What's to be said for equal opportunity? For those families living on lowered income, single moms who can't afford decent computers and internet connections? Certainly, children should have the opportunity to use computers at a very early age, in order to help them develop their analytical skills, but social skills are equally important.
Manglish n. A 21st century buzzword used to define "manga in english". adj. Of or relating to the English language (particularly, grammatical errors and misuse of colloquialisms) being mangled in Japanese sketched or animated pop-literature.
According tothese, this useful application is potentially something that evolved based on smaller projects and a common code-base.
Admittedly, I've never used a spreadsheet for more than its basic functions (organizing data in columns for personal finances or some of the homebrew programming projects I work on), but if X% of Excel users are only utilizing Y% of the program's capabilities (where Y is a significantly small percentage of the program's full feature-set), any company can come along, produce a simple app which elegantly handles the most-sought-for features, and voila, competitor. From what I've seen of the managerial staff at work, the only thing Google Spreadsheets is missing to be a 'real' (read: truly useful for aforementioned X% of users) spreadsheet app, is a chart wizard.
I was shopping for a rare imported U.K. movie from the 80's which a particular vendor sold for not too expensive. I purchased the item (under 20$ for the item + shipping) immediately, paid via Paypal, and waited. The vendor emailed me a week later, asking how I'd like to pay for the item. After some 3 weeks of trying to get the very apologetic vendor to respond to me, I decided I wasn't getting anywhere, and submitted a complaint. Turns out, from the time I paid for the item, to the point that I submitted the claim, he had acquired numerous negative feedbacks. I guess I was just unlucky, as the item was not of exceptional value to anyone, nor was it high in demand. I just happened to be victim of an irresponsible vendor.
This was in October. Last week, Paypal issued a full refund for the item I bought. Maybe it was due to the negative response I gave on the feedback form I submitted, or maybe it was happenstance. But with the robotic-overlords (whom I don't welcome!) responses gotten from eBay and Paypal both, I never felt so utterly helpless in a sale transaction as in this one!
My first really debilitating virus I encountered was the "Pakistani" virus in 11th grade computer science. Our teacher possessed a doctorate degree in CS, had worked at NASA in the past, and we were certain he wrote the virus (he was of Pakistani origin) to prevent his students from sharing their diskettes in order to cheat on course assignments, because this was the only time it showed up!
One thing I've gleaned from years of webbernetting, is that if people *really* want something free, they'll get it for free. Whether it comes down to complaining enough to get news vendors to return their 'product' to a free model (less likely) or moving on to a free source (more likely), there's *always* a free alternative.
Sometimes it boils down to the following: in many workplaces you will have employers pushing employees to perform tasks well above and beyond their originally intended workload. The employees do not fuss about it, as they know they can easily be replaced by the saturated glut of equally-trained (or equally-trainable) unemployed or opportunity-seeking individuals.
It's the classic corporate-machine strategy: increase profit, reduce expenditures. Squeeze whatever productivity from employees that you can; if they balk, replace them... because they ARE replaceable.
Laziness and lack of research. Same reason why stuff isn't ported to other platforms (Linux mainly)... because the marketers don't understand there IS a market across user platforms (Windows, Linux, Macintosh) for most software and hardware.
It likely boils down to a small group of Mac non-users legislating that "there is not enough of a market to compensate for its expenditure".
... New Orleans, being a massively under-technological wonder-city, has *no* obligation to accept the offer from Microsoft. They choose to. They could have looked into Linux, BSD, Apple Mac, C-64 GeOS, or whatever they damn well like. But they didn't. They could have researched its cost effectiveness. But they didn't. They could have spend a month trying different systems and running different distributions of other OS's to find out what best suited their needs. But they didn't.
See a trend here? The classic Microsoft-hater liturgy: MS "forced" something on someone/a group/a government even though that someone/group/government could have researched otherwise. So now Microsoft is the bad guy. It's called Doing Business. Businesses that eventually die don't evolve, are not self-propogating, and do not try new avenues and ventures in order to magnify their revenues. Businesses that survive, do.
Perhaps get your heads out of whatever dark smelly hole they're housed in, and realize that this is the way business works. Unless you decide to change the entire American "way", get used to it. Whining about it won't make it better.
Slashdot Mirror
"...students, hobbyist developers, occupational developers and individual programming professionals..."
May I suggest Code::Blocks?
Do you have yours?
Eff Pee!
What's to be said for equal opportunity? For those families living on lowered income, single moms who can't afford decent computers and internet connections? Certainly, children should have the opportunity to use computers at a very early age, in order to help them develop their analytical skills, but social skills are equally important.
Manglish
n. A 21st century buzzword used to define "manga in english".
adj. Of or relating to the English language (particularly, grammatical errors and misuse of colloquialisms) being mangled in Japanese sketched or animated pop-literature.
According to these, this useful application is potentially something that evolved based on smaller projects and a common code-base.
Admittedly, I've never used a spreadsheet for more than its basic functions (organizing data in columns for personal finances or some of the homebrew programming projects I work on), but if X% of Excel users are only utilizing Y% of the program's capabilities (where Y is a significantly small percentage of the program's full feature-set), any company can come along, produce a simple app which elegantly handles the most-sought-for features, and voila, competitor. From what I've seen of the managerial staff at work, the only thing Google Spreadsheets is missing to be a 'real' (read: truly useful for aforementioned X% of users) spreadsheet app, is a chart wizard.
I'd like to point out that Gaim (http://gaim.sf.net/) is similarly having a Summer of Code 2006 event.
...but I'm sure I want it.
I'd be interested to see if Rainz' assassination of the indomitable Lord British will be depicted in the book...
Frist psot!
...on eBay, which was just resolved last week.
I was shopping for a rare imported U.K. movie from the 80's which a particular vendor sold for not too expensive. I purchased the item (under 20$ for the item + shipping) immediately, paid via Paypal, and waited. The vendor emailed me a week later, asking how I'd like to pay for the item. After some 3 weeks of trying to get the very apologetic vendor to respond to me, I decided I wasn't getting anywhere, and submitted a complaint. Turns out, from the time I paid for the item, to the point that I submitted the claim, he had acquired numerous negative feedbacks. I guess I was just unlucky, as the item was not of exceptional value to anyone, nor was it high in demand. I just happened to be victim of an irresponsible vendor.
This was in October. Last week, Paypal issued a full refund for the item I bought. Maybe it was due to the negative response I gave on the feedback form I submitted, or maybe it was happenstance. But with the robotic-overlords (whom I don't welcome!) responses gotten from eBay and Paypal both, I never felt so utterly helpless in a sale transaction as in this one!
Snootchy bootchy, byatches!
I've never pooped in a battery, myself.
Only a pompous American would coin such a term. I'd rather be a dead Canadian than a live American.
My first really debilitating virus I encountered was the "Pakistani" virus in 11th grade computer science. Our teacher possessed a doctorate degree in CS, had worked at NASA in the past, and we were certain he wrote the virus (he was of Pakistani origin) to prevent his students from sharing their diskettes in order to cheat on course assignments, because this was the only time it showed up!
There is comparable software that might be of interest along these lines ... check out:/
http://www.pixtra.com/
http://www.ptgui.com/
http://hugin.sourceforge.net/
http://www.360dof.com/
http://www.arcsoft.com/products/panoramastitching
So underneath every robot in the Terminator series, is a sticker labelled "made in Korea"? That explains a lot!
That's "P Diddy".
I, for one, welcome our new celebrity sex-bot overlords!
Fuck the M16, they need a BOOMSTICK!
Many dothans died to bring you this information...
One thing I've gleaned from years of webbernetting, is that if people *really* want something free, they'll get it for free. Whether it comes down to complaining enough to get news vendors to return their 'product' to a free model (less likely) or moving on to a free source (more likely), there's *always* a free alternative.
Sometimes it boils down to the following: in many workplaces you will have employers pushing employees to perform tasks well above and beyond their originally intended workload. The employees do not fuss about it, as they know they can easily be replaced by the saturated glut of equally-trained (or equally-trainable) unemployed or opportunity-seeking individuals.
... because they ARE replaceable.
It's the classic corporate-machine strategy: increase profit, reduce expenditures. Squeeze whatever productivity from employees that you can; if they balk, replace them
Three cheers for capitalism...
Laziness and lack of research. Same reason why stuff isn't ported to other platforms (Linux mainly)... because the marketers don't understand there IS a market across user platforms (Windows, Linux, Macintosh) for most software and hardware.
It likely boils down to a small group of Mac non-users legislating that "there is not enough of a market to compensate for its expenditure".
... New Orleans, being a massively under-technological wonder-city, has *no* obligation to accept the offer from Microsoft. They choose to. They could have looked into Linux, BSD, Apple Mac, C-64 GeOS, or whatever they damn well like. But they didn't. They could have researched its cost effectiveness. But they didn't. They could have spend a month trying different systems and running different distributions of other OS's to find out what best suited their needs. But they didn't.
See a trend here? The classic Microsoft-hater liturgy: MS "forced" something on someone/a group/a government even though that someone/group/government could have researched otherwise. So now Microsoft is the bad guy. It's called Doing Business. Businesses that eventually die don't evolve, are not self-propogating, and do not try new avenues and ventures in order to magnify their revenues. Businesses that survive, do.
Perhaps get your heads out of whatever dark smelly hole they're housed in, and realize that this is the way business works. Unless you decide to change the entire American "way", get used to it. Whining about it won't make it better.