I am an AT&T Wireless customer myself (better coverage than other guys in my area), and often I would get one rep or dealer tell me about one promotion, I'd call up the number, and the customer service doesn't have a clue.
Do you guys all use different CRM systems for dealing with the customers or how does it work?
The guy who owns gets a deep discount from distrubution partners because his is a "native-american" owned business.
Is that because of some government regulation or is that due to distributor's goodwill? I mean, assuming the distributors themselves grant a discount voluntarily, there's little you can do.
This guy totally agrees with you, except for the WiMAX part - he thinks that even WiMAX will commoditize the industry and not allow for startup companies.
I live in Spokane, 15 minute drive from CdA, and hopefully this project, if it succeeds, will bring more wireless into the area.
Right now the greater Spokane area is pretty much monopolized by Qwest's DSL (available some places) and Comcast's cable (available pretty much anywhere else). For a city with 300K plus total population it's a shame.
All MS has to do is call it MUNJ (Microsoft UN-Java) or J++ and say it's better than Java but not actually Java and bundle it with Windows and now you have a divided market, with half the Java software only working on Windows.
J# is alive, and although never terribly popular, it's still sponsored by MSFT as a way to migrate existing Java code to.NET platform.
Still there are few J# shops and companies "developing effective J# solutions", you're either Java, or.NET (meaning C#, not some bastardized half-languages) or both.
According to Sun, Java and JVM are registered trademarks. Since Sun owns the trademarks, can't they fight the unwanted forks by exercising the trademark laws?
The forks that are compliant and please Sun Micro can use Java(tm) and can distribute JVM(tm). The forks that Sun doesn't really care about and the ones that pollute the Java world would just have to be something different, call them Jaba, Jamboree or something else, but no one is allowed to use the trademarked terms without Sun's permissions.
Nielsen//NetRatings said 25% of US Internet users visited porn sites (results for December only), but who knows, maybe people behaved differently when tracked by that NN app.
You are assuming that the guy who comes along and downloads it will be as intimate with not just the code but how to use it effectively as well.
It's the issue of time. Right, you cannot pull a guy off the street and expect him to know the internals of a Java PDA sync utility, but if you're serious on starting, you'd do your research and prepare yourself, since this is your core business. Also, it's likely that you won't have to have complete familiarity with the code down to the for loops and if statements, but you'll know general applicability of the product and thus support it to solve business needs. Clients do not reward coding expertise, clients reward ability to solve their problems.
I wrote it. I've seen X iterations of it. I know what works and what doesn't.
That's a bit too hypothetical. What about the following scenario - you wrote a certain package and know it well, and then the package gains popularity and IBM or EDS starts offering support for it for their existing clients. Who will get the foot in the door - you as an author? Or an IBM contractor who just happened to know some internals and generally know what the code is doing?
My guess is that the author won't even be allowed to bid on support contract, since it will be packaged with so many requirements, requests for support on other product, that only a large corp could handle it.
... with PS/2 adapter as I type this. worked from day one, the adapter came with the keyboard (Microsoft Natural).
I ran out of USB ports on the box and the hub doesn't seem to be the option, as my PDA suddenly stops responding. Had the same setup on my previous box as well.
So yeah, never had any problems with it whatsoever.
He was just saying that the size of the market determines competitive interest.
If your open source support business (that relies on the product you wrote and GPLed) generates $30,000 a year, that's hardly enough for someone to get excited. (Oh, we could get a 33% market share by undercutting prices and then earn $10,000 this year!)
Things start to happen when the revenue number hits six digits. Then it's time for some bright college student to download the source, study the app and then buy a newspaper ad " Support! Lowest price in town guranteed! Free first consultation!"
The support model for open source is somewhat interesting. It's pushed quite frequently as panacea for open-source businesses, but I was reading Chris Pratley's blog yesterday (he works for Microsoft), and he was pointing out some interesting and obvious problems:
You can grow a business to the extent that there is "friction" in the marketplace that makes it not worthwhile to clone your product and business (say, to $100,000). But if your business grew to a significant size (say, $1 million) then someone else will come along, covet that money, and use your source to kick start a clone of your business. This is true in hardware as we all know (all the cheap knockoffs you see of original products), and the friction costs are higher in most cases for hardware. If for example you make an open source accounting app that starts to do well, I can take that source, study it, and start selling and supporting it for less than you offer it, and we can have a price war until we're both paupers, or one quits. Even better, as you make improvements, I get to incorporate them in my product as well, so you can't really stay ahead of me for any length of time.
So in a nutshell, good luck. But if you start generating any money on your project, a fellow developer can download the source and make it a policy to undercut your support pricing by 20%. Many customers will stay with you because of additional benefits provided (they like the service better, they like you personally, etc.), but some might switch, too.
Keep in mind folks, that in the US, electronic funds transfers just require your account number, and bank routing number. Someone armed with those two numbers, and a cooperative banking service, can drain your accounts dry, just as if someone got a hold of a blank check and forged your signature.
Are you sure there's no signature or any additional requirement? My bank required me to show up in person and sign two forms, present the ID and all, to do the wire transfer.
Like the poster before me noted, what's to prevent someone from simply looking at your check and copying the data? The ABA number and checking account # is all there.
In your discussion of obfuscation software, I hope it is simple ignorance rather than intentional deceit that prevents you from noting that open-source code has none of the characteristics of obfuscated code, and that obfuscators are therefore irrelevant to the question you are supposedly addressing.
Anyone who has the book know what the ADTI's claim on code obfuscation was and why the issue was even mentioned?
Well, was bound to happen some day. Hard drive is probably the most expensive part of the hardware, and one can assume Microsoft already has software development covered.
However, even Dell's digital jukeboxes start at $200, and beating Dell pricewise is something out of ordinary (possible, but few have done it).
1) The virus uses native DLLs - it should've used.NET managed code to avoid common memory leaks and other mistakes 2) The virus does not run on 32-bit platform - so no chance of getting "Windows XP Compatible" logo. 3) The virus does not take advantage of the latest Longhorn, Avalon and Indigo features.
Overall, the work is impressive, but I am waiting for more robust and efficient viruses.
Online music prices sometimes can be higher
on
Napster Canada Launched
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
USA Today recently had this article on how some albums were cheaper to buy brand new in offline stores than online.
Basically, any track is sold as 99c (US). Any album on Napster is sold for $10. But then if the album is incomplete, what's being sold is a collection of songs, not album. So if the original CD has 21 songs and costs $13 in the store, but only 20 songs were licensed for online resale to Napster/iTunes, then the product will be a 20-song collection, and cost $19.80 respectively.
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I am an AT&T Wireless customer myself (better coverage than other guys in my area), and often I would get one rep or dealer tell me about one promotion, I'd call up the number, and the customer service doesn't have a clue.
Do you guys all use different CRM systems for dealing with the customers or how does it work?
Top US wireless companies by customer:
- Verizon
- Singular
- AT&T
- Sprint
The most hated cell phone companies (their customer service has something to do with it, I think):
- T-Mobile
- Sprint
- AT&T Wireless
- Cingular
LiveJournal has atom feeds enabled for all of its accounts.
Here's for example, ATOM feed from my account (don't read it, it's in ru-ru anyway), and if you change the username, you can get anyone's ATOM feed.
The guy who owns gets a deep discount from distrubution partners because his is a "native-american" owned business.
Is that because of some government regulation or is that due to distributor's goodwill? I mean, assuming the distributors themselves grant a discount voluntarily, there's little you can do.
This guy totally agrees with you, except for the WiMAX part - he thinks that even WiMAX will commoditize the industry and not allow for startup companies.
I live in Spokane, 15 minute drive from CdA, and hopefully this project, if it succeeds, will bring more wireless into the area.
Right now the greater Spokane area is pretty much monopolized by Qwest's DSL (available some places) and Comcast's cable (available pretty much anywhere else). For a city with 300K plus total population it's a shame.
How will you type your e-mail then?
I thought AOL required this format.
All MS has to do is call it MUNJ (Microsoft UN-Java) or J++ and say it's better than Java but not actually Java and bundle it with Windows and now you have a divided market, with half the Java software only working on Windows.
.NET platform.
.NET (meaning C#, not some bastardized half-languages) or both.
J# is alive, and although never terribly popular, it's still sponsored by MSFT as a way to migrate existing Java code to
Still there are few J# shops and companies "developing effective J# solutions", you're either Java, or
According to Sun, Java and JVM are registered trademarks. Since Sun owns the trademarks, can't they fight the unwanted forks by exercising the trademark laws?
The forks that are compliant and please Sun Micro can use Java(tm) and can distribute JVM(tm). The forks that Sun doesn't really care about and the ones that pollute the Java world would just have to be something different, call them Jaba, Jamboree or something else, but no one is allowed to use the trademarked terms without Sun's permissions.
Nielsen//NetRatings said 25% of US Internet users visited porn sites (results for December only), but who knows, maybe people behaved differently when tracked by that NN app.
You are assuming that the guy who comes along and downloads it will be as intimate with not just the code but how to use it effectively as well.
It's the issue of time. Right, you cannot pull a guy off the street and expect him to know the internals of a Java PDA sync utility, but if you're serious on starting, you'd do your research and prepare yourself, since this is your core business. Also, it's likely that you won't have to have complete familiarity with the code down to the for loops and if statements, but you'll know general applicability of the product and thus support it to solve business needs. Clients do not reward coding expertise, clients reward ability to solve their problems.
I wrote it. I've seen X iterations of it. I know what works and what doesn't.
That's a bit too hypothetical. What about the following scenario - you wrote a certain package and know it well, and then the package gains popularity and IBM or EDS starts offering support for it for their existing clients. Who will get the foot in the door - you as an author? Or an IBM contractor who just happened to know some internals and generally know what the code is doing?
My guess is that the author won't even be allowed to bid on support contract, since it will be packaged with so many requirements, requests for support on other product, that only a large corp could handle it.
Yes, it is unpowered. Just a cheap Linksys USB hub I got a while ago for $10.
my bad
... with PS/2 adapter as I type this. worked from day one, the adapter came with the keyboard (Microsoft Natural).
I ran out of USB ports on the box and the hub doesn't seem to be the option, as my PDA suddenly stops responding. Had the same setup on my previous box as well.
So yeah, never had any problems with it whatsoever.
He was just saying that the size of the market determines competitive interest.
If your open source support business (that relies on the product you wrote and GPLed) generates $30,000 a year, that's hardly enough for someone to get excited. (Oh, we could get a 33% market share by undercutting prices and then earn $10,000 this year!)
Things start to happen when the revenue number hits six digits. Then it's time for some bright college student to download the source, study the app and then buy a newspaper ad " Support! Lowest price in town guranteed! Free first consultation!"
So in a nutshell, good luck. But if you start generating any money on your project, a fellow developer can download the source and make it a policy to undercut your support pricing by 20%. Many customers will stay with you because of additional benefits provided (they like the service better, they like you personally, etc.), but some might switch, too.
Keep in mind folks, that in the US, electronic funds transfers just require your account number, and bank routing number. Someone armed with those two numbers, and a cooperative banking service, can drain your accounts dry, just as if someone got a hold of a blank check and forged your signature.
Are you sure there's no signature or any additional requirement? My bank required me to show up in person and sign two forms, present the ID and all, to do the wire transfer.
Like the poster before me noted, what's to prevent someone from simply looking at your check and copying the data? The ABA number and checking account # is all there.
Hence my question: are others also worried about poor security of online banking in the U.S.?
In my bank the online banking site allows me to check the balance and that's about it. Doesn't leave too much to the intruder.
I can also contact the bank via e-mail and ask to change address or anything else, but that would require a phone call confirmation as well.
Thanks,
I just noticed your reply, should've read it on Sunday.
The questions are sent to me from various sources, mostly by e-mail, I will correct this one, I cannot check all of them for correctness.
Why refer to the term open source if you meant free of charge? Not sure whether the source would do you any good here.
As for free language courses, Google search for free language courses produces just that.
Anyone who has the book know what the ADTI's claim on code obfuscation was and why the issue was even mentioned?
Well, was bound to happen some day. Hard drive is probably the most expensive part of the hardware, and one can assume Microsoft already has software development covered.
However, even Dell's digital jukeboxes start at $200, and beating Dell pricewise is something out of ordinary (possible, but few have done it).
Search for Perl in the search box, there are some questions marked Java Web programming interview questions that are actually Perl.
1) The virus uses native DLLs - it should've used .NET managed code to avoid common memory leaks and other mistakes
2) The virus does not run on 32-bit platform - so no chance of getting "Windows XP Compatible" logo.
3) The virus does not take advantage of the latest Longhorn, Avalon and Indigo features.
Overall, the work is impressive, but I am waiting for more robust and efficient viruses.
USA Today recently had this article on how some albums were cheaper to buy brand new in offline stores than online.
Basically, any track is sold as 99c (US). Any album on Napster is sold for $10. But then if the album is incomplete, what's being sold is a collection of songs, not album. So if the original CD has 21 songs and costs $13 in the store, but only 20 songs were licensed for online resale to Napster/iTunes, then the product will be a 20-song collection, and cost $19.80 respectively.