I have a small business. I am realizing very quickly that success is often determined by your ability to communicate. (I'm also married, and this rule applies equally well to that.)
If you can't clearly communicate to a client or customer, you can find yourself losing business very quickly. If the client thinks they're getting one thing and you deliver another, that's usually a breakdown on your part. The same goes for clients that don't understand what is required of them.
Clear and concise gets the job done, makes everyone more comfortable, and takes less time than thick marketing copy or 'vision statements.'
In my still-idealistic view of the world, that's how it works. I realize that some companies rely on obfuscation and meaningless text to confuse their customers into thinking they're getting one thing when the proposal says another. Or to lock people into contracts that they didn't understand (ie, zero interest for 12 months).
But those aren't honest. And they don't encourage repeat business, referrals, or customer satisfaction. So in my mind, they don't promote success.
This makes me quite happy, actually. Shortly after 9/11, I did a web project for a healthcare system in a nearby city. The site was designed to provide emergency information for 1) doctors 2) staff and 3) press, as well as send email and SMS alerts. While it's unlikely that they would be the target of a terrorist attack, there have been situations where domestic crisis arose and with the chaos of the emergency, getting ahold of staff, and the flood of cameras, newsvans, and reporters it can be awfully difficult to communicate.
They ran a simulated emergency shortly after the site was built and their protocols were put in place. Fifty 'victims' showed up with fake injuries and had to be processed.
All of this boils down to one easy proverb: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
So why would it be Microsoft's fault if there is a potential vulnerability in an arbitrary software product delivered by RSS?
Scenario - iTunes uses RSS to support Podcasting. A hole in iTunes allows a malicious user to attack the user's computer via the RSS feed. What part of that is due to MSFT?
1. I use around 1600 of my 2000 minutes a month on my phone. And that's with careful use of the free calls within network and after 9pm. I'm paying a lot more than that to get those minutes, too.
2. For a family or group of friends, there are far better deals out there. You can buy a big plan and share minutes. You can get Verizon or Sprint (or many others) and have free calling between the phones (IN Network, PCS-to-PCS).
3. Overage fees can cost you hundreds each month if you're not careful. A solution like this could save you thousands each year.
I really liked the Ayn Rand overall, but I'd have to cut out about 600 pages of repetitive preaching. I even agreed with a lot of her points - the ones I got in the first 100 pages but had to re-read fifteen times throughout the book.
Short book that was nearly impossible to read: Heart of Darkness (Conrad). Long book that was really easy to read: The Stand (King). The difference? Literature "with a big 'L'" (as my favorite high school literature teacher would have said).
I sat through some really bad movies knowing that they were only two or three hours long. I'm learning to walk away if it's that bad and I don't feel terrible if they're not classics. Even though I was bored by Lawrence of Arabia, I still sat through it. But with a book that's 800 pages long, I have to invest so much time and effort to finishing it...
Your reading speed depends largely on the books you read. My wife reads at a pace of four to five books a week, and that's juggling the television, Neopets, and Master's Thesis she just completed. She reads James Patterson and the like. A lot of quasi-romance, generic thrillers, etc. I can't exactly hide the tone of distaste that I have for the books she reads, mostly because I've tried to read them myself and can barely get through the terrible writing. (We listened to an audio book during a 14 hour drive and it was the most painful "reading" experience ever.)
I, on the other hand, often take a week to read a book because I tend to read things that challenge me a bit more and have more relevance within literature. Not trying to be a snob, but I've been disappointed by most of my wife's types of novels. Also, I decided that I should try to read some more significant books. As Mark Twain said, "A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read."
It took me two weeks to read Fountainhead (Rand); three days to re-read The Stranger (Camus); I'm putting off The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky) until I'm a little more conditioned to reading again because I know it will be a challenge.
Like you, I feel that if I give up on a book (or movie, for that matter) before it's done then I've done an injustice to the author. It could redeem itself - and I can't judge a book on the first few chapters. That said, there have been a few that I've had to put down for a few years before finishing...
Most states have such a use tax. For many states, it was instituted in order to tax print catalog mail-order companies decades ago. Now, it can be used to tax Internet sales or phone-based orders.
Michigan recently used this law to subpoena records for those people purchasing tobacco products online, mostly because people are avoiding the high state taxes; Maryland had this go to a state court and was ruled on by a judge there that claimed states had no right to regulate or tax interstate commerce; Indiana, Michigan, and several other states that I looked up at one time had use tax laws on the books and some went so far to post names of online retailers that did and did not pay the use tax as required by law.
Now why exactly weren't they pursuing these taxes with the companies that weren't in compliance? I suspect it's because the state AG believed they would lose if taken to court. This ruling, however, might encourage many to follow through.
Disposable like "disposable" printers. Where you use it until it breaks (fairly quickly, of course) and it's replaced with little thought to the price.
I know people that buy inexpensive new printers when they run out of ink because new printers come with new cartridges - and are usually cheaper ($35) than replacement cartridges (~$45).
Of course, some of us just buy off-brand replacement cartridges or refill kits. We're the kind of folks that would hack a $30 camcorder...
I wasn't saying they're ripping you off.. I think it's a great strategy. And if I were at Apple, I'd be fully behind this.
Contrary to what many Slashdotters feel, I respect a company's ability to make a profit - through advertising, buying a company and marketing the hell out of their products, or simply giving it away for free but charging for support. None of those things are inherently evil.
"the money spent will be re-obtained [from consumers] somehow."
How about in the form of:
1) The 10% discount goes toward another $350 device. 2) The "recycled" iPod is refurbished and resold for a hefty profit. 3) The publicity and goodwill is worth just as much as marketing dollars.
They won't need to raise prices or anything like that. It's not that different from a car dealer accepting trade-ins on new purchases. The profit from the additional sale is plenty to account for disposal fees (if that's what your particular iPod requires).
Will this be any different from the kids that got themselves a Geocities page, thought they would make some money from all the traffic (ha!), and slapped banner ads all over it?
"Now, a word from our sponsors. Don't change the channel - they pay my car payment."
"If only other tech companies followed those two simple rules, they probably would be faring much better."
Sometimes the biggest hassle for your customers is having to pay for your products or services. It still baffles me that a company like Google could become profitable without a revenue stream. That is, until they popped up with their search appliances, Adwords, and so on. Keep in mind that many people want more bang for their buck - features and reducing hassle are often mutually exclusive.
Up until a year or two ago, every single Fortune 500 company I've ever worked with (plenty).
At my old job, I suggested we try to start using Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP for some of our web application development and one of our clients shot that down with their requirement that all systems, external or internal, utilize Windows-based technologies. And they're one of the largest corporations in the world.
When I tried to leave that job, I interviewed with a firm that was 100% Apache+PHP. They were trying to find someone with Microsoft experience because they were landing larger clients and "every single one of 'em requires ASP and MSSQL." The interviewer was also the owner, and he made it no secret that he disliked that he was being forced into the Microsoft stuff.
It's not always the best choice. Sometimes it is, but even when it's not there's little chance you'll affect change within a corporation that's invested 10+ years in Microsoft architecture without major influence coming from the top.
You are correct, but you also make the point that "rolling your own may give you an extra competitive advantage."
It's a cost-benefit thing - can you afford to devote x months, y developers, and z dollars to developing software which could be purchased for much, much less? Now I must admit that sometimes the answer is yes. But I also spend a good deal of my time convincing managers and small business owners that they shouldn't always "do it in-house" because being able to do it is not the same thing as being an expert at it. And a lot of times, expertise is exactly what you need.
I hear you. I've thought about this kind of problem for a long time now... as have many others. I'd see copyrights reduced to a much shorter period, based on the type of work. Music, books, and visual arts would maintain a longer copyright period than software or movies.
You have to maintain copyright after death (as we currently do) or you reduce the incentive for publishers to accept works from at-risk creators; it'd be like mixing an insurance company with a publishing firm.
The point is to provide a period of useful protection for the creator to see a return on his or her creation. After a period, it decreases in how profitable or socially valuable it is. So the copyright period should seek to eliminate "abandonware" while still giving companies a chance.
Seriously, old Atari ROMS don't need to be considered illegal.:)
I wouldn't be surprised if law enforcement actually used this technique.
Seriously, how hard is it to find a phishing site's servers and the owners? I forward links, emails w/headers, whois info (one guy had his real name, address, etc. in the whois for the domain!), etc. to the authorities any time I get the emails. If you can find the hosting company, server, etc. and track down the account owner, that might work. But if that information is false, giving them a valid account with a "honeytoken" like you describe would be a great way of continuing your search. It's more likely that the scammer has taken precautions on their hosting account than they will when they try to use the invalid account information.
I'm not trying ot defend the notion that hard work, ingenuity, or creativity alone are worth protecting. I'm arguing that the combination of those is used to produce the end result - the invention, music, book, software, etc. that is worth protecting. And given that these things (or the combination thereof) are often unique in our society, they are worthy of our respect.
As for whether copyright is a reward for artists or society, I see no difference. You can't dangle those carrots in front of artists and then not hand them over when the artists produce. That's the key - society wants the work, but has to be willing to pay (temporarily) in order to keep the work coming.
It's like hiring a programmer with the promise of a $100k salary. When he gets the project done, you have to pay him. You can argue that it's for the betterment of society, the company, whatever - but in the end, it's wrong to NOT reward him with the pay. Maybe the word "reward" isn't entirely appropriate, but you get the point.
Buggy whips are physical property, and therefore irrelevant to this discussion. Hard work is not, as that comment was directed at the guy defending copyright infringement on the basis of musicians "expecting to retire in luxury after spending a Saturday in the studio."
Hard work alone doesn't deserve legal protection, but ingenuity, creativity, etc. do.
It's harder to sympathize with a musician who throws together a crappy song and makes millions of dollars from it. But if you consider the far more common scenario of a musician toiling over a piece of music for months, putting all his time and money into his art, it's easier to understand why copyrights should be protected. Not because people work hard, but because they achieve something and often lay everything on the line to do it. We encourage them to do this because their accomplishments help make a better society. In exchange, they get a temporary, limited monopoly on the work they create.
They are working on improvements, but many of their ideas never hit the mainstream simply because it's hard to sell - grandma doesn't want to have a long password, extra key, or anything like that.
It's also because no matter what you produce, there are a lot of weaknesses - like using an image when you're blind.
I saw two fradulent charges on my card last year - and they were resolved within a day or two of my reporting them. Unfortunately, I doubt they can do much against international fraud, given that there is little or no evidence to go on.
All of the ones I know are spending their own money to put together albums. They spend three or four days a week performing in clubs, parties, bars, and small venues for, at most, a couple hundred dollars. They work day jobs like waiting tables, working retail, etc. They vigorously market themselves trying build a name and get some exposure. They sell their CDs for $5 or $10 at their concerts. They beg friends to create websites for them.
So your comment about retiring in luxury is no more appropriate than the assumption that people trying to break into pro baseball are all getting $5 million MLB salaries.
No, the parent means protect as in "I work hard to put food on my table and this is how I do it." It also means authors who don't make money by touring, because 30,000 fans don't pay $45/ticket to see a novelist. It also means software companies with a staff of 50 designers, developers, writers, managers, accountants, lawyers, testers, marketers, salesmen, and janitors that rely on product sales to keep their paychecks coming in.
I liked some of the books we read in high school, but your point is excellent... I really enjoyed some books that I read on my own, while people who had to read them for school outright hated them.
I'm going to try the DVD-stop-analyze method on my wife and see if you're right.
Slashdot Mirror
I have a small business. I am realizing very quickly that success is often determined by your ability to communicate. (I'm also married, and this rule applies equally well to that.)
If you can't clearly communicate to a client or customer, you can find yourself losing business very quickly. If the client thinks they're getting one thing and you deliver another, that's usually a breakdown on your part. The same goes for clients that don't understand what is required of them.
Clear and concise gets the job done, makes everyone more comfortable, and takes less time than thick marketing copy or 'vision statements.'
In my still-idealistic view of the world, that's how it works. I realize that some companies rely on obfuscation and meaningless text to confuse their customers into thinking they're getting one thing when the proposal says another. Or to lock people into contracts that they didn't understand (ie, zero interest for 12 months).
But those aren't honest. And they don't encourage repeat business, referrals, or customer satisfaction. So in my mind, they don't promote success.
This makes me quite happy, actually. Shortly after 9/11, I did a web project for a healthcare system in a nearby city. The site was designed to provide emergency information for 1) doctors 2) staff and 3) press, as well as send email and SMS alerts. While it's unlikely that they would be the target of a terrorist attack, there have been situations where domestic crisis arose and with the chaos of the emergency, getting ahold of staff, and the flood of cameras, newsvans, and reporters it can be awfully difficult to communicate.
They ran a simulated emergency shortly after the site was built and their protocols were put in place. Fifty 'victims' showed up with fake injuries and had to be processed.
All of this boils down to one easy proverb: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
So why would it be Microsoft's fault if there is a potential vulnerability in an arbitrary software product delivered by RSS?
Scenario - iTunes uses RSS to support Podcasting. A hole in iTunes allows a malicious user to attack the user's computer via the RSS feed. What part of that is due to MSFT?
1. I use around 1600 of my 2000 minutes a month on my phone. And that's with careful use of the free calls within network and after 9pm. I'm paying a lot more than that to get those minutes, too.
2. For a family or group of friends, there are far better deals out there. You can buy a big plan and share minutes. You can get Verizon or Sprint (or many others) and have free calling between the phones (IN Network, PCS-to-PCS).
3. Overage fees can cost you hundreds each month if you're not careful. A solution like this could save you thousands each year.
I really liked the Ayn Rand overall, but I'd have to cut out about 600 pages of repetitive preaching. I even agreed with a lot of her points - the ones I got in the first 100 pages but had to re-read fifteen times throughout the book.
Short book that was nearly impossible to read: Heart of Darkness (Conrad). Long book that was really easy to read: The Stand (King). The difference? Literature "with a big 'L'" (as my favorite high school literature teacher would have said).
I sat through some really bad movies knowing that they were only two or three hours long. I'm learning to walk away if it's that bad and I don't feel terrible if they're not classics. Even though I was bored by Lawrence of Arabia, I still sat through it. But with a book that's 800 pages long, I have to invest so much time and effort to finishing it...
Your reading speed depends largely on the books you read. My wife reads at a pace of four to five books a week, and that's juggling the television, Neopets, and Master's Thesis she just completed. She reads James Patterson and the like. A lot of quasi-romance, generic thrillers, etc. I can't exactly hide the tone of distaste that I have for the books she reads, mostly because I've tried to read them myself and can barely get through the terrible writing. (We listened to an audio book during a 14 hour drive and it was the most painful "reading" experience ever.)
I, on the other hand, often take a week to read a book because I tend to read things that challenge me a bit more and have more relevance within literature. Not trying to be a snob, but I've been disappointed by most of my wife's types of novels. Also, I decided that I should try to read some more significant books. As Mark Twain said, "A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read."
It took me two weeks to read Fountainhead (Rand); three days to re-read The Stranger (Camus); I'm putting off The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky) until I'm a little more conditioned to reading again because I know it will be a challenge.
Like you, I feel that if I give up on a book (or movie, for that matter) before it's done then I've done an injustice to the author. It could redeem itself - and I can't judge a book on the first few chapters. That said, there have been a few that I've had to put down for a few years before finishing...
...to robot pricking each finger and palm, one by one, as the patient says "ow!" and then wrapping the prosthetic arm in a black glove...
Most states have such a use tax. For many states, it was instituted in order to tax print catalog mail-order companies decades ago. Now, it can be used to tax Internet sales or phone-based orders.
Michigan recently used this law to subpoena records for those people purchasing tobacco products online, mostly because people are avoiding the high state taxes; Maryland had this go to a state court and was ruled on by a judge there that claimed states had no right to regulate or tax interstate commerce; Indiana, Michigan, and several other states that I looked up at one time had use tax laws on the books and some went so far to post names of online retailers that did and did not pay the use tax as required by law.
Now why exactly weren't they pursuing these taxes with the companies that weren't in compliance? I suspect it's because the state AG believed they would lose if taken to court. This ruling, however, might encourage many to follow through.
Disposable like "disposable" printers. Where you use it until it breaks (fairly quickly, of course) and it's replaced with little thought to the price.
I know people that buy inexpensive new printers when they run out of ink because new printers come with new cartridges - and are usually cheaper ($35) than replacement cartridges (~$45).
Of course, some of us just buy off-brand replacement cartridges or refill kits. We're the kind of folks that would hack a $30 camcorder...
I wasn't saying they're ripping you off.. I think it's a great strategy. And if I were at Apple, I'd be fully behind this.
Contrary to what many Slashdotters feel, I respect a company's ability to make a profit - through advertising, buying a company and marketing the hell out of their products, or simply giving it away for free but charging for support. None of those things are inherently evil.
The point is...
Suspense = more clickthroughs = more ad views = more revenue.
"the money spent will be re-obtained [from consumers] somehow."
How about in the form of:
1) The 10% discount goes toward another $350 device.
2) The "recycled" iPod is refurbished and resold for a hefty profit.
3) The publicity and goodwill is worth just as much as marketing dollars.
They won't need to raise prices or anything like that. It's not that different from a car dealer accepting trade-ins on new purchases. The profit from the additional sale is plenty to account for disposal fees (if that's what your particular iPod requires).
That's funny... my Apache servers return a Windows NT 4 message. And my Windows servers return an Apache message.
Just to screw with the kiddies.
Will this be any different from the kids that got themselves a Geocities page, thought they would make some money from all the traffic (ha!), and slapped banner ads all over it?
"Now, a word from our sponsors. Don't change the channel - they pay my car payment."
"If only other tech companies followed those two simple rules, they probably would be faring much better."
Sometimes the biggest hassle for your customers is having to pay for your products or services. It still baffles me that a company like Google could become profitable without a revenue stream. That is, until they popped up with their search appliances, Adwords, and so on. Keep in mind that many people want more bang for their buck - features and reducing hassle are often mutually exclusive.
Up until a year or two ago, every single Fortune 500 company I've ever worked with (plenty).
At my old job, I suggested we try to start using Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP for some of our web application development and one of our clients shot that down with their requirement that all systems, external or internal, utilize Windows-based technologies. And they're one of the largest corporations in the world.
When I tried to leave that job, I interviewed with a firm that was 100% Apache+PHP. They were trying to find someone with Microsoft experience because they were landing larger clients and "every single one of 'em requires ASP and MSSQL." The interviewer was also the owner, and he made it no secret that he disliked that he was being forced into the Microsoft stuff.
It's not always the best choice. Sometimes it is, but even when it's not there's little chance you'll affect change within a corporation that's invested 10+ years in Microsoft architecture without major influence coming from the top.
You are correct, but you also make the point that "rolling your own may give you an extra competitive advantage."
It's a cost-benefit thing - can you afford to devote x months, y developers, and z dollars to developing software which could be purchased for much, much less? Now I must admit that sometimes the answer is yes. But I also spend a good deal of my time convincing managers and small business owners that they shouldn't always "do it in-house" because being able to do it is not the same thing as being an expert at it. And a lot of times, expertise is exactly what you need.
I hear you. I've thought about this kind of problem for a long time now... as have many others. I'd see copyrights reduced to a much shorter period, based on the type of work. Music, books, and visual arts would maintain a longer copyright period than software or movies.
:)
You have to maintain copyright after death (as we currently do) or you reduce the incentive for publishers to accept works from at-risk creators; it'd be like mixing an insurance company with a publishing firm.
The point is to provide a period of useful protection for the creator to see a return on his or her creation. After a period, it decreases in how profitable or socially valuable it is. So the copyright period should seek to eliminate "abandonware" while still giving companies a chance.
Seriously, old Atari ROMS don't need to be considered illegal.
I wouldn't be surprised if law enforcement actually used this technique.
Seriously, how hard is it to find a phishing site's servers and the owners? I forward links, emails w/headers, whois info (one guy had his real name, address, etc. in the whois for the domain!), etc. to the authorities any time I get the emails. If you can find the hosting company, server, etc. and track down the account owner, that might work.
But if that information is false, giving them a valid account with a "honeytoken" like you describe would be a great way of continuing your search. It's more likely that the scammer has taken precautions on their hosting account than they will when they try to use the invalid account information.
I'm not trying ot defend the notion that hard work, ingenuity, or creativity alone are worth protecting. I'm arguing that the combination of those is used to produce the end result - the invention, music, book, software, etc. that is worth protecting. And given that these things (or the combination thereof) are often unique in our society, they are worthy of our respect.
As for whether copyright is a reward for artists or society, I see no difference. You can't dangle those carrots in front of artists and then not hand them over when the artists produce. That's the key - society wants the work, but has to be willing to pay (temporarily) in order to keep the work coming.
It's like hiring a programmer with the promise of a $100k salary. When he gets the project done, you have to pay him. You can argue that it's for the betterment of society, the company, whatever - but in the end, it's wrong to NOT reward him with the pay. Maybe the word "reward" isn't entirely appropriate, but you get the point.
Buggy whips are physical property, and therefore irrelevant to this discussion. Hard work is not, as that comment was directed at the guy defending copyright infringement on the basis of musicians "expecting to retire in luxury after spending a Saturday in the studio."
Hard work alone doesn't deserve legal protection, but ingenuity, creativity, etc. do.
It's harder to sympathize with a musician who throws together a crappy song and makes millions of dollars from it. But if you consider the far more common scenario of a musician toiling over a piece of music for months, putting all his time and money into his art, it's easier to understand why copyrights should be protected. Not because people work hard, but because they achieve something and often lay everything on the line to do it. We encourage them to do this because their accomplishments help make a better society. In exchange, they get a temporary, limited monopoly on the work they create.
Is there a problem with that concept?
They are working on improvements, but many of their ideas never hit the mainstream simply because it's hard to sell - grandma doesn't want to have a long password, extra key, or anything like that.
It's also because no matter what you produce, there are a lot of weaknesses - like using an image when you're blind.
I saw two fradulent charges on my card last year - and they were resolved within a day or two of my reporting them. Unfortunately, I doubt they can do much against international fraud, given that there is little or no evidence to go on.
"While becoming a nun might be an extreme way to avoid senility, there are lots of other tricks, techniques and habits..."
There are non-nun habits?
How many real-world musicians do you know?
All of the ones I know are spending their own money to put together albums. They spend three or four days a week performing in clubs, parties, bars, and small venues for, at most, a couple hundred dollars. They work day jobs like waiting tables, working retail, etc. They vigorously market themselves trying build a name and get some exposure. They sell their CDs for $5 or $10 at their concerts. They beg friends to create websites for them.
So your comment about retiring in luxury is no more appropriate than the assumption that people trying to break into pro baseball are all getting $5 million MLB salaries.
No, the parent means protect as in "I work hard to put food on my table and this is how I do it." It also means authors who don't make money by touring, because 30,000 fans don't pay $45/ticket to see a novelist. It also means software companies with a staff of 50 designers, developers, writers, managers, accountants, lawyers, testers, marketers, salesmen, and janitors that rely on product sales to keep their paychecks coming in.
I liked some of the books we read in high school, but your point is excellent... I really enjoyed some books that I read on my own, while people who had to read them for school outright hated them.
I'm going to try the DVD-stop-analyze method on my wife and see if you're right.