Half of metro Atlanta mortgagees underwater

GentleCoatHanger · 1 day

The problem fixed itself by cutting house prices in 1/2. It might now be a good time to buy if the market doesn't shrink anymore (in fact it grew nationwide last month, the first time since the bubble burst). But we still have to deal with all of these shit-tacular homes on the market (foreclosures, etc).

nomdeweb · 11 days

That's all basically inline with my point. Yeah, I paid attention because I was interested. But like I tried to say, the execution of the product line was so terrible. Marketing and branding and such are the obvious things that failed. But as far as technology, it failed too. Not because the product was inferior, but because Microsoft couldn't commit enough to make it something great. They kept restarting instead of growing.

nomdeweb · 11 days

The Zune wasn't a mistake. Microsoft's terrible execution and lack of commitment to its products is the mistake.

I for one was late to the portable media player party. My first MP3 player was a Zune, and it continues to be the primary way I listen to music.

But lets look at just how fucked up the entire product line history is:

Microsoft licenses PlaysForSure technology to 3rd party OEMs. It allows subscription music services (Napster, Rhapsody, etc.) to integrate with portable media player manufacturers. Listen to your subscription music on the go, great!
Microsoft starts MSN Music, as their own subscription/DRM based music service. Directly competes with iTunes and Microsoft's own "PlaysForSure" 3rd parties.
xBox live marketplace has a separate store where you can purchase DRM music (but also TV shows and movies, slightly ahead of iTunes).
Microsoft opens another PlaysForSure store called "Urge". It was some partnership with MTV or something. But it was directly integrated into Windows Media Player. So we're starting to see Microsoft want to compete directly with iTunes.
Microsoft develops and releases the Zune hardware and software. It has brand new DRM, which is fully incompatible with everything that came before it.
Zune player is initially fully integrated into Windows Media Player, but eventually becomes a SEPARATE standalone application
Everyone (by that I mean OEMs) stops using PlaysForSure and the technology dies
MSN Music closes up shop and everyone who bought DRM music there is fucked
The Urge store just sort of disappears as silently as it arrived
Apple announces the iPhone, and the age of Portable Media Players is over.
Microsoft takes 4 more years to develop a new Windows Phone OS to compete against the iPhone. It actually uses Zune technology (very surprising).
xbox marketplace remains independent and incompatible with Zune marketplace this whole time
Eventually a Zune "app" is developed for the xbox, allowing you to access the subscription music/tv/movies
Microsoft stops making Zune portable media players
Zune services are slowly being rebranded

To a consumer it's total chaos. As a company if you can't commit to your own products, your customers won't either. I am a pissed off consumer.

Compare this to Apple's execution: iTunes and the music service has largely remained unchanged for the last 10 years. The iPod and iPhone work exactly as you expect them to, even really old ones. That's not to say that Apple's execution isn't without fault (Apple TV being the prime example), but it's been pretty epic.

Edit: Clarifying that OEMs stopped using PlaysForSure, end-consumers weren't the customer for PlaysForSure

dogweather · 1 month

Read this: http://progit.org/2011/07/11/reset.html and be enlightened!

nonsequitur1979 · 1 month

Well... Columbus did find America. He just wasn't the first explorer. But arguable Columbus had a greater historical impact with his discovery as it quickly lead to permanent settlement.

georgiabiker · 1 month

good stuff, thanks!

georgiabiker · 1 month

I actually couldn't find any exemptions (for anyone including emergency vehicles) in the GA or Atlanta code.

But you're probably right: it makes sense for a jurisdiction to hold their officials just as accountable as the public. Which would include parking officials having to legally park.

Although, I wouldn't think emergency vehicles are immediately exempt. For example, just because you're a police officer doesn't mean you can park in a handicap spot and go to lunch. Although clearly if the vehicle is responding to an actual emergency, that's something else entirely.

georgiabiker · 1 month

Are they on duty and actively doing parking enforcement? I don't know about Atlanta specifically, but other jurisdictions allow parking enforcement officials to park in no-parking and no-standing zones (as long as it's not a safety hazard) for a short time to do their job. (I got my education from watching Parking Wars).

codypo · 1 month

A lot of teams do this. Recent article on Facebook release engineering revealed the same process: http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/04/exclusive-a-behind-the-scenes-look-at-facebook-release-engineering.ars

Basically the engineers responsible for the changes being released should be on standby to quickly fix bugs and regressions. Then a new release is quickly pushed through.

aidanofpower · 1 month

Your choices are limited to T-Mobile and AT&T in GA (and pretty much most of the US). Between the two I would pick AT&T. This is primarily due to AT&T's better overall coverage, and that I doubt T-Mobile will even be around in a few years.

jessiebullseye · 2 months

it wasn't a terrible commercial though

grauenwolf · 2 months

but is storage space really a problem at all anymore for desktop computers?

cheekily · 2 months

Unfortunately they don't make them anymore. The ones left are only getting more expensive.

JDX3DS · 2 months

That's not true. I cite this recent article: http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsserver/archive/2012/03/07/rocking-the-windows-server-8-administrative-experience.aspx

darkplumb90 · 2 months

Nope. Start menu is gone. When booting the PC, the first thing you see after login is the new metro start screen and there is no way to change that.

I should also mention that in Explorer (that you get to by clicking the "Desktop" tile and clicking the hopefully-still-pinned Explorer taskbar icon), the menus have been replaced with the Ribbon UI. Much like Office, there isn't a menu anymore, just the Ribbon.

darkplumb90 · 2 months

Not exactly. The "desktop" is still there, but only as a way to interact with explorer and other not-metro applications. In fact, the desktop is just another thing which is launched from the start screen. There is no start menu anymore. So if your program isn't pinned, you have to use the start screen to launch it.

darkplumb90 · 2 months

One of the key reasons why Explorer and Desktop is intuitive and relatively easy-to-use is because you have Mouse targets. Physical boxes on the screen with icons/glyphs/labels which give an indication of what it does. You can do a lot of exploring just by clicking things to see what happens.

With Metro, they've introduced a lot of core functionality that requires less intuitive and, as I would describe it, obfuscatory keyboard/mouse interaction. For instance, right-clicking to bring up the app-bar. Hover in a corner and moving down to bring up the charms menu. Hover in another corner to bring up recent apps. Clicking in a corner to bring up the start screen. These are terrible choices which are hard to discover.

To be fair, Explorer and Desktop have also had "hidden" bits and pieces of usability and functionality. But a lot of that functionality was for more advanced features; things you don't necessarily need in order to have successful experience.

I also think that even for touch, the Metro style has some flaws. A lot of interaction REQUIRES swiping from the top/sides. This again is weird/hidden functionality. Similarly the app-bar is hidden by default. This makes it unclear as to what actions are available there, version available via controls in the app. Compare this to Apple's iPhone. Most iPhone apps (games not included) have either a menu bar at the bottom and/or control bar at the top. One of the most important controls being the "back" button. These menu bars are generally always visible, making it easy to navigate and get-things-done. In addition, the OS has no required "swipe from the side" gestures. The notifications pane is one possible exception, but again that could be considered an "advanced" user scenario.

From my own experiences, I think the whole thing is flawed. Maybe it will get better, maybe it will be successful. I have doubts currently.

darkplumb90 · 2 months

To me this fact highlights just how out-of-wack some folks at MS are with regards to Metro. Their excuse is that it keeps the UI homogeneous between client and server. But that's just more "no compromises" bullshit. My personal opinion? Metro is a fantastic touch-based UI and user experience. But in a world of mouse-oriented UI, it falls so short that it's a regression in usability.

lamaface21 · 2 months

I believe that morning rush-hour is generally more calm because most people at that hour are just going to work. In the afternoon, however, you have a much wider mix of people leaving work, going home, going out somewhere other than home, or going to another job.

Additionally, simply more people are awake and moving in the afternoon versus the morning.

sidcool1234 · 2 months

The best advice I've ever heard is that when writing a SQL statement you should declare what answer you want and not how you get the answer. Leave the how to the DB engine.

stagga_lee · 2 months

couldn't hurt

ServerGeek · 3 months

But it is cheap. $50 a year per user? Compare that to how much a typical company spends in benefits per employee.

daigoba66 · 3 months

For the benefit of the community, here is how the court experience went:

We arrived about an hour early. The time to appear was 8am, however the court didn't open until about 7:45am. Immediately the clerk had us fill out a form indicating our plea (guilty/no-lo/not-guilty). We pleaded guilty. We indicated to the clerk that we had documentation proving we fixed the light, and were told to wait for the solicitor. When she finally arrived (she was late to show apparently), and were called by the solicitor we showed our receipt. She made an point to check the date: we bought a new headlight the day we received the citation (this apparently is key!). Sitting back down, we waited for the judge. We were actually the second defendant called before the judge. It only took a few moments before he spoke a single word: "dismissed". And that was it.

neelshiv · 3 months

Been with comcast for several years so i'm way past the promotional pricing (never bothered to try the call/cancel/setup again workaround). We pay about $155 a month for: internet (not sure about the tier, but our speed is good-to-excellent), TV package that gets us most every channel + HBO/Encore (but not Showtime/Cinemax), one HD receiver with DVR.

I think the HD receiver adds about $10 a month, and the DVR part adds another $10 a month.

The overall cost I think is reasonable for what you get. However I dislike how they charge you a monthly recurring fee for your receiver just because it supports HD and/or has a DVR.

Promotional rates are just that. Virtually every company does it. And I think overall you'll find that everyone's pricing is fairly comparable.

daigoba66

TROPHY CASE

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