"I will gladly bet that Microsoft will still be a highly profitable company in twenty years. "
No doubt, I don't think anyone is saying M$ will blow away in the wind tomorrow, but they'll be a shell of the company they once were in the early 2000s.
Microsoft will probably end up porting their Office suite to ChromeOS or risk being replaced by OpenOffice and other cloud office suites.
Laptops and netbooks are what will kill Microsoft, the need to have a OS you can start, surf the web, and shutdown almost instantly is what people want. I had Vista and replaced it with Windows 7 on a new laptop and although 7 starts and shuts down much faster XP is still faster on my 4 yr old laptop. I don't want to wait 3 minutes to go from on to surfing, and why the 8 yr old XP can do that in 30 seconds but Vista takes over 2 minutes or longer with a much faster cpu and more ram is beyond me.
I'm sorry Microsoft, I rejoiced when XP came out, but Vista and netbooks will be the nail in your coffin. Why you couldn't take the best parts of XP and just made it prettier is anyone's guess.
"Toy weapons were banned as carry-ons before 9/11. Keep them in your checked luggage."
No grey area? Sure the all black 9mm plastic replica found in a 23 yr old's backpack should be taken away, but the Disney Pirates of the Caribbean plastic sword and gun held by the 8 yr old?
People need to use their judgement once in awhile. If there's a doubt, take pictures, video, record licenses, double check, etc, but don't rip toys out of children's hands.
"Well I guess this could make sense, I know people that really abuse the vendors by returning products that have been used in non-warranty covered conditions and I have always known that I am indirectly paying for them when I buy a new product"
It could, but doesn't. Are their return rates so high that this is warranted? I've owned about half a dozen iPods over the years and never returned one, after all they're just mp3 players, not all that much to break really. I know I've dropped them several times so I'd hate to think if I had a problem with one they'd see I dropped it before and deny the claim.
The more I hear about Apple's crap the more I'm glad Google is encroaching on their market, first with Android, now with Chrome OS. Apple is dying, and now they're committing suicide.
Because it leads to distrust. Distrust leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. I sense much distrust in you.
But seriously, it's not just the first link, the entire page is links to articles of why Macs are so expensive. Do that in google and you get Why Windows Vista and Office 2007 are so Expensive. And you could argue "Yeah but a Microsoft search engine is not going to say their own software is expensive", but if you google why does google suck and you get whydoesgooglesuck.com.
"7 might be better than vista. but i still dont believe it's the fastest ever or any of their other bs."
1. Create and sell crap OS
2. Tell everyone OS fail
3. Upgrade OS, tell everyone new OS and sell again
4. Profit!
Seriously though, can I get the last 3 yrs of my life back wasted with Vista? Laptop didn't offer XP drivers, only vista, so I couldn't even downgrade, and now I have to buy a new OS because Vista is absolute crap. I'm really wondering if Windows 7 isn't just more crap so they can come out with a "new" OS in another 3 years and force us all to buy that because "It's faster, no really we promise! The blogger we paid off says so!"
Google, please hurry with the Chrome OS, I'm so ready to give up on Windows and I know there's a Linux community but it's somewhat fragmented and 99% of the time I start Windows, open the Google Chrome browser and go straight to Google, might as well have the OS.
"In other words, it will have a 60 mile range when it's fresh off the lot, and a 30 mile range after the first few months." "all-electric...this car will have a 100-mile range, seats 5,"
Sorry, would never buy. It would have to be only a few grand to convince me to buy because I would need another car. This is equal in practicality as a motorcycle. At least the upcoming Chevy Volt I can drive and drive and not worry about it, am I going to be rescuing stranded people that ran out of battery?
slap a generator that runs on gasoline in there if you want my dollars.
"MsWord has too large an installed base and there is too much inertia for people to change."
What?!? But Jeremy Reimer has spoken! How dare you claim we should not all follow his example into Linux bliss:
"I chose MediaWiki, the open-source software that powers Wikipedia. It was relatively easy to install on a virtual Linux server. Since everyone has read Wikipedia, the interface was familiar and so our users needed no training."
I'm glad it was easy for you to install it on your virtual Linux server, could everyone in your office do that? Could your mom? Could your replacement?
While this is a nice idea it doesn't sound like a mainstream solution. My old job had just started a wiki for the FAQs. Few people used it due to login issues and an over-complicated system of finding information. It'll take the kids of today becoming the adults of tomorrow before we can move offices into a completely wiki-type system.
I think we'll all be using Google Docs in the near future, especially if Google Chrome OS does well on netbooks. Google Docs already has a share feature and I'm sure adding a wiki wouldn't be too difficult.
"At least a decent PC from 2005 would be either an AMD64 system, or one of the EMT64 Pentium 4's, and would pretty much be able to run anything a new PC can run today"
Exactly. I had a 2800+ AMD laptop from 2005. It was $400 then. Only 256mb but that was easily upgraded to 1gb. It ran everything a modern laptop could run. Not the best gaming laptop but it handled Half-Life 2 rather well, which was remarkable for a $400 laptop in Fall 2005 because Half-Life 2 had only been released a year earlier. So this crap about "5 year old PC is worthless while my 5 yr old Mac is great" is just that, crap.
"I have a feeling that the opinion of Vista will stay largely static forever; it may have introduced new features, but it still wasn't that good. This is already how the public feels about WinME -- it added useful features like System Restore, but it wasn't until XP that those features were incorporated in a good OS."
I couldn't say it better myself. Going XP to Vista feels like 98 to ME. ME was absolutely AWFUL. It took Windows 2000 and finally XP before M$ finally got it right (w2k was good but didn't play the games XP could).
I have a feeling Windows 7 won't be there either, I think it'll be Windows 2000 all over again, a big improvement but not XP. But I really think this might be Microsoft's last chance, I think if anyone could topple M$ it'd be Google's Chrome OS. I know you guys are all linux lovers, but I've tried redhat and ubuntu and it's just not there, not enough to switch. If anyone could convince me to switch it'd be Google. Reviews of Android software have been positive, some calling it the open source iPhone so that shows Google knows what they're doing.
I'll have to get Windows 7 for the laptop because it already has Vista but I'll dual boot into Chrome OS when it's released.
And your mouse is not a portable electronic device.... oh, wait...
"Apparatus and methods for controlling a portable electronic device, such as an MP3 player; portable radio, voice recorder, or portable CD player are disclosed. A touchpad is mounted on the housing of the device, and a user enters commands by tracing patterns with his finger on a surface of the touchpad. No immediate visual feedback is provided as a command pattern is traced, and the user does not need to view the device to enter commands."
In 1999 the Diamond Rio existed but not the iPod, but this seems to cover all portable electronic devices with a touchpad. It goes on to give examples of devices that play music, but it's trying to patent every portable electronic device. It's vague enough that it you could lump laptops in with the mix, after all a laptop is a portable electronic device and you trace patterns with your finger on a surface of a touchpad.
Think it could be fought, but it'd probably be cheaper to throw them 100 grand then to fight it.
"...beta testing is actually damn boring and all troubles. Crashes, game may look shitty still, maybe no sounds and music, the gameplay isn't there fully yet, features are missing and so on."
depends on the beta testing. I've seen none of that on the testing I've been involved with. If there's no sounds or music I'd say it's not even ready for public beta, that's more like alpha testing and should be done internally by the programmers or their own test team.
"ã10 gets you a copy of the game, ã30 gets you a copy of the game and a vote in feature requests, ã50 gets you two votes, ã100 gets you direct access to the feature list to make suggestions yourself (without requiring votes to appear in a shortlist), etc. with a bracket for those who will get ROI in form of dividend based on performance."
I actually like that idea, although I think the first tier should include a copy of the game and access to a "special" section of the open forums where you can beta test and make suggestions. Higher tiers should get you better status in the forums (ie silver contributor, gold contributor, platinum contributor, etc) and a return on your investment, even potential to make a profit.
I'd have to see a previous game they made already though, or at least a brief demo, something showing me "Yes we know what we're doing and this game will be good, now give us $$$". Screenshots and videos of the "upcoming" game just won't cut it, I've seen too many great screenshots and videos of games that were epic failures.
Actually... this is epically genius: who needs commercials when you have 50,000 people who invested a few bucks and wants a return on their investment? Now you have 50,000 walking commercials, posting great comments in forums, blogging about it, putting it on facebook, and telling everyone they know about this new game and how great it is and that they're beta testing it.
You can't buy that kind of publicity, and suddenly you're getting paid to let people advertise for you. Man, would I love for Google to call me and say "We'd like to put your website in the top 3 ranking and we'll give you $500,000, can we do that?" Yes please.
Forget the earlier part: allow everyone to get a return, just like stocks. Figure out a way so even the guy that invests $1 can get that back and more if the game does very well.
---If they invest $10-$20 (depends on how much programmer things they can get away with charging for this), they can beta test, access special forum section, and get better return on money. ---If they invest $15-$40, they beta test, access special forum section, get a full copy of the game, and get better return on money. ---$30-$70, beta test, special forum section, platinum copy of the game, and get best return on money.
"GPP doesn't mention what level of risk there is with having a weee pc from being stolen"
Maybe I'm alone here, but I would just like to say I do not want your data. I don't think anyone does. I've bought many a used drive, PC and laptop and I've never ever tried to recover data from them (even though I know how) to see what the previous owner was up to. Frankly I didn't care and was too concerned with my own data, and if I were to steal someone's laptop I think I'd probably do the same.
Unless you're smuggling government secrets or you're pedobear (pedobear video) your data will probably be wiped clean by whoever steals it so they can use it or resell it.
Re:Postal addresses identify houses!I
on
P.I.I. In the Sky
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· Score: 1
"how would the judge feel if a bunch of internet activists decide to post his home address, since it only identifies a structure, not a person, and his car license plate numbers,"
wait... so we want the IP address to identify a person, not a computer? I'm confused, I thought this would be a good thing, since it meant RIAA couldn't prosecute people because an IP address was downloading and a person is not a IP address. Eventually this could lead to the end of stupid red light cameras that take pictures of license plates instead of people.
Hmm... that's what I count too. Maybe they're using that new math, where the roof counts? Looks flat, you could probably put some tents on it and someone would rent it, especially in LA.
"Modern operating systems don't protect you from:
Oops. Didn't mean to delete that."
Honestly, I've never accidentally deleted something that couldn't be recovered.
"Oops, my wife/kids didn't mean to delete that."
Best solution for that is a second PC. I bought a used 2.4ghz IBM for $65 and a slightly damaged 19" LCD for $50 on Craigslist. That's probably about the same price as the external 1 terabyte drive and far more convenient than taking it off-site, and you could just backup files across the network to that PC.
"A bug in the new release of Gnomovision ate my existing Gnomovision files."
Virtual PC
"Break-ins, electronic or otherwise.
Your hard drive eats itself.
Fire, flood, etc."
All very rare, but there's always that chance...
Honestly my dream backup solution has always been a low-power PC on a UPS inside a fire-proof cabinet in my attic. Unfortunately I didn't think 802.11g was up to the task with only 54mbps, but now that wireless-N's 300mbps is practically here I think this might be the year.
"Seriously, if you're going to steal something from the mail, why would you bother putting back the evidence?"
You're questioning the judgment of a guy that thought it would be a great idea to risk jail and his cushy government postal job to steal a few bucks from birthday cards?
If you're gonna steal you should only go for millions. People who bother stealing hundreds and a few thousand are stupid because they end up in jail and losing their jobs and for what? $100? $1,000? $10,000? How much is your life and your job and your friends worth?
Slashdot Mirror
"I will gladly bet that Microsoft will still be a highly profitable company in twenty years. "
No doubt, I don't think anyone is saying M$ will blow away in the wind tomorrow, but they'll be a shell of the company they once were in the early 2000s.
Microsoft will probably end up porting their Office suite to ChromeOS or risk being replaced by OpenOffice and other cloud office suites.
Laptops and netbooks are what will kill Microsoft, the need to have a OS you can start, surf the web, and shutdown almost instantly is what people want. I had Vista and replaced it with Windows 7 on a new laptop and although 7 starts and shuts down much faster XP is still faster on my 4 yr old laptop. I don't want to wait 3 minutes to go from on to surfing, and why the 8 yr old XP can do that in 30 seconds but Vista takes over 2 minutes or longer with a much faster cpu and more ram is beyond me.
I'm sorry Microsoft, I rejoiced when XP came out, but Vista and netbooks will be the nail in your coffin. Why you couldn't take the best parts of XP and just made it prettier is anyone's guess.
"Toy weapons were banned as carry-ons before 9/11. Keep them in your checked luggage."
No grey area? Sure the all black 9mm plastic replica found in a 23 yr old's backpack should be taken away, but the Disney Pirates of the Caribbean plastic sword and gun held by the 8 yr old?
People need to use their judgement once in awhile. If there's a doubt, take pictures, video, record licenses, double check, etc, but don't rip toys out of children's hands.
"Does anyone actually think that these sensors are going to be used in any other way than blanket warranty denials?"
No.
"Well I guess this could make sense, I know people that really abuse the vendors by returning products that have been used in non-warranty covered conditions and I have always known that I am indirectly paying for them when I buy a new product"
It could, but doesn't. Are their return rates so high that this is warranted? I've owned about half a dozen iPods over the years and never returned one, after all they're just mp3 players, not all that much to break really. I know I've dropped them several times so I'd hate to think if I had a problem with one they'd see I dropped it before and deny the claim.
The more I hear about Apple's crap the more I'm glad Google is encroaching on their market, first with Android, now with Chrome OS. Apple is dying, and now they're committing suicide.
"Surprised, why?"
Because it leads to distrust. Distrust leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. I sense much distrust in you.
But seriously, it's not just the first link, the entire page is links to articles of why Macs are so expensive. Do that in google and you get Why Windows Vista and Office 2007 are so Expensive. And you could argue "Yeah but a Microsoft search engine is not going to say their own software is expensive", but if you google why does google suck and you get whydoesgooglesuck.com.
Might be just a fluke though, binging (is that a word yet? "Binging"?) Why does Vista suck and you get lots of great articles, but then a search of why does Windows 7 suck and you get nothing relevant compared to the google search that has 7 things we hate about Windows 7 as the first link.
Grow up Microsoft. If you don't give me the info I want I'll go somewhere else.
"7 might be better than vista. but i still dont believe it's the fastest ever or any of their other bs."
1. Create and sell crap OS
2. Tell everyone OS fail
3. Upgrade OS, tell everyone new OS and sell again
4. Profit!
Seriously though, can I get the last 3 yrs of my life back wasted with Vista? Laptop didn't offer XP drivers, only vista, so I couldn't even downgrade, and now I have to buy a new OS because Vista is absolute crap. I'm really wondering if Windows 7 isn't just more crap so they can come out with a "new" OS in another 3 years and force us all to buy that because "It's faster, no really we promise! The blogger we paid off says so!"
Google, please hurry with the Chrome OS, I'm so ready to give up on Windows and I know there's a Linux community but it's somewhat fragmented and 99% of the time I start Windows, open the Google Chrome browser and go straight to Google, might as well have the OS.
Not to say what she did was right, but Monroe is listed as a for-profit university, right next to Everest/Bryman and University of Phoenix. So her "degree" might be worth less than the paper it's written on and she does deserve her money and 4 years of her life back.
"In other words, it will have a 60 mile range when it's fresh off the lot, and a 30 mile range after the first few months."
"all-electric...this car will have a 100-mile range, seats 5,"
Didn't someone try this before?
Sorry, would never buy. It would have to be only a few grand to convince me to buy because I would need another car. This is equal in practicality as a motorcycle. At least the upcoming Chevy Volt I can drive and drive and not worry about it, am I going to be rescuing stranded people that ran out of battery?
slap a generator that runs on gasoline in there if you want my dollars.
"MsWord has too large an installed base and there is too much inertia for people to change."
What?!? But Jeremy Reimer has spoken! How dare you claim we should not all follow his example into Linux bliss:
"I chose MediaWiki, the open-source software that powers Wikipedia. It was relatively easy to install on a virtual Linux server. Since everyone has read Wikipedia, the interface was familiar and so our users needed no training."
I'm glad it was easy for you to install it on your virtual Linux server, could everyone in your office do that? Could your mom? Could your replacement?
While this is a nice idea it doesn't sound like a mainstream solution. My old job had just started a wiki for the FAQs. Few people used it due to login issues and an over-complicated system of finding information. It'll take the kids of today becoming the adults of tomorrow before we can move offices into a completely wiki-type system.
I think we'll all be using Google Docs in the near future, especially if Google Chrome OS does well on netbooks. Google Docs already has a share feature and I'm sure adding a wiki wouldn't be too difficult.
"At least a decent PC from 2005 would be either an AMD64 system, or one of the EMT64 Pentium 4's, and would pretty much be able to run anything a new PC can run today"
Exactly. I had a 2800+ AMD laptop from 2005. It was $400 then. Only 256mb but that was easily upgraded to 1gb. It ran everything a modern laptop could run. Not the best gaming laptop but it handled Half-Life 2 rather well, which was remarkable for a $400 laptop in Fall 2005 because Half-Life 2 had only been released a year earlier. So this crap about "5 year old PC is worthless while my 5 yr old Mac is great" is just that, crap.
I'm glad they put Premium PC in quotes because that's exactly what it is.
This article only proves that Apple's are expensive. That's it.
I could have written a article stating "Lamborghini made up a whopping 91 percent of the $200,000-and-up automobile market in June". Duh, because how many cars are over $200,000? But who'd you rather be, Lamborghini or Toyota? In 2007 Lamborghini sold 2,406 cars and made a ~70 million dollar profit. Toyota sold 2.6 million vehicles and made 14.9 billion dollars in profit.
Thanks Apple but you can keep your Lamborghini, I'll stick with my PC and my Toyota.
It's easy to make up 91% of a segment when all your products fit in that segment and none of your competitors do. Of the 67 PCs sold on Walmart.com, only 10 are over $1,000
"I have a feeling that the opinion of Vista will stay largely static forever; it may have introduced new features, but it still wasn't that good. This is already how the public feels about WinME -- it added useful features like System Restore, but it wasn't until XP that those features were incorporated in a good OS."
I couldn't say it better myself. Going XP to Vista feels like 98 to ME. ME was absolutely AWFUL. It took Windows 2000 and finally XP before M$ finally got it right (w2k was good but didn't play the games XP could).
I have a feeling Windows 7 won't be there either, I think it'll be Windows 2000 all over again, a big improvement but not XP. But I really think this might be Microsoft's last chance, I think if anyone could topple M$ it'd be Google's Chrome OS. I know you guys are all linux lovers, but I've tried redhat and ubuntu and it's just not there, not enough to switch. If anyone could convince me to switch it'd be Google. Reviews of Android software have been positive, some calling it the open source iPhone so that shows Google knows what they're doing.
I'll have to get Windows 7 for the laptop because it already has Vista but I'll dual boot into Chrome OS when it's released.
"just move it to another ISP"
-1, overrated.
But if I owned a ISP in a neighboring community I know where my next expansion would be.
And your mouse is not a portable electronic device.... oh, wait...
"Apparatus and methods for controlling a portable electronic device, such as an MP3 player; portable radio, voice recorder, or portable CD player are disclosed. A touchpad is mounted on the housing of the device, and a user enters commands by tracing patterns with his finger on a surface of the touchpad. No immediate visual feedback is provided as a command pattern is traced, and the user does not need to view the device to enter commands."
In 1999 the Diamond Rio existed but not the iPod, but this seems to cover all portable electronic devices with a touchpad. It goes on to give examples of devices that play music, but it's trying to patent every portable electronic device. It's vague enough that it you could lump laptops in with the mix, after all a laptop is a portable electronic device and you trace patterns with your finger on a surface of a touchpad.
Think it could be fought, but it'd probably be cheaper to throw them 100 grand then to fight it.
"...beta testing is actually damn boring and all troubles. Crashes, game may look shitty still, maybe no sounds and music, the gameplay isn't there fully yet, features are missing and so on."
depends on the beta testing. I've seen none of that on the testing I've been involved with. If there's no sounds or music I'd say it's not even ready for public beta, that's more like alpha testing and should be done internally by the programmers or their own test team.
"ã10 gets you a copy of the game, ã30 gets you a copy of the game and a vote in feature requests, ã50 gets you two votes, ã100 gets you direct access to the feature list to make suggestions yourself (without requiring votes to appear in a shortlist), etc. with a bracket for those who will get ROI in form of dividend based on performance."
I actually like that idea, although I think the first tier should include a copy of the game and access to a "special" section of the open forums where you can beta test and make suggestions. Higher tiers should get you better status in the forums (ie silver contributor, gold contributor, platinum contributor, etc) and a return on your investment, even potential to make a profit.
I'd have to see a previous game they made already though, or at least a brief demo, something showing me "Yes we know what we're doing and this game will be good, now give us $$$". Screenshots and videos of the "upcoming" game just won't cut it, I've seen too many great screenshots and videos of games that were epic failures.
Actually... this is epically genius: who needs commercials when you have 50,000 people who invested a few bucks and wants a return on their investment? Now you have 50,000 walking commercials, posting great comments in forums, blogging about it, putting it on facebook, and telling everyone they know about this new game and how great it is and that they're beta testing it.
You can't buy that kind of publicity, and suddenly you're getting paid to let people advertise for you. Man, would I love for Google to call me and say "We'd like to put your website in the top 3 ranking and we'll give you $500,000, can we do that?" Yes please.
Forget the earlier part: allow everyone to get a return, just like stocks. Figure out a way so even the guy that invests $1 can get that back and more if the game does very well.
---If they invest $10-$20 (depends on how much programmer things they can get away with charging for this), they can beta test, access special forum section, and get better return on money.
---If they invest $15-$40, they beta test, access special forum section, get a full copy of the game, and get better return on money.
---$30-$70, beta test, special forum section, platinum copy of the game, and get best return on money.
"GPP doesn't mention what level of risk there is with having a weee pc from being stolen"
Maybe I'm alone here, but I would just like to say I do not want your data. I don't think anyone does. I've bought many a used drive, PC and laptop and I've never ever tried to recover data from them (even though I know how) to see what the previous owner was up to. Frankly I didn't care and was too concerned with my own data, and if I were to steal someone's laptop I think I'd probably do the same.
Unless you're smuggling government secrets or you're pedobear (pedobear video) your data will probably be wiped clean by whoever steals it so they can use it or resell it.
"how would the judge feel if a bunch of internet activists decide to post his home address, since it only identifies a structure, not a person, and his car license plate numbers,"
wait... so we want the IP address to identify a person, not a computer? I'm confused, I thought this would be a good thing, since it meant RIAA couldn't prosecute people because an IP address was downloading and a person is not a IP address. Eventually this could lead to the end of stupid red light cameras that take pictures of license plates instead of people.
"umm, still trying to figure out how this was a reply to me."
he said "I'd suspect that it is at least half as long", meaning he imagines it to be true without any facts to back up his claim.
I suspect he doesn't know the answer and is incapable of googling it.
Here's another link of a dining room, but this time it's for the wooden building in the article. Last post was a link for a different building test.
"There! Are! Six! Floors!"
Hmm... that's what I count too. Maybe they're using that new math, where the roof counts? Looks flat, you could probably put some tents on it and someone would rent it, especially in LA.
"Also it was really light... no siding, no SHINGLES, no furniture, probably no plumbing. NOT impressed."
You want impressive? Try this video. Skip to 4:35 if you wanna see the dining room.
"Modern operating systems don't protect you from: Oops. Didn't mean to delete that."
Honestly, I've never accidentally deleted something that couldn't be recovered.
"Oops, my wife/kids didn't mean to delete that."
Best solution for that is a second PC. I bought a used 2.4ghz IBM for $65 and a slightly damaged 19" LCD for $50 on Craigslist. That's probably about the same price as the external 1 terabyte drive and far more convenient than taking it off-site, and you could just backup files across the network to that PC.
"A bug in the new release of Gnomovision ate my existing Gnomovision files."
Virtual PC
"Break-ins, electronic or otherwise. Your hard drive eats itself. Fire, flood, etc."
All very rare, but there's always that chance...
Honestly my dream backup solution has always been a low-power PC on a UPS inside a fire-proof cabinet in my attic. Unfortunately I didn't think 802.11g was up to the task with only 54mbps, but now that wireless-N's 300mbps is practically here I think this might be the year.
"Seriously, if you're going to steal something from the mail, why would you bother putting back the evidence?"
You're questioning the judgment of a guy that thought it would be a great idea to risk jail and his cushy government postal job to steal a few bucks from birthday cards?
If you're gonna steal you should only go for millions. People who bother stealing hundreds and a few thousand are stupid because they end up in jail and losing their jobs and for what? $100? $1,000? $10,000? How much is your life and your job and your friends worth?