Never had a problem myself. FFXI allowed you to do it within the game client. Puzzle Pirates had an easy option at the website (the "Arrr, we be sad to see ye go!" made me regret it, too). World of Warcraft has a clearly visible easy option, not that I intend to take it anytime soon.
If it ever took more than a phone call to cancel (and I see NO reason why a game which I can purchase online, register online, and play online should require a phone call to stop playing), then I would immediately make a call to my credit card company and ask them to stop authorization for the recurring credit card charge to that vendor. This is free, doesn't hurt your reputation (gack, too many RPGs) with them in the least if you're doing it for coming months rather than retroactively, and perfectly within your rights under the credit card contract.
Something tells me the author has no clue how virus scanners actually work. Unless those games loading image files are loading them in a known macro-virus-prone format (and, I can say without fear of contradiction, WoW isn't parsing textures from.docs), the gigantic resource files will *never be passively scanned* because they are *incapable of being executed*.
You can verify this for yourself. Get a file containing a virus signature (find an old trojan somewhere). Disable your virus scanner, copy it to an arbitrary place on your machine, rename it to.dat, and turn on the virus scanner. Your virus scanner won't pick up the file unless you've set it to active scan everything on certain intervals. Leave it there for a few weeks and it will never be picked up by the passive process because the passive process *doesn't worry about non-executable data*.
CPU usage caused as a result of automatic spellchecking is another howler. Its one thread, which will spend most of its time blocking for IO (thats you, chief!) Typical usage patterns will see no slowdown due to the checking thread -- open up your favorite resources manager and start banging away at MS word, unless you type faster than God or start dumping copy-pasting or macro magic into the file your CPU usage won't even budge. The algorithms, by the way, give maximum priority to the user input handling threads and close to minimum for the background checks, because word processor developers know the perception of speedy response is one of the key features of their product. As a result, they'll generally not start spell-checking a copied block until the CPU is otherwise underutilized (i.e. blocking on user IO).
Key days for the patent:
Applied for 10-31-1988
Published on 6-20-1991
Registered 7-17-1998
Why does it take so long for a patent to wend its way through the system? Because the system moves GLACIALLY SLOW here. Matsushita is their own prior art here -- the software product in question didn't start using the context-sensitive help tool until the mid-90s when everybody else started getting in on the whole GUI craze (You may remember -- Oh good gracious, we can click things now!).
I still think, pragmatically, its not a feature which should be copyrightable but the "obviousness" of certain key features was less than obvious in the late 1980s.
I'll translate about as much as I can without getting into copyright trouble. The patent includes clicking on one icon displayed somewhere on your console, which attaches a special graphic to your mouse cursor. You then click on another icon or function on your console, and it brings up context-sensitive help. This is specifically distinguished from using context-sensitive help by pressing one special key or icon which is in a constant place, and also from each function embedding an explanation of what it does through other means which do not change the state of the mouse cursor.
The meat of the story is paragraphy #3, although the three screenshots on the front page are understandable even if you don't read Japanese. Due to quirkiness with derivative works law in Japan, tranlating their captions exactly could potentially lead to a lot of trouble. Suffice it to say that the first screenshot shows the offending icon, the second shows the mouse cursor changing as a result of clicking the icon, and the third shows the result of a second click on a generic interface function (an explanation pops up).
A couple of reasons why sausage manufacturers want drop-in-for-free bun-replacements easily available:
Buns are a necessary prerequisite for consumption of sausages, but buns are not the competitive expertise of the sausage maker, and a closed-source bun puts them at the mercy of a bun-manufacturer taking over the bun-market and then using that leverage to expand into sausage. See, for example, Web servers. If you want to use the new fancy bells and whistles from IBM, you *need* a web server, period, but IBM doesn't have web servers and has no interest in rolling its own. MS does, and of course Apache is the OSS alternative. Why back Apache? Because otherwise Microsoft, a company which may be a strategic competitor at some point, is in the critical-path of your *entire product line*. IBM gets the hedge against strategic risk without having to develop or maintain a product with cruddy margins which they would have to keep competitive with MS's core applications tech to have any utility to them at all (its not useful having an IBM branded server if only 2% of the market uses it). Support OSS, and the strategic hedge writes itself! Then you can redeploy your engineers on projects which actually make you money.
OSS buns change the dynamics of the IT market to reward not primarily application design (software) but "total solution providers" or "consultants" or "whatever the heck they're calling themselves these days". Sure, you can get the bun for free, but do you know the proper way to situate the sausage, bun, and optional $.05 ketchup such that it is Kosher in your Israeli market and and meets the meatpacking laws in California? Well, suprise suprise, Sausage Inc. has teams of well-trained engineers and IT specialists waiting on call to help you integrate Sausage 2005 with Bun 2.42b (now with added anti-yeast protection -- don't be fooled by our full-solution competitor, he doesn't have this technology yet!) at any location you desire and they work at incredibly reasonable hourly rates.
I'm not too enthused about the prospect of international sex slavery going online. At least in the status quo either the clients or the traffickers have to cross borders at some point, which gives them a physical nexus which you can hammer them with. Virtual sexual slavery could take place with the "workers" in one country which doesn't give a care and the "clients" in another country where freedom of speech made their own conduct wholly legal -- and there would be no lever which you could use to help out the slaves. And thats what the majority of the "sex industry" (a euphemism worthy of Nazi Germany) is in under-developed countries -- frank slavery. They can be bought and sold at will by their owners and if they attempt to escape will be coercively returned with physical force. Its completely orthogonal to the question of whether the consent in the "sweatshops" is meaningful.
I'm as rapacious a robber-baron capitalist as the next guy, but this would NOT be a positive development.
Parent is correct in all respects. A Google search shows 800+ uses of the phrase in that exact sequence. You can verify that for yourself, if all the little squiggles mean anything to you;)
Slashdot Mirror
If it ever took more than a phone call to cancel (and I see NO reason why a game which I can purchase online, register online, and play online should require a phone call to stop playing), then I would immediately make a call to my credit card company and ask them to stop authorization for the recurring credit card charge to that vendor. This is free, doesn't hurt your reputation (gack, too many RPGs) with them in the least if you're doing it for coming months rather than retroactively, and perfectly within your rights under the credit card contract.
You can verify this for yourself. Get a file containing a virus signature (find an old trojan somewhere). Disable your virus scanner, copy it to an arbitrary place on your machine, rename it to .dat, and turn on the virus scanner. Your virus scanner won't pick up the file unless you've set it to active scan everything on certain intervals. Leave it there for a few weeks and it will never be picked up by the passive process because the passive process *doesn't worry about non-executable data*.
CPU usage caused as a result of automatic spellchecking is another howler. Its one thread, which will spend most of its time blocking for IO (thats you, chief!) Typical usage patterns will see no slowdown due to the checking thread -- open up your favorite resources manager and start banging away at MS word, unless you type faster than God or start dumping copy-pasting or macro magic into the file your CPU usage won't even budge. The algorithms, by the way, give maximum priority to the user input handling threads and close to minimum for the background checks, because word processor developers know the perception of speedy response is one of the key features of their product. As a result, they'll generally not start spell-checking a copied block until the CPU is otherwise underutilized (i.e. blocking on user IO).
http://japan.cnet.com/news/biz/story/0,2000050156, 20080442,00.htm
Key days for the patent: Applied for 10-31-1988 Published on 6-20-1991 Registered 7-17-1998
Why does it take so long for a patent to wend its way through the system? Because the system moves GLACIALLY SLOW here. Matsushita is their own prior art here -- the software product in question didn't start using the context-sensitive help tool until the mid-90s when everybody else started getting in on the whole GUI craze (You may remember -- Oh good gracious, we can click things now!).
I still think, pragmatically, its not a feature which should be copyrightable but the "obviousness" of certain key features was less than obvious in the late 1980s.
I'll translate about as much as I can without getting into copyright trouble. The patent includes clicking on one icon displayed somewhere on your console, which attaches a special graphic to your mouse cursor. You then click on another icon or function on your console, and it brings up context-sensitive help. This is specifically distinguished from using context-sensitive help by pressing one special key or icon which is in a constant place, and also from each function embedding an explanation of what it does through other means which do not change the state of the mouse cursor.
The meat of the story is paragraphy #3, although the three screenshots on the front page are understandable even if you don't read Japanese. Due to quirkiness with derivative works law in Japan, tranlating their captions exactly could potentially lead to a lot of trouble. Suffice it to say that the first screenshot shows the offending icon, the second shows the mouse cursor changing as a result of clicking the icon, and the third shows the result of a second click on a generic interface function (an explanation pops up).
A couple of reasons why sausage manufacturers want drop-in-for-free bun-replacements easily available: Buns are a necessary prerequisite for consumption of sausages, but buns are not the competitive expertise of the sausage maker, and a closed-source bun puts them at the mercy of a bun-manufacturer taking over the bun-market and then using that leverage to expand into sausage. See, for example, Web servers. If you want to use the new fancy bells and whistles from IBM, you *need* a web server, period, but IBM doesn't have web servers and has no interest in rolling its own. MS does, and of course Apache is the OSS alternative. Why back Apache? Because otherwise Microsoft, a company which may be a strategic competitor at some point, is in the critical-path of your *entire product line*. IBM gets the hedge against strategic risk without having to develop or maintain a product with cruddy margins which they would have to keep competitive with MS's core applications tech to have any utility to them at all (its not useful having an IBM branded server if only 2% of the market uses it). Support OSS, and the strategic hedge writes itself! Then you can redeploy your engineers on projects which actually make you money. OSS buns change the dynamics of the IT market to reward not primarily application design (software) but "total solution providers" or "consultants" or "whatever the heck they're calling themselves these days". Sure, you can get the bun for free, but do you know the proper way to situate the sausage, bun, and optional $.05 ketchup such that it is Kosher in your Israeli market and and meets the meatpacking laws in California? Well, suprise suprise, Sausage Inc. has teams of well-trained engineers and IT specialists waiting on call to help you integrate Sausage 2005 with Bun 2.42b (now with added anti-yeast protection -- don't be fooled by our full-solution competitor, he doesn't have this technology yet!) at any location you desire and they work at incredibly reasonable hourly rates.
I'm not too enthused about the prospect of international sex slavery going online. At least in the status quo either the clients or the traffickers have to cross borders at some point, which gives them a physical nexus which you can hammer them with. Virtual sexual slavery could take place with the "workers" in one country which doesn't give a care and the "clients" in another country where freedom of speech made their own conduct wholly legal -- and there would be no lever which you could use to help out the slaves. And thats what the majority of the "sex industry" (a euphemism worthy of Nazi Germany) is in under-developed countries -- frank slavery. They can be bought and sold at will by their owners and if they attempt to escape will be coercively returned with physical force. Its completely orthogonal to the question of whether the consent in the "sweatshops" is meaningful. I'm as rapacious a robber-baron capitalist as the next guy, but this would NOT be a positive development.
Parent is correct in all respects. A Google search shows 800+ uses of the phrase in that exact sequence. You can verify that for yourself, if all the little squiggles mean anything to you ;)