Adam made chili and brought some in for me for lunch… he rules…

I love when crashing code works fine in the debugger… Time to find my buffer overrun… :)

Saturday I worked all day. This was stupid. I don’t even want to talk about it, but it ruined my weekend (and I like my job). Today was just chores and garbage work until I went over to Adam, Rory, and Frances crib for dinner and a movie (say ‘allo to my lil freend). Frances and I carved the pumpkins we got last weekend, and then I lugged the pumpkin home… That walk seems alot longer when carrying a bigass pumpkin..

I guess I have to go into work tomorrow, but I am not really ready for it. Honestly, I am not really happy lately… It’s definately not a work thing, cuz work makes me happy and distracts me from my troubles, but…. I dunno… Sorry for the downer, but it’s my journal… :)

Stayed at work until around 10pm last night working with Adam… Rory had stopped by under the assumption that we all were going to play Counter-Strike for a little while, which he did, but Adam and I were engrossed in work, and we never actually put it down. At 10, we went to a Halloween Party at Mario (co-worker’s) house, which was really cool. I found out at lunch yesterday that it was supposed to be a costume party, so I went thinking I would be Mr. Party Pooper, but it turns out that only 1/10th of the people there were actually in costume. It was alot of fun, however, and I met many of Mario’s friends outside of work (most of which speak spanish as a primary language, which I am used to after working at Rovia).

Adam and I might go into work a bit today to try and finish off our project ahead of schedule…

Amy just called me (woke me up, actually) to let me know about a song she heard on the radio, and we talked for a minute, then we sorta got cut off (I couldn’t hear her, she could hear me) and after a minute of silence on my end, an asian lady appeared in the middle of our conversation and said “POKEMON X” and that’s it…. We both heard it (I found out afterwards, since I couldn’t hear Amy), but then we got disconnected.. It was especially frightening…

I have had discussions with lots of people lately regarding Microsoft’s new licensing model they have debuted with the XP releases. In a nutshell, when you buy a license you register it with Microsoft after installing it, and you get a license key that ties that registration to the hardware in a particular computer. This means that you can’t install the same copy of XP on multiple machines without buying multiple licenses… Contrary to what most people are saying about Microsoft, I actually agree with them on this part of the license model. Perhaps it is because I am a software engineer, but I do understand why a company would wish to protect their software from piracy, and to tell you the truth, this is far less invasive than the dongles of yore… The license information is tied to a hardware ID which is generated by a function that is seeded by ids of the various components of your PC. If you change a few of the components in your machine you the ID becomes invalid and you have to contact Microsoft for a new ID. This part is mildly annoying, but really I don’t see another way around it.

I think any software developer has every right to protect their software from piracy within reason. I really don’t think that there is anything intrusive about this product activation…. This method prevents the need for more intrusive methods (like having XP connect back to the mothership via the internet to validate the install), but reasonably protects Microsoft’s software. And in reality, we all know that someone will crack this up before it is too long, so all you pirate kiddies have nothing to fear….

I guess the more controversial aspect of XP, and the aspect that I am having more trouble forming an opinion of, is the time-limited license. When you buy a copy of Windows XP, you are getting a license to that software that has an expiration date (I believe 3 years from activation). Now, I understand the financial reasons of why Microsoft would want to move to a subscription based system, and I don’t disagree with all their points, but as a consumer, it still seems like I am getting screwed over. I mean, the upgrade price for XP Home Edition is \$99, \$199 for the Professional Edition (which supports SMP). And that’s the upgrade price.. I really think that if Microsoft is going to start limiting the lifespan of it’s software licenses then the prices should reflect that accordingly.

But ultimately, the real power of this arrangement lies in the consumer, who makes the choice of accepting the license or not. But, in reality, what will happen is that the uneducated users won’t care either way, the educated users who disagree will complain alot but still accept the policy in the end once some piece of software they “need” requires XP… I will hold out a bit to see how it settles out, and to see if the upgrade is worth it… Otherwise I will probably just stick with what I have for as long as I can…

I was looking at a web page, and I noticed this ad that looked all retarded:

They apparently don’t understand images or aspect ratios over at ford, because the image was only this big:

I find this very amusing…

MicroPro apparently intentionally sent me the better motherboard, or so they say… They told me to keep it and send back the lesser one… I don’t think they realize that the lesser one still works, but if you are quiet about it I will be too. :)

I guess I forgot to set my alarm…. Time to go to work… :)

Last wednesday, my computer situation was very frustrating, but then when I got the second piece of DDR Memory in and proved that the initial fault was the RAM, I was far less pissed off. Today I got the replacement motherboard and RAM that I originally RMAed before I knew where the fault was. Unfortunately they sent me both the wrong motherboard and the wrong RAM. The Motherboard is the step up from the one I purchased, the DVD266u-RN (which has Tualatin processor support, better onboard audio [which I don’t need in the first place], AGP PRO, and a Highpoint RAID controller as opposed to the AMI RAID on my motherboard). They also sent me unregistered DDR memory, which works fine, but you can’t mix and match registered and unregistered, so I need to send that back as well… I am probably going to call them tomorrow and tell them that I am sending back the new Motherboard, and both sets of RAM, and ask for a refund on all 3… I can always order more memory from somewhere else, and I am sick of not having any money as it is being tied up in cross-ship fees…

This is pretty amusing….