I worked at Best Buy 10 years ago in the computer service department. This was before the disaster that is Geek Squad. The sales people would tell you anything you wanted to hear in order to sell you something. They would says that the PSP (performance service plan) covered any problem including software. If people had taken time to read the brochure it clearly stated that it did not. So when the customer came in for service they expected to get their computer fixed for free and were told that it would cost them. Guess who got chewed out by Mr. pissed off customer. The techs did! I refuse to shop at Best Buy no matter how good the deals.
Mr. Stephenson said the iPhone represents a broader push by AT&T into Wi-Fi services, including, potentially, mobile Internet calling.
T-Mobile just released a new service that lets you make internet based calls from your home or any t-mobile hotspot and will seamlessly transition to the cellular network when needed.
http://www.theonlyphoneyouneed.com/
My biggest problem with Safari is the toolbar search. Apple has decided that I only need Google. Firefox and even IE allow me to change the default engine and add other search providers if I want. In the PC version Beta it had an option to select Yahoo which is a start. But when I loaded the beta on my Mac I was disappointed to find this option missing.
I have been using TaxAct http://www.taxact.com/ online for years now and never have had a problem. It costs a fraction of the price that Intuit wants, and in my opinion is just as good. Plus the online version works with Windows, Mac and Linux.
Damn. I thought the whole Word app was a giant bug. Turns out it is a feature that they can charge a lot of money for. It was confusing me since it only seemed useful if you wanted to butcher a document.
Are these really people you want voting anyway? I can just see them in the voting booth. "I don't know who to vote for? Which candidate supports Blu-Ray"
I actually owned a Compaq laptop with a 180mhz MediaGX chip. It wasn't the fastest thing in the world but it worked well for 2D stuff.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaGX
It won't matter how much better Blu-Ray is over HD-DVD if Sony can't get the prive down. Granted new technology is always more expensive when it is first released but in the end your average consumner is going to make a decision that is in some part based on price. If Joe Sixpack is looking to the upgrade his DVD player and he goes to Worst Buy and sees two options side by side, One is the Sony BDP-S1 Priced at $1000 (low end of most estimates) and the Toshiba HD-A1 Priced at $499.99 (Amazon) and they are both playing HD 1080i content. What do you think he is going to choose? Now you have to remember that Joe could give a shit that the Blu-Ray disk holds more content, all he sees is the fact that the disks and player both cost more. Joe just wants to play HD content on his new 64" HDTV. If Sony were smart they would swallow their pride and price Blu-Ray at $499.99 to compete with HD-DVD. The problem is this won't happen, and Sony's baby will fail because of it. You can't price something twice that of the competing offering and expect people to choose based soley on your technical merits. BetaMax was better than VHS but more expensive and remember what happend there? I guess Sony dosen't learn from their mistakes.
I have tried Corel, Redhat, Mandrake, SuSe, Debian, and a bunch of other distros and I keep coming back to Slack. It's not that the others don't have something to offer. I have found something I like in each one. I just like to know what is going on with my PC. Pat makes sure that stuff is up to date but stable at the same time. I don't want a distro with a kernel that is patched all to hell by the distributor. Plus with Slack I don't have to worry about RPM dependency hell.
The flexability is great too. I have Slack running as a Secondary workstation PC at work, On our company web server, and I even switched my mom over to Slack since she seemed to have a knack for collecting viruses and spyware when the computer had Windows 2000 on it.
They seriously need to fix the options dialog boxes so they are consistent across all of the Office apps. For example...
Setting the default save directory is simple enough right... Not with office.
In the Excel 2003 Options there are 13 tabs. Now if I were going to guess under which tab the default open/save location option was I would pick "Save" but I would be wrong. It is actually under General. Ok fine, not where I expected it but it's changed so on to PowerPoint.
PowerPoint 2003 has 7 tabs in the options box. My chances are better at getting this right on the first try. Now if I was logical I would say choose the "General" tab. After all that is where I set the default location in Excel. Again I would be wrong. This time the default file location is under "Save" That makes more sense but it is not consistent with Excel? Oh well on to Word
Word has a 11 tabs and 3 rows. Word also has a "General" tab and a "Save" Tab. Great I have a 50% chance of getting this one right. Wrong. In Word 2003 I have to choose the "File Locations" Tab. Now to make things even more interesting the method used to set the file location does not resemble the method used in Excel and Powerpoint. One I kludge my way through this dialog it's on to Publisher.
When I open Publisher I can pull down the Tools Menu and I can see options but it is grayed out and I can't select it. What gives? I have to first select what kind of project I want then I have to open a project. Now I can set the default file location. Fortunately Publisher only has 7 tabs. If I was logical I would select the "Save" tab but since I know better I choose the "General" tab. Finally I am right. Damn! I have to set this the same stupid way I did in Word!
But the package said seamless integration and easy to use? I haven't even started to create my document. This can't be good.
Sony has been on a downward slide for quite some time. If they could just get over their "not invented here" mentality and not try to reinvent the wheel every time a new technology comes along. There is nothing wrong with taking something good and simply making it better and more compelling. If Sony made cars it would have square wheels and they would convince you that it was much better that way since you didn't need brakes anymore which by the way were also not invented at Sony.
And Beta was better than VHS. It is all about the money, if HD-DVD alows them get by with a minimum amount of retooling they will choose HD-DVD. It dosen't matter that it will cost abouth the same in the long run (royalties excluded). Unfortunatly the way most major companies look at things today is "how will this increase shareholder value TODAY" Screw the long term.
Instead of actually improving things Microsoft latest OS will be a regurgitation of the same tired crap. Prettier interface, Wizards instead of fixing the underlying usibility issues, And loads of PR telling the masses that this is "The Best Windows Ever"
No Thanks Microsoft
The cable companies can do whatever they want and I could still care less. The cable companies may have a monopoly on high speed internet via cable lines but that doesn't mean consumers don't have other options. In my city there is Cable, DSL and Wireless and judging by prices there is definitely competition. I personally don't use any of the services the local cable co provides and even had them remove their line from my house. I have been more than happy with DSL and Satellite.
Aril 1st is the one day that I don't bother reading Slashdot. It's the same crap every year. If a fake story was thrown in among a bunch of real stories it might be different. But my god talk about over doing it.
why not use the web version of TurboTax, TaxCut, or TaxAct. As a previous poster said due to the yearly changes in the tax code who would want to take on such a project. And not to slam the OSS community or anything but I don't think I would trust doing my taxes on just any hack job of a tax package. Besides the big tax software houses usually check your return and offer and audit protection gauarantee.
Slashdot Mirror
I worked at Best Buy 10 years ago in the computer service department. This was before the disaster that is Geek Squad. The sales people would tell you anything you wanted to hear in order to sell you something. They would says that the PSP (performance service plan) covered any problem including software. If people had taken time to read the brochure it clearly stated that it did not. So when the customer came in for service they expected to get their computer fixed for free and were told that it would cost them. Guess who got chewed out by Mr. pissed off customer. The techs did! I refuse to shop at Best Buy no matter how good the deals.
I declare Microsoft's EULA does not apply to me.
I can change the search engine on the PC but not on the Mac both are the Safari 3 Beta that was just released.
My biggest problem with Safari is the toolbar search. Apple has decided that I only need Google. Firefox and even IE allow me to change the default engine and add other search providers if I want. In the PC version Beta it had an option to select Yahoo which is a start. But when I loaded the beta on my Mac I was disappointed to find this option missing.
I have been using TaxAct http://www.taxact.com/ online for years now and never have had a problem. It costs a fraction of the price that Intuit wants, and in my opinion is just as good. Plus the online version works with Windows, Mac and Linux.
Damn. I thought the whole Word app was a giant bug. Turns out it is a feature that they can charge a lot of money for. It was confusing me since it only seemed useful if you wanted to butcher a document.
Are these really people you want voting anyway? I can just see them in the voting booth. "I don't know who to vote for? Which candidate supports Blu-Ray"
I actually owned a Compaq laptop with a 180mhz MediaGX chip. It wasn't the fastest thing in the world but it worked well for 2D stuff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaGX
It won't matter how much better Blu-Ray is over HD-DVD if Sony can't get the prive down. Granted new technology is always more expensive when it is first released but in the end your average consumner is going to make a decision that is in some part based on price. If Joe Sixpack is looking to the upgrade his DVD player and he goes to Worst Buy and sees two options side by side, One is the Sony BDP-S1 Priced at $1000 (low end of most estimates) and the Toshiba HD-A1 Priced at $499.99 (Amazon) and they are both playing HD 1080i content. What do you think he is going to choose? Now you have to remember that Joe could give a shit that the Blu-Ray disk holds more content, all he sees is the fact that the disks and player both cost more. Joe just wants to play HD content on his new 64" HDTV. If Sony were smart they would swallow their pride and price Blu-Ray at $499.99 to compete with HD-DVD. The problem is this won't happen, and Sony's baby will fail because of it. You can't price something twice that of the competing offering and expect people to choose based soley on your technical merits. BetaMax was better than VHS but more expensive and remember what happend there? I guess Sony dosen't learn from their mistakes.
As long as it is as good as google video what could possibly go wrong?
I have tried Corel, Redhat, Mandrake, SuSe, Debian, and a bunch of other distros and I keep coming back to Slack. It's not that the others don't have something to offer. I have found something I like in each one. I just like to know what is going on with my PC. Pat makes sure that stuff is up to date but stable at the same time. I don't want a distro with a kernel that is patched all to hell by the distributor. Plus with Slack I don't have to worry about RPM dependency hell.
The flexability is great too. I have Slack running as a Secondary workstation PC at work, On our company web server, and I even switched my mom over to Slack since she seemed to have a knack for collecting viruses and spyware when the computer had Windows 2000 on it.
They seriously need to fix the options dialog boxes so they are consistent across all of the Office apps. For example...
Setting the default save directory is simple enough right... Not with office.
In the Excel 2003 Options there are 13 tabs. Now if I were going to guess under which tab the default open/save location option was I would pick "Save" but I would be wrong. It is actually under General. Ok fine, not where I expected it but it's changed so on to PowerPoint.
PowerPoint 2003 has 7 tabs in the options box. My chances are better at getting this right on the first try. Now if I was logical I would say choose the "General" tab. After all that is where I set the default location in Excel. Again I would be wrong. This time the default file location is under "Save" That makes more sense but it is not consistent with Excel? Oh well on to Word
Word has a 11 tabs and 3 rows. Word also has a "General" tab and a "Save" Tab. Great I have a 50% chance of getting this one right. Wrong. In Word 2003 I have to choose the "File Locations" Tab. Now to make things even more interesting the method used to set the file location does not resemble the method used in Excel and Powerpoint. One I kludge my way through this dialog it's on to Publisher.
When I open Publisher I can pull down the Tools Menu and I can see options but it is grayed out and I can't select it. What gives? I have to first select what kind of project I want then I have to open a project. Now I can set the default file location. Fortunately Publisher only has 7 tabs. If I was logical I would select the "Save" tab but since I know better I choose the "General" tab. Finally I am right. Damn! I have to set this the same stupid way I did in Word!
But the package said seamless integration and easy to use? I haven't even started to create my document. This can't be good.
Sony has been on a downward slide for quite some time. If they could just get over their "not invented here" mentality and not try to reinvent the wheel every time a new technology comes along. There is nothing wrong with taking something good and simply making it better and more compelling. If Sony made cars it would have square wheels and they would convince you that it was much better that way since you didn't need brakes anymore which by the way were also not invented at Sony.
And Beta was better than VHS. It is all about the money, if HD-DVD alows them get by with a minimum amount of retooling they will choose HD-DVD. It dosen't matter that it will cost abouth the same in the long run (royalties excluded). Unfortunatly the way most major companies look at things today is "how will this increase shareholder value TODAY" Screw the long term.
Who cares! it was cheep
Instead of actually improving things Microsoft latest OS will be a regurgitation of the same tired crap. Prettier interface, Wizards instead of fixing the underlying usibility issues, And loads of PR telling the masses that this is "The Best Windows Ever" No Thanks Microsoft
Digital OTA is replacing analog OTA. OTA programming will be around for a long time. Just not in analog form.
The cable companies can do whatever they want and I could still care less. The cable companies may have a monopoly on high speed internet via cable lines but that doesn't mean consumers don't have other options. In my city there is Cable, DSL and Wireless and judging by prices there is definitely competition. I personally don't use any of the services the local cable co provides and even had them remove their line from my house. I have been more than happy with DSL and Satellite.
You blew it SCO. No amount of PR can save you from your death spiral.
I don't care if they junk non sender-id mail because I junk anything @hotmail. Now it's mutual.
Of course it won't crash. That is only because it probably won't start either.
Could anybody be more wrong more often and still keep their job Got nothin.
Aril 1st is the one day that I don't bother reading Slashdot. It's the same crap every year. If a fake story was thrown in among a bunch of real stories it might be different. But my god talk about over doing it.
why not use the web version of TurboTax, TaxCut, or TaxAct. As a previous poster said due to the yearly changes in the tax code who would want to take on such a project. And not to slam the OSS community or anything but I don't think I would trust doing my taxes on just any hack job of a tax package. Besides the big tax software houses usually check your return and offer and audit protection gauarantee.