I switched years ago from MS Windows to Linux then OSX and haven't found a need for Windows software. Then again I haven't played any Windows games. The hardest part is MS Office macros, OO.org does not do macros. But Office can be run in CrossOver, with 2007 being supported.
I am surprised nobody has brought this up yet. Usually, you get a free, or nearly free, phone with your contract. But not at walmart, be prepared to pay around $200 for your smart phone.
Walmart shows a number of cellphones free with service contracts, including Blackberries.
I got nothin' against you country-bumpkins, but you're the one who decided to live on a farm. So put down that cityboy phone gadget, stop twittertorrentmapping, and get back to your cow tipping, gator wrestling, and mountain climbing.
Are you willing to pay higher prices for food? Either way you will pay for access for those in rural areas, either subsidizing their access or paying more for food.
To someone like you and I, but to the casual smartphone users who use 100-200 megs a month its a steal. That's the audience they are targeting, and the carriers should be very afraid because that's where their margins on their data plans come from. Its going to hurt us regardless.
No, even if it's the lowest prices, lowering those prices usually leads lowering all prices. For businesses to compeat with lower prices they lower their prices. Or improve their products, and that goes throughout the chain of products.
The premise is that Wal Mart can outlast pretty much anyone and undercut them enough to put them out of business.
I bet the same premise existed with KMart and others. "It can't happen" is true only until a competitor proves it wrong. People said Microsoft can't be competed against. But Redhat, Apple, and other companies do.
I don't know of a place that has a Walmart but not a Target
Well, the entire state of Vermont, for one.
Target.com, which is available in all states, shows there are Target stores to the east in New Hampshire and to the west in New York. Looking at the map, in the south it looks like there's a Target within about 50 miles. It only looks like a trip of 100 miles to get to the nearest Target is in the northeast part, which may mean a trip to Plattsburgh, NY. However Target.com is at your fingertips, and because there is not a brick and mortar Target in Vermont that means people there don't have to pay sales tax.
No one in their right mind would try to compete with Wal Mart unless they're already established. Wal Mart could just drop prices again and the competitor could watch all of their startup capital disappear.
Aldi is compeating against Walmart and although established they are not as big as Walmart. And start-ups frequently make sure they have enough capital, and balls, to weather competition. That is part of creating a business plan, which investors will evaluate before lending money. Just because you are afraid and don't want to compeat against Walmart that does not mean others are afraid too.
I've not been to Soho for at least 10 years now so I don't know how the independent music stores are doing
I haven't looked for music in a while but there are at least 2 local stores in walking distance. They both sell new and used media, that is CDs, tapes, and vinyl records. I don't have one now but I'd like to get a vinyl record turntable, then when I do I'll buy vinyl records. It will be a while before then though, I also want to get a new reel-to-reel tape deck. That way the first tyme I play a record I'd record it on tape then play the tape and keep the record for safe keeping. But money is in short supply.
In the case of those stores, consumer tastes and the rise of Amazon are probably as much of a contributory factor to their demise as cheaper products offered in supermarkets - but it still amounts to less consumer choice.
Those shops near me even sell records from the '60s and '70s. The last tyme I went into one it had a new White Album and when I saw it I had to hold myself back from dashing to a store to buy a new turntable. Just so I could play it, ages ago when I did have a turntable that was one of the albums in my collection. That and some Carlos Santana and Bachman-Turner Overdrive. I didn't have it then but I want to get In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida as well. And I can get some if not all of those at the stores near me today.
I live by myself. Now if I had a family a landline phone alone might be cheaper, but today even children have cellphones, and carriers offer family plans.
And wouldn't you lose the substantial discount on your DSL that your phone company gives for also having POTS?
DSL? If you mean net access via DSL, I don't have it. It is not available where I am. Right now I have cable access, but not cable TV. I may switch though because fiber to the neighborhood is now available and my ISP recently started limiting monthly bandwidths.
And my cellphone includes long distance whereas with landline service I would have to pay more. Lastly, because of poor memory due to an injury and disability the calendar built into the cellphone has helped me keep appointments. Just today I set up more appointments with a health care provider I see, I almost missed our appointment but the alarm I set reminded me of it.
supermarkets came on the scene and due to their size and power were able to dictate terms to food suppliers - about what varieties are grown, having minimum production volumes, etc. The result is cheaper foodstuffs but of lower quality and less choice because supermarkets want food that looks nice in displays and keeps fresh longer. Have you not noticed how much fresh fruit and vegetables on supermarket shelves is picked before it's fully ripened (and therefore before it's got its full flavour) simply so it lasts longer?
In the US one of those supermarkets is Whole Foods and it offers variety, higher quality, and ripe food. And guess what... For years Whole Foods has been one of the fastest growing grocery stores in the US. Talk about ripe food, though I live in a major city I garden. Since May I've gone out to my garden to pick rhubarb when I felt like eating some. Also starting in May I was able and went out to pick kale, lettuce, and mustard for salad. If I wanted tomatoes I had to buy them, but the past couple of weeks I've been able to pick some tomatoes from my garden and within a couple of more weeks I expect to start picking more so I can can them.
People would drive an hour to get to a real store - a Walmart or a Target or a Best Buy - and stock up for a week or weeks at a time.
And what will they stock up on? Processed foods that have long shelf lives - sorry, but you can't stock up three week supplies of fresh fruit and vegetables because it doesn't last that long.
You can have fresh food for a few days to a couple of weeks. And if you buy in bulk you can preserve food too. I love cooking and this past week I spent canning what I cooked. Just yesterday I made and canned some tomato juice. I have some ginger root I'll brew ginger beer with, and I'm thinking of making candy with more ginger I'm growing in my garden as well. By mid fall I should have enough preserved food to last me most of the way through winter.
what's wrong with buying stuff that's available, rather than flying it halfway around the world all the time?
Variety, er the lack of variety is the problem. I live in Minnesota and without international trade I would not be able to eat the bananas, lemons, oranges, and other food stuff I enjoy. And cooler places offer stuff not available in warmer places. Even though I have tomatoes growing in my garden a few days ago I bought a crate of tomatoes from a farmers market, then I spent days cooking and canning them. I"ll also be buying bananas then dehydrating them. I'm on the lookout for recipes for mangoes and oranges so I can can, maybe dehydrate, them as well. I have a bunch of rhubarb I picked from my garden I'll cook with strawberries then I'll can some and dehydrate some to make fruit leathers with more.
You're using a computer, all of which was probably made from imported stuff, if not imported itself. If you have a cellphone there's a good chance it has coltan in it, which may have come from the Congo thus fueling the fighting there. Do you really believe you can enjoy your life without international trade?
I suppose it's because big-name mobile carriers are run by the same Ivy League taught greedy corporate dullards that run most other large US corporations and banks (nearly destroying the world economy 2 years ago) and can't think past three month quarterly earnings. Walmart management has a long term plan - fear them!
Except Walmart is working with one of those "big-name mobile carriers", T-Mobile, to bring those prices to market. But as others have already said other carriers already have their own low price plans.
--a company known for undercutting their competitors and forcing everyone in their supply chain to work for peanuts..
Nothing stops those competitors from lowering their prices, and businesses can refuse to deal with Walmart. Take for instance The Man Who Said No to Wal-Mart.
Yes walmart has a nasty track record of unfair competitive practices.
I've heard this before but I've never seen any actual charges against them.
So the supermarket stocks the high-volume stuff only but manages to suck away most of the profits from, say, a specialist bookshop by stocking a smaller range of books.
Around here Barnes and Noble and Borders carry more books than supermarkets. And they both have discount programs, but of course I also order from Amazon. I'm a member of 2 coops in my area but I still go to Barnes and Noble, Walmart, and Sam's. I even go to farmers markets. A few days ago I bought a large box of tomatoes from one, then spend days cooking and canning juice, sauce, and soup. When the tomatoes in my garden are ready I'll can those too. I'll also make something to can, and dehydrate, from the rhubarb and strawberries I have. I'll buy other fruits to dehydrate too, make some strawberry and rhubarb leather.
I've not personally observed Wal-Mart raising their prices after driving the competition away
Just wait until they actually drive away their competition. They're general retail; wait until there's no other retailers.
Then when prices are jacked up, there's an opportunity for competition driving prices down again. I don't know of a place that has a Walmart but not a Target, a Sam's Club but not a Costco. There's Aldi and Amazon too. Last week I bought an item from a local store but after seeing Amazon selling it a lot cheaper, with "free shipping", I returned it.
the criticism that you've made applies more to Barnes and Noble than Wal-Mart. I've not personally observed Wal-Mart raising their prices after driving the competition away. I did observe Barnes and Noble jack up all their prices shortly after the last independent book store in my home town closed up shop.
There's Amazon and other cheap online sellers too. I have B&N's discount card but I still buy from Amazon. B&N, Borders, and other large book store chains have no business complaining about Amazon. Amazon gives them competition like they gave local businesses competition. As for those local shops, I knew 2 people who owned their own bookstores, one ended up selling the store but the other store after 40 years is still open. Back in the '90s when the web came along they opened their own online store so they've expanded their own reach. Amazon even made it easy for local stores to fulfill online orders for a cut.
The fact that windows does not have a central update system and every app has to do their own update mechanism is a bad thing of windows.
No, it's a good thing, you don't have a single gatekeeper deciding what can be installed. While a gatekeeper may work for some people many others want to be able to install whatever. While it's obvious many people love iPhones and iPads, if I ever get a smart phone or tablet it's likely to run Android. Well, I'd like to get a tablet like the Modbook Pro, however it runs OSX not the crippled iOS.
Do you really think that the government couldn't get the providers to shut down the lines that carry the internet already? Willingly? In an emergency? They didn't have a problem with illegal wiretaps after all.
Except not everyone cooperated. Just to name 2 examples, Google and Qwest told the Bush admin to get lost. Then those who did, like ATT, got eggs on their face. Obama gave then immunity for their cooperation. Google, Microsoft, Sun, and Yahoo! all spoke out in opposition to the granting of immunity.
The government also has come under fire for attempting to tell companies how to improve their security while suffering a slew of embarrassing intrusions on its own public and classified networks. The most well-known of these attacks is the compromise of a classified Department of Defense network through an infected USB drive in 2008.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe that's where CrossOver comes in.
I switched years ago from MS Windows to Linux then OSX and haven't found a need for Windows software. Then again I haven't played any Windows games. The hardest part is MS Office macros, OO.org does not do macros. But Office can be run in CrossOver, with 2007 being supported.
Falcon
ridiculous! i can go the local Dollar Store or FYE and get a Tracfone for $4.88 and service for less than $7 a month using a $19 card! BS!
Walmart has TracFones too, though for $9.88. Another $20 buys a TracFone 60-Minute Airtime Card.
Falcon
I am surprised nobody has brought this up yet. Usually, you get a free, or nearly free, phone with your contract. But not at walmart, be prepared to pay around $200 for your smart phone.
Walmart shows a number of cellphones free with service contracts, including Blackberries.
Falcon
I got nothin' against you country-bumpkins, but you're the one who decided to live on a farm. So put down that cityboy phone gadget, stop twittertorrentmapping, and get back to your cow tipping, gator wrestling, and mountain climbing.
Are you willing to pay higher prices for food? Either way you will pay for access for those in rural areas, either subsidizing their access or paying more for food.
Even Cajuns and other Acadians should know that.
Falcon
To someone like you and I, but to the casual smartphone users who use 100-200 megs a month its a steal. That's the audience they are targeting, and the carriers should be very afraid because that's where their margins on their data plans come from. Its going to hurt us regardless.
No, even if it's the lowest prices, lowering those prices usually leads lowering all prices. For businesses to compeat with lower prices they lower their prices. Or improve their products, and that goes throughout the chain of products.
Falcon
The premise is that Wal Mart can outlast pretty much anyone and undercut them enough to put them out of business.
I bet the same premise existed with KMart and others. "It can't happen" is true only until a competitor proves it wrong. People said Microsoft can't be competed against. But Redhat, Apple, and other companies do.
Falcon
I don't know of a place that has a Walmart but not a Target
Well, the entire state of Vermont, for one.
Target.com, which is available in all states, shows there are Target stores to the east in New Hampshire and to the west in New York. Looking at the map, in the south it looks like there's a Target within about 50 miles. It only looks like a trip of 100 miles to get to the nearest Target is in the northeast part, which may mean a trip to Plattsburgh, NY. However Target.com is at your fingertips, and because there is not a brick and mortar Target in Vermont that means people there don't have to pay sales tax.
Falcon
No one in their right mind would try to compete with Wal Mart unless they're already established. Wal Mart could just drop prices again and the competitor could watch all of their startup capital disappear.
Aldi is compeating against Walmart and although established they are not as big as Walmart. And start-ups frequently make sure they have enough capital, and balls, to weather competition. That is part of creating a business plan, which investors will evaluate before lending money. Just because you are afraid and don't want to compeat against Walmart that does not mean others are afraid too.
Falcon
I've not been to Soho for at least 10 years now so I don't know how the independent music stores are doing
I haven't looked for music in a while but there are at least 2 local stores in walking distance. They both sell new and used media, that is CDs, tapes, and vinyl records. I don't have one now but I'd like to get a vinyl record turntable, then when I do I'll buy vinyl records. It will be a while before then though, I also want to get a new reel-to-reel tape deck. That way the first tyme I play a record I'd record it on tape then play the tape and keep the record for safe keeping. But money is in short supply.
In the case of those stores, consumer tastes and the rise of Amazon are probably as much of a contributory factor to their demise as cheaper products offered in supermarkets - but it still amounts to less consumer choice.
Those shops near me even sell records from the '60s and '70s. The last tyme I went into one it had a new White Album and when I saw it I had to hold myself back from dashing to a store to buy a new turntable. Just so I could play it, ages ago when I did have a turntable that was one of the albums in my collection. That and some Carlos Santana and Bachman-Turner Overdrive. I didn't have it then but I want to get In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida as well. And I can get some if not all of those at the stores near me today.
Falcon
How many people live with you
I live by myself. Now if I had a family a landline phone alone might be cheaper, but today even children have cellphones, and carriers offer family plans.
And wouldn't you lose the substantial discount on your DSL that your phone company gives for also having POTS?
DSL? If you mean net access via DSL, I don't have it. It is not available where I am. Right now I have cable access, but not cable TV. I may switch though because fiber to the neighborhood is now available and my ISP recently started limiting monthly bandwidths.
And my cellphone includes long distance whereas with landline service I would have to pay more. Lastly, because of poor memory due to an injury and disability the calendar built into the cellphone has helped me keep appointments. Just today I set up more appointments with a health care provider I see, I almost missed our appointment but the alarm I set reminded me of it.
Falcon
supermarkets came on the scene and due to their size and power were able to dictate terms to food suppliers - about what varieties are grown, having minimum production volumes, etc. The result is cheaper foodstuffs but of lower quality and less choice because supermarkets want food that looks nice in displays and keeps fresh longer. Have you not noticed how much fresh fruit and vegetables on supermarket shelves is picked before it's fully ripened (and therefore before it's got its full flavour) simply so it lasts longer?
In the US one of those supermarkets is Whole Foods and it offers variety, higher quality, and ripe food. And guess what... For years Whole Foods has been one of the fastest growing grocery stores in the US. Talk about ripe food, though I live in a major city I garden. Since May I've gone out to my garden to pick rhubarb when I felt like eating some. Also starting in May I was able and went out to pick kale, lettuce, and mustard for salad. If I wanted tomatoes I had to buy them, but the past couple of weeks I've been able to pick some tomatoes from my garden and within a couple of more weeks I expect to start picking more so I can can them.
People would drive an hour to get to a real store - a Walmart or a Target or a Best Buy - and stock up for a week or weeks at a time.
And what will they stock up on? Processed foods that have long shelf lives - sorry, but you can't stock up three week supplies of fresh fruit and vegetables because it doesn't last that long.
You can have fresh food for a few days to a couple of weeks. And if you buy in bulk you can preserve food too. I love cooking and this past week I spent canning what I cooked. Just yesterday I made and canned some tomato juice. I have some ginger root I'll brew ginger beer with, and I'm thinking of making candy with more ginger I'm growing in my garden as well. By mid fall I should have enough preserved food to last me most of the way through winter.
Falcon
what's wrong with buying stuff that's available, rather than flying it halfway around the world all the time?
Variety, er the lack of variety is the problem. I live in Minnesota and without international trade I would not be able to eat the bananas, lemons, oranges, and other food stuff I enjoy. And cooler places offer stuff not available in warmer places. Even though I have tomatoes growing in my garden a few days ago I bought a crate of tomatoes from a farmers market, then I spent days cooking and canning them. I"ll also be buying bananas then dehydrating them. I'm on the lookout for recipes for mangoes and oranges so I can can, maybe dehydrate, them as well. I have a bunch of rhubarb I picked from my garden I'll cook with strawberries then I'll can some and dehydrate some to make fruit leathers with more.
You're using a computer, all of which was probably made from imported stuff, if not imported itself. If you have a cellphone there's a good chance it has coltan in it, which may have come from the Congo thus fueling the fighting there. Do you really believe you can enjoy your life without international trade?
Falcon
I pay $5/mo to Virgin Mobile USA (a Sprint company) precisely because I don't use my dumbphone as a land-line replacement.
My cellphone is cheaper than the landline phone I replaced with the cellphone. Many others have found out the same thing.
Falcon
I suppose it's because big-name mobile carriers are run by the same Ivy League taught greedy corporate dullards that run most other large US corporations and banks (nearly destroying the world economy 2 years ago) and can't think past three month quarterly earnings. Walmart management has a long term plan - fear them!
Except Walmart is working with one of those "big-name mobile carriers", T-Mobile, to bring those prices to market. But as others have already said other carriers already have their own low price plans.
Isn't competition terrific?
Falcon
--a company known for undercutting their competitors and forcing everyone in their supply chain to work for peanuts..
Nothing stops those competitors from lowering their prices, and businesses can refuse to deal with Walmart. Take for instance The Man Who Said No to Wal-Mart.
Yes walmart has a nasty track record of unfair competitive practices.
I've heard this before but I've never seen any actual charges against them.
Falcon
So the supermarket stocks the high-volume stuff only but manages to suck away most of the profits from, say, a specialist bookshop by stocking a smaller range of books.
Around here Barnes and Noble and Borders carry more books than supermarkets. And they both have discount programs, but of course I also order from Amazon. I'm a member of 2 coops in my area but I still go to Barnes and Noble, Walmart, and Sam's. I even go to farmers markets. A few days ago I bought a large box of tomatoes from one, then spend days cooking and canning juice, sauce, and soup. When the tomatoes in my garden are ready I'll can those too. I'll also make something to can, and dehydrate, from the rhubarb and strawberries I have. I'll buy other fruits to dehydrate too, make some strawberry and rhubarb leather.
Falcon
I've not personally observed Wal-Mart raising their prices after driving the competition away
Just wait until they actually drive away their competition. They're general retail; wait until there's no other retailers.
Then when prices are jacked up, there's an opportunity for competition driving prices down again. I don't know of a place that has a Walmart but not a Target, a Sam's Club but not a Costco. There's Aldi and Amazon too. Last week I bought an item from a local store but after seeing Amazon selling it a lot cheaper, with "free shipping", I returned it.
Falcon
the criticism that you've made applies more to Barnes and Noble than Wal-Mart. I've not personally observed Wal-Mart raising their prices after driving the competition away. I did observe Barnes and Noble jack up all their prices shortly after the last independent book store in my home town closed up shop.
There's Amazon and other cheap online sellers too. I have B&N's discount card but I still buy from Amazon. B&N, Borders, and other large book store chains have no business complaining about Amazon. Amazon gives them competition like they gave local businesses competition. As for those local shops, I knew 2 people who owned their own bookstores, one ended up selling the store but the other store after 40 years is still open. Back in the '90s when the web came along they opened their own online store so they've expanded their own reach. Amazon even made it easy for local stores to fulfill online orders for a cut.
Falcon
The fact that windows does not have a central update system and every app has to do their own update mechanism is a bad thing of windows.
No, it's a good thing, you don't have a single gatekeeper deciding what can be installed. While a gatekeeper may work for some people many others want to be able to install whatever. While it's obvious many people love iPhones and iPads, if I ever get a smart phone or tablet it's likely to run Android. Well, I'd like to get a tablet like the Modbook Pro, however it runs OSX not the crippled iOS.
Falcon
Apple's App Store Guidelines Don't Change Anything
Falcon
Do you really think that the government couldn't get the providers to shut down the lines that carry the internet already? Willingly? In an emergency? They didn't have a problem with illegal wiretaps after all.
Except not everyone cooperated. Just to name 2 examples, Google and Qwest told the Bush admin to get lost. Then those who did, like ATT, got eggs on their face. Obama gave then immunity for their cooperation. Google, Microsoft, Sun, and Yahoo! all spoke out in opposition to the granting of immunity.
Falcon
CERN disagrees.
CERN does not disagree. CERN was the birthplace of the World Wide Web" and the internet is much more than just the web. Here's A Short History of Internet Protocols at CERN from the horse's mouth.
Falcon
The government also has come under fire for attempting to tell companies how to improve their security while suffering a slew of embarrassing intrusions on its own public and classified networks. The most well-known of these attacks is the compromise of a classified Department of Defense network through an infected USB drive in 2008.
From DoD Takes Criticism From Security Experts On Cyberwar Incident posted this Saturday "this James Bond-like scenario doesn't stand up to scrutiny."
Falcon
Knocking a country of the internet in the case of war could be a quite potent weapon.
ie there are no legitimate reasons to consider a "kill switch" which will do the same thing, knock the country off the net.
Falcon
Get an iPhone or windows mobile and get yourself a hosted exchange account in anoter country. Same deal only not centralized like rim.
Businesses can set up their own Blackberry Enterprise Server, so Blackberries can be decentralized.
Falcon