The Small Print Project                                       

EJ Tower wrote in after hearing audio of Cory’s PWNED seminars @ USC (ongoing).

> I’ll try to keep this quick. Been enjoying your pwned lectures a lot.
> Just got a Java update today for my computer and decided to give the
> ULA a read through and found these interesting:
>
> “You acknowledge that Licensed Software is not designed or intended
> for use in the design, construction, operation or maintenance of any
> nuclear facility. Sun Microsystems, Inc. disclaims any express or
> implied warranty of fitness for such uses.”
>
> ” This Agreement is the entire agreement between you and Sun relating
> to its subject matter. It supersedes all prior or contemporaneous
> oral or written communications, proposals, representations and
> warranties and prevails over any conflicting or additional terms of
> any quote, order, acknowledgment, or other communication between the
> parties relating to its subject matter during the term of this
> Agreement. No modification of this Agreement will be binding, unless
> in writing and signed by an authorized representative of each party.”
>
> with that last part, any agreement you had with sun is changed when
> you click accept to update Java.
>
> “G. Installation and Auto-Update. The Software’s installation and
> auto-update processes transmit a limited amount of data to Sun (or its
> service provider) about those specific processes to help Sun
> understand and optimize them. Sun does not associate the data with
> personally identifiable information. You can find more information
> about the data Sun collects at http://java.com/data/. “
>
> good to know i am telling them things.

The alternative, of course, being Adobe Flash?!?

photo by whurley via flickr.

The long-awaited MS Office 2007 is here but is it worth it? The NYTimes’ David Pogue says, why hell yes: “After a radical redesign, Word, Excel and PowerPoint are almost totally new programs.”

It may help MSFT that the apps are finally online, in keeping up with Google, but history says that most companies/enterprises will be slow to upgrade to 007, and perhaps for good reason. In fact, there really may be no good reason to upgrade…

As Elsa found:

Product: Microsoft Office Standard 2007 (trial)
URLProduct: http://office.microsoft.com/office/eula
Lowpoints: Lots of vague language about “Internet Based Services” without explaining what that means. There are three separate EULAs without explaining that the RFF terms are the ones to pay attention to if you bought Office in a store. I installed without being connected to the Internet. Then when running Office, Microsoft kept prompting me to install things such as a desktop search for Outlook.

Highpoints: This doesn’t have to do with the EULA, but installation was faster than in the past. And by default, Microsoft offers the least-intrusive installation options. You’ll have to mark a radio button if you want Microsoft to see how you use Office for its customer experience program, for instance.

Comments(1)