While most middle-class people in the US use direct-deposit and major banks, many lower-income people use check-cashing stores for a couple reasons. Most banks require a social security number to open a checking account, and illegal immigrants often don't have them. Also, most banks will run a background check through CheckSystems to make sure a person opening an account doesn't have a history of bounced checks, so if you've bounced checks in the past it's pretty hard to open an account. And some people just prefer check cashing stores because they are open more hours and are more likely to be located in bad neighborhoods.
It would be interesting to see the number of people who want to buy broadband, but can't, rather than just look at the market penetration of broadband.
My parents have DSL, but only because my brother used to live at home and had it - if he hadn't ordered it, they would still be on dialup. And they would probably be OK with that - my mom uses it for email and looking up recipies, my dad uses it once a year to get tax forms.
I also have to wonder if the fact that many Americans are able to do a considerable amount of web browsing from work has decreased the need for broadband at home.
Well, the article is from the UK, so I'm not sure if the stats are the same for the US.
I've seen Sandisk players a lot lately - usually in ads for Staples/OD/Circuit City with a super-cheap-after-rebate price. My guess is that Sandisk is selling a lot of players, but more because of price than technology.
The article sums up nicely why the business model is to sell them in drugstores and mass merchandisers, not online:
"Nobody ever walked into a store looking to buy my product. It's the ultimate impulse buy."
They are designed as an impulse purchase, something you see while waiting to check out. Think of it as a candy bar, but lower in fat.
Target had a bunch of these in their "Dollar Spot" at the entrance of the store. At one point the stuff in the dollar spot went on clearance at 75% off and you could pick them up for a quarter - if you could find anything you actually wanted.
For a while after we rolled out NT where I work, we debated if we should give users admin rights or not. Our decision was that it was easier just to give them admin rights to their workstations than to have them call in every time they want to install a piece of software. It was basic cost-benefit analysis - the time we would spent reimaging the machines that users screwed up was less than the time we would spend logging in as admin and installing software for users.
There are other reasons as well. like software "pushes" that we do via Novell ZenWorks which need admin rights to install.
The thing to keep in mind is that most of the Blackberries being sold are to companies, and that they are buying them primarily for the email (and possibly cell phone/direct connect) functions, not as PDA's.
The Treo may be a better PDA, but the Blackberry is a great email device. With Enterprise Server it's easy to set up and manage, and it's pretty intuitive to use.
We've started getting some Blackberries at the college where I work, as sort of a pilot program. I recently got a Blackberry 7220 (Nextel) thru work and am pretty happy with it - except for no longer having an excuse to tell my boss that I didn't get her email
Yes, the techies who read slashdot (and other tech news) and who work on computers all day know that Microsoft released a bunch of patches, but I would guess the average user doesn't. I would certainly guess that someone who doesn't know enough not to click on executable attachments in email, and doesn't know that Microsoft doesn't email it's patches to user, would not know that MS released a bunch of patches.
I think Slashdot has overestimated the cunning of the virus author and his timing..
Which begs the question - why is Go!Zilla offering companies the chance to advertise with GoZilla. I mean, if the product isn't adware/spyware, how would you advertise with it?
A huge number of eCommerce companies do at least part of their tech stuff through Ingram Micro, a huge distributor that dropships. I know that Amazon, Staples, Buy.com, Officemax.com, Dell and some other companies use them.
It's easy for me to figure out when I recive an item that it's been sent from Ingram, since the address of their PA facility is on "Micro Drive"
The slashdot blurb gives the impression that Auctions Expert was clicking on other ads to drive up competitors advertising costs. But while that is mentioned in the article by another guy, what Auctions Experts was doing was standard "put google ads on our page, and keep clicking the links so we get paid"
From the article:
Auctions Expert allegedly recruited as many as 50 people to click on online advertising, generating about $50,000 in ad revenue. The self-clicking was "worthless to advertisers, but generated significant and unjust revenue for defendants," the Google lawsuit said.
Auctions Expert, Google claims, appeared to be created solely to profit from manipulating the Internet ad process
I think a large part of the problem with the RIAA lawsuits is that the damages they seek are often way out of proportion to what the person did - someone downloads a couple songs off Kazzaa, leaves them shared, and gets sued for $20,000 when that is far out of line with the actual damages, if any, that their behavior caused.
The RIAA lawsuits for a while were also being filed with warrants where the RIAA didn't actually have to get all the info normally needed in a warrant before proceeding, which was one of the complaints. I think this eventually got shut down. I don't remember the details, and IANAL, but there was a significant legal issue with how the RIAA was suing.
Spam, on the other hand, causes real costs in terms of bandwidth use, sysadmin time, and the cost of antispam software and hardware to block spam.
It also doesn't hurt that the RIAA has a tendancy to pick on 13 year old girls, not antisocial men like Scott Richter.
I don't really have a problem with people giving up their personal info and buying crap they don't need in the hopes of getting a free whatever.
What annoys me is the referral system, which means that people keep needing to get more people to sign up (to support the bottom of the pyrmid). People have trouble finding 5 people or whatver who haven't signed up, so they start spamming message boards, putting in their sigs, ect. Pretty soon they start posting just so their sig gets posted, and message board quality goes down. This is more annoying on sites that don't have moderation like Slashdot.
Are you serious? Video clips every time you make a credit card transaction?
I'm one of those people who uses my credit card for everything (1% cash back, and basically a month-long interest free loan) and I don't want to have to give a speech every time I buy $25 worth of groceries or a tank of gas
Nor do I want to stand in line behind people who are.
If you look at the Truth Laid Bear Ecosystem, which ranks member blogs based on the amount of inbound links from other blogs, you will discover that many of the most popular blogs aren't written by drunk college students, but rather by people in their fields.
Instapundit, the #1 blog, is written by a UTenn law prof. Volokh Conspiracy, #4, is written by a UCLA law prof, with other well-known law professors contributing. #10 Michelle Malkin is a well known (and rather controversial) conservative journalist and author. #22 James Lileks writes columns for Newhouse and the MN Star-Tribune and authored a number of books. They aren't all just drunk college students - they are people with knowledge in their fields and some good writing chops.
Blaster spreads peer to peer on unpatched machines.
I learned this the hard way last year, when I was doing a clean windows install on one of the machines we use at the help desk/ call center where I work. I had installed Windows and was in the process of dowloading SP1 (this was pre-SP2) and got a call from one of our security guys that one of the machines in our subnet was broadcasting Blaster traffic. Checked the IP address and it was the machine I had just set up.
But if you read their press releases and look at the clipart - what Yahoo seem to be doing here is starting at a much more personal scale. It's trying to get you, your mom and your real-life friends all reading and sharing blogs.
I don't want my mom reading my blog. She'll be disturbed by all the porn-related posts.
I'm not sure what you mean by "doesn't let you choose an album to play". You don't have to put it in shuffle mode. You can set up a playlist in iTunes and forward or back to whatever songs you want.
I actually also own a 10-gig old school 'pod - but I use the shuffle around the house or when I'm exersizing, where I want something small and sturdy that I can set and forget. It fills a need that I had - for a small portable device for exersizing. Buying a product that does exactly what I need it to do does not make me an idiot.
I've never understood why people want a radio in their MP3 player. The whole point of having an MP3 player is to have a ton of music that I like on it - and if I have that, why would I want to listen to whatever the radio station decides I want to listen to, complete with static, FCC-required edits, and commercial breaks?
Then again, I don't think I've ever used the radio in my car in the 3+ years I've owned it - I think the presets are still set to the classical music station that the dealer set it to..
One of the greatest viral tools for distributing your digital products.
Wow, I've never seen a spyware maker admit they make a virus before!
I'm guessing this is supposed to be some sort of reference to viral marketing (word of mouth type thing), but you have to be a moron to include the word "viral" when you are describing a software product
Yes, Libertarians believe in the enforcement of contracts. But I would guess most of them would rather see that enforcement take place through civil rather than criminal courts. They would argue that those wronged should sue the company (using the court to enforce the outcome of their lawsuit) rather than criminal penalties from a federal agency.
Sure, Spyware Assasian did nothing, but there are even worse pseudo-anitspyware products out there. The article links to this chart, where PC Mag found spyware removal tools that added additional spyware or did things that aren't real good for Windows, like delete one of the driver folders.
So it looks like there are even shadier companies out there
First of all, I have a problem with banning anything - I think consumers should be able to evaluate if they like rebates or not, and purchase accordingly. I happen to like rebates.
If you are willing to take the time to fill them out and follow up when necessary, rebates can be good. I've gotten over $8,000 in MIR since I started keeping track (the excel spreadsheet is here.
Rebates can be good in a couple ways. First of all, if you stack a rebate with a coupon with a minimum spending limit - ie a $20 off $100 coupon - you get to use the coupon and send for the rebate. Secondly, stores also offer FAR (free after rebate) stuff, and they aren't just going to hand you free stuff - but they will after rebates. Thirdly, sometimes through loopholes you can make out - I recently got paid $45 by Microsoft for buying OneNote - it was $55 from Amazon with a $100 rebate from Microsoft.
Also, if you are having trouble with a rebate, the rebate tracking forum on Fatwallet is a great resource - you can learn which companies are good and bad about paying in a timely manner, and there is a sticky thread with contact info for most major rebate processors.
Why nerds like MC Chris..
on
Ask mc chris
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· Score: 2, Informative
Much of MC Chris music has a geek theme to it, including one named "geek" and another named "ratz" that talks about being a loner/geek at college
His DJ, John, does all the beats and samples from a 12" Apple Powerbook
I actually hadn't heard of him until last month, when one of my friends asked me if I wanted to go to his show at Baltimore's Ottobar (the first stop on his tour). I went, and liked what I heard.
He's not typical gangasta rap. It's sort of rap for thinking people.
One of the major problems with the Napster business model is that they are trying to change the attitudes of people who never have paid for a subscription before. Cell Phones have always required a subscription, and people percieve value in what they pay for (communication whenever, whereever, cheap long distance). Cable/Satellite (and you could probably throw DVR subscriptions for Tivo and RePlayTV in there) and XM have always been subscription-based, and while they supplant free TV and radio, enough people percieve them as superior to be an advantage.
Contrast that with the market for online music. Right now, there are two "business models" - all you can steal, ie Kazza/WinMX/eMule/Torrent) or pay and keep the song (iTunes). If you like being legal, you do the second, if you want to amass a bunch of music without paying for it, you do p2p. With Napster, you get the advantage of getting a lot of songs - but you don't get to keep them. I think that is going to be a hard sell for Napster to overcome, because it combines the worst of both worlds - costs money but doesn't get percieved value in return.
Many banks will credit certain types of checks as soon as they are recieved, and wait for others to clear. My credit union credits business checks (such as payroll checks or rebate checks) the day I deposit them, but waits for personal checks to clear.
Slashdot Mirror
While most middle-class people in the US use direct-deposit and major banks, many lower-income people use check-cashing stores for a couple reasons. Most banks require a social security number to open a checking account, and illegal immigrants often don't have them. Also, most banks will run a background check through CheckSystems to make sure a person opening an account doesn't have a history of bounced checks, so if you've bounced checks in the past it's pretty hard to open an account. And some people just prefer check cashing stores because they are open more hours and are more likely to be located in bad neighborhoods.
It would be interesting to see the number of people who want to buy broadband, but can't, rather than just look at the market penetration of broadband. My parents have DSL, but only because my brother used to live at home and had it - if he hadn't ordered it, they would still be on dialup. And they would probably be OK with that - my mom uses it for email and looking up recipies, my dad uses it once a year to get tax forms. I also have to wonder if the fact that many Americans are able to do a considerable amount of web browsing from work has decreased the need for broadband at home.
Well, the article is from the UK, so I'm not sure if the stats are the same for the US.
I've seen Sandisk players a lot lately - usually in ads for Staples/OD/Circuit City with a super-cheap-after-rebate price. My guess is that Sandisk is selling a lot of players, but more because of price than technology.
The article sums up nicely why the business model is to sell them in drugstores and mass merchandisers, not online:
"Nobody ever walked into a store looking to buy my product. It's the ultimate impulse buy."
They are designed as an impulse purchase, something you see while waiting to check out. Think of it as a candy bar, but lower in fat.
Target had a bunch of these in their "Dollar Spot" at the entrance of the store. At one point the stuff in the dollar spot went on clearance at 75% off and you could pick them up for a quarter - if you could find anything you actually wanted.
For a while after we rolled out NT where I work, we debated if we should give users admin rights or not. Our decision was that it was easier just to give them admin rights to their workstations than to have them call in every time they want to install a piece of software. It was basic cost-benefit analysis - the time we would spent reimaging the machines that users screwed up was less than the time we would spend logging in as admin and installing software for users.
There are other reasons as well. like software "pushes" that we do via Novell ZenWorks which need admin rights to install.
The thing to keep in mind is that most of the Blackberries being sold are to companies, and that they are buying them primarily for the email (and possibly cell phone/direct connect) functions, not as PDA's.
The Treo may be a better PDA, but the Blackberry is a great email device. With Enterprise Server it's easy to set up and manage, and it's pretty intuitive to use.
We've started getting some Blackberries at the college where I work, as sort of a pilot program. I recently got a Blackberry 7220 (Nextel) thru work and am pretty happy with it - except for no longer having an excuse to tell my boss that I didn't get her email
Yes, the techies who read slashdot (and other tech news) and who work on computers all day know that Microsoft released a bunch of patches, but I would guess the average user doesn't. I would certainly guess that someone who doesn't know enough not to click on executable attachments in email, and doesn't know that Microsoft doesn't email it's patches to user, would not know that MS released a bunch of patches.
I think Slashdot has overestimated the cunning of the virus author and his timing..
From the main page, it seems that one of Digital Candle's products is Go!Zilla -an ad blocker and a download manager.
According to the site GoZilla is Ad-Free.
Which begs the question - why is Go!Zilla offering companies the chance to advertise with GoZilla. I mean, if the product isn't adware/spyware, how would you advertise with it?
A huge number of eCommerce companies do at least part of their tech stuff through Ingram Micro, a huge distributor that dropships. I know that Amazon, Staples, Buy.com, Officemax.com, Dell and some other companies use them.
It's easy for me to figure out when I recive an item that it's been sent from Ingram, since the address of their PA facility is on "Micro Drive"
The slashdot blurb gives the impression that Auctions Expert was clicking on other ads to drive up competitors advertising costs. But while that is mentioned in the article by another guy, what Auctions Experts was doing was standard "put google ads on our page, and keep clicking the links so we get paid"
From the article:
Auctions Expert allegedly recruited as many as 50 people to click on online advertising, generating about $50,000 in ad revenue. The self-clicking was "worthless to advertisers, but generated significant and unjust revenue for defendants," the Google lawsuit said. Auctions Expert, Google claims, appeared to be created solely to profit from manipulating the Internet ad process
I think a large part of the problem with the RIAA lawsuits is that the damages they seek are often way out of proportion to what the person did - someone downloads a couple songs off Kazzaa, leaves them shared, and gets sued for $20,000 when that is far out of line with the actual damages, if any, that their behavior caused.
The RIAA lawsuits for a while were also being filed with warrants where the RIAA didn't actually have to get all the info normally needed in a warrant before proceeding, which was one of the complaints. I think this eventually got shut down. I don't remember the details, and IANAL, but there was a significant legal issue with how the RIAA was suing.
Spam, on the other hand, causes real costs in terms of bandwidth use, sysadmin time, and the cost of antispam software and hardware to block spam.
It also doesn't hurt that the RIAA has a tendancy to pick on 13 year old girls, not antisocial men like Scott Richter.
I don't really have a problem with people giving up their personal info and buying crap they don't need in the hopes of getting a free whatever.
What annoys me is the referral system, which means that people keep needing to get more people to sign up (to support the bottom of the pyrmid). People have trouble finding 5 people or whatver who haven't signed up, so they start spamming message boards, putting in their sigs, ect. Pretty soon they start posting just so their sig gets posted, and message board quality goes down. This is more annoying on sites that don't have moderation like Slashdot.
My signiture was created in response to this.
Are you serious? Video clips every time you make a credit card transaction?
I'm one of those people who uses my credit card for everything (1% cash back, and basically a month-long interest free loan) and I don't want to have to give a speech every time I buy $25 worth of groceries or a tank of gas
Nor do I want to stand in line behind people who are.
If you look at the Truth Laid Bear Ecosystem, which ranks member blogs based on the amount of inbound links from other blogs, you will discover that many of the most popular blogs aren't written by drunk college students, but rather by people in their fields.
Instapundit, the #1 blog, is written by a UTenn law prof. Volokh Conspiracy, #4, is written by a UCLA law prof, with other well-known law professors contributing. #10 Michelle Malkin is a well known (and rather controversial) conservative journalist and author. #22 James Lileks writes columns for Newhouse and the MN Star-Tribune and authored a number of books. They aren't all just drunk college students - they are people with knowledge in their fields and some good writing chops.
Blaster spreads peer to peer on unpatched machines.
I learned this the hard way last year, when I was doing a clean windows install on one of the machines we use at the help desk/ call center where I work. I had installed Windows and was in the process of dowloading SP1 (this was pre-SP2) and got a call from one of our security guys that one of the machines in our subnet was broadcasting Blaster traffic. Checked the IP address and it was the machine I had just set up.
I felt pretty stupid after that.
But if you read their press releases and look at the clipart - what Yahoo seem to be doing here is starting at a much more personal scale. It's trying to get you, your mom and your real-life friends all reading and sharing blogs.
I don't want my mom reading my blog. She'll be disturbed by all the porn-related posts.
I'm not sure what you mean by "doesn't let you choose an album to play". You don't have to put it in shuffle mode. You can set up a playlist in iTunes and forward or back to whatever songs you want.
I actually also own a 10-gig old school 'pod - but I use the shuffle around the house or when I'm exersizing, where I want something small and sturdy that I can set and forget. It fills a need that I had - for a small portable device for exersizing. Buying a product that does exactly what I need it to do does not make me an idiot.
I've never understood why people want a radio in their MP3 player. The whole point of having an MP3 player is to have a ton of music that I like on it - and if I have that, why would I want to listen to whatever the radio station decides I want to listen to, complete with static, FCC-required edits, and commercial breaks?
Then again, I don't think I've ever used the radio in my car in the 3+ years I've owned it - I think the presets are still set to the classical music station that the dealer set it to..
One of the greatest viral tools for distributing your digital products.
Wow, I've never seen a spyware maker admit they make a virus before!
I'm guessing this is supposed to be some sort of reference to viral marketing (word of mouth type thing), but you have to be a moron to include the word "viral" when you are describing a software product
Yes, Libertarians believe in the enforcement of contracts. But I would guess most of them would rather see that enforcement take place through civil rather than criminal courts. They would argue that those wronged should sue the company (using the court to enforce the outcome of their lawsuit) rather than criminal penalties from a federal agency.
Sure, Spyware Assasian did nothing, but there are even worse pseudo-anitspyware products out there. The article links to this chart, where PC Mag found spyware removal tools that added additional spyware or did things that aren't real good for Windows, like delete one of the driver folders.
So it looks like there are even shadier companies out there
First of all, I have a problem with banning anything - I think consumers should be able to evaluate if they like rebates or not, and purchase accordingly. I happen to like rebates.
If you are willing to take the time to fill them out and follow up when necessary, rebates can be good. I've gotten over $8,000 in MIR since I started keeping track (the excel spreadsheet is here.
Rebates can be good in a couple ways. First of all, if you stack a rebate with a coupon with a minimum spending limit - ie a $20 off $100 coupon - you get to use the coupon and send for the rebate. Secondly, stores also offer FAR (free after rebate) stuff, and they aren't just going to hand you free stuff - but they will after rebates. Thirdly, sometimes through loopholes you can make out - I recently got paid $45 by Microsoft for buying OneNote - it was $55 from Amazon with a $100 rebate from Microsoft.
Also, if you are having trouble with a rebate, the rebate tracking forum on Fatwallet is a great resource - you can learn which companies are good and bad about paying in a timely manner, and there is a sticky thread with contact info for most major rebate processors.
Much of MC Chris music has a geek theme to it, including one named "geek" and another named "ratz" that talks about being a loner/geek at college
His DJ, John, does all the beats and samples from a 12" Apple Powerbook
I actually hadn't heard of him until last month, when one of my friends asked me if I wanted to go to his show at Baltimore's Ottobar (the first stop on his tour). I went, and liked what I heard.
He's not typical gangasta rap. It's sort of rap for thinking people.
One of the major problems with the Napster business model is that they are trying to change the attitudes of people who never have paid for a subscription before. Cell Phones have always required a subscription, and people percieve value in what they pay for (communication whenever, whereever, cheap long distance). Cable/Satellite (and you could probably throw DVR subscriptions for Tivo and RePlayTV in there) and XM have always been subscription-based, and while they supplant free TV and radio, enough people percieve them as superior to be an advantage.
Contrast that with the market for online music. Right now, there are two "business models" - all you can steal, ie Kazza/WinMX/eMule/Torrent) or pay and keep the song (iTunes). If you like being legal, you do the second, if you want to amass a bunch of music without paying for it, you do p2p. With Napster, you get the advantage of getting a lot of songs - but you don't get to keep them. I think that is going to be a hard sell for Napster to overcome, because it combines the worst of both worlds - costs money but doesn't get percieved value in return.
Many banks will credit certain types of checks as soon as they are recieved, and wait for others to clear. My credit union credits business checks (such as payroll checks or rebate checks) the day I deposit them, but waits for personal checks to clear.