My daughter used to sit with me while I watched the original "COSMOS", and she would hear me excitedly talk about space missions, changes in what we know about, and the big things we didn't really understand. By the time she was 10, and already heavily interested in math, she told me "You know, I want to be the one who figures out what dark matter and dark energy really are." Also, at a young age, my daughter was introduced to several good friends of mine who are women in the sciences; An MIT mathematics professor, a former nuclear physicist and NASA scientist, and someone who is an astronomer. These women all have families, all are moms, all do "normal" stuff, but also all happen to have careers in science.
Does that mean my daughter will likely become a scientist? Well, she's fifteen now, and while she still loves math and astronomy, she's also become fascinated by Latin, and loves the language and history. Maybe she'll be a historian, or maybe hell, she'll be a hair dresser. But if SHE makes the choice of what she wants to do and be, if I don't make that choice for her and she's at least aware that she's got options, that's all I care about.
I work for a small police department, about 50 people and one of the 3 civilian full time staff. In the 13 years I've been in this job, I've learned several things, first of which is my subject line: "What has been seen can not be unseen". I learned this the hard way after someone asked me to assist in ghosting the hard drive of someone who was, in the local parlance, a potential "Diddler", child pornographer. As asked, I ghosted the drive, then when staff found no illegal images, I dug through the drive searching for hidden directories.
Yes. I found them, all right. Now, I have a daughter, 15 today but only 4 at the time, and some of the images I saw, frankly, haunt me to this day. Back then we had no direct resource for digital discovery / evidence collection, and after seeing those images.... I wrote our discovery and extraction policy and worked out a deal with another law enforcement agency to have their people take care of that. I'm well paid, but there is not enough money on this planet to get me to again see what I saw.
Over the course of day to day IT stuff, I have seen emails or documents which yeah, maybe I shouldn't see. Sure, I'm CJIS (Criminal Justice Information Services) certified, etc, but I don't need to see some things. But my boss, the Chief, and my coworkers know that all I'm interested in is making sure we're secure, that the officers and staff can perform their jobs, get email, track cases, track safe keeping, evidence, etc and it's going to work. That's it. I'm not the moral compass. Of course, if I saw someone was up to something illegal with my babies (computers) I would gather evidence and present it immediately! And I'm a very vocal advocate for privacy AND freedom of civilians to record police activity, something my coworkers now agree with me on. But if I, for example, read that one officer gets paid more than another officer for his hourly construction detail, that's none of my business. I mostly stay in my office, work on the things I need to work on, study, and do my job.
IMO that's what we do. We fix things, we keep the show running. That said, you may find yourself with perhaps some leverage. For example, I had one troublesome user who asked my help on installing a piece of software. I went to his desk, asked where the installer was, and he had no idea. So, first thing I did was check the "Downloads" directory. Sure enough, there was the installer, as well as a metric crapton of video files with titles like "Pegging" and "Tranny". He went white... as... a... SHEET. Not missing a beat, I move the installer to the C: drive and set to. Finish install, enter registration keys, configure, done. As I'm getting up to go, I turned and said "I trust I'll receive no further complaints from this office, right?" He looked, nodded vigorously, and I walked out.
And as the near immortal Lazarus Long once said, "A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits."
The whole "left brain - right brain" concept has been thoroughly disproven BTW.
http://www.plosone.org/article...
Bless my users and their black little hearts, desktop support is highly unlikely to ever vanish. Certainly change, certainly remote desktop support (ie gotoassist) will increase, however there will still (likely) be situations where an actual person is going to be needed to go directly to a person and help.
With the increase in mobile computing and potential to see the desktop PC effectively vanish in 20 years (or less!), you will still have people who not only shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a means of communication more complex than smoke signals, and you will still need someone at the ready with a fire extinguisher. The current generation of tech savvy middle school age children will, of course, be part of that next generation of mobile users. However, problems happen. Mobile users will, most likely, still have an office which needs to be set up, which needs to have a person come and assist in problems. They will still need face to face time to help sort out issues, train in the use of a device, and possibly troubleshoot. I have many users who experience abject terror at the prospect of setting up even the most simple minded of USB printers, activating a phone, or even plugging in speakers! Odds are such phobia won't just up and vanish.
There is also a more human element that many people desire when dealing with technical issues. Perhaps we'll see more situations like Apple's genius bar, or *shudder* Geek Squad, taking shape in the business of support. But who knows? At this point, pundits shouldn't attempt to speculate about the IT industry in 2 years, let alone 8 or 20.
Sorry, but "starting to" suggests Google's recent actions are somehow different or new. Google has been deliberately and willfully evil for years now. If memory serves, Google has revealed the names of Chinese dissidents in the past (single citation being used, though going back you do find more), and gleefully gave in to the Chinese government too many times to cite all of them, all in the name of a bit of dosh.
Why is ANY of this a surprise? Companies that have a great product, a great service, that lose focus on what their foundation is in favor of making money, will always do this, at least every instance I've seen. Even smaller companies. I'll use a local example; Here in the Boston area there is (or I should say "was") a great ice cream store named more or less for the neighborhood it was founded in. The ice cream was, to put it mildly, pure heaven. Even in the dead of winter people flocked to their locations, what they had was just that good. Over the years the quality has gone down considerably in direct proportion to how much the founder began making. Once he got some investment money from other parties, the bottom line became a bigger issue. Employees who had been with him from the first day he'd opened were fired because they looked "different" (it was a haven for artistic, counter culture people back in the 80s and to the mid 90s) and didn't fit in with his new "professional" look. The product they made became just sort of average. Walk into any chain ice cream store, and you'll get the same product. However their profits skyrocketed and they continue to do business not due to the ice cream, but the name.
Google has become no different. They own the market, and they know it. Rather than focus on doing what they do best, and NOT doing it in an evil way, they what... Release a browser, a (rather sad) OS, they see Facebook take off and using a page from Microsoft's playbook say "Why didn't WE think of that?" and come out with their own, much to the delight of dozens. Now Google is stooping to the same bush league dirty pool that other companies do.
I hadn't upgraded for some time and (foolishly?) decided it was time. Unity was... Well, a disappointment. Not too long ago a friend who lives and breaths netbooks was having a strong dislike to Win7, and I suggested he try Ubuntu. It was faster than Win7, he was able to get drivers for everything, and he liked the desktop. I agreed with him entirely. However on a big screen or multi screen... Not so much.
Then I read some quotes by Mark Shuttleworth. For a minute I thought I was reading something by Bill Gates or the late Lord Steve Jobs: 'There is going to be a crowd that is just too cool to use something that looks really slick and there is nothing we can do for them'. My dear sir, it's not a matter of "cool", it's a matter of your desktop environment is crap. Now, I'm no power user. In fact, I'm more the "Walt the Janitor" of the computing world (or perhaps the Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor...) and really just use the best option for what I want to do, and in an ideal world how I want to do it. I don't use a flat screwdriver on a Phillips-head screw due to its looks, and I'm not exactly "too cool" to use something that looks "really slick". I like shiny, I like bells and whistles, and I like machines that go "PING". That said, Unity is complete shit IMO. I won't go into details on why I don't like it, and I'm sure of course that there are those here who would disagree with me on the reasons, but I just flat out have not found it an "enjoyable" desktop experience. As well, the statement by Shuttleworth: "I think the report actually meant that the launcher should be movable to other edges of the screen. I'm afraid that won't work with our broader design goals, so we won't implement that. We want the launcher always close to the Ubuntu button."
That quote right there was the nail in the coffin with me for using Unity. Yes, I know it's petty, yes I know that my reason is somewhat trite, but it just bothers me when someone says "This is how you should use your computer, and how it should look. No, you can't change that." I really did give Unity about 2 weeks of use, and got to the point where I was very comfortable using it, but it wasn't enjoyed comfort, it wasn't "ah, this is my desktop".
Credit where it is due, while I had some issues with performance, I was able to get around that (changing drivers for video card), as always with Ubuntu right from the get go I had zero problems with other devices, printers, etc. But now I'm using KDE.
When I tested it out, it did much better than my Android, with no "training". Try Android voice with a Boston accent. I tell it to call my favorite bar and it calls a sheep.....
One of the people who worked on Watson, the computer mind put to the test on Jeopardy, is my former brother in law. When BrotherInLaw -1 began on computer AI there was, at the time, no one more advanced than he to challenge his thesis. The stuff we're seeing now in Siri is very much like what Watson did and projects BIL -1 has been working on for over 10 years, only put to "commercial / consumer" use; something inevitable. I doubt anyone involved with the first missions to the moon were all up in arms saying "What? Velcro? *ththt* That's been out for ages." Remember, to much of the media and your average user, this IS bleeding edge!
This is what happens with technology. It gets invented, it gets used in science and technology circles for a while then, if it's got commercial appeal, it ends up in the hands of Joe 6GB.To those lambasting Apple, while I assure you is something I enjoy, is sort of shooting fish in a barrel.
All that said, I use Android for one very simple reason: Apple's Ap Store policy makes me rage. Their puritanical requirements on nudity, "obscenity", etc as well as their tight fisted control over interface is preposterous and reprehensible. When I'd heard they forced a German news agency change their iPhone ap due to a few boobies was when I decided I would never, ever own one. Many of my users have them, they're bought by my employer, I've been offered a new iPhone each year, but for the last two years I've very much enjoyed my Android. The voice command blows, no argument. The screen pivot is comical. But all the aps I have, I enjoy. I can play around with whatever aps I want and not brick the device. To me, that's a fair cop; One programs functionality (Siri) does not out weigh freedom to do as I wish with my devices.
Sup dawg, I herd you like Android, so I put an Android in your Android so you can Android while you Android.
OK, now I feel dirty.
As noted, do they ship refurbs? Ages ago while working for a computer retailer, we once had a Mac that someone took home which had been "re-imaged" by our service department... And when the customer got it home, it booted into BeOS. Not that I would have turned my nose up to it back then, it was a 9600 with "tons" of RAM (512, remember those days? If you had 256 people would come from far and wide just to touch your screen).
I've read the book by her handler, Roger Fouts, about Washoe and the other chimps he worked with.
Much as I am a proponent of medical research going forward, I can't help but feel strongly that testing on chimps/great apes is one of the biggest mistakes we could possibly make.
On a lark, I created a username and accounts on both Yahoo and Google, then using a name something along the lines of "Honeypot", created an account on Facebook using one of the email addresses (Y! I believe). I then added a bunch of contacts in the address book of both Yahoo and Gmail, different people in each address book.
In short order, I began seeing ads within Facebook while logged into the honeypot address suggesting I friend people from the address books of the account NOT tied to the Facebook account. Can't recall which email service I'd done this with first, but I am pretty sure that a Yahoo account was associated with Facebook. In other words, I would log in to Yahoo, then to Facebook, then to Gmail. Yahoo was associated with the Facebook account. After a few days, I began to see names of people whose names were in the GMail account (and I knew were email addresses associated with real Facebook accounts) suggested as friends in Facebook.
I then repeated the same; creating a new address in Gmail then a Facebook account. Few days later of going back and forth, I started seeing names in the second Gmail account popping up when I logged into the new Facebook account.
Certainly none of this is a shock to anyone, but I don't get why Google feels the need to come up with G+ and compete with Facebook. Stick to fscking search, stick to what you're best at. I don't understand this Microsoft mentality of "Oh, we didn't have this first and make money with it? Lets do one of our own! And fire the people in charge of marketing and precognition. They should have known social networking would become such a huge hit."
I don't know if I would entirely agree with this. As someone who services both Macs and PCs, across the board I would put the percentage of ignorance as roughly the same.
Consider how many PC users willingly click on the popups that say "Your computer is at risk! Click here to clean" or "Your computer has detected spyware. Click to clean". As well, consider how many PC users visit video sites which claim that in order to view this video of Lindsey Lohan and a great dane getting freaky, you need this "special" video plugin. On both sides of the home computing world, there is at least as many gullible people on Windows as on Mac, it's just that Fruit Heads seem to have this foolish idea that they're somehow immune. As noted by many, the Safari exploit alone is an issue, but there are decidedly more.
Frankly what goes up my nose sideways is this statement: "One of those features is the introduction of the Mac App Store, an Apple-controlled storefront for selling and distributing applications"
So allowing Apple to have final say on what I do and don't get to install on my computer is somehow better? This is precisely what will make me jump ship again; I've used them since the mid 80s, jumped ship with system 7.5 ("Error type 11 has just occurred, please kiss your ass goodbye") then came back at around system 10.2, and while I really enjoyed the OS, this idea that somehow putting all my "trust" in Apple's hands, that somehow Mr. Jobs and crew must know what's best for me, that boggles my mind. Again, as noted by others perhaps not in this thread, Apple has become the Big Brother their ads once suggested they broke away from. If, now don't get me wrong I do mean "if", Apple decides that they want to make the app store the singular method to install apps as it is on the iPad and iPod, that'll be the end of it for me. Which is a pity, because it is a rather nice desktop OS.
The worst IT job I ever had was with Jayne Mansfield. You know, she was a fantastic bird, you know..... big tits, huge bum, and everything like that, but I had the terrible job of retrieving routers from her bum. Bloody hell, that was a task. Well, it was quite a task 'cause she had a big bum... But I had to, used to go round, you know, of an evening... when Jayne was sleeping or sort of comatose, like, you know, you know, just lying there, and, er, I had to retrieve these routers from her arsehole.
(and if any of you get that ref, you're a very sick person)
First, I have a MBP right here in my lap, less than one year old. If I have the screen at a reasonable brightness for the time of day, am using the intertubes (as I am quite clearly right now), I get perhaps, maybe 2-3 hours at best. And, by the way, MBA and MBP are two decidedly different devices, and... yes, reading back I talked about the MBP. KTHX.
As noted, I am one of those people who remembers when Apple had, you know, good service. I called Apple because in the past I had called about an iTunes issue and received good service.
"Even if that did really happen".... Pardon, but are you suggesting I'm fabricating? Let me guess, you have a poster of Steve on your wall that you kiss nightly before bed. Apple's "customer service" is in the toilet. Let me put it to you this way: I call Dell, not the greatest of manufacturers, mind you, at 9am on a Monday telling them that a drive has failed on one of my servers, or a keyboard on a laptop, or the power supply on a workstation. By 3pm at the latest, I have a replacement in my hand. My last XServe, when a drive failed in the array I was told I would have to get it serviced by an "authorized technician", and that the drive would have to go back to Apple or I'd pay top dollar for the replacement. I work for a law enforcement agency, giving back the hard drive intact is not an option, even if the drive has failed. That was, of course, the last XServe in our building.
Look, don't get me wrong. I absolutely have loved the Mac OS since 10.2. Time Machine is a thing of beauty. In that time I've had three MBP as my primary workstation and have had several users on them as well due in large part to the security, ease of use and greatly reduced support I've had to provide to those users. That said, when I've had to get parts replaced, it's been comical. 1-2 weeks to wait for a part, a simple part that a lobotomized baboon could replace blindfolded? Come on. That's not service. The only people who give high ranks to Apple customer service are those who are blinded by the rainbow.
Google, Apple, Microsoft. They do all seem interchangeable these days.
I've been using Apple computers since I first got my grubby, sticky little fingers on an Apple ][ yonks ago. It's been a love / hate relationship, and until somewhat recently the "hate" times were more due to issues I had with the computers and OS themselves more than the company. Think IIfx, nubus, Appletalk and "The Error Of Type 11 Has Just Occurred, Please Kiss All Your Stuff Goodbye". During the hate times, I would go to Windows, then back to Mac, then to WinNT, then on to Linux (so I suppose I should in some ways thank Microsoft). I came BACK to Apple / Mac with Mac OS 10.2, and found I really enjoyed it, so I've stayed with it most of the time until recently with two big issues:
- Apple deciding to make the new MacBook Pro so that you need to be Apple Certified in order to change the damned battery. That's just evil and stupid IMO. I can take one of the things apart in my sleep and put it back together before I'd had my coffee, but I need to get certification just to replace the BATTERY? Or hard drive? I can't even ORDER the battery to keep on hand?! "Oh but the battery lasts for 7 hours!" Horse pats. It lasts for perhaps 2, at best, when brand new, and you'll only see anything even remotely resembling 7 hours if you are ONLY working on a text document and have disabled AirPort and half the other features of the computer. Apple simply wants control, as usual, of all aspects of its computers and wants you to shell out the dosh needed to work on them.
- I had a simple issue with one of my users and his iTunes accounts. After going through what I thought was all of Apple's knowledge base on iTunes, I called with my question and got a person relatively quickly. I explained what I was trying to do, and then that I'd already been through the tech articles. The Apple service rep asks me to go to their support site, to which I tell him I'm already there. He ignores what I'm saying and starts to read off the URL. I say "Yeah yeah,/support/itunes, I'm there already and..." he interrupts me and tells me to click here, click there, and directs me to a web submission form. Then, he proceeds to tell me to put my first name into the field for the first name, my last name into the field that says last name, and then explain to me how to fill in all the fields and then "See the big button that looks like an envelope? Click that to send the message." All the while, his tone is that of one trying to explain to your dottering old intoxicated uncle that in fact you really shouldn't put your Metamucil in your trousers. I was stunned to silence. 20+ years of customer service work, both as manager and agent, and I'd NEVER talked to someone that way. While managing customer service, and even helpdesk, if I'd heard one of my employees speaking to even the most vapid of customers that way, I'd have sacked 'em. I was fucking livid. I thanked him, told him this was the LAST Apple product we'd have in my office, and essentially that he'd provided the worst customer service experience I've ever had to deal with, and I'd dealt regularly with Intuit and Adobe so that's saying something.
Yes yes, TL;DR
The upshot is I'm sick of them. Rude, contemptuous of their own customers to a staggering degree now. Used to be I could call Apple with an issue and my Mac had free tech support for as long as the machine ran. Getting service for hardware, while slow and you certainly had to have an Apple certified person work on it, things were done at quicker than a glacial pace and something as simple as a laptop battery replacement were things you could do yourself. Add to that what I've seen when getting my hands on the next gen of the OS, and no thank you. Back to Linux desktop for myself, and Windows for all my users.
Considering the love-fest for Google around these parts, but they've been effectively dodging taxes for a few years. Why would it be a shock if politicians, celebrities and sundry millionaires / billionaires do the same?
While I am all for businesses making a profit, I am NOT all for a multi-billion dollar company paying effectively 2.4% while I continue to pay nearly 30% of my income. The argument "Well, that gets turned into research and good pay for employees" still doesn't float IMO, when you have the higher executives of Google being paid millions. Reduce the salaries of those PHBs down to something reasonable, pay the rank and file programmers and researchers that money, and pay taxes like everyone else.
Slashdot Mirror
That headline made my brain wibble butter wombat Finland.
Maybe "lead by example".
My daughter used to sit with me while I watched the original "COSMOS", and she would hear me excitedly talk about space missions, changes in what we know about, and the big things we didn't really understand. By the time she was 10, and already heavily interested in math, she told me "You know, I want to be the one who figures out what dark matter and dark energy really are." Also, at a young age, my daughter was introduced to several good friends of mine who are women in the sciences; An MIT mathematics professor, a former nuclear physicist and NASA scientist, and someone who is an astronomer. These women all have families, all are moms, all do "normal" stuff, but also all happen to have careers in science.
Does that mean my daughter will likely become a scientist? Well, she's fifteen now, and while she still loves math and astronomy, she's also become fascinated by Latin, and loves the language and history. Maybe she'll be a historian, or maybe hell, she'll be a hair dresser. But if SHE makes the choice of what she wants to do and be, if I don't make that choice for her and she's at least aware that she's got options, that's all I care about.
I work for a small police department, about 50 people and one of the 3 civilian full time staff. In the 13 years I've been in this job, I've learned several things, first of which is my subject line: "What has been seen can not be unseen". I learned this the hard way after someone asked me to assist in ghosting the hard drive of someone who was, in the local parlance, a potential "Diddler", child pornographer. As asked, I ghosted the drive, then when staff found no illegal images, I dug through the drive searching for hidden directories.
... a... SHEET. Not missing a beat, I move the installer to the C: drive and set to. Finish install, enter registration keys, configure, done. As I'm getting up to go, I turned and said "I trust I'll receive no further complaints from this office, right?" He looked, nodded vigorously, and I walked out.
Yes. I found them, all right. Now, I have a daughter, 15 today but only 4 at the time, and some of the images I saw, frankly, haunt me to this day. Back then we had no direct resource for digital discovery / evidence collection, and after seeing those images.... I wrote our discovery and extraction policy and worked out a deal with another law enforcement agency to have their people take care of that. I'm well paid, but there is not enough money on this planet to get me to again see what I saw.
Over the course of day to day IT stuff, I have seen emails or documents which yeah, maybe I shouldn't see. Sure, I'm CJIS (Criminal Justice Information Services) certified, etc, but I don't need to see some things. But my boss, the Chief, and my coworkers know that all I'm interested in is making sure we're secure, that the officers and staff can perform their jobs, get email, track cases, track safe keeping, evidence, etc and it's going to work. That's it. I'm not the moral compass. Of course, if I saw someone was up to something illegal with my babies (computers) I would gather evidence and present it immediately! And I'm a very vocal advocate for privacy AND freedom of civilians to record police activity, something my coworkers now agree with me on. But if I, for example, read that one officer gets paid more than another officer for his hourly construction detail, that's none of my business. I mostly stay in my office, work on the things I need to work on, study, and do my job.
IMO that's what we do. We fix things, we keep the show running. That said, you may find yourself with perhaps some leverage. For example, I had one troublesome user who asked my help on installing a piece of software. I went to his desk, asked where the installer was, and he had no idea. So, first thing I did was check the "Downloads" directory. Sure enough, there was the installer, as well as a metric crapton of video files with titles like "Pegging" and "Tranny". He went white... as
And as the near immortal Lazarus Long once said, "A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits." The whole "left brain - right brain" concept has been thoroughly disproven BTW. http://www.plosone.org/article...
This is one of those situations where, you know, I'd rather NOT have a technology at hand to validate an assumption.
Did this dude get so excited over the release that he peed his pants? http://www.phoronix.com/image-...
Bless my users and their black little hearts, desktop support is highly unlikely to ever vanish. Certainly change, certainly remote desktop support (ie gotoassist) will increase, however there will still (likely) be situations where an actual person is going to be needed to go directly to a person and help.
With the increase in mobile computing and potential to see the desktop PC effectively vanish in 20 years (or less!), you will still have people who not only shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a means of communication more complex than smoke signals, and you will still need someone at the ready with a fire extinguisher. The current generation of tech savvy middle school age children will, of course, be part of that next generation of mobile users. However, problems happen. Mobile users will, most likely, still have an office which needs to be set up, which needs to have a person come and assist in problems. They will still need face to face time to help sort out issues, train in the use of a device, and possibly troubleshoot. I have many users who experience abject terror at the prospect of setting up even the most simple minded of USB printers, activating a phone, or even plugging in speakers! Odds are such phobia won't just up and vanish.
There is also a more human element that many people desire when dealing with technical issues. Perhaps we'll see more situations like Apple's genius bar, or *shudder* Geek Squad, taking shape in the business of support. But who knows? At this point, pundits shouldn't attempt to speculate about the IT industry in 2 years, let alone 8 or 20.
Sorry, but "starting to" suggests Google's recent actions are somehow different or new. Google has been deliberately and willfully evil for years now. If memory serves, Google has revealed the names of Chinese dissidents in the past (single citation being used, though going back you do find more), and gleefully gave in to the Chinese government too many times to cite all of them, all in the name of a bit of dosh.
Why is ANY of this a surprise? Companies that have a great product, a great service, that lose focus on what their foundation is in favor of making money, will always do this, at least every instance I've seen. Even smaller companies. I'll use a local example; Here in the Boston area there is (or I should say "was") a great ice cream store named more or less for the neighborhood it was founded in. The ice cream was, to put it mildly, pure heaven. Even in the dead of winter people flocked to their locations, what they had was just that good. Over the years the quality has gone down considerably in direct proportion to how much the founder began making. Once he got some investment money from other parties, the bottom line became a bigger issue. Employees who had been with him from the first day he'd opened were fired because they looked "different" (it was a haven for artistic, counter culture people back in the 80s and to the mid 90s) and didn't fit in with his new "professional" look. The product they made became just sort of average. Walk into any chain ice cream store, and you'll get the same product. However their profits skyrocketed and they continue to do business not due to the ice cream, but the name.
Google has become no different. They own the market, and they know it. Rather than focus on doing what they do best, and NOT doing it in an evil way, they what... Release a browser, a (rather sad) OS, they see Facebook take off and using a page from Microsoft's playbook say "Why didn't WE think of that?" and come out with their own, much to the delight of dozens. Now Google is stooping to the same bush league dirty pool that other companies do.
Is anyone really surprised?
The movie about the particle collider this particle's discovery.
/me ducks
"Chi-b Chi-b, BANG BANG"
I hadn't upgraded for some time and (foolishly?) decided it was time. Unity was... Well, a disappointment. Not too long ago a friend who lives and breaths netbooks was having a strong dislike to Win7, and I suggested he try Ubuntu. It was faster than Win7, he was able to get drivers for everything, and he liked the desktop. I agreed with him entirely. However on a big screen or multi screen... Not so much.
Then I read some quotes by Mark Shuttleworth. For a minute I thought I was reading something by Bill Gates or the late Lord Steve Jobs: 'There is going to be a crowd that is just too cool to use something that looks really slick and there is nothing we can do for them'. My dear sir, it's not a matter of "cool", it's a matter of your desktop environment is crap. Now, I'm no power user. In fact, I'm more the "Walt the Janitor" of the computing world (or perhaps the Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor...) and really just use the best option for what I want to do, and in an ideal world how I want to do it. I don't use a flat screwdriver on a Phillips-head screw due to its looks, and I'm not exactly "too cool" to use something that looks "really slick". I like shiny, I like bells and whistles, and I like machines that go "PING". That said, Unity is complete shit IMO. I won't go into details on why I don't like it, and I'm sure of course that there are those here who would disagree with me on the reasons, but I just flat out have not found it an "enjoyable" desktop experience. As well, the statement by Shuttleworth: "I think the report actually meant that the launcher should be movable to other edges of the screen. I'm afraid that won't work with our broader design goals, so we won't implement that. We want the launcher always close to the Ubuntu button."
That quote right there was the nail in the coffin with me for using Unity. Yes, I know it's petty, yes I know that my reason is somewhat trite, but it just bothers me when someone says "This is how you should use your computer, and how it should look. No, you can't change that." I really did give Unity about 2 weeks of use, and got to the point where I was very comfortable using it, but it wasn't enjoyed comfort, it wasn't "ah, this is my desktop".
Credit where it is due, while I had some issues with performance, I was able to get around that (changing drivers for video card), as always with Ubuntu right from the get go I had zero problems with other devices, printers, etc. But now I'm using KDE.
When I tested it out, it did much better than my Android, with no "training". Try Android voice with a Boston accent. I tell it to call my favorite bar and it calls a sheep.....
One of the people who worked on Watson, the computer mind put to the test on Jeopardy, is my former brother in law. When BrotherInLaw -1 began on computer AI there was, at the time, no one more advanced than he to challenge his thesis. The stuff we're seeing now in Siri is very much like what Watson did and projects BIL -1 has been working on for over 10 years, only put to "commercial / consumer" use; something inevitable. I doubt anyone involved with the first missions to the moon were all up in arms saying "What? Velcro? *ththt* That's been out for ages." Remember, to much of the media and your average user, this IS bleeding edge!
This is what happens with technology. It gets invented, it gets used in science and technology circles for a while then, if it's got commercial appeal, it ends up in the hands of Joe 6GB.To those lambasting Apple, while I assure you is something I enjoy, is sort of shooting fish in a barrel.
All that said, I use Android for one very simple reason: Apple's Ap Store policy makes me rage. Their puritanical requirements on nudity, "obscenity", etc as well as their tight fisted control over interface is preposterous and reprehensible. When I'd heard they forced a German news agency change their iPhone ap due to a few boobies was when I decided I would never, ever own one. Many of my users have them, they're bought by my employer, I've been offered a new iPhone each year, but for the last two years I've very much enjoyed my Android. The voice command blows, no argument. The screen pivot is comical. But all the aps I have, I enjoy. I can play around with whatever aps I want and not brick the device. To me, that's a fair cop; One programs functionality (Siri) does not out weigh freedom to do as I wish with my devices.
Sup dawg, I herd you like Android, so I put an Android in your Android so you can Android while you Android.
OK, now I feel dirty.
As noted, do they ship refurbs? Ages ago while working for a computer retailer, we once had a Mac that someone took home which had been "re-imaged" by our service department... And when the customer got it home, it booted into BeOS. Not that I would have turned my nose up to it back then, it was a 9600 with "tons" of RAM (512, remember those days? If you had 256 people would come from far and wide just to touch your screen).
I just remove the tops then take the hammer to them. Brilliantly cathartic, let me tell you.
I've read the book by her handler, Roger Fouts, about Washoe and the other chimps he worked with.
Much as I am a proponent of medical research going forward, I can't help but feel strongly that testing on chimps/great apes is one of the biggest mistakes we could possibly make.
Really the best remedy would be homeopathy. What better way to treat an imagined allergy than an imagined cure?
On a lark, I created a username and accounts on both Yahoo and Google, then using a name something along the lines of "Honeypot", created an account on Facebook using one of the email addresses (Y! I believe). I then added a bunch of contacts in the address book of both Yahoo and Gmail, different people in each address book. In short order, I began seeing ads within Facebook while logged into the honeypot address suggesting I friend people from the address books of the account NOT tied to the Facebook account. Can't recall which email service I'd done this with first, but I am pretty sure that a Yahoo account was associated with Facebook. In other words, I would log in to Yahoo, then to Facebook, then to Gmail. Yahoo was associated with the Facebook account. After a few days, I began to see names of people whose names were in the GMail account (and I knew were email addresses associated with real Facebook accounts) suggested as friends in Facebook.
I then repeated the same; creating a new address in Gmail then a Facebook account. Few days later of going back and forth, I started seeing names in the second Gmail account popping up when I logged into the new Facebook account.
Certainly none of this is a shock to anyone, but I don't get why Google feels the need to come up with G+ and compete with Facebook. Stick to fscking search, stick to what you're best at. I don't understand this Microsoft mentality of "Oh, we didn't have this first and make money with it? Lets do one of our own! And fire the people in charge of marketing and precognition. They should have known social networking would become such a huge hit."
I don't know if I would entirely agree with this. As someone who services both Macs and PCs, across the board I would put the percentage of ignorance as roughly the same. Consider how many PC users willingly click on the popups that say "Your computer is at risk! Click here to clean" or "Your computer has detected spyware. Click to clean". As well, consider how many PC users visit video sites which claim that in order to view this video of Lindsey Lohan and a great dane getting freaky, you need this "special" video plugin. On both sides of the home computing world, there is at least as many gullible people on Windows as on Mac, it's just that Fruit Heads seem to have this foolish idea that they're somehow immune. As noted by many, the Safari exploit alone is an issue, but there are decidedly more.
Frankly what goes up my nose sideways is this statement: "One of those features is the introduction of the Mac App Store, an Apple-controlled storefront for selling and distributing applications"
So allowing Apple to have final say on what I do and don't get to install on my computer is somehow better? This is precisely what will make me jump ship again; I've used them since the mid 80s, jumped ship with system 7.5 ("Error type 11 has just occurred, please kiss your ass goodbye") then came back at around system 10.2, and while I really enjoyed the OS, this idea that somehow putting all my "trust" in Apple's hands, that somehow Mr. Jobs and crew must know what's best for me, that boggles my mind. Again, as noted by others perhaps not in this thread, Apple has become the Big Brother their ads once suggested they broke away from. If, now don't get me wrong I do mean "if", Apple decides that they want to make the app store the singular method to install apps as it is on the iPad and iPod, that'll be the end of it for me. Which is a pity, because it is a rather nice desktop OS.
The worst IT job I ever had was with Jayne Mansfield. You know, she was a fantastic bird, you know ..... big tits, huge bum, and everything like that, but I had the terrible job of retrieving routers from her bum. Bloody hell, that was a task. Well, it was quite a task 'cause she had a big bum ... But I had to, used to go round, you know, of an evening ... when Jayne was sleeping or sort of comatose, like, you know, you know, just lying there, and, er, I had to retrieve these routers from her arsehole.
(and if any of you get that ref, you're a very sick person)
Oh come on. It's not like he created something that *clicks the link* JEEESUS CHRIST!
Well they could tell you, but then they'd have to kill you.
They're tempted to have a big nose and be immensely popular with homosexuals?
/me ducks
Ah, a zealot I see.
... yes, reading back I talked about the MBP. KTHX.
First, I have a MBP right here in my lap, less than one year old. If I have the screen at a reasonable brightness for the time of day, am using the intertubes (as I am quite clearly right now), I get perhaps, maybe 2-3 hours at best. And, by the way, MBA and MBP are two decidedly different devices, and
As noted, I am one of those people who remembers when Apple had, you know, good service. I called Apple because in the past I had called about an iTunes issue and received good service.
"Even if that did really happen".... Pardon, but are you suggesting I'm fabricating? Let me guess, you have a poster of Steve on your wall that you kiss nightly before bed. Apple's "customer service" is in the toilet. Let me put it to you this way: I call Dell, not the greatest of manufacturers, mind you, at 9am on a Monday telling them that a drive has failed on one of my servers, or a keyboard on a laptop, or the power supply on a workstation. By 3pm at the latest, I have a replacement in my hand. My last XServe, when a drive failed in the array I was told I would have to get it serviced by an "authorized technician", and that the drive would have to go back to Apple or I'd pay top dollar for the replacement. I work for a law enforcement agency, giving back the hard drive intact is not an option, even if the drive has failed. That was, of course, the last XServe in our building.
Look, don't get me wrong. I absolutely have loved the Mac OS since 10.2. Time Machine is a thing of beauty. In that time I've had three MBP as my primary workstation and have had several users on them as well due in large part to the security, ease of use and greatly reduced support I've had to provide to those users. That said, when I've had to get parts replaced, it's been comical. 1-2 weeks to wait for a part, a simple part that a lobotomized baboon could replace blindfolded? Come on. That's not service. The only people who give high ranks to Apple customer service are those who are blinded by the rainbow.
Google, Apple, Microsoft. They do all seem interchangeable these days.
/support/itunes, I'm there already and ..." he interrupts me and tells me to click here, click there, and directs me to a web submission form. Then, he proceeds to tell me to put my first name into the field for the first name, my last name into the field that says last name, and then explain to me how to fill in all the fields and then "See the big button that looks like an envelope? Click that to send the message." All the while, his tone is that of one trying to explain to your dottering old intoxicated uncle that in fact you really shouldn't put your Metamucil in your trousers. I was stunned to silence. 20+ years of customer service work, both as manager and agent, and I'd NEVER talked to someone that way. While managing customer service, and even helpdesk, if I'd heard one of my employees speaking to even the most vapid of customers that way, I'd have sacked 'em. I was fucking livid. I thanked him, told him this was the LAST Apple product we'd have in my office, and essentially that he'd provided the worst customer service experience I've ever had to deal with, and I'd dealt regularly with Intuit and Adobe so that's saying something.
I've been using Apple computers since I first got my grubby, sticky little fingers on an Apple ][ yonks ago. It's been a love / hate relationship, and until somewhat recently the "hate" times were more due to issues I had with the computers and OS themselves more than the company. Think IIfx, nubus, Appletalk and "The Error Of Type 11 Has Just Occurred, Please Kiss All Your Stuff Goodbye". During the hate times, I would go to Windows, then back to Mac, then to WinNT, then on to Linux (so I suppose I should in some ways thank Microsoft). I came BACK to Apple / Mac with Mac OS 10.2, and found I really enjoyed it, so I've stayed with it most of the time until recently with two big issues:
- Apple deciding to make the new MacBook Pro so that you need to be Apple Certified in order to change the damned battery. That's just evil and stupid IMO. I can take one of the things apart in my sleep and put it back together before I'd had my coffee, but I need to get certification just to replace the BATTERY? Or hard drive? I can't even ORDER the battery to keep on hand?! "Oh but the battery lasts for 7 hours!" Horse pats. It lasts for perhaps 2, at best, when brand new, and you'll only see anything even remotely resembling 7 hours if you are ONLY working on a text document and have disabled AirPort and half the other features of the computer. Apple simply wants control, as usual, of all aspects of its computers and wants you to shell out the dosh needed to work on them.
- I had a simple issue with one of my users and his iTunes accounts. After going through what I thought was all of Apple's knowledge base on iTunes, I called with my question and got a person relatively quickly. I explained what I was trying to do, and then that I'd already been through the tech articles. The Apple service rep asks me to go to their support site, to which I tell him I'm already there. He ignores what I'm saying and starts to read off the URL. I say "Yeah yeah,
Yes yes, TL;DR The upshot is I'm sick of them. Rude, contemptuous of their own customers to a staggering degree now. Used to be I could call Apple with an issue and my Mac had free tech support for as long as the machine ran. Getting service for hardware, while slow and you certainly had to have an Apple certified person work on it, things were done at quicker than a glacial pace and something as simple as a laptop battery replacement were things you could do yourself. Add to that what I've seen when getting my hands on the next gen of the OS, and no thank you. Back to Linux desktop for myself, and Windows for all my users.
Considering the love-fest for Google around these parts, but they've been effectively dodging taxes for a few years. Why would it be a shock if politicians, celebrities and sundry millionaires / billionaires do the same?
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_44/b4201043146825.htm
While I am all for businesses making a profit, I am NOT all for a multi-billion dollar company paying effectively 2.4% while I continue to pay nearly 30% of my income. The argument "Well, that gets turned into research and good pay for employees" still doesn't float IMO, when you have the higher executives of Google being paid millions. Reduce the salaries of those PHBs down to something reasonable, pay the rank and file programmers and researchers that money, and pay taxes like everyone else.
...This is one of the more accurate uses of the age old expression "My head a'splode".