August 2005
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I am The Cyberwolfe and these are my ramblings. All original content is protected under a Creative Commons license - always ask first.
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Archive for August 2nd, 2005

Boing Boing: Microsoft Genuine Advantage bypass

Posted in Geekery on August 2nd, 2005

Boing Boing: Microsoft “Genuine Advantage” cracked in 24h: window.g_sDisableWGACheck=’all’

That was pretty quick!

Should you actually go straight in to the updates page, it will tell you to run the validation, and you might get some strange replies. I didn’t get a copy of the full text, but two machines I ran updates on today gave me the same notice. It went something like this:

You computer checks out as having a version of Windows purchased from an OEM manufacturer, but the computer hardware it reports seems to be different from what the intended hardware was. This is ok for now, but may be a problem later on.

WTF? What kind of hardware was it intended for? These were corporate-licensed copies, built on Intel processors. (Insert sound file here.) Were these copies intended for an Apple? A SPARC? Maybe an Atari?

What this means, folks, is that MS tracks which vendor bought which batch of license keys as a means to help them catch piraters. So, if you had an XP key installed on a Dell that was originally sold to HP, it would send up a flag to Redmond when you tried to validate it. It also seems to be tracking what the original hardware was intended to be, so changes you made to your system may be a problem down the road, if you happen to be an upgrader like myself.

Bastards.

2010: The Blog We Make Contact

Posted in Geekery on August 2nd, 2005

Here’s a milestone for you: last week, we tipped the scales at 2010 unique visits to this site. I think that’s more than the entire first year put together…

I was also the recipient of a fair amount of traffic from Google searches – I’d tell you what they were looking for, but unfortunately my host doesn’t include that part in the analysis page; I’d have to go digging through the raw logs. That’s just way too much work this late at night.

Waitaminute – when did I install a smoke screen?

Posted in Life on August 2nd, 2005

So, aside from minorly misleading directions from the website map, I managed to get new tires on the front of my car this morning with no real ado, and then proceeded out to Sandy for my day’s appointment.

Just about the time I was running out of things to do, the call came in to take a priority service call back downtown. I hop in The Beastie and am merrily blazing down the highway when I happen to notice large clouds of bluish-white smoke billowing out from my car. Crap! I pull to the side and look under the car to see vital fluids dribbling liberally onto the pavement.

Double-crap!

My boss pulled through again and got me towed to a mechanic via his AAA card (I gotta get one one of these days) where I found that the oil pressure sensor had cracked, and was shooting oil straight onto the exhaust. Thankfully enough, it’s a cheap part, and the labor wasn’t that bad. All told, I got a new sensor installed and an oil & filter change for $85.

The upside is that now the car sounds great, and handles alot better with the new tires. Now I just have to save up the money to get the trans fixed.