SiriusRecorder

I have recently switched over to using SiriusRecorder [backpocket.com] to time-shift satellite radio broadcasts. I had been using TimeTrax Recast up until now. I noticed recently that TimeTrax's website was totally borked (which is why I am not linking to them), and am worried that they either got bought out by a hostile entity, or have gone out of business, or if they were just hacked.

I haven't been that satisfied with the TimeTrax Recast software. It requires an internet connection so that it can phone home and verify that its license is valid. While I have no problem with that in principle, the implementation is pretty horrible. If my internet connection goes down for whatever reason, the software stops recording audio. My worries in the short-term are that if something weird is going on with the company, the software may cease to work properly (because it won't have anywhere to phone home to).

With SiriusRecorder, I won't have that problem. And it works with my existing hardware and Sirius radio. I have also noticed another huge plus. With the TimeTrax Recast software, the recordings (in MP3 format) had occasional blips. They were kind of annoying, but I could live with them. I assumed it was some sort of issue with my sound card. However, those blips do not show up when I use SiriusRecorder.

Another issue with TimeTrax Recast was that there were only 10 recording slots available. So, you could only schedule 10 blocks of time during which Satellite radio broadcasts could be recorded. I like to break up my recordings into 1hr blocks. So, only have 10 recording slots was a limitation. With SiriusRecorder, there is no limit to the number of scheduled recording blocks you can set up. So, you could record satellite radio 24 hours a day and break it up into arbitrarily small blocks if you wanted.

SiriusRecorder isn't perfect, however. There is no help file or help mechanism in the software itself, and no documentation on the website. There are some features that I don't exactly understand, and there is really no way that I can figure them out (other than by trial and error).

There is also no sound meter. So, it is difficult to adjust how loud the recordings will be. I have already figured this out through trial and error, and that only has to be set once, so that's not too big of a deal.

Finally, it has failed to record a few times when I thought I had set it to record. However, I have not yet ruled out user error. So, I'm not sure if those problems were caused by a bug or not.

So far, I have been pretty happy, and I like the idea that my recordings will not be interrupted by loss of internet connectivity, or a problem with the software company.

[More comments about SiriusRecorder on 8/2/2006]

I See D&D People...

I was just down at the Wasabi Japanese Steakhouse [restaurantwasabi.com] in Copley, OH, which opened only a few months ago. It's just off I-77, and I was surprised at how great the food is there. They do have Hibachi grills, but I was there for sushi. They had some fantastic eel and scallop rolls. I will definitely be going back there again.

Anyway, the review was tangential to the actual story. While I was there, the conversation with my friends segued into Dungeons and Dragons (D&D). And someone from another table came over and said, "I'm sorry to interrupt, but did I hear you guys talking about D&D?"

Now, what is stupid is that even though I have played D&D for years, I immediately assumed he was some sort of weirdo. You know, like *I'm* not some sort of weirdo...

But he said that he has a group of people who regularly get together to play live-action role playing games, and that if I were interested, I should contact him (and he handed me a business card). To those of you who aren't into role-playing games, there is kind of a heirarchy to the whole universe. The live-action people are the most hard-core types of players, and also those who are assumed to be the most... eccentric.

So, I thanked him, even though I wasn't really interested. And in my mind, I was thinking how that first conversation would go if I called him.

"Hi, my name is Terence, and I ran into you at a sushi restaurant last week. Remember? I was wearing a pocket protector, and constantly fiddling with my graphing calculator. Anyway, I was interested in joining your live-action role playing game, and wanted to know how elaborate my costume should be. Should I bring swords and crossbows? Now, my character is a barbarian, but I don't really have a loin-cloth. Would it be ok if my costume just consisted of a thong instead, until I have a chance to make a loin-cloth?"

Acura RSX Type S Test Drive, part 2

Yesterday, I started talking about what I liked and didn't like about the 2002 Acura RSX Type S. This is part 2.

The car had power locks, but the button on the driver's door that locks all of the doors does not lock the driver's door. That means that when you park the car, you have to first get out and close the driver's door, then either use the key or the remote to lock the doors. You cannot just hit the door lock button in the interior of the car as you leave, and then shut the door. In my opinion, that is a really annoying "feature" that is needlessly complicated (especially when you are in a hurry).

The trunk lid can only be opened by pulling the handle on the outside of the lid. There is no button on the remote to pop the trunk, and there is no button or lever in the interior of the car that performs that function. So, if you pull up somewhere to pick someone up and they want to throw something into the trunk, chances are that you are going to have to get out and open it for them. It would be much more convenient if there were a trunk open button next to the button that opens the gas tank cover (which is next to the driver's seat).

The RSX is, of course, a 2+2 hatchback, so access to the rear seat is done by folding the front seats forward, and then climbing past. The annoying part is that when returning the front seats to their original position afterward, the seats don't actually return to their original position. On the driver's side, the seatback always stops in an almost vertical position (i.e. not reclined enough. You then have to manually adjust how reclined the seat is to find the original position. The passenger seat does the same thing (it does not return to the position you originally had it in). And the passenger seat also slides backward in the process (it slides beyond the position it was originally in). So, if someone gets into the back seat by climbing in the passenger side, the person sitting in the front passenger seat first has to fold their seat back, then they have to slide the seat forward so that it is no longer crushing the rear passenger's legs, then they have to get in and readjust how reclined their seatback is. As far as I can tell, this is "a Honda thing". I have been in plenty of 2+2 cars over the years, and ones from other car manufacturers do not seem to have this problem. I verified that the 2006 Civic Si did the same thing.

All in all, those cars were a lot of fun to drive. I would not consider the problems listed above to be huge issues. However, they are cause for concern for anyone considering buying one.

Acura RSX Type S Test Drive, part 1

Some of my friends have been picking up some hot cars lately. I've had the chance to take some out for a spin, and I have some comments. One of my friends picked up a 2006 Honda Civic Si. Another has a 2002 Acura RSX Type S (which is essentially the same car as the new Civic Si). And yet another has a 2006 RSX Type S (although I didn't get to drive this one -- which is probably a good thing because it had an exhaust problem). All were stick-shift.

As I said before, they are all essentially the same car, which is why I'm going to talk about them all in one review. I spent the most time in the 2002 RSX Type S, so I'm going to focus on that car. First the good: It is a great all-around car. The RSX has the ability to get great gas mileage (assuming you drive sanely), but at the same time has a ton of power above 5-6000 RPM. As a result, the car can pull double-duty as a daily driver and as a weekend racer with ease. The car seems built solidly and well laid out. The controls are easy to read and to reach, and no parts (except for the back seat) are cramped, making it a very comfortable car to drive. The suspension is stiff without being harsh, allowing good feedback to come to the driver from the road. The amount of road noise is acceptable on highways, which is definite improvement over the RSX's predecessors. The shifter moves smoothly and quickly, and seems to beg you to grab another gear. In short, it is a very fun car to drive.

Now for the bad. The first thing that I noticed is that the c-pillars of the car are very wide, meaning that you have significant blind spots to the rear of the car. The side windows in the back seat area are very small, so when you turn your head, it is very difficult to see if there is a car in the lane next to you (see below image).



The passenger seat also sometimes blocks the small passenger side window on the other side of the car (see below image).



The blindspots complicate parking (especially parallel parking). The height of the trunklid also makes it very difficult to parallel park, however that is something that a driver could probably get used to.

More annoyances and final verdict tomorrow.

Operation Move Fishtank

As I mentioned before, I was planning to move my 55-gallon fishtank this past weekend. Operation Move Fishtank went well this weekend. The tank is in its new location and all of the fish seem to be adjusting well.

I was probably correct in my prediction that catching and moving all of the fish was probably as stressful for me as it was for the fish. I have some really odd fish that move very erratically. For instance, I have a few Otocinclus Catfish. They like to play dead, until you get really, really close to them. And then they dart around in random directions until they find a place where you can't get to them. Most of the fish weren't that hard to catch compared to the Ottos.



Above is a picture of the tank in its new location. It's only about 3/4ers full at this point, because I did not want to introduce a ton of brand new water to the water that I saved from the aquarium when I emptied it. The bucket sitting on the top of the aquarium is slowly dripping water into the tank. I'll be dripping water into the tank probably for the rest of the week, until the tank is full again.

Believe it or not, the entire operation took over 8 hours (the destination was probably a half-hour drive). I knew that it was going to take most of the day to move, but I had no idea that it was going to take that long. I hope I won't be moving it again for a really long time.

Shared Printers in Windows

Something that has always annoyed me about Windows is the way that shared printers are handled. There are many configurations that you could imagine where a user is using one computer, and trying to access a shared printer on a computer which needs different credentials. For instance, a user may be trying to use their personal laptop, and print to a printer that is a member of a Windows domain. Or, a user may simply be trying to access a printer shared on another stand-alone workstation (where their username and/or password is different).

If the connection between the two computer has not been made first, the user will receive an error when they try to print. The actual error is that the authentication has not taken place, but the error that is displayed is that the printer is not available (which is technically true, but massively unhelpful). The solution is to manually establish a connection to the computer sharing a printer (at which point, the user will be challenged for credentials). Of course, this solution really isn't obvious to most users.

The solution would be for the print dialogue to challenge the user for credentials when the user attempts to access the shared resouce. I can't think of a single reason why this problem hasn't been fixed. A user expects that after they install the driver for a shared printer, that they will have access to that printer from that point on. But in the above listed cases, every time the user reboots, they will have to manually establish a connection to the shared resource first. I am constantly being asked by people who are having this problem or a related one.

Remaindered...

I've been really, really busy lately, and haven't had time to write a real entry, so I'm just going to dump a lot of random thoughts...

• If anyone is trying to buy a used car and wants a Carfax report [wikipedia.org], let me know because I have 29 days left on my subscription.


• I just got a coupon from a local oil change place, where they prominently advertised that they have a Wifi hotspot. Is this really a draw? Who is going to sit there in the driver's seat of their car and try to type out an email with the laptop sitting in the passenger seat?


• A few months ago, I mentioned [fluggart.com] that I was going to be moving my aquarium soon. Since then, I have procrastinated the actual move, because I am worried about my fish dying. However, I don't think I can wait much longer. So, I will probably be moving it this weekend. It's going to be very stressful for both me and the fish, and I really have to make sure I have done sufficient planning ahead of time so that I have everything I need. It's a fairly large tank, so it is not going to be a trivial task.


• I've been trying out Mobility Email [mobilitymail.net] as my primary email client, and really like it so far. I like the idea that I can read my encrypted email, even when I am not at one of my own computers (by running Mobility Email off of a USB stick). The version I am running still has a bunch of bugs, but the good outweighs the bad at this point. One bug is related to my dual-headed setup, and the other bug that a new mail icon shows up in my System Tray at times when I haven't received any new email. The encryption stuff works flawlessly, though.


• I just upgraded from Debian Stable (Sarge) to Debian Testing (Etch) on my primary computer. Up until now, my X Server has always been some variant of XFree86, but the combination of X.org and the newer version of KDE looks incredible on my aging machine. Plus, I can now use the newer version of digiKam and upload scads of digital pictures up to Flickr (meaning that I will probably do that more). I haven't been able to recompile and get my Wifi card working yet.

More Complete Microsoft Security Failures

I was reading Bruce Schneier's weblog [schneier.com] the other day, and saw a link to 17 Mistakes Microsoft Made in the Xbox Security System [xbox-linux.org]. It is a wiki describing how Xbox security was comprehensively hacked, and the myriad of ways that it could have been better.

Here's a quote:

Microsoft decided to design a single security system that was supposed to make Linux, homebrew/unlicensed software and [running] copies [of games] impossible. The idea to accomplish this was by simply locking out all software that is either not on the intended (original) medium or not by Microsoft.

On the one hand, this idea makes the security system easier and there are less possible points off attack. But on the other hand, 3 times more attackers have a single security system to hack: ...Open Source and Linux people, homebrew developers, game companies as well as crackers...

Of the three consoles of its generation, Xbox, Playstation 2 and GameCube, the Xbox is the one whose security system has been compromised first, the one that is now easiest to modify for a hobbyist, the one with the most security system workarounds, and the one with the most powerful hacks. This may be, because the Xbox security is the weakest one of the three, but also because Open Source people, homebrew people and crackers attacked the Xbox, while the Open Source people did not attack the Playstation 2, as Linux had been officially supported by Sony, so the total number of hackers was lower, buying them time.

It is a fascinating read, not only because their motivation was completely spelled out, but because the article describes in pretty great detail what/how butter overflow attacks were used, how the Xbox bootloader works, how Xbox modchips were designed, etc.

Paternity Fraud

I definitely think that there are many laws stacked up against married men. Take for instance, paternity fraud [cbs4denver.com]. In a hypothetical case, a man and a woman are married. The woman cheats on her husband, and gets pregnant as a result. The couple has the baby, with the father never knowing that it isn't his. Later, they get divorced and somewhere along the way, the guy finds out that the child isn't his. Guess what? He's probably still going to have to pay child support. Even if DNA tests prove it isn't his kid.

This is horrifying to me. The case in Colorado (described in the above link) had this result:

"Even though DNA showed he was not the children's father, judges ordered Davis to continue paying more than $1,000 a month in child support for children who weren't his. 'If you don't contest paternity before a certain age, it's too late, you are now the father,' Davis said. 'A man on death row would be free with a DNA test, not in the case of child support.'"

Because of the publicity that these cases are now getting, some states are proposing new laws to remove the time limit to contest paternity. The time limit is ridiculous, because if you are married, why would it even occur to you to contest paternity at all?

And while we're on the subject of time limits, what is the purpose of statute of limitations for felony offenses? For instance, in the Mafia Cops case [latimes.com], it is completely ridiculous for anyone to get away with those crimes, simply because it took so long to gather the evidence.

Power Car Window Hazards

I recently saw a story [abcnews.com] (even though it's a few months old) about a boy who died after getting his neck stuck in a car power window (and he suffucated).

It reminded me of a similar incident that happened to me as a child. My mother used to have a Mercury Grand Marquis station wagon [ptd.net]. Remember, this was the 80's, so it was a BEHEMOTH. I think it was our family's first car with power windows, and all kinds of other fancy features.

Anyway, I was quite possibly the worst-behaved child ever. I know that a lot of people probably say that, but the entire reason that she bought the Grand Marquis station wagon in the first place was because I managed to critically damage her Chevy Malibu Classic station wagon [mclellansautomotive.com] (but that's a story for another time). I don't know how my mother put up with it, and didn't strangle me at some point.

So, my mother had all of these tricks to keep me in line. One of her tricks was to dangle a trip to Burger King in front of me (in exchange for good behavior). I have no idea how that came to be, but trips to Burger King being rewards set up all kinds of bad habits in my adulthood (I'm not casting any blame -- that was my fault). But I loved those onion rings. And I loved taking those Whopper Jr.s apart so that I could eat the top bun with the mayonaise and lettuce separately from the rest of the burger (I know, I was a really weird child). I can still taste those in my mouth...

Ok, so the one day, I was not over-the-top badly misbehaving, and was rewarded with a trip to Burger King (oh baby!). A key part of this story was that I was still young enough to have to sit in the back seat whenever we drove anywhere. It was part of the reward that I would get to order when we went through the drive through. So, naturally (being a stupid kid), I would stick my head out the window to order the coveted onion rings and Whopper Jr. After I was finished order, my mother hit the power window button to roll up my window (probably because the A/C was on). However, I hadn't pulled my head back in yet. So, the window rolls up onto my neck... squeezing my windpipe. So, I can't breathe, which also means that I can't scream. And even if I could find the power window button, it wouldn't do anything as long as she was trying to roll it up with her button (at best, it would just stop the window from trying to roll up).

Thank goodness I had the presence of mind to start flailing my arms and legs all over the place, leading my mother to look back (probably in anticipation of yelling at me for misbehaving again), and realize what was going on.

And although that was only one of many near-death experiences I had as a kid, I can tell you that I never stuck my head out of a power window again...

New Orleans

Heimlich just got back from a visit to New Orleans, where she helped out friends repairing their house. While she was there, she did some sightseeing and took a lot of pictures. A lot of areas of town looked like Katrina just blew through a few days ago:



The flood line was still visible on a ton of the buildings also. In the below picture, someone is standing on the ground, and the flood line is visible (way) above them:



In a lot of the pictures, I noticed X's spray painted on the sides of houses (see below picture). Apparently, during the cleanup after Katrina, that was the notation used to keep track of who searched the house, when it was searched, and whether anyone was found in it or not.



I uploaded her pictures to a gallery on my Flickr account. I apologize if any of the labels are incorrect, as I wasn't there, and have no idea what areas of town they were shot in.

A Walk Through Durham Township, Pennsylvania

I'm always looking for interesting photoblogs to look through and to find inspiration from. And every once in a while, I stumble across one that is really amazing.

On kottke.org [kottke.org], I saw a link to A Walk Through Durham Township, Pennsylvania [durhamtownship.com] which has some outstanding pictures. I spent a ton of time looking through the archives, because each picture was better than the previous one.

At the top of the photoblog, there is also a link labelled "Best Pictures", which takes you to a huge gallery. I thought that was a great idea, and is not something you see often on a weblog.

Juan Pablo Montoya

Recently, it was announced that racecar driver Juan Pablo Montoya is going to be leaving Formula 1 to race in Nextel Cup [latimes.com] (you know, NASCAR).

The thing that pisses me off is that almost every journalist is getting the story wrong. Just read how the article linked above lists the story:

"But Montoya's move underlines how NASCAR's soaring popularity is becoming alluring to drivers in other forms of racing. 'I am so happy to be entering the fastest-growing racing league in the world,' Montoya said."

There is no doubt about NASCAR's popularity and the lucrative marketing opportunities it provides. However, that's not the primary reason that Montoya is moving there. He's moving there because he can't find a team in Formula 1 that will hire him to be a driver, and he's forced to look in other racing leagues.

Ever since the first day Montoya was hired to be a Formula 1 driver, I have despised him. He's the Terrell Owens [wikipedia.org] of auto-racing (except without the talent). He has this enormous ego, but at the same time, is not able to back it up (in terms of qualifying and winning races). Furthermore, he is constantly running his mouth, and blaming all of his problems on his team, his teammates, or other people.

He is constantly crashing out of races, or finding other ways to lose races. Take for instance the US Grand Prix held 2 weekends ago. He ran into the back of his teammate's car on the first lap, causing a 5-car pileup. One article [planet-f1.com] described the accident as follows:

"Juan Pablo Montoya has sought to shift the blame for the five-car accident at the start of the U.S. GP on team-mate Kimi Raikkonen. Following the sister McLaren into the second corner, Montoya nerfed Raikkonen from behind, triggering a huge accident that culminated in Nick Heidfeld's BMW-Sauber barrell-rolling three times into the gravel trap. While Montoya appeared to be the culprit, he immediately told ITV that Kimi had caused the crash by 'braking really hard'...

"Jenson Button, one of the drivers caught up in the crash, pointed the finger of blame at the under-pressure Colombian. 'He had so much room on the inside. I've no idea why he hit us,' the frustrated Englishman complained."

Good riddance. NASCAR can have him.

Junk Mail Weirdness

Ever since we moved into our new house a few weeks ago, we have been getting some weird junk (snail) mail. The weirdness is in the names that the mail is addressed to.

My wife kept her maiden name (at my insistence). Let's say that my name is Bob Smith, and my wife's name is Mary Jones. I would totally understand it if we got junk mail addressed to our actual names, such as:

• Mr. Bob Smith
• Mrs. Mary Jones
• Mrs. Bob Smith
• Mr. and Mrs. Bob Smith

That makes sense. What doesn't make sense are the ones we are getting addressed to:

• Mr. Bob Jones
• Mr. and Mrs. Bob Jones
• Mary Jones and Tim Smith

There are several other odd variations. Some junk mailers seem to think that my last name is my wife's middle name.

I would just like to know how things get screwed up in their systems. I mean, they must have gotten my name from somewhere. So, how do they only get one half right? The frequency of the errors prevents me from attributing it all to typos (plus, if it were a typo problem, you would expect parts of our names to just be spelled incorrectly).

MP3 Players, Part 2

On Wednesday, I wrote about how I am trying to decide which MP3 player I want to buy. I'm still in the process of deciding, but I have discovered more information by reading the actual product manuals of many of the devices.

One of the players I have been considering is the Sandisk Sansa e270 [cnet.com].



It's a 6GB flash device. You have to use special software to upload media (ugh), and it doesn't have dedicated volume buttons (ugh). One of the features it *does* have, though, is a thumbwheel. Unfortunately, the thumbwheel can't be used for fast-forwarding and rewinding (which would have otherwise made it perfect for me). During play mode, the thumbwheel is used to adjust the volume. And since there are no dedicated volume buttons, there probably will never be a firmware update to add the functionality I want.

It's becoming increasingly apparent that I am not going to get the one feature that I really use a lot on my mp3 player (a thumbwheel that allows for quick, variable fast-forward/rewind). So, I've started widening my search to devices like the iRiver Clix [zdnet.com]. The link goes to a review that has a embedded flash video demonstrating the features of the player.



The device does have dedicated volume buttons. It has a smaller capacity (2GB), but it's tiny. And it has video capabilities, which might come in handy during my frequent travels. And it looks sweet, while being in the same price range as the rest of the players I have been looking at.

Cory Doctorow Switches (to Linux)

Two life-long Mac users (Mark Pilgrim [diveintomark.org] and Cory Doctorow [boingboing.net]) are switching to Ubuntu Linux [ubuntu.com]. I'm actually pretty shocked. Not to mention that I was thinking about buying a Mac later this year or early next year.

In his weblog, Doctorow writes:

"Mac guru and software developer Mark Pilgrim recently switched to Ubuntu Linux after becoming fed up with proprietary Mac file-formats and the increasing use of DRM technologies in the MacOS. I've been a Mac user since 1984, and have a Mac tattooed on my right bicep. I've probably personally owned 50 Macs, and I've purchased several hundred while working as an IT manager over the years. I'm about to make the same switch, for much the same reasons."

Holy crap. In the same entry, he states that he's going to be documenting his switch at every step of the way.

I'm amazed that Ubuntu continues to pull large number of users, given that its package-manager is command-line based. Take for instance a typical instruction -- "Step 1. Type 'apt-get install amarok'". That must look like complete gibberish to most users.

Although Ubuntu is getting a ton of attention right now, I have a feeling that it won't ever compete on the desktop in a serious manner until it develops a good graphical package manager (like the one in Xandros Linux [xandros.com]) and until Wifi [wikipedia.org] support isn't completely ad-hoc. Still, as a current Linux users, I can't help but be excited.

MP3 players

Ok, I need advice again (hopefully this won't be part of a larger trend). I know this is a long shot, but does anyone have a (non-iPod) MP3 player that they like that they can recommend?



Unfortunately, I recently dropped my MP3 player for the (n+1)th time, and the jogwheel stopped working (the jogwheel is on the corner of the player, like in the above picture). The good news is that the jogwheel is technically a redundant feature, so the MP3 player is still totally useable. So if one of the buttons was going to break, that would be the least bad one. The bad news is that the jogwheel was the feature that made the MP3 player so nice to use. The jogwheel allows the user to quickly and easily fast-forward or rewind. I like it particularly because 1) I can fast-forward and reverse using the jogwheel without looking down at the player (which is useful while driving), and 2) because the speed it fast-forwards or rewinds depends on the speed that you spin the wheel. So, I can zip through an hour-length MP3 looking for a particular section easily (which is something that I do fairly often).

So, I guess I'm in the market for a new MP3 player (and for durability reasons, would rather not buy the same model again). The primary feature I am looking for is variable fast-forward/rewind. And it seems that I have the choice between 1) iPod, which has a variable fast-forward/rewind on the click-wheel, but it's not particularly easy to use if you don't look at the player, and 2) all other MP3 players (like the Creative Zen Vision:M, Toshiba MES30VW Gigabeat, Archos Gmini XS100, iRiver H10, and Samsung YP-Z5AB), which don't have the click-wheel, but also don't have variably fast-forward/rewind. So, I think I'm screwed.

Most MP3 players don't have jog wheels, but have buttons that allow you to fast-forward and rewind. But I find that it takes too long to seek through an hour-length MP3 using those, because you can't easily control how quickly they fast-forward and rewind. Plus, the buttons that fast-forward and reverse are usually the same buttons that skip between files. That is annoying to me, because I know I will frequently screw up and accidentally skip to the next track, instead of fast-forwarding (which is what happens now that I can't use the jogwheel on mine). Plus, there is a delay between when you push the button and when it actually starts fast-forwarding (because it waits to find out if you want to seek or skip) -- so if you have to go back and forth looking for something, it takes forever.

My other preferences aren't as important. I would rather have a flash-based player than a hard drive-based one, for the durability. But I would be willing to buy another hard drive-based one to get the other features I want. I would also like a player that gets mounted as a mass storage device so that I can use it with other operating systems, and so that I can use it for the occasional file transfer to someone else's computer without having to install specialized software. But again, I would be willing to buy a player that requires special software if I could get the other features that are more important. I use about 10GB of the 20GB capacity of my current player, so I don't need a ridiculous amount of storage space (and could easily live with less). And I'm not crazy about the volume controls on the iPod, but would probably get used to it. I would rather have dedicated volume control buttons.

Maybe the solution is to buy an iPod and suck it up... If anyone has any insights into my dilemma, pleast let me know.

Windows Genuine Advantage

There has been a quiet furor lately over the newest piece of Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) that has been pushed out to users. The chief problem being that the new piece of (anti-piracy) software was pushed out like a "critical security update". And that too often, it identifies legally bought software as pirated (and then disables that software).

I found an article [zdnet.com] that summed up why this was wrong that details the issues much more succinctly than I would be able to. I think that Microsoft has made a huge mistake. The newest WGA component was automatically installed on any computer that had automatic updates turned on. But because of the large number of legitimate software licenses it is disabling, people are turning off automatic updates on their computers. Microsoft should want as many people as possible to have automatic updates turned on, so that actual critical security updates could be pushed out as quickly as possible.

But the situation appears to be even worse than I had originally imagined. Currently, any user not using automatic updates can manually choose not to install the newest WGA component. But installing it may become mandatory later this year.

So, here's what they are doing... They are trying to go after a tiny minority of users who are pirating Windows. But in order to do so, they are using a tool that is disruptive to a much larger number. Imagine that your parents bought a computer from Dell. And at some point, they had to send it back to get it fixed. Dell did who-knows-what to fix the computer (and probably changes the license numbers in the process), and sends it back. Your parents then get this WGA software pushed out to them, which disables their version of Office, because it was misidentified as pirated. How do you think they're going to feel about that?

Average users who have had little reason to dislike Windows are starting to wake up.