My problem with them is that one of my work PCs is very old but still fine for browsing the internet. Clicking on a link on this machine that I did not realize was a PDF sets off a long and tedious series of about 3 minutes where FF locks up until the Acrobat Reader plugin loads, then it downloads and displays the PDF, then scrolling through the file itself is really jumpy, then I have to close it which is slow and sometimes crashes FF.
Even on my faster PCs, reading a large PDF feels slower than it should.
Anybody can rank #1 in Google for "purple flying widgets", but it doesn't matter because no one searches for that. Getting clients to rank well for things like "home stereo" or "linux webhost" is where the challenge is; hardly "bullshit".
I didn't RTFA, but from the comments it sounds like I've read hundreds like it and it's preaching the "content is king" dogma. And that's pretty true. All you have to do is build a good site that people want to visit and you're halfway there. Unfortunately people just try to build a site with the "coolest" flash and spend time and money on the latest SE spam techniques.
So I agree with rakerman in that building a site on a topic you enjoy with interesting content is half the battle. You keep up with it, update it, and people will naturally link to it (links being the other half).
SEO actually seems to be getting easier in a sense. The complicated cloaking and doorway pages are much less effective on the major keyphrases than they used to be. You'll still see plenty of scrapper sites rank high in the major SEs, but the trend is against them.
"Dear Big Bank customer, you've been picked for 200,000 frequent miles" and the a log in screen with spots for bank and airline details and people may just give away all that info.
One sector of OSS people tend to forget about is all the free software for web development like PHPNuke, PostNuke, Mambo/Jahhombala, and the countless others; large and small.
You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a Gaming Clan Site based on phpBB or *Nuke. In nearly all those cases you could probably describe the webmaster as a "regular" OSS user. They're just the knob that got volunteered to maintain the site. They've likely had to patch their sites and at least install a template of some kind. Their sites would all be the same (some might argue that they are) if they couldn't access and modify the source they downloaded under the GPL or similar license.
I kind of think average OSS users interact with their source more often than someone might expect.
Many slashdot readers like myself are interested in furthering our careers in the technology industry. As a recognized and published security expert, I would like to ask you about a career choice.
Which pays better, working on security-related projects or whoring?
So you can guarantee that each and every of them will get a job at wherever they move to?
What I meant in that first sentence you quoted was that I don't think they should be encouraged to leave, paid to leave, or sent on some trail of tears style forced exodus from their beloved cold dark town. Rather I just meant that the current situation is fine. I don't see this issue as needing any public money spent on it; not a mirror, not a relocation. So the gradual vacating of their town won't have a significant effect on the surrounding economies.
The article says the town was built there in the 1300s to fend off invaders. I'm sure it was great for that, but now that a smart-bomb can take you out through an outhose window, I think I'd rather have some sunshine in the winter.
Yeah, I didn't read the parent's post I just quoted from it. If you had read my post, I said "want". That means it's up to them. If they don't have a place to stay or a job then I find it unlikely they are going to want to move. I'm not suggesting they be rooted out of their homes, or even offered a government "bonus" to move as the Grandparent mentioned. I'm saying it's their problem (if they see it as a problem).
Simply put, they get no money to bring daylight to the little corner of earth the Flying Spaghetti Monster deemed should be dark half the year.
They leave if and when they want to. They continue to slowly trickle out of the town as the article says they have been. This means no mass exodus from Rattflaufmansburgheim to upset the surrounding home market, no sudden unemployment spike, no problem.
Personally, I wouldn't pay to resettle any of them. If they want to move, then it's on their nickel.
Besides, assuming 300 million people in work paying taxes in the EU (a low estimate), the cost is 0.4 Euro cents per tax payer. I'll happily pay your share if you stop spouting nonsense like what you wrote.
I'm not European, so this specific issue doesn't effect me, but you're still talking about $1.2 million. Sure your share of that is jack squat, but that $1.2 million being spent to feed the hungry, fight crime, save the whales, insert-your-pet-issue-here will go a long way. Wouldn't you rather it be spent where you want or at least someplace more reasonable than "fixing" a town that has been "broke" since the first brick was laid?
Just because each taxpayer doesn't have to pay that much individually, there still seems like better places to spend the money.
This is not an attempt to argue, I have just never understood the logic behind the contention that it's OK to blow tax dollars on crackpot schemes because it only personally cost me $0.0004.
I think you're talking about Jenstar's blog where she went into how a bad page or site can bring down the whole account? I think that it's more than fair for Google to try and protect the AdWords clients (and thus their cash-cow) by trying things like smart pricing and applying across the whole account.
I like to think that my sites with AdSense on them are of a high quality and advertisers would like to have their ad displayed on my site. I imagine the clicks convert about as good as they would anywhere else, but only Google knows the whole story on that.
It's tough on people who try to make a living on using AdSense because they have to follow this stuff so closely and every minor change can mean the difference of thousands of dollars. But then, I guess relying on any one source of income as fickle as advertising revenue is a bad idea.
I know about smart pricing, but you don't get paid more on a given click if the person who made that click buys something. The better a publisher's site converts the more they earn per click, that is smart pricing.
So if each click on a publisher's AdSense ads convert to a sale, they will likely earn more money per click in the future.
If that's what you were trying to say, I was thrown off by " One thing that Google has done is to only charge when a click results in some action on the advertiser's site". That's hardly a description of smart pricing.
Google charges the advertiser every time a click is made. The publisher (the site owner using AdSense) gets paid for every click. The exceptions are if Google decides a click is fraudulent (a site owner clicking ads on their own page, for example) or the public service ads that Google serves when it doesn't have any relevant ads in its inventory.
That google pays per click is what makes it "Pay-Per-Click advertising", as opposed to affiliate-type advertising where publishers only make money when someone buys something, signs up for the newsletter, etc.
This has been my experience, too. You can try to take a few projects under your cost, build up some good feedback (think eBay), and then bill yourself as the quality alternative to the fast and cheap programmers of eastern Europe and India.
Nothing against Indians or Eastern Europeans, they just often take the "volume" approach to getting these projects done. They can afford to take these projects at a much lower fee than North Americans, Australians, etc. can.
These kinds of sites may be worth your time if you're selective and bid what you are worth, it might work out as occasional additional income using the approach I mentioned in the first paragraph, but I can't imagine most programmers in developed nations being able to make much of a living at it.
I'm worried this will sound racist or elitist. It's not meant to be. I'm just talking economics, here.
The little experience I've had with these kinds of sites have not raised any privacy issues for me. Just research the site, check the whois info, look for support phone numbers before you offer up your SSN or other sensitive information.
I was about to post that same link. I'm not a huge GNOME fan (I use Fluxbox), but I certainly respect everything he's done. The grandparent saying he doesn't get why Miguel is such a F/OSS icon is beyond me. I've never talked to him but from what I understand he is very approachable and down-to-earth.
Every culture has it's heros. The F/OSS community is no different. Linus, RMS, Eric Raymond, Bruce Perens, (countless others); each has their share of controversy and some people flat-out don't like some, but it would be foolish to try and pass them off as trivial people. Miguel certainly belongs among them.
About that link. I knew about Miguel's involvement in GNOME, Mono, and MC, but I didn't realize he started Gnumeric, too.
Yeah, I hope they're considering rolling out other F/OSS packages during the transition, too. Firefox and Thunderbird on Windows come to mind as easy to adapt to while learning OOo.
I'll go ahead and say it, "I didn't read TFA". But I'm confidant that I've read 20 just like it. The thing is, many of the maintainers and contributors to the "fringe" distributions do what they do because they enjoy it, to learn, or because there is some specific need that they want met.
They often have no interest in "rivaling" MS.
The larger distros like SuSE, RH, Mandriva, etc. are companies, they are going to keep trying to make a profit.
Then you have distros like Gentoo and Debian that are firmly established and will keep producing their fine distros because they have such enthusiastic communities.
Over time leading distros will emerge and fade away. Some people will see the benefits of consolidating their efforts and others will continue to pursue their goals on their own.
It's just the way it is; writing one more article about why all the distros (or GNOME and KDE) should "join forces to bring down MS" is not going to change that.
If I improperly categorized the article I didn't read, I'm sorry, but I still think it's a waste of time to try and "unite the troops".
Slashdot Mirror
Even on my faster PCs, reading a large PDF feels slower than it should.
I didn't RTFA, but from the comments it sounds like I've read hundreds like it and it's preaching the "content is king" dogma. And that's pretty true. All you have to do is build a good site that people want to visit and you're halfway there. Unfortunately people just try to build a site with the "coolest" flash and spend time and money on the latest SE spam techniques.
So I agree with rakerman in that building a site on a topic you enjoy with interesting content is half the battle. You keep up with it, update it, and people will naturally link to it (links being the other half).
SEO actually seems to be getting easier in a sense. The complicated cloaking and doorway pages are much less effective on the major keyphrases than they used to be. You'll still see plenty of scrapper sites rank high in the major SEs, but the trend is against them.
The media is going to call that "phly phishing".
Those rednecks in lawnchairs have launch codes?
You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a Gaming Clan Site based on phpBB or *Nuke. In nearly all those cases you could probably describe the webmaster as a "regular" OSS user. They're just the knob that got volunteered to maintain the site. They've likely had to patch their sites and at least install a template of some kind. Their sites would all be the same (some might argue that they are) if they couldn't access and modify the source they downloaded under the GPL or similar license.
I kind of think average OSS users interact with their source more often than someone might expect.
Which pays better, working on security-related projects or whoring?
What I meant in that first sentence you quoted was that I don't think they should be encouraged to leave, paid to leave, or sent on some trail of tears style forced exodus from their beloved cold dark town. Rather I just meant that the current situation is fine. I don't see this issue as needing any public money spent on it; not a mirror, not a relocation. So the gradual vacating of their town won't have a significant effect on the surrounding economies.
The article says the town was built there in the 1300s to fend off invaders. I'm sure it was great for that, but now that a smart-bomb can take you out through an outhose window, I think I'd rather have some sunshine in the winter.
Simply put, they get no money to bring daylight to the little corner of earth the Flying Spaghetti Monster deemed should be dark half the year.
They leave if and when they want to. They continue to slowly trickle out of the town as the article says they have been. This means no mass exodus from Rattflaufmansburgheim to upset the surrounding home market, no sudden unemployment spike, no problem.
Besides, assuming 300 million people in work paying taxes in the EU (a low estimate), the cost is 0.4 Euro cents per tax payer. I'll happily pay your share if you stop spouting nonsense like what you wrote.
I'm not European, so this specific issue doesn't effect me, but you're still talking about $1.2 million. Sure your share of that is jack squat, but that $1.2 million being spent to feed the hungry, fight crime, save the whales, insert-your-pet-issue-here will go a long way. Wouldn't you rather it be spent where you want or at least someplace more reasonable than "fixing" a town that has been "broke" since the first brick was laid?
Just because each taxpayer doesn't have to pay that much individually, there still seems like better places to spend the money.
This is not an attempt to argue, I have just never understood the logic behind the contention that it's OK to blow tax dollars on crackpot schemes because it only personally cost me $0.0004.
-You should have hosted a site on it and posted the link.
-Go buy some new Sony CDs
I couldn't decide which response was funnier, so you get them both.
I like to think that my sites with AdSense on them are of a high quality and advertisers would like to have their ad displayed on my site. I imagine the clicks convert about as good as they would anywhere else, but only Google knows the whole story on that.
It's tough on people who try to make a living on using AdSense because they have to follow this stuff so closely and every minor change can mean the difference of thousands of dollars. But then, I guess relying on any one source of income as fickle as advertising revenue is a bad idea.
So if each click on a publisher's AdSense ads convert to a sale, they will likely earn more money per click in the future.
If that's what you were trying to say, I was thrown off by " One thing that Google has done is to only charge when a click results in some action on the advertiser's site". That's hardly a description of smart pricing.
That google pays per click is what makes it "Pay-Per-Click advertising", as opposed to affiliate-type advertising where publishers only make money when someone buys something, signs up for the newsletter, etc.
Nothing against Indians or Eastern Europeans, they just often take the "volume" approach to getting these projects done. They can afford to take these projects at a much lower fee than North Americans, Australians, etc. can.
These kinds of sites may be worth your time if you're selective and bid what you are worth, it might work out as occasional additional income using the approach I mentioned in the first paragraph, but I can't imagine most programmers in developed nations being able to make much of a living at it.
I'm worried this will sound racist or elitist. It's not meant to be. I'm just talking economics, here.
The little experience I've had with these kinds of sites have not raised any privacy issues for me. Just research the site, check the whois info, look for support phone numbers before you offer up your SSN or other sensitive information.
Then after clicking a few links, I found Fernando Magariños, Ramón Morales López, and Mauricio Hernandez.
I'm sure there are countless others...
Their space program is handled by their Navy?
Or 7 Volkswagens and 3.4 Libraries of Congress...
Q: What do you do when a OSS developer comes to your office?
A: Pay for the pizza.
I was about to post that same link. I'm not a huge GNOME fan (I use Fluxbox), but I certainly respect everything he's done. The grandparent saying he doesn't get why Miguel is such a F/OSS icon is beyond me. I've never talked to him but from what I understand he is very approachable and down-to-earth.
Every culture has it's heros. The F/OSS community is no different. Linus, RMS, Eric Raymond, Bruce Perens, (countless others); each has their share of controversy and some people flat-out don't like some, but it would be foolish to try and pass them off as trivial people. Miguel certainly belongs among them.
About that link. I knew about Miguel's involvement in GNOME, Mono, and MC, but I didn't realize he started Gnumeric, too.
And the swine run away.
At least those slippery rascals can't run as fast as the sheep.
Really Easy Administration, Don't Mind mE
Yeah, I hope they're considering rolling out other F/OSS packages during the transition, too. Firefox and Thunderbird on Windows come to mind as easy to adapt to while learning OOo.
I'm not trying to be a smartass, but I don't get your point. This is almost exactly how Google and Yahoo/Overture run their PPC programs.
G for Grits
They often have no interest in "rivaling" MS.
The larger distros like SuSE, RH, Mandriva, etc. are companies, they are going to keep trying to make a profit.
Then you have distros like Gentoo and Debian that are firmly established and will keep producing their fine distros because they have such enthusiastic communities.
Over time leading distros will emerge and fade away. Some people will see the benefits of consolidating their efforts and others will continue to pursue their goals on their own.
It's just the way it is; writing one more article about why all the distros (or GNOME and KDE) should "join forces to bring down MS" is not going to change that.
If I improperly categorized the article I didn't read, I'm sorry, but I still think it's a waste of time to try and "unite the troops".