Every time an oil truck passes me on when I'm on my bike, I watch for a gun barrel to peek out the side window, you better believe. When they see me pedaling down Elston Ave on two wheels, singing my head off and my only fuel the fried egg sandwich and coffee I had for breakfast, I become their sworn enemy. True.
Hmmm. Maybe you should lay off the coffee, or switch to decaf.
The BSA is not a government or law enforcement agency. It is a commercial entity engaged on behalf of a copyright holder to perform audits of suspected license violations. Your participation with their audit is voluntary unless they have sufficient probably cause to justify a warrant, in which case they will be accompanied by a law enforcement agent. And quite frankly, there's no reason why you would want to cooperate with the BSA, even if you know your are 100% in compliance, because of the cost in your time in going through the process.
The biggest problem is going to be finding purchase records at all. Most businesses are not sufficiently organized to deal with a license audit. And, since most small businesses buy their software through multiple sources -- OEM, eCommerce, local retaillers, electronics stores, even bundled with other applications -- usually the business is forced to go back through tax records to come up with receipts and invoices. Overall, it is usually a combination of physical evidence -- invoices, credit card transactions, physical media, license keys, registration codes, email messages, etc -- that combined provide compelling, if not conclusive, evidence of legal purchase. If a company changes its name, or merges with another, there will be sufficient documentation of what has occurred that this wouldn't be a problem. An original receipt doesn't even need to show the name of the purchaser (i.e, buying MS-Office at Staples doesn't make your copy illegal just because Staples doesn't print your name on the receipt).
Remember that, at least in the US, the evidence must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. If you have original media, CD-cases and CD-Keys -- all the mechanisms of Microsoft's license enforcement -- it is unlikely that a jury will find in the BSA's favor for lack of purchase records.
While both WOW! and Comcast are available in my area, my apartment complex has an exclusive contract with Comcast so no other cable providers are allowed. And you can't get DSL because they won't let you run any lines to the building. Satellite is out because they won't let you put up a dish (despite the fact that this is illegal), and broadband mobile wireless service is conveniently not available yet.
Sounds like a business opportunity for fixed wireless to me. If there's truly as much a need as you say, it should be a slam-dunk. You just need to find a sympathetic home or business as the base.
A TIVO series 3 HD DVR costs $800, plus $14.95/month subscription plus $2.00/mo x 2 for Cable Cards to enable it to work with Cablevision's services. I don't do pay-per-view or video-on-demand, so that's not a deciding factor for me. (I don't even do premium movie or sports channels.)
My CableVision HD DVR/STB costs $19.95/month with no capital costs. Yes, I wish I had all the added features and benefits of TIVO, but these aren't worth the extra $800 equipment costs.
Presumably, the FCC decision will introduce competition into the marketplace, increase demand, and lower prices. Assuming Cablevision doesn't change their monthly service fees, TIVO only becomes an affordable alternative when it hits the $150-200 price mark -- still an unrecoverable additional expense, but worth it because of the added features and benefits. Or maybe in an open market, Cablevision starts renting actual TIVO boxes for an extra $5/month.
I won't knock CDMA because I can't -- it is technically superior and this results in significantly better bandwidth for data transfers. However, in terms of voice calling, properly managed, there is no discernible difference in call quality or reliability. And it seems that Cingular/AT&T have done an excellent job in the NY/NJ/PA area of managing the technology properly, because I've had Verizon, Sprint and Cingular, each for several years and often two different carriers at the same time (work and family), and Cingular's quality these past several years has been as good as, and often better, than Verizon.
As for SIM cards, I'm not sure why you think they are delicate. SIMs use the same smartcard technology available for over a decade that has been used for everything from consumer credit cards to commercial security access products and more. There is nothing particularly delicate about a SIM card, particularly when they are protected inside a phone and not subject to the elements or wear-and-tear. The only time I've had to replace a SIM card is when I needed one with more memory for newer generation phones.
The nice part is the ability to simply walk into almost any cellphone store in the world, buy a new phone, stick in your SIM card, and immediately be back in business with your entire address book intact. To be able to do this with CDMA, well, first you have to be in a country that provides CDMA service, and then you need to wait -- possibly even pay -- for a technician to suck the contacts out of your old phone -- if possible -- and transfer them to your new phone.
Just say NO to CDMA and YES to GSM.
The things you describe only occur in the CDMA marketplace: Verizon, Sprint, and the VARs that sub-license from them.
In the GSM world, a phone is a phone is a phone, and Cingular is just as happy to activate that unlocked Blackjack or RAZR purchased on eBay as is T-Mobile. And neither of these carriers force phone manufacturers to disable features to force customers to use the carrier's own overpriced alternatives.
While Verizon has invested billions in marketing the superiority of their networks, Cingular has invested billions in expanding its GSM coverage throughout the USA. I can't speak for the rest of the country, but from rural North-Eastern PA (Milford-Dingmans-Shohola) throughout NJ and NY, my signal coverage, call quality and completion rate is NOTICEABLY BETTER with Cingular than it ever was with Verizon, and I can buy my phone, unlocked, anywhere I want, transfer my own MP3 files without paying and save off my photos without paying.
Now if Cingular would just drop that asinine SMS message fee I would be a 100% satisfied customer.
Conducting an orchestra isn't that hard when all musicians actually are professionals and thoroughly trained to work under your supervision.
But it's very hard when all the musicians sit 10,000 miles away, they don't natively speak or understand the same language and concepts as you and there's a 10 hour time difference. I guess its sort of like conducting an orchestra full of blind musicians, but with less harmony.
Most technical writers I know have switched long again to Techsmith's SnagIt (http://www.techsmith.com/) or similar products.
I've got it, I just never see any reason to use it. [Alt]+[PrtScrn] captures the current window, or just [PrtScrn] the whole display, switch to Pbrush and [Ctrl]+[V], then crop, edit and mark-up as needed, save as.jpg and import into Word. Besides, I've never been the kind of person to waste money on utilities where something free works just as well (at least for me).
Of course, I'm not a technical writer, I'm an Engineer. I don't spend all of my time writing docs, only about 20%.
What do you do when the display driver trys to overwrite kernel memory... or the motherboard sata driver crashes with an exception
What I do is reach for the ONOFF switch. What the OS should do is tell the video driver "NO, BAD DRIVER," or restart the SATA driver, and wait to see if the driver can sort itself out.
Do you have proof? Did you pay for windows before XP.
I am a live dinosaur. I have owned and used every MS OS version since MS-DOS 2.1. I beta tested Windows 1.0.
MS-DOS 5.0 was $29.
MS-Windows 2.0 was $49.00
MS-Windows 3.0 introduced CD key. Price went up to $89.
Windows 98 introduced new 25-digit CD key. Price went up to $129.
Windows XP introduced Product Activation. Full version (XP Pro) is $299.
Windows Vista introduced more stringent Activiation. Full version is $399 for Ultimate, but the full set of features will only be available to Enterprise customers who sign volume purchase agreements and pre-pay for 2 years of upgrades, (Software Assurance), whether or not these upgrades materialize.
Ok, granted it is not doubling every time, but this IS Slashdot, and I am allowed poetic license.
Like what products [have been added then removed, and then sometimes sold as add-ons[
How about Microsoft Windows Antivirus: Included free in 3.0/3.1 versions, removed from 3.11. Now sold as Microsoft OneCare. How about a calendar application, which later was integrated with an Email application and became the first version of MS-Outlook in Windows 3.11, removed from Windows 98, and now sold separately? How about backup, which has been in and out in so many different ways that I lost track?
>>I could give more specifics, but I'm under non-disclosure.
Really, you didn't even get specific about the ones you mentioned.
Well, it's a really old and broad non-disclosure.;^)
As long as your 98SE and NT4 are completely standalone and don't access the Internet or ever connect to any network at all, you can safely continue using these versions for as long as you like. However, most people cannot be productive without network, and in particular, Internet access.
No new hotfixes have been issued for either Win98 or NT4 for over a year, while over 60 new vulnerabilities have been fixed in Win2k, 2k3 and XP. Do you believe that your older, unsupported OS's do not any problems?
Obviously, you are not using these systems for business purposes or anything else that's really important, because the benefits don't even come close to risks of not upgrading.
However, Microsoft is a special kind of Corporation: A Publicly Traded Corporation. As such, and according to Law, Microsoft's first responsibility is not to its rights and responsibilities as a member of society, but to protect and grow the assets of its shareholders.
So I guess that the stock market is an instrument of the devil, and an IPO is when a corporation officially sells it's soul. This actually sounds just about right to me.
I like the "Enslaved to Windows" moniker. However, I don't see how you can blame Microsoft for the printer manufacturer's desire to cheap out by not putting any brains into their $2k printer.
Yes, printers, modems and video cards need to be carefully researched before you purchase for Linux.
May I introduce a little historic reality to this:
The first virus, Elk Cloner, targeted Apple DOS 3.3 in 1982. Apples were much more susceptible to viruses because they automatically read the FAT to open a window when diskettes were inserted into the system.
The first PC-based virus, the Brain virus, did not appear until 1986.
The first worm, the Morris Worm in 1988, targeted UNIX and VAX systems via the common sendmail and finger packages running on these systems. Had Linux been available then, it probably would have been vulnerable too.
The first known Network Operating System vulnerability and Script Kiddie exploit, KNOCK, affected Novell Netware 2.x and 3.x in, I believe, 1992.
The point is that computers have been lowering expectations for two decades on platforms from more than just Microsoft. I won't, however, disagree with the observation that MS-Windows track record of attempting to improve this situation has been abysmal
This is actually what's causing the damn trouble. Many companies who build hardware apparently can't code drivers worth shit.
I'm sorry, but I can't remember ever getting a security bulletin from ATI or nVidia or any other hardware manufacturer -- except perhaps network card manufacturers -- about security vulnerabilities with the driver software they provide. While it is true that bad drivers can and do lead to poor performance and system instability, the abstraction layers should do a better job of protecting the kernel against even these defects.
And as for the OS not directly supporting the hardware, this is nothing new with Windows. UNIX has been doing it for many years before Windows was released. If you give competent engineers a well-documented interface, aren't you better off letting those who designed the hardware write the software that talks to it?
Actually, dude, Microsoft makes shit software because they can, because the market has no other choices, and Microsoft will certainly make sure this is always true. And just to make sure OOO doesn't become a contender, Microsoft is stocking up on all its patents as a defense.
I agree enthusiastically. Maybe Paintbrush isn't the best app Microsoft ever wrote, but I can't imagine life without it. It is absolutely the right size for 90% of my drawing needs, especially since it now can handle GIF, JPG and PNG's in addition to BMP.
What else would I use to edit, crop and save screen shots when I'm writing documentation?
Why do people hate Microsoft? In a word: Greed. Microsoft is consumed by a rampant, unrepentant, no-holds-barred corporate ravenousness for consumer dollars. At least this is how it looks to individual consumers, small businesses, and even most other large enterprises.
Some examples:
Microsoft was among the first major, mainstream software publishers to charge paying customers for technical support on legally-owned Microsoft products.
Microsoft was one of the first major, mainstream software companies to increase upgrade fees from what was a standard 20% of the original software price to what is now 50%, if you are allowed to upgrade at all.
Microsoft was the first major, mainstream software company to deny upgrades to customers who don't pre-pay the 50% upgrade fee up-front when the original software purchase is made, with no refund if an upgrade isn't released within two years.
Microsoft bemoans the cost of software piracy, but each time Microsoft has implemented technology to reduce piracy, it has doubled the price of the better protected software.
Microsoft adds features to its software that puts competitors out of business, then removes those features and sells them as add-ons or upgraded versions.
Microsoft talks reduced enterprise TCO benefits on the one hand while making each new release significantly more difficult to deploy, maintain and support.
Microsoft claims that it's not predatory or monopolistic, while using its overwhelmingly dominant position in the OS market to drive out competitors to its application and development tools marketplaces.
And yes, Embrace, Extend and Exterminate.
I could give more specifics, but I'm under non-disclosure.
I just can't imagine Microsoft giving away a $239 copy of Vista Home Premium (which is, after all, the "Best Choice for Laptops") or OLPC paying anything for Windows compared with F/OSS. Of course it's win-win for Microsoft even if they give Vista away: eventual upgrade fees, value-added services, and whole new markets of people brainwashed into the Windows way.
But what's really funny is imagining an entire village huddled around the new OLPC laptop, with one person furiously turning the power crank and another poised staring intently at the screen trying to understand the Microsoft EULA or, better yet, troubleshoot Windows Product Activiation problems.
I am a beige person, but I like the looks of the brown Zune. What does that mean? Am I a middle-aged wigger? But if that's true, then I really should buy a iPod to be a part of the hip, anti-establishment Apple crowd. But I much prefer the iPods in white. Does that make be a bigot?
But isn't that part of the problem? That people need to do actual honest-to-God research just to buy a freaking cable, at least without getting completely ripped off? The only research I had to do to get a good deal the last time I bought a DVD player was about 90 seconds of browsing the options in the store.
Of course its part of the problem. And this problem has a name: Learning Curve. Don't compare to the last DVD player you bought, with a retail price under $100; compare to the first one, back in 1998, when they ran $600. I bet you wouldn't make a 90-second second back then. But even today, if you cared enough, comparing the technical and performance specifications of different DVD players in order to get the best quality and value would take an expert more than 90 seconds.
When faced with unfamiliar technology you always have three choices:
You can hire an expert to advise you on your purchases and installation. While this increases the total cost you will wind up getting the best quality and most value for your money spent;
You can take the time necessary to really learn about the technology, reading books and magazines and talking to avid hobbiests and experts. Not a very popular option in our impulse-driven society;
Or you can take the cheap and easy way out and trust the salesperson at electronics store to be knowledgeable and honest, which is usually the best way to get mediocre performance and poor value.
For me, any choice other than #3 is acceptable.
Re:There are NO 5$ HDMI cables due to bad HDMI spe
on
No Business Case for HDTV?
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I recently bought a projector that took HDMI, that is when I startedlooking for HDMI cables. Turns out the cheapest HDMI cable 3ft is for 30$-40$. if u want anything longer, your are looking at 100$ plus.
Researching more I discovered that reason for this is the specs, strangly yes, the specs. An article I read says the HDMI spec (an off shoot of DVI) was designed by computer engnineers and not video engineers. HDMI uses 4 twisted pair with no error correction (unlike TCP/IP) to send real time data and has a huge bandwidth requirements (HDTV). if they were video engineers they would have choosen coaxial. Anyhow, due to this, there are complications in the manufacturing of HDMI cables and achieving 100 ohm impedence is a big issue on these twisted pair cables.
You mean this $7.69 HDMI cable cannot exist? And that this 16 foot HDMI cable for $29.99 is a figment of my imagination??? Eghads! How in the world was I ever able to get a usable signal from my home theater?
Perhaps that's because you should have spent more time researching, or at least talking to a real expert, and not the pimply-faced sales droid at your local electronics store who will spin more lies in pursuit of that 75% premium cable profit margin than a politician chasing re-election.
And, by the way, comparing HDMI to TCP/IP is like comparing Apples to Stainless Steel Cookware. And TCP/IP does not demand error correction (UDP is best effort). But TCP/IP does run over Ethernet or Token-Ring, either of which can run over 100-Ohm UTP. In fact, TCP/IP over GB-Ethernet on 4-pair 100-Ohm UTP has sufficient bandwidth to carry multiple real-time HDTV feeds up to 100 meters.
Finally, there is nothing magical about making 100 Ohm UTP cable. It's been around for dozens of years and is the most common specification. It is certainly MUCH SUPERIOR FOR CARRYING DIGITAL SIGNALS compared to coaxial cable, which attenuates and degrades the digital waveforms over distance due to its inherent capacitance characteristics.
I will concur that HDMI cables longer than 30 feet are unheard of, and that this is because of the specification. Every network standard has distance limitations. It's a trade-off between performance, convenience and cost. In defense of the standards team I can only say that most people tend to put their TV and tuner/dvd/etc on the same side of their house. Sort of like putting the oven in the kitchen with the fridge. But I'm kind of conservative that way.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmm. Maybe you should lay off the coffee, or switch to decaf.
Hogwash.
The BSA is not a government or law enforcement agency. It is a commercial entity engaged on behalf of a copyright holder to perform audits of suspected license violations. Your participation with their audit is voluntary unless they have sufficient probably cause to justify a warrant, in which case they will be accompanied by a law enforcement agent. And quite frankly, there's no reason why you would want to cooperate with the BSA, even if you know your are 100% in compliance, because of the cost in your time in going through the process.
The biggest problem is going to be finding purchase records at all. Most businesses are not sufficiently organized to deal with a license audit. And, since most small businesses buy their software through multiple sources -- OEM, eCommerce, local retaillers, electronics stores, even bundled with other applications -- usually the business is forced to go back through tax records to come up with receipts and invoices. Overall, it is usually a combination of physical evidence -- invoices, credit card transactions, physical media, license keys, registration codes, email messages, etc -- that combined provide compelling, if not conclusive, evidence of legal purchase. If a company changes its name, or merges with another, there will be sufficient documentation of what has occurred that this wouldn't be a problem. An original receipt doesn't even need to show the name of the purchaser (i.e, buying MS-Office at Staples doesn't make your copy illegal just because Staples doesn't print your name on the receipt).
Remember that, at least in the US, the evidence must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. If you have original media, CD-cases and CD-Keys -- all the mechanisms of Microsoft's license enforcement -- it is unlikely that a jury will find in the BSA's favor for lack of purchase records.
Sounds like a business opportunity for fixed wireless to me. If there's truly as much a need as you say, it should be a slam-dunk. You just need to find a sympathetic home or business as the base.
A TIVO series 3 HD DVR costs $800, plus $14.95/month subscription plus $2.00/mo x 2 for Cable Cards to enable it to work with Cablevision's services. I don't do pay-per-view or video-on-demand, so that's not a deciding factor for me. (I don't even do premium movie or sports channels.)
My CableVision HD DVR/STB costs $19.95/month with no capital costs. Yes, I wish I had all the added features and benefits of TIVO, but these aren't worth the extra $800 equipment costs.
Presumably, the FCC decision will introduce competition into the marketplace, increase demand, and lower prices. Assuming Cablevision doesn't change their monthly service fees, TIVO only becomes an affordable alternative when it hits the $150-200 price mark -- still an unrecoverable additional expense, but worth it because of the added features and benefits. Or maybe in an open market, Cablevision starts renting actual TIVO boxes for an extra $5/month.
I won't knock CDMA because I can't -- it is technically superior and this results in significantly better bandwidth for data transfers. However, in terms of voice calling, properly managed, there is no discernible difference in call quality or reliability. And it seems that Cingular/AT&T have done an excellent job in the NY/NJ/PA area of managing the technology properly, because I've had Verizon, Sprint and Cingular, each for several years and often two different carriers at the same time (work and family), and Cingular's quality these past several years has been as good as, and often better, than Verizon.
As for SIM cards, I'm not sure why you think they are delicate. SIMs use the same smartcard technology available for over a decade that has been used for everything from consumer credit cards to commercial security access products and more. There is nothing particularly delicate about a SIM card, particularly when they are protected inside a phone and not subject to the elements or wear-and-tear. The only time I've had to replace a SIM card is when I needed one with more memory for newer generation phones.
The nice part is the ability to simply walk into almost any cellphone store in the world, buy a new phone, stick in your SIM card, and immediately be back in business with your entire address book intact. To be able to do this with CDMA, well, first you have to be in a country that provides CDMA service, and then you need to wait -- possibly even pay -- for a technician to suck the contacts out of your old phone -- if possible -- and transfer them to your new phone.
Just say NO to CDMA and YES to GSM. The things you describe only occur in the CDMA marketplace: Verizon, Sprint, and the VARs that sub-license from them. In the GSM world, a phone is a phone is a phone, and Cingular is just as happy to activate that unlocked Blackjack or RAZR purchased on eBay as is T-Mobile. And neither of these carriers force phone manufacturers to disable features to force customers to use the carrier's own overpriced alternatives. While Verizon has invested billions in marketing the superiority of their networks, Cingular has invested billions in expanding its GSM coverage throughout the USA. I can't speak for the rest of the country, but from rural North-Eastern PA (Milford-Dingmans-Shohola) throughout NJ and NY, my signal coverage, call quality and completion rate is NOTICEABLY BETTER with Cingular than it ever was with Verizon, and I can buy my phone, unlocked, anywhere I want, transfer my own MP3 files without paying and save off my photos without paying. Now if Cingular would just drop that asinine SMS message fee I would be a 100% satisfied customer.
- pharma company engineer a fucking cow
or- pharma company engineer fucking a cow?
Indeed!I've got it, I just never see any reason to use it. [Alt]+[PrtScrn] captures the current window, or just [PrtScrn] the whole display, switch to Pbrush and [Ctrl]+[V], then crop, edit and mark-up as needed, save as .jpg and import into Word. Besides, I've never been the kind of person to waste money on utilities where something free works just as well (at least for me).
Of course, I'm not a technical writer, I'm an Engineer. I don't spend all of my time writing docs, only about 20%.I am a live dinosaur. I have owned and used every MS OS version since MS-DOS 2.1. I beta tested Windows 1.0.
Ok, granted it is not doubling every time, but this IS Slashdot, and I am allowed poetic license.
How about Microsoft Windows Antivirus: Included free in 3.0/3.1 versions, removed from 3.11. Now sold as Microsoft OneCare. How about a calendar application, which later was integrated with an Email application and became the first version of MS-Outlook in Windows 3.11, removed from Windows 98, and now sold separately? How about backup, which has been in and out in so many different ways that I lost track?
Well, it's a really old and broad non-disclosure.As long as your 98SE and NT4 are completely standalone and don't access the Internet or ever connect to any network at all, you can safely continue using these versions for as long as you like. However, most people cannot be productive without network, and in particular, Internet access.
No new hotfixes have been issued for either Win98 or NT4 for over a year, while over 60 new vulnerabilities have been fixed in Win2k, 2k3 and XP. Do you believe that your older, unsupported OS's do not any problems?
Obviously, you are not using these systems for business purposes or anything else that's really important, because the benefits don't even come close to risks of not upgrading.
However, Microsoft is a special kind of Corporation: A Publicly Traded Corporation. As such, and according to Law, Microsoft's first responsibility is not to its rights and responsibilities as a member of society, but to protect and grow the assets of its shareholders.
So I guess that the stock market is an instrument of the devil, and an IPO is when a corporation officially sells it's soul. This actually sounds just about right to me.I like the "Enslaved to Windows" moniker. However, I don't see how you can blame Microsoft for the printer manufacturer's desire to cheap out by not putting any brains into their $2k printer.
Yes, printers, modems and video cards need to be carefully researched before you purchase for Linux.
May I introduce a little historic reality to this:
The first virus, Elk Cloner, targeted Apple DOS 3.3 in 1982. Apples were much more susceptible to viruses because they automatically read the FAT to open a window when diskettes were inserted into the system.
The first PC-based virus, the Brain virus, did not appear until 1986.
The first worm, the Morris Worm in 1988, targeted UNIX and VAX systems via the common sendmail and finger packages running on these systems. Had Linux been available then, it probably would have been vulnerable too.
The first known Network Operating System vulnerability and Script Kiddie exploit, KNOCK, affected Novell Netware 2.x and 3.x in, I believe, 1992.
The point is that computers have been lowering expectations for two decades on platforms from more than just Microsoft. I won't, however, disagree with the observation that MS-Windows track record of attempting to improve this situation has been abysmal
>> I work at a major financial corporation, a Win2K shop. The legacy support is crucial.
Hmmm. I wonder if I can guess what institution that might be in three letters? Is it an International financial corporation?I'm sorry, but I can't remember ever getting a security bulletin from ATI or nVidia or any other hardware manufacturer -- except perhaps network card manufacturers -- about security vulnerabilities with the driver software they provide. While it is true that bad drivers can and do lead to poor performance and system instability, the abstraction layers should do a better job of protecting the kernel against even these defects.
And as for the OS not directly supporting the hardware, this is nothing new with Windows. UNIX has been doing it for many years before Windows was released. If you give competent engineers a well-documented interface, aren't you better off letting those who designed the hardware write the software that talks to it?Actually, dude, Microsoft makes shit software because they can, because the market has no other choices, and Microsoft will certainly make sure this is always true. And just to make sure OOO doesn't become a contender, Microsoft is stocking up on all its patents as a defense.
I agree enthusiastically. Maybe Paintbrush isn't the best app Microsoft ever wrote, but I can't imagine life without it. It is absolutely the right size for 90% of my drawing needs, especially since it now can handle GIF, JPG and PNG's in addition to BMP.
What else would I use to edit, crop and save screen shots when I'm writing documentation?Why do people hate Microsoft? In a word: Greed. Microsoft is consumed by a rampant, unrepentant, no-holds-barred corporate ravenousness for consumer dollars. At least this is how it looks to individual consumers, small businesses, and even most other large enterprises.
Some examples:
- Microsoft was among the first major, mainstream software publishers to charge paying customers for technical support on legally-owned Microsoft products.
- Microsoft was one of the first major, mainstream software companies to increase upgrade fees from what was a standard 20% of the original software price to what is now 50%, if you are allowed to upgrade at all.
- Microsoft was the first major, mainstream software company to deny upgrades to customers who don't pre-pay the 50% upgrade fee up-front when the original software purchase is made, with no refund if an upgrade isn't released within two years.
- Microsoft bemoans the cost of software piracy, but each time Microsoft has implemented technology to reduce piracy, it has doubled the price of the better protected software.
- Microsoft adds features to its software that puts competitors out of business, then removes those features and sells them as add-ons or upgraded versions.
- Microsoft talks reduced enterprise TCO benefits on the one hand while making each new release significantly more difficult to deploy, maintain and support.
- Microsoft claims that it's not predatory or monopolistic, while using its overwhelmingly dominant position in the OS market to drive out competitors to its application and development tools marketplaces.
- And yes, Embrace, Extend and Exterminate.
I could give more specifics, but I'm under non-disclosure.I just can't imagine Microsoft giving away a $239 copy of Vista Home Premium (which is, after all, the "Best Choice for Laptops") or OLPC paying anything for Windows compared with F/OSS. Of course it's win-win for Microsoft even if they give Vista away: eventual upgrade fees, value-added services, and whole new markets of people brainwashed into the Windows way.
But what's really funny is imagining an entire village huddled around the new OLPC laptop, with one person furiously turning the power crank and another poised staring intently at the screen trying to understand the Microsoft EULA or, better yet, troubleshoot Windows Product Activiation problems.
I am a beige person, but I like the looks of the brown Zune. What does that mean? Am I a middle-aged wigger? But if that's true, then I really should buy a iPod to be a part of the hip, anti-establishment Apple crowd. But I much prefer the iPods in white. Does that make be a bigot?
Dammit, I'm so confused!That is because in Soviet Russia, (and the rest of the world), Microsoft Zune plays You!
Of course its part of the problem. And this problem has a name: Learning Curve. Don't compare to the last DVD player you bought, with a retail price under $100; compare to the first one, back in 1998, when they ran $600. I bet you wouldn't make a 90-second second back then. But even today, if you cared enough, comparing the technical and performance specifications of different DVD players in order to get the best quality and value would take an expert more than 90 seconds.
When faced with unfamiliar technology you always have three choices:For me, any choice other than #3 is acceptable.
You mean this $7.69 HDMI cable cannot exist? And that this 16 foot HDMI cable for $29.99 is a figment of my imagination??? Eghads! How in the world was I ever able to get a usable signal from my home theater?
Perhaps that's because you should have spent more time researching, or at least talking to a real expert, and not the pimply-faced sales droid at your local electronics store who will spin more lies in pursuit of that 75% premium cable profit margin than a politician chasing re-election.
And, by the way, comparing HDMI to TCP/IP is like comparing Apples to Stainless Steel Cookware. And TCP/IP does not demand error correction (UDP is best effort). But TCP/IP does run over Ethernet or Token-Ring, either of which can run over 100-Ohm UTP. In fact, TCP/IP over GB-Ethernet on 4-pair 100-Ohm UTP has sufficient bandwidth to carry multiple real-time HDTV feeds up to 100 meters.
Finally, there is nothing magical about making 100 Ohm UTP cable. It's been around for dozens of years and is the most common specification. It is certainly MUCH SUPERIOR FOR CARRYING DIGITAL SIGNALS compared to coaxial cable, which attenuates and degrades the digital waveforms over distance due to its inherent capacitance characteristics.
I will concur that HDMI cables longer than 30 feet are unheard of, and that this is because of the specification. Every network standard has distance limitations. It's a trade-off between performance, convenience and cost. In defense of the standards team I can only say that most people tend to put their TV and tuner/dvd/etc on the same side of their house. Sort of like putting the oven in the kitchen with the fridge. But I'm kind of conservative that way.