Joe's Random Ramblings

In their lawsuit against Novell, the jury ruled that Novell and not SCO owns the Unix copyrights. The verdict, from Groklaw.

Some links/reactions:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20100330152829622
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700020711/Jury-sides-with-Novell.html
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/03/sco-loses-again-jury-says-novell-owns-unix-svrx-copyrights.ars

Now, hopefully SCO can finally roll over and die for good. This ridiculous crap has been going on for way too long.

I have an old computer with Windows XP SP1, that I use once or twice a year, to run programs that don't exist for Linux.
Recent Windows programs, e.g., iTunes, nowadays require at least XP SP2, though.
I have neither need nor time to upgrade that old computer, which runs on a Pentium 3, to SP2 or SP3 (I don't even want to imagine the crawl the system would end up with under Vista or Win7...) So, knowing that the differentiation of Windows versions is often just based on some registry key, I searched for a way to make programs think the system is XP SP2. And somebody indeed has located the magic registry key:

Go to: "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Windows"
And change "CSDVersion" from the SP1 value (0x00000100) to SP2 value (0x00000200)

Seems to work fine, after rebooting the machine.
But of course, unless running behind a decent firewall (e.g., Linux-based, like in my network), nobody should do this. An unprotected Windows XP SP1 machine is bound to be cracked within minutes.
Even a fully-patched Windows machine with the latest service packs should only be run behind a good firewall.

Update: This has limits, in that there are some new functions in the files installed by XP SP2. It seems that .Net 4.0 requires some of these functions. The .Net 4.0 installation will fail with this faked SP2. If an applications needs .Net 4.0, the only option is to actually install SP2.

It was long overdue that the US gets a healthcare system worthy of a developed country, worthy of a superpower.
Finally, the US healthcare bill has passed tonight.
Now, the President can start getting the Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill out the door.

Sometimes I wonder what idiots get elected into public office.
Here we have a gentleman who easily qualifies for the top spot of idiocy: A New York state assemblyman called Felix Ortiz.
He introduced a bill to ban all salt in restaurant cooking.
What a brilliant exposure of his lack of anything resembling a brain.
He should spend a day in his kitchen. He obviously has enough time to waste, since he came up with this BS...

As I've mentioned before, I have a Barnes & Noble nook e-book reader.
A couple of weeks back, Barnes & Noble offered a book for free for one day. I happened to switch the nook on 15 minutes before midnight, saw the offer in their daily updates on the nook, and ordered it right there.
So, I should get it for free, right? Wrong. Barnes and Noble processes the order 2 hours later, at 1:51am (actually, 4:51am EST, I get to that in a minute) and charges me for the normal price.
So, the next day I called up their digital customer support. The first thing they tell me is that I ordered at 4:51am, which is of course complete BS. I tell them I don't care if they use EST, the offer didn't say anything about EST, and I ordered before midnight local time, PST. Eventually, they offer to send me a $10 giftcard. Ok, I'm fine with that.

Fast forward 2 weeks. Today, I get the giftcard in the mail. But, it is for $5 only. What idiot at B&N thought it would be a good idea to cut the offer in half?
Hello - Anybody home? I already made the effort to call you guys up over $7.50 or so. Did you guys really think I would go away quietly if you cut the offer in half??? Geez, what a way to piss off your customers... I would have praised you guys for fixing the problem. Instead, you managed to piss me off...
Of course, it was never really about the money for me. I could have just disputed the charge on the credit card. It always was about B&N honoring their offers.

So, I got on the phone again with B&N customer support. The person, after apparently checking with her supervisor, told me they are going to send me another $5 giftcard.
Probably takes another 2 weeks... Maybe they cut it in half again