Monthly Archives: December 2007

ZDNet miss a point.

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Users who install Windows XP Service Pack 3 will not be required to enter Microsoft’s product activation key before they use the operating system, according to a Microsoft white paper. ZDNet

For some reason ZDNet seem to think this a good thing. It’s not, and the last sentence in the article says why:

Most Microsoft software asks for the product key before installation. If the key is not valid, the user is unable to install the software.

So what Microsoft are actually doing is not saying “You can’t have the new code”, they are really saying “We want you to upgrade to Vista because we can now lock you out”. They are enforcing the upgrade path. How many genuine users will get locked out and then get told “Hey, thought of Vista?”. You can bet that the SP3 does not warn of this at the time of installation.

Facebook scam syndicate

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I rarely check Facebook but now I have a reason. I want to see how many stupid people look at the above and decide to give this guy their money. Someone somewhere will figure this will increase their chances of winning. That same someone somewhere has jutting eyebrows and scabby knuckles. If I thought Facebook would do a damn thing I’d report it as what it is – a scam – but seeing as all the spam I have reported has never been removed I’ll spare myself the typing. The group owner doesn’t even have a full profile.

And if you want to join the “fun”, here’s the link.

TOTP2 on Dave

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When we agreed with P that we would get Sky I was looking forward to the 24/7 news. As it turns out CNN is still a pile of junk but between Sky News (all that red gets old fast) and News 24 (noticed how many of their female presenters are blonde? Not that there is anything wrong with blonde) it’s not too bad. But Dave is perfect. It’s like so much of my favourite stuff distilled into one smooth package – I don’t even mind the ads. Right now it’s 8:05 am on a Sunday, I’m working and TOTP2 is on in the background – ideal for what I’m doing (mind you, all the miming is a bit weird). And Top Gear? My girls sat and watched a couple of programs – they love it. (hasn’t the accident aged Hammond! I suppose it would though). Anyway, on the cheapest Sky package Dave is by far the best channel for me.

The game being played.

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The last fps I played was Doom. Before that it was Wolfenstein. I have a memory of playing Half Life on something somewhere but not pursuing it for some reason. I mentioned this compilation to the girls before Christmas and the mention worked just perfectly.
So far it’s excellent. I’m a fair way into Half Life 2 and I started Portal – the real reason for wanting the whole thing. I’ll be starting Portal again just to heard the wacky female voice – sounded vaguely like the female robot in Bicentennial Man. Puzzle games I love and this seems to have that edge according to the many blog posts about it. In the main game (maybe it’s not in the first game?) I have yet to hit the apparent slowing down mentioned in many reviews, but the amount of loading and the loading times are bad. Early on I was being pursued, I had no ammo, my health was dropping as the bullets hit – and then the whole thing stopped to reload. That’s one great way to ruin the atmosphere that the game is generating. Had some wacky behaviour too – shooting some barrels some distance away and behind a fence and when they explode I died, plus controlling a machine gun and the controls reversed. Very odd. Appears to need more than 1 headshot to down a bad guy – Bond only needed one in Goldeneye (remember the Dam? the guards patrolling the tunnels and towers?) Still, 4 games at a tenner each. Not bad.

Instant buddies on badoo

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At 12:40am the activation email for Badoo arrived. As I type it’s 12:52am and I already have 4 contacts. I only joined to see what it was like and now I have buddies – buddies who have some sort of bot going on to snag new users. I hate that. It’s not quite as bad as that freaky Tom at Myspace (who is in his 30′s but to be hip and cool says he’s is still in his twenties) but you’d have thought site owners would get a grip on this. It makes the service look bad, that it’s all about numbers of people, quantity not quality. I mean, it’s not like there is real information to trade – it’s just another way to get irritating emails (facebook keeps telling me I have messages on my superwall. I never put one of those in).

Deeelighted

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“If it’s a mac I’ll take back all my excitedness”

Our girls are not ones to stay in their rooms. They prefer to be downstairs with us. This a good thing but since I moved to work upstairs it has meant there was the one computer downstairs. So P wants to use that as it is hers now. But her sister wants to use it too. D misses the laptop she did use and she won’t use the mac laptop. (Both my girls are articulate but neither can explain just what it is they do not like about them. It’s not my opinion affecting them – they are very capable of expressing their own ideas. Either way, they won’t use the mac.) So, 2 girls, 1 computer.
I’d been reading about the eeepc since it came out. It looked to be the business. Reading further it really did look like not just a solution but a good solution. The OS didn’t matter. What did was what it did. The girls use Neopets, myspace, IM, facebook, like little games. So that’s Firefox, MSN and a couple of other bits probably. The eeepc had these and more. So I bought 2.

The quote above was from D as she saw it was a computer but didn’t yet know what. Both girls love them. You know what tickled D the most on that first day? The fact it had the periodic table. Small thing but she never got that excited about something in Windows. So far P has just used the default apps – browser, IM – as I knew she would. D has started exploring. She’s not a fan of Pidgin and we couldn’t get amsn installed despite following the steps in the eeeuser forums but she’ll probably try and work through it. I think she’s got how to get the terminal up to get synaptic running, we’ve updated some apps.

We got the 4G machines. Each has the webcam. The OS takes around 2.6gb but the amount left is more than adequate for some music and whatever bits of work they may (or may not) do. They are really small though – Toni has some pictures and more thoughts. The keys are really small, and both girls were hitting the Enter / Shift on the right. There was a problem yesterday on waking with D’s and the touchpad but adjusting the (previously good) sensitivity worked. I’m probably going to buy them an SD card for storage if they need it. I’m a little wary of a USB drive sticking out of the side. For £200 it’s a good machine for what it is meant to be. They know it can have XP on it. They also know it will not be going on it. Do they mind? No. Why? Because it does what they want already and more.

So the girls can watch TV / eat food / talk to each other / in fact do just about anything and IM / use tux paint / play penguin racer / browse at the same time. They are really pleased. ‘really’ is an huge understatement. And now I need one :)

Guaranteed a question

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I need an answer and I think it could be in a geocaching forum. As a guest I am not allowed to search the forum. So I register. And now I find that not only can I not post for 24 hours I still cannot search. Great. So, here’s the thing – if in 24 hours I haven’t found the answer then the absolute last damn thing I’m going to do is search this new forum. I’m just going to ask. If I have searched for a day I really don’t want to continue. I don’t care if whoever reads it knows that the answer is on the front page, or that I need to go elsewhere or that “insert anything at all”. Fact is that this forum has gone out of it’s way to be unhelpful and allowing a search if registered would have helped not hindered. It’s information, it’s free and it should be allowed to be seen. And if it’s the forum software that keels over because of any sort of search (that’s Invision then) then they should get something that works. Groundspeak.

Must get better

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Apparently I’m 12863rd on the scoreboard for the first planet in Stardust on the PS3. My Wipeout Pulse times are as yet nothing to boast about and until I get hold of a Pikes Peak I’ll not stand a chance in Colin McRae DiRT. I’ve not looked at Tiger Woods 08 yet but as I’m several dozen over I’m more in danger of last place. Gone are the days where I could think I’d done the perfect lap, that I could maybe, just maybe, edge another tenth off my time. Now I can just login and stare with a “How in hell did they do that?” expression. Which is okay as it becomes a goal and goals are good but setting a goal that is persistently out of reach becomes a frustration. But then even on Ridge Racer there is always a corner to be done tighter (see Top Gear last night with the apple? very funny), a better moment to hit the nitro, a better plugin to use.

Murderous Brazil

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Brazil’s government has expressed its “unhappiness” that no senior police officers involved in Jean Charles de Menezes’s shooting will be disciplined. … the government would continue to support Mr de Menezes’s family, and to offer them every conceivable assistance. BBC

… so the Brazilians are unhappy. Big deal……

Brazil’s Police officers are frequently accused of murdering destitute minors http://pangaea.org/street_children

While the Committee notes that the right to life, survival and development is integrated into domestic legislation, it remains extremely concerned at the number of children murdered, as reported by the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions in Brazil in her 2004 report, which stated that the perpetrators of those crimes are mainly military policemen or former policemen

The Committee expresses its grave concern at the significant number of street children and the vulnerability of these children to extrajudicial killings, various forms of violence, including torture, sexual abuse and exploitation, and at the lack of a systematic and comprehensive strategy to address the situation and protect these children, and the very poor registration of missing children by the police.
UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Brazil 2004

police officers are paid to eliminate innocent children without responsible and effective actions by the federal government to prevent these atrocities. Link

With the above – and none are offered “every conceivable assistance” – plus lots of other abuse and violence then I think our Govt has every right to not give a flying one for whatever those Brazilian murder-abetting politicians think.