One of the random TV news stories I saw, mentioned that the breach spread to Westpac too. Since it was a merchant that had the breach, I would expect most CC providers to be affected to some degree.
I use the chrome URL/Search bar, and the Home Page in place of bookmarks and I like that very very much. Bookmarks are fine, except that I'm lazy and they just get into a big mess where I can't find anything. Most places I visit have an easy to remember URL and if something I visit often is hard to get to via the URL bar (I'm talking about you IBM!) I just bookmark it or plain old wait for it to turn up on the Home Page and pin it. I'm fine for change if it can improve things, but right now I enjoy having fast access to the things I want with just a bit of speed typing in a dialog box rather than scanning through lists of bookmarks.
Yes I made the same mistake with Snow Crash. Read it years after it came out and it just didn't age well at all. If you want to read a good book that focus's on language having power read Spellwright http://www.amazon.com/Spellwright-Blake-Charlton/dp/0765317273
Oh you must live in the US, from my point of view Amazon is cheap and convenient, and not because I live in Australia, its because I have an iPad and a now a operable Apple Bookstore. Apple Bookstore books are expensive. They have been regionalised to AUS prices. Since we have been getting ripped off for decades due to government regulation (which is now biting Australian publishers big time, which frankly they deserve) the Apple Bookstore is comparatively expensive compared to Amazon. Oh the Apple eBooks are cheaper than the Australian paper books (when you ignore the discounts you can get at Target and KMart if they happen to stock it) but they are expensive compared to Amazon.
Its like international distributors are living in some sort of punish the Australian consumer vortex. We have a strong dollar so imports should be cheaper but they basically gouge us on prices and expect us to pay up. But I don't pay up, I just get the overseas item at a cheaper rate and save up big. I got an iPad as an eReader just so I didn't have to get locked into a regionalised market on eBooks, or locked into any one store either.
Yeah I went HD recorder shopping with my dad and had a salesperson trying to fob off a $150 AUS cable as the better choice because it would offer better 'quality' and less degradation in sound ans picture. So I point blank told him that was patently ridiculous, and I very loudly explained to my dad how it was complete crap, since the cable wasn't being run down the back of a microwave oven or any other sources of major radiation, how the $10 cable from Tandy's would be just fine. The salesman didn't look happy but he deserved it, for lying to our faces.
Yes I'm in Aus too, and what I want is some basic customer service. I have not received a single direct communication from Sony explaining that my data has been compromised and that my credit card data may of been exposed. I noticed that PSN went down without any explanation, thats fine, but it was days later that I had to read on news websites that PSN had been hacked, and days later still that I could potentially be at risk, still with not a single official notification from Sony.
Sure they put up notices on their website and their blog, but well I just don't bother reading them because I get weekly 'Whats new on PSN' emails from them that have the same stuff. Except that the weekly emails stopped, I guess their email servers were on the PSN as well... They don't seem to get what good customer service is. But as I cancelled my Credit Card, I made a point for my CC provider to record that it was Sony's PSN hack that was the cause for my cancellation and re-issuing of the card.
Well you could of used Starcraft as an example. Blizz patched it for operating systems that didn't even exist when it was written. Say what you want about Starcraft II but blizzard does offer good game support for its legacy titles. Despite all its legal wrangles with people wanting to run their own servers:)
And this proposed legislation is a reaction to all the abuses that have happened in the past. It was inevitable.
What I would like to see however is a value is placed upon peoples information. If people are using it to make money off of you then perhaps there should be some compensation to those whose information is being used. Something a little more concrete then a 1 in 5 million chance of winning an iPad. Of course, the information should be scrubbed of personally identifiable data. There are websites that do this sort of thing already, but something a bit more formal. Im sure there would be drawbacks, but something has to be done about the wild west we currently live in.
A technology somewhat like this was used in Caprica. You can then get to thinking about the dynamic newspapers in Minority Report and the uses that such technologies could be put to. Its at least worth a try.
Wasn't the spaghetti monster going to destroy everything? I must admit, I have trouble keeping track of all the important religious events in our lives...
No EFTPOS is not like Debit Cards. We have Debit Cards as well, and I wouldn't go near them with a 50 foot pole and a pack of ninja's. They can suffer fraud just like credit/debit cards but it is technically harder to do so, but as so many recent news stories have shown far from impossible. Basically it involves swiping the card to duplicate it and getting a camera, eyeballs or fake/compromised keypad onto its PIN number. There have been fake EFTPOS readers to look like the real ones that duplicate cards and PINs, dongles attached to ATMs to do the theft and all sorts of things.
They are however very convenient as long as you get a good fee free deal on them and of course do the right thing to reduce your liability while using them and due diligence on where you use them, not that that will give you 100% protection.
Yes it is nice to get someone that has an open mind as to what the problems with TV are. I like watching TV shows, however I don't watch many anymore. I don't like shows coming out 6 months to a year later, I don't like time slots being moved around so much that its hard to record them without a Tivo-esque device (or with the 5 - 10 minute schedule drift many of the major channels employ). I don't like ads that blast the room with sound when they employ their volume shifting bastardry.
What I like is watching the shows when I want to watch them, scheduling them into my life rather than having to schedule my life around them. What all content providers have to get their head around is that these technologies are empowering users to live a social and interactive life their way and if you don't want to keep up with that or embrace it then there is going to be problems.
I played a demo model just before launch and it is a big step up from the DS in terms of eye candy. What i didn't like was the 2 screens being different sizes (what ever happened to split screen games that I enjoy like Metroid Pinball?) the price tag and the battery life.
This is a second gen purchase at best for me (remember the first gen DS? ugh). I don't need another Zelda - Ocarina of Time re-run (despite it being the best Zelda game I've played). Street Fighter was great on the 3DS, Resident Evil looked great, but was as boring as it comes and the other games I played I just went meh.
I remember when Steam was in beta. They deployed Half Life and all of its expansions et all and I got to play them all for free. This was very fine as I had never got around to playing them before. Thats what won me over to Steam and I never even considered looking at another digital distribution system for games for PC and Mac.
They warned there might be a bunch of bugs et all, but they all played great with only a few minor problems that didn't affect me much.
I logged into that to have a look and it took about 30 seconds before I had some fed pretending to be a teenage girl to start cracking onto me. I logged out and deleted it and never looked back.
I was wondering why it has been taking so long to log into PSN the last little while. The amusing thing was getting a message saying something of the like "It's taking a long time to log in, check your internet connection".
When it comes to showing off tablet products in a store to potential buyers the iPad so outpaces the competition its not surprising that Android tablets are lagging behind. Lets look at the marketing.
I went to JB Hi Fi, they have Apple and Android tablets. Going over to the Apple table you get to play with a whole bunch of fun apps that wow and entertain, all surrounded by the Apple style of clean crisp advertising. I went over to the Android tablets which were in a nice boring section where you wouldn't even know where there unless you were looking for them and I clicked on 15 different icons and could get absolutely nothing to work except a nice error message in a browser saying it couldn't connect to the web.
With this happening in stores it isn't surprising what the results are.
I certainly do not think that this style of devices is a fad as the way people are accessing their information is evolving. I wanted eBooks on a useful device and I chose an iPad because i could get eBooks and do a whole lot more. I like this portable style of computing in a size factor where you don't have a small phone sized screen.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the random TV news stories I saw, mentioned that the breach spread to Westpac too. Since it was a merchant that had the breach, I would expect most CC providers to be affected to some degree.
I use the chrome URL/Search bar, and the Home Page in place of bookmarks and I like that very very much. Bookmarks are fine, except that I'm lazy and they just get into a big mess where I can't find anything. Most places I visit have an easy to remember URL and if something I visit often is hard to get to via the URL bar (I'm talking about you IBM!) I just bookmark it or plain old wait for it to turn up on the Home Page and pin it. I'm fine for change if it can improve things, but right now I enjoy having fast access to the things I want with just a bit of speed typing in a dialog box rather than scanning through lists of bookmarks.
Yes I made the same mistake with Snow Crash. Read it years after it came out and it just didn't age well at all. If you want to read a good book that focus's on language having power read Spellwright http://www.amazon.com/Spellwright-Blake-Charlton/dp/0765317273
Oh you must live in the US, from my point of view Amazon is cheap and convenient, and not because I live in Australia, its because I have an iPad and a now a operable Apple Bookstore. Apple Bookstore books are expensive. They have been regionalised to AUS prices. Since we have been getting ripped off for decades due to government regulation (which is now biting Australian publishers big time, which frankly they deserve) the Apple Bookstore is comparatively expensive compared to Amazon. Oh the Apple eBooks are cheaper than the Australian paper books (when you ignore the discounts you can get at Target and KMart if they happen to stock it) but they are expensive compared to Amazon.
Its like international distributors are living in some sort of punish the Australian consumer vortex. We have a strong dollar so imports should be cheaper but they basically gouge us on prices and expect us to pay up. But I don't pay up, I just get the overseas item at a cheaper rate and save up big. I got an iPad as an eReader just so I didn't have to get locked into a regionalised market on eBooks, or locked into any one store either.
Yeah I went HD recorder shopping with my dad and had a salesperson trying to fob off a $150 AUS cable as the better choice because it would offer better 'quality' and less degradation in sound ans picture. So I point blank told him that was patently ridiculous, and I very loudly explained to my dad how it was complete crap, since the cable wasn't being run down the back of a microwave oven or any other sources of major radiation, how the $10 cable from Tandy's would be just fine. The salesman didn't look happy but he deserved it, for lying to our faces.
Yes I'm in Aus too, and what I want is some basic customer service. I have not received a single direct communication from Sony explaining that my data has been compromised and that my credit card data may of been exposed. I noticed that PSN went down without any explanation, thats fine, but it was days later that I had to read on news websites that PSN had been hacked, and days later still that I could potentially be at risk, still with not a single official notification from Sony.
Sure they put up notices on their website and their blog, but well I just don't bother reading them because I get weekly 'Whats new on PSN' emails from them that have the same stuff. Except that the weekly emails stopped, I guess their email servers were on the PSN as well... They don't seem to get what good customer service is. But as I cancelled my Credit Card, I made a point for my CC provider to record that it was Sony's PSN hack that was the cause for my cancellation and re-issuing of the card.
Well you could of used Starcraft as an example. Blizz patched it for operating systems that didn't even exist when it was written. Say what you want about Starcraft II but blizzard does offer good game support for its legacy titles. Despite all its legal wrangles with people wanting to run their own servers :)
And this proposed legislation is a reaction to all the abuses that have happened in the past. It was inevitable.
What I would like to see however is a value is placed upon peoples information. If people are using it to make money off of you then perhaps there should be some compensation to those whose information is being used. Something a little more concrete then a 1 in 5 million chance of winning an iPad. Of course, the information should be scrubbed of personally identifiable data. There are websites that do this sort of thing already, but something a bit more formal. Im sure there would be drawbacks, but something has to be done about the wild west we currently live in.
A technology somewhat like this was used in Caprica. You can then get to thinking about the dynamic newspapers in Minority Report and the uses that such technologies could be put to. Its at least worth a try.
Wasn't the spaghetti monster going to destroy everything? I must admit, I have trouble keeping track of all the important religious events in our lives...
No EFTPOS is not like Debit Cards. We have Debit Cards as well, and I wouldn't go near them with a 50 foot pole and a pack of ninja's. They can suffer fraud just like credit/debit cards but it is technically harder to do so, but as so many recent news stories have shown far from impossible. Basically it involves swiping the card to duplicate it and getting a camera, eyeballs or fake/compromised keypad onto its PIN number. There have been fake EFTPOS readers to look like the real ones that duplicate cards and PINs, dongles attached to ATMs to do the theft and all sorts of things.
They are however very convenient as long as you get a good fee free deal on them and of course do the right thing to reduce your liability while using them and due diligence on where you use them, not that that will give you 100% protection.
Yes it is nice to get someone that has an open mind as to what the problems with TV are. I like watching TV shows, however I don't watch many anymore. I don't like shows coming out 6 months to a year later, I don't like time slots being moved around so much that its hard to record them without a Tivo-esque device (or with the 5 - 10 minute schedule drift many of the major channels employ). I don't like ads that blast the room with sound when they employ their volume shifting bastardry.
What I like is watching the shows when I want to watch them, scheduling them into my life rather than having to schedule my life around them. What all content providers have to get their head around is that these technologies are empowering users to live a social and interactive life their way and if you don't want to keep up with that or embrace it then there is going to be problems.
I liked the old icon better than the new v11 one.
I played a demo model just before launch and it is a big step up from the DS in terms of eye candy. What i didn't like was the 2 screens being different sizes (what ever happened to split screen games that I enjoy like Metroid Pinball?) the price tag and the battery life.
This is a second gen purchase at best for me (remember the first gen DS? ugh). I don't need another Zelda - Ocarina of Time re-run (despite it being the best Zelda game I've played). Street Fighter was great on the 3DS, Resident Evil looked great, but was as boring as it comes and the other games I played I just went meh.
I'd still rather have this than Scientology.
I remember when Steam was in beta. They deployed Half Life and all of its expansions et all and I got to play them all for free. This was very fine as I had never got around to playing them before. Thats what won me over to Steam and I never even considered looking at another digital distribution system for games for PC and Mac.
They warned there might be a bunch of bugs et all, but they all played great with only a few minor problems that didn't affect me much.
I logged into that to have a look and it took about 30 seconds before I had some fed pretending to be a teenage girl to start cracking onto me. I logged out and deleted it and never looked back.
Ask McDonalds if they are effective :)
I was wondering why it has been taking so long to log into PSN the last little while. The amusing thing was getting a message saying something of the like "It's taking a long time to log in, check your internet connection".
Hmm no Sony, you check yours.
When it comes to showing off tablet products in a store to potential buyers the iPad so outpaces the competition its not surprising that Android tablets are lagging behind. Lets look at the marketing.
I went to JB Hi Fi, they have Apple and Android tablets. Going over to the Apple table you get to play with a whole bunch of fun apps that wow and entertain, all surrounded by the Apple style of clean crisp advertising. I went over to the Android tablets which were in a nice boring section where you wouldn't even know where there unless you were looking for them and I clicked on 15 different icons and could get absolutely nothing to work except a nice error message in a browser saying it couldn't connect to the web.
With this happening in stores it isn't surprising what the results are.
I certainly do not think that this style of devices is a fad as the way people are accessing their information is evolving. I wanted eBooks on a useful device and I chose an iPad because i could get eBooks and do a whole lot more. I like this portable style of computing in a size factor where you don't have a small phone sized screen.
The difference being that Galaxy Quest was actually good...
You need not look at what other countries are doing when the states with-in your country do exactly that, as they do in mine.
Like Walmart?
And mine has a hard drive connected to it for wireless network based backups.
Damn it, I hate replying to the wrong thread!