Wake-Up Thread
Man, alotta shitz been happening in my life lately. My job has exploded with oppurtunities to install and play with new technology (example: I ordered two Cisco 1720's today for a dedicated connection to a remote office.) I now know the pain firsthand of supporting AOL/DirectPC satellite internet access, and the pleasures integrating windowsME into my office LAN. (Yes that wuz sarcasm folks)
Well, as WJB pointed out, we kinda need a good 'ol wake-up thread. Something to spark the conversation and his suggestion is a good one.
WindowsXP is, of course, the next big release from the boys in Redmond, Wa. Along with it, a new way of licensing is rearing it's ugly head. Windows Product Activation is a way of licensing that is aimed at thwarting the (huge I'm sure) problem that M$ faces with piracy of it's products throughout the world.
Again I am torn between my home computing mindset the tells that this sux and the administrative side of me that says "Excellent, this makes my licensing task eazier!"
What do you guys think?
I was also wondering what you all think is the fate of this fiasco?
I think the whole WPA is useless, will not stop the pirates from pirating the OS and will only screw the honest home user.
It isn't going to work. It won't even phase the pirates. I bet there's an XP crack to disable the WPA within 3 days of XP's release, if not sooner. The power users that want to install XP on a few different machines, or just don't want to deal with having to get MS's permission to upgrade will get the crack and be done with it.
The only people I see it affecting is the non-technical home user, that doesn't pirate the software anyway. At the worst this type of person installs his copy on 2 or three machine within his own home. MS has got to know this. Are they so tight that they want to scrape every penny they can out of each user of thier OS? Now any time this person upgrades they have to call MS (or let this magically happen behind the scenes, there's a lovely thought) and explain why they need a new Hardware ID. From what I've heard from one person that has this in place already with OfficeXP, they treat you like you owe them somthing for reactivating the software _you_ bought! Here's the message:
I live in New Zealand where the Office 2000 activation scheme has been in
place since the software was released. I paid the equivalent of around
$US750 (at the time) for the software, and I have had SO many problems with
it that I am never considering MS Office software again.
To say you've heard no complaints is to say no more than that nobody's
bothered to tell you. I'm telling you now: the scheme is a pain in the ass.
Every month or so I have to explain myself to Microsoft (like some kind of
misbehaving child) to get a new activation code, and every time they tell me
I'm using the software on many machines (which is completely untrue) and
thereby imply that I'm stealing licences of their software.
They are reluctant to give me new codes, often keeping me on the line for 15
minutes or MORE, and even though they aren't supposed to ask for my name /
DOB / contact telephone / address / product code / hardware specs /
Take the word of someone who has to live with it TODAY, it's degrading and
frustrating.
speaking of hardware, there was a thread here before about reusing old hardware and I think Voodoo had a stockpile of old stuff. I was wondering if anyone here had, or know where I can find, a cheap 2U or 3U rackmount case for sale. I know it's a longshot but I thought I'd ask.
Nope...nothing in the way of rackmount cases. but, I'll bet you could fashion a case out of an old desktop case with some ready-made "ears".
Sounds like the WPA is going to SuX0r. I hope his^ was an isolated incident. However I expect rough going at first. Shit, another pain_in_my_ass is not what I'd hoped for ;-)
like the fact that M$ decides when an OS that I paid for will and will not work. What will they do next?
But, no pain for me. IF I ever bought XP (which I doubt because of the toy user interface and massive system requirements) I would just find a registry hack or a crack and disable WPA. Problem solved.
I'll be the first in line for the crack myself. MS makes enough money off of businesses, they ain't getting a dime from me. Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum, ye Matey's! P-)
On a completely different note, and completely a waste of time :) Every once in a while someone invents a simple gizmo idea that is totally cool. It sure would be nice if it happened more often, but I guess that's the escense of quality, that it's rare...
I'm thinking of two of these type of things: The mouse-wheel, that's gonna be on mice from here on forward. And the Ab-Slide. The Ab-Slide took me a while though. I have a friend at work who also has a bad back and he's always talking about excercises he does to strengthen his back muscles.
Basic Training style situps is NOT good on your back! :-) Between doing 100 a day and playing highly aggressive tennis (lot's of sideways tortion in Tennis) I completely fucked mine up a few years ago and have been in remedial therapy/chorpractic treatment ever since. And am doing quite well now that I take care of it, no slight burning pain in my thighs when I sleep anymore etc...
But anyways, Bill goes to these therapy sessions and gets some pretty good advice he passes on to me. An example would be crunch-style situps. I'm sure you've heard of them/tried them. A good way to strengthen your stomache/back region without messing up your back alignment. Well, after a session, Bill asked me how I did them and said that the proper way is to not flatten out your lower back when you raise up. That's actually real good advice. That's exactly how I would do crunches (and most people do them). You have your legs in the air and rise up - your lower back goes flat against the floor in the movement as you try and raise up high enough to feel it.
The way you're supposed to do them is keep a little air between the ground and your lower back, which is a better posture and do the same crunch motion like that. Truly good advice, makes a big difference.
And he always talks about this Ab-Slide thingie, said they had them on sale behind the counter at Walgreens, so I bought one, felt kind of gay since the boxs demographics appear to be mainly targetted at the health-concious women market - all women on the box art, but what the hell.
Hated that thing and wished I hadn't bought it for about a week, then I "figured it out", you have to do the motion a certain way that's hard to describe or it just kills your arms and doesn't do much for your torso. Now I love that thing, it's a quick little easy device to use that blasts the heck out of a lot of muscle groups quickly. You only have to stretch out on that thing maybe three times a day - and in practice I use it less, but the goal is three stretches a day.
And it's just a "unique" type of stretch that's stresses a lot of muscles in a way you just don't get from other stuff.
Good Gimmicky, gotta love it. Mouse wheel and the Ab-Slide - go get one now, give me a commission :-)
This is the reg hack that work for the Current WinXP. It could change but this one works now:
Start in SAFE MODE.
Go to Start > Run then type Regedit.exe
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
There you'll find a key called Activation Required ... double click on it and set the value to 0 (instead of 1)
Go to Start > Run then type Regedit.exe
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion in RegDon set value to 1 - Close regedit.
Go to Start > Run type Regswr32.exe -u regwizc.dll
Click OK and restart computer. No more WPA.
There's a certain irony here to appreciate. Other than some cool fractal pics, the term "chaos" is not exactly one of the words I'd use to describe this site :o)
I checked flatline.com, it didn't link to here. I was suprised... They say on their site they're not sure what they're going to do with it now that the company went under. I sent them an email, "Hey! You could link to chaosnow.com!" :-)
my nose in a book all week at a SANS conference in Orlando, Florida. Quite frankly, I haven't had time to give a shit about the death of this site. I hope to have time to post a diddy about the conference soon. It has been a great class. RL takes precedence guys....I hope I can get back to a regular schedule by May. This spring has been a killer for me.
It's like, I started hanging out here and making posts and everyone splits. Hmmmm...
I guess I'm definitely not Mr. Personality {g}
Aside from bad humour though, I understand how it goes. Hobby websites are like any other hobby project, sometimes you have time and sometimes you don't.
Don't take my death jokes about the site seriously, I just like fishing for a laugh on occasion. It's a tough room around here baby, I tell you what! Must be you guys, this is good stuff! :o)
now I get it. :-)
Actually, I am still around, just busy. I just finished installing rh7.1 on the machine I'm posting from now. I'm learning linux firewalling and snort. Stay tuned...just not too close.