at least that I can remember, 1998... that's why I started using Outlook Express to store the messages on my system... in fact, I don't remember the 10MB limit (so it's not been in effect since at least early 1998 since I've been a member)...
Thanks,
Shawn
It's certainly better to levy more "irrelevant" fees than to activate sssca and similar... now, if both take place then there should be grounds for removing one or the other...
Thanks,
Shawn
... meanwhile after playing Xenogears II for 3 days and just about ready to deliver the final blow to the big boss...
"XBOX has performed an illegal operation error at 0000:0001 EAX=BADD EIX=BADD..."
... then while loading the game from the memory [after the crash]...
"Unable to load saved data, XBOX was not shut down properly, now performing a full memory card scan..."
...
"XBOX is unable to complete this operation. Memory card not a valid FAT32 partition."
Time to start over again...
Doh!!!!
Thanks,
Me
We need to focus our attention on making it difficult for corporations to donate, or contribute. Moreso, especially if it's in the direct interest of the company against the people. And maybe try to get some regulations in place that make it strict punishment for corporations to push or lobby for something that violates the constitution. A system needs to be put in place that ensures more protection for the people, not the corporatations. While money is involved, we will always know who'll win.
I've had an email address for about a year that was not once used for any reason at all. Never received, never sent. One day, I sent an email to a relative who had just got their email account and was excited to be on the web.
..."
A month later, I got forwarded one of those "send this to x people and Bill Gates will send you $3,014 for each 3rd person... no really, it's true, just the other day I recevied my $10 million dollar check from
I replied and told her never to do that again or she will be blocked and I'll never email her. I explained to her why she shouldn't do that. It's because someone somewhere along the line will get the 30 times forwarded message and will glean the 100's of emails that are a part of the message body from all the forwards and put you on a list.
Now, everyday I get 1 or 2 Univerity Diplomas emails, they just don't stop sending them, Every day Janna wants to know what I was doing last night, King Kong keeps wanting me to buy some Herbal Viagra alternatives, FBI snooper detection prevention software, and a chance to win a free 3 carot dimand after I send $2,000 to sponser some foundation... yeah... uh huh...
I'll tell you, those funnies you send and recieve everyday is a really good way.
The other way is to reply to a spam to be removed from a mailing list. In the same mail account, I replied to a few to be removed from the list and shortly after the volume of messages recived almost doubled. Now it's a useless email account that receives over 600 emails per week. It's sad because I've only sent and recieved less than 10 legitimate messages from that account in the past 5 years and this is what I get in return for it.
Bottom line:
* Warn your friends and family not to send
you forwarded email. Explain to them
that most of those messages are hoaxes,
anyway. Companies don't pay to you to blast
the Internet with messages.
* Second, don't reply to spams when you do
receive them or it will just confirm an
active account. I used to spoof returned
mail notices but those don't help any,
they also make it worse.
* Third, if you do recieve a mass-forward,
you're already at odds.
* Each time you sign up to a new web-site, read
the privacy statement. Usually, you're info
will be shared with a partner. Check that
partners privacy, because usually that partner
will share your info with a partner and so on.
Your email address is usually not kept secret
anymore. They make too much money by selling
to people. If they are European based, then
it might be more secure because of privacy
laws.
* Opt-out of those "important updates from the
company and their partners". This will just
generate more unwanted messages than you'll
care about. I've opted-in to some in the past
that were supposed to be monthy tech news
updates on important issues. Well, one day it
became daily. They changed their policy with
out notifying me.
* Most sites reserve the right to change their
privacy policies at-will and with no obligation
to notify you. They expect you to keep up
on this yourself. The best advice is to do
so. I've cancelled membership to some sites
because of this. My data is not theirs to
profit from while I profit nothing from it.
* Obvious names, such as "kitty@domain.com,
bmwlover@domain.com, studmuff@domain.com, etc"
are likely culprits. Sometimes they perform
dictionary based attacks on many domains and
it may just be your lucky number. What's
worse, is that they CC so all emails are there
and other spammers gather those emails and then
you are placed on another list.
* Anything else not mentioned. Keep in mind,
these are only spam "reduction" techniques. I
think it's very difficult and next to
impossible to not be spammed. Being aware of
certain actions that will trigger a result and
preventing those actions, will help greatly.
* If they leave a return address, sometimes you
can complain and have their account revoked.
This won't stop them, they'll open another
account and continue.
* Push for a law that allows the sponsor of the
spam to be sued for damages and inconveniences
rather than the sender. For example, I've
recived over 200 unvirsity diplomas messages
which all have the same phone number, but each
message is from a different sender. If we can
sue the owner of the phone number, than that
would go a great distance because it would
make people afraid to market in that mannor.
Well, hope this helps,
Leabre
I started programming from hobby and love. I spend over $2-15k per year in hardware, software and books and whatever else to stay on top and pay for my own MSDN subscription. I've busted my behind working for remedial tech support jobs and programming in what spare time the company would allocate. I then left the company to be a programmer 5 years ago. Still worked for a living programming, studied for a living other hours. My knowledge increased.
s we can sign up for. Again, no obligations. But we must pass, and all classes apply towards certification. That's a great offer and one which I'm greatfully accepting, as are the other 20 IT people here and managers. Again, this is the exception rather than the rule. It's never been like this in any aspect of education, tuition reimbursement, or work environment anywhere I've ever worked before and we're not a dot-anything. We've been around since 1921 and are very stable and growing. This is my 15th month here.
I began consulting for various Law Enforcement agencies writing custom software for tracking various aspects of their job. I even make some royalties.
I'm now a Research & Development programmer for a large company with no contract or IP agreements and am almost completely automomous, work 40/hr weeks, great benefits, $70k+ salary, easy commute, and they send all the IT people to training. At first, the classes are assigned based on how they feel you need. Start with Beg, then Intermediate, then Advanced classes in all topics you need.
Now, there's a free-for-all-pre-approved-in-your-own-time-classe
My advice on it, tho, is don't expect your employer to be responsible for what should be you're own motivations. If you make your efforts, your own endeavors, sacrifice your own time, then it'll pay off more-so. However, if you really need training indeed for your job, then accept what they will provide. If they won't provide, then take a cold-hard look at how much you really want to do what you do and how important you think you are to the company. Perhaps you are important but that responsibility should be yours. Who knows, but don't *EXPECT* others to foot your bill.
Keep yourself motivated and up-to-date and you'll excell far more in life. You're job, and you're relevance is you're responsibility.
_Shawn
DeaR reCipieNT,
;)). You ARe PRevEnTIng Us froM UsinG You As a StatiStIC. We HOPe YoU wiLL dO the riGhT ThinG.
yOu haVE beeN GiVEN manY OppURtunItiES tO puRchASE proDuct X viA thE MILlioNS of emAilS YOu reCieVE eAch wEEk. You HAVe refuSED. We NOw HavE YoUR EmaiLS RansOM. If YOu FAil to puRChasE braND X by SundOWn FridAY usINg InterNET eXplorER 5.01 or HigHER WitH WindOWs 2000 SeCURity SETtings MimIMUm... You'LL neVeR SeE youR EmailS agAiN
Lemon law or not, I do believe (unless I understand UCITA incorrectly) that if UCITA is in effect in their state, that it doesn't matter. They're not responsible for it nor are they obligated to care. =((
Simple solution: instead of gripe about here, send a letter to your congressman or whoever, attach $100. If enough people do this, then the'll begin to take notice. Sending a $100 is cheaper than paying the RIAA CD-ROM Tax because you might copy a CD, or other increased commerce fees because of all the needless litigation, or the litigation you may end up in because you used Napster one too many times. But no one will do that. That's why things won't change.
I have done contract programming in the past, mainly, I put some LA Police Depts. evidence (paper trails) room on an automated, barcode, account required, blockbuster type of system. I've written other things for them.
I did not write the contract in Legal mumbo-jumbo because I couldn't afford an attorney to do so. So I wrote one in plain English. I scored contract after contract, they felt like they knew what they were getting and I felt like I understood that they understood.
Lesson Learned: the evidence project was supposed to be 90 days at valued roughly $60k. Rather than quoting the project fee, they wanted to to break certain "key areas of functionality" into smaller chucks of cash so they can see where the money is really going. So I broke it down and it changed so much (some of which was accounted for in negotiations) that it really took 180 days.
They day we were to deploy it, they changed their mind about many of the "key areas of functionality" and stated they were "optional" from the beginning. The bottom line, is that I ended up receiving $2,400 for the whole project based on loop-holes in our agreement. Namely, the areas of functionality never stated optional or required, just that they were "eliments" and not "product". Then, agreed early on, they database structure and barcode libraries I could not retain the rights to, simply because they needed to interface with their own proprietary system that I could not gain access to as a developer (for security reasons). So all the software I wrote, they scrapped and kept the database structure and some of the API's, and they kept the barcode stuff (because I couldn't control whether they did or not).
I've sinced changed my contract to two things: 1) quote by hours of labor instead of project based, therefore it gives them less incentive to keep dragging it out, since time-is-money. This usually forces things to be thought through more efficiently before hand. 2) when I do quote by the contract, I have certain fail-safes in place: namely, if I write any portion of an element of functionality listed in the contract and at any point they decide to cann it, instead of paying the agreed upon price for that or those elements, they must pay for my hourly effort at standard consulting fees. I find, it's much more difficult to strike an agreement with that in their, they usually opt for the hourly-based fee instead -- because changing their mind doesn't jack the price up significantly from the fixed project price agreed upon. $2k for a feature, or $4,500 for labor, there is a price difference if I don't estimate my hours correctly and put much time into it and they change their mind.
They are allowed to make changes to the spec, as long as the features are already mentioned in the project proposal. Anything removed (and already worked on) gets paid for, because of the time (invested), or because of the time (if it's a project-based proposal), and anything added not specifically mentioned much be negotiated.
Also, now, in all cases, I retain the copyright and rights to use the software for anything I want, commercial or not, so long as anything specific to their organization is not discussed or included. They also have a right to the source code, but they must sign an NDA and any person directly or indirectly accessing that source, cannot create a competing product based on anything in my source.
As far as bugs and training goes, you have to make sure that you agree to fix bugs but aren't responsible for loss of data, system down time, or whatever. You also have to define that bugs in windows of office isn't your responsibility. You also have to define what the difference between a glitch in the intended purpose of functionality, and what an enhancement is so they don't think that because you didn't agree to list 100 items on a screen instead of 1 is not a bug, but rather an enhancement that was not originally agreed upon.
Training should be fee-based, however, usually it's not important if you don't get creative and stick to their specs or ideals, they should already have a grasp. Some contracts mandated that I figure out how to make things work so for that, training is necessary, a simple walkthrough and explanation is required, but training the users themselves is fee-based. That requires time, patience, and usually ends up in a list of chagnes. So please, cover your ass.
This covers my ass, and makes them happy. The down side is that it's harder to land a contract these days with such strict payment and licensing terms. But I will not go 6 months on a project only to get paid for what I now make in one week. When the contracts are complete, there is a much greater since of satisfaction between two parties and a good business relationship as opposed to my loose agreements before, we both carried bitter feelings against each other. That's another plus that's priceless.
Remember, if you write a contract like an amateur and they exploit the loopholes, they'll treat you and think of you as an amatuer. Presenting a water-tight and satisfactory agreement which they have difficulties exploiting, makes them feel like you are professional and have experience, and they'll respect that.
Bottom line: do your homework and try to think of everything you can to strike a medium between covering your ass, and protecting their investment. Your payment collection should never be compromised, or as I've learned, in 3 contracts not specifying clearly enough, they will find the loopholes and exploit them to their fulleset advantage if it effects their bottom line.
Regards,
Me
Piracy may or may not be a "real" problem to them. But if they bring enough cases to court and make enough publicity about the matter, then eventually, the perception becomes, "hey, this is a real serious problem and we need to create laws to protect the 'rights' of the media companies".
I think they are just crying like babies to the point where they can get the courts to mandate laws on their behalf (read: to benefit them at the absolute cost of the consumer) when indeed, the problem probly doesn't exist like they are portraying it.
Another problem, is that just because someone else is breaking the law (and of course, some of the advantages the Internet provide for such people), they have to automatically treat every comsumer like a criminal and treat them as such. It's not "innocent until proven guilty", it's "guilty because you're a potential pirate".
The media has too much power. I somehow doubt enough people will refrain from purchasing such products enough to persuade them. What will happen is if that happens, they'll just say "see, because of these pirates, sales are down xx%" (read: we need more laws and to take away more rights of the consumer). All these laws and cases that happen to protect the companies and harm the consumers, why we never have any say-so in the matter?
I guess if we each send $100 bill (a few thousand of us) with our letters to congress about the matter, we can, too, buy our own laws... he he.. but we'd rather spend that same $100 on porn memberships, that's why this won't change in our behalf. And the matter will only get worse. People always bitch about companies buying their politician, people can too, just send money along with your letter of protest, enough people do it, someone will listen. Until we do, things won't change.
-- Me
Piracy may or may not be a "real" problem to them. But if they bring enough cases to court and make enough publicity about the matter, then eventually, the perception becomes, "hey, this is a real serious problem and we need to create laws to protect the 'rights' of the media companies".
I think they are just crying like babies to the point where they can get the courts to mandate laws on their behalf (read: to benefit them at the absolute cost of the consumer) when indeed, the problem probly doesn't exist like they are portraying it.
Another problem, is that just because someone else is breaking the law (and of course, some of the advantages the Internet provide for such people), they have to automatically treat every comsumer like a criminal and treat them as such. It's not "innocent until proven guilty", it's "guilty because you're a potential pirate".
The media has too much power. I somehow doubt enough people will refrain from purchasing such products enough to persuade them. What will happen is if that happens, they'll just say "see, because of these pirates, sales are down xx%" (read: we need more laws and to take away more rights of the consumer). All these laws and cases that happen to protect the companies and harm the consumers, why we never have any say-so in the matter?
I guess if we each send $100 bill (a few thousand of us) with our letters to congress about the matter, we can, too, buy our own laws... he he.. but we'd rather spend that same $100 on porn memberships, that's why this won't change in our behalf. And the matter will only get worse. People always bitch about companies buying their politician, people can too, just send money along with your letter of protest, enough people do it, someone will listen. Until we do, things won't change.
-- Me