In fairness, the problem isn't really that the Mac Pros are overly-expensive for the hardware. I mean, we could quibble about whether they're well-priced for what you get, but at least they're in the right neighborhood.
The problem here is that Apple doesn't offer a normal mid-range machine. There's the Mac mini, which isn't very powerful and isn't expandable, and then you have the Mac Pro, which is a serious professional level workstation. The only thing in between is their all-in-one machine, which isn't suitable for everyone (including serious professional designers).
I'm not sure why Apple has gone so long without selling a middle-of-the-road headless tower in the $1k-$2k range. I think it would help them get more enterprise penetration.
The sort of glossy high-saturation screens used for iMacs looks great to a lot of users, but isn't good for professional-level color matching. Some people refuse to use LCDs at all because the black point isn't true enough.
Basic idea here is that the sort of screen you want when choosing colors for print ads isn't the same as the screen you want for general consumer use. It's kind of like how the sort of speakers you want in a professional studio aren't the same as what you want for your home stereo. (whether that analogy makes things clearer or more obscure, I don't know)
Primary reason for adopting Open Source:
-(Europe) Avoid vendor lock-in.
-(US) Cost.
In fairness, could it be an issue of what people choose to talk about as much as how they make the decision? If I start telling my boss that we should use an open source solution to avoid vendor lock-in, he'll ask me why he should care about vendor lock-in. He'll want a practical reason, and since it's a business, that practical reason should probably have something to do with making money or losing money.
Now if I explain to my boss that vendor lock-in is bad because it'll mean that some outside company can hold our data hostage, potentially leading to data loss and/or increased spending, then he'll realize that vendor lock-in is a financial liability.
So if that's why we're using open-source solutions, did we do it to avoid vendor lock-in, or did we do it to save money? I could give either answer and be telling the truth, but I'm more likely to give whatever answer I think will be respected.
"Hey, my e-mail isn't working. Can you tell me how to fix it?"
Me: "Er... I don't know. What's the problem exactly?"
"It doesn't work. I can't get my e-mail."
Me: "What e-mail application are you using?"
"I don't know."
Me: "Is it webmail? Or is it a real application?"
"What do you mean?"
Me: "Umm... Ok, whatever. Does it give you any kind of error message when you try to get your e-mail?"
"I don't know. Maybe? Oh, wait, that's right. I think it does. I remember now. I get an error message."
Me: "Ok. Well what does it say?"
"I don't know."
Me: "Well, can you try getting your e-mail sometime and telling me what the error message is?"
"Maybe in a little while. I'm busy. Can't you just tell me how to fix it?"
Me: "Not really. I'm kind of busy too, you know. I'm taking the time to talk with you about it. If you want me to help, you'll have to tell me what the error message says."
"Fine. Ok, it says that my password is wrong. What could cause that?"
Me: "Putting in the wrong password could cause that. Are you putting in the wrong password?"
"Oh, that's right. I changed my password last week. So you think if I put in the right password, it'll work?"
I think you're the one misusing the English language. The word "fan" is a shortening of the word "fanatic". So when you say, "I'm a fan of Brand X," you're basically claiming to be a fanatic anyway.
The word "fanatic" in no ways implies violence, but only an irrationally high level of enthusiasm for something. I can be fanatical about cleanliness, which might mean that I have OCD, but don't in any way imply that that I'm going to hurt anyone. There's no corruption of the English language there.
Yeah, there are probably times when there's an actual question about what should happen, and in those cases some kind of interface is necessary. It's still debatable whether a pop-up box is the best solution there, but certainly there are times where applications do have to prompt the user for input.
On the other hand, there are still errors that pop up and say, "Hey, there's an error. I'm not going to give you any useful information about the error or tell you what the effects of that error might be, and you don't really have any choice about what to do about it. I'm not going to let you use your computer anymore, but hit 'OK' and I'll go away." I mean, they obviously don't say that literally, but in effect they may as well say that.
It's good when programmers can at least recognize that problem and work to minimize pointless errors. And often they do. One good option in Windows, for example, is to kick your error into the event log. That way, most users won't see it, but anyone who will know what to do with it will probably know enough to look in the Event Viewer.
Early in my career, I worked with a helpdesk tech who was hired more or less because he had certifications out the ying yang. So one day, he comes to me and he says, "I'm having a problem with this computer. It just won't work and I can't figure out why."
So I went with him back to the workbench and said, "Ok, show me what the problem is."
He booted up the machine and logged in. Everything looked fine. He navigated through the start menu, found the shortcut for Microsoft Word, and clicks on it. It takes a second before anything happens, and then a little window pops up with what looks like an error message. The tech immediately hits ok, and then sits there for another minute before turning to me and saying, "See. Word won't start."
I said, "Ok, well what did that error message say?"
He responds, "wha?"
I ask him to try running it again, he does, and when the error message comes up again, he again immediately hits the OK button. I say, "That! That error message. What did it say?" and he comes back again, "Huh?"
I get him to run it a third time, and ask him to take his hands off the mouse and put them in his lap until I tell him he can touch the mouse again. The third time, the error message pops up again and says, "Error: missing msvcrt.dll." (just making that up, but it was missing some DLL) I copy the DLL over from another machine and it works again.
True story. I'm not sure if there's a lesson in there somewhere, but it seemed like a relevant story.
Totally off-topic, but am I the only one who finds all this talk about "fanbois" to be annoying and childish? The word itself is even worse than "blog", and most of the time people who try to call someone out for being a "fanboi" are doing it because they're fanatical about some other product.
If we must talk about this sort of thing, how about at least using the word "fanatic". It's a drop-in replacement for "fanboi", and it also has the advantage of being a real word.
I'm not saying they should care. But in case they want to understand the situation (whether they care or not), they should know that sometimes your "asshole manager" isn't an inherent asshole, but rather a normal guy stuck in the position of having to be an asshole because that's his job. Sometimes he's just as much a slave as you are, but you don't actually see the problems that he has to deal with. But then again, sometimes he's just an asshole.
Anyway, my point wasn't "Be nice to your manager, because he's really a nice guy!" Even if he is secretly a nice guy, I don't feel too sorry for him for having the people he works with think he's an asshole. Again, that's sort of his job, and that's what he signed on for. Mostly I'm trying to explain how the world works. It might be "turtles all the way down," but it's assholes all the way up.
I don't know about de-emphasizing formal standards. Formal standards serve some pretty important purposes, which is exactly why so much money is at stake. I think it's one of those situations where something has to be done, but because it *is* so important, there are lots of people who will want to game the system. Therefore it's important to root out corruption, and keep the system clean and transparent. If you do somehow get to the point where the system is so corrupt that it can't be fixed, and the system is so corrupt that it isn't doing what it was set up to do, then you throw it out and make a new one.
I hadn't heard until today that Exchange 2007 changed the protocol and broke Evolution. Nobody is complaining about that fact?
Is this not Slashdot? I expected roughly 50% of the responses to be, "See! This is why Microsoft is evil!" with the other 50% being, "What's the big deal? Just use IMAP!"
Surely IBM will have more influence over future ISO decisions if it remains a member.
And surely ISO will be able to stay more relevant if it can retain IBM as a member. Standards bodies can be discounted for more easily if "Big Players" are simply not part of the process.
If IBM were pulling out simply because they weren't getting what they wanted, then the whole thing would seem childish. But when a standards body is approving bad standards because it's being manipulated/corrupted, and attempts to clean up the corruption are not being successful, then the appropriate thing for other "big players" to do is drop support for that standards body.
I don't know... I think it's *possible* that the submitter has some valid concerns and is trying to do something sensible. There's just not enough clear information in his question to know what it is he's trying to do and why, as well as what's not fitting about Google Apps.
There are people who need e-mail hosting, and Google Apps isn't going to be a good solution for everyone. But if you want help finding the right help for you, then you might need to spell out what you're actually trying to do and why Google Apps isn't going to work. You can't just say, "I want something that will do exactly what [product X] does, but [product X] doesn't serve my purposes. What should I use?"
There are tons of e-mail providers out there, and many of them provide slightly different services in slightly different ways. There isn't a great way to narrow the list down without knowing what this guys needs are.
Besides buying a domain and using Google Apps on it (which isn't actually intended for home users), I was thinking on having a domain of my own and choosing a commercial email provider that should provide just that
Now it's not very clear what his real concern there is. Instead of buying a domain, he'll just have a domain? Instead of using Google Apps, he'll just use an e-mail provider that provides e-mail? I'm not sure what he's trying to distinguish from what.
He says he doesn't want to use Google Apps because it's not fitting for "home use" (and I don't know what about it isn't fitting for home use), and yet he doesn't want to use a straight-up Gmail address because it won't look good on a business card. Well is it for home use, or business? And then on top of that, he says he has a business address but doesn't want to use it. I wonder what his real use for this address will be, and whether his company would have a problem with him conducting business through a non-work address.
In short, it's not very clear to me whether the original submitter has valid needs and objections to any of these things, or if he's simply on crack. If you work for a company and your work e-mail isn't meeting your business needs, then ask your IT department, not Slashdot. If your IT department isn't meeting your company's needs, then complain to management. As someone who has run an IT department, I hated it when users tried to go outside our system. Forwarding your work e-mail to Gmail is an unnecessary security risk. If my e-mail servers weren't doing a good enough job, I would have preferred it if my users would let me know about it so I could get the whole thing straightened out.
I learned the lesson. Management loves screwing employees.
Sometimes that's true
But part of the problem is that, even if a given manager is ok, he probably still has someone that he's reporting to, who in turn is reporting to someone else. So he might be happily managing his little group when the boss comes down and says, "You need to cut your budget by 10%." In that case the manager might not have much choice but to pull something that his underlings are going to think is an asshole move. And on top of that, sometimes the manager can't just pass the buck onto upper management. Sometimes it's part of his job to take the hit, and let his employees hate him.
The first thing I learned when I got into management is that you can't always be the good guy, even if you really want to. If you always give your employees everything they want and never ask them to do anything they don't want to, then nothing is going to get done, and then your boss is going to come down hard on you. Sometimes you have to pick your battles. You don't get the luxury of being everyone's friend. I kind of think that part of the extra money you get paid is compensation for being hated. Because make no mistake, the first time you say "no" to anyone, someone is going to hate you a little.
I'm not sure you can get there from here with "more regulation". What we need is more good jobs, so that employers are competing to get employees rather than workers competing to get jobs.
Wait, so you're citing an article about how he, the black candidate, had to win over black voters who were planning on voting for a white woman? You're citing that article as evidence that black people are voting for him simply because he's black, and for no other reason?
Don't you see a problem in that reasoning? If they weren't going to vote for him at first, then obviously they require something more of their chosen candidate than that he's black. Further, if you're merely going to show that a lot of black people are voting for Obama and claim that as evidence that "black voters vote black", then I should be able to point to every white person voting for McCain and say "white voters vote white". People are voting for McCain simply because he's white, right?
I don't think it would be fair, though. I'm not going to assume that everyone who's voting for McCain is racist. It'd be unfair and it'd be poor reasoning. Just like your post.
Slashdot Mirror
In fairness, the problem isn't really that the Mac Pros are overly-expensive for the hardware. I mean, we could quibble about whether they're well-priced for what you get, but at least they're in the right neighborhood.
The problem here is that Apple doesn't offer a normal mid-range machine. There's the Mac mini, which isn't very powerful and isn't expandable, and then you have the Mac Pro, which is a serious professional level workstation. The only thing in between is their all-in-one machine, which isn't suitable for everyone (including serious professional designers).
I'm not sure why Apple has gone so long without selling a middle-of-the-road headless tower in the $1k-$2k range. I think it would help them get more enterprise penetration.
The sort of glossy high-saturation screens used for iMacs looks great to a lot of users, but isn't good for professional-level color matching. Some people refuse to use LCDs at all because the black point isn't true enough.
Basic idea here is that the sort of screen you want when choosing colors for print ads isn't the same as the screen you want for general consumer use. It's kind of like how the sort of speakers you want in a professional studio aren't the same as what you want for your home stereo. (whether that analogy makes things clearer or more obscure, I don't know)
I was came in here hoping someone would complain about this. Alas, the part of me that enjoys ironic stupidity is disappointed.
What, do you really think there's no way around that?
Your use of the phrase "begs the question" implies that yes, it does. Intentional?
Primary reason for adopting Open Source: -(Europe) Avoid vendor lock-in. -(US) Cost.
In fairness, could it be an issue of what people choose to talk about as much as how they make the decision? If I start telling my boss that we should use an open source solution to avoid vendor lock-in, he'll ask me why he should care about vendor lock-in. He'll want a practical reason, and since it's a business, that practical reason should probably have something to do with making money or losing money.
Now if I explain to my boss that vendor lock-in is bad because it'll mean that some outside company can hold our data hostage, potentially leading to data loss and/or increased spending, then he'll realize that vendor lock-in is a financial liability.
So if that's why we're using open-source solutions, did we do it to avoid vendor lock-in, or did we do it to save money? I could give either answer and be telling the truth, but I'm more likely to give whatever answer I think will be respected.
"Hey, my e-mail isn't working. Can you tell me how to fix it?"
Me: "Er... I don't know. What's the problem exactly?"
"It doesn't work. I can't get my e-mail."
Me: "What e-mail application are you using?"
"I don't know."
Me: "Is it webmail? Or is it a real application?"
"What do you mean?"
Me: "Umm... Ok, whatever. Does it give you any kind of error message when you try to get your e-mail?"
"I don't know. Maybe? Oh, wait, that's right. I think it does. I remember now. I get an error message."
Me: "Ok. Well what does it say?"
"I don't know."
Me: "Well, can you try getting your e-mail sometime and telling me what the error message is?"
"Maybe in a little while. I'm busy. Can't you just tell me how to fix it?"
Me: "Not really. I'm kind of busy too, you know. I'm taking the time to talk with you about it. If you want me to help, you'll have to tell me what the error message says."
"Fine. Ok, it says that my password is wrong. What could cause that?"
Me: "Putting in the wrong password could cause that. Are you putting in the wrong password?"
"Oh, that's right. I changed my password last week. So you think if I put in the right password, it'll work?"
Me: "It's probably worth a shot."
I think you're the one misusing the English language. The word "fan" is a shortening of the word "fanatic". So when you say, "I'm a fan of Brand X," you're basically claiming to be a fanatic anyway.
The word "fanatic" in no ways implies violence, but only an irrationally high level of enthusiasm for something. I can be fanatical about cleanliness, which might mean that I have OCD, but don't in any way imply that that I'm going to hurt anyone. There's no corruption of the English language there.
"Fanboi", on the other hand, it total crap.
In fairness, the doctor can't check my event viewer.
Yeah, there are probably times when there's an actual question about what should happen, and in those cases some kind of interface is necessary. It's still debatable whether a pop-up box is the best solution there, but certainly there are times where applications do have to prompt the user for input.
On the other hand, there are still errors that pop up and say, "Hey, there's an error. I'm not going to give you any useful information about the error or tell you what the effects of that error might be, and you don't really have any choice about what to do about it. I'm not going to let you use your computer anymore, but hit 'OK' and I'll go away." I mean, they obviously don't say that literally, but in effect they may as well say that.
It's good when programmers can at least recognize that problem and work to minimize pointless errors. And often they do. One good option in Windows, for example, is to kick your error into the event log. That way, most users won't see it, but anyone who will know what to do with it will probably know enough to look in the Event Viewer.
Story time:
Early in my career, I worked with a helpdesk tech who was hired more or less because he had certifications out the ying yang. So one day, he comes to me and he says, "I'm having a problem with this computer. It just won't work and I can't figure out why."
So I went with him back to the workbench and said, "Ok, show me what the problem is."
He booted up the machine and logged in. Everything looked fine. He navigated through the start menu, found the shortcut for Microsoft Word, and clicks on it. It takes a second before anything happens, and then a little window pops up with what looks like an error message. The tech immediately hits ok, and then sits there for another minute before turning to me and saying, "See. Word won't start."
I said, "Ok, well what did that error message say?"
He responds, "wha?"
I ask him to try running it again, he does, and when the error message comes up again, he again immediately hits the OK button. I say, "That! That error message. What did it say?" and he comes back again, "Huh?"
I get him to run it a third time, and ask him to take his hands off the mouse and put them in his lap until I tell him he can touch the mouse again. The third time, the error message pops up again and says, "Error: missing msvcrt.dll." (just making that up, but it was missing some DLL) I copy the DLL over from another machine and it works again.
True story. I'm not sure if there's a lesson in there somewhere, but it seemed like a relevant story.
Totally off-topic, but am I the only one who finds all this talk about "fanbois" to be annoying and childish? The word itself is even worse than "blog", and most of the time people who try to call someone out for being a "fanboi" are doing it because they're fanatical about some other product.
If we must talk about this sort of thing, how about at least using the word "fanatic". It's a drop-in replacement for "fanboi", and it also has the advantage of being a real word.
MS didn't change the protocol. Evolution was screen scraping the web interface. The web interface changed.
But, yeah, use IMAP, and suck it up and use the web interface for the calendaring.
I was joking, but I guess we know which 50% you fall into.
I'm not saying they should care. But in case they want to understand the situation (whether they care or not), they should know that sometimes your "asshole manager" isn't an inherent asshole, but rather a normal guy stuck in the position of having to be an asshole because that's his job. Sometimes he's just as much a slave as you are, but you don't actually see the problems that he has to deal with. But then again, sometimes he's just an asshole.
Anyway, my point wasn't "Be nice to your manager, because he's really a nice guy!" Even if he is secretly a nice guy, I don't feel too sorry for him for having the people he works with think he's an asshole. Again, that's sort of his job, and that's what he signed on for. Mostly I'm trying to explain how the world works. It might be "turtles all the way down," but it's assholes all the way up.
I don't know about de-emphasizing formal standards. Formal standards serve some pretty important purposes, which is exactly why so much money is at stake. I think it's one of those situations where something has to be done, but because it *is* so important, there are lots of people who will want to game the system. Therefore it's important to root out corruption, and keep the system clean and transparent. If you do somehow get to the point where the system is so corrupt that it can't be fixed, and the system is so corrupt that it isn't doing what it was set up to do, then you throw it out and make a new one.
You know, like a government.
I hadn't heard until today that Exchange 2007 changed the protocol and broke Evolution. Nobody is complaining about that fact?
Is this not Slashdot? I expected roughly 50% of the responses to be, "See! This is why Microsoft is evil!" with the other 50% being, "What's the big deal? Just use IMAP!"
Yeah, but the GP post is still right. The suggestion to replace Outlook with Telnet should probably be modded "Funny" rather than "Troll".
Surely IBM will have more influence over future ISO decisions if it remains a member.
And surely ISO will be able to stay more relevant if it can retain IBM as a member. Standards bodies can be discounted for more easily if "Big Players" are simply not part of the process.
If IBM were pulling out simply because they weren't getting what they wanted, then the whole thing would seem childish. But when a standards body is approving bad standards because it's being manipulated/corrupted, and attempts to clean up the corruption are not being successful, then the appropriate thing for other "big players" to do is drop support for that standards body.
Just drink some Brawno. It's got electrolytes.
I don't know... I think it's *possible* that the submitter has some valid concerns and is trying to do something sensible. There's just not enough clear information in his question to know what it is he's trying to do and why, as well as what's not fitting about Google Apps.
There are people who need e-mail hosting, and Google Apps isn't going to be a good solution for everyone. But if you want help finding the right help for you, then you might need to spell out what you're actually trying to do and why Google Apps isn't going to work. You can't just say, "I want something that will do exactly what [product X] does, but [product X] doesn't serve my purposes. What should I use?"
There are tons of e-mail providers out there, and many of them provide slightly different services in slightly different ways. There isn't a great way to narrow the list down without knowing what this guys needs are.
So is that your way of saying, "It depends on your tastes"?
Besides buying a domain and using Google Apps on it (which isn't actually intended for home users), I was thinking on having a domain of my own and choosing a commercial email provider that should provide just that
Now it's not very clear what his real concern there is. Instead of buying a domain, he'll just have a domain? Instead of using Google Apps, he'll just use an e-mail provider that provides e-mail? I'm not sure what he's trying to distinguish from what.
He says he doesn't want to use Google Apps because it's not fitting for "home use" (and I don't know what about it isn't fitting for home use), and yet he doesn't want to use a straight-up Gmail address because it won't look good on a business card. Well is it for home use, or business? And then on top of that, he says he has a business address but doesn't want to use it. I wonder what his real use for this address will be, and whether his company would have a problem with him conducting business through a non-work address.
In short, it's not very clear to me whether the original submitter has valid needs and objections to any of these things, or if he's simply on crack. If you work for a company and your work e-mail isn't meeting your business needs, then ask your IT department, not Slashdot. If your IT department isn't meeting your company's needs, then complain to management. As someone who has run an IT department, I hated it when users tried to go outside our system. Forwarding your work e-mail to Gmail is an unnecessary security risk. If my e-mail servers weren't doing a good enough job, I would have preferred it if my users would let me know about it so I could get the whole thing straightened out.
I learned the lesson. Management loves screwing employees.
Sometimes that's true
But part of the problem is that, even if a given manager is ok, he probably still has someone that he's reporting to, who in turn is reporting to someone else. So he might be happily managing his little group when the boss comes down and says, "You need to cut your budget by 10%." In that case the manager might not have much choice but to pull something that his underlings are going to think is an asshole move. And on top of that, sometimes the manager can't just pass the buck onto upper management. Sometimes it's part of his job to take the hit, and let his employees hate him.
The first thing I learned when I got into management is that you can't always be the good guy, even if you really want to. If you always give your employees everything they want and never ask them to do anything they don't want to, then nothing is going to get done, and then your boss is going to come down hard on you. Sometimes you have to pick your battles. You don't get the luxury of being everyone's friend. I kind of think that part of the extra money you get paid is compensation for being hated. Because make no mistake, the first time you say "no" to anyone, someone is going to hate you a little.
I'm not sure you can get there from here with "more regulation". What we need is more good jobs, so that employers are competing to get employees rather than workers competing to get jobs.
Wait, so you're citing an article about how he, the black candidate, had to win over black voters who were planning on voting for a white woman? You're citing that article as evidence that black people are voting for him simply because he's black, and for no other reason?
Don't you see a problem in that reasoning? If they weren't going to vote for him at first, then obviously they require something more of their chosen candidate than that he's black. Further, if you're merely going to show that a lot of black people are voting for Obama and claim that as evidence that "black voters vote black", then I should be able to point to every white person voting for McCain and say "white voters vote white". People are voting for McCain simply because he's white, right?
I don't think it would be fair, though. I'm not going to assume that everyone who's voting for McCain is racist. It'd be unfair and it'd be poor reasoning. Just like your post.