I work for a large corporation and we made a big deal out of the language barrier and complete ineptitude of some of the people on the other end of the phone. Now, we've renewed all of our support and paid extra for the premium level of service. HP/Compaq's call center is in Canada somewhere and IBM's call center actually announces itself on the phone menu:
You're call is now being routed to our support center in Atlanta, Georgia.
If enough consumers made a stink about it, tech support wouldn't be in India for them. Come to think of it, if one of the big PC vendors wanted to get a leg up on the competition, they could advertise "English speaking tech support" as the number one feature of their PCs. They'd be sold out in no time.
I honestly think that we need an RFC for this so that idiots who can't spell can get a real error message back when their legitimate email gets rejected. At this point, all spammers would be forced to spell correctly and it would be difficult for them to get their point across without using obvious spam keywords like 'viagra'.
Software pricing = (DC + RC + P)/EUS...where DC = Development Costs, RC = Residual Costs (support, maintenance, etc), P = Profit, and EUS = Expected Unit Sales.
Obviously, if you are selling to a wider audience, the software can be cheaper. This is why niche software like AutoCAD is so expensive.
I'm unable to send her any attachments larger than about 500k because she keeps old emails...
Have her create local storage with Outlook Express and download all of them. This works nicely. The Mozilla team should come up with some sort of hotmail direct compatibility. Until then, OE works great.
Re:Pre-IPO getting less shares owners selling less
on
Google Slashes IPO price
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
All this means is that the FUD campaign worked. All those whiners writing for Forbes and the WSJ got their way - they can get into the company for less than it is really worth so that they can turn around and sell at a tidy profit in only a few days. This is the way that all IPOs are - the rich get richer. Shame on google for trying to change that...
10:1 odds that the shares trade back to where they were supposed (UP!) to be after they are public.
I just worked on her PC. Nearly exactly as you've described.
The solution was simply to install one of the many free antivirus packages out there (I used AVG) and AdAware as well as a helping of Windowsupdate.com. Microsoft was gracious enough to realize that Win98 users will need support for a long time coming.
After removing half a dozen viruses (virii... whatever) and 500 spyware/adware "objects", the PC runs fine.
Intel is currently working on a flash replacement called OUM (Ovonic Unified Memory). You can see their presentations here (bottom of page). STMicroelectronics is also working on the technology (among several others) and has announced a preliminary version of the technology that has 10^11 cycle endurance. This is 5 orders of magnatude greater than flash. Intel is shooting for 10^15 or higher in order to get DRAM equivalence for "most" PCs and servers. That is, "most" PCs and servers aren't flipping a single bit more than 1,000,000,000,000,000 times in their lifetime.
I almost feel exactly as you do with one exception: this puts open-source alternatives further behind.
Yes - I've tried linux. I install it about once or twice a year to check up on the status. I'm eager to move beyond Windows. However, after installing SP2, I don't think that is realistic in the foreseeable future. Good job to Microsoft (as much as that pains me)!
Where on earth are getting "help the little investor"?
They're only cutting the underwriters in on 3 percent of the company, rather than the accepted 6-10 percent. This eliminates the "underwriter overhang" that typically follows an IPO.
Have you ever followed an IPO before? Have you ever participated in on one (the actual initial offering, not buying on day 1)?
If they wanted to help the small investor they would not make you buy a minimum of 500 shares at 100+ a pop through their auction method.
They would go belly up if they didn't do this. This is standard procedure when it comes to an IPO. This is the very reason that Disney stopped allowing tourists to buy a single share of Disney stock while visiting one of the parks. The overhead involved in dealing with this trivial investor was more than it was worth to the investor.
What I am getting at is that the underwriters, who normally get 6-10 percent of the offering for next to NOTHING, have been limited to just 3 percent for the first time ever. This gets rid of the "overhang" that follows an IPO. Take Netgear NASDAQ:NTGR for example. The IPO was priced at $14, which was on the cheap side so that the underwriter, Lehman Brothers, could sell off a couple million shares after the fact, making money for (almost) nothing and pressuring the stock into a downward spiral (Netgear recently beat earnings expectations and guided the next quarter much higher only to see their stock jump and then quickly get pushed downward again).
Capitalist is not evil. I've made significant money in the market this year. If you think that a minimum $50k investment to get in on google is not helping the small investor, then you must be high. That is chump change to 95 percent of the small investors out there.
Anyone else notice the amount of FUD concerning the IPO? Google is the first to step in and help the little investor and, all of a sudden, the rich people are funding FUD campaigns so they can get in on the deal.
I swear that these journalists must sit around and read slashdot for ideas. This is like the fifth time that I've mentioned something here only to see a story on it later. Does anyone know how I can go about preempting these journalists by writing the stories myself? Seriously... I've a few good ideas that I'd like to write about...
What really woke me up was their statement that only 6% of the worlds engineers are educated in the USA.
This shouldn't be surprising. Since engineers are naturally capable people, they tend to be the type to start their own businesses and create with an education of their own appetite. Just because someone doesn't have a formal degree doesn't mean that they aren't "educated".
What about the proverbial millionaire/billionaire who dropped out of college to start [insert successful company here]. I know several.
I'm not sure why some enterprising mozilla/firefox nut hasn't made an activex plug-in for IE that causes the browser to render all pages using a "gecko plug-in". For example, if I came to slashdot (using IE like I normally do) and the page prompted me to install the "Gecko HTML rendering engine", I'd do it. Just like all those the masses that install spyware because they don't know any better.
As a side note, the only reason that I don't use Firefox is that it locks up when I access slashdot (on both home and work PCs, unfortunately). I'd use Mozilla but it just doesn't look/feel like a Windows app. I guess that I'll keep waiting.
Like "Celeron" which was derived from the Latin word, "celer" that means "fast" or "swift". This should be obvious from the association with "celery", the fastest of all vegetables.
Slashdot Mirror
Oooo! OOOooo! I'm blind! I'm blind!
That image?
I'll tell you what:
I work for a large corporation and we made a big deal out of the language barrier and complete ineptitude of some of the people on the other end of the phone. Now, we've renewed all of our support and paid extra for the premium level of service. HP/Compaq's call center is in Canada somewhere and IBM's call center actually announces itself on the phone menu:
You're call is now being routed to our support center in Atlanta, Georgia.
If enough consumers made a stink about it, tech support wouldn't be in India for them. Come to think of it, if one of the big PC vendors wanted to get a leg up on the competition, they could advertise "English speaking tech support" as the number one feature of their PCs. They'd be sold out in no time.
One gigabyte transfer speed?
Per second? Hour? Day?
My netflix movies come overnight. If I get 4, that works out to almost a gig per hour...
I honestly think that we need an RFC for this so that idiots who can't spell can get a real error message back when their legitimate email gets rejected. At this point, all spammers would be forced to spell correctly and it would be difficult for them to get their point across without using obvious spam keywords like 'viagra'.
I have a simple algorithm to reject spam: spelling.
If you can't spell correctly, then I don't want your v1agr4.
Food?!?
I want a cylinder head for my car made out of this stuff...
Software pricing = (DC + RC + P)/EUS ...where DC = Development Costs, RC = Residual Costs (support, maintenance, etc), P = Profit, and EUS = Expected Unit Sales.
Obviously, if you are selling to a wider audience, the software can be cheaper. This is why niche software like AutoCAD is so expensive.
I'm unable to send her any attachments larger than about 500k because she keeps old emails...
Have her create local storage with Outlook Express and download all of them. This works nicely. The Mozilla team should come up with some sort of hotmail direct compatibility. Until then, OE works great.
Obligatory Simpson's.
All this means is that the FUD campaign worked. All those whiners writing for Forbes and the WSJ got their way - they can get into the company for less than it is really worth so that they can turn around and sell at a tidy profit in only a few days. This is the way that all IPOs are - the rich get richer. Shame on google for trying to change that...
10:1 odds that the shares trade back to where they were supposed (UP!) to be after they are public.
Just go here and download songs for mere pennies. No limited time BS. No DRM.
So what's the solution for Jane Boxwine?
I just worked on her PC. Nearly exactly as you've described.
The solution was simply to install one of the many free antivirus packages out there (I used AVG) and AdAware as well as a helping of Windowsupdate.com. Microsoft was gracious enough to realize that Win98 users will need support for a long time coming.
After removing half a dozen viruses (virii... whatever) and 500 spyware/adware "objects", the PC runs fine.
Intel is currently working on a flash replacement called OUM (Ovonic Unified Memory). You can see their presentations here (bottom of page). STMicroelectronics is also working on the technology (among several others) and has announced a preliminary version of the technology that has 10^11 cycle endurance. This is 5 orders of magnatude greater than flash. Intel is shooting for 10^15 or higher in order to get DRAM equivalence for "most" PCs and servers. That is, "most" PCs and servers aren't flipping a single bit more than 1,000,000,000,000,000 times in their lifetime.
IMO, SP2 was a huge step in the right direction
I almost feel exactly as you do with one exception: this puts open-source alternatives further behind.
Yes - I've tried linux. I install it about once or twice a year to check up on the status. I'm eager to move beyond Windows. However, after installing SP2, I don't think that is realistic in the foreseeable future. Good job to Microsoft (as much as that pains me)!
If only Walmart provided WinXP serialz...
A wise monkey never monkies with another monkey's monkey.
Where on earth are getting "help the little investor"?
They're only cutting the underwriters in on 3 percent of the company, rather than the accepted 6-10 percent. This eliminates the "underwriter overhang" that typically follows an IPO.
Have you ever followed an IPO before? Have you ever participated in on one (the actual initial offering, not buying on day 1)?
If they wanted to help the small investor they would not make you buy a minimum of 500 shares at 100+ a pop through their auction method.
They would go belly up if they didn't do this. This is standard procedure when it comes to an IPO. This is the very reason that Disney stopped allowing tourists to buy a single share of Disney stock while visiting one of the parks. The overhead involved in dealing with this trivial investor was more than it was worth to the investor.
What I am getting at is that the underwriters, who normally get 6-10 percent of the offering for next to NOTHING, have been limited to just 3 percent for the first time ever. This gets rid of the "overhang" that follows an IPO. Take Netgear NASDAQ:NTGR for example. The IPO was priced at $14, which was on the cheap side so that the underwriter, Lehman Brothers, could sell off a couple million shares after the fact, making money for (almost) nothing and pressuring the stock into a downward spiral (Netgear recently beat earnings expectations and guided the next quarter much higher only to see their stock jump and then quickly get pushed downward again).
Capitalist is not evil. I've made significant money in the market this year. If you think that a minimum $50k investment to get in on google is not helping the small investor, then you must be high. That is chump change to 95 percent of the small investors out there.
Anyone else notice the amount of FUD concerning the IPO? Google is the first to step in and help the little investor and, all of a sudden, the rich people are funding FUD campaigns so they can get in on the deal.
I swear that these journalists must sit around and read slashdot for ideas. This is like the fifth time that I've mentioned something here only to see a story on it later. Does anyone know how I can go about preempting these journalists by writing the stories myself? Seriously... I've a few good ideas that I'd like to write about...
but most real engineering companies require a Bachelor's or better
Most "real" engineers start their own company and hold themselves to their own education standards, whether that is a bachelors or whatever.
What really woke me up was their statement that only 6% of the worlds engineers are educated in the USA.
This shouldn't be surprising. Since engineers are naturally capable people, they tend to be the type to start their own businesses and create with an education of their own appetite. Just because someone doesn't have a formal degree doesn't mean that they aren't "educated".
What about the proverbial millionaire/billionaire who dropped out of college to start [insert successful company here]. I know several.
If you read the article, you'll find that the new format "supports up to 2TB" of storage. They mention nothing about initial densities.
Move along. Nothing to see here.
I'm not sure why some enterprising mozilla/firefox nut hasn't made an activex plug-in for IE that causes the browser to render all pages using a "gecko plug-in". For example, if I came to slashdot (using IE like I normally do) and the page prompted me to install the "Gecko HTML rendering engine", I'd do it. Just like all those the masses that install spyware because they don't know any better.
As a side note, the only reason that I don't use Firefox is that it locks up when I access slashdot (on both home and work PCs, unfortunately). I'd use Mozilla but it just doesn't look/feel like a Windows app. I guess that I'll keep waiting.
Like "Celeron" which was derived from the Latin word, "celer" that means "fast" or "swift". This should be obvious from the association with "celery", the fastest of all vegetables.