"I have programmed in multiple languages including assembly"
Wow. Us incompetent slashdotters gasp at your skillz.
"single handedly rebuilt the electronics bays on a 737"
Did you know that the other hand can speed things up?;)
"Processed and high fat foods are a drug that dulls your intelligence. That is a fact that is easy for me to see. I have known it for years, but I have learned not to expect such clear thinking from others."
I certainly agree with the sibling post on this - just because you were a high scorer you think that you can decide this sort of thing on anecdotal evidence, hearsay and plain opinion. You can't.
'Software Other than Windows Anytime Upgrade. The first user of the software may reassign the license to another device one time. If you reassign the license, that other device becomes the "licensed device."'
Translation: You may yourself install it on up to two computers ("devices"). When you install it on the second computer, you must remove it from the first computer in order to reassign the license.
The first user is the person who accepted the EULA.
"Software Other Than Windows Anytime Upgrade. The first user of the software may make a one time transfer of the software, and this agreement, directly to a third party. The first user must uninstall the software before transferring it separately from the device. The first user may not retain any copies."
"Other Requirements. Before any permitted transfer, the other party must agree that this agreement applies to the transfer and use of the software. The transfer must include the proof of license."
Translation: you (the first user) may <i>yourself</i> transfer the license once. You must remove the software from your own computer and pass on or delete all backups of the software. The person you are transferring to must accept the license.
Notice that that person (receiver) becomes the "first user" of <i>their copy</i> of the software.
The license says you can only transfer the software once, and with the agreement. But the person you transfer it to can also transfer it once themselved, because they are bound by an agreement between Microsoft and them, not between Microsoft and you.
#3 (software updates) can be decentralised, and as simple as "your MSI should include a URL giving the address of an XML file on the web, which matches this DTD."
(Slashdot has removed my indenting)
An example:
<app> <appname>Acrobat</appname> <publisher>Adobe</publisher> <versions> <version> <num>9.0</num> <released>2006-10-01</released> <upgradecost>50 USD or 40 GBP or 50 EUR; for students and other currencies see website</upgrade> <download>http://...</download> <changes>...</changes> <criticalupdate/> </version> more </versions> </app> <app> <appname>Photoshop Album Starter Edition</appname> ... </app>
A Windows service could get these XML files regularly, present the user with a list of updates (with the option to show a changelog) and offer to install them. It isn't too different from the new "game signature" XML files, which include the game's publisher, version, name and rating in various areas.
Installation and finding apps to install can wait for another day. But I'm disappointed in the MSI format wrt updates.
I would explain it with a velocity-time graph. In the UK you have to understand speed-time graphs and distance-time graphs by 14 (but not really about instantaneous rates of change). So any student I come across will understand them.
It also helps to draw the two graphs (velocity and displacement) one above the other. Anybody will realise "high velocity -> displacement increasing fast" and "no velocity -> displacement isn't changing".
To the sibling post: did you know NHS is the third-largest employer in the entire world? My dad said so, and he works there (IT job), so it *must* be true.;)
Perhaps I should rephrase: those other people just have a poor vocabulary or do not know their words in a precise way. They aren't stupid in the more general sense.
Unlike, say, the Israeli "psychometri" school-leaving exam (which my Israeli cousin tells me is full of archaic words that you would never see in newspapers, books or pretty much anywhere), there are few words in the SAT that can't be picked up through the normal course of reading. Of course, if you've been reading nothing but the lower third on the news channels;) then you aren't going to have the vocab to achieve on the test.
Hey... did you mean an elitist *fool*? Or maybe I'm a tool of the testing system?
I'm also likely to take the SAT, with the subject tests. A friend who went to America got me Kaplan for the subject tests and Princeton Review for the general test. I'm going to take SAT I, Math II and Physics.
For the math section in the SAT, if you got an A at GCSE that is probably sufficient. As for the english reading section, it's fairly simple.
Princeton Review seems to be the exam technique for idiots. Sentence completion (me): 1) Read the question 2) Read the choices 3) Point to the correct one (in the rare case that I can't work it out, a guess will do if I can eliminate at least one option, see [1]) 4) Write that down.
Sentence completion (them): 1) Read the question 2) Identify whether the clauses of the sentence are contradictory ("however", "on the other hand", "but" and many more listed in the book), supportive ("similarly" etc) or neautral 3) Identify the word in the question which the answeer has to support or contradict 4) Identify the answer 5) Write it down
They claim people are suckered into close seconds for sentence completion. Well, I've tried it and I'm not. Those "other people" are just stupid.
More another day (or later today), when I dig out my Princeton Review book to show you how terrible the whole thing is. But meanwhile, consider this:
"Beginning of test => Easy questions => Obvious answer" "End of test => Hard questions => Obvious answer choices are wrong"
(math): answers which are numbers given in the question are obvious. This means that on many higher questions they are wrong.
"Every Little Helps" is Tesco's slogan, repeated in every advert. It refers to stuff like 5p off this and double clubcard points on that, and people at the counter packing your bags for you (never mind that they probably use too many bags and end up crushing your tomatoes anyway), and a smile and "thank you", and all those lovely things.
"Plus Linux can't play your HD-DVDs, Blu-Ray discs, Word documents edited in Office 2007 [perhaps employers will set it to add protection to all files of the new format], nor view many websites! You may not even be able to use your current files!"
Using P2P you could have listened to the song *any* amount of times before deleting it. They don't know! Maybe you even uploaded it to somebody else or copied it to another device.
So maybe you *didn't* decide it was crap, unlike what you would claim in court.
Correction: They take 18% from the answerer's earnings. So the people asking for $2.50 for their solution - they only get $2.05. They get another $2.05 whenever anybody else buys their solution.
And everybody's scrambled to answer! Because 20% of each answer is shown without payment, the guy asking can probably complete the question without paying anybody. And once somebody pays for your answer, it isn't a free-for-all -- other people have to pay to see the same solution. They're selling your solution multiple times. (Although thankfully, they don't seem to take commission)
The top earner recieved $20 from one person, for answering two stats questions (which look to me like they could probably be answered by an A-Level statistics student or first-year university course in stats). That sounds like a fluke to me - or possibly even engineered by the owners of the site to make it look like a money-spinner.
The second-highest bounty - $1.00 - is for a URL. One person's preview reads "... id.com/dict/spanish-food... " and another reads "... an use this link http://www.freed/... " - looks like Google can find the full solution;).
Anybody using this (to ask) is easily parted with their money anyway, since answers and even *gasp* hints are often given out on online forums for free or for some internal currency system (reputation/karma)
"I disagree: if you have a contract with someone and you violate the terms of the contract, you can be sued. How is playing at a casino different?"
Exactly! It isn't different. But it's up to the casino to write the contract, define cheating, and get everybody to agree that it can refuse to cash in chips at any time, and to agree that if they later find out you cheated then they can sue you for the money you got via that cheat. The law doesn't come into it.
First of all, I work a 9-5 at a private university. I've been working on computers since 1976, and working professionally since 1993'. I've worked for several fortune 500 companies and have always helped out my friends and family doing tech support so to a point doing what you are saying is no skin off my teeth since I already do it at least in a limited degree.
First thing I did was create a business with low overhead. I did what they call a fictitious name, so that legally *BusinessName01* = *MyRealName*. I was concerned about exposure and litigation, but since I was really small time, I thought the risk was small enough for me only to spend $75 bucks for the fictitious name, and about $25 bucks for 1000 business cards that I designed. Very simple and to the point.
When I decided to start my business, I already had had about 5-6 years of in business computer/network experience. I also investigated a bit about computer consulting and basically discovered that consultants pay more per hr because they work on a very specific when where how who why type deal. It's not a constant job, but you are at some ones beck and call. So for that convenience + your technical experience they should pay $X amount.
So, armed with a factious name, a set business cards, a cell phone that worked both personal/business calls, I set out to conquer the world. First thing I did, was ignore any forms of marketing that cost money. I used social networking; I went to every person I knew, and that I could ask a small favor from and told them of what I was doing, dropped them each 10 business cards and asked them, that if any of them would hear of anyone that are having computer/network problems that I would be the person to call.
When I was at the grocery store, I put up my business card there on the corkboard meant for community info (like everyone else). When I met someone new, and I could steer the conversation into the fact that I provide *professional computer consulting services for small businesses and residence* I did.
It started with one client; then two, and then one of my clients, recommended me to their friends, and they recommended me to their friends. It GREW FROM THERE.
I've not had to pay any money for advertising. I've just focused on delivering the most customer services based support possible; just like another write stated, be punctual, look neat, speak professionally, and honestly care about them and their data. LISTEN to them. Listen to what they are interested and concerned about. Most of it is the social interaction and making them feel good about paying you and using you then you actually doing the technical work.
I've built a SOLID, following to the point that I'm no longer taking any more clients, till I hire several technicians to do the work I used to.
So, mind you, Its taken me about 10 years, to built my business, but I know receive calls, call my techs, have the techs go out, do the work, I act as 2nd level phone and remote support and I make $$$.
So, what did I charge? Well, I started out at $125/hr. When people looked at me in utter horror, I told them, in this life, you get what you pay for. If you can only pay less, you will get what you are paying. I also immediately follow up with a completely honest statement that, "I can do in one hour, what other computer people can do in three, by using me you'll actually not only be saving money, but your time."
BE HONEST THOUGH; do not lie, because you will eventually be found out.
Competition started getting touch in the late 90's so I actually lowered my price down to $75/hr and feel very comfortable there. I have a setup in my home, where I can bring their pc, plug it in, perform whatever maintenance I need and get it back to the user very quickly. All while, I'm watching TV, eating dinner, playing computer games or whatever. If you know what you are doing, you don't have to baby-sit the machine, just make the critical decisions when it's needed.
We have the same thing at our secondary school. Instead of using useful stuff like Group Policy and ACLs to restrict usage, they do stuff like disable right-click in Explorer, remove the File menu in Explorer and IE (Q: how are you meant to preview print-friendly pages? A: You don't know a print-friendly page when you see one. Paste the contents of the page into Word.), disable the Run dialog, and many (many MANY) other tiny restrictions, like not being able to access regedit.
On top of all that, crucial downloads like.js,.doc,.xls,.zip are blocked, as well as all Flash and Java applets (without even a whitelist to include bbc.com and similar sites). They even blocked.css for a few minutes once, apparently without knowing what a CSS file does.
Of course many of the restrictions are not difficult to bypass. A webserver with PHP allows you to download "dangerous" files by altering the MIME-type and filename. You can do useful "right-click" actions like creating a new folder through the MS Word Open File dialog. You can also access USB memory sticks through that. So all they do is confuse and inconvenience people. (Most people have work from 5 years ago in their main folder.)
This doesn't require any extra media or even downloads - just online payment, some sort of activation mechanism, pop in your install media to fetch the packages, and you're off!
I suspect a lot of people will feel cheated that they've bought a CD with everything they need and Microsoft are then just withholding a special license key for their own amusement (and profit). I'm sure the retailers will also encourage people to buy Home Premium or Ultimate "in case you need one of those things" and conveniently forget to mention how simple an upgrade is to do later.
This guy supplied bagels daily to each company, always with the same note asking for certain prices. For companies where people weren't paying (I think that level is about 70% payment), he would add another note reminding people they weren't free. So that explanation does not really make sense.
Slashdot Mirror
"I have programmed in multiple languages including assembly"
;)
Wow. Us incompetent slashdotters gasp at your skillz.
"single handedly rebuilt the electronics bays on a 737"
Did you know that the other hand can speed things up?
"Processed and high fat foods are a drug that dulls your intelligence. That is a fact that is easy for me to see. I have known it for years, but I have learned not to expect such clear thinking from others."
I certainly agree with the sibling post on this - just because you were a high scorer you think that you can decide this sort of thing on anecdotal evidence, hearsay and plain opinion. You can't.
Grad school? :P
"Any changes that arent bug fixes are met with violent resistance."
:)
Yes, it was *very* violent...
Yes, but will we be able to conveniently carry around that much data on small cards, send it over a network quickly, etc?
If not, then compression will still have its uses.
Here's what the license says.
'Software Other than Windows Anytime Upgrade. The first user of the software may
reassign the license to another device one time. If you reassign the license, that other device
becomes the "licensed device."'
Translation: You may yourself install it on up to two computers ("devices"). When you install it on the second computer, you must remove it from the first computer in order to reassign the license.
The first user is the person who accepted the EULA.
"Software Other Than Windows Anytime Upgrade. The first user of the software may make
a one time transfer of the software, and this agreement, directly to a third party. The first user
must uninstall the software before transferring it separately from the device. The first user may
not retain any copies."
"Other Requirements. Before any permitted transfer, the other party must agree that this
agreement applies to the transfer and use of the software. The transfer must include the proof
of license."
Translation: you (the first user) may <i>yourself</i> transfer the license once. You must remove the software from your own computer and pass on or delete all backups of the software. The person you are transferring to must accept the license.
Notice that that person (receiver) becomes the "first user" of <i>their copy</i> of the software.
All clear?
The license says you can only transfer the software once, and with the agreement. But the person you transfer it to can also transfer it once themselved, because they are bound by an agreement between Microsoft and them, not between Microsoft and you.
They stopped using the logo.
#3 (software updates) can be decentralised, and as simple as "your MSI should include a URL giving the address of an XML file on the web, which matches this DTD."
/>
...
(Slashdot has removed my indenting)
An example:
<app>
<appname>Acrobat</appname>
<publisher>Adobe</publisher>
<versions>
<version>
<num>9.0</num>
<released>2006-10-01</released>
<upgradecost>50 USD or 40 GBP or 50 EUR; for students and other currencies see website</upgrade>
<download>http://...</download>
<changes>...</changes>
<criticalupdate
</version>
more
</versions>
</app>
<app>
<appname>Photoshop Album Starter Edition</appname>
</app>
A Windows service could get these XML files regularly, present the user with a list of updates (with the option to show a changelog) and offer to install them. It isn't too different from the new "game signature" XML files, which include the game's publisher, version, name and rating in various areas.
Installation and finding apps to install can wait for another day. But I'm disappointed in the MSI format wrt updates.
I would explain it with a velocity-time graph. In the UK you have to understand speed-time graphs and distance-time graphs by 14 (but not really about instantaneous rates of change). So any student I come across will understand them.
It also helps to draw the two graphs (velocity and displacement) one above the other. Anybody will realise "high velocity -> displacement increasing fast" and "no velocity -> displacement isn't changing".
That's the images.google.com subdomain.
A viscous cycle? Indeed. :)
;)
To the sibling post: did you know NHS is the third-largest employer in the entire world? My dad said so, and he works there (IT job), so it *must* be true.
Perhaps I should rephrase: those other people just have a poor vocabulary or do not know their words in a precise way. They aren't stupid in the more general sense.
;) then you aren't going to have the vocab to achieve on the test.
Unlike, say, the Israeli "psychometri" school-leaving exam (which my Israeli cousin tells me is full of archaic words that you would never see in newspapers, books or pretty much anywhere), there are few words in the SAT that can't be picked up through the normal course of reading. Of course, if you've been reading nothing but the lower third on the news channels
Hey... did you mean an elitist *fool*? Or maybe I'm a tool of the testing system?
I'm also likely to take the SAT, with the subject tests. A friend who went to America got me Kaplan for the subject tests and Princeton Review for the general test. I'm going to take SAT I, Math II and Physics.
7 9&lastnode_id=0
For the math section in the SAT, if you got an A at GCSE that is probably sufficient. As for the english reading section, it's fairly simple.
Princeton Review seems to be the exam technique for idiots. Sentence completion (me):
1) Read the question
2) Read the choices
3) Point to the correct one (in the rare case that I can't work it out, a guess will do if I can eliminate at least one option, see [1])
4) Write that down.
Sentence completion (them):
1) Read the question
2) Identify whether the clauses of the sentence are contradictory ("however", "on the other hand", "but" and many more listed in the book), supportive ("similarly" etc) or neautral
3) Identify the word in the question which the answeer has to support or contradict
4) Identify the answer
5) Write it down
They claim people are suckered into close seconds for sentence completion. Well, I've tried it and I'm not. Those "other people" are just stupid.
More another day (or later today), when I dig out my Princeton Review book to show you how terrible the whole thing is. But meanwhile, consider this:
"Beginning of test => Easy questions => Obvious answer"
"End of test => Hard questions => Obvious answer choices are wrong"
(math): answers which are numbers given in the question are obvious. This means that on many higher questions they are wrong.
[1] http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=10948
"Every Little Helps" is Tesco's slogan, repeated in every advert. It refers to stuff like 5p off this and double clubcard points on that, and people at the counter packing your bags for you (never mind that they probably use too many bags and end up crushing your tomatoes anyway), and a smile and "thank you", and all those lovely things.
Actually, I'm seeing advertisement in the UK. I think it's just one day/week for most people, and a whole month for schools.
"Plus Linux can't play your HD-DVDs, Blu-Ray discs, Word documents edited in Office 2007 [perhaps employers will set it to add protection to all files of the new format], nor view many websites! You may not even be able to use your current files!"
TC -> the end of interoperability.
"Am I the only one who sees the hipocracy here?"
Yes!
Using P2P you could have listened to the song *any* amount of times before deleting it. They don't know! Maybe you even uploaded it to somebody else or copied it to another device.
So maybe you *didn't* decide it was crap, unlike what you would claim in court.
Correction: They take 18% from the answerer's earnings. So the people asking for $2.50 for their solution - they only get $2.05. They get another $2.05 whenever anybody else buys their solution.
Sad.
And everybody's scrambled to answer! Because 20% of each answer is shown without payment, the guy asking can probably complete the question without paying anybody. And once somebody pays for your answer, it isn't a free-for-all -- other people have to pay to see the same solution. They're selling your solution multiple times. (Although thankfully, they don't seem to take commission)
... " and another reads "... an use this link http://www.freed/ ... " - looks like Google can find the full solution ;).
The top earner recieved $20 from one person, for answering two stats questions (which look to me like they could probably be answered by an A-Level statistics student or first-year university course in stats). That sounds like a fluke to me - or possibly even engineered by the owners of the site to make it look like a money-spinner.
The second-highest bounty - $1.00 - is for a URL. One person's preview reads "... id.com/dict/spanish-food
Anybody using this (to ask) is easily parted with their money anyway, since answers and even *gasp* hints are often given out on online forums for free or for some internal currency system (reputation/karma)
"I disagree: if you have a contract with someone and you violate the terms of the contract, you can be sued. How is playing at a casino different?"
Exactly! It isn't different. But it's up to the casino to write the contract, define cheating, and get everybody to agree that it can refuse to cash in chips at any time, and to agree that if they later find out you cheated then they can sue you for the money you got via that cheat. The law doesn't come into it.
First of all, I work a 9-5 at a private university. I've been working on computers since 1976, and working professionally since 1993'. I've worked for several fortune 500 companies and have always helped out my friends and family doing tech support so to a point doing what you are saying is no skin off my teeth since I already do it at least in a limited degree.
First thing I did was create a business with low overhead. I did what they call a fictitious name, so that legally *BusinessName01* = *MyRealName*. I was concerned about exposure and litigation, but since I was really small time, I thought the risk was small enough for me only to spend $75 bucks for the fictitious name, and about $25 bucks for 1000 business cards that I designed. Very simple and to the point.
When I decided to start my business, I already had had about 5-6 years of in business computer/network experience. I also investigated a bit about computer consulting and basically discovered that consultants pay more per hr because they work on a very specific when where how who why type deal. It's not a constant job, but you are at some ones beck and call. So for that convenience + your technical experience they should pay $X amount.
So, armed with a factious name, a set business cards, a cell phone that worked both personal/business calls, I set out to conquer the world. First thing I did, was ignore any forms of marketing that cost money. I used social networking; I went to every person I knew, and that I could ask a small favor from and told them of what I was doing, dropped them each 10 business cards and asked them, that if any of them would hear of anyone that are having computer/network problems that I would be the person to call.
When I was at the grocery store, I put up my business card there on the corkboard meant for community info (like everyone else). When I met someone new, and I could steer the conversation into the fact that I provide *professional computer consulting services for small businesses and residence* I did.
It started with one client; then two, and then one of my clients, recommended me to their friends, and they recommended me to their friends. It GREW FROM THERE.
I've not had to pay any money for advertising. I've just focused on delivering the most customer services based support possible; just like another write stated, be punctual, look neat, speak professionally, and honestly care about them and their data. LISTEN to them. Listen to what they are interested and concerned about. Most of it is the social interaction and making them feel good about paying you and using you then you actually doing the technical work.
I've built a SOLID, following to the point that I'm no longer taking any more clients, till I hire several technicians to do the work I used to.
So, mind you, Its taken me about 10 years, to built my business, but I know receive calls, call my techs, have the techs go out, do the work, I act as 2nd level phone and remote support and I make $$$.
So, what did I charge? Well, I started out at $125/hr. When people looked at me in utter horror, I told them, in this life, you get what you pay for. If you can only pay less, you will get what you are paying. I also immediately follow up with a completely honest statement that, "I can do in one hour, what other computer people can do in three, by using me you'll actually not only be saving money, but your time."
BE HONEST THOUGH; do not lie, because you will eventually be found out.
Competition started getting touch in the late 90's so I actually lowered my price down to $75/hr and feel very comfortable there. I have a setup in my home, where I can bring their pc, plug it in, perform whatever maintenance I need and get it back to the user very quickly. All while, I'm watching TV, eating dinner, playing computer games or whatever. If you know what you are doing, you don't have to baby-sit the machine, just make the critical decisions when it's needed.
I'm considering
We have the same thing at our secondary school. Instead of using useful stuff like Group Policy and ACLs to restrict usage, they do stuff like disable right-click in Explorer, remove the File menu in Explorer and IE (Q: how are you meant to preview print-friendly pages? A: You don't know a print-friendly page when you see one. Paste the contents of the page into Word.), disable the Run dialog, and many (many MANY) other tiny restrictions, like not being able to access regedit.
.js, .doc, .xls, .zip are blocked, as well as all Flash and Java applets (without even a whitelist to include bbc.com and similar sites). They even blocked .css for a few minutes once, apparently without knowing what a CSS file does.
On top of all that, crucial downloads like
Of course many of the restrictions are not difficult to bypass. A webserver with PHP allows you to download "dangerous" files by altering the MIME-type and filename. You can do useful "right-click" actions like creating a new folder through the MS Word Open File dialog. You can also access USB memory sticks through that. So all they do is confuse and inconvenience people. (Most people have work from 5 years ago in their main folder.)
You can upgrade along this path in Vista:
Home Basic -> Home Premium -> Ultimate
This doesn't require any extra media or even downloads - just online payment, some sort of activation mechanism, pop in your install media to fetch the packages, and you're off!
I suspect a lot of people will feel cheated that they've bought a CD with everything they need and Microsoft are then just withholding a special license key for their own amusement (and profit). I'm sure the retailers will also encourage people to buy Home Premium or Ultimate "in case you need one of those things" and conveniently forget to mention how simple an upgrade is to do later.
This guy supplied bagels daily to each company, always with the same note asking for certain prices. For companies where people weren't paying (I think that level is about 70% payment), he would add another note reminding people they weren't free. So that explanation does not really make sense.
"it's goodbye internet and welcome to the split internet."
You mean the splinternet?