When I set up a Vaio notebook for my wife, you need to enter all the same crap and are forced to register or you get a 90-day warantee instead of the 1-year warantee. I don't even think you can avoid entering info at all, it takes down the info and stores it in the Vaio awaiting a modem/ethernet connection to the net. It does ask if its OK before sending the info.
FWIW, neither Apple nor Sony has ever spammed me or sent marketing materials, and I figure that having my name, address, phone# and computer serial# on record with the manufacturer is rather handy in case one of my machines decides to walk off for a bit.
There's very little spying they can do, you haven't installed anything yet, haven't done any work on it, there's no pr0n in the browser cache, your machine is the same as every other customer's and you can always fake your info if needed.
Please send us:
Your company name, address, phone number, and you and your manager's contact info. We will be glad to assist you in any licensing issues you may have, especially in the area of OEM licenses. Glad to be of assistance.
I remember watching one of the older Star Trek movies and they had one projector showing the same film in two different screens. I know this because the manager came in to announce the technical difficulties in setting this up for the first time.
What I want to know is what form of Digital Rights Management is going to be set up to monitor how many showings/screens this film is going to be shown on? After all, the theaters fork over a portion of the ticket sales on new releases, and DRM seems like just the thing they need.
Hard drive based distribution is also very interesting. I wonder how long until I see a message pop up on a screen saying "-=YOUR SCR33N IS OWN3D=-"
and then start popping up porn banners.
Actually, I ordered a Dual G4-800, Office X, and Final Cut Pro 3 in three separate orders. Never once did they ask for any form of student ID, other than a verbal confirmation.
I went through a more thorough process with Academic Superstore ordering that new Photoshop thingy from Adobe.
This article makes me get warm feelings of nostalgia of the time where one of my site managers bought a Sony DSC-S70 camera, much like mine.
I figured out early on that not only can you get pictures out of digital cameras, you can put them in as well. I grabbed his memory stick, put it in my memory stick reader, and downloaded some juicy pr0n and mixed it in with the photos.
He had a very hard time explaining where the photos came from.
First, IANAL, but this seems obvious if there's no chance of fending off an audit:
Personal machines are the biggest risk, since your organization really has no control over them. The solution? Pass a new rule forbidding personal machines on campus. Yes it'll suck, but having such a rule in place (with appropriate disclaimers of liability) will allow your organization to get people to take those things home before the audit occurs. This can always be changed back after the audit. It runs the risk of the administrators just saying no personal machines, period, but you take your chances.
Organization-owned machines should be a lot easier to audit, since Joe Blow usually cannot waltz in and install stuff on them.
I would be careful of Linux or other free-software based machines, M$ and most likely their BSA lackeys won't take kindly to them.
Re:The police sided with the customer.
on
Worst Buy
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Yes, you're right. Jewell did settle with NBC, the one case I remembered (and talked about above) was where he sued the city newspaper, and the Geogia Supreme court refused to hear the case.
Anyhow, my point is that when the suspicion was no longer on him, the media was like: "oops, my bad" and he was left to pick up the pieces. Apparently, he was a hero for his actions in Atlanta, but now his name is forever tied with that event, and in a bad way. Part of the blame goes to him for accepting a settlement (usually confidential, and also without accepting blame/guilt). Still, whether a saint or a scumbag, he didn't deserve that treatment just so that news outlets can get their scoop.
Re:The police sided with the customer.
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Worst Buy
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"Allegedly" never helled out Richard Jewel(sp?) the security guard hung out to dry by the media after the Atlanta Olympic bombing.
Shortly after the FBI started looking into him, one of the stations put up a "hack and slash" job of out of context quotes (I'm going from memory here, but these quotes are pretty close): "here is the shed where he goes hunting with his doberman dogs" cut to another interview: "...yes he owns guns, lots of guns..." cut again, etc. They showed that only once--later there was more detail and he didn't look anywhere near as bad as portrayed in that first report.
After this guy was smeared he tried to clear his name, the media fought back, and he lost.
Re:My legal-sense is tingling!
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Just as an interesting side-note. Regardless on who is at fault here:
The manager of the store gave a description of the customer to the police (sounds reasonable to me for someone in the manager's position). Additionally, the quotes you are seeing about "Indian-American"s are from the police report, and if you read the thread about this on [H]ardOCP, you will find out that the arresting officers were both African-American.
Just thought I'd point that out, since there are wild accusations flying around here about another WASP conspiracy.
As a disclaimer, I am also one of the 2000 affected by this pricing issue. But I don't whine about it.
Hibernation via the BIOS was done by writing to a special partition.
This did require a special utility to create the partition, and it was a DOS or Windows utility.
Visit the Sony 505 Group on Yahoo! Groups. It has been discussed there in the past, and they are also a great source of getting drivers and utilities. Good luck.
Drive replacement? I have a PC-505R, that I souped up to beyond RX specs (aside from the 33MHz clock difference).
64MB->384MB
6GB HD->12GB HD
None of it was a problem. The HD replacement was a standard slim 2.5"HD, either a Hitachi or Toshiba drive. The case is a bitch and a half getting apart, but otherwise it was painless.
Here's one place to look and see if it will work (an older model perhaps, but unless Sony went back to MFM/RLL drives, they should work):
Court ruled that public listings like phone numbers cannot be copyrighted.
Yes, but the google case shows there *IS* a way.
Take a telephone answering machine. Record a clever (or any, for that matter) greeting. Under US copyright law, you do not need to file for a copyright in order to have your work protected-- and your work is protected once it is fixed to a medium of some sort-- either tape or non-volatile memory on the answering machine.
File a suit against the phone company for publishing your phone number, which "circumvents" the access-control (your phone number) to your copyrighted work.
Now, if someone argues that an answering machine cannot possibly hold copyrighted information, subpoena your local RIAA representative as an expert witness and ask them if placing a recording of the latest pop hit on an answering machine be a violation of their copyright on public performance.
They cannot argue that a phone number cannot be an access control method, people use it to access me all the time.
I don't doubt at all that it's cheaper. But when you add in that Cops-type reality shows they love to show on Fox network will generate much more revenue showing catapulting car thieves rather than watching someone scratching away at the glass as they slowly asphyxiate.
Besides, the *BOOM* from the C4 method would pretty much alert everyone in the neighborhood that another car thief is rocketing his way up to the moon. Gas is too silent and easily not noticed. In-your-face enforcement sends a bigger message.
Lesse, according to what I see, it costs an average of $25,000 a year for incarceration of your average criminal in state or federal prison. (Somewhere I heard this is actually much higher). Anyhow, setting aside costs such as prosecution, attorney's fees, court costs and *ahem* jury pay. It is by far cheaper going the C4 method. It has all the great things that make a great deterrent:
It's cheap. A nice used stealable Camry will cost probably $9-12,000--Considering new ones go for $18-19,000. Add the equipment - no need for GPS and high-tech tracking stuff here. Probably a cheap cell-type system that dials 911 then triggers the C4 (I haven't shopped for C4, though it's probably real cheap for the Guv'ment, lets say $1,500).
So we have: 12,000 + 1,500 + $500 (phone) + (yeech!) Cleanup costs. If you do it right with a shaped charge, you might be able to shoot the thief right through the roof causing minimal damage to the surroundings. The car can be hauled off on a flatbed for recycling.
If the criminal is a repeat offender (such as on a third strike) this can be a considerable cost savings to taxpayers.
There's a backlash going on about billboards & signs. I understand it's illegal to post these things on utility poles, and many communities are banning billboards. So what do we have?
Trucks with flatbeds that drive up and down surface streets and freeways with billboards on the back. These are on rollers so they can rotate ads several times.
The latest gimmick are these small trailers with ads posted on them. They usually park these in outlying areas of the suburbs, and are a real eyesore. Several have $1000 reward signs and 800 numbers on them to report people who vandalize the signs. (I would vandalize one too if it was parked by some asshat in front of my house).
What I want to know is when is a GPS company going to release a GPS for other people's cars that automatically routes them out of my way!
A good joke, and an interesting concept. Let's see how this would progress in the real world:
1. Automatic rerouting of cars is sold to the public for safety purposes (disable/pull over cars for criminal stops, automatic yielding to emergency vehicles, reroute traffic around construction, accidents, etc.) Added is automatic reporting of position, via wireless signals sent from cars, for accident notification/911 purposes.
2. Guv'ment mandates installation on all new cars. Also added is severe felony punishment for disabling or modifying such a system (modifications reported via wireless "snitch" feature)
3. Local, state and federal autorities now use the on-board capabilities of the GPS unit combined with complex mapping software to monitor driver's activities. Erratic driving? Summon police for DUI investigation. Speeding? Send tickets via mail. To many parking tickets? Disable vehicle.
4. Various federal agencies/politicians/celebrities/CEO's now get "preferential access" to the country's roads and highways. Traffic snarls in Los Angeles even more often than normal, but Britney Spears is never late for a concert appearance when she is driven from Bel Air/Beverly Hills cross town to an engagement during rush hour as traffic parts to automatically let her and her entourage pass.
During his presentation to the court, Warden, the Microsoft attorney, said that the company considered the settlement's definition of middleware--including its Windows Media Player and Outlook Express--to be a major concession on its part, since Microsoft itself doesn't identify those products that way.
Of course they don't. Here's how they define it:
Digital rights management (DRM) is a method for protecting multimedia content from unauthorized playback or duplication. It provides content providers with the means to protect their proprietary music or other data from unauthorized copying and other illegal uses. DRM technology protects digital content by encrypting it and attaching to it usage rules that determine the conditions under which a user can play back the content. Usage rules typically prevent copying or limit the number of times the content will play. The operating system works with the
multimedia middleware to enforce these rules.
What, praytell, would this "multimedia middleware" be? From all descriptions, it appears to be none other than Windows Media Player, or a subset thereof.
As I sit here, all 240 lbs of me, eating my Sausage McMuffin, glancing over Slashdot after netstumbling my way to work with equipment bought from Best Buy and Fry's, I take offense to that remark.
Did anyone remember these have integrated GPS? The sender can just look on his display and give the location over the radio.
Where this item comes in real handy is in the case where the other party cannot respond. As in a fall/loss of conciousness/serious injury. You can simply home in on the other radio. Quite useful for camping or skiing emergencies.
Sony makes the Cybershot and Mavica cameras, and Canon makes the Elph.
Sony's camera batteries (Lithium Ion based) are some of the best (if not the best) on the market for portable digital cameras and video recorders. The largest size battery for the handheld cameras can give in excess of 5-6 hours of continuous operation with accurate estimations of remaining operating time. The smallish standard battery in my Cybershot camera gives 2 hours of operation as well.
Heck, they even had a burning battery recall like Dell and Apple!
Do it the easy and legal way.
on
iWarez
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Apple is handing out free Office X 30-day evaluations like candy. If there's no Apple store nearby, the latest Feb/May editions of Macworld and Macaddict also include the software.
At least he can then see if it was worth stealing. (I know its worth owning)
In fact, the very method that he used (copying the office folder) is a recommended way to distribute Office among a cluster of Macs. Delete the hidden folder with the registration info, copy it to all the Macs, and when its started up for the first time, enter a unique serial number.
Slashdot Mirror
FWIW, neither Apple nor Sony has ever spammed me or sent marketing materials, and I figure that having my name, address, phone# and computer serial# on record with the manufacturer is rather handy in case one of my machines decides to walk off for a bit.
There's very little spying they can do, you haven't installed anything yet, haven't done any work on it, there's no pr0n in the browser cache, your machine is the same as every other customer's and you can always fake your info if needed.
Your company name, address, phone number, and you and your manager's contact info. We will be glad to assist you in any licensing issues you may have, especially in the area of OEM licenses. Glad to be of assistance.
Sincerely,
The Business Software Alliance
What I want to know is what form of Digital Rights Management is going to be set up to monitor how many showings/screens this film is going to be shown on? After all, the theaters fork over a portion of the ticket sales on new releases, and DRM seems like just the thing they need.
Hard drive based distribution is also very interesting. I wonder how long until I see a message pop up on a screen saying "-=YOUR SCR33N IS OWN3D=-" and then start popping up porn banners.
Especially since its a USB device and I work in an Windows NT-based development shop.
I'm soon going to purchase an iPod, which easily transfers data easily from your standard corporate Dell PC. [/sarcam]
I went through a more thorough process with Academic Superstore ordering that new Photoshop thingy from Adobe.
I figured out early on that not only can you get pictures out of digital cameras, you can put them in as well. I grabbed his memory stick, put it in my memory stick reader, and downloaded some juicy pr0n and mixed it in with the photos.
He had a very hard time explaining where the photos came from.
Personal machines are the biggest risk, since your organization really has no control over them. The solution? Pass a new rule forbidding personal machines on campus. Yes it'll suck, but having such a rule in place (with appropriate disclaimers of liability) will allow your organization to get people to take those things home before the audit occurs. This can always be changed back after the audit. It runs the risk of the administrators just saying no personal machines, period, but you take your chances.
Organization-owned machines should be a lot easier to audit, since Joe Blow usually cannot waltz in and install stuff on them.
I would be careful of Linux or other free-software based machines, M$ and most likely their BSA lackeys won't take kindly to them.
Yes, you're right. Jewell did settle with NBC, the one case I remembered (and talked about above) was where he sued the city newspaper, and the Geogia Supreme court refused to hear the case. Anyhow, my point is that when the suspicion was no longer on him, the media was like: "oops, my bad" and he was left to pick up the pieces. Apparently, he was a hero for his actions in Atlanta, but now his name is forever tied with that event, and in a bad way. Part of the blame goes to him for accepting a settlement (usually confidential, and also without accepting blame/guilt). Still, whether a saint or a scumbag, he didn't deserve that treatment just so that news outlets can get their scoop.
Shortly after the FBI started looking into him, one of the stations put up a "hack and slash" job of out of context quotes (I'm going from memory here, but these quotes are pretty close): "here is the shed where he goes hunting with his doberman dogs" cut to another interview: "...yes he owns guns, lots of guns..." cut again, etc. They showed that only once--later there was more detail and he didn't look anywhere near as bad as portrayed in that first report.
After this guy was smeared he tried to clear his name, the media fought back, and he lost.
The manager of the store gave a description of the customer to the police (sounds reasonable to me for someone in the manager's position). Additionally, the quotes you are seeing about "Indian-American"s are from the police report, and if you read the thread about this on [H]ardOCP, you will find out that the arresting officers were both African-American.
Just thought I'd point that out, since there are wild accusations flying around here about another WASP conspiracy.
As a disclaimer, I am also one of the 2000 affected by this pricing issue. But I don't whine about it.
This did require a special utility to create the partition, and it was a DOS or Windows utility.
Visit the Sony 505 Group on Yahoo! Groups. It has been discussed there in the past, and they are also a great source of getting drivers and utilities. Good luck.
64MB->384MB 6GB HD->12GB HD
None of it was a problem. The HD replacement was a standard slim 2.5"HD, either a Hitachi or Toshiba drive. The case is a bitch and a half getting apart, but otherwise it was painless.
Here's one place to look and see if it will work (an older model perhaps, but unless Sony went back to MFM/RLL drives, they should work):
Z505S/SX Upgrade site
Z505JSK a more recent model.
Yes, but the google case shows there *IS* a way.
Take a telephone answering machine. Record a clever (or any, for that matter) greeting. Under US copyright law, you do not need to file for a copyright in order to have your work protected-- and your work is protected once it is fixed to a medium of some sort-- either tape or non-volatile memory on the answering machine.
File a suit against the phone company for publishing your phone number, which "circumvents" the access-control (your phone number) to your copyrighted work.
Now, if someone argues that an answering machine cannot possibly hold copyrighted information, subpoena your local RIAA representative as an expert witness and ask them if placing a recording of the latest pop hit on an answering machine be a violation of their copyright on public performance.
They cannot argue that a phone number cannot be an access control method, people use it to access me all the time.
What the hell, it worked against Google, right?
Besides, the *BOOM* from the C4 method would pretty much alert everyone in the neighborhood that another car thief is rocketing his way up to the moon. Gas is too silent and easily not noticed. In-your-face enforcement sends a bigger message.
It's cheap. A nice used stealable Camry will cost probably $9-12,000--Considering new ones go for $18-19,000. Add the equipment - no need for GPS and high-tech tracking stuff here. Probably a cheap cell-type system that dials 911 then triggers the C4 (I haven't shopped for C4, though it's probably real cheap for the Guv'ment, lets say $1,500). So we have: 12,000 + 1,500 + $500 (phone) + (yeech!) Cleanup costs. If you do it right with a shaped charge, you might be able to shoot the thief right through the roof causing minimal damage to the surroundings. The car can be hauled off on a flatbed for recycling.
If the criminal is a repeat offender (such as on a third strike) this can be a considerable cost savings to taxpayers.
Please use trademark names properly to reduce trademark dilution. From now on, it's "Kleenex (R) brand facial tissues".
Sincerely,
Kimberly-Clark(R) Corporation
(R) Registered trademark of Kimberly-Clark Corporation (C) 1938, 1986, 2000 KCC. All rights reserved
Trucks with flatbeds that drive up and down surface streets and freeways with billboards on the back. These are on rollers so they can rotate ads several times.
The latest gimmick are these small trailers with ads posted on them. They usually park these in outlying areas of the suburbs, and are a real eyesore. Several have $1000 reward signs and 800 numbers on them to report people who vandalize the signs. (I would vandalize one too if it was parked by some asshat in front of my house).
I suppose they are in trouble for violating their own license as well.
As a side note, my Windows 2000 license also forbids using non-microsoft licensed remote-desktop apps, it's terminal server or nothing.
1. Automatic rerouting of cars is sold to the public for safety purposes (disable/pull over cars for criminal stops, automatic yielding to emergency vehicles, reroute traffic around construction, accidents, etc.) Added is automatic reporting of position, via wireless signals sent from cars, for accident notification/911 purposes.
2. Guv'ment mandates installation on all new cars. Also added is severe felony punishment for disabling or modifying such a system (modifications reported via wireless "snitch" feature)
3. Local, state and federal autorities now use the on-board capabilities of the GPS unit combined with complex mapping software to monitor driver's activities. Erratic driving? Summon police for DUI investigation. Speeding? Send tickets via mail. To many parking tickets? Disable vehicle.
4. Various federal agencies/politicians/celebrities/CEO's now get "preferential access" to the country's roads and highways. Traffic snarls in Los Angeles even more often than normal, but Britney Spears is never late for a concert appearance when she is driven from Bel Air/Beverly Hills cross town to an engagement during rush hour as traffic parts to automatically let her and her entourage pass.
Of course they don't. Here's how they define it:
linkWhat, praytell, would this "multimedia middleware" be? From all descriptions, it appears to be none other than Windows Media Player, or a subset thereof.
(Note to mods: Yes, this is true)
Where this item comes in real handy is in the case where the other party cannot respond. As in a fall/loss of conciousness/serious injury. You can simply home in on the other radio. Quite useful for camping or skiing emergencies.
Sony's camera batteries (Lithium Ion based) are some of the best (if not the best) on the market for portable digital cameras and video recorders. The largest size battery for the handheld cameras can give in excess of 5-6 hours of continuous operation with accurate estimations of remaining operating time. The smallish standard battery in my Cybershot camera gives 2 hours of operation as well.
Heck, they even had a burning battery recall like Dell and Apple!
At least he can then see if it was worth stealing. (I know its worth owning)
In fact, the very method that he used (copying the office folder) is a recommended way to distribute Office among a cluster of Macs. Delete the hidden folder with the registration info, copy it to all the Macs, and when its started up for the first time, enter a unique serial number.
Next in court: God vs. The Human Genome Project for DMCA violations.