The problem I found with CDs was that they would gradually spread out around the house until I could never find what I wanted.
I've got 4 x Ikea CD racks that hold a total of about 800 CDs & whenever I buy a new CD, I *try* to sell an old one (on eBay) to stop the expansion "around the house". It doesn't always work & there's a small surplus pile building up next to the racks now but I take the view that I can always go buy the CD again if I ever want to.
Finding them now is just as difficult or easy as finding them was back then.
It's much easier finding them now.
Even to the point where the stuff I tend to like doesn't get much radio play in the UK. But there's always online reviews or the occasional Usenet download to help me decide before I buy.
And not forgetting just reselling a CD on eBay if it turns out to be a turkey of an album...
I buy the occasional second-hand CD but most of what I buy is new - particularly recently where a lot of classic (in my opinion) albums have been remastered & there's no way I'd pay the full price for a CD I've already bought once.
And I do *honestly* find most of the CDs I want as new on eBay or Amazon Marketplace for under £6 a time - otherwise, I just wouldn't buy it.
For most music, iTunes is significantly cheaper. Even for older music, often the classic albums from a band on CD are quite expensive
I guess it depends on what you define as "older" - I myself recently bought "Abbey Road" and "Sgt. Peppers" by the Beatles and was amazed that some music stores were charging up to £17 for these two albums from the 1960s. (I did get them online for unde £10 each in the end & they were worth every penny!) But a lot of the other stuff I listen to, from the 70s and early 80s, I can usually find for about £6 if I do some searching for it.
used to buy a lot of CDs at a cheap chain called Fopp
We had a Fopp store in my old home town - used to go there a lot & find some good bargains but now I've moved house, I just don't get there much.
I don't have to store redundant plastic disks
That's *HALF* the appeal of it, in my view!:-) There's nothing like browsing through your own music CD collection deciding on what album to play next...
I don't have to bother ripping the music
Get a Linux PC installed, my friend!:-) Admittedly you need to do a bit of initial setting up but after that, what's easier than popping a CD in the drive and typing "abcde" on the command line and letting it get on with it.
Incidentally, I accept the other points you've made.
Probably because about the same time CDs came out, music videos also took off. I think it's fairly safe to assume that a big wedge of the CD "production costs" go into the outfits, sets & makeup for all the pretty boys and girls to mime to their songs in front of a camera.
People that believe they're Robin Hood-type outlaws because they steal from the rich copyright holders to make duplicated pirate (or illegal free) copies are as bad as the RIAA/MPAA/etc. & give them the justification they need to push through DMCA/copy protection that affects the rest of us.
If it's too expensive, demonstrate some self-control & will power and just DON'T BUY IT or COPY IT!!!
Can someone please explain to me what the attraction is of music downloads anyway?
Yes, I'm middle-aged & I tend to listen mainly to classic rock albums with a little blues & soul thrown in. Most of the stuff I listen to, I can get fairly cheaply either second-hand or on eBay/Amazon marketplace - generally, I'll pick up a brand new CD for around £6 ($10). For that money, I get a nice uncompressed shiny CD with some liner notes and a hard case that I can rip at whatever bit rates I want to (I do listen to a lot of MP3-based music when I'm travelling or in the gym).
I don't go near Virgin or HMV record stores in the UK because I simply cannot justify paying anything up to £17 ($28) for a new CD but the prices that I do get my CDs at seem to be as cheap as paying to download each track individually - plus I get something tangible in the process.
I know a lot of people don't want to buy "filler" tracks on CDs and prefer downloading the tracks they want but I still don't get it - I've a collection of about 800 CDs at home and I'd say at least half of those are recordings I consider as "classics" that I can happily listen to from start to finish as completely good albums.
I'm certainly not trying to provoke a "the music of today is rubbish compared to the music of yesterday" argument because I just don't listen to enough modern music to have a valid opinion of it - but I've more than enough great music in CD album format to last me a lifetime now & if the younger generation of today has difficulty finding modern albums that are themselves "classics" in their entirety, then doesn't the "pick and mix music tracks" attitude perhaps make more of a statement about the quality of modern music than music downloads as being "the modern way" of distributing music?
Within the scope of any development I need to do, I don't need to spend the time transitioning to.NET or even caring what it does. I've already invested the time in learning Perl, Python, PHP, etc. so whilst they're not necessarily second nature to me, I can work comfortably within them.
Therefore, the ease of.NET is totally irrelevant to me and if others like it then great, let them get on with it. But my point is that how well/fast you program is just about what you're familiar with, nothing more.
I'm sure.NET is great for people starting out in programming & for those familiar with MS environments. But it's not for everyone and I certainly have no need for it.
And there was me thinking that LSB just allowed me to write more easily-portable programs so I had more time to drink beer... these management types are on a different plane of existence, ain't they?
The Windows users also tend to be less informed than the Linux users. Most Linux users have used Windows, the reverse is definitely not true.
Yes, there are zealots in both camps but it's easy to spot the Linux opinions of Microsoft users that are based on FUD rather than true hands-on experience with Linux.
Me? I write scripts in Linux and train people on how to do the same on PowerPoint presentations. I get my job done quicker using the tools I'm comfortable with leaving me more time to drink beer, play games & have nookie with the missus... I ain't complaining!:-)
BASH shell-scripting kicks ass. So do PERL, Python, the Korn Shell, PHP and C (and it's derivatives). I know enough about all of them to use one or more of them to do most of the tasks I need to do in the timescale I need to do them.
I've never programmed anything in any Microsoft programming environment because I've never needed to - and it would take me far too long to learn their way of doing things from scratch rather than working with what I know.
However, I know a few MS-based programmers who managed to develop the tools they need to in.NET or whatever it is they use - I'm sorry, I'm not informed enough about MS programming environments to voice any more opinions about it.
Apache is designed to be a standards compliant HTTP web server and, from a HTTP client perspective, Internet Explorer works pretty well with it. If Microsoft had started to make IE more incompatible with Apache, then IE would have become a proprietary MS application that didn't support HTTP, leaving Apache and HTTP-compliant browsers to carry on regardless.
What *REALLY* happened was that compared to Apache running on UNIX, IIS running on NT4 was a piece of crap. MS therefore had to create their own proprietary extensions to HTTP to encourage people to use IIS on Windows for web servers. Clever marketing and FrontPage served to lock in web developers into the MS way of doing things and now we have the standards compliance headaches that we have today with HTTP.
I've not used IIS since v4.0 on NT4 but I would imagine that by now it's a much better product, specifically on XP or Server 2003 and that it's well embedded in corporate enterprises with SQL, Active X, Exchange, etc. In other words, IE bought Microsoft the time they needed to get into that embedded situation in the corporate enterprise and I congratulate them on a very smart piece of marketing.
However, when it comes to clustering of web servers in server farms, nothing scales better than a UNIX OS running Apache - even Microsoft would concede that one since their core strengths are in enterprise-level integration, not in huge ISP level web servers.
And whilst I agree that Dvorak is usually a complete pillock, in this instance I agree with him in as much as the integration of IE with Windows made an already flawed (registry-based) OS that much more weaker and vulnerable as a result. On it's own, this can be considered a mistake but, overall, MS OSes now own 90% of the home and corporate desktops so I would say that MS achieved what they set out to do.
The success or failure of Linux is *totally irrelevant* to all of this. Only within recent years has Linux gone "hand in hand" with Apache as enterprises have learnt that they no longer need to run "expensive" UNIXes for their Apache web servers and can now use a stable and reliable free UNIX-like OS instead.
There is NO "Windows vs Linux" war, contrary to what you believe. It's the users that decide ultimately which OS is best for their needs & whilst it's important to make the world aware that there are alternatives to "The Microsoft Way", Linux and Open Source is there if you want to use it but still there if you don't.
Why do you consider my comments to be a "sweeping generalisation"?
Whether you're not satisfied with the state of Hollywood movies, the price of CDs, DRM or online gaming, the best way to display that dissatisfaction is to not hand over your money so quickly - if lots of people do that, someone's share prices are going to be affected and they'll need to take some positive action to turn things around and start the money coming in again.
Unfortunately, you're taking this somewhat personally and not allowing yourself to see my true argument - personally, if it makes you happy, I really don't care how long you play whatever online game you want and if you find no problem with the state of WoW then so be it; go off and enjoy it.
But *PLEASE* don't think that just sitting there moaning about it will change anything because it won't. Blizzard (or any other company/corporation you may think of) is just interested in crowbarring as much money from you as possible and as long as you continue handing over the cash, they've no reason to give a toss about what you think about their service or even to make it better.
Fifteen years ago, I was a fanatical "pen and paper" roleplayer (AD&D, Call Of Cthulhu, etc.) and whilst online MMORPG gaming has no appeal to me personally, the people that do play MMORPGs enjoy precisely the same escapism that I used to with squared paper and 20-sided dice - so I can understand why they enjoy playing those games, even to the point of fanatical playing, and therefore have no reason to look down on them for enjoying a "similar" hobby to one I used to enjoy.
But please stop being a "fanboy" and be a realist - Blizzard (and any other entertainment provider) is there *purely* to serve you by giving you something that you're prepared to pay for rather than you being so glossy-eyed over a "brand name" that you let them treat you like mindless cattle because they've achieved a "cool factor" in your opinion.
And with regards to your opinions on moderation - take that up with Slashdot because I'm just voicing what I truly believe to be the case - that far too many people are all "gooey-eyed" over certain brand names to the point where they lose all sense of rationalisation and choice.
Well, to be fair to BT in this instance, my ADSL router was detecting ADSL carrier (according to it's status screen anyway) but wasn't getting a DHCP IP address so I put the blame on Onetel. (Not only that but I had great difficulty explaining to the "techie" that configuring DNS servers manually on my router makes bugger all difference when you don't have a WAN IP address in the first place!)
However, you're right about BT not talking to DSL customers directly. I've had a major screaming match at both Onetel and BT because I'm paying Onetel for a 2MB ADSL service but can only get 1MB due to line quality. When trying to find out why I can't get 2MB service, Onetel blame BT for the line quality & BT tell me to get Onetel to put in a request because they won't speak to me directly.
When I first joined the industry, telcos (and I speak more of business/PBX providers rather than PSTN service providers) were able to make a lot of their money through custom hardware & the maintenance thereof - now, of course, most of the hardware is standard (Intel) server platforms so it's the software only that generates the income. And, yes, the cost of bandwidth has reduced many times over but I think much of that is as a result of technology enhancements such that you can get "more bits down a piece of wire" now than you could do 20 years ago.
Likewise, a lot more service can be carried out using remote connectivity now than could be done 20 years ago - in 1986, it was virtually unheard of to do a major software upgrade over a modem or VPN link but now it's commonplace. That means less bodies "on the street" and therefore much lower staffing costs as a result.
However, this has resulted in customers "feeling" that they are getting lower quality service because they no longer have direct face-to-face contact with the same familiar engineer they're used to dealing with. (There was a time when I was working in the field where I couldn't possibly drink the number of bottles of whisky given to me by my customers at Christmas - those *were* the days!)
In summary, add that to the fact that just about anyone dealing with a service organisation today *expects* to be queued in a call centre across the other side of the world plus the outsourcing of programmers and a technical person who might not understand your specific needs in the country where you are who is "monitored" by a statistical system that cares only about fault numbers, times to clear, etc. and, you get, in my view, a worse quality of service than was delivered 20 years ago.
It's simply the fact that *every* organisation now does it this way that the poor customer has no real choice in the matter...
The server stability or downtime, from my point of view, have been on par with other games I've played
Yes, but this is precisely my point. It isn't satisfactory to accept something purely because it's "on a par" with everything else. The *only* criteria is whether or not you personally feel you get value for money.
Perhaps the uber hard core crowd who plays over 12 hours a day regularly, and who treats missing a raid like the end of the world, have valid complaints from their point of view. Perhaps they want the service to be absolutely available 24/7 at all times.
It simply isn't for me to judge whether playing 12 hours a day or not is right or wrong - but you can be sure that on the back of "Warcraft 3" boxes, Blizzard didn't put on the proviso that "the service given by our online servers may at times be slow or unavailable". Therefore, those who play long hours have every right to feel aggrieved if they feel they were sold a 24x7 service and are not getting that.
but never seem to cancel their accounts. It seems to me that if it was really that bad, they'd cancel.
This I agree with - my attitude is that anyone who whines is being a hypocrite if they don't also take direct action.
So, we should pick the second option: play something else while server is down to lessen the traffics.
Interesting argument but isn't this like the analogy to the sinking ship? Everyone agrees that to stop the ship sinking so fast, some people need to jump overboard to lessen the weight of the ballast on the ship.
But when it comes to the question of *who* will jump overboard, everyone will wait for someone else to volunteer...
And I HIGHLY doubt that Blizzard expected 250,000 subscribers.
But Blizzard are happy to rake in $15/month (or whatever the subscription charge is) from each player nonetheless...
Thats like saying McDonalds only expects 500 people a day to order some food.
McDonald's sells "food"??? Since when???
But seriously, that's a different analogy anyway. McDonalds doesn't always guarantee to be able to provide you with food - it just guarantees that at the point you hand over money, you will get some food. And if that food doesn't meet your expectations, then you can take it back and get another one or your money back.
Other than that, until McDonalds hands over burgers that look like the ones in the adverts, they're just another lying corporation anyhow... just like Blizzard selling the "illusion" of fast, always available servers but not delivering on that.
I think it shows a lack of backbone and hardware foresight on Blizzards part more than anything.
Possibly true but totally irrelevant. They are not delivering (for many people) what they said they would deliver. That's the problem.
MMOGs are Entertainment. There are very few other services that one may purchase for "only" $15 per month that will provide the volume and quality (yes, quality) of entertainment that a MMOG will.
Rubbish. The monetary value of the service or product has *NOTHING* to do with it - it is *SIMPLY* about whether you feel you got value for money from it.
One night at the movies - easily $20 for ~2 hours. A night out drinking/dancing >$40? for 4 hours? Any concert >$40 for a few hours. A date? (I know this is/. just trust me, they are expensive).
Again, rubbish. Selling in a capitalist society is about charging as much as you can get away with for a product, nothing more. If no-one paid $20 for a cinema ticket, they'd have to reduce the price to $15...
My point is that it's not a waste of time. It's entertainment.
Precisely. And it's *SOLD* to you as something you can go do 24x7 whenever you want. If you can't do that then you've been ripped off. It has *NOTHING* to do with criticising people who play these games so please don't get defensive about it.
Relax, and let the silent majority have their fun.
Yes, and maybe a lot of that majority are perfectly happy with their gaming service - but how many of those people aren't happy and just can't be bothered to complain or are too scared to?
The thing is, you can not expect the same level of customer care for $30 as for $30,000. Just doesn't happen.
Sure, but that's a defeatist attitude. If 999 other people also cancel as well as me, then that's $30,000 they lose, not just my $30.
Not complaining or cancelling "because no-one else will so why should I" is playing *exactly* into their hands and gives them the justification to treat you even worse as time goes on.
I'm not sure I understand the tone of your response - I'm not qualified to comment on WoW, I don't play it, a few friends of mine play City Of Heroes/Villains & Dark Age Of Camelot, I don't get too involved in their conversations about any of those games but I don't hear them complain much at all about service outages or lags. That's about all I know about MMORPGs and if people enjoy them then great & good luck to them.
However, I get a little sick and tired of people treating certain companies as being almost "beyond criticism" on Slashdot - Apple seems to be one of those, Blizzard appears to be another. (BTW, I'm an avid player of Warcraft 2 & Starcraft so I actually rate those particular products, and therefore my personal experiences of Blizzard, very highly).
The fact is that if you don't feel you get value for money, whether it's from Apple, Microsoft, Blizzard, Dell, etc. etc. then *DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT* rather than just sitting back & accepting it. Maybe I'm just middle-aged & cynical but I don't consider *ANY* product or service as being that important to me that I wouldn't throw it straight back at whoever sold it to me if it didn't meet my expectations.
The problem is that clever marketing has made certain products "cool" and/or made some people fearful of making any criticisms just in case they "stand out from the rest of the crowd". What I'm saying is that *ALL* that matters is whether or not *YOU* feel you get value for money - if you do, then enjoy it & let those that feel they don't raise a stink about it.
There is *NO* such thing as a "nice" company or corporation - they *JUST* exist to make money from you and it's the quality of what they deliver to you that is the only important thing.
I was actually an NTL user until November last year when I moved house to an area they didn't cover. Whilst we had endless arguments with NTL about billing errors and I avoided their tech support like the plague, I actually had a pretty good, fast and reliable cable modem service from them for over 4 years - probably amounting to about 3-4 outages a year for maybe an hour or two at the most. Maybe this was simply the area I lived in (compared to yours) but I would have gone back to them given the choice because I didn't need their tech support and was more concerned about good uptime and speed.
My current provider is Onetel and their service has been pretty good (over the past 6 months I've used it) until that long outage last weekend. I threatened to cancel my contract with them if the service wasn't restored by Monday morning (I work from home a lot and use VPN to connect to work) but it was restored soon after I phoned them - I think this was pure coincidence as there was nothing else from them in the way of an apology or follow up.
I just find it difficult to believe that any company would deem a 48 hour outage as acceptable to any customer - and I'm amazed that more people don't complain when this length of service outage happens.
But then the other argument is that it's people like you, who endure these outages without complaint, who make it bad for everyone else?
I don't play any online games but I thought the whole idea of them was that you subscribe to that service for it to be available just about 24x7 whenever you feel like jumping in. Sure, occasional outages are to be expected but if it gets to the stage where the game is frequently slow or unavailable, the common sense solution would be to cancel your subscription until Blizzard (or whomever) improves the service they deliver you. If enough people did this, they'd have to do something about it...
I'm sorry but I think far too many people have become "slaves" to marketing by truly believing that they simply cannot do without a lot of the products & services that they pay good money for - to the point where they "need" those items so much that they're afraid of complaining in case they're denied those things completely.
Not a direct comment about Blizzard (I don't even play WoW) but I am totally disgusted with the way some service providers treat we general Joe Public customers.
As an example, I came home from holiday (I'm in the UK) on Sunday evening & I immediately noticed my ADSL connection was down. So I phoned my ISP to report the fault, only to be told that they knew about the problem - a faulty server had been down for 48 hours!!! And when the tech support person could not tell me when the service would be restored, she seemed totally bemused as to why I was angry about the duration of downtime & demanded to speak to her manager.
The manager was even worse... polite and courteous but did not have a clue as to the cause of the problem or when the ADSL service would be back up. He even admitted that they'd been making some network changes to accomodate a recent merger with another company and that they had no backup server to put in place to at least give some degree of restricted service.
I may pay (the equivalent of) $30 a month for my ADSL service but am I the only person who expects good service from any company I deal with, whether I spend £3 or £30,000 with that company? I accept that sometimes there are service outages, I'd even view an 8-hour outage a few days a year as being understandable. But 48 hours???
I've been in the telecoms/computer industry now for about 20 years now and I've seen the whole perception of what is and isn't good customer service change over that time - it seems now that customers are forced to accept worse service because every company has reduced the level of service they give.
And when it comes to poor Joe Public "peons" like ourselves, who only spend a small amount each month with these companies, we're expected to endure countless menu selections, long delays in call-centre queues and lengthy outages as a matter of course.
It would be good to see a lot more people complain more and cancel their services with some of these providers - I'm sure this is the only way that they will be forced to offer better service to us.
Slashdot Mirror
I've got 4 x Ikea CD racks that hold a total of about 800 CDs & whenever I buy a new CD, I *try* to sell an old one (on eBay) to stop the expansion "around the house". It doesn't always work & there's a small surplus pile building up next to the racks now but I take the view that I can always go buy the CD again if I ever want to.
It's much easier finding them now.
Even to the point where the stuff I tend to like doesn't get much radio play in the UK. But there's always online reviews or the occasional Usenet download to help me decide before I buy.
And not forgetting just reselling a CD on eBay if it turns out to be a turkey of an album...
I buy the occasional second-hand CD but most of what I buy is new - particularly recently where a lot of classic (in my opinion) albums have been remastered & there's no way I'd pay the full price for a CD I've already bought once.
And I do *honestly* find most of the CDs I want as new on eBay or Amazon Marketplace for under £6 a time - otherwise, I just wouldn't buy it.
I guess it depends on what you define as "older" - I myself recently bought "Abbey Road" and "Sgt. Peppers" by the Beatles and was amazed that some music stores were charging up to £17 for these two albums from the 1960s. (I did get them online for unde £10 each in the end & they were worth every penny!) But a lot of the other stuff I listen to, from the 70s and early 80s, I can usually find for about £6 if I do some searching for it.
used to buy a lot of CDs at a cheap chain called Fopp
We had a Fopp store in my old home town - used to go there a lot & find some good bargains but now I've moved house, I just don't get there much.
I don't have to store redundant plastic disks
That's *HALF* the appeal of it, in my view! :-) There's nothing like browsing through your own music CD collection deciding on what album to play next...
I don't have to bother ripping the music
Get a Linux PC installed, my friend! :-) Admittedly you need to do a bit of initial setting up but after that, what's easier than popping a CD in the drive and typing "abcde" on the command line and letting it get on with it.
Incidentally, I accept the other points you've made.
Probably because about the same time CDs came out, music videos also took off. I think it's fairly safe to assume that a big wedge of the CD "production costs" go into the outfits, sets & makeup for all the pretty boys and girls to mime to their songs in front of a camera.
Sssshhhhhh! You KNOW we're not supposed to tell them about Usenet.
People that believe they're Robin Hood-type outlaws because they steal from the rich copyright holders to make duplicated pirate (or illegal free) copies are as bad as the RIAA/MPAA/etc. & give them the justification they need to push through DMCA/copy protection that affects the rest of us.
If it's too expensive, demonstrate some self-control & will power and just DON'T BUY IT or COPY IT!!!
Yes, I'm middle-aged & I tend to listen mainly to classic rock albums with a little blues & soul thrown in. Most of the stuff I listen to, I can get fairly cheaply either second-hand or on eBay/Amazon marketplace - generally, I'll pick up a brand new CD for around £6 ($10). For that money, I get a nice uncompressed shiny CD with some liner notes and a hard case that I can rip at whatever bit rates I want to (I do listen to a lot of MP3-based music when I'm travelling or in the gym).
I don't go near Virgin or HMV record stores in the UK because I simply cannot justify paying anything up to £17 ($28) for a new CD but the prices that I do get my CDs at seem to be as cheap as paying to download each track individually - plus I get something tangible in the process.
I know a lot of people don't want to buy "filler" tracks on CDs and prefer downloading the tracks they want but I still don't get it - I've a collection of about 800 CDs at home and I'd say at least half of those are recordings I consider as "classics" that I can happily listen to from start to finish as completely good albums.
I'm certainly not trying to provoke a "the music of today is rubbish compared to the music of yesterday" argument because I just don't listen to enough modern music to have a valid opinion of it - but I've more than enough great music in CD album format to last me a lifetime now & if the younger generation of today has difficulty finding modern albums that are themselves "classics" in their entirety, then doesn't the "pick and mix music tracks" attitude perhaps make more of a statement about the quality of modern music than music downloads as being "the modern way" of distributing music?
Within the scope of any development I need to do, I don't need to spend the time transitioning to .NET or even caring what it does. I've already invested the time in learning Perl, Python, PHP, etc. so whilst they're not necessarily second nature to me, I can work comfortably within them.
Therefore, the ease of .NET is totally irrelevant to me and if others like it then great, let them get on with it. But my point is that how well/fast you program is just about what you're familiar with, nothing more.
I'm sure .NET is great for people starting out in programming & for those familiar with MS environments. But it's not for everyone and I certainly have no need for it.
And there was me thinking that LSB just allowed me to write more easily-portable programs so I had more time to drink beer... these management types are on a different plane of existence, ain't they?
Yes, there are zealots in both camps but it's easy to spot the Linux opinions of Microsoft users that are based on FUD rather than true hands-on experience with Linux.
Me? I write scripts in Linux and train people on how to do the same on PowerPoint presentations. I get my job done quicker using the tools I'm comfortable with leaving me more time to drink beer, play games & have nookie with the missus... I ain't complaining! :-)
BASH shell-scripting kicks ass. So do PERL, Python, the Korn Shell, PHP and C (and it's derivatives). I know enough about all of them to use one or more of them to do most of the tasks I need to do in the timescale I need to do them.
I've never programmed anything in any Microsoft programming environment because I've never needed to - and it would take me far too long to learn their way of doing things from scratch rather than working with what I know.
However, I know a few MS-based programmers who managed to develop the tools they need to in .NET or whatever it is they use - I'm sorry, I'm not informed enough about MS programming environments to voice any more opinions about it.
Suffice it to say, they're happy and I'm happy.
So everything is right with the world.
End of story.
Apache is designed to be a standards compliant HTTP web server and, from a HTTP client perspective, Internet Explorer works pretty well with it. If Microsoft had started to make IE more incompatible with Apache, then IE would have become a proprietary MS application that didn't support HTTP, leaving Apache and HTTP-compliant browsers to carry on regardless.
What *REALLY* happened was that compared to Apache running on UNIX, IIS running on NT4 was a piece of crap. MS therefore had to create their own proprietary extensions to HTTP to encourage people to use IIS on Windows for web servers. Clever marketing and FrontPage served to lock in web developers into the MS way of doing things and now we have the standards compliance headaches that we have today with HTTP.
I've not used IIS since v4.0 on NT4 but I would imagine that by now it's a much better product, specifically on XP or Server 2003 and that it's well embedded in corporate enterprises with SQL, Active X, Exchange, etc. In other words, IE bought Microsoft the time they needed to get into that embedded situation in the corporate enterprise and I congratulate them on a very smart piece of marketing.
However, when it comes to clustering of web servers in server farms, nothing scales better than a UNIX OS running Apache - even Microsoft would concede that one since their core strengths are in enterprise-level integration, not in huge ISP level web servers.
And whilst I agree that Dvorak is usually a complete pillock, in this instance I agree with him in as much as the integration of IE with Windows made an already flawed (registry-based) OS that much more weaker and vulnerable as a result. On it's own, this can be considered a mistake but, overall, MS OSes now own 90% of the home and corporate desktops so I would say that MS achieved what they set out to do.
The success or failure of Linux is *totally irrelevant* to all of this. Only within recent years has Linux gone "hand in hand" with Apache as enterprises have learnt that they no longer need to run "expensive" UNIXes for their Apache web servers and can now use a stable and reliable free UNIX-like OS instead.
There is NO "Windows vs Linux" war, contrary to what you believe. It's the users that decide ultimately which OS is best for their needs & whilst it's important to make the world aware that there are alternatives to "The Microsoft Way", Linux and Open Source is there if you want to use it but still there if you don't.
Whether you're not satisfied with the state of Hollywood movies, the price of CDs, DRM or online gaming, the best way to display that dissatisfaction is to not hand over your money so quickly - if lots of people do that, someone's share prices are going to be affected and they'll need to take some positive action to turn things around and start the money coming in again.
Unfortunately, you're taking this somewhat personally and not allowing yourself to see my true argument - personally, if it makes you happy, I really don't care how long you play whatever online game you want and if you find no problem with the state of WoW then so be it; go off and enjoy it.
But *PLEASE* don't think that just sitting there moaning about it will change anything because it won't. Blizzard (or any other company/corporation you may think of) is just interested in crowbarring as much money from you as possible and as long as you continue handing over the cash, they've no reason to give a toss about what you think about their service or even to make it better.
Fifteen years ago, I was a fanatical "pen and paper" roleplayer (AD&D, Call Of Cthulhu, etc.) and whilst online MMORPG gaming has no appeal to me personally, the people that do play MMORPGs enjoy precisely the same escapism that I used to with squared paper and 20-sided dice - so I can understand why they enjoy playing those games, even to the point of fanatical playing, and therefore have no reason to look down on them for enjoying a "similar" hobby to one I used to enjoy.
But please stop being a "fanboy" and be a realist - Blizzard (and any other entertainment provider) is there *purely* to serve you by giving you something that you're prepared to pay for rather than you being so glossy-eyed over a "brand name" that you let them treat you like mindless cattle because they've achieved a "cool factor" in your opinion.
And with regards to your opinions on moderation - take that up with Slashdot because I'm just voicing what I truly believe to be the case - that far too many people are all "gooey-eyed" over certain brand names to the point where they lose all sense of rationalisation and choice.
However, you're right about BT not talking to DSL customers directly. I've had a major screaming match at both Onetel and BT because I'm paying Onetel for a 2MB ADSL service but can only get 1MB due to line quality. When trying to find out why I can't get 2MB service, Onetel blame BT for the line quality & BT tell me to get Onetel to put in a request because they won't speak to me directly.
When I first joined the industry, telcos (and I speak more of business/PBX providers rather than PSTN service providers) were able to make a lot of their money through custom hardware & the maintenance thereof - now, of course, most of the hardware is standard (Intel) server platforms so it's the software only that generates the income. And, yes, the cost of bandwidth has reduced many times over but I think much of that is as a result of technology enhancements such that you can get "more bits down a piece of wire" now than you could do 20 years ago.
Likewise, a lot more service can be carried out using remote connectivity now than could be done 20 years ago - in 1986, it was virtually unheard of to do a major software upgrade over a modem or VPN link but now it's commonplace. That means less bodies "on the street" and therefore much lower staffing costs as a result.
However, this has resulted in customers "feeling" that they are getting lower quality service because they no longer have direct face-to-face contact with the same familiar engineer they're used to dealing with. (There was a time when I was working in the field where I couldn't possibly drink the number of bottles of whisky given to me by my customers at Christmas - those *were* the days!)
In summary, add that to the fact that just about anyone dealing with a service organisation today *expects* to be queued in a call centre across the other side of the world plus the outsourcing of programmers and a technical person who might not understand your specific needs in the country where you are who is "monitored" by a statistical system that cares only about fault numbers, times to clear, etc. and, you get, in my view, a worse quality of service than was delivered 20 years ago.
It's simply the fact that *every* organisation now does it this way that the poor customer has no real choice in the matter...
Yes, but this is precisely my point. It isn't satisfactory to accept something purely because it's "on a par" with everything else. The *only* criteria is whether or not you personally feel you get value for money.
Perhaps the uber hard core crowd who plays over 12 hours a day regularly, and who treats missing a raid like the end of the world, have valid complaints from their point of view. Perhaps they want the service to be absolutely available 24/7 at all times.
It simply isn't for me to judge whether playing 12 hours a day or not is right or wrong - but you can be sure that on the back of "Warcraft 3" boxes, Blizzard didn't put on the proviso that "the service given by our online servers may at times be slow or unavailable". Therefore, those who play long hours have every right to feel aggrieved if they feel they were sold a 24x7 service and are not getting that.
but never seem to cancel their accounts. It seems to me that if it was really that bad, they'd cancel.
This I agree with - my attitude is that anyone who whines is being a hypocrite if they don't also take direct action.
Interesting argument but isn't this like the analogy to the sinking ship? Everyone agrees that to stop the ship sinking so fast, some people need to jump overboard to lessen the weight of the ballast on the ship.
But when it comes to the question of *who* will jump overboard, everyone will wait for someone else to volunteer...
But Blizzard are happy to rake in $15/month (or whatever the subscription charge is) from each player nonetheless...
Thats like saying McDonalds only expects 500 people a day to order some food.
McDonald's sells "food"??? Since when???
But seriously, that's a different analogy anyway. McDonalds doesn't always guarantee to be able to provide you with food - it just guarantees that at the point you hand over money, you will get some food. And if that food doesn't meet your expectations, then you can take it back and get another one or your money back.
Other than that, until McDonalds hands over burgers that look like the ones in the adverts, they're just another lying corporation anyhow... just like Blizzard selling the "illusion" of fast, always available servers but not delivering on that.
I think it shows a lack of backbone and hardware foresight on Blizzards part more than anything.
Possibly true but totally irrelevant. They are not delivering (for many people) what they said they would deliver. That's the problem.
Rubbish. The monetary value of the service or product has *NOTHING* to do with it - it is *SIMPLY* about whether you feel you got value for money from it.
One night at the movies - easily $20 for ~2 hours. A night out drinking/dancing >$40? for 4 hours? Any concert >$40 for a few hours. A date? (I know this is /. just trust me, they are expensive).
Again, rubbish. Selling in a capitalist society is about charging as much as you can get away with for a product, nothing more. If no-one paid $20 for a cinema ticket, they'd have to reduce the price to $15...
My point is that it's not a waste of time. It's entertainment.
Precisely. And it's *SOLD* to you as something you can go do 24x7 whenever you want. If you can't do that then you've been ripped off. It has *NOTHING* to do with criticising people who play these games so please don't get defensive about it.
Relax, and let the silent majority have their fun.
Yes, and maybe a lot of that majority are perfectly happy with their gaming service - but how many of those people aren't happy and just can't be bothered to complain or are too scared to?
Sure, but that's a defeatist attitude. If 999 other people also cancel as well as me, then that's $30,000 they lose, not just my $30.
Not complaining or cancelling "because no-one else will so why should I" is playing *exactly* into their hands and gives them the justification to treat you even worse as time goes on.
However, I get a little sick and tired of people treating certain companies as being almost "beyond criticism" on Slashdot - Apple seems to be one of those, Blizzard appears to be another. (BTW, I'm an avid player of Warcraft 2 & Starcraft so I actually rate those particular products, and therefore my personal experiences of Blizzard, very highly).
The fact is that if you don't feel you get value for money, whether it's from Apple, Microsoft, Blizzard, Dell, etc. etc. then *DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT* rather than just sitting back & accepting it. Maybe I'm just middle-aged & cynical but I don't consider *ANY* product or service as being that important to me that I wouldn't throw it straight back at whoever sold it to me if it didn't meet my expectations.
The problem is that clever marketing has made certain products "cool" and/or made some people fearful of making any criticisms just in case they "stand out from the rest of the crowd". What I'm saying is that *ALL* that matters is whether or not *YOU* feel you get value for money - if you do, then enjoy it & let those that feel they don't raise a stink about it.
There is *NO* such thing as a "nice" company or corporation - they *JUST* exist to make money from you and it's the quality of what they deliver to you that is the only important thing.
My current provider is Onetel and their service has been pretty good (over the past 6 months I've used it) until that long outage last weekend. I threatened to cancel my contract with them if the service wasn't restored by Monday morning (I work from home a lot and use VPN to connect to work) but it was restored soon after I phoned them - I think this was pure coincidence as there was nothing else from them in the way of an apology or follow up.
I just find it difficult to believe that any company would deem a 48 hour outage as acceptable to any customer - and I'm amazed that more people don't complain when this length of service outage happens.
I don't play any online games but I thought the whole idea of them was that you subscribe to that service for it to be available just about 24x7 whenever you feel like jumping in. Sure, occasional outages are to be expected but if it gets to the stage where the game is frequently slow or unavailable, the common sense solution would be to cancel your subscription until Blizzard (or whomever) improves the service they deliver you. If enough people did this, they'd have to do something about it...
I'm sorry but I think far too many people have become "slaves" to marketing by truly believing that they simply cannot do without a lot of the products & services that they pay good money for - to the point where they "need" those items so much that they're afraid of complaining in case they're denied those things completely.
As an example, I came home from holiday (I'm in the UK) on Sunday evening & I immediately noticed my ADSL connection was down. So I phoned my ISP to report the fault, only to be told that they knew about the problem - a faulty server had been down for 48 hours!!! And when the tech support person could not tell me when the service would be restored, she seemed totally bemused as to why I was angry about the duration of downtime & demanded to speak to her manager.
The manager was even worse... polite and courteous but did not have a clue as to the cause of the problem or when the ADSL service would be back up. He even admitted that they'd been making some network changes to accomodate a recent merger with another company and that they had no backup server to put in place to at least give some degree of restricted service.
I may pay (the equivalent of) $30 a month for my ADSL service but am I the only person who expects good service from any company I deal with, whether I spend £3 or £30,000 with that company? I accept that sometimes there are service outages, I'd even view an 8-hour outage a few days a year as being understandable. But 48 hours???
I've been in the telecoms/computer industry now for about 20 years now and I've seen the whole perception of what is and isn't good customer service change over that time - it seems now that customers are forced to accept worse service because every company has reduced the level of service they give.
And when it comes to poor Joe Public "peons" like ourselves, who only spend a small amount each month with these companies, we're expected to endure countless menu selections, long delays in call-centre queues and lengthy outages as a matter of course.
It would be good to see a lot more people complain more and cancel their services with some of these providers - I'm sure this is the only way that they will be forced to offer better service to us.