Volume 23  April, 2004   Issue No. 4

 

 

The Next Meeting
Special

Announcement
ITEC IT Tradeshow

Where: St. Louis America's Center

When: 5/12-13/2004

An information technology tradeshow offering panel discussions, conferences, trends, and new products.

MORE INFO

ADMITTANCE OPTIONS

FREE EXHIBITS PASS APPLICATION  (Editor's choice)

 

Regular Meeting


 

 

Wednesday, April 21

Caseyville Township Bldg. 
10001 Bunkum Rd.
Fairview Heights, IL

Directions:      Map:

 

Board 
Meeting

Wednesday, May 5

Spring Garden Restaurant
Collinsville, IL
Meal starts about 6:00. Meeting starts at 7:00

Everyone is welcome

 

The Presentation

This
Meeting

 

Demos of board members' favorite utilities. Should be interesting!

 

Next
Meeting

 

Undecided

 

 

Hello From The Pres...
Mike Taphorn

Sorry for the lack of an article in the newsletter... Between Work ... Easter.... Sickness.... Dead computer... Dead E-Mail Service on other computer... Beautiful weekend weather... Two kids... No excuse is good enough, but combined together, this month has been a doosie. I hope everyone makes it to the meeting because we are going to have a lot of good stuff for the 50-50 / Prize raffle and we're going to go over a lot of good utilities during the demo portion of the meeting. I'll fill everyone in on everything that happened this month at the regular meeting (In 5 minutes or less) and I promise to fix my computers and get a real article out by the deadline next month... See you at the meeting... (In two days) (The 21st) (This Wednesday)(See you there...)

See you at the meeting …

 Mike

 

The Computer Master
Jim Tomlinson, Vice President

See you at the meeting.

Enjoy.....JT

 

 

 

The Treasurer's Report
Don Wold

TREASURER'S  REPORT
Don Wold, Treasurer
 
Balance as of Mar 1, 2004:                                                                                        $4283.00
 
    INCOME:
 
        Mar 50/50 Drawing:                $41.00
        20 New Mbrs:                          300.00
        3 ID Badges Only:                      15.00
        10 Renewals:                            150.00
        Mar. CD Sales:                           34.00
 
                    Total Income:                                        $540.00
 
    EXPENSES:
 
        None Reported
 
Balance as of Apr. 1, 2004:                                                                                        $4823.00

 

The Secretary's Report
 Carlos Mariles



Till then,

Carlos

 

The Membership Chairman
JC Spelce

Number of Members in attendance last month:  
Total Membership Before last month's meeting  
      Number of Members renewing last meeting    
      Number Of Members  joined last meeting   
      Number of members dropped    
Current Total Membership   
     Number of Members in Good Standing  
     Number of Members on Probation  

 

The Web Master
Chuck Hill

 

DMCA - how one industry's short-sighted law will hurt us all

 

Forward:  Lexmark sells cheap printers at close to their cost.  By 
design, these printers use large amounts of ink.  Lexmark sells the 
printers cheaply in order to make money from ink sales.  In fact, some people 
have bought new Lexmark printers [that come with ink] for less than the 
cost of a new Lexmark ink cartridge for their old printer.  Obviously 
Lexmark does not it when you refill their ink cartridges.  So Lexmark 
puts a chip in their cartridges that tells the printer how long it's 
been in use.  Lexmark uses this to make the cartridge 'expire' - forcing 
you to buy more ink rather than refill.  Some smart people reverse 
engineered the chip so they could sell recycled cartridges.  Lexmark sued 
them under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act [DMCA] - a law written by 
Hollywood and passed by Senators owned by Disney/Sony/etc - claiming 
Lexmark had copyrighted the computer code in the chips.  Here's what's 
going to happen if this horrible law stays....


========================================
ED FOSTER'S GRIPELOG
The Reader Advocate Column
========================================

The Lexmark Car

Thursday, April 1, 2004
By Ed Foster

Since I've often given Lexmark a hard time for its various legal
maneuvers to restrict its customers' choice in printer consumables, I
was surprised this morning to see they'd sent me a press release. At
least, I assume they sent it - today you can never be sure where
something in your e-mail is coming from. Just to show I'm a fair guy,
though, I've decided to print the announcement verbatim:

"Lexmark to Bring Litigation-Winning Approach to Auto Industry"

April 1, 2004  Lexington, KY --  Printer manufacturer Lexmark is proud
to announce it will enter the automotive market with a line of cars
featuring its exclusive Aftermarket Product Integrity Guarantee (A-PIG)
technology.

"Lexmark's innovative edge has been in finding bold new ways of
protecting its intellectual property," said Sue Moore, newly appointed
CEO of Lexmark Motors. "We believe our experience applying the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and shrinkwrap licenses to hard goods
will serve us well in this new venture."

Lexmark's first automobile model, the MarkedOne, will be equipped with 
a
complete set of A-PIG devices protected by the DMCA.   Tires,
sparkplugs, batteries, fan belts, the engine, and many other parts will
undergo an A-PIG check during each ignition of the car. Should any
non-Lexmark brand aftermarket products be detected, the ignition will
fail.  "Just as we try to guarantee our printer customers' satisfaction
by making sure they only use Lexmark-brand consumables, we want our
automotive customers to enjoy a Lexmark-only driving experience as long
as they own the car," Moore said.

The MarkedOne's A-PIG technology is based on the chipset the company
includes in laser printer toner cartridges to prevent the use of
third-party products. Moore pointed out that Lexmark's right to apply
DMCA protection to such devices was endorsed by a court last year in 
its
case against Static Control Components Inc. "If I may be allowed to
paraphrase what the judge said when granting our injunction, the public
policy benefit of ensuring competition must take a back seat to our
right to prevent copyright infringement," Moore said.

Lexmark Motors will borrow another concept from printer technology with
the MarkedOne's innovative gasoline cartridge. "No MarkedOne owner will
ever run out of gas on the highway," Moore explained. When the
disposable gasoline cartridge is less than a third full, the automobile
will not start until the gas cartridge is replaced by one full of
Lexmark-authorized gasoline.  Should a motorist inadvertently run out 
of
spare cartridges, Lexmark Motors dealers will offer same-day cartridge
delivery service for a modest mark-up.

In addition to its host of copyright-protection features, the MarkedOne
will also be the first vehicle with a shrinkwrap license. As with its
revolutionary "Prebate" agreement for toner cartridges, Lexmark's car
will come with an automatic discount in exchange for the customer's
acceptance of a license agreement. In opening the driver-side door for
the first time, the new owner of a MarkedOne agrees not to ever sell 
the
car to a third party. Instead, the car can only be used as a trade-in
for a new Lexmark vehicle. "We are very proud of the fact that Lexmark
established the right to restrict the sale of hard goods in this way in
our case against the Arizona Cartridge Remanufacturers Association,"
said Moore.  "It's high time other industries demonstrate that 
customers
don't have the right to sell their possessions to just anyone they 
choose."

Due to the lack of progressive laws like the DMCA in other countries,
the Lexmark MarkedOne will only be sold domestically. "Where else but 
in
the good ol' US of A can you copyright a printer or a car?" Moore 
noted.
"It just makes me proud to be an American."

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS: Statements in this release that are not
historical facts are forward-looking and involve risks and
uncertainties. The potential risks and uncertainties include, among
others, the fact that it was written by Ed Foster as an April's Fool
joke.  Basing stock investment decisions on the information contained 
in
this release might not be the best idea you ever had. On the other 
hand,
you might want to keep it in mind the next time you're buying a 
printer.

========================================

Read this column on-line and post your own comments at
http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/section/Columns, or write me directly at
Foster@gripe2ed.com.

In my weblog at http://www.gripe2ed.com:

Blaming the Victim for Phishing
Can those who fall for a phishing scam be held liable for "giving their
permission" to have their bank accounts drained?
http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2004/3/29/123249/982

Reader Voices: No Recourse?
Readers debate how customers can defend themselves against arbitrary
actions by vendors.
http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2004/3/31/05532/6267

========================================

Copyright 2004 Ed Foster's GripeLog.  You are granted permission to
forward this column to friends who would have an interest in this 
topic.


_______________________________________________
Edfoster mailing list
Edfoster@www.gripe2ed.com
http://www.gripe2ed.com/mailman/listinfo/edfoster

 

 


Librarian
Charles Wallace
Assistant Keith Hurst

The Librarians

 

 

 

The Editor
 Chuck White

We still have photos without a name to attach (a horse with no name?) so please check for your photo badge and our list of unnamed photos. Also, the newsletter will be posted to the LIST SERVER ONLY next month. Make sure you are subscribed to the List Server. If you don't know how to subscribe ask any board member. 

 

Mitch's Corner
Mitch  Graves

 

AOL Madness (Warn Your Friends)

AOL is at it again. This time, it's reading *inside* its members'
emails, and preemptively blocking any messages that contain links to
sites that AOL doesn't want you to see.

Note: I'm *not* talking about simple mail blocks, where a mail is
discarded if it originates from a "forbidden" address. No: AOL is
parsing the content of its members' emails and blocking them even if
they merely *mention* a site that AOL disapproves of.

This happened to my last newsletter issue, when I mentioned a perfectly
valid and inoffensive link: http://www.codeproject.com/ . It turns out
that last summer, in July, AOL put that site on its naughty list for
some unexplained reason, and ever since has blocked all emails that even
contain a link to that address.

When my list-host ( http://dundee.net ) noticed huge numbers of AOL
emails bouncing back, they preemptively sought to find out why, and the
folks at AOL then removed the block--- on that one address.

AOL's mail system is just this side of insane. Not only does it read
inside member emails for links that AOL doesn't like, but--- as we've
reported before--- if AOL members get a little lazy and block a
newsletter like this one, instead of unsubscribing, AOL keeps track of
the blocks. Last time I looked, if as few as 10 readers took the lazy
way out of stopping a mailing, AOL would assume that the mail in
question was spam. In my case, if just 10 AOL users out of 160,000
readers--- that's 0.00006 of my readers--- took the lazy way off the
list, all AOL subscribers would have their legitimate issues blocked for
some time thereafter.

AOL's user-level mail filters are nearly useless because the master
filters discard emails before they ever make it to the users' mailboxes
and the local filters there. That means AOL members can white-list
senders to their heart's content but it will have no effect at all on
the pre-filtering that's done by AOL before their mail ever gets
delivered. AOL's user-level mail controls are a little like those fake
thermostats you sometimes see in office buildings that are meant to give
occupants the illusion of local control, when in reality, a central
system is making all the real decisions.

Noted tech writer Brian Livingston also has been struggling with this,
as he reported in http://briansbuzz.com/w/040408/ . Just look at the jaw-
dropping failure rates he found:

     I've written many times that Internet service providers (ISPs)
     are mishandling the growing menace of spam by imposing crude
     "junk-mail filters" that delete legitimate messages without
     notifying the intended recipients of that fact.
     
     ...AOL "bounced" about 88% of the newsletters that had been
     sent to subscribers who use aol.com e-mail addresses. The
     problem was also severe at subsidiaries owned by AOL,
     including cs.com (which bounced 88%) and netscape.net (96%).
     
     ...[AOL's] filter simply deletes huge quantities of mail
     without ever delivering it...
     (click link above for full article)

If you have friends on AOL, you may wish to tell them about this (
http://www.langa.com/sendit.htm ) so they'll know why their email is so
unreliable. Of course, there's no guarantee they'll see your email, just
as there's no guarantee that legitimate subscribers to this newsletter
on AOL will get this issue....

But there's a glimmer of hope: For the first time ever, AOL's membership
has started to shrink significantly. Users are finally realizing they
can get better service at lower costs from other ISPs. Perhaps if enough
members vote with their dollars, AOL will wake up and meaningfully
change its Big Brother-ish ways.

 

Later,

 

 
 
 

Miscellaneous
 Things Of Interest And Importance To Someone 


 

 

The Lighter Side 
Of Computing

 

 

Submitted by Ronda Morris.

If you have something you want to share, just send it to me using the above mailbox 
or catch me at a meeting.