I've never personally gotten a flat rate for electric, but if I did I would expect the electric company to published any maximum usage they would expect me to abide by.
I'm not arguing there should never be a cap. I am arguing that they should publish and advertise the cap so everyone knows exactly what they're paying for. I'm also sugesting that in absense of a published cap the consumer should not be expected to "self-limit" because they have no idea what that limit should be.
Running a game server for 5 or 6 of your buddies and a photo server for your family are not in the same league asrunning an aluminum smelter. Most ordinary computer users have the desire, the equipment, the software and the intelligence to be able to do this. What they don't have is sanction. If they don't have sanction, shouldn't the broadband companies be open and honest about how much sanction they really do have?
"download wisely" my ass. If they have some mysterious "limit" that they can choose at their whim without even telling you then I would tell them to go to hell.
Check this out:
1. My long distance carrier says I have to pay by the minute and I monitor my usage very carefully.
2. My local carrier says I can have unlimited time on the phone for a flat rate so I don't monitor the usage.
Your broadband carrier essentially promised you number 2 but is treating you like you've got number 1 and you're saying you're more than happy to LIMIT YOURSELF while they continue to imply to new customers that there's no limit.
You're a fool. Insist they give you a posted limit or use as much as you want. Don't limit yourself for their benefit unless they're willing to be straight with you about exactly what you're paying for.
I'm fond of saying that the only thing more difficult than imagining a beginning or ending of time is imagining time with no beginning or ending. I think the same can be said of space and hence the universe itself.
If you truly try, you will find both concepts equally awkward. You will also find we have few facts that ultimately support either. I can not make a case for either concept, but I can make a pretty good case for ignoring most people that insist they know the answer to which is true.
You're just moving the problem to a (slightly) different place. If the company called Exxon owns the exxon TLD then I can't use it no matter how much I want it. How is that different from the company Exxon owning exxon.com?
The scarcity exists because more than one person/organization wants to be identified in the most convenient way. If the most convenient way is a TLD instead of a.com then you have the exact same problem.... more than one person/org will want it.
I don't know exactly how MS licenses this particular product, but the WinPE disks are included with the Volume Licensing media kits if you happen to be on a VL license plan(we are at work).
I haven't specifically seen whether MSDN kits include it, but most VL media stuff is also available to MSDN subscribers so that would also be a good place to check.
You're right, I had them confused. That said, PCI-Express is still promissing. I found this gem in the PCI-Express article that you linked:
"One fairly exciting possibility for this upcoming technology is the potential for multiple graphics cards using the same high-speed connection. Currently it is possible to use more than one video card in a given system by combining an AGP card with a 32-bit PCI card. There is no apparent reason why the X16 spec could not be extended to include support for more than one slot, allowing multiple high-speed PCI-Express graphics cards... though at the moment, such a feature does not exist as far as we know."
The article seemed to believe PCI-Express would tend toward 1x connections for cost reasons and usually that does have a very large effect in the marketplace, but the market for multiple monitors is growing so I'll hold out some hope for the future:-)
"Spend the $1 billion on better things. We should try and solve our own planets problems before going out into space."
Earth is great. I like it a lot. But we have all of our eggs (people, plants, animals, etc.) in just the one basket (Earth).
While we have a tendency to believe the Earth is solid and unchanging, we have a lot of evidence around us that this is not really the case. We have meteors, volcanoes, micro-organisms and even the occasional nuke build-up that could spoil everyone's day. And it could happen very soon.
While we're busy improving the Earth we all love, we should also do what we can to put some of our eggs go into another basket. That way if the one we currently have should get broke, we'll have eggs left in reserve to help build back up our little chicken farm.
People can think of all kinds of reasons to study space, visit Mars, etc., but I always look at it as house insurance. As long as the price isn't too high, you'd be a fool not to buy it. We have a 2-3 trillion dollar economy. How much house insurance do you think we can afford?
I'd once again use the beach analogy. If my spouse holding the towel sees me is it any more "public" then it would be in my house? I'm not displaying myself to an unsuspecting "public" if only the photographer sees me.
My phone has both and I'll use them both at different times. If I want to get a lot of info and it's displayed, then I'll usually use the camera. If it's just a few numbers, like the section of the garage where I parked my car, then I'll usually use the voice memo feature.
BTW, I have a Nokia 3650 and I sometimes wonder how I ever got around without it. I used to use an iPaq but I kept leaving it at home or at my desk thinking, "I don't need it right now." Naturally, I always ended up needing it when I thought I didn't. My phone is like my wallet; I almost never leave it behind. For me that means that each of the added features has a much greater chance of getting used.
If nobody saw her when the picture was taken then she wasn't nude in "public". The analogy would be if woman changed into her swimsuit on the beach while others were holding a big towel in the way. Since no one saw her naked body there was no "public" involved even though she was briefly not wearing clothing in what would otherwise be considered a public space.
In most of these voyeur-style pictures the shot is taken when no one is looking. I am definitely not a lawyer, but if I were defending myself on this I'd argue that since nobody saw me (assuming this is the case) it wasn't a "public" display.
Reason why I think it's one of the best inventions: I never seemed to have a camera around when I wanted one until now. And there are a lot of cool things you can do with a camera when one is around all the time.
Cool things to do with camera phones:
- Shopping in the "real world" and see something cool that you'd like to check out on-line later? No problem. Take a picture of the tag or box and you'll get the exact product number, etc without having to do a bunch of writing. Bonus points of those of you who send it to a friend and have him check on it while you're still in the store.
- Also great for those things you need to show your wife before plunking down cash.
- Screen shots for those error messages on non-networked-and-not-hooked-up-to-a-printer computers. I'm not kidding. It's great.
- Not to mention the "screen shot" of the inside of that computer that's giving your brother-in-law so much trouble. "Yes, Bob, you really do need to hook up that other little wire for that new SATA drive to work".
Camera phones rock. Once we get them to 2 mega pixels and beyond, they'll rock even more. It's amazing how much more useful some technologies can be when you give them just a little boost.
You are so very correct, yet I can't help but wonder if leaving off the "DUMBASS" might have helped.
It is possible that if you had left off the "DUMBASS" the poster whom you corrected might have seen your post and thought, "hark, a link _would_ be more useful than a URL. I shall use that next time." Instead, with your technique, the poster might think, "Oh my, I am truly a DUMBASS. Since I can't do anything right I may as well not post at all... sniff," and we would miss the benefit of his knowledge.
Thank you for your informative viewpoint, but please keep in mind that we all learn faster we use our polite voices. Have a nice day!:-)
I had something remotely similar to that happen to me.
A few years back I was looking for a mid-level IT job. I had several years of good experience and a single MS certification for WinNT Server. I had been leading my resume with the cert. thinking people would want to see it, but then one day I took a closer look at it and realized I was making a big mistake. With the cert. just sitting there all alone at the top of the resume people were probably thinking, "gee, why doesn't this guy have a full MCSE," before they even had a chance to see my experience.
I took the cert and put it almost on the bottom and immediately started to get more interest and quickly got a job. I can't prove it was because of this change, but when I looked back at the two versions I realize how much stronger it looked to have a lot of experience with different technologies rather than that single cert.
I know this isn't the exactly the same as your example, but it does say something for reworking your presentation while still telling the truth. Sometimes you just have to make the "most important part" less important if you want to get that job.
"The last time I checked, the high end Nvidia or ATI GPU was at least 3 times as expensive as a Pentium 4 2.2 ghz. And don't get me started at how much more expensive it is than a Athlon."
Top of the line CPUs are more expensive than the top of the line GPUs, just like mid-range CPUs are more expensive than mid-range GPUs. Why are you comparing a High-end part with a mid range part and calling me unsensible?
But wait, there's more. If you were able to put several high-end video cards in PCI-X slots and use the CPU to manage them then you'd have to compare 5 high-end GPUs + 1 high-end CPU + 1 single processor motherboard to 6 high-end CPUs capable of six-way SMP(much higher price than the "other" high end CPUs) + 1 motherboard capable of six-way SMP.
Question: which would have higher processing power and which would cost more? Based on stats I've seen, the 5 GPUs will kick butt for a fraction of the price.
PCI-X can fix this data bus in other ways as well. Motherboards come with one AGP slot, but PCI-X can and will provide many expansion slots.
Picture five high end GPUs on the motherboard eclipsing the single high-end cpu for a fraction of the price. Intel and AMD would be forced to cut the asking price of their products to compete. We could finally see some real four-way competition for "processors".
I can't help but notice the similarity between shader operations and how neurons interact. These processors might be a good platform for some AI tasks.
I especially like the idea that the GPU and CPU can work together on the task. If the GPU was handling neuron tasks and the CPU was handling other necessary tasks we could get a very big boost to desktop AI
"You're talking like a bunch of people got together and decided all this (free software and vast global computer networks). But actually it was inevitable."
But didn't we get together and decide to do this?
How many of us pushed hard to be able to telecommute (and now act surprised when our company hires someone to telecommute from India)?
How many of pushed hard for Linux (and now act surprised there are fewer companies who want to pay for programming work)?
I'm not saying it wasn't inevitable but the short history of our industry is not one of us fighting these inevitable changes. We pushed very hard for the changes and pretty much got everything we were looking for.
We "won", so why are we acting like we lost? Were we so blind to the inevitable conclusion of this process or just so prejudiced that we thought we're the only ones smart enough to benefit from it?
First we made information networked and portable so that anyone is capable of working with it at any place.
Then we actively promoted "free" software that we work on for no pay. We actively promoted others to use "free" software and to produce it themselves.
Now we act surprised when others are capable of writing software in other countries and are willing to do it for low wages.
Survival of the fitest in this case means we ACTIVELY WORKED at making our jobs less valuable and our presense less nessesary. I'm not saying this is a bad thing; we just reap what we sow.
Ya know, this is a lesson for me. I replied to some other guy who said Windows had been burning CDs for 4 or 5 years and that Linux sucked at it. I quoted him and corrected him. Then the "big moderators in the sky" removed his post and left mine. Now guys like you think _I_ am complaining about CD burning under Linux.
You got the wrong guy! Please reread my post and try to imagine someone else saying the stuff in the quotes. Thank you.
"They just needed 5 times more the altitude to reach the goal."
People seem to be forgetting that this is just one of many test flights. The fact that this didn't come close to the goal isn't really a problem.
These test flights are very important because they build faith in the aircraft and anticipation for the "real" flights to come. Of course they also point to problems that need to be solved like the aparrent landing gear issues.
Gee, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you describing that process for me. I'm very impressed that you assume I'm talking about "sitting on the edge of my seat staring at the screen" rather than the total hassle of getting the music you want at the quality you want.
The fact is that with iTunes you know exactly what you're getting and exactly what quality it is. You don't have to download 3 or 4 versions to make sure one of 'em is what you want and you certainly don't have t listen to 3 or 4 versions to figure out which ones to trash (quick math: 3 min per song X 4 versions = 12 minutes of wasted time). You don't have to fix your volume levels. You don't have to wonder if low-bandwidth boy will reboot his computer while you're downloading his stuff. You don't have to do anything but search, sample and download and the sample part is completely optional.
I have several friends who get stuff from Kazaa all the time and I can tell you with some certainty that the work they go through to enjoy "free" music doesn't come close to comparing with the minimal effort I go through to enjoy iTunes. If time is money, iTunes is by far the better value for the vast majority of people. If you can show that iTunes takes _more_ time, I'd love to see it.
That said, I have heard from people that do use Kazaa and they say that they waste significant amounts of time finding a good source for the song they want. Sometimes it's not a high quality rip. Sometimes it's a bogus file. Sometimes it just takes a while to find the song that they want, especially if it's not a super popular tune.
OTOH, all the iTunes products are of a good, consistent quality and they're easy to find. You waste less time.
Time has a monetary value, especially if overtime is available to you at work. Your mileage may be different from my example, but many people will find it much cheaper to work some overtime and use iTunes than try to find a good rip via Kazaa.
"The right tool for the right job," is a great motto, but in this case they're saying MS Office is the only tool they can use. If it were really the right tool for the job we would have been hearing about how much better that tool is on MS Office rather than the fact that they're just stuck using it.
This should be leading to some good discussions about open standards rather than just open source. If that app had been built on an open standard then a real comparisson could have been made between the office platforms based merit rather than lock-in.
Slashdot Mirror
I've never personally gotten a flat rate for electric, but if I did I would expect the electric company to published any maximum usage they would expect me to abide by.
I'm not arguing there should never be a cap. I am arguing that they should publish and advertise the cap so everyone knows exactly what they're paying for. I'm also sugesting that in absense of a published cap the consumer should not be expected to "self-limit" because they have no idea what that limit should be.
Running a game server for 5 or 6 of your buddies and a photo server for your family are not in the same league asrunning an aluminum smelter. Most ordinary computer users have the desire, the equipment, the software and the intelligence to be able to do this. What they don't have is sanction. If they don't have sanction, shouldn't the broadband companies be open and honest about how much sanction they really do have?
TW
"download wisely" my ass. If they have some mysterious "limit" that they can choose at their whim without even telling you then I would tell them to go to hell.
Check this out:
1. My long distance carrier says I have to pay by the minute and I monitor my usage very carefully.
2. My local carrier says I can have unlimited time on the phone for a flat rate so I don't monitor the usage.
Your broadband carrier essentially promised you number 2 but is treating you like you've got number 1 and you're saying you're more than happy to LIMIT YOURSELF while they continue to imply to new customers that there's no limit.
You're a fool. Insist they give you a posted limit or use as much as you want. Don't limit yourself for their benefit unless they're willing to be straight with you about exactly what you're paying for.
TW
I'm fond of saying that the only thing more difficult than imagining a beginning or ending of time is imagining time with no beginning or ending. I think the same can be said of space and hence the universe itself.
If you truly try, you will find both concepts equally awkward. You will also find we have few facts that ultimately support either. I can not make a case for either concept, but I can make a pretty good case for ignoring most people that insist they know the answer to which is true.
TW
You're just moving the problem to a (slightly) different place. If the company called Exxon owns the exxon TLD then I can't use it no matter how much I want it. How is that different from the company Exxon owning exxon.com?
.com then you have the exact same problem.... more than one person/org will want it.
The scarcity exists because more than one person/organization wants to be identified in the most convenient way. If the most convenient way is a TLD instead of a
TW
"Windows PE... ...I don't think it's publicly available."
I don't know exactly how MS licenses this particular product, but the WinPE disks are included with the Volume Licensing media kits if you happen to be on a VL license plan(we are at work).
I haven't specifically seen whether MSDN kits include it, but most VL media stuff is also available to MSDN subscribers so that would also be a good place to check.
TW
You're right, I had them confused. That said, PCI-Express is still promissing. I found this gem in the PCI-Express article that you linked:
:-)
"One fairly exciting possibility for this upcoming technology is the potential for multiple graphics cards using the same high-speed connection. Currently it is possible to use more than one video card in a given system by combining an AGP card with a 32-bit PCI card. There is no apparent reason why the X16 spec could not be extended to include support for more than one slot, allowing multiple high-speed PCI-Express graphics cards... though at the moment, such a feature does not exist as far as we know."
The article seemed to believe PCI-Express would tend toward 1x connections for cost reasons and usually that does have a very large effect in the marketplace, but the market for multiple monitors is growing so I'll hold out some hope for the future
TW
PS. Thanks for the links! I needed to catch up.
"Spend the $1 billion on better things. We should try and solve our own planets problems before going out into space."
Earth is great. I like it a lot. But we have all of our eggs (people, plants, animals, etc.) in just the one basket (Earth).
While we have a tendency to believe the Earth is solid and unchanging, we have a lot of evidence around us that this is not really the case. We have meteors, volcanoes, micro-organisms and even the occasional nuke build-up that could spoil everyone's day. And it could happen very soon.
While we're busy improving the Earth we all love, we should also do what we can to put some of our eggs go into another basket. That way if the one we currently have should get broke, we'll have eggs left in reserve to help build back up our little chicken farm.
People can think of all kinds of reasons to study space, visit Mars, etc., but I always look at it as house insurance. As long as the price isn't too high, you'd be a fool not to buy it. We have a 2-3 trillion dollar economy. How much house insurance do you think we can afford?
TW
I'd once again use the beach analogy. If my spouse holding the towel sees me is it any more "public" then it would be in my house? I'm not displaying myself to an unsuspecting "public" if only the photographer sees me.
TW
My phone has both and I'll use them both at different times. If I want to get a lot of info and it's displayed, then I'll usually use the camera. If it's just a few numbers, like the section of the garage where I parked my car, then I'll usually use the voice memo feature.
BTW, I have a Nokia 3650 and I sometimes wonder how I ever got around without it. I used to use an iPaq but I kept leaving it at home or at my desk thinking, "I don't need it right now." Naturally, I always ended up needing it when I thought I didn't. My phone is like my wallet; I almost never leave it behind. For me that means that each of the added features has a much greater chance of getting used.
TW
If nobody saw her when the picture was taken then she wasn't nude in "public". The analogy would be if woman changed into her swimsuit on the beach while others were holding a big towel in the way. Since no one saw her naked body there was no "public" involved even though she was briefly not wearing clothing in what would otherwise be considered a public space.
In most of these voyeur-style pictures the shot is taken when no one is looking. I am definitely not a lawyer, but if I were defending myself on this I'd argue that since nobody saw me (assuming this is the case) it wasn't a "public" display.
TW
Yeah, I'll call you on the camera phone.
Reason why I think it's one of the best inventions: I never seemed to have a camera around when I wanted one until now. And there are a lot of cool things you can do with a camera when one is around all the time.
Cool things to do with camera phones:
- Shopping in the "real world" and see something cool that you'd like to check out on-line later? No problem. Take a picture of the tag or box and you'll get the exact product number, etc without having to do a bunch of writing. Bonus points of those of you who send it to a friend and have him check on it while you're still in the store.
- Also great for those things you need to show your wife before plunking down cash.
- Screen shots for those error messages on non-networked-and-not-hooked-up-to-a-printer computers. I'm not kidding. It's great.
- Not to mention the "screen shot" of the inside of that computer that's giving your brother-in-law so much trouble. "Yes, Bob, you really do need to hook up that other little wire for that new SATA drive to work".
Camera phones rock. Once we get them to 2 mega pixels and beyond, they'll rock even more. It's amazing how much more useful some technologies can be when you give them just a little boost.
TW
You are so very correct, yet I can't help but wonder if leaving off the "DUMBASS" might have helped.
:-)
It is possible that if you had left off the "DUMBASS" the poster whom you corrected might have seen your post and thought, "hark, a link _would_ be more useful than a URL. I shall use that next time." Instead, with your technique, the poster might think, "Oh my, I am truly a DUMBASS. Since I can't do anything right I may as well not post at all... sniff," and we would miss the benefit of his knowledge.
Thank you for your informative viewpoint, but please keep in mind that we all learn faster we use our polite voices. Have a nice day!
TW
I had something remotely similar to that happen to me.
A few years back I was looking for a mid-level IT job. I had several years of good experience and a single MS certification for WinNT Server. I had been leading my resume with the cert. thinking people would want to see it, but then one day I took a closer look at it and realized I was making a big mistake. With the cert. just sitting there all alone at the top of the resume people were probably thinking, "gee, why doesn't this guy have a full MCSE," before they even had a chance to see my experience.
I took the cert and put it almost on the bottom and immediately started to get more interest and quickly got a job. I can't prove it was because of this change, but when I looked back at the two versions I realize how much stronger it looked to have a lot of experience with different technologies rather than that single cert.
I know this isn't the exactly the same as your example, but it does say something for reworking your presentation while still telling the truth. Sometimes you just have to make the "most important part" less important if you want to get that job.
TW
Not to mention setting up your home broadband connection to allow you dial-up from your grandma's house when you go to visit her.
Why would you want to download porn on your g-ma's AOL account? Isn't she in trouble enough from all those MP3s you downloaded?
TW
"The last time I checked, the high end Nvidia or ATI GPU was at least 3 times as expensive as a Pentium 4 2.2 ghz. And don't get me started at how much more expensive it is than a Athlon."
Top of the line CPUs are more expensive than the top of the line GPUs, just like mid-range CPUs are more expensive than mid-range GPUs. Why are you comparing a High-end part with a mid range part and calling me unsensible?
But wait, there's more. If you were able to put several high-end video cards in PCI-X slots and use the CPU to manage them then you'd have to compare 5 high-end GPUs + 1 high-end CPU + 1 single processor motherboard to 6 high-end CPUs capable of six-way SMP(much higher price than the "other" high end CPUs) + 1 motherboard capable of six-way SMP.
Question: which would have higher processing power and which would cost more? Based on stats I've seen, the 5 GPUs will kick butt for a fraction of the price.
TW
PCI-X can fix this data bus in other ways as well. Motherboards come with one AGP slot, but PCI-X can and will provide many expansion slots.
Picture five high end GPUs on the motherboard eclipsing the single high-end cpu for a fraction of the price. Intel and AMD would be forced to cut the asking price of their products to compete. We could finally see some real four-way competition for "processors".
TW
I can't help but notice the similarity between shader operations and how neurons interact. These processors might be a good platform for some AI tasks.
I especially like the idea that the GPU and CPU can work together on the task. If the GPU was handling neuron tasks and the CPU was handling other necessary tasks we could get a very big boost to desktop AI
TW
"You're talking like a bunch of people got together and decided all this (free software and vast global computer networks). But actually it was inevitable."
But didn't we get together and decide to do this?
How many of us pushed hard to be able to telecommute (and now act surprised when our company hires someone to telecommute from India)?
How many of pushed hard for Linux (and now act surprised there are fewer companies who want to pay for programming work)?
I'm not saying it wasn't inevitable but the short history of our industry is not one of us fighting these inevitable changes. We pushed very hard for the changes and pretty much got everything we were looking for.
We "won", so why are we acting like we lost? Were we so blind to the inevitable conclusion of this process or just so prejudiced that we thought we're the only ones smart enough to benefit from it?
TW
We actually did it to ourselves.
First we made information networked and portable so that anyone is capable of working with it at any place.
Then we actively promoted "free" software that we work on for no pay. We actively promoted others to use "free" software and to produce it themselves.
Now we act surprised when others are capable of writing software in other countries and are willing to do it for low wages.
Survival of the fitest in this case means we ACTIVELY WORKED at making our jobs less valuable and our presense less nessesary. I'm not saying this is a bad thing; we just reap what we sow.
TW
Ya know, this is a lesson for me. I replied to some other guy who said Windows had been burning CDs for 4 or 5 years and that Linux sucked at it. I quoted him and corrected him. Then the "big moderators in the sky" removed his post and left mine. Now guys like you think _I_ am complaining about CD burning under Linux.
You got the wrong guy! Please reread my post and try to imagine someone else saying the stuff in the quotes. Thank you.
TW
"Burning CD's...something that has been common and easy on Windows platforms for, what, 4 or 5 years now?"
This functionality has only been built into the OS since WinXP. Third-party apps handled it before XP.
TW
"They just needed 5 times more the altitude to reach the goal."
People seem to be forgetting that this is just one of many test flights. The fact that this didn't come close to the goal isn't really a problem.
These test flights are very important because they build faith in the aircraft and anticipation for the "real" flights to come. Of course they also point to problems that need to be solved like the aparrent landing gear issues.
TW
Gee, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you describing that process for me. I'm very impressed that you assume I'm talking about "sitting on the edge of my seat staring at the screen" rather than the total hassle of getting the music you want at the quality you want.
The fact is that with iTunes you know exactly what you're getting and exactly what quality it is. You don't have to download 3 or 4 versions to make sure one of 'em is what you want and you certainly don't have t listen to 3 or 4 versions to figure out which ones to trash (quick math: 3 min per song X 4 versions = 12 minutes of wasted time). You don't have to fix your volume levels. You don't have to wonder if low-bandwidth boy will reboot his computer while you're downloading his stuff. You don't have to do anything but search, sample and download and the sample part is completely optional.
I have several friends who get stuff from Kazaa all the time and I can tell you with some certainty that the work they go through to enjoy "free" music doesn't come close to comparing with the minimal effort I go through to enjoy iTunes. If time is money, iTunes is by far the better value for the vast majority of people. If you can show that iTunes takes _more_ time, I'd love to see it.
TW
Full disclosure: I've never actually used Kazaa.
That said, I have heard from people that do use Kazaa and they say that they waste significant amounts of time finding a good source for the song they want. Sometimes it's not a high quality rip. Sometimes it's a bogus file. Sometimes it just takes a while to find the song that they want, especially if it's not a super popular tune.
OTOH, all the iTunes products are of a good, consistent quality and they're easy to find. You waste less time.
Time has a monetary value, especially if overtime is available to you at work. Your mileage may be different from my example, but many people will find it much cheaper to work some overtime and use iTunes than try to find a good rip via Kazaa.
TW
"The right tool for the right job," is a great motto, but in this case they're saying MS Office is the only tool they can use. If it were really the right tool for the job we would have been hearing about how much better that tool is on MS Office rather than the fact that they're just stuck using it.
This should be leading to some good discussions about open standards rather than just open source. If that app had been built on an open standard then a real comparisson could have been made between the office platforms based merit rather than lock-in.
TW