Good point, but at least AMD doesn't release chips before they are stable, as Intel did with the 1.13GHz Pentium 3 (and arguably with their i810 chipset)
Regulation of PC repair isn't a bad idea, if for no other reason than because there are so many incompetent repair people (as well as many competent ones), but it probably wouldn't be as beneficial as it might sound. If current certifications like the "A+", a complete joke, are accepted, customers would be no better off. Perhaps is a certification was used that actually proves the tech knows something, it would be a very good idea. I am more for the businesses working this out for themselves though. If I go to a repair shop and see impressive credentials, I will be more likely to visit that shop again than one in which they simply take your money, take your computer into "the backroom" and give it back to you the next day.
in reality, you are wrong. Gee, who should I believe? An industry legend, or some putz on/. ?
Quite true, you do not know me and it would be unwise to believe an anonymous person on Slashdot over a person who is certainly an industry legend. Honestly, you probably misinterpreted what he wrote. In any case, if you didn't, that's why I said that you could open up a drive and see for yourself. Reality doesn't lie.
"Open up a Seagate Cheetah X15 if you don't believe me."
Hrm let me see, what will I find: A spindle motor a platter array a head assembly.
Yes, a spindle motor which you will not find in an IDE hard drive (unless you know of any 15,000RPM hard drives), platters of a special size made specifically for 15K SCSI hard drives, which you will also not find in any IDE hard drive (though it is indeed the same basic core technology, as I have already stated), and a head assembly which has been shortened in length for the smaller platters, an assembly which you will--again--not find in an IDE hard drive. Go to www.storagereview.com and ask a person named "MaxtorSCSI"--he is a SCSI engineer at Maxtor.
Now go and look under the hood of a Ford Pinto and a Mercedes. Hmm, let's see. Pistons, valves, a radiator. They must be the same!
See how rediculous your example is now?
Probably not.
Should we look on the outside? Oh gee look! there's a Logic board and it has a GASP! SCSI interface IC on it. Wow, amazing.
If you think that the circuit boards on IDE and SCSI drives are the same (other than cosmetic items like the cable connection and a single IC), you are far more misinformed than I originally expected. The entire design philosophy of the electronics on the two is completely different. SCSI drives include much of the controller hardware on, well, the controller. IDE drives are designed to be run by a very simple controller, integrating most of the controlling hardware onto the drive itself. If you read the book, you will notice IDE stands for Integrated Drive Electronics.
You make alot of half-assed assertions which are just flat wrong.
I am stating facts. Facts which you can find out for yourself if you do a little research.
Just looking At the specs for a WD Protégé 5400 (which is their low end drive) they specify a 5 year service life, with a standard MTBF of 500,000 hours.
Thanks for bringing that up. Now look at Western Digital's warranty policy. The high-end drives have a warranty of, you guessed it, three years. All other drives have a warranty of one year. This is the industry standard, adopted by all major IDE drive manufacturers I know of except Samsung (who makes very reliable, if a bit slow, drives) That said, there are IDE drives which are supposed to be designed to last five years. By "designed to last 5 years" I mean that the manufacturer will actually back that up with a warranty, service life be damned. The company is Maxtor.
However, if you look at the specs you love so much, you will find that the access times are magnificently faster on their SCSI drives than on their IDE drives. Same hardware indeed. I mentioned these drives earlier, IIRC.
However, I don't need to quote specs or policies to point out that it is absurd to believe a consumer-grade IDE drive is built to the same specifications as drives designed to work in enterprise servers, such as Sun Fire 15K's and HP Nonstop Himilayas, 24/7. If you believe that, you are clearly an idiot.
You have also demonstrated that you are rather misinformed to quote MTBF numbers. Do the math on 500,000 hours and tell me how realistic and useful that number is. If you're nice, I'll tell you where they come up with that figure, since you seem to be averse to doing your own research, outside of your deity's PC repair book.
Dude, lay it down ok, you're not going to convince me of anything because I know you are wrong.
I don't particularly care if I convince you. I am doing my part to quell ignorance in an area I have knowledge of. Others have done the same for me, though I wasn't such a prick in return. You are clearly more interested in believing you are correct than in finding out for yourself. This is not unlike a Fundamentalist: "The bible says it, so it must be true!" Your bible is Upgrading and Repairing PCs. "It" is your SCSI comment.
If you would like to quote the author, I would be happy to tell you how you misinterpreted him, or if you did not, how he is incorrect, and point you to references. If you would rather insult me, which you seem to be very interested in doing, please do the entire online community a favor and stick with AOL chatrooms or wherever you go to get people to agree with you.
If Mr. Mueller said that SCSI drives are "...nothing more than a standard ATA device with a SCSI interface circuit built into the logic board", as a general sweeping statement, then he is wrong. Yes, he published a great PC repair book. Great. However, Whenever someone disagrees with reality, reality always wins. Open up a Seagate Cheetah X15 if you don't believe me.
And if you'll notice, I was not intending to be a "smart ass." I thought my last reply was quite polite. Yours, however, was not.
SCSI drives are in reality, nothing more than a standard ATA device with a SCSI interface circuit built into the logic board. ... I was simply pointing out the fact that SCSI Hard drives are the SAME BASE HARDWARE as ATA drives are with a SCSI interface circuit.
If by "base hardware" you mean that they are made with platters, actuators, circuit boards, etc. then you are indeed correct. IDE and SCSI drives even share certain parts sometimes, such as the casing, motors, sometimes platters. Low-end SCSI drives, like the Seagate Barracuda, are quite similar to mid- and high-end IDE drives. There are huge differences in the electronics, but for the most part, parts should be interchangeable. (how much this is done on low-end drives, I do not know) However, most people I know of who buy SCSI do so for performance. Performance SCSI drives are quite different. For example, 15K drives use much smaller platters, probably because it is difficult to get a standard platter stable at such high speeds. (remember, because the head floats just thousandths of a meter above the platters, the slightest wobble can cause a head crash). Because of this, they also use a different casing, different actuators, etc. Because of the rotational speed, they use a different motor. Because it is SCSI, the electronics are different.
As far as the core technologies used, though, IDE and SCSI are extremely similar, however your comment:...nothing more than a standard ATA device with a SCSI interface circuit built into the logic board
You mean now I can buy low quality IDE devices and pay losts of money to hook them up to my scsi system? Where do I sign up?
These adaptors would be useful for mass storage, such as a huge MP3 or video collection. Mass storage with SCSI drives is extremely expensive, and the drives are smaller. Size and price are big benefits if IDE drives.
Ever since 40MB/sec SCSI came out...there really is no need for anything faster in a workstation...until hard drives become dramatically faster. Most workstations have no more than two hard drives (get it? 2 X 20MB/sec = 40MB/sec).
The Seagate Cheetah X15.3, the world's fastest HDD, has an outside track transfer rate of 76.4MB/sec.
The Western Digital WD2000JB has an outside track transfer rate of 56.5 MB/sec.
(Note, ones you stop doing linear I/O, like the real world, the Cheetah utterly blows away the WD drive)
I still don't see 10,000 or 15,000RPM IDE drives, do you?
I don't know why anyone would purchase a SCSI drive when they had IDE. IDE is just as fast now, plus much less expensive. So who is this really directed at?
IDE drives are not just as fast, but they certainly are more expensive. In the last few years, they are also smaller.
Reasons to buy SCSI drives for a desktop or workstation system:
1) Speed OR 2) Reliability OR 3) Bragging rights (for those with friends that don't realize it's actually stupid to spend several times as much money for less than several times the benefit, less wealthy people).
SCSI drives are in reality, nothing more than a standard ATA device with a SCSI interface circuit built into the logic board.
In reality, you don't have the vaguest idea what you are talking about. SCSI drives are engineered to run continuously, with constant access, for 5+ years. IDE drives, with the exception of one unreleased Maxtor, are designed to run with normal desktop use for 3+ years.
SCSI drives are available in 10,000 and 15,000RPM spindle speeds, with access times as low as 3.5 milliseconds.
IDE drives are available on 5400 and 7200 RPM speeds with the lowest of access times being three times that.
The ATA protocol isn't even a subset of the SCSI protocol. The ATA spec has no tagged command queueing. It has no method of forcing a write to disk synchronously. It has no method of detaching a drive, connecting to another, and issuing commands while the previous drive is working on the commands you just gave it.
Please refrain from "informing" Slashdot readers of your "knowledge" in the future.
..so I can write a cross-platform tool to open their files.
ifstream("MyOfficeFile.doc", ios::in); Crossplatform enough for you?
As funny as it is useful. I can read the most thoroughly encrypted files that way, too. It's good to have a Windows programmer around...
Oh, you mean edit the files? I remember writing VBA code that did that just fine.. Good documentation how to do that - much easier then working with a crazy-ass XML schema?
It seems that between your first sentence and your second, you forgot the "cross-platform" part. Of course, if you're a VB programmer I can't blame you--you were probably born that way. (I'm just kidding, no personal insult intended)
Microsoft is switching to XML because it will become the standard data exchange format of all things.NET (other than source code, obviously), and because it is faster and simpler to parse.
After the format wars between Office and WordPerfect--the wars to make each incompatible with the other, I have heard the Office format described as: "...is not just a data format. It is an entire world philosophy in and of itself. It is more complex than a space shuttle, more confusing than trying to complete the Fourier analytic proof of quadratic reciprocity." I've seen Office 2000 corrupt two of its own documents twice in the last two months. This may be why.
News flash: Hundreds of thousands of developers worldwide already developer their own tools to interact with MS documents. Some if not most serious developers have made a lot of money off writing programs for Windows/Office. Open your eyes and you will see that Microsoft makes business a lot of money. MS is a big help to the economy in that perspective.
Really? Excellent! Please point me to the specification for the MS Office format, so I can write a cross-platform tool to open their files.
Great, so I don't have to pay for the box. I still have to pay for the service. More channels of little or no worthwhile content and a fancy menuing system (yes, nice, but worth triple the cost... no).You haven't used DirecTV, have you? It's have a menuing system since its inception, and their basic package is $22, +$6 for local channels. Cable prices vary, but here, that's pretty damn good compared. Additionally, all channels (not just the premium ones) are digital, using the international standard MPEG2 format (though of a lower bitrate than DVD). I have no idea what they use for HDTV broadcasts, though. Of course, I have neither it nor cable because I don't watch enough T.V.
"Now if only computer manufacturers could make equipment even remotely this sturdy."
It's called the Compaq Nonstop Himalaya. Each processor runs every calculation twice, in parallel, and compares the answers when done--if they do not match, it tries again. If they do not match again, the processor state is saved then restored in one of the "hotspare" processors. The memory uses a special, extra high-reliability (and extra slow) ECC algorithm. The server itself has integrated battery backup, variable speed fans which adjust for the death of other fans, and each system is immensely expandable without ever being rebooted or shut down. An acquaintance of mine works for a company which has a Nonstop with an uptime of nearly ten years. Remember the Tandem?
Note that the Nonstop isn't much more reliable than IBM's Z series mainframes, which basically never die either.
Ironic, isn't it, that a company famous for making desktops which are essentially crap, makes one of the most reliable servers on earth?
Er, back on topic, isn't Voyager significantly farther from the sun than Pioneer 10?
Interesting. DirecTV has a cancellation department as well, called "CRG" or, "customer retention group", which probably operates very similarly, except they are perfectly willing to cancel your account if you aren't interested in a month of free service or whatever the offer of the day is.
Also, the reason I cancelled AOL was that they did not support OS/2 Warp. The representative probably realized that OS/2 support simply wasn't going to happen, but I ran my BBS with OS/2, and running the Windows version absolutely killed my system performance (with only 8MB of RAM). Those were the days...:)
You ever try to cancel an account with them? Good three monhts before you get any results. Plus the asshole who gets rude on the phone with when you try to cancel Yes, in 1994 when I actually used the service. It was cancelled immediately. Why is it that whenever a person speaks to a rude customer service representative, that they assume the entire company is a collection of assholes? Perhaps it was just my limited experience in tech support, but believe it or not, it is possible that out of hundreds or thousands of good representatives, there are a few bad ones.
And AOL sells its own customers to spam lists. Plus the advertisements they inundate you with. I was unaware of this, but one of my clients has used AOL for about 8 months and has recieved a grand total of two spams, likely because of her fairly common name. (common name + email list generator). Again, I am not saying AOL is not evil, I mean, they are a media conglomerate, and I wouldn't really be all that surprised of they shot your dog. I was saying that, as far as huge companies (which are traditionally utterly ruthless), AOL/TW isn't half bad. Please read my post again.
AOL bought all those companies to further there share in the marketplace. They bought Netscape(where is it now) they bought Winamp, and ICQ, which totally sucks now and gives its own nice little pop ups. Yes, how evil, they purchased a web browser company whose core is open source software, they purchased Nullsoft so they could get -- gasp -- a large share of the free MP3 player market! And regarding ICQ, if you'd use Linux clients, or even many Windows clients, there are simply no advertisements to be seen. Of course, even if there are and you use the Windows ICQ client, big deal! Running international servers for millions of people does cost money. AOL/TW is a public company. How do they justify running such a good service to their stock holders if they don't even attempt to offset some of the costs? What was that about smoking crack? (and what a clever comment it was...) I haven't ever taken a business class and know this.
We called people whos subsciptions were about to end, had ended, and even vaguely looked at a magazine in the airport. My parents were recieving calls from subscription services (magazines) regarding expiring accounts long before 1990. Regardless, that doesn't sound like telemarketing--telemarketing is, at least by my definition, more like, "I'd like to interest you in life insurance. We have snipers stations around your home. I do not recommend hanging up.":) I do find it interesting, though, that AOL/TW invented magazines that can deduce your phone number simply by being looked at in airports.
BUT NOOOOOOOOO they are not evil.
I didn't say they were not. How many times do I need to point this out? Perhaps I should type it in multiple languages? In hex? Backwards?
Of course, even then "evil" is a somewhat ambiguous term, but let's not go there.
Let's see... they bought netscape (after the open source mozilla project started), bought ICQ, and bought NullSoft/Winamp. PS - there are already hundred (yes, literally) of FREE (open source) mp3 players for linux
And all of them combined have, maybe, 2% of the popularity and recognition of Winamp, and all except perhaps two are significantly less refined, and all are significantly less tested.
Yeah, and Stalin looks like a regular saint compared to Hitler.
I'm not saying AOL/TW is saintly, but they are pretty good for a large media company. They could be a lot worse, yet all I hear is complaining. How about recognizing them for not being total pricks?
Read the papers some time. AOL/TW's biggest problem is AOL/TW.
I wasn't talking about AOL/TW's problems, I was saying that AOL is Microsoft's second biggest problem.. I Don't particularly care if AOL/TW is having problems within themselves. They are a corporation, they'll just have to deal with it.
Responsible? ICQ, Mozilla, and Winamp ALL were created independently and then were bought up by the giant AOL.
First of all, you misquoted me, or didn't understand my message:...but they are responsible at least in part for...
Second, perhaps you would care to explain how ICQ and Mozilla, let alone Winamp, make AOL/TW more money than they cost? Let's see... Some versions of only official ICQ beta clients display banners. We all know how successful those have been at sustaining revenue.:) Mozilla is an open source project that makes no money, which is the base for a browser that also makes no money. Winamp has never made any money except for a very brief period of time that they asked for a registration fee of $10, which I paid, and which was discontinued before AOL/TW purchased Nullsoft.
AOL/TW is responsible in that they are funding these projects.
Slashdot Mirror
Good point, but at least AMD doesn't release chips before they are stable, as Intel did with the 1.13GHz Pentium 3 (and arguably with their i810 chipset)
Why on earth has no-one done a "wipe-it-all" linux disc distribution.
dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/sda bs=512 && dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512
cat /dev/random > /dev/scalpel
Regulation of PC repair isn't a bad idea, if for no other reason than because there are so many incompetent repair people (as well as many competent ones), but it probably wouldn't be as beneficial as it might sound.
If current certifications like the "A+", a complete joke, are accepted, customers would be no better off. Perhaps is a certification was used that actually proves the tech knows something, it would be a very good idea.
I am more for the businesses working this out for themselves though. If I go to a repair shop and see impressive credentials, I will be more likely to visit that shop again than one in which they simply take your money, take your computer into "the backroom" and give it back to you the next day.
in reality, you are wrong. Gee, who should I believe? An industry legend, or some putz on /. ?
Quite true, you do not know me and it would be unwise to believe an anonymous person on Slashdot over a person who is certainly an industry legend. Honestly, you probably misinterpreted what he wrote. In any case, if you didn't, that's why I said that you could open up a drive and see for yourself. Reality doesn't lie.
"Open up a Seagate Cheetah X15 if you don't believe me."
Hrm let me see, what will I find: A spindle motor a platter array a head assembly.
Yes, a spindle motor which you will not find in an IDE hard drive (unless you know of any 15,000RPM hard drives), platters of a special size made specifically for 15K SCSI hard drives, which you will also not find in any IDE hard drive (though it is indeed the same basic core technology, as I have already stated), and a head assembly which has been shortened in length for the smaller platters, an assembly which you will--again--not find in an IDE hard drive.
Go to www.storagereview.com and ask a person named "MaxtorSCSI"--he is a SCSI engineer at Maxtor.
Now go and look under the hood of a Ford Pinto and a Mercedes. Hmm, let's see. Pistons, valves, a radiator. They must be the same!
See how rediculous your example is now?
Probably not.
Should we look on the outside? Oh gee look! there's a Logic board and it has a GASP! SCSI interface IC on it. Wow, amazing.
If you think that the circuit boards on IDE and SCSI drives are the same (other than cosmetic items like the cable connection and a single IC), you are far more misinformed than I originally expected. The entire design philosophy of the electronics on the two is completely different. SCSI drives include much of the controller hardware on, well, the controller. IDE drives are designed to be run by a very simple controller, integrating most of the controlling hardware onto the drive itself. If you read the book, you will notice IDE stands for Integrated Drive Electronics.
You make alot of half-assed assertions which are just flat wrong.
I am stating facts. Facts which you can find out for yourself if you do a little research.
Just looking At the specs for a WD Protégé 5400 (which is their low end drive) they specify a 5 year service life, with a standard MTBF of 500,000 hours.
Thanks for bringing that up. Now look at Western Digital's warranty policy. The high-end drives have a warranty of, you guessed it, three years. All other drives have a warranty of one year. This is the industry standard, adopted by all major IDE drive manufacturers I know of except Samsung (who makes very reliable, if a bit slow, drives)
That said, there are IDE drives which are supposed to be designed to last five years. By "designed to last 5 years" I mean that the manufacturer will actually back that up with a warranty, service life be damned. The company is Maxtor.
However, if you look at the specs you love so much, you will find that the access times are magnificently faster on their SCSI drives than on their IDE drives. Same hardware indeed. I mentioned these drives earlier, IIRC.
However, I don't need to quote specs or policies to point out that it is absurd to believe a consumer-grade IDE drive is built to the same specifications as drives designed to work in enterprise servers, such as Sun Fire 15K's and HP Nonstop Himilayas, 24/7. If you believe that, you are clearly an idiot.
You have also demonstrated that you are rather misinformed to quote MTBF numbers. Do the math on 500,000 hours and tell me how realistic and useful that number is. If you're nice, I'll tell you where they come up with that figure, since you seem to be averse to doing your own research, outside of your deity's PC repair book.
Dude, lay it down ok, you're not going to convince me of anything because I know you are wrong.
I don't particularly care if I convince you. I am doing my part to quell ignorance in an area I have knowledge of. Others have done the same for me, though I wasn't such a prick in return. You are clearly more interested in believing you are correct than in finding out for yourself. This is not unlike a Fundamentalist: "The bible says it, so it must be true!"
Your bible is Upgrading and Repairing PCs. "It" is your SCSI comment.
If you would like to quote the author, I would be happy to tell you how you misinterpreted him, or if you did not, how he is incorrect, and point you to references. If you would rather insult me, which you seem to be very interested in doing, please do the entire online community a favor and stick with AOL chatrooms or wherever you go to get people to agree with you.
If Mr. Mueller said that SCSI drives are "...nothing more than a standard ATA device with a SCSI interface circuit built into the logic board", as a general sweeping statement, then he is wrong. Yes, he published a great PC repair book. Great.
However, Whenever someone disagrees with reality, reality always wins.
Open up a Seagate Cheetah X15 if you don't believe me.
And if you'll notice, I was not intending to be a "smart ass." I thought my last reply was quite polite. Yours, however, was not.
If by "base hardware" you mean that they are made with platters, actuators, circuit boards, etc. then you are indeed correct. IDE and SCSI drives even share certain parts sometimes, such as the casing, motors, sometimes platters.
Low-end SCSI drives, like the Seagate Barracuda, are quite similar to mid- and high-end IDE drives. There are huge differences in the electronics, but for the most part, parts should be interchangeable. (how much this is done on low-end drives, I do not know)
However, most people I know of who buy SCSI do so for performance.
Performance SCSI drives are quite different. For example, 15K drives use much smaller platters, probably because it is difficult to get a standard platter stable at such high speeds. (remember, because the head floats just thousandths of a meter above the platters, the slightest wobble can cause a head crash). Because of this, they also use a different casing, different actuators, etc. Because of the rotational speed, they use a different motor. Because it is SCSI, the electronics are different.
As far as the core technologies used, though, IDE and SCSI are extremely similar, however your comment:
Was completely and utterly incorrect.
You mean now I can buy low quality IDE devices and pay losts of money to hook them up to my scsi system? Where do I sign up?
These adaptors would be useful for mass storage, such as a huge MP3 or video collection. Mass storage with SCSI drives is extremely expensive, and the drives are smaller. Size and price are big benefits if IDE drives.
Ever since 40MB/sec SCSI came out...there really is no need for anything faster in a workstation...until hard drives become dramatically faster. Most workstations have no more than two hard drives (get it? 2 X 20MB/sec = 40MB/sec).
The Seagate Cheetah X15.3, the world's fastest HDD, has an outside track transfer rate of 76.4MB/sec.
The Western Digital WD2000JB has an outside track transfer rate of 56.5 MB/sec.
(Note, ones you stop doing linear I/O, like the real world, the Cheetah utterly blows away the WD drive)
I still don't see 10,000 or 15,000RPM IDE drives, do you?
You are correct, no such IDE drives exist.
I don't know why anyone would purchase a SCSI drive when they had IDE. IDE is just as fast now, plus much less expensive. So who is this really directed at?
IDE drives are not just as fast, but they certainly are more expensive. In the last few years, they are also smaller.
Reasons to buy SCSI drives for a desktop or workstation system:
1) Speed OR
2) Reliability OR
3) Bragging rights (for those with friends that don't realize it's actually stupid to spend several times as much money for less than several times the benefit, less wealthy people).
I believe I have seen IDE 10K drives somewhere, but I dont remember where, and a google search didnt find any hits. :(
You didn't. They don't exist. It would be big news on StorageReview.com if they did.
You seem to have forgotten StorageReview.com.
This "review" [tomshardware.com] claims Western Digital's IDE drive outperforms SCSI.
Ahh, so you're one of those people who thinks Tom's Hardware reviewers have the slightest idea what they're talking about.
Interesting.
SCSI drives are in reality, nothing more than a standard ATA device with a SCSI interface circuit built into the logic board.
In reality, you don't have the vaguest idea what you are talking about.
SCSI drives are engineered to run continuously, with constant access, for 5+ years. IDE drives, with the exception of one unreleased Maxtor, are designed to run with normal desktop use for 3+ years.
SCSI drives are available in 10,000 and 15,000RPM spindle speeds, with access times as low as 3.5 milliseconds.
IDE drives are available on 5400 and 7200 RPM speeds with the lowest of access times being three times that.
The ATA protocol isn't even a subset of the SCSI protocol. The ATA spec has no tagged command queueing. It has no method of forcing a write to disk synchronously. It has no method of detaching a drive, connecting to another, and issuing commands while the previous drive is working on the commands you just gave it.
Please refrain from "informing" Slashdot readers of your "knowledge" in the future.
..so I can write a cross-platform tool to open their files.
ifstream("MyOfficeFile.doc", ios::in);
Crossplatform enough for you?
As funny as it is useful. I can read the most thoroughly encrypted files that way, too. It's good to have a Windows programmer around...
Oh, you mean edit the files? I remember writing VBA code that did that just fine.. Good documentation how to do that - much easier then working with a crazy-ass XML schema?
It seems that between your first sentence and your second, you forgot the "cross-platform" part. Of course, if you're a VB programmer I can't blame you--you were probably born that way.
(I'm just kidding, no personal insult intended)
After taking the photographs, the man was chased by someone in a black jaguar and he began receiving threatening phone calls the next day.
I knew it! Spammers drive Jaguars!
All style and no substance...
They probably mispronounce the name, too.
Microsoft is switching to XML because it will become the standard data exchange format of all things .NET (other than source code, obviously), and because it is faster and simpler to parse.
After the format wars between Office and WordPerfect--the wars to make each incompatible with the other, I have heard the Office format described as:
"...is not just a data format. It is an entire world philosophy in and of itself. It is more complex than a space shuttle, more confusing than trying to complete the Fourier analytic proof of quadratic reciprocity."
I've seen Office 2000 corrupt two of its own documents twice in the last two months. This may be why.
News flash: Hundreds of thousands of developers worldwide already developer their own tools to interact with MS documents. Some if not most serious developers have made a lot of money off writing programs for Windows/Office. Open your eyes and you will see that Microsoft makes business a lot of money. MS is a big help to the economy in that perspective.
Really? Excellent! Please point me to the specification for the MS Office format, so I can write a cross-platform tool to open their files.
Great, so I don't have to pay for the box. I still have to pay for the service. More channels of little or no worthwhile content and a fancy menuing system (yes, nice, but worth triple the cost... no).You haven't used DirecTV, have you? It's have a menuing system since its inception, and their basic package is $22, +$6 for local channels. Cable prices vary, but here, that's pretty damn good compared.
Additionally, all channels (not just the premium ones) are digital, using the international standard MPEG2 format (though of a lower bitrate than DVD). I have no idea what they use for HDTV broadcasts, though.
Of course, I have neither it nor cable because I don't watch enough T.V.
"Now if only computer manufacturers could make equipment even remotely this sturdy."
It's called the Compaq Nonstop Himalaya. Each processor runs every calculation twice, in parallel, and compares the answers when done--if they do not match, it tries again. If they do not match again, the processor state is saved then restored in one of the "hotspare" processors. The memory uses a special, extra high-reliability (and extra slow) ECC algorithm. The server itself has integrated battery backup, variable speed fans which adjust for the death of other fans, and each system is immensely expandable without ever being rebooted or shut down.
An acquaintance of mine works for a company which has a Nonstop with an uptime of nearly ten years.
Remember the Tandem?
Note that the Nonstop isn't much more reliable than IBM's Z series mainframes, which basically never die either.
Ironic, isn't it, that a company famous for making desktops which are essentially crap, makes one of the most reliable servers on earth?
Er, back on topic, isn't Voyager significantly farther from the sun than Pioneer 10?
If CmdrTaco rapes you up the ass, would you thank him if he gave you a reach-around?
If only I could craft English as beautifully and eloquently as you can, I could come up with a response worthy of your witty retort...
Interesting. DirecTV has a cancellation department as well, called "CRG" or, "customer retention group", which probably operates very similarly, except they are perfectly willing to cancel your account if you aren't interested in a month of free service or whatever the offer of the day is.
:)
Also, the reason I cancelled AOL was that they did not support OS/2 Warp. The representative probably realized that OS/2 support simply wasn't going to happen, but I ran my BBS with OS/2, and running the Windows version absolutely killed my system performance (with only 8MB of RAM). Those were the days...
You ever try to cancel an account with them? Good three monhts before you get any results. Plus the asshole who gets rude on the phone with when you try to cancel
:)
Yes, in 1994 when I actually used the service.
It was cancelled immediately.
Why is it that whenever a person speaks to a rude customer service representative, that they assume the entire company is a collection of assholes? Perhaps it was just my limited experience in tech support, but believe it or not, it is possible that out of hundreds or thousands of good representatives, there are a few bad ones.
And AOL sells its own customers to spam lists. Plus the advertisements they inundate you with. I was unaware of this, but one of my clients has used AOL for about 8 months and has recieved a grand total of two spams, likely because of her fairly common name. (common name + email list generator).
Again, I am not saying AOL is not evil, I mean, they are a media conglomerate, and I wouldn't really be all that surprised of they shot your dog. I was saying that, as far as huge companies (which are traditionally utterly ruthless), AOL/TW isn't half bad. Please read my post again.
AOL bought all those companies to further there share in the marketplace. They bought Netscape(where is it now) they bought Winamp, and ICQ, which totally sucks now and gives its own nice little pop ups.
Yes, how evil, they purchased a web browser company whose core is open source software, they purchased Nullsoft so they could get -- gasp -- a large share of the free MP3 player market!
And regarding ICQ, if you'd use Linux clients, or even many Windows clients, there are simply no advertisements to be seen. Of course, even if there are and you use the Windows ICQ client, big deal! Running international servers for millions of people does cost money. AOL/TW is a public company. How do they justify running such a good service to their stock holders if they don't even attempt to offset some of the costs?
What was that about smoking crack? (and what a clever comment it was...) I haven't ever taken a business class and know this.
We called people whos subsciptions were about to end, had ended, and even vaguely looked at a magazine in the airport.
My parents were recieving calls from subscription services (magazines) regarding expiring accounts long before 1990. Regardless, that doesn't sound like telemarketing--telemarketing is, at least by my definition, more like, "I'd like to interest you in life insurance. We have snipers stations around your home. I do not recommend hanging up."
I do find it interesting, though, that AOL/TW invented magazines that can deduce your phone number simply by being looked at in airports.
BUT NOOOOOOOOO they are not evil.
I didn't say they were not. How many times do I need to point this out? Perhaps I should type it in multiple languages? In hex? Backwards?
Of course, even then "evil" is a somewhat ambiguous term, but let's not go there.
Let's see... they bought netscape (after the open source mozilla project started), bought ICQ, and bought NullSoft/Winamp. PS - there are already hundred (yes, literally) of FREE (open source) mp3 players for linux
And all of them combined have, maybe, 2% of the popularity and recognition of Winamp, and all except perhaps two are significantly less refined, and all are significantly less tested.
Yeah, and Stalin looks like a regular saint compared to Hitler.
I'm not saying AOL/TW is saintly, but they are pretty good for a large media company. They could be a lot worse, yet all I hear is complaining. How about recognizing them for not being total pricks?
Read the papers some time. AOL/TW's biggest problem is AOL/TW.
I wasn't talking about AOL/TW's problems, I was saying that AOL is Microsoft's second biggest problem.. I Don't particularly care if AOL/TW is having problems within themselves. They are a corporation, they'll just have to deal with it.
Responsible? ICQ, Mozilla, and Winamp ALL were created independently and then were bought up by the giant AOL.
...but they are responsible at least in part for...
:) Mozilla is an open source project that makes no money, which is the base for a browser that also makes no money. Winamp has never made any money except for a very brief period of time that they asked for a registration fee of $10, which I paid, and which was discontinued before AOL/TW purchased Nullsoft.
First of all, you misquoted me, or didn't understand my message:
Second, perhaps you would care to explain how ICQ and Mozilla, let alone Winamp, make AOL/TW more money than they cost? Let's see... Some versions of only official ICQ beta clients display banners. We all know how successful those have been at sustaining revenue.
AOL/TW is responsible in that they are funding these projects.