Actually, I've never seen that problem at a Panera's. I think you get a different crowd there. Not trying to put down the Micky-D's crowd, but while the food is reasonable, it does cost more than a $1 menu item; most who going to Panera's for lunch are professionals who need to get back to work during the "peak periods."
But I just love the companies that put things like WiFi in specifically SO people will hang out (and of course BUY MORE FOOD). Then they get mad when someone comes in and sits for 3 hours, nursing a cup of coffee. What did they THINK was going to happen. How much of that crap do they think someone's going to eat?
Not every restaurant or cafe that puts in WiFi has this issue. Therefore, you have to look at the type of crowd that visits your establishment and if your business is going to benefit from people lingering or not because they're likely to buy more either while there or through more frequent visits. At a "fast" food place, I would say, probably not the right business model.
Let me sound like the big meanie...but bear with me.
WHY are they doing this? Schools that have limited resources do NOT need to be spending money giving ELEMENTARY school children laptops. That's a luxury--especially for that age. They'd be better as spending the monies on books or other supplies.
We're hearing anecdotal stories about teachers who are spending THEIR money to help educate their class because there's not enough in the budget (except for the highly paid administrators, but that's another story). Why then not spend the money on those things?
These computers are going to get dropped, stolen, sold, etc. Even if a corporation wants to donate such, I would suggest that they instead donate the monies to go to books and other more necessary supplies. What next--will we feel every child should have a Kindle?
This country is swamped in debt--this is exactly the kind of spending of taxpayer dollars we DON'T need.
"and you can't run any newer IE than IE6 with that."
Point taken. However, I've only run across ONE company (a software manufacturer) that has browser besides IE loaded (Firefox). But even then, you can't upgrade it or install add-ons without being an admin. Fortunately it DOES mean I can run my version with my preferred add-ons and widgets from my USB drive.
It's not just about having built their intranet around IE6. A lot of (really large) companies I have done contract work for are still using Windows 2000 as their OS and you can't run anything newer than IE6 with that. I think when XP came along, they decided not to upgrade, but just wait until the next version of the OS came out. Then Vista came along....
Well the workarounds to how to do this the "right way" are an interesting exercise, but can I say I'm GLAD the jerk got caught? That criminals are cocky and/or stupid is a GOOD thing!
OTOH, I'm just glad he didn't shoot up the workplace or take out his family as we've seen so much of lately. Cables can be repaired.
This is seriously going to hurt a lot of online retailers. State politicians who are loathe to raise income and property taxes (lest they be called a L I B E R A L !!) are going to take it out on a lot of still-nascent online businesses.
Last I heard, Amazon SUPPORTED this law--I never understood why they would, but they have.
By that reasoning, you should have the right to borrow my car to drive to the store, but that darn "law" is stopping your from exercising the right. The logical flaw is that you do *not* have a right to use somebody else's property, whether it's a car or a book or money.
No, because by taking your car, I would be depriving YOU of the use of your car. This is more akin to me making a copy of your car and then driving away.
I have mixed feelings on this. I certainly understand the laws and don't want to take the food from some poor indivdual author's mouth, most of these cases are not brought by the actual author, but by a conglomerate who is paying the original author pennies compared to what they're making.
There are some softwares that I would have never had the opportunity to learn had I not aquired a copy. Companies rarely buy something to try it out and usally won't train you on the job--they expect you to know it already. So, it wasn't about trying to 'cheat the man' and certainly not about trying to sell and illegally profit off those sales. It was about simple necessity of being able to keep up with technology so I could feed myself. Otherwise, I would be prefectly content to use open source, which would handle probably 99% of what I need to do.
THANK YOU! And this is coming from someone who is politcally conservative. I also appreciate that you see through the lack of objectivity in the media.
I imagine we would disagree on many issues. But I do think we can agree that it only benefits the politicians when we bicker over parties. All this "you bad" "no...you bad!" gets us is letting the goverment take away even more of our rights because we're too busy shouting at each other. Maybe if we quit arguing about D vs. R we can get together and form a government that works for We the People instead of the other way around.
Unfortunately (or fortunately,) many people do not work in the field they majored in. That's reality. Even if you do get to work in the field you studied for, it might not be as great as you thought it was going to be in college.
And I'll add that the one thing you can count on is change. What you majored in may be no longer needed or in a downturn 10 years from now. Adapt or die is a good motto for business. And industries cycle--there are no guaranteed fields, except maybe funeral homes and (sometimes) government.
When you find yourself under- or unemployed, it's AMAZING how interesting the dullest job in your career field becomes!
Oh, believe me, I know what's going on. What's going on is discrimination and it's illegal, but difficult to prove. First of all I'd like to pit older workers as far as sick time and health insurance use compared to a young family man or woman. I would wager the idea that older workers, on average, are sicker or use more insurance is bogus. That may have been the case when insurance only covered major medical, but that makes no sense now that insurance covers everything, including doctor's visits. The young have the children, become injured and often have to take off time for not only themselves, but their children. I have yet to see larger companies as self-insured. Every company I've worked for uses an insurance company. And keep in mind that employees are paying increasing costs.
Older workers are not going to job-jump after 6 months. There's enough of us having to take jobs at Wal-Mart or other lower paying jobs just to GET work. But younger workers will because they have the mistaken belief they'll always be employable.
Contractors are also not included in the "headcount" like employees are. So a manager can make brownie points for hiring a series of contractors instead of increasing their headcount even if there is a need for a full-time employee.
And they may be paying a hefty premium to the agency. But trust me, the worker is getting, on average, the same amount they'd get paid if they were on the job. There are no benefits save a few days holiday pay (usually less than average full-time employee) after working several hundred hours and a week's pay in lieu of vacation day after about 9 months of solid work. If I was making such a windfall, I'd be able to afford my own insurance. And I actually wouldn't MIND working contract if I could have similar benefits.
I suspect that discrimination is more than just actual costs. I would love to see a study in Canada to see if older workers are more employable because the company isn't paying their health insurance. I'll bet they have the same problems because they are due more to stereotypes. It just pisses me off when employers then whine how their young prodigies have unrealistic expectations, can't dress properly and how they have to run over and wipe their nose every five minutes. You (the employer) get what you paid for. You've got inexperienced kids who think they're going to reinvent business just so you can offer them less. When you want someone who can get the job done, give me a call.
"Unfortunately, many bosses are equally out of touch with reality. Some even a bit more. Anyway, you get what you teach. Many are taught that capitalism is all and that anything comes at a price."
I don't see colleges teaching capitalism--far from it. But what schools ARE teaching are how SPECIAL they (the kids) are and that equal outcomes are more important than equal opportunity. It starts with dumbing down competitive sports and giving every person, whether they win or lose, a trophy. It's holding graduation ceremonies every time they pass a grade. It's not wanting to recognize valedictorians because someone's feelings might get hurt. We award the outcome, not the effort. And the parents all go along with this. So is it no wonder when they become "adults" they don't think they HAVE to put in any effort and they should get a bonus whether they earned it or not.
What we should be praising the child for is hard work, and letting them learn to lose gracefully. They need to learn that no one OWES them anything and they need to work hard and do their best.
But I'll go one further regarding the hiring--they get what the PAY for. Why don't you (employers) try hiring some of us older workers out there, looking for work, who not only have the skills, but whom you won't have to remind to not wear flip-flops or tube tops to work? And by "older" I mean over 40! I get really high ratings when I work contract, but I'll be damned if I can get a permanent gig. There's a lot of us who would be HAPPY to work for your company, even at a lessor wage, just to have some benefits and vacation time. We know what we're doing and you wouldn't have to babysit us or make sure we weren't goofing off. We get our projects done professionally and on-time. And contrary to popular belief, we LIKE getting to learn new things or upgrading our skills. And we're not likely to be running off to your competitors in a couple of years.
As you can see this is a personal sore spot with me. I have had supervisors go to bat for me and try to get me employed with their company. Unfortunately they weren't the decision makers and those in charge don't want to have to hire on an IT person if they can get away with a contractor. For those companies who are looking (usually for someone with 1-2 years experience)--well, if I don't get an interview I never get to show them what I can do to help them or their business. (And I do know the tactics of only putting the last 10 years of meaningful employment and not putting down a date of graduation.) But all they have to do is ask for a transcript or force the entry graduation dates on an online form and they can do the math pretty quick. (I've become very tempted to put in a "accidental typo" of 1991 instead of 1981.)
I did have Virgin prior to the service I have now (AT&T Go-Phone) Virgin's coverage is lousy--at least here, they use Sprint towers and, even though Sprint uses other towers besides just theirs, Virgin doesn't. I got good enough coverage near the freeway, but couldn't make calls from home and it often dropped calls whenever I was in a building. I never have that problem with AT&T's coverage. The previous deal I had with Virgin was $.25 cents per minute for the first 10 minutes and 10 cents after that. I was spending approx. $5 a month--probably the same deal you have (this deal is no longer one they offer.) Now that I have better coverage, I do use the phone more (which is one reason my cost has risen). My spouse and mom have the same plan so our calls to each other are free.
To the UK, it's normally 4 cents a minute (free if you have an unlimited plan). But, if you are calling a mobile phone in the UK, it's 34 cents a minute.
In France, it's 4 cents a minute vs. 21 cents a minute. In Germany, it's 4 cents a minute vs. 31 cents a minute.
Here it can depend on cell phones because there's a lot of services that charge a flat rate for X No. of minutes. Both parties can be charged when you call mobile to mobile. Charges can range from free (if the person is on the same network or in a network of friends) or the individual rates. IOW, you're charged depending on your plan, they're charged depending on theirs. In my case I prefer the pay-as-you-go plan. If you don't call all the time it works out pretty economically. On my cell plan, for example, I pay $1 a day on the days I use it and 10 cents a minute to anywhere or 0 if I call another member with the same service. I spend about $150 a YEAR. While fixed minute packages may run cheaper per minute, Being that most run $40/month for the cheaper packages, it's a lot cheaper for me to do the pay-as-you-go and I don't have to worry about running over minute limits.
If you have a land line, it doesn't cost you any more to call a person's cell phone if it's a local number. It does cost the cell phone owner as stated above. However land line companies also compete with cells by offering a flat rate per month cost for both local and long distance, usually around $50/month.
Our biggest cell problem in the US is coverage. It depends on where you are as to which service has the best coverage.
Regarding the texting, it should be obvious: The price is high, not because it taxes the systems more, it's because texting is popular. How is this surprising? When something is popular or needed, the price goes up. When it's not, the opposite is true. This popularity allows the telco's to rake in additional profits and offer package deals with a guaranteed income. Sorry, but a company is not require to responsibly price things according to their cost. If you want texting prices to go down, then texting needs to become less popular or more competition needs to come in that offers cheaper or included texting.
I'm a Linux fan. The main reason why "the year of Linux" never happens is that the press (and analysts) keep comparing Linux to what they know: a Windows desktop.
I agree with your thoughts, especially regarding apps. But more than just this I think another reason "the year of Linux" never quite makes it is: It's FREE and as we saw a few days back some people either equate "free" with either illegal, poorly made or both! I think many still think it looks DOS-like with no GUI interface.
Then there's also the matter of, "Okay I can put this on my home computer, but what happens when I want to take something to work/school and have to use windows?" Real or perceived issues, that's going to be a question if they can transport their files.
Finally, I think there a matter of lack of advertising. Look at the money M$ is putting in to convince people to try Vista (and even then they call it by another name to get them to look at it, which would tell you something!) Mac has the cool Mac vs. PC commercials, although lately they really don't show you why you should buy a (more expensive) Mac over a PC. Mac DOES have a store presence, however, in major computer and electronics store. So people get to see them up close.
Linux is sorely in need of a serious marketing strategy. I think until the average person can sit down and play around on a Linux computer, they're just not going to "get it." It sure would be nice if libraries and other public systems used Linux. They would save our tax dollars, be more secure and give the average person a chance to use it.
There is not a 7 day lag time, at least on Vista. I got a notice of new updates Tuesday, ran it yesterday and immediately after installing those, it popped up with another, new update--the IE patch. I always get a notice the day any patches or updates are released.
I think Windows/IE's biggest problem is that they want to authenticate that the version the user has is legal. That's understandable for an anti-pirating measure, but what it ends up doing is leaving thousands of computers open to vunerabilities that they can then pass on to even legitimate users. And in particular, businesses, who don't use automated updates and where there is a delay in applying patches.
Basically, my point is: Netscape complained to the court that MS had an advantage because they were using their monopoly regarding their OS to get an unfair advantage over Netscape by providing their browser free with the OS. MS responded that you couldn't remove the browser without breaking the OS because they were joined. "The browser IS the OS," I think was the quote. And they proceeded to make sure they were even more tied together by the time the next version of Windows came out (Windows 2000, I think).
And I still think they're joined. (At least in the US, I don't know about the European versions because of the court action there.) If they two, separate programs, you should be able to remove the browser from the OS without either destabilizing or crashing it altogether. And if they are separable, then they should be forced to add a removal option.
Legalise marijuana and tax it at $100 per ounce. Between the new tax revenue and the savings in less police and prison space we'll make $50 billion per year.
Legalize marijuana and tax it at $100 per ounce. Between the new tax revenue and loads of pot smokers, almost no one will CARE about the high taxes in New York.
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I'm wondering when he'll give away something that actually matters.
I suspect it will matter to HIM if we're attacked again and he has to hide in a now disclosed location.
But maybe this is just part of Obama's "open and transparent government."
Actually, I've never seen that problem at a Panera's. I think you get a different crowd there. Not trying to put down the Micky-D's crowd, but while the food is reasonable, it does cost more than a $1 menu item; most who going to Panera's for lunch are professionals who need to get back to work during the "peak periods."
But I just love the companies that put things like WiFi in specifically SO people will hang out (and of course BUY MORE FOOD). Then they get mad when someone comes in and sits for 3 hours, nursing a cup of coffee. What did they THINK was going to happen. How much of that crap do they think someone's going to eat?
Not every restaurant or cafe that puts in WiFi has this issue. Therefore, you have to look at the type of crowd that visits your establishment and if your business is going to benefit from people lingering or not because they're likely to buy more either while there or through more frequent visits. At a "fast" food place, I would say, probably not the right business model.
"I don't think it could be a malignant thing," he said. "It's much more likely that some random thing has put these two viruses together."
[to Mr. Incredible]
Syndrome: Oh, no. Elastigirl? You married Elastigirl? Ho, ho, ho...
[sees the kids]
Syndrome: Oh - and got biz-zay!
FYI, Lifehacker has an article today on how to set up and use WindowsXP mode, includes links to software to check your Intel/AMD CPUs for compatibility.
Let me sound like the big meanie...but bear with me.
WHY are they doing this? Schools that have limited resources do NOT need to be spending money giving ELEMENTARY school children laptops. That's a luxury--especially for that age. They'd be better as spending the monies on books or other supplies.
We're hearing anecdotal stories about teachers who are spending THEIR money to help educate their class because there's not enough in the budget (except for the highly paid administrators, but that's another story). Why then not spend the money on those things?
These computers are going to get dropped, stolen, sold, etc. Even if a corporation wants to donate such, I would suggest that they instead donate the monies to go to books and other more necessary supplies. What next--will we feel every child should have a Kindle?
This country is swamped in debt--this is exactly the kind of spending of taxpayer dollars we DON'T need.
Well, once Obama hired them, they did pay up.
Well, can I not pay my taxes until Obama hires ME?
Did you read the note? It's offering to sell the personal data.
Who's going to want to buy it? I mean, it's a list of drug addicts--their CREDIT scores are going to suck!
Correction:
"and you can't run any newer IE than IE6 with that."
Point taken. However, I've only run across ONE company (a software manufacturer) that has browser besides IE loaded (Firefox). But even then, you can't upgrade it or install add-ons without being an admin. Fortunately it DOES mean I can run my version with my preferred add-ons and widgets from my USB drive.
Don't worry...it will end up being all our fault even if it DID start in Mexico....
Okay I'll play....
Which is different from the Liberal Democrat flu, signs of which are,
* Extreme nausea
* Delirium
* Can't move beyond it
* Can't be stopped at the border
* Can't afford the cure
It's not just about having built their intranet around IE6. A lot of (really large) companies I have done contract work for are still using Windows 2000 as their OS and you can't run anything newer than IE6 with that. I think when XP came along, they decided not to upgrade, but just wait until the next version of the OS came out. Then Vista came along....
And you think the Chinese do?
They [Chinese] certainly don't have problems experimenting on their prisoners either.
Well the workarounds to how to do this the "right way" are an interesting exercise, but can I say I'm GLAD the jerk got caught? That criminals are cocky and/or stupid is a GOOD thing!
OTOH, I'm just glad he didn't shoot up the workplace or take out his family as we've seen so much of lately. Cables can be repaired.
This is seriously going to hurt a lot of online retailers. State politicians who are loathe to raise income and property taxes (lest they be called a L I B E R A L !!) are going to take it out on a lot of still-nascent online businesses.
Last I heard, Amazon SUPPORTED this law--I never understood why they would, but they have.
By that reasoning, you should have the right to borrow my car to drive to the store, but that darn "law" is stopping your from exercising the right. The logical flaw is that you do *not* have a right to use somebody else's property, whether it's a car or a book or money.
No, because by taking your car, I would be depriving YOU of the use of your car. This is more akin to me making a copy of your car and then driving away.
I have mixed feelings on this. I certainly understand the laws and don't want to take the food from some poor indivdual author's mouth, most of these cases are not brought by the actual author, but by a conglomerate who is paying the original author pennies compared to what they're making.
There are some softwares that I would have never had the opportunity to learn had I not aquired a copy. Companies rarely buy something to try it out and usally won't train you on the job--they expect you to know it already. So, it wasn't about trying to 'cheat the man' and certainly not about trying to sell and illegally profit off those sales. It was about simple necessity of being able to keep up with technology so I could feed myself. Otherwise, I would be prefectly content to use open source, which would handle probably 99% of what I need to do.
THANK YOU! And this is coming from someone who is politcally conservative. I also appreciate that you see through the lack of objectivity in the media.
I imagine we would disagree on many issues. But I do think we can agree that it only benefits the politicians when we bicker over parties. All this "you bad" "no...you bad!" gets us is letting the goverment take away even more of our rights because we're too busy shouting at each other. Maybe if we quit arguing about D vs. R we can get together and form a government that works for We the People instead of the other way around.
Unfortunately (or fortunately,) many people do not work in the field they majored in. That's reality. Even if you do get to work in the field you studied for, it might not be as great as you thought it was going to be in college.
And I'll add that the one thing you can count on is change. What you majored in may be no longer needed or in a downturn 10 years from now. Adapt or die is a good motto for business. And industries cycle--there are no guaranteed fields, except maybe funeral homes and (sometimes) government.
When you find yourself under- or unemployed, it's AMAZING how interesting the dullest job in your career field becomes!
Oh, believe me, I know what's going on. What's going on is discrimination and it's illegal, but difficult to prove. First of all I'd like to pit older workers as far as sick time and health insurance use compared to a young family man or woman. I would wager the idea that older workers, on average, are sicker or use more insurance is bogus. That may have been the case when insurance only covered major medical, but that makes no sense now that insurance covers everything, including doctor's visits. The young have the children, become injured and often have to take off time for not only themselves, but their children. I have yet to see larger companies as self-insured. Every company I've worked for uses an insurance company. And keep in mind that employees are paying increasing costs.
Older workers are not going to job-jump after 6 months. There's enough of us having to take jobs at Wal-Mart or other lower paying jobs just to GET work. But younger workers will because they have the mistaken belief they'll always be employable.
Contractors are also not included in the "headcount" like employees are. So a manager can make brownie points for hiring a series of contractors instead of increasing their headcount even if there is a need for a full-time employee.
And they may be paying a hefty premium to the agency. But trust me, the worker is getting, on average, the same amount they'd get paid if they were on the job. There are no benefits save a few days holiday pay (usually less than average full-time employee) after working several hundred hours and a week's pay in lieu of vacation day after about 9 months of solid work. If I was making such a windfall, I'd be able to afford my own insurance. And I actually wouldn't MIND working contract if I could have similar benefits.
I suspect that discrimination is more than just actual costs. I would love to see a study in Canada to see if older workers are more employable because the company isn't paying their health insurance. I'll bet they have the same problems because they are due more to stereotypes. It just pisses me off when employers then whine how their young prodigies have unrealistic expectations, can't dress properly and how they have to run over and wipe their nose every five minutes. You (the employer) get what you paid for. You've got inexperienced kids who think they're going to reinvent business just so you can offer them less. When you want someone who can get the job done, give me a call.
"Unfortunately, many bosses are equally out of touch with reality. Some even a bit more.
Anyway, you get what you teach. Many are taught that capitalism is all and that anything comes at a price."
I don't see colleges teaching capitalism--far from it. But what schools ARE teaching are how SPECIAL they (the kids) are and that equal outcomes are more important than equal opportunity. It starts with dumbing down competitive sports and giving every person, whether they win or lose, a trophy. It's holding graduation ceremonies every time they pass a grade. It's not wanting to recognize valedictorians because someone's feelings might get hurt. We award the outcome, not the effort. And the parents all go along with this. So is it no wonder when they become "adults" they don't think they HAVE to put in any effort and they should get a bonus whether they earned it or not.
What we should be praising the child for is hard work, and letting them learn to lose gracefully. They need to learn that no one OWES them anything and they need to work hard and do their best.
But I'll go one further regarding the hiring--they get what the PAY for. Why don't you (employers) try hiring some of us older workers out there, looking for work, who not only have the skills, but whom you won't have to remind to not wear flip-flops or tube tops to work? And by "older" I mean over 40! I get really high ratings when I work contract, but I'll be damned if I can get a permanent gig. There's a lot of us who would be HAPPY to work for your company, even at a lessor wage, just to have some benefits and vacation time. We know what we're doing and you wouldn't have to babysit us or make sure we weren't goofing off. We get our projects done professionally and on-time. And contrary to popular belief, we LIKE getting to learn new things or upgrading our skills. And we're not likely to be running off to your competitors in a couple of years.
As you can see this is a personal sore spot with me. I have had supervisors go to bat for me and try to get me employed with their company. Unfortunately they weren't the decision makers and those in charge don't want to have to hire on an IT person if they can get away with a contractor. For those companies who are looking (usually for someone with 1-2 years experience)--well, if I don't get an interview I never get to show them what I can do to help them or their business. (And I do know the tactics of only putting the last 10 years of meaningful employment and not putting down a date of graduation.) But all they have to do is ask for a transcript or force the entry graduation dates on an online form and they can do the math pretty quick. (I've become very tempted to put in a "accidental typo" of 1991 instead of 1981.)
I did have Virgin prior to the service I have now (AT&T Go-Phone) Virgin's coverage is lousy--at least here, they use Sprint towers and, even though Sprint uses other towers besides just theirs, Virgin doesn't. I got good enough coverage near the freeway, but couldn't make calls from home and it often dropped calls whenever I was in a building. I never have that problem with AT&T's coverage. The previous deal I had with Virgin was $.25 cents per minute for the first 10 minutes and 10 cents after that. I was spending approx. $5 a month--probably the same deal you have (this deal is no longer one they offer.) Now that I have better coverage, I do use the phone more (which is one reason my cost has risen). My spouse and mom have the same plan so our calls to each other are free.
To the UK, it's normally 4 cents a minute (free if you have an unlimited plan). But, if you are calling a mobile phone in the UK, it's 34 cents a minute.
In France, it's 4 cents a minute vs. 21 cents a minute.
In Germany, it's 4 cents a minute vs. 31 cents a minute.
Here it can depend on cell phones because there's a lot of services that charge a flat rate for X No. of minutes. Both parties can be charged when you call mobile to mobile. Charges can range from free (if the person is on the same network or in a network of friends) or the individual rates. IOW, you're charged depending on your plan, they're charged depending on theirs. In my case I prefer the pay-as-you-go plan. If you don't call all the time it works out pretty economically. On my cell plan, for example, I pay $1 a day on the days I use it and 10 cents a minute to anywhere or 0 if I call another member with the same service. I spend about $150 a YEAR. While fixed minute packages may run cheaper per minute, Being that most run $40/month for the cheaper packages, it's a lot cheaper for me to do the pay-as-you-go and I don't have to worry about running over minute limits.
If you have a land line, it doesn't cost you any more to call a person's cell phone if it's a local number. It does cost the cell phone owner as stated above. However land line companies also compete with cells by offering a flat rate per month cost for both local and long distance, usually around $50/month.
Our biggest cell problem in the US is coverage. It depends on where you are as to which service has the best coverage.
Regarding the texting, it should be obvious: The price is high, not because it taxes the systems more, it's because texting is popular. How is this surprising? When something is popular or needed, the price goes up. When it's not, the opposite is true. This popularity allows the telco's to rake in additional profits and offer package deals with a guaranteed income. Sorry, but a company is not require to responsibly price things according to their cost. If you want texting prices to go down, then texting needs to become less popular or more competition needs to come in that offers cheaper or included texting.
I'm a Linux fan. The main reason why "the year of Linux" never happens is that the press (and analysts) keep comparing Linux to what they know: a Windows desktop.
I agree with your thoughts, especially regarding apps. But more than just this I think another reason "the year of Linux" never quite makes it is: It's FREE and as we saw a few days back some people either equate "free" with either illegal, poorly made or both! I think many still think it looks DOS-like with no GUI interface.
Then there's also the matter of, "Okay I can put this on my home computer, but what happens when I want to take something to work/school and have to use windows?" Real or perceived issues, that's going to be a question if they can transport their files.
Finally, I think there a matter of lack of advertising. Look at the money M$ is putting in to convince people to try Vista (and even then they call it by another name to get them to look at it, which would tell you something!) Mac has the cool Mac vs. PC commercials, although lately they really don't show you why you should buy a (more expensive) Mac over a PC. Mac DOES have a store presence, however, in major computer and electronics store. So people get to see them up close.
Linux is sorely in need of a serious marketing strategy. I think until the average person can sit down and play around on a Linux computer, they're just not going to "get it." It sure would be nice if libraries and other public systems used Linux. They would save our tax dollars, be more secure and give the average person a chance to use it.
There is not a 7 day lag time, at least on Vista. I got a notice of new updates Tuesday, ran it yesterday and immediately after installing those, it popped up with another, new update--the IE patch. I always get a notice the day any patches or updates are released.
I think Windows/IE's biggest problem is that they want to authenticate that the version the user has is legal. That's understandable for an anti-pirating measure, but what it ends up doing is leaving thousands of computers open to vunerabilities that they can then pass on to even legitimate users. And in particular, businesses, who don't use automated updates and where there is a delay in applying patches.
Basically, my point is: Netscape complained to the court that MS had an advantage because they were using their monopoly regarding their OS to get an unfair advantage over Netscape by providing their browser free with the OS. MS responded that you couldn't remove the browser without breaking the OS because they were joined. "The browser IS the OS," I think was the quote. And they proceeded to make sure they were even more tied together by the time the next version of Windows came out (Windows 2000, I think).
And I still think they're joined. (At least in the US, I don't know about the European versions because of the court action there.) If they two, separate programs, you should be able to remove the browser from the OS without either destabilizing or crashing it altogether. And if they are separable, then they should be forced to add a removal option.
Legalise marijuana and tax it at $100 per ounce. Between the new tax revenue and the savings in less police and prison space we'll make $50 billion per year.
Legalize marijuana and tax it at $100 per ounce. Between the new tax revenue and loads of pot smokers, almost no one will CARE about the high taxes in New York.
There, FIXED that for you.