Wed, 10 Nov 2004
Admittedly, I get a bad impression of Windows software because the only time I ever touch it is when it’s already causing problems for someone. But gag.
The latest wonderful bit of nonsense is thanks to Symantec, in particular their “Norton Internet Security” product. Its wonderful new activation feature is broken on Windows XP, so naturally, when you buy a copy of Internet Security, it automatically disables itself, and tells you to phone someone who calls you a pirate and, in a fit of self-righteous indignation, then refuses to help you at all. Heck, even the web pages do it:
customer support [sic]
We cannot provide further information about this product.
You may have been the victim of software piracy and could be in possession of counterfeit software. If you believe that this is possible, please send an email to piracy@symantec.com and let us know which product you purchased, your activation/product key, and how and where you bought the product. Any contact information you provide will be kept confidential.
If you would like to purchase a new copy of the product, click here.
Thanks a bundle, Suck-antic.
Tue, 03 Aug 2004
I’ve been thinking of getting an iPod for quite a while, but hadn’t quite managed to get over the “$500 for a fancy-shmancy walkman?? pfft!” mental hurdle. However things came to a head recently – I’ve joined the local gym to try to get a bit fitter for skiing in a couple of weeks (Mmmm. Skiing. Sorry, can’t help it), and having some nice music to distract myself from the sweat and pain seems useful. Last time I went I ended up having to make up a song to keep my rhythym up while running on the treadmill. Its lyrics were “one, two, three, four” repeated for ten minutes straight, in time to my steps (or fifteen minutes or twenty hours or something, whatever). Obviously something had to be done.
Tue, 06 Jan 2004
As part of moving, I needed to get the Internet hooked up again, which meant getting a new ADSL modem. Looking around, there seemed to be good deals for combination ADSL modem/4 port hub/wireless access point dealies, and as it turned out I was able to get a second hand one for even cheaper. As you’ve guessed from this post’s title, I got a Billion 743GE, which does all of the above, as well as providing some VPN stuff.
First problem when I got it home was that I couldn’t ping it, even after doing a factory reset. Crap. Second problem was wireless wasn’t working at all. Double crap. Naturally, if you can’t ping it, you can’t use the web interface to configure it, either. Crap, crap, crap. Fortunately there’s a serial console mode you can use. Unfortunately, all the computers I use these days don’t have serial ports. Fortunately, I have an old box which I don’t use which still has a serial port. Unfortunately, the console mode seems to be completely undocumented.
Long story short, I managed to eventually tweak a couple of things to get the box to talk to computers other than the previous owners’, and managed to configure things up so that, well, I can post blog entries again. The web interface is nice, but doesn’t seem complete – you seem to be able to screw things up in the console interface that you can’t fix with either a facotry reset, or the web interface. And unfortunately the console interface doesn’t make an incredible amount of sense. It does look like I route the wireless and ethernet ports entirely separately though, and even possibly route each individual ethernet port separately. That seems like a pretty cool thing if I’m going to set up any VPNs using this little device, which I might – at the very least, I really don’t like having anyone be able to connect via wireless to the secure side of the VPN.
So far, it looks like a very cool product.