5,727 Posted Topics
 | Cellphone manufacturers are ever more forgetting one very large category of users: those who just want to use the darn thing as a phone (so no cameras, PDAs, internet access, radios, mp3 players, you name it) and don't want something so tiny you need a pencil and magnifying glass to … |
| | And also check the fees. Some dealers have extremely high trading and transaction fees, which can run up to a third or more of the amount you're trading. That's a percentage you're unlikely to get back out again (remember you pay the same percentage again when you sell...). If you're …  |
 | Linux is loosing marketshare because Windows (and true Unix) servers are outselling Linux servers, not because people are switching their existing servers away from Linux. This is clearly shown in the company I work for. We used to buy about 50/50 Linux and Solaris servers (with the occasional Windows machine … |
| | hmm, my Hotmail account stores an average of 5 messages (not counting spam and other disposables). My main account at home is under 300MB. I wonder why anyone would need that much storage space (unless it is to store all the movies and mp3s they get sent by friends). |
| | what's to like about Blackberries? Too small to be comfortable as a replacement for a laptop, too large to be a decent replacement for a mobile phone. |
| | well, as it is out of warranty they have no contractual (and quite likely no legal) obligation to replace it... It does of course make for good damage control given the negative press they're sure to get over the incident (which isn't in any case shown to have been caused … |
| | A far bigger problem than email getting lost is important email getting swamped in a deluge of useless messages. Example, a typical day at the office: issue tracker: 20 messages colleages, work related: 10 messages colleages, non-work related: 5 messages automated systems mailing to distribution lists someone put me on …  |
| | it's a marketing campaign, what else would you expect but boisterous comments about its success? |
| | maybe that's true in the US, but in Europe (and probably even more so in Asia) almost everyone walks around with a smartphone. They've become status symbols, and from that are now becoming commoditised. With prices for new model phones always having been in the €300-€500 region here that's hardly … |
| | well, in other countries the political leaders are doing their best to create a recession. The Netherlands will get massive tax increases next year, the announcement of which has already sent consumer confidence plummeting by 16 index points, the largest single monthly drop ever recorded. |
| | With customers demanding to get cutthroat prices, leaving businesses with paperthin margins, something has to give. That something is customer service, the one area of the business that most customers never have contact with and those that do are in large part considered lost to the business already. It's the … |
| | children are cruel MP. I've experienced it myself, both as a recipient (constant bullying by classmates for years) and as a witness. I've seen my classmates trying to destroy teachers mentally. From harmless (though expensive to the teacher) pranks like turning cars onto their roofs to what amounts to mental … |
| | hmm, I've seen first hand the "transformation" of an IT company into a "service oriented organisation" and it was a bloodbath. Instantly, within days of the board getting their brainwave that we were no longer a software company but a "service company" everyone outside the software development group had just … |
| | yes it is. It is certainly true that the majority of compromised systems in real numbers run Windows, but it's just as true that the majority of compromised systems as a percentage of installed base are running Linux (and to a lesser degree other Unix flavours). What Davey of course …  |
| | Personally I don't think anyone who doesn't pay for Skype (which is the vast majority of users, certainly private ones) has any reason to complain about anything. But indeed for Skype to blame Microsoft for their own self-inflicted problems just makes them look silly. They probably think something like "noone … |
| | The main things happening: 1) banks are getting less eager to hand out credit, both because they've been hit by the bad loans already and because they've got less money to lend because of the trouble with the mortgage companies they've invested in that are defaulting on their commitments. 2) … |
| | Sure it impacts my job. I work in the market data business, and we're the ones supplying the data used to make trades to a lot of brokers and banks. There is a chance (given historical record) that governments will step in and require that part or all of that … |
| | If all kinds of electronic gadgetry hadn't become so pervasive, with passwords and other identity checks that are easily fooled (or easy to trick people into giving away) the problem would be far less severe than it is. Quite in contrast to what that (no doubt selfserving) "study" shows, having … |
| | Microsoft is fully aware of the grave danger that web based applications pose for data security and privacy sensitive information. Personally I wouldn't trust any of my data to a company like Google (or any other for that matter). Way too risky, you loose all control over what happens with … |
| | Advertising in lue of subscription and connection fees for phones has been tried in Europe and was a complete flop. People don't want their calls interrupted for advertising, and people being called by someone who does have such a scheme get extremely annoyed and often block future calls. In the … |
| | aren't those the same guys who said that Vista was to be released in 2004 (or was it 2003, I keep forgetting)?  |
| | Another factor was discussed at JavaLobby today. And that's overblown media reactions. When 2 vulnerabilities were found in the Java runtime this month, the media went berserk over the massive increase in vulnerabilities in Java. And indeed, the number had been 100% higher than over the previous 6 months, when … |
| | Just because something is old doesn't mean it's no good... Your attitude is quite typical of the young dogs in the industry (and probably anywhere) who think that high tech gadgetry is the holy grail towards solving any problem and that anything that's not bleeding edge is by definition fundamentally … |
| | "the state of the standalone high definition player market in Europe," I didn't know there was such a market in Europe. Sure the devices are available but I've not heard of anyone actually purchasing one (either HDDVD or BluRay). Everyone is pretty much waiting to see who will be the …  |
| | "Who would have thought, before the Nintendo Wii came along, that the concept of controlling a video game by waving a lump of plastic around in the air like a deranged loon would gain such mass appeal so quickly?" I'd never have thought of the idea, but once voiced I … |
| | what do you expect when you try to get a brand created on the cheap? The going rate is several million at the very least...  |
| | 90% at least of blurred images people get are NOT a result of poorly placed focal plane (which larger DOF would cure or ameliorate, though why you'd want that is beyond me as often shallow DOF is preferable to extreme DOF) but due to a too long shutter speed or … |
| | Given that almost 98% of workstations used by the (young and) uninformed are running Windows it's no surprise that that's the majority of respondents... It's the same target audience as any other malware author. "I love you" mass emails, "Britney Spears naked" mass emails, they all target exactly the same … |
| | you get life for even being suspected of being a sex offender. You're put on a registry that's open for all to see, and are an outcast from then on. Even if you're cleared of all charges, people will still shun you for, they choose to believe you were cleared …  |
| | The high cost is not because Dell is greedy (which the title and text of the post suggests) but because of the high manufacturing cost of the devices. A regular harddrive is (nowadays) dirt cheap to build. Flash memory is expensive, especially the large size units used here. It is …  |
| | and Redhat has a large closed source codebase in their commercial offering (including all those performance and stability enhancements). We pay tens of thousands of Euros (maybe hundreds of thousands, I'm not sure about the exact amount) per year for Redhat license fees, and are constantly juggling to find unused … |
| | Major advantage (critical to anyone who values his privacy and the integrity of his data) is that no outside parties will have access to your documents. That's THE big problem with Google's system (and other, similar products), Google has complete and unrestricted access to everything you do, with no controls … |
| | never seen the need for those gadgets. My paper maps may seem cumbersome to today's electronic junkies but noone's ever hacked one of them (unless they hacked into the source data from which the maps were produced, before the map was ever printed).  |
| | possibly, as /. regularly has messages posted which are critical of the Chinese state... Of course their definition of "pornographic" is pretty much like the old Soviet definition which included pretty much any display of skin. A swimsuit calendar could land you in prison (in China they're rather more drastic … |
| | did you have to ruin my sleep with nightmares about a naked Paris Hilton doing something with my PC? :-O :X  |
| | "while at the same time sticking it to the consumer who will ultimately be faced with less legitimate choice when searching for people to do business with online." Companies resorting to stealing keywords are hardly doing legitimate business... And I don't have too much faith in the Goooogles of this … |
| | well, seeing how Greenpeace are hardly an organisation to be taken seriously, there's little surprise here... They're a far left political pressure group affiliated with ecoterrorists, and won't be happy until everyone is living in caves in fear of the night again, like our ancestors tens of thousands of years … |
| | It's not Microsoft who put those stickers on PCs, it's the hardware manufacturers. But of course Microsoft has more money to extort from them than does the local computer shop so they're the ones get sued... |
| | Yawn. And if Microsoft had announced sales figures below expectation you'd have said they're hiding the fact that they're "forcing" people to upgrade. Just another anti-Microsoft rant from a slashdot kiddo.  |
| | You'll get Google ads inserted at 10 second intervals into every phonecall you make or receive (and so will the other side) and into every SMS message you send and receive as well. And of course Google will store (for your convenience and their financial gain) everything you say and … |
| | If history is any indication Blu-Ray is dead already. That's what usually happens in the end with Sony technology. Betamax anyone? |
| | why not? I wouldn't mind a tour of duty on an ice breaker in the arctic...  |
| | you seem very intent on getting people to know about ways to crack Microsoft products... |
| | Wouldn't be the first time Google interprets the law to mean that they can do whatever they want while other can do only what Google wants them to do. It's time a large company with deep coffers stepped in, I doubt anyone (even the US government) at this point has … |
| | Apple doesn't need to worry because there's no way to get a Mac without MacOs... There are millions of computers out there however that can run Windows and get sold or built without a Windows license (including all those Macs since a few years). Piracy protection is absolutely vital. Not … |
| | Almost noone pays the full price (or rather, thinks they pay the full price) of a mobile phone. Rather they get it "free" or "discounted" with a subscription which would over its runtime have been the cheaper by the full price of that phone (or more). So someone gets a … |
| | they probably got more money this way than had they done as youy suggested... And at least this way they have made certain they have a right to their IP (all of it), which they'd have lost instantly had they let Apple take the name without a fight. IMO it's …  |
| | He's probably also a fan of pirated music and software. All out of his "conviction that everything should be free" of course, and "to punish record companies for not paying artists enough". |
| | Google is far from a fantastic group, they're extremely dangerous. The amount of data they collect on people is massive, with no guarantees about protecting the privacy of those people in any way. If a government were to do a fraction of what Google does the civil rights movement would … |
| | Apple is setting the average Joe up to blame Microsoft... Rather childish of them, blaming their own ineptness on Microsoft, but they're no different in that (just more public) than any other /. kiddo.  |
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