I live in North Pole, Alaska. I STILL can't buy videos - ITMS says that I'm not in the USA. I've submitted support requests and only received computer-generated BS back. No human has ever resonded. I even called hardware support and got the helpful tech to see if he could find someone to talk to me about it, but no dice.
It really upsets me because I'd like to buy a video iPod, but I'm not going to until they get this straightened out. I can buy everything else through ITMS, but not videos.
This is what I hate about streaming video! Streaming video is great for LIVE performances. But if the performance is OVER then provide a fscking link to a real fscking movie file that I can download and watch! I'd love to see this, but it stutters and stops and is really pissing me off. If they provided a link to a downloadable movie I could just wait for the download to finish and play it AT MY LEISURE without having to be inconvenienced by their (or my) pathetic excuse for a connection. Seriously, if you ARE going to have stream-only content you'd better host it on akamai.com or another service provider like them. Otherwise, if you don't think you can handle the load provide a BITTORRENT!
We use CommuniGate Pro. We don't have that many users, but I know that it scales very well, has excellent clustering capability, runs on every platform (we run ours on RHEL3) and high-uptimes. It's supposed to be an "ISP-class" email server. I'm fairly sure they already have customers who have more than a million email accounts and I'm pretty sure you can get five 9's out of it. I know we've been very happy with ours for the last 6 years or so.
Even though we are a small customer, I've almost never failed to get one of their "top" engineers (like Vlad) on the phone for support immediately. In my experience they don't run you around to "help-desk" level guys first like so many other companies. The very few times we've actually had issues, they were solved immediately (and, were almost always something we screwed up:-)
The best part, IMHO, is they make it a point to be standards-compliant. They point you directly to the RFC's for every item right from their web site. They also have support for Mailing lists, MAPI, ACAP, SIP, RADIUS, etc. WebMail address books are stored in vCard format. Their calendaring solution uses iCal/vCal, their users are stored in LDAP, and they have a good Perl module and CLI interface. Their plugin architecture is simple and flexible enough that I was able to sit down and write a plugin in Perl that allowed our users to be authenticated off both their internal system and a proprietary, in-house database we have (which-ever set of credentials match, works). It only took me about 20 minutes to get it all working. This sort of thing allows excellent opportunities for scripting management tasks. In fact they encourage it.
A million email addresses won't be cheap, but I can't think of too many other "supported packages" that can handle something like that "out of the box". Check them out at http://www.stalker.com/ You can try it for free even.
Market share is NOT the same thing as installed user-base! I've heard figures anywhere from 5-17% for mac installed user-base. Sure, Windows is a lot higher than mac, but 1000/1 is NOT realistic. More Apple stores are popping up all the time, the iPod is still on a roll, OS X is moving to Intel (another psychological barrier broken there), viruses and malware continue to proliferate for Windows, OS X continues to improve in Windows interoperability and enterprise features are rapidly becoming available. All these factors I think will start shaping the landscape toward a much more homogenous OS playing-field. When that happens, people will become more aware that there are alternatives to Windows. Manufacturers might even start shipping boxes with a branded version of Linux on them. All-in-all, I'd say Microsoft has about 3-4 more years of "total dominance" before they're going to have to seriously change their focus or strategy.
Just last week a friend of mine came to me complaining that his 13-year-old son had (once again) "totally screwed up" the family PC. I asked him if they did much gaming on it and he said they had a PlayStation they used for that. The PC was for mostly homework, email and web surfing. I said "Hey, If you have to reinstall anyway, how about installing SUSE instead?" He gave me a blank look and I explained that SUSE was an alternative to Windows. (another blank stare) I said, "It's a version of Linux..." (stare) "...made by Novell (OK I lied a bit)". Oh, OK, he'd heard of Novell. After explaining to him that it came with everything he'd need (legally and for free), he said he never knew there was even a choice.
After a few days I ran into him again and asked how it had gone. He said, "Since my son broke it, I told him he had to fix it. I handed him the CD's and he installed it all by himself. He then asked me which virus software and firewall software he should buy. I told him he didn't need any, that it was all there and already working for him with no cost (a bit of a stretch, I know, but the impact was what I'd hoped - later I'll mention that he may want to scan Office documents manually with ClamAV so as not to spread anything nasty to his poor "Windows-using friends".)
For this guy, Linux is the perfect solution. We'll give it some time and see, but I predict that after surfing pop-up free, malware-free, virus-free and trouble-free for a while he'll really have to think twice the next time he upgrades his PC. Maybe, after taking the first step he'd even consider buying a mac-mini - now that he's seen that Windows isn't the only way to get the job done.
Is there a way to find out who approved this patent (and many other blatently obvious ones)?
Is it a committe? An individual?
Is there a way to publicly humiliate the asshat(s) responsible?
I can't see reform happening until the average Joe gets directly affected and starts calling their congressman about it. What we need is an op-ed piece in the NYT or Tribune, etc. pointing out all this supreme stupidity.
Less popular songs will actually be a lot cheaper.
Yeah, but how man songs will actually drop below $.99? I'll bet the music industry will decide what is "popular" and set the price points. Amazingly, 83% of music will be "popular" and the rest will be "fairly popular" at $.99.
OK, I'm being a bit cynical, but even if the let Apple decide the prices, my understanding is that Apple makes very little off each tune. If the average price would be lowered (because, on average, many more songs should be priced lower than $.99, since in reality there are only a relative handfull of "new and popular" songs compared to the huge amount of old music out there.) then Apple stands a chance of loosing a lot of money by having to sell old songs at a loss.
Think about it. For the Labels, new songs and acts must be marketed, this costs money. For Apple, it is probably cheaper for them to deliver a new song since it is already digitally encoded, and since as far as storage and delivery goes all other costs even out or are even more for older songs. After all, older songs need to be (perhaps) re-mastered and encoded. Older songs, especially classical music, also takes up more storage space and bandwidth, since they tend to be longer. So from Apple's perspective, older songs should cost more or at least remain at the current price point.
I'm pretty cynical when it comes to corporate decision-making (just got into it with my "Boss' Boss" about that Friday) and I'll bet that only a few songs will be below $.99 and then only so they can point and say "See, some songs are way cheap!" when most songs will have their prices raised; if not immediately, in the future. Apple's $.99 price point is a tough barrier because of the psychological hurdle required to raise all the songs to a higher number. It's also a good long-term price point because music, in reality, is becoming cheaper to record, distribute, promote, store, etc. (contrary to what the RI**-asses will try to tell you).
It is now possible for a knowledgeable and talented individual or group to record and mix their own, highly professional music right on their PC. Look at Lincoln Park. They do a lot of their production work in the back of their RV on a Mac with ProTools. With programs like Garage Band getting more sophisticated and more people being exposed to tools like this at a young age, we will see a lot more talent literally coming out of the wood-work.
The RI** just has to face the fact that they are dinosaurs. They aren't needed and they aren't wanted. Their only recourse is to become another SCO and litigate everyone to death. This may work in the short term, but in the long term it will piss people off and drive new talent to other methods of marketing and distribution. Technology will allow new and novel methods of promotion and distribution that will allow real talent to become known and heard (maybe a SlashDot music category;-)
Anyway, my point is, I don't see prices falling, I see them rising. I also see Apple changing it's focus from RI** crap to more Indie/grass-roots stuff. Look at pod-casting. Apple can combine the two concepts and maybe even allow indie bands to provide loss-less, and DRM-free lossy formats at different price points. Who knows. I just don't like the smell of this current development no mater how they try to spin it.
There are a lot of idiological arguments going on here. Most of them about how it's "not free" and that it doesn't do a good enough job of breaking people away from the Windows monopoly. There are also a lot of posters complaining about Mom and Pop issues.
Hello! This is Xandros Business Edition. BTW, I am currently typing this on Xandros Business edition 2.5. Why? I am at work in a enterprise work place. I have an existing Active Directory domain with almost 30,000 accounts and tons of kerberized services that interoperate with it.
Why Xandros? Because I tried Fedora Core 1,2,3, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Knopix, WhiteBox and a few others (except SuSe). They were all more than acceptable for "desktop use" by a single user with a little (or in some cases a lot) of tweaking.
What did Xandros do that won me over? After installing, it asked me (graphically) how I wanted to handle user accounts. I chose to have it join our Active Directory domain. Upon login for the first time as a "regular user", I had a home directory auto-created, I had a folder on my desktop called "DriveH" which automatically mounted my network home directory and I could browse my entire network, connect to any of the resources in any of the different domains or workgroups and have them automounted in the future with a simple checkbox.
This was too good to be true... No mucking with pam-ldap, no manual additions to/etc/passwd, no custom login/automount scripts, no commandline kerberos crap? Just to be sure, I logged off, and logged in as a different account (a standard testing account). Again, my home directory was auto-created, my network home directory was auto-mapped. It just worked. So did printing, so did CD burning, so did almost every other thing I needed to do on a daily basis as a general user.
Sure, I'd been able to get most of this working with the other distros I tried, but they were a pain and every one of them required a lot of mucking about on the command line at one point or another and I never did get any of them working where users were automagically added when a new person logged in - I always had to have made an entry in/etc/passwd first, if only to just assign a uid and guid. (NOTE: we do not have Services for Unix on our windows servers)
Just so that you know, I also downloaded the "free" version of Xandros and tried it. It did NOT have the enterprise, Active Directory, multi-user functionality in it. It also didn't have some of the drivers for things like my SATA drive (at least the version I tried). But that was OK. I was in an enterprise environment, and I needed an enterprise desktop OS.
Would I give Xandros to my mom? Sure. But she just needs a solid, reliable single-user desktop OS, so I'd probably point her to Ubuntu or Fedora Core 4. I personally think (with the exception of gaming and maybe taxes), Linux IS ready for the desktop, for a home user. With Xandros (and I hear SuSe) I think it is pretty darn close to ready in the enterprise as well - especially if you throw in in Crossover Office for those users who need Access Databases, proprietary Excel tie-ins with JDEdwards, etc.
But see, by moving the base OS to Linux, I, as an administrator, get several key benefits.
A robust OS that is resistant to most viruses and malware that is likely to infect us
Our users see that there is a viable alternative OS and Linux is added to their every day lexicon
Our users can start to explore the power of the Linux environment (multiple desktops, X11, freedom from popups, etc)
"Linux" becomes a word that management hears and can finally "see" and "touch"
When incompatabilites occur, most of the time I can point out that the problem lies with the fact that we're locked in to Microsoft's proprietary formats and protocols
The next time a major project is up for evaluation, we can ask the question "Is this so
If we are going to hold hackers to such a standard, how about holding operating system developers to the same standard? Death to anyone who codes bug-ridden, security-swiss-cheese!
How about those who are supposed to be educating users in the proper use of a computer but don't include anything about security and best practices (because they don't know themselves): Death to the school teachers for thinking that "teaching kids about computers" means "teach them Word and Excel". Death to business managers who fail to properly train their staff in proper security protocols. Better yet, death to all IT managers who continue deploying Windows!
"Hackers" and "Virus writers" (somehow TFA gets confused and makes them sound like they are the same thing), are obviously bad guys and should be punished. But when a 19 year-old kid who uses a virus-writing tool-kit to script a virus gets harsher penalties than a murderer or a rapist, that's ridiculous!
Let's get some perspective people. If your computer systems are so critical that they mean more than life itself, you'd better have the world's best administrators, redundancy up the wazoo, and NOT be running Windows on them! There will come a day when computers will be driving/flying us around, diagnosing us, perhaps operating on us and maybe even teaching us. Before that day comes, we have a lot of work to do. We have to hold ALL PARTIES responsible for their [ab]use of the systems - from the manufacturers to the users.
Frankly, every time a new virus hits, I'm more pissed at the clueless end users who's infected machines keep spewing the garbage forth than the writers of the crap. I mean really, how long will we be seeing NetSky, SomeFool, etc? They show up daily in my virus scans. Those clueless users aught to have their computers impounded and their network connection severed until they can prove they care enough to learn how to be a responsible computer user.
You wouldn't allow just anyone to get behind the wheel of a car without training, demonstration of proficiency, and a license. When computers become "life threatening/critical" like a car can be, we should have no less. We also hold auto manufacturers responsible for the flaws in their designs/manufacturing - we should do no less for commercial OS developers.
[snip]We found this zlib bug close to 3 years ago at NASA IV&V duing Code Analysis for the SWIFT mission[/snip]
If this was found 3 years ago why wasn't it patched? WTF is my money going to? I pay YOU to help forward human knowledge and understanding. I fully expect that if you are going to use my public code and find a flaw in it that you report it and maybe even provide a working patch for it!
If your post isn't total bullshit, I'm pissed! I think there should be repercussions for this totally irresponsible attitude we see coming from NASA. When you say "the developers" I'm assuming you mean the developers of the SWIFT mission software, not the developers of zlib, because otherwise we wouldn't be seeing this article on Slashdot!
If, for some reason this turns into another Sasser or Code Red, I think penalties aught to be sought against these fuckwads. Using OSS has responsibilities associated with it too, you know!
But what if they charged you more becasue of where you lived? or your finacial statement? or your color?
Heh, I live in Alaska - talk to me about charging me more because of where I live! I can see it because of the cost of shipping, etc. That makes sense. What doesn't make sense though, is that I live 500 yards from the Alaska Pipeline and 3 frickin' miles from one of the refineries, but I pay more for my gas than almost everyone in the Lower 48! Last time I filled up it was $1.29 a gallon for unleaded and almost $1.40 for premium.
So yeah, I can see an instance where it could feel unfair. But, on the other hand, I live in Alaska, so I have that benefit too. It's hard to put a price on that:-)
As far as discriminating against race, religion, etc. I think that sucks and I'd really hate to think that still goes on. But, I can imagine, if I were a shop owner that I might give my regular customers a break, or those who paid me in cash, or a discount to mothers on mother's day or on their birthday, etc. I can see where having different prices for different people for the same item might make sense. I'm not a shop owner, though, so maybe I'd find that I couldn't do that so easily. I don't know:-)
They are relocating to a new area. They need to transport their belongins and their family a long distance and do not, yet, have a place to move in to when they get there. I won't go into their exact situation as it is noone's business but their own. Currently, the most cost-efective and simplest solution is to travel in a motor home while towing their vehicle with their belongings in the vehicle and on the roof-top luggage rack. This avoid hotel and restaurant expenses since they can eat and sleep in the motorhome. When they get to where they are going and find a place to live they can sell the beast and use the cash to offest the down-payment or what ever.
You may not *need* a motor home any more than you *need* a plane ticket; just walk or get on your fsck'ng bicycle and peddle dammit. Who are you to judge why they are in the financial situation they are in?
If I thought they were just picking up another toy, do you think I'd be throwing thousands of potential dollars away? If I had the money in cash to give them a loan, I'd do it. I don't. This is how I can help out. The same way someone reached out a hand when I was laid off with a 2-month-old baby and no more savings. I could have chosen welfare, but instead sucked in my pride and took some "charity" and a loan that I've since paid back from friends, family and the local church.
I have since recovered and am doing fairly well after digging myself out of that hole. Since then I've taken every opportunity to do what I can for those around me who genuinely need a hand. I don't give money to beggars, and I don't help anyone who isn't willing to put at least as much effort into helping themselves as I am in helping them. Do I have something I could do with the extra money? Sure, I've got a kid starting college in a year. Do I have something better to do with the money right now? No.
I'm not some feel-good, say all the right things, touchy-feely liberal who expects others to do all the giving and the helping; who thinks that by just saying I care, that it makes me a good person. I'm as conservative as you can get and greatly resent it when I see my money going to some welfare-case who lives next to a McDonalds with a help-wanted sign perpetually in the window, yet "can't find a job". That really burns me. But I know there are people who truly need help because of circumstances completely out of their control. I look around and see what *I* can do to help.
And I look around where I am. Why? Because that's the only way I'll *know* what help is really needed. You made a snap judgement from thousands of miles away without knowing the situation and determined (incorrectly) that it was an unecessary luxury item for them. It reminds me of the time when I was little some people came to our village (my parents were missionaries) and took pictures of some of the children running around naked and dirty. Later we found out they were poster-children for one of the "save the children" outfits. The problem was, one of the little girs was the daughter of the village elder. Boy would he have been upset if he found out his little girl was the "poor" child everyone was supposed to send money for (especially since he wasn't getting any). See, the problem was everyone was trying to help a problem a thousand miles away when they didn't even know the situation. They might be better to spend their money and efforts closer to home and offer help in a manner that really met the need. Cash is not always the answer.
But no, it's easier to write a check and feel absolved. Or vote for more "federal programs" (since it'll mainly affect the rich, who should be doing more anyway).
Aw, hell. What does it matter anyway? Wasn't this whole thread started because people were feeling outraged because someone else got a "better deal" than they did - regardless of whether the other person might have worked harder ( or bagained better, or was a dependable repeat customer, or was somehow in a target audience, etc.)?
My friend is not in the same financial hardship that my wife's coworker (friend) is in. At $3,000 the motor home is a steal. My choice to show compassion to someone who is going through a tough time and currently needs a reliable motor home (not for "camping", btw) should have no bearing on the good deal I'm willing to give my friend who wants a motor home, can afford one, but doesn't need a motor home.
If my friend can't understand that, then maybe I need to be more careful choosing friends.
If I'm willing to pay more for something than you are, what is unethical about someone selling to me at a higher price?
I agree. This doesn't exactly match what you are saying, but I recently purchased a non-restored, classic muscle car that I had my eye on for some time. I had a price in mind that I was willing to pay for it. When the owner finally relented, it turned out that they were willing to part with it for less than what I was willing to pay - so I bought it. I was happy with my purchase.
Soon after that, I was talking to some acquaintances (who admittedly have more experience and knowledge about classic cars than I do) and was given the impression that I might not have gotten the "deal" I thought I had (based simply on their experience and a verbal description of the vehicle). At first I was dismayed. I felt that I'd been taken, but then I realized, "Hey, wait a minute, nothing has changed. I wanted the car. I was happy with what I paid for it. I'm enjoying the hell out of it. What's the problem."
As it turned out, after having the vehicle actually inspected by an expert I discovered that it was in much better shape than it had a right to be (for being 35 years old) and that all the important VIN numbers matched and that there hadn't been any after-market body or engine modifications to speak of and almost no hidden rust or damage . It turned out that I actually had a better deal than I even thought from the beginning. But regardless I was happy with the purchase and it performed beyond my expectations and I got it for less than what I was willing to pay for it. Why should it upset me if someone else might have been able to get it for less. Good for them! Now this is a little different than buying a new commodity item online - it's a relatively rare and unique, used item - but as long as I got what I was expecting for a price I was happy with, that's what counts. What someone else "might" have gotten a similar (or the same) product for should in no way affect me.
I'm selling my classic class-A motor home. If I sell it in the paper, I want $4,500 for it. I have a friend that expressed interest in it that I quoted $3,000 for it. My wife has a coworker that is in need of one for a very specific thing and is in bad financial straights, I told her I let it go to him for $2,000, no money down and take payments. Should my friend be upset? $4,500 is less than market value and I won't go much lower than that on the open market. If a friend of mine approaches me I'd sell it to them for $3,000 or so. If my neighbor's house burned down I'd give it to them for $1. No-one should feel gypped.
The whole situation reminds me of a time when a coworker got a raise, but was reluctant to discuss it with me because they thought I'd be upset. I said that I was happy for them. They deserved it. They asked why I wasn't angry about it since I hadn't gotten one and I said "Did they take your raise out of my paycheck? Am I suddenly making less money now? Why shouldn't I be happy for you? Nothing has changed for me at all - besides, rich-boy, you buy lunch today"
I applaud your setup. Really. I admin a smaller heterogeneous network with about 20,000 users. We have Win 98,NT,XP,2k,2k3, OS2, Linux(several flavors), OS 7.6-9.2, OS X 10.1-Tiger. I really wish we had the amount of say over what our users ran on their systems that you do. It would be wonderful.
In our situation, all (new) systems receive some tweaking before being hammered on by the end user. But by far, the most locking down, adjusting, and configuring is done on the Windows Boxes (XP SP2 is much better in this respect). I always feel much more comfortable giving an OS X system to a clueless user to (try) to abuse and still allow it on our network than a Windows box. If nothing else fixing most problems on OS X is usually just a matter of trashing the user's "Library" folder; sometimes the user's folder itself. On windows, we almost always just re-image and pray the user has all their data backed up. It's just not worth the hassle to futz with it.
The problem is keeping all the images in order and up to date. we are much more likely to get boxes with the exact same hardware in them from Apple than we do from Dell. Dell isn't as bad as, say, Gateway in this respect, but the "same" machine purchased a few months apart might have different hardware in it. And God forbid if you try to do a clean install of a different OS without Dell's CD to kick it off with the right drivers. You'll spend all day searching for and downloading them and hope they work.
We just don't see that with the Apple's. End-to-end, they're just a lot less hassle and don't need all the third party software (Patchlink, AdAware, SpyBotSD, NortonAV, FireFox, etc.) to make them usable.
In a utopian environment like yours, PC's can be made to work just fine, but I'd argue that ANY OS could be made to work when you have an environment like yours. BOFHs, like me would love to have a setup like that:-) But it just isn't reality in most places and for a "small shop" like what the article was talking about, I can see where switching the entire infrastructure to Apple would make a huge difference. You could actually change your focus from locking the user down to helping them be more productive. It's would be a whole different mind-set.
Slashdot Mirror
It really upsets me because I'd like to buy a video iPod, but I'm not going to until they get this straightened out. I can buy everything else through ITMS, but not videos.
Nope. It's a local company that leases it's connection from AT&T. The link goes strait to Portland, Oregon.
It's not even U.S. only. I live in Alaska and I get an error message that says I'm not in the U.S. when I try to download the Pilot for Lost! WTF?
Damn, where's my coffee?
I have a chronic problem with the skin of my thumbs and occasionally my index finger. Do I get to choose and alternate finger? Multiple fingers?
Even though we are a small customer, I've almost never failed to get one of their "top" engineers (like Vlad) on the phone for support immediately. In my experience they don't run you around to "help-desk" level guys first like so many other companies. The very few times we've actually had issues, they were solved immediately (and, were almost always something we screwed up :-)
The best part, IMHO, is they make it a point to be standards-compliant. They point you directly to the RFC's for every item right from their web site. They also have support for Mailing lists, MAPI, ACAP, SIP, RADIUS, etc. WebMail address books are stored in vCard format. Their calendaring solution uses iCal/vCal, their users are stored in LDAP, and they have a good Perl module and CLI interface. Their plugin architecture is simple and flexible enough that I was able to sit down and write a plugin in Perl that allowed our users to be authenticated off both their internal system and a proprietary, in-house database we have (which-ever set of credentials match, works). It only took me about 20 minutes to get it all working. This sort of thing allows excellent opportunities for scripting management tasks. In fact they encourage it.
A million email addresses won't be cheap, but I can't think of too many other "supported packages" that can handle something like that "out of the box". Check them out at http://www.stalker.com/ You can try it for free even.
I hear cries of woe and lamentations from the liberals all over the world tonight!
Just last week a friend of mine came to me complaining that his 13-year-old son had (once again) "totally screwed up" the family PC. I asked him if they did much gaming on it and he said they had a PlayStation they used for that. The PC was for mostly homework, email and web surfing. I said "Hey, If you have to reinstall anyway, how about installing SUSE instead?" He gave me a blank look and I explained that SUSE was an alternative to Windows. (another blank stare) I said, "It's a version of Linux..." (stare) "...made by Novell (OK I lied a bit)". Oh, OK, he'd heard of Novell. After explaining to him that it came with everything he'd need (legally and for free), he said he never knew there was even a choice.
After a few days I ran into him again and asked how it had gone. He said, "Since my son broke it, I told him he had to fix it. I handed him the CD's and he installed it all by himself. He then asked me which virus software and firewall software he should buy. I told him he didn't need any, that it was all there and already working for him with no cost (a bit of a stretch, I know, but the impact was what I'd hoped - later I'll mention that he may want to scan Office documents manually with ClamAV so as not to spread anything nasty to his poor "Windows-using friends".)
For this guy, Linux is the perfect solution. We'll give it some time and see, but I predict that after surfing pop-up free, malware-free, virus-free and trouble-free for a while he'll really have to think twice the next time he upgrades his PC. Maybe, after taking the first step he'd even consider buying a mac-mini - now that he's seen that Windows isn't the only way to get the job done.
Is it a committe? An individual?
Is there a way to publicly humiliate the asshat(s) responsible?
I can't see reform happening until the average Joe gets directly affected and starts calling their congressman about it. What we need is an op-ed piece in the NYT or Tribune, etc. pointing out all this supreme stupidity.
Just because they can't spell.
I'm not a fan either - I've got kids who listen to them though.
OK, I'm being a bit cynical, but even if the let Apple decide the prices, my understanding is that Apple makes very little off each tune. If the average price would be lowered (because, on average, many more songs should be priced lower than $.99, since in reality there are only a relative handfull of "new and popular" songs compared to the huge amount of old music out there.) then Apple stands a chance of loosing a lot of money by having to sell old songs at a loss.
Think about it. For the Labels, new songs and acts must be marketed, this costs money. For Apple, it is probably cheaper for them to deliver a new song since it is already digitally encoded, and since as far as storage and delivery goes all other costs even out or are even more for older songs. After all, older songs need to be (perhaps) re-mastered and encoded. Older songs, especially classical music, also takes up more storage space and bandwidth, since they tend to be longer. So from Apple's perspective, older songs should cost more or at least remain at the current price point.
I'm pretty cynical when it comes to corporate decision-making (just got into it with my "Boss' Boss" about that Friday) and I'll bet that only a few songs will be below $.99 and then only so they can point and say "See, some songs are way cheap!" when most songs will have their prices raised; if not immediately, in the future. Apple's $.99 price point is a tough barrier because of the psychological hurdle required to raise all the songs to a higher number. It's also a good long-term price point because music, in reality, is becoming cheaper to record, distribute, promote, store, etc. (contrary to what the RI**-asses will try to tell you).
It is now possible for a knowledgeable and talented individual or group to record and mix their own, highly professional music right on their PC. Look at Lincoln Park. They do a lot of their production work in the back of their RV on a Mac with ProTools. With programs like Garage Band getting more sophisticated and more people being exposed to tools like this at a young age, we will see a lot more talent literally coming out of the wood-work.
The RI** just has to face the fact that they are dinosaurs. They aren't needed and they aren't wanted. Their only recourse is to become another SCO and litigate everyone to death. This may work in the short term, but in the long term it will piss people off and drive new talent to other methods of marketing and distribution. Technology will allow new and novel methods of promotion and distribution that will allow real talent to become known and heard (maybe a SlashDot music category ;-)
Anyway, my point is, I don't see prices falling, I see them rising. I also see Apple changing it's focus from RI** crap to more Indie/grass-roots stuff. Look at pod-casting. Apple can combine the two concepts and maybe even allow indie bands to provide loss-less, and DRM-free lossy formats at different price points. Who knows. I just don't like the smell of this current development no mater how they try to spin it.
There are a lot of idiological arguments going on here. Most of them about how it's "not free" and that it doesn't do a good enough job of breaking people away from the Windows monopoly. There are also a lot of posters complaining about Mom and Pop issues.
Hello! This is Xandros Business Edition. BTW, I am currently typing this on Xandros Business edition 2.5. Why? I am at work in a enterprise work place. I have an existing Active Directory domain with almost 30,000 accounts and tons of kerberized services that interoperate with it.
Why Xandros? Because I tried Fedora Core 1,2,3, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Knopix, WhiteBox and a few others (except SuSe). They were all more than acceptable for "desktop use" by a single user with a little (or in some cases a lot) of tweaking.
What did Xandros do that won me over? After installing, it asked me (graphically) how I wanted to handle user accounts. I chose to have it join our Active Directory domain. Upon login for the first time as a "regular user", I had a home directory auto-created, I had a folder on my desktop called "DriveH" which automatically mounted my network home directory and I could browse my entire network, connect to any of the resources in any of the different domains or workgroups and have them automounted in the future with a simple checkbox.
This was too good to be true... No mucking with pam-ldap, no manual additions to /etc/passwd, no custom login/automount scripts, no commandline kerberos crap? Just to be sure, I logged off, and logged in as a different account (a standard testing account). Again, my home directory was auto-created, my network home directory was auto-mapped. It just worked. So did printing, so did CD burning, so did almost every other thing I needed to do on a daily basis as a general user.
Sure, I'd been able to get most of this working with the other distros I tried, but they were a pain and every one of them required a lot of mucking about on the command line at one point or another and I never did get any of them working where users were automagically added when a new person logged in - I always had to have made an entry in /etc/passwd first, if only to just assign a uid and guid. (NOTE: we do not have Services for Unix on our windows servers)
Just so that you know, I also downloaded the "free" version of Xandros and tried it. It did NOT have the enterprise, Active Directory, multi-user functionality in it. It also didn't have some of the drivers for things like my SATA drive (at least the version I tried). But that was OK. I was in an enterprise environment, and I needed an enterprise desktop OS.
Would I give Xandros to my mom? Sure. But she just needs a solid, reliable single-user desktop OS, so I'd probably point her to Ubuntu or Fedora Core 4. I personally think (with the exception of gaming and maybe taxes), Linux IS ready for the desktop, for a home user. With Xandros (and I hear SuSe) I think it is pretty darn close to ready in the enterprise as well - especially if you throw in in Crossover Office for those users who need Access Databases, proprietary Excel tie-ins with JDEdwards, etc.
But see, by moving the base OS to Linux, I, as an administrator, get several key benefits.
After all:
How about those who are supposed to be educating users in the proper use of a computer but don't include anything about security and best practices (because they don't know themselves): Death to the school teachers for thinking that "teaching kids about computers" means "teach them Word and Excel". Death to business managers who fail to properly train their staff in proper security protocols. Better yet, death to all IT managers who continue deploying Windows!
"Hackers" and "Virus writers" (somehow TFA gets confused and makes them sound like they are the same thing), are obviously bad guys and should be punished. But when a 19 year-old kid who uses a virus-writing tool-kit to script a virus gets harsher penalties than a murderer or a rapist, that's ridiculous!
Let's get some perspective people. If your computer systems are so critical that they mean more than life itself, you'd better have the world's best administrators, redundancy up the wazoo, and NOT be running Windows on them! There will come a day when computers will be driving/flying us around, diagnosing us, perhaps operating on us and maybe even teaching us. Before that day comes, we have a lot of work to do. We have to hold ALL PARTIES responsible for their [ab]use of the systems - from the manufacturers to the users.
Frankly, every time a new virus hits, I'm more pissed at the clueless end users who's infected machines keep spewing the garbage forth than the writers of the crap. I mean really, how long will we be seeing NetSky, SomeFool, etc? They show up daily in my virus scans. Those clueless users aught to have their computers impounded and their network connection severed until they can prove they care enough to learn how to be a responsible computer user.
You wouldn't allow just anyone to get behind the wheel of a car without training, demonstration of proficiency, and a license. When computers become "life threatening/critical" like a car can be, we should have no less. We also hold auto manufacturers responsible for the flaws in their designs/manufacturing - we should do no less for commercial OS developers.
If your post isn't total bullshit, I'm pissed! I think there should be repercussions for this totally irresponsible attitude we see coming from NASA. When you say "the developers" I'm assuming you mean the developers of the SWIFT mission software, not the developers of zlib, because otherwise we wouldn't be seeing this article on Slashdot!
If, for some reason this turns into another Sasser or Code Red, I think penalties aught to be sought against these fuckwads. Using OSS has responsibilities associated with it too, you know!
REALLY cheesy movie though. I was hoping for a demo of rapid prototyping of some sort or something...
meh...
Sorry, That should have been $2.29 and $2.40. It must be that I'm still in denial.
So yeah, I can see an instance where it could feel unfair. But, on the other hand, I live in Alaska, so I have that benefit too. It's hard to put a price on that :-)
As far as discriminating against race, religion, etc. I think that sucks and I'd really hate to think that still goes on. But, I can imagine, if I were a shop owner that I might give my regular customers a break, or those who paid me in cash, or a discount to mothers on mother's day or on their birthday, etc. I can see where having different prices for different people for the same item might make sense. I'm not a shop owner, though, so maybe I'd find that I couldn't do that so easily. I don't know :-)
They are relocating to a new area. They need to transport their belongins and their family a long distance and do not, yet, have a place to move in to when they get there. I won't go into their exact situation as it is noone's business but their own. Currently, the most cost-efective and simplest solution is to travel in a motor home while towing their vehicle with their belongings in the vehicle and on the roof-top luggage rack. This avoid hotel and restaurant expenses since they can eat and sleep in the motorhome. When they get to where they are going and find a place to live they can sell the beast and use the cash to offest the down-payment or what ever.
You may not *need* a motor home any more than you *need* a plane ticket; just walk or get on your fsck'ng bicycle and peddle dammit. Who are you to judge why they are in the financial situation they are in?
If I thought they were just picking up another toy, do you think I'd be throwing thousands of potential dollars away? If I had the money in cash to give them a loan, I'd do it. I don't. This is how I can help out. The same way someone reached out a hand when I was laid off with a 2-month-old baby and no more savings. I could have chosen welfare, but instead sucked in my pride and took some "charity" and a loan that I've since paid back from friends, family and the local church.
I have since recovered and am doing fairly well after digging myself out of that hole. Since then I've taken every opportunity to do what I can for those around me who genuinely need a hand. I don't give money to beggars, and I don't help anyone who isn't willing to put at least as much effort into helping themselves as I am in helping them. Do I have something I could do with the extra money? Sure, I've got a kid starting college in a year. Do I have something better to do with the money right now? No.
I'm not some feel-good, say all the right things, touchy-feely liberal who expects others to do all the giving and the helping; who thinks that by just saying I care, that it makes me a good person. I'm as conservative as you can get and greatly resent it when I see my money going to some welfare-case who lives next to a McDonalds with a help-wanted sign perpetually in the window, yet "can't find a job". That really burns me. But I know there are people who truly need help because of circumstances completely out of their control. I look around and see what *I* can do to help.
And I look around where I am. Why? Because that's the only way I'll *know* what help is really needed. You made a snap judgement from thousands of miles away without knowing the situation and determined (incorrectly) that it was an unecessary luxury item for them. It reminds me of the time when I was little some people came to our village (my parents were missionaries) and took pictures of some of the children running around naked and dirty. Later we found out they were poster-children for one of the "save the children" outfits. The problem was, one of the little girs was the daughter of the village elder. Boy would he have been upset if he found out his little girl was the "poor" child everyone was supposed to send money for (especially since he wasn't getting any). See, the problem was everyone was trying to help a problem a thousand miles away when they didn't even know the situation. They might be better to spend their money and efforts closer to home and offer help in a manner that really met the need. Cash is not always the answer.
But no, it's easier to write a check and feel absolved. Or vote for more "federal programs" (since it'll mainly affect the rich, who should be doing more anyway).
Aw, hell. What does it matter anyway? Wasn't this whole thread started because people were feeling outraged because someone else got a "better deal" than they did - regardless of whether the other person might have worked harder ( or bagained better, or was a dependable repeat customer, or was somehow in a target audience, etc.)?
[end completely off-topic rant]
If my friend can't understand that, then maybe I need to be more careful choosing friends.
Soon after that, I was talking to some acquaintances (who admittedly have more experience and knowledge about classic cars than I do) and was given the impression that I might not have gotten the "deal" I thought I had (based simply on their experience and a verbal description of the vehicle). At first I was dismayed. I felt that I'd been taken, but then I realized, "Hey, wait a minute, nothing has changed. I wanted the car. I was happy with what I paid for it. I'm enjoying the hell out of it. What's the problem."
As it turned out, after having the vehicle actually inspected by an expert I discovered that it was in much better shape than it had a right to be (for being 35 years old) and that all the important VIN numbers matched and that there hadn't been any after-market body or engine modifications to speak of and almost no hidden rust or damage . It turned out that I actually had a better deal than I even thought from the beginning. But regardless I was happy with the purchase and it performed beyond my expectations and I got it for less than what I was willing to pay for it. Why should it upset me if someone else might have been able to get it for less. Good for them! Now this is a little different than buying a new commodity item online - it's a relatively rare and unique, used item - but as long as I got what I was expecting for a price I was happy with, that's what counts. What someone else "might" have gotten a similar (or the same) product for should in no way affect me.
I'm selling my classic class-A motor home. If I sell it in the paper, I want $4,500 for it. I have a friend that expressed interest in it that I quoted $3,000 for it. My wife has a coworker that is in need of one for a very specific thing and is in bad financial straights, I told her I let it go to him for $2,000, no money down and take payments. Should my friend be upset? $4,500 is less than market value and I won't go much lower than that on the open market. If a friend of mine approaches me I'd sell it to them for $3,000 or so. If my neighbor's house burned down I'd give it to them for $1. No-one should feel gypped.
The whole situation reminds me of a time when a coworker got a raise, but was reluctant to discuss it with me because they thought I'd be upset. I said that I was happy for them. They deserved it. They asked why I wasn't angry about it since I hadn't gotten one and I said "Did they take your raise out of my paycheck? Am I suddenly making less money now? Why shouldn't I be happy for you? Nothing has changed for me at all - besides, rich-boy, you buy lunch today"
I applaud your setup. Really. I admin a smaller heterogeneous network with about 20,000 users. We have Win 98,NT,XP,2k,2k3, OS2, Linux(several flavors), OS 7.6-9.2, OS X 10.1-Tiger. I really wish we had the amount of say over what our users ran on their systems that you do. It would be wonderful.
In our situation, all (new) systems receive some tweaking before being hammered on by the end user. But by far, the most locking down, adjusting, and configuring is done on the Windows Boxes (XP SP2 is much better in this respect). I always feel much more comfortable giving an OS X system to a clueless user to (try) to abuse and still allow it on our network than a Windows box. If nothing else fixing most problems on OS X is usually just a matter of trashing the user's "Library" folder; sometimes the user's folder itself. On windows, we almost always just re-image and pray the user has all their data backed up. It's just not worth the hassle to futz with it.
The problem is keeping all the images in order and up to date. we are much more likely to get boxes with the exact same hardware in them from Apple than we do from Dell. Dell isn't as bad as, say, Gateway in this respect, but the "same" machine purchased a few months apart might have different hardware in it. And God forbid if you try to do a clean install of a different OS without Dell's CD to kick it off with the right drivers. You'll spend all day searching for and downloading them and hope they work.
We just don't see that with the Apple's. End-to-end, they're just a lot less hassle and don't need all the third party software (Patchlink, AdAware, SpyBotSD, NortonAV, FireFox, etc.) to make them usable.
In a utopian environment like yours, PC's can be made to work just fine, but I'd argue that ANY OS could be made to work when you have an environment like yours. BOFHs, like me would love to have a setup like that :-) But it just isn't reality in most places and for a "small shop" like what the article was talking about, I can see where switching the entire infrastructure to Apple would make a huge difference. You could actually change your focus from locking the user down to helping them be more productive. It's would be a whole different mind-set.