I've had two Dell computers without problem. The PCs worked fine for the duration of their life with me(2-3 years) and all was good.
This past winter I was going to buy another one only I had a complete brain fart about the limit on my card since I had never used it to make a purchase over $100 online.
So they send me an e-mail back saying the bank denied my purchase but did not give them a reason and I was to call Dell back, yadda yadda. So after figuring out about the limit from my card company I call Dell back and explain. I called the number they told me to call in the e-mail but after waiting 20 minutes to talk to them they had to rout me through to someone else because it wasn't the right department. So I wait another 20 minutes and I explain the problem to the next person...oh wait, it's not their department so they route me some place else. So I wait another 20 minutes and I explain the problem to the next person...oh wait, it's not their department so they route me some place else. Only this time my connection is disconnected...
I was so irritated I just forgot about the entire thing. In 2 days they had to release my order (as said in the e-mail) and I never did get a Dell. I built my own computer (thank goodness).
This could have all been avoided had I not bought the computer on the last day of a significant sale (free shipping -$90 plus a free upgrade or two, so I was saving quite a bit). Because of that I couldn't just cancel the order and configure and buy again.
In any event, that entire ordeal soured me to Dell.
After a great experience building my own computer months later, I'd never go back unless perhaps I ever bought a laptop.
Just because Microsoft is making a lot of money, doesn't mean that this will always be true. Their business plan is fundamentally flawed... who in their right mind will rent software? And who in their right mind actually agrees with Microsoft's EULA?
Not that I don't agree that Microsoft is fundamentally flawed, but you lose me with the rest of your comment.
Who in there right mind would use MSN/AOL? Who in their right mind would use an operatings system that gives you a BSOD every other day?
Apparently many thousands of people for many different reasons. Some of them are related to stupidity and others are related to knowing nothing else.
Linux has a grand opportunity to take the server market over, but is lacking the mom & pop usability of the desktop. Microsoft's monopoly powers aren't getting any weaker. They're improving their position as we speak.
I wouldn't count on their domination changing just because a few smart people know what's going on, because 90% of the desktop people don't have a fargon clue and/or couldn't care less (renting, EULA).
And then there is the whole Pallidium thing. Sooner or later it's very possible people will have even less viable options.
"My operating costs have gone up 1,000 percent this year, just so I can figure out how to get around all these filters," said Balan,
a former truck driver and pinball machine mechanic.
There used to be a big arcade (Circus Circus) about 20 minutes from my house but it closed down completely 5-7 years ago. I used to go down there and waste 50-60 bucks in one sitting when I was a kid, playing TMNT, WWF Wrestlemania, table hockey, etc.
Sooner or later I sort of grew out of the whole scene (helped out with the fact that the entire atmosphere of that particular place went south) and moved more into the SNES and then quickly into computer gaming.
Even back then I was never really into pinball, probably because it was still the era of 25 cent arcade games (now it seems everything is 50 cents or more) and pinball machines were usually 50 cents and I was never naturally good at them. Whereas I could last 30 minutes or longer on some other games using the same 50 cents.
Now if I want to go back to the past I resort to emulators.
I think there will always be a niche for arcades and pinball will be a part of it, but it'll likely never be what it once was.
I've been a big Go fan for several years now, ever since I started playing it online in the early 90's on The Sierra Network (TSN) aka ImagiNation Network (INN).
I had not even heard of it before but the mind power involved in playing drew me to it. Anyone elses brain hurt the first few times they played? Another example of an interest of mine that I didn't have in common with anyone else I knew.
I bought "Many Faces of Go" by Ishi Press, which played pretty well for someone like myself (14kyu) who only played maybe 20 games over a year.
The nice thing about a game like that for beginners is you can make a mistake (bad move) and realize it right away and go back a few moves and try a different move, in order to see what would have been best. Being able to save and go back is a very good learning tool.
I would agree with most posters here in that once you're to a certain level it's best to play against real people anyway. Not only because they're better, but they're also much more unpredictable. Many Faces of Go was somewhat unpredictable, but nothing can beat a human opponent when it comes to that area.
Moreover, being able to watch players a few notches above your playing level is IMO more useful to improving your game than even playing yourself.
Steve Fossett is an example of what happens when rich people aren't smart enough to create their own (evil?) empire with their resources cou(GATES)gh!! but have an ego that requires them to put their name on something (e.g. record books) that will last longer than their meager existence.
"Also the US, a country that has shown that even it is unwilling to disregard the Geneva Conventions, wouldn't be so stupid as to blatantly break the GC."
The US is one of the few countries in existence not to ban the use of landmines.
Ironically, we're usually the country that ends up cleaning them all up though.
The college I went to a few years ago started out using SSN as our main identifier. I remember when I first got accepted and before and even after I got my student ID card we ended up plastering our SSN number on tons of documents. Once the scanner didn't work at the lunch line so we had to record our name and SSN on sheets of paper in plain view of everyone.
Finally the retards caught on and gave us pin numbers instead. We were required to use that and a password to log into the student system for our grade information, etc.
Of course they sent out grade/class info over a non-encrypted (not even password info) unsecure line from over a hundred miles distance from a known centeralized server.
A friend of mine ran a Linux box and using a sniffer could read basically everything. With a little filtering he could have done a ton of damage to a lot of people.
Now my old campus is trying to move to wireless *sigh*
Upgradability goes further than just the mobo
on
Shuttle SS51 Reviewed
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
"Upgrading CPUs and graphics cards shouldn't be a problem but when it comes to motherboards, you're pretty much stuck with what you've got."
Surely the reviewer realizes that motherboards have a socket type that only run a certain type of CPU. Obviously this isn't always an issue but depending on when a motherboard is made and where in the development cycle the chip maker is in and what processor one buys...
The same could be said about the old AGP 2x to 4x conversion.
They have the vast majority of the users and are invested in the infrastructure, it shouldn't be a surprise that they are dragging their feet. They have a LOT to lose. And it's something to lose to MS.
Nobody needs to be reminded of the rival AOL vs. MSN, IE vs. Netscape, yadda yadda.
AOL probably just wants to prevent their butts from being undercut by MS. The last thing they want to do is invest tons of resources into something and have MS change the ball game on them. Without some sort of standards/agreement they're vulernable and MS knows it.
If you buy a printer at Dell, you're most likely going to save vs. a retail store, but you save nothing by getting a printer w/ a computer unless you buy during one of their specials (like, buy a computer and get 10% off all peripherals). Oddly enough, you pay ~1 dollar less for buying one seperately.
Yet they're specials are just revolving doors so if it's not a printer you save a bit on, next week it's shipping or a CD-R upgrade etc. But they don't regularly mark down the prices on printers simply because you might be buying a PC.
They might be King of the Computer market but they don't make the best computers, at least not when we're not talking about your normal mom and pop AOL/MSN user.
I make my own computers. It's cheaper and higher quality.
But I do concede...I won't be making my own printers. Yet, I won't be buying a Dell printer either, dude.
I don't think anyone is saying that everything made back then was quality. That's obviously not the case and never will be the case. There is always going to be some crappy stuff being made.
If there was no crappy stuff then there would be nothing to use to compare against and the word "quality" or "long lasting" would have no meaning.
I concur with your and the poster's premise on that. You can't even by a toaster these days that lasts more than 4 years. People had a toaster for life back in the day.
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the older NASA equipment will end up being the longest lasting and best equipment ever made for space.
Perhaps it won't just be due to the times (there was probably more of an emphasis on needing things to work back then when there was competition with the then Soviet Union) but that's probably part of it.
Obviously it's a small sample size (3 of the 4), but it sort of makes you wonder about the types of people wanting to join NASA these days.
You would think these would be some of the brightest people in the world and yet 3 of them were dumb enough to pull this stunt. It was a complete failure before it started. You can't sell moon rocks without raising flags somewhere. It's mind boggling how what one would assume to be very logical minds not being able to deduce that.
I find it odd that Microsoft has to put any research into figuring out if RealNetworks licensed the software. Perhaps it was on the spot and they weren't sure? Or do they have to be assisted by their lawyer cronies in order to figure it out?
MS is going to crap bricks if they aren't getting a piece of this pie.
Article doesn't match the premise of the submitter
on
Spam Doesn't Work?
·
· Score: 0
It is a well known psychological FACT (well, ok so it's not a fact but, it's been supported in numerous studies) that the more people you include, the less likely they are to respond (e.g. if I copied 20 people asking where is Waldo they are less likely to respond then if I sent the 20 messages seperately or just sent 1).
This is why a woman can get stabbed to death on her doorstep while the entire neighborhood watches and no one calls the police (real-life example of what they call in the article "dillusion of responsibility", which is actually the incorrect psychological term).
But normal spamming (i.e. commercial) doesn't work like this. One doesn't have a big list of people that it was copied for.
Why the submitter tried to tie two different animals together is beyond me.
"Their first series was so poorly received that it was replaced in the Midlands by a farming programme," Wow, that's harsh. Your creative works replaced by shots of cows taking a dump... Good thing those Brits wisened up..:-)
How can they even justify things being close to cheap. You buy one MS product and you're forced to buy the other 800 just so everything will work "correctly".
That must be what Ballmer means when he says "We may have a high price on this one, but look at the additional value and how that value actually leads to a lower cost of ownership despite the fact that our price may be higher"
I really love this comment though..."We haven't figured out how to be lower priced than Linux. For us as a company, we're going through a whole new world of thinking"
Perhaps they're actually considering using the word "quality" in their design dicussions now?
Slashdot Mirror
I've had two Dell computers without problem. The PCs worked fine for the duration of their life with me(2-3 years) and all was good.
This past winter I was going to buy another one only I had a complete brain fart about the limit on my card since I had never used it to make a purchase over $100 online.
So they send me an e-mail back saying the bank denied my purchase but did not give them a reason and I was to call Dell back, yadda yadda. So after figuring out about the limit from my card company I call Dell back and explain. I called the number they told me to call in the e-mail but after waiting 20 minutes to talk to them they had to rout me through to someone else because it wasn't the right department. So I wait another 20 minutes and I explain the problem to the next person...oh wait, it's not their department so they route me some place else. So I wait another 20 minutes and I explain the problem to the next person...oh wait, it's not their department so they route me some place else. Only this time my connection is disconnected...
I was so irritated I just forgot about the entire thing. In 2 days they had to release my order (as said in the e-mail) and I never did get a Dell. I built my own computer (thank goodness).
This could have all been avoided had I not bought the computer on the last day of a significant sale (free shipping -$90 plus a free upgrade or two, so I was saving quite a bit). Because of that I couldn't just cancel the order and configure and buy again.
In any event, that entire ordeal soured me to Dell.
After a great experience building my own computer months later, I'd never go back unless perhaps I ever bought a laptop.
Not that I don't agree that Microsoft is fundamentally flawed, but you lose me with the rest of your comment.
Who in there right mind would use MSN/AOL? Who in their right mind would use an operatings system that gives you a BSOD every other day?
Apparently many thousands of people for many different reasons. Some of them are related to stupidity and others are related to knowing nothing else.
Linux has a grand opportunity to take the server market over, but is lacking the mom & pop usability of the desktop. Microsoft's monopoly powers aren't getting any weaker. They're improving their position as we speak.
I wouldn't count on their domination changing just because a few smart people know what's going on, because 90% of the desktop people don't have a fargon clue and/or couldn't care less (renting, EULA).
And then there is the whole Pallidium thing. Sooner or later it's very possible people will have even less viable options.
Now I feel even worse about the continuing death of pinball.
There used to be a big arcade (Circus Circus) about 20 minutes from my house but it closed down completely 5-7 years ago. I used to go down there and waste 50-60 bucks in one sitting when I was a kid, playing TMNT, WWF Wrestlemania, table hockey, etc.
Sooner or later I sort of grew out of the whole scene (helped out with the fact that the entire atmosphere of that particular place went south) and moved more into the SNES and then quickly into computer gaming.
Even back then I was never really into pinball, probably because it was still the era of 25 cent arcade games (now it seems everything is 50 cents or more) and pinball machines were usually 50 cents and I was never naturally good at them. Whereas I could last 30 minutes or longer on some other games using the same 50 cents.
Now if I want to go back to the past I resort to emulators.
I think there will always be a niche for arcades and pinball will be a part of it, but it'll likely never be what it once was.
I've been a big Go fan for several years now, ever since I started playing it online in the early 90's on The Sierra Network (TSN) aka ImagiNation Network (INN).
I had not even heard of it before but the mind power involved in playing drew me to it. Anyone elses brain hurt the first few times they played? Another example of an interest of mine that I didn't have in common with anyone else I knew.
I bought "Many Faces of Go" by Ishi Press, which played pretty well for someone like myself (14kyu) who only played maybe 20 games over a year.
The nice thing about a game like that for beginners is you can make a mistake (bad move) and realize it right away and go back a few moves and try a different move, in order to see what would have been best. Being able to save and go back is a very good learning tool.
I would agree with most posters here in that once you're to a certain level it's best to play against real people anyway. Not only because they're better, but they're also much more unpredictable. Many Faces of Go was somewhat unpredictable, but nothing can beat a human opponent when it comes to that area.
Moreover, being able to watch players a few notches above your playing level is IMO more useful to improving your game than even playing yourself.
Steve Fossett is an example of what happens when rich people aren't smart enough to create their own (evil?) empire with their resources cou(GATES)gh!! but have an ego that requires them to put their name on something (e.g. record books) that will last longer than their meager existence.
That said, it is his money. Who am I to complain?
Maybe he won't do it, but it's only a matter of time before his notes get "misplaced" or someone else simply steps forward.
"Also the US, a country that has shown that even it is unwilling to disregard the Geneva Conventions, wouldn't be so stupid as to blatantly break the GC."
The US is one of the few countries in existence not to ban the use of landmines.
Ironically, we're usually the country that ends up cleaning them all up though.
The college I went to a few years ago started out using SSN as our main identifier. I remember when I first got accepted and before and even after I got my student ID card we ended up plastering our SSN number on tons of documents. Once the scanner didn't work at the lunch line so we had to record our name and SSN on sheets of paper in plain view of everyone.
Finally the retards caught on and gave us pin numbers instead. We were required to use that and a password to log into the student system for our grade information, etc.
Of course they sent out grade/class info over a non-encrypted (not even password info) unsecure line from over a hundred miles distance from a known centeralized server.
A friend of mine ran a Linux box and using a sniffer could read basically everything. With a little filtering he could have done a ton of damage to a lot of people.
Now my old campus is trying to move to wireless *sigh*
"Upgrading CPUs and graphics cards shouldn't be a problem but when it comes to motherboards, you're pretty much stuck with what you've got." Surely the reviewer realizes that motherboards have a socket type that only run a certain type of CPU. Obviously this isn't always an issue but depending on when a motherboard is made and where in the development cycle the chip maker is in and what processor one buys... The same could be said about the old AGP 2x to 4x conversion.
They have the vast majority of the users and are invested in the infrastructure, it shouldn't be a surprise that they are dragging their feet. They have a LOT to lose. And it's something to lose to MS.
Nobody needs to be reminded of the rival AOL vs. MSN, IE vs. Netscape, yadda yadda.
AOL probably just wants to prevent their butts from being undercut by MS. The last thing they want to do is invest tons of resources into something and have MS change the ball game on them. Without some sort of standards/agreement they're vulernable and MS knows it.
If you buy a printer at Dell, you're most likely going to save vs. a retail store, but you save nothing by getting a printer w/ a computer unless you buy during one of their specials (like, buy a computer and get 10% off all peripherals). Oddly enough, you pay ~1 dollar less for buying one seperately. Yet they're specials are just revolving doors so if it's not a printer you save a bit on, next week it's shipping or a CD-R upgrade etc. But they don't regularly mark down the prices on printers simply because you might be buying a PC.
They might be King of the Computer market but they don't make the best computers, at least not when we're not talking about your normal mom and pop AOL/MSN user.
I make my own computers. It's cheaper and higher quality.
But I do concede...I won't be making my own printers. Yet, I won't be buying a Dell printer either, dude.
I'd say there is a difference between "high quality" and "more durable"...
"Today, most cheap stuff is made of plastic. Even if it breaks, you'll still have the faded, ungluable pieces to look at many decades from now."
Durable yes. High quality? If you want a wasteland of non-biodegradable trash.
Read a little closer perhaps.
I don't think anyone is saying that everything made back then was quality. That's obviously not the case and never will be the case. There is always going to be some crappy stuff being made.
If there was no crappy stuff then there would be nothing to use to compare against and the word "quality" or "long lasting" would have no meaning.
I concur with your and the poster's premise on that. You can't even by a toaster these days that lasts more than 4 years. People had a toaster for life back in the day.
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the older NASA equipment will end up being the longest lasting and best equipment ever made for space.
Perhaps it won't just be due to the times (there was probably more of an emphasis on needing things to work back then when there was competition with the then Soviet Union) but that's probably part of it.
Obviously it's a small sample size (3 of the 4), but it sort of makes you wonder about the types of people wanting to join NASA these days.
You would think these would be some of the brightest people in the world and yet 3 of them were dumb enough to pull this stunt. It was a complete failure before it started. You can't sell moon rocks without raising flags somewhere. It's mind boggling how what one would assume to be very logical minds not being able to deduce that.
MS is going to crap bricks if they aren't getting a piece of this pie.
It is a well known psychological FACT (well, ok so it's not a fact but, it's been supported in numerous studies) that the more people you include, the less likely they are to respond (e.g. if I copied 20 people asking where is Waldo they are less likely to respond then if I sent the 20 messages seperately or just sent 1). This is why a woman can get stabbed to death on her doorstep while the entire neighborhood watches and no one calls the police (real-life example of what they call in the article "dillusion of responsibility", which is actually the incorrect psychological term). But normal spamming (i.e. commercial) doesn't work like this. One doesn't have a big list of people that it was copied for. Why the submitter tried to tie two different animals together is beyond me.
And his lame post about miss-reading the title isn't offtopic? Ooook.
How that comment managed to get by w/o getting modded down is beyond me.
With all that talk of spinning you make it sound like there's a little gerbil in my CPU.
You're telling us Microsoft isn't the king of innovation?!? Incredulous!
"Their first series was so poorly received that it was replaced in the Midlands by a farming programme," :-)
Wow, that's harsh. Your creative works replaced by shots of cows taking a dump...
Good thing those Brits wisened up..
How can they even justify things being close to cheap. You buy one MS product and you're forced to buy the other 800 just so everything will work "correctly". That must be what Ballmer means when he says "We may have a high price on this one, but look at the additional value and how that value actually leads to a lower cost of ownership despite the fact that our price may be higher" I really love this comment though..."We haven't figured out how to be lower priced than Linux. For us as a company, we're going through a whole new world of thinking" Perhaps they're actually considering using the word "quality" in their design dicussions now?