Why does PC World rate Dantz Retrospect number 1 when the reviewer didn't think the upgrade was worth the money?
I agree with the reviewer. The user interface is screwy. The product CERTAINLY does not rate a number 1. There is no explanation of the other backup products, and how truly bad Retrospect is in comparison.
Look at PC World's review of Roxio Easy Media Creator: "While version 7.5 remains a bit ponderous to navigate and threatens to overwhelm users with choices, this solid update pulls EMC even with Nero 6.6 Ultra Edition."
Why is Easy Media Creator first choice if it is "even"? Also, did the reviewer take into account Roxio's history of releasing buggy software?
The review of one of the most expensive APC backup power supplies reads like an ad to get customers to pay more for power they don't really need. Also, the reviewer did very little testing.
The reviewer says "Power surges and outages can impair productivity and damage expensive equipment." I've never known a power outage to damage computer equipment. (With the Windows 98 FAT file system, it is necessary to run Scandisk after a sudden power outage.) The statement seems like a sales message. Computers need backup power supplies, but a much smaller one would be fine for most users. That fact isn't mentioned.
In my opinion, PC World, and all the product reviewers, sometimes skew results in the direction they want them to go. Sometimes they do that by not reviewing the most popular product, but comparing the competitors only. Sometimes they change the results with tricky writing.
Very unfortunately, it has become entirely acceptable in the U.S. culture to take money to allow corruption. For an example, look at the U.S. government.
An example of what appears to be corruption is that magazines and columnists are recommending Sunbelt Software's CounterSpy. Until September, at least, CounterSpy would crash Windows if it couldn't get an internet connection. None of the reviewers noticed that, giving me the impression that they didn't test the software thoroughly. If they didn't test the software thoroughly, how can they say it is the best? Who supplied the collection of spyware they used to test?
Also, CounterSpy seems to try to take advantage of customers who don't have technical knowledge. For example, CounterSpy sometimes tags text (.TXT files) as serious threats, even when the text file has nothing but printable ASCII characters. Is this done to try to make customers think CounterSpy is more important than it really is?
What I say here about CounterSpy has been verified for me by Sunbelt Software employees.
A long time ago I did a study of 41 computer case manufacturers. NONE of them made cases that were well-designed in every way.
Only one of those manufacturers sold cases with built-in fan filters that were removable from the front. If a case doesn't have a fan filter, it is necessary to take it apart perhaps every 6 months to clean the dust. That's far more expensive than just cleaning a filter.
The computer parts market has been corrupted by the presence of buyers with no education and little maturity. The most common way of appealing to those buyers is to use the word "extreme". Typically the price is double what it would normally be, if those buyers didn't exist.
Firefox Team: Fix the Firefox Killer CPU use bug!
on
Firefox Momentum Slows
·
· Score: 1
The most severe problem with Firefox is not a vulnerability. The real Firefox
killer is that it has a huge, huge bug: After you have opened a few windows
and tabs, it begins consuming huge amounts of CPU time, even when it
is idle. Eventually it either crashes or slows the computer to the point that
it is unusable.
Right now, as I write this, Firefox is consuming 21% of the CPU time
of my computer, and Mozilla is consuming 4%. This is with NO activity. If I
ignore the problem, eventually, when more windows and tabs have been opened
and closed, Firefox or Mozilla will crash. Or, Windows XP will crash. I spent
several hours verifying this bug on other computers on both Windows and Linux,
and reported it on Bugzilla.
The latest version of Firefox, 1.07, is worse than 1.06. Mozilla is
just as bad.
THAT could be why people are abandoning Firefox. It's really a hassle
when you have to re-boot because of the bug, and you have numerous windows and
tabs open.
I've reported this bug numerous times. I have not posted links below
because Bugzilla doesn't accept traffic from Slashdot. Take out the spaces in
the URL inserted by Slashdot.
For example:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=204 668
I first reported this problem with version.8 of Firefox.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=222 660
Plenty of people have this same problem. I posted links to their
Slashdot comments. See comment #34 of the Bugzilla report just above, for
example.
All I've gotten over the years is time-wasting replies, such as
comment #36: "please no more ideas. build mozilla or firefox debug and
crash it. do yourself a favor and run them from a |screen|d session so that
you can get back to them later, i'd suggest running gdb from another terminal,
also in |screen|d, generally i do: (ps aux|grep mozilla-bin);./mozilla -g -d
gdb attach [pid from ps output]. you may need to use |c| to continue,
eventually when you crash, use |bt|."
Want Karma? Report this bug on Slashdot. Almost every time I
post my problems with this bug on Slashdot, I get modded to +5.
One Slashdot commenter said that he had stopped reporting bugs in
Firefox because they didn't fix them.
Someone commented that he found that the bug occurs because of
incorrect handling of plug-ins, such as the Adobe Acrobat plug-in. I don't see
any way to disble that in Firefox.
The federal Do-Not-Call system has worked very well for me.
The Oregon state government was charging for Do-Not-Call. Now the state system has been terminated.
Why did you quit visiting Yahoo?
on
YahooTV
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I quit visiting Yahoo when I got disgusted about getting paid ads, presented in a very sneaky way. Did they change that? Is it safe to visit again?
A yahoo "is a crude or brutish person". Lesson: Don't trust programmers to name a company. Programmers will invent a name that sounds to them like a great intelligent joke, but causes problems later. How many people who aren't computer professionals know that the joke is "Yet Another Hierarchically Ordered Oracle"?
Another reason programmers don't name things well is they think it is cool to be self-deprecating. That seems to the reason for "Yet Another".
Notice that using a search engine is called "Googling". That indicates the popularity of MSN and Yahoo.
Cliff, I've often thought that you are one of the best Slashdot editors. But this article should not have appeared on Slashdot.
Slashdot often carries pseudo-science articles, especially recently. Slashdot editors need to be more careful about that. If you didn't listen in Physics class in college, talk to someone who did.
Journalist Shi Tao was jailed and sentenced to 10 years in prison for "illegally sending state secrets abroad." The secrets that he revealed were information his newspaper received from the state propaganda department about how they could cover the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. He was identified because he had used Yahoo!'s free email service for which Yahoo! turned over log files to authorities that were later tracked back to his computer.
Message to Yahoo's top executives: Please turn in your badges and be out of the building in 10 minutes. You should not pretend to be able to lead a company. You are yahoos.
"Throughout its history, Microsoft had let thousands of programmers each produce their own piece of computer code, then stitched it together into one sprawling program."
It's great to see confirmation of that. That practice accounts for the sloppiness of Microsoft programs. Apparently Microsoft creates extremely sloppy code, then fixes bugs until they decide that they can squeeze acceptance from the customers.
"There was some angst by everybody," says Mr. Gates of the period. "It's obviously my role to ask people, 'Hey, let's not throw things out we shouldn't throw out. Let's keep things in that we can keep in.'
That's another interesting confirmation. It's "obviously" Mr. Gates' role to know what his company is doing and prevent a crisis like this. I've often thought that he was mostly absent from Microsoft management since he took the title, "Chief Software Architect".
"... the growing threat from rivals such as Google Inc., Apple Computer Inc. and makers of the free Linux operating system."
Business writers write a lot of nonsense about computing issues, and that's nonsense. Microsoft has always been its own worst enemy. The competitors are not the reason Microsoft has a bad reputation.
"In recent years these companies have been dashing out some software innovations faster than Microsoft."
More nonsense. What Microsoft innovations? I can't think of any.
"What happened when the American car companies failed to update their manufacturing lines? There was a more efficient way to bring cars to market for a lower price and they lost their market," says Microsoft Vice President Chris Jones. "We're in a little bit of a different industry but it's the same thing."
Microsoft employees, in my opinion, have always helped business writers write nonsense by giving interviews in which they tell the writers nonsense. It's not "a little bit" different. It's a completely different situation. Microsoft's situation is one of extreme self-destruction. For example, Microsoft tricked customers into buying what it called "Software Assurance". Now, the Microsoft faces enormous resistance from customers because they got almost nothing for their money.
"Microsoft's holy grail is a system that cranks out a new, generally bug-free version of basic Windows every few years, with frequent updates in between to add enhancements or match a competitor's offering."
That is complete fiction, entirely invented by the writer, based on what he thinks should happen. I've never seen any evidence that Microsoft was interested in a 1.0 version that was "generally bug-free". No new operating systems are necessary. Most customers will be happy with a "generally bug-free" Windows XP Service Pack 3. They won't need or want to buy another version of Windows.
Cover Up: "In 2001 Microsoft made a documentary film celebrating the creation of Windows XP, which remains the latest full update of Windows. When Mr. Allchin previewed the film, it confirmed some of his misgivings about the Windows culture. He saw the eleventh-hour heroics needed to finish the product and get it to customers. Mr. Allchin ordered the film to be burned."
Windows XP was not finished when it was released, in my opinion.
"The mass of patches and agglomerations that made up Windows turned it into an easy target for viruses and other Web-based attacks."
This is the first time some serious truth has found its way from Microsoft to the business press. My guess is that going public represents an attempt by Mr. Allchin to force the company to change. It's a revolt made possible by the inattention of Mr. Gates and Mr. Ballmer.
In late 2003, Mr. Allchin called on the help of two men. The first was one of Microsoft's best-known "shippers," people known for their ability to turn around troubled software pro
If you view Microsoft as a software company, they have always had mediocre products. If you think that Microsoft's main product is adversarial behavior, they are one of the most successful companies in the world!
Here's just a tiny, tiny sample: The U.S. District Court's Findings of Fact in the Microsoft antitrust case lists 207 pages of abuses.
I have never known a business person who would allow confidential
letters to be typed in such a manner that they travel outside the company
while being prepared. The same applies to all company data.
It's possible to buy a laptop for $500, and a desktop computer for
$200. There is no financial pressure to rent software. Open Office 2.0, out
soon, is all that 98% of companies need.
I have never known a business manager who would allow an important
letter to travel anywhere except on paper between his secretary and himself.
Even typing letters over an Intranet would be an extremely unpopular idea.
The only network preparation of data typically allowed is over heavily
guarded intranets, in cases where there must be a shared database, such as
sales data entry.
The Court's Findings of Fact in the Microsoft antitrust case lists 207 pages of abuses.
I'm finding that even computer users with no interest in technical things
know that Microsoft is an abusive company, and more intense knowledge of that
abusiveness is traveling fast.
The most important thing the CNET article indicates is that bored,
underpaid business writers often write nonsense about computers.
Not really the news: The world is waiting to see what happens when great evils are combined: Microsoft will buy AOL and Yahoo and combine it with MSN, and call the combination CyberHell. Visitors to CyberHell will get hundreds of pop-up ads, none of which can be trusted. Searches will provide links to companies that have paid for placement.
Not just "abusive marketing practices". Huge numbers of abusive practices of all kinds, so many that it might be impossible for one person to document them. Here is just a hint: Microsoft has never been a trust-based company.
Windows 98 had a memory management scheme which would cause it to crash if too many programs were opened. Resellers are required to disclose the names of their customers. Microsoft invented new protocols for connecting to the internet, which, predictably, were found to have security vulnerabilities. With the introduction of Windows XP, Microsoft began integrating its own computers with those of its customers. Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser is amazingly buggy.
That's an important observation. Can you provide more explanation, and the URLs?
I visited the Major League Baseball site: http://www.mlb.com/ and my Firefox 1.06 CPU use jumped to 19%, with all pages loaded and NO browser activity.
I wish they would fix this; they've known about it for years. It has something to do with the Flash plugin, I understand.
This bug is a show-stopper for me. I wish they would concentrate on it.
The huge RAM usage is not the biggest issue. After opening several windows and tabs, I often see something like 95% CPU usage even when I've closed everything except one tab. I submitted a Bugzilla report about that more than 2 years ago, an it was not fixed in Firefox 1.06.
GoDaddy exploits any lack of technical knowledge.
on
Pre-Selling Domain Names?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
GoDaddy is not trustworthy, it seems to me. It seems to me that GoDaddy makes most of its money by exploiting the lack of technical knowledge of most of its customers. The GoDaddy web site is so fully of ads that it is sometimes difficult to understand how to buy from them.
GoDaddy's web site is often slow. For example, as I type this it is very slow. GoDaddy wants to be a web hosting provider. Can you imagine choosing a host with a slow web site?
I agree with you about register.com.
Can anyone recommend a reliable, honest, not-sneaky registrar?
Over the years, I have learned to have zero (0) trust in Yahoo.
From the Business Week article:
"Sure, no one issue will turn off Yahoo users in droves." One issue will definitely convince a large percentage of people never to visit Yahoo.
Another quote:
"... Yahoo risks tarnishing its reputation as a trustworthy Net player." Notice that doing an internet search is called "Googling". For knowledgeable people, Yahoo has a bad reputation. For others, Yahoo has no reputation at all.
Business writers write a lot of DISGUSTING nonsense about computer technology:
"To Yahoo's credit, it is leading industrywide discussions aimed at devising new practices for the adware companies."
Here's another quote: "Yahoo also insists it does business only with adware companies that adhere to best practices..."
It seems to me that Yahoo cannot compete, so it is trying every trick to stay alive.
Not real news: AOL and Yahoo and MSN will merge. The combined company will be called CyberHell.
Here is a quote from the CNET article: "A Microsoft representative confirmed that the company had received the report from eEye and said it will be investigating the issue. Because the details of the vulnerabilities have not been made public, users are not at risk of an exploit being developed to take advantage of the flaw, the representative said."
The statement "users are not at risk" is a lie, and I'm guessing that the Microsoft representative either was completely aware he was lying, or was completely aware he was too technically ignorant to make an assessment.
If one company can find a new vulnerability, other people can, too. The fact that eEye found the vulnerability means especially that well-funded organizations, like the U.S. government's NSA department, could find the vulnerability, also. If your government uses Microsoft products, your government is vulnerable to spying.
Slashdot Mirror
Why does PC World rate Dantz Retrospect number 1 when the reviewer didn't think the upgrade was worth the money?
I agree with the reviewer. The user interface is screwy. The product CERTAINLY does not rate a number 1. There is no explanation of the other backup products, and how truly bad Retrospect is in comparison.
Look at PC World's review of Roxio Easy Media Creator: "While version 7.5 remains a bit ponderous to navigate and threatens to overwhelm users with choices, this solid update pulls EMC even with Nero 6.6 Ultra Edition."
Why is Easy Media Creator first choice if it is "even"? Also, did the reviewer take into account Roxio's history of releasing buggy software?
The review of one of the most expensive APC backup power supplies reads like an ad to get customers to pay more for power they don't really need. Also, the reviewer did very little testing.
The reviewer says "Power surges and outages can impair productivity and damage expensive equipment." I've never known a power outage to damage computer equipment. (With the Windows 98 FAT file system, it is necessary to run Scandisk after a sudden power outage.) The statement seems like a sales message. Computers need backup power supplies, but a much smaller one would be fine for most users. That fact isn't mentioned.
In my opinion, PC World, and all the product reviewers, sometimes skew results in the direction they want them to go. Sometimes they do that by not reviewing the most popular product, but comparing the competitors only. Sometimes they change the results with tricky writing.
Very unfortunately, it has become entirely acceptable in the U.S. culture to take money to allow corruption. For an example, look at the U.S. government.
An example of what appears to be corruption is that magazines and columnists are recommending Sunbelt Software's CounterSpy. Until September, at least, CounterSpy would crash Windows if it couldn't get an internet connection. None of the reviewers noticed that, giving me the impression that they didn't test the software thoroughly. If they didn't test the software thoroughly, how can they say it is the best? Who supplied the collection of spyware they used to test?
Also, CounterSpy seems to try to take advantage of customers who don't have technical knowledge. For example, CounterSpy sometimes tags text (.TXT files) as serious threats, even when the text file has nothing but printable ASCII characters. Is this done to try to make customers think CounterSpy is more important than it really is?
What I say here about CounterSpy has been verified for me by Sunbelt Software employees.
A long time ago I did a study of 41 computer case manufacturers. NONE of them made cases that were well-designed in every way.
Only one of those manufacturers sold cases with built-in fan filters that were removable from the front. If a case doesn't have a fan filter, it is necessary to take it apart perhaps every 6 months to clean the dust. That's far more expensive than just cleaning a filter.
The computer parts market has been corrupted by the presence of buyers with no education and little maturity. The most common way of appealing to those buyers is to use the word "extreme". Typically the price is double what it would normally be, if those buyers didn't exist.
The most severe problem with Firefox is not a vulnerability. The real Firefox killer is that it has a huge, huge bug: After you have opened a few windows and tabs, it begins consuming huge amounts of CPU time, even when it is idle. Eventually it either crashes or slows the computer to the point that it is unusable.
4 668
.8 of Firefox.
2 660
Right now, as I write this, Firefox is consuming 21% of the CPU time of my computer, and Mozilla is consuming 4%. This is with NO activity. If I ignore the problem, eventually, when more windows and tabs have been opened and closed, Firefox or Mozilla will crash. Or, Windows XP will crash. I spent several hours verifying this bug on other computers on both Windows and Linux, and reported it on Bugzilla.
The latest version of Firefox, 1.07, is worse than 1.06. Mozilla is just as bad.
THAT could be why people are abandoning Firefox. It's really a hassle when you have to re-boot because of the bug, and you have numerous windows and tabs open.
I've reported this bug numerous times. I have not posted links below because Bugzilla doesn't accept traffic from Slashdot. Take out the spaces in the URL inserted by Slashdot.
For example:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20
I first reported this problem with version
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=22
Plenty of people have this same problem. I posted links to their Slashdot comments. See comment #34 of the Bugzilla report just above, for example.
All I've gotten over the years is time-wasting replies, such as comment #36: "please no more ideas. build mozilla or firefox debug and crash it. do yourself a favor and run them from a |screen|d session so that you can get back to them later, i'd suggest running gdb from another terminal, also in |screen|d, generally i do: (ps aux|grep mozilla-bin);./mozilla -g -d gdb attach [pid from ps output]. you may need to use |c| to continue, eventually when you crash, use |bt|."
Want Karma? Report this bug on Slashdot. Almost every time I post my problems with this bug on Slashdot, I get modded to +5.
One Slashdot commenter said that he had stopped reporting bugs in Firefox because they didn't fix them.
Someone commented that he found that the bug occurs because of incorrect handling of plug-ins, such as the Adobe Acrobat plug-in. I don't see any way to disble that in Firefox.
The federal Do-Not-Call system has worked very well for me.
The Oregon state government was charging for Do-Not-Call. Now the state system has been terminated.
I quit visiting Yahoo when I got disgusted about getting paid ads, presented in a very sneaky way. Did they change that? Is it safe to visit again?
A yahoo "is a crude or brutish person". Lesson: Don't trust programmers to name a company. Programmers will invent a name that sounds to them like a great intelligent joke, but causes problems later. How many people who aren't computer professionals know that the joke is "Yet Another Hierarchically Ordered Oracle"?
Another reason programmers don't name things well is they think it is cool to be self-deprecating. That seems to the reason for "Yet Another".
Notice that using a search engine is called "Googling". That indicates the popularity of MSN and Yahoo.
Cliff, I've often thought that you are one of the best Slashdot editors. But this article should not have appeared on Slashdot.
Slashdot often carries pseudo-science articles, especially recently. Slashdot editors need to be more careful about that. If you didn't listen in Physics class in college, talk to someone who did.
Journalist Shi Tao was jailed and sentenced to 10 years in prison for "illegally sending state secrets abroad." The secrets that he revealed were information his newspaper received from the state propaganda department about how they could cover the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. He was identified because he had used Yahoo!'s free email service for which Yahoo! turned over log files to authorities that were later tracked back to his computer.
Message to Yahoo's top executives: Please turn in your badges and be out of the building in 10 minutes. You should not pretend to be able to lead a company. You are yahoos.
Definition of yahoo: A crude or brutish person.
PS: I hate your disgusting use of tricky, sneaky advertising.
"Throughout its history, Microsoft had let thousands of programmers each produce their own piece of computer code, then stitched it together into one sprawling program."
It's great to see confirmation of that. That practice accounts for the sloppiness of Microsoft programs. Apparently Microsoft creates extremely sloppy code, then fixes bugs until they decide that they can squeeze acceptance from the customers.
"There was some angst by everybody," says Mr. Gates of the period. "It's obviously my role to ask people, 'Hey, let's not throw things out we shouldn't throw out. Let's keep things in that we can keep in.'
That's another interesting confirmation. It's "obviously" Mr. Gates' role to know what his company is doing and prevent a crisis like this. I've often thought that he was mostly absent from Microsoft management since he took the title, "Chief Software Architect".
"... the growing threat from rivals such as Google Inc., Apple Computer Inc. and makers of the free Linux operating system."
Business writers write a lot of nonsense about computing issues, and that's nonsense. Microsoft has always been its own worst enemy. The competitors are not the reason Microsoft has a bad reputation.
"In recent years these companies have been dashing out some software innovations faster than Microsoft."
More nonsense. What Microsoft innovations? I can't think of any.
"What happened when the American car companies failed to update their manufacturing lines? There was a more efficient way to bring cars to market for a lower price and they lost their market," says Microsoft Vice President Chris Jones. "We're in a little bit of a different industry but it's the same thing."
Microsoft employees, in my opinion, have always helped business writers write nonsense by giving interviews in which they tell the writers nonsense. It's not "a little bit" different. It's a completely different situation. Microsoft's situation is one of extreme self-destruction. For example, Microsoft tricked customers into buying what it called "Software Assurance". Now, the Microsoft faces enormous resistance from customers because they got almost nothing for their money.
"Microsoft's holy grail is a system that cranks out a new, generally bug-free version of basic Windows every few years, with frequent updates in between to add enhancements or match a competitor's offering."
That is complete fiction, entirely invented by the writer, based on what he thinks should happen. I've never seen any evidence that Microsoft was interested in a 1.0 version that was "generally bug-free". No new operating systems are necessary. Most customers will be happy with a "generally bug-free" Windows XP Service Pack 3. They won't need or want to buy another version of Windows.
Cover Up: "In 2001 Microsoft made a documentary film celebrating the creation of Windows XP, which remains the latest full update of Windows. When Mr. Allchin previewed the film, it confirmed some of his misgivings about the Windows culture. He saw the eleventh-hour heroics needed to finish the product and get it to customers. Mr. Allchin ordered the film to be burned."
Windows XP was not finished when it was released, in my opinion.
"The mass of patches and agglomerations that made up Windows turned it into an easy target for viruses and other Web-based attacks."
This is the first time some serious truth has found its way from Microsoft to the business press. My guess is that going public represents an attempt by Mr. Allchin to force the company to change. It's a revolt made possible by the inattention of Mr. Gates and Mr. Ballmer.
In late 2003, Mr. Allchin called on the help of two men. The first was one of Microsoft's best-known "shippers," people known for their ability to turn around troubled software pro
If you view Microsoft as a software company, they have always had mediocre products. If you think that Microsoft's main product is adversarial behavior, they are one of the most successful companies in the world!
Here's just a tiny, tiny sample: The U.S. District Court's Findings of Fact in the Microsoft antitrust case lists 207 pages of abuses.
"the Web as the next platform"
I have never known a business person who would allow confidential letters to be typed in such a manner that they travel outside the company while being prepared. The same applies to all company data.
It's possible to buy a laptop for $500, and a desktop computer for $200. There is no financial pressure to rent software. Open Office 2.0, out soon, is all that 98% of companies need.
I have never known a business manager who would allow an important letter to travel anywhere except on paper between his secretary and himself. Even typing letters over an Intranet would be an extremely unpopular idea.
The only network preparation of data typically allowed is over heavily guarded intranets, in cases where there must be a shared database, such as sales data entry.
The Court's Findings of Fact in the Microsoft antitrust case lists 207 pages of abuses. I'm finding that even computer users with no interest in technical things know that Microsoft is an abusive company, and more intense knowledge of that abusiveness is traveling fast.
The most important thing the CNET article indicates is that bored, underpaid business writers often write nonsense about computers.
The Court's Findings of Fact in the Microsoft antitrust case lists 207 pages of abuses.
The Court's Findings of Fact in the Microsoft antitrust case lists 207 pages of abuses.
Google's hundreds of thousands of computers use Linux. Certainly not a Microsoft OS!
Not really the news: The world is waiting to see what happens when great evils are combined: Microsoft will buy AOL and Yahoo and combine it with MSN, and call the combination CyberHell. Visitors to CyberHell will get hundreds of pop-up ads, none of which can be trusted. Searches will provide links to companies that have paid for placement.
Not just "abusive marketing practices". Huge numbers of abusive practices of all kinds, so many that it might be impossible for one person to document them. Here is just a hint: Microsoft has never been a trust-based company.
Windows 98 had a memory management scheme which would cause it to crash if too many programs were opened. Resellers are required to disclose the names of their customers. Microsoft invented new protocols for connecting to the internet, which, predictably, were found to have security vulnerabilities. With the introduction of Windows XP, Microsoft began integrating its own computers with those of its customers. Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser is amazingly buggy.
Here was an early attempt of mine to document the problems: Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going. I only began to scratch the surface of the abuses.
That's an important observation. Can you provide more explanation, and the URLs?
I visited the Major League Baseball site: http://www.mlb.com/ and my Firefox 1.06 CPU use jumped to 19%, with all pages loaded and NO browser activity.
I wish they would fix this; they've known about it for years. It has something to do with the Flash plugin, I understand.
This bug is a show-stopper for me. I wish they would concentrate on it.
The huge RAM usage is not the biggest issue. After opening several windows and tabs, I often see something like 95% CPU usage even when I've closed everything except one tab. I submitted a Bugzilla report about that more than 2 years ago, an it was not fixed in Firefox 1.06.
More: Remember Ed Curry!
GoDaddy is not trustworthy, it seems to me. It seems to me that GoDaddy makes most of its money by exploiting the lack of technical knowledge of most of its customers. The GoDaddy web site is so fully of ads that it is sometimes difficult to understand how to buy from them.
GoDaddy's web site is often slow. For example, as I type this it is very slow. GoDaddy wants to be a web hosting provider. Can you imagine choosing a host with a slow web site?
I agree with you about register.com.
Can anyone recommend a reliable, honest, not-sneaky registrar?
Over the years, I have learned to have zero (0) trust in Yahoo.
From the Business Week article:
"Sure, no one issue will turn off Yahoo users in droves." One issue will definitely convince a large percentage of people never to visit Yahoo.
Another quote:
"... Yahoo risks tarnishing its reputation as a trustworthy Net player." Notice that doing an internet search is called "Googling". For knowledgeable people, Yahoo has a bad reputation. For others, Yahoo has no reputation at all.
Business writers write a lot of DISGUSTING nonsense about computer technology:
"To Yahoo's credit, it is leading industrywide discussions aimed at devising new practices for the adware companies." Here's another quote: "Yahoo also insists it does business only with adware companies that adhere to best practices..."
It seems to me that Yahoo cannot compete, so it is trying every trick to stay alive.
Not real news: AOL and Yahoo and MSN will merge. The combined company will be called CyberHell.
Lies are more than just statements. Sneakiness is dishonest, also: Why C# and Mono are currently unnacceptable risks"
I forgot to mention that, if they think they can mislead customers, Microsoft employees often lie. This article provides today's example: IE flaw puts Windows XP SP2 at risk. It is quoted in this Slashdot story with the same name: IE Flaw Puts Windows XP SP2 At Risk.
Here is a quote from the CNET article: "A Microsoft representative confirmed that the company had received the report from eEye and said it will be investigating the issue. Because the details of the vulnerabilities have not been made public, users are not at risk of an exploit being developed to take advantage of the flaw, the representative said."
The statement "users are not at risk" is a lie, and I'm guessing that the Microsoft representative either was completely aware he was lying, or was completely aware he was too technically ignorant to make an assessment.
If one company can find a new vulnerability, other people can, too. The fact that eEye found the vulnerability means especially that well-funded organizations, like the U.S. government's NSA department, could find the vulnerability, also. If your government uses Microsoft products, your government is vulnerable to spying.
"Nothing in Microsoft documentation that neither Microsoft technical support nor I was able to find explained the Chkdsk log file. "
Correction: Nothing in Microsoft documentation that either Microsoft technical support or I was able to find explains the Chkdsk log file.