I have TWC (because it is them or nothing). I could buy a higher tier but there is this little issue beyond the price. They do not guarantee that you will get higher speeds. Just that they will be available to you. Since I live kinda in the boonies (on a main road hence why I can even get cable internet) I will never see any speeds higher than what I get. So why should I go from paying $55 a month to something more for the exact same service as I am getting today.
If they would guarantee that you got the speeds that you actually paid for I take bets there would be more demand for their higher tiers. I would consider paying more if I could get faster than what I get today all the time.
In short as everyone has said this is just an lame excuse. They won't make guarantees because they are afraid of being held to them and losing money. They won't offer more competitive pricing because why compete when you are a local monopoly? In the end it will take Google or other players coming in to force them to change. The only other option is local municipalities trying to compete but TWC and the other cable/telephone companies are lobbying so hard many areas and states have laws that prevent that if they offer service to 1 house in an entire zip code.
I have to agree with pay being a huge factor. I've turned down a number of offers this year and know of others who have done the same because we aren't willing to take a massive pay cut in what is supposed to be a step up. Companies wrongly believe high unemployment means they can offer next to nothing. Until companies wake up to the reality that skilled labor is not having an issue with unemployment, we are having an issue with being overworked and miserable because operations have been expanded but no staff has been added to match that for years. That is why most of us look.
The biggest reasons the majority of XP installs are still out there are crappy software in the workplace that the vendors won't even support you if you try and upgrade to anything above XP/2003. Seriously it is sad. They also are likely to require to run IE6 or maybe 7 is you are really lucky. We have had software vendors even try to tell us that they only support SQL2000 (which has been unsupported by MS for a while now) even though their company policy is to not support anything that the original vendor does not. You have management who refuses to listen to their people. All they want is someone to blame should anything go wrong. Instead of insisting with only going with vendors that can support the latest things. Until the software vendors start supporting the later versions of the OS (even if they keep supporting XP, just support 7 as well) most won't move. And users are dumb. If they see that work can't upgrade they'll think they shouldn't upgrade at home either. After all work has a IT dept. They know next to nothing.
I find the 30gb or more being considered too heavy to provide meaningful data a little absurd. Hell these days with netflix instant watch it isn't hard for most people to hit that. And throw in the fact that most people who know what their usage actually is won't be the ones volunteering for this. Those of us techies use too much bandwidth, could care less about a "free router" since I'm sure we all have 1 (if not more sitting in a closet somewhere) and went to some lengths researching which one to get and those who fit under that cap wouldn't even know how to figure out their bandwidth usages and might not even know what a router is so why should they get excited about a free one. Hell how many people even know what the advertised speeds for their ISP really is? For most of us the choice is dial up or 1 high speed option. No choice of DSL or cable. I can get cable and that is it.
If they really want this to work they need to figure out a better set of ideas to motivate people to participate and not force out the most likely people to be interested.
There is a big difference between being an admin for a development department and for an organization of users who can barely turn there computer on and off each day. In your case you develop software so you know something about what you are doing (at least I hope but I have seen developers who can program well but can't manage an OS to save their life). You still should give some credit to your admins. If they are decent they know how the system works and may give you a good reason why the change you want made is not a good idea. Justification should go both ways. But in cases where you only support users there are a lot of idiotic users who tell us to do even dumber things.
For example we have been told to turn off all security measures because it is slowing everyone down but be sure to lock everything down because we don't want just anyone looking at confidential information such as upper management salary information. This is from the same member of upper management. A good admin doesn't just do what they are told. They should be smart enough to know when it is a good idea and when to ask more questions or just flat out say no because it is stupid beyond belief.
Seriously since this is ask slashdot lets treat it is a request from a customer. Bounce it back to the helpdesk for not asking them to clarify and having no idea what is even being asked for.
IT never has been glorious. In most places we are at best tolerated because no business/organization/whatever can survive without us. Upper management who think their monitor is their computer expect you to wave your magic wand and make whatever absurd idea they have work. And you have to bust your ass to make it happen. People get into this field for one of 2 reasons.
1. They think they'll make a lot of money - Typically they have no drive to learn the latest and greatest and get annoyed that you expect them to actually know something. These people are almost always destined for failure or management.
2. You actually like the work - Typically would be programming or playing with the latest OS or or hardware whether they had a job in the field or not. These people will either get lucky and be allowed to do the work they love or more likely have to wade through the muck created by management and deal with or work around those in the field for reason 1. Usually wise asses with twisted senses of humor. It helps keep us out of the psych wards!
K-12 is a joke in this country at the moment. Things like "No child Left Behind" and other such programs that focus on the lowest wrung have actually hurt the upper rungs. What we need is a system that is flexible enough to help those that are struggling but also to help those that need a challenge.
I think it needs to be an option in high school. That means having a teacher on staff, if only one, certified to teach it.
As for education for everyone, until the teachers are educated about the basics of computers it is hard to teach everyone anything. I know a lot of teachers don't know the difference between an operating system and a program. I think fundementally computers have evolved faster than our education system can handle. But that is a culture thing. A lot of teachers don't think they need to be constantly learning. I had an economics teacher in the late 90's who kept talking about how they did things in the Soviet Union. He got really pissed when I pointed out that the Soviet Union didn't exist anymore and they never really did things the way he said, which was theoretical communism. Teachers like IT professionals (well most of us) need to start realizing they need to be constantly learning.
To simplify it even more, in essence they are saying that static stretching before a workout it bad because it cools you down. But after a workout it is good for the same reason, because it cools you down. It actually makes perfect sense to this runner.
These just seem way off. If this was the case security would be non existent. IT admins would be stealing stuff all the time and no one could take a helpdesk position without signing a contract saying they are staying for life.
Admitting they've snooped at people's email and files? How much of that was as part of the job? With the keys comes the job of checking on the dishonest. Hell sometimes troubleshooting you end up seeing some of their email while working with them etc.
I know for myself I only want what access I need to do my job and no more.
Since this is a security company sounds like trying to scare idiot CIO's into buying their crap. Wouldn't be the first time, won't be the last.
Are there some dishonest crappy admins in the world? Sure. But any decent sys admin knows better. Reputations follow you around. In the age of the internet an employer can find out a fair amount just by a simple web search. Especially when they have your resume so they know where you went to school and worked.
I had the same feeling when I got out of school as the poster. When the final semester had me writing a compiler it can sort of burn you out.
First off, your degree does not dictate your career path. Best advice I ever got was that life will take you in unknown directions. Don't be afraid of it. Embrace it. Find a job you like. Been said by a few posters. I hope you didn't go for a CS degree because you thought you'd make a lot of money. If so, forget about it. To be any good in IT it is a lifestyle choice. Things change so fast in this field if you don't enjoy it, and enjoy learning all the new things, and helping create them you'll burn out. Also just because you don't want to code right now doesn't mean you'll always feel that way. I actually enjoy coding again. Just took some recovery time:)
As for pay, well hard to say really. Depending on the job and area the range can be huge. Be a smart job hunter and look at salary comparison sites (compare the descriptions, not the title), ask around your area (or the area you'll be going to) and look at the cost of living. Don't forget benefits and the whole deal too. A 5-10 minutes away from work in a good neighborhood can be worth it if the alternative is a 30-90 minute commute. Also amount of vacation, health insurance, retirement and other perks. I know when I got out of college I wasn't thinking like that, but you need to.
Really you just need to figure out what you wanna do when you grow up. Hell I bet a lot of people here are still trying to figure that out.
I think you have hit "the nail on the head" here.
To this day I actually remember things from the classes where we learned concepts and how to do things instead of "memorize this and regurgitate for the exam".
I had a professor in college who was fantastic. He taught the hardest comp sci classes. And all his exams were open book, open notes. Students still would sweat at the thought of his exams, but that was because of the subject matter (compilers anyone?). Bottom line to pass his test you had to know how to do the stuff. Sure you had all the answers at your fingers with books and notes. But if you didn't know where to look, and what you were doing you'd never pass.
This was by far the best preparation for the real world I had. Ability to look up anything, but if you don't have some clue of what your doing you'll never finish as fast as you need to.
Isn't the Department of Justice supposed to be to enforce and interpret the law? I would think the only Department in the Government that should be chiming in on this would be the FTC or the FCC.
I wish the DoJ would keep its nose out of places it shouldn't be and just do its job. As is pointed out many times by the government itself there are a number of laws on the books that are simply not being enforced. Maybe some day people will just do their jobs.
Ok, so I am probably deluding myself, but I can dream right?
Wisconsin was only given access with the understanding that they do not develop it for a profit. He got his hands on it through Wisconsin. He can't make a dime off the software itself. Best he could do is claim unpaid overtime, but I am sure he is salaried and he choose to work on it, he wasn't made too. So probably nothing to stand on there.
All in all just a big mess of people not understanding the huge mess of IP laws. Which most people don't. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if anyone truly understood everything. I know I don't.
From reading the article the bottom line is this. Countries that try too hard to make a subject fun, and make all their students feel good about everything tend not to do as well.
The simple lesson to be learned here is to stop being wusses and telling little Johnny that he did a great job even though he screwed up the whole thing. Tell him he is wrong and work with him to learn how to do it right. Contructive critisism. It makes people less arrogant and hopefully better people.
I sometimes think that most people in my generation and after never learned about constructive critisism. Personally I prefer it. If I screwed up, I want to know that I did, I want to know why I screwed up, and how not to do it again.
Are we so afraid of hurting little Johnny's feelings that we don't give a damn if he hurts himself? And we wonder why we have stupid lawsuits about not having proper warnings that hot coffee is hot, etc, etc.
The problem I have with this, the PATRIOT act, etc. is that they are taking away the rights that were deemed necessary to protect us from the government. Yes protect the people from the government. Why else would we have something like the 5th amendment. You can refuse to answer something because it might incriminate you, but the government cannot use that fact against you. The founders of this country knew the biggest threat to freedom is not from outside threats, but from the government itself.
Orwell really did see the future, he just got the date wrong. I suspect it will be closer to 2014.
Why do some people hate games like WoW so much? FPS can be just as addictive. I knew a guy in college who played quake 8 hours a day at least. Yes WoW can be ruin lives. But so can any obsessive activity. Hell someone could ruin all their real life relationships by being an obsessive knitter. "Must knit, must knit. Don't you understand I need to finish that sweater now!! I have 65 more patterns to try!"
I play WoW. But I don't have tv. I play maybe 2-3 hours a night. At lunch at work all I hear people talking about is what was on tv. Between all the shows and sports they watch I estimate they watch around 3-6 hours a night. How is me playing WoW worse then others watching tv? At least what I am doing is interactive and requires some thinking and some social interaction (yes yes it is virtual but it still takes a hell of a lot more people skills than starring blankly at a tv).
It is what you make it. The guild I am in is very laid back. Someone doesn't show up for something, no big deal we'll find someone else. Usually everyone is glad they didn't make it when they find out the reason. Took the wife/girlfriend to dinner, was out with the kids, hanging out with friends whatever.
Bottom line, you can make anything into a bad thing. Don't insist that something has to be bad just because you think it would be for you.
In my opinion jail is for when someone is a danger to society. IE: they are going to physcically hurt someone, etc. I hate spam, wouldn't mind if they all rot in hell, but do we really want to waste our money locking them up? It really is more of a civil issue. They should have to pay a crap load of money back to the government for having to get involved in the first place, let the isp's, etc who's servers got clogged up with their crap sue, and be done. Greed is what motivates these spammers, so take away what they value most, MONEY.
If spam didn't make people money it wouldn't exist. If the law takes away all their money from spam, it will go away. Now if we can just get the idiots who buy stuff from spam to stop, it would be dead sooner rather than later.
Truthfully WoW and other MMORPG's aren't killing the industry, they are changing it. It used to be that you payed for a game, and never heard from the company again unless there was a major bug fix. And they didn't want to hear from you either until it was time for you to buy their next game. Now you have games where they provide the servers, new and changing content, some level of active cheating prevention, and ask you to pay a fee for it. Just like pretty much the rest of the software industry games are moving into the area where service is what makes the money, not sales. Sure sales will always have a place, but I take bets that Blizzard didn't expect to recover their initial investment into WoW on new sales alone. They were counting on people paying for the service.
Just like life, and any other industry, you either adapt, or die. Lets just hope the game industry doesn't go down the RIAA/MPAA path and decide the best way to adapt is to sue all their customers.
"Software is complex. Incredibly complex. Horrendously complex. All software. No exceptions. It's a fact of life."
Right on target. I work at a primarily Windows shop and I can tell you from experience that Windows can be very very complex. The only real differences is that Windows appears to be prettier (aka- easier to use) at first. But once you get past the basics, your in the same position as an open source OS, if not worse. The open source OS just doesn't feel the need to pretend that they are simple. They give it to you straight, no bull.
Years ago I hated such AV programs as Norton, etc because of the heavy toll they had on my system. I use clamav at home now. I also use firefox which has led me to a great extension "ClamWin Antivirus Glue for Firefox" https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/771/ Seems to work well. Basically all it does is scan downloads with clamwin. But at least it doesn't eat a ton of memory resources all day long. Another option for people anyway.
Anyone know if there have been any malware for PalmOS? Go into any CompUSA, BestBuy, Staples etc and the PDA's will have PalmOS or WindowsCE. Once in a blue moon you'll find a linux based PDA, but it is still rare. So I would think a security comparison would be in order of PalmOS and WindowsCE since they are the more common PDA OS's.
Slashdot Mirror
I have TWC (because it is them or nothing). I could buy a higher tier but there is this little issue beyond the price. They do not guarantee that you will get higher speeds. Just that they will be available to you. Since I live kinda in the boonies (on a main road hence why I can even get cable internet) I will never see any speeds higher than what I get. So why should I go from paying $55 a month to something more for the exact same service as I am getting today. If they would guarantee that you got the speeds that you actually paid for I take bets there would be more demand for their higher tiers. I would consider paying more if I could get faster than what I get today all the time. In short as everyone has said this is just an lame excuse. They won't make guarantees because they are afraid of being held to them and losing money. They won't offer more competitive pricing because why compete when you are a local monopoly? In the end it will take Google or other players coming in to force them to change. The only other option is local municipalities trying to compete but TWC and the other cable/telephone companies are lobbying so hard many areas and states have laws that prevent that if they offer service to 1 house in an entire zip code.
I have to agree with pay being a huge factor. I've turned down a number of offers this year and know of others who have done the same because we aren't willing to take a massive pay cut in what is supposed to be a step up. Companies wrongly believe high unemployment means they can offer next to nothing. Until companies wake up to the reality that skilled labor is not having an issue with unemployment, we are having an issue with being overworked and miserable because operations have been expanded but no staff has been added to match that for years. That is why most of us look.
The biggest reasons the majority of XP installs are still out there are crappy software in the workplace that the vendors won't even support you if you try and upgrade to anything above XP/2003. Seriously it is sad. They also are likely to require to run IE6 or maybe 7 is you are really lucky. We have had software vendors even try to tell us that they only support SQL2000 (which has been unsupported by MS for a while now) even though their company policy is to not support anything that the original vendor does not. You have management who refuses to listen to their people. All they want is someone to blame should anything go wrong. Instead of insisting with only going with vendors that can support the latest things. Until the software vendors start supporting the later versions of the OS (even if they keep supporting XP, just support 7 as well) most won't move. And users are dumb. If they see that work can't upgrade they'll think they shouldn't upgrade at home either. After all work has a IT dept. They know next to nothing.
I find the 30gb or more being considered too heavy to provide meaningful data a little absurd. Hell these days with netflix instant watch it isn't hard for most people to hit that. And throw in the fact that most people who know what their usage actually is won't be the ones volunteering for this. Those of us techies use too much bandwidth, could care less about a "free router" since I'm sure we all have 1 (if not more sitting in a closet somewhere) and went to some lengths researching which one to get and those who fit under that cap wouldn't even know how to figure out their bandwidth usages and might not even know what a router is so why should they get excited about a free one. Hell how many people even know what the advertised speeds for their ISP really is? For most of us the choice is dial up or 1 high speed option. No choice of DSL or cable. I can get cable and that is it. If they really want this to work they need to figure out a better set of ideas to motivate people to participate and not force out the most likely people to be interested.
I use this as well. When it came out the reviews were great so I gave it a go. No system performance issues. So I am happy with it.
There is a big difference between being an admin for a development department and for an organization of users who can barely turn there computer on and off each day. In your case you develop software so you know something about what you are doing (at least I hope but I have seen developers who can program well but can't manage an OS to save their life). You still should give some credit to your admins. If they are decent they know how the system works and may give you a good reason why the change you want made is not a good idea. Justification should go both ways. But in cases where you only support users there are a lot of idiotic users who tell us to do even dumber things. For example we have been told to turn off all security measures because it is slowing everyone down but be sure to lock everything down because we don't want just anyone looking at confidential information such as upper management salary information. This is from the same member of upper management. A good admin doesn't just do what they are told. They should be smart enough to know when it is a good idea and when to ask more questions or just flat out say no because it is stupid beyond belief.
Seriously since this is ask slashdot lets treat it is a request from a customer. Bounce it back to the helpdesk for not asking them to clarify and having no idea what is even being asked for. IT never has been glorious. In most places we are at best tolerated because no business/organization/whatever can survive without us. Upper management who think their monitor is their computer expect you to wave your magic wand and make whatever absurd idea they have work. And you have to bust your ass to make it happen. People get into this field for one of 2 reasons. 1. They think they'll make a lot of money - Typically they have no drive to learn the latest and greatest and get annoyed that you expect them to actually know something. These people are almost always destined for failure or management. 2. You actually like the work - Typically would be programming or playing with the latest OS or or hardware whether they had a job in the field or not. These people will either get lucky and be allowed to do the work they love or more likely have to wade through the muck created by management and deal with or work around those in the field for reason 1. Usually wise asses with twisted senses of humor. It helps keep us out of the psych wards!
K-12 is a joke in this country at the moment. Things like "No child Left Behind" and other such programs that focus on the lowest wrung have actually hurt the upper rungs. What we need is a system that is flexible enough to help those that are struggling but also to help those that need a challenge.
I think it needs to be an option in high school. That means having a teacher on staff, if only one, certified to teach it.
As for education for everyone, until the teachers are educated about the basics of computers it is hard to teach everyone anything. I know a lot of teachers don't know the difference between an operating system and a program. I think fundementally computers have evolved faster than our education system can handle. But that is a culture thing. A lot of teachers don't think they need to be constantly learning. I had an economics teacher in the late 90's who kept talking about how they did things in the Soviet Union. He got really pissed when I pointed out that the Soviet Union didn't exist anymore and they never really did things the way he said, which was theoretical communism. Teachers like IT professionals (well most of us) need to start realizing they need to be constantly learning.
To simplify it even more, in essence they are saying that static stretching before a workout it bad because it cools you down. But after a workout it is good for the same reason, because it cools you down. It actually makes perfect sense to this runner.
These just seem way off. If this was the case security would be non existent. IT admins would be stealing stuff all the time and no one could take a helpdesk position without signing a contract saying they are staying for life. Admitting they've snooped at people's email and files? How much of that was as part of the job? With the keys comes the job of checking on the dishonest. Hell sometimes troubleshooting you end up seeing some of their email while working with them etc. I know for myself I only want what access I need to do my job and no more. Since this is a security company sounds like trying to scare idiot CIO's into buying their crap. Wouldn't be the first time, won't be the last. Are there some dishonest crappy admins in the world? Sure. But any decent sys admin knows better. Reputations follow you around. In the age of the internet an employer can find out a fair amount just by a simple web search. Especially when they have your resume so they know where you went to school and worked.
I had the same feeling when I got out of school as the poster. When the final semester had me writing a compiler it can sort of burn you out. First off, your degree does not dictate your career path. Best advice I ever got was that life will take you in unknown directions. Don't be afraid of it. Embrace it. Find a job you like. Been said by a few posters. I hope you didn't go for a CS degree because you thought you'd make a lot of money. If so, forget about it. To be any good in IT it is a lifestyle choice. Things change so fast in this field if you don't enjoy it, and enjoy learning all the new things, and helping create them you'll burn out. Also just because you don't want to code right now doesn't mean you'll always feel that way. I actually enjoy coding again. Just took some recovery time :)
As for pay, well hard to say really. Depending on the job and area the range can be huge. Be a smart job hunter and look at salary comparison sites (compare the descriptions, not the title), ask around your area (or the area you'll be going to) and look at the cost of living. Don't forget benefits and the whole deal too. A 5-10 minutes away from work in a good neighborhood can be worth it if the alternative is a 30-90 minute commute. Also amount of vacation, health insurance, retirement and other perks. I know when I got out of college I wasn't thinking like that, but you need to.
Really you just need to figure out what you wanna do when you grow up. Hell I bet a lot of people here are still trying to figure that out.
I think you have hit "the nail on the head" here. To this day I actually remember things from the classes where we learned concepts and how to do things instead of "memorize this and regurgitate for the exam". I had a professor in college who was fantastic. He taught the hardest comp sci classes. And all his exams were open book, open notes. Students still would sweat at the thought of his exams, but that was because of the subject matter (compilers anyone?). Bottom line to pass his test you had to know how to do the stuff. Sure you had all the answers at your fingers with books and notes. But if you didn't know where to look, and what you were doing you'd never pass. This was by far the best preparation for the real world I had. Ability to look up anything, but if you don't have some clue of what your doing you'll never finish as fast as you need to.
Isn't the Department of Justice supposed to be to enforce and interpret the law? I would think the only Department in the Government that should be chiming in on this would be the FTC or the FCC. I wish the DoJ would keep its nose out of places it shouldn't be and just do its job. As is pointed out many times by the government itself there are a number of laws on the books that are simply not being enforced. Maybe some day people will just do their jobs. Ok, so I am probably deluding myself, but I can dream right?
Wisconsin was only given access with the understanding that they do not develop it for a profit. He got his hands on it through Wisconsin. He can't make a dime off the software itself. Best he could do is claim unpaid overtime, but I am sure he is salaried and he choose to work on it, he wasn't made too. So probably nothing to stand on there. All in all just a big mess of people not understanding the huge mess of IP laws. Which most people don't. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if anyone truly understood everything. I know I don't.
From reading the article the bottom line is this. Countries that try too hard to make a subject fun, and make all their students feel good about everything tend not to do as well. The simple lesson to be learned here is to stop being wusses and telling little Johnny that he did a great job even though he screwed up the whole thing. Tell him he is wrong and work with him to learn how to do it right. Contructive critisism. It makes people less arrogant and hopefully better people. I sometimes think that most people in my generation and after never learned about constructive critisism. Personally I prefer it. If I screwed up, I want to know that I did, I want to know why I screwed up, and how not to do it again. Are we so afraid of hurting little Johnny's feelings that we don't give a damn if he hurts himself? And we wonder why we have stupid lawsuits about not having proper warnings that hot coffee is hot, etc, etc.
The problem I have with this, the PATRIOT act, etc. is that they are taking away the rights that were deemed necessary to protect us from the government. Yes protect the people from the government. Why else would we have something like the 5th amendment. You can refuse to answer something because it might incriminate you, but the government cannot use that fact against you. The founders of this country knew the biggest threat to freedom is not from outside threats, but from the government itself. Orwell really did see the future, he just got the date wrong. I suspect it will be closer to 2014.
Why do some people hate games like WoW so much? FPS can be just as addictive. I knew a guy in college who played quake 8 hours a day at least. Yes WoW can be ruin lives. But so can any obsessive activity. Hell someone could ruin all their real life relationships by being an obsessive knitter. "Must knit, must knit. Don't you understand I need to finish that sweater now!! I have 65 more patterns to try!" I play WoW. But I don't have tv. I play maybe 2-3 hours a night. At lunch at work all I hear people talking about is what was on tv. Between all the shows and sports they watch I estimate they watch around 3-6 hours a night. How is me playing WoW worse then others watching tv? At least what I am doing is interactive and requires some thinking and some social interaction (yes yes it is virtual but it still takes a hell of a lot more people skills than starring blankly at a tv). It is what you make it. The guild I am in is very laid back. Someone doesn't show up for something, no big deal we'll find someone else. Usually everyone is glad they didn't make it when they find out the reason. Took the wife/girlfriend to dinner, was out with the kids, hanging out with friends whatever. Bottom line, you can make anything into a bad thing. Don't insist that something has to be bad just because you think it would be for you.
In my opinion jail is for when someone is a danger to society. IE: they are going to physcically hurt someone, etc. I hate spam, wouldn't mind if they all rot in hell, but do we really want to waste our money locking them up? It really is more of a civil issue. They should have to pay a crap load of money back to the government for having to get involved in the first place, let the isp's, etc who's servers got clogged up with their crap sue, and be done. Greed is what motivates these spammers, so take away what they value most, MONEY.
If spam didn't make people money it wouldn't exist. If the law takes away all their money from spam, it will go away. Now if we can just get the idiots who buy stuff from spam to stop, it would be dead sooner rather than later.
Truthfully WoW and other MMORPG's aren't killing the industry, they are changing it. It used to be that you payed for a game, and never heard from the company again unless there was a major bug fix. And they didn't want to hear from you either until it was time for you to buy their next game. Now you have games where they provide the servers, new and changing content, some level of active cheating prevention, and ask you to pay a fee for it. Just like pretty much the rest of the software industry games are moving into the area where service is what makes the money, not sales. Sure sales will always have a place, but I take bets that Blizzard didn't expect to recover their initial investment into WoW on new sales alone. They were counting on people paying for the service. Just like life, and any other industry, you either adapt, or die. Lets just hope the game industry doesn't go down the RIAA/MPAA path and decide the best way to adapt is to sue all their customers.
Years ago I hated such AV programs as Norton, etc because of the heavy toll they had on my system. I use clamav at home now. I also use firefox which has led me to a great extension
"ClamWin Antivirus Glue for Firefox" https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/771/
Seems to work well. Basically all it does is scan downloads with clamwin. But at least it doesn't eat a ton of memory resources all day long. Another option for people anyway.
Anyone know if there have been any malware for PalmOS? Go into any CompUSA, BestBuy, Staples etc and the PDA's will have PalmOS or WindowsCE. Once in a blue moon you'll find a linux based PDA, but it is still rare. So I would think a security comparison would be in order of PalmOS and WindowsCE since they are the more common PDA OS's.