Additionally, some of the bigger names in the industry of mass mailing are in on it, and for gmail specifically, if you use the + notation, they automatically use the real address under the hood. So it wouldn't help.
The issue with gmail in particular is that a) it is unable to filter according to the actual recipient address used and b) it is impossible with any webmail I know to have incoming emails rejected, in particular combined with a)...
1&1 and Deutsche Telekom in Germany just announced that (paraphrasing it) they will take email security more seriously now.
The announcement was from DT and United Internet (which has the sub companies 1&1.de, web.de, GMX.de), so you find the "eMail made in Germany" logo on all of them. These four plus GMail likely account for most email accounts in Germany. (And no, just because of having a subsidiary in the US doesn't make 1&1 an american company. It's not. Whether that helps the US employees against torture is another question, though.)
Nevertheless, "more seriously" means enabling SSL encryption between servers, which technically is something that should have done a decade ago. So essentially it is nothing more than a marketing campain.
You might want t get an email account at GMX in Germany (product of 1&1)
You certainly don't want to. Fact is that the WW II hasn't ended in so far as there are still serious limitations on sovereignity on Germany from US side (the Russians gave up on them during German reunification). Essentially US authorities can order around German authorities, including in particular the order to not investigate US crimes on German soil. You also may want to look up the story of the guy who invited a few friends on fecesbook to take a walk to some spy facility to watch the endangered species of NSA agents from a distance (or some such). He had the modern equivalent of the Gestapo at his doorsteps a few days later and had to officially register this walk as a demonstration...
We have also seen there IS a way to build a road so it will really last, just look at the Autobahn, but you have to lay a really solid foundation and build up.
Hate to burst your bubble, but the Autobahn doesn't last forever, either, even if it might be better made than the roads in the USA. And in Switzerland they're experimenting with special asphalt with even longer durability (IIRC with nano particles in it), as closing the highways crossing the alps has an extreme economic impact... Also, there are lots of bridges in need of maintenance in Germany as well (but not on the brink of collapsing at least) - for example that bridge that held the record of the shortest construction time also held the record of the shortest time till needing repairs.
Of course I agree with you that investment into infrastructure is a better idea than investment into lottery players (aka bankers)... which is true not only in the USA.
EU Consumer Law regarding to product quality at the time of sale
Call the first "warranty" (as in: a promise the manufacturer opted to make), and the second "defect liability" (as in: the seller must not sell defective goods). Unfortunately, these two concepts ("Garantie" and "Gewährleistung") happen to both be called warranty in English, clouding the issue somewhat...
Noteworthy: some non-essential, nice to have things
I just wished they'd fixed copy (and paste) from konsole - most of the time when I copy some output from the konsole to paste elsewhere (e.g. my editor of choice or my chat program), I have gobs of spaces after each line. That's the most frustrating bug ever...
My cousin in Europe carries around 600euro and this is considered normal.
This is certainly not an amount considered normal for every-day usage here in Germany, and I seriously doubt this is the case in any other European country.
Also note that in Europa, there is the EC card (currently being renamed to girocard or some such) - essentially a regular bank card that you can pay with, either with PIN code (also requires commission, but less than credit cards) or with signature (allowing direct debit and agreeing to pay fees caused by cancelling that direct debit).
And last, but not least, there's also the GeldKarte (money card) - another application on your bank card that you can load small amounts of money for micro payments, accepted at some vendin machines and some shops - it didn't reach the popularity the banks anticipated, but almost any bank card carries the GeldKarte logo.
All in all, there's pretty much no place for PayPal in Europa - except for people believing the "buyer protection" mythos and smaller mechants. But small amounts are still frequently paid in cash - why give banks an additional share coupled with a slow down in the paying process?
Not sure what problems you have with Gmail, but false positive rate is minimal and I rarely get more than 50 -actual- spam messages a month.
That sounds about the amount I get daily. And false positives... well, from my last keysigning party, virtually every signed key that went through gmail ended up in the spam folder. I don't consider that "minimal".
Though, probably the spam rate went up since a) some retard from the US that wouldn't even be able to spell my first name passed my email on as his own one to his friends (yeah, thanks for the BBQ invitations, but I'm afraid I wasn't able to make it over the big pond in time) and b) that one other person in Germany with the same first and family name kept CC:ing me on his personal and business mail...
So, for me, I also have my one-mail-address-per-business thingy setup. However, mine are unguessable (i.e. they have an added cryptographic check sum). Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of web sites nowadays are so crappy that they refuse mail addresses with a plus sign in it. And some even refuse conscutive minus signs...
Essentially, it shows progress on all itches I had with 4.2 -- the weather applet, kdelirc being ported, the CPU/mem/swap applet being readded. Now only the device notifier needs to be revamped, and konqi should learn that double click means to mark words and not some random part of the line... (Yes, there are some crashes. Sometimes. So? At least it provides the functionality I need.)
KDE is *broken* to delete a file and expect it to still be there if it crashes before the write.
Nope, it writes a new file and then renames it over the old file, as rename() says it is an atomic operation - you either have the old file or the new file. What happens with ext4 is that you get the new file except for its data. While that may be correct from a POSIX lawyer pont of view, it is still heavily undesirable.
I dunno - I've been using KDE for years, recently I gave Kubuntu a try (using it to setup the Christmas gift for my dad), and it came with KDE 4.1.
If you want to use KDE4 in any useful way, then go for any KDE distribution. In particular, OpenSuSE is known to be quite good for handling KDE4: you can still install KDE3, or you can install KDE 4.1 with a bunch of KDE 4.2 features backported, which actually works quite well. As much as people like Ubuntu, Kubuntu is simply KDE 4.1 hacked together in what feels like the worst possible way. If you insist on Intrepid, then at least grab the KDE 4.2 b2 binaries. You trade in a constantly crashing plasma for a KDE version without the plasmoid that shows CPU/mem usage (and that one was really handy). So whatever Shuttleworth archieved with Ubuntu, his team doesn't deserve any credit for what they did to Kubuntu.:-(
3) Doesn't work unless you use the newest UI (ui=1, as needed for Konqi 3, simply doesn't show the option, luckily KDE 4.1 is round the corner)
There seem to have been some more features unavailable unless you happen to be located in the US (just changing the language didn't cut it), so Google isn't playing nice here...
In Europe when you want a new phone you have to shell out several hundred dollars, there are no free phones or discounts.
I wonder which part of Europe you're supposed to be talking about, it definately isn't true in any European country I've ever visite. Maybe the next statement of yours will claim that electricity hasn't been invented in Europe yet or some such, as that would be on the same level of ignorance?
GMail ought to go back to cell phone authentication for new accounts.
The problem is that cell phone authentification was only available in small, somewhat irrelevant parts of the world. But invitation based authentification worked quite well.
http://po.shaftnet.org/
It's primary purpose is to be a photographer's main image repository rather than "post a bunch of images online and blog about it" As such, it lacks social networking features (beyond ratings) but it scales up to ginormous repository sizes. My personal site has over 30K images (in over 100GB).
I wish there would be some program that would let me edit my gallery offline and only
upload static HTML pages... (other than my crappy sed based script I did)
They're called 1&1, and they won't allow you to come back when you accept this offer. Their technical
service is as bad as any other mass provider's, and they're not even RfC 8288 compliant
(though dreamhost is neither...). However, they are part of United Internet, which also contains
web.de and GMX, and thus covers a huge fragment of the market.
Of course, that raises a dilemma: with no signs, how do you alert people that they're entering a city/area with no signs?
Simple: Have "yield to the right" ("Rechts vor Links") as the basic rule unless it is overruled by traffic signs.
And if there is someone coming from all 4 directions, then everybody must wait (until someone yields his right),
which is much better than nobody yielding.
Mistakes happen. When they happen, and you get into one of those "We show this bill was not paid" "I paid it" "We don't see it" loops, or "We show it was paid late" "I paid it on time" loops, it is a lot more effective to send them the traditional photocopy of both sides of the cancelled check that PROVES that they received it
Uhm, where's the advantage of a cheque here when you can achieve just the same result by sendimg them a photocopy
of your bank statement? They have the same legal value here than your cheques have overseas.
The electronic systems are still in their infancy.
Hate to burst your bubble, but no, they're not. At least not over here. Which is precisely my point: the banking
system of the U.S.o.A. is an anachronism, but the people living there are not aware of that fact. Having Paypal
as basically the single payment option doesn't make them aware, either.
Hehe, I don't know why assume I'd be UK-centrically even though it follows that I'm not of UK nationality when I said I don't have a bank account there.
Anyway, you act as if it were an advantage of paying by check. It is not. It is an inconvenience for everyone involved. Somehow I doubt that you have seen how banking works in any other country than
the U.S.o.A. (where you admit to come from) to realize. Feel free to pay by check as much as you want, it's just that
I wouldn't want to sign a cheque every month and have it transported only to pay my 20/month for DSL & flat
rate just to waste my time. Anything a cheque or a credit card can do in rl shopping can be done at least as easy
with an EC card. Anything a cheque can do for online shopping can be done much easier without it. Which is why I'll
never have a need for something as grotesque as Paypal.
And, just like cheques are still havily in use in the U.S.o.A., they're not used at all anymore here around. I haven't
even seen any from my bank. As such it is useless to try to convince you not to use cheques as much as it is
useless to try to convince me to use cheques since almost nobody will accept them.
Oh and even I don't have any particular interest in simplyfying any businesses processing, only in mine. However,
I do realize that the processing cost is essentially paid by me anyway.
While allowing withdrawels can lead to problems with questionable businesses, it is still the most practical
one. Any Amazon shopping - done with bank withdrawel (except for those with Amazon.uk as I don't have a GB
bank account ^_^). Any shopping for Computer stuff - done with bank withdrawel (if not paid in advance). Not
enough cash at the supermarket or barber shop - done with bank withdrawel (or EC if the shop prefers).
Sorry, but I don't see the problem. There are things that simply are not possible without bank withdrawel.
Web hosting. DSL. Renting a flat. GEZ (radio/TV licence). You may not get those without allowing bank withdrawel
as part of the contract. Or not as cheap. Who wants to spend on checking each incoming payment, when it can be automatized by bank withdrawel?
Anyway. There's only one case where you have a reason to hesitate, and that is if you don't know the
exact amount that will be pulled. So the telephone bill can pose a risk here. Monthly payments of fixed
amounts and single-authorized payments do not. Remember that you can charge back them in the same way
as you can charge back credit card payments.
Did someone say cheque? Sorry, but in modern times of electronic payments and bank withdrawel, there is no
need for those. Really. The only time in my life I needed a few of them was during my year in the U.S.o.A.
Btw, I agree with you in one point: not having a paper bill is definately a bad idea. I hate
it when certain service provider require you to download your pdf bill from their silly/obnoxious/unusable web page.
The data file format has been improved with respect to
international characters.
That was about time, considering that the previous version saved e.g. an ü as
ü - that is, it interpreted its internal UTF-8 string as latin1
when converting to XML. And when you wanted to have some report, the Euro sign was
printed â, that is ^a notsign (/. swallows the second symbol). Typical case of double-encoding. So "improved" is a nice euphemism for "finally fixed".
On top of that, there is no human intelligence in their faked-no-reply-possible-email-answered web support. They apologized that I couldn't play the CD-ROMs on my device (if I had tried, they wouldn't have taken them back), and went so far as to suggest that
if I want to complain about the lack of those CD-ROMs beeing CD-ROMs and no AudioCDs, I should use the "correct error" link at the bottom which cannot be used to report those kinds of errors...
Slashdot Mirror
The issue with gmail in particular is that a) it is unable to filter according to the actual recipient address used and b) it is impossible with any webmail I know to have incoming emails rejected, in particular combined with a)...
The announcement was from DT and United Internet (which has the sub companies 1&1.de, web.de, GMX.de), so you find the "eMail made in Germany" logo on all of them. These four plus GMail likely account for most email accounts in Germany. (And no, just because of having a subsidiary in the US doesn't make 1&1 an american company. It's not. Whether that helps the US employees against torture is another question, though.) Nevertheless, "more seriously" means enabling SSL encryption between servers, which technically is something that should have done a decade ago. So essentially it is nothing more than a marketing campain.
You certainly don't want to. Fact is that the WW II hasn't ended in so far as there are still serious limitations on sovereignity on Germany from US side (the Russians gave up on them during German reunification). Essentially US authorities can order around German authorities, including in particular the order to not investigate US crimes on German soil. You also may want to look up the story of the guy who invited a few friends on fecesbook to take a walk to some spy facility to watch the endangered species of NSA agents from a distance (or some such). He had the modern equivalent of the Gestapo at his doorsteps a few days later and had to officially register this walk as a demonstration...
That for sure.
Hate to burst your bubble, but the Autobahn doesn't last forever, either, even if it might be better made than the roads in the USA. And in Switzerland they're experimenting with special asphalt with even longer durability (IIRC with nano particles in it), as closing the highways crossing the alps has an extreme economic impact... Also, there are lots of bridges in need of maintenance in Germany as well (but not on the brink of collapsing at least) - for example that bridge that held the record of the shortest construction time also held the record of the shortest time till needing repairs.
Of course I agree with you that investment into infrastructure is a better idea than investment into lottery players (aka bankers)... which is true not only in the USA.
Call the first "warranty" (as in: a promise the manufacturer opted to make), and the second "defect liability" (as in: the seller must not sell defective goods). Unfortunately, these two concepts ("Garantie" and "Gewährleistung") happen to both be called warranty in English, clouding the issue somewhat...
I just wished they'd fixed copy (and paste) from konsole - most of the time when I copy some output from the konsole to paste elsewhere (e.g. my editor of choice or my chat program), I have gobs of spaces after each line. That's the most frustrating bug ever...
This is certainly not an amount considered normal for every-day usage here in Germany, and I seriously doubt this is the case in any other European country.
Also note that in Europa, there is the EC card (currently being renamed to girocard or some such) - essentially a regular bank card that you can pay with, either with PIN code (also requires commission, but less than credit cards) or with signature (allowing direct debit and agreeing to pay fees caused by cancelling that direct debit).
And last, but not least, there's also the GeldKarte (money card) - another application on your bank card that you can load small amounts of money for micro payments, accepted at some vendin machines and some shops - it didn't reach the popularity the banks anticipated, but almost any bank card carries the GeldKarte logo.
All in all, there's pretty much no place for PayPal in Europa - except for people believing the "buyer protection" mythos and smaller mechants. But small amounts are still frequently paid in cash - why give banks an additional share coupled with a slow down in the paying process?
That sounds about the amount I get daily. And false positives... well, from my last keysigning party, virtually every signed key that went through gmail ended up in the spam folder. I don't consider that "minimal".
Though, probably the spam rate went up since a) some retard from the US that wouldn't even be able to spell my first name passed my email on as his own one to his friends (yeah, thanks for the BBQ invitations, but I'm afraid I wasn't able to make it over the big pond in time) and b) that one other person in Germany with the same first and family name kept CC:ing me on his personal and business mail...
So, for me, I also have my one-mail-address-per-business thingy setup. However, mine are unguessable (i.e. they have an added cryptographic check sum). Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of web sites nowadays are so crappy that they refuse mail addresses with a plus sign in it. And some even refuse conscutive minus signs...
Essentially, it shows progress on all itches I had with 4.2 -- the weather applet, kdelirc being ported, the CPU/mem/swap applet being readded. Now only the device notifier needs to be revamped, and konqi should learn that double click means to mark words and not some random part of the line... (Yes, there are some crashes. Sometimes. So? At least it provides the functionality I need.)
Nope, it writes a new file and then renames it over the old file, as rename() says it is an atomic operation - you either have the old file or the new file. What happens with ext4 is that you get the new file except for its data. While that may be correct from a POSIX lawyer pont of view, it is still heavily undesirable.
For pedestrians I've seen such in Hamburg. And lots in Kiev (Ukraine).
If you want to use KDE4 in any useful way, then go for any KDE distribution. In particular, OpenSuSE is known to be quite good for handling KDE4: you can still install KDE3, or you can install KDE 4.1 with a bunch of KDE 4.2 features backported, which actually works quite well. As much as people like Ubuntu, Kubuntu is simply KDE 4.1 hacked together in what feels like the worst possible way. If you insist on Intrepid, then at least grab the KDE 4.2 b2 binaries. You trade in a constantly crashing plasma for a KDE version without the plasmoid that shows CPU/mem usage (and that one was really handy). So whatever Shuttleworth archieved with Ubuntu, his team doesn't deserve any credit for what they did to Kubuntu. :-(
3) Doesn't work unless you use the newest UI (ui=1, as needed for Konqi 3, simply doesn't show the option, luckily KDE 4.1 is round the corner)
There seem to have been some more features unavailable unless you happen to be located in the US (just changing the language didn't cut it), so Google isn't playing nice here...
Well, it doesn't even create navigational links, and the viagra comment spam is rather telling about the "secure" front...
They're called 1&1, and they won't allow you to come back when you accept this offer. Their technical service is as bad as any other mass provider's, and they're not even RfC 8288 compliant (though dreamhost is neither...). However, they are part of United Internet, which also contains web.de and GMX, and thus covers a huge fragment of the market.
Uhm, where's the advantage of a cheque here when you can achieve just the same result by sendimg them a photocopy of your bank statement? They have the same legal value here than your cheques have overseas.
Hate to burst your bubble, but no, they're not. At least not over here. Which is precisely my point: the banking system of the U.S.o.A. is an anachronism, but the people living there are not aware of that fact. Having Paypal as basically the single payment option doesn't make them aware, either.Hehe, I don't know why assume I'd be UK-centrically even though it follows that I'm not of UK nationality when I said I don't have a bank account there.
Anyway, you act as if it were an advantage of paying by check. It is not. It is an inconvenience for everyone involved. Somehow I doubt that you have seen how banking works in any other country than the U.S.o.A. (where you admit to come from) to realize. Feel free to pay by check as much as you want, it's just that I wouldn't want to sign a cheque every month and have it transported only to pay my 20/month for DSL & flat rate just to waste my time. Anything a cheque or a credit card can do in rl shopping can be done at least as easy with an EC card. Anything a cheque can do for online shopping can be done much easier without it. Which is why I'll never have a need for something as grotesque as Paypal.
And, just like cheques are still havily in use in the U.S.o.A., they're not used at all anymore here around. I haven't even seen any from my bank. As such it is useless to try to convince you not to use cheques as much as it is useless to try to convince me to use cheques since almost nobody will accept them.
Oh and even I don't have any particular interest in simplyfying any businesses processing, only in mine. However, I do realize that the processing cost is essentially paid by me anyway.
While allowing withdrawels can lead to problems with questionable businesses, it is still the most practical one. Any Amazon shopping - done with bank withdrawel (except for those with Amazon.uk as I don't have a GB bank account ^_^). Any shopping for Computer stuff - done with bank withdrawel (if not paid in advance). Not enough cash at the supermarket or barber shop - done with bank withdrawel (or EC if the shop prefers).
Sorry, but I don't see the problem. There are things that simply are not possible without bank withdrawel. Web hosting. DSL. Renting a flat. GEZ (radio/TV licence). You may not get those without allowing bank withdrawel as part of the contract. Or not as cheap. Who wants to spend on checking each incoming payment, when it can be automatized by bank withdrawel?
Anyway. There's only one case where you have a reason to hesitate, and that is if you don't know the exact amount that will be pulled. So the telephone bill can pose a risk here. Monthly payments of fixed amounts and single-authorized payments do not. Remember that you can charge back them in the same way as you can charge back credit card payments.
Did someone say cheque? Sorry, but in modern times of electronic payments and bank withdrawel, there is no need for those. Really. The only time in my life I needed a few of them was during my year in the U.S.o.A.
Btw, I agree with you in one point: not having a paper bill is definately a bad idea. I hate it when certain service provider require you to download your pdf bill from their silly/obnoxious/unusable web page.http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000069L0Z
http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00007M8LY
and as you can see it is still not marked playing disabled and there is no review either.
On top of that, there is no human intelligence in their faked-no-reply-possible-email-answered web support. They apologized that I couldn't play the CD-ROMs on my device (if I had tried, they wouldn't have taken them back), and went so far as to suggest that if I want to complain about the lack of those CD-ROMs beeing CD-ROMs and no AudioCDs, I should use the "correct error" link at the bottom which cannot be used to report those kinds of errors...