Simple. £750 for a MacBook. £25 for a new wireless card that would be Linux compatible for my old laptop;)
But, point taken (my next machine is going to be a Mac)
I'm not sure that MacBooks aren't competitive anyway. £750 for a MacBook, £654+ for an Acer CoreDuo2. Add in £25 for an antivirus and you are at £680. Then there's all the stuff you get with a MacBook (camera, remote, magsafe).
Maybe it depends a little on needs, but I don't consider a MacBook as too pricey.
Last year Windows 2003 outpaced new sales of unix for the first time ever, while new linux market share was single digits.
That's sales figures, and if they're the ones I've seen, sales of hardware preloaded with an OS. Of course, the Microsoft figure looks good in that context.
It ignores the people out there who take an existing box, format it and put Linux or BSD on. A company I know took 2 old PCs and put a mail server on one, and a firewall on the other and quit using the Windows alternatives. That doesn't show up in the stats.
Surf the web, read email, organise digital photos of their grandchildren, play patience. Most rarely go into the file system. If there's any group that could be given an internet appliance, it's the Aunt Tillys.
Oh, and my wireless card worked straight out of the box. Then again, I checked its compatibility first. But then, most Aunt Tillys consult their nephews first. As for going root, if you use Ubuntu as an Aunt Tilly, you never need to. I do some web stuff on it, and rarely drop out to a prompt.
Aunt Tillys aren't the problem. It's "joe hardcore gamer and media centre man" that is.
Buy a pod based coffee maker, and look how easy it is to make coffee. But then, you keep paying OTT prices for the coffee. And you've only got one supplier. And if they decide that there's no market in the pods anymore, you're screwed.
You just can't compete with that marketing budget. Not when people with no technical knowledge make the purchasing decisions.
It's not a million miles from what happened over mainframe manufacturers selling PCs. Large corps bought the PCs from their mainframe supplier at OTT prices. Why? stability, some FUD and a lack of self-interest. Those guys in the large corps didn't care if the PCs cost double the price of what Gateway were selling for - it wasn't their money, and if they went Gateway, they wouldn't get taken to the football by the mainframe supplier.
It's the small companies where it happens, though. I know some small companies that are running windows desktop/linux server. The reason is simple. If they buy Windows server licenses, they personally pay out for it. The £6K for Windows and SQL Server means that they get a Ford instead of a BMW, or when bidding for a web project, can't be as competitive.
I'm seeing little evidence that Microsoft are making gains in the server market.
It's more like an event like the D-Day landings. The "war" isn't over, but the foothold is secure and the snowball effect of hardware/software compatibility leads to more users leads to more hardware/software compatibility is happening.
I'm seeing so much more hardware and software appearing that works with Linux now. From what I'm observing, for dedicated devices and things like handhelds, Linux will be the dominant platform in a few years.
Desktop will go last. The issues with things like codecs are a headache.
The key thing is that Google gives you ideas on how to solve the problem.
I had a long term and quite painful medical problem to do with the eustation tube in my ear being blocked. The doctors, and even the ENT specialist didn't really have much of a clue. We tried steroids (that helped a little), pinching the nose and blowing, decongestants and all sorts.
What Google did for me was to keep going back to doctors with "would xxxx work?". It got me prompting them. Eventually, I tried out some massage, which someone had recommended on groups (that Google found) as a way to relieve the tension. And met a massage therapist who applied some Bowen Technique which solved the problem (the jaw alignment was out after dental work).
I wouldn't use Google alone, but sometimes, doctors don't think of everything. Some of their suggestions were little more than "switch it off and on again".
It won't take long before there is competition. How about if an outsider with a good reputation entered the diamond retail market, like Virgin? They'd clean up. They'd be out there taking apart the competition because they'd be selling large stones at much lower prices.
In the end, the jewellers can do what they like. They'll get bypassed. If they don't take these manufactured diamonds, then the shopping channels, entrepreneurs or WalMart will. If they can produce enough large stones, De Beers will be in serious trouble.
Ask yourself this question... when you go shopping, is a list better or a PC? When you want to read a story, is a book better or an electronic reader?
Paper ballots make much more sense. Consider:-
The complexity of the data is about as small as it gets. There's nothing like an interest calculation or even an "age of customer" to be determined. All you need to store, per ballot, is something like a byte.
There is only one thing you ever do with the data. Count it. It doesn't lend itself to complex data processing
Once counted, there is rarely a chance that you'll need the ballot again. So, they don't need that mass storage benefit of computers.
Paper can be destroyed, but a black box containing a hard drive with votes can more easily be damaged. See what happens when you put a piece of paper next to an electromagnet.
There is no big requirement for speed.
People can't vote if there's no electricity.
Whilst it may cost more to hire hand counters, you only do it, at most, once a year.
Defrauding a ballot box with paper at least has the possibility of more forensic information being available. Change the data on the hard drive - who's going to know?
There are plenty of places where automated, computerised systems make sense. But vote counting works just fine manually.
Corporations have an advantage because the people let them get away with it. Because they lobby parliaments for more protectionism, and we don't fill our representatives mail sacks with letters of complaints.
Corporations can pay for a party, but in the end, the final power to sanction that party rests with the voters.
There are always rights that are above capitalism, that trump the capitalist system. Imposing your will on another human being without their permission is part of that.
This is the opposite of capitalism. Capitalism is about individual property rights. About the right, once you own something, to burn it, dilute it, crush it, put it on public display or to sell it.
What the EU Trademark Directive does is anti-capitalist. It says that even though Lik-Sang have paid for the PSPs, they can't sell them as they see fit. That the only people who are allowed to sell such items in the EU are Sony and their approved agents.
Sony didn't trick the judge. This is all about the EU Trademarks Directive, which also prevented Tesco from selling cheap "grey import" Levi's jeans a few years ago.
It's basically a barrier to free trade.
The "safety" stuff was just a load of flannel because Sony didn't want to tell the public that the reason for doing it was to allow for market segmentation.
It's not so much a UK decision as an EU decision. If someone tried to sell PSPs in France, they'd get the same thing. I suspect it's a big EU thing because quite a lot of Europe relies on industries like fashion and perfume.
The problem is that it's not that big a political deal, although there was a case involving Tesco/Levi's which did get some publicity.
Most people have no support for these suppliers. You sell your goods to someone, it's not yours any more. You gave away your property rights when you sold it. The idea that people can control what people do after sale is anti-free market.
Incidentally, the UK, in 2001 tried to exert some political pressure against the Trademarks Directive. So, basically, the UK government doesn't support it, but the courts enforce it. Nice to be running our own country:(
You'd have to be pretty stupid to carry something that the law might be interested in on your laptop through customs. There's been another way for plenty of years.
I would mostly agree with that. The only instance that I could see a benefit is that being able to run both on a laptop would give more flexibility if I was away from the main office.
I've locked down people's home office PCs for their 3 man company systems (offices at home) with WPA and MAC address blocking, and they still want to know what else they can do in case someone wants to get their information.
It's not like they were trading invention information pre-patent, more things like memos about (small) customers. It would have cost someone more to hire a detective to snoop on them than what the information was worth.
I've done document generation for companies. PDF is extremely flexible, gives guaranteed layout and because it's open, you aren't using tools that have reverse engineered the format. You know the files are going to be readable. There are huge numbers of 3rd party tools for generating and processing PDFs.
The reason they don't want to open source is that Adobe Professional is how they make their money out of the open format. Give the format, encourage people to use it. They can write it, even with their own tools. Adobe make money because even though they've created a market, they make the best tools in that market.
That's stretching it a bit far. "no vat on food"? It's basically no VAT on the most basic raw ingredients. Almost any level of preparation, and you start paying vat on it.
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Also, /. has far better comments.
But, point taken (my next machine is going to be a Mac)
I'm not sure that MacBooks aren't competitive anyway. £750 for a MacBook, £654+ for an Acer CoreDuo2. Add in £25 for an antivirus and you are at £680. Then there's all the stuff you get with a MacBook (camera, remote, magsafe).
Maybe it depends a little on needs, but I don't consider a MacBook as too pricey.
That's sales figures, and if they're the ones I've seen, sales of hardware preloaded with an OS. Of course, the Microsoft figure looks good in that context.
It ignores the people out there who take an existing box, format it and put Linux or BSD on. A company I know took 2 old PCs and put a mail server on one, and a firewall on the other and quit using the Windows alternatives. That doesn't show up in the stats.
They've got to get Steve to throw all the chairs out of the windows first.
Here's what silver surfers use the web for...
Surf the web, read email, organise digital photos of their grandchildren, play patience. Most rarely go into the file system. If there's any group that could be given an internet appliance, it's the Aunt Tillys.
Oh, and my wireless card worked straight out of the box. Then again, I checked its compatibility first. But then, most Aunt Tillys consult their nephews first. As for going root, if you use Ubuntu as an Aunt Tilly, you never need to. I do some web stuff on it, and rarely drop out to a prompt.
Aunt Tillys aren't the problem. It's "joe hardcore gamer and media centre man" that is.
Buy a pod based coffee maker, and look how easy it is to make coffee. But then, you keep paying OTT prices for the coffee. And you've only got one supplier. And if they decide that there's no market in the pods anymore, you're screwed.
Just buy the filtered stuff.
It's not a million miles from what happened over mainframe manufacturers selling PCs. Large corps bought the PCs from their mainframe supplier at OTT prices. Why? stability, some FUD and a lack of self-interest. Those guys in the large corps didn't care if the PCs cost double the price of what Gateway were selling for - it wasn't their money, and if they went Gateway, they wouldn't get taken to the football by the mainframe supplier.
It's the small companies where it happens, though. I know some small companies that are running windows desktop/linux server. The reason is simple. If they buy Windows server licenses, they personally pay out for it. The £6K for Windows and SQL Server means that they get a Ford instead of a BMW, or when bidding for a web project, can't be as competitive.
I'm seeing little evidence that Microsoft are making gains in the server market.
I'm seeing so much more hardware and software appearing that works with Linux now. From what I'm observing, for dedicated devices and things like handhelds, Linux will be the dominant platform in a few years.
Desktop will go last. The issues with things like codecs are a headache.
I had a long term and quite painful medical problem to do with the eustation tube in my ear being blocked. The doctors, and even the ENT specialist didn't really have much of a clue. We tried steroids (that helped a little), pinching the nose and blowing, decongestants and all sorts.
What Google did for me was to keep going back to doctors with "would xxxx work?". It got me prompting them. Eventually, I tried out some massage, which someone had recommended on groups (that Google found) as a way to relieve the tension. And met a massage therapist who applied some Bowen Technique which solved the problem (the jaw alignment was out after dental work).
I wouldn't use Google alone, but sometimes, doctors don't think of everything. Some of their suggestions were little more than "switch it off and on again".
They should not underestimate the impact of driving more geeks towards Mac and Linux.
It won't take long before there is competition. How about if an outsider with a good reputation entered the diamond retail market, like Virgin? They'd clean up. They'd be out there taking apart the competition because they'd be selling large stones at much lower prices.
In the end, the jewellers can do what they like. They'll get bypassed. If they don't take these manufactured diamonds, then the shopping channels, entrepreneurs or WalMart will. If they can produce enough large stones, De Beers will be in serious trouble.
Paper ballots make much more sense. Consider:-
The complexity of the data is about as small as it gets. There's nothing like an interest calculation or even an "age of customer" to be determined. All you need to store, per ballot, is something like a byte. There is only one thing you ever do with the data. Count it. It doesn't lend itself to complex data processing Once counted, there is rarely a chance that you'll need the ballot again. So, they don't need that mass storage benefit of computers. Paper can be destroyed, but a black box containing a hard drive with votes can more easily be damaged. See what happens when you put a piece of paper next to an electromagnet. There is no big requirement for speed. People can't vote if there's no electricity. Whilst it may cost more to hire hand counters, you only do it, at most, once a year. Defrauding a ballot box with paper at least has the possibility of more forensic information being available. Change the data on the hard drive - who's going to know?There are plenty of places where automated, computerised systems make sense. But vote counting works just fine manually.
Corporations can pay for a party, but in the end, the final power to sanction that party rests with the voters.
There are always rights that are above capitalism, that trump the capitalist system. Imposing your will on another human being without their permission is part of that.
This is the opposite of capitalism. Capitalism is about individual property rights. About the right, once you own something, to burn it, dilute it, crush it, put it on public display or to sell it.
What the EU Trademark Directive does is anti-capitalist. It says that even though Lik-Sang have paid for the PSPs, they can't sell them as they see fit. That the only people who are allowed to sell such items in the EU are Sony and their approved agents.
It's basically a barrier to free trade.
The "safety" stuff was just a load of flannel because Sony didn't want to tell the public that the reason for doing it was to allow for market segmentation.
The problem is that it's not that big a political deal, although there was a case involving Tesco/Levi's which did get some publicity.
Most people have no support for these suppliers. You sell your goods to someone, it's not yours any more. You gave away your property rights when you sold it. The idea that people can control what people do after sale is anti-free market.
Incidentally, the UK, in 2001 tried to exert some political pressure against the Trademarks Directive. So, basically, the UK government doesn't support it, but the courts enforce it. Nice to be running our own country :(
You'd have to be pretty stupid to carry something that the law might be interested in on your laptop through customs. There's been another way for plenty of years.
I would mostly agree with that. The only instance that I could see a benefit is that being able to run both on a laptop would give more flexibility if I was away from the main office.
It's not like they were trading invention information pre-patent, more things like memos about (small) customers. It would have cost someone more to hire a detective to snoop on them than what the information was worth.
I've done document generation for companies. PDF is extremely flexible, gives guaranteed layout and because it's open, you aren't using tools that have reverse engineered the format. You know the files are going to be readable. There are huge numbers of 3rd party tools for generating and processing PDFs.
The reason they don't want to open source is that Adobe Professional is how they make their money out of the open format. Give the format, encourage people to use it. They can write it, even with their own tools. Adobe make money because even though they've created a market, they make the best tools in that market.
If there were free market rules applied in this instance, then Sony wouldn't have a say. The cheap imports would be able to happen.
No, they were right the first time with Hull. They just meant the MP instead of Mayor.
That's stretching it a bit far. "no vat on food"? It's basically no VAT on the most basic raw ingredients. Almost any level of preparation, and you start paying vat on it.