Windows Vista Vs. Windows XP: Piracy Part Two

Well, after a comment from the last blog, it blatantly seems that I understand very little about piracy of Windows Vista and Windows XP. So I am updating after receiving special and exclusive information from TechWorld.


In the last post, (to read it click here), I have said that Vista will go into reduced functionality mode after 30 days without being activated. However what I have stated is wrong as Vista actually allows you to 'rearm' the 30 days three times which by the time you've gone through the entire length, a third of the year before you'd have to figure something out.

Before Vista was released publicly it had already managed to get pirated. Copies of Vista RTM have been available since last December. The "Frankenbuild" exploit was never widely used because it was very obvious that it would be patched quickly. There was also a KMS server activation method, but it was also not used widely.

However, there was the Timerstop crack, which stopped the 30 days grace period timer counting down. Microsoft has still not managed to patch this, and it is unlikely they ever will. All Vista versions running Timerstop are validated as Genuine by Microsoft. This meant that pirates were able to circumvent Vista activation procedures even before the public release.

The newest crack on the scene is the OEM bios activation crack. The OEM bios crack emulates a pre-activated bios and enables you to bypass activation. When Microsoft produced Vista they allowed copies of Vista sold by OEMs, like Dell and HP, to bypass activation so it doesn't bother the user. This was a big mistake my Microsoft.

So much for Vista owning pirates.

And there you have it. Vista pirates are out for Microsoft and Microsoft seems to be doing everything they can to stop it. Question are aroused: Why hasn't Microsoft done anything useful to prevent the piracy of Windows Vista? Can they?

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Windows Vista Vs. Windows Xp: Piracy

The topic this time in the battle against the giants: Windows Vista and Windows Xp which one wins the anti-piracy battle?

In one corner we have the contender Windows XP, it has been part of this world for more than six years and yet it still remains one of Microsoft's highest revenue sources. In the other corner we have the new competition Windows Vista that has joined us only two months ago.

The antipiracy measures implemented in Windows XP were more or less a joke. It was extremely to obtain a copy. If not for $5 from the store next door then it could be obtained free from the internet. But with Windows Vista, Microsoft definitely seemed prepared for pirates from the start.

Cori Hartje, director of Microsoft's Genuine Software Initiative, said in an interview that: "It's a different game for the counterfeiters...They're having to resort to this full attack on the product."

Take the unique Windows Vista retail packaging as an example. In it self it was a just plastic box, but the box was uniquely designed with a round corner and other little changes that made counterfeiting more difficult. And that's the packaging, we haven't even started with the software!

Now to make a copy of Windows Vista, it didn't just mean ripping the code and getting a working product key, it meant that you had to be part of the actual production.

The exploit "Frankenbuild" which merged bits of the beta versions of Windows Vista with the final product in-order to defeat the validation checks built into Vista, was soon put to waste as Microsoft was able to update the software and prevent this from happening. It even manage to stop systems that passed the initial activation process as illegitimate.

You could say that the anti-piracy effort by Microsoft began when unimaginable amounts of pirated copies of Windows XP was circumnavigating the world. This led to a revenue loss, so the giant corporation began quietly testing a Windows Genuine Advantage program in 2004 which was later expanded, adding some incentives along the way. Even later this check was made mandatory in-order to download most stuff from the Windows website. The places where piracy rates tend to be higher, seemed to be related to the fastest PC sales growth emerging into new markets.

This technology that is built into Windows Vista allows Microsoft to periodically check if the OS is legitimate or not, as opposed to the Windows XP way of doing things - a single product key that is entered at activation.

There are a number of features, including the new Aero user interface, that require genuine validation. As part of Vista, machines that fail validation go into reduced functionality mode if not remedied within 30 days. Basically this means that such systems that are not genuinely validated can be used only to browse the Internet for an hour at a time, thus greatly discouraging pirates.

Microsoft has also tightened the rules on volume licenses, largely eliminating the ability for businesses, even those with bulk purchase deals, to use one product key across an unlimited number of machines. Microsoft has two options with Vista. Companies can either use their own PC or server as a sort of hall monitor to make sure which Vista systems are out there, or they can get a multiple-use key from Microsoft, though such keys have a set number of activations. Businesses can also use a combination of the two approaches.

It's a little early to tell how all of the efforts are working, but Hartje said there are some reasons for optimism as he states: "We see indications from our channel that they are concerned they get genuine product...We're optimistic the technology changes are going to make a difference. The fact we haven't seen any high-quality counterfeits is a good sign."

While engineering is a big part of Microsoft's efforts, the company is also doing other things. One recent move was to change the way copies of Windows are produced. Rather than just license replicators to build as much of the software as they might need, such disc makers are now required to pay a part of the cost of the software when the discs are first burned, discouraging large stockpiles of authentic discs from building up in warehouses.

What's the simple answer of course? Windows Vista owns Pirates. Windows XP fails it though.

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"I Pronounce you Chuck and Larry" - Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Jessica Biel

"I Pronounce you Chuck and Larry" looks to be a great film. It's a comedy involving a 'gay couple' who aren't getting married to receive extra pension. Things gets complicated when the city decides to challenge them and when Chuck (Adam Sandler) gets the hots for their lawyer (Jessica Biel).

You can watch the trailer below:

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Yahoo offers unlimited mail storage, premium still has to pay for 2GB.

Wa-chi-Pow! From Yahoo:

Yahoo has announced that all Yahoo Mail subscribers (not just those users of the new beta products) will receive free unlimited email storage starting May 2007 from the existing 1GB per account ($20 a year premium costs for 2GB a year). With this change, Yahoo will overpower Gmail (2.8 GB coded to stop at 3.5GB) and Live.com Mail (2GB) which is owned by Microsoft.

According to statistics, Yahoo has currently 250 million global subscribers to it's mailing system as contrasted to Live.com Mail with 228 million and Gmail which has 51 million users. However according to the Yahoo abuse policies, it forbids users to 'abuse the system'. One example includes how it requires users to follow "normal email practices" instead of using Yahoo mail for online storage, (unlike what we use Gmail accounts for right now). Those who disobey these rules will have their accounts immediately suspended as users will still have access to the data (note how it's not a termination).

Users who have paid a whooping $20 to upgrade to a premium account to get 2 GB of storage will also be able to get a refund.

Interesting historical information thanks to TechCrunch: Yahoo mail will be ten years old soon. When it launched in 1997 it included a whopping 4 MB of total storage. This was increased to 100 MB in 2004, and 1 GB in 2005.

However at the end of the day (or end of May for that matter), will Yahoo Mail now be the best email product out there? Not in my opinion. Even if it gives users unlimited storage capabilities. It still lacks important features which it gives only premium users. It also doesn't support IMAP and POP access and forwarding emails are premium features, whilst Gmail offers these products for free. Gmail also offers the labeling and filtering process which neither Yahoo Mail and Live.com mail provides, which is a feature I am personally heavily dependent on.

Also, if people get this unlimited storage, what are they going to do with it? Sure it sounds nice. But if your sending huge files over the internet, it's going to take ages to upload and download. And if your using it just for emails, then your never going to manage to fill even 2GB of storage let alone unlimited.

So if your at Gmail or Live.com Mail and is satisfied with their service, think carefully before changing. Is it really worth it?
JT says no.

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Surprised! Vista more than doubling XP's sales in one month.

Surprisingly, Windows Vista in one month, since the start of January 30th, has already doubled the pace of it's predecessor, Windows XP. With all the flaming floating around about how Windows Vista barely reaches a WOW factor, those people failed to realise that Windows Vista was actually selling well around other parts of the world.

Windows XP itself was an amazing contender in the global market of Operation Systems, where in two weeks managed to sell more than 7 million copies around the globe. Of course, after adding into consideration the population growth of the world and better living standards of the average guy (ie they have more access to buying a computer or using one) does it really mean that Windows Vista doubles the pace of Windows XP? For example, Asia makes up two-thirds of the world population and over the past few years, there have been dramatic changes and improvements in living standards and income per capita in the area. This dominating power may also be a reason of the increase in Windows Vista sales.

The world population was approximately 6.6 Billion in 2007 and 6 Billion in 2001. Global Output has risen by an average of 4.4% since 2005 and since 2001, (when Windows XP was released), the world has seen a 21.6% increase in overall GDP. In my opinion, I believe all these factors play an important part in explaining the sales of Windows Vista, thus making not that surprising anymore.

Still, 20 million units of Windows Vista licenses is still a huge number and although there were a few mixed feelings about Microsoft's first major operating system in over five years, the company seems to be doing well. This can be contrasted with the 7 million sales of Windows XP in it's first two weeks.

Windows Operating Systems operate on more than 95% of the world's computers, and the Windows Franchise is one of the most important part of the Giant Microsoft Corporation. Windows is the main money earner, estimated at 75% of Microsoft's earnings. Which in turn allows Microsoft to invest in other projects such as the Xbox360, online digital movement, music etc.

Questions for the future may be: "When will the market be saturated?" "Is Windows Vista really that good?" "Will people continue buying Windows Vista?"

In the meantime, we will just have to wait and see.

Information from CIA Factbook and Reuters

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Neatorama: 10 Strange Facts About Einstein

This is an interesting article from Neatorama, to read other interesting and fun information please visit their website at Neatorama.

Albert Einstein in a famous 1951 photo by Arthur Sasse.

So you think you know Albert Einstein: the absent-minded genius who gave us the theory of relativity (two of them, in fact, special theory and general theory of relativity), but did you know that Einstein was born with such a large head that his mother thought he was deformed? Or that Einstein had a secret child before he was married?

Read on for more obscure facts about the life of the world’s smartest genius:

1. Einstein Was a Fat Baby with Large Head

When Albert’s mother, Pauline Einstein gave birth to him, she thought that Einstein’s head was so big and misshapen that he was deformed!

2. Einstein Had Speech Difficulty as a Child

Earliest Known Photo of Albert Einstein (Image credit: Albert Einstein Archives,
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel)

As a child, Einstein seldom spoke. When he did, he spoke very slowly - indeed, he tried out entire sentences in his head (or muttered them under his breath) until he got them right before he spoke aloud. According to accounts, Einstein did this until he was nine years old. Einstein’s parents were fearful that he was retarded - of course, their fear was completely unfounded!

One interesting anecdote, told by Otto Neugebauer, a historian of science, goes like this:

As he was a late talker, his parents were worried. At last, at the supper table one night, he broke his silence to say, "The soup is too hot."
Greatly relieved, his parents asked why he had never said a word before.
Albert replied, "Because up to now everything was in order." (Source)

3. Einstein was Inspired by a Compass

When Einstein was five years old and sick in bed, his father showed him something that sparked his interest in science: a compass.

4. Einstein Failed his University Entrance Exam

In 1895, at the age of 17, Albert Einstein applied for early admission into the Swiss Federal Polytechnical School (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule or ETH). He passed the math and science sections of the entrance exam, but failed the rest (history, languages, geography, etc.)! Einstein had to go to a trade school before he retook the exam and was finally admitted to ETH a year later. (Source)

5. Einstein had an Illegitimate Child

In the 1980s, Einstein’s private letters revealed something new about the genius: he had an illegitimate daughter with a fellow former student Mileva Marić (whom Einstein later married).

6. Einstein Became Estranged From His First Wife, then Proposed a Strange "Contract"

After Einstein and Mileva married, they had two sons: Hans Albert and Eduard. Einstein’s academic successes and world travel, however, came at a price - he became estranged from his wife. For a while, the couple tried to work out their problems - Einstein even proposed a strange "contract" for living together with Mileva:

The relationship progressed. Einstein became estranged from his wife. The biography reprints a chilling letter from Einstein to his wife, a proposed "contract" in which they could continue to live together under certain conditions. Indeed that was the heading: "Conditions."

A. You will make sure
1. that my clothes and laundry are kept in good order;
2. that I will receive my three meals regularly in my room;
3. that my bedroom and study are kept neat, and especially that my desk is left for my use only.
B. You will renounce all personal relations with me insofar as they are not completely necessary for social reasons…

There’s more, including "you will stop talking to me if I request it." She accepted the conditions. He later wrote to her again to make sure she grasped that this was going to be all-business in the future, and that the "personal aspects must be reduced to a tiny remnant." And he vowed, "In return, I assure you of proper comportment on my part, such as I would exercise to any woman as a stranger." (Source)

7. Einstein Didn’t Get Along with His Oldest Son

After the divorce, Einstein’s relationship with his oldest son, Hans Albert, turned rocky. Hans blamed his father for leaving Mileva, and after Einstein won the Nobel Prize and money, for giving Mileva access only to the interest rather than the principal sum of the award - thus making her life that much harder financially.

8. Einstein was a Ladies’ Man

Einstein with his second wife and cousin, Elsa (Image credit)

After Einstein divorced Mileva (his infidelity was listed as one of the reasons for the split), he soon married his cousin Elsa Lowenthal. Actually, Einstein also considered marrying Elsa’s daughter (from her first marriage) Ilse.

Unlike Mileva, Elsa Einstein’s main concern was to take care of her famous husband. She undoubtedly knew about, and yet tolerated, Einstein’s infidelity and love affairs which were later revealed in his letters.

9. Einstein, the War Pacifist, Urged FDR to Build the Atom Bomb

Re-creation of Einstein and Szilárd signing the famous letter to President Franklin Roosevelt in 1939. (Image credit: Wikipedia)

In 1939, alarmed by the rise of Nazi Germany, physicist Leó Szilárd [wiki] convinced Einstein to write a letter to president Franklin Delano Roosevelt warning that Nazi Germany might be conducting research into developing an atomic bomb and urging the United States to develop its own.

The Einstein and Szilárd’s letter was often cited as one of the reasons Roosevelt started the secret Manhattan Project [wiki] to develop the atom bomb, although later it was revealed that the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 probably did much more than the letter to spur the government.

Although Einstein was a brilliant physicist, the army considered Einstein a security risk and (to Einstein’s relief) did not invite him to help in the project.

10. The Saga of Einstein’s Brain: Pickled in a Jar for 43 Years and Driven Cross Country in a Trunk of a Buick!

After his death in 1955, Einstein’s brain [wiki] was removed - without permission from his family - by Thomas Stoltz Harvey [wiki], the Princeton Hospital pathologist who conducted the autopsy. Harvey took the brain home and kept it in a jar. He was later fired from his job for refusing to relinquish the organ.

Many years later, Harvey, who by then had gotten permission from Hans Albert to study Einstein’s brain, sent slices of Einstein’s brain to various scientists throughout the world. One of these scientists was Marian Diamond of UC Berkeley, who discovered that compared to a normal person, Einstein had significantly more glial cells in the region of the brain that is responsible for synthesizing information.

In another study, Sandra Witelson of McMaster University found that Einstein’s brain lacked a particular "wrinkle" in the brain called the Sylvian fissure. Witelson speculated that this unusual anatomy allowed neurons in Einstein’s brain to communicate better with each other. Other studies had suggested that Einstein’s brain was denser, and that the inferior parietal lobe, which is often associated with mathematical ability, was larger than normal brains.

The saga of Einsteins brain can be quite strange at times: in the early 1990s, Harvey went with freelance writer Michael Paterniti on a cross-country trip to California to meet Einstein’s granddaughter. They drove off from New Jersey in Harvey’s Buick Skylark with Einstein’s brain sloshing inside a jar in the trunk! Paterniti later wrote his experience in the book Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein’s Brain

In 1998, the 85-year-old Harvey delivered Einstein’s brain to Dr. Elliot Krauss, the staff pathologist at Princeton University, the position Harvey once held:

… after safeguarding the brain for decades like it was a holy relic — and, to many, it was — he simply, quietly, gave it away to the pathology department at the nearby University Medical Center at Princeton, the university and town where Einstein spent his last two decades.

"Eventually, you get tired of the responsibility of having it. … I did about a year ago," Harvey said, slowly. "I turned the whole thing over last year [in 1998]." (Source)

All I can say is: Einstein you pimp

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enkumber: Real estate in Second Life

enkumber: Real estate in Second Life

I currently own two SIMS in Second Life. Today I ordered another one since i had succes with the first two. My business is simple : buy the sim, terraform it, divide it in parcels and rent it. I earn around 200$ monthly from every SIM. A SIM costs 1675 USD currently so you got your money back in 8-9 months. Not bad at all. An important thing in Second Life is the tier, you pay it anyway, you own the land - you pay tier, you rent the land - the tier is included in it.
The monthly tier for a private SIM is USD 295 . I earn from my tenants about $500 . I pay the tier to linden lab and the profit is just USD 200. It's a little frustrating but hey, at a large scale this is a good business.

However, this is not the only type of real estate business in Second Life. Some people are selling the parcels from their SIMS and charge a smaller tier than me. Selling the land will get you back the money you invested in the SIM in 1-2 weeks. And ... with that you can buy another SIM.

Considering this, I was wondering today how its better on long term. I found out that its better to sell for short term. Virtually, selling the land will get you money to buy SIM after SIM. However, after a number of SIMS you'll find hard to manage them all. If you are alone in this business will be hard and maybe you will need to consider to rent your land.

That's it for now ... I'll write again about Second Life, maybe about commercial land vs. residential land.

For those who don't know what Second Life is, it's basically an MMO, similar to an RPG except not. You basically can do anything you want in Second Life as long as you write you own code. Over the past year or so, I have read about how people have written code to have sex, rob banks, guns. Hell they even created a Nuclear Bomb and nuked the place. People have also bought Second Life money with real money, people have sold their codes, and as enkumber has written, sold real estate.

Quite a cool business to be running. But it does raise some questions. Who would buy this kind of stuff. Who would rent it? Maybe there's alot of things I don't know about, but I definitely think it's pointless to own a piece of land on the internet.
However, this all changes when you find the possibility of earning money from all of this. Which leads us to question, who do you buy this land from? wouldn't land eventually run out? If people are buying land and reselling/renting it. Why don't other people do it as well?

In the end I guess it's personal opinion: Do I really need a piece of land on the internet? My answer is no.

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The World is full of Hate - Rape fears lead women soldiers to suicide, death

This was a post made Feburary 8, 2006 by the Vermontguardian. Although it's more than a year old, it may be still relevant today.

NEW YORK — U.S. female soldiers in Iraq were assaulted or raped by male soldiers in the women’s latrines, and an alarming number committed suicide, Col. Janis Karpinski reportedly testified before an international human rights commission of inquiry last month.

“Because the women were in fear of getting up in the darkness [to go to the latrine], they were not drinking liquids after 3 or 4 in the afternoon,” Karpinski testified, according to a report on Truthout.org. “In the 100 degree heat, they were dying of dehydration in their sleep.”

Karpinski’s testimony was reported by Margorie Cohn, a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild who writes a weekly column for the website.

Cohn wrote that she presented Karpinski’s testimony at the International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration, which convened Jan. 20-22 at Riverside Church.

The latrine for female soldiers at Camp Victory wasn’t located near their barracks, so they had to go outside if they needed to use the bathroom, Karpinski told retired U.S. Army Col. David Hackworth in a September 2004 interview, Cohn reported. “There were no lights near any of their facilities, so women were doubly easy targets in the dark of the night.” It was there that male soldiers assaulted and raped women soldiers.

Karpinski testified that a surgeon for the coalition’s joint task force said in a briefing that “women in fear of getting up in the hours of darkness to go out to the port-a-lets or the latrines were not drinking liquids after 3 or 4 in the afternoon, and in 120 degree heat or warmer, because there was no air-conditioning at most of the facilities, they were dying from dehydration in their sleep.”

“And rather than make everybody aware of that — because that’s shocking, and as a leader if that’s not shocking to you then you’re not much of a leader — what they told the surgeon to do is don’t brief those details anymore. And don’t say specifically that they’re women. You can provide that in a written report but don’t brief it in the open anymore.”

Karpinski said Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski, the top deputy to Lt. Gen Ricardo Sanchez, the former senior U.S. military commander in Iraq, saw dehydration listed as the cause of death on the death certificate of a female master sergeant in September 2003. Under orders from Sanchez, Wojdakowski directed that the cause of death no longer be listed. The official explanation for this was to protect the women’s privacy rights, she said.

Sanchez’s attitude was: “The women asked to be here, so now let them take what comes with the territory,” Karpinski quoted him as saying. Karpinski told Cohn that Sanchez, who was her boss, was very sensitive to the political ramifications of everything he did, Cohn reported.

“It was out of control,” Karpinski told a group of students at Thomas Jefferson School of Law last October, according to the Truthout report. Although there was a toll-free number women could use to report sexual assaults, no one had a phone, and no one answered the U.S. number when it was called. Any woman who successfully connected to it would get a recording.

Even after more than 83 incidents were reported during a six-month period in Iraq and Kuwait, the 24-hour rape hot line was still answered by a machine that told callers to leave a message, Karpinski told Cohn.

Karpinski, a brigadier general, was assigned to Iraq in July 2003 to oversee 17 prison facilities including Abu Ghraib. She was demoted to colonel after news broke of the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib when the prison was under her command. Karpinski subsequently resigned from the military, and in October she published a book, One Woman’s Army, the Commanding General of Abu Ghraib Tells Her Story, in which she claims the prisoner abuses were carried out under orders from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The commission in New York heard testimony from Karpinski and others about indefinite detention, rendition for torture, destruction of the environment, attacks on public health and reproductive rights, and actions and inactions leading up to and following Hurricane Katrina, Cohn wrote.

Harry Belafonte, a participant and keynote speaker, said, “When a government fails to protect justice it is the responsibility of the people to rise up and change the guard, change the regime. Those who fail to answer that call should be charged with patriotic treason.”

This shit is really sad. Okay, in the current state, who would join the army? Do you think it's people fighting for a belief or so-called 'trigger happy' people. Would people fighting terrorism really be doing stuff like this? Apparently so. Which is why this is one more reason why the War currently FAILS.

From The Road to Horizon:

1. The newspaper today states one minute of war in Iraq costs US$380,000. A calculation made by Joseph Stiglitz, a US Nobelprize winning economist. That is almost double the cost of the war in Vietnam.

2. According to WFP, the UN's food aid organisation, it costs US$0.19 to feed a child for a day. Nineteen cents. 20,000 children die of hunger every day. The time it took you to read this post, already 15 died.

3. Taking those two figures together, one minute of war in Iraq would feed 2,000,000 children for a day. One day of war in Iraq would feed 8,000,000 children for a year.

4. There are 800 million hungry in the world. Three-four months of war in Iraq would feed all hungry in the world. Three-four months of war, we have done before. Many times. But we have never fed all the hungry in the world.

This war fails.

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Random: Spiderman 3, Playstation 3, Calvin and Hobbes

Nothing new, so I'll just post some randoms together.

First up, the final Spiderman 3 trailer. Venom looks skinnier than the comic, but this movie seems to take it one step darker. And I must say I'm quite enjoying what I see.



Playstation 3 this ad is quite true and Sony may just sell more units by using it. :p



Finally, a Calvin and Hobbes tribute courtesy from retroCrush. Click here to see Calvin and Hobbes Snowmen in real life.

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Online Gamers can now pay with their blood

Recently, Moliyo banned 120,000 plays who attempted to hack their 3d massively multiplayer online game, Cabal, (MMORPG) in order to gain stats, items and money. Now they have demanded that the banned players donate blood to be allowed back into the game.

As of now more than 100 players who were banned have signed up in order to exhange half a litre of blood for their game accounts back. Whilst doing this, Moliyo has also offered ordinary players free accounts who give up their blood.
(via Weird Asian News)

Chinese hospitals have had increasing difficulty attracting blood donors in recent years after scandals involving donors and blood recipients contracting HIV/AIDS. (Currently they are paid about 12 dollars per donation). According to the announcement, the player who were banned must attend the donation drive in Nanjing and their accounts will be unlocked within 3 days.

Moliyo arranged the event in an attempt to “create a civilized society, and enhance online gamers’ appreciation of social responsibility and public welfare.” In my personal opinion though, I think they're either part of a government organisation (smart thinking, waiting until alot of players are hacking and then attack) or their being subsidized by the government.

I really like the way the government thinks. This is like killing two birds with one stone.
People who are addicted to games = don't have sex = no AIDS = pure blood.

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Vista Vs. XP

Many people debate over if you should upgrade to Vista or not. Personally I’m still running XP but if you still aren’t sure take a look Here from CNET TV. If you’re to lazy to watch the 2 minute video I’ll list the reasons of the video here.

1. Disappointment (If you Home Premium and you don’t get all the features you want that were shown on commercials…)
2. The Price (relatively high...like all other Microsoft Items)
   
3. Lack of 3rd Party Applications (iTunes not working as well as a load of other programs)
4. Closed Microsoft Ecosystem (Microsoft being… well Microsoft, The RSS widget only works with Internet Explore and So on.)
5. Search Is Buried

Other reasons may include

1. The need for a better computer
   

But is Windows Vista as bad as it sounds in the video? The simple answer is no. There are alot of articles out there bashing Windows Vista but have they considered to try and balance this out with Vista's small features that make everyday life simpler?

• Have you ever heard of this? The ability to change the volume level for each program. Annoyed at all those popup sounds from ads? This is a solution.
• Another feature is Vista's CompletePC Backup, it creates a .VHD file which if you're familiar with, you'll notice that Virtual PC images are also .VHD format. Although it doesn't mean that you can boot a virtual system using a CompletePC backup file, what you can do is mount the CompletePC backup using Virtual PC. Need a file from the backup? Well it's nolonger hard to get. (However you if you have Virtual Server 2005 R2, service pack1, then you can mount it as a local hard drive!)
• iCalendar anyone? You can share your calendars with anyone around the world, whether or not they're using Vista. You can also export your own calendar or import someone else's. You can even publish and/or subscribe to Web-based calendars by using HTTP and WebDAV.
• Control, basically Vista gives you more than that though. Virus wants to run itself? Can't without your permission. Hacker wants to change files? Not without your permission (Okay my analogies were poor but you get the idea right?)

And finally HALO 2! I'd upgrade just for that.

If you want to preview what it's like to own Windows Vista check this out. Consider this as a try before you buy.

But the solution to all of this is, Get a Mac or Linux. NOT. Seriously have your read my previous post about the lack of security flaws found in Windows Vista?

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Nintendo: Déjà Vu All Over Again?

Over at 4colourrebellion Vinnk has posted an interesting article on the similarities between the new Nintendo Wii launch as compared with the old one a few decades ago. This surprising reminded me of Sony Playstation3 's launch which also had quite a number of similarities with the Playstation 2 launch. Such as how both had a Ridge Racer for launch. Both had competition from the Microsoft Xbox which had better internet gameplay capabilites. However the PS3 is doing far worse this time.

I've taken out the useless info and kept the main points but you can read the full article here.

The Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS has both surprisingly remained popular since it's start four months ago and has still remained sold out all over. If you didn't preorder then chances are that they were sold out by the time you decided to buy one. However this is nothing new.

Hiro’s shop opened in 1982 and was a toyshop run by his mother. When the Famicom launched, the store knew this was the next big thing and shifted focus to electronic games. They also changed their name to Famicom Dojo to reflect this change.

The Famicom was a cultural phenomenon when it was released, and Hiro tells me that it was constantly sold out for more than 3 years! He could keep a good stock of games, but the systems would fly out of the door the moment they arrived. Just imagine the Wii shortages in the U.S. with people waiting outside the store for new shipments to come in, and then imagine that going on for more than 3 years.

I had no idea that the supply of Famicoms was constrained for that long. It seems that the big cities got the bulk of the shipments, and the smaller stores in smaller towns had to beg Nintendo to send them more. Hiro said people would come into his store everyday asking, “Ya got any Famicoms today?” The answer was always “Sorry, sold out again”.

After a while Hiro was tired of sending people home empty handed, so he started selling a rival system that was in ample supply, the Epoch Super Cassette Vision. Customers would ask him, “What’s the difference?” and he could tell them it was the sub par graphics or the weird duel knob controls, but he gave them the correct answer: it was the games. And that was where the conversation would end. No Mario, no sale.

Now it is more than twenty years later, and Hiro still sells has Famicom systems and games at his store along with all the new hardware and software. Today he has more than enough Famicoms to go around, but he can never keep the Wii or DS lite in stock for more than a few hours. Just as I was talking to him, two different customers came in asking if he had any Wii systems. He said “Sorry, sold out again”. He has had a Playstation 3 behind the counter for the last 2 months and sometimes people ask about it. They ask, “What’s the difference” and while he could say Blu-ray or the SIXAXIS, he gives them a familiar answer. It’s the games.

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MySim Looking Mighty Small...in an awesome way.

The upcoming MySims for the Nintendo Wii is looking really cute and interesting. It seems to be improving day by day. At first I thought it was extremely different and hated the changes they made from the original Sims but it had a surprising impact on my. I started liking it. GOOD JOB NINTENDO!

Unfortunately, I still haven't embed videos to work. So I hope you don't mind following a few links
If you don't know what MySims is, it's the upcoming Nintendo Wii game.
Here is a trailer

Here is the Build A Thing Video.

While I'm on the topic of Nintendo Awesomness here's a clip of a 2 year old...owning the Wii

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What's Really In Those Nuggets!

Most folks assume that a chicken nugget is just a piece of fried chicken, right? Wrong! Did you know, for example, that a McDonald’s Chicken McNugget is 56% corn?

What else is in a McDonald's Chicken McNugget? Besides corn, and to a lesser extent, chicken, The Omnivore's Dilemma describes all of the thirty-eight ingredients that make up a McNugget – one of which I'll bet you'll never guess. During this part of the book, the author has just ordered a meal from McDonald’s with his family and taken one of the flyers available at McDonald’s called "A Full Serving of Nutrition Facts: Choose the Best Meal for You."

The ingredients listed in the flyer suggest a lot of thought goes into a nugget, that and a lot of corn. Of the thirty-eight ingredients it takes to make a McNugget, I counted thirteen that can be derived from corn: the corn-fed chicken itself; modified cornstarch (to bind the pulverized chicken meat); mono-, tri-, and diglycerides (emulsifiers, which keep the fats and water from separating); dextrose; lecithin (another emulsifier); chicken broth (to restore some of the flavor that processing leeches out); yellow corn flour and more modified cornstarch (for the batter); cornstarch (a filler); vegetable shortening; partially hydrogenated corn oil; and citric acid as a preservative. A couple of other plants take part in the nugget: There's some wheat in the batter, and on any given day the hydrogenated oil could come from soybeans, canola, or cotton rather than corn, depending on the market price and availability.

According to the handout, McNuggets also contain several completely synthetic ingredients, quasiedible substances that ultimately come not from a corn or soybean field but form a petroleum refinery or chemical plant. These chemicals are what make modern processed food possible, by keeping the organic materials in them from going bad or looking strange after months in the freezer or on the road. Listed first are the "leavening agents": sodium aluminum phosphate, mono-calcium phosphate, sodium acid pyrophosphate, and calcium lactate. These are antioxidants added to keep the various animal and vegetable fats involved in a nugget from turning rancid. Then there are "anti-foaming agents" like dimethylpolysiloxene, added to the cooking oil to keep the starches from binding to air molecules, so as to produce foam during the fry. The problem is evidently grave enough to warrant adding a toxic chemical to the food: According to the Handbook of Food Additives, dimethylpolysiloxene is a suspected carcinogen and an established mutagen, tumorigen, and reproductive effector; it's also flammable. But perhaps the most alarming ingredient in a Chicken McNugget is tertiary butylhydroquinone, or TBHQ, an antioxidant derived from petroleum that is either sprayed directly on the nugget or the inside of the box it comes in to "help preserve freshness." According to A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives, TBHQ is a form of butane (i.e. lighter fluid) the FDA allows processors to use sparingly in our food: It can comprise no more than 0.02 percent of the oil in a nugget. Which is probably just as well, considering that ingesting a single gram of TBHQ can cause "nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, a sense of suffocation, and collapse." Ingesting five grams of TBHQ can kill.

There you have it – lighter fluid. But you never thought that was in your chicken McNuggets!

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Crowds go mild for PS3 in Australia

The Playstation 3 was Sony's latest 'next-gen' console which has to fight against giant corporations such as Microsoft's hugely popular Xbox360 and Nintendo's Wii. Although the Playstation 3 (PS3) was supposed to have superior graphics and gameplay, thanks to the motion sensing 'Six-Axis', the console launch got off to a feeble start last night. It seems that officials, media and security outnumbered the meager customers that was present for the evening.

Over 500 retailers around the country threw open their doors as the clock struck 12:00am, expecting the frenzy that accompanied the games console's overseas debuts. But most stores were virtually deserted, despite the 20,000 pre-orders for the PS3 that Sony had claimed it received. Were people just too lazy to pick it up at the time? Observations suggest otherwise.

The official launch event held at Myer's Pitt Street store in Sydney's CBD and attended by Sony's local managing director, Michael Ephraim, media and security outnumbered PS3 fans until at least 11:00pm. At midnight, about 40 PS3 buyers had arrived to collect their consoles, causing distress for the army of camera crews who turned up expecting to capture launch mayhem. Boy were they disappointed.

Desperate producers unashamedly asked the crowd to fake excitement when the cameras were rolling, while a team from 2Day FM let out bogus cheers to convince their radio listeners that a launch extravaganza was underway.

This scene was a stark contrast to the US launch in November last year, where one man was shot by thieves and fights broke out over limited stock.In Britain, where the PS3 was also launched today, two major Oxford Street stores in London - Game and HMV - cancelled their launch events amid police fears of muggings.

The PS3 launches with a total of 30 games, each with a recommended retail price of $99.95, which were also more than the prices Sony claimed. One of those games is Gran Turismo: HD, which Sony is offering free - as a download from the Playstation Network - to all PS3 buyers. And Sony said the first 20,000 people to register their PS3 online would receive a free copy of the latest James Bond movie Casino Royale on Blu-ray disc.

From today, Sony will launch into its $6 million marketing campaign, which it hopes will convince the public that the PS3 is not just a games machine but an all-in-one home entertainment system.

The campaign will stress the inclusion of a high-definition Blu-ray disc player, sleek design, 60GB hard drive, web browser and, most importantly, the PS3's ability to act as a multimedia hub for organising photos, music and movies.

This is crucial if Sony is to convince consumers that the PS3's $999 price tag is justified, in the face of the $650 Xbox 360 and $399 Nintendo Wii.

Another disappointment was the fact that the PS3 was originally slated for release locally on November 17, but this date was pushed back to today due to production delays.

It has meant the Wii and Xbox 360 have a significant head-start in the next-generation console wars - the Wii has been on sale since early December, while the Xbox 360 has its first birthday next week. The Wii already selling a staggering 4 million units around the world.

Another potential stumbling block for Sony is the fact that it has priced the PS3 higher in Australia than it has overseas. The console sells for just ¥60,000 ($630) in Japan and $US599 ($740) in the US. Why some people may ask? Was it the shipping? Surely bring boxes over to Australia does not cost $259. Mr Ephraim claimed that because of Australia's currency exchange rate and small population size, it led to a higher cost.

To read the full article, visit The Age

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How to increase PC Bootup Speed

I experience slow boots every time with Windows XP (which is why I like to leave my computer on). But Microsoft actually engineered a unique utility called BootVis. This tool was developed for one sole purpose, and that is to speed up your boot time in windows. This program will run on any Windows XP system with Service Pack 1+ or greater flawlessly.

The tool itself is easy to use but according to Microsoft (who btw no longer supports this tool) the whole objective of this program is to just run an analysis of your system.

Once BootVis is installed, click on File -> New -> Next Boot Trace. This will start the boot trace process, so click on OK. Your computer will now be restarted in 10 seconds, and an optimization report will be ran. The optimization report will look somewhat like below (NOTE: The value highlited in red, is your total boot time it took).

Once this reboot/optimization report is complete, proceed to click on Trace -> Optimize System. This will also reboot the system again, and upon reboot, you will be prompted with a screen that states “Optimizing the Boot Performace.” Let this process run, it could take a few minutes. Once the process is complete, lets go ahead and repeat the 1st step that we did (File -> New -> Next Boot Trace) and run one more boot trace. This is the trace that will show us the increase that we have achieved in bootup performance with this tool. For me, this worked quite effectively! I went down from a boot time of 42 seconds, to a boot time of 28 seconds, try it and see for yourself what a huge difference it makes!

Download the tool, check it out, and enjoy much FASTER boot times!

Click Here to Download

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Vista 90 Day Vulnerabilities Test - Digs up surprising results

Jeff Jones over at CSO has posted on a Windows Vista 90 Day Vulnerability Analysis and it seems to have turned up surprising results.

He has analysed the vulnerability disclosures and fixes for Windows Vista by Microsoft over a ninety day test period, whilst comparing and contrasting results against it's predecessor, Windows XP, and other modern workstations. These include: Red Hat, Ubuntu, Novell and Apple products.

Here is the Comparison Table.

And although I wasn't surprised with the results of Red Hat and Ubuntu, it was weird and surprising seeing that Windows XP less disclosed unfixed Vulnerabilities than Mac OS.

Think this guy's results were biased? Read his last blog to find out! Oh wait. He wrote that, so doesn't mean that he can be biased in that too?

You can download the full report from the CSO website or by click here.

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Vista Anytime Upgrade EULA changed to make life simpler

Microsoft has finally changed a small but important portion of the Windows Vista End-User License Agreement (EULA) for Windows Anytime Upgrade to match that of retail copies of the new operating system.

Last Friday, product manager Nick White wrote on the Windows Vista Team Blog, "Customers who purchase a retail copy of Windows Vista and then upgrade to another version of Windows Vista using Windows Anytime Upgrade will be affected by this modification, while all other WAU licensing terms remain unchanged." He continued, "The number of device-to-device reassignments is no longer limited, provided that Windows Vista has been uninstalled from the original device."

Under the old EULA, customers could only transfer an Anytime Upgrade to one machine after the original. After the changes were implemented , customers can now transfer the license as many times as they want, that is, if it is already uninstalled from the PC already using the license. With this change in place, the device-to-device transferring portion of the Windows Anytime Upgrade EULA is now in sync with Vista's retail EULA, which was modified to allow unlimited transfers last November.

According to the Windows Anytime Upgrade FAQ, the license alteration is effective immediately and will carry over into any future iterations of the EULA.

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14yo girl shoves hall monitor - gets 7 years in prison (did i mention she was black?)

In Paris, Texas

A 14-year-old black freshman, Shaquanda Cotton, shoved a hall monitor at Paris High School in a dispute over entering the building before the school day had officially begun.
The youth had no prior arrest record, and the hall monitor--a 58-year-old teacher's aide--was not seriously injured. But Shaquanda was tried in March 2006 in the town's juvenile court, convicted of "assault on a public servant" and sentenced by Lamar County Judge Chuck Superville to prison for up to 7 years, until she turns 21.

It is this kind of outrageous behavior that continues today. It seems to go unnoticed to the international eye, or if it wasn't, no one was doing anything to stop it. Look at this case, anywhere else maybe it would have been different, maybe the girl would have only gotten 'a slap on the wrist' but she most definitely did not deserve to spend 7 years in prison.

It gets worse, what do you think a white teenager, who burn down their family home, got?

Nothing more than a probation. By the same judge!

Another case:
There was the 19-year-old white man, convicted last July of criminally negligent homicide for killing a 54-year-old black woman and her 3-year-old grandson with his truck, who was sentenced in Paris to probation and required to send an annual Christmas card to the victims' family.

To read a more thorough recounting of this event:
Chicago Tribune

JT out

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Firefox - Memory Fix Part 2

FireFox has always amazed me with it's awesome capabilities especially it's ability to allow extensions. With the inclusion of multiple extensions I find that my days surfing the net have greatly improved.

Or Has it?

Currently, Firefox is taking up 175mb of memory and 175mb of virtual memory. Now I may not know a lot about computers but I'm pretty sure that what Firefox is taking up right now is more than the standard amount of memory. Here's how I tried to fix the problem:

So I came upon another solution:

• Go back to about:config, right click and create a new Boolean named:
• config.trim_on_minimize
• set it to true

What this does is to help free up some memory whenever Firefox is closed. I've tested it and it actually works...until it starts growing again...
Another option is to try this

• set the browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers value to 0

JT out.

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Fixing Firefox's memory leak

Fixing Firefox's memory leak

Basically, Firefox tends to leak memory. Alot. Personally I've experienced as much a 200mb memory leak slowing down my computer.

1. Open a new tab. Type "about:config" without quotes into the address bar and hit enter/click Go.

2. Right-click anywhere, select New, then Integer. In the dialog prompt that appears, type:

browser.cache.memory.capacity

3. Click OK. Another dialog prompt will appear. This is where you decide how much memory to allocate to Firefox. This depends on how much RAM your computer has. You shouldn't allocate too little (under 8mb) or too much. This setting should be adjusted according to how you wish your firefox to run, currently I'm allocating 36mb:

32768

4. Click OK to close the dialog box, then close all instances of Firefox and restart. If your Firefox still uses the same amount of memory, give it a few minutes and it should slowly clear up. If that fails, try a system reboot.

Hope this helps :/ (BTW This does not work for me. I'm still leaking like 140mb of memory after a few hours of surfing)

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Birthdays,

Birthdays.

Technically it's the day of birth your birth, which you share with thousands of people around the globe. Yet every year, you get together with your friends and family to celebrate the day those many years ago that you were born. Or your lonely and stay at home, probably playing World of Warcraft, either thinking how sad your own life is or how everyone is wasting money on presents and celebrations.

I may be one of the latter group of people, but maybe what I believe in, actually has some truths. Do we seriously need to celebrate the date of our birth? Because in the end, it's really just a date, just like any other date. So why do we need to celebrate such a date then?

Is it to satisfy our own human superficial needs and wants? Do we really need other people's attention so badly? Or do we just need an excuse to get presents from other people?

After contemplating such thoughts, i realise that...even though there are truths in what i said, there is almost nothing i can base this on.

END OF DISCUSSION!

So once again the time has come and i just don't know if I'm pessimistic or everyone's just being naive to the truth.

So my birthday was pretty awesome, like last year, i got socks and some money.

*reminiscing from last year*

"WOW! Dad! One Thousand Five Hundred Dollars! Thanks! WOW! I don't know what to spend it on!"
"Yes, happy birthday son, now that money is for your tutorial at james an, and you can keep the rest of the money"

and so it turned out that the james an fees were onethousandfourhundred dollars.

*End*

Wait...i can't remember what i got for my birthday the year before...

I think i did get a bike once...a decade ago...

ENOUGH about the past, this year was pretty awesome, my mum actually wanted to buy me something but she didn't know what to buy *thinks about all the times i've asked her for games*

and then she's like "I give you everything you want!" - I don't ask her for anything in the first place except for games, and then she replies "I'll give you anything but games"

and then she continues her hypocritical "i give my son everything he wants attitude" - sad

Yup...everyone around me is naive, i think i'll go cut myself now

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In response to: "I'd rather go bare than wear fur"

Well instead of doing what i'm supposed to do, i'm, as usual, procrastinating on the hueg interweb when i found something that interesting

The full article i'm talking about can be read here:
http://www.furisdead.com/feat-joannakrupa.asp?c=fidJKrpblgad

So i was thinking, who the hell is this person and why would someone pose naked to stop people from buying fur? In the end I kinda thought "who cares!"
I mean, there's an extremely hawt chick out there, going naked just so that it might convince people to stop buying fur. Notice how i said 'might'. Seriously analysing this causes me to debate with reason,
As an example some thoughts that passed through my head involve:
"Who would believe this?" "More?" "She is purty" "Hmmmm, i'd rather BUY MORE fur just so that she'd stay naked"
Of course, just by looking at the pictures we can see she's also wearing jewelery. Now let me expand. The production of jewelery involves some pretty hard slave labour in parts of africa and and asia. It takes slave labour to dig the diamonds/other pretty things, out of the grounds in the first place. It takes slave labour to clean it. It takes slave labour to cut it to the right size. It takes slave labour to make it what we see in stands today.
BUT it takes one person to demoralise all those thousands of slaves AND it takes that one person to make us forget about all the hardships that the slaves have to go through inorder for the jewels to be where they are right now.
But then you'll say that it's the multi-billion dollar corporations that are controlling the slaves in the first place, who's at fault. Of course this is wrong. It is the consumer's fault. The high demand of pretty jewels and such are the source of the problem. If no one wanted jewelery, there'd be no demand, prices would drop, diamonds etc won't be as precious. Of course common misconceptions about the rarity of diamonds is also questionable did you know that the multibillion dollar corporations have huge vaults full of this stuff, releasing tiny amounts at a time?

The hypocrisy of treating animals as if they are better than human beings is just unforgivable!
"“[T]here is nothing sexy about wearing something that is so obviously tied to senseless pain and killing,” says Joanna."
WHAT ABOUT THE HUMAN BEINGS!

Is she a vegetarian? I don't think so! (my logic being no one that well sized can be a vegetarian) HYPOCRISY!
Did she know about the slaughter of 2000 pigs for the diety general in taiwan? http://www.flickr.com/photos/avant1997/sets/72157594493402453/
HUH?! I DON'T THINK SO!
I'm sure i had lots of more points to say, but i can't remember.
(btw I think my tiger costume was made out of fur)

Reminds me of a joke: (unrelated)
A blond was walking to her convertible when it started raining. She said "DAMNIT! the top's open and i left my keys inside!"

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