The lack of competition is depressing. The best thing a competitor could do would be to provide AMAZING customer support.
Looking at the new features in the next version of Photoshop, they'll be provide a great interface for the major stock photo companies, so don't expect their grip to slacken at all.
Actually, it's a sad statement if you expect the OS to cost more than the applications. Either you expect everything to be included in the OS, you're used to high-price OS through virtual monopoly, or you're suffering from both, via a Microsoft mentality.
Given the profit potential for someone using this software professionally, I think the price tag is actually quite reasonable.
(Now, if only they'd make their products run on Linux.)
Let me tell you, you're just putting the problem off into the future.:)
True enough. If I could afford it, I'd much rather have a well-shielded external USB drive that I take everywhere. That would probably weigh less, too. The real question is whether or not he should be getting rid of stuff.
Most CDs that I get, like drivers or even most software, don't take up the full space, nor do they have any copy-protection. I would highly recommend getting a program like DAEMON Tools (which last I checked was free), and use another tool, whether an ISO maker like WinISO or similar, or Nero, or something open-source, to make images of the files.
A lot of them will be under 200 MB, and so you could easily stuff a ton of them on a 4.7 GB DVD.
Before proceeding, especially with drivers, make sure you have the latest version, if you're going to bother. No point in backing up a 3 year old CD to DVD if the downloadable drivers are newer.
First, can either candidate please show me in what way they are fiscally responsible?
Second, how will tort reform lower the costs of my health insurance when we barely do anything to keep out illegal aliens? When we combine their emergency room coverage with the ever-growing numbers of uninsured Americans, those costs have to be paid by someone, and that someone will either be the government, which uses my tax dollars, or my insurance company, which will charge me higher premiums. Please explain this logic.
Third, what is a service economy really? If we keep shipping manufacturing overseas, then those who produce will have control over the products we receive and control the price charged. So, should we start language education so that we can handle the future call center jobs here that will support China and India?
Fourth, what good is No Child Left Behind if all it does is bring everyone down to the lowest common denominator? As everyone must agree, the job of President is a demanding position requiring a person of exceptional skill and intelligence. That being the case, why do so many politicians try to act like dumb everyday people?
Fifth, let's assume terrorists are like fire ants. Nasty little creatures! In numbers, fire ants can take out a person, as terrorists can take down a nation. Do you think big-stick politics (invasions and warfare) are a real solution? I know fire ants are a problem in Texas. Has the President ever dealt with them directly?
Oh well, some questions. I just which they'd allow charts and pictures at the debates. I'd love to have an impromptu section where the candidates are asked to point out countries on a map, name capitals, name current world leaders, name the basic price for common goods, answer questions about common costs, etc.
While it is interesting to correlate the decline in leisure reading to the rise of the Internet, the reality is that several other technologies have grown in this time period.
The early 90's were really the booming growth period of video rental. We've also expansion in the areas covered by cable and satellite television, meaning that the average person has access to far more entertainment programming than before. When I had only six channels of free-to-air programming, I was nowhere near as likely to stay glued to the television.
Add to that the increasing growth of suburban sprawl and the likelihood of a larger commute. For a lot of people, this easily has started to eat and extra hour or two out of their day, and that's not just in the largest metro areas anymore.
The Internet has contributed, but moreso in being able to be productive from home. Remember back in 1992 when NOBODY in the US had a mobile phone? A few maybe had a car phone. Now they're everywhere, and almost standard issue at work, so you can do more work at home and be reached at all kinds of hours.
This added stress of the work anywhere, do anything, growing city contributes to the decline of reading anywhere in the world, but impacts the U.S. even more than others because most U.S. cities do not have adequate public transportation. If you take a train or a bus to work, you might be able to do some reading then (I used to read a chapter or two each way in Helsinki), but it's not too likely to happen when driving.
At any rate, this isn't an Internet-driven change. It's more a 'the man is squeezing every last drop out of us' kind of change.
Fuel prices in Norway high because of American SUVs? Interesting thought, considering Norway is an oil-producing nation.
The adoption of SUVs has had an impact on US fuel consumption, mostly because of two factors, one being the extra fuel consumption of the SUV itself, the other being its effect on traffic (larger body, slower acceleration, longer braking distance). However, this impact is minimal at best. The main reason for higher fuel consumption in the US vs. Europe is due to using trucks instead of rail for quite a lot of shipping.
The primary reason that fuel prices have gone up is due to globabl instability. Iraq isn't exporting oil for food anymore (and it's pipelines are happy targets these days) and Venezuela has had severe instability problems as well. Couple that with increased consumption in China, and colder than average winter in the US last year, and probably a couple other factors I'm forgetting (like inflation, or the lower relative value of the dollar to both the pound and the Euro), and that's why oil prices are higher.
Since Norway doesn't use anywhere near as much oil as it exports, why not complain to your parliament.
Unfortunately, unless it's changed recently, Finnish tax on cars is also quite outrageous and has little to do with fuel economy (a good reason to tax) and more to do with simply taxing to make lots of extra money.
So, when buying a car in Finland, unless you have money, you tend to buy a tiny little crappy car that while it has great gas mileage, can't carry much in it.
Hence, why I never bought a car when I lived in Finland. Public transportation was ALWAYS cheaper (and in Helsinki-Espoo rush hour, faster too).
Actually, scanning the machine shouldn't be an issue. Define the access as part of the rules you have to accept to get on the network there. Don't like that, then get a DSL line or cable modem or use dial-up.
The only problem is if they start probing without getting prior written consent.
Here's what I don't understand about life in the US, and I grew up here.
Why is it that we let 16 year-olds operate heavy machinery at high speeds, yet we don't consider them legally responsible for anything, except perhaps the odd ticket they migh receive in relation to that mentioned machine-operating privilege?
Does it make sense to anyone out there how there is no graduated system of gaining control and responsibility over one's life, and how magically at age 18, suddenly one has control over all areas, with the exception of the consumption of toxic substances, namely alcohol and, in some area, tobacco?
When we combine this with a system that on the one hand blames parents for anything their children do, but again makes it easy for parents who fail to act responsibly to sue another party, we're bound to see a ridiculous trend of litigation. We have parents who refuse to parent their children, assuming society will do the job through schools and teachers, yet when things go wrong (because a teacher cannot parent 35 children/class) they engage in litigation, not to fix the problem, but to get money to throw at more escapism.
I have this theory that in this litigious society there is correlation between the street price of cocaine, the amount of cocaine use necessary to wipe out enough brain cells to forget a tragic event without causing death, and the amount of money people sue for in this lawsuits springing from people failing to take responsibility for their own actions.
The desire to stare at video games as the big evil is another step in the trend of people to ignore true mental health issues and blame something else. We've seen it with rock n' roll, Dungeons & Dragons, movies, etc. Unfortunately with the rise of neo-conservatism, we also see a neo-Victorian trend of want to see but not hear children. Hence the overdiagnosis of ADHD and the drugging of children. It's a sick, quick-fix society.
I've noticed that within the past 6 months, the number of new things that friends want to share with me has dropped, and some of them were simply ripping mp3s for me to listen to off CDs. There just simply isn't much worthwhile to listen to out there anymore.
Within the past year, I think my wife and I have acquired (3 bought, 1 gift) a total of maybe four CDs. Now, granted, I've been out of work and hospitalised for a fair bit, but my personal list of music I want consists primarily of boxed sets of artists who made it big in the 70's, not artists releasing new stuff. My wife is more into the current music trend, and she only had one CD on her want list this year.
Have any members of the RIAA actually considered going back and looking at why their 'evergreen' albums continue to sell why the latest so-called artists compilations' fail? Their is an art to creating a good album that separates it from a compilation of singles.
If sheltering children from things is what we're supposed to do and that helps them, then why are they considered mature adults much later in life than they were 500 years ago? Why are most of our high school graduates idiots with no maturity and no sense of responsibility?
I refuse to censor myself around children. As long as I'm a mature, responsible adult, then I'll be giving that as a model of how to be. That means if I'm pissed at something I'll swear appropriately and it means my kids will learn to speak properly and not have to outgrow baby talk.
I'd rather have a kid learn the word 'fuck' at a young age, ask me when it's appropriate to use it, and use it properly in the right company than learn it from a peer, use it wrong and constantly, and end up getting detention in school.
I'd actually love to sell PCs. I don't know how to get in touch with suppliers that won't cost me an arm and a leg. I'm not looking to make a huge business out of it, but if I were to sell five a week, I could easily fund my studies.
Being that I will be on campus all the time and around students, I know that laptops would be of interest. Anybody have recommendations on where to find good suppliers?
stocked above children's eye level and separately from other games
Two things bother me about this:
What is a child's eye level? Tell me the difference between a 6' tall 15 y.o and a 4'8" 50 y.o.? How can you enforce a child's eye level? Without a specific height defined in the legislation, enforcing this will be difficult to say the least and some court will throw it out.
By separating these games, will it not create the same backlash that happened with those stupid 'Tipper Gore'-sponsored Parental Advisory labels on music? I think more than anything, it'll make it easier to find the games. At any rate, these titles already are labeled mature and list the reasons why and parents still buy them. Given that the latest statistics show that adult women gamers outnumber boys 8-15 y.o., this really won't affect the market.
Of course, reality says to me it doesn't really matter since I don't live in California and I won't live in California. Even if they try to ban such games here (Minnesota), unless they ban them in all 50 states, which would never be held up under First Amendment legislation, trying to keep me from ordering them from elsewhere would violate interstate commerce, which is under Federal jurisdiction, not state.
I won't. However, I will explain that "project" is the subject (word 3) and "explains" is the verb (word 4), and the object begins with "that" (word 5).
Yes, the structure of the sentence violates a lot of the principles of good writing, however it is merely a run-on sentence, not a string of prepositional phrases. Most of what you're referring to are dependent clauses. (Read more.)
That's the same strategy used by a lot of JIT companies. I do believe that Toyota functions that way, at least in their Japanese factories, and I know that Nokia works like that.
With Nokia, the idea is that that they can push on both quality and price, because if you, Mr. Supplier, can't meet what they need, someone else will, and they can also upgrade parts immediately if necessary. (At least that's how one parts supplier explained it to me.)
Last I checked, China was still interested in bringing in more hard currency, which is part of the reason the yuan doesn't float.
The belief that the market is in China is the reason many western firms have gone belly-up, including one I've worked for.
China is still very happy to sell to the Europe and North America, especially if they think your business will even approach 1/100000th the size of Wal-Mart.
By looking through and thinking perhaps this guy knows something about computers, I realise he doesn't.
First off, it's clear he's using sub-standard crap and installing lots of other stuff. (Note the Cheerios program, the PC-cillin errors, and the chasing of drivers.) I learned a long time ago which brands work with Microsoft and which don't. Hence I have an HP printer, and the only machine's running XP are those that came with XP. (The PII-400 is running OpenBSD right now.)
Second, he's relying on using IE and other Microsoft products. I wouldn't use Mozilla 1.5, but I do use Mozilla Firebird and Mozilla Thunderbird. Both are very useful programs and have worked great for me, with far fewer crashes and less screwing up my system.
Third, I see no sign of maintenance on the machines except when he's told to. So does he defrag his XP drive? He should if he's the kind of fool who's installed CNET's download manager, since that's a clear sign that he and his family download a lot of crap onto their machine. Plus with recording shows on a machine clearly used for other purposes as well, he's going to end up with fragmentation.
Lastly, he bitches about the time spent. He's on a cable connection. How does it take TEN MINUTES to upgrade MSN messenger? And why can't he do the downloading of these upgrades while doing something else? He counts his time like a lawyer. I swear if I hired this guy to do work for me, I could easily get billed over 168 hours in a 7 day week.
I'm sorry, no sympathy for this kind of person ranting. The clueless who think they have a clue are awful. I'd rather use my time helping people who are interested in learning than assuming they know everything about their machines and blame it on Microsoft for their incompetence. Yeah, their are a lot of bugs in the stuff from Redmond, but bad computer practices make it far, far worse.
not every simple mis-speaking/mis-typing is racist, and I hate it when it is viewed as such.
Agreed.
Combined with the number of flamebaiters and trolls on here, the ability to quickly respond to things well before actually thinking through what someone wrote just promotes a lot of the bashing that goes on here nowadays, particularly with game articles.
I got slammed as a racist because I didn't like the aggressive music on the Madden 2004 soundtrack.
I would be interested in knowing why there is a large interest in golf in Japan, if you have any ideas.
I don't know where you live or what time of day you see the tip jars, but in both the D.C. metro and here in the Twin Cities, I've seen plenty of cash in the tip jar. You do realise that they empty the jar every few hours, right?
I had one guy tell me before that the tip jar effectively raised everyone's hourly wage by about two or three dollars. Of course, I've been looking at Caribou Coffee, which is a distinctly better place than Starbucks.
Before putting the service in, personally I would ask customers and find out what services they want or need. It may be surprising how many would use it, or under what circumstances they'd use the service. I know that I'd much rather meet some business clients in a coffee shop that in the office, but of course that depends on the client.
I have found that the biggest problem for any MMOG, let along MMORPGs, has been that accounts can get banned, but people don't. There's nothing to keep 'Joe Obnoxious' from getting back on. And since sometimes these people have more money than social skills, they'll buy another copy just to get another valid CD-key to get on and start annoying people again.
As a member of the RPGA, I've been impressed that we have formalised procedures to ban people. Ok, you have to pretty much assault someone to get banned (and some of these guys are HUGE, so assault would be scary), but at least we deal with real people.
What I would love to see is some 3rd-party system that verifies identity. Maybe you can gain points that lead towards beta-testing, prizes, etc. by being a good player over time. You'd have this ID account, and then you could have multiple gaming accounts attached. Say you play about 20 different games. Well one community may hate and ban you, but you'd have to really ruin it all over the place to get permanently banned.
Random Sunday morning rambling, but I know this is the kind of thing that would enable my parents to be online gamers and maybe even pay a subscription for games. From my management experience, this could seriously grow the market.
The iQue is not mentioned by name, but in the end of the article they did write: "The company also announced that it will begin selling a game console specially designed for the China market this month."
I would dare say that Nintendo is perhaps looking at accelerating their next console to beat out Sony, and drive some more nails into the Japanese XBox coffin.
While some Apple fans may consider this censorship, personally I applaud the enforcement of standards in advertising.
If standards were forced for truth-in-advertising in the U.S., we'd not only never hear about the G5 being the fastest computer, we'd also not hear about how much we can do for so little from Microsoft. We'd also stop having the stupid claims in oversized truck and SUV ads, diet pills, etc.
I'll assume that you got to keep copies of your NDA agreements. Find a lawyer who can go over the NDAs and advise you on what you can do. Make sure the lawyer is bonded and insured so that if you get faulty advice that puts you in legal hot water it can get traced back to the lawyer and keep you out of it.
While you may not eventually be able to disclose which companies, you may be able to describe your duties and the scale of the company, and disclosue that additional details are covered under an NDA, for which verification can be obtained by your legal counsel, preferably in a notarised letter from your counsel.
So far, most of the NDAs I've signed have covered mostly the business practices contained for a certain period of time. They also be written under European laws which focus far more on ethics in consideration as well. (At least in my experience.)
Of course, things brings up another issue. We really do need to start having better organisations for technical professional in which our work history can be verfied as being worthwhile, even when our work is wrapped in an NDA.
Slashdot Mirror
Um, the upgrade price is $149....
The lack of competition is depressing. The best thing a competitor could do would be to provide AMAZING customer support.
Looking at the new features in the next version of Photoshop, they'll be provide a great interface for the major stock photo companies, so don't expect their grip to slacken at all.
Actually, it's a sad statement if you expect the OS to cost more than the applications. Either you expect everything to be included in the OS, you're used to high-price OS through virtual monopoly, or you're suffering from both, via a Microsoft mentality.
Given the profit potential for someone using this software professionally, I think the price tag is actually quite reasonable.
(Now, if only they'd make their products run on Linux.)
Let me tell you, you're just putting the problem off into the future. :)
True enough. If I could afford it, I'd much rather have a well-shielded external USB drive that I take everywhere. That would probably weigh less, too. The real question is whether or not he should be getting rid of stuff.
Here's my suggestion:
Most CDs that I get, like drivers or even most software, don't take up the full space, nor do they have any copy-protection. I would highly recommend getting a program like DAEMON Tools (which last I checked was free), and use another tool, whether an ISO maker like WinISO or similar, or Nero, or something open-source, to make images of the files.
A lot of them will be under 200 MB, and so you could easily stuff a ton of them on a 4.7 GB DVD.
Before proceeding, especially with drivers, make sure you have the latest version, if you're going to bother. No point in backing up a 3 year old CD to DVD if the downloadable drivers are newer.
First, can either candidate please show me in what way they are fiscally responsible?
Second, how will tort reform lower the costs of my health insurance when we barely do anything to keep out illegal aliens? When we combine their emergency room coverage with the ever-growing numbers of uninsured Americans, those costs have to be paid by someone, and that someone will either be the government, which uses my tax dollars, or my insurance company, which will charge me higher premiums. Please explain this logic.
Third, what is a service economy really? If we keep shipping manufacturing overseas, then those who produce will have control over the products we receive and control the price charged. So, should we start language education so that we can handle the future call center jobs here that will support China and India?
Fourth, what good is No Child Left Behind if all it does is bring everyone down to the lowest common denominator? As everyone must agree, the job of President is a demanding position requiring a person of exceptional skill and intelligence. That being the case, why do so many politicians try to act like dumb everyday people?
Fifth, let's assume terrorists are like fire ants. Nasty little creatures! In numbers, fire ants can take out a person, as terrorists can take down a nation. Do you think big-stick politics (invasions and warfare) are a real solution? I know fire ants are a problem in Texas. Has the President ever dealt with them directly?
Oh well, some questions. I just which they'd allow charts and pictures at the debates. I'd love to have an impromptu section where the candidates are asked to point out countries on a map, name capitals, name current world leaders, name the basic price for common goods, answer questions about common costs, etc.
While it is interesting to correlate the decline in leisure reading to the rise of the Internet, the reality is that several other technologies have grown in this time period.
The early 90's were really the booming growth period of video rental. We've also expansion in the areas covered by cable and satellite television, meaning that the average person has access to far more entertainment programming than before. When I had only six channels of free-to-air programming, I was nowhere near as likely to stay glued to the television.
Add to that the increasing growth of suburban sprawl and the likelihood of a larger commute. For a lot of people, this easily has started to eat and extra hour or two out of their day, and that's not just in the largest metro areas anymore.
The Internet has contributed, but moreso in being able to be productive from home. Remember back in 1992 when NOBODY in the US had a mobile phone? A few maybe had a car phone. Now they're everywhere, and almost standard issue at work, so you can do more work at home and be reached at all kinds of hours.
This added stress of the work anywhere, do anything, growing city contributes to the decline of reading anywhere in the world, but impacts the U.S. even more than others because most U.S. cities do not have adequate public transportation. If you take a train or a bus to work, you might be able to do some reading then (I used to read a chapter or two each way in Helsinki), but it's not too likely to happen when driving.
At any rate, this isn't an Internet-driven change. It's more a 'the man is squeezing every last drop out of us' kind of change.
Fuel prices in Norway high because of American SUVs? Interesting thought, considering Norway is an oil-producing nation.
The adoption of SUVs has had an impact on US fuel consumption, mostly because of two factors, one being the extra fuel consumption of the SUV itself, the other being its effect on traffic (larger body, slower acceleration, longer braking distance). However, this impact is minimal at best. The main reason for higher fuel consumption in the US vs. Europe is due to using trucks instead of rail for quite a lot of shipping.
The primary reason that fuel prices have gone up is due to globabl instability. Iraq isn't exporting oil for food anymore (and it's pipelines are happy targets these days) and Venezuela has had severe instability problems as well. Couple that with increased consumption in China, and colder than average winter in the US last year, and probably a couple other factors I'm forgetting (like inflation, or the lower relative value of the dollar to both the pound and the Euro), and that's why oil prices are higher.
Since Norway doesn't use anywhere near as much oil as it exports, why not complain to your parliament.
Unfortunately, unless it's changed recently, Finnish tax on cars is also quite outrageous and has little to do with fuel economy (a good reason to tax) and more to do with simply taxing to make lots of extra money.
So, when buying a car in Finland, unless you have money, you tend to buy a tiny little crappy car that while it has great gas mileage, can't carry much in it.
Hence, why I never bought a car when I lived in Finland. Public transportation was ALWAYS cheaper (and in Helsinki-Espoo rush hour, faster too).
Believe it or not, in the US, if you say you have five feet, people will think you need five shoes, too.
Actually, scanning the machine shouldn't be an issue. Define the access as part of the rules you have to accept to get on the network there. Don't like that, then get a DSL line or cable modem or use dial-up.
The only problem is if they start probing without getting prior written consent.
Here's what I don't understand about life in the US, and I grew up here.
Why is it that we let 16 year-olds operate heavy machinery at high speeds, yet we don't consider them legally responsible for anything, except perhaps the odd ticket they migh receive in relation to that mentioned machine-operating privilege?
Does it make sense to anyone out there how there is no graduated system of gaining control and responsibility over one's life, and how magically at age 18, suddenly one has control over all areas, with the exception of the consumption of toxic substances, namely alcohol and, in some area, tobacco?
When we combine this with a system that on the one hand blames parents for anything their children do, but again makes it easy for parents who fail to act responsibly to sue another party, we're bound to see a ridiculous trend of litigation. We have parents who refuse to parent their children, assuming society will do the job through schools and teachers, yet when things go wrong (because a teacher cannot parent 35 children/class) they engage in litigation, not to fix the problem, but to get money to throw at more escapism.
I have this theory that in this litigious society there is correlation between the street price of cocaine, the amount of cocaine use necessary to wipe out enough brain cells to forget a tragic event without causing death, and the amount of money people sue for in this lawsuits springing from people failing to take responsibility for their own actions.
The desire to stare at video games as the big evil is another step in the trend of people to ignore true mental health issues and blame something else. We've seen it with rock n' roll, Dungeons & Dragons, movies, etc. Unfortunately with the rise of neo-conservatism, we also see a neo-Victorian trend of want to see but not hear children. Hence the overdiagnosis of ADHD and the drugging of children. It's a sick, quick-fix society.
You're dead on.
I've noticed that within the past 6 months, the number of new things that friends want to share with me has dropped, and some of them were simply ripping mp3s for me to listen to off CDs. There just simply isn't much worthwhile to listen to out there anymore.
Within the past year, I think my wife and I have acquired (3 bought, 1 gift) a total of maybe four CDs. Now, granted, I've been out of work and hospitalised for a fair bit, but my personal list of music I want consists primarily of boxed sets of artists who made it big in the 70's, not artists releasing new stuff. My wife is more into the current music trend, and she only had one CD on her want list this year.
Have any members of the RIAA actually considered going back and looking at why their 'evergreen' albums continue to sell why the latest so-called artists compilations' fail? Their is an art to creating a good album that separates it from a compilation of singles.
Here's my question, then.
If sheltering children from things is what we're supposed to do and that helps them, then why are they considered mature adults much later in life than they were 500 years ago? Why are most of our high school graduates idiots with no maturity and no sense of responsibility?
I refuse to censor myself around children. As long as I'm a mature, responsible adult, then I'll be giving that as a model of how to be. That means if I'm pissed at something I'll swear appropriately and it means my kids will learn to speak properly and not have to outgrow baby talk.
I'd rather have a kid learn the word 'fuck' at a young age, ask me when it's appropriate to use it, and use it properly in the right company than learn it from a peer, use it wrong and constantly, and end up getting detention in school.
I'd actually love to sell PCs. I don't know how to get in touch with suppliers that won't cost me an arm and a leg. I'm not looking to make a huge business out of it, but if I were to sell five a week, I could easily fund my studies.
Being that I will be on campus all the time and around students, I know that laptops would be of interest. Anybody have recommendations on where to find good suppliers?
stocked above children's eye level and separately from other games
Two things bother me about this:
Of course, reality says to me it doesn't really matter since I don't live in California and I won't live in California. Even if they try to ban such games here (Minnesota), unless they ban them in all 50 states, which would never be held up under First Amendment legislation, trying to keep me from ordering them from elsewhere would violate interstate commerce, which is under Federal jurisdiction, not state.
Shall we diagram this?
I won't. However, I will explain that "project" is the subject (word 3) and "explains" is the verb (word 4), and the object begins with "that" (word 5).
Yes, the structure of the sentence violates a lot of the principles of good writing, however it is merely a run-on sentence, not a string of prepositional phrases. Most of what you're referring to are dependent clauses. (Read more.)
That's the same strategy used by a lot of JIT companies. I do believe that Toyota functions that way, at least in their Japanese factories, and I know that Nokia works like that.
With Nokia, the idea is that that they can push on both quality and price, because if you, Mr. Supplier, can't meet what they need, someone else will, and they can also upgrade parts immediately if necessary. (At least that's how one parts supplier explained it to me.)
Last I checked, China was still interested in bringing in more hard currency, which is part of the reason the yuan doesn't float.
The belief that the market is in China is the reason many western firms have gone belly-up, including one I've worked for.
China is still very happy to sell to the Europe and North America, especially if they think your business will even approach 1/100000th the size of Wal-Mart.
By looking through and thinking perhaps this guy knows something about computers, I realise he doesn't.
First off, it's clear he's using sub-standard crap and installing lots of other stuff. (Note the Cheerios program, the PC-cillin errors, and the chasing of drivers.) I learned a long time ago which brands work with Microsoft and which don't. Hence I have an HP printer, and the only machine's running XP are those that came with XP. (The PII-400 is running OpenBSD right now.)
Second, he's relying on using IE and other Microsoft products. I wouldn't use Mozilla 1.5, but I do use Mozilla Firebird and Mozilla Thunderbird. Both are very useful programs and have worked great for me, with far fewer crashes and less screwing up my system.
Third, I see no sign of maintenance on the machines except when he's told to. So does he defrag his XP drive? He should if he's the kind of fool who's installed CNET's download manager, since that's a clear sign that he and his family download a lot of crap onto their machine. Plus with recording shows on a machine clearly used for other purposes as well, he's going to end up with fragmentation.
Lastly, he bitches about the time spent. He's on a cable connection. How does it take TEN MINUTES to upgrade MSN messenger? And why can't he do the downloading of these upgrades while doing something else? He counts his time like a lawyer. I swear if I hired this guy to do work for me, I could easily get billed over 168 hours in a 7 day week.
I'm sorry, no sympathy for this kind of person ranting. The clueless who think they have a clue are awful. I'd rather use my time helping people who are interested in learning than assuming they know everything about their machines and blame it on Microsoft for their incompetence. Yeah, their are a lot of bugs in the stuff from Redmond, but bad computer practices make it far, far worse.
not every simple mis-speaking/mis-typing is racist, and I hate it when it is viewed as such.
Agreed.
Combined with the number of flamebaiters and trolls on here, the ability to quickly respond to things well before actually thinking through what someone wrote just promotes a lot of the bashing that goes on here nowadays, particularly with game articles.
I got slammed as a racist because I didn't like the aggressive music on the Madden 2004 soundtrack.
I would be interested in knowing why there is a large interest in golf in Japan, if you have any ideas.
I don't know where you live or what time of day you see the tip jars, but in both the D.C. metro and here in the Twin Cities, I've seen plenty of cash in the tip jar. You do realise that they empty the jar every few hours, right?
I had one guy tell me before that the tip jar effectively raised everyone's hourly wage by about two or three dollars. Of course, I've been looking at Caribou Coffee, which is a distinctly better place than Starbucks.
Before putting the service in, personally I would ask customers and find out what services they want or need. It may be surprising how many would use it, or under what circumstances they'd use the service. I know that I'd much rather meet some business clients in a coffee shop that in the office, but of course that depends on the client.
I have found that the biggest problem for any MMOG, let along MMORPGs, has been that accounts can get banned, but people don't. There's nothing to keep 'Joe Obnoxious' from getting back on. And since sometimes these people have more money than social skills, they'll buy another copy just to get another valid CD-key to get on and start annoying people again.
As a member of the RPGA, I've been impressed that we have formalised procedures to ban people. Ok, you have to pretty much assault someone to get banned (and some of these guys are HUGE, so assault would be scary), but at least we deal with real people.
What I would love to see is some 3rd-party system that verifies identity. Maybe you can gain points that lead towards beta-testing, prizes, etc. by being a good player over time. You'd have this ID account, and then you could have multiple gaming accounts attached. Say you play about 20 different games. Well one community may hate and ban you, but you'd have to really ruin it all over the place to get permanently banned.
Random Sunday morning rambling, but I know this is the kind of thing that would enable my parents to be online gamers and maybe even pay a subscription for games. From my management experience, this could seriously grow the market.
The iQue is not mentioned by name, but in the end of the article they did write: "The company also announced that it will begin selling a game console specially designed for the China market this month."
I would dare say that Nintendo is perhaps looking at accelerating their next console to beat out Sony, and drive some more nails into the Japanese XBox coffin.
While some Apple fans may consider this censorship, personally I applaud the enforcement of standards in advertising.
If standards were forced for truth-in-advertising in the U.S., we'd not only never hear about the G5 being the fastest computer, we'd also not hear about how much we can do for so little from Microsoft. We'd also stop having the stupid claims in oversized truck and SUV ads, diet pills, etc.
I'll assume that you got to keep copies of your NDA agreements. Find a lawyer who can go over the NDAs and advise you on what you can do. Make sure the lawyer is bonded and insured so that if you get faulty advice that puts you in legal hot water it can get traced back to the lawyer and keep you out of it.
While you may not eventually be able to disclose which companies, you may be able to describe your duties and the scale of the company, and disclosue that additional details are covered under an NDA, for which verification can be obtained by your legal counsel, preferably in a notarised letter from your counsel.
So far, most of the NDAs I've signed have covered mostly the business practices contained for a certain period of time. They also be written under European laws which focus far more on ethics in consideration as well. (At least in my experience.)
Of course, things brings up another issue. We really do need to start having better organisations for technical professional in which our work history can be verfied as being worthwhile, even when our work is wrapped in an NDA.