ipad for reading (not just golden-age) comics

[JVJ (RIP)]

Everybody with a Terabyte or more hanging in or off of their systems say "I do".

I DO.

It's not Word docs that people are storing, Gene, it's movies, digital photos, songs and comic scans. Personally I've got about two TBytes and expect to get more in the next year or so.

Do you want to store your life on the "cloud"?

(|:{>

[GeneYas]

Everybody with a Terabyte or more hanging in or off of their systems say "I do".

I DO.

It's not Word docs that people are storing, Gene, it's movies, digital photos, songs and comic scans. Personally I've got about two TBytes and expect to get more in the next year or so.

Do you want to store your life on the "cloud"?

(|:{>

I said you don't need a terabyte of data for a Word document... and you don't. Gaming and entertainment does. Business software doesn't need a desktop computer for serious number crunching. That was my point.

Gene

[JVJ (RIP)]

More clearly made and understood this time, Gene. I agree with you that businesses don't need large local hard drives on their desktops. Does that mean you envision businesses going back to the dumb terminal model? We've come a long way in 30 years to end up where we started. Only difference is the mainframe gets replaced by the net. Hmmm... Seems like a precarious position to me. ALL of the arguments in the 80s for desktop PCs revolved around "what if the mainframe goes down?" To avoid production (i.e. all work) just stopping, they gave us PCs. I have the same question for the net. So much inter-connectivity demands a robust network. If everything depends on the Internet and the data in the cloud, we're back in the same scenario as the mainframe and its hard drive. Might happen, but it's fraught with weaknesses.

Been there, got out of that.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[John C]

That's pretty much what I was going to say, too, Jim.  As I said before (and I really don't want to waste anybody's time arguing over something like this), we've been here before, more than once.  As I recall, IBM wanted RMX (a real-time, multitasking operating system) on the IBM PC, but the owners believed the mainframe model was the only way the computer industry lived.  Windows 95 integrated Internet Explorer not to kill Netscape, but because "the desktop is the web" (or somesuch nonsense).  DEC studiosly avoided the PC revolution.  Sun wanted their Java processors creating their own cloud.

When I look at how this has progressed, I don't see a smooth motion "forward," I see a pendulum that swings every fifteen years or so, and we've proably reached the limit this time through.  Microsoft's Kin, for example, looks like it's trying to push you OFF the cloud, not on.  A lot of people are interested in Diaspora, and want to run their own "node" in a social network.  And nobody has developed a "killer app" that makes "the cloud" something that real people care about--it's just storage and communications, and you can carry that in your pocket.

To clarify what I meant about "the desktop will go on," I'm looking at hardware like those "wall wart" computers (Marvell), the netbooks (Asus, et al--I've been using one as my main machine for over a year, now), and the "net top" machines.  They're dirt cheap, plug into your television, and have more than enough power (and, with a USB stick, storage space) to run Linux, Chromium, or a ReactOS-like Windows clone, plus office software and desktop publishing, audio, image, and video processing, various communications software (web browsers, VoIP phones, etc.), and so forth, all for free.  And that hardware isn't going to vanish or skyrocket in price.  In fact, with all the money going into so-called SoC ("System on a Chip") research, it looks like we'll have more opportunities, not less.

(And Jim, I'm with you on storage.  A 1.5TB drive just appeared on my doorstep this afternoon, by coincidence, like magic.  Well under a hundred bucks, too, though I need to scavenge for a cable to make it go.)

[Drusilla lives!]

I was thinking of going into a detailed rundown of all my thoughts and feelings regarding the current state of technology and the IT industry, but I'm just too tired to do it!  

Besides, it would only end in me ranting away.  The only thing I will say on the matter is that it's an industry that reinvents... nay, perhaps that's not strong enough... it's an industry that NEEDS to reinvent its wheels every few years.  So if things seem to come full circle, well that shouldn't surprise anyone IMO.  

[John C]

So if things seem to come full circle, well that shouldn't surprise anyone IMO.  

What surprises me isn't that we reinvent (after all, there's only a finite number of ways to organize computers, an each has its distinct benefits), but rather that it hits with such regular frequency (today it's Google and Facebook; in 1995 it was Sun, Microsoft, and AOL; in 1980 there were the BBSs; and in 1965, they were planning ARPANet) and that it's almost precisely the same story every time.  And that, well, everybody's always surprised...

[GeneYas]

More clearly made and understood this time, Gene. I agree with you that businesses don't need large local hard drives on their desktops. Does that mean you envision businesses going back to the dumb terminal model? We've come a long way in 30 years to end up where we started. Only difference is the mainframe gets replaced by the net. Hmmm... Seems like a precarious position to me. ALL of the arguments in the 80s for desktop PCs revolved around "what if the mainframe goes down?" To avoid production (i.e. all work) just stopping, they gave us PCs. I have the same question for the net. So much inter-connectivity demands a robust network. If everything depends on the Internet and the data in the cloud, we're back in the same scenario as the mainframe and its hard drive. Might happen, but it's fraught with weaknesses.

Been there, got out of that.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

In 1999, where I work.... we had a full in-house IT department They could do anything. Results were instant. The IT department was our friend. In 2001, the IT department was shrunk, and moved off  site. It handled multiple geographic locations, and service was atrocious. You could reach the call center in the Philippines, but the things they could fix over the phone were limited. In 2005, we shifted to SAP software for business management. The software was rolled out and they were immediately telling me I needed a dumb terminal. Dumb terminals were placed everywhere. I argued against a dumb terminal at my desk and won, but that was how the software was pitched to management. Management wanted dumb terminals with low paid employees to just plug in numbers. It's ended up being the opposite, but the sales pitch worked to get the software in the door. I believe cloud computing is an inevitable goal that will be forced upon us over time. The sad thing is that 90% of the consumers will openly embrace it because it will be dressed up to look pretty and it will do wonderful things by the time they accept it.

Gene

[John C]

Management wanted dumb terminals with low paid employees to just plug in numbers. It's ended up being the opposite, but the sales pitch worked to get the software in the door. I believe cloud computing is an inevitable goal that will be forced upon us over time. The sad thing is that 90% of the consumers will openly embrace it because it will be dressed up to look pretty and it will do wonderful things by the time they accept it.

Ah, but take heart, Gene, because that's exactly how we ended up with all the engineering outsourced to places like India, the Philippines, Russia, and so forth.  And how's that working out?

At least in the New York area, where you couldn't find a good software development job unless you were very lucky, five or six years ago, today the experiment has failed (for now) and you'd be hard-pressed to find a company outsourcing development.

IT will follow, once enough CEOs and CTOs are embarrassed at high-profile meetings by a blue screen and bad support for their ever-increasing costs.  Claiming you've saved money by inconveniencing everybody doesn't hold up when you've lost a few major contracts along the way.

[narfstar]

Have you called customer support and gotten fewer people speaking with heavy accents? Companies found that most people did not want someone on the other end of the line they could not understand. Seems you are more likely to get someone who at least sounds like they are American

[John C]

Have you called customer support and gotten fewer people speaking with heavy accents?

Actually, I'm not sure it'll work for anybody else, but I pretty much stopped calling customer support when I realized I could send angry e-mails and end with, "if you can't handle this, please forward immediately to someone with greater authority rather than contacting me to explain that you're unable to help."  It's been surprisingly effective, though I do need to know exactly what I need to happen.  Without solid direction, nobody ever seems interested in helping.

Companies found that most people did not want someone on the other end of the line they could not understand. Seems you are more likely to get someone who at least sounds like they are American

Coming from a company that used one of the big overseas services, I can tell you it goes beyond that.  You're basically hiring a staff that, on an individual basis, makes a few pennies a day with the goal of closing the case.

In other words, they're paid crap, and they're not being paid that crap to help you or care about the client's business on any level.

There are ways to make that work out, but most companies think the solution is to either suck it up or call the manager screaming that they're only keeping to the contract.  It's not...

[GeneYas]

Have you called customer support and gotten fewer people speaking with heavy accents? Companies found that most people did not want someone on the other end of the line they could not understand. Seems you are more likely to get someone who at least sounds like they are American

There was an Australian documentary that showed people in India learning to act and sound American so they could work at a call center. They were taught about American culture including things like baseball, American holidays etc. It was disturbing in a way.
 

[GeneYas]

I half-agree, Gene.  (snip)
However, I see a few problems that I don't think they'll be able to iron out.
(snip)

Second, there are all the organizations that rely on secrecy.  The Pentagon, for example, is not going to allow all its sensitive data to be intercepted during upload or copied from a server farm in another country.  Hedge funds aren't going to release their plans somewhere where a guessed password loses them their advantage.

John,

I saw this article and it reminded me of the discussion here...

"At a press event at its headquarters this morning, Google announced Google Apps for Government-a new version of its Google Apps productivity suite that's been certified by the US government as meeting its security requirements."

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/201979/google_introduces_google_apps_for_government.html?tk=hp_new

Of course this is limited to a "moderate" security rating, but steps like this gradually sway the collective minds of it's users who will start to want the same tools for even more classified data.

Gene

[BobS]

There are many programs available and most of them read pdf, cbr, cbz, zip or rar.
Of course also separate jpg.
The examples in the video are cbr and cbz files.
The only drawback is that you have to use itunes for file transfer.

I'm waiting for a somewhat larger screensize and TOTALLY non-proprietary file & reading program loading.

Peace,
Bob
Public Enemy #1

[Yoc]

Let me know if you every find one Bob, I'm after the same thing.

-Yoc

[Roygbiv666]

Let me know if you every find one Bob, I'm after the same thing.

-Yoc

Maybe all the PC type iPad imitators will have a bigger screen size.