Test pilots are a good example. Lots of them have died, but at a considerable gain. Look at the aircraft the world had even back in the 80's- some pretty high tech stuff. You don't get there by not taking risks. The question without an exact answer is "what is an acceptable risk?" Answer depends on who you ask, and when you ask them.
This is true. MSDN is the way he should go. I believe it was designed specifically for his type of situation.
Note that other vendors, like Oracle, let you download and install Oracle server for free if you're just a contractor building out an app for someone with no intention of actually running the production system yourself. That is pretty cool I think. Smart too from a marketing/market share aspect.
There was something to be said for the stability of old Ma Bell
And there still is... I know several folks who have converted over to Vonage and are unhappy with the level of quality. I don't know where this originates from- poor broadband or what, but the point is that a lot of folks are finding that the technology STILL isn't reliable enough. For some folks it works great but the horror stories are enough to keep everyone but the early adopters from signing up. For me, the features would be nice but the hassle isn't worth it if for some reason it doesn't work out in my home.
Certainly no disputing that fact that Google has a history of reliability and knowing how to run big... well, okay, really really big systems.
However, I'm not from the "everything Google does is great" camp. I've advertised with AdWords for the last couple years and I think the interface pretty much sucks. Not completely intuitive and there are lots of usability issues.
Also, there has been talk of things that happened with google groups, although I'm not sure if they've been reversed but what I saw was hideous. It was "beta" I think- but when you get the beta version via google.com, it might as well have been gold.
Likewise, gmail isn't universally accepted as the kill-all mail solution.
Not slamming Google here, overall they're impressive. But, always room for improvement. I hope the recent IPO isn't treated as a mandate to forget about the customer.
"Intuit will be disabling the online bill pay feature for my version because it's too old!"
Well Christ, we are talking about more than just a text editor here. Perhaps, because of regulations in the financial industry, something because incompatible.
As a related example, the govt. introduced mortgage HMDA changes Jan 1 of 2004. This caused the Fannie Mae DU 3.0 specification to basically be illegal- you had to use the DU 3.2 specification. So, even though you might have bought an LOS system technically still "worked", perhaps the LOS vendor (to protect themselves and the user) didn't want you to use their online transmission piece any longer because it was out of compliance.
The original article is worthless- it is one paragraph about one thing that happened with no comments on the potential cause.
The post by Michael is even more worthless- it is complete flamebait.
This article made a good point, but michael didn't have to add his flamebait last line. We read the summaries to start discussions ourselves, not to have incendiary statements put in there just for the fun of it.
Thank you. Very well put and I hope the point is taken.
I like Linux as much as the next guy, but always in the back of my mind I wonder what would happen if it ever had 90% of the desktop market share and became an immediate target. As you say, it isn't secure just "because" it is Linux... it takes some responsiblity by the user.
What really worries me (and perhaps this is unwarranted worrying) is the fact that every desktop Linux install I've ever seen is really patchworked... dozens of apps written by different people who have never even taked or discussed guidelines and several places to make system configuration settings.
Compare this to OS X that is built on top of BSD, but where Apple has obviously given thought to how the pieces fit together as a whole. If a bug shows up in Mail.app, Apple fixes it and pushes out an update. I think Microsoft's concern was, will RedHat be the ones to develop and push out a code fix for a random open source app that was included with their distro? I think they have the framework to push out the fix, but probably not to fix the app itself. And not to beat the dead horse but you STILL need a user who is going to run the update.
Anyway, this post isn't PRO or ANTI anyone so save your flames. I'm just trying to make the point that neither closed source nor open source solves 100% of the problem just because the source is open or closed. There are a lot of other things to consider.
But from a DRM perspective, they really moved the industry forward. If the media companies had their way we'd be stuck with Sony's ATRAC format.
Very true. Nobody else is anywhere near as close to offering a cohesive solution like iPod + iTunes + iTMS. I don't even know what the alternative might be for RIAA music. Some crappy combination of junk software, a WMA based store (Napster?) and a WMA compliant device I guess.
I'm guess I'm just growing fond of "complete" solutions these days. Time is too short for me to goof around with making crap work together any more. You know how when you buy that new printer or scanner, the software installs like 20 different apps all written by different companies and this is supposed to be a software bundle? Bah! Bundle of crap, maybe.
That was one of the things I liked about Scotland when I visited. You have your own money and your own way of doing things. I hope you guys stick to this- you don't have to be just like England and by the same token the whole UK doesn't have to be just like the rest of Europe.
Seems to me, you're just mentioning various enemies of the US government, without any real knowledge.
Well, it isn't my fault that many of the US govt's enemies are those that do things like...
...Kill 3000 students speaking out for democracy
...Treat women as bad or worse as slaves were treated over a hundred years ago
...Pass laws saying you can only have one child
...Make conditions so bad that citizens try to float away to America on home made rafts
...Use children to clear mine fields
The list goes on and on.
and you have an inside scoop to straighten us out, is absurd.
Now you're putting words in my mouth. But, since you mentioned it, I will tell you I do think. I think that change is rarely effective when it comes from the outside. The Iraqis, for example, don't want to liberated from outside, no more than we would have wanted Europe trying to end slavery here in the 1800's. Additionally, I don't think the Iraqis really valued personal freedoms anyway- it isn't really a component of their ideology. Therefore we're forcing something on them from the outside that they don't even want for themselves anyway. Backfire!
On the other hand, after Lincoln was elected we had a civil war. Change came from within. I think around 600K people died, but it also ended slavery and paved the way for a much less deadly civil rights movement in the next century. And it worked. It is quite rare that someone drives a car bomb into a crowd here because they're pissed about the way the civil war ended up.
At any rate, my post was in response to the guy who posted the question about moving to China. I am under the strong opinion that anyone raised in American culture will have a lot of adjustments if they move to China or the other places I mentioned. This guy was being a little ignorant if he thinks the answer is to hack the national firewall of China. By the same token, I think most women in America would find most of the Middle East to be a very poor place to live. Try telling a woman you see on any street of America that she'd no longer be entitled to an education and she will need to cover her entire body when in public, and the local religion allows for men to beat their wives.
This is why, I suggested that if you are upset with America, perhaps Canada, Australia, the UK, etc. would be a good choice. But, to each his own. Let this guy move to China and see what happens when he tries to act like he is allowed to act here. Let him try hacking the national firewall or laying in the street to protest something like people do in California. If China is so great, nothing will happen, right?
I don't dispute this at all- children would have nothing to compare communism to, so those first memories might not be so tainted. Freedom means much more to those who have seen or experienced it.
This is why the really oppressive governments don't like to let people leave.
Plus, if all he is worried about is censorship, he really needs a reality check. Hint- the same basic regime that brought you Tian'anmen Square didn't go anywhere. Our media is suprisingly good at making our own country look bad and not showing the opression in other parts of the world.
Just check with anybody you meet who is an ex-national of Iraq, Iran, China, Cuba, Soviet era-Russia, etc. There aren't too many happy stories to be heard. The other day an Iranian friend who fought in the Iran-Iraq war for Iran was telling me how kids were used to clear minefields. He wasn't lying- check Wikipedia or some place.
If he hates America and want to leave, I'd suggest Canada, Australia, the UK... all English speaking countries that are good safe places to live. If you speak some other language than English, there are of course a lot more choices.
I'll never buy from Crucial, and here's why. I was shopping for a memory upgrade for my PowerBook when I came across this product on their site:
Crucial told someone else this:
----
The difference bewteen part CT372707 and CT6464X265 is the PCB
revision. Part CT372707 = CT6464X256AP (note the AP)
CT372707 is specifically for the Apple iBook (G4 1.2GHz) as standard
parts CT6464X265 can sometimes be incompatible. This is due to a change
in the JEDEC standards.
Apples with standard memory will sometimes give the error "Bad memory"
or "kernal panic". The memory however is not faulty.
---
I don't want to pedantic and I'm probably saying something too obvious and don't really know the platform... but what the hell, this is slashdot: didn't you transfer your config files in text mode so they get converted to EBCDIC and the native encoding of the OS/390 JVM could read them?
A completely valid question to ask. To answer, we provided a tarball that could be sent up as one file and extracted. They were running Unix system services so that option was available. Being that their host was very secure, they didn't even allow inbound FTP. So we had to use the host as the FTP client to grab the tarball from the workstation which was running an FTP client.
Also, we often jar up some of our more static config files that are not designed to be modified by the customer. You know, things developers might want to be able to easily change or set up without recompiling. Since a.jar would be sent as binary, you'd still be out of luck.
Overall it was a good learning experience. It has actually helped me build better desktop Java apps that work in international settings with any character set.
Write once, run anywhere becomes closer to the truth if the developer has experience with multiple platforms and knows what he is doing.
Our product that runs on Linux/Solaris/AIX/Win32 also runs wonderfully on OS/390, but this is only AFTER the code base was revisited to respect that fact that a 390 is EBCDIC. For example, ASCII config files that you ship along with your distro to the 390 will be read in the system default encoding if you're using plain Readers. You'd want to use streams with an explicit encoding type. Or, just use XML since the parsers internally understand UTF-8.
So, some may say "debug everywhere" but in some cases this isn't being completely fair, if you're placing the whole blame on the JVM.
I've noticed that your reply is missing those entertaining Fox News factoids regarding the wealth of the poor *in the world*.
Now, why would I have included those when your comment was:
That increases the wealth of your community and rasies the standard of living for all of your neighbors.
From dictionary.com, community is defined as "A group of people living in the same locality and under the same government." Therefore, facts on poverty in Zaire would be quite irrelavant to your point.
Personally, I prefer buying food, medical care for my kids, going out to eat, going to Disney World, living in a decent house, driving a decent car, owning an iBook, etc. much more than I prefer spending all my time building things for free to give to people I don't know or think about.
If you for some reason think your neighbor has a God-given right to own an operating system yet think he can't afford $100 for XP Home, consider this, originally from: (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,132956,00.htm l
The following are facts about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports:
-- Forty-six percent of all poor households own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and porch or patio.
-- Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
-- Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
-- The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens and other European cities. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
-- Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.
-- Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television. Over half own two or more color televisions.
-- Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
-- Seventy-three percent own a microwave oven, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.
I don't think Mr Gates will have any money problems if he ever gets sick.
The beauty of "selling" software (or anything else) is that it enables not just Bill Gates to have money, but also for tens of thousands of people who work for him to have jobs, salaries, health insurance, etc. Without people selling things and doing business, we'd all be sitting around wondering how to pay our medical bills or vaccinate our children. I, for one, am pleased to offer my services to my employer for a paycheck and in return, use part of that paycheck to puchase goods and services from others, enabling their employers to provide them with paychecks.
If K-Meleon is more geeky than Firefox, than I don't think IE will be worrying any time soon.
Not to mention, the intial user base will probably be Firefox users, not existing IE users. SO- Mozilla may have a reason to worry about Firefox market share once this thing is released.
Because $93k doesn't seem that much for a top notch programmer.
$52,500-$83,250 for a programmer according to the article. Hell, they have a B.A. down for $56,000-$80,500 which is basically the same range. I've never known a B.A. to make anything above the low end of that range but I also know programmers who make above the top end of their range.
I see no info on what kind of sampling they did to make these projections.
For $40, you may as well just get the market leader.
I think that lots of people would rather pay the $100 extra for the market leader. The reason why is that we're essentially talking about a luxury item at this point, although it is moving toward the mainstream. While I'm sure a lot of kids "save up" to buy an MP3 player, I'm willing to bet a lot of the sales are from adults who have the cash and if they're in the market, $100 more isn't a killer.
On the total other hand, I look at all the people who on paper are living at the poverty level yet own cell phones, more than one television, nice cars, etc. Seems doubtful you'd hear these same folks saying all the could afford was a nomad. It seems like they get what they want thru credit cards or other means, even though they live in poverty.
Slashdot Mirror
Test pilots are a good example. Lots of them have died, but at a considerable gain. Look at the aircraft the world had even back in the 80's- some pretty high tech stuff. You don't get there by not taking risks. The question without an exact answer is "what is an acceptable risk?" Answer depends on who you ask, and when you ask them.
This is true. MSDN is the way he should go. I believe it was designed specifically for his type of situation.
Note that other vendors, like Oracle, let you download and install Oracle server for free if you're just a contractor building out an app for someone with no intention of actually running the production system yourself. That is pretty cool I think. Smart too from a marketing/market share aspect.
There was something to be said for the stability of old Ma Bell
And there still is... I know several folks who have converted over to Vonage and are unhappy with the level of quality. I don't know where this originates from- poor broadband or what, but the point is that a lot of folks are finding that the technology STILL isn't reliable enough. For some folks it works great but the horror stories are enough to keep everyone but the early adopters from signing up. For me, the features would be nice but the hassle isn't worth it if for some reason it doesn't work out in my home.
Certainly no disputing that fact that Google has a history of reliability and knowing how to run big... well, okay, really really big systems.
However, I'm not from the "everything Google does is great" camp. I've advertised with AdWords for the last couple years and I think the interface pretty much sucks. Not completely intuitive and there are lots of usability issues.
Also, there has been talk of things that happened with google groups, although I'm not sure if they've been reversed but what I saw was hideous. It was "beta" I think- but when you get the beta version via google.com, it might as well have been gold.
Likewise, gmail isn't universally accepted as the kill-all mail solution.
Not slamming Google here, overall they're impressive. But, always room for improvement. I hope the recent IPO isn't treated as a mandate to forget about the customer.
What's great about it isn't that it comes without keyboard
Speaking of, does anybody know what key on a Win32 USB keyboard would automatically be mapped to the "Apple" key by OS X?
I've been wondering about that for a bit. Obviously any mouse will work- but I've never tried any old keyboard.
From the article:
"Intuit will be disabling the online bill pay feature for my version because it's too old!"
Well Christ, we are talking about more than just a text editor here. Perhaps, because of regulations in the financial industry, something because incompatible.
As a related example, the govt. introduced mortgage HMDA changes Jan 1 of 2004. This caused the Fannie Mae DU 3.0 specification to basically be illegal- you had to use the DU 3.2 specification. So, even though you might have bought an LOS system technically still "worked", perhaps the LOS vendor (to protect themselves and the user) didn't want you to use their online transmission piece any longer because it was out of compliance.
The original article is worthless- it is one paragraph about one thing that happened with no comments on the potential cause.
The post by Michael is even more worthless- it is complete flamebait.
This article made a good point, but michael didn't have to add his flamebait last line. We read the summaries to start discussions ourselves, not to have incendiary statements put in there just for the fun of it.
Thank you. Very well put and I hope the point is taken.
Security doesn't just magically happen.
I like Linux as much as the next guy, but always in the back of my mind I wonder what would happen if it ever had 90% of the desktop market share and became an immediate target. As you say, it isn't secure just "because" it is Linux... it takes some responsiblity by the user.
What really worries me (and perhaps this is unwarranted worrying) is the fact that every desktop Linux install I've ever seen is really patchworked... dozens of apps written by different people who have never even taked or discussed guidelines and several places to make system configuration settings.
Compare this to OS X that is built on top of BSD, but where Apple has obviously given thought to how the pieces fit together as a whole. If a bug shows up in Mail.app, Apple fixes it and pushes out an update. I think Microsoft's concern was, will RedHat be the ones to develop and push out a code fix for a random open source app that was included with their distro? I think they have the framework to push out the fix, but probably not to fix the app itself. And not to beat the dead horse but you STILL need a user who is going to run the update.
Anyway, this post isn't PRO or ANTI anyone so save your flames. I'm just trying to make the point that neither closed source nor open source solves 100% of the problem just because the source is open or closed. There are a lot of other things to consider.
But from a DRM perspective, they really moved the industry forward. If the media companies had their way we'd be stuck with Sony's ATRAC format.
Very true. Nobody else is anywhere near as close to offering a cohesive solution like iPod + iTunes + iTMS. I don't even know what the alternative might be for RIAA music. Some crappy combination of junk software, a WMA based store (Napster?) and a WMA compliant device I guess.
I'm guess I'm just growing fond of "complete" solutions these days. Time is too short for me to goof around with making crap work together any more. You know how when you buy that new printer or scanner, the software installs like 20 different apps all written by different companies and this is supposed to be a software bundle? Bah! Bundle of crap, maybe.
That was one of the things I liked about Scotland when I visited. You have your own money and your own way of doing things. I hope you guys stick to this- you don't have to be just like England and by the same token the whole UK doesn't have to be just like the rest of Europe.
Seems to me, you're just mentioning various enemies of the US government, without any real knowledge.
...Kill 3000 students speaking out for democracy
...Treat women as bad or worse as slaves were treated over a hundred years ago
...Pass laws saying you can only have one child
...Make conditions so bad that citizens try to float away to America on home made rafts
...Use children to clear mine fields
Well, it isn't my fault that many of the US govt's enemies are those that do things like...
The list goes on and on.
and you have an inside scoop to straighten us out, is absurd.
Now you're putting words in my mouth. But, since you mentioned it, I will tell you I do think. I think that change is rarely effective when it comes from the outside. The Iraqis, for example, don't want to liberated from outside, no more than we would have wanted Europe trying to end slavery here in the 1800's. Additionally, I don't think the Iraqis really valued personal freedoms anyway- it isn't really a component of their ideology. Therefore we're forcing something on them from the outside that they don't even want for themselves anyway. Backfire!
On the other hand, after Lincoln was elected we had a civil war. Change came from within. I think around 600K people died, but it also ended slavery and paved the way for a much less deadly civil rights movement in the next century. And it worked. It is quite rare that someone drives a car bomb into a crowd here because they're pissed about the way the civil war ended up.
At any rate, my post was in response to the guy who posted the question about moving to China. I am under the strong opinion that anyone raised in American culture will have a lot of adjustments if they move to China or the other places I mentioned. This guy was being a little ignorant if he thinks the answer is to hack the national firewall of China. By the same token, I think most women in America would find most of the Middle East to be a very poor place to live. Try telling a woman you see on any street of America that she'd no longer be entitled to an education and she will need to cover her entire body when in public, and the local religion allows for men to beat their wives.
This is why, I suggested that if you are upset with America, perhaps Canada, Australia, the UK, etc. would be a good choice. But, to each his own. Let this guy move to China and see what happens when he tries to act like he is allowed to act here. Let him try hacking the national firewall or laying in the street to protest something like people do in California. If China is so great, nothing will happen, right?
whose childhood stories are fairly happy
I don't dispute this at all- children would have nothing to compare communism to, so those first memories might not be so tainted. Freedom means much more to those who have seen or experienced it.
This is why the really oppressive governments don't like to let people leave.
Plus, if all he is worried about is censorship, he really needs a reality check. Hint- the same basic regime that brought you Tian'anmen Square didn't go anywhere. Our media is suprisingly good at making our own country look bad and not showing the opression in other parts of the world.
Just check with anybody you meet who is an ex-national of Iraq, Iran, China, Cuba, Soviet era-Russia, etc. There aren't too many happy stories to be heard. The other day an Iranian friend who fought in the Iran-Iraq war for Iran was telling me how kids were used to clear minefields. He wasn't lying- check Wikipedia or some place.
If he hates America and want to leave, I'd suggest Canada, Australia, the UK... all English speaking countries that are good safe places to live. If you speak some other language than English, there are of course a lot more choices.
You could even augment this by placing an external disk array cabinet in place of the refrigerator.
Well, I put in a tape silo. But, to each his own.
I'll never buy from Crucial, and here's why. I was shopping for a memory upgrade for my PowerBook when I came across this product on their site:
Crucial told someone else this:
---- The difference bewteen part CT372707 and CT6464X265 is the PCB revision. Part CT372707 = CT6464X256AP (note the AP)
CT372707 is specifically for the Apple iBook (G4 1.2GHz) as standard parts CT6464X265 can sometimes be incompatible. This is due to a change in the JEDEC standards.
Apples with standard memory will sometimes give the error "Bad memory" or "kernal panic". The memory however is not faulty. ---
I don't want to pedantic and I'm probably saying something too obvious and don't really know the platform... but what the hell, this is slashdot: didn't you transfer your config files in text mode so they get converted to EBCDIC and the native encoding of the OS/390 JVM could read them?
.jar would be sent as binary, you'd still be out of luck.
A completely valid question to ask. To answer, we provided a tarball that could be sent up as one file and extracted. They were running Unix system services so that option was available. Being that their host was very secure, they didn't even allow inbound FTP. So we had to use the host as the FTP client to grab the tarball from the workstation which was running an FTP client.
Also, we often jar up some of our more static config files that are not designed to be modified by the customer. You know, things developers might want to be able to easily change or set up without recompiling. Since a
Overall it was a good learning experience. It has actually helped me build better desktop Java apps that work in international settings with any character set.
Write once, run anywhere becomes closer to the truth if the developer has experience with multiple platforms and knows what he is doing.
Our product that runs on Linux/Solaris/AIX/Win32 also runs wonderfully on OS/390, but this is only AFTER the code base was revisited to respect that fact that a 390 is EBCDIC. For example, ASCII config files that you ship along with your distro to the 390 will be read in the system default encoding if you're using plain Readers. You'd want to use streams with an explicit encoding type. Or, just use XML since the parsers internally understand UTF-8.
So, some may say "debug everywhere" but in some cases this isn't being completely fair, if you're placing the whole blame on the JVM.
I've noticed that your reply is missing those entertaining Fox News factoids regarding the wealth of the poor *in the world*.
Now, why would I have included those when your comment was:
That increases the wealth of your community and rasies the standard of living for all of your neighbors.
From dictionary.com, community is defined as "A group of people living in the same locality and under the same government." Therefore, facts on poverty in Zaire would be quite irrelavant to your point.
So when asked "Am I My Brother's Keeper?", you answered with a resounding "Fuck NO!".
Depends if you're talking about my real brother or not. As an example, I don't consider you my brother.
Congratulations.
Thanks.
Personally, I prefer buying food, medical care for my kids, going out to eat, going to Disney World, living in a decent house, driving a decent car, owning an iBook, etc. much more than I prefer spending all my time building things for free to give to people I don't know or think about.
m l
If you for some reason think your neighbor has a God-given right to own an operating system yet think he can't afford $100 for XP Home, consider this, originally from: (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,132956,00.ht
The following are facts about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports:
-- Forty-six percent of all poor households own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and porch or patio.
-- Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
-- Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
-- The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens and other European cities. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
-- Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.
-- Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television. Over half own two or more color televisions.
-- Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
-- Seventy-three percent own a microwave oven, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.
I don't think Mr Gates will have any money problems if he ever gets sick.
The beauty of "selling" software (or anything else) is that it enables not just Bill Gates to have money, but also for tens of thousands of people who work for him to have jobs, salaries, health insurance, etc. Without people selling things and doing business, we'd all be sitting around wondering how to pay our medical bills or vaccinate our children. I, for one, am pleased to offer my services to my employer for a paycheck and in return, use part of that paycheck to puchase goods and services from others, enabling their employers to provide them with paychecks.
If K-Meleon is more geeky than Firefox, than I don't think IE will be worrying any time soon.
Not to mention, the intial user base will probably be Firefox users, not existing IE users. SO- Mozilla may have a reason to worry about Firefox market share once this thing is released.
B.A. = Business Analyst
Because $93k doesn't seem that much for a top notch programmer.
$52,500-$83,250 for a programmer according to the article. Hell, they have a B.A. down for $56,000-$80,500 which is basically the same range. I've never known a B.A. to make anything above the low end of that range but I also know programmers who make above the top end of their range.
I see no info on what kind of sampling they did to make these projections.
For $40, you may as well just get the market leader.
I think that lots of people would rather pay the $100 extra for the market leader. The reason why is that we're essentially talking about a luxury item at this point, although it is moving toward the mainstream. While I'm sure a lot of kids "save up" to buy an MP3 player, I'm willing to bet a lot of the sales are from adults who have the cash and if they're in the market, $100 more isn't a killer.
On the total other hand, I look at all the people who on paper are living at the poverty level yet own cell phones, more than one television, nice cars, etc. Seems doubtful you'd hear these same folks saying all the could afford was a nomad. It seems like they get what they want thru credit cards or other means, even though they live in poverty.
Just my 2 cents... could be way off base.