Posted 08/23/2009 at 06:00:14pm

Microsoft has never sold a book, Yahoo has never sold a book. Amazon was know for books, but now it's another ebay. they have no basis for fighting this. Library's are free. Nationwide. Go to the Library of Congress, free. New York, free. Google wants to put a library on the internet, go for it! The others are just pissed because they didn't think of the idea first. They'd charge $20 a month for 5 book downloads. I'm going to stand up for Google on this one. It's not about money, it's about bringing knowledge to the masses in a widely understood medium.

When was the last time you visited your library and actually checked out a book Microsoft, Yahoo and Amazon? People now want all the extras for no extra charge. I'm tired of being nickle and dimed to bankruptcy because some 'poor' little conglomorate can't seem to stop being greedy and take more money than what's reasonable for a crappy service. It's quality over quantity CEO's. Put out a quality product or service and you'll have customers willing to stand for your shoddy Indian phone reps with accents so thick it's almost a waste of time to listen. 

Posted 02/19/2009 at 05:45:14pm

I've been on the lady's end of the spectrum. You are already paying for the computer, they offer a downgrade. But I can't see $50 for a downgrade. That's half of what an OEM XP SP3 costs. Sure you could make the point, "yes, exactly, it's half of what it would cost for her to do it herself." But instead of being a company "yea man", be a consumer.

Microsoft has already made the money from the Vista sale on the computer, now they want an extra slice for something that should already be proffered to a customer, choice.

And $50 for a downgrade seems too much in the sense of today's dollar. And what peanut-munching cost-analyst thought it was a good idea to put that price into effect? Does it really cost $50 for xp downgrades? Hmm... 

Posted 07/24/2008 at 06:18:52am

Seeing Wargames in the theater would be an awsome birthday present (old enough to remember the vhs version). But the 3 major theaters in the area are trying to rake in all the money from the new batman film and walle. I'd have to drive to Minneapolis to see it. Oh well.

Posted 07/16/2008 at 07:45:16am

Wow! Pair this with the Grid network and it's optic internet all the way! I think this needs to be kept out of telcom company hands. They would completely crooken it. I'm gonna keep a copy of the story and keep an eye out down the road to see if it really does not increase our home cost for internet when it heads the consumers way.

Hypothetically speaking if comcast and time warner are so concerened with p2p clogging up their bandwidth now, they should have caps removed if they get their hands on this, there is no reason to bitch and complain with so much bandwidth. And most likely they'll jack up their prices while they still claim p2p robs them of money everyday. Sure, jump on the p2p blame bandwagon, you toot your horn, I'll ring the freedom bell. 

But that's hypothetical in all terms, but this news is super exciting! Wonder if video phones will really be possible and if someone ever invented a seg1 broadcast system like in japan, that'd be huge! 

Posted 07/13/2008 at 08:49:14am

I think it's great that linux is being mainstreamed to a retailer again. It gets it out there in the public eye and can really make some new converts. Yes, at $20, it seems pricey when it's free online. But it's way cheaper than any windows or apple OS offered. And with people looking for cheaper and better (compiz takes aero apart!) with our economy still declining, Linux looks better in any light.

Posted 07/13/2008 at 08:35:49am

Hit'em again doc! Put a tally for the team! Your right HDCP is a scheme, a bad, bad scheme. It's not as bad putting HDTV on a pair of rabbit ear antennas (antennas don't care what the signal is whether it's SD or HD, its a signal and that's all an antenna cares about, those $10 RCA rabbit ears do just fine) I don't have $900 to spend to make my desktop HDCP compliant. I wish HDCP was a misnomer like HDTV on antennas but it's sad that it's real and a real pain financially and even worse if you have to troubleshoot it. $40 vs. $more....I'll take door number 1 Doc!

Posted 07/13/2008 at 08:27:29am

Hasn't Norton gotten a black eye over the last few years for continual resource hogging and constant spinup of hard drives? Give Nod32 a try if you find your system slowing down. I trade off Zonealarm security suite (2 months before that fiasco) for nod32 and my boot times improved and ram usage is 15% less than with zonealarm. Try different ones, read reviews and pick one that's your style! Good luck.

Posted 07/13/2008 at 07:48:15am

Its a double edged sword between consumers and companies. Yes, everyone who follows this stuff knows it. We consumers want free reign of the content we purchase and companies want to keep us from having our way with what we buy. But I think it's wrong to keep consumers buying the same product over and over again. I've bought 3 copies of the same movie. It was Saving Private Ryan. I bought it on VHS when it first came out, then again on DVD, lost the DVD in moving to a new house, bought it again. So I've paid almost $100 for the same content.

It honestly should be a crime to make a consumer spend more money for the same thing over and over. It's not good business. Now if and when I decide to buy into Blu-ray (please let that new red-laser deal pick up), I'll have to buy my whole collection again to watch it in 1080P? That's over 500 movies! And at $40 average a pop for Blu-ray, that's close to $20K! And I'd be buying the same movies again! Any new ones that come out would have to be added in. Not to mention that by the time all of the movies were bought again in blu-ray, another format would be out again, say about 5-6 years, now I have to buy them AGAIN! HELL NO! 

Hope that makes a point about what kind of perpetual cycle the movie industry has. Movie CEOs with philangies stuck up their noses, listen up: I am a person of the digital consumer age have one demand, free access to the content I purchase from you to do with as I please, whether it is rip it to my hard drive and convert to Divx, convert to mp4, rip the audio from the movie and create my own personal sound clips. I bought the movie, I didn't rent it, lease it or license it. I purchased, bought, and consumed it. IT'S MINE!

Here's another analogy: You lease a car for $300 a month from a dealer. As long as you pay your monthly payment, no one cares what you do with the car. Even if you don't pay, they don't care what you do with your car. And if you bought the car straight out, they don't ever as what you are doing with your car. You could let 200 family members drive your car, it doesn't matter to them, you paid for it, it's yours. They can't say "Your violating our purchase agreement by letting other people drive YOUR car without OUR permission."

Yes, piracy is a dirty word in the vocabulary of today's media. But it's just a word, not a person. It's a label, labels are good for food and identifying unknown things, not people.

Thanks for the rant and I rip my movies for my own use.  

Posted 07/13/2008 at 07:23:45am

Great idea with the lies in line. Long lines with a friend waiting with you can be fun. I've made up some really strange comments in line that makes people turn around and give a look like "what are you talking about?" or "Could that be really true?"

Personal faves (anyone can have these):

So the cat was hanging from the ceiling fan for how long?

There I was in the middle of New York City facing an escaped Saber Tooth cat and I was fresh out of dental floss.

Now how does a badger actually eat a dog?

Heard about the health code violation at *name a famous resturant*?