# Signs of a company in decline



## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

Notwithstanding the terrible market conditions today, this company has been slipping. I made some good money on it many years ago. Glad I got out then.

Research In Motion Stock


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

That's the Blackberry dudes?

Why the long decent? I thought every second person was using a "Crackberry"

Was it since Apple became available in Canada?


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## keto (May 23, 2006)

Sad story for me. I bought 50 shares on the way down, around 27.50. I was driving home last week on the day they were to announce earnings after the bell. I made a quick stop at a client's that was optional. Rushed home, got home like 2 min before market close with the intention of selling but my computer was too slow to boot LOL. Wish I hadn't stopped at the client, I was in and out in about 5 min and could have got out a couple bucks ahead. I still think it will come back from where it is - heck, it's only trading <5x forward earnings and they have huge growth still happening in emerging markets. But I may be sitting on a losing position for a little while. If I were in 'buy and hold' mode, I still think there's good value and would buy more at this level.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

The business world is dropping Blackberry in droves.


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

Ahhh, got it.

:thanks5qx:


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## washburned (Oct 13, 2006)

I doubt they are finished. They will bounce back with better products. Buy low, sell high.


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## 4345567 (Jun 26, 2008)

__________


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## Guest (Sep 23, 2011)

washburned said:


> I doubt they are finished. They will bounce back with better products. Buy low, sell high.


I agree. They're down, but not out. Their install base is still absolutely massive. And despite Apple's attempts to make the iPhone business-friendly (good support for remote management, security, IT-friendly flashing/setup/control, and top-notch integration with Exchange) it's still not as good as what RIM offers with corporate BlackBerry packages. The iPhone is still a consumer device, adapted for corporate means. The BlackBerry is the complete opposite of that: a corporate device adapted for consumers.


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

I have several hundred shares in RIM (you don't want to know what I paid for them...I hate to think of grown men crying). PLEASE keep posting positive thoughts/information about RIM.....I need this for mental health reasons....LOL

Cheers

Dave


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

For a number of years, here in Ottawa, you could have sworn that the principle business lines of Corel, Cognos, Systemhouse, Mitel, Mosaid, JDS Uniphase, and Nortel was *not* whatever the heck they made and sold, but their shares. That's all some folks seem to know about them. They could have customers and sales up the wazoo, but all people seem to want to know is "_What are the shares doing_?".

RIM makes a good product. In fact they make many good products. Unfortunately, their investors HAVE to have some kind of magical mystical assurances that the company will expand and inevitably conquer the universe, rip any competing product out of the hands and stick a Blackberry in the mitts of anything that walks upright or is confined to a gurney or wheelchair. As far as investors are concerned, if it ain't constantly expanding, they don't want to know about it. The very idea of a decent business of fixed size, with sustainable revenues, is anathema to the contemporary investor. Every one of these putzes thinks they're a banker.

This is why I do not invest in ANYTHING. If I could reclaim everything that is forcibly taken from me for investment purposes, like pension contributions, I surely would. It's a stupid stupid game, and emblematic of how wealth has become nearly entirely divorced from productivity. The disconnect between indices of wealth and productivity are one of the many reasons why nations are crippled when it comes to developing sound economic and social policies for their citizens: because the measures they use are essentially meaningless and cut off from reality for the majority of citizens.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

mhammer said:


> For a number of years, here in Ottawa, you could have sworn that the principle business lines of Corel, Cognos, Systemhouse, Mitel, Mosaid, JDS Uniphase, and Nortel was *not* whatever the heck they made and sold, but their shares. That's all some folks seem to know about them. They could have customers and sales up the wazoo, but all people seem to want to know is "_What are the shares doing_?".
> 
> RIM makes a good product. In fact they make many good products. Unfortunately, their investors HAVE to have some kind of magical mystical assurances that the company will expand and inevitably conquer the universe, rip any competing product out of the hands and stick a Blackberry in the mitts of anything that walks upright or is confined to a gurney or wheelchair. As far as investors are concerned, if it ain't constantly expanding, they don't want to know about it. The very idea of a decent business of fixed size, with sustainable revenues, is anathema to the contemporary investor. Every one of these putzes thinks they're a banker.
> 
> This is why I do not invest in ANYTHING. If I could reclaim everything that is forcibly taken from me for investment purposes, like pension contributions, I surely would. It's a stupid stupid game, and emblematic of how wealth has become nearly entirely divorced from productivity. The disconnect between indices of wealth and productivity are one of the many reasons why nations are crippled when it comes to developing sound economic and social policies for their citizens: because the measures they use are essentially meaningless and cut off from reality for the majority of citizens.


I get some of what you are saying. But bottom line is RIM and Blackberry are in trouble. The others have now caught up and in many ways surpassed them. Just take a quick look at the stats for just this forum. Apple products would include iPhone, iPad, iPod etc. 

It is clearly the choice for most people that are browsing this forum via a handheld device. This is a snapshot of the last month or so.


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## Guest (Sep 23, 2011)

I hate to point out the obvious: but all the chart shows is how popular devices are for browsing this specific forum. Any inferences you make from it related to the popularity of the devices over all are...well...hard to back up with that data.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

iaresee said:


> I hate to point out the obvious: but all the chart shows is how popular devices are for browsing this specific forum. Any inferences you make from it related to the popularity of the devices over all are...well...hard to back up with that data.


Do you think that these people are using another device to browse another forum or website? What they use here is what they use, period. The data shows very clearly what people are using to view content via a handheld device.

In terms of RIM they made their money on business accounts, not on the general consumer. But there was also nothing else out there and even RIM did not have apps for a long time. The problem for them is there are a lot of devices out there that can compete now. They do what RIM used to do and a lot more. I am not suggesting that RIM will go under. But they are clearly not going to be what they once were. 

I used both of them. Had Blackberry's for years through work. I have had the iPhone now for about 4 years. I find the iPhone to be a superior product. I still refuse to pay Apple what they want for their computers, but for the iPhone, I am in.

This graph shows the increase in mobile device traffic to GC. October last year through March. I lost a bunch of data in March so it dips, but its still steadily increasing and will continue as more and more people use mobile devices for the internet. But notice the steady increase. This is the market that these people are competing for. This is where RIM needs to catch up.


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

mhammer said:


> This is why I do not invest in ANYTHING. If I could reclaim everything that is forcibly taken from me for investment purposes, like pension contributions, I surely would. It's a stupid stupid game........


With all due respect, I started investing about 12 years ago. Had I not done this, I would not likely have been able to retire until I reached 107 years of age. I have been reasonably aggressive with investing (with the help of a broker), but have moved to more safety as time progresses. Interest and dividends pulled me through the 2008 decline.

I made money with RIM in the early days ...it was the second or third stock that I purchased and sold. 

Cheers

Dave


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## 4345567 (Jun 26, 2008)

__________


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## Guest (Sep 23, 2011)

GuitarsCanada said:


> Do you think that these people are using another device to browse another forum or website?


Yes.



> What they use here is what they use, period. The data shows very clearly what people are using to view content via a handheld device.


This is not true.

Case in point: I browse the forum with an iPhone, Chrome on a Mac, Chrome on a XP machine and an iPad.

And again, it only shows what's used to access your forum.

Example: I may read your forum on my personal iPhone, but make all my business calls on my company-issued BlackBerry. Your stats don't capture that. That I own both devices, but don't access your site with one. I may be locked out of browsing your site from my company-issued BlackBerry.

I may keep my personal browsing and my corporate browsing separate on principal or because it's forced upon by my company.

My sister carries a gov't-issued BlackBerry that's locked down hard. Very little web content is accessible, no apps can be installed. She is part of a massive segment of BlackBerry users that are completely excluded from your sampling. I carried a BlackBerry with my last job and couldn't stand surfing with the browser so I only did it under duress. I also couldn't install apps -- so I never accessed GC through it.

I'm not saying your data is unsound. Just that it doesn't show much outside of your site.



> In terms of RIM they made their money on business accounts, not on the general consumer. But there was also nothing else out there and even RIM did not have apps for a long time. The problem for them is there are a lot of devices out there that can compete now. They do what RIM used to do and a lot more. I am not suggesting that RIM will go under. But they are clearly not going to be what they once were.


No doubt their pie is sliced up more ways than it used to be.



> This graph shows the increase in mobile device traffic to GC. October last year through March. I lost a bunch of data in March so it dips, but its still steadily increasing and will continue as more and more people use mobile devices for the internet. But notice the steady increase. This is the market that these people are competing for. This is where RIM needs to catch up.


I'm sort of torn on this. I'm not convinced it's where RIM needs to catch up if they want to keep corporate clients. Browsing the web isn't a BlackBerry's strong suit, but browsing the web isn't necessarily what companies want. RIM went after companies, then people. Apple went after people, then companies. Neither is as good as the other in their primary space. Yet.

For sure it's a good time to be a consumer. Choice drives down prices.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

iaresee said:


> Example: I may read your forum on my personal iPhone, but make all my business calls on my company-issued BlackBerry. Your stats don't capture that. That I own both devices, but don't access your site with one. I may be locked out of browsing your site from my company-issued BlackBerry.
> 
> I may keep my personal browsing and my corporate browsing separate on principal or because it's forced upon by my company.
> 
> My sister carries a gov't-issued BlackBerry that's locked down hard. Very little web content is accessible, no apps can be installed. She is part of a massive segment of BlackBerry users that are completely excluded from your sampling. I carried a BlackBerry with my last job and couldn't stand surfing with the browser so I only did it under duress. I also couldn't install apps -- so I never accessed GC through


What your saying here is exactly what I am saying is happening to RIM. They are dying fast unless they make some changes. Both these examples you are providing is basically where I was at. I was given a Blackberry to use free of charge. Same as your examples above. But the minute I had to pay for my own, I opted for the iPhone because in my mind it is simply a better device. You can put in a statistical variation for company issued Blackberry's that have been locked down from surfing.

But the numbers are hugely in favor of Apple. Every device maker on that list added together does not even come close to the Apple devices. I also have the data available by actual device. The iPhone leads the way by far followed by the iPad, then all the rest. 

I guess where I am coming from is if you had to make a choice of one device (becuase lets face it, not everyone has a company issued device) what would you buy? It appears you also went with the iPhone. The data above supports the fact that most people have, at least in terms of content viewing.


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

GuitarsCanada said:


> The business world is dropping Blackberry in droves.


At our business meeting yesterday, we were talking about the good reasons for business people to have Blackberry's over other phones. BBM is one good reason.


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## fudb (Dec 8, 2010)

I opted for a blackberry over an iphone just recently. My reasons were 1) that the interface between PC (that I use at home) and Apple products is... clunky at best 2) I am no fan of being data mined, and Apple does this VERY extensively, and lastly but most importantly 3) I had recently watched a news blurb about how police have been complaining that BBM encryption is too strong and they can't break it..>> SOLD


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## Guest (Sep 25, 2011)

fudb said:


> 2) I am no fan of being data mined, and Apple does this VERY extensively


What do you think Apple tracks that RIM does not?


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

fudb said:


> 3) I had recently watched a news blurb about how police have been complaining that BBM encryption is too strong and they can't break it..>> SOLD


Not sure why this one would matter at all unless you are doing something on the thing that is illegal. Anyone wants to read my text messages can go ahead. They would get pretty bored after reading 3-4 of them.


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## fudb (Dec 8, 2010)

GuitarsCanada said:


> Not sure why this one would matter at all unless you are doing something on the thing that is illegal. Anyone wants to read my text messages can go ahead. They would get pretty bored after reading 3-4 of them.


Um. Because I appreciate it that the company treats their customer's privacy as important. What I then DO with the texting isn't really important. As Benjamin Franklin said, "_Those who would give up_ essential _liberty_ to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither _liberty_ nor safety." 

Also, while not illegal I would certainly NOT want my texts read, as they are PERSONAL. I would also deny an unwarranted search of my property whether or not I had something to "hide". In my life's experience the kind of people who would want access to your personal information never mean you good.

As to the data mining, I'm definitely shooting from the hip here, but my understanding is that iPhones transmit much more data about your location, browsing and buying habits than the Blackberry or other competitors.... South Park even lampooned their "fine print" update contracts...


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

fudb said:


> Um. Because I appreciate it that the company treats their customer's privacy as important. What I then DO with the texting isn't really important. As Benjamin Franklin said, "_Those who would give up_ essential _liberty_ to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither _liberty_ nor safety."
> 
> Also, while not illegal I would certainly NOT want my texts read, as they are PERSONAL. I would also deny an unwarranted search of my property whether or not I had something to "hide". In my life's experience the kind of people who would want access to your personal information never mean you good.
> 
> As to the data mining, I'm definitely shooting from the hip here, but my understanding is that iPhones transmit much more data about your location, browsing and buying habits than the Blackberry or other competitors.... South Park even lampooned their "fine print" update contracts...


The last estimate I read on cell phones in Canada was something like 25 million, most likely a lot more. Believe me nobody is reading your text messages. To me that is nothing more than a selling feature. Up there with personal parachutes for high rise office workers.

In terms of the iPhone, all those data collection things are optional. You can say yes or no. You can turn of location services easily.


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## Guest (Sep 25, 2011)

GuitarsCanada said:


> Not sure why this one would matter at all unless you are doing something on the thing that is illegal. Anyone wants to read my text messages can go ahead. They would get pretty bored after reading 3-4 of them.


Wow.

I'm not even sure how to start showing you how wrong this is.

Why do you need strong security?

Lets say you're a rebel in Libya trying to organize against Ghaddafi and his forces. It's nice to know they can't tap your cellphone calls.

Lets say you're the Conservative party leader trying to organize your attack strategy against the incumbent Liberal party. It's nice to know they can't listen in to your cellphone calls.

Lets say your company is contracting to a government agency and you deal with personal data of millions of Canadians in the course of that contract. It's nice to know that if you lose your phone you can wipe it remotely -- that the personal data of millions of Canadians is safe. That if you send an email from your BlackBerry about the contract that the information you're discussing is safe.

Security matters. You get to be flip about it because so many people building the technology you use put a lot of thought and effort in to trying to keep it secure. It matters very, very, very much.


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## Guest (Sep 25, 2011)

GuitarsCanada said:


> Believe me nobody is reading your text messages. To me that is nothing more than a selling feature. Up there with personal parachutes for high rise office workers.


So wrong.

So very, very wrong.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I won't tip anyone's hand, but you can believe Ian/iaresee. Now, it may not be a _*person*_ reading your text messages....at least until such time as it becomes clear they are worth taking the time to read, but NSA (American) and CSE (Canadian) are in the business of monitoring and text-mining communications for national security purposes, and they have some VERY powerful facilities, not all THAT far off from the stuff you used to see on "24".

When our government department was considering use of a private sector provider for administering our surveys for us, one of the considerations was whether the information would ever, for even a moment, find it's way to a server situated on American soil. The moment it did, it would be subject to the Patriot Act ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_PATRIOT_Act ), and the moment it fell under the Patriot Act, it would contravene the Canadian Privacy Act. Naturally, this implied that no 3rd party service could EVER find itself being bought out by an American company since they would be forced to lose all those Canadian government clients.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

iaresee said:


> Wow.
> 
> I'm not even sure how to start showing you how wrong this is.
> 
> ...


One question, who? You are not saying who is reading these text messages and emails? Your not going to convince me that there is a handful of government people that are sifting through 20 billion text messages a day. Its not happening and anyone that believes it is just paranoid. And again, the only people that need to worry about it are terrorists and drug dealers, and for those groups, which comprise about 000000.1% of the global cell phone users, I hope someone is reading them. 

You want to worry about something worry about the companies you work for. They are monitoring everything you do. I can give you at least 5 personal examples of people that got fired for "misuse of company property". From emails and internet.

Personal information and privacy are concerns of course. I dont want government or companies digging through my personal stuff either. But when we take it to extremes it just seems silly to me. Nobody is interested in our dull and boring text messages. If you are plotting to plant a bomb in a building somewhere then I am all for nabbing the freaks.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

mhammer said:


> I won't tip anyone's hand, but you can believe Ian/iaresee. Now, it may not be a person reading your text messages....at least until such time as it becomes clear they are worth taking the time to read, but NSA (American) and CSE (Canadian) are in the business of monitoring and text-mining communications for national security purposes, and they have some VERY powerful facilities, not all THAT far off from the stuff you used to see on "24".
> 
> When our government department was considering use of a private sector provider for administering our surveys for us, one of the considerations was whether the information would ever, for even a moment, find it's way to a server situated on American soil. The moment it did, it would be subject to the Patriot Act ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_PATRIOT_Act ), and the moment it fell under the Patriot Act, it would contravene the Canadian Privacy Act. Naturally, this implied that no 3rd party service could EVER find itself being bought out by an American company since they would be forced to lose all those Canadian government clients.


And I support this 100%. Also means my boring text messages will never come up on the radar. Again. If they intercept a terrorist plot I say go for it. Eliminate these means of communication from them. For the average bloke. No worries. You can tell the wife to stop off at the beer store an get you a 12 pack. Nobody cares


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

I have a question for those that are concerned over personal privacy. This is a legit question. Do you support the the idea of a persons picture being posted on a police website that was taken by an unkown 3rd party? Case in point the Vancouver riot. There is a webpage that is set-up and you can upload a picture or vid from your cellphone of anyone you may have captured doing something you thought to be illegal.

These pictures are up there for the world to see, guilty or not. Some are clearly guillty. Some may not be. Is this an invasion of privacy? Do you have a right to get crazy on the streets of our country without some a-hole taking your picture and posting it on the internet? Or is this a great thing for crime prevention? Snitching on eachother has become a national hobby for people with cellphone cams. Every week you have another vid popping up with a bus driver picking his nose or scratching his ass. So where do we stand?

If I am pissing in the woods I should be able to assume a reasonable amount of privacy. The government is not out there peeking at me and filming me, its my neighbor or some goof. These people that send pictures of their dongs through their cells are not being outed by the government. They are being ratted out and exposed by you and me, there fellow citizen.


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## Guest (Sep 25, 2011)

GuitarsCanada said:


> One question, who? You are not saying who is reading these text messages and emails? Your not going to convince me that there is a handful of government people that are sifting through 20 billion text messages a day. Its not happening and anyone that believes it is just paranoid. And again, the only people that need to worry about it are terrorists and drug dealers, and for those groups, which comprise about 000000.1% of the global cell phone users, I hope someone is reading them.


Thankfully I don't have to convince you. I just go ahead and implement strong security in everything I build. 

But yes, the government of your nation is continually sampling all unencrypted and lightly encrypted data that cross channels that it can legally access without a warrant. The U.S. does this as well. And every other government of size. It's not done by humans. It's done by computers. And it doesn't actually take a whole lot of compute power to do the sampling. The analytics are of varying degrees of complexity depending on what your goal is (sampling for triggers versus sampling for trends, trending and correlation being areas where algorithmic complexity explodes pretty fast).

And here's why you should care about personal security: if the government can do it (especially our government who tends not to fund this sort of thing very well) any one can do it. And that means you need to concern yourself with non-government entities that might want to harm you. And those are much more abundant. Credit card fraud, extortion, identity theft -- that's just a few on the list you'll recognize, it's a long list. It's not hard to accomplish these things. It's not hard to quickly and cheaply obtain enough computing power to do bad things these days.



> You want to worry about something worry about the companies you work for. They are monitoring everything you do. I can give you at least 5 personal examples of people that got fired for "misuse of company property". From emails and internet.


There's a shocking number of people who mix their work and personal computing. Don't do that and don't have to worry about stuff like this. I have a work computer. I have a home computer. Unless I'm certain the personal stuff I'm doing on the work computer are benign in the eyes of my employer, I don't do it on the work computer. If you do otherwise you're a fool and you deserve what you get. It's no different than making those long distance calls to the auntie in Cambodia while you're in your cubicle.



> Personal information and privacy are concerns of course. I dont want government or companies digging through my personal stuff either. But when we take it to extremes it just seems silly to me. Nobody is interested in our dull and boring text messages. If you are plotting to plant a bomb in a building somewhere then I am all for nabbing the freaks.


Actually your dull and boring data is massively interesting to marketing research people. If they can have it, and need to cross into legal grey areas to get it, they will. Google is all about data. The data they collect is insane. Facebook: data collection is it's primary reason for making so much.

I am not in favour of giving up my personal civil liberties to catch a few bad guys. Not at all. So sorry to hear you are.

But that's the problem with (computer) security: either everyone has it, or no one has. Speaking as an architect of systems that get lots of security built in to them, you don't build for different cases. You either build it secure, or you don't. You don't build one version to sell to the police because they want to use BlackBerries that bad guys can't hack, and then one version to sell to the public because the police want to be able to hack their BlackBerries without warrants. You build one version that resists everything.


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## Guest (Sep 25, 2011)

GuitarsCanada said:


> And I support this 100%. Also means my boring text messages will never come up on the radar.


How can you say this? You cannot know this. They do statistically-driven sampling of any data channel they can observe without a warrant.



> Again. If they intercept a terrorist plot I say go for it. Eliminate these means of communication from them. For the average bloke. No worries. You can tell the wife to stop off at the beer store an get you a 12 pack. Nobody cares


The problem is the definition of terrorist can change over night. Overnight it can go from someone who wants to blow up a building to someone who wants to stand on a picket line to protest a government they don't like. One of those two things needs to be allowed no matter what the people in charge think.

Like I said before: you get to be flip about this because some of us really do care a lot about it. We work really hard to make sure your bank accounts aren't emptied maliciously, so that people can communicate without fear of reprisal from *anyone* that wasn't meant observe that communication, so that essential freedoms of communication and safety are upheld.

To some of us, it matters very, very much.


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## Guest (Sep 25, 2011)

GuitarsCanada said:


> I have a question for those that are concerned over personal privacy. This is a legit question. Do you support the the idea of a persons picture being posted on a police website that was taken by an unkown 3rd party? Case in point the Vancouver riot. There is a webpage that is set-up and you can upload a picture or vid from your cellphone of anyone you may have captured doing something you thought to be illegal.
> 
> These pictures are up there for the world to see, guilty or not. Some are clearly guillty. Some may not be. Is this an invasion of privacy?


I'm not sure if this is bait or if you're asking this seriously. I'll assume it's serious.

There is a very, very big difference between walking around in public and sending a text message. Having your picture taken in public is not something you can do much about. It's been well debated in the courts. There is no expectation of privacy when you're on a public street. There is an expectation of privacy in much of the 1-on-1 communication technologies we use. And in most cases our laws uphold these expectations: your mail can't be read, your phone can't be tapped -- not without requests going through systems designed to ensure there's no abuse. Not without checks and balances.



> Do you have a right to get crazy on the streets of our country without some a-hole taking your picture and posting it on the internet?


No. You've never had this right. Not even before the internet existed. The internet just makes the turnaround from stupid to public much, much quicker.



> Or is this a great thing for crime prevention? Snitching on eachother has become a national hobby for people with cellphone cams. Every week you have another vid popping up with a bus driver picking his nose or scratching his ass. So where do we stand?


Like all things, the answer here isn't black or white. It is neither great nor awful. It just is. And it can be put to good and bad use, often by the same people, under myriad circumstances.



> If I am pissing in the woods I should be able to assume a reasonable amount of privacy.


Your assumption then, has been wrong all along. 



> The government is not out there peeking at me and filming me, its my neighbor or some goof. These people that send pictures of their dongs through their cells are not being outed by the government. They are being ratted out and exposed by you and me, there fellow citizen.


I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say here, so I'm just going to ignore it. 

This thread sure has gotten away from the OP!


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## Guest (Sep 25, 2011)

So let me counter all this "you only have to hide if you're a criminal" talk with some questions for you:

Do you always leave your front door open?

By your own line of reasoning you only need to lock your door if you're up to no good. Obviously you can see how false this reasoning is. Just because you're not hiding something, doesn't mean you want people traipsing through your house. Now, would you be okay if the government granted itself special powers such that they could sniff through your house any time they felt like it? Again, taking your line of reasoning, you should be 110% okay with this because you have nothing to hide, right?

Your digital life is really not much different. You need to choose technologies and model your behaviour similar to your physical life. Protect what it is yours, because you may not yet realize how valuable it is to protect.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

iaresee said:


> How can you say this? You cannot know this. They do statistically-driven sampling of any data channel they can observe without a warrant.
> 
> 
> The problem is the definition of terrorist can change over night. Overnight it can go from someone who wants to blow up a building to someone who wants to stand on a picket line to protest a government they don't like. One of those two things needs to be allowed no matter what the people in charge think.
> ...


Your mixing two different things. One is civil liberties. Rights to privacy granted to us as citizens. Then you are talking about computer hacking. Two totally different subjects. If you are building software for Aunt Peggy's Frozen Tube Steaks online store than I fully expect you to be using the latest techonogy to make sure that any transaction conducted is as safe as possible so that my credit card info is not lifted by theives. Same goes for Rogers, Cogeco, Telus, Google etc etc. That I am totally in support of.

We all know there are ways for governments to monitor things. Should they be allowed to? Thats a big debate? Am I worried about my personal text messages being peeked at? No. Is someone in the government going to hack into my bank account and start buying jewelry? As long as there are developers of software there will be hackers trying to get into it. Thats a totally different subject though. 

I can only speak for myself and where my worries are placed. My post above regarding people ratting each other out disturbs me far more than the possibilty of the Canadian Government taking a peek at my text messages. A lot of it is common sense. If you are up to something that you dont want anyone to know about, dont use these communication devices. Look what they are doing in London with the riots. If people want to organize destruction of cities and use their Blackberry's to do it then someone is going to figure out a way to get that information. Is this a good thing or bad thing?


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

iaresee said:


> So let me counter all this "you only have to hide if you're a criminal" talk with some questions for you:
> 
> Do you always leave your front door open?
> 
> ...


I would give this a shot, but I have no idea what it means


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## Guest (Sep 25, 2011)

GuitarsCanada said:


> I would give this a shot, but I have no idea what it means


I'm not sure if you're putting me on here or not.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

iaresee said:


> I'm not sure if you're putting me on here or not.


No I am not putting you on. With all due respect I am not getting the point. But that's cool. I know where you are coming from in general and respect your position. I just don't worry about the gov spying on me. They do a good enough job robbing me legally. I worry more about the crooks ripping me off


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

Aunt Peggys Frozen Tubes Steaks!

LOL

kkjwpw

Continue...


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

This latest boner is not helping them at all

[video=youtube;zQ1esvGae_s]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&amp;v=zQ1esvGae_s[/video]


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## Guest (Oct 29, 2011)

Down but not out: http://arstechnica.com/business/new...ry-keyboards-security-and-it-requirements.ars


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

I hope they are able to right the ship and come back in a strong way. I think its going to be a very difficult job. But being a Canadian company, I hope they can do it. I was reading a few articles recently from some financial advisers that recommend selling Apple stock as they feel its days of continual growth are over, especially now that Jobs is no longer there


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## Guest (Oct 29, 2011)

GuitarsCanada said:


> I hope they are able to right the ship and come back in a strong way. I think its going to be a very difficult job. But being a Canadian company, I hope they can do it. I was reading a few articles recently from some financial advisers that recommend selling Apple stock as they feel its days of continual growth are over, especially now that Jobs is no longer there


The good news is the spaces these guys are in (Apple and RIM) are MASSIVE and there's lots of room for growth from both companies.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

RIM continues to nose dive. Anyone looking for a cheap playbook can get in now

http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product...spx?path=23b031eb638e47e33187b8ebfbaee3c9en02


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

I hope RIM comes back.

It has to be product driven however and right now it's tough to beat the Apple stuff IMO.

I have a Blackberry Bold in my desk drawer, where it has remained since I got my i4.


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## Guitar101 (Jan 19, 2011)

Future Shop is selling the 16 GB Playbook with WiFi for $199 and it's getting very good reviews by buyers. It is sold out on-line and is only available in-store. It seems it wasn't the product people didn't like. It was the price.


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## bluzfish (Mar 12, 2011)

mhammer said:


> For a number of years, here in Ottawa, you could have sworn that the principle business lines of Corel, Cognos, Systemhouse, Mitel, Mosaid, JDS Uniphase, and Nortel was *not* whatever the heck they made and sold, but their shares. That's all some folks seem to know about them. They could have customers and sales up the wazoo, but all people seem to want to know is "_What are the shares doing_?".
> 
> RIM makes a good product. In fact they make many good products. Unfortunately, their investors HAVE to have some kind of magical mystical assurances that the company will expand and inevitably conquer the universe, rip any competing product out of the hands and stick a Blackberry in the mitts of anything that walks upright or is confined to a gurney or wheelchair. As far as investors are concerned, if it ain't constantly expanding, they don't want to know about it. The very idea of a decent business of fixed size, with sustainable revenues, is anathema to the contemporary investor. Every one of these putzes thinks they're a banker.
> 
> This is why I do not invest in ANYTHING. If I could reclaim everything that is forcibly taken from me for investment purposes, like pension contributions, I surely would. It's a stupid stupid game, and emblematic of how wealth has become nearly entirely divorced from productivity. The disconnect between indices of wealth and productivity are one of the many reasons why nations are crippled when it comes to developing sound economic and social policies for their citizens: because the measures they use are essentially meaningless and cut off from reality for the majority of citizens.


Holy Crapola. Someone else gets it! Normally when you express such sentiments, people go "huh???". Lets face it. The real world has gotten pretty twisted in the last fifty years or so...

I always wondered ever since I learned about the concept of Capitalism in school - isn't it like a balloon that requires constant inflation? And if so, doesn't it eventually have to expand to it's limits and blow up or deflate and collapse? The whole system of economies driven by the greed of a bunch of boys and girls playing a game in the stock markets of the world is such a bizarre abomonation of sensibilities, it boggles the mind.


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## fudb (Dec 8, 2010)

[FONT=&quot]"Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Kenneth Boulding,[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Economist, Educator,[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Philosopher[/FONT]


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

Guitar101 said:


> Future Shop is selling the 16 GB Playbook with WiFi for $199 and it's getting very good reviews by buyers. It is sold out on-line and is only available in-store. It seems it wasn't the product people didn't like. It was the price.


I suppose if RIM sells it's product for a third of the price of the competition's similar product, people will buy more of them. For $200 it's a good deal.


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## smorgdonkey (Jun 23, 2008)

greco said:


> I have several hundred shares in RIM (you don't want to know what I paid for them...I hate to think of grown men crying). PLEASE keep posting positive thoughts/information about RIM.....I need this for mental health reasons....LOL
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Dave


People who lose in the stock market are never alone...I lost so much in the Tech Wreck that I care to not think of it. I also invested in a private company which had 'real time' video phones LONG before any others...back in 2002. They were doing really well but a big blow was struck when they were ripped off (of intellectual property) and the judge who presided over the case ruled that there was no violation of copyright.


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## Starbuck (Jun 15, 2007)

Milkman said:


> I suppose if RIM sells it's product for a third of the price of the competition's similar product, people will buy more of them. For $200 it's a good deal.


At least they are getting it out there. it's not a bad product at all. Alot of techy's thing that Rim has been the victime of Bad publiciity and that the American market does not want to admit a Canadian company makes a great product.


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## rollingdam (May 11, 2006)

What peeves me about the stock market,shares etc. is "analysts expectations". A company can be profitable,doing well, but it will sink if analysts expectations are not met. What a crock ! 
The only thing worse is the "futures market" and "short selling"-neither of these have anything to do with reality and should be placed in the same category as off track betting.


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

Starbuck said:


> At least they are getting it out there. it's not a bad product at all. Alot of techy's thing that Rim has been the victime of Bad publiciity and that the American market does not want to admit a Canadian company makes a great product.


I don't think that's the problem. Personally I base my choices on features, intuitive design and cost. The location of the company is only something I look at if all other factors are equal. That's what led me to retire my Blackberry and go with an iPhone.

The Apple stuff is just way better in my opinion.


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## ne1roc (Mar 4, 2006)

nkjanssen said:


> If I pay $X for an investment (any investment) on the expectation that it's going to pay me $1,000 per year, and it later becomes apparant that it's only going to pay me $100 per year, I paid too much. It doesn't matter that $100 per year is a pretty good return. I priced it based on an expectation of $1,000. Assuming others use approximately the same pricing criteria I do and are generally in agreement that the investment is now only going to generate around $100 per year, nobody is going to pay as much as I originally paid. So the price will go down. That makes complete sense to me.


Expectations are completely different from reality. Expectations are predictions or goals or even fabrications to lure invetment. Real investment is long term or at least it used to be. The world is failing today based on Short Term (false expectations) Investment. If it makes sense to you, you have obviously done well on these false expectations.


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## Guest (Nov 23, 2011)

ne1roc said:


> Real investment is long term or at least it used to be. The world is failing today based on Short Term (false expectations) Investment. If it makes sense to you, you have obviously done well on these false expectations.


The vast majority of trades made today are not made by long term investors. Or even humans. They're made by machines, trading on the short, trying to hedge market changes to make small gains, quickly and copiously.

There are some senators in the US (backed by Mark Cuban) who are proposing charging a nominal fee on every trade. Something like $0.05/trade. This would have no impact on long-term investors who buy and hold and then sell in large chunks. But for micro-trades this really starts to hurt, both because of the sheer volume of trades that happen and the minuscule gains that they're after with the trades. The thought process behind the proposal is that it re-calibrates the stock purchase mentality for longer term gains, turns it from less of a horse race betting environment in to what it used to be. With people buying in to a company for the long term.

I'm not against the idea myself.


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## rollingdam (May 11, 2006)

nkjanssen said:


> If you have such a great handle on long-term values, you should have no problem amassing a small fortune within the next 10 years or so buying undervalued stocks. Let me know how that works out for you.


if your only concern is making as much money as possible in a shortest time as possible,then analysts expectations are for you.
it is just a shame that you did not do anything to actually earn the money except play the game-who needs you?


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

rollingdam said:


> ......it is just a shame that you did not do anything to actually earn the money except play the game-who needs you?


Do you (personally) not invest (some of) the money that you originally earned and, hence, play the same sort of game?

Cheers

Dave


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## ne1roc (Mar 4, 2006)

greco said:


> Do you (personally) not invest (some of) the money that you originally earned and, hence, play the same sort of game?
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Dave


You are missing the point. The stock market was originally created to help fund a company, which in turn would develop new products, hire more people and expand. In the long term your investment would grow. It grew because the company was actually doing something with your money. It wasn't some ****ing unproductive broker sitting on his ass behind a computer playing a game with other people lives.


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## rollingdam (May 11, 2006)

nkjanssen said:


> This makes no sense at all.
> 
> I'm not saying that markets are 100% efficient or that they are even 100% rational. Day trading and programmed trading are examples of practices that can be, at best unrelated to reality, or at worst completely irrational. Those generally lead to short-term fluctuations. In the long term, though, companies that do well and generate good earnings will show appreciation in their stock prices.
> 
> ...


I agree with the last sentence-let's get back to guitars


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## rollingdam (May 11, 2006)

As I was writing the last post,I noticed a Scotiabank banner ad for Futures Trading Strategies--sheesh


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

This would be a shame



> Shares of Research In Motion jumped more than 10% on Tuesday after a tech blog said the BlackBerry maker was actively seeking to sell itself to South Korean smartphone rival Samsung Electronics.


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