JagMicker

Seems like a novel idea. My suggestion would be to change the design of the website. Make it vertical instead of horizontal --- i.e. input above the output. That way it'll display properly on an iPhone. Clearly you have the technical chops... Now you need to find a good designer to work on your bootstrap theme!

I am not the author, but my advice would be:

-Focus on the "Sales Process". You won't go anywhere without first identifying the need(s) of the prospect and making sure they know that you understand their need(s). Then determine who the decision-maker is, so you don't waste your time selling to the wrong person.

-Approach prospects via email AND phone, until you've figured out which method they prefer.

-Don't give up until you've received a clear rejection. Offer rebuttals to their objections.

Stick with those rules, and work to refine your pitch. Persistence is key!

Network Solutions tries to explain-away the problem, asks for NDR's. Users post a flurry of NDR's, NS support requests that users stop posting them. NS appears to be clueless.

I have two experiences with Time Warner Cable to share:

- TWC refuses to offer "wideband" service with a static IP. If you want a static IP, you must pay for TWC "Business Class" (>$99/mo.) for speeds much slower than with Wideband.

- Forgot to pay my bill one month. Some TWC employee stops by my office and tapes a flyer to the door. It basically says to call him or he will be the person who disconnects my service. I call him. He wants nothing less than my credit card number. Says I have to 'go through him' or it'll cost me an extra $100 and he'll disconnect me anyway. It seemed very sketch. I called the main TWC number and told my story. They asked me to fax a copy of the flyer I found on my door. After a couple of weeks of calls back-and-forth with one of the 'higher-up' billing people, I'm finally told that they had no idea an employee was going door-to-door and posting those flyers. Apparently, he made the flyer himself. I was never told any more about it, but the whole thing seemed very strange and was the start of me loosing faith in TWC. I now think even less of TWC because of their negative reactions to Google Fiber. I think that TWC cares about one thing, & one thing only --- profit. I hate to say it, but they are worse than Comcast (but not DirectTV [1])!

1. Washington State Attorney General's Office - complaint against DirectTV: http://atg.wa.gov/uploadedFiles/Home/News/Press_Releases/200...

As someone born & raised in Iowa, I'm glad to see them embrace the startup culture. Iowa is a great place to live, and it could use some new sharp minds to help it grow.

As for the people complaining about prizes --- why don't you donate something more enticing than cow, chicken, and rooster?

I used to think that "mobile responsiveness" was the "Holy Grail" of smart website design. Now, I've come to the conclusion that most modern mobile devices are completely capable of displaying the full version of most websites.

Every time I use my iPhone to browse to Twitter or LinkedIn I'm taken away from the full site and to a silly "mobile" site that resembles the native app. If I wanted the native app. experience, I'd download and use it! Ever try approving a LinkedIn recommendation using your iPhone? Good luck!

Now think about most business websites...5 pages of text, images, and a touch of javascript... Does their "full site" have content that cannot be displayed properly on a mobile device? No. Is there a benefit to having a second, "mobile" website (one with much less love put into it)? I think not.

It seems to me that many people think that "mobile responsiveness" is such a great thing, but I'm not sure they've really considered whether it's even necessary. I'd bet that most designers who build WP sites on themes that tout "mobile responsiveness" (and have it enabled by default) haven't even considered whether their client needs the second version of their site. Even if they do, I think often times the "mobile" version ends up being an ugly, hardly-tested, bastardized version of the "full site". Just give us the real website, please!

I think you are complaining too much. You should realize that the majority of Apple customers are not technically-inclined, so the support procedures will be geard towards them. Seeing as how you are smart enough to read and submit articles to HN, you should know to expect these kinds of things when dealing with any kind of tech. support (let alone, a drive replacement). You should have already backed-up your data and wiped the drive before going to the Apple store. You submit articles to HN and you expect (and trust) Apple to move your data from one drive to another?! Come on, man...You should know better... And posting stuff like this just makes you look bad.

Does anyone else remember the "Blotto Box"?

http://cd.textfiles.com/group42/ANARCHY/COOKBOOK/BLOTBOX.HTM

I don't think a judgement can be made at this point as to whether he was or was not working in collaboration with some form of Russian gov.

I picture a somewhat disorganized system of Russian gov. employees sometimes working together and other times in opposition.

The Wikipedia article about the Russian FSB mentions certain internal groups spying on one another. It wasn't that long ago when federal agencies like the CIA and FBI were at odds and spying on each other.

No, I don't. But I think this shows a lack of understanding on the part of the data centers. Datagram said they'd tested their generators prior to the storm, but apparently they were unaware that the electrical switchgear was located in an area that would readily flood. During a flood, what good is a generator if the electrical equipment can't be used? Would a possible solution be to have the generator output run directly to the datacenter, and to have the ability to isolate it from the building ("mains") power?

Maybe folks will start to realize that an EDG (Emergency Diesel Generator) without critical support systems is useless.

I was just reading about the Fukushima accident, and how most of the EDG's failed because they were water-cooled, and while the EDG's were located out of harms way, the pumps for providing cooling water were located on low ground and were damaged by the tsunami. http://fukushima.ans.org/report/accident-analysis

Yesterday I saw a story about the Datagram data center in NYC having to shut down. From their reports about the damage (http://www.datagram.com):

"As of 5pm on October 29, 2012, Datagram had thoroughly tested its emergency systems at 33 Whitehall, NYC fully staffed and awaiting the storm to hit Manhattan's shores. Once ConEd lost power to Lower Manhattan, Datagram's emergency systems kicked on maintaining power to Datagram's datacenter. Unfortunately, within a couple hours of the storm hitting Manhattan's shores, the building's entire basement, which houses the building's fuel tank pumps and sump pumps, was completely filled with water and a few feet into the lobby. Due to electrical systems being underwater the building was forced to shut down to avoid fire and permanent damage."

It's pretty obvious that, despite all the disaster planning done in the past, Datagram (and TEPCO, and others) have really neglected to appreciate the potential modes of failure for their backup power systems. In both cases, they misunderstood the threat to critical backup power infrastructure. If your EDG is on the roof but the fuel pumps and electrical switchgear is in the basement, what will happen during a flood? If your EDG's are on high ground but the pumps to cool them are not, what happens during a tsunami?

I've seen a lot of comments that seem to confuse digital and analog audio.

Digital audio levels are fixed -- i.e. 0 dBFS (dB relative to digital "full scale"), thus you want the audio as close to full scale (0dBFS) as possible. This is the reasoning behind what you've probably heard described as the "loudness war". 0dBFS is the reference point beyond which no signal can exceed.

Contrast that with analog audio, be it the DAC (digital-to-analog converter) on your soundcard that splits to a "line out" (likely 3.5mm a/k/a/ 1/8" TRS connector outputting audio at -10 dBV, the "consumer" level) and "headphone jack" (i.e. line level signal -> headphone amplifier). Once the audio signal becomes analog, you must then be concerned about gain staging. If you have a crappy sound card, you shouldn't reduce the analog output, because, in order to achieve the same loudness, you will have to increase the gain on your 'speakers' (a/k/a/ "pre-amplifier"; often integrated into cheap 'all in one' computer audio playback systems). Remember that the noise floor remains the same regardless of gain settings, so by reducing the "line out" level, you are only increasing the noise floor (i.e. level of noise).

For all of you geeks out there... If you are looking to cut through the bullst and get a quality playback system, look into a setup that has a quality DAC and/with monitor controller, a separate preamp, and quality monitors. Benchmark has a great USB DAC, and or Lavry Engineering is what the professional mastering studios use (their DAC costs well over $20k, and not because of crap like 'voodoo diamond dust covered gold-plated platinum wires', but, in part, because it has an internal oven and temperature monitoring circuitry to keep the internals at precise temperatures). You can get a great monitor controller from Dangerous Audio or Coleman. Bryston preamp's are very popular in the professional setting, as are PMC and Bowers & Wilkins monitors.

Check out the video from Boeing. At about position 0:42, you can see the CD drive open and the disk inside comes flying out of the tray!

The Taskbar and Start Menu have worked so well in the past, why change?

Perhaps the price might be a hint that it's worth less than previous versions..

I figure it's a legal liability issue. What if the NYT provides instructions for removing the adware, and if following those instructions create problems for some user(s)? NYT's legal team probably concluded that it'd create unnecessary legal exposure.

The culprit should not be NYT; it's the company that's spreading the adware.

An interesting thought experiment might be: what if TiVo replaced TV commercials with their own ad's..?

The wireless companies want a piece of the spectrum that's been reserved for professional audio (primarily wireless microphones). NAB had a good article about it last year: http://www.nab.org/documents/newsroom/pressRelease.asp?id=25...

It'd be cost-prohibitive to replace all of that pro. audio equipment. Think of all the wireless microphones, transmitters, receivers, etc. for a typically Broadway show with up to 100 performers. Now thing about government offices, news studios, etc. There's simply too much equipment to replace.

Do you really believe that, in the near future, people will download and use an app. for every single service they want to access? Yelp is one thing. What about news? Are you only going to read The New York Times? Or are you going to download the iOS app. of every single CBS/ABC/NBC/FOX affiliate in the U.S.?

People complain about how Google uses their personal data. But because of Google's dominant position, they have practically every eye on them, watching their every move. If everything were more decentralized, it would be much more difficult to determine who has your data and what they're doing with it. Think about the many recent unauthorized data breaches at Gawker, etc. Google's model makes sense. Their product is great. If Google can't earn enough revenue and goes bankrupt, do you really think you'll be better off than you are now? Google has helped to develop many of technologies that are critical to your favorite apps. Their innovations push the web forward, and we are lucky to have them.

Next, think about how Apple controls their "App Store". If all of the ad. revenue shifts to Apple, will we be better-off with them controlling which apps make it and which apps are "rejects"? What kind of novel, 'core' technologies has Apple ever freely shared with the Internet? I'm sick of people bashing Google all of the time… Do you remember Webcrawler? Do you want to go back to using that? Or ---god forbid--- Bing?

Lastly, the author of this article, "Eric Jackson, founder of Ironfire Capital", said pretty much the exact same thing about Facebook on June 4th of this year: http://www.cnbc.com/id/47674474/Facebook_Will_Disappear_in_5... Can anyone think of a reason why a talking head for a financial TV network would think twice before spewing bullshit? This guy probably sends pre-publication copies of his articles to friends who short the stocks on his 'hit list'…kinda like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Plotkin

I went through security at the Dayton airport last year. I refused the L3 "body scanner" (backscatter) machine. The TSA worker asked me why. I told him I thought it was an unnecessary risk. He laughed and basically told me that I was wrong, and that the machine poses no safety risk. But I still opted for the pat-down. Shortly thereafter, the TSA issued a recommendation that backscatter workers wear "radiation badges" to monitor their exposure. Never trust manufacturers of security products (like L3) on their word alone...

Give the people what they want! Dangerous drugs like nicotine and alcohol are readily-available to most citizens. Whereas, pain medications and stimulants are so tightly controlled that they drive honest people to the Internet to obtain the drugs they can't afford or their doctors are afraid to prescribe.

I'd suggest trying to get the email address and any other personal info. of the scammer. Tell them you have an office with 200 PC's and they're all infected. Tell them you want to buy their software for all of your PC's. Try to get bank wire/routing info or a mailing address to send payment. Then report to FTC, DHS, FBI, et al.

It depends on a few things...

-As mentioned earlier, how the mp3 was prepared, whether split or joint stereo encoding.

-The source of the instrumental version. If the source is vinyl, all bets are off. If the source is a proper "Instrumental Version", it would have been mastered from an identical mix but without vocals and vocal effects (ex. reverb), and with the exact same settings as the original master. That is how major labels typically do it --- if it's apparent that the album will be popular, they'll usually have an instrumental mix (and master) created at the same time. This is done because the label wants to have instrumental versions for later potential use in films, TV shows, award ceremonies, commercials, etc. It's much more expensive to go back and "recall" settings in order to "mix-down" instrumental versions. This usually requires hiring the original mix engineer or one of their assistants and renting the studio at which it was mixed. Many pieces of "analog" mixing gear are not "stepped" with repeatable settings. Analog gear also has differences between individual pieces of equipment, even if the same model. Equipment breaks, is sold or removed, and this makes the task of a recall that much more difficult. Recalling mastering settings isn't nearly as daunting, as mastering studios typically retain all of their equipment and keep it in working order. This means that good documentation is required, similar to the software development process. For many of your all-tim favorite albums, there exists binders full of charts, diagrams, and notes detailing microphone types and positioning in the room and relative to the instrument/speaker, channel assignments, mixing equipment settings, the type/speed/bias/etc. of tape, lyrics and notation, even the types and tuning of instruments. It's a very complex process to document and recreate.

Copyright and trademark are just tools to be used by those who can. Case in point --- Apple uses any music they want in their TV commercials and never pays to license it. Apparently, in their opinion, the artist deserves nothing more than the opportunity to benefit from increased exposure. I suppose that's why they pick more obscure music (CSS).

Another interesting point is that, for some time now, movie distributors have used the FBI seal without licensing it. But that seal sure makes the video piracy warning look official! http://www.sonnyboo.com/images/tips/FBI.jpg