OT: The yearly gasp over technology improvements... (changed from low traffic)

[Fairlight]

On Fri, Aug 13, 2004 at 05:32:08AM -0400, after drawing runes in goat's blood,
John Esak cast forth these immortal, mystical words:
> 
> CompUSA (and a couple others like Circuit City and Best Buy, etc.) is/are
> exactly the wrong place to go for anything. I've seen some stuff that would
> just blow your mind. A 50' (50 foot!!!) network patch cable for $79. Are you
> reading this carefully... $79!!!!!!  These cables are $9 and such online...

I believe it.  The problem is store hours.  Sometimes the only thing for it
is to hit there, as we can -just- make CompUSA's 9pm closing, but a 6pm to
the other place is just not going to happen usually.  Same reason we end up
having to trek across town to Wal*Mart at 3am--because Target a mile away
closed at 10pm.  Thankfully the latter will be rectified within a year, as
they're building a Wal*Mart pretty much right in front of the Target here,
which I'm sure will fold soon thereafter.  They've already torn down the
mall to do it, and have started construction.

I'll give inCompetantUSA (my pet name for the place--ever try and get help
from one of the minimum-wage sales drones there...forget me being a
consultant, my computer-inept father knows more than some of these kids)
credit though--when we thought the DI-624 was diving and I had to RMA it, I
did look into just buying a new one--D-Link themselves price the RMA
deposit at $150 if you don't return the old one.  CompUSA only charges $100
for the unit.

Aside from a few small shoppes, unless I just don't know where the right
places are in this town, we have a dearth of non-chain computer stores.
Finding SCSI in this town is like trying to get a non-country concert to
come here.  (No offense, Bob...longtime gripe of mine that to see most
non-country bands that -aren't- ones that hit -every- major city [ie.,
Britney Spears, who I'd -never- go see], you have to drive to either
Cincinatti or Indianapolis, pretty much.  The last big name tour I remember
hitting here was Jethro Tull playing The Palace in 2000.  Before that,
Queensryche in '95 at the Gardens.  This city is constantly bypassed by
nearly everyone.  But the same thing seems to hold to computer hardware,
and sometimes even software.  I know of a few places to go to for various
things that are a bit more rare, but by and large some things like SCSI are
really, really hard to come by anymore, and have been for five years.

> Why anyone goes into the big stores is beyond me. The only time Rick and I
> go there is if we are desperate for something that minute... and then we
> just have to bite the bullet and knowingly bend over.

Since that's usually the time I have to end up buying, well...pass the KY
please.  :-/

> the pocket was with "other" stuff at the time.  Amazing. I just put our
> entire Accounting, Order Entry, Inventory, etc., etc., I mean everything...
> along with filePro (both Unix and Windows) on this 256mb device. I can take
> it anywhere and run it "on-the-device". The only thing I'm missing are our
> archive files... big deal.  This technology is just getting more and more
> amazing and more and more useful every day.

And imagine it falling out of your pocket and being available to anyone
that plugs it in, being totally unencrypted and such.  Or do they have such
protections?  You'd think they should have a filesystem that requires PEM
passphrase authentication to be able to mount it or something, specifically
for use like this.

With the problems we've had with Los Alamos, you'd think people would worry
even more about little things like this.  :)

> P.S. - Still, the latest best rewards are happening in the wireless area.

And Belkin just announced 802.11n, which will offer 4x the performance of
802.11g, as well as boost performance of non "n" devices..

> like $499... Nope, $144!!!!  Yikes I said, send me two!!!  He says oops,
> sorry sir, I forgot to tell you I can't get the price any lower than the
> $144 because there is a $50 rebate going on now!  I nearly fell off the
> chair. This printer is going to cost me $94... and people are complaining
> about the economy???  :-)

And at those prices, it makes more sense to buy a new printer when your ink
runs out than it does to buy a new cartridge.  Especially if you print
heavily, then why not get a new printer and a whole new MTBF time period?

As for the economy...price of commodity goods can fall as far as it
likes--it doesn't generate more jobs or create additional discretionary
income.  Bill Vermillion and I had an interesting discussion on the phone
last night about various industries taking hits in revenue as others are in
ascendance.  People only have so much discretionary (or even business)
income, and everyone needs to try and get in on that slice.  

> (yes, yes, I know different aspects of the economy are not so good, even
> horrible I guess if you've just lost a job, etc. But, on the whole, with the
> single exception of gasoline, the consumer is getting one helluva bang for
> his buck these days.  Now, if we could only do this in medical care, water
> supply and musical instruments... :-)

Oh, I get bitten by replying inline again.  :)  *amused sigh*  Yes, I agree
wholeheartedly on the last three.  :)

Bang for the buck has certainly increased.  I don't dispute that.  It's a
matter of people running out of ammo in the first place that's problematic.

mark->
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