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There are several things that frustrate me about the Internet.
- Downloads with no size information. Seriously, is this thing 12KB or
1.2GB? It kind of matters!
- Links that won't open in a new tab. So you've got a screenful of
search results, but you *cannot* open each result in a seperate tab.
Sometimes a new tab opens, but the original tab navigates to the new
location as well. Sometimes you get a new blank tab. Sometimes you get
no tab at all. Either way, I've got a huge number of links to
investigate, and I have to do it by manually using the back button to
get back to the search results. WTF?
- Network installers. You know, you download the "installation package",
but it's just a 5KB executable that downloads the *real* installation
files. And redownloads them every single time you want to install the
application. Thank you, genius, the entire reason I manually downloaded
rather than clicking "install now" is that I don't have much bandwidth
and I've got 20 PCs to install this thing on!
- Advertising. You know the sort of thing. Excessive Flash animations.
Windows that pop up every time your mouse pointer happens to brush past
something. Every third paragraph being a bannar ad. Pages that open with
"First, a word from our sponsors. (Click below to skip this.)" Are you
TRYING to annoy me to the point of leaving your site?
- In a similar vein, "Would you like to chat to a customer advisor?" (If
I WANTED to talk to the pushy salesman, I would have clicked the "talk
to pushy salesman" button! :-P ) "Would you like to take part in this
survey?" (How about AFTER I've been using the site for more than 12
seconds?) "CONGRATULATIONS! You are visitor number 1,000,000. You just
won a car!" (...do I *look* stupid?)
- Stuff which is "free", yet you still have to "register" to actually
get it. Sometimes they won't let you download it until you give them
your life history. Sometimes you have to give them an email address so
they can email you the download link (and a bunch of spam for the rest
of your life). Sometimes the software is "free for anyone to use", but
each time you install it you have to enter a machine-specific "license
key" to "activate" the program. (I.e., you can't just install it on any
machine you want.)
- Products which utterly fail to explain what they are. "It has feature
X! It has feature Y! New in v0.0.0.2.4 is features Z!" Yes, but WHAT
DOES IT DO??
- Websites where every link takes approximately fourteen millennia to load.
- Broken links that pretend not to be broken links. I.e., you request a
page that doesn't exist, and the server attempts to "guess" what you
mean and provide that, rather than actually telling you "sorry, that
page doesn't exist". Obviously, being a machine, it always guesses
wrong. And so you end up with a random unrelated page and no idea why it
happened.
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Invisible wrote:
> - Network installers.
At least MS usually gives you a full-download link if you look around for
it. Most other software too. The network install is when you don't want to
install the whole package, so it automatically picks out the bits that work
for you. (E.g., it doesn't download the firefox add-ins if you don't have
firefox installed.)
> TRYING to annoy me to the point of leaving your site?
Actually, yes. Once you get the advertisement, it's actually negative value
to have you look at the content you wanted to see.
> won a car!" (...do I *look* stupid?)
Turn off your webcam. You might get fewer of these.
> - Stuff which is "free", yet you still have to "register" to actually
> get it.
That's what a free junk email address is for.
> - Products which utterly fail to explain what they are. "It has feature
> X! It has feature Y! New in v0.0.0.2.4 is features Z!" Yes, but WHAT
> DOES IT DO??
Welcome to open source! :-) [Or any free software, for that matter.]
I also like the ones that describe themselves only in terms of feature sets
of other products, usually other products that no longer exist. "Version 3
is just like Version 1, except the frobnitz option is spelled spangulg."
> - Broken links that pretend not to be broken links. I.e., you request a
> page that doesn't exist, and the server attempts to "guess" what you
> mean and provide that, rather than actually telling you "sorry, that
> page doesn't exist". Obviously, being a machine, it always guesses
> wrong. And so you end up with a random unrelated page and no idea why it
> happened.
Or a broken link handler that redirects you to a page saying you're screwed,
making it impossible to simply fix the URL instead of typing it in again.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Yes, we're traveling together,
but to different destinations.
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Invisible <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
> - Links that won't open in a new tab. So you've got a screenful of
> search results, but you *cannot* open each result in a seperate tab.
> Sometimes a new tab opens, but the original tab navigates to the new
> location as well. Sometimes you get a new blank tab. Sometimes you get
> no tab at all. Either way, I've got a huge number of links to
> investigate, and I have to do it by manually using the back button to
> get back to the search results. WTF?
What browser are you using which does that? I have never noticed such
a thing.
> - Advertising. You know the sort of thing. Excessive Flash animations.
> Windows that pop up every time your mouse pointer happens to brush past
> something. Every third paragraph being a bannar ad. Pages that open with
> "First, a word from our sponsors. (Click below to skip this.)" Are you
> TRYING to annoy me to the point of leaving your site?
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865
It's surprisingly effective. It very transparently removes ad banners
from webpages (it uses a known blacklist, and you can manually add to
the list if you want). It's even able to remove ads from flash videos
(you know those which some video sites play before every video you want
to watch?)
As for popups, Firefox has a setting that blocks them. I thought it was
on by default.
> - Stuff which is "free", yet you still have to "register" to actually
> get it. Sometimes they won't let you download it until you give them
> your life history. Sometimes you have to give them an email address so
> they can email you the download link (and a bunch of spam for the rest
> of your life). Sometimes the software is "free for anyone to use", but
> each time you install it you have to enter a machine-specific "license
> key" to "activate" the program. (I.e., you can't just install it on any
> machine you want.)
What irritates me is when some people want to share some file and they
put it on one of those free file sharing websites where you have to jump
through a dozen of hoops and enable *everything* in your browser (javascripts,
cookies, referrers...) in order to get the file. And of course you don't get
the file by simply using the provided url, nor even by clicking on a link
at the page behind that url, but you click a link, and then you click another
link, and then you click a third link, and then you wait like a minute
because the free sharing site makes you wait if you don't pay money for
them and then you *might* get the file if you are really lucky. (More often
than not the website will choke because it doesn't like your browser or
its settings.)
--
- Warp
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On Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:19:42 +0100, Invisible wrote:
> - Advertising. You know the sort of thing. Excessive Flash animations.
> Windows that pop up every time your mouse pointer happens to brush past
> something. Every third paragraph being a bannar ad. Pages that open with
> "First, a word from our sponsors. (Click below to skip this.)" Are you
> TRYING to annoy me to the point of leaving your site?
Adblock Pro is what I use to avoid that. :-)
But I agree that it's annoying - the latest trend that I really dislike
is on many news sites, they now break a story down into multiple "pages"
- and on each page, the space for the story is a small percentage of the
total space. Reason I use adblock: So I don't have to be distracted by
50 flashing ads per page.
> - Stuff which is "free", yet you still have to "register" to actually
> get it. Sometimes they won't let you download it until you give them
> your life history. Sometimes you have to give them an email address so
> they can email you the download link (and a bunch of spam for the rest
> of your life). Sometimes the software is "free for anyone to use", but
> each time you install it you have to enter a machine-specific "license
> key" to "activate" the program. (I.e., you can't just install it on any
> machine you want.)
"Free" always comes with a cost when dealing with a commercial entity.
You get something, the provider gets something. Them giving you
something and getting nothing in return doesn't give them reason to give
stuff away for free. Commercial businesses are in business for one
reason: to turn a profit. So everything they do is in pursuit of that
goal. If you want something for free, go OSS or become a charity. ;-)
Of course, you could always use a jetable mail address or a mailinator
address.
Jim
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Darren New wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> - Network installers.
>
> At least MS usually gives you a full-download link if you look around
> for it.
Yes, MS at least actually understand that people might want to do this.
Usually you need to look for "network administrator install" or "IT
professional install" or similar terms.
> Most other software too.
Sure, for suitable definition of "most". :-P
> The network install is when you don't
> want to install the whole package, so it automatically picks out the
> bits that work for you. (E.g., it doesn't download the firefox add-ins
> if you don't have firefox installed.)
If you're an end-user trying to install a service pack, for example,
there might be huge wedges of stuff that isn't applicable and there's no
reason to download it all. But as an administrator trying to update 20
machines to the latest service pack, I do *not* want to download several
hundred MB multiple times! o_O
>> TRYING to annoy me to the point of leaving your site?
>
> Actually, yes. Once you get the advertisement, it's actually negative
> value to have you look at the content you wanted to see.
Heh, cold economics, eh? Fortunately the TV channels haven't started to
think like that yet...
>> won a car!" (...do I *look* stupid?)
>
> Turn off your webcam. You might get fewer of these.
I don't own a webcam?
>> - Stuff which is "free", yet you still have to "register" to actually
>> get it.
>
> That's what a free junk email address is for.
Except some of them actually check for this. And you still need to go to
all the bother of setting up that email address in the first place. And
often when you "register" you must also provide a real street address,
telephone number, inside leg measurement and a few other items. Even if
you lie, it's a lot of work to make up enough data to trick the system
into thinking it's real.
>> - Products which utterly fail to explain what they are. "It has
>> feature X! It has feature Y! New in v0.0.0.2.4 is features Z!" Yes,
>> but WHAT DOES IT DO??
>
> Welcome to open source! :-) [Or any free software, for that matter.]
It's worse with open-source, since it usually starts out as a one-person
hobby project. Ther person who wrote it knows what it does and why
that's useful, but they forget to explain this part on their website!
>> - Broken links that pretend not to be broken links.
>
> Or a broken link handler that redirects you to a page saying you're
> screwed, making it impossible to simply fix the URL instead of typing it
> in again.
Heh. Certain versions of Darcs can't fetch from the repositories on my
web server because of these "soft-404" errors. (Darcs tries to determine
whether the repo is Darcs or Git by requesting a Git file and seeing if
it errors out. But my web host helpfully tries to auto-correct it...) Of
course, since I have no power over the Apache configuration...
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>> - Links that won't open in a new tab.
>
> What browser are you using which does that? I have never noticed such
> a thing.
Firefox.
The problem seems to be that some links use a JavaScript onClick event
to change the page URL, rather than using an anchor tag like any normal
human being would.
And then there are the flashy pages that use AJAX to reload just part of
the page, keeping the headers, sidebar, etc. unchanged. So now the URL
hasn't even changed, so the back button is useless...
>> - Advertising.
>
> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865
>
> It's surprisingly effective.
Maybe I'll take it for a test drive sometime.
> It's even able to remove ads from flash videos
> (you know those which some video sites play before every video you want
> to watch?)
Oh, I hate that.
> As for popups, Firefox has a setting that blocks them. I thought it was
> on by default.
Yeah, that's right. And it seems to work for sites that pop up *windows*.
The latest trick seems to be where the whole web page turns dark and a
box appears on top of it. I don't know how it's rendered, but it seems
to be part of the page itself. (I.e., it's certainly not a seperate
browser window.) Popup blockers seem to have no effect on this.
>> - Stuff which is "free", yet you still have to "register" to actually
>> get it.
>
> What irritates me is when some people want to share some file and they
> put it on one of those free file sharing websites where you have to jump
> through a dozen of hoops and enable *everything* in your browser (javascripts,
> cookies, referrers...) in order to get the file. (More often
> than not the website will choke because it doesn't like your browser or
> its settings.)
Or because the site gets 55,487,215,678,425 hits per second and the
servers can't cope...
Yeah, I hate that too! (Fortunately, I have a web host that I pay actual
money for, and I can put things on that.)
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>> - Advertising.
>
> Adblock Pro is what I use to avoid that. :-)
>
> But I agree that it's annoying - the latest trend that I really dislike
> is on many news sites, they now break a story down into multiple "pages"
> - and on each page, the space for the story is a small percentage of the
> total space.
Yeah, that too.
>> - Stuff which is "free", yet you still have to "register" to actually
>> get it.
>
> "Free" always comes with a cost when dealing with a commercial entity.
> You get something, the provider gets something. Them giving you
> something and getting nothing in return doesn't give them reason to give
> stuff away for free. Commercial businesses are in business for one
> reason: to turn a profit. So everything they do is in pursuit of that
> goal.
Some companies give stuff away for free, and it really *is* free.
Usually because you using it gives the company some other kind of
advantage. E.g., Acrobat Reader is utterly free. Anybody can easily
obtain it, install it, copy it around, put it on 20 PCs, no
restrictions, no limitations. Because that way, Adobe can go "Hey, buy
Acrobat Professional! Because EVERYBODY HAS ACROBAT READER..."
> Of course, you could always use a jetable mail address or a mailinator
> address.
I still object to having to jump through hoops to get something that's
supposed to be "free".
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Invisible wrote:
> I don't own a webcam?
Whoosh!
>> That's what a free junk email address is for.
>
> Except some of them actually check for this.
So, they don't let you use any free email account? Sucks to be them.
> And you still need to go to
> all the bother of setting up that email address in the first place.
Once.
> often when you "register" you must also provide a real street address,
> telephone number, inside leg measurement and a few other items.
I usually use my own info, with the individual numbers rearranged at the
end. :-)
> It's worse with open-source, since it usually starts out as a one-person
> hobby project. Ther person who wrote it knows what it does and why
> that's useful, but they forget to explain this part on their website!
Even when it's not a one person hobby project, how many times have you
gotten a source file with 50 lines of copyright disclaimers, revision
control stuff and etc at the top, and not a single line saying something
like "this file implements the regex parser"?
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Yes, we're traveling together,
but to different destinations.
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Warp wrote:
> What browser are you using which does that? I have never noticed such
> a thing.
It's when you have javascript loaded up on the page intentionally causing
that. Or, just as bad, links in Flash. (Try watching a youtube video, then
opening one of the "see also" links at the end of the video in a new tab.)
> As for popups, Firefox has a setting that blocks them. I thought it was
> on by default.
There are pages that implement it by using javascript to introduce new DOM
elements. When you see one of those pages with random words
double-underlined, that's what he's talking about.
> them and then you *might* get the file if you are really lucky. (More often
> than not the website will choke because it doesn't like your browser or
> its settings.)
See my comment on economics. :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Yes, we're traveling together,
but to different destinations.
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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> > As for popups, Firefox has a setting that blocks them. I thought it was
> > on by default.
> There are pages that implement it by using javascript to introduce new DOM
> elements. When you see one of those pages with random words
> double-underlined, that's what he's talking about.
Maybe it's because I have NoScript and hence most javascripts are blocked
by default that I don't notice a flood of these "semi"-popups.
--
- Warp
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On Thu, 15 Apr 2010 16:55:12 +0100, Invisible wrote:
>>> - Advertising.
>>
>> Adblock Pro is what I use to avoid that. :-)
>>
>> But I agree that it's annoying - the latest trend that I really dislike
>> is on many news sites, they now break a story down into multiple
>> "pages" - and on each page, the space for the story is a small
>> percentage of the total space.
>
> Yeah, that too.
>
>>> - Stuff which is "free", yet you still have to "register" to actually
>>> get it.
>>
>> "Free" always comes with a cost when dealing with a commercial entity.
>> You get something, the provider gets something. Them giving you
>> something and getting nothing in return doesn't give them reason to
>> give stuff away for free. Commercial businesses are in business for
>> one reason: to turn a profit. So everything they do is in pursuit of
>> that goal.
>
> Some companies give stuff away for free, and it really *is* free.
> Usually because you using it gives the company some other kind of
> advantage. E.g., Acrobat Reader is utterly free. Anybody can easily
> obtain it, install it, copy it around, put it on 20 PCs, no
> restrictions, no limitations. Because that way, Adobe can go "Hey, buy
> Acrobat Professional! Because EVERYBODY HAS ACROBAT READER..."
Except that Acrobat Reader isn't free either; it's used as a way to make
PDF more widely acceptable as a document format, which means they sell
more of their creation tools. It's paid for by offsetting its costs with
an increase (maybe very slight incremental per product sold) for Adobe's
other products.
So in the end, they give the reader away for purely selfish reasons; it's
not altruism.
>> Of course, you could always use a jetable mail address or a mailinator
>> address.
>
> I still object to having to jump through hoops to get something that's
> supposed to be "free".
"Free" is a marketing term when it comes to commercial ventures. Like
"buy 2, get one free" isn't really one for free, it's three for the price
of two, and the business has decided that the margins on two are large
enough to cover the cost of the third and still make a profit.
Or collecting stamps/points/whatever to get a "free" airline flight,
subway sandwich, or whatever - you're paying for that "free" one each
time you use their service or purchase their product. If you don't
participate, you're paying a premium *not* to participate.
Jim
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On 15/04/2010 4:35 PM, Darren New wrote:
>
>> won a car!" (...do I *look* stupid?)
>
> Turn off your webcam. You might get fewer of these.
ROTFL
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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On 04/15/10 08:40, Jim Henderson wrote:
> But I agree that it's annoying - the latest trend that I really dislike
> is on many news sites, they now break a story down into multiple "pages"
> - and on each page, the space for the story is a small percentage of the
> total space. Reason I use adblock: So I don't have to be distracted by
> 50 flashing ads per page.
Multiple ways to fix that:
Choose the Print option - it's almost always on one page. But you may
not like the printed version's formatting (especially if you have a wide
screen monitor). To fix that, apply the Readability bookmarklet.
http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/
In fact, Readability works quite well on articles that are on one page.
I often use it merely to get rid of all the meta stuff (ads, navigation
bars, etc). Occasionally it will get things wrong, though.
Another option is a Firefox extension called Autopager. It tries to see
if there's any kind of link for the next page. If it finds one, then
when you scroll down to the end of the current page, it will simply load
the next page below it. So you don't have to click any links. It doesn't
always work, but like Adblock, it is customizable.
Often handy for Google searches. Just keep scrolling down rather than
going to the next page each time. Give it a try.
Also, just as an FYI, there's a cool Greasemonkey script (or was it an
addon? I forget) that creates a *really* nicely formatted version of the
page if you click "Print" on an article. Nice font, multiple columns,
never have to scroll, etc. Name slips my mind but I can dig it up for you.
I think there's also a script/extension that will automatically take
you to the Print version of a news article. However, I recall that it
merely had a whitelist to do this.
--
Psychoceramics: The study of crackpots.
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>> Some companies give stuff away for free, and it really *is* free.
>> Usually because you using it gives the company some other kind of
>> advantage. E.g., Acrobat Reader is utterly free. Anybody can easily
>> obtain it, install it, copy it around, put it on 20 PCs, no
>> restrictions, no limitations. Because that way, Adobe can go "Hey, buy
>> Acrobat Professional! Because EVERYBODY HAS ACROBAT READER..."
>
> Except that Acrobat Reader isn't free either; it's used as a way to make
> PDF more widely acceptable as a document format, which means they sell
> more of their creation tools. It's paid for by offsetting its costs with
> an increase (maybe very slight incremental per product sold) for Adobe's
> other products.
>
> So in the end, they give the reader away for purely selfish reasons; it's
> not altruism.
...in other words, "some software really is free, if making it free
benefits the company somehow". Which was my original statement.
Nobody would pay money for an editor for a proprietry document format if
the viewer for that format wasn't so utterly ubiquitous. Hence, making
Acrobat Reader free benefits Adobe. And that's why it's free.
You would *think* making MathReader free would benefit Wolfram, but
apparently not...
> "Free" is a marketing term when it comes to commercial ventures. Like
> "buy 2, get one free" isn't really one for free, it's three for the price
> of two, and the business has decided that the margins on two are large
> enough to cover the cost of the third and still make a profit.
I always thought 2 for 1 meant "buy one, pay for two, buy two, pay for
two"...
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On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 09:01:03 +0100, Invisible wrote:
>> So in the end, they give the reader away for purely selfish reasons;
>> it's not altruism.
>
> ...in other words, "some software really is free, if making it free
> benefits the company somehow". Which was my original statement.
If there's no immediate cost to the end user, that's "free" to you, but
it's not free. There's a value proposition that has to be offset.
Because developers need to eat as well. ;-)
> Nobody would pay money for an editor for a proprietry document format if
> the viewer for that format wasn't so utterly ubiquitous. Hence, making
> Acrobat Reader free benefits Adobe. And that's why it's free.
>
> You would *think* making MathReader free would benefit Wolfram, but
> apparently not...
It depends on the business analysis. Wolfram might well have concluded
that not enough people need the reader to make it worthwhile, or that the
number of people paying for the creation software wouldn't offset the
development costs.
>> "Free" is a marketing term when it comes to commercial ventures. Like
>> "buy 2, get one free" isn't really one for free, it's three for the
>> price of two, and the business has decided that the margins on two are
>> large enough to cover the cost of the third and still make a profit.
>
> I always thought 2 for 1 meant "buy one, pay for two, buy two, pay for
> two"...
Not really, "2 for 1" means "we normally charge x, but we've decided to
get you to like the product by either taking a loss or by cutting our
margin down by 50% or more so you can try the product out".
ie, "2 for the (normal) price of 1".
Jim
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On Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:39:24 -0700, Neeum Zawan wrote:
> Multiple ways to fix that:
Oh, sure, I use repagination, myself (another FF plugin).
Jim
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Invisible wrote:
> There are several things that frustrate me about the Internet.
>
> - Downloads with no size information. Seriously, is this thing 12KB or
> 1.2GB? It kind of matters!
Oh, come now. If it really mattered, Mr. Gates or Mr. Jobs would have
*told* you!
> - Links that won't open in a new tab. So you've got a screenful of
> search results, but you *cannot* open each result in a seperate tab.
> Sometimes a new tab opens, but the original tab navigates to the new
> location as well. Sometimes you get a new blank tab. Sometimes you get
> no tab at all. Either way, I've got a huge number of links to
> investigate, and I have to do it by manually using the back button to
> get back to the search results. WTF?
I think this can be generalized to "any code that changes the normal
behavior if your browser."
> - Network installers. You know, you download the "installation package",
> but it's just a 5KB executable that downloads the *real* installation
> files. And redownloads them every single time you want to install the
> application. Thank you, genius, the entire reason I manually downloaded
> rather than clicking "install now" is that I don't have much bandwidth
> and I've got 20 PCs to install this thing on!
Or I have to install it on that machine over there, which for perfectly
valid reasons has no network connectivity at all.
Regards,
John
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John VanSickle wrote:
>> - Network installers.
>
> Or I have to install it on that machine over there, which for perfectly
> valid reasons has no network connectivity at all.
Yes, that too. (Although in my case, the "valid reason" is usually "I
can't get Linux to believe me that a NIC exists"...)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> There's a value proposition that has to be offset.
I have no idea what this accounting jargon means.
>> You would *think* making MathReader free would benefit Wolfram, but
>> apparently not...
>
> It depends on the business analysis. Wolfram might well have concluded
> that not enough people need the reader to make it worthwhile, or that the
> number of people paying for the creation software wouldn't offset the
> development costs.
I should point out that MathReader is simply Mathematica with a few
features turned off. The "development costs" should be minimal. (They
probably spend more on testing it to make sure the requisit features
really are switched off...) But sure, it's a cost analysis.
(Actually MathReader *is* free - it's just that you have to jump through
hoops to get at it. But it doesn't cost any actual money, no.)
>> I always thought 2 for 1 meant "buy one, pay for two, buy two, pay for
>> two"...
>
> Not really, "2 for 1" means "we normally charge x, but we've decided to
> get you to like the product by either taking a loss or by cutting our
> margin down by 50% or more so you can try the product out".
>
> ie, "2 for the (normal) price of 1".
I see...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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On Sat, 17 Apr 2010 12:58:43 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>
>> There's a value proposition that has to be offset.
>
> I have no idea what this accounting jargon means.
Which is amazing, because I'm not an accountant.
Stuff costs money. In order to afford stuff, you have to have money.
Same principle for a business - if they want to build something, they
have to figure out how to pay for it. When they figure out how to pay
for it, they have to look at what it costs and see if they can offset the
cost with revenue.
>>> You would *think* making MathReader free would benefit Wolfram, but
>>> apparently not...
>>
>> It depends on the business analysis. Wolfram might well have concluded
>> that not enough people need the reader to make it worthwhile, or that
>> the number of people paying for the creation software wouldn't offset
>> the development costs.
>
> I should point out that MathReader is simply Mathematica with a few
> features turned off. The "development costs" should be minimal. (They
> probably spend more on testing it to make sure the requisit features
> really are switched off...) But sure, it's a cost analysis.
Part of that cost analysis, then, is what amount of revenue is likely to
be lost when (not if) someone figures out how to unlock the full product
features and posts it on the Internet. If it truly is Mathematica with a
few features turned off.
> (Actually MathReader *is* free - it's just that you have to jump through
> hoops to get at it. But it doesn't cost any actual money, no.)
The hoops probably (I haven't looked) involve you giving them something
of value - like your contact information so they can market to you.
See? You pay something, just because it isn't money, doesn't mean what
you offer them in exchange has no value.
Jim
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On Sat, 17 Apr 2010 12:27:38 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> John VanSickle wrote:
>
>>> - Network installers.
>>
>> Or I have to install it on that machine over there, which for perfectly
>> valid reasons has no network connectivity at all.
>
> Yes, that too. (Although in my case, the "valid reason" is usually "I
> can't get Linux to believe me that a NIC exists"...)
Is it a NIC that is supported?
Jim
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>> I should point out that MathReader is simply Mathematica with a few
>> features turned off. The "development costs" should be minimal. (They
>> probably spend more on testing it to make sure the requisit features
>> really are switched off...) But sure, it's a cost analysis.
>
> Part of that cost analysis, then, is what amount of revenue is likely to
> be lost when (not if) someone figures out how to unlock the full product
> features and posts it on the Internet. If it truly is Mathematica with a
> few features turned off.
Well, I would guess that they probably "turn off" this stuff by omitting
the code necessary to do it for the most part. That way the download is
smaller, and to "turn on" these features again would require basically
reimplementing them.
Then again, I'm no expert. I don't know how exactly they did it. (It's
something like a 100 MB download.)
>> (Actually MathReader *is* free - it's just that you have to jump through
>> hoops to get at it. But it doesn't cost any actual money, no.)
>
> The hoops probably (I haven't looked) involve you giving them something
> of value - like your contact information so they can market to you.
Oh yeah, you gotta give them a whole load of personal data. Plus the
installer scans your PC and generates a hash code based on your
hardware, and you have to send this code to get the license key. So
they're determined that you should only install this program on *one*
PC. (Which seems somewhat counter-productive to me... I mean, it's not
like they gain anything by making it harder to install on several PCs.)
> See? You pay something, just because it isn't money, doesn't mean what
> you offer them in exchange has no value.
Heh. Not "what you offer" but rather "what they demand". ;-)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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>>> Or I have to install it on that machine over there, which for perfectly
>>> valid reasons has no network connectivity at all.
>> Yes, that too. (Although in my case, the "valid reason" is usually "I
>> can't get Linux to believe me that a NIC exists"...)
>
> Is it a NIC that is supported?
Define "supported".
It tends not to be a problem these days. But for example, when I first
set up my shiny new socket-939 board with the brand new nForce-4
chipset, none of the distros I tried could handle the SATA controller or
either of the two NICs.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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On Sat, 17 Apr 2010 19:20:40 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> I should point out that MathReader is simply Mathematica with a few
>>> features turned off. The "development costs" should be minimal. (They
>>> probably spend more on testing it to make sure the requisit features
>>> really are switched off...) But sure, it's a cost analysis.
>>
>> Part of that cost analysis, then, is what amount of revenue is likely
>> to be lost when (not if) someone figures out how to unlock the full
>> product features and posts it on the Internet. If it truly is
>> Mathematica with a few features turned off.
>
> Well, I would guess that they probably "turn off" this stuff by omitting
> the code necessary to do it for the most part. That way the download is
> smaller, and to "turn on" these features again would require basically
> reimplementing them.
Perhaps; some eval software (which this *could* be seen as) has stuff
just "turned off", while others have elements ripped out. Ripping out
bits, though, requires more work and regression test - especially for
gratis software, since you don't want to leave the prospective customer
with a bad impression.
> Then again, I'm no expert. I don't know how exactly they did it. (It's
> something like a 100 MB download.)
It's always hard to know for sure unless you have access to the code,
that's for certain.
>>> (Actually MathReader *is* free - it's just that you have to jump
>>> through hoops to get at it. But it doesn't cost any actual money, no.)
>>
>> The hoops probably (I haven't looked) involve you giving them something
>> of value - like your contact information so they can market to you.
>
> Oh yeah, you gotta give them a whole load of personal data. Plus the
> installer scans your PC and generates a hash code based on your
> hardware, and you have to send this code to get the license key. So
> they're determined that you should only install this program on *one*
> PC. (Which seems somewhat counter-productive to me... I mean, it's not
> like they gain anything by making it harder to install on several PCs.)
If that's the case, then they've done a fair amount to identify the value
of that to them.
>> See? You pay something, just because it isn't money, doesn't mean what
>> you offer them in exchange has no value.
>
> Heh. Not "what you offer" but rather "what they demand". ;-)
Well, no, you "offer" it in exchange for the goods or services. If you
don't offer it, then you don't get the goods or services.
Jim
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On Sat, 17 Apr 2010 19:22:49 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>>> Or I have to install it on that machine over there, which for
>>>> perfectly valid reasons has no network connectivity at all.
>>> Yes, that too. (Although in my case, the "valid reason" is usually "I
>>> can't get Linux to believe me that a NIC exists"...)
>>
>> Is it a NIC that is supported?
>
> Define "supported".
One that a driver is provided for and that has been verified to work.
> It tends not to be a problem these days. But for example, when I first
> set up my shiny new socket-939 board with the brand new nForce-4
> chipset, none of the distros I tried could handle the SATA controller or
> either of the two NICs.
I've got a system with an nForce chipset, but I'm not sure which; newer
hardware sometimes isn't supported right away when the specs change and
aren't shared with the kernel devs, though; the wireless card in this
machine (it's the one I'm using, actually) doesn't work well with Linux,
but it's not important to me because the system is right under my
ethernet switch and has a functioning ethernet card in it.
The wireless *works*, but after a few minutes of serving up data, it
starts doing something (not sure what, haven't diagnosed it) that kills
my access point completely.
But when I first installed Linux on it, the card wasn't even recognized
because it was so new.
So it has improved.
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> The wireless *works*, but after a few minutes of serving up data, it
> starts doing something (not sure what, haven't diagnosed it) that kills
> my access point completely.
My dad keeps complaining that ever since he upgraded to a new version of
SUSE, his network access has slowed to a crawl. Eventually he reverted
to the old version, and it speeded up again. Go figure...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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On Sat, 17 Apr 2010 19:48:00 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>
>> The wireless *works*, but after a few minutes of serving up data, it
>> starts doing something (not sure what, haven't diagnosed it) that kills
>> my access point completely.
>
> My dad keeps complaining that ever since he upgraded to a new version of
> SUSE, his network access has slowed to a crawl. Eventually he reverted
> to the old version, and it speeded up again. Go figure...
He might ask a question on forums.opensuse.org and provide some details.
It's possible he needs to disable ipv6 both in the kernel and in Firefox
- a simple fix to improve performance.
Jim
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GOOGLE!
1) I wanted to learn about the views of a professor with an Asian name. I was
hopelessly thwarted because Google insisted on giving me hits with tons of
variations of spellings-- despite use of "" and +.
2) I did an image search on Google of someone I thought I knew from college,
first name Lynda. Of course it had to show me an image of Lynda Carter.
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gregjohn wrote:
> 1) I wanted to learn about the views of a professor with an Asian name.
I'm guessing you spelled it wrong. Like, with latin characters or something. ;-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.
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