I used to, like everyone else here, give tech support within a limited circle. A certain individual began overstepping his bounds. One day I arrived at work to find that he had shown up early and given my co-worker a computer to fix. It wasn't his computer, it was his neighbor's. That was my turning point.
I charge $75/hour based on the amount of time the fix should take. This caused my tech support requests to drop off significantly. My problem wasn't that I needed the money, it's that I needed to cut out the silly tasks that could be taken care of by the neighborhood geek. If you really want me to install antivirus software and tweak your windows machine you're going to pay for it.
Now I find that I have more free time and some spare change to boot.
Ubisoft paid good money to get this earth-shattering bit of information posted on the front page of Slashdot. Please clickthelinks and wander through the site a bit so your favorite news source stays in business.
Copy the comments?
on
Segway Polo
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Can we just copy all the comments from when this was posted here in July rather than having everyone comment over again?
> Really, this is an OS problem, and MS should provide a solution, you shouldn't have to reply on 3rd party providers to fix a shortcoming of the OS!
Alright, I'll bite. What short-comings would the Linux OS have without third party applications? You could almost argue that everything in your distro, besides the kernel, is a third party application.
Now, saying that the OS shouldn't rely on third party applications to patch holes - that I'd agree with.
Well, no, actually. If you're in business for tech-support, firefox means a loss of profit. Uninstalling x-ware is usually pretty straight forward and it's all labor. At $75 / hour for on-site tech-support I will happily spend hours fighting off x-ware.
While I insist my family, wife, and anybody else within the free tech-support blanket have NAV, NPF, and firefox, I'll gladly let the trolls continue to pay.
It seems all the "what happens when the servers go down?" trash talkers have just been validated.
Personally I don't see the problem. The Steam version doesn't work but the Emporio version (with the fix to the fix) works great! It seems that the crack and the fix to the crack moved faster than the actual authentication process.
I really can't have too much sympathy for the spouse if the husband keeps working at a place like this. If you're good at your job there will always be better jobs out there.
Working more than 40 hours regularly without overtime is simply unacceptable.
This isn't indentured servitude, he willingly works for this company.
The answers I'm seeing are far more complex than they need to be. My computer is on one side of my main room. I installed an RCA port into the wall with a cable that runs to a port on the other side of the room. My Sound Blaster Audigy has SPDIF out which runs into my theatre receiver (stereo system) on the other side of the room.
USB extensions run the wireless receiver for keyboard and mouse under my couch and above the computer is a projector which beams the image over the couch / livingroom area and onto the wall with the speakers mounted on it.
The computer doubles as a television. I've used this setup for years. The audio run cost me a few bucks and the projector was under $1k new.
As far as media, I have yet to find ANYTHING that I can't stream to my TV / stereo. AC3? MP3? AVI? DVD? MPG? There's no restrictions. Webpages? Winamp visualizations? Webcams?
All this "Myth TV" and "XBOX MEDIA CENTER" complicates things.
I'm not sure this surprises anyone. The RIAA took on a campaign, with the "stop piracy!" flag waving high, to sue every file sharer they could identify.
There's been many studies that showed the file sharing has not decreased (and I would agree with that). There's also studies showing that CD sales have continued to plummet.
So, you may ask, if the monte carlo lawsuit method isn't slowing piracy then why would the MPAA take up the same fight?
The answer is simple. The goal isn't to curb piracy, that won't help anyone. If the CDs being released now are really bad then stopping piracy isn't going to fix that.
Piracy is simply an income source. A few years ago the RIAA had to find, sign, and rape bands, then spend a fair amount of money to advertise and publish the bands. This was lots of work for a moderate income. Lawsuits are much easier. Simply write a program to log into a file sharing network, write down IPs, and have the printer send out extortion letters as fast as it can.
One person, with a pair of laserjet printers and an internet connection, can generate a few thousand dollars per extortion letter printed.
Hold on a second....
Sorry about that delay, I had to fold the paper that just came out of the printer and put it in the envelope. I just made $2000 by threatening some 13 year old kid.
What? You say this will make me look bad? You say that people will become alienated and refuse to buy CDs? I couldn't care less. I, as the RIAA, make far more money mailing out random lawsuits that I do pushing pop CDs.
The lawsuits won't stop piracy, but nobody wants piracy to stop. If piracy were suddenly brought to a halt then the RIAA would have no income from CDs AND no income from lawsuits. Piracy is what keeps the RIAA in business now.
It's what keeps the RIAA in business, it's what keeps SCO in business, and it's worked for years. The MPAA isn't hurting, not in the area of sales. What they see is an additional income source that they can tap into.
If *YOU* want to become rich, simply start an organization called "anti-piracy group". Contact a few dozen big software manufacturers and get them to sign a contract. "If you let my organization sue file sharers on your behalf, I'll settle out of court and give you half."
You won't stop piracy, but you'll be filthy rich really quick. It's a good income for the software companies so they may be eager to sign up!
This is probably true. However, it wouldn't surprise me if XM simply goes back once every 6 months and sends out cancel messages for all known cancelled accounts. I'd bet you could use it for a while but eventually they'll just run an additional "kill" message for all the deactivated devices.
Let's see. One kilometer in one second. This would require an average velocity of flight of, oh... 1 km/s. If we had linear acceleration (rough estimate) and we started from zero (sounds like a safe assumption) then we'll have 2 km/s by the time we hit 1km altitude.
If the fuel is cut there:
vf^2=vo^2-2*a*s or 1000^2/(2*9.8)=50km
That sounds a bit better. Loki Darts could do that.
> Camui rockets are true rockets (...) reaching heights of up to 1 kilometer.
One kilometer?? DEBI was a real rocket. [pictures] About 30 feet long, two stage solid fuel. With 40 G's acceleration it reached mach 10 in a little under 30 seconds (below 40km altitude) and sailed to a apogee of about 800km. Since the rocket had a ballistic trajectory we needed clearance through the pentagon to circumvent the anti-ballistic missle treaty.
Even little baby Loki Dart's will reach 50km on a good day.
However, since you're an expert, would you care to help? I plug in the iPod. The iPod says, "Do not Disconnect". Windows gives it a drive letter. I pull up iTunes and I have nothing that allows me to work with the iPod. iTunes doesn't see the iPod, and doesn't give me a chance to tell it where the iPod is at.
If I close iTunes and open up EphPod it sees the iPod and gives me a list of what's on the device.
> The advantage of the no HD models are that they are better for sports - running, biking etc. You can listen to your conferences again while on the treadmill.
Yes, because setting the device down on the treadmill panel might require a 3 foot headphone cable.
Seamless? I have yet to get iTunes to even recognize my ipod. I've tried numerous times over the past year or so. However, third party applications can access it fine.
There's a difference between bugs that have existed for three years and never been discovered and bugs that were reported three years ago but never fixed.
Anyone here ever used Photoshop? I can take pictures of liquid nitrogen on my processor and doctor a screen capture to say 12 Ghz if it will get me on the front page of Slashdot.
In fact, doctoring up the image would take less time than writing this comment.
Slashdot Mirror
I charge $75/hour based on the amount of time the fix should take. This caused my tech support requests to drop off significantly. My problem wasn't that I needed the money, it's that I needed to cut out the silly tasks that could be taken care of by the neighborhood geek. If you really want me to install antivirus software and tweak your windows machine you're going to pay for it.
Now I find that I have more free time and some spare change to boot.
Ubisoft paid good money to get this earth-shattering bit of information posted on the front page of Slashdot. Please click the links and wander through the site a bit so your favorite news source stays in business.
Can we just copy all the comments from when this was posted here in July rather than having everyone comment over again?
Alright, I'll bite. What short-comings would the Linux OS have without third party applications? You could almost argue that everything in your distro, besides the kernel, is a third party application.
Now, saying that the OS shouldn't rely on third party applications to patch holes - that I'd agree with.
> ???
> profit
Well, no, actually. If you're in business for tech-support, firefox means a loss of profit. Uninstalling x-ware is usually pretty straight forward and it's all labor. At $75 / hour for on-site tech-support I will happily spend hours fighting off x-ware.
While I insist my family, wife, and anybody else within the free tech-support blanket have NAV, NPF, and firefox, I'll gladly let the trolls continue to pay.
In Korea, TV is only for old people.
Actually, with Emporio's Steam service pack you can! Simply apply Emporio's patch and copy the directory onto a DVD-R. No Net Necessary (3N)!
Personally I don't see the problem. The Steam version doesn't work but the Emporio version (with the fix to the fix) works great! It seems that the crack and the fix to the crack moved faster than the actual authentication process.
Form a union! Get all the programmers together and go on strike.
Working more than 40 hours regularly without overtime is simply unacceptable.
This isn't indentured servitude, he willingly works for this company.
USB extensions run the wireless receiver for keyboard and mouse under my couch and above the computer is a projector which beams the image over the couch / livingroom area and onto the wall with the speakers mounted on it.
The computer doubles as a television. I've used this setup for years. The audio run cost me a few bucks and the projector was under $1k new.
As far as media, I have yet to find ANYTHING that I can't stream to my TV / stereo. AC3? MP3? AVI? DVD? MPG? There's no restrictions. Webpages? Winamp visualizations? Webcams?
All this "Myth TV" and "XBOX MEDIA CENTER" complicates things.
There's been many studies that showed the file sharing has not decreased (and I would agree with that). There's also studies showing that CD sales have continued to plummet.
So, you may ask, if the monte carlo lawsuit method isn't slowing piracy then why would the MPAA take up the same fight?
The answer is simple. The goal isn't to curb piracy, that won't help anyone. If the CDs being released now are really bad then stopping piracy isn't going to fix that.
Piracy is simply an income source. A few years ago the RIAA had to find, sign, and rape bands, then spend a fair amount of money to advertise and publish the bands. This was lots of work for a moderate income. Lawsuits are much easier. Simply write a program to log into a file sharing network, write down IPs, and have the printer send out extortion letters as fast as it can.
One person, with a pair of laserjet printers and an internet connection, can generate a few thousand dollars per extortion letter printed.
Hold on a second....
Sorry about that delay, I had to fold the paper that just came out of the printer and put it in the envelope. I just made $2000 by threatening some 13 year old kid.
What? You say this will make me look bad? You say that people will become alienated and refuse to buy CDs? I couldn't care less. I, as the RIAA, make far more money mailing out random lawsuits that I do pushing pop CDs.
The lawsuits won't stop piracy, but nobody wants piracy to stop. If piracy were suddenly brought to a halt then the RIAA would have no income from CDs AND no income from lawsuits. Piracy is what keeps the RIAA in business now.
It's what keeps the RIAA in business, it's what keeps SCO in business, and it's worked for years. The MPAA isn't hurting, not in the area of sales. What they see is an additional income source that they can tap into.
If *YOU* want to become rich, simply start an organization called "anti-piracy group". Contact a few dozen big software manufacturers and get them to sign a contract. "If you let my organization sue file sharers on your behalf, I'll settle out of court and give you half."
You won't stop piracy, but you'll be filthy rich really quick. It's a good income for the software companies so they may be eager to sign up!
I've been waiting for a really good reason to quit anyways...
So, advertising - yes. Free? Probably not.
This is probably true. However, it wouldn't surprise me if XM simply goes back once every 6 months and sends out cancel messages for all known cancelled accounts. I'd bet you could use it for a while but eventually they'll just run an additional "kill" message for all the deactivated devices.
If the fuel is cut there:
vf^2=vo^2-2*a*s or 1000^2/(2*9.8)=50km
That sounds a bit better. Loki Darts could do that.
One kilometer?? DEBI was a real rocket. [pictures] About 30 feet long, two stage solid fuel. With 40 G's acceleration it reached mach 10 in a little under 30 seconds (below 40km altitude) and sailed to a apogee of about 800km. Since the rocket had a ballistic trajectory we needed clearance through the pentagon to circumvent the anti-ballistic missle treaty.
Even little baby Loki Dart's will reach 50km on a good day.
Yup, latest iPod firmware.
If I close iTunes and open up EphPod it sees the iPod and gives me a list of what's on the device.
That's one possible explaination. There are, however, others.
> The advantage of the no HD models are that they are better for sports - running, biking etc. You can listen to your conferences again while on the treadmill. Yes, because setting the device down on the treadmill panel might require a 3 foot headphone cable.
Seamless? I have yet to get iTunes to even recognize my ipod. I've tried numerous times over the past year or so. However, third party applications can access it fine.
There's a difference between bugs that have existed for three years and never been discovered and bugs that were reported three years ago but never fixed.
Sounds like a great way to get rid of nuclear waste. We just have to get over that pesky little 0.5% chance of explosion on lift-off.
In fact, doctoring up the image would take less time than writing this comment.