Give us a reasonable alternative

My wife and I pay a small fortune for access to all the cable media.

The money is a factor but, convenience is too.

Companies aren't delivering content "when I want it, where I want it".

If people were provided a reasonable alternative to Pirate Bay it might not be missed.

They were very smart

Kids trying to be clever.

If they were that smart....

Cable vs DSL

In 2000, I was one of the first to sign up for DSL in my city.

It was easy to run my own servers.

Unlimited really meant unlimited too.

I switched to cable briefly and regretted it.

No servers (before signing up I had been told they allowed).

It wasn't nearly as fast as advertised.

Then one day I came home and I was disconnected from the internet.

I discovered unlimited didn't really mean unlimited.

I'll never give another dollar to a cable company if there is any alternative.

I quickly switched back to DSL.

I couldn't get the exact same contract by then.

The company has grown up enough that it is starting to resemble the Cable company.

At least unlimited really is unlimited.

I can use all the bandwidth I pay for.

WinFS

Whatever happened to the file system as database?

OK, but let's not forget abuses commonly occur too.

>>>"Let's not be so fucking quick to condemn a whole public service"

OK, but let's not forget abuses commonly occur too.

Especially in those "bad" parts of town.

As a teenager, I was put in the hospital one by cop.

He cracked my head pretty good with a nightstick.

I witnessed the beating of a handcuffed person in custody by two "officers".

On the elevator ride up to the second floor holding cells.

The guy couldn't walk by the time he got upstairs.

DARPA

A few years back i read an article about a lecture given by the current head of DARPA.

I don't remember his name but I do remember...

He questioned whether "A" level programmers shouldn't be the ones working on the code for your vehicles ABS? I believe he suggested it was being done by "C" programmers in that period. I wonder who is doing it now?

I too thank Steve Jobs...

I too thank Steve Jobs... (and never owned an Apple product)

I remember using Director and how I loved it.

Then one day Flash showed up, supposedly for browsers.

"How awful" I believed Flash to be.

I have since watched in horror as one web site after another was penetrated.

Now in the past year I have hope at least.

That some day I might see Flash wiped from sites and devices.

I went back to 3.6, probably permanently

>I went back to 3.6, probably permanently

Me too

what the hell

are going to do about it?

generally male

No doubt there is some bias but...

Now I wonder if bias can be the result of what people "give a toss about"

Times changed

In the fall of 1965, my friends and I found a box of discarded playboy magazines. A huge windfall for ten year old boys.

How times have changed.

I can't imagine what 10 year old boys can find today.

Or what it is like for a 10 year old girl browsing the internet.

I don't know what effect the internet and porn is having on youth.

I never had kids but I think I still have to ask myself about this.

I might even concede a few points to concerned parents.

over population

> over population

Address overpopulation?

Maybe it is ignored because it can't be managed.

A lot of people want kids.

Not me, they seem like a nuisance for a lot of other reasons unrelated to "green".

Anyway, I never had any so don't blame me.

snafu

I wonder how James Joyce would have used snafu in a sentence....

lowering the skills bar

>by relentlessly lowering the skills bar for application developers and IT administrators.

More from the perspective of a user... not as a developer.

I just want something that is easy to understand, modify and find help when I need it.

I started out using the technically superior unix/unidata.

Once I had developed a few skills, I felt superior too.

Since then, I've dealt with a few other languages and systems.

I'm surprised how little progress has been made & how much they all seem the same.

So, now I like to stick with the established, lowest common denominators.

I REALLY have to be motivated to invest in new tech.

emptiness

This article has a strange style.

It's title leads me to believe it addresses an area I am genuinely interested in,

I read the whole thing with anticipation.

In the end, all I have is an empty feeling.

Obviously it is an ad for "Get a free report and consultation with an Agile expert"

Even when it is just advertising, I expect something of interest.

Why would I read the report after an article like this?

Only to relieve my curiosity.

Can the report be as empty as the article?

Which is funnier?

Which was funnier,

"Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure",

the title "Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire"

or

considering Steve Jobs as a recipient?

Digital River

>that firm they've been totally inept

Ditto... why should I care about them?

returned to Art School

> where every student wanted to become a computer artist - except me

HA!

I returned to school in 2006 as a painting major.

I'd guess 80% of art students are studying computer art/animation.

With film and photography digital too.

Lot's of Mac's and not much real media around.

Old story

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/12/magazine/the-dirt-in-the-new-machine.html

Ashley Brown

>May not be what he meant

I thought Ashley was a she?

"LEGO(tm)"

Turn motor on. Turn Motor off.

Sounds like the state logic used in some PLC's.

I'm not sure it's time to sound the alarm yet.... either

Why not spend more time figuring out who needs passwords.

For 90% of what I do I don't want or need a password.

I'd use a common 3 character password if I could, but...

Software and admins increasingly demand longer more complicated passwords AND that I change them regularly.

A big pain in the neck.

Slow down?

I live 3.7 miles from my place of work and it takes me 10 minutes to drive there.

But taking the bus is an hour, with transfers.

What's this have to do with speed bumps and traffic cameras?

I'm not sure, but something is wrong with this picture.

America

>The difference surely is that Americans call their country "America".

Or do you mean US citizens call themselves Americans?

United States citizen just has too many syllables when compared to American.

United States-ian?

BTW, what do people call themselves in the UK?

United Kingdom citizens?

Maybe we need better words...

drinking-straw sensor

Will somebody please elaborate on the term "drinking-straw sensor".

I think I understand what is meant by the context, but I've never heard this term before.

Thanks in advance

two-part epoxy

>Superglue or two-part epoxy

Just wondering if there were any restrictions specified on your use of these.

When does a structure stop being all paper?

I sometimes build up forms using fabrics and papers where they just act as a surface to lay down acrylics or epoxies. I especially like to use Elmers glue to build up forms over wax paper. The paper can be discarded after the glue is finished drying.

School

I have evolved into the position where I work. Moving from pencils to CAD to IT and finally to business systems. I have been asked about the value of taking up computer related studies. I tell them SQL, C, .Net, etc... are all skills that will help you function in the world. I even think they are almost required now, just like being able to read and write. But those skills are not enough by themselves. Computer skills don't make a career, but they can help.

I wonder how many spots for computer scientists there are ever going to be? Then, how many jobs are there for political scientists? Almost everybody I know is working in a field other than what their degree is in anyway.

speaking of low-life scum-sucking "providers"

Now if something could be done about "Health Club" subscriptions in the US. They all utilize subscription contracts with mandatory credit card debits, early penalties and protracted cancellation processes.

So long

I just want to know who does the naming at MS lately.

Bing? I hate the sound of it.

Is it supposed to be a play on the sound ding?

The word Google makes me curious, a great name for a search engine.

Silverlight? Way too many syllables.

The reference to a movie screen seems pretty lame.

I hate the product Flash, but the name is a great one.

Not interested

I tried Chrome browsing but dumped it after only a few days. Lots of reasons but the killer was that I couldn't find anything like NoScript. Now there's Chrome OS? What's the point?

complete censorship of the site in Pakistan

Wow... sure Draw Mohammed was ill advised but... complete censorship of the site in Pakistan?

The age of the internet, new culture and controls?

This sounds like

... ERP software.

"it is to do with advertised functionality that were later, after signing and paying for the license, found to be missing or didn't work as advertised."

I can think of quite a few companies here in the U.S. that have talked about their ERP vendors and lawsuits in the same breath.

None have bothered, it's probably too expensive and seen as gambling/throwing good money after bad.

I didn't associate this article with clickwrap licenses until reading the comments.

Dworaczyk

Dworaczyk - doesn't he write for PC magazine?

Dirac?

While reading up on Theora I noticed a reference to dirac.

A BBC codec that is supposedly open and free.

It sounded too good to be true.

Anybody familiar with this one?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_%28codec%29

Carol Cafiero

I've had the bad luck of being told to record and report on the PC activities of employees.

Some under scrutiny were people I liked, others not so much.

In either case, it felt like a creepy thing to have to do, even if necessary.

My co-worker at the time also had to surveil.

He enjoyed it and and advocated more usage.

Carol Cafiero sounds like him from this article.

Anyway,

My co-worker ended up getting laid off, I'm still employed.

A person who is a snoop tends to have a lot of other baggage.

Who would want them around?

P.S.

>don't these idiots ever turn their computers off? that'll teach them to burn the leccy

I leave mine on all the time. No cameras though.

Adobe

There are some software companies that I just cannot feel sorry for. Market share is won through the ability to wage business wars rather than produce superior software. The market won, quality evaporates. I'm not normally a big Steve Jobs fan but... I'm sick of Adobe Flash and Acrobat. I really like what Jobs is doing in this case.

his human rights to live in her shed

Where does this guy have to go? Seems like driving this guy off doesn't solve anything.

To protect against being fleeced

First off, I think ERP is a racket. Somehow software companies have convinced businesses that they need ERP. Every company I know of that has gone through an ERP implementation is unhappy. It turned into a money pit and never even came close to working as advertised.

ERP on the other hand is one of those great ideals that is not practical in real life. MRP is realistic, it was hard to install but it paid off in most cases. Don't estimate your ERP implementation costs on a previous MRP program

That said, there are a few good consultants and a lot of really bad ones. It's hard to tell which until it's too late. If you ever do find one that REALLY knows your software AND your business, hire them.

ERP deniers their own worst enemy?

Are you kidding? I have spent years on an implementations. Most recently retireing an MRP system that was highly customized. A .NET ERP system with no customizations was put in its place. Now, using basic ERP processes, productivity is about 70% of what it once was. This is after being live for one year.

The new ERP packages deliver inflexible middle-of-the-road functionality.

They also are favorable only to a certain type and scale of transaction.

ERP works OK out of the box if you have similar types of transactions in high volumes.

A wide variety of transactions in small volumes will choke the system and its users.

The "modern" ERP systems just don't scale in this direction.

The old MRP system ran on unix and the source code was available.

We could at least figure out why something was working (or not).

We could find and fix things incrementally if necessary.

The new system is .NET, no source code and poorly documented.

If there is a bug, you are at the mercy of the software supplier to fix it in a new release.

Bug fixes are then only supplied as part of an upgrade package.

We are expected to upgrade our system every three months????

Do you want to know haw many "upgrades" have introduced new bugs?

MRP packages used to be designed and supported by business people who knew the processes. ERP packages on the other hand appear to be built by software programmers that have no idea how a business really runs. ERP support staff increasing runs off of scripts.

And what about "successful" implementations?

I've looked pretty hard in my area for them.

I have not found one business that is even close to being satisfied.

None would put in the new ERP software again if they had a second chance.

I'm sorry but I think the author of this article must have some connection with an ERP software vendor. If I'm wrong, I'd really like to speak with this person. I can't imagine what experience could lead someone to say that ERP deniers are the problem. I'd really like to hear the details of their personal experience.

Why should the country folk get subsised broadband.

The electrification of the country seems to have worked out OK here (US & the New Deal). Why not put in broadband too? There are a lot of good people out there to include. I don't like to pay taxes for a lot of things. Better, shared infrastructure would be OK though.

>Petrol is more expensive in the Sticks,

Not in the city where I live. Gas is cheaper in the country.

ERP system is not an IT project

- it is a business project

I've spent the last 6 years implementing an ERP system.

It was a .NET upgrade from a unix MRP system.

That's right 6 years!

I started out in IT.

Now I work in the accounting and manufacturing departments.

Of course now that I know more about the business, I would have to argue against upgrading ERP.

The salespeople know how to push all the right buttons of management though.

One thing has changed from the MRP days to this ERP period.

Vendor used to employ business people in their development process.

Now they are more focused on the software & employ programmers.

The drop in quality and loss of common business sense is dramatic.

Aren't these descriptive of everything IT?

>Ignorance

>under tight budgets,

>limited experience

>and a lack of budget for the proper tools in the first place

Flash

I am a database admin & web master. I would never use flash in anything that has to do with business.

and.. I am an artist & really like the idea of flash. I use Director still & it is an easy transition from complied app to the web.

But.. it is a hog. It is buggy. It is a security liability.

I'd really like to dump it in favor of something open.

HTML5? What is the development client for this?

2D graphics, animations and controls?

Mars?

Isn't NASA working on getting us to Mars? Is the plan to use this personal flyer ON Mars?

Scale please

>Developers and managers of other application types

>could probably learn a great deal from how these well-concealed systems are built and deployed.

I'm thinking the embedded systems you describe do things very well and just work, but...

they only have to do a very few things

What about the the grey area between true developers and manufacturing. For example the people who "Program" PLC's and OIU's.

I'm not a fan of CE, but it is about the only option for them anymore.

Dances With Wolves meets the Smurfs in Vietnam

Great title, thanks....

XML is for documents

That's the way I understand XML too.

XML can present data well, but the data is much better off being stored in a database.

I'm reminded of Unidata, an old multi-value db owned by IBM now.

I can't say I enjoyed working with MV records but storing data was fast and efficient.

Files were small and text based regardless of datatype.

.net 1.1 on Win7

I just checked last week with our ERP provider.

Their client isn't certified for Windows 7 yet.

I tried running it just to see what would happen.

Errored out on .net 1.1.

It appears it can be installed & maybe the client will run, but who would want to?

Football mania in the US

I hated football on TV when I was a kid in the 60's.

Sports were for playing, not watching.

The more years I had been employed, the more I found that football was what people talked about at work. It's like the weather, only a little more-so. People invite you over to "watch the game". Salesman give out tickets. Eventually I started watching.

Now, I'm as bad as everybody else turning my mind off and wasting the hours.

What kind of disease is this?

>Maybe we can lobby it to force Fox to continue "The Sarah Connor Chronicles."

Of course that's the other side, there never has been much else worth watching.

The Mighty Boosh doesn't come on here until after 11 P.M