A simple solution to online newspaper advertising
by James on Feb.08, 2010, under Technology
Unless you’ve been living in a hole (and therefore probably not reading this) for the last several years, the death knell for traditional newspapers has been ringing. Advertising revenue is down, paper subscriptions are down, and the comics page really, really sucks.
In an attempt to prop up revenue, some newspapers are trying to wall off free-loading internet users (with hilarious results). The reason for this is that internet advertising doesn’t pay on the same scale print advertising. Pay per impression (page view) for ads are very low. Part of this is because internet ads tend to be very scattershot. Even if you are dealing with a local or regional paper, the adds tend to be for national brands, questionable weight loss products and teeth whiteners. (continue reading…)
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Bringing the network down, one Droid at a time
by James on Feb.05, 2010, under Technology
In my ongoing attempt to bring the Verizon Wireless network to its knees, I have managed to use a whopping 2.8 GB for this last billing cycle.
In case it isn’t obvious, my billing cycle ends on the 4th of the month and I pulled this today, so I didn’t just use that today.
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And the other problem with Linux manifests itself
by James on Feb.05, 2010, under Computers
Woke up this morning and this was sitting in my Twitter feed.
@PickettBill: RT @jforestier http://ljforestier.com/aB Not ready? Ha, is perfect for # of users. Dump the # of Windows users on Linux things fixed fast.
This is why the usability problems will not be fixed, “I’m sorry, it’s not me, it’s you.”
I think it’s time to stage an intervention.
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And no, Linux is still not ready for prime time
by James on Feb.04, 2010, under Computers, Rant
I have used Linux, in various distributions (Mandrake, Lindos, Red Hat, DSL, SuSe, Ubuntu), over the years and one thing has remained the same. Windows might have DLL hell but Linux has dependency hell.
Dependency hell? This occurs when you need to make sure that you have all the possible libraries needed to run (or just compile) a particular program. Of course, those dependencies require their own dependencies which in turn have their own dependencies until it spirals completely out of control and you end up with something that looks like the organizational chart for a multinational conglomerate. (continue reading…)
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The inexorable march of technology
by James on Feb.04, 2010, under Computers
The first hard drive that I ever had was 500 MB. Yes, it was smaller than the storage capacity of a CD-ROM, but that’s OK because they didn’t have those then either.
As the years went by, whenever I went looking for a new hard drive, it was always to get the biggest that I could afford. The size was needed to put all those shiny new games, MP3s, and digital videos that kept getting larger as their quality increased.
Recently and after a protracted illness, my hard drive passed away. After a brief mourning period I found myself tasked with replacing it. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on a new one as my laptop is already over three years old. Instead, I found myself looking for the highest quality hard drive that I could find at the best price.
I found this interesting because storage is no longer a major issue. All of the hard drives I looked at were over 200 GB in size. Digital storage has no become so cheap that, unless you have specialized needs (i.e. video editing), it is impossible to pull a hard drive off of the shelf and it not be at least adequate. Suddenly it’s not all about storage size but the extra features (like shock protection for when I drop my laptop) and the specs of the discs (cache, RPMs).
From my earliest experiences with computing, storage space was always at a premium and now it has become essentially free.
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