This was particularly effective during the iMac "Colors" days. It appeared as though everyone had a neon orange or pink computer in their kitchen work area on in the cool kids bedrooms. Whenever a company went high-tech (like near the end of the Drew Carey show) they always had brand new neon headache inducing iMacs. (Disclaimer: Mac user, just not into psychodelic colors on my computer). Not only did it try to communicate that they were "the next big thing", but that they were an important part of the business or person's life. I think product placement still does them well, but at least in that era you couldn't miss that machine even if you wanted to. I can't tell you how many people bought one just to "match their carpet" or said "they seem to be really popular" though most didn't know a single person who owned one.
I could see this breaking because the state minimum wage in California is higher than the federal minimum wage. I am sure they have some code in there when $min_wage is increased, all the rate table entries below that get bumped up. You'd also have to supress any automatic step/grade increases that in some cases roll on aniversary or FY roll dates. I could go on-and-on, but would imagine for a beauracy the size of the CA government, and all the bargaining units (unions) individual requirements for every different job classification, I would say it would take forever and a day just to test a change that big, and staff on-call 24x7 putting out fires modifying all the pieces (beit data or code) that didn't roll properly.
All and all, just a guess, but I've seen worse things hard coded into systems (in particular payroll) before. I simply can't see how the governor could even think about doing that to contract employees without a legal mess fifty times worse than the payroll system update could ever be.
Most of the companies do something like "New Every Two", to encourage you to get a new phone. This is for the above reason, so people are less likley to demand a rate reduction. Secondly, newer phones have builtin revenue streams (such as the Video-On-Demand, Faster browsers (making you more likley to actually use them), or music store interfaces. Thirdly, they claim to subsudize the phone by knocking $200 off the *retail* price which is far less than what they actually paid for it themselves. They are taking the bet that it is better to make you a customer for two years than get the $20-$30 of profit they would make on the phone (in addition to the discounting below their purchase price).
One major problem the early.com's faced was that it was hard to undercut the local brick and mortar store with the additional cost of shipping on top of it. It didn't matter if you could sell dog food $5/bag cheaper if it cost $20 to ship it and waiting 3-5 working days to actually get it wasn't either convienient or cost-effective. Between that and the fact that the consumer buying habits didn't change quickly enough (as you had lots of people without the internet, or those like my dad who are terrified to use their credit card online); They weren't doing enough sales (in volume) to fully utilize their capital investments (warehouse, infrastructure) or lower their shipping costs.
I still think to this day (having developed sites for companies and their affiliate agents) is that insurance is bar-none, the perfect B2C product for the internet, because essentially, you're using a similar program your agent is to get a quote and the insurance company only has to send a single post-letter (or in a lot of cases now, generate a PDF) to send your insurance card, policy number and policy documents. They avoid the high cost of warehousing and shipping which has allowed them to be incredibly profitable (and even reduce their brick and mortar presence in a lot of cases) simply by making a public version of the software they already have (with some features removed).
In any case, it is significantly easier to sell a good (such as insurance or a digital file) or service that doesn't involve a physical product if you're the one shouldering the responsibility of getting it to the customer's doorstep (unless you've got a great way of passing the cost on and still remain competitive or all your competitors have the same situation like a furniture store.)
I was told by my doctor that balence is important (for me in my circumstance) because I have a bad back. Poor posture causes the vertabrae to not sit square where they are supposed to and causes discomfort (which in turn causes me to avoid working out the muscles that would help the problem). So, I think for the average person, if they are going to use this extensively (as a "workout"), having the proper balence on the board will help avoid discomfort and injury, and probably helps calibrate the unit (e.g. the system looking at variance versus your balance while sitting still would impact how it handles "movement.")
I don't know if this is true for everyone, or significant in everyone's case, but being more consciencious of my posture has really helped take the edge off that helps me exercise more often, so I think having a sedentary person first address this due to the potential injury factors, and the reality that a game that isn't going to wind them on the first day is a good design decision.
Normally, I'd have to agree with you, however, if I'm dropping 1-2 grand on a new computer (in particular a laptop) I want to try it out first. I'd buy a desktop online no-questions asked, but for a laptop, I've been disappointed, not by the specification being off, but that it was extremely uncomfortable to type on, and the plastic shell felt like it was going to crack in half.
I'm concerned about stability (its not going to break), weight (not too heavy), size (not too big), that the keyboard is comfortable, the speakers sound good and have good placement, and that the ports are in non-annoying places. For all those things (in general), nothing compares to picking it up, listening to it, seeing how loud it is, etc... it is really closer to taking a test drive for a car than buying an appliance.
In Apple's case, I know what made me overcome my hesitation to switch was going to the store for 2-3 hours and attempting to do all the things I do on my PC to see if it was going to drive me crazy or not be possible.
So I have to disagree that my trip to the store wasn't weakness, but an exercise in prudence (shopping around).
While I love what the judge has done to this asshat, I think first (if it is not) that all judges should sign these oaths, and second, that if he was supposed to, and didn't, the judge should get fined for leaving an open door for a "not guilty by technicality" to occur over something so minor. I'm a programmer for the County Schools and I had to sign the loyalty oath to the US and California consitution when I got my parking pass just to program, I'd hope they'd hold a judge to this rather simplistic requirement (its not like having to take a physical or anything, and if it is a problem for him, he shouldn't be on the bench.)
I'm of the thought that it should be illegal to photoshop a picture of any person for any reason, without their express consent (with exception for obvious satire). I'm not a legal expert, but I was under the impression this is what Model Releases were for. It seems to me like a logical line in the sand for the 21st century addition to libel. (As it is no different from printing that I perform an illegal act such as smoking marijuana as it is to photoshop a joint in my mouth where a cigar was IRL that caused me to loose my job.)
Given that a minor can't sign a model release, there would already be no legal avenue to take a benign photo of a minor and make pornography of it. If the model is over 18 and gives consent, it is already legal in the US to make her "look younger" than she really is.
At the college, we took old laptops and put a customized DSL (Damn Small Linux) install on them to boot to a desktop where the only application available was rdesktop to connect to a Windows terminal server (RDP) setup. We used these as loaners when we got a new employee whom the department neglected to order a desktop for or a dead workstation. They were a lot nicer to lug around campus than a beast of an old desktop.
I have to agree with a lot of the other posters in that Microsoft's only advantage was (is?) 100% compatibility with PC Office, which since Office 98 has slowly been chipped away. Office 98 was not only highly (if not 100%) compatible with Office for PC, but it was almost identical at the UI level. This was really nice for students in Mac schools because they could get the MS Office training to get a job someday rather than take Computer Applications 101 on Claris Works, because there are so many people that learn by contrete example (writing down steps) rather than computing concepts and general usage.
However, in later versions, Office for Mac has become more uncompatible (Mac only stuff that doesn't port to PC, PC only stuff that doesn't port to Mac), that there really is no reason to pay the hefty MS pricetag over Open Office.org. Even the "the UI is the same so our 'special' users can figure it out on a different platform" argument is gone.
As much as I hate to say it, Macro compatibility was their *last* stride above the competition (aside from brand recognition) and without that MS Office Mac is really just one of many implementations that gives the "kind of works" compatibility competiting (free or commercial) products already give.
The problem with running an operating system (or application software) on an un-blessed platform is that in a real-world environment (e.g. anything not in your home) is that when a patch the next minor update comes along, it is more apt to cause problems (in particular, strange undocumented problems). For instance, if you could get HP-UX to run on competitor hardware, more power to you, but when it breaks, you've got really very minimal recourse and are on your own to get it working again. The same thing goes for Wine... if you run an application, the next incremental change could cause a performance hit, or make the application not run at all, and you'll have significantly less recourse to get it fixed (e.g. ISV knowledge base, community, etc...).
I've seen OS X running on a PC and it seemed to work good enough but you could never rely on it in a corprate environment, and I wouldn't want to give a box like this to my mom because when it breaks, you're really on your own to get it running.
This is a problem when the manufacturer says "We're really sorry, but we didn't certify $PRODUCT (or $OS) for that hardware so support is on a best-effort basis", and it is a even bigger problem when the manufacturer (like Apple) is tempted to, or outright promises to do whatever it can to make the product fail on unsupported configurations.
In any situation, it is nice about being able to tell my boss "I called Dell, a new mobo is on the way" rather than explaining why *my* design failed, or why to save a few grand in licensing or new hardware or plain novelty, I took production down for 3 days. It is fine for your own personal rig, but beyond that, doesn't seem worth it beyond that.
I worked for the County of San Bernardino (nex to LA county) and I'll be the first to say tha the only thing the Board of Supervisors (the county legislators) care about is re-couping money through alternate revenue streams with the dropping real estate values since the vast majority (if not almost entirely) of county income is in the form of property taxes. In San Bernardino, the goal was to bring in businesses to the underdeveloped I-15/I-10 industrial cooridor and to the high desert because the improved land brings in property tax and sales tax revenue.
LA county doesn't nearly have the same degree of "unimproved" space as other regional counties, so they have a natrual interest in keeping the existing high-revenue landholders happy and doing business in LA county, as well as helping keep entertainment-centered birck and mortar business open because the sales tax revenue and more importantly, the assessed value of the land falls quickly as shops close. From the county's prospective, they're just as screwed by Amazon as TPB when it comes to getting there piece of the pie.
I think a big reason the RIAA targets college students is for the following--
1) If they can win a big case in *any* state and set precedence forcing the college to comply, they'll have a gold mine in that state for that school and potentially others.
2) College bandwidth is limited. In many cases at the college I worked for, the LAN (residential network) was pegged at 90% capacity due to intra-institutional P2P traffic. If the RIAA finds a particularly weak board of trustees and/or a particularly sympathetic net admin, they might get cooperation (see #1). At my institution, upper management was not supportive of the RIAA but the net admins were not excited to see the network flooded with traffic they considered "not in alignment with the mission of the insitution", (at another insitution I worked for 95% of traffic was myspace or facebook, which we were not permitted to block, was the bane of our net-admins existance when remote sites exchange or smb:// connection was laggy.
3) Schools have a greater ability to tie a IP/MAC to a person/dorm room than the cable company. Student installed APs were banned, and to get on the network, you had to pay $25 to get your MAC registered in BOOTP, which was tied to your name. Disclaimer: I'm not aruging that either of these things readily identify a person with 100% accuracy, but, it does chip away reasonable doubt with naive judges and juries.
4) If the school has to shell out money to defend against the **AA, their bottom line might overtake their ideals and management might force an unwilling (or bless a willing) IT departments attempts to throttle or outright block access to P2P services, and use that fact to try to strongarm other (smaller) schools who don't have pockets nearly so deep.
The problem is that the folks who call whatever windowing system they see "Windows" is that they buy off-the-shelf software and are going to be pissed when their new computer doesn't run Extreme Cookbook 2005 or Big Buck Deer Hunter that they bought in a box at Walmart or the AOL client that their 6 year old beige beast does. They put a lot of stock in "name brand" more than any OSS philosophy or real usability (and probably don't even know an OSS alternative exists). There is a crowd that can figure out that "Open Office does what Word/Excel does; Pidgin does what AIM does; ClamAV does what Norton does" but these are those folks.
Anecdotally, my mom is one of these people. She called her brand new IBM (way overspeced because the university had a prime suplier deal) with Windows XP "crap" and demanded her old 400MHz box back because the new computer wouldn't run a chat client she really liked. (It required the MS Java VM which is no longer shipped by default.) I had to drive 2 hours down to install it over a modem (20-something MB download) because of this very problem.
When Linux desktops are available off the shelf, they should have a big red text on the box saying something to the effect "This computer is different... way way better, but different." (Think Different worked for Apple didn't it?)
I couldn't agree more. I was in Spanish 104 at Ohio State and had a signed medical note due to insomnia (followed by a crash later) that there were days I simply couldn't make it to class. (Work was very understanding, more so than the Spanish Dept.) They proceded to drop 1% of my grade for everyday I missed even though I had a passing grade and a valid medical excuse. I complained that it didn't seem right that if I could pass the exams and quizes that I had a right to retake with a valid medical excuse and that I wasn't missing turning in homework (as it was not-required) that it was complete nonsense that my grade should be dinged. When I called the prof on it, she told me to eff off and drop the class. I spoke to the dean saying "If I can pass all the exams with a B average with minimal attendance, it certainly doesn't speak to the quality of the course. The professor is simply trying to artifically prove the necessity of her classroom instruction." Even to the dean the instructor wouldn't back down, so I had to threaten to sue her for discrimination by not honouring my doctors excuse (covered by university policy) for the cost of taking the course online at Columbus State Comm. College and my time at $65/hr.
She finally backed down but no one ever could give a statisfactory defense against my claim that her lectures where (if grades were the final arbiter) an essential component of learning that the lack thereof would result in a failing grade. I would have accepted that this is not the case in a heavily hands-on, discussion oriented or teamwork based course where critical thinking was a desired outcome.
The problem with producing a completely accessible site, is that is is quite difficult to test that it is, after you've followed all the best practices, actually accessible. Most small businesses don't have the resources to test how most acessibility tools will render their site. I use ALT tags, avoid flash, popups and the like, and am pretty sure my application will be usable, however, I can't sign on the dotted line that it will be 100% accessible to multiple disabilities or multiple adaptive technologies. The truth of the matter is that the odds are similar to the person running $strange_browser or $strange_addon or $mobile_device. In the end, you just have to do the best you can to provide a stellar service to the mainstream, and the highest level of functionality to the remainder of users who have differing configurations or abilities.
The secondary issue relates to duplicating content. A large subset of sites, as some posters have said, have a bona-fide requirements that limit accessability due to disability, or configuration. To use a chat room in the 90s, you basically needed Java. To use YouTube you have to have Flash. A clothing website cannot provide a equal level of usability to someone visually impaired in an ALT tag. I think a lot of companies say "I don't know what level of accessibility is going to be of real use to my customer, and even if I do, I can't gaurantee with my limited knowledge of adaptive technologies that it will meet that level of accessibility."
I worked for a community college who had a Office of Disability Services and even with an onsite resource, it was difficult in many areas, even with the adaptive technology to test our product with, to provide an equal level of usability and content.
On a positive note, I think the simplicity of Google, and the fact that minimalism seems to be in vouge at the moment (at least in the US) is helping create more usable sites for disabled and non-disabled folks that tend to handle odd and mobile platforms.
I don't know... I have to disagree. I'd say I'm in the majority of the/. community who wipes the OEM install as soon as we get our hands on it purely because of the stuff they put on it, even if it is just to re-install a virgin copy of Windows. At the university I used to work for we paid extra to Dell to get a clean install without the RealPlayer installs, broken demos, haphazzardly written power-saving utilities, and that forsaken Yahoo toolbar.
One of the reasons I love my iPhone is that it wasn't filled up with crap from AT&T that can't be removed. I've had many PocketPC/Windows Mobile/Palm devices pre-flashed with OEM crapware that was non-removable and generally poorly made.
I think there is a huge demand for "clean" installs that boot to an empty shell. Not to say that most/.ers don't equally disagree with anti-competative OS bundling.
I bought my MacBook Pro about 7 months ago, and when I did, the clerk asked me which I wanted, saying they had every configuration in that line with either option (though the store was sold out of glossy in the 15' 2GB/2.8GHz model at the time of purchases, which was OK since I wanted non-glossy.)
I never really thought about it, but they said that glossy is popular for folks watching a lot of movies or gaming (I know I'm going to get some replys for insinuating that one can game on a Mac...;)) on the device. The clerk said that for word processing, internet, and design work that most folks prefer the non-glossy one as the color can be misleading. I don't know if that is true (or why/why not), but sounds belivable.
When I have spec'd Dell or HP for work, I've found that usually you have to search for non-glossy ones, and it is usually a seperate model number, not a selectable line-item option on a machine. I usually had to select the box I wanted based on the machine size/style/monitor, then customize the internal specs like CPU, RAM, disk.
The Apple method (machine, then monitor) made more sense to me, but it isn't exactly a direct comparison to evaluate a retail and online experience.
I am sad to see this on this list. I'm sure I'm not the only one on/. who absolutely hated USB printers when they first came out. They often "required" the user run the install CD to get the USB printing ports installed correctly, which usually installed a lot of crap you didn't want, and for kicks the printer port software didn't handle unplugs correctly so you have 15 instances of the printer installed everytime it gets unplugged. Weak for laptops.(HP Deskjets... I'm looking at you...)
For a long time after USB came out, I much prefered (and other than the size on compact laptops) still prefer Paralell port printing. Mostly because I can use the Windows printer control panel to add the printer on my terms only feeding it a driver. No extra crap installed that adds stuff to my system tray.
Not only that, but in a corp environment you could use prnadmin.dll to script the install of a lot of printer features much easier when you didn't have to ensure get the USB Printing support was in place, or get it working without the OEM install CD.
If congress is so concerned about bullying, why not crack down upon it in the workplace where researchers estimate 90% (Management Communication Quarterly, 16, 471-501) of individuals experience Employee Emotional Abuse at some point of their employment, often leading to lost productivity and increased healthcare costs, where the vast majority of the time, the abuser continues this behavior after the victim leaves the organization to someone else. (e.g. the project leader who takes it upon himself to become everyone in the group's ad-hoc supervisor and foams at the mouth when he doesn't get his way or his arbitrary, non-enforcable preferences aren't met or is in direct violation of the union contract.) If "sexual harassment" is so illegal an unethical, why not any kind of workplace intimidation of a non-sexual (or non protected-class) nature not illegal in any way?
However, in private civil matters between ordinary citizens, Congress is only doing this (I hope) to win the "please think of the children" vote. I'm truly hoping that they don't honestly believe they are going to actually be able to stop it. This is the 21st century version of "Jamie is a whore" written on a bathroom stall.
Does it suck? Yes. Is the guilty party an asshole? Probably (if it was unprovoked). Does it need big government to save us from the mean kids? No. Period.
First of all, I think CNN is totally off-the-wall on this one. However on the surface it does strike me as being awfully similar to a garbage man who works for a private waste management company, volunteering his time on saturdays on the Adopt-A-Highway program, cleaning up trash. This puts him in competition (especially if he does it for free) when the company wants a piece of the action in the form of a service contract from the municipality the freeway runs though.
Even if he isn't trying to do so, he's in a position to take readership from the company (weather it happens or not), and that is something they have a vested interest in stopping.
In this case, CNN would have been smarter (if this guy has the connections in the blogging community he claims he does) to keep him on the payroll as an independent blogger, with the rights to use his material on the show to further the perception that CNN is "down" with news bloggers. At the same time, give him some access to CNN's news-sources so he can break some stories that they "pass" upon on the broadcast show, and if he makes enough noise (or viewers) put it on the CNN pages/broadcast, and get the guy some screen time.
I think the reason Adobe doesn't release Photoshop for Linux, is that it would be another platform that users would expect to have the entire suite run-upon. If it is just Photoshop, and none of the other (less used) products, to the buyer would seem inferior, and to the expert, not have all the tools on a common platform. (No need to convert to Linux if I have to boot up Windows or hop on my Mac when I need Illustrator).
With their acquisitions (Macromedia, et.al.), and having to convert their applications to Cocoa (from Carbon) to expect to run on Mac OS X 10.6, they have their hands full without trying to broaden their platform appeal. Adobe was instrumental in causing Apple to do as much "Classic" compatibility in OS X, and provide Carbon to OS 9 to bridge the gap between OS 9 and X. If Apple didn't hold such a significant portion of their customers at the hardware/operating system level, I would have imagined that they'd stopped Mac development to since they have such a broad portfolio of products that don't (aside from some print-features in the Mac OS) have a lot to do with operating system stuff (security/authentication such as AD/LDAP integration), Adobe would really benefit from platform monoculture.(Disclainer, I'm a lifelong Mac user and.NET programmer to pay the bills).
I'd love to see Photoshop on Linux, and even more, a native recode of the Creative Suite, however, for the reason mentioned above, the GPU manufacturers lackluster support for Linux at the driver level, and the common perception (amongst PHBs and users whoever "heard about" Linux)that "free as in speech means free as in beer" makes Adobe's shot at a commercial Photoshop port very difficult, as much as I would love to see it.
While the parent is speaking regarding upper level execs (and maybe even the rank-and-file PHB), there is an interesting documentary called "The Corporation" that deals with a lot of this kind of thing. It argues that the "legal person" that a corporation is, is fundametally sociopathic. There is a good synopsis of their argument on their webpage. Granted, it is certainly not without bias, but was the turning point in my understanding of corporate ethos. Definately worth a DVD rent or a viewing at your local independent cinema.
It makes sense to me that the management of the company would recruit those lacking empathy (or other ethical constructs) to boost profits. It also makes sense that management influenced by this corp. ethos would not hold IT to any standards, other than to protect the corporate interests (e.g. don't do anything that would get us in trouble that you can't cover up), and to cover their own asses (IT can't open Exchange mailboxes without approval from management even at the request of users (for support purposes) to make sure upper management's inside-men don't get pinched.).
I've read a lot of posts by other/.ers say that highly specialized pieces limit the creativity of Legos. While it has been a while since I played with it, I was always excited to get a "new" kind of piece that let me do something that was hard, inefficent or ghetto rigged before. (Kind of like this, I can do it in assembly, but you get a little stoked when you get a really nice, efficient, fast new API) What comes to mind was the piece that allowed you to make 45deg. roofs. It origninally came in a castle set, but I found myself re-using it in space applications.
I feel like the problem with Legos today is all the commercial tie ins, like StarWars and Spiderman. One of the greatest strengths, I feel, of the older Legos were that they were a set genre, but the unverse' story was largely untold. It was up to me, and my imagination to decide "why" the diffrent castle factions were at war. I got to experience the Galaxy exploders discover a medival civilization. I built a tyranical dragon lord who was defeated by the black knight using a futuristic laser gun found from the wreckage of a lost spacecraft.
I feel like the commercial ties "lock-in" a number of kids into highly-commercialized, pre-digested stories, where they are tempted to simply play out what they saw on TV rather than write new ones for themselves.
My wife is a teacher (first grade) and is disturbed (as am I) at how many students can't write or tell a story that doesn't include cartoon characters, and that it takes significant work to do something that we both feel came so naturally to both of us. How she does it, is that kids are not allowed to write about-or read books that feature TV or video game characters, or books made from TV/movies, in class.
I believe it is the creative play as a child that has done more for my career and personal development than anything else in my life.
We always used to use sex.com at my first job to make sure the content filter was working properly... ahh... the days of Microsoft Proxy Server 2.0. At first we did it just because it was the most obvious thing we could think of. Later someone suggested using other adult orieted websites, to which, we decided that if it did go through, we didn't want to have to explain why backdoorsluts.com was on the report that went to management (to the female city manager).
Its one thing to test a proxy, another to explain to management your choice in samples.:)
Slashdot Mirror
This was particularly effective during the iMac "Colors" days. It appeared as though everyone had a neon orange or pink computer in their kitchen work area on in the cool kids bedrooms. Whenever a company went high-tech (like near the end of the Drew Carey show) they always had brand new neon headache inducing iMacs. (Disclaimer: Mac user, just not into psychodelic colors on my computer). Not only did it try to communicate that they were "the next big thing", but that they were an important part of the business or person's life. I think product placement still does them well, but at least in that era you couldn't miss that machine even if you wanted to. I can't tell you how many people bought one just to "match their carpet" or said "they seem to be really popular" though most didn't know a single person who owned one.
I could see this breaking because the state minimum wage in California is higher than the federal minimum wage. I am sure they have some code in there when $min_wage is increased, all the rate table entries below that get bumped up. You'd also have to supress any automatic step/grade increases that in some cases roll on aniversary or FY roll dates. I could go on-and-on, but would imagine for a beauracy the size of the CA government, and all the bargaining units (unions) individual requirements for every different job classification, I would say it would take forever and a day just to test a change that big, and staff on-call 24x7 putting out fires modifying all the pieces (beit data or code) that didn't roll properly.
All and all, just a guess, but I've seen worse things hard coded into systems (in particular payroll) before. I simply can't see how the governor could even think about doing that to contract employees without a legal mess fifty times worse than the payroll system update could ever be.
Most of the companies do something like "New Every Two", to encourage you to get a new phone. This is for the above reason, so people are less likley to demand a rate reduction. Secondly, newer phones have builtin revenue streams (such as the Video-On-Demand, Faster browsers (making you more likley to actually use them), or music store interfaces. Thirdly, they claim to subsudize the phone by knocking $200 off the *retail* price which is far less than what they actually paid for it themselves. They are taking the bet that it is better to make you a customer for two years than get the $20-$30 of profit they would make on the phone (in addition to the discounting below their purchase price).
One major problem the early .com's faced was that it was hard to undercut the local brick and mortar store with the additional cost of shipping on top of it. It didn't matter if you could sell dog food $5/bag cheaper if it cost $20 to ship it and waiting 3-5 working days to actually get it wasn't either convienient or cost-effective. Between that and the fact that the consumer buying habits didn't change quickly enough (as you had lots of people without the internet, or those like my dad who are terrified to use their credit card online); They weren't doing enough sales (in volume) to fully utilize their capital investments (warehouse, infrastructure) or lower their shipping costs.
I still think to this day (having developed sites for companies and their affiliate agents) is that insurance is bar-none, the perfect B2C product for the internet, because essentially, you're using a similar program your agent is to get a quote and the insurance company only has to send a single post-letter (or in a lot of cases now, generate a PDF) to send your insurance card, policy number and policy documents. They avoid the high cost of warehousing and shipping which has allowed them to be incredibly profitable (and even reduce their brick and mortar presence in a lot of cases) simply by making a public version of the software they already have (with some features removed).
In any case, it is significantly easier to sell a good (such as insurance or a digital file) or service that doesn't involve a physical product if you're the one shouldering the responsibility of getting it to the customer's doorstep (unless you've got a great way of passing the cost on and still remain competitive or all your competitors have the same situation like a furniture store.)
I was told by my doctor that balence is important (for me in my circumstance) because I have a bad back. Poor posture causes the vertabrae to not sit square where they are supposed to and causes discomfort (which in turn causes me to avoid working out the muscles that would help the problem). So, I think for the average person, if they are going to use this extensively (as a "workout"), having the proper balence on the board will help avoid discomfort and injury, and probably helps calibrate the unit (e.g. the system looking at variance versus your balance while sitting still would impact how it handles "movement.")
I don't know if this is true for everyone, or significant in everyone's case, but being more consciencious of my posture has really helped take the edge off that helps me exercise more often, so I think having a sedentary person first address this due to the potential injury factors, and the reality that a game that isn't going to wind them on the first day is a good design decision.
Normally, I'd have to agree with you, however, if I'm dropping 1-2 grand on a new computer (in particular a laptop) I want to try it out first. I'd buy a desktop online no-questions asked, but for a laptop, I've been disappointed, not by the specification being off, but that it was extremely uncomfortable to type on, and the plastic shell felt like it was going to crack in half.
I'm concerned about stability (its not going to break), weight (not too heavy), size (not too big), that the keyboard is comfortable, the speakers sound good and have good placement, and that the ports are in non-annoying places. For all those things (in general), nothing compares to picking it up, listening to it, seeing how loud it is, etc... it is really closer to taking a test drive for a car than buying an appliance.
In Apple's case, I know what made me overcome my hesitation to switch was going to the store for 2-3 hours and attempting to do all the things I do on my PC to see if it was going to drive me crazy or not be possible.
So I have to disagree that my trip to the store wasn't weakness, but an exercise in prudence (shopping around).
While I love what the judge has done to this asshat, I think first (if it is not) that all judges should sign these oaths, and second, that if he was supposed to, and didn't, the judge should get fined for leaving an open door for a "not guilty by technicality" to occur over something so minor. I'm a programmer for the County Schools and I had to sign the loyalty oath to the US and California consitution when I got my parking pass just to program, I'd hope they'd hold a judge to this rather simplistic requirement (its not like having to take a physical or anything, and if it is a problem for him, he shouldn't be on the bench.)
I'm of the thought that it should be illegal to photoshop a picture of any person for any reason, without their express consent (with exception for obvious satire). I'm not a legal expert, but I was under the impression this is what Model Releases were for. It seems to me like a logical line in the sand for the 21st century addition to libel. (As it is no different from printing that I perform an illegal act such as smoking marijuana as it is to photoshop a joint in my mouth where a cigar was IRL that caused me to loose my job.)
Given that a minor can't sign a model release, there would already be no legal avenue to take a benign photo of a minor and make pornography of it. If the model is over 18 and gives consent, it is already legal in the US to make her "look younger" than she really is.
At the college, we took old laptops and put a customized DSL (Damn Small Linux) install on them to boot to a desktop where the only application available was rdesktop to connect to a Windows terminal server (RDP) setup. We used these as loaners when we got a new employee whom the department neglected to order a desktop for or a dead workstation. They were a lot nicer to lug around campus than a beast of an old desktop.
I have to agree with a lot of the other posters in that Microsoft's only advantage was (is?) 100% compatibility with PC Office, which since Office 98 has slowly been chipped away. Office 98 was not only highly (if not 100%) compatible with Office for PC, but it was almost identical at the UI level. This was really nice for students in Mac schools because they could get the MS Office training to get a job someday rather than take Computer Applications 101 on Claris Works, because there are so many people that learn by contrete example (writing down steps) rather than computing concepts and general usage.
However, in later versions, Office for Mac has become more uncompatible (Mac only stuff that doesn't port to PC, PC only stuff that doesn't port to Mac), that there really is no reason to pay the hefty MS pricetag over Open Office.org. Even the "the UI is the same so our 'special' users can figure it out on a different platform" argument is gone.
As much as I hate to say it, Macro compatibility was their *last* stride above the competition (aside from brand recognition) and without that MS Office Mac is really just one of many implementations that gives the "kind of works" compatibility competiting (free or commercial) products already give.
Disclaimer: I am a Apple user.
The problem with running an operating system (or application software) on an un-blessed platform is that in a real-world environment (e.g. anything not in your home) is that when a patch the next minor update comes along, it is more apt to cause problems (in particular, strange undocumented problems). For instance, if you could get HP-UX to run on competitor hardware, more power to you, but when it breaks, you've got really very minimal recourse and are on your own to get it working again. The same thing goes for Wine... if you run an application, the next incremental change could cause a performance hit, or make the application not run at all, and you'll have significantly less recourse to get it fixed (e.g. ISV knowledge base, community, etc...).
I've seen OS X running on a PC and it seemed to work good enough but you could never rely on it in a corprate environment, and I wouldn't want to give a box like this to my mom because when it breaks, you're really on your own to get it running.
This is a problem when the manufacturer says "We're really sorry, but we didn't certify $PRODUCT (or $OS) for that hardware so support is on a best-effort basis", and it is a even bigger problem when the manufacturer (like Apple) is tempted to, or outright promises to do whatever it can to make the product fail on unsupported configurations.
In any situation, it is nice about being able to tell my boss "I called Dell, a new mobo is on the way" rather than explaining why *my* design failed, or why to save a few grand in licensing or new hardware or plain novelty, I took production down for 3 days. It is fine for your own personal rig, but beyond that, doesn't seem worth it beyond that.
I worked for the County of San Bernardino (nex to LA county) and I'll be the first to say tha the only thing the Board of Supervisors (the county legislators) care about is re-couping money through alternate revenue streams with the dropping real estate values since the vast majority (if not almost entirely) of county income is in the form of property taxes. In San Bernardino, the goal was to bring in businesses to the underdeveloped I-15/I-10 industrial cooridor and to the high desert because the improved land brings in property tax and sales tax revenue.
LA county doesn't nearly have the same degree of "unimproved" space as other regional counties, so they have a natrual interest in keeping the existing high-revenue landholders happy and doing business in LA county, as well as helping keep entertainment-centered birck and mortar business open because the sales tax revenue and more importantly, the assessed value of the land falls quickly as shops close. From the county's prospective, they're just as screwed by Amazon as TPB when it comes to getting there piece of the pie.
I think a big reason the RIAA targets college students is for the following--
1) If they can win a big case in *any* state and set precedence forcing the college to comply, they'll have a gold mine in that state for that school and potentially others.
2) College bandwidth is limited. In many cases at the college I worked for, the LAN (residential network) was pegged at 90% capacity due to intra-institutional P2P traffic. If the RIAA finds a particularly weak board of trustees and/or a particularly sympathetic net admin, they might get cooperation (see #1). At my institution, upper management was not supportive of the RIAA but the net admins were not excited to see the network flooded with traffic they considered "not in alignment with the mission of the insitution", (at another insitution I worked for 95% of traffic was myspace or facebook, which we were not permitted to block, was the bane of our net-admins existance when remote sites exchange or smb:// connection was laggy.
3) Schools have a greater ability to tie a IP/MAC to a person/dorm room than the cable company. Student installed APs were banned, and to get on the network, you had to pay $25 to get your MAC registered in BOOTP, which was tied to your name. Disclaimer: I'm not aruging that either of these things readily identify a person with 100% accuracy, but, it does chip away reasonable doubt with naive judges and juries.
4) If the school has to shell out money to defend against the **AA, their bottom line might overtake their ideals and management might force an unwilling (or bless a willing) IT departments attempts to throttle or outright block access to P2P services, and use that fact to try to strongarm other (smaller) schools who don't have pockets nearly so deep.
5) Everything the parent said.
6)They are simply asshole bullies.
The problem is that the folks who call whatever windowing system they see "Windows" is that they buy off-the-shelf software and are going to be pissed when their new computer doesn't run Extreme Cookbook 2005 or Big Buck Deer Hunter that they bought in a box at Walmart or the AOL client that their 6 year old beige beast does. They put a lot of stock in "name brand" more than any OSS philosophy or real usability (and probably don't even know an OSS alternative exists). There is a crowd that can figure out that "Open Office does what Word/Excel does; Pidgin does what AIM does; ClamAV does what Norton does" but these are those folks.
Anecdotally, my mom is one of these people. She called her brand new IBM (way overspeced because the university had a prime suplier deal) with Windows XP "crap" and demanded her old 400MHz box back because the new computer wouldn't run a chat client she really liked. (It required the MS Java VM which is no longer shipped by default.) I had to drive 2 hours down to install it over a modem (20-something MB download) because of this very problem.
When Linux desktops are available off the shelf, they should have a big red text on the box saying something to the effect "This computer is different... way way better, but different." (Think Different worked for Apple didn't it?)
I couldn't agree more. I was in Spanish 104 at Ohio State and had a signed medical note due to insomnia (followed by a crash later) that there were days I simply couldn't make it to class. (Work was very understanding, more so than the Spanish Dept.) They proceded to drop 1% of my grade for everyday I missed even though I had a passing grade and a valid medical excuse. I complained that it didn't seem right that if I could pass the exams and quizes that I had a right to retake with a valid medical excuse and that I wasn't missing turning in homework (as it was not-required) that it was complete nonsense that my grade should be dinged. When I called the prof on it, she told me to eff off and drop the class. I spoke to the dean saying "If I can pass all the exams with a B average with minimal attendance, it certainly doesn't speak to the quality of the course. The professor is simply trying to artifically prove the necessity of her classroom instruction." Even to the dean the instructor wouldn't back down, so I had to threaten to sue her for discrimination by not honouring my doctors excuse (covered by university policy) for the cost of taking the course online at Columbus State Comm. College and my time at $65/hr.
She finally backed down but no one ever could give a statisfactory defense against my claim that her lectures where (if grades were the final arbiter) an essential component of learning that the lack thereof would result in a failing grade. I would have accepted that this is not the case in a heavily hands-on, discussion oriented or teamwork based course where critical thinking was a desired outcome.
The problem with producing a completely accessible site, is that is is quite difficult to test that it is, after you've followed all the best practices, actually accessible. Most small businesses don't have the resources to test how most acessibility tools will render their site. I use ALT tags, avoid flash, popups and the like, and am pretty sure my application will be usable, however, I can't sign on the dotted line that it will be 100% accessible to multiple disabilities or multiple adaptive technologies. The truth of the matter is that the odds are similar to the person running $strange_browser or $strange_addon or $mobile_device. In the end, you just have to do the best you can to provide a stellar service to the mainstream, and the highest level of functionality to the remainder of users who have differing configurations or abilities.
The secondary issue relates to duplicating content. A large subset of sites, as some posters have said, have a bona-fide requirements that limit accessability due to disability, or configuration. To use a chat room in the 90s, you basically needed Java. To use YouTube you have to have Flash. A clothing website cannot provide a equal level of usability to someone visually impaired in an ALT tag. I think a lot of companies say "I don't know what level of accessibility is going to be of real use to my customer, and even if I do, I can't gaurantee with my limited knowledge of adaptive technologies that it will meet that level of accessibility."
I worked for a community college who had a Office of Disability Services and even with an onsite resource, it was difficult in many areas, even with the adaptive technology to test our product with, to provide an equal level of usability and content.
On a positive note, I think the simplicity of Google, and the fact that minimalism seems to be in vouge at the moment (at least in the US) is helping create more usable sites for disabled and non-disabled folks that tend to handle odd and mobile platforms.
I don't know... I have to disagree. I'd say I'm in the majority of the /. community who wipes the OEM install as soon as we get our hands on it purely because of the stuff they put on it, even if it is just to re-install a virgin copy of Windows. At the university I used to work for we paid extra to Dell to get a clean install without the RealPlayer installs, broken demos, haphazzardly written power-saving utilities, and that forsaken Yahoo toolbar.
/.ers don't equally disagree with anti-competative OS bundling.
One of the reasons I love my iPhone is that it wasn't filled up with crap from AT&T that can't be removed. I've had many PocketPC/Windows Mobile/Palm devices pre-flashed with OEM crapware that was non-removable and generally poorly made.
I think there is a huge demand for "clean" installs that boot to an empty shell. Not to say that most
I bought my MacBook Pro about 7 months ago, and when I did, the clerk asked me which I wanted, saying they had every configuration in that line with either option (though the store was sold out of glossy in the 15' 2GB/2.8GHz model at the time of purchases, which was OK since I wanted non-glossy.)
;)) on the device. The clerk said that for word processing, internet, and design work that most folks prefer the non-glossy one as the color can be misleading. I don't know if that is true (or why/why not), but sounds belivable.
I never really thought about it, but they said that glossy is popular for folks watching a lot of movies or gaming (I know I'm going to get some replys for insinuating that one can game on a Mac...
When I have spec'd Dell or HP for work, I've found that usually you have to search for non-glossy ones, and it is usually a seperate model number, not a selectable line-item option on a machine. I usually had to select the box I wanted based on the machine size/style/monitor, then customize the internal specs like CPU, RAM, disk.
The Apple method (machine, then monitor) made more sense to me, but it isn't exactly a direct comparison to evaluate a retail and online experience.
I am sad to see this on this list. I'm sure I'm not the only one on /. who absolutely hated USB printers when they first came out. They often "required" the user run the install CD to get the USB printing ports installed correctly, which usually installed a lot of crap you didn't want, and for kicks the printer port software didn't handle unplugs correctly so you have 15 instances of the printer installed everytime it gets unplugged. Weak for laptops.(HP Deskjets... I'm looking at you...)
For a long time after USB came out, I much prefered (and other than the size on compact laptops) still prefer Paralell port printing. Mostly because I can use the Windows printer control panel to add the printer on my terms only feeding it a driver. No extra crap installed that adds stuff to my system tray.
Not only that, but in a corp environment you could use prnadmin.dll to script the install of a lot of printer features much easier when you didn't have to ensure get the USB Printing support was in place, or get it working without the OEM install CD.
If congress is so concerned about bullying, why not crack down upon it in the workplace where researchers estimate 90% (Management Communication Quarterly, 16, 471-501) of individuals experience Employee Emotional Abuse at some point of their employment, often leading to lost productivity and increased healthcare costs, where the vast majority of the time, the abuser continues this behavior after the victim leaves the organization to someone else. (e.g. the project leader who takes it upon himself to become everyone in the group's ad-hoc supervisor and foams at the mouth when he doesn't get his way or his arbitrary, non-enforcable preferences aren't met or is in direct violation of the union contract.) If "sexual harassment" is so illegal an unethical, why not any kind of workplace intimidation of a non-sexual (or non protected-class) nature not illegal in any way?
However, in private civil matters between ordinary citizens, Congress is only doing this (I hope) to win the "please think of the children" vote. I'm truly hoping that they don't honestly believe they are going to actually be able to stop it. This is the 21st century version of "Jamie is a whore" written on a bathroom stall.
Does it suck? Yes. Is the guilty party an asshole? Probably (if it was unprovoked). Does it need big government to save us from the mean kids? No. Period.
First of all, I think CNN is totally off-the-wall on this one. However on the surface it does strike me as being awfully similar to a garbage man who works for a private waste management company, volunteering his time on saturdays on the Adopt-A-Highway program, cleaning up trash. This puts him in competition (especially if he does it for free) when the company wants a piece of the action in the form of a service contract from the municipality the freeway runs though.
Even if he isn't trying to do so, he's in a position to take readership from the company (weather it happens or not), and that is something they have a vested interest in stopping.
In this case, CNN would have been smarter (if this guy has the connections in the blogging community he claims he does) to keep him on the payroll as an independent blogger, with the rights to use his material on the show to further the perception that CNN is "down" with news bloggers. At the same time, give him some access to CNN's news-sources so he can break some stories that they "pass" upon on the broadcast show, and if he makes enough noise (or viewers) put it on the CNN pages/broadcast, and get the guy some screen time.
I think the reason Adobe doesn't release Photoshop for Linux, is that it would be another platform that users would expect to have the entire suite run-upon. If it is just Photoshop, and none of the other (less used) products, to the buyer would seem inferior, and to the expert, not have all the tools on a common platform. (No need to convert to Linux if I have to boot up Windows or hop on my Mac when I need Illustrator).
.NET programmer to pay the bills).
With their acquisitions (Macromedia, et.al.), and having to convert their applications to Cocoa (from Carbon) to expect to run on Mac OS X 10.6, they have their hands full without trying to broaden their platform appeal. Adobe was instrumental in causing Apple to do as much "Classic" compatibility in OS X, and provide Carbon to OS 9 to bridge the gap between OS 9 and X. If Apple didn't hold such a significant portion of their customers at the hardware/operating system level, I would have imagined that they'd stopped Mac development to since they have such a broad portfolio of products that don't (aside from some print-features in the Mac OS) have a lot to do with operating system stuff (security/authentication such as AD/LDAP integration), Adobe would really benefit from platform monoculture.(Disclainer, I'm a lifelong Mac user and
I'd love to see Photoshop on Linux, and even more, a native recode of the Creative Suite, however, for the reason mentioned above, the GPU manufacturers lackluster support for Linux at the driver level, and the common perception (amongst PHBs and users whoever "heard about" Linux)that "free as in speech means free as in beer" makes Adobe's shot at a commercial Photoshop port very difficult, as much as I would love to see it.
While the parent is speaking regarding upper level execs (and maybe even the rank-and-file PHB), there is an interesting documentary called "The Corporation" that deals with a lot of this kind of thing. It argues that the "legal person" that a corporation is, is fundametally sociopathic. There is a good synopsis of their argument on their webpage. Granted, it is certainly not without bias, but was the turning point in my understanding of corporate ethos. Definately worth a DVD rent or a viewing at your local independent cinema.
It makes sense to me that the management of the company would recruit those lacking empathy (or other ethical constructs) to boost profits. It also makes sense that management influenced by this corp. ethos would not hold IT to any standards, other than to protect the corporate interests (e.g. don't do anything that would get us in trouble that you can't cover up), and to cover their own asses (IT can't open Exchange mailboxes without approval from management even at the request of users (for support purposes) to make sure upper management's inside-men don't get pinched.).
I've read a lot of posts by other /.ers say that highly specialized pieces limit the creativity of Legos. While it has been a while since I played with it, I was always excited to get a "new" kind of piece that let me do something that was hard, inefficent or ghetto rigged before. (Kind of like this, I can do it in assembly, but you get a little stoked when you get a really nice, efficient, fast new API) What comes to mind was the piece that allowed you to make 45deg. roofs. It origninally came in a castle set, but I found myself re-using it in space applications.
I feel like the problem with Legos today is all the commercial tie ins, like StarWars and Spiderman. One of the greatest strengths, I feel, of the older Legos were that they were a set genre, but the unverse' story was largely untold. It was up to me, and my imagination to decide "why" the diffrent castle factions were at war. I got to experience the Galaxy exploders discover a medival civilization. I built a tyranical dragon lord who was defeated by the black knight using a futuristic laser gun found from the wreckage of a lost spacecraft.
I feel like the commercial ties "lock-in" a number of kids into highly-commercialized, pre-digested stories, where they are tempted to simply play out what they saw on TV rather than write new ones for themselves.
My wife is a teacher (first grade) and is disturbed (as am I) at how many students can't write or tell a story that doesn't include cartoon characters, and that it takes significant work to do something that we both feel came so naturally to both of us. How she does it, is that kids are not allowed to write about-or read books that feature TV or video game characters, or books made from TV/movies, in class.
I believe it is the creative play as a child that has done more for my career and personal development than anything else in my life.
We always used to use sex.com at my first job to make sure the content filter was working properly... ahh... the days of Microsoft Proxy Server 2.0. At first we did it just because it was the most obvious thing we could think of. Later someone suggested using other adult orieted websites, to which, we decided that if it did go through, we didn't want to have to explain why backdoorsluts.com was on the report that went to management (to the female city manager).
:)
Its one thing to test a proxy, another to explain to management your choice in samples.