Bad Digital Photo Frames Lurk

Published on December 29th, 2008

Microsoft designs a pay-as-you-go patent.
Sony PS3 not catching up?
HP gets PC and MAC server. So?
Extra second added to the year.
Windows 7 to come out early, now leaked. Nothing special they say.
Will websites have to be rated.
Photo frames have malware. Merry Christmas.
Verizon wins $33 million from squatter.
Apple, Google, MS sued over icon previews.
Govt sets up call center for analog to digital changeover.
MMO patent emerges.
Texting while driving finally becoming illegal.
Seven most under-reported stories of 2008.

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17 users responded in " Bad Digital Photo Frames Lurk "

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# 1 killer duck said, on December 29th, 2008 at 5:46 pm

Pay as you go…still very common in high end computing systems. Just about every time you use an ATM machine your bank is paying a software company for use of the software. The really profitable software companies don’t sell software…they lease it.

# 2 Geoffrey said, on December 29th, 2008 at 7:32 pm

Computer companies have been using pay-as-you-go billing schemes since the dawn of computing.

So how did MSFT scrounge up a new patent on that? Did the US Patent Office fall for that same old stupid patent trick again? (i.e., Pay-US-Patent-Office-Enough-Money-In-Political-Contributions)?

# 3 Mr. Fusion said, on December 29th, 2008 at 8:22 pm

John C. Dvorak,

I would like to donate towards removing the ads and updating your servers. Unfortunately your link will only accept PayPal. I refuse to deal with such an unfair, one sided User Agreement that PayPal uses. Not to mention that in the past I have had other problems with PayPal that never did get resolved.

If you have an alternative to PayPal then I would be more than happy to send a donation your way.

# 4 Randomized said, on December 29th, 2008 at 8:28 pm

I’m in the same boat as #3. I would be happy to donate but I refuse to use PayPal.

# 5 Animby said, on December 29th, 2008 at 8:55 pm

See #3 and #4

I’ve given PayPal all I am going to give them.

# 6 QB said, on December 29th, 2008 at 9:15 pm

The HP server will look like an HFS Plus file system to the Mac so programs like iTunes and Time Machine will be happy.

HP is getting ready to roll this feature out to their enterprise servers soon since there are a lot more Macs out there in Fortune 1000 land than people think. HP is kicking Dell’s ass in the enterprise because they’re listening to their customers – thank God.

This server is based on the Window Media Server which works quite well. WMS is a actual under-reported story. The HP lab at Building 18 in Redmond has some pretty cool stuff – way more interesting than the Microsoft “Home of Tomorrow”.

# 7 muddauber said, on December 29th, 2008 at 9:48 pm

HP gets PC and MAC server. So? Yeah, So!
Half the products I’ve used hang up when I try to
access them with a Mac. I returned the Maxtor
Central Axis ( Sounds like an enemy coalition)
as my Mac and Linux boxes could not reliable acces s them.
Then I went and bought the Netgear ReadyNas DUO and it has NFS, AFP, HTTP, HTTPS, FTP access that WORKS. Logging into my home NAS from work with my Mac as a SNAP and it looks and acts just like a local drive.
No, not all the vendors provide reliable Mac, PC and Linux access to their products. In fact,
Netgear has taken Maxtor Drives off their approved drive list due to continued problems implementing drives to their units.

# 8 Ron Larson said, on December 29th, 2008 at 9:52 pm

Gee… #2 is right. I remember pay as you go. It was called Time Sharing. It was very common in the 1970’s. There were extensive accounting software that would track every CPU cycle in or out, storage, etc. and bill it to clients.

# 9 GregA said, on December 29th, 2008 at 10:30 pm

#8,

This doesn’t work like that. This is more like a repo plan for windows. The Microsoft system will enable computer sellers (this is for emerging markets) to give computers to people, and allows the seller to shut the computer off if the person doesn’t pay their bill. After a set number of hours are purchased on the computer, it becomes fully functional and the pay as you go stuff goes away.

Think pre-paid phone service…

# 10 GregA said, on December 29th, 2008 at 10:42 pm

#6,

Looking at the forums, nope. This is still just a samba server as far as OS X is concerned. You will be doing actual backups, and won’t get time machine shenanagans(weak simulation of windows superior shadow copy).

Also, this is not for enterprise space, this is as a “Home Server” whatever that is(I think it is ePenis enhancement woo woo I have a server! That makes me ePenis at least an inch longer!). Macs will still be second class citizens on your workplace windows domain.

# 11 B. Dog said, on December 29th, 2008 at 11:08 pm

I don’t believe the PS3 is dying — on the contrary the dismal relative PS3 sales figures for November mean the Xbox 360 and Wii sales just peaked. You’ll see. Parents just cheaped out for this Christmas.

# 12 pedro said, on December 30th, 2008 at 5:23 am

This MS’ “Pay as you Go” crapola is another one of their steps towards “Cloud” computing. It is beased on their knowledge that there are plenty of suckers out there (and new ones everyday…by the truckload) that will get into this becuase is either “kewl” (even though is not mac) or “it’s the future”

Welcome to the past.

#7 Weird. Most NAS’s have linux as their OS.

#10 Amen on that second class citizenship.

#11 Keep the faith.

# 13 QB said, on December 30th, 2008 at 6:29 am

Anyone read Wired’s article about Kaminsky’s DNS hack? Was it just me, or was that the most overblown article I’ve ever read from Wired?

http://wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/16-12/ff_kaminsky

# 14 QB said, on December 30th, 2008 at 6:30 am

Sorry, better url for article.

# 15 ubiquitous talking head said, on December 30th, 2008 at 6:54 am

If you have an alternative to PayPal then I would be more than happy to send a donation your way.

Add me to this camp.

I don’t have an extra $100 to be your friend, but I’d give you $20 to be listed as a “casual aquaintance”.

# 16 Uncle Patso said, on December 30th, 2008 at 7:37 am

Seems to me the digital photo frames with trojans, worms & other malware first hit the papers months ago — dslreports.com has a story dated February; Engadget has one from January. Heck, it even made our local paper. If you get one of these, the _first_ thing you do is scan it with your anti-virus and all your anti spyware programs, preferably on a computer that’s not on the net. I believe the Insignia brand were the first identified with the problem.

# 17 QB said, on December 30th, 2008 at 8:22 am

#10 GregA

I’ve been reading conflicting info. I’ll assume you’re right and they’re not that smart. Thanks.

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