deKay’s Blog

Supposedly a “strong” beer, but at just 2.5% could almost be water. Tastes stronger than it is though, but is a bit too bitter to be pleasant.

Beerating: 2/5

After upgrading to v1.2 (v1.2.0.325, in fact) of SyncMate, my Vario II (Windows Mobile 5 phone) decided it no longer wanted to talk to my Mac. Either of my Macs, in fact. I kept getting the message “Can’t start driver, error 2″.

The “fix” suggested (deleting some files on the Vario II, reinstalling the driver, etc. - see thread here) then prevented the Vario II from talking to ActiveSync on my PC at work too.

An uninstall of v1.2 on my Macs, a hard reset of my Vario II, a reboot of the Macs followed by a reinstall of v1.1.0.316 of SyncMate (and another reboot) and finally reconnecting my phone up to install the driver on it (and then rebooting the phone again) finally sorted it.

Probably best not to ask me to explain this.

As I have been quite vocal about, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 downloadable content DRM is rubbish. When I replaced my Xbox 360 with a 360 Elite a couple of months ago, I lost the ability to play my games offline. What made it worse, was that before I bought a new console, I rang tech support to ask if I could transfer everything over and still play games offline - and was told yes. Naturally, they’d lied to me and having laid out £260 for a new console I was then told I was stuffed.

So I’ve spent the last two months going round and round in circles, ringing support, ringing complaints, emailing… even writing a letter (on paper and everything) and posting it to head of Microsoft UK. Still no fix for me, or acceptance they got me into this situation. I have £400 worth of games I don’t have full use of, and it’s all Microsoft’s fault as they gave me bad advice.

But there may be light at the end of this tunnel! Today, it was revealed that Microsoft are making changes to their DRM system:

I can tell you that the team will be releasing a new digital rights management (DRM) tool next month that will allow you to better consolidate your licenses for downloaded content to a single Xbox and allow you the freedom to be able to play your content both online and offline.

Finally! I’d like to think that my persistence has played a small part in them deciding to do this. If it actually happens, I’ll be very happy indeed. I feel I’ve had a little victory!

Here’s the interview where this was revealed (along with other Xbox related stuff):

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: MS to Delist XBLA Titles

I’ve been spotted again. A lot. It seems the UEA did a major leaflet drop in the area, and so half the people I work with ended up with me on their doormat at some point over the last week. Amazing!

For no reason other than I just minimised a window and thought “ooh, that is nice”, here’s my current Macbook desktop.  The picture is by the wonderful FargalEX, and you can see more of his stuff over here.

Yes, it is true. No more am I pretending I’m just 19-and-some-bits. I’m actually 30 now. Today.

Which sounds very old, doesn’t it? Well, unless you’re post-30 yourself already. But it seems old to me. I don’t feel old. I don’t even feel any older than I did at 20. So I suppose I’m not. But I’m half-way to 60 already. Pff.

It seems I share a birthday with Andy Murray and Zara Phillips. And lots of other people, of course, but I don’t think I’ve heard of anyone else on Wikipedia’s list.

It’s the most annoying advert EVER. And the “song” won’t get out of my head. GAH!

After one of the missions, where you kill a guy outside a video game arcade, the city’s online newspaper reports this story.

Being a netrock manager (like a network manager, only more metal), I often need to deploy software across hundreds of PCs. Helpful companies provide “msi” files which I can just plug into a Group Policy on Active Directory, but less helpful companies insist on using exe installers, using InstallShield or WISE or whatever.

These companies need to be punched in their actual faces.

Luckily, some of these installers actually include msi files within the install exe, but actually getting to them is a bit hit and miss - WinRAR will sometimes extract exe files if it realises they’re really just archives with an exe bit tacked on, but sadly this isn’t always the case.

Which is why Universal Extractor, something I stumbled across today whilst looking at how you install ActivStudio 3 across a network, was an amazing find. It supports loads of different installer types, and is very easy to use.

Universal Extractor | LegRoom.net

Oh, and if you want to know how to roll ActivStudio 3 out on your network, here is an excellent guide.