"Stand still, there's a trojan in your back orifice" (1)
(1) Overheard at a Gateway call center (minus the "Stand still" part) when a tech was trying to explain to a customer why their machine was acting erratic.
"If you actually knew anything about safe cracking"
Why no, I'm not nor did I insunuate that I am an expert at safe cracking. Though I do believe that by making an analogy too highbrow you kinda miss the point (after all you're trying to present something in simpler terms). And let's face it Pregex and Lockwood would sound more like counties in England than safe brands to most folks.
So which safe is better in your analogy? Are you saying Pregex safes are better because they're unkown? You say that "Given infinite time and resources a Lockwood safe will win any test you want to throw at it" but you also say "Pregex safe will actually protect your jewels from real thieves." So if Pregex will protect you from real thieves (who one would assume would be the ultimate test of a safe's effectiveness) how is it that a Lockwood safe will "win any test". Great analogy if your goal is to confuse the hell out of someone!
BTW, how is a "card board box" a "rediculous" analogy for win 9x (just click cancel to log in and have access to all the files on the system!).
(Worms for Windows) exist because it is the biggest target
Bah, it's the old Cardboard box vs safe argument... It goes like this:
"People who keep their valuables in cardboard boxes are at risk because everyone uses a cardboard box to keep their stuff in. If everyone kept their valuable in safes they would be equally at risk since then safe cracking would become more common place."
Nobody can argue that a virus or worm couldn't be written for a Mac or Linux for that matter (just like no safe is uncrackable), what is argued though is that for an equal amount of work expended in securing your Windows machine vs securing virtually anything else you end up a lot more secure system with a non-microsoft product.
So how secure is windows by default with no user intervention? How does a Mac compare? Granted Windows 2000 and XP are a great improvement over the good ol' 9x series but c'mon? How many security products did you have to install on your PC (that it did not come with) in order to get it secured?
Windows may be the biggest target, but it's also the easiest, like breaking into a cardboard box (ok, maybe XP is more like a pressboard box...). At least with other OS's and the speed with which security patches are made available we would see the security bar raised to the point where most malicious folks would just give up while trying to break into them.
The question still stands whether it's cash or "restricted" stock.
In other news EA swiftly paid off it's pending settlement with its employees in copies of surplus pc and video games. "What am I going to do with 3,000 copies of Madden 2001, several hundred copies of "The Sims" and their expansions, and a whole crate full of copies of Golden Eye: Rogue Agent for the X-Box?" Said one incredulous artist who was expecting almost $80,000 in cash for his settlement. "I won't even get more than a buck or two a piece on E-bay. After my listing fees and shipping I'll end up with nothing!"
The lawyers for EA took a moment to thank the RIAA for the advise on how to properly settle a lawsuit.
Any browser choice is still awesome. As soon as people start to see choice they'll slowly stop equating "the internet" with Internet Explorer and realize that they've had choices all along. I applaud HP with their decision to open their customer's minds and give them an option. They've really earned my respect with by still selling AMD processor PC's and now this.
Now if their all in one wireless printer/scanners didn't require 380-700mb of software/drivers (And no I'm not kidding...).
"Sorry Bill, 74 was the winning ticket. Guess you're on tech support this week." As two burly developers hold down a kicking and screaming Bill while a 3rd places a headset on him...
ATT, Cingular, and T-Mobile use GSM (or are switching to GSM in the case of ATT pre-cingular)
Sprint and Nextel were TDMA or CDMA (reason the merger was a good thing for them)
Sucky thing is, I have a T-Mobile phone that I paid $120 for and went through a whole contract with them, but they still refuse to unlock it now that I no longer use it and I have Cingular instead (T-mobile was not an option where I live now).
BTW they will unlock a phone after you've been with them for 3 months and up to 3 months after you quit service with them. What they don't tell you is that if they give you the runaround for 3 months, then after that you're screwed cause you'll just get "ooh it's too late for us to help you now. We needed to submit this within 3 months..."
I call BS on that, there's *no* reason they shouldn't unlock a phone for which their customer has paid for (in both cash and commitment period). If they're unwilling to unlock a customer's phone then they should be prepared to *buy it back*.
The Nintendo DS isn't on the list, yet it's actually innovative, has better battery life, is more durable, has more good games + ability to play GBA games
You also forgot that Nintendo has a *zero* dead pixel policy (as opposed to Sony's, try it for a few weeks, then *we* can decide if we replace your system with 5 (or how ever many) dead pixels). I think quality control should weigh in heavily in the product rankings. Maybe they should conduct surveys of owners to determine the reliability of products they review and include that in the article. That would get me to read PC World again!
Does that mean that all you need to redirect Opera to another site is to have a.wav file on your website that says "Opera command: download gator!" or "go to goatse"? Great feature my ass!
"My perpetual motion machine will be released in November - surely deserving of #1."
I'll be finishing my Tyme Machine (TM) (friggin HG Wells estate and their trademark...) in early December, meet me by then and I'll make sure your invention gets submitted in time for this Top 100 list. After that I'll be going back about 100 years to trademark "Time Machine". I know, I think the y is stupid too...
"do you leave the Windows users with Administrator accounts by default ?"
Actually, to be fair, there's quite a few windows apps that require administrator access (on the local machine) to *run*! There was one such Adobe program (I can't think of the name, it's been a while) I came upon that the only solution I came across was this, I'm sure some folks can come up with others. Also if you're setting up/working with a non NT/2k/XP version then you're stuck with the customer always having root access unless they wanna pony up the dough to upgrade to XP.
I hate to agree, but I have to. Most people when their pc starts running slow because unbeknowest to them its infested with spyware will first blame the age of their system and then the manufacturer. All to often I hear: "This old piece of sh*t (Athlon 800Mhz, tons of ram) is too slow to surf the internet with. I need a newer 2-3Ghz system for that!" or "Damn, piece of crap Gateway, I'm gonna get a Dell next time!
Lots of people blame the hardware and not the software. Most don't even know they *have* an OS! Most when asked what OS they're running reply with "I have a dell!" or "Internet Explorer". These same folks don't know what a browser is... "Which browser do you use sir/maam?... Google/Yahoo? Umm... that's not a browser..."
I think alot of folks would actually *hate* MS if they knew what role they actually play in their PC and that it's their insecure browser/OS that resulted in them having to dish out $100 to get their pc fixed/re-imaged or the reason they dished out another $300-$500 to replace an otherwise perfectly fine PC.
"There's a very real chance that words like piracy and theft *will* apply to downloading music."
I hope not. Just as much as corporations that "rape the land" aren't rapists, killing the competiton isn't really killing, and stealing someone's heart doesn't make you a thief. I hope people will realize that stealing in "stealing music off the internet" is just a conveinient generalization (for copyright infringment) and not actual theft.
Now I know alot of people who download music off the internet because they're cheap and don't want to pay any price for music, but I wouldn't mind paying a fair price (and I do). Im just fed up of being taken advantage of with friggin CD price fixing and general greed of the RIAA. I used to *work* at a retailer that sold CD's yet just like everone else I had to pay the same $16 a pop as everyone else (got killer discounts in other departments). Rumor was it the store made more money off the bargain bin CD's (yes the $1 ones) than they did off the regular ones. Now I just *buy* my music from magnatune , cdbaby , and half.com ($2 and under cd's:).
Never again in my life will the RIAA see a penny from me. I don't care how much I like an artist of theirs, i'll just wait till they die off (the RIAA not the artist). Greed of that magnitude should be punished. This whole iTunes ordeal is surrealistic how open they can be about their greed. I'm thinking of mailing the RIAA my monthly music expenditures just so they can see how much money I spend *elsewhere* to get my music fix.
"It's no better in either a legal or a moral sense than using P2P except you get to pay"
Ok, well I guess that answers that. I didn't want to point to it being illegal or not without being 100% (sure it was somewhat obvious that it may not be legal in the US, but how the law applies in the former USSR I was fuzzy on). But more importantly I was also pointing to the business model where you pay a varying fee according to the quality of the download you choose.
I think that's great since you get to choose how much you really like an artist/song based on the quality of the download you choose. If you only mildly like it they you choose crappy 96 kbps and pay.40-.50 a track. If you really like a particular song then you can get the uber quality then you pay.99 or 1.29 or whatever. Give the people some choice and they'll be happy.
"consumers should be able to download music to have a listen before they buy; perhaps someone needs to form an association similar to the RIAA, but that embraces the concept of worthwhile content that can be used without restriction. Maybe just a recording studio that does it?"
They have no isue with people downloading their full albums in *high* quality mp3 format so you can make up your mind wether or not its worth buying. Then to boot you get to choose how much you want to pay ($5 minimum). The artist gets HALF of that!
Then there's always allofmp3.com , but you gotta wonder how legitimate they are...
Slashdot Mirror
volunteer yourself as a fuel source. Hoi. Speaking of embarrassing.
Taking your date out to taco bell, then asking her to help "contribute" fuel for the trip back to your place, now THAT would be embarrasing!
The music industry would like you to pay every time you listen to your CD.
They would also like for pay every time you end up with defective cds .
They have a version of their privacy policy written in plain english?
You can always have Babelfish translate .
"I prefer the ending where the Patent Officer gets zapped."
God: " That's right, baby, magic fingers."
(Whole patent office catches fire)
God: JESUS!
Jesus: What?
God: Get the Escalade! We're outta here!
"people who read the article once after a search and didn't come back, hold biased information in their heads."
We know what must be done now. We must find these people and beat this biased information out of their heads. Who's with me!
"Looks like you have some backdoors on here too."
"Stand still, there's a trojan in your back orifice" (1)
(1) Overheard at a Gateway call center (minus the "Stand still" part) when a tech was trying to explain to a customer why their machine was acting erratic.
the brand has entered your thoughts
...
"by mennen!"
GET OUT OF MY MIND!!!
"by mennen!"
But if you don't look at the ads it's like you're stealing the internet!
His favorite catchfrase:
"Carpe diem, creep!"
"If you actually knew anything about safe cracking"
Why no, I'm not nor did I insunuate that I am an expert at safe cracking. Though I do believe that by making an analogy too highbrow you kinda miss the point (after all you're trying to present something in simpler terms). And let's face it Pregex and Lockwood would sound more like counties in England than safe brands to most folks.
So which safe is better in your analogy? Are you saying Pregex safes are better because they're unkown? You say that "Given infinite time and resources a Lockwood safe will win any test you want to throw at it" but you also say "Pregex safe will actually protect your jewels from real thieves." So if Pregex will protect you from real thieves (who one would assume would be the ultimate test of a safe's effectiveness) how is it that a Lockwood safe will "win any test". Great analogy if your goal is to confuse the hell out of someone!
BTW, how is a "card board box" a "rediculous" analogy for win 9x (just click cancel to log in and have access to all the files on the system!).
(Worms for Windows) exist because it is the biggest target
Bah, it's the old Cardboard box vs safe argument... It goes like this: "People who keep their valuables in cardboard boxes are at risk because everyone uses a cardboard box to keep their stuff in. If everyone kept their valuable in safes they would be equally at risk since then safe cracking would become more common place." Nobody can argue that a virus or worm couldn't be written for a Mac or Linux for that matter (just like no safe is uncrackable), what is argued though is that for an equal amount of work expended in securing your Windows machine vs securing virtually anything else you end up a lot more secure system with a non-microsoft product.
So how secure is windows by default with no user intervention? How does a Mac compare? Granted Windows 2000 and XP are a great improvement over the good ol' 9x series but c'mon? How many security products did you have to install on your PC (that it did not come with) in order to get it secured?
Windows may be the biggest target, but it's also the easiest, like breaking into a cardboard box (ok, maybe XP is more like a pressboard box...). At least with other OS's and the speed with which security patches are made available we would see the security bar raised to the point where most malicious folks would just give up while trying to break into them.
The question still stands whether it's cash or "restricted" stock.
In other news EA swiftly paid off it's pending settlement with its employees in copies of surplus pc and video games. "What am I going to do with 3,000 copies of Madden 2001, several hundred copies of "The Sims" and their expansions, and a whole crate full of copies of Golden Eye: Rogue Agent for the X-Box?" Said one incredulous artist who was expecting almost $80,000 in cash for his settlement. "I won't even get more than a buck or two a piece on E-bay. After my listing fees and shipping I'll end up with nothing!"
The lawyers for EA took a moment to thank the RIAA for the advise on how to properly settle a lawsuit.
See WMD, video games consoles are all sold at loss
WMD's are sold at a loss? I bet they make their money back on sales of gas masks and other safety equipment.
Any browser choice is still awesome. As soon as people start to see choice they'll slowly stop equating "the internet" with Internet Explorer and realize that they've had choices all along. I applaud HP with their decision to open their customer's minds and give them an option. They've really earned my respect with by still selling AMD processor PC's and now this.
Now if their all in one wireless printer/scanners didn't require 380-700mb of software/drivers (And no I'm not kidding...).
get support "from a Gentoo developer"
I sense a black lottery going on there.
"Sorry Bill, 74 was the winning ticket. Guess you're on tech support this week." As two burly developers hold down a kicking and screaming Bill while a 3rd places a headset on him...
ATT, Cingular, and T-Mobile use GSM (or are switching to GSM in the case of ATT pre-cingular)
Sprint and Nextel were TDMA or CDMA (reason the merger was a good thing for them)
Sucky thing is, I have a T-Mobile phone that I paid $120 for and went through a whole contract with them, but they still refuse to unlock it now that I no longer use it and I have Cingular instead (T-mobile was not an option where I live now).
BTW they will unlock a phone after you've been with them for 3 months and up to 3 months after you quit service with them. What they don't tell you is that if they give you the runaround for 3 months, then after that you're screwed cause you'll just get "ooh it's too late for us to help you now. We needed to submit this within 3 months..."
I call BS on that, there's *no* reason they shouldn't unlock a phone for which their customer has paid for (in both cash and commitment period). If they're unwilling to unlock a customer's phone then they should be prepared to *buy it back*.
The Nintendo DS isn't on the list, yet it's actually innovative, has better battery life, is more durable, has more good games + ability to play GBA games
You also forgot that Nintendo has a *zero* dead pixel policy (as opposed to Sony's, try it for a few weeks, then *we* can decide if we replace your system with 5 (or how ever many) dead pixels). I think quality control should weigh in heavily in the product rankings. Maybe they should conduct surveys of owners to determine the reliability of products they review and include that in the article. That would get me to read PC World again!
"Opera command: go to slashdot"
.wav file on your website that says "Opera command: download gator!" or "go to goatse"? Great feature my ass!
Does that mean that all you need to redirect Opera to another site is to have a
"My perpetual motion machine will be released in November - surely deserving of #1."
I'll be finishing my Tyme Machine (TM) (friggin HG Wells estate and their trademark...) in early December, meet me by then and I'll make sure your invention gets submitted in time for this Top 100 list. After that I'll be going back about 100 years to trademark "Time Machine". I know, I think the y is stupid too...
"do you leave the Windows users with Administrator accounts by default ?"
Actually, to be fair, there's quite a few windows apps that require administrator access (on the local machine) to *run*! There was one such Adobe program (I can't think of the name, it's been a while) I came upon that the only solution I came across was this, I'm sure some folks can come up with others. Also if you're setting up/working with a non NT/2k/XP version then you're stuck with the customer always having root access unless they wanna pony up the dough to upgrade to XP.
Most people do not hate Microsoft.
I hate to agree, but I have to. Most people when their pc starts running slow because unbeknowest to them its infested with spyware will first blame the age of their system and then the manufacturer. All to often I hear: "This old piece of sh*t (Athlon 800Mhz, tons of ram) is too slow to surf the internet with. I need a newer 2-3Ghz system for that!" or "Damn, piece of crap Gateway, I'm gonna get a Dell next time!
Lots of people blame the hardware and not the software. Most don't even know they *have* an OS! Most when asked what OS they're running reply with "I have a dell!" or "Internet Explorer". These same folks don't know what a browser is... "Which browser do you use sir/maam?... Google/Yahoo? Umm... that's not a browser..."
I think alot of folks would actually *hate* MS if they knew what role they actually play in their PC and that it's their insecure browser/OS that resulted in them having to dish out $100 to get their pc fixed/re-imaged or the reason they dished out another $300-$500 to replace an otherwise perfectly fine PC.
"There's a very real chance that words like piracy and theft *will* apply to downloading music."
:).
I hope not. Just as much as corporations that "rape the land" aren't rapists, killing the competiton isn't really killing, and stealing someone's heart doesn't make you a thief. I hope people will realize that stealing in "stealing music off the internet" is just a conveinient generalization (for copyright infringment) and not actual theft.
Now I know alot of people who download music off the internet because they're cheap and don't want to pay any price for music, but I wouldn't mind paying a fair price (and I do). Im just fed up of being taken advantage of with friggin CD price fixing and general greed of the RIAA. I used to *work* at a retailer that sold CD's yet just like everone else I had to pay the same $16 a pop as everyone else (got killer discounts in other departments). Rumor was it the store made more money off the bargain bin CD's (yes the $1 ones) than they did off the regular ones. Now I just *buy* my music from magnatune , cdbaby , and half.com ($2 and under cd's
Never again in my life will the RIAA see a penny from me. I don't care how much I like an artist of theirs, i'll just wait till they die off (the RIAA not the artist). Greed of that magnitude should be punished. This whole iTunes ordeal is surrealistic how open they can be about their greed. I'm thinking of mailing the RIAA my monthly music expenditures just so they can see how much money I spend *elsewhere* to get my music fix.
Regardless, any form of legal victory, however small embiggens the little guy.
"It's no better in either a legal or a moral sense than using P2P except you get to pay"
.40-.50 a track. If you really like a particular song then you can get the uber quality then you pay .99 or 1.29 or whatever. Give the people some choice and they'll be happy.
Ok, well I guess that answers that. I didn't want to point to it being illegal or not without being 100% (sure it was somewhat obvious that it may not be legal in the US, but how the law applies in the former USSR I was fuzzy on). But more importantly I was also pointing to the business model where you pay a varying fee according to the quality of the download you choose.
I think that's great since you get to choose how much you really like an artist/song based on the quality of the download you choose. If you only mildly like it they you choose crappy 96 kbps and pay
"consumers should be able to download music to have a listen before they buy; perhaps someone needs to form an association similar to the RIAA, but that embraces the concept of worthwhile content that can be used without restriction. Maybe just a recording studio that does it?"
Did you mean something like magnatune?
They have no isue with people downloading their full albums in *high* quality mp3 format so you can make up your mind wether or not its worth buying. Then to boot you get to choose how much you want to pay ($5 minimum). The artist gets HALF of that!
Then there's always allofmp3.com , but you gotta wonder how legitimate they are...