Good point, hadn't thought of that. But still, does it have to be *that* hard?
Not directly relating to electronics, but my daughter when she was younger was really into Barbie dolls. There was one... was it Roller Skate Barbie, or Snowboard Barbie? I forget. She was displayed in a very active moment, going over a jump or doing a backflip or something, and was held in place with like a million bread ties. Took me most of an hour to get her out of the package. Wife and I called her "BDSM Barbie" after that. Thankfully, the kid never figured it out.
...ignore the shiny box altogether. I'm just going to toss it anyway, and I'm told that plastic-y cardboard display box material is more difficult to recycle. Give it a plain brown shipping box and be done. If I'm buying a Google slate, I'm probably not an Apple fanboi almost by definition. We don't care about steenking boxes. Moreover, not being part of the Apple Incremental Upgrade Electronics Landfill culture, we're more likely to keep the device until it no longer does the job or can no longer be fixed, so reselling is less likely to be important.
I often reuse the Amazon shipping boxes. They're nice, if you don't need something that's eggshell white and cool looking. I haven't bought a Google slate yet (still waiting for a particular Adobe tool to be ported to Android) but I'm definitely interested. And I'd rather not have to dissect the packaging with the industrial box cutter.
I wouldn't have put it that way, but using your terminology, it's more like iCrap version 1.00003 is coming out in six months and I NEEDS it, YES my PRECIOUS, so I'll need to get rid of this piece of crap that is iCrap version 1.00002, and that's easier with the orginal box.
And if nobody wants it, I can always throw it away.
Since many companies are still using XP and don't have any particular desire to move to 7 or 8, I wonder if Office 2013 will draw them into upgrading, (which has to be done all at once and can be a real hassle) or will investment in the present OS draw them into sticking with the previous version of Office and calling it good?
You're absolutely right. LibreOffice is a branch off the OpenOffice tree, isn't it? I downloaded it awhile ago to check out, and it seems like a viable alternative. But I still have Office 2000, and it still works even after my upgrade to Windows 7, so there's no reason to switch at this time. When I said Office 2000 was Good Enough, I also meant that it was Good Enough that I wasn't looking for open source alternatives. Were it not, I would be.
I'm going to give Windows 8 a pass, but I realize I will eventually have to upgrade 7. If the new OS (Windows 9? Windows 11? Windows 2020 edition? Ballmervision?) whatever it's called, does *not* run Office 2000, then I will be switching to an open source alternative at that time.
Geeze, if only Adobe would port the Photoshop suite (including Lightroom) to Linux I'd drop Winders and never look back. (OSX is not a viable alternative, so don't ask.)
But if I have no intention of investing in Windows 8, (Windows 7 being Good Enough) what's the attraction of a phone that ties me with an infrastructure in which I have no interest?
Or to put it more practically, my work is still using XP, and is just now, like last week, starting to roll out Win 7. If I'm waiting for a Win 8 rollout to take full advantage of a Windows phone, it'll be years.
The *only* time I've seen a Windows phone outside a mobile phone store is on TV. There seems to be a lot in recent shows, Hawaii 50 as one example. Maybe that's where all the sales are going?
But... why would I want to? Why not save the document directly to the Dropbox folder, which is already in place and which I already *know* works, and not have to act as unpaid QA for some new, buggy tool?
Ya know something? My truck goes a lot faster than my great great great grandpa's buggy, and I don't have to feed it hay or clean up after it. But Office 2000 creates documents and spreadsheets just as fast as any version of Office since. There's such a thing as Good Enough.
> I just briefly went through them but the general improvements is that you can share documents with your coworkers with its cloud add ons as well as import and export your work documents with integrated skydrive from your work/home pcs.
So, they've included their own, incompatible take on Dropbox? Which we've been using for 4 years?
I don't see where this makes any difference. I don't watch any NBC channels, try to do as little business with Microsoft as possible, and would go back to dialup before touching Comcast again. May they all rot in hell.
...having a hard time visualizing that. I mean, alcohol is everywhere, out in the open. Pot skulks. I suppose that could be true if one stipulates that growing pot is easier than *making* alcohol..
Agreed. What I'd like to see is better integration (Have you ever tried to base an entertainment center around Windows Media Center? Or get DLNA to work in some reasonable fashion? Or try to integrate a half dozen media sources into a single box?) and quieter, smaller boxes. And I don't mean paying a premium for quieter and smaller -- I want the manufacturers to stop with "bigger and better" for a year or two and work on "smaller, cheaper, quieter, and not better, but not worse". It shouldn't be hard to do. And who knows, sales might pick up.
The point was made, and rightly so, that Amazon providing local same day delivery will put a tremendous burden on local businesses.
Someone else pointed out that a lot of what Amazon sells is actually coming from other businesses with Amazon acting as the mediator.
And so, it seems to me that local businesses who manage to survive will be the ones who have learned to sell through Amazon. Not competing online but using Amazon as the internet mediator between the business and the customer. Sort-of like a lot of businesses (some being very small mom&pop) are doing now.
I'm not sure I agree. I do mostly video and photography work, and invested in a relatively high end system about five years ago (quad core proc lots of memory and a reasonably high end video card) and I don't see any reason to upgrade. My tools haven't changed much, (except for improved noise reduction, which I use a lot, and some rather esoteric tools I use rarely) and the work I do hasn't changed much, so the current machine meets my needs. I had a big (20 inch) glass tube from 2002 until this year precisely because the colors were more accurate than most of the flat screens available during those years. I had to go to a flat screen recently when the glass monitor died, and finding a color-accurate screen with the same vertical resolution (hint: 1080P is not the right answer) was not easy.
...and when I say "invested in a system 5 years ago" the "system" was purchased as components, built up in a case I bought around the turn of the century. Because I'm more interested in whether the computer can do the job than what it looks like.
To be clear, I am *not* one of those who just use a browser -- I do real work that needs significant resources. And even then, systems on sale today commonly have more resources than I need. I stipulate that the PC industry has progressed way beyond what most users need, and are trying to drive sales as "this is so much better than you have", which doesn't work for people who aren't shopaholics and already own something that's good enough. (Gamers are a different issue -- and even there I wonder if computer technology hasn't outrun what most games really need.)
In a roaring economy, the bar of when to upgrade gets lowered because people have more income to spend. Now? Forget it.
I've never understood the people who jump on a new platform just because it's better than what they have. I think that's the wrong metric. Rather, is what you have good enough for the kind of work you are doing? If yes, keep it and use the money for things to run *on* the computer.
I see similar things in photography. I have a friend who trades in his camera every time a new model comes out to "keep up with technology". I bought a high end professional camera several years ago, learned it thoroughly, and I'm still getting acceptable results from it today. My money goes into lenses and other accessories (as I need them) and software, as appropriate. Because it's not what you have, it's what you do with it.
...the way it used to work, before outsourcing, the people making the changes knew enough about the systems, either through training or experience, that they could predict whom would be affected by a change, and give them a heads-up. This made the actual change meetings mere formalities.
Post outsourcing, the people actually doing the change are very junior people (I'm resisting the urge to say "store clerks") who have no understanding what they're actually doing. Their sole role is to follow written procedures. Since they have no visibility of what the change would affect, they have no idea whom to notify, and that very important communication has ceased to exist. But the outsourcing company can say in reviews that they are complying with the letter of the law -- all changes go through change management, and if you're adversely affected by the change, it's your own fault. You should have picked it out of the 400 changes that week and recognized that collateral damage would take out apps for which you are responsible.
And it's cheaper, to boot. Well, it's not cheaper, but I'm told that's the customer's fault also, because we keep asking for things that weren't in the original contract, like a reasonably agile environment.
Slashdot Mirror
cough -- frys -- cough
Good point, hadn't thought of that. But still, does it have to be *that* hard?
Not directly relating to electronics, but my daughter when she was younger was really into Barbie dolls. There was one... was it Roller Skate Barbie, or Snowboard Barbie? I forget. She was displayed in a very active moment, going over a jump or doing a backflip or something, and was held in place with like a million bread ties. Took me most of an hour to get her out of the package. Wife and I called her "BDSM Barbie" after that. Thankfully, the kid never figured it out.
I often reuse the Amazon shipping boxes. They're nice, if you don't need something that's eggshell white and cool looking. I haven't bought a Google slate yet (still waiting for a particular Adobe tool to be ported to Android) but I'm definitely interested. And I'd rather not have to dissect the packaging with the industrial box cutter.
I wouldn't have put it that way, but using your terminology, it's more like iCrap version 1.00003 is coming out in six months and I NEEDS it, YES my PRECIOUS, so I'll need to get rid of this piece of crap that is iCrap version 1.00002, and that's easier with the orginal box.
And if nobody wants it, I can always throw it away.
Since many companies are still using XP and don't have any particular desire to move to 7 or 8, I wonder if Office 2013 will draw them into upgrading, (which has to be done all at once and can be a real hassle) or will investment in the present OS draw them into sticking with the previous version of Office and calling it good?
Mod insightful.
You're absolutely right. LibreOffice is a branch off the OpenOffice tree, isn't it? I downloaded it awhile ago to check out, and it seems like a viable alternative. But I still have Office 2000, and it still works even after my upgrade to Windows 7, so there's no reason to switch at this time. When I said Office 2000 was Good Enough, I also meant that it was Good Enough that I wasn't looking for open source alternatives. Were it not, I would be.
I'm going to give Windows 8 a pass, but I realize I will eventually have to upgrade 7. If the new OS (Windows 9? Windows 11? Windows 2020 edition? Ballmervision?) whatever it's called, does *not* run Office 2000, then I will be switching to an open source alternative at that time.
Geeze, if only Adobe would port the Photoshop suite (including Lightroom) to Linux I'd drop Winders and never look back. (OSX is not a viable alternative, so don't ask.)
I think that's a safe bet. It's difficult to leverage consumers, slightly easier to leverage show producers. Especially if you pay for the privilege.
Good enough for most people. Like I said, it's word processing, not brain surgery.
But if I have no intention of investing in Windows 8, (Windows 7 being Good Enough) what's the attraction of a phone that ties me with an infrastructure in which I have no interest?
Or to put it more practically, my work is still using XP, and is just now, like last week, starting to roll out Win 7. If I'm waiting for a Win 8 rollout to take full advantage of a Windows phone, it'll be years.
The *only* time I've seen a Windows phone outside a mobile phone store is on TV. There seems to be a lot in recent shows, Hawaii 50 as one example. Maybe that's where all the sales are going?
But... why would I want to? Why not save the document directly to the Dropbox folder, which is already in place and which I already *know* works, and not have to act as unpaid QA for some new, buggy tool?
Ya know something? My truck goes a lot faster than my great great great grandpa's buggy, and I don't have to feed it hay or clean up after it. But Office 2000 creates documents and spreadsheets just as fast as any version of Office since. There's such a thing as Good Enough.
> I just briefly went through them but the general improvements is that you can share documents with your coworkers with its cloud add ons as well as import and export your work documents with integrated skydrive from your work/home pcs.
So, they've included their own, incompatible take on Dropbox? Which we've been using for 4 years?
Still using Office 2000. I still don't see any reason to upgrade. It's Office, not heart surgery.
I don't see where this makes any difference. I don't watch any NBC channels, try to do as little business with Microsoft as possible, and would go back to dialup before touching Comcast again. May they all rot in hell.
My ilk? You got all of that out of nine words? ... Hmm.... you have an iphone, don't you?
So, hang on... Apple had no part in this?
Yeah, if it was entirely government owned, it'd be rock solid and cheaper, too.
> No doubt this has been a hard lesson on how NOT to host critical public services.
And no doubt the lesson was not learned.
Agreed. What I'd like to see is better integration (Have you ever tried to base an entertainment center around Windows Media Center? Or get DLNA to work in some reasonable fashion? Or try to integrate a half dozen media sources into a single box?) and quieter, smaller boxes. And I don't mean paying a premium for quieter and smaller -- I want the manufacturers to stop with "bigger and better" for a year or two and work on "smaller, cheaper, quieter, and not better, but not worse". It shouldn't be hard to do. And who knows, sales might pick up.
The point was made, and rightly so, that Amazon providing local same day delivery will put a tremendous burden on local businesses.
Someone else pointed out that a lot of what Amazon sells is actually coming from other businesses with Amazon acting as the mediator.
And so, it seems to me that local businesses who manage to survive will be the ones who have learned to sell through Amazon. Not competing online but using Amazon as the internet mediator between the business and the customer. Sort-of like a lot of businesses (some being very small mom&pop) are doing now.
I'm not sure I agree. I do mostly video and photography work, and invested in a relatively high end system about five years ago (quad core proc lots of memory and a reasonably high end video card) and I don't see any reason to upgrade. My tools haven't changed much, (except for improved noise reduction, which I use a lot, and some rather esoteric tools I use rarely) and the work I do hasn't changed much, so the current machine meets my needs. I had a big (20 inch) glass tube from 2002 until this year precisely because the colors were more accurate than most of the flat screens available during those years. I had to go to a flat screen recently when the glass monitor died, and finding a color-accurate screen with the same vertical resolution (hint: 1080P is not the right answer) was not easy.
To be clear, I am *not* one of those who just use a browser -- I do real work that needs significant resources. And even then, systems on sale today commonly have more resources than I need. I stipulate that the PC industry has progressed way beyond what most users need, and are trying to drive sales as "this is so much better than you have", which doesn't work for people who aren't shopaholics and already own something that's good enough. (Gamers are a different issue -- and even there I wonder if computer technology hasn't outrun what most games really need.)
In a roaring economy, the bar of when to upgrade gets lowered because people have more income to spend. Now? Forget it.
I've never understood the people who jump on a new platform just because it's better than what they have. I think that's the wrong metric. Rather, is what you have good enough for the kind of work you are doing? If yes, keep it and use the money for things to run *on* the computer.
I see similar things in photography. I have a friend who trades in his camera every time a new model comes out to "keep up with technology". I bought a high end professional camera several years ago, learned it thoroughly, and I'm still getting acceptable results from it today. My money goes into lenses and other accessories (as I need them) and software, as appropriate. Because it's not what you have, it's what you do with it.
Post outsourcing, the people actually doing the change are very junior people (I'm resisting the urge to say "store clerks") who have no understanding what they're actually doing. Their sole role is to follow written procedures. Since they have no visibility of what the change would affect, they have no idea whom to notify, and that very important communication has ceased to exist. But the outsourcing company can say in reviews that they are complying with the letter of the law -- all changes go through change management, and if you're adversely affected by the change, it's your own fault. You should have picked it out of the 400 changes that week and recognized that collateral damage would take out apps for which you are responsible.
And it's cheaper, to boot. Well, it's not cheaper, but I'm told that's the customer's fault also, because we keep asking for things that weren't in the original contract, like a reasonably agile environment.