Interesting quote from Trump, from the Slashdot story:
"We want you to keep going with the incredible innovation," Trump said. "There's no one like you in the world....anything we can do to help this go along, we're going to be there for you. You can call my people, call me â" it makes no difference â" we have no formal chain of command around here."
"The rank & file [of the NSA], especially by this point, know full-well the kind of authoritarian, criminal, and *dangerous* people they work for. If they continue to 'just do what they're told' they will be just as guilty as the German prison camp guards of WW2. They have a choice. Walk away."
News stories about the NSA have always communicated an underlying assumption that the NSA is well-managed. But any secret agency can avoid discovery of bad management.
There are many secret and semi-secret agencies in the U.S. government. Each of them degrades the quality of government. We can't contribute unless we understand.
I sent this to Netgear management, trying to be helpful. There was no answer:
The end of Netgear? Negative reviews about Netgear products act as powerful negative
advertising. When people want to buy computer hardware, they read the reviews on Amazon
and Newegg. A large percentage of the reviews of Netgear routers are extremely
negative.
Below are links to extremely negative reviews: 1) 14 extremely negative Amazon reviews and
2) 11 Netgear Forum requests for help that were ignored.
The negative reviews reflect 3 very serious issues:
1) Netgear does not publish sufficient information about how to configure its equipment, so many
customers have severe difficulties.
2) Netgear's equipment is, in some ways, badly designed. Users with experience with other
manufacturers don't imagine that the electronic design of Netgear products makes the products so
complicated to configure.
3) Customers who post problems on the Netgear Forum often receive no help.
Solutions
There is an easy, quick solution: Netgear must communicate clearly. There is a
long-term solution: Netgear needs to hire electronics engineers and programmers who eliminate
the design problems.
Benefits
Sales will be much easier if Netgear becomes better at communicating. Anyone holding Netgear
stock will benefit from improvements in ease of configuration of Netgear products. Netgear will
be easier to manage if there is better coordination.
I spent many hours trying to configure our Netgear routers. Eventually I found a review
on Amazon that told how to correct the problem. I was trying to configure 4 FVS336Gv2
routers. (We own 8.) They worked very well for a few hours, and then dropped connections.
I've discovered there are many other people with the same problem. I posted 2 messages on the
Netgear Forum and received no reply. My experience with older Netgear routers is that they have
configuration issues also, but are easier to configure than the newer routers.
I'm an electronics design engineer and programmer. This article is a volunteer effort to
try to get Netgear to improve communication with customers, so that my company will not need to
change our operations to use hardware from another manufacturer.
One example of poor communication: Customers are not told of the unusual methods
necessary to make Netgear equipment work. See this example from an Amazon review:
Be advised, Netgear Tech Support STRONGLY recommends doing a factory reset both before AND
after upgrading to new firmware.... IMHO, some of the complainers either didn't reset before
and after or didn't correctly upgrade their firmware.
That indicates that there is no internal mechanism to prevent faulty
installation of firmware.
The instructions that come with the firmware say nothing about resetting before and
after.
Customers imply that Netgear makes configuration difficult so that Netgear can charge for
help. Configuration help is free for 90 days. After that Netgear charges for help.
Making configuration difficult and not intuitive apparently, judging from what customers say, is
a way of making more money.
Other ideas from customer reviews:
1) The plug-in power supplies sometimes don't provide enough power.
2) Some Netgear routers require 4 minutes to re-start after the power is off.
3) Some Netgear routers must be turned off for at least 2 minutes before re-starting. (That
indicates that the design lacks a resistor to drain the power supply capacitor quickly after the
router is unplugged.)
4) Question: How long must the "Factory Defaults" switch be pressed before the return to factory
co
"The obvious way for Amazon to fix this problem would be to stop spamming people that have requested to be removed from their marketing email list."
There are many other areas in which Amazon needs improvement:
When visiting an Amazon web page to try to understand a product better, Amazon tries to distract readers by displaying other products. To me, that is amazingly abusive and socially ignorant.
There are other scams besides some of the reviews. Some used books say the price is $0.01, one cent, but the shipping cost is $3.99. The total price should be listed.
There appears to be no protection by Amazon from dishonest sellers. I have, for example, seen complaints from buyers that say they ordered new hard drives but received used ones.
You said, "Several orders of magnitude larger? Looks like it's less than one order of magnitude larger."
I'm guessing "Several orders of magnitude" is intended to refer to the huge amount of additional taxpayer money necessary to break into computers in 120 countries. Not well written, but that seems to be the underlying issue.
I imagine that there are legal issues in each country. Without following the legal requirements, the FBI would break laws in each country, and there would be a huge international outcry.
"I've read all sorts of hypothesis... that there are hyper conservative Catholic Philipine peasants sifting through Facebook for pennies a day censoring anything"
Microsoft needs better managers. Former Microsoft CEO Monkey Boy, was the least respected CEO of a big company. Ballmer was rated the worst CEO in the United States: Quote from an article in Forbes Magazine about Steve Ballmer: "Without a doubt, Mr. Ballmer is the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company today." Another quote: "The reach of his bad leadership has extended far beyond Microsoft when it comes to destroying shareholder value -- and jobs." (May 12, 2012)
Back before it went out of business, I called it CompOoza. It wasn't only that CompUSA management intended to be abusive, in my opinion, CompUSA was amazingly badly managed in other ways.
To me, it's very sad that Google seems to be on the way down. Google top management doesn't seem to know how to guide the company away from abusiveness.
A guess: CEO Paula Steiner has no technical knowledge, or almost none. A skilled salesman hired by the company in India sold her on what he claimed were big advantages of having the company in India do the IT work.
Quote from her biography on the HCSC web site (last paragraph):
Steiner serves on the boards of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, America's Health Insurance Plans and the National Institute for Health Care Management. She is also a member of the board of directors of World Business Chicago. She holds a B.A. in economics from Johns Hopkins University and an MBA from the Wharton School.
That quote says she is involved with the management of 5 other organizations.
"... MBA from the Wharton School." Not a background of someone who understands computer technology.
I'm guessing that people who work there will call to have a computer problem fixed and will talk to someone who doesn't speak English well and who has very little knowledge of computer technology. That has happened to me numerous times involving several companies.
Microsoft makes more money if defects are found in Windows. The defects make people and organizations feel it is necessary to buy a newer version.
Microsoft management apparently thinks, "Why release good software when defects make money?"
There should be government regulations preventing abuse of computer software customers. We shouldn't be forced to install all fixes offered, for example.
We need an open-source operating system that can run all Windows software. (Using Linux requires re-training every user.)
A friend in France has often mentioned the high-speed internet connections in his city of Rennes.
It seems that the U.S. government has become weak. Citizens don't get protection from abusive activities of organizations. The rich are allowed to do anything they want.
I suggest we have a friendly competition to show who can show the most eloquent disrespect of Microsoft's idea. I like your "... its perceived advantages over Co-operation..." However, here is my entry in the competition: Quote from the story linked by Slashdot: "...it's the sort of gag..." (2016-10-29, 13:14 PDT)
Definition: gag: choke or retch. Synonyms: retch, heave, dry-heave.
So, the Microsoft Surface Tablet is a "gag" of a tablet? Was the writer of that article unconsciously showing his disrespect?
Microsoft Windows 10 is a "gag" of an operating system? From a Network World
article:
Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. Quote: "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC." Windows 10 is now "Gag OS"?
Slashdot Mirror
Mod Parent UP!
Interesting quote from Trump, from the Slashdot story:
"We want you to keep going with the incredible innovation," Trump said. "There's no one like you in the world....anything we can do to help this go along, we're going to be there for you. You can call my people, call me â" it makes no difference â" we have no formal chain of command around here."
Interesting:
"The rank & file [of the NSA], especially by this point, know full-well the kind of authoritarian, criminal, and *dangerous* people they work for. If they continue to 'just do what they're told' they will be just as guilty as the German prison camp guards of WW2. They have a choice. Walk away."
News stories about the NSA have always communicated an underlying assumption that the NSA is well-managed. But any secret agency can avoid discovery of bad management.
There are many secret and semi-secret agencies in the U.S. government. Each of them degrades the quality of government. We can't contribute unless we understand.
The U.S. military, for example, keeps most of its management secret. This story is an example: U.S. Army fudged its accounts by trillions of dollars, auditor finds.
Bad management does not benefit the NSA or the military. Bad management hurts everyone.
They know most people won't understand that.
Thanks. Having a look at Asus VPN routers now.
(In the grandparent comment, I forgot to say that I sent that information to Netgear management in January 2016, less than a year ago.)
I researched other suppliers of VPN routers. They didn't seem better.
Any suggestions?
"They're just trying to keep up with Google."
Google has become an abusive company, and Microsoft wanted to add Google's abuses to Microsoft's long list?
Explanation of Google's former motto, Don't be evil.
The end of Netgear? Negative reviews about Netgear products act as powerful negative advertising. When people want to buy computer hardware, they read the reviews on Amazon and Newegg. A large percentage of the reviews of Netgear routers are extremely negative.
Below are links to extremely negative reviews: 1) 14 extremely negative Amazon reviews and 2) 11 Netgear Forum requests for help that were ignored.
The negative reviews reflect 3 very serious issues:
1) Netgear does not publish sufficient information about how to configure its equipment, so many customers have severe difficulties.
2) Netgear's equipment is, in some ways, badly designed. Users with experience with other manufacturers don't imagine that the electronic design of Netgear products makes the products so complicated to configure.
3) Customers who post problems on the Netgear Forum often receive no help.
Solutions
There is an easy, quick solution: Netgear must communicate clearly. There is a long-term solution: Netgear needs to hire electronics engineers and programmers who eliminate the design problems.
Benefits
Sales will be much easier if Netgear becomes better at communicating. Anyone holding Netgear stock will benefit from improvements in ease of configuration of Netgear products. Netgear will be easier to manage if there is better coordination.
I spent many hours trying to configure our Netgear routers. Eventually I found a review on Amazon that told how to correct the problem. I was trying to configure 4 FVS336Gv2 routers. (We own 8.) They worked very well for a few hours, and then dropped connections.
I've discovered there are many other people with the same problem. I posted 2 messages on the Netgear Forum and received no reply. My experience with older Netgear routers is that they have configuration issues also, but are easier to configure than the newer routers.
I'm an electronics design engineer and programmer. This article is a volunteer effort to try to get Netgear to improve communication with customers, so that my company will not need to change our operations to use hardware from another manufacturer.
One example of poor communication: Customers are not told of the unusual methods necessary to make Netgear equipment work. See this example from an Amazon review:
That indicates that there is no internal mechanism to prevent faulty installation of firmware.
The instructions that come with the firmware say nothing about resetting before and after.
Customers imply that Netgear makes configuration difficult so that Netgear can charge for help. Configuration help is free for 90 days. After that Netgear charges for help. Making configuration difficult and not intuitive apparently, judging from what customers say, is a way of making more money.
Other ideas from customer reviews:
1) The plug-in power supplies sometimes don't provide enough power.
2) Some Netgear routers require 4 minutes to re-start after the power is off.
3) Some Netgear routers must be turned off for at least 2 minutes before re-starting. (That indicates that the design lacks a resistor to drain the power supply capacitor quickly after the router is unplugged.)
4) Question: How long must the "Factory Defaults" switch be pressed before the return to factory co
"The obvious way for Amazon to fix this problem would be to stop spamming people that have requested to be removed from their marketing email list."
There are many other areas in which Amazon needs improvement:
When visiting an Amazon web page to try to understand a product better, Amazon tries to distract readers by displaying other products. To me, that is amazingly abusive and socially ignorant.
There are other scams besides some of the reviews. Some used books say the price is $0.01, one cent, but the shipping cost is $3.99. The total price should be listed.
There appears to be no protection by Amazon from dishonest sellers. I have, for example, seen complaints from buyers that say they ordered new hard drives but received used ones.
You said, "Several orders of magnitude larger? Looks like it's less than one order of magnitude larger."
I'm guessing "Several orders of magnitude" is intended to refer to the huge amount of additional taxpayer money necessary to break into computers in 120 countries. Not well written, but that seems to be the underlying issue.
I imagine that there are legal issues in each country. Without following the legal requirements, the FBI would break laws in each country, and there would be a huge international outcry.
"I've read all sorts of hypothesis ... that there are hyper conservative Catholic Philipine peasants sifting through Facebook for pennies a day censoring anything"
Makes me laugh.
If someone is infected by Zika and returns to health, can that person still infect others? Nothing I've read about Zika answers that.
MikeTheGreat,
Greetings from a lesser Mike.
My response: Oops! Didn't see it.
Thanks.
"... I hate the syntax of PowerShell."
Agreed. PowerShell is the Zune of syntaxes.
Microsoft needs better managers. Former Microsoft CEO Monkey Boy, was the least respected CEO of a big company. Ballmer was rated the worst CEO in the United States: Quote from an article in Forbes Magazine about Steve Ballmer: "Without a doubt, Mr. Ballmer is the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company today." Another quote: "The reach of his bad leadership has extended far beyond Microsoft when it comes to destroying shareholder value -- and jobs." (May 12, 2012)
This story doesn't even mention the Zune: Microsoft's 10 biggest failures.
Back before it went out of business, I called it CompOoza. It wasn't only that CompUSA management intended to be abusive, in my opinion, CompUSA was amazingly badly managed in other ways.
"[*] Google have far too much power..."
To me, it's very sad that Google seems to be on the way down. Google top management doesn't seem to know how to guide the company away from abusiveness.
Yes, it's a compliment.
Quote from her biography on the HCSC web site (last paragraph):
That quote says she is involved with the management of 5 other organizations.
"... MBA from the Wharton School." Not a background of someone who understands computer technology.
I'm guessing that people who work there will call to have a computer problem fixed and will talk to someone who doesn't speak English well and who has very little knowledge of computer technology. That has happened to me numerous times involving several companies.
To be a Fake Tim Cook, you need to lose your sense of humor.
Also, you can't be such a good writer.
Instead of being a Fake Tim Cook, you could accept the lower position of being a Madison Avenue advertising copywriter. Only $1200 per hour.
Microsoft makes more money if defects are found in Windows. The defects make people and organizations feel it is necessary to buy a newer version.
Microsoft management apparently thinks, "Why release good software when defects make money?"
There should be government regulations preventing abuse of computer software customers. We shouldn't be forced to install all fixes offered, for example.
We need an open-source operating system that can run all Windows software. (Using Linux requires re-training every user.)
A friend in France has often mentioned the high-speed internet connections in his city of Rennes.
It seems that the U.S. government has become weak. Citizens don't get protection from abusive activities of organizations. The rich are allowed to do anything they want.
I suggest we have a friendly competition to show who can show the most eloquent disrespect of Microsoft's idea. I like your "... its perceived advantages over Co-operation..." However, here is my entry in the competition: Quote from the story linked by Slashdot: "...it's the sort of gag..." (2016-10-29, 13:14 PDT)
Definition: gag: choke or retch. Synonyms: retch, heave, dry-heave.
So, the Microsoft Surface Tablet is a "gag" of a tablet? Was the writer of that article unconsciously showing his disrespect?
Microsoft Windows 10 is a "gag" of an operating system? From a Network World article: Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. Quote: "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC." Windows 10 is now "Gag OS"?
What is Microsoft's influence on VeraCrypt? It seems to me that Microsoft has strongly positioned itself as a company that cannot be trusted.
VeraCrypt is hosted on a Microsoft web site: VeraCrypt at codeplex.com.
That scares me. Consider this Network World article: Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. Quote: "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC."
TrueCrypt 7.1a
TrueCrypt 7.1a hashes.
TrueCrypt from Switzerland -- Swiss Mirror
We should not justify what the media does. The media does not give people an accurate understanding.
U.S. Auto Crashes: About 35,200 in 2015.