Do you really think every person in your local city is going to take home their paper receipt and keep it in a safe place in case it needs to be recounted?
Paper ballots are the only way to ensure there is a REAL paper trail.
No, there would be no waste in changed toner, but wouldn't it require substantially more time than a normal printing run to load in each individual PDF for printing rather than make 50,000 copies of a single image already loaded into the printer? Also, isn't the cost substantially higher on this big 4 color laserjet printer than a four unit printering line for a 50,000 page run (of a single image).
Any idea what that would cost compared to a normal print run? I don't know anyone in the biz and have no concept of what the increased price per copy would be. Is it likely they lost money on this run as an advertising gimmick, or would this be feasible to do in regular issues?
Actually, what impressed me was not the fact that they could get an image of the subscribers address, but that they could obtain it, print it, and include it in a normal magazine publishing run as anywhere near a reasonable cost!
I thought most printing press houses ran high-speed presses with no time to include a specific cover for each individual issue printed. I assume the specific cover will include the mailing address for mailing purposes. If not, associating the right issue with the right mailing label on a print line is even more of a feat. What's next? Totally individualized dead-tree magazines for every subscriber of every rag out there? This could get interesting.
Yes, the sales folks there are totally worthless. I wanted to try out the web-tablets to see if they might be useful for our clinicians at work. I didn't know anything about them when I went in, but ended up teaching the staff there how to use them since they let me bring in a CD with our in-house application to try out. They didn't know what the features were or how to use them until I showed them. Not exactly the folks you want giving you advice on what machine to buy... The staff was worthless, but you really do need a chance to see some items hands-on. They better follow Dell's lead and open theose little kiosks in the malls where you can get a chance to play with the hardware before you go online to buy.
err, right. And then who'd create the frontends? In a typical marketing/sales firm, where all IT support it outsourced (no, not to India, just some local IT company - they dont have a IT department of their own) where there aren't any "geeky" or lets just say, well informed users, how do they "create" a front-end?
The same person who does the Excel spreadsheet design could learn to use MS Access fairly easily. It's not that hard to use to do simple stuff.
Most databases that I have worked with, did not seem to have a mechanism of building a feature rich, easy to use, front-end. They didn't have easy administration capabilities either. Most workable front-ends were made available only by developing them. Oh, I've seen only Oracle, SQL Server (!) and mySQL
You already have Excel. Chances are you have MS Access as well. It can make you that easy to use, eatrure rich front-end. It can be the backend as well, although preferrably you could use it to talk to a SQL server. It can talk to just about any database server you want over ODBC, be it Oracle, MS-SQL, MySQL(yuck), or whatever.
Well, the same can be said of *nix. I remember a lot of server apps that used to run as root. That's mainly been fixed, most don't need to these days, but it was a huge problem. Exploit a hole in those and you were on as root. Badly written software apps that require to be run as admin/root have been the bane of many OS's.
Once again tho, a badly written app running in userspace can ruin more than your whole day by leaving open expolits to waste your data files. Badly written apps are bad, no matter which OS they run on, and whether they run as root or as you.
The other problem often seen is lazy users. I have educated a number, explained why they should run as a user and not as admin. They try it, and as soon as they have to re-logon as admin to install/change a config (or even do run-as) they decide it's just 'easier' to run fulltime as admin even tho they have been warned. These people would stop using their user account and run as root on a *nix box if they could, for the same reason. Sometimes users like that have to get burned badly several times before it sinks in that the extra little labor involved for security is well worth it.
And if you don't run your Windows machine as Admin, and you do backups of it, your in the same shape.
The problem is most windows users do run as admin (That's the way it came from the store. They'd run it as 'root' as installed if they had a Linux box. They just don't know better). Most also don't do backups, which is the critical part. Most machines bought these days come with a 'restore' CD that can have the system back to original shape in a hour or two, but the critical thing, the users data is still gone. It doesn't matter if you are on *nix or windows, their is usually a lot more time/value lost in losing the user space files than in simply reinstalling the OS/apps. *nix viruses will do just about as much damage if the user runs something they shouldn't.
It's not an OS thing, it's a user education thing.
Your argument might have merit if their database system wasn't leagues ahead of any OSS database. Oracle is their competition and the one that they steal ideas from. Most OSS stuff is way behind.Postgres has some nice features, but is still well shy of MSSQL. MySQL??? Don't make me laugh.
The editors deserve it. If not, why does the moderation system have an "Off topic" adjustment with a negative value? Because discussions should focus on the article. The MS thing had ZERO to do with Apple, France, or taxes on music. It was way way off topic. Since you can't moderate down the editors, they deserved to be reminded that their endless bashing of MS is not what the discussion should be about.
The issue was that the guy claimed he couldn't buy a computer without getting windows on it. You can from many many vendors. Even Dell, who he bought from, does sell some machines without windows.
The costs of the differently configured machine is probably different for many reasons. It's easier just to ghost one OS to a machine in a line. Now you also have to worry about providing and updating drivers on your website for a 2nd OS. Now they have to support a 2nd operating system, which means a 2nd training manual for all their phone techs, their repair folks need to knwo the 2nd OS, etc, etc. If they sold as many linux machines as Windows the costs might be dissapated amoung them, but since linux machines probably make up a tiny fraction of their sales, the cost of all that extra overhead is concentrated on a relatively small number of them for them to recoup.. therefore probably higher prices than windows, even with the $4 Windows licence (as mentioned in another post by an anonymous poster from dell).
Why just look... http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/features. aspx/precn_450n?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd
Well, what do you know? A Dell machine with Linux on it, and another with FREE DOS. Just because you are an uninformed consumer who can't be bothered to look for a machine configured with the software you want (from the same vendor no less!), don't waste the time of the FTC.
Hey, the author knows his stuff. Didn't you see his other review where he showed Linux's 2.6 kernal blows DOS 3.0 out of the water in multitasking ability?
How many times in movie history has a single seentence uttered 5 minutes into a sequel utterly destroyed the basis of the (great) original movie, as well as condemning all future movies in the series to the bottom rung of b movies?
Sorry to be off topic, but you reminded me of something I was trying desperatly to forget.
Sorry, but that's bogus. Stores have been able to do this forever. It's called keeping track of total sales. No need to know if Mr. John Doe of 127 Maple street only buys Bud Lite.(yuch)
All they have to do is see that in March, 40% of the beer they sold was Bud Lite. If 40% of their sales volume goes to Bud Lite, 40% of the beer shelf space should go to Bud Lite. No need to track it by individual users. They do that to have tie-ins to other products and sell the data back to the manufacturers.
No, it's not extra if you pay with cash. It's extra if you don't sign up for a special card from the store that links your purchases to a database entry about who YOU are.
You can pay cash or use a credit or debit card and you will pay the same price. But, if when you pay (by any of those means) and you also let them swipe your store ID card, you get a discount on some items. Then they have a nice little tracking database of exactly what YOU bought each and every time you let them swipe your store ID card.
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"No Taxation without Representation"
High taxes do not equate to oppression. Paying taxes without having any say does.
Do you really think every person in your local city is going to take home their paper receipt and keep it in a safe place in case it needs to be recounted?
Paper ballots are the only way to ensure there is a REAL paper trail.
No, there would be no waste in changed toner, but wouldn't it require substantially more time than a normal printing run to load in each individual PDF for printing rather than make 50,000 copies of a single image already loaded into the printer? Also, isn't the cost substantially higher on this big 4 color laserjet printer than a four unit printering line for a 50,000 page run (of a single image).
Any idea what that would cost compared to a normal print run? I don't know anyone in the biz and have no concept of what the increased price per copy would be. Is it likely they lost money on this run as an advertising gimmick, or would this be feasible to do in regular issues?
I thought most printing press houses ran high-speed presses with no time to include a specific cover for each individual issue printed. I assume the specific cover will include the mailing address for mailing purposes. If not, associating the right issue with the right mailing label on a print line is even more of a feat. What's next? Totally individualized dead-tree magazines for every subscriber of every rag out there? This could get interesting.
By the way, want to buy some swampland in Florida?
Yes, the sales folks there are totally worthless. I wanted to try out the web-tablets to see if they might be useful for our clinicians at work. I didn't know anything about them when I went in, but ended up teaching the staff there how to use them since they let me bring in a CD with our in-house application to try out. They didn't know what the features were or how to use them until I showed them. Not exactly the folks you want giving you advice on what machine to buy... The staff was worthless, but you really do need a chance to see some items hands-on. They better follow Dell's lead and open theose little kiosks in the malls where you can get a chance to play with the hardware before you go online to buy.
The same person who does the Excel spreadsheet design could learn to use MS Access fairly easily. It's not that hard to use to do simple stuff.
Most databases that I have worked with, did not seem to have a mechanism of building a feature rich, easy to use, front-end. They didn't have easy administration capabilities either. Most workable front-ends were made available only by developing them. Oh, I've seen only Oracle, SQL Server (!) and mySQL
You already have Excel. Chances are you have MS Access as well. It can make you that easy to use, eatrure rich front-end. It can be the backend as well, although preferrably you could use it to talk to a SQL server. It can talk to just about any database server you want over ODBC, be it Oracle, MS-SQL, MySQL(yuck), or whatever.
Once again tho, a badly written app running in userspace can ruin more than your whole day by leaving open expolits to waste your data files. Badly written apps are bad, no matter which OS they run on, and whether they run as root or as you.
The other problem often seen is lazy users. I have educated a number, explained why they should run as a user and not as admin. They try it, and as soon as they have to re-logon as admin to install/change a config (or even do run-as) they decide it's just 'easier' to run fulltime as admin even tho they have been warned. These people would stop using their user account and run as root on a *nix box if they could, for the same reason. Sometimes users like that have to get burned badly several times before it sinks in that the extra little labor involved for security is well worth it.
The problem is most windows users do run as admin (That's the way it came from the store. They'd run it as 'root' as installed if they had a Linux box. They just don't know better). Most also don't do backups, which is the critical part. Most machines bought these days come with a 'restore' CD that can have the system back to original shape in a hour or two, but the critical thing, the users data is still gone. It doesn't matter if you are on *nix or windows, their is usually a lot more time/value lost in losing the user space files than in simply reinstalling the OS/apps. *nix viruses will do just about as much damage if the user runs something they shouldn't.
It's not an OS thing, it's a user education thing.
Improbability? You weren't around for the whole Cuba missile crisis thing then eh? It was a close thing. A very, very scary close thing.
And he claimed it was the 'World's Fastest Tower' which it wouldn't be with the 3dMark2001 score.
And he said .15 DB instead of 15 DB.
And he said 500GB Hard drive instead of 250 GB Hard drive.
And he said he was in business from 1996-2000 at one location instead of 2000-2004.
And he calimed places had reviewed his machine that didn't.
And he seemed to claim he had won awards that he hadn't.
And he seemed to claim people were customers who weren't.
And.... seeing a trend yet?
Simple mistake??? right...
Oh, I've got some loveley swampland in Florida that you might be interested in! I'll make you a great deal!
Your argument might have merit if their database system wasn't leagues ahead of any OSS database. Oracle is their competition and the one that they steal ideas from. Most OSS stuff is way behind .Postgres has some nice features, but is still well shy of MSSQL. MySQL??? Don't make me laugh.
The editors deserve it. If not, why does the moderation system have an "Off topic" adjustment with a negative value? Because discussions should focus on the article. The MS thing had ZERO to do with Apple, France, or taxes on music. It was way way off topic. Since you can't moderate down the editors, they deserved to be reminded that their endless bashing of MS is not what the discussion should be about.
The issue was that the guy claimed he couldn't buy a computer without getting windows on it. You can from many many vendors. Even Dell, who he bought from, does sell some machines without windows.
The costs of the differently configured machine is probably different for many reasons. It's easier just to ghost one OS to a machine in a line. Now you also have to worry about providing and updating drivers on your website for a 2nd OS. Now they have to support a 2nd operating system, which means a 2nd training manual for all their phone techs, their repair folks need to knwo the 2nd OS, etc, etc. If they sold as many linux machines as Windows the costs might be dissapated amoung them, but since linux machines probably make up a tiny fraction of their sales, the cost of all that extra overhead is concentrated on a relatively small number of them for them to recoup.. therefore probably higher prices than windows, even with the $4 Windows licence (as mentioned in another post by an anonymous poster from dell).
Dell's lowly 4-way xeon machines start at ~$11,000. When your buying a *64*-way machine, $256 isn't exactly a significant part of the price.
Well, what do you know? A Dell machine with Linux on it, and another with FREE DOS. Just because you are an uninformed consumer who can't be bothered to look for a machine configured with the software you want (from the same vendor no less!), don't waste the time of the FTC.
Hey, the author knows his stuff. Didn't you see his other review where he showed Linux's 2.6 kernal blows DOS 3.0 out of the water in multitasking ability?
Columbus was used as an example in his lecture because it's the city that Ohio State University is in. (that's where the lecture was held...)
For the record, perhaps you need to take a trip to Best Buy, etc and see $300-$400 emachines and the like which come complete WITH Windows.
How many times in movie history has a single seentence uttered 5 minutes into a sequel utterly destroyed the basis of the (great) original movie, as well as condemning all future movies in the series to the bottom rung of b movies?
Sorry to be off topic, but you reminded me of something I was trying desperatly to forget.
Psst, all those are databases. Peoplesoft is ERP software. That's a much smaller playing field.
All they have to do is see that in March, 40% of the beer they sold was Bud Lite. If 40% of their sales volume goes to Bud Lite, 40% of the beer shelf space should go to Bud Lite. No need to track it by individual users. They do that to have tie-ins to other products and sell the data back to the manufacturers.
You can pay cash or use a credit or debit card and you will pay the same price. But, if when you pay (by any of those means) and you also let them swipe your store ID card, you get a discount on some items. Then they have a nice little tracking database of exactly what YOU bought each and every time you let them swipe your store ID card.