That plays right in with the "how much effort do you have to take to secure your network before you aren't liable for misuse" talk. There are quite a few windows machines on this network I'm on right now. I've got a feeling that a wardriver could theoretically park his/her car across the street, airsnort his/her way into my wireless network, and pop open an explorer window and type \\192.168.1.2\c$ and breeze right into administrator shares. There are only 26 letters, it wouldn't take long to find my media shares.
Should that be my fault?
Ok, now that legalities are involved, prove that this exact scenario didn't happen if I were to ever be accused of "making a file available".
You know, when I think back to my very first tinkerings with electronic devices, I can remember things just like this, disassembling things and re-assembling just for fun.
If I hadn't had occasion to do things like this as a child, my mechanical and computer aptitude would probably be nothing like what it is now. I commend these folks for what they are doing. The fact that there is an adult in the video "helping" doesn't mean anything to me, as I can see the value in this that goes beyond our "television reality challenges" expectations when we read something about a challenge with kids.
The real challenge is that they got two kids to sit still in one place long enough to even take instructions like this and still manage to accomplish the task.
On another note, I'm tempted to buy one of these things for myself, looks like a great platform for DamnSmallLinux.
We all seem to be under agreement that most of this ungodly power consumption comes from the outrageous video cards. Why don't graphics chip designers develop some kind of "Speed Step" like architecture that shuts down all but 2 of the pixel pipelines and all but 32 or 64 megs of the ram when a 3D application is not in use? Seems like we could knock down the power consumption right there, when you don't have a pair of SLi cards with 48 pipes and 1.5gb of ram between them, revved up to full tilt in order to draw a desktop background and a few dozen icons.
Somebody should do an experiment to see if perhaps even reducing PCI Express bandwidth cuts down on the consumption of these cards. How much power does that graphics card suck when the motherboard turns off 15 of the PCI Express lanes?
They could have done it the way newer versions of Windows do once the activation runs out, where you are allowed to log on, however the only thing the PC does is allow you to go to Microsoft and purchase a license.
I've noticed quite a few sites popping up that seem to have caught the same disease that flickr caught that made them drop the e. Don't know why, but that bugs me just a little.
In order for it to be money out of anybody's pocket, they would first have to prove in court that I would have in fact purchased the content had I not been able to download it.
I'm willing to bet that at least some people who download files (music, movies) are too broke to buy them all. How can they say that they are "loosing money"? Prove that there would have been a sale had the download not been there, or else shush and stay out of courts of law please.
Right, which means that the person who goes into that folder and initiates a transaction on that file (copy) is the person violating the copyright. The person who makes a file available should not be in violation, the person who instructs their computer to begin copying the file is the person responsible.
In that case, the only entity that can be proved in violation 100% is the RIAA. They are the only ones admittedly in court records that know anything about the files in the kid's folder. They admit freely that THEY caused a copyright infringment by instructing their computers to copy, get info on, read (have anything to do with) that file in sombody elses folder.
I look at it like this. Dell released machines loaded with Linux, much to the hurray of most of us. However, thinking from a corporate view, which seems to be shared with most large companies, you are missing one important thing:
4.) The search for the guilty.
See, in a corporate world, Windows servers and Windows workstations are used for one simple reason. When something goes wrong, they know who to take to court. They know who to blame. They know who to call on the phone at 3 AM and work all night trying to solve a critical server process that likes to eat memory or crash.
Now, seeing as how applications exist that can modify hardware (read: brick it) then something tells me that Dell isn't going to warantee a mainboard when they can't call up and say "Hey, that patch you released bricked our onboard sound chip / video / lan / cdrom firmware."
For those of you interested, the 6 stages of every project are as follows:
Ok, point taken. However, the facilities are there, and I have seen them work. Again, something that blame can mostly be placed squarely onto hardware manufacturers.
I've been building machines for a lot of years, some of them Windows, some of them *NIX, but the one constant is, no matter how many drivers Windows doesn't have already, the following are true:
1.) Can either be updated automatically by clicking a radio button that allows the system to look online (and doesn't offer a cryptic warning about downloading something evil and closed source).
2.) Comes with a CD or Diskette that has a driver that can be used.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not blowing Microsoft here. The problem is simply that "not having a proper linux driver" is not a problem that currently costs hardware manufacturers enough money. Perhaps if Dell does start pushing PC's with Ubuntu on them, enough people might end up with the problem that it becomes a serious financial cripple.
If this is any indication of what sort of premium the blue laser diode is worth, it's a shock to me that we can get a blu-ray capable anything for under $1000, nevermind ~ $600.
Sorry, but audiophiles generally ignore PC's for serious listning. There hasn't been a sound card invented yet that has the same quality of output as even mid-grade hi-fi stereo equipment. Sure, you folks that consider your Bose system "audiophile" quality won't understand this, but actual audiophiles will.
Find me a sound card with discrete output stages (an output stage that doesn't use an integrated circuit) and I'll eat the server Slashdot is hosted on with a knife and fork. Sure, I listen to my computer as a media center machine, but I understand what I can expect from it. I run the SPDIF output from my soundcard to an Aragon D/A converter, and I suspect thats probably about as good as its going to get from a PC.
Now, if we could only get Krell or Mark Levinson to make a sound card, then we might truely have something to talk about. Until then, the words PC Audio and "audiophile" simply just don't go together.
What about Microsoft's licensing policy?
on
The End is Nigh for XP
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· Score: 3, Interesting
What everybody seems to have forgotten is Microsoft's licensing policy. Sure, they won't be stamping any new XP discs after a while, but all those fancy new Vista licenses slapped onto new PC's can also be used as a license for any other older OS. At the company I work at, all the new machines we order have XP license stickers on them, however most machines get Windows 2000 installed.
So, all you have to do is dupe a bunch of the XP cd's, since having copies of the cd doesn't really constitute piracy, so long as you have a legitimate sticker on the PC, you're good.
Luckily, I work in the department that is responsible for dolling out PC's, and I keep a large farm of machines all around my desk, which if equipped with installation media, can be running whatever I choose. Right now, I've got a Win2k box (all our corporate certified stuff runs there) a WinXP box (for playing games with the office mates) and a SuSE 9.0 box (for running the servers that said games are played from)
In the past I've had Ubuntu running, various versions of SuSE, DSL and I think there have even been a couple of Solaris boxes at one point.
If you really crave being able to do what you want with your workstations, try working for the department that is responsible for imaging the PC's and rolling them out to the clients:)
Most Windows users didn't choose a Microsoft operating system, so their preferences weren't a factor.
I'm going to have to disagree with this statement, even though it's the view that most people have. You are basing this on the fact that there are far more computers for sale with Windows loaded versus machines sold with Mac OS, which might be true, but you could just as easily say that the people who walk into the Apple store aren't given a choice either, for the computer that they buy will most certainly be loaded with Mac OS. Sure, more technically minded people can use paralells or boot camp and load Windows if they wanted to, but I'm willing to bet the average user probably won't. Until Microsoft posts guards at the front door of the Apple store, or somehow takes their online store down, there will always be a choice. The only time the user doesn't have the ability to buy whichever system they want (and in turn use whichever operating system they want) is when they work for a corporation that has already made this decision for a work environment.
Would folks still consider it "the Microsoft tax" if Microsoft made the entire computer?
Isn't the drug dealer analogy just plain bad? In our system, people who know others are doing something illegal and do nothing are sometimes considered an "accessory after the fact". When the crimes are capitol, doesn't it even go farther and say "depraved indifference"? I'm just curious how it's even close. Even as a bittorrent client, how can you have any idea what other clients are doing?
I would offer this analogy: The building (bittorrent) where your mother (a legitimate file, like a linux distro) lives in midtown. There is a drug dealer (sombody sharing movies) that lives on the second floor, unbeknown to you. When you visit her, the police catch you outside and arrest you for being in the same building as the drug dealer.
This would be assuming that there is only one building (network protocol) that these illegal activities happen on. Now, when you factor in how the internet works as a whole, what they are doing becomes more like arresting you for being inside any building (a p2p network of any type).
A big part of these problems are the fact that the laws and legislation are driven most of the time by individuals who have no understanding of how the digital world works. I suggest creating a secondary governing body whose sole charge is legislation and law as it pertains to computers, software and the internet. This group of individuals would be comprised only of people who have at least a bachelor's degree in computer sciences. I honestly think a separate, disjoint governing body is what is needed, due to the fact that more often than not, in the modern day, law makers and lawyers try too hard to assert laws and regulations that were designed for real-life property and values. This is what needs to end, preferably before the internet that we enjoy is run aground by people that know nothing about what they are governing.
let's not forget that Europe is a lot more open about advertising and sexuality than we are in the US. If they were to try this here, it would only be a matter of time before some sue-happy fat ass American woman sued the school because one of her precious kids managed to surf a porn site on one of these pieces of software, and the headlines around the world read "School provided software for browsing x-rated material."
I think perhaps they only wanted it to be disabled so that they could say "Yep, game is clean." but make it easily enabled so that more...skilled and knowledable adults could hack their way into it, which is exactly what happened. What the problem is, I suspect, is they underestimated the current generation of underage gamers and their inate intarwebs skills at finding crap out.
Actually, as far as I know, "Hot Coffee" wasn't even a mod. It was coded into the game, just like everything else. Before release, the developpers "hid" it, by removing a few key lines, much like turning off PHP support in Apache. The "hack" that enabled it, simply reconfigured the game so that it was once again enabled.
I think thats where alot of the hot coffee trouble started. If it was actually a mod, like CS, then they would be attacking the people who made the mod, rather than going after the software designers who created the game.
The part I don't get is why some of these "video game sex and violence" crusaders are so afraid of life in general. Scene: Man and woman in a room. Woman is kneeling in front of man. Man has a gun to her head. He pulls the trigger. Blood and brain matter are scattered across the wall. Man grabs handful of leftover brain, eats it. End of scene. Hey! this is great TV! Rated R. Let's stick it in a video game! nobody cares. Now, Scene: Man and woman in a room. Woman is kneeling in front of man. Man unzips pants. Woman performs oral sex on man. Man does pants back up. Walks away grinning. End of scene. Rated X. Holy shit. Hide your kids. Do pennance. If it's in a game? Better look out, you'll be in court next time Johnny's parents walk in on him and little Suzi.
Bullshit double standards. Like George Carlin said one time, and I quote. "Don's act disgusted. Half of you are going to go home and go down on each other tonight. If you're willing to swallow cum, let's not make believe something I said was disgusting ok folks?"
Back when I worked at the callcenter for Sirius Satellite Radio, we used a web based solution called TimelyBill. It was absolutely terrible. I was one of the senior agents, that is we took calls from agents on the floor who needed help (or had a customer asking for a supervisor) and also ran the local intranet knowledgebase site. Half of the site was devoted to helping agents understand the software.
Ultimately, I was fired from the callcenter partially because of the way that the billing software worked. The service that they (Sirius) wanted us to push were the annual plans, which the customer could save a bit of money on in the long haul, but the terms dictated that the annual plans had a $75 cancellation fee. I'm sure if there are any Sirius customers that have been around for a while that read this, you probably know all about it. It worked like this:
1.) Customer calls to activate a satellite receiver of some kind, chooses annual plan to save a few bucks. Cost is about $143 bucks, at the time.
2.) Customer uses the service for a few months, and then something happens to the radio, I.E it breaks, it gets stolen, the customer decides to upgrade to a new radio.
3.) Customer calls in to the callcenter to inform us of the change in receiver, so they can get their plan transferred to the new unit.
4.) Agent stops the service on the new unit. Now, this is where the magic happens. If the agent is seasoned, and knows what they are doing (or, just plain gives a shit) they remember to credit the account for the $75 cancellation fee. The old service is terminated by TimelyBill. If the customer used the service for, let's say 6 months, they end up with a credit on their account for un-used service, about $70 bucks.
5.) TimelyBill waits until the customer's billing cycle date (the day of the month that they activated in) to make any adjustments to the account. On that date, the customer's account would be debited for a NEW annual plan $143 bucks, which collided with the credit for $70. The customer's credit card would be charged again, for the diffrence, about $70 bucks.
6.) Customer calls back. "What the fuck are you charging me for?" Asks for a supervisor.
7.) Senior agent spends, on average 30 minutes attempting to explain to the customer what the system did, with usually around a 30% acceptance rate. The other 70% of the time, the customer becomes infuriated, doesn't understand, and usually screams a few cuss words or an insult, and hangs up. I actually had a customer one time ask where we were located. When I told him we lived in New York, he proceeded to tell me "No wonder the terrorists attack you assholes, you all deserve to die. Im happy they keep choosing you."
8.) Customer (in my case) writes a letter to the corporate office, insisting something be done about the terrible supervisor who handled his call.
So, in my case, terrible software can actually cause you, even though you are not directly responsible for it, to loose your job. Especially with a company like Sirius, who at the time that I worked for their callcenter, was a fairly new company, and hadn't really set their policies in stone, so everything was always changing. We went back and forth several times about the billing system, and wether or not the customers should be refunded anything, and even if they should be given back cancellation fees when they cancelled. When in doubt, I guess, fire a peon.
Anyway, moral of the story: Avoid TimelyBill (OmniOSS).
I think I've said this before, but I'm afraid that it warrants repeating, considering that this isn't the first time that this issue has come up.
I find it interesting that these companies are making such a stink over some features included with Windows that the user can shut off if they need to. I have had, at one point or another, every beta version of Vista installed on my test box, up to post-RC1 builds, and have never had any issues with being able to disable security center alerts or windows firewall with the same 6 or 7 clicks that I've always used.
The only reason I can think that companies like McAfee might take exception to Windows doing things they have been selling, is that it might be more difficult to sell a product when Windows already does it, and does it pretty damn well.
Like I also added last time, the big push now, as it always is with Windows, is backwards compatibility. Are they (3rd party stooges) actually trying to insinuate that Windows will not do what it has always done in the past, that is allow the user (or an install program / MSI) to disable certain addon features? Take, for example, a wireless card installer program that takes control of the wireless configuration. Symatec, you of all people? Back when Peter was running the show you were the first and last name in diagnostic tools and sector-by-sector hard drive recovery, and nowadays this company can't even get together an Anti-virus app that disables Windows Defender?
Do they even make a sound card with discrete components in the output stage, or are they all made with the same OP amp cheap ass output stages? Personally, I would like a sound card that the rest of my high-end audio system doesn't laugh at.
Ok, I might be of the wrong thinking here, but please, correct me if I am mistaken. The bill as it is, gives the government the ability to violate the constitution, but, will the constitution be violated by the bill itself, or simply by the actions that it enables? The government could still choose to abide by the rules of the constitution even with this bill in place, right? Perhaps they only want the ability to avoid the restrictions of law, where the constitution wouldn't be applied anyway, say to two known terrorists having a conversation about something important that might save thousands of lives if it's overheard. I'm of the mind that our consitutional rights aren't being violated until one of us is actually the subject of one of these warrantless taps, no? It would seem, judging by the mindset of the average american that we wouldn't have much trouble in court having the case thrown out based on the constitutional violations, except we had to go to court in, say, Saudi Arabia, or Afghanistan.
Slashdot Mirror
That plays right in with the "how much effort do you have to take to secure your network before you aren't liable for misuse" talk. There are quite a few windows machines on this network I'm on right now. I've got a feeling that a wardriver could theoretically park his/her car across the street, airsnort his/her way into my wireless network, and pop open an explorer window and type \\192.168.1.2\c$ and breeze right into administrator shares. There are only 26 letters, it wouldn't take long to find my media shares.
Should that be my fault?
Ok, now that legalities are involved, prove that this exact scenario didn't happen if I were to ever be accused of "making a file available".
You know, when I think back to my very first tinkerings with electronic devices, I can remember things just like this, disassembling things and re-assembling just for fun.
If I hadn't had occasion to do things like this as a child, my mechanical and computer aptitude would probably be nothing like what it is now. I commend these folks for what they are doing. The fact that there is an adult in the video "helping" doesn't mean anything to me, as I can see the value in this that goes beyond our "television reality challenges" expectations when we read something about a challenge with kids.
The real challenge is that they got two kids to sit still in one place long enough to even take instructions like this and still manage to accomplish the task.
On another note, I'm tempted to buy one of these things for myself, looks like a great platform for DamnSmallLinux.
Probably not mainframe, I think the idea is more... Thin Client.
Somebody should do an experiment to see if perhaps even reducing PCI Express bandwidth cuts down on the consumption of these cards. How much power does that graphics card suck when the motherboard turns off 15 of the PCI Express lanes?
They could have done it the way newer versions of Windows do once the activation runs out, where you are allowed to log on, however the only thing the PC does is allow you to go to Microsoft and purchase a license.
I've noticed quite a few sites popping up that seem to have caught the same disease that flickr caught that made them drop the e. Don't know why, but that bugs me just a little.
In order for it to be money out of anybody's pocket, they would first have to prove in court that I would have in fact purchased the content had I not been able to download it. I'm willing to bet that at least some people who download files (music, movies) are too broke to buy them all. How can they say that they are "loosing money"? Prove that there would have been a sale had the download not been there, or else shush and stay out of courts of law please.
In that case, the only entity that can be proved in violation 100% is the RIAA. They are the only ones admittedly in court records that know anything about the files in the kid's folder. They admit freely that THEY caused a copyright infringment by instructing their computers to copy, get info on, read (have anything to do with) that file in sombody elses folder.
4.) The search for the guilty.
See, in a corporate world, Windows servers and Windows workstations are used for one simple reason. When something goes wrong, they know who to take to court. They know who to blame. They know who to call on the phone at 3 AM and work all night trying to solve a critical server process that likes to eat memory or crash.
Now, seeing as how applications exist that can modify hardware (read: brick it) then something tells me that Dell isn't going to warantee a mainboard when they can't call up and say "Hey, that patch you released bricked our onboard sound chip / video / lan / cdrom firmware."
For those of you interested, the 6 stages of every project are as follows:
1.) Enthusiasm.
2.) Disillusionment.
3.) Panic.
4.) The Search For The Guilty.
5.) The Punishment of the Innocent.
6.) Accolades for the Non-Participants.
Ok, point taken. However, the facilities are there, and I have seen them work. Again, something that blame can mostly be placed squarely onto hardware manufacturers.
1.) Can either be updated automatically by clicking a radio button that allows the system to look online (and doesn't offer a cryptic warning about downloading something evil and closed source).
2.) Comes with a CD or Diskette that has a driver that can be used.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not blowing Microsoft here. The problem is simply that "not having a proper linux driver" is not a problem that currently costs hardware manufacturers enough money. Perhaps if Dell does start pushing PC's with Ubuntu on them, enough people might end up with the problem that it becomes a serious financial cripple.
If this is any indication of what sort of premium the blue laser diode is worth, it's a shock to me that we can get a blu-ray capable anything for under $1000, nevermind ~ $600.
Sorry, but audiophiles generally ignore PC's for serious listning. There hasn't been a sound card invented yet that has the same quality of output as even mid-grade hi-fi stereo equipment. Sure, you folks that consider your Bose system "audiophile" quality won't understand this, but actual audiophiles will.
Find me a sound card with discrete output stages (an output stage that doesn't use an integrated circuit) and I'll eat the server Slashdot is hosted on with a knife and fork. Sure, I listen to my computer as a media center machine, but I understand what I can expect from it. I run the SPDIF output from my soundcard to an Aragon D/A converter, and I suspect thats probably about as good as its going to get from a PC.
Now, if we could only get Krell or Mark Levinson to make a sound card, then we might truely have something to talk about. Until then, the words PC Audio and "audiophile" simply just don't go together.
What everybody seems to have forgotten is Microsoft's licensing policy. Sure, they won't be stamping any new XP discs after a while, but all those fancy new Vista licenses slapped onto new PC's can also be used as a license for any other older OS. At the company I work at, all the new machines we order have XP license stickers on them, however most machines get Windows 2000 installed. So, all you have to do is dupe a bunch of the XP cd's, since having copies of the cd doesn't really constitute piracy, so long as you have a legitimate sticker on the PC, you're good.
Luckily, I work in the department that is responsible for dolling out PC's, and I keep a large farm of machines all around my desk, which if equipped with installation media, can be running whatever I choose. Right now, I've got a Win2k box (all our corporate certified stuff runs there) a WinXP box (for playing games with the office mates) and a SuSE 9.0 box (for running the servers that said games are played from) In the past I've had Ubuntu running, various versions of SuSE, DSL and I think there have even been a couple of Solaris boxes at one point. If you really crave being able to do what you want with your workstations, try working for the department that is responsible for imaging the PC's and rolling them out to the clients :)
I'm guessing it's difficult to type the word "propagate" on a stenographers typewriter.
I'm going to have to disagree with this statement, even though it's the view that most people have. You are basing this on the fact that there are far more computers for sale with Windows loaded versus machines sold with Mac OS, which might be true, but you could just as easily say that the people who walk into the Apple store aren't given a choice either, for the computer that they buy will most certainly be loaded with Mac OS. Sure, more technically minded people can use paralells or boot camp and load Windows if they wanted to, but I'm willing to bet the average user probably won't. Until Microsoft posts guards at the front door of the Apple store, or somehow takes their online store down, there will always be a choice. The only time the user doesn't have the ability to buy whichever system they want (and in turn use whichever operating system they want) is when they work for a corporation that has already made this decision for a work environment.
Would folks still consider it "the Microsoft tax" if Microsoft made the entire computer?
I would offer this analogy: The building (bittorrent) where your mother (a legitimate file, like a linux distro) lives in midtown. There is a drug dealer (sombody sharing movies) that lives on the second floor, unbeknown to you. When you visit her, the police catch you outside and arrest you for being in the same building as the drug dealer.
This would be assuming that there is only one building (network protocol) that these illegal activities happen on. Now, when you factor in how the internet works as a whole, what they are doing becomes more like arresting you for being inside any building (a p2p network of any type).
A big part of these problems are the fact that the laws and legislation are driven most of the time by individuals who have no understanding of how the digital world works. I suggest creating a secondary governing body whose sole charge is legislation and law as it pertains to computers, software and the internet. This group of individuals would be comprised only of people who have at least a bachelor's degree in computer sciences. I honestly think a separate, disjoint governing body is what is needed, due to the fact that more often than not, in the modern day, law makers and lawyers try too hard to assert laws and regulations that were designed for real-life property and values. This is what needs to end, preferably before the internet that we enjoy is run aground by people that know nothing about what they are governing.
Remember, the internet is just a series of tubes.
I think perhaps they only wanted it to be disabled so that they could say "Yep, game is clean." but make it easily enabled so that more...skilled and knowledable adults could hack their way into it, which is exactly what happened. What the problem is, I suspect, is they underestimated the current generation of underage gamers and their inate intarwebs skills at finding crap out.
Actually, as far as I know, "Hot Coffee" wasn't even a mod. It was coded into the game, just like everything else. Before release, the developpers "hid" it, by removing a few key lines, much like turning off PHP support in Apache. The "hack" that enabled it, simply reconfigured the game so that it was once again enabled.
I think thats where alot of the hot coffee trouble started. If it was actually a mod, like CS, then they would be attacking the people who made the mod, rather than going after the software designers who created the game.
The part I don't get is why some of these "video game sex and violence" crusaders are so afraid of life in general. Scene: Man and woman in a room. Woman is kneeling in front of man. Man has a gun to her head. He pulls the trigger. Blood and brain matter are scattered across the wall. Man grabs handful of leftover brain, eats it. End of scene. Hey! this is great TV! Rated R. Let's stick it in a video game! nobody cares. Now, Scene: Man and woman in a room. Woman is kneeling in front of man. Man unzips pants. Woman performs oral sex on man. Man does pants back up. Walks away grinning. End of scene. Rated X. Holy shit. Hide your kids. Do pennance. If it's in a game? Better look out, you'll be in court next time Johnny's parents walk in on him and little Suzi.
Bullshit double standards. Like George Carlin said one time, and I quote. "Don's act disgusted. Half of you are going to go home and go down on each other tonight. If you're willing to swallow cum, let's not make believe something I said was disgusting ok folks?"
Back when I worked at the callcenter for Sirius Satellite Radio, we used a web based solution called TimelyBill. It was absolutely terrible. I was one of the senior agents, that is we took calls from agents on the floor who needed help (or had a customer asking for a supervisor) and also ran the local intranet knowledgebase site. Half of the site was devoted to helping agents understand the software.
Ultimately, I was fired from the callcenter partially because of the way that the billing software worked. The service that they (Sirius) wanted us to push were the annual plans, which the customer could save a bit of money on in the long haul, but the terms dictated that the annual plans had a $75 cancellation fee. I'm sure if there are any Sirius customers that have been around for a while that read this, you probably know all about it. It worked like this:
1.) Customer calls to activate a satellite receiver of some kind, chooses annual plan to save a few bucks. Cost is about $143 bucks, at the time.
2.) Customer uses the service for a few months, and then something happens to the radio, I.E it breaks, it gets stolen, the customer decides to upgrade to a new radio.
3.) Customer calls in to the callcenter to inform us of the change in receiver, so they can get their plan transferred to the new unit.
4.) Agent stops the service on the new unit. Now, this is where the magic happens. If the agent is seasoned, and knows what they are doing (or, just plain gives a shit) they remember to credit the account for the $75 cancellation fee. The old service is terminated by TimelyBill. If the customer used the service for, let's say 6 months, they end up with a credit on their account for un-used service, about $70 bucks.
5.) TimelyBill waits until the customer's billing cycle date (the day of the month that they activated in) to make any adjustments to the account. On that date, the customer's account would be debited for a NEW annual plan $143 bucks, which collided with the credit for $70. The customer's credit card would be charged again, for the diffrence, about $70 bucks.
6.) Customer calls back. "What the fuck are you charging me for?" Asks for a supervisor.
7.) Senior agent spends, on average 30 minutes attempting to explain to the customer what the system did, with usually around a 30% acceptance rate. The other 70% of the time, the customer becomes infuriated, doesn't understand, and usually screams a few cuss words or an insult, and hangs up. I actually had a customer one time ask where we were located. When I told him we lived in New York, he proceeded to tell me "No wonder the terrorists attack you assholes, you all deserve to die. Im happy they keep choosing you."
8.) Customer (in my case) writes a letter to the corporate office, insisting something be done about the terrible supervisor who handled his call.
So, in my case, terrible software can actually cause you, even though you are not directly responsible for it, to loose your job. Especially with a company like Sirius, who at the time that I worked for their callcenter, was a fairly new company, and hadn't really set their policies in stone, so everything was always changing. We went back and forth several times about the billing system, and wether or not the customers should be refunded anything, and even if they should be given back cancellation fees when they cancelled. When in doubt, I guess, fire a peon.
Anyway, moral of the story: Avoid TimelyBill (OmniOSS).
I think I've said this before, but I'm afraid that it warrants repeating, considering that this isn't the first time that this issue has come up.
I find it interesting that these companies are making such a stink over some features included with Windows that the user can shut off if they need to. I have had, at one point or another, every beta version of Vista installed on my test box, up to post-RC1 builds, and have never had any issues with being able to disable security center alerts or windows firewall with the same 6 or 7 clicks that I've always used.
The only reason I can think that companies like McAfee might take exception to Windows doing things they have been selling, is that it might be more difficult to sell a product when Windows already does it, and does it pretty damn well.
Like I also added last time, the big push now, as it always is with Windows, is backwards compatibility. Are they (3rd party stooges) actually trying to insinuate that Windows will not do what it has always done in the past, that is allow the user (or an install program / MSI) to disable certain addon features? Take, for example, a wireless card installer program that takes control of the wireless configuration. Symatec, you of all people? Back when Peter was running the show you were the first and last name in diagnostic tools and sector-by-sector hard drive recovery, and nowadays this company can't even get together an Anti-virus app that disables Windows Defender?
Do they even make a sound card with discrete components in the output stage, or are they all made with the same OP amp cheap ass output stages? Personally, I would like a sound card that the rest of my high-end audio system doesn't laugh at.
Ok, I might be of the wrong thinking here, but please, correct me if I am mistaken. The bill as it is, gives the government the ability to violate the constitution, but, will the constitution be violated by the bill itself, or simply by the actions that it enables? The government could still choose to abide by the rules of the constitution even with this bill in place, right? Perhaps they only want the ability to avoid the restrictions of law, where the constitution wouldn't be applied anyway, say to two known terrorists having a conversation about something important that might save thousands of lives if it's overheard. I'm of the mind that our consitutional rights aren't being violated until one of us is actually the subject of one of these warrantless taps, no? It would seem, judging by the mindset of the average american that we wouldn't have much trouble in court having the case thrown out based on the constitutional violations, except we had to go to court in, say, Saudi Arabia, or Afghanistan.