I worked for Gateway when they had all the retail stores. The only thing that helped us sell the pc's were the promise of US based tech support when the rest of the PC world sent it to India. That and the random Profile and Tablet computer sale helped. Honestly before they bought EMachines, Gateway was doing ok with the consumer electronics dept. as well. We sold TONS of their cheap plasmas before the rest of the market came down to their prices. Their number one source for cash flow was those stores. Not their most profitable source but the most sales. When they changed everything to go with retail outlets and the Emachines business model, everyone thought they went out of business. I didn't talk to a single person that knew that they still were selling computers. How can you recover from that? Their biggest asset was their customer base. Look at their stock come April 04'. That's when they closed their retail stores and it was all down hill from there. They did this to themselves, not the flopping PC industry.
This is Apple's attempt to capture even more of the MP3 player FOR PC market. The problem with the iPod as is, is that it is designed for the Mac first then slightly modified for the PC. I for one never bought an iPod because it has to run through shit software to manage your songs, software that at its best was flaky. MP3 Players that are originally designed for the PC are made to for the most part be like external hard drive, just drag and drop files, no 3rd party software to use. The HP iPod will use only USB 2.0 not firewire (one more thing that PC users dont always have) and will work with HP's software, not jukebox. HP's software will make it more PC friendly and more like the interaction between PC and MP3 player that other "for PC" MP3 players have. Not only all that but many people that aren't tech savvy dont know that the iPod works for PC. And even if they do, they get told by store employees that it doesn't work well with a PC. Having HP's name on it will make it more recognizable as a "for PC" product, and stop people from saying "I would like a iPod, but I dont have a Mac." Now they can see from just the name that it will work with their PC. Its nothing really that new, but it will allow Apple to sell their iPods to people that require PC name recognition.
I sell computers every day and I'll have to admit I get damn sick of explaining every time that there is more to a computer than just the MHz.
I have to go into a real complex argument about how there is not only the MHz but the front side bus, L1 cashe and L2 cashe, and onboard instructions etc.. Then there is the size of the ram, Speed (400 MHz etc..) and Latency (CL = 2.5 etc..). Then there is the Hard drive size, RPM's, Onboard Cashe, connection platform (serial ata etc...), and RAID configuration.
So I would love if considering all those factors for each piece of equipment there was some single number I could use to rate that one piece. That way it wouldn't take 15 minuets to tell someone how fast the computer is. I just think that the people making the product shouldn't get to create the definition of that one special number. It's like if you had Chevy say their new corvette had 380GM power.
I went to Virginia Tech about 2 years ago, and still remember the first time I went into the math lab there. It's a huge room the size of an Albertsons or so and has nothing but G4's in small 5 computer clusters on round tables. I think there was about 500+ in there. Being an AMD fan and hating Apple I almost fainted when seeing this. During my time there I finally realized why they had so many Apples. It was because they get a good discount on them (or so they say) and being the corky college type people they are they were into the entire "MAC" thing. It made me sick. I had to fight with all types of students and professors while getting my degree in Computer Engineering there on the PC vs. MAC thing and since I had to use OS X for lab computers then go home to a Windows XP machine I got a good perspective on a daily basis on the advantages on both. Before VT I had never used an Apple and didn't really hate nor like them, after VT I wish they could just round down that 2% market share to 0. I think going to a Dual or Quad Opteron Setup would have been a huge advantage for them. But seeing that it is VT, I'm not surprised.
Damn i wish that Gateway would pick up AMD's again. I work at a local Gateway store, and its like twisting the nife everytime i see how strongarmed they are by intel. They say that they stopped carring AMD because of relieablility issues but i dont see how that is possible. With my experience of 5 years as a computer tech, its almost never an issue with the CPU or motherboard being less relyable than Intel's. But when you are loosing sales and market shares you have to do something to boost sales again (force distributers like Gateway to only offer 1 processor brand). If you want a Gateway, you get Intel, period. You want a Dell, you get Intel, period. I dont know what will happen with the Opteron processor from AMD, but God help me and let me sell AMD's again.
I just got done doing my senior thesis about the topic of CAFE standards and the info out there is amazing. The number of deaths associated with the lightening of cars to comply with CAFE standards is estimated at over 15 times more deaths then September 11th, since CAFE came around. And yet some people like the Sierra Club want to raise the standards to 40mpg for cars by 2010. Do you have any idea what that would do to the US economy since the American automobile industry is a huge part of the entire GDP. One of the best figures that I found was that it would take the average person 20 years to save money from the money they "Saved" from the better gas mileage cars in retrospect to the extra money the car costs because of using aluminum rather than steel. Aluminum costs 5 times more than steel with 10 times less strength (unless that is you use hybrid aluminum which would cost even more). Case and point, CAFE standards must be destroyed in order for many problems to be solved.
All you people that trade your SUV for a civic are doing everyone a disservice.
1. You are hurting our economy since we all know that the profits of that car go out of the US, creating a leakage in our GDP.
2. You are creating all of us to pay more money for insurance, since the number of people hurt in smaller, lighter cars is much higher compared to larger, heavier cars. Also the number of small cars that when in an accident are repairable compared to deemed "totaled" is tremendously lower than heavier cars. And to all those people that say that their civic or camery is just as safe as a larger heavier car are extremely misinformed. A 2003 American SUV gets tremendously lower number of fatalities per vehicle per year than an imported car/SUV. The only SUV's that are getting bad safety ratings are the ones that are getting great gas mileage and have much less mass. 2003 cars whether American, or Imported, whether SUV's or cars, all have basically the same safety technology available. The difference comes into play when compared to in weight. The more mass you have than the other car you collide with, the safer you are period. Also the higher you are compared to another car the less a chance that that car will hit the passengers. (Within reason for chances of rolling)
3. You are spending more money then you should, when you could put that money into our economy. Spending on average 37% more on a new car because it uses aluminum and gets 40mpg and weighs 20% less then it would with steel is just stupid. Do the math, how much do you really save every year because you get 40mpg compared to 20, or 15mpg. Not much compared to that 37% more for that new Civic.
4. You are buying foreign cars instead of domestic, thus hurting sales for American car companies. Once again a loss of potential GDP growth.
5. And finally, think about this next time you look at the mpg on a new car. For every 1 mpg that you get higher than that last years model of that same car, you have a 1.3% higher fatality rate. (Not figuring in newer safety measures, which are never drastically different.)
Do the right thing and consider all those things next time you purchase a new car. That and fight against the human, and American injustices of CAFÉ standards.
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I worked for Gateway when they had all the retail stores. The only thing that helped us sell the pc's were the promise of US based tech support when the rest of the PC world sent it to India. That and the random Profile and Tablet computer sale helped. Honestly before they bought EMachines, Gateway was doing ok with the consumer electronics dept. as well. We sold TONS of their cheap plasmas before the rest of the market came down to their prices. Their number one source for cash flow was those stores. Not their most profitable source but the most sales. When they changed everything to go with retail outlets and the Emachines business model, everyone thought they went out of business. I didn't talk to a single person that knew that they still were selling computers. How can you recover from that? Their biggest asset was their customer base. Look at their stock come April 04'. That's when they closed their retail stores and it was all down hill from there. They did this to themselves, not the flopping PC industry.
This is Apple's attempt to capture even more of the MP3 player FOR PC market. The problem with the iPod as is, is that it is designed for the Mac first then slightly modified for the PC. I for one never bought an iPod because it has to run through shit software to manage your songs, software that at its best was flaky. MP3 Players that are originally designed for the PC are made to for the most part be like external hard drive, just drag and drop files, no 3rd party software to use. The HP iPod will use only USB 2.0 not firewire (one more thing that PC users dont always have) and will work with HP's software, not jukebox. HP's software will make it more PC friendly and more like the interaction between PC and MP3 player that other "for PC" MP3 players have. Not only all that but many people that aren't tech savvy dont know that the iPod works for PC. And even if they do, they get told by store employees that it doesn't work well with a PC. Having HP's name on it will make it more recognizable as a "for PC" product, and stop people from saying "I would like a iPod, but I dont have a Mac." Now they can see from just the name that it will work with their PC. Its nothing really that new, but it will allow Apple to sell their iPods to people that require PC name recognition.
I sell computers every day and I'll have to admit I get damn sick of explaining every time that there is more to a computer than just the MHz.
I have to go into a real complex argument about how there is not only the MHz but the front side bus, L1 cashe and L2 cashe, and onboard instructions etc.. Then there is the size of the ram, Speed (400 MHz etc..) and Latency (CL = 2.5 etc..). Then there is the Hard drive size, RPM's, Onboard Cashe, connection platform (serial ata etc...), and RAID configuration.
So I would love if considering all those factors for each piece of equipment there was some single number I could use to rate that one piece. That way it wouldn't take 15 minuets to tell someone how fast the computer is. I just think that the people making the product shouldn't get to create the definition of that one special number. It's like if you had Chevy say their new corvette had 380GM power.
~DeusOTdeuS
I went to Virginia Tech about 2 years ago, and still remember the first time I went into the math lab there. It's a huge room the size of an Albertsons or so and has nothing but G4's in small 5 computer clusters on round tables. I think there was about 500+ in there. Being an AMD fan and hating Apple I almost fainted when seeing this. During my time there I finally realized why they had so many Apples. It was because they get a good discount on them (or so they say) and being the corky college type people they are they were into the entire "MAC" thing. It made me sick. I had to fight with all types of students and professors while getting my degree in Computer Engineering there on the PC vs. MAC thing and since I had to use OS X for lab computers then go home to a Windows XP machine I got a good perspective on a daily basis on the advantages on both. Before VT I had never used an Apple and didn't really hate nor like them, after VT I wish they could just round down that 2% market share to 0. I think going to a Dual or Quad Opteron Setup would have been a huge advantage for them. But seeing that it is VT, I'm not surprised.
Damn i wish that Gateway would pick up AMD's again. I work at a local Gateway store, and its like twisting the nife everytime i see how strongarmed they are by intel. They say that they stopped carring AMD because of relieablility issues but i dont see how that is possible. With my experience of 5 years as a computer tech, its almost never an issue with the CPU or motherboard being less relyable than Intel's. But when you are loosing sales and market shares you have to do something to boost sales again (force distributers like Gateway to only offer 1 processor brand). If you want a Gateway, you get Intel, period. You want a Dell, you get Intel, period. I dont know what will happen with the Opteron processor from AMD, but God help me and let me sell AMD's again.
I just got done doing my senior thesis about the topic of CAFE standards and the info out there is amazing. The number of deaths associated with the lightening of cars to comply with CAFE standards is estimated at over 15 times more deaths then September 11th, since CAFE came around. And yet some people like the Sierra Club want to raise the standards to 40mpg for cars by 2010. Do you have any idea what that would do to the US economy since the American automobile industry is a huge part of the entire GDP. One of the best figures that I found was that it would take the average person 20 years to save money from the money they "Saved" from the better gas mileage cars in retrospect to the extra money the car costs because of using aluminum rather than steel. Aluminum costs 5 times more than steel with 10 times less strength (unless that is you use hybrid aluminum which would cost even more). Case and point, CAFE standards must be destroyed in order for many problems to be solved.
All you people that trade your SUV for a civic are doing everyone a disservice.
1. You are hurting our economy since we all know that the profits of that car go out of the US, creating a leakage in our GDP.
2. You are creating all of us to pay more money for insurance, since the number of people hurt in smaller, lighter cars is much higher compared to larger, heavier cars. Also the number of small cars that when in an accident are repairable compared to deemed "totaled" is tremendously lower than heavier cars. And to all those people that say that their civic or camery is just as safe as a larger heavier car are extremely misinformed. A 2003 American SUV gets tremendously lower number of fatalities per vehicle per year than an imported car/SUV. The only SUV's that are getting bad safety ratings are the ones that are getting great gas mileage and have much less mass. 2003 cars whether American, or Imported, whether SUV's or cars, all have basically the same safety technology available. The difference comes into play when compared to in weight. The more mass you have than the other car you collide with, the safer you are period. Also the higher you are compared to another car the less a chance that that car will hit the passengers. (Within reason for chances of rolling)
3. You are spending more money then you should, when you could put that money into our economy. Spending on average 37% more on a new car because it uses aluminum and gets 40mpg and weighs 20% less then it would with steel is just stupid. Do the math, how much do you really save every year because you get 40mpg compared to 20, or 15mpg. Not much compared to that 37% more for that new Civic.
4. You are buying foreign cars instead of domestic, thus hurting sales for American car companies. Once again a loss of potential GDP growth.
5. And finally, think about this next time you look at the mpg on a new car. For every 1 mpg that you get higher than that last years model of that same car, you have a 1.3% higher fatality rate. (Not figuring in newer safety measures, which are never drastically different.)
Do the right thing and consider all those things next time you purchase a new car. That and fight against the human, and American injustices of CAFÉ standards.