Does anybody know how to stop using the "This DVD Player has rating enabled, enter password" prompt on the PS2? It's very irritating that the movie doesn't just play. I may return it and buy a whole new Athlon XP box if I can't turn it off. I can't get GTA3 anywhere, and I'm in the mood for blood, so that makes this a pretty expensive machine to only play nba live 2002 on...
Also, does anybody else think those "WEGA" tv sets are a little over-priced for the picture you get? My 27 inch Phillips displays regular cable-tv better than the WEGA... Does that mean it doesn't make sense to buy it until I move somewhere that has digital cable? Or go sattellite and re-buy hardware in 2-3 years when HDTV is standard.
I hope I don't sound like an old fart when I say this, but if you have to cheat at beginning programming class, you should re-consider whether CS is the right major for you. Seriously.
My freshman year, we got Pascal I & II. I might have been one of four or five people in a class of 15 that wrote all my own code. I mean, it's fucking pascal. If you can't grok pascal, maybe it's time to change careers. (Sorry if you had trouble with pascal...I'm not saying I'm a god but I never had to cheat to get my homework done.)
All this talk of Pascal makes me nostalgiac for the goofy "everything is one big nest" code. I bet google could find a pascal compiler for Mac OS X...
While I understand your zest to incorporate OSS into your run for city council it just seems like a bad idea. Not because using the software in IT department isn't good, but because 95% of the voters (the people who actually CAST BALLOTS) don't know what the hell "Open Source" is, and really don't care how evil Microsoft is.
The best way to approach this is to write up a comprehensive plan for your vision of the city. If it includes OSS, that's cool. Emphasize the cost-savings on licenses, and the potential savings on hardware replacement (don't have to replace all servers every 24 months if the software doesn't become exponentially more bloated every year), and then move on.
Political reality is that most citizens care about two things: Crime in their neighborhood, and high taxes. As long as you take care of these two things, you're in good shape.
I have one storebought copy of Office 2001 (Mac) and bought my 20 liscenses through this fucked up Microsoft liscensing web page. They didn't send me serial numbers, just a contract, so all 21 copies of Office here have the same serial number even though they are all legaly liscensed.
According to a guy I spoke with at the Apple store yesterday, Office v.X DOES sniff out other installations using the same serial # if you're connected to the network. Since I only own one Mac I can't really test this myself....
I am interested in how it works though: Does it do a broadcast or something on the network? Anybody have any knowledge of how/if this works?
Specifically, they would like for the MEDIA to be excluded.
So? I bet there's a few people who read slashdot that aren't in the media that could do a lot more with MS' trade secrets than any newspaper reporter ever could. I'm specifically thinking of virus writers, crackers, and the russian mafia. That and the fact that Bill will be lying his ass off in deposition...
I would recommend the spacecraft be manned and have enough computer capabilities to be able to simulate the motion of the asteroid itself and determine the best location to hit.
Better shield the ship and crew so they're not annihilated in the process. Also, particle accelerators are the sorts of things that are so large as to be impractical to transport. (They grow 'em big, 1 mile in diameter or more.)
Or were you thinking it was like Ghostbusters where they were about as big as a backpack?
While waiting to close on a mortgage refinance this summer I asked my attorney about the "right to enter and inspect" provision in Microsoft's license. What he said was: "Well, they do have it in the license agreement, but they still need a cop and a warrant to force their way into my house." He then reminded me that to get a warrant the officers requesting it must have some sort of evidence of a crime to proceed.
He then went on to say that the true purpose of the clause is to give them something to sue over. If you agree in the license to let them search your house, then don't let them search, they might not have enough info to sue or have you arrested for software piracy, but they can still sue for breach of contract.
This doesn't make the clause's presence in the license kosher, but it made me aware that Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer probably aren't going to show up at my house with machine guns in hand to kick the door in and inspect my network.
Hmm... A little elementary math shows this to be the exact OPPOSITE of what AOL Time Warner claimed during their merger talks: That it would benefit consumers through cost savings passed on in lower prices.
$200 for AOL Time Warner vs. My current bills of about $150 per month.
Cable TV $45
Cable modem $45
Telephone $50-$60 depending on how much I talk
Tell me where the benefit to me is? I'll have the privelege of paying the conglomerate through the nose for these services on "one-bill"?
...with MS, Linux, and other Unices, it will have to change the following three things about itself:
1) Transparent filesharing with MS. Sorry guys, but it's not there yet. Opening the "Connect to Server" dialong in Finder and using the syntax smb://2kwksation/share to attempt to access my 2k Workstation fails. It does work with 2k Server/Advanced Server w/File Services for Macintosh installed, though.
2) Flesh out the OS with control panels to do functions that are currently available only via the command prompt. Specifically, there's no reason an Apple operating system shouldn't allow some configuration of the swap file from the System Preferences. The only method I'm aware of involves a trip to the terminal, something many novice mac users are wont to try.
3) Multiple desktops.
Additionally, Apple will need to motivate developers to move their biggest products into the new Mac OS. They would be wise to approach developers that don't currently develop for the Macintosh but do work with other variants of Unix or Linux. Games would be nice, and completion of OpenOffice for X would be nice, but any little bit helps.
A: It would be easy to remedy this situation, and it would be remedied via antitrust action
This scenario is unlikely, but I would point out how "easy to remedy" MS' current anti-competitive practices are. The problem with anti-trust action is that, by the time it happens, the damage is (usually) already done.
The best way to prevent this farfetched vision from becoming reality is a strong penalty in their CURRENT anti-trust suit.
But WHY? is my main question... there's no real reason to be making this virus except to make the virus scanning software more needed or at least the manufactures of symantec can go and say "Hey... this virus affects.NET so you know that there will be others... time to upgrade".
And again... why are virus scanning companies encouraging the creation of virii ?? I would think the world would be a better place with no Virii out there... but then... how would Symantec make any money??
What should Symantec have done, erased the email and forgotten about the virus?
As I see it, they had three choices:
1) They could tell nobody, resulting in this little bug sitting quietly out there until MS finds it and fixes it on their own (if ever.)
2) They could tell Microsoft and nobody else. Results would probably be similar to #1.
3) They could tell everybody and force MS to fix this problem BEFORE the.NET framework goes into wide usage around the world.
Since MS has shown themselves to be quite lackadaisical in planning for and implementing security in their products I think Symantec (and the other company that got the concept virus whose name escapes me at the moment) did the right thing here.
If they hadn't, Microsoft would've either 1) never found it until it caused a huge problem (way too late) 2) Found it and taken their sweet time to acknowledge the problem/fix it.
If you ask me, this is the best possibble outcome.
I once followed up on an ad that turned out to relate to Linuxgruven and their phony classes-for-jobs scam. Although I feel bad if anybody did get defrauded, I have to say it sounded pretty fishy to me when I talked to them on the phone.
The person who answered worked for an "answering service" that could only take your name and a time for you to drive in to their super-inconveniently located "interview center". They knew absolutely nothing.
Anybody who would give these people money sort of deserves what they get, because they're fairly obvious about being a scam where you aren't getting a job.
Even though the "photograph" is of just two fuzzy blobs it's cool nonetheless, especially that the first thing photographed should be celestial object that we don't have in our solar system that also happens to simultaneously prove that there have to be numerous ways that solar systems are "born" in the wake of a star's formation.
One wonders if the cosmic soup had simmered a little more or a little less if Jupiter wouldn't be a binary star. How would it affect sleep patterns? What the hell would our watches look like?
Looks like a nice furniture piece? Something that will go well with interior design of my house... I hope it comes in color so I can match my furniture.. And thats about all the use I have for one of those.. Nice display furniture piece.. Maybe even a conversational piece during a coctail party? But thats about it as far as usability of iMac goes (as far as I am conerned that is)...
It never ceases to amaze me that slashdotters don't get the following simple fact: THE iMAC ISN'T INTENDED FOR YOU.
It's for your dad, grandma, or girlfriend who won't need anything but the stock video card, stock hard drive, and stock USB/Firewire/Network card. It's not a geek's computer: It's a "regular guy" machine. If you want to shove $1000 worth of extras into a mac when you buy it, get a G4 tower and quit your bitchin'.
This is like complaining that the Geo Metro doesn't do 140 mph. It wasn't intended to, it's basic transportation.
Side note: This iMac corrects what was, in my opinion, the biggest flaw with the old one: The tiny little screen.
Is this really a black mark for the Xbox? I have never had a pleasant customer service experience with any consumer electronics barring Computers. I have come to expect a poor level of service if I ever have to call support for a DVD player or a TV.
Besides, Microsoft will realize the current support contractor sucks, and pay out some cash for a better one. From the article it dosen't sound all that bad anyway.
My reaction here is that this actually doesn't say anything at all bad about Xbox: After all, it's a brand new, from the ground up, piece of consumer electronic equipment.
But... For the last few years Microsoft's rallying battle cry has been: "Sure linux is free, but who's going to support you?" Although this incident by itself won't totally discredit MS' "great" support, it won't help. It'll be a few more bricks on the "Non-MS" side of the scale in the consumer mind. Enough bricks on that side of the balance, and eventually, the consumer buys something else.
Users will be able to store television programs in their PCs and watch them at any time and any place.
...All the major television and film studios will file a lawsuit immediately if it doesn't contain built-in, unavoidable protection for their content.
The sad paradox here being, of course, that if it DOES have the built-in, unavoidable protection, nobody will want it.
MPAA acting as DVD "cartel"...Can we declare war?
on
Emigrating DVD's?
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· Score: 1
If you think about it, the MPAA operates in a very similar manner to a drug cartel when it comes to "protecting their rights" on DVD.
Let's compare them: Drug cartel is a large continental or worldwide organization distributing its product through individual agents. Those agents pay for the right to distribute the product by giving the next guy up the ladder a "cut". They enforce the exclusivity of their business agressively, immediately nuetralizing serious emerging competition. Since you can't profit from product siezed by the government, they corrupt governments by giving large bribes to border guards, police, and whoever to get their product to market at maximum profit potential.
DVD cartel has a complex, worldwide distribution network with many agents, each paying "taxes" back to the cartel. In this case, the "tax" is in the form of the licensing fee paid for the right to decode DVDs. In exchange, the cartel aggressively "protects" their local distribution business by region coding DVDs, and paying off the lawmakers to make breaking the "region coding" system a felony offense. End result: consumer pays more for content than would otherwise be the case, especially if they do the unthinkable and move from on distribution area to another.
Drug cartel does it with guns and violence, MPAA does it with lawyers. End result: They maintain a stranglehold on the "content" or "product" they sell, and corrupt the governments of the countries they operate in. Is there really a big difference between one and the other?
I don't see how they can do this without breaking thier agreement with the FCC.
For many years now, Clear Channel has been the powerful, overfunded bully who runs the radio and television industries by owning TONS of stations. That they would operate one of their stations outside the public interest isn't that surprising to me.
This is the company that bought up stations across the country, gutted their staffs, doubled the number of commercials, and started automating stations left and right. Result? Bland, boring, programming (worse than before!) with 25-30 commercial units in an hour becomes acceptable in big markets because, "Clear Channel has more."
...is that someone can patent the process by which email can be generated which directs the recipient to click some link, which delivers a message on some dad-burn web page?
Yup, the whole world has gone insane. I'm going to go cry now.
I would think porno sites have prior art here. That's all they do is send out thousands of emails with LINKS back to their stuff.
Of course, what would be funnier is if they claimed prior art, got a patent, and then Hallmark had to pay HUSTLER for the right to send greeting cards via email.
As for the part about wanting to cry...I've been crying for years now.
Why are the most memorable characters from the first movie or two (or IV and V, depending on your viewpoint)?
Good thing we have these gems to counteract the Jar Jar/Nsync crap.
Have to give you a big "darn tootin' here"...
There is no reason in the universe that Star Wars needs to do anything special to "appeal to kids". It's just crap. What about the original star wars was "kid-friendly"? Besides Leia being a cute chick, there's nothing remotely like that, but it's part of my youth and many of yours too.
I'm almost glad that Lucas decided they were never going to make episodes 7, 8 & 9... Imagine the hokey shit that would be in there...
...A 75-year-old Harrisson Ford makes a cameo in #7 holding a can of Pepsi and talking about Sprint.
...Yoda appears in a vision to Han & Leia's children to extoll the virtues of Microsoft cybernetic implants v11.3.
...A 45-year-old Britney Spears attempts a comeback in part 9 that fails when her leather pants split during filming.
I manage to get the savings without giving any personal information. How?
I signed up as a neighbor who died. According to the supermarket, I'm a 75 year old woman who buys a lot of diet soda and beef. And I get the discount, and they don't send me any junk mail.
The parent post sums up the basic problem with this thread. The young guys think they're exceptional. The older guys know better.
Is it possibble the reason the old guys want to scoff at the younger generation is that the younger generation is "blossoming" so to speak at a time of rapid and amazing technical innovation? Sure, punch cards were cool when they came out, because, hey, it was less boring than this abacus. Now kids are blossoming with computer experiences involving 3D graphics, mp3 audio, and broadband internet connections.
Personally, I'm jealous that kids who get new Macs this christmas who want to program get 512 meg of RAM and C, C++, Java to play with as well as tools for the GUI while I was stuck with Turbo Pascal and 512K.
A lot of organizations rely on support contracts and begging their vendor to fix problems.
As the person who was once on the other end of the phone in that situation I can tell you programming experience, even limited, helped me vastly.
I hacked on Pascal in high school and college (showing my age now) and I thought it would never help me in a job until a couple years back when I got a job working with a legacy software package written in, you guessed it, pascal.
Understanding the environment and being able to intelligently read the code was crucial to learning the app and finding/reporting/repairing bugs.
On a side note, I just got out of the healthcare industry, and I can tell you that having programmer/admins work on the client's systems would drastically improve the user's enjoyment of the product. In my experience, the customers that were a pleasure to help were the ones who enjoyed taking a moment reproduce the error themselves, write down the message, and try to find their own solution in the documentation.
Coincidentally, these people all were usually DBAs and/or programmer/analysts. You knew when these people called it was actually a software problem, not a user error.
Slashdot Mirror
Does anybody know how to stop using the "This DVD Player has rating enabled, enter password" prompt on the PS2? It's very irritating that the movie doesn't just play. I may return it and buy a whole new Athlon XP box if I can't turn it off. I can't get GTA3 anywhere, and I'm in the mood for blood, so that makes this a pretty expensive machine to only play nba live 2002 on...
Also, does anybody else think those "WEGA" tv sets are a little over-priced for the picture you get? My 27 inch Phillips displays regular cable-tv better than the WEGA... Does that mean it doesn't make sense to buy it until I move somewhere that has digital cable? Or go sattellite and re-buy hardware in 2-3 years when HDTV is standard.
I hope I don't sound like an old fart when I say this, but if you have to cheat at beginning programming class, you should re-consider whether CS is the right major for you. Seriously.
My freshman year, we got Pascal I & II. I might have been one of four or five people in a class of 15 that wrote all my own code. I mean, it's fucking pascal. If you can't grok pascal, maybe it's time to change careers. (Sorry if you had trouble with pascal...I'm not saying I'm a god but I never had to cheat to get my homework done.)
All this talk of Pascal makes me nostalgiac for the goofy "everything is one big nest" code. I bet google could find a pascal compiler for Mac OS X...
While I understand your zest to incorporate OSS into your run for city council it just seems like a bad idea. Not because using the software in IT department isn't good, but because 95% of the voters (the people who actually CAST BALLOTS) don't know what the hell "Open Source" is, and really don't care how evil Microsoft is.
The best way to approach this is to write up a comprehensive plan for your vision of the city. If it includes OSS, that's cool. Emphasize the cost-savings on licenses, and the potential savings on hardware replacement (don't have to replace all servers every 24 months if the software doesn't become exponentially more bloated every year), and then move on.
Political reality is that most citizens care about two things: Crime in their neighborhood, and high taxes. As long as you take care of these two things, you're in good shape.
According to a guy I spoke with at the Apple store yesterday, Office v.X DOES sniff out other installations using the same serial # if you're connected to the network. Since I only own one Mac I can't really test this myself....
I am interested in how it works though: Does it do a broadcast or something on the network? Anybody have any knowledge of how/if this works?
So? I bet there's a few people who read slashdot that aren't in the media that could do a lot more with MS' trade secrets than any newspaper reporter ever could. I'm specifically thinking of virus writers, crackers, and the russian mafia. That and the fact that Bill will be lying his ass off in deposition...
"Netscape? Who's that?"
Or were you thinking it was like Ghostbusters where they were about as big as a backpack?
While waiting to close on a mortgage refinance this summer I asked my attorney about the "right to enter and inspect" provision in Microsoft's license. What he said was: "Well, they do have it in the license agreement, but they still need a cop and a warrant to force their way into my house." He then reminded me that to get a warrant the officers requesting it must have some sort of evidence of a crime to proceed.
He then went on to say that the true purpose of the clause is to give them something to sue over. If you agree in the license to let them search your house, then don't let them search, they might not have enough info to sue or have you arrested for software piracy, but they can still sue for breach of contract.
This doesn't make the clause's presence in the license kosher, but it made me aware that Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer probably aren't going to show up at my house with machine guns in hand to kick the door in and inspect my network.
Hmm... A little elementary math shows this to be the exact OPPOSITE of what AOL Time Warner claimed during their merger talks: That it would benefit consumers through cost savings passed on in lower prices.
$200 for AOL Time Warner vs. My current bills of about $150 per month.
Cable TV $45
Cable modem $45
Telephone $50-$60 depending on how much I talk
Tell me where the benefit to me is? I'll have the privelege of paying the conglomerate through the nose for these services on "one-bill"?
Thanks, but no thanks.
...with MS, Linux, and other Unices, it will have to change the following three things about itself:
1) Transparent filesharing with MS. Sorry guys, but it's not there yet. Opening the "Connect to Server" dialong in Finder and using the syntax smb://2kwksation/share to attempt to access my 2k Workstation fails. It does work with 2k Server/Advanced Server w/File Services for Macintosh installed, though.
2) Flesh out the OS with control panels to do functions that are currently available only via the command prompt. Specifically, there's no reason an Apple operating system shouldn't allow some configuration of the swap file from the System Preferences. The only method I'm aware of involves a trip to the terminal, something many novice mac users are wont to try.
3) Multiple desktops.
Additionally, Apple will need to motivate developers to move their biggest products into the new Mac OS. They would be wise to approach developers that don't currently develop for the Macintosh but do work with other variants of Unix or Linux. Games would be nice, and completion of OpenOffice for X would be nice, but any little bit helps.
This scenario is unlikely, but I would point out how "easy to remedy" MS' current anti-competitive practices are. The problem with anti-trust action is that, by the time it happens, the damage is (usually) already done.
The best way to prevent this farfetched vision from becoming reality is a strong penalty in their CURRENT anti-trust suit.
What should Symantec have done, erased the email and forgotten about the virus?
As I see it, they had three choices:
1) They could tell nobody, resulting in this little bug sitting quietly out there until MS finds it and fixes it on their own (if ever.)
2) They could tell Microsoft and nobody else. Results would probably be similar to #1.
3) They could tell everybody and force MS to fix this problem BEFORE the
Since MS has shown themselves to be quite lackadaisical in planning for and implementing security in their products I think Symantec (and the other company that got the concept virus whose name escapes me at the moment) did the right thing here.
If they hadn't, Microsoft would've either 1) never found it until it caused a huge problem (way too late) 2) Found it and taken their sweet time to acknowledge the problem/fix it.
If you ask me, this is the best possibble outcome.
I once followed up on an ad that turned out to relate to Linuxgruven and their phony classes-for-jobs scam. Although I feel bad if anybody did get defrauded, I have to say it sounded pretty fishy to me when I talked to them on the phone.
The person who answered worked for an "answering service" that could only take your name and a time for you to drive in to their super-inconveniently located "interview center". They knew absolutely nothing.
Anybody who would give these people money sort of deserves what they get, because they're fairly obvious about being a scam where you aren't getting a job.
Even though the "photograph" is of just two fuzzy blobs it's cool nonetheless, especially that the first thing photographed should be celestial object that we don't have in our solar system that also happens to simultaneously prove that there have to be numerous ways that solar systems are "born" in the wake of a star's formation.
One wonders if the cosmic soup had simmered a little more or a little less if Jupiter wouldn't be a binary star. How would it affect sleep patterns? What the hell would our watches look like?
It never ceases to amaze me that slashdotters don't get the following simple fact: THE iMAC ISN'T INTENDED FOR YOU.
It's for your dad, grandma, or girlfriend who won't need anything but the stock video card, stock hard drive, and stock USB/Firewire/Network card. It's not a geek's computer: It's a "regular guy" machine. If you want to shove $1000 worth of extras into a mac when you buy it, get a G4 tower and quit your bitchin'.
This is like complaining that the Geo Metro doesn't do 140 mph. It wasn't intended to, it's basic transportation.
Side note: This iMac corrects what was, in my opinion, the biggest flaw with the old one: The tiny little screen.
My reaction here is that this actually doesn't say anything at all bad about Xbox: After all, it's a brand new, from the ground up, piece of consumer electronic equipment.
But... For the last few years Microsoft's rallying battle cry has been: "Sure linux is free, but who's going to support you?" Although this incident by itself won't totally discredit MS' "great" support, it won't help. It'll be a few more bricks on the "Non-MS" side of the scale in the consumer mind. Enough bricks on that side of the balance, and eventually, the consumer buys something else.
...All the major television and film studios will file a lawsuit immediately if it doesn't contain built-in, unavoidable protection for their content.
The sad paradox here being, of course, that if it DOES have the built-in, unavoidable protection, nobody will want it.
If you think about it, the MPAA operates in a very similar manner to a drug cartel when it comes to "protecting their rights" on DVD.
Let's compare them: Drug cartel is a large continental or worldwide organization distributing its product through individual agents. Those agents pay for the right to distribute the product by giving the next guy up the ladder a "cut". They enforce the exclusivity of their business agressively, immediately nuetralizing serious emerging competition. Since you can't profit from product siezed by the government, they corrupt governments by giving large bribes to border guards, police, and whoever to get their product to market at maximum profit potential.
DVD cartel has a complex, worldwide distribution network with many agents, each paying "taxes" back to the cartel. In this case, the "tax" is in the form of the licensing fee paid for the right to decode DVDs. In exchange, the cartel aggressively "protects" their local distribution business by region coding DVDs, and paying off the lawmakers to make breaking the "region coding" system a felony offense. End result: consumer pays more for content than would otherwise be the case, especially if they do the unthinkable and move from on distribution area to another.
Drug cartel does it with guns and violence, MPAA does it with lawyers. End result: They maintain a stranglehold on the "content" or "product" they sell, and corrupt the governments of the countries they operate in. Is there really a big difference between one and the other?
I want to make it known, here and now, that if I ever do anything like these two are doing I want somebody to have the common decency to shoot me.
Please.
For many years now, Clear Channel has been the powerful, overfunded bully who runs the radio and television industries by owning TONS of stations. That they would operate one of their stations outside the public interest isn't that surprising to me.
This is the company that bought up stations across the country, gutted their staffs, doubled the number of commercials, and started automating stations left and right. Result? Bland, boring, programming (worse than before!) with 25-30 commercial units in an hour becomes acceptable in big markets because, "Clear Channel has more."
I would think porno sites have prior art here. That's all they do is send out thousands of emails with LINKS back to their stuff.
Of course, what would be funnier is if they claimed prior art, got a patent, and then Hallmark had to pay HUSTLER for the right to send greeting cards via email.
As for the part about wanting to cry...I've been crying for years now.
Have to give you a big "darn tootin' here"...
There is no reason in the universe that Star Wars needs to do anything special to "appeal to kids". It's just crap. What about the original star wars was "kid-friendly"? Besides Leia being a cute chick, there's nothing remotely like that, but it's part of my youth and many of yours too.
I'm almost glad that Lucas decided they were never going to make episodes 7, 8 & 9... Imagine the hokey shit that would be in there...
...A 75-year-old Harrisson Ford makes a cameo in #7 holding a can of Pepsi and talking about Sprint.
...Yoda appears in a vision to Han & Leia's children to extoll the virtues of Microsoft cybernetic implants v11.3.
...A 45-year-old Britney Spears attempts a comeback in part 9 that fails when her leather pants split during filming.
...Imagine if we exported a beowulf cluster of these...
I manage to get the savings without giving any personal information. How?
I signed up as a neighbor who died. According to the supermarket, I'm a 75 year old woman who buys a lot of diet soda and beef. And I get the discount, and they don't send me any junk mail.
Is it possibble the reason the old guys want to scoff at the younger generation is that the younger generation is "blossoming" so to speak at a time of rapid and amazing technical innovation? Sure, punch cards were cool when they came out, because, hey, it was less boring than this abacus. Now kids are blossoming with computer experiences involving 3D graphics, mp3 audio, and broadband internet connections.
Personally, I'm jealous that kids who get new Macs this christmas who want to program get 512 meg of RAM and C, C++, Java to play with as well as tools for the GUI while I was stuck with Turbo Pascal and 512K.
I still have nightmares about the looping!
As the person who was once on the other end of the phone in that situation I can tell you programming experience, even limited, helped me vastly.
I hacked on Pascal in high school and college (showing my age now) and I thought it would never help me in a job until a couple years back when I got a job working with a legacy software package written in, you guessed it, pascal.
Understanding the environment and being able to intelligently read the code was crucial to learning the app and finding/reporting/repairing bugs.
On a side note, I just got out of the healthcare industry, and I can tell you that having programmer/admins work on the client's systems would drastically improve the user's enjoyment of the product. In my experience, the customers that were a pleasure to help were the ones who enjoyed taking a moment reproduce the error themselves, write down the message, and try to find their own solution in the documentation.
Coincidentally, these people all were usually DBAs and/or programmer/analysts. You knew when these people called it was actually a software problem, not a user error.