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Comment Re:Where USPS falls short (Score 1) 299

by mimecine (#33019298) Attached to: Adapting the Post Office To the Digital Age
I must disagree! Me and my wife runs a shop in Manhattan where we also sell over the internet. We have gone through FedEx, UPS and DHL over the years and with all of them there was always problems: Packages got lost, damaged or got returned quite regularly. And every other months it seemed their invoices were padded - having us spend hours with the representatives to get them to correct their mistakes. We still use DHL for imports, and this past spring my poor wife has spent countless hours being bounced by our sales agent and their billing department to rectify two wrong bills (it was $50 off, but it's really the principle) - every time we talked to the sales agent, he promised the problem was fixed - even when in conference call with DHL's accounting. Still, their invoice got sent to collection in three separate instances - the same invoice! The last time, they even sent fresh invoices within their due dates to collection! DHL also have a buggy web api for shipping. Calculations in their api differed quite a bit from their browser web interface - some %'s or so more expensive for packages where dimensional weight was applied when booked through the api rather than their website. Even when I was put in contact with their developer group and was able to pinpoint the problem and even came up with the likely wrong calculation they were doing, they refused to rectify it. The reason they gave me: not breaking existing behavior.... It's a shit company. We reluctantly started using USPS a year ago, and I must say everything has went smooth since. One lost package in a year. Friendly staff picking up. Very predictable bills since it's all prepaid. Tracking within U.S. has always worked great for us. Sure, USPS has it's shortcomings, but using them for our outgoing packages was one of the best moves our little shop has done...

Psystar "Definitely Still Shipping" Mac Clones 833

Posted by CmdrTaco from the everyone-deserves-a-hackintosh dept.
Preedit writes "Continuing its defiance of Apple, Psystar is reassuring customers that it is "definitely still shipping" its line of Mac clones. And, in a further nose-thumbing at Steve Jobs, Psystar this week said it's now making Leopard restore disks available to its customers, even as Apple insists that Mac clones sold to date be recalled. In its story on the latest developments, Infoweek is reporting that tiny Psystar apparently has no intention of backing down in its legal dispute with the much larger Apple."
Hardware

Intel Releases USB 3.0 Controller Interface Spec 374

Posted by CmdrTaco from the lookit-all-them-wires dept.
hardsky submitted thrilling news about everyone's favorite interconnect cable by saying "USB 3.0 is set to deliver data-transfer speeds of up to 5Gb/s, initially over tweaked connectors and wiring and, later, over optical links."
Security

US Failing To Prosecute Online Criminals 154

Posted by samzenpus from the get-out-of-jail-free dept.
Ashlynne9423 writes "A report by the Center for American Progress and the Center for Democracy and Technology has found there is too little action being taken against online criminals, despite rising consumer concern about online safety. The report found that state officials were spending only 40 per cent of case time investigating online fraudsters, preferring instead to concentrate on higher profile solicitation and pornography cases."
The Almighty Buck

Apple's Market Cap Exceeds Google's 689

Posted by samzenpus from the big-apple dept.
Lawrence Person writes "Mac Daily News was one of many Apple-followers to note that Apple Inc.'s market capitalization exceeded Google today. That means that the combined value of all Apple's outstanding shares of stock exceeded the combined value of all Google's outstanding shares of stock. Apple's stock is worth $157 billion and change vs. Google's $156 billion. Other companies Apple has surpassed in market cap include Cisco, HP, and Intel. Also, Apple is now worth 3 times the value of Dell Computer, despite Dell's founder and CEO declaring over a decade ago that if he ran Apple, he'd 'shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.'"
The Internet

'Slow' Light To Speed Up the Net 107

Posted by samzenpus from the haste-makes-waste dept.
JPawlak writes "Researchers believe that it may be possible to increase the speed of the Internet by slowing down certain parts of it by using metamaterials. Metamaterials could be used to replace the bulky and slow electronics that route Internet information, allowing for faster Internet speeds. As data nears its destination, the frequencies must be separated. The light must then be converted into electrical signals, which are stored, routed, and converted back into optical signals. The conversion not only adds significant cost and complexity to the process, but slows down the transmission as well. However, if the light signals could be slowed during the switching process, they would not need to be converted into an electrical signal. 'The ability to slow the light could be a tremendous force for telecoms that is sure to enhance speed and efficiency,' says University of California professor Xiang Zhang."
The Internet

Game Developer's Response To Pirates 734

Posted by samzenpus from the scuttle-the-console dept.
cliffski writes "A few days ago, indie PC games developer Positech publicly called for people pirating their games to explain why, in an open and honest attempt to see what the causes of gaming piracy were. Hundreds of blog posts, hundreds more emails and several server-reboots later, the developer's reply is up on their site. The pirates had a lot to say, on subjects such as price, DRM, demos and the overall quality of PC games, and Positech owner Cliffski explains how this developer at least will be changing their approach to selling PC games as a result. Is this the start of a change for the wider industry? Or is this the only developer actively listening to the pirates point of view?"
Security

Password Resets Worse Than Reusing Old password 420

Posted by samzenpus from the one-password-when-you're-born dept.
narramissic writes "We all know well the perils of password reuse. But what about the information used to reset passwords? Many sites use a standard set of questions — your mother's maiden name, the name of your best friend, what city you grew up in, or what brand your first car was. And you probably have a standard set of responses, making them easy to remember but not very secure. 'The city you grew up in and your mother's maiden name can be derived from public records. Facebook might unwittingly tell the name of your best friend. And, until quite recently, Ford with its 25% market share had a pretty good chance of being the brand of your first car,' says security researcher Markus Jakobsson. But 'password reset does not have to be a weak link,' says Jakobsson. 'Psychologists know that people's preferences are stable — often more so than long term memory. And very few preferences are recorded in public databases.'"
Privacy

Police Secretly Planting GPS Devices On Cars 609

Posted by samzenpus from the spiderman-does-it-all-the-time dept.
bfwebster writes "The Washington Post has a long investigative article on how more and more police departments are secretly planting GPS tracking devices on the cars of people they are investigating — usually without a warrant. After-the-fact court challenges on this technique have largely upheld such use of a GPS device, though the Washington State Supreme Court has ruled that a warrant is required."

Feed World Business Briefing: China: Lenovo Plans to Lay Off 1,400 (nytimes.com)

From feed by nytfeed
The personal computer maker Lenovo Group said it would lay off 1,400 workers and move jobs to emerging markets to better compete with faster growing rivals. Lenovo, which leapt onto the world stage in 2005 when it bought the PC operation of I.B.M. for $1.25 billion, said it would cut a net 650 jobs worldwide. An additional 750 positions will be moved to Brazil, China, India and Slovakia, countries with lower labor costs that are close to Lenovo’s suppliers and manufacturing operations. Lenovo, which is based in China, said the plan would affect 1,400 workers including contractors, or about 5 percent of its work force. The company said it expected to take a pretax restructuring charge of $50 million to $60 million, mostly in the first quarter, and expected savings of about $100 million in the 2007-8 fiscal year, which began on April 1.

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