My D-Link 900AP+ is not so great. It usually works for two or three days, then throughput slowly degrades. It gets to the point where HTTP connections transfer a few KB, then stop. Trying again transfers a few KB, then stops--this is very frustrating when trying to download files or listen to MP3 streams. Then I have to go unplug the AP and plug it back in again, and then it works normally again for a few days. I've upgraded the firmware on the AP and on my DWL-650+ PC Card.
It's been working fine for the last week or so, which is the first time it's worked this long non-stop. But every now and then it drops the signal for a few seconds and my laptop has to reconnect; it does so in a few seconds, so it isn't much of a problem, but it shouldn't happen.
Tech support was not helpful at all. They did not seem to be aware of the problem, and the "level 3 engineer techs" never called me back like the "level 2 techs" said they would.
So, the 900AP+ works, but it can be unreliable. Having to go to the box and power cycle it is not acceptable.
I saw that too, but I've been using Firebird for several weeks now, and I've only had one crash. What caused it I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure it was not any auto-complete stuff, because I wasn't using it at the time. In fact, in the past week I've started using auto-complete more, and it's worked just fine.
Maybe the bugs exist, but they seem to pop up extremely rarely.
I hear you!!! I used an Xpert@Play (Rage Pro) with Windows 2000, and ATI simply ignored the problems with the drivers even after many reports. The problem was twofold: in one driver version all full-screen DirectX apps would only run at 60 Hz, in the other version bold fonts were displayed with horribly jagged edges. Reported it to ATI at least three times. Were the drivers ever fixed? Nope. Did they ever finish up their beta driver and release it as a non-beta driver? Nope. They just dropped it and ignored it.
nVidia works. nVidia's drivers work. nVidia doesn't leave their customers out to dry. 'nuff said.
Um, yeah. The person dialing the phone phones you.
I think you meant "In Soviet Russia, the phone dials you!":)
Re:Obsession? How about just plain old usability?
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Legacy-Free PCs
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· Score: 1
My MX700 is the best mouse I've ever had. I've used many, all Microsoft mice before, going back to the straight-sided ones, then IntelliMice, then Intelli's with wheels, then a cordless, then an optical, and finally the MX700.
Stutters? Slows down? I've never experienced that. It does start flashing the optical sensor after several minutes of non-use to save battery power, but it turns it back on full time when you use it again.
That's a very different thing: two 13" LCD's in portrait orientation, side-by-side, folding up from the keyboard in a regular laptop fashion. That's largely intended for presentations by twisting one screen to face the audience.
Ten years from now, upload will probably be built into the cameras - no laptop needed, unless editing locally.
That's already happened. One of the current Sony DV (or MiniDV) cameras has built-in Bluetooth, with a touch-screen LCD that can be used to browse the Web and e-mail movies or pics. So if you had a Bluetooth phone, I guess you could e-mail your footage directly (although slowly, I guess).
How are these good reasons to own a gun? Because it's fun? My neighbors dog was accidentally shot by some guy hunting for sport. People get injured in hunting accidents all of the time.
Accidents happen. As I posted earlier, more people are killed in car accidents than by any form of gun-inflicted wounds. If your true goal is to save lives, your time and money would be better spent by reducing drunk driving and teaching people how to drive safely in bad weather.
Do you propose to outlaw hunting? Hunting with guns? Bows are lethal too.
Why was some guys fun worth a person or even a dogs life?
What about the fun had by driving recklessly? By drinking and then driving? By doing truly dangerous things without safety precautions? Your neighbor's dog was probably shot by someone who shot a target without identifying it. He could have been using a bow and done the same damage. You can't enforce intelligence, no matter what the person is doing.
As far as needing to own guns in the US, the point of the guns was to help us set up a government where the guns no longer needed to be used. I'm not saying that in countries with oppressive regimes guns should be outlawed. I'm saying that once the country completes its revolution and is firmly governed by the rule of law, guns pose more a threat to the residents than a defense to outside invasion or way of motivating the government.
You obviously put a lot of trust in the government. Now I'm not saying it's evil, but if you are, forgive me, so naive that you think that there is no chance of the government ever becoming corrupt, you are just...far too trusting. If the public was disarmed, people who would abuse power in government would be glad to take advantage of the greater opportunity.
Think about it though, if no one had guns this wouldn't even be an issue. If what your saying is that right, now criminals don't think twice about using their guns that is all the more reason to improve gun control.
Do you not understand that people who want to commit crimes using guns will find ways to do so? Do you not understand that guns or gun-like weapons can be made in your own home? There are laws against murder, yet murders are committed. If there were laws against guns, guns would be made, sold, stolen, and used. At least if I have a gun I can defend myself against people who want to harm me, instead of just running for my life and hoping they have bad aim. And if I'm a criminal and I know that people around can and will return fire if I shoot someone, I will think more than twice.
You tell me to go look up facts and yet you say something like that with no proof to back it up.
No proof? My proof is the fact that crimes are committed. My proof is that murders and armed robberies are committed using many means, not just guns.
If you couldn't buy sniper rifles would we have to deal with the whole Washington D.C. sniper or not?
Most definitely yes! Those people meticulously planned their crimes. They modified their car especially for the purpose of using it as a sniping platform. They very much wanted to kill people. They most definitely would have found a way to get a suitable rifle. If you don't believe that, you are again demonstrating your naiveté.
If it was some guy who had to run up to you and stab you it is a lot less likely that he would have gotten away or not been identified.
Upon what do you base that? If I sneak up behind someone and cover their mouth and stab them in the back, it makes little noise. If I shoot them it makes much noise. Which draws more attention? And don't cite fingerprints, because they can use gloves.
How about drive-by shootings? I don't know how many times I've read articles about people being killed in their homes or on the street due to stray bullets from drive-by shootings. That wouldn't happen if the person had a knife.
Good grief. You're spouting so much fear, paranoia, and propaganda it's amazing. It's almost like you have been brainwashed.
Do you have to prove your ability to not kill someone before you buy a gun. With a waiting period and background check that is a start but by no means stringent enough controls to help make sure that only people who would be responsible gun owners actually buy guns.
Can you prove that someone who looks "responsible" on paper is not a future criminal? The September 11 hijackers entered the country legally, and enrolled in flight schools. Can you prove that their gun will never be lost or stolen? Can you prove that a criminal will not use a knife or another gun to steal the "responsible" person's gun? If guns are outlawed or controlled such that only approved people have them, then only criminals and approved people will have them. Then innocent people will be without a means to protect themselves.
Even if it was only responsible people who bought guns it would still be very difficult to make sure those guns were never misused.
That's just about the only true thing you said. And if you would think about it, it sums up the entire argument in that one sentence. You cannot keep guns from being misused. People who want to use them to kill people will steal them, buy them with false information, buy them on the black market, or make them themselves. So then your gun control will have done a great job of keeping them out of the hands of the people who really need them: the victims of crime. If you put too much controls on them then good, decent, moral people will have a hard time getting them, for perfectly legitmate uses, like sporting and self-protection.
Personally, I don't own an automobile and I don't own a gun. I think both are very dangerous and often unneccessary.
Good for you. They are also often necessary.
The point is that I don't see the point of anyone needing to own a gun.
Let's see: sport, self-defense, revolution against an oppressive government. Those are three good ones. Go study a little history. Without citizen-owned guns in the hands of Minutemen we wouldn't have a U.S.A. Same applies to many other countries. Go read some stories where a citizen who owned a gun saved their life or the life of an innocent person by being able to stop a criminal from killing someone. Most people are decent and will not kill people. Those who will kill people will kill them with or without gun controls. I'd rather have more decent people with guns so that they outnumber the criminals with guns. Then criminals would think twice about using their gun.
We already have far to many murders (many of which are caused by guns).
One murder is too many murders. But your point is moot, because if someone wants to kill someone, they will do it, whether they do it with a legitimately-obtained gun, a stolen gun, a black market gun, a homemade gun, or a knife. But if the murder victim had had a gun too, they'd have had a chance of saving their life.
In other developed nations (most of which have strict gun laws) the number of murders is significantly lower. I don't have any exact figures on me but I know that they are tens or hundreds times lower.
Absolute drivel. Don't give me any "but I know." Either go look up the facts or shut up. Otherwise you're doing nothing but spreading, as the saying goes, fear, uncertainty, and doubt. You make up "facts" to try to support your already unfounded argument.
We live in a violent culture and when you have a gun lying around it is only natural to assume that it could possibly become involved in a dispute.
For "gun" you could substitute "car," "computer," "house," "baseball bat," and a billion other things. Remember what happens when you assume. A piano could possibly fall on your head tomorrow. Does that make it a valid point?
If you don't have a gun around it CAN'T POSSIBLY HAPPEN!!!
What about customers who need to use other SMTP servers? I run several Web sites and have my primary personal e-mail account with a service that is not my personal ISP. I use those SMTP servers all the time, and my own ISP's SMTP server sometimes. If all of my SMTP traffic was forced through my ISP's server, I'd be very upset. When I'm sending mail as "webmaster of example.com," I want to send it through smtp.example.com, not smtp.myisp.net. Just like I wouldn't expect the president of Doohickeys, Inc. to send it through hisisp.net instead of doohickeys.com.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Bill Finkbeiner, R-Kirkland, is being brought forward in many states, said Scott Hazlegrove, a Microsoft lobbyist. It's aimed at balancing the interests of consumers who don't want to be spammed with businesses' desire to tap the Internet as an advertising medium, Hazlegrove said.
"It will not ultimately end spam entirely," said Hazlegrove, who added the company was willing to work with the state and other interests on a new version. "No bill can do that."
"Oh, it's ok Washington, we'll help you. We know it's not easy making laws."
Because anyone whose problem would be solved by the support script would not bother to read the support script.
It's just like people on the Internet who, instead of simply going to Google and typing in a few keywords, go to a forum or a chat room and say, "Anyone know of any good sites about ____?"
They can have the answer staring them in the face, but they won't see it until someone else rubs their nose in it. They just aren't willing to put forth two seconds of time and effort into figuring it out for themselves.
Remember the Four Letter Newbie (or Dummy) Salute....
On that note, I wonder if more people would read the directions and figure things out for themselves, tech support costs would be reduced so that companies didn't feel such a strong need to outsource it.
In my Ask Slashdot article asking about how heat and vibration affect hard drives, a WD tech support staffer responded, and I corresponded with him via e-mail. He told me that he was being laid off. Here are the details, quoted with permission:
Regarding tech support, basically our division manager decided he could cut
costs hugely if he closed our location and contracted the work out outside
the country. This may be, but people who don't have a clue about the
product they're supporting and can just read the script in front of them is
NOT one of the reasons we've won like every tech support award in the
industry for the past 7 years. (FYI, our site opened 7 years
ago...coincidence?) Look, I don't like to give companies a bad name, even
the one that's laying me off. They still make a damn fine product, even if
some of the execs have their head so far up their asses you'd have to send
in a mining rescue team to find it. But indeed, don't count on good tech
support after Feb 13. Our division manager has announced it's his goal to
handle 95% of support with people reading off of a basic script with no
training. Anything else above a replacement call or the most basic
installation you'll have to pay for, and the people who know what we're
doing (us) won't be around any longer even. Anyway I should stop about
that, I tend to get a bit ranty at times:)
Reading this article illuminated some of the things that IMHO are wrong with Microsoft's methods of developing software and handling their employees.
Heated argument and cursing are a given in War Room, and the penalty for not being on top of your bugs is swift and cruel ridicule from the other team members.
If that's true, that's incredibly unprofessional. Now I know many coders prefer to work in a relaxed, casual atmosphere, but to me that is taking it way too far. It can't be good for morale either. Devs should be expected to do their job to the best of their ability, get help if needed, and keep their bosses appraised of their progress. If they don't do all of that, they aren't doing their job. If they aren't doing their job, why are they working there?
The most virulent treatment, naturally, is saved for those foolish enough to blow off a War Room meeting. On the day I attended, one feature group had four of its bugs punted to Longhorn because they had failed to shown up for War Room. When someone argued that they should be given another day, Wanke simply said, "F#$% 'em. If it was that important, they would have been here. It's in Longhorn. Next bug."
That is a completely wrong attitude. If the rest of Microsoft is like that, that explains many of the problems with Microsoft software. That attitude would be fine if the only people affected by a bug were those responsible for fixing it. But the people that are affected by bugs are the people that buy and use their software: their customers, the people who pay their salaries. It is irresponsible of a person in charge of a project like that to not fix a problem he is aware of just because the subordinates who are supposed to fix it didn't show up for one of their three-times-daily meetings. It's starting to sound like they're only concerned with bug counts and severity ratings, reaching only for the goal of Release To Manufacturing to satisfy their shareholders that Product X is out the door and on sale.
In addition to the main War Team, each of the feature teams have their own War Rooms, so there could be as many as 50 such meetings each day, each going over a specific component of the system. These other War Room meetings occur at 8 a.m., every day. When a bug fix passes the local War Team process, it's introduced at Wanke's meeting. "They can't come into War Room unless they're fix-ready," Wanke said. "They must be fix-ready." Because there isn't a single person making decisions, there is a system of checks and balances through which each bug fix passes before it's introduced into the build.
So, if people don't attend the War Room meeting they get chewed out, but they aren't allowed to attend until they have finished what they're working on? Maybe some details are missing, but if it's that simple, no wonder MS software is such a mess. "Be here or else." "Don't show your face unless you have your fix finished." Do you see a conflict here?
We've sent out calls at 3 a.m. when the build is broken, find the developer that broke it, and get him into work right then and fix it immediately. The developers are on call 24 hours a day.
Again, irresponsibility. A dev should not leave for home until he's finished with his work. Finishing his work should include having tested his work that's been submitted as complete. If a dev submits broken code and leaves, he's not doing his job. Mistakes can happen of course, but a 24-hour on-call policy for programmers?! That can't be good for morale either. They should put in their hours, do their job right, and go home and (try to) forget about work. If they mess things up so badly that they have to get up at 3 AM to fix it, they are not doing their job right.
"I'm responsible for 8000 to 10,000 developers, program managers, and testers..."
Another problem. 8,000 to 10,000 people is like a division of a company, or a whole company in some cases. A person in charge of that many people should be in charge of general operations, not a single product. In other words, that's way, way too many people working on a single product. If you compared the number of people who work on Windows to the combined number of people that work on Linux or other open-source software with equivilant functionality, would the numbers be anything close? I don't know, but I doubt it. But even if the numbers are close, the way the software is made (independant programs that work on their own) avoids the problem of having to coordinate so many people.
On the day that we attended War Room, on January 21, 2003, Windows Server 2003 had hit an "absolute historic low" for bugs, according to Wanke. "We're shutting down the project this week," he said. "It's done. We're going to ship it." On that day, WinServer 2K3 had just a few active bugs, and at least a quarter to one-third of those bugs were simple branding issues. "So let's say there are about 150 outstanding issues to address," Wanke told us. "Of that, we'll fix about 100. All of the bugs are severity rated from 1 to 3, plus they get a priority rating. We have [a few] severity-1 bugs left to fix, and those all have to be fixed for us to ship."
Wanke said that the server team had already fixed all of the known security vulnerabilities.
So, Microsoft will ship software with known, fixable bugs in it (not news but making a point). That again demonstrates their attitude towards the quality of their software and their attitude towards their customers. They should but a sticker on the box that says "This software contains known bugs. A list can be found at www.microsoft.com/bugs." Of course, I guess their attitude is that their huge, legalese EULA discounts any responsibility and disclaims any fitness of purpose or quality. It also doesn't indicate much pride in their product (maybe they do have pride in it, but still...). Yes, all software will have some bugs in it I guess, but to decide to not fix already-known bugs and go ahead and sell their software seems irresponsible to me.
My two bucks. Should be interesting to see other opinions on this.
So true. There comes a point where you have to say, "I'm not going to dumb this down any more. If the users won't even read the directions that are in front of their face then that's their problem."
There are as many 'hotfixes' and 'service packs' for linux based software, they just call them patches and releases.
Have you looked at MS version numbers? Help>About in IE:
v6.0.2800.1106 Update Versions: "; SP1; Q324929; Q810847" There are more Q's but there's only room for those in the Help>About box.
If I want to know if I'm secure against a bug that has been fixed in mySQL, I look at the version number, something like 3.23.17, maybe with a pl# on the end. I don't have to read a 10 digit version number and then look up a database of 15 knowledge base "Q numbers" to see if I'm vulnerable to Cross-Site Frames Scripting Media Player Buffer Overrun X.
Slashdot Mirror
My D-Link 900AP+ is not so great. It usually works for two or three days, then throughput slowly degrades. It gets to the point where HTTP connections transfer a few KB, then stop. Trying again transfers a few KB, then stops--this is very frustrating when trying to download files or listen to MP3 streams. Then I have to go unplug the AP and plug it back in again, and then it works normally again for a few days. I've upgraded the firmware on the AP and on my DWL-650+ PC Card.
It's been working fine for the last week or so, which is the first time it's worked this long non-stop. But every now and then it drops the signal for a few seconds and my laptop has to reconnect; it does so in a few seconds, so it isn't much of a problem, but it shouldn't happen.
Tech support was not helpful at all. They did not seem to be aware of the problem, and the "level 3 engineer techs" never called me back like the "level 2 techs" said they would.
So, the 900AP+ works, but it can be unreliable. Having to go to the box and power cycle it is not acceptable.
I saw that too, but I've been using Firebird for several weeks now, and I've only had one crash. What caused it I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure it was not any auto-complete stuff, because I wasn't using it at the time. In fact, in the past week I've started using auto-complete more, and it's worked just fine.
Maybe the bugs exist, but they seem to pop up extremely rarely.
I hear you!!! I used an Xpert@Play (Rage Pro) with Windows 2000, and ATI simply ignored the problems with the drivers even after many reports. The problem was twofold: in one driver version all full-screen DirectX apps would only run at 60 Hz, in the other version bold fonts were displayed with horribly jagged edges. Reported it to ATI at least three times. Were the drivers ever fixed? Nope. Did they ever finish up their beta driver and release it as a non-beta driver? Nope. They just dropped it and ignored it.
nVidia works. nVidia's drivers work. nVidia doesn't leave their customers out to dry. 'nuff said.
Don't forget Windows HTML Help (CHM files; try the PHP CHM-format manual). I guess they'll have to sue Microsoft too.
Um, yeah. The person dialing the phone phones you.
:)
I think you meant "In Soviet Russia, the phone dials you!"
My MX700 is the best mouse I've ever had. I've used many, all Microsoft mice before, going back to the straight-sided ones, then IntelliMice, then Intelli's with wheels, then a cordless, then an optical, and finally the MX700. Stutters? Slows down? I've never experienced that. It does start flashing the optical sensor after several minutes of non-use to save battery power, but it turns it back on full time when you use it again.
That's a very different thing: two 13" LCD's in portrait orientation, side-by-side, folding up from the keyboard in a regular laptop fashion. That's largely intended for presentations by twisting one screen to face the audience.
That's already happened. One of the current Sony DV (or MiniDV) cameras has built-in Bluetooth, with a touch-screen LCD that can be used to browse the Web and e-mail movies or pics. So if you had a Bluetooth phone, I guess you could e-mail your footage directly (although slowly, I guess).
I would like to close with this quote, which I think is quite applicable to your argument:
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.
--Plato
No, look at the door of your microwave.
Accidents happen. As I posted earlier, more people are killed in car accidents than by any form of gun-inflicted wounds. If your true goal is to save lives, your time and money would be better spent by reducing drunk driving and teaching people how to drive safely in bad weather.
Do you propose to outlaw hunting? Hunting with guns? Bows are lethal too.
Why was some guys fun worth a person or even a dogs life?
What about the fun had by driving recklessly? By drinking and then driving? By doing truly dangerous things without safety precautions? Your neighbor's dog was probably shot by someone who shot a target without identifying it. He could have been using a bow and done the same damage. You can't enforce intelligence, no matter what the person is doing.
As far as needing to own guns in the US, the point of the guns was to help us set up a government where the guns no longer needed to be used. I'm not saying that in countries with oppressive regimes guns should be outlawed. I'm saying that once the country completes its revolution and is firmly governed by the rule of law, guns pose more a threat to the residents than a defense to outside invasion or way of motivating the government.
You obviously put a lot of trust in the government. Now I'm not saying it's evil, but if you are, forgive me, so naive that you think that there is no chance of the government ever becoming corrupt, you are just...far too trusting. If the public was disarmed, people who would abuse power in government would be glad to take advantage of the greater opportunity.
Think about it though, if no one had guns this wouldn't even be an issue. If what your saying is that right, now criminals don't think twice about using their guns that is all the more reason to improve gun control.
Do you not understand that people who want to commit crimes using guns will find ways to do so? Do you not understand that guns or gun-like weapons can be made in your own home? There are laws against murder, yet murders are committed. If there were laws against guns, guns would be made, sold, stolen, and used. At least if I have a gun I can defend myself against people who want to harm me, instead of just running for my life and hoping they have bad aim. And if I'm a criminal and I know that people around can and will return fire if I shoot someone, I will think more than twice.
You tell me to go look up facts and yet you say something like that with no proof to back it up.
No proof? My proof is the fact that crimes are committed. My proof is that murders and armed robberies are committed using many means, not just guns.
If you couldn't buy sniper rifles would we have to deal with the whole Washington D.C. sniper or not?
Most definitely yes! Those people meticulously planned their crimes. They modified their car especially for the purpose of using it as a sniping platform. They very much wanted to kill people. They most definitely would have found a way to get a suitable rifle. If you don't believe that, you are again demonstrating your naiveté.
If it was some guy who had to run up to you and stab you it is a lot less likely that he would have gotten away or not been identified.
Upon what do you base that? If I sneak up behind someone and cover their mouth and stab them in the back, it makes little noise. If I shoot them it makes much noise. Which draws more attention? And don't cite fingerprints, because they can use gloves.
How about drive-by shootings? I don't know how many times I've read articles about people being killed in their homes or on the street due to stray bullets from drive-by shootings. That wouldn't happen if the person had a knife.
No, but it would if they
Hit reply on the wrong post. :/
By the way, in 2000 in the USA more people were killed by cars than guns. See for yourself.
No it wouldn't. In 2000 in the USA more people were killed by cars than guns. See for yourself.
What about criminals from out-of-town?
Do you have to prove your ability to not kill someone before you buy a gun. With a waiting period and background check that is a start but by no means stringent enough controls to help make sure that only people who would be responsible gun owners actually buy guns.
Can you prove that someone who looks "responsible" on paper is not a future criminal? The September 11 hijackers entered the country legally, and enrolled in flight schools. Can you prove that their gun will never be lost or stolen? Can you prove that a criminal will not use a knife or another gun to steal the "responsible" person's gun? If guns are outlawed or controlled such that only approved people have them, then only criminals and approved people will have them. Then innocent people will be without a means to protect themselves.
Even if it was only responsible people who bought guns it would still be very difficult to make sure those guns were never misused.
That's just about the only true thing you said. And if you would think about it, it sums up the entire argument in that one sentence. You cannot keep guns from being misused. People who want to use them to kill people will steal them, buy them with false information, buy them on the black market, or make them themselves. So then your gun control will have done a great job of keeping them out of the hands of the people who really need them: the victims of crime. If you put too much controls on them then good, decent, moral people will have a hard time getting them, for perfectly legitmate uses, like sporting and self-protection.
Personally, I don't own an automobile and I don't own a gun. I think both are very dangerous and often unneccessary.
Good for you. They are also often necessary.
The point is that I don't see the point of anyone needing to own a gun.
Let's see: sport, self-defense, revolution against an oppressive government. Those are three good ones. Go study a little history. Without citizen-owned guns in the hands of Minutemen we wouldn't have a U.S.A. Same applies to many other countries. Go read some stories where a citizen who owned a gun saved their life or the life of an innocent person by being able to stop a criminal from killing someone. Most people are decent and will not kill people. Those who will kill people will kill them with or without gun controls. I'd rather have more decent people with guns so that they outnumber the criminals with guns. Then criminals would think twice about using their gun.
We already have far to many murders (many of which are caused by guns).
One murder is too many murders. But your point is moot, because if someone wants to kill someone, they will do it, whether they do it with a legitimately-obtained gun, a stolen gun, a black market gun, a homemade gun, or a knife. But if the murder victim had had a gun too, they'd have had a chance of saving their life.
In other developed nations (most of which have strict gun laws) the number of murders is significantly lower. I don't have any exact figures on me but I know that they are tens or hundreds times lower.
Absolute drivel. Don't give me any "but I know." Either go look up the facts or shut up. Otherwise you're doing nothing but spreading, as the saying goes, fear, uncertainty, and doubt. You make up "facts" to try to support your already unfounded argument.
We live in a violent culture and when you have a gun lying around it is only natural to assume that it could possibly become involved in a dispute.
For "gun" you could substitute "car," "computer," "house," "baseball bat," and a billion other things. Remember what happens when you assume. A piano could possibly fall on your head tomorrow. Does that make it a valid point?
If you don't have a gun around it CAN'T POSSIBLY HAPPEN!!!
That's "if you build it, Microsoft will copy it."
What about customers who need to use other SMTP servers? I run several Web sites and have my primary personal e-mail account with a service that is not my personal ISP. I use those SMTP servers all the time, and my own ISP's SMTP server sometimes. If all of my SMTP traffic was forced through my ISP's server, I'd be very upset. When I'm sending mail as "webmaster of example.com," I want to send it through smtp.example.com, not smtp.myisp.net. Just like I wouldn't expect the president of Doohickeys, Inc. to send it through hisisp.net instead of doohickeys.com.
"It will not ultimately end spam entirely," said Hazlegrove, who added the company was willing to work with the state and other interests on a new version. "No bill can do that."
"Oh, it's ok Washington, we'll help you. We know it's not easy making laws."
Um...read your own link. :)
Because anyone whose problem would be solved by the support script would not bother to read the support script.
It's just like people on the Internet who, instead of simply going to Google and typing in a few keywords, go to a forum or a chat room and say, "Anyone know of any good sites about ____?"
They can have the answer staring them in the face, but they won't see it until someone else rubs their nose in it. They just aren't willing to put forth two seconds of time and effort into figuring it out for themselves.
Remember the Four Letter Newbie (or Dummy) Salute....
On that note, I wonder if more people would read the directions and figure things out for themselves, tech support costs would be reduced so that companies didn't feel such a strong need to outsource it.
That's opinion, not fact. The software has not even been released yet. Not exactly journalism, is it?
Heated argument and cursing are a given in War Room, and the penalty for not being on top of your bugs is swift and cruel ridicule from the other team members.
If that's true, that's incredibly unprofessional. Now I know many coders prefer to work in a relaxed, casual atmosphere, but to me that is taking it way too far. It can't be good for morale either. Devs should be expected to do their job to the best of their ability, get help if needed, and keep their bosses appraised of their progress. If they don't do all of that, they aren't doing their job. If they aren't doing their job, why are they working there?
The most virulent treatment, naturally, is saved for those foolish enough to blow off a War Room meeting. On the day I attended, one feature group had four of its bugs punted to Longhorn because they had failed to shown up for War Room. When someone argued that they should be given another day, Wanke simply said, "F#$% 'em. If it was that important, they would have been here. It's in Longhorn. Next bug."
That is a completely wrong attitude. If the rest of Microsoft is like that, that explains many of the problems with Microsoft software. That attitude would be fine if the only people affected by a bug were those responsible for fixing it. But the people that are affected by bugs are the people that buy and use their software: their customers, the people who pay their salaries. It is irresponsible of a person in charge of a project like that to not fix a problem he is aware of just because the subordinates who are supposed to fix it didn't show up for one of their three-times-daily meetings. It's starting to sound like they're only concerned with bug counts and severity ratings, reaching only for the goal of Release To Manufacturing to satisfy their shareholders that Product X is out the door and on sale.
In addition to the main War Team, each of the feature teams have their own War Rooms, so there could be as many as 50 such meetings each day, each going over a specific component of the system. These other War Room meetings occur at 8 a.m., every day. When a bug fix passes the local War Team process, it's introduced at Wanke's meeting. "They can't come into War Room unless they're fix-ready," Wanke said. "They must be fix-ready." Because there isn't a single person making decisions, there is a system of checks and balances through which each bug fix passes before it's introduced into the build.
So, if people don't attend the War Room meeting they get chewed out, but they aren't allowed to attend until they have finished what they're working on? Maybe some details are missing, but if it's that simple, no wonder MS software is such a mess. "Be here or else." "Don't show your face unless you have your fix finished." Do you see a conflict here?
We've sent out calls at 3 a.m. when the build is broken, find the developer that broke it, and get him into work right then and fix it immediately. The developers are on call 24 hours a day.
Again, irresponsibility. A dev should not leave for home until he's finished with his work. Finishing his work should include having tested his work that's been submitted as complete. If a dev submits broken code and leaves, he's not doing his job. Mistakes can happen of course, but a 24-hour on-call policy for programmers?! That can't be good for morale either. They should put in their hours, do their job right, and go home and (try to) forget about work. If they mess things up so badly that they have to get up at 3 AM to fix it, they are not doing their job right.
"I'm responsible for 8000 to 10,000 developers, program managers, and testers..."
Another problem. 8,000 to 10,000 people is like a division of a company, or a whole company in some cases. A person in charge of that many people should be in charge of general operations, not a single product. In other words, that's way, way too many people working on a single product. If you compared the number of people who work on Windows to the combined number of people that work on Linux or other open-source software with equivilant functionality, would the numbers be anything close? I don't know, but I doubt it. But even if the numbers are close, the way the software is made (independant programs that work on their own) avoids the problem of having to coordinate so many people.
On the day that we attended War Room, on January 21, 2003, Windows Server 2003 had hit an "absolute historic low" for bugs, according to Wanke. "We're shutting down the project this week," he said. "It's done. We're going to ship it." On that day, WinServer 2K3 had just a few active bugs, and at least a quarter to one-third of those bugs were simple branding issues. "So let's say there are about 150 outstanding issues to address," Wanke told us. "Of that, we'll fix about 100. All of the bugs are severity rated from 1 to 3, plus they get a priority rating. We have [a few] severity-1 bugs left to fix, and those all have to be fixed for us to ship."
Wanke said that the server team had already fixed all of the known security vulnerabilities.
So, Microsoft will ship software with known, fixable bugs in it (not news but making a point). That again demonstrates their attitude towards the quality of their software and their attitude towards their customers. They should but a sticker on the box that says "This software contains known bugs. A list can be found at www.microsoft.com/bugs." Of course, I guess their attitude is that their huge, legalese EULA discounts any responsibility and disclaims any fitness of purpose or quality. It also doesn't indicate much pride in their product (maybe they do have pride in it, but still...). Yes, all software will have some bugs in it I guess, but to decide to not fix already-known bugs and go ahead and sell their software seems irresponsible to me.
My two bucks. Should be interesting to see other opinions on this.
So true. There comes a point where you have to say, "I'm not going to dumb this down any more. If the users won't even read the directions that are in front of their face then that's their problem."
Have you looked at MS version numbers? Help>About in IE:
v6.0.2800.1106
Update Versions: "; SP1; Q324929; Q810847" There are more Q's but there's only room for those in the Help>About box.
If I want to know if I'm secure against a bug that has been fixed in mySQL, I look at the version number, something like 3.23.17, maybe with a pl# on the end. I don't have to read a 10 digit version number and then look up a database of 15 knowledge base "Q numbers" to see if I'm vulnerable to Cross-Site Frames Scripting Media Player Buffer Overrun X.