I'm in sales also, and I don't lie to my customers, co-workers or management. At all. Period.
Want to know why?
Because lying doesn't work if you want to be one of the best, and make your living in a sales organization. Out of all of the *top producing* sales professionals that I know, *ALL* have a very high degree of integrity. The reason is that in this field you not only need to close the initial deal, but you need to continue to work with the same people and organizations month in and month out in order to truly build a real sales pipeline. THAT is where a real sales professional will make most of their success - repeat business from a growing core group of customers that know and trust them.
Yeah, there are sneaky, evil people in this profession as well as any other. Perhaps there are more, as some evil fucktards might be drawn to the potential to make quick money on lies. These people end up hopping from one bogus job to another, moving on to another green field opportunity after they have laid waste to the sale prospects of their prior company. They generally do not last in sales for the long haul.
As far as sales people being useless, don't paint us all with the same brush that colors the organization for which you work. The objective of any true sales professional and professional sales team (especially in technical sales, like my position) is to represent a product that you KNOW TO HAVE VALUE to the proper people that can benefit from it, and help them to do business better through use of your solution/product. If you do not believe that you are doing the right thing by attempting to help another person or business through use of your product or service, then you are in the wrong place.
Back on the original topic, the best way to determine if it is a good idea for you to move into technical sales would be to continue to platoon yourself out to cover in sales situations when you can, in order to see if this fits with your personality and what makes you happy. If you indeed get worn out by lots of customer contact, you will likely have a high level of stress to deal with, as success dictates that this sort of contact should be how you spend the bulk of your time. Think about whether or not this sort of social discomfort is something you want to change about yourself - if it is, you will be uncomfortable at first, but over time you will grow more comfortable in these situations.
Then again, the only real reason that the man was considered for the position was the fact that his last name is Bush. Luckiest member of the luckiest family in America.
The AK47 was built specifically to withstand very harsh field conditions, and hence was machined with fairly loose tolerances compared to American weapons. The AK can be remarkably dirty and still fire dependably, as the looser tolerances make it less susceptible to jamming.
Seems that I remember reports that some U.S. troops were picking up AK's after field skirmishes and keeping them as their weapon of choice due to their durability. Not sure how accurate this last bit is, as I have a hard time imagining that the CO's would allow their troops to use non-standard weaponry. Can anyone comment on this?
Sorry to hear that someone else has had to deal with this crap since their teens. I am currently having a gout attack (left ankle is pretty much immobile) and have been having attacks since 17. I keep hoping that science will come up with something better than Allopurinol, Probenicid, Indocin, Colchicine, etc... but lately it seems like there isn't much going on as far as Gout research is concerned. I just hope my son doesn't end up with it...:-(
I thought that we had established that the only true way to measure bandwidth was in "Libraries of Congress" expressed as a function of time?
Can't we just stick to the standards?
A reminder for those that haven't been paying attention:
data size and bandwith is measured in "Libraries of Congress"
Size comparisons for large objects is always done in "Volkswagen Beetles"
Thanks for the post - your points are very accurate, and articulate.
It does bother me once in a while when an outbreak of "slam the sales guy" pops up here, but it isn't anywhere near the level of making me want to move away from Slashdot. Reading back through my original post I guess I did come across a bit snippy, but my intention was really more to point out that true technical sales professionals exist, and add huge value to their organizations.
On your very valid point about technical folks having to clean-up after bad sales activity; Yes, this is common among poor sales people. Sales Engineers like myself know this better than anyone, as we are the first line of defense against a salesperson's inaccurate technical expecations and promises to customers. When (not if) you get into a situation like this, there are two ways to handle it:
1) Explain the issue to the sales rep, help them to find the best way to rectify this with the customer, and make sure that if the sales rep repeats the same incorrect action again that proper action is taken with management. or,
2) Piss and moan with your coworkers about what idiots sales reps are.
Your views of salespeople are a bit narrow, I'm afraid.
Yes, there are a number of asshats out there selling technical solutions, just about as many as there are slapping out crappy code and hardware in technical positions. I have had the displeasure of working with both sets of idiots, as I started my career in engineering and moved into a technical sales-support position (Sales Engineer) later.
Your view is by no means unique amongst engineers, but it is still off-target. I have had the pleasure of working with incredibly talented sales and marketing people that perform an invaluable function, and make the rest of the company work that much better. It may be hard to see the difficulty of what a true sales professional adds to a company when you are focused on technical matters, but it may be an eye opening experience for you to tag along with a sales rep or sales engineer for a while sometime to see some of the shit they have to wade through in order to make a deal happen.
In short, yes - there are some idiots in sales that have been able to make a living through lying, cheating etc and those people make it difficult to be successful in a company. The idea that all sales professionals are like that however is incorrect.
Honestly, if the sales reps in your workplace are so bad, perhaps you should seek out a company that values hiring true professionals? Or even better - step up and give it a try yourself and show us all how it's done. Maybe you wouldn't want to give up your solid, predictable salary for the "high life" of the sales rep that involves performance-based commissions on top of a tiny base salary?
BTW, I realize that this post has a high probability of being modded down into oblivion by the engineer-heavy slashdot crowd, but I'll take my chances. I just get a bit weary of seeing my entire profession constantly painted with this same inappropriate brush.
Of course, there's also the fact that the satellite connection is only the first hop. The Satellite ISPs still need to connect to the net backbone via wired links, and that means that somewhere upstream they are connecting to one of the big telcos.
Anyone else looked at the number of hoops you would need to jump through to remove this 'beta' from your machine??
From TFA - "But Windows Media Player 11 ( http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmedia ) isn't any old beta release; it's essentially a system upgrade, one that can be removed only with XP's System Restore tool. Nobody should install this kind of preview software lightly."
And from the MS WMP 11 download site, buried deep in the details:
Rolling back to a previous version of the Player
Windows Media Player is a feature of the Windows operating system and cannot be removed entirely. However, in Windows
XP, you can roll back to the version of the Player that was previously on your computer.
You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the Administrators group to perform the following procedure.
1.
Disconnect any portable music or video devices that might be attached to your computer.
For more information, see Issues with devices after removing Windows Media Player.
2.
In Category View of Control Panel, click Add or Remove Programs, and then click Remove a program.
3.
At the top of the list, select the Show updates check box.
4.
In the Windows XP - Software Updates section, click Windows Media Player 11, and then click Change/Remove.
5.
In each of the two confirmation dialog boxes that appear, click OK.
6.
When the rollback process is complete (it might take several minutes to complete), click Restart.
7.
In Category View of Control Panel, click Add or Remove Programs, and then click Remove a program.
8.
At the top of the list, select the Show updates check box.
9.
In the Windows XP - Software Updates section, click Windows Media Format 11 Runtime, and then click Change/Remove.
If you installed a non-US English version of Windows Media Player 11, the instructions in the dialog boxes that
are mentioned in steps 9, 10, and 11 might appear in English.
10.
In the first confirmation dialog box that appears, click OK.
11.
In the second confirmation dialog box that appears, select the Do you want to continue with the rollback? check
box, and then click OK.
12.
When the rollback process is complete (it might take several minutes to complete), click Restart.
13.
In Category View of Control Panel, click Add or Remove Programs, and then click Remove a program.
14.
Click Microsoft User-Mode Driver Frameworks Feature Pack 1.0, and then click Remove.
15.
Follow the instructions that appear in the Software Update Removal Wizard.
If the Wudf01000 confirmation dialog box appears, click Yes to continue. When the software removal process is
complete (it might take several minutes to complete), click Finish.
Holy crap. I can see how happy some Windows users will be when they upgrade to the latest/not-so-greatest automatically without thinking about it, and then don't want to mess with this ridiculous rollback procedure.
I can't speak for the OP but from my perspective, since no physical media is being provided, and the distribution channel is VASTLY cheaper than pressing/shipping/stocking/inventory'ing/selling a physical DVD, there should be a significant price reduction in the cost of the movie. Furthermore, the movie is worth less to me now that very restrictive DRM is in place, making it even less attractive than a physical DVD which can be ripped. Yes I realize that ripping a DVD is illegal and that invalidates the argument somewhat, but I include this argument just in case the movie studios actually want to look at the reality of the situation.
Studios need to understand what Apple already has learned with ITunes - that if you charge a reasonable price for a media file, with DRM that is not seen to be unfair, and you make it super convenient, then people will use your pay model more often than they will pirate the same media.
2. There is not a problem here. Bitkeeper (EFS with a name created by the marketing department) will not be enabled by default unless your company enables the policy. If your company does enable the policy, you should also create a Data Recovery Agent. This can also be done on a standalone workstation.
Bitkeeper is not "EFS with a name created by the Marketing Dept" but rather a very different sort of encryption scheme. EFS uses an encryption key stored within the CAPI store in the OS to encrypt individual files and folders. It is not at all good for full disk encryption, and using it for this purpose can/will cause a multitude of problems. Bitkeeper on the other hand is a full-disk encryption scheme similar to Utimaco, Safeboot or the commercial full disk version of PGP that utilizes an encyption key that is either loaded in a hardware TPM (Trusted Plafrom Module - a hardware key repository on the motherboard) or is alternatively loaded at boot time from a USB key.
3. If you can't access your ENCRYPTED data from another OS or boot CD, the encryption worked. Encrypting data involves risks just as leaving your important data unencrypted involves risks. Pick your poison and move on.
Actually, if you cannot access your encrypted data from another OS it simply means that you short-sightedly chose an encyption method that is not cross-platform compliant. There are plenty of encryption solutions (full-disk and file/folder based) that work cross-platform, just don't look for one to be provided with your Microsoft OS.
Well, actually the application *is* available to him. He obviously has access to a computer, as he was able to post his plight here on this forum. If he had two brain cells to rub together he would have went to kroger.com and found that the application is available on the magical Interweb thingy.
IIRC, back in the late 70's/early 80's either Popular Electronics or a similar magazine had plans to build a standalone device that did much the same thing. It was based on detecting a sudden upsurge in volume to work automatically. It wasn't perfect, as audio tracks that had a lot of dynamic range sometimes would trip the device, but it was still a pretty cool hack.
1) If the keyboard and mouse are at the wrong height (forearms should be basically horizontal to the ground while keying / mousing) look into one of the under-dek mounted slide-out keyboard and mouse trays made by folks like Kensington, Steelcase, etc. Ebay or a local used office furniture or used computer store are places to look for this stuff on the cheap. Look for a tray that adjusts height, angle and left/right orientation, and also make sure that it slides under the desk to get it out of the way when not in use.
2) At the minimum, get a comfotable chair that either a) fits you natively, or b) has enough adjustment to make you comfy.
3) If the monitor is not at the right height (Your eyes should be level with the top edge of the viewable area when you are looking at it with your head tilted slightly down) either adjust the stand or place something STURDY and flat underneath the monitor to raise it to the proper height.
4) For optimum comfort, make sure that your mouse is located as close to your centerline as possible. This is a bigger deal than many people think - having your arm angled out to the side while mousing can be a major casue of Repetitive Stress Injuries.
Sure there are a large number of pirated copies, but it's nowhere near 95%. Most likely the largest portion of Windows users are running whatever came installed on their Dell/Gateway/HP machine.
That's the problem with pulling statistics "out of thin air" - you run the risk of making a really silly statement.
When/if it does, you won't have to come here and Slashvertise to know it either, as we will already be talking about it.
/. Editors, FYI this is the sort of advertisement that/.'ers dislike the most. If your gonna sell-out/. like this, I hope that you are getting paid well to do so.
No need to get snippy Dynedain, I certainly can and do think outside my "tiny world of single-pc households and do the math". My math however includes the fact Firefox downloads are only tracked from the download page, and do not include the hordes of Firefox installs that are done via apt, yum, etc or via a Linux installation such as the vast majority of those 215,000 RedHat installs that you mentioned.
From TFA: "Torvalds' opinion matters because his program is by far the most popular open source program in the world."
I'm not sure....would maybe Firefox have more overall users? Seems that it's on 80-90% of Linux boxes, plus an ever growing number of Windows machines and other OS's as well.
Others here seem to have nailed most of the work related things that you should talk to your employer about, I have a few that you may want to look into for personal reasons.
1) Make sure that you are cool with downsizing your place. Not sure where you are coming from, but in almost every case you will get a smaller house/apartment for the same $ out here in Silly Valley.
2) Find out about opportunities and resources to participate in the things that you love to do in your time off of work. In most cases you will find that this area is great for all sorts of pursuits, but make sure.
3) Make sure that you enjoy interacting with an incredibly diverse cultural group of people. This is one of the coolest things about living in California. I have however seen a lot of instances of people that move here from out of state and have trouble relating to the diverse ethnic groups (generally this does not seem to happen with east coast transplants - it seems to be more of middle-america thing). One of my favorite things about the Bay Area is that in most areas you are virtually unlimited in the new types of cuisine you can try on a daily basis. It's kinda cool to be able to eat your way around the world without leaving your own town.
4) Make sure that you like to drive. Unless you are in the middle of SF, public transit is only useful in very specific cases. It just isn't deployed widely enough to be a full time option for many people, so traffic is a part of life. This brings up another related point - when you are plotting out how much more pay you will need in order to make the move, be sure that the increase includes enough to be as close as possible to your office. In California a lot of people are moving farther out into the central part of the state and driving huge distances to get to work due to the availability of (somewhat) cheaper housing. Try not to be one of these people.:-)
All in all, this is a wonderful place to be. Hopefully these items will help you to decide if it will be the right place for you.
We triplets(!) that are 5 years old, and we have elected not to try to push them into technology just yet. I figure that they will become interested in it just by watching my wife and I and their 12 year old brother playing with our own tech toys. My boy (the triplets are 2 girls, 1 boy) has recently started showing an interest in games, so I have showed him the basics of using the mouse and keyboard and turned him loose on some of the educational games that are available for Linux. The games in the kdeedu package are some of his favorites, and are very age appropriate.
Maybe he isn't using VMWare? There are a lot of other virtualization products, you may have better luck with Xen or Emu. Of course there is also the other commercial product - MS VirtualPC which used to be a Connectix product.
Maybe "ease of use" is the wrong term, but DVD's certainly have a lot more "convenience" of use. the major reason for this is that you can access any part of the content in a non-linear fashion. There is no rewinding, waiting for fast forward, etc - just jump to the point of the movie you want, and start watching.
The problems that you mention above are remedied in order by:
1: Getting a DVD player that has a well-designed interface and,
2: DVD menu designers pulling their heads out of their collective asses.
There are certainly some DVD's that have ill-designed menus, and I too have had discs that do not work by just hitting 'play' - you need the remote. Yes that sucks, but most DVD's don't have this problem, and the newer DVD's that I own don't seem to have this problem.
'I wonder if you get marked as "online" whenever you check your Mail on mail.google.com...'
I wonder also what will happen when I logon to gmail.com and I already have GAIM running with the Google Chat plugin....
Most IM protocols only allow you to be logged in from one client at a time - will I get auto-booted from one or the other? Admittedly, I am not sure whether or not the Jabber protocol works this way (Google Chat uses the open Jabber protocol - hooray!).
The thing that worries me the most about the Microsoft security model is summed up nicely by Mr. Allchin - "Safety and security is the overriding feature that most people will want to have Windows Vista for."
The big problem here as I see it is that Security is not a "Feature", and it isn't something that you can bolt on afterwards with virus scanners, spyware scanners, etc. the one real security benefit that I can see is the ability to run more easily as a non-admin user, but I will not be convinced that this is really true until I see how it works in the real world, using real apps (including legacy ones).
Slashdot Mirror
Want to know why?
Because lying doesn't work if you want to be one of the best, and make your living in a sales organization. Out of all of the *top producing* sales professionals that I know, *ALL* have a very high degree of integrity. The reason is that in this field you not only need to close the initial deal, but you need to continue to work with the same people and organizations month in and month out in order to truly build a real sales pipeline. THAT is where a real sales professional will make most of their success - repeat business from a growing core group of customers that know and trust them.
Yeah, there are sneaky, evil people in this profession as well as any other. Perhaps there are more, as some evil fucktards might be drawn to the potential to make quick money on lies. These people end up hopping from one bogus job to another, moving on to another green field opportunity after they have laid waste to the sale prospects of their prior company. They generally do not last in sales for the long haul.
As far as sales people being useless, don't paint us all with the same brush that colors the organization for which you work. The objective of any true sales professional and professional sales team (especially in technical sales, like my position) is to represent a product that you KNOW TO HAVE VALUE to the proper people that can benefit from it, and help them to do business better through use of your solution/product. If you do not believe that you are doing the right thing by attempting to help another person or business through use of your product or service, then you are in the wrong place.
Back on the original topic, the best way to determine if it is a good idea for you to move into technical sales would be to continue to platoon yourself out to cover in sales situations when you can, in order to see if this fits with your personality and what makes you happy. If you indeed get worn out by lots of customer contact, you will likely have a high level of stress to deal with, as success dictates that this sort of contact should be how you spend the bulk of your time. Think about whether or not this sort of social discomfort is something you want to change about yourself - if it is, you will be uncomfortable at first, but over time you will grow more comfortable in these situations.
Good luck either way
Then again, the only real reason that the man was considered for the position was the fact that his last name is Bush. Luckiest member of the luckiest family in America.
The AK47 was built specifically to withstand very harsh field conditions, and hence was machined with fairly loose tolerances compared to American weapons. The AK can be remarkably dirty and still fire dependably, as the looser tolerances make it less susceptible to jamming.
Seems that I remember reports that some U.S. troops were picking up AK's after field skirmishes and keeping them as their weapon of choice due to their durability. Not sure how accurate this last bit is, as I have a hard time imagining that the CO's would allow their troops to use non-standard weaponry. Can anyone comment on this?
Sorry to hear that someone else has had to deal with this crap since their teens. I am currently having a gout attack (left ankle is pretty much immobile) and have been having attacks since 17. I keep hoping that science will come up with something better than Allopurinol, Probenicid, Indocin, Colchicine, etc... but lately it seems like there isn't much going on as far as Gout research is concerned. I just hope my son doesn't end up with it... :-(
I thought that we had established that the only true way to measure bandwidth was in "Libraries of Congress" expressed as a function of time?
Can't we just stick to the standards?
A reminder for those that haven't been paying attention: data size and bandwith is measured in "Libraries of Congress" Size comparisons for large objects is always done in "Volkswagen Beetles"
Good day.
It does bother me once in a while when an outbreak of "slam the sales guy" pops up here, but it isn't anywhere near the level of making me want to move away from Slashdot. Reading back through my original post I guess I did come across a bit snippy, but my intention was really more to point out that true technical sales professionals exist, and add huge value to their organizations.
On your very valid point about technical folks having to clean-up after bad sales activity; Yes, this is common among poor sales people. Sales Engineers like myself know this better than anyone, as we are the first line of defense against a salesperson's inaccurate technical expecations and promises to customers. When (not if) you get into a situation like this, there are two ways to handle it:
1) Explain the issue to the sales rep, help them to find the best way to rectify this with the customer, and make sure that if the sales rep repeats the same incorrect action again that proper action is taken with management. or,
2) Piss and moan with your coworkers about what idiots sales reps are.
One of these works, the other doesn't.
Yes, there are a number of asshats out there selling technical solutions, just about as many as there are slapping out crappy code and hardware in technical positions. I have had the displeasure of working with both sets of idiots, as I started my career in engineering and moved into a technical sales-support position (Sales Engineer) later.
Your view is by no means unique amongst engineers, but it is still off-target. I have had the pleasure of working with incredibly talented sales and marketing people that perform an invaluable function, and make the rest of the company work that much better. It may be hard to see the difficulty of what a true sales professional adds to a company when you are focused on technical matters, but it may be an eye opening experience for you to tag along with a sales rep or sales engineer for a while sometime to see some of the shit they have to wade through in order to make a deal happen.
In short, yes - there are some idiots in sales that have been able to make a living through lying, cheating etc and those people make it difficult to be successful in a company. The idea that all sales professionals are like that however is incorrect.
Honestly, if the sales reps in your workplace are so bad, perhaps you should seek out a company that values hiring true professionals? Or even better - step up and give it a try yourself and show us all how it's done. Maybe you wouldn't want to give up your solid, predictable salary for the "high life" of the sales rep that involves performance-based commissions on top of a tiny base salary?
BTW, I realize that this post has a high probability of being modded down into oblivion by the engineer-heavy slashdot crowd, but I'll take my chances. I just get a bit weary of seeing my entire profession constantly painted with this same inappropriate brush.
Of course, there's also the fact that the satellite connection is only the first hop. The Satellite ISPs still need to connect to the net backbone via wired links, and that means that somewhere upstream they are connecting to one of the big telcos.
From TFA - "But Windows Media Player 11 ( http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmedia ) isn't any old beta release; it's essentially a system upgrade, one that can be removed only with XP's System Restore tool. Nobody should install this kind of preview software lightly."
And from the MS WMP 11 download site, buried deep in the details:
Rolling back to a previous version of the Player
Windows Media Player is a feature of the Windows operating system and cannot be removed entirely. However, in Windows
XP, you can roll back to the version of the Player that was previously on your computer.
You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the Administrators group to perform the following procedure.
1. Disconnect any portable music or video devices that might be attached to your computer.
For more information, see Issues with devices after removing Windows Media Player.
2. In Category View of Control Panel, click Add or Remove Programs, and then click Remove a program.
3. At the top of the list, select the Show updates check box.
4. In the Windows XP - Software Updates section, click Windows Media Player 11, and then click Change/Remove.
5. In each of the two confirmation dialog boxes that appear, click OK.
6. When the rollback process is complete (it might take several minutes to complete), click Restart.
7. In Category View of Control Panel, click Add or Remove Programs, and then click Remove a program.
8. At the top of the list, select the Show updates check box.
9. In the Windows XP - Software Updates section, click Windows Media Format 11 Runtime, and then click Change/Remove.
If you installed a non-US English version of Windows Media Player 11, the instructions in the dialog boxes that
are mentioned in steps 9, 10, and 11 might appear in English.
10. In the first confirmation dialog box that appears, click OK.
11. In the second confirmation dialog box that appears, select the Do you want to continue with the rollback? check
box, and then click OK.
12. When the rollback process is complete (it might take several minutes to complete), click Restart.
13. In Category View of Control Panel, click Add or Remove Programs, and then click Remove a program.
14. Click Microsoft User-Mode Driver Frameworks Feature Pack 1.0, and then click Remove.
15. Follow the instructions that appear in the Software Update Removal Wizard.
If the Wudf01000 confirmation dialog box appears, click Yes to continue. When the software removal process is
complete (it might take several minutes to complete), click Finish.
Holy crap. I can see how happy some Windows users will be when they upgrade to the latest/not-so-greatest automatically without thinking about it, and then don't want to mess with this ridiculous rollback procedure.
I vote that they call it G-Money.... :-)
I can't speak for the OP but from my perspective, since no physical media is being provided, and the distribution channel is VASTLY cheaper than pressing/shipping/stocking/inventory'ing/selling a physical DVD, there should be a significant price reduction in the cost of the movie. Furthermore, the movie is worth less to me now that very restrictive DRM is in place, making it even less attractive than a physical DVD which can be ripped. Yes I realize that ripping a DVD is illegal and that invalidates the argument somewhat, but I include this argument just in case the movie studios actually want to look at the reality of the situation.
Studios need to understand what Apple already has learned with ITunes - that if you charge a reasonable price for a media file, with DRM that is not seen to be unfair, and you make it super convenient, then people will use your pay model more often than they will pirate the same media.
2. There is not a problem here. Bitkeeper (EFS with a name created by the marketing department) will not be enabled by default unless your company enables the policy. If your company does enable the policy, you should also create a Data Recovery Agent. This can also be done on a standalone workstation.
Bitkeeper is not "EFS with a name created by the Marketing Dept" but rather a very different sort of encryption scheme. EFS uses an encryption key stored within the CAPI store in the OS to encrypt individual files and folders. It is not at all good for full disk encryption, and using it for this purpose can/will cause a multitude of problems. Bitkeeper on the other hand is a full-disk encryption scheme similar to Utimaco, Safeboot or the commercial full disk version of PGP that utilizes an encyption key that is either loaded in a hardware TPM (Trusted Plafrom Module - a hardware key repository on the motherboard) or is alternatively loaded at boot time from a USB key.
3. If you can't access your ENCRYPTED data from another OS or boot CD, the encryption worked. Encrypting data involves risks just as leaving your important data unencrypted involves risks. Pick your poison and move on.
Actually, if you cannot access your encrypted data from another OS it simply means that you short-sightedly chose an encyption method that is not cross-platform compliant. There are plenty of encryption solutions (full-disk and file/folder based) that work cross-platform, just don't look for one to be provided with your Microsoft OS.
Well, actually the application *is* available to him. He obviously has access to a computer, as he was able to post his plight here on this forum. If he had two brain cells to rub together he would have went to kroger.com and found that the application is available on the magical Interweb thingy.
IIRC, back in the late 70's/early 80's either Popular Electronics or a similar magazine had plans to build a standalone device that did much the same thing. It was based on detecting a sudden upsurge in volume to work automatically. It wasn't perfect, as audio tracks that had a lot of dynamic range sometimes would trip the device, but it was still a pretty cool hack.
1) If the keyboard and mouse are at the wrong height (forearms should be basically horizontal to the ground while keying / mousing) look into one of the under-dek mounted slide-out keyboard and mouse trays made by folks like Kensington, Steelcase, etc. Ebay or a local used office furniture or used computer store are places to look for this stuff on the cheap. Look for a tray that adjusts height, angle and left/right orientation, and also make sure that it slides under the desk to get it out of the way when not in use.
2) At the minimum, get a comfotable chair that either a) fits you natively, or b) has enough adjustment to make you comfy.
3) If the monitor is not at the right height (Your eyes should be level with the top edge of the viewable area when you are looking at it with your head tilted slightly down) either adjust the stand or place something STURDY and flat underneath the monitor to raise it to the proper height.
4) For optimum comfort, make sure that your mouse is located as close to your centerline as possible. This is a bigger deal than many people think - having your arm angled out to the side while mousing can be a major casue of Repetitive Stress Injuries.
And oh yeah, take frequent breaks!
Sure there are a large number of pirated copies, but it's nowhere near 95%. Most likely the largest portion of Windows users are running whatever came installed on their Dell/Gateway/HP machine.
That's the problem with pulling statistics "out of thin air" - you run the risk of making a really silly statement.
When/if it does, you won't have to come here and Slashvertise to know it either, as we will already be talking about it.
*Think* a bit before you cop attitude.
I'm not sure....would maybe Firefox have more overall users? Seems that it's on 80-90% of Linux boxes, plus an ever growing number of Windows machines and other OS's as well.
1) Make sure that you are cool with downsizing your place. Not sure where you are coming from, but in almost every case you will get a smaller house/apartment for the same $ out here in Silly Valley.
2) Find out about opportunities and resources to participate in the things that you love to do in your time off of work. In most cases you will find that this area is great for all sorts of pursuits, but make sure.
3) Make sure that you enjoy interacting with an incredibly diverse cultural group of people. This is one of the coolest things about living in California. I have however seen a lot of instances of people that move here from out of state and have trouble relating to the diverse ethnic groups (generally this does not seem to happen with east coast transplants - it seems to be more of middle-america thing). One of my favorite things about the Bay Area is that in most areas you are virtually unlimited in the new types of cuisine you can try on a daily basis. It's kinda cool to be able to eat your way around the world without leaving your own town.
4) Make sure that you like to drive. Unless you are in the middle of SF, public transit is only useful in very specific cases. It just isn't deployed widely enough to be a full time option for many people, so traffic is a part of life. This brings up another related point - when you are plotting out how much more pay you will need in order to make the move, be sure that the increase includes enough to be as close as possible to your office. In California a lot of people are moving farther out into the central part of the state and driving huge distances to get to work due to the availability of (somewhat) cheaper housing. Try not to be one of these people. :-)
All in all, this is a wonderful place to be. Hopefully these items will help you to decide if it will be the right place for you.
Good luck!
We triplets(!) that are 5 years old, and we have elected not to try to push them into technology just yet. I figure that they will become interested in it just by watching my wife and I and their 12 year old brother playing with our own tech toys. My boy (the triplets are 2 girls, 1 boy) has recently started showing an interest in games, so I have showed him the basics of using the mouse and keyboard and turned him loose on some of the educational games that are available for Linux. The games in the kdeedu package are some of his favorites, and are very age appropriate.
Maybe he isn't using VMWare? There are a lot of other virtualization products, you may have better luck with Xen or Emu. Of course there is also the other commercial product - MS VirtualPC which used to be a Connectix product.
The problems that you mention above are remedied in order by:
1: Getting a DVD player that has a well-designed interface and,
2: DVD menu designers pulling their heads out of their collective asses.
There are certainly some DVD's that have ill-designed menus, and I too have had discs that do not work by just hitting 'play' - you need the remote. Yes that sucks, but most DVD's don't have this problem, and the newer DVD's that I own don't seem to have this problem.
I wonder also what will happen when I logon to gmail.com and I already have GAIM running with the Google Chat plugin....
Most IM protocols only allow you to be logged in from one client at a time - will I get auto-booted from one or the other? Admittedly, I am not sure whether or not the Jabber protocol works this way (Google Chat uses the open Jabber protocol - hooray!).
The big problem here as I see it is that Security is not a "Feature", and it isn't something that you can bolt on afterwards with virus scanners, spyware scanners, etc. the one real security benefit that I can see is the ability to run more easily as a non-admin user, but I will not be convinced that this is really true until I see how it works in the real world, using real apps (including legacy ones).