Well, if the company provided contact information for the decision makers, then I would bet good money that people would be contacting those people. If all the company gives consumers access to are phone jockeys, then the phone jockeys will get the brunt of it. But, that's also effective. Turnover at call centers, tying up phone center workers all hit their bottom line, and of course their day-to-day operations. The decision makers notice, and that's the whole point.
Please don't forget the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis that the US has slaughtered for no particular reason. They're not any less human than Americans.
Amazon has a right to sell that filth if they so choose. I also have the right not to shop there, and to tell everybody I know that they condone this sick shit. I still don't see what this has to do with free speech.
You could say the same thing about any object on the planet. ANYTHING could be a bomb. Trash cans, cars, streetlights, fire hydrants, hell, even a potted plant. You can run around being afraid that everything you see is a bomb. Fine. I think that most rational people understand that it's impossible to live when you're worried that every object that you don't know hat it is is a bomb. It's called common sense.
If enough people love it, they'll donate. If they can't get enough donations to keep it up and running, then it's either badly managed, or people just don't care enough about it. I only use Wikipedia as a quickie lookup for minor, unimportant things, so I don't donate, and if they blinked out of existence, I wouldn't mind that much. Maybe there are lots of people like me who see it as a mildly interesting curiosity, but certainly not important enough to fork over hard-earned money to keep it running.
You mean, Microsoft pays close attention to their competition?!?! What will they think of next? I bet they're going to sell their software in a CD format... JUST LIKE THE COMPETITION! Those evil, evil, evil M$ people.;)
You have to realize that security is also a problem. Somebody with some resources will have to make a real attempt to reach the seed bank. If it was say, in the middle of Europe, then it could potentially be plundered by anybody.
Try again. Remember, the object of the game is to find the same configuration for less money.
Not at all. I could care less what the specs are. I don't need bragging rights. I need to be able to USE my machines. I can DO much more with a $600 PC than I could ever do with a $600 Mac. $600 is a high end PC. $600 is a low-end Mac (that you can't upgrade).
Comparing all the ing equal, then the price is about the same.
Not in the least. I can buy a $200 PC and do anything I want with it. (How about using a 500 MB Quickbooks file all day?). A $200 Mac is pretty much a doorstop.
$200 got us business-grade workstations with a warranty that are our HIGH end machines. No need to shoe horn new software onto it. That's different than a used low-end Mac that may or may not run current software. Mac hardware, for what it can do, is many times more expensive than generic PC hardware.
C) Most office workers could do there work on an iMac. which is in the same range as most corporate bought PCs
Any computer made in the past 20 years can do documents. That's not a big deal.
No good accounting software. No good point-of-sale software. That's a big deal.
d) They will save money on maintainance.
What maintenance? Windows Update is automatic.
e) Since you are a business owner(and good for you!), I hope you are taking maintenance, viruses, EULA, and DRM into your TCO.
There's no maintenance. Viruses aren't a problem with basic virus software and employees that aren't brain-dead. EULA's are ignored. DRM isn't applicable to work.
In fact, I just threw out a Pentium 1 last week that I replaced with one of these refurbs. It worked just fine as our main machine (accounting, point of sale, shipping, email, and documents), but was slow. I couldn't get anywhere near that kind of longevity with a Mac because the software/hardware requirements for the OS and the apps changes so frequently.
For people who don't play computer games it shouldn't be a big deal to switch.
Don't forget those of us who run businesses (and yes, Slashdotters, there are businesses out there other than Best Buy and McDonald's). Apple/Linux aren't really options for businesses until you're a Fortune 500 company and can afford teams of programmers.
But, of course, the least expensive PC is invariably a cheap piece of crap one step up from a calculator.
I run my business on $200 PC's that I buy off-lease as refurbs (right now, $200 gets you P4 2.x Ghz, 512 RAM, 40 Gig HD, 1 Gb ethernet). The cheapest PC you can buy today will do everything that most people need, and much more. Anyone care to point me in the direction where I can get a refurbished Mac for $200 that will run all modern applications quickly?
From my and my families' and friends' experiences, I'd say that iTunes still isn't ready for XP. Buggy, crash-prone, and a memory hog, it was the primary reason I dumped my iPod for a Sansa (I sync now with Explorer or Winamp). Yuck.
I'm actually glad that Russian schools aren't going to buy MS products. I hope they don't still use them. Why? The #1 place that all of those nasty works, viruses, scams, etc. come out of is Russia. They have a culture of "Take whatever you can, however you can". I would be thrilled to see some of these Russian hacker kids beating away on Linux over the next few years. Let's spread around some of the pain.
I don't need 20,001 programs that do the same thing. I need one decent accounting package (there are none that run on Linux). I would love to use it, but your reality and my reality are apparently very different things.
I doubt that. Realize that most people in this country are already paying to watch advertisements. TIVO users are paying even more NOT to watch the ads. This is yet another fee on top of those two. Regular people are already paying through the nose to watch garbage. I just go to my local video store and rent DVD's at $3/pop.
So, the people who would use this, already pay to watch bad TV and advertisements (cable TV), they pay for a Tivo to cut out the advertisements they pay for every month with their cable bill, and now they're going to pay to download content? I don't understand some people. But you know what "they" say about a fool and his money...
Does Unreal force you to use the level of detail that's currently found on the Xbox 360 and PS3?
Releasing a sub-par version for the Wii would give them a bad reputation among consumers seeing their products on the Wii. Consumers don't know or care whether the limitations are due to the hardware or the software. All they would know is "Unreal sucks" if they saw it on the Wii. It would be a bad business decision to do that.
I certainly don't think that the teacher should be sent to a gulag. I think it's pretty extreme. I don't even think it warrants any jail time. I was just pointing out that Bill Gates has nothing to do with this case, personally, nor could he, nor should he be involved with it.
This whole thing is ridiculous. It's like calling Jack Welch if you're arrested for stealing a TV.
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Well, if the company provided contact information for the decision makers, then I would bet good money that people would be contacting those people. If all the company gives consumers access to are phone jockeys, then the phone jockeys will get the brunt of it. But, that's also effective. Turnover at call centers, tying up phone center workers all hit their bottom line, and of course their day-to-day operations. The decision makers notice, and that's the whole point.
Please don't forget the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis that the US has slaughtered for no particular reason. They're not any less human than Americans.
This isn't PETA. This is the Humane Society. Big difference.
Amazon has a right to sell that filth if they so choose. I also have the right not to shop there, and to tell everybody I know that they condone this sick shit. I still don't see what this has to do with free speech.
You could say the same thing about any object on the planet. ANYTHING could be a bomb. Trash cans, cars, streetlights, fire hydrants, hell, even a potted plant. You can run around being afraid that everything you see is a bomb. Fine. I think that most rational people understand that it's impossible to live when you're worried that every object that you don't know hat it is is a bomb. It's called common sense.
If enough people love it, they'll donate. If they can't get enough donations to keep it up and running, then it's either badly managed, or people just don't care enough about it. I only use Wikipedia as a quickie lookup for minor, unimportant things, so I don't donate, and if they blinked out of existence, I wouldn't mind that much. Maybe there are lots of people like me who see it as a mildly interesting curiosity, but certainly not important enough to fork over hard-earned money to keep it running.
You mean, Microsoft pays close attention to their competition?!?! What will they think of next? I bet they're going to sell their software in a CD format... JUST LIKE THE COMPETITION! Those evil, evil, evil M$ people. ;)
They need OS X 10.5's features to be announced first.
I just hope they don't copy OSX's "overpriced hardware lock-in feature" or OSX's "random instability feature".
Yeah, and I'll believe that Linux works when it installs itself on my computers for me, and runs my business.
Obviously, that's a straw man.
You have to realize that security is also a problem. Somebody with some resources will have to make a real attempt to reach the seed bank. If it was say, in the middle of Europe, then it could potentially be plundered by anybody.
My $200 machine right now: Explorer, Thunderbird (4 mailboxes), UPS World Ship, Point of Sale software, Financial software, Firefox. And it's snappy.
Try again. Remember, the object of the game is to find the same configuration for less money.
Not at all. I could care less what the specs are. I don't need bragging rights. I need to be able to USE my machines. I can DO much more with a $600 PC than I could ever do with a $600 Mac. $600 is a high end PC. $600 is a low-end Mac (that you can't upgrade).
Comparing all the ing equal, then the price is about the same.
Not in the least. I can buy a $200 PC and do anything I want with it. (How about using a 500 MB Quickbooks file all day?). A $200 Mac is pretty much a doorstop.
$200 got us business-grade workstations with a warranty that are our HIGH end machines. No need to shoe horn new software onto it. That's different than a used low-end Mac that may or may not run current software. Mac hardware, for what it can do, is many times more expensive than generic PC hardware.
A) Linky
ubid.com. Tons and tons and tons of them.
B) No big business uses refirbs.
I don't own a big business.
C) Most office workers could do there work on an iMac. which is in the same range as most corporate bought PCs
Any computer made in the past 20 years can do documents. That's not a big deal.
No good accounting software. No good point-of-sale software. That's a big deal.
d) They will save money on maintainance.
What maintenance? Windows Update is automatic.
e) Since you are a business owner(and good for you!), I hope you are taking maintenance, viruses, EULA, and DRM into your TCO.
There's no maintenance. Viruses aren't a problem with basic virus software and employees that aren't brain-dead. EULA's are ignored. DRM isn't applicable to work.
In fact, I just threw out a Pentium 1 last week that I replaced with one of these refurbs. It worked just fine as our main machine (accounting, point of sale, shipping, email, and documents), but was slow. I couldn't get anywhere near that kind of longevity with a Mac because the software/hardware requirements for the OS and the apps changes so frequently.
For people who don't play computer games it shouldn't be a big deal to switch.
Don't forget those of us who run businesses (and yes, Slashdotters, there are businesses out there other than Best Buy and McDonald's). Apple/Linux aren't really options for businesses until you're a Fortune 500 company and can afford teams of programmers.
But, of course, the least expensive PC is invariably a cheap piece of crap one step up from a calculator.
I run my business on $200 PC's that I buy off-lease as refurbs (right now, $200 gets you P4 2.x Ghz, 512 RAM, 40 Gig HD, 1 Gb ethernet). The cheapest PC you can buy today will do everything that most people need, and much more. Anyone care to point me in the direction where I can get a refurbished Mac for $200 that will run all modern applications quickly?
Exactly.
From my and my families' and friends' experiences, I'd say that iTunes still isn't ready for XP. Buggy, crash-prone, and a memory hog, it was the primary reason I dumped my iPod for a Sansa (I sync now with Explorer or Winamp). Yuck.
I'm actually glad that Russian schools aren't going to buy MS products. I hope they don't still use them. Why? The #1 place that all of those nasty works, viruses, scams, etc. come out of is Russia. They have a culture of "Take whatever you can, however you can". I would be thrilled to see some of these Russian hacker kids beating away on Linux over the next few years. Let's spread around some of the pain.
We have about 10 machines, and no administrator. Works fine for us. Plug the machines in, install software, use machines. No administration necessary.
I don't need 20,001 programs that do the same thing. I need one decent accounting package (there are none that run on Linux). I would love to use it, but your reality and my reality are apparently very different things.
hese margins are going to get razor thin...
I doubt that. Realize that most people in this country are already paying to watch advertisements. TIVO users are paying even more NOT to watch the ads. This is yet another fee on top of those two. Regular people are already paying through the nose to watch garbage. I just go to my local video store and rent DVD's at $3/pop.
So, the people who would use this, already pay to watch bad TV and advertisements (cable TV), they pay for a Tivo to cut out the advertisements they pay for every month with their cable bill, and now they're going to pay to download content? I don't understand some people. But you know what "they" say about a fool and his money...
Does Unreal force you to use the level of detail that's currently found on the Xbox 360 and PS3?
Releasing a sub-par version for the Wii would give them a bad reputation among consumers seeing their products on the Wii. Consumers don't know or care whether the limitations are due to the hardware or the software. All they would know is "Unreal sucks" if they saw it on the Wii. It would be a bad business decision to do that.
I certainly don't think that the teacher should be sent to a gulag. I think it's pretty extreme. I don't even think it warrants any jail time. I was just pointing out that Bill Gates has nothing to do with this case, personally, nor could he, nor should he be involved with it. This whole thing is ridiculous. It's like calling Jack Welch if you're arrested for stealing a TV.