This WGA debacle

It's awkward to communicate through comments. This warrants a new post anyway, so, to recap from comments below:

James said...

Windows have recently released a "security update" which verifies whether you have a legit copy of Windows or not. Since this is a secondhand laptop, I have no idea, even though Windows is telling me it's pirated. Until it's resolved, I won't receive security updates. Gay.
22/6/06 2:39 PM

Markrian said...

I see... Being a laptop I'm sure it did at one point have a legit copy of Windows, but after a reinstall and a lost license key, probably not anymore. Sucks to be locked into Windows! There might be work-arounds - in fact I'm sure someone's come up with something already, it's just a matter of finding it.

Or, you could buy a copy of Windows. (How much does that go for nowadays? A quick search on Amazon shows that full versions of Windows aren't easy to find! Ah, found it. £169.99 from Amazon for XP Home Full edition with SP2 built in.)

Another option is to switch to Linux. There're no guarantees everything will work perfectly with it, though the latest releases have progressed enormously. IBM laptops often work flawlessly. What'll it be? I'm happy to help you out whatever your decision.
23/6/06 4:07 PM

Markrian said...

I was curious and checked out the price of Mac OS X on Amazon. That's £79.99, less than half the price of XP. It's a shame it doesn't run on non-Apple hardware (yet).

I just noticed that Windows XP with SP2 is available for £63.99 from Amazon, but the difference (or catch?) is that it's the OEM version. I can't remember if that really matters, and what differences there are, if any, between OEM and retail software. OEM software is aimed at businesses which build and sell PCs. Retail is for putting in Dixons. So the average person pays out £105 more than a business for a copy of Windows XP.

After checking again, Windows XP Retail has actually gone up in price! See retail and OEM on Amazon.

Honestly, why?

And then the wall spoke

Went to Germany for a week to visit my grandad, or Opi, whom I hadn't seen in over a decade. Every day there had perfect weather, reaching as high as 34 degrees in the shade. We went swimming in natural sulphur springs, ate lots of hazelnut ice cream which was yummy.

I read 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time' on the outward journey. Good book, surprisingly readable and moving. I'm not sure whether this was intentional, but I disliked the kid whathisname. I couldn't deal him. At the same time I respected his like for mathematics and the scientific method. The problems described prompted me to explore them for myself.

Whilst in Germany I read 'Fear Itself'. The first few pages pissed me off a lot; bloody Americans... The story seemed to pick up a bit though. Some insightful stuff about the nature of fear and sexual pleasure in there. Not bad for an American.

Opi and I talked about politics and war, and of course his war stories. He wrote a report of his experiences in the Russian front in German a few years ago and we decided he should translate them into his best English which I would later edit.

Came back to Cambridge on Thursday, went to the Homerton Event on Friday, which for a tenner was excellent. Much better ROI (Return Of Investment, not Republic Of Ireland) than any ball could manage. Obviously Saturday I came to watch your show James - good stuff, I'm told. Sunday was Wyvern's Garden party, which was fun. There were women in bikinis wrestling in jelly! Apparently each girl received £100 for joining in. If I were a girl I so would have done that. Didn't sleep a wink Sunday night. Then came Jesus May Ball on Monday night, which was excellent, and I got four hours sleep this morning after Survivor's Photo. Oh, saw Will Brown the other day, and at the end of the ball - he's a galled tit, I mean tall git now. Claims he's extremely average here, which after having read some Maths Tripos papers I'm not surprised by.

Looks like I've got my placement in Astrophysics Part II next year, pleased about that. Should be a fascinating year.

How's the Christian thing going? And Camille? Did you know there's a French singer by the same name who I think is fantastic?

Fine, fine...

Right, well - I've finished work very early today (been an extremely productive day and I worked 11 hours yesterday, so finished a little early), so I'll blog a bit. My life hasn't been particularly interesting of recent, it's been spent working, revising and hanging out with the people I'll be living with next year (it's going to rock :D). My calendar app is *rocking*, just a few things to sort out before it'll storm GUADEC :)

Looking forward to GUADEC quite a bit, having never been to Spain before, or a Gnome conference - I should be playing in a band there too, so all in all, looking forward to it... I'll make sure to take lots of pictures with my new phone - The Motorola V3i (I may have mentioned this before?) It has its faults, but on the whole it's quite nice and the camera is a huge step up from my last one. I opened a Flickr account the other day, check it out - Not much on it yet, but I've started taking more photos, I'll put more up soon.

I've not got much to report I'm afraid, other than work and hanging out eating pizza. Things have been extremely hectic, I've not really had the time to sit down and just think about life - I don't know whether this is good or bad, but I'm quite satisfied with the way things are at the moment. I especially enjoy my job, I really take pride in the work I've done for OpenedHand :)

So, what are we doing this summer guys? I need to take a holiday or I'm actually going to have a nervous break-down/heart-attack, so I'm thinking we should take some time to do some hardcore chilling - and by chilling, I mean eating rolls, playing frisbee, being beaten by me at Smash bros. and finally completing Paper Mario(?)
- When are you guys back? I'll be home from beginning of July.