So you get Sony, Universal, AOL, as "companies" giving their bribes. Then you can have all the big execs giving bribes at the expenisve "dinner" parties.
Have you ever looked at www.opensecrets.org? If congress critters and senate idiots could "only" get $2,000, how do you have all these corrupted bumbs getting millions every year like Dennis Hastert and Nancy Pelosi. Go take a look at the Politicians page to see just how many millions in bribes they are getting. Oh, and then go look at the Industry page to see who is giving. Notice how the TV/Movies/Music industry gave $31,931,262 in 2004 with 69% of that going to the Dems.
Do you really think there is any democracy left in our political process with hundreds of millions in bribes going around to our "politicians"? I know I don't.
Ah, how great thou art my dear Socialism! Your beauty is beyond words! Your truth is know to all. The government knows best! The "commoner" could never choose for themselves. Even though capitalism has show to be the best system overall for an economy, you dear Socialism, say "no, we won't have that!". Oh dear Socialism, you will stop this madness and allow your dear citizens to live under your rule! To live how you think best! Who, beyond you dear Socialism knows better? Thou great Socialism, take my money, tax me heavily, spend my money how you think best for I know not what I do. Regulate our businesses for they will all harm us. Whatever would I do without you my dear Socialism?
Oh, wait I said God! Damn me to a very hot place my dear Socialism! I should have said Ala Bless, or Buda Bless or [no know god] bless.
Now we want to continue and to add more professional features, but alas this requires more funding.
So try to act professional maybe? Calling your program phpMyTicket is pretty lame. Go to some big theater exec and tell them that name. You will be out the door in a second. What is with the "php" in the name? Do you really think _anyone_ that would actually _pay_ you for the software cares if it is based on PHP?
The program is in advanced beta stage and was already used in production environment by us and by other people.
Umm, you using it in your parents basement on your PIII doesn't count as a "production" environment, unless of course you own your own theater(s). Who are the "other people"? Mom, Dad and your auntie? Seriously, if you want to impress a company with some cash, you need to either be up front and tell them that "they will be the first 'large scale installation'", or you need to put out references that can be validated and not just "us and other people".
Paypal and some other gateways are supported
What other gateways? How many real theaters will be using Paypal? Cash or a major credit card please.
The program is rather complex and big: we support online ticket shop, box office with thermal printer and control at doors with barcode scanner.
There is nothing complex about an "online ticket shop". The same goes for the other items you mentioned. All of those functions can be implemented in a day or so or more likely for a company buying software, as a ready to go package. Maybe instead of trivial "geek" features, try to implement PHB features. How about your "Star Ticket Box System" implements all the tax rates of every zip code in the USA. Wow! Hey some PHB for one of the major theater companies may get all wet over that! Most companies that _can_ pay for custom software do not have simple needs like "you can order a ticket!". They want and expandable, modular system that can grow with their needs (even if your software currently cannot grow with their needs, tell them it can and then make sure you deliver).
We tried support, installation and customization, and also a commercial license, but there are just not enough requests.
Gee, I wonder why?
Some of my post may have sounded harsh, however I wrote it to help you. I am a senior programmer for a fortune 500, multi-billion dollar company. I have pulled more hair out then you can imagine on the type of software that our PHB's have purchased. It _all_ comes down to PRESENTATION. Some of the "packages" that our PHB's have purchased have been total crap. One of our PHB's spent over $10,000 on a few little Flash demo's (less than 60 seconds each) about how to do basic computer tasks like using a mouse, keyboard, etc! Any graphics dude with about 1-2 months of Flash could have done it. However, the company that sold this "solution" has some business-style and didn't really sell a product, instead they learned what this PHB wanted and made him think he got it!
Learn from this. Make your product as modular as possible. Drop the stupid geek name. What the hell is "phpMyTicket"? Come up with a name that will make some PHB think they are getting a total "ticketing solution". Even if your product is not there yet, make the PHB think it is. Ask the PHB what he is looking for and assure him that your product will deliver (even if it currently does not). This way you get a software sale as well as a consulting sale to "customize" the software for this business.
What you say is true. However, no contract can take away your inalienable rights. Go ahead and try to sell your 2nd amendment right and see how far you get. You cannot give it away.
NDA's are another beast. An NDA is not giving away your inalienable rights. You are agreeing to not talking about something for a certain period of time. If an NDA said you shall never talk about something again, that NDA would die very quickly in a court of law.
As far as the MS no comparison/benchmark crap goes, just don't agree to it. Have a friend install the software and then you come along and do the test. Problem solved.
I personally have never agreed to an MS license. When I installed MS Win XP Pro Corp edition (which I get through my MSDN subscription) on my personal computer, I had my wife click on the "I Agree" button. So MS has no legal claims against me since I never agreed to their crap.
The US Constitution only affects dealings between the government and private citizens, it has nothing to do with dealings between two private citizens.
Huh? I tell you what. Try to sell away your 1st amendment right and see if a judge will allow that. I will sell you my 1st and 2nd amendment right for only $1,000,000. But guess, what. Our Constitutional rights are inalienable rights. You cannot sell them or trade them.
You are wrong. You are very, very, very wrong. The US Constitution does not only deal with "dealings between the government and private citizens". If you really think that is the case, then give me $1,000 for my 1st Amendment rights. Then I will sue you and keep your $1,000 and get my 1st Amendment Rights back.
While a lot of mods modded you up Funny, this is exactly what will happen. MS will just announce the exploits they want. Those exploits will be the ones they have a quick-fix for. MS is all about marketing. MS wants to be able to say, "See, we fixed XXX number of bugs/holes this past year and we fixed each one in 24 hours of "notification"" or less.
MS will just overlook any 'exploit" they cant fix in a timely fashion and say that those exploits/bugs were never reported to them "correctly".
Give me a call when MS becomes a _real_ company and just owns up to the fact that there will always be bugs in code. As a Senior Programmer for a fortune 500, I can back up that statement. Bugs/exploits happen and there is nothing anyone including MS can do about it. The best/only thing MS should do is just have a mailing list that notifies any subscriber about any reported possible bug/exploit. These notifications shouldn't have to go through a bunch of bean-counter.
What "illegal" things can a Grey Hat do that is not unethical? From what I have read, a Grey Hat is neutral, and doesn't care about corporate profits. So generally, a Grey Hat will not withhold a vulnerability just so some corp can spin it how they want.
What exactly can a Grey Hat do that is illegal? Is disclosing a vulnerability without getting the consent of some big corp "illegal"?
Again, this isn't MS "charity" that the MS marketing machine will try to make people believe. MS will get/have tons of patents on this "tech". Then "good" MS comes along and buys out the company. Oh great, less competition for the monopoly.
Again, what's wrong with it?
Can you spell competition? MS doesn't want it and will do what they can to keep it away. That means poorer product for consumers and higher prices for consumers and more lock-in for consumers.
Nah, there is nothing wrong with that. After all, it is just MS "giving away" R&D that they couldn't do anything with and hoping that some other company can. This way MS gets new tech and stomps out any possible competition. Again, "nothing wrong with that".
Well if you took the time to search you'd see that Apple acknowledges Linux as an option on their hardware.
Well if you read your own link, you would have read that that link is only abpit X Server. And that was probably only because of that big Navy deal where the U.S. Navy bough all those X Server and put Linux on them. Where is the same link with
Yeah sure, in the ideal world you bought the hardware and don't need permission, however seeing how Apple has enough control over their hardware to block any other operating system (in fact the switch to Open Firmware has made this easier) yet does not shows that they care less about what software you run and more that you buy their hardware.
What part of Open Firmware don't you understand. How would Apple "block any other operating system" With Open Firmware? Apple cannot block other OSes, with an OPEN firmware, others can undo what Apple is trying to do and get other OSes to boot just fine. Heck, look at all the devices that Linux Hackers have gotten Linux to run on. Apple would have a very hard time (if not impossible time) trying to stop Linux developers from getting Linux PPC to run on Apple hardware.
You can't say the same about their software which by using you agree to the terms to only use it on Apple hardware.
Correct. For some reason, Apple wants to try to control their end-users and how their end-uses run the software they buy. However, a very simple work-around is to just not agree to the Apple EULA. Just have your wife, friend, child or co-worker click the "Agree/OK" button for you about the EULA.
Apple's primary business is hardware and their software exists to sell their hardware.
I agree with you 100% here. The only reason for Mac OS X is for Apple to sell their hardware. Of course Apple is a hardware company. That is where Apple makes all of their cash. Apple doesn't make huge profit margins from selling Mac OS X or.mac.
Well M$ did spend good money on research (billions of dollars) and lending technology so that they can get some of that back does not seem so bad.
No, there is nothing wrong with a company wanting to get a return on their invetstment, all companies want that.
In the end the user is the beneficiary
Well, I don't agree with you there. I don't see how a user benefits from a monopoly owning all of the tech. Did you read any of the legal docs around this MS R&D "give away"? MS is not just giving it away to the community to use how they want. MS will offer their R&D with a big-ole-legal-document (in MS Word 2003 format only) that keeps the MS "hooks" in the tech. MS isn't just going to give away money/tech with no strings attached.
The number one source (and, these days, usually the only source) of spyware is user action
Yes, if MS could only find a way to stop all of their users from the bad action of clicking start -> (all) programs -> Internet Explorer, the MS Spyware problem would be solved!
(Insert MS fanboy response about how your WinXP SP 2 system has _never_ had spyware and is now "rock" solid and you only reboot about every 1-2 weeks!)
(But leave out how Joe User still gets tons of spyware/viruses with WinXP SP2)
Why do you think they'll allow other OSes to run on mac hardware
Huh? What other OSes does Apple "allow" to run on their hardware? Last I checked, Apple doesn't allow any other OS on their hardware. Were you talking about Linux? Linux running on PPC has nothing to do with Apple "allowing" it. You bought the hardware, you don't need to get a permission form from Apple to run Linux on PPC.
Imagine that there is a technology so crappy that even Microsoft have to admit to themselves that it is sheer, utter, unusable crap
There were/are many. One of them was called Win9x. While Win9x were the only offerings from MS, MS would say that Win9x was "state of the art tech". Once Win2k came out, I saw some interview with Billy G where he finally said how bad Win9x was. It struck me as funny how MS changed their tune once they had a better product, and put down their previous product(s). However, until MS had that better product, the MS marketing machine tried to convince the world there was nothing better than Win9x.
It is stille the same old story with MS now. There is nothing better than XP (until Longhorn comes out). There is nothing better than.Net (until the next iteration of the MS-dev-flavor-of-the-year comes out). There is nothing better than MS SQL Server 2000 (until the next flavor of SQL Server comes out). Etc, etc, etc.
mind you that means it's not production ready or polished
It could mean it is not beta or even alpha code. Heck it could just be a for MS Word docs on something.
I don't understand how this could possibly be construed as a bad thing
Humm, did you spend more than 1 second thinking about it? Ask yourself WHY would MS give away their research to startups? Do you really think it is because MS wants more competition? NO. MS wants these startup to use MS-only tech and be locked in. Do you think MS is just giving this stuff away to startups with no strings attached? NO. MS will have their hooks in the deal one way or another. So some dumb startup takes a chance and gets in on this "deal", they are now using MS "property". You don't think MS will get some cut of any product this startup makes?
This isn't MS just giving away tech that they are not interested in. This is MS wanting some startup to make something out of the tech that MS could not. Then MS will either sue the startup out of business or buy them out. So basically MS gets someone else to develop the product and they get to monopolize it.
I don't mind a single reboot to install a graphics driver.
Well, with MS Windows you need at least two reboots. You need to shutdown the system to install the video card (required for all x86 systems). Then you boot (boot #1) into MS Windows with your new video card. Now you install your drivers and are forced to reboot the system to get the drivers to work (boot #2). On my Linux system with my NVidia card, I only had to shutdown to install the card. I was then able to install the official Linux NVidia driver without a reboot and only had to restart X.
Oh, and don't forget about MS trying to force their crappy drivers on you. I have an NVidia card and Windows Update always shows my video driver as needing an update. However, the MS "NVidia" driver has sucky OpenGL support while it has good DirectX support. I wonder why? If you download and use the official NVidia drivers you will get very good OpenGL _and_ DirectX support from your NVidia card. So for Joe User who "does what MS tells them to do", they will get crappy OpenGL support while having good DirectX support.
This is typical MS crap where MS tries lock you in to their tech. I am not looking forward to Longhorn and the further lock-in from MS.
And yet so comparatively few Macs out of the total pool get thrown away, compared to PCs.
Huh? Did you do some large scale study to come up with this? Any real stats to back it up? Or are you just talking out your arse?
Just so you know, hard drives and memory are upgradeable in iMacs.
Yes, I know that. However you should have read my complete sentence. In this case it was the lack of upgradeability of the iMac that has mac a _brand-new-only-about-three-months-old_ iMac not be able to take advantage all the features of Tiger. You would never see something like this happen in the PC world.
It is the (expandable) mac you should have compared his old G3 to but somehow (deliberately?) ignored.
Why would I compare his old G3 to that? My reply to the GP was that his post had nothing to do with what I said. With what I said being: that most of the Apple personal computers are not expandable. You can only get an expandable Mac by going into the high-end offerings of Apple.
But what does your old B/W G3 450mhz box have to do with most of the new line of Macs now? Your old box was upgradeable, the newer Macs are not. So if you buy a Mac Mini, eMac or iMac your only option for upgrading is to buy a new one.
Apple generally designs its products to have a longer lifespan than your average PC
No, Apple designs throw away computers. Apple doesn't want you to be able to upgrade, they want you to have to throw away your investment and give them more money for a new product. I am sure that the Apple fans will come and mod me down, however it is still true. Look at Apple's computer line. ONLY the top of the line most expensive macs are upgradeable. The iMac line is not upgradeable, that is why it is a big deal what type of video card Apple puts in it. The same goes for the eMac line and the new Mac Mini.
Now, imagine that you just bought a brand new iMac a few weeks ago just before Tiger came out. You are all excited about buying and installing the latest version tiger, however the video card that came with your few weeks old iMac will not be able to take advantage of Quartz 2D extreme GUI acceleration in Tiger. Oh, well you can either throw away your iMac, sell it on eBay or live with not being able to take advantage of newer features in Tiger. (This just happened to my brother-in-law who purchased a 17" iMac in January. A little more than 3 months old and it is outdated and can't take advantage of some features of Tiger!)
There is really no reason for Apple to not allow a few basic upgrades in their computer line. Video card, hard drive and memory is all that Apple needs to make upgradeable and then a Mac would be a good purchase IMO. However, as it is with most of the Apple computer line, you will be locked into a video card that will be outdated in 1 - 2 years and you will run into a wall when you find out that your video card cannot take advantage of newer features in Mac OS X. Simply allowing the video card and hard drive to be upgradable would stop your Mac from becoming obsolete to soon, however that would mean less hardware sales for Apple. I will stick to my basic build-it-myself-PC that I can upgrade at my pace and not the pace of Apple.
As a Christian I agree with you. However I was referring to society and not God. We will live with good and evil people in the world. Some people will just always be out to prey and kill/hurt others. As a society, we need to remove those people from the population.
It is not that hard to make your own bullets with gun powder (I served in the USMC and the USMC often made their own bullets). Or do you suggest that gunpowder be made illegal and hinder our Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?
Also, guns have nothing to do with this topic. This topic is about sexual predators, adult men sexually molesting children for example. Usually a gun is not involved in these crimes.
What you propose is silly and would never be acceptable. Would all cops be required to fire RFID traceable bullets? Good luck with that one. Would all of our military be required to fire RFID traceable bullets? Good luck with that one. Sorry, but if our police and military are not required to be traced than We the People should certainly not be required to be traced.
There are some crimes that should not be forgiven, no matter how much time you serve. Taking advantage of a child sexually is one of them IMO. If you use Google and look for the relapse of sexual offenders, you will see that the number of is _very_ high. The majority of sexual offenders get out of jail and go and prey on small children again to sexually molest them.
As a society, we need to not accept this and either put these people in jail for life, put these people to death or track them with technology. Obviously tracking them is the most "human" thing to do. As a father of two children, I have no remorse for sexual predators.
The 20" iMac screen is widescreen at 100dpi, and it is absolutely gorgeous.
OK, here is an Acer AL203WD / 20-Inch WIDE / 16ms / 1680 x 1050 / Silver and Black / DVI LCD Monitor w/ Speakers wide screen monitor for the same price I listed. LCD monitors are not that much money any more. This LCD has: Pixel Pitch:0.258 mm, Contrast Ratio:600:1, Response Time:16 ms, Maximum Resolution:1680 x 1050. What are the specs on the 20" iMac LCD? Even if you add $200 to the LCD price I quoted, that still puts the 20" iMac at $1,100+ for a very wimpy system.
That "weak 64MB video card" is perfectly adequate for most people
For $1,100+ for the base iMac without the monitor, Apple had better deliver a better video card than a 3 year old 64 MB POS. And they should certainly put at least 512MB of memory in the system. Mac OS X is pretty sluggish with only 256MB as all modern OS are IMO.
I'd really like to see the system you can build for so cheap that takes up zero space beyond the display. That's one of the things people are paying for.
Oh, because you have surveyed all these "people" and asked them? A typical mid-tower doesn't take up much space at all. An just about any cheap computer desk you can buy has a compartment to to put the mid-tower in so it is out of the way and not seen.
They're also paying for the ability to run Mac OSX.
Really? It seems only 2%-3% of consumers want to pay a premium to run Mac OS X.
Slashdot Mirror
Have you ever looked at www.opensecrets.org? If congress critters and senate idiots could "only" get $2,000, how do you have all these corrupted bumbs getting millions every year like Dennis Hastert and Nancy Pelosi. Go take a look at the Politicians page to see just how many millions in bribes they are getting. Oh, and then go look at the Industry page to see who is giving. Notice how the TV/Movies/Music industry gave $31,931,262 in 2004 with 69% of that going to the Dems.
Do you really think there is any democracy left in our political process with hundreds of millions in bribes going around to our "politicians"? I know I don't.
Oh, wait I said God! Damn me to a very hot place my dear Socialism! I should have said Ala Bless, or Buda Bless or [no know god] bless.
Some of my post may have sounded harsh, however I wrote it to help you. I am a senior programmer for a fortune 500, multi-billion dollar company. I have pulled more hair out then you can imagine on the type of software that our PHB's have purchased. It _all_ comes down to PRESENTATION. Some of the "packages" that our PHB's have purchased have been total crap. One of our PHB's spent over $10,000 on a few little Flash demo's (less than 60 seconds each) about how to do basic computer tasks like using a mouse, keyboard, etc! Any graphics dude with about 1-2 months of Flash could have done it. However, the company that sold this "solution" has some business-style and didn't really sell a product, instead they learned what this PHB wanted and made him think he got it!
Learn from this. Make your product as modular as possible. Drop the stupid geek name. What the hell is "phpMyTicket"? Come up with a name that will make some PHB think they are getting a total "ticketing solution". Even if your product is not there yet, make the PHB think it is. Ask the PHB what he is looking for and assure him that your product will deliver (even if it currently does not). This way you get a software sale as well as a consulting sale to "customize" the software for this business.
Good luck!
NDA's are another beast. An NDA is not giving away your inalienable rights. You are agreeing to not talking about something for a certain period of time. If an NDA said you shall never talk about something again, that NDA would die very quickly in a court of law.
As far as the MS no comparison/benchmark crap goes, just don't agree to it. Have a friend install the software and then you come along and do the test. Problem solved.
I personally have never agreed to an MS license. When I installed MS Win XP Pro Corp edition (which I get through my MSDN subscription) on my personal computer, I had my wife click on the "I Agree" button. So MS has no legal claims against me since I never agreed to their crap.
You are wrong. You are very, very, very wrong. The US Constitution does not only deal with "dealings between the government and private citizens". If you really think that is the case, then give me $1,000 for my 1st Amendment rights. Then I will sue you and keep your $1,000 and get my 1st Amendment Rights back.
MS will just overlook any 'exploit" they cant fix in a timely fashion and say that those exploits/bugs were never reported to them "correctly".
Give me a call when MS becomes a _real_ company and just owns up to the fact that there will always be bugs in code. As a Senior Programmer for a fortune 500, I can back up that statement. Bugs/exploits happen and there is nothing anyone including MS can do about it. The best/only thing MS should do is just have a mailing list that notifies any subscriber about any reported possible bug/exploit. These notifications shouldn't have to go through a bunch of bean-counter.
What exactly can a Grey Hat do that is illegal? Is disclosing a vulnerability without getting the consent of some big corp "illegal"?
I don't get it.
(Insert MS fanboy response about how your WinXP SP 2 system has _never_ had spyware and is now "rock" solid and you only reboot about every 1-2 weeks!)
(But leave out how Joe User still gets tons of spyware/viruses with WinXP SP2)
It is stille the same old story with MS now. There is nothing better than XP (until Longhorn comes out). There is nothing better than .Net (until the next iteration of the MS-dev-flavor-of-the-year comes out). There is nothing better than MS SQL Server 2000 (until the next flavor of SQL Server comes out). Etc, etc, etc.
This isn't MS just giving away tech that they are not interested in. This is MS wanting some startup to make something out of the tech that MS could not. Then MS will either sue the startup out of business or buy them out. So basically MS gets someone else to develop the product and they get to monopolize it.
Oh, and don't forget about MS trying to force their crappy drivers on you. I have an NVidia card and Windows Update always shows my video driver as needing an update. However, the MS "NVidia" driver has sucky OpenGL support while it has good DirectX support. I wonder why? If you download and use the official NVidia drivers you will get very good OpenGL _and_ DirectX support from your NVidia card. So for Joe User who "does what MS tells them to do", they will get crappy OpenGL support while having good DirectX support.
This is typical MS crap where MS tries lock you in to their tech. I am not looking forward to Longhorn and the further lock-in from MS.
But what does your old B/W G3 450mhz box have to do with most of the new line of Macs now? Your old box was upgradeable, the newer Macs are not. So if you buy a Mac Mini, eMac or iMac your only option for upgrading is to buy a new one.
Now, imagine that you just bought a brand new iMac a few weeks ago just before Tiger came out. You are all excited about buying and installing the latest version tiger, however the video card that came with your few weeks old iMac will not be able to take advantage of Quartz 2D extreme GUI acceleration in Tiger. Oh, well you can either throw away your iMac, sell it on eBay or live with not being able to take advantage of newer features in Tiger. (This just happened to my brother-in-law who purchased a 17" iMac in January. A little more than 3 months old and it is outdated and can't take advantage of some features of Tiger!)
There is really no reason for Apple to not allow a few basic upgrades in their computer line. Video card, hard drive and memory is all that Apple needs to make upgradeable and then a Mac would be a good purchase IMO. However, as it is with most of the Apple computer line, you will be locked into a video card that will be outdated in 1 - 2 years and you will run into a wall when you find out that your video card cannot take advantage of newer features in Mac OS X. Simply allowing the video card and hard drive to be upgradable would stop your Mac from becoming obsolete to soon, however that would mean less hardware sales for Apple. I will stick to my basic build-it-myself-PC that I can upgrade at my pace and not the pace of Apple.
As a Christian I agree with you. However I was referring to society and not God. We will live with good and evil people in the world. Some people will just always be out to prey and kill/hurt others. As a society, we need to remove those people from the population.
Also, guns have nothing to do with this topic. This topic is about sexual predators, adult men sexually molesting children for example. Usually a gun is not involved in these crimes.
What you propose is silly and would never be acceptable. Would all cops be required to fire RFID traceable bullets? Good luck with that one. Would all of our military be required to fire RFID traceable bullets? Good luck with that one. Sorry, but if our police and military are not required to be traced than We the People should certainly not be required to be traced.
As a society, we need to not accept this and either put these people in jail for life, put these people to death or track them with technology. Obviously tracking them is the most "human" thing to do. As a father of two children, I have no remorse for sexual predators.