When Steve Jobs announced during a press conference in July that all iPhone 4 users would receive a free case, he set a deadline of September 30 to reevaluate the program. Apple has, and they will discontinue it.

We now know that the iPhone 4 antenna attenuation issue is even smaller than we originally thought,” the company said on its website on Friday. “A small percentage of iPhone 4 users need a case, and we want to continue providing them a Bumper case for free. For everyone else, we are discontinuing the free case program on all iPhone 4s sold after September 30, 2010.”

Apple also said it would return to its normal return policy for the iPhone 4 after September 30.

If you really think you have a problem iPhone, you still have the option of calling AppleCare and speaking with Apple directly.

Apple began the free case program in response to complaints over the iPhone 4 antenna and reports of the device losing signal strength. The cases seemed to stem the tide of complaints since Apple started giving them away.

Source:http://www.loopinsight.com/2010/09/10/apple-to-discontinue-free-iphone-bumper-case-program-on-sept-30/

A ruling from a federal appeals court Friday may have wide ranging on your ability to do as you please with legitimately purchased software.

The court ruled that software makes are permitted to prohibit the resale of their products by consumers with special language in the sales agreement.

This is in opposition to the first-sale doctrine which holds that re-sale by those that legally purchased the software is acceptable.

The case revolves around an eBay seller who was selling a legal copy of Autodesk AutoCAD.

The licensing agreement forbade resale. “The terms of the software license in the case are not very different from the terms of most software licensing.

So I think it’s safe to say that most people don’t own their software,” said the defense attorney in the case.

Large firms like Adobe, McAfee, the MPAA, and Google all came out in support of Autodesk’s position.

Autodesk makes software that sells for thousands of dollars, and claims that the license cannot be transferred without written consent.

It’s unclear if even moderately expensive programs like Photoshop would be targets of this new strict enforcement.

Even if this is a one-off case, we might need to think about our software licenses differently.

Source:http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/you_might_not_own_software_you_bought

The software program in Montgom­ery County, which may cost taxpayers $1 million to replace, has worked fine in the past — and should still work, ac­cording to former high-ranking person­nel at the Revenue Commissioner’s Of­fice.

Revenue Commissioner Janet Bus­key and representatives from the Ala­bama Department of Revenue say the program, MS Govern, that has been used since 2006 is creating unnecessari­ly cumbersome work for county em­ployees and miscalculating data, some­times at the taxpayer’s inconvenience and expense.

Buskey’s office has had at least three significant problems so far this year that were attributed to computer issues.

First, the county had to pay an extra $9,000 for advertising costs when the annual tax sale properties were not properly advertised.

Then more than 1,000 personal property billing state­ments were incorrect when sent to resi­dents.

Finally, in late August, it was re­ported that about 600 of the more than 110,000 property valuations mistakenly included old weed liens.

These are big problems, but not problems that should be blamed on the software, say former officials with the office.

Sarah Spear, the former revenue commissioner who retired at the end of the last fiscal year, said that with Mont­gomery County having to make painful budget cuts, it makes no sense to spend that much money to replace a program that has worked fine for years.

“They’re talking about putting peo­ple on furlough,” she said. “When they’re doing things like that, I think it’s foolish to put $1 million on a new computer system.

“When we were there, it was a great working system, and the city’s is still a great working system. I don’t under­stand what the problem is now,” Spear added.

County commissioners, who will ul­timately have the final say on whether the county will replace MS Govern, may have to mandate that dur­ing the next fiscal year employ­ees take two to five furlough days, which are unpaid days off from work, because of a budget shortfall.

The commissioners are also calling for a strict hir­ing freeze that includes law en­forcement officials that could save the county as much as $1 million.

Spear and former employees John Ashmore, who was Spear’s chief clerk, and Stella Henley, who was a personal property au­ditor and interim chief apprais­er, all admit that they had prob­lems during the first year after the software was implemented — but they say that is to be ex­pected with any new system.

Some inaccurate bills were even sent out that first year, Ashmore and Henley said, but they said a “checks and bal­ances” method was created to catch any mistakes before incor­rect statements could be mailed out to the taxpayers again.

“The system is capable of doing the job that it’s meant to do,” Ashmore said. Buskey won the local Democratic Party’s nomination in 2009 over Ash­more when former Chief Ap­praiser Tommie Miller with­drew from the race after the primary election.

“It works, and we had no problems with it at the end.”

The same headaches will be in store for the employees if the county decides to put in a new software system, Ashmore and Henley said.

They went as far as to say that replacing the system now would be a waste of money and place a burden on employ­ees.

“Why go and spend a million dollars on a new software pro­gram when they’ve got one that will work and when there are employees that need raises, that have not had raises in many years — and now they’re talking about a hiring freeze and fur­loughs,” Henley said.

“The system we have now is a good system. You have to learn the system. There’s no sense in going to buy a new system that everybody is going to have to re­learn when it’s just a couple of people who don’t understand the system,” Henley said.

“We’re trying to save the tax­payers of Montgomery County money, and we’re also trying to save employees that we worked beside stress,” Henley said about her motive for being inter­viewed for this story.

Montgomery County is the only one of Alabama’s 67 coun­ties using MS Govern. The other counties selected one of the com­panies on the state’s approved vendor list.

Although state offi­cials say they are remaining neutral, they point out that it may be just as costly to fix the system as it may be to replace it.

Buskey and representatives from the Alabama Department of Revenue will brief the county commissioners on the problems with MS Govern at the next meeting on Sept. 13.

That is the same day that commissioners will present the 2011 budget, which now includes the funding for new software. The cost for a new program would be spread over three years.

City of Montgomery officials are also asking Buskey and the commissioners to consider the city when the decision is made because changing the software would adversely affect the city’s operations.

Deputy Mayor Jeff Downes said the city experienced “early operator error” issues with MS Govern, but he said those prob­lems were addressed through training.

“The city of Montgomery im­plemented (MS) Govern several years ago and the program has worked as it was sold to the city of Montgomery. It has been help­ful to our operation,” Downes said.

“That being said, we did not go without a period of time where employees had to learn the system and go through some significant training.”

Source:http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/article/20100904/NEWS01/9040323/Former-Montgomery-County-revenue-workers-Software-not-problem

A group of educators from across the United States gathered in Lincoln this week for a summit to discuss a computer program developed by the Academic Development Institute of Lincoln. The program, called Indistar, helps guide teachers and administrators with ways to achieve their educational goals.

The program is a web-based system used by a state education office, school district or charter schools to help keep everyone informed on the activities of those using the program. The goal of the program is to provide a continuous cycle of assessment, planning and progress tracking while keeping a synchronized effort on responsibilities and assignments.

Sam Redding co-authored the book, “Handbook on Statewide Systems of Support” that provides a list of indicators of best practices to become a successful educator. While attending an educational conference, he had an epiphany with the words of a colleague. An educator from Virginia told him she thought the concepts were wonderful and only wished they could be found on the Internet.

Redding, who heads the institute, came back to Lincoln and started working on the concept by hiring Bob Goodrich of Lincoln, who is a computer programmer. Goodrich’s job was to create a web-based application that would be user friendly and something that would put Redding’s theories into a workable concept.

“It’s great to hear the feedback from the users because normally they tell us what they want to do and then I create it to make it functional,” said Goodrich.

Janis Langdon, of Lincoln, who serves as the director of information systems and website for the institute, said the uniqueness of the program is why educators like it.

“It gives complete instructions and tells the users what needs to be done to accomplish their goals,” said Langdon.

More than 4,000 schools have started using the program. Representatives from more than 10 states along with a Bureau of Indian Education representative came to Lincoln to share their experiences.

Dr. Lisa Kinnaman who serves as director of the Statewide Improvement Program in Idaho, has used the program for the past three years.

“What I like about this is that it is based on indicators that get specific that drills down to the classroom level,” said Kinnaman.

The program, she said, asks questions of the educators that help measure results.

“We have seen results by using this program and I feel it provided better communication between the school and the district and it is making an impact in the classroom, said Kinnaman.”

Source:http://www.lincolncourier.com/features/x128158147/Software-program-draws-educators-to-Lincoln-summit