We subscribe to Roadrunner + TW's basic cable in Bradenton, FL. One day we get our bill and the cable portion has jumped from ~$12 to over $40. I call, they say we're getting premium cable service, they've run a system audit, they're charging us what they should have charged us all along.
I'm like, "Say what?" You suddenly decide to give us and charge us for service we never ordered? Take it off our bill.
TW Rep: "I can't do that. You're enjoying the premium service and must pay for it."
Back and forth, no supervisor around, I call back the next day. TW assumption is that we have climbed the pole and removed a filter. I haven't. Our neighbors are in the their 70s and probably haven't either. I finally get bumped far enough up the TW customer "service" chain to get the charge removed, but not until after I file a (still unanswered) complaint with the FL Dept. of Consumer Affairs does the excess charge actually come off our bill.
The installer who comes out the next day to put on the correct filter says this happens all the time, that the day before he was out at the house of another suspected "cable pirate" who was in his 80s, in a wheelchair, and on a respirator, who sure hadn't been climbing poles, and had been paying the overcharge for months until his son came to visit and noticed his oversized cable bill.
The installer said the filters were often defective, that this was the problem more often than people stealing cable service, but that the company just assumed everyone was a thief and charged them no matter what.
I talked to the system's marketing manager. He told me almost all of the people who got extra service were stealing it on purpose, which contradicted the installer's comments. I don't know who to believe, but I am suspicious.
At least in FL I have a choice of 2 cable Internet service providers and a dozen DSL providers, and it's far enough south that sat TV is clear. In MD (my other residence) my only broadband Internet alternative is Comcast, and they suck so badly I endure a phone modem here, and we're in a tree-lined valley where satellite TV won't work.
Too bad FCC Chairman Powell loves and trusts cable TV companies so much that he doesn't mind them holding defacto monopolies over bradband Internet in much of the country. He ought to go to work for one of them if he loves them so much, and get off the public payroll, since he's not willing to lift a finger to help the citizens who pay his salary keep the cable TV operators from screwing them.
I have always thought it would be good to have regional "Slashdot gatherings" held in low-cost hotels in low-cost places. I speak at LUGs fairly frequently, and most of the Slashdot readers I've met in person were good people, well worth knowing.
The ideal would be one-day or two-day things, probably on Saturday only or Friday/Saturday, not too intense, all in one room, with some sort of minor door charge if we can't get corporate sponsors to pick up the tab, plus whatever the hotel we choose charges for supper for those who want to have supper as a group Friday evening.
The schmoozing and meeting/greeting would really be the big attraction, with everything else secondary. Lots of places to sit and chat, that sort of thing. Mucho network access, preferably both wired and wireless, go for an attendance limit of 300 or fewer so it's convivial instead of showlike.
Michael was in the Marines. If he wants to poke fun at the game and at the Army, that's cool with me.
I was in the Army, and I assure you there was plenty of standing around, lots of blister-raising marches, and more pointless missions in foreign countries than were really needed.
Somehow I doubt that the game is going to dwell much on the sheer stupidity of making sure your socks are all rolled "just so" before a barracks inspection.
There's a line from one of the little ditties (called "jodies") we sang while we marched along, raising blisters, that goes, "Oh woe woe we, my recruiter lied to me."
This game is a recruiting tool. Recruiters lie. Therefore this game will sugarcoat the Army and make it look lots more exciting than it really is.
I'm not saying you shouldn't join the Army (or, if you have mental problems, the Marines or even one of the lesser branches*), just that you should go in with your eyes open after talking to people who've been in, not because of a video game.
- Robin
* Veterans of other service branches are free to disagree with my belief that the Army is not only the Senior Service but also the finest one. Non-veterans are allowed to join this discussion only if they buy drinks for all the veterans, and even then their opinions don't really count
Why can't a smart sysadmin make folders labeled "My Documents" and have them on KDE desktops as icons?
Why not *set up* simplified file tools like that for users? Put the most used programs into the panel so they can be called up instantly?
Why not make a corporate or department-wide custom desktop and give your people that instead of a KDE or Gnome default? Why not use some of that Linux GUI flexibility to give your users something *better* for their needs than Windows?
The SUV marketplace validates the "don't listen to your [current] customers" thesis rather well, really.
Go back 20 or 30 years. Instead of SUV, think "vehicle capable of handling rough terrain and bad weather." I was the typical customer for this kind of vehicle. I wanted it simple, sturdy, and easy to fix. I did not want an automatic transmission, power windows, power steering, or any other gewgaw that would add complexity or might break when I was out in the boonies. I didn't care about a smooth ride or plush seats, and I drove with the windows open (or top down) most of the time, so I didn't need air conditioning, and I wasn't picky about heat. I didn't need a lot of power as long as the gearing was right, so I didn't need a fire-breathing motor. In a 60s/70s context, I was happy with a ~200 CID straight six or a big 4 cylinder engine.
A Willys Jeep was just fine with me. An International Harvester Scout did the job. My younger brother, a photographer, often hauled a lot of gear (and he was a really big guy) so he got into the habit of buying used Suburbans or Carryalls from the (Arizona) highway department.
In other words, these 4X4 vehicles were sold, for the most part, either as working tools to ranchers and the highway department or to camping-type people like me. We got them because we often needed or wanted to go where there were no roads or drive through snow and ice. We wanted trucks. We liked trucks. We didn't care much about paint because it was going to get scraped off anyway.
There was also a racing/performance offroad subculture that spent megamoney on 4X4 vehicles. Again, no attention to luxury.
Fast forward. Jeep sold Wagoneers with car-style amenities, but the hard-cores didn't buy them. Subaru sold 4X4 little cars and station wagons, but only a limited number of them. Broncos and Blazers came a little closer to mass appeal, but were still trucks at heart, not all that different from your old Scout or CJ although they tended to have car-style (plastic) dashboards instead of real he-man ones.
If you had listened to the people who bought the old-style 4X4s, you would not have SUVs. It took a major market perception shift to bring the idea, "Hey, you can have the capability of a 4X4 in a car you usually only drive on the highway and sit in air conditioned, padded comfort even in crappy weather -- and you can now drop into 4 wheel drive without getting out and setting front hubs," onto dealer showroom floors.
I own a middle-aged Jeep Cherokee. It's not a hard-core old-style 4X4 truck, but still has no power windows and crappy air conditioning (in Florida), and I'm okay with that. I like my Cherokee, and that's a problem for the car makers. I am not a good SUV customer, because one important piece of the old 4X4 truck guy ethos is that old trucks are better than new ones, and once you get one you like you only get rid of it if you can't get parts for it any more or some moron runs into it and totals it.
There's an old guy near me who has a late 50s Willys pickup for himself, and a CJ for his wife. They're not restored, just maintained well. Not show condition -- blanket instead of seat cover in the pickup -- but decent.
Hell, listen to that guy and you'd never make an SUV with a stereo (those who wanted stereos would install their own) or any other kind of amenity, and "soccer moms" would not be running around in those grossly huge Ford Expeditions, let alone something as silly (by old truck guy standards) as a 4X4 Cadillac or Lincoln.
Actually, if you looked really really hard, back in a gloomy corner of Dell's site there was a page where you could buy their most expensive laptop, packed with all kinds of crud including their most expensive 3-year service plan, with Linux preloaded.
That was their only Linux laptop offering, and when I called by phone none of the sales reps knew about it.
I suspect an Inspiron 3800 or one of their other lower-cost laptops loaded with Linux would have sold just fine. I would have bought one. I've bought three laptops (wife's, mine, backup) since then, none of them from Dell.
Actually, it's quite easy to get rid of MSN chat and ActiveX, even in XP. I recently bought a Compaq laptop with XP, and here's how I did it:
1) Place Mandrake 8.2 bootable CD in slot.
2) Reboot.
3) Follow (very simple) install instructions.
Half an hour and about eight mouseclicks later, I had a laptop that would do everything I needed for work and play including the ability to get online through a wireless network, wired ethernet or phone modem, impervious to viruses and other Microsoft security hassles, *plus* I had a journaling file system that let me shut it down instantly with the power switch without screwing anything up, one-click cut and paste, and many other cool features you don't get in Windows.
Installing Linux will cure all Windows security problems, guaranteed,every time.
It's generational. To many/most Slashdot readers, HP has always been a printer and computer vendor.
I remember lusting after HP test equipment as a teenager, and that one of the great things about the Army was that they had lots of cool HP tools around for me to use -- and they issued me a lovely HP scientific calculator, too.
I always liked Tektronix scopes better, though.
I think HP lost it when (now) Agilent stopped being the heart of the company. Oh, well.
Memo to self: kill Monday's Slashdot interview "call for questions" with known Free Software and anti-software patent activist Alan Cox and instead run an interview with a SourceForge salesperson or maybe someone from a company we hope will become a big advertiser.
Bullshit.
I'll do the interview with Alan Cox because I think he has some important things to say. Could we get more pageviews (ad dollars) doing interviews only with moooovie people and other celebs?
Garsh! What a idea!
I play the role of a journalist pretty well, and I am tired of ignorant people trying to find conspiracies where none exist. There are enough real problems in the world that no one with a three-digit IQ needs to come up with bogus ones.
Am I insulting a "customer is always right" reader here?
No! We need every pageview we can get! No one who works on Slashdot or any other OSDN site would ever offend a reader or advertiser.
I apologize. We are whores. We do whatever it takes to bring in revenue and make advertisers happy. That's our only objective. And I have a bridge for sale cheap, too.
(Please email me privately if you're one of the Slashdot Editorial Conspiracy loonies who wants to get in on the toll bridge deal; you'll get laughed at if we negotiate in public, and since our readers are always right -- just ask them -- we wouldn't want that to happen, would we?)
Click on "file," then on "properties," then on statistics.
Dumb, but it's there. I have not yet found a way to have a "running" word count or to count words in a highlighted block or a portion of the document instead of the whole thing.
The only problem with this thesis is that the huge,overwhelming, vast majority of software engineers and developers do not work on mass-market software packages, but on custom and/or specialized software for internal corporate use.
Make it easier and more cost-effective to produce custom applications (by, say opening the source code for the "base" applications), and you almost certainly create more software development jobs than you lose by turning base applications and operating systems into commodities.
Another thing to consider is that (gasp) there is life beyond software. Most companies that use computers (and software) aren't in the computer business, but use those computers to help produce something else, like animated movies or car parts. Heck, even airlines, hotels, and stock brokerages use computers these days, and if they can have computers that run a little better/faster/cheaper because of Open Source software, they can provide their products or services at a lower price.
Not that any of this matters to those whose only ambition in life is to write shrinkwrap software, but I thought I would throw it in here anyway.
A few years back I ordered a laptop from Dell through their Web site, then got a call from one of their people telling me the price was wrong, it was $135 (more or less) higher than shown on the site. I cancelled the order -- and they didn't make it easy, let me tell you.
Since then I've bought three computers for my wife and myself. None of these purchases have been from Dell.
I have nothing against Dell; they can run their business however they like. But I am not going to buy from them, ever.
I bought a Sager from powernotebooks.com several years ago, and they were so nice that I can easily believe they have a perfect rating at resellerratings.com.
Prices were lower than from Sager itself, I bought with *no* operating sysem installed, no problem, and when I suspected a hard drive problem near the end of the warranty period, I had an actual human person at powernotebooks.com who hooked me up with an actual (knowledgable) individual, named tech rep at Sager, and instead of forcing me to send the unit in for repair and having it out of action for a few days, they shipped me a new hard drive against an RMA for the old one.
As far as comparative reviews, I don't know about you, but once I get above the basic specs vs. price balance for what I need, the rest of my laptop buying decision is totally subjective. I am interested in screen appearance and keyboard feel more than anything else, and I strongly prefer a touchpad to the little mini-joysticks in the middle of the keyboard.
How can a reviewer possibly rate how *you* will like this keyboard or that keyboard?
The most useful vendor-to-vendor comparison would probably be durability, and the most authoritative place to get that information would be from the third-party warranty/service policy companies. I suspect that most/all of them are under NDA, but when I get a little time free I'll make some calls, see if I can't pry some information loose, possibly write a story about laptop durability for NewsForge.
Reporters from CNN, NYT, WSJ, and many other mainstream news media regularly scan Slashdot, Linux.com, NewsForge and other "niche" Web sites for story ideas. Posting something interesting (or silly) on Slashdot usually brings it to their attention just as effectively as emailing them about it.:)
Well, I don't want to visit the U.S.A. depicted in "The Simpsons" so I suppose the U.S.A. should sue.
I doubt that I'd want to visit a New York where demented comic book characters swing from buildings, so New York should sue the Spider-Man movie producers.
A moderator on Slashdot once modded one of my comments down. I should sue.
Let's just have an "Everybody sues Everybody" day next year, let Judge Judy run the proceedings and yell at everyone, then call it all even and go have lunch.
Thanks for posting this. I didn't know flex.net had gone national. I have wanted a "stripped" ISP service like theirs for a long time, and have envied people in Hawaii because they could get flex.net and I couldn't.
I'll check their list of dialup numbers, and if they cover the areas I travel to most frequently, Mindspring* loses a customer and flex.net gains one.
- Robin
*I was a Primenet customer since the earliest days of the public Internet. Primenet got bought by Mindspring. I stuck with Mindspring because a bug in their system allowed 2 or more simultaneous connections on the same account at no extra charge. They have now fixed this bug, and indeed are charging amazingly huge amounts (over $100 last month!) for multiple connections, so I see no reason to stay with them.:)
"Bradley Kuhn, v.p. of the Free Software Foundation, said he was there as an ambassador to preach freedom as in speech. Richard Stallman, always true to his principles, would not be attending LWCE, said Kuhn, because Stallman doesn't patronize events that don't use the term 'GNU/Linux.'"
- Robin
Re:WHY SO MUCH EMPHASIS ON M$ OFFICE?
on
Wired Talks Wine
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· Score: 2
As a journalist and writer I can tell you that you are wrong. It is easy to shuffle documents back and forth with a Windows-locked publisher, including all editors' revisions and notations, using StarOffice 5.2. If you don't tell the people at the publishing company you'r using StarOffice instead of MS Office, they won't even know.
I'd go into more detail, but I'm on a tight deadline with my (Windows-locked) book publisher, and I need to get another chapter in by Monday.
Next book project, OpenOffice. I look forward to it; OO is great! But I started the current book-in-progress using SO 5.2 and don't want to change midstream.
I know Gary, the guy who runs AOL news, and they leave him totally, completely alone. He says upper management has never, not once, tried to push coverage in any particular direction or stop him from running stories that were anti-AOL.
But I doubt that AOL would want to buy OSDN. Their mentality is "buy the market leader (in whatever field)." They'd be more likely to go after C|Net if they wanted to get into tech-specific news. OSDN is tiny compared to the now-combined C|Net/ZDNet empire.
This "buy the market leader" mentality is why you're reading about AOL (maybe thinking about) buying Red Hat rather than Mandrake or Redmond Linux or any other Linux distribution publisher, BTW.
Sure, AOL/TW is greedy, grasping, evil etc., but having a company as greedy/grasping as Microsoft *competing* directly with Microsoft's graspingness means at least a slight cut in the overall greediness either company would be able to display. Consumers would win from the competition.
The rest of us would just need to make sure we weren't anyplace these dueling dinosaurs could fall on us. We'd have to be mammals; small, lithe and adaptable by comparison...
There is a famous NSA story, told by many security briefers for many years (and for all I know, still making the rounds), about a guy who was gay and got called in for a security review. He was told to sign and send letters to parents and friends telling them he was gay if he wanted to keep his job.
No one cared about the guy's sexual habits as long as they weren't hidden and therefore potential blackmail material. Ditto former (light) drug use. I knew someone who was almost denied a clearance because she claimed she had never even puffed on a joint. The polygraph test said she was telling the truth, so she passed and got the job, but the clearance people didn't believe her until she was tested. They didn't care about drug use, just that if she had she was willing to openly admit it.
You don't need to be sane to work for NSA or other "secret" agencies, either. I have known many raging loonies who held high-level clearances. Several Ann Arundel County cops (where NSA is locatated and many employees live) have told me hauling off foaming-at-the-mouth-nuts NSA crypto geeks is not unusual, especially when the moon is full...
Slashdot Mirror
We subscribe to Roadrunner + TW's basic cable in Bradenton, FL. One day we get our bill and the cable portion has jumped from ~$12 to over $40. I call, they say we're getting premium cable service, they've run a system audit, they're charging us what they should have charged us all along.
I'm like, "Say what?" You suddenly decide to give us and charge us for service we never ordered? Take it off our bill.
TW Rep: "I can't do that. You're enjoying the premium service and must pay for it."
Back and forth, no supervisor around, I call back the next day. TW assumption is that we have climbed the pole and removed a filter. I haven't. Our neighbors are in the their 70s and probably haven't either. I finally get bumped far enough up the TW customer "service" chain to get the charge removed, but not until after I file a (still unanswered) complaint with the FL Dept. of Consumer Affairs does the excess charge actually come off our bill.
The installer who comes out the next day to put on the correct filter says this happens all the time, that the day before he was out at the house of another suspected "cable pirate" who was in his 80s, in a wheelchair, and on a respirator, who sure hadn't been climbing poles, and had been paying the overcharge for months until his son came to visit and noticed his oversized cable bill.
The installer said the filters were often defective, that this was the problem more often than people stealing cable service, but that the company just assumed everyone was a thief and charged them no matter what.
I talked to the system's marketing manager. He told me almost all of the people who got extra service were stealing it on purpose, which contradicted the installer's comments. I don't know who to believe, but I am suspicious.
At least in FL I have a choice of 2 cable Internet service providers and a dozen DSL providers, and it's far enough south that sat TV is clear. In MD (my other residence) my only broadband Internet alternative is Comcast, and they suck so badly I endure a phone modem here, and we're in a tree-lined valley where satellite TV won't work.
Too bad FCC Chairman Powell loves and trusts cable TV companies so much that he doesn't mind them holding defacto monopolies over bradband Internet in much of the country. He ought to go to work for one of them if he loves them so much, and get off the public payroll, since he's not willing to lift a finger to help the citizens who pay his salary keep the cable TV operators from screwing them.
- Robin
I have always thought it would be good to have regional "Slashdot gatherings" held in low-cost hotels in low-cost places. I speak at LUGs fairly frequently, and most of the Slashdot readers I've met in person were good people, well worth knowing.
The ideal would be one-day or two-day things, probably on Saturday only or Friday/Saturday, not too intense, all in one room, with some sort of minor door charge if we can't get corporate sponsors to pick up the tab, plus whatever the hotel we choose charges for supper for those who want to have supper as a group Friday evening.
The schmoozing and meeting/greeting would really be the big attraction, with everything else secondary. Lots of places to sit and chat, that sort of thing. Mucho network access, preferably both wired and wireless, go for an attendance limit of 300 or fewer so it's convivial instead of showlike.
- Robin
Michael was in the Marines. If he wants to poke fun at the game and at the Army, that's cool with me.
I was in the Army, and I assure you there was plenty of standing around, lots of blister-raising marches, and more pointless missions in foreign countries than were really needed.
Somehow I doubt that the game is going to dwell much on the sheer stupidity of making sure your socks are all rolled "just so" before a barracks inspection.
There's a line from one of the little ditties (called "jodies") we sang while we marched along, raising blisters, that goes, "Oh woe woe we, my recruiter lied to me."
This game is a recruiting tool. Recruiters lie. Therefore this game will sugarcoat the Army and make it look lots more exciting than it really is.
I'm not saying you shouldn't join the Army (or, if you have mental problems, the Marines or even one of the lesser branches*), just that you should go in with your eyes open after talking to people who've been in, not because of a video game.
- Robin
* Veterans of other service branches are free to disagree with my belief that the Army is not only the Senior Service but also the finest one. Non-veterans are allowed to join this discussion only if they buy drinks for all the veterans, and even then their opinions don't really count
Why can't a smart sysadmin make folders labeled "My Documents" and have them on KDE desktops as icons?
Why not *set up* simplified file tools like that for users? Put the most used programs into the panel so they can be called up instantly?
Why not make a corporate or department-wide custom desktop and give your people that instead of a KDE or Gnome default? Why not use some of that Linux GUI flexibility to give your users something *better* for their needs than Windows?
- Robin
The SUV marketplace validates the "don't listen to your [current] customers" thesis rather well, really.
Go back 20 or 30 years. Instead of SUV, think "vehicle capable of handling rough terrain and bad weather." I was the typical customer for this kind of vehicle. I wanted it simple, sturdy, and easy to fix. I did not want an automatic transmission, power windows, power steering, or any other gewgaw that would add complexity or might break when I was out in the boonies. I didn't care about a smooth ride or plush seats, and I drove with the windows open (or top down) most of the time, so I didn't need air conditioning, and I wasn't picky about heat. I didn't need a lot of power as long as the gearing was right, so I didn't need a fire-breathing motor. In a 60s/70s context, I was happy with a ~200 CID straight six or a big 4 cylinder engine.
A Willys Jeep was just fine with me. An International Harvester Scout did the job. My younger brother, a photographer, often hauled a lot of gear (and he was a really big guy) so he got into the habit of buying used Suburbans or Carryalls from the (Arizona) highway department.
In other words, these 4X4 vehicles were sold, for the most part, either as working tools to ranchers and the highway department or to camping-type people like me. We got them because we often needed or wanted to go where there were no roads or drive through snow and ice. We wanted trucks. We liked trucks. We didn't care much about paint because it was going to get scraped off anyway.
There was also a racing/performance offroad subculture that spent megamoney on 4X4 vehicles. Again, no attention to luxury.
Fast forward. Jeep sold Wagoneers with car-style amenities, but the hard-cores didn't buy them. Subaru sold 4X4 little cars and station wagons, but only a limited number of them. Broncos and Blazers came a little closer to mass appeal, but were still trucks at heart, not all that different from your old Scout or CJ although they tended to have car-style (plastic) dashboards instead of real he-man ones.
If you had listened to the people who bought the old-style 4X4s, you would not have SUVs. It took a major market perception shift to bring the idea, "Hey, you can have the capability of a 4X4 in a car you usually only drive on the highway and sit in air conditioned, padded comfort even in crappy weather -- and you can now drop into 4 wheel drive without getting out and setting front hubs," onto dealer showroom floors.
I own a middle-aged Jeep Cherokee. It's not a hard-core old-style 4X4 truck, but still has no power windows and crappy air conditioning (in Florida), and I'm okay with that. I like my Cherokee, and that's a problem for the car makers. I am not a good SUV customer, because one important piece of the old 4X4 truck guy ethos is that old trucks are better than new ones, and once you get one you like you only get rid of it if you can't get parts for it any more or some moron runs into it and totals it.
There's an old guy near me who has a late 50s Willys pickup for himself, and a CJ for his wife. They're not restored, just maintained well. Not show condition -- blanket instead of seat cover in the pickup -- but decent.
Hell, listen to that guy and you'd never make an SUV with a stereo (those who wanted stereos would install their own) or any other kind of amenity, and "soccer moms" would not be running around in those grossly huge Ford Expeditions, let alone something as silly (by old truck guy standards) as a 4X4 Cadillac or Lincoln.
- Robin
Actually, if you looked really really hard, back in a gloomy corner of Dell's site there was a page where you could buy their most expensive laptop, packed with all kinds of crud including their most expensive 3-year service plan, with Linux preloaded.
That was their only Linux laptop offering, and when I called by phone none of the sales reps knew about it.
I suspect an Inspiron 3800 or one of their other lower-cost laptops loaded with Linux would have sold just fine. I would have bought one. I've bought three laptops (wife's, mine, backup) since then, none of them from Dell.
- Robin
- Robin
Bias is in the eye of the beholder. Bahrain has banned Al-Jazeera because the government there feels it is too pro-Israel.
Is that the bias you meant?
- Robin
Actually, it's quite easy to get rid of MSN chat and ActiveX, even in XP. I recently bought a Compaq laptop with XP, and here's how I did it:
1) Place Mandrake 8.2 bootable CD in slot.
2) Reboot.
3) Follow (very simple) install instructions.
Half an hour and about eight mouseclicks later, I had a laptop that would do everything I needed for work and play including the ability to get online through a wireless network, wired ethernet or phone modem, impervious to viruses and other Microsoft security hassles, *plus* I had a journaling file system that let me shut it down instantly with the power switch without screwing anything up, one-click cut and paste, and many other cool features you don't get in Windows.
Installing Linux will cure all Windows security problems, guaranteed,every time.
- Robin
It's generational. To many/most Slashdot readers, HP has always been a printer and computer vendor.
I remember lusting after HP test equipment as a teenager, and that one of the great things about the Army was that they had lots of cool HP tools around for me to use -- and they issued me a lovely HP scientific calculator, too.
I always liked Tektronix scopes better, though.
I think HP lost it when (now) Agilent stopped being the heart of the company. Oh, well.
- Robin
Somehow, I don't think Harlan spends a lot of his time trying to make friends.
Rather the opposite.
Excellent writer, though.
- Robin
Memo to self: kill Monday's Slashdot interview "call for questions" with known Free Software and anti-software patent activist Alan Cox and instead run an interview with a SourceForge salesperson or maybe someone from a company we hope will become a big advertiser.
Bullshit.
I'll do the interview with Alan Cox because I think he has some important things to say. Could we get more pageviews (ad dollars) doing interviews only with moooovie people and other celebs?
Garsh! What a idea!
I play the role of a journalist pretty well, and I am tired of ignorant people trying to find conspiracies where none exist. There are enough real problems in the world that no one with a three-digit IQ needs to come up with bogus ones.
Am I insulting a "customer is always right" reader here?
No! We need every pageview we can get! No one who works on Slashdot or any other OSDN site would ever offend a reader or advertiser.
I apologize. We are whores. We do whatever it takes to bring in revenue and make advertisers happy. That's our only objective. And I have a bridge for sale cheap, too.
(Please email me privately if you're one of the Slashdot Editorial Conspiracy loonies who wants to get in on the toll bridge deal; you'll get laughed at if we negotiate in public, and since our readers are always right -- just ask them -- we wouldn't want that to happen, would we?)
- Robin
OpenOffice/StarOffice word count:
Click on "file," then on "properties," then on statistics.
Dumb, but it's there. I have not yet found a way to have a "running" word count or to count words in a highlighted block or a portion of the document instead of the whole thing.
- Robin
The only problem with this thesis is that the huge,overwhelming, vast majority of software engineers and developers do not work on mass-market software packages, but on custom and/or specialized software for internal corporate use.
Make it easier and more cost-effective to produce custom applications (by, say opening the source code for the "base" applications), and you almost certainly create more software development jobs than you lose by turning base applications and operating systems into commodities.
Another thing to consider is that (gasp) there is life beyond software. Most companies that use computers (and software) aren't in the computer business, but use those computers to help produce something else, like animated movies or car parts. Heck, even airlines, hotels, and stock brokerages use computers these days, and if they can have computers that run a little better/faster/cheaper because of Open Source software, they can provide their products or services at a lower price.
Not that any of this matters to those whose only ambition in life is to write shrinkwrap software, but I thought I would throw it in here anyway.
- Robin
A few years back I ordered a laptop from Dell through their Web site, then got a call from one of their people telling me the price was wrong, it was $135 (more or less) higher than shown on the site. I cancelled the order -- and they didn't make it easy, let me tell you.
Since then I've bought three computers for my wife and myself. None of these purchases have been from Dell.
I have nothing against Dell; they can run their business however they like. But I am not going to buy from them, ever.
- Robin
I bought a Sager from powernotebooks.com several years ago, and they were so nice that I can easily believe they have a perfect rating at resellerratings.com.
Prices were lower than from Sager itself, I bought with *no* operating sysem installed, no problem, and when I suspected a hard drive problem near the end of the warranty period, I had an actual human person at powernotebooks.com who hooked me up with an actual (knowledgable) individual, named tech rep at Sager, and instead of forcing me to send the unit in for repair and having it out of action for a few days, they shipped me a new hard drive against an RMA for the old one.
As far as comparative reviews, I don't know about you, but once I get above the basic specs vs. price balance for what I need, the rest of my laptop buying decision is totally subjective. I am interested in screen appearance and keyboard feel more than anything else, and I strongly prefer a touchpad to the little mini-joysticks in the middle of the keyboard.
How can a reviewer possibly rate how *you* will like this keyboard or that keyboard?
The most useful vendor-to-vendor comparison would probably be durability, and the most authoritative place to get that information would be from the third-party warranty/service policy companies. I suspect that most/all of them are under NDA, but when I get a little time free I'll make some calls, see if I can't pry some information loose, possibly write a story about laptop durability for NewsForge.
- Robin
Reporters from CNN, NYT, WSJ, and many other mainstream news media regularly scan Slashdot, Linux.com, NewsForge and other "niche" Web sites for story ideas. Posting something interesting (or silly) on Slashdot usually brings it to their attention just as effectively as emailing them about it. :)
- Robin
Well, I don't want to visit the U.S.A. depicted in "The Simpsons" so I suppose the U.S.A. should sue.
I doubt that I'd want to visit a New York where demented comic book characters swing from buildings, so New York should sue the Spider-Man movie producers.
A moderator on Slashdot once modded one of my comments down. I should sue.
Let's just have an "Everybody sues Everybody" day next year, let Judge Judy run the proceedings and yell at everyone, then call it all even and go have lunch.
- Robin
I sure as hell got it -- but then, I already wrote to my Congregates comparing the Hollings Madness to the Cuban computer situation...
- Robin
Thanks for posting this. I didn't know flex.net had gone national. I have wanted a "stripped" ISP service like theirs for a long time, and have envied people in Hawaii because they could get flex.net and I couldn't.
:)
I'll check their list of dialup numbers, and if they cover the areas I travel to most frequently, Mindspring* loses a customer and flex.net gains one.
- Robin
*I was a Primenet customer since the earliest days of the public Internet. Primenet got bought by Mindspring. I stuck with Mindspring because a bug in their system allowed 2 or more simultaneous connections on the same account at no extra charge. They have now fixed this bug, and indeed are charging amazingly huge amounts (over $100 last month!) for multiple connections, so I see no reason to stay with them.
I updated it myself. Matt Michie did a great job (better than I could have done) on that review and deserves all credit for it.
- Robin
> Granted its some of the SPAM is
> from "white folk" that are using
> these open relays to SPAM Americans.
I know a Baltimore guy who was a prosperous, successful spammer for *years* before he got a degree and moved into a more legitimate job.
But he's still black, and AFAIK has no intention of changing his skin color anytime soon.
- Robin
From the NewsForge story:
"Bradley Kuhn, v.p. of the Free Software Foundation, said he was there as an ambassador to preach freedom as in speech. Richard Stallman, always true to his principles, would not be attending LWCE, said Kuhn, because Stallman doesn't patronize events that don't use the term 'GNU/Linux.'"
- Robin
As a journalist and writer I can tell you that you are wrong. It is easy to shuffle documents back and forth with a Windows-locked publisher, including all editors' revisions and notations, using StarOffice 5.2. If you don't tell the people at the publishing company you'r using StarOffice instead of MS Office, they won't even know.
I'd go into more detail, but I'm on a tight deadline with my (Windows-locked) book publisher, and I need to get another chapter in by Monday.
Next book project, OpenOffice. I look forward to it; OO is great! But I started the current book-in-progress using SO 5.2 and don't want to change midstream.
- Robin
I know Gary, the guy who runs AOL news, and they leave him totally, completely alone. He says upper management has never, not once, tried to push coverage in any particular direction or stop him from running stories that were anti-AOL.
But I doubt that AOL would want to buy OSDN. Their mentality is "buy the market leader (in whatever field)." They'd be more likely to go after C|Net if they wanted to get into tech-specific news. OSDN is tiny compared to the now-combined C|Net/ZDNet empire.
This "buy the market leader" mentality is why you're reading about AOL (maybe thinking about) buying Red Hat rather than Mandrake or Redmond Linux or any other Linux distribution publisher, BTW.
Sure, AOL/TW is greedy, grasping, evil etc., but having a company as greedy/grasping as Microsoft *competing* directly with Microsoft's graspingness means at least a slight cut in the overall greediness either company would be able to display. Consumers would win from the competition.
The rest of us would just need to make sure we weren't anyplace these dueling dinosaurs could fall on us. We'd have to be mammals; small, lithe and adaptable by comparison...
- Robin
There is a famous NSA story, told by many security briefers for many years (and for all I know, still making the rounds), about a guy who was gay and got called in for a security review. He was told to sign and send letters to parents and friends telling them he was gay if he wanted to keep his job.
No one cared about the guy's sexual habits as long as they weren't hidden and therefore potential blackmail material. Ditto former (light) drug use. I knew someone who was almost denied a clearance because she claimed she had never even puffed on a joint. The polygraph test said she was telling the truth, so she passed and got the job, but the clearance people didn't believe her until she was tested. They didn't care about drug use, just that if she had she was willing to openly admit it.
You don't need to be sane to work for NSA or other "secret" agencies, either. I have known many raging loonies who held high-level clearances. Several Ann Arundel County cops (where NSA is locatated and many employees live) have told me hauling off foaming-at-the-mouth-nuts NSA crypto geeks is not unusual, especially when the moon is full...
- Robin