1744961
story
JakartaDean writes
"Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, famed Internet regulator, has lost his Senate seat. The AP is reporting that 'Stevens was declared the loser in Alaska on Tuesday night after a two-week-long process of counting nearly 90,000 absentee and early votes from across Alaska. With this victory, Democrat Mark Begich (the mayor of Anchorage) has defeated one of the giants in the US Senate by a 3,724-vote margin, a stunning end to a 40-year Senate career marred by Stevens' conviction on corruption charges a week before the election.' It's probably too early to tell what this means for Internet regulation, but at least there's a > 0 chance that the next committee chair will understand something about the Net."
1744355
story
Dynamoo writes
"The good news is that Microsoft have announced free anti-virus software for consumers, dubbed Morro, available late next year. The bad news is ... well, exactly the same. Although Microsoft's anti-malware products are pretty good, this move could drive many competitors out of business and create a dangerous security monoculture; major rivals will be lawyering up already. On the other hand, many malware infections could be prevented even by basic software. So is this going to be a good or bad thing overall?"
78252
submission
jazee writes:
Have you noticed that your Seagate drive 5 year warranty has expired, even though you are quite certain that it was purchased in the last few years? I had a Seagate drive fail on me, and I am fairly certain that I purchased in in late 2003 or in 2004, since it was for my MythTV system. I am also sure that it had a 5 year warranty when I purchased it. Seagate's site says that it expired in June 2004. Concerned about this, I checked a new drive that I purchased in December 2006, a 160GB SATA2 drive and looked on the Seagate warranty site to see when it expires. I was surprised to see February 2008 as the date!
Seagate support gave this reply:
With regards to your query, we would like to inform you that all internal drives that are shipped out
of Seagate on or after 01 JUNE 2004 will be covered under 5 year warranty and as you have mentioned
that you have purchased the drive with the serial number 3KA14P5V in 2003, the drive is not covered
under 5 year warranty and for the unit with the serial number 6PT0SS37, Seagate will definitely honor
5 year warranty, please preserve the proof of purchase and provide the same when you require warranty
replacement.
We apologize for the inconvenience caused.
The 6PT0SS37 (model ST3160023AS) was purchased in December.
Granted, I can't be sure when the older drive was purchased, but I do remember buying it for the 5 year warranty. I am quite troubled that my brand new drive will appear to be out of warranty in just over a year.
Seagate's solution requires that I open my system and attach a receipt to every drive I have installed, including the 30+ drives in several RAID arrays. I hope that the receipt doesn't get sucked into a cooling fan.
See Seagate warranty validation site