is they seem hell-bent on making things 'around' the phones. Ovi, music subscriptions, that god-awful games console thingie etc etc.
They're clearly absolutely rubbish at it - and I'd just wish they'd stop trying (or at least burn all their money trying).
In my mind Nokia should make phones - that's where their skill lay. I remember those god-awful early Samsungs and the other Korean phones made out of silver plastic. I remember the lousy interfaces on them (and Motorola phones). Nokias stood out then. Now they don't. I guess maybe it's just Nokia were out the gate first and kept ahead for a while, now everybody else has caught up and has better PR.
based on my personal experience and that of people immediately around me. Even then I don't consider my phone purchases to be in any way representative of the majority of purchase dollars.
I guess if I had to make some points:
I think Nokia have lost the clear lead they used to have in 'Making the best phones'. I've been collared by a few market survey things over the last year which were clearly paid for by Nokia and seemed to acknowledge as much (and seemed hell-bent on making me think Nokia were some world leader in hand-held GPS). That's not to say Nokia make bad phones - just can't really think of many that stand out/push the envelope like that 8210 I got oh so many years ago.
What a smartphone is has massively changed over the last few years. I don't actually know myself. Pretty sure it's not a twitter or facebook client. Maybe Exchange Support... An RDP client.. GPS? I've really no idea. There's a pretty smooth gradient of features served over all price points, with no clear mark as to where the phone becomes smart.
Oh and I was wrong - I did nearly buy an N95. Wasn't the features that put me off, but seemingly was a little bit buggy at first (guy who lent it to me to play with, tried to offload it on me).
that everybody had given up on them. Used to be the 'leader' by a long shot - My first phone was a 6110i (I think). Then a 8210 - "so so small". 6310 - "Indestructible and a battery that lasted forever".
Then it all went a bit wrong.. the Nokia UI aged. I switched to Sony Ericsson (T28, P800, K800 - maybe some others I've forgotten about) and then to HTC windows devices right up until my current Nexus One. I was a 'Nokia person' and then other companies took the lead. For a while I could ignore the features, I 'liked Nokia' - but eventually I took the plunge and jumped ship. Load of other people I knew remained Nokia people for longer - e.g. my Mum and Dad. Eventually it reached the point when I didn't know anybody who actually went to look for a new phone with 'Nokia' anywhere on the requirement list (OK, they still have one of my sisters).
N900 is lovely (ish) - the problem is that the market they're trying to sell it to isn't even thinking about Nokia any more. Majority split between Blackberry/IPhone. Minority with bit more geekery in their pocket are currently deciding between a re-skinned WinMo (e.g. HD2) or Android (Nexus1, Droid).
There are still a large number of people wanting Nokias, the problem is that the people they've left themselves with just want a phone that makes calls. N900 is lovely, just I can't think of a single Nokia in the last 5+ years I've even considered purchasing. If anything the blind loyalty of the die-hards and 'premium' they've charged for their handsets has tainted the brand. I've had many conversations over the years trying to convince people to try some new brand when I've been asked for advice and the Nokia love has driven me up the wall. No idea how to illustrate this further, but I guess it's like your aged relative continuously buying the same brand of 'previously good' car, merely on the name and ignoring the plummeting quality of the car (Cadillac for Americans?).
possibly more an architect role. I write my ramblings and ideas in a document and some poor sap has to try and shape that into functioning code.
I used to be on the other end of this and there was NOTHING more miserable than sitting in an office, slaving away to get something functioning - and then hitting a logical block, where the person with the answer was sat at home eating their dinner.
Personally if my team is now working on something, I'd like to think I'd be the last one to leave the office. It's not a martyr act, or wanting to micro-manage - it's just I'm in notionally responsible for this piece of work. If we're sitting there late, then I've screwed up. I'll get coffee, pizza, whatever they want. If there's any work I'm capable of doing, I'll be doing it. If not I'll just be doing everything I can to help (and yes that means leaving them alone and just being there if there's a question).
Possibly something that's been overlooked is that there needs to be somebody there to decide when it's too late, everybody needs to go home and get some sleep - and is prepared to explain and take responsibility to 'above' why the task wasn't completed that night.
I'm not sure if it's ever recognized as an occasionally required role, but sometimes somebody just needs to stop the shit being hurled at the people on the coal-face.
This is a computer game - it's not real.
I mean if we'd all been posting stories of collateral damage in "the real world" for the last umpteen years then maybe we should be allowed to draw parallels.
We haven't - we've lost the right to moral indignation.
Commercially published game sales tend to spike when they're released - and then tail off afterwards. For Indie games I assume the 'spike' is a bit further down the line as people have to find it first - but sales will trail off once everybody is aware of it and has decided whether or not to buy it.
"Back in the day" the game ended up as a budget release (if it were lucky), maybe first at £10, then £5 - and you know only a teensy proportion of that shelf price ever made it back to the developer.
The "name your own price" strategy seems designed to mop up anybody who had an interest in the game, yet never got around to buying it for whatever reason. Basically if somebody doesn't buy it - they were NEVER going to buy it under any circumstance at all.
So - nice idea for games in the 'tail' of their lives.
What I'd like to see a publisher try (just to satisfy my idle curiosity:) is to raise the price of games from release up to a point.
i.e. We are going to sell this game for $25. We are launching it at $10 and every day for the next 2 weeks, we're adding a dollar to the price - seems an ideal way to get your headlines, and convert those waverers (the vast majority who will never buy) into purchasers.
I guess in summary, the general rule is that when you get somebody looking at the purchase page, there should always be a reason for them to buy now, rather than next week.
I for one have been hearing about WOG for aages - have I got around to even playing it - no - I had something 'else' to do. I now see the name your own price is about to finish so in my head I can heat "It's now or never time for me to buy it." *wanders off to purchase*
I agree the previous advantage in 'number' of WinMo apps has been decimated by App Store in the last year.
I also agree the out-of-the-box WinMo interface is quite horrific.
One advantage it does have though, is the level of configuration available to you on WinMo. Not saying it makes it the better phone, just that it's nice that somebody can knock up a tethering app you can just install and use. Nice that it does support that obscure VPN. Nice that you can just mimize that GPS logger in the background and it'll keep working etc etc.
I've no issue with the actual abilities of the WinMo OS, just the complete mess that's pasted over it. I know a load of people hold out hopes for WM7, but I'll just believe it when I see it.
So host gets it - and guest get... well shit.
My top tip to MS next time would be to:
a) Include a copy for everybody - either a nice copy in the bag, or a voucher they could register for a download, or even just a couple to raffle off.
b) Include alcohol - parties need alcohol, or they're "a meeting"
or whatever they end up being called. Net-Tabs? OOh thought of a better one TabNets.
Basically I've not bought a netbook as I've no real need for one. I have laptops and desktops coming out of my ears - without a need to have something low-powered and smaller than a laptop to carry about, I have no need of one.
What I would like is a tiny tablet. Something that boots quickly and I could use as I dunno, a glorified media center remote. Maybe as prices come down, something you could hang on your fridge door to display your shopping lists and the weather forecast on. For simple tasks touch is the best UI.
I'm sure mini-tablets will come out with the atom/amd in them - but with nobody pushing them, can't see it taking off. My guess is that at some point apple will release their "giant ipod touch thing" - and then every PC manufacturer in the world will immediately start knocking out TabNets.
well not 'good'.
Main problems that sprang to mind - you can copy it. Somebody sees it, jots down the lines and they've cloned your key - and you're none the wiser.
Secondly, it's just not very secure. Can't be bothered out working the maths, but from merely what's on the screen you can rule out a large number of possible numbers and massively increase the change of brute force.
Simple extension of the idea (if not part of current pitch, I claim it NOW) is that the display should just have a single alignment arrow in one corner. That way the card could be flipped around 2-axis (i.e. invert it, or flip, or flip and invert) - not going to make it secure, but massively increases the areas that could be masked, and therefore reduces exposure to brute force guesses.
Use much longer number/masks, put an offset arrow on it etc etc - oh it could be improved - but you're still just polishing a turd.
I was on a message board for a while and had a strop and threw my rattle (long story, nobody comes out looking good).
Anyway, decided I could do better myself.
I use Oracle at work, so knocked up something in PL/SQL. Now nothing wrong with Oracle, but it's a slight over-kill for a message board and a little expensive should you choose to license.
So I picked up an O'Reilly PHP/MySQL book and started reading.. then got bored and started coding.
It is SO much more productive to have a goal and bang your head against it until it crumbles (the tears and suffering fade from the memory). Anyway, got it done and if nothing else I have new lines for my CV.
Site was popular, over-ran the shared hosting, so now leased a dedicated server (kind patrons of the site pretty much cover the lease).
Once you've got the server, the mind wanders - so SSL, mail servers, MMS/SMS integration, Google Maps etc etc follow. Once you've got a 'project' suddenly feature creep is quite fun - get to spend an evening prototyping something, and if it works then you have a new feature. (bobpitch.com)
Next 'thing' was that I wanted to sell some DVDs on Amazon/Ebay - I'd bought NAS and was going media-less. Found it a pain in the arse trying to work out what stuff was worth cash and what wasn't. So stumbled on the Amazon API and automated it. Seemed a waste not to share my knowledge, so just shoved up a domain with a lookup on it (checkean.com).
Then somebody saw that and actually asked if I'd make a tool for them that would bulk it through CSVs and check another site. Other site didn't have an API, so I learnt about curl. Anyway got it working and got a bit of cash. Doesn't match my 'real world' hourly rate, but felt so f'in good for somebody to recognize your tinkering as being worth cash. Since then a few other people have stumbled across it, and signed up as well.
Anyway, not quite sure what my point is. Maybe there are a few:
PHP/MySQL - Easy to make stuff with and bang it out.
Web Apps - People will 'find them' and you get to plunder and mash all the rest of the stuff that's out there.
Build what interests you - and tinker yourself stupid
Work alone - Personally, I have enough of hierarchy at work. The stuff I do is MINE. I MADE IT. Doesn't mean others haven't helped me out and that I don't appreciate the help, but just something lovely about an idea coming into your head and making it real. Message Board 'project' is sortof finished now and code's been cleaned up. Few more things to do, but then I'll chuck it at sourceforge. I like OSS, but seemingly don't like sharing.
There's probably more and I think I'm just repeating what others have said - I'll stop.
The official PC market is 'similar' to this already. You get a code printed on the manual, and then when you install the game you 'activate' your code online.
That code is now used and it is tied to you.
The reason why you now never see any 2nd hand PC games in shops, is if you walk in with a physical game, with the manual, with the code - precisely as how it came - there's no way the poor guy in the shop can know if when he resells the game it'll work.
So they just drop the PC section and the console section gets just a little bit bigger.
then it should be easy enough to tunnel to the UK. Some Femtocells (no idea about this vodafone one) have built in GPS to the cell can locate itself. Officially I believe it's pitched to make sure the femtocell is licensed to be used, but everybody immediately pointed out it was to stop it being used for roaming. Was never quite sure how the GPS would work though, unless it was in the T&C that you had to balance your femtocell on a window ledge.
Can't generalize, but a small mobile phone bill is easily equivalent to a CD album purchase.
Assuming they were buying a CD a week (they weren't) - that's just knocked 25% off music sales to teenagers alone.
As has been covered in other posts, I think it's that there's just simply more things to spend money on.
Oh and the ridiculous price gouging that came in with the transition of physical media to digital downloads. Oh and couple that with the 'pirated' version of music actually being of higher quality and easier to use than the legitimate copy. I don't want to photo-copy books, I can't be arsed trying to trick my console into letting me play a game I've burnt online - I would like my music high-bitrate and available to be played on all my kit (and not be tied to a particular platform for the rest of my life). Not saying that's the sole reason for the drop off in purchasing of music, but must nudge the decision on what you won't be buying that month.
Plenty wrong with 'bad' sequels, made entirely to cash in - but not with sequels per se.
Off the top of my head, they already made one with Toy Story 2 - which in my and most people's opinion was better than the original.
As to the comment below about falling returns, these films are going to be generating money for decades (think of the Disney back-catalogue that's getting continuously re-released to much fan-fare every few years).
But I think you need to face the possibility that some people are just 'dumb'
Conversely some are really 'smart'
Interesting thing is what the criteria is for this division. Ignoring the tiny 'dumb in every way' group - and without intentionally descending into schmaltz, surely the key is identify what people are good at/enjoy and allow them to follow that path from as young an age as possible.
By all means ensure there's a foundation of basic numeracy and literacy, but just seems quite quite bizarre to me how some subject seems to find themselves on a curriculum where I swear they've never been of any use to 99% of the countless millions that've studied them.
Had a slightly beery conversation a while back on this very topic, and concluded that glaciers are possibly the most pointlessly known topic.
If they'd just turned up a couple of days later in AT&T outfits, then this would never have been a story.
So for the sake of getting their fibre back on-line immediately, they've 'lost' the secret value - actually, they've now definitely flagged it as 'secret'
It's insane.
NONE of these 'developing country' systems has ever taken off. Closest thing I could think of was the Nintendo iQue system - they launched in China and as far as I can see never made it outside of China. Bit strange that whilst they had both the hardware and the games, they decided it wasn't worth the effort of pushing it round the rest of the world.
iQue actually had some things going for it. It was only a generation behind, and came with the N64 library of games (as it was a chip-shrunk N64) - which were harder to pirate in the first place. i.e. if you wanted to play Mario64, an iQue was/is the cheapest way of doing it.
They can't be selling to people who have consoles - as these people will already have a PS1/PS2/Xbox/whatever... So they're aiming at new buyers I guess.. maybe.. but then how're they going to attract them? What big name game will entice?.. insane, just insane.
Grow some would you?
Infinite number of places you could upload it. If it's of any interest, you can be guaranteed that the copying/rehosting will preserve it.
Mail it to a journalist or two from a paper that might be interested if you want to speed up the process.
But your personal opinion isn't going to help Craigslist (and their advertisers).
Sort out your elected representatives and it'll all neatly and legally fall into place.
There's plenty of netbooks that were sold with huge bezels around the screen. Whilst I don't want the netbooks to be physically bigger, I'm more than happy to pay for a screen that goes to the edges of whatever sized machine I've bought.
I also would like high resolution. Unless I'm trying to use it from across the room, the physical size of the screen isn't that big a deal.
Tablet! We've been waiting for years for these things to take off. Surely a netbook is the ideal device to haul out of your bag and a couple of seconds later be scribbling on.
I think my main issue with current netbooks is that price always seems to be the main factor. In 90% of models this just seems to produce a cheap laptop.
The Vaio P is the closest that's come to trying to define what a netbook should be, to me. Just wish other manufacturers would have a go and get the price down (oh and Ion GPU and the aforementioned tabletting wouldn't go amiss).
Or if you've got a Windows Mobile Phone
on
Mobile Wi-Fi Hot Spot
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· Score: 2, Informative
Which works like a charm. Main uses I have for it is to get my iTouch online when there's no wifi about, or when a few of us are stuck in a ransom office somewhere with no/firewalled net access.
Main issue isn't getting a wifi available over a 3G backhaul (however you want to do it), but rather the quite horrific cost of doing so.
They took a film crew to a small village in India.
Every day, under cover of darkness, container loads of British Grapefruits were dumped at the village border.
Children as young as 5 were working 14 hour days in the grapefruit cutting sheds.
Everywhere you looked there were people with mildly smarting eyes and slightly sticky fingers, was like something Dante might have written about.
When the undercover reporter confronted the owner he just muttered something about lack of scurvy.
Slashdot Mirror
is they seem hell-bent on making things 'around' the phones. Ovi, music subscriptions, that god-awful games console thingie etc etc.
They're clearly absolutely rubbish at it - and I'd just wish they'd stop trying (or at least burn all their money trying).
In my mind Nokia should make phones - that's where their skill lay. I remember those god-awful early Samsungs and the other Korean phones made out of silver plastic. I remember the lousy interfaces on them (and Motorola phones). Nokias stood out then. Now they don't. I guess maybe it's just Nokia were out the gate first and kept ahead for a while, now everybody else has caught up and has better PR.
based on my personal experience and that of people immediately around me. Even then I don't consider my phone purchases to be in any way representative of the majority of purchase dollars.
I guess if I had to make some points:
I think Nokia have lost the clear lead they used to have in 'Making the best phones'. I've been collared by a few market survey things over the last year which were clearly paid for by Nokia and seemed to acknowledge as much (and seemed hell-bent on making me think Nokia were some world leader in hand-held GPS). That's not to say Nokia make bad phones - just can't really think of many that stand out/push the envelope like that 8210 I got oh so many years ago.
What a smartphone is has massively changed over the last few years. I don't actually know myself. Pretty sure it's not a twitter or facebook client. Maybe Exchange Support... An RDP client.. GPS? I've really no idea. There's a pretty smooth gradient of features served over all price points, with no clear mark as to where the phone becomes smart.
Oh and I was wrong - I did nearly buy an N95. Wasn't the features that put me off, but seemingly was a little bit buggy at first (guy who lent it to me to play with, tried to offload it on me).
that everybody had given up on them. Used to be the 'leader' by a long shot - My first phone was a 6110i (I think). Then a 8210 - "so so small". 6310 - "Indestructible and a battery that lasted forever". Then it all went a bit wrong.. the Nokia UI aged. I switched to Sony Ericsson (T28, P800, K800 - maybe some others I've forgotten about) and then to HTC windows devices right up until my current Nexus One. I was a 'Nokia person' and then other companies took the lead. For a while I could ignore the features, I 'liked Nokia' - but eventually I took the plunge and jumped ship. Load of other people I knew remained Nokia people for longer - e.g. my Mum and Dad. Eventually it reached the point when I didn't know anybody who actually went to look for a new phone with 'Nokia' anywhere on the requirement list (OK, they still have one of my sisters).
N900 is lovely (ish) - the problem is that the market they're trying to sell it to isn't even thinking about Nokia any more. Majority split between Blackberry/IPhone. Minority with bit more geekery in their pocket are currently deciding between a re-skinned WinMo (e.g. HD2) or Android (Nexus1, Droid).
There are still a large number of people wanting Nokias, the problem is that the people they've left themselves with just want a phone that makes calls. N900 is lovely, just I can't think of a single Nokia in the last 5+ years I've even considered purchasing. If anything the blind loyalty of the die-hards and 'premium' they've charged for their handsets has tainted the brand. I've had many conversations over the years trying to convince people to try some new brand when I've been asked for advice and the Nokia love has driven me up the wall. No idea how to illustrate this further, but I guess it's like your aged relative continuously buying the same brand of 'previously good' car, merely on the name and ignoring the plummeting quality of the car (Cadillac for Americans?).
possibly more an architect role. I write my ramblings and ideas in a document and some poor sap has to try and shape that into functioning code.
I used to be on the other end of this and there was NOTHING more miserable than sitting in an office, slaving away to get something functioning - and then hitting a logical block, where the person with the answer was sat at home eating their dinner.
Personally if my team is now working on something, I'd like to think I'd be the last one to leave the office. It's not a martyr act, or wanting to micro-manage - it's just I'm in notionally responsible for this piece of work. If we're sitting there late, then I've screwed up. I'll get coffee, pizza, whatever they want. If there's any work I'm capable of doing, I'll be doing it. If not I'll just be doing everything I can to help (and yes that means leaving them alone and just being there if there's a question).
Possibly something that's been overlooked is that there needs to be somebody there to decide when it's too late, everybody needs to go home and get some sleep - and is prepared to explain and take responsibility to 'above' why the task wasn't completed that night.
I'm not sure if it's ever recognized as an occasionally required role, but sometimes somebody just needs to stop the shit being hurled at the people on the coal-face.
This is a computer game - it's not real.
I mean if we'd all been posting stories of collateral damage in "the real world" for the last umpteen years then maybe we should be allowed to draw parallels.
We haven't - we've lost the right to moral indignation.
so possibly you can guess my comment on their strategy.
Commercially published game sales tend to spike when they're released - and then tail off afterwards. For Indie games I assume the 'spike' is a bit further down the line as people have to find it first - but sales will trail off once everybody is aware of it and has decided whether or not to buy it.
:) is to raise the price of games from release up to a point.
"Back in the day" the game ended up as a budget release (if it were lucky), maybe first at £10, then £5 - and you know only a teensy proportion of that shelf price ever made it back to the developer.
The "name your own price" strategy seems designed to mop up anybody who had an interest in the game, yet never got around to buying it for whatever reason.
Basically if somebody doesn't buy it - they were NEVER going to buy it under any circumstance at all.
So - nice idea for games in the 'tail' of their lives.
What I'd like to see a publisher try (just to satisfy my idle curiosity
i.e. We are going to sell this game for $25. We are launching it at $10 and every day for the next 2 weeks, we're adding a dollar to the price - seems an ideal way to get your headlines, and convert those waverers (the vast majority who will never buy) into purchasers.
I guess in summary, the general rule is that when you get somebody looking at the purchase page, there should always be a reason for them to buy now, rather than next week.
I for one have been hearing about WOG for aages - have I got around to even playing it - no - I had something 'else' to do. I now see the name your own price is about to finish so in my head I can heat "It's now or never time for me to buy it." *wanders off to purchase*
I agree the previous advantage in 'number' of WinMo apps has been decimated by App Store in the last year.
I also agree the out-of-the-box WinMo interface is quite horrific.
One advantage it does have though, is the level of configuration available to you on WinMo. Not saying it makes it the better phone, just that it's nice that somebody can knock up a tethering app you can just install and use. Nice that it does support that obscure VPN. Nice that you can just mimize that GPS logger in the background and it'll keep working etc etc.
I've no issue with the actual abilities of the WinMo OS, just the complete mess that's pasted over it. I know a load of people hold out hopes for WM7, but I'll just believe it when I see it.
but if you type an address into a web browser, it's not a great leap to decide that the default should be http on port 80.
So host gets it - and guest get... well shit.
My top tip to MS next time would be to:
a) Include a copy for everybody - either a nice copy in the bag, or a voucher they could register for a download, or even just a couple to raffle off. b) Include alcohol - parties need alcohol, or they're "a meeting"
or whatever they end up being called. Net-Tabs? OOh thought of a better one TabNets.
Basically I've not bought a netbook as I've no real need for one. I have laptops and desktops coming out of my ears - without a need to have something low-powered and smaller than a laptop to carry about, I have no need of one.
What I would like is a tiny tablet. Something that boots quickly and I could use as I dunno, a glorified media center remote. Maybe as prices come down, something you could hang on your fridge door to display your shopping lists and the weather forecast on. For simple tasks touch is the best UI.
I'm sure mini-tablets will come out with the atom/amd in them - but with nobody pushing them, can't see it taking off. My guess is that at some point apple will release their "giant ipod touch thing" - and then every PC manufacturer in the world will immediately start knocking out TabNets.
well not 'good'.
Main problems that sprang to mind - you can copy it.
Somebody sees it, jots down the lines and they've cloned your key - and you're none the wiser.
Secondly, it's just not very secure. Can't be bothered out working the maths, but from merely what's on the screen you can rule out a large number of possible numbers and massively increase the change of brute force.
Simple extension of the idea (if not part of current pitch, I claim it NOW) is that the display should just have a single alignment arrow in one corner. That way the card could be flipped around 2-axis (i.e. invert it, or flip, or flip and invert) - not going to make it secure, but massively increases the areas that could be masked, and therefore reduces exposure to brute force guesses.
Use much longer number/masks, put an offset arrow on it etc etc - oh it could be improved - but you're still just polishing a turd.
I was on a message board for a while and had a strop and threw my rattle (long story, nobody comes out looking good).
Anyway, decided I could do better myself.
I use Oracle at work, so knocked up something in PL/SQL. Now nothing wrong with Oracle, but it's a slight over-kill for a message board and a little expensive should you choose to license.
So I picked up an O'Reilly PHP/MySQL book and started reading.. then got bored and started coding.
It is SO much more productive to have a goal and bang your head against it until it crumbles (the tears and suffering fade from the memory). Anyway, got it done and if nothing else I have new lines for my CV.
Site was popular, over-ran the shared hosting, so now leased a dedicated server (kind patrons of the site pretty much cover the lease).
Once you've got the server, the mind wanders - so SSL, mail servers, MMS/SMS integration, Google Maps etc etc follow. Once you've got a 'project' suddenly feature creep is quite fun - get to spend an evening prototyping something, and if it works then you have a new feature. (bobpitch.com)
Next 'thing' was that I wanted to sell some DVDs on Amazon/Ebay - I'd bought NAS and was going media-less. Found it a pain in the arse trying to work out what stuff was worth cash and what wasn't. So stumbled on the Amazon API and automated it. Seemed a waste not to share my knowledge, so just shoved up a domain with a lookup on it (checkean.com).
Then somebody saw that and actually asked if I'd make a tool for them that would bulk it through CSVs and check another site. Other site didn't have an API, so I learnt about curl. Anyway got it working and got a bit of cash. Doesn't match my 'real world' hourly rate, but felt so f'in good for somebody to recognize your tinkering as being worth cash. Since then a few other people have stumbled across it, and signed up as well.
Anyway, not quite sure what my point is. Maybe there are a few:
PHP/MySQL - Easy to make stuff with and bang it out.
Web Apps - People will 'find them' and you get to plunder and mash all the rest of the stuff that's out there. Build what interests you - and tinker yourself stupid
Work alone - Personally, I have enough of hierarchy at work. The stuff I do is MINE. I MADE IT. Doesn't mean others haven't helped me out and that I don't appreciate the help, but just something lovely about an idea coming into your head and making it real. Message Board 'project' is sortof finished now and code's been cleaned up. Few more things to do, but then I'll chuck it at sourceforge. I like OSS, but seemingly don't like sharing.
There's probably more and I think I'm just repeating what others have said - I'll stop.
The official PC market is 'similar' to this already. You get a code printed on the manual, and then when you install the game you 'activate' your code online.
That code is now used and it is tied to you.
The reason why you now never see any 2nd hand PC games in shops, is if you walk in with a physical game, with the manual, with the code - precisely as how it came - there's no way the poor guy in the shop can know if when he resells the game it'll work.
So they just drop the PC section and the console section gets just a little bit bigger.
then it should be easy enough to tunnel to the UK. Some Femtocells (no idea about this vodafone one) have built in GPS to the cell can locate itself. Officially I believe it's pitched to make sure the femtocell is licensed to be used, but everybody immediately pointed out it was to stop it being used for roaming. Was never quite sure how the GPS would work though, unless it was in the T&C that you had to balance your femtocell on a window ledge.
Can't generalize, but a small mobile phone bill is easily equivalent to a CD album purchase.
Assuming they were buying a CD a week (they weren't) - that's just knocked 25% off music sales to teenagers alone.
As has been covered in other posts, I think it's that there's just simply more things to spend money on.
Oh and the ridiculous price gouging that came in with the transition of physical media to digital downloads. Oh and couple that with the 'pirated' version of music actually being of higher quality and easier to use than the legitimate copy. I don't want to photo-copy books, I can't be arsed trying to trick my console into letting me play a game I've burnt online - I would like my music high-bitrate and available to be played on all my kit (and not be tied to a particular platform for the rest of my life). Not saying that's the sole reason for the drop off in purchasing of music, but must nudge the decision on what you won't be buying that month.
Plenty wrong with 'bad' sequels, made entirely to cash in - but not with sequels per se.
Off the top of my head, they already made one with Toy Story 2 - which in my and most people's opinion was better than the original.
As to the comment below about falling returns, these films are going to be generating money for decades (think of the Disney back-catalogue that's getting continuously re-released to much fan-fare every few years).
But I think you need to face the possibility that some people are just 'dumb'
Conversely some are really 'smart'
Interesting thing is what the criteria is for this division. Ignoring the tiny 'dumb in every way' group - and without intentionally descending into schmaltz, surely the key is identify what people are good at/enjoy and allow them to follow that path from as young an age as possible.
By all means ensure there's a foundation of basic numeracy and literacy, but just seems quite quite bizarre to me how some subject seems to find themselves on a curriculum where I swear they've never been of any use to 99% of the countless millions that've studied them.
Had a slightly beery conversation a while back on this very topic, and concluded that glaciers are possibly the most pointlessly known topic.
If they'd just turned up a couple of days later in AT&T outfits, then this would never have been a story. So for the sake of getting their fibre back on-line immediately, they've 'lost' the secret value - actually, they've now definitely flagged it as 'secret'
It's insane.
NONE of these 'developing country' systems has ever taken off. Closest thing I could think of was the Nintendo iQue system - they launched in China and as far as I can see never made it outside of China. Bit strange that whilst they had both the hardware and the games, they decided it wasn't worth the effort of pushing it round the rest of the world.
iQue actually had some things going for it. It was only a generation behind, and came with the N64 library of games (as it was a chip-shrunk N64) - which were harder to pirate in the first place. i.e. if you wanted to play Mario64, an iQue was/is the cheapest way of doing it.
They can't be selling to people who have consoles - as these people will already have a PS1/PS2/Xbox/whatever... So they're aiming at new buyers I guess.. maybe.. but then how're they going to attract them? What big name game will entice?.. insane, just insane.
Grow some would you?
Infinite number of places you could upload it. If it's of any interest, you can be guaranteed that the copying/rehosting will preserve it.
Mail it to a journalist or two from a paper that might be interested if you want to speed up the process.
But your personal opinion isn't going to help Craigslist (and their advertisers).
Sort out your elected representatives and it'll all neatly and legally fall into place.
There's plenty of netbooks that were sold with huge bezels around the screen. Whilst I don't want the netbooks to be physically bigger, I'm more than happy to pay for a screen that goes to the edges of whatever sized machine I've bought.
I also would like high resolution. Unless I'm trying to use it from across the room, the physical size of the screen isn't that big a deal.
Tablet! We've been waiting for years for these things to take off. Surely a netbook is the ideal device to haul out of your bag and a couple of seconds later be scribbling on.
I think my main issue with current netbooks is that price always seems to be the main factor. In 90% of models this just seems to produce a cheap laptop.
The Vaio P is the closest that's come to trying to define what a netbook should be, to me. Just wish other manufacturers would have a go and get the price down (oh and Ion GPU and the aforementioned tabletting wouldn't go amiss).
http://wmwifirouter.com/
Which works like a charm. Main uses I have for it is to get my iTouch online when there's no wifi about, or when a few of us are stuck in a ransom office somewhere with no/firewalled net access.
Main issue isn't getting a wifi available over a 3G backhaul (however you want to do it), but rather the quite horrific cost of doing so.
They took a film crew to a small village in India. Every day, under cover of darkness, container loads of British Grapefruits were dumped at the village border. Children as young as 5 were working 14 hour days in the grapefruit cutting sheds. Everywhere you looked there were people with mildly smarting eyes and slightly sticky fingers, was like something Dante might have written about. When the undercover reporter confronted the owner he just muttered something about lack of scurvy.