Mail-in Rebates are hated because it's one step removed from a scam. They're used and marketed to consumers to make them believe that the price of a product is actaully cheaper than what you will really pay for. It often causes confusion in the shopper which can increase their likely hood of purchasing on impulse. Sure, maybe you didn't want or need that 100 stack of blank CD/DVD's but if it's labeled with huge black letters on yellow poster cards for $4 (normally $40), you just might pick one up.
The three "scam like" parts is that, first, most rebates often have a very very short life span. It's like trying to launch a space shuttle. High winds, rain, or a cat farts and you'll miss your change to get back that $36.
Second, is stores 'use' to market products without notification that the price being presented was AFTER rebate. Sometimes multiple rebates are on a products and some are taken at the register and some are mail-in. And lets be clear, it's the mail-in ones that are the problem. After purchasing my new car and getting over $4,000 in rebates and incentives, I didn't have to do a single thing for paper work to get discounts.
Finally, Stores know that consumers do not always send in the rebates. I just read an article somewhere, I can't remember where, but if someone can help post a link, I'd appreciate it, it showed that if rebates where around $100-$200, it would have a 50% return rate. Rebates for $35 would have around 24% return rate, and rebates of $10
Of course, this is a business world and rebates where never ment to give the consumer a discount. Their purpose, like all things, is to get more consumers into your store and buy more stuff (if they need it or not). Or sometimes stores will make agreements with companies that if their stock is too large and too slow selling they can apply massive rebates to move said stock. This shows that companies use small rebates to attract people into the store and to sell them things they might not necessarly want, because of impulse price/purchasing.
The best advice is when you get your rebate form, the first thing you do when you get home is to process the rebate right away. Take out the reciets, read the rebate requirements, fill out the envelope, add the paperwork you need, and mail it in the same day. Of course, problems might happen if you purchase something on impulse and never use it due to 'waiting' to see if want to keep it or not (maybe it's a gift for a birthday a few weeks away.). This is when problems arrise. Now, you might have lost the reciept, or the rebate has expired. It also takes literrally 14-20 weeks to see a rebate. Most consumers want to buy a products to save money NOW. Not get a check when the snow's melted/arrived.
So, that is a simple, but probably badly explained, example of why Rebate are hated. 1) they often have very short turn over time 2) because they're (still) marketed (with small print) to appear as the register price, but are not 3) They're specifically marketed to and used by stores with the fact that consumers don't like to use them given a specific price point. Just recently, I bought a box of cereal for $2.00 on sale and could have gotten a $2.00 rebate for the same box. I never sent it in, because $2.00 wasn't worth the effort for me. Did I buy the cereal for the rebate? No, it's normally $3.50 and a delicous 'healthy' cereal of brand flacks and yogurt. I suspect that the $2.00 rebate is used less than 5% of the time. It probably costed more to design and print the rebate forms than the cost of all the rebates given.
I'm starting to ramble. I better go.
Cheers,
Fozzy
Females are less likely to download and more likely to buy music and less likely to be tech savvy.... Women in general are also paranoid of breaking the law.
Tell that to my French girlfriend...
...Ok, she's not tech savvy, but she's a download lover.
where the studio contracts actually pay the artists LESS per track, while having almost zero overhead cost for the production of raw goods because there are no raw goods.
I was just reading the "Weird Al" Q/A on his website about from fans where he talks about his contract on his smaller profit from (legally)downloaded music. I think this is an issue with Al having signed a contact without fully understanding that he would get less per download. Basically, it seems like a contact problem, not a "the big bad music industry won't pay artists as much for downloads". It's more "the big bad record label out smarted someone on their contract rates for downloads".
Also, "no overhead" is a HUGE mis-understatement. Where does most of the cost of producing a record go? It goes into the pockets of the people who produce it... not the cost of paper, plastic, and compact disks. CD's cost like 1 cent to produce, if not less now-a-days. Art can be expensive, sure, but that art is going to be created with/without a download. You need to still advertise your new record and that record has to 'visual' look different to distingish it from the other records. Even if it's a.JPEG on a website, that image was professionaly created by someone. Of course, I'm sure if the CEO's took an 80% paycut and only got paid like $1 million dollars a year, I think the cost of purcashing albums would be less. =D
But I degress... Albums cost money for recording time, studio time, paying the people master the tracks, back-up musicians (if any), advertising/promotion, etc, etc. This "no overhead" is a big mis-statement. Sure, they don't have to produce CD's, but that's probably the cheapest part of the whole process! I already covered the fact that they still will need to create artwork, etc. The big saves from downloading comes from cutting out the 'middle man'. You're no longer paying "Mega"-marts fee, their distributers fee's, etc. Just some bandwidth "overhead", which is comparatively cheaper (given gas prices these days).
This would actually be a good time to sell an account on Ebay. I would guess with all the bans, you could get a good price for a level 60 Hunter/Rogue.
btw, WoW CD for sale. Only $3,000. Level 60 Hunter included as a perk!
(I can pay off my credit car bills with all those gold purchases now)
Of course paid downloading isn't new and I wouldn't exactly say porn is leading the way (though I would agree porn had done a lot for the internet as well as VHS). I've been using iTunes for some time now, and I've never owned an iPod. It's such a convienance, with one gripe, only 30 secs of a song can be previewed. Anyways, I just spent $5 on iTunes a weekago. I had 5 singles I enjoyed listening too and I downloaded them, burned them to a CD, ripped them back into MP3, put them on my PSP to work out with (yeah, I use it more of a MP3 player than a video or game player. Saddly, that beautiful screen isn't used much, much to my dismay.)
That same purchase would have costed me between $60-$100 to buy the 5 CD's that each had one of those songs on them. Of course, I would have gotten much more music, but it wasn't the music I was willing to buy. It would be like going to a fast-food restaurant and being forced to only get the combo meal when all you wanted was a small fry.
I use to work at Wal-Mart and that is when I realized that I no longer wanted to buy CD's. Wal-Mart, the self proclaimed "low price leader", bought their CD's for like $3 and turned around and sold them for $15-20. I wasn't about to participate in that kind of money hording. I'll just keep listening to the radio and downloading the song I want.
True, there might be more limits on what people 'feel' like doing with such an interactive game. However, their controller still have normal buttons and can be used in a normal way.
Also, how long do you think people can play DDR for? I'm sure I've seen some play that for hours and I wouldn't doubt that it's far more tiring than any other games.
I would prefer to see games that allow people to enjoy their game for 20-60mins then that person can feel good, put the thing down, and get back to interacting with the rest of life. Maybe I can finally get ride of my monitor tan?
What's your evidence that the HD-DVD player is easier to build and cheaper? Or that the Blu Ray player will around $800-$1000? I've heard credible arguments that the HD-DVD discs are cheaper to produce, but no one has given any evidence that the player will be, given that both HD-DVD and Blu Ray support precisely the same complement of codecs. What's your reasoning here?
If you haven't been keeping up with the whole next-gen DVD wars... check out wikiapedia and you'll find your answers. Basically, HD-DVD will be cheaper because it's going to still use some of the same components of current DVD players. If I remember right, they're still using a red laser. Blue-ray uses a blue laser... hench, it's name. Seriously, if you haven't read up on this, there's no point in trying to flame someone else.
because Blu Ray has greater support among the movie studios.
Hmm... lets see, here's an extract from Wikipedia... again.
The primary rival to Blu-ray is HD DVD, championed by Toshiba, NEC Corporation, Microsoft, and Intel. It has a lower data density and thus less disc capacity, but could in principle benefit from lower manufacturing costs for both the drive units and the pre-recorded/recordable media.
On November 29, 2004 four Hollywood studios (New Line Cinema, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios and Warner Bros.) announced non-exclusive agreements to support HD DVD. Since that time, Paramount and Warner have chosen to release
titles in both Blu-ray and HD DVD.
I'm sorry, but you can't say Blue-Ray is better because it has *some* support from big movie studios. Because, so does HD-DVD, and HD-DVD has Microsoft and Intel. They're not exactly small no-bodies.
Unless you've got evidentiary support for your argument about the necessarily higher cost of producing a Blu Ray player vs. the cost of producing an HD-DVD player, it's not at all clear that the market will go in the way you suggest.
There's plenty of facts and evidence out there as to the 'initial' costs of Blue-ray vs HD-DVD. This is not news to anyone who's followed along. The original poster you're arguing with actually made an intersting point, however, the actual prices of Blue-Ray vs HD-DVD are yet to be seen once the market matures to the point that people are actually looking to replace their DVDs.
I just don't see people giving up regular DVD's for at least 5 more years and even then, it would just be a start. There's not enough gained from switching to HD-DVD or Blue-Ray. All you gain is space, space to allow higher DPI, which only CEO's and VP's have the disposable cash to spend on such luxury items. If people want extra space... they'll use 2 DVD's to store their photos. As a consumer, I'm going to look at the quality of a DVD and a HD-DVD and then I'm going to look at the price and say "I can't tell the difference and I'm not going to spend that extra money."
Of course, this is why the HD-DVD / Blue-Ray topic is so interesting. 1) people just aren't informed enough. 2) It's a hourse a piece. One costs more but has more, while the other costs less and still gets more than what's currently there (but less than the other format).
At these prices, I don't think the market will support 2 formats for long. However, if the price comes down, I cannot see why it won't. Afterall, look at the video game players. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft are all on the market and they're all sharing it, which some claimed wouldn't happen. I can see a 3 way market for this as well. DVD
But, like I said. I have no interested (other than the news) of getting a Blue-Ray or a HD-DVD and I just have a feeling that others won't have that interest either. So, my crystal ball says that by the time DVD's are actually obsolute for everyday use, Blue-Ray and HD-DVD will be cheap enough to just move to Blue-Ray since it has the greater capacity and technology. My crystal ball also says that other technologies might be available that make both obsolute.
I think the only thing the PS3 has going againts them is the price point. At $500-600 a pop, I do not see the PS3 getting the penetration that the PS2 had. There will be Playstation Fans who will buy it because they want any thing Playstation. I'm sort of that way with Nintendo. I've owned nothing but Nintendo consoles until I bought my PSP (well, it was a gift actually and I also would love to have a PS2 now. DDR and Guitar Hero makes it hard not to buy one).
If the PS3 does not get the penetration into household then game developers will not be as quick to make games for the PS3. Playstation has always been notorious for difficult programming. As producing a game can cost more than some major motion pictures, if Sony doesn't have the units in peoples houses, they're not going to be able to sell enough games to interest game companies to make games for your system.
It's always been the games that make a system what it is. The PSOne and PS2 became the number one gaming machine because they where capable of pumping out tons of games, good or bad... mostly bad. Same thing happened for the NES. Back in late 80's early 90's, if you made a NES game, you where going to make a huge profit, even if the game sucked (and many of them did, particularly near the end of it's life). Nintendo didn't even care at that time because of their near Monopoly and excessive licensing rates. They made lots of money without even lifting a finger.
That is one reason it killed Nintendo as SuperNES battled with Sega and N64 battled with PSOne. PSOne's licensing rates where lower lower and cheaper to produce games on.
That is why you notice now that GameCube doesn't have much for games or the classic franchises like Castlevania, Contra, etc. Nintendo doesn't have the market penetration. Even when RE4 came out for GC and proved the system could be used to make some of the best games around, games still are hard to find. No market penetration.
With Wii's lower (lowest?) price point and "gimics" (Emulation + joystick), and XBox 360's lower price point and already market penetration, Sony will loose a large market share. Will the the PS3 be killed? No, it will just be more of an 'elitiest' toy.
Not really related to the original post but about French TV. My girlfriend (who's French) was recently on big network TV show in France called "La Cibel" (the target). It's several contestants who battle it out with tough themed questions.
She made it to the final round but lost. As it turns out, public stations like our CBS, NBC, ABC have crap for financing gifts. The final prize? Something like $5,000 for answering 10 factorial questions in like 2 minutes. She ended up with a boat rental for a week on the French Riviera, but had to pay for the gas. =P
Then I sit at home, turn on "Deal or No Deal" and see people getting 6 figure offers... for randomly opening suit cases. I sometimes think there's something missing in the world... then I log online and try to win the golden suitcase contest worth $10k. =P
Of course, the French also have laws on how much American music can be played on the radio every day. Though, I tend to hear more British than American music over there. It's a nice change of pace if you ask me.
it depends on what lock was used since a certain number of locks can be bypassed via a ballpoint pen + ?
bonus points if somebody has a link to a detailish account
Locks? I bet you the guys laptop sitting next to me that none of these laptops where not locked up, but left on the University libraries table while the student went to the bathroom or outside to talk to their boyfriend on their cell phone for 2 hours.
Also, consider the fact that a large number of universities are requiring freshman to have laptops, just means you're going to see a rise in theft. I just don't see a lot of theft happening at Starbucks. *sips his mocha latte talle grande skim with whipped while eyeing the laptop across from him that's now unattended as the guy gotup to use the restroom*
What this culture really needs is a place to put your laptop should you need to use the john! I'd take my into the bathroom more (probably even stay longer!) if I a good place to put it. Setting it on the floor just isn't kosher.
Googles page rank is simply the precieved 'popularity' of your site based on how many other sites (and their page rank) are pointed back to you. Having 5 rank 10 sites point to yours would result in your site having a better ranking than 100 rank 0/1 sites.
Google search results (which are different than page rankings) returns results based on a complicated formula which takes your page rank into account. Page results take the search 'words' and compares it with their indexed results based on which pages use your search 'keywards' in the title, header tags (, etc), and general content of each page. It will compare the distance apart in a document of words to try and determine the relivancy of the results to display on their website.
Now, with that said, Googles formula is complex. There are a lot of weighted variables. The formula also changes. Google continues to research new methods to returning better and results.
Google also has to range their formula from time to time because people (maybe even those working at Kindersmart.com) will try to minipulate their sites content to return better Google results. Tricks people use to do in the early days like excessive keyword spaming in the title or waaaaay back when the meta keywords where still used. Why? Because these business want the best ranking because they're competing with all the other business online that use the same search keywords and deliver similar/same prodcuts or servics.
Google will also ban sites form their list or 'force' a low result if that page uses 'tricks' to try and gain better index scoring. (ever heard of Google bombing?)
Now, I think this is a loosing lawsuit, but I'm sure Google is use to getting lawsuits left and right from companys now that they're all over the news and have some pretty deep pockets. I'm sure someone will come on Jerry Springer claiming Google is the father of their child and hasn't paid child support.
It's simply said that, page rank is 1) over rated 2) It's based on, mainly, how many other sites link back to your own. If you page rank goes down, it's likely because people stopped linking to you or you where being mischeivious and tried to 'scam' better rankings from google which gets your domain flagged as a kind of 'untrusted' resource.
I hope they go to trial. Googles got plenty of lawers I'm sure. And we'll just find out more about what Kindersmart.com was doing to put them in this situation and how it actaully had nothing to do with google but them either pissing off their supporters or trying to scam search results.
Than and 70% lose of income due to google is pretty exagerative. The company would fold in a second if that where true. Let alone one search engine being able to do that. MSN, Yahoo, Google, Ask, AOL, all still share a decent part of the pie.
I spent the last month or so researching Alienware as I really wanted to buy one of their desktops. After talking to their Sales Rep online 2x and on the phone 1x I had one of those gut feelings that what I just experianced wasn't what I expected. So, I started googling "alienware sucks/problems"
What I found out started to make sense once I realized that my conversation with sales reps was on par with peoples attempts at talking to customer service reps on getting issues with their machines resolved.
I was a sworn Dell hater do to my untimely resolved of laptop issues I had with my Inspiron 8100. But after I thought about it some more, I realized that despite the fact that their 'depot' kept returning my computer telling me it wasn't broken (and me opening it back up to find it still was), working with Customer Support wasn't all that bad for Dell (except the 40+min wait times on hold which I actaully expect). That fact that my laptop has traveled the world multiple times, been banged around in a bag hiking to school and back, and I only had a hard drive go bad on it once in 6 years? Not to bad really.
Then I read that Alienware takes forever to send you a replacement part, to order your computer in the first place, or to fix it themselves (despite an onsite warrenty they will never allow you to use apparently).
So, I had a choice. Take a dell, have it parts arrive the next day. Or get an Alienware with a sweet case but take weeks or longer to get an issue resolved on average. Where Dell will take forever in a bad scenario. So, I picked the lesser of two evils and saved a few $100 and had a much better experaince talking to the sales rep (who still admited that I was more technical than himself)
If Dell bought Alienware, it would be good. They would have a great high-end gaming market and be able to at least get orders processed faster. You'll still have to talk to someone in another country and wait 45+min on hold. But at least you'll get your replacement parts or computer quickly!
heck, my XPS 600 was ordered on Friday and was shipped by Monday. Compared to Alienware's 3 week standard time... if you don't have issues. Apparently that could even take months.
With the deadpixel thing. LCD's will have dead pixels... ask people like me with a PSP that has some. LCD's are made such that there might be one or two dead pixels. It's just a technology that is that difficult to produce 100% that it's an acceptable business cost/risk. How many pixels and their location often determine if the screen should be sent back.
Dell has already released a press statement saying it's not true.
This all aparently started from a VoodooPC blog, whom is a competitor with Alienware.
Speak with your wallet and dont buy a PS3....If you bought the 360, why oh why would you complain about Sony's problems.
You must have missed the part where he said...
Even though im a gadget whore and will probrably buy all 3
The point is that, console gaming is becoming so much hype on who has the most amazing system that games are getting over looked. Maybe it's just age, but I can tell you, I do not enjoy games as I once did. My Personnal opinion is that games have just gotten boring, sans a few diamonds in the rough (Resident Evil 4 GBC, Ridge Racer PSP).
Companies are focasing on the marketing of their 'uber' system and hoping to drive sales instead of getting the best library of game titles.
We all know that Sony tosses as many titles at it's system as humanly possible, while only the rare few stick.
Nintendo refuses to move "outside the box" and keeps pumping out Nintendo franchise title after franchise title with no real innovation.
Xbox is just basically select PS2 titles and Halo.
So, the point is, console game has gotten sickning because no matter what's under that box, the games are not getting any better, with rare expections. The general case I would make is most games have gotten worse as gameplay and control takes a back seat to 3D 'realism' and graphics.
I'm sure I could still pick-up Techmo Super Bowl, Baseball all stars or the Original Zelda and enjoy playing those games again.
Cheers,
Foz
I actually purchased this book as well.
It was the first PHP security book I found. I've not read it from cover to cover but there has been a lot of good tips I've picked up from just browsing some of the chapters I'm interested in.
Cheers,
Foz
$35/annual is still not that great. That's somewhere in the ballpark of like $17/hour.
They have benefits? So does most other companies. That doesn't mean they're good benefits. (I'd better have no deductables on full optical, dental, and medical)
On top of that, Portland, OR? That's not exactly a small town with cheap costs of living. And they want you to be BOTH a System Admin AND a Developer?
I know accountants who make more than that at an entry level position. The sad thing (since I spent last summer job hunting an a lot of it online) is that people really undervalue programmers and particularly web programmers.
I would value that job to start at least $45,000 salary. Heck, the Government pays $55,000 for Graduate student web developers (per 40 hours worked. They are not forced to work 40 hours but the pay is less, so it's technically houraly based). That was a job I was considering but realized I didn't want to go back to school to do it.
Slashdot Mirror
Mail-in Rebates are hated because it's one step removed from a scam. They're used and marketed to consumers to make them believe that the price of a product is actaully cheaper than what you will really pay for. It often causes confusion in the shopper which can increase their likely hood of purchasing on impulse. Sure, maybe you didn't want or need that 100 stack of blank CD/DVD's but if it's labeled with huge black letters on yellow poster cards for $4 (normally $40), you just might pick one up.
The three "scam like" parts is that, first, most rebates often have a very very short life span. It's like trying to launch a space shuttle. High winds, rain, or a cat farts and you'll miss your change to get back that $36.
Second, is stores 'use' to market products without notification that the price being presented was AFTER rebate. Sometimes multiple rebates are on a products and some are taken at the register and some are mail-in. And lets be clear, it's the mail-in ones that are the problem. After purchasing my new car and getting over $4,000 in rebates and incentives, I didn't have to do a single thing for paper work to get discounts.
Finally, Stores know that consumers do not always send in the rebates. I just read an article somewhere, I can't remember where, but if someone can help post a link, I'd appreciate it, it showed that if rebates where around $100-$200, it would have a 50% return rate. Rebates for $35 would have around 24% return rate, and rebates of $10
Of course, this is a business world and rebates where never ment to give the consumer a discount. Their purpose, like all things, is to get more consumers into your store and buy more stuff (if they need it or not). Or sometimes stores will make agreements with companies that if their stock is too large and too slow selling they can apply massive rebates to move said stock. This shows that companies use small rebates to attract people into the store and to sell them things they might not necessarly want, because of impulse price/purchasing.
The best advice is when you get your rebate form, the first thing you do when you get home is to process the rebate right away. Take out the reciets, read the rebate requirements, fill out the envelope, add the paperwork you need, and mail it in the same day. Of course, problems might happen if you purchase something on impulse and never use it due to 'waiting' to see if want to keep it or not (maybe it's a gift for a birthday a few weeks away.). This is when problems arrise. Now, you might have lost the reciept, or the rebate has expired. It also takes literrally 14-20 weeks to see a rebate. Most consumers want to buy a products to save money NOW. Not get a check when the snow's melted/arrived.
So, that is a simple, but probably badly explained, example of why Rebate are hated. 1) they often have very short turn over time 2) because they're (still) marketed (with small print) to appear as the register price, but are not 3) They're specifically marketed to and used by stores with the fact that consumers don't like to use them given a specific price point. Just recently, I bought a box of cereal for $2.00 on sale and could have gotten a $2.00 rebate for the same box. I never sent it in, because $2.00 wasn't worth the effort for me. Did I buy the cereal for the rebate? No, it's normally $3.50 and a delicous 'healthy' cereal of brand flacks and yogurt. I suspect that the $2.00 rebate is used less than 5% of the time. It probably costed more to design and print the rebate forms than the cost of all the rebates given.
I'm starting to ramble. I better go.
Cheers, Fozzy
It's flying boneless chicken I'm worried about.
What no Terminator 2: Super Championship Turbo Edition?
Tell that to my French girlfriend...
...Ok, she's not tech savvy, but she's a download lover.
I was just reading the "Weird Al" Q/A on his website about from fans where he talks about his contract on his smaller profit from (legally)downloaded music. I think this is an issue with Al having signed a contact without fully understanding that he would get less per download. Basically, it seems like a contact problem, not a "the big bad music industry won't pay artists as much for downloads". It's more "the big bad record label out smarted someone on their contract rates for downloads".
Also, "no overhead" is a HUGE mis-understatement. Where does most of the cost of producing a record go? It goes into the pockets of the people who produce it... not the cost of paper, plastic, and compact disks. CD's cost like 1 cent to produce, if not less now-a-days. Art can be expensive, sure, but that art is going to be created with/without a download. You need to still advertise your new record and that record has to 'visual' look different to distingish it from the other records. Even if it's a .JPEG on a website, that image was professionaly created by someone. Of course, I'm sure if the CEO's took an 80% paycut and only got paid like $1 million dollars a year, I think the cost of purcashing albums would be less. =D
But I degress... Albums cost money for recording time, studio time, paying the people master the tracks, back-up musicians (if any), advertising/promotion, etc, etc. This "no overhead" is a big mis-statement. Sure, they don't have to produce CD's, but that's probably the cheapest part of the whole process! I already covered the fact that they still will need to create artwork, etc. The big saves from downloading comes from cutting out the 'middle man'. You're no longer paying "Mega"-marts fee, their distributers fee's, etc. Just some bandwidth "overhead", which is comparatively cheaper (given gas prices these days).
Cheers,
Fozzy
This would actually be a good time to sell an account on Ebay. I would guess with all the bans, you could get a good price for a level 60 Hunter/Rogue.
btw, WoW CD for sale. Only $3,000. Level 60 Hunter included as a perk!
(I can pay off my credit car bills with all those gold purchases now)
Shhh, before he takes the internet away!
Of course paid downloading isn't new and I wouldn't exactly say porn is leading the way (though I would agree porn had done a lot for the internet as well as VHS). I've been using iTunes for some time now, and I've never owned an iPod. It's such a convienance, with one gripe, only 30 secs of a song can be previewed. Anyways, I just spent $5 on iTunes a weekago. I had 5 singles I enjoyed listening too and I downloaded them, burned them to a CD, ripped them back into MP3, put them on my PSP to work out with (yeah, I use it more of a MP3 player than a video or game player. Saddly, that beautiful screen isn't used much, much to my dismay.)
That same purchase would have costed me between $60-$100 to buy the 5 CD's that each had one of those songs on them. Of course, I would have gotten much more music, but it wasn't the music I was willing to buy. It would be like going to a fast-food restaurant and being forced to only get the combo meal when all you wanted was a small fry.
I use to work at Wal-Mart and that is when I realized that I no longer wanted to buy CD's. Wal-Mart, the self proclaimed "low price leader", bought their CD's for like $3 and turned around and sold them for $15-20. I wasn't about to participate in that kind of money hording. I'll just keep listening to the radio and downloading the song I want.
I had a roommate in college who made a PC case out of a milk crate. Best... cooling... ever! hehe
True, there might be more limits on what people 'feel' like doing with such an interactive game. However, their controller still have normal buttons and can be used in a normal way.
Also, how long do you think people can play DDR for? I'm sure I've seen some play that for hours and I wouldn't doubt that it's far more tiring than any other games.
I would prefer to see games that allow people to enjoy their game for 20-60mins then that person can feel good, put the thing down, and get back to interacting with the rest of life. Maybe I can finally get ride of my monitor tan?
If you haven't been keeping up with the whole next-gen DVD wars... check out wikiapedia and you'll find your answers. Basically, HD-DVD will be cheaper because it's going to still use some of the same components of current DVD players. If I remember right, they're still using a red laser. Blue-ray uses a blue laser... hench, it's name. Seriously, if you haven't read up on this, there's no point in trying to flame someone else.
Hmm... lets see, here's an extract from Wikipedia... again.
I'm sorry, but you can't say Blue-Ray is better because it has *some* support from big movie studios. Because, so does HD-DVD, and HD-DVD has Microsoft and Intel. They're not exactly small no-bodies.
There's plenty of facts and evidence out there as to the 'initial' costs of Blue-ray vs HD-DVD. This is not news to anyone who's followed along. The original poster you're arguing with actually made an intersting point, however, the actual prices of Blue-Ray vs HD-DVD are yet to be seen once the market matures to the point that people are actually looking to replace their DVDs.
I just don't see people giving up regular DVD's for at least 5 more years and even then, it would just be a start. There's not enough gained from switching to HD-DVD or Blue-Ray. All you gain is space, space to allow higher DPI, which only CEO's and VP's have the disposable cash to spend on such luxury items. If people want extra space... they'll use 2 DVD's to store their photos. As a consumer, I'm going to look at the quality of a DVD and a HD-DVD and then I'm going to look at the price and say "I can't tell the difference and I'm not going to spend that extra money."
Of course, this is why the HD-DVD / Blue-Ray topic is so interesting. 1) people just aren't informed enough. 2) It's a hourse a piece. One costs more but has more, while the other costs less and still gets more than what's currently there (but less than the other format).
At these prices, I don't think the market will support 2 formats for long. However, if the price comes down, I cannot see why it won't. Afterall, look at the video game players. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft are all on the market and they're all sharing it, which some claimed wouldn't happen. I can see a 3 way market for this as well. DVD
But, like I said. I have no interested (other than the news) of getting a Blue-Ray or a HD-DVD and I just have a feeling that others won't have that interest either. So, my crystal ball says that by the time DVD's are actually obsolute for everyday use, Blue-Ray and HD-DVD will be cheap enough to just move to Blue-Ray since it has the greater capacity and technology. My crystal ball also says that other technologies might be available that make both obsolute.
I think the only thing the PS3 has going againts them is the price point. At $500-600 a pop, I do not see the PS3 getting the penetration that the PS2 had. There will be Playstation Fans who will buy it because they want any thing Playstation. I'm sort of that way with Nintendo. I've owned nothing but Nintendo consoles until I bought my PSP (well, it was a gift actually and I also would love to have a PS2 now. DDR and Guitar Hero makes it hard not to buy one).
If the PS3 does not get the penetration into household then game developers will not be as quick to make games for the PS3. Playstation has always been notorious for difficult programming. As producing a game can cost more than some major motion pictures, if Sony doesn't have the units in peoples houses, they're not going to be able to sell enough games to interest game companies to make games for your system.
It's always been the games that make a system what it is. The PSOne and PS2 became the number one gaming machine because they where capable of pumping out tons of games, good or bad... mostly bad. Same thing happened for the NES. Back in late 80's early 90's, if you made a NES game, you where going to make a huge profit, even if the game sucked (and many of them did, particularly near the end of it's life). Nintendo didn't even care at that time because of their near Monopoly and excessive licensing rates. They made lots of money without even lifting a finger.
That is one reason it killed Nintendo as SuperNES battled with Sega and N64 battled with PSOne. PSOne's licensing rates where lower lower and cheaper to produce games on.
That is why you notice now that GameCube doesn't have much for games or the classic franchises like Castlevania, Contra, etc. Nintendo doesn't have the market penetration. Even when RE4 came out for GC and proved the system could be used to make some of the best games around, games still are hard to find. No market penetration.
With Wii's lower (lowest?) price point and "gimics" (Emulation + joystick), and XBox 360's lower price point and already market penetration, Sony will loose a large market share. Will the the PS3 be killed? No, it will just be more of an 'elitiest' toy.
Not really related to the original post but about French TV. My girlfriend (who's French) was recently on big network TV show in France called "La Cibel" (the target). It's several contestants who battle it out with tough themed questions.
She made it to the final round but lost. As it turns out, public stations like our CBS, NBC, ABC have crap for financing gifts. The final prize? Something like $5,000 for answering 10 factorial questions in like 2 minutes. She ended up with a boat rental for a week on the French Riviera, but had to pay for the gas. =P
Then I sit at home, turn on "Deal or No Deal" and see people getting 6 figure offers... for randomly opening suit cases. I sometimes think there's something missing in the world... then I log online and try to win the golden suitcase contest worth $10k. =P
Of course, the French also have laws on how much American music can be played on the radio every day. Though, I tend to hear more British than American music over there. It's a nice change of pace if you ask me.
LOL, Got to love that movie "My Fair Lady" with the British gutter language, cockneay I think it's called?
Or perhaps they're just from France? Since they never pronounce their "H"'s either, and that's actually proper way.
none of these laptops where not locked up
Doh! I used a double negative. I hate when I self edit and miss the first negation!
Locks? I bet you the guys laptop sitting next to me that none of these laptops where not locked up, but left on the University libraries table while the student went to the bathroom or outside to talk to their boyfriend on their cell phone for 2 hours.
Also, consider the fact that a large number of universities are requiring freshman to have laptops, just means you're going to see a rise in theft. I just don't see a lot of theft happening at Starbucks. *sips his mocha latte talle grande skim with whipped while eyeing the laptop across from him that's now unattended as the guy gotup to use the restroom*
What this culture really needs is a place to put your laptop should you need to use the john! I'd take my into the bathroom more (probably even stay longer!) if I a good place to put it. Setting it on the floor just isn't kosher.
Cheers, Fozzy
We call people fibs all the time in my great state of Wisconsin
The whole focas of this is Googles Page rank.
Googles page rank is simply the precieved 'popularity' of your site based on how many other sites (and their page rank) are pointed back to you. Having 5 rank 10 sites point to yours would result in your site having a better ranking than 100 rank 0/1 sites.
Google search results (which are different than page rankings) returns results based on a complicated formula which takes your page rank into account. Page results take the search 'words' and compares it with their indexed results based on which pages use your search 'keywards' in the title, header tags (, etc), and general content of each page. It will compare the distance apart in a document of words to try and determine the relivancy of the results to display on their website.
Now, with that said, Googles formula is complex. There are a lot of weighted variables. The formula also changes. Google continues to research new methods to returning better and results.
Google also has to range their formula from time to time because people (maybe even those working at Kindersmart.com) will try to minipulate their sites content to return better Google results. Tricks people use to do in the early days like excessive keyword spaming in the title or waaaaay back when the meta keywords where still used. Why? Because these business want the best ranking because they're competing with all the other business online that use the same search keywords and deliver similar/same prodcuts or servics.
Google will also ban sites form their list or 'force' a low result if that page uses 'tricks' to try and gain better index scoring. (ever heard of Google bombing?)
Now, I think this is a loosing lawsuit, but I'm sure Google is use to getting lawsuits left and right from companys now that they're all over the news and have some pretty deep pockets. I'm sure someone will come on Jerry Springer claiming Google is the father of their child and hasn't paid child support.
It's simply said that, page rank is 1) over rated 2) It's based on, mainly, how many other sites link back to your own. If you page rank goes down, it's likely because people stopped linking to you or you where being mischeivious and tried to 'scam' better rankings from google which gets your domain flagged as a kind of 'untrusted' resource.
I hope they go to trial. Googles got plenty of lawers I'm sure. And we'll just find out more about what Kindersmart.com was doing to put them in this situation and how it actaully had nothing to do with google but them either pissing off their supporters or trying to scam search results.
Than and 70% lose of income due to google is pretty exagerative. The company would fold in a second if that where true. Let alone one search engine being able to do that. MSN, Yahoo, Google, Ask, AOL, all still share a decent part of the pie.
Cheers, FozzyI spent the last month or so researching Alienware as I really wanted to buy one of their desktops. After talking to their Sales Rep online 2x and on the phone 1x I had one of those gut feelings that what I just experianced wasn't what I expected. So, I started googling "alienware sucks/problems"
What I found out started to make sense once I realized that my conversation with sales reps was on par with peoples attempts at talking to customer service reps on getting issues with their machines resolved.
I was a sworn Dell hater do to my untimely resolved of laptop issues I had with my Inspiron 8100. But after I thought about it some more, I realized that despite the fact that their 'depot' kept returning my computer telling me it wasn't broken (and me opening it back up to find it still was), working with Customer Support wasn't all that bad for Dell (except the 40+min wait times on hold which I actaully expect). That fact that my laptop has traveled the world multiple times, been banged around in a bag hiking to school and back, and I only had a hard drive go bad on it once in 6 years? Not to bad really.
Then I read that Alienware takes forever to send you a replacement part, to order your computer in the first place, or to fix it themselves (despite an onsite warrenty they will never allow you to use apparently).
So, I had a choice. Take a dell, have it parts arrive the next day. Or get an Alienware with a sweet case but take weeks or longer to get an issue resolved on average. Where Dell will take forever in a bad scenario. So, I picked the lesser of two evils and saved a few $100 and had a much better experaince talking to the sales rep (who still admited that I was more technical than himself)
If Dell bought Alienware, it would be good. They would have a great high-end gaming market and be able to at least get orders processed faster. You'll still have to talk to someone in another country and wait 45+min on hold. But at least you'll get your replacement parts or computer quickly!
heck, my XPS 600 was ordered on Friday and was shipped by Monday. Compared to Alienware's 3 week standard time... if you don't have issues. Apparently that could even take months.
With the deadpixel thing. LCD's will have dead pixels... ask people like me with a PSP that has some. LCD's are made such that there might be one or two dead pixels. It's just a technology that is that difficult to produce 100% that it's an acceptable business cost/risk. How many pixels and their location often determine if the screen should be sent back.
Cheers, Fozzy
Dell has already released a press statement saying it's not true. This all aparently started from a VoodooPC blog, whom is a competitor with Alienware.
I actually purchased this book as well. It was the first PHP security book I found. I've not read it from cover to cover but there has been a lot of good tips I've picked up from just browsing some of the chapters I'm interested in. Cheers, Foz
$35/annual is still not that great. That's somewhere in the ballpark of like $17/hour.
They have benefits? So does most other companies. That doesn't mean they're good benefits. (I'd better have no deductables on full optical, dental, and medical)
On top of that, Portland, OR? That's not exactly a small town with cheap costs of living. And they want you to be BOTH a System Admin AND a Developer?
I know accountants who make more than that at an entry level position. The sad thing (since I spent last summer job hunting an a lot of it online) is that people really undervalue programmers and particularly web programmers.
I would value that job to start at least $45,000 salary. Heck, the Government pays $55,000 for Graduate student web developers (per 40 hours worked. They are not forced to work 40 hours but the pay is less, so it's technically houraly based). That was a job I was considering but realized I didn't want to go back to school to do it.