Cris, First let me thank you for explaining your point of view so well and for your insightfull take on the need for 2 way comunication to make an exchange. I'm downloading alleycat.mp3 and fire_dragon.mp3 as I type this.
Don't be afraid to spam if it's personal email. Often times a 'one time' unsolicited email will get passed over, but if it's followed up with another saying "I'm following up to an un answered email from a week ago", it'll get attention.
I also tend to respond better to people who put full disclosure about who they are (full name, address, homepage link) and how I can reach them (phone number,fax,cell)in the email. A lot of people are more comfortable picking up a phone to talk then to type a response.
Lastley, striking up an on-line 2 way comunication is very simalar to personal relationships. The first contact is often just a "get to know me" kinda thing. Then, after a few messages have been echanged with success, the comunications can move forward. Think of your first email to execs as the "get to know me" part and don't be put off if they don't take the time right away. If I was a music exec, I would respect your fire and desire if you kept up the messages. Don't be afraid to email them more often, just keep them personal. ___
The things everyone finds a little frustrating is while surfing around and filling out forms, often the people end up on lists when faced with such user inrface mistakes as these:
[ ] I would like exciting news. About what? When? exciting? pfffft
[ ] I want anouncments of product updates. Does this mean that every time the programer farts in his code he's going to send out an update to inform me that: "wondersoft has updated 1.2.3 to 1.2.4"?
[x] Please do not add me to the mailing list. OOOoooo the pre-checked box. Does unchecking it mean Yes or No? Is the list a shared user list or one way company PR newswire thing?
I believe that if companies were more forthcoming about when and what they send to your email, people would feel less over welmed when it happens. ___
Our company had a manual we made available to our customers at no cost. The manual was full of useful and educational information that helped the customer get more productivity out of the machine they purchased.
Customers liked them so much that we started releasing updates to them. We went from releasing them every 2 yeas to every year, then every 6 months, then every 3 months.
When the work sterted to get overwhelming (and our customer base grew) I went in to ask for another engineer to help the project keep on schedule. In the meeting, my boss informed me that we spent over $75,000 in the previous year just on printing and distribution and asked that I look for new ways to lower that cost. Then, and only then, would he consider bringing on additions to the staff.
The lesson here is that a printed solution doesn't scale well. It's fine for a small user base, but as that base grows, a printed solution adds up to real money.
In the end, we went back to giving one manual with the purchase of the product and gave away newer versions of the docs on-line to keep customers satisfied. We increased our update schedule to every month, and hired the extra engineer. ___
Bruce: Like so many microsoft products, the russian module has been "almost done" for a loooong time. I agree that it is over optimistic of them to be so confident of this "vapor module".
Those extra shuttle flights and delays add up. A billion here, a billion there, sooner or later that's real money. My question is, who's flipping the bill to pay for this "booster flight"? Is russia sharing any of the liability that it created? ___
They are doing their job. It's the lack of the russians module that have caused the ISS orbit to slip. And backup plan? This is it. They have one and they are deploying it on time.
Don't hammer them so fast. This is uncharted teritory. It's not like they can say: "You know, we learned from the *last* International Space Station we need to have more contingency plans." This is a first. With every firsts comes a lot of learning.
NASA even has another module (yet another back up plan) that they've been threatening to put up if the russians s delay much longer.
Regarding you comments:"we shouldnt be in space?"
and man should use tools. and man shouldn't walk upright. and man shouldn't explore the oceans. and man shouldn't fly .. ect..ect.. ___
CARPEL TUNNEL CANAVERAL, Fla. (/.) As Shuttle astronauts scramble to keep the International Space Station up, a team of Nasa navigation engineers came out with some new findings that brings new urgency to the shuttle launch.
``We're incredibly happy to be here,'' said mission commander James Halsell, a colonel in the U.S. Air Force. ``It's our understanding the vehicle is in fine shape, but if it drifts any lower in it's orbit, it'll be whacked by Iridium salelites.''
An unnamed source close to the project said that a team of hackers calling themselves "Team Slashdot" have hacked the trajectory of the Iridium satleites and put them into the International Space Stations path.
When asked for comment, an unidentified slashdot team member said only: "first..post..grits..pants..natalie..taco". Crypygraphic experts from around the world are working on decoding the message to find it's hiden meaning. ___
You bring up an interesting point about the IMac. There are many older Macs that can't read the peecee floppies either, so there are exceptions.
When we made the purchasing decision to get these camera, we counted the number of computers in our office that needed to view and/or distribute the pictures to customers. Then we counted the number of computers *at our customers facility* that would be able to read the images and the choice became clear.
Also, being able to choose the distribution method has proven to be a huge plus. Got email? fine, I'll attach them. Got a fax machine? the fax gateway can get the, somewhat crappy, image to you. Network problems? at a trade show? No email? fine, I'll FedEx the disks.
Our company has a digital camera with a 1.4M, 3.5 inch floppy drive that stores ~60k jpg images at 640x480. There's something to be said for a floppies ability to conect with *any* computer, any where, any time.
Couple that with the fact that floppies are *almost* free, and you've got an open and affordable format to make sure every computer can view the image. In recent years, the ability to read the jpg format has been increased since almost every computer has at least a web browser.
With every camera manufacturer offering their own proprietary storage media, remember that your images, like undeveloped film, are just bits untill a computer can read them. ___
Specs:" My PDP-11/20 was, like many machines, sold to me via the University of Wisconsin surplus program. This particular machine happened to be originally located in the Electrical Engineering Department real-time control lab that was sponsered by Professor Richard Marleau. Inside the panel, just above the CPU, is an RC11 disk drive. The RC11 is a 65K word (128 K byte) fixed head disk drive. After all these years (the system was first purchased around 1970) it still works!"
Also this PDP-11/45 sports such wonderfull specs as:"The PDP-11/45 is of approximately the same vintage as the PDP-11/20, but is a much more sophisticated machine. For one thing, it was a micro-coded CPU. It had robust memory management, not seen in microcomputers from Intel until the 80386. It could also support two separate buses: one primarily intended for memory, and the second generally used for peripherals. This is not unlike today's "local bus" PC's. I cut my teeth on Unix on a PDP-11/45 system at the University of Wisconsin in 1976 along with my friends Paul and Hannes (among others)."
This PDP-11/05 graphics system. " The GT40 was a graphic system, often used as a graphic terminal for DEC's PDP-10 and PDP-20 mainframe systems. The CPU was a PDP-11/05, but used the green color scheme of DEC's graphic systems rather than the magenta color scheme normally found on PDP-11's. The GT-40's main claim to fame is probably the famous Lunar Lander game, written by Jack Burness, as a consultant to Digital at the time." ___
Tired of seeing his name? Would you like to avoid reading/seeing/being exposed to JonKatz? Then follow these few sinple steps, and you can be on your way to "Katz free/." [1] If you haven't already loged in, Login to Slashdot.org/users.pl to create an acount. [2] Load the main page, and along the menu on the left side look for preferances. [3] Now, along the top of the page you'll see a link called Customize Homepage. click on it. [4] Half way down the page, you'll see a series of check boxes with the heading "Exclude Stories from the Homepage". In that list, you'll see a colume labeled "Authors". Half way down the list, locate the name JonKatz and click the checkbox next to that name. [5] Scroll to the bottom of the page and look for button labeled savehome and click on it. Congradulations, by taking these few simple steps, you're on your way to making/. a better place. ___
Wed, Apr 19, 2000 2:01 PM - Pablo elbo C.A.(/.) Microsoft has won a decisive legal case against "Joe's Salvage" for using crashed cars in it's product. Microsoft owns the concepts used in these crashes, and has spent years perfecting their use.
Acknowledging Microsofts rights to crashes such as HEAD ON, SIDE SWIPE, MEMORY LEAK and BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH. "It's just a bunch of useless junk" said Joe of Joe's Salvage.
Joe's Salvage has agreed to cease and desist the use of crashed items based on these and other properties Microsoft owns or licenses. ___
From the article:But Microsoft?s handheld competitors are already writing off the redesigned, renamed operating system as a last-gasp attempt to win over customers.
"It?s like the witness protection program," said Rob Haitani, director of product marketing at Handspring. "They?re trying to start afresh with a new name, but look what happened last time. They put them out there and no one bought them." At New York?s Grand Central Station, Microsoft will introduce the Pocket PC operating system and show off at least three devices running it from Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, and Casio.
It's not anything new. Palm has ms beat on price and share and has lock-in on developers. I don't care if ms can make a PDAos whistle zippity do da, it's still to expensive. ___
I picked up a copy of USA today and found an extensive write-up on how Microsoft is releasing new PDAs. I then read on to find a lengthy article that compares the palm to the HP and talks up Microsoft for all their hard work. I then turn to the back page to find a full page add touting how wonderful Microsoft is for making these little battery burners.
Newsflash: MS DOESN"T MAKE A PDA !
Why in the world would 2 companies with a strong user base and solid brand name put themselves in a PR position that makes them look like "The guys who make the kewl little PDA case" and ms comes off looking like the 8th freakin' wonder of the world (all without ms making or selling any product).
It's a horrible PR deal for any company making units for MS to position themselves as yet-another-ms-product-distributor. ___
Slashdot Mirror
. . .
___
..
___
.
___
2) MS-1 Responsible for all ones in the binary.
___
Don't be afraid to spam if it's personal email. Often times a 'one time' unsolicited email will get passed over, but if it's followed up with another saying "I'm following up to an un answered email from a week ago", it'll get attention.
I also tend to respond better to people who put full disclosure about who they are (full name, address, homepage link) and how I can reach them (phone number,fax,cell)in the email. A lot of people are more comfortable picking up a phone to talk then to type a response.
Lastley, striking up an on-line 2 way comunication is very simalar to personal relationships. The first contact is often just a "get to know me" kinda thing. Then, after a few messages have been echanged with success, the comunications can move forward. Think of your first email to execs as the "get to know me" part and don't be put off if they don't take the time right away. If I was a music exec, I would respect your fire and desire if you kept up the messages. Don't be afraid to email them more often, just keep them personal.
___
[ ] I would like exciting news.
About what? When? exciting? pfffft
[ ] I want anouncments of product updates.
Does this mean that every time the programer farts in his code he's going to send out an update to inform me that: "wondersoft has updated 1.2.3 to 1.2.4"?
[x] Please do not add me to the mailing list.
OOOoooo the pre-checked box. Does unchecking it mean Yes or No? Is the list a shared user list or one way company PR newswire thing?
I believe that if companies were more forthcoming about when and what they send to your email, people would feel less over welmed when it happens.
___
Customers liked them so much that we started releasing updates to them. We went from releasing them every 2 yeas to every year, then every 6 months, then every 3 months.
When the work sterted to get overwhelming (and our customer base grew) I went in to ask for another engineer to help the project keep on schedule. In the meeting, my boss informed me that we spent over $75,000 in the previous year just on printing and distribution and asked that I look for new ways to lower that cost. Then, and only then, would he consider bringing on additions to the staff.
The lesson here is that a printed solution doesn't scale well. It's fine for a small user base, but as that base grows, a printed solution adds up to real money.
In the end, we went back to giving one manual with the purchase of the product and gave away newer versions of the docs on-line to keep customers satisfied. We increased our update schedule to every month, and hired the extra engineer.
___
Those extra shuttle flights and delays add up. A billion here, a billion there, sooner or later that's real money. My question is, who's flipping the bill to pay for this "booster flight"? Is russia sharing any of the liability that it created?
___
Don't hammer them so fast. This is uncharted teritory. It's not like they can say: "You know, we learned from the *last* International Space Station we need to have more contingency plans." This is a first. With every firsts comes a lot of learning.
NASA even has another module (yet another back up plan) that they've been threatening to put up if the russians s delay much longer.
Regarding you comments:"we shouldnt be in space?"
and man should use tools. .
and man shouldn't walk upright.
and man shouldn't explore the oceans.
and man shouldn't fly .
ect..ect..
___
As Shuttle astronauts scramble to keep the International Space Station up, a team of Nasa navigation engineers came out with some new findings that brings new urgency to the shuttle launch.
``We're incredibly happy to be here,'' said mission commander James Halsell, a colonel in the U.S. Air Force. ``It's our understanding the vehicle is in fine shape, but if it drifts any lower in it's orbit, it'll be whacked by Iridium salelites.''
An unnamed source close to the project said that a team of hackers calling themselves "Team Slashdot" have hacked the trajectory of the Iridium satleites and put them into the International Space Stations path.
When asked for comment, an unidentified slashdot team member said only: "first..post..grits..pants..natalie..taco". Crypygraphic experts from around the world are working on decoding the message to find it's hiden meaning.
___
When we made the purchasing decision to get these camera, we counted the number of computers in our office that needed to view and/or distribute the pictures to customers. Then we counted the number of computers *at our customers facility* that would be able to read the images and the choice became clear.
Also, being able to choose the distribution method has proven to be a huge plus. Got email? fine, I'll attach them. Got a fax machine? the fax gateway can get the, somewhat crappy, image to you. Network problems? at a trade show? No email? fine, I'll FedEx the disks.
___
Being able to instantly emailing the picture to another person has huuuuge advantages for a lot of users.
Does such a thing exist?
___
Couple that with the fact that floppies are *almost* free, and you've got an open and affordable format to make sure every computer can view the image. In recent years, the ability to read the jpg format has been increased since almost every computer has at least a web browser.
With every camera manufacturer offering their own proprietary storage media, remember that your images, like undeveloped film, are just bits untill a computer can read them.
___
[luke skywalker]
NOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooo! ! ! ! !
;)
___
Specs:" My PDP-11/20 was, like many machines, sold to me via the University of Wisconsin surplus program. This particular machine happened to be originally located in the Electrical Engineering Department real-time control lab that was sponsered by Professor Richard Marleau. Inside the panel, just above the CPU, is an RC11 disk drive. The RC11 is a 65K word (128 K byte) fixed head disk drive. After all these years (the system was first purchased around 1970) it still works!"
Also this PDP-11/45 sports such wonderfull specs as:"The PDP-11/45 is of approximately the same vintage as the PDP-11/20, but is a much more sophisticated machine. For one thing, it was a micro-coded CPU. It had robust memory management, not seen in microcomputers from Intel until the 80386. It could also support two separate buses: one primarily intended for memory, and the second generally used for peripherals. This is not unlike today's "local bus" PC's. I cut my teeth on Unix on a PDP-11/45 system at the University of Wisconsin in 1976 along with my friends Paul and Hannes (among others)."
This PDP-11/05 graphics system. " The GT40 was a graphic system, often used as a graphic terminal for DEC's PDP-10 and PDP-20 mainframe systems. The CPU was a PDP-11/05, but used the green color scheme of DEC's graphic systems rather than the magenta color scheme normally found on PDP-11's. The GT-40's main claim to fame is probably the famous Lunar Lander game, written by Jack Burness, as a consultant to Digital at the time."
___
Yale backs down in this story with the headline: "Yale drops Napster, Metallica drops case against school".
___
Tired of seeing his name? Would you like to avoid reading/seeing/being exposed to JonKatz? Then follow these few sinple steps, and you can be on your way to "Katz free /." [1] If you haven't already loged in, Login to Slashdot.org/users.pl to create an acount. [2] Load the main page, and along the menu on the left side look for preferances. [3] Now, along the top of the page you'll see a link called Customize Homepage. click on it. [4] Half way down the page, you'll see a series of check boxes with the heading "Exclude Stories from the Homepage". In that list, you'll see a colume labeled "Authors". Half way down the list, locate the name JonKatz and click the checkbox next to that name. [5] Scroll to the bottom of the page and look for button labeled savehome and click on it. Congradulations, by taking these few simple steps, you're on your way to making /. a better place.
___
Acknowledging Microsofts rights to crashes such as HEAD ON, SIDE SWIPE, MEMORY LEAK and BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH. "It's just a bunch of useless junk" said Joe of Joe's Salvage.
Joe's Salvage has agreed to cease and desist the use of crashed items based on these and other properties Microsoft owns or licenses.
___
writing off the redesigned, renamed operating
system as a last-gasp attempt to win over
customers.
"It?s like the witness protection program," said
Rob Haitani, director of product marketing at
Handspring. "They?re trying to start afresh
with a new name, but look what happened last
time. They put them out there and no one bought
them." At New York?s Grand Central Station, Microsoft
will introduce the Pocket PC operating system and show off at least three devices running it from
Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, and Casio.
___
It's not anything new. Palm has ms beat on price and share and has lock-in on developers. I don't care if ms can make a PDAos whistle zippity do da, it's still to expensive.
___
IT workers world wide deserve several 10 min. coffee breaks per day while their windows computer "un-crashinates" (reboots). lol
___
Newsflash: MS DOESN"T MAKE A PDA !
Why in the world would 2 companies with a strong user base and solid brand name put themselves in a PR position that makes them look like "The guys who make the kewl little PDA case" and ms comes off looking like the 8th freakin' wonder of the world (all without ms making or selling any product).
It's a horrible PR deal for any company making units for MS to position themselves as yet-another-ms-product-distributor.
___
I get worried when I see any internet Protection Act.
. The protect-anything-from-anybody-Protection Act.
The-protect-your-pet- parakeet-from-bad-bird-feed-Protection Act.
The protect-My-pants-from-hot-grits -Protection Act.
The protect-Cowboy-neal-from-natalie-portman-glam-shot s -Protection Act.
The protect-my-karma-from-AOL-moderators-Protection Act.
The protect-the-other-guy-from-himself-Protection Act.
The protect-yourself-from-yourself-Protection Act.
It seems that there is no end to the gov. trying to baby-sit us.
___
Who pissed in your cornflakes?
___
Step 2) Upzip the skin into a new folder in your d:\M15\chrome folder and name the folder the same as the skin.
EXAMPLE: I have 1 skin in D:\M15\chrome\aphrodite\ and another skin in: D:\M15\chrome\hoopyfrood\
Step 3) Create a text file in d:M15 with a .BAT extention on it and put the following in that text file:
mozilla.exe -chrome chrome://NAME OF YOUR SKIN FOLDER/content/
Step 4)If you find yourself frustrated with all of this windows madness, look into installing Linux.
___