Maybe you aren't charging enough for it? You might laugh, but I can tell you from personal experience that if you don't set the price high enough, you will get overlooked. I have seen government purchases go to a more expensive bidder based solely on the argument that the service must be better, look how much it costs.
Government funding is really wierd about maintenance too. Budgets can be really tight, and it is impossible to come up with $10K for a new box, but when it comes time to purchase maintenance they can shell out $50K without blinking every stinking year.
Other people have mentioned it already, but open source would do much better if more companies would make a big deal about their support services, and focus on that. Government people really only care about one thing when they are deciding on what software and hardware to use, who they can blame when something breaks. That is why IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Dell, HP, CISCO and so on have such a grasp on the government market. The old saying "You don't get fired for buying IBM" is as true today as it was in 1985.
So you want a non-profit government agency to manage the Internet now do you? You realize what that means, government regulation of the users. I suppose you don't mind getting an Internet drivers license to use it then?
Not to mention that the federal government can't get its own act together for Internet access. Every government agency does their own thing, and many can't even talk to each other (they use conflicting IP spaces internally). Until they can figure out how to do it themselves, I don't think I want them doing it for me too....
Think before you just jump on the (lets let the government fix it for us) bandwagon.
I want to build a car using (insert new untested material here) because its new. I know I'll need some windows, and wheels, and some sort of engine. I don't really want any suggestions about what materials would work the best because I want to learn how to use the new (untested material). What I really want to know is has anyone else ever done this before, and what should I look out for? I'm pretty sure I'll need to make sure it gets good gas mileage, but it will have to be really heavy, acceleration isn't important, but I want it to be responsive in the turns...
Why would anyone ask a slashdot group about a C# project?
What is really interesting about this virtual economy are the possibilites for untraceable international commerce transactions. Someone can now make a payment to another, in another country, and it is nearly untraceable. It is a little farfetched, and not very practical at this point, but it does open up some possibilities.
It actually works pretty well. We use it on a large government facility that has some really old wiring in buildings that we don't have fiber runs into.
Has anyone heard the Cisco story about ethernet over barbed wire? Our salesrep tells a story about a facility in Kuwait (I think) that was having a terrible time keeping a link up between two buildings. The locals kept stealing the cable they were using for the valuable copper. They ended up getting ethernet to run over a piece of barbed wire running between the buildings. The error rate was high, and the sustainable throughput was abismal, but with TCP's error correction they were able to get a useful connection through.
I don't know how true that really is, might be a Cisco myth told to impress customers or something.
Many computer systems, and even networks could be compared to a business with nobody home. I wonder how much sympathy a company would get from the courts if everyone went on vacation for a couple of weeks, and left the lights on and the doors open.
What would happen if I bought a house, furnished it, paid the utilities, and then just let it sit. Maybe I would even come by every few months and add some stuff to it, a new fridge, new stove, another TV, and so on.
Could I expect the guy that gets caught living there for free to go to jail after a couple of years of the place being open to whoever had the inclination to walk throught the wide-open front door? Or whoever decided to relocate my TV to their living room... Would it matter if I had a little sign on the front yard that said "no trespassing"?
Ok, its the Exchange client that causes all the problems right? I wouldn't think that some program that sends email automatically would need to use Exchange, so you could exclude email from this one account without too much risk.
I live in a UNIX world, so I'm used to having the ability to do things to mail before it leaves my machine. I guess I don't know what the best fix is if the program has to use Exchange to send it's automatic mail.
In any case, it seems like these cases would be limited, and the rule could be applied to the broader base of human clients to achieve the desired effect.
So you post it to an internal company website, and the guy that sends out automated emails writes a perl script to grab the word and stick it in the subject line.
As with everything, there is always an exception. So you send an email to the server telling it to exclude you from the timer for the next X emails. Then send away.
You know, my comments get modded down sometimes, and it usually doesn't bother me. This time it does. What the hell is overrated about this idea? Why wouldn't it work? I'm not suggesting it is the all-time fix for worms, but within an organization it would pretty much make them go away. Am I missing something obvious here?
Uhh, announce it over the loudspeaker, write it in the sky, send it out via email, put it on the logon screen for the user, stamp it on their forehead as they walk through the front door...
Heck, how about a timer that prevents more than a message every minute from being sent from any single user? If the system receives more than three emails from the same user in less than a minute it locks their account.
Kind of like how you can't submit a comment to slashdot unless it takes you at least 30 seconds or something to compose it.
How about this for an easy fix for any more worms... Have a "word of the day" that a user would have to prepend to the subject line of any message they send out. If it isn't in the subject line, the server just trashes the message. Maybe you could even strip the word out when the message gets sent (I don't know if exchange can do this or not).
Its cheap, I think it would be effective, and it only requires the user to type an extra word on the subject line. The best part is, if the users don't want to play along, they don't have too, and noone gets their mail anymore.!
I'm pretty irritated with their marketing too. I was considering subscribing to them, as I read them pretty much every day. Then they started with the popup ads. Then they started the intermediate ads that you have to click through to get to a story. Then they started doing all that premium content stuff.
Screw em, I'll find another news source. The BBC website is pretty nice.
Re:What we REALLY need . . .
on
Dashboard Linux
·
· Score: 1
I guess I would define competing product by asking the question, "Will the distrobution of product A have a negative impact on demand for product B".
Obviously this is very hard to determine. Just look at mp3s and the music industry. RIAA claims they are cutting into sales, while mp3 supporters point to the multi-billion dollar increase in sales.
Crap, I forgot to add to the first sentence:
I think many people consider software to be abandoned when it is no longer available for purchase, and there is no competing product.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe you aren't charging enough for it? You might laugh, but I can tell you from personal experience that if you don't set the price high enough, you will get overlooked. I have seen government purchases go to a more expensive bidder based solely on the argument that the service must be better, look how much it costs.
Government funding is really wierd about maintenance too. Budgets can be really tight, and it is impossible to come up with $10K for a new box, but when it comes time to purchase maintenance they can shell out $50K without blinking every stinking year.
Other people have mentioned it already, but open source would do much better if more companies would make a big deal about their support services, and focus on that. Government people really only care about one thing when they are deciding on what software and hardware to use, who they can blame when something breaks. That is why IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Dell, HP, CISCO and so on have such a grasp on the government market. The old saying "You don't get fired for buying IBM" is as true today as it was in 1985.
There is a fundamental difference between an analog modem and a device that sends digital data like a cable-modem or isdn router. Sheesh.
So you want a non-profit government agency to manage the Internet now do you? You realize what that means, government regulation of the users. I suppose you don't mind getting an Internet drivers license to use it then?
Not to mention that the federal government can't get its own act together for Internet access. Every government agency does their own thing, and many can't even talk to each other (they use conflicting IP spaces internally). Until they can figure out how to do it themselves, I don't think I want them doing it for me too....
Think before you just jump on the (lets let the government fix it for us) bandwagon.
I want to build a car using (insert new untested material here) because its new. I know I'll need some windows, and wheels, and some sort of engine. I don't really want any suggestions about what materials would work the best because I want to learn how to use the new (untested material). What I really want to know is has anyone else ever done this before, and what should I look out for? I'm pretty sure I'll need to make sure it gets good gas mileage, but it will have to be really heavy, acceleration isn't important, but I want it to be responsive in the turns...
Why would anyone ask a slashdot group about a C# project?
What is really interesting about this virtual economy are the possibilites for untraceable international commerce transactions. Someone can now make a payment to another, in another country, and it is nearly untraceable. It is a little farfetched, and not very practical at this point, but it does open up some possibilities.
Probably, but the story wouldn't have been nearly as interesting for the salesrep to tell.
It actually works pretty well. We use it on a large government facility that has some really old wiring in buildings that we don't have fiber runs into.
Has anyone heard the Cisco story about ethernet over barbed wire? Our salesrep tells a story about a facility in Kuwait (I think) that was having a terrible time keeping a link up between two buildings. The locals kept stealing the cable they were using for the valuable copper. They ended up getting ethernet to run over a piece of barbed wire running between the buildings. The error rate was high, and the sustainable throughput was abismal, but with TCP's error correction they were able to get a useful connection through.
I don't know how true that really is, might be a Cisco myth told to impress customers or something.
American's aren't really gift givers, go check out the Japanese culture if you want to see one...
Holy crap, someone else out there uses a sunblade? Aside from the abysmal video card, I love mine, how happy are you with yours?
Many computer systems, and even networks could be compared to a business with nobody home. I wonder how much sympathy a company would get from the courts if everyone went on vacation for a couple of weeks, and left the lights on and the doors open.
What would happen if I bought a house, furnished it, paid the utilities, and then just let it sit. Maybe I would even come by every few months and add some stuff to it, a new fridge, new stove, another TV, and so on.
Could I expect the guy that gets caught living there for free to go to jail after a couple of years of the place being open to whoever had the inclination to walk throught the wide-open front door? Or whoever decided to relocate my TV to their living room... Would it matter if I had a little sign on the front yard that said "no trespassing"?
Ok, its the Exchange client that causes all the problems right? I wouldn't think that some program that sends email automatically would need to use Exchange, so you could exclude email from this one account without too much risk.
I live in a UNIX world, so I'm used to having the ability to do things to mail before it leaves my machine. I guess I don't know what the best fix is if the program has to use Exchange to send it's automatic mail.
In any case, it seems like these cases would be limited, and the rule could be applied to the broader base of human clients to achieve the desired effect.
So you post it to an internal company website, and the guy that sends out automated emails writes a perl script to grab the word and stick it in the subject line.
Still seems like it would work.
As with everything, there is always an exception. So you send an email to the server telling it to exclude you from the timer for the next X emails. Then send away.
Nice people skills btw.
You know, my comments get modded down sometimes, and it usually doesn't bother me. This time it does. What the hell is overrated about this idea? Why wouldn't it work? I'm not suggesting it is the all-time fix for worms, but within an organization it would pretty much make them go away. Am I missing something obvious here?
Uhh, announce it over the loudspeaker, write it in the sky, send it out via email, put it on the logon screen for the user, stamp it on their forehead as they walk through the front door...
I'm not sure I understand the problem with this?
Heck, how about a timer that prevents more than a message every minute from being sent from any single user? If the system receives more than three emails from the same user in less than a minute it locks their account.
Kind of like how you can't submit a comment to slashdot unless it takes you at least 30 seconds or something to compose it.
How about this for an easy fix for any more worms... Have a "word of the day" that a user would have to prepend to the subject line of any message they send out. If it isn't in the subject line, the server just trashes the message. Maybe you could even strip the word out when the message gets sent (I don't know if exchange can do this or not).
Its cheap, I think it would be effective, and it only requires the user to type an extra word on the subject line. The best part is, if the users don't want to play along, they don't have too, and noone gets their mail anymore.!
What a great idea, give the kid a little tech training, and get him started down the path of "RIAA is bad" at the same time. I like that!
1. Who cares if it is slow, automation is the key. Set it up, and let it run for a couple of days, or a week...
2. I think this will fix that: http://akom2.2y.net:81/mp3ascd/
3. Thats what he is asking about, is there a way to do it?
I'm pretty irritated with their marketing too. I was considering subscribing to them, as I read them pretty much every day. Then they started with the popup ads. Then they started the intermediate ads that you have to click through to get to a story. Then they started doing all that premium content stuff.
Screw em, I'll find another news source. The BBC website is pretty nice.
Just don't upgrade to kernel 2.4.14...
I guess I would define competing product by asking the question, "Will the distrobution of product A have a negative impact on demand for product B".
Obviously this is very hard to determine. Just look at mp3s and the music industry. RIAA claims they are cutting into sales, while mp3 supporters point to the multi-billion dollar increase in sales.
Sure they are debating that fact:
l
t m
h tm
o ut_aids.htm
http://www.biblebelievers.com/Gipp/GippEssay8.htm
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3ae1c76f63fd.h
http://www.co2science.org/edit/v4_edit/v4n10edit.
Those are just a few examples... People still debate the existence of AIDS:
http://www.garynull.com/Documents/AIDS/big_lie_ab
So what makes you think they wouldn't argue over global warming?
I'm glad I'm not the only one that immediately thought of that cheesy sci-fi movie, and Ah'nulds eyes popping out of their sockets.
Crap, I forgot to add to the first sentence:
I think many people consider software to be abandoned when it is no longer available for purchase, and there is no competing product.