ElijahBlue 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (91) comment rss

  • On the post: Apple Trying To Sneak Safari Onto Windows Machines?

    ElijahBlue ( profile ), 24 Mar, 2008 @ 04:09pm

    Apple surprised me with it

    I thought the offer to download Safari was spyware/viralware at first, as I couldn't figure out why Apple/Itunes would offer me what I thought was a Macintosh-only product, and I ended up doing a virus scan, dumping out my Prefetch directory, emptying out my cookies file, temp files, all of that carp.

    As much as I would love to fire Internet Explorer and switch over to Safari or Firefox, I design corporate web pages. I need to know what my pages look like to the majority of end-users, and unfortunately, most of the world still uses IE.

  • On the post: Publications Slowly Realizing That Freeing Up Archives Makes Sense

    ElijahBlue ( profile ), 18 Mar, 2008 @ 04:47pm

    Not everything has to be free

    I have no problem with companies that charge for access to their archives. The Los Angeles Times archives from 1880-1985 offer PDF versions of news stories, and most include photos. It must have been an expensive project, and it took years to complete, so although I am no fan of the current LA Times, their historical archives are impressive.

    That said, I don't pay for the articles. I download them free through my university's library system, but the school pays a flat annual subscription fee to Proquest, the portal that manages several newspaper archives.

  • On the post: Spitzer Call Girl Threatens News Outlets Over Copyright

    ElijahBlue ( profile ), 17 Mar, 2008 @ 11:26am

    Re:

    Nobody is paying me 2 grand to f--k them. Would I take the money, if offered? Damned right I would. Only fate is cruel and I have the body of an IT programmer, not the physique of a high-class call girl.

  • On the post: Spitzer Call Girl Threatens News Outlets Over Copyright

    ElijahBlue ( profile ), 17 Mar, 2008 @ 10:29am

    Education for Ms. Ho's Lawyers

    News flash:

    1: Once you decide to f--k a Governor for $5000 an hour, then you have made yourself into a public figure.

    2: If you agree to become a witness in a criminal case in exchange for immunity from prosecution, you are now a public figure. Your name and photo, if the case is interesting enough, will show up in newspapers in the US and perhaps around the world.

    3. She's worried about the unauthorized use of her photo, and yet she had no trouble taking off her clothes for pay? Maybe she should go to law school. What a loser.

  • On the post: Why The Wireless Industry Is Moving To Flat-Rate Pricing

    ElijahBlue ( profile ), 26 Feb, 2008 @ 07:21pm

    Re: Re:

    I'm pretty sure that I've seen display ads in 7-11s for Metro PCS - I'm in Los Angeles.

  • On the post: Why The Wireless Industry Is Moving To Flat-Rate Pricing

    ElijahBlue ( profile ), 26 Feb, 2008 @ 06:16pm

    T-Mobile Yea - Verizon Will Try To Suck You Dry

    I have an unlimited data plan through T-Mobile for $49.99 a month with my PDA. Mobile phone service (400 anytime mins, nites and weekends free) is about the same price per month from Verizon. I needed a PDA for work that wouldn't be interrupted or the battery life drained by incoming/outgoing phone calls, and at the time, T-Mobile was the only company that had an unlimited data plan that met my needs.

    What I've noticed is that Verizon is scratching and grasping at every last dime. Through my T-Mobile, I can access Google Maps for free, turning my almost 3 year old PDA into a GPS-enabled device. Verizon wants an extra $5 a month if I sign up for GPS mapping services through them.They also charge per megabyte if you want to use the internet on your cell phone.

    Verizon also attempts to charge a sucker's fee for all kinds of optional services. I wouldn't mind paying for a single ringtone, but instead of letting me cough up the .99 cents for the stupid thing, they want to charge me the .99 cent fee PLUS a monthly subscription fee, PLUS an annual fee to renew the ringtone after 12 months.

    Now, I haven't been able to discern yet how to hack the phone in order to upload my own ringtone, but I'm still trying. It's the principle of the thing, and once this Verizon contract is up I won't renew it, because I find this nickel and diming crap to be very distasteful. If I wasn't an experienced techie, I can also see where it would be very easy to accidentally sign up for some extra service on your Verizon cell phone.

    T-Mobile has none of these little sucker tricks. Their pricing structure is clear with no bullshit.

  • On the post: That 'Free' Stuff Is Catching On…

    ElijahBlue ( profile ), 26 Feb, 2008 @ 04:43pm

    I Am Personally Responsible For the Great Dot Com

    Let me tell you about the whoring of free. By the end of 1997, I'd already been banking online for the entire decade, and was a regular online consumer and seller. When the first generation of dot.com/free was underway, I was a veterano, the original online road warrior.

    Exhibit #1: Pets.com. They were always bombarding me with free coupons, anywhere from $10-50, with no minimum purchase required. That meant a $50 coupon was good for buying $50 worth of merchandise. The shipping charges were weight-based, which precluded some cheap bastard like me from buying say fifty dollars worth of free cat litter. So I bought everything else for years, and it was always free, with a modest s/h charge.

    They started getting desperate. So the ante was upped to a $50 coupon for free merchandise plus free shipping. You got it. I bought $50 worth of cat litter that weighed almost 100 pounds. My UPS man asked me 'What the hell's in all of these boxes, cat litter?' Yes, Kemo Sabe. The emperor indeed has no clothes.

    The cat litter stash lasted longer than the entire Pets.com debacle and survived at least two years beyond the dot.com crash of 2000. And it wasn't just Pets.Com that was giving away everything for free during the boom years.

    Exhibit 2: Toys.com, as well as several copycat toy selling websites. One friend was out of work for a few years, and the free toys I snagged for them were the only gifts she had under the tree. Another friend who lived out of the state was buried under ten feet of snow. Her kids also had at least two years of great Christmas gifts thanks to the largess of Toys.com and their brethren.

    Exhibit 3: Every other pseudo-online shopping website that gave away the milk for free. ValueAmerica ??? BeautyJungle ??? Redenvelope, I think they're still around, but the first and last thing I ever bought from them was with the free coupon they sent me.

    There was only one website that engaged in the whoring of free that is still alive, and that's Amazon.com. They did it because at some point, they stopped enclosing free coupons in their product packages. They were also the only online retailer besides Ebay that had a variety of products that I was willing to buy, regardless of whether the milk was free or just half-price.

  • On the post: Is There A Google Generation?

    ElijahBlue ( profile ), 28 Jan, 2008 @ 02:32pm

    What happened to my formatting LOL

    I am well past the target age of the Google Generation, but I would have to consider myself part of that world, and I also can't imagine a more exciting time to live in a world with such amazing stuff. (I'm closer to 40.)


    In my short lifetime, I've experienced: rotary to touch tone, answering machines, mobile phones that have gone from rich boy toy to $10 Virgin Mobile disposable phones, personal computers, 300 baud modems to what is now a speed of infinity, 5 14 inch floppy drives and you were a bad ass, with that 10 mhz computer processor (whoa baby), now the same technology is measured in gigabytes and terabytes.

    Not to mention the local BBS (bulletin board for you wet behind the ears neophytes) communities that morphed into what eventually became the world wide web. I miss the genuine feel of community that exited.

    I feel no similar sense of community online today, and I have no online friends, which is the exact opposite of my life fifteen+ years ago, when all of my friends were people I'd met through the local BBS networks

  • On the post: Is There A Google Generation?

    ElijahBlue ( profile ), 28 Jan, 2008 @ 02:30pm

    Brave New World

    I am well past the target age of the Google Generation, but I would have to consider myself part of that world, and I also can't imagine a more exciting time to live in a world with such amazing stuff. (I'm closer to 40.) In my short lifetime, I've experienced: rotary to touch tone, answering machines, mobile phones that have gone from rich boy toy to $10 Virgin Mobile disposable phones, personal computers, 300 baud modems to what is now a speed of infinity, 5 14 inch floppy drives and you were a bad ass, with that 10 mhz computer processor (whoa baby), now the same technology is measured in gigabytes and terabytes. Not to mention the local BBS (bulletin board for you wet behind the ears neophytes) communities that morphed into what eventually became the world wide web. I miss the genuine feel of community that exizted. I feel no similar sense of community online today, and I have no online friends, which is the exact opposite of my life fifteen+ years ago, when all of my friends were people I'd met through the local BBS networks.

  • On the post: Staples, HP Sued For Not Selling HP Compatible Ink

    ElijahBlue ( profile ), 19 Dec, 2007 @ 11:41am

    Antitrust? How about just shopping somewhere else

    How difficult is it to find HP generic cartridges and ink? I buy all the time from an Ebay seller. Recently, the prices on HP branded cartridges have been lowered significantly, and it is now possible to buy genuine HP cartridges at places like Target and Walgreen's, although I still get a better deal and more convenience from my favorite Ebay seller.

  • On the post: E-books Still A Solution In Search Of A Problem

    ElijahBlue ( profile ), 17 Nov, 2007 @ 02:39pm

    All I Want For Christmas

    These are the things I expect from an e-book reader:

    1. A deeply discounted price for the books. Most of the e-book retailers have failed because they expect consumers to pay full hardcover retail price for a bestseller ($26-30+). I can buy a brand new hardcover Grisham or Steel novel at Costco for around $14.

    2. The ability to print out text onto my printer.

    3. An open e-book format that allows me to choose the reading format most comfortable for me. As in PDF, Word, etc.

    4. The ability to transfer the e-book back and forth between my desktop PC, my laptop, my Smart Phone and the proprietary e-book reading device.

    5. For non-fiction books, the ability to mark up text inside the e-book, just as if I were holding a regular book in my hands, with a highlighter pen and a virtual Sharpie, making margin notes as I read.

    6. The ability to resell the e-book used on Amazon to another buyer once I'm finished with it.

    7. The assurances that I'm not spending $400+ on a boat anchor, once the e-book company goes out of business or the big corporate media giant decides to stop manufacturing and supporting the devices.

    Until the e-book format and readers meet these standards, I'll stay with the good old-fashioned paper book.