Opinion: How Low Can You Go-How Microsoft's Unethical Business Practices and Automatic Renewal Services Have Lost Me as a Customer Forever.

On June 12th of this year, I decided to take advantage of a great deal offered by a sponsor of Xbox Live; $1 for a One Month Gold Subscription. What did I get? A month of Xbox Live Gold, and two months of $8 Xbox Live. By the end of the first month, I was done with playing Xbox Live and forgot about it. I returned to work, and got into playing games on the Playstation Network instead.

Two months later, when reviewing my spending online, I noticed a discretely named charge titled "MICROSOFT BILLING". A week later, when i concluded that this was a recurring fee for Xbox Live, I called customer service and was told that when enrolling in the promotion, i agreed-at some point- to using all features offered for Xbox Live Gold members. One "feature" of which is automatic subscription renewal of the full $7.99 monthly fee without any notice or statement. I received no confirmation emails or reminders that i was being charged. Meanwhile, my xbox was unplugged from the Internet and i had no idea of the near $16 that had disappeared from right under my nose.

After being told this, I immediately instructed them to terminate my subscription, and was told that they would be unable to remove my credit card information, and that I would have to remove that myself, after the account is cancelled, online. Additionally, when I requested a refund of the money they charged from my account without authorization, they refused. The supervisor i spoke with refused as well. The generic, scripted responses, strict protocols, and half-hearted, empty apologies I was given were beyond frustrating. The fact that Microsoft feels the need to not only charge for online gaming, but also create so many loops to deactivate a subscription is despicable.

One of the agents was kind enough to instruct me in the future that i should "not use a credit card" if I did not want my subscription to auto-renew, and told me that I should have used a purchased subscription card.

In the end, I placed a 7 minute phone call with PNC Bank to dispute the combined charges of $15.98, and saw a refund processing on my account within the hour. Thank you PNC Bank!

The Way We Listen is the Way We are Seen.

Cans, Earbuds, Headphones, In-Ears, Speakers; these are the devices that translate our media into an experience, something that is heard. For decades, the headphones a person wore has defined them in their taste, class, and style. In the past decade, with the introduction of the Apple iPod, earbuds have taken off, creating a market with a fast and colorful market for an item that at one point in time was seen as being inferior. For the most part, these tiny plastic speakers are cheap, feature lesser sound quality, and are completely avoided by true audiophiles. 

When Apple began shipping the iPod, included was a cheap pair of white headphones. The genius part was this; they were white. A simple color choice spurred the craze and desire of people to have an iPod. These earbuds were unique, and having the white cord hanging down into your pocket represented the hi-tech Mp3 player in your pocket. Apple capitalized on this in the best way possible by featuring the iPod and the vividly-white earbud in a series of insanely colorful silhouette commercials of youthful people rocking out to crazy music.

Today it seems that every kind of headphone or earbud makes a statement. Which one defines you?

The Classic Earbud: You enjoy music as much as you do the portability of your headphones. Quality is not your biggest concern, and sometimes you are looking to make a fashion statement.

Noise Isolation/in Ear Headphones: These provide better sound quality than most earbuds, and are much more portable than Cans. These are fashionable like earbuds, but also let people know that you are serious about the purity of the music you listen to.

Cans: These standard over-the-head, over-the-ear headphones are for the aspiring music enthusiast and audiophile. The top-notch volume and sound quality in select models are unrivaled by any other type of headphone.

Noise-Cancelling Headphones: Great for studying and traveling, these headphones are often big like cans, but have an algorithm that cancels outside noise from being heard by the wearer. When implemented well, these headphones work great on planes and in cars to prevent constant noise caused by the engine and road noise.

Headphones not only give insight into your lifestyle, but also show how serious you are about the music that you listen to, and the quality that you choose to hear it in. It is important to choose based on your needs and desires, in order to be satisfied when using them.

The Amazon Kindle; a Flawed Beauty in an Imperfect World.

When the Kindle was announced in November of 2007, the world didn't exactly know how to respond. The convenience of a device that could put more books in the palm of your hand than even your home bookshelf could hold. All of these books, purchased from the Kindle Store, were to be delivered over the sprint wireless data network to your device in minutes, with no additional monthly charge. Meanwhile, the cost was daunting, costing a whopping $399 upon first release; this was quite an investment for something that is not entirely necessary for reading.

Since then, the second and third generation kindles have been announced. The larger, and also recently-updated DX version (with a 2.5x larger screen than 6" version) appeals to a niche crowd looking to read media-rich content, or .pdf files with ease and comfort, despite the added bulk and larger size of the device. The latest Kindle, unofficially named the Kindle 3, features a smaller form factor, an e-ink display with 50% better contrast, 4Gb of built-in, non-expandable memory, a wi-fi only option, and is available in graphite or white.
But how does the Kindle fit into every day life? Is it worth the new $139 or $189 price point for the wifi-only, and 3G global wireless options, respectively? The convenience of an e-reader is unrivaled by books. Almost anyone would give up carrying books to carrying around a pencil-thick reading device. Ultimately the drawbacks for people come down to several things:

1. The Price- It is hard for people to justify spending almost $200 on a device to read books when they can go to their library and do it for free. Additionally, the books being sold in the Kindle store are often about the same price as they are in print. It becomes difficult to justify spending money to spend more money.
2. People Love Books- People love turning, feeling, creasing, and smelling actual pages. In fact, this is what people worry about the most when deciding whether to get an e-book reader.
3. Page Numbers- This is a huge drawback for students. Without page numbers on this Kindle, how is one to complete a reading assignment for a class if all that is given is "Read pages 80-200"? While I understand this would be hard to implement given the feature that allows different font sizes, it is absolutely necessary to have page numbers for scholarly reading and citing.
4. The Selection- While the Kindle boasts a large collections of books "delivered in 60 seconds", many books are not offered in the store. Some publishers do not agree to publish their books digitally on this kindle store. This can be frustrating; especially when books like the Harry Potter series are not offered, and you really want them on your kindle.
5. DRM- Digital Rights Management (or DRM) is the restrictive coding that links the books purchased with the amazon account and the kindles associated with it. This limits your rights to fair-use, which as applied in print books, would allow you to sell or give away a book after reading it. With the Kindle, there is no way to legally give away or lend your books without the device and the account going with it. Frustrating.

All around the Kindle is a great device. But what is the price for convenience? In the end very little is saved on books, and when finished with a book, there is no legal way to easily share or transfer ownership to other kindle users. In the end, life with a Kindle is the most convenient way to read books, magazines, and newspapers. The wireless delivery, and outrageous capacity for books is more than anyone would need to satisfy their reading desires, and will prove invaluable for someone who reads more than ten books per year.