I am tired of reading about "total cost of ownership". It is a made-up concept
Any concept of the inner workings of a Fortune 500 company? i.e. what it means to have thousands upon thousands of non technical users who are now required to use a PC for their job 8 hours a day? Any idea on earth what it costs to support these people? (hint- these operatives may make as low as minimum wage, but the people supporting them certainly don't!)
Well, there was the little thing called MS DOS that became the basis of operating sytems for many operating systems to come, including one or two that are still in use today.
At this point perhaps the mini price should drop $50. This recent set of enhancements to the regular iPod line adds new fire to the original speculation months ago about the mini vs. regular argument.
Now, $50 extra over a mini buys you even more, making the argument even more compelling.
and just watch. It's quite easy to spot the Americans, generally. They're loud, crass, and uncivil.
Well you'd never notice the majority of Americans if they happen to be quiet, then? Come on, the area I live in in Jax, Florida has a lot of people moving in from eastern Europe... I notice them a lot at the gym in particular. Some of them are rude and obnoxious. So what? Since we all look the same, it would be wrong to assume that the only eastern Europeans in the gym are the ones being noisy. For all I know they're only 1%.
I've noticed that people, wherever you are in the world, are more critical when someone is acting in a way they don't like- IF they are foreign. In America people will get pissed and say something like "learn to speak English." In France, they'll say "Stupid Americans."
Same goes for ITMS songs. I tried buying a track soon after this 100,000,000 song promotion started, and the system told me the track was on back order!
p.s. it's supposed to be funny damnit... not a troll.
Cross platform? Hell, their home page is not even cross-browser apparently.
This page seems to not scroll in Mozilla 1.5 even if all the content can't be shown in the browser window because of size. You know you're in trouble when they fuck up their main marketing page.
Where have you been- Apple has been dying hard for the last 10 years or so. (Nevermind 100 million songs sold, lots of exciting new R&D and products that they can't even keep in stock because they're so popular.)
And another thing... It's hard to find good new books at book stores. When you walk in it's nothing but diet and chicken soup crap.
Have you read every OLD book out there? Reading older books has several advantages-
1. Some are old enough to be in the public domain- available online for free
2. All are available cheap on paperback
3. The library will have it
4. A lot of old books rule
I've recently been reading some old Crichton books, for example, after reading some of his newer material like Timeline or Prey. I figure, I could go in the bookstore and try and find the newest best seller but why? I might as well read though the library books of books from authors I like first.
A computer or a TV can't begin to replace what is communicated by a good book. You can even read non-fiction... stuff by historical figures you might respect- in my case Jefferson, Madison, etc. You read their words, the things they wrote with their own brain and their own hand, and you get inside their head. And you can do all this anywhere. No laptop, no broadband, no nothing. You can be under an umbrella on the most deserted island in the world and still experience it. And you get smarter- your vocabulary improves and you find your own writing skills improve.
According to a Library of Congress survey, some books have even changed peoples lives. The top two are the Bible and Atlas Shrugged. Other forms of media don't have nearly that effect on people.
Not only that, but you know when most companies are going out of business, their products start to really, really suck. Their market share crashes, they stop doing R&D, etc.
Apple stuff is getting better and way better. OS X, ipod, ITMS... The Airport Express is going to be a slick product too.
Could this be the REVERSE Sports Illustrated jinx?
Mod parent up. Why is it everyone thinks they know better when it comes to Apple?
Exactly. I mean, you wouldn't write an open letter to Harley Davidson telling them a six step plan to getting a Harley in every driveway in America, would you?
I think it is great that there is a premimun software and hardware vendor out there like Apple. I see "premium" PC vendors, like Alienware, but they're offering a more expensive version of the same old shit. At least you get premium quality when you pay premium prices with Apple.
The problem is that a big portion of the users dont upgrade.
One good thing, though. I've noticed a lot of larger companies are managing their desktops more tightly than they were a few years ago. Also shops running Citrix and Citrix-type environments have an advantage here... rather easy to make sure your users get the latest and greatest.
Home users are largely a lost cause however. Your average Joe isn't going to go out downloading update patches. The Windows Update or Software Update (Mac) type things work pretty well but I'm just not sure how many users use them and they don't cover 3rd party apps.
Very true- no software ever written has been 100% bug free. Mac, Linux, Mozilla etc. simply aren't targets for obvious reasons that are frequently brought up here.
The difference in large part in my opinon boils down to:
#1 WHO finds the bug. Is it the developers and community that discovers it in good faith, or is it a hacker and the rest of us find out after a billion dollars has been lost worldwide to the latest worm, virus, etc.
#2 As you said, how quickly is the problem fixed. Certainly, private companies aren't necessarily horrible at doing this, to spite what people say. I work for a small software company and assure you that any security issues with our product would be corrected promptly. By the same token, some open source projects w/o a steady lead or direction could have exploits that go unfixed for some time.
However, based on my observations and considering those two points, I'd say I certainly feel better using Firefox than IE.
What happened with the loud bang the pilot heard during the last flight? It had looked like some of the composite material near the engine had buckled. I wonder if that is something they addressed, or if it is just a case of using more duct tape???
What is worse, the UN will establish a Spam council and invite a few people to sit in who are some of the worlds biggest spammers.
P.S. If you don't get the analogy, I'm referring to the fact that Syria is on the UN security council to spite the fact that they are one of the biggest state sponsors of terrorism (much more so than Iraq ever was)
Its a good thing that the American resistance was successful! Someone had to fix this shit.
Paris not so long ago
But really- all kidding aside: nations change, goverments change, people change, etc. I have no doubt that Jefferson or Madison would crap their pants if they were around today to see the U.S. government. So while it is important to remember history, what we did for the French, what they did for us, yada yada yada, I think it is more important to make decisions based on the current positions of a given country or her government. The French are valid in hating us because of the way we are today, and we are valid in hating them because of the way they are.
Apple also makes more software than Microsoft, and OSX comes with more free high quality tools. All that power in an OS and it still comes with a real comand shell. For the small market share Apple has, they seem to be doing a fine job of producing quality software.
Very important point you make here. For about the same price as XP, Panther or Tiger gives you a lot more in regards to "other software". Apple gives you all the XCode development tools with the OS. I'm totally on board with that too. Why not make it easy to develop new software for your OS? Secondly, the iLife set of apps is pretty good- very much good enough for a large percentage of the users. What do you get with XP? Not a whole lot- the apps are either missing or they just suck (Media Player, for example.) And factor in apps like iCal, Address Book, iSync... XP is no comparison in this regard.
If you're referring to the massive goverment bailouts of the years of the airlines, this is true. Although, there are other smaller carriers that have not been bailed out that are efficient and make money and still sell low fares.
Probably because most people only get 2 weeks vacation and you can fly between any 2 points in the US for $200 or under if you are a smart fare shopper. Back at the turn of the century wasting time on a train was the only way to get anywhere. I'll happily take my 6 hour plane ride from FL to CA, thanks.
Except tourists are already used to getting lots of things for free in LV... drinks while you gamble, use of existing trams and monorails for free, etc. Sure the monorail is more like a bus or cab that you'd already pay for, but I wonder how many tourists will realize this. I'm thinking they will equate it more to the monorail that takes them between the Monte Carlo and Bellagio.
It is amazing that a species that can't pick itself up from a fall could survive past a single generation. But, I'm sure there are other species with this fault. It just sounds like a bad trait to have.
You pay me in advance for a product, I owe you that product. Just because you wait some time to come and claim it, does not mean I magically owe you nothing.
You're missing the point. Accounting procedures result in income being recorded when the gift certificate is sold. The liability of providing the service or product isn't realized until the item is sold. From an accounting standpoint, this can result in the books completely "going to shit" after a while if the outstanding, unclaimed liabilities aren't removed. Now surely there is a compromise with consumers. Lengthen this amount of time to something quite reasonable... 5 years perhaps.
I partially agree with you, the cards should have a clearly stated expiry date. Although, redemption for cash is perhaps another story. You're making the agreement with the retailer when you buy the card on the conditions of redemption. I tend to agree with other posters here though. Who needs gift cards anyway? What the heck is wrong with a personal check or cash inside an envelope that is good ANYWHERE? Is that not the ultimate gift card? Not sure why people consider it tacky to give out cash. I'd gladly have cash any day of the week.
A valid point- I believe most accounting procedures actually require the gift certificate to be written off the books at some point.
At my last job I worked on a prepaid calling card management system. The system in all cases required an expiration date because otherwise the company would have an infinite outstanding liability to provide the service that someone has just paid for.
The same has to be true for retailers. Think what would happen if 500 years from now every previously outstanding gift card for the previous 5 centuries was cashed in for a given retailer. They'd have to give out billions in goods and services for basically nothing because the gift card revenue was realized as income in the year it was sold.
Slashdot Mirror
Although, Apple sure turned themselves around. Some will disagree but just look at everything that has happened OS X and beyond....
I am tired of reading about "total cost of ownership". It is a made-up concept
Any concept of the inner workings of a Fortune 500 company? i.e. what it means to have thousands upon thousands of non technical users who are now required to use a PC for their job 8 hours a day? Any idea on earth what it costs to support these people? (hint- these operatives may make as low as minimum wage, but the people supporting them certainly don't!)
They haven't figured *anything* out yet.
Well, there was the little thing called MS DOS that became the basis of operating sytems for many operating systems to come, including one or two that are still in use today.
At this point perhaps the mini price should drop $50. This recent set of enhancements to the regular iPod line adds new fire to the original speculation months ago about the mini vs. regular argument.
Now, $50 extra over a mini buys you even more, making the argument even more compelling.
Or, why not Energia?
P.S. I just found this link but this guy had to have done it as a joke- it would be about as likely as trying to sell a Saturn V.
and just watch. It's quite easy to spot the Americans, generally. They're loud, crass, and uncivil.
Well you'd never notice the majority of Americans if they happen to be quiet, then? Come on, the area I live in in Jax, Florida has a lot of people moving in from eastern Europe... I notice them a lot at the gym in particular. Some of them are rude and obnoxious. So what? Since we all look the same, it would be wrong to assume that the only eastern Europeans in the gym are the ones being noisy. For all I know they're only 1%.
I've noticed that people, wherever you are in the world, are more critical when someone is acting in a way they don't like- IF they are foreign. In America people will get pissed and say something like "learn to speak English." In France, they'll say "Stupid Americans."
Same goes for ITMS songs. I tried buying a track soon after this 100,000,000 song promotion started, and the system told me the track was on back order!
p.s. it's supposed to be funny damnit... not a troll.
Cross platform? Hell, their home page is not even cross-browser apparently.
This page seems to not scroll in Mozilla 1.5 even if all the content can't be shown in the browser window because of size. You know you're in trouble when they fuck up their main marketing page.
You didn't get that memo?
Where have you been- Apple has been dying hard for the last 10 years or so. (Nevermind 100 million songs sold, lots of exciting new R&D and products that they can't even keep in stock because they're so popular.)
And another thing... It's hard to find good new books at book stores. When you walk in it's nothing but diet and chicken soup crap.
Have you read every OLD book out there? Reading older books has several advantages-
1. Some are old enough to be in the public domain- available online for free
2. All are available cheap on paperback
3. The library will have it
4. A lot of old books rule
I've recently been reading some old Crichton books, for example, after reading some of his newer material like Timeline or Prey. I figure, I could go in the bookstore and try and find the newest best seller but why? I might as well read though the library books of books from authors I like first.
A computer or a TV can't begin to replace what is communicated by a good book. You can even read non-fiction... stuff by historical figures you might respect- in my case Jefferson, Madison, etc. You read their words, the things they wrote with their own brain and their own hand, and you get inside their head. And you can do all this anywhere. No laptop, no broadband, no nothing. You can be under an umbrella on the most deserted island in the world and still experience it. And you get smarter- your vocabulary improves and you find your own writing skills improve.
According to a Library of Congress survey, some books have even changed peoples lives. The top two are the Bible and Atlas Shrugged. Other forms of media don't have nearly that effect on people.
Not only that, but you know when most companies are going out of business, their products start to really, really suck. Their market share crashes, they stop doing R&D, etc.
Apple stuff is getting better and way better. OS X, ipod, ITMS... The Airport Express is going to be a slick product too.
Could this be the REVERSE Sports Illustrated jinx?
Mod parent up. Why is it everyone thinks they know better when it comes to Apple?
Exactly. I mean, you wouldn't write an open letter to Harley Davidson telling them a six step plan to getting a Harley in every driveway in America, would you?
I think it is great that there is a premimun software and hardware vendor out there like Apple. I see "premium" PC vendors, like Alienware, but they're offering a more expensive version of the same old shit. At least you get premium quality when you pay premium prices with Apple.
The problem is that a big portion of the users dont upgrade.
One good thing, though. I've noticed a lot of larger companies are managing their desktops more tightly than they were a few years ago. Also shops running Citrix and Citrix-type environments have an advantage here... rather easy to make sure your users get the latest and greatest.
Home users are largely a lost cause however. Your average Joe isn't going to go out downloading update patches. The Windows Update or Software Update (Mac) type things work pretty well but I'm just not sure how many users use them and they don't cover 3rd party apps.
Very true- no software ever written has been 100% bug free. Mac, Linux, Mozilla etc. simply aren't targets for obvious reasons that are frequently brought up here.
The difference in large part in my opinon boils down to:
#1 WHO finds the bug. Is it the developers and community that discovers it in good faith, or is it a hacker and the rest of us find out after a billion dollars has been lost worldwide to the latest worm, virus, etc.
#2 As you said, how quickly is the problem fixed. Certainly, private companies aren't necessarily horrible at doing this, to spite what people say. I work for a small software company and assure you that any security issues with our product would be corrected promptly. By the same token, some open source projects w/o a steady lead or direction could have exploits that go unfixed for some time.
However, based on my observations and considering those two points, I'd say I certainly feel better using Firefox than IE.
What happened with the loud bang the pilot heard during the last flight? It had looked like some of the composite material near the engine had buckled. I wonder if that is something they addressed, or if it is just a case of using more duct tape???
What is worse, the UN will establish a Spam council and invite a few people to sit in who are some of the worlds biggest spammers.
P.S. If you don't get the analogy, I'm referring to the fact that Syria is on the UN security council to spite the fact that they are one of the biggest state sponsors of terrorism (much more so than Iraq ever was)
Its a good thing that the American resistance was successful! Someone had to fix this shit. Paris not so long ago
But really- all kidding aside: nations change, goverments change, people change, etc. I have no doubt that Jefferson or Madison would crap their pants if they were around today to see the U.S. government. So while it is important to remember history, what we did for the French, what they did for us, yada yada yada, I think it is more important to make decisions based on the current positions of a given country or her government. The French are valid in hating us because of the way we are today, and we are valid in hating them because of the way they are.
Apple also makes more software than Microsoft, and OSX comes with more free high quality tools. All that power in an OS and it still comes with a real comand shell. For the small market share Apple has, they seem to be doing a fine job of producing quality software.
Very important point you make here. For about the same price as XP, Panther or Tiger gives you a lot more in regards to "other software". Apple gives you all the XCode development tools with the OS. I'm totally on board with that too. Why not make it easy to develop new software for your OS? Secondly, the iLife set of apps is pretty good- very much good enough for a large percentage of the users. What do you get with XP? Not a whole lot- the apps are either missing or they just suck (Media Player, for example.) And factor in apps like iCal, Address Book, iSync... XP is no comparison in this regard.
5. Ok, the command prompt could definitely use some work.
Of course you have cygwin w/bash to nicely fill this gap and many other gaps not mentioned.
If you're referring to the massive goverment bailouts of the years of the airlines, this is true. Although, there are other smaller carriers that have not been bailed out that are efficient and make money and still sell low fares.
Probably because most people only get 2 weeks vacation and you can fly between any 2 points in the US for $200 or under if you are a smart fare shopper. Back at the turn of the century wasting time on a train was the only way to get anywhere. I'll happily take my 6 hour plane ride from FL to CA, thanks.
Except tourists are already used to getting lots of things for free in LV... drinks while you gamble, use of existing trams and monorails for free, etc. Sure the monorail is more like a bus or cab that you'd already pay for, but I wonder how many tourists will realize this. I'm thinking they will equate it more to the monorail that takes them between the Monte Carlo and Bellagio.
It is amazing that a species that can't pick itself up from a fall could survive past a single generation. But, I'm sure there are other species with this fault. It just sounds like a bad trait to have.
You pay me in advance for a product, I owe you that product. Just because you wait some time to come and claim it, does not mean I magically owe you nothing.
You're missing the point. Accounting procedures result in income being recorded when the gift certificate is sold. The liability of providing the service or product isn't realized until the item is sold. From an accounting standpoint, this can result in the books completely "going to shit" after a while if the outstanding, unclaimed liabilities aren't removed. Now surely there is a compromise with consumers. Lengthen this amount of time to something quite reasonable... 5 years perhaps.
I partially agree with you, the cards should have a clearly stated expiry date. Although, redemption for cash is perhaps another story. You're making the agreement with the retailer when you buy the card on the conditions of redemption. I tend to agree with other posters here though. Who needs gift cards anyway? What the heck is wrong with a personal check or cash inside an envelope that is good ANYWHERE? Is that not the ultimate gift card? Not sure why people consider it tacky to give out cash. I'd gladly have cash any day of the week.
A valid point- I believe most accounting procedures actually require the gift certificate to be written off the books at some point.
At my last job I worked on a prepaid calling card management system. The system in all cases required an expiration date because otherwise the company would have an infinite outstanding liability to provide the service that someone has just paid for.
The same has to be true for retailers. Think what would happen if 500 years from now every previously outstanding gift card for the previous 5 centuries was cashed in for a given retailer. They'd have to give out billions in goods and services for basically nothing because the gift card revenue was realized as income in the year it was sold.