You pay for a pipe with advertised bandwidth that's not guaranteed. If you look at the TOS of any residential cable operator, you'll find a whole lot of loopholes that were left there for legal purposes, so that no one can sue for lack of bandwidth or longer than expected downtime.
Read up Lawrence Lessig. While the telephone networks (and hence DSL lines) are considered to be public service, cable lines are the property of the cable operator.
Comcast, Adelphia and others did not use the public money to build it, so they do not have to give up control over it. With the broadband rush 5 years ago the ISPs around the States sued the cable companies to open up access for providing ISP services to the residential. No cigar - the cable lines are the property of the cable company, you only have control over your dollars (that you choose to give them or deny them), you do not have control over their content.
Here's a better idea: STOP REGULATING BUSINESSES TO DEATH! VoIP doesn't need regulation.
But then if Comcast launches its own VOIP operator, as they have been rumored to do, and your Vonage/Packet8 calls suddenly experience worse than expected quality of service and inexplicable drops and hiccups, who will you appeal to, but the good ole US gov?
What's wrong with attaching a laptop with S-Video output to the TV? I also plug my 5.1 audio-system into the audio jack of the laptop and get the full surround sound. Plays DivX, WMV, RealVideo, MPEG and whatever they come up with.
The Mozilla Firefox team was able to look at all the wrongdoings of Microsoft
Let's set the record straight - Microsoft won the browser wars over the Netscape, because it delivered a better product with IE 4 and IE 5. Netscape Communicator 4 was bulky, glitchy, slow to load and slow to respond with ugly widgets. Netscape 6 was the same nightmare with different skin and off-the-scratch source code. IE at that point was faster, easier to use, and had native Windows widgets with faster response times.
IE 6 is function-less, incapable of being customized (internal popup blocker did not come till SP 2) and is a security nightmare. Firefox just delivers a better product at the time.
Netscape was bought out so that the marketing department called up Microsoft and told Microsoft they wanted an AOL icon on each and every desktop with newly-shipped Windows. For like 2 or 3 years Microsoft did exactly that, which brought AOL who knows how many customers that paid for the service. Distributing Netscape-based browser to the AOL subscribers would have no financial benefits for AOL whatsoever.
These patents (5,206,951, 5,421,012 and 5,226,161) are so basic, they cover large amounts of OO software. According to this decision, Kodak now owns CORBA, COM, large parts of Linux, Apache, and pretty much every other large piece of software ever written.
That's exactly my thinking. The one filed in 1993 actually describes the virtual machine that manages objects capable of working with different data structures but exposing the same API, which is pretty much any virtual machine out there, and can be extended to the operating system as a whole.
Kodak's case is strong, since the patents do include the existing OS/VM implementations and describe improvements over existing technologies. Remember: the technology doesn't have to be new to be patented, it just has to extend the technology in a way that's not obvious at the time of filing. That's what I got from my hundreds-dollars-per-hour patent briefing that my employed had for its R&D people.
From my experience more people turn onto OpenOffice.org for its one-click PDF generation than anything else. People who publish newsletters, invitations, or just some documents they want on the Web site. Adobe Acrobat is $170 on Pricegrabber, but it's generally $250 retail in stores, so I've seen people wow'ed by OpenOffice single click Word->PDF conversion.
They are not switchers, they continue to use Office (MS Office 97 in some cases), but keep OpenOffice for this feature when they need another PDF.
There are now almost 1 million Americans subscribing to VOIP services on their broadband lines and Vonage has 200 000 subscribers. They say by 2008 the number will be 17.5 mln.
The thing that gets me is how open-source vs closed-source debate is always OS-centric. True, you have Microsoft on one end and Linux OS family is one of the most succcessful open source products, but what's wrong with promoting open-source product on top of Windows platform?
OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox and many other products off the SourceForge.net have a Windows binary available for download. Windows itself provides great hardware support with almost anything imaginable out there, and has nice OS-level features like fast GUIs and built-in support for burning CDs and what not.
If you look at a Linux box and a Windows box, the price difference from the vendor is generally $50-60. If you use the computer for 5 years, the cost of Windows is $10-12 a year. What's the incentive to go "free" and deal with ugly fonts, hardware issues and other problems related to Linux nowadays?
Moreover, promoting open source on Windows nowadays would set the ground for switch to Linux in the future. Guess what - the aforementioned OO, Mozilla and other apps work exactly the same way either with Linux or Windows. Thus a switch to Linux later on would not require such huge re-education costs, since the user lives in app world, not in OS world, and doesn't care whether it's kernel32.dll or kernel.org latest version, that's running on his machine.
but where is the financial incentive for programmers?
There's none. You can tout open source and hide large system integration bill (also known as IBM way), since rarely an open source package works out of the box.
Or you can tout open source and hide the support bill (the RedHat way), and make money on support.
Few of the billable hours generated here are development work, most of it is IT and support.
I am not sure why it's marked as Spam. I am subscribing to about 3 Google NewsAlerts on my Gmail account and they were arriving in my Inbox all the time, never triggering the spam filters.
Last week I added a filter to apply a special label and Auto-Archive them (hide from Inbox view), but I have never had a Google NewsAlert labeled as Spam.
I am not sure why ROMS runs banners, their choice, I guess, or maybe Webmaster does not treat the Web site of the organization with officiality. It looks kinda whorish to me, too.
Nevertheless, that's the way the law works overthere. Compulsory license and revenue collection through ROMS, or no distribution inside Russia and then hiring a lawyer to defend your stand.
You need to submit an application to ROMS, get approved and start getting the royalties.
If you don't want to deal with that, your lawyer can issue a cease-and-desist, and if the site doesn't comply, you can take it to a court under Russian law. The court generally rules in favor of the copyright holder if proper paperwork is present.
Frankly, this is what your label's lawyer should tell you. Part of running a music business is having sufficient legal team that specializes in Intellectual Property and International Law. Anyone who doesn't have that back-end and calls themselves a label just doesn't seem like a legit company.
The first link, however, will tell you that 19% of those who download music online already have an MP3 player. Furthermore, you have a whole bunch of people who use a PDA, their MP3 watch or what not to listen to the music.
Slashdot Mirror
A Programmer's Introduction to PHP 4.0 from Apress
Practical PHP Programming online book
Quick guide to programming languages
You pay for a pipe with advertised bandwidth that's not guaranteed. If you look at the TOS of any residential cable operator, you'll find a whole lot of loopholes that were left there for legal purposes, so that no one can sue for lack of bandwidth or longer than expected downtime.
Read up Lawrence Lessig. While the telephone networks (and hence DSL lines) are considered to be public service, cable lines are the property of the cable operator.
Comcast, Adelphia and others did not use the public money to build it, so they do not have to give up control over it. With the broadband rush 5 years ago the ISPs around the States sued the cable companies to open up access for providing ISP services to the residential. No cigar - the cable lines are the property of the cable company, you only have control over your dollars (that you choose to give them or deny them), you do not have control over their content.
Comcast can do whatever they please.
Here's a better idea: STOP REGULATING BUSINESSES TO DEATH! VoIP doesn't need regulation.
But then if Comcast launches its own VOIP operator, as they have been rumored to do, and your Vonage/Packet8 calls suddenly experience worse than expected quality of service and inexplicable drops and hiccups, who will you appeal to, but the good ole US gov?
Americans lose $500 mln yearly to phishing.
That's large enough amount for personal scale, especially if you've lost the savings that have been put up against a new house or new car.
But on the large scale, banks won't care, the loss is $3-4 a person, you lose more per year on some dubious surcharges.
Why? Can you elaborate on that? A DivX is a DivX whether played from the dedicated player or laptop. What am I losing on S-Video?
What's wrong with attaching a laptop with S-Video output to the TV? I also plug my 5.1 audio-system into the audio jack of the laptop and get the full surround sound. Plays DivX, WMV, RealVideo, MPEG and whatever they come up with.
The Mozilla Firefox team was able to look at all the wrongdoings of Microsoft
Let's set the record straight - Microsoft won the browser wars over the Netscape, because it delivered a better product with IE 4 and IE 5. Netscape Communicator 4 was bulky, glitchy, slow to load and slow to respond with ugly widgets. Netscape 6 was the same nightmare with different skin and off-the-scratch source code. IE at that point was faster, easier to use, and had native Windows widgets with faster response times.
IE 6 is function-less, incapable of being customized (internal popup blocker did not come till SP 2) and is a security nightmare. Firefox just delivers a better product at the time.
Microsoft was not always a loser in this game.
Both W3Schools.com and CNET News.com report that Firefox users make up 18% of their audience. Techie-oriented sites, I know, so doesn't speak much for mainstream, but Google was a techie-oriented engine at some point as well.
You should read There must be a pony in here somewhere (reviewed by me on Slashdot) to find out AOL's real strategy. Netscape was not bought out for its software technologies.
Netscape was bought out so that the marketing department called up Microsoft and told Microsoft they wanted an AOL icon on each and every desktop with newly-shipped Windows. For like 2 or 3 years Microsoft did exactly that, which brought AOL who knows how many customers that paid for the service. Distributing Netscape-based browser to the AOL subscribers would have no financial benefits for AOL whatsoever.
These patents (5,206,951, 5,421,012 and 5,226,161) are so basic, they cover large amounts of OO software. According to this decision, Kodak now owns CORBA, COM, large parts of Linux, Apache, and pretty much every other large piece of software ever written.
That's exactly my thinking. The one filed in 1993 actually describes the virtual machine that manages objects capable of working with different data structures but exposing the same API, which is pretty much any virtual machine out there, and can be extended to the operating system as a whole.
Kodak's case is strong, since the patents do include the existing OS/VM implementations and describe improvements over existing technologies. Remember: the technology doesn't have to be new to be patented, it just has to extend the technology in a way that's not obvious at the time of filing. That's what I got from my hundreds-dollars-per-hour patent briefing that my employed had for its R&D people.
Different excerpts were released here and here.
From my experience more people turn onto OpenOffice.org for its one-click PDF generation than anything else. People who publish newsletters, invitations, or just some documents they want on the Web site. Adobe Acrobat is $170 on Pricegrabber, but it's generally $250 retail in stores, so I've seen people wow'ed by OpenOffice single click Word->PDF conversion.
They are not switchers, they continue to use Office (MS Office 97 in some cases), but keep OpenOffice for this feature when they need another PDF.
Huh? I live in WA state and pay tax on each purchase from Amazon, regardless of where fulfillment comes from.
There are now almost 1 million Americans subscribing to VOIP services on their broadband lines and Vonage has 200 000 subscribers. They say by 2008 the number will be 17.5 mln.
There's a free online version of O'Reilly's Version Control with SubVersion
The thing that gets me is how open-source vs closed-source debate is always OS-centric. True, you have Microsoft on one end and Linux OS family is one of the most succcessful open source products, but what's wrong with promoting open-source product on top of Windows platform?
OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox and many other products off the SourceForge.net have a Windows binary available for download. Windows itself provides great hardware support with almost anything imaginable out there, and has nice OS-level features like fast GUIs and built-in support for burning CDs and what not.
If you look at a Linux box and a Windows box, the price difference from the vendor is generally $50-60. If you use the computer for 5 years, the cost of Windows is $10-12 a year. What's the incentive to go "free" and deal with ugly fonts, hardware issues and other problems related to Linux nowadays?
Moreover, promoting open source on Windows nowadays would set the ground for switch to Linux in the future. Guess what - the aforementioned OO, Mozilla and other apps work exactly the same way either with Linux or Windows. Thus a switch to Linux later on would not require such huge re-education costs, since the user lives in app world, not in OS world, and doesn't care whether it's kernel32.dll or kernel.org latest version, that's running on his machine.
but where is the financial incentive for programmers?
There's none. You can tout open source and hide large system integration bill (also known as IBM way), since rarely an open source package works out of the box.
Or you can tout open source and hide the support bill (the RedHat way), and make money on support.
Few of the billable hours generated here are development work, most of it is IT and support.
I am not sure why it's marked as Spam. I am subscribing to about 3 Google NewsAlerts on my Gmail account and they were arriving in my Inbox all the time, never triggering the spam filters.
Last week I added a filter to apply a special label and Auto-Archive them (hide from Inbox view), but I have never had a Google NewsAlert labeled as Spam.
I am not sure why ROMS runs banners, their choice, I guess, or maybe Webmaster does not treat the Web site of the organization with officiality. It looks kinda whorish to me, too.
Nevertheless, that's the way the law works overthere. Compulsory license and revenue collection through ROMS, or no distribution inside Russia and then hiring a lawyer to defend your stand.
Since Google CEO as well as Yahoo CEO endorsed John Kerry for President.
You need to submit an application to ROMS, get approved and start getting the royalties.
If you don't want to deal with that, your lawyer can issue a cease-and-desist, and if the site doesn't comply, you can take it to a court under Russian law. The court generally rules in favor of the copyright holder if proper paperwork is present.
Frankly, this is what your label's lawyer should tell you. Part of running a music business is having sufficient legal team that specializes in Intellectual Property and International Law. Anyone who doesn't have that back-end and calls themselves a label just doesn't seem like a legit company.
December 2003: MP3 player sales for 2003 doubled
February 2004: 7 million MP3 players will be sold in 2004
July 2004: No, 10.8 mln digital music players will be sold in 2004
September 2004: 50 mln by 2008
The first link, however, will tell you that 19% of those who download music online already have an MP3 player. Furthermore, you have a whole bunch of people who use a PDA, their MP3 watch or what not to listen to the music.
How Russian music licensing works.
Compulsory licensing, so it's legal as far as they care. It's not really legal to distribute that music outside of Russia though.