🚀 go-pugleaf

pissed off wrote:

> "Criswell The Psychic Weatherman" <ssenate@mindless.com> wrote in message
> news:3E4BFB07.357D4F30@mindless.com...
>
> > I wasn't the one who said that.
>
> You're correct. You didn't call me "immature." You defined my complaint as
> symptomatic of "repressed anger."

You're not angry?  You chose the name "pissed off".  You may feel your anger is
justified.  In my opinion, FWIW, it's excessive and misplaced.

> > If there were only 5 or 10, then there would be a need to get the word
> out.  You
> > make a lot of wrong assumptions about me, and what I believe.  You must
> think
> > that there are only 5 or 10 people who read the Wall Street Journal and PC
> > Magazine.
>
> No, that's not what I think at all. You have taken my statement completely
> out of context in such a way as to try and discredit it. What's more, your
> means of discrediting my statement is, as with Jim Turner, the other Intuit
> shill here, was to personally attack me.
>
> > If you read my post, I already stated that I agree with you on the
> betrayal and
> > mistrust.  Since I agree with you, but you still think I don't agree with
> you,
> > I'm a shill.
>
> You say you agree, but then contrive excuses for Intuit's behavior. You say
> that complaining is of no use. You say that complaining is a sign of
> "repressed anger." You are shilling for Intuit, just like the guy who called
> me "immature" for complaining.

If you believe it to be so, then in your mind it is so.

> > Not so.  Their website now includes a C-Dilla removal tool.
> Unfortunately, that
> > also makes the software not work, which defeats the whole purpose.
>
> Which means that Intuit has *not* responded.

No, it means they have not responded in a way which you feel is satisfactory.  A
poor response is not a lack of response.  In most cases, and in thise case, it's
far worse.

> > Wild unsubstantiated overgeneralizations don't help your case.
>
> There is nothing at all unsunstantiated about what I wrote. Yahoo agreed to
> censor its search engine in response to Chinese government requests, and
> Microsoft and Cisco are among the American corporations that have agree to
> sell China's government the means to monitor individual Internet usage and
> block access to web sites the government doesn't want its people to see.
>
> Intuit fits right in. The U.S. high-tech establishment couldn't care less
> about human rights abroad. How long will it be until they transfer to tools
> of repression to the home front? Not long at all.

All Intuit wants to do is protect their software from theft and recopying by
CD-ROM burners.  Admittedly the cure is far worse than the symptom.

> > If you feel that way, so be it.  I prefer to make my voice heard where it
> will
> > be heard, than to make it heard where it will have no impact.
>
> And, as any good shill would do, you also prefer to define a vigorous critic
> as suffering from a psychiatric problem, i.e., "misplaced anger." Funny,
> they did that in the Soviet Union during the Cold War and they're doing it
> in China today.
>
> > OK.  Tell me the new tax laws about form 8582 and rental real estate.
> Tell me
> > about the most recent changes to sale of home rules.  Now, the
> de-engineering of
> > C-Dilla must take place rapidly for this tax season, or slowly between
> April and
> > next December.  Would you pay twice as much for TurboTax this year?
>
> No, I won't pay twice as much. I expect Intuit to do both of these things:
> De-engineer C-Dilla *and* answer your rental real estate questions. If their
> resources are stretched, they can redeploy engineers from other projects.
> This is *their problem.*

Yes it is their problem, and the problem you refuse to acknowledge is manpower
and cost.  Who do you work for?

> > Because the
> > required rapid de-engineering to get the product on the shelf, and to
> remove all
> > of the current C-Dilla boxes would likely double the cost.  If you're
> willing to
> > wait for that, and pay double the cost, then everyone can tell who is the
> real
> > Intuit shill.  I have found that when someone accuses someone of being a
> shill,
> > it is often a smoke-and-mirrors cover-up to disguise their own shilling.
>
> No, I would expect Intuit to eat the cost and suffer a decline in its
> profitability. Or do corporations never pay for their mistakes? In your
> corporate shill mentality, apparently only individuals are required to
> accept personal responsibility for their mistakes, while corporations are
> entitled to pass along the costs to the customers with whom they are at war.
>
> I think it's time Intuit re-learned the proper positioning of the horse in
> relationship to the cart. You, too.

Perhaps you missed the post where I said that TurboTax would likely suffer the
taint of being poisoned by C-Dilla.  After this C-Dilla mess, I sincerely doubt
anyone would buy even an open licensed copy next year.  They *are* paying for
this mistake, and will contine to pay for it.

> > Again, C-Dilla is not spyware.  You leep insisting that it is.  Spyware
> reports
> > information back to its host site without your knowledge and approval.
> C-Dilla
> > only reports your verification code.  Yes, it runs in the background and
> usees
> > resources, but this is not the defintion of spyware.
> >
> > Now you're starting to get more rational, but it doesn't answer my
> question.
> > You don't know.  We both agree that C-Dilla is not a good method.  Intuit
> > thought it was a good idea at the time, and has now been convinced
> otherwise.
> > [You disagree with my opinion on this and believe they still need more
> > convincing.]
>
> If Intuit thought it wasn't a good method, they would back off. Instead,
> they have posted a solution on their web site that you say is beside the
> point because anyone who uses it will disable the software that they paid
> for and depend on. This means that Intuit has done nothing.

No, it means Intuit has done something that is worse than nothing.  They have
made it glaringly obvious that they screwed up big time.

> My suspicion is
> that Intuit is hoping they can get through the current tax season, and that
> everyone will forget about their arrogance, lack of ethics, hostility to
> their customers and betrayal of their trust.

Now who's making excuses for Intuit?  That may be their hope, but in my
experience, people have longer deeper memories of such things.  Such wounds
don't heal easily.

> Intuit's management doesn't get it, as they say. Just as so much of the rest
> of corporate America doesn't get it. These people seem to think that they
> have a God-given claim on my money, and carte blache to do anything they
> want to do. I think it's time that they be reminded that their proper
> position is one of a tradesman who asks politely for my money in return for
> a product.

This is a foolish attitude that they have adopted.  TaxCut and TaxAct sales will
skyrocket as TurboTax's remain on the shelves collecting dust, or are returned
to the factory for refunds.

> I am stunned by Intuit's arrogance. Even by the reduced ethical standards
> that have come to rule corporate America, these people are in a class by
> themselves.

Why are you stunned by their arrogance?  This isn't the first time they've
pulled this.  TurboTax used to be a good product.  Functionally, it still is.
[Let's forget about C-Dilla for a moment talk about the main reason you buy a
tax program which is to help you do your taxes.]  Having used TaxCut first made
me more familiar with it.  Being a former employee of H&R Block [there - i said
it] I still felt that it would be a good thing to be familiar with all three
major programs.  It made it easier to tell when a problem was in the software,
the tax laws, or a data entry error.  [These are common and usually
unintentional, but no software can tell you that you've transposed 2 digits.]
During tax time, I answer questions about taxes and software.  When they
required and installed without my approval MSIE, back to the store my TurboTax
went, and I never looked back.  I spent untold hours attempting to uninstall
what could not be uninstalled.  But I still kept up with tax laws *and* software
changes, even though I had abandoned TurboTax in 2001.  I would have thought
that they had learned from such a mistake.  In 2003, I was proven wrong.  As we
all know, if you ignore the mistakes of the past ....

Again, Intuit has taken action, providing a C-Dilla uninstaller, which
completely de-activates both C-Dilla and TurboTax.  Had they done nothing, that
would have been a better response.  A rediculous and pointless response, one
which makes the problem even more glaringly obvious than it already was, and
agreeing with you, a rather arrogant response on their part, but you say that's
no response.  An arrogant response, one which continues the distrust and
betrayal is far worse than the non-response of silence and complicity.

Have you contacted Mr. Mike Block yet?
--
"A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses;
it is an idea that possesses the mind."  Robert Bolton
Criswell The Psychic Weatherman
ssenate@mindless.com