Nokia's position is a bit on the extreme side, which makes it all the more curious since most of the stuff they use is being written by Opera. From the article:
"Nokia doesn't seem to be counting Opera among the European innovators", comments Håkon Wium Lie, CTO of Opera Software Inc, an innovation leader in the web browser market and producer of much of the software used in Nokia's mobile phones.
One almost gets the impression that Nokia may be looking to do a bit of "embracing and extending", and then relying on the slow pace of the courts to kill off competition?
What's really unfortunate though, is that, after the dust has settled and its all over but the shoutin', the lawyers are very seldom ever held accountable for their actions.
If, say, it turns out that SCO is in fact in league with the devil, and that David Boies joined SCO's cause fully aware of any lies told thus far, "justice" should demand he be punished alongside Darl McBride. What will most likely happen, though, is that Boies will only get to jack his fees by about a million bucks or so.
While I agree that Fedora 1 installed flawlessly (even on my funky hardware), I was more than a little disappointed with its overall speed. RH9 took about a minute and a half to get from power-on to desktop, but Fedora 1 took closer to three minutes on the same box, with the same basic apps. Has anyone else noticed speed decreases from release to release?
Yep, they mentioned the fee, which they said was in the $300+ range. I mentioned video surveillance, gated community, and a lawyer for a wife and they shut up.
It is an older box, though. Hope they're not too disappointed when they get it back.
I bet they would offer me even more choice and for less cost
Don't bet on it.
I just went the rounds with a Comcast over the fee increases and specifically asked what I could do to get my bill back down to the $50 a month range it was orignally at - my last Comcast bill was $72 (for basic plus Showtime/Starz). The second person's response (the first one hung up as soon as I asked to escalate the call) was that I could just go back to basic cable. And nothing else.
It became readily apparent that Comcast did not care about customer satisfaction in the least.
Long story short: I cancelled cable and switched to DirectTV where I got the same channels as before (plus a couple of surprising extras) for nearly $20 less per month. The quality is better, there's no banner-ad marketing on the info screens, the channel list is customizable, and customer service is stellar (three separate calls to check up on the installation and activation!).
As for Comcast: they asked how I planned to return my cable box. I told them to come get it. They said they couldn't do that until April 15th, and that I'd need to sit at home all day to wait for the pickup guy. I told 'em I wasn't about to take any time off and if they want it, it'll be out front.
I think it is a fairly large barrier to big business adoption, but not because of installation guidelines.
One of the principle factors involved in computer ownership is familiarity. People buy what they see and promote what they know. C-Level executives have to buy their home computers somewhere and if all they're exposed to at the local Geeks 'R Us is XP and Office 2K3, then they are never going to have a clue about the look/feel/usability of any alternatives. If they can't toy with Linux at the local shop, they are never going to go out of their way to learn about it on their own. I'm not saying this is a "good" thing (in fact, I hate this attitude), its just a cold and hard business reality.
If there were more OEM installations on display at Geeks 'R Us that customers could see/use/play with, then the increased exposure would help wash away the FUD of mysticism that surrounds open source today.
what concerns me is a law (and I could see this happening) that forbids anyone to remove RFID tags
I agree - if this happens, I move to Tonga.
What bothers me is that the RFID tags are about the size of a flake of pepper. This makes it really easy for a less-than-honest business (and isn't the U.S. just doing a wonderful job of showing the world what "honest business" means nowadays . ..) to ignore the proposed RFID labelling law and bury the damn things inside the lining of a shirt. Short of carrying an RFID jammer everywhere - and I ain't seen any yet - there's little to no defense against the intrusion or tracking.
You're invited. Look for the message, and apologies in advance if I swapped firstname/lastname. Guess I should have probably been a little more specific as to what Orkut wants on the invite screen;-)
Yep. But I don't think its a rogue, I think its more the way Orkut tallies the numbers.
What I think is happening is that upon subscribing to a group, there's a slight delay as the system backtraces the other members of the group to geta near accurate count of all the links between the members and their friends. Once its finished, your count increases. All well and good from a visual perspective, but a gross overstatement of popularity in the real world.
Oh, and just as an FYI, my "friends" count increased another 5000 since I last checked it yesterday morning.
While I see some great potential for these types of sites, I have to wonder about the strength or veracity of the social networks they claim to foster. For example, Orkut tells me I'm now "connected" to over 150,000 folks, even though I only have three "friends" added to my profile. Just because I joined to the Debian/Apache/PHP/EFF/Dachshund forums doesn't mean all the other members even know of my existence, or care.
Still though, it does do wonders for the ego . . .
Come on gang, let's rein in the hyperbole a bit, shall we?
Last I looked, no one has actually been to Europa, and no one is positive just what the oceans there are made of. Since nobody knows, the question of how these oceans may, or may not react to the introduction of a foreign object/element is valid. The answers will be relative to the conditions presented upon an actual visit. Who's to say how a Europan ecosystem might react to any contaminant? Scientists should be asking these questions.
BTW. The bucket analogy is flawed. Sure a drop of water in a bucket is probably harmless. But a drop of water carrying Ebola is most definitely not.
This type of advertising is about as morally honest as a telemarekteer calling collect.
Please GOD somebody tell me what the hell I have to do to be left alone by marketing, or to be marketed to on my own terms.
And don't give me any of that "you can just go offline" shit either. I need to use the 'net to do my job, which enables me to make money, which enables me to pay for the stuff I want to buy. And believe me, if I'm annoyed by callous marketing tactics such as this, they will not see one penny of my money. EVER!!!.
Corporate America, are you listening? Are you listening at all?!?
Slashdot Mirror
Funny, I always heard it was "BIND Is Never Done".
Read a EULA recently? Neither does a whole lot of non-free software.
Nokia's position is a bit on the extreme side, which makes it all the more curious since most of the stuff they use is being written by Opera. From the article:
One almost gets the impression that Nokia may be looking to do a bit of "embracing and extending", and then relying on the slow pace of the courts to kill off competition?
How to acquire French cuisine in four simple steps:
Why do you think they call it "code"?
What's really unfortunate though, is that, after the dust has settled and its all over but the shoutin', the lawyers are very seldom ever held accountable for their actions.
If, say, it turns out that SCO is in fact in league with the devil, and that David Boies joined SCO's cause fully aware of any lies told thus far, "justice" should demand he be punished alongside Darl McBride. What will most likely happen, though, is that Boies will only get to jack his fees by about a million bucks or so.
I think I'd rather have somebody talking about privacy issues before they became practice, than after the fact.
While I agree that Fedora 1 installed flawlessly (even on my funky hardware), I was more than a little disappointed with its overall speed. RH9 took about a minute and a half to get from power-on to desktop, but Fedora 1 took closer to three minutes on the same box, with the same basic apps. Has anyone else noticed speed decreases from release to release?
Yep, they mentioned the fee, which they said was in the $300+ range. I mentioned video surveillance, gated community, and a lawyer for a wife and they shut up.
It is an older box, though. Hope they're not too disappointed when they get it back.
Don't bet on it.
I just went the rounds with a Comcast over the fee increases and specifically asked what I could do to get my bill back down to the $50 a month range it was orignally at - my last Comcast bill was $72 (for basic plus Showtime/Starz). The second person's response (the first one hung up as soon as I asked to escalate the call) was that I could just go back to basic cable. And nothing else.
It became readily apparent that Comcast did not care about customer satisfaction in the least.
Long story short: I cancelled cable and switched to DirectTV where I got the same channels as before (plus a couple of surprising extras) for nearly $20 less per month. The quality is better, there's no banner-ad marketing on the info screens, the channel list is customizable, and customer service is stellar (three separate calls to check up on the installation and activation!).
As for Comcast: they asked how I planned to return my cable box. I told them to come get it. They said they couldn't do that until April 15th, and that I'd need to sit at home all day to wait for the pickup guy. I told 'em I wasn't about to take any time off and if they want it, it'll be out front.
I think it is a fairly large barrier to big business adoption, but not because of installation guidelines.
One of the principle factors involved in computer ownership is familiarity. People buy what they see and promote what they know. C-Level executives have to buy their home computers somewhere and if all they're exposed to at the local Geeks 'R Us is XP and Office 2K3, then they are never going to have a clue about the look/feel/usability of any alternatives. If they can't toy with Linux at the local shop, they are never going to go out of their way to learn about it on their own. I'm not saying this is a "good" thing (in fact, I hate this attitude), its just a cold and hard business reality.
If there were more OEM installations on display at Geeks 'R Us that customers could see/use/play with, then the increased exposure would help wash away the FUD of mysticism that surrounds open source today.
I agree - if this happens, I move to Tonga.
What bothers me is that the RFID tags are about the size of a flake of pepper. This makes it really easy for a less-than-honest business (and isn't the U.S. just doing a wonderful job of showing the world what "honest business" means nowadays . . .) to ignore the proposed RFID labelling law and bury the damn things inside the lining of a shirt. Short of carrying an RFID jammer everywhere - and I ain't seen any yet - there's little to no defense against the intrusion or tracking.
You're invited. Look for the message, and apologies in advance if I swapped firstname/lastname. Guess I should have probably been a little more specific as to what Orkut wants on the invite screen ;-)
Yep. But I don't think its a rogue, I think its more the way Orkut tallies the numbers.
What I think is happening is that upon subscribing to a group, there's a slight delay as the system backtraces the other members of the group to geta near accurate count of all the links between the members and their friends. Once its finished, your count increases. All well and good from a visual perspective, but a gross overstatement of popularity in the real world.
Oh, and just as an FYI, my "friends" count increased another 5000 since I last checked it yesterday morning.
Done. Look for the invite in your Inbox (it took mine a couple of days to deliver, though).
Or, the line in Mel Brook's History of the World, Part One:
I'll invite you in. All you need to do is send me your e-mail address. Credit card information is optional.
While I see some great potential for these types of sites, I have to wonder about the strength or veracity of the social networks they claim to foster. For example, Orkut tells me I'm now "connected" to over 150,000 folks, even though I only have three "friends" added to my profile. Just because I joined to the Debian/Apache/PHP/EFF/Dachshund forums doesn't mean all the other members even know of my existence, or care.
Still though, it does do wonders for the ego . . .
Come on gang, let's rein in the hyperbole a bit, shall we?
Last I looked, no one has actually been to Europa, and no one is positive just what the oceans there are made of. Since nobody knows, the question of how these oceans may, or may not react to the introduction of a foreign object/element is valid. The answers will be relative to the conditions presented upon an actual visit. Who's to say how a Europan ecosystem might react to any contaminant? Scientists should be asking these questions.
BTW. The bucket analogy is flawed. Sure a drop of water in a bucket is probably harmless. But a drop of water carrying Ebola is most definitely not.
Yes we do.
This type of advertising is about as morally honest as a telemarekteer calling collect.
Please GOD somebody tell me what the hell I have to do to be left alone by marketing, or to be marketed to on my own terms.
And don't give me any of that "you can just go offline" shit either. I need to use the 'net to do my job, which enables me to make money, which enables me to pay for the stuff I want to buy. And believe me, if I'm annoyed by callous marketing tactics such as this, they will not see one penny of my money. EVER!!! .
Corporate America, are you listening? Are you listening at all?!?
And you needed to do this, why?
Maybe, just maybe, its the insurance companies that have gotten out of control?
Some folks might think that receiving 100 spams a day is the "killer" part of the app.