Publicly traded corporations have Boards and CEO's who are responsible to the shareholders. The company has a charter which in most cases states that the Board is _required_ to run the company in a way which "maximizes profits" for the shareholders.
.
And this is what pisses me off. Nowhere is the customer considered. What ever happened to the concept of corporations having a charter to operate in the public interest? All this stuff so many companies have been pulling lately doesn't seem to be in the public interest -- it's strictly in their shareholders' interests.
Whether they're required to operate this way or not doesn't make greed okay. I also want things, but I always provide fair return for what I get; it's only right that way. As a customer, I don't feel like I get that in return from most transactions, though.
While I share your pain, I think you anger is misdirected...
You're probably right, but I was using PQ only as an example. I upgraded for the same reason you did -- The v2 didn't support W2K NTFS. The only reason I got v4 was for the W2K NTFS support. The only reason I got v5 was because it CLAIMED to work as a native app in Windows and support imaging to network drives. Well, there was some dumb scripting utility to automate what DI did during it's imaged boot to DOS, and you have to work out the network connection yourself with DOS drivers. That's NOT what the hell their product page said.
Obviously it is worth $50 per year or you wouldn't be paying it.
No, it's for lack of alternative and the fact that I'm stupid and keep paying it. It's NOT worth it. I need the tool, but I resent paying so much for it. Three years ago updates were $29 and I could handle that. But now they're $50, and the software doesn't do a damn thing earlier versions didn't except support a new file system. As soon as another company releases something that does what DriveImage does but without the yearly upgrade cycle, then I'm done with PowerQuest. I am not a loyal customer, in spite of my upgrades. I am a trapped customer, and I have the feeling they don't care about the difference. I know about the current alternatives, but since Symantec took over Ghost, it's just as big a pain to deal with as DriveImage. Paragon Software has Drive Backup, but it fubars my W2K NTFS partitions on restore. I will absolutely bail on DriveImage the first chance I get.
Don't you think that just the fact that basically the ONLY possible answer is "use Linux" (or any other free- software OS system) is a very good indicator of how bad the situation is?
That was a stupid thing I said about "college kids", but I guess what I mean is that some of us are supporting families and have real responsibilities and use the computer professionally, so we can't afford a "free or die" attitude that usually pops up when there's a complaint with commercial closed software.
I want to be treated like a paying customer by the companies I buy software from. I want to buy something and even if it is unsupported past a certain point, I don't want to be intentionally locked out. You put it very well that the entire thing is used as a way to maximize profit. That makes me feel like I'm viewed as a "consumer" rather than a "customer". My software is a tool to do what I want to do, not a vessel for me to put another million in the CEOs pocket. If he earns the money, great, but don't screw me and my past patronage to get it.
I agree, it's not perfect, but it would at least stump a keylogger. Even things like backing up with the mouse and hitting delete on a different character rather than the one a strict log of keystrokes would follow would at least help. I guess it's security through obscurity, but there may not be much more defense, if the software was well-written and thorough.
You're right. That hadn't occurred to me. I suppose a really good system monitor could follow each mouse movement, each app launch, etc, and know in which part of which field which characters were pasted. I have macro software that does a relatively good job of playing back most of this, though it's not perfect. If whoever writes the software is good enough, I guess there really isn't any hiding.
I know all the arguments about how it's a corporation's responsibility to maximize profits for their shareholders, etc., but the only thing I see here is greed. I see people being laid off left and right while CEOs take home bonuses that would have paid all those salaries for another year. I see cuts made in quality and higher charges made for support while the price of the products go up. I see employees put on salary and threatened into working long hours for no extra consideration. When the fuck did money become more important than everything else?
I probably sound pollyannish saying that when I pay for something, I want to use it how I see fit. I know all the college kids are going to start whining that I should use Linux instead, but I don't like Linux, as much as I've tried, so I guess I just have to take whatever crap the corps feed me. I've been a victim of the PowerQuest upgrade cycle myself, and it pisses me off as much as it pisses the next guy off. The software isn't worth $50 per year, but that's what they manage to drag out of me because of their harsh policies.
But more than the sunset clauses, more than crappy software, the greed makes me shake my head. When is enough money enough? What is gained by adding another couple million to your own bank account when there are so many there already? In the end, you're going to die anyway, so at least make the world a better place rather than just stuffing your money chest fuller. Do these people care that no one likes them? Do they care that they're despised and all their plebs would ditch them at the first opportunity? Has greed outweighed every other thing in life? It looks to me like it has.
This post will probably never be seen since I'm a latecomer to the conversation, but I knew a fellow a few years back that would never be affected by a keylogger. His method would work for bypassing any keylogger, but would probably be most useful to touch-typists as a way to not use the keyboard for entering passwords.
He claimed he was a terrible typist. I couldn't tell though, because he didn't touch the keyboard. He would literally copy and paste every character he entered. While this would be tedious for all typing, it strikes me that would be a good way to enter passwords if you're concerned about a keylogger.
That generally wouldn't work for whole-system logins, but it would work for encrypted files and other "lesser" logins. Copy a letter from this page, a letter from that, paste it in your password box, and I doubt seriously even a macro recorder could follow what you're doing.
If they no longer sell it, and no longer support it, technically it's abandonware, right?
Have there been any court decisions on abandonware and whether it's legally okay to trade it/hack it/despoil it in general?
If so, is there anything to be gained by rifling through it as much as possible?
What is the license enforcement on software abandoned by a still-in-business company? Has MS been enforcing MS-DOS licenses? If not, will that make Win95 sort of a free-for-all too?
Plus ask yourself if your parents could have choosen you a 200 year lifespan, great fitness without exercise and astonishing basketball ability would you object ?
Excellent point. The answer is NO, if I wasn't forced to used those abilities in a way I didn't want to.
You're obviously trolling, but I'm going to take the bait. I have something to say about your comment.
What if I want to run as fast as Carl Lewis? Or lift as much as Magnus ver Magnusson? Or swim as well as Matt Biandi? What if I want to be able to do all three? Who are you to tell me I can't?
No one has the right to tell you you can't. But is it fair to specifically engineer someone to do something without their consent? That goes beyond your rights. Picking your kid from a catalog isn't fair to the kid because then they're valued more for a specific trait they didn't choose rather than given the chance to form their own opinion about what skill they'd like to enhance.
Personally, I don't care. I never understood competitive sport anyway.
I'm not a fan of sports either. But I do care — I think that's wrong to do that to people. Just because it's not something I enjoy the effects from doesn't mean I think it's right to modify someone for a specific purpose without their willing participation.
Maybe I'm just being obtuse, but I have some questions:
We've all seen parents that push their kids into doing things the parents themselves wish they were good at rather than considering what the child wants. Will the ability to custom-order strength or speed (like paying the Dungeon Master for extra points on a roll of the die) increase this sort of thing?
Will possible backfires from this lead to the ability to special-order not only strength and speed but the desire to perform particular tasks?
If so, would we consider it ethical to psychologically condition the earlier children with custom abilities (but not the custom desire) to do what we want?
If not, why would it be ethical to engineer them with those desires?
And not to be flippant, but doesn't that sort of take the fairness and fun out of the sport?
For example, I personally have so far steered clear of those printer/fax/copier/scanner all in one jobs, because I just have a sneaking suspicion that if I bought one, I'd regret it...Can't quite put my finger on why, though.
I'll tell you why - because if your scanner breaks, you're also without your copier. If your printer breaks, you're also without your fax. If you run out of ink for your printer, you also can't print faxes or copies, and so on.
I find the idea of saving space attractive, but don't like the idea of a single, simple hardware failure disabling several devices. My rule in the past few years has been to buy the highest-quality item with the longest warranty and best reviews that I can possibly afford. The all-in-one printer/fax/copier/scanner job sounds more like four cheap and probably unreliable devices all at once.
Installers for the last couple versions of mssql do indeed ask you to set the sa password, but allow you to override that with the "blank password" checkbox. So since SQL 7.0, you have to go out of your way to have a blank password.
I've done contract development at quite a few places that had publicly exposed sql servers with blank sa passwords.
The Zilog Z80 and EZ80 with embedded TCP/IP stack and web server. Kick-ass little chip. My first programming was done in Z80 assembly in the very early 80s.
Please, please, please email me and tell me how you've gotten rid of the runtime! I don't use any runtime functions in my apps, yet still the thing links in the runtime! Can you send me a makefile with the switches you use?
I would actually be quite happy with the Borland compiler if I could figure out the right combination of switches to use to eliminate the runtime.
Oh man, no shit! I am with you, brutha. That screwed-up all-in-one helpfile of theirs is the absolute most difficult-to-use thing they've ever released. I also hate how the WinCE calls all have the same names, and you have to scan to the bottom of a doc to see if you got the CE or the Win32 version of the function when you clicked the item in the list of 15 identically-named items.
I agree. I'm not typical. I also figured there may be a couple other die-hards like myself around, and that they may read slashdot.:) I've actually tried all the compilers listed so far (other than Comeau), but I've been very glad that some people have offered suggestions.
Yeah , you did but without any logical reason. Do you just "hate" MS ?
Well, if I hated MS, I wouldn't be working in Win32 would I?:)
I was trying to keep the original question short, and didn't explain all my reasons. Here are some of them:
I don't like the direction MS is headed with their development tools. I know that doesn't affect those they've already released, but it is a minor protest on my part.
The disk space required to install MS' development tools is beyond what I consider acceptable. I know this because no one else's take up that much space (except Borland's, and I don't want or need VCL, either).
I don't like Dev Studio (I could go on for hours about this one, but it's basically an editor flame). I work from Visual Slickedit, so other than using nmake and cl, I have no reason to bother with their tools any more.
I'm tired of running into true compiler bugs and errors in their implementation of C++ and the STL. (I know I can use a third-party STL, but if I have to keep using third-party stuff in an environment I don't like, what's the point of using the environment to start with, you know?) If they did actual updates more often, this might not be as big a problem.
I detest MFC for the same reason I detest VB and other large library-based tools. I'm straight Win32, so there's no need for all the extra stuff that comes with VC++.
In a nutshell, I want a compact set of tools for which I can build and keep option files and other settings the way I want to work. VC++ is configurable enough, and works from the command line, but since I'm using less, I want less on hand to do it. I'm a minimalist in my coding style, and want a less bulky toolset.
This isn't some anti-MS rant I'm on. I happen to like Windows NT and 2000 as end-user OSes. I just want a compiler and toolset that works how I like to work, and doesn't weigh me down with stuff I don't need or want.
Maybe I'm missing something, but what's the beef with a 100K program?
It's bigger than necessary. I detest large distributions. My goal is precise functionality, neatly-done code, tiny executable. For a particular program I've done that I use as a test project (with a basic GUI and performs some network functions), I've got the distributable size down to 18K in x86 ASM, 22K in PB/DLL, 24K with LCC, 28K with VC++, and WHAM! 132K with borland's free C++ compiler (which, as best as I can tell after searching for hours and hours for an explanation, force links the runtime whether or not you explicitely call runtime functions because they embedded the entries in the runtime). It's a personal goal in my software that they never use external files (with very rare exceptions), and use as little disk space and memory as possible. I do balance that with development time, though, and I'm not fast enough working in ASM to do everything that way. Of course, all these beat the hell out of the equivalent VB project at 1.5M.
Slashdot Mirror
Whether they're required to operate this way or not doesn't make greed okay. I also want things, but I always provide fair return for what I get; it's only right that way. As a customer, I don't feel like I get that in return from most transactions, though.
But, it's just an example.
No, it's for lack of alternative and the fact that I'm stupid and keep paying it. It's NOT worth it. I need the tool, but I resent paying so much for it. Three years ago updates were $29 and I could handle that. But now they're $50, and the software doesn't do a damn thing earlier versions didn't except support a new file system. As soon as another company releases something that does what DriveImage does but without the yearly upgrade cycle, then I'm done with PowerQuest. I am not a loyal customer, in spite of my upgrades. I am a trapped customer, and I have the feeling they don't care about the difference. I know about the current alternatives, but since Symantec took over Ghost, it's just as big a pain to deal with as DriveImage. Paragon Software has Drive Backup, but it fubars my W2K NTFS partitions on restore. I will absolutely bail on DriveImage the first chance I get.
I want to be treated like a paying customer by the companies I buy software from. I want to buy something and even if it is unsupported past a certain point, I don't want to be intentionally locked out. You put it very well that the entire thing is used as a way to maximize profit. That makes me feel like I'm viewed as a "consumer" rather than a "customer". My software is a tool to do what I want to do, not a vessel for me to put another million in the CEOs pocket. If he earns the money, great, but don't screw me and my past patronage to get it.
I agree, it's not perfect, but it would at least stump a keylogger. Even things like backing up with the mouse and hitting delete on a different character rather than the one a strict log of keystrokes would follow would at least help. I guess it's security through obscurity, but there may not be much more defense, if the software was well-written and thorough.
You're right. That hadn't occurred to me. I suppose a really good system monitor could follow each mouse movement, each app launch, etc, and know in which part of which field which characters were pasted. I have macro software that does a relatively good job of playing back most of this, though it's not perfect. If whoever writes the software is good enough, I guess there really isn't any hiding.
I know all the arguments about how it's a corporation's responsibility to maximize profits for their shareholders, etc., but the only thing I see here is greed. I see people being laid off left and right while CEOs take home bonuses that would have paid all those salaries for another year. I see cuts made in quality and higher charges made for support while the price of the products go up. I see employees put on salary and threatened into working long hours for no extra consideration. When the fuck did money become more important than everything else?
I probably sound pollyannish saying that when I pay for something, I want to use it how I see fit. I know all the college kids are going to start whining that I should use Linux instead, but I don't like Linux, as much as I've tried, so I guess I just have to take whatever crap the corps feed me. I've been a victim of the PowerQuest upgrade cycle myself, and it pisses me off as much as it pisses the next guy off. The software isn't worth $50 per year, but that's what they manage to drag out of me because of their harsh policies.
But more than the sunset clauses, more than crappy software, the greed makes me shake my head. When is enough money enough? What is gained by adding another couple million to your own bank account when there are so many there already? In the end, you're going to die anyway, so at least make the world a better place rather than just stuffing your money chest fuller. Do these people care that no one likes them? Do they care that they're despised and all their plebs would ditch them at the first opportunity? Has greed outweighed every other thing in life? It looks to me like it has.
This post will probably never be seen since I'm a latecomer to the conversation, but I knew a fellow a few years back that would never be affected by a keylogger. His method would work for bypassing any keylogger, but would probably be most useful to touch-typists as a way to not use the keyboard for entering passwords.
He claimed he was a terrible typist. I couldn't tell though, because he didn't touch the keyboard. He would literally copy and paste every character he entered. While this would be tedious for all typing, it strikes me that would be a good way to enter passwords if you're concerned about a keylogger.
That generally wouldn't work for whole-system logins, but it would work for encrypted files and other "lesser" logins. Copy a letter from this page, a letter from that, paste it in your password box, and I doubt seriously even a macro recorder could follow what you're doing.
Questions
Excellent point. The answer is NO, if I wasn't forced to used those abilities in a way I didn't want to.
You're obviously trolling, but I'm going to take the bait. I have something to say about your comment.
No one has the right to tell you you can't. But is it fair to specifically engineer someone to do something without their consent? That goes beyond your rights. Picking your kid from a catalog isn't fair to the kid because then they're valued more for a specific trait they didn't choose rather than given the chance to form their own opinion about what skill they'd like to enhance.
I'm not a fan of sports either. But I do care — I think that's wrong to do that to people. Just because it's not something I enjoy the effects from doesn't mean I think it's right to modify someone for a specific purpose without their willing participation.
Maybe I'm just being obtuse, but I have some questions:
I'll tell you why - because if your scanner breaks, you're also without your copier. If your printer breaks, you're also without your fax. If you run out of ink for your printer, you also can't print faxes or copies, and so on.
I find the idea of saving space attractive, but don't like the idea of a single, simple hardware failure disabling several devices. My rule in the past few years has been to buy the highest-quality item with the longest warranty and best reviews that I can possibly afford. The all-in-one printer/fax/copier/scanner job sounds more like four cheap and probably unreliable devices all at once.
Installers for the last couple versions of mssql do indeed ask you to set the sa password, but allow you to override that with the "blank password" checkbox. So since SQL 7.0, you have to go out of your way to have a blank password.
I've done contract development at quite a few places that had publicly exposed sql servers with blank sa passwords.
Didn't you know? Socks are the larval stage of coat hangers.
The Zilog Z80 and EZ80 with embedded TCP/IP stack and web server. Kick-ass little chip. My first programming was done in Z80 assembly in the very early 80s.
I'm surprised you haven't heard of him. He's pretty well known. His movies are fun to watch. Sort of a cross between Ed Wood and Paul Hogan.
Do you have links to some documentation for the USPS bit? I'd like to read more about that.
I don't think so, because other munitions are restricted. You can't have an automatic, for example.
I'm agreeing we should hope the gov't does not require back doors, but I don't think classifying it a munition earns it a get out of jail free card.
Please, please, please email me and tell me how you've gotten rid of the runtime! I don't use any runtime functions in my apps, yet still the thing links in the runtime! Can you send me a makefile with the switches you use?
I would actually be quite happy with the Borland compiler if I could figure out the right combination of switches to use to eliminate the runtime.
Oh man, no shit! I am with you, brutha. That screwed-up all-in-one helpfile of theirs is the absolute most difficult-to-use thing they've ever released. I also hate how the WinCE calls all have the same names, and you have to scan to the bottom of a doc to see if you got the CE or the Win32 version of the function when you clicked the item in the list of 15 identically-named items.
I agree. I'm not typical. I also figured there may be a couple other die-hards like myself around, and that they may read slashdot. :) I've actually tried all the compilers listed so far (other than Comeau), but I've been very glad that some people have offered suggestions.
Well, if I hated MS, I wouldn't be working in Win32 would I? :)
I was trying to keep the original question short, and didn't explain all my reasons. Here are some of them:
This isn't some anti-MS rant I'm on. I happen to like Windows NT and 2000 as end-user OSes. I just want a compiler and toolset that works how I like to work, and doesn't weigh me down with stuff I don't need or want.
It's bigger than necessary. I detest large distributions. My goal is precise functionality, neatly-done code, tiny executable. For a particular program I've done that I use as a test project (with a basic GUI and performs some network functions), I've got the distributable size down to 18K in x86 ASM, 22K in PB/DLL, 24K with LCC, 28K with VC++, and WHAM! 132K with borland's free C++ compiler (which, as best as I can tell after searching for hours and hours for an explanation, force links the runtime whether or not you explicitely call runtime functions because they embedded the entries in the runtime). It's a personal goal in my software that they never use external files (with very rare exceptions), and use as little disk space and memory as possible. I do balance that with development time, though, and I'm not fast enough working in ASM to do everything that way. Of course, all these beat the hell out of the equivalent VB project at 1.5M.