Creative Labs >Toshiba >America Online >Freeipods.com
Got a bone to pick with a vendor? Been spiked by
a fly-by-night operation? Sic The Dog on them by
writing [email protected]. The Dog
promises to get to as many letters as possible,
but only has four paws to work with.➤➤RECALL ALERT
Not that we’re picking on Toshiba, but this
BIOS update seems like an important one.
Toshiba is recommending that people with
Satellite A60 and A65 notebooks, including
models: A60-S156, A60-S1561, A60-S166,
A60-S1661, A65-S1064, A65-S1065, A65-
S1062, A65-S1762, A65-S126, A65-S1261,
A65-S136, A65-S1361, A65-S1063, A60-
S1662, A60-S159, A60-S1591, A60-S1591ST,
A60-S1592ST, A65-S109, A65-S1091, A65-
S1066, A65-S1067, A65-S1070, A65-S1069,
A65-S1068 immediately update their BIOS.
The company says that in extremely rare
instances, the Satellite A60/A65 can overheat
and cause the plastic casing on the right-
hand corner of the notebook to deform.
“The overheating and deformation
occur only when the notebook is booting
or resuming from standby or hibernation,
and can be avoided by installing BIOS ver.
1.70, which was released on October 22,
2004, or a later version,” the companysays. Only A60/A65 notebooks with serial
numbers in the 64xxxxxx, 74xxxxxx,
84xxxxxx, and 94xxxxxx range are at risk
of overheating and melting.“
IT’S NOT ACCURATE. IT WAS A MISINTERPRETATION
OF THE PRIVACY POLICY THAT WAS NOT RELATED TO
PERSON-TO-PERSON COMMUNICATIONS.”
Toshiba says certain A60 and A
notebooks should be updated to the latest
BIOS to avoid overheating and melting.viced only once prior to November 2, 2004, are
eligible for a $1,000 cash payment if they return
the notebook to Toshiba, or a $500 cash payout if
they keep the notebook.
➤ Consumers who are willing to sign a sworn
statement that their S504 or S507 had problems
but was never serviced by Toshiba are eligible
for a $500 payout and can keep the notebook. For
more information and a copy of the claim form,
visit http://www.satellite5005settlement.com. Forms must
be completed and filed by June 27, 2005.AOL on the Up and Up?
DEAR DOG: I read on several blogs that agree-
ing to America Online’s new terms of service
means you waive any rights to privacy and
that the company can monitor your instant-
message communications and keep copies of
them. So Sad.
—BRIAN G.THE DOG RESPONDS: America Online monitor-
ing instant-message chats? Sounds insidious,
so the Dog questioned AOL about the “new”
change. Spokesman Andrew Weinstein says it’s
all a tempest in a Porta-Potty. “It’s not accurate.
It was a misinterpretation of the privacy policy
that was not related to person-to-person com-
munications,” Weinstein told the Dog. Weinstein
said the TOS refers to messages posted by users
in public forms or boards. It informs AOL mem-
bers that anything they post to public forums is
public. Weinstein reiterated that AOL doesn’t
monitor IM conversation, which is stated in the
company’s official privacy policy. Even the news
that the TOS was recently updated is bogus,
Weinstein said. The TOS has been in place since
February 2004 and wasn’t changed until after
the recent confusion broke out. The difference?
According to AOL, the only change to the TOS
is clearer wording that the company does not
monitor IM chatter. Woof.Not So Free iPod
DEAR DOG: I’ve got a bone to pick with you
over your March 2005 column [regarding
Freeipods.com]! I personally hate pyramid
schemes and thus have vehemently warned
my friends against this latest insidious ven-
ture. In your complete endorsement of this
diabolical scam, you forgot to mention the
most important part. You make it seem as if
you sign up for your trial service you get a free
iPod! That’s not how it works. You forgot to
mention that while it may be easy for you to
justify $30-$50 worth of trial memberships for
one month (which then you have to remem-
ber to cancel), you must also convince several
of your friends to do the same—only they
don’t get anything in return.
That is, unless they want to harassmore of their friends and so on. Obviously
the majority of people who sign up for this
type of scam can’t find enough other people
to follow them in the allotted time and
therefore spend at bare minimum $30-$
and get nothing!
You have to realize that no company is
going to spend $200 to entice you to use a
$15/month service that probably has a slim
profit anyway. It is apparent (to me at least)
that for every iPod Freeipods.com gives
away, there would have to be 20–40 people
who signed up but couldn’t get it together
enough to get an iPod for the company to
stay in business.I personally would feel evil and sleazy
every time I turned on my “free” iPod, know-
ing that many people had to be scammed
in order for me to own it! I encourage you
to please run a retraction as I would hate for
more people to fall for this.
—TY TOPPERTHE DOG RESPONDS: Actually, the Dog did not
endorse Freeipods.com, but merely informed
reader Aaron Gingrinch that Freeipods.com was
not a scam operation. Typical pyramid schemes
are designed so that only a very few people
ever “win” at all. Freeipods.com is more in line
with the towel hawker at a football game. You
have to sign up for a credit card to get the freetowel. But because the iPod is more costly than
a towel, you have to have several others sign
up as well. To quote the Dog’s own column,
“Freeipods.com asks you to sign up for one of
several available services or products, such as
a one-month trial of Blockbuster rentals, a sub-
scription to USA Today , or one of several credit-
card offers or online music services. Some of
the services are free, but others aren’t.”
Freeipods.com and the company that runs it,
Gratis, indeed hope you can’t convince enough
family and friends to sign up because that
means they make more money—the company
gets the referral pay from the service provider
and doesn’t have to send you an iPod. Evenhere at the Maximum PC offices the Dog was
unable to get coworkers to sign up (and the
company would have reimbursed the fees!)
because no one wanted to deal with the hassle
of canceling services. Anyway, the way the
Dog sees it, the intention of Freeipods.com isn’t
to get everyone an iPod, it’s to get a motivated
individual an iPod.
To sum it all up, the Dog does not, nor has
he ever, endorsed Freeipods.com, and he stands
by what was written in the March 2005 issue:
“That doesn’t mean you should jump in with
both feet, though. You should still read the
fine print of any offer you sign up for online...
Details like these can turn ‘free’ into not free
very quickly.” Woof. ■JUNE 200 5 MA XIMUMPC 23