I wouldn't be suprised if the lackluster sales of the Star Wars Episode 1 videotape has something to do with it.
I'm sure Lucas has some sort of budget set up for expected profits from his various retail enterprises and this one looks to be not returning as much as expected. Thus, while an Ep. 1 tape may not be a must-have an Ep. 1 *DVD*, particularly one with extra material, may well end up being a very big (and profitable) fish in that smaller pool.
I wouldn't be suprised if he tosses in some supplemental material on his DVD (character bios, alternate takes, production drawings, rotatable 3D models, etc.) and charges something extraordinary for it.
Netpliance could be the first mass-market company to stumble onto open-source R&D as an official policy*.
I'd like to see Netpliance follow the following steps:
Gracefully accept that you're going to get rooked on your originial offer and not go backdating your TOS. Nasty business and I doubt it'll hold up in court or with the credit-card companies.
Work with the hardware hacker community to further develop your product. You've got the attention of a development team that most companies only fantasize about - use it. Take the results from this development and use it to make up the loss they've incurred.
Begin development of a Mark II "Hardware Hacker Special". Tassach in a "Remember the KISS rule" posting gave a good spec for a MII HHS iOpener - slightly larger case, empty drive bay, and built-in Ethernet. For an OS simply put in a simple loader and expect the customer to supply their own. Plus of course supply full downloadable specs. Sell these at your true cost (hw, shipping, administrivia) plus some small markup. To minimize costs exlicitly don't offer direct support - insist folks buying the Mark II "Hardware Hacker Special" rely on the userbase.
Host web and newsgroup-based development forums and use them to glean ideas for further products. Let your engineers communicate directly with the hardware hackers and run reality checks. If a non-hacker customer calls in with a technical problem throw it out to the hackers - let them pay their keep with assistance.
Develop and release the new products in concert with your hackers and then allow them to be your salesforce. When a promising idea for a market comes up follow it through them and then offer a retail version. You've got direct access to university students and corporate IS department staffers your competition would pay millions in t-shirts for - take advantage of this and offer to sell them the products their folks devolop with your tools.
Wyse has been producing essentially the same products for years without ever breaking into the mass-market. You could leap-frog them by supporting and using the hardware hackers whose attention you've caught. Remember that the same folks buying and twiddling with your boxes are the same ones who influence billions in hardware purchases.
Here's an example of a product I'd like to see and how it could develop:
My town library offers free web browsing to it's users. They ask folks to limit themselves to 15 minutes a session and to use debit cards to pay for printouts, a dime a page. Currently the library uses Wintel PC's dedicated to this task, machines that are rather large, expensive, and prone to mischief. Netpliance could go after this simple web-browser/kiosk market by asking it's hardware hacker community for help. All that would be needed would be a minimal OS, a decent browser, printer-driver, and debit-card reader/writer. With this developed Netpliance could then release this as a product and ask it's devloper community to recommend them to potential customers. The next day public and private libraries would likely start getting email and printouts suggesting Netpliance's product. You'd have a low-cost and very fast development cycle no one could compete with and access everybody would beg for.
The only danger I see for Netpliance from all of this? Someone else grabbing this model and taking advantage of it. iOpeners aren't exactly rocket-science these days so it wouldn't be too hard for someone to scoop this opportunity away from Netpliance. You've got the buzz right now but that could quickly change, particularly with nasty business like backdating your TOS changes. I'll be interested to see how this all works out.
-- Michael
Disclaimer: - I haven't bought an iOpener yet, I've been too busy to consider another project, but have followed the project as it looks interesting and possibly applicable to some of my own efforts.
*In some fields like scientific testing it's not unusual for much of a products evolution to be driven by frustrated or helpful customers sending in their hacks or suggested changes, ofentimes with explicit details. I once worked for a company where one particularly dedicated customer sent us in the full details of what they'd like for our next-gen model of a product. Aside from some minor changes to keep components and layouts consistant across product lines we produced almost exactly what he sent in. As a reward we sent him two free models, one a standard version of what he'd requested and a second special one with the front-panel layout he'd specified. p.s. If you were paying for this letter it would have cost you several hundred dollars - you just got advice for free and I got a potential new toy. Kinda a great business model, eh?
From: owner-sun-earth@skypub.com on behalf of Cary Oler [oler@solar.spacew.com] Sent: April 7, 2000 5:57 AM To: sun-earth@skypub.com Subject: AstroAlert: Major Auroral Storm Updated Conditions - 07 April
The largest auroral storm of the current solar cycle has, for all intents and purposes, now ended. The magnetic fields which were driving this auroral storm have now returned to background levels. The auroral oval has quieted significantly over the last three hours. Although there will probably be some residual substorm activity over the higher latitudes during the next 24 hours, there will not be a recurrence of the auroral storming for most middle latitude locations. The middle latitude auroral activity warning and the low latitude auroral activity watch have been terminated.
There were a large number of people who were able to witness this event and report their findings. The list, which is still growing, is available for public viewing at: http://www.spacew.com/www/auroras.html.
We would appreciate observational reports from any other individuals who witnessed this activity. Observations may be reported using the form at the URL: http://www.spacew.com/www/subaurora.html. Even though the storm has now ended, we would appreciate reports from observers for the final archived record.
We have received complaints that our warning was received too late to be useful. It can take many hours for the e-mail to reach all of the e-mail boxes of everyone subscribed to this list. For those who have experienced this problem, or for those who would like to receive more rapid warnings, you may want to consider subscribing to our private lists at: http://www.spacew.com/www/sublists.html Delivery of the watches and warnings for auroral activity on that list reached all subscribers within 15 minutes as opposed to the almost 6 hours it may have taken to reach some subscribers of AstroAlert. The material e-mailed is, however, a bit more technical and may not be for everyone. We try to simplify the material for those on the AstroAlert list and believe it may be more enjoyable to read and easier for most people to decipher.
Our thanks go out to all of those who have contributed (and will yet contribute) their observations during this auroral storm event.
Those who are interested in maintaining an eye on higher latitude auroral activity may want to check out the near-real-time all-sky camera images available from the Canadian Space Agency at: http://www.sp-agency.ca/www_forms/rt_asi.htm. Any residual substorm activity should be visible there.
There are other good sites on the Internet as well (too many to list here), such as the all-sky camera images and the updated all-sky auroral activity movies made available from the Poker Flat Research Range in Alaska (http://www.pfrr.alaska.edu).
Lawrence Livermore's "Inductrack" seems much more feasible then winged trains. It fits onto current right-of-ways, no exotic technologies are required (no super magnets, etc.), and is quieter then existing vehicles. It's rails can be made of low-cost materials and the levitation system is conventional magnets in arrays. The levitation effect comes into play at speeds over 5 kph and improves up to 500 kph so a train simply rolls up to speed (a fast walk) and then glides from there. Best yet it's a passive effect inherent in the design - power failures don't cause the train to suddenly drop onto the rails (a problem with the Japanese and German designs.)
When the lights came up the 1/2 the audience just stared at the screen with glazed eyes and the other half snickered - out loud - for a minute (7:25 showing at the Paramount - I swear.) Plainly put the movie screams for a midnight showing and an irreverent audience:
"Luke..." I am your Father Danger! Danger! Danger Will Robinson "Oxygen is at 60 percent" "Meatloaf! Don't pick your friends! Pick your nose!" "We are Them - They are Us" I am the Walrus - kukkakoobajoo... Do it for The Gipper!
This turkey will be out on video inside of a month - even then just fast-forward to the really great inside-the-spaceship scene (a complete rip from 2001 but at least it was a rip from a classic and not from a B movie like "The Mummy" like so many other parts of the film) and turn off the audio. Afterwards return the film unwound - you'll be doing someone a kindness.
-- Michael Salon had a great synopsis of the reviews: http://www.salon.com/ent/log/2000/03/10/mars_rev iews
As others have noted Coca Cola long ago patented it's bottle design. Harley has done so for the growl their motorcycles make. I forget which but one of the pharmacuticals (Advil?) has patented the color of their pills. None of these are functionial improvements and thus are patentable. One can still use the Coke bottle shape, just not as a bottle. One can still growl, just your non-Harley motorcycle can't growl precisely like a Harley, and you can use whatever pill color it is anywhere else you want, just not in a pill.
So Apple now owns the idea of a tranlucent-polycarbonate-ovoid PC. I see no problem with this. While many folks are claiming Apple has patented the all-in-one PC they haven't - just their particular (and very distinctive/very unique) take on it. Should someone else come out with a glittery-squishy palmtop (the Koosh-top?) they can patent that.
Nationial Public Radio's Friday, March 05, 1999 "Talk of the Nation" program has an excellent over-view of the issue. Their program blurb reads:
In the past, only tangible things could receive a patent--things like lawnmowers or mousetraps. But in the new knowledge-based economy ideas, techniques, and even our DNA can be patented. Who wins when vital information becomes private property? Is the patent process stifling innovation or fostering it? In this hour, we'll discuss patents and the patenting process. Guests: Todd Dickinson Acting Assistant Secretary of Commerce Acting Commissioner Patents and Trademarks Arlington, Virginia Rebecca Eisenberg Professor of Law University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan Seth Shulman Author, Owning the Future (Houghton Mifflin) Boston, Massachusetts.
Re:Motorola Mainboards - They're out there
on
Darwin on Crusoe?
·
· Score: 1
Same as Intel whores out it's MB's Motorola does the same, just not as succesfuly. A few minutes searching should find you some. Last I heard they were fabu but for the price and so much code being X86-specific out in the world.
A: It wouldn't be all that difficult. There have been a number of 3d systems developed over the years, it's just that no one has really liked any of them.
Why? Well, two reasons.
There isn't a good way of getting 3d information into the environment. A keyboard is fantastic for 1d entry. A mouse/trackball/glidepad is good for 2d (though it does steal your hands from the keyboard - here is where trackpoints are nice.) For 3d though there haven't been any really successful technologies. There are some clever kludges like those used in games (would you really want to use Quake-keys all of the time?) and a few hideously expensive hardware devices but nothing average folks can pick up and 'get' immediately.
Little need. Sure it's a kewl idea; flying around your filesystem, working in a 3d virtual space, but those who've used the various implementations generally soon went back to the more traditional 2d representations. Yes, it was partially because the 2d environments are more mature, widely supported, and universal but also because they found the extra gymnastics required to work in a 3d environment just weren't worth the additional mental or physical effort.
So, am I suggesting 3d interfaces are doomed? No, just that we don't yet have a good way of interacting with them nor a compelling mental model to work with. It's entirely reasonable to assume that at some point 3d interfaces will become preferable once these two issues are resolved.
Humans evolved in a complex, visually rich 3d environment. We have superbly developed skills for conceptualizing ourselves in a 3d environment and for unconsciously recognizing and tracking other elements within it. It stands to reason we will be able to apply those skills to enrich our information management experience once we've the two issues above addressed. At this time however they remain significant stumbling blocks and make (IMHO) any work on 3d interfaces of little broad interest.
My staff had to resort to faking failures to pull them off of desks after we no longer supported them (II's & III's didn't interact with our mainframes well.) We ended up giving them to the staff we grabbed them from for home printers where they likely yet live on.
Unless you need really-high resolution or speed is a critical issue consider getting a used laser printer. The same as driving a car off a lot cuts some unreasonable value off of it the same is true of a laser printer. You'll get better value going for a well-treated 2 or 3 year old high-end printer then a new low-end budget model.
Things to look for:
Brand name (easier to find support/toner/drivers for brand names.) Best choices are HP and Apple. Until recently there were only 3 printer engines in the world (most HP & Apple were Canon engines) so the engine should be the important issue. Unfortunately since the support electronics can vary so much it's best to concentrate on the label and all that goes with it.
PostScript level 2 - accept nothing else. The various HPGL's are nice too but nothing beats PS. It's the standard. Accept no substitutes ("It's just like PostScript" - yeah - right.) Save the worry and get the real thing.
Built-in network support. Sure you can hang the printer off of a parallel port on a box but it's way nicer and faster to just toss the printer onto your local network. Make sure the device supports TCP-IP and LPR, anything else (SPX/IPX & Netware, Netbios and Windows, AppleTalk & MacOS, etc.) are all nice gravy but can be duplicated with TCP-IP & LPR.
16 MB RAM Minimum. Most of the older generation printers will take standard cheapo SIMMS (a use for those old 8 & 16 MB's from your junked PC) and the additional memory can pay off in speed, resolution, and fewer errors. A SCSI port for adding a drive to the printer (think 'local fonts') is nice but generally not a big deal.
A good return policy. Make sure you can return the printer for 30 days if a problem occurs. When you take it home run it through it's tricks to avoid any surprises. Try some PostScript test files, different grades of paper, etc. Look for smudges, leaks, and slipping rollers.
Finally, particularly with older laser printers - make sure it's on it's own electrical circuit. Generally these printers go through a reheat cycle every few minutes which can be a significant electrical draw. Other devices on the same circuit will take the hit and after an extended period this abuse can cause marginal equipment to fail. I can't list the number of fileservers I've seen with crashed drives that were on the same circuit as a big ole laser printer. Coincidence - I don't think so.
There are a ton of places to buy an older generation laser printer. First check with your employer to see if there's any they want to clear out of the back room. Have some friends do the same with their employers. Call your local printer-repair shops and see if they've any hanging around. Do the same with any local office liquidators (though they won't offer any guarantee.) Run a check on the online auction sites too though be warned that many folks don't price their equipment reasonably ("...but I paid US$1500 for it 3 years ago! Whaddya you mean it's worth US$250! now?!") An hour or two of looking should buy you a better used printer then you could ever afford new.
Hello - like it hasn't already happened
on
Sex in Space
·
· Score: 1
Not to confuse all of the hetero's but what exactly do you expect was happening with week-long all-male closely-bonded high-tension crews? If there hasn't been at least a bit of "lend your buddy a hand" going on I'd be amazed.
Thus when showing US material something has to be added to cover the missing US commercial spots - the most famous filler being "Bob & Doug MacKenzie" which got started this way.
"You know, for years, I couldn't quite figure out why Microsoft ported Office and IE to the Mac platform, and to be honest, it's a bit puzzling to me still."
Three reasons: profit, market share & mind share.
MS Office for Mac is a big revenue source paying back far more then it costs to develop & support. Furthermore remember that products like Word were originally built to be cross-platform; indeed they used to be built off of the same interpreted-code base. Unfortunately this resulted in a butt-ugly/slow/awkward Mac Word 5 so they may have diverged for Mac Word 98 (which interestingly is way nicer then PC Word 97 and even PC Word 2000.)
MS Office for the Mac also allows MS to compete in the mixed Wintel/Mac marketplace. Lots of companies/schools/research organizations/etc. have Macs in place. If MS couldn't support them then they might have gone with (horrors) WordPerfect, or later, Corel Office. Thus MS was willing to go to bat with decent Mac versions to keep its competition from getting a toehold anywhere.
Finally, why IE and OE? Market share and mind share. If MS sells Office for the Mac then it needs to approximate the web-abilities it offers on the PC platform. This is easiest achieved by using the same techniques it uses on the PC side - a closely tied web-browser and mail client. This of course also has the side effect of blunting Netscape's market penetration (a plus in MS's playbook.) Then there's the content-creator issue: A disproportionate amount of web and other high-visibility material is prepared on Macs. If MS couldn't produce a credible browser and such then those folks would insist on also developing for the browsers they use - Netscape. By providing an MS alternative it weakens any cross-browser development argument and can seduce intra-net managers and such with a standardised all-MS environment.
"You know, for years, I couldn't quite figure out why Microsoft ported Office and IE to the Mac platform, and to be honest, it's a bit puzzling to me still." Three reasons: profit, market share & mind share. MS Office for Mac is a big revenue source paying back far more then it costs to develop & support. Furthermore remember that products like Word were originally built to be cross-platform; indeed they used to be built off of the same interpreted-code base. Unfortunately this resulted in a butt-ugly/slow/awkward Mac Word 5 so they may have diverged for Mac Word 98 (which interestingly is way nicer then PC Word 97 and even PC Word 2000.) MS Office for the Mac also allows MS to compete in the mixed Wintel/Mac marketplace. Lots of companies/schools/research organizations/etc. have Macs in place. If MS couldn't support them then they might have gone with (horrors) WordPerfect, or later, Corel Office. Thus MS was willing to go to bat with decent Mac versions to keep its competition from getting a toehold anywhere. Finally, why IE and OE? Market share and mind share. If MS sells Office for the Mac then it needs to approximate the web-abilities it offers on the PC platform. This is easiest achieved by using the same techniques it uses on the PC side - a closely tied web-browser and mail client. This of course also has the side effect of blunting Netscape's market penetration (a plus in MS's playbook.) Then there's the content-creator issue: A disproportionate amount of web and other high-visibility material is prepared on Macs. If MS couldn't produce a credible browser and such then those folks would insist on also developing for the browsers they use - Netscape. By providing an MS alternative it weakens any cross-browser development argument and can seduce intra-net managers and such with a standardised all-MS environment. -- Michael
Jon Postal's ghost is haunting this fool. Presumably whomever allowed him to graduate from primary school also is (or at least quitting eduction in disgust.)
Slashdot Mirror
I wouldn't be suprised if the lackluster sales of the Star Wars Episode 1 videotape has something to do with it.
I'm sure Lucas has some sort of budget set up for expected profits from his various retail enterprises and this one looks to be not returning as much as expected. Thus, while an Ep. 1 tape may not be a must-have an Ep. 1 *DVD*, particularly one with extra material, may well end up being a very big (and profitable) fish in that smaller pool.
I wouldn't be suprised if he tosses in some supplemental material on his DVD (character bios, alternate takes, production drawings, rotatable 3D models, etc.) and charges something extraordinary for it.
I'd like to see Netpliance follow the following steps:
Wyse has been producing essentially the same products for years without ever breaking into the mass-market. You could leap-frog them by supporting and using the hardware hackers whose attention you've caught. Remember that the same folks buying and twiddling with your boxes are the same ones who influence billions in hardware purchases.
Here's an example of a product I'd like to see and how it could develop:
The only danger I see for Netpliance from all of this? Someone else grabbing this model and taking advantage of it. iOpeners aren't exactly rocket-science these days so it wouldn't be too hard for someone to scoop this opportunity away from Netpliance. You've got the buzz right now but that could quickly change, particularly with nasty business like backdating your TOS changes. I'll be interested to see how this all works out.
-- Michael
Disclaimer: - I haven't bought an iOpener yet, I've been too busy to consider another project, but have followed the project as it looks interesting and possibly applicable to some of my own efforts.
*In some fields like scientific testing it's not unusual for much of a products evolution to be driven by frustrated or helpful customers sending in their hacks or suggested changes, ofentimes with explicit details. I once worked for a company where one particularly dedicated customer sent us in the full details of what they'd like for our next-gen model of a product. Aside from some minor changes to keep components and layouts consistant across product lines we produced almost exactly what he sent in. As a reward we sent him two free models, one a standard version of what he'd requested and a second special one with the front-panel layout he'd specified. p.s. If you were paying for this letter it would have cost you several hundred dollars - you just got advice for free and I got a potential new toy. Kinda a great business model, eh?
From: owner-sun-earth@skypub.com on behalf of Cary Oler
[oler@solar.spacew.com]
Sent: April 7, 2000 5:57 AM
To: sun-earth@skypub.com
Subject: AstroAlert: Major Auroral Storm Updated Conditions - 07 April
UPDATED AURORAL STORM CONDITIONS (09:55 UTC, 07 APRIL):
The largest auroral storm of the current solar cycle has, for all
intents and purposes, now ended. The magnetic fields which were driving
this auroral storm have now returned to background levels. The auroral oval
has quieted significantly over the last three hours. Although there will
probably be some residual substorm activity over the higher latitudes during
the next 24 hours, there will not be a recurrence of the auroral storming
for most middle latitude locations. The middle latitude auroral activity
warning and the low latitude auroral activity watch have been terminated.
There were a large number of people who were able to witness this event
and report their findings. The list, which is still growing, is available
for public viewing at: http://www.spacew.com/www/auroras.html.
We would appreciate observational reports from any other individuals
who witnessed this activity. Observations may be reported using the form
at the URL: http://www.spacew.com/www/subaurora.html. Even though the storm
has now ended, we would appreciate reports from observers for the final
archived record.
We have received complaints that our warning was received too late to
be useful. It can take many hours for the e-mail to reach all of the e-mail
boxes of everyone subscribed to this list. For those who have experienced
this problem, or for those who would like to receive more rapid warnings,
you may want to consider subscribing to our private lists at:
http://www.spacew.com/www/sublists.html
Delivery of the watches and warnings for auroral activity on that list
reached all subscribers within 15 minutes as opposed to the almost 6 hours
it may have taken to reach some subscribers of AstroAlert. The material
e-mailed is, however, a bit more technical and may not be for everyone. We
try to simplify the material for those on the AstroAlert list and believe it
may be more enjoyable to read and easier for most people to decipher.
Our thanks go out to all of those who have contributed (and will yet
contribute) their observations during this auroral storm event.
Those who are interested in maintaining an eye on higher latitude
auroral activity may want to check out the near-real-time all-sky camera
images available from the Canadian Space Agency at:
http://www.sp-agency.ca/www_forms/rt_asi.htm. Any residual substorm activity
should be visible there.
There are other good sites on the Internet as well (too many to list
here), such as the all-sky camera images and the updated all-sky auroral
activity movies made available from the Poker Flat Research Range in Alaska
(http://www.pfrr.alaska.edu).
** End of Update **
See:
"Inductrack"
Maglev: A New Approach, Scientific American (January 2000) - article not available online.
"Track to the Future," Popular Mechanics (May 1998), pp. 68-70.
It was Baaaadd - sooo Baaaadd....
v iews
When the lights came up the 1/2 the audience just stared at the screen with glazed eyes and the other half snickered - out loud - for a minute (7:25 showing at the Paramount - I swear.) Plainly put the movie screams for a midnight showing and an irreverent audience:
"Luke..." I am your Father
Danger! Danger! Danger Will Robinson "Oxygen is at 60 percent"
"Meatloaf! Don't pick your friends! Pick your nose!"
"We are Them - They are Us" I am the Walrus - kukkakoobajoo...
Do it for The Gipper!
This turkey will be out on video inside of a month - even then just fast-forward to the really great inside-the-spaceship scene (a complete rip from 2001 but at least it was a rip from a classic and not from a B movie like "The Mummy" like so many other parts of the film) and turn off the audio. Afterwards return the film unwound - you'll be doing someone a kindness.
-- Michael
Salon had a great synopsis of the reviews:
http://www.salon.com/ent/log/2000/03/10/mars_re
So Apple now owns the idea of a tranlucent-polycarbonate-ovoid PC. I see no problem with this. While many folks are claiming Apple has patented the all-in-one PC they haven't - just their particular (and very distinctive/very unique) take on it. Should someone else come out with a glittery-squishy palmtop (the Koosh-top?) they can patent that.
Nationial Public Radio's Friday, March 05, 1999 "Talk of the Nation" program has an excellent over-view of the issue. Their program blurb reads:
The URL is http://search.npr.org/cf/cmn-- Michael
BTW - the Koosh ball is also patented
Same as Intel whores out it's MB's Motorola does the same, just not as succesfuly. A few minutes searching should find you some. Last I heard they were fabu but for the price and so much code being X86-specific out in the world.
Why? Well, two reasons.
- There isn't a good way of getting 3d information into the environment. A keyboard is fantastic for 1d entry. A mouse/trackball/glidepad is good for 2d (though it does steal your hands from the keyboard - here is where trackpoints are nice.) For 3d though there haven't been any really successful technologies. There are some clever kludges like those used in games (would you really want to use Quake-keys all of the time?) and a few hideously expensive hardware devices but nothing average folks can pick up and 'get' immediately.
- Little need. Sure it's a kewl idea; flying around your filesystem, working in a 3d virtual space, but those who've used the various implementations generally soon went back to the more traditional 2d representations. Yes, it was partially because the 2d environments are more mature, widely supported, and universal but also because they found the extra gymnastics required to work in a 3d environment just weren't worth the additional mental or physical effort.
So, am I suggesting 3d interfaces are doomed? No, just that we don't yet have a good way of interacting with them nor a compelling mental model to work with. It's entirely reasonable to assume that at some point 3d interfaces will become preferable once these two issues are resolved.Humans evolved in a complex, visually rich 3d environment. We have superbly developed skills for conceptualizing ourselves in a 3d environment and for unconsciously recognizing and tracking other elements within it. It stands to reason we will be able to apply those skills to enrich our information management experience once we've the two issues above addressed. At this time however they remain significant stumbling blocks and make (IMHO) any work on 3d interfaces of little broad interest.
Cockroaches
Cher
HP LaserJet II, III, & 4's.
My staff had to resort to faking failures to pull them off of desks after we no longer supported them (II's & III's didn't interact with our mainframes well.) We ended up giving them to the staff we grabbed them from for home printers where they likely yet live on.
Things to look for:
- Brand name (easier to find support/toner/drivers for brand names.) Best choices are HP and Apple. Until recently there were only 3 printer engines in the world (most HP & Apple were Canon engines) so the engine should be the important issue. Unfortunately since the support electronics can vary so much it's best to concentrate on the label and all that goes with it.
- PostScript level 2 - accept nothing else. The various HPGL's are nice too but nothing beats PS. It's the standard. Accept no substitutes ("It's just like PostScript" - yeah - right.) Save the worry and get the real thing.
- Built-in network support. Sure you can hang the printer off of a parallel port on a box but it's way nicer and faster to just toss the printer onto your local network. Make sure the device supports TCP-IP and LPR, anything else (SPX/IPX & Netware, Netbios and Windows, AppleTalk & MacOS, etc.) are all nice gravy but can be duplicated with TCP-IP & LPR.
- 16 MB RAM Minimum. Most of the older generation printers will take standard cheapo SIMMS (a use for those old 8 & 16 MB's from your junked PC) and the additional memory can pay off in speed, resolution, and fewer errors. A SCSI port for adding a drive to the printer (think 'local fonts') is nice but generally not a big deal.
- A good return policy. Make sure you can return the printer for 30 days if a problem occurs. When you take it home run it through it's tricks to avoid any surprises. Try some PostScript test files, different grades of paper, etc. Look for smudges, leaks, and slipping rollers.
- Finally, particularly with older laser printers - make sure it's on it's own electrical circuit. Generally these printers go through a reheat cycle every few minutes which can be a significant electrical draw. Other devices on the same circuit will take the hit and after an extended period this abuse can cause marginal equipment to fail. I can't list the number of fileservers I've seen with crashed drives that were on the same circuit as a big ole laser printer. Coincidence - I don't think so.
There are a ton of places to buy an older generation laser printer. First check with your employer to see if there's any they want to clear out of the back room. Have some friends do the same with their employers. Call your local printer-repair shops and see if they've any hanging around. Do the same with any local office liquidators (though they won't offer any guarantee.) Run a check on the online auction sites too though be warned that many folks don't price their equipment reasonably ("...but I paid US$1500 for it 3 years ago! Whaddya you mean it's worth US$250! now?!") An hour or two of looking should buy you a better used printer then you could ever afford new.-- MM
Forget the cultists - how about just some good discussions about ethics: supernatural beings need not apply unless they participate incarnate.
Thus when showing US material something has to be added to cover the missing US commercial spots - the most famous filler being "Bob & Doug MacKenzie" which got started this way.
Three reasons: profit, market share & mind share.
MS Office for Mac is a big revenue source paying back far more then it costs to develop & support. Furthermore remember that products like Word were originally built to be cross-platform; indeed they used to be built off of the same interpreted-code base. Unfortunately this resulted in a butt-ugly/slow/awkward Mac Word 5 so they may have diverged for Mac Word 98 (which interestingly is way nicer then PC Word 97 and even PC Word 2000.)
MS Office for the Mac also allows MS to compete in the mixed Wintel/Mac marketplace. Lots of companies/schools/research organizations/etc. have Macs in place. If MS couldn't support them then they might have gone with (horrors) WordPerfect, or later, Corel Office. Thus MS was willing to go to bat with decent Mac versions to keep its competition from getting a toehold anywhere.
Finally, why IE and OE? Market share and mind share. If MS sells Office for the Mac then it needs to approximate the web-abilities it offers on the PC platform. This is easiest achieved by using the same techniques it uses on the PC side - a closely tied web-browser and mail client. This of course also has the side effect of blunting Netscape's market penetration (a plus in MS's playbook.) Then there's the content-creator issue: A disproportionate amount of web and other high-visibility material is prepared on Macs. If MS couldn't produce a credible browser and such then those folks would insist on also developing for the browsers they use - Netscape. By providing an MS alternative it weakens any cross-browser development argument and can seduce intra-net managers and such with a standardised all-MS environment.
-- Michael
"You know, for years, I couldn't quite figure out why Microsoft ported Office and IE to the Mac platform, and to be honest, it's a bit puzzling to me still." Three reasons: profit, market share & mind share. MS Office for Mac is a big revenue source paying back far more then it costs to develop & support. Furthermore remember that products like Word were originally built to be cross-platform; indeed they used to be built off of the same interpreted-code base. Unfortunately this resulted in a butt-ugly/slow/awkward Mac Word 5 so they may have diverged for Mac Word 98 (which interestingly is way nicer then PC Word 97 and even PC Word 2000.) MS Office for the Mac also allows MS to compete in the mixed Wintel/Mac marketplace. Lots of companies/schools/research organizations/etc. have Macs in place. If MS couldn't support them then they might have gone with (horrors) WordPerfect, or later, Corel Office. Thus MS was willing to go to bat with decent Mac versions to keep its competition from getting a toehold anywhere. Finally, why IE and OE? Market share and mind share. If MS sells Office for the Mac then it needs to approximate the web-abilities it offers on the PC platform. This is easiest achieved by using the same techniques it uses on the PC side - a closely tied web-browser and mail client. This of course also has the side effect of blunting Netscape's market penetration (a plus in MS's playbook.) Then there's the content-creator issue: A disproportionate amount of web and other high-visibility material is prepared on Macs. If MS couldn't produce a credible browser and such then those folks would insist on also developing for the browsers they use - Netscape. By providing an MS alternative it weakens any cross-browser development argument and can seduce intra-net managers and such with a standardised all-MS environment. -- Michael
Jon Postal's ghost is haunting this fool. Presumably whomever allowed him to graduate from primary school also is (or at least quitting eduction in disgust.)