Skype & Easybit Push The Need For An Online Rapekit

EasyBits has joined with Skype to offer online gaming for the last five years, but the behaviour of its software uncannily resembles the stealth tactics of adware hawkers and other distributors of potentially harmful programs. This combined with a forever sweaty spokesman has many users in a state of fear//limbo.

Since this incident Skype has ejaculated an apology at its users, that seems more like a discardable pacification than any kind of formal apology (extract below).

The software is provided by our partner EasyBits, and is part of the Skype Extras Manager. The Extras Manager has been included in Windows releases of our software since 2006. This latest update from EasyBits included elements of their desktop games organizer in error, but it neither installs nor un-installs correctly. This update has been disabled while we work with them to correct the problems and user experience.Skype works closely with its partners to ensure that our users receive the best possible Skype experience and is working with EasyBits to ensure this issue does not happen again.

EasyBits sweaty spokesman has since been pointing his soggy digits at its update installer for what it described as "unintentional installations". It published an uninstallation utility that removes the app from users' PCs out of courtesy for sodomised users.

EasyBits GO is NOT a malware, it is a legitimate application distributed by EasyBits Media as part of our scheduled update. Unfortunately the user interface in the update installer has defects causing confusing user experience that leads to unintentional installations. EasyBits Media has confirmed this problem and currently has stopped the update process and implementing a fix. We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused to Skype users.

EasyBits' statement rather ambiguously claims that users happily accepted their unsolicited software "gift". "Since the update, game sessions have spiked from 850,000 to 7+ million game sessions globally yesterday," it gregariously exclaimed.

Separate problems last week meant that Skype's software put the phone down on users last week. Skype produced a workaround followed by an automatic update to its software that allowed users to log in to the VoIP service. The Skype Extras Manager update that foisted the EasyBits games utility on users, whether they asked for it or not, was separate to this core functionality update.

Even so, the whole incident suggests both that Skype's pre-release testing process is not as rigorous as it ought to be and that EasyBits seems to think users might rather like software forced down their throat.

It seems like this is the way the internet might be going, so you might want to start considering having a rapekit on hand at all times, before Easybits' marvelous wizard gets his magic hands all over you. 

Barcelona v Man Utd Like French Kissing A Tramp?

An influx of thousands of articles encompassing the two footballing Mammoths Man Utd and Barcelona who spar in the Champions League final set in Wembley have appeared in every corner of the media. Of course the 'How Man Utd can beat Barcelona?' question has comically populated every newspaper and football related ink station. There are precise 'to do' lists, such as mark Messi out of the game, assign Rooney to hassle the vaudeville villain Busquets. These 'paid' journalists should be sent to concentration camps for such infantile analysis that barely penetrates the intellect of a toddler. A prime culprit of this is ex manager, player and now commentator, David Pleat who wrote the subheading " Stay disciplined and keep 11 men on the pitch" as one of his 5 points to beat Barcelona, what next "Score More Goals Than Barcelona" says top football analyst? I'm sure Sir Alex Ferguson is running into the dressing room after reading that article, proclaiming, 'there is one vital thing I forgot in our last few weeks of preparation, thank god for football punditry, don't get sent off!'

Kudos to Guardian writer Barney Ronay who wrote the line "Dipping your mouth to its innards is a two-stage experience. At first contact it felt a bit like French-kissing a tramp" as he offered a parallel between fast-food burgers and Barcelona. "So, that's that then. Applewood smoked bacon, cheese, crispy onion rings: pass-pass-pass-goal. Of course, the only real – but crucial – shared attribute between the Steakhouse Angus and the Guardiola Barça is this sense of being crushed by elite engineering. A Barcelona Steakhouse would be constructed from uniformly excellent things: truffle ham, fresh Catalan spring onions and lodged between annihilatingly fine fair trade artisan bread. But perfection is no longer the challenge for the Barcelona Steakhouse. The challenge is simpler. It is more a question of finding something to get your teeth into, as a routinely Barça-steamrollered neutral. If you don't happen to already, can you really love this elegantly relentless Barcelona?" He then went onto to refer to what it must feel like to play against Barcelona "It must feel a bit like playing chess against a Terminator. You cannot rest. Barcelona can rest: they rest while they have the ball. But you: never. This is a team with players of genius, but the real power is in its all-subsuming design, the tidal surge of its parts."

Will Ferrell, a Chelsea fan will be watching the match in a telephone booth on his iphone. The assumptions of all the media who are treating the whole affair like a pre-programmed chess game, that can be won before a ball has kicked off, will be crushed if Messi decides to score a freekick which will result in the next English opponent of Barcelona having the hoards of journalists adding their expert observation of 'Do Not Give Away Freekicks To Barcelona' sold as 'expert' advice. One hopes this final will be scintillating, lets face it finals are usually drab and boring, with two teams who don't want to lose, finals are thus a cagey affair. Hopefully the technical ability and wizard school of skills of Barcelona and the 1500 years of knowledge and supernatural powers that Alex Ferguson possesses will make this final as memorable as the 2005 thriller which read more like a Hollywood script than a football match where the underdogs triumph against all the odds, this time around though there are no underdogs.