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Hardware Review Sites and Vendor Relationships
VL writes "Manufacturers demanding content changes is nothing new in the tech site community. We take a look at this topic, including one very public example that started in the past three weeks."
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One of the first cases of this was when Tom's Hardware (then only a startup site) reviewed a Riva TNT and said it was twice as fast as 3DFX voodoo (obviously untrue, but it's unknown if Nvidia paid him anything to say this). Eventually 3DFX picked up on this and demanded that Tom changes it, which he did.
But the damage was already done.
eden.h4xx.com - whacky free for all image board
They talk about journalistic integrity as in not changing reviews to get ad dollars, then go on to talk about the HardOCP deal. I am not going to get into that, because my comments get bitchslapped down whenever I support a company that is not in /.'s good graces.
They should have picked a more relevant example, like Tom's Hardware and the Intel P3 fiasco where the 1.13's had a critical error in them. It really seems like they were just trying to get mentioned on Slashdot, and seem like a really good review site.
Influence will always occur, never take a single opinion as fact. But unless there is a dramatic smoking gun, memo, email, hidden video of the editor at Bill's place on the lake sipping a pina colada (yea, sure), proof will be very hard to come by. Look at a long track record of information, and if you see a lot of ads by one vendor, grain of salt time.
The manufacturers are dictating what is revealed so they don't look bad?? Who would have ever thought.. I'm shocked.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
That's an odd thing to say before posting to Slashdot.
I understand the need to hsve integrity in what is reported. Any person trying to stifle a collection of facts (which is what HardOCP had/has), should be strung up like a traitor.
Now, if there was libel or untruth involved, I'm the first to say they need to be punished... but... don't try to hide your own faults by beating up on a website. Nobody likes a sore loser (or vaporware company).
[cheapplug]For some journalistic goodness, go to oldos.org[/cheapplug]
Jay | http://oldos.org
Change your content, or else: Manufacturer's demanding content changes is nothing new in the tech site community. We take a look at this topic, including one very public example that started in the past three weeks.
Date: March 15, 2004
Manufacturer: N/A
Written By: Hubert Wong
Just under a year ago, we provided some insight on the inner workings of running a tech site. Yes, there are thousands of sites out there, and despite the diversity, there are several constants in our universe... costs, advertising, readership, and most important of all, integrity.
Running a site, especially a tech site, isn't free and there are plenty of costs involved. Everything from the hardware purchases (not everything is free, which is a general misconception I think), to the server and bandwidth... it all has a price.
This is where advertising comes in. If the site is lucky enough, advertising will net a nice income each month, but for a greater number of owners, they'll be lucky if it helps them break even.
Of course, an advertiser is not going to consider a site that doesn't meet their traffic requirements. Readership is what makes our world go round. Without our loyal readers, VL wouldn't be where it is today, and I would say that the same goes for the majority of sites out there.
Casual readers come and go, but a loyal reader is somebody that means a lot to a site. It's common knowledge that most sites track their traffic. This gives us an idea of trends, and how to cater our content. We're not too concerned about our uniques a day, but rather our bookmarks and returns. People who bookmark and/or return multiple times a day make up a site's readership. Uniques are new visitors who either stop and go, or decide to stay. What turns a unique visitor into a regular reader? Content? Yes. Attention to detail? Sure thing. Integrity? Nobody likes a site that lies about a product just to suck up, right?
Granted, the last point isn't something that is respected by a great number of sites (the actual number is more than you think), but the site's I do frequent on a regular basis (Ed. Note: Including our own :D) do try hard to stick with their journalistic integrity.
There are instances though where manufacturers will try to influence
a site's review. Sadly, this happens quite often, and it becomes
a problem when this influence attempts to change a
writer's perception of the product. This is something site owners
need to deal with constantly, and yes, here at VL we've been asked
to have a change of heart on more than one occasion.
Errors or omissions happen, and we're more than happy to make
amendments, but as a reader, you can rest assured knowing we'll
never mislead you because somebody asked us to so they can improve
sales.
Luckily, most Tier-1 manufacturers; i.e., the ones who have a good amount of exposure within the enthusiast community, do respect a journalist's right for free speech. Sure, even some of the big dogs take issue with what we in the community say, but that's the price of exposing yourself with press releases. Whether a product is released and performs less than expected, or if it
" The manufacturers are dictating what is revealed so they don't look bad?? Who would have ever thought.. I'm shocked."
Yes, and the point of the article is: What are you going to do next? And what is the price?
The one from the logged in poster is a faithful reproduction of the article. The anonymous coward one mentions cowboyneal and male body parts.
That probably explains why the moderation was done the way it was far more the the stated author of the article.
We already read the same exact thing, but in different words and headline over a week ago. This new article brings nothing new to the table except for a slightly misleading headline.
/. headlines until something new actually surfaces in the case.
The [H] issue has more to do with halting what someone feels is slander, and little to do with the widespread problems with hardware review sites skewing benchmarks to keep a vendor, advertiser, or to get free stuff.
Unique as the issue may be, it's not worthy of multiple
If I wanted a 15 year old's opinion in essay format on the issue, I would have simply gone to [H]'s forum.**
** - Not that a 15 year old is less intelligent than anyone else, just young people tend to not have their heads glued on straight when it comes to business and law. Wisdom takes time to build.
Don't bother, it's just VL trying to push up their ad revenue.
Isn't the whole point of the lawsuit that they aren't?
Worried you might not keep your virginity forever? Try new Linux(TM), guaranteed twice as effective as LARPing
I have never got a request from a hardware manufacturer to beautify anything related to them at TuxMobil - Linux On Mobile Computers. Actually laptop manufacturers do not seem to care about Linux users. But there are other caveats. As discussed at SlashDot I had severe trademark trouble with the former project name MobiliX. There are other legal issues, which may occure in an instant. For example if some lawyer accuses a website owner not to obey certain legal requirements. At least in some countries (e.g. Germany) a dedicated law for internet content exists.
How about Oracle asking for MySQL to remove their stats from the benchmark table
"Note that Oracle is not included because they asked to be removed. All Oracle benchmarks have to be passed by Oracle! We believe that makes Oracle benchmarks very biased because the above benchmarks are supposed to show what a standard installation can do for a single client."
Error: Id10t detected
In the old days, if you advertise enough the paper would automatically tweek the review. Infoworld had done this with a compiler review. If you read the review, then looked at the score card, you would notice that they did not match.
Fight Spammers!
If this sort of thing is common, can anyone recommend any review sites that they trust?
--
Real-time deal updates
1) Ad revenue created by page hits
2) Post non-story to slashdot
3) PROFIT!!!
A LOT of Eula's are like that. Read Java's Eula.
Grammar checks, perhaps?
Ah, quality site. Under the heatsink review section, "blow, suck" are used in the charts to describe positioning of fans. Apparently "exhaust" and "intake" are Big Words.
The article on HardOCP is hilarious:
Nobody likes a site that lies about a product just to suck up, right?
These guys have become masters of doublespeak. Read any review and they consider "balanced" reviewing to mean "come up with some numbers to sell it, but whine about looks or included mounting hardware to seem balanced." Then there's the "whine about something, but then tell readers it isn't a big deal".
Further- you can't have any "integrity" if you accept advertising dollars from companies who are selling the very product you're reviewing. Journalism 101- a course none of these bozos have ever attended.
Please help metamoderate.
Finally someone who not only "gets" hardware review sites, but can also sum them up in entirely in 3 very short lines.
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
unfortunately, this is nothing new.
CBS
free ipod and free gmail!
You mean that there is no journalistic ingrity out there anymore? Hooray and thank you, Fox News!
Dude, where's my packet?
The reviewer said all data came from the manufacturer's public information & Google. Finding it on Google doesn't validate the data. You need to look at the site that Google sends you too, validate that it is a trustworthy site which has information that you can use.
"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." --Napoleon Bonaparte
All these people who can't see past their dicks claiming that advertising is the ONLY way to fund a site.. this is so untrue it is risible.
/. have any advertising? I don't know because I'd never see it anyway and the advertisers will never get any useful data from my usage of the internet either.
By definition advertising is the process of trying to convince someone to buy something they neither want nor need, and this becomes ever more true as time passes.
If I want to know about something my first port of call is google or vivissimo, I do not either NEED or WANT some dickless wonder trying to pre-empt this process by trying to influence me with their own horribly biased bullshit.
I run Mozilla Firebird as a browser with the excellent adblock plugin, for the past 5 or six years I ran a custom hosts file with all these advertising bastards routed to 127.0.0.1... does
If you DECIDE to create a site that offers something for free, eg content, then big deal and welcome to the club, there's only a few million of us out here, difference is we limit the content to match the budget for each site, we don't sell our souls and our user's browsing habits and bandwidth to any motherfuckers like doubleclick.
If these site creators like hardocp / toms / etc CANNOT financially sustain what they are doing as a "free" to the user model then change dude, change to a subscription model, say a buck a year, no big deal....
what?
you don't think your users would pay that much?
tough shit, market forces at work.
Remember people, advertising is just the polite form of spam, at the end of the day it does EXACTLY the same thing as spam, it steals users bandwidth without their permission to shove a load of shit they don't want down the pipe and eat those cpu cycles.
If I fucking WANT something ___I___ will go out and find it by myself
Meanwhile all this bullshit about the merits of one hardware review site vs another is EXACTLY akin to comparing the merits of one two dollar whore against another one (and yes you can sue me if you like and run a hardware review site......
At the end of the day you are still arguing about which cheap and dirty fuck is best, well I'm not interested, I want to chase and hunt down my own meat in a competitive darwinian enviornment.
Kill all advertisers / promoters / PR bunnies / reviewers / and the world will be a much better place..... which reminds me of something an americannnnnn buddy said to me once.
"If you have a company that is in financial difficulties, just line up all the staff alphabetically by job title, from A to Z, then start at A and start sacking until the books balance again."
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
Wisdom takes time to build.
How old was Strom Thurmond when he died?
The ______ Agenda
Yes, that caught my eye too. I find most of the hardware-review sites I read on Google, for that matter. And the whole point of all of this is: how do you "validate that it is a trustworthy site"? Any site? Answer: you don't. Everything on the Web is basically taken on faith or not at all, and you have to use your own judgment as to what is reliable and what is not. But, really ... that's the way things have been since the invention of written language. I mean, how often have you heard the expression "You don't believe everything you read, do you?" That is more true now than it ever was before. When you think about it, back in the age of books (the old-fashioned non-battery-powered, non-backlit kind without a microprocessor), there was an editing and review process for virtually everything that was published. That guaranteed a much higher signal-to-noise ratio than we have on the Web. Yes, it's true ... anyone can publish their works to the whole damn planet for the price of a free Web hosting account, and that is generally a good thing. But that doesn't mean the quality or reliability of that material is any better: on average it is quite the opposite in fact.
The problem is that some (many, I think) people look at information found via Google as somehow having been vetted or approved by that organization. How many users even grasp that once they click on a link on a Google results page they are no longer even connected to Google? Google is primarily an index, not a repository (yes, I know they cache pages but they don't create or maintain that information.) The World Wide Web is the repository, and like most public receptacles it is largely full of crap.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
On the other hand vendors couldn't care less if we demand changes. I still remember when Oracle issued a press release claiming it was the inventor of relational databases. I immediately fired back demanding a retraction. They never did, several years after you could still find the aforesaid release in their database.
Now imagine if we asked them to stop lying about SQL being relational...
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
Just to say so up front, I write for The Inquirer (www.theinquirer.net), and do a fair amount of hardware reviews. I also go to the trade shows and the like, and talk to other journalists. You learn a lot there.
:). You learn even more if you do not drink. I don't.
You also go to parties afterwards and people get very drunk. You learn a lot more there
The things you learn are open secrets, all the vendors know what is going on, and all the writers and reporters do also. Some employees may not know thier bosses are not quite clean, but that is another issue.
I was talking to several DRAM vendors about benchmarking at CES, and was told, by name, and usually by several sources that certain web sites would not review a product without advertising dollars. In fact, advertising dollars could significantly skew the results of a review.
These were not offhand comments like 'we think that they don't like us', it was direct 'If we don't cough up the cash, they won't review us'. Several different sources in the DRAM and other industries told me similar things, and for the most part, 2 or 3 names kept coming up. No, I will not name them.
If you follow the hardware sites, you can pretty much pick up who is 'dirty'. When 5 sites review the same new video card, all with the same *yawn* benchmarks, and 4 get one result, and the 5th gets a different result, and praises the 'loser' in the commentary, what do you think is going on? I mean, it is rather obvious.
The flip side of it is I get accused of bias just about ever day. Other than it getting rather old, it is usually not worth commenting on. I get accused of loving AMD, loving Intel, and being a liberal weenie and a republican nazi over the same article.
The truth of the matter is I get what hardware I can from who I can, and write about it. I bitch out HP all the time for blatant management stupidity, but I can't recall ever reviewing one of their products badly. I buy a lot of them with my own money. Strangely, they won't talk to me.
I also review a lot of AMD gear, and almost no Intel stuff. Why? AMD sends me things when I ask, without any pain or hoops to jump through. Intel won't. I know they can, friends in the industry have intel sending truckloads of chips to them on offhand remarks. I would almost say they don't like me or want me near thier products. If I ever do get one, I will write about it fairly though, I think that is what they are afraid of.
Last but not least, I know at least 3 of The Inq writers, me included, have been offered money to do something, or not do something. All the ones that I have heard of turned them down. At CES in January, a vendor who I know and like tried to hand me a wad of bills. I (politely) turned him down, even though it was probably more money than I had seen in a month, and it would have made the difference between another day of dollar menu items and water, and the not totally cheap buffets in vegas. Others have been offered 6 digits to do things. Personally, I don't know why he turned that one down.
What it all comes down to is ethics. Once yousell out, you are done. How can you trust them ever again? Easy you can't. That is why I turned down the money, and why the site puts reporting first. If it were any other way, I would be gone.
Other sites make other decisions, and they quickly get the reputations that they deserve. The community knows, and if you look closely, you can pick out who is clean fairly easily, it isn't all that hard.
-Charlie
The issue arose when ATI failed to offer support for MS's XP-Media Center Edition (MCE) until more than 2 years after the rest of the tuner vendors did so.
In Oct 2003, ATI announced "support" for MCE in 2 ways: a "hardware encoder" card, the eHomeWonder, and drivers for existing AIW cards, called "Encode", a software MPEG encoder.
A public Beta was started with just 15 members, and the performance of Encode was abyssmal, if it ran at all.
Public discussion ensued at several sites concerning if ATI was even serious about MCE support, or if they were going to intentionally screw with MCE to instead support their own PVR solution; MMC.
The folks at ATI threatened the owners/moderators/webmasters at several sites to CENSOR FORUM COMMENTS that revealed ATIs piss-poor customer support (if you bought a $400 video card that was supposed to work with MCE because the vendor said it would, but then ATI refused to release the drivers, wouldn't you be pissed off when the makers of numerous $60 tuners provide drivers for free?).
ATI still won't release drivers.
Rage3D STILL censors posts that go into any detail about ATI shortcomings whenever ATI calls to complain.
Even the MICROSOFT NEWSGROUPS (microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter) are censored upon ATI request when the posts detail how ATI has utterly failed to bring out a MCE solution that works.
ATI's "Encode" solution for AIW cards was used by just one OEM and results are not very good compared to other tuners. their eHW card was not selected by ANY large OEMs and ATI has resorted to selling this "OEM-only" card through the "Grey Market"
ATI's sales success with tuners in the MCE arena is really bad. Even vendors who go to ATI for video cards turn and run away from ATI tuners and buy those that actually work like Hauppague and Avermedia.
And HDTV? The new ATI HDTV Wonder is nothing new. The other manufacturers have offered similar performance for 2 years+. But ATI releases the new card to much fanfare despite the fact they are 2 years behind the times. Again, posts stating this are CENSORED AT ATI DEMAND from numerous enthusiast websites.
And when anybody complains about the function of ATI tuners, the crappy ATI support, links to working Encode drivers, or discusses ATIs strategy in depth, ATI responds by intimidating and CENSORING user forums, gets the webmasters to "Ban" anti-ATI posters, and basically subverts the public discussion intent of open forums.
So while in the Hard OCP case, companies may use crazy lawsuits, in the real world, all most companies need to do (like ATI does) is threaten the website owners that they won't get any more goodies to play with and they will lose advertising, and "POOF!" whatever the vendor doesn't like is gone into the ether of internet revisionist history!
it can't help but be buyassed? not unlike the moon/mars/bars shot.
consult with/trust in yOUR creators.... get ready to witness the disempowerment of unprecedented evile.
Do you know anything about IT? Or are you one who think IT is only the million dollar projects? A small companie orderbook or a mere webshop don't count?
The stats on mysql showed that for simple setups mysql outperforms the big boys. Factor in price and oracly quickly becomes a terrible product. (A webmonkey can maintain mysql. Oracle needs a dbm)
BUT only on small/medium applications. That is what the benchmark showed. But oracle doesn't like that to be known. It shows people the medium to big benchmarks and how well it does and hopes everyone forgets that they suck at small and are not really good at the gigantic stuff either.
Check out the benchmarks at the top of the pyramid. No oracle.
But I can understand oracle agreeing. Isn't it against advertising standards to name your competitor? Not allowed to say, we are better then those guys? Wich is why in washing powder commercial they literally have brand X.
Anyway would you trust any product wich people are not allowed to test?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Seriously. It is like asking somebody wich series of Star Trek is the best, wich editor they like, wich news source is the most un-biased. Guess what? Everyone is going to give you a different answer and they are all WRONG.
The reason is that it is subjective. Does the review of CPU X favor price over stability? Heat over speed? Linux drivers over optimized for windows?
Intel fans will say that intel is more stable and has better support. AMD fans will say theirs give better performance for less money.
So wich angle does a review site take?
Don't even get into people who get offended because a site dares say that THEIR brand new video card is a bad buy.
No the only good source of reviews is to look at the other responses, bookmark the sites and then when you need a review visit them ALL. If 9 out of 10 sites say product X sucks then maybe, perhaps, just possibly, it does. If it is a split then stay away from it. If only 1 says it is bad try to figure out what they consider bad that all the others don't seem to find a problem.
Oh and if possible try to find the manufacturs site and the official press releases. This can help you weed out the reviews that are mere press release reprints.
The answers: Original, vi , no such thing.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
puh-leaze. The viper article is obviously just ...
a corroboration of the original, attempting to
keep attention on it (and borrow some of that
to get attention for itself). Infinium labs is
bogus? yawn, nothing to see here
I say that because there's nothing particularly
insidious going on here. We have a disreputable
manufacturer who's been called out; not, as the
article tries to imply, some industry wide hush
phenomenon. It's just sensationalism.
Wake me when viper labs shuts down site operations.
(They don't even have good copy editors.)
Finding it on Google doesn't validate the data.
A google search for the phrase "google not a validation of data" returns Your search - "google not a validation of data" - did not match any documents.
Therefore:
a) It's never been said
which leads to:
b) This thread doesn'
This is not a dream, not a dream...we are transmitting from the year 1-9-9-9.
Just for starters, notice that all the hardware sites get their test units from the manufacturers. In other words, they call the manu and say 'please send me a free hard drive to test for a review'. The manu then tries out 5 units to find the one that works best and sends it.
Consumers Reports, on the other hand, goes to the store and buys a random unit, same as you or I might.
Personally, I trust www.storagereview.com, but they do the same thing.
When you say "honest review sites" the only way to truly judge if a site is honest or not is to follow its coverage over an extended period of time and see if the reviews match reality when you go out and buy a particular product.
At the risk of being repetitive, I've made some comments before about so-called "reviews" and so-called "review sites" that are really run by fanboys who spend most of their time trading/posting links to other fanboy sites. I'll leave it to the intelligence of the Slashdot reader to figure out the obvious example(s) that are right under your nose.
On the subject of honest/fair reviews, I invite you to check out Geartest.com Technology News & Reviews. We try to summarize our philosophy in our motto: Real Gear. Real World. Real Reviews. They are long-term reviews, in a real production environment, with retail versions of products (something we specify and insist upon since we do not review prototypes or pre-production models), all without any pandering.
This type of review and testing can be exceedingly difficult to do for a number of reasons:
The frustrations with the lack of high-quality reviews is very much one of the reasons why we started Geartest.com. I don't like to spend my hard-earned money on a new piece of equipment only to find it falls far short of expectations and "reviews" by so-called "reviewers."
Many manufacturers were taken aback by our comparatively rigorous review policy and outright refused to participate. Others ignored us after learning of our review policy, even after initially agreeing to provide review units.
We must be doing something right because we have seen our traffic grow steadily with plenty of positive feedback from readership. Traffic has grown to the point where manufacturers have become much more responsive. They see the value proposition of having an unbiased, long-term review, even if they view it as a low-cost form of product research and testing for next-generation improvements. It seems some of those manufacturers who were initial doubters are starting to see things our way.
it does not validate the data, but it does validate that the information is "publicly discussed".
If the information covered by NDA can be found using google, then it might be safer to assume that writing about it/commenting might be ok. [though IANAL... so....]
--
Time is on my side
Tom's Hardware has nothing to worry about from IBM.
/. regulars are well aware of, are exactly that. Death comes to your data on these drives eventually. Too bad for a large number of customers, it came sooner rather than later.
/. story points out, why bite the hand that feeds you advance facts on hardware under ndas, and direct contact with company engineers?
IBM's GXP Deathstar hard drives, as
When the news first broke on these drives, some tech sites came out with the news, and others kept fairly silent. Silence isn't a crime. But continuing to use Deathstars in review gear should be. Why? Because some readers, myself included, used reviews and testing gear examples from Tom's Hardware to build our first computers. Take advice and recommendations from the experts, and you get a better computer, right?
As the current
Consumer Reports buys everything they test. With the money that Tom's Hardware has made from advertising on its site (from reader views), they should be doing the same.
Don't take my word for it. Check the dates of when the Deathstar stories first appeared. Then check the hardware reviews on Tom's Hardware. Not just hard drive reviews. Check reviews of other hardware related or dependent upon hard drive speed to get some benchmarks or results. Then see what hard drives are used in the benchmarks, and in the review gear.
While some of their readers went down in flames, others were announcing that the there was a problem, and they continued on as if nothing was wrong. They may have acknowledged the problem in a small story or two iirc (maybe not even that), but they continued using the hard drives in their review gear, without a footnote or warning about them.
Why?
Bishop, some of your comments ring true and are worth further discussion.
This is exactly the reason why we at Geartest.com don't buy any products for review purposes.
In the linked write-up, VL/ViperLair/Hubert Wong says of running his site (emphasis added):
There is a psychological phenomenon called "buyer's remorse" that product marketers and salesmen try to take advantage of. It's a subconscious type of anxiety-based self-hypnosis. The principle hinges on an individual's desire 1. not to be wrong when making a purchase, 2. to have made a sound buying decision and 3. to get the best deal. Buyer's remorse tends to manifest itself most strongly on high-ticket items.
By making a personal (financial or emotional) investment in a product, you are much more likely to have a favorable opinion of it. Remember that the next time a salesman tries to get you to agree with him about the positive aspects of a product (car salesmen are notorious for this). It lowers healthy consumer skepticism and inclines you toward a positive opinion of a product. That's exactly why anyone who does reviews should never purchase products for reviews and expect to maintain any credibility.
That should go without saying. What I would add is that you should read critically and keep in mind the biases that each of those sites have. There is no such thing as a completely objective review. Reviews are subjective by their very nature. The best you can do is try to determine which reviews are fair and honest, then filter out any inherent biases.
Numbers are not the be-all and end-all. For example, we have seen how numbers can be manipulated with recent benchmarking scandals. How many times have you read comments here on Slashdot where people are sick and tired of the same sites running the same benchmark tools, then posting the results here, presumably just to drive up their traffic numbers? They don't add anything useful. Everyone here can download those same benchmarks and run them.
With the exception of the hardcore technical reader, the majority of consumers out there -- who look to reviews to help them make decisions -- do not have the knowledge or background to properly or usefully interpret or understand those results, even when explained in plain language.
It's fair to say trust the numbers, but only to a point. If you have made buying decisions based on a review, and you find that a site has a good track record, stick with it, but don't stop reading critically. The people who write reviews are just as human and fallible as you are. The commentary and interpretation that come with a review are at least as valuable (if not moreso) than raw statistics. Numbers do not tell the whole story -- they are only part of it.
The rest of Bishop's tips are good to keep in mind.
One thing I would add. Stop supporting/giving patronage to sites that pander or otherwise offer skewed reviews and little value.
Support those that offer fair, high-quality reviews and information. It's the only way to guarantee that the best sites stay online and the manufacturers provide access to those who offer you the high-quality content that you want.
Horseshit.
You just lost all your credibility with me and with any other pro tech journalist who read the crap you just wrote. So you depend exclusively on freebies? What happens if a vendor doesn't like your review? Enough unhappy vendors and you're out of business. Or is it that you never give bad reviews for products?
Do you always return the products you review to the vendors in salable condition? Do you return them at all?
If the reviewer is a professional, it doesn't matter whether the review product was purchased by the reviewer, will be reimbursed by the publication, or was sent as a review copy by the vendor. Good products get good reviews, bad products get bad reviews.
How many not-so-good products get excellent reviews from you because they've got something else that you really want on your system and you really want to make that vendor happy? The answer should be zero... but I'm not going to waste time at your site finding out.
Speaking as a reviewer who has written product reviews for various CMP publications and for other media since 1987 of product I've purchased myself, I don't hesitate to slag products I've bought if they merit it. I enjoy telling readers the bad news about products they're thinking about buying as well as the good news.
My review of the Belkin UPS disclosed that the default software install allowed anybody on earth with an Internet connection to shut it down remotely. (fixed a couple of months after my review came out) I didn't have to worry about my vendor relationship with Belkin, I'm just another customer.
I'm writing a review of a CPU silencing kit... and will tell the public that my system runs quieter and cooler... and what the vendor forgot to include with the product.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Your zealot dig at Fox News isn't shared by the rest of the US or the world. In a short amount of time, Fox has ripped to pieces Communist News Network.
Not much debate when it comes down to state courts. The Supreme Court has never directly ruled on the 2nd Amendment, leaving it to the states to decide. There is one US Constitution, but states also have state constitutions. Just like there are state protections for other rights also found in the US Constitution, so are there over 40 states with some form of 2nd Amendment protections. And in the states where the 2nd Amendment has been included or later added, and reviewed by state courts, or where the state has included a pre-emption provision, there is no debate among them. That's 37 states (or does Missouri make 38?) where, if you are not a criminal, and you are not disqualified by mental illness, the state MUST issue permits in states that have a permitting system, and in states where there is no permit, no state official may prevent its law-abiding citizenry from possessing firearms, including handguns.
The 1st Amendment has been open to interpretation. It has taken court cases to decide that you can't yell Fire! in a movie theatre, or that the 1st Amendment applies to government actions (against citizenry), not private individuals.
37 states have made clear that there is nothing about the 2nd Amendment being poorly written or being open to interpretation. Some have done it simply by adopting the 2nd Amendment into their state constitutions and accepting it, and others have adopted it, and then it has taken arrests and/or lawsuits, and the attacks by the governors/attorney generals against it, for it to reach the relevant state supreme courts. In 37 states, its over.
13 states left. Some are outright prohibitions, and some have written their laws to try and circumvent or delay a decision against them by handing out licenses on a limted basis. Eventually, every state will have "shall issue" rights, because as citizenry in each state get their rights more clearly defined, and become armed, they will take action to ensure they don't lose this right that took so long and was such a tough fight.
Florida was one of the first states to adopt such a law written so clearly. Gun prohibitionists such as yourself screamed that there would be blood flowing in the streets of Florida if the law passed. The head of the state police chiefs (or was it AG?) spoke in opposition to the law before it passed. After it passed, after some time to examine crime statistics and permit holder statistics, the head of the state police chiefs (or AG?) dropped his opposition.
What I wonder is if zealots such as yourself were to succeed at some point in banning guns,
would you ban swords next?
Florida: 798,732 issued, 146 (0.02%) revoked due to firearm crimes by licensees. (Dept. of State, 10/1/87-2/29/02)
Kentucky: 71,770 valid permits, 585 (0.8%) revoked for any reason. (State Police, 10/1/96-12/31/01)
Louisiana.: 15,319 issued, 67 (0.4%) revoked for any reason. (State Police, (11/1/96-2/28/02)
Oklahoma: 35,329 issued, 108 (0.30%) revoked for any reason. (SBI, 2/28/ 2002)
North Carolina: 47,046 issued, 242 (0.5%) revoked for any reason. (SBI, 12/1/95-9/29/01)
South Carolina: 33,492 issued, 164 (0.5%) revoked for any reason. (SLED, 8/96-5/26/02)
Texas: 223,5
Unfortunately, Dan seems to review only parts meant to sell to people who know nothing about computers. These are all overpriced. None of the parts I saw would be used by computer companies to build computers. We pay $5.50 U.S. for a partly copper heatsink for Athlon processors, for example.
Where can I read your reviews?
Fascinating.
I had no idea that you were the voice for all professional technology journalists everywhere. I'll have to remind the technology journalists I know (and contact those that I don't, just so they know) that they should stop visiting and writing because a lone voice howling in the Internet wilderness has an axe to grind and went on a rabid rant that we lacked credibility with him. Sure thing. Gotcha.
Thanks for completely ignoring the half-dozen paragraphs of entirely relevant context preceding the line that you took as the kernel for your completely off-base and misguided (at best) rant. But context apparently doesn't mean a thing to a "pro tech journalist" -- I'll try not to laugh out loud at that -- like you claim to be.
As for your argument about being put "out of business" by vendors unhappy with critical reviews, it's not going to happen. The fact is that none of us need to rely on the site for personal income or revenue. With personal financial imperatives removed, we're entirely free to publish whatever content we see fit, free of editorial interference from manufacturers. Critical coverage has led to us being frozen out in the past. That's a decision that is entirely within vendors' rights to make, but it doesn't leave a good impression with the readership. It comes off as sour grapes or taking their toys and going home.
But being the ever-so-clever and infallible uber-technology-reviewer that you are, you would know that, wouldn't you? Unless you're not who or what you claim to be. Now there's a thought.
Good products get good reviews, bad products get bad reviews.
My naive friend, if only it were so, there wouldn't have been a need to start Geartest.com (or any of the other sites that people have mentioned here). The fact is that there are many so-called "pro tech journalists" and "professional reviewers" -- presumably you are the self-annointed leader -- who don't actually do reviews but are entirely motivated by other financial considerations. For example, say, people who want others to hire them as a "professional Web surfer" at $25 per search for using Google. Or, say, people who want companies to hire them as home appliance Internet security product development consultants of dubious credentials -- or none for that matter.
For someone that claims to be such a security expert, it's amazing to me that you would ask people to fill out a Web form and transmit detailed personal information (more than enough for identity theft) to you via the Internet in plaintext ("unencrypted" for those who aren't entirely familiar with the terminology).
How many not-so-good products get excellent reviews at Geartest.com? NONE. In fact not very many products at all get excellent reviews, or even good ones. That's because most products out there are just mediocre.
Commercial technology product releases are often shipped with flaws. The fact that Belkin released updated software for its UPS had nothing to do with your phantom review. Belkin was probably aware of any problems when it shipped and made a business decision to proceed based on the slim probablility that any individual user would be affected by the flaw. Anyone who has ever worked on modern technology products knows that this is a common occurrence, something that you seem to be completely unaware of.
I was going to write a gently-worded response that refuted every one of your personal issues, but you've earned a reply that matches the tone of your comment.
Curse and swear all you like (really professional conduct by the way). If you are a fraction of the accomplished and esteemed reviewer and technologist that you make yourself out to be, your efforts would be better put to being part of the solution instead of throwing around your petty denouncements, name
nah... you are not a lawyer... but you
1- Definitly have a need for one...
2- Are ANAL....
3- are as descpicable as one
nah... you are not a lawyer... but you
1- Definitly have a need for one...
2- Are ANAL....
3- are as descpicable as one
~GoAT~