I was within 2 months of fulfilling my 12 month DSL contract with SBC when I got married. My wife already had RoadRunner so after I moved, I called SBC (AT&T by then) asking them to disconnect my service. But since I fully intended to complete my financial obligation of the contract I wanted to pay for the remaining two months.
They refused! I even tried asking them to disconnect my phone, but keep my DSL account and/or service active - even though I wouldn't be using it. Nope - no deal! They said that anything short of transferring my wife's phone and internet service to AT&T would result in a $200 termination fee. I honestly tried my best to fulfill my financial obligation, but that was apparently not good enough for them.
I've had RoadRunner bend over backwards to woo me, saying "Call us if you're even THINKING of switching - we'll work with you..." Thanks AT&T, for not being willing to work with me at all, you've forever lost me as a customer.
Well said! Our current email security model (or lack of it) is horrid, but back in the day, nobody ever abused it so it was a non-issue.
While it may seem like an arrogant and heavy-handed request on Paypal's part, I applaud their effort. Look at it this way: They're saying, "We promise never to send legitimate mail to our customers without proving our identity via a digital signature." Rather than trying to have ISPs have convoluted rules to detect all the Paypal phishes, it becomes much easier to simply block all but properly signed Paypal emails. Period.
If more companies would follow this trend, it would not only ease the work for the authors of spam filters, but it would finally begin the long overdue migration to a closed door model in which every email is signed instead of being stuck with the pathetic and antiquated open door model we currently have.
Now try buying OS X and installing it on the box you just built... can't do it.
I never understood why when Apple locks you out no one really complains, but when Microsoft does it, its horrible.
OS X "just works" because Apple has a very limited set of hardware configurations that they need to support. You have to admit that Microsoft has done an admirable job at supporting an almost infinite number of hardware combinations. It's really amazing that Windows works at all - especially when it relies on a lot of third party drivers, of which they have no control.
If Apple were to allow users to install OS X on unsupported hardware, could you imagine the Apple bashing when the flood of incompatibility reports start flowing in? "OS X crashes on this motherboard using this video card and that usb device! Apple sucks!"
Much of the success of Apple's simplicity and reliability is the direct result of being able to control both the software and hardware.
...I suspect this is much less about charging money for drivers (though it could be an additional step to charge money for OS add-ons). I think this is supposed to be an anti-piracy step. Agreed. I wonder if the intent is to prevent someone from installing a hacked video card driver that would write a copyrighted hd video stream to disk, thereby enabling easy copying of hd dvds.
And they have time on their side. As overloaded as the patent office is, examiners often only have a few minutes to devote to each application. This means that odds can be good that one can sneak in a duplicate patent that will be inadvertently granted.
Then there are the years it can take to contest a patent and have it revoked. Many tiny companies can't afford the legal fees to fight it nor absorb the loss of revenue during the time their idea has been stolen. Even if a tiny company can survive bankruptcy, they most likely will be forced to settle out of court or be bought by the thief (if they're lucky) with perhaps a mere "mea culpa".
Apple needs to become an independent record label itself. The handwriting is on the wall. Apple seems to have worked out their differences with Apple Records...Steve Jobs has repeatedly complained about the greed of the record labels...Apple already has "iTunes exclusives"...they give 90% of their iTunes revenue to the record labels.
If they became a label and sign artists, they could work out much better arrangements with them to give them a bigger cut, loosen overly stringent restrictions imposed by the industry, increase distribution, keep a bigger profit for themselves - and lower prices for consumers to say 10-50 cents per song!
They've been prohibited from moving directly into the music industry due to agreements with Apple Records, but if they can work out a cooperative agreement with them (merger?), everyone wins! (Except the existing labels that will be extremely pissed off.)
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I was within 2 months of fulfilling my 12 month DSL contract with SBC when I got married. My wife already had RoadRunner so after I moved, I called SBC (AT&T by then) asking them to disconnect my service. But since I fully intended to complete my financial obligation of the contract I wanted to pay for the remaining two months.
They refused! I even tried asking them to disconnect my phone, but keep my DSL account and/or service active - even though I wouldn't be using it. Nope - no deal! They said that anything short of transferring my wife's phone and internet service to AT&T would result in a $200 termination fee. I honestly tried my best to fulfill my financial obligation, but that was apparently not good enough for them.
I've had RoadRunner bend over backwards to woo me, saying "Call us if you're even THINKING of switching - we'll work with you..." Thanks AT&T, for not being willing to work with me at all, you've forever lost me as a customer.
Well said! Our current email security model (or lack of it) is horrid, but back in the day, nobody ever abused it so it was a non-issue.
While it may seem like an arrogant and heavy-handed request on Paypal's part, I applaud their effort. Look at it this way: They're saying, "We promise never to send legitimate mail to our customers without proving our identity via a digital signature." Rather than trying to have ISPs have convoluted rules to detect all the Paypal phishes, it becomes much easier to simply block all but properly signed Paypal emails. Period.
If more companies would follow this trend, it would not only ease the work for the authors of spam filters, but it would finally begin the long overdue migration to a closed door model in which every email is signed instead of being stuck with the pathetic and antiquated open door model we currently have.
Now try buying OS X and installing it on the box you just built... can't do it.
I never understood why when Apple locks you out no one really complains, but when Microsoft does it, its horrible.
OS X "just works" because Apple has a very limited set of hardware configurations that they need to support. You have to admit that Microsoft has done an admirable job at supporting an almost infinite number of hardware combinations. It's really amazing that Windows works at all - especially when it relies on a lot of third party drivers, of which they have no control.
If Apple were to allow users to install OS X on unsupported hardware, could you imagine the Apple bashing when the flood of incompatibility reports start flowing in? "OS X crashes on this motherboard using this video card and that usb device! Apple sucks!"
Much of the success of Apple's simplicity and reliability is the direct result of being able to control both the software and hardware.
...I suspect this is much less about charging money for drivers (though it could be an additional step to charge money for OS add-ons). I think this is supposed to be an anti-piracy step. Agreed. I wonder if the intent is to prevent someone from installing a hacked video card driver that would write a copyrighted hd video stream to disk, thereby enabling easy copying of hd dvds.And they have time on their side. As overloaded as the patent office is, examiners often only have a few minutes to devote to each application. This means that odds can be good that one can sneak in a duplicate patent that will be inadvertently granted.
Then there are the years it can take to contest a patent and have it revoked. Many tiny companies can't afford the legal fees to fight it nor absorb the loss of revenue during the time their idea has been stolen. Even if a tiny company can survive bankruptcy, they most likely will be forced to settle out of court or be bought by the thief (if they're lucky) with perhaps a mere "mea culpa".
In the meantime, a thief can rake in millions.
Apple needs to become an independent record label itself. The handwriting is on the wall. Apple seems to have worked out their differences with Apple Records...Steve Jobs has repeatedly complained about the greed of the record labels...Apple already has "iTunes exclusives"...they give 90% of their iTunes revenue to the record labels.
If they became a label and sign artists, they could work out much better arrangements with them to give them a bigger cut, loosen overly stringent restrictions imposed by the industry, increase distribution, keep a bigger profit for themselves - and lower prices for consumers to say 10-50 cents per song!
They've been prohibited from moving directly into the music industry due to agreements with Apple Records, but if they can work out a cooperative agreement with them (merger?), everyone wins! (Except the existing labels that will be extremely pissed off.)