This post is exactly right!!! Unfortunately, Americans, like Canadians (my ilk) are dense and stupid and will never do anything rational or sensible, and so their antiquated measurement system will endure.
I concur with your list of complaints about pens, and have personally settled on using the Uni Ball Vision Elite (fine), which comes in variuos size nibs, as my all purpose pen. That said, in the days before convenient personal computing (I abandoned my paper log book in 1995) I addressed the issues you raise in two ways: 1. Using different pens in different situations; and, 2. Selecting the right paper on which to write.
In many ways, pens and paper are like wines and food: the are good and bad pairings. The right paper with the right pen makes all the differnce. My favourite pen and paper pairing were a technical pen with vellum. Another favourite was an early liquid ink roller ball (not sure what brand) wtih dark blue ink on yellow coated paper.
Internet 101: anything you post will eventually become public; if you you want to keep it a secret, don't post it in the first place. The fact that these two individuals thought that they could mantain two different public personas and keep one of them a secret is simply a testement to their ignorance.
Saying that MS ran out of time is like saying that the iPad's missing enterprise features are because Apple ran out of time. The iPad's adoption is about user experience, not making CIO's lives happier.
They didn't need to work hard to find the optimal balance for incandescents, because it's inherent in their design - they're black body radiators, same as candle flame or sun, so they've got that nicely distributed spectrum that feels more "natural" to our eyes.
Their inherent behaviour is not an optimal color balance; rather, it's the color balance that people have become accustomed to seeing. For those of us with lots of big windows in our homes, the color of incandescent light clashes with the daylight streaming in the windows.
Too lazy to look at your links, but unless things have changed very recently the spectrum output from LEDs still have the peaks associated with non-incandescent lighting. This will make colors look funky at a minimum.
Incandescent bulbs make colors look funky too... we're just accustomed to it.
...silly and ignorant ideas in the article about the color of various light technologies...
Fluorescent lights and LED lights can be manufactured in any color desired; it's simply a matter of choosing the correct phosphors. The fact that lamp manufacturers don't bother to manufacture lamps in a particular color(s) has nothing to do with ESL being any better or worse than other technologies.
Mr. Moon (Jove, 1979.) by Philip Knobel -- After a devastating earthquake hits the west coast, an unprepossessing man announces that he is an emissary from the stars, and he might be telling the truth.
This will be the least popular (in/. terms) answer to your question; but, it's actually the best one for your business as it avoids adding DRM (or a dongle) to your software but gives you a lever to enforce compliance.
Step 1: Join the BSA.
Step 2: When you detect illegal use of your software, report those firms to the BSA so that the BSA can perform an audit.
I would recommend that you ignore individual users who wouldn't normally be your customers; as, the BSA isn't going to audit them and for those users you are probably not financially out of pocket. That said, if you find that there are lots of individual rogue users, maybe that is indicating demand for a "lite" version of your application that costs 1/10th the full version and is accessible to non-commercial individuals.
I agree that most employees don't create content in Office; however, the 10% that do create content are the 10% of employees who's productivity and performance are what makes a company successful. So, while 90% of a company's employees can make do with something less than a real PC, the company would quickly fail if PC's and real MS Office were cast to the wayside.
Your solution to man-up the iPad and turn it back into a laptop is no solution to the problem. A better solution is to buy a real Tablet PC (not a girly man "tablet" like the iPad) and have the best of both worlds without carrying two devices.
And what is the point of putting her gender in the headline? Are women generally less capable than men and so it's a miracle that she made it to project leader? I don't believe that is the case; so, why emphasise her gender? This is a non-story and shouldn't have made it to the front page of/.
This is business as usual in the "real world", my diesel mechanic cousin owns all his tools...
The caveat is that those professions are able to deduct the cost of tools as business expenses (for tax purposes). IT tools need to be deductable if we're going to fully embrace a BYOT model.
Unless the employer provides ongoing cash payments to compensate the employee for use of thier device, this is a way of offloading IT cost onto the shoulders of employees. Add to that the fact that here in Canada, an employee of a company is not allowed to treat the cost fo a computer as a business expense (for tax purpoes), and the reduction in salary experienced by the employee is even greater than the benefit received by the employer.
I can tell you that I can't think of a single IT support org that uses this as a metric
Some years ago, I had a help desk in my organisation that did use this metric as part of how its analysts kept tabs on their performance. It was one metric in an overall package, and the whole team (all the analysts) reviewed the package every week. As I recall, other metrics in the package included Customer Satisfaction, Average Call Length, Number of Calls Back to Users per Agent, Incidents Resovled on First Contact, Incidents Escalated to Second Level, and others.
The help desk team very successfully used the overall metrics package as part analyst self motivation and peer motivation (as well as management oversight). Bob Lewis's piece is provocative journalism: devoid of concrete detail and full of high level innuendo. It doesn't contain sufficent detail (say, by way of actual detailed examples) to allow a typical reader to apply the thoughts he has expressed.
Since when is Apple an authority on the English language? Apple's use of the two spellings is neither authoritative nor applicable to non-Apple contexts.
The hotel plans to provide this service for free, so there is no need for any type of billing management system
Business conditions can and will change, and at some point in the future management will decide to charge at least some of their guests for Internet access. My point is simply: be flexible. Don't go with a system that prevents charging at a later date. Your best strategy might be to go with a solution that handles payment, and then set the price to zero (i.e., free). Then, at a later date management can set a different price.
Most people are not aware of too many things,..., and aren't remotely interested in learning anything outside of their world view.
Steve Jobs came to this realisation many years ago and the Mac and its spawn are the highly successful result. 99% of computer users want to use a computing appliance (i.e., something like an iPad where even the applications are controlled). They have no inclination or interest in making efficient use of the device.
Take this thinking into another realm: automobile driving. Almost everyone on the road is an incompetent driver. They don't know the basic rules of the road, don't understand how their driving impacts those around them, and—frankly—they don't give a damn. They also don't have the first clue how their car works; nor, do they care.
While an appliance, like an automobile, should be usable without knowing how it functions, the reality is that a basic understanding of how something works often enables much more efficient (and more enjoyable) use of the appliance. By way of an example:
In an luxury car, the heating/cooling system is controlled by setting a desired temperature; the car then does the right thing.
On a cold winter day, when most drivers of these cars start their vehicle, they immediately turn up the temperature control to its highest setting in the belief that this will cause the interior of the car to more quickly warm up.
Their actions accomplish nothing, and if they had even a basic understanding that the motor must warm up before the heating system will be able to blow warm air, they might use the system in a rational manner.
Microsoft, in attempting to emulate Apple, has begun to make similar design decisions—probably, without understanding the “why” of the design approach. MS Office 2007 introduced the ribbon and a cursor pop-up menu; both of which override keyboard shortcuts. Most tasks now take 2 or 3 times as many mouse clicks or keystrokes to perform. For anyone attempting to make efficient use of MS Office, this is highly frustrating; but, most users don’t even notice the loss of productivity because they were never productive in the first place.
Most users are dumb as nails and like that state of being. Application and computing appliance designers need to realise this and design to it. That said, there is no reason that us geeks can’t also include efficient UI interaction mechanisms alongside mechanisms for the masses.
The conservatives, led by a radical right winger...
You have obviously never visited the USA or watched news coverage about the USA. If you had, you would realise that measured in USA terms, the Canadian Conservatives are a centrist party.
Your post is 100% correct; but, that won't change the fact that our inept politicians will go ahead and enact online voting (and other forms of equally insecure electronic balloting). What's missing from your post is the fact that most voters don't have the intellectual muster to understand the risks, and those that do don't believe anyone would subvert the electoral process---after all, "We live in Canada."
Individuals are smart; crowds are stupid. We will suffer the fate of crowds and cut our noses off in spite of ourselves.
The premise behind the banning of early results is that voters who see the early results BEFORE they vote may be influenced by those early results. To say this anoher way, banning early publication is an attempt to place all voters on the same level playing field as they vote: that is, everyone uses the same information from which to decide who to vote for.
Slashdot Mirror
This post is exactly right!!! Unfortunately, Americans, like Canadians (my ilk) are dense and stupid and will never do anything rational or sensible, and so their antiquated measurement system will endure.
Just treat everyone fairly, how hard is that?
. . . but you have to treat some more fairly than others . . .
Exactly... "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".
Pens and paper are a lot like food and wine: there are good and bad pairings. A well made technical pen paired with vellum is a fabulous pairing.
I concur with your list of complaints about pens, and have personally settled on using the Uni Ball Vision Elite (fine), which comes in variuos size nibs, as my all purpose pen. That said, in the days before convenient personal computing (I abandoned my paper log book in 1995) I addressed the issues you raise in two ways: 1. Using different pens in different situations; and, 2. Selecting the right paper on which to write.
In many ways, pens and paper are like wines and food: the are good and bad pairings. The right paper with the right pen makes all the differnce. My favourite pen and paper pairing were a technical pen with vellum. Another favourite was an early liquid ink roller ball (not sure what brand) wtih dark blue ink on yellow coated paper.
Internet 101: anything you post will eventually become public; if you you want to keep it a secret, don't post it in the first place. The fact that these two individuals thought that they could mantain two different public personas and keep one of them a secret is simply a testement to their ignorance.
Despite this being the 21st century, I still begin by plugging in the TV (to mains power) and turning the set on.
Saying that MS ran out of time is like saying that the iPad's missing enterprise features are because Apple ran out of time. The iPad's adoption is about user experience, not making CIO's lives happier.
They didn't need to work hard to find the optimal balance for incandescents, because it's inherent in their design - they're black body radiators, same as candle flame or sun, so they've got that nicely distributed spectrum that feels more "natural" to our eyes.
Their inherent behaviour is not an optimal color balance; rather, it's the color balance that people have become accustomed to seeing. For those of us with lots of big windows in our homes, the color of incandescent light clashes with the daylight streaming in the windows.
Too lazy to look at your links, but unless things have changed very recently the spectrum output from LEDs still have the peaks associated with non-incandescent lighting. This will make colors look funky at a minimum.
Incandescent bulbs make colors look funky too... we're just accustomed to it.
...silly and ignorant ideas in the article about the color of various light technologies...
Fluorescent lights and LED lights can be manufactured in any color desired; it's simply a matter of choosing the correct phosphors. The fact that lamp manufacturers don't bother to manufacture lamps in a particular color(s) has nothing to do with ESL being any better or worse than other technologies.
Mr. Moon (Jove, 1979.) by Philip Knobel -- After a devastating earthquake hits the west coast, an unprepossessing man announces that he is an emissary from the stars, and he might be telling the truth.
This will be the least popular (in /. terms) answer to your question; but, it's actually the best one for your business as it avoids adding DRM (or a dongle) to your software but gives you a lever to enforce compliance.
Step 1: Join the BSA.
Step 2: When you detect illegal use of your software, report those firms to the BSA so that the BSA can perform an audit.
I would recommend that you ignore individual users who wouldn't normally be your customers; as, the BSA isn't going to audit them and for those users you are probably not financially out of pocket. That said, if you find that there are lots of individual rogue users, maybe that is indicating demand for a "lite" version of your application that costs 1/10th the full version and is accessible to non-commercial individuals.
I agree that most employees don't create content in Office; however, the 10% that do create content are the 10% of employees who's productivity and performance are what makes a company successful. So, while 90% of a company's employees can make do with something less than a real PC, the company would quickly fail if PC's and real MS Office were cast to the wayside.
Your solution to man-up the iPad and turn it back into a laptop is no solution to the problem. A better solution is to buy a real Tablet PC (not a girly man "tablet" like the iPad) and have the best of both worlds without carrying two devices.
And what is the point of putting her gender in the headline? Are women generally less capable than men and so it's a miracle that she made it to project leader? I don't believe that is the case; so, why emphasise her gender? This is a non-story and shouldn't have made it to the front page of /.
"You can get anythng you want, at Alice's restaurant." See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice's_Restaurant
This is business as usual in the "real world", my diesel mechanic cousin owns all his tools...
The caveat is that those professions are able to deduct the cost of tools as business expenses (for tax purposes). IT tools need to be deductable if we're going to fully embrace a BYOT model.
Unless the employer provides ongoing cash payments to compensate the employee for use of thier device, this is a way of offloading IT cost onto the shoulders of employees. Add to that the fact that here in Canada, an employee of a company is not allowed to treat the cost fo a computer as a business expense (for tax purpoes), and the reduction in salary experienced by the employee is even greater than the benefit received by the employer.
I can tell you that I can't think of a single IT support org that uses this as a metric
Some years ago, I had a help desk in my organisation that did use this metric as part of how its analysts kept tabs on their performance. It was one metric in an overall package, and the whole team (all the analysts) reviewed the package every week. As I recall, other metrics in the package included Customer Satisfaction, Average Call Length, Number of Calls Back to Users per Agent, Incidents Resovled on First Contact, Incidents Escalated to Second Level, and others.
The help desk team very successfully used the overall metrics package as part analyst self motivation and peer motivation (as well as management oversight). Bob Lewis's piece is provocative journalism: devoid of concrete detail and full of high level innuendo. It doesn't contain sufficent detail (say, by way of actual detailed examples) to allow a typical reader to apply the thoughts he has expressed.
Since when is Apple an authority on the English language? Apple's use of the two spellings is neither authoritative nor applicable to non-Apple contexts.
The hotel plans to provide this service for free, so there is no need for any type of billing management system
Business conditions can and will change, and at some point in the future management will decide to charge at least some of their guests for Internet access. My point is simply: be flexible. Don't go with a system that prevents charging at a later date. Your best strategy might be to go with a solution that handles payment, and then set the price to zero (i.e., free). Then, at a later date management can set a different price.
Most people are not aware of too many things, ..., and aren't remotely interested in learning anything outside of their world view.
Steve Jobs came to this realisation many years ago and the Mac and its spawn are the highly successful result. 99% of computer users want to use a computing appliance (i.e., something like an iPad where even the applications are controlled). They have no inclination or interest in making efficient use of the device.
Take this thinking into another realm: automobile driving. Almost everyone on the road is an incompetent driver. They don't know the basic rules of the road, don't understand how their driving impacts those around them, and—frankly—they don't give a damn. They also don't have the first clue how their car works; nor, do they care.
While an appliance, like an automobile, should be usable without knowing how it functions, the reality is that a basic understanding of how something works often enables much more efficient (and more enjoyable) use of the appliance. By way of an example:
Microsoft, in attempting to emulate Apple, has begun to make similar design decisions—probably, without understanding the “why” of the design approach. MS Office 2007 introduced the ribbon and a cursor pop-up menu; both of which override keyboard shortcuts. Most tasks now take 2 or 3 times as many mouse clicks or keystrokes to perform. For anyone attempting to make efficient use of MS Office, this is highly frustrating; but, most users don’t even notice the loss of productivity because they were never productive in the first place.
Most users are dumb as nails and like that state of being. Application and computing appliance designers need to realise this and design to it. That said, there is no reason that us geeks can’t also include efficient UI interaction mechanisms alongside mechanisms for the masses.
The conservatives, led by a radical right winger...
You have obviously never visited the USA or watched news coverage about the USA. If you had, you would realise that measured in USA terms, the Canadian Conservatives are a centrist party.
Note: I am Canadian and live in Canada.
Your post is 100% correct; but, that won't change the fact that our inept politicians will go ahead and enact online voting (and other forms of equally insecure electronic balloting). What's missing from your post is the fact that most voters don't have the intellectual muster to understand the risks, and those that do don't believe anyone would subvert the electoral process---after all, "We live in Canada."
Individuals are smart; crowds are stupid. We will suffer the fate of crowds and cut our noses off in spite of ourselves.
The premise behind the banning of early results is that voters who see the early results BEFORE they vote may be influenced by those early results. To say this anoher way, banning early publication is an attempt to place all voters on the same level playing field as they vote: that is, everyone uses the same information from which to decide who to vote for.