As a longtime TurboTax user (partner return, Schedule C, rental income, etc...) I am very disappointed in their new activation rules. Routinely I would complete my return on my home computer and then print out at work as I didn't have a good printer at home. Anyone who has ever printed out a Turbotax return is aware that printing your return spews out dozens of pages (worksheets, warnings, etc.) There are printer settings that minimize how much gets printed, but I would always prefer to not use my slow, expensive home printer. Obviously, I don't want my work computer to become the "computer of record" for my activation. This might be the one thing that makes me revisit their competition. Intuit better take notice of legitimate complaints from longterm customers..."
And not before time. Before this purchase all of New Zealand's computing needs were met using a time shared Commodore 64.
(I'm a Kiwi, I "can" make jokes like this.)
I don't know if I completely agree with Joel's 10 year rule. If you look at what software you use on a daily basis, at work and home, how old is the average app? Much less than 10 years I bet. If we only waited this test before we regarded software as being truly useable then hardly anything would ever rise to the top.
Agent is about the oldest app I have used continually, and that is approaching 7 years. Info Select is another (5 years.) Everything else really falls into the: DOS apps that won't die (XT-Pro, Pkunzip, games, etc.) and Windows Notepad.
If we applied the 10 year maxim religiously then those 16 bit Windows 3 apps would be maturing right about now.
I vote for letting it continue on its way. The interesting conclusion on the Pioneer status page is that "Pioneer 10 and any etched metal message aboard it are likely to survive for much longer periods than any of the works of Man on Earth." This is because in about 5 billion years - give or take a few months, our sun will expand and consume Earth.
One of the most enjoyable parts of reading the DUNE series of books by Frank Herbert is that the Mona Lisa pops up after having been removed from Earth many thousands of years previously.
To ensure Pioneer 10 is not all that's left of us, we need to start crating things up now and storing them off planet.
Every Year RIAA comes out with their year-end summary, but you should always read the accompanying "notes" buried deep at the bottom for the real story. This time we see that the decrease in actual CD shipments is only 6.4% compared to the drop of 10.3% quoted in the story. The latter figure actually represents total shipments of all music (and DVD) media.
As is the case of past years the lionshare of the overall units sold decrease can be explained in part by the huge decline year-over-year of cassette sales. Which last year decreased by 40% over year 2000 sales.
Interestingly enough LP sales actually increased last year! I guess RIAA doesn't want to expand on an area that is growing and isn't Napster related.
It's almost as if RIAA learned the fine art of obfuscation from ENRON.
Er, you're getting a little ahead of things. Tivo can't tell exactly 'which' commercials you watch it only knows that you were viewing a specific channel for a certain amount of time. The only time they know you watched a specific commercial is if you do something out of the ordinary while viewing it, like replaying it, pausing, fast forwarding through it, etc. And this info is only collected in the aggragate with no real personal identifying data.
The Privacy Foundation report disclosed that it was really only time and user event data that was transmitted back to TIVO from the system diagnostic log. So no full text messages saying "Joe Blow has just replayed the Britney Spears bouncing on the trampoline Pepsi ad 13 times in the past 5 minutes."
Obviously the raw data can be converted back into very specific watching detail at TIVO HQ, but only in the aggragate sense.
And if you don't like this, then just opt-out. You remain in full control.
I think developers need to be protected from this type of "one rule works for everyone" IT mindset. Once I worked at this place that standardised everyone on DELL desktops. Although we were free to install and run anything we wanted. The problem was, the only purchase requests for new computers that got authorised were DELL, all others got thrown back. Our job was developing/testing software for mass consumer release, well boss it works great on DELL computers but will crash on anything else.
Ultimately the rules didn't change for us, but we were able to buy some different computers for our specific, targeted needs, after we worked out how to bypass the corporate purchasing process.
These rules were dreamed up by someone in corporate IT who just wasn't interested in far flung parts of the company that did something different -- the companies primary focus was not computers/software, so the policy didn't target developers per-se, but rather wrapped them up in the same package.
You need to stand up and point out these stupid policies that will cause serious problems if they are applied without regard to how different parts of the company operate.
And hey, if they don't listen to your concerns then time to start looking for another company with a better business outlook.
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Um, that would be "how many Moosi" got killed?
As a longtime TurboTax user (partner return, Schedule C, rental income, etc...) I am very disappointed in their new activation rules. Routinely I would complete my return on my home computer and then print out at work as I didn't have a good printer at home. Anyone who has ever printed out a Turbotax return is aware that printing your return spews out dozens of pages (worksheets, warnings, etc.) There are printer settings that minimize how much gets printed, but I would always prefer to not use my slow, expensive home printer. Obviously, I don't want my work computer to become the "computer of record" for my activation. This might be the one thing that makes me revisit their competition. Intuit better take notice of legitimate complaints from longterm customers..."
And not before time. Before this purchase all of New Zealand's computing needs were met using a time shared Commodore 64. (I'm a Kiwi, I "can" make jokes like this.)
Agent is about the oldest app I have used continually, and that is approaching 7 years. Info Select is another (5 years.) Everything else really falls into the: DOS apps that won't die (XT-Pro, Pkunzip, games, etc.) and Windows Notepad.
If we applied the 10 year maxim religiously then those 16 bit Windows 3 apps would be maturing right about now.
One of the most enjoyable parts of reading the DUNE series of books by Frank Herbert is that the Mona Lisa pops up after having been removed from Earth many thousands of years previously.
To ensure Pioneer 10 is not all that's left of us, we need to start crating things up now and storing them off planet.
As is the case of past years the lionshare of the overall units sold decrease can be explained in part by the huge decline year-over-year of cassette sales. Which last year decreased by 40% over year 2000 sales.
Interestingly enough LP sales actually increased last year! I guess RIAA doesn't want to expand on an area that is growing and isn't Napster related.
It's almost as if RIAA learned the fine art of obfuscation from ENRON.
The Privacy Foundation report disclosed that it was really only time and user event data that was transmitted back to TIVO from the system diagnostic log. So no full text messages saying "Joe Blow has just replayed the Britney Spears bouncing on the trampoline Pepsi ad 13 times in the past 5 minutes."
Obviously the raw data can be converted back into very specific watching detail at TIVO HQ, but only in the aggragate sense. And if you don't like this, then just opt-out. You remain in full control.
Ultimately the rules didn't change for us, but we were able to buy some different computers for our specific, targeted needs, after we worked out how to bypass the corporate purchasing process.
These rules were dreamed up by someone in corporate IT who just wasn't interested in far flung parts of the company that did something different -- the companies primary focus was not computers/software, so the policy didn't target developers per-se, but rather wrapped them up in the same package.
You need to stand up and point out these stupid policies that will cause serious problems if they are applied without regard to how different parts of the company operate. And hey, if they don't listen to your concerns then time to start looking for another company with a better business outlook.