Do unto Microsoft what Microsoft does to you.
on
More MS EULA Fun
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· Score: 2
Don't you see that, when you remove the EULA, you are only doing to Microsoft what Microsoft did to you? You are changing the terms of the original contract with Microsoft without giving Microsoft any real control in the matter.
Is there anyone besides Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer who believes that Microsoft should have broad legal rights, while users should have none?
I've been working for literally months on getting systems ready for a customer that use Windows XP. The cost of buying Windows XP is trivial compared to the cost of dealing with its quirkiness and poor documentation. Now, after I cannot back out of the agreement without losing all my time and money, they have changed the agreement! That's not acceptable.
Basically, if Microsoft changes the agreement now, they can change it again later. Who knows to what provisions Windows XP users will be bound in the future! If what Microsoft has already done is legal, then it is legal to change contract provisions again to say that Bill Gates can come to your house at any time and raid your refrigerator.
It is an act of civil disobedience.
on
More MS EULA Fun
·
· Score: 2
The code to remove the EULA is an act of civil disobedience. It is there to make a point to get the law changed; it is not intended to do anything bad to the sensible rights of the software suppliers or the rights of users.
The OSDN provisions are too broad.
on
More MS EULA Fun
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· Score: 2
It is entirely fine with me if Slashdot publishes a CD archive. I've urged them, in an email message, to do that myself, to make money. The problem is the sneakiness of saying something in The Fine Print and then changing the terms in a hidden way.
Also, the terms give OSDN the right to publish a book based on one person's comments; the person would have no control. The OSDN provisions are too broad. For example, if a Slashdot reader eventually becomes vice-president of IBM, or mayor of a large city, OSDN is giving itself the right to make money by publishing the readers's comments out of context.
Forcing a contract is illegal.
on
More MS EULA Fun
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Forcing someone into a new agreement is illegal. Governments should
give this some attention. The updates are necessary, partly because the
software is sloppily written. The user does not have a good option; the only
option is to get a new operating system and re-train everyone, and accept that
some programs on which a business is dependent don't work. That's force.
It's no fun to work at an abusive company. We are seeing a rise in the
number of sneaky contracts. This seems due to the presence of people with no
technical knowledge at technically oriented companies. These people cannot
contribute to the real work of the companies; all they can do is invent ways
to abuse the customer.
As companies become more abusive, it becomes more miserable to work
there. If you are good at what you do, quit and get a job somewhere where
people are treated like people.
This is where it is all leading:
EULA:
I can do anything I like.
You have no power.
You can't say anything bad about me.
Everything belongs to me.
I knew a 3-year-old who said this.
Slashdot has a sneaky EULA, too. At the top of every Slashdot article,
it says, "The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by
whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way."
This sounds like you own your comments, doesn't it? However, the OSDN Terms of Service says at section "4.
CONTENT", paragraph 6,
"In each such case, the submitting user grants OSDN the royalty-free,
perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive and fully sublicensable right and
license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create
derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such Content (in whole
or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media,
or technology now known or later developed, all subject to the terms of any
applicable Open Source Initiative-approved license."
The contract is written in such a way as to appear that it has been made
intentionally confusing. However, it looks like "comments are owned by
whoever posted them" means that, yes, you own the intellectual property
you created, but VA Software Corporation owns it too.
This appears similar to owning a car, but under the condition that someone
else can use it at any time, and without notifying you. In any case,
Slashdot's The Fine Print is misleading; it is not all of the
fine print, although that line at the top of each story certainly encourages
you to believe it is.
Dialogic is the standard in the PBX industry. If you use Dialogic boards, you can be assured of compatibility with the most software, and a long useful life for your hardware.
On the other hand, Intel is good only with microprocessors, m. support chips, and motherboards. It might not be a good thing that Intel bought Dialogic. (Intel closed its consumer electronics division after many, many blunders.)
In 1999 we informed all our customers that our software had the year 10,000 bug. They should call us no later than 9995, and there would be an extra charge if we had to come from another galaxy.
Changing the model without changing the model #.
on
USB KVMs Compared
·
· Score: 2
I didn't try the Belkin because Samantha told me about this.
I agree about the Aten form facter. Amazing mistake.
There is an issue with IOGear changing the model without changing the model number, so make sure you get fresh stock. Order from a big supplier.
A friend pointed out that there must be something imperfect in the way the Matrox card outputs its signal. Also, the difference is very small (but unmistakeable). I did not try the IOGear with the latest Matrox cards (G-550). I was too busy at the time.
Noise is not an issue here. The signals are very high level.
I agree about the cables. Why did IOGear put the keyboard and mouse cables in the front? What could they possibly have been thinking?
There are a lot of Chinese, who work for these Chinese companies, who own only a bicycle, two pairs of black pants, and three white shirts. They are not the sort to worry about convenience in a product they will never own. (I've spent time in Taiwan buying computer parts.)
Degradation of the video quality?
on
USB KVMs Compared
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Be careful!
All the units besides the IOView degrade the video quality, I understand from
long conversations with sales people. The IOView, with a Hitachi Elite 751 19
inch monitor and a Matrox G-450 video card at 1600 x 1200 and 75 Hz, actually
gives slightly better quality. Odd result, I know, but I'm testing the
IOGear MiniView SE 4-port as I type this.
The
Tech Report article about 4-port units says, "The other units lack
explicit video signal enhancement features, but their quality was the same on
both a 17" Trinitron and a 19" NEC AccuSync 95F. Note that this does not
mention the video card or the resolution or the refresh rate, indicating that
the reviewer was probably not thinking that these were critical. Also, many
people are just not good at seeing degradation.
The IOGear MiniView SE 4-port has a VERY funky way of switching between
computers. One way, to press a control key twice, is okay, but only goes to
next computer in line. The other is amazingly foolish:
According to Samantha Martinez of KVM Switches Online
(Samantha@kvm-switches-online.com Phone: 303-604-0237 Fax: 303-604-0724), "The
only manufacturers that hold that resolution at that refresh rate are
Aten/IOGear and Avocent." (They don't sell the Belkin unit, apparently. Aten
makes IOGear. You can buy Aten units directly, but they are a worse buy.)
Note that you get 2 4-foot cables and 2 6-foot cables with the MiniView, not 4
6-foot cables.
We have zero evidence that HP will stop...
on
HP Backs Off DMCA Threat
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Exactly.
We have zero evidence that HP will stop trying to hide the failures in its products.
If Carly Fiorina knew about this, then she also thought it was okay to try to use aggressive tactics to hide severe failures in an HP product. In that case, Carly should be replaced by the HP board of directors.
If Carly Fiorina didn't know about this, a major act by a vice president, then she is clearly not in control of HP. In that case, Carly should be replaced by the HP board of directors.
Freedb.org is the typical open source project. The home page does not have any introduction. It assumes that you know everything about the project already.
Start was asynchronous. Now the Windows XP version, in some cases, hangs up and doesn't return until the application it started is closed. This is without the/W parameter.
Looks like another excellent open source product with a looney name.
Dictionary: Loon-y or loon-ey also lun-y Informal.adj. loon-i-er, loon-i-est. 1. Extremely foolish or silly. 2. Crazy; insane.n.pl. loon-ies also loon-eys. A foolish or crazy person.[Shortening and alteration (probably influenced by LOON1) of LUNATIC.]--loon'i-ly adv. --loon'i-ness n.
Thesaurus: loon-y (loone). A person whose beliefs and actions are eccentric: crank, crackpot, cuckoo, flake, fruitcake (informal), kook (slang), loony, nut (slang), nut case (slang), nutter (British) (slang), oddball, queer fish, screwball (slang), weirdie (informal), weirdo (informal).
Bruce, if I were president of HP, I would immediately fire Kent Ferson, the vice president who wrote the letter. The letter says, basically, that HP is not able to fix the problem, and would rather hide its security problems.
This is a marketing disaster for HP. Probably Mr. Ferson has little technical knowledge and does not realize that his letter speaks loudly and clearly to the whole world of technically knowledgeable people, and does irrepairable damage to HP.
We live in an amazing world where free products are better than expensive ones. The open source response to a security problem is to have a bug fix on all the mirrors in 48 hours. The response of billion dollar companies with tens of thousands of well-paid employees is to try to weasel out of doing the right thing. Who would have guessed it would be that way?
It seems that you could do HP a big favor if you could educate top management.
But maybe they are not educable.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't you see that, when you remove the EULA, you are only doing to Microsoft what Microsoft did to you? You are changing the terms of the original contract with Microsoft without giving Microsoft any real control in the matter.
Is there anyone besides Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer who believes that Microsoft should have broad legal rights, while users should have none?
I've been working for literally months on getting systems ready for a customer that use Windows XP. The cost of buying Windows XP is trivial compared to the cost of dealing with its quirkiness and poor documentation. Now, after I cannot back out of the agreement without losing all my time and money, they have changed the agreement! That's not acceptable.
Basically, if Microsoft changes the agreement now, they can change it again later. Who knows to what provisions Windows XP users will be bound in the future! If what Microsoft has already done is legal, then it is legal to change contract provisions again to say that Bill Gates can come to your house at any time and raid your refrigerator.
The code to remove the EULA is an act of civil disobedience. It is there to make a point to get the law changed; it is not intended to do anything bad to the sensible rights of the software suppliers or the rights of users.
It is entirely fine with me if Slashdot publishes a CD archive. I've urged them, in an email message, to do that myself, to make money. The problem is the sneakiness of saying something in The Fine Print and then changing the terms in a hidden way.
Also, the terms give OSDN the right to publish a book based on one person's comments; the person would have no control. The OSDN provisions are too broad. For example, if a Slashdot reader eventually becomes vice-president of IBM, or mayor of a large city, OSDN is giving itself the right to make money by publishing the readers's comments out of context.
Forcing someone into a new agreement is illegal. Governments should give this some attention. The updates are necessary, partly because the software is sloppily written. The user does not have a good option; the only option is to get a new operating system and re-train everyone, and accept that some programs on which a business is dependent don't work. That's force.
You can remove the Microsoft EULA: Windows VBScript for automatically removing the click-through End-User License Agreements found in most installers.
It's no fun to work at an abusive company. We are seeing a rise in the number of sneaky contracts. This seems due to the presence of people with no technical knowledge at technically oriented companies. These people cannot contribute to the real work of the companies; all they can do is invent ways to abuse the customer.
As companies become more abusive, it becomes more miserable to work there. If you are good at what you do, quit and get a job somewhere where people are treated like people.
This is where it is all leading:
EULA:
- I can do anything I like.
- You have no power.
- You can't say anything bad about me.
- Everything belongs to me.
I knew a 3-year-old who said this.Slashdot has a sneaky EULA, too. At the top of every Slashdot article, it says, "The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way."
This sounds like you own your comments, doesn't it? However, the OSDN Terms of Service says at section "4. CONTENT", paragraph 6,
"In each such case, the submitting user grants OSDN the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive and fully sublicensable right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed, all subject to the terms of any applicable Open Source Initiative-approved license."
The contract is written in such a way as to appear that it has been made intentionally confusing. However, it looks like "comments are owned by whoever posted them" means that, yes, you own the intellectual property you created, but VA Software Corporation owns it too.
This appears similar to owning a car, but under the condition that someone else can use it at any time, and without notifying you. In any case, Slashdot's The Fine Print is misleading; it is not all of the fine print, although that line at the top of each story certainly encourages you to believe it is.
Dialogic is the standard in the PBX industry. If you use Dialogic boards, you can be assured of compatibility with the most software, and a long useful life for your hardware.
On the other hand, Intel is good only with microprocessors, m. support chips, and motherboards. It might not be a good thing that Intel bought Dialogic. (Intel closed its consumer electronics division after many, many blunders.)
System Release 5.1 for RedHat Linux
"poses no health risks whatsoever..."
It poses health risks if it is in the air. How did it get there?
Sometimes I wonder about PC Magazine. Sometimes I wonder if they have hidden agendas. Here's a quote from the article:
"We've added $25 for the cost of the USB printer cable..."
USB cables are less than $3.00 wholesale. If PC Magazine is helping us, why is it helping retailers make outrageous profits on cables?
In 1999 we informed all our customers that our software had the year 10,000 bug. They should call us no later than 9995, and there would be an extra charge if we had to come from another galaxy.
I didn't try the Belkin because Samantha told me about this.
I agree about the Aten form facter. Amazing mistake.
There is an issue with IOGear changing the model without changing the model number, so make sure you get fresh stock. Order from a big supplier.
A friend pointed out that there must be something imperfect in the way the Matrox card outputs its signal. Also, the difference is very small (but unmistakeable). I did not try the IOGear with the latest Matrox cards (G-550). I was too busy at the time.
Noise is not an issue here. The signals are very high level.
I agree about the cables. Why did IOGear put the keyboard and mouse cables in the front? What could they possibly have been thinking?
There are a lot of Chinese, who work for these Chinese companies, who own only a bicycle, two pairs of black pants, and three white shirts. They are not the sort to worry about convenience in a product they will never own. (I've spent time in Taiwan buying computer parts.)
Be careful!
All the units besides the IOView degrade the video quality, I understand from long conversations with sales people. The IOView, with a Hitachi Elite 751 19 inch monitor and a Matrox G-450 video card at 1600 x 1200 and 75 Hz, actually gives slightly better quality. Odd result, I know, but I'm testing the IOGear MiniView SE 4-port as I type this.
The Tech Report article about 4-port units says, "The other units lack explicit video signal enhancement features, but their quality was the same on both a 17" Trinitron and a 19" NEC AccuSync 95F. Note that this does not mention the video card or the resolution or the refresh rate, indicating that the reviewer was probably not thinking that these were critical. Also, many people are just not good at seeing degradation.
The IOGear MiniView SE 4-port has a VERY funky way of switching between computers. One way, to press a control key twice, is okay, but only goes to next computer in line. The other is amazingly foolish:
[alt]+[ctr]+[shift]+[1 or 2 or 3 or 4]+[Enter]
(See page 14 of the MiniView SE 4-port manual (NOTE:
According to Samantha Martinez of KVM Switches Online (Samantha@kvm-switches-online.com Phone: 303-604-0237 Fax: 303-604-0724), "The only manufacturers that hold that resolution at that refresh rate are Aten/IOGear and Avocent." (They don't sell the Belkin unit, apparently. Aten makes IOGear. You can buy Aten units directly, but they are a worse buy.)
Note that you get 2 4-foot cables and 2 6-foot cables with the MiniView, not 4 6-foot cables.
Exactly.
We have zero evidence that HP will stop trying to hide the failures in its products.
If Carly Fiorina knew about this, then she also thought it was okay to try to use aggressive tactics to hide severe failures in an HP product. In that case, Carly should be replaced by the HP board of directors.
If Carly Fiorina didn't know about this, a major act by a vice president, then she is clearly not in control of HP. In that case, Carly should be replaced by the HP board of directors.
Thanks for the explanation.
Freedb.org is the typical open source project. The home page does not have any introduction. It assumes that you know everything about the project already.
Start was asynchronous. Now the Windows XP version, in some cases, hangs up and doesn't return until the application it started is closed. This is without the /W parameter.
Looks like another excellent open source product with a looney name.
Dictionary: Loon-y or loon-ey also lun-y Informal.adj. loon-i-er, loon-i-est. 1. Extremely foolish or silly. 2. Crazy; insane.n.pl. loon-ies also loon-eys. A foolish or crazy person.[Shortening and alteration (probably influenced by LOON1) of LUNATIC.]--loon'i-ly adv. --loon'i-ness n.
Thesaurus: loon-y (loone). A person whose beliefs and actions are eccentric: crank, crackpot, cuckoo, flake, fruitcake (informal), kook (slang), loony, nut (slang), nut case (slang), nutter (British) (slang), oddball, queer fish, screwball (slang), weirdie (informal), weirdo (informal).
Excerpted from American Heritage Talking Dictionary
Copyright © 1997 The Learning Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
not only can their CEO's cheat their shareholders
not only cannot their CEO's cheat their shareholders
Bruce, if I were president of HP, I would immediately fire Kent Ferson, the vice president who wrote the letter. The letter says, basically, that HP is not able to fix the problem, and would rather hide its security problems.
This is a marketing disaster for HP. Probably Mr. Ferson has little technical knowledge and does not realize that his letter speaks loudly and clearly to the whole world of technically knowledgeable people, and does irrepairable damage to HP.
We live in an amazing world where free products are better than expensive ones. The open source response to a security problem is to have a bug fix on all the mirrors in 48 hours. The response of billion dollar companies with tens of thousands of well-paid employees is to try to weasel out of doing the right thing. Who would have guessed it would be that way?
It seems that you could do HP a big favor if you could educate top management. But maybe they are not educable.
Frontrange has not fixed the bugs in GoldMine. I'm wondering if products from them are viable.
Start.exe waits when it shouldn't. The /wait parameter just makes things worse.
In case there is any doubt about where things are going, here is the Ultimate EULA:
You agree that I can do anything I like, and that you have no power whatsoever.
You agree to say only good things about me.
(I once knew a 3-year-old who said things like this.)
Brasileiro?
Often it seemed to me that the PC Magazine articles were really advertisements in disguise.
I like him better, too, but he is showing things are not right in the U.S. government, and he doesn't seem to be aware of that.