Fair enough
RIAA take note.
UK security software developer Sophos has apologised for drafting in its lawyers after a member of a forum for IT technicians in schools posted a foul-mouth rant criticising recent changes in its anti-virus technology. One of the members of EduGeek, the largest site for ICT technicians in schools, with over 2,000 members, …
Is there actually such a thing as 'product libel'?
If there was, I couldn't see anyone doing any product reviews without an indemnity being provided first to avoid being sued over a bad review.
Is suspect that, as is often the case, someone made a legal threat that they couldn't back up.
What is a staffer? A member of staff ? In this case a little Hitler who wanted to throw their weight around. Far too many "staffers" these days have too high an opinion of themselves and their company with a "we're great, you're not" attitude.
Unfortunately these people seem to have forgotten that it is customers who buy their products that keep them in business and sueing your customers is not a good idea (RIAA et all have only survived so far due to their reach and connections in congress).
Its also worth remembering that whatever this person is now, i.e. a student, he may be the technology buyer / purchasing decision maker for any large company in the future and given the recent survey posted on the Reg, personal tech experience greatly influences corporate decision making!
"I am sure they have some spyware component that means it will only update whilst I am compressing audio or trying to watch high resolution video."
Well, it sounds like you are a model employee who wouldn't dream of abusing your employers time or resources and are therefore fully qualified to criticise. I am sure these HD videos and audio encoding sessions are a central part of your job as a school technician, hmmm.
"Well, it sounds like you are a model employee who wouldn't dream of abusing your employers time or resources and are therefore fully qualified to criticise. I am sure these HD videos and audio encoding sessions are a central part of your job as a school technician"
That is a bit of an assumption? Firstly, you'd be amazed what we get asked to do as school technicians... secondly, the person who posted may not even be a school technician? Thirdly, they are right. The latest version of sophos uses an incredible amount of system resources which can almost grind the computer to a halt while updating. Coming from two schools which use sophos AV, I feel I can honestly say this.
"I am sure these HD videos and audio encoding sessions are a central part of your job as a school technician, hmmm."
You do know that videos are a very common part of school these days, right? Including the creation of videos and DVDs of school events, and on occasion, staff watch videos to confirm whether they fit the topic they are teaching.
We have Audacity and VLC installed on every PC at our school, and the teacher across from my office watches a LOT of DVDs to see if they fit in with English classwork.
Myself... I have so far only had to watch DVDs to test the software. But I have had to encode audio many times for staff that don't know how.
Is your high horse shrinking yet?
Kiss my arse
when you have 2 IT staff supporting 700+ pc's, 80+ laptops, multiple servers, routers, switches etc
and somewhere in the region of 1500 users
with a budget less than you spend on colonic irrigation
or your ugly wife & children spend on booze and noseplugs
so they can stand to be around you
then feel free to comment further
IT Techies do a bloody hard job, with little appreciation from staff, parents, pupils or management
so we don't need anonymous posts saying we're wasting our employers time and resources
twat!
ps: written off the clock on own pc