I think the problem is that you aren't differentiating good graphic designers from bad... a lousy programmer makes code that just doesn't work, a lousy graphic designer does the same... a good graphic designer makes a visual layout that works, ie does what you want it to do, in much the same way a good programmer makes something that effectively does what it's supposed to do.
The problem is, it's easier to identify a bad coder -- the application does not work -- than a bad designer. A decent designer who works with the web will have studied usability.
Two sources if you do want to learn design:
http://webpagesthatsuck.com/ an oldie but a goodie, I find it's often easier for students to identify bad than good, and you can learn alot from the mistakes of others.
http://www.bamagazine.com/ Before and After magazine... gets a little technical, but talks about the science of design
you're assuming someone else will make "similarly useful products for less money"...
I think that's unlikely unless you only campare feature lists of the back of the package. Apple's brilliance is in the feel and function, that's harder to copy than, feature x,y,z.
For comparison, look at all the DAP's that compete with the iPod... many have better battery life, extra features (am/fm radio, recorders) for close to the same price without the market responding very well to them (funny that none of the models that compete on features manage to me much cheaper). You can claim the difference is marketing, or fashion but both those things have a cost and skill threshold as well.
"Well, their loss if they don't want my business. "
No, it's their gain as they do not want your business. As an AAPL shareholder I'd be very upset if they lowered their hardware cost to match that of a system from Dell/Acer/HP -- all arguments about "comparable systems" aside, or if they "allow me to buy just the OS and install it on any machine I build myself". No doubt you'd want to pay a comparable price to windows for that OS, too.
Apple is very successful in the marketplace, market share is going up, profit margins are high... just compare the performance of AAPL over the last 10 years with any other stock, index, fund, you name it... how many of them come close to a 2500% return? GO ahead, compare aapl vs goog vs msft for the last 5 or 10 years.
Apple has made a choice to be a premium brand and make a luxury product. That's a choice they are happy with and their shareholders are happy with.
You don't need to burn and re-rip, change the iTunes preferences to rip as MP3, then there's a menu item "convert to MP3" right there in the "advanced" menu - it's not advertised, but the function is there... and you can do it to your whole library (or your "purchased music" playlist at once.
Oh no, making irrational flawed arguments could be very effective, if enough of the public (baa!) decides DRM is bad for any reason (Baa! Baa!) it could indeed influence the device makers and DRM proponents...
Who cares why the public gets up-in-arms... let them get up in arms!
Then there are the critters, Bears and Sharks for example that have occasionally eaten one or two of us but don't seem to mean it.. in the case of Great White Sharks, they seem to hit us in cases of mistaken identity often not bothering to eat any of the people they bite... I mean, let's face it, how is a swimmer or a dude on a surfboard gonna escape from a fully grown great white that wants to eat her?
Yeah um exactly what bird are we talking about here?
The cassowary (australia and NZ) kills a few people each year by kicking them (it can weigh as much as 125 pounds and has very strong legs disemboweling or doing massive internal damage) as do Ostrich and Emu, and um Secretary birds are pretty large and carnivorous, but not big enough to attack humans.
There was a man killed by Magpies in Australia Sept 2003
A ROGUE magpie has been captured and destroyed after fatally injuring one man and seriously injuring a tourist.
A Mildura man, 74, received severe eye injuries when a local magpie swooped from trees in the Victorian town.
The man, who collapsed after the attack, died on Tuesday night at Melbourne's Royal Eye and Ear Hospital.
A South Korean tourist attacked by the same magpie was taken to hospital.
Department of Sustainability and Environment officers destroyed the magpie.
A coroner will investigate the man's death, the cause of which is still unknown.
Some Magpies swoop during the spring nesting season.
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,71 72903^421,00.html
and here:
A grandmother died after a jackdaw nested in the chimney of her home, blocking the escape of poisonous carbon monoxide fumes from her fire, an inquest has heard.
But modern birds hunting modern humans for food? (Don't leave your baby out where the eagles can get to him)
Re:Where to get decent photo editing done [a bit O
on
Adobe Lightroom Review
·
· Score: 1
That's because you want to pay $5 to $20 per image... we get quite a bit more for our time than that.
Fish are very widely varried in their swiming techniques, some primarily use their pectoral fins for locomotion, some primarily their tail fins, some their whole bodies... look at ribbon fish, moray eels, mola mola, and tuna for some examples...
I don't know how you figure several days to read a Shakespeare play, given that every word on the page is spoken by the actors in two hours... it's not that huge of a leap to say that you could speak those same words in the same amount of time, can you really mean to suggest that reading is that much slower than speaking?
Violence is a slightly different issue. Sure, there are a lot of situations where violence is needlessly glorified, especially in Hollywood. But violence is often necessary in real life. And the portrayal of violence, when done well, can often have the effect of turning people off to it rather than encouraging it. Seeing nudity is likely to arouse people; seeing violence is not nearly as likely to arouse irresistable violent urges. There's a very large contingent on Slashdot who argue, with good reason, that playing violent games doesn't encourage violent behavior in real life. What it comes down to is that same argument. Seeing sexually provocative material DOES encourage sexual activity; seeing violent material doesn't necessarily encourage violent behavior.
Sex is a slightly different issue. Sure, there are a lot of situations where sex is needlessly glorified, especially in Hollywood. But sex is often necessary in real life... Or maybe you think we should go back to the system of having sex through a hole in the sheet, only when she's fertile for the purpose of procreation?
It just doesn't work, you can glorify sex or violence, or sex and violence for that matter, but if watching x on tv or in video games does not cause that behavior, than watching y on tv or in video games does not promote it... you can't have it both ways.
You can argue that the socital structures in place to control violence are more effective than the sociatel structures in place to control sex, but it's ridiculous to claim that there's any inherent difference in the ability of tv to influence one behavior over another.
what is it about "real art" that has to be "untested and avant garde"? I'm sure that there is experimental theatre out there that nobody is going to pay to see, and maybe such theatre is even worth supporting, but there is also the process of producing a show that people will pay to see, and a process for moving a successful show to a larger more public venue which is not independant of creating "art". I have seen the PBS series, and I'm not denying that producing a show is expensive... I'm saying that quite a bit of art can support itself, in the way art always has...
Good theater also makes money, or at least in the case of three of the latest Tony award winning musicals that I personally know an investor in, who made money back from all three... In fact most theater that I've seen has been for profit, the actors, musicians, techs, producers all get paid, and the theaters seem to be in the black as well. Perhaps some theaters, in some locations need community assistance to survive, and certainly some regional theaters need money to attract touring performances... but why shouldn't theater be supported by its own profit?
It would be diferent if they wern't aking $100 for a ticket...
"I like to party, and I like sex, and lots of it"
What's ridiculous about that? My own experience on match.com was that it was a great place to find a one night stand, but not good for relationship seekers. I mean, it's trivial to spend a few minutes a day on 4 or 5 prospecs and guarentee a date for friday night... you can't trust the pictures and can never be sure what you'll get, but a little reading between the lines tells you a lot.
And I might just be more socially skilled than your average/. reader, but come on, it's not that hard, a little clever discourse, some on-line flirting, a tiny bit of effort on clothing, date behavior, and perhaps a better than average meal out scored nine times out of ten... it's just that most women who get to the point of on-line dating are either curious, adventurous, or desperate, and while the girl you might want to marry is probably on there too, the ones I found were all better for one week stands than anything more serious.
and hell, if you're completely unskilled, how better to get some practice?
If I hadn't found the love of my life and gotten married, I'd still be payinng that monthly fee just to keep the social life interesting. I'm sure these sites do play games to keep you kooked, as I recall, whenever my subscription was about to run our, new and interesting profiles would show up... but there was no harm or foul, I got out of it what I wanted, at least...
You're giving "them" way to much credit, many of "them" when the "check engine" light goes on -- and there often isn't a seperate light for oil pressure, etc, keep driving the car for weeks until it's convenient to stop at a service station -- frequently damaging something in the process.
That's a pretty good list of how you're locked in to a single vendor and how you're at the mercy of an illegal monopoly for running your buisiness, but I wouldn't so much call it good reasons to stay with microsoft, more like reasons you can't break free.
Actually, if you change the preferences under importing to MP3, then you go to the advanced menu and choose "Convert selection to MP3"
Then you can easily copy those files to cd...
One good resource is http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/ you can seriously learn quite a bit about design by anlyzing bad design -- you can also do the same by looking at good design - just ask yourself what makes it work/not work, but I would start with webpagesthatsuck.com. In my experience with design students, it's easer to learn what's bad an avoid it, than to learn what's good and persue it.
When in doubt, simplify. Look at google, apple for inspiration.
Slashdot Mirror
I think the problem is that you aren't differentiating good graphic designers from bad... a lousy programmer makes code that just doesn't work, a lousy graphic designer does the same... a good graphic designer makes a visual layout that works, ie does what you want it to do, in much the same way a good programmer makes something that effectively does what it's supposed to do. The problem is, it's easier to identify a bad coder -- the application does not work -- than a bad designer. A decent designer who works with the web will have studied usability. Two sources if you do want to learn design: http://webpagesthatsuck.com/ an oldie but a goodie, I find it's often easier for students to identify bad than good, and you can learn alot from the mistakes of others. http://www.bamagazine.com/ Before and After magazine... gets a little technical, but talks about the science of design
why don't you just get the ui out of the way? the Tab key hides the floating pallets, and the f key toggles between grey and black backgrounds...
you're assuming someone else will make "similarly useful products for less money"... I think that's unlikely unless you only campare feature lists of the back of the package. Apple's brilliance is in the feel and function, that's harder to copy than, feature x,y,z. For comparison, look at all the DAP's that compete with the iPod... many have better battery life, extra features (am/fm radio, recorders) for close to the same price without the market responding very well to them (funny that none of the models that compete on features manage to me much cheaper). You can claim the difference is marketing, or fashion but both those things have a cost and skill threshold as well.
No, it's their gain as they do not want your business. As an AAPL shareholder I'd be very upset if they lowered their hardware cost to match that of a system from Dell/Acer/HP -- all arguments about "comparable systems" aside, or if they "allow me to buy just the OS and install it on any machine I build myself". No doubt you'd want to pay a comparable price to windows for that OS, too.
Apple is very successful in the marketplace, market share is going up, profit margins are high... just compare the performance of AAPL over the last 10 years with any other stock, index, fund, you name it... how many of them come close to a 2500% return? GO ahead, compare aapl vs goog vs msft for the last 5 or 10 years.
Apple has made a choice to be a premium brand and make a luxury product. That's a choice they are happy with and their shareholders are happy with.
You don't need to burn and re-rip, change the iTunes preferences to rip as MP3, then there's a menu item "convert to MP3" right there in the "advanced" menu - it's not advertised, but the function is there... and you can do it to your whole library (or your "purchased music" playlist at once.
Oh no, making irrational flawed arguments could be very effective, if enough of the public (baa!) decides DRM is bad for any reason (Baa! Baa!) it could indeed influence the device makers and DRM proponents... Who cares why the public gets up-in-arms... let them get up in arms!
Um, this already works... many of the voice recognition systems respond to cursing by putting you on with an operator, try it out!
Tigers (Malaysia and India)
Crocodiles (Africa and Australia)
Both think of us as a tasty snack
Then there are the critters, Bears and Sharks for example that have occasionally eaten one or two of us but don't seem to mean it.. in the case of Great White Sharks, they seem to hit us in cases of mistaken identity often not bothering to eat any of the people they bite... I mean, let's face it, how is a swimmer or a dude on a surfboard gonna escape from a fully grown great white that wants to eat her?
The cassowary (australia and NZ) kills a few people each year by kicking them (it can weigh as much as 125 pounds and has very strong legs disemboweling or doing massive internal damage) as do Ostrich and Emu, and um Secretary birds are pretty large and carnivorous, but not big enough to attack humans.
There was a man killed by Magpies in Australia Sept 2003 A ROGUE magpie has been captured and destroyed after fatally injuring one man and seriously injuring a tourist. A Mildura man, 74, received severe eye injuries when a local magpie swooped from trees in the Victorian town. The man, who collapsed after the attack, died on Tuesday night at Melbourne's Royal Eye and Ear Hospital. A South Korean tourist attacked by the same magpie was taken to hospital. Department of Sustainability and Environment officers destroyed the magpie. A coroner will investigate the man's death, the cause of which is still unknown. Some Magpies swoop during the spring nesting season. http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,7and here:
A grandmother died after a jackdaw nested in the chimney of her home, blocking the escape of poisonous carbon monoxide fumes from her fire, an inquest has heard.
But modern birds hunting modern humans for food? (Don't leave your baby out where the eagles can get to him)
That's because you want to pay $5 to $20 per image... we get quite a bit more for our time than that.
Fish are very widely varried in their swiming techniques, some primarily use their pectoral fins for locomotion, some primarily their tail fins, some their whole bodies... look at ribbon fish, moray eels, mola mola, and tuna for some examples...
It's easy, and I think preserves the metadata...
go to preferences, -> Advanced and change "import using" to "MP3 encoder"
Then, click on a song, go to the "advanced" menu and choose "convert selection into MP3"
See how that works for you.
I don't know how you figure several days to read a Shakespeare play, given that every word on the page is spoken by the actors in two hours... it's not that huge of a leap to say that you could speak those same words in the same amount of time, can you really mean to suggest that reading is that much slower than speaking?
Sex is a slightly different issue. Sure, there are a lot of situations where sex is needlessly glorified, especially in Hollywood. But sex is often necessary in real life... Or maybe you think we should go back to the system of having sex through a hole in the sheet, only when she's fertile for the purpose of procreation?
It just doesn't work, you can glorify sex or violence, or sex and violence for that matter, but if watching x on tv or in video games does not cause that behavior, than watching y on tv or in video games does not promote it... you can't have it both ways.
You can argue that the socital structures in place to control violence are more effective than the sociatel structures in place to control sex, but it's ridiculous to claim that there's any inherent difference in the ability of tv to influence one behavior over another.
what is it about "real art" that has to be "untested and avant garde"? I'm sure that there is experimental theatre out there that nobody is going to pay to see, and maybe such theatre is even worth supporting, but there is also the process of producing a show that people will pay to see, and a process for moving a successful show to a larger more public venue which is not independant of creating "art". I have seen the PBS series, and I'm not denying that producing a show is expensive... I'm saying that quite a bit of art can support itself, in the way art always has...
Good theater also makes money, or at least in the case of three of the latest Tony award winning musicals that I personally know an investor in, who made money back from all three... In fact most theater that I've seen has been for profit, the actors, musicians, techs, producers all get paid, and the theaters seem to be in the black as well. Perhaps some theaters, in some locations need community assistance to survive, and certainly some regional theaters need money to attract touring performances... but why shouldn't theater be supported by its own profit? It would be diferent if they wern't aking $100 for a ticket...
"I like to party, and I like sex, and lots of it" What's ridiculous about that? My own experience on match.com was that it was a great place to find a one night stand, but not good for relationship seekers. I mean, it's trivial to spend a few minutes a day on 4 or 5 prospecs and guarentee a date for friday night... you can't trust the pictures and can never be sure what you'll get, but a little reading between the lines tells you a lot. And I might just be more socially skilled than your average /. reader, but come on, it's not that hard, a little clever discourse, some on-line flirting, a tiny bit of effort on clothing, date behavior, and perhaps a better than average meal out scored nine times out of ten... it's just that most women who get to the point of on-line dating are either curious, adventurous, or desperate, and while the girl you might want to marry is probably on there too, the ones I found were all better for one week stands than anything more serious.
and hell, if you're completely unskilled, how better to get some practice?
If I hadn't found the love of my life and gotten married, I'd still be payinng that monthly fee just to keep the social life interesting. I'm sure these sites do play games to keep you kooked, as I recall, whenever my subscription was about to run our, new and interesting profiles would show up... but there was no harm or foul, I got out of it what I wanted, at least...
You're giving "them" way to much credit, many of "them" when the "check engine" light goes on -- and there often isn't a seperate light for oil pressure, etc, keep driving the car for weeks until it's convenient to stop at a service station -- frequently damaging something in the process.
That's a pretty good list of how you're locked in to a single vendor and how you're at the mercy of an illegal monopoly for running your buisiness, but I wouldn't so much call it good reasons to stay with microsoft, more like reasons you can't break free.
Actually, if you change the preferences under importing to MP3, then you go to the advanced menu and choose "Convert selection to MP3" Then you can easily copy those files to cd...
And where did those guys from BeOS come from? Apple.
One good resource is http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/ you can seriously learn quite a bit about design by anlyzing bad design -- you can also do the same by looking at good design - just ask yourself what makes it work/not work, but I would start with webpagesthatsuck.com. In my experience with design students, it's easer to learn what's bad an avoid it, than to learn what's good and persue it. When in doubt, simplify. Look at google, apple for inspiration.