Redeeming an iTunes Gift Card Without a Credit Card
December 25, 2007

I bought my wife a lovely iTunes Gift Card this Christmas to start downloading some extra music to her iPod and was greeted by a rather uncharacteristically difficult time. I had imagined being able to set her up with iTunes and the gift card and letting her go, but alas - this was not the case. In Apple's zeal to get your kids to over-spend they've hidden the option to sign up for an iTunes account without a credit card. Well, we were actually prepared to begin sending the gift card back to Apple when thanks to Yahoo Answers (whodu thunk) I located the Apple docs on how to redeem the card without inputting a credit card.

Without further ado, follow these instructions (jump to "I do not have an iTunes Store account") to get your gift card setup without having to tell Apple your credit card number. Useful for kids and those who believe that their credit card shouldn't be floating around out there without cause. I truthfully have no idea why they hide this under eighteen menus.

Vista Really Not Ready for Network Deployment
December 16, 2007

I've been fooling with domain support on my network recently and have ran into some serious issues with Windows Vista. The first is relatively minor, but fairly annoying. From time to time, when a roaming profile is enabled, Vista will totally forget custom sidebar gadgets. It's terribly infuriating to have to login and then logout and then login again just to get the correct gadgets on my sidebar.

The second issue that Vista has is a rather critical roaming profile issue. I recently had to dejoin my main machine from the domain and restructure it. Upon rejoining the domain, Vista refused to recognize my primary user's profile. Uh-oh!

I traced it down and it seems like Vista is storing user information somewhere on the system in a corrupt state. I have gone through all the recovery steps, disabled roaming profiles and even removing the local version of that profile all to no avail. At this point Vista is bitching about it's inability to load the profile (when it's been totally removed, and roaming profiles are completely disabled on the domain) and I'm done with it. The error is tied to the actual username and not the account itself. I've removed the account from the domain and all local references to the user data. If this were a client installation I can't even imagine how badly this would look.

If a box that was setup two days ago can demonstrate this problem, I really have to say that Windows Vista is not domain ready.

Freakonomics on Libraries
July 10, 2007

In light of my recent absence, I thought that I would link up a nice article that I found over at the Freakonomics blog. They recently wrote a quick piece on how difficult it would be to start a system similar to the public libraries in today's IP climate. It is really interesting, and important, to think about how today's laws and regulations are restricting the intellectual growth of the future.

Libraries serve a number of purposes. One, they allow the citizenry access to media. This allows individual citizens that ability to learn from copyrighted works (you know, that thing the government invented to encourage the betterment of society through more creative works) and develop themselves personally without being forced to pay large sums of money. This is especially important in individuals who do not have necessary funding for such endeavors, such as those from low-income families, children and even the elderly.

There is, however, a second and incredibly important purpose that libraries serve; that is preservation of society both for its own sake and for future historians and scholars. You see, without libraries many classical works would simply be lost by time crumbling away on someone's shelves. However, with the ability to disseminate these media to citizens it is able to reach out and be continued - both from the protection of a central repository and from the sheer access.

As an intellectual person living today, I'm forced to wonder just how today's society will be preserved in this fashion. With modern copyright restrictions in the draconian state that they are, even backups of software are illegal. When my old Doom disks finally disintegrate, shall I be forced to violate federal law in order to preserve a crucial branch in video gaming history? Or will it slowly fade into the background and disappear?

You may say, "hogwash! Video games and movies are nothing but trash and violence that are for little whippersnappers to kill their brains with!"... but remember that Shakespeare was trash in his day. He is now considered to be a literary flower blooming brightly with every "where for art thou Romeo?".

So, to the great series of tubes I commit this fluttering thought... short of becoming criminals, how can we preserve our own historical heritage? How will our kids listen to Eddie Van Halen and play Doom to see what daddy grew up with?

Halo 2 PC Multiplayer Sucks
June 29, 2007

I'm sorry, but I have to say... for all the coolness that is the Halo 2 PC Single Player campaign - the multiplayer absolutely sucks. Do not, I repeat DO NOT purchase this game expecting to play online. Since you have to pay over $100 to be able to host a server with this game, there are absolutely no servers. Ok, not absolutely... there are currently six available servers with greater than or equal to 3 players. six. System wide. Anyway, I am sad to say that I had hoped for a nice multiplayer experience with this game. I guess that I should have known better.

Oh well, back to the Q4 demo where there are actually servers...

Trent Reznor, You 'Da Man
May 24, 2007

So, it appears as though Trent Reznor is none too happy with his label. It's nice to hear a big artist who's angry with the way Big Media is today. Of course, Trent's always been keen to catch on to the ebbing of the market. Remember when he did the Quake sound-track? That was good stuff.

I had a chance to talk with the life-partner of someone high-up in the BMG foodchain over the last weekend. They really do believe that copyright violation is theft. However, it's only theft if its their content. It's ok if its happy birthday or copyrighted church propaganda.

So, when was the last time that you bought anything from the *IAAs of the world? I'm at three years now. Thankfully my media interests provide me with a wealth of other sources for media that don't involve those lumbering beasts.

Brits FTW!
May 21, 2007

Ah, the drama continues. It appears that the British Health Protection Agency agrees that Wi-Fi is not a danger to humanity as we know it.

The Health Protection Agency has said that sitting in a wi-fi hotspot for a year results in receiving the same dose of radio waves as making a 20-minute mobile phone call.

He added: "Radio waves (wi-fi) and other non-ionising radiations have been part of our lives for a century or more and if such effects were occurring then damage or other untoward effects would have been recorded and studied.

So, there we are. The Brits in all their omnipotent bureaucratic have dubbed Wi-Fi as less dangerous than a mobile phone. I think that the screaming memes have given up on mobile phones being the harbinger of death, so hopefully this will silence them.

Student Removed From School for Creating Video Game Map
May 03, 2007

More murder simulation goodness. in Fort Bend for creating a map of his school for Counter-Strike. You know, that amazingly real murder simulator where you learn to aim and kill and stuff. David knows the one, where you jump all the time while shooting in order to go faster.

I seriously find it amazing that they've removed a kid for something like this. I mean, any serious gamer who has ever dabbled in mapping has made a map of A) Their House B) Their Mall and C) Their School. Personally, I did my parents' basement in Half-Life - my school in Doom - and someone in California made a map of our mall in Duke3d. Last I checked, creating artistic reproductions of things wasn't a crime.

There are terrorists and psychopaths at every corner. Some kid making computer game maps, probably isn't one of them. Let Jack Thompson make up some statistics on how many "school shooters" made maps of their schools and then "trained" in them. Let's see how far he gets.

As an aside, I saw in the WSJ that we lost somewhere close to 120 troops this last month. 120 dead. That seems like a whole lotta lives are being thrown at this problem with no resolution in site.

Anyway, back to management.

Hotlinking Images Sucks
April 26, 2007

So, myspace users really shouldn't be on the great Intertubes - that's all I have to say. You know what sucks? Bandwidth drains by some dweeb hotlinking your image on his myspace profile. You know what sucks more? When I redirect all image links to my site from myspace to lemonparty. Enjoy your lemonparty themed myspace profile!

IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT IS, DON'T EVEN TRY FINDING OUT.

Technical Land here we come! This is how I did it;

$HTTP["referer"] =~ "myspace\.com" {
  url.redirect = ( "^/.*\.(jpe?g|png|gif)" => "lemonparty.gif" )
}

and certainly the inclusion of mod_redirect in my lighttpd.conf.

Update: Fun has been had. The users are now redirected back to myspace's page, to waste their own bandwidth.

Warhammer Mark of Chaos: Don't Buy It
April 14, 2007

So, I bought a game today. What was it? Warhammer: Mark of Chaos. I loved the demo and saw it on sale at Target. Man, should I have passed it up - I remember why I don't buy PC games. I get it home to find out that it's a 6 CD-ROM set. ALL ON ONE SPOOL. Sure enough, disk 1 is scratched. I Windex it and buff it a bit and get it to install - but it fails Piracy Verification. What must I do as a result? Download an illegal crack to play my legally purchased game. So, I'm as legally culpable as if I had never purchased the game... yet I'm out what I paid for it. Great. And you guys wonder why nobody buys your games. Go figure.

Dell Doesn't Watch the Blogosphere
April 12, 2007

... or it's own blog for that matter.

There was a recent article over at Service Untitled about Dell watching the blogosphere. I was pretty impressed with the fact that a Dell Rep. actually responded to the article... and market-spoke around any questions asked. The latest thread over at direct2dell about their botched Vista Express Upgrade is up to 58 comments with no response. Seriously guys, why even open such a thing and not participate?

Their comments threads have repeatedly been dugg and reflect the lowest level of ire that the moderators let through. I know that Dell won't do anything, but I want this out there for the next time someone googles about Dell's business tact - or cites their blog as a great instance of customer service.

Dell Express Upgrade, Wow.
March 30, 2007

So, some of you may be aware of the recent "Dell Express Upgrade" campaign. It was designed to get consumers to purchase new Dell computers right before Vista was released, instead of waiting until after. Supposedly, once Vista was released Dell would ship the consumer a lovely little Vista Upgrade Kit. Well, here's the thing... We still don't have our upgrade kit and Vista been out for a long time.

Now, some of you may also be aware that I've talked about this before. We purchased a new machine here at work with the express desire to have at least one machine running Vista full-time (to learn its quirks and what-not) and we thought that the Express Upgrade kit was a perfect plan. Wow, were we wrong. We still don't have our kit.

Dell apparently watches the blogosphere, but really doesn't seem to care. Their campaign got dugg as a failed affair, but they still haven't gotten back on their feet to fix the problem and deliver the goods that were promised to consumers. Thanks guys.

Technical Knowledge of SCSU BCIS Professors
March 20, 2007

In my continuing SCSU rants series, I present to you a question that appeared on a recent quiz given by my BCIS professor...

2. Every time you download a file from a Web site or attach files to e-mail, you are using an ____ application.

a. TCP

b. NNTP

c. FTP

d. POP

Comment on the flaws, I want to see how long it takes you guys to pick them out.

Update: Wow. This is a quote from the book; "Every time you download a file from a Web site or attach files to e-mail, you are using an FTP application. The file transmitted can be of any type: text, graphics, animation, or sound. FTP is embedded in browsers and therefore is 'transparent to the users'.". Oh wow. Another choice quote; "Music lovers can use FTP to download music files.".

I Need a Break
March 19, 2007

This last month has been hell for me. Our primary collocation site screwed up some routing, and then even more problems started cropping up in our main servers when at our backup site.

The cake taker though, is my marketing exam that I had scheduled for this last Friday. I showed up for the exam a half hour early and tried to get the Continuing Studies staff to let me take it early - no dice. So, I wander around for a half hour and return. Upon stating what test I was there for, I'm greeted with "Oh, other students have been having issues with that one.". Great. I go ahead and try it and sure enough - our professor input the wrong dates.

Let's sweeten this... I've just spent the weekend setting up a new server (which works without issue! JOY!) and I decide to check my SCSU email and discover an email from the professor (who's been deleting all of the threads in the discussion forums)... she wants me to reschedule the exam for Monday. When was the email sent? Sunday at midnight. This is a test covering eight chapters and she wants me to reschedule without even a business day's notice because she fucked up. Hah.

SCSU, I Love You. Not a semester goes by without a royal screwup.

Semi-Related: I got an 80% on my MGMT test, phew!

Update: After a few volleys of email tennis it was determined that I will be able to take my test on Friday. Joy!

Dijital Majik, Seriously Guys.
March 02, 2007

This afternoon the PSU fan in one of our non-critical server fans began to fail - making the telltale whirring and buzzing of a fan whose on its last legs. We meandered down to good old MinCo and waited awhile for a salesman to get to us to ring us out, and I mean awhile. After a good 25 minutes of watching them waltz by we gave up and headed towards Best Buy. Here we were faced with a $50 no-name brand and thought, "What the hell... we're right next to Dijital Majik, let's give 'em another try". Man. I wish we hadn't.

We walked in to find at least five guys sitting behind the counter salivating for a sale. One walks out and asks if he can help us find anything. "An ATX power supply", I say. "What size?", says he. "Uh... ATX.". We walk over to where they have the power supplies and loe, there is one choice. 450Watts of COMPLETELY no-name brand power. I had never seen the brand in my life. I ask if they have anything less and he tries to hand me a PSU for a mini-ATX. I laugh, one of the guys behind the counter says "No, you don't want that one". I ask him if there's a smaller one... "Oh no, you see... power supplies are all a bit different. Just because it says its 450W doesn't mean it is, it is definitely less. This aint no Cooler Master or Antec.". "Well, I only need a 300W - it can't vary by 150W."... either way, they only had one brand so we went ahead and bought it.

Here's where the fun comes in. The rest was typical computer store salesman bullshit. I popped open the package and began installing the PSU only to notice one glaring problem. The warranty seal on the PSU was broken. Now, anybody whose anybody knows - YOU DON'T OPEN A POWER SUPPLY. So I have our Office Manager contact them about a return and the salesman tries to offer an explanation... "Oh, it was probably part of our Quality Assurance Testing.". ... ... ... WHOAH there. One need not /open/ a box that says "DON'T OPEN ME UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES" to make sure that it works and then try to sell it to a customer. No. You apply power and test leads for voltage. FOLLOWED BY NOT SELLING THAT ONE AS NEW.

Keep in mind, these are the same guys who a little over a year ago told me "Oh no, they stopped making wired NICs a long time ago. It's all wireless now.". What's sad is that when they first opened they had very knowledgeable and savvy employees - it's just all gone way downhill.

Direct2Dell Censorship
March 01, 2007

So, I've been spending a lot of time trying to comment over at Dell's Blog and have been having a heckuva time. You see, I'm not too happy about Dell's recent "Vista Express Upgrade" bamboozle and I wanted to "voice my opinion". None of my recent comments have gone through at all. Dell recently made mention that they've started shipping packages. "About time!", says I, as I type into the comment box hoping to get first post. Nope, no sign of my comment anywhere.

Marketing Pro-Tip: Our generation is not as easily fooled as those of yesteryear. If you want your corporate image improved, you can't do it through trickery and pretending that you're letting customers have their voices heard.

Update - It seems that Slashdot picked up on this from Dell's IdeaStorm project. Go Dell!

Charter Problems
February 23, 2007

You can blame today's downtime on Charter. I think that their goal is to provide a day's worth of downtime once a month - where at least twenty subscribers must call Malaysia in order to reset their modems fifty times and get a tech sent out.

Dell Dropped Ball With Vista Upgrade
February 12, 2007

So, just for the record - Dell's Vista Express Upgrade Deal flopped. We purchased a new machine here at $WeMakeLegalResearchSoftware in order to have a) a nice dev machine and b) a machine that would run Vista. We purchased it right around the time of RTM, so we figured that the express upgrade wouldn't be far off. Man, were we wrong. It's Feb. 12th and the public has had access to Vista since the 1st. Our order hasn't even been processed beyond "pending" status and all of the contact numbers (including other languages) have been disconnected. Way to go Dell! Dude, you're getting Vista ... someday.

What's Wrong With Windows Vista
January 16, 2007

So, Microsoft's official release of Windows Vista is just a few short days away. I've been testing the RTM version for software compatibility (you know, being a Windows Developer and all that) and have ran into a number of things that are just plain utterly annoying with Windows Vista. Yes, it is pretty. Yes, Windows Explorer works wonderfully and allows you to customize its default sidebar (easily). Yes, the font rendering is on-par with or better than OSX (finally). But...

Microsoft has been touting Vista as a gaming powerhouse and I really don't know why.

• Game performance will sharply decline upon installation of Vista. It is a huge resource hog, much like any MS operating system. If 1Gb satiated your games in XP, then you're going to need 2Gb in Vista. Vista will easily eat up well over 512Mb of your RAM with all of its junk - even after you've turned off the non-essential items (Windows Defender anyone?).
• CPU usage increases dramatically and task switching will become a pain.
• Can we talk about how many /fewer/ games you'll be able to install? While I complained about XP's 1Gb footprint, Vista is an amazing improvement in space gobbling. A fresh installation will weigh in at over SEVEN GIGABYTES. Most of that appears to be .NET assemblies.
• User Access Controls anyone? It's not directly relevant to gaming's interests, but it is one of the most annoying aspects of Vista. When these little dialogs come popping up, your machine hicccups and the display abruptly darkens to highlight this "Would you like to continue?" which is promptly followed by a "Hey, you said you'd like to continue just now - but would you like to continue?" message. Brilliant. Double confirmation will really make me pay attention. Especially when the littlest actions pick these guys up - like running the performance monitor or running WinRar.

What the Hell Tiger?
November 24, 2006

So, I'm doing a little Black Friday ad browsing and I surf on over to Tiger Direct's website hoping to find some stuff that isn't sold out. Now, Tiger Direct has historically bad pricing and hardware quality... but this takes the cake for crazy marketing.

AMD Athlon 64 FX Dual Core w/ Fan & FREE Far Cry Game [source]

Now, Far Cry is game that's somewhere around five years old. It doesn't even run correctly on modern nVidia cards - but here it's being touted as an amazing dealbreaker to get for free! Considering that the price of the product is around $600... I don't believe that something so small as a five year old game could even be fathomed to break the deal.

Hah, Tiger Direct - you make me laugh.

Windows Vista Home Premium Doesn't Include Aero
November 21, 2006

As a member of the Microsoft Developer's Network - I'm privy to new releases of Vista before everyone else. I just installed it on a nice little Dell box that I've got sitting around here at the office to test our software and reached a dismaying conclusion... Windows Vista Home Premium won't support Aero. Yes, that's right. Unless you buy the Business version you won't be seeing anything better than Windows XP with some Theme Packs. Seriously... why buy Windows Vista?

Update: It's because I'm not running an nVida based machine. There aren't any decent drivers released for any IBM chipsets yet. If you've got a Dell with onboard video (read; whatever you've got in your office) don't upgrade. You'll gain nothing. I think that it's a shame that Microsoft doesn't even tell you that it won't support Aero on your machine when you run their upgrade advisor in this situation (or even after, leading me to believe that Home Basic Premium 2006 XP++ Corporate Edition Deep Fried Collaboration Synergizing Version Product doesn't support it).

Update: I've got it running on my nVidia based box quite smoothly. MMUUUUUCH nicer than RC2. Almost unimaginably nicer. Quite good. Bravo!

Even More Fun With Charter
November 16, 2006

It is now my goal to document every extensive downtime that Charter has wrought upon my poor little soul. Yesterday around 03:00, my box at home got knocked off the net. "Oh noes!", says I, "What have I done to bring this upon myself?". When I get home around 05:00 - I find that indeed, there are no internets coming from my tubes! I've got Charter in my phone contact list now (Yes, it's that bad) - and dialed them right up.

After sitting through a hold queue, I get dumped to an automated "help system" that tells me to power-cycle and all that good stuff ("What is the nature of your problem?", "No cable signal.", "I'm sorry? What? If you're having internet problems, please say; 'Internet Problems'"). I waited on hold for a robot, cool. I mash the zero key repeatedly and it transfers me to a real hold queue. I wait awhile and then get Audrey from Rochester. It takes thirty minutes to run through her script before she finally runs the damned modem diagnosis and - HOLY SHIT, my modem aint on their network. You'd think that it cost them 50$ each time.

After that, she tells me the next available appointment is a week from that day. "Thank you for choosing Charter." - I wish I had a choice.

I hang up with her and call back completely dis-satisfied and perfectly happy to schedule another visit just to annoy them. It's their techs who did something wrong anyways, it always is. I think that they hire out of the High School Football Team(tm). I go through the scripts, play all the right lines... then my cable LED blinks on. What? Here it comes again! This time, it stays on. I'm on the phone with the Op and tell her to cancel my prior request.

I hang up, go downstairs to the equipment room... sure enough there's two bumbling Charter techs. They had techs on site, and were perfectly willing to schedule an appointment for a week from today. Cool. Thanks St. Cloud City Counsel; Monopolies rock!

More Fun With Charter
October 30, 2006

Well, I had to go and ruin it for myself - didn't I? I was mentioning the other day how much we were loving Citescape at work... and it seems to have come back to bite me. Since I'm in a kind of out of the way spot and in an apartment - we can't get Citescape service.

Somewhere around noon yesterday I began getting high packet losses on my Charter account. Then somewhere around 06:00P (when I was sitting down to do my management homework) it hit. 67% packet loss, and no viable routes. So, I sat down and called Charter. I had forgotten the idiocy that is rampant there. I call in, just to report that they're having network issues and I'm stuck on the phone for half a freaking hour. "Well, is the cable plugged in? Did you reset the modem? Oh, you can't have the modem plugged into a router for this - I need you to plug it into a computer. What's the MAC address?" all myriad of things that were completely unnecessary.

Here's how it should have played out. "(introductory niceties) May I have your account number? (have software check network weather in area denoted by account (you are keeping an eye on this - right?)) Oh my, there is high packet loss on that whole network segment.". Done. Simple, eh?

Silly monopolies.

St. Cloud Delivery Not So Delivery
October 29, 2006

I've noticed a rather disturbing trend amongst the food delivery services here in St. Cloud. They're no longer delivering our food to us. Wait, what did he just say? Let me clarify.

Emily and I live in an apartment complex. You know, lots of little units inside one great big unit. Well, we'll order our food and then 45min. - 60min. later we hear the buzzer. We get up, say "Hello. Come right up." and push the buzzer unlock button. Here's where we get angry. Three minutes later we hear the buzzer again. "Yes?" says we. "You come down" says the delivery person. Wait, what?

So they've already lost their tip there... but I'm utterly confused as to why it keeps happening. So far we've ordered from three places at our current residence. Pizza Hut, Chopstick's Inn and Toppers Pizza. Out of the three both Chopstick's Inn and Toppers Pizza have requested that we come down to get our food from them. I just plain don't understand it.

You're ordering delivery food because you're lazy (or possibly sick, but mostly it's lazy). That is the express purpose of delivery - for people who don't wish to get off their ass, go outside and get food. Yet, these places are still forcing me to get off my ass, got outside and get food. Bafflement.

Does anyone have an explanation for this?

Battlefield 2142 and Cursing
October 26, 2006

So, I picked up the BattleField 2142 demo awhile back - and have been playing it pretty much non-stop when I get free time. For all the complaining that everyone's done, it's still a damned good game that I would happily purchase if I had the money.

The topic of this rant though, is obscenity filtering. I was playing BF:2142 last night for awhile and had gotten joined up with a pretty good and coordinated team, when I said "damn" on death-chat. I was instantly kicked by the server. What?

So I continued on a different server and played for a bit before stopping to complain about getting kicked from the last server, again saying "damn". I was kicked from there too. How could this be? Two servers in a row? I tried a third server last night, and thankfully I was able to curse all I wanted.

Here's where I'm confused. You see, BF:2142 is not a game about cute unicorns and dressing up dolls. It's a game about a world where Earth's inhabitable sections have dwindled to next to nothing and the remaining survivors (who seem to only be soldiers) are waging an all out war on the opposing faction - instead of researching ways to help themselves. It's a game whose chief challenge is that of killing the opposing players.

But I can't say "damn"?

On Power Outages...
October 09, 2006

So, I was going to setup a brand new server here at the office over the weekend. I showed up bright and early on Saturday morning to get files started transferring from the old server and watched with glee as Rsync started to quickly sync all the files. So far so good. Somewhere around noon I decide to go grab a bite to eat with some friends and get back somewhere around 13:00.

Upon arrival I notice that half of the building is dark. Oh yes, we don't get normal power outages - we get strange ones like that. Better; we're two suites meaning that we have to separate meters. Half of our office worked, and half didn't. Sure enough it was the half with the networking equipment on it that didn't work. Oi.

I can make it /even/ better. I went ahead and spent the rest of the day re-arranging and fixing the wiring and such in my office (the server room) and finally called it a day somewhere around 17:00. I came back on Sunday to find... that it was still dark. I called Xcel and they registered no outage... argh. I called them around 11:00 and nobody showed up until I was leaving around 17:25.

Looks like the server will have to get migrated next weekend.

Another Thing American Media Won't Touch
October 08, 2006

So... I finished watching .Hack: Twilight last night; and I'm officially obsessed. See, I talked awhile back about my love of Anime and certain trends that they have that aren't addressed by American media. Another trend that they address (that American media doesn't) is computing. Whether it's video games (.hack) or simple programming / hacking (Battle Programmer Shirasi)* - Anime covers it beautifully. The Japanese are not afraid to touch technology in a relevant and accurate manner. I love watching a show involving a programmer / hacker contracted by various entities to save them from evil hackers from America without flying numbers, pretty graphics and gross simplifications ala Hackers. American media is just... not interesting.

It's the same damned thing over and over and over and over again. Bah. Done ranting.

* Baddleduh Programma Shirasi

Microsoft Activation Servers Down
September 11, 2006

So, I'm building a new machine at work today and I'm throwing on a brand-spanking new copy of Microsoft Windows XP. I get the machine up and running and start to go through Windows Update only to find out that I have to be "activated" in order to actually get any updates. Now here's the impasse. I go to activate, and their activation servers are down. I've always hated the concept of having to activate a $200 piece of software, and this only cements it in my mind. You know what the best part is? If I had pirated this software, I wouldn't have to deal with this BS.

Yahoo! News at Forefront of Ajax Hacking Explosion!
August 04, 2006

But hackers and cybercrooks have discovered that Ajax can be tweaked in myriad ways. By corrupting one of the dozens of data exchanges Ajax handles while loading a Web page, a hacker can take over control of the PC.

[ Yahoo! News / USAToday ]

This is a quote from a recent article that Yahoo! News / USAToday did to exposit the evils of Ajax and how it can be leveraged by hackers to do dastardly deeds! As a programmer who does lots of work with Ajax, I'm a bit baffled. You see, when computers are involved - it doesn't matter if there's one transaction or 20 thousand. If there's an exploit, it can be performed in the one transaction (Denial of Service attacks are their own special entity ignore here).

Ajax doesn't really open the door to anything new, like Yahoo! suggests. The MySpace "attack" could have been perpetrated with an invisible iframe just as well. Sure, it would have been dirtier code - but it also could have been used to perpetrate a cross-site scripting attack. Ajax is confined to the site that launched it, iframe based attacks are not.

If anyone knows something that I don't, I'd love to hear it.

More WGA Fun
July 21, 2006

So, Microsoft really is getting annoying with their new WGA program. Even Paul Thurrott is a pirate in Microsoft's eyes now. I just can't wait for them to couple WGA to automatic de-activation of PCs. I really do love conversing with India to make my PC boot after I've purchased a legitimate $150 O/S. It's just... it makes me all warm and fuzzy to know that my hard earned money was so well placed, when I could have simply downloaded it and had none of these issues.

Disabling Windows Update
July 20, 2006

So one of our backup servers rebooted in the middle of a sync recently in order to enact Microsoft's latest Genuine Advantage joy. I've now disabled Automatic Updates on all of my machines. Seriously, if it's not a "critical update" there's absolutely no reason to reboot my machines. Furthermore, there's absolutely no reason to EVER automatically reboot a machine running an 800$ OS labeled as "server".

WGA, Rebooting, and FireFox 2.0
July 17, 2006

So Windows Update rebooted my work computer last night. Apparently the WGA update that was released was so amazingly important that all of my long running processing tasks and file transfers should be killed so that my machine may reboot.

On the plus side, I discovered a new feature of the latest FireFox beta. If FireFox unexpectedly quits, it maintains a memory of the last layout, tab position, and loaded sites that you had and offers to restore. Quite nice, and will break me of the habit of bookmarking every interesting site that I only want to read once, but am afraid that my browser will crash on.

Microsoft Genuine Advantage
July 12, 2006

Windows has been bitching at me all week about a critical update that it has for me. One which will require me to reboot my machine. Know what it is? Microsoft Genuine Advantage. I don't really term it a "critical update". It's not critical to me to know that the copy of Windows I bought from Best Buy is legitimate. Frankly, I don't care one bit. Certainly not enough to restart my fricking computer.

CNet, Less Current than Slashdot
July 11, 2006

I know, CNet is not a source of news. They did however have a few articles of interest there so I began browsing some of them. After awhile I noticed this... Video: George Lucas' masterpiece in ASCII art. I found it very interesting that this was reported as "news" and used such phrases such as "now you can watch Stars Wars..." since this particular server has been around for almost five years now. That's a heckuva long time in internet land. I remember watching this thing over Dial-Up when MinneFrag would meet for our monthly LAN parties... aah, those were the days.

On Personal Blogs
June 28, 2006

So, I've read a lot of the writings of "professional bloggers" who seem to think that "personal blogs" have no place on the internet, and they seem quite perplexed by people's propensity to visit places like mine. Personally, I'm perplexed as to why one would be perplexed. Sure, "professional bloggers" can provide some interesting reading material and a well-themed content - but they typically don't provide the wide range of content, interesting stories, and new subject matters that a more personal blog can.

Personally, I think that the personal touch of individual publishing is what gives blogs their general credibility and trustworthiness that I've come to expect. You see, if a product is recommended on a blog I'm more likely to buy it. If it's recommended in a corporate review on a giant corporate site - I'm not. If I can point at Joe and say "This product you said was good is bad", I'm more likely to buy it.

If I can read about Joe's trials while going through Process A, I can determine wether or not I'm also going to attempt Process A. If it's a personal blog, I can follow Joe through Process A - but also watch his trials with Process B, which may be totally unrelated to Process A - but still valuable!

I mean, just last night I was browsing around a personal blog of a commentator, and I found from there a great new place to order wargaming miniatures*. This is something I never would have found elsewhere, and I even came to realize that more than just Andy and I still play tabletop wargames!

So, everyone maintaining more "personal blogs" like this one - don't stop doing it! Your (seemingly) irrelevant material is appreciated by at least one reader!

* The place to order from is http://www.theworldofhobbies.com, but I lost the blog from whence the link came. Yes, wargaming qualifies you for status of Alpha Geek - the club to which I am a member.

Charter Rate Increases && Neighbor Hate
April 30, 2006

When you acquire new infrastructure and thus new capital, it should be an investment which as a whole reduces your costs. Charter seems to have no economists on its staff, and has increased rates since eating Astound. Each and every service that we get through Charter* has now increased by $3-5. My total bill was around $15 more than last month, with no change in ordered services.

I wish Emily and I weren't having to move so soon, so we could order up with Jesse over at CitEscape. The setup fee's a bit steep for the small amount of time that we'd have the service at this location.

In other apartment news, we called the managers over on the kids next door for the first time last night. The kid** next door actually has a bass guitar. In an apartment. This apartment has so little insulation that if someone were to break through the drywall pounding at the neighbors, they would be able to see the neighbors' drywall through the insulation.

(* Phone, Internet, and Cable)

(** one of five kids living in an ap't that Emily and I feel cramped in)

Why Don't Americans Know English Anymore?
April 21, 2006

I frequently find myself wondering why Americans just can't be bothered to speak correct English anymore. Now, I know that I'm not quite the best writer in the world - nor do I have the best grammar in the world; but I'm not payed to have these qualities!

I now cite for your viewing pleasure two examples of poor English from two large corporations:

Target

"Pharmacy closed Easter"

Oh no! The Target Pharmacy has caused Jesus to not resurrected and are officially causing the ceasation of Easter? NOOO!

Verisign

"After you renew your SSL Certificate, be sure TO DISPLAY THE VERISIGN SECURED SEAL to assure Web site visitor that your organization..."

I mean, Ok. So you have your marketting staff outsourced to India (or somewhere where the language experiences similar pluralization issues)... but your copy editors and proofers are there too? Go Verisign!

Why I'll Never Switch to Apple
April 14, 2006

So, there's lots of buzz lately about Bootcamp and all that. Something about Apple toying with the XP userbase. Well, here's why I'll never use Apple products (at home at least); I don't run any prebuilt machines. The only way to use an Apple product, is to use something that a Taiwanese child put together as quickly as possible with the cheapest components available while trying to avoid getting whipped by the headmaster. Meanwhile, my machines are put together with loving care. Each piece is carefully selected for compatibility, performance, and price. Everything is assembled with great experience, and thought. Each wire is maticulously ran to avoid even the slightest corruption of airflow, or *gasp* the chance meeting with a fan blade. My creations, are mine.

When you purchase an Apple Computer - you purchase a modern coffee maker, that is put together with the cheapest components available in the smallest amount of time possible. Then, you put on top of that the proprietary hardware inside - and you've just spelled doom for that computer 1 year from now. I'm not sure about the new Intel boxes that Apple's putting out, but I'm assuming that they will only accept "Apple certified" hardware - which means that you won't be able to just buy a new video card off of newegg to shove in there when the time comes. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong)

Now, most computer users don't care about the hardware they're using - and right they shouldn't. Most people I know, would attempt to open the case and wash it with 409 every once in awhile. Imagine the hilarity that would ensue if a computer required periodic checking of fluids! For me, a prebuilt unservicable cheap computer will never wash - no matter how nice the operating system.

And oh, how nice it is. I really do love OSX. Apple's old OS' were cramped, crippled, and hard to work with - but OSX is a dream. Install iTerm+Textmate, and you have a developers dream machine. So, here I am. Waiting for Apple to release a version of it's OS that will run legally on an ordinary x86 processor, with my 100$ in hand. Apple, won't you please let me buy your product?

Windows Update Messages
April 08, 2006

From Windows Update

To use this latest version of Windows Update, you will need to upgrade some of its components. This version provides you with the following enhancements to our service:

• Express and custom installation: Choose only the most recent critical updates or pick and choose from all available updates.
• Smarter downloads: If downloading is interrupted, the process will start up where it left off the next time you download that update.
• Smaller downloads: Only the files your computer needs are downloaded, saving download time and connection-speed costs.
• One version: Only the most recent updates are offered to you.
• Less clutter: You can now hide updates you don't want to see.
• Update news: A News from Microsoft section on the Windows Update home page displays tips and the latest information.

The Rant

I see this update message constantly on a myriad of machines - and I'm quite certain that I've seen it just about every time I've gone to run Windows Update. What is actually installed with this particular update? Windows Genuine Advantage. It does none of the above, and simply verifies that MS doesn't think your copy of Windows is pirated. I just have to sit and wonder, what idiot editor at Microsoft thought that this message was applicable. Sure, tell us about anti-piracy measures or make the sheeple think that it helps them somehow; but why pretend like it actually makes the afore-mentioned improvements to Windows Update? Why?

Yet another reason why the web staff at Microsoft should be fired.

More Anti-Charter
April 08, 2006

For the records of the internet; yesterday one of Charter's main internet routers died - and it took them an hour to get a replacement working. Their internal net worked fine, it was only when you tried to start exiting their network and joining up the interweb that it failed. This, even on our 180$ business line. It's always nice to have irate users because of an incompetent ISP. Hopefully Jesse gets back to me with some pricing!

Charter, Please Die Now
March 24, 2006

Ok Charter. You officially bite. Hard. Like with blood and stuff.

Not only are they now filtering incoming port 80 (HERE YE HERE YE, YE SHALL NOT USE THE ENTIRE INTERNETS FOR WHAT YOU WISH); but they're also doing it for business class accounts. This is baffling to me. They've already reemed you for all that they can (I don't buy this 'it uses too much bandwidth' bullshit), why should they keep you from hosting a piddly little web site? News for ya, dipshits; if I want to transfer large non-interactive files - it won't be over HTTP.

The best part is that I had forgotten how idiotic their techs were. I humored one as she ran her tests on our host, despite the fact that I told her it was filtered. "It shows that we filter Aych Tee Em Ell servers". Hah, an HTML server... so that's what the kids are calling it now-a-days.

Oh, also, 90$/month for 1.5Mb Internet + Local Basic Phone + Dirt Basic cable, if anyone is curious as to their "real" pricing.

Amazon, Get a Web Designer!
February 02, 2006

So, Amazon had the GameCube extension cables that I've been looking for. I sifted through their site, and then also decided that I'd like to pickup a game from them (their main site is wonderful at enticing me; the adaptive product recommendations actually work!). Anyway, I add it to my cart; make all the modifications - and then move on to checkout.

Amazon fails to tell me what price I'm going to pay for shipping, before asking me for my credit card. I won't go any further, so bully for them and losing a sale. What's worse, items bought from them are frequently not from them - and they charge seperate shipping for each retailer! Interesting... I'd never actually ordered anything from amazon.com before. Amazon, get a designer worth their salt!

Why Do They Touch My Monitor?
January 30, 2006

I've now developed a conditioned fear of other people getting near my monitor and developing an interest in anything that they contain. You see, around 65% of the people I've encountered will thoughtlessly leave their grease marks on my screen - and then happily wander away as though nothing happened. "Oh, this right here..." has become my Pavlovian bell towards heightened heartbeat and a shifty look towards my Windex (which I now keep right next to my monitor).

Another Reason I Hate Visual Studio
January 22, 2006

Probably my biggest number one complaint against Microsoft, and the biggest virtue of Open Source - is Microsoft's lack of documentation and help. Sure, you can hit F1 - but it tells you things like: "Is it plugged in?", "Do you have power at your place of residence?", and "Is the sun in the fourth position in comparison to the interplanetary sociodynamic theory of Harry Seldon?". Not, "Did you reboot this piece of shit?" - which is the single most helpful solution to Microsoft Windows problems.

Back to the topic. I love Open Source languages, libraries, and toolkits because the accompanying documentation is fantastic. Take Ruby for instance. I can hop over to Ruby's Homepage, and grab a free copy of a popular reference book on the subject, and I can browse through all of the methods and what-have-you of the built in libraries. I can even do a little digging, and find Ruby-Doc.org - which houses even more documentation. I can search the internet, browse through forums, grep through USENET, and find lots of useful information on practically any problem I may be having. There's even IRC!

Now, I challenge you to find anything on any of the languages shipped with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005. "But there's MSDN!" - I hear you say. I have seen this little site develop from a pretty little seedling, into a snarl of disgusting branches whose information has to be scrounged for and sought out by hour after hour of grueling searching through their useless search engine - which can't even do its own job correctly. When you finally find a piece of code that might look like it might do something relevant, you find out that the code is either (a) invalid (that is, it doesn't even work) or (b) from a different version. Useless!

Now, Microsoft can't be blamed for the fact that there are no other popular (and thus, ones that turn up in search queries) sites about Microsoft languages - but they have an entire country-worth of writers and developers who could release little tidbits of knowledge to their sites. Instead they bring us things like; "Creating a Windows Mobile Line of Business (LOB) Application". Um... ok. Thanks?

Don't even get me started on the lack of good books on the subject. A search on Amazon yeilds little if nothing for Microsoftian development. Sure, you can find scads of cruft through Microsoft - but their print writers should be taken out back and shot. Our shelves are full of those books, whose spines haven't the slightest hint of usage on them.

So, Microsoftians; Don't tell me how "Linux is hard to develop for". I find Microsoft Windows (and its dev environment Visual Studio 2005) to be the most detestable system of development softwares and documentation ever conceived. That's without considering the cost of the software.

Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, The World Eater
January 17, 2006

Microsoft, what is wrong with your programmers? I'm typing this on a 3.0Ghz machine while a completely empty Visual Studio 2005 project is loaded, and it's still not done. Why can't your coders get their act together, and code something that's efficient - instead of bloated?

I loath using your IDE, despite the sexiness of autocompletion (What do your marketeers call it... intellisense?). It is giant, lumbering, clumsy, and slow. I want something agile and quick - I don't want to waste my precious time twiddling my thumbs (or in this case typing a blog post) while your IDE computes pi the the 256th decimal place and searches for life on Mars.

Microsoft, why can't you get good programmers? Despite popular belief, an infinite number of monkeys given and infinite amount of time will not create Shakespeare. *sigh* Visual Studio has finally loaded.

Visual Studio 2005, Mixed Bag
December 06, 2005

So, I'm having to do some GUI development here at work - naturally I've turned to the latest Visual Studio product for some new skill honing. I have to say, the IDE is nice. IntelliSense (or code completion as the rest of us call it) is fucking great. I had forgotten how nice it was to have automatically completed lists of functions and properties.

Anyway, the thing that prompted this is that Microsoft's languages suck. I mean, first off - their documentation is terrible. You can't find any information about anything on their web-sites. Heck, they have placeholder pages in their most basic help documentation! To put it in perspective, I wrote a basename function today. What modern language doesn't include, somewhere in it's libs, a basename function? Also, VB's new split function is amazingly worthless. It doesn't split a string on a string, it splits on an array of strings. I mean, how many times do you split on an array of strings - compared to the number of times that you split on a single string? Somewhere in the ballpark of 1 to about infinity here. Anyway, I had to write this pooptastic code to get a basename out:

  Public Function basename(fullpath) As String    


    Dim temp_array() as String    


    temp_array = fullpath.Split(new [char]() { "/" } )


    return temp_array(temp_array.Length-1)


  End Function

What Is Wrong With Microsoft? (A rant on searching)
December 03, 2005

Every basic CS student can write a string search utility, it's not hard. Microsoft however, seems unable to properly code a search utility into their own damned file manager in their 200$ operating system.

I was trying to find a specific VB file (Yes, VB.) that contained a reference to a particular piece of code (quickly, without digging up a machine w/ the requisite VB on it). "I'll just search for all files containing the text of the function name!", says I. "No you won't!", says Windows. Well, actually Windows didn't say that. If it had, I'd be a whole lot less pissed off. I watched it run a few times returning no results, and was baffled. I thought, "I have the function name correct; what gives?". Sure enough, I ran over to a UNIX box and did a grep for the function name and it returned just fine. So, I opened the file on the Windows box, looked through it, and sure enough - there was the string. How can a company with so much money, employ such idiots that can't get a simple string search function to work in a 200$ software package?

Furthermore, this is the company that wants to compete with Google! They can't even get straight string searching right, how can I expect them to filter information based on relevancy to a fuzzy search request? Oh, that's right - they have a shiny butterfly and the bedazzled eyes of millions.

Blizzard More Nefarious Than Ever
November 17, 2005

So, ever since a nameless open source project to play Warcraft II (WHICH, btw I still can't fucking play over a modern network because of you assholes) was shutdown by Blizzard - I've had a low opinion of their morals and ethics. I've found yet another reason that I don't like them, and am cancelling my WoW account when it comes up for renewal.

I went to play today and noticed a new patch. The new Blizzard Launcher program! Exciting! Does it let me just click the icon and *BAM*, I'm in with my last played player? No. Um... it checks for "trojans and cheats". No. Really. Automatic Trojan/cheat program scan - Blizzard.com. Blizzard claims that this "added" protection will serve us well. Not that I cheat, or condone cheating, but damn Blizzard - come out and tell us that you're just scanning for cheats. Don't masquerade as providing us an "added service".

On top of that, the only things mentioned for the installing patch was the launcher and "Fixed a crash in the German client.". However, it's currently patching 22599 files. Interesting. Blizzard, I don't trust you.

FilePlanet, Why Do You Suck?
October 15, 2005

So, all the big game companies grant FilePlanet the priviledge of distributing their demos and betas first. I was excited to see the City of Villains stress test popping up, but my penis suddenly shrunk when I saw that I had to involve Fileplanet. I went to them, got my beta key and then "stood" on line for 15 minutes. All of this, btw, I had to do through Internet Explorer. Anyway, I waited on line - and loe! My time in the queue had arrived and I started to download the file. It was somewhere around 2Gigabytes (2G transfered via IE, HAH!), and proceeded to finish before I could snap my fingers. The little fuckers couldn't even _start_ sending me the file correctly.

Anyway. I'm on a torrent network downloading a legal beta on the down low, because companies run to a shitty place like Fileplanet for distribution. Why don't companies just use BitTorrent themselves?