I imagine that many people who need these boxes don't have internet access and will never see the phone number displayed anywhere, except the internet. Poor grandma will just see white fuzz on the morning of Feb. 18 2009 instead of The Price Is Right. But will she notice the difference?
Was this downloaded with IE or another browser? I can't see how Vista would stop another browser saving a file in a temp directory that is writable. Also PDF is not a format MS supports natively (well I don't think it does in vista anyway) so isn't this PDF just like any other random file?
Now if this was a Word doc I could see MS trying to force the DRM on it
Tools > Clear Private Data in Firefox is the option you need.
Not having a log out button is bad design but many people forget to click them, you need a decent timeout to reduce the risk for those that don't log out.
Does this system keep you logged in (via cookies) if you close the browser and restart it? If so that's a very bad design.
For a 'free' ISP like Sky (i.e. it's part of your TV subscription), it makes sense to outsource services such as email which cost a lot of time and effort into managing to someone like Google who has already committed resources to the problem. The customers will get a better experience, the sysadmins will have fewer headaches and the ISP will save a lot of money on hardware.
Yea, so even if someone kills the president on live tv with thousands of eye vitnesses, he gets off without conviction if he manages to destroy the body.
Well it started off as a university project called BackRub, of course once they realised they had something that was going to be popular then they'd want to find a way of making money on it but they could have easily just gone the way of getting some 3rd party to display banners on their pages.
Where can I go into a hight street shop and buy a PC without Windows? Here (but the dedicated Apple stores did come along too late for Apple to gain a strong market share - most retail shops either didn't sell Macs or had them stuffed out of the way)
What alternative search engines are there and how can Google prevent me from using them? I just Googled it, I remember back in the early days Google used to offer links to other search engines ("Try your search in..."), in fact you can still have that with the 'Customise Google' Firefox extension.
They went from using $1-2 thousand per week, to suddenly $2000 would get spent in 10 minutes between the hours of 1 and 2am. Google stone walled, denied, and finally did nothing for these small companies. I'm sure they aren't the only ones. When you set up an Adwords account you set your budgets, you can set a daily budget on each of your campaigns and a total monthly budget. You can also set the times you want your ad campaigns to run. If somehow they got billed $2k in one day it's their fault for not setting sensible daily limits. These options are not hidden, they're asked by default when you set up a campaign.
Last I checked, MSN and Yahoo both volunteered private data to both US and Chinese governments, and Google was the only company to stand up to both, yet the media kept insisting that Google was the evil party for eventually caving into Chinese law. Google gives money to the Summer of Code project, volunteers tons of code, and also doesn't have a monopoly in their market. I think people hold Google to a higher standard thanks to their stated policy of not being evil. The amount of 'second chances' Microsoft gets from some people is fairly unbelievable - but Google is often criticised for the smallest thing. However, due to the amount of data they collect then it's good that people are paying attention to Google's every move.
Google is not a seach company, it's an advertising company. It's really weird that this fact doesn't stick in people minds. Yes, that's how they make money but they started off as a search engine, the ads followed later. It was good that they never took the seemingly easier option and just stick banners on their page.
but its got competition by the "anti-Google" doubleclick.net and other ad companies Doubleclick is owned by Google! Still, there's competition in ad market too, Yahoo's adword system (formerly Overture) is also very popular.
It doesn't matter how they got to their position in the search market. They can still be a monopoly in their current market position. There is no underlying requirement that one has to attain a monopoly in a bad way for it to be a monopoly. Further, it is irrelevant whether people use Google by choice or not. You're automatically coupling 'monopoly' with 'bad thing that only a bad company could do.'
Whether Google is a monopoly or not is up for discussion. But you're being blind to what it means and how a company gets to that position. I'd consider it a monopoly is the average person would not be aware of the existence of alternatives such as Windows Live (MSN) and Yahoo. People often get the alternatives handed to them in such a way that they have to actively choose an alternative if they prefer it. MSN/Live is default on IE, many apps bundle the Yahoo toolbar, Ask.com have been advertising on the London Underground, etc. Whereas for PC's for many years the only feasible option for those buying pre-build machines was Windows and that is almost still the case today with a small number now offering Linux. Even in many places that offered the Mac as the alternative they were always significantly more expensive and were often hidden in a corner. Things are changing and alternatives are slowly hitting the mainstream, but many people have got effectively locked in over the years either with dependency on certain software or fear of the unknown. With search engines things are easier, no UI changes to learn, you just need to either change your homepage or search box prefs or get used to typing a different URL.
...it may just be an inevitable part of having an IT monopoly. Google can't be considered a monopoly in anything. They got to their position in the search market as they offered a significantly better search product than what was offer at the time (and is still one of the best even though others are catching up). However the other search companies still have reasonable market share, but people often go to Google out of choice (IE users see Windows Live search by default but many choose not to use it - the more it improves the more people will stay with it).
Google is getting powerful, but I can't see it dominating any area to an extent where it can lock people in. There's competitors in every area that Google operates. The benefit of the web as a platform is it's easier to switch both your underlying OS and the web apps that you use.
(of course sometimes windows is the best option, doesn't mean it is all the time)
Correction: Windows is never the best option when you compare its price, performance, stability, security and out-of-the-box functionality with any other desktop or server operating system available today. However, it is, unfortunately, often the only option available, especially when it comes to many business applications. That's what I meant:)
"Microsoft said it believes individuals, governments and other organizations should be free to choose the software and other technologies that best meet their needs"
That choice is Vista Basic, Vista Home Premium, Vista Business, Vista Ultimate. Microsoft will do anything to make sure that they get a stronghold in emerging markets, they don't care what's best for the user (of course sometimes windows is the best option, doesn't mean it is all the time)
how employable do you think someone is going to be if they go into the workforce having never used windows?
yes, thats right, you just hurt their chances at getting a job all in the name of your own pet crusade.
schools are not the place for politics of any kind.
When I was at school it was BBC Micros and Acorn Archimedes that ruled the day. For home use it was Sinclair and Commodore. Schools should not teach MS Word, they should teach word processing in general and offer exposure to a number of packages so they'll learn principles rather than location of menu items.
The version of office that they use in school will probably have no resemblance to the one they'll be using when they leave school and that's assuming that MS Office is still the dominant player at the time.
I think my knowledge of computing has benefited by having exposure to a number of operating systems (including Windows), saying the only way to make someone employable is to only teach kids what's popular today is complete nonsense.
As a man, I don't give a toss that he said she. I do get offended that there are some companies that sell car insurance to *only* women, because you know the women would all be bitching if there was an insurance company only for guys.. In the UK at least they actually do sell to men even though they *market* it as women only. I was told a while ago that's how they get round any gender discrimination law. To check it I went through the application form on shelias wheels website and it would quote me a price at the end (didn't buy it obviously).
That's not actually true. On one hand, while it is possible for more than one generator to exist on the same lines, it is impossible to distinguish which generator is producing which power; forcing the primary electric company in an area to allow competitors to 'use its power lines' would be absurd for technical reasons.
In the UK the electricity and gas companies do have to share their lines. So effectively whoever you choose for electricity and gas you get the same stuff, from the same source as you're using the same lines but you have a choice of companies to pay for the priviledge, some significantly cheaper than the other. So you can get your electricity from British Gas and your gas from Southern Electric.
The way (I think) it works is that the company that actually owns the lines sells it at wholesale rates to these other companies that compete on price with each other. Only government regulation would make companies do crazy things like that. Personally I've never noticed any price drops because the price is never going to drop below the wholesale rate, it just adds extra hassle while you have to compare prices and change companies every so often to get the best deal.
an easier way to do this, at least in newer versions of firefox, is to go to about:config and change "ui.allow_platform_file_picker" to "false"
just thinking about the gtk file browser gives me hives--its good i can get rid of it in at least one app that defaults to using it Thanks, so much better!
Although the GTK dialog doesn't bother me too much, going back to the original Firefox one is a big improvement.
Much more likely: you're just not from America, and use a nonstandard "Trillion." (This is a US site, default to US measurements or state otherwise, please.) Yes, OOXML being a standard is probably worth about one thousand-million dollars. Or, about 5% of what Microsoft makes from Office anyway. A non-US trillion is larger than a US trillion. In the UK at least it gets complicated because traditionally a British billion was a million million (a US trillion) but these days most people (and the media) use the US definition
Evolution is (in my opinion) one of the worst email clients I have had the displeasure to endure. It is buggy, slow, and not fit for purpose. I'm only using it as a POP3/SMTP client, and it sucks at that. I'd hate to think of someone trying to use it as an Outlook replacement. I agree with your opinion on Evolution. However, that is what makes it a good Outlook replacement. Outlook is buggy, slow and not fit for purpose, particularly if you use it for IMAP, it works better with Exchange but even with the Exchange integration I hate the UI of Outlook.
Despite my company using Exchange I'd rather use Thunderbird over Outlook (when in Windows) or Evolution as I find it a much better mail client (don't need the calendar). One thing I've noticed is that IMAP support sucks on Exchange as a server and Outlook as a client. When I worked at a different company with a Linux IMAP server those that used Outlook had problems those using other clients did not.
The article claims that they will use Live ID's to get demographic data including age and gender. The usefulness of this will be very limited. Who except hotmail users will have an active Live ID and be logged in? Out of those Hotmail users, how many of them will have the correct demographic data?
Ad free broadcasting does definitely save a lot of time. When BBC2 used to show The Simpsons they could fit it in a 20 minute slot, so two episodes on Friday would only waste 40 minutes of your times.
BBC programmes on commercial channels like UK Gold tend to run about 10 minutes longer than they do on the BBC so they can fit in ads. Remember that UK Gold is not free either, you need a Sky subscription for that.
I consider the TV licence better value than the Sky subscription although I do think the Sky+ PVR is good for the odd programmes I do watch.
Thanks to digital TV (Freeview) we do have a number of commercially funded free TV channels (in addition to the free ITV1, C4 + C5 on analogue) but due to the advertising ITV is only free if your time has no value.
In case you're wondering I do work for Sky, but it's not my job to sell their product (but I do believe they're a better offering than Virgin Media who seem to have ruined Telewest).
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Was this downloaded with IE or another browser? I can't see how Vista would stop another browser saving a file in a temp directory that is writable. Also PDF is not a format MS supports natively (well I don't think it does in vista anyway) so isn't this PDF just like any other random file?
Now if this was a Word doc I could see MS trying to force the DRM on it
Tools > Clear Private Data in Firefox is the option you need.
Not having a log out button is bad design but many people forget to click them, you need a decent timeout to reduce the risk for those that don't log out.
Does this system keep you logged in (via cookies) if you close the browser and restart it? If so that's a very bad design.
For a 'free' ISP like Sky (i.e. it's part of your TV subscription), it makes sense to outsource services such as email which cost a lot of time and effort into managing to someone like Google who has already committed resources to the problem. The customers will get a better experience, the sysadmins will have fewer headaches and the ISP will save a lot of money on hardware.
"reasonable" Yeah, if it's Bush
Well it started off as a university project called BackRub, of course once they realised they had something that was going to be popular then they'd want to find a way of making money on it but they could have easily just gone the way of getting some 3rd party to display banners on their pages.
Whether Google is a monopoly or not is up for discussion. But you're being blind to what it means and how a company gets to that position. I'd consider it a monopoly is the average person would not be aware of the existence of alternatives such as Windows Live (MSN) and Yahoo. People often get the alternatives handed to them in such a way that they have to actively choose an alternative if they prefer it. MSN/Live is default on IE, many apps bundle the Yahoo toolbar, Ask.com have been advertising on the London Underground, etc. Whereas for PC's for many years the only feasible option for those buying pre-build machines was Windows and that is almost still the case today with a small number now offering Linux. Even in many places that offered the Mac as the alternative they were always significantly more expensive and were often hidden in a corner. Things are changing and alternatives are slowly hitting the mainstream, but many people have got effectively locked in over the years either with dependency on certain software or fear of the unknown. With search engines things are easier, no UI changes to learn, you just need to either change your homepage or search box prefs or get used to typing a different URL.
...it may just be an inevitable part of having an IT monopoly. Google can't be considered a monopoly in anything. They got to their position in the search market as they offered a significantly better search product than what was offer at the time (and is still one of the best even though others are catching up). However the other search companies still have reasonable market share, but people often go to Google out of choice (IE users see Windows Live search by default but many choose not to use it - the more it improves the more people will stay with it).Google is getting powerful, but I can't see it dominating any area to an extent where it can lock people in. There's competitors in every area that Google operates. The benefit of the web as a platform is it's easier to switch both your underlying OS and the web apps that you use.
Correction: Windows is never the best option when you compare its price, performance, stability, security and out-of-the-box functionality with any other desktop or server operating system available today. However, it is, unfortunately, often the only option available, especially when it comes to many business applications. That's what I meant
"Microsoft said it believes individuals, governments and other organizations should be free to choose the software and other technologies that best meet their needs"
That choice is Vista Basic, Vista Home Premium, Vista Business, Vista Ultimate. Microsoft will do anything to make sure that they get a stronghold in emerging markets, they don't care what's best for the user (of course sometimes windows is the best option, doesn't mean it is all the time)
how employable do you think someone is going to be if they go into the workforce having never used windows?
yes, thats right, you just hurt their chances at getting a job all in the name of your own pet crusade.
When I was at school it was BBC Micros and Acorn Archimedes that ruled the day. For home use it was Sinclair and Commodore. Schools should not teach MS Word, they should teach word processing in general and offer exposure to a number of packages so they'll learn principles rather than location of menu items.schools are not the place for politics of any kind.
The version of office that they use in school will probably have no resemblance to the one they'll be using when they leave school and that's assuming that MS Office is still the dominant player at the time.
I think my knowledge of computing has benefited by having exposure to a number of operating systems (including Windows), saying the only way to make someone employable is to only teach kids what's popular today is complete nonsense.
Credit? Nope. A check isn't credit, and neither is a debit card, but they aren't cash. Depends if you use them to access an overdraft.
In the UK the electricity and gas companies do have to share their lines. So effectively whoever you choose for electricity and gas you get the same stuff, from the same source as you're using the same lines but you have a choice of companies to pay for the priviledge, some significantly cheaper than the other. So you can get your electricity from British Gas and your gas from Southern Electric.The way (I think) it works is that the company that actually owns the lines sells it at wholesale rates to these other companies that compete on price with each other. Only government regulation would make companies do crazy things like that. Personally I've never noticed any price drops because the price is never going to drop below the wholesale rate, it just adds extra hassle while you have to compare prices and change companies every so often to get the best deal.
just thinking about the gtk file browser gives me hives--its good i can get rid of it in at least one app that defaults to using it Thanks, so much better!
Although the GTK dialog doesn't bother me too much, going back to the original Firefox one is a big improvement.
Despite my company using Exchange I'd rather use Thunderbird over Outlook (when in Windows) or Evolution as I find it a much better mail client (don't need the calendar). One thing I've noticed is that IMAP support sucks on Exchange as a server and Outlook as a client. When I worked at a different company with a Linux IMAP server those that used Outlook had problems those using other clients did not.
The article claims that they will use Live ID's to get demographic data including age and gender. The usefulness of this will be very limited. Who except hotmail users will have an active Live ID and be logged in? Out of those Hotmail users, how many of them will have the correct demographic data?
Office 98 was a Mac app. Did you mean office 97?
Ad free broadcasting does definitely save a lot of time. When BBC2 used to show The Simpsons they could fit it in a 20 minute slot, so two episodes on Friday would only waste 40 minutes of your times.
BBC programmes on commercial channels like UK Gold tend to run about 10 minutes longer than they do on the BBC so they can fit in ads. Remember that UK Gold is not free either, you need a Sky subscription for that.
I consider the TV licence better value than the Sky subscription although I do think the Sky+ PVR is good for the odd programmes I do watch.
Thanks to digital TV (Freeview) we do have a number of commercially funded free TV channels (in addition to the free ITV1, C4 + C5 on analogue) but due to the advertising ITV is only free if your time has no value.
In case you're wondering I do work for Sky, but it's not my job to sell their product (but I do believe they're a better offering than Virgin Media who seem to have ruined Telewest).