If you are a student, you should be able to get Finale for much less than the full retail price (around 50% off, I believe). In fact, you can get discounts on a ton of software and hardware as a student, or even if you simply have a .edu email address. Some of the things I have purchased (CS5.5 Master Collection, Finale, etc) did require proof of enrollment at a school, but it's definitely worth it. The place I go for academic discounts on software is academicsuperstore.com.

Precisely. I think the only reason this is "news" is that someone, somewhere wants to be able to point a finger and say "Look! Apple's employees are dishonest and unethical!". I am all for pointing out a company's ethical transgressions, but any reasonable person probably realizes that the alleged actions described in TFA were carried out at the store level and outside the scope of Apple policy.

Anyone who has worked in retail has probably seen their share of this type of act. It's possible for employees of any given retail company -- at any level -- to be corrupt. Employees being drunk/hungover/high/whatever at work is hardly uncommon (anyone who lives in a college town can attest to this). And when bad employees inevitably get caught, they are punished.

So let's just call this what it is: an Apple "hateboi" trolling to get attention.

I disagree that the process is entirely painless. As a developer and reseller, my account has several dozen different sFTP users set up. Each of them required a password change. Easy? Absolutely. Frustrating? A little, but I'm really glad DreamHost chose to play it safe. Painless? Not really, since the process took over an hour and involved me emailing my users to let them know why they couldn't log in with their old user/pass combinations. In all, I prefer having to spend an hour or two changing passwords and contacting people to discovering that my site (or that of one of my clients) has been hacked.

My god, I can't spell.... you will be smoking your *weed*.

Except with all of the anti-smoking laws being passed, you will be smoking your week *outside* the bar.