Then Nokia did a poor job of letting me know that the E71 exists.
No, the US carriers did a good job of preventing you from knowing the E71 exists. The E71 was well marketed in Australia, Europe and Asia so you cant blame Nokia for that one. The E71 and E72 are one of the most popular business phones and if you've ever used one you would know why (Excellent integration of business features, office, email, calendaring, task management).
Console like simplicity is good for most typical users, but it effectively excludes the more technical class of users who want more control.
This can easily be done through default settings. You do not need to completely lock down your device to make it easy to use, you simply need to ensure that the more complex options are turned off by default. That way each user can customise the level of control to their satisfaction, dumb users can keep the default, smarter users can change all options.
Dumbing down then trying to make a device more complex is backwards, make the device as complex as it's smartest target audience and then dumb down the options until it is suitable for the stupidest target audience. Yes this requires more work by drastically expands your target market. This is why I view Jailbreaking as wrong and backwards, it's not that you're trying to do something the device was never meant to, the problem is that average people (knuckle dragging mouth breathers) are trying to do this too.
Don't alienate the geeks when making products suitable for end users.
And this sir, is why Android will win. Google and the OHA deliberately targeted geeks with the Dream/G1 so that when handsets like the Nexus One and Milestone/Droid came along they had a support base of educated, highly technical users who are often sought after for advice on technology purchases.
For crying out loud, lose the application fanboysim (Parent and Grand Parent). Both web applications and desktop applications have their uses.
A web app is good for a front end that is consistent for anyone who uses it and is available from anywhere. I have a few web apps installed internally and they are great for centralised control (updates, database) and can be used from anywhere.
Desktop applications are powerful and generally easier to use as they aren't constrained by mark-up languages (XML, HTML). But they are more difficult to manage (your computer may be fine, talk to me when you have 250 or even 100 with no hardware standard) and generally have more problems then web apps (.net version, doesn't work with IE8, relies on IE6 hacks, forget about Linux and Mac). Licensing is also more of an issue.
Lets look at mapping, A WMS (Web Mapping Service) like Google Maps is good for everyone to find information but if you've ever tried doing some editing in Google Maps it's a real pain. So I do editing in ArcGIS (or Google Earth pro) and upload the files into the WMS so everyone can access the information. This way I don't have to give everyone a copy of ArcGIS in order to allow them to get data out of maps.
Moral of the story, evaluate your needs and deploy a web application where it is needed and a desktop application where it is needed.
Legal costs aren't usually reclaimable in the UK at small claims (they are for most other things), but small claims is designed so that individuals can use it without incurring any - you just fill in the form, the court sends a summons to the defendant and a single judge listens to what you've both got to say and makes his judgement on the spot.
If you win and the defendant doesn't pay out, you can ask the court to send the bailiffs in and any additional bailiff fees would be on top of the judgement amount. There are a few cases of individuals taking big nationwide businesses to court and the business never bothered to file a defence - a few weeks later bailiffs walked into the nearest branch and threatened to seize all their computers unless the judgement was paid on the spot.
Putting it like that...
This sort of thing shouldn't be handled by small claims, it's a bit too big. Realistically I'd submit the case to the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) claiming the product was not "Fit for purpose". They are set up to investigate this and fine those responsible if they find anything. I'm not sure if the UK has a similar organisation but I highly doubt the US does.
I think you are confusing the First World War with the Second World War. There were no Nazis involved in the first war (I really shouldn't have to explain this). Allied propaganda aside, the Germans were no better or worse than the allied powers.
A quote from WWI, cant remember the source "They're using gas on us because we're using gas on them".
It was the French who first used gas on the Germans, so Allied hands are far from clean. After that chemical warfare was on for young and old. Fortunately all they had back then were some pretty bad blistering agents, no real nerve agents were developed until after WWI. One of the biggest hinderances to chemical warfare was an old rule that said an artillery shell cannot be used just to disperse a chemical agent I.E. they had to have an explosive component, this component eliminated up to 75% of the chemical agent. Amazingly everyone stuck by this rule despite multiple attempts to get around it (gas canisters dropped from aircraft, 1/2 kilometre long snorkels)
Or 'publishing or distributing racially inflammatory written material' in the UK.
Then explain why the BNP hasnt been shut down. Or the One Nation party in Australia. Like the BNP, One Nation's major policies are racist and xenophbic, in short they are:
- Asians go home.
- No handouts for Abbo's.
I have no doubts this would extend to:
- Muzzies go home.
if one nation could get their act together.
So you've completely failed to prove your point. Go and publish "inflammatory" material in England and see how long you last, the UK Police have better things to do. Next try and walk down through Times Square sans pants and see how long it is before you're charged with "public indecency".
You make a point on the letter of the law, but as we full well know the spirit of the law counts for just as much. In the US, walking around naked is considered vulgar and even a non-religious judge would still give you a fine and a Hessian sack. However in the UK you will quickly find that you can publish just about anything, at worse you'll be done for littering when your Nazi propaganda is simply dropped into the gutter by the British people.
Gun laws aren't even as restrictive as some Americans make out. Very few countries ban guns out right. Even the NRA has stated that, for instance, 10% of Austrians own hand guns compared to 16% of Americans. http://www.nraila.org/Issues/Articles/Read.aspx?ID=72
Indeed, some European nations have national service, such as Greece and Sweden. This means that a large majority of the society has access to arms and the knowledge of how to use them, I don't know if this is true or not but I'm told most Swede's have an SLR in their home. Of course Sweden and Greece are diametric opposites when it comes to safety and violence, which is indicative of what myself and many have said before, the biggest problem with gun violence in the US isn't the guns as much as the gun culture.
About the only thing you can't do is go around denying the holocaust in Germany or creating games like Wolfenstien in Germany.
I doubt the Wolfenstien restriction would stick in Post-Downfall Germany. That taboo has pretty much been broken, Company of Heroes was permitted to be sold in Germany despite being able to play as WWII German forces. The developers got around the restrictions by calling the German forces the "wermacht" as opposed to the Nazi's.
Those are features that already exist in phones on the market. I was suggesting those would also be included in the new phone, in addition to a front facing camera.
Fair enough,
Try looking at phones marketed in Aisa, this is the only place I've seen that has any kind of a market for video calls. The only phone I've seen in Australia with a forward facing camera is the Nokia 6120 Classic, which has not got the screen for video calling.
I was looking for flights to Europe recently, and couldn't find a single 747 or A340 -- it was all 767, 777, or A330. I know 747s fly those routes, but they are a small minority now.
747's are expensive to run, they are not really modern airlines any more. 777 and A330 ER (Extended Range) variants are more then capable of flying from New York to London at less cost. 747's and the newer A380's still operate but they typically operate either short haul high passenger routes or long distance routes such as cross pacific (Tokyo to San Francisco, Sydney to Los Angeles, Sydney to London via Bangkok or Singapore).
There is a slight chance that ONE of those might be affected at high altitude. All the rest are just collateral damage. Note that Sweden have only prohibited turbines from flying, so glider pilots from Norway and Denmark are crossing the border to get to fly again - and lo and behold homeopathic quantities of vulcanic ash does nothing!
Good thing we are talking the properties of volcanic ash (but not about the homoeopathic properties).
Your scientific approach forgot a few things, like the average speed and altitude of a glider compared to the speed and altitude of a commercial jet airliner. A glider flies at under 10,000 feet at a speed under 300 KM\h, a commercial airliner flies at 0.9-0.97 Mach (955-1030 KM\h) at over 40,000 feet.
Now first off, the composition of the atmosphere at
Secondly we have speed. At 300 KM\h a cloud of silica is a hindrance, at 900 KM\h it becomes sandblasting. In effect it is the equivalent of using a high powered sandblaster on the planes sensitive control surfaces, not to mention the engines and windscreen.
Third we have engines, an engine-less glider has no engines to get clogged, however a jet engine has many sensitive components. First the outside blades (remember the sandblasting effect I mentioned earlier), now the particulate matter that gets through here will be accelerated as this part of the engine is a compressor damaging each subsequent set of blades. We now go into the ignition chamber where the particulate matter is ignited with the fuel and oxygen. This causes the silica to melt into molten glass which clogs the fuel injectors.
Please see BA Flight 9 for further reading. Ash clouds do bring down jet aircraft, after the incident all four of the engines had to be replaced, as well as the windscreen and the fuel tanks had to be cleared of ash. So starting flights now, ignoring the risk to lives would be far more expensive in maintenance and engine replacement then the profit being lost by not running, but then again CxO's never see the forest for the trees.
No DRM can add value, by DRM's nature it can only take value.
It is steams other services that add value, not the DRM. Imagine how improved Steam games would be if I did not require Steam to start running before being able to run the game. I prefer Stardocks approach, Impulse handles the download, install, backup and patching of the game. After that I don't need Impulse to be running and taking up system resources.
How come so few US people even seem to consider the small claims route? Is it really awkward in the US or something?
The US has a really backwards legal system, even if you win, you'll pay more in lawyer fees as the loser is not obliged to pay (meaning anyone with more money then you could simply out-lawyer you regardless of guilt).
Your spelling seems to be a bit off, perhaps you meant "solid hardware" or "2100/900 HSPA" because these are features I'd look for long before a front facing camera. The market for front facing camera's is tiny and most people would rather it would work on the two most prolific mobile frequencies.
It seems like Apple is rethinking some of it's heavy-handed decisions
No, Apple is reversing this one decision to placate their somnambulent user base.
They will continue to use their heavy handed approach content that you believe they are working in your best interest.
Remember this was not caused by Apple realising that the decision was unjust, it was done by creating a massive media backlash, this cannot happen for every application. Not only that, you as the iUser are now more acclimatised to Apple's rejection policy using this example as justification for the heavy handedness of their rejection policies (read: it's OK, rejections have been reversed before) meanwhile Apple continues on with business as usual.
Look, the reality is that the U.S. economy currently depends almost exclusively on culturally created content/entertainment.
Wrong.
The US exports a lot of high tech and manufactured goods. Aircraft, military and civilian. Fabricated semi-conductors, even finished metals (although this is going to Asia but I still go mad trying to find pliers made in the US or Japan, I tried cutting my top E string with Chinese pliers and now have an E string sized hole in them).
India or even Brazil cannot compete with the US and Europe for the production of airliners. There are good reasons Boeing and Airbus are the only game in town for anything beyond short range. Same with Chip fabricators, US, Germany and Israel have the biggest chip fabs. Military equipment, US is no. 1 (something like 90% of the worlds 5.56mm ammo is made in the US).
This is a case of the media industry becoming bigger then it's boots. Far bigger then it's boots. The US is not dependent on the media industry, it does not make up a significant portion of your exports nor your economy.
Trouble is, cartels tend to work outside of the free market...
Exactly, sometime in the last 6 months most new Electronic Arts games on Impulse suddenly became "unavailable in your region", my region is Australia. I could buy the latest EA games from Impulse for half the price of buying them here but EA wont permit that, so I'll keep buying from Play-Asia in Hong Kong, for half the price of buying it locally. Grey import laws rock.
can't possibly protect content without directly affecting the people who play by the rules.
You're assuming they care. It doesn't matter if you can use the media you paid for, it only matters that you've paid, and pay again when commanded to.
Do you think the people that pushed through the Patriot Act didn't know innocent people would be hurt by it, of course they knew. They simply accepted that as "unavoidable casualties" whilst achieving their goal.
Actually HSBC is an English bank. Founded in Hong Kong in 1985, a British protectorate at the time and incorporated in England in 1990, its headquarters are currently in London after being moved from Hong Kong in 1993 in accordance with the rules of the change over of Hong Kong between the England and China. Today the governance of HSBC has little to do with the PRC. HSBC stands for Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, coincidentally Hong Kong and Shanghai are currently SAR (Special Administrative Regions) in china permitted to have separate economic rules.
Debit cards are functionally useless, since they give you nothing that using credit card which you pay off every month wouldn't while costing you quite a bit.
In fact they take away functionality.
Like the line of credit which I consider too much of a risk to have on my everyday card.
With my bank, I do not pay a fee to have the Visa debit card as long as my salary is deposited into that account (min A$1000 per month), in fact with that I pay no fee's when using my banks ATM network or EFTPOS. So I pretty much have fee free banking so long as I make sure to honour my debts (monthly phone bill and so forth). A line of credit which has a monthly interest rate of 17% or more is far too much of a risk, in addition to the fact that if my card details are stolen they would have access to that line of credit as well.
I do have a credit card, a completely separate card that sits in a safe, never to be used. Unfortunately whilst this is financially responsible it is frowned upon by the financial institutions and the entire system seems set up to punish me for it (no debts == no credit rating, getting a phone contract is a 3 day ordeal).
The short answer? The banks will do nothing for you today.
The long answer: Nobody will do anything for you tomorrow, either.
As much as I appreciate good sarcasm, you're not helping.
What you can do.
Open a second account under the same account number with no card access, in Australia most banks call this a "special savings account" and a few even have a high rate of interest on it. Keep all of your money in this one account, only keep $50 to $100 on the card for emergencies. Use internet banking to transfer between the two accounts.
This is damn good card security as they cant take money if there is none on the card. I have a Visa Debit card and use this system. As a bonus, the cash I have in the bank is accumulating about 3.25% interest at the moment. Secondary beneficial effects are that it cuts down on impulse purchases (no you really don't need that fluffy Yoda to hang from your rear view mirror).
Slashdot Mirror
Which means you are no longer permitted to use their software.
Last time I checked there were no alternative OS's for the Iphone.
No, the US carriers did a good job of preventing you from knowing the E71 exists. The E71 was well marketed in Australia, Europe and Asia so you cant blame Nokia for that one. The E71 and E72 are one of the most popular business phones and if you've ever used one you would know why (Excellent integration of business features, office, email, calendaring, task management).
He's saying that he's ignorant of other people's cultures.
This can easily be done through default settings. You do not need to completely lock down your device to make it easy to use, you simply need to ensure that the more complex options are turned off by default. That way each user can customise the level of control to their satisfaction, dumb users can keep the default, smarter users can change all options.
Dumbing down then trying to make a device more complex is backwards, make the device as complex as it's smartest target audience and then dumb down the options until it is suitable for the stupidest target audience. Yes this requires more work by drastically expands your target market. This is why I view Jailbreaking as wrong and backwards, it's not that you're trying to do something the device was never meant to, the problem is that average people (knuckle dragging mouth breathers) are trying to do this too.
And this sir, is why Android will win. Google and the OHA deliberately targeted geeks with the Dream/G1 so that when handsets like the Nexus One and Milestone/Droid came along they had a support base of educated, highly technical users who are often sought after for advice on technology purchases.
For crying out loud, lose the application fanboysim (Parent and Grand Parent). Both web applications and desktop applications have their uses.
A web app is good for a front end that is consistent for anyone who uses it and is available from anywhere. I have a few web apps installed internally and they are great for centralised control (updates, database) and can be used from anywhere.
Desktop applications are powerful and generally easier to use as they aren't constrained by mark-up languages (XML, HTML). But they are more difficult to manage (your computer may be fine, talk to me when you have 250 or even 100 with no hardware standard) and generally have more problems then web apps (.net version, doesn't work with IE8, relies on IE6 hacks, forget about Linux and Mac). Licensing is also more of an issue.
Lets look at mapping, A WMS (Web Mapping Service) like Google Maps is good for everyone to find information but if you've ever tried doing some editing in Google Maps it's a real pain. So I do editing in ArcGIS (or Google Earth pro) and upload the files into the WMS so everyone can access the information. This way I don't have to give everyone a copy of ArcGIS in order to allow them to get data out of maps.
Moral of the story, evaluate your needs and deploy a web application where it is needed and a desktop application where it is needed.
Putting it like that...
This sort of thing shouldn't be handled by small claims, it's a bit too big. Realistically I'd submit the case to the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) claiming the product was not "Fit for purpose". They are set up to investigate this and fine those responsible if they find anything. I'm not sure if the UK has a similar organisation but I highly doubt the US does.
A quote from WWI, cant remember the source "They're using gas on us because we're using gas on them".
It was the French who first used gas on the Germans, so Allied hands are far from clean. After that chemical warfare was on for young and old. Fortunately all they had back then were some pretty bad blistering agents, no real nerve agents were developed until after WWI. One of the biggest hinderances to chemical warfare was an old rule that said an artillery shell cannot be used just to disperse a chemical agent I.E. they had to have an explosive component, this component eliminated up to 75% of the chemical agent. Amazingly everyone stuck by this rule despite multiple attempts to get around it (gas canisters dropped from aircraft, 1/2 kilometre long snorkels)
There are places in the world where it is not all that uncommon.
Then explain why the BNP hasnt been shut down. Or the One Nation party in Australia. Like the BNP, One Nation's major policies are racist and xenophbic, in short they are:
- Asians go home.
- No handouts for Abbo's.
I have no doubts this would extend to:
- Muzzies go home.
if one nation could get their act together.
So you've completely failed to prove your point. Go and publish "inflammatory" material in England and see how long you last, the UK Police have better things to do. Next try and walk down through Times Square sans pants and see how long it is before you're charged with "public indecency".
You make a point on the letter of the law, but as we full well know the spirit of the law counts for just as much. In the US, walking around naked is considered vulgar and even a non-religious judge would still give you a fine and a Hessian sack. However in the UK you will quickly find that you can publish just about anything, at worse you'll be done for littering when your Nazi propaganda is simply dropped into the gutter by the British people.
Indeed, some European nations have national service, such as Greece and Sweden. This means that a large majority of the society has access to arms and the knowledge of how to use them, I don't know if this is true or not but I'm told most Swede's have an SLR in their home. Of course Sweden and Greece are diametric opposites when it comes to safety and violence, which is indicative of what myself and many have said before, the biggest problem with gun violence in the US isn't the guns as much as the gun culture.
I doubt the Wolfenstien restriction would stick in Post-Downfall Germany. That taboo has pretty much been broken, Company of Heroes was permitted to be sold in Germany despite being able to play as WWII German forces. The developers got around the restrictions by calling the German forces the "wermacht" as opposed to the Nazi's.
Fair enough,
Try looking at phones marketed in Aisa, this is the only place I've seen that has any kind of a market for video calls. The only phone I've seen in Australia with a forward facing camera is the Nokia 6120 Classic, which has not got the screen for video calling.
747's are expensive to run, they are not really modern airlines any more. 777 and A330 ER (Extended Range) variants are more then capable of flying from New York to London at less cost. 747's and the newer A380's still operate but they typically operate either short haul high passenger routes or long distance routes such as cross pacific (Tokyo to San Francisco, Sydney to Los Angeles, Sydney to London via Bangkok or Singapore).
Good thing we are talking the properties of volcanic ash (but not about the homoeopathic properties).
Your scientific approach forgot a few things, like the average speed and altitude of a glider compared to the speed and altitude of a commercial jet airliner. A glider flies at under 10,000 feet at a speed under 300 KM\h, a commercial airliner flies at 0.9-0.97 Mach (955-1030 KM\h) at over 40,000 feet.
Now first off, the composition of the atmosphere at
Secondly we have speed. At 300 KM\h a cloud of silica is a hindrance, at 900 KM\h it becomes sandblasting. In effect it is the equivalent of using a high powered sandblaster on the planes sensitive control surfaces, not to mention the engines and windscreen.
Third we have engines, an engine-less glider has no engines to get clogged, however a jet engine has many sensitive components. First the outside blades (remember the sandblasting effect I mentioned earlier), now the particulate matter that gets through here will be accelerated as this part of the engine is a compressor damaging each subsequent set of blades. We now go into the ignition chamber where the particulate matter is ignited with the fuel and oxygen. This causes the silica to melt into molten glass which clogs the fuel injectors.
Please see BA Flight 9 for further reading. Ash clouds do bring down jet aircraft, after the incident all four of the engines had to be replaced, as well as the windscreen and the fuel tanks had to be cleared of ash. So starting flights now, ignoring the risk to lives would be far more expensive in maintenance and engine replacement then the profit being lost by not running, but then again CxO's never see the forest for the trees.
There, fixed that for you.
No DRM can add value, by DRM's nature it can only take value.
It is steams other services that add value, not the DRM. Imagine how improved Steam games would be if I did not require Steam to start running before being able to run the game. I prefer Stardocks approach, Impulse handles the download, install, backup and patching of the game. After that I don't need Impulse to be running and taking up system resources.
So repeat after me,
DRM only ever removes value.
The US has a really backwards legal system, even if you win, you'll pay more in lawyer fees as the loser is not obliged to pay (meaning anyone with more money then you could simply out-lawyer you regardless of guilt).
Your spelling seems to be a bit off, perhaps you meant "solid hardware" or "2100/900 HSPA" because these are features I'd look for long before a front facing camera. The market for front facing camera's is tiny and most people would rather it would work on the two most prolific mobile frequencies.
No, Apple is reversing this one decision to placate their somnambulent user base.
They will continue to use their heavy handed approach content that you believe they are working in your best interest.
Remember this was not caused by Apple realising that the decision was unjust, it was done by creating a massive media backlash, this cannot happen for every application. Not only that, you as the iUser are now more acclimatised to Apple's rejection policy using this example as justification for the heavy handedness of their rejection policies (read: it's OK, rejections have been reversed before) meanwhile Apple continues on with business as usual.
What for? Aaving accounts in Australia do not permit overdraft?
Wrong.
The US exports a lot of high tech and manufactured goods. Aircraft, military and civilian. Fabricated semi-conductors, even finished metals (although this is going to Asia but I still go mad trying to find pliers made in the US or Japan, I tried cutting my top E string with Chinese pliers and now have an E string sized hole in them).
India or even Brazil cannot compete with the US and Europe for the production of airliners. There are good reasons Boeing and Airbus are the only game in town for anything beyond short range. Same with Chip fabricators, US, Germany and Israel have the biggest chip fabs. Military equipment, US is no. 1 (something like 90% of the worlds 5.56mm ammo is made in the US).
This is a case of the media industry becoming bigger then it's boots. Far bigger then it's boots. The US is not dependent on the media industry, it does not make up a significant portion of your exports nor your economy.
Exactly, sometime in the last 6 months most new Electronic Arts games on Impulse suddenly became "unavailable in your region", my region is Australia. I could buy the latest EA games from Impulse for half the price of buying them here but EA wont permit that, so I'll keep buying from Play-Asia in Hong Kong, for half the price of buying it locally. Grey import laws rock.
You're assuming they care. It doesn't matter if you can use the media you paid for, it only matters that you've paid, and pay again when commanded to.
Do you think the people that pushed through the Patriot Act didn't know innocent people would be hurt by it, of course they knew. They simply accepted that as "unavoidable casualties" whilst achieving their goal.
Actually HSBC is an English bank. Founded in Hong Kong in 1985, a British protectorate at the time and incorporated in England in 1990, its headquarters are currently in London after being moved from Hong Kong in 1993 in accordance with the rules of the change over of Hong Kong between the England and China. Today the governance of HSBC has little to do with the PRC. HSBC stands for Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, coincidentally Hong Kong and Shanghai are currently SAR (Special Administrative Regions) in china permitted to have separate economic rules.
In fact they take away functionality.
Like the line of credit which I consider too much of a risk to have on my everyday card.
With my bank, I do not pay a fee to have the Visa debit card as long as my salary is deposited into that account (min A$1000 per month), in fact with that I pay no fee's when using my banks ATM network or EFTPOS. So I pretty much have fee free banking so long as I make sure to honour my debts (monthly phone bill and so forth). A line of credit which has a monthly interest rate of 17% or more is far too much of a risk, in addition to the fact that if my card details are stolen they would have access to that line of credit as well.
I do have a credit card, a completely separate card that sits in a safe, never to be used. Unfortunately whilst this is financially responsible it is frowned upon by the financial institutions and the entire system seems set up to punish me for it (no debts == no credit rating, getting a phone contract is a 3 day ordeal).
As much as I appreciate good sarcasm, you're not helping.
What you can do.
Open a second account under the same account number with no card access, in Australia most banks call this a "special savings account" and a few even have a high rate of interest on it. Keep all of your money in this one account, only keep $50 to $100 on the card for emergencies. Use internet banking to transfer between the two accounts.
This is damn good card security as they cant take money if there is none on the card. I have a Visa Debit card and use this system. As a bonus, the cash I have in the bank is accumulating about 3.25% interest at the moment. Secondary beneficial effects are that it cuts down on impulse purchases (no you really don't need that fluffy Yoda to hang from your rear view mirror).