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October 25, 2006

This kind of crap makes me furious

So, the good news: Spam King to pay $7m to MS for spamming.

What drives me nuts? This statement:

Scott Richter and his Colorado-based company OptInRealBig.com are alleged to have been one of the world's biggest spammers, sending a staggering 38 billion messages a year to the email inboxes of unwitting recipients, pushing everything from mortgages to pornography websites. Microsoft and the New York attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, sued Mr Richter for $18m in 2003, accusing him of violating state and federal laws, after "spam traps" set by the software company netted some 8,000 messages containing 40,000 fraudulent statements.

Um, 40,000 fraudulent statements? Documented? I realize that our esteeeeemed politicians (when they're not too busy getting facials, and holding press conferences) are confused by spam and the internet - but fraud? And MS has to bring this moron to court under a civil suit to even garner something approximate to justice?

pffbbbtttttt.

Posted on October 25, 2006 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 18, 2006

TechSmith - They "get it"

Continuing my series of posts on Products/Services that rule/pwn, TechSmith gets a huge 'shout out' today.

Their products are just great, and make my life as a Technical Evangelist tons easier (SnagIt is obscenely suited to taking oodles of screencaps (I honestly don't know how I lived so long without it), and Camtasia is just 'hubba' when it comes to making screencasts). I've eye-balled it tons over the past few years, downloaded the demos one or two times over various versions, and finally got a real stab at using Camtasia (2.0) a while back for a project I did for 3 Leaf.

I liked the product so much after using it for 3 Leaf that I recently (about 40 days ago) went out and bought Camtasia Studio 3.x.

Then today I saw that they just released Camtasia Studio 4.0 - with all sorts of cool new bells and whistles. Talk about a sick feeling in my stomach. The TechSmith site said that I could upgrade for $150, but that seemed pretty expensive for something I just barely bought.

So I called their sales department and explained my situation. They've got excellent people working for them, and they've empowered them to make a difference. Suffice it to say, they TOTALLY took care of me, and had me grinning from ear to ear. This is the second time I've dealt with them on the phone, and both times I've been amazed at how focused they are on providing excellent customer service and making sure that they keep their clients happy.

In other words, they "get it" when it comes to customer service (so few companies do).

Posted on October 18, 2006 | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Outrageous

1) Some of Apple's new iPods SHIP with the RavMonE virus (which only affects Windows Machines).
2) They make a crack like this on their web site:

"As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it," Apple said on its site." [link]

That's so completely un-acceptable.

Not just because of Apple's completely un-satisfactory record for handling their own OS flaws within the industry, and not even because of their sickeningly wise-ass pot-shot at their competition, but because if we're talking about HARDINESS here, their own device contracted the virus and is acting as a carrier.

I can't even imagine taking a hardware company seriously that would 1) give me a virus - and then 2) try to use the 'cleanup' of that COLLOSSAL screw-up as a marketing opportunity.

They really need to lay off of their own Kool-aid a bit.

Seriously, what iHoles.

Posted on October 18, 2006 | | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

October 12, 2006

Unbelievable

Just how screwed up is that?

UPDATE: More info on the stupidity. (We've heard all along that MS wanted to go the 'Software as Service' route... looks like they've taken their OS one step closer. And what's with prohibiting users from putting .iso files on some versions of Windows???? )

UPDATE 2: Paul Thurrott tackles some of these rumors - to say that they're all hooeeey. Frankly, if you read his overview of what's going on it's part Jedi Mind trick ("these aren't the droids you're looking for"), part appology ("it's always been like this... so sit down and shut up"), and part Kool-aid ("Microsoft knows better than you what you REALLY want"). Yes, it looks like some licensing things people were complaining about were overblown, and I'm guilty of posting links to them here. But there are also some lame problems. e.g., Paul points out that no one in their right mind would ever want to virtualize something other than Vista Biz and Vista Ultimate, and I think of software developers and testers... That, and any of the licensing things that people were worried about ONLY affect Power Users - so, in Microsoft's opinion, there's nothing to worry about. pfffbbbt. 

Posted on October 12, 2006 | | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

October 05, 2006

Apple - Making even the simple stuff HARD

So, I just purchased the first episode of Lost via iTunes. The other night I bought a season pass to the Office. That meant that two episodes came down at once - AFTER upgrading to the 'spiffy' iTunes 7.

Only, somehow 'herding' those little 0s and 1s to my machine was a total FEAT for the spiffy new iTunes 7.0. In fact, at points I couldn't EVEN watch the Office and download it at the same time - because my CPU was getting maxed out. Seriously, talk about making me grumpy. I don't care IF it is DRM-ed, just give me the damn file. That should take, TOPS, 7% of my CPU on a sustained basis.

Now I'm downloading a single episode of Lost, and iTunes is using > 50% of my CPU to pull it down. (Good thing Apple is releasing dual-core Xeon workstations.... people will need those to watch and download at this rate...)

iDiots.

Posted on October 05, 2006 | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

October 03, 2006

Hosted-Projects.com - Excellent SVN Hosting

Subversion is the bomb. I started using it a little over two years ago, and I've really grown to love it. Especially with the use of TortoiseSVN - quite simply the most intuitive Source Control Client I've used.

For my own projects, I started hosting with www.svn-hosting.com about half a year ago, and I have been very pleased by:
1) Uptime
2) Server Responsiveness
3) Throughput
4) Customer Service
5) Price.

SVN-Hosting.com recently, apparently, changed their name to Hosted-Projects.com, but the transition (on my end) was so seamless that I didn't even realize that a change had been made until I nav-ed out to the site for this post.

If you're in need of Subversion Hosting, give these guys a try - they're very responsive, have great pricing plans, and their servers just work.

P.S. Sorry for the recent delay in posts folks - I was out sick all last week. The good news is that I'm feeling "much better now". (No, really, "I don't want to go on the cart!")

Posted on October 03, 2006 | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

The new phone book is here! The new phone book is here!

My most recent copy of SQL Server Magazine showed up, and one of my recent articles is in there. Looks like I'm finally some one (take that! Navin R. Johnson!).

The article is currently 'locked-down' to subscribers only on the site, but compares Lumigent's Log Explorer against Red Gate's SQL Log Rescue.

Both products offer pretty similar functionality, but one costs nearly 10x as much as the other...

In my review I explain why the cheaper one would actually be my preference even if the prices were the same. Needless to say: Red Gate's SQL Log Rescue is a killer tool, and at $195 I don't think that any serious organization should be without it.

Posted on October 03, 2006 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)