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August 31, 2006
"Brave" new world
The world of technology, e-mail, YouTube, iTunes and blogs may be a new world but it isn't necessarily a brave one, to wit:
RadioShack Corp. notified about 400 workers by e-mail that they were being dismissed immediately as part of planned job cuts.Employees at the Fort Worth headquarters got messages Tuesday morning saying: “The work force reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated.”
Company officials had told employees in a series of meetings that layoff notices would be delivered electronically, spokeswoman Kay Jackson said. She said employees were invited to ask questions before Tuesday's notification on a company intranet site.
Captain Ed isn't impressed and speaks like, well, a captain:
Consumers may want to rethink their loyalty to Radio Shack after this decision. If this is how they treat their employees, imagine what Radio Shack thinks of their customers.It's an inexcusable business decision. Managers who lack the fortitude to communicate terminations directly should not serve in that capacity. I can tell you from long experience how upsetting a termination can be for the manager involved, but in well over a decade of management, I have never once been tempted to do it by mail, e-mail, or semaphore. Even the worst employees deserve to have their manager take the time to sit down with them and explain the decision to terminate employment.
He has a point about guts but with a mass layoff it's not really a question of you as a bad employee. This decision was generic and all employees were notified that it might be coming. He would have a better case if the individual managers decided which employee was laid off. Then it would be their job to stand and deliver.
A generic corporate decision delivered by an impersonal mass mailing is the perfect metaphor for the situation. Maybe I don't want to stand in front of a manager and pretend not to be embarrassed to be chosen to leave when others get to stay. Maybe I don't want to walk back to my desk with other watching. It comes down to who you are. Either way if you are on the receiving end it's the losing of your job that is the show, not how the boot came.
All that being said; I think he is dead on about the PR part.
On a personal level doing things with class makes a difference. I was laid off from my last job (along with everyone else) when our company closed its Massachusetts operations. It was a tough situation for the laid off management since they had to answer questions, pass out the materials and listen to gripes and quips from a bunch of unhappy people without complaining about the jobs they just lost too.
When a boss handles that kind of a situation with class you remember it. When such a boss months later calls you about a new position with a brand new company you take it.
And here I am.
Posted by Peter at 08:58 AM | Comments (0)
August 30, 2006
Death To Caps Lock!
ANYONE ELSE EVER GET HALF way into a sentence and notice they had that annoying Caps Lock key on? Then you have to delete it all and type it over. Or if you are instant messaging and sent it already, you then state, "Damn Caps Lock key, I wasn't shouting!" Why can't we highlight it and then change to lowercase? Well we can't. And apparently I'm not the only one annoyed by this.
I recently heard of the CAPSoff campaign. This guy started a blog to urge hardware manufacturers to just get rid of the key. The Shift key works fine for most people. In the meantime what can we do? I found some site that instructs you on how to get into the registry and map the Caps Lock key to the Left Shift key. But getting into the registry is a little dangerous if you don't know what you are doing. So the solution I found that works best is to set it up so you get a beep sound when you hit the Caps Lock key by mistake. Here is how you do it:
1. Hit the Start button2. Go to the control panel
3. Open the Accessibility Options folder4. Click the use Toggle Keys checkbox
That's it your done!
Posted by Andrew at 04:30 PM | Comments (0)
Why internet censorship doesn't work in the free world.
Why is it internet censorship just doesn't work in the free world? Here is why:
Exhibit A: Unlike states like Iran, China and Syria the offended can only put pressure on those who offend to wit in Canada:
Now, this site's ISP has received a letter from the Liberal Party of Canada, full of imaginary legal violations (Slander? Has a HezboLiberal Broadway-style musical opened somewhere?) and veiled threats.My ISP has been great and has given every indication that they would stick by me through this. But, I have decided to take down the website to save them further hassles.
Sounds like the site is doomed eh, well not quite, here to the rescue comes the Western Standard which had this to say:
What makes me mad is that the Liberals are bullying critics on the internet, and getting away with it.This is exactly the sort of precedent that all media should join forces to oppose -
and they are putting their money where their mouth is:
So, we're going to do at the Western Standard what we've become accustomed to doing: having a little bit more guts than our competitors. We're going to host that Hezboliberal.com website...You can see the revived Hezboliberal.com website here, hosted on our server. Whether you agree with the content or not isn't the point. This is about stopping a bully. And about having some fun with some thin-skinned pols who can dish it out pretty good, but can't take it.
In a free country people tend to react to this type of thing and have the power to do so. Via Glenn.
Exhibit B: is a tad stranger and of a completely different type:
You might ask (as most normal people would) what does an episode of the rather well written Cartoon Network show: The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy titled Be-a-Fred,Be-very-a-Fred featuring Fred Fredburger have to do with internet speech? Well I'll tell you.
My youngest son is a huge fan of both YouTube and of Fred Fredburger. 
He loved the episodes containing the character and insisted on showing me them on YouTube. When I agreed to watch he was sadly disappointed when he went to the site and found that the episode was removed at the request of the copyright holder (Cartoon Network).
Two days ago he called me over to the computer and sure enough the episode was reposted and available in full. As of this moment it has been viewed over 900 times.
Cartoon network is fully within it's rights to have their copyrighted material pulled from sites that post it without permission. (Personally I think make more money just leaving it there promoting their characters and their show even more.)It's very likely that it will be pulled again, however without shutting down YouTube all together it is virtually impossible to keep it off if somebody wants to re-post it. (I'd allow it for a free link and ad space if I was them.) It is a losing battle. And even if the network did legally go after the 10 year old kid that put it upis that what they want to do? Think about it; does Cartoon Network REALLY want to convey the message cross us and we will ruin your family to kids? Not when the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon are only a click away.
This shows that in a society used to free speech even legal restrictions to speech don't always work.
Posted by Peter at 03:02 PM | Comments (0)
How much vm is enough?
There is an interesting little debate at Slashdot concerning VM on a system that mirrored one I had with Peter B. The quote is as follows:
"Ten years ago, Received Wisdom said that virtual memory should be, on the average, two to two-and-a-half times real memory. In these days, where 2G RAM is not unusual, and many times is not that uncommon, is this unreasonable?
My opinion is No it is not only not unreasonable but I would suggest going even higher than the 2.5 time since the size of a hard drive has increased by a much greater factor then ram has.
The software that comes out keeps demanding more and more memory. There is absolutely no reason to believe that this will not continue into the future. The more virtual memory you have the longer the useful shelf life of your system will be.
I say if you have the HD space use it for VM. Even better if you have an old HD that you use as a slave (maybe something you moved from an old system) use half or more of it for VM.
You can never have too much memory to run with.
Posted by Peter at 10:45 AM | Comments (2)
Why updates matter
Tech Republic reports that an August 8th MS patch might cause some crashing:
The problem apparently is affecting ONLY Internet Explorer 6 SP1 users, probably still found on many Windows 2000 with SP4 installed, and XP SP1 systems. eEye says it discovered the new security hole while investigating why the patch was causing Explorer to crash.According to Microsoft, a workaround exists:
On the Tools menu, open Internet Options | Advanced. Go to the Settings box, clear the Use HTTP 1.1 check box, then OK the change.
With the number of patches out there this is bound to happen now and again. Microsoft has addressed the issue with an update, but it brings up an interesting point.
This particular bug only affected a specific version of of IE with a specific sp. Microsoft tests their patches before they are released but with the number of different types and versions of software out there the chances of something being incompatible with something else increases. If you find a hole in say XP sp2 you don't want to delay a fix because it might cause trouble with a 98 system running IE 4.
The bottom line is although I've always been a big believer in if it works let it be, the farther away you get from a current version the better the chance that your system will fall through the cracks.
Posted by Peter at 10:22 AM | Comments (0)
Keyboard shortcuts
A year ago we talked a bit about keyboard shortcuts for windows. Tech republic has a nice download available with a list of some useful ones (free registration required).
If, like me you are not the registering type this site I linked to last year is still a good choice.
Posted by Peter at 10:12 AM | Comments (0)
August 28, 2006
"I'll just use my guy/pal" why this is a bad idea.
Had one of those "Arrugh" cases today/last night that brought home the problem when somebody uses "their guy" or "a pal" to fix an issue.
It's very natural to ask somebody you know for a minor problem, I've been that somebody more times than I can count, but if you are doing major work for a business this can be a real issue. Not so much because of the fix but because of later.
I can't tell you how many times I've been told that one guy or another looked at a system, didn't leave a disk, not sure how something was done but it worked...for a time.
In today's example I had a customer with a system to add to a network. His network is actually a sub network in a building that has a general LAN operated by the building itself. A while back he had a guy come in to add a system. Worried by the security or lack thereof he endeavored to protect the systems currently in the sub network from being hacked by other machine in the building.
This was all fine and dandy until he had another machine to add to the sub network after his guy moved away and left the business not leaving any notes or a forwarding address. I spent hours on this, all of the standard methods failed and quite a few side tricks of mine didn't work. The system could get to the internet but the sub network can't see the system and vice versa.
I talked to some of our big guns and it was agreed we needed to talk to the admin guy to see what was actually done on this network. Without that info our debugging of this system would look a lot like Fred Fredburger eating frozen yogurt.
The bottom line here is the fellow might have saved a buck or two during the upgrade, but because there were no notes, no records and a single guy running the show, when that guy went the knowledge of what was done went with him leaving him out in the cold.
You don't get that problem with HiWired. Our techs here take notes that are not only available to each other but are permanently available to our customers at any time. You get an established company with a team of techs able to advise each other if necessary.
Once again it comes down to that old saying Penny wise, Pound foolish.
Posted by Peter at 05:19 PM | Comments (0)
podcast marketing
Our newest Podcast Merchandising Where the real money from the movie is made features Troy from our marketing department talking about, well Marketing. It will give you a short insight on how companies persuade you to choose them.
I should note this podcast was recorded before the Apple launched its battery recall.
As always you can listen here or at the iTunes music store (search for HiWired).
BTW I know it's been a while between podcasts but we have some interesting and exciting coming up, just keep an eye (or an ear) on this space.
Posted by Peter at 12:08 PM | Comments (0)
August 27, 2006
Ho Hum another blogger imprisoned
The sad thing about this story is it almost isn’t news anymore:
A Syrian blogger has been arrested by the country's security forces without explanation, raising fears that President Assad's government is seeking to curb freedom of speech on the internet.Ali Sayed al-Shihabi, an English language teacher, has not been seen since he was summoned to a meeting with security agents in Damascus on 10 August. It is believed his detainment may be linked to articles he has written on a political website.
It should be pointed out that the internet in general and the blogisphere in particular, afford people other countries the unknown taste of the nearly absolute freedom of speech that we take for granted. That is why dictatorships fear it and we should always be grateful for it.
Posted by Peter at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)
Informative advertisement
Ran across THIS VIDEO which shows the effect of Li-ion batteries when they become lethal. Dell is having a recall mentioned in a earlier blog and its not just Dell who have seen these battery technologies go bad. HERE is a Mac picture that one cant help but think thank god the cover was closed and no one was near it. There has been a serious of reports on these Li-ion batteries going lethal. These batteries have been known to explode in even Cell Phones.
While Saphion's goal is to make a safer Li-ion battery there are 2 technoligies I have found that are targeted at replacing Li-ion batteries. Li-Fiber which is not flammable and DMFC which is Direct Methanol Fuel Cell which Methanol is flammable. Some safety issues need to be ironed out on DMFC for it to go main stream obviously but it is capable of running a PDA for 40 hours and laptop for 5-10 hours under load. Li-Fiber has the advantage of being environmentally safe as well as non-flammable solution.
Posted by Hector at 12:28 PM | Comments (0)
Errata list on Core 2 Duo Intel Processor's
You may want to put your upgrade on hold if you were going to upgrade to the new Core 2 Duo Intel processors. Seems there are some bugs to be ironed out one of which can lead to serious data or system corruption. Intel is working on a fix but until then you can view the errata list on Intel's released documentation HERE.
Posted by Hector at 11:20 AM | Comments (1)
August 25, 2006
Some problems tech support can't handle
There are a lot of things that some people might be tempted to by via a spam e-mail.
I would have never guessed that stocks were among them:
People who respond to the "pump and dump" scam can lose 8% of their investment in two days.Conversely, the spammers who buy low-priced stock before sending the e-mails, typically see a return of between 4.9% and 6% when they sell.
The study recently published on the Social Science Research Network say their conclusions prove the hypothesis that spammers "buy low and spam high".
I couldn't really wrap my head around the idea that people would buy stock based on an e-mail from a stranger until I read this posted response from the Slashdot article where I read about this:
At first I thought "who are these stupid people buying stock from spammed tips?", but then I figured as long as you are one of the first to buy - you will gain almost as much on the stock as the spammer, without having spammed anyone.I guess the trick is to get onto a spam list that has the largest effect on the market (the widest distribution?), and get in early (perhaps many many e-mail addresses?) and try to be at the start of the spam list (perhaps addresses aaaaaaa@mail.com, zzzzzzz@mail.com etc).
As long as you get in early on stock being manipulated, and your not the one doing the spamming, your less guilty than the spammer and there is a slightly better chance you'll get away with it..
That is the type of attitude that gets a person hooked. It reminded me of an old episode of the Adventures of Robin Hood TV series titled The Lottery. If you think you are going to get something for nothing you are likely to end up with nothing for something.
Posted by Peter at 07:49 PM | Comments (0)
Microsoft vs Apple Zune vs iPOD
Slashdot links to a CNET story today saying the Microsoft's answer to the iPOD will have built in wireless capability:
Zune owners can act as their own DJ, sending streaming music content to up to four other devices, according to documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission . With the device's wireless networking abilities turned on, people can send and receive photos, as well as "promotional copies of songs, albums and playlists," according to the filing, made public Thursday.
I would have thought that kind of action would have been considered piracy. Of course we don't know if it will just stream it locally or allow the receiving player to retain the music since this is in the early stage, but it sounds like it might be an interesting device.
I can see this kind of wi-fi device becoming a real call driver around here. I can't figure that Apple will be far behind.
Engadget has more on the device.
Maybe it's just me but shouldn't a Wikipedia article wait till the device actually exists?
Posted by Peter at 07:10 PM | Comments (0)
August 24, 2006
Back in time to see the Apple Recall
Back from Vacation, it was too short but that's life.
I hope you found all the writers interesting, with luck we will see more of them as time goes by.
You might remember before I left we talked a little about how Dell had it's recall and Apple had it's "Battery Exchange Program"?
Cupertino, California-based Apple will recall 1.1 million batteries sold with notebook computers in the United States and 700,000 abroad, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said.They were sold with Apple iBook G4 and PowerBook G4 computers from October 2003 through this month, according to the safety commission.
I guess it is Apple's turn to take the hit it should have taken before.
Over to you Brandon.
Posted by Peter at 02:15 PM | Comments (0)
I'm not only the Vice President, I'm a member....
No, I'm not referring to the Hair Club for (Wo)Men, I'm referring to HiWired.
We all now how important security is and maintaining good practices for your PC to avoid all the horror stories that you hear about from friends, family and co-workers. Fortunately, I subscribe to all the Worry Free PC services, so I rest easily knowing HiWired is taking care of my systems.
However, I do need find myself needing assistance with more common every day issues....memory error issues, removing a stubborn software application, converting files, etc. When I do, I call upon the members of the team here and know that I'll not only get the issue taken care of quickly, it doesn't require taking time out of my day. Through the screen sharing and chat tools, they take over and let me know when they're done so annoying problems turn into a pleasant experience and I'm back to work in no time.
The next time you have a problem, trust HiWired to take care of it for you.
Posted by Lorie at 01:26 PM | Comments (0)
SanDisk's iPod Rival
SanDisk released its latest MP3 player this week, the SanDisk Sansa™ e200 Series on the heals announcements (and leaks) about Microsoft’s Zune MP3 player.
With everyone shooting for a piece of the iPod pie, should Apple be worried?
The 2GB Sansa's MSRP is $139.99 but can be found for about $120 online. The 2GB iPod Nano list on that same website for about $190 - a $60 difference - that buys an awful lot of music.
The downfall obviously is that the Sansa will not natively work with iTunes (there are programs available that are supposed to work around this) and that is were most people get their music.
One thing Apple should learn from SanDisk - REPLACEABLE BATTERIES! That is my biggest grip with iPods - when my battery goes, so goes my iPod.
It will certainly be an interesting battle this holiday season.
Posted by Jonathan at 11:01 AM | Comments (0)
August 23, 2006
Another Edition
My name is Melissa Nolan, Operations Manager at HiWired. My husband and I recently had a baby in January 2006. We are excited to announce that we will be adding to our family with our newest edition in January 2007.
Once I returned to work in April of 2006 we recorded a Podcast on the benefits of Telecommuting. I can't express enough how wonderful it is to have a company that appreciates a good balance between work and family. The ability to work remotely has made this transition flawless.
Thank you HiWired!!
Posted by Melissa at 04:51 PM | Comments (0)
IM Safely
Just about everyone uses some sort of instant messaging program today, whether its AOL, MSN or Yahoo and some savvy IM'ers use programs such as Trillian to integrate them all so they can talk to friends on any network.
However, many new viruses have sprung up to attack instant messenger programs, not to mention all the spyware that hides inside of unsuspecting profiles. If you want to keep your computer clean but still IM all your friends there are a couple of slick new alternatives.
None of the alternatives I will list here require you to have anything installed on your computer other than a web browser and java (need help with that, give us a shout!).
Meebo (www.meebo.com) - runs inside of a browser window and allows you to connect to AOL, ICQ, Yahoo, MSN and Google Talk.
KoolIM (www.koolim.com) - supports the same cast as Meebo but each IM opens in a separate browser window along with the buddy list giving it a more familiar feel to traditional IM programs.
RadiusIM (www.radiusim.com) - again has full support for the big IM clients but also has their own IM platform and integrated Google map with your location. RadiusIM is a new to the market so give it a couple weeks to work out the bugs.
Posted by Jonathan at 09:23 AM | Comments (0)
August 22, 2006
FluxDVD fixed by AnyDVD
Seems that in our DRM age companies go to great lengths to protect there content and the end user normally ends up paying. They pay extra money that the company has spent licensing or creating protective measures that always gets defeated sometimes just hours after release. They pay by purchasing degraded quality do to the protective measure inserted along with the recording. Well you can see where I am going with the whole DRM thing.
Anyway this FluxDVD is apparently is for customers who wish to purchase and download there DVD movie. They protect there content by intentionally inserting errors into the video wish the video player should correct for but CD burners will have problems burning a successful copy. How ever apparently this has caused a bit of problems with play back and it looks like AnyDVD as well as Clone DVD burning software will both strip out these errors and make you a perfectly problem free copy.
So the paying customer who more then likely has no idea about the existence of this fix buys the movies and bangs their heads on the keyboard because they cant play the full movie without experiencing problems if at all while the others enjoy watching there copy with the DRM stripped out of it.
Seems that in our DRM age companies go to great lengths to protect there content and the end user normally ends up paying. They pay extra money that the company has spent licensing or creating protective measures that always gets defeated sometimes just hours after release. They pay by purchasing degraded quality do to the protective measure inserted along with the recording. Well you can see where I am going with the whole DRM thing.
Anyway this FluxDVD is apparently is for customers who wish to purchase and download there DVD movie. They protect there content by intentionally inserting errors into the video wish the video player should correct for but CD burners will have problems burning a successful copy. How ever apparently this has caused a bit of problems with play back and it looks like AnyDVD as well as Clone DVD burning software will both strip out these errors and make you a perfectly problem free copy.
So the paying customer who more then likely has no idea about the existence of this fix buys the movies and bangs their heads on the keyboard because they cant play the full movie without experiencing problems if at all while the others enjoy watching there copy with the DRM stripped out of it.
Posted by Hector at 08:09 PM | Comments (0)
Player feed back
In this time of Ipods using Itunes or other players I wanted to ask what players you like on your pc or Mac. I my self use Winamp as well as Itunes which is what I use to purchase most music and shows.
Back in the days of Windows 95 and such I was a fan of Real Audio which is now Real One or RealPlayer. I still actually have an unopened box for it. I was very happy with it untill it became more about upgrading to pay version.
With Winamp, which I purchased as I am firm believer in purchasing from companies that offer free yet great products, anyways I picked up pro copy which the only change is now I can burn using their software. That IMHO says allot for their product. Note Itunes is free and you can burn as well.
So my question for anyone one that would like to comment is what player do you use and why? Maybe we can all find new player or at least second one. I wonder how many people use just what comes with system instead of getting something new.
See you in the comments.
Eric
Posted by Eric at 09:44 AM | Comments (0)
August 21, 2006
LCD television screen getting HUGE
I'm sure it wont be long and LCD screen may be longer then the average person laying down. THIS SAMSUNG is 65 inches big. As you can see in comparison to the girl setting next to it the thing is just HUGE. I don't watch much television at all but boy would I love to game on a screen that big!
This screen should be in production by second half of next year giving you some time to save them pennies.
Posted by Hector at 06:59 PM | Comments (1)
Beginnings of a Google web-based office suite?
Google has recently released a web-based word processor: writely. This complements their already released web-based spreadsheet software. These are currently fairly basic applications without the abundant (some might say bloated) features of commercial office suites. As a tradeoff for being lightweight on features, these programs are available anywhere there's an internet connection, on virtually any computer, with access to your data as well. At least, that's the idea. Personally, I'm highly skeptical that this is going to be any sort of Microsoft Office (or OpenOffice or Wordperfect suite) killer.
It's definitely an interesting idea, and certainly has its uses, but there are a number of reasons this sort of thing doesn't stand a chance of replacing the traditional, locally installed office suite. First of all, the main attractive quality of this software is that it is available anywhere, along with your data, but for most people who need this sort of thing, this is already the case. Pretty much anyone who desperately needs what these applications provide already has their own notebook PC. As long as they have that, then they can carry around an installed office suite that provides everything these online applications provide and more. With a little foresight, they can have copies of all the documents they might need to edit already on their hard drive. No network connection even needed, which is definitely one up on the google applications. Add a network connection and most people these days already have a way to access their files. Usually some sort of VPN connection that allows access to a company network drive. Even if you don't have your own notebook, if you have some way to access your companies files, a lot of computers already have some sort of software that will let you edit your documents. If they don't, you can always install something. There are applications out there like Openoffice.org that can be downloaded and installed for free and without taking up a lot of hard drive space. If you can't do any of that on the system you're using, that's where the google applications come in handy, but it's a fairly limited situation.
The other major argument against this is privacy of your documents. One of the official corporate policies at Google is not to be evil, which is a noble ambition, but the fact remains that Google has an eternal data retention policy, and this makes a lot of people uncomfortable. If they're going to keep your web searches forever, what about your word processor and spreadsheet documents? Even if Google is honorable about it, what about those breaking into their servers. Overall, it may not be worth the risk for many.
The idea of removing applications from the PC and putting them on servers to be run over the internet has become increasingly popular of late. This isn't really a new idea. This is how computing was done in the days of mainframes when one powerful (by the standards of the day) computer ran everything and multiple users connected to it from remote dumb terminals. The idea has never gone away, and people like Scott McNealy, former CEO of sun, have always heavily promoted it with mantra's like "the network is the computer". The simple fact is, however, that todays personal computers are hundreds of times more powerful than the mainframes of old and network speeds aren't increasing as fast as personal computer speed. Running todays applications on a remote server through an internet connection means squeezing everything through a bottleneck. You won't get the same response time or reliability as a local application. Of course, it is a boon to IT departments who can maintain the application on the server instead of on a multitude of employee PCs. It also usually means buying fewer licenses for expensive office software. There are all sorts of pros and cons and, in some cases, a network application is the best choice, but there are more cases where it isn't, and it doesn't look that will ever change.
Posted by Kieran at 06:49 PM | Comments (0)
Yes, I am a Mac user and proud of it!
No, I did not tryout for the Apple Mac switch commercials, but I do love my Macintosh! About three years ago I made the switch. I am a photographer, video editor and web developer. I was hounded for years about switching to this superior line of computers. Like normal hardcore PC users, I didn’t want to listen. I am glad I finally did - I am now on my third Apple computer!
The OS Apple uses, in my opinion is far superior to Windows. Its Unix based with an extremely attractive GUI that is OS X. Software like Final Cut Pro, Aperture and Photoshop all excel on this machine. It renders video like no PC I have ever used.
Working on PC's all day long, for years, finally convinced me to move over to Macintosh. I was tired of cleaning up my OWN spyware and viruses. I was tired of walking on egg-shells when I would surf the internet. Too much stress! My Power Mac G5 is bulletproof against Viruses and Spyware - is your PC? After working on broken and problem ridden pieces of junk, it's a pleasure to come home to my G5.
Support Experience:
As I was moving my room around, I felt it would be ok to plug in the G5 to an unprotected power outlet for the time being. Due to my buildings on-going power problems, I got a power spike that fried the Logic Board on the Mac. I purchased the Protection Plan from Apple with the purchase of the computer. Within 12 hours of calling Apple, I had a technician at my home, doing a Logic Board swap. I was up and running in a matter of 20 minutes.
My extremely fast Dual 2.3 GHz PowerPC G5 is like no other. If you are interested in a worry free 'Personal Computer'. Get a Mac!
Posted by at 01:14 AM | Comments (0)
August 20, 2006
AMD, Intel law suit
This anti-trust law suite that AMD has launched against Intel has really got some heads spinning as of lately. It seems that Intel is taking a big hit in this case being forced to basically level the playing fields which will make competition a bit more fair.
On July 24th 2006 AMD has announced plans to merge with ATI (a graphics firm) and Intel reacted by launching a subpoena on ATI.
And the most recent is Dell has announced they will be using AMD chips not just in there server sector but soon in the high end XPS systems as well and they will are going to start expanding on there AMD line up. Looks like Intel has lost there grip on Dell.
There has been a bit of confusion as to why Dell would choose to do this now rather then 12 to 18 months ago when AMD really had a huge performance leap on Intel and Intel finally has produced a product code name conroe and officially name Core 2 Duo to combat AMD's current Athlon64 chips. The Inquirer tries to explain there thoughts on why Dell has chosen now as the right time and AMD is reacting to Intel's upcoming processor by making the 4X4 chip some time next year which will have 4 processors inside one chip.
Looks like AMD's upcoming 4X4 will be the solution to core 2 duo since Intel does not have a good solution in place to connect the cores. In other words Intel's dual core processor is handicapped by bus limitations which AMD already seen the upcoming issue and long ago resolved it.
All this has made AMD stock prices start shooting up while Intel's stock is limping along and sometimes falling. Expect to see fierce competition once again between PC vendors in the future!
Posted by Hector at 09:41 PM | Comments (0)
August 17, 2006
I need a vacation
Well I'm off on vacation for just under a week. The blog will hopefully be active as I've gotten on peoples cases today over it.
But for the next 6 days I will not be thinking computers period. I hope the week treats you all well and I plan on coming back bright eyed and busy tailed on the 24th.
Posted by Peter at 11:20 PM | Comments (0)
Oh That's what he's talking about
A couple of times I've talked about my table top baseball league. If you want to find out what it is actually like then check out this article (Hat tip Carl)
Michael Cieslinski began working on a game of his own while at the University of Miami. By 1985, he'd spawned Pursue The Pennant. Cieslinski channeled the work of sabermetric pioneers such as Bill James and Pete Palmer to create a game that was more intricate than other sim games in many respects -- catchers were rated in part by how they handled pitchers, for instance. Ten years later, Cieslinski parlayed his game into Dynasty League Baseball, with both tabletop and computer-based game play.
That's the game I play but the article is about all kinds of leagues. (I'm in a little slump now due to injuries) In the nearly 20 years I've been playing this league and the decades I've played other games solo I've come to one conclusion. If you can get past the first three seasons, you generally will get hooked.
Posted by Peter at 07:44 PM | Comments (0)
Relearning an old lesson. Patience.
In the age of instant gratification we sometimes don't learn the lesson of just waiting on a system. My son accidentally reminded me of this and I wanted to pass it on to you. It's a long story so I'll put it below the fold.
A couple of years ago my oldest nephew took a video arcade cabinet, built a dance floor attachment, put a high quality system with XP pro on it, a great monitor hard wired the lot so the video game controlers could run it from the front and loaded it with Mame and a dancing program and presto instant arcade!
My youngest is a big fan of classic arcade games. I bought the cabinet for him (as my nephew was building himself a new one)and it ran fine for a while.
A few months ago it was erroring out with an odd monitor signal report that suggested a video card issue. Being cheap I picked up a used card from a coworker for a small Mighty Sub and told the boy I'd fix it when his summer reading was done.
When I put the new card in the game worked for a whole 10 min before it the error came back. Subsequent testing showed that the system required a bios reset. (Thanks Dave)
Again it worked for a few min but then was not seeing the HD. Turns out it was jostled so once I reseated the cables (always check the basics) the system saw the HD and started to boot. It came to the menu screen and to play it safe I choose last known good config. We saw the Windows XP screen, I left he waited and waited and waited, and waited until he finally called to me saying it won't work.
I was telecommuting that day so I only had a few minutes. I told my son to leave it alone and I'd check it on my lunch hour. He left the system and started on something else.
About an hour later I heard the sound of a booting system coming from another room. It had taken a full hour but XP pro as it's designed to do was able to finish fixing all the files and boot. My son was delighted, dropped what he was doing and ran out to the game. (The floor never did get swept that day). The system has run like a clock since then.
The moral to the story is I knew that windows is designed to recover from serious error and given enough time can do so on boot. Most people are used to a 2-3 min boot. A five min boot is considered extreme. It is very hard to tell a person waiting for a system to boot: "Let the machine sit for an hour." but that is in fact good advice. The temptation to restart again is just too much, particularly when you've paid for 60 min of support.
If a system is having boot issues, start a boot at night and let it run overnight. If the system still hasn't started by all means give us a call, but that overnight boot may save the day and a help session.
Posted by Peter at 10:36 AM | Comments (0)
August 16, 2006
So I bought a Mac : Part the second
So five days later, I'm sitting here typing this on my new MacBook. It took me about 30 minutes to set the thing up and install Windows XP on it. I've had the Notebook (Notebook, not laptop I'll explain why in a bit) for a day and I've come up with a few pros and cons.
I'll start with the Pros first
Pro
The power cord connects with a magnet, so if you're a clutz like me you cant trip over the cord and have the notebook come crashing onto the floor.
Built in Color Profiles. That may mean nothing to you, but when you're a photographer, using the right color profile is everything.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_profile
Windows XP. This notebook runs windows XP faster than my desktop, and it's not even made for it.
I could go on all day about the pros, but let's move on to the cons
Con
Heat. This Notebook gets extremely hot. So much so, that Apple advertises it as a Notebook, not a Laptop (see, I told you I'd explain that)
Lack of USB slots. I'm sorry two just isn't enough.
And that's it so far. I'll check back in next week with another installment.
Posted by matt at 12:05 PM | Comments (0)
Dell (Sony) recall vs Mac "battery exchange"
Well it looks like the mystery of the burning laptops has been solved:
It (Dell) is asking consumers to return 4.1 million Sony batteries from laptops sold in the past two years. The cost of the recall to Dell and Sony could top $400m (£210m), analysts predict.And yesterday, Wall Street began to fret about the possibility that consumers and company IT managers will switch to buying PCs from Dell's rivals, including the resurgent Hewlett-Packard.
Details including the models affected are here. My laptop is not on the list.
I think Dell is getting a little bit of a bad rap on this. The batteries in question were made by Sony (They will be kicking in toward the cost of the recall), but in the arena of public perception the issue is a Dell issue not a Sony issue (although the companies that buy batteries do see the Sony angle). Of course Dell is ultimately responsible as the maker of the laptops, but before you make the Dell Hell jump, just consider the following: lets start with this article:
Dell still trails the quality leader in the personal computer industry—Apple—by a significant margin.Apple's strong sales of Macintosh computers boosted profit 48% in the quarter ended July 1. This occurred while Apple completed the transition of its personal computers to microprocessors made by Intel—a major change made without any apparent quality glitches.
Makes sense after all Dell has the big battery recall and Macs don't have this issue, or do they?
Several news outlets reporting the recall have also noted that the same Sony batteries were used by Apple. In fact, Channel NewsAsia reports "A spokeswoman said Apple was looking into the issue."This leads to speculation that the same faulty components were shipped with some MacBook Pros. Apple initiated a "battery exchange program" (emphasis mine) for some MacBook Pros shipped from February 2006 through May 2006, but has not acknowledged that this is the same issue that is forcing Dell's recall.
What is really interesting is the MacFixit site reported on this a while back but I don't recall seeing it in the news or any fuss about it. I guess this is the difference between a "recall" and a "battery exchange program".
This seems to prove that it call comes down to marketing and Apple does it better than Dell.
Note: Yes I know this is yesterday's news but I had the day off and spent it with this, this, this, this, this, this and this.
Posted by Peter at 10:15 AM | Comments (0)
August 14, 2006
Pet Peeve Fraud
One of my pet Peeves is fraud. I can't abide internet fraud and deception. It drives me crazy.
So today when I was recommending a piece of software I've used before add/remove4good and did a quick search for the site where it was located I was quite annoyed to discover that there was a company called addremove4good that that sent you to a search engine type page. Even worse on a google search it asked if I had misspelled the phrase taking me to the bad site instead of the good one.
So to be clear for anybody who might need this software the web site address is http://www.4developers.com/addremove/index.htm
Posted by Peter at 02:14 PM | Comments (0)
Internet Savvy or asymmetrical warfare?
Looks like there is more to the Iranian President's web site than meets the eye:
But if you click on one of the links on the left side of the page (and you are coming from Israel), you get this alert from your firewall:......“HTTP MS IE File DragDrop Embed Code”, according to Symantec is “an attempt to exploit a vulnerability in Internet Explorer […that] if combined with other vulnerabilities, […] could aid in execution of arbitrary code on the client computer”. Bad stuff.
Yael's site includes screen shots of the alert, the explanation, and the check of the address. It looks like our Iranian friends are using the net for more than cracking down on bloggers.
Via Charles who seems to be everywhere lately.
Posted by Peter at 11:06 AM | Comments (0)
What to do when you are at the ARRUGH point
Maybe it's because I have hit a rock with a couple of cases lately but now seems to be a good time to list some advice on what to do if you are working on a tough problem and nothing seems to do the trick:
Sleep on it: Sometimes people tend to beat themselves over the head on an issue to the point where they obsess over it. Letting it go for the day or even for a couple of hours (hit a movie) helps clear the mind and allows you to refocus.Ask: When a problem gets particularly tough it can get personal. This is a mistake. A different set eyes might notice something you didn't. I'll never forget a time when in college a friend was slaving over a program couldn't find the bug, a person walked by looked over his shoulder an saw the missing ";" at the end of a PASCAL line. When you look at something too long you sometimes see what you expect to see instead of what is there.
Back to Basics: A complicated problem sometimes comes down to a basic issue. There's no point in spending an hours wondering why a complicated document won't print if you haven't done the basic test print from the properties page. Checking basic functions of a device or a program may reveal an issue that you might not have seen.
Elementary my dear Watson: In the words of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.". Sure that mp3 install has nothing to do with Excel, but if the Excel hasn't worked right since the day it was installed it's time to uninstall that program and test it again.
Penny wise Pound Foolish: An OS reinstall isn't a choice anyone (except for George Ou) has up front, but as time passes it should move up on the list. A reinstall might take a few hours, but you can take days working on an issue only to find that the reinstall is the path you need to take in the end. Set yourself a drop dead point and once you have reached it consider that reinstall.
As always your individual circumstances will dictate what you do but remember; the PC is there to serve you, not vice versa.
Posted by Peter at 10:24 AM | Comments (0)
August 13, 2006
Everybody has been bitten by the online bug.
Hey if the Pope can have a public e-mail address then I guess the President of Iran can have a blog. Blog link disabled see below.
Via the Captain
Update: You might want to be careful about that link. See entry. Internet Savvy or asymmetrical warfare? I'm disabling the link for now.
Posted by Peter at 02:39 PM | Comments (0)
August 11, 2006
Quick Word Tip
A quick tip if you are a word user.
All Word versions has the ability to auto save. By enabling auto save you can save yourself a huge headache.
Posted by Peter at 11:27 PM | Comments (0)
August 10, 2006
Defend America! Update your computer!
This is pretty good advice:
* Keep up-to-date on security patches and fixes for your operating system. The easiest way to do this is to set your system to receive automatic updates, which will ensure you automatically receive security updates issued by Microsoft. If your system does not allow automatic updates, we recommend that you manually install the Microsoft security patch today through Microsoft Update at http://update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate * Install anti-virus and anti-spy ware software and keep them up-to-date* Enable a firewall which will help block attacks before they can get into your computer
* Do not open emails from unknown sources and do not open or execute email attachments that you are not expecting even if they come from a known and trusted source.
The only thing I wonder is why it is being given by the Department of Homeland Security?
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is recommending that Windows Operating Systems users apply Microsoft security patch MS06-040 as quickly as possible. This security patch is designed to protect against a vulnerability that, if exploited, could enable an attacker to remotely take control of an affected system and install programs, view, change, or delete data, and create new accounts with full user rights.
Don't get me wrong, I would encourage everybody to follow this advice, but I just don't understand why this is a DHS issue?
Posted by Peter at 12:58 PM | Comments (0)
So I bought a Mac: part the first.
I work with them all the time at school, and now that Windows XP can be run on the new Macbooks http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/, I figured it was time to pick one up.
With the following configuration:
* Processor 0656466 2.0GHz Intel Core Duo
* Memory 0656233 512MB 667 DDR2 SDRAM 2x256
* Hard Drive 0656229 120GB Serial ATA drive
* Optical Drive 0656231 SuperDrive (DVD/RW/CDRW)
* Modem 0656513 No Modem
* Apple Software Solutions 0656200 No Optional Software
* Adapter 0656515 No Optional Adapter
* Keyboard/Mac OS Language 0656464 Keyboard/Mac OS
* Country Kit/AEX 0656313 Airport Extreme Card and BT
I went a little low on the RAM, because Apple overcharges quite a bit and I know I can pick it up cheaper and install it myself. I'll blog again as soon as it arrives.
Posted by matt at 09:21 AM | Comments (0)
August 09, 2006
Civilization IV Warlords (review ****)
Civilization IV Warlords is an excellent addition to a game that is already first rate to begin with. The changes and additions can be divided into two groups, Civilization specific changes and general game changes:
Civilization specifc changes:
One of the fun features of Civ III and up was the inclusion of nationality specific units for empires. (Redcoat replacing Riflemen for England, Navy Seal, Camel Archer replacing Knight for Arabia) In this expansion this is expanded one step further. Each empire gets a special building replacing a standard one. For the US the Mall replaces the Supermarket adding wealth as well as health. For the French the Observatory is replaced by the Salon generating an artist as well as a the standard science increase. This allows you to steer a tighter ship. The game is all about using what you have to the best advantage to win in the style you choose. Several existing empires are given new leaders, including Winston Churchill for England and Rameses II for Egypt. I question the wisdom of including Joe Stalin for Russia. Who wants to play one of the greatest mass murders of history? Why not just include Hitler too? If it was my call I'd has a no tyrant whose victims are still alive rule. Save them for the butchers of the 20th century edition.
We also have a lot of new civilizations that will all be familiar to players of Civilization III Conquests, such as the Vikings, the Zulu and the Koreans. If you are a fan of the Dutch or the Sumerians I'm sorry to say they didn't make the cut.
General Game Changes:
As far as general game changes we have several. We have two new units the Trireme and the Trebuchet, a new building the Stable, three new great wonders and three new leader traits affecting your empire. All add playability but as the title of the expansion suggests the biggest change is the warlord!
The warlord functions much like other great person people. They can generate a special building (Military Academy) they can join a city a specialist but the big function is attaching the warlord to a unit. It gives 20 pts of experience to the stack the unit is a part of and allows free promotions for the individual unit. Unlike other great people you generate specific warlord points during combat (excluding barbarians). When you get enough points a great General appears. Like other great units the number of points needed increases each time you get a new one.The rules concerning vassal states are pretty good too and add quite a bit of historical realism to the game. The various Scenarios are a good addition, the best being the barbarian scenario where you play the barbarian hordes trying to destroy Civilization. A nice change of pace if you are the slash and burn type.
Functionality:
The new online (pitboss) features bring one back to the days of PlayByMail days of wargaming. One of the weakness of the current online system is you just don't have the time to play to a finish if you have a life. With the PitBoss game the next turn doesn't start until each person takes their turn, and they can take their turn whenever they sign on. This gives time for reflection and a detailed study of the map. It also leads to very long games, but us old fellows are used to it.
Gripes:
There are only a few thing I can gripe about. The first is the quality of the book that came with the game. I've had it for less than two weeks and it's falling apart. That is very annoying, particularly when you combine it with the second issue. I had left the book elsewhere in the house and wanted to look up some new aspect of the game and couldn't find it. That could be user error but it bothered me a lot. Finally I would have liked to see the Dutch in the game and maybe a Jewish Empire as it's never been done. I'd also like to suggest a change in the way barbarian empires are handled late in the game. Perhaps if the barbarians are left alone long enough and develop far enough they might generate a leader (say Attila) and become a regular empire.
Playability:
The changes in the system have no effect on the flow of the game. If anything it discourages inertia since sitting back means your rivals will generate warlord points while you do not. The new surrender rules make defeat less fatal giving you a real chance to win even after such a trauma. It gives you a reason to "give war a chance".
Conclusion:
In the end my gripes are far outweighed by the advantages. If you own the game you will want the expansion. If you don't own the game you are missing out doubly.
Buy it!
For more details see the Civilization Fanatics center.
Posted by Peter at 01:27 PM | Comments (0)
August 08, 2006
Day off Blogging. Linguine's for Supper
Back before I started working at HiWired I worked at a place in Marlborough Mass. The best part of the drive to work was a restaurant called Linguine's.
This is yet another family run restaurant. The portions are the size of Cuba. The meals are first rate and at lunch they serve a grilled Chicken Caesar so good that I find it impossible to eat one anywhere else since it never measures up. It's the only salad I've ever eaten where you run out of greens before you run out of chicken.
The family went there last night for supper and had the leftovers for lunch today. Some things to note:
The Chicken Caesar is only served at lunchtime so if you want it get there on a weekday by 12:30
The Garlic bread is the strongest Garlic bread you will ever eat.
The Pizziola sauce is very good. It is primarily served with the veal but I prefer it with Chicken. It's not on the menu that way but ask for it and they will do it for you.
The Pizza is first rate and the Calzones will be two meals.
The Chicken Parmigiana is the best value you will get for your money anywhere short of Mighty Subs.
They have a huge seafood menu. I'm not a seafood guy but if you are prepare to be stuffed.
To put it simply; If you are in the Marlborough Mass. area, (route 20) you would be well advised to go there for a first rate meal that won't break your budget. Directions are here.
P.S. Eric can also vouch for the place.
Posted by Peter at 10:31 PM | Comments (0)
August 07, 2006
Crash and burn at Reuters (Reuters ME?)
Reuters is now pulling all photos by Hajj. Looks like the curtain is down and we can see the wizard:
"Manipulating photographs in this way is entirely unacceptable and contrary to all the principles consistently held by Reuters throughout its long and distinguished history. It undermines not only our reputation but also the good name of all our photographers," Szlukovenyi said."This doesn't mean that every one of his 920 photographs in our database was altered. We know that not to be the case from the majority of images we have looked at so far but we need to act swiftly and in a precautionary manner."
The only currency that a news organization has is its credibility. Looks like Reuters has been playing with borrowed dough.
via just about everywhere you look.
Pajamas media has a solid round up.
Cox and Fordum and Day by Day provide their own images.
Over to you Chimpy?
Posted by Peter at 11:24 AM | Comments (1)
Flat out
Very busy today, that Civ IV Warlords review I promised will have to wait till either I'm off duty or later in the week.
Posted by Peter at 11:07 AM | Comments (0)
August 06, 2006
Photo Phakers
The image with the fake smoke plumes would have been far more believable if the author had bothered to pay attention to detail. it probably took all of 5 minutes to create. It wasn't just the repeating patterns in the smoke.
The fact that it was over-pixeltated was a dead giveaway. Any matting or airbrushing that shows obvious edges can blend more easily after you've added them by changing the resolution. Some photoshop applications have a blur or a smudge tool to blend the edges of soemthing into the base image. Layering can also be disguised some by simply changing the resolution and color depth to increase the pixelation of a photo.
This hack probably spent 3 whole minutes with this spoof. My 15 minute mockery posted above is an example of slightly better work I did while I was sleeping. :)
Update: More on all this nonsense at Pajamas media and Michelle Malkin.
Posted by Bernie at 03:44 PM | Comments (0)
Nailed (Updated Reuters pulls photo)
Want another reason why the internet scares some people? It's because they can be caught doing stuff like this.
This Reuters photograph shows blatant evidence of manipulation. Notice the repeating patterns in the smoke; this is almost certainly caused by using the Photoshop “clone” tool to add more smoke to the image. (Hat tip: Mike.)It’s so incredibly obvious, it reminds me of the faked CBS memos. Smoke simply does not contain repeating symmetrical patterns like this, and you can see the repetition in both plumes of smoke. There’s really no question about it.
Here is the photo in question:
Here is the Reuters picture as it appears on the wire:
Quite a few blogs have commented on it. If you would rather have a more professional opinion here is a group of sports photographers.
The whole thing is a bit silly since in a war zone there is no shortage of photos of things blowing up. Particularly when the coverage in Lebanon is stage managed by a group intimidating reporters.
This is why the spread of technology is a problem for fakes and fraudsters. It allows ordinary people with specific knowledge to fact check what once could only be accepted without question.
BTW: Photoshop is not my baby but Peter/Bernie plays with it a bit. I'll check with him and see what he says.
Update: Reuters has pulled the photo:
Reuters' head of PR Moira Whittle said in response: "Reuters has suspended a photographer until investigations are completed into changes made to a photograph showing smoke billowing from buildings following an air strike on Beirut. Reuters takes such matters extremely seriously as it is strictly against company editorial policy to alter pictures."
Another victory for the Army of Davids.
Posted by Peter at 07:28 AM | Comments (3)
August 04, 2006
Well it took them long enough
Well I said that Limewire downloads were of dubious legality it looks like the music industry agrees with me.
In the complaint, the record companies contend LimeWire's operators are "actively facilitating, encouraging and enticing" computer users to steal music by failing to block access to copyright works and building a business model that allows them to profit directly from piracy."Defendants not only have known of the infringement, but have promoted and relied upon it to build their business," the complaint states.
I'm just shocked it took so long to happen.
via Drudge
Posted by Peter at 10:26 PM | Comments (0)
Civ IV Warlords review on Sunday
I spent two hours typing a detailed review of Civ IV Warlords this evening. Unfortunately I typed it on a Windows ME machine which was kind enough to freeze during the spell check in Movable Type. I was forced to reboot and the review is totally lost.
I am rather upset by this so my review will be re-written on Sunday as I'm in no mood to do it tonight.
Posted by Peter at 10:09 PM | Comments (0)
August 03, 2006
Australia! Australia! Australia! We love you.
Hugh Hewitt links to a WSJ article reporting that Foster's beer will not spend all its us ad budget on the internet, ignoring TV.
A rather dry look at Foster's rethinking of it's ad strategy is here.
I think it's a smart plan. You can target things directly to your customer base on the net.
On a totally unrelated note, Foster's web site is the most cooperate site I've ever seen. If you are a beer drinker (I'm not; bartender's son and all that) you would expect something with a little life, but it's all business.
If that's the type of ads they intend to use in the US, God help them.
Update for those who don't know the title of this post is from this Monty Python sketch.
Posted by Peter at 10:09 AM | Comments (0)
August 02, 2006
Cause and effect
Remember our article about the force feeding of IE 7? Maybe this explains it:
The open source Web browser software is gaining on Microsoft's (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) Internet Explorer, amassing 11.3% of the global browser market, up from 9.5% at the beginning of the year, according to Web traffic tracking from Net Applications. IE’s share slid from 85.3% in January to 83.6% in July.In the U.S., Firefox’s claim is even larger, with 15.8% in July up from 14.1% at the end of last year, according to Web analytics firm OneStat.
With that change is customer preference no wonder microsoft is reduced to charging for office beta downloads.
Posted by Peter at 06:53 PM | Comments (0)
Cheesy in blackface
We teased this site over a cheesy attempt to get it to show up on search engines. The foolish text is now gone (or hidden).
Now it's time to tease the Huffington Post for this post: The cause follows:
I don't know exactly how things would have been different if Joe HADN'T been around to lend his "experience" to the GOP on such key issues, but it sure would be nice to find out.(Graphic by DarkBlack)
Jane Hamsher is in Connecticut covering the Lamont/Lieberman race and blogs about it daily at firedoglake.com
Now if you click on the link to the post you won't see a graphic. This is because the graphic was removed once it was posted elsewhere.
I'm not going to tease them for removing the graphic. Pulling it is the right thing to do. I'm not even going to tease them for not apologizing or commenting on it's removal. They are of course trying to pretend it wasn't there, in this internet age that is a lost cause but it might fool those who don't frequent the sites that caught them.
What I'm teasing them about is leaving the line (Graphic by DarkBlack) in the post. I've heard of lack of forethought (the posting of the graphic is a good example of it, but this is lack of afterthought. Cheesey Cheesey Cheesey!
Update: Boy Michelle types faster than me, but I had a customer interupt me and they come first.
Posted by Peter at 05:09 PM | Comments (0)
Not quite fraud but pretty close.
Since we are dealing with interesting e-mails I thought I'd share one forwarded to me by somebody I know. I will fisk the text via bold italic as before:
Remember me? I used to send you valuable tips for your computer.If you don't want to receive them anymore, simply choose the un-subscribe button
at the bottom, and I won't bother you again. I must say stylewise that isn't a bad intro.(name removed), have you started downloading music from the Internet yet?
If not, you are missing one very rewarding experience. Did you know you can search thru billions of music files?
It's true. So far so good nothing incorrect about anything listed.
The most popular way to do this today is with a simple program called Limewire. Until now
With over 88 million downloads, Limewire has become the most popular program to download music, movies and games. Not to mention a popular way to deliver spyware
If you have an iPod, nothing is better for filling it up. If you own a pc nothing is better for slowing it down.
If you aren't downloading music, movies and videos to your computer why not start today? I don't know perhaps because most of the downloads on Limewire are of dubious legality at best
It's not hard, you can be downloading music in about 6 minutes. In that same 6 minutes you will be allowing people to browse your system without your knowledge maybe even pulling your tax and financial information to share with the whole world.
To get started, just visit:
http://www.I'm a big sucker who wants to let strangers surf my pc, look at my data, and open doors to all kinds of spyware and virus' to slow my system down.comHave a super Sunday. You won't if you follow this advice,
Happy Downloading,
MichelleActive Publishing
PO Box 4324
Burbank, CA 91503To unsubscribe or change subscriber options visit:
http://www.aweber.com/z/r/?TIyszAwMtCwMTKwMbCxs
I googled active publishing today when I got this letter and the number one result is this pdf file from the Center for Democracy and Technology. It seems they have a dubious record:
We came across your service during our survey, and are concerned by some of the representations made to consumers in your promotion of that service. The sign-up page of your website claims to be offering unlimited music downloads that are “100% legal.” Your email to new members says that using the software you provide is “legal & safe.” You instruct your members to download peer-to-peer file sharing software as a means of downloading “all the music, videos and software you want.” We believe your “100% legal” assurance is misleading to consumers, who are likely to believe that their membership fees grant them a license to download music from these services, when in fact they will likely be engaging in copyright infringement. The disclaimers provided on subsequent linked pages are not prominent or clear enough to dispel the misconceptions fostered by the claims on the Mp3DownloadHQ.com sign-up page. We believe that the these practices may constitute deception under Section 5 of the FTC Act.
Beware of "free" stuff. Remember the immortal words of Morgan O'Rourke:
Duffy: How come they raises the free lunch from a nickel to a dime? O'Rourke: Always complainin', ain't ya, Duffy? Next thing you'll want a free lunch for nothin'.
We've talked about limewire here often. It's a bit sad to have to keep saying it but it's just not worth it.
Posted by Peter at 10:36 AM | Comments (0)