Ok, as long as we're nitpicking analogies here, let's correct yours too.
This guy (supposedly, though is this even known yet?) working at Apple and violating said NDA doesn't seem to be some sort of upper-management type. Rather, he/she is probably just another average employee who happened to be part of a group working on one of these projects.
Therefore, it's not at all like "Metallica's manager" bringing out tunes and lyrics Metallica didn't even record yet. It's much more like some guy working at the record company, maybe in the shipping or marketing dept., leaking out a preview of some of the supposed new lyrics on a Metallica fan-club site.
If so, I once again say - despite it being technically illegal under contract law, I'm not sure I'd opt to pursue it. It's easy enough to turn a "blind eye" to it, realizing that it's more beneficial to let it go than to attack your own customer-base.
(In fact, it's arguable that Metallica already learned this lesson. They *did* raise a huge legal stink about their music being distributed as MP3s, and what became of it? Their next big album release was relative failure, and you now hear just as many people scoff at their name as rave about them being "metal gods" and what-not. Meanwhile, I'd say they stopped about 0% of the trafficing of their music over the net and gained practically nothing in "new sales" from their actions.)
Well, considering when she left, she did so while I was at work and cleaned out practically my entire house in the process... AND considering she took my sports car (heavily modded, even) and *sold* it, forging my signature on the title to do so (since it was purchased before I was married and was never in her name), AND considering she even came back a second time, broke in a basement window, and took some of the replacement items (cordless phone, answering machine, etc.) that I bought from her first escapade - YES, I'd be MORE than happy to trash her account.
Has anyone even claimed that the person/people leaking this info to Apple fan/rumor sites was receiving money for the information?
It seems to me more like this info was leaked by a Mac fan to other like-minded folks who buy the majority of the products sold anyway. Attacking these people for "NDA violations" isn't much different than record companies suing the biggest Metallica fans for p2p sharing some Metallica songs. Legally, yeah, you can do it - but how sensible is it really? Bite the hands that feed you, and you'll simply end up with less food.
Actually, I get the idea this system of suspending accounts rather than deleting them is commonplace with these MMORPGs. This certainly isn't unique to Blizzard and WoW.
I understand the reasoning behind it, but it can cause some irritating situations too.
EG. My ex-wife was a big Shadowbane addict for a few months preceding our divorce. She was using an account I created initially. (I'm the one who bought the game, played it for about 30 minutes, and decided I didn't like it after all. I let her try it, and she got hooked immediately - and begged me to buy her a 3 month subscription after that.) The interesting thing is, though, I couldn't seem to find any way to get Ubisoft to permanently erase her account after she moved out. I was able to sign on to the web site and deactivate the account, so she couldn't keep billing renewals to my credit card... but she simply had billing xferred to a new card and re-activated her game, and kept on playing.
Somehow, it doesn't seem right I wasn't even able to have her characters deleted on an account she effectively hijaacked from me - and now I still keep getting email notifications about her activities in the game (purchases of expansion sets, tech. support help, etc. etc.).
I thought it looked pretty slick in the main site photo, actually. But when I viewed the "gallery" photos showing it all opened up, I was much less interested. Everything looks pretty much thrown in. Just like a real suitcase, it's much neater and more organized if you take the time to fold the clothes properly and pack everything carefully. I dunno... maybe they needed to construct some inner liner type of thing that would cover/hide some of the cabling and boxes (like the router)?
First off, I disagree that there is really such a thing as an "immoral company". Despite the financial/legal reasons for treating a corporation as an individual on some paperwork - companies are nothing more than organized groups of PEOPLE working towards a common goal of earning money for themselves.
You may have "immoral people" who happen to be in charge of others within a given company, but the company itself can't be "moral" or "immoral". It just "is".
I hardly think I'm taking a "defeatist attitude" when I say that very large corporations consist of so many divisions, and produce so many products (or provide so many services) that they're usually a "mixed bag" of good and bad. I'm merely trying to be realistic, and quit trying to view everything as simple "black" and "white".
EG. How "evil" is it that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated large sums of money to further people's education? How "evil" is the "big, bad chemical company" when they produce plastic tubing that's needed for medical equipment in hospitals to save lives? Heck, for that matter, how "bad" is McDonalds Corp. when they do such things as supporting the "Ronald McDonald House"?
Usually, it just depends on which aspects of a business you wish to focus on.... And the bottom line is, I know I could do more good for society as a whole if I was gainfully employed for a telemarketing firm than if I was out on the streets, begging for money and presumably living on the welfare dole.
How the heck did *this* parent comment get an "Interesting" mod point?
This is just plain silly....
I have a friend who works at MS right now, and there's plenty of reason for him to be happy about it. It lets him work on software projects that actually get used by a LOT of people, for one thing. So many times, you get paid to work on some customized app that's only used by the firm you work for, or fills some small niche market. Not all software developers can actually say "My contribution is used on 75% of the computers out there." or something along those lines.
The entire Japanese business model has pretty much been one of copying existing products, and figuring out how to incrementally improve them, and/or produce them more inexpensively - and it seems that it worked quite well for them. Same with Dell Computers, for another example. Name one real "invention" that Dell made, yet they're pretty much #1 in desktop PC sales. Not all businesses have to invent new things to be worthwhile in the marketplace....
As for MS being proven in a court of law to have broken laws several times, I imagine you can say the same of most large corporations if you look hard enough. Should people quit their jobs as chemists at Dow Chemical or Monsanto too? At some point, I think you just have to accept that when a business grows large enough, it has so many different things it's involved with at different levels - it's quite LIKELY they'll break some laws someplace. Doesn't mean the bad decisions made by some workers there invalidate any and all good work done by others there.
Well, not sure I'd go quite as far as to say I'd be promoting downloading everything possible off iTunes to "build a stronger Apple computer, for everyone's long term benefit" -- but I do think an iPod might reach the "saturation point" of too much ongoing expense to use it if monthly satellite radio subscription fees are added on top of everything else.
Satellite radio just doesn't appeal much to me at all, because I feel like it's really just a response to people's disgust with regular FM radio. Ever since the large conglomerates (Clear Channel, etc.) took over practically everything, radio has become very mediocre. I don't see why I should fork out a monthly subscription fee, just because standard radio wasn't able to keep up decent enough quality programming? It's like I'm paying for their mistakes.... I'd much rather put together my own music mixes on CD, take my iPod with me in the car, or whatever - and be my own D.J.
I think you brought up an excellent point. Service contracts are *rarely* worthwhile - yet many businesses seem to buy and renew them without even a second thought.
I used to work in I.T. for a place that was constantly complaining about a need to "cut costs" (and in an overall sense, they did - because several of their locations were being shut down as unprofitable, etc.). Unfortunately, we had such things as support contracts with Oracle for our main database that cost upwards of $30,000/yr. to renew - and I don't think we made any use of it except maybe 1 or 2 times in 5 years. (Both of those times, we reported problems which turned out to be small bugs, and "hotfixes" were mailed to us on CD-R disc -- but, these same fixes made it to future point release updates of the Oracle products anyway. I think we could have lived with the issues a little longer, or worked around them, without it costing us over $30K per year worth of problems!)
I also remember a fairly costly maintenance contract we kept up for all of our uninterrupted power supplies. Sure, it covered replacement of worn-out batteries - but at best, it was a "break even" deal over just buying replacement batteries when needed and swapping them out ourselves. If a UPS actually lasted longer than expected, the maintenance agreement instantly became a poor value.
This is a superb post! I work for PC House Calls, Inc. in St. Louis, Missouri - and we currently bill at $89/hr. with a 1 hr. minimum. After the first hour, we bill in quarter hour increments, and there is also a $20 trip/travel charge on each call.
A few people told me this was way too expensive, but when you figure in everything, it's hard to even be profitable billing much less than this. The small box ad we run in the Yellow Pages costs over $400 per month by itself, plus we actually rent out office space. Sure, we could save some $'s if we ran this out of someone's basement - but it's a big plus having a real business address where people can drop off laptops for repair, etc.
As you pointed out too, there's a lot of non-billable time in this type of work. In an 8 hour day, it's rare I can bill more than 4 hours. The rest is spent in drive time between jobs, plus "dead time" when you just can't schedule the next appointment right after you get done with the last one.
I think a lot of younger computer "whizes" start off offering to do a lot of cheap or free PC work because they mistakenly think it's some type of ticket to a good job in the future. (If people learn how good I am at fixing their PC problems, word will spread and someone will give me a job!) Unfortunately, this seems to rarely happen. Instead, they just think "I know this kid that has too much free time and loves fixing this kind of stuff... I'll just call him and save some frustration and money."
Yeah, I'm well aware of the Consumer Reports testing, but my car is the Montero Sport, not the full-size Montero. Big difference. The Sport model didn't exhibit any of the tendency to flip that the much taller Montero did.
(For what it's worth, other people supposedly tried to duplicate the Consumer Reports test results on the full-size Montero, and didn't come up with the same conclusions at all. So I'm not quite sure if their testing is fully believable or not....)
I will say, though, I'm not too pleased with Mitsubishi dealerships in general. I bought this vehicle used from a GM dealership, actually - and got a decent deal on it because it was a repo. I used to own an Eclipse GS-T and I learned from those warranty experiences that Mitsu is pretty tough to work with. (I had the convertible version of the Eclipse, and the top always had problems folding up or down without "catching" mid-way through. They supposedly looked at it a couple times, doing nothing useful towards fixing the problem, and finally declared that "My car was in an accident at some point, and the frame was slightly bent, causing the top to catch." There was never any evidence of this car having been in an accident other than what these guys suddenly came up with, and certainly not anything bad enough to cause a bent frame. The car drove perfectly straight too, and nobody else who examined the car could see anything hinting at a previous accident (repainted panels or so forth). But after that, Mitsubishi notated their findings in their computer system, and I was denied any warranty repair work on practically anything on the car after that, no matter which dealership I visited. I traded that car in soon thereafter.... That can be someone else's problem....
Umm.... no. My mechanic was not "right". Here's the thing. #1, the guy didn't even offer to try to fix the actual problem. He merely wanted to grab a quick $50 for a few minutes of his time pulling the diag. code and resetting it. If he really did think a new gas cap would solve the problem, he should have replaced it. (And if that turned out not to help, he should have offered to look into the problem further without charging me again for it.)
#2, When I actually had to press him to tell me what he found (this shouldn't have to happen!), he gave me what was, at best, a mumbled guess as to what the problem might be. I know I didn't actually leave my gas cap loose. It's the type that makes a repeated clicking noise when you've got it screwed down all the way, and I always turn it until it clicks.
I can, in fact, try a new gas cap.... but my car is only a 2001. Not sure why gas caps should fail to hold a decent seal on cars that are only a few years old? And furthermore, if other people report the same issue and Mitsibishi acknowledges it and corrects it with new microcode in the ECU - then it sure sounds to me like a *known issue* that isn't just a gas cap.
I bought a 2001 Mitsubishi Montero Sport SUV last year, and while it's been a decent, reliable vehicle since then - I kept running into one annoying little issue. The "check engine" light would occasionally come on, for no obvious reason.
The first time, I took it to a local mechanic my family used for years. He checked everything out, reset the code in the computer, charged me about $50, and said "Looks like it's all ok to me!" I argued that the code had to mean something. He merely mumbled something about it being an emissions-related code that must have come on as a fluke, and maybe I just didn't screw my gas cap on tightly enough the last time....
Well, a few months went by, and sure enough, on came the "check engine" light once again. This time, I had a friend reset it with one of those hand-held ECU code retreivers/testers. He looked the error code up in his book, and said it was an "evaporative emissions leak" error. The only thing we could find possibly wrong on the car was an old PCV valve that might have been sticking. I had that replaced, and waited to see if that would help.
About 2 months later, on came the light again. This time, I searched all over the net to try to find out if any other Montero owners had the same issue. Finally, over on mitsubishisucks.com, I found a message thread about the same problem. One guy claimed his SUV kept doing this until the dealership charged him about $150 to "update the firmware in the engine computer". WTF?!? This whole thing is just an issue with buggy firmware, and yet customers are being billed to have it fixed by the dealership!?! Needless to say, I've just learned to reset the stupid code myself and ignore it.
Well, if your Siemens router at work freezes up every couple weeks, I'd suspect it might ether have flaky RAM in it, or it's just an especially poor design. That certainly isn't the "norm" for even bargain-basement priced firewire/routers! I've got a Linksys WRT54g over here that's been running non-stop since the day I first plugged it in, and has only been rebooted to apply a few firmware updates as they've been released. Never a single freeze-up.
I agree that people who "don't know what they're doing" are not going to be able to secure their system, firewall or not. But most Windows software firewall solutions are BY FAR the worst offenders for this problem. Every time a new app tries to connect to the net, the software firewall prompts the user "Should JOE23BLOWIAM.DLL be allowed to access the Internet this time only, from now on, or never?" The user has no idea, so he/she gets scared and says "No, never!" - and thereby permanently disables his/her new instant messenger client from working properly. OR - he/she says "Yeah, sure... whatever!" and clicks "always allow" on the latest trojan horse virus to infect his/her PC.
Given that alternative, I'd much rather put a hardware firewall on the "average clueless user's" PC than trust them to operate ZoneAlarm or McAfee Personal Firewall or whatever properly.
I definitely put myself in the camp of "switched from Linux to a Mac". I have no real need for a dedicated server here at home right now, but I used to pretty much always keep a Linux distro installed to dual-boot into, so I could tinker with it and keep up with what was new in the Linux world.
Around the same time I bought my first OS X compatible Mac, I quit doing that. For one thing, I used to buy the latest Linux distro in the store every so often, usually at a cost of at least $30-40 a pop. I know I could have just downloaded it for free, but it got to the point where that wasn't worth all the time and effort. (EG. I wanted the latest SUSE to try out a while back, but SUSE wouldn't make the ISOs available for free download. Sometimes the ftp sites would be SLOW, too, when you could easily find what you wanted.)
At some point, I realized "Hey, I spend an average of at least $150-250 a year on "free" Linux distros already, just to feed my habit of trying out various new packages." OS X made a beautiful Unix type workstation for me, and had the huge benefit of running many more apps I liked and wanted to use, too. I no longer have a craving for Linux (or a BSD flavor) on my PC. In fact, my Athlon 64 has been pretty much delegated as my strictly "gaming machine" these days.
As someone who pretty nearly switched to all-Mac myself after OS X came into "prime time"... I still have to say this SF Gate article comes across as a little too strongly Mac-biased.
Why indeed won't people switch computers despite the spyware and virii? It's the APPS, stupid! I know a LOT of engineers and surveyors who all think the Apple Powerbooks are teriffic little notebooks, but none have purchased any. They all use AutoCAD as a staple item in their daily job, and AutoDesk doesn't offer a Mac version of the product (or of any of the related products, like Inventor).
Even in areas traditionally considered "Mac strongholds" like MIDI and music production, the Mac falls short all too often. For example, I used to own a Yamaha Motif synthesizer. One of the big selling points of the Motif was its flexibility in integrating with your computer. That is, if your computer runs Windows. The whole time I owned it, Yamaha never released any Mac software to work with the add-in expansion "PLG" boards for the Motif, nor did they have a native OS X compatible patch librarian/editor for it. I had a similar problem with a Korg Triton synth. There were loads of great freeware and shareware Triton editors, librarians, etc. - but absolutely nothing for OS X.
But even IF the APPS aren't an issue, familiarity is. I've done lots of virus/spyware cleanup for customers over the last couple years, and typically - they either have these problems with a fairly new PC (about 1-2 years old), or it's a pretty old system (4-6 years old, typically) that they recently hooked up to broadband as a spare or kids' machine. In both cases, they'd nuch rather spend, say $120-250 or so for a service call for a professional to clean the PC up and install software to protect it from future problems than spend 4x that or more for a whole new system. They either figure "I didn't buy this thing that long ago - so it should still be good for a long time if someone just gets my problem all sorted out." or "This thing served me well for the last 5 years already... I don't think I quite believe this hype about needing a different type of computer to get one that's reliable."
In short, sure - Windows sucks. But the right "cocktail" of anti-vorus, anti-spyware programs, an alternate browser like FireFox, and a firewall should make it pretty safe for use on the net. You just need to learn how to do it yourself, or pay someone who does know to do it right for you.
I'd have to say I disagree, but maybe not for all the reasons you're giving....
The thing is, hardware firewalls have gotten quite inexpensive -- to the point where you can often pick up a firewall/4-port router for as little as $19.95 or so after a rebate or sale.
At this price point, why *wouldn't* you invest in one, if simply for the sake of putting a seperate piece of hardware between your computer and your net connection? Think of it like the front door on your house... You probably have *both* a bolt lock of some type AND another lock on the doorknob itself. Why bother with this, if one lock should keep a door locked anyway? Well, it's one more measure of security and it's inexpensive enough that most people find it to be of value.
If some hacker figures out there's an operational piece of equipment at your IP address, it's nice to know the first thing he's reaching is a dedicated hardware firewall device instead of a fully functional PC with full-blown operating system on it. It's going to be a lot tougher to make a D-Link or Linksys router execute your arbitrary code/commands than a PC....
In my experiences, these people are getting tougher and tougher to find, though!
One problem is, as personal computers exist as a "staple item" in our society over the years, the quantity of outdated units keeps increasing.
10 years ago, lots of people who just liked computers would be happy to take one off your hands if it was free. Didn't matter what it was, really.
But nowdays, people are getting pickier. "Sure, I'll take your old PC, as long as it's at least a Pentium III system." That sort of thing....
Several years ago, my employer tried to get one of the area schools to take our old Dell machines as a donation. They told us they not only wouldn't so much as send anyone out to pick them up, but we shouldn't even bother dropping them off over there unless they came with licenses for MS Office, ran at least Windows 2000, and had certain minimum RAM and hard disk requirements!
Actually, the first time I called in, it was to straighten out an Applecare issue with a Powerbook. I bought a new 15" at a local CompUSA and purchased Applecare on it at the same time. After I took it home, I discovered the latch didn't close properly on it. Since I just got it, CompUSA was willing to exchange it immediately for another unit - rather than making me send it back to Apple for service.
That was great, but I was stuck owning a laptop with a different serial # than the one I had the extended warranty on... and CompUSA couldn't change that themselves.
I think there really is a HUGE difference in the "warranty experience" that isn't being taken into account when you compare a Dell or HP warranty to an Apple one.
Call Dell, Compaq/HP or Gateway under their standard warranty and see what happens. I'm willing to bet it goes something like this: Wait on hold for 45 minutes or so, only to talk with a foreigner speaking poor English (Pakistani or Indian, most often) who basically reads off a card to "troubleshoot" your problem. If you successfully endure this whole procedure, you MAY be lucky enough to get the rep. to order a replacement part shipped out to you. (To their credit, they're typically very good nowdays about getting these replacement parts to your door quickly, once ordered.) But a good percentage of the time, a mistake is made (again, maybe due to the language barriers in many cases?), and either the wrong part is shipped or your issue isn't resolved properly at all by the rep. you spoke with. Then, you're on to hours more of frustration, trying to escalate the call. Fun, fun....
Apple, by contrast, has always answered their phones with a live human within no more than about 5-6 minutes when I called in, and it was a true English speaking citizen each time too. Yeah - they ask some of the "dummy questions" that the competition asks, and not everybody gets satisfaction... but the experience was much more pleasant, IMHO.
I realize that this type of setup is going to be more costly than outsourcing the whole thing - so I can understand the reason you have to pay extra for the Applecare 3-year warranty.
I can't speak for the generic "people" you refer to, but I *can* and will speak for myself.
I don't think "copyright infringement" has anything at all to do with "sticking it to the evil, blood-sucking, etc. etc. corporations" and that making it "right" vs. "wrong".
What I *do* think is that quite simply, stealing refers to taking possession of tangible property without permission. Copyright infingement is NOT stealing in any strict sense, because it's about the "unauthorized" duplication of intellectual property (typically intangible).
When you steal, you deprive someone of the item in order to re-locate it physically in your presence. When you infringe a copyright, no such thing happens. Any purchased media the original works were stored on remains in the possession of whoever had it to begin with. You simply made a "clone" of it using other media.
In fact, "copyright infringement" is all about an entirely different crime -- one of breaking a contract. IMHO, this very much enters the territory of being subject to interpretation. If, say, you strike up a business deal with a partner and agree to sign a contract with him/her covering it - what about unreasonable or unjust language hidden deep within it that you didn't notice before you signed? Strictly speaking, you'd just be "out of luck" since you signed it. But we all know it's not really this way in all cases. Laws must be *interpreted*, which is the job of the courts, judges and juries. It could very well be decided that the language wasn't legally binding, so you're "off the hook".
So it is with software too. Criminal prosecution of copyright violations should be reserved for the counterfeiters, who quite clearly are cheating the people who believed they were really paying for the original product, and instead got a knock-off.
Anything else, I'd say, is potentially something to deal with on a civil basis - but probably little else. If you "pirate" an application instead of buying it, you're cloning the bits that make up the program - but you're not getting the rest of the package. (No free updates, support from the vendor, printed manuals, guarantees of replacement of defective media, and so on.) Those are really the things that should make software purchases worthwhile anyway.
Good point.... but what's with all the backlash over talking on phones in public anyway?
I was just at a Subway restaurant last week where they had a big sign up telling people that they wouldn't be served if they were talking on their phone while in line.
A while ago, I was behind a guy grabbing a couple items at 7-11 while obviously trying to carry on some business over his cellphone, and the clerk complained about how much she hated that, etc. when I went to pay for my items.
I've even had people make ridiculous efforts to pass me when I'm driving and give me nasty stares just because I was getting directions on my cellphone while driving (and wasn't driving any differently than I would be if I wasn't on the phone).
What's the difference, really, between talking to the guy/gal next to you in the car or in line, and talking to someone on your cellphone? Seems to me people get all bent out of shape over nothing, most of the time.
I'd find it much MORE annoying seeing people walking around staring at their little phone screens and keying things in. No way they're gonna pay attention to anything around them while doing that.
I'm not even sure many people would agree on what would qualify as a "Porsche of computing" anyway?
The Mac Mini is Apple's experiment in departing from their usual ways and offering an inexpensive "starter OS X" system. So comparing the *Mini* to a VW Beetle might be fine. But saying all Macs are like that seems a bit "off" to me.
When I think of a Porsche, I think of a fast, costly car, that isn't necessarily all that practical - but isn't really supposed to be either. It's fairly elegant, carries significant "status" by virtue of the brand name, and caters to a niche market with specific tastes in automobiles.
How is that too far off from most Mac systems, as a rule? A system like a PowerMac G5 tower is certainly "fast". (Heck, it's a 64-bit, typically dual-processor system, so right away - you know we're not talking some "average, commodity" PC.) It's certainly expensive too, at around $3,000 for the 2.5Ghz model. Most people consider it as having very distinctive styling, and above average engineering all around. (Multiple thermal zones with many quiet cooling fans, rather than 2 or 3 loud, fast running fans.... ability to take up to 8GB of system RAM, PCI-X card support, solid aluminum enclosure with both an outer and transparent plastic inner door, etc. etc.)
So what else are you waiting for before you call a PC maker the "Porsche" of computing, anyway?
Actually, I'm not 100% certain, but I think I recall reading that the remote starters in cars generally use some type of rolling authentication code - so it's not especially easy to crack.
(At least, you're not going to get anywhere by trying to capture the radio transmission off someone's keyfob and duplicating it, or that sort of thing.)
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, as long as we're nitpicking analogies here, let's correct yours too.
This guy (supposedly, though is this even known yet?) working at Apple and violating said NDA doesn't seem to be some sort of upper-management type. Rather, he/she is probably just another average employee who happened to be part of a group working on one of these projects.
Therefore, it's not at all like "Metallica's manager" bringing out tunes and lyrics Metallica didn't even record yet. It's much more like some guy working at the record company, maybe in the shipping or marketing dept., leaking out a preview of some of the supposed new lyrics on a Metallica fan-club site.
If so, I once again say - despite it being technically illegal under contract law, I'm not sure I'd opt to pursue it. It's easy enough to turn a "blind eye" to it, realizing that it's more beneficial to let it go than to attack your own customer-base.
(In fact, it's arguable that Metallica already learned this lesson. They *did* raise a huge legal stink about their music being distributed as MP3s, and what became of it? Their next big album release was relative failure, and you now hear just as many people scoff at their name as rave about them being "metal gods" and what-not. Meanwhile, I'd say they stopped about 0% of the trafficing of their music over the net and gained practically nothing in "new sales" from their actions.)
Well, considering when she left, she did so while I was at work and cleaned out practically my entire house in the process... AND considering she took my sports car (heavily modded, even) and *sold* it, forging my signature on the title to do so (since it was purchased before I was married and was never in her name), AND considering she even came back a second time, broke in a basement window, and took some of the replacement items (cordless phone, answering machine, etc.) that I bought from her first escapade - YES, I'd be MORE than happy to trash her account.
Has anyone even claimed that the person/people leaking this info to Apple fan/rumor sites was receiving money for the information?
It seems to me more like this info was leaked by a Mac fan to other like-minded folks who buy the majority of the products sold anyway. Attacking these people for "NDA violations" isn't much different than record companies suing the biggest Metallica fans for p2p sharing some Metallica songs. Legally, yeah, you can do it - but how sensible is it really? Bite the hands that feed you, and you'll simply end up with less food.
Actually, I get the idea this system of suspending accounts rather than deleting them is commonplace with these MMORPGs. This certainly isn't unique to Blizzard and WoW.
... but she simply had billing xferred to a new card and re-activated her game, and kept on playing.
I understand the reasoning behind it, but it can cause some irritating situations too.
EG. My ex-wife was a big Shadowbane addict for a few months preceding our divorce. She was using an account I created initially. (I'm the one who bought the game, played it for about 30 minutes, and decided I didn't like it after all. I let her try it, and she got hooked immediately - and begged me to buy her a 3 month subscription after that.) The interesting thing is, though, I couldn't seem to find any way to get Ubisoft to permanently erase her account after she moved out. I was able to sign on to the web site and deactivate the account, so she couldn't keep billing renewals to my credit card
Somehow, it doesn't seem right I wasn't even able to have her characters deleted on an account she effectively hijaacked from me - and now I still keep getting email notifications about her activities in the game (purchases of expansion sets, tech. support help, etc. etc.).
If that's supposed to be some kind of analogy, I think your straw dummy went up in flames someplace way back there.....
I've never seen a concentration camp where people applied for the positions and worked for wages. Have you?
I thought it looked pretty slick in the main site photo, actually. But when I viewed the "gallery" photos showing it all opened up, I was much less interested. Everything looks pretty much thrown in. Just like a real suitcase, it's much neater and more organized if you take the time to fold the clothes properly and pack everything carefully. I dunno... maybe they needed to construct some inner liner type of thing that would cover/hide some of the cabling and boxes (like the router)?
First off, I disagree that there is really such a thing as an "immoral company". Despite the financial/legal reasons for treating a corporation as an individual on some paperwork - companies are nothing more than organized groups of PEOPLE working towards a common goal of earning money for themselves.
You may have "immoral people" who happen to be in charge of others within a given company, but the company itself can't be "moral" or "immoral". It just "is".
I hardly think I'm taking a "defeatist attitude" when I say that very large corporations consist of so many divisions, and produce so many products (or provide so many services) that they're usually a "mixed bag" of good and bad. I'm merely trying to be realistic, and quit trying to view everything as simple "black" and "white".
EG. How "evil" is it that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated large sums of money to further people's education? How "evil" is the "big, bad chemical company" when they produce plastic tubing that's needed for medical equipment in hospitals to save lives? Heck, for that matter, how "bad" is McDonalds Corp. when they do such things as supporting the "Ronald McDonald House"?
Usually, it just depends on which aspects of a business you wish to focus on.... And the bottom line is, I know I could do more good for society as a whole if I was gainfully employed for a telemarketing firm than if I was out on the streets, begging for money and presumably living on the welfare dole.
How the heck did *this* parent comment get an "Interesting" mod point?
This is just plain silly....
I have a friend who works at MS right now, and there's plenty of reason for him to be happy about it. It lets him work on software projects that actually get used by a LOT of people, for one thing. So many times, you get paid to work on some customized app that's only used by the firm you work for, or fills some small niche market. Not all software developers can actually say "My contribution is used on 75% of the computers out there." or something along those lines.
The entire Japanese business model has pretty much been one of copying existing products, and figuring out how to incrementally improve them, and/or produce them more inexpensively - and it seems that it worked quite well for them. Same with Dell Computers, for another example. Name one real "invention" that Dell made, yet they're pretty much #1 in desktop PC sales. Not all businesses have to invent new things to be worthwhile in the marketplace....
As for MS being proven in a court of law to have broken laws several times, I imagine you can say the same of most large corporations if you look hard enough. Should people quit their jobs as chemists at Dow Chemical or Monsanto too? At some point, I think you just have to accept that when a business grows large enough, it has so many different things it's involved with at different levels - it's quite LIKELY they'll break some laws someplace. Doesn't mean the bad decisions made by some workers there invalidate any and all good work done by others there.
Well, not sure I'd go quite as far as to say I'd be promoting downloading everything possible off iTunes to "build a stronger Apple computer, for everyone's long term benefit" -- but I do think an iPod might reach the "saturation point" of too much ongoing expense to use it if monthly satellite radio subscription fees are added on top of everything else.
Satellite radio just doesn't appeal much to me at all, because I feel like it's really just a response to people's disgust with regular FM radio. Ever since the large conglomerates (Clear Channel, etc.) took over practically everything, radio has become very mediocre. I don't see why I should fork out a monthly subscription fee, just because standard radio wasn't able to keep up decent enough quality programming? It's like I'm paying for their mistakes.... I'd much rather put together my own music mixes on CD, take my iPod with me in the car, or whatever - and be my own D.J.
I think you brought up an excellent point. Service contracts are *rarely* worthwhile - yet many businesses seem to buy and renew them without even a second thought.
I used to work in I.T. for a place that was constantly complaining about a need to "cut costs" (and in an overall sense, they did - because several of their locations were being shut down as unprofitable, etc.). Unfortunately, we had such things as support contracts with Oracle for our main database that cost upwards of $30,000/yr. to renew - and I don't think we made any use of it except maybe 1 or 2 times in 5 years. (Both of those times, we reported problems which turned out to be small bugs, and "hotfixes" were mailed to us on CD-R disc -- but, these same fixes made it to future point release updates of the Oracle products anyway. I think we could have lived with the issues a little longer, or worked around them, without it costing us over $30K per year worth of problems!)
I also remember a fairly costly maintenance contract we kept up for all of our uninterrupted power supplies. Sure, it covered replacement of worn-out batteries - but at best, it was a "break even" deal over just buying replacement batteries when needed and swapping them out ourselves. If a UPS actually lasted longer than expected, the maintenance agreement instantly became a poor value.
This is a superb post! I work for PC House Calls, Inc. in St. Louis, Missouri - and we currently bill at $89/hr. with a 1 hr. minimum. After the first hour, we bill in quarter hour increments, and there is also a $20 trip/travel charge on each call.
A few people told me this was way too expensive, but when you figure in everything, it's hard to even be profitable billing much less than this. The small box ad we run in the Yellow Pages costs over $400 per month by itself, plus we actually rent out office space. Sure, we could save some $'s if we ran this out of someone's basement - but it's a big plus having a real business address where people can drop off laptops for repair, etc.
As you pointed out too, there's a lot of non-billable time in this type of work. In an 8 hour day, it's rare I can bill more than 4 hours. The rest is spent in drive time between jobs, plus "dead time" when you just can't schedule the next appointment right after you get done with the last one.
I think a lot of younger computer "whizes" start off offering to do a lot of cheap or free PC work because they mistakenly think it's some type of ticket to a good job in the future. (If people learn how good I am at fixing their PC problems, word will spread and someone will give me a job!) Unfortunately, this seems to rarely happen. Instead, they just think "I know this kid that has too much free time and loves fixing this kind of stuff... I'll just call him and save some frustration and money."
Yeah, I'm well aware of the Consumer Reports testing, but my car is the Montero Sport, not the full-size Montero. Big difference. The Sport model didn't exhibit any of the tendency to flip that the much taller Montero did.
(For what it's worth, other people supposedly tried to duplicate the Consumer Reports test results on the full-size Montero, and didn't come up with the same conclusions at all. So I'm not quite sure if their testing is fully believable or not....)
I will say, though, I'm not too pleased with Mitsubishi dealerships in general. I bought this vehicle used from a GM dealership, actually - and got a decent deal on it because it was a repo. I used to own an Eclipse GS-T and I learned from those warranty experiences that Mitsu is pretty tough to work with. (I had the convertible version of the Eclipse, and the top always had problems folding up or down without "catching" mid-way through. They supposedly looked at it a couple times, doing nothing useful towards fixing the problem, and finally declared that "My car was in an accident at some point, and the frame was slightly bent, causing the top to catch." There was never any evidence of this car having been in an accident other than what these guys suddenly came up with, and certainly not anything bad enough to cause a bent frame. The car drove perfectly straight too, and nobody else who examined the car could see anything hinting at a previous accident (repainted panels or so forth). But after that, Mitsubishi notated their findings in their computer system, and I was denied any warranty repair work on practically anything on the car after that, no matter which dealership I visited. I traded that car in soon thereafter.... That can be someone else's problem....
Umm.... no. My mechanic was not "right". Here's the thing. #1, the guy didn't even offer to try to fix the actual problem. He merely wanted to grab a quick $50 for a few minutes of his time pulling the diag. code and resetting it. If he really did think a new gas cap would solve the problem, he should have replaced it. (And if that turned out not to help, he should have offered to look into the problem further without charging me again for it.)
#2, When I actually had to press him to tell me what he found (this shouldn't have to happen!), he gave me what was, at best, a mumbled guess as to what the problem might be. I know I didn't actually leave my gas cap loose. It's the type that makes a repeated clicking noise when you've got it screwed down all the way, and I always turn it until it clicks.
I can, in fact, try a new gas cap.... but my car is only a 2001. Not sure why gas caps should fail to hold a decent seal on cars that are only a few years old? And furthermore, if other people report the same issue and Mitsibishi acknowledges it and corrects it with new microcode in the ECU - then it sure sounds to me like a *known issue* that isn't just a gas cap.
I bought a 2001 Mitsubishi Montero Sport SUV last year, and while it's been a decent, reliable vehicle since then - I kept running into one annoying little issue. The "check engine" light would occasionally come on, for no obvious reason.
The first time, I took it to a local mechanic my family used for years. He checked everything out, reset the code in the computer, charged me about $50, and said "Looks like it's all ok to me!" I argued that the code had to mean something. He merely mumbled something about it being an emissions-related code that must have come on as a fluke, and maybe I just didn't screw my gas cap on tightly enough the last time....
Well, a few months went by, and sure enough, on came the "check engine" light once again. This time, I had a friend reset it with one of those hand-held ECU code retreivers/testers. He looked the error code up in his book, and said it was an "evaporative emissions leak" error. The only thing we could find possibly wrong on the car was an old PCV valve that might have been sticking. I had that replaced, and waited to see if that would help.
About 2 months later, on came the light again. This time, I searched all over the net to try to find out if any other Montero owners had the same issue. Finally, over on mitsubishisucks.com, I found a message thread about the same problem. One guy claimed his SUV kept doing this until the dealership charged him about $150 to "update the firmware in the engine computer". WTF?!? This whole thing is just an issue with buggy firmware, and yet customers are being billed to have it fixed by the dealership!?! Needless to say, I've just learned to reset the stupid code myself and ignore it.
Well, if your Siemens router at work freezes up every couple weeks, I'd suspect it might ether have flaky RAM in it, or it's just an especially poor design. That certainly isn't the "norm" for even bargain-basement priced firewire/routers! I've got a Linksys WRT54g over here that's been running non-stop since the day I first plugged it in, and has only been rebooted to apply a few firmware updates as they've been released. Never a single freeze-up.
I agree that people who "don't know what they're doing" are not going to be able to secure their system, firewall or not. But most Windows software firewall solutions are BY FAR the worst offenders for this problem. Every time a new app tries to connect to the net, the software firewall prompts the user "Should JOE23BLOWIAM.DLL be allowed to access the Internet this time only, from now on, or never?" The user has no idea, so he/she gets scared and says "No, never!" - and thereby permanently disables his/her new instant messenger client from working properly. OR - he/she says "Yeah, sure... whatever!" and clicks "always allow" on the latest trojan horse virus to infect his/her PC.
Given that alternative, I'd much rather put a hardware firewall on the "average clueless user's" PC than trust them to operate ZoneAlarm or McAfee Personal Firewall or whatever properly.
I definitely put myself in the camp of "switched from Linux to a Mac". I have no real need for a dedicated server here at home right now, but I used to pretty much always keep a Linux distro installed to dual-boot into, so I could tinker with it and keep up with what was new in the Linux world.
Around the same time I bought my first OS X compatible Mac, I quit doing that. For one thing, I used to buy the latest Linux distro in the store every so often, usually at a cost of at least $30-40 a pop. I know I could have just downloaded it for free, but it got to the point where that wasn't worth all the time and effort. (EG. I wanted the latest SUSE to try out a while back, but SUSE wouldn't make the ISOs available for free download. Sometimes the ftp sites would be SLOW, too, when you could easily find what you wanted.)
At some point, I realized "Hey, I spend an average of at least $150-250 a year on "free" Linux distros already, just to feed my habit of trying out various new packages." OS X made a beautiful Unix type workstation for me, and had the huge benefit of running many more apps I liked and wanted to use, too. I no longer have a craving for Linux (or a BSD flavor) on my PC. In fact, my Athlon 64 has been pretty much delegated as my strictly "gaming machine" these days.
As someone who pretty nearly switched to all-Mac myself after OS X came into "prime time" ... I still have to say this SF Gate article comes across as a little too strongly Mac-biased.
Why indeed won't people switch computers despite the spyware and virii? It's the APPS, stupid! I know a LOT of engineers and surveyors who all think the Apple Powerbooks are teriffic little notebooks, but none have purchased any. They all use AutoCAD as a staple item in their daily job, and AutoDesk doesn't offer a Mac version of the product (or of any of the related products, like Inventor).
Even in areas traditionally considered "Mac strongholds" like MIDI and music production, the Mac falls short all too often. For example, I used to own a Yamaha Motif synthesizer. One of the big selling points of the Motif was its flexibility in integrating with your computer. That is, if your computer runs Windows. The whole time I owned it, Yamaha never released any Mac software to work with the add-in expansion "PLG" boards for the Motif, nor did they have a native OS X compatible patch librarian/editor for it. I had a similar problem with a Korg Triton synth. There were loads of great freeware and shareware Triton editors, librarians, etc. - but absolutely nothing for OS X.
But even IF the APPS aren't an issue, familiarity is. I've done lots of virus/spyware cleanup for customers over the last couple years, and typically - they either have these problems with a fairly new PC (about 1-2 years old), or it's a pretty old system (4-6 years old, typically) that they recently hooked up to broadband as a spare or kids' machine. In both cases, they'd nuch rather spend, say $120-250 or so for a service call for a professional to clean the PC up and install software to protect it from future problems than spend 4x that or more for a whole new system. They either figure "I didn't buy this thing that long ago - so it should still be good for a long time if someone just gets my problem all sorted out." or "This thing served me well for the last 5 years already... I don't think I quite believe this hype about needing a different type of computer to get one that's reliable."
In short, sure - Windows sucks. But the right "cocktail" of anti-vorus, anti-spyware programs, an alternate browser like FireFox, and a firewall should make it pretty safe for use on the net. You just need to learn how to do it yourself, or pay someone who does know to do it right for you.
I'd have to say I disagree, but maybe not for all the reasons you're giving....
The thing is, hardware firewalls have gotten quite inexpensive -- to the point where you can often pick up a firewall/4-port router for as little as $19.95 or so after a rebate or sale.
At this price point, why *wouldn't* you invest in one, if simply for the sake of putting a seperate piece of hardware between your computer and your net connection? Think of it like the front door on your house... You probably have *both* a bolt lock of some type AND another lock on the doorknob itself. Why bother with this, if one lock should keep a door locked anyway? Well, it's one more measure of security and it's inexpensive enough that most people find it to be of value.
If some hacker figures out there's an operational piece of equipment at your IP address, it's nice to know the first thing he's reaching is a dedicated hardware firewall device instead of a fully functional PC with full-blown operating system on it. It's going to be a lot tougher to make a D-Link or Linksys router execute your arbitrary code/commands than a PC....
In my experiences, these people are getting tougher and tougher to find, though!
One problem is, as personal computers exist as a "staple item" in our society over the years, the quantity of outdated units keeps increasing.
10 years ago, lots of people who just liked computers would be happy to take one off your hands if it was free. Didn't matter what it was, really.
But nowdays, people are getting pickier. "Sure, I'll take your old PC, as long as it's at least a Pentium III system." That sort of thing....
Several years ago, my employer tried to get one of the area schools to take our old Dell machines as a donation. They told us they not only wouldn't so much as send anyone out to pick them up, but we shouldn't even bother dropping them off over there unless they came with licenses for MS Office, ran at least Windows 2000, and had certain minimum RAM and hard disk requirements!
Actually, the first time I called in, it was to straighten out an Applecare issue with a Powerbook. I bought a new 15" at a local CompUSA and purchased Applecare on it at the same time. After I took it home, I discovered the latch didn't close properly on it. Since I just got it, CompUSA was willing to exchange it immediately for another unit - rather than making me send it back to Apple for service.
... and CompUSA couldn't change that themselves.
That was great, but I was stuck owning a laptop with a different serial # than the one I had the extended warranty on
I think there really is a HUGE difference in the "warranty experience" that isn't being taken into account when you compare a Dell or HP warranty to an Apple one.
... but the experience was much more pleasant, IMHO.
Call Dell, Compaq/HP or Gateway under their standard warranty and see what happens. I'm willing to bet it goes something like this: Wait on hold for 45 minutes or so, only to talk with a foreigner speaking poor English (Pakistani or Indian, most often) who basically reads off a card to "troubleshoot" your problem. If you successfully endure this whole procedure, you MAY be lucky enough to get the rep. to order a replacement part shipped out to you. (To their credit, they're typically very good nowdays about getting these replacement parts to your door quickly, once ordered.) But a good percentage of the time, a mistake is made (again, maybe due to the language barriers in many cases?), and either the wrong part is shipped or your issue isn't resolved properly at all by the rep. you spoke with. Then, you're on to hours more of frustration, trying to escalate the call. Fun, fun....
Apple, by contrast, has always answered their phones with a live human within no more than about 5-6 minutes when I called in, and it was a true English speaking citizen each time too. Yeah - they ask some of the "dummy questions" that the competition asks, and not everybody gets satisfaction
I realize that this type of setup is going to be more costly than outsourcing the whole thing - so I can understand the reason you have to pay extra for the Applecare 3-year warranty.
I can't speak for the generic "people" you refer to, but I *can* and will speak for myself.
I don't think "copyright infringement" has anything at all to do with "sticking it to the evil, blood-sucking, etc. etc. corporations" and that making it "right" vs. "wrong".
What I *do* think is that quite simply, stealing refers to taking possession of tangible property without permission. Copyright infingement is NOT stealing in any strict sense, because it's about the "unauthorized" duplication of intellectual property (typically intangible).
When you steal, you deprive someone of the item in order to re-locate it physically in your presence. When you infringe a copyright, no such thing happens. Any purchased media the original works were stored on remains in the possession of whoever had it to begin with. You simply made a "clone" of it using other media.
In fact, "copyright infringement" is all about an entirely different crime -- one of breaking a contract. IMHO, this very much enters the territory of being subject to interpretation. If, say, you strike up a business deal with a partner and agree to sign a contract with him/her covering it - what about unreasonable or unjust language hidden deep within it that you didn't notice before you signed? Strictly speaking, you'd just be "out of luck" since you signed it. But we all know it's not really this way in all cases. Laws must be *interpreted*, which is the job of the courts, judges and juries. It could very well be decided that the language wasn't legally binding, so you're "off the hook".
So it is with software too. Criminal prosecution of copyright violations should be reserved for the counterfeiters, who quite clearly are cheating the people who believed they were really paying for the original product, and instead got a knock-off.
Anything else, I'd say, is potentially something to deal with on a civil basis - but probably little else. If you "pirate" an application instead of buying it, you're cloning the bits that make up the program - but you're not getting the rest of the package. (No free updates, support from the vendor, printed manuals, guarantees of replacement of defective media, and so on.) Those are really the things that should make software purchases worthwhile anyway.
Good point.... but what's with all the backlash over talking on phones in public anyway?
I was just at a Subway restaurant last week where they had a big sign up telling people that they wouldn't be served if they were talking on their phone while in line.
A while ago, I was behind a guy grabbing a couple items at 7-11 while obviously trying to carry on some business over his cellphone, and the clerk complained about how much she hated that, etc. when I went to pay for my items.
I've even had people make ridiculous efforts to pass me when I'm driving and give me nasty stares just because I was getting directions on my cellphone while driving (and wasn't driving any differently than I would be if I wasn't on the phone).
What's the difference, really, between talking to the guy/gal next to you in the car or in line, and talking to someone on your cellphone? Seems to me people get all bent out of shape over nothing, most of the time.
I'd find it much MORE annoying seeing people walking around staring at their little phone screens and keying things in. No way they're gonna pay attention to anything around them while doing that.
I'm not even sure many people would agree on what would qualify as a "Porsche of computing" anyway?
The Mac Mini is Apple's experiment in departing from their usual ways and offering an inexpensive "starter OS X" system. So comparing the *Mini* to a VW Beetle might be fine. But saying all Macs are like that seems a bit "off" to me.
When I think of a Porsche, I think of a fast, costly car, that isn't necessarily all that practical - but isn't really supposed to be either. It's fairly elegant, carries significant "status" by virtue of the brand name, and caters to a niche market with specific tastes in automobiles.
How is that too far off from most Mac systems, as a rule? A system like a PowerMac G5 tower is certainly "fast". (Heck, it's a 64-bit, typically dual-processor system, so right away - you know we're not talking some "average, commodity" PC.) It's certainly expensive too, at around $3,000 for the 2.5Ghz model. Most people consider it as having very distinctive styling, and above average engineering all around. (Multiple thermal zones with many quiet cooling fans, rather than 2 or 3 loud, fast running fans.... ability to take up to 8GB of system RAM, PCI-X card support, solid aluminum enclosure with both an outer and transparent plastic inner door, etc. etc.)
So what else are you waiting for before you call a PC maker the "Porsche" of computing, anyway?
Actually, I'm not 100% certain, but I think I recall reading that the remote starters in cars generally use some type of rolling authentication code - so it's not especially easy to crack.
(At least, you're not going to get anywhere by trying to capture the radio transmission off someone's keyfob and duplicating it, or that sort of thing.)