Dude, do you have any idea what it costs for the sort of connection you think you deserve? You're talking about a dedicated circuit.
First, let's get out in the open what you think I'm asking for and then what I'm actually asking for. You seem to think I want a 3Mbit or 6Mbit connection for that $50. I don't care about going in the "more bandwidth" direction; I want the "lower price" direction. I'm getting 1.5Mbit/256Kbit for $50 through our cable carrier. What I would like would be half that--750K or even 500K for $25. I want the always-on-ness of cable or DSL internet instead of dialup, but don't care about the huge bandwidth increase. Can't someone sell some type of slower always-on connection for $20 or $30?
By the way, I'm in Boise Idaho. Our other broadband offering is DSL through Qwest, but I checked into that. They advertise a Great Price* on their website.
* Great Price only applies if you have local phone service active. If you don't have a land phone line, then price == $GREAT_PRICE + ARM + LEG
this oversubscription is what allows your ISP to offer you a reasonable price for service.
Uh, so when are they going to start offering this reasonable price you speak of? "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
You have a cool business model going: 1. Make insightful comment 2. Get modded up 3. Buncha morons make uninformed arguments from misunderstanding you. 4. You correct their misunderstanding. 5. Get modded up again 6. ??? (to prevent some other shmoe from adding it) 7. Karma Profit!
This is one of the things that bothers me the most about somefree(freedom or cost) software. The usability is not there. I ran into a case of this just this weekend. We wanted to put strong passwords on our financial accounts because of a security failure on one of our email accounts. I checked sourceforge for some good programs that will generate and store strong random passwords. KeePass looked good, so we tried it out. Create an entry--OK. Generate a password with cool user-controlled methods of randomness--OK. Try to copy that password to paste it into the change password dialog on my financial site--HA HA, Not a chance! Why would someone want to do something like that? As they were generated, they would not display on the screen. They were in "******" characters and you could not select or copy them. There didn't seem to be any way to copy this password out of this program and into a web browser where I'm trying to log in or change a password.
I went through all the sections in the help files and found nothing useful. There was even a FAQ in the help files. I would have thought, "How do I USE these wonderfully generated passwords?" would have been a good question to have there, but no dice. So I asked a web designer friend of mine if he had any recommendations of password programs, and he mentioned Whisper 32, which I tried. It works great. It generates the passwords, and you can copy them and paste them into your web browser, just like people would actually want to do.
That name sucks. Is this the best they could come up with.
Your comment sounds strangely familiar...
Ring Announcer: What's your name kid? Software Company: Mandriva. Ring Announcer: Mandriva? That's it? That's the best you've got? Software Company: Yeah. Ring Announcer: Oh that sucks.
Ah, I was still looking through an anagram generator, and found some other interesting ones:
A GEEK FOLK HOTSHOT SPIN A GEEK FOLK SHIP HOT SNOT A GEEK FLOSS THINK PHOTO (an open source imaging program?) A GEEK LOFT: HI HONK SPOTS (that one looked better with the colon) A GEEK OFT HOPS HOT LINKS
Apt-get, rpm, whatever - but if you are just browsing the Net and want to install something it's a real PITA, with Linux. There is no equivalent of an.exe, so you either have to be lucky that they not only have a linux version, but the right rpm for your specific distro, or you can get messy with hopefully clearly mentionned commands on the commandline - which defeats the purpose of having a GUI somewhat.
I have recently have another try at linux, but I just had to give up: while the installation of the OS itself went very well (impressive, even), the real problem was getting applications installed and working. when apt-get or urpmi or whatever doesn't have what you want, or fail for some reason, you just can't do shit, as a joe doe newbie.
This is one of my severe annoyances with stuff that is not packaged for your distro. Most people (here on Slashdot at least) spout the "./configure make make install" like that will solve everyone's problems all the time. Do you realize how few times that actually works? Frequently an interesting app that I find on Sourceforge doesn't have config information, so that when I try to run./configure, it just throws some error that I don't understand. It's not a problem with Linux; it's a problem with the inconsistency and lack of helpfulness of the coders. Depending on what type of files are provided there are a few different ways to install things. How hard would it be to just put in a couple of comment lines in the start of the.c file or in a README to tell how to install it? I've seen that just once or twice, and it sure helps people who aren't programmers figure out what to do with those apps.
I think it's a cool idea that you can get a whole system installed easily and quickly with packages and then (supposedly) have the flexibility to install from source a few other things that you want or that you get from other sources. It would just be a lot nicer if the implimentation could follow the idea.
I'll mention again my idea of Best Utility Evar and maybe someone can tell me if this exists already. It would be an "installer" of sorts for non-package stuff. You could point it to the scripts/files for the program you want to get installed, and it will check them for configuration/compile info and build/make/install or whatever needs to be done.
My company at least did do the layoffs in the best way they could. First, they held out as long as they could without it. They put in a hiring freeze, and let job turnover reduce the work force for a while. They would then start pulling people from office positions like HR and legal department to fill vacancies on the necessary production jobs, so those people could at least keep a job and not lose benefits.
Then when they did have to do the layoff, they didn't do it bit-by-bit. They just did one big one, all in one morning, and then announced to everyone that they were done, and if you were still here, you were safe. That was a couple of years ago, and they kept that promise.
It obviously didn't hurt my performance at my new company, and it really saved the day for my old company when they had a major database outage and called me to fix it for them, so everyone won, even my new boss because
he understood then the level of commitment I felt to an employer, and that I would always do the honorable thing to help out.
This is something very good that I haven't seen mentioned in this thread much. Most people's advice is about dealing with the old company and not getting walked on by his unreasonable demands. That's valid, but remember that this is an opportunity to get some good respect from your new employer, depending on how you handle this.
My little story on this is about when I was going through the interview process for my first job out of college(current one). I had first gotten a call from [Company A]. I did a phone interview, and they wanted me to fly out for an in person interview with some of their engineers. They scheduled the trip for about two weeks later. A few days later, I got a call from [Company B], who also did a phone interview with me and wanted to fly me out for an interview. They scheduled the trip for basically right after the Company A trip. I thought about it and called them back the next day and asked if I could pay the difference in airfare to get out there this coming week and explained the reasons why. I liked the job at Company B better and I liked the location(much lower cost of living than silicon valley and better to live in). Since I would prefer their job if they made me an offer, I didn't feel right wasting a few thousand dollars of Company A's money on basically a free vacation(flight, hotel, rental car), if I was going to go to B right after and take their job offer. Company B(my current employer) really appreciated that I would respect not wasting someone's costs and said they would go ahead and take care of the arrangements to get me out there to interview that week. They offered me to job that afternoon of the interview, so I called up Company A to cancel the trip, and the rest is history.
I know one person who gave two weeks and was escorted to the door and told his last pay check would arrive in the mail. (that is they paid him for those 2 weeks to sit at home and do nothing)
That's actually pretty common, especially at big companies or in certain information sensitive areas. I've worked at a large company here for almost 5 years, and that is the way it's always done here in our engineering department because they don't want to risk any problems with disgruntled employees doing anything bad before they leave. I've seen it with a large layoff, and in several case with people getting new jobs. They were escorted out(like within the hour) as soon as it was found out that they had gotten a new job. They could come back in that evening, accompanied by security to get their stuff from their desk. That may sound harsh, but the work environment is very good; they are just being very careful about information security.
It appears that they ask the application to identify itself and if it isn't iTunes 4.7, it won't download. Sort of reminds me of those websites that checked to make sure you were running IE. That led to other browsers acquiring the ability to misidentify themselves. If that's so, it'll only take
a week.
Beakman's world was OK. Did you notice that Bill Nye was a nonspeaking character in most of the demonstrations in that show? I think that may have been where he went off into getting his own show. Bill Nye was a lot funnier than Beakman, though.
Yep, verbal agreements mean nothing and cannot be enforced. A friend of mine ran into a cash shortage, and his cell phone that is the line for his business ran up a bill and got turned off. When he did come into some money, he called and asked them if he could pay about 2/3 of it that he now had on hand and then the rest in two weeks. He explained that there were customers with potential income trying to call on that line. They said that would be OK, and they would turn the line back on when he could pay that 2/3 of the bill. My friend of course didn't get a name of the person who agreed to make that exception. When he called back to pay it, they just told him that their policy is to only re-activate accounts if they get full payment, and who was it that told you we could make an exception?
I don't know what store you're referring to, but it certainly isn't OfficeMax. At the register, it prints your receipt and then prints out the pre-filled-out rebate form. You put your name and address on there and send it in with the bar code. Voila! You get your check. You don't even have to include the actual receipt on those because the form is printed from the register, so it prints the sales information on the form. I've never had a rebate(manufacturer or store) from OfficeMax refused.
What I did in a similar situation was phone and ask what information was missing. The person said that she could not tell me. I told her that I wanted them to return everything that I sent. She smugly informed me that the rebate says that they can keep everything I send. No, I told her, it does not. It says that they may keep it if they pay the rebate. Since they were not paying the rebate, I wanted it back. Suddenly a supervisor got on the line and said that he was approving payment. I had the check in under a week.
Yeah, I had one of these where I got a postcard back saying I didn't include a registration number. I called them up to ask what the heck THAT was since it wasn't asked for on the rebate form. They said I had to register the product with them and then that would give the "registration number" for the product. I did that and called them back with it, and they sent the rebate check a little later.
Basically it just amounted to another level of harassment and foot-dragging to discourage customers from following through, but if you jump through the hoops, they WILL pay. They pretty much have to or they will get a complaint reported to the BBB, and no company ever wants that.
I think that maybe the third one will be better. George Lucas can't be oblivious to the fact that the public opinion of his last two films was not so favorable. I doubt he would want to be forever remembered of ruining a potentially good saga.
You know, you don't have to be trying to be funny to be modded Funny. I think if George had paid any attention to the fans, ep II probably would have been better.("I truly, deeply, love you." Blech!) George seems to think that he knows exactly what is best, contrary to the opinion of most of his fans.
Here is a trivia bit from IMDB about what happened when George Lucas visited on the set of Martin Scorsese's movie "Gangs of New York"
19th century New York was recreated on the lot of Cinecittà studios in Rome. When George Lucas visited the massive set, he reportedly turned to Scorsese and said that sets like that can be done with computers now.
We know that George, and that's what makes your movies suck now. We rather like REAL props and filming on location *cough*LOTR*cough* that get you more immersed into the world.
The approach I've used is go to IRC groups that specialize in TV-related bittorents. Grab the shows I want to watch and burn them to CD. I was suprised to find out a while back that my consumer-oriented DVD player hooked up to my TV could recognize CDs. So simply by burning the program in the appropriate format, I could plop it in the DVD player in the living room and watch a fairly decent quality show.
What video format do you use for those files on the CDs? Is that an xVid? VCD? I think more commercial DVD players would recognize VCD over other formats. Actually, can you master something as a "DVD", but just record it onto a CD-R if the size fits?
The obvious answer to this is "No". And I really loved the comment where someone said "What about this?" and gave a link to freshmeat that had a bunch of useless stuff that was quickly debunked.
As you may recall in many discussions of the pros and cons of switching from Win to Linux, tax software is always on there. That and the lack of games are the really big software holes that may not be filled for quite a while. The only reasonable solution available (or soon to be) is probably online versions of it through TurboTax.com. Hopefully they are web compliant enough that they can run on other browsers than IE.
"Well yeah, it's a sales tax. You don't expect to buy a used CD tax free, do you?"
Yeah I do, and that is how it is done in many other countries. As I mentioned in my original post that is called Value Added Tax, and it gets the government's nose out of people's business when they are trying to sell something to another individual. Once something has been made, it is taxed when it is first sold. I do think that is the appropriate way it should be done.
I don't know, seems to have worked so far for (we're not a bank) paypal:)
Maybe you just picked a bad example, but I don't see any relation there. I've never seen any bank that operates the way Paypal does. Paypal holds your credit card information and is used as a proxy for purchasing things on the net so you don't have to risk your credit card info to many different places. You can't cash or deposit checks with them or set up a savings account, etc. I just don't see any connection.
Riiight. You see this kind of thing doesn't work. That would be like the owner of a brothel posting a sign out front saying "This is not a brothel." When the police come to bust him, do you think his annoucement to the contrary is going to have any weight? Ebay may say they are not an auction house, but guess what--they record people's bids, they keep track of who is currently the high bidder and notify people if they get outbid, they announce the close of the auction, and notify the winning bidder and the seller, and take a cut of the proceeds of the sale. If he looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...it won't matter if he says he's a horse.
Slashdot Mirror
By the way, I'm in Boise Idaho. Our other broadband offering is DSL through Qwest, but I checked into that. They advertise a Great Price* on their website.
* Great Price only applies if you have local phone service active. If you don't have a land phone line, then price == $GREAT_PRICE + ARM + LEG
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
You have a cool business model going:
1. Make insightful comment
2. Get modded up
3. Buncha morons make uninformed arguments from misunderstanding you.
4. You correct their misunderstanding.
5. Get modded up again
6. ??? (to prevent some other shmoe from adding it)
7. Karma Profit!
This is one of the things that bothers me the most about somefree(freedom or cost) software. The usability is not there. I ran into a case of this just this weekend.
We wanted to put strong passwords on our financial accounts because of a security failure on one of our email accounts. I checked sourceforge for some good programs that will generate and store strong random passwords. KeePass looked good, so we tried it out. Create an entry--OK. Generate a password with cool user-controlled methods of randomness--OK. Try to copy that password to paste it into the change password dialog on my financial site--HA HA, Not a chance! Why would someone want to do something like that? As they were generated, they would not display on the screen. They were in "******" characters and you could not select or copy them. There didn't seem to be any way to copy this password out of this program and into a web browser where I'm trying to log in or change a password.
I went through all the sections in the help files and found nothing useful. There was even a FAQ in the help files. I would have thought, "How do I USE these wonderfully generated passwords?" would have been a good question to have there, but no dice. So I asked a web designer friend of mine if he had any recommendations of password programs, and he mentioned Whisper 32, which I tried. It works great. It generates the passwords, and you can copy them and paste them into your web browser, just like people would actually want to do.
Ring Announcer: What's your name kid?
Software Company: Mandriva.
Ring Announcer: Mandriva? That's it? That's the best you've got?
Software Company: Yeah.
Ring Announcer: Oh that sucks.
Ah, I was still looking through an anagram generator, and found some other interesting ones:
A GEEK FOLK HOTSHOT SPIN
A GEEK FOLK SHIP HOT SNOT
A GEEK FLOSS THINK PHOTO (an open source imaging program?)
A GEEK LOFT: HI HONK SPOTS (that one looked better with the colon)
A GEEK OFT HOPS HOT LINKS
I think it's a cool idea that you can get a whole system installed easily and quickly with packages and then (supposedly) have the flexibility to install from source a few other things that you want or that you get from other sources. It would just be a lot nicer if the implimentation could follow the idea.
I'll mention again my idea of Best Utility Evar and maybe someone can tell me if this exists already. It would be an "installer" of sorts for non-package stuff. You could point it to the scripts/files for the program you want to get installed, and it will check them for configuration/compile info and build/make/install or whatever needs to be done.
My company at least did do the layoffs in the best way they could. First, they held out as long as they could without it. They put in a hiring freeze, and let job turnover reduce the work force for a while. They would then start pulling people from office positions like HR and legal department to fill vacancies on the necessary production jobs, so those people could at least keep a job and not lose benefits.
Then when they did have to do the layoff, they didn't do it bit-by-bit. They just did one big one, all in one morning, and then announced to everyone that they were done, and if you were still here, you were safe. That was a couple of years ago, and they kept that promise.
Also, if you drop [expensive consumer gadget] and it breaks, how much of a loss do you want associated with that?
My little story on this is about when I was going through the interview process for my first job out of college(current one). I had first gotten a call from [Company A]. I did a phone interview, and they wanted me to fly out for an in person interview with some of their engineers. They scheduled the trip for about two weeks later. A few days later, I got a call from [Company B], who also did a phone interview with me and wanted to fly me out for an interview. They scheduled the trip for basically right after the Company A trip. I thought about it and called them back the next day and asked if I could pay the difference in airfare to get out there this coming week and explained the reasons why. I liked the job at Company B better and I liked the location(much lower cost of living than silicon valley and better to live in). Since I would prefer their job if they made me an offer, I didn't feel right wasting a few thousand dollars of Company A's money on basically a free vacation(flight, hotel, rental car), if I was going to go to B right after and take their job offer. Company B(my current employer) really appreciated that I would respect not wasting someone's costs and said they would go ahead and take care of the arrangements to get me out there to interview that week. They offered me to job that afternoon of the interview, so I called up Company A to cancel the trip, and the rest is history.
Beakman's world was OK. Did you notice that Bill Nye was a nonspeaking character in most of the demonstrations in that show? I think that may have been where he went off into getting his own show. Bill Nye was a lot funnier than Beakman, though.
Yep, verbal agreements mean nothing and cannot be enforced. A friend of mine ran into a cash shortage, and his cell phone that is the line for his business ran up a bill and got turned off. When he did come into some money, he called and asked them if he could pay about 2/3 of it that he now had on hand and then the rest in two weeks. He explained that there were customers with potential income trying to call on that line. They said that would be OK, and they would turn the line back on when he could pay that 2/3 of the bill. My friend of course didn't get a name of the person who agreed to make that exception. When he called back to pay it, they just told him that their policy is to only re-activate accounts if they get full payment, and who was it that told you we could make an exception?
I don't know what store you're referring to, but it certainly isn't OfficeMax. At the register, it prints your receipt and then prints out the pre-filled-out rebate form. You put your name and address on there and send it in with the bar code. Voila! You get your check. You don't even have to include the actual receipt on those because the form is printed from the register, so it prints the sales information on the form. I've never had a rebate(manufacturer or store) from OfficeMax refused.
Basically it just amounted to another level of harassment and foot-dragging to discourage customers from following through, but if you jump through the hoops, they WILL pay. They pretty much have to or they will get a complaint reported to the BBB, and no company ever wants that.
Here is a trivia bit from IMDB about what happened when George Lucas visited on the set of Martin Scorsese's movie "Gangs of New York"We know that George, and that's what makes your movies suck now. We rather like REAL props and filming on location *cough*LOTR*cough* that get you more immersed into the world.
Heh, I was reading along thinking, "Oh, OK. Good--informative...D'oh! Gentoo troll!"
The obvious answer to this is "No". And I really loved the comment where someone said "What about this?" and gave a link to freshmeat that had a bunch of useless stuff that was quickly debunked.
As you may recall in many discussions of the pros and cons of switching from Win to Linux, tax software is always on there. That and the lack of games are the really big software holes that may not be filled for quite a while. The only reasonable solution available (or soon to be) is probably online versions of it through TurboTax.com. Hopefully they are web compliant enough that they can run on other browsers than IE.
"Well yeah, it's a sales tax. You don't expect to buy a used CD tax free, do you?"
Yeah I do, and that is how it is done in many other countries. As I mentioned in my original post that is called Value Added Tax, and it gets the government's nose out of people's business when they are trying to sell something to another individual. Once something has been made, it is taxed when it is first sold. I do think that is the appropriate way it should be done.
Riiight. You see this kind of thing doesn't work. That would be like the owner of a brothel posting a sign out front saying "This is not a brothel." When the police come to bust him, do you think his annoucement to the contrary is going to have any weight? Ebay may say they are not an auction house, but guess what--they record people's bids, they keep track of who is currently the high bidder and notify people if they get outbid, they announce the close of the auction, and notify the winning bidder and the seller, and take a cut of the proceeds of the sale. If he looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...it won't matter if he says he's a horse.