Sunday, January 20, 2002

>>>SBC Internet, "We're on it."  Yeah, if 'it' is crack.  I find the SBC Internet commercials funny, but I don't find any humor in SBC's poor service and predatory business practices.  Wouldn't it be nice if they could spend that marketing budget on infrastructure and support for their products?  I'll go out on a limb and say that if they ran their business honestly, by charging for great service, that they would feel what it's like to be truly successful. 12:13:37 PM

>>>I have two primary reasons for opposing Passport: Mistakes happen: When a mistake happens with my passport account I don't want someone to be able to access ALL of my Passport enabled accounts.  I'm also worried that I could effectively be locked out of all the Passport enabled services I'm using when/if the intruder changes my login information.  I shudder to think about the apathy I will face when trying to contact Microsoft to get a problem like this resolved.  Potential for abuse: Just because you can does not always mean you should.  As companies continue to add 'features' that allow them to track and identify users, privacy diminshes.  Most of these companies are adding 'tracking' features without having decisive plans of how to use them.  The exposure of the Windows super cookie is evidence of this.  Why would anyone want their Windows Media Player to be individually tracked?  I doubt that Microsoft even has a plan to use this data in a meaningful way. This article is from July of last year but it brings up a few interesting thoughts about Passport. 12:05:45 PM

>>>This is another great reason why we don't need single sign on or Passport.  Call me old fashioned, but I feel safer knowing that when I browse from website-to-website that I have some relative anonymity.  Just think if I needed a national id card to go shopping and every store required me to swipe my card through a reader to enter the store.  You'd never allow it, so why fall for Passport or Liberty. Don't get me wrong, I do find it annoying that I have so many passwords to take care of, but I certainly don't want Microsoft taking care of it for me.  1:41:36 AM

>>>I have been using Imici for a few weeks now and I really like it.  I now have one IM client open in the tray while having access to 5 different IM networks.  Imici, AOL, Yahoo!, ICQ, and MSN.  This is great because I can now chat with only one interface. 1:37:24 AM

>>>What's all the fuss about Outliners?  I can't even find one on download.com.  There are a few listed on freshmeat.net but none for Windows.  I'm not a big fan of Windows but I have to use it for work. If anyone has a link to a cool outliner for Windows pease feel free to send me a link.  I'd really like to try one out and see if it works for me. 1:33:16 AM

>>>Scott says that AT&T sucks.  I couldn't agree more.  Their corporate apathy, or is it entropy, makes me question their motives for being in the marketplace at all.  I've had Digital cable for over a year and YES, I pay over US $80 dollars a month for their 'Platinum' service.  That's a lot of money, but I thought it was worth it because I got ALL of the channels and could find something interesting to watch most of the time.  At the start of the new year I found out that I was not getting all of the channels even though I had the 'Platinum' package.  It turns out that AT&T added some new channels to their line up and decided that their existing customers should pay MORE to get those channels as well.  So they now have 'Tier Packages' that can be added on to each of their service.  WEAK.  To add insult to injury they also RAISED their rates by US $2 dollars a month at the same time. How much money did they want for the new channels?  US $3 dollars a month.  How much are they going to get from me?  US $0 dollars a month.  I've decided to get Direct TV w/Tivo for US $60 dollars a month and say goodbye to AT&T. 12:54:13 AM