Why then is it that there are no manufacturers who sell directly to customers? Or, put it another way, why do all manufactures have dealerships?

Just wondering...

Can someone now say this is any different compared to what happens in those "third-world" countries? Seriously!!

Now I believe the mantra, "It's who you know..."..."not how much you know or anything else..."

Let's agree that "poor" or otherwise, is subjective.

Now, let me say that I am a product of an educational system that many in the west despised when I came over. Guess what! I beat all of my classmates in their own mother tongue (English) and mathematics. In fact, I used to call it "chicken feed."

I still do some teaching now, but in all my classes, students from Asian and African education systems beat my native born Americans. This has been the case ALL the time.

One grammatical error I always hear goes as follows: "I would have went there..." Another one, "I have already ate..." I am no expert but this doesn't sound right. Or does it?

In my fiance's Journalism Class, three quarters of the students failed the English qualifying test administered in their own mother tongue! Reason: Poor English. Half the other quarter were from poor countries. I must say they changed courses later on as word spread that employment opportunities weren't that great.

Well I have a theory. I has help up in all circumstances I have observed over the few decades I have spent as a tax paying citizen.

When things are free, expected outcomes, which would generally benefit subject populations never materialize..."

I have a few examples:

1: Collapse of the Canadian cod fishery industry

2: The extreme stress experienced by the so called "socialist" medical care system wherever it can be found. Result will be failure inevitably.

3: The obvious poor quality elementary and post elementary pupils western countries produce compared to kids from the Asian subcontinent where monies paid by hard-working parents, or even students themselves.

4: Hunger in some so called underdeveloped countries where starvation is obvious in the midst of lush green vegetation.

Then we blame the so called "third world" when they "learn" this kind of behavior from us. Remember, we always have the "moral high ground."

No! Communication *can* be two or one way. It is two way in this case.

Right?

Google can argue that they've met the requirements of the law by providing a means for customers to communicate. No where in the law does it require Google to respond.

Since Germany is a democracy, they should change the law to achieve what the state really wants from entities like Google.

I wonder why all apps aren't available at once. I understand this App Runtime for Chrome akin to the Java RunTime, which when installed, would have all Java applications available. What am I [mis]understanding?

...with military characteristics...[or at least relevance].

Well, strictly speaking, I am talking about is its integrated programmable GUI script-able via Visual Basic.

Look, I am not saying that MS Access is all that great. All I am saying is that it does its job well; if an appropriate job is thrown at it. I will give you an example: My current project is to develop something that simply matches what vial type to use for a specific test plus costs involved depending on urgency/volume/customer type etc. There are thousands of metrics to be tested and some of them share vials. Basically, it is just a front end to read data off a union query.

Guess what: All logic was programmed on the form. From what entries to accept, what format of data e.g. SSN and zip codes, what options/buttons to enable/disable and when, error messages to throw at the user, billing and all sorts of conversions (read Celcius or Fahrenheit and figures to words). It's all beautiful in Access.

I will admit that one has to compact the DB from time to time for optimal operation, but this is something that can be automated.

People like you ignore a very important market, a market that you could later introduce what you think works better! Imagine such an approach.

In some of my work, I have created functions where I simply supply variable entries like customer names etc. At the end of it all, I would have a DB schema. One that I'd simply modify to meet my needs.

Open Source doesn't have anything close! Sad!!

Whereas I appreciate the beauty of OpenSource, I am yet to find a compelling MS Access equivalent in the Linux world. Yes, I know about Kexi, MariaDB, OpenOffice Base and the like.

But let's face it: There's nothing in the Linux world that can compare to MS Access. Nothing! I am not just trolling. I have developed hundreds small scale MS Access implementations for many clients.

VB, even with its quirks, does well. I would like a front-end, in which business logic can be programmed. Logic placed right there on the form...Logic and parameters that can be passed to the DB engine. Nothing friendly exists in Lunix, or should I say, "I haven't found one yet." Am I wrong?

Hundreds of millions of potential customers will have this technology on Apple's [single] platform. Keyword: "Single."

Now don't talk of Android because we know it's all fragmented.

Blackberry? Well, this is of no consequence.

Microsoft? It still doesn't matter.

Who else? Got your answer: Anyone cares about this? I doubt.

Yes, but Apple's gonna finally do it "right."

I am not surprised at all. Windows XP support ended long ago but still extensively used in the US government?

But guess what; we still take ourselves as the epitome of what/how technology should look like.