BlogSmall business, Marketing, Promotion and Web Design

While preparing a replacement laptop I do install a lot of (somewhat) useful software. Most of it is freeware like Skype, which I am going to talk about.

As always I went to Skype’s web site and downloaded the latest version of program. If you still on that arctic expedition and haven’t noticed - Skype has bundled a Firefox plug-in with it’s software. And it’s mandatory. That’s right - you are notified about the plug-in installation only AFTER the install is complete. Pretty neat, eh?

Next surprise - if you launch Firefox after installing Skype, instead of your regular home screen (in my case - the ever-tempting about:blank page) you will see an uninvited Skype page devoted to Firefox plug-in (located here: http://www.skype.com/help/guides/ff_extension/) that still has (as of August 26, 2007) the following passage:

Calling phones within the US and Canada is free until the end of 2006. You need to buy Skype Credit to make international calls.

Gee, do you think we still got time for free calls? Or another version: Earth to Skype - it’s already 2007 halfway gone, damn it.

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In the recent article Wired tells about the artist and Rutgers professor Hasan Elahi, who was mistakenly targeted by FBI as a suspected terrorist. Yep, he’s the one who decided to put all his life out there in the open to make sure authorities know he’s innocent. “I’ve discovered that the best way to protect your privacy is to give it away” - damn, now every paranoid would set up his lifeblog online. Hear me, good people of Internet - next thing you know would be some smart ass sending out bulk spam with his/her daily activities.

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Out of all the latest lawsuits this one is particularly hilarious. Here’s the quote:

Online media company’ Zango, which gained notoriety for redirecting adult affiliate traffic and the first ever MySpace worm, is now suing the anti-spyware vendor PC Tools, maker of an application called ‘Spyware Doctor’, for removing Zango applications off the consumers’ PCs.

As some sharp Slashdot reader pointed out: “This is like Osama Bin Laden filing a federal lawsuit in Washington D.C. alleging that George W. Bush is interfering with Bin Laden’s rights to advance the agenda of fundamentalist Islam and kill innocent Americans.“

By the way, if Zango decided that they need to clean up their image (for real), maybe they should have started with removing self-installing spyware first?

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