Publisher actually isn't a terrible page layout program. Sure, the earlier editions were pretty janky, but it really shaped up after 2007...and while the QuarkXpress and InDesign die hards still scoff at it, they're not the target demographic. The target demographic were office folks who needed something more than MS Word for flyers and other simple page layout tasks, but weren't going to learn the nuts and bolts of Quark or InDesign to make those things.

Infuriatingly, Publisher was only available as a standalone product, or as part of the Professional versions of Office; it wasn't included in the 'home' or 'standard' versions...and the folks who had the budget for Office Professional tended to have the budget for InDesign, too. Sure, MS bundled it with the subscription versions of Office, but that's after a decade of playing games with the availability. By then, there were alternatives.

Ultimately though, I think the reason Publisher is being retired isn't because of the application, it's the templates. To avoid everyone having same-y layouts, the design templates need to be rotated in, and doing so takes artistic development time. Meanwhile, Canva is the new darling product for the niche Publisher had, and Affinity Publisher is both inexpensive and perpetually licensed, making it a viable option, too. With there being less of a need for paper flyers by virtue of e-mail and social media, even Constant Contact ate into the Publisher install base.

Like most things, I'm sure it's still got its loyalists and its niche users, but I'm reasonably confident that 98% of the use cases for Publisher are adequately covered either by InDesign, Affinity, Canva, or Constant Contact. My only hope is that MS makes some sort of converter for .pub and .pubx files to be open in something else.

*sigh*

Because LEARNING and WORKING are two different tasks.

Learning is when a person does not understand what to do and is tasked with acquiring knowledge. Work is when a person does understand what to do and is tasked with implementing that knowledge. The latter is far easier to do remotely than the former, because the outcome of work is self-evident, but the outcome of learning is not.

Assuming that the curriculum is already set up for a primarily-Google-Classroom paradigm, on a subject that lends itself to self-pacing, with lessons already integrated into the online environment, where the intent for the current topic required neither group participation (beyond what IRC-with-attachments could provide) nor tangible objects...then yes, Google Classroom is great for remote learning.

For anything that requires an actual-teacher to actually-teach, it sucks. "Tell me and I'll forget, show me and I'll remember, involve me and I'll understand" doesn't stop being true because it's possible to conjure up test grades from the "show me and I'll remember" part. Then again, one might reasonably argue that the "involve me and I'll understand" part has been relegated to 'aspirational' status within modern education, rather than being treated as an expectation.

Well, I've been generally-satisfied with a tool called iMazing, which has way more functionality than iTunes did for shuffling data from iPhones and iPads.

iTunes definitely had its sore spots; it still shocks me that in all the years it did full device backups, that it never let users pick a custom folder or separate drive...the ONLY way to put backups on another drive was to create a symlink.

It sounds like they're still going to have some variant of the iTunes Media Store, but there are a number of movies and TV shows that are only purchasable through iTunes and don't have other one-time purchase options (Yes, a handful of us prefer that method, though the iTunes DRM for video content remains problematic).

iTunes also had a third party ecosystem around it; DJ software like Serato Scratch Live (and its sequel Serato DJ, as well as its offshoots 'Lite' and 'Itch') read the iTunes library file, which enabled playlists to be created in iTunes and turned into set lists seamlessly. Industry competitors Traktor, VirtualDJ, and Rekordbox also read iTunes playlists. Ironically enough, other media playback software also tried to ride the coattails - I had to laugh a bit when later versions of PowerDVD would import iTunes playlists; a part of me felt a little bit bad for Cyberlink as they had to attempt to 'innovate' on a media player that was the epitome of bloat.

Finally, not every use case involves an iPhone 15. I still have an ancient iPod Touch that has a 30-pin dock connector...whose job is to play songs on my alarm clock that also has a 30-pin dock connector. Props to Apple that, although they kept a lot of the bad legacy code in there (the aforementioned Symlink thing), iTunes still rips CDs and still syncs with old iPods.

As for me, I never really liked iTunes; its insistence on abstracting away the file system, rather than integrating with it, made all of my attempts to use it feel like I needed to trick the software into doing what I wanted, rather than it actually doing what I wanted...but in terms of backing up and migrating data from one iPhone to another, *that* job it still does wonderfully.

And, half of the company will be purchased by Mark Zuckerburg, causing it to enter the Metaphase.

this is Slashdot, so:

0.) I'm assuming you're not using an LTE service or something else that uses CGNAT.
1.) Get a dynamic dns address from no-ip or duckdns.
get an old desktop / refurb desktop / raspberry Pi.
2.) Install DietPi (https://dietpi.com/). During the install, add Docker-CE, Docker-Compose, and Portainer, and give it a static IP.
3.) Upon completion of the install, type 'dietpi-ddns' and configure your dynamic dns address.
4.) Use this to setup Portainer (https://www.howtogeek.com/devops/how-to-get-started-with-portainer-a-web-ui-for-docker/).
5.) Use this to set up wg-easy (https://github.com/wg-easy/wg-easy). You can either do the CLI-only method, or the parameters listed there within Portainer. Make sure to change the "WG_HOST" variable to your dynamic DNS address, and "PASSWORD" to something useful.
6.) Port Forward 51820 and 51821 TCP/UDP to your DietPi server.
7.) On your phone/laptop, Install the Wireguard client (https://www.wireguard.com/install/).
8.) log into http://yourdynamicip.com:58121... (yes, it's regular http) using the password you made in step 5. Create a new profile for your particular device.
9.) Download the .conf file and import it into Wireguard on your device.
10.) Un-forward 51821, leaving only 51820 forwarded.

Congratulations, in about 3 hours (if you're not really experienced) or 15 minutes (if you dream in docker-compose), you've got a full tunnel VPN that will ensure ANY device you have a config file on will route all its traffic through your home when you're away, avoiding this entire problem.

Is it crap that it's necessary? Yes. But it works.

The problem with this oversimplification is that the presenting of facts can be inherently biased. Doing per-person interviews with people who have been victims of racial crime in cities is going to yield very different responses than interviewing people who have no personal experience, even though both testimonies would be factual. Getting statistics from border states vs. inland states can both be factual while painting two different stories. Getting information from wrongfully-arrested immigrants will tell one story, getting information from victims of crime perpetrated by immigrants will tell another. Writing a story that's a firsthand account of ER nurses in 2020-2022 will tell one story, a story told from a group who lost their livelihoods due to a vaccine mandate will tell another.

The 'activism' element of it is the selection of the data, both regarding what is included, and what is not. It is entirely possible to have the very kind of story you're claiming to want, which validates a narrative

Yes...because he went to pretty great lengths to remain actually-neutral, something that neither Fox News nor MSNBC seem terribly interested in doing. Arguably Cronkite's most famous moment in his entire run was when he announced JFK's assassination, because he choked up when he heard the news - it was, quite possibly, the *only* time he was on air where his opinion was known to the audience, because the rest of the time, he respected his audience enough to present an array of facts and let the audience decide how to respond.

The question being asked by the GP is whether the free journalism school will seek to instill the neutrality, and the willingness to present uncomfortable investigation results, that's needed for good journalism. A journalist with integrity will be equally willing to publish an article that indicates that immigrants improve the local economy, as they are to publish an article that immigrants are a net negative on the economy. A journalist with integrity will be as willing to publish an article regarding the positive effects of sex education on STDs and abortion rates, as they are to publish an article indicating that sex ed is damaging toward relationships. A journalist with integrity would be as willing to publish an article on the effectiveness of mass vaccinations on reducing Covid deaths, as they are to publish an article on the chilling effects of the lockdowns and mandates.

Since, in my cursory attempts to figure out the highest registered UID, I hit 4500571, that puts you in the top 20% of UIDs. It'd be nice if pretty much everyone over 2000000 wasn't a bot, but strictly speaking even my lowly seven-digit UID is in the 31st percentile.

Even if we stop counting at 2000000, my account is 16 years old, meaning that seven-digit IDs have been part of Slashdot for almost twice as long a duration of Slashdot's existence than the part that came before. Yours is likely twenty years old or older.

I'd be interested in seeing the sign-up stats, but while it's always fun to see the handful of 1/2/3/4-digit UID folks who still pop in, the fact of the matter is that time is a funny thing as it progresses.

SELECT Business_Name FROM * ORDER BY "Quarterly_AdSense_Spend" DESC, Distance;

This is the case *for now*. When they first started the crackdown, you're right - they probably targeted the top 10% - folks who strategically shared their credentials with ten people in different time zones so that it'd be unlikely that they would exceed four concurrent streams, but clearly a demographic who was likely not profitable for Netflix anyway, so there may have been at least *some* understanding that there was an excess involved.

With those people gone or separately-subscribed, there was a new "top 10%" - people who were likely part of a small co-op where one person paid for Netflix, another for D+, and another for Hulu, where all three enjoyed three services for the price of one. That was probably a part of the draw for the higher tiers, and these people were likely the most adversely affected by the crackdowns, and so now *those* people have either subscribed or done-without.

With them gone, Netflix (and Hulu, per TFA) needs a new "top 10%"...and eventually, you and your mother (as with me and my mother) will be in that top-10%, where one-off sharing with a blood relative who isn't likely to pay for the service themselves, will end up reducing subscriber counts more than it improves them.

Holy crap, this.

I sorely miss the days when it was possible to upgrade the dash unit every few years. My previous car, a Toyota Corolla, did a good-enough job with its Bluetooth integration, but it didn't do Carplay or Android Auto...and instead of spending $400 and an afternoon on a stereo that did Carplay, I instead would have had to spend a fortune on a unit that fit that dashboard specifically.

Car manufacturers' excuse to abandon the single-DIN/double-DIN interchangeable unit with difficult-to-replace stereos was because of the backup cameras...because apparently standardizing on an SDI output from the backup camera and a serial control port to prompt the unit to display it when entering 'reverse' was too problematic.

Really, the issue is that it was right around that time that the features of the head unit became easy upsells, as well as product differentiators - Ford's 'Sync' partnership with Microsoft went over like a pork roast at a Bar Mitzvah, but the hope was that Sync was supposed to be a purchase consideration that differentiated Ford from its competitors. Though Sync was ill-fated, GM is, oddly, trying the same thing with its new vehicles by doing a first party solution, rather than integrating with Apple or Google...and giving end users the option to easily swap it out with a Kenwood/Alpine/Pioneer deck of their choosing means they can't enforce post-purchase monetization the way they want.

Let me get this straight: People buy inexpensive phones to make private phone calls at Wal-Mart, and those private phone calls commonly involve illegal activity...and it's both the burner phones that are the problem, and Wal-Mart's job to solve it?

Greendot cards are prepaid credit cards, commonly used to make online purchases by people with low credit, are given as gifts, and are sold at dozens of retailers...and like cash, are sometimes used for fraud, money laundering, and other problematic purposes...but it's both the Greendot cards that are the problem, and Wal-Mart's job to solve it?

Ultimately, you're right - Wal-Mart *shouldn't* give a single crap about how their goods are used. They sell matches which are used to light stoves and burn houses down. They sell rope which is used to move furniture and to strangle. They sell bleach which is used to clean and to poison. They sell box cutters which are used to unpack shipments and to cause bleeding. They sell spray paint which is used to beautify and to vandalize.

I rarely shop at Wal-Mart and have very few nice things to say about the company or its owners...but holding retailers responsible for how their products are used is a grossly unfair expectation of any seller.

Exactly this...and I see *nothing* but cons.

For the sake of argument, let's assume that they actually will hold up their end of the bargain. Users *must* create an account in order to ensure that they pay the subscription fee, and the phone *must* enforce the termination of the "Apostrophy Services" if the subscription is terminated. Only the main website linked even addresses the "what if I don't pay the subscription" question, and they're pretty coy about what the "Apostrophy Services" are. If they're basically emulating the Blackberry Information Service model where *everything* goes through those servers, the phone may be useless without a subscription, based on how the FAQ is worded.

Next up, they charge $15/month and they have a "submit a ticket" system. European users might be fine, but US-based users are going to find it difficult to get support. My experience with ticket-based support when the helpdesk is least six hours ahead is that a ticket exchange that could have been a 30-minute phone call can take a week of ticket exchanges to perform. That's a lot of potential down time when a company is charging 50% more than either Google or Apple does for their respective subscriptions. Their website also says they have repair services for screens and batteries...but does that mean I can have those parts shipped to me and I have to do the repairs myself, or am I mailing a broken phone to Switzerland and waiting weeks for a turnaround?

Finally, they're taking preorders based on a nicely designed website and a CES demo. I've seen plenty of similar promises; I'm remembering the "Freedom Phone" from a year or two ago..which *is* shipping now, but it's changed its OS and feature listing multiple times.

But really, the best reason why this won't go anywhere is because I just don't think there's a market, in practice. Carriers are unlikely to sell it in stores, and it's pretty obvious this company won't be running Super Bowl ads...but we'll assume that by magic, everyone hears about this phone and can order one easily.
--iPhone users won't leave the comfort of Facetime and iMessage for privacy, so you'd have to convince the Android crowd to switch.
--A large portion of the Android crowd actually *likes* the Google integration and is *happy* to trade their privacy for the Google ecosystem, so you'll never get them to pay for the inconvenience.
--There's the the "I barely understand my phone" crowd (i.e. the probably-should-have-an-iPhone-but-doesn't demographic) who would find it too much hassle to actually implement the Apostrophy functionality, and again, won't pay for it.

This leaves the enthusiast crowd who *actually* cares and is willing to make the tradeoffs needed to get the desired amount of privacy. They're already running Calyx or GrapheneOS...but Punkt's argument is that the real draw are the Apostrophy Services. To that end, there's /e/OS. They offer the vast majority of the Apostrophy services for free, or a pittance depending on desired storage (which Apostrophy conveniently sidesteps discussing). Now, the *real* selling point for /e/OS over Apostrophy is that the server/cloud syncing components of /e/OS can be self-hosted. The nonprofit organization provides an installer script that allows end users to install the server components on their own hardware, for free, with all the source available on Gitlab, with the phone OS component being available for dozens of phones.

So, if Punkt can't strike a deal with the carriers, and they can't convince the iPhone crowd to switch, and they can't convince the Google-dependent userbase to start caring about privacy, and they have no history of upholding users' right to privacy (even Protonmail has a better track record), and they want more money than the big companies for nebulous 'services' and a ticket-based helpdesk, and their competition are well established, free alternatives, including a nonprofit organization that has visible source code for its server software that they enable users to self-host....I can't imagine the market for this device being more than a few hundred at most.

...Google Maps might suck, but there are plenty of other apps. Here WeGo is free and excellent, Sygic GPS has occasional issues with similar street names in neighboring towns, but is more than serviceable and has actual tech support.

Android Auto itself is a fairly decent platform, but you're right - keep the infrastructure, ditch the Google apps.

So, i too have given considerable thought to Sears, and how it seems obvious in retrospect that they could have been Amazon. I'd submit a few points that go beyond 'thick-headed managers who couldn't see the future'...

1. In fairness, I agree that the Sears Catalog, and the traditional order-by-mail model could have been kept as an online thing - browsing and searching, with the result being a printout of the order forms that then ultimately got mailed. That likely would have been a good move, but they discontinued the Sears Catalog in 1993...the same year AOL went public. Internet access was still a rare novelty at best. Moving the catalog online, and having the handful of people who *did* have an internet capable PC browse it on their 28.8k modems, probably was not the market size that would have justified the expense.

2. Sears was in the middle of an overall shakeup at the time; the 'buy once, cry once' market that Sears catered to (Craftsmen tools and Whirlpool appliances were legendary for both being expensive and lasting decades until the end when they cheapened both) was being upended by Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and JC Penney, all of whom beat Sears in price in exchange for longevity. Consumer preference was shifting from "having a $3,000 stove that lasts a lifetime" to "having a new $800 stove every few years", and Sears wasn't in a great place to make that shift. At the same time, Sears was shifting to being more of a real estate company than an actual department store, and it was the real estate investments that helped Sears last as long as it did.

3. Even if Sears waited until 'the time was right' to become an online retailer...they still have the problem of getting people to shop online. There were some enthusiasts who were willing to roll the dice on eBay ("that worldwide garage sale", as Weird Al so eloquently put it), but it really was Amazon that made buying online with a credit card something people were willing to do. The thing is, when Amazon first started, they weren't an everything-storefront. They sold books. They sold books *cheap*. They used their venture capital money to sell $29.99 books for $17.99. They grew as fast as they did *because* they spent the first several years putting every cash infusion into subsidizing purchases for customers. When Amazon started, people were still wary about shopping online. As time progressed, and credit card companies added in Cashback/Airline Miles rewards incentives while *also* adding fraud protection...it was only then that buying things online became mainstream. Sears couldn't have done the same thing, because they simply were too established to subsidize online purchases the way Amazon did.

4. The internet is the way it is now because a whole lot of things were disrupted at the same time. It's incredibly easy to look back and say "see how Sears was in the perfect place to shift to eCommerce?"...but if it were that obvious, then why was IBM's Google Glass predecessor as much of a complete dud as Google's attempt decades later? Amazon's Just Walk Out grocery store idea was also thought of by IBM in the 90's, and neither of those multibillion dollar companies, each of whom spent a fortune on the development, were able to make that work, either.

It's 1993, and you're in charge of Sears. You're already straddled with debt from your real estate hedging, and you've got Wal-Mart fueling consumer shifts away from your business model. A genie comes to you and gives you a coin to toss. Heads, you bet the farm on eCommerce and win, ensuring Sears' dominance of the 21st century reflects their dominance of the 20th. Tails, you bet the farm on eCommerce and it works just as well as the IBM ideas that didn't work then an didn't work now, and you go down in history as the CEO who sank the unsinkable ship. Are you flipping that coin, or are you going to try and weather the storm?