I worked as a contractor for a company that was at the height of the Internet boom in 2000 and is currently defunct. After the first round of layoffs the yahoo message board for the company stock (now deleted, since the company is no more, and neither is the nasdaq ticker) suddenly gained a bunch of users, discussing in excruciating details some "secret" deals that were on the way, some internal budgeting and executives' personal life.
Some of the stuff was pretty nasty, but at times it was a good laugh, and after a while the company started posting the legalese messages on the board, like "This is the legal dept of such-and-such, just to let you know, this board is being monitored and archived".
Anyway, they sued Yahoo! and subpoened Yahoo! for a bunch of online identities who were clearly former employees discussing what was called "sensitive information" on the public board and that had something to do with "negative public image". Needless to say, Yahoo! just kinda ignored the lawsuit for a while, although a bunch of people were a bit scared about the outcome.
Unfortunately, I dont remember whether it was the court that denied any reponsibility on Yahoo's part, or whether it was the company dissolving (I quit after being there for 2 months), but the identities were never revealed, and since the company went bankrupt, not that it really mattered.
A good test I usually suggest is to run your current OS, and install an OS you want to switch to in a virtual machine environment (VPC or VMware on Windows). If you do not find yourself repeatedly switching to that new OS to complete the tasks, then why bother?
Yahoo has far more reaching international appeal. While Google runs international Web front-ends in chosen language, portals like Yahoo! Singapore are separate business operations with their own marketing, sales and so on. Pretty big brand name in Asia, from what I've heard.
The study was based on comScore technology, which continuously and confidentially captures the complete Internet activity - including specific keyword queries across all major search engines - of a representative cross-section of more than 1.5 million global Internet users. comScore methodology combines industry-endorsed random digit dial (RDD) sampling methodologies with massive population samples across key home, work, university and non-U.S. locations. This unique combination of technology and methodology enables searching activity to be accurately linked - immediately and over time - to consumers' Web-wide visiting and actual buying behavior.
Tracking 1.5 million users, perhaps some monitoring software at AOL/Comcast/MSN/SBC is involved?
Sorry about that. I was prettying up the OpenOffice document to submit it in HTML, as Slashdot requires, and apparently my search-replace routines "optimized" the quotes.
You're thinking of late-day Microsoft. The early-day Microsoft was often a pretty reasonable solution in terms of price.
WordStar and WordPerfect charged plenty for the word processors, plus if you wanted spell-check, that thing alone would cost you extra $300 or so. Then Microsoft came around with Word, which wasn't all great, but sufficiently functional and way cheaper.
The same with Windows NT - Novell is jumping the Linux bandwagon now only because it got its ass kicked by early Windows NT sales, which made Novell look way over-priced. True, early Novell was technologically superior to early Windows NT, but as the market expanded, NT got better and Novell became the bottom-feeder.
Well, first of all, Nokia has been very successful in the cell phone market, and generally when you have high-quality competing players, the competition kicks in, and things even out. Nokia boasted 34.7% global marklet share in 2003, and in Q1 2004 grew in European region with those new concept devices like N-Gage and what not. Suchy growth is hardly sustainable, especially when competition largely is just as good.
Second, US is a large market for cell phones in regards to global sales. However, few of US customers ever choose their cellphones, since in the United States the phones are purchased by the operator, not customer. Which still creates some sort of competition, but it's way tougher to push newer phones and newer features, while the operator still has the year-old models available and runs those commercial "and now get a free blah-blah-blah phone with the signup for 1-year plan".
Realistically I think slipping to 28.9% is not too big of a deal, and Nokia will kick back after maybe just one sweet deal with US operator like Cingular or Verizon, where new models get pushed.
Oh, come on, there're like 500 companies on that list trading at P/Es below Red Hat. Some are service-based, some might even rely on Linux.
RHAT is outrageously expensive, and it certainly seems like someone among the C-level executives tried to pull an Enron by writing down cash that didnt get to the bank yet.
Although they are certainly nice about admitting it themselves, investors are kinda funny people in the way that they hate losing money. And if one bought a share of Red Hat in Jan 2000 for $190-200 and the pretty paper is $15.05 today, one certainly has little reason to celebrate. And if a piece of news about shenanigans in the upper management comes across, there will be a bunch of pissed-off investors ready to sue.
Well, posting the contract revenues WAS a scam
on
Red Hat Vs. The Lawyers
·
· Score: 5, Informative
From reading the submission blurb it seems that those impeccable white knights on horse just made a mathematical error (must've been using an older kernel) and the resulting slump is pure emotion by the investors.
Well, it's not. RedHat's Q4 2003 earnings are now $0.02 instead of $0.03 which is either a 33% or 50% reduction, depending on which way you count, and the stock fall represents just portion of that.
Also, even after fall, Red Hat trades at 133 P/E, which is way overvalued even for this sector (MSFT, for example, is at 40.59).
People don't like to be lied by management when they invest their money into the company, and people will launch lawsuits when they deem something inappropriate had been done.
If you are into technology industry, future trends and perhaps have some investment portfolio, get Strategix News from Mark Anderson.
Really nice weekly publication with the predictions and data on current markets, correspondence written in by Michael Dell, US senators, venture capitalists, etc. (Who reads SNS?)
It's not free, but if your hobby includes making money on tech, it's the best.
Leave a comment on whatever you find wrong. The questions come from variable sources, some, ahem, less reliable than the others. I try to keep up, but I can't manage a dozen of languages and technologies myself.
The current version is v4, so if you tested v5, you apparently signed up for it, or were invited or decided it was worth it to get on the beta testing team.
Betas usually ask testers to provide more information so that SQA can re-create the problem and such. If you feel uneasy, then don't sign up for beta testing.
Once you put it in the public domain (i.e. AlwaysOn Web site, Google cache, Archive.org), etc. before the Joe Lawyer files for patent, the patent will be ruled non-valid.
Most of the successful businesses are not ideas, they are execution. Look at successful Internet companies right now: online marketplace, online bookseller that's not selling electronics and a lot more, large-scale information archival and retrieval system. Every once in a while you have Edison-like geniuses coming up with brilliant ideas that turn the world around and occasionally make their inventors rich, but more often than not, it's the execution, not the idea that matters.
And don't forget that Draper is not the only one, as NYT article states, he's one of the few people that would invest in half-baked startups, but nevertheless in the venture world he's still one of many. And there's $70 billion dollars out there ready to be invested into the next venture. VCs got a bit tough lately with dot bomb and everything, but the money is still out there, and there are fewer ideas, than there are brains.
He's kinda right. I work with OpenOffice and Firefox for my basic stuff, and each time I launch those two or am in the middle of something, I have to look at the task bars to remind myself where I am at. User interfaces are so much alike.
The usual routine is pressing Win+E to launch Windows Explorer, then observe no Windows Explorer window launching, then cuss silently for the bug, then realize it's Red Hat 9 I am in.
Open source social network software does exist, it's called PeopleAggregator, launched by Mark Canter of ex-Macromedia and the link goes to the Slashdot discussion of the product.
Doesn't have all the features that some networks have, but there are plenty of Web coders out there.
A lot of the production code that gets written nowadays is created by college graduates who have learned to develop in a quick-and-dirty way to roll out the prototype for their home assignment as soon as possible.
When you're in college, the graders are not trying to break into your application, they're just evaluating the source code and give you points for correct stack and linked list implementation. Thus giving a false assurance that the real-world development is pretty much the same - friendly and non-threatening environment, no need to check and validate input, no need to resort to minimum security permissions and so on.
PrototypeProductionMan come to the ObjectFools team after successful stints at the Unemployment Office and the basement in his parents home. PrototypeProductionMan's talent is making sure that barely functional prototype mockups get rolled out into production. Exception management, security, separation of concerns between business logic and UI code, thread safety, resource management...these are all things you could say good-bye to with PrototypeProductionMan on site! With a mentality like that, it's no surprise that every production deployment ObjectFools has been involved with has turned into a completely fucking unmitigated disaster! At the end of the day, our clients should really thank PrototypeProductionMan as the reason we need to charge them a fucking arm and leg for post-rollout support and maintenance.
Bought an HP Digital Media Receiver from Buy.com on their special sale for $100. Wireless connectivity, composite audio, S-Video, what more can one want?
Well, turns out, a lot. For one, the data was not exactly streamed through the unit, which I properly connected to my stereo system and TV. The local MP3 files and local JPEG pictures was the only thing that HP Receiver played, so if you wanted to broadcast a Shoutcast stream or Real Video stream, you were out of luck.
None of the DRMed files worked either, so two WMAs that I have purchased from Napster would have to be ripped to CDs, re-ripped into MP3s and then loaded onto a local PC with wireless connection for that HP Media Receiver to pick up.
I returned the item for a refund after a few days. Waste of money. Until full-blown audio streaming and any kind of video playback is supported together with multiple formats (OGG including), there's little incentive in getting a Media Receiver when a WiFi-enabled laptop plugged into stereo and TV will do the job even better.
Well, first the disclaimer - I know nothing about this project that I will link to, but was pretty interested in the same thing.
I've written a bunch of book reviews, including those on Slashdot, and some publishers are sending me now catalogs with upcoming titles as part of their reviewing program.
So, anyway, Wiley has this book with the robot kit, that they plan the next edition of some time this September, although the publisher told me before that the deadline might move into the future. I have not read the previous edition, nor have I played with it.
It seems to have received brilliant reviews on Amazon for that 1999 edition, so I'd suggest just perusing it and maybe buying the book+kit used if it's in buildable condition (i.e. not the robot that is already all built, polished, given guns and ammo, and right now just needs the ON switch to be turned).
Slashdot Mirror
I worked as a contractor for a company that was at the height of the Internet boom in 2000 and is currently defunct. After the first round of layoffs the yahoo message board for the company stock (now deleted, since the company is no more, and neither is the nasdaq ticker) suddenly gained a bunch of users, discussing in excruciating details some "secret" deals that were on the way, some internal budgeting and executives' personal life.
Some of the stuff was pretty nasty, but at times it was a good laugh, and after a while the company started posting the legalese messages on the board, like "This is the legal dept of such-and-such, just to let you know, this board is being monitored and archived".
Anyway, they sued Yahoo! and subpoened Yahoo! for a bunch of online identities who were clearly former employees discussing what was called "sensitive information" on the public board and that had something to do with "negative public image". Needless to say, Yahoo! just kinda ignored the lawsuit for a while, although a bunch of people were a bit scared about the outcome.
Unfortunately, I dont remember whether it was the court that denied any reponsibility on Yahoo's part, or whether it was the company dissolving (I quit after being there for 2 months), but the identities were never revealed, and since the company went bankrupt, not that it really mattered.
A good test I usually suggest is to run your current OS, and install an OS you want to switch to in a virtual machine environment (VPC or VMware on Windows). If you do not find yourself repeatedly switching to that new OS to complete the tasks, then why bother?
Yahoo has far more reaching international appeal. While Google runs international Web front-ends in chosen language, portals like Yahoo! Singapore are separate business operations with their own marketing, sales and so on. Pretty big brand name in Asia, from what I've heard.
Tracking 1.5 million users, perhaps some monitoring software at AOL/Comcast/MSN/SBC is involved?
Sorry about that. I was prettying up the OpenOffice document to submit it in HTML, as Slashdot requires, and apparently my search-replace routines "optimized" the quotes.
Free programming books published online.
You're thinking of late-day Microsoft. The early-day Microsoft was often a pretty reasonable solution in terms of price.
WordStar and WordPerfect charged plenty for the word processors, plus if you wanted spell-check, that thing alone would cost you extra $300 or so. Then Microsoft came around with Word, which wasn't all great, but sufficiently functional and way cheaper.
The same with Windows NT - Novell is jumping the Linux bandwagon now only because it got its ass kicked by early Windows NT sales, which made Novell look way over-priced. True, early Novell was technologically superior to early Windows NT, but as the market expanded, NT got better and Novell became the bottom-feeder.
Well, first of all, Nokia has been very successful in the cell phone market, and generally when you have high-quality competing players, the competition kicks in, and things even out. Nokia boasted 34.7% global marklet share in 2003, and in Q1 2004 grew in European region with those new concept devices like N-Gage and what not. Suchy growth is hardly sustainable, especially when competition largely is just as good.
Second, US is a large market for cell phones in regards to global sales. However, few of US customers ever choose their cellphones, since in the United States the phones are purchased by the operator, not customer. Which still creates some sort of competition, but it's way tougher to push newer phones and newer features, while the operator still has the year-old models available and runs those commercial "and now get a free blah-blah-blah phone with the signup for 1-year plan".
Realistically I think slipping to 28.9% is not too big of a deal, and Nokia will kick back after maybe just one sweet deal with US operator like Cingular or Verizon, where new models get pushed.
Oh, come on, there're like 500 companies on that list trading at P/Es below Red Hat. Some are service-based, some might even rely on Linux.
RHAT is outrageously expensive, and it certainly seems like someone among the C-level executives tried to pull an Enron by writing down cash that didnt get to the bank yet.
Although they are certainly nice about admitting it themselves, investors are kinda funny people in the way that they hate losing money. And if one bought a share of Red Hat in Jan 2000 for $190-200 and the pretty paper is $15.05 today, one certainly has little reason to celebrate. And if a piece of news about shenanigans in the upper management comes across, there will be a bunch of pissed-off investors ready to sue.
From reading the submission blurb it seems that those impeccable white knights on horse just made a mathematical error (must've been using an older kernel) and the resulting slump is pure emotion by the investors.
Well, it's not. RedHat's Q4 2003 earnings are now $0.02 instead of $0.03 which is either a 33% or 50% reduction, depending on which way you count, and the stock fall represents just portion of that.
Also, even after fall, Red Hat trades at 133 P/E, which is way overvalued even for this sector (MSFT, for example, is at 40.59).
People don't like to be lied by management when they invest their money into the company, and people will launch lawsuits when they deem something inappropriate had been done.
Google bought a photo management firm today, meanwhile Yahoo! Photos changed its disk space restrictions to unlimited quite a while ago.
If you are into technology industry, future trends and perhaps have some investment portfolio, get Strategix News from Mark Anderson.
Really nice weekly publication with the predictions and data on current markets, correspondence written in by Michael Dell, US senators, venture capitalists, etc. (Who reads SNS?)
It's not free, but if your hobby includes making money on tech, it's the best.
RSS Bandit is good, I switched to it from SharpReader some time ago and never went back.
Leave a comment on whatever you find wrong. The questions come from variable sources, some, ahem, less reliable than the others. I try to keep up, but I can't manage a dozen of languages and technologies myself.
The current version is v4, so if you tested v5, you apparently signed up for it, or were invited or decided it was worth it to get on the beta testing team.
Betas usually ask testers to provide more information so that SQA can re-create the problem and such. If you feel uneasy, then don't sign up for beta testing.
Prior art.
Once you put it in the public domain (i.e. AlwaysOn Web site, Google cache, Archive.org), etc. before the Joe Lawyer files for patent, the patent will be ruled non-valid.
Most of the successful businesses are not ideas, they are execution. Look at successful Internet companies right now: online marketplace, online bookseller that's not selling electronics and a lot more, large-scale information archival and retrieval system. Every once in a while you have Edison-like geniuses coming up with brilliant ideas that turn the world around and occasionally make their inventors rich, but more often than not, it's the execution, not the idea that matters.
And don't forget that Draper is not the only one, as NYT article states, he's one of the few people that would invest in half-baked startups, but nevertheless in the venture world he's still one of many. And there's $70 billion dollars out there ready to be invested into the next venture. VCs got a bit tough lately with dot bomb and everything, but the money is still out there, and there are fewer ideas, than there are brains.
Well, for a Windows box
Win+M - minimizes all Windows
Win+E - Windows Explorer
Win+F - Find files...
Those are all I know of.
He's kinda right. I work with OpenOffice and Firefox for my basic stuff, and each time I launch those two or am in the middle of something, I have to look at the task bars to remind myself where I am at. User interfaces are so much alike.
The usual routine is pressing Win+E to launch Windows Explorer, then observe no Windows Explorer window launching, then cuss silently for the bug, then realize it's Red Hat 9 I am in.
It's the software project name, you're free to call the resulting site whatever you want.
Open source social network software does exist, it's called PeopleAggregator, launched by Mark Canter of ex-Macromedia and the link goes to the Slashdot discussion of the product.
Doesn't have all the features that some networks have, but there are plenty of Web coders out there.
When you're in college, the graders are not trying to break into your application, they're just evaluating the source code and give you points for correct stack and linked list implementation. Thus giving a false assurance that the real-world development is pretty much the same - friendly and non-threatening environment, no need to check and validate input, no need to resort to minimum security permissions and so on.
I think Caustictech said it better than I can:
Bought an HP Digital Media Receiver from Buy.com on their special sale for $100. Wireless connectivity, composite audio, S-Video, what more can one want?
Well, turns out, a lot. For one, the data was not exactly streamed through the unit, which I properly connected to my stereo system and TV. The local MP3 files and local JPEG pictures was the only thing that HP Receiver played, so if you wanted to broadcast a Shoutcast stream or Real Video stream, you were out of luck.
None of the DRMed files worked either, so two WMAs that I have purchased from Napster would have to be ripped to CDs, re-ripped into MP3s and then loaded onto a local PC with wireless connection for that HP Media Receiver to pick up.
I returned the item for a refund after a few days. Waste of money. Until full-blown audio streaming and any kind of video playback is supported together with multiple formats (OGG including), there's little incentive in getting a Media Receiver when a WiFi-enabled laptop plugged into stereo and TV will do the job even better.
Well, first the disclaimer - I know nothing about this project that I will link to, but was pretty interested in the same thing.
I've written a bunch of book reviews, including those on Slashdot, and some publishers are sending me now catalogs with upcoming titles as part of their reviewing program.
So, anyway, Wiley has this book with the robot kit, that they plan the next edition of some time this September, although the publisher told me before that the deadline might move into the future. I have not read the previous edition, nor have I played with it.
It seems to have received brilliant reviews on Amazon for that 1999 edition, so I'd suggest just perusing it and maybe buying the book+kit used if it's in buildable condition (i.e. not the robot that is already all built, polished, given guns and ammo, and right now just needs the ON switch to be turned).
MovieLink currently runs a promotion where any movie costs 99 cents.
They have all the MPAA stuff, like Matrices and stuff available on DVD right now.
Requires Windows DRM client, and once you start watching, you have to finish within 24 hours.