The Republikan is the conservative equivalent of the knee-jerk Democrat.

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n a terse statement, a “stunned” Apple accused RealNetworks of

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Slyck – File Sharing News and InfoInto P2P and file sharing systems? Then check these folks out. This is an excellent newsletter. Definitive.

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India will soon surpass the USA as a World Tech center.

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I had a conversation with lead attorney AJ DeBartolomeo regarding the PayPal mailing. PayPal did indeed do the mailing at PayPal’s request for what PayPal claimed were “security reasons.” In fact, it was argued that because there were so many scams out there that this would prevent people thinking the lawsuit was a hoax. PayPal assured the lawyers that that everyone within the company would be notified of the mailing so that when a customer asked asbout the legitimacy of the mailing they would be told the right thing. AJ is a little concerned that PayPal is now telling some customers (my example is not isolated) that the letter is a hoax. It’s not a hoax.

After she told me that PayPal fought tooth-and-nail for two years regarding this suit, you have to wonder why the company would insist on doing the mailing in the first place. It’s not normal to get this sort of notice from the defendant.

The suit stems from PayPal’s cavalier attitude towards its customers in violation of various California State laws regarding companies engaged in wire transfer activity. This includes freezing accounts without proper procedures and allowing funds to be transferred willy-nilly from account to account without customer recourse. I’ve heard a lot of complaints about PayPal over the years and the company, owned by EBAY, should be ashamed of itself. An entire website of complainers exists at Paypalsucks.com. PayPal claimed that it was not a financial institution and not bound by the applicable wire transfer laws. Whether that was true or not, how is this any way to treat customers?

Unfortunately one of the gotchas in this suit is that the damages cap is $500,000 total. Although DeBartolomeo says that individuals can recoup their individual losses and their expenses (faulty overdraft charges, etc.)

During the conversation the issue of eBays general procedures for dealing with customer fraud has come up with various users that she and the other partners have talked to. eBay tends to be less than aggressive when it comes to criminals and con-men who frequent their service to cheat customers. I have heard from personal friends who got no satisfaction in dealing with the company. DeBartolomeo says the law firm would be very interested in hearing from people with these sorts of complaints. Go to the website at http://www.girardgibbs.com/ and tell them your tale.

The long term implications of eBays customer service policies will probably lead people away from the company. Already two alternative payment systems are available:

http://paydirect.yahoo.com/

https://www.yowcow.com/index1.htm

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PayPAL is Being Sued

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Candidate Watches.for less than $25 you can get one of these watches with Bush or Kerry. Personally I think a Nader watch would be much more collectible or Benny Hill even. Anyway, I suspect this mechanism will be used in a lot of different ways. (not shown at actual speed)

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I’m a huge fan of Nintendo’s small Gameboy Advance and can’t quite understand this new “dual screen” unit and it’s target market. The elegance of the Gameboy has much to do with its size. This unit appears to be getting too big.

snippets from the press release:

Software companies worldwide have more than 120 Nintendo DS games in development. Nintendo alone is developing more than 20 titles, and in excess of 100 companies have signed on to create games for the new system.

“The innovative functions make Nintendo DS a superior game device, while the chat feature and ability to detect other DS units make it a social device as well,” says Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of sales and marketing. “We’ve figured out the magic of what makes portable game play so attractive to consumers.We’ve defeated nine challengers and once again we’re prepared to win.”

Since the release of its first home video game system in 1983, Nintendo has sold more than 1.9 billion video games and more than 170 million hardware units globally

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Interesting Press Release. The problem I have is there are a lot of old products on here. Do they just receive the same award year after year? Is this like the Emmys?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SIAF

Elizabeth, CO (July, 2004) – The Shareware Industry Awards Foundation was pleased to announce the winners of the thirteenth annual Shareware Industry Awards during a gala awards banquet held at the Rochester Hyatt Regency in Rochester, New York as part of the fourteenth annual Shareware Industry Conference.

Awards were given in eighteen categories:
- Best Overall Utility – WinZip by WinZip Computing, Inc.
(www.winzip.com)
- Best Application – askSam by askSam Systems (www.asksam.com)
- Best Graphics Program or Utility – Paint Shop Pro by Jasc Software, Inc. (www.jasc.com)
- Best Desktop Enhancement – Microangelo Creation by Eclipsit Corporation (http://microangelo.us/tour)
- Best Photo Program or Utility – ThumbBuddy by Lincoln Beach Software (www.lincolnbeach.com)
- Best Application Using .NET – SourceGear Vault by SourceGear, LLC. (www.sourcegear.com)
- Best Utility Using .Net – FILEhand Search by Filehand, LLC. (www.filehand.com)
- Best Sound Program or Utility – Blaze Media Pro by Mystik Media (www.mystikmedia.com)
- Best Vertical Market Program or Utility – Help and Manual by EC Software (www.ec-software.com)
- Best Business Application or Utility – InnoSetup by Jordan Russell (www.jrsoftware.com)
- Best Educational Program or Game – Cherokee Trails by Pharos Games (www.pharosgames.com)
- Best Hobby or Personal Interest Program – Word Search Construction Kit by Insight Software Solutions, Inc. (www.wordsearchkit.com)
- Best Internet Enhancement or Utility – FeedDemon by Bradbury Software (www.bradsoft.com)
- Best Internet Communication – Trillian by Cerulean Studios (www.ceruleanstudios.com)
- Best Web Enhancement or Utility – The Bat! by RITLABS (www.ritlabs.com)
- Best Non-Action Game – Jig Jag! Gold by JigJag Ltd. UK (www.jigjag.com)
- Best Action/Arcade Game – Snood by Word of Mouse Games (www.snood.com)
- Best Program or Utility for PDAs – TealDoc by Teal Point Software (www.tealpoint.com)

The SIAF Board of Directors presented the award for Lifetime Achievement to Paris Karahalios of TRIUS, Inc. for his accomplishments and service to the industry since 1986. The SIAF People’s Choice Awards were also presented during the banquet. These awards are voted on by the public at Internet download sites like CNET, Simtel, Tucows, and the Web sites of hundreds of software developers. Jean-Guy Ducreux, Chris Thornton, and CNET Networks were inducted into the
Shareware Hall of Fame.

The Shareware Industry Awards Foundation is a non-profit corporation that was created in 1991 for the purpose of hosting the annual Shareware Industry Conference. The SIC is attended by software developers, e-commerce providers, vendors, and others involved in the shareware industry from around the world. The conference features educational sessions on a wide range of topics of interest to software developers including marketing, Web site design, press releases, and
more. The conference is sponsored by a number of companies both large and small.

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Cambridge academics will no longer be permitted to register domain names

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meta blog, kind of

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And you thought identity theft couldn’t go any further.. Apparently fake weddings are making womens life miserable in South Africa, Are we next?

“I don’t know this man from a bar of soap,” she said.

Last week, Bronwyn Gower went to pick up her new identity card and was astonished to find she was now “Mrs Fabian Oshi”.

related story

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Here’s something floating around the net (again).

You are driving down the road in your car on a wild, stormy night, when
you pass by a bus stop and you see three people waiting for the bus:

1. An old lady who looks as if she is about to die.
2. An old friend who once saved your life.
3. The perfect partner you have been dreaming about.

Which one would you choose to offer a ride to, knowing that there could only be one passenger in your car? Think before you continue reading.

This is a moral/ethical dilemma that was once actually used as part of a job application. You could pick up the old lady, because she is going to die, and thus you should save her first. Or you could take the old friend because he once saved your life, and this would be the perfect chance
to pay him back. However, you may never be able to find your perfect mate again.

The candidate who was hired (out of 200 applicants) had no trouble coming up with his answer. He simply answered: “I would give the car keys to my old friend and let him take the lady to the hospital, and I would stay behind and wait for the bus with the partner of my dreams.”

Sometimes, we gain more if we are able to give up our stubborn thought limitations. Never forget to “Think Outside of the Box.”

However, the correct answer is to run the old lady over and put her out of her misery, have sex with the perfect partner against the bus stop, then drive off with the old friend for some beers.

God, I just love happy endings!

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Smear Factor
My new PC Mag print column went live last week. It’s about Microsoft’s never-ending fun attempts to smear Linux. It’s also one in a series of columns with pun headlines based on other titles. This one based on the Fear Factor TV show. Another column called the Importance of Being Linux is based on the title, The Importance of Being Earnest — an old Oscar Wilde play. At PC/Computing (and MacUser) we used to have an editor, Jon Zilber, who was masterful at creating compelling pun headlines. This is not that easy and he got to the point where he should have won a Pulitzer for it. Jon was eventually rousted and went into PR. I need to track him down.

Puns are considered by many professional comics (and the public too) as a low form of humor. But when done by a master they can be phenomenal, poetic. This is probably why the characters in Mensa (the social club for people with high IQ’s who want to actually hang out with people with high IQ’s to talk about their high IQ’s) think puns are the highest form of humor. Apparently the Japanese language is amenable to puns and considered an art there too. Fact is most puns are annoying, inane. The website Pun of the Day, proves this.

The thing about Zilber that was interesting was the fact that he stunk at these pun/headlines for years but insisted on doing them. It was one day when some curtain opened for him and each one was gold. Hopefully I can find some of the ones he did for me when I did through my archives of old PC/Computing and MacUser columns to post on this weblog.

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The hidden message in this video is that now Katherine “too much make-up” Harris is the equivalent of the Ernst Stavro Blofeld character in the James Bond movies.

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