| Should Microsoft buy Yahoo? |
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About 75% of those who voted said yes. Several offered interesting name combinations such as MicroHoo, MaHoo and Yahsoft. Sample Comments include: It's the only way to counter the Google juggernaut Is Yahoo still a player? I haven't been there in years.
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| | Vista Adoption |
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About 45% of those who voted are running Windows Vista on at least one PC. That's not a very good adoption for technical people and a not-so-new-anymore OS. Sample Comments include: I have Vista because it came on my new laptop. Not my choice. Windows XP does all I need so why go through the upgrade hassle and expense? Vista's enhanced security has already saved our small company a few major (and potentially expensive) problems.
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| | Holiday Shopping |
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Good for you. As expected, most of those who voted in this Great Lakes Geek poll did at least half of their holiday shopping online. Sample Comments include: I haven't been to a mall in years Hhhm. Fight the traffics and crowds for a limited and expensive selection or get better and cheaper from my desk. A no brainer!
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| | What's Inside? |
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Do you care what brand CPU is inside? Most of the Great Lakes Geek voters do not. 58% of you said you don't care if it's an Intel or AMD CPU. 31% said they need to have Intel inside while the rest (11%) demand AMD. Sample Comments include: All about the Quad Core. Intel FSB is faster blowing AMD in the dust! The PC is now a commodity tool. I don't care what's inside my dishwasher, why worry about the CPU? I buy CPUs for price and memory for performance.
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| | Wired Visitors? |
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What's the longest you've gone without e-mail in the last year? Great Lakes Geek voters are a wired bunch. 64% of you said you were never more than hours away from checking e-mail last year. 34% said they were without e-mail for a day or more and 2% lasted more than 1 week Sample Comments include: My Blackberry is like a third arm. It's always with me. I am in charge of support so I am constantly checking mail. My wife hid my Treo on vacation and I had to sneak off to a library to check webmail.
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| | Apple all Hype? |
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With the iPhone, iPod and award winning commercials, some have claimed that Apple is better at marketing itself and its products than in producing technology. What do you think? 83% of you voted that Apple is better at Marketing than Technology Sample comments include: [They] sell the sizzle, just make an average steak. Their technology backs up their marketing There's a reason they are about 2% of the market, despite award-winning commercials and marketing.
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| | How do you rate Women in IT (in general)? |
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If we just look at the votes as a whole and do not separate by gender (assuming the voter provided that) the results are as follows:
84% said Women are about the same as Men in general and the other 16% was split by Women are better and Women are worse. Of those that provided their sex (by far mostly males) the only votes saying Women are better came from Women and the only votes saying Women are worse came from Men. Duh. Like I really needed a survey to determine this. Sample comments include: Female, so biased. But I think think that our communication skills make us better teachers and user training is SO important in IT. Women also tend to be more open minded which is a big plus when it comes to troubleshooting. I have yet to see a female engineer have the broad range of knowledge and experience as the average male. I don't care if the work gets done by a Martian. I just need it done right and have seen good and bad men and women.
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| | Have you upgraded to Windows Vista yet? |
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Not Yet - 57%
At least One PC - 28%
All my PCs - 11%
Never Will - 4% Sample comments include: I am not upgrading but when I buy new, it's Vista. Have Vista at home but not work yet - not on production machines yet. Let others be the pioneers - I will wait for Service Pack 1 at least
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| | After 29 Years, InfoWorld has stopped print publication and gone digital. How do you prefer your trade news? |
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Most of you (55%) still prefer a hard copy, print publication. E-mail and web sites were about tied for 2nd and RSS feeds were chosen by only 5% of respondents. It will be interesting to see how this changes in a year. Sample comments include: I just can't get used to reading a lot of text on a screen yet. Reading on the web lets me follow links and copy/paste instead of having to highlight or take notes for later. I do my reading in the bathroom - enough said.
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| | What do you use your MP3 player for? |
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Hhhhm. The Geek is a little surprised at these results. 52% of respondents do NOT own an MP3 player. 40% of you use your player for music and podcasts while 8% use it just for music. (Wise-guy) Comments included:
Still use a Sony Walkman cassette! GRIN
These mp3's you speak of - are they high in carbs?
I'm hooked. My Zune goes everywhere with me.
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| | CompUSA is closing both NEO stores. What does that mean to you? |
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You were all or nothing on this one. Nobody selected B - "Some - I occasionally stop in when in a pinch" 62% said it doesn't mean anything while the other 38% said it will mean a lot - they go their often. Comments included:
It was always empty
I haven't been to CompUSA in years.
With Internet delivery (no tax and often no shipping, why go to a store?
I often stopped in when I needed a part quickly. Now I will have to wait a few days for delivery or see what MicroCenter has.
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| | Is the floppy disk obsolete? |
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98% of you said Yep. Hallelujah.
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| | Consumer Reports says MickeyD's has the best Coffee. What do you prefer? |
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McDonalds - 48%
Starbucks - 23%
Dunkin Donuts - 22%
Other (BK, Phoenix, Arabica, Caribou) - 7% Amazing. The same question asked a few years ago would have McDonalds ranked about 20th.
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| | Have you ever illegally downloaded a movie? |
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Yes - 0%
No - 100%
OK, you are all saints (or good liars ) and it was a stupid question anyway I guess. (Though I would still like to get a good percentage answer on this.)
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| | Would Bill Gates make a good president? |
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Yes - 34%
No - 66%
Sample Comments:
1) Good God, no!
2) Hanson - Coppedge '08
3) Then Windows would be law of the land! But we've had worse
4) He has brains, organizational skills and a charitable side - we could do worse.
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| | When will you upgrade to Windows Vista? |
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Upon Launch - 24%
After Service Pack 1 - 42%
Not Sure - 28%
Never - 6%.
Sample Comments:
1) We already upgraded - been running the beta
2) From what I've read it's not much of an "upgrade".
3) If the hardware requirements (video especially) are as stated - not till we replace PCs
4) My Ubuntu Linux is all I need
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| | Domain Names Owned |
| IE 7 or Firefox 2? |
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Most of you who answered have already tried both Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2.0 Not surprising from Great Lakes Geek visitors.
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| | Domain Names Owned |
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Most of you who answered own 6 or more domain names. It could be skewed results though since nobody answered they didn't own any.
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| | Great Lakes Geek History |
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About 20 of you knew who Zbig Tyrlik was (founder of APK) and about 25 knew that Tom Grundner was founder of the Cleveland Freenet.
And yes, many of you pointed out the trouble Tom got into for having bad pictures on his PC.
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| Is their Ageism in the IT World?
Yes: 97%
No: 3%
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Sample Comments:
1) They don't want to even look at your resume after 40
2) Sometimes it's subtle but it's out there.
3) Let some of these young hotshots try coding without all these visual tools and scripts
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| Do you Defrag Your Hard Drives?
Yes: 82%
No: 18%
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Sample Comments:
1) Yes it cleans up the system when adding and deleting files occurs frequently.
2) Yes - it's more than feel good
3) No and I've never noticed a difference when I did defrag.
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Do you have Wi-Fi set up at home or office?
Home: 35%
Office: 0%
Both: 65%
Neither: 0%
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Sample Comments:
1) We are not allowed to have wi-fi in the office
2) I don't need it at home - my neighbor has it. ;-)
3) Both - It's the only way to work.
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Do you regularly use any Open Source software?
Yes: 25%
No: 75%
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Sample Comments:
1) Is this a trick question? I don't use Linux but I do use Google, etc which are all on open source platforms
2) Sure - Gnome is a lot less expensive than Photoshop
3) No. I need to be able to pick up the phone and get support.
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Is Internet Explorer your main browser?
Yes: 65%
No: 35%
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Sample Comments:
1) I love Firefox
2) Been playing with IE7 in beta and like it a lot
3) You mean the browser isn't a core part of the OS? ;-)
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Have you posted to or read a blog in the last 3 days?
Yes: 89%
No: 11%
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Sample Comments:
1) More like the last 3 hours
2) I read some but don't have my own though I am considering it.
3) I've been a lurker for awhile and occasionally leave comments. There are several blogs that I read every day like I used to read the newspaper.
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Are you in favor of residency laws for police and fire fighters? Example: Should a Cleveland police officer have to live in the city of Cleveland?
Yes: 23%
No: 77%
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Sample Comments:
1) I was a firefighter/paramedic for another city. The administration required police to live within 20 miles of the city borders but required firefighters to live within 5 miles because they didn't want to staff the fire department appropriately. Let's see a survey on municipal income taxes. Should cities where people work but not live be restricted to taxing non-resident workers a fixed percentage of residents? Residents have homes, etc. that the city has to protect and provide services for 100% of the time, yet non-resident workers are taxed the same. There's 168 hours per week. 9 hours a day for 5 days = 45 hours. 45/168 = 26.8%. Let's see if people think cities should be limited to taxing non-resident workers at 30% of what they charge residents.
2) I assume you mean Cleveland. If police and fire didn't have to live there, they would leave - to the detriment of the City. So the laws are needed.
3) You would get more and better workers if they could live wherever they wanted to.
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New software enables Intel-based Macs to run Windows XP natively. Do you care?
Yes: 43%
No: 57%
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Sample Comments:
1) Jim Cookinham writes "Now there is no reason not to have a Mac"
2) Mac's are less than 4% of the market for a reason. Adding XP to it won't erase all the other problems
3) We may add a couple more Macs if we know we can run our Windows software on them.
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Is it OK to use someone's wireless access without them knowing it?
Once or Twice: 16%
OK to use regularly: 25%
Not OK: 59% | | Sample Comments:
1) I have been known to use the neighbor's wifi if mine went out. But, only on occasion and only when truly necessary.
2) With all the illegal activity going on via the internet I would not be happy is someone was using my internet without me knowing.
3) The new wifi ettiquette that came from a beer discussion at the first national summit of community wireless networks was that if the ssid of an unsecured access point is the out-of-the-box default, such as linksys, 2wire, default, etc; then we should bypass connecting. If however a unique or personal ssid is on an unsecure access point, go right ahead and connect. The logic is that if the owner knows enough to change the ssid name, then they know enough to set a WEP key. It infers that the owner is willing to share bandwidth. We also concluded that if we can find who the owner of the default AP is, we as responsible geeks should let them know they have an open spot and offer to show them how to secure it, if they wish.
I agree with you Dan, the privilege of using OPN (other peoples network) is one that we should enjoy responsibly and not to abuse with spamming, pron video, and other large resource hogging downloads. We don't want to lose the ubiquity of free wifi, do we?
Steve Goldberg
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| What do you think of the name change from OneCleveland to OneCommunity?
Like It: 13%
Don't Like It: 87% | |
Sample Comments:
1) While I understand the reason, it still seems like a bad choice.
2) There is no other city that would give up it's name like that.
3) OneCommunity sounds like a touchy-feely movement from the 60's. Why can't Cleveland get a little credit. Didn't it start as a Cleveland project?
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