I'm glad that the gouging of printer manufacturers' has been recognized and cheaper replacement ink options are being mandated.
The ink jet printer market has always followed the razor blade model - sell the handle at a loss and get 'em with the blades.
Which leads me to the question, has Gillette or any of the other shaving blade manufacturers been investigated by the DOJ or is it just that the gouging was so extreme in the printer market that people stood up and took notice?
There was a point where - Lynx was the most popular browser - Then it was Netscape - IE was the most popular browser for a while - I believe Mozilla was the most popular browser for a year or so - Now we have Chrome as the most used browser
What is the most popular browser going forwards hasn't been determined yet. Saying "Chrome has won" means that you've given up trying to compete.
Give us a reason to go to Firefox rather than Chrome and then you'll "win", for a while, at least.
"IT personnel are usually the helpful, go-to people for sorting out issues"?
If people are calling system security to help with computer issues that should be handled by the IT help desk then it's probably because: 1. The issues being reported appear to be security problems. 2. The IT helpdesk consists of condescending asshats which most employees avoid at all costs (based on my work experience, I bet this is the big reason).
More seriously, if security staff are only being called in on inappropriate calls that take up less time in a given week than they spend choosing what to put in their coffee; you've got a pretty efficient IT setup with very little to worry about.
Or you haven't gotten a clue as to what's going on and the North Koreans are actually running your business.
I agree totally with Mr. Petitt, that there needs to be independence from corporate giants on the web and, as somebody who opens a lot of tabs, running faster and leaner is something I like.
But that ain't enough of a value proposition for me and my business. Google provides email, storage and on line apps for free to any computer with a Chrome browser. Google offers analytics that allow businesses to track their web presence. Then there's the search thing. To be fair, many of these resources are available from Google on Firefox, but then you get a nagging message saying that others aren't available except on Chrome.
I'm looking forward to widespread adoption of HTML5 and it's APIs to help level the playing field, but without solid, tangible tools and resources uniquely available to Firefox it's always going to be used as an open-source, non-evil alternative to Chrome.
I can't imagine Mr. Bezos doing this without a solid expectation that it will become profitable. Probably a good part of the justification for doing this is the success of the Apple Stores which is feeding the human needs to physically touch and experience the products, talk to experts (to be fair, the Apple Store employees are pretty good - much better than what you get in a Best Buy or other traditional bricks and mortar store), see accessories that go with the things they are buying and seeing others interact with the product.
All those things makes me feel good as it means that humanity isn't going to (d)evolve into a bunch of zombies staring into a phone - there still is the need to interact with physically with others and the products in their lives. It also means that there is still a market for dusty, paper bound books; Samuel T Cogley would be happy!
Somehow I can't see LLNL releasing codes for simulating nuclear processes. Similarly, I don't see the CIA, NSA, FBI releasing code for their intelligence, data gathering/mining and investigations. Just thinking about it, I suspect that a lot of this code isn't written by the US Government, but by contractors who can patent/copyright and make it ineligible for this program.
That leaves... Javascript used for different website apps. I would be surprised if anything much of anything else was published through this program.
Not colleges and universities but grade school - everybody is doing Scratch (https://scratch.mit.edu/)! Seriously, 22.7 million apps so far so clearly it's the fastest growing language/development tool and the students aren't learning anything else.
Oh, my. This means that C/C++/C#/Objective C, Java, Javascript, Python, Perl, Wordpress and anything else being used today is going to be obsolete when the next generation of programmers hits the world.
The simple analysis above has just about as much validity as the one done by the Infoworld "experts". As many people above have pointed out, there are applications for a variety of new and up and coming platforms that don't fit into their limited perspective on the world.
I think the authors of the study spent too much time talking to themselves in conferences and not enough time looking at what programming is going on today along with the applications they are being used to program.
I put in Alphabet/Google because my company provides a Chrome Extension as a development tool for our product. If Google went away, I'd be fucked.
The initial voting was interesting with Amazon getting exactly ZERO votes. I'm an Amazon customer but life would go on if they went away and I guess everybody else feels that way.
In my experience (both personal and looking at other people), there are three reasons why a manager/supervisor won't provide feedback:
1. They are incompetent. 2. They don't want you/don't know what to do with you and just wish you would go away. 3. They are psychopaths and don't want there to be a papertrail showing that you a) succeeded without/despite them or b) failed because they don't know what they are doing (see point 1.).
Sorry for being so harsh but I've had 1. & 3. as managers and seen lots of people with 2.
Sorry, as soon as I walked away, I realized there were more issues in regards to the perspective on Windows that are a problem:
Edge. Sorry, I don't think it's reasonable to have to maintain a web page for Edge and IE because Microsoft won't use Webkit/be compatible with everything else out there. Companies need to provide responsive pages for tablets and smartphones - they shouldn't need to do the same amount of work for Microsoft browsers (that aren't even fully compatible with each other).
All that crap information on Windows 10 (and 8). If ANYBODY involved with Windows 10 S has ever seen how kids work in a classroom, then they should be clearing off the time/news updates/sports updates/weather/etc. that is in the Win10 scrawl at the bottom. This is just a distractor for kids which takes their attention away from the class material - unfortunately getting rid of it will get rid of potential Microsoft revenue streams so it's not going.
The author seems to want Win 10S to succeed because it will result in better Windows Store apps, with a simple install process, which can be used by all Windows users.
Right off the bat, doesn't this place an unreasonable amount of confidence that anything coming from the app store will not be evil?
Secondly, all my problems with Windows 10 have been outside the Windows Store experience that I don't see endearing the product to the education market. I have a couple of Win10 machines with 32GBytes of eMMC; doing an update is hell as it requires an external USB thumb drive and takes multiple hours - something that can't be tolerated in a classroom environment where there are dozens of PCs. I've bitched about my problems with the Win10 Bluetooth stack and I don't see anybody in Microsoft fixing that, even as the need for BT is growing with different external devices.
Next, I feel like Microsoft is going to continually look for opportunities to monetize the platform. Office 365 revenues flat lining? Say, let's start charging all those kids using Win 10S machines, the schools are just wasting money on hot lunch programs that should be going to Microsoft.
Finally, there is the privacy issue. Win 10 seems to be designed around collecting user data and exploiting it. Is this something parents want to have happen to their children? You can say that Google and Chrome do the same thing but it doesn't seem to be a core part of their business model. I wouldn't be surprised coming home to a kid that is demanding an Windows OS'd phone because the computer at school told them how much better it is than their stupid Android or iOS phone.
I know I'll get replies from numerous AC's who feel that I'm being unreasonably harsh towards Microsoft and what they're doing with the Windows 10 S platform, which is much better than ChromeOS even though nobody's seen it before but I just don't see Microsoft having the right stuff or approach to take on the education market in way that is positive for students and not completely exploitative.
The only launches that take place in California are for polar orbits. California is used for these launches because the Earth turns away from the rocket's path and if there is a problem, the rocket drops into the Pacific. There is no advantage being close to the equator (like is had with Cape Canaveral).
I would think that Oregon and Washington state would offer the same advantage for polar launches and would like to bring in the space launch business which they can do now by simply not charging a state tax.
For Qualcomm and Imagination, I would think that their contracts with Apple were pretty iron-clad. Apple didn't become one of the biggest companies on the planet by signing deals that wasn't in their favour. Potential for abuse by Apple when the contracts were drawn up aside, I would think that the contracts are pretty solid and Apple knows exactly what it's rights are and has protected itself.
This means that the only recourse for (former) suppliers is to go after Apple, primarily in the court of public opinion, to see if there's a chance for a settlement to avoid Apple's public reputation being damaged. Although after Jobs, I don't see how it could get any worse on that front.
This goes with my previous post. With "Chromebook", the name tells you what you get.
The backlash is over the fact that Microsoft is performing a bait and switch telling you that this is a Windows machine and you should be able to configure it the same way you can with any other Windows machines.
But, if you're locked in to a browser and you want to compare it against the locked in browser of a "Chromebook", then you need to label it the same way - call it an "Edgebook" and let the market decide whether or not they feel it is superior to the "Chromebook".
The real issue is that Edge/IE are not Webkit based browsers, which mean that they are unpredictable when viewing/accessing certain content.
If Edge displayed pages & content in exactly the same way as: - Chrome - Safari - Firefox - Opera - etc. then I don't think there would be the same outcry by locking in the browsers.
Seriously, pencil in the cards and wait two days for a print out to see how your program ran. All that instilled in me was a hatred for off-site card based programming.
I know it is difficult to give up the educational space, but I can't see how Microsoft has a chance. Based on previous posts, I'll know I'll get hammered by Microsoft fanboys/employees (who post as AC) who feel that Win 10 is competitive against ChromeOS, but it really isn't.
ChromeOS works very well, has a good ecosystem and has many different very good, inexpensive laptop systems for schools to choose from. Apple has a reasonably good infrastructure and great, but expensive, products for it.
Microsoft, honestly I think they would be better off looking for a new market that doesn't have an established standard platform like the educational market does with ChromeOS. I don't think they can provide a compelling solution at a good cost that they don't try to monetize at every turn.
A big part of the appeal of the Chromebook (to schools) is that there isn't the feeling that for just a few dollars more, customers would get a better, safer, faster experience like Microsoft, in Windows, is always pushing for.
Interesting to see an AC believing Dr. Hawking over Mr. Kelly.
As far as I know, and I would love to get a better understanding of what he has done, Dr. Hawking has never programmed anything in his life.
Mr. Gates seemed to have done some work in the early days of Microsoft but hasn't programmed in 35+ years.
Mr. Musk would be the most credible source, but I guess his love of seeing his name in print out weighs his need to maintain the image of a practical visionary - this seems to be a problem as I would think that making wild, incorrect assertions will lessen interest for people investing in his wild, correct(?) assertions and companies based on them.
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I'm glad that the gouging of printer manufacturers' has been recognized and cheaper replacement ink options are being mandated.
The ink jet printer market has always followed the razor blade model - sell the handle at a loss and get 'em with the blades.
Which leads me to the question, has Gillette or any of the other shaving blade manufacturers been investigated by the DOJ or is it just that the gouging was so extreme in the printer market that people stood up and took notice?
You're right, Lynx was never very popular, but it was the most widely used.
Chrome is number one right now.
There was a point where
- Lynx was the most popular browser
- Then it was Netscape
- IE was the most popular browser for a while
- I believe Mozilla was the most popular browser for a year or so
- Now we have Chrome as the most used browser
What is the most popular browser going forwards hasn't been determined yet. Saying "Chrome has won" means that you've given up trying to compete.
Give us a reason to go to Firefox rather than Chrome and then you'll "win", for a while, at least.
Personally, I thought it started as a thinkpiece and then seques into a whine that life isn't fair.
"IT personnel are usually the helpful, go-to people for sorting out issues"?
If people are calling system security to help with computer issues that should be handled by the IT help desk then it's probably because:
1. The issues being reported appear to be security problems.
2. The IT helpdesk consists of condescending asshats which most employees avoid at all costs (based on my work experience, I bet this is the big reason).
More seriously, if security staff are only being called in on inappropriate calls that take up less time in a given week than they spend choosing what to put in their coffee; you've got a pretty efficient IT setup with very little to worry about.
Or you haven't gotten a clue as to what's going on and the North Koreans are actually running your business.
I agree totally with Mr. Petitt, that there needs to be independence from corporate giants on the web and, as somebody who opens a lot of tabs, running faster and leaner is something I like.
But that ain't enough of a value proposition for me and my business. Google provides email, storage and on line apps for free to any computer with a Chrome browser. Google offers analytics that allow businesses to track their web presence. Then there's the search thing. To be fair, many of these resources are available from Google on Firefox, but then you get a nagging message saying that others aren't available except on Chrome.
I'm looking forward to widespread adoption of HTML5 and it's APIs to help level the playing field, but without solid, tangible tools and resources uniquely available to Firefox it's always going to be used as an open-source, non-evil alternative to Chrome.
I can't imagine Mr. Bezos doing this without a solid expectation that it will become profitable. Probably a good part of the justification for doing this is the success of the Apple Stores which is feeding the human needs to physically touch and experience the products, talk to experts (to be fair, the Apple Store employees are pretty good - much better than what you get in a Best Buy or other traditional bricks and mortar store), see accessories that go with the things they are buying and seeing others interact with the product.
All those things makes me feel good as it means that humanity isn't going to (d)evolve into a bunch of zombies staring into a phone - there still is the need to interact with physically with others and the products in their lives. It also means that there is still a market for dusty, paper bound books; Samuel T Cogley would be happy!
It's a great initiative but...
Somehow I can't see LLNL releasing codes for simulating nuclear processes. Similarly, I don't see the CIA, NSA, FBI releasing code for their intelligence, data gathering/mining and investigations. Just thinking about it, I suspect that a lot of this code isn't written by the US Government, but by contractors who can patent/copyright and make it ineligible for this program.
That leaves... Javascript used for different website apps. I would be surprised if anything much of anything else was published through this program.
Not colleges and universities but grade school - everybody is doing Scratch (https://scratch.mit.edu/)! Seriously, 22.7 million apps so far so clearly it's the fastest growing language/development tool and the students aren't learning anything else.
Oh, my. This means that C/C++/C#/Objective C, Java, Javascript, Python, Perl, Wordpress and anything else being used today is going to be obsolete when the next generation of programmers hits the world.
The simple analysis above has just about as much validity as the one done by the Infoworld "experts". As many people above have pointed out, there are applications for a variety of new and up and coming platforms that don't fit into their limited perspective on the world.
I think the authors of the study spent too much time talking to themselves in conferences and not enough time looking at what programming is going on today along with the applications they are being used to program.
Agreed - but it still comes across better than ST Discovery.
Just looking at the trailers - I'm a lot more excited about the Orville than Discovery...
I put in Alphabet/Google because my company provides a Chrome Extension as a development tool for our product. If Google went away, I'd be fucked.
The initial voting was interesting with Amazon getting exactly ZERO votes. I'm an Amazon customer but life would go on if they went away and I guess everybody else feels that way.
LOL. Yeah, that could be it.
Seriously. This site is turning into "Microsoft news for Nerds".
In my experience (both personal and looking at other people), there are three reasons why a manager/supervisor won't provide feedback:
1. They are incompetent.
2. They don't want you/don't know what to do with you and just wish you would go away.
3. They are psychopaths and don't want there to be a papertrail showing that you a) succeeded without/despite them or b) failed because they don't know what they are doing (see point 1.).
Sorry for being so harsh but I've had 1. & 3. as managers and seen lots of people with 2.
Sorry, as soon as I walked away, I realized there were more issues in regards to the perspective on Windows that are a problem:
Edge. Sorry, I don't think it's reasonable to have to maintain a web page for Edge and IE because Microsoft won't use Webkit/be compatible with everything else out there. Companies need to provide responsive pages for tablets and smartphones - they shouldn't need to do the same amount of work for Microsoft browsers (that aren't even fully compatible with each other).
All that crap information on Windows 10 (and 8). If ANYBODY involved with Windows 10 S has ever seen how kids work in a classroom, then they should be clearing off the time/news updates/sports updates/weather/etc. that is in the Win10 scrawl at the bottom. This is just a distractor for kids which takes their attention away from the class material - unfortunately getting rid of it will get rid of potential Microsoft revenue streams so it's not going.
So, why do we want Windows 10 S to succeed?
You do realize that the "S" is the result of a change by Microsoft Marketing? It was originally "$".
The author seems to want Win 10S to succeed because it will result in better Windows Store apps, with a simple install process, which can be used by all Windows users.
Right off the bat, doesn't this place an unreasonable amount of confidence that anything coming from the app store will not be evil?
Secondly, all my problems with Windows 10 have been outside the Windows Store experience that I don't see endearing the product to the education market. I have a couple of Win10 machines with 32GBytes of eMMC; doing an update is hell as it requires an external USB thumb drive and takes multiple hours - something that can't be tolerated in a classroom environment where there are dozens of PCs. I've bitched about my problems with the Win10 Bluetooth stack and I don't see anybody in Microsoft fixing that, even as the need for BT is growing with different external devices.
Next, I feel like Microsoft is going to continually look for opportunities to monetize the platform. Office 365 revenues flat lining? Say, let's start charging all those kids using Win 10S machines, the schools are just wasting money on hot lunch programs that should be going to Microsoft.
Finally, there is the privacy issue. Win 10 seems to be designed around collecting user data and exploiting it. Is this something parents want to have happen to their children? You can say that Google and Chrome do the same thing but it doesn't seem to be a core part of their business model. I wouldn't be surprised coming home to a kid that is demanding an Windows OS'd phone because the computer at school told them how much better it is than their stupid Android or iOS phone.
I know I'll get replies from numerous AC's who feel that I'm being unreasonably harsh towards Microsoft and what they're doing with the Windows 10 S platform, which is much better than ChromeOS even though nobody's seen it before but I just don't see Microsoft having the right stuff or approach to take on the education market in way that is positive for students and not completely exploitative.
The only launches that take place in California are for polar orbits. California is used for these launches because the Earth turns away from the rocket's path and if there is a problem, the rocket drops into the Pacific. There is no advantage being close to the equator (like is had with Cape Canaveral).
I would think that Oregon and Washington state would offer the same advantage for polar launches and would like to bring in the space launch business which they can do now by simply not charging a state tax.
For Qualcomm and Imagination, I would think that their contracts with Apple were pretty iron-clad. Apple didn't become one of the biggest companies on the planet by signing deals that wasn't in their favour. Potential for abuse by Apple when the contracts were drawn up aside, I would think that the contracts are pretty solid and Apple knows exactly what it's rights are and has protected itself.
This means that the only recourse for (former) suppliers is to go after Apple, primarily in the court of public opinion, to see if there's a chance for a settlement to avoid Apple's public reputation being damaged. Although after Jobs, I don't see how it could get any worse on that front.
This goes with my previous post. With "Chromebook", the name tells you what you get.
The backlash is over the fact that Microsoft is performing a bait and switch telling you that this is a Windows machine and you should be able to configure it the same way you can with any other Windows machines.
But, if you're locked in to a browser and you want to compare it against the locked in browser of a "Chromebook", then you need to label it the same way - call it an "Edgebook" and let the market decide whether or not they feel it is superior to the "Chromebook".
The real issue is that Edge/IE are not Webkit based browsers, which mean that they are unpredictable when viewing/accessing certain content.
If Edge displayed pages & content in exactly the same way as:
- Chrome
- Safari
- Firefox
- Opera
- etc.
then I don't think there would be the same outcry by locking in the browsers.
I think "shart" says it all.
You think it might be one thing, so you go for it, but discover it's something else entirely.
Seriously, pencil in the cards and wait two days for a print out to see how your program ran. All that instilled in me was a hatred for off-site card based programming.
I know it is difficult to give up the educational space, but I can't see how Microsoft has a chance. Based on previous posts, I'll know I'll get hammered by Microsoft fanboys/employees (who post as AC) who feel that Win 10 is competitive against ChromeOS, but it really isn't.
ChromeOS works very well, has a good ecosystem and has many different very good, inexpensive laptop systems for schools to choose from. Apple has a reasonably good infrastructure and great, but expensive, products for it.
Microsoft, honestly I think they would be better off looking for a new market that doesn't have an established standard platform like the educational market does with ChromeOS. I don't think they can provide a compelling solution at a good cost that they don't try to monetize at every turn.
A big part of the appeal of the Chromebook (to schools) is that there isn't the feeling that for just a few dollars more, customers would get a better, safer, faster experience like Microsoft, in Windows, is always pushing for.
Interesting to see an AC believing Dr. Hawking over Mr. Kelly.
As far as I know, and I would love to get a better understanding of what he has done, Dr. Hawking has never programmed anything in his life.
Mr. Gates seemed to have done some work in the early days of Microsoft but hasn't programmed in 35+ years.
Mr. Musk would be the most credible source, but I guess his love of seeing his name in print out weighs his need to maintain the image of a practical visionary - this seems to be a problem as I would think that making wild, incorrect assertions will lessen interest for people investing in his wild, correct(?) assertions and companies based on them.