I have a crappy machine with a small hard drive. If I installed MS Office, I wouldn't have a whole
lot more space left (with the rest of the crap I have on my drive as well). The idea of being able to hop online and
write up something and send it to someone is awesome. I am sure they will constantly be adding new features and fixing bugs.
It'll be great for kids who might have hispeed or dialup but not Office, as well as schools who might not be able to afford
the site license for Office.
It might not be perfect, but it's pretty cool.
Huzzah to Google and Writely!
I also work as tech support to family and friends and even my roommates (as well as doing it as a semi-living). I agree, it is a pain in the ass, but I've found that most people will try and pay you somehow (slip you some cash or make dinner and importantly, give you a ride home). This being said, I did some on call work for a place downtown and when I first started working there, they had a few imacs (never really a problem except for one tangerine 333 that had a problem reseating the logic board right so the cdrom drawer wouldn't be screwy, but it's fixed now) and 5 dells and a Compaq (which was one of the worst machines I ever dealt with. Just nasty. When the lady who had to use it was buying a computer and asked me what to get, I told her to get a Mac. She bought a Dell and had no end of problems with it) with various version of windows (the server was 95, and the rest were ME (ew), 98, and XP Pro). The guy who set up the network was apparently on crack and it was never set up right so when I was brought in I explained that to them (and that they needed to replace the server with a newer nicer machine (like a Mac!) and that for me to fix it I would need to come in on a saturday when no one was around and fix the complete problem. They were cheapasses and decided to not do that but call me when small things went wrong. Well, at one point the server was old and dead (and it was used as a main machine for the head of accounting, can you believe it?) but *I* got blamed for it and they never called me again. I told them there was a problem, I told them how to fix it, they skimp and I pay for it in the long run.
What's the point here? Tech support sucks.
And I had a nasty Dell Tech experience, I bought a p3 600 when it was a brand new machine. I had problems that were related to the motherbpard but I had to arm wrestle them to replace the machine and their stance? "We just won't do that". And they sent a tech to replace my videocard. After that I just dealt with stuff myself. Now I wanna replace my power supply but I have to check that pinout problem.
I can't wait to get a nice new g5 someday.
Go troll somewhere else. No one is saying Apple is king (ok, maybe thinking it, but not saying it), but let's face it, the iPod is the first really great mp3 player and it is the standard that all mp3 players will have to step up to in the future.
If comcast is your providor and you use a box anyway, when you sign up for the HDTV package, they give you a cable box with a hdtv tuner built in. No new fees, except for the 30 bucks they charge to come and install it. Of course you can circumvent that sowing up to pick up a box at thier offices with *your high def tv bill from the store to prove you have a hdtv*. No kidding.
Am I the only one who sees this as sort of a way to change the negative PR M$ has been getting recently? I'll tell you what the Philly School District is after: free stuff. The school buildings are all falling down, the teachers are incredibly untrained when it comes to computers, the budget is out of uncontrol because while the teachers are getting raises they are not held to any sort of accountability standards (they are quite highly paid in this area) and they can't seem to figure out a way to control the kids. So, in steps M$ to say "hey, we have seen that you are selling off alot of schools to become charter schools, so can't we jump in?". This is a good thing but also a bad thing. You know they make an assload of cash off site licenses from the S.D, and this gives them an opportunity to closer watch to see if they can audit for even more cash.
Even Coke and Pepsi are getting pressure to stop selling soda in schools (ever have to teach a kid who just pounded a pepsi big slam? I have. It's not pretty.) and are moving to juices and bottled waters. Completely sponsored schools are something to be slightly afraid of. Yeah, it's great that M$ seems to be playing philanthropist, but what are the motivations? Besides, there is already a high school for science and tech, George Washington Carver.
However, in this election time, I am sure that our whore-ish mayor, John "How about I just firebomb my opponent's office" (true story!) Street will put this in his ads.
While the thought of bad press for Microsoft makes me pretty damn giddy, this is turning into a nightmare for M$ as well as for Large Companies who must be wondering exactly what they are paying for. M$ needs to seriously sort out the people who work on this stuff in the first place, and get off the "we are M$, what else could you possibly want?" high horse.
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I have a crappy machine with a small hard drive. If I installed MS Office, I wouldn't have a whole lot more space left (with the rest of the crap I have on my drive as well). The idea of being able to hop online and write up something and send it to someone is awesome. I am sure they will constantly be adding new features and fixing bugs. It'll be great for kids who might have hispeed or dialup but not Office, as well as schools who might not be able to afford the site license for Office. It might not be perfect, but it's pretty cool. Huzzah to Google and Writely!
I also work as tech support to family and friends and even my roommates (as well as doing it as a semi-living). I agree, it is a pain in the ass, but I've found that most people will try and pay you somehow (slip you some cash or make dinner and importantly, give you a ride home). This being said, I did some on call work for a place downtown and when I first started working there, they had a few imacs (never really a problem except for one tangerine 333 that had a problem reseating the logic board right so the cdrom drawer wouldn't be screwy, but it's fixed now) and 5 dells and a Compaq (which was one of the worst machines I ever dealt with. Just nasty. When the lady who had to use it was buying a computer and asked me what to get, I told her to get a Mac. She bought a Dell and had no end of problems with it) with various version of windows (the server was 95, and the rest were ME (ew), 98, and XP Pro). The guy who set up the network was apparently on crack and it was never set up right so when I was brought in I explained that to them (and that they needed to replace the server with a newer nicer machine (like a Mac!) and that for me to fix it I would need to come in on a saturday when no one was around and fix the complete problem. They were cheapasses and decided to not do that but call me when small things went wrong. Well, at one point the server was old and dead (and it was used as a main machine for the head of accounting, can you believe it?) but *I* got blamed for it and they never called me again. I told them there was a problem, I told them how to fix it, they skimp and I pay for it in the long run. What's the point here? Tech support sucks. And I had a nasty Dell Tech experience, I bought a p3 600 when it was a brand new machine. I had problems that were related to the motherbpard but I had to arm wrestle them to replace the machine and their stance? "We just won't do that". And they sent a tech to replace my videocard. After that I just dealt with stuff myself. Now I wanna replace my power supply but I have to check that pinout problem. I can't wait to get a nice new g5 someday.
Go troll somewhere else. No one is saying Apple is king (ok, maybe thinking it, but not saying it), but let's face it, the iPod is the first really great mp3 player and it is the standard that all mp3 players will have to step up to in the future.
If comcast is your providor and you use a box anyway, when you sign up for the HDTV package, they give you a cable box with a hdtv tuner built in. No new fees, except for the 30 bucks they charge to come and install it. Of course you can circumvent that sowing up to pick up a box at thier offices with *your high def tv bill from the store to prove you have a hdtv*. No kidding.
Am I the only one who sees this as sort of a way to change the negative PR M$ has been getting recently? I'll tell you what the Philly School District is after: free stuff. The school buildings are all falling down, the teachers are incredibly untrained when it comes to computers, the budget is out of uncontrol because while the teachers are getting raises they are not held to any sort of accountability standards (they are quite highly paid in this area) and they can't seem to figure out a way to control the kids. So, in steps M$ to say "hey, we have seen that you are selling off alot of schools to become charter schools, so can't we jump in?". This is a good thing but also a bad thing. You know they make an assload of cash off site licenses from the S.D, and this gives them an opportunity to closer watch to see if they can audit for even more cash. Even Coke and Pepsi are getting pressure to stop selling soda in schools (ever have to teach a kid who just pounded a pepsi big slam? I have. It's not pretty.) and are moving to juices and bottled waters. Completely sponsored schools are something to be slightly afraid of. Yeah, it's great that M$ seems to be playing philanthropist, but what are the motivations? Besides, there is already a high school for science and tech, George Washington Carver. However, in this election time, I am sure that our whore-ish mayor, John "How about I just firebomb my opponent's office" (true story!) Street will put this in his ads.
While the thought of bad press for Microsoft makes me pretty damn giddy, this is turning into a nightmare for M$ as well as for Large Companies who must be wondering exactly what they are paying for. M$ needs to seriously sort out the people who work on this stuff in the first place, and get off the "we are M$, what else could you possibly want?" high horse.
Come on! Companies have been doing this for ages! Like Apple (and Dell for that matter) invented this crazy pricing scheme? That's just reaching.