I feel for ya bud. If it helps, BOTH rebates (CompUSA $30 and WD $60) come from WD, in the same red-grey style rebate envelope. I got mine at the same time yesterday, so they should get that second one to you early this week, I bet.
I would tend to agree with your point, but since the percentages (as stated by tons of people so far) are so low for rebates, they don't gain many names.
When it comes to building a large list, consider warrenty cards. Many more people send those in, despite the fact that several major court cases have ruled that it is illegal to not honor a warrenty on the basis that the consumer has not mailed in a warrenty card. That's the reason that I never bother with them.
Telling customers/users/potentials that you product should only be used for one service and that all otehr creative and necessary uses make them pansies...that's a great idea. Wow, you should stop posting on Slashdot and start writing advertising slogans!
I'm going to wager that you don't work in a Sales or Marketing department, right?
Why do manufacturers decide to give rebates instead of sale prices? Simple: Because nearly the same number of people will buy the product (with full intentions of sending in the rebate), then promptly forget or decide it isn't worth the hassle when they get home. I believe I recently read that only 30% of people ever fill out rebate forms and actually send them in, but maybe I'm wrong.
I send in a LOT of rebates, mostly because I check out deal websites and buy stuff that way. I've been keeping an Excel spreadsheet of them for about a year now, and I'd say that around 25% of my rebates arrive quickly, 50% arrive after several months, and 25% never arrive.
So why would they send them back to you with a lame excuse? Because I'm sure about 50% of the people out there would just get fed up and decide it isn't worth the effort and the hassle of calling customer service and bitching them out. Sure, they'll complain to their friends about how they got screwed, but they'll give up or set the envelope aside for too long or let it get lost in the shuffle.
Case in point: Western Digital had a 45gig HD for $190 with two rebates totalling $90. I bought two (one for the PC, one to upgrade my TIVO) and send in all four rebates. It took them 3 months to send my rebate form back with some minor note about how I had a UPC problem. I had to call, sit on hold for 30 minutes, and confirm that my UPC was good. Then it took them nearly another 3 months to send my checks. I got them yesterday, actually.
Moral of story: Keep a chart, always photocopy before you send em in, and complain a lot if they never come. I don't know about you guys, but $90 + $90 is not cash I don't worry about getting back...
Man, from the sound of it, this thing is two-wheel-drive. So imagine this...you're riding along, smiling smuggly at all the people gawking at your dope new ride, when suddenly you hit a large stick.
The front wheel stops, the motion continues to pull the board forward (and upward), and you do a nice little faceplant.
TMP? I'm lost, are we talking about The Manhatten Project? Man I can't wait to get that on DVD. I hear there are all these crazy outtakes where Einstein bets that he can eat anything in the room for cash.
Hmm. It is the general belief of most/. readers that we respect someone who does something that is hard and takes a lot of effort and creativity.
From that mindset, the person (or people) who first thought up a DDos attack are to be respected, since you must admit, it took some skill, programming, hacking, and theory to get it accomplished. (Note I leave morals out of this)
Yet who is REALLY to blame when a Script Kiddie does a bad deed? Personally, I blame the idiot who MADE the toolset easy enough for a mindless goon to use.
At first I got really REALLY scared about the possibility of technology being used for evil purposes, but then I remembered that all the really neat stuff like AI and Nanotechnology have been designed only for the use of the good and just!
Whew! It's good to know that there will never, ever ever be any tiny supersmart autonomous microscopic robots that can take me apart cell by cell! Thanks science!
While the substitute for the coin toss certainly was amusing, I was a little confused by it. For those that didn't watch: They had a player from each team line up next to each other, then sprint to grab a ball on the field.
I was confused by the fact that after the original leap by both guys, only one guy seemed to make any effort to go for the ball that squirted out a few yards.
Well now I know why. It turns out that the other guy BROKE HIS COLLARBONE on that first jump. He's out for the year. Nothing like a sport where people are injured just deciding who gets to start with the ball, eh?
Keep in mind of course that technology is always changing our lives. It's also always had an impact on the sports world.
When they added a clock to basketball with a fraction of a second, it was a big deal. Instant replays in football made the game better.
But those are changes that make an impact in the OUTCOMES of games. There are other changes to help the TV viewer enjoy the game, such as that glowing hockey puck and the yellow first down line.
The addition of player mic's and that (incredible) over-the-field wire-camera is really nothing new in the trend.
Last night on CNN'S "The Spin Room," they had some big sports guy as the guest. This guy went off on the mic's in the XFL, saying that it would ruin the game because the defense would hear the calls being given to the quarterback.
Can the defense hear the offensive play call? Of course not! The game
was on delay, braintrust! With all those mic's, they need a few buffer
seconds for the censors to work.
Plus, even if they heard the call immeadiately, think about how hard it
would be for the TV spy to relay it to the defensive co-ordinater to
relay it to the defensive captain on the field to relay it to the
squad? A tad longer than 3 seconds before the ball gets snapped...
Man, I just counted the email addresses that I check on a weekly basis and I came up with 10. Yeah it's a tad excessive but they're so easy to collect...
Anyway, my girlfriend uses Gator to store her passwords, and it's tragic to see her away from her home PC and not remember any of her passwords. I've found the best way to keep up with all these logins and passwords is to simplify. I just came up with a single super-unique login name (to prevent anyone from having alreayd registered it) and a simple low-security superpassword that I use with it. Sure, it isn't very secure, and yes, people could use that L/P to break into all of the other accounts if they got it, but I'm not worried. For sites that store my credit card records, I use secure L/P's. For sites that force me to setup an L/P to browse the news or chat about a certain game, it's just easier to have one universal. I also recommend assigning a dummy hotmail account for the records though, to soak up all the spam that will follow.
Yeah, but it's so much harder to swing a two-handed broadsword in real life. It's so heavy and stuff. That, and the fact that there are far too few zombie mercinaries plaguing my town.
What I need is a video game weapon in real life. Like a Rocket Launcher that self reloads and a backpack that can store a few hundred rockets in it.
I just skimmed all the posts and I wanted to point something out using a mix of the comments.
1) You'll never "stop" spam, or be able to force and ADV: tag. Don't even ponder it, it's not worth the effort.
2) Mandatory Opt-in lists will only work if you have filters in place that only allow "verified" addresses to get into your inbox. That means tons more server space holding all sorts of lists and certificates of verified sources, and anyone not on that list (a customer, a old pal from grade school, Publisher's Clearing House, etc) will never be able to contact you. Blah to that notion.
3) When spam hits your inbox, it IS too late (as several people already said). The effort and CPU cycles are already used. For me to click delete a few times or spend an extra 4 seconds a day on the modem is negligable in a real-world sense. Sure it's annoying, but so is traffic on the highways. That's life, oh well.
4) Lastly, the only REAL way to ever -STOP- spam, or even slow down, is for the bigtime IT guys to say enough is enough and tweak their servers. We have known for a LONG time that a LARGE percentage of spam comes from a certain popular web provider's servers. It's high time that some of the decent IT departments out there got together and started cutting off incoming traffic from servers that have a proven track record of "we don't give a damn about security or IP verification." I imagine that it would only take a few weeks of embargos to convince the other companies to shape up their act. Sure, we can't get them all, but if the bulk of spam is coming from a KNOWN common location, why not plug up that gap?
Yes, I know we'll have to keep plugging gaps, but everyone knows that the best way to approach security is not to be 100% secure, but to be secure enough that the enemy gives up or leaves to find an easier target.
This story makes me wonder what it would look like if you mixed a Monkey and a Gnome. I bet it would make a bunch of screehing sounds and wear a pointy hat!
Slashdot Mirror
Holy crap! Microsoft is evil? And someone wrote a book about it?
Thank God that someone brought this to my attention!
I feel for ya bud. If it helps, BOTH rebates (CompUSA $30 and WD $60) come from WD, in the same red-grey style rebate envelope. I got mine at the same time yesterday, so they should get that second one to you early this week, I bet.
I would tend to agree with your point, but since the percentages (as stated by tons of people so far) are so low for rebates, they don't gain many names.
When it comes to building a large list, consider warrenty cards. Many more people send those in, despite the fact that several major court cases have ruled that it is illegal to not honor a warrenty on the basis that the consumer has not mailed in a warrenty card. That's the reason that I never bother with them.
Telling customers/users/potentials that you product should only be used for one service and that all otehr creative and necessary uses make them pansies...that's a great idea. Wow, you should stop posting on Slashdot and start writing advertising slogans!
I'm going to wager that you don't work in a Sales or Marketing department, right?
It just furthers the Law of Rebates, that's why.
Why do manufacturers decide to give rebates instead of sale prices? Simple: Because nearly the same number of people will buy the product (with full intentions of sending in the rebate), then promptly forget or decide it isn't worth the hassle when they get home. I believe I recently read that only 30% of people ever fill out rebate forms and actually send them in, but maybe I'm wrong.
I send in a LOT of rebates, mostly because I check out deal websites and buy stuff that way. I've been keeping an Excel spreadsheet of them for about a year now, and I'd say that around 25% of my rebates arrive quickly, 50% arrive after several months, and 25% never arrive.
So why would they send them back to you with a lame excuse? Because I'm sure about 50% of the people out there would just get fed up and decide it isn't worth the effort and the hassle of calling customer service and bitching them out. Sure, they'll complain to their friends about how they got screwed, but they'll give up or set the envelope aside for too long or let it get lost in the shuffle.
Case in point: Western Digital had a 45gig HD for $190 with two rebates totalling $90. I bought two (one for the PC, one to upgrade my TIVO) and send in all four rebates. It took them 3 months to send my rebate form back with some minor note about how I had a UPC problem. I had to call, sit on hold for 30 minutes, and confirm that my UPC was good. Then it took them nearly another 3 months to send my checks. I got them yesterday, actually.
Moral of story: Keep a chart, always photocopy before you send em in, and complain a lot if they never come. I don't know about you guys, but $90 + $90 is not cash I don't worry about getting back...
Bonus points if they toss in a studded "Mr. Plow" jacket with purchase!
Man, from the sound of it, this thing is two-wheel-drive. So imagine this...you're riding along, smiling smuggly at all the people gawking at your dope new ride, when suddenly you hit a large stick.
The front wheel stops, the motion continues to pull the board forward (and upward), and you do a nice little faceplant.
Sounds like fun!
"Dude, one more time. Listen this time:"
/. and see what everyone is posting about this kickass trip we're taking. Well, that and porn. I also need more porn"
"WHERE IS THE CLOSEST HIGHSPEED ACCESS POINT?"
"Cmon dude, I need to check
"Hey Bill, why the heck is your computer chair vibrating?"
"sSsHhUuTtt UuPpp MmmaAaNnnN, Iii'Mmm WwwWoorRkKiIInnNgGG OooUuuTtTt."
TMP? I'm lost, are we talking about The Manhatten Project? Man I can't wait to get that on DVD. I hear there are all these crazy outtakes where Einstein bets that he can eat anything in the room for cash.
Update: 02/08 12:03 AM
Dear God, I knew it! Slashdot admins can travel through time after all!
And...they control the weather! (Okay, I'm still working on proof for that one)
Lame script kiddies giving hackers a bad name?
/. readers that we respect someone who does something that is hard and takes a lot of effort and creativity.
Hmm. It is the general belief of most
From that mindset, the person (or people) who first thought up a DDos attack are to be respected, since you must admit, it took some skill, programming, hacking, and theory to get it accomplished. (Note I leave morals out of this)
Yet who is REALLY to blame when a Script Kiddie does a bad deed? Personally, I blame the idiot who MADE the toolset easy enough for a mindless goon to use.
Still, most women prefer "fat pipe" access...
Buy a bigger jacket.
KaZaAm! Problem solved.
At first I got really REALLY scared about the possibility of technology being used for evil purposes, but then I remembered that all the really neat stuff like AI and Nanotechnology have been designed only for the use of the good and just!
Whew! It's good to know that there will never, ever ever be any tiny supersmart autonomous microscopic robots that can take me apart cell by cell! Thanks science!
Taco thinks about his bedroom and his first thoughts are about broadband and a game.
;)
Perhaps the ladies aren't happy with his "bandwidth," if you know what I mean
While the substitute for the coin toss certainly was amusing, I was a little confused by it. For those that didn't watch: They had a player from each team line up next to each other, then sprint to grab a ball on the field.
I was confused by the fact that after the original leap by both guys, only one guy seemed to make any effort to go for the ball that squirted out a few yards.
Well now I know why. It turns out that the other guy BROKE HIS COLLARBONE on that first jump. He's out for the year. Nothing like a sport where people are injured just deciding who gets to start with the ball, eh?
Keep in mind of course that technology is always changing our lives. It's also always had an impact on the sports world.
When they added a clock to basketball with a fraction of a second, it was a big deal. Instant replays in football made the game better.
But those are changes that make an impact in the OUTCOMES of games. There are other changes to help the TV viewer enjoy the game, such as that glowing hockey puck and the yellow first down line.
The addition of player mic's and that (incredible) over-the-field wire-camera is really nothing new in the trend.
Last night on CNN'S "The Spin Room," they had some big sports guy as the guest. This guy went off on the mic's in the XFL, saying that it would ruin the game because the defense would hear the calls being given to the quarterback.
Can the defense hear the offensive play call? Of course not! The game was on delay, braintrust! With all those mic's, they need a few buffer seconds for the censors to work.
Plus, even if they heard the call immeadiately, think about how hard it would be for the TV spy to relay it to the defensive co-ordinater to relay it to the defensive captain on the field to relay it to the squad? A tad longer than 3 seconds before the ball gets snapped...
IBM is a tad late on this one. I've seen this in catalogs since at least Xmas...
Check out the Thumb Drive
http://www.thumbdrive.com/
Man, I just counted the email addresses that I check on a weekly basis and I came up with 10. Yeah it's a tad excessive but they're so easy to collect...
Anyway, my girlfriend uses Gator to store her passwords, and it's tragic to see her away from her home PC and not remember any of her passwords. I've found the best way to keep up with all these logins and passwords is to simplify. I just came up with a single super-unique login name (to prevent anyone from having alreayd registered it) and a simple low-security superpassword that I use with it. Sure, it isn't very secure, and yes, people could use that L/P to break into all of the other accounts if they got it, but I'm not worried. For sites that store my credit card records, I use secure L/P's. For sites that force me to setup an L/P to browse the news or chat about a certain game, it's just easier to have one universal. I also recommend assigning a dummy hotmail account for the records though, to soak up all the spam that will follow.
Yeah, but it's so much harder to swing a two-handed broadsword in real life. It's so heavy and stuff. That, and the fact that there are far too few zombie mercinaries plaguing my town.
What I need is a video game weapon in real life. Like a Rocket Launcher that self reloads and a backpack that can store a few hundred rockets in it.
(Quick note to WebNoize -- wouldn't you like more people to read this?)
:)
Or more importantly, wouldn't you like to show banner ads to 300,000 people in one day?
Their loss
I just skimmed all the posts and I wanted to point something out using a mix of the comments.
1) You'll never "stop" spam, or be able to force and ADV: tag. Don't even ponder it, it's not worth the effort.
2) Mandatory Opt-in lists will only work if you have filters in place that only allow "verified" addresses to get into your inbox. That means tons more server space holding all sorts of lists and certificates of verified sources, and anyone not on that list (a customer, a old pal from grade school, Publisher's Clearing House, etc) will never be able to contact you. Blah to that notion.
3) When spam hits your inbox, it IS too late (as several people already said). The effort and CPU cycles are already used. For me to click delete a few times or spend an extra 4 seconds a day on the modem is negligable in a real-world sense. Sure it's annoying, but so is traffic on the highways. That's life, oh well.
4) Lastly, the only REAL way to ever -STOP- spam, or even slow down, is for the bigtime IT guys to say enough is enough and tweak their servers. We have known for a LONG time that a LARGE percentage of spam comes from a certain popular web provider's servers. It's high time that some of the decent IT departments out there got together and started cutting off incoming traffic from servers that have a proven track record of "we don't give a damn about security or IP verification." I imagine that it would only take a few weeks of embargos to convince the other companies to shape up their act. Sure, we can't get them all, but if the bulk of spam is coming from a KNOWN common location, why not plug up that gap?
Yes, I know we'll have to keep plugging gaps, but everyone knows that the best way to approach security is not to be 100% secure, but to be secure enough that the enemy gives up or leaves to find an easier target.
This story makes me wonder what it would look like if you mixed a Monkey and a Gnome. I bet it would make a bunch of screehing sounds and wear a pointy hat!