Thanks, Deena! I'll look into that. Unfortunately, as I suspected, I can't install it on my work computer, so the export remains a bit of a problem, especially since the ability to create new archives or add to existing archives has been disabled.

What's a good program for running multiple IM accounts on a PC?

I use Pidgin: [link]

one of our shoppers was denied the price advertised for a specific model because only pre-optimized computers were available

Bingo! Happened to us with every model we decided we wanted. Bastards.

Was that you you mentioned this before? The article rang a bell for me....

Anyway, hopefully all the bad publicity will learn them a lesson.

Yeah, that was me and my sister getting hosed because I wasn't feeling up to the drive to Fry's. Never again. They have about 5 categories of poorly explained "optimisations" and just about everything we even looked at was bumped up in price by it. And when removing manufacturer crap leaves you with Best Buy icons on your desktop, they're not even pretending well.

I'm sorta' amazed that a major retailer engaged in such a scam. (I mean, a scam this easy to expose.) Are they hurting financially, and this is a desperate strategy on their part to survive? Or was some corporate guy gonna lose his bonus if he didn't get sales back up?

Anyway, hopefully all the bad publicity will learn them a lesson.

Nah, BB is always on Consumerist's shit list, and nothing changes. Too many people who shop there don't even know the Consumerist exists, and they know so little about computers that they take BB's word for it that they need the "optimizations."

Which is what makes me the angriest -- that they cheerfully fleece people who don't know any better. (Well, I guess that's how the whole concept of fleecing works -- you can't fleece someone who knows whst's the what.)

I'm sorta' amazed that a major retailer engaged in such a scam.

How are you surprised? It's just "rustproofing" for the 21st century.

I'm just surprised that it's a major chain, and it's that blatant. It was a major corporate fuckup when Sears was paying commission to their auto mechanics (resulting in mechanics doing unnecessary work), or when Dominos promised 30 minute delivery or your pizza was free (resulting in managers pressuring their drivers to drive fast, which resulted in accidents). In both those cases, a corporate mistake just created conditions for employees in the local stores to fuck things up. This is worse, as it had to have been approved at a high level. This would be like Ford deciding all their cars would be rustproofed without including that cost in the advertised price, rather than individual dealers pulling this bait-and-switch. Except even then, rustproofing could be considered useful, which this Best Buy service is not.

I helped my MiL buy a netbook there over Thanksgiving and didn't encounter any of that, but I guess there's not much "optimizing" you can do with a netbook anyway.