Actually, the fraud doesn't even come close to balancing out the other side of the equation: people dropping off of unemployment because it expired. That's why when the gov't trots out it's usual "The economy is GREAT!" speech, and back that up with falling unemployment numbers, all that means is that a lot of people had their benefits run out.
Only the most paranoid of geeks, buddy. Average Joe has no idea what Javascript is. Hell, I was and currently am a part time web developer, and I'm not afraid of Javascript.
I wouldn't go that far. Sure, they're making profits hand over fist, but I'm not so sure "respected" is the word I'd use. They're still just one big flea market, with tons and tons of slimy characters.
MAC address spoofing is for broadband customers whose provider only "Allows" you to use one computer to access the Net. The installation guy has you run some stupid web-based software on install, which sends the MAC address back to the provider, and locks you in to having only that one PC be able to use that broadband connection. Spoofing let's the router pretend it's your PC to the DSL/Cable/whatever provider, and the router proceeds to happily... route.
I disagree. Everything I've bought by Linksys has sucked ass. Every single goddamn router, whether it's a regular router, a wireless router, or a VOIP router have all been flaky, and they *all* need to be rebooted every week or so. I will not buy any Linksys products, either at home, or for my business. Instead, the last few I've bought have been generic, and they've worked *much* better than the Linksys.
Historians in 100+ years may look back and say that this was the real beginning of the end of US society as we know it. Why? Virtually any sociologist or related scientist will tell you that the basis for a civilized society are strong property rights.
Personally, I'm disgusted by the ruling. We're going to see *massive*, third-world level corruption appearing in the headlines any time now. It'll be easy for developers to pay off the local gov't to kick people off of their land so that we can have yet another strip mall. This has got to be one of the worst rulings in the recent history of the Supreme Court.
What's with your silly straw man argument? You're saying that one guy, sitting in his living room writing a novel for a few months costs the same as hundreds of well-educated reporters, going in person to news events, taking photographs, etc? You're out of your mind. Real news does, indeed take much more money to create than does a novel. And, if I were a journalist, I would say that you deserved a good kick to the nuts for suggesting that real journalism is something that can be done as cheaply as a hack writing a novel.
On top of that, newspaper circulations are falling rapidly, meaning either more ads, or a higher price.
Advertising to fund content is not a sustainable business model as too many people are willing to provide genuinely free content.
Free content? Oh sure, there will always be useless blogs and more shopping sites. But what about sites that add value, like Salon.com. How are they supposed to pay their reporters and writers without ads? One answer: subscription. So be careful what you call "free content". Even on the Net, you generally get what you pay for.
Personally, I think that Amazon is a bit better, but if I'm going to buy something, I generally use Yahoo. I think that they have the best interface, and all of their stuff is all tied to one ID, making going from news to mail to shopping, etc. pretty damn seamless.
I've thought that since eBay's inception, it's interface is probably the worst I've ever seen. Every time I've even though about buying something, I've had to log in several times. I find it quite hard to use. Hell, there are books about how to use eBay. If somebody can make money selling a book on how to use your service, you know you've got problems. I shouldn't have to *learn* how to use a website that does something as simple as let me buy stuff.
That's the way Amazon is with *all* merchants now. The buyer essentially gets -zero- information about the seller, and the seller gets -zero- name recognition from Amazon. That, on top of Amazon's quite hefty fees, makes it a good place only if you don't have the expertise or the money to build your own web site.
Also, Amazon.com allows *no* cross selling by their merchants. Meaning, you can't in your item description, your email to the buyer, or anywhere else, suggest that the customer visit your site. So Amazon may be good for a merchant who doesn't care about cross-selling, or building a brand, but for anybody else, it's a dead-end that just leads to commodity selling. If we were to sell through Amazon, the buyer couldn't take advantage (or even be aware of) the massive amount of information we offer, our excellent customer service, or the fact that we ship everything the same day.
Take a look at Amazon. It's very hard, and I'd say near impossible to find information about the actual seller. eBay is pretty much just a big junkpile of ads and scams, from what I've seen. I'd never buy anything from eBay. Amazon, however, goes the other direction, and tries to make it transparent to the buyer. I believe that Amazon makes the buyer experience good, but does go too far with this, in that sellers are hurt to such an extent that merchants such as myself who actually have a brand name lose out in the end. Somebody (and I need to look closer at Yahoo), need to go more middle-of-the-road. They need to offer the seller some exposure, while still keeping the buyer experience good.
The problem is this... all 3 of these aggregators (Ebay, Yahoo, and Amazon) all focus solely on price. Anybody who knows anything about business knows that competing on price is a very, very bad idea. It's almost always a losing battle. On top of that, the fees that these sites charge for selling are outrageous. We've decided to use *none* of them, and instead sell on our own. We get to keep our profit margins, and we get to offer real information to our buyers. We may not be the cheapest to the nickel, but honestly, that's not the kind of business we want. People who are pinching pennies are not the kind of customers you want because there's 0% loyalty... and that's what these agrregators strive for... making the sellers relatively anonymous, and focusing *only* on price. Amazon, eBay, and Yahoo will always be good for small sellers that don't have the means to set up a web site, credit card processing, etc, but once you can do all of that, it makes no sense to work with these big guys, where you'll just be a number in a crowd.
You do understand that when you talk about "more interest" because of the "OpenOffice.org Java backlash" that you're talking about a user base of probably only a few thousand people who know what in the hell you're talking about, right?
I ask this question about 99% of OSS products. This is no different. It's another case of a solution looking for a problem. That's a *guaranteed* formula for failure in the mass market. Sure, there will be hobbyists that use this stuff forever, but most people will just look at it and think to themselves, "Uh, what's the point?"
Why no Windows version? Are they deliberately trying to be anti-competitive? How is this fair to Windows users? Are they trying to stifle Windows usage? Where's the DOJ when you need 'em?
What monopoly? Does MS have a monopoly on the AV market? Funny, I use Free-AV They're not owned by Microsoft. I know that there are many, many, many other AV products out there put out by companies that are NOT MS. What monopoly are you talking about, exactly, and how does it pertain to this discussion?
Big deal. MS buys competitors. Wal-Mart undercuts their competitors to the point where they'll take a loss on a product line just to kill a competitor. The local pizza joint stays open 2 hours later than their competitors. What's your point?
And what's your point? How is this different than any other company trying to compete in different ways? Hell, most Linux distribution companies are selling their products for $0. If that isn't predatory, I don't know what is.
What's your point? What for-profit company isn't trying to squash their competition? If you want to talk about petty, I can come up with much better examples, and they're all from Linux distribution-making companies.
"The standard" as you call it is IE right now. If you're talking about the W3C's standards, that's totally unrealistic because IE and Firefox are simply not W3C compatible.
Oh sure, browsers should be 100% W3C compatible. Also, there should be no war, marijuana should be legal, and Bush should be impeached and kicked out of office. The fact of the matter is that no browser is 100% W3C compatible (and that's been true since the birth of the Web), the US bombs the shit out of lots of people, you can go to jail for the rest of your life for marijuana, and most American people think that George Bush is the second coming. Life sucks, huh?
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In my state, the checks are mailed.
Actually, the fraud doesn't even come close to balancing out the other side of the equation: people dropping off of unemployment because it expired. That's why when the gov't trots out it's usual "The economy is GREAT!" speech, and back that up with falling unemployment numbers, all that means is that a lot of people had their benefits run out.
How many of us have it disabled in our browsers?
Only the most paranoid of geeks, buddy. Average Joe has no idea what Javascript is. Hell, I was and currently am a part time web developer, and I'm not afraid of Javascript.
EBay is a respected player in the business world.
I wouldn't go that far. Sure, they're making profits hand over fist, but I'm not so sure "respected" is the word I'd use. They're still just one big flea market, with tons and tons of slimy characters.
MAC address spoofing is for broadband customers whose provider only "Allows" you to use one computer to access the Net. The installation guy has you run some stupid web-based software on install, which sends the MAC address back to the provider, and locks you in to having only that one PC be able to use that broadband connection. Spoofing let's the router pretend it's your PC to the DSL/Cable/whatever provider, and the router proceeds to happily... route.
I disagree. Everything I've bought by Linksys has sucked ass. Every single goddamn router, whether it's a regular router, a wireless router, or a VOIP router have all been flaky, and they *all* need to be rebooted every week or so. I will not buy any Linksys products, either at home, or for my business. Instead, the last few I've bought have been generic, and they've worked *much* better than the Linksys.
Third-world corruption is already here. :(
Agreed. Now it's legal.
Historians in 100+ years may look back and say that this was the real beginning of the end of US society as we know it. Why? Virtually any sociologist or related scientist will tell you that the basis for a civilized society are strong property rights.
Personally, I'm disgusted by the ruling. We're going to see *massive*, third-world level corruption appearing in the headlines any time now. It'll be easy for developers to pay off the local gov't to kick people off of their land so that we can have yet another strip mall. This has got to be one of the worst rulings in the recent history of the Supreme Court.
What's with your silly straw man argument? You're saying that one guy, sitting in his living room writing a novel for a few months costs the same as hundreds of well-educated reporters, going in person to news events, taking photographs, etc? You're out of your mind. Real news does, indeed take much more money to create than does a novel. And, if I were a journalist, I would say that you deserved a good kick to the nuts for suggesting that real journalism is something that can be done as cheaply as a hack writing a novel.
On top of that, newspaper circulations are falling rapidly, meaning either more ads, or a higher price.
Advertising to fund content is not a sustainable business model as too many people are willing to provide genuinely free content.
Free content? Oh sure, there will always be useless blogs and more shopping sites. But what about sites that add value, like Salon.com. How are they supposed to pay their reporters and writers without ads? One answer: subscription. So be careful what you call "free content". Even on the Net, you generally get what you pay for.
Personally, I think that Amazon is a bit better, but if I'm going to buy something, I generally use Yahoo. I think that they have the best interface, and all of their stuff is all tied to one ID, making going from news to mail to shopping, etc. pretty damn seamless.
I've thought that since eBay's inception, it's interface is probably the worst I've ever seen. Every time I've even though about buying something, I've had to log in several times. I find it quite hard to use. Hell, there are books about how to use eBay. If somebody can make money selling a book on how to use your service, you know you've got problems. I shouldn't have to *learn* how to use a website that does something as simple as let me buy stuff.
That's the way Amazon is with *all* merchants now. The buyer essentially gets -zero- information about the seller, and the seller gets -zero- name recognition from Amazon. That, on top of Amazon's quite hefty fees, makes it a good place only if you don't have the expertise or the money to build your own web site.
Also, Amazon.com allows *no* cross selling by their merchants. Meaning, you can't in your item description, your email to the buyer, or anywhere else, suggest that the customer visit your site. So Amazon may be good for a merchant who doesn't care about cross-selling, or building a brand, but for anybody else, it's a dead-end that just leads to commodity selling. If we were to sell through Amazon, the buyer couldn't take advantage (or even be aware of) the massive amount of information we offer, our excellent customer service, or the fact that we ship everything the same day.
Take a look at Amazon. It's very hard, and I'd say near impossible to find information about the actual seller. eBay is pretty much just a big junkpile of ads and scams, from what I've seen. I'd never buy anything from eBay. Amazon, however, goes the other direction, and tries to make it transparent to the buyer. I believe that Amazon makes the buyer experience good, but does go too far with this, in that sellers are hurt to such an extent that merchants such as myself who actually have a brand name lose out in the end. Somebody (and I need to look closer at Yahoo), need to go more middle-of-the-road. They need to offer the seller some exposure, while still keeping the buyer experience good.
The problem is this... all 3 of these aggregators (Ebay, Yahoo, and Amazon) all focus solely on price. Anybody who knows anything about business knows that competing on price is a very, very bad idea. It's almost always a losing battle. On top of that, the fees that these sites charge for selling are outrageous. We've decided to use *none* of them, and instead sell on our own. We get to keep our profit margins, and we get to offer real information to our buyers. We may not be the cheapest to the nickel, but honestly, that's not the kind of business we want. People who are pinching pennies are not the kind of customers you want because there's 0% loyalty... and that's what these agrregators strive for... making the sellers relatively anonymous, and focusing *only* on price. Amazon, eBay, and Yahoo will always be good for small sellers that don't have the means to set up a web site, credit card processing, etc, but once you can do all of that, it makes no sense to work with these big guys, where you'll just be a number in a crowd.
You do understand that when you talk about "more interest" because of the "OpenOffice.org Java backlash" that you're talking about a user base of probably only a few thousand people who know what in the hell you're talking about, right?
I ask this question about 99% of OSS products. This is no different. It's another case of a solution looking for a problem. That's a *guaranteed* formula for failure in the mass market. Sure, there will be hobbyists that use this stuff forever, but most people will just look at it and think to themselves, "Uh, what's the point?"
Why no Windows version? Are they deliberately trying to be anti-competitive? How is this fair to Windows users? Are they trying to stifle Windows usage? Where's the DOJ when you need 'em?
And yes, this was intended to be tongue-in-cheek.
What monopoly? Does MS have a monopoly on the AV market? Funny, I use Free-AV They're not owned by Microsoft. I know that there are many, many, many other AV products out there put out by companies that are NOT MS. What monopoly are you talking about, exactly, and how does it pertain to this discussion?
Big deal. MS buys competitors. Wal-Mart undercuts their competitors to the point where they'll take a loss on a product line just to kill a competitor. The local pizza joint stays open 2 hours later than their competitors. What's your point?
And what's your point? How is this different than any other company trying to compete in different ways? Hell, most Linux distribution companies are selling their products for $0. If that isn't predatory, I don't know what is.
What's your point? What for-profit company isn't trying to squash their competition? If you want to talk about petty, I can come up with much better examples, and they're all from Linux distribution-making companies.
"The standard" as you call it is IE right now. If you're talking about the W3C's standards, that's totally unrealistic because IE and Firefox are simply not W3C compatible.
Oh sure, browsers should be 100% W3C compatible. Also, there should be no war, marijuana should be legal, and Bush should be impeached and kicked out of office. The fact of the matter is that no browser is 100% W3C compatible (and that's been true since the birth of the Web), the US bombs the shit out of lots of people, you can go to jail for the rest of your life for marijuana, and most American people think that George Bush is the second coming. Life sucks, huh?