20 Things They Don't Want You to Know

theodp writes "PC World spills the beans about a bunch of things technology companies would rather you didn't know, including the lowdown on exploiting Windows' bad security, unlocking cell phones, using an IPod to move music and useless specs." Nothing groundbreaking, but might be a good primer for the non-techie in your life.

Know anyone who uses MSN Messenger?

[ReformedExCon]

"Know anyone who uses Windows Messenger as their instant messaging client? Me neither."

That's strange, because I don't know anyone who doesn't. Except for a new guy who uses Trillian, but he'll come around when he gets tired of fighting the firewall.

PC World seems to be in a kind of limbo. It's not technical enough for anyone serious about computers, and it's way over the head of anyone who isn't familiar with computers. I guess that makes it prime reading material for CIOs.

But seriously folks. I was at the bookstore the other day and picked up a Computer Shopper. When did this new thin format happen? What happened to 500 pages of advertisements?

I wonder why Slashdot never gets any links to Dr. Dobbs Journal.

One more thing they missed...

[snotclot]

BITTORRENT...! o_O

/ bet you were expecting something creative like Linux eh? // bleh, 3rd post!

Extended Warranties Aren't Worth It

[squoozer]

We all know this but I can't believe that PC World are actually saying it. They are one of the hardest sellers of extended warranties that I know. They once tried to sell me a warranty for a £10 mouse. IIRC the warranty was £15 but covered me for 3 years! No I don't shop there on a regular basis I just needed a mouse quickly.

As far as I can tell they make their money from running virus scanners on ill informed customers PC's. Their customer service is awful at best even when they are taking large sums of your money. I suppose that is the result of them being the only show in town. The last thing that really bugs me though is that they always have a security guard on the door.

Re:Mostly useless.

[ruebarb]

every hacker or geek had to start somewhere -

maybe learning how to copy Ipod tunes to multiple computers is just what the Dr. ordered to start someone down the road to unlocking the next propritary file format -

RB

Not clever

[Ronald Dumsfeld]

Is it just me, or does anyone else think this is dumb...

I keep my Windows system pretty well secured, but somehow that doesn't prevent Windows' Security Center from informing me that 'Your computer might be at risk' every morning when I turn on my computer. That message gets old fast. To banish it for good, go to Start, Control Panel, Security Center. Then click Change the way Security Center alerts me in the resources box and uncheck all of the boxes on the resulting screen.

Your average user should not be doing that.

Re:Extended Warranties Aren't Worth It

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I'm right in saying that the PC World (US) publication and the PC World store you're thinking about are completely different.

Still, you're right about PC World being pretty useless, highly inflated prices etc.

Re:Ahhh yes, computer speaker ratings

[Babbster]

The truth is that people who care and know anything understand the situation and are not fooled, while the people who care and don't know anything will never tell the difference. It's always seemed like a nonissue to me...

Re:Ahhh yes, computer speaker ratings

[hattig]

I think I once heard that they simply multiplied the actual Watt ratings for the speakers by the number of speakers. So a pair of 10W computer speakers would be 10W * 10W * 2 = 200 MarketingWatts!

I saw these from a brief Google search: "According how audio industry seems to use the term PMPO (peak music power output), in can be anything from 5 to 100 watts of PMPO that equals one real RMS watt." and "The vendor of the product calculates PMPO based on the maximum power output of the device under perfect conditions and 100% efficiency. These conditions are impossible to obtain, and no device can sustain the PMPO power for any significant length of time without being ruined. The PMPO power relies on the fact that amplifiers can provide short bursts of very high power. Over time, these short bursts when averaged with the lower output powers, gives the real value."

I have heard a lot less of PMPO in the UK in recent years, maybe they were banned from using it because it is purely a marketing term that has no grounding in reality.

As an aside, would most computer users be better off getting a real amplifier and real speakers and using them for 10 years rather than dealing with shitty PC speakers? I'm not talking audiophile stuff here, just stuff that you can pick up for a reasonable price. For gaming you'd probably want a decent surround system of course, but most other users?

Re:Not clever

[B1ackDragon]

I like the other replies, but I think the answer is less "the user doesn't care" and more "it trains the user not to care." The operating system crying wolf every 10 minutes for things that aren't problems (yes, Windows, anti-virus is updated) only serves to mask real security concerns.

I guess, as always, if you want it done right don't leave it to Windows.

Re:Not clever

[Tim C]

If security centre is popping up that message regularly, that would seem to indicate that he is not keeping his system well secured.

The only time I ever see that is if AVG hasn't had a chance to update itself for a couple of days (eg the machine just hasn't been on at the appropriate time, I've been away, etc) and warns me about it.

Yes!

[volsung]

Between my iBook and my friend's Dell, we've each averaged about 3 serious warranty repairs over the 3 year extended manufacturer's warranty. The first 18 months were usually flawless, and then all that carrying to and fro started to make things fail. Failures included main boards, LCDs, and optical drives, any one of whch could have easily cost more than the $250 warranty to fix.

I build all my desktop machines with crap parts and no extended warranties, but laptops need the 3 year full service warranty.

Re:MSN messenger IS NOT Windows Messenger

[wfberg]

You're confusing "Windows Messenger" with the "Messenger Service".

MSN Messenger - instant messenger with a lot of doodads, a new version to be downloaded every day. AKA "msn".

Windows Messenger - instant messenger that can log on to the MSN Messenger network, but also to Exchange/SIP servers, doesn't have many doodads. AKA "that crappy ancient version of msn that won't go away even if you install the newest version".

Messenger Service - runs in the background on NT and higher, displays irritating "press OK" dialogs with spam from viagra sellers or system administrators. AKA "winpopup".

Re:Know anyone who uses MSN Messenger?

[Alex P Keaton in da]

I don't think any of us really choose our instant messenger. At work I use ICQ because everyone else at work uses it. BUt I also use AIM, because my little sister is away at school, and she uses AIM. I hate AIM, but if I choose not to use AIM, I am only hurting myself because then I couldn't IM my sister.
The next logical Question- Why can't I get my sister to switch? All her friends use AIM. And so it goes.

Bad assumption

[laing]

From TFA: "You Too Can Exploit Windows' Bad Security
My PC's firewall, antivirus scanner, spyware remover, pop-up blocker, and spam filter all agree: Windows is sorely lacking in PC security. That situation may not change until Windows Vista (formerly Longhorn) comes out sometime next year. Meanwhile here are a few ways to turn Windows' poor security to your advantage."

As most people here already know, Microsoft does not focus on bug fixes in their new releases. Their primary focus is on new features. Sure, some of the old bugs may be gone -- but some new ones will be sure to pop up with the new functionality. Just because Longhorn is newer, that doesn't make it better or more secure.

  In my personal opinion, Microsoft deliberately ships shoddy software so everyone will flock to the new releases. It's human nature to believe that "newer is better" but that is not always the case. It has proven to be a highly successful business model for M$.

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How-To Paginate

[FEEBLE*BMX]

This article is in the How-To section of the PCWorld site for some reason. They should write another article called 'How to paginate a 4 page article into 20 pages to maximize your ad revenue.'

It's too bad.

[Inoshiro]

Let's look at this from another perspective:

"I don't think any of us really choose our mailer. At work I use Compuserve because everyone else at work uses it. BUt I also use AOL, because my little sister is away at school, and she uses AOL. I hate AOL, but if I choose not to use AOL, I am only hurting myself because then I couldn't mail my sister.
The next logical Question- Why can't I get my sister to switch? All her friends use AOL. And so it goes."

If only there was some kind of simple message ttransport protocol that could communicate between servers, allowing the server type itself to be abstracted out of the equation. People on different ISPs could mail people on others! It'd be a miracle.

Why do we have the same problem we had with email in th 80s, now with IM clients? The Jabber protocol is designed to work just like SMTP was designed to allow messages between servers. Google's talk service is Jabber (mind you, their Jabber won't connect out to other Jabber servers, which is a pretty lame thing to do).

Personally, I'm looking into setting up a Jabber server on the same system that does my email/web stuff. When it's working, I'll begin to try and migrate people over (Kopete works with it just fine).

Re:Sometime fibs are good

[locokamil]

Reason #18774952 to not outsource: all your tech support will sound/read like this.