IMO, Fisker and Tesla are trying to do something VERY different than GM or Nissan (with the Leaf).
In a sense, I'd say they're being smarter and more realistic about what the electric technology, today, is and isn't. They're essentially saying, "Look... we know some of you want to buy an electric car primarily because it's cool. It's high-tech and different than what everybody else is driving. It even offers some potential performance improvements over a gasoline car since electric motors can generate LOADS of torque. So we're going to cater to that, and build you sexy, performance sports cars with this stuff!"
The money-conscious consumer who frets about paying $4/gallon for gas is really NOT that interested in the rather pedestrian-looking sedans like the Volt, or the compact cars like the Leaf, as long as the initial sticker price is anywhere over the mid $15K range or so. These are the people who scrape their money together to make loan payments on the new Mazda 2 or the like. And yes, they're often still of the mindset that if they came into some money with a new, much better paying job, or won a lottery, or ?? They'd want a sexy, performance vehicle for a change... not dumping $50K into a Volt with home charging station.
First of all, the criticism of the Prius is ultimately still quite valid. The cars haven't really existed on the road long enough for the issue to rear its ugly head, but we know batteries have a finite lifespan. I don't think most educated people believed a Prius battery pack would, say, wear out completely in 2 years, like your cellphone battery might. But I can easily see a situation developing where someone buys a new Prius, owns it long enough to pay off the 5 or 6 year loan they've got on it, and then maybe they keep it another year or two. Well, now, it's an old "beater" of a car, so they trade it in for whatever "pennies on the dollar" trade they can get out of it. Problem is, by then, I doubt the battery pack holds more than a fraction of its original charge. It may still charge to some extent, but the car probably gets far worse gas mileage than it used to. In that condition, its major reason for existence is negated.
That means it's pretty much a disposable car at that point.... not really practical to buy used/cheap as a vehicle too far outside the life of a bank loan on its initial purchase.
By contrast? I remember, for example, my parents buying a Chevy Nova back in 1976. It was the less expensive model with the V6 engine, not the bigger V8. Converted to today's dollars, certainly cheaper than any entry model Prius. I was 5 years old at that time. I didn't even try to get my drivers' license when I first turned 15 or 16 like many teens did. I got mine when I was closer to 18. But guess what car they gave me to use as my daily driver? Yep... that Nova. Never had an engine rebuild or anything either, in all that time. (I think it did have transmission problems once and they got that repaired or rebuilt.) I eventually wrecked it and it was totalled out by insurance, but got some good use and driving experience out of it.
I just don't see any of the hybrids like the Prius giving people that kind of usable life, without investing a good chunk of the car's new price, repeatedly, for a battery swap, first.
I recently purchased a Booqpad case for my new iPad.... Basically, it's a case that holds an iPad-sized pad of paper on the right-hand side when you open it up, and has a place in the middle to hold a pen (or in my case, one of those combo pens and iPad stylus gizmos).
I like the idea that with it, you're bringing both your iPad and good old-fashioned pen/paper with you, so you're ready to use whichever is more appropriate in a given situation. But what would make it much better, IMO, would be a similar case that made it easy to flip the iPad over and take photos of the pages you write on the pad of paper. Then you could use software like Evernote to store a digital version of your scribbles, complete with OCR capabilities.
The point is, the penny wasn't worth the expense of minting it, and the hassle of carrying the extra coins around. Nobody said the penny was utterly worthless though. The cash transactions being rounded will surely wind up rounded UP to the next closest 5 cent mark, not DOWN, in almost all cases -- because merchants don't want to lose that 1-4 cents per transaction that adds up over a month's time.
I've talked to several cashiers who said they loved when customers actually had exact change for them. They're constantly having to break open new rolls of coins to re-fill the register drawers with otherwise.
I don't know that RIM really had the products to hold up to scrutiny, if they DID try to create a culture around their devices outside the workplace. Several of my friends bought Blackerry phones in the last year or two, to use as their personal cellphones. In each case, it was a matter of "trying something new" after an existing phone or smartphone broke, got lost, or just wasn't meeting their expectations. I only know ONE person who kept using one of them after the first few months and said anything good about it. Everyone else gave them an honest try, but found too many things lacking.
I agree that the UI is "cleaner" and more consistent than the typical Android phone -- but it also lacks a lot of flexibility. One of the parts I personally disliked was the inability to configure some of the mail settings without the cellular provider enabling the functionality first on their side. I do support for a couple law offices where the Blackberry is the standard issue phone for the partners, and every time one of them needs a replacement phone, it seems like we go through a hassle with Verizon to re-provision the phone properly so the cloud-hosted Exchange mail server they use can be set up in it.
The "Blackberry Desktop" software has progressively gotten worse too! The last time I set up their current version for an employee at work here, we discovered it no longer allowed doing a "desktop sync" of email from his copy of Outlook running on his PC to the phone.
Absolutely.... but I think most of your points will fall on deaf ears with the small business owner, or the project manager type in "middle management" who is tasked with hiring a person or a few people to form a group he/she is directly in charge of. Why? Because in the former case, there really is a blurring of the lines between professional and personal. The small business owner most likely only got the business off the ground and to the point where another hire is needed by sacrificing a lot of personal or family time to do it. The small business owners I know put in FAR more than 9-5 Mon-Fri type hours, so there's definitely an interest in their office or workplace being as "entertaining" for them as possible. By that, I mean they're probably doing things like bringing in a collection of their favorite music to listen to when they're working late, and there's a good chance they've got their fair share of computer games installed on the company PC too. They do a lot of talking on the phone as well, a good sized chunk of which is personal conversations (needed to keep their sanity under the circumstances!).
So yeah, they're definitely thinking about "is this candidate somebody I can actually enjoy being around, and won't be offended by my humor or political comments, or ??"
In the second case, it's sometimes just a matter of middle managers/project managers not looking at or caring much about the "big picture" of what's best for the company as a whole. They just put in their hours, get their paycheck every other week, and try to placate their superiors. They figure they've got nothing to lose if they select a hire they're more likely to want to hang out with at happy hour after work or whatever.
Umm, sure, except you must not be making much use of that smartphone if you're not even going to carry it with you anyplace, out of fear someone might get ahold of it. All your calls are going to have to go to that dumb phone you actually have with you, and at that point? The smartphone doesn't seem so smart to bother with in the first place.
The reason Sealand was created was an understanding that most often, government and law enforcement will attempt to shut down the SOURCE of data they have a problem with. Just like the "War on Drugs", they're most interested in catching the major dealers, as opposed to small time individual drug users (though certainly, many of them get caught in the wide nets they're constantly putting out, too).
With computer data, it's kind of an "every man for himself" situation out there. If you want to view illegal content? You can do so, but you better be well versed in how to scrub it off of your machine when you're done viewing it, or know how to encrypt it so it can't be found and accessed by anyone but yourself. The SOURCES of the data are the ones at greater risk.
Of course, realistically, Sealand never really worked, because ultimately, they didn't think on nearly large enough of a scale. If you're going to declare a territory is ruled by your OWN laws and not a part of any other nation, you're going to have to fight for it. That means, you better have enough of a population living there so you can maintain a standing army of some sort, and you have to pose some sort of risk to those who might decide to forcibly take you over. (By that, I mean a number of things, including simply the fact that in order to do so, a government would have to injure, kill or take prisoner a significant number of people -- which would raise "red flags" with enough other people about human rights issues.) You should also really possess some natural resources and be able to maintain a level of self-sufficiency. (Even a small island would seem to be much more valuable an asset than a man-made vessel out in the ocean. At least an island is made of actual land/soil, meaning crops can be grown on it.)
My friend has a tech podcast he produces weekly, and he's run into the same desire to do remote interviews.
We've found that for a Windows PC, the Logitech Orbit AF was a pretty good webcam. It has motors in it so it can pan and tilt, as well as auto-focus, and the camera "ball" sits on a tall, thin stand so it's basically at eye-level when sitting on a table or desk in front of the user(s).
The stand is, unfortunately, a little on the flimsy side (basically, the ends of the plastic pole that snap into the camera and the base are just mini USB connectors - so liable to break if the camera is knocked over a few times). But if you treat it with care, it seems to be pretty effective. Logitech's accompanying software supports face tracking too - so if the user moves, the camera tries to follow their head.
As for software, my friend always used Skype - but definitely with less than stellar results. The big benefit to Skype, though, is its popularity. Most people you call and ask to do a video-conference with you either have Skype already set up, or can quickly download and install a copy. Plus, it's cross-platform compatible. But yeah, it seems like video quality varies with it, even when both parties have very fast broadband connections -- and on longer sessions, it seems to eventually lose the audio or video at some point in the call.
They're not as concerned with your sales experience with a new iOS device or classic iPod. Those are more of "self contained" devices where most of your questions about usage come AFTER you get it home and unbox it.
Walmart does NOT sell Mac Pro towers, iMacs, Mac Minis, Macbook Airs, Macbooks or Macbook Pros -- to the best of my knowledge.
I can accept your opinion, but still can't say I agree with it myself.
I don't think "paranoia" factors in. That's just more Apple bashing. The fact is, Apple sells their products as part of an entire "user experience" you're supposed to get from them. That's one of the reasons you don't ever see Macs for sale at the local Wal-Mart or "Joe's Computer Shop" down the street in a strip mall. Apple is concerned with the sales experience you receive meeting certain minimum standards of theirs. Even the "unboxing" experience is thought out in advance, so you feel as though your new purchase is something important, valuable and "high end" in nature. As you use their products, they want them to work in the manner they designed too. If you call for technical support, the person on the other end of the line needs to know your product has certain menu options and runs everything a certain way - or else they can't give you the type of "step by step" support answers you might expect.
It's legitimate to disregard all of this as "meaningless" to you, or even to say in your opinion, it's not how a computer product should be sold. But it's part of the formula Apple has for their products - and it's a very successful one.
I'm technical enough so I never need to call Apple's help line... and sure, there are times I wanted to do something with a product of theirs that's way outside the scope of what THEY intended for it. But usually, I can do that if I so desire (such as jailbreaking an iPhone or iPad) and all is good. 90% of the time though, I actually LIKE what they've done with a given product, and I'm fine with using it within those parameters they built it with. Apple is, by and large, pretty good with that stuff, IMO -- so I keep coming back to them.
Plenty of people (myself included) dislike the growing "nanny state" - yet we're able to reason that as long as we're forced, by law, to keep funding such initiatives while we work, we may as well take advantage of their benefits if the situation arises where we qualify for them.
Just because I'd opt to get something back for the money I was forced to pay into such a program doesn't mean I advocate the program itself.
Only thing with your explanation is, if completely true? It makes the oil companies look pretty incompetent. Why would I say that?
Think about it. If you're making a killing selling U.S. produced gasoline to France or other nations, you KNOW that by doing so, you're effectively choking off the supply in your own country. That means right where your own facilities are, you've got an ever growing interest in energy alternatives to use that cost less.
So wouldn't you want to leverage that to make MORE profit, while coming off looking like the "good guy" instead of the "bad guy" at the same time? If so, you'd invest in alternate, lower-priced energy solutions at home while selling everyone else that expensive gasoline! You could become "BP hydrogen solutions" or "Shell compressed natural gas" to Americans! With all the profits you're making on selling gas overseas, you could even afford to subsidize the up-front cost of new vehicles or conversions to existing ones - to create yourself new customers.
Uh... I think there's an assumption here that the two are the same? If you've maximized the goods and services produced, and peoples' access to them, you should effectively be maximizing their quality of life in the process.
I know, I know.. it's popular to claim this isn't so... That we've become too attached to our possessions and we'd be happier and healthier without all of it, etc. etc.
But here's the thing; we live in a world where most of the basic essentials cost money. You want clean running water and toilets that flush? You're looking at paying a water bill and sewer bill. You want a roof over your head? You're looking at paying a good chunk of change every month to someone... whether it's a landlord or a mortgage lender. You will quite likely not even be considered suitable as a potential hire for a wide variety of jobs you'd like to do to earn that money if you don't have reliable transportation -- again, requiring money.
So I have to ask? Do you *really* still think you'd define a person as living a "better quality of life" if they're in some cave with no electricity or running water, and have no vehicle? (Never mind the lack of any modem forms of entertainment requiring electricity.) That's the extreme, but it's still the ultimate conclusion if you go down the whole path of "money is evil and we need to quit desiring it".
I have to claim ignorance on this Pickens Plan proposal... but does it simply say that all *new* trucks being manufactured for sale in the U.S. after a certain date must only operate on natural gas? Or is it another case of govt. trying to force the OWNERS to foot the bill to make the change to an existing fleet?
Because I'd be all for the former idea, but completely against the later.
I agree with your first statement. Gasoline *is* globally desired and valuable. But the "gloom and doom" types who keep advocating we learn to "accept less" and "modify our lifestyle" in response are almost as ridiculous as those idealistic economists you mention.
There are clearly other options besides drilling for crude oil and refining it into gasoline. For example, the USA has one of the largest natural gas deposits in the world, and right now? For a cost of somewhere in the neighborhood of $12,000-14,000, it's possible to convert a gasoline engine into one that runs on compressed natural gas instead. The cost to use it (even considering it's in relatively little demand, so you're probably paying a lot more as a "niche" item than you would if it was mass produced and sold in quantities for most motor vehicles) is the equivalent of about $1.28 per gallon.
They do it right now at Lambert airport here in St. Louis, MO for their buses that transport people between the parking lots and the airport terminals, and I know as far back as the very early 1990's, the Stanley Steemer carpet cleaning company's vans were converted to run on it.
There's also the option of creating synthetic gasoline from other resources. I don't know the exact cost figures on that, but I believe I read it reaches a "break even" point where it's the same price per gallon as regular unleaded gasoline when gas reaches about $4.50 per gallon (and would drop from there as demand and its production increase).
I understand why you'd ask... but I still find a desktop printer fairly useful. I don't print very often, so I actually prefer a good networked color laser that all the machines on my home LAN can share. (With a laser, the toners don't "dry out" if they're not used quickly enough and they don't clog up like the inkjets do.)
I get the most use out of my printer doing things related to my side business of on-site computer service/consulting. For example, I usually print out my own invoices, in advance, when I go to a client. That serves the dual purpose of giving me a sheet of paper with their address and phone number(s) on it, so I know how to get there and who to call if I run late or what-not, AND gives me something to leave with them when I leave. (Sure, most people could deal with me simply emailing them the invoice later that evening, after I tell them what they owe and I get paid. But I usually put some hand-written notes on the invoice as I work... such things as what wireless network key I configured their new wi-fi router with or what static IP I assigned to some device I set up.)
I've also printed up my own business cards before, saving some money over paying a printer to do it, and printed some 3-fold color flyers which I mailed out - and got some new business from.
Another thing we do with the printer from time to time is print out online coupons. Many of these are bar-coded and require you bring the paper in to the restaurant or shop to redeem it. I wish they'd get it so you could do all of this by showing a clerk a screen or code on your smartphone instead, but not everyone is at that point yet.
Lastly, I'll print out step-by-step installation instructions for things now and then. For example, we bought a used platform bed last year off Craigslist, and the owners no longer had the instructions for it. I was promised "it's not that hard to assemble!", but realized that wasn't quite true after I got it all home and tried to figure it out. I was able to download a PDF of the instructions, but printing it out on 8 or 9 sheets of paper and stapling them together made for something much easier to read while working than, say, viewing it on my iPad while I had tools and parts in hand, with stuff scattered all over the bedroom floor.
My feeling is this... If Kim was guilty of stealing credit cards, stock scams or selling cracked games to pirate factories, he should be arrested and tried on those counts. Instead, it looks like they decided it was far more lucrative to take down his MegaUpload site, which is relatively legitimate by comparison to ANY of those other things.
Justice shouldn't be opportunistic, waiting for the "bad guy" to build up something "really worth seizing".
This is all true, except I wouldn't advise anyone to avoid I.T. if it's truly what they enjoy doing. The biggest problem in I.T. during the boom of the late 90's were all the "me too" people who developed an overnight interest in computing when they saw the salaries and demand. Most of them didn't have their heart in the field, and as soon as the going got tough, they got going - back to other professions.
The rest of us still working in I.T. are *still* cleaning up some of the messes made by those "hacks", when big bucks were spent rolling out their half-baked or broken solutions to I.T. problems.
Yeah... one thing I've noticed recently about the I.T. certifications is a rather sneaky way they're being tied directly to real-world work experience. For example, I earned my CompTIA A+ many years ago. Back then, you had to pass 2 tests and then you earned it, and that was that.
Now, they're making people renew the certification, or else you lose it after 3 years. What counts for "renewal"? They appear to have this concept called "work units" where you can submit proof of employment in a field related to your cert. and they count towards earning your renewal.
That's all well and good, but let's face it; that's really just a tactic to tie possession of the cert. to real life work experience. (A potential employer can simply look at how long you've held the cert. and infer that most likely, that equates to X number of years of work experience in I.T.) So all of a sudden, the certificate has more weight in a hiring process, without meaning the exam itself is actually considered useful for the job.
I was much like the original poster too, but got started in the EARLY 90's. I actually wanted to go to college to get a computer-related degree, but quickly realized that "computer science" was a glorified math degree. (Heck, I didn't even care for doing math!) My only other 2 options offered by my college were "data entry" (oh boy - a typist!) and a degree in software development (I wanted to work with the hardware and networking - not the code).
You're right that things have changed a LOT since those days.... but I think it's still true that the most important hiring criteria is simply having the skills to do the job well. If I was going to go the college route today, I'd probably look into the "Information Systems" degrees offered. Those sound much more in-line with what I was really trying to do in the work world.
Honestly? I think there's no substitute for hands-on knowledge when it comes to I.T. The best software developers put in MANY, MANY hours of time coding things - learning an immense amount about the process as they write and improve upon the code, The best network engineers are the people who got the opportunity to work with the widest variety of equipment and had to actually set up networking in various, challenging situations. The best bench techs are the guys who've ripped apart thousands of PCs of various manufacturers, models and from different eras, and memorized all sorts of things about them in the process.
In the big picture, I really think it's a lot like an auto mechanic.... He or she could go to school and learn theory, or watch videos of "how to's" on all sorts of procedures, but ultimately, it won't mean much at all compared to what he/she learns by actually working on vehicles. It's little more than "a nice start" for someone motivated to do it.
Reality is, cops generally don't want citizens "interfering" in the law enforcement process,in any way, shape or form. That's why you regularly hear stories of individuals getting arrested for chasing down a criminal who broke into their home, etc. etc. The typical line? "Leave that work to the police!"
Sure, they want you to call them and make the initial report (as long as they consider it something serious enough to be worthy of their time and energy -- which varies wildly by department and what they've got on their plate). But they don't want you to do any "detective work" for them.
A friend of mine had his truck broken into, right in front of my house, some years back. They stoke his new Alpine stereo head-unit, his cellphone and his wallet, which he had under the seat. He called the cops and besides dusting for fingerprints on his truck's door, they didn't do much of anything but take an initial report.
He got the idea to try calling his cellphone, and the thief actually answered the phone! He got the guy to agree to meet him in a public parking lot at a certain time, by promising him he'd pay him some cash just to get back his wallet with drivers' license and other info in it (and told him he could keep the stereo). He called the cops to tell them what he managed to arrange, and you know what their response was? They didn't have the time or resources to go out there and wait around for the thief to show up!
After that, he realized he was able to log into his cellphone provider's website and get a detailed call log of everywhere the thief called using his phone. The guy had been using it to call girlfriends, buddies, etc. etc. The log was 3 or 4 pages long with local calls the guy was making! He printed that out and gave it to the cops. Guess what? They still couldn't manage to do anything with it!
He wound up better off just claiming all the losses on his insurance and getting all new stuff.... but it just goes to show? Cops completely disregard any detective work done by anything other then their own people, even if it's really GOOD work that would make an arrest a piece of cake for them.
Well, 50 years ago, the U.S. could manufacture most of its own consumer electronics. 50 years ago, the Federal Reserve hadn't ordered the printing of anywhere near the amount of money they have today, either.
The reality is, yes, the United States is in a state of decline, after arguably having "peaked" somewhere in the 1950's or 60's. Today, you can't even buy a kid a model rocket or a chemistry set without someone limiting the sale or fretting that you might be a terrorist.
Yep!! I've always hate doing hard drive RMAs. Honestly, it's to the point where the manufacturers should just accept them with a "no questions asked" policy for exchange during the length of their warranty period. Most of the people who lack the knowledge to adequately determine if a given drive is bad aren't capable of physically removing it from a computer and doing the RMA on it anyway.
I don't know about some of them, but my recent experiences with Seagate RMAs tells me it's pretty much a "one shot" exchange policy anyway. EG. If your drive has a "5 year warranty" and it goes bad in 6 months? As soon as you do the RMA, your replacement is specially branded as a replacement product and only carries something like a 90 day warranty. The warranty length only tells you how long you get to do ONE replacement for free.
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IMO, Fisker and Tesla are trying to do something VERY different than GM or Nissan (with the Leaf).
In a sense, I'd say they're being smarter and more realistic about what the electric technology, today, is and isn't.
They're essentially saying, "Look... we know some of you want to buy an electric car primarily because it's cool. It's high-tech and different than what everybody else is driving. It even offers some potential performance improvements over a gasoline car since electric motors can generate LOADS of torque. So we're going to cater to that, and build you sexy, performance sports cars with this stuff!"
The money-conscious consumer who frets about paying $4/gallon for gas is really NOT that interested in the rather pedestrian-looking sedans like the Volt, or the compact cars like the Leaf, as long as the initial sticker price is anywhere over the mid $15K range or so. These are the people who scrape their money together to make loan payments on the new Mazda 2 or the like. And yes, they're often still of the mindset that if they came into some money with a new, much better paying job, or won a lottery, or ?? They'd want a sexy, performance vehicle for a change ... not dumping $50K into a Volt with home charging station.
I have to disagree with you.
First of all, the criticism of the Prius is ultimately still quite valid. The cars haven't really existed on the road long enough for the issue to rear its ugly head, but we know batteries have a finite lifespan. I don't think most educated people believed a Prius battery pack would, say, wear out completely in 2 years, like your cellphone battery might. But I can easily see a situation developing where someone buys a new Prius, owns it long enough to pay off the 5 or 6 year loan they've got on it, and then maybe they keep it another year or two. Well, now, it's an old "beater" of a car, so they trade it in for whatever "pennies on the dollar" trade they can get out of it. Problem is, by then, I doubt the battery pack holds more than a fraction of its original charge. It may still charge to some extent, but the car probably gets far worse gas mileage than it used to. In that condition, its major reason for existence is negated.
That means it's pretty much a disposable car at that point .... not really practical to buy used/cheap as a vehicle too far outside the life of a bank loan on its initial purchase.
By contrast? I remember, for example, my parents buying a Chevy Nova back in 1976. It was the less expensive model with the V6 engine, not the bigger V8. Converted to today's dollars, certainly cheaper than any entry model Prius. I was 5 years old at that time. I didn't even try to get my drivers' license when I first turned 15 or 16 like many teens did. I got mine when I was closer to 18. But guess what car they gave me to use as my daily driver? Yep... that Nova. Never had an engine rebuild or anything either, in all that time. (I think it did have transmission problems once and they got that repaired or rebuilt.) I eventually wrecked it and it was totalled out by insurance, but got some good use and driving experience out of it.
I just don't see any of the hybrids like the Prius giving people that kind of usable life, without investing a good chunk of the car's new price, repeatedly, for a battery swap, first.
I recently purchased a Booqpad case for my new iPad.... Basically, it's a case that holds an iPad-sized pad of paper on the right-hand side when you open it up, and has a place in the middle to hold a pen (or in my case, one of those combo pens and iPad stylus gizmos).
I like the idea that with it, you're bringing both your iPad and good old-fashioned pen/paper with you, so you're ready to use whichever is more appropriate in a given situation. But what would make it much better, IMO, would be a similar case that made it easy to flip the iPad over and take photos of the pages you write on the pad of paper. Then you could use software like Evernote to store a digital version of your scribbles, complete with OCR capabilities.
The point is, the penny wasn't worth the expense of minting it, and the hassle of carrying the extra coins around. Nobody said the penny was utterly worthless though. The cash transactions being rounded will surely wind up rounded UP to the next closest 5 cent mark, not DOWN, in almost all cases -- because merchants don't want to lose that 1-4 cents per transaction that adds up over a month's time.
I don't see why they wouldn't?
I've talked to several cashiers who said they loved when customers actually had exact change for them. They're constantly having to break open new rolls of coins to re-fill the register drawers with otherwise.
I don't know that RIM really had the products to hold up to scrutiny, if they DID try to create a culture around their devices outside the workplace. Several of my friends bought Blackerry phones in the last year or two, to use as their personal cellphones. In each case, it was a matter of "trying something new" after an existing phone or smartphone broke, got lost, or just wasn't meeting their expectations. I only know ONE person who kept using one of them after the first few months and said anything good about it. Everyone else gave them an honest try, but found too many things lacking.
I agree that the UI is "cleaner" and more consistent than the typical Android phone -- but it also lacks a lot of flexibility. One of the parts I personally disliked was the inability to configure some of the mail settings without the cellular provider enabling the functionality first on their side. I do support for a couple law offices where the Blackberry is the standard issue phone for the partners, and every time one of them needs a replacement phone, it seems like we go through a hassle with Verizon to re-provision the phone properly so the cloud-hosted Exchange mail server they use can be set up in it.
The "Blackberry Desktop" software has progressively gotten worse too! The last time I set up their current version for an employee at work here, we discovered it no longer allowed doing a "desktop sync" of email from his copy of Outlook running on his PC to the phone.
Absolutely.... but I think most of your points will fall on deaf ears with the small business owner, or the project manager type in "middle management" who is tasked with hiring a person or a few people to form a group he/she is directly in charge of. Why? Because in the former case, there really is a blurring of the lines between professional and personal. The small business owner most likely only got the business off the ground and to the point where another hire is needed by sacrificing a lot of personal or family time to do it. The small business owners I know put in FAR more than 9-5 Mon-Fri type hours, so there's definitely an interest in their office or workplace being as "entertaining" for them as possible. By that, I mean they're probably doing things like bringing in a collection of their favorite music to listen to when they're working late, and there's a good chance they've got their fair share of computer games installed on the company PC too. They do a lot of talking on the phone as well, a good sized chunk of which is personal conversations (needed to keep their sanity under the circumstances!).
So yeah, they're definitely thinking about "is this candidate somebody I can actually enjoy being around, and won't be offended by my humor or political comments, or ??"
In the second case, it's sometimes just a matter of middle managers/project managers not looking at or caring much about the "big picture" of what's best for the company as a whole. They just put in their hours, get their paycheck every other week, and try to placate their superiors. They figure they've got nothing to lose if they select a hire they're more likely to want to hang out with at happy hour after work or whatever.
Umm, sure, except you must not be making much use of that smartphone if you're not even going to carry it with you anyplace, out of fear someone might get ahold of it. All your calls are going to have to go to that dumb phone you actually have with you, and at that point? The smartphone doesn't seem so smart to bother with in the first place.
The reason Sealand was created was an understanding that most often, government and law enforcement will attempt to shut down the SOURCE of data they have a problem with. Just like the "War on Drugs", they're most interested in catching the major dealers, as opposed to small time individual drug users (though certainly, many of them get caught in the wide nets they're constantly putting out, too).
With computer data, it's kind of an "every man for himself" situation out there. If you want to view illegal content? You can do so, but you better be well versed in how to scrub it off of your machine when you're done viewing it, or know how to encrypt it so it can't be found and accessed by anyone but yourself. The SOURCES of the data are the ones at greater risk.
Of course, realistically, Sealand never really worked, because ultimately, they didn't think on nearly large enough of a scale. If you're going to declare a territory is ruled by your OWN laws and not a part of any other nation, you're going to have to fight for it. That means, you better have enough of a population living there so you can maintain a standing army of some sort, and you have to pose some sort of risk to those who might decide to forcibly take you over. (By that, I mean a number of things, including simply the fact that in order to do so, a government would have to injure, kill or take prisoner a significant number of people -- which would raise "red flags" with enough other people about human rights issues.) You should also really possess some natural resources and be able to maintain a level of self-sufficiency. (Even a small island would seem to be much more valuable an asset than a man-made vessel out in the ocean. At least an island is made of actual land/soil, meaning crops can be grown on it.)
My friend has a tech podcast he produces weekly, and he's run into the same desire to do remote interviews.
We've found that for a Windows PC, the Logitech Orbit AF was a pretty good webcam. It has motors in it so it can pan and tilt, as well as auto-focus, and the camera "ball" sits on a tall, thin stand so it's basically at eye-level when sitting on a table or desk in front of the user(s).
The stand is, unfortunately, a little on the flimsy side (basically, the ends of the plastic pole that snap into the camera and the base are just mini USB connectors - so liable to break if the camera is knocked over a few times). But if you treat it with care, it seems to be pretty effective. Logitech's accompanying software supports face tracking too - so if the user moves, the camera tries to follow their head.
As for software, my friend always used Skype - but definitely with less than stellar results. The big benefit to Skype, though, is its popularity. Most people you call and ask to do a video-conference with you either have Skype already set up, or can quickly download and install a copy. Plus, it's cross-platform compatible. But yeah, it seems like video quality varies with it, even when both parties have very fast broadband connections -- and on longer sessions, it seems to eventually lose the audio or video at some point in the call.
Yes, they do ... but not Macs, as I said above.
They're not as concerned with your sales experience with a new iOS device or classic iPod. Those are more of "self contained" devices where most of your questions about usage come AFTER you get it home and unbox it.
Walmart does NOT sell Mac Pro towers, iMacs, Mac Minis, Macbook Airs, Macbooks or Macbook Pros -- to the best of my knowledge.
I can accept your opinion, but still can't say I agree with it myself.
I don't think "paranoia" factors in. That's just more Apple bashing. The fact is, Apple sells their products as part of an entire "user experience" you're supposed to get from them. That's one of the reasons you don't ever see Macs for sale at the local Wal-Mart or "Joe's Computer Shop" down the street in a strip mall. Apple is concerned with the sales experience you receive meeting certain minimum standards of theirs. Even the "unboxing" experience is thought out in advance, so you feel as though your new purchase is something important, valuable and "high end" in nature. As you use their products, they want them to work in the manner they designed too. If you call for technical support, the person on the other end of the line needs to know your product has certain menu options and runs everything a certain way - or else they can't give you the type of "step by step" support answers you might expect.
It's legitimate to disregard all of this as "meaningless" to you, or even to say in your opinion, it's not how a computer product should be sold. But it's part of the formula Apple has for their products - and it's a very successful one.
I'm technical enough so I never need to call Apple's help line ... and sure, there are times I wanted to do something with a product of theirs that's way outside the scope of what THEY intended for it. But usually, I can do that if I so desire (such as jailbreaking an iPhone or iPad) and all is good. 90% of the time though, I actually LIKE what they've done with a given product, and I'm fine with using it within those parameters they built it with. Apple is, by and large, pretty good with that stuff, IMO -- so I keep coming back to them.
Plenty of people (myself included) dislike the growing "nanny state" - yet we're able to reason that as long as we're forced, by law, to keep funding such initiatives while we work, we may as well take advantage of their benefits if the situation arises where we qualify for them.
Just because I'd opt to get something back for the money I was forced to pay into such a program doesn't mean I advocate the program itself.
In fact, even Ayn Rand did this.
Only thing with your explanation is, if completely true? It makes the oil companies look pretty incompetent. Why would I say that?
Think about it. If you're making a killing selling U.S. produced gasoline to France or other nations, you KNOW that by doing so, you're effectively choking off the supply in your own country. That means right where your own facilities are, you've got an ever growing interest in energy alternatives to use that cost less.
So wouldn't you want to leverage that to make MORE profit, while coming off looking like the "good guy" instead of the "bad guy" at the same time? If so, you'd invest in alternate, lower-priced energy solutions at home while selling everyone else that expensive gasoline! You could become "BP hydrogen solutions" or "Shell compressed natural gas" to Americans! With all the profits you're making on selling gas overseas, you could even afford to subsidize the up-front cost of new vehicles or conversions to existing ones - to create yourself new customers.
But instead, we constantly see these companies
Uh... I think there's an assumption here that the two are the same? If you've maximized the goods and services produced, and peoples' access to them, you should effectively be maximizing their quality of life in the process.
I know, I know.. it's popular to claim this isn't so ... That we've become too attached to our possessions and we'd be happier and healthier without all of it, etc. etc.
But here's the thing; we live in a world where most of the basic essentials cost money. You want clean running water and toilets that flush? You're looking at paying a water bill and sewer bill. You want a roof over your head? You're looking at paying a good chunk of change every month to someone ... whether it's a landlord or a mortgage lender. You will quite likely not even be considered suitable as a potential hire for a wide variety of jobs you'd like to do to earn that money if you don't have reliable transportation -- again, requiring money.
So I have to ask? Do you *really* still think you'd define a person as living a "better quality of life" if they're in some cave with no electricity or running water, and have no vehicle? (Never mind the lack of any modem forms of entertainment requiring electricity.) That's the extreme, but it's still the ultimate conclusion if you go down the whole path of "money is evil and we need to quit desiring it".
I have to claim ignorance on this Pickens Plan proposal ... but does it simply say that all *new* trucks being manufactured for sale in the U.S. after a certain date must only operate on natural gas? Or is it another case of govt. trying to force the OWNERS to foot the bill to make the change to an existing fleet?
Because I'd be all for the former idea, but completely against the later.
I agree with your first statement. Gasoline *is* globally desired and valuable. But the "gloom and doom" types who keep advocating we learn to "accept less" and "modify our lifestyle" in response are almost as ridiculous as those idealistic economists you mention.
There are clearly other options besides drilling for crude oil and refining it into gasoline. For example, the USA has one of the largest natural gas deposits in the world, and right now? For a cost of somewhere in the neighborhood of $12,000-14,000, it's possible to convert a gasoline engine into one that runs on compressed natural gas instead. The cost to use it (even considering it's in relatively little demand, so you're probably paying a lot more as a "niche" item than you would if it was mass produced and sold in quantities for most motor vehicles) is the equivalent of about $1.28 per gallon.
They do it right now at Lambert airport here in St. Louis, MO for their buses that transport people between the parking lots and the airport terminals, and I know as far back as the very early 1990's, the Stanley Steemer carpet cleaning company's vans were converted to run on it.
There's also the option of creating synthetic gasoline from other resources. I don't know the exact cost figures on that, but I believe I read it reaches a "break even" point where it's the same price per gallon as regular unleaded gasoline when gas reaches about $4.50 per gallon (and would drop from there as demand and its production increase).
I understand why you'd ask ... but I still find a desktop printer fairly useful. I don't print very often, so I actually prefer a good networked color laser that all the machines on my home LAN can share. (With a laser, the toners don't "dry out" if they're not used quickly enough and they don't clog up like the inkjets do.)
I get the most use out of my printer doing things related to my side business of on-site computer service/consulting. For example, I usually print out my own invoices, in advance, when I go to a client. That serves the dual purpose of giving me a sheet of paper with their address and phone number(s) on it, so I know how to get there and who to call if I run late or what-not, AND gives me something to leave with them when I leave. (Sure, most people could deal with me simply emailing them the invoice later that evening, after I tell them what they owe and I get paid. But I usually put some hand-written notes on the invoice as I work ... such things as what wireless network key I configured their new wi-fi router with or what static IP I assigned to some device I set up.)
I've also printed up my own business cards before, saving some money over paying a printer to do it, and printed some 3-fold color flyers which I mailed out - and got some new business from.
Another thing we do with the printer from time to time is print out online coupons. Many of these are bar-coded and require you bring the paper in to the restaurant or shop to redeem it. I wish they'd get it so you could do all of this by showing a clerk a screen or code on your smartphone instead, but not everyone is at that point yet.
Lastly, I'll print out step-by-step installation instructions for things now and then. For example, we bought a used platform bed last year off Craigslist, and the owners no longer had the instructions for it. I was promised "it's not that hard to assemble!", but realized that wasn't quite true after I got it all home and tried to figure it out. I was able to download a PDF of the instructions, but printing it out on 8 or 9 sheets of paper and stapling them together made for something much easier to read while working than, say, viewing it on my iPad while I had tools and parts in hand, with stuff scattered all over the bedroom floor.
My feeling is this... If Kim was guilty of stealing credit cards, stock scams or selling cracked games to pirate factories, he should be arrested and tried on those counts.
Instead, it looks like they decided it was far more lucrative to take down his MegaUpload site, which is relatively legitimate by comparison to ANY of those other things.
Justice shouldn't be opportunistic, waiting for the "bad guy" to build up something "really worth seizing".
This is all true, except I wouldn't advise anyone to avoid I.T. if it's truly what they enjoy doing. The biggest problem in I.T. during the boom of the late 90's were all the "me too" people who developed an overnight interest in computing when they saw the salaries and demand. Most of them didn't have their heart in the field, and as soon as the going got tough, they got going - back to other professions.
The rest of us still working in I.T. are *still* cleaning up some of the messes made by those "hacks", when big bucks were spent rolling out their half-baked or broken solutions to I.T. problems.
Yeah... one thing I've noticed recently about the I.T. certifications is a rather sneaky way they're being tied directly to real-world work experience.
For example, I earned my CompTIA A+ many years ago. Back then, you had to pass 2 tests and then you earned it, and that was that.
Now, they're making people renew the certification, or else you lose it after 3 years. What counts for "renewal"? They appear to have this concept called "work units" where you can submit proof of employment in a field related to your cert. and they count towards earning your renewal.
That's all well and good, but let's face it; that's really just a tactic to tie possession of the cert. to real life work experience. (A potential employer can simply look at how long you've held the cert. and infer that most likely, that equates to X number of years of work experience in I.T.) So all of a sudden, the certificate has more weight in a hiring process, without meaning the exam itself is actually considered useful for the job.
I was much like the original poster too, but got started in the EARLY 90's. I actually wanted to go to college to get a computer-related degree, but quickly realized that "computer science" was a glorified math degree. (Heck, I didn't even care for doing math!) My only other 2 options offered by my college were "data entry" (oh boy - a typist!) and a degree in software development (I wanted to work with the hardware and networking - not the code).
You're right that things have changed a LOT since those days .... but I think it's still true that the most important hiring criteria is simply having the skills to do the job well. If I was going to go the college route today, I'd probably look into the "Information Systems" degrees offered. Those sound much more in-line with what I was really trying to do in the work world.
Honestly? I think there's no substitute for hands-on knowledge when it comes to I.T. The best software developers put in MANY, MANY hours of time coding things - learning an immense amount about the process as they write and improve upon the code, The best network engineers are the people who got the opportunity to work with the widest variety of equipment and had to actually set up networking in various, challenging situations. The best bench techs are the guys who've ripped apart thousands of PCs of various manufacturers, models and from different eras, and memorized all sorts of things about them in the process.
In the big picture, I really think it's a lot like an auto mechanic.... He or she could go to school and learn theory, or watch videos of "how to's" on all sorts of procedures, but ultimately, it won't mean much at all compared to what he/she learns by actually working on vehicles. It's little more than "a nice start" for someone motivated to do it.
Reality is, cops generally don't want citizens "interfering" in the law enforcement process,in any way, shape or form. That's why you regularly hear stories of individuals getting arrested for chasing down a criminal who broke into their home, etc. etc. The typical line? "Leave that work to the police!"
Sure, they want you to call them and make the initial report (as long as they consider it something serious enough to be worthy of their time and energy -- which varies wildly by department and what they've got on their plate). But they don't want you to do any "detective work" for them.
A friend of mine had his truck broken into, right in front of my house, some years back. They stoke his new Alpine stereo head-unit, his cellphone and his wallet, which he had under the seat. He called the cops and besides dusting for fingerprints on his truck's door, they didn't do much of anything but take an initial report.
He got the idea to try calling his cellphone, and the thief actually answered the phone! He got the guy to agree to meet him in a public parking lot at a certain time, by promising him he'd pay him some cash just to get back his wallet with drivers' license and other info in it (and told him he could keep the stereo). He called the cops to tell them what he managed to arrange, and you know what their response was? They didn't have the time or resources to go out there and wait around for the thief to show up!
After that, he realized he was able to log into his cellphone provider's website and get a detailed call log of everywhere the thief called using his phone. The guy had been using it to call girlfriends, buddies, etc. etc. The log was 3 or 4 pages long with local calls the guy was making! He printed that out and gave it to the cops. Guess what? They still couldn't manage to do anything with it!
He wound up better off just claiming all the losses on his insurance and getting all new stuff .... but it just goes to show? Cops completely disregard any detective work done by anything other then their own people, even if it's really GOOD work that would make an arrest a piece of cake for them.
Well, 50 years ago, the U.S. could manufacture most of its own consumer electronics.
50 years ago, the Federal Reserve hadn't ordered the printing of anywhere near the amount of money they have today, either.
The reality is, yes, the United States is in a state of decline, after arguably having "peaked" somewhere in the 1950's or 60's. Today, you can't even buy a kid a model rocket or a chemistry set without someone limiting the sale or fretting that you might be a terrorist.
Yep!! I've always hate doing hard drive RMAs. Honestly, it's to the point where the manufacturers should just accept them with a "no questions asked" policy for exchange during the length of their warranty period. Most of the people who lack the knowledge to adequately determine if a given drive is bad aren't capable of physically removing it from a computer and doing the RMA on it anyway.
I don't know about some of them, but my recent experiences with Seagate RMAs tells me it's pretty much a "one shot" exchange policy anyway. EG. If your drive has a "5 year warranty" and it goes bad in 6 months? As soon as you do the RMA, your replacement is specially branded as a replacement product and only carries something like a 90 day warranty. The warranty length only tells you how long you get to do ONE replacement for free.