Are Sony really this nasty?

Spotted this comment in the off-topic thread on Groklaw:

And speaking of hardware shenanigans, a friend of mine just recently bought a Sony CD recorder, only to get it home and find out that it wouldn't record on any of his blank CDs. After experimenting, I discovered that it only records on Sony "digital audio" CDs. Talk about product lock-in!

Now he bought it because the burner in his computer was no longer working (would read, but not write), and since he's a musician, he thought rather than replace the one in his computer, he'd buy the standalone because it also let him record directly from analog sources. So I asked him about the one in his computer. He said it stopped working after his wife had upgraded something on the computer.
That made me think "hmmmmm", so I offered to look at it. Surprise!
The 'upgrade' his wife had done was to replace the CD burner... with a Sony! So I popped a blank Sony CD into that, and lo and behold, it suddenly worked.

Not sure how that's legal, but they are clearly doing it. But they lost a customer... he took the recorder back to Best Buy for a refund, and he's replacing the burner in the computer.

That's kind of weird, and you think would fall afoul of various laws relating to consumer protection & anti-competitive behaviour. I'm pretty sure it would be illegal here in Oz unless the fact the burner only worked with Sony branded CDs was prominently marked on the box.

I presume the guy is trying to burn standard Redbook audio CDs, so I can't see any reason why any other media wouldn't be acceptable, other than Sony trying to force people to buy their (often overpriced) product. Just like the printer manufacturers & their proprietary ink cartridges, I suppose.

Does anyone know anything more about this issue?

One more annoying thing about Windows

Ok, today's annoyance: I moved the computer around (actually, I moved all the furniture in the study around, but that's another story).

When I plugged everything back into the computer, I didn't bother to make sure I plugged all the USB cables back into exactly the same port they came out of.

Upon booting into Windows, I'm greeted with the "found new hardware wizard", and my (USB) keyboard & mouse don't work. A hard reset later, and at least the k/b & mouse work, but I still get Windows asking me to install drivers for my TrackIR5. Which was already installed & working prior to the move...

This isn't the first time this has happened to me. It seems that Windows decides that because this piece of hardware wasn't plugged into that particular USB port, it must be a new piece of hardware that needs new drivers installed, and not at all the same as the one that was plugged into that other USB port at the last boot, and which isn't on that other port any more...

Grrr...

If only my games were playable on Linux.

I don't suppose anyone knows how to get ArmA II (Steam version) & SupCom working via Wine?

Space is valuable...

It's an oft-repeated question: why should we spend so much money on the space program when we could spend it on more pressing needs here on Earth?

Here's a nice article spelling out the top 15 innovations that have come directly out of research supporting the space program.

Sending humans & spacecraft into an extreme environment is not easy, and lots of new ideas get floated to try and make it a little easier or safer - many of which have application in everyday life.

It's just a shame NASA doesn't get credit for this stuff. As I understand it, any licensing revenue from NASA-invented patents goes to the US Government, probably to spend on pork-barrelling for the next election.

Video of the week

This would have to be (a) the best cover I've heard of Toto's Africa, and (b) one of the best a capella works I've heard in a while.

Highly recommended viewing.



via videosift.com

Windows vs Linux, part 9,457

Something occurred to me the other day.

I had booted up the Windows 7 Release candidate, and was running various update programs & the like, installing the latest version of Firefox, etc etc.

Then I thought, "Hey, I might log on to Warcrack & have a quick game".

Only one slight problem - I haven't installed World of Warcraft on Windows 7 RC yet.

And when you're looking for a "quick game", you don't want to have to install WoW before hand. We're talking 6 CDs for the original game package, then another 4 CDs for the Burning Crusade addon, then a DVD for the Wrath of the Lich King addon, then about 2.5 gigabytes of assorted patches. Yes, it takes frikkin' hours...

Then it occurred to me - if I was using my Kubuntu Linux install, and I wanted to upgrade from Kubuntu 8.10 to 9.04, for example, I'd just hit the "dist upgrade" button, go make a cup of tea, and when the upgrade had finished, I would just fire up WoW & play. I wouldn't have to reinstall all of my apps just because I upgraded the operating system files.

Yet another example of the robust Unix-inspired design of Linux, and the not-so-robust nature of Windows. A lot of that has to do with how the apps are installed, though, from what I understand. With Linux, apps install all of their files into one directory, with maybe a single text-based configuration file somewhere else (/etc/config for many, I think). User-related data files are stored in the user's home directory (/home/). When you upgrade the base operating system files, you don't have to touch the program or home directories, so that stuff is still there & works fine (unless, maybe, you have an app that doesn't want to work with a newer version of some core OS files, which as I understand it is pretty rare in Linux).

Windows, on the other hand, has a system where applications are stored under C:\Program Files, but all of their configuration information is stored in a single, massive, configuration database that's common to both the operating system and every app installed. It's called the registry. You might also have "shared" library files that are installed to C:\Windows\System32 or similar places. You will also have some other configuration information & files saved to C:\Documents and Settings\ and/or C:\Documents and Settings\ as well.

Of course, when you install a new version of Windows, the first thing that goes is the registry. And everything in C:\Windows & subdirectories. If you were to do a Windows upgrade, a lot of that info would be kept, but nearly every computer-savvy person out there will tell you that upgrading Windows is a bad idea, and you should always do a clean install, either by wiping the hard disk or by installing onto another clean partition. This is to avoid problems with corruption of the registry file, mostly, as I understand it. Which highlights another problem Windows has - the registry generally fills up with all sorts of crap over time, and is quite likely to become corrupted in some fashion over a period of three years or more. If you've got a Windows install that's still working after five years, it's a rare beast (the best I've managed is three and a half, and that machine got a corrupted registry on the very day I was trying to show it to a potential buyer, requiring a complete reinstall).

So the recommended method of upgrading Linux is to just upgrade your OS files, and everything else will (most probably) still work fine.

The recommended method of upgrading Windows is to wipe your hard disk and start from scratch, reinstalling every single application, utility, and addon you use.

Hmm...

Methinks the folks at Microsoft need to work on that.

Kissing who's ass?

Here's an interesting little video...



Via

Quote of the Day

Came across this on a website talking about the number of internet searches for the word "sex":

It took a black man becoming leader of the free world to wrangle the collective consciousness away from sex for roughly 23 minutes.

Google's statistics here.