I think the goal was to see how much spyware an inexperienced user can get from one site. To be fair, an inexperienced user would probably click "yes" to running scripts on a page after errors. They want their site to appear.
I agree; it's not scientific.
I would love to see a controlled scientific version.
I reloaded my machine due to a corrupt registry. I didn't feel like downloading the 5-disk or whatever set from M$ to repair it. I just reloaded because it was time anyway. I've been seeing random reboots (which are still happening despite my best troubleshooting; it's too infrequent and random to pinpoint).
After reloading, I was called away to do something else important and didn't get a chance to get anything really set up. It's an RTM Corp XP copy, fresh install with AIM and Yahell Messenger only. As I said before, I had to walk away to do something else and didn't get back to the machine until later.
My ex-girlfriend and I are talking and things are going very well between us. We are in the process of talking about getting back together and all of the things surrounding that. We had a really good talk after spending some quality time shopping, seeing a movie, and eating. We talked in the parking lot of the mall and agreed to talk again as soon as she got back where she's staying and I got back to my place.
I got online at my place and there she was. She told me that she was crying in the car on the way back to where she's staying because of a song she heard.
She sent a link to the lyrics over Yahell and I clicked it. Obviously, it opened in Internet Exploder on an RTM copy of XP with no updates and no protection.
The site came up with the lyrics, but I was rudely interrupted, as I began to read them, by a pop-up window asking if I wanted to try the latest in malware protection. I cliked the "no" button and the window disappeared. It came back a few short moments later... same thing. I clicked "no" and it went away.
Well, we did this little song and dance for about 5 iterations before that window decided to stop popping up. A few seconds later, a different window popped up and (we've all seen this bullshit) it said "You've been infected! Click OK to remove the offender and try out X protection suite!"
I didn't click Yes or No. I clicked the X in the upper-right corner to close the popup.
Open floodgates, she's gonna burst!!!
Icons started popping up in my system tray. My hard drive went nuts. The machine slowed to a crawl, and even the mouse refused to move at times. After about a minute of this, the machine settled down and I started getting popups. Some were ads, others were repeats of the "you've been infected" message. Yeah, you infected me. Of course I'm infected. I'm not going to purchase anything from you as the solution. Heh.
Anyway, I fought the popups for a minute and realized that my machine was not going to be of much use for the time being. I moved to the phone with my sweetie, and returned afterwards to clean up the mess and get the machine back in working order before I went to bed.
I installed Ad-aware SE and updated it. On the first run, 611 count spyware objects.
ONE WEBSITE. The first website I visited, nonetheless.
Since then, I've obviously installed all of the necessary protection and installed Firefox.. but it just goes to show that even a very experienced spyware detection and removal expert can get nailed to that extent by ONE freaking web site.
I went into work the next day and told everyone that our customers are not, in fact, as inept and stupid as we think they are. I never clicked "yes" or "ok" or allowed anything into my machine expressly. I operated in a manner to the contrary. I still got nailed with 611 objects from ONE website.
I would provide the link to the site in question, but I don't have it anymore.
Working at a tech shop, I get to work with it day in and day out.
Security center is a bitch. It complains about things when there is no problem, and does not complain when there is.
SP2 causes wireless devices to not be able to scan for wireless networks, and sometimes to connect but not send any packets. Uninstalling and reinstalling the driver for the wireless NIC in device manager fixes the problem sometimes, not others.
Firewall blocks things it shouldn't and allows things it shouldn't. It asks questions when it doesn't matter and fails to do anything when it does. At least it blocks 135-138... sometimes.:)
The biggest problem from a tech shop point of view is the fact that it offers an uninstall function, but every single time an uninstall has been attempted, the rollback has been disastrous. The system usually has weird quirks (one in particular had file properties boxes that would extend far off the display; it would probably be a few hundred feet if you measures it physically). Other weird quirks include missing DLLs, random reboots and/or BSODs, text and/or controls disappearing from dialogs and windows.... I could go on but it's too early in the morning right now.
It's not worth it unless the computer is a new build. If it's a new build, some of the problems like Security Center and firewall sucking still exist... but as long as you know about it...:)
...there still exist such things as hunger, disease, and others that would benefit from scientific research time. Why are we concerned with falling paper?
...why a bunch of white people were moving there all of a sudden, and why the author or report was so forwardly racist. Then I actually read the article.
In the latest GDI+ update for Windows XP (non-sp2), if you read the EULA that appears, you have to agree not to disclose the results of any system benchmarks without the prior written permission of Microsoft.
I still maintain that suing your customers, whether your are the RIAA or SCO, can have a chilling effect on sales.
...which will lower their revenue further... which will make them find a scapegoat... which will target more technologies... which will prompt the creation of new technologies... which will prmopt more lawsuits.....
You see where this is going.
Also, wouldn't suing your customers piss them off, making them switch to alternate providers, further lowering sales, prompting you to sue more people in a desperate attempt to preserve your business model, causing them to stop purchasing from you (resume loop)?
I'd love to be in the room when the "brains" behind the RIAA finally say "screw it - we lost."
hmm... I don't know what you were looking at, but most of their stuff has higher-end hardware than that. Durons aren't an option as far as I know. I think they refuse to sell them unless you really demand them.
How about working for a small company that treats its customers right, as well as its employees?
How about a small company where if you have a problem, you go right to the boss man himself (the OWNER) and talk to him about it?
How about a company where they care just as much about keeping quality employees around in-house (not offshore) as keeping customers happy by treating them like they actually matter, not like a line item on a budgeting sheet?
Yeah. One of the main focuses is customer retention because when their piece of crap Dell breaks, they want that customer coming back to Dell for the replacement.
I don't know about anyone else, but when I buy something for a lot of money and it conveniently breaks right after the warranty expires, I don't go back to that same company and prostrate myself before them, begging for another piece of crap.
Seriously.. check out JS Custom PCs (www.jscustompcs.com) - they have a very nice line of products. They're all manufactured in-house (and yay, there's in-house support, too). The owners of the company and the actual techs that build your machines handle the support calls. It's a pretty amszing little company:)
Actually, something you also should point out is that by outsourcing their support, they're hoping you get frustrated while trying to get service from their support center, prompting you to take your computer somewhere else for service.
By doing that, they have:
1. Saved money by having Indians perform the support calls.
2. Saved money by getting you to stop calling.
3. Saved money by not having to employ as many people to take in, look at, repair, and ship warranty service machines around.
4. Pissed you off enough that you've taken your computer somewhere else for service, VOIDING THE WARRANTY... DING DING DING.
It's sad that there are so many companies out there that have the "Screw as many customers as you can as quickly as you can and run with the money" business model, and not more with the "Treat your customers right and make a small profit in order to compete. Give them such a high-qiality product that they come back and refer all of their friends and family" one.
These freaking companies are so focused on making the money NOW NOW NOW that they can's sit back and wait for the profits to start rushing in. It will happen if you remain focused on the right things.
A good example of the latter business model is JS Custom PCs (www.jscustompcs.com) in Cincinnati. They take care of their customers, and build high-quality products with three-year warranties on everything. In addition, if you do have warranty issues and you're not local to them, they PAY SHIPPING back to them and PAY SHIPPING back to you. They also service the machine for free, including parts. This is all for three years. They can do that because they use all hardware with three-year warranties. That says something about the quality of the product, too.
They're growing slowly, but they're really starting to become popular. I'm REALLY glad I found them. That's why I tell everyone about 'em - cuz they're the type of company that Dell/HPaq aren't.
Actually, it's not so you can't compare. It's so they can get the printer off the market and make sure it stays off the market.
They want you to send them your old cartridges for "recycling", too, but what they don't tell you is that it's really all shipped overseas to be burned or simply dumped.
They don't want people refilling cartridges, and they don't want people buying used printers, especially not ones that are more efficient at using ink. You're semi-on-the-money there.
They do pretty well. They build their own line of computers (Journey Systems). They aren't going out of business. I'm glad I found them.
Re:I've seen it first hand.
on
Dell CEO Tells All
·
· Score: 3, Informative
You're lookin' at the comment of someone who was laid off my HPAQ/HPQ/HP/Compaq/what-the-fuck-ever.
To sit there and listen to the propaganda campaigns at work.... we're focused on innovation... we have the brightest people.... blah blah blah. Then, to see the innovative, bright, industrious people Carly was praising escorted out of the building because someone else could do it in India for 1/10 the cost.......
HAHA. I had to laugh because a friend of mine was beating on her HP calculator yesterday because the display is going out. You can to beat on it to make the contacts meet. Can't be fixed, either; I've tried.
I've had similar experiences with (actually) both HP and Dell. I found JS Custom PCs (www.jscustompcs.com) and was quite pleased. You still get personal service, but the offerings are wonderful. You can get anything from a low-end cheap workstation all the way up to a dual Opteron w/ 16G memory. 3-year warranty on everything. They do laptops, too. They don't resell; they custom-build every single machine.
I think he just got done saying that his C-corp had no income. Why should a company with no income pay taxes?
I'm thinking about my company right now. It's a partnership and I'm not an owner... but they'll be paying taxes 3/4 of the way through this year for last year. They didn't make a whole lot of money and what they did make was used to buy parts for new business. There's no profit there. Why are they suffering through taxation right now when they failed to turn a measurable profit?
Slashdot Mirror
I think the goal was to see how much spyware an inexperienced user can get from one site. To be fair, an inexperienced user would probably click "yes" to running scripts on a page after errors. They want their site to appear.
I agree; it's not scientific.
I would love to see a controlled scientific version.
I reloaded my machine due to a corrupt registry. I didn't feel like downloading the 5-disk or whatever set from M$ to repair it. I just reloaded because it was time anyway. I've been seeing random reboots (which are still happening despite my best troubleshooting; it's too infrequent and random to pinpoint).
After reloading, I was called away to do something else important and didn't get a chance to get anything really set up. It's an RTM Corp XP copy, fresh install with AIM and Yahell Messenger only. As I said before, I had to walk away to do something else and didn't get back to the machine until later.
My ex-girlfriend and I are talking and things are going very well between us. We are in the process of talking about getting back together and all of the things surrounding that. We had a really good talk after spending some quality time shopping, seeing a movie, and eating. We talked in the parking lot of the mall and agreed to talk again as soon as she got back where she's staying and I got back to my place.
I got online at my place and there she was. She told me that she was crying in the car on the way back to where she's staying because of a song she heard.
She sent a link to the lyrics over Yahell and I clicked it. Obviously, it opened in Internet Exploder on an RTM copy of XP with no updates and no protection.
The site came up with the lyrics, but I was rudely interrupted, as I began to read them, by a pop-up window asking if I wanted to try the latest in malware protection. I cliked the "no" button and the window disappeared. It came back a few short moments later... same thing. I clicked "no" and it went away.
Well, we did this little song and dance for about 5 iterations before that window decided to stop popping up. A few seconds later, a different window popped up and (we've all seen this bullshit) it said "You've been infected! Click OK to remove the offender and try out X protection suite!"
I didn't click Yes or No. I clicked the X in the upper-right corner to close the popup.
Open floodgates, she's gonna burst!!!
Icons started popping up in my system tray. My hard drive went nuts. The machine slowed to a crawl, and even the mouse refused to move at times. After about a minute of this, the machine settled down and I started getting popups. Some were ads, others were repeats of the "you've been infected" message. Yeah, you infected me. Of course I'm infected. I'm not going to purchase anything from you as the solution. Heh.
Anyway, I fought the popups for a minute and realized that my machine was not going to be of much use for the time being. I moved to the phone with my sweetie, and returned afterwards to clean up the mess and get the machine back in working order before I went to bed.
I installed Ad-aware SE and updated it. On the first run, 611 count spyware objects.
ONE WEBSITE. The first website I visited, nonetheless.
Since then, I've obviously installed all of the necessary protection and installed Firefox.. but it just goes to show that even a very experienced spyware detection and removal expert can get nailed to that extent by ONE freaking web site.
I went into work the next day and told everyone that our customers are not, in fact, as inept and stupid as we think they are. I never clicked "yes" or "ok" or allowed anything into my machine expressly. I operated in a manner to the contrary. I still got nailed with 611 objects from ONE website.
I would provide the link to the site in question, but I don't have it anymore.
Working at a tech shop, I get to work with it day in and day out.
:)
:)
Security center is a bitch. It complains about things when there is no problem, and does not complain when there is.
SP2 causes wireless devices to not be able to scan for wireless networks, and sometimes to connect but not send any packets. Uninstalling and reinstalling the driver for the wireless NIC in device manager fixes the problem sometimes, not others.
Firewall blocks things it shouldn't and allows things it shouldn't. It asks questions when it doesn't matter and fails to do anything when it does. At least it blocks 135-138... sometimes.
The biggest problem from a tech shop point of view is the fact that it offers an uninstall function, but every single time an uninstall has been attempted, the rollback has been disastrous. The system usually has weird quirks (one in particular had file properties boxes that would extend far off the display; it would probably be a few hundred feet if you measures it physically). Other weird quirks include missing DLLs, random reboots and/or BSODs, text and/or controls disappearing from dialogs and windows.... I could go on but it's too early in the morning right now.
It's not worth it unless the computer is a new build. If it's a new build, some of the problems like Security Center and firewall sucking still exist... but as long as you know about it...
...there still exist such things as hunger, disease, and others that would benefit from scientific research time. Why are we concerned with falling paper?
We were outsourced LONG ago. We still exist only because some people didn't get the memo yet.
...why a bunch of white people were moving there all of a sudden, and why the author or report was so forwardly racist.
Then I actually read the article.
The sky is BLUE!
I can hardly believe this new information. It changes EVERYTHING.
In the latest GDI+ update for Windows XP (non-sp2), if you read the EULA that appears, you have to agree not to disclose the results of any system benchmarks without the prior written permission of Microsoft.
Form your own conclusions on that one.
Don't get me wrong; I totally agree with you on that point. It has to happen SOME day.
I still maintain that suing your customers, whether your are the RIAA or SCO, can have a chilling effect on sales.
...which will lower their revenue further... which will make them find a scapegoat... which will target more technologies... which will prompt the creation of new technologies... which will prmopt more lawsuits.....
You see where this is going.
Also, wouldn't suing your customers piss them off, making them switch to alternate providers, further lowering sales, prompting you to sue more people in a desperate attempt to preserve your business model, causing them to stop purchasing from you (resume loop)?
I'd love to be in the room when the "brains" behind the RIAA finally say "screw it - we lost."
I think the question is answered before it is asked, and is completely self-evident.
Yes, passwords will become a thing of the past - in the future. Until that happens, I think we needn't worry, panic, and speculate.
hmm... I don't know what you were looking at, but most of their stuff has higher-end hardware than that. Durons aren't an option as far as I know. I think they refuse to sell them unless you really demand them.
No, actually they didn't. They sent more support to India.
Why are you defending them?
Of those 1,600 employees, a good portion of them have families to contribute to.
How about working for a small company that treats its customers right, as well as its employees?
How about a small company where if you have a problem, you go right to the boss man himself (the OWNER) and talk to him about it?
How about a company where they care just as much about keeping quality employees around in-house (not offshore) as keeping customers happy by treating them like they actually matter, not like a line item on a budgeting sheet?
Yeah. One of the main focuses is customer retention because when their piece of crap Dell breaks, they want that customer coming back to Dell for the replacement.
I don't know about anyone else, but when I buy something for a lot of money and it conveniently breaks right after the warranty expires, I don't go back to that same company and prostrate myself before them, begging for another piece of crap.
I go somewhere else.
www.jscustompcs.com - that's quality, dude.
Seriously.. check out JS Custom PCs (www.jscustompcs.com) - they have a very nice line of products. They're all manufactured in-house (and yay, there's in-house support, too). The owners of the company and the actual techs that build your machines handle the support calls. It's a pretty amszing little company :)
SOMEONE works for Dell.
If you don't, you're in the VAST minority. There are very few satisfied Dell customers, dude.(tm)
Actually, something you also should point out is that by outsourcing their support, they're hoping you get frustrated while trying to get service from their support center, prompting you to take your computer somewhere else for service.
By doing that, they have:
1. Saved money by having Indians perform the support calls.
2. Saved money by getting you to stop calling.
3. Saved money by not having to employ as many people to take in, look at, repair, and ship warranty service machines around.
4. Pissed you off enough that you've taken your computer somewhere else for service, VOIDING THE WARRANTY... DING DING DING.
It's sad that there are so many companies out there that have the "Screw as many customers as you can as quickly as you can and run with the money" business model, and not more with the "Treat your customers right and make a small profit in order to compete. Give them such a high-qiality product that they come back and refer all of their friends and family" one.
These freaking companies are so focused on making the money NOW NOW NOW that they can's sit back and wait for the profits to start rushing in. It will happen if you remain focused on the right things.
A good example of the latter business model is JS Custom PCs (www.jscustompcs.com) in Cincinnati. They take care of their customers, and build high-quality products with three-year warranties on everything. In addition, if you do have warranty issues and you're not local to them, they PAY SHIPPING back to them and PAY SHIPPING back to you. They also service the machine for free, including parts. This is all for three years. They can do that because they use all hardware with three-year warranties. That says something about the quality of the product, too.
They're growing slowly, but they're really starting to become popular. I'm REALLY glad I found them. That's why I tell everyone about 'em - cuz they're the type of company that Dell/HPaq aren't.
http://eces.org/articles/000320.php
Actually, it's not so you can't compare. It's so they can get the printer off the market and make sure it stays off the market.
They want you to send them your old cartridges for "recycling", too, but what they don't tell you is that it's really all shipped overseas to be burned or simply dumped.
They don't want people refilling cartridges, and they don't want people buying used printers, especially not ones that are more efficient at using ink. You're semi-on-the-money there.
http://www.jscustompcs.com/
They do pretty well. They build their own line of computers (Journey Systems). They aren't going out of business. I'm glad I found them.
You're lookin' at the comment of someone who was laid off my HPAQ/HPQ/HP/Compaq/what-the-fuck-ever.
To sit there and listen to the propaganda campaigns at work.... we're focused on innovation... we have the brightest people.... blah blah blah. Then, to see the innovative, bright, industrious people Carly was praising escorted out of the building because someone else could do it in India for 1/10 the cost.......
It still infuriates me. I have no words.
Advertising spending.
Bullshit campaigns.
Stupid CIO/CEO/CTOs.
$MOOLA$.
I could go on.
HAHA. I had to laugh because a friend of mine was beating on her HP calculator yesterday because the display is going out. You can to beat on it to make the contacts meet. Can't be fixed, either; I've tried.
I've had similar experiences with (actually) both HP and Dell. I found JS Custom PCs (www.jscustompcs.com) and was quite pleased. You still get personal service, but the offerings are wonderful. You can get anything from a low-end cheap workstation all the way up to a dual Opteron w/ 16G memory. 3-year warranty on everything. They do laptops, too. They don't resell; they custom-build every single machine.
Pretty cool little company.
I think he just got done saying that his C-corp had no income. Why should a company with no income pay taxes?
I'm thinking about my company right now. It's a partnership and I'm not an owner... but they'll be paying taxes 3/4 of the way through this year for last year. They didn't make a whole lot of money and what they did make was used to buy parts for new business. There's no profit there. Why are they suffering through taxation right now when they failed to turn a measurable profit?
I don't understand the logic here at all.