First, I don't think you understand the new choice you have. You can make your City and other information public, or you can restrict your search visibility. It's not "make this information public or you can't use Facebook at ALL", it's "make this information public or it becomes harder for people to search for you".
If you have an abusive ex, you've (hopefully) already taken measures to protect your privacy, such as moving somewhere your ex can't find you, getting an unlisted number, etc. I think you'd understand the value of an option that includes the text "becomes harder for people to search for you". Making yourself non-searchable on Facebook should be RIGHT UP THERE on that list of security measures, if you choose to use Facebook at all.
If you have been through the process of protecting yourself from an abusive ex, then you already understand why it's a bad idea to enter perfectly accurate data into ANY online database about you, even if that information is "supposed" to be kept private. Especially if that promise comes from a company like Facebook who has already developed a pretty piss-poor track record of actually respecting your privacy.
You can still use Facebook if it's important to you. Just for God's sake don't enter the real city you live in or any other information that your ex can use to find you. For example, enter a city where other people who know you would think of - maybe the town you were born in, or somewhere you lived in for a long time. Or don't enter a city at all. Or if you want to enter your real city make yourself non-searchable and make your initial Facebook contacts offline.
And keep in mind that some of the people who you think of as friends may also possibly be friends with your ex. Facebook is one possible vector for them to get information about you, but if you have a truly vindictive ex who has it in for you, there are many others you need to worry about first. If you enter some comment about having a great time at a concert that was less than a mile from your house, and one of your FB friends who talked to you about it on FB makes friends with your Ex, then your Ex can see that conversation. They can then look up details on that concert and they have your house location identified within a mile.
You can be safe, or you can be found (by friend or foe). Choose one.
Now the decision you need to make is based on the following information:
1. What are they asking me to give them, and 2. What are they offering me in return.
Facebook gathers the information you enter and sells it to advertisers for fun and profit. In return, they give you a virtual meetingplace chock full of tools for finding old friends and acquaintances, keeping in touch with same, organizing events, etc etc. What you are giving them in return for this service is:
- Your name and any other information you actually enter into Facebook. That includes interests, hobbies, etc for matching "the right ad" to you (enter "kayaking" as an interest and those "good luck charms for kayakers!" ads will appear almost instantly). This is "level one" of the data, and allows them to target ads to you.
- Your habits while on Facebook. Do you spend most of your time on your home page, your news feed, or an app? What kinds of things do you click the "like" button on a lot? What kinds of things do you reply to a lot?
- Things you and your friends do as a group, and what activities and discussions you have with various friends.
- They also allow third parties certain levels of access to your data based on applications your friends run.
Is it worth the price? For me, yes. I understand what I'm selling them, and I feel the service is worth the price. The same is not true of everyone.
Of course, one fallacy is that you always have to enter all of your real information into the site. It's not your Father Confessor. Enter the city closest to your town, not your actual town. Enter a slightly-but-not-quite birthday if you feel you must have one out there. Enter information about yourself that people who know you could use to recognize you (if you want to be sought out) but that would not give an anonymous stranger tools to use against you.
Facebook wants to protect its paying customers so they'll keep paying. So anything that a paying advertiser puts on Facebook that they don't want seen by anyone else is probably kept private.
Of course, companies that advertise on Facebook don't put personal information on it. They have a corporate account, and they WANT that information spread far and wide (or they wouldn't be paying for same). In general, a corporation will put on Facebook ONLY what they want you to see.
So it's in Facebook's best interests if every Facebook "user" (by that I mean user, advertiser, app writer, etc) knows EVERYTHING that everyone else has entered about themselves.
Because, let's face it, companies are pretty damned good at figuring out what they don't want to say about themselves, and are even better at leveraging what you say about yourself to their best advantage. Otherwise they wouldn't be funding Facebook to start with.
What's going to make them realize it's not profitable? It clearly is. Not only the lax security practices, but the very act of playing the shell game makes them money. If a few million people make lots of noise and post updates to their status about how indignant they are that their city of residence is now public, woohoo! More hits! More ads! It's like printing money.
How many people are actually going to leave Facebook over this? Seriously.
You've been OK all along with Farmville and Mafia Wars having access to everything any of your friends can see, right? Don't tell me you don't have any friends who don't use at least a couple of apps. Everything they can see, the makers of their apps can see.
I think Facebook just takes a stick every now and then and whacks it on the side of hive, just so people will post updates and get all indignant and generate more traffic and ad views. It's not like significant numbers of them are actually going to leave the site. And if they manage to give the false impression that Facebook cares one whit about user privacy when they finally and shed a few bitter crocodile tears about how sorry they are and close the next security "hole" that doesn't matter, all the better.
Facebook sells the information you put on there for money. In return for the money they make from the information you give them, you get access to a social media site. Assume that everything you put on Facebook either is public today or will become public at some point in the future when they finally go bankrupt and their database becomes an asset in receivership, sold to the highest bidder. If you are comfortable with that, and act accordingly, it's a pretty cool site. If you assume they have your best interests at heart, you are sadly mistaken. You are the product, not the customer.
Of course they do. They want to keep the product (users) happily putting information on there so the customers (advertisers and app writers) can buy it. Can't have the sheep mounting a revolt, now can we?
And before someone accuses me of seeing Facebook users with contempt, might I point out that I am one? Baaaaa-a-a-aa.
No, you wouldn't have noticed a change, because the walk-through explains what portions of your profile are now irrevocably public that used to be subject to the "Only Friends" security setting.
Of course, given that your friends already have access to whatever you've set to "Only Friends", and every app they install has whatever access they have to your profile, the "Only Friends" setting is a tad misleading. "Only Friends, Farmville, Mafia Wars, Lost Sheep, Cute Fluffybunnies, and whatever crapplications your friends might happen to install" might not fit in the space available, though.
PS: Though the spelling error was present, you didn't add any grammatical errors to your post for my enjoyment, as promised in your signature. As a grammar nazi, I am terribly disappointed by this. Please try harder next time. Thanks!:)
I don't understand why, if someone invites me as a friend, I don't get to see anything about them until after I've accepted the invitation. If someone wants to invite me, I should have some level of access to see their profile so I can see who is inviting me.
But I don't think making that information public to everyone is the correct solution.
No worries, though. I'll just choose the next largest town nearby as my location. People who know me know I live in the general area, people who don't won't get to see my actual town, just the general area that I live.
Actually, the name keeps changing. Since the iSeries became the System i, it's changed to the i5, and is now simply called "i".
But most of us who still use and love 'em still call 'em the AS/400. Even the enthusiasts have given up trying to keep up with IBM's marketing division.
Correct:
pSeries is the new name for the previous RS/6000 AIX boxes,
iSeries is the new name for the previous AS/400 boxes that ran OS/400,
and zSeries is the new name for the previous mainframe line.
the p and i boxes now run pretty much the same hardware, and both have supported Linux for some time. The iSeries has excellent virtual machine support (called "partitioning" in iSeries parlance) and can run Linux instances natively or on an installed Intel-class processor board that shares system memory and disk (DASD).
As to why you might want to run Linux on mainframe-class hardware, reliability and scalability come to mind.
I wouldn't even mind if I could buy digital forms of older books for the same price I pay for my paperbacks, which is usually between 50 cents and a dollar. I'm not talking about new releases, but stuff that's been out for a few years in mass market paperback.
But, alas, I don't see a market in used e-books starting up anytime soon.
The advantage of foam is that it spreads the impact out evenly over every square inch of the portion of your body facing the impact. There's still a speed at which hitting something is going to cause internal damage and/or death, but it's EXTREMELY high compared to having the entire impact absorbed over a smaller space (such as a seatbelt, which isn't a lot of square inches of coverage, really, but is sufficient to save your life during a very impressive crash).
Isolate the entire body from relative movement (neck snapping, etc) and spread the impact over all of your body fairly evenly, and you could probably survive an impact at 100MPH or more pretty easily. You'd still probably end up concussed and with some injuries, but the chances of survival are very high.
The "Demolition Man" foam had another cool feature - when it deployed it appeared to be a thick liquid. Meaning it not only spread the impact out over a significant area of your body rather than a thin line like a seatbelt, but had a certain amount of give so it could absorb some of the impact itself. This is the same principle that airbags are based on, except the foam/gel spreads the impact out to the rest of the body, and protects you the effects of decelerating the body but not the head (neck problems).
While I agree with you, I think you're confusing the terms "market" and "desire on your own personal part".
Amazon has, several times, run out of stock on the Kindle in its various incarnations. Barnes and Noble's Nook is currently on backorder until mid-January. Both of these facts point to a good market for e-book readers.
However, like you, I don't see enough benefit from them. Yes, the form factor would be nice, but spending $250-$300 for the right to repurchase my library in a new format and cut me off from my primary book supply (library sales and used book sales)? Uhhhhh... no. Just no.
That doesn't mean there isn't a market for them, just that you and I are not part of it until:
1. Prices come down. 2. They come up with some way to resell books and/or transfer licenses legally for "loaning" and resale. 3. I can buy books from multiple sources and have them all work on one reader.
Not sure, I think the idea is that the thing is supposed to be lit up and shiny as soon as the card is opened, so the recipient doesn't have to press the power button and slide the unlock. But I could be wrong.
This is not an open support desk, at least that's not what the article describes. This is a "referral of last resort" from an ISP to this support desk. In your case, you'd probably still field most of the calls, but your friends and family would say "my Internet people just called me and said I have worms or a cold or something, and that they'll stop my Internet unless I fix it. Help!"
Based on what I'm reading in the article, here's how a general fix would go:
1. ISP detects malware patterns coming from one of their users. 2. ISP contacts customer, says "you appear to have a virus that is doing bad things on the network. Please fix it." or pops a web page with the same message and probably a link to an antivirus solution. 3. (assuming user doesn't know how to install AV software) ISP refers customer to government call center.
If the customer refuses to fix the problem or turns out to be unable to do so even with help, then the German government needs to figure out what they want to do. Shut the user off? Attempt to have the ISP block the malware with port blocking? Some interesting and perhaps disturbing possibilities there.
No, the article is pretty clear that the ISP will use patterns (not the existence or presence of antivirus, which they really couldn't detect effectively anyway) to determine if a computer is infected with a bot.
The first step will be to contact the infected user and/or put up a custom web page that they will default to letting them know about the infection. That will be done by the ISP. The ISP will then refer them to the new advisory center to get the infection cleaned up.
I think part of the advice would be "get some antivirus software in place" but I doubt they'd enforce it. Though I imagine there may be some sort of action taken against people who refuse to fix their malware issues and are sending out spam or attacks, which affect other people on the network and the Internet as a whole. That was where the worrisome part you referred to came in - but the German government hasn't decided IF they are going to impose sanctions, much less what form they would take.
It may be as simple as shutting off their connection and mailing them a disk containing a free antivirus solution (AVG-Free, Avast, etc), then having them call to have their connection turned back on once the software is installed, or giving them access to a more limited set of URLs they could use to download anti-virus/anti-malware software then unlock the rest of the connection once the user called and stated that they had antivirus in place.
Plus since you'll have already charged it up it's ready to go right away.
As long as you charge it up the night before, just before you wrap it. Leaving an app like this running on it would discharge the battery pretty quickly, and turning it off would mean that this app isn't running and you'd have to grab it from them and fire up the app as soon as they unwrapped it.
And, trust me, you don't want to get between a geek and their new shiny thing. Keep arms and legs clear of the machinery, folks.
I think the "reuse" factor of this is that you'd actually have an old Gen 1 iPhone sitting around doing nothing.
I suppose if you happen to have an iPhone gen 1 lying around not being used, it could still be useful to the recipient once Christmas is over. After all, it still holds music, and you could probably get a prepaid SIM for it and have a pretty awesome prepaid phone, though of course it couldn't do data, etc. Can you still use an old iPhone to access WiFi and do everything like an iPod Touch could if you don't have it hooked up to cell phone service?
I was referring to when it first came out. Hence my use of the term "at first". The game itself was in the $50 range, and I could buy most other games in that same price range. Other games that did not require monthly fees to play. I would have been OK with the monthly fee. I would have been OK with the cost of the game. I was not and am not OK with both.
I'm not arguing that such a model should be illegal, or is unethical, or whatever. It's a game, and they can charge what they like for it, and model it any way they want.
As to "if I wanted to get in to it now" math being ridiculous or completely off, I sourced actual prices off Amazon.com. Here's how I arrived at my numbers, please feel free to point out better sources or correct my addition.
I know I can get the "war chest" for about $20 from Amazon on clearance, that is the basic WoW plus "Burning Crusade". "Lich King" and "Cataclysm" are each in the $40 range. $40 + $40 + $20 = $100 to get current as far as I can see.
I was unable to find a source for "WoW and all it's [sic] expansions" for the $35 you reference. Is there a mega-bonus-pack out there that I didn't find?
Granted, there is a 14-day trial offer in the "war chest" so I could try out my new $100 purchase for two weeks for "free" if I chose, so I was off there. Fair enough. $100 instead of $115. I stand corrected.
As to the per annum "upkeep" fee... How many expansion packs a year come out? Last I knew it was at least two to three, or am I mistaken in that?
They tend to be $40 when they come out, we agree on that, which puts the "keeping up with the expansion packs" game at $80 - $120 per year, I averaged it at $100. Unless I'm mistaken on how many of them come out, in which case I apologize for the error.
At the risk of sounding offensive when I honestly don't mean to... "forced into a corner" - I'm really struggling with that concept. Because it's a game. That you bought. I'm assuming not under some sort of threat of force, because with all the trouble I've read up on in South Africa over the years I've not seen a story about Blizzard sales reps being armed and forcing customers to buy expansion packs. But maybe it never made the headlines,
Umm, if the game as shipped doesn't perform in your region, it is you who should be doing the threatening not to BUY "WoW - the *anything*" expansion packs until they implement some local servers. Instead, you all give them money, then violate their ToS when their servers don't perform like you think they should. Stop giving them money and watch how fast their programmers figure out a way to get your server performance up.
Or move on to a different game that allows and even encourages local servers. Give THEM your money. By the time the Blizzard folks get their collective heads out of their collective arses and fix the server issues for you folks, you might have already moved on to another company you like better.
I guess my only problem with the business model is that they sell the game for largely the same price as everyone else charges for their games, but to play they want to force you on to their own servers. Ideally, the servers should be good enough that I'd want to pay for them, but I should still be able to get some use out of what I paid for without a recurring monthly fee. Or the game client should be freely available for download. Either way.
But, as you say, "if you don't like their terms, go elsewhere". "Ideally" above is my opinion. Just because I don't like a business model doesn't mean it's not a legal one, and I don't see that Blizzard is breaking any laws.
I'm not a big gamer, but I was very interested in trying out WoW at first. It looked like a lot of fun for $50. Or $15 a month. Or $50-100 a year in expansion pack upgrades. But, in the end, not all three. So I never tried it. Hey, capitalism works!
If they had an option that included the basic game, even if it was a few bucks more a month, I might consider trying it out. But I'm not about to plunk down $100 for the game and expansion packs in order to plunk down $15 to see if I like the game for a month. They want me to pay $115 (nonrefundable) to try the game out for the first month, plus a recurring fee of $15 a month to keep at it if I liked it. I would have been more than willing to prepay for the first month and give them $15-20 to try it out, even nonrefundable, then decide whether it was worth keeping. Since they don't have that option, they got $0. Fair enough. Yay capitalism!
My only caveat would be that I'd hope they are making it clear on the packaging that you are NOT buying a "game" in the sense that you'd buy the "game" next to it on the shelf for basically the same price. You know, one that doesn't require a monthly fee to play. You are buying a client that can be used only if you buy access to a closed, paid server and if you don't pay the monthly fee you are buying a pretty box with a shiny coaster in it. Amazon's mention of this caveat seems sporadic, unless certain WoW games or expansion packs can be played offline.
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They should have left the missile there and built the computers in to it.
1. Harvest the warhead for nuclear material - onsite power.
2. Instant, one button off-site backup. OK, not with great integrity control, but...
First, I don't think you understand the new choice you have. You can make your City and other information public, or you can restrict your search visibility. It's not "make this information public or you can't use Facebook at ALL", it's "make this information public or it becomes harder for people to search for you".
If you have an abusive ex, you've (hopefully) already taken measures to protect your privacy, such as moving somewhere your ex can't find you, getting an unlisted number, etc. I think you'd understand the value of an option that includes the text "becomes harder for people to search for you". Making yourself non-searchable on Facebook should be RIGHT UP THERE on that list of security measures, if you choose to use Facebook at all.
If you have been through the process of protecting yourself from an abusive ex, then you already understand why it's a bad idea to enter perfectly accurate data into ANY online database about you, even if that information is "supposed" to be kept private. Especially if that promise comes from a company like Facebook who has already developed a pretty piss-poor track record of actually respecting your privacy.
You can still use Facebook if it's important to you. Just for God's sake don't enter the real city you live in or any other information that your ex can use to find you. For example, enter a city where other people who know you would think of - maybe the town you were born in, or somewhere you lived in for a long time. Or don't enter a city at all. Or if you want to enter your real city make yourself non-searchable and make your initial Facebook contacts offline.
And keep in mind that some of the people who you think of as friends may also possibly be friends with your ex. Facebook is one possible vector for them to get information about you, but if you have a truly vindictive ex who has it in for you, there are many others you need to worry about first. If you enter some comment about having a great time at a concert that was less than a mile from your house, and one of your FB friends who talked to you about it on FB makes friends with your Ex, then your Ex can see that conversation. They can then look up details on that concert and they have your house location identified within a mile.
You can be safe, or you can be found (by friend or foe). Choose one.
Correct.
Now the decision you need to make is based on the following information:
1. What are they asking me to give them, and
2. What are they offering me in return.
Facebook gathers the information you enter and sells it to advertisers for fun and profit. In return, they give you a virtual meetingplace chock full of tools for finding old friends and acquaintances, keeping in touch with same, organizing events, etc etc. What you are giving them in return for this service is:
- Your name and any other information you actually enter into Facebook. That includes interests, hobbies, etc for matching "the right ad" to you (enter "kayaking" as an interest and those "good luck charms for kayakers!" ads will appear almost instantly). This is "level one" of the data, and allows them to target ads to you.
- Your habits while on Facebook. Do you spend most of your time on your home page, your news feed, or an app? What kinds of things do you click the "like" button on a lot? What kinds of things do you reply to a lot?
- Things you and your friends do as a group, and what activities and discussions you have with various friends.
- They also allow third parties certain levels of access to your data based on applications your friends run.
Is it worth the price? For me, yes. I understand what I'm selling them, and I feel the service is worth the price. The same is not true of everyone.
Of course, one fallacy is that you always have to enter all of your real information into the site. It's not your Father Confessor. Enter the city closest to your town, not your actual town. Enter a slightly-but-not-quite birthday if you feel you must have one out there. Enter information about yourself that people who know you could use to recognize you (if you want to be sought out) but that would not give an anonymous stranger tools to use against you.
Facebook wants to protect its paying customers so they'll keep paying. So anything that a paying advertiser puts on Facebook that they don't want seen by anyone else is probably kept private.
Of course, companies that advertise on Facebook don't put personal information on it. They have a corporate account, and they WANT that information spread far and wide (or they wouldn't be paying for same). In general, a corporation will put on Facebook ONLY what they want you to see.
So it's in Facebook's best interests if every Facebook "user" (by that I mean user, advertiser, app writer, etc) knows EVERYTHING that everyone else has entered about themselves.
Because, let's face it, companies are pretty damned good at figuring out what they don't want to say about themselves, and are even better at leveraging what you say about yourself to their best advantage. Otherwise they wouldn't be funding Facebook to start with.
Nah, leave the lottery exactly what it is. A tax on people who didn't pay attention in math class.
No, you didn't, but the post I actually replied to did.
What's going to make them realize it's not profitable? It clearly is. Not only the lax security practices, but the very act of playing the shell game makes them money. If a few million people make lots of noise and post updates to their status about how indignant they are that their city of residence is now public, woohoo! More hits! More ads! It's like printing money.
How many people are actually going to leave Facebook over this? Seriously.
You've been OK all along with Farmville and Mafia Wars having access to everything any of your friends can see, right? Don't tell me you don't have any friends who don't use at least a couple of apps. Everything they can see, the makers of their apps can see.
I think Facebook just takes a stick every now and then and whacks it on the side of hive, just so people will post updates and get all indignant and generate more traffic and ad views. It's not like significant numbers of them are actually going to leave the site. And if they manage to give the false impression that Facebook cares one whit about user privacy when they finally and shed a few bitter crocodile tears about how sorry they are and close the next security "hole" that doesn't matter, all the better.
Facebook sells the information you put on there for money. In return for the money they make from the information you give them, you get access to a social media site. Assume that everything you put on Facebook either is public today or will become public at some point in the future when they finally go bankrupt and their database becomes an asset in receivership, sold to the highest bidder. If you are comfortable with that, and act accordingly, it's a pretty cool site. If you assume they have your best interests at heart, you are sadly mistaken. You are the product, not the customer.
Of course they do. They want to keep the product (users) happily putting information on there so the customers (advertisers and app writers) can buy it. Can't have the sheep mounting a revolt, now can we?
And before someone accuses me of seeing Facebook users with contempt, might I point out that I am one? Baaaaa-a-a-aa.
Um, dude, YOU ARE NOT a customer of Facebook. Their customers are advertisers.
You are the PRODUCT.
No, you wouldn't have noticed a change, because the walk-through explains what portions of your profile are now irrevocably public that used to be subject to the "Only Friends" security setting.
Of course, given that your friends already have access to whatever you've set to "Only Friends", and every app they install has whatever access they have to your profile, the "Only Friends" setting is a tad misleading. "Only Friends, Farmville, Mafia Wars, Lost Sheep, Cute Fluffybunnies, and whatever crapplications your friends might happen to install" might not fit in the space available, though.
Interesting. I'll have to research that. Thanks.
PS: Though the spelling error was present, you didn't add any grammatical errors to your post for my enjoyment, as promised in your signature. As a grammar nazi, I am terribly disappointed by this. Please try harder next time. Thanks! :)
I don't understand why, if someone invites me as a friend, I don't get to see anything about them until after I've accepted the invitation. If someone wants to invite me, I should have some level of access to see their profile so I can see who is inviting me.
But I don't think making that information public to everyone is the correct solution.
No worries, though. I'll just choose the next largest town nearby as my location. People who know me know I live in the general area, people who don't won't get to see my actual town, just the general area that I live.
Actually, the name keeps changing. Since the iSeries became the System i, it's changed to the i5, and is now simply called "i".
But most of us who still use and love 'em still call 'em the AS/400. Even the enthusiasts have given up trying to keep up with IBM's marketing division.
Correct:
pSeries is the new name for the previous RS/6000 AIX boxes,
iSeries is the new name for the previous AS/400 boxes that ran OS/400,
and zSeries is the new name for the previous mainframe line.
the p and i boxes now run pretty much the same hardware, and both have supported Linux for some time. The iSeries has excellent virtual machine support (called "partitioning" in iSeries parlance) and can run Linux instances natively or on an installed Intel-class processor board that shares system memory and disk (DASD).
As to why you might want to run Linux on mainframe-class hardware, reliability and scalability come to mind.
I wouldn't even mind if I could buy digital forms of older books for the same price I pay for my paperbacks, which is usually between 50 cents and a dollar. I'm not talking about new releases, but stuff that's been out for a few years in mass market paperback.
But, alas, I don't see a market in used e-books starting up anytime soon.
The advantage of foam is that it spreads the impact out evenly over every square inch of the portion of your body facing the impact. There's still a speed at which hitting something is going to cause internal damage and/or death, but it's EXTREMELY high compared to having the entire impact absorbed over a smaller space (such as a seatbelt, which isn't a lot of square inches of coverage, really, but is sufficient to save your life during a very impressive crash).
Isolate the entire body from relative movement (neck snapping, etc) and spread the impact over all of your body fairly evenly, and you could probably survive an impact at 100MPH or more pretty easily. You'd still probably end up concussed and with some injuries, but the chances of survival are very high.
The "Demolition Man" foam had another cool feature - when it deployed it appeared to be a thick liquid. Meaning it not only spread the impact out over a significant area of your body rather than a thin line like a seatbelt, but had a certain amount of give so it could absorb some of the impact itself. This is the same principle that airbags are based on, except the foam/gel spreads the impact out to the rest of the body, and protects you the effects of decelerating the body but not the head (neck problems).
While I agree with you, I think you're confusing the terms "market" and "desire on your own personal part".
Amazon has, several times, run out of stock on the Kindle in its various incarnations. Barnes and Noble's Nook is currently on backorder until mid-January. Both of these facts point to a good market for e-book readers.
However, like you, I don't see enough benefit from them. Yes, the form factor would be nice, but spending $250-$300 for the right to repurchase my library in a new format and cut me off from my primary book supply (library sales and used book sales)? Uhhhhh... no. Just no.
That doesn't mean there isn't a market for them, just that you and I are not part of it until:
1. Prices come down.
2. They come up with some way to resell books and/or transfer licenses legally for "loaning" and resale.
3. I can buy books from multiple sources and have them all work on one reader.
Not sure, I think the idea is that the thing is supposed to be lit up and shiny as soon as the card is opened, so the recipient doesn't have to press the power button and slide the unlock. But I could be wrong.
This is not an open support desk, at least that's not what the article describes. This is a "referral of last resort" from an ISP to this support desk. In your case, you'd probably still field most of the calls, but your friends and family would say "my Internet people just called me and said I have worms or a cold or something, and that they'll stop my Internet unless I fix it. Help!"
Based on what I'm reading in the article, here's how a general fix would go:
1. ISP detects malware patterns coming from one of their users.
2. ISP contacts customer, says "you appear to have a virus that is doing bad things on the network. Please fix it." or pops a web page with the same message and probably a link to an antivirus solution.
3. (assuming user doesn't know how to install AV software) ISP refers customer to government call center.
If the customer refuses to fix the problem or turns out to be unable to do so even with help, then the German government needs to figure out what they want to do. Shut the user off? Attempt to have the ISP block the malware with port blocking? Some interesting and perhaps disturbing possibilities there.
No, the article is pretty clear that the ISP will use patterns (not the existence or presence of antivirus, which they really couldn't detect effectively anyway) to determine if a computer is infected with a bot.
The first step will be to contact the infected user and/or put up a custom web page that they will default to letting them know about the infection. That will be done by the ISP. The ISP will then refer them to the new advisory center to get the infection cleaned up.
I think part of the advice would be "get some antivirus software in place" but I doubt they'd enforce it. Though I imagine there may be some sort of action taken against people who refuse to fix their malware issues and are sending out spam or attacks, which affect other people on the network and the Internet as a whole. That was where the worrisome part you referred to came in - but the German government hasn't decided IF they are going to impose sanctions, much less what form they would take.
It may be as simple as shutting off their connection and mailing them a disk containing a free antivirus solution (AVG-Free, Avast, etc), then having them call to have their connection turned back on once the software is installed, or giving them access to a more limited set of URLs they could use to download anti-virus/anti-malware software then unlock the rest of the connection once the user called and stated that they had antivirus in place.
Plus since you'll have already charged it up it's ready to go right away.
As long as you charge it up the night before, just before you wrap it. Leaving an app like this running on it would discharge the battery pretty quickly, and turning it off would mean that this app isn't running and you'd have to grab it from them and fire up the app as soon as they unwrapped it.
And, trust me, you don't want to get between a geek and their new shiny thing. Keep arms and legs clear of the machinery, folks.
I think the "reuse" factor of this is that you'd actually have an old Gen 1 iPhone sitting around doing nothing.
I suppose if you happen to have an iPhone gen 1 lying around not being used, it could still be useful to the recipient once Christmas is over. After all, it still holds music, and you could probably get a prepaid SIM for it and have a pretty awesome prepaid phone, though of course it couldn't do data, etc. Can you still use an old iPhone to access WiFi and do everything like an iPod Touch could if you don't have it hooked up to cell phone service?
I was referring to when it first came out. Hence my use of the term "at first". The game itself was in the $50 range, and I could buy most other games in that same price range. Other games that did not require monthly fees to play. I would have been OK with the monthly fee. I would have been OK with the cost of the game. I was not and am not OK with both.
I'm not arguing that such a model should be illegal, or is unethical, or whatever. It's a game, and they can charge what they like for it, and model it any way they want.
As to "if I wanted to get in to it now" math being ridiculous or completely off, I sourced actual prices off Amazon.com. Here's how I arrived at my numbers, please feel free to point out better sources or correct my addition.
I know I can get the "war chest" for about $20 from Amazon on clearance, that is the basic WoW plus "Burning Crusade". "Lich King" and "Cataclysm" are each in the $40 range. $40 + $40 + $20 = $100 to get current as far as I can see.
I was unable to find a source for "WoW and all it's [sic] expansions" for the $35 you reference. Is there a mega-bonus-pack out there that I didn't find?
Granted, there is a 14-day trial offer in the "war chest" so I could try out my new $100 purchase for two weeks for "free" if I chose, so I was off there. Fair enough. $100 instead of $115. I stand corrected.
As to the per annum "upkeep" fee... How many expansion packs a year come out? Last I knew it was at least two to three, or am I mistaken in that?
They tend to be $40 when they come out, we agree on that, which puts the "keeping up with the expansion packs" game at $80 - $120 per year, I averaged it at $100. Unless I'm mistaken on how many of them come out, in which case I apologize for the error.
At the risk of sounding offensive when I honestly don't mean to... "forced into a corner" - I'm really struggling with that concept. Because it's a game. That you bought. I'm assuming not under some sort of threat of force, because with all the trouble I've read up on in South Africa over the years I've not seen a story about Blizzard sales reps being armed and forcing customers to buy expansion packs. But maybe it never made the headlines,
Umm, if the game as shipped doesn't perform in your region, it is you who should be doing the threatening not to BUY "WoW - the *anything*" expansion packs until they implement some local servers. Instead, you all give them money, then violate their ToS when their servers don't perform like you think they should. Stop giving them money and watch how fast their programmers figure out a way to get your server performance up.
Or move on to a different game that allows and even encourages local servers. Give THEM your money. By the time the Blizzard folks get their collective heads out of their collective arses and fix the server issues for you folks, you might have already moved on to another company you like better.
I guess my only problem with the business model is that they sell the game for largely the same price as everyone else charges for their games, but to play they want to force you on to their own servers. Ideally, the servers should be good enough that I'd want to pay for them, but I should still be able to get some use out of what I paid for without a recurring monthly fee. Or the game client should be freely available for download. Either way.
But, as you say, "if you don't like their terms, go elsewhere". "Ideally" above is my opinion. Just because I don't like a business model doesn't mean it's not a legal one, and I don't see that Blizzard is breaking any laws.
I'm not a big gamer, but I was very interested in trying out WoW at first. It looked like a lot of fun for $50. Or $15 a month. Or $50-100 a year in expansion pack upgrades. But, in the end, not all three. So I never tried it. Hey, capitalism works!
If they had an option that included the basic game, even if it was a few bucks more a month, I might consider trying it out. But I'm not about to plunk down $100 for the game and expansion packs in order to plunk down $15 to see if I like the game for a month. They want me to pay $115 (nonrefundable) to try the game out for the first month, plus a recurring fee of $15 a month to keep at it if I liked it. I would have been more than willing to prepay for the first month and give them $15-20 to try it out, even nonrefundable, then decide whether it was worth keeping. Since they don't have that option, they got $0. Fair enough. Yay capitalism!
My only caveat would be that I'd hope they are making it clear on the packaging that you are NOT buying a "game" in the sense that you'd buy the "game" next to it on the shelf for basically the same price. You know, one that doesn't require a monthly fee to play. You are buying a client that can be used only if you buy access to a closed, paid server and if you don't pay the monthly fee you are buying a pretty box with a shiny coaster in it. Amazon's mention of this caveat seems sporadic, unless certain WoW games or expansion packs can be played offline.