Of course, if the company is the contractor's only client, the company has to fire them as soon as they know.
That gives the contractor a nice incentive to lie about it.
You might think that the contractor lying would be enough to keep the company safe. In a sane system, that would be true. But labor courts in Brazil are notorious on siding with employees even when it doesn't make sense.
I've even had a friend who lost a case where the judge admitted (off the record) that my friend (the employer) was right, but he was ruling in favor of the employee, since he was so poor.
I also seem to recall that the legislation that made a contractor with a single client legally an employee worked per a yearly period - so if someone worked for you for a few months, and then had no other clients within a fiscal year, he counts as an employee. I can't find a reference right now, though.
When I worked as a contractor in software development, I did a huge fraction of my work (like 95%+ in some years) for a single client.
They were pretty nice, paid on time, and had interesting work, so why wouldn't I?
In Brazil I think it's a little weirder - the employer may get in trouble if I'm only working for them. How can they be expected to know this is beyond me...
Did you use computers 15 years ago? Piracy was huge - it was just done with floppies and over BBSs.
Of course, it was a LOT less convenient over 28.8Kbps dial-up...
Same here. I was interested before the need to get their approval was clear.
I've also heard the same sentiment expressed by many others in developer's forums.
I have felt this way too at first, but after going back to Firefox and being annoyed at the slow speed, I just started using Chrome with Privoxy...
It's not as good as Adblock, but covers most ads.
Not to mention devices you may already have, such as your cell phone. I read e-books all the time on my N95, and while the screen size isn't great (and is really not practical for most technical material/magazines), I've read dozens of books on it.
And since I carry it most of the time, I can read anywhere I have to stop and wait for a few minutes.
I've recently played Crysis and just started playing Crysis Warhead (they just became available on Steam). I'm playing on Medium (low for Warhead) and I really liked both - obviously not so much for the graphics.
I wish they had more physics-based opportunities to kill enemies though... I think even Far Cry had more of those!
I think it was fairly clear that the grandparent was talking about developing software for the iPhone, not just using one.
And I agree completely with his points. Of course, any company can develop a free program that duplicates yours, but being able to ban your software from the only place you can sell it is much worse.
Even as an user, I find their attitude unacceptable, and will not buy their stuff.
The Sports Tracker, which uses the GPS, allows exporting to a format that is usable on Google Earth and Google Maps. I've used it just one time and it did look pretty neat.
Uses a whole lot more battery though, presumably because of the GPS...
This could just as easily be connecting a hip-mounted sensor to your Nokia.
There is actually a beta app from Nokia that allows doing this with the built-in accelerometer in some of their phones(N95 and N82): http://www.nokia.com/A41033364.
I've used it for a while, and it seems to work fine, and keeps track of your workouts. It seemed to use a little too much battery, though.
About the patent system, it's clearly doing more harm than good at this point...
I bought it on-line, as a download on GamersGate, a couple of weeks ago. After downloading (5 GB) and installing, it asked for the DVD. Upon contacting GamersGate, they immediately issued a refund. They also removed the game from sale at the site - looks like mine wasn't the only complaint.
I can only imagine no one remembered to try the game out when releasing it as a download. This is a very silly way to lose money...
That presumes that you don't already have an older computer laying around - which probably isn't uncommon with the Slashdot crowd.
Screens and keyboards are only necessary to set it up, on most systems.
I already have an external drive that I use for backup, but when I have the time I intend to set a NAS on one of my older computers. And of course, it doesn't have to be only for file storage, you can use it for far more (downloads, monitoring on-line servers, etc). You don't have to spin the disks all the time on your NAS, either.
I'm not very happy about the power requirements, though... I imagine we will see quite a few small NAS based on Atom, when it becomes more common.
I never compiled for Wine - I just downloaded my program on Ubuntu, installed and ran it.
It worked fine (as far as I tested it), except for metafile issues on printing and PDF export - which I plan to work around by having an image-based PDF export. It's nasty, but it's better than nothing.
I'm not aware of any such a wiki for Wine.
However, given that their FAQ already suggests that you shouldn't try to detect Wine, but instead figure out the bugs and report them, I would be a bit surprised to see it.
Companies are usually reluctant to develop for a platform with a small customer base. They do, though, accept making a few tweaks to get a foot into the market.
Not only that, but also a small customer base that prefers free, open source solutions...
That said, I've heard from a few shareware developers that were able to make tweaks to make their programs run better in Wine in a few hours.
I tested my own program in Wine (1.0-rc2) and I'll be making a few tweaks to improve it when I have time - mostly it runs fine but there are a few problems.
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Of course, if the company is the contractor's only client, the company has to fire them as soon as they know.
That gives the contractor a nice incentive to lie about it.
You might think that the contractor lying would be enough to keep the company safe. In a sane system, that would be true. But labor courts in Brazil are notorious on siding with employees even when it doesn't make sense.
I've even had a friend who lost a case where the judge admitted (off the record) that my friend (the employer) was right, but he was ruling in favor of the employee, since he was so poor.
I also seem to recall that the legislation that made a contractor with a single client legally an employee worked per a yearly period - so if someone worked for you for a few months, and then had no other clients within a fiscal year, he counts as an employee. I can't find a reference right now, though.
When I worked as a contractor in software development, I did a huge fraction of my work (like 95%+ in some years) for a single client.
They were pretty nice, paid on time, and had interesting work, so why wouldn't I?
In Brazil I think it's a little weirder - the employer may get in trouble if I'm only working for them. How can they be expected to know this is beyond me...
Everything only searches for file and folder names. While that is useful too, usually Search Engine presumes searching inside the files too.
Yeah, I was pretty disappointed when I saw that! It actually looks worse than the Octane I. Even my US$70 generic case looks a lot better...
A similar personal computer, the Cray CX-1, looks awesome.
Did you use computers 15 years ago? Piracy was huge - it was just done with floppies and over BBSs.
Of course, it was a LOT less convenient over 28.8Kbps dial-up...
The problem is that most people that could use a Segway won't use a bike - they'll just use a car...
Same here. I was interested before the need to get their approval was clear. I've also heard the same sentiment expressed by many others in developer's forums.
I have felt this way too at first, but after going back to Firefox and being annoyed at the slow speed, I just started using Chrome with Privoxy... It's not as good as Adblock, but covers most ads.
Which I still play, BTW. If it had the awful DRM of today's games, who knowns if it'd still work?
Not to mention devices you may already have, such as your cell phone. I read e-books all the time on my N95, and while the screen size isn't great (and is really not practical for most technical material/magazines), I've read dozens of books on it. And since I carry it most of the time, I can read anywhere I have to stop and wait for a few minutes.
Just press Ctrl+Shift+T to restore the last closed Tab.
Yep, same here. I used it for a few weeks, but got tired of seeing ads. Got some weird instabilities, too...
I've recently played Crysis and just started playing Crysis Warhead (they just became available on Steam). I'm playing on Medium (low for Warhead) and I really liked both - obviously not so much for the graphics. I wish they had more physics-based opportunities to kill enemies though... I think even Far Cry had more of those!
I think it was fairly clear that the grandparent was talking about developing software for the iPhone, not just using one. And I agree completely with his points. Of course, any company can develop a free program that duplicates yours, but being able to ban your software from the only place you can sell it is much worse. Even as an user, I find their attitude unacceptable, and will not buy their stuff.
It also just doesn't work on Chrome... It just says IE6 is required. Argh.
The Sports Tracker, which uses the GPS, allows exporting to a format that is usable on Google Earth and Google Maps. I've used it just one time and it did look pretty neat. Uses a whole lot more battery though, presumably because of the GPS...
This could just as easily be connecting a hip-mounted sensor to your Nokia.
There is actually a beta app from Nokia that allows doing this with the built-in accelerometer in some of their phones(N95 and N82): http://www.nokia.com/A41033364.
I've used it for a while, and it seems to work fine, and keeps track of your workouts. It seemed to use a little too much battery, though.
About the patent system, it's clearly doing more harm than good at this point...
I hate the lack of extensions too, but here it's so much faster than Firefox that I'm using it all the time...
Here it takes less time to load Chrome and for it to open an url than for Firefox to open it on a new tab.
I also love the way how it uses so little space for anything other than the site.
Interesting that you mention Supreme Commander...
I bought it on-line, as a download on GamersGate, a couple of weeks ago. After downloading (5 GB) and installing, it asked for the DVD. Upon contacting GamersGate, they immediately issued a refund. They also removed the game from sale at the site - looks like mine wasn't the only complaint.
I can only imagine no one remembered to try the game out when releasing it as a download. This is a very silly way to lose money...
BTW, I also won't buy Spore with that DRM grade.
That presumes that you don't already have an older computer laying around - which probably isn't uncommon with the Slashdot crowd.
Screens and keyboards are only necessary to set it up, on most systems.
I already have an external drive that I use for backup, but when I have the time I intend to set a NAS on one of my older computers. And of course, it doesn't have to be only for file storage, you can use it for far more (downloads, monitoring on-line servers, etc). You don't have to spin the disks all the time on your NAS, either.
I'm not very happy about the power requirements, though... I imagine we will see quite a few small NAS based on Atom, when it becomes more common.
I never compiled for Wine - I just downloaded my program on Ubuntu, installed and ran it.
It worked fine (as far as I tested it), except for metafile issues on printing and PDF export - which I plan to work around by having an image-based PDF export. It's nasty, but it's better than nothing.
I'm not aware of any such a wiki for Wine.
However, given that their FAQ already suggests that you shouldn't try to detect Wine, but instead figure out the bugs and report them, I would be a bit surprised to see it.
Not only that, but also a small customer base that prefers free, open source solutions...
That said, I've heard from a few shareware developers that were able to make tweaks to make their programs run better in Wine in a few hours.
I tested my own program in Wine (1.0-rc2) and I'll be making a few tweaks to improve it when I have time - mostly it runs fine but there are a few problems.
I'm in Brazil, just tested and it does work now.
That is very easy to test. I tested it yesterday with a friend and also today and in both cases the url send failed.
If I remove the http and www it works, it also works if I change the youtube domain name...
Really? Both of my latest desktops (and one is 4 years old!) and my notebook have firewire ports.
Perhaps that is because I always buy the best (reasonably-priced) Asus motherboard available...