If FB and MySpace go to pay only, they will lose a lot of customers. The Internet is supposed to be free to access, and optional to pay.
I can get rid of every Facebook or MySpace ad by using Firefox and Adblock Plus. I don't have to pay to get rid of them.
Spammers will use throw away gift cards that work as a credit card to create the "dummy" accounts to spam people with. You can buy those at Walgreens or almost any other store. $1.99 to charge it up, and then $X for how much you want to put on the Credit Card, and it is 100% anonymous.
Actually Facebook application writers get money from the companies that pay to put advertising in their programs for the "trial offers" and other things for virtual currency. They wouldn't want to change their model because Facebook nor MySpace would want to pay for traffic or else they won't make a profit. Facebook and Myspace are used so much that if they change their business model to pay app developers for traffic that they would go broke in six months. The advertisement based business model pays more, and the "trail offers" and other stuff for virtual currencies pays more as well. Just that the average social network user is stupid enough to use those "trial offers" for virtual currency in the games and get ripped off or forced into expensive memberships or magazine subscriptions or high interest credit cards or some other thing that balloons after the trial offer is over.
in that they stifle competition and take away rights from the consumer and company.
The EULA and IPs form Corporatism, a form of Fascism as it allows corporations to use the laws of a nation to take away the freedoms and rights of consumers and their competing companies. In a true Capitalistic economy there would be a free market and open competition that would allow any company to build their own Macintosh and use Mac OSX and compete with Apple and let the free market determine the asking price. But in this case Apple is using corporatism and fascism to shut out any competition as well as sue consumers who only wanted a lower price on a machine that could run Mac OSX. There is a legit purchase of Mac OSX from Apple by Psystar, and part of the EULA allows the license to be "resold" to someone else, namely the Psystar customers. Also the "Apple Logo Computer" is vague in meaning and Psystar could put a logo of an Apple (not have to be Apple Computer's Apple, but any Apple as a logo) and use a loophole as an "Apple Logo Computer" by having a logo of an Apple on it. Apple would have to change the EULA to say "Apple Computer, Inc made Computer" because this EULA is dated back to the time of the Mac Clones that used the Apple Logo to sell Mac Clone computers by Power Computing and others. So thanks to the Apple Computer Deal with Power Computing so long ago, there exists a loophole for Mac Clones to still be made as long as they have an Apple type logo on them. If I was Psystar I'd push for that legal loophole before Apple changes the EULA.
offers that give you things for signing up for trial offers or applying for credit cards, etc.
A lot of software companies use trialpay for buying the full version of Anti-virus programs or other software. Trialpay asks the user to sign up for trial offers or apply for credit cards or buy things in order to get the software for free.
When this thing first appeared it was iPods and Mac Books for free for completing a list of offers that would have been more than the iPod or Mac Book would cost.
Facebook and MySpace games require more friends to play the game better, you cannot get beyond certain levels without enough friends, and in order to get more advantage in the game using Paypal or the Offers they get virtual money to buy things in the games (like robots that stand in for friends because they don't have enough friends to play the game with them), gold/credits in the game, resetting their energy, and other stuff. One can buy their way to a better game.
You can play the game without making the trial offers, but you won't have the advantages that the people who buy virtual currency or do trial offers will get.
Facebook and MySpace games use Shockwave or Flash but are buggy and some games are still in beta test like Knighthood, etc.
Yes Facebook and Myspace should crack down on the scams but in doing so they would be upsetting their advertisers and thus their income. The advertisers collect the user's email via the applications and games and quizzes and then spam the users for products as well. That is why I don't play very many games or take very many quizzes at Facebook anymore.
Re:There is little to suggest Gates knows technolo
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Microsoft's Lost Decade
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Actually Gates knew the 1960's and 1970's technology. His mother paid for time on a mainframe for him and his school mates for the first computer club in his school. Bill Gates learned FORTRAN, COBOL, BASIC, Assembly, etc.
Microsoft BASIC for the Altair was a group project, but rumor has it they got the Dartmouth BASIC source code from dumpster diving, but nobody can prove that. Anyway Ballmer and Gates wrote traffic control programs in assembly prior to founding Microsoft.
Bill Gates learned from his father who was a lawyer that the best way to make money is to pay people to invent new technology for you, or buy out your competition if your employees cannot do it. Like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates is a manager with a little about a technical background, but more into marketing, sales, and hype (or propaganda), as well as public relations. Steve Wozniac was the real power behind the early Apple, and Paul Allen and others where the real power behind the early Microsoft (later on Tim Patternson as well).
I wouldn't say that Gates is not knowing how technology works, but his knowledge comes from the 1960's and 1970's technology, and then management of 1980's to above as he directed others to create the technology even if he didn't write the code himself. Gates gave the vision, and the design, and the ideas and other things to drive others to create Windows, and other projects. Yes Microsoft did indeed copy off competitors and bundled technology in an effort to drive competitors out of business. While Lotus had the Lotus Symphony as the first bundled software, eventually Microsoft bundled Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and even Access as Microsoft Office for Windows and eventually wiped out Lotus (IBM bought the corpse of Lotus) and weakened Wordperfect, and drove Aston Tate out of the DBase database business with Access and SQL Server.
Microsoft always has had a BASIC product, from MS BASIC to GW-BASIC, to Quick BASIC, to Visual BASIC, to Visual BASIC.Net, the BASIC keeps on going and upgraded to new operating systems and frameworks, now with the Dotnet Framework built into Windows Vista and Windows 7. The Dotnet Framework put a lot of Visual BASIC component makers out of business as Dotnet did what a lot of third party components for Visual BASIC did before it was developed.
It takes at least a basic understanding of technology to pull all of that off. Baller is the typical Pointy Haired Boss, but Bill Gates was like the Wally of Dilbert at least, and expert on ancient technology but knows how to drive his team to get results.
Actually sometimes the computer and Internet connection is owned by a parent, and the person is their child or adult child living at home.
It could also be a PC in a college or library, a public use computer that has lax security and monitoring on it.
I have a friend who sells $100 Windows XP Home computers used. There are a lot of used computer stores and $100 Windows XP Home PCs being sold. DSL and Cable modems only cost $19.99 a month now, the same as a dial-up connection used to cost. So not all of those PCs using file sharing are middle-class as the poor can afford the cheap $100 or under used PC. Or maybe someone gave them their old PC.
of the things being pirated. The RIAA and MPAA should offer the lowest possible prices that still allow them to earn a profit and then sell at more reasonable prices. That would put big cuts in piracy of materials. Sell in quantities at lower prices, rather than sell less at higher prices and force poor people who cannot afford the materials into piracy.
Most piracy happens because the person is too poor to afford the materials, but they can afford a computer and Internet connection and then get a free P2P file sharing program and get as many materials as they want for free.
Hulu was a good idea, free TV shows and movies but with commercials. The RIAA and MPAA need to make a free access Hulu like site for videos, movies, TV shows, songs, music videos, etc and offer commercials in-between them for making money. Paid members can have the commercials removed and then buy the media for a low cost to download it to their computer or media playing device. The Internet is really based on a free content model of business, people don't want to pay access for a web site, but they do want to pay low prices to download media.
If the RIAA and MPAA did a Hulu like site, then there wouldn't be any need for media piracy as you could watch all you wanted for free, and then pay a small fee to download the media file you watched to your computer or media playing device. Commercials will pay for such free sites, and paying members can skip the commercials.
But I doubt the RIAA or MPAA would do that, as it makes too much common sense, and they are more of suing people for downloading content and are in fact suing their fans and customers. That makes a bad business model and gives bad PR.
Linux needs to become more like Mac OSX than Windows.
What I would like to see in Linux in the near future:
Universal file format for X86, X64, and PowerPC executiables that replaces the ELF format (WIZARD format, ELF needs food badly!)
GNOME and KDE merged into one GUI that emulates both of them, GNIGHT or something.
Ability for Linux to use Windows based drivers when Linux based drivers do not exist, something better than that NDISwrapper but under a GPL license and built into Linux.
GNUStep being developed into something that resembles Aqua, Aero, and other GUIs and is backward compatible with the Mac OSX API calls to recompile OSX programs for Linux. Maybe even in the near future run OSX Universal binaries somewhat like WINE runs Windows programs.
My mistake when you said you paid 50% for Texas based foodstuff, I thought you meant 50% of the normal price and not 50% more. You didn't use the word more, and you used the word 50% premium which I took to mean as a discount on premium food.
Use DVD RW technology with more advanced lasers and more advanced media. I am sure that a fiber optic hard drive that uses rewritable media can be made cheaper than a solid state hard drive. Just use multiple platters like real hard drives and use lasers instead of magnetic read/write heads.
Right now I have USB kits for ATA IDE hard drives to be used as external hard drives for my backups and sometimes I use DVD-R or CD-R disks for backup. I am sure that a multi-platter fiber optic hard drive would at least make a great backup device.
I also use cheap SD cards and USB flash drives for backup of smaller documents. Mostly pictures that need to be developed in JPG format for photo developers.
or administrator, then the viruses won't be able to install.
ReactOS is also based on WINE code, but it has a different security model than Windows XP/2003 has in that it is more like Linux in that normal user accounts cannot install anything or modify system files, you have to run as Administrator/Root for that. The same thing with WINE.
Just like you wouldn't surf the Internet as root, you don't want to run WINE as root either. In that way WINE is superior to Windows XP/2003 as it uses Linux security.
Actually I switched from WINE to VirtualBox from Sun to run Windows XP Pro in a virtual machine to get more XP compatibility. But it doesn't do 3D Video and DirectX 3D support very well, but that part is still being developed. It is the only way I can get Visual BASIC 2008 to run under Linux, WINE won't run it.
It is due to the economy. The global trade agreements were supposed to make imported goods cheaper, but failed to do so. The global trade agreements were also supposed to create more jobs in trading nations like the USA and Europe, but also failed to do so as jobs got offshored.
You pay less for your Texas made beer, pasta, and bread because it cost less to ship it to the store than say beer, pasta, and bread made in Missouri out of state because of shipping costs added to the price.
That has to do with the price of oil and gas, as they rise, so do the shipping costs. Thailand gets goods made in the USA but they have to fly them in via cargo jet using jet fuel, and that adds to the cost. Plus the bad economy with a lopsided exchange rate of 33 Bhat to 1 US Dollar makes the technology products, etc expensive. Even if the technology was made in China, it still costs money to ship it to other nations.
In short, the global trade deals didn't do much good as promised, but we still have them.
I am not sure why goods imported to Europe and the USA are cheaper that local made goods, maybe there are no tariffs on them, or the price of shipping is figured into the price in mass quantities because the EU and USA are so large that they can average it out to lower shipping costs, plus the Euro and Dollar are used to trade for oil and gas so they have more purchasing power.
Actually if all a corporation does is focus on money, they will be bankrupt really soon. Look at the economy and the banks and companies being bailed out. They are being bailed out because they were stupid.
Companies that have a better quality product, better customer satisfaction, etc tend to earn better profits than a company just based on money and profits that makes crap quality and poor customer satisfaction. Business Management 101 there, Participatory Management, Servant Leadership, Organizational Behavior, take some modern college classes to learn them. The Game Publishers are ignorant of them and thus fail.
Actually I have lost over $50,000 in my 401K and IRA from technology companies that only focused on money and profits and nothing else, so I know what I am speaking about here.
Video Games that require 3G of RAM and a 3.0 Ghz processor is shutting out a lot of potential users, and thus dooming the Game Publisher to not earn a profit from the game as a majority of the market cannot run it unless they buy a better computer. When you have bloat that bad, it starts cutting into the profits.
Video game development is not an "art" it is a science, and if game publishers treat it as an "art" and don't follow the rules of game making and computer science, it will become bloatware that hardly anyone wants to buy or cannot buy because their system won't meet the requirements to run it.
All I am saying is that most game publishers are penny wise and pound foolish and focus mostly on profits, and thus they get what they deserve. I am one of many people upset by a poor experience and lack of entertainment in modern games. I am tired of paying $60 for a bad game only to take it home and use it and learn that it stinks, it is bloated, it is buggy, and the patches/updates only make it worse.
Would I do my job for free? Being that I am developing FOSS software, I do what I do for free anyway. I also write content for free at many Wikis as well. I don't even ask for one penny for what I do. But I do it way better than the paid professionals do.
the phone and stringing wire and cable costs more because of the climate, the ground tends to flood a lot and won't hold the poles, and the economy is so bad that the technology costs a lot.
My Thai in-laws had ISDN 128K BPS speed but paid a lot for it, and only had the USB interface to it. I wondered why they didn't have DSL or Cable modems, but it seems ISDN is cheaper and uses the ordinary phone lines.
Most Thai people have cell phones because the land near them won't take on ordinary phone lines and cell phones are cheaper than the land based phone. But something like an iPhone or Blackberry costs them like $900USD or almost 30,000 Thai Bhat. Not because they are being price gouged, but because the economy is so bad that technology costs more there. The cost of computers, game consoles, cell phones, DVD players, TV sets, etc are all high because of that. But food and clothes are cheap because they are not technology based and produced by native farms and companies. The technology made by native companies is usually cheaper than technology from foreign companies, but the iPhone, Blackberry, etc are all foreign made.
I am a libertarian in favor of unions, but I think the corruption in unions should be policed just like the corruption in corporations and non-profits needs to be policed.
I am a libertarian in favor of FOSS. I don't think it hurts the economy or causes unemployment, because most FOSS organizations give away the software but sell the support and documentation for the FOSS software as well as other merchandise. So it is still capitalism, but like all businesses in order to get new customers you have to give something away for free first. Be it golf balls or software, as long as it makes your company or non-profit popular that is PR you cannot buy with money.
I get a message that the plug-in is not supported by TB 3.0 and I tried the latest plug-in. Should I hack the file or something to get TB 3.0 to accept it?
game Publishers are typical corporations. They only think about one thing, money. They don't think about customer satisfaction, quality, enjoyability of the game, or even giving customers what they want. Instead they tell customers what they want.
Many customers want classic games like Bard's Tale and Master of Magic to be remade for modern systems. But when they tried to make a console version of Bard's Tale it was nothing like the C64/Amiga/Atari ST/Mac/Apple//GS etc version and became stupid and they tried to make it a parody of the original game and it failed badly. Master of Magic 2.0 couldn't be made because Atari bought the rights to Simtech who made the game and Microprose owns the Civilization type engine it was based on. So if they do make a game it will be nothing like the original Master of Magic.
If Game Publishers cannot come up with original games, they ought to look at past hits from the 1980's and 1990's and remake them for modern systems. But sometimes that means buying the IP from the original company that made the game and not all original companies are willing to give up their IP much less sell it.
IP often gets in the way of making a good game, and game Publishers suing each other does not make the gamers happy.
Most modern games I am not happy with, and I play old games via DOSBOX or my Amiga emulator and they are more enjoyable than modern games for modern systems. I own the old games, and wouldn't mind buying the new modern versions if they sold for a reasonable price and didn't need a lot of resources and RAM to run.
That is another thing, some modern games need 3G of RAM and a 3.0 Ghz processor or higher to work, why? How bloated can a game be to require that much RAM and that fast a processor?
Well I can't wait for TB 3 to be finished soon enough. So far TB 3 doesn't work with the Lightning Calendar add-in so I am stuck with TB 2.X for that.
I switched from Outlook to Thunderbird and I want to have email and calendar options in the same program. Maybe Raindrop can do that, but until it does finish TB 3 for those of us without Wave servers before you finish Raindrop.
In order to update my Timex Data Link watch I have to copy data from Thunderbird to Outlook and then sync up with Outlook using the Timex Data Link software. But I am going to get rid of my Data Link watch as it is old and nothing replaced it. I am going with a solar powered digital watch. I hope to find something that can store my contact and calendar like the Data Link did, but I like the idea of wearable data.
My Cell phone is a TracFone, and won't do data transfers, I cannot afford a BlackBerry, Smartphone, or iPhone, and I can barely afford a PDA and since it isn't wearable I can lose it easily as I lost many others.
Thunderbird needs to be finished and then syncing up with other calendar applications and servers before the team moves on to finish Raindrop, because so far Thunderbird isn't that good a competitor to Outlook yet.
I know that Law Firms had a conference to use Sharepoint for Legal Practice Management Software. I wrote an original ASP based Docket Calendar, and Law Firms want to move their Docket Calendars to Sharepoint. I can tell you that when you have a law firm and you want reliability, Microsoft isn't always the best choice. Some law firms still use Wordperfect and other non-MS software because they have found MS software to be low quality in performance and reliability. But the majority of big law firms are hooked on Microsoft for everything as Microsoft bundles software into neat packages for them and provides paid support for everything. The big law firms think that putting everything on Microsoft is a safe bet, but the law firm I worked at went millions of dollars over budget because of support calls, replacing hardware, replacing software, and hiring consultants when Microsoft could not give any answers or solutions to our problems. Back then it was Windows 2000, Office 2000, and Visual BASIC 6.0, and ASP 3.0, but the move to Dotnet only made matters worse. Finally Microsoft is working out the bugs in Dotnet, but in doing so they have created new ones. Sharepoint 3.0 was a nifty program until Microsoft filled it with bloated features that it needs Windows 2008 Server because it won't run on older Windows Servers forcing companies to pay for upgrades to Windows 2008 Server and new server hardware, just like the last time I used Windows Server and Microsoft software in a legal environment.
Keep in mind these are "hidden costs" that do not count many wasted work hours trying to work around the MS bugs in programming, or trying to restore a crashed server or workstation. That expenses can reach record amounts as well as have downtime for the entire firm.
There are only two known FOSS alternatives to Sharepoint but Wiki sites are usually better and faster and in most cases free to use. I tried getting Wiki implemented in my former work places only to be laughed at. But a Wiki search is faster than a Sharepoint search, and a Wiki need not use Windows Server and can run on Linux, *BSD Unix, or Mac OSX or some other platform to save money.
Docs Open is a commercial document management system but right now their web page doesn't seem to be working. We used it at a law firm I worked at. IIRC it was able to search through the billions of documents that the 300+ lawyers used in their cases.
You mean the Document Management Alfresco and not the CMS software. The Community Edition is free but unsupported, and the Enterprise edition has a free 30 day trial. It looks like it won a government award for document management which is rare for open source document management software.
Is this a violation of privacy via Google Voice? We already know Google allows us to search our GMail email files, what if they too get made public? Google Voice Mail files should only be readable/audio to the person it is assigned to and not made public for everyone to listen in to.
The text to speech of Google Voice is clearly vary good. Almost as good as the Vonage text to speech in voicemail.
But I don't want to use Google Voice Mail if Voice Mail is made public. This is a security problem for Google who should have known better. Voice Mail should be private unless the owner wants it published like for example in a law suit or something where it is used as evidence.
Before all of that the Atari 2600 had different controllers for different games. First the joystick and paddle controllers, then the driving controllers, then the keypads for the BASIC cartridge, and then the Star Raiders keypad, etc. The better joystick was invented by WICO as it styled the arcade joystick used in many arcade video games and the Mattel did the Tron joystick from the Tron arcade game. I am sure I am missing other Atari 2600 add ons. But the Atari 2600 was the original add on console. There was a super charger that plugged into the cartridge port and loaded games via cassette tape like Fireball and gave the Atari 2600 better graphics as well. But that Atari Graduator Keyboard that turned the Atari 2600 into an 8 bit computer never came out except in beta tests, IIRC.
Modern Game Consoles better have a computer mode and maybe a virtual machine that can run Windows inside of it to play Windows video games or Linux for FOSS video games.:)
Slashdot Mirror
If FB and MySpace go to pay only, they will lose a lot of customers. The Internet is supposed to be free to access, and optional to pay.
I can get rid of every Facebook or MySpace ad by using Firefox and Adblock Plus. I don't have to pay to get rid of them.
Spammers will use throw away gift cards that work as a credit card to create the "dummy" accounts to spam people with. You can buy those at Walgreens or almost any other store. $1.99 to charge it up, and then $X for how much you want to put on the Credit Card, and it is 100% anonymous.
Actually Facebook application writers get money from the companies that pay to put advertising in their programs for the "trial offers" and other things for virtual currency. They wouldn't want to change their model because Facebook nor MySpace would want to pay for traffic or else they won't make a profit. Facebook and Myspace are used so much that if they change their business model to pay app developers for traffic that they would go broke in six months. The advertisement based business model pays more, and the "trail offers" and other stuff for virtual currencies pays more as well. Just that the average social network user is stupid enough to use those "trial offers" for virtual currency in the games and get ripped off or forced into expensive memberships or magazine subscriptions or high interest credit cards or some other thing that balloons after the trial offer is over.
in that they stifle competition and take away rights from the consumer and company.
The EULA and IPs form Corporatism, a form of Fascism as it allows corporations to use the laws of a nation to take away the freedoms and rights of consumers and their competing companies. In a true Capitalistic economy there would be a free market and open competition that would allow any company to build their own Macintosh and use Mac OSX and compete with Apple and let the free market determine the asking price. But in this case Apple is using corporatism and fascism to shut out any competition as well as sue consumers who only wanted a lower price on a machine that could run Mac OSX. There is a legit purchase of Mac OSX from Apple by Psystar, and part of the EULA allows the license to be "resold" to someone else, namely the Psystar customers. Also the "Apple Logo Computer" is vague in meaning and Psystar could put a logo of an Apple (not have to be Apple Computer's Apple, but any Apple as a logo) and use a loophole as an "Apple Logo Computer" by having a logo of an Apple on it. Apple would have to change the EULA to say "Apple Computer, Inc made Computer" because this EULA is dated back to the time of the Mac Clones that used the Apple Logo to sell Mac Clone computers by Power Computing and others. So thanks to the Apple Computer Deal with Power Computing so long ago, there exists a loophole for Mac Clones to still be made as long as they have an Apple type logo on them. If I was Psystar I'd push for that legal loophole before Apple changes the EULA.
offers that give you things for signing up for trial offers or applying for credit cards, etc.
A lot of software companies use trialpay for buying the full version of Anti-virus programs or other software. Trialpay asks the user to sign up for trial offers or apply for credit cards or buy things in order to get the software for free.
When this thing first appeared it was iPods and Mac Books for free for completing a list of offers that would have been more than the iPod or Mac Book would cost.
Facebook and MySpace games require more friends to play the game better, you cannot get beyond certain levels without enough friends, and in order to get more advantage in the game using Paypal or the Offers they get virtual money to buy things in the games (like robots that stand in for friends because they don't have enough friends to play the game with them), gold/credits in the game, resetting their energy, and other stuff. One can buy their way to a better game.
You can play the game without making the trial offers, but you won't have the advantages that the people who buy virtual currency or do trial offers will get.
Facebook and MySpace games use Shockwave or Flash but are buggy and some games are still in beta test like Knighthood, etc.
Yes Facebook and Myspace should crack down on the scams but in doing so they would be upsetting their advertisers and thus their income. The advertisers collect the user's email via the applications and games and quizzes and then spam the users for products as well. That is why I don't play very many games or take very many quizzes at Facebook anymore.
Actually Gates knew the 1960's and 1970's technology. His mother paid for time on a mainframe for him and his school mates for the first computer club in his school. Bill Gates learned FORTRAN, COBOL, BASIC, Assembly, etc.
Microsoft BASIC for the Altair was a group project, but rumor has it they got the Dartmouth BASIC source code from dumpster diving, but nobody can prove that. Anyway Ballmer and Gates wrote traffic control programs in assembly prior to founding Microsoft.
Bill Gates learned from his father who was a lawyer that the best way to make money is to pay people to invent new technology for you, or buy out your competition if your employees cannot do it. Like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates is a manager with a little about a technical background, but more into marketing, sales, and hype (or propaganda), as well as public relations. Steve Wozniac was the real power behind the early Apple, and Paul Allen and others where the real power behind the early Microsoft (later on Tim Patternson as well).
I wouldn't say that Gates is not knowing how technology works, but his knowledge comes from the 1960's and 1970's technology, and then management of 1980's to above as he directed others to create the technology even if he didn't write the code himself. Gates gave the vision, and the design, and the ideas and other things to drive others to create Windows, and other projects. Yes Microsoft did indeed copy off competitors and bundled technology in an effort to drive competitors out of business. While Lotus had the Lotus Symphony as the first bundled software, eventually Microsoft bundled Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and even Access as Microsoft Office for Windows and eventually wiped out Lotus (IBM bought the corpse of Lotus) and weakened Wordperfect, and drove Aston Tate out of the DBase database business with Access and SQL Server.
Microsoft always has had a BASIC product, from MS BASIC to GW-BASIC, to Quick BASIC, to Visual BASIC, to Visual BASIC.Net, the BASIC keeps on going and upgraded to new operating systems and frameworks, now with the Dotnet Framework built into Windows Vista and Windows 7. The Dotnet Framework put a lot of Visual BASIC component makers out of business as Dotnet did what a lot of third party components for Visual BASIC did before it was developed.
It takes at least a basic understanding of technology to pull all of that off. Baller is the typical Pointy Haired Boss, but Bill Gates was like the Wally of Dilbert at least, and expert on ancient technology but knows how to drive his team to get results.
Actually sometimes the computer and Internet connection is owned by a parent, and the person is their child or adult child living at home.
It could also be a PC in a college or library, a public use computer that has lax security and monitoring on it.
I have a friend who sells $100 Windows XP Home computers used. There are a lot of used computer stores and $100 Windows XP Home PCs being sold. DSL and Cable modems only cost $19.99 a month now, the same as a dial-up connection used to cost. So not all of those PCs using file sharing are middle-class as the poor can afford the cheap $100 or under used PC. Or maybe someone gave them their old PC.
of the things being pirated. The RIAA and MPAA should offer the lowest possible prices that still allow them to earn a profit and then sell at more reasonable prices. That would put big cuts in piracy of materials. Sell in quantities at lower prices, rather than sell less at higher prices and force poor people who cannot afford the materials into piracy.
Most piracy happens because the person is too poor to afford the materials, but they can afford a computer and Internet connection and then get a free P2P file sharing program and get as many materials as they want for free.
Hulu was a good idea, free TV shows and movies but with commercials. The RIAA and MPAA need to make a free access Hulu like site for videos, movies, TV shows, songs, music videos, etc and offer commercials in-between them for making money. Paid members can have the commercials removed and then buy the media for a low cost to download it to their computer or media playing device. The Internet is really based on a free content model of business, people don't want to pay access for a web site, but they do want to pay low prices to download media.
If the RIAA and MPAA did a Hulu like site, then there wouldn't be any need for media piracy as you could watch all you wanted for free, and then pay a small fee to download the media file you watched to your computer or media playing device. Commercials will pay for such free sites, and paying members can skip the commercials.
But I doubt the RIAA or MPAA would do that, as it makes too much common sense, and they are more of suing people for downloading content and are in fact suing their fans and customers. That makes a bad business model and gives bad PR.
Thank you but I usually only use stable builds. I don't want to crash my system.
But I'll give it a try in a virtual machine first, before I put it on my real machine.
Linux needs to become more like Mac OSX than Windows.
What I would like to see in Linux in the near future:
Universal file format for X86, X64, and PowerPC executiables that replaces the ELF format (WIZARD format, ELF needs food badly!)
GNOME and KDE merged into one GUI that emulates both of them, GNIGHT or something.
Ability for Linux to use Windows based drivers when Linux based drivers do not exist, something better than that NDISwrapper but under a GPL license and built into Linux.
GNUStep being developed into something that resembles Aqua, Aero, and other GUIs and is backward compatible with the Mac OSX API calls to recompile OSX programs for Linux. Maybe even in the near future run OSX Universal binaries somewhat like WINE runs Windows programs.
My mistake when you said you paid 50% for Texas based foodstuff, I thought you meant 50% of the normal price and not 50% more. You didn't use the word more, and you used the word 50% premium which I took to mean as a discount on premium food.
Use DVD RW technology with more advanced lasers and more advanced media. I am sure that a fiber optic hard drive that uses rewritable media can be made cheaper than a solid state hard drive. Just use multiple platters like real hard drives and use lasers instead of magnetic read/write heads.
Right now I have USB kits for ATA IDE hard drives to be used as external hard drives for my backups and sometimes I use DVD-R or CD-R disks for backup. I am sure that a multi-platter fiber optic hard drive would at least make a great backup device.
I also use cheap SD cards and USB flash drives for backup of smaller documents. Mostly pictures that need to be developed in JPG format for photo developers.
or administrator, then the viruses won't be able to install.
ReactOS is also based on WINE code, but it has a different security model than Windows XP/2003 has in that it is more like Linux in that normal user accounts cannot install anything or modify system files, you have to run as Administrator/Root for that. The same thing with WINE.
Just like you wouldn't surf the Internet as root, you don't want to run WINE as root either. In that way WINE is superior to Windows XP/2003 as it uses Linux security.
Actually I switched from WINE to VirtualBox from Sun to run Windows XP Pro in a virtual machine to get more XP compatibility. But it doesn't do 3D Video and DirectX 3D support very well, but that part is still being developed. It is the only way I can get Visual BASIC 2008 to run under Linux, WINE won't run it.
It is due to the economy. The global trade agreements were supposed to make imported goods cheaper, but failed to do so. The global trade agreements were also supposed to create more jobs in trading nations like the USA and Europe, but also failed to do so as jobs got offshored.
You pay less for your Texas made beer, pasta, and bread because it cost less to ship it to the store than say beer, pasta, and bread made in Missouri out of state because of shipping costs added to the price.
That has to do with the price of oil and gas, as they rise, so do the shipping costs. Thailand gets goods made in the USA but they have to fly them in via cargo jet using jet fuel, and that adds to the cost. Plus the bad economy with a lopsided exchange rate of 33 Bhat to 1 US Dollar makes the technology products, etc expensive. Even if the technology was made in China, it still costs money to ship it to other nations.
In short, the global trade deals didn't do much good as promised, but we still have them.
I am not sure why goods imported to Europe and the USA are cheaper that local made goods, maybe there are no tariffs on them, or the price of shipping is figured into the price in mass quantities because the EU and USA are so large that they can average it out to lower shipping costs, plus the Euro and Dollar are used to trade for oil and gas so they have more purchasing power.
Actually if all a corporation does is focus on money, they will be bankrupt really soon. Look at the economy and the banks and companies being bailed out. They are being bailed out because they were stupid.
Companies that have a better quality product, better customer satisfaction, etc tend to earn better profits than a company just based on money and profits that makes crap quality and poor customer satisfaction. Business Management 101 there, Participatory Management, Servant Leadership, Organizational Behavior, take some modern college classes to learn them. The Game Publishers are ignorant of them and thus fail.
Actually I have lost over $50,000 in my 401K and IRA from technology companies that only focused on money and profits and nothing else, so I know what I am speaking about here.
Video Games that require 3G of RAM and a 3.0 Ghz processor is shutting out a lot of potential users, and thus dooming the Game Publisher to not earn a profit from the game as a majority of the market cannot run it unless they buy a better computer. When you have bloat that bad, it starts cutting into the profits.
Video game development is not an "art" it is a science, and if game publishers treat it as an "art" and don't follow the rules of game making and computer science, it will become bloatware that hardly anyone wants to buy or cannot buy because their system won't meet the requirements to run it.
All I am saying is that most game publishers are penny wise and pound foolish and focus mostly on profits, and thus they get what they deserve. I am one of many people upset by a poor experience and lack of entertainment in modern games. I am tired of paying $60 for a bad game only to take it home and use it and learn that it stinks, it is bloated, it is buggy, and the patches/updates only make it worse.
Would I do my job for free? Being that I am developing FOSS software, I do what I do for free anyway. I also write content for free at many Wikis as well. I don't even ask for one penny for what I do. But I do it way better than the paid professionals do.
the phone and stringing wire and cable costs more because of the climate, the ground tends to flood a lot and won't hold the poles, and the economy is so bad that the technology costs a lot.
My Thai in-laws had ISDN 128K BPS speed but paid a lot for it, and only had the USB interface to it. I wondered why they didn't have DSL or Cable modems, but it seems ISDN is cheaper and uses the ordinary phone lines.
Most Thai people have cell phones because the land near them won't take on ordinary phone lines and cell phones are cheaper than the land based phone. But something like an iPhone or Blackberry costs them like $900USD or almost 30,000 Thai Bhat. Not because they are being price gouged, but because the economy is so bad that technology costs more there. The cost of computers, game consoles, cell phones, DVD players, TV sets, etc are all high because of that. But food and clothes are cheap because they are not technology based and produced by native farms and companies. The technology made by native companies is usually cheaper than technology from foreign companies, but the iPhone, Blackberry, etc are all foreign made.
I am a libertarian in favor of unions, but I think the corruption in unions should be policed just like the corruption in corporations and non-profits needs to be policed.
I am a libertarian in favor of FOSS. I don't think it hurts the economy or causes unemployment, because most FOSS organizations give away the software but sell the support and documentation for the FOSS software as well as other merchandise. So it is still capitalism, but like all businesses in order to get new customers you have to give something away for free first. Be it golf balls or software, as long as it makes your company or non-profit popular that is PR you cannot buy with money.
Sounds good for Linux but I use Gnome on my Fedora 11 install not KDE.
The Windows port doesn't seem to be working properly for KOragnizer. Too buggy. Maybe once it matures I'll try it again later.
I get a message that the plug-in is not supported by TB 3.0 and I tried the latest plug-in. Should I hack the file or something to get TB 3.0 to accept it?
game Publishers are typical corporations. They only think about one thing, money. They don't think about customer satisfaction, quality, enjoyability of the game, or even giving customers what they want. Instead they tell customers what they want.
Many customers want classic games like Bard's Tale and Master of Magic to be remade for modern systems. But when they tried to make a console version of Bard's Tale it was nothing like the C64/Amiga/Atari ST/Mac/Apple //GS etc version and became stupid and they tried to make it a parody of the original game and it failed badly. Master of Magic 2.0 couldn't be made because Atari bought the rights to Simtech who made the game and Microprose owns the Civilization type engine it was based on. So if they do make a game it will be nothing like the original Master of Magic.
If Game Publishers cannot come up with original games, they ought to look at past hits from the 1980's and 1990's and remake them for modern systems. But sometimes that means buying the IP from the original company that made the game and not all original companies are willing to give up their IP much less sell it.
IP often gets in the way of making a good game, and game Publishers suing each other does not make the gamers happy.
Most modern games I am not happy with, and I play old games via DOSBOX or my Amiga emulator and they are more enjoyable than modern games for modern systems. I own the old games, and wouldn't mind buying the new modern versions if they sold for a reasonable price and didn't need a lot of resources and RAM to run.
That is another thing, some modern games need 3G of RAM and a 3.0 Ghz processor or higher to work, why? How bloated can a game be to require that much RAM and that fast a processor?
Well I can't wait for TB 3 to be finished soon enough. So far TB 3 doesn't work with the Lightning Calendar add-in so I am stuck with TB 2.X for that.
I switched from Outlook to Thunderbird and I want to have email and calendar options in the same program. Maybe Raindrop can do that, but until it does finish TB 3 for those of us without Wave servers before you finish Raindrop.
In order to update my Timex Data Link watch I have to copy data from Thunderbird to Outlook and then sync up with Outlook using the Timex Data Link software. But I am going to get rid of my Data Link watch as it is old and nothing replaced it. I am going with a solar powered digital watch. I hope to find something that can store my contact and calendar like the Data Link did, but I like the idea of wearable data.
My Cell phone is a TracFone, and won't do data transfers, I cannot afford a BlackBerry, Smartphone, or iPhone, and I can barely afford a PDA and since it isn't wearable I can lose it easily as I lost many others.
Thunderbird needs to be finished and then syncing up with other calendar applications and servers before the team moves on to finish Raindrop, because so far Thunderbird isn't that good a competitor to Outlook yet.
Thanks I found the website http://plone.org/ is that it? I'll add it to my list for Sharepoint FOSS alternatives.
I know that Law Firms had a conference to use Sharepoint for Legal Practice Management Software. I wrote an original ASP based Docket Calendar, and Law Firms want to move their Docket Calendars to Sharepoint. I can tell you that when you have a law firm and you want reliability, Microsoft isn't always the best choice. Some law firms still use Wordperfect and other non-MS software because they have found MS software to be low quality in performance and reliability. But the majority of big law firms are hooked on Microsoft for everything as Microsoft bundles software into neat packages for them and provides paid support for everything. The big law firms think that putting everything on Microsoft is a safe bet, but the law firm I worked at went millions of dollars over budget because of support calls, replacing hardware, replacing software, and hiring consultants when Microsoft could not give any answers or solutions to our problems. Back then it was Windows 2000, Office 2000, and Visual BASIC 6.0, and ASP 3.0, but the move to Dotnet only made matters worse. Finally Microsoft is working out the bugs in Dotnet, but in doing so they have created new ones. Sharepoint 3.0 was a nifty program until Microsoft filled it with bloated features that it needs Windows 2008 Server because it won't run on older Windows Servers forcing companies to pay for upgrades to Windows 2008 Server and new server hardware, just like the last time I used Windows Server and Microsoft software in a legal environment.
Keep in mind these are "hidden costs" that do not count many wasted work hours trying to work around the MS bugs in programming, or trying to restore a crashed server or workstation. That expenses can reach record amounts as well as have downtime for the entire firm.
There are only two known FOSS alternatives to Sharepoint but Wiki sites are usually better and faster and in most cases free to use. I tried getting Wiki implemented in my former work places only to be laughed at. But a Wiki search is faster than a Sharepoint search, and a Wiki need not use Windows Server and can run on Linux, *BSD Unix, or Mac OSX or some other platform to save money.
Docs Open is a commercial document management system but right now their web page doesn't seem to be working. We used it at a law firm I worked at. IIRC it was able to search through the billions of documents that the 300+ lawyers used in their cases.
You mean the Document Management Alfresco and not the CMS software. The Community Edition is free but unsupported, and the Enterprise edition has a free 30 day trial. It looks like it won a government award for document management which is rare for open source document management software.
Is this a violation of privacy via Google Voice? We already know Google allows us to search our GMail email files, what if they too get made public? Google Voice Mail files should only be readable/audio to the person it is assigned to and not made public for everyone to listen in to.
The text to speech of Google Voice is clearly vary good. Almost as good as the Vonage text to speech in voicemail.
But I don't want to use Google Voice Mail if Voice Mail is made public. This is a security problem for Google who should have known better. Voice Mail should be private unless the owner wants it published like for example in a law suit or something where it is used as evidence.
Before all of that the Atari 2600 had different controllers for different games. First the joystick and paddle controllers, then the driving controllers, then the keypads for the BASIC cartridge, and then the Star Raiders keypad, etc. The better joystick was invented by WICO as it styled the arcade joystick used in many arcade video games and the Mattel did the Tron joystick from the Tron arcade game. I am sure I am missing other Atari 2600 add ons. But the Atari 2600 was the original add on console. There was a super charger that plugged into the cartridge port and loaded games via cassette tape like Fireball and gave the Atari 2600 better graphics as well. But that Atari Graduator Keyboard that turned the Atari 2600 into an 8 bit computer never came out except in beta tests, IIRC.
Modern Game Consoles better have a computer mode and maybe a virtual machine that can run Windows inside of it to play Windows video games or Linux for FOSS video games. :)