Yea, I fully admit we did. The main problem was that none of our "techs" were trained. Also was bad management.
At Stream, we were paid BY THE CALL. It was more cost effective to tell the customer to reinstall, and then call back than to spend 15-20 mins to remove the inf drivers manually. All the while the management pushing for us to have a 15 minute call time. Sure, I might have the skills to bring back a system after getting corrupted drivers and being malware infested, but trying to tell a customer how to do it? Or better yet, teaching a tech who English is a second language and doesn't even own a computer to help a customer on this issue? Reinstall is far much simpler.
I really think this is what makes tech support so bad. Not only do you have to know how to do the job, you also have to act as a teacher. Atleast I got a free Windows 98 OEM disk during my 6 month jaunt there.
I was working at an "experimental" call center. Place was called Stream and the client was Dell. The objective was to figure out if the customer had a simple problem or if one that required level 2 support. (Bit more complicated than that, but that's the jest)
I was working there between the great Windows 95 to Windows 98 upgrade. It was miserable for ANYONE with one of those damn USR Robotics modems. It got to the point where we would NOT send out a replacement modem unless the customer did a complete reinstall, from scrach, not with the rebuild image. It also didn't help that most of our techs had a 75% turnaround in three months, couldn't speak English well, and that we told the customer we would call them in 48 hours to "help" them though the reinstall.
Gezz. Thank god I work on Dell Servers now. Dell afford to piss off their consumer customers, but not their enterprise.
PS - I remember the trainer telling me that Dell is for "quality" and would never sell a computer under $1,000. Even when he said that, I laughed. (1998-1999 was when he told us)
It might be true in YOUR state. There where lies the problem. It could be there are different fault rules for other states.
But to be honest, I just don't see a problem here. The customer knew there was an error but still ordered anyway. Even if he didn't know, one would reasonably suspect that he would want to be charged for one of the box sets (Knowing how these promotions work, possibly the higher priced box set)
So while Amazaon is being a dick about it, I don't see why there is even a problem here.
You can't do that in a game like this. One of the major restraints on out-of-game play in WoW is the the many servers invovled. Also the "unique", "epic", and "soulbound" objects prevent any wholesale selling of in game items. That being said, I am sure the farmers would be more than happy to farm for your epic for a fee. Combined with the "threat" of being banded, it regales out-of-play as kind of deviant, not-acceptable. Besides, you have to become self sufficient at one point in the game, or it just stops being fun.
Eve, however, is DESIGNED for everything to be up for grabs. You can buy, sell, and make anything provided you have the resources. Even if you spend the "real" cash for all the ISK you want, it doesn't mean dick of you don't have the skills (defined by time) to use the stuff you buy. Even if you do buy it, you need some kind of constant influx of ISK and materials to keep those resource heavy stations flying. Just because you have the money to buy a Titan doesn't mean you can find someone who can make it. Even if you did, it would take months to get the material together not to mention the months to learn the skills.
In the first example, because of WoW's limited world size, buying exp/gold doesn't help in the long run. At best, you get to 70 and go on some big world quests, but by skipping over allot of the world, its just boring. Its quest based and when all the quests are done, there isn't much left. However, Eve is so cut-throat that your status is worth more than the price. No mater how many skills or money you have, its not enough. A dev offers to "help" his alliance by offing some pre-patch advanced ships? How about "accidentally" adding a bunch of materials for the titan the alliance is building? The lure of the dark side is too great.
I personally think this problem can be solved by limiting GM power abilities to only their internal network and any kind of world modifications go though a manager. I rather have some player screw me who plays by the same rules than some GM who can wink me out of existence. I like the freedom Eve brings, in or outside of play. I don't want it destroyed because of some dumb ass CCP employees.
We all know that XP is insecure, but how many people would of NEVER installed updates unless automatic updates were turned on? How many bots are out there because people don't bother with simple anti-virus software
The people who are going to use this laptop are NOT even on the level of a Dumb American User (DAU). These are people who will use it for, at best, for e-mail. Any other applications that are installed would HAVE to work and not be corrupting the system. Lets face it, if you lived in a farm in South America for a few generations, its not like your going to acquire the security skills, overnight, to run XP on the web.
Though, my real issue is corruption though. Have they really developed a good system for keeping the signed keys from people who mean harm? What if the local country officials use this whole "lease" idea to threaten a local because he didn't vote right?
It might be because the Wii remote operates at a standard Bluetooth interface and that the packet data from the remote is easy to process.
Spend the hours it would take to build your own remote, debugging the accelerometers, creating a wireless protocol, then integrating it somehow into a laptop. Maybe, instead of this, spend $40 bucks on a remote and another $20 on a Bluetooth module, no soldering required.
Still, with the time saved, I am sure they can go father than this, but I have a feeling that the built in robot arm software doesn't allow you to have "live" control. It is an industrial bot after all.
I really hope they put in MPEG4 support in there though. It used to be MJepg was the only video format cameras/phones supported. Now most stuff can record to MPEG4.
I don't know, I think he is going more for a "fun" angle. Lets face it, without even the basics of electronics, going to digital circuits is tricky at best.
That being said, I would recommend a Basic Stamp from http://www.parallax.com/. While their chips are not the fastest, cheapest, or fully featured they offer EXCLELENT learning tools, books as well as a wealth of free code. There are plenty of robot kits you can get and easy to plug in designs. You can quite possibly even get a bulk discount for a school.
To be honest, I would rather have a class where the first half of the semester is designing AND building your radio. (Preferably FM) I learned microcontrollers first before I learned anything about analog components and a radio is the best way to teach that.
Yea, its even worst than that. Over experience, I have found that there are only a few "special" brands of PS2-to-USB adaptors that work with the BIOSs. I went though 3 different adaptors till I found one that works on boot up so I can get into the bios. I don't mind so much the systems are going to USB, but I wish manufactures would make them more uniformly.
I am a Dell ESF tech and the floppy is the staple diet of all server systems. Ever try to install Windows 2003 native without even a USB floppy? Kind of hard to install without the RAID drivers.
Vista supports other media on that front, but even today, I see people buy the floppy option on even new PE2950 even if they support USB boot. Floppys are fairly gone from desktop, but even I had to install it for firmware updates to my desktop system.
Kind of bashing Windows I guess, but it makes me wonder if it's even possible to convert to more open standards at a reasonable price? Even with the "more secure" ActiveX controls, its still easier to modify those existing controls in VS than it is to rebuild the site under OSS.
I have been to a few airports in Chicago and Dallas recently and scanned those. Never stupid enough to connect to them, (ad-hoc mode is off) but enough to be curious.
Whatever. It's still so far in the future that trying to make predictions like that is absurd. It's like if someone had tried to prevent the development of Velcro on the basis that it could be used to tie people into restraints easier.
I will fully admit that what I said is FAR in the future. However, its just that its like computer technology. No one had a clue that in under 20 years, we would be this far along. The only thing really holding us back from any kind of cybernetics is the neural interface technology. Second someone is able to map just a single nerve ending will make this technology soar. I mean lets face it; man is a sucker for gadgets.
I have no problem with developing this technology, its just I wish people just brainstorm a bit. This technology will zoom quickly and when I am old and have dementia, with these chips the only think keeping me sane, I don't want to worry about a Sony battery recall.
One of the things I like about the TV series is the depth and the questions they pose about the issues with this technology.
Better question is if it can be stopped. The thing is that when you watch that series, you wonder about the safety rating of this technology. The first Window 95 computers were open to the world, internet wise, so will it be the same for the first 'cyber brain' installs? Will there be a point where you MUST have a retina mechanical replacement or atleast an optic nerve pass though just to read a book? Better yet, what about education? If all your books are DRM encrypted that is mandated to be bought from a school virtual book shop, used books, hell, books could just disappear. We talk about a lack of critical thinking NOW....
Heck, it even creates the ultimate lower class. Those who not only can't afford to eat, but due to the lack of implants, even achieve a decent job. I mean, it becomes a decision to have your entire body mechanically replaced for a 5 year mining contract or living at the lowest end of the spectrum.
Maybe I am over thinking this, but its psodo-mandatory that you have a state ID, why would some kind of implant.
*Sigh* Enterprise was even getting interesting in the last season, just the "Time Trek" season before that was just so..well...crap...
Its making me wonder what you could possibly do with Trek now. TNG was so far above the bar, in technology, that the only thing they could squeal it too was Voyager (the technology is squat without the support network) and Deep Space Nine (Technology is crap without the Politics).
Hummm. Maybe technology IS the problem? They seem to focus more on it or lack of it than the real story elements. I wish they could do the series over again like they did with BattleStar Galatica. Look what it did for that franchise.
Don't get me wrong, I MAY see it, but I have yet to even see the Nemesis and they want me to take a chance on 11? REALLY?
Don't get me wrong, I might see it. Like the crap that is Pirates of the Caribbean 2, I have to see the next one. One of these days I will see Nemesis. I am a fan of Trek so I am stuck with that.
The one slim hope is the guy (forgot his name) that has been running the series for the last 10 years is not going to be writing it.
Yea, it's kind of why I overpaid for the 3125 (my 2125 LCD broke). 8 hour talk time, Windows 5.0 so it runs Active Sync as well as a compatible Web Browser. Not to mention I can stick a gig in it and has a nice play/rewind buttons on the front of the flip top.
Not sure about the iPhone, however. Its been my experience that touch screens get scratched up fairly bad when its in the same pocket as your keys. At least when I put my iPod in the same pocket, it just damaged it cosmetically.
Just yesterday I spoke with someone from ILM, and they were saying how the film wasn't going to happen because Lucas kept rejecting scripts. Good to hear he found one he liked...
I dunno. He also was the one that approved Jar-Jar in Episode 1....
People always complains that Microsoft has a monopoly on both office and the operating systems. Really, I don't think their monopoly even got started until they released their first version of Visual Basic.
People want to program something now, instead of having to rebuild things over and over again. I can't tell you how many times I have rebuilt code for just something as simple as a link list, but you can do it in under a min with VB or even VC.NET.
Hell, even to this day, my favorite DOS programming environment was the old DOS version of VB 1.0. Full event menus right on a 80x24 screen? Sign me up!
I think its why Microsoft is making so much head room into the phone market. They have a fully functional OS with extras that can load onto a one inch phone screen. They have PDAs on the market, but they got "phones" that are a phone first, PDA second.
I used to think Palm was great. The ability to sync with my desktop and get my contacts from Outlook was a nice feature. It was even better with the Treo, as I was able to keep everything in one device that I could run applications without having to "buy" it though Cingular. Sure the Treo crashed several times a week, but I was willing to pay that price for a somewhat open OS with sync.
But ever since the phone died and I picked up this windows mobile phone, its hard for me to want to go back. I know Microsoft is a big evil company that locks people down to their OS, but they offer a flawless sync to your desktop with USB. While the Palm Treo offers this, the main problem is that I just see some better apps for the Microsoft one.
It also doesn't help things that I can fire up VC.NET and write a quick app for my phone.
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Yea, I fully admit we did. The main problem was that none of our "techs" were trained. Also was bad management.
At Stream, we were paid BY THE CALL. It was more cost effective to tell the customer to reinstall, and then call back than to spend 15-20 mins to remove the inf drivers manually. All the while the management pushing for us to have a 15 minute call time. Sure, I might have the skills to bring back a system after getting corrupted drivers and being malware infested, but trying to tell a customer how to do it? Or better yet, teaching a tech who English is a second language and doesn't even own a computer to help a customer on this issue? Reinstall is far much simpler.
I really think this is what makes tech support so bad. Not only do you have to know how to do the job, you also have to act as a teacher. Atleast I got a free Windows 98 OEM disk during my 6 month jaunt there.
I was working at an "experimental" call center. Place was called Stream and the client was Dell. The objective was to figure out if the customer had a simple problem or if one that required level 2 support. (Bit more complicated than that, but that's the jest) I was working there between the great Windows 95 to Windows 98 upgrade. It was miserable for ANYONE with one of those damn USR Robotics modems. It got to the point where we would NOT send out a replacement modem unless the customer did a complete reinstall, from scrach, not with the rebuild image. It also didn't help that most of our techs had a 75% turnaround in three months, couldn't speak English well, and that we told the customer we would call them in 48 hours to "help" them though the reinstall. Gezz. Thank god I work on Dell Servers now. Dell afford to piss off their consumer customers, but not their enterprise. PS - I remember the trainer telling me that Dell is for "quality" and would never sell a computer under $1,000. Even when he said that, I laughed. (1998-1999 was when he told us)
It might be true in YOUR state. There where lies the problem. It could be there are different fault rules for other states.
But to be honest, I just don't see a problem here. The customer knew there was an error but still ordered anyway. Even if he didn't know, one would reasonably suspect that he would want to be charged for one of the box sets (Knowing how these promotions work, possibly the higher priced box set)
So while Amazaon is being a dick about it, I don't see why there is even a problem here.
You can't do that in a game like this. One of the major restraints on out-of-game play in WoW is the the many servers invovled. Also the "unique", "epic", and "soulbound" objects prevent any wholesale selling of in game items. That being said, I am sure the farmers would be more than happy to farm for your epic for a fee. Combined with the "threat" of being banded, it regales out-of-play as kind of deviant, not-acceptable. Besides, you have to become self sufficient at one point in the game, or it just stops being fun.
Eve, however, is DESIGNED for everything to be up for grabs. You can buy, sell, and make anything provided you have the resources. Even if you spend the "real" cash for all the ISK you want, it doesn't mean dick of you don't have the skills (defined by time) to use the stuff you buy. Even if you do buy it, you need some kind of constant influx of ISK and materials to keep those resource heavy stations flying. Just because you have the money to buy a Titan doesn't mean you can find someone who can make it. Even if you did, it would take months to get the material together not to mention the months to learn the skills.
In the first example, because of WoW's limited world size, buying exp/gold doesn't help in the long run. At best, you get to 70 and go on some big world quests, but by skipping over allot of the world, its just boring. Its quest based and when all the quests are done, there isn't much left. However, Eve is so cut-throat that your status is worth more than the price. No mater how many skills or money you have, its not enough. A dev offers to "help" his alliance by offing some pre-patch advanced ships? How about "accidentally" adding a bunch of materials for the titan the alliance is building? The lure of the dark side is too great.
I personally think this problem can be solved by limiting GM power abilities to only their internal network and any kind of world modifications go though a manager. I rather have some player screw me who plays by the same rules than some GM who can wink me out of existence. I like the freedom Eve brings, in or outside of play. I don't want it destroyed because of some dumb ass CCP employees.
We all know that XP is insecure, but how many people would of NEVER installed updates unless automatic updates were turned on? How many bots are out there because people don't bother with simple anti-virus software
The people who are going to use this laptop are NOT even on the level of a Dumb American User (DAU). These are people who will use it for, at best, for e-mail. Any other applications that are installed would HAVE to work and not be corrupting the system. Lets face it, if you lived in a farm in South America for a few generations, its not like your going to acquire the security skills, overnight, to run XP on the web.
Though, my real issue is corruption though. Have they really developed a good system for keeping the signed keys from people who mean harm? What if the local country officials use this whole "lease" idea to threaten a local because he didn't vote right?
It might be because the Wii remote operates at a standard Bluetooth interface and that the packet data from the remote is easy to process.
Spend the hours it would take to build your own remote, debugging the accelerometers, creating a wireless protocol, then integrating it somehow into a laptop. Maybe, instead of this, spend $40 bucks on a remote and another $20 on a Bluetooth module, no soldering required.
Still, with the time saved, I am sure they can go father than this, but I have a feeling that the built in robot arm software doesn't allow you to have "live" control. It is an industrial bot after all.
I really hope they put in MPEG4 support in there though. It used to be MJepg was the only video format cameras/phones supported. Now most stuff can record to MPEG4.
They did a great job on the picture veiewer too.
That can't be it. Because the Wii can watch movies, listen to MP3's, view images, surf the web.
But then, the Wii costs less than half as much as the ps3. Hummm.
Yea, AVR's, in high school terms, ROCK. I have been using them for years now in pet projects and they are just a breeze to work with.
I even went to a free seminar that Atmel was having here in Dallas and they given away free stuff, free butterflies as well as free food.
I don't know, I think he is going more for a "fun" angle. Lets face it, without even the basics of electronics, going to digital circuits is tricky at best.
That being said, I would recommend a Basic Stamp from http://www.parallax.com/. While their chips are not the fastest, cheapest, or fully featured they offer EXCLELENT learning tools, books as well as a wealth of free code. There are plenty of robot kits you can get and easy to plug in designs. You can quite possibly even get a bulk discount for a school.
To be honest, I would rather have a class where the first half of the semester is designing AND building your radio. (Preferably FM) I learned microcontrollers first before I learned anything about analog components and a radio is the best way to teach that.
Yea, its even worst than that. Over experience, I have found that there are only a few "special" brands of PS2-to-USB adaptors that work with the BIOSs. I went though 3 different adaptors till I found one that works on boot up so I can get into the bios. I don't mind so much the systems are going to USB, but I wish manufactures would make them more uniformly.
I am a Dell ESF tech and the floppy is the staple diet of all server systems. Ever try to install Windows 2003 native without even a USB floppy? Kind of hard to install without the RAID drivers.
Vista supports other media on that front, but even today, I see people buy the floppy option on even new PE2950 even if they support USB boot. Floppys are fairly gone from desktop, but even I had to install it for firmware updates to my desktop system.
Just Satan calls the shots.
Kind of bashing Windows I guess, but it makes me wonder if it's even possible to convert to more open standards at a reasonable price? Even with the "more secure" ActiveX controls, its still easier to modify those existing controls in VS than it is to rebuild the site under OSS.
Sigh. Owning a Monopoly must be nice.
I have been to a few airports in Chicago and Dallas recently and scanned those. Never stupid enough to connect to them, (ad-hoc mode is off) but enough to be curious.
Whatever. It's still so far in the future that trying to make predictions like that is absurd. It's like if someone had tried to prevent the development of Velcro on the basis that it could be used to tie people into restraints easier.
I will fully admit that what I said is FAR in the future. However, its just that its like computer technology. No one had a clue that in under 20 years, we would be this far along. The only thing really holding us back from any kind of cybernetics is the neural interface technology. Second someone is able to map just a single nerve ending will make this technology soar. I mean lets face it; man is a sucker for gadgets.
I have no problem with developing this technology, its just I wish people just brainstorm a bit. This technology will zoom quickly and when I am old and have dementia, with these chips the only think keeping me sane, I don't want to worry about a Sony battery recall.
One of the things I like about the TV series is the depth and the questions they pose about the issues with this technology.
Better question is if it can be stopped. The thing is that when you watch that series, you wonder about the safety rating of this technology. The first Window 95 computers were open to the world, internet wise, so will it be the same for the first 'cyber brain' installs? Will there be a point where you MUST have a retina mechanical replacement or atleast an optic nerve pass though just to read a book? Better yet, what about education? If all your books are DRM encrypted that is mandated to be bought from a school virtual book shop, used books, hell, books could just disappear. We talk about a lack of critical thinking NOW....
Heck, it even creates the ultimate lower class. Those who not only can't afford to eat, but due to the lack of implants, even achieve a decent job. I mean, it becomes a decision to have your entire body mechanically replaced for a 5 year mining contract or living at the lowest end of the spectrum.
Maybe I am over thinking this, but its psodo-mandatory that you have a state ID, why would some kind of implant.
Mmmm. LTO-3. Where you can store your life on a 400gig tape, to have it nullified when the leader breaks.
THATS who it was, Rick Berman.
*Sigh* Enterprise was even getting interesting in the last season, just the "Time Trek" season before that was just so..well...crap...
Its making me wonder what you could possibly do with Trek now. TNG was so far above the bar, in technology, that the only thing they could squeal it too was Voyager (the technology is squat without the support network) and Deep Space Nine (Technology is crap without the Politics).
Hummm. Maybe technology IS the problem? They seem to focus more on it or lack of it than the real story elements. I wish they could do the series over again like they did with BattleStar Galatica. Look what it did for that franchise.
Don't get me wrong, I MAY see it, but I have yet to even see the Nemesis and they want me to take a chance on 11? REALLY?
Don't get me wrong, I might see it. Like the crap that is Pirates of the Caribbean 2, I have to see the next one. One of these days I will see Nemesis. I am a fan of Trek so I am stuck with that.
The one slim hope is the guy (forgot his name) that has been running the series for the last 10 years is not going to be writing it.
Yea, it's kind of why I overpaid for the 3125 (my 2125 LCD broke). 8 hour talk time, Windows 5.0 so it runs Active Sync as well as a compatible Web Browser. Not to mention I can stick a gig in it and has a nice play/rewind buttons on the front of the flip top.
Not sure about the iPhone, however. Its been my experience that touch screens get scratched up fairly bad when its in the same pocket as your keys. At least when I put my iPod in the same pocket, it just damaged it cosmetically.
Just yesterday I spoke with someone from ILM, and they were saying how the film wasn't going to happen because Lucas kept rejecting scripts. Good to hear he found one he liked...
I dunno. He also was the one that approved Jar-Jar in Episode 1....
People always complains that Microsoft has a monopoly on both office and the operating systems. Really, I don't think their monopoly even got started until they released their first version of Visual Basic.
People want to program something now, instead of having to rebuild things over and over again. I can't tell you how many times I have rebuilt code for just something as simple as a link list, but you can do it in under a min with VB or even VC.NET.
Hell, even to this day, my favorite DOS programming environment was the old DOS version of VB 1.0. Full event menus right on a 80x24 screen? Sign me up!
I think its why Microsoft is making so much head room into the phone market. They have a fully functional OS with extras that can load onto a one inch phone screen. They have PDAs on the market, but they got "phones" that are a phone first, PDA second.
I used to think Palm was great. The ability to sync with my desktop and get my contacts from Outlook was a nice feature. It was even better with the Treo, as I was able to keep everything in one device that I could run applications without having to "buy" it though Cingular. Sure the Treo crashed several times a week, but I was willing to pay that price for a somewhat open OS with sync.
But ever since the phone died and I picked up this windows mobile phone, its hard for me to want to go back. I know Microsoft is a big evil company that locks people down to their OS, but they offer a flawless sync to your desktop with USB. While the Palm Treo offers this, the main problem is that I just see some better apps for the Microsoft one.
It also doesn't help things that I can fire up VC.NET and write a quick app for my phone.
You can, but will cost another 500 points.
Don't even ask how much the mouse hook up will cost!