St0rY oF uNpReDiCtAbLe LiFe II

Well, I got the news from The Star online today saying that Microsoft will take a step further to combat piracy on its products by implementing some sort of dark/black/blank (or they prefer to use the word “Blackouts”) screen for users of pirated Windows XP Pro.

PETALING JAYA: Starting Wednesday, users with pirated copies of Microsoft Corp’s Windows XP Professional operating system (OS) on machines that are Internet-capable could find their computer displays going black and with no screen icons visible.

There are 8.6 million users of Win XP Pro in Malaysia and about three million are expected to suffer the “blackouts,” according to Microsoft Malaysia.

To continue working, the user would need to reset the machine’s desktop background. Everything will return to normal. But when 60 minutes are up, the black screen will reappear and the user must go through the whole process again.

Source: TheStar Online

My Take

Well, I don’t know if this step only apply to Malaysian user but I have little doubt Microsoft will even stop there. Expect another fuss coming from either Microsoft or the *ehem* *ehem* community. You can read the full article by following the given url and evaluate everything yourself. I suddenly remembered a quote from Jurassic Park movie which sound something like “Nature will find it’s way” and seeing how Windows XP is still very popular, I kinda can see Microsoft latest move will end in vain (remember WGA¹ anyone?). I’m not praying it to happen though; just predicting

Owh….don’t make that gloomy face ; isn’t this the best time to jump to Linux?

During the week, I attend some short course based on Microsoft’s .Net at Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM). Well, basically starting with nothing to do for the moment and then decided to attend it. Hmmm….maybe because it’s free of charge? I’ve heard somewhere that if anybody want to take such courses on their own it will cost them around RM2000++. But it’s becoming FOC maybe because some sort of grant form the university or government. I’m not too sure of it but it’s not everyday I can attend some knowledgeable sessions FOC for the whole week (do note I will get some sort of certificate and been trained by a very professional trainer)! I’ve learn much I guess but as usual, I need to learn more and even further. Now, who says I hate Microsoft :-p?

Hello there. Arghhhh!!! Damn, my Windows messed up with me for….er…I lost track for how many times but surely more than once. Actually, I don't know for sure whether it's true that the problem arise because of my Windows, my Linux or just because a faulty hardware, but my machine refuse to boot and enter the bios for about 3 or 4 damn hours of trying. In the end of that miserable hour, my machine manage to initiate properly (somehow), and I took my first step by entering Windows and guess what, after entering Windows for less than five minutes, the Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) pop-in. Now, that's sucks…big time. I manage to look at the BSoD screen to try extract some information about the crashing and I manage to see some error message that ask me to disable my antivirus and disk management software…and also some error message indicates something about IRQ conflict. Ehhhh????

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