So here's what I'd do if I was in your shoes. I've never written a book, but I've read a few so lets try.
1) Are you sure it's piracy that's killing sales? I just looked over at my bookshelf and the last book I have purchased on any topic related to computing is circa 2006. I write software. I do *not* pirate books. I can simply find the information I need on the web for free from other sources (blogs, forums, communities, the manufacturer of the software).
2) Remember that not every downloaded copy of a book is a lost sale. I can understand someone wanting to take a look at the content of the book before deciding to spend $50. Maybe they did and they didn't like it. I'm not saying they acted morally, that's not the point. The world is what it is and this is how a lot of people behave. You mentioned in a comment that this is print on demand which I'm going to guess means I can't walk into a Borders or Barnes&Noble down the street and take a look at your book to see if I'm going to benefit from it. I might consider finding a way to peek inside before plucking down the $50 bucks.
3) Some of those downloads are lost sales. Do you offer an electronic version (preferably one that's not tied only to the Kindle)? Again, back to my first point, if I'm reading about something related to computing I'm usually doing so in front of my computer on a web site that I do not pay to access. I haven't read your book, but I have read a lot about data compression and there are so many free resources that spending $50 on a book covering this topic is something I wouldn't ever consider doing. I might spend $10 (PDF, electronic, not physical) if that's a topic I'm interested in and I know I can get an unrestricted electronic version legitimately.
I don't know how the publishing industry works, so maybe the last option isn't available to you. If it isn't and you really want to continue writing on technical topics, you may want to find a better publisher.
A company providing protection from keyloggers and other tools that are installed without the user's consent (malware) should not be making exceptions for anything that would otherwise be considered malware.
This reminds me of the same arguments that were made for the "clipper chip". That is: "Encryption is OK as long as law enforcement has a back door". The non-technical amongst us would proclaim that "You're against Law Enforcement if you don't support some kind of key escrow service." Security tools that are designed with weaknesses built in are not good security tools.
The current crop of anti-malware tools are already not adequate. Vendors should err on the side of caution and flag anything that is monitoring keystrokes or matches signatures without concern about who installed it, or whether or not it is an application that is "whitelisted" for keylogging. To do otherwise invites criminals to take advantage of that circumstance and ensure that the malware they use appears whitelisted.
I don't care about your political views or your opinions about whether or not a particular administration or government is "Good or Evil". I'm all for law enforcement using necessary (legal) means to enforce the laws... including installing keyloggers. But having a security vendor be open to the idea of intentionally weakening their application is reason enough for me to not renew my ZoneAlarm license.
I thought that the point of those services was to provide a subscription model so that you never *BUY* the music.
True and not true. We could get into arguing just what exactly your "buying" when you buy a track from iTunes or any download store, but all things being equal, you can "buy" a track from Yahoo! Music Unlimited for $0.79USD as a subscriber and $0.99USD as a non-subscriber. The track has similar limitations to that of an iTunes purchased track (except it's in WMA, not AAC).
While FairUse4WM can be used to "fix" a subscription track, it can just as easily be used to make a "fixed" version of a purchased track...after which the only remaining step would be to convert it from WMA to the format of your choice.
Let me speak to the "stupid enough to buy DRM encumbered content" market...since I *was* stupid enough.
I subscribed to Yahoo! Music Unlimited, upgraded my Windows Media Player, installed all of the patches and purchased a brand spanking new Creative Zen Vision last year. The whole setup process was about two hours after the litany of patches and firmware upgrades, but it worked...actually very well... Then one day, about 7 months later, it failed.
For no explainable reason other than "DRM is garbage", my player decided to play only the first song downloaded, and then claim that every other song was unlicensed thereafter. It didn't matter which track, the minute it skipped to the next one, everything was unplayable that was DRM'd.
You can imagine how abundantly helpful Yahoo!'s tech support was (not at all). So I cancelled my subscription.
Lets add up my total costs: 1-year Subscription (at the time $4.99/month, now $9.99): $59.88 New media player for subscription content: $399.99 (somewhere in that range) Number of tracks effectively "rented" for seven months: ~150 Total Cost "the day the music died": $459.87 or >$3.00/tracks I didn't get to keep.
Sure, I factored the player into the cost and maybe that's not fair since I still use it for videos and music (and I would buy it again, today, if given a choice), but the fact remains that I had to buy a new player because only a select few are subscription compatible. I won't resubscribe now that this tool is available because my guess is that Microsoft will have this hole patched before the week is out (Here's betting they don't wait until "Patch Tuesday" for this update, we all know where their priorities are).
So I have access to less music (legally) "at my finger-tips", but at least I get to enjoy the music on all of my PCs, my stereo, my two players, and wherever the heck else I can adapt the unencumbered tracks to. It's amazing to me that something that was "standard" 100 years ago (unencrypted/encumbered music) is now the first feature I look for in music I buy.
I'm also officially a former NetFlix customer as of a few minutes ago.
Netflix is a good service, but there are alternatives... if you think their actions are immoral/dumb/stupid/wrong/Evil, leave their service and *force* them to become a company that makes profits through lawyers. Companies with business models like that tend not to be very successful at selling products.
Curious, how many of you are complaining, but still think it's OK to give them your money? Vote with your (virtual) feet if the issue is that important to you.
"Google hopes to use this as an opportunity to help bring global censorship into the spotlight of American politics."
So Google is now hopeful about the outcome of being called into congressional hearings so a bunch of politicians can bloviate about censorship? Huh?
I'm not going to say it's not possible that this is their intent, but it sure seems like there would be easier ways to do this as a company with the high-profile that Google has. In fact, it would seem it would have be more effective to publically state that China's censorship policies are too broad and back-out of censoring results, all the while jabbing at their competitors who *do* censor. This makes you look (and actually behave) like "the good guy", all the while bringing that same spotlight plus "good will".
I'm sorry guys. I like Google too. I want to defend them. But I can't bend on this one... every conclusion I come to says that this *is* evil. It should stop.
I purchased the E815 the weekend of release. I was warned in-store that using this phone as a modem with the VCast service was going to get me kicked off the network.
So I did the right thing... I didn't purchase VCast (it's a pointless service for me as it is)
I called customer service to see how I could get this setup with their "Unlimited" (quite limited) Wireless Broadband plan. Of course, the first three tries netted very confused operators who ended up making my phone unable to connect to Mobile Web and at one point actually preventing me from placing calls.
But after a few tries I managed to get someone on the phone who was able to set the unit up with this "phone as a modem" plan at $59.99.
I explained that I had purchased a USB cable to connect my phone to my laptop. They used to offer this as a "Mobile Office" Kit, but there was no such thing for the E815. The operator didn't know that.
The kit wasn't offered specifically because pairing it with VCast essentially gave you their full Wireless Internet for $15.00. So instead of giving honest customers an option to "pay up" for the full Wireless plan, they decided to offer this useless VCast plan and *ban* the "Mobile Office" in their highly-restrictive TOS.
I am *not* a VCAST target customer. I need my battery power to go to receiving/sending phone calls and I need my phone for business.
In the end, someone was able to get my account configured with the $59.00 wireless internet, mobile web (which I don't use), and my normal phone service. And with the simple ##DIALUP command, I was able to use my laptop and PDA via bluetooth to enable me to post silly messages on Slashdot:-).
Glad to know they're blessing something I've had configured for the last several months. I love the phone, I love the wireless internet service, I just wish those Verizon folks would get a clue. It would have been nice to not have to "socially engineer" my way to becoming a happy customer.
That's a good point. At my home I have a bit of a unique situation in that my internet connection is shared wirelessly beyond my wife and I.
I would hope that picture frames could suffice without me having to run more than power to them, though I guess running a simple ethernet port while mucking about in my attic and wall to deliver power to the devices would probably not be all that much more complex. My wired network is segregated from my wireless (shared) network, and I have control over the devices on the wired side.
So I have to decide, do I spend all of this time taking apart two laptops, building them into two wooden frames (carefully positioning the internals in such a way to make a reasonable presentation), whip out that old tape measure and laser guide to ensure that they are at exact 45 degree angles from the corner of the room for symmetry, run 120V of power from my newly installed circuit (couldn't share them with the lighting, or television, such would be ghastly!), and properly install said wiring to the picture frames in such a way that would pass inspection (both legal and visual). . . I guess if I'm going to go to that much trouble, running a low-voltage ethernet wire to the device isn't all that much more pain. But then, with all that trouble, is it much more to build a custom app to control them on a highly customized Linux OS (preferably sans-CD-ROM-drive)? Or maybe the way to solve this whole problem is to take those two laptops to the local Salvation Army, get a tax write off, sit on my couch, drink a beer and pop in a movie. Yeah, that sounds like a better idea.
One can only assume you're going to be as secure as any Windows XP computer.
As much as it's nice to have it networked for ease of changing out the photos, I'd much rather see the PC card slot used to operate a PC Card->CF adapter for sneaker-netting the pics to.
It's difficult enough keeping my other Windows boxes up to date without having to worry whether or not my picture frame is running the latest service pack. Surely the benefit gained from the convenience of being able to update the pictures from a remote server is offset by having to monitor for patch compliance.
All in all though, nice idea. I can imagine setting up two of these in my living room to do "something cool" when I plop a DVD and press "Play" on the remote for my HTPC. This would necessitate that pesky network connection, but perhaps all of that hassle could be overcome by using Linux and carefully configuring the picture-frame to drop all unsolicited incoming packets and only allow traffic via port 21 to/from a specific host. Or maybe (and I'm counting on it) someone has a better idea?
What is it with people wanting their prompts (or les output!) colorized, anyways...?
It's pretty, and comfortable and color can make it easier for your mind to pick out what is important from something you're looking at.
My prompt contains my username and hostname in dark blue...because it's something I need to know the instant I hit the box but don't much care about after that (unless I hit the wrong box!). But the path is in violent-bright-red, because while doing anything it's really nice to get that bright reminder of precisely *where* you are in the "world" that is your pretty little shell...
Maybe it is pointless...but why not? It's like putting a picture in front of the toilet. Nobody spends much time admiring a bathroom when they're using it, but having that flower at least relaxes you a little while you're ruining the place.
I, too, have been wrestling with this situation. I am being paid by my current employer to write complex software, but should I wish to leave, I want to be able to showcase the work I do to others.
Enter Open Source (Select "Redundent" now...)!
I started about a year back by just subscribing to the devel lists of about 15-20 different open-source apps that I used regularly (and a few that I didn't... but that interested me).
My initial motivation was "Lets get my name somewhere on the 'credits' list and then I can add that to my resume", but that wore off quickly. I discovered that there was an incredible number of people who were far more capable at writing code than I was. So I took the opportunity to learn from them. Books, college classes, on-the-job learning and experience are all thrown away...if you find a good complicated project dealing in programming languages you don't understand and concepts you haven't explored, you'll eat it right up and it will have a ripple effect throughout your entire skillset (no matter how unrelated the project may be to your current work).
So my advice (and point): Find some projects that are appealing to you, subscribe and read the devel mailing lists: you'll benefit. Even if you don't get the opportunity to "showcase your work", you'll become far better at your trade... and that might be obvious enough to an interviewer to make providing examples of your work irrelevant.
...I don't know how many people have noticed this, but some DVD releases of Television shows don't include the title music, or include "new" and different title music. This is because when the show was made, the license purchased from the music's creators (...which translates sometimes into a deal between the television show producers and the RIAA...) were sometimes short-term or included certain restrictions that required royalty payments per airing of the show for the title music or soundtrack.
So in comes the DVD, and the television industry sees it as a great opportunity to get a few more bucks but then run into a brick wall with all of the licensing of the content that doesn't directly belong to them.
IANAL, but I can imagine this same situation will happen with any subscription based or pay-per-download model. Depending on how the "deal" is setup, a subscription based model would not be cost effective because every time a person viewed that episode, the provider would have to pay a royalty to the band/RIAA/song writer/actor/actress, etc, etc, etc. The costs to the producers would go up each time a show is viewed while the price paid to them would not change.
So even though it may seem that the television industry isn't controlled by the MPAA/RIAA et. al., in the end...they are still accountable to them. And we all know what their position is on "new distribution models."
I'd rate the actual story as "funny"... if it weren't so disturbing:
Lets analyse: 1. They claim region coding the cartridge "isn't for the money"...even though it is... because it prevents europeans from buying their cartridges in the US for less money (less profit to HP). No company makes any decision to redesign a product for "no reason." That reason is always tied to money (even if it's new features that are given away to customers for free...the motivation is to gain good will with those customers and encourage future sales). A corporation exists for the benefits of its shareholders...which is to say, it exists to make its shareholders money! 3. They actually try to twist it around by saying that it will be good for the consumer when the US dollar recovers. How? Is the price of their cartridges going to drop? Just because the dollar is weak now doesn't mean they have raised their prices in the US. When or if the dollar rises over the Euro, their price isn't going to drop and Americans will be prevented from purchasing cartridges from Europe where they will seemingly be cheaper in this alternate universe they propose.
That has to be *almost* one of the worst attempts at spinning I've ever read. Did some of the SCO PR folks take up jobs at HP?
A few beers and one long period of REM later (ok...maybe two), KDE was installed... I messed with the nice KDE control app to configure font smoothing... a few seconds later and my fonts looked fine. I'm a linux newb,... but what's the big deal here? Everything looks fine...everything appears anti-aliased and pleasent to the eye. I know in other distros from years back that this wasn't the case...but it works now, and didn't take me any real effort to get it working... Is there some mystery here that I accidently stumbled upon, or is this just a problem that has been solved that someone feels necessary to write a really long HOWTO on? Or am I just an idiot? (I'm sure someone will reply with such an answer...this is Slashdot!)
It does seem that if I *am* an idiot, that I shouldn't be expected to follow a 13 step program to fix it. 12 steps, and I wouldn't have been drinking the beer in the first place...I would have just had a couple of really long restful naps while Gentoo, emerge, the compilers, and whatever other magic occurs while those endless make screens flash up on my screen.
Lets be realistic here... if the lawsuit explained that "Plaintiff is still a teenager and wishes to operate as a high-priced hooker to the stars but now cannot because everyone can get a look at the goods..." it probably wouldn't go over very well with a jury.
It's most likely something along the lines of "Mom and Dad found out I was in the game so now we all have to act like good Christians and sue the world over to prevent the tarnishing of our reputation."
It does irritate me when people try to make themselves look better by professing that they attend church, and it's ironic (in a very disturbing way) when it is used as part of a lawsuit who's purpose is to prove that the individual at hand should not be held accountable for their actions. I understand the LAW protects a 17 year old from being an idiot, but lets not kid ourselves and assume that a 17 year old girl didn't know flashing your breasts around town (or in a video game) was probably not a very good idea. And if she was worried about tarnishing her reputation, it seems that bringing a very high-profile lawsuit against some very high-profile companies is going to make this whole thing quite public and will probably cause the game to be far more successful than it otherwise would have been...even if it only gets to exist on the black market from here on out.
Sony was not sued because a Playstation can play this game.
You may be right. That still doesn't exactly explain what role (other than the aforementioned) Microsoft played in this.
The article states:
"developer Top Heavy Studios, and platform holders Sony and Microsoft, for whose PS2 and Xbox consoles the game is available"
So if the article is correct (and at this point I can't find anything that defines the situation differently), it seems pretty clear that they are being sued as platform holders regardless of whether or not Sony is also involved as a game publisher.
Of course, no doubt it is a crap game. I don't think anybody disagrees with that. If you're looking for entertainment, you're not going to play a game with such a stupid theme. If you're looking for porn, a few pairs of breasts probably aren't going to cut it either.
So sue Sony because a playstation can play a game that features content that breaks the law.
I'm surprised they were so short-sighted:
They should sue the maker of the digital camera used to take the picture of the girl.
If they used a scanner and a traditional camera, they should sue both the maker of the scanner and the camera. Double the dollars!
How about suing the DVD Consortium because they produced the scandard by which the disc used to distribute the content contained the illegal picture.
Too much? More realistic:
Jail all of the end-users because they now possess child-pornography.
Sue the ESRB... which arguably operates as a clearing-house when they choose to slap a rating on a game.
One can argue that because MS, Sony et. al. have put controls on their console allowing them to essentially declare what can and cannot run on it (without a mod-chip of course), that they "sanctioned" rather than just simply "allowed" this to take place...
Of course, we can expect that Sony, MS et. al. will probably be far more conservative in deciding what is or isn't allowed to operate on their systems from here on out. I may not agree with the content of the game, but it'll shame when all of the software is dumbed down so as not to offend even the most conservative among us.
But the cynic in me has to ask the question...if this succeeds: What happens when a slick lawyer is able to confuse a judge and a jury into drawing the conclusion that the OS/product not only "is" a clearing-house, but legally "must operate as" a clearing-house for the applications running on it. Do they sue all of the Linux programmers when Linux fails to block something illegal or offensive?
I couldn't agree more. It usually happens as a result of these CDs failing to play in CD players or computers as a result of these hacked up DRM methods.
Recently with my father, we discovered that one of his Audio CDs installed some goofy driver that shortly became corrupted. As a result, his computer's CD drives became unrecognized by Window$. It took me a near OS reload to correct the problem. My father has never once 'pirated' a song from a file-sharing service. He's never even bothered to rip a track from a CD. He just liked the convenience of being able to listen to CDs in the room he did most of his work (which didn't have a traditional CD player in it). Until the day we discovered 'the problem', he used to purchase a few CDs a month. Now, before buying a CD he calls me to ask if it will play in his computer without damaging it. He probably purchases three or four CDs a year now simply because it's not worth the hassle to him.
So, what remotes are you all using? Why did you select the one you have? What should I look for in my search? What don't you like about it? What do you like? What else should I be asking?"
I, too, have about 6 different things plugged into my home theatre. The most difficult one I have is my newly configured HTPC.
I'm presently using a POS Radio Shack Universal Programmable Learning Remote with an RF->IR repeater. I pretty much bought it because it directly supported the TiVo and had the RF->IR capability (I watch the tivo in my bedroom, but the tivo is located in my home theatre room).
The only redeeming features of this remote were its price ($50, can't beat it!) and the fact that it has a really good range for RF (my home theatre is clear on the other side of the house). It also has button reassignment so that I can make the remote operate in a more task oriented mode.
The problem always comes down to the fact that my volume is adjusted only on my stereo. My DVD is paused by my DVD player, my video source is selected by my television and needs to also be selected on my stereo and gee it'd be nice to be able to do that in one step without having to click "TV", "Video Source", "DVD", "Play", *oh crap* quick, "RCVR", "Vol Down" (10 times), "DVD", "Audio". The button reassignment helps make the remote more usable by making the volume controls *always* go to the receiver.
The reality is, my universal remote has far fewer buttons than the factory remote that came with my television. I wouldn't have all of this crap if I wasn't a bit of a geek. So I generally have to go back to the factory remote to tweak things when I'm watching a DVD or the HTPC (yes, I even have a wireless keyboard that sits under my couch because the remote for my computer doesn't even come close to meeting my needs).
Here's what my dream remote would have:
A nice touch screen with the ability to change the graphics to represent the "task" not the device. No buttons, just a screen that is fully configurable. Limitless learning capability so that I can program in every stupid miserable button on all 30 of my remotes.
RF->IR so that I can put all of my crap in a nice case and hide it from view so that I don't have to watch the blinken-lights when I'm watching a Movie.
A charging dock so that there would be a natural home for the remote to sit while I'm not watching TV (rather than that spot between cushions in my couch where all 30 of my existing remotes burrow). A long battery life for the hundreds of times I'd forget to put it in the charging dock.
Flexible, even if it means *difficult to configure." It needs to be able to be customized and hacked enough to make toast. But yet EASY TO OPERATE, so that my wife wouldn't have to call me at work using the ever popular phrase "The DVD player is broke" (of course, she forgot to set the audio source on the "RCVR" so there's no sound, but that takes 20 minutes to figure out when the TV and its end-user is 30 miles away). Ability to perform "macros" on any function (again, "RCVR" and "TV" both needing to be set to the same source, that's 4 clicks on my existing remote). X10 compatibility and the ability to tie the X10 functions into any key or macro combination (would be nice to dim the lights automatically when I hit play). Durable and waterproof so that if an unfortunate beer spillage were to occur, I wouldn't be out 500 dollars. Plus, if it's this complicated of a device I'd imagine it runs the risk of being intentionally thrown across the room while I'm trying to figure out how to configure it.
I'm afraid I have no suggestions as to a remote that meets that criteria. And ones that I have seen that get "close" cost upwards of $500 dollars. I wouldn't drop that kind of cash unless it did *everything* I wanted, *and* got my beer for me.
So in the meantime, I recommend buying a basket that you can set next to your couch for your factory remotes. That's served me pretty well. It keeps everything
This post got me thinking of a movie from the early 90's (?) called Crazy People. An advertising executive decides to write advertisements truthfully. Really quite funny...The movie was so far from reality though, it was sad.
One of my many jobs is participating in vendor selection for my company ([sarcasm]it's a beautiful committee process...[/sarcasm]).
Last year we had a certain computer company (IANAL, so the name is intentionally missing) come in and give a sales presentation on why we should dump our existing vendor and go with them.
For the most part, they had our existing vendor beat from a price point. But we had been burned by previous computer vendors...made all of the mistakes...and knew exactly what we wanted (and, frankly, had made our existing vendor comply with our requirements over the period of 4 years that we dealt with them)
We image all of our PCs, we have specialized software for ensuring that everything is up to a baseline and that our environment is as predictable as possible. We needed hardware that would be easily inventoried, and *consistent, long-term, globally available configurations.* There were several other requirements we laid out and prior to the "sales pitch" meeting, we supplied this vendor with these "absolute requirements."
Of course, we received a 45 minute long power point presentation that basically regurgitated back to us everything we told them were our requirements.
(lesson learned: it's better not to give the marketing guys the game plan. They tend to be more honest when they don't have time to power-point the lies and instead have to provide answers off-the-cuff).
It's a running joke on our team because if we took the entire content of their presentation and crossed out every word in each bullet point that represented some sort of "promise", we'd be left with about four words repeated over and over for 20 slides..."The" "a" "and" and "but".
I don't trust *anything* from any marketing or sales rep. After testing this vendor's products and talking to friends of mine who's companies had used this vendor in the past, we knew they weren't going to live up to their promises. From day one, the information they gave us about getting loaner PCs for testing was sold to us as "far more flexible" than it turned out to be, and this poor customer service was going on *while* we were evaluating this company to determine if we should sign the contract!
Unfortunately, as the story goes, our opinions were appreciated, but the decision to choose this company was made anyway. Myself and another coworker were noted as objecting to the switch in our final meeting minutes. Of course, that meant nothing except for a future "I told you so." And there was nobody left to say "I told you so" to because in the end, we were the ones left having to compensate for these broken promises.
...My father's inability to program the time on his new VCR he purchased in 1991 resulted in a very excellent low tech solution.
He took a couple of pieces of black electrical tape, cut them into equal sizes, and affixed them to the front of the VCR. It was just enough to complete cover the blinking 12:00...12:00...12:00...12:00.
It's almost art now...so I don't have the heart to set the time for him.
IANAD, but don't many of the Parkinson's Disease treatments and depression treatments involve increasing dopamine in ones body?
A popular treatment for parkinsons at least seems to indicate so. Maybe its just my paranioa being neither biologist, scientist or doctor, but getting excited over preventing procrastination seems like a minor benefit compared to what other problems this could possibly cause.
Of course, we're not on human trials yet... But I wouldn't be waiting in line for this treatment.
It's kinda sad, really. I've never been all that impressed with DVD X Copy (did any of the later versions ever have the ability to recompress the DVD to a lower bitrate?).
Seemed like a waste of $99 when it first came out. But it still would have been cool if they had GPLed the code. Again, it would have had no actual value other than the bad karma it would have sent in the direction of the MPAA. Their new product appears to have no value since it's entering a market that is already saturated with other good utilities.
I'm thinking if I'm them... My company's last dying breath is to release the source code to the public domain or as a GPL application.
Sure, one can easily argue that there are other apps that do (IMHO) a better job and are free (like DVD Shrink), but being as high-profile as their company has been the last few months, being that they sell their products in retail stores, a move like that might garner some pretty serious publicity and would surely ruffle the feathers of their adversary.
Even though the cat has been out of the bag for a while regarding CSS, them sending out copies of sourcecode would surely have social/emotional impact.
My guess is that someone there would probably be sent to jail for further violating the DMCA (not only making an anti-circumvention tool that people can use to backup and *gasp* copy DVDs, but giving a bunch of "no good hackers and pirates" the ability to modify the software for other nefarious purposes (oh no!)). But I'm sure there's a way they could get around the law to do it.
...I have some personal experience in this area having worked for a terrible boss (who eventually was let go as a result of me taking some steps): Here's the set of rules I operated by
1. First person communication. Avoid talking behind others backs (especially your boss), deal with problems as directly as possible. Note that this does not mean "deal with the problem with as much hostility as possible." If you have a problem, talk to the person about it. If they are the passive-agressive type that might backlash on you...
2. Do not allow ambiguity, or "unspoken statements", or joking about you to fly when it comes from your boss. For instance, if you get shot a dirty look, you are indirectly attacked or joked about as being lazy, confront it immediately. (Again, this doesn't mean attack, it means confront). Often for passive-agressive personalities, this makes it more difficult for them to "hide their feelings" towards you and can help you to get to the root of the problem...
3. Log, and track everything you do, all the time. This always seems like a horrible thing to go through, but when dealing with someone who is divisive, or who is intentionally attacking you, it's the only way you can fight back. Often these people will tell you they "told you to do something", that they didn't tell you to do. If you have a log of what tasked with, in detail, it makes it difficult for them to say that you didn't do the work. I used to carry a small notepad with me every day...date it at the top...and write down notes as I did work. It shaved an hour of time right out of my day, but that hour would have been spent explaining why I didn't do things that I wasn't asked to do. Also keep track of any time you were treated unfairly, be very specific in case you have to defend your job at some point.
4. Find someone within the organization (the manager of the individual, if applicable) with which you can align yourself. Even if it is simply a coworker, having someone that can back you up in difficult situations can really help. This is all assuming you are not the problem...
5. Get to the root of why you are being treated the way you are. Is everyone in the department having a difficult time with this individual? Are specific people (such as friends of the individual) not having problems? If you are being treated unfairly (which I'm sure we all have at some point), you need to confront it. In my case, the person in question was acting unethically and didn't like the fact that I wouldn't go along with his choices (or state my agreement with them).
6. Understand the rules of your company, and what options you have for dealing with employee/manager conflict. This is a last resort, since once you choose to go down this road, you really can't return unless that person gets fired. If you get to this point, and you've been taking notes, you'll have a very well documented case to give to whomever you report the problem to. If you do choose to take this route, make sure you let your boss know after you do it... The person you reported this to will be surprised when he finds out that you have also notified the target of your complaint, it will serve to make you appear to be acting with the best of intentions in a difficult situation. Anticipate any backlash based on what you know about the person you are complaining about.
The bottom line in all of this is that you must act transparently in this situation, everyone (including the boss with the bad attitude) should know where you stand with them and should be able to tell where you will stand on any issue you deal with. Nobody should be able to question your motives or intent...they should just know them. You should be "advertising" your value through your actions.
Also...recognize that the world isn't fair, and sometimes even when you do what you're supposed to, someone with a bad attitude or suffering from a power-trip is going to win occasionally. As an employee, for the most part, you really have only one power to hold above your boss...the power to find new employment. In my case, my boss was let go.
Slashdot Mirror
So here's what I'd do if I was in your shoes. I've never written a book, but I've read a few so lets try.
1) Are you sure it's piracy that's killing sales?
I just looked over at my bookshelf and the last book I have purchased on any topic related to computing is circa 2006.
I write software. I do *not* pirate books. I can simply find the information I need on the web for free from other sources (blogs, forums, communities, the manufacturer of the software).
2) Remember that not every downloaded copy of a book is a lost sale.
I can understand someone wanting to take a look at the content of the book before deciding to spend $50. Maybe they did and they didn't like it. I'm not saying they acted morally, that's not the point. The world is what it is and this is how a lot of people behave.
You mentioned in a comment that this is print on demand which I'm going to guess means I can't walk into a Borders or Barnes&Noble down the street and take a look at your book to see if I'm going to benefit from it.
I might consider finding a way to peek inside before plucking down the $50 bucks.
3) Some of those downloads are lost sales.
Do you offer an electronic version (preferably one that's not tied only to the Kindle)?
Again, back to my first point, if I'm reading about something related to computing I'm usually doing so in front of my computer on a web site that I do not pay to access.
I haven't read your book, but I have read a lot about data compression and there are so many free resources that spending $50 on a book covering this topic is something I wouldn't ever consider doing.
I might spend $10 (PDF, electronic, not physical) if that's a topic I'm interested in and I know I can get an unrestricted electronic version legitimately.
I don't know how the publishing industry works, so maybe the last option isn't available to you. If it isn't and you really want to continue writing on technical topics, you may want to find a better publisher.
A company providing protection from keyloggers and other tools that are installed without the user's consent (malware) should not be making exceptions for anything that would otherwise be considered malware.
... including installing keyloggers. But having a security vendor be open to the idea of intentionally weakening their application is reason enough for me to not renew my ZoneAlarm license.
This reminds me of the same arguments that were made for the "clipper chip". That is: "Encryption is OK as long as law enforcement has a back door". The non-technical amongst us would proclaim that "You're against Law Enforcement if you don't support some kind of key escrow service." Security tools that are designed with weaknesses built in are not good security tools.
The current crop of anti-malware tools are already not adequate. Vendors should err on the side of caution and flag anything that is monitoring keystrokes or matches signatures without concern about who installed it, or whether or not it is an application that is "whitelisted" for keylogging. To do otherwise invites criminals to take advantage of that circumstance and ensure that the malware they use appears whitelisted.
I don't care about your political views or your opinions about whether or not a particular administration or government is "Good or Evil". I'm all for law enforcement using necessary (legal) means to enforce the laws
While FairUse4WM can be used to "fix" a subscription track, it can just as easily be used to make a "fixed" version of a purchased track...after which the only remaining step would be to convert it from WMA to the format of your choice.
Let me speak to the "stupid enough to buy DRM encumbered content" market...since I *was* stupid enough.
I subscribed to Yahoo! Music Unlimited, upgraded my Windows Media Player, installed all of the patches and purchased a brand spanking new Creative Zen Vision last year.
The whole setup process was about two hours after the litany of patches and firmware upgrades, but it worked...actually very well...
Then one day, about 7 months later, it failed.
For no explainable reason other than "DRM is garbage", my player decided to play only the first song downloaded, and then claim that every other song was unlicensed thereafter. It didn't matter which track, the minute it skipped to the next one, everything was unplayable that was DRM'd.
You can imagine how abundantly helpful Yahoo!'s tech support was (not at all). So I cancelled my subscription.
Lets add up my total costs:
1-year Subscription (at the time $4.99/month, now $9.99): $59.88
New media player for subscription content: $399.99 (somewhere in that range)
Number of tracks effectively "rented" for seven months: ~150
Total Cost "the day the music died": $459.87 or >$3.00/tracks I didn't get to keep.
Sure, I factored the player into the cost and maybe that's not fair since I still use it for videos and music (and I would buy it again, today, if given a choice), but the fact remains that I had to buy a new player because only a select few are subscription compatible.
I won't resubscribe now that this tool is available because my guess is that Microsoft will have this hole patched before the week is out (Here's betting they don't wait until "Patch Tuesday" for this update, we all know where their priorities are).
So I have access to less music (legally) "at my finger-tips", but at least I get to enjoy the music on all of my PCs, my stereo, my two players, and wherever the heck else I can adapt the unencumbered tracks to.
It's amazing to me that something that was "standard" 100 years ago (unencrypted/encumbered music) is now the first feature I look for in music I buy.
Netflix is a good service, but there are alternatives... if you think their actions are immoral/dumb/stupid/wrong/Evil, leave their service and *force* them to become a company that makes profits through lawyers. Companies with business models like that tend not to be very successful at selling products.
Curious, how many of you are complaining, but still think it's OK to give them your money? Vote with your (virtual) feet if the issue is that important to you.
"Google hopes to use this as an opportunity to help bring global censorship into the spotlight of American politics."
So Google is now hopeful about the outcome of being called into congressional hearings so a bunch of politicians can bloviate about censorship? Huh?
I'm not going to say it's not possible that this is their intent, but it sure seems like there would be easier ways to do this as a company with the high-profile that Google has. In fact, it would seem it would have be more effective to publically state that China's censorship policies are too broad and back-out of censoring results, all the while jabbing at their competitors who *do* censor. This makes you look (and actually behave) like "the good guy", all the while bringing that same spotlight plus "good will".
I'm sorry guys. I like Google too. I want to defend them. But I can't bend on this one... every conclusion I come to says that this *is* evil. It should stop.
I purchased the E815 the weekend of release. I was warned in-store that using this phone as a modem with the VCast service was going to get me kicked off the network.
:-).
So I did the right thing... I didn't purchase VCast (it's a pointless service for me as it is)
I called customer service to see how I could get this setup with their "Unlimited" (quite limited) Wireless Broadband plan. Of course, the first three tries netted very confused operators who ended up making my phone unable to connect to Mobile Web and at one point actually preventing me from placing calls.
But after a few tries I managed to get someone on the phone who was able to set the unit up with this "phone as a modem" plan at $59.99.
I explained that I had purchased a USB cable to connect my phone to my laptop. They used to offer this as a "Mobile Office" Kit, but there was no such thing for the E815. The operator didn't know that.
The kit wasn't offered specifically because pairing it with VCast essentially gave you their full Wireless Internet for $15.00. So instead of giving honest customers an option to "pay up" for the full Wireless plan, they decided to offer this useless VCast plan and *ban* the "Mobile Office" in their highly-restrictive TOS.
I am *not* a VCAST target customer. I need my battery power to go to receiving/sending phone calls and I need my phone for business.
In the end, someone was able to get my account configured with the $59.00 wireless internet, mobile web (which I don't use), and my normal phone service. And with the simple ##DIALUP command, I was able to use my laptop and PDA via bluetooth to enable me to post silly messages on Slashdot
Glad to know they're blessing something I've had configured for the last several months. I love the phone, I love the wireless internet service, I just wish those Verizon folks would get a clue. It would have been nice to not have to "socially engineer" my way to becoming a happy customer.
That's a good point. At my home I have a bit of a unique situation in that my internet connection is shared wirelessly beyond my wife and I.
I would hope that picture frames could suffice without me having to run more than power to them, though I guess running a simple ethernet port while mucking about in my attic and wall to deliver power to the devices would probably not be all that much more complex. My wired network is segregated from my wireless (shared) network, and I have control over the devices on the wired side.
So I have to decide, do I spend all of this time taking apart two laptops, building them into two wooden frames (carefully positioning the internals in such a way to make a reasonable presentation), whip out that old tape measure and laser guide to ensure that they are at exact 45 degree angles from the corner of the room for symmetry, run 120V of power from my newly installed circuit (couldn't share them with the lighting, or television, such would be ghastly!), and properly install said wiring to the picture frames in such a way that would pass inspection (both legal and visual). . . I guess if I'm going to go to that much trouble, running a low-voltage ethernet wire to the device isn't all that much more pain. But then, with all that trouble, is it much more to build a custom app to control them on a highly customized Linux OS (preferably sans-CD-ROM-drive)?
Or maybe the way to solve this whole problem is to take those two laptops to the local Salvation Army, get a tax write off, sit on my couch, drink a beer and pop in a movie.
Yeah, that sounds like a better idea.
One can only assume you're going to be as secure as any Windows XP computer.
As much as it's nice to have it networked for ease of changing out the photos, I'd much rather see the PC card slot used to operate a PC Card->CF adapter for sneaker-netting the pics to.
It's difficult enough keeping my other Windows boxes up to date without having to worry whether or not my picture frame is running the latest service pack. Surely the benefit gained from the convenience of being able to update the pictures from a remote server is offset by having to monitor for patch compliance.
All in all though, nice idea. I can imagine setting up two of these in my living room to do "something cool" when I plop a DVD and press "Play" on the remote for my HTPC. This would necessitate that pesky network connection, but perhaps all of that hassle could be overcome by using Linux and carefully configuring the picture-frame to drop all unsolicited incoming packets and only allow traffic via port 21 to/from a specific host. Or maybe (and I'm counting on it) someone has a better idea?
What is it with people wanting their prompts (or les output!) colorized, anyways...?
It's pretty, and comfortable and color can make it easier for your mind to pick out what is important from something you're looking at.
My prompt contains my username and hostname in dark blue...because it's something I need to know the instant I hit the box but don't much care about after that (unless I hit the wrong box!). But the path is in violent-bright-red, because while doing anything it's really nice to get that bright reminder of precisely *where* you are in the "world" that is your pretty little shell...
Maybe it is pointless...but why not? It's like putting a picture in front of the toilet. Nobody spends much time admiring a bathroom when they're using it, but having that flower at least relaxes you a little while you're ruining the place.
I, too, have been wrestling with this situation. I am being paid by my current employer to write complex software, but should I wish to leave, I want to be able to showcase the work I do to others.
Enter Open Source (Select "Redundent" now...)!
I started about a year back by just subscribing to the devel lists of about 15-20 different open-source apps that I used regularly (and a few that I didn't... but that interested me).
My initial motivation was "Lets get my name somewhere on the 'credits' list and then I can add that to my resume", but that wore off quickly. I discovered that there was an incredible number of people who were far more capable at writing code than I was. So I took the opportunity to learn from them.
Books, college classes, on-the-job learning and experience are all thrown away...if you find a good complicated project dealing in programming languages you don't understand and concepts you haven't explored, you'll eat it right up and it will have a ripple effect throughout your entire skillset (no matter how unrelated the project may be to your current work).
So my advice (and point): Find some projects that are appealing to you, subscribe and read the devel mailing lists: you'll benefit. Even if you don't get the opportunity to "showcase your work", you'll become far better at your trade... and that might be obvious enough to an interviewer to make providing examples of your work irrelevant.
...I don't know how many people have noticed this, but some DVD releases of Television shows don't include the title music, or include "new" and different title music. This is because when the show was made, the license purchased from the music's creators (...which translates sometimes into a deal between the television show producers and the RIAA...) were sometimes short-term or included certain restrictions that required royalty payments per airing of the show for the title music or soundtrack.
So in comes the DVD, and the television industry sees it as a great opportunity to get a few more bucks but then run into a brick wall with all of the licensing of the content that doesn't directly belong to them.
IANAL, but I can imagine this same situation will happen with any subscription based or pay-per-download model. Depending on how the "deal" is setup, a subscription based model would not be cost effective because every time a person viewed that episode, the provider would have to pay a royalty to the band/RIAA/song writer/actor/actress, etc, etc, etc. The costs to the producers would go up each time a show is viewed while the price paid to them would not change.
So even though it may seem that the television industry isn't controlled by the MPAA/RIAA et. al., in the end...they are still accountable to them. And we all know what their position is on "new distribution models."
I'd rate the actual story as "funny"... if it weren't so disturbing:
... because it prevents europeans from buying their cartridges in the US for less money (less profit to HP). No company makes any decision to redesign a product for "no reason." That reason is always tied to money (even if it's new features that are given away to customers for free...the motivation is to gain good will with those customers and encourage future sales). A corporation exists for the benefits of its shareholders...which is to say, it exists to make its shareholders money!
Lets analyse:
1. They claim region coding the cartridge "isn't for the money"...even though it is
3. They actually try to twist it around by saying that it will be good for the consumer when the US dollar recovers. How? Is the price of their cartridges going to drop? Just because the dollar is weak now doesn't mean they have raised their prices in the US. When or if the dollar rises over the Euro, their price isn't going to drop and Americans will be prevented from purchasing cartridges from Europe where they will seemingly be cheaper in this alternate universe they propose.
That has to be *almost* one of the worst attempts at spinning I've ever read. Did some of the SCO PR folks take up jobs at HP?
$ emerge kde
... I messed with the nice KDE control app to configure font smoothing... a few seconds later and my fonts looked fine. I'm a linux newb, ... but what's the big deal here? Everything looks fine...everything appears anti-aliased and pleasent to the eye. I know in other distros from years back that this wasn't the case...but it works now, and didn't take me any real effort to get it working... Is there some mystery here that I accidently stumbled upon, or is this just a problem that has been solved that someone feels necessary to write a really long HOWTO on? Or am I just an idiot? (I'm sure someone will reply with such an answer...this is Slashdot!)
A few beers and one long period of REM later (ok...maybe two), KDE was installed
It does seem that if I *am* an idiot, that I shouldn't be expected to follow a 13 step program to fix it. 12 steps, and I wouldn't have been drinking the beer in the first place...I would have just had a couple of really long restful naps while Gentoo, emerge, the compilers, and whatever other magic occurs while those endless make screens flash up on my screen.
Lets be realistic here... if the lawsuit explained that "Plaintiff is still a teenager and wishes to operate as a high-priced hooker to the stars but now cannot because everyone can get a look at the goods..." it probably wouldn't go over very well with a jury.
It's most likely something along the lines of "Mom and Dad found out I was in the game so now we all have to act like good Christians and sue the world over to prevent the tarnishing of our reputation."
It does irritate me when people try to make themselves look better by professing that they attend church, and it's ironic (in a very disturbing way) when it is used as part of a lawsuit who's purpose is to prove that the individual at hand should not be held accountable for their actions.
I understand the LAW protects a 17 year old from being an idiot, but lets not kid ourselves and assume that a 17 year old girl didn't know flashing your breasts around town (or in a video game) was probably not a very good idea. And if she was worried about tarnishing her reputation, it seems that bringing a very high-profile lawsuit against some very high-profile companies is going to make this whole thing quite public and will probably cause the game to be far more successful than it otherwise would have been...even if it only gets to exist on the black market from here on out.
Sony was not sued because a Playstation can play this game.
You may be right. That still doesn't exactly explain what role (other than the aforementioned) Microsoft played in this.
The article states: "developer Top Heavy Studios, and platform holders Sony and Microsoft, for whose PS2 and Xbox consoles the game is available"
So if the article is correct (and at this point I can't find anything that defines the situation differently), it seems pretty clear that they are being sued as platform holders regardless of whether or not Sony is also involved as a game publisher.
Of course, no doubt it is a crap game. I don't think anybody disagrees with that. If you're looking for entertainment, you're not going to play a game with such a stupid theme. If you're looking for porn, a few pairs of breasts probably aren't going to cut it either.
So sue Sony because a playstation can play a game that features content that breaks the law.
... which arguably operates as a clearing-house when they choose to slap a rating on a game.
I'm surprised they were so short-sighted:
They should sue the maker of the digital camera used to take the picture of the girl.
If they used a scanner and a traditional camera, they should sue both the maker of the scanner and the camera. Double the dollars!
How about suing the DVD Consortium because they produced the scandard by which the disc used to distribute the content contained the illegal picture.
Too much? More realistic:
Jail all of the end-users because they now possess child-pornography.
Sue the ESRB
One can argue that because MS, Sony et. al. have put controls on their console allowing them to essentially declare what can and cannot run on it (without a mod-chip of course), that they "sanctioned" rather than just simply "allowed" this to take place...
Of course, we can expect that Sony, MS et. al. will probably be far more conservative in deciding what is or isn't allowed to operate on their systems from here on out. I may not agree with the content of the game, but it'll shame when all of the software is dumbed down so as not to offend even the most conservative among us.
But the cynic in me has to ask the question...if this succeeds: What happens when a slick lawyer is able to confuse a judge and a jury into drawing the conclusion that the OS/product not only "is" a clearing-house, but legally "must operate as" a clearing-house for the applications running on it. Do they sue all of the Linux programmers when Linux fails to block something illegal or offensive?
People aren't stupid, they pick up on this.
I couldn't agree more. It usually happens as a result of these CDs failing to play in CD players or computers as a result of these hacked up DRM methods.
Recently with my father, we discovered that one of his Audio CDs installed some goofy driver that shortly became corrupted. As a result, his computer's CD drives became unrecognized by Window$.
It took me a near OS reload to correct the problem. My father has never once 'pirated' a song from a file-sharing service. He's never even bothered to rip a track from a CD. He just liked the convenience of being able to listen to CDs in the room he did most of his work (which didn't have a traditional CD player in it). Until the day we discovered 'the problem', he used to purchase a few CDs a month. Now, before buying a CD he calls me to ask if it will play in his computer without damaging it. He probably purchases three or four CDs a year now simply because it's not worth the hassle to him.
So, what remotes are you all using? Why did you select the one you have? What should I look for in my search? What don't you like about it? What do you like? What else should I be asking?"
I, too, have about 6 different things plugged into my home theatre. The most difficult one I have is my newly configured HTPC.
I'm presently using a POS Radio Shack Universal Programmable Learning Remote with an RF->IR repeater. I pretty much bought it because it directly supported the TiVo and had the RF->IR capability (I watch the tivo in my bedroom, but the tivo is located in my home theatre room).
The only redeeming features of this remote were its price ($50, can't beat it!) and the fact that it has a really good range for RF (my home theatre is clear on the other side of the house). It also has button reassignment so that I can make the remote operate in a more task oriented mode.
The problem always comes down to the fact that my volume is adjusted only on my stereo. My DVD is paused by my DVD player, my video source is selected by my television and needs to also be selected on my stereo and gee it'd be nice to be able to do that in one step without having to click "TV", "Video Source", "DVD", "Play", *oh crap* quick, "RCVR", "Vol Down" (10 times), "DVD", "Audio". The button reassignment helps make the remote more usable by making the volume controls *always* go to the receiver.
The reality is, my universal remote has far fewer buttons than the factory remote that came with my television. I wouldn't have all of this crap if I wasn't a bit of a geek. So I generally have to go back to the factory remote to tweak things when I'm watching a DVD or the HTPC (yes, I even have a wireless keyboard that sits under my couch because the remote for my computer doesn't even come close to meeting my needs).
Here's what my dream remote would have:
A nice touch screen with the ability to change the graphics to represent the "task" not the device. No buttons, just a screen that is fully configurable.
Limitless learning capability so that I can program in every stupid miserable button on all 30 of my remotes.
RF->IR so that I can put all of my crap in a nice case and hide it from view so that I don't have to watch the blinken-lights when I'm watching a Movie.
A charging dock so that there would be a natural home for the remote to sit while I'm not watching TV (rather than that spot between cushions in my couch where all 30 of my existing remotes burrow).
A long battery life for the hundreds of times I'd forget to put it in the charging dock.
Flexible, even if it means *difficult to configure." It needs to be able to be customized and hacked enough to make toast.
But yet EASY TO OPERATE, so that my wife wouldn't have to call me at work using the ever popular phrase "The DVD player is broke" (of course, she forgot to set the audio source on the "RCVR" so there's no sound, but that takes 20 minutes to figure out when the TV and its end-user is 30 miles away).
Ability to perform "macros" on any function (again, "RCVR" and "TV" both needing to be set to the same source, that's 4 clicks on my existing remote).
X10 compatibility and the ability to tie the X10 functions into any key or macro combination (would be nice to dim the lights automatically when I hit play).
Durable and waterproof so that if an unfortunate beer spillage were to occur, I wouldn't be out 500 dollars. Plus, if it's this complicated of a device I'd imagine it runs the risk of being intentionally thrown across the room while I'm trying to figure out how to configure it.
I'm afraid I have no suggestions as to a remote that meets that criteria. And ones that I have seen that get "close" cost upwards of $500 dollars. I wouldn't drop that kind of cash unless it did *everything* I wanted, *and* got my beer for me.
So in the meantime, I recommend buying a basket that you can set next to your couch for your factory remotes. That's served me pretty well. It keeps everything
This post got me thinking of a movie from the early 90's (?) called Crazy People. An advertising executive decides to write advertisements truthfully. Really quite funny...The movie was so far from reality though, it was sad.
One of my many jobs is participating in vendor selection for my company ([sarcasm]it's a beautiful committee process...[/sarcasm]).
Last year we had a certain computer company (IANAL, so the name is intentionally missing) come in and give a sales presentation on why we should dump our existing vendor and go with them.
For the most part, they had our existing vendor beat from a price point. But we had been burned by previous computer vendors...made all of the mistakes...and knew exactly what we wanted (and, frankly, had made our existing vendor comply with our requirements over the period of 4 years that we dealt with them)
We image all of our PCs, we have specialized software for ensuring that everything is up to a baseline and that our environment is as predictable as possible. We needed hardware that would be easily inventoried, and *consistent, long-term, globally available configurations.* There were several other requirements we laid out and prior to the "sales pitch" meeting, we supplied this vendor with these "absolute requirements."
Of course, we received a 45 minute long power point presentation that basically regurgitated back to us everything we told them were our requirements. (lesson learned: it's better not to give the marketing guys the game plan. They tend to be more honest when they don't have time to power-point the lies and instead have to provide answers off-the-cuff).
It's a running joke on our team because if we took the entire content of their presentation and crossed out every word in each bullet point that represented some sort of "promise", we'd be left with about four words repeated over and over for 20 slides..."The" "a" "and" and "but".
I don't trust *anything* from any marketing or sales rep. After testing this vendor's products and talking to friends of mine who's companies had used this vendor in the past, we knew they weren't going to live up to their promises.
From day one, the information they gave us about getting loaner PCs for testing was sold to us as "far more flexible" than it turned out to be, and this poor customer service was going on *while* we were evaluating this company to determine if we should sign the contract!
Unfortunately, as the story goes, our opinions were appreciated, but the decision to choose this company was made anyway.
Myself and another coworker were noted as objecting to the switch in our final meeting minutes. Of course, that meant nothing except for a future "I told you so." And there was nobody left to say "I told you so" to because in the end, we were the ones left having to compensate for these broken promises.
Never forget: Caveat Emptor.
...My father's inability to program the time on his new VCR he purchased in 1991 resulted in a very excellent low tech solution.
He took a couple of pieces of black electrical tape, cut them into equal sizes, and affixed them to the front of the VCR. It was just enough to complete cover the blinking 12:00...12:00...12:00...12:00.
It's almost art now...so I don't have the heart to set the time for him.
IANAD, but don't many of the Parkinson's Disease treatments and depression treatments involve increasing dopamine in ones body?
A popular treatment for parkinsons at least seems to indicate so.
Maybe its just my paranioa being neither biologist, scientist or doctor, but getting excited over preventing procrastination seems like a minor benefit compared to what other problems this could possibly cause.
Of course, we're not on human trials yet... But I wouldn't be waiting in line for this treatment.
It's kinda sad, really. I've never been all that impressed with DVD X Copy (did any of the later versions ever have the ability to recompress the DVD to a lower bitrate?).
Seemed like a waste of $99 when it first came out. But it still would have been cool if they had GPLed the code. Again, it would have had no actual value other than the bad karma it would have sent in the direction of the MPAA. Their new product appears to have no value since it's entering a market that is already saturated with other good utilities.
Too bad for the Bastard Company 8o)
I'm thinking if I'm them... My company's last dying breath is to release the source code to the public domain or as a GPL application.
Sure, one can easily argue that there are other apps that do (IMHO) a better job and are free (like DVD Shrink), but being as high-profile as their company has been the last few months, being that they sell their products in retail stores, a move like that might garner some pretty serious publicity and would surely ruffle the feathers of their adversary.
Even though the cat has been out of the bag for a while regarding CSS, them sending out copies of sourcecode would surely have social/emotional impact.
My guess is that someone there would probably be sent to jail for further violating the DMCA (not only making an anti-circumvention tool that people can use to backup and *gasp* copy DVDs, but giving a bunch of "no good hackers and pirates" the ability to modify the software for other nefarious purposes (oh no!)). But I'm sure there's a way they could get around the law to do it.
...I have some personal experience in this area having worked for a terrible boss (who eventually was let go as a result of me taking some steps): Here's the set of rules I operated by
1. First person communication. Avoid talking behind others backs (especially your boss), deal with problems as directly as possible. Note that this does not mean "deal with the problem with as much hostility as possible." If you have a problem, talk to the person about it. If they are the passive-agressive type that might backlash on you...
2. Do not allow ambiguity, or "unspoken statements", or joking about you to fly when it comes from your boss. For instance, if you get shot a dirty look, you are indirectly attacked or joked about as being lazy, confront it immediately. (Again, this doesn't mean attack, it means confront). Often for passive-agressive personalities, this makes it more difficult for them to "hide their feelings" towards you and can help you to get to the root of the problem...
3. Log, and track everything you do, all the time. This always seems like a horrible thing to go through, but when dealing with someone who is divisive, or who is intentionally attacking you, it's the only way you can fight back. Often these people will tell you they "told you to do something", that they didn't tell you to do. If you have a log of what tasked with, in detail, it makes it difficult for them to say that you didn't do the work. I used to carry a small notepad with me every day...date it at the top...and write down notes as I did work. It shaved an hour of time right out of my day, but that hour would have been spent explaining why I didn't do things that I wasn't asked to do. Also keep track of any time you were treated unfairly, be very specific in case you have to defend your job at some point.
4. Find someone within the organization (the manager of the individual, if applicable) with which you can align yourself. Even if it is simply a coworker, having someone that can back you up in difficult situations can really help. This is all assuming you are not the problem...
5. Get to the root of why you are being treated the way you are. Is everyone in the department having a difficult time with this individual? Are specific people (such as friends of the individual) not having problems? If you are being treated unfairly (which I'm sure we all have at some point), you need to confront it. In my case, the person in question was acting unethically and didn't like the fact that I wouldn't go along with his choices (or state my agreement with them).
6. Understand the rules of your company, and what options you have for dealing with employee/manager conflict. This is a last resort, since once you choose to go down this road, you really can't return unless that person gets fired. If you get to this point, and you've been taking notes, you'll have a very well documented case to give to whomever you report the problem to. If you do choose to take this route, make sure you let your boss know after you do it... The person you reported this to will be surprised when he finds out that you have also notified the target of your complaint, it will serve to make you appear to be acting with the best of intentions in a difficult situation. Anticipate any backlash based on what you know about the person you are complaining about.
The bottom line in all of this is that you must act transparently in this situation, everyone (including the boss with the bad attitude) should know where you stand with them and should be able to tell where you will stand on any issue you deal with. Nobody should be able to question your motives or intent...they should just know them. You should be "advertising" your value through your actions.
Also...recognize that the world isn't fair, and sometimes even when you do what you're supposed to, someone with a bad attitude or suffering from a power-trip is going to win occasionally. As an employee, for the most part, you really have only one power to hold above your boss...the power to find new employment.
In my case, my boss was let go.