IT Industry stabilised on low

THE IT INDUSTRY has been expecting a rebound in the market for years now. They figured that this recession was a temporary dip and a recovery would ensue.

IBM's statement is tantamount to admitting that the market has stabilized at this level and will not be rebounding in any significant way. The bigger the company, the slower the response to a changing environment.

It's my own personal take that IBM has finally had a much needed epiphany about the reality of the situation and it cutting back as a response instead of operating on reserves like so many others still are.

Daniel G. DeMaio

Letter about letters:

Subject: Does the BBC dislike Microsoft and Apple?

My time keeping up with current events is limited to specific world events. I don't think filling my head with all the car chases, the murders, robberies, etc is a good use of my time so I stay away from local new and quickly turn away from national and world news when they turn this direction. That being said, I have spent a great deal of time reading internet based news sites because I can pick and choose. TheInquirer.net comes to mind.

A few years ago I started to read the BBS news on the web. When I read the editorials and the perspectives of those abroad in Europe (mostly in the UK) I quickly found tremendous inaccuracies not only in facts but in quotes (having read them or watched the person giving the quote during news press conferences). Due to this I stopped reading the BBC.

Many years ago I used to abhor watching commercial TV. I would focus on movies and on PBS. What I felt was that altough entertaining and educational the BBC releases were incomplete and somewhat sophmoric in production. Almost everything lacked bite and the humor, although entertaining, was just there. I'm not one that goes for vulgarity so I didn't compare british humor to US humor on that basis.

As the Iraqi war began I turned to the BBC news to see the European view. I found, in that, alot of bias and alot of anti-this/that. I also found that the British people didn't seem to care, at least as the BBC news reflected it, about the people of Iraq nor about what their elected leader's decision was. Now that we have uncovered a slew of some of the most horrendous human rights vilations, as well as UN resolution vilations perpetuated by the Russians, Germans, and French, I find it hard to see how anyone would view the BBC as being on the mark with their criticism. The BBC is, afterall, a government run news organization--that troubles me greatly. I believe the US military (some if not all) have ceased rebroadcasting BBC affiliated information on their own overseas media due mostly to the biased reporting of the BBC.

There were many American news organizations that were critical and some that highly questioned the actions of the coalition forces in Iraq. Having a television at work and watching the press conferences held by the coalition forces I could only feel utterly ashamed at the total lack of intellectual questions being asked at these conferences. These reporters made me ask questions as to why they were even in the business being that they were so bad at asking questions and respecting the answers. If you don't like the answers probe a little but you better make sense to those of us watching as to why you are probing and when you finish you'd better write up an analysis otherwise we will just consider you to be a lamo that doesn't belong in the field.

Concluding and in summary, I found the BBC not to be critical, instead it was bias. I found that many US publications did indeed ask critical questions and that the reason some didn't like the reporter coverage of the conferences is because they were lame and lost, and for anyone watching their borderline incompetency, those of that watched what was happening for themselves, found those reporter's questions and conclusions to be inaccurate and misleading. One can only wonder why, what agenda did they have? I guess some really don't like Bush.

To this day I can't understand why it was more important to report the looting in the streets of these cities while a war was still on and US, British, Polish, Kurd, and Australian forces were either under fire or were dying.

Jim

I just read about your subscription site. I think $50 sounds quite expensive really.

I can't imagine that your traditional advertising revenue comes anything close to that per person.

Maybe i've been grossly ill-informed about revenues from online-advertising.

Good luck with it anyway though,

Regards,
Kevin

Mike replies

It's a choice. And also, we'd like a little more independence from the vendors.

Mike

I like the idea of an ad free site for paid members, but the idea of limiting some content to paid subscribers leaves me cold.

Other sites have done this, and while I can't speak for everyone, I can tell you my response. Every time a site has done this I've found it less and less worth my while to go there.

Gamespot is a perfect example, before they went to their current model I hit their page almost daily, now I barely bother to go there once a month.

The Ace's Hardware model may work better, providing expanded coverage of things in a downloadable PDF.

All I know is that the method you're thinking of is one that will make people feel like second-class citizens, and that won't help you.

Thanks for your time.
Dave Robinson

Subject: Subscription

RETARDED. Whets next? Subscribers get "additional coverage?"

Hondaman

PLEASE listen to Tom's letter . He is so right it is not even funny. A micro-payment of $1/month for advert-free content and some exclusive stuff is the best way PERIOD to draw subscriptions, because it is an amount so small as to be unnoticeable to customers. One of the reasons other content websites have not adopted this method is because credit card fees for merchants are steep; those were put in place before the need for micro-payments came up and they assume that people will only use their credit cards for large purchases. Yet Apple manages to sell its music for 99 cents a song. The fact that there is no slick method of implementing micro-payments should NOT excuse you from offering what your readers want.

On the benchmark dilemma, there is one way the non-geek computer user knows to judge how fast the computer is. They watch how fast their computer takes to open applications, how fast it takes the computer to switch between windows, how long it takes the computer to show on the screen what they type, how fast it takes to display a new page of the internet on their browser, how long it takes to save their files, how long it takes to reboot the computer, how long it takes to shut the computer down, how long it takes to install software, etc. They don't know that CPU speed can't change how fast they get webpages from the internet. They don't know all that goes on when a computer boots up. For all they know, a speedier CPU may make a computer boot faster. My mother considers her new computer to be faster if it does the stuff she always does faster than her older computer.

What if bench mark applications focused on measuring the execution time of the programs we use? True, some of that has to do with CPU speed, some of that has to do with software optimization, but if all the PCs being sold are running some version of XP, then it should be possible to judge the speed of the various processors running what the ordinary computer user usually runs. (Solitaire, MS Word, various computer games, accounting software, TurboTax, MS Outlook, MS internet Explorer, etc) The advantage of a faster computer is supposed to be that it runs your applications faster and you get stuff done in less time, right? Well then, you need to be able to measure how fast your applications are running on your new computer and on your old computer. This seems like it would be the most practical use for a benchmark program to the non-geek computer user.

Michaela Stephens

Subject: New Layout

Can we get a snapshot of the new layout? Is this new layout something other than the annoying register like multi-column schiznat you've got now?

What is up with that layout anyhow? The subjects are in some quasi-chronological order that gets skewed because each subject titles and summaries varies in length. I have to end up reading each article on each computer I use just to be sure that I haven't missed anything. Were it not for the fact that you guys are the root'n'est toot'n'est rag on the web, I would have given up on you on day one.

Can't you see? I am sacrificing my sanity to read this page and deal with its crappy layout!

Ooooohhh - I see - you are trying to make me crazy, just like YOUUUU!!! Well, I'm not the once that's crazy, I am sane in an insane world! I am not beating to a different drum, everyone is out of step with me!!! You'll see!!! When the aliens come, my tin foil hat will save me and then you'll be sorry!

Corey

Subject: WiFi at YVR International

I'm from Vancouver, however I've been in London for over a year (in the shadow of the BT communications tower in Fitzroy Square, to be exact).

I was last at YVR with my Thinkpad with wireless back in April 2002. I was getting signal, IP address via DHCP, etc. however I couldn't surf as Zoolink (who installed and managed the wireless at the time) charged a usage fee. Every effort to surf resulted in the Zoolink proxy prompting for a username and password, which I normally would have had to pay for.

So, what does a clever computer user do? guest/welcome. No... test/test.. Administrator/password... Still no luck... How about zoolink/zoolink? Bingo!

Was surfing for free until I had to board the plane to this charming (polite ambiguity intended) city. Hope it works for you next time you're at YVR.

Cheers,
Chris

Subject: INQUIRER hack caught in US Embassy Catch 22 situation

This doesn't surprise me. I am Romanian (you know, former communist country citizen, ergo untrustworthy), and US visa conditions are very harsh. The US Embassy charges $100 just for entering the interview that will decide if you are worth a US visa. If you are or if you are not, doesn't matter, the money are gone.

By the way, the average salary in Romania is about $130.

P.S. I know, each country has the right to decide who is eligible for its visa, but damn, charging big money for saying 'NO' is quite insulting.

Cip

Subject: DVD copier and MPAA fight in court

I support copyright holders wishing to protect their property, however there are uses for software that permits circumvention of copy protection that I think any reasonable person would agree with. I live in France, and although the vast majority of DVDs that I purchase have at least English and French soundtracks available, a number display french subtitles by default if you choose the English soundtrack. No option to turn them off. The only way I can watch these films that I have bought, in English and without subtitles, is to use the type of software that the MPAA wishes to outlaw. Bummer.

Email address supplied

'Let the bidding begin'

It is not a new idea to dump all patent and copyright laws, but how would it work if we did?

I say let nature take it's course. The laws of supply and demand will solve all these copyright problems once and for all.

Software, music, electronic, chemical or mechanical IP could be placed up for auction with a starting price that reflects the time and effort that went into creating it. The question arises; Who would be willing to pay $10 million dollars for a new word processor program, or a new song?

A new level of industry will form on the basis of distrubuting and profiting from that IP. Don't forget, at those prices it would behoove the purchaser to restrict their distribution as well. So what happens? It's called dilution. Those who paid the $10 million will themselves auction off the IP at maybe $1 million a copy. Or they may be confident of selling a million copies of the IP on media at $100 per copy before everyone who is willing to pay for it has gotten their hands on it.

No laws needed, just supply and demand and free enterprise. What a concept!

Of course there's always the case where buyers can not be found that are willing to pay enough to cover the effort that went into creating the IP. This problem is self answering - Do something else that people want or need more.

This whole idea of being paid indefinitely for something you created years ago is not only greedy, but stupid as well.

Daniel G. DeMaio (again)

Subject: Nvidia accused of playing dirty

"It's a huge shame that such a damning charge should be levelled at the firm only days after it had launched the FX5900. Doubly so as the card is obviously the fastest on the market without any cheating."

I gotta beg to differ on this quote about the 5900FX being obviously the fastest on the market - most of the reviews show the ATI9800 256 in a win / lose / tie on most of the benchmarks and real world testings ... haven't played with either personally yet ... but we've probably all read the same reviews and articles by now ... and now if there is some trickery, then it might move the FX5900 into a back seat, mind you who hasnt' done a wee bit o' cheatin'

Cheers
Richard

Subject: Latest hacking tool is a light

Nothing new in this. Back in the 70's when Northern Electric/ Northern Telecom, (now Nortel) was first deploying 1K cmos memory in it SP-1 telephone exchanges, I witnessed a system crash when a Press photographer snaped a pic of computers with a camera with and electronic flash attachment.

....what goes around, comes around....

Jim Kissel

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