If your PC is slow, crashing, or otherwise misbehaving, it may be because of Verizon. Or British Airways. Or one of another dozen large companies that have advertised through malware from Claria and WhenU.
Claria, formerly Gator, installs malware — specifically, "adware" that spies on your Internet browsing and pops up a window when you hit specific web sites. For example, L. L. Bean alleges in a lawsuit that Nordstrom and J. C. Penny, former Claria customers, would pop up ads for those companies when a potential customer visited the L. L. Bean web site. (Claria has sued L. L. Bean, in return, for filing a "sham lawsuit.")
How does Claria and WhenU software get onto a computer? Usually as part of installation of other software. A download of a "web browser search tool" will have a note, buried deep in the disclaimers, that the software spies on your web browsing and pops up ad windows. This makes installing the malware legal. Despicable, but legal.
In my experience, malware is one reason that people think their computers are "slowing down." I've done troubleshooting on slow computers only to find that malware (not necessarily Claria's and WhenU's) has made the computer utterly unusable. I believe that a good number of people purchase new computers because their old ones couldn't support all the malware loaded on it.
So, why blame Verizon? Verizon, by purchasing ads through Claria, helps to support the malware industry. They aren't ashamed of what they've done; their spokeman said that "it's much more efficient" than other forms of advertising. In other words, Verizon supports malware, and by doing so encourages an despicable industry that does despicable things.
Here's a list, as published in the Wall Street Journal and gleamed by me from the Claria web site, of current and former customers of Claria and WhenU:
If you have a business relationship with one of these companies, you might want to make them of your opinion of malware.
When I first thought of this category, industry blunders, I thought I'd be discussing poorly-designed user interfaces. Instead, I find myself discussing errors and mis-steps.
Our inaugural blunder comes from Nosa Eke, publisher of "Call Center Times." After sending me not just one but six copies of a piece of spam, I sent her a complaint and asked to be taken off her mailing list.
Her response? "If you have such a problem with being contacted," she writes, "have you considered removing your name as the point of contact in listings such as Buyer's Guides etc..? [sic]". Not only does she implicitly confess to harvesting my email address from a web site -- something I already knew -- she has the chutzpah to tell me that it's my tough luck. And her command of the English language makes me wonder about the magazine she publishes.
After getting more than a few more missives from her, I put here onto "autoreponse." It's a little script that I wrote that sends a couple of thousand complaint emails back to the originator, triggered by spam to me. Remarkably, she somehow managed to find the time to remove me from her list after just one autoresponse.
Nosa Eke's email address is neke@callcentertimes.com. You might want to put it on your blacklist.
There's a few — sometimes very well hidden — places on the Internet that allow developers to host VoiceXML or CCXML applications at no charge. You can write a VoiceXML or CCXML application, place the application on a telephony server, and then call into the server and interact with the application. Here's a list of the companies that I know about that provide free hosting services to developers; if I've left one out, please feel to contact me and let me know about it.
Voxeo also offers access via 800 numbers and ordinary numbers; like most places they require access via a PIN. However you can request a unique telephone number for an application, which is convenient if you want to have other people access your demo. Voxeo also assigns each application a SIP telephone number.
What I like most about Voxeo is their "Extreme Support." Email to customer service is answered very quickly, generally within the hour, and their customer support people are very, very knowlegable. And it's also clear that their managers monitor customer support to make certain that questions are answered. Since there has never been and probably never will be a manual that answers all my questions, swift and accurate customer support is wonderful.
Tellme offers an online server for developers, but for some reason it's impossible (at least for me) to find it through their regular home page.
Tellme offers VoiceXML 2.0, tutorials, documentation, code samples, some space on their server to store application (I haven't used it much), a way to access scripts on your own server, 800 access numbers (not unique), and pre-recorded voices. You can call the server to record your own prompts.
Tellme also offers a syntax checker, which lets you check your application's syntax without actually running it.
I haven't actually tried Voicegenie's online server just yet. Voicegenie offers VoiceXML 2.0, documentation, an online syntax checker, a grammar wizard to help develop grammars, recording prompts over the phone, documentation, tutorials, sample code, and forum-based support.
Voicegenie does have some oddities. Some of their links lead to Voicegenie-supported websites that haven't been updated with developer information since 2002. And their developer agreement doesn't let developers "disclose results of any benchmark tests of such development tools to any third party without VoiceGenie Technologies' prior written approval."
BeVocal's claim to fame is that its online server has voice biometrics, such as speaker identification and verification. It makes for a nice demo (you can get one from here on my web site).
Otherwise, BeVocal offers everything: tutorials, documenation, online syntax checking, debugging tools, and a tool that lets you interact with your application in text mode. Files can be located on their server or your server. Support is via their forums, with turnaround times of up to one day.
I've used VoiceXML interpreters running on my laptop to demo VoiceXML; for example, IBM's VoiceXML interpreter downloaded from IBM Alphaworks; CCXML is available both at IBM Alphaworks and elsewhere. However, I find that running my applcations on a remote online server that's connected into the PSTN — and now SIP! — provides me with tools that otherwise simply aren't available.