Gates is the wealthiest man in the most powerful country on the planet and has built one of the most profitable company in history in a matter of 25 years. He's the idiot? I think in order for you (whoever you are) to call Gates an idiot, you have to prove yourself. How large is your company? What are sales & profits like? How many employees do you have?
The only way a company this big could be gone in 10 years (based on history) would be a major scandal, or a buyout. There's nothing desperate about MS's current position that they can't tackle. That's like saying that Pepsi is coming out with this cool new drink, so Coca-Cola may be dead soon. That's not in any way realistic.
Just to clarify... that machine is in a place called Funspot, which is in Weir's Beach (called "the wee-ahs" by the locals). Funspot should be a landmark for every geek, since they're famous as being one of the largest arcades in the country, even to this day. The coolest thing... they keep EVERY game that has come out (including pinball machines), and in working condition. It's absolutely incredible. If you remember an old video game or pinball machine that you loved as a kid, chances are there's a working original version at Funspot. Definitely a road trip destination for any true geek.
Everybody is screaming about 19" being "too big". Am I the only member of Slashdot who can lift something heavier than a book? I mean, Jezus people... if you're too wimpy to carry around a tiny little thing like this, get yourself to a gym (or a doctor) immediately. I, for one, would *love* to get a few of these things if I could justify the $$.
Really? You think so? I was honestly assuming that something in their business plan didn't work out. I didn't really imagine that somebody would try to start a business without the fundamental question of "how do I make money?" answered first.
Actually, I was being serious... Are you suggesting that somebody would be stupid enough to take time to research a market, develop and test a product, and THEN try to figure out if they can make money from it? Is that what your "zing" is referring to? Please tell me you're not serious. Please.
1. If something as simple as this needs support, then it's really not a very good product.
2. How do you know that there's no competititve advantage in this industry to using your own, specialized software, which you'd be giving up by using something open source?
3. Are you saying that this person should hire themselves out as a programmer, but insist that they will only write open source software?
So then, both the developers and the venture capitalists are in it in order to lower the operating costs of movie theaters? And the customers will be those who do not want to give money to commercial software vendors (ie: people who don't want to pay for software if they can get away with it (ie: everybody)) Who are these people? I have a need for a free point-of-sale system and a complete list of specifications. It would significantly lower our cost of operations. Where can I send what I need? I know that our tiny business has "a vested interest in not giving money to the commercial vendors of such software", probably even more so than massive movie chains.
Why would they? If the product is as good as the developers say, and somebody's willing to develop it for free, why in the hell would anybody pay for it? Hell, in a business setting, if somebody "donated" money to an open source project, they'd be canned in a nanosecond. The only incentive would be if the product was crap and needed a lot of work.... in which case, why even bother with it? I guess that I'm not understanding where your "should" comes from.
So, what do you mean by "sponsoring"? what does the person/company get in return? Or, by "sponsor", do you just mean "gullible person with extra money who has no interest in seeing and kind of return on it"?
Although your description was excellent, I feel that it could be beefed up a bit by using the word "synergy" a few times. I've found that companies tend to get an additional 10% venture capital for each time the word "synergy" is used in their mission statement/press release.
What I'm wondering, is, in your business plan, where did you suggest or think that the money was going to come from, and what happened to that revenue stream?
Well, thank god you can save $2.40! People like you are the reason we have Wal-Mart: a rush to the lowest price with no consideration for any other factor in your purchase. Oh, and I happen to get my books at 75% of the retail price: from an independent local bookstore that actually contributes to my community.
I understand that, but no employer in their right mind would succumb to any kind of pressure like this. Any employer in their right mind would fire this guy, and consider this other woman as a separate issue, altogether.
You're "telling" your employers that you're quitting via a blog? And you're a "senior editor"? Wow. When my employees are ready to leave, they tell me face to face, as opposed to writing it on some virtual diary that nobody reads. Doesn't seem to be a very effective way of communicating your point... something you should know if you're a "senior editor". If they *do* read your blog and take you seriously, I hope for your sake that you have another job lined up.
I'm not aware of any memory leaks in W2K and newer.... Also, MS has nothing to do with aplpication memory leaks. They've put everybody in their own sandbox to a good degree, so at the very least, most apps don't bring down the OS, but they have nothing to do with a memory leak, in say, an FTP server running on top of their OS.
How is this useful? Services like Yahoo have had this for a while now, and it's cute and all, but not really functional unless you *live* in front of your PC, and the people you're calling do, too. We just signed up with Vonage, and based on other people & businesses I know using it, it sounds like they've got it right. This Skype thing sounds like yet another toy for geeks, which is fine if that's what it's being billed as. But as long as you're tied to a PC, it's in no way a replacement for a real telephone (POTS or VOIP).
If you want to completely re-write the massive presentation layer, and you think that you can without using an Excel ActiveX Control, I say go right ahead. You'll have people beating down your door to buy it. Excel isn't designed for data storage, it's designed for presentation, and certain kinds of simple data manipulation.
That's totally subjective. All of our XP machines are running Windows Classic, which looks fine. You can make any modern OS look and act almost any way imaginable, so it's really a moot point. But with all of that said, I think that OS X looks like a kid's toy that's trying waaaay too hard to make it match every other consumer-oriented fetish item geared towards 13 year old girls and metrosexual men with more money than sense (like all Ikea furniture, VW cars, etc.)
That's a good question. Honestly, I think that PC's would've remained a geek hobby until a big company (in this case, Intel, MS, IBM, etc.) made them cheap and easy to get. But yeah, a big company like those are also inevitable considering the usefulness of PC's. But, they only come along when there's some real market value there. HAM radio, fox example, hasn't produced any giant, world-altering corporations. So, I think you're right. But at the same time, without an IBM, or a MS, PC's would still be assembled by hands with aprts from Radio Shack, and would be *expensive*
They were a bunch of hippies of the 70's, sharing everything, every ideas,
every solutions, every new concept together. It was so creative, so
powerful that it generated one of the biggest industry on the planet.
That's nice and all, but you're missing the part of history in which PC's became ubiquitous because of companies like Microsoft and Intel.
I agree. For all of those reason you've gone through, I have pretty thoroughly looked at what was out there. Right now, there are pretty much -zero- off the shelf solutions available for something as simple as a small brick & mortar store, making me have to consider somebody writing an application from scratch (which is obviously out of the question). I'll probably check back to see what's new with the *nix world in a few years, but right now, retail on *nix is really just for *very* large retailers that have the money for custom solutions.
Slashdot Mirror
Gates is the wealthiest man in the most powerful country on the planet and has built one of the most profitable company in history in a matter of 25 years. He's the idiot? I think in order for you (whoever you are) to call Gates an idiot, you have to prove yourself. How large is your company? What are sales & profits like? How many employees do you have?
.stranger things have happened.
The only way a company this big could be gone in 10 years (based on history) would be a major scandal, or a buyout. There's nothing desperate about MS's current position that they can't tackle. That's like saying that Pepsi is coming out with this cool new drink, so Coca-Cola may be dead soon. That's not in any way realistic.
Just to clarify... that machine is in a place called Funspot, which is in Weir's Beach (called "the wee-ahs" by the locals). Funspot should be a landmark for every geek, since they're famous as being one of the largest arcades in the country, even to this day. The coolest thing... they keep EVERY game that has come out (including pinball machines), and in working condition. It's absolutely incredible. If you remember an old video game or pinball machine that you loved as a kid, chances are there's a working original version at Funspot. Definitely a road trip destination for any true geek.
Everybody is screaming about 19" being "too big". Am I the only member of Slashdot who can lift something heavier than a book? I mean, Jezus people... if you're too wimpy to carry around a tiny little thing like this, get yourself to a gym (or a doctor) immediately. I, for one, would *love* to get a few of these things if I could justify the $$.
Really? You think so? I was honestly assuming that something in their business plan didn't work out. I didn't really imagine that somebody would try to start a business without the fundamental question of "how do I make money?" answered first.
Actually, I was being serious... Are you suggesting that somebody would be stupid enough to take time to research a market, develop and test a product, and THEN try to figure out if they can make money from it? Is that what your "zing" is referring to? Please tell me you're not serious. Please.
1. If something as simple as this needs support, then it's really not a very good product.
2. How do you know that there's no competititve advantage in this industry to using your own, specialized software, which you'd be giving up by using something open source?
3. Are you saying that this person should hire themselves out as a programmer, but insist that they will only write open source software?
So then, both the developers and the venture capitalists are in it in order to lower the operating costs of movie theaters? And the customers will be those who do not want to give money to commercial software vendors (ie: people who don't want to pay for software if they can get away with it (ie: everybody)) Who are these people? I have a need for a free point-of-sale system and a complete list of specifications. It would significantly lower our cost of operations. Where can I send what I need? I know that our tiny business has "a vested interest in not giving money to the commercial vendors of such software", probably even more so than massive movie chains.
Why would they? If the product is as good as the developers say, and somebody's willing to develop it for free, why in the hell would anybody pay for it? Hell, in a business setting, if somebody "donated" money to an open source project, they'd be canned in a nanosecond. The only incentive would be if the product was crap and needed a lot of work.... in which case, why even bother with it? I guess that I'm not understanding where your "should" comes from.
So, what do you mean by "sponsoring"? what does the person/company get in return? Or, by "sponsor", do you just mean "gullible person with extra money who has no interest in seeing and kind of return on it"?
Although your description was excellent, I feel that it could be beefed up a bit by using the word "synergy" a few times. I've found that companies tend to get an additional 10% venture capital for each time the word "synergy" is used in their mission statement/press release.
What I'm wondering, is, in your business plan, where did you suggest or think that the money was going to come from, and what happened to that revenue stream?
Well, thank god you can save $2.40! People like you are the reason we have Wal-Mart: a rush to the lowest price with no consideration for any other factor in your purchase. Oh, and I happen to get my books at 75% of the retail price: from an independent local bookstore that actually contributes to my community.
I understand that, but no employer in their right mind would succumb to any kind of pressure like this. Any employer in their right mind would fire this guy, and consider this other woman as a separate issue, altogether.
You're "telling" your employers that you're quitting via a blog? And you're a "senior editor"? Wow. When my employees are ready to leave, they tell me face to face, as opposed to writing it on some virtual diary that nobody reads. Doesn't seem to be a very effective way of communicating your point... something you should know if you're a "senior editor". If they *do* read your blog and take you seriously, I hope for your sake that you have another job lined up.
First off, it's called a "calendar". Secondly, there already is a kick-ass free online calendar.
And so, where else do you get good quality news? Blogs? Slashdot? Or is news and facts just not important?
Windows Server and its applications
I'm not aware of any memory leaks in W2K and newer.... Also, MS has nothing to do with aplpication memory leaks. They've put everybody in their own sandbox to a good degree, so at the very least, most apps don't bring down the OS, but they have nothing to do with a memory leak, in say, an FTP server running on top of their OS.
How is this useful? Services like Yahoo have had this for a while now, and it's cute and all, but not really functional unless you *live* in front of your PC, and the people you're calling do, too. We just signed up with Vonage, and based on other people & businesses I know using it, it sounds like they've got it right. This Skype thing sounds like yet another toy for geeks, which is fine if that's what it's being billed as. But as long as you're tied to a PC, it's in no way a replacement for a real telephone (POTS or VOIP).
If you want to completely re-write the massive presentation layer, and you think that you can without using an Excel ActiveX Control, I say go right ahead. You'll have people beating down your door to buy it. Excel isn't designed for data storage, it's designed for presentation, and certain kinds of simple data manipulation.
At least OS-X looks nice.
That's totally subjective. All of our XP machines are running Windows Classic, which looks fine. You can make any modern OS look and act almost any way imaginable, so it's really a moot point. But with all of that said, I think that OS X looks like a kid's toy that's trying waaaay too hard to make it match every other consumer-oriented fetish item geared towards 13 year old girls and metrosexual men with more money than sense (like all Ikea furniture, VW cars, etc.)
That's a good question. Honestly, I think that PC's would've remained a geek hobby until a big company (in this case, Intel, MS, IBM, etc.) made them cheap and easy to get. But yeah, a big company like those are also inevitable considering the usefulness of PC's. But, they only come along when there's some real market value there. HAM radio, fox example, hasn't produced any giant, world-altering corporations. So, I think you're right. But at the same time, without an IBM, or a MS, PC's would still be assembled by hands with aprts from Radio Shack, and would be *expensive*
They were a bunch of hippies of the 70's, sharing everything, every ideas, every solutions, every new concept together. It was so creative, so powerful that it generated one of the biggest industry on the planet.
That's nice and all, but you're missing the part of history in which PC's became ubiquitous because of companies like Microsoft and Intel.
I agree. For all of those reason you've gone through, I have pretty thoroughly looked at what was out there. Right now, there are pretty much -zero- off the shelf solutions available for something as simple as a small brick & mortar store, making me have to consider somebody writing an application from scratch (which is obviously out of the question). I'll probably check back to see what's new with the *nix world in a few years, but right now, retail on *nix is really just for *very* large retailers that have the money for custom solutions.
If by "fully functional" you mean being able to surf the web, then you're the muppet. I said that this is for a business.