I'd agree with the first part of your point.... but when you go on the political rant by saying "you'll always be sorry the Democrats didn't stay in power long enough to break Microsoft up" - you lose me.
Why can't people get it through their heads that Microsoft's problems are part of the natural course of free-market economics? They didn't start out a huge business, placing their OS on everyone's computer. They *earned* that position through superior marketing and business deals. Now that they've become so huge, they're running into the problems that ALWAYS plague the "top dog" in a given market. They start slipping... failing to innovate, and resort to buyouts of other people's products. The mistakes they made years ago (bugs in products, security holes, etc.) come back to haunt them 10x over, because their products are in use by so many people now. The old "too many cooks spoil the soup" addage comes into play, because too many hands are involved in the production/updates of their software products.
Eventually, Microsoft will become a recipe for failure from the *inside* - and someone with more competitive edge will emerge as a new market leader. There's no need for Democrats to break this business up, and frankly, suggesting it's the "best way" to handle the problems they've caused seems truly un-American to me.
You know something, though? Most people, when they do decide to have sex with someone, don't spend an awful lot of time concerning themselves with obtaining a complete, accurate list of everyone else their partner has slept with, and who those people slept with, etc. (If this really was a big concern, most people would probably end up never having sex at all....)
The fact is, most things in life that are in any way, shape or form "rewarding" involve a certain level of risk. A risk-free life is a pretty dull, meaningless existance.
I don't think this guy was saying he never had an idea what he did might be "illegal". Rather, he never thought sharing a file once, among a small group of friends with similar interests, would lead to him getting in any trouble for it.
That's probably a fair assumption, too, really. He just had the unfortunate luck of Apple being on a bit of a crusade to lock down the "leaks" of info on their new products right now - and being smart enough to track down people using BitTorrent.
IMHO, this whole thing is yet another example of the problems we face when we get overly concerned about the "letter of the law" vs. the "intent of the law". Does Apple have the *legal right* to enforce their NDA? Absolutely! Does that mean they shouldn't take individual situations into account when prosecuting violations of the NDA? Well.... you tell me, but as I pointed out on the "blog" site itself earlier, it's AWFUL hypocitical of Jobs if he doesn't. (Both Wozniak and Jobs were avid phone phreakers back in the Apple//e days, so "stealing" long distance phone service seemed to be "ok' with them as long as they weren't caught. Funny how things change when you come into some money though, eh?)
You know what? Just because you have a *right* to remain silent doesn't mean you should always do so!
Perhaps there is sometimes far greater value in getting things "off your chest" and publicly clarifying a situation before the rumor-mongers go wild, twisting it into something completely different than it is?
When you're just a student with limited finances and limited personal property, you already *know* there's not too much financial damage a corporation can do to you. (Can't get blood from a turnip, as they say.) So where's the only *true* damage coming from in a case like this? Usually, your personal credibility and respect - if you remain silent and let people run around the Internet tossing out wild accusations about you.
In fact, letting the public know the true nature of this type of situation can prove to be your best "counter-measure" against the corporation. Any sympathy you earn may do you no good in the courtroom directly, but it very well MIGHT influence the future purchasing desicions others make. (EG. If you used to support Apple products because of a belief they were a more "moral" company than competitors like Microsoft, maybe now, you'll change your mind?)
Well, at least where I live, I'm starting to observe more of a trend of people paying out the money for good computer service and support. All of the cost-cutting and price wars to get PCs down to the "Complete system with flat panel monitor for under $500!" caused "customer service" to all but vaporize.
Sure, some people *are* going out and buying new machines when spyware/viruses screw up their existing ones, but many of them are quickly messing up the replacement computers too. Usually, after they go through 2 machines like this, they decide maybe they should really just pay someone to fix the problem and show them how to avoid causing it again.
The number of on-site/on-call computer support places in our local phone book easily doubled since last year. Some random calls to these places showed that on *average*, they're billing people at least $100/hour or so for their work, too.
This makes me think the trend towards getting the cheapest PC possible might reverse itself. People are gonna say "Hey, I called around and it's gonna cost me hundreds just to fix this ONE problem my computer had. If it's like that, maybe I should just buy that higher-end system next time anyway? No point paying out close to the initial cost of my PC every time I need some help with it - and maybe I'll get more for my money if I spend a little more?"
Well, this all may be true, but didn't much of the initial funding and technology for the oil exploration in Iran come from U.S. businesses?
Not saying this is a complete excuse for everything that happened.... but it's a point conveniently overlooked in most of these arguments. If the U.S. really had business interests (EG. investments) in oil production, and then that was completely taken over by Iran's govt. and the U.S. basically kicked out of the equation - wouldn't it make sense the U.S. would make a retaliatory move afterwards?
Wrong! The motivation is the software and the accessories! When you sell someone a sub $500 Mac, you may not ever see them spend more on a "bigger, better Mac" in the future, but you will see them come back to the Apple store for service and support, purchases of some game titles for their kids or software like Print Shop for use at home, and maybe things like a new printer, speakers or even an Apple flat panel monitor at some point.
Yes, quite true, but the "flat rates" are still higher monthly charges when you buy faster connections. How many folks do you think would still want to pay out as much as 2x or 3x as much money per month for their "high speed" connection, if they didn't have much of any worthwhile content to download?
The whole "MP3 music player" fad is certainly driving up orders for DSL and cable Inet connections. (And let's be frank here... How many of those people are really just buying it so they can quickly download their legally purchased music from places like the iTunes music store? More likely, it's a *combination* of buying some things, and getting the rest from p2p networks.)
The same can be said for movie downloads, too. The MPAA may scream and rant about it - but folks like the ability to download a "preview copy" of a new movie release, before shelling out the $8.50 or more for a movie ticket to see it in the theater. This ability is worth just enough so people might say "Yeah, I'll pay the extra $10-15 per month for a faster connection so I can get them.", but NOT worth enough for folks to pay some sort of subscription fee on top of the ISP bandwidth fee to do it.
The "convergence" is great, but battery life is definitely a prime consideration (or should be!).
I think many folks just assume the battery life is "good enough" when they're wowed by all the flashy new features in the latest phones, and only discover how miserable it can be after the fact.
I've got a Kyocera 7135 "Smartphone" myself, and owned the older black and white Kyocera "Smartphone" before it. The old one was a "brick" to carry around, compared to most phones, but I will say one thing; they got some excellent battery life out of it. The 7135 is dismal by comparison. I'm finding that I can *usually* get through a typical work day with it, as long as I don't use any of the PDA features or the built-in MP3 player or anything else. But if I do, the battery just can't do both that stuff AND let me make and take the calls I need to make/take throughout the whole day. It's dead by 5PM.
I've got spare batteries and the cradle that's supposed to keep a spare charged up for you, and that helps somewhat - but not when you're in the car, miles from the office or home, and the phone conked out on you.... Worse yet, I have a car charger, but my 12V cigarette lighter plug in my car died recently - so can't even go that route right now. Frustrating!
Well, the "cost savings" I was referring to was more the benefit of keeping OLD, EXISTING systems functional. Not many people can stand using Windows on an early Pentium 1 or 486DX anymore. If you're in a small business/office environment, it's even worse, because you're typically adding the overhead of file and print sharing on top of everything else.
I know one guy, for example, who is pretty much a Linux guru, but works at his parents' company, which is on a shoestring budget and barely making it. He introduced them to Linux, because until they discovered what he could do with it plus all their outdated hardware, they were pretty much scrapping the computers completely and going back to pencil and paper. (Heck, up until a couple years ago, they were still backing things up on those Colorado Jumbo 250 tapes!)
Yeah, basically, I think you're right. But today's world of computers is quite different from the one I remember as a kid, growing up.
Part of my initial excitement with learning the computer was the thrill of making it do things I'd never seen done before. (I remember getting ahold of a neighbor's TI99/4A which one of their kids actually won from a contest on the back of a cereal box. I spent hours over there, just typing in lines of BASIC code from the manuals, to do things like draw a jumping "Mr. Bojangles" on the screen.) I would have played with it more, except their parents thought it was "unhealthy" for kids like me to be sitting around in their basement, staring at a computer screen during the summer, when it was "so nice outside".
These days, kids have already had so much exposure to awesome computer graphics and sound by the time they're only 2 or 3, coding simple little things like this isn't too likely to be very "awe inspiring" at all. The stakes are so much higher, today's youth have to practically be expert artists, musicians and good software developers before they can code anything their peers would look twice at!
As some others have pointed out, when you sit kids/teens down in front of a computer today, they're more likely to view it as a way to grab up a bunch of free music or a substitute game console than a system worth really learning more about.
I don't think this is "bad", really.... just the inevitable result of change.... so parents will have to be a little more keen on observing their children as they use the computer, to see if they're really spending the time honing useful skills, or simply using it as yet another TV-like entertainment device.
Honestly, you've got to be in the *extreme* minority there. I'm not denying there are some people out there running nothing but Linux on their machine(s) and only playing the games that run natively on it.
But #1. Many people I encounter who do run strictly Linux on their PCs do so because of a lack of funds. These are the guys who like Linux because they're still able to eeek some life out of their old Pentium 1's and even the old 486DX that they turned into a print server box. They're not exactly a "prime market" for selling commercial games!
#2. Why ruin uptime for a game? Well, in return, I feel like I need to ask you why the "uptime" is an issue in the first place? In the majority of scenarios I can imagine where one is concerned about uptime between reboots, it has to do with that PC running a fairly critical server-type function that's a hassle or major problem to interrupt. I don't think it's really wise to fire up video games on such a system. If it's really just a home workstation, dual-booting into Windows when you want to play a Windows-only game doesn't seem like such a huge deal?
That said though, glad to hear you're buying only the games with Linux support... That's really the only way anyone will keep bothering to make Linux versions of commerical games. I do the same with my Mac, actually. I own a PC with Win XP on it too, but I'd rather put my limited funds towards the people writing for my Mac - because my dollar counts a lot more in a niche market.
So, ignore the typical TV advertisers and think more "outside the box". All of the technical magazines manage to find plenty of advertisers despite presumably being read by "well informed" audiences.
If you're, say, Oracle, and you want to get the word out about some of the more powerful/technical features your latest incarnation of your database offers - where BETTER to do it than in front of a crowd that actually understands what you're telling them? Heck, a "true geek audience" is much more likely than average to have some influence on a corporate purchasing decision of that sort!
G4 may be attempting to go after the "clueless but rich, under 30" market - but IMHO, a station is far better off having a "geeky, knowledgeable and influential" niche audience of all ages, with potential ties to corporate or university sales.
No, I don't think I really did "entirely miss the point". I still beg to differ.
While you couldn't just "invest $10M into making a much-improved version of Mac OS X or Windows XP" - you're entirely free to invest that money in development of a *competing OS* that runs on the same hardware. That's exactly what "free competition" is all about! There was a time, not all that long ago, when IBM held "all the cards" for computer operating systems, and Microsoft was the "little guy" building an alternative. In the computer industry, there appears to only really be room for one or two "top dogs" at a time. (Probably becausse most people value interoperability/compatibility very highly.) If you build the "favorite OS" and achieve market dominance, you'll get to keep it for a while - until someone can truly build the "better mousetrap" and unseat you. I'm convinced that OS/2 could have unseated Windows and taken that market back over if IBM put a little more money and focus towards it. I'm also convinced that Linux isn't destined to unseat Windows any time in the forseeable future, because its greatest strengths lie more in the "server side" than the "workstation side" of things. (If anything, it'll eventually swallow up Novell Netware though.)
The popular statement that Apple's or Microsoft's business model is about being a "monopoly" seems flawed to me, really. They're both doing what all companies want to do; grow as big and popular as possible. When you build PC hardware and/or software, that often means keeping a tight rein on code changes/fixes. If they let just anyone have the source code and apply patches, the product might become more solid/stable - but it'd open up a whole can of worms about receiving payment for their work. (Imagine all the lawsuits from folks claiming MS or Apple owed them some portion of profit on future sales, because they benefited from their patch or rewrite of part of the code.)
Finally, I still say I see more benefits a corp. like Microsoft brings than negatives. (I fully understand it also has negatives... but we're talking about weighing the plusses and minueses here.) The jobs they create, both directly and indirectly... the money donated to charitable causes by Bill and Melinda Gates.... even the mere fact that they push others to do better... (Say what you like about their products, but I still find it "interesting" that so much effort and interest was generated in the Linux community over finding a way to make a satisfactory "clone/work-alike" of Outlook, and to achieve inter-operability with Microsoft Exchange server. If the MS product was so "evil" or even "poor quality", why try so hard to clone it or work along-side of it?)
Ok, I follow your logic - but I vehemently disagree with it!
I suppose we'll have to simply agree to disagree here -- but IMHO, the lifeblood of our nation's economic system DEMANDS that people building superior products (and offering superior services) be free to earn as much money as they can make. (That includes the consumer feeling free to spend his/her money on said products and services.)
By buying and benefiting from the products companies like Apple (or even Microsoft) build and sell, I'm hardly causing "detriment" to the world of software users as a whole. Au contraire, I'm helping a LARGE number of people retain gainful employment in the field of software development and hardware design!
I fully agree that large companies (Microsoft being one of the top offenders) often end up making less than ethical business decisions. The right way for a "free country" to handle this is to address the specific issues, without tossing out the "baby with the bathwater". Microsft deserves legal punishment for specific laws they break, when and if they break them. Same goes for Apple or anyone else. That doesn't mean consumers should feel "guilty" for buying their products. Several of my personal friends held jobs at Microsoft, including one guy who raised and supported his entire family by helping write software for them. I fail to see what's so inherently "evil" about that!
I must put the usual IANAL disclaimer in place here first, but as someone who was actually investigated for copyright infringement on a criminal level (some years ago) I believe I have a little bit of info on these types of situations.
(BTW, I was not found guilty of anything, and my computers were eventually returned to me, minus a few odds and ends they managed to lose, and plus a couple weird items I never originally even owned!)
Before the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) went into effect under the Clinton administration, copyright infringement could only be prosecuted as a criminal case (rather than civil) if it was shown that the accused distributed 10 or more copies of an infringing work, AND was shown that the accused intended to financially gain from the distribution. (Note, the accused didn't have to actually make any money "pirating" the works, but he/she had to demonstrably be attempting to benefit in some tangible way by doing so. This could take the form of a BBS sysop receiving free computer hardware in trade for giving a user "download credits" as a matter of practice, or even collecting a substantial amount of money for copies of the works, whether or not it was enough to meet the expenses of running the operation.
Post DMCA, things have changed. The "profit" motive is all but gone now, as far as I understand it - and they can pretty much just total up the claimed dollar value of the distributed infringing items. If it exceeds a certain min. dollar amount, they've got a potential criminal case against the person.
I know I was told that I was lucky I was still grandfathered in under the old laws, because I might have actually been charged with a crime under the new rules. (I had a fairly popular multi-node BBS throughout the 90's, and like most BBS's of the day, tended to collect up a lot of "warez" that people uploaded to the "catch all" folder called "New Uploads". Someone apparently turned in my board for pirating after seeing some stuff in this folder....)
please, tell me this? Why would you think "Slashdotters" wouldn't/shouldn't like Apple in the first place, considering the size and relative diversity of this "community"?
The only machine I use anymore than runs Linux at all is my MythTV box in my home entertainment center, and I'm just about to can it (too much instability with my particular hardware configuration, and I lack time to fight with it any further right now). Nonetheless, I'm still pretty much a daily Slashdot reader.
With your logic (Apple is not our friend, simply because they build/sell a proprietary product), absolutely none of us should ever tolerate a game console. Sega, X-Box, Playstation, GameCube... all the same. Evil, proprietary hardware and software bundled together in all of them!
Considering my years and years of trying to run Linux, along with a long period of avidly using OS/2 Warp, a brief stint working with BeOS, and running pretty much every flavor of Windows (and DOS before that), I think I'm far from the stereotypical "Mac zealot" - yet I do own a total of 3 Macs now (one is an older beige G3 all-in-one, but it still runs!). I'd have to say my experience with the Macs and primarily OS X is more enjoyable overall than practically all the other operating systems I worked with. Sure, it's not "free software" and *far* from free/cheap hardware, but I feel like I got my money's worth.
Linux was just the thing when I needed dedicated servers (web, ftp, etc.), but as a workstation, it's still lackluster for me. I have no problem paying out some money for a commercial (proprietary, even) product when it works as-advertised. Macs generally do.
Yep! When I first heard about the Gratis, Inc. offer to send a free iPod, I figured "Hey, I'll at least give it a try and see exactly what they're really asking me to do."
I got through the majority of the thing before I realized it was going to be a huge waste of my time to proceed further. At the beginning, they don't really make it clear that you need to get at least 5 referrals to *sign up for the offers they're emailed* (and I believe, keep them for at least 30 days, too). They make you think that YOU simply have to do so with one (of many) offers you click through, and then give them 5 valid email addresses of friends.
From my browsing through all the "trial offers", I began to realize that almost all are a royal pain in the butt to get cancelled after you sign up. I might be willing to go through the hassle myself, but I sure don't want to make 5 of my friends do so (if I could even get 5 of them to sign up for these offers in the first place!).
I think one of the "simplest" ones to cancel was the offer to sign up with AOL, and as most of us probably already know - that's not usually the easiest thing in the world to cancel. (At the very least, you're gonna be waiting on hold for 20 or 30 minutes until you talk to some cust. service clown who keeps trying to give you more "free hours" rather than just cancel you.)
Worse yet, so many other people already know about these deals, you end up emailing friends who are already trying to get the free iPod themselves.
Yep! I had a 7600 running Debian PPC Linux using that quik bootloader for a while. Worked great once I got it all configured properly. (I recall having to do a little research and tweaking to finally get the X server working properly with the built-in video though.)
Only thing was, I ended up selling that machine to a Mac user who had an old 7100 that finally died on her - and I figured I'd just move my drives over to a 7500 I still hung onto. Uh-uh... never could get it to do anything besides boot to a black screen and freeze up. I think the 7500 had a more crippled/buggy edition of "open firmware" in it than most other 7x00 series PowerMacs did, so that probably was a big part of my problem.
From what I've observed so far in the field, I don't think almost any hospital/medical office environments are running Mac OS X Server right now. (You tend to see it more at the research/lab level.)
There are already a few packages for Mac OS X out there to run small dental, doctors' or chiropractic offices with - but you'll tend to see these running on several networked iMacs, in more of a "peer to peer" environment.
If you *do* have concerns about your new product being compatible on OS X Server, I think you almost need to "go all the way" with that goal - and push your product as a niche-market leader in that area. It may or may not really fly, but being first to market in an area is usually a good thing. (EG. If you build it, they will come.) Maybe some hospitals would consider Mac OS X Server purchases if they knew there really was a high-end vertical market product available, designed specially to run on it and take advantage of its capabilities.
I thought about this very same thing, actually - and what's more, there are a number of other good alternatives out there too. I don't own the M-Box, but after much debate, went with M-Audio's "Firewire 410" instead. (Doesn't work with ProTools, but does work with just about anything else - and comes bundled with a light version of several good tools/packages.)
If you don't mind doing a little eBay shopping, or even mail order after a little bit of price watching, you can pick up a Firewire 410 for around the $250 price point. (Doesn't include any mics, but has everything else you need to get started recording.)
From this angle, no - there's nothing really "new" or "innovative" about Apple making a firewire interface for Garageband. It still might do well though, since Garageband is aimed squarely at amateur/hobbyist musicians who aren't generally trying to find an interface compatible with CuBase or Logic Audio or whatnot.
If it's cheap enough, it'll probably be a good solution for anyone who just wants recording capabilities a little bit beyond plugging things into the "mic" jack on the back of their Macintosh....
I'm in total agreement with your conclusion. I've been saying that all along. But to me, this isn't (or shouldn't) be about making legislation to stop WalMart from doing business like they do, or even trying to boycott WalMart....
It's simply an interesting study on what can happen to a business when they try to bite off more than they can chew. These stories all have the same basic theme. Small/new business starts producing product(s) that get them noticed, and eventually the big retail chain approaches them. The business sees $$$$'s and doesn't consider the long-term potential consequences of the deal. Then they get in over their head, and they cry to people about how the retail giant is mistreating them.
I will say that this type of thing sends one clear signal to me. I do NOT want to ever work for WalMart (or any other large business with similar business philosophies). If they desire the "best possible purchase price", no matter what it means to their own suppliers, you better believe the same applies on the opposite end (the employees). They're going to want the most possible labor out of people for the least possible pay, and concepts like "making people happy so they perform better" are going to be pretty foreign to them.
Well, technically, I have no argument with you. That's, of course, the technical reason why code signing is a "good thing".
I guess I was trying to say, though, complete (or near complete) confidence in knowing the code you're downloading really isn't "tampered with" is a relatively minor issue for most people.
99% of the computer users I encounter really don't have a good grasp on the significance of signed certificates in the first place. In the "real world", confidence that you're downloading "what it says it is" comes more from folks getting the software from well-respected sites (such as download.com).
Microsoft is really grasping at straws, trying to punch holes in Mozilla/Firefox credibility, by bringing up relative non-issues like this. The fact remains, people are much more confident they have a "safe browser" when they use Firefox than when they use IE, and this is because of everyone's actual experiences using both products and witnessing the results others are reporting.
(EG. If I use IE, code-signed or not, I know I've got some security holes/issues in my browser. If I use Firefox, I may have that small risk it's been tampered with, but it's a much LOWER relative risk than using IE is.)
Paying for a commercial entity to "code sign" your software seems much to me like trying to buy someone's trust. IMHO, trust can't really ever be bought. It's something earned.
How can I trust FireFox? Basically, I only trust it because other people who came before me reported back on their success with it, and in my own trials, it has done well for me. (The fact that the source code is available for open examination is a comforting factor too, of course.)
Ultimately, I think almost all of us choose the software applications we run based on how satisfied we are with the results they give us. The fact that a package is "signed" or "unsigned" has very little bearing on my confidence in using a particular program.
Actually, I think (at least for U.S. customers), it's more of a supply and demand issue.
I think different countries tend to make their porn "fit their tastes". EG. I've seen some things commonly found in German porn that most U.S. viewers would label more along the lines of "bizarre" or even "a little disturbing", rather than "erotic/sexy".
When you couple that with people's "girl next door" fantasies and the like, it just makes sense that Americans would tend to prefer watching porn featuring other Americans and familiar situations/backdrops.
There's probably also some technical issues though... Providers like Dish or DirecTV don't even have a paid subscription model set up for viewers outside the United States. That's why so much of the satellite card hacking comes from Canada. Canadians *want* to watch these satellite networks but can't even order a legal subscription because of where they live.
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I'd agree with the first part of your point.... but when you go on the political rant by saying "you'll always be sorry the Democrats didn't stay in power long enough to break Microsoft up" - you lose me.
Why can't people get it through their heads that Microsoft's problems are part of the natural course of free-market economics? They didn't start out a huge business, placing their OS on everyone's computer. They *earned* that position through superior marketing and business deals. Now that they've become so huge, they're running into the problems that ALWAYS plague the "top dog" in a given market. They start slipping... failing to innovate, and resort to buyouts of other people's products. The mistakes they made years ago (bugs in products, security holes, etc.) come back to haunt them 10x over, because their products are in use by so many people now. The old "too many cooks spoil the soup" addage comes into play, because too many hands are involved in the production/updates of their software products.
Eventually, Microsoft will become a recipe for failure from the *inside* - and someone with more competitive edge will emerge as a new market leader. There's no need for Democrats to break this business up, and frankly, suggesting it's the "best way" to handle the problems they've caused seems truly un-American to me.
You know something, though? Most people, when they do decide to have sex with someone, don't spend an awful lot of time concerning themselves with obtaining a complete, accurate list of everyone else their partner has slept with, and who those people slept with, etc. (If this really was a big concern, most people would probably end up never having sex at all....)
//e days, so "stealing" long distance phone service seemed to be "ok' with them as long as they weren't caught. Funny how things change when you come into some money though, eh?)
The fact is, most things in life that are in any way, shape or form "rewarding" involve a certain level of risk. A risk-free life is a pretty dull, meaningless existance.
I don't think this guy was saying he never had an idea what he did might be "illegal". Rather, he never thought sharing a file once, among a small group of friends with similar interests, would lead to him getting in any trouble for it.
That's probably a fair assumption, too, really. He just had the unfortunate luck of Apple being on a bit of a crusade to lock down the "leaks" of info on their new products right now - and being smart enough to track down people using BitTorrent.
IMHO, this whole thing is yet another example of the problems we face when we get overly concerned about the "letter of the law" vs. the "intent of the law". Does Apple have the *legal right* to enforce their NDA? Absolutely! Does that mean they shouldn't take individual situations into account when prosecuting violations of the NDA? Well.... you tell me, but as I pointed out on the "blog" site itself earlier, it's AWFUL hypocitical of Jobs if he doesn't. (Both Wozniak and Jobs were avid phone phreakers back in the Apple
You know what? Just because you have a *right* to remain silent doesn't mean you should always do so!
Perhaps there is sometimes far greater value in getting things "off your chest" and publicly clarifying a situation before the rumor-mongers go wild, twisting it into something completely different than it is?
When you're just a student with limited finances and limited personal property, you already *know* there's not too much financial damage a corporation can do to you. (Can't get blood from a turnip, as they say.) So where's the only *true* damage coming from in a case like this? Usually, your personal credibility and respect - if you remain silent and let people run around the Internet tossing out wild accusations about you.
In fact, letting the public know the true nature of this type of situation can prove to be your best "counter-measure" against the corporation. Any sympathy you earn may do you no good in the courtroom directly, but it very well MIGHT influence the future purchasing desicions others make. (EG. If you used to support Apple products because of a belief they were a more "moral" company than competitors like Microsoft, maybe now, you'll change your mind?)
Well, at least where I live, I'm starting to observe more of a trend of people paying out the money for good computer service and support. All of the cost-cutting and price wars to get PCs down to the "Complete system with flat panel monitor for under $500!" caused "customer service" to all but vaporize.
Sure, some people *are* going out and buying new machines when spyware/viruses screw up their existing ones, but many of them are quickly messing up the replacement computers too. Usually, after they go through 2 machines like this, they decide maybe they should really just pay someone to fix the problem and show them how to avoid causing it again.
The number of on-site/on-call computer support places in our local phone book easily doubled since last year. Some random calls to these places showed that on *average*, they're billing people at least $100/hour or so for their work, too.
This makes me think the trend towards getting the cheapest PC possible might reverse itself. People are gonna say "Hey, I called around and it's gonna cost me hundreds just to fix this ONE problem my computer had. If it's like that, maybe I should just buy that higher-end system next time anyway? No point paying out close to the initial cost of my PC every time I need some help with it - and maybe I'll get more for my money if I spend a little more?"
Well, this all may be true, but didn't much of the initial funding and technology for the oil exploration in Iran come from U.S. businesses?
Not saying this is a complete excuse for everything that happened.... but it's a point conveniently overlooked in most of these arguments. If the U.S. really had business interests (EG. investments) in oil production, and then that was completely taken over by Iran's govt. and the U.S. basically kicked out of the equation - wouldn't it make sense the U.S. would make a retaliatory move afterwards?
Wrong! The motivation is the software and the accessories! When you sell someone a sub $500 Mac, you may not ever see them spend more on a "bigger, better Mac" in the future, but you will see them come back to the Apple store for service and support, purchases of some game titles for their kids or software like Print Shop for use at home, and maybe things like a new printer, speakers or even an Apple flat panel monitor at some point.
Yes, quite true, but the "flat rates" are still higher monthly charges when you buy faster connections. How many folks do you think would still want to pay out as much as 2x or 3x as much money per month for their "high speed" connection, if they didn't have much of any worthwhile content to download?
The whole "MP3 music player" fad is certainly driving up orders for DSL and cable Inet connections. (And let's be frank here... How many of those people are really just buying it so they can quickly download their legally purchased music from places like the iTunes music store? More likely, it's a *combination* of buying some things, and getting the rest from p2p networks.)
The same can be said for movie downloads, too. The MPAA may scream and rant about it - but folks like the ability to download a "preview copy" of a new movie release, before shelling out the $8.50 or more for a movie ticket to see it in the theater. This ability is worth just enough so people might say "Yeah, I'll pay the extra $10-15 per month for a faster connection so I can get them.", but NOT worth enough for folks to pay some sort of subscription fee on top of the ISP bandwidth fee to do it.
The "convergence" is great, but battery life is definitely a prime consideration (or should be!).
I think many folks just assume the battery life is "good enough" when they're wowed by all the flashy new features in the latest phones, and only discover how miserable it can be after the fact.
I've got a Kyocera 7135 "Smartphone" myself, and owned the older black and white Kyocera "Smartphone" before it. The old one was a "brick" to carry around, compared to most phones, but I will say one thing; they got some excellent battery life out of it. The 7135 is dismal by comparison. I'm finding that I can *usually* get through a typical work day with it, as long as I don't use any of the PDA features or the built-in MP3 player or anything else. But if I do, the battery just can't do both that stuff AND let me make and take the calls I need to make/take throughout the whole day. It's dead by 5PM.
I've got spare batteries and the cradle that's supposed to keep a spare charged up for you, and that helps somewhat - but not when you're in the car, miles from the office or home, and the phone conked out on you.... Worse yet, I have a car charger, but my 12V cigarette lighter plug in my car died recently - so can't even go that route right now. Frustrating!
Well, the "cost savings" I was referring to was more the benefit of keeping OLD, EXISTING systems functional. Not many people can stand using Windows on an early Pentium 1 or 486DX anymore. If you're in a small business/office environment, it's even worse, because you're typically adding the overhead of file and print sharing on top of everything else.
I know one guy, for example, who is pretty much a Linux guru, but works at his parents' company, which is on a shoestring budget and barely making it. He introduced them to Linux, because until they discovered what he could do with it plus all their outdated hardware, they were pretty much scrapping the computers completely and going back to pencil and paper. (Heck, up until a couple years ago, they were still backing things up on those Colorado Jumbo 250 tapes!)
Yeah, basically, I think you're right. But today's world of computers is quite different from the one I remember as a kid, growing up.
Part of my initial excitement with learning the computer was the thrill of making it do things I'd never seen done before. (I remember getting ahold of a neighbor's TI99/4A which one of their kids actually won from a contest on the back of a cereal box. I spent hours over there, just typing in lines of BASIC code from the manuals, to do things like draw a jumping "Mr. Bojangles" on the screen.) I would have played with it more, except their parents thought it was "unhealthy" for kids like me to be sitting around in their basement, staring at a computer screen during the summer, when it was "so nice outside".
These days, kids have already had so much exposure to awesome computer graphics and sound by the time they're only 2 or 3, coding simple little things like this isn't too likely to be very "awe inspiring" at all. The stakes are so much higher, today's youth have to practically be expert artists, musicians and good software developers before they can code anything their peers would look twice at!
As some others have pointed out, when you sit kids/teens down in front of a computer today, they're more likely to view it as a way to grab up a bunch of free music or a substitute game console than a system worth really learning more about.
I don't think this is "bad", really.... just the inevitable result of change.... so parents will have to be a little more keen on observing their children as they use the computer, to see if they're really spending the time honing useful skills, or simply using it as yet another TV-like entertainment device.
Honestly, you've got to be in the *extreme* minority there. I'm not denying there are some people out there running nothing but Linux on their machine(s) and only playing the games that run natively on it.
But #1. Many people I encounter who do run strictly Linux on their PCs do so because of a lack of funds. These are the guys who like Linux because they're still able to eeek some life out of their old Pentium 1's and even the old 486DX that they turned into a print server box. They're not exactly a "prime market" for selling commercial games!
#2. Why ruin uptime for a game? Well, in return, I feel like I need to ask you why the "uptime" is an issue in the first place? In the majority of scenarios I can imagine where one is concerned about uptime between reboots, it has to do with that PC running a fairly critical server-type function that's a hassle or major problem to interrupt. I don't think it's really wise to fire up video games on such a system. If it's really just a home workstation, dual-booting into Windows when you want to play a Windows-only game doesn't seem like such a huge deal?
That said though, glad to hear you're buying only the games with Linux support... That's really the only way anyone will keep bothering to make Linux versions of commerical games. I do the same with my Mac, actually. I own a PC with Win XP on it too, but I'd rather put my limited funds towards the people writing for my Mac - because my dollar counts a lot more in a niche market.
So, ignore the typical TV advertisers and think more "outside the box". All of the technical magazines manage to find plenty of advertisers despite presumably being read by "well informed" audiences.
If you're, say, Oracle, and you want to get the word out about some of the more powerful/technical features your latest incarnation of your database offers - where BETTER to do it than in front of a crowd that actually understands what you're telling them? Heck, a "true geek audience" is much more likely than average to have some influence on a corporate purchasing decision of that sort!
G4 may be attempting to go after the "clueless but rich, under 30" market - but IMHO, a station is far better off having a "geeky, knowledgeable and influential" niche audience of all ages, with potential ties to corporate or university sales.
No, I don't think I really did "entirely miss the point". I still beg to differ.
... the money donated to charitable causes by Bill and Melinda Gates .... even the mere fact that they push others to do better... (Say what you like about their products, but I still find it "interesting" that so much effort and interest was generated in the Linux community over finding a way to make a satisfactory "clone/work-alike" of Outlook, and to achieve inter-operability with Microsoft Exchange server. If the MS product was so "evil" or even "poor quality", why try so hard to clone it or work along-side of it?)
While you couldn't just "invest $10M into making a much-improved version of Mac OS X or Windows XP" - you're entirely free to invest that money in development of a *competing OS* that runs on the same hardware. That's exactly what "free competition" is all about! There was a time, not all that long ago, when IBM held "all the cards" for computer operating systems, and Microsoft was the "little guy" building an alternative. In the computer industry, there appears to only really be room for one or two "top dogs" at a time. (Probably becausse most people value interoperability/compatibility very highly.) If you build the "favorite OS" and achieve market dominance, you'll get to keep it for a while - until someone can truly build the "better mousetrap" and unseat you. I'm convinced that OS/2 could have unseated Windows and taken that market back over if IBM put a little more money and focus towards it. I'm also convinced that Linux isn't destined to unseat Windows any time in the forseeable future, because its greatest strengths lie more in the "server side" than the "workstation side" of things. (If anything, it'll eventually swallow up Novell Netware though.)
The popular statement that Apple's or Microsoft's business model is about being a "monopoly" seems flawed to me, really. They're both doing what all companies want to do; grow as big and popular as possible. When you build PC hardware and/or software, that often means keeping a tight rein on code changes/fixes. If they let just anyone have the source code and apply patches, the product might become more solid/stable - but it'd open up a whole can of worms about receiving payment for their work. (Imagine all the lawsuits from folks claiming MS or Apple owed them some portion of profit on future sales, because they benefited from their patch or rewrite of part of the code.)
Finally, I still say I see more benefits a corp. like Microsoft brings than negatives. (I fully understand it also has negatives... but we're talking about weighing the plusses and minueses here.) The jobs they create, both directly and indirectly
Ok, I follow your logic - but I vehemently disagree with it!
I suppose we'll have to simply agree to disagree here -- but IMHO, the lifeblood of our nation's economic system DEMANDS that people building superior products (and offering superior services) be free to earn as much money as they can make. (That includes the consumer feeling free to spend his/her money on said products and services.)
By buying and benefiting from the products companies like Apple (or even Microsoft) build and sell, I'm hardly causing "detriment" to the world of software users as a whole. Au contraire, I'm helping a LARGE number of people retain gainful employment in the field of software development and hardware design!
I fully agree that large companies (Microsoft being one of the top offenders) often end up making less than ethical business decisions. The right way for a "free country" to handle this is to address the specific issues, without tossing out the "baby with the bathwater". Microsft deserves legal punishment for specific laws they break, when and if they break them. Same goes for Apple or anyone else. That doesn't mean consumers should feel "guilty" for buying their products. Several of my personal friends held jobs at Microsoft, including one guy who raised and supported his entire family by helping write software for them. I fail to see what's so inherently "evil" about that!
I must put the usual IANAL disclaimer in place here first, but as someone who was actually investigated for copyright infringement on a criminal level (some years ago) I believe I have a little bit of info on these types of situations.
(BTW, I was not found guilty of anything, and my computers were eventually returned to me, minus a few odds and ends they managed to lose, and plus a couple weird items I never originally even owned!)
Before the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) went into effect under the Clinton administration, copyright infringement could only be prosecuted as a criminal case (rather than civil) if it was shown that the accused distributed 10 or more copies of an infringing work, AND was shown that the accused intended to financially gain from the distribution. (Note, the accused didn't have to actually make any money "pirating" the works, but he/she had to demonstrably be attempting to benefit in some tangible way by doing so. This could take the form of a BBS sysop receiving free computer hardware in trade for giving a user "download credits" as a matter of practice, or even collecting a substantial amount of money for copies of the works, whether or not it was enough to meet the expenses of running the operation.
Post DMCA, things have changed. The "profit" motive is all but gone now, as far as I understand it - and they can pretty much just total up the claimed dollar value of the distributed infringing items. If it exceeds a certain min. dollar amount, they've got a potential criminal case against the person.
I know I was told that I was lucky I was still grandfathered in under the old laws, because I might have actually been charged with a crime under the new rules. (I had a fairly popular multi-node BBS throughout the 90's, and like most BBS's of the day, tended to collect up a lot of "warez" that people uploaded to the "catch all" folder called "New Uploads". Someone apparently turned in my board for pirating after seeing some stuff in this folder....)
please, tell me this? Why would you think "Slashdotters" wouldn't/shouldn't like Apple in the first place, considering the size and relative diversity of this "community"?
The only machine I use anymore than runs Linux at all is my MythTV box in my home entertainment center, and I'm just about to can it (too much instability with my particular hardware configuration, and I lack time to fight with it any further right now). Nonetheless, I'm still pretty much a daily Slashdot reader.
With your logic (Apple is not our friend, simply because they build/sell a proprietary product), absolutely none of us should ever tolerate a game console. Sega, X-Box, Playstation, GameCube... all the same. Evil, proprietary hardware and software bundled together in all of them!
Considering my years and years of trying to run Linux, along with a long period of avidly using OS/2 Warp, a brief stint working with BeOS, and running pretty much every flavor of Windows (and DOS before that), I think I'm far from the stereotypical "Mac zealot" - yet I do own a total of 3 Macs now (one is an older beige G3 all-in-one, but it still runs!). I'd have to say my experience with the Macs and primarily OS X is more enjoyable overall than practically all the other operating systems I worked with. Sure, it's not "free software" and *far* from free/cheap hardware, but I feel like I got my money's worth.
Linux was just the thing when I needed dedicated servers (web, ftp, etc.), but as a workstation, it's still lackluster for me. I have no problem paying out some money for a commercial (proprietary, even) product when it works as-advertised. Macs generally do.
Yep! When I first heard about the Gratis, Inc. offer to send a free iPod, I figured "Hey, I'll at least give it a try and see exactly what they're really asking me to do."
I got through the majority of the thing before I realized it was going to be a huge waste of my time to proceed further. At the beginning, they don't really make it clear that you need to get at least 5 referrals to *sign up for the offers they're emailed* (and I believe, keep them for at least 30 days, too). They make you think that YOU simply have to do so with one (of many) offers you click through, and then give them 5 valid email addresses of friends.
From my browsing through all the "trial offers", I began to realize that almost all are a royal pain in the butt to get cancelled after you sign up. I might be willing to go through the hassle myself, but I sure don't want to make 5 of my friends do so (if I could even get 5 of them to sign up for these offers in the first place!).
I think one of the "simplest" ones to cancel was the offer to sign up with AOL, and as most of us probably already know - that's not usually the easiest thing in the world to cancel. (At the very least, you're gonna be waiting on hold for 20 or 30 minutes until you talk to some cust. service clown who keeps trying to give you more "free hours" rather than just cancel you.)
Worse yet, so many other people already know about these deals, you end up emailing friends who are already trying to get the free iPod themselves.
Yep! I had a 7600 running Debian PPC Linux using that quik bootloader for a while. Worked great once I got it all configured properly. (I recall having to do a little research and tweaking to finally get the X server working properly with the built-in video though.)
Only thing was, I ended up selling that machine to a Mac user who had an old 7100 that finally died on her - and I figured I'd just move my drives over to a 7500 I still hung onto. Uh-uh... never could get it to do anything besides boot to a black screen and freeze up. I think the 7500 had a more crippled/buggy edition of "open firmware" in it than most other 7x00 series PowerMacs did, so that probably was a big part of my problem.
From what I've observed so far in the field, I don't think almost any hospital/medical office environments are running Mac OS X Server right now. (You tend to see it more at the research/lab level.)
There are already a few packages for Mac OS X out there to run small dental, doctors' or chiropractic offices with - but you'll tend to see these running on several networked iMacs, in more of a "peer to peer" environment.
If you *do* have concerns about your new product being compatible on OS X Server, I think you almost need to "go all the way" with that goal - and push your product as a niche-market leader in that area. It may or may not really fly, but being first to market in an area is usually a good thing. (EG. If you build it, they will come.) Maybe some hospitals would consider Mac OS X Server purchases if they knew there really was a high-end vertical market product available, designed specially to run on it and take advantage of its capabilities.
I thought about this very same thing, actually - and what's more, there are a number of other good alternatives out there too. I don't own the M-Box, but after much debate, went with M-Audio's "Firewire 410" instead. (Doesn't work with ProTools, but does work with just about anything else - and comes bundled with a light version of several good tools/packages.)
If you don't mind doing a little eBay shopping, or even mail order after a little bit of price watching, you can pick up a Firewire 410 for around the $250 price point. (Doesn't include any mics, but has everything else you need to get started recording.)
From this angle, no - there's nothing really "new" or "innovative" about Apple making a firewire interface for Garageband. It still might do well though, since Garageband is aimed squarely at amateur/hobbyist musicians who aren't generally trying to find an interface compatible with CuBase or Logic Audio or whatnot.
If it's cheap enough, it'll probably be a good solution for anyone who just wants recording capabilities a little bit beyond plugging things into the "mic" jack on the back of their Macintosh....
I'm in total agreement with your conclusion. I've been saying that all along. But to me, this isn't (or shouldn't) be about making legislation to stop WalMart from doing business like they do, or even trying to boycott WalMart....
It's simply an interesting study on what can happen to a business when they try to bite off more than they can chew. These stories all have the same basic theme. Small/new business starts producing product(s) that get them noticed, and eventually the big retail chain approaches them. The business sees $$$$'s and doesn't consider the long-term potential consequences of the deal. Then they get in over their head, and they cry to people about how the retail giant is mistreating them.
I will say that this type of thing sends one clear signal to me. I do NOT want to ever work for WalMart (or any other large business with similar business philosophies). If they desire the "best possible purchase price", no matter what it means to their own suppliers, you better believe the same applies on the opposite end (the employees). They're going to want the most possible labor out of people for the least possible pay, and concepts like "making people happy so they perform better" are going to be pretty foreign to them.
Yes... but since this laptop doesn't play ANY of the revisions of the "Deer Hunter" game, it's a non-starter.
Well, technically, I have no argument with you. That's, of course, the technical reason why code signing is a "good thing".
I guess I was trying to say, though, complete (or near complete) confidence in knowing the code you're downloading really isn't "tampered with" is a relatively minor issue for most people.
99% of the computer users I encounter really don't have a good grasp on the significance of signed certificates in the first place. In the "real world", confidence that you're downloading "what it says it is" comes more from folks getting the software from well-respected sites (such as download.com).
Microsoft is really grasping at straws, trying to punch holes in Mozilla/Firefox credibility, by bringing up relative non-issues like this. The fact remains, people are much more confident they have a "safe browser" when they use Firefox than when they use IE, and this is because of everyone's actual experiences using both products and witnessing the results others are reporting.
(EG. If I use IE, code-signed or not, I know I've got some security holes/issues in my browser. If I use Firefox, I may have that small risk it's been tampered with, but it's a much LOWER relative risk than using IE is.)
Paying for a commercial entity to "code sign" your software seems much to me like trying to buy someone's trust. IMHO, trust can't really ever be bought. It's something earned.
How can I trust FireFox? Basically, I only trust it because other people who came before me reported back on their success with it, and in my own trials, it has done well for me. (The fact that the source code is available for open examination is a comforting factor too, of course.)
Ultimately, I think almost all of us choose the software applications we run based on how satisfied we are with the results they give us. The fact that a package is "signed" or "unsigned" has very little bearing on my confidence in using a particular program.
Actually, I think (at least for U.S. customers), it's more of a supply and demand issue.
I think different countries tend to make their porn "fit their tastes". EG. I've seen some things commonly found in German porn that most U.S. viewers would label more along the lines of "bizarre" or even "a little disturbing", rather than "erotic/sexy".
When you couple that with people's "girl next door" fantasies and the like, it just makes sense that Americans would tend to prefer watching porn featuring other Americans and familiar situations/backdrops.
There's probably also some technical issues though... Providers like Dish or DirecTV don't even have a paid subscription model set up for viewers outside the United States. That's why so much of the satellite card hacking comes from Canada. Canadians *want* to watch these satellite networks but can't even order a legal subscription because of where they live.