There were email clients in the last N versions of windows, that were completely OK for basic email usage. Especially for services like web-based emails of the Gmail and Hotmail type. I'm not sure in which version of Windows, but there was even a usenet support built in, once upon a time.
The only thing that was lacking was collaborative support that Outlook with Exchange does quite well.
However IF they do it or not is supposed to be made known to you in advance in the Terms of Service, that you're supposed to read and which you tick a box with which you communicate to Google, Facebook and anyone else, with whom you subscribe, that you understand and will abide by.
Google tells you that they won't be checking your information other than by their algorithms that are used to serve you ads.
To be honest, I'm not sure what Facebook says and I can't be bothered to check. But my assumption is that whatever I post on FB will always have an extremely high potential of becoming public. If not today, then maybe in 10 years. It seems to along the lines of their business model. So you'll be hard pressed to find any info there, posted by me, that I would be ashamed of, even if it was ever read in the evening news. There is of course always potential problem of what other people post about you, but there are other, pre-existing, laws that would handle that, if need ever arose.
Lufthansa and Swiss already do this in a way for frequent flyers with gold or higher status. What they do is to have a list of all such travelers and where they're seated. Then, during the flight they come to you and greet you by (last) name and ask you if everything is fine and such. This happens if you fly coach or business/higher class. While it doesn't improve on the food or leg-room in coach it at least gives you a feeling that they appreciate your business a bit more.
All that this approach would do would be for them to be able to make a visual recognition and not to have to match your seat (which may have changed) with your name.
No phone that I owned so far (and I tend to stay on the leading edge of smartphones) was ever restricted by the phone company in any way.
I understand that this is not the case in the US, but in lots of other countries it simply doesn't apply. The most that the phone company can do to my phone is to turn off its SIM card, which can be replaced with a new one in a matter of minutes.
The thing is: the Three Laws were only needed because otherwise people would be afraid to user the robots.
Premise was that since the robots were much stronger and had capability of intelligent thinking, only the Three Laws kept them in check. Otherwise they wouldn't consider listening to the orders of puny human beings and would, more likely than not, immediately exterminate the whole race.
With mobile phone such fears (even if they may be justified for another reason) are not present. As such the Laws will never be implemented.
I don't think that people love America, necessarily. They simply don't care about this kind of reporting or they may not even know that it's going on.
When the fingerprinting and photo-taking at the border entry started to take place there was indignation. How may fewer people are going to the US because of that?
When TSA related issues have started to become more and more publicized there was indignation. How many fewer people are going to the US because of that?
Now we have this. Again there's indignation. Does anyone seriously believe that there is going to be any noticeable drop in amount of people visiting US after this?
I don't think so. Like you said: people will either go for vacation and not really care or they will HAVE to go there for business and suffer through it, because they won't have a choice. And on top of it: do you really think that the information that we're talking about here is not something that the US is getting from you anyway? When you enter the US you have to fill out the registration form or apply for visa. They get all the info then. When you are at the border they scan your passport, fingerprints and take a photo of you. what happens now is simply that they may have some of that info slightly earlier than they would otherwise.
I'm not saying it's right. I don't believe that this is something that should be required. Especially from the country that is supposed to be all about freedom. What I'm saying is that I don't see a good way to change it and on top of it people don't really care... So it will keep on happening.:-(
I wonder what kind of handheld GPS unit in 2007 was ACTIVE enough to cause problems with anything around it.
The typical GPS unit from that era was a receive-only device, without any transmitting components. While this particular device may have been an advanced model, with some built in transmitting capabilities (bluetooth for instance), I would be really worried if navigational equipment on your typical plane could be so easily interfered with.
While I agree with you that this kind of behavior is a problem, it's not so much an OS issue. This is usually due to applications that are not written with multiple monitors in mind.
People usually laud Apple as company that is very good with their GUI approaches. Yet, somehow, they don't use the same user experience on iPads/iPhones AND laptops/desktops.
Mobile devices have one type of experience, while more "classic" devices have another.
I think that Metro discussions are really revolving around the fact, that currently MS is trying to push a single experience for everything, which is something that will probably fail with users. I use my computing environment in quite different ways on phones/tablets, than I do on mouse/keyboard-operated devices.
And even then, the Metro approach maybe (maybe, maybe) could work. But only if it was the ONLY GUI. At this point in time there seems to be a mash-up of Metro and non-Metro experience, which invites schizophrenia into everyday usage of computer. Not in the least, since Metro and Non-Metro apps follow different behavior rules for operation, closing, tiling and so on.
Wasn't it hard enough to try and explain to an elderly/new/scared user, how to use one UI paradigm? Now you'll have to support two. And they will mix simultaneously, and probably not always predictably. And don't even try to add remote desktop environment to the mix here. Total chaos.
I like new things. But in some cases either you do them completely or don't do them at all. With Metro, I believe you have to do the former.
/Disclaimer/ I stand in support of same sex marriages/Disclaimer/
It's interesting to see that company advocated interference with laws is accepted in some cases while not in others. Over and over again slashdot comments focus on how companies should steer clear of legislature. How money isn't speech and so on. Usually those arguments are fired around initiatives that are here perceived as "negative" (RIIA, et. al.).
But in this case it's all: "Yeeey, company is helping out here. Good job, MS."
You can't have it both ways. At the end of the day, the goal that the company has is company oriented. And that is its bottom line. It's extremely likely that the very next legislative push that MS will do will be against a particular freedom or at least views that are popular here.
People should support and push for what they believe in. Companies should abide by those laws.
Diamonds have enormous practical purpose. They're used as cutting tools.
Actually artificial diamonds are used almost exclusively for that.
And even though artificial diamonds are available now for a long time and are cheaper than natural, natural diamonds are still the only ones considered for any sort of premium jewelry.
For some strange reason practically any business laptop has a modem jack. I haven't used mine in the last 10+ years, but it's still it somehow present in every laptop that I bought (last one was in February this year).
In this context communism is an absolutely wrong term to use. Socialism might be what North Korea thinks they have but even that's not it.
To my knowledge no country in the world had an actual, working, communism regime in operation at any time. At least not on a country-wide scale. I believe the closest to communism that society came was in the form of Jewish kibbutzes. But that's about it. And as far as I'm aware there are not a whole lot of those around anymore, either.
Socialism is (was) a transitional state of many countries claiming to be on the way to communism. With the final goal of people working as much as required for the good of the whole (commune) and taking as much as they needed. Side effect of this would be for the need for monetary system to go away. Unfortunately, the system typically requires that everyone is equal to everyone else and doesn't quite manage to do away with the fact that there are always some who are a bit more equal as others.
Actually the closest to communism as popular culture ever got was in Star Trek universe.
While I understand your point, I don't quite think you're right.
In my opinion there are two types of "good" salespeople. 1. An annoying "good" salesperson, who will do everything and anything in order to sell you that final leftover piece of stock that they have. I've known a guy like that. Some people were making jokes about him that one of his customers died to get rid of him:-)
2. A properly good salesperson which actually manages to recognize what a specific customer requires and provides proper product/tool/solution to them. This second version is usually more successful in the long run as customers will actually come back on their own when they need another thing to help them out.
I'm not a salesman. Never will be. But I do appreciate a skilled, well informed salesperson as I can make a good team with them. Without a salesperson I don't have anything to do and without me salespeople have nothing to sell. And trust me: if it happens to often that salesperson sells something that is clearly ludicrous and expect me to deliver it, they will soon find out that I have "no time" for them.
A friend once confided in me his recipe for a "good girlfriend": Has to be in a different country than you. Preferably the one that requires a visa for your country. Like that she can't just show up unannounced on your doorstep:-)
I would tend to agree with most of your points. But not with option "D) It's common on Windows machines to have commercial software installed that the end user doesn't have license keys or reinstallation disks for. So the user doesn't want their machine reinstalled unless it's absolutely necessary."
In practice I've never seen this, if the software in question was legitimate version and not pirated.
It is true, that it's more and more the case that software is distributed in online form and licence keys are sent in emails. But that just means that you are now responsible for making sure that those "soft" versions are properly stored/backed up somewhere. In the past you had to stick that CD/DVD in a drawer somewhere and not forget where you put it, now you have to burn it, before you do the same thing.
But are you sure that the last part is also true? What happens if the driver refuses to sign? It would seem to me like you would not be under obligation to sign any document that is presented to you. Actually, if I'm not mistaken, you are not obliged to communicate with the police in any way other than telling them what your name is.
All the hijackings that are happening these days on the planes? Hmm, wait... There are practically none. All the terrorist incidents that are going on on international or national routes? Also none to speak about.
Check how many people got killed or injured in the last ten years due to "terrorist activities" in air travel as compared to normal accidents that happen from time to time. If the answer is something along the lines of: "accidents kill incomparably higher amount of people then terrorist attacks" then I think the whole point of increasing security through more and more invasive measures becomes extremely moot.
If we had a situation where there would be 2 persons killed by terrorists for every person killed by an accident then I MIGHT consider security to be important. The way the things stand today, however I'm way more likely to be stabbed or beaten by a taxi driver on the way to the airport after we're involved in an accident than either falling out of the sky with a plane OR being subjected to the terrorist nonsense.
And that's all before the fact that assault rifles are less useful on the plane than having an unarmed marshal on board...
I deliver quite a few Cisco trainings and I remember at least 3 years ago there was information there which stated that Youtube will be the main reason for ISPs to upgrade their infrastructure.
I heard such stories about hospitals over and over again.
Essentially what it boils down to is that hospital IT departments have almost no chance of establishing good environments, because every doctor that has 5 seconds of free time feels like they have both the authority and obligation to directly interfere with how IT does things.
Situations can vary from either the I've-been-working-for-50-years-without-a-computer-and-I'm-not-gonna-learn-how-to-use-one-now to what we have here where someone know how to make things better by themselves and simply bypasses the whole system with an application that is not supported or endorsed by the IT. And for sure does not integrate with other data-flow activities that are going on in the hospital.
In the end IT guys run for cover anytime when some local "god" decides that their way is best and things will run how they seem fit, because they just bought a new iPhone and want to have EVERYTHING interact with it. Screw the company-issued smartphones!
I'm aware that there might be bureaucratic red tape involved in getting things done. But if you go outside of system in the end you just make sure that nothing works for anyone instead of having a list of services that are stable and continue growing at a steady pace, based on a good input from everyone.
In any case, at the end of the day, why does a service like that even need to be hosted from within a hospital? Plug the server in at home and you avoid any problems if the calendar in iPhone is such a big deal for you./Disclaimer: iPhone is just an example here. Enter your preferred/hated brand instead
Slashdot Mirror
Why would you say that?
There were email clients in the last N versions of windows, that were completely OK for basic email usage. Especially for services like web-based emails of the Gmail and Hotmail type. I'm not sure in which version of Windows, but there was even a usenet support built in, once upon a time.
The only thing that was lacking was collaborative support that Outlook with Exchange does quite well.
They could if the terms of service, that they you would agree to, would allow them to do so.
Of course they do.
However IF they do it or not is supposed to be made known to you in advance in the Terms of Service, that you're supposed to read and which you tick a box with which you communicate to Google, Facebook and anyone else, with whom you subscribe, that you understand and will abide by.
Google tells you that they won't be checking your information other than by their algorithms that are used to serve you ads.
To be honest, I'm not sure what Facebook says and I can't be bothered to check. But my assumption is that whatever I post on FB will always have an extremely high potential of becoming public. If not today, then maybe in 10 years. It seems to along the lines of their business model. So you'll be hard pressed to find any info there, posted by me, that I would be ashamed of, even if it was ever read in the evening news.
There is of course always potential problem of what other people post about you, but there are other, pre-existing, laws that would handle that, if need ever arose.
Actually, you probably wouldn't get such feeling.
Lufthansa and Swiss already do this in a way for frequent flyers with gold or higher status. What they do is to have a list of all such travelers and where they're seated. Then, during the flight they come to you and greet you by (last) name and ask you if everything is fine and such.
This happens if you fly coach or business/higher class.
While it doesn't improve on the food or leg-room in coach it at least gives you a feeling that they appreciate your business a bit more.
All that this approach would do would be for them to be able to make a visual recognition and not to have to match your seat (which may have changed) with your name.
Actually I've seen more than once OEM licences sold with random pieces of computers such as power supplies.
So if those examples were to be followed, you could get a mouse, for example, and attach a license with it, when selling it... :-)
Maybe in your part of the world.
No phone that I owned so far (and I tend to stay on the leading edge of smartphones) was ever restricted by the phone company in any way.
I understand that this is not the case in the US, but in lots of other countries it simply doesn't apply.
The most that the phone company can do to my phone is to turn off its SIM card, which can be replaced with a new one in a matter of minutes.
The thing is: the Three Laws were only needed because otherwise people would be afraid to user the robots.
Premise was that since the robots were much stronger and had capability of intelligent thinking, only the Three Laws kept them in check. Otherwise they wouldn't consider listening to the orders of puny human beings and would, more likely than not, immediately exterminate the whole race.
With mobile phone such fears (even if they may be justified for another reason) are not present. As such the Laws will never be implemented.
Lufthansa has it.
At least on the A380.
There the camera is mounted on top of the tail, so you also get to see the whole airplane, not just the front view. Quite awesome.
I partially agree with you.
I don't think that people love America, necessarily. They simply don't care about this kind of reporting or they may not even know that it's going on.
When the fingerprinting and photo-taking at the border entry started to take place there was indignation. How may fewer people are going to the US because of that?
When TSA related issues have started to become more and more publicized there was indignation. How many fewer people are going to the US because of that?
Now we have this. Again there's indignation. Does anyone seriously believe that there is going to be any noticeable drop in amount of people visiting US after this?
I don't think so.
Like you said: people will either go for vacation and not really care or they will HAVE to go there for business and suffer through it, because they won't have a choice.
And on top of it: do you really think that the information that we're talking about here is not something that the US is getting from you anyway? When you enter the US you have to fill out the registration form or apply for visa. They get all the info then. When you are at the border they scan your passport, fingerprints and take a photo of you.
what happens now is simply that they may have some of that info slightly earlier than they would otherwise.
I'm not saying it's right. I don't believe that this is something that should be required. Especially from the country that is supposed to be all about freedom. :-(
What I'm saying is that I don't see a good way to change it and on top of it people don't really care...
So it will keep on happening.
I wonder what kind of handheld GPS unit in 2007 was ACTIVE enough to cause problems with anything around it.
The typical GPS unit from that era was a receive-only device, without any transmitting components. While this particular device may have been an advanced model, with some built in transmitting capabilities (bluetooth for instance), I would be really worried if navigational equipment on your typical plane could be so easily interfered with.
While I agree with you that this kind of behavior is a problem, it's not so much an OS issue. This is usually due to applications that are not written with multiple monitors in mind.
^ This ^
People usually laud Apple as company that is very good with their GUI approaches. Yet, somehow, they don't use the same user experience on iPads/iPhones AND laptops/desktops.
Mobile devices have one type of experience, while more "classic" devices have another.
I think that Metro discussions are really revolving around the fact, that currently MS is trying to push a single experience for everything, which is something that will probably fail with users. I use my computing environment in quite different ways on phones/tablets, than I do on mouse/keyboard-operated devices.
And even then, the Metro approach maybe (maybe, maybe) could work. But only if it was the ONLY GUI. At this point in time there seems to be a mash-up of Metro and non-Metro experience, which invites schizophrenia into everyday usage of computer. Not in the least, since Metro and Non-Metro apps follow different behavior rules for operation, closing, tiling and so on.
Wasn't it hard enough to try and explain to an elderly/new/scared user, how to use one UI paradigm? Now you'll have to support two. And they will mix simultaneously, and probably not always predictably.
And don't even try to add remote desktop environment to the mix here. Total chaos.
I like new things. But in some cases either you do them completely or don't do them at all. With Metro, I believe you have to do the former.
/Disclaimer/ I stand in support of same sex marriages /Disclaimer/
It's interesting to see that company advocated interference with laws is accepted in some cases while not in others.
Over and over again slashdot comments focus on how companies should steer clear of legislature. How money isn't speech and so on. Usually those arguments are fired around initiatives that are here perceived as "negative" (RIIA, et. al.).
But in this case it's all: "Yeeey, company is helping out here. Good job, MS."
You can't have it both ways. At the end of the day, the goal that the company has is company oriented. And that is its bottom line.
It's extremely likely that the very next legislative push that MS will do will be against a particular freedom or at least views that are popular here.
People should support and push for what they believe in. Companies should abide by those laws.
Diamonds have enormous practical purpose. They're used as cutting tools.
Actually artificial diamonds are used almost exclusively for that.
And even though artificial diamonds are available now for a long time and are cheaper than natural, natural diamonds are still the only ones considered for any sort of premium jewelry.
Almost everyone?
For some strange reason practically any business laptop has a modem jack.
I haven't used mine in the last 10+ years, but it's still it somehow present in every laptop that I bought (last one was in February this year).
In this context communism is an absolutely wrong term to use. Socialism might be what North Korea thinks they have but even that's not it.
To my knowledge no country in the world had an actual, working, communism regime in operation at any time. At least not on a country-wide scale. I believe the closest to communism that society came was in the form of Jewish kibbutzes. But that's about it. And as far as I'm aware there are not a whole lot of those around anymore, either.
Socialism is (was) a transitional state of many countries claiming to be on the way to communism. With the final goal of people working as much as required for the good of the whole (commune) and taking as much as they needed. Side effect of this would be for the need for monetary system to go away.
Unfortunately, the system typically requires that everyone is equal to everyone else and doesn't quite manage to do away with the fact that there are always some who are a bit more equal as others.
Actually the closest to communism as popular culture ever got was in Star Trek universe.
On the other hand if you can find something to do with the device, that would be positively harming others...
While I understand your point, I don't quite think you're right.
In my opinion there are two types of "good" salespeople. :-)
1. An annoying "good" salesperson, who will do everything and anything in order to sell you that final leftover piece of stock that they have. I've known a guy like that. Some people were making jokes about him that one of his customers died to get rid of him
2. A properly good salesperson which actually manages to recognize what a specific customer requires and provides proper product/tool/solution to them.
This second version is usually more successful in the long run as customers will actually come back on their own when they need another thing to help them out.
I'm not a salesman. Never will be. But I do appreciate a skilled, well informed salesperson as I can make a good team with them. Without a salesperson I don't have anything to do and without me salespeople have nothing to sell.
And trust me: if it happens to often that salesperson sells something that is clearly ludicrous and expect me to deliver it, they will soon find out that I have "no time" for them.
A friend once confided in me his recipe for a "good girlfriend": :-)
Has to be in a different country than you. Preferably the one that requires a visa for your country. Like that she can't just show up unannounced on your doorstep
I would tend to agree with most of your points. But not with option "D) It's common on Windows machines to have commercial software installed that the end user doesn't have license keys or reinstallation disks for. So the user doesn't want their machine reinstalled unless it's absolutely necessary."
In practice I've never seen this, if the software in question was legitimate version and not pirated.
It is true, that it's more and more the case that software is distributed in online form and licence keys are sent in emails. But that just means that you are now responsible for making sure that those "soft" versions are properly stored/backed up somewhere.
In the past you had to stick that CD/DVD in a drawer somewhere and not forget where you put it, now you have to burn it, before you do the same thing.
That's quite interesting.
But are you sure that the last part is also true? What happens if the driver refuses to sign? It would seem to me like you would not be under obligation to sign any document that is presented to you.
Actually, if I'm not mistaken, you are not obliged to communicate with the police in any way other than telling them what your name is.
What nonsense exactly are you talking about?
All the hijackings that are happening these days on the planes? Hmm, wait... There are practically none.
All the terrorist incidents that are going on on international or national routes? Also none to speak about.
Check how many people got killed or injured in the last ten years due to "terrorist activities" in air travel as compared to normal accidents that happen from time to time. If the answer is something along the lines of: "accidents kill incomparably higher amount of people then terrorist attacks" then I think the whole point of increasing security through more and more invasive measures becomes extremely moot.
If we had a situation where there would be 2 persons killed by terrorists for every person killed by an accident then I MIGHT consider security to be important. The way the things stand today, however I'm way more likely to be stabbed or beaten by a taxi driver on the way to the airport after we're involved in an accident than either falling out of the sky with a plane OR being subjected to the terrorist nonsense.
And that's all before the fact that assault rifles are less useful on the plane than having an unarmed marshal on board...
Second this.
I deliver quite a few Cisco trainings and I remember at least 3 years ago there was information there which stated that Youtube will be the main reason for ISPs to upgrade their infrastructure.
Actually the web portion had facial recognition before it was added to the application.
Way cool :-)
I heard such stories about hospitals over and over again.
Essentially what it boils down to is that hospital IT departments have almost no chance of establishing good environments, because every doctor that has 5 seconds of free time feels like they have both the authority and obligation to directly interfere with how IT does things.
Situations can vary from either the I've-been-working-for-50-years-without-a-computer-and-I'm-not-gonna-learn-how-to-use-one-now to what we have here where someone know how to make things better by themselves and simply bypasses the whole system with an application that is not supported or endorsed by the IT. And for sure does not integrate with other data-flow activities that are going on in the hospital.
In the end IT guys run for cover anytime when some local "god" decides that their way is best and things will run how they seem fit, because they just bought a new iPhone and want to have EVERYTHING interact with it. Screw the company-issued smartphones!
I'm aware that there might be bureaucratic red tape involved in getting things done. But if you go outside of system in the end you just make sure that nothing works for anyone instead of having a list of services that are stable and continue growing at a steady pace, based on a good input from everyone.
In any case, at the end of the day, why does a service like that even need to be hosted from within a hospital? Plug the server in at home and you avoid any problems if the calendar in iPhone is such a big deal for you. /Disclaimer: iPhone is just an example here. Enter your preferred/hated brand instead