Out or not, there's a magic number around the $299 mark where you'll lose a lot of the casual consumers.
Yes, some people will buy it at almost any price. A few more people will buy it as long as they can rationalize the pricetag to themselves. Many simply won't buy it if it's over some magical number in their head, and that number for phones seems to be between $300 and $400.
Don't believe me? Look at the number of Sidekick II v. Sidekick IIIs in public - despite launching (almost?) a year ago, there are still far more Sidekick IIs around than Sidekick IIIs, because the Sidekick IIIs were just a bit too expensive.
Making the largest corporate users happy is the same thing as making the end users happy. The corporate desktop represents a large portion of their end user install base, and it's definitely a larger portion of the end user paying install base.
Like it or not, corporate desktops are Microsoft's bread and butter.
In the cancer realm, there is an increasing number of drugs like Avastin that have shown abilities to attack a wide variety of cancers such colon cancer and lung cancer. Indeed, products like Avastin seem to create complications (specifically, increased risk of complications of high blood pressure in the brain and a neurologic disorder), but the primary fix seems to be more important than the secondary complications. That is, while the 'permanent' fix is flawed and creates later problems, often the later problems are more easily addressed than the primary problem, even if it's not perfect.
Google claims most of their stuff is beta, so that's hardly a defense.
The fact of the matter is that all hard drives fail at some point, and most RAID controllers eventually fail, too. Relying on a service to do backups for you is safer than no backups at all, but it's not sufficient if you have truly important data.
The "innate problem in web apps" is probably closer to reality than you want to admit - companies like Google, Yahoo, and MSN are fighting a battle in scalability. Having multiple redundant backup systems (array + offline backup) makes scaling much, much more expensive than designing a single fault-tolerant, semi-redundant primary system (large array of whatever kind).
If you think all of the massive online media sites (think Flickr, for example) have backups of all of your photos, you're probably mistaken. They certainly have basic protection against single disk failure, but that's not always going to save the data in the event of a catastrophe.
I personally dislike the Acer brand - goes back to 1997 when my Acer desktop was the worst machine I ever purchased. I'm sure they've improved since then, but there are other "better" brands out there, and IBM's Thinkpad line has an excellent reputation.
In any event, arguing silly semantics about the 'top of the line' doesn't change the moral of the story - Microsoft wants good press and is going out of its way to get it. That's not surprising, they just have a bigger PR budget than most.
Is it wrong? No. Is it uncommon? Giving out demos is certainly expected, but this sort of 'gift' is a bit unusual. Should people be aware that it's happening? Probably, if you want an unbiased opinion.
It is libel. It was clearly wrong. Trying to make excuses for it is like trying to justify suicide bombers - it's clearly wrong, and it doesn't make up for anything that may have happened for them in the past.
The network makes it difficult, but nobody's ever given up because something was difficult. There are always options, and yes - there can be significant barriers to entry, but it's never "impossible".
When the Amazon system inserted random hieroglyphics into the description of our comic book it took many e-mails to reach a human - or at least sapient - being. When we did we were told reassuringly that Amazon's system for updating web pages was broken and that there was no prospect of fixing it. For this, we give them 55 cents out of every dollar and an annual fee
Fund/find an alternative, and you will see Amazon fix itself. Until that happens, bend over and grab your ankles.
Eventually their huge market share will begin being split by competiing sites that slightly beat their technology, and then the value starts to fall...
Not MS, and don't reinvent unless it's to take business from MS? Is this an anti-MS rant or real IT advice?
Spending less and transferring entire enterprises to new platforms are mutually exclusive. Face it: retraining 10,000 employees on alternative operating systems won't be nearly as cost effective as maintaining the existing Windows installs, so the desktops will remain Windows for the foreseeable future. You keep AD, but you can roll in Exchange and SQL Server alternatives, perhaps Office alternatives for specific departments where interacting with the outside world isn't necessarily a requirement.
Remember: it's a company, not a religion. Being anti-MS may be popular on slashdot, but it's not always the smartest (or cheapest) in real business.
The "shamefully exposed ports" sounds a lot like portsentry, an IDS-type app that listens on ports even if no service is running.
As for cheap hosting plans - we host clients anywhere from $12.75/month to 100 times that - some sites need a lot of capacity, most don't. But, virtually across the board, many people have no idea how much bandwidth they really need until it's too late.
Any reasonable hosting company should have noticed the domain name and made arrangements for such a high profile site. Of course, this assumes that the engineers at the hosting provider were neutral...
ISPs have very strict AUPs, and will probably kill the cheap accounts rather than risk a lawsuit. Realistically speaking, if I were running an ISP, I'd do the same thing.
It's worth noting that the users may not be intentionally violating the (civil) law, it may just be open proxies or misconfigured P2P clients, in which case the accounts can be re-established later (after reasonable assurance that the problem's been 'fixed').
MySpace allows FAR TOO MUCH variety in the types of content it allows, and is FAR TOO LAX in the way it allows most user actions to be performed. First, allowing any user to post virtually any type of file is a recipe for disaster. It works great for other sites that want to capitalize (for example, sites that want to post videos on myspace, but not so great when that content is something you don't want to see. They don't filter content well (regular expressions to remove things like the '#' character, for example, will stop very few attacks), and the number of scripted bulletins / posts / comments (situations where you visit a page, and that page uses javascript to publish a link back to itself to all of your friends) should be proof positive that unauthenticated POSTing works great for the first million users, but breaks when you get popular. Slashdot learned all of these lessons years ago - once you get popular, the trolls will find you, and then your users will regret it.
I work for an advertising agency. They live and die on "easy" communication with every client possible, and most would be surprised just what kind of crap marketting firms will send in professional emails.
Strip an image? They just lost contact info for a potential client. Kill a zipfile because it's password protected? Oops, that was a 7 figure proposal. It just gets worse and worse.
Start by having 2 NAS systems. One for real users, one for idiots who must be attached to the network. Then, separate them so there's no communication between them. Create multiple login systems, and protect your real work (financials, C-levels, etc) from the sales staff and receptionists who open everything, every time.
It's extra work up front, but eventually, those super-complex ACLs preventing the receptionist from deleting any file she doesn't own will save your ass.
Radio in general is great if you have no other options - when you're driving, when you're in an office without { TV , computers }, and so on. Once you have an internet connected computer, you've opened yourself up for more information - online streaming video.
Connection / bandwidth issues aside (because they're mostly solvable given sufficient interest), internet radio is just extending traditional radio and relies on great hosts to carry you over into another realm (there are no other real advantages - traditional radio has better quality and more variety in most areas, and you're going to get ads either way).
The way forward will be streaming, on demand video broadcasts - internet TV, if you will. Not sure if the momentum will come from internet tv specialty sites or from video blog sites, but there's a ton of potential in both...
Slashdot Mirror
Most DDoS attacks today don't even attempt to forge IP packets - they just overwhelm with legitimate but unwanted traffic.
The old spoofed source thing started going away in 2000/2001. It's now quite rare in most network environments.
Out or not, there's a magic number around the $299 mark where you'll lose a lot of the casual consumers.
Yes, some people will buy it at almost any price. A few more people will buy it as long as they can rationalize the pricetag to themselves. Many simply won't buy it if it's over some magical number in their head, and that number for phones seems to be between $300 and $400.
Don't believe me? Look at the number of Sidekick II v. Sidekick IIIs in public - despite launching (almost?) a year ago, there are still far more Sidekick IIs around than Sidekick IIIs, because the Sidekick IIIs were just a bit too expensive.
Making the largest corporate users happy is the same thing as making the end users happy. The corporate desktop represents a large portion of their end user install base, and it's definitely a larger portion of the end user paying install base.
Like it or not, corporate desktops are Microsoft's bread and butter.
I gave my credit card number to a talking moose, but there's no way I'm getting laughed at reporting it to the police again.
The simple liquid capable of making clothes come off, cars swerve, and random impregnation?
In the cancer realm, there is an increasing number of drugs like Avastin that have shown abilities to attack a wide variety of cancers such colon cancer and lung cancer. Indeed, products like Avastin seem to create complications (specifically, increased risk of complications of high blood pressure in the brain and a neurologic disorder), but the primary fix seems to be more important than the secondary complications. That is, while the 'permanent' fix is flawed and creates later problems, often the later problems are more easily addressed than the primary problem, even if it's not perfect.
Google claims most of their stuff is beta, so that's hardly a defense.
The fact of the matter is that all hard drives fail at some point, and most RAID controllers eventually fail, too. Relying on a service to do backups for you is safer than no backups at all, but it's not sufficient if you have truly important data.
The "innate problem in web apps" is probably closer to reality than you want to admit - companies like Google, Yahoo, and MSN are fighting a battle in scalability. Having multiple redundant backup systems (array + offline backup) makes scaling much, much more expensive than designing a single fault-tolerant, semi-redundant primary system (large array of whatever kind).
If you think all of the massive online media sites (think Flickr, for example) have backups of all of your photos, you're probably mistaken. They certainly have basic protection against single disk failure, but that's not always going to save the data in the event of a catastrophe.
PS: I blog about DUIs all the time - if anyone wants to send me free beer, I'd really appreciate it.
I personally dislike the Acer brand - goes back to 1997 when my Acer desktop was the worst machine I ever purchased. I'm sure they've improved since then, but there are other "better" brands out there, and IBM's Thinkpad line has an excellent reputation.
In any event, arguing silly semantics about the 'top of the line' doesn't change the moral of the story - Microsoft wants good press and is going out of its way to get it. That's not surprising, they just have a bigger PR budget than most.
Is it wrong? No.
Is it uncommon? Giving out demos is certainly expected, but this sort of 'gift' is a bit unusual.
Should people be aware that it's happening? Probably, if you want an unbiased opinion.
4-5 in a day should be reasonably sufficient to boost your dehydrogenase production, sure.
Passed out drunk.
It is libel. It was clearly wrong. Trying to make excuses for it is like trying to justify suicide bombers - it's clearly wrong, and it doesn't make up for anything that may have happened for them in the past.
Competitors to Microsoft exist: Apple, Linux
Competitors to Yahoo exist: Google, etc.
Competitors to MySpace exist: Facebook, etc.
Competitors to YouTube exist: Revver, Vobbo.
The network makes it difficult, but nobody's ever given up because something was difficult. There are always options, and yes - there can be significant barriers to entry, but it's never "impossible".
Fund/find an alternative, and you will see Amazon fix itself. Until that happens, bend over and grab your ankles.
M-Audio make great cards in a wide price range. Their lower end units aren't "pro-quality", but they're definitely on the right path.
950M, 650M, 250M, 250K. It's pulling 20gbps of data and has millions of eyes watching ad-ready video players.
It's only worth what it can make in a reasonable amount of time, and that time is growing short as video blogging competitors build their userbases.
Eventually their huge market share will begin being split by competiing sites that slightly beat their technology, and then the value starts to fall...
Not MS, and don't reinvent unless it's to take business from MS? Is this an anti-MS rant or real IT advice?
Spending less and transferring entire enterprises to new platforms are mutually exclusive. Face it: retraining 10,000 employees on alternative operating systems won't be nearly as cost effective as maintaining the existing Windows installs, so the desktops will remain Windows for the foreseeable future. You keep AD, but you can roll in Exchange and SQL Server alternatives, perhaps Office alternatives for specific departments where interacting with the outside world isn't necessarily a requirement.
Remember: it's a company, not a religion. Being anti-MS may be popular on slashdot, but it's not always the smartest (or cheapest) in real business.
The "shamefully exposed ports" sounds a lot like portsentry, an IDS-type app that listens on ports even if no service is running.
As for cheap hosting plans - we host clients anywhere from $12.75/month to 100 times that - some sites need a lot of capacity, most don't. But, virtually across the board, many people have no idea how much bandwidth they really need until it's too late.
Any reasonable hosting company should have noticed the domain name and made arrangements for such a high profile site. Of course, this assumes that the engineers at the hosting provider were neutral...
What are you sinking about?
If that were true, would Discovery or TLC be as popular as they obviously are?
Now just couple this with droid guns and we're in for quite the show.
ISPs have very strict AUPs, and will probably kill the cheap accounts rather than risk a lawsuit. Realistically speaking, if I were running an ISP, I'd do the same thing.
It's worth noting that the users may not be intentionally violating the (civil) law, it may just be open proxies or misconfigured P2P clients, in which case the accounts can be re-established later (after reasonable assurance that the problem's been 'fixed').
MySpace allows FAR TOO MUCH variety in the types of content it allows, and is FAR TOO LAX in the way it allows most user actions to be performed. First, allowing any user to post virtually any type of file is a recipe for disaster. It works great for other sites that want to capitalize (for example, sites that want to post videos on myspace, but not so great when that content is something you don't want to see. They don't filter content well (regular expressions to remove things like the '#' character, for example, will stop very few attacks), and the number of scripted bulletins / posts / comments (situations where you visit a page, and that page uses javascript to publish a link back to itself to all of your friends) should be proof positive that unauthenticated POSTing works great for the first million users, but breaks when you get popular. Slashdot learned all of these lessons years ago - once you get popular, the trolls will find you, and then your users will regret it.
The trade-off is what kills most real admins.
I work for an advertising agency. They live and die on "easy" communication with every client possible, and most would be surprised just what kind of crap marketting firms will send in professional emails.
Strip an image? They just lost contact info for a potential client. Kill a zipfile because it's password protected? Oops, that was a 7 figure proposal. It just gets worse and worse.
Start by having 2 NAS systems. One for real users, one for idiots who must be attached to the network. Then, separate them so there's no communication between them. Create multiple login systems, and protect your real work (financials, C-levels, etc) from the sales staff and receptionists who open everything, every time.
It's extra work up front, but eventually, those super-complex ACLs preventing the receptionist from deleting any file she doesn't own will save your ass.
Radio in general is great if you have no other options - when you're driving, when you're in an office without { TV , computers }, and so on. Once you have an internet connected computer, you've opened yourself up for more information - online streaming video.
Connection / bandwidth issues aside (because they're mostly solvable given sufficient interest), internet radio is just extending traditional radio and relies on great hosts to carry you over into another realm (there are no other real advantages - traditional radio has better quality and more variety in most areas, and you're going to get ads either way).
The way forward will be streaming, on demand video broadcasts - internet TV, if you will. Not sure if the momentum will come from internet tv specialty sites or from video blog sites, but there's a ton of potential in both...