watchdodogg MAXIMUM PC TAKES A BITE OUT OF BAD GEAR
Recall Alert
JANUARY 2006 MA XIMUMPC 2
PWinFixer PWinAntiVirus Pro
PEZInkjets.com PAtom Chip PNikon
advantage of; people need to know
about this company.
— Angie BreakstoneThe Dog had never heard of
WinAntiVirus Pro until Angie
pointed out the program, but it
sounds like her computer shop’s
suspicions were well-founded.
When the Dog queried several lead-
ing antivirus software companies,
none had heard of WinAntiVirus
Pro, either. The Dog’s emails to
WinAntiVirus.com went unan-
swered, but there is some info
from security guru Eric Howes, who
runs SpywareWarrior.com. Howes’
site says WinAntiVirus Pro uses
“false positives” to goad users
to purchase the program. And
the site says the software also
features an “inappropriate col-
lection of Personally Identifiable
Information.” A quick search of
the Internet reveals consumers
who allege they were tricked into
upgrading to the AV program after
a pop-up told them their current
application was expired.
Obviously, the Dog recom-
mends that readers avoid these
two applications (and others avail-
able from Winsoftware.com), but
how do you know if some other
anti-spyware program is real or
not? The Dog recommends that
you visit SpywareWarrior.com and
take a gander at the list of rogue
applications. SpywareWarrior lists
more than 200 applications that
claim to be anti-spyware but are
usually nothing more than spyware,
adware, or plain obnoxious. As for
Angie, if WinAntiVirus.com won’tprovide a refund unless she runs another
of its programs, she should just chalk the
matter up to experience.F-MINUS
I ordered a set of Lexmark inkjet cartridges
three weeks ago from EZInkjets.com, and
the order was processed the next day
according to my credit card statement.
I have yet to receive the item, however,
and have yet to receive an email from
the company. I looked on the Internet and
saw many complaints about the company,
which worries me. I called the company
about this issue, and the phone line has
a recording that says: “We are currently
experiencing a high volume of calls, if
your cartridge has not arrived for 10 days,
please email [email protected].”
Could you help me out?
— JenniferA quick check of the Better Business
Bureau’s database (www.bbb.org)
would tell you that EZInkjets.com is
not a place to spend your hard-earned
cash. The company has received a solid
“F” rating from the L.A. branch of the
Bureau. And that F isn’t on the typical
A-to-F scale, either—it’s way down
there (see scale on the left). So the
F EZInkjets.com received for the 135
complaints against it is more like an F-
minus, minus, minus, minus. In school,
that’s like the teacher failing you and
the two people next to you just for being
near you. That’s not good, and the BBB,
which is usually conservative in its rat-
ings, says of those who get the super
F: “We strongly question the company’sreliability for reasons such as they have failed
to respond to complaints, their advertising is
grossly misleading, they are not in compliance
with the law’s licensing or registration require-
ments, their complaints contain especially seri-
ous allegations, or the company’s industry is
known for its fraudulent business practices.”
Your easiest course of action, if you
haven’t taken it yet, is to call your credit card
company and dispute the charge after a rea-
sonable period of time. Make sure you fill out
the paper work the credit card company sends
you for the dispute to be valid. Maximum PC
readers, obviously, are advised to avoid shop-
ping at stores that receive the F rating from the
BBB. Woof!ATOMIC FICTION?
I’m wondering about the legitimacy of a company
that was in the news for its laptop computer,
which boasts specs well beyond those of most
desktops. Its website, Atomchip.com, certainly ref-
erences a whole lot of confidence-inspiring orga-
nizations, such as the U.S. Patent Office and the
Consumer Electronics Show. There are also photos
of the innards of its notebook offering, in which a
plug resembling a standard headphone connector
is used as the “decoder/transceiver.” While I don’t
know why that couldn’t be done, it just seemed a
little funky to me when I saw it. Anyway, I was hop-
ing you could investigate.
— David RingoThe Dog isn’t certain what Atom Chip actually
does, but from examining the website and the
purported specs of the portable computer, the
Dog believes we’ll see Mach 3 stealth pigs with
VSTOL capability before this notebook is actu-
ally sold. Why? It’s not simply the cheesy feel
of the website that inspires skepticism, but
also the extreme unlikeli-
hood of a “6.8GHz AtomChip
Quantum II widescreen note-
book... With up to 500GB of
AtomChip Quantum-Optical
Non-Volatile RAM storage or
a 1TB Quantum Storage ATA-
IDE.” As far as the patent
claims, some are legit. The
U.S. Patent Office has grant-
ed several patents to Shimon
Gendlin, who runs Atom Chip
and an affiliated website,
Computechnics.net.
Call the Dog cynical, but
the days of small start-ups
building technology that
AMD, Intel, and IBM can’t
with their R&D budgets are
long over.Nikon is recalling some 710,000 digital cam-
era batteries that may short-circuit, over-
heat, and melt. The company has had four
reports of melting batteries resulting in inju-
ries. About 200,000 of the EN-EL3 batteries
were sold with and for the Nikon D100, D70,
and D50 digital SLR cameras in the U.S. The
list of bad batteries is too long to list here
but is available at http://www.nikonusa.com. If
your battery is bad, immediately stop using
it and contact Nikon USA at 800-645-6678.
The company will replace bad batteries
within 7 to 10 days, for free.Nikon has recalled 700,000 batteries for its
D100, D70, and D50 digital cameras.As you can see, it takes a lot of work to get an F rating
from the BBB, but EZInkjets.com has done just that.