Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: GSM, Buffy, Wobble
Macrovision, everyone's favorite killjoy. byteCoder writes "Apparently Macrovision marketing is trying to put a good spin on Intuit's plan to eliminate the use of Macrovision's DRM software for pre-paid copies of TurboTax (as discussed last week here). This reminds me of the classic Monty Python line: "I'm not dead yet!""
That's got to be some spin -- An anonymous reader points to Eric Hellweg's Tech Investor on CNN, which suggests that the backlash which triggered Intuit's copy-protection reversal may have cost the company $100 million.
Can I use my Go Phone there? An anonymous reader writes ""In a follow-up to the Slashdot article 'CDMA vs GSM in Post-war Iraq,' The Reg has a story about how MCI has won the contract to rebuild the mobile phone system with GSM. This is a good thing for the people of Iraq that GSM is being used, GSM is the world standard and several U.S. companies (AT&T for one) are switching to GSM."
Adding Money to Insult. Neophytus writes "Remember the 'Star Wars Kid' that waxy.org found a couple of weeks ago? Well after over a million downloads the guy has been found. His name is Ghyslain, a 15-year-old tenth grader living in Quebec. Jish contacted him and got a brief, but interesting, interview."
No unlimited copy privileges in jail. the-dude-man writes "As reported here A 19-year-old pleaded guilty to costing DirectTV for leaking information about the secrets of DirectTV's most advanced anti-piracy technology to hacker websites. As part of the plea deal, Serebryany admitted to copying and distributing 800 megabytes of scanned documents from DirecTV, costing the company $68,000 in investigatory costs. Both sides stipulated to sentencing factors that carry six months to a year in prison under federal guidelines -- assuming no prior convictions. The sentencing court can depart from the guidelines only if the judge finds that the proposed sentence doesn't adequately reflect the facts of the case. According to court records affidavit, Serebryany's adventures began when he found himself with access to some of DirecTV's most coveted technological secrets while working for his uncle at a document imaging company at the office of a Los Angeles law firm, Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue. The firm was representing the satellite TV company in a lawsuit against NDS, the makers of the smart cards DirecTV uses to control access to its signal."
For every 11 discontented customers, there's one of these happy oddballs! RedWingsSuck writes "A few weeks ago, I asked /. users what they thought about the wobble my 12" Power Book has developed. Last week Apple Care told me that I could send my laptop off for repairs. I decided to drive to the local Apple Store, about 15 minutes away, and drop it off. They had my laptop for less than 3 days. When I went in to pick it up, they told me that it was sent in and the BC (bottom cover) was repaired. It doesn't wobble anymore, so I am happy. I was really surprised with how fast it was fixed. I didn't mean to sound like I regretted my AiBook purchase in the last post, and now I even happier."
Relax, it's a television show. HardcoreGamer writes "Buffy creator Joss Whedon responds to questions from New York Times readers on Buffy the Vampire Slayer as it comes to the end of its 7 season run. He also discusses the now-canceled Firefly and concludes with one of the key reasons why the show is ending: 'I'm simply too tired.'"
I did some searching online and it was apparent it's a fairly common problem related to the "inverter" component. Either the wire's loose and just needed to bere-seated, or the inverter itself (a tiny board) has gone bad and needed to be replaced.
I didn't feel like pulling any stunts, and laptop was only a couple of months old, so I decided to take it back where it was bought from (Future Shop on St. Catherine st. in Montreal, Canada - Same parent company as Best Buys in the States).
The technician there looked at it, scratched his head, said he's never seen this problem before, and that he'd have to ship it to HP for them to take a look. He took the laptop, gave us a slip of paper, and said he'd call us when it's ready fr pickup.
I completely forgot about it until, OVER A MONTH LATER, my girlfriend mentioned that she still did not have her laptop. A call to Future Shop got us "we don't know where youre laptop is . . . call us back in a few days"
A few days after we call, and we're told "oh, your laptop has been here for a while.. come pick it up"... "Where was the phone call we were told we'll receive ?" ... "I don't know".
So between Future Shop, HP, and possibly even a few border crossings, it takes over a month to replace a $60 inverter or a 10-second wire re-adjustment.
Note that only the Win9x OS' have a C:\My Documents folder. NT has a My Documents folder for each user, located in C:\Documents And Settings\$USER. I believe the grandparent was referring to this distinction, unless he was trolling...