A client of mine has a metal building that is basically a Faraday cage. You had to go outside, or next to one-of-two windows. So they installed a cell signal repeater for the employees.
So just who do they register with? Any? All?
FYI - There is no associated carrier with the company. They let the employees expense a portion of their cell bills.
I pretty much DID learn to cook from a book. After years of failure, I read Alton Brown's "I'm just here for the food". The subtitle is "food + heat = cooking". Alton describes the different methods of heating food, the effects, and why you'd pick one over the other. Suddenly it all made sense. For me, this book was the cooking equivalent of Peter Norton's "Inside the IBM PC".
I then moved on to Cooks Illustrated magazine and America's Test Kitchen (same organization). They use a geek-friendly methodology of gathering multiple recipes, cooking each, and taking the best of each to arrive at their recipe. The have test tasters as well. These are the best cook books, because each section is actually a story describing the process they with through, including failures. You learn a lot, simply by reading their development process - even if you don't cook the item yourself.
Wait a minute - wasn't this supposed to be a book review?
There is a huge amount of 3D CAD data out there. Engineers use 3D apps like Solidworks to create and assemble products. It is not difficult to see that someone will want to make that data available to potential customers. CAD users currently download models of components and assemble them to create custom machines that are fully worked out before the first part is purchased or even seen. 3D laser scanners are getting cheaper. Software exists that can build 3D models from 2D photographs. So the data exists. The question becomes "why and how do we display it?"
This will happen just like video-on-the-web happened. The YouTube of 3D will appear, and be hailed as the next big thing by the press. Fear of missing the next-big-thing will drive a lot of CEOs to jump on board - just like the all the companies that had catalogs-on-CD, then web sites, and now phone apps.
From the summary: "It seems security by obscurity has lost the game once more."
I've got news for you. Most security IS security by obscurity. Think about it. If the attacker knew your password, account, IP address, certificates, keys, and combinations you would have no security.
Without knowing anything about the product or market, it is difficult for anyone to give meaningful advice. So here's a few books to consider that might bring you up to speed. Your job will be to find these on Amazon, etc. You might not DIY, but it will give you insights into marketing and help you identify someone who will help. Think of it like a businessman who takes a programming course to better understand programmers and work effectively with them. There are lots of bad marketing people, and you need to know enough to be able to identify the good ones from the bad one.
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries & Jack Trout - Start here.
Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson, Houghton Mifflin. - a how-to book on marking with a tiny budget. More local than national.
Advertising is a Waste of Money by Robert Ranson, HRD Press. Before you spend a dime advertising, read this.
Marketing Without Advertising, by Michael Phillips & Salli Rasberry, Nolo Press.
Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy, Vintage Books. In short - all marketing needs a feedback system so you can measure results. Yeah - web sites are great for this. Based on this book, I had a bunch of 1-800 toll-free phone numbers and every mailer had a different number. I could look at the phone bill and know which mailer was generating results. It is more important to know that something worked than to know why.
I have news for you. This is how most things are developed.
Homes are built from standardized components, as are production machines, cars, computers and even software. Often, we pick our components first, with only a hazy idea of the finished product. We think we know what we are developing, but after its built, it usually looks quite different than first imagined.
The key is Boeing is developing a much more difficult design and this is their first attempt at using this method. It is understandable that things didn't work perfectly, just like the first time we used CAD systems - something we have come to depend on.
Aircraft today is far more complex then before, and its getting more complex. I can see why Boeing is attempting to spread the workload across a virtual company, rather than attempt to do it completely in-house.
Hey Microsoft - I'm part of the problem. I've used Win 8, hate the interface and I'm avoiding it. I'm also telling people to stick with Windows 7 because 8 looks like a massive tech support problem for me. So I flat out tell people that I won't support Win 8. Use Win 7, Ubuntu, or buy a Mac. Life is better for me, and it sucks for you.
Your mistake is FORCING the new interface onto users, rather than making it an option. Had you produced Win 8 with a start button, and made Metro (or whatever you call it) something users could grow into, it would have been something I'd support. But you made it a Take-It-Or-Leave-It deal and what do you see users doing? Yeah - we chose to leave it.
I'd suggest you guys quickly come out with Windows 8.1 and add an option to put the old Win 7 interface on it. In my opinion, Metro feels unrefined, inconsistent and not ready for prime time. Make it an option and all will be forgiven.
And stop blaming others. Everyone else saw this coming a mile away. You make a bad decision - own up to it. Blaming others makes you look stupid and totally clueless. This is causing us to question your ability to deliver in the future, as it indicates you are not listening to your customers.
Yes, you are correct. But I can't say if most of those grids have ever had a black start event in a long time. I've been in the distribution side of the power industry, not the transmission side, so I defer to your greater subject knowledge.
"I understand that the grid is a complex legacy systerm that isn't well understood."
Well, I think the "grid" is better understood than may be obvious. If the national grid goes down, each local utility will disconnect from the grid, then bring their own lines up section-by-section. They are well practiced due to ice storms, hurricanes, etc. Reconnecting all the local utility grids to the "national grid" would be a new experience, however.
" I never once heard anyone mentioning swapping in a spare phone battery, and according to my own survey of my friends, none of them have ever tried it either."
You need to expand your circle of friends. Before the iPhone, pretty much all cell phones had replaceable batteries. My old Nokia had a desk charger you could park the phone on for charging, and it had a slot to charge a second battery. This phone would go 3 days between charges (IIRC).
BTW - google "ipad holder treadmill" and you'll get a lot of options, including DIY versions.
I just RTFA. So “Cathy” says the FAA is dumb. OK. She doesn’t supply a last name, so I’m not sure that inspires confidence. I once had a rather large aircraft manufacturer as a client. I asked one of the engineers about the cell-phones-off policy. He gave me several insights that were rather interesting.
One of the functions of his group is to customize aircraft with electronic devices used by government agencies. As part of that, they had to insure such devices would not interfere with the aircraft control and navigation systems – and they found minor changes in position would greatly affect the results. It turns out putting all that gear inside a metal tube creates all sorts of reflections and other fun stuff. He was of the opinion that some combination of cell phone quantities and positions would surely create an issue. Just because we get away with it does not mean it won’t happen.
This is outside my field, and he might be totally wrong. But I thought I should share a data point.
I test every single drive before deployment. I've found Gibson Research Corp (grc.com) Spinrite to be vital. It's pretty much the only drive test / repair / recover tool I use - other than RAID recovery tools. I'm astonished at the number of people who say they don't test at all.
Go visit a UPS or Fed-Ex distribution center and watch the "slapper" kick packages off the 45MPH belt onto a slide at the load dock. Small boxes like hard drive packages are airborne. I doesn't matter how much the factory tests. Shipping damage is a very serious issue.
BTW - I have no connection with GRC, except as a near-daily user of their products.
MS going bankrupt (unlikely to happen any time soon considering how much assets they have, but just imagining) would, in short, be a disaster for this world. It would mean no more updates for Windows, and virus/malware writers would have the time of there life.
That's not how it works. When a large company goes bankrupt, it's assets are sold. In the case of MS, I suspect the Windows division would be split from Office, Xbox, etc. The buyer would naturally want to gain all those Windows customers, so they would be inclined to continue updates, etc. The situation could actually improve, with a new owner focused on a desktop OS, rather than the large number of products that currently compete for attention at MS.
Westinghouse was broken up, and the different divisions I know of have been run much better by their new owners.
This! Windows is pretty solid if you do want all Linux, Unix and Mac users do - Don't freaking run as Administrator/Root.
If you have an app that needs admin permission, right-click/properties and set it to run with your admin account. Heck, Win 7 will even tell you it needs an admin account and show you a list to choose from.
I'm not sure this is a good analogy. I think we can agree that things we pay for should not have ads. Ads might be acceptable for things that are free or highly subsidized (to the point of being nearly free).
I pay for cable TV, yet I still get the damn ads. Unlike Ubuntu, I can't turn those off. That's annoying and they are about to lose me as a customer.
Magazines and newspapers are not free, but are ad-subsidized.
On-the-air TV (you brought it up) and web sites are ad supported. Since Ubuntu is "free" then ads are not unacceptable to many of us - as long as we can easily turn them off.
Looking at the cost of a non-free OS (Windows), you are getting quite a deal with Ubuntu. Like Slashdot, it is pretty easy to turn off ads. So I think this is more of a "Spirit of FOSS" issue than anything else.
Vote with your wallet. Pick another distro like Mint and watch the Ubuntu experiment and see if it works. Or if the pain of switching is too great, just turn off the ads. I'm OK with the non-geek masses subsidizing my OS.
Yeah, I thought about that. An installer that made a backup of user data would help. But I've run across a lot of users who tell me they got a new computer and can't find their files. When I tell them the files would still be on the old PC, they often say "but I've already thrown it away!"
But yeah - Amazon might take some heat if the installer didn't warn them (and perhaps check for/backup data).
Slashdot Mirror
A client of mine has a metal building that is basically a Faraday cage. You had to go outside, or next to one-of-two windows. So they installed a cell signal repeater for the employees.
So just who do they register with? Any? All?
FYI - There is no associated carrier with the company. They let the employees expense a portion of their cell bills.
I pretty much DID learn to cook from a book. After years of failure, I read Alton Brown's "I'm just here for the food". The subtitle is "food + heat = cooking". Alton describes the different methods of heating food, the effects, and why you'd pick one over the other. Suddenly it all made sense. For me, this book was the cooking equivalent of Peter Norton's "Inside the IBM PC".
I then moved on to Cooks Illustrated magazine and America's Test Kitchen (same organization). They use a geek-friendly methodology of gathering multiple recipes, cooking each, and taking the best of each to arrive at their recipe. The have test tasters as well. These are the best cook books, because each section is actually a story describing the process they with through, including failures. You learn a lot, simply by reading their development process - even if you don't cook the item yourself.
Wait a minute - wasn't this supposed to be a book review?
3D on the web is waiting for the killer app.
There is a huge amount of 3D CAD data out there. Engineers use 3D apps like Solidworks to create and assemble products. It is not difficult to see that someone will want to make that data available to potential customers. CAD users currently download models of components and assemble them to create custom machines that are fully worked out before the first part is purchased or even seen. 3D laser scanners are getting cheaper. Software exists that can build 3D models from 2D photographs. So the data exists. The question becomes "why and how do we display it?"
This will happen just like video-on-the-web happened. The YouTube of 3D will appear, and be hailed as the next big thing by the press. Fear of missing the next-big-thing will drive a lot of CEOs to jump on board - just like the all the companies that had catalogs-on-CD, then web sites, and now phone apps.
From the summary: "It seems security by obscurity has lost the game once more."
I've got news for you. Most security IS security by obscurity. Think about it. If the attacker knew your password, account, IP address, certificates, keys, and combinations you would have no security.
Without knowing anything about the product or market, it is difficult for anyone to give meaningful advice. So here's a few books to consider that might bring you up to speed. Your job will be to find these on Amazon, etc. You might not DIY, but it will give you insights into marketing and help you identify someone who will help. Think of it like a businessman who takes a programming course to better understand programmers and work effectively with them. There are lots of bad marketing people, and you need to know enough to be able to identify the good ones from the bad one.
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries & Jack Trout - Start here.
Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson, Houghton Mifflin. - a how-to book on marking with a tiny budget. More local than national.
Advertising is a Waste of Money by Robert Ranson, HRD Press. Before you spend a dime advertising, read this.
Marketing Without Advertising, by Michael Phillips & Salli Rasberry, Nolo Press.
Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy, Vintage Books. In short - all marketing needs a feedback system so you can measure results. Yeah - web sites are great for this. Based on this book, I had a bunch of 1-800 toll-free phone numbers and every mailer had a different number. I could look at the phone bill and know which mailer was generating results. It is more important to know that something worked than to know why.
Bad example. If you made all those copies of the software, the vendor would sue you for copyright infringement, not contract violation.
I have news for you. This is how most things are developed.
Homes are built from standardized components, as are production machines, cars, computers and even software. Often, we pick our components first, with only a hazy idea of the finished product. We think we know what we are developing, but after its built, it usually looks quite different than first imagined.
The key is Boeing is developing a much more difficult design and this is their first attempt at using this method. It is understandable that things didn't work perfectly, just like the first time we used CAD systems - something we have come to depend on.
Aircraft today is far more complex then before, and its getting more complex. I can see why Boeing is attempting to spread the workload across a virtual company, rather than attempt to do it completely in-house.
"Should device-makers be required to advertise how much storage is available to users, rather than the size of the storage media?"
No. They should advertise BOTH storage size and available storage space.
Hey Microsoft - I'm part of the problem. I've used Win 8, hate the interface and I'm avoiding it. I'm also telling people to stick with Windows 7 because 8 looks like a massive tech support problem for me. So I flat out tell people that I won't support Win 8. Use Win 7, Ubuntu, or buy a Mac. Life is better for me, and it sucks for you.
Your mistake is FORCING the new interface onto users, rather than making it an option. Had you produced Win 8 with a start button, and made Metro (or whatever you call it) something users could grow into, it would have been something I'd support. But you made it a Take-It-Or-Leave-It deal and what do you see users doing? Yeah - we chose to leave it.
I'd suggest you guys quickly come out with Windows 8.1 and add an option to put the old Win 7 interface on it. In my opinion, Metro feels unrefined, inconsistent and not ready for prime time. Make it an option and all will be forgiven.
And stop blaming others. Everyone else saw this coming a mile away. You make a bad decision - own up to it. Blaming others makes you look stupid and totally clueless. This is causing us to question your ability to deliver in the future, as it indicates you are not listening to your customers.
Yes, you are correct. But I can't say if most of those grids have ever had a black start event in a long time. I've been in the distribution side of the power industry, not the transmission side, so I defer to your greater subject knowledge.
Mine is working fine. Sucks to be y 998kjhkh CARRIER LOST
"I understand that the grid is a complex legacy systerm that isn't well understood."
Well, I think the "grid" is better understood than may be obvious. If the national grid goes down, each local utility will disconnect from the grid, then bring their own lines up section-by-section. They are well practiced due to ice storms, hurricanes, etc. Reconnecting all the local utility grids to the "national grid" would be a new experience, however.
With one of these, I'll be a superhero at the next meeting. Can I get a chest-mounted powerpoint projector to go along with this?
" I never once heard anyone mentioning swapping in a spare phone battery, and according to my own survey of my friends, none of them have ever tried it either."
You need to expand your circle of friends. Before the iPhone, pretty much all cell phones had replaceable batteries. My old Nokia had a desk charger you could park the phone on for charging, and it had a slot to charge a second battery. This phone would go 3 days between charges (IIRC).
BTW - google "ipad holder treadmill" and you'll get a lot of options, including DIY versions.
The USA can't afford $471?
Forget Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, etc. I found it on Amazon!
http://www.amazon.com/LEGO-Star-Wars-Death-10188/dp/B002EEP3NO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1358010617&sr=8-1&keywords=death+star
Bingo! Be sure to answer any 4K survey with "Yes, I will definitely buy one".
I just RTFA. So “Cathy” says the FAA is dumb. OK. She doesn’t supply a last name, so I’m not sure that inspires confidence.
I once had a rather large aircraft manufacturer as a client. I asked one of the engineers about the cell-phones-off policy. He gave me several insights that were rather interesting.
One of the functions of his group is to customize aircraft with electronic devices used by government agencies. As part of that, they had to insure such devices would not interfere with the aircraft control and navigation systems – and they found minor changes in position would greatly affect the results. It turns out putting all that gear inside a metal tube creates all sorts of reflections and other fun stuff. He was of the opinion that some combination of cell phone quantities and positions would surely create an issue. Just because we get away with it does not mean it won’t happen.
This is outside my field, and he might be totally wrong. But I thought I should share a data point.
I test every single drive before deployment. I've found Gibson Research Corp (grc.com) Spinrite to be vital. It's pretty much the only drive test / repair / recover tool I use - other than RAID recovery tools. I'm astonished at the number of people who say they don't test at all.
Go visit a UPS or Fed-Ex distribution center and watch the "slapper" kick packages off the 45MPH belt onto a slide at the load dock. Small boxes like hard drive packages are airborne. I doesn't matter how much the factory tests. Shipping damage is a very serious issue.
BTW - I have no connection with GRC, except as a near-daily user of their products.
So for one day Internet Explorer was actually superior to Chrome?
MS going bankrupt (unlikely to happen any time soon considering how much assets they have, but just imagining) would, in short, be a disaster for this world. It would mean no more updates for Windows, and virus/malware writers would have the time of there life.
That's not how it works. When a large company goes bankrupt, it's assets are sold. In the case of MS, I suspect the Windows division would be split from Office, Xbox, etc. The buyer would naturally want to gain all those Windows customers, so they would be inclined to continue updates, etc. The situation could actually improve, with a new owner focused on a desktop OS, rather than the large number of products that currently compete for attention at MS.
Westinghouse was broken up, and the different divisions I know of have been run much better by their new owners.
The countries are older than the company, and will last more time. Let Bezos use .amazoncompany, if he wishes.
Here's an idea - what if they move the dot and shorten "company" to just three letters!
I don't know a single person that doesn't bike because they have to wear a helmet.
You don't know ANY women?
This! Windows is pretty solid if you do want all Linux, Unix and Mac users do - Don't freaking run as Administrator/Root.
If you have an app that needs admin permission, right-click/properties and set it to run with your admin account. Heck, Win 7 will even tell you it needs an admin account and show you a list to choose from.
I'm not sure this is a good analogy. I think we can agree that things we pay for should not have ads. Ads might be acceptable for things that are free or highly subsidized (to the point of being nearly free).
I pay for cable TV, yet I still get the damn ads. Unlike Ubuntu, I can't turn those off. That's annoying and they are about to lose me as a customer.
Magazines and newspapers are not free, but are ad-subsidized.
On-the-air TV (you brought it up) and web sites are ad supported. Since Ubuntu is "free" then ads are not unacceptable to many of us - as long as we can easily turn them off.
Looking at the cost of a non-free OS (Windows), you are getting quite a deal with Ubuntu. Like Slashdot, it is pretty easy to turn off ads. So I think this is more of a "Spirit of FOSS" issue than anything else.
Vote with your wallet. Pick another distro like Mint and watch the Ubuntu experiment and see if it works. Or if the pain of switching is too great, just turn off the ads. I'm OK with the non-geek masses subsidizing my OS.
Yeah, I thought about that. An installer that made a backup of user data would help. But I've run across a lot of users who tell me they got a new computer and can't find their files. When I tell them the files would still be on the old PC, they often say "but I've already thrown it away!"
But yeah - Amazon might take some heat if the installer didn't warn them (and perhaps check for/backup data).