Consumer Activism Dumpster

How We Fail: Middle America’s Inability to Gauge Wealth


We’re taught to think of wealth in absolute terms. But doing so prevents us from understanding the relative difference in the costs of living between ourselves and the fantastically over compensated. Instead, we’ve got to think of wealth in relative terms. You know what stuff costs you relative to your salary. What you don’t know [...]

Google flagging all search results as “harmful”


Searching for GarageBand ’09 topics this morning, I noticed a pattern — one that’s virtually impossible to notice given Google’s new self-appointed role of protector of digital humanity. Every link is flagged as “This site may harm your computer” — even trusted pages on the topic, such as pages on Apple.com. Any attempt to visit [...]

Apple bug breaks 3rd party USB web cams; no fix from Cupertino


Since the release of Apple’s 10.4.10 update, users (including me) have been complaining to Apple that their third-party USB web cams have lost audio capabilities. Although a bug report was issued and acknowledged (ID #5285354) by Apple, no fix has been forthcoming. In fact, Apple has stranded a large number of users in a void [...]

Apple’s .Mac service: Promising features marred by spotty performance


Apple offers a suite of subscription services, collectively called .Mac (dot-mac), which offers subscribers an excellent list of features not found anywhere else [edit: Yes, most if not all features can be cobbled together on your own, but we're talking about a cohesive suite here]. Alas, these great features come at a hefty price ($99/year [...]

Apple .Mac Service Interruption List


This is a list of .Mac outtages, compiled directly from Apple’s System Status, which is reported to .Mac subscribers. This list has been created by GIGOBlog’s editors in order to highlight the ongoing number of interruptions of Apple’s .Mac service. 4/12/2007 Due to scheduled maintenance, some members might not have been able to access .Mac [...]