Does anyone remember CompuAdd? They were a struggling mail order PC firm that opened stores all across the country.
Unlike Gateway they did stock a few machines but mostly they had to order them for you like Gateway.
When I first heard about Gateway opening stores I knew it was a big mistake. How could Gateway not learn from CompuAdd's failure? But that's exactly what happened.
Apples high margins may save them but don't be surprised if their stores are eventually closed. It's not a winning business model.
I think your handle is very appropriate. FWIW Dick Cheney was chairman of Haliburton, not the owner. Since his assets are in a blind trust he wouldn't even know if he still has any stock in Halliburton.
It's Monsanto, not Monsalto. No one is going to force them to use GM crops against their will. There is very little corn grown in Iraq and no soybeans anyway.
I guarantee you that there's only one reason GM crops are grown in America - they're more profitable for the farmer. No amount of salesmanship on Monsanto's part could win over the farmer if that wasn't true.
What is even more amazing is that this breakthrough comes from Europe where scientists working in biotech seed are treated like common criminals and frequently have their research plots destroyed by enviro-terrorists.
Begs the question whether Paul and Heather McCartney will now finally have something good to say about biotech seed?
Will European politicians who urged African nations to reject donations of biotech grain from the US to feed their starving people actually recommend the use of this plant?
So you're Cringely with a year end predictions column to write.
You have two or three provocative theories that you would llke to push. You know they're unlikely to prove true. Plus they wouldn't fill a column all by themselves.
So you combine them with seven weak predictions that are sure to be found correct.
So if anyone questions your provocative predictions you smugly say that you're right 70% of the time year after year.
So you're respected by the media (who rarely do their homework) as this all knowing and seeing prognasticator even if your actual "real" predictions are rarely correct.
But your "record of predictions" ensures they're taken seriously and sponsor much debate.
Cringely, I'm on to your tricks pal.
Man Holmes
Re:Is there an OSS search engine/WWW snapshot
on
Spidering Hacks
·
· Score: 1
There is an open source search engine project underway and it is called Nutch as in Nutch.org .
They've received money from some high profile backers such Mitch Kapor and Overture.
Same people that created the open source indexer Lucene. Haven't downloaded the code yet but I am following the project closely.
I think Dean is pandering to his base with all this talk about the Saudis supposedly warning Bush about 9/11 and trying to deflect criticism about himself.
He has refused to release the records of his tenure as governor of Vermont.
What exactly is Dean hiding? How can voters decide if Dean is hiding his record? What horrible blunders is he trying to keep secret?
Time-Warner publications don't understand tech. This isn't the first time that Fortune has printed a story that was totally whacked.
I see the invisible hand of Microsoft behind this story. Google doesn't agree to a Microsoft buyout and all of a sudden a wave of negative press descends. To cap it off Gates has the gall to suggest they never wanted to buy Google in the first place!
In fact Time Warner publications are a good counter indicator. When their Business 2.0 suggested in a recent issue that tech had nowhere to go but down I became convinced we'd hit bottom and were on our way back up.
I have to totally agree with you. By the time Sparkle ships there will be 1-2 more releases of Flash.
This isn't the first time that Microsoft has tried to do this - anyone remember Chrome?
The MS dittoheads will talk it up but in six months if no one has used it in "real" projects it will die a quiet death. That is if it even ships with Longhorn in the first place.
Macromedia will be just like Intuit - one of the very few that can withstand the onslaught from Microsoft.
Not sure if they will be smart enough to seize the opportunity or not, but Red Hat's decision opens up a large opportunity for Sun to become the major Linux distribution if they want to do it.
They have the brand name to reassure business. This might go a long way to winning back developers if they put some major resources into their Linux distro.
My local supermarket sold milk, eggs and bread below their cost. Suppose people could just go there for those items and go across the street to buy everything else.
But they didn't and eventually the other supermarket went out of business.
Red Hat had the best advertising in the world and they didn't even realize it. How many corporations did they get into because someone was running RH at home?
Someday this will be a case study at Harvard Busines School titled, "how to bite the hand that feeds you."
There are sites like the Watergate hotel's reservation system that show the potential with Flash. But it is still damnably difficult for non-designers.
The answer is a product Macromedia has under development called Royale. Royale will allow developers to create Flash apps entirely in a code editor. It's been referred to as Flash for programmers.
Even noted Macromedia critic (and dot net apologist) Jesse Ezell has nice things to say about Royale.
Macromedia supports Apple which only has 2% of the desktop.
Lots of us have been pressing Macromedia to bring these products to Linux. This puts more not less pressure on them to do it.
We're going to do some experimentation right away with Codeweaver and MX 2004. This has been the only thing holding us back at my company from moving completely to Linux. We spend the majority of our day in Macromedia Studio.
It's clear that you don't understand how an investment bank operates.
If company X floats a million shares at $10 the investment bank agrees to guarantee that amount.
Supppose they only sell a half million shares at $10? The investment bank now owns the other half million and it may take them a long time (if ever) to recoup their investment.
Not everyone is a Google. But the profits on a Google IPO go a long way to spreading the risk on a lot of other no name companies.
If you take away the Google's of the world you end up reducing the investment banks risk taking incentives. So the end result is that far fewer companies are able go raise money via the IPO route.
So they end up having to sell out to a Microsoft at a far less rich multiple to grow their company/product. The customer loses the choice and diversity of product selection because it becomes so difficult for small companies to go public. The enterpreneur loses the incentive to take the swings for the home run style companies.
I can't or won't defend the obscene profits the investment banks made a few years back. But there are far better ways to introduce a little more ocmpetition into the process than what Google is supposedly doing.
Jacksonyee said "If Zope, ColdFusion, or J2EE had more availability or less cost, then I would try those as well"
First, ColdFusion is a free download that reverts to a single IP (developer version) in 30 days. Most people are on shared hosts and there isn't much difference between a CF hosted site and a PHP one.
Looking to write object oriented CF MX code try the free Mach-II (in beta) here.
If you want totally free then use NewAtlanta's BlueDragon server here . Granted it's a generation behind CF MX but I know a fellow who put together a Linux + MySQL + BlueDragon site on an AMD box for under $500 with the only cost being the hardware.
The dirty little secret about PHP as compared to CF, JSP or ASP is that it's not scalable. IMHO sometimes by paying a little you get a lot.
So spam is protected by free speech? Send me your phone number and I will send you 700 junk faxes a day.
That's how many SPAM messages I receive in an average day. That's not free speech it's pollution.
Course there's a law against sending junk faxes and they've pretty much disappeared.
If our legislators used email and had to deal with 700 SPAM messages a day how long do you think before we'd have a law?
Before you make the argument that the spammers would all move off shore consider this: How many junk faxes do you receive?
With internet phone calls nearly as cheap as email it can't cost much more to send junk faxes via the net yet it doesn't happen. Because they're hunted down and prosecuted that's why.
I've got a Toshiba Satellite 1955 laptop with a 16 inch screen and I adore it.
I've got a small software company and spend four months a year on the road. I've got a back pack case and the 10 lbs is no problem going through airports etc.
It's a great machine for doing presentations. Not too bad for writing code either.
I would carry a 19 inch screen laptop if I could buy it from a major manufacturer.
You're revealing your ignorance by that comment. Right now with CF MX and flash remoting coldfusion is one of the most exciting platforms for application development on the net.
The market for third party applications is growing and there are now two magazines catering strictly to CF. Not to mention that with blue dragon there is now a second source for CFML with their base product being free.
If you want to use a better tool go for it - but PHP isn't in the same league as CF MX.
Man Holmes
People have overlooked one major trend and that's the rise of web native ASP's.
Our company is one of hundreds out there creating vertical industry specific applications.
Things like accounting, supply chain management, crm and sales force automation. Everything is available through a browser.
You're not aware of it because the great majority of companies like ours may be well known in their industries but not on any national radar screen.
What happens in five years time when companies realize that the only thing they use Windows for is email and MS Office? Suddenly Linux with evolution and Open Office becomes a viable alternative.
If the business applications are all accessed through the browser the games over for Windows. People that's the main reason Microsoft bought Great Plains. They want all these vertical providers working on a Microsoft framework.
Man Holmes
I'm sorry but you still have your facts wrong. When you spoke of taco's I'm sure you're referring to the Starlink case.
Here's the facts: The FDA had 34 people claim to have an allergic reaction to StarLink. I think the chance to make large amounts of money from a lawsuit factored in here.
The FDA did a thorough investigation and found that 14 people out of the 34 had symptoms consistent with an allergic reaction. Of the seven who agreed to be voluntarily tested NONE of them were found to have an allergic reaction to the Cry9c protein.
I won't defend Aventis, the company responsible
for the StarLink fiasco. Or our government that never should have let them have a conditional label. They made farmers sign a statement upon delivery of the seed that the grain would be used for feed purposes only. It's obvious in retrospect that the policy was flawed.
But no one was harmed by StarLink except Aventis shareholders and the taxpayers who shouldered the cost of the cleanup.
IMHO the benefits from biotech seed far outweigh the disadvantages. Each individual country is free to make a decision whether to import biotech seed. Those that make that determination on a scientific basis will always choose biotech.
Sorry you're spreading more misinformation. Your statement about bt corn having the potential to kill you is absolutely FALSE.
First the Bt isn't expressed in the grain, just in the stalk and leaves.
Second Bt is completely harmless to humans but certain insects can't tolerate it. Bt is so safe to humans that it has been used for years as a natural insecticide on ORGANIC production.
U.S. farmers plant hybrid varieties of corn which are not capable of reproduction the following year. Every spring the farmer must purchase new corn seed to plant.
The hybrid corn itself is grown under very stringent rules that specify buffer areas to prevent a neighbors crop from pollinating the seed crop. This has been done for years to maintain the seeds purity long before Bt corn was on the market.
Check out the biotech industry organization's website if you want facts and not fiction Here
Slashdot Mirror
Does anyone remember CompuAdd? They were a struggling mail order PC firm that opened stores all across the country.
Unlike Gateway they did stock a few machines but mostly they had to order them for you like Gateway.
When I first heard about Gateway opening stores I knew it was a big mistake. How could Gateway not learn from CompuAdd's failure? But that's exactly what happened.
Apples high margins may save them but don't be surprised if their stores are eventually closed. It's not a winning business model.
Man Holmes
I think your handle is very appropriate. FWIW Dick Cheney was chairman of Haliburton, not the owner. Since his assets are in a blind trust he wouldn't even know if he still has any stock in Halliburton.
It's Monsanto, not Monsalto. No one is going to force them to use GM crops against their will. There is very little corn grown in Iraq and no soybeans anyway.
I guarantee you that there's only one reason GM crops are grown in America - they're more profitable for the farmer. No amount of salesmanship on Monsanto's part could win over the farmer if that wasn't true.
Man Holmes
What is even more amazing is that this breakthrough comes from Europe where scientists working in biotech seed are treated like common criminals and frequently have their research plots destroyed by enviro-terrorists.
Begs the question whether Paul and Heather McCartney will now finally have something good to say about biotech seed?
Will European politicians who urged African nations to reject donations of biotech grain from the US to feed their starving people actually recommend the use of this plant?
Man Holmes
I would definitely consider wi-fi before I would satellite. With the right antenna you can reliably get 10 mile reception.
If there isn't anyone within 10 miles consider getting a T-1 and becoming the neighborhood ISP.
O'Reilly has a great book on building community networks that was just updated.
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/wirelesscommnet2/
Man Holmes
What you and everyone else here is missing is that part of that deal back in 2000 gave Yahoo ownership in Google.
They already own a big chunk of Google equity and it looks like they will be cashing out when Google goes public.
Man Holmes
So you're Cringely with a year end predictions column to write.
You have two or three provocative theories that you would llke to push. You know they're unlikely to prove true. Plus they wouldn't fill a column all by themselves.
So you combine them with seven weak predictions that are sure to be found correct.
So if anyone questions your provocative predictions you smugly say that you're right 70% of the time year after year.
So you're respected by the media (who rarely do their homework) as this all knowing and seeing prognasticator even if your actual "real" predictions are rarely correct.
But your "record of predictions" ensures they're taken seriously and sponsor much debate.
Cringely, I'm on to your tricks pal.
Man Holmes
There is an open source search engine project underway and it is called Nutch as in Nutch.org .
They've received money from some high profile backers such Mitch Kapor and Overture.
Same people that created the open source indexer Lucene. Haven't downloaded the code yet but I am following the project closely.
Man Holmes
I think Dean is pandering to his base with all this talk about the Saudis supposedly warning Bush about 9/11 and trying to deflect criticism about himself.
He has refused to release the records of his tenure as governor of Vermont.
What exactly is Dean hiding? How can voters decide if Dean is hiding his record? What horrible blunders is he trying to keep secret?
Man Holmes
Time-Warner publications don't understand tech. This isn't the first time that Fortune has printed a story that was totally whacked.
I see the invisible hand of Microsoft behind this story. Google doesn't agree to a Microsoft buyout and all of a sudden a wave of negative press descends. To cap it off Gates has the gall to suggest they never wanted to buy Google in the first place!
In fact Time Warner publications are a good counter indicator. When their Business 2.0 suggested in a recent issue that tech had nowhere to go but down I became convinced we'd hit bottom and were on our way back up.
Man Holmes
I have to totally agree with you. By the time Sparkle ships there will be 1-2 more releases of Flash.
This isn't the first time that Microsoft has tried to do this - anyone remember Chrome?
The MS dittoheads will talk it up but in six months if no one has used it in "real" projects it will die a quiet death. That is if it even ships with Longhorn in the first place.
Macromedia will be just like Intuit - one of the very few that can withstand the onslaught from Microsoft.
Man Holmes
Not sure if they will be smart enough to seize the opportunity or not, but Red Hat's decision opens up a large opportunity for Sun to become the major Linux distribution if they want to do it.
They have the brand name to reassure business. This might go a long way to winning back developers if they put some major resources into their Linux distro.
Man Holmes
My local supermarket sold milk, eggs and bread below their cost. Suppose people could just go there for those items and go across the street to buy everything else.
But they didn't and eventually the other supermarket went out of business.
Red Hat had the best advertising in the world and they didn't even realize it. How many corporations did they get into because someone was running RH at home?
Someday this will be a case study at Harvard Busines School titled, "how to bite the hand that feeds you."
Man Holmes
There are sites like the Watergate hotel's reservation system that show the potential with Flash. But it is still damnably difficult for non-designers.
The answer is a product Macromedia has under development called Royale. Royale will allow developers to create Flash apps entirely in a code editor. It's been referred to as Flash for programmers.
Even noted Macromedia critic (and dot net apologist) Jesse Ezell has nice things to say about Royale.
You can read the Royale FAQ here
Macromedia will show Royale for the first time in public at their developers convention in late November.
Man Holmes
Macromedia supports Apple which only has 2% of the desktop.
Lots of us have been pressing Macromedia to bring these products to Linux. This puts more not less pressure on them to do it.
We're going to do some experimentation right away with Codeweaver and MX 2004. This has been the only thing holding us back at my company from moving completely to Linux. We spend the majority of our day in Macromedia Studio.
Man Holmes
It's clear that you don't understand how an investment bank operates.
If company X floats a million shares at $10 the investment bank agrees to guarantee that amount. Supppose they only sell a half million shares at $10? The investment bank now owns the other half million and it may take them a long time (if ever) to recoup their investment.
Not everyone is a Google. But the profits on a Google IPO go a long way to spreading the risk on a lot of other no name companies.
If you take away the Google's of the world you end up reducing the investment banks risk taking incentives. So the end result is that far fewer companies are able go raise money via the IPO route.
So they end up having to sell out to a Microsoft at a far less rich multiple to grow their company/product. The customer loses the choice and diversity of product selection because it becomes so difficult for small companies to go public. The enterpreneur loses the incentive to take the swings for the home run style companies.
I can't or won't defend the obscene profits the investment banks made a few years back. But there are far better ways to introduce a little more ocmpetition into the process than what Google is supposedly doing.
Man Holmes
You take 11 PPC handhelds @ $800 each for a total of $8800 and build a beowulf cluster. Yet it's still runs slower than single $1500 laptop.
Only real world application I see is the defense department. Same people who are buying $800 hammers and $1200 toilet seats.
Man Holmes
Jacksonyee said
"If Zope, ColdFusion, or J2EE had more availability or less cost, then I would try those as well"
First, ColdFusion is a free download that reverts to a single IP (developer version) in 30 days. Most people are on shared hosts and there isn't much difference between a CF hosted site and a PHP one.
Looking to write object oriented CF MX code try the free Mach-II (in beta) here.
If you want totally free then use NewAtlanta's BlueDragon server here . Granted it's a generation behind CF MX but I know a fellow who put together a Linux + MySQL + BlueDragon site on an AMD box for under $500 with the only cost being the hardware.
The dirty little secret about PHP as compared to CF, JSP or ASP is that it's not scalable. IMHO sometimes by paying a little you get a lot.
Man Holmes
So spam is protected by free speech? Send me your phone number and I will send you 700 junk faxes a day.
That's how many SPAM messages I receive in an average day. That's not free speech it's pollution.
Course there's a law against sending junk faxes and they've pretty much disappeared.
If our legislators used email and had to deal with 700 SPAM messages a day how long do you think before we'd have a law?
Before you make the argument that the spammers would all move off shore consider this: How many junk faxes do you receive?
With internet phone calls nearly as cheap as email it can't cost much more to send junk faxes via the net yet it doesn't happen. Because they're hunted down and prosecuted that's why.
Man Holmes
I've got a Toshiba Satellite 1955 laptop with a 16 inch screen and I adore it.
I've got a small software company and spend four months a year on the road. I've got a back pack case and the 10 lbs is no problem going through airports etc.
It's a great machine for doing presentations. Not too bad for writing code either.
I would carry a 19 inch screen laptop if I could buy it from a major manufacturer.
Man Holmes
I've got a friend running the latest SUSE distro on one and he isn't having any problems. In fact he raves about that laptop.
Man Holmes
You're revealing your ignorance by that comment. Right now with CF MX and flash remoting coldfusion is one of the most exciting platforms for application development on the net. The market for third party applications is growing and there are now two magazines catering strictly to CF. Not to mention that with blue dragon there is now a second source for CFML with their base product being free. If you want to use a better tool go for it - but PHP isn't in the same league as CF MX. Man Holmes
Can't speak to everyone but we support NS, IE and Opera. Even have a few Mac users and we test on that as well.
We don't want to dictate to our small business customers about their choice of browser.
We're probably going to move to Flash MX with our next version. That makes us browser independent and your point moot.
Man Holmes
People have overlooked one major trend and that's the rise of web native ASP's. Our company is one of hundreds out there creating vertical industry specific applications. Things like accounting, supply chain management, crm and sales force automation. Everything is available through a browser. You're not aware of it because the great majority of companies like ours may be well known in their industries but not on any national radar screen. What happens in five years time when companies realize that the only thing they use Windows for is email and MS Office? Suddenly Linux with evolution and Open Office becomes a viable alternative. If the business applications are all accessed through the browser the games over for Windows. People that's the main reason Microsoft bought Great Plains. They want all these vertical providers working on a Microsoft framework. Man Holmes
I'm sorry but you still have your facts wrong. When you spoke of taco's I'm sure you're referring to the Starlink case.
Here's the facts: The FDA had 34 people claim to have an allergic reaction to StarLink. I think the chance to make large amounts of money from a lawsuit factored in here.
The FDA did a thorough investigation and found that 14 people out of the 34 had symptoms consistent with an allergic reaction. Of the seven who agreed to be voluntarily tested NONE of them were found to have an allergic reaction to the Cry9c protein.
I won't defend Aventis, the company responsible for the StarLink fiasco. Or our government that never should have let them have a conditional label. They made farmers sign a statement upon delivery of the seed that the grain would be used for feed purposes only. It's obvious in retrospect that the policy was flawed.
But no one was harmed by StarLink except Aventis shareholders and the taxpayers who shouldered the cost of the cleanup.
IMHO the benefits from biotech seed far outweigh the disadvantages. Each individual country is free to make a decision whether to import biotech seed. Those that make that determination on a scientific basis will always choose biotech.
Man Holmes
Sorry you're spreading more misinformation. Your statement about bt corn having the potential to kill you is absolutely FALSE.
First the Bt isn't expressed in the grain, just in the stalk and leaves.
Second Bt is completely harmless to humans but certain insects can't tolerate it. Bt is so safe to humans that it has been used for years as a natural insecticide on ORGANIC production.
U.S. farmers plant hybrid varieties of corn which are not capable of reproduction the following year. Every spring the farmer must purchase new corn seed to plant.
The hybrid corn itself is grown under very stringent rules that specify buffer areas to prevent a neighbors crop from pollinating the seed crop. This has been done for years to maintain the seeds purity long before Bt corn was on the market.
Check out the biotech industry organization's website if you want facts and not fiction Here
Man Holmes