They sure can. However you do have to know what to Google for. For example, if you just Google for refutation the results are not that helpful. Trying copyright refutation or DMCA refutation didn't help much either. Also, I doubt most non-lawyers are familiar with the DMCA or copyright law and what is allowed under those laws. I think most people would be scared off.
20" iMac $1,899.00
Samsung 213T-Black / 21-Inch / 1600 x 1200 UXGA / Black / DVI / LCD Monitor $589.99
$1,899.00 - $589.99 --------- $1,309.01
$1,309.01 seems a little over priced to me for the iMac (without the monitor cost) with only 256MB of memory and a weak 64MB video card. I could build a much better x86 system for that price. Heck I could build a better x86 system including a good 17" LCD for less than the iMac minus the iMac 20" LCD cost.
I don't think most/all Mac buyers get a Mac because of cost. It seems silly every time I hear a Mac fan try to compare the cost of a Mac vs. the cost of a comparable x86. The x86 is a commodity while the Mac is not. They will never be equal in price unless Apple gets a much larger portion of the personal computer market.
If you like a Mac just buy one and don't worry about justifying the price tag to anyone, it is your money after all.
Walmart should have gone after the trademark issue.
I thought that Trademark was industry specific. For example, couldn't I create a pillow company and name it Microsoft (becaue my pillows are micro-soft) since I am not in direct competition with MS? I also thought you could use a Trademark as long as you did not derive any income from that Trademark. For example, say I was able to get the domain name www.microsoft.org. As long as I didn't derive income from that site, wouldn't I be OK?
I also thought that people were allowed to use a Trademark in many situations. For example, couldn't I create a publication about McDonald's(tm), and publish it with the tradmarked term McDonald's(tm)?
The question is will it be available for Linux like Acrobat is?
No, that is not the question. Who cares if Acrobat is available for Linux or any other OS. Acrobat is just an application. PDF is an OPEN spec that anyone can implement. I have been able to view PDF files just fine under Linux without using Acrobat. Acrobat 5 _really_ sucks under Linux. However I did just try the new Acrobat 7 for Linux and it finally has a nice GTK+ GUI.
The real question is will this MS crap be patented so that implementors will have to "pay to play"? If so, that will mean no OSS implementations.
I personally don't see this going anywhere. PDF works great and is not encumbered by any proprietary crap so why change to MS's product which we all know will be locked down in patents?
And I can think of lots of reasons to write applications in Excel
Excel is an application. Using Excel Automation with crappy VBScript is _not_ an application. That is scripting using a real application to perform tasks.
no need to purchase a development environment
When did Excel become a development environment? Can I use Excel to compile my C++, Java and C# apps?
Another good one being that probably most of your users will have the "platform" to run your application
Excel is not a "platform". Excel is an application that you can control through Automation. None of the home-users I know have Excel, though most of the corporate users I know do have Excel, so it depends on your target audience.
How about an insanely good function library
Ah, I can tell you have limited development experience with _real_ applications that don't use Excel or Access as a "back-end". If you think that Excel has an "insanely good function library", you are either a poor MS-VB-ONLY-TYPE or you have never used a _real_ function library.
including some amazing graphing tools
I will echo what I wrote above. Excel has OK graphing abilities. Nothing exceptional. There are tons of far better Graph Component Libraries available. Just try Google and you will find tons of them.
He is not allowed to write one because of the license
Linus isn't using BK any more so he is no longer bound by the BK license. Do you think the BK license required Linus to promise to never write a competing product for the rest of his life?
Do you think that any other search engine out there doesn't log the search terms? If you looked at the link you posted, none of the data are tied back to any one account. So what is the big deal about Google, Yahoo or MSN logging search terms if they don't tie it to any one user? I personally don't care what Google does with my activity on Google's sites, as long as Google _never_ starts to sell that to "3rd parties" so monkeys-in-suits can start to spam me and try to sell me stuff. As long as Google keeps my info of all the activity/transaction I do with Google private, I will be a happy-camper ; )
I take it you have never used or purchased a high-end camera?
Nikon will lose zero dollars over this. If you are a professional photographer, you are not going to settle for something less just because Adobe won't support it. It is not like Nikon prevent you from getting to your shots. Nikon has their own tools to view and even convert the data. My brother-in-law is a pro-photographer (which lets me use some really great cameras even though I suck as a photographer ; ) ). He does use Photoshop and once I showed him the Gimp, he uses that as well for things that the Gimp excels at. However, to him the only thing that matter is the shot and not whether Photoshop supports it. He could care less about Adobe supporting his camera.
I think your comment falls more on the line of professional graphic artists, and certainly _not_ a photographer. I would like to know a real, professional photographer that would not use the best camera around just because Adobe doesn't want to license a format from Nikon.
Now, as an Open Source geek, I do think that all of this crap is silly. However, this is the nature of the beast when you live in the land of proprietary crap.
People interested in the D2X/H cameras are going to be shopping around looking for the one that best fits their needs and aren't going to be impulse buying a $5000 camera.
Exactly and you just countered your own post. People in the market for a $5,000 dollar camera are not going to worry about Adobe supporting the cameras format. Nikon supplies the tools to get to the shot which is all that matters to someone willing to spend $5k on a camera.
So, umm... let's see, a tiny 2% fee for First Sale _only_, or a 25% fee? Oh, which one, should I choose? Oh, I am so confused!
Oh, and did you even _read_ your own link? This tax is _only_ for recording devices! The iPod doesn't record so that would not be includeded. In fact, any audio player that doesn't allow recording, would not have to be subjected to a 2% tax. Now contrast this to a freckin 25% tax on legally buying an audio file! There is no comparision.
Based on whose figures? I am sure the figures came from the ??AA's, and we all know they were not skewed to make the numbers look bigger for the ??AA's.
It works out pretty well. Its Socialist in that we're trying to be fair to everyone.
How are is it being fair to everyone? If you buy a blank CD-R and just make a back-up of your personal computer files, why in the world should you have to pay an "artist" tax on that?
I was talking about the Socialist govt. that would even consider this. If you notice, here in the USA we have tons of capitalist overlords, however they have not been able to get the government to just tax us because we are all just "criminals" stealing thier "IP".
Wow! What is wrong with these Socialists? How in the world can they say to themselves, "OK, our citizens are LEGALLY paying for music, however, they are all theives, so we might as well tack on another 25%!".
How much of that traffic is just slashdot and not all of OSTG? I am sure a lot of that 20 Million+ per year is PROFIT. If slashdot goes away, there will be another site just like it in no time that does the same thing with less annoying ads. If Slashdot used text ads, I would not even try to block them. However, when I log into Slashdot as a PAYING customer, the last thing I want to see is some big annoying flashing banner at the top of every page, especially some big annoyiny flashing MS ad. There is not a ton of tech behind slashdot. Heck, they won't even fix their HTML to a modern version; so exactly where is all the revenue going that slashdot generates? I am going to say big salaries. I personally don't feel bad about blocking slashdot ads since I pay them at least $10 every year. I personally don't think a simple "bulletin board" system is worth more than that. Heck, the editors don't even put much effort into it. Slashdot has tons of dups and always have stories that are a few days old. I am not feeling sorry for Slashdot if they are just breaking even. I pay Slashdot every year what I feel is a fair price for a basic geek bulletin board system.
How would/. get shortchanged? If every/. reader that check/. out at least once a day would give just $5 USD (about.001 Euro or 1,000,000 yen ; ) ) each year,/. would not have to worry ads.
If every/. user did what I did and gave./ $10 USD every year,/. would pull in a couple million, not bad for a geek site for nerds IMO.
What is wrong with the adblock home page? It gets the job done. Also, what would be the rush on adblock 0.6? Adblock 0.5.x works great and I have not had one problem with it. As for Filterset.G, what problems do you have with the filters or the person who makes them? I just started using Filterset.G and it blocks a boat load of crap in a small filter set.
What social contract? Since when did "we" have to guarantee poor businesses models based on annoying the crap out of your users with flashing gif and flash ads? Anyone remember the annoying "punch the monkey flash ad"? I block ads on/. and every site I use with adblock and flashblock. If I want to support a site I like, then I will donate a couple bucks to them. For example, if you look at my/. UID I have an asterisks next to it, that means I am a subscriber. I just donated $5 USD to/. and do this about two times a year. To me/. is worth $10 a year. Now imagine if the 100,000+/. readers all donated $5 - $10 a year./. wouldn't need stupid ads.
I also don't feel bad about not watching most commercials on TV or ripping the DVD's I buy and removing al the crap from them. I paid for the product, I don't want to see more ads. I pay about $140 a month to my cable company for Digital cable, Digital Broadband and a Digital phone. The least the cable company can do is get rid of ads for me, though I know that day will never come.
The only ad content I don't make an effort to block are text based ads like Google uses. I have no problem with those types of ads since they do not distract me. The day most/all web ads are text based and don't flash to "get your attention" is the day that I will stop using adblock and flashblock to block web ads. Oh, and adblock has two modes: "remove images" and "hide images". The "remove images" option doesn't download the images and the "hide images" option downloads but doesn't display them. So if you want to surf a site and still help out the web advertiser, just use "hide images", though I use "remove images" so I can get faster page load times.
Microsoft, with Windows, has to support every reasonable configuration of x86 hardware there is - with all the quirky motherboards, audio, video, serial ports, 250 formats of memory and that old 5.25" floppy drive you insist on using. The problem being, MS doesn't make any of that.
That is a load of bull doo-doo. The next time that your CD-ROM drive breaks, try to call up MS and see if they will give you any support. The only answer you will get is to call the maker of the CD-ROM or call the company you bought your computer from. MS supports MS software. MS makes standard drivers for standard devices, such as your hard drive, CD-ROM, etc. When was the last time you had to install a driver for your CD-ROM? If a device you have doesn't follow some industry standard, MS won't have a built-in driver for it and you will be using a driver from the maker of the device.
Apple, being the control freaks they are, dictate that their OS will only work on their proprietary architecture. That way, the hardware is designed for a certain OS (much like many PC hardware is) and, unlike PC OSs, Apple can optimize its OS for its components.
Huh? How is this any different from what MS has to do? MS designs and optimizes their OS for the x86 architecture. 1 main architecture for Mac OS and 1 main architecture for MS Windows. Oh, and just like with Apple's architecture, most hardware out there is designed for one OS, MS Windows. However, unlike with Apple, there are tons more hardware "designed" for x86/MS Windows. So the chances of getting crap hardware with crap drivers is increased.
Apple can optimize its OS for its components. It doesn't have to worry how it works on XYZCorp's motherboard or whether it will support the next version of Podunk Inc's sound card.
And do you think MS goes and test every motherboard out there or every sound card? Nope. That is the job of the hardware maker. MS gives the hardware maker a DDK (device driver kit) and it is up to the hardware maker to make sure that their hardware works with MS Windows and is stable.
True. However, I like to see the site that is trying to set a cookie for the first time. There might be some third party cookies that I allows. For example, I don't mind web-stat type cookies. Those stats can help companies to build better sites if they know who their users are. Blocking third-party cookies would block most web stat type cookies.
I don't believe in letting 51% of the people write laws for the other 49%.
I wish 51% had the ability to write laws; things in the USA would be much more balanced. As it is now, "We The People" (about 300 million) are "represented" by only 535 members of Congress. Those 535 members handle the law and all the corruption/bribing that goes along with it. I don't believe in letting 535 citizens write laws for the other 299,999,465!
This is total media hype. This whole thing is just about some cookies to track web usage. No big deal. I filed my taxes this year on-line with Intuit using Firefox (under Linux, even though TurboTax said I wasn't using a supported OS. I changed the UA to Firefox WinXP and TurboTax didn't complain again). Under my Firefox preferences, I set my cookie options to "ask me every time". This way, the first time a site/servername tries to set a cookie, Firefox prompts me and I can tell Firefox to "always accept" or "never accept". When I did my taxes with Intuit, I noticed non-turbo tax cookies trying to be set. I just told Firefoxt to "always deny" those cookies and to "always allow" the cookies from turbotax. I had no problems doing my taxes after that with TurboTax online.
Just use Firefox for all of your web browsing and most of your privacy issues will go away. In FF, just go into your preferences/options under security -> cookies and set that to "ask me everytime" and your good to go.
It did work out well for IBM. More importantly, it worked out well for the whole PC market. Look at all the companies that built up around the PC. Look at the billions that the PC/IT market generates every year world wide. IBM is not hurting for cash. They make a killing on services around the PC market.
Imagine if IBM never opened up the PC. There would be tons of incompatible computers systems out there and everything would be a mess. IBM created a monster PC-Pie that everyone can enjoy. To see what would have happened to IBM if they kept the PC closed, just look at Apple. Apple has never gained more than 5% of the personal computer market because they don't allow clones and won't open up their proprietary arch.
Slashdot Mirror
Samsung 213T-Black / 21-Inch / 1600 x 1200 UXGA / Black / DVI / LCD Monitor $589.99
$1,309.01 seems a little over priced to me for the iMac (without the monitor cost) with only 256MB of memory and a weak 64MB video card. I could build a much better x86 system for that price. Heck I could build a better x86 system including a good 17" LCD for less than the iMac minus the iMac 20" LCD cost.
I don't think most/all Mac buyers get a Mac because of cost. It seems silly every time I hear a Mac fan try to compare the cost of a Mac vs. the cost of a comparable x86. The x86 is a commodity while the Mac is not. They will never be equal in price unless Apple gets a much larger portion of the personal computer market.
If you like a Mac just buy one and don't worry about justifying the price tag to anyone, it is your money after all.
I also thought that people were allowed to use a Trademark in many situations. For example, couldn't I create a publication about McDonald's(tm), and publish it with the tradmarked term McDonald's(tm)?
The real question is will this MS crap be patented so that implementors will have to "pay to play"? If so, that will mean no OSS implementations.
I personally don't see this going anywhere. PDF works great and is not encumbered by any proprietary crap so why change to MS's product which we all know will be locked down in patents?
Nikon will lose zero dollars over this. If you are a professional photographer, you are not going to settle for something less just because Adobe won't support it. It is not like Nikon prevent you from getting to your shots. Nikon has their own tools to view and even convert the data. My brother-in-law is a pro-photographer (which lets me use some really great cameras even though I suck as a photographer ; ) ). He does use Photoshop and once I showed him the Gimp, he uses that as well for things that the Gimp excels at. However, to him the only thing that matter is the shot and not whether Photoshop supports it. He could care less about Adobe supporting his camera.
I think your comment falls more on the line of professional graphic artists, and certainly _not_ a photographer. I would like to know a real, professional photographer that would not use the best camera around just because Adobe doesn't want to license a format from Nikon.
Now, as an Open Source geek, I do think that all of this crap is silly. However, this is the nature of the beast when you live in the land of proprietary crap.
Exactly and you just countered your own post. People in the market for a $5,000 dollar camera are not going to worry about Adobe supporting the cameras format. Nikon supplies the tools to get to the shot which is all that matters to someone willing to spend $5k on a camera.Oh, and did you even _read_ your own link? This tax is _only_ for recording devices! The iPod doesn't record so that would not be includeded. In fact, any audio player that doesn't allow recording, would not have to be subjected to a 2% tax. Now contrast this to a freckin 25% tax on legally buying an audio file! There is no comparision.
Thanks, I was having a nice cold beer when I read this and some shot from the nose! ; )
However, thanks for the info on SOCAN!
I was talking about the Socialist govt. that would even consider this. If you notice, here in the USA we have tons of capitalist overlords, however they have not been able to get the government to just tax us because we are all just "criminals" stealing thier "IP".
Wow! What is wrong with these Socialists? How in the world can they say to themselves, "OK, our citizens are LEGALLY paying for music, however, they are all theives, so we might as well tack on another 25%!".
How much of that traffic is just slashdot and not all of OSTG? I am sure a lot of that 20 Million+ per year is PROFIT. If slashdot goes away, there will be another site just like it in no time that does the same thing with less annoying ads. If Slashdot used text ads, I would not even try to block them. However, when I log into Slashdot as a PAYING customer, the last thing I want to see is some big annoying flashing banner at the top of every page, especially some big annoyiny flashing MS ad. There is not a ton of tech behind slashdot. Heck, they won't even fix their HTML to a modern version; so exactly where is all the revenue going that slashdot generates? I am going to say big salaries. I personally don't feel bad about blocking slashdot ads since I pay them at least $10 every year. I personally don't think a simple "bulletin board" system is worth more than that. Heck, the editors don't even put much effort into it. Slashdot has tons of dups and always have stories that are a few days old. I am not feeling sorry for Slashdot if they are just breaking even. I pay Slashdot every year what I feel is a fair price for a basic geek bulletin board system.
If every /. user did what I did and gave ./ $10 USD every year, /. would pull in a couple million, not bad for a geek site for nerds IMO.
What is wrong with the adblock home page? It gets the job done. Also, what would be the rush on adblock 0.6? Adblock 0.5.x works great and I have not had one problem with it. As for Filterset.G, what problems do you have with the filters or the person who makes them? I just started using Filterset.G and it blocks a boat load of crap in a small filter set.
I also don't feel bad about not watching most commercials on TV or ripping the DVD's I buy and removing al the crap from them. I paid for the product, I don't want to see more ads. I pay about $140 a month to my cable company for Digital cable, Digital Broadband and a Digital phone. The least the cable company can do is get rid of ads for me, though I know that day will never come.
The only ad content I don't make an effort to block are text based ads like Google uses. I have no problem with those types of ads since they do not distract me. The day most/all web ads are text based and don't flash to "get your attention" is the day that I will stop using adblock and flashblock to block web ads. Oh, and adblock has two modes: "remove images" and "hide images". The "remove images" option doesn't download the images and the "hide images" option downloads but doesn't display them. So if you want to surf a site and still help out the web advertiser, just use "hide images", though I use "remove images" so I can get faster page load times.
True. However, I like to see the site that is trying to set a cookie for the first time. There might be some third party cookies that I allows. For example, I don't mind web-stat type cookies. Those stats can help companies to build better sites if they know who their users are. Blocking third-party cookies would block most web stat type cookies.
Just use Firefox for all of your web browsing and most of your privacy issues will go away. In FF, just go into your preferences/options under security -> cookies and set that to "ask me everytime" and your good to go.
Imagine if IBM never opened up the PC. There would be tons of incompatible computers systems out there and everything would be a mess. IBM created a monster PC-Pie that everyone can enjoy. To see what would have happened to IBM if they kept the PC closed, just look at Apple. Apple has never gained more than 5% of the personal computer market because they don't allow clones and won't open up their proprietary arch.