I think this one will be a lot easier to justify considering the damage that has been caused by the spread of various worms and viruses. Same with their built-in firewall.
However, Windows has a built-in firewall and quota management (hah!), and people still buy third-party alternatives. Don't forget MS-DOS used to come with a virus scanner, but that didn't stop people from using alternatives because it SUCKED.
By the way, I think it's insane to use two virus scanners at the same time. One scanner bogs down my system enough (with real-time scanning). I'd rather just pay for a decent scanner than use two mediocre ones.
It'd make me feel guilty, having that much power in a small package while other people can't even get it in a PC tower.
As long as we're throwing cheap shots, as least we don't have to plug in an external device to get a second mouse button. I'm surprised you didn't make a BSoD joke. I know I can never get enough of those!
In the venerable words of Ace Ventura: La-hooo Za-her
I sure hope the bitch-slap feature requires some sort of ActiveX component so pudge can't seek revenge. Zing!
Is it that time of the year already? Wow, I guess it as been awhile since our last BPL-to-the-masses announcement. Maybe this year it will dethrone DNF for the #1 vaporware spot.
News.com.com has a little more commentary and some background for those who aren't in the know. Thanks to the DMCA, seems like an open and shut case to me. The judge seems to think they are violating both the letter and the spirit of the law:
321 has argued that since consumers who buy a DVD have the right to access their own movie, it would not be illegal to help them access it by using 321's software.
Illston disagreed, saying CSS was plainly a way to protect copyright holders' rights, as envisioned in copyright law.
I do think 321 makes some cool software. It will be sad to see them lose this one...
I guess my point wasn't so much whether or not Google does indeed track you or not, but that they (at least to me) portray a higher level of trust than Yahoo, giving Google a competitive edge. If more people "trust" that Google's results are not going to be altered significantly by payola, they will likely choose them over Yahoo (or so you'd think). Obviously, there are other factors that decide who will be king...
On a related note, I was at my parents home this weekend. They like to use Yahoo for their searching. No problem, but they were complaining of popups. I decided to install the Google toolbar for them. The thought crossed my mind to install the Yahoo toolbar, since they prefer Yahoo, however, it came down to a matter of trust. When Google says they're not going to resell my information or track my moves, they've given me no reason to disbelieve them. But seeing some of the ads on Yahoo makes me feel they're willing to do anything for an extra click. I appreciate that they're in the business to make money, just as Google is, but Google just makes me feel more comfortable about it.
Not a big deal either, since there's a goof chance my parents won't take notice the new bar anyway;)
It is sad that you have to question every motive and move you make on the Internet thanks to all the toxic waste that is present. One wrong subscription and your inbox is hosed. I made that mistake the other day. Fortunately, I used a throw-away e-mail address so the damage was minimal.
> I don't feel particularly ripped off on my long distance service.
Consider yourself lucky. We were getting raped on long-distance fees with AT&T. Our bills were showing around 29 cents per minute to call intra-state! Thinking that was outrageous, we called to cancel our service. They said, "oh, your paying more because you're not on a 'plan'". WTF?! Why wasn't I on this "plan" to begin with? Did you think I wanted to pay more for long distance? Basically, we weren't on the plan because we didn't bitch enough, and when we threatened to cancel, then our price got lowered.
She told me about the "plan" and it sounded like an okay deal, so I agreed. Before I agreed to the change, I asked what ALL THE COSTS involved were. She basically led me to believe there would be no extra fees for changing over and the only difference we would notice is a cheaper rate per minute. Fine, sounds good to me.
When we got our next phone bill, we noticed several charges on it like some "service change fee" and a monthly fee for this new-fangled plan we were on, even after being assured that no extra fees would be billed. Furious, I called them and told them to cancel it. Period. They tried to tell me that I must have been mistaken because nobody there would have said such a thing, etc. I told them to go to hell and cancel my service. They did.
Meanwhile, I stop by the local Sam's Club and pick up a 600 minute phone card for like $19.95. That's a little over 3 cents per minute. The beauty of it was that it was an AT&T phone card. Why can they give me 3 cents/minute on the card but charge me outrageous rates as a long distance customer? Does it cost them 26 cents per minute more to do it the "old fashion way"?
Here's what I want: Instead of raping me as a long distance customer to pay for those who are getting long distance for next to nothing for the 3 cents/minute, why not just CHARGE A FAIR PRICE to everyone where you are making enough money on everyone to turn a decent profit and we don't have to play these games to get a decent rate. I'd be happy to pay more than 3 cents a minute just to avoid all the bullshit.
It seems to me buying a cell phone is like buying insurance. They give you a great deal when you sign up, but over time their rates get higher and service gets worse. Every now and then you have to shop around for a new provider, get a good deal, and wait for your service to slide down hill again.
For as many people I can find that have nice things to say about a particular provider I can usually find an equal amount that have nasty things to say about them. I suppose it depends what you use your cell phone for. If it's for business, it's much more difficult to do. If it's personal, you just give your new number to the 5-10 people who know it.
> I don't understand how user submitted reviews would get this site knocked offline.
Simple. In the U.S., the legal system is driven by money. Since a professor likely makes more money than some 20-y.o. dude running an ad-supported web site, it's pretty easy to imagine why he brought down the site. He who has the gold makes the rules.
> All they have to do is take the end-of-course data that they share with the professor, and publish it.
Right. That's "all they would have to do", but they don't, which is why sites like TeacherReviews.com came to be. As a former student, it was nice to know which profs were hard-asses and which were not. The fact that this guy is threatening to sue this site just reinforces how much of an asshole he/she is. I'm sure there was a reason several people posted negative comments.
> Stop playing name games. That's the sort of thing that can really hurt adoption.
In their defense, it's still in beta. I don't think they intend it for widespread adoption yet except among developers and enthusiasts. Besides, I think they were stuck between a rock and a hard place with their lack of research over their last name.
I still think 'Firefox' stinks. Doesn't roll off the tongue like Mozilla, Firebird, or Phoenix, but I'm sure choosing a name that isn't already taken isn't easy.
Orkut's cookie now nests cosily alongside Google's cookie, set to expire in 2038, which in itself suggests that Google plans to be in the data mining business for a very long time.
Or at least as long as they can store dates in a 32-bit integer:) Their cookie expires on January 17, 2038, two days before the cut-off.
Not sure if you're joking or serious, but during the Code Red fiasco I put a Windows machine with IIS online on my cable modem. Thanks to port 80 being forwarded to that machine on my firewall, my computer was infected after I installed Windows in the time it took me to find and install the service pack! From then on, I made sure to remove port forwards before installing updates on newly installed machines:)
I guess it's no surprise, given the amount of Code Red traffic there was at the time, but I just didn't think of it at the time since I had planned on installing all the updates after reloading.
> I can provide as much fake information as Yahoo asks for, as well.
Instead of abusing free services, why not use some free throw-away e-mail addresses. It's precisely what the service was designed for, and it's free, easy to use, and works well.
Umm, wasn't the book/review about creating stand-alone applications? I'd dare to say that most of them only have one user connecting to them at once anyway, right? If you have multiple users connecting, it makes sense to use the full-blown MySQL!
> I suppose the app could easily be written to start the server when it starts and shut the server down when it ends
True, but besides being sort of hokey, the requirement of having MySQL installed might not be ideal if your target audience isn't savvy enough to install it, or perhaps don't want extra, normally unnecessary, stuff on their computer. I guess it all depends on your needs and target audience.
MS Access has the advantage (on Windows machines anyway) of being a stand-alone database without needing a service to be installed. For a app where you don't want to have to install MySQL server and have it waste resources, you might consider SQLite. Unlike MySQL embedded, it's release under the public domain. MySQL Embedded is licensed under the GPL and has the following requirement:
... any program which includes, by linking with libmysqld, the MySQL source code must be released as free software (under a license compatible with the GPL).
Although, depending on what you want to do with the software, this may not be a problem. I'm all for free and open source software, but a brother's gotta eat too.
Domains by Proxy is good, however, as far as I've seen is only offered through Go Daddy its resellers. The cheapest I've found it for is $9/year/domain. RegisterFLY.com offers the same service for only $2.50/year/domain (or $2.00/year/domain if you buy a 5-pack). And since they're an eNom reseller, they offer the same great DNS services and ease of transfer you're used to.
I posted a Registrar Comparison on my web site, but it lacks Network Solutions since I have never tried them. If anyone has any experience with them and would offer a review, I'd be happy to add it to my article.
It's been awhile, but isn't it based on volume and not percentage? So if I get less than 100 clicks, my ad gets axed. Paying more per click would improve placement, and thus hopefully achieve the 100 clicks/day. No?
As far as I remembered, it was based on clicks/day or something and not CT rate. I changed my ad several times advertising fairly unprofitable rates (just to get my name out there) and it still failed to generate their minimum. YMMV
> Small businesses with tiny marketing budgets can buy ads easily.
I've had different results with AdWords. I wanted to test the waters with it so I set a budget of $1.00/day and 5 cents per click. I was quickly disabled for having "too few clicks" so I increased it to 25 cents per click and had the ad re-enabled. Again, it was disabled because of too few clicks. Finally, I tried raising it to $1.00 per click and again had the same results. I'm not sure what you consider cheap, but paying more than $1.00 per click to get decent placement is not my idea of cheap. I can find better click-throughs elswehere for around 35 cents per click and not be charged $5 to re-enable my ad if it does too poorly. For a small business getting started, it's tough to pay than a dollar or two CPM. A thousand impressions with.5% CT rate doesn't add up to much business, and the money for those ads doesn't grow on trees.
I've had better click-throughs with Market Banker or ads on Kuro5hin.
I'm guessing he doesn't get paid by the click. Companies probably come to him with mass-mailings they would like distributed. He charges his fee to distribute them. When the company realizes those mass mailings resulted in ZERO new business, they move on to another strategy. Next in line is another company who wants to do the same thing and make the same mistake. It's an industry of lies and one-time customers, me thinks.
Slashdot Mirror
I think this one will be a lot easier to justify considering the damage that has been caused by the spread of various worms and viruses. Same with their built-in firewall.
However, Windows has a built-in firewall and quota management (hah!), and people still buy third-party alternatives. Don't forget MS-DOS used to come with a virus scanner, but that didn't stop people from using alternatives because it SUCKED.
By the way, I think it's insane to use two virus scanners at the same time. One scanner bogs down my system enough (with real-time scanning). I'd rather just pay for a decent scanner than use two mediocre ones.
As long as we're throwing cheap shots, as least we don't have to plug in an external device to get a second mouse button. I'm surprised you didn't make a BSoD joke. I know I can never get enough of those!
In the venerable words of Ace Ventura: La-hooo Za-her
I sure hope the bitch-slap feature requires some sort of ActiveX component so pudge can't seek revenge. Zing!
Is it that time of the year already? Wow, I guess it as been awhile since our last BPL-to-the-masses announcement. Maybe this year it will dethrone DNF for the #1 vaporware spot.
News.com.com has a little more commentary and some background for those who aren't in the know. Thanks to the DMCA, seems like an open and shut case to me. The judge seems to think they are violating both the letter and the spirit of the law:
I do think 321 makes some cool software. It will be sad to see them lose this one...
I guess my point wasn't so much whether or not Google does indeed track you or not, but that they (at least to me) portray a higher level of trust than Yahoo, giving Google a competitive edge. If more people "trust" that Google's results are not going to be altered significantly by payola, they will likely choose them over Yahoo (or so you'd think). Obviously, there are other factors that decide who will be king...
On a related note, I was at my parents home this weekend. They like to use Yahoo for their searching. No problem, but they were complaining of popups. I decided to install the Google toolbar for them. The thought crossed my mind to install the Yahoo toolbar, since they prefer Yahoo, however, it came down to a matter of trust. When Google says they're not going to resell my information or track my moves, they've given me no reason to disbelieve them. But seeing some of the ads on Yahoo makes me feel they're willing to do anything for an extra click. I appreciate that they're in the business to make money, just as Google is, but Google just makes me feel more comfortable about it.
;)
Not a big deal either, since there's a goof chance my parents won't take notice the new bar anyway
It is sad that you have to question every motive and move you make on the Internet thanks to all the toxic waste that is present. One wrong subscription and your inbox is hosed. I made that mistake the other day. Fortunately, I used a throw-away e-mail address so the damage was minimal.
> I don't feel particularly ripped off on my long distance service.
Consider yourself lucky. We were getting raped on long-distance fees with AT&T. Our bills were showing around 29 cents per minute to call intra-state! Thinking that was outrageous, we called to cancel our service. They said, "oh, your paying more because you're not on a 'plan'". WTF?! Why wasn't I on this "plan" to begin with? Did you think I wanted to pay more for long distance? Basically, we weren't on the plan because we didn't bitch enough, and when we threatened to cancel, then our price got lowered.
She told me about the "plan" and it sounded like an okay deal, so I agreed. Before I agreed to the change, I asked what ALL THE COSTS involved were. She basically led me to believe there would be no extra fees for changing over and the only difference we would notice is a cheaper rate per minute. Fine, sounds good to me.
When we got our next phone bill, we noticed several charges on it like some "service change fee" and a monthly fee for this new-fangled plan we were on, even after being assured that no extra fees would be billed. Furious, I called them and told them to cancel it. Period. They tried to tell me that I must have been mistaken because nobody there would have said such a thing, etc. I told them to go to hell and cancel my service. They did.
Meanwhile, I stop by the local Sam's Club and pick up a 600 minute phone card for like $19.95. That's a little over 3 cents per minute. The beauty of it was that it was an AT&T phone card. Why can they give me 3 cents/minute on the card but charge me outrageous rates as a long distance customer? Does it cost them 26 cents per minute more to do it the "old fashion way"?
Here's what I want: Instead of raping me as a long distance customer to pay for those who are getting long distance for next to nothing for the 3 cents/minute, why not just CHARGE A FAIR PRICE to everyone where you are making enough money on everyone to turn a decent profit and we don't have to play these games to get a decent rate. I'd be happy to pay more than 3 cents a minute just to avoid all the bullshit.
/rant
It seems to me buying a cell phone is like buying insurance. They give you a great deal when you sign up, but over time their rates get higher and service gets worse. Every now and then you have to shop around for a new provider, get a good deal, and wait for your service to slide down hill again.
For as many people I can find that have nice things to say about a particular provider I can usually find an equal amount that have nasty things to say about them. I suppose it depends what you use your cell phone for. If it's for business, it's much more difficult to do. If it's personal, you just give your new number to the 5-10 people who know it.
> there might be some illegal forks in the WINE project formulating.
Only to be sued into oblivion faster because it's open source!
There are rich text editors (Google cache) that are compatible with both browsers.
> I don't understand how user submitted reviews would get this site knocked offline.
Simple. In the U.S., the legal system is driven by money. Since a professor likely makes more money than some 20-y.o. dude running an ad-supported web site, it's pretty easy to imagine why he brought down the site. He who has the gold makes the rules.
> All they have to do is take the end-of-course data that they share with the professor, and publish it.
Right. That's "all they would have to do", but they don't, which is why sites like TeacherReviews.com came to be. As a former student, it was nice to know which profs were hard-asses and which were not. The fact that this guy is threatening to sue this site just reinforces how much of an asshole he/she is. I'm sure there was a reason several people posted negative comments.
> Stop playing name games. That's the sort of thing that can really hurt adoption.
In their defense, it's still in beta. I don't think they intend it for widespread adoption yet except among developers and enthusiasts. Besides, I think they were stuck between a rock and a hard place with their lack of research over their last name.
I still think 'Firefox' stinks. Doesn't roll off the tongue like Mozilla, Firebird, or Phoenix, but I'm sure choosing a name that isn't already taken isn't easy.
From the article:
Or at least as long as they can store dates in a 32-bit integer :) Their cookie expires on January 17, 2038, two days before the cut-off.
> maybe just copying code from 2.0 or whatever these files were like before the submission
Like RCU, NUMA, and JFS support?
Not sure if you're joking or serious, but during the Code Red fiasco I put a Windows machine with IIS online on my cable modem. Thanks to port 80 being forwarded to that machine on my firewall, my computer was infected after I installed Windows in the time it took me to find and install the service pack! From then on, I made sure to remove port forwards before installing updates on newly installed machines :)
I guess it's no surprise, given the amount of Code Red traffic there was at the time, but I just didn't think of it at the time since I had planned on installing all the updates after reloading.
> I can provide as much fake information as Yahoo asks for, as well.
Instead of abusing free services, why not use some free throw-away e-mail addresses. It's precisely what the service was designed for, and it's free, easy to use, and works well.
Umm, wasn't the book/review about creating stand-alone applications? I'd dare to say that most of them only have one user connecting to them at once anyway, right? If you have multiple users connecting, it makes sense to use the full-blown MySQL!
> I suppose the app could easily be written to start the server when it starts and shut the server down when it ends
True, but besides being sort of hokey, the requirement of having MySQL installed might not be ideal if your target audience isn't savvy enough to install it, or perhaps don't want extra, normally unnecessary, stuff on their computer. I guess it all depends on your needs and target audience.
MS Access has the advantage (on Windows machines anyway) of being a stand-alone database without needing a service to be installed. For a app where you don't want to have to install MySQL server and have it waste resources, you might consider SQLite. Unlike MySQL embedded, it's release under the public domain. MySQL Embedded is licensed under the GPL and has the following requirement:
Although, depending on what you want to do with the software, this may not be a problem. I'm all for free and open source software, but a brother's gotta eat too.
Domains by Proxy is good, however, as far as I've seen is only offered through Go Daddy its resellers. The cheapest I've found it for is $9/year/domain. RegisterFLY.com offers the same service for only $2.50/year/domain (or $2.00/year/domain if you buy a 5-pack). And since they're an eNom reseller, they offer the same great DNS services and ease of transfer you're used to.
I posted a Registrar Comparison on my web site, but it lacks Network Solutions since I have never tried them. If anyone has any experience with them and would offer a review, I'd be happy to add it to my article.
It's been awhile, but isn't it based on volume and not percentage? So if I get less than 100 clicks, my ad gets axed. Paying more per click would improve placement, and thus hopefully achieve the 100 clicks/day. No?
As far as I remembered, it was based on clicks/day or something and not CT rate. I changed my ad several times advertising fairly unprofitable rates (just to get my name out there) and it still failed to generate their minimum. YMMV
> Small businesses with tiny marketing budgets can buy ads easily.
I've had different results with AdWords. I wanted to test the waters with it so I set a budget of $1.00/day and 5 cents per click. I was quickly disabled for having "too few clicks" so I increased it to 25 cents per click and had the ad re-enabled. Again, it was disabled because of too few clicks. Finally, I tried raising it to $1.00 per click and again had the same results. I'm not sure what you consider cheap, but paying more than $1.00 per click to get decent placement is not my idea of cheap. I can find better click-throughs elswehere for around 35 cents per click and not be charged $5 to re-enable my ad if it does too poorly. For a small business getting started, it's tough to pay than a dollar or two CPM. A thousand impressions with .5% CT rate doesn't add up to much business, and the money for those ads doesn't grow on trees.
I've had better click-throughs with Market Banker or ads on Kuro5hin.
> Spybot S&D is clean according to Ad-Aware, which is clean according to Spybot S&D, which is clean according to Ad-Aware...
Until you dig a little deaper and find out they are funded by the same company ;)
/kidding
I'm guessing he doesn't get paid by the click. Companies probably come to him with mass-mailings they would like distributed. He charges his fee to distribute them. When the company realizes those mass mailings resulted in ZERO new business, they move on to another strategy. Next in line is another company who wants to do the same thing and make the same mistake. It's an industry of lies and one-time customers, me thinks.