Well, I think in the beginning, you're right about the safety net. If I weren't there I am not sure she would have been able to learn. However, there comes a point when she can stand on her own, esp. on an easier to use distro like Mandrake. But, it's a slow process. She will teach others, and they will teach even others, until we take over the world.
If I understand wireless networking correctly, somebody can key in the info you give them for access to the network, and then allow unsecured, "ad hoc" network access -- meaning people could get into your network through their computer. Do you have control over all of the computers? I would worry about such a security hole if it's possible.
You know, I agree with you about how education is necessary. However, I run Slackware, and after a few months of instruction my girlfriend (a non-techie) could navigate around KDE and do anything she might need when she was over (like use OpenOffice to open and edit a document), surf the net, and even mount a CDRom drive and eject it from the command line. (Although she tells me it's a silly security precaution and she prefers CDs to just be there when she inserts the CD). However, she is proof that the education process can be successful.
ok, I understand this. But what I am saying is, let's say microsoft comes out with the mPod, and sells it for 50% less. And, Apple loses 90% of its ipod sales overnight. Jobs is in the board room and says, "We can either sell x ipods at $500, or 10 times that for $250." Wouldn't Jobs be a fool to not accept $2,500x in revenue over $500x in revenue? Even on a $25 profit at $250, apple would make much more competing on price then not, correct?
I understand what you're saying, apples products come at a premium because of the polish they involve. But I've (happily) watched Apple's product prices come down over the last few years, and I would think it would be a very silly business decision to not compete on price in my scenario. Then again, irrationality is all over the place, which is perhaps why economists have never figured out how to model how the world works. hell, just look at SCO for example.
The other thing I'd wonder if the ipods are being used by Apple as a way to boost sales of their notebooks and computers, if they brought their prices down, wouldn't they see an increase in sales? Of course, I understand you point. I am just trying to point out that good business decisions in the future may involve leaving the past business model at some point.
For me at least, it depends. On the one hand, many people I work with distribute things in Word format because it's the standard in the organization. I usually just open the files in OpenOffice, and although every once in a while some complex formatting makes a document illegible, it is rare enough that I don't worry about it.
For people who are not in a position to force me to accept their acceptance of Microsoft, I try my best to educate them. The trick is to be polite about it. Most people don't understand, and quite a few will jump at the chance to save $300 by using OpenOffice. The trick is to find their "button".
If Apple has to choose between ipod sales grinding to a halt because of a low priced competitor with comparable features, they will almost certainly lower their prices to compete if it doens't mean taking a loss. It would be irrational to do anything else. Can you provide some background information to help justify your statement?
Well, the point is that if you entangle logic, there will be some critical point of no return, where your script will stop being maintainable, and you will tear your hair out trying to find the bugs introduced with every change. However, you are right in that for a small web site you could tangle logic with no ill effect. However, you should always be careful about what you are doing -- you'd be amazed at how many quick projects became very large very quickly as management decides to take "just one more thing" on.
What problems are you experiencing with PHP under Apache 2.0? I've been using the two together successfully with no problems on several non-production boxes, and haven't seen any problems which would lead me to believe that I shouldn't use them on production boxen. Are the issues with apache 2.0 and php relatively isolated?
If you look at the parts involved in making an iPod, you would see that Apple has plenty of room to compete on price. I think they are just being smart, when somebody comes up with an ipod look alike, and drops the price 50%, apple will drop suit, because, let's face it, a 40GB hard drive and some electronics isn't worth the $500 price tag at the apple store. So, yeah, there's lots of room for Apple to compete on price. But they're not going to cut their profits until they need to, because they want to make as much money as possible.
You know it's interesting, many ISPs block 20 because it's in their best interest to do so, but because it isn't in their best interest to do so, they don't block 135. (At least, I'd assume that's why...although I think it would be in their best interest to do so, but then, why haven't they?)
I can see this being used quite extensively in the warez arena. It'd be pretty easy to give out the "key" to clients who are allowed access, while any ISP scanning for FTP servers, for example, would find nothing open.
<tongue in cheek>
If you had an ISP that was port scanning for open FTP servers on port 20, why not just move your port to another port with well known use for home users, like 135?
</tongue in cheek>
I posted this when there were only a handful of comments under the original story. Just look at the time stamp. Any stories which say the same things are redundant, and not visa versa.
I was just pointing out to the parent of my post that if you're going to be spending lots of money on a full fledged ipod vs an ipod mini because you want one, there are other alternatives to listening to your MP3s / AACs in car. Although I didn't see that the iPod could be detached in the article, perhaps I was too blinded by the purdy pictures. < grins/>
If you're going to do something this fancy, why hamstring yourself with the 4GB mini?
I'd argue that if you're going to spend $500 on a 40GB Ipod that you would be better off just buying a cheap computer, a very large hard drive, and a touch screen LCD off of ebay, installing your favorite OS, and running it as a frontend to your entire music library. It might cost a little more then $500, but sure beats an ipod mini. Unless of course you don't have that kind of money to spend, and an iPod mini makes sense. <grins/>
I use gaim instead of AOL instant messenger. It's got just about every feature that AOL instant messenger has, plus a slew more (plus it can consolidate chat clients). It is easy enough to use for non techies that all my friends and family are on it instead of the AOL version. There are OpenSource projects out there for everything. Check out Sourceforge. And, if you really like the product, and it saves you some money, donate some money to the project so it can get even better.
I haven't been watching the debate, but surely a top concern is developer pool?
I program for a living, and I really don't think a new language will be a problem. I have had to learn lots of new languages for projects at work (That's how I learned LISP, Java, Perl, Python, and PHP). Generally speaking, it's not that hard to pick up on a new language. I'll spend a couple of hours learning the basics of the syntax, then I'll start writing some code, and over a week or two I'll get competent with a language.
Really, most languages aren't that hard to learn. Even LISP, which was out of this world compared with anything I knew before. First I learned that everything in LISP is a List, then that a list is representated by objects in ()s. Then I learned that if you don't have any punctuation to show that the elements of the list are a string, then it's either a function or a symbol (the LISP equivalent of a variable)
Then code like this becomes readable:
(print "hello world!")
If you were following along, you will probably see that we have 1 list, or 2 elements, the first being a function, the second being the string to be used by the function. See, it wasn't that hard, was it? It's really easy for a developer to learn a new language. It takes time, yes, but it's easy
The answer the RIAA gave in the article was basically, we're only breaking into computers because people are breaking the law. If anybody ever complains, they would have to confess to piracy (and go to jail).
It seems to me that if they really wanted to stop people from speeding, they should take a picture of the speeder and record the speed, then have somebody at the DMV mail out tickets once a week. People would respect a $50 ticket more then a red light (especially after going a few miles through such lights), and it wouldn't cause traffic congestion.
He owns a little over 50% of the company because he IPOed it. Considering the stock prices, it's probably not a large percentage of his net worth. But, walking around New York City and seeing lots of big (and expensive) buildings with TRUMP in big, gold, letters, makes me think he's got enough to last out whatever troubles turn up. Not to mention the fact that Trump tower alone was valued at over a billion dollars recently.
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Well, I think in the beginning, you're right about the safety net. If I weren't there I am not sure she would have been able to learn. However, there comes a point when she can stand on her own, esp. on an easier to use distro like Mandrake. But, it's a slow process. She will teach others, and they will teach even others, until we take over the world.
If I understand wireless networking correctly, somebody can key in the info you give them for access to the network, and then allow unsecured, "ad hoc" network access -- meaning people could get into your network through their computer. Do you have control over all of the computers? I would worry about such a security hole if it's possible.
You know, I agree with you about how education is necessary. However, I run Slackware, and after a few months of instruction my girlfriend (a non-techie) could navigate around KDE and do anything she might need when she was over (like use OpenOffice to open and edit a document), surf the net, and even mount a CDRom drive and eject it from the command line. (Although she tells me it's a silly security precaution and she prefers CDs to just be there when she inserts the CD). However, she is proof that the education process can be successful.
ok, I understand this. But what I am saying is, let's say microsoft comes out with the mPod, and sells it for 50% less. And, Apple loses 90% of its ipod sales overnight. Jobs is in the board room and says, "We can either sell x ipods at $500, or 10 times that for $250." Wouldn't Jobs be a fool to not accept $2,500x in revenue over $500x in revenue? Even on a $25 profit at $250, apple would make much more competing on price then not, correct?
I understand what you're saying, apples products come at a premium because of the polish they involve. But I've (happily) watched Apple's product prices come down over the last few years, and I would think it would be a very silly business decision to not compete on price in my scenario. Then again, irrationality is all over the place, which is perhaps why economists have never figured out how to model how the world works. hell, just look at SCO for example.
The other thing I'd wonder if the ipods are being used by Apple as a way to boost sales of their notebooks and computers, if they brought their prices down, wouldn't they see an increase in sales? Of course, I understand you point. I am just trying to point out that good business decisions in the future may involve leaving the past business model at some point.
For me at least, it depends. On the one hand, many people I work with distribute things in Word format because it's the standard in the organization. I usually just open the files in OpenOffice, and although every once in a while some complex formatting makes a document illegible, it is rare enough that I don't worry about it.
For people who are not in a position to force me to accept their acceptance of Microsoft, I try my best to educate them. The trick is to be polite about it. Most people don't understand, and quite a few will jump at the chance to save $300 by using OpenOffice. The trick is to find their "button".
If Apple has to choose between ipod sales grinding to a halt because of a low priced competitor with comparable features, they will almost certainly lower their prices to compete if it doens't mean taking a loss. It would be irrational to do anything else. Can you provide some background information to help justify your statement?
Well, the point is that if you entangle logic, there will be some critical point of no return, where your script will stop being maintainable, and you will tear your hair out trying to find the bugs introduced with every change. However, you are right in that for a small web site you could tangle logic with no ill effect. However, you should always be careful about what you are doing -- you'd be amazed at how many quick projects became very large very quickly as management decides to take "just one more thing" on.
What problems are you experiencing with PHP under Apache 2.0? I've been using the two together successfully with no problems on several non-production boxes, and haven't seen any problems which would lead me to believe that I shouldn't use them on production boxen. Are the issues with apache 2.0 and php relatively isolated?
If you look at the parts involved in making an iPod, you would see that Apple has plenty of room to compete on price. I think they are just being smart, when somebody comes up with an ipod look alike, and drops the price 50%, apple will drop suit, because, let's face it, a 40GB hard drive and some electronics isn't worth the $500 price tag at the apple store. So, yeah, there's lots of room for Apple to compete on price. But they're not going to cut their profits until they need to, because they want to make as much money as possible.
You know it's interesting, many ISPs block 20 because it's in their best interest to do so, but because it isn't in their best interest to do so, they don't block 135. (At least, I'd assume that's why...although I think it would be in their best interest to do so, but then, why haven't they?)
135 isn't blocked, which is the reason so many windows viruses propogate through it (hence the tongue in cheek XML tags)
<tongue in cheek>
If you had an ISP that was port scanning for open FTP servers on port 20, why not just move your port to another port with well known use for home users, like 135?
</tongue in cheek>
I posted this when there were only a handful of comments under the original story. Just look at the time stamp. Any stories which say the same things are redundant, and not visa versa.
I was just pointing out to the parent of my post that if you're going to be spending lots of money on a full fledged ipod vs an ipod mini because you want one, there are other alternatives to listening to your MP3s / AACs in car. Although I didn't see that the iPod could be detached in the article, perhaps I was too blinded by the purdy pictures. < grins />
I'd argue that if you're going to spend $500 on a 40GB Ipod that you would be better off just buying a cheap computer, a very large hard drive, and a touch screen LCD off of ebay, installing your favorite OS, and running it as a frontend to your entire music library. It might cost a little more then $500, but sure beats an ipod mini. Unless of course you don't have that kind of money to spend, and an iPod mini makes sense. <grins />
I use gaim instead of AOL instant messenger. It's got just about every feature that AOL instant messenger has, plus a slew more (plus it can consolidate chat clients). It is easy enough to use for non techies that all my friends and family are on it instead of the AOL version. There are OpenSource projects out there for everything. Check out Sourceforge. And, if you really like the product, and it saves you some money, donate some money to the project so it can get even better.
No, they aren't. I was simplifying it for the purpose of explanation.
I program for a living, and I really don't think a new language will be a problem. I have had to learn lots of new languages for projects at work (That's how I learned LISP, Java, Perl, Python, and PHP). Generally speaking, it's not that hard to pick up on a new language. I'll spend a couple of hours learning the basics of the syntax, then I'll start writing some code, and over a week or two I'll get competent with a language.
Really, most languages aren't that hard to learn. Even LISP, which was out of this world compared with anything I knew before. First I learned that everything in LISP is a List, then that a list is representated by objects in ()s. Then I learned that if you don't have any punctuation to show that the elements of the list are a string, then it's either a function or a symbol (the LISP equivalent of a variable)
Then code like this becomes readable:
(print "hello world!")If you were following along, you will probably see that we have 1 list, or 2 elements, the first being a function, the second being the string to be used by the function. See, it wasn't that hard, was it? It's really easy for a developer to learn a new language. It takes time, yes, but it's easy
They say that sea levels will rise due to the greenhouse effect...perhaps keeping it up would be a good thing.
The answer the RIAA gave in the article was basically, we're only breaking into computers because people are breaking the law. If anybody ever complains, they would have to confess to piracy (and go to jail).
Her mom has been happily married for the past 40 years or so. I suppose I can justify taking you off of my foes list then.
It seems to me that if they really wanted to stop people from speeding, they should take a picture of the speeder and record the speed, then have somebody at the DMV mail out tickets once a week. People would respect a $50 ticket more then a red light (especially after going a few miles through such lights), and it wouldn't cause traffic congestion.
He owns a little over 50% of the company because he IPOed it. Considering the stock prices, it's probably not a large percentage of his net worth. But, walking around New York City and seeing lots of big (and expensive) buildings with TRUMP in big, gold, letters, makes me think he's got enough to last out whatever troubles turn up. Not to mention the fact that Trump tower alone was valued at over a billion dollars recently.