The goal of the Xbox is not to make a profit directly, but for Microsoft to get a toe in the door of content distribution, including music and on-demand video, with the hopes of replacing the cable companies.
Yet one more reason Comcast, etc. recently implemented bandwidth caps after over a decade of advertising unlimited internet.
I am proud to say that this will never happen to me. I am about to come into some money - approximately $5million US, and when I receive it I will be sure to avoid scams such as that.
How am I coming into the $5mil? I'm glad you asked. I recently received an email from Ima S. Ucker, who as you might know is the nephew of a deposed prince in Nigeria who is in need of assistance of getting their family wealth away from some crooks. They just need a tiny fraction of their wealth to return to their comfortable lifestyles, so they offered to give me the vast majority of their wealth in exchange for helping them transfer the money. All I had to do was to provide them with my full name, address, date of birth, social security number, savings account number and pin --- oh wait. . .
Directly ompeting with your distributors and integrators is the very best way to lose resellers and the best way to boost your real competition (Linux distributors) since your newly-created competitors will have a sour taste in their mouths and will be promoting your competition.
Good move, Microsoft. You're losing market share already and now you want to drive off the cliff.
It's the fault of everyone who bought and/or built a home, business,e etc. at or below sea level, and also the politicians who didn't follow the Army Corps of Engineers' recommendations for the levy. Add an inadequate levy to land below sea level and you're just inviting catastrophe.
In Linux (and OS X if you enable the root login) when you're root, it's assumed you know to not shoot yourself in the foot. In OS X, an admin isn't root. To actuall be root, you need to edit a config file (I forget which one) to enable the root login, then you can log in as root. However, OS X 10.2 and later make the admin process so friendly there is little to no need to ever log in to the desktop environment as root. If you need root in OS X, it's generally only for custom configurations of apache or samba, for which sudo will generally work fine, or you can just su - root. No need to log in to root via the GUI. Really.
As a regular user (even a wheel member) most distributions (and OS X) are smart enough to prompt you for the root password if you're requesting changes which require root to do so, and those credentials are either cached for that app and its children (in the case of YaST on SUSE), or, like sudo, you're authenticated for a period of time (some versions of OS X, I don't know if the current operates this way since my Mac is too old for leopard).
The problem is Windows' security model is hopelessly broken due to the shortcomings that come with backwards compatibility all the way to Windows 2.x and 3.x - on the old 16-bit environments it was never designed for networking to begin with (the network modules are fugly hacks) and are certainly not multiuser, so security was not even a consideration. This line of thinking continued even through Windows for Workgroups (which did have native networking) where security was only considered on the server side, and even Windows 95 which was fully networkable security was hardly considered because it was not considered a multiuser system and one of the selling points was near-100% backwards compatibility with all your favorite desktop applications - unfortunately including the ones which love to litter %windir%\*
Windows 2000 and Windows XP came from a grown-up OS called NT, but brought with it the backwards compatibility promised by Windows 95. This is due to applications like Quicken, Quickbooks, etc. - essentials for the continued success of Windows as a desktop operating system. Unfortunately those applications require administrator access because they were developed on Win16 and ported to Win32 with NO consideration for following best practices, especially for the install process. (note: when I've developed installers, all the way back to 16-bit, I've always followed best practices to avoid those issues on the client side even though my employer at the time would never pay the dough for the Windows logo certficiation process. My installers would have passed though! It doesn't take much effort to do so, and it makes maintainability easier and eases the load on support by avoiding DLL hell).
So, security has been broken by design. Vista and Windows X64 attempt to limit the problem through limited sandboxing and Windows File Protection, and Windows XP (x86) through Windows File Protection, but running older apps incur so many UAC prompts (or just plain won't work) that one is better off just turning off UAC and relying on antivirus and antispyware software. The only reasonable way to have backwards compatibility with previous Windows versions without broken security is through a compatibility layer like wine (but do you think M$ will really contribute to wine?!) or through virtualization, probably breaking directx components in those apps in the process.
If I get charged a fee whether or not I've been downloading (I haven't) then I'm going to start downloading whatever I want, whenever I want - and how much I want. If I HAVE to pay, then I will take what I am paying for.
(this has been added to work around slashdot limitations which prevent one-word posts even when one-word posts provide a complete and accurate response)
The likes of iTunes, youtube, pandora, and so forth. There will be ways to find new music in the genres you enjoy.
Payola isn't the only way. In fact, payola is very likely what resulted in P2P popularity. On P2P networks you'll find a lot of random good stuff that you will simply never hear on Top-40 radio.
Whom will the RIAA (i.e., its equivalent) point the finger at when record sales plummet? Certainly not themselves for not embracing try-before-you-buy methods of sales. Why are they (the big labels) continually fighting P2P sharing when it has been shown in study after study (including their own studies) that P2P users purchase more "legal" CDs than average consumers? WHY are they still fighting P2P usage, other than to try to maintain control over whom listens to what through payola, so they can get away with manufacturing 6 to 10 mega-pop stars a year by buying airtime and buying their way onto sales charts, rather than doing what anyone else in any other industry does and take risks on quality and talent?
I for one am anxiously awaiting the implosion of the big labels. Once that happens (and that day is coming) I'll start listening to pop radio again, and start buying CDs by new acts. Until then, I'll just avoid temptation by sticking to talk radio, classical, and classic rock.
Where I am concerned they have largely lost me as a customer. During the height of napster I purchased more CDs than I did in the entire 13 previous years I owned CD players. When the RIAA started suing their customer base (people like me) who spend a lot of money on music, I quit listening to new music cold turkey. If they want to sue people who actually are VERY interested in exploring and buying their product (back catalog and current material) then fuck them - if they don't need me, I don't need them. I can be happy with the hundreds of CDs and scores of LPs that I already have. What little I do buy is new releases by my favorite acts, indie bands, or based on recommendations of my favorite acts. If the RIAA is not interested in retaining me as their customer, then I am not interested in listening to any new material from them. Period.
If it weren't for napster, I'd never have discovered Herb Alpert. I'd never have given Garth Brooks a moment to listen to. Etc. I discovered a lot of music in a lot of genres I really enjoy and had to go out in purchase (occasionally going into work late to do so, on the way to work) but ever since the suits started, I have spent my entertainment budget on DVDs. The RIAA does not get my money, aside from their tiny slice of the budget of movies I purchase.
If the MPAA gets as bad as the RIAA I don't know what I'll do - maybe I'll get back into PC gaming or buy a console.
Lesson yet to be learned by the RIAA: don't bite the hand that feeds you.
On both 32-bit and 64-bit Linux the vehicle menus are inaccessible (the infamous flash-is-top-layer-no-matter-what issue, rendering DHTML menus worthless when a flash object is below it, the 360* views are inaccessible, and most of the other flash features on the site don't work. I need to either boot to Vista (which I won't do except to run games) or use my notebook.
The whole try before you buy thing works? No sh*t! I'd never have guessed! That's all I ever used Napster for, and used suprnova (before it went bust) for that (and timeshifting tv episodes) as well. I'd download something and if I liked it, I'd go out and buy the DVD or buy it from amazon.
Now I don't download anything but "unreleased" tracks, and MST3K episodes when I can find them (the MST3K credits encourage sharing copies!). I still buy DVDs (the MPAA has not been quite as unreasonable as the RIAA) but only very rarely buy CDs.
Want to entice people who wouldn't otherwise buy, to buy? Flood P2P networks with low-resolution 320x240 (or equivalent widescreen) format videos of your entire catalog. Include ads for the DVD and blu-ray versions - at the beginning, halfway through, and the end. Make the ads relatively unobtrusive so you don't suffer from backlash (people's removing the ads and reposting the videos). Then, you're getting advertising for very, very little cost (how much bandwidth does running a single seed share and a torrent tracker take anyway?), getting people interested in buying your back catalog, or at worst case, at least getting them interested in your other product offerings (be it other back catalog items or maybe seeing your future releases on the big screen).
Re-read my post. TMP Worldwide is the parent company of Monster. Sorry about the typo as I was typing. Read my original post and don't post AC if you really want to dicker over a typo. Excuse me for making a mistake when writing the post. If you had read for context you would have figured out I made a mistake, so whatevever. I know, I know, I've been trolled by an anonymous coward.:-p
Despite the modern times, they're still looking out for their individual state,
No they are not. They are looking out for opportunities to benefit their FRIENDS in their individual state. Senators Kennedy and Kerry haven't helped Massachusetts much at all, if at all.
Hell, Kennedy still opposes the wind farm - because it will be "unsightly" when he's cruising in his yacht.
If the school is teaching IT at all the best solution is a heterogeneous environment. Any servers for production should be free/open source to save on licensing costs, and servers in the IT classes should be a mix of Linux, Windows, Solaris, and OS X to give the students maximum hands-on experience.
Clients for production should be F/OSS whenever possible, again, to save on both up-front and recurring costs, and clients for instruction that MSDN and similar licensing doesn't apply (kiosks, biology classes, etc.) should be F/OSS if at all possible. Test wine and Crossover for compatibility with any academic applications you need to run, and try to get Codeweavers to assist in the event that the applications won't run. It's possible they can make Crossover run any Windows academic apps you need to run.
Don't blindly choose F/OSS either. It's not a religion. Pick the best and most cost-effective solution (taking TCO into account, not just up-front costs) and disregard "But Linux comes without a warranty" because Microsoft expressly disclaims all warranties in their EULA. If you need support, there is a vast support base for Linux, which is possibly larger than Windows' support base taking a multitude of messageboards and Linux vendors who will step up to the plate to support nearly any Linux distribution.
Whatever you do, don't pick a single OS, or even just a single distribution especially in your computer science classes. It's good to expose your students to all of the major distros, to Macs, and to Windows, but I would really push OpenOffice (and its variants) for normal use, such as homework assignments and so forth.
I have looked for it in recent years (I wanted to toy around with it) and can't find mirrors of the original site, just sites praising it and very old binaries.:(
I didn't say it was easier to read than ASP - it's easier to read than perl, but at the time was better than ASP. Very easily extended, very modular, etc. - much like PHP is now.
Slashdot Mirror
When Canon started chipping their cartridges I finally took the plunge and bought a Xerox color laser printer. I haven't looked back since.
FUCK the whole cheap printer/expensive ink business model.
Interesting - then they could turn on the broadcast flag, and not provide the flag over the cable network.
The goal of the Xbox is not to make a profit directly, but for Microsoft to get a toe in the door of content distribution, including music and on-demand video, with the hopes of replacing the cable companies.
Yet one more reason Comcast, etc. recently implemented bandwidth caps after over a decade of advertising unlimited internet.
Didn't we have this (plastic made from wood) over a century ago?
It's called cellophane.
I am proud to say that this will never happen to me. I am about to come into some money - approximately $5million US, and when I receive it I will be sure to avoid scams such as that.
How am I coming into the $5mil? I'm glad you asked. I recently received an email from Ima S. Ucker, who as you might know is the nephew of a deposed prince in Nigeria who is in need of assistance of getting their family wealth away from some crooks. They just need a tiny fraction of their wealth to return to their comfortable lifestyles, so they offered to give me the vast majority of their wealth in exchange for helping them transfer the money. All I had to do was to provide them with my full name, address, date of birth, social security number, savings account number and pin --- oh wait. . .
Directly ompeting with your distributors and integrators is the very best way to lose resellers and the best way to boost your real competition (Linux distributors) since your newly-created competitors will have a sour taste in their mouths and will be promoting your competition.
Good move, Microsoft. You're losing market share already and now you want to drive off the cliff.
Hmm, a Linux laptop would also fly if it were in Ballmer's presence and he ran out of chairs. . .
It's the fault of everyone who bought and/or built a home, business,e etc. at or below sea level, and also the politicians who didn't follow the Army Corps of Engineers' recommendations for the levy. Add an inadequate levy to land below sea level and you're just inviting catastrophe.
Agent 007 thwarted one such attempt.
I'm lost unless the unit of measurement is either Libraries of Congress or Volkswagons.
I cannot accept that - not when the telcos accepted $200bil to do exactly that.
In Linux (and OS X if you enable the root login) when you're root, it's assumed you know to not shoot yourself in the foot. In OS X, an admin isn't root. To actuall be root, you need to edit a config file (I forget which one) to enable the root login, then you can log in as root. However, OS X 10.2 and later make the admin process so friendly there is little to no need to ever log in to the desktop environment as root. If you need root in OS X, it's generally only for custom configurations of apache or samba, for which sudo will generally work fine, or you can just su - root. No need to log in to root via the GUI. Really.
As a regular user (even a wheel member) most distributions (and OS X) are smart enough to prompt you for the root password if you're requesting changes which require root to do so, and those credentials are either cached for that app and its children (in the case of YaST on SUSE), or, like sudo, you're authenticated for a period of time (some versions of OS X, I don't know if the current operates this way since my Mac is too old for leopard).
The problem is Windows' security model is hopelessly broken due to the shortcomings that come with backwards compatibility all the way to Windows 2.x and 3.x - on the old 16-bit environments it was never designed for networking to begin with (the network modules are fugly hacks) and are certainly not multiuser, so security was not even a consideration. This line of thinking continued even through Windows for Workgroups (which did have native networking) where security was only considered on the server side, and even Windows 95 which was fully networkable security was hardly considered because it was not considered a multiuser system and one of the selling points was near-100% backwards compatibility with all your favorite desktop applications - unfortunately including the ones which love to litter %windir%\*
Windows 2000 and Windows XP came from a grown-up OS called NT, but brought with it the backwards compatibility promised by Windows 95. This is due to applications like Quicken, Quickbooks, etc. - essentials for the continued success of Windows as a desktop operating system. Unfortunately those applications require administrator access because they were developed on Win16 and ported to Win32 with NO consideration for following best practices, especially for the install process. (note: when I've developed installers, all the way back to 16-bit, I've always followed best practices to avoid those issues on the client side even though my employer at the time would never pay the dough for the Windows logo certficiation process. My installers would have passed though! It doesn't take much effort to do so, and it makes maintainability easier and eases the load on support by avoiding DLL hell).
So, security has been broken by design. Vista and Windows X64 attempt to limit the problem through limited sandboxing and Windows File Protection, and Windows XP (x86) through Windows File Protection, but running older apps incur so many UAC prompts (or just plain won't work) that one is better off just turning off UAC and relying on antivirus and antispyware software. The only reasonable way to have backwards compatibility with previous Windows versions without broken security is through a compatibility layer like wine (but do you think M$ will really contribute to wine?!) or through virtualization, probably breaking directx components in those apps in the process.
If I get charged a fee whether or not I've been downloading (I haven't) then I'm going to start downloading whatever I want, whenever I want - and how much I want. If I HAVE to pay, then I will take what I am paying for.
Greed.
(this has been added to work around slashdot limitations which prevent one-word posts even when one-word posts provide a complete and accurate response)
The likes of iTunes, youtube, pandora, and so forth. There will be ways to find new music in the genres you enjoy.
Payola isn't the only way. In fact, payola is very likely what resulted in P2P popularity. On P2P networks you'll find a lot of random good stuff that you will simply never hear on Top-40 radio.
And what will happen to record sales?
Whom will the RIAA (i.e., its equivalent) point the finger at when record sales plummet? Certainly not themselves for not embracing try-before-you-buy methods of sales. Why are they (the big labels) continually fighting P2P sharing when it has been shown in study after study (including their own studies) that P2P users purchase more "legal" CDs than average consumers? WHY are they still fighting P2P usage, other than to try to maintain control over whom listens to what through payola, so they can get away with manufacturing 6 to 10 mega-pop stars a year by buying airtime and buying their way onto sales charts, rather than doing what anyone else in any other industry does and take risks on quality and talent?
I for one am anxiously awaiting the implosion of the big labels. Once that happens (and that day is coming) I'll start listening to pop radio again, and start buying CDs by new acts. Until then, I'll just avoid temptation by sticking to talk radio, classical, and classic rock.
Where I am concerned they have largely lost me as a customer. During the height of napster I purchased more CDs than I did in the entire 13 previous years I owned CD players. When the RIAA started suing their customer base (people like me) who spend a lot of money on music, I quit listening to new music cold turkey. If they want to sue people who actually are VERY interested in exploring and buying their product (back catalog and current material) then fuck them - if they don't need me, I don't need them. I can be happy with the hundreds of CDs and scores of LPs that I already have. What little I do buy is new releases by my favorite acts, indie bands, or based on recommendations of my favorite acts. If the RIAA is not interested in retaining me as their customer, then I am not interested in listening to any new material from them. Period.
If it weren't for napster, I'd never have discovered Herb Alpert. I'd never have given Garth Brooks a moment to listen to. Etc. I discovered a lot of music in a lot of genres I really enjoy and had to go out in purchase (occasionally going into work late to do so, on the way to work) but ever since the suits started, I have spent my entertainment budget on DVDs. The RIAA does not get my money, aside from their tiny slice of the budget of movies I purchase.
If the MPAA gets as bad as the RIAA I don't know what I'll do - maybe I'll get back into PC gaming or buy a console.
Lesson yet to be learned by the RIAA: don't bite the hand that feeds you.
On both 32-bit and 64-bit Linux the vehicle menus are inaccessible (the infamous flash-is-top-layer-no-matter-what issue, rendering DHTML menus worthless when a flash object is below it, the 360* views are inaccessible, and most of the other flash features on the site don't work. I need to either boot to Vista (which I won't do except to run games) or use my notebook.
The whole try before you buy thing works? No sh*t! I'd never have guessed! That's all I ever used Napster for, and used suprnova (before it went bust) for that (and timeshifting tv episodes) as well. I'd download something and if I liked it, I'd go out and buy the DVD or buy it from amazon.
Now I don't download anything but "unreleased" tracks, and MST3K episodes when I can find them (the MST3K credits encourage sharing copies!). I still buy DVDs (the MPAA has not been quite as unreasonable as the RIAA) but only very rarely buy CDs.
Want to entice people who wouldn't otherwise buy, to buy? Flood P2P networks with low-resolution 320x240 (or equivalent widescreen) format videos of your entire catalog. Include ads for the DVD and blu-ray versions - at the beginning, halfway through, and the end. Make the ads relatively unobtrusive so you don't suffer from backlash (people's removing the ads and reposting the videos). Then, you're getting advertising for very, very little cost (how much bandwidth does running a single seed share and a torrent tracker take anyway?), getting people interested in buying your back catalog, or at worst case, at least getting them interested in your other product offerings (be it other back catalog items or maybe seeing your future releases on the big screen).
On the other hand, konqueror doesn't work with a lot of sites, and on Linux even Firefox will break on many sites, such as toyota.com
Avant Browser is just an MSIE wrapper, so that is not a solution to the EC's concern.
Re-read my post. TMP Worldwide is the parent company of Monster. Sorry about the typo as I was typing. Read my original post and don't post AC if you really want to dicker over a typo. Excuse me for making a mistake when writing the post. If you had read for context you would have figured out I made a mistake, so whatevever. I know, I know, I've been trolled by an anonymous coward. :-p
No they are not. They are looking out for opportunities to benefit their FRIENDS in their individual state. Senators Kennedy and Kerry haven't helped Massachusetts much at all, if at all.
Hell, Kennedy still opposes the wind farm - because it will be "unsightly" when he's cruising in his yacht.
If the school is teaching IT at all the best solution is a heterogeneous environment. Any servers for production should be free/open source to save on licensing costs, and servers in the IT classes should be a mix of Linux, Windows, Solaris, and OS X to give the students maximum hands-on experience.
Clients for production should be F/OSS whenever possible, again, to save on both up-front and recurring costs, and clients for instruction that MSDN and similar licensing doesn't apply (kiosks, biology classes, etc.) should be F/OSS if at all possible. Test wine and Crossover for compatibility with any academic applications you need to run, and try to get Codeweavers to assist in the event that the applications won't run. It's possible they can make Crossover run any Windows academic apps you need to run.
Don't blindly choose F/OSS either. It's not a religion. Pick the best and most cost-effective solution (taking TCO into account, not just up-front costs) and disregard "But Linux comes without a warranty" because Microsoft expressly disclaims all warranties in their EULA. If you need support, there is a vast support base for Linux, which is possibly larger than Windows' support base taking a multitude of messageboards and Linux vendors who will step up to the plate to support nearly any Linux distribution.
Whatever you do, don't pick a single OS, or even just a single distribution especially in your computer science classes. It's good to expose your students to all of the major distros, to Macs, and to Windows, but I would really push OpenOffice (and its variants) for normal use, such as homework assignments and so forth.
I have looked for it in recent years (I wanted to toy around with it) and can't find mirrors of the original site, just sites praising it and very old binaries. :(
I didn't say it was easier to read than ASP - it's easier to read than perl, but at the time was better than ASP. Very easily extended, very modular, etc. - much like PHP is now.
er, I meant "Now I suspect they make the vast majority of their revenue on smaller accounts through advertising revenue."