My service was bought by Comcast so I am now one of their subscirbers. First the sent a letter with a broken CD that said run the CD by the end of the year of lose internet access. I got this in the mail as I was leaving for Christmas vacation and wasn't going to be back until January. No explaination of what was on the CD or the settings that need to be changed for email and whatever else. I also recieved a new email address that I will never remember. And when I got back, I got a letter informing me that due to all the new services (I'm not sure what those are) my rates are going up!
And now this? If they call me about my router (unless the kittens are surfing while I'm at work, I'm the only one that uses the access), I need to find another provider. Anybody have any recommendatiosn for a provider in the Detroit area?
Here's the problem with this case: there is no evidence that customers suffered harm for more than a few dollars per person.
I seem to recall that these cases are based on the orgianl findings of the anti-trust trial. One of the findings was that MS is charging as much as twice what they would be if there was competition. Assuming that even with competition even 10% would be saved on each product, how much MS software does a person have? Windows, Office, and a few games are not too unlikely. And then figure that the person might have purchased one version and then upgraded the costs are even greater. It definately isn't a stretch to say one person might have spent $500 on MS products. Of course, some could have spent many thousands. So 10% isn't exactly nothing.
And while the lawyers will benifit the most, it should help MS figure out that they are doing something wrong. That is much better then giving them a whole new group of customers.
I don't know if the home user is that concerned. I know that MS tries to keep backward compatiblity with everything, but they keep breaking it here and there. If the bizarre little propriatary note keeper doesn't work on the newest version of Windows, oh well. It happens.
If people viewed this as an upgrade, then it might be easier for them to accept. If it comes preinstalled on their next computer, then they might not even notice.
This gets modded as interesting? Usenet talk? That is usually as reliable as an end user's PC diagnosis:)
Why not say William Shatner as the big giant latex-clad head? That would fit in the humans-as-scary category:)
It would be much more likely, judging from other shows, that they would go without the big name stars because they would need the $ for fx. Besides, neither Buffy, Angel, or the X-Files used big name stars when they started.
I read this earlier today in Wired and had to wonder if this wasn't all a means of advertising through reverse psychology. Tell some geeks they can't do something that obviously anyone can do and they will do exactly the opposite.
And in the process this company gets a huge number of free links from just about everywhere. How many companies would not like to have their website linked everywhere?
There was a part where he came back and did a Prophet-like visit with his wife saying he would be back in days, weeks, or years, or yesterday since the Prophets weren't linear time dwellers.
Sisko didn't die in the tv show. In the series finale, he did throw himself and Gul Dukat off a cliff but the Prophets saved him and took him ack to their realm to learn.
I agree that the concept of death has been trivialized in comics and many tv shows, but I don't think this is one of those.
I had read on Wil Wheaton's site that Lavar Burton had mentioned that this was the last one.
I think it would be cool to have the next film with the DS9 crew. Thee were a lot of stories left open. Sisko coming back. A whole new relationship with the Changlings. The whole Gamma quadrant. Lots of material.
I don't know what Voyager could do. They got home. End of story. Thank goodness. 7 of 9 aside, I didn't like the show.
hehe... I know what you mean, but I guess I'm stuck on the fact that they gave you the CD. If you found other software on it, is that your fault? If you gave someone your car keys, do you have a right to complain that they used them?
So if I used the CD for a coaster (also not the intended purpose) Apple wouldn't like that either?:)
I'm not saying that Apple deserves punishment for being niave. What I'm asking is should they be threatening others for pointing out they aren't wearing clothes? They choose to put out a complete CD with a patch on it. Just like other companies have put out hardware that was (unintenitonally) hackable. Does it make a difference if it was a free CD given away instead of a free CueCat?
If I don't legally have MacOS X and use this trick to get a copy of MacOS 10.1 for 20 bucks then I'm at least doing something immoral, and possibly illegal. Apple has the right to try to prevent this (beyond that, they've got an obligation to as well, an obligation to their stock holders).
I'm not sure if this is true. If you have the disk, it was given to you right? And if the disk has the entire OS on it, then you have it. They are the ones giving it away, or selling it cheap. So now someoen comes along and notices that everything is on it. Do you not actually have a valid copy of it?
If they wanted to protect their investment better, wouldn't it have made sense to put a little work into it and make sure only the nessesary files were on the disk instead of the whole thing? I don't think it is nessesarily immoral to take a look and use something you were given.
Re:Same as it ever was...
on
Homepage Usability
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· Score: 5, Insightful
The whole point he has is how usable the site is. It doens't matter how "innovative" you are if no one can use the site. If they don't understand the navigation or if it takes them a few minutes to figure out "oh, that color means it is a link" then all your innovation is worthless.
Unless you are just designing a site to be cool and impress your friends. Then do what ever you want.
Sure there may only be the lowest 2.3% of people that will be left out if you use newer stuff, but if you are designing a commerical site, do you really want to piss away more then 1 out of 50 visitors? And for the color thing, being very color blind, I get irritated when someone gets cute and uses unusual colors so I can't read the text on the screen, so there isn't any problem with the basic 256 for me.
Besides, look at the sites here people use. Google, Yahoo, Slashdot... all of them use innovation, but it is all on the backend. The pages themselves are still pretty simple HTML.
I haven't read that back of a ticket lately, but I seem to remember that most of what I did see were more in the line of federal regulations. Not something the airlines were surprising you with.
Nothing about not being able to disparage the airlines, or figure out how the airplane works, or similar things to what people are stuck with on software EULAs.
One thing you can do to make sure your batteries stay good is to drain them at least once a month. That keeps them going well.
Another thing to keep in mind is keeping the power consuption to a minimum. Lower the brightness of the LCD screen. Adjust the other power settings to minimize the power used. Turn off any other things that don't need to run like virus protection or the like. Try not to do anything that beats on the hard drive.
And of course the other thing to remember is get a couple of spare batteries. That way you can run as long as you like, with a few quick interruptions.
I've got the same laptop (less memory though) and I get 3.5-4 hours plus per battery if I am just writing email or a docuemnt in Word. Light stuff like that. Maybe a little bit of programming. But I've been very impressed with it.
I ewould imagine the original post reffered to the flash programmable players out there like the Rio Volt. I have one of those and really like it. You just download the updates and burn them to CD to update the player.
The datalink was a great watch. I loved it when I got it. I never had a problem hold the watch to the monitor though. Put your elbow on the desk and you arm is steady. I did get the adaptor though to use with my laptop.
The closed API did suck. I would have loved to program my own wrist apps.
I just picked up a PC-Unite from Casio and it is pretty good so far. I like the fact that it syns up with the computer data. I stil lneed to get it to work with other applications then just the one it came with, but that doesn't look too hard.
One thing that surprised me is that this slime ball has been sued for this before and lost 57 cases tied to 200 domain names and been fined $800,000 to $1,000,000. And he's still doing it. The only reason he would still be doing this is if it is profitable, above and beyond court costs and fines.
Who is falling for all this and patronizing the sites that trap you like this?
In my day tv remote controls were called CHILDREN!
We didn't have any of these fancy 10 foot poles or nothin. We just hollered at one of the kids to change the channel, turn up or down the volumn, and everything else.
Note: Actually *I* was the family remote control as a child:)
I never thought of that. But I'm pretty sure the people that work on the floor beneath me would object to it. Random people falling through their ceiling would get irritating.
I'm not entierly sure if this is not a troll, but I'll reply anyway.
No, a movie is not software, any more then the email you write using a Linux box is software. And if it is, does that mean that all your emails are now GPL'd? Any documents you make?
This is EXACTLY the sort of thing MS would like people to start thinking. "Don't use Linux! You'll have to give everything away!" IT isn't like that at all.
Instead of releasing such a virus, what about just running it on your own machine(s)? Everytime your machine gets probed and attempts to infect, it just turns around and does the same thing to the orginating machine. That way you are not doing anything that wasn't done to you, and you are patching a known infected machine, not clean ones.
I wouldn't think they would have a good case for you intruding/hacking since they did it to you first. Just keep the logs of the event to CYA.
Slashdot Mirror
My service was bought by Comcast so I am now one of their subscirbers. First the sent a letter with a broken CD that said run the CD by the end of the year of lose internet access. I got this in the mail as I was leaving for Christmas vacation and wasn't going to be back until January. No explaination of what was on the CD or the settings that need to be changed for email and whatever else. I also recieved a new email address that I will never remember. And when I got back, I got a letter informing me that due to all the new services (I'm not sure what those are) my rates are going up!
And now this? If they call me about my router (unless the kittens are surfing while I'm at work, I'm the only one that uses the access), I need to find another provider. Anybody have any recommendatiosn for a provider in the Detroit area?
Here's the problem with this case: there is no evidence that customers suffered harm for more than a few dollars per person.
I seem to recall that these cases are based on the orgianl findings of the anti-trust trial. One of the findings was that MS is charging as much as twice what they would be if there was competition. Assuming that even with competition even 10% would be saved on each product, how much MS software does a person have? Windows, Office, and a few games are not too unlikely. And then figure that the person might have purchased one version and then upgraded the costs are even greater. It definately isn't a stretch to say one person might have spent $500 on MS products. Of course, some could have spent many thousands. So 10% isn't exactly nothing.
And while the lawyers will benifit the most, it should help MS figure out that they are doing something wrong. That is much better then giving them a whole new group of customers.
The only Ad links I see are on the right side of the page in an ad shaped box under text that clearly says ADVERTISEMENT.
It think it's slimy of the advertiser, but I wouldn't blame Yahoo for it. I got caught by it once before, but since then mentally block it out.
And here I was just reading about how Unreal Tournament 2 was going to have a way of firing an orbiting laser at your opponents.
Cool.
I don't know if the home user is that concerned. I know that MS tries to keep backward compatiblity with everything, but they keep breaking it here and there. If the bizarre little propriatary note keeper doesn't work on the newest version of Windows, oh well. It happens.
If people viewed this as an upgrade, then it might be easier for them to accept. If it comes preinstalled on their next computer, then they might not even notice.
This gets modded as interesting? Usenet talk? That is usually as reliable as an end user's PC diagnosis :)
:)
Why not say William Shatner as the big giant latex-clad head? That would fit in the humans-as-scary category
It would be much more likely, judging from other shows, that they would go without the big name stars because they would need the $ for fx. Besides, neither Buffy, Angel, or the X-Files used big name stars when they started.
I read this earlier today in Wired and had to wonder if this wasn't all a means of advertising through reverse psychology. Tell some geeks they can't do something that obviously anyone can do and they will do exactly the opposite.
And in the process this company gets a huge number of free links from just about everywhere. How many companies would not like to have their website linked everywhere?
There was a part where he came back and did a Prophet-like visit with his wife saying he would be back in days, weeks, or years, or yesterday since the Prophets weren't linear time dwellers.
Sisko didn't die in the tv show. In the series finale, he did throw himself and Gul Dukat off a cliff but the Prophets saved him and took him ack to their realm to learn.
I agree that the concept of death has been trivialized in comics and many tv shows, but I don't think this is one of those.
I had read on Wil Wheaton's site that Lavar Burton had mentioned that this was the last one.
I think it would be cool to have the next film with the DS9 crew. Thee were a lot of stories left open. Sisko coming back. A whole new relationship with the Changlings. The whole Gamma quadrant. Lots of material.
I don't know what Voyager could do. They got home. End of story. Thank goodness. 7 of 9 aside, I didn't like the show.
hehe... I know what you mean, but I guess I'm stuck on the fact that they gave you the CD. If you found other software on it, is that your fault? If you gave someone your car keys, do you have a right to complain that they used them?
I guess the whole thing seems kinda grey to me.
So if I used the CD for a coaster (also not the intended purpose) Apple wouldn't like that either? :)
I'm not saying that Apple deserves punishment for being niave. What I'm asking is should they be threatening others for pointing out they aren't wearing clothes? They choose to put out a complete CD with a patch on it. Just like other companies have put out hardware that was (unintenitonally) hackable. Does it make a difference if it was a free CD given away instead of a free CueCat?
If I don't legally have MacOS X and use this trick to get a copy of MacOS 10.1 for 20 bucks then I'm at least doing something immoral, and possibly illegal. Apple has the right to try to prevent this (beyond that, they've got an obligation to as well, an obligation to their stock holders).
I'm not sure if this is true. If you have the disk, it was given to you right? And if the disk has the entire OS on it, then you have it. They are the ones giving it away, or selling it cheap. So now someoen comes along and notices that everything is on it. Do you not actually have a valid copy of it?
If they wanted to protect their investment better, wouldn't it have made sense to put a little work into it and make sure only the nessesary files were on the disk instead of the whole thing? I don't think it is nessesarily immoral to take a look and use something you were given.
The whole point he has is how usable the site is. It doens't matter how "innovative" you are if no one can use the site. If they don't understand the navigation or if it takes them a few minutes to figure out "oh, that color means it is a link" then all your innovation is worthless.
Unless you are just designing a site to be cool and impress your friends. Then do what ever you want.
Sure there may only be the lowest 2.3% of people that will be left out if you use newer stuff, but if you are designing a commerical site, do you really want to piss away more then 1 out of 50 visitors? And for the color thing, being very color blind, I get irritated when someone gets cute and uses unusual colors so I can't read the text on the screen, so there isn't any problem with the basic 256 for me.
Besides, look at the sites here people use. Google, Yahoo, Slashdot... all of them use innovation, but it is all on the backend. The pages themselves are still pretty simple HTML.
I haven't read that back of a ticket lately, but I seem to remember that most of what I did see were more in the line of federal regulations. Not something the airlines were surprising you with.
Nothing about not being able to disparage the airlines, or figure out how the airplane works, or similar things to what people are stuck with on software EULAs.
One thing you can do to make sure your batteries stay good is to drain them at least once a month. That keeps them going well.
Another thing to keep in mind is keeping the power consuption to a minimum. Lower the brightness of the LCD screen. Adjust the other power settings to minimize the power used. Turn off any other things that don't need to run like virus protection or the like. Try not to do anything that beats on the hard drive.
And of course the other thing to remember is get a couple of spare batteries. That way you can run as long as you like, with a few quick interruptions.
I've got the same laptop (less memory though) and I get 3.5-4 hours plus per battery if I am just writing email or a docuemnt in Word. Light stuff like that. Maybe a little bit of programming. But I've been very impressed with it.
I ewould imagine the original post reffered to the flash programmable players out there like the Rio Volt. I have one of those and really like it. You just download the updates and burn them to CD to update the player.
The datalink was a great watch. I loved it when I got it. I never had a problem hold the watch to the monitor though. Put your elbow on the desk and you arm is steady. I did get the adaptor though to use with my laptop.
The closed API did suck. I would have loved to program my own wrist apps.
I just picked up a PC-Unite from Casio and it is pretty good so far. I like the fact that it syns up with the computer data. I stil lneed to get it to work with other applications then just the one it came with, but that doesn't look too hard.
One thing that surprised me is that this slime ball has been sued for this before and lost 57 cases tied to 200 domain names and been fined $800,000 to $1,000,000. And he's still doing it. The only reason he would still be doing this is if it is profitable, above and beyond court costs and fines.
Who is falling for all this and patronizing the sites that trap you like this?
In my day tv remote controls were called CHILDREN!
:)
We didn't have any of these fancy 10 foot poles or nothin. We just hollered at one of the kids to change the channel, turn up or down the volumn, and everything else.
Note: Actually *I* was the family remote control as a child
The same things were said in emotion after the Oklahoma bombing, and that turned out to be an American.
I never thought of that. But I'm pretty sure the people that work on the floor beneath me would object to it. Random people falling through their ceiling would get irritating.
I'm not entierly sure if this is not a troll, but I'll reply anyway.
No, a movie is not software, any more then the email you write using a Linux box is software. And if it is, does that mean that all your emails are now GPL'd? Any documents you make?
This is EXACTLY the sort of thing MS would like people to start thinking. "Don't use Linux! You'll have to give everything away!" IT isn't like that at all.
Instead of releasing such a virus, what about just running it on your own machine(s)? Everytime your machine gets probed and attempts to infect, it just turns around and does the same thing to the orginating machine. That way you are not doing anything that wasn't done to you, and you are patching a known infected machine, not clean ones.
I wouldn't think they would have a good case for you intruding/hacking since they did it to you first. Just keep the logs of the event to CYA.