Frequently when I tried to order something that is supposedly in stock, I get confirmation, then, a few days later a cancellation because the object wasn't in stock.  I realize this isn't directly Amazon's fault since they are not the store, but it is problematic when you are trying to find and buy a specific item - I mean not so much as an email asking how to proceed, just a flat out cancel!

Over hundreds of transactions, that has never happened to me.  Not once.

Lastly, if you are looking for information about something, particularly technical or specific details, you might as well go somewhere else - you won't find it here.  It is a search to find something that *might* fit, then another search (via google) to find details, then a search back at Amazon just to buy it from someone else.  For all that annoyance, I will just go to the manufacturer, find exactly what I want, then Bing or Fruggle it to find the best price.  If Amazon happens to be it, good for them, but I am no longer looking there.

You can often get lots of useful information from the extensive reviews on Amazon.


I usually research what I want first, then look for it on Amazon to take advantage of (usually) low prices, (often) free shipping, and (always) reliable service.

As if there weren't already enough false positives to explain to software users, now developers are going to have to allow “the wisdom of crowds” to decide whether or not an AV program throws up a warning.  This will be especially wonderful for a guy like me who has a very small user base (no crowds).


"Suspicious.Insight is a detection for files that have not yet developed a strong reputation among Symantec’s community of users. Detections of this type are based on Symantec’s reputation-based security technology.

The reputation-based system uses “the wisdom of crowds” (Symantec’s tens of millions of end users) connected to cloud-based intelligence to compute a reputation score for an application, and in the process identify malicious software in an entirely new way beyond traditional signatures and behavior-based detection techniques.

When detections of this type are triggered in Norton products the user may be warned that the application is unproven, thus allowing the user to make the final decision. Future versions of Symantec's Endpoint Protection products will include this functionality. When used in these products, administrators will be able to configure blocking policies based on their specific tolerance for risk.

Today, the vast majority of malware is generated in real-time on a per-victim basis, which means that each such malicious program will be rated as being entirely new and low-prevalence by a reputation-based system. In contrast, most legitimate software has vastly different characteristics – it often comes from known publishers, has high adoption rates, shares much in common with earlier versions of the software, and so on. The Suspicious.Insight detection, therefore, is meant to inform the user that a given application is unproven and not yet well known to Symantec’s tens of millions of users."

http://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2010-021223-0550-99

Not so funny when you see your applications pirated.