Settling out of court ...
on
Worst Buy
·
· Score: 2
Settling out of court can be OK... IF you refuse to sign any agreement containing a non-disclosure clause... and if the amount is sufficient to sting. Remember, they are trying to save their reputation and legal expenses. You should get a portion of that. A BIG portion. This case could easily cost THEM $500,000 if it goes all the way to court.
And definitely do not agree to any change of jurisdiction. Keep it right there in Georgia.
Don't send him THERE! I don't want to keep getting screwed over by not getting enough pickles or just a yellow dot for mustard, while he's trying to convince me to buy the fries. Why ruin a half-way decent fast food joint with that shithead.
Re:Everybody wants something for nothing..
on
Worst Buy
·
· Score: 2
The card has a normal retail price of $399.99. But it's not unusual for discounters, like Best Buy often claims to be, to offer something that retails for $399.99 at a price of $339.99 regularly (and this at $129.99 at a $200 super savings). I very often see hardware discounted like this and sometimes buy. Then occaisionally some equipment is on sale for really awesome prices. Several years ago I saw a Philips brand SCSI CD-R recorder which normally sold for $349.95 on sale for $109.something (they often have some weird pennies in the prices and I think it's a code of some sort) at CompUSA. No rebate required. So I bought one (of 4 in stock) and took it home to make sure it would work in Linux. It worked fine. I went back the next day to buy another for a friend. All were sold, though the price sticker was still there. I asked a clerk when more would be in. He called the manager who said that was just a sale to get rid of stock that wasn't selling. Well, that's believable; I had no reason to question him on it, even though I'd never seen the product in the store before (and regularly visited every 3 or 4 weeks). I've also seen ultra low prices on some products just to get people into the store. I would believe that someone actually decided to sell the card at that ultra low price, and someone else later may have found that they had a contractual obligation to NOT discount that product or brand, perhaps not so deeply (such pricing often gives the impression the product isn't moving, or is about to be replaced, which stalls sales elsewhere that it isn't deeply discounted).
Re:Everybody get in touch with Best Buy
on
Worst Buy
·
· Score: 2
/. readers tend to be well informed people. Hence they don't buy the extended warranties. Since Best Buy trims prices on merchandise usually to cost (and sometimes less to trick people into the store), they make no money unless the consumer buys the extended warranty. Thus, they would not be hurting if/. readers avoid Best Buy.
Re:Screwed by Besy Buy in GA
on
Worst Buy
·
· Score: 2
Be sure you are accompanied by some friends. A lot of friends. A lot of big friends. We don't need to know what race they are.
Re:Wholy sh*t! Did you look at the arrest report?!
on
Worst Buy
·
· Score: 2
Be sure to go visit the Best Buy web site and do a search for terms like "arrest" and "consumer terrorism". Since their practice is to scare consumers into not asking for their rights (even when the manager could just say "no"), I'd classify it as a form of terrorism. I coined "consumer terroism" to distinguish it from a more serious form of lethal terrorism (which to my knowledge Best Buy has not done).
Re:Problems with Best Buy
on
Worst Buy
·
· Score: 2
If you don't buy the extended warranties, then Best Buy didn't lose anything at all by you going to another store to buy your merchandise. Profits are scraped to the bone, often to negative, on actual merchandise, and recovered in the extended warranty, which is what all the employees are trained to sell you.
We don't need to know the race of the store manager. It is well known that there are idiots in every race.
Re:Other Best Buy stories
on
Worst Buy
·
· Score: 2
Several years ago, there was a case that made the TV news about a gang of employees at the Best Buy located at LBJ and Midway in Dallas who were finally caught, after apparently more than a year of adding items to customer credit cards, often ringing them up again separately for the theft part. I don't think they had gift cards back then, else these guys would probably have used that scam, too. I don't know that the store management would have been in on this, but considering the low pay the employees and management make at these stores, you can expect more of these kinds of things. This is one of the reasons I don't buy things at BestBuy or at Frys.
Re:The police sided with the customer.
on
Worst Buy
·
· Score: 2
The arresting officers and the detective handling the case are different people. It is normally NOT the job of the officers to make judgement calls like that. The case is then handed over to the detective who has to followup and determine what is appropriate. The police department is NOT liable in this case as long as the officers did their job (they did as far as I know) and especially when someone else (e.g. the store manager) was demanding the arrest and willing to file the charges. Mr. Cherian's beef is with the web site, the store, and the manager, the latter two mostly for the arrest. I do believe the store was in its legal rights to NOT honor the web site price. The fact that they have apparently honored it with others could have been an error on the part of some store employees, or it possibly could be racial discrimination (but there would have to be more of a pattern to it than this to make it stick in court).
Be sure to take a friend the next time you shop at Best Buy. Better yet, take a lot of friends.
Re:The police sided with the customer.
on
Worst Buy
·
· Score: 4, Informative
However, there are some especially sensitive jobs for which merely an ARREST is flagged. The fact of being arrested generally doesn't disqualify one for such jobs, but if you fail to reveal it when asked, that's lying, perjury, and in some cases (applying for government jobs involving security and secrecy) possibly even a felony. When you do put down "YES" then you will be asked to explain the circumstances. While this is certainly not something that would be a problem, the fact of having to do this, possibly the rest of your life, can be a hindrance. And in some cases you can be improperly discriminated against if the employer finds it more convenient to hire someone slightly less qualified than you just because they won't have to check and validate the arrest record (if they have to ask for ARREST instead of CONVICTION for highly sensitive jobs, they surely have to followup and verify). Fortunately most jobs don't fall into these categories.
Mr Cherian should have a lawyer pursue an action to have his arrest expunged so he can then legally say "NO" in the few cases an arrest might be asked about... and then file suit naming the Best Buy store, the Best Buy company, and the store manager Rod Hill, to cover all legal expenses to set things straight. There is even the possibility of pursuing criminal action against the store manager for false arrest (the lawyer needs to advise on that).
In the mean time, be sure to do searches on the bestbuy.com web site for terms like "arrest", "ripoff", "rod hill", "consumer terrorism", etc. They do log these things.
While I don't have any experiences using NVIDIA drivers, I have heard several horror stories about the inability to make certain system changes, such as upgrading a kernel to a new version due to some bug that makes this necessary, and finding that the driver being used croaks the whole machine. I don't remember if any of those stories involved NVIDIA drivers specifically, but they did involve video drivers with a kernel component that was NOT open source (e.g. was a binary-only module). Perhaps it could be the case that NVIDIA makes flawless code, and compiles a version of their driver for every architecture using the bus they support, and for every kernel and X version within 24 hours after they are released (something that can be easily accomplished by tracking the -rc versions every day). Perhaps they do this. Perhaps not. But there is value in having the source code so that you can choose to fix the driver yourself. Often times it is a simple fix, like merely recompiling.
I will always prefer the open source.
My form of dissing NVIDIA is simply to tell the truth about how they make their driver available, and explaining the advantages of having a community of many people doing the development, inspection, and testing... and by NOT buying anything made by NVIDIA.
Maybe we should have a better place to throw them. If we're going to pay a recycling fee, then they should use the money and set this up. Besides, I just take my computers apart. I use the parts for various things.
Then maybe we need to set up a recycling system that makes sense... one where if you pay for recycling with the purchase of an item, you get to recycle it without paying it all over again.
I even tried the same search in several salary categories, and the same one came up under three of them, but it was the same ONE job. Sure looks like the gubmint is a Microsoft shop.
But jobs like that tend to be stuck in procedure (as in the bureaucratic type) hell and not real decision making roles. That pay may be decent, but when it's a third party job, you don't really get to run things.
I didn't find very interesting technical jobs listed on that web site. All the internet jobs were web site development (as opposed to infrastructure management and security). Of course if application development is your thing, there are a few jobs there for you. In the areas I work (network/system/OS administration), the government clearly hasn't been getting results in many areas, considering all the security messes, router failures, DNS inconsistencies, etc, I see going on (especially at NASA). Either they don't have people doing those jobs, or they stifle them somehow, or they hired the incompetent. I know I could certainly run things a whole lot better than they are run now. But I don't know if the bureaucracy would let that even happen.
Demand, maybe... good pay? no!... respect? forget it!
Go look at the executive positions in the government jobs. These are the people that make all the goofball decisions about things like what technology to use. And they can get paid as much as $130,000 for such things, while techies get only half that. It's a fundamental problem of respect. With a few hundred thousand techies out of work or underemployed (e.g. "would you like fries with that?") in the US, you'd think they could fill these IT positions quickly, even for that low pay. The problem really is that in most of these jobs, the management just don't give due respect to the value techies bring in. And that's often a more important motivating factor than money (which confuses managers).
OpenBSD & Qmail are examples of insecure freeware. But isn't OpenBSD exhaustively audited with many sections rewritten to eliminate security bugs probably spotted before ever being exploited? Doesn't Dan Bernstein write rock solid secure code in packages like Qmail and DJBDNS? The answer to both of those questions is a definite yes. The problem isn't that these things are made insecure, which is not the case at all. The problem is that the end user, or the system administrator, too easily can make things insecure by even the simplest mistake in configuration.
I'd love to have secure programs as much as anyone, and OpenBSD and Qmail certainly show that some of that is available now. But when I choose what software I will install, I have to do more than just choose what is securely written; I have to balance development security against administrative security. Certainly hiring more skilled administrators can improve security. But if the software is harder to configure and manage, then it either takes more administrator time, skill, and attention, for a given level of result. To that end, one of the important factors I judge software by is how easily it can be configured.
Close to that is another factor measuring how easily a given package can be hacked to correct a bug, or change a feature, if needed. If the code is well written, well documented, and clearly organized, the time it takes to hack it, and the certainty of hacking it correctly, is improved.
For any given package, there will be some people more experienced with that one than others, and so this isn't always a clear cut decision. I made the choice to go with Linux and Postfix, instead of the other choices. But this decision suited my needs, balancing reasonably secure software and reasonably secure adaptability to my environment (including programming and administrative skills). It won't be the same choice for everyone. And there are cases I've recommended software I don't actually use because it better suited someone else's different circumstances (fortunately I was at least reasonably familiar with it from evaluation to know its specifics). For example, if you have no need to change anything, I'd say OpenBSD would be the best choice for a combo firewall and server (just don't let anyone touch it... a console is a dangerous thing).
Now here's the rub. What if someone does install OpenBSD and/or Qmail, and after they configure them, some kid breaks in and takes the machine for a ride? Are we going to blame Theo and Dan? I wouldn't, because I've seen way too many administrator mistakes (and learned from the ones I've made) to be putting the blame on the software. My big worry is that if we start pointing the liability finger at the software vendor, they're going to end up taking the heat way way more than they should be.
The OpenBSD and Qmail development people, as far as I know, fess up to their bugs, especially the security bugs, and let people know when a hole is found. If we are going to have software liability, I think that a practice of consistently divulging known vulnerabilities should be considered a safe-harbor from the liability, even for bugs that got exploited before the developers were aware. It's the practice of covering up on the vulnerabilities that I despise. That's where the liability should be.
The legal test should be whether the software vendor has carried out a consistent practice of immediately divulging (if not to the whole public, then at least to all their customers) the existance of the vulnerability, even if they don't have a fix for it yet. I'd rather take a web site down for a day if it is discovered to be insecure, while waiting to get it fixed. Of course open source is a plus here, as I can dig in and hack up a fix or work around myself, even if its just a quick and dirty one (like gross over sized malloc with some randomizing, for buffer overflows, to ride out a few days until a proper fix is available). And this means all customers, not just a few privileged big corporate customers.
If CD sales are flat... for whatever reason you think that might be... how is a new format going to bring in new sales? Are people holding off on buying new content so they can end up spending money buying the same content on a new format? Suppose it is the case... as the industry claims... that internet piracy is the cause of reduced CD sales. How is a new format going to make people uninterested in the internet piracy? Do they think that people will abandon sharing and trading online to buy this new format? Maybe if the format completely replaces CDs and perfectly prevents ripping it could make it hard to have source material for trading. But that won't happen since if you can hear it, you can rip it, and even though that won't be perfect digital quality, it won't ever degrade any further over the net, and people are already happy to download poor quality rips.
With a few hours delay, you lose a customer. If you competitor gets an eval that works in front of the customer first, and they are hurried to make a decision and buy now, you lose. Even if not that, the mere fact there is a delay in getting a simple username/password out by email gives a perception that technical support is going to suck really bad. Again, you lose.
Prime mission numero uno is to get rid of that few hours delay. Generate that username and password immediately, and mail it out right now. Accept no excuses from the programming people. If the product is any good, they can make a simple username/password mailback script.
A lot of other people have given good advice about making a better impression on the customer, but clearly if they have already given you their email, they were good to go this far. You lost them somewhere between giving the email address and mailing back the password. A few hours is a long time to wait and a big opportunity to lose a customer. Fix the long wait and don't make any excuses for it. And make sure much of the other advice is followed to help increase your responses. Make sure you a very clear about your policy on handling the email address. If you want to use it for mailing anything more than the username/password it is submitted for, given them the opportunity to OPT-IN to get announcements, separately for this product, and other products. And promise clearly on the web site to never give the email to any other business, not even partners.
And make sure your mail server hasn't been blacklisted for spam. if your company did any mass mailings of anything beyond an opt-IN mailing list, it probably did get blacklisted. See, doing that means you lose customers.
Growing corporations rarely ever pay dividends to stock holders. The value of the stock rises on the perceived value the stock will have in the future (when dividends might be paid out) or in the near future (which someone else is willing to pay you more for the stock than what you paid for it recently, netting your a capital gains profit). While I do believe Microsoft is seeing a sales figure squeeze right now, I don't believe the fact that they have never paid dividends to mean anything. In fact I suspect that once they do start paying dividends, their stock price will stop climbing, and may even begin a long term trend downward compared to the rest of the market as this would be an indication their growth has peaked and the company is leveling out.
In addition to the basic level of economic recession that all sales figures are affected by, software is more vulnerable because its costs are easier to evade when the software can be installed on extra machines without obtaining the licensing terms to allow it. Without their efforts to make this hard to do in XP, certainly XP would majorly suffer from this. Earlier versions, such as Windows ME and Windows 98, can be multiply installed, and I'm certain a lot of this is taking place in deference to upgrading to XP, which is further hurting the XP sales figures.
Microsoft has a lot of marketing people working for it. There are whole departments intended for niche markets, many of which are even much smaller than the installed base of Linux, though probably represent a much large dollar figure than the consumer retail unit market. Every different department is individually pressured to work their sales figures up, or to keep them from falling too far. To that end expect each area of sales to be advancing some program intended to drive sales. They are simply not going to skip some area, because there are people in each department that are motivated to be seen as a sales producer to advance their careers.
No doubt, Microsoft is hurting. Some sales/marketing people who don't produce will end up hurting even more.
Break the machine down into N parts and separate these N parts into N piles. Now add N-1 new parts to each pile so each can be built back into a new machine. Build each of the N piles into N machines. Of course you have exacly ONE license for Windows that came with the original machine. Now which machine inherits the license? The one with the CPU? The one with the first RAM stick? The one with the second RAM stick? The one with the hard drive? The one with the floppy drive? You see where I'm going with this.
A few years ago I bought an OEM copy of Windows 98 from a small computer dealer. In order to legally sell me the OEM version of Windows 98 (which cost them less than a retail box version, but was otherwise complete with CDs, product key, book, and the authenticity certificate) they had to sell it only with a CPU or a hard drive. I bought it with a hard drive, because I actually also needed a hard drive at the time. That hard drive (5 gig) has since died, and been replaced with a new larger hard drive (10 gig). I run Windows 98 on that new larger hard drive.
I could have bought Windows 98 with a CPU, so I was told. Or with a complete system (which I didn't care for, considering some of the junk that dealer was building their systems with). I prefer building my own machines, anyway. What this means is Microsoft is (or was then) rather non-specific about which hardware the license goes with.
It may be the case (and IANAL, otherwise I wouldn't be able to reveal this to you without shaking you down for a few hundred dollars) that it is simply a matter of making sure that exactly one and only one machine is associated with a license, so that it cannot be run on two or more machines. Microsoft may want to say no to that, in order to drive more full version sales (by claiming that under certain circumstances, the licensing rights vanish when a specific machine cannot be identified). I suspect if it went to court, the decision wouldn't really be motivated to driving up sales. Unfortunately, you'll be shaken down for a few thousand dollars or more just to get there.
In general, a camera should be allowed in ones home or place of business if it is they who are doing it. This needs to be sure that applies the resident, not the property owner, to be sure a landlord cannot escape the law when spying on tenants in the privacy of their own home... though the landlord should have certain rights to have security cameras in the outside of multiplex property. In a business, the cameras should be allowed in almost all places, but restrooms, or at least the obviously intimate parts, would have to be protected. There might be other exceptions, too.
Slashdot Mirror
Settling out of court can be OK ... IF you refuse to sign any agreement containing a non-disclosure clause ... and if the amount is sufficient to sting. Remember, they are trying to save their reputation and legal expenses. You should get a portion of that. A BIG portion. This case could easily cost THEM $500,000 if it goes all the way to court.
And definitely do not agree to any change of jurisdiction. Keep it right there in Georgia.
NO!!!!!!!!
Don't send him THERE! I don't want to keep getting screwed over by not getting enough pickles or just a yellow dot for mustard, while he's trying to convince me to buy the fries. Why ruin a half-way decent fast food joint with that shithead.
The card has a normal retail price of $399.99. But it's not unusual for discounters, like Best Buy often claims to be, to offer something that retails for $399.99 at a price of $339.99 regularly (and this at $129.99 at a $200 super savings). I very often see hardware discounted like this and sometimes buy. Then occaisionally some equipment is on sale for really awesome prices. Several years ago I saw a Philips brand SCSI CD-R recorder which normally sold for $349.95 on sale for $109.something (they often have some weird pennies in the prices and I think it's a code of some sort) at CompUSA. No rebate required. So I bought one (of 4 in stock) and took it home to make sure it would work in Linux. It worked fine. I went back the next day to buy another for a friend. All were sold, though the price sticker was still there. I asked a clerk when more would be in. He called the manager who said that was just a sale to get rid of stock that wasn't selling. Well, that's believable; I had no reason to question him on it, even though I'd never seen the product in the store before (and regularly visited every 3 or 4 weeks). I've also seen ultra low prices on some products just to get people into the store. I would believe that someone actually decided to sell the card at that ultra low price, and someone else later may have found that they had a contractual obligation to NOT discount that product or brand, perhaps not so deeply (such pricing often gives the impression the product isn't moving, or is about to be replaced, which stalls sales elsewhere that it isn't deeply discounted).
/. readers tend to be well informed people. Hence they don't buy the extended warranties. Since Best Buy trims prices on merchandise usually to cost (and sometimes less to trick people into the store), they make no money unless the consumer buys the extended warranty. Thus, they would not be hurting if /. readers avoid Best Buy.
Be sure you are accompanied by some friends. A lot of friends. A lot of big friends. We don't need to know what race they are.
Be sure to go visit the Best Buy web site and do a search for terms like "arrest" and "consumer terrorism". Since their practice is to scare consumers into not asking for their rights (even when the manager could just say "no"), I'd classify it as a form of terrorism. I coined "consumer terroism" to distinguish it from a more serious form of lethal terrorism (which to my knowledge Best Buy has not done).
If you don't buy the extended warranties, then Best Buy didn't lose anything at all by you going to another store to buy your merchandise. Profits are scraped to the bone, often to negative, on actual merchandise, and recovered in the extended warranty, which is what all the employees are trained to sell you.
We don't need to know the race of the store manager. It is well known that there are idiots in every race.
Several years ago, there was a case that made the TV news about a gang of employees at the Best Buy located at LBJ and Midway in Dallas who were finally caught, after apparently more than a year of adding items to customer credit cards, often ringing them up again separately for the theft part. I don't think they had gift cards back then, else these guys would probably have used that scam, too. I don't know that the store management would have been in on this, but considering the low pay the employees and management make at these stores, you can expect more of these kinds of things. This is one of the reasons I don't buy things at BestBuy or at Frys.
The arresting officers and the detective handling the case are different people. It is normally NOT the job of the officers to make judgement calls like that. The case is then handed over to the detective who has to followup and determine what is appropriate. The police department is NOT liable in this case as long as the officers did their job (they did as far as I know) and especially when someone else (e.g. the store manager) was demanding the arrest and willing to file the charges. Mr. Cherian's beef is with the web site, the store, and the manager, the latter two mostly for the arrest. I do believe the store was in its legal rights to NOT honor the web site price. The fact that they have apparently honored it with others could have been an error on the part of some store employees, or it possibly could be racial discrimination (but there would have to be more of a pattern to it than this to make it stick in court).
Be sure to take a friend the next time you shop at Best Buy. Better yet, take a lot of friends.
However, there are some especially sensitive jobs for which merely an ARREST is flagged. The fact of being arrested generally doesn't disqualify one for such jobs, but if you fail to reveal it when asked, that's lying, perjury, and in some cases (applying for government jobs involving security and secrecy) possibly even a felony. When you do put down "YES" then you will be asked to explain the circumstances. While this is certainly not something that would be a problem, the fact of having to do this, possibly the rest of your life, can be a hindrance. And in some cases you can be improperly discriminated against if the employer finds it more convenient to hire someone slightly less qualified than you just because they won't have to check and validate the arrest record (if they have to ask for ARREST instead of CONVICTION for highly sensitive jobs, they surely have to followup and verify). Fortunately most jobs don't fall into these categories.
Mr Cherian should have a lawyer pursue an action to have his arrest expunged so he can then legally say "NO" in the few cases an arrest might be asked about ... and then file suit naming the Best Buy store, the Best Buy company, and the store manager Rod Hill, to cover all legal expenses to set things straight. There is even the possibility of pursuing criminal action against the store manager for false arrest (the lawyer needs to advise on that).
In the mean time, be sure to do searches on the bestbuy.com web site for terms like "arrest", "ripoff", "rod hill", "consumer terrorism", etc. They do log these things.
While I don't have any experiences using NVIDIA drivers, I have heard several horror stories about the inability to make certain system changes, such as upgrading a kernel to a new version due to some bug that makes this necessary, and finding that the driver being used croaks the whole machine. I don't remember if any of those stories involved NVIDIA drivers specifically, but they did involve video drivers with a kernel component that was NOT open source (e.g. was a binary-only module). Perhaps it could be the case that NVIDIA makes flawless code, and compiles a version of their driver for every architecture using the bus they support, and for every kernel and X version within 24 hours after they are released (something that can be easily accomplished by tracking the -rc versions every day). Perhaps they do this. Perhaps not. But there is value in having the source code so that you can choose to fix the driver yourself. Often times it is a simple fix, like merely recompiling.
I will always prefer the open source.
My form of dissing NVIDIA is simply to tell the truth about how they make their driver available, and explaining the advantages of having a community of many people doing the development, inspection, and testing ... and by NOT buying anything made by NVIDIA.
Maybe we should have a better place to throw them. If we're going to pay a recycling fee, then they should use the money and set this up. Besides, I just take my computers apart. I use the parts for various things.
Then maybe we need to set up a recycling system that makes sense ... one where if you pay for recycling with the purchase of an item, you get to recycle it without paying it all over again.
It didn't work. Maybe they caught on.
I even tried the same search in several salary categories, and the same one came up under three of them, but it was the same ONE job. Sure looks like the gubmint is a Microsoft shop.
But jobs like that tend to be stuck in procedure (as in the bureaucratic type) hell and not real decision making roles. That pay may be decent, but when it's a third party job, you don't really get to run things.
I didn't find very interesting technical jobs listed on that web site. All the internet jobs were web site development (as opposed to infrastructure management and security). Of course if application development is your thing, there are a few jobs there for you. In the areas I work (network/system/OS administration), the government clearly hasn't been getting results in many areas, considering all the security messes, router failures, DNS inconsistencies, etc, I see going on (especially at NASA). Either they don't have people doing those jobs, or they stifle them somehow, or they hired the incompetent. I know I could certainly run things a whole lot better than they are run now. But I don't know if the bureaucracy would let that even happen.
Demand, maybe ... good pay? no! ... respect? forget it!
Go look at the executive positions in the government jobs. These are the people that make all the goofball decisions about things like what technology to use. And they can get paid as much as $130,000 for such things, while techies get only half that. It's a fundamental problem of respect. With a few hundred thousand techies out of work or underemployed (e.g. "would you like fries with that?") in the US, you'd think they could fill these IT positions quickly, even for that low pay. The problem really is that in most of these jobs, the management just don't give due respect to the value techies bring in. And that's often a more important motivating factor than money (which confuses managers).
OpenBSD & Qmail are examples of insecure freeware. But isn't OpenBSD exhaustively audited with many sections rewritten to eliminate security bugs probably spotted before ever being exploited? Doesn't Dan Bernstein write rock solid secure code in packages like Qmail and DJBDNS? The answer to both of those questions is a definite yes. The problem isn't that these things are made insecure, which is not the case at all. The problem is that the end user, or the system administrator, too easily can make things insecure by even the simplest mistake in configuration.
I'd love to have secure programs as much as anyone, and OpenBSD and Qmail certainly show that some of that is available now. But when I choose what software I will install, I have to do more than just choose what is securely written; I have to balance development security against administrative security. Certainly hiring more skilled administrators can improve security. But if the software is harder to configure and manage, then it either takes more administrator time, skill, and attention, for a given level of result. To that end, one of the important factors I judge software by is how easily it can be configured.
Close to that is another factor measuring how easily a given package can be hacked to correct a bug, or change a feature, if needed. If the code is well written, well documented, and clearly organized, the time it takes to hack it, and the certainty of hacking it correctly, is improved.
For any given package, there will be some people more experienced with that one than others, and so this isn't always a clear cut decision. I made the choice to go with Linux and Postfix, instead of the other choices. But this decision suited my needs, balancing reasonably secure software and reasonably secure adaptability to my environment (including programming and administrative skills). It won't be the same choice for everyone. And there are cases I've recommended software I don't actually use because it better suited someone else's different circumstances (fortunately I was at least reasonably familiar with it from evaluation to know its specifics). For example, if you have no need to change anything, I'd say OpenBSD would be the best choice for a combo firewall and server (just don't let anyone touch it ... a console is a dangerous thing).
Now here's the rub. What if someone does install OpenBSD and/or Qmail, and after they configure them, some kid breaks in and takes the machine for a ride? Are we going to blame Theo and Dan? I wouldn't, because I've seen way too many administrator mistakes (and learned from the ones I've made) to be putting the blame on the software. My big worry is that if we start pointing the liability finger at the software vendor, they're going to end up taking the heat way way more than they should be.
The OpenBSD and Qmail development people, as far as I know, fess up to their bugs, especially the security bugs, and let people know when a hole is found. If we are going to have software liability, I think that a practice of consistently divulging known vulnerabilities should be considered a safe-harbor from the liability, even for bugs that got exploited before the developers were aware. It's the practice of covering up on the vulnerabilities that I despise. That's where the liability should be.
The legal test should be whether the software vendor has carried out a consistent practice of immediately divulging (if not to the whole public, then at least to all their customers) the existance of the vulnerability, even if they don't have a fix for it yet. I'd rather take a web site down for a day if it is discovered to be insecure, while waiting to get it fixed. Of course open source is a plus here, as I can dig in and hack up a fix or work around myself, even if its just a quick and dirty one (like gross over sized malloc with some randomizing, for buffer overflows, to ride out a few days until a proper fix is available). And this means all customers, not just a few privileged big corporate customers.
If CD sales are flat ... for whatever reason you think that might be ... how is a new format going to bring in new sales? Are people holding off on buying new content so they can end up spending money buying the same content on a new format? Suppose it is the case ... as the industry claims ... that internet piracy is the cause of reduced CD sales. How is a new format going to make people uninterested in the internet piracy? Do they think that people will abandon sharing and trading online to buy this new format? Maybe if the format completely replaces CDs and perfectly prevents ripping it could make it hard to have source material for trading. But that won't happen since if you can hear it, you can rip it, and even though that won't be perfect digital quality, it won't ever degrade any further over the net, and people are already happy to download poor quality rips.
With a few hours delay, you lose a customer. If you competitor gets an eval that works in front of the customer first, and they are hurried to make a decision and buy now, you lose. Even if not that, the mere fact there is a delay in getting a simple username/password out by email gives a perception that technical support is going to suck really bad. Again, you lose.
Prime mission numero uno is to get rid of that few hours delay. Generate that username and password immediately, and mail it out right now. Accept no excuses from the programming people. If the product is any good, they can make a simple username/password mailback script.
A lot of other people have given good advice about making a better impression on the customer, but clearly if they have already given you their email, they were good to go this far. You lost them somewhere between giving the email address and mailing back the password. A few hours is a long time to wait and a big opportunity to lose a customer. Fix the long wait and don't make any excuses for it. And make sure much of the other advice is followed to help increase your responses. Make sure you a very clear about your policy on handling the email address. If you want to use it for mailing anything more than the username/password it is submitted for, given them the opportunity to OPT-IN to get announcements, separately for this product, and other products. And promise clearly on the web site to never give the email to any other business, not even partners.
And make sure your mail server hasn't been blacklisted for spam. if your company did any mass mailings of anything beyond an opt-IN mailing list, it probably did get blacklisted. See, doing that means you lose customers.
Growing corporations rarely ever pay dividends to stock holders. The value of the stock rises on the perceived value the stock will have in the future (when dividends might be paid out) or in the near future (which someone else is willing to pay you more for the stock than what you paid for it recently, netting your a capital gains profit). While I do believe Microsoft is seeing a sales figure squeeze right now, I don't believe the fact that they have never paid dividends to mean anything. In fact I suspect that once they do start paying dividends, their stock price will stop climbing, and may even begin a long term trend downward compared to the rest of the market as this would be an indication their growth has peaked and the company is leveling out.
In addition to the basic level of economic recession that all sales figures are affected by, software is more vulnerable because its costs are easier to evade when the software can be installed on extra machines without obtaining the licensing terms to allow it. Without their efforts to make this hard to do in XP, certainly XP would majorly suffer from this. Earlier versions, such as Windows ME and Windows 98, can be multiply installed, and I'm certain a lot of this is taking place in deference to upgrading to XP, which is further hurting the XP sales figures.
Microsoft has a lot of marketing people working for it. There are whole departments intended for niche markets, many of which are even much smaller than the installed base of Linux, though probably represent a much large dollar figure than the consumer retail unit market. Every different department is individually pressured to work their sales figures up, or to keep them from falling too far. To that end expect each area of sales to be advancing some program intended to drive sales. They are simply not going to skip some area, because there are people in each department that are motivated to be seen as a sales producer to advance their careers.
No doubt, Microsoft is hurting. Some sales/marketing people who don't produce will end up hurting even more.
Break the machine down into N parts and separate these N parts into N piles. Now add N-1 new parts to each pile so each can be built back into a new machine. Build each of the N piles into N machines. Of course you have exacly ONE license for Windows that came with the original machine. Now which machine inherits the license? The one with the CPU? The one with the first RAM stick? The one with the second RAM stick? The one with the hard drive? The one with the floppy drive? You see where I'm going with this.
A few years ago I bought an OEM copy of Windows 98 from a small computer dealer. In order to legally sell me the OEM version of Windows 98 (which cost them less than a retail box version, but was otherwise complete with CDs, product key, book, and the authenticity certificate) they had to sell it only with a CPU or a hard drive. I bought it with a hard drive, because I actually also needed a hard drive at the time. That hard drive (5 gig) has since died, and been replaced with a new larger hard drive (10 gig). I run Windows 98 on that new larger hard drive.
I could have bought Windows 98 with a CPU, so I was told. Or with a complete system (which I didn't care for, considering some of the junk that dealer was building their systems with). I prefer building my own machines, anyway. What this means is Microsoft is (or was then) rather non-specific about which hardware the license goes with.
It may be the case (and IANAL, otherwise I wouldn't be able to reveal this to you without shaking you down for a few hundred dollars) that it is simply a matter of making sure that exactly one and only one machine is associated with a license, so that it cannot be run on two or more machines. Microsoft may want to say no to that, in order to drive more full version sales (by claiming that under certain circumstances, the licensing rights vanish when a specific machine cannot be identified). I suspect if it went to court, the decision wouldn't really be motivated to driving up sales. Unfortunately, you'll be shaken down for a few thousand dollars or more just to get there.
In general, a camera should be allowed in ones home or place of business if it is they who are doing it. This needs to be sure that applies the resident, not the property owner, to be sure a landlord cannot escape the law when spying on tenants in the privacy of their own home ... though the landlord should have certain rights to have security cameras in the outside of multiplex property. In a business, the cameras should be allowed in almost all places, but restrooms, or at least the obviously intimate parts, would have to be protected. There might be other exceptions, too.