I’ve got a list of outstanding questions about Bluesky from a developer perspective. Any help much appreciated. I have a feeling when this is done we may have a Busy Developer’s Guide to the basics of Bluesky programming. #
31 Dec
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Scripting News Annex 
Posted by Stanley Krute on December 31, 2006 at 11:07 am
Hi Dave
RE WinXP’s over-zealous license sillyness: if you don’t need specific XP features — only one I can think of that’s kinda nice is ability to run Windows Defender — Windows 2000 Pro is a good solution.
After you install it, there are a few tuneup steps, noted below.
— stan
—————————
Windows 2000 Installation Notes
—————————:
o- install Win2K
o- create Disk Management shortcut (diskmgmt.msc)
o- install Fix-it Utilities 7 [FIU7]
o- use FIU7 to clean Windows registry
o- install Win2K SP4
o- install Win2K SP4 Update Rollup v2
o- install MS DAC 2.8 SP1
o- install IE 6 SP1
o- install Windows Media Player 09
o- install DirectX 9.0c
o- run Windows Updates til there are no more — AVOID IE7
o- use FIU7 to clean Windows registry
Posted by Elisa Camahort on December 31, 2006 at 11:34 am
Bummer, I’m staying at that hotel in a couple of weeks. I guess now I know what to expect.
Posted by Michael Bernstein on December 31, 2006 at 12:35 pm
Dave, glad to hear you’re jumping on the non-copy-protected operating system bandwagon. Incidentally, operating systems of this sort are a subcategory of what is usually known as ‘Free Software’. Free, in this case refers to freedom (as in Free Markets, or Free Speech), not price (though, for obvious reasons, they can frequently be obtained without payment as well).
The core freedoms that Free Software guarantee to the user are:
Freedom 0: Freedom to run the program, for any purpose
Freedom1: Freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs
Freedom 2: Freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor
Freedom 3: Freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits
In your Windows XP misadventure, you ran afoul of Microsoft’s limiting Freedom 0 (if you can’t install it, you can’t run it).
There are many Free Software Operating Systems to choose from. If you want recommendations, I am sure your readers will be happy to oblige. I use the Ubuntu distribution of Linux myself, but many other distributions of Linux (and the several BSD variants) would likely be suitable.
Good luck!
Posted by Ben on January 1, 2007 at 6:58 am
Dave,
When you say “No DRM”, do you have a follow-up message to content providers on how not to get ripped off? or are we saying “getting ripped off comes with the territory, and the cure is worse than the disease so get over it”?
I don’t know a single person who would feel comfortable shoplifting from a bricks and mortar store but many of those same people don’t think a second about shoplifting digital goods (using pirated versions of software, music, video). If no DRM is the requirement, what gives the content providers the motivation to go into digital distribution? what confidence do they have that the $ will materilize to to compensate the staff, to return profits to the owners? e.g., if college textbook publishers put all their textbooks online in unprotected PDFs, do you seriously think that students would be buying those books vs buying one and emailing and posting them all over the place?
Or, is a corollary of what you are saying, is that with No DRM must come a change in how profits are derived? meaning, w/digital products we must realize publishers are going to have their content duplicated endlessly, so you need to figure out a different way to monetize yr product to make up for that open copying? in the case of musicians, they have to go on tour to make money; for textbook publishers, they have to stick ads in the online textbooks or have product placement in case studies, etc.
Ben
Posted by Michael Bernstein on January 2, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Ben, has the existence of DRM proven *any* hindrance to acquiring illegal copies of content, whether music, software, or movies? No?
Well then, DRM must not actually be about combating piracy.
Posted by Robert Winder on January 2, 2007 at 6:02 pm
Hi Dave, I guess your United Airlines experience is a “good news/bad news” piece. The good, your profile at United.com identified that you’d be a good candidate for an upgrade. The bad, the eservices systems are not sophisticated enough and the implementations are so poor that even good ones leave a lot still left to do using person-to-person interactions.
I recently had a similar experience, when a colleague and I travelled to Helsinki from SFO, he had a Systemwide upgrade that was about to expire, rather than lose it, he offered to me and I agreed that I would repay with one of mine later in the year. His experience showed how easy it should be, login to united.com, select my flight and request and upgrade for me using his systemwide upgrade. Everything went swimmingly. Now, just at the tail end of the year, my colleague travelled to Asia and he requested ‘payment’ in the form of a systemwide upgrade from me. I logged onto united.com, followed the same process as my colleague had done for me, only to be S.O.L. I called the 1K members number and ended up talking to “Annie” who didn’t understand my request and as the call went on I became increasingly less confident that my request had actually been acted on, so much so that I called again and had to check with another “Annie”… Guess what, no such request was even registered, if I hadn’t called back again my friend would’ve had his long-flight back from Bangkok sat in economy not business class.
To complete the story, I actually had to go to a United ticket desk in person to complete the process my colleague completed online in a few seconds…
I’ve not costed this out, but I can almost guarantee that it cost United a lot more than they’ve saved from implementing the Indian version of “Annie” and in the process they cost me over 2 hours of my time going to a United ticket office and having to call them twice, not counting the gas, car wear and tear, etc, etc… There is a place for off-shoring customer services, but the distance appears to be the inhibitor to delivering truly effective customer service experiences.
Robert
PS, in full disclosure I work for a customer services technology company, United is a customer of ours.
Posted by Leslie Wong on January 3, 2007 at 2:00 am
I went up to Stanford University for a consultation with a doctor and I stayed overnight in a Travelodge in Palo Alto.
The desk clerk asked me for my driver’s license to photocopy, in addition to taking a credit card imprint. When I asked him why they needed my driver’s license, he said that it was a police requirement. This didn’t seem right, but I never got the chance to inquire with the Palo Alto Police Department.
Posted by Dan Ciruli on January 4, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Leslie –
I had the same experience at a cheap motel in San Bernardino–according to a sign posted behind the counter, the local police request photo ID of every guest (and every guest’s guest).