If people would check Milonic's website before blabbering on slashdot, they will notice that Hatch has resolved this issue:
"We have received many emails regarding the implementation of our software and Milonic are pleased to announce that there are no longer any licensing issues with reference to the above [Orin Hatch] website..."
A short and free review by Consumer Reports can be summed up by the quote: We weren't
impressed
Although you can argue that these PCs are sufficient for most tasks, the fact that they are being sold at Wal-mart opens them up to criticism like this because, really, are wal-mart customers going to know the difference between buying a Windows PC and a Lindows PC?
I would buy one of these as a techie, but I wouldn't recommend it to most folks that shop for electronics at Wal-mart.
I wish Palm would instead focus resources on making a more rugged PDA that could be dropped repeatedly without breaking. At the same time it should be easy to pull it out of your pocket and get to the screen quickly (with minimal time spent pulling it out of a case, fumbling with a stylus, etc.) For a Palm to me useful, you have to carry it almost all of the time, and it needs to be quick access. The camera has good gee-whiz factor, but probably makes it easier to break overall. Also, the joystick seems like a potentially less sturdy item.
I think you have hit the nail on the head. The primary purpose of advertising is to keep current customers, to make people who already use your product feel good about themselves.
Converting people is incredibly difficult - for example, try convincing someone to change their mind about how they feel about the pending war in Iraq. People prefer to hear confirmation about what they already believe. They find reassurance in finding voices that match their own. Advertising is primarly an attempt to make you feel good about what you have already believe or have chosen.
Laying out a group of items as a list, as in: 1. 2. 3. 4.... 85.
(An invention the editors at Forbes.com seem to be ignorant about - either that or their convoluted layout of the 85 ideas is meant to get you to view 85 advertisements.)
When Apple introduced iTools, they made it sound like it came bundled with your PC. In other words, when I bought my iMac, one of the decision factors is that I would be also getting a free e-mail account and web space. Apple made people think, "Wow, if I buy a Mac instead of a PC, they give me all this online stuff too!"
So, many of the "people yelling about having to pay" are actually people who feel like they bought a ticket to a concert, and the concert was cancelled after the first act.
Here is another way to describe it: Say you buy a PC from Dell, and then a year later Dell calls you up and says that if you want to use your modem you will need to start paying a monthly modem fee?
The problem is that people feel like they bought iTools when they bought the Mac. Bait and Switch, pure and simple.
Although it is probably unfair to use this technology in a piano competition, there are many other potentially great uses. You might look at this competition as a big beta test - a way to measure how authentically the piano reproduces the performance. They should judge the pianos and not the people in this competition -- it is an opportunity to see just how well Yamaha has engineered the "Player Piano" reproduction.
Anyway, having said that, this technology has potentially amazing possibilities for "pedagogy" or piano teaching. Students, for example, could send in practice performances via email to their teachers. Teachers could return the email with commentary linked to specific places within the performance.
The piano could keep track of how often a student practices. It could keep hours and hours of practice data, since the digital footprint of MIDI data is so much smaller than digital audio.
A piano student could have a live piano lesson with a teacher in another country. Say for example I wanted to learn a piece by the Polish composer Chopin. I could look up a teacher in Poland who specializes in Chopin, and when I am nearly finished perfecting the piece, I could arrange for a lesson with the Chopin expert.
Although the performance possibilities of this technology are a little dubious, the educational benefits could be wonderful -- bringing distance learning to a discipline (Music) that would hardly have imagined this possibility.
The comment that "no one uses Outlook macros anyway" is a sign of ignorance by someone who probably doesn't work in the corporate world.
For example, use an Outlook macro that e-mails me if someone puts something on my Outlook calendar.
If you want proof that Outlook Macros can be useful, see the traffic on these lists:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&group=micros oft.public.outlook.program_forms
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/outlook-dev/
Slashdot Mirror
If people would check Milonic's website before blabbering on slashdot, they will notice that Hatch has resolved this issue:
"We have received many emails regarding the implementation of our software and Milonic are pleased to announce that there are no longer any licensing issues with reference to the above [Orin Hatch] website..."
A short and free review by Consumer Reports can be summed up by the quote: We weren't impressed
Although you can argue that these PCs are sufficient for most tasks, the fact that they are being sold at Wal-mart opens them up to criticism like this because, really, are wal-mart customers going to know the difference between buying a Windows PC and a Lindows PC? I would buy one of these as a techie, but I wouldn't recommend it to most folks that shop for electronics at Wal-mart.
I wish Palm would instead focus resources on making a more rugged PDA that could be dropped repeatedly without breaking. At the same time it should be easy to pull it out of your pocket and get to the screen quickly (with minimal time spent pulling it out of a case, fumbling with a stylus, etc.) For a Palm to me useful, you have to carry it almost all of the time, and it needs to be quick access. The camera has good gee-whiz factor, but probably makes it easier to break overall. Also, the joystick seems like a potentially less sturdy item.
I think you have hit the nail on the head. The primary purpose of advertising is to keep current customers, to make people who already use your product feel good about themselves.
Converting people is incredibly difficult - for example, try convincing someone to change their mind about how they feel about the pending war in Iraq. People prefer to hear confirmation about what they already believe. They find reassurance in finding voices that match their own. Advertising is primarly an attempt to make you feel good about what you have already believe or have chosen.
Laying out a group of items as a list, as in: ...
1.
2.
3.
4.
85.
(An invention the editors at Forbes.com seem to be ignorant about - either that or their convoluted layout of the 85 ideas is meant to get you to view 85 advertisements.)
When Apple introduced iTools, they made it sound like it came bundled with your PC. In other words, when I bought my iMac, one of the decision factors is that I would be also getting a free e-mail account and web space. Apple made people think, "Wow, if I buy a Mac instead of a PC, they give me all this online stuff too!"
So, many of the "people yelling about having to pay" are actually people who feel like they bought a ticket to a concert, and the concert was cancelled after the first act.
Here is another way to describe it: Say you buy a PC from Dell, and then a year later Dell calls you up and says that if you want to use your modem you will need to start paying a monthly modem fee?
The problem is that people feel like they bought iTools when they bought the Mac. Bait and Switch, pure and simple.
Although it is probably unfair to use this technology in a piano competition, there are many other potentially great uses. You might look at this competition as a big beta test - a way to measure how authentically the piano reproduces the performance. They should judge the pianos and not the people in this competition -- it is an opportunity to see just how well Yamaha has engineered the "Player Piano" reproduction. Anyway, having said that, this technology has potentially amazing possibilities for "pedagogy" or piano teaching. Students, for example, could send in practice performances via email to their teachers. Teachers could return the email with commentary linked to specific places within the performance. The piano could keep track of how often a student practices. It could keep hours and hours of practice data, since the digital footprint of MIDI data is so much smaller than digital audio. A piano student could have a live piano lesson with a teacher in another country. Say for example I wanted to learn a piece by the Polish composer Chopin. I could look up a teacher in Poland who specializes in Chopin, and when I am nearly finished perfecting the piece, I could arrange for a lesson with the Chopin expert. Although the performance possibilities of this technology are a little dubious, the educational benefits could be wonderful -- bringing distance learning to a discipline (Music) that would hardly have imagined this possibility.
The comment that "no one uses Outlook macros anyway" is a sign of ignorance by someone who probably doesn't work in the corporate world. For example, use an Outlook macro that e-mails me if someone puts something on my Outlook calendar. If you want proof that Outlook Macros can be useful, see the traffic on these lists: http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&group=micros oft.public.outlook.program_forms
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/outlook-dev/