As always depends on the company. The only Apple product I've owned is an iPod. I don't like their battery replacement policy...hmm my iPod won't hold a charge...I have to pay what, $50, send it off to Apple and they send me another iPod but all my music is gone...hmm sucks that I couldn't have "easily" copied everything off it onto my computer..because I have lost computers (stolen / broken hard drives) and lost some of the original files..
I have a Samsung Syncmaster 770mp (I think..haven't seen it in a while)...a year or so after I got it the picture slowly became darker and darker to the point where it was hard to see. So I called them...they SENT someone to my house dropped off the new one and took away they old one. Didn't take long either...I call that good customer service...
I don't send or receive anything that I would consider to be "private" over email. I'm not super paranoid or anything I just don't like that idea of people other than the intended receipt to have the potential to see it or retain it...In-person conversations work best, then the phone, and then snail-mail at least for me. Faxs still concern me a bit too...who knows how long information could be sitting on someones fax machine...I usually call first to let them know that I'm about to send a fax.
Can't say I agree with Google's non-delete policy but why oh why would anyone send confidential and/or attorney-client conversations over plain-text email?
Ceinwyn
Re:Hardware and Support - slightly OT
on
Dell to Buy Alienware?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Good point, but I guess that leaves the average (or slightly above) home user in the lurch to getting resolution to issues.
You did make me recall that every time I called Sun, I received excellent support. Especially since I was having difficulty with a machine that due to security reasons I could not send them raw core files and could not allow them access to the machine. They provided me with analysis tools so that I could extract the necessary data they needed from the core files and get into to a plain text format that I could then provide them.
So I revise my previous statement...most distance support I've dealt with was CRAP, but Sun was outstanding!
How big of a spender do you need to be to get good Dell support? At the time the small company I worked for had spent at least ~25k with them, and they were horrid! Granted that's not a large amount big...but it's not small either...
Agreed but I consider doing things that entertain me, playing games, sailing, biking whatnot...not to be a waste of time, in fact that is the best use of my time. When I played a MMORPG it allowed me to chat and interact with my brother who lived ~3k mi away, as well as meeting some other very people that I still stay in touch with...
Work is sometimes a waste of time but hopefully it's mostly productive and at times entertaining and at least they give me money for being there and doing stuff.
But I'm curious....Has anyone ever received really good computer distance support?
I've dealt with Dell, they stunk. I've dealt with Linksys via email, stunk....cable company same thing, Microsoft purely horrid...but they did try to follow through, and eventually after hours of searching I managed to find something in their online tech questions, which amazingly the phone guy didn't find...
In truth I can't think of a single good distance tech support experience...
Lets take another look and see exactly what's wrong with your arguement:
The grand jury is investigating whether the Lancaster County coroner gave reporters for the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal his password to a restricted law enforcement Web site. The site contained nonpublic details of local crimes. The newspaper allegedly used some of those details in articles.
That is what the Grand Jury is supposed to do. From Wikipedia: A grand jury is a type of common law jury responsible for investigating alleged crimes, examining evidence, and issuing indictments if they believe that there is enough evidence for a trial to proceed. It's that whole innocent until proven guilty thing...see until the someone is found guilty of a crime, you accuse someone...so Newpapers are very careful and use terms like, suspect, allegedly. It saves them lots of $$ in lawsuits.
Now on the other hand...The District Attorney was stating that they know where the data came from...i.e. someone accessed a FOUO restricted web site and then released restricted data to the public.
Hidden content that requires hacking the game with an internet downloaded tool shouldn't be the responsibility of the game developer either, after all, if you are allowed to download such tools, you have access to other equally bad content, and it is the access that is the problem, not the existence of the hidden content. Fully removing hidden content can be a significant burden on a developer, often disabling is the reasonable path to reducing your rating from AO to M, and people who want the game ratings to be effective should be encouraging developer compliance at low cost.
Who put the hidden content in the game in first place??? the DEVELOPER! Of course it should be their responsibility, who else's would it be??
As to having access to equally bad content, aren't those what parental controls made for? It's unlikely parental controls would deny a user access to hacking tools.
Actually what Pirate Bay is doing is something more like this:
"Hey, the disgrutled worker at the corner store over there is letting people steal music CDs. Oh, and here's a map to the store and a description of everything he has available."
Consumers of music and video products do not have distribution rights to those products. We are free to listen to that product, free to listen to it with our friends, free to make copies of it in case the first one breaks (at least this SHOULD be free...stupid blank cd tax), but we don't have the right to stand on the street corner handing out or selling copies of it.
but tazers and stun guns are widely accepted as legal protection devices in the US
Not in Hawaii, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, or Wisconsin and some specific cities (Chicago, D.C., Philly amongst a few others). At least in the case of Stun Guns, I don't know if Tasers are in the same classification.
Not at all. Microsoft's products allow script kiddies et al to exploit a vulnerability in their software. The product itself does not malfunction and send out malicious data to thousands of people. In the case of guns, people weren't suing because the gun malfunctioned but rather because guns were used in crimes and people were injured, thus costing the state & tax payers money. In NY at least they were suggesting that the sale of guns helped contribute and maintain a public nuisance.
IMO frivolous lawsuits are a public nuisance.
What my original intent here is to suggest that if a vendor makes a product they are not ultimately responsible for what users do with it, i.e. exploit it, commit crimes whatnot. Yes a vulnerability in the software allowed someone to take advantage of it but the responsibility must be put on the person who took advantage of it not the manufacturer of the product.
With that being said, it is indeed the responsibility of the manufacturer to repair the vulnerability once it is known. In the non-software world this happens through recalls. The major problem is that Microsoft usually does not make a good faith effort to stop people from exploiting vulnerabilities in their software.
I am thinking specifically of Microsoft, and the Microsoft Outlook Email Viruses, but this could certainly apply to plenty of other companies.
I could see something like this for systems which claim to protect your security (such as banking software ectera) but for the most part this is in the same line of when some states decided to sue gun makers because their product can be used for illegal activities and can hurt/kill people. Just because Microsoft makes a product that can be exploited doesn't mean they should be responsible for it's uses, granted I believe their products to be bug-ridden and full of security vulnerabilities but in the end it is my decision to use some of their software.
Microsoft isn't the only one with security vulnerabilities, they are just the ones who fix things the slowest. I wouldn't mind seeing some legislation that requires action to fix a vulnerability once it is found within a reasonable time frame.
but I've begun thinking the massive crackdown on civil liberties is being done intentionally in order to goad Democrats into responding. At which point the Republican party will start screeching about how the Democrats are soft on terrorism and don't care about the security of your children etc.
Yup it's another vast right wing conspiracy. Just like that time they were accusing that nice Mr. Clinton of lying in a court of law; he would never do such a thing.
This is not a Democrat/Republican issue the entire government is to blame, Democrats included
. It can screw your whole life up and I feel sorry for the people I know who aren't technical enough to buy and manage their own domain.
Well it's not that some people aren't technical enough to go out and buy and manage their own domain. In my case it's that a) i'm cheap and b) i have no purpose for my own domain. All I want to do is read my email, surf the web and play video games. And that is why I own a cable modem. I have Cox@home and I've had no problems with my connection in the 7 months I've had it. I stuck in a hub/router and hooked up another machine to it and that worked flawlessly as well. Quite frankly when I'm home I don't want to muck around much with my internet services. I just want a connection that works, and will let me do whatever I want. I'm more than happy to let someone else to worry about the services.
If I needed more out of the service I would probably get my own. But as it is I don't; so why should I bother?
Never underestimate the power of lazy people.
Ceinwyn
an American citizen can travel and break any law wherever he is in the world, as long as he doesn't break an American law
Actually as I recall if an American citizen break laws in another country they are indeed subject to be punished...Prime example is that snot nosed little kid who got himself caned, along with some "revolutionists" in bits of South America who are currently in jail.
But since it's popular to bash the US and many of its citizens I'll just be putting on my flame-repellant bunny suit.
France's rulings don't apply in the US...US rulings shouldn't apply in France. You want Nazi memorabilia, live in the US buy from a US site. If you're in France you should be SOL. Sounds like there need to be stricter import/export regulations. France can restrict content on www.yahoo.fr all it wants but shouldn't be able to restrict content www.yahoo.com....The more intersting question is can France restrict access to places like imastupidnazi.com?
Boy - but didn't the internet give Lawyers a boost? Thx Al Gore!
I'm happy about the 100% bag searches. Especially when working for a government agency. I'm glad to see security is not just concerned with what you could be sneaking into these buildings, but also about what folks could be sneaking out with, that is equally important.
Is it that unreasonable of your employers to make sure your not theiving sensitive information, or even worse dangerous substances?
Yes the attacks were successul...3 planes did crash into buildings, killing many people in the buildings and all the people on the places. Thanks to some heros 1 plane only crahsed into the group, only killing all the people in plane. Somehow I don't think the terrorists objectives were to eliminate liberties in the US (which I have yet to see happen). Put things in perspective THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE DIED simply because they were Americans (or working/living/visiting in America).
Spam should be legal, as long as they include a valid return addy, and have a way to remove people (for real)
Why should people be allowed to fill my vitural mail box with garbage? I have to pay to download it, filter out/delete it. Internet connections in one way or another cost money. I don't appreciate spammers spending my money and my time without my approval. Spam (not Spam(tm)) should be illegal. Email should fall under the same protections as fax machines and other electronic equipment.
I think that is asking why do you bother to put your letters in envelops, why not write everything on a postcard? Basically maybe I don't feel like letting anyone and everyone know what I write.
To me email should fall under the same protections the regualar snail mail falls under. Encryption seems to be a way to ensure privacy. Like the article stated though, it needs to be used easier to install and use, so easy in fact that even AOL could implement it.
I think Google rocks because it has a cached copy of my web site that is now gone (because I moved away and didn't pay my bill) Thanks for the keeping the memory alive Google!
Slashdot Mirror
You have XP??? I'm stuck with 2000!
I would like at least to have a half-way decent graphics program too...Microsoft Paint and Imaging just don't cut it....
Ceinwyn
As always depends on the company. The only Apple product I've owned is an iPod. I don't like their battery replacement policy...hmm my iPod won't hold a charge...I have to pay what, $50, send it off to Apple and they send me another iPod but all my music is gone...hmm sucks that I couldn't have "easily" copied everything off it onto my computer..because I have lost computers (stolen / broken hard drives) and lost some of the original files..
I have a Samsung Syncmaster 770mp (I think..haven't seen it in a while)...a year or so after I got it the picture slowly became darker and darker to the point where it was hard to see. So I called them...they SENT someone to my house dropped off the new one and took away they old one. Didn't take long either...I call that good customer service...
Ceinwyn
I don't send or receive anything that I would consider to be "private" over email. I'm not super paranoid or anything I just don't like that idea of people other than the intended receipt to have the potential to see it or retain it...In-person conversations work best, then the phone, and then snail-mail at least for me. Faxs still concern me a bit too...who knows how long information could be sitting on someones fax machine...I usually call first to let them know that I'm about to send a fax.
Can't say I agree with Google's non-delete policy but why oh why would anyone send confidential and/or attorney-client conversations over plain-text email?
Ceinwyn
Good point, but I guess that leaves the average (or slightly above) home user in the lurch to getting resolution to issues.
You did make me recall that every time I called Sun, I received excellent support. Especially since I was having difficulty with a machine that due to security reasons I could not send them raw core files and could not allow them access to the machine. They provided me with analysis tools so that I could extract the necessary data they needed from the core files and get into to a plain text format that I could then provide them.
So I revise my previous statement...most distance support I've dealt with was CRAP, but Sun was outstanding!
How big of a spender do you need to be to get good Dell support? At the time the small company I worked for had spent at least ~25k with them, and they were horrid! Granted that's not a large amount big...but it's not small either...
Ceinwyn
Agreed but I consider doing things that entertain me, playing games, sailing, biking whatnot...not to be a waste of time, in fact that is the best use of my time. When I played a MMORPG it allowed me to chat and interact with my brother who lived ~3k mi away, as well as meeting some other very people that I still stay in touch with...
Work is sometimes a waste of time but hopefully it's mostly productive and at times entertaining and at least they give me money for being there and doing stuff.
Sitting in traffic THAT's a waste of time.
Ceinwyn
Ok this is slightly OT.
But I'm curious....Has anyone ever received really good computer distance support?
I've dealt with Dell, they stunk.
I've dealt with Linksys via email, stunk....cable company same thing, Microsoft purely horrid...but they did try to follow through, and eventually after hours of searching I managed to find something in their online tech questions, which amazingly the phone guy didn't find...
In truth I can't think of a single good distance tech support experience...
Ceinwyn
Lets take another look and see exactly what's wrong with your arguement:
The grand jury is investigating whether the Lancaster County coroner gave reporters for the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal his password to a restricted law enforcement Web site. The site contained nonpublic details of local crimes. The newspaper allegedly used some of those details in articles.
That is what the Grand Jury is supposed to do. From Wikipedia: A grand jury is a type of common law jury responsible for investigating alleged crimes, examining evidence, and issuing indictments if they believe that there is enough evidence for a trial to proceed.
It's that whole innocent until proven guilty thing...see until the someone is found guilty of a crime, you accuse someone...so Newpapers are very careful and use terms like, suspect, allegedly. It saves them lots of $$ in lawsuits.
Now on the other hand...The District Attorney was stating that they know where the data came from...i.e. someone accessed a FOUO restricted web site and then released restricted data to the public.
Ceinwyn
Huh???
Hidden content that requires hacking the game with an internet downloaded tool shouldn't be the responsibility of the game developer either, after all, if you are allowed to download such tools, you have access to other equally bad content, and it is the access that is the problem, not the existence of the hidden content. Fully removing hidden content can be a significant burden on a developer, often disabling is the reasonable path to reducing your rating from AO to M, and people who want the game ratings to be effective should be encouraging developer compliance at low cost.
Who put the hidden content in the game in first place??? the DEVELOPER!
Of course it should be their responsibility, who else's would it be??
As to having access to equally bad content, aren't those what parental controls made for? It's unlikely parental controls would deny a user access to hacking tools.
Ceinwyn
Actually what Pirate Bay is doing is something more like this:
"Hey, the disgrutled worker at the corner store over there is letting people steal music CDs. Oh, and here's a map to the store and a description of everything he has available."
Consumers of music and video products do not have distribution rights to those products. We are free to listen to that product, free to listen to it with our friends, free to make copies of it in case the first one breaks (at least this SHOULD be free...stupid blank cd tax), but we don't have the right to stand on the street corner handing out or selling copies of it.
Ceinwyn
but tazers and stun guns are widely accepted as legal protection devices in the US
Not in Hawaii, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, or Wisconsin and some specific cities (Chicago, D.C., Philly amongst a few others). At least in the case of Stun Guns, I don't know if Tasers are in the same classification.
Not at all. Microsoft's products allow script kiddies et al to exploit a vulnerability in their software. The product itself does not malfunction and send out malicious data to thousands of people. In the case of guns, people weren't suing because the gun malfunctioned but rather because guns were used in crimes and people were injured, thus costing the state & tax payers money. In NY at least they were suggesting that the sale of guns helped contribute and maintain a public nuisance.
IMO frivolous lawsuits are a public nuisance.
What my original intent here is to suggest that if a vendor makes a product they are not ultimately responsible for what users do with it, i.e. exploit it, commit crimes whatnot. Yes a vulnerability in the software allowed someone to take advantage of it but the responsibility must be put on the person who took advantage of it not the manufacturer of the product.
With that being said, it is indeed the responsibility of the manufacturer to repair the vulnerability once it is known. In the non-software world this happens through recalls. The major problem is that Microsoft usually does not make a good faith effort to stop people from exploiting vulnerabilities in their software.
Ceinwyn
I am thinking specifically of Microsoft, and the Microsoft Outlook Email Viruses, but this could certainly apply to plenty of other companies.
I could see something like this for systems which claim to protect your security (such as banking software ectera) but for the most part this is in the same line of when some states decided to sue gun makers because their product can be used for illegal activities and can hurt/kill people. Just because Microsoft makes a product that can be exploited doesn't mean they should be responsible for it's uses, granted I believe their products to be bug-ridden and full of security vulnerabilities but in the end it is my decision to use some of their software.
Microsoft isn't the only one with security vulnerabilities, they are just the ones who fix things the slowest. I wouldn't mind seeing some legislation that requires action to fix a vulnerability once it is found within a reasonable time frame.
Ceinwyn
but I've begun thinking the massive crackdown on civil liberties is being done intentionally in order to goad Democrats into responding. At which point the Republican party will start screeching about how the Democrats are soft on terrorism and don't care about the security of your children etc.
Yup it's another vast right wing conspiracy. Just like that time they were accusing that nice Mr. Clinton of lying in a court of law; he would never do such a thing.
This is not a Democrat/Republican issue the entire government is to blame, Democrats included
. It can screw your whole life up and I feel sorry for the people I know who aren't technical enough to buy and manage their own domain.
Well it's not that some people aren't technical enough to go out and buy and manage their own domain. In my case it's that a) i'm cheap and b) i have no purpose for my own domain. All I want to do is read my email, surf the web and play video games. And that is why I own a cable modem. I have Cox@home and I've had no problems with my connection in the 7 months I've had it. I stuck in a hub/router and hooked up another machine to it and that worked flawlessly as well. Quite frankly when I'm home I don't want to muck around much with my internet services. I just want a connection that works, and will let me do whatever I want. I'm more than happy to let someone else to worry about the services.
If I needed more out of the service I would probably get my own. But as it is I don't; so why should I bother?
Never underestimate the power of lazy people.
Ceinwyn
an American citizen can travel and break any law wherever he is in the world, as long as he doesn't break an American law
.02
Actually as I recall if an American citizen break laws in another country they are indeed subject to be punished...Prime example is that snot nosed little kid who got himself caned, along with some "revolutionists" in bits of South America who are currently in jail.
But since it's popular to bash the US and many of its citizens I'll just be putting on my flame-repellant bunny suit.
France's rulings don't apply in the US...US rulings shouldn't apply in France. You want Nazi memorabilia, live in the US buy from a US site. If you're in France you should be SOL. Sounds like there need to be stricter import/export regulations. France can restrict content on www.yahoo.fr all it wants but shouldn't be able to restrict content www.yahoo.com....The more intersting question is can France restrict access to places like imastupidnazi.com?
Boy - but didn't the internet give Lawyers a boost? Thx Al Gore!
But that's just my
I'm happy about the 100% bag searches. Especially when working for a government agency. I'm glad to see security is not just concerned with what you could be sneaking into these buildings, but also about what folks could be sneaking out with, that is equally important.
Is it that unreasonable of your employers to make sure your not theiving sensitive information, or even worse dangerous substances?
Yes the attacks were successul...3 planes did crash into buildings, killing many people in the buildings and all the people on the places. Thanks to some heros 1 plane only crahsed into the group, only killing all the people in plane. Somehow I don't think the terrorists objectives were to eliminate liberties in the US (which I have yet to see happen). Put things in perspective THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE DIED simply because they were Americans (or working/living/visiting in America).
Spam should be legal, as long as they include a valid return addy, and have a way to remove people (for real)
Why should people be allowed to fill my vitural mail box with garbage? I have to pay to download it, filter out/delete it. Internet connections in one way or another cost money. I don't appreciate spammers spending my money and my time without my approval. Spam (not Spam(tm)) should be illegal. Email should fall under the same protections as fax machines and other electronic equipment.
I think that is asking why do you bother to put your letters in envelops, why not write everything on a postcard? Basically maybe I don't feel like letting anyone and everyone know what I write.
To me email should fall under the same protections the regualar snail mail falls under. Encryption seems to be a way to ensure privacy. Like the article stated though, it needs to be used easier to install and use, so easy in fact that even AOL could implement it.
I think Google rocks because it has a cached copy of my web site that is now gone (because I moved away and didn't pay my bill) Thanks for the keeping the memory alive Google!