Backwards compatibility is meaningless to me. I had a PS1 and guess how many I played after I got my PS2? Zero. Why would I want to stick with old technology. Plus, if one has Xbox games, they can play them on the Xbox 1, regardless of whether they play on the Xbox 2.
I don't know why it's such a big deal with TurboTax. After I filed it, I deleted the program, and removed the spyware. You can't use TurboTax 2002 this year, so why keep it. And since TurboTax 2003 is not copy protected, might as well use TurboTax this tax year.
If you move from a large house to a small apartment, you'll find out the answer very quickly--you don't need a box. To conserve space, I even threw out all my CD-ROM jewel cases, only keeping the CDs and the CD keys. Once you install a game, you never look at the box again, so why keep them?
Sounds like you don't have young kids. A 2 year old can't take a wired mouse very far. A 2 year old can take a wireless mouse and "hide" it in your toilet very easily.
All of those costs can be transferred to another domain name, so they aren't specific to his domain. I.e., he spent $3k designing his site, it will cost him about $10 to transfer the site to anotherdomain.com.
Depends on the crowd. If you go to music message boards, it will not be hard to find people with 1000+ CDs or albums. But I think the "typical" person can't fill a 40 GB iPod. I've never personally met anyone who has 500+ albums (besides me), so I think 500+ albums is on the high end of the curve.
He didn't say anything about being a better than average driver. Just that posted speed limits are too low. I was just caught speeding a few weeks ago: 78 in a 65 zone. Sounds dangerous right? What if I were to tell you that the road was basically empty and straight? You don't need to even be an "above average driver" to avoid accidents on an empty road.
Sounds like someone without kids. Many kids (even those old enought to play violent games), don't know what spyware is and can get fooled by pop-ups that look like windows messages.
The "time is money" argument is just a saying. But it does have some basis in reality for hourly workers, at least. If you're going to be spending 3 hours fixing a system (and being away from your family), why not spend those 3 hours at work getting paid, instead of spending that time fixing your computer (or your plumbing, etc.)?
I live in a nice comfortable apartment, drive a nice car, eat well, and don't even spend $10 a day to do it. $10/day is $3650 per year. Your car payments, rent, and food cost less than $3650/year? Where the hell do you live?
Depends on your definition of syndication. Shows like The Simpsons and Seinfeld are available for almost any network to show. That is definitely syndication. TNT having exclusive rights to Law & Order and Bravo having exclusive rights to West Wing are obviously a lower level of access, but they are still being shown outside of its original network, which meets other's definition of syndication.
I've seen a lot of LAN shops opening up around my area, catering to the LAN gamers. Oddly enough, several of them are combination paintball/computer gaming stores. You may want to consider that direction in your store.
the fact that the world associates the word "Windows" with a Microsoft product today makes no difference to whether they should have been given a trademark on it in the first place.
I disagree. The fact that "the world associates the word 'Windows' with a Microsoft product" has EVERYTHING to do with trademark protection. Unlike patents, you do not have to register a trademark. You gain trademark protection from usage. Registration merely gives some additional benefits to the owner. (See this trademark tutorial).
Also, I think people misunderstand what the term "generic" means. If someone uses a term to generically refer to a product without identifying the provider of the product, then the term is generic. E.g., you may say "give me a tissue" or "I need a new tire" because the actual brand of tissue or tire is irrelevant to you. Do you honestly think that people generically refer to OS X as "Windows"?
I think anti-MS bias is affecting everyone's thinking about this issue. The name Windows is one of the strongest marks in the world. The fact that they may lose TM protection is solely due to a technicalilty.
Put it another way, if the owner of Lindows, instead of being obsessed with MS, was obsessed with beverages, and started marketing the products Ludweiser and Lepsi, would you think the case is so far-fetched?
At least in the US, Microsoft's trademark is not for "Windows", it's for "Microsoft Windows". Several other software products already contained the term "Windows" at the time Microsoft attempted to grab the term.They couldn't, at least without adding the Microsoft part of the name.
WRONG! MS has many trademarks on the word Windows alone. Here is one of them.
Windows was a computing term long before Microsoft decided it was a good name for their product, they shouldn't have been able to trademark it in the first place and they shouldn't complain when other people decide to use the variants on the word Windows in their software products either.
If a friend said to you, "I bought this program but I have to return it because it only runs on Windows," would you have even the slightest doubt about what he meant? Of course not. Everyone knows, in the computing field, what Windows means. The reason Lindows is "winning" in the US isn't because the name Windows is generic. It's not. The reason is because in the 1980s, when MS named the program Windows, the name was generic.
It is country by country. But the results in one country can greatly affect an international company. For example, the World Wrestling Federation lost a trademark battle with the World Wildlife Fund. It was in Europe only, but they were forced to change everything to WWE because they export stuff to countries where they were effected.
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Backwards compatibility is meaningless to me. I had a PS1 and guess how many I played after I got my PS2? Zero. Why would I want to stick with old technology. Plus, if one has Xbox games, they can play them on the Xbox 1, regardless of whether they play on the Xbox 2.
Still waiting for the 60 GB iPod.
So 20*14 is somehow more intuitive then 15*40?
In theory, the patent office does look for all prior art. In reality, they primarily look at prior patents.
I don't know why it's such a big deal with TurboTax. After I filed it, I deleted the program, and removed the spyware. You can't use TurboTax 2002 this year, so why keep it. And since TurboTax 2003 is not copy protected, might as well use TurboTax this tax year.
If you move from a large house to a small apartment, you'll find out the answer very quickly--you don't need a box. To conserve space, I even threw out all my CD-ROM jewel cases, only keeping the CDs and the CD keys. Once you install a game, you never look at the box again, so why keep them?
Sounds like you don't have young kids. A 2 year old can't take a wired mouse very far. A 2 year old can take a wireless mouse and "hide" it in your toilet very easily.
All of those costs can be transferred to another domain name, so they aren't specific to his domain. I.e., he spent $3k designing his site, it will cost him about $10 to transfer the site to anotherdomain.com.
Depends on the crowd. If you go to music message boards, it will not be hard to find people with 1000+ CDs or albums. But I think the "typical" person can't fill a 40 GB iPod. I've never personally met anyone who has 500+ albums (besides me), so I think 500+ albums is on the high end of the curve.
He didn't say anything about being a better than average driver. Just that posted speed limits are too low. I was just caught speeding a few weeks ago: 78 in a 65 zone. Sounds dangerous right? What if I were to tell you that the road was basically empty and straight? You don't need to even be an "above average driver" to avoid accidents on an empty road.
When you buy a used CD, no one gets money except the store (or private seller). The RIAA gets nothing.
Depends on your meaning of "ethical". It is certainly legal. But no money goes to the artists, leading some artists to complain about them.
Sounds like someone without kids. Many kids (even those old enought to play violent games), don't know what spyware is and can get fooled by pop-ups that look like windows messages.
The "time is money" argument is just a saying. But it does have some basis in reality for hourly workers, at least. If you're going to be spending 3 hours fixing a system (and being away from your family), why not spend those 3 hours at work getting paid, instead of spending that time fixing your computer (or your plumbing, etc.)?
You don't get TechTV? I'm sure some would say it is a channel for nerds.
I live in a nice comfortable apartment, drive a nice car, eat well, and don't even spend $10 a day to do it. $10/day is $3650 per year. Your car payments, rent, and food cost less than $3650/year? Where the hell do you live?
Depends on your definition of syndication. Shows like The Simpsons and Seinfeld are available for almost any network to show. That is definitely syndication. TNT having exclusive rights to Law & Order and Bravo having exclusive rights to West Wing are obviously a lower level of access, but they are still being shown outside of its original network, which meets other's definition of syndication.
Here is the Bravo page showing their episode schedule.
I've seen a lot of LAN shops opening up around my area, catering to the LAN gamers. Oddly enough, several of them are combination paintball/computer gaming stores. You may want to consider that direction in your store.
I disagree. The fact that "the world associates the word 'Windows' with a Microsoft product" has EVERYTHING to do with trademark protection. Unlike patents, you do not have to register a trademark. You gain trademark protection from usage. Registration merely gives some additional benefits to the owner. (See this trademark tutorial).
Also, I think people misunderstand what the term "generic" means. If someone uses a term to generically refer to a product without identifying the provider of the product, then the term is generic. E.g., you may say "give me a tissue" or "I need a new tire" because the actual brand of tissue or tire is irrelevant to you. Do you honestly think that people generically refer to OS X as "Windows"?
Put it another way, if the owner of Lindows, instead of being obsessed with MS, was obsessed with beverages, and started marketing the products Ludweiser and Lepsi, would you think the case is so far-fetched?
WRONG! MS has many trademarks on the word Windows alone. Here is one of them.
If a friend said to you, "I bought this program but I have to return it because it only runs on Windows," would you have even the slightest doubt about what he meant? Of course not. Everyone knows, in the computing field, what Windows means. The reason Lindows is "winning" in the US isn't because the name Windows is generic. It's not. The reason is because in the 1980s, when MS named the program Windows, the name was generic.
It is country by country. But the results in one country can greatly affect an international company. For example, the World Wrestling Federation lost a trademark battle with the World Wildlife Fund. It was in Europe only, but they were forced to change everything to WWE because they export stuff to countries where they were effected.
No. It doesn't sound anything like Windows and is unlikely to be confused with Windows.