Marty Michener wrote:
> Actually, it is a hoax; I just posted it so you could feel good publicly =
as
> a Mac owner, Walt. ;^)
You don't get away that easy, I'd already heard about it from some other
sources.
I was actually more amused about another "feature" of XP that recently
got some notice. Apparently 6 months after install the OS it starts a
counter on how many hardware changes you make to the machine. On the 7th
change it assumes you are cheating and freezes everything up. You then
have two choices, wipe the HD and start over, or pay for some software
from Microsoft that allows you to unlock it. I believe the price I saw
was $90. I only saw that one reported in one place, so consider it
unconfirmed. Note that the report I saw also said a bug had turned up in
this routine and it did not always wait for the 7th change...
Don't worry, I'd just about as happily join a mob attacking Apple. I
thought I'd managed to avoid Unix. It needs no bugs to make your life bad.
> No, it is a real bug. And thanks for asking. I subscribe to an emagazi=
ne
> called XPNews. I don't think it is possible to put too long a name in th=
is
> slot with any of my tools - e.g. Cool Edit Pro 2.0.
And I bet you are not exploring to find out how long you need. For the
sounds on my website that line contains the name of the frog, which is
not all that long. Anyway no windows folks have complained yet. Of
course if their system was wiped out they may not be able to complain...
I also get XPNews, for some unexplained reason. But don't always read
it. I have not cut it off because I do have a PC and have considered
updating it. I got the info about the mp3 bug elsewhere. But still don't
know what's the lethal line limit.
> We all know some like to live dangerously, and that is the life I have
> chosen, like mountain hiking and caving. But I have so far, knock on wood=
,
> in 18 years of using computers with chips designed solely by Intel on
> systems designed solely by Microsoft, never had to learn anything "the ha=
rd
> way". Usually it is a friend who has the hard way. In this case I read=
> about it and immediately thought of all of us who use MP3's a lot as a
> posting medium.
>
> My in-practice everyday motto criterion has always been:
> "Only backup work you would not want to have to redo."
>
> Of course, when you are drawing with a mouse color illustrations of 2100=
> species of birds this criterion tends to happen more than once per day, a=
nd
> over the 8 years it took me to complete, I am proud to say that not one
> species would ever have been lost due to a computer crash, disk
> demagnetization, car crash, theft or house fire. Yes, not even a
> lightening bolt that was capable of destroying modems, routers, servers
> and, yes, even tall Macs at a single bound, could even have put my bird
> pictures out of business.
Me too, and I've had that lightening bolt experience. Well except in
spite of the literally fried motherboard the HD was just fine. Lightning
is tricky stuff.
All I'm unhappy about is that files have become so big and complex the
ultimate backup is no longer practical. Used to do that in my mainframe
days, a printout of each file.
> So, my advice to you, my friends, working on ONE computer every day,
> (especially those of you who THINK you are NOT living dangerously):
>
> Backups, don't leave home without them.
Ahmen!
Walt
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