If I could force the sender to pay me $100 per email, I'd setup a bunch of honeypot email accounts with common names: john@mydomain.com, etc. I would never publish those addresses but the spam will start flowing immediately, resulting in big bux for me.
In fact, every ISP could make a killing by scanning their logs for the trial-and-error addresses the spammers try, then setup accounts for those addresses and let the income roll in.
When you call a toll-free number, the recipient gets your phone number even if you have caller ID blocking. This opens you up for receiving telemarketing calls. Even if you're on the Do Not Call list, the fact that you initiated a call to them might give them the right to call you under the guise of having a business relationship.
The best thing to do with those toll-free numbers is to call them from a pay phone. The recipient pays an extra surcharge for calls from pay phones, and they can't track you.
In Colorado, Comcast and Qwest said customers who couldn't access the Internet bombarded the company with calls. The companies directed their customers to Web sites offering software fixes.
That's some really useful advice for someone who can't access the Internet! Maybe they expect granny to drive to the web site?
(2) My statement "file permissions are rarely used on Windows" was a poorly-worded overstatement. I should have said that some common Windows applications do not set file permissions in a way to protect themselves from being easily broken (accidentally or on purpose). Microsoft Office 2000 is a readily available example. I see many of the files it installs are writable when they don't need to be. A non-administrator could accidentally modify, rename, or delete those files that would likely break some functionality in Office.
I'm not intending this to be Microsoft-bashing, but since I use so much Microsoft software those are the examples that are easiest for me to find.
They might use the robots to sniff out and destroy copyright infringers. This idea is Copyright (C) 2003 by GordoSlasher, All Rights Reserved. Any use of WiFi-sniffing robots by the RIAA to sniff out and destroy copyright infringers will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
regardless if you know exactly what the problem is (misconfigured router, etc), telling the tech will not convince him/her to act on your diagnosis. at all.
I agree. I've gotten faster support by letting them go through their script. If you jump ahead and try to do their job for them, it confuses them. Remember, first level techs are often clueless and if you deviate from their script, it takes longer to get them back on track to be able to help you.
My company builds contact center products. We did a study in conjunction with a local university's computer help desk. All the tech support calls were recorded (if the caller gave permission) and analyzed for effectiveness of the interaction between caller and agent. It showed that the most effective calls (fastest, problem solved on first call) were the ones where the caller calmly described the problem and then the agent helped walk them through the solution. If the caller jumped ahead to describe the solution without first describing the problem, or if the caller talked down to the agent because they thought they knew more than the agent, the problems took longer to resolve, especially in the many cases where the caller's solution wasn't the right solution, so they had to go start over from the beginning.
One problem is that Microsoft makes it too easy for users to accidentally break things. How many times have you tried to double-click on something in Explorer, but accidentally got into rename mode, then your typing unexpectedly renamed the file? Even if you're a seasoned computer user, the first time that happens to you is baffling. I suspect computer novices have really screwed things up by accidentally renaming files, when they were just trying to double-click a file to open it.
Then there are the tinkerers. Some people like to take things apart and put them back together, and in the process they sometimes break it. It's their nature to tinker and you can't stop it, so you've got to design products to keep the tinkerers out. Manufacturers hide screws under labels warning that you will void the warranty if you tear the label and open the case. Sometimes they require special tools to open it up. All of these measures are to make product support easier.
Windows is still mostly wide-open, so the tinkerers have free reign to accidentally break things when they thought they were making innocuous changes. File permissions are rarely used on Windows, and most users run with Administrator rights anyway because so many programs (including Microsoft programs) require it.
Microsoft (and all the application software companies) could do a whole lot more to prevent this kind of accidental breakage that contribute to tech support nightmares.
If you are a novice computer user, press 1. If you have been using computers for several years, press 2. If you know more about computers than 95% of the population, press 3.
Then your screen-pop will show you the experience level of the user so you know how to deal with them. Then you can decide to ask "is the properties file read-protected" vs. "Move the mouse to the My Computer icon and click the left button twice really fast..." Less frustration for both of you.
Once upon a time if you owned a computer you were a programmer. Want to balance your checkbook? Write the code yourself. Everybody was an expert. Everybody did their own tech support.
Today computers are mass-market products. Most computer owners cannot be expected to know how to troubleshoot their computer, just as most car owners do not know how to troubleshoot their car. Mom can't rebuild her car's engine, why would you expect her to fix a broken software configuration?
The mass-market computer industry has failed to setup an appropriate tech support structure. Microsoft tries to weasle their way around it at http://www.microsoft.com/security/home/ by saying "Cars need maintenance from time to time, and so do computers. Use these tools and tips to help keep your computer running smoothly."
OK, Microsoft, so you're telling me I need to maintain my computer just like I maintain my car. True story: I bought a new car last year. I've been faithfully taking it to the dealer for an oil change every 3000 miles. A few months ago it started having acceleration problems. I took it to the dealer, and they fixed it for me under warranty in 1.5 hours. I waited in the service lobby drinking free coffee. Cost me nothing but the inconvenience. It's worked perfectly ever since.
Let's say I bought a new computer last year. I've been faithfully applying the almost-weekly XP security updates. A few months ago it started launching programs slowly. The dealer I bought it from won't help, tells me to call the manufacturer. This isn't covered by any kind of warranty. The manufacturer tech support wants me to reinstall everything which will lose all my customized settings, maybe some data, and isn't guaranteed to fix the problem. Microsoft has me spend countless hours of my own time troubleshooting the startup programs through emails. This takes several days of trying things and exchanging emails with a low-level Microsoft tech support person who's copy/pasting from a script. If it does happen to isolate the problem to a particular program I installed, all they helped me do was to isolate the problem. What's the fix? Don't install that program!
Yep, that's a great comparision you make, Microsoft. Maintain my computer just like I maintain my car. I spend lots of time and do all the work, and you don't even help me fix the problem in your operating system! If my car service were like that, I guess I wouldn't be able to accelerate anymore because it's incompatible with my last oil change or something.
This is not a jab only at Microsoft. The entire industry gets an F.
It's an easy choice: (1) easy access to free pr0n or (2) "reality TV".
For (1) substitute whatever interests you. News junkies, humor, multi-player gaming, music swapping, ad infinitum. It's available on demand 24x7. TV forces you to adhere to mostly least-common-denominator programming at the programmer's schedule, unless you fumble with a VCR, or you have a TIVO that your Dad hasn't monopolized. It's not surprising that the kids have gravitated to the Internet as the new entertainment medium, as have many adults.
They named the default username given to those who install Kazaa Lite...
So I wonder how many people that covers?
They track a combination of username and IP address. For the default username, the IP address they have on record is 127.0.0.1. If that's not the address of your computer, you're safe!
And with layoffs coming every couple of months, I sure as heck don't want to be tech lead on the project that missed its market window because I insisted on perfection. I try to balance risk/reward, taking shortcuts on the less risky parts, negotiating to eliminate unnecessary functionality, and doing whole-hog process on critical system components.
Working at AT&T many years ago I was privy to the System V code. At the time comments were sparse. In one section of code I actually saw one single comment: /* this is a comment */
If the code in question has any comments at all I find it hard to believe it was taken from System V.
Unisys was notoriously difficult to work with. A few years back I worked at a large corporation on a product that, among other things, generated GIF files. We attempted to get a license from Unisys. Their demands were outrageous. The GIF file generation was a very minor component of a large and expensive software product but they wanted 10% of our revenue! Our patent attorney finally gave up negotiating and told us to go ahead and release the software, saying "If those a$$holes catch us, I'm sure they're infringing on some of our patents." Had Unisys agreed to more reasonable terms they would have had a steady revenue stream for the last six years.
SCO won't get far with this. IBM probably has some patents they can counter-sue against SCO, and they'll settle the whole thing out of court. Ditto for Sun and any other large company they might go after. And who's going to buy anything from SCO after this?
When I heard the sound of that little white square hitting that white line, knowing that the little white square was now headed toward my white line, I was so frightened I turned and ran.
There was one search engine that IMHO had a better "experience" than Google: Northern Light. It categorized the results into folders of related topics, so it was easy to discard irrelevant results. But it didn't have the web coverage Google has, and it was plagued by too many "premium" search results that you had to pay $$$ to access. Northernlight.com still seems to exist but it's not what it used to be.
I guess I should have used a smiley to tag my lame attempt at humor. If a printer port is used to plug in a printer, what might a geek do to a geek port? Aarrrgh.:-)
The Apollo era spacecraft were single-use. They each only had to survive one reentry. The shuttles are reusable with a more sophisticated heat shield. At this point nobody knows whether the failure was caused by the heat shield, or a structural failure in the airframe, or something else.
Slashdot Mirror
If I could force the sender to pay me $100 per email, I'd setup a bunch of honeypot email accounts with common names: john@mydomain.com, etc. I would never publish those addresses but the spam will start flowing immediately, resulting in big bux for me.
In fact, every ISP could make a killing by scanning their logs for the trial-and-error addresses the spammers try, then setup accounts for those addresses and let the income roll in.
Red Herring is back? It's official then, the second dotcom bubble has begun. SELL YOUR TECH STOCKS BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!
So, a bunch of lawyers get obscenely rich and 2 years from now we all get a $5.00 coupon toward the purchase of a new disk.
I was expecting $5.12
When you call a toll-free number, the recipient gets your phone number even if you have caller ID blocking. This opens you up for receiving telemarketing calls. Even if you're on the Do Not Call list, the fact that you initiated a call to them might give them the right to call you under the guise of having a business relationship.
The best thing to do with those toll-free numbers is to call them from a pay phone. The recipient pays an extra surcharge for calls from pay phones, and they can't track you.
(1) Microsoft Money 2001
(2) My statement "file permissions are rarely used on Windows" was a poorly-worded overstatement. I should have said that some common Windows applications do not set file permissions in a way to protect themselves from being easily broken (accidentally or on purpose). Microsoft Office 2000 is a readily available example. I see many of the files it installs are writable when they don't need to be. A non-administrator could accidentally modify, rename, or delete those files that would likely break some functionality in Office.
I'm not intending this to be Microsoft-bashing, but since I use so much Microsoft software those are the examples that are easiest for me to find.
They might use the robots to sniff out and destroy copyright infringers.
This idea is Copyright (C) 2003 by GordoSlasher, All Rights Reserved. Any use of WiFi-sniffing robots by the RIAA to sniff out and destroy copyright infringers will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
regardless if you know exactly what the problem is (misconfigured router, etc), telling the tech will not convince him/her to act on your diagnosis. at all.
I agree. I've gotten faster support by letting them go through their script. If you jump ahead and try to do their job for them, it confuses them. Remember, first level techs are often clueless and if you deviate from their script, it takes longer to get them back on track to be able to help you.
My company builds contact center products. We did a study in conjunction with a local university's computer help desk. All the tech support calls were recorded (if the caller gave permission) and analyzed for effectiveness of the interaction between caller and agent. It showed that the most effective calls (fastest, problem solved on first call) were the ones where the caller calmly described the problem and then the agent helped walk them through the solution. If the caller jumped ahead to describe the solution without first describing the problem, or if the caller talked down to the agent because they thought they knew more than the agent, the problems took longer to resolve, especially in the many cases where the caller's solution wasn't the right solution, so they had to go start over from the beginning.
One problem is that Microsoft makes it too easy for users to accidentally break things. How many times have you tried to double-click on something in Explorer, but accidentally got into rename mode, then your typing unexpectedly renamed the file? Even if you're a seasoned computer user, the first time that happens to you is baffling. I suspect computer novices have really screwed things up by accidentally renaming files, when they were just trying to double-click a file to open it.
Then there are the tinkerers. Some people like to take things apart and put them back together, and in the process they sometimes break it. It's their nature to tinker and you can't stop it, so you've got to design products to keep the tinkerers out. Manufacturers hide screws under labels warning that you will void the warranty if you tear the label and open the case. Sometimes they require special tools to open it up. All of these measures are to make product support easier.
Windows is still mostly wide-open, so the tinkerers have free reign to accidentally break things when they thought they were making innocuous changes. File permissions are rarely used on Windows, and most users run with Administrator rights anyway because so many programs (including Microsoft programs) require it.
Microsoft (and all the application software companies) could do a whole lot more to prevent this kind of accidental breakage that contribute to tech support nightmares.
Here's one idea that could help:
If you are a novice computer user, press 1.
If you have been using computers for several years, press 2.
If you know more about computers than 95% of the population, press 3.
Then your screen-pop will show you the experience level of the user so you know how to deal with them. Then you can decide to ask "is the properties file read-protected" vs. "Move the mouse to the My Computer icon and click the left button twice really fast..." Less frustration for both of you.
Once upon a time if you owned a computer you were a programmer. Want to balance your checkbook? Write the code yourself. Everybody was an expert. Everybody did their own tech support.
Today computers are mass-market products. Most computer owners cannot be expected to know how to troubleshoot their computer, just as most car owners do not know how to troubleshoot their car. Mom can't rebuild her car's engine, why would you expect her to fix a broken software configuration?
The mass-market computer industry has failed to setup an appropriate tech support structure. Microsoft tries to weasle their way around it at http://www.microsoft.com/security/home/ by saying "Cars need maintenance from time to time, and so do computers. Use these tools and tips to help keep your computer running smoothly."
OK, Microsoft, so you're telling me I need to maintain my computer just like I maintain my car. True story: I bought a new car last year. I've been faithfully taking it to the dealer for an oil change every 3000 miles. A few months ago it started having acceleration problems. I took it to the dealer, and they fixed it for me under warranty in 1.5 hours. I waited in the service lobby drinking free coffee. Cost me nothing but the inconvenience. It's worked perfectly ever since.
Let's say I bought a new computer last year. I've been faithfully applying the almost-weekly XP security updates. A few months ago it started launching programs slowly. The dealer I bought it from won't help, tells me to call the manufacturer. This isn't covered by any kind of warranty. The manufacturer tech support wants me to reinstall everything which will lose all my customized settings, maybe some data, and isn't guaranteed to fix the problem. Microsoft has me spend countless hours of my own time troubleshooting the startup programs through emails. This takes several days of trying things and exchanging emails with a low-level Microsoft tech support person who's copy/pasting from a script. If it does happen to isolate the problem to a particular program I installed, all they helped me do was to isolate the problem. What's the fix? Don't install that program!
Yep, that's a great comparision you make, Microsoft. Maintain my computer just like I maintain my car. I spend lots of time and do all the work, and you don't even help me fix the problem in your operating system! If my car service were like that, I guess I wouldn't be able to accelerate anymore because it's incompatible with my last oil change or something.
This is not a jab only at Microsoft. The entire industry gets an F.
Seems like a protocol that compressed the flesh-colored bits would greatly improve bandwidth in this situation.
It's an easy choice: (1) easy access to free pr0n or (2) "reality TV".
For (1) substitute whatever interests you. News junkies, humor, multi-player gaming, music swapping, ad infinitum. It's available on demand 24x7. TV forces you to adhere to mostly least-common-denominator programming at the programmer's schedule, unless you fumble with a VCR, or you have a TIVO that your Dad hasn't monopolized. It's not surprising that the kids have gravitated to the Internet as the new entertainment medium, as have many adults.
They named the default username given to those who install Kazaa Lite...
So I wonder how many people that covers?
They track a combination of username and IP address. For the default username, the IP address they have on record is 127.0.0.1. If that's not the address of your computer, you're safe!
It's not a midget. The third person watches the sky with only one eye.
But you'd probably need a pretty hefty power source on that boat, or a verrrrrry long extension cord.
And with layoffs coming every couple of months, I sure as heck don't want to be tech lead on the project that missed its market window because I insisted on perfection. I try to balance risk/reward, taking shortcuts on the less risky parts, negotiating to eliminate unnecessary functionality, and doing whole-hog process on critical system components.
If the code in question has any comments at all I find it hard to believe it was taken from System V.
i+1 is not necessarily > i in buggy multi-threaded programs. Thread synchronization bugs can be some of the more difficult ones to hunt.
Unisys was notoriously difficult to work with. A few years back I worked at a large corporation on a product that, among other things, generated GIF files. We attempted to get a license from Unisys. Their demands were outrageous. The GIF file generation was a very minor component of a large and expensive software product but they wanted 10% of our revenue! Our patent attorney finally gave up negotiating and told us to go ahead and release the software, saying "If those a$$holes catch us, I'm sure they're infringing on some of our patents." Had Unisys agreed to more reasonable terms they would have had a steady revenue stream for the last six years.
SCO won't get far with this. IBM probably has some patents they can counter-sue against SCO, and they'll settle the whole thing out of court. Ditto for Sun and any other large company they might go after. And who's going to buy anything from SCO after this?
When I heard the sound of that little white square hitting that white line, knowing that the little white square was now headed toward my white line, I was so frightened I turned and ran.
There was one search engine that IMHO had a better "experience" than Google: Northern Light. It categorized the results into folders of related topics, so it was easy to discard irrelevant results. But it didn't have the web coverage Google has, and it was plagued by too many "premium" search results that you had to pay $$$ to access. Northernlight.com still seems to exist but it's not what it used to be.
Google is already so powerful and so popular that it's already a verb in most people's vocabulary.
I can't wait for Microsoft to be used as a verb:
"Our company was microsofted so we'll have to let you all go."
I guess I should have used a smiley to tag my lame attempt at humor. If a printer port is used to plug in a printer, what might a geek do to a geek port? Aarrrgh. :-)
The Apollo era spacecraft were single-use. They each only had to survive one reentry. The shuttles are reusable with a more sophisticated heat shield. At this point nobody knows whether the failure was caused by the heat shield, or a structural failure in the airframe, or something else.