[CUBE] Slot Load DVD-RW Drives From MCE

[mentholiptus]

On Sunday, January 19, 2003, at 11:32 AM, Rick Rodman wrote:

> (a) pay someone $60/hour to design the sheet metal;

A one time cost. If 60 drives are sold, then look at it as $1 per 
drive. If 6000 are sold, look at it as 1¢ per drive.

> (b) come up with a source for the connector adapter, if needed (does 
> anyone know?);

once found, they shouldn't be more than $3 apiece in bulk

> (c) produce the sheet metal;

A cost of about $1 per drive (when considered how many can be made per 
hour, and how much the workers are being paid...I worked in a sheet 
metal factory before making/shipping harddrives and other components at 
IBM, and the metals are punched out by machines...hundreds an hour)

> (d) write a procedure and test it on at least two different cubes;

ouch...that alone will nearly put you out of business, eh      : P

> (e) advertise it;

free if you use this list, and cheap if you use the cube sites. (who 
will WILLINGLY advertise, and reach the largest cube user base)

> (f) collect money and ship the drives;

ouch...that's gotta be rough.

> (g) deal with people who complain that they installed it perfectly and 
> it still doesn't work, insist on free replacements, bad-mouth the 
> product and accuse me of being a rip-off on public mailing lists, and 
> all sorts of other negative mental energies.

I'm guessing that's aimed at me.

All I did "in public" (which was only this list), was describe the 
problem to see if it was common, and then prove the problem after being 
blown off.

Everything else was private until it was edited, taken out of context, 
and then made public.

And besides, that's the only time that's ever happened to me. I 
installed a radeon 7500, 80gb seagate, a fan, and all kinds of other 
toys that fit just fine...and when the HD went bad, it was promptly 
replaced by the manufacturer without a problem. (I didn't need to build 
a website to prove what happened to my HD wasn't "normal"...nor did I 
need to spend any more than 10 minutes on the issue).

> Even if I can get the drives for $50 each, the items (a) thru (f) are 
> going to add at least $50 to the price (since the entire market is, 
> what, 1000 drives sold to cube owners?)

Maybe you'd have 20,000 customers if the price was fair. At $499, HA! 
Good luck. At $250, you're making $100-$150 per drive, not to mention 
you'd probably sell 19,000 more. And at a profit of $100 per drive 
after costs, that's $2,000,000.

That's not enough to make it worth your while?

> , and item (g) is going to make me say, those 1000 cube owners can 
> jump in a lake, it isn't worth it.

Come on. That's out of line. For one thing, you're basically saying I 
can just go jump in a lake, then generalizing the entire population of 
the list as being greedy assholes in the event that something goes 
wrong with the product. (...what were you saying about netiquette?)

$2,000,000. I'd say if you had 1 asshole riding your back....fine. Swap 
the freaking drive. Treat yourself to a new car for the burden.

> I don't know what it is with you guys.  There used to be a thing 
> called 'netiquette', but it seems to be gone today.  I think the best 
> thing for this list would be to appoint Laurie as owner of the list 
> and let her moderate it and BAN people who can't express their 
> opinions politely or who needlessly insult people.  We must, of 
> course, make allowances for people for whom English isn't their first 
> language.

People get upset. People say things they might not mean when they're 
upset. People then sometimes feel sorry or foolish after saying such 
things. I personally try to tolerate everyone, but occasionally snap. 
It's a human thing I guess. I'm not proud of it.

Some people try to claim to be better than these people...even though 
they're the same.

Just like in real life...out side of this list.

Relax, express your opinion, and delete what you don't like. No need to 
BAN people because YOU don't like what they said.

I wouldn't BAN you even though you just took a half educated personal 
stab at me...out of anger for not agreeing with what I said....just 
like what you're protesting in the exact same email.

And let laurie be in charge of her site...we'll keep this pre-cubeowner 
public list free for ourselves to have OPEN discussions, even when we 
argue. This way, laurie will be able to gather more content for her 
site that will in turn benefit those who rely on her site because they 
don't know about this list.

Who are you to stop that.



jesse






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