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20 Things They Don't Want You to Know
theodp writes "PC World spills the beans about a bunch of things technology companies would rather you didn't know, including the lowdown on exploiting Windows' bad security, unlocking cell phones, using an IPod to move music and useless specs." Nothing groundbreaking, but might be a good primer for the non-techie in your life.
http://pcworld.com/resource/printable/article/0,ai d,122094,00.asp
BITTORRENT...! o_O
// bleh, 3rd post!
/ bet you were expecting something creative like Linux eh?
Windows Messenger != MSN Messenger.
You mean my speakers can't sink 1,000 watts?!? The deuce you say!
I love the power ratings on speakers. If those numbers were half true, playing an MP3 would make the streetlights dim in time to the music. And all that power somehow coming from a little 500 mA wall-wart. Science, wonders, and miracles!
We all know this but I can't believe that PC World are actually saying it. They are one of the hardest sellers of extended warranties that I know. They once tried to sell me a warranty for a £10 mouse. IIRC the warranty was £15 but covered me for 3 years! No I don't shop there on a regular basis I just needed a mouse quickly.
As far as I can tell they make their money from running virus scanners on ill informed customers PC's. Their customer service is awful at best even when they are taking large sums of your money. I suppose that is the result of them being the only show in town. The last thing that really bugs me though is that they always have a security guard on the door.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Trillian supports MSN Messenger as well as AIM/ICQ/Yahoo!/IRC/Jabber etc. It's basically the same as GAIM, and supports most protocols (also supports plugins).
:)
What I don't understand is what the grandparent is talking about, why would he have to change to MSNger to stop having to fight the firewall? Trillian mimics MSN Messenger in order to connect to MSN servers. The only problems with Trillian for me are high memory usage (although not so bad when compared to MSNger 7.0), slow interface, and Audio/Visual capabilities that only work half the time.
I've switched to MSNger exclusively because I don't have anyone I chat with regularly on AIM or Yahoo, so the benefits of Trillian/Gaim are much less than the frustrations of incompatibility with MSNger buddies. Besides, you can always break the EULA and remove the ads and such from the MSN client, I recommend SpeedyMSN. Really cleans up the interface, if you can find the download for 2.0 (both speedymsn.tk and speedymessenger.net are down at the time of this writing.) You can bet Microsoft doesn't want people knowing that they can get rid of that pesky ad....
They recommend buying things from Dell. For those who are already stuck with things from Dell it is possible to get replacement parts from third parties (even Dell laptop batteries) without having to spend hours on the phone.
every hacker or geek had to start somewhere -
maybe learning how to copy Ipod tunes to multiple computers is just what the Dr. ordered to start someone down the road to unlocking the next propritary file format -
RB
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ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
Soylent Green is PEOPLE!
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I always wondered where they got this shit. The first time I encountered it, I literally did a double take. I was poking around computer speakers, I don't remember why, and I came across a little set of desktop speakers. Nothing remarkable except that they were rated to about 300watts.
Ok now WTF? As it happens, I own professional speakers. They are about 5 feet tall, dual bass drivers, 3-way, etc. Serious speakers in other words. I check on them and they are rated to 200 watts a peice. Sounds reasonable for their size, but would still be pushing it. I'm sure they could handle 200 watts of RMS power, but I really wouldn't want to try it.
So how the hell can these little speakers handle 300 watts? I mean I can't even figure out a peak computation that would figure it. So I find that it's "PMPO" power. I don't know what PMPO means, Peak Momentary Power Output I've heard but I think SWPOOA would be a better term, Shit We Pulled Out of Our Ass. It seems to have no relation to reality, purely somebody's fantasy.
For that matter I can't figure out why you'd want that kind of power out of computer speakers. I drive my speakers with a 150 watt amp, that's 75 watts per channel so a little less than half of what they are rated to take. It's overkill in the purest sense of the word. For normal, modern music I rarely drive them beyond 1 watt each. For classical dynamic music, maybe 5 watts. This drives it to nearly painful levels.
More power is useful in large venues but for computers, who the fuck cares? Speakers are right next to you.
20 things any geek worth his salt already knows
The submitter has an AOL address! What do you expect?!
i found the find-a-human section quite helpful:
https://www.quickbase.com/db/bam6rdiey?a=q&qid=5
You Can Get a Human on the Phone
Follow the directions at Paul English's Find-A-Human IVR Phone System Shortcuts site to reach a human operator at any of more than 60 cell phone, PC, and travel firms.
when i know i can find the info online, i won't bother. i need some help that an automated system can't provide or wastes too much time trying to get it to recgonize what i'm saying.
another winner i thought was:
Useless Specs: Digital Zoom
definitely the most useless spec i can't think of at the moment. it tricks unsuspecting buyers into believing their digicam has more 'zoom' than it really has.
HD Trailers
From the article:
"My PC's firewall, antivirus scanner, spyware remover, pop-up blocker, and spam filter all agree: Windows is sorely lacking in PC security. That situation may not change until Windows Vista (formerly Longhorn) comes out sometime next year."
Wonder if Vegas is giving any odds on this. Might be easy money.
nos laetus epulor qui would domito nos
I've had an HP 4000 since 1997. I've printed lots, and I've never had a problem. I know someone who still has an HP 4si (circa 1993). Its not cheap to buy a quality laser printer, but, since I've only bought one printer in 8 years, I think it works out cheaper to buy quality.
Or, as with anything else, you get what you pay for.
Sarcasm and hyperbole are the final refuges for weak minds
Many spammers have taken advantage of "windows messenger" spamming by throwing packets at windows messenger in hopes that it will appear on the users' desktop. Disabling the messenger effectively eliminates this.
I like the other replies, but I think the answer is less "the user doesn't care" and more "it trains the user not to care." The operating system crying wolf every 10 minutes for things that aren't problems (yes, Windows, anti-virus is updated) only serves to mask real security concerns.
I guess, as always, if you want it done right don't leave it to Windows.
The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches. -- ee cummings
TFA states that your Windows Product Key being retrievable is a security risk. What??
Not to mention the fact that the author uses Windows to manage his passwords, which he cites as another of the software's "security risks". The only security risk in this situation is the article's author.
I'm amazed you even understood what s/he was talking about. I thought it was just a bunch of random words strung together to resemble sentences.
The average small to medium hi-fi loudspeaker tends to have an efficiency in the mid eighty-something dB/W. With something like 50 W of power, this is is quite sufficient for moderate volumes.
If you want something loud for the party cellar, look for something with 90 dB/W or better. This kind of efficiency is usually found in larger loudspeakers, which can also handle 100W RMS or more. I guess Handyman's speakers belong in that category and would do fine in the party cellar.
Big P.A. systems for rock concerts tend to have around 100 dB/W, combined with a few thousand watts of power. The resulting volume is quite impressive even in a large hall.
C - the footgun of programming languages
If you don't want to pay the ridiculous rates that cell phone companies charges for the luxury of putting .jpg/.png/.mid/.mp3/whatever on your cellphone, try out this site:
.mid files to my phone, it's way too much fun.
http://www.phoneuploader.stellernet.com/
I've spent the last couple hours uploading Mario
I'd add laptops to that list. I have had three of them, my first was a Toshiba which developed a broked LCD display (a month before the 1 year warranty expired) and a loose power connector (After warranty expired). The next one was an IBM laptop which I had for a loooooong time that also developed a broken LCD (After standard warranty expired but this time I bought an extended one). My current machine is a Powerbook which so far has gone through two defective LCD's (Factory flaw which Apple fixed without complaint) and an improperly re-assebled CD/DVD drive that assassinated a Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac disk (Original not pirate copy, also replaced without complaint by Apple although it was not a warranty issue). So does it pay to have an extended warranty? My opinion is a big fat YES but then perhaps I am phenominally unlucky with laptops. I am actually looking forward to finding out what will break down on the Intel-Mac PowerBook I am planning to buy as soon as they become available. One thing is for sure I will buy all the extra insurance for it that I can get.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
When shopping at Dell
always, and I mean always, remember to never actually buy your computer there.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
What PC World doesn't want you to know, is that you can read articles how Tim intended by going straight for the printable version. I give you gold here.
I shall go and tell the indestructible man that someone plans to murder him.
Thank you. WHen I read the original post I felt like my dog must feel when he tilts his head sideways.
True, but Windows Messenger != Windows Messenger, either :-)
There's MSN Messenger. We all know what that is.
Then there's Windows Messenger. Which is a sibling of MSN Messenger included in Windows XP
Finally there's that other Windows Messenger. The one which used to be called WinPopup.
It'd be nice if different parts of MS could at least make sure this sort of naming confusion didn't happen. Oh well.
What's the frequency, Kenneth?
Secret #576:
That if you switch to the printer friendly version of most websites you can read the full article without switching pages or having to go through tons of advertisements.
Insert Witty Remark Here ===>____________________________
Yet Another Translation, by a professional:
"Sometime Fibs are Good"
An example of a bad fib:
Marketing representatives often use fibs to misrepresent the speed of communications service. For example, while visiting a friend a few weeks ago, I heard a local DSL company's sales representative pitching his company's service. He began to explain the advantages of DSL over a dial-up connection, and in doing so he told a fib: he said that DSL is the same as having a leased line. I interrupted him and asked him for confirmation, using the standard acronym "LL" for "Leased Line" to make it clear that I wanted to know if he was suggesting that DSL and a Leased Line were equivalent. The marketing representative replied that DSL and Leased Lines were the same thing, which is patently untrue.
This example of a bad fib demonstrates the underhanded marketing tactics some sales representatives choose to employ. These fibs lead the customer further from the truth, in the hope that the customer will make an ill-informed and unwise purchase. This tactic is unwise, however, because customers will grow unhappy with their service once they learn the truth.
An example of a good fib:
Hardware salespeople, especially the owners of stores and technically oriented sales representatives, sometimes tell less harmful fibs. Once, a merchant was pitching a 2GB USB pen to an older woman who did not seem to understand much about storage space. The merchant, being at heart an honest man, did not want to give his client the impression that he was selling her a full two gigabytes of storage space, because that was untrue, despite the manufacturer's claims. So, he disclosed the truth by telling a small fib: he told her that some of the space on the USB device was already used by software needed by computers accessing the device.
Although the owner said did not fully explain the difference between the product advertisement and the truth, he did make an effort to show his client that the packaging was misleading and that the product would not fully live up to the expectations advertised. By telling a small fib, he avoided allowing a client to believe a larger lie or allowing her to become confused by technical jargon and unfamiliar concepts. In this case, the result of telling the fib was to bring the client closer to the truth so that she could make an informed purchase.
Heh, doesn't everyone ignore those little speech bubbles? Windows spams me more than the v1@gr@ people.
My personal favorite: On a Windows XP box at work which has no USB2.0 bus that, I get a warning from Windows about having plugged a high-speed USB device into a low-speed USB port every time I plug my USB2 key in.
Come on, that's not helping me. That's just mocking me for not having the latest hardware.
The probable cause of your problem is that you don't use your printer very much and it dries out/gets full of dust/gets dropped.
Most cheap all-in-ones are actually designed for low use SOHO owners, but a Canon LIDE series scanner, a cheap base model photo printer and a basic laser together are more capable, more reliable, and cheap to fix if something goes wrong (replacing one item is cheaper than buying the extended warranty on the all-in-one.)
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
From TFA: "You Too Can Exploit Windows' Bad Security
My PC's firewall, antivirus scanner, spyware remover, pop-up blocker, and spam filter all agree: Windows is sorely lacking in PC security. That situation may not change until Windows Vista (formerly Longhorn) comes out sometime next year. Meanwhile here are a few ways to turn Windows' poor security to your advantage."
As most people here already know, Microsoft does not focus on bug fixes in their new releases. Their primary focus is on new features. Sure, some of the old bugs may be gone -- but some new ones will be sure to pop up with the new functionality. Just because Longhorn is newer, that doesn't make it better or more secure.
In my personal opinion, Microsoft deliberately ships shoddy software so everyone will flock to the new releases. It's human nature to believe that "newer is better" but that is not always the case. It has proven to be a highly successful business model for M$.
I've got some Mod points, and if there was a "+1 What the fuck?" you'd get it.
Windows Messenger is included in Windows XP and can be used for IM-ing through Microsofts servers (they connect to the same servers as MSN Messenger), but can also be used for IM-ing on your own network using an Exchange Server. MS also has an Exchange IM client if you're using win2k or below.
Now for the Windows Messenger #2... this is actually called the Windows Messenger Service and is indeed used for popup messages (intended for networks). You can use WinPopup, but on the command line "net send \\IP.here.x.x "message"" will work too. I can remember doing a txt adventure game with one of my collegues using this before IM-ing was invented.Heh... those were good times... Anyway, I definately agree with you on the naming convention, but the Windows Messenger Service was around way before Instant Messenging was even invented, so what were they supposed to come up with after AOL and Yahoo! both created a product with "Messenger" in the name (yes I am aware that Google uses the name Talk, but I think that's because their future plans with it are in the voice/VOIP arena)?
The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.
This is stuff the average nerd already knows.
Some is and some is not. I don't believe you already knew Amazon's customer support phone number, that Philips has a zero-dead-pixel warranty, how to get to a human on 60+ companies' phone systems, and where to download a utility to reveal a Windows license key. You may have known some of what was in the article, but I'll bet that you didn't know it all.
Sure, the article was not a revelation with each and every paragraph, but it probably provided some useful information to most of the people on Slashdot who read it. I even found one of the linked utilities to be handy.
"Nothing groundbreaking, but might be a good primer for the non-techie in your life."
Cuz that's what I read slashdot for anyway, finding good primers for my non-techie friends to read.
MikeAtIF*ckStuffedAnimalsDotCom
The talk manpage says that the talk command appeared in 4.2BSD, which was released in August, 1983, according to this history of BSD. Does Windows Messenger Service predate that?