Part of the advantage of instant film was being able to see how the picture was that instant, thus giving you the ability to retake the picture if you weren't satisfied. Digital cameras, with their screens and additional features, do the same job but do it even better. There's no need for instant film anymore.
For Linux to catch up to and overtake Windows, hardware vendors need to up their game when it comes to providing drivers and support. Unfortunately, they have no incentive to do so.
Why? Because they're quite content with the software-hardware-industrial complex they currently partake in with Microsoft. Every new version of Windows has increased hardware requirements, which leads people to buy new computers and/or hardware to run them. All of these computers have Windows on them, of course. Intel, nVidia, AMD, etc. are all happy - everyone's products get bought (even if they're not that great) because the user simply doesn't have a choice. If they want to stay current, they need to pay for a multicore processor, an extra few gigs of memory, or a bigger hard drive.
On the other hand, you have Linux. Jaunty Jackalope runs just as fast (actually, even faster) than Feisty Fawn did on my three year old Dell laptop. You have Damn Small Linux and Puppy Linux that take advantage of even older and less capable hardware. Linux makes old hardware useful again and enables users to be content with their current hardware. Why do they need to buy a new computer when their 7 year old gateway that used to run Windows ME now runs Ubuntu without slowdown or problems?
Software is the route to fixing this, as once enough people get hooked by native, killer applications, hardware vendors will have no choice to support Linux or else they won't be capitalizing on a growing market segment.
$99/month may be good for them compared to what Time Warner is charging. I know that in the city in Philadelphia, 80 channels plus the basic cable Internet service costs me $110 with Comcast. And that doesn't have phone service, which these citizens are getting with their $99/month.
The theory of common sense states that if a company is paying to offer you training, then the training will probably focus almost entirely on, if not exclusively on, their own products. Does anybody really expect any company, Microsoft included, to pay for you to undergo training to make them obsolete one day/
Can I ask why you don't keep any sort of local backups? Even if you work on thousands of documents, surely you could download a few of the most recent or important ones to ensure continuity should Google Docs become unavailable?
But if Time Warner is the only ISP for an area, they don't have to worry about users switching - because they can't. This is why the broadband industry, as it stands, cannot regulate itself. Self-regulation is dependent on a market, and there's no competitive market for broadband in many areas.
The problem with having no network neutrality as the broadband industry currently stands is that there isn't any regulation. Most Americans have one (maybe two, if they're lucky) choices of ISPs and that is it. If your area or apartment building only has Comcast and you don't like the way Comcast is prioritizing traffic, too bad. You're stuck paying the monthly fee for a service that you're not satisfied with, and there's nothing you can do about it.
While you can use Outlook or Mail.app or Thunderbird to access your GMail via POP3 or IMAP, that's not the point. After all, if you're only going to be using Outlook to get it, why not use Hotmail via the Outlook Connector that synchronizes your email, calendar, and contacts better than Gmail IMAP and Calendar Sync does?
No, the important development here is that now, you don't need an email client. Ever. again. Install Gears, and you can access GMail even when you're on a train or a flight. Moreover, you can set it up as a launchable application from your desktop using Prism, install GMail Notifier, and have the Notifier use Prism as the default "browser" to launch for:mailto links.
The reason most (if not all of us) switched to and stayed with GMail in the first place back in 2004 and 2005 was the interface. Sure, it gave you a ton of storage space compared to Hotmail and Yahoo, but they've since caught up. What Microsoft and Yahoo haven't matched since then is the interface. Show a user IMAP through Thunderbird and Gmail side-by-side and see what interface they prefer.
Also, for businesses that have switched to Google Apps, this provides assurance that critical email correspondence can be accessed even during network or Gmail outages. That's a huge bullet point that Google can use when trying to convince people to adopt their Apps for Domain.
I've been following Microsoft pretty closely the past few years, and it's been interesting to see what they've been up to. For starters, they've yanked out their mail, calendar, contacts, photo gallery, movie maker, and messenger applications from the operating system, providing them as a separate Windows Live download. While this doesn't appease the EU (who also wants IE and Windows Media Player out of the OS as well), it helps for users who don't want to be bothered with default Windows software and would rather use Thunderbird, Pidgin, Picasa, etc.
Their Entertainment and Devices division has been great with the updates to the XBox 360 and the Zune; I know people who managed to snag a Zune 30 for $80 on Black Friday clearance a year ago and have the newest firmware and games running on it. And yes, I own a Zune, because iTunes on Windows is a sadistic experiment.
They're looking to have Office applications available on the Web and are pushing forward in the cloud sector with Live Mesh (a great product) and Azure. The last piece of the puzzle, it seems, is Windows 7. They are looking to make this one be the success they were hoping Vista was partly because they NEED it. They need a central spot to tie all these other services and devices together, whether its Windows Live, XBox, Zune, Azure, or Office. Nobody gives a crap about Windows Live or Live Search on OS X or Linux.
Their recent moves including standards compliance in IE, supporting ODF, and contributing to Apache may be a PR stunt, but it's also what we've been asking for from them for a long time now. There seems to be a new culture at Microsoft these past few years, and so far, so good.
The writing has been on the wall for something like this for a long time. Gates has been talking for years about how this is where he thinks the future is. Microsoft has made a strong push lately for their various Windows Live products, and some of them are quite good (Mesh, Skydrive, Writer).
The only thing I'm curious to see is how heavy the OS is. Will it be geared towards netbooks, like the eeePC? Or will it still require some juice on your local machine?
There's a demo on Marketplace that allows you to play as every class (through an easter egg, intentionally left in by Silicon Knights). I think a lot of reviewers expected the world from this game. I expected a dungeon crawler/action RPG similar to Phantasy Star Online and Diablo. I'm very happy with the end product.
Personally, I'd give te game an 8.2, or in letter grading terms, a B-. It has some problems - namely, the length, some camera issues, and a weak story - but the core gameplay is FUN. And that's what's important to me.
Included in this package is not only Microsoft Office, but also Windows Live OneCare among other services. Let's see how the math breaks down over the next few years:
Traditional Purchase Model
-Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student - $150
-Windows Live OneCare (with one year subscription) - $50
-Next year's OneCare subscription - $50
-Following year's OneCare subscription - $50
-Microsoft Office 2009 Home and Student - $150
Total for three years: $450
Under the new Equipt Model
-Microsoft Equipt (first year) - $70
-Microsoft Equipt (second year) - $70
-Microsoft Equipt (third year, includes upgrade to Office 2009) - $70
Total for three years: $210
Now, this is assuming that the user continues to subscribe to OneCare and eventually would upgrade to Office 2009 - however, assuming they do, the savings are pretty clear. Since this is being offered side-by-side with the traditional purchase model, I think this is a good move by Microsoft.
Also, there is no alternative anywhere in the software universe that comes close to OneNote.
Also, this update is particularly noteworthy because it introduces in-game cross media bar (a feature many PS3 users have wanted for a while), as well as trophies (think achievements, but with a lamer name).
...the more I think that the Democrats will need to utilize the so-called "Dream Ticket" to win in November. It's obvious that both candidates have very solid blocks of support that refuse to go down without a fight. Also, the turnout numbers for the Democrats this primary season have been much, much higher than the Republicans. Unless one candidate locks up this nomination soon (which would probably be Obama, due to the logistics at this point), the party will be so splintered that the only way to bring it back together in time for the general election would be to include both "finalists" on the ticket.
For home consoles, this might be okay, but on portables, I don't want WiFi on and draining my battery power unless I intentionally choose to connect to the internet for web surfing or playing games. The last thing I want is my battery to run out on the subway because a game required that WiFi be on at all times, draining my power twice as quick.
Doesn't this guy have a job that requires his attention instead of bringing lawsuits against every retailer, person, and organization that he dislikes? A job like, I don't know, actually practicing law in cases that he has a shot of winning?
So a presidential hopeful wants somebody who at least knows how technology works to be a technology adviser? Say it ain't so!
However, I do hope this happens so he is able to re-use the "Developers, developers, developers" presentation.
What did you want Microsoft to do when Apple made this announcement? Simply ignore it, and turn more people away from the Zune platform? They're doing what they have to in order to stay current with their competitors, which is what the Zune is all about. I know this is "me too", but can you blame them for wanting to stay a competitive force (however small they may be) to Apple?
If Microsoft offered Live Anywhere on Windows for free, nobody would keep their XBox 360 Live subscription. They're in a tight spot with this; you need to charge the same for both groups, but PC gamers have always had this service for free. Live Anywhere will only work once the entire service is offered for free.
Give something away for free that is cool, useful, or interesting. A lot of these job fair places give away little trinkets, which can be cumbersome to carry. A drawstring bag with your company's logo could be a good idea. Also, try to hold a raffle for something that requires them to write down their name and e-mail; then you can put together a mailing list to send out job opening offers.
Slashdot Mirror
Part of the advantage of instant film was being able to see how the picture was that instant, thus giving you the ability to retake the picture if you weren't satisfied. Digital cameras, with their screens and additional features, do the same job but do it even better. There's no need for instant film anymore.
For Linux to catch up to and overtake Windows, hardware vendors need to up their game when it comes to providing drivers and support. Unfortunately, they have no incentive to do so.
Why? Because they're quite content with the software-hardware-industrial complex they currently partake in with Microsoft. Every new version of Windows has increased hardware requirements, which leads people to buy new computers and/or hardware to run them. All of these computers have Windows on them, of course. Intel, nVidia, AMD, etc. are all happy - everyone's products get bought (even if they're not that great) because the user simply doesn't have a choice. If they want to stay current, they need to pay for a multicore processor, an extra few gigs of memory, or a bigger hard drive.
On the other hand, you have Linux. Jaunty Jackalope runs just as fast (actually, even faster) than Feisty Fawn did on my three year old Dell laptop. You have Damn Small Linux and Puppy Linux that take advantage of even older and less capable hardware. Linux makes old hardware useful again and enables users to be content with their current hardware. Why do they need to buy a new computer when their 7 year old gateway that used to run Windows ME now runs Ubuntu without slowdown or problems?
Software is the route to fixing this, as once enough people get hooked by native, killer applications, hardware vendors will have no choice to support Linux or else they won't be capitalizing on a growing market segment.
$99/month may be good for them compared to what Time Warner is charging. I know that in the city in Philadelphia, 80 channels plus the basic cable Internet service costs me $110 with Comcast. And that doesn't have phone service, which these citizens are getting with their $99/month.
The theory of common sense states that if a company is paying to offer you training, then the training will probably focus almost entirely on, if not exclusively on, their own products. Does anybody really expect any company, Microsoft included, to pay for you to undergo training to make them obsolete one day/
Can I ask why you don't keep any sort of local backups? Even if you work on thousands of documents, surely you could download a few of the most recent or important ones to ensure continuity should Google Docs become unavailable?
Hotmail now has free POP3 to any client and supports forwarding to any address. It does still lack IMAP though.
But if Time Warner is the only ISP for an area, they don't have to worry about users switching - because they can't. This is why the broadband industry, as it stands, cannot regulate itself. Self-regulation is dependent on a market, and there's no competitive market for broadband in many areas.
The problem with having no network neutrality as the broadband industry currently stands is that there isn't any regulation. Most Americans have one (maybe two, if they're lucky) choices of ISPs and that is it. If your area or apartment building only has Comcast and you don't like the way Comcast is prioritizing traffic, too bad. You're stuck paying the monthly fee for a service that you're not satisfied with, and there's nothing you can do about it.
While you can use Outlook or Mail.app or Thunderbird to access your GMail via POP3 or IMAP, that's not the point. After all, if you're only going to be using Outlook to get it, why not use Hotmail via the Outlook Connector that synchronizes your email, calendar, and contacts better than Gmail IMAP and Calendar Sync does?
:mailto links.
No, the important development here is that now, you don't need an email client. Ever. again. Install Gears, and you can access GMail even when you're on a train or a flight. Moreover, you can set it up as a launchable application from your desktop using Prism, install GMail Notifier, and have the Notifier use Prism as the default "browser" to launch for
The reason most (if not all of us) switched to and stayed with GMail in the first place back in 2004 and 2005 was the interface. Sure, it gave you a ton of storage space compared to Hotmail and Yahoo, but they've since caught up. What Microsoft and Yahoo haven't matched since then is the interface. Show a user IMAP through Thunderbird and Gmail side-by-side and see what interface they prefer.
Also, for businesses that have switched to Google Apps, this provides assurance that critical email correspondence can be accessed even during network or Gmail outages. That's a huge bullet point that Google can use when trying to convince people to adopt their Apps for Domain.
I've been following Microsoft pretty closely the past few years, and it's been interesting to see what they've been up to. For starters, they've yanked out their mail, calendar, contacts, photo gallery, movie maker, and messenger applications from the operating system, providing them as a separate Windows Live download. While this doesn't appease the EU (who also wants IE and Windows Media Player out of the OS as well), it helps for users who don't want to be bothered with default Windows software and would rather use Thunderbird, Pidgin, Picasa, etc.
Their Entertainment and Devices division has been great with the updates to the XBox 360 and the Zune; I know people who managed to snag a Zune 30 for $80 on Black Friday clearance a year ago and have the newest firmware and games running on it. And yes, I own a Zune, because iTunes on Windows is a sadistic experiment.
They're looking to have Office applications available on the Web and are pushing forward in the cloud sector with Live Mesh (a great product) and Azure. The last piece of the puzzle, it seems, is Windows 7. They are looking to make this one be the success they were hoping Vista was partly because they NEED it. They need a central spot to tie all these other services and devices together, whether its Windows Live, XBox, Zune, Azure, or Office. Nobody gives a crap about Windows Live or Live Search on OS X or Linux.
Their recent moves including standards compliance in IE, supporting ODF, and contributing to Apache may be a PR stunt, but it's also what we've been asking for from them for a long time now. There seems to be a new culture at Microsoft these past few years, and so far, so good.
The writing has been on the wall for something like this for a long time. Gates has been talking for years about how this is where he thinks the future is. Microsoft has made a strong push lately for their various Windows Live products, and some of them are quite good (Mesh, Skydrive, Writer). The only thing I'm curious to see is how heavy the OS is. Will it be geared towards netbooks, like the eeePC? Or will it still require some juice on your local machine?
There's a demo on Marketplace that allows you to play as every class (through an easter egg, intentionally left in by Silicon Knights). I think a lot of reviewers expected the world from this game. I expected a dungeon crawler/action RPG similar to Phantasy Star Online and Diablo. I'm very happy with the end product. Personally, I'd give te game an 8.2, or in letter grading terms, a B-. It has some problems - namely, the length, some camera issues, and a weak story - but the core gameplay is FUN. And that's what's important to me.
If this story was about a similar bug with Hotmail and Windows Live Calendar, yes it would.
Two months is a really early time for a price cut of $200.
Included in this package is not only Microsoft Office, but also Windows Live OneCare among other services. Let's see how the math breaks down over the next few years:
Traditional Purchase Model
-Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student - $150
-Windows Live OneCare (with one year subscription) - $50
-Next year's OneCare subscription - $50
-Following year's OneCare subscription - $50
-Microsoft Office 2009 Home and Student - $150
Total for three years: $450
Under the new Equipt Model
-Microsoft Equipt (first year) - $70
-Microsoft Equipt (second year) - $70
-Microsoft Equipt (third year, includes upgrade to Office 2009) - $70
Total for three years: $210
Now, this is assuming that the user continues to subscribe to OneCare and eventually would upgrade to Office 2009 - however, assuming they do, the savings are pretty clear. Since this is being offered side-by-side with the traditional purchase model, I think this is a good move by Microsoft. Also, there is no alternative anywhere in the software universe that comes close to OneNote.
Also, this update is particularly noteworthy because it introduces in-game cross media bar (a feature many PS3 users have wanted for a while), as well as trophies (think achievements, but with a lamer name).
http://kotaku.com/5021575/sony-pulls-ps3-240-firmware-after-reported-problems Looks like it needs a bit more QA.
...the more I think that the Democrats will need to utilize the so-called "Dream Ticket" to win in November. It's obvious that both candidates have very solid blocks of support that refuse to go down without a fight. Also, the turnout numbers for the Democrats this primary season have been much, much higher than the Republicans. Unless one candidate locks up this nomination soon (which would probably be Obama, due to the logistics at this point), the party will be so splintered that the only way to bring it back together in time for the general election would be to include both "finalists" on the ticket.
For home consoles, this might be okay, but on portables, I don't want WiFi on and draining my battery power unless I intentionally choose to connect to the internet for web surfing or playing games. The last thing I want is my battery to run out on the subway because a game required that WiFi be on at all times, draining my power twice as quick.
Doesn't this guy have a job that requires his attention instead of bringing lawsuits against every retailer, person, and organization that he dislikes? A job like, I don't know, actually practicing law in cases that he has a shot of winning?
So a presidential hopeful wants somebody who at least knows how technology works to be a technology adviser? Say it ain't so! However, I do hope this happens so he is able to re-use the "Developers, developers, developers" presentation.
...your account is frozen. Brilliant!
What did you want Microsoft to do when Apple made this announcement? Simply ignore it, and turn more people away from the Zune platform? They're doing what they have to in order to stay current with their competitors, which is what the Zune is all about. I know this is "me too", but can you blame them for wanting to stay a competitive force (however small they may be) to Apple?
If Microsoft offered Live Anywhere on Windows for free, nobody would keep their XBox 360 Live subscription. They're in a tight spot with this; you need to charge the same for both groups, but PC gamers have always had this service for free. Live Anywhere will only work once the entire service is offered for free.
Give something away for free that is cool, useful, or interesting. A lot of these job fair places give away little trinkets, which can be cumbersome to carry. A drawstring bag with your company's logo could be a good idea. Also, try to hold a raffle for something that requires them to write down their name and e-mail; then you can put together a mailing list to send out job opening offers.