Aw dawg, this is just my whateva-whateva site.

General Larry Platt – Pants on the Ground (DjLizard remix)

Internet Explorer 8 is not supported by Dial-a-fix at this time. If you have IE 8 installed and run Dial-a-fix, you may receive many "Error 127" messages because Internet Explorer 8 replaces a lot of registerable components with non-registerable ones. This is OK – simply ignore all of the errors. Dial-a-fix is still able to do its thing on other files, and the no damage has been done to your system during these error messages.

A future version of Dial-a-fix will support Internet Explorer 8 by ignoring those unregisterable components.

My personal hard drive is failing, so I had to go to Digital Doctors and clone it to a new drive, just like old times. Hard drives suck. There's only one bad sector on it but when the system runs across it, all hell breaks loose.

ddrescue is your friend!

While cloning, it was only going 15 to 20 MB/s even on the good parts. I then realized that the -b flag to ddrescue would allow me to force it to go maximum speed. By using -b 4096 it began going 70 to 80 MB/s on the parts of the drive that are working fine.

Don't forget about the good ole data recovery article.

To celebrate symantec-sucks.blogspot.com's existence I have decided to finally upload my avsucks folder.

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(Another double feature!)

Part I: Top ten reasons why Dial-a-fix doesn't support Vista yet

10. Vista sucks
9. Vista sucks
8. Vista sucks
7. Vista sucks
6. Vista sucks
5. I don't have very much personal time available to me these days.
4. I don't have any spare computers with which I could run Vista at the moment.
3. I use Borland Delphi which is fucking terrible, and I haven't been able to get back to my C studies for several months now. Object Pascal (as a language) is kick-ass (in my opinion), but Borland's IDE is complete garbage – especially its cost. Don't suggest .NET… that's not even funny.
2. Microsoft changed nearly everything Dial-a-fix is capable of fixing to the point that Dial-a-fix has to be rewritten from the ground up just for Vista. Nobody's really got lists of "common" fixes the way XP has. Dial-a-fix is just a collection of known fixes, anyway – 99% of what DAF does is not even my invention.
1. Microsoft should fix their shit so Dial-a-fix need not exist. Is it too much to ask for a brand new operating system version not to bring 7 years worth of bugs with it? Basically, #1 is that I can't currently be arsed to fix their brand new old bugs – that's their fucking job!

Everyone should petition Microsoft to get their shit together. How can this stuff happen so much to so many people that a program like Dial-a-fix needs to be made? If I can do it, why can't Microsoft?

I will probably make a Vista version, but don't ride my ass about when and where.

Vista is an abomination and it just goes to show you that even if you "listen" to your customers (by way of usability tests, etc) it doesn't guarantee you'll get the implementation right. Microsoft needs to go back to the basics and re-think the way people use computers. Most people are multitasking, non-deterministic users. Some are single-tasking deterministic users who have old habits that are hard to break. Tough for you folks – you'll need to renew your computing license. One of the problems I see in Vista is that it tried to simultaneously retain backward compatibility while moving forward. The result: a train wreck. You know who doesn't care AT ALL about your previous programs working? Apple. They couldn't give less of a flying double monkey fuck about your programs working in the next version. You know what else? This seems to be perfectly acceptable behavior in the Mac community. Why isn't anyone up in arms about how Apple constantly ditches everyone, each time a major OS release is made? At least Microsoft tries (even if they inevitably fail).

Part II: Mac zealotry

Don't even get me started about Mac zealotry (too late). Some (but not most) Mac users have serious mental issues and honestly believe that Apple computers are somehow special or better than PCs. I have news for you: they suck exactly as much as PCs – no more, no less. They fail too, and often in the same ways as PCs. Sure, there aren't any major viruses going around, but that's because people with virus programming skill are usually in it for the money, and are too skilled to waste their time on 1% of 1% of the computing population. (It might even be embarrassing to them to some degree.)

Apple almost had it right except that they've spent a lot of their time and money mocking Microsoft Windows and not a whole lot of time developing a better computing attitude and environment and moving forward with technology. So what if you're some hipster/yankee twentysomething who buys vendor-locked brand name computers at ridiculously inflated prices to use most of the same programs that are available for Windows? Sure, sometimes it's not the exact same program, but with so many choices available, there has to be something for Windows that does the same thing as what you're trying to accomplish on a Mac. There's a lot more freeware on the PC than there is on a Mac, too.

Most of the time they mock PCs for the wrong reasons. PCs don't get viruses, Windows does. PCs don't need major overhauls to upgrade operating system software – Windows does. A PC is just some hardware. Everything after that is up to the operating system, of which there are many available. It's just unfortunate for all of us that Microsoft won that war before the war really began.

You know the Mac guy on the PC versus Mac commercials? That guy is more smug than a motherfucker. Meanwhile, the PC guy is hilarious and has a nerdy charm to him. The Mac guy is a huge douche about everything, constantly mocking the poor PC's troubles, ignoring the fact that he has his own, as well as the fact that he lives in his mom's basement smoking pot all the time and needs to shave, get some respectable clothes, and get a fucking job.

I digress.

You basically bought a PC with different software on it. You have what kind of processor and motherboard (I'm sorry – "logic board")? Oh right, Intel. What kind of power supplies are used in Macs? ATX and BTX. What kind of hard drive? Seagate. Congratulations: you bought the most proprietary PC possible that still contains nothing but regular modular PC parts (excluding the motherboard's design and firmware). At least it can run Windows, I guess. I'm not sure if that's a pro or a con.

Welcome to part 1 of 1 of Self-entitlement for dummies: hunting and escaping.

When I left you last I was blathering on about my history and crap. Now I'll tell you what happened that SNAPPED me right back into reality.

Tits McGee entered the shop at 4:00 and was all like "here's the laptop and keyboard for the keyboard replacement" and one of our receptionists was all like "oh hey Mike there's a keyboard replacement" and I was all like "not to mention the keyboard replacement"

But seriously…

(Remember, naughty language ahead. This time I fucking mean it.)
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If you are asked for a password when removing Trend Micro PC-Cillin, open regedit, browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Trend Micro\PC-Cillin and either rename or remove the System sub-key. Then try the uninstaller again. It's just that stupideasy!

This doesn't work if you are already in the uninstaller being asked for the password and then remove you the key, so remove the key before starting the uninstall process.

Midas reports:

You can also use pcctool.exe for 2007 and older or tissprt.exe (or similar name) for 2008.

which will remove Trend Micro PC-Cillin without a password. You can find it in the installation directory.

Why do people think it's okay to turn on a laptop immediately after dousing it with a full glass of some liquid? We've seen wine, Gatorade®, water, tea, and coffee. They always try to turn the laptop (back) on while it's still wet. Why not at least let it dry for a few days, or bring it to a shop where it can be disassembled and cleaned? Once you turn it on right after spilling something on it, it's all downhill from there. After turning it on and letting all of the blue smoke out of the chips, they decide to bring it in and are befuddled as to why we are not able to repair the motherboard.

Pro-tip: leave it the fuck alone.

http://www.centos.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=127

oh god make it stop

Here I sit, for 20 minutes, with a drive connected via USB that contains sensitive data. Despite my best efforts, I am unable to "Safely Remove Hardware". It's not so much that there's probably a file handle locked that I can't possibly unlock (without writing my own software to do it) but that any time you remove a drive like this without properly dismounting it first, you are in for a stern talking-to. Windows gets angry with you if you just rip out the USB cable. Windows berates you for it. It's possible that forcing a drive dismounted could cause it to lose data (and I've seen it happen). This is still not the worst part. When I attempt to dismount the drive properly, Windows only says:
The device 'Generic volume' cannot be stopped right now. Try stopping the device again later.
Later? How soon is that? What kind of shit is this? "Try again later"? Why is Windows being so general and non-specific? Is Windows going to tell me when it's done using my drive so I can finally dismount it as it has yelled at me before to do?
No.
So here I sit, clicking safely remove over and over again, hoping Windows will finally finish doing what it is doing. Nope, it won't dismount. Now I *have* to rip the cord out (or restart the computer) if I want to get my work done. Special thanks to Windows for being a hypocritical asshole. I'm glad file locks get hung up so often, because I really hate it when I want to delete an empty folder and Windows actually lets me delete it.

// 08-09-05 (mm-dd-yy) —–
I forgot to mention: I usually use ForceDel.exe to unlock files and folders (it's a champ – just drag a file onto the .exe and presto, it's unlocked — unless it really *is* in use). It happens so frequently at work that ForceDel.exe is sitting right on my desktop, ready to have things dropped on it. (I'm lazy).

Edit (10-11-07): this is exactly as annoying in Vista as it is in XP and 2000. Ugh.