Posts by kns2c

What really pisses me off about this whole mess is that even now, a full month after well publicized issues there is not a single word on the website itself about the real status of it. There are some blog entries on the front page but these are written in typical gov-speak and don't really say anything about what to expect if you are looking to register on the site or god forbid apply for insurance.

They should have a clear plain-language status, potential wait times for identity verification, eligibility check, and other slow parts of the application, and any other details that could save time and frustration for potential users. They are promoting "4 ways" to apply for coverage, however if you call the provided phone number or contact one of the 3rd party "helpers" you'll find out that they are using the same system that is broken the same way the public website is. Not sure how application "by mail" would work, might try that next.

I was not able to get a status of my application over the phone, the person who answered didn't even ask for my application ID and just told me to check back later. Guess what - a week later the status of the application still shows as "incomplete" in one place on the website, and "complete" in another. However the page that shows "complete" doesn't work - clicking on a "Continue" button doesn't do anything. How hard could it be to show a proper message if there is an issue, or just disable the damn thing if it's not working - why have users banging at it?

Unfortunately that's how the whole site seems to be developed - a mess of incoherent links and buttons, no error handling whatsoever, sprinkled with typical bureaucratic nonsense (six or seven clicks to confirm that my 11-month old makes $0 per year). At least they made it enormously bloated aka "touch friendly" so that fondleslab users could enjoy the same level of waste, incompetence, and stupidity.

Must be a typo

Surely they meant to name it HD 1080p

Of all the evil US telcos AT&T is probably the worst. This T-Mobile merger would have been a disaster. I've been with tmo for 5 or 6 years now and surprisingly (or perhaps not) my monthly costs are still about half of what it would be with AT&T or Verizon. Granted the network is weak, but being able to use my phone in my basement is not worth the insane monthly costs.

The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

What a damning evidence. But I think Hirai's letter to the Congress would have been much more fun to read if the hackers left a file named "Superman". Or "Geronimo".

Poor choice of quotes

"malicious code may be executed when the user clicks the displayed icon of a specially crafted shortcut"

Well that wouldn't be much of an exploit, would it?

The user does not have to CLICK the icon, merely view the folder containing the shortcut (or have the icon loaded in many other ways Windows loads icons). Apparently if the shortcut gets its icon from a resource within a DLL, it is possible to have Windows automatically run initialization code of that DLL.

Would someone think of the netbooks

I would be more impressed if they put the10" 1366x768 screen in a netbook. And a decent graphics chip for h.264. 17" laptops are so last century.

Mercury Milan...

... is a clue only for the inhabitants of the right side of the pond. There, now you have a clue about how to use a clue.

Aldi shoppers...

... buy Medion, at least here in the US. Not that I know what Medion is.

Maserati must be doing really bad...

... if even with a free meal the test drives attracted only 4 people. Maybe they could try this promotion with more success a few miles south of San Diego.

Cloudy, as in "shady"

Carbonite is high on my list of "never do business with" outfits. Their client software was pretty lame, no diagnostic/debugging tools of any sort and very limited control. The automatic file monitoring did not work on folder-mounted NTFS volumes and it took me two weeks of frustrating communication with their customer service to realize that they are useless. I had to send an angry e-mail to the CEO to get my money back. That was a year ago though, might be different now, i.e. they might be ignoring CEO's e-mails now :-)

Re: of course @asdf

Funny how interweb comments work. You don't have to let facts get in your way. The only hope is that maybe you are being sarcastic and by "government sponsored monopolies" you mean US telecoms that squandered billions of taxpayer dollars and by "nationwide coverage" you mean top 50 markets or whatever PR speak they use. Yes, there are unlimited 3G plans (I have one for $20/month), but pretty much useless outside of big cities. I miss my 30-euro unlimited plan I had in Europe 2 years ago and multiple competing carriers that I could switch between while keeping my phone. Try going between Sprint and AT&T or even between Sprint and Verizon (same tech, should be easy, right?) without signing a 2 year deal "short of performing felatio on the right people".

OpenVPN FTW

OpenVPN is one of the very few free software applications that I have donated money to. It has saved me so much travel expense and time and frustration with other VPN products. And to all you whining about it being too complex or duplicating what's available via SSL/Citrix/Win2008 and what not... I doubt there is anything close to OpenVPN's price/features ratio, including the cost of time needed to set it up (it's a one-time expense anyway - once you've done it you know it). Cross-platform support, all sorts of authentication and encryption options, extensive debugging options, stability and speed, etc.

Trialware

"Nokia includes a six-month licence for its Drive and Walk step-by-step navigation package"

What happens after six months? Does it just stop updating the maps or does it stop working at all and requires to pay to extend the subscription? The sad thing is that it's very likely that such bait&switch phones will eventually push the cheap dedicated satnav devices out of the market. Same thing that happened with PDAs - why would you need one if your phone does everything? Except that you have to pay subscription fees for the privilege to squint at the small screen.

80 watts?

What a pile of rubbish. Where does this (p)review show that Nano is twice as fast as Atom? What are the specs of the test system - memory, hard drive(s), power supply? What did you do to it to push it to 80W? I can do 80W with a 45W dual-core AMD (under $100 including mATX mobo, miniITX might be more expensive), 1GB DDR2 and a "green" Caviar, so either the Nano, or the review is full of crap.

Bay Area city of Pittsburgh

Spelling Police will be knocking on your door shortly. There is only one Pittsburgh with an "h" and it's not in Bay Area.

Exposed

@Ron Enderland

You can't possibly be a yank as you exhibit a level of sarcasm unknown here in the land of the free (not beer). Real yanks would never admit such terrible things about themselves.

I suspect an Estonian conspiracy here

@Lee Dowling

Lithuanians don't need visas to work in the UK. Not that it stopped them before though.

@Vaidotas

I'd say this is a lame story as far as Lithuanians are concerned. It completely tarnished the image of cannibalistic criminal alcoholics roaming the EU. I mean what's up with that guy - lost his job, started gardening for free, was co-operative with the police? I'd be relieved to find out that the Telegraph and the police mixed something up and he's in fact an Estonian.

LCD vs CRT

LCDs do NOT consume less power than CRTs. Maybe comparing 15" LCD monitors to 15" CRTs (anyone remember those?) started this legend but that is not true anymore. My 21" CRT TV was 60W, now I have a 32" LCD that uses 90W at half-backlight and 150W at full. And I'm pretty sure most people who "upgrade" their "tubes" go up a few inches on the screen size at the same time, so forget about any energy savings. And it's only going to get worse with LCDs as they get bigger (52" - 300W).

@Ways to combat fraud

David, none of your suggestions address the actual problem. And most of what you are suggesting is implemented, but alerts after the fact don't really solve the problem, and delivery address restrictions depend on millions of merchants cooperating. Additional authorization in the form of "Verified by Visa", and whatever the MasterCard equivalent is, also exists, but is optional and again depends on everyone cooperating.

The main problem the way I see it is allowing PULL money from your account, instead of PUSHING money to someone's account. Credit cards, as well as the moronic personal checks and ACH transfers here in the merkin land, are based on two conflicting conditions: you have to give out your account number to be able to pay someone, and at the same time the account number has to remain secret for it to be secure. It should be the other way around - by knowing an account number you should only be able to transfer money INTO it, not OUT of it. Think PayPal - while not exactly an example of a fraud-proof bank, they got at least the push/pull part right.

Any real improvement in credit card security would require something radical, like making the "Verified by Visa" mandatory. Not going to happen, as it would cut off many merchants and card holders. Remember, Visa and MasterCard are public companies now, so profits above all.