Well, your locks may actually be OK if they are older. I have a suspicion about what happened, and it goes a little something like this:
The Kryptonite locks probably USED to be OK when they were first released, but then some cheapo middle-manager decided to save a few bucks on locks to increase their profit margin, and switched production to a cheaper brand of locks with poor tolerances and pins with similar shear-points.
Of course, since the original locks probably had good locksets, it was mostly an invisible change which probably counted on the mythical security of the "round lock cylinder" to prevent people from attempting to pick.
Then you buy one coffee with it, and it's empty again:)
The greatest thing (for the company) about those Starbucks "debit-style" cards is that people who are putting their money in them by charging them up, are effectively combining their money and giving Starbucks a big cash loan that Starbucks can keep in the bank and make interest from until you use eventually use them. So they get your money AND all of the interest made from your money. Keep the cash in your own account and keep your interest as well.
Well, I'm looking at shelling-out $1k for a Motorolla MPx when it's released (assuming it gets more good reviews). Already have a SE P800 which was just under $1k when it was released. Expensive? Sure, but it's cheaper than buying myself a laptop which would gather dust most of the time except when I'm not at home or in the office.
I have little to no use for a laptop, but I use my P800 all the time, for everything from reading acrobat files, to editing word documents, chatting on MSN/ICQ, taking photos, etc. I can pop the memory card out and use it with a USB reader at home or at work to move files back and forth - I've even used it as a speakerphone at a business meeting.
So yes, there are reasons to buy an expensive phone - especially when it's more computer than phone.
All that said, I'd never buy a crippled phone such as Verizon is promoting, and since I'm a big fan of GSM technology, I'd also never buy a CDMA phone.
Tell ya what -- you go ahead and do it yourself then.
Well, ya see, I would, except that I'm happy to say that I'm in a country that doesn't support Bush or his war and I have no regrets whatsoever about not putting my life on the line for the stupid reasons Bush decided to invade.
I really feel for the soldiers who are going over there and putting their lives on the line for that "president" - I have absolutely no ill-will towards the armed forces that are doing their duty as they're told to.
Lol, one of the soldiers on operation Impending Doom... erm, "Invading Iraq II" was IRC chatting with me from somewhere within the combat zone because he couldn't get his CD emulator drivers to work with his laptop to play Sega games or something when he was off-duty.
Took quite a long time to dcc the files to him (slow military internet connection, about the speed of a dialup modem), but it did work in the end:)
Ah, how the face of war has changed, that really forever shattered my illusions of hardened soldiers:)
Shrug. I just have an answering machine with the ringer and speaker off that picks up all the calls on my house line. I never answer it, just check messages every few days.
Anyone I want to talk to knows to phone my cell phone (which is never given out to businesses), so this sort of service really doesn't matter to me in the least.
Plus the use of Steam for banning cheaters. And THAT I love.
Load a cheat onto your system and fire up steam and start playing - if the valve anti-cheat software finds the cheat on your system, your account is banned from online play for a year and your brand-new $50 game is reduced to single-player only mode.
I LOVE IT!
To think that the cheaters could lose their entire gaming investment and be forced to purchase the game again (or wait a year) fills me joy:)
Yup, the local EB has the same problem - they encourage everyone to pre-order, and in their case, I think they try and keep the supply artificially low for a few days by only releasing a certain number of copies to "encourage" preordering in the future.
Fortunately I found a big-box electronics store about 15 min from EB that ALWAYS has tons of copies of the latest games, even on release day - so I've stopped using BE all together.
All of this furious debate does nothing but boost the profile of the HL2 release (whenever it may be). They're getting free publicity with every article speculating, then refuting a release date. Every fanboi who complains that their life has no meaning until the release date, and whines that they're breaking promises, etc.
Let me put it another way since I'm sure the skeptics are grumbling that it's all BS:
Over the last couple weeks or so, people were frantically trying to guess the pre-load date. There were nasty messages back and forth, arguements, lots of whining at Valve, anger, dissapointment, bitterness, rage, probably tears, etc.
And as soon as the pre-load started, EVERYONE wanted-in. No matter how much they griped and whined, everyone was hammering the steam servers to get the preload down, even people who a) pre-ordered a physical CD, and b) hate steam and think it's a bad idea.
So really, what does Valve have to lose by ANY publicity or speculation? Sure people are going to gripe and moan now, but as SOON as the game is released, everyone is going to purchase it because of the hype/publicity/whatever about it.
And there you have it.
(and as a quick aside, I'm going out of town on a trip where there are no computers for a week in September, so if Valve could either make the release date next Monday, or hold it until Sept 16, that would be great - thanx:)
Well, alternately they could just use a single pre-load key for all of the static materials, music, graphics and the like, and use an individual key for the much smaller executables and such that will likely drop over the network when the game is actually bought online.
But I think you're right, the possibility of the preload getting cracked is nearly zero if it's done properly (which they've certainly had ample time to work out:) - and if it IS cracked, it still won't be playable without the executables which makes it a moot point anyway. Seeng as how the executables can probably be transferred in less than a minute when the game is released, I don't see it as a big issue.
Of course the final point is that since a huge part of HL2's appeal will be the online play (which won't work without steam and a valid license), there's really not all that much point to cracking it anyway unless you only want to play the single-player mode.
Is a $50 game that important to you? Granted, I'm sure HL2 will absolutely be incredible beyond belief, however I'm not planning on it taking 10 years to play it through in single-player mode, and I'm sure HL-3 or whatever will be out long before the steam servers vanish (which probably isn't going to happen anyway, with Valve looking to corner the distribution market and sell everyone's games over steam).
If you're playing online, you're going to be using steam, so it's sort of a moot point there.
Yup yup! I only have read Zahn's books, and I tell ya, I can almost imagine hearing the music from the original trilogy playing, and the voices of the original characters as I read it.
It's VERY true to the original characters and is a real masterpiece - all Star Wars fans should read this trilogy - even if Lucas doesn't end up making it, for all intents and purposes, it IS episodes 7, 8, 9.
Heir to the Empire Dark Force Rising The Last Command
I'd love to see Thrawn, Mara, Karrde, and all the rest come to life:)
That said, because it centers on the original characters, it could be extremely tricky to produce.
Thank you for a very clear and concise description of the problem.
The old saying "many hands make short work" (at least I think that's how it goes), doesn't apply at any sort of "office" level.
I'm one of those people who HATES staff meetings with a passion. They're nothing but soapboxes for the type of people who like to hear themselves talk while everyone else yawns for hours. The best indication of a hard worker is those who keep their mouths SHUT at a staff meeting.
Give me a clear email outlining the tasks I need to accomplish and soliciting my opinions on areas that require them.
Then leave me alone to do my work. Thankyouverymuch.
80% of the classification errors were in the first 2 weeks of training - and classification errors are almost always on the "let spam through" rather than "good message marked as spam", so it's not at all dangerous.
It's easy to set up, and includes instructions for popular email clients. Spammers just can't do much to beat something like this.
Ya, I've used superglue on myself before to bond a papercut closed. Worked well (the only problem being that dried superglue isn't flexible, so it will flake-off when your skin bends).
Re:I'll stick to my LaserDiscs....
on
Star Wars on DVD
·
· Score: 1
Unfortunately I couldn't capture the digital PCM as my LD players are slightly older models that only have coax AC3 plugs that I have no way of using.
So I had to go with an analog capture which was good, but not perfect.
N.
Re:I'll stick to my LaserDiscs....
on
Star Wars on DVD
·
· Score: 1
Actually, I just used Virtualdub. After capturing the LDs as multiple AVI files (30 minute sides from the CAV discs), I stitched them all together in VD and made the cuts between discs clean and output a master AVI file (~22gb).
Then it was just a matter of playing with virtualdub filters to clean up the video and apply the cropping letterbox. There are lots of free filters out that you can play with - the key is to make small changes.
I also used soundforge to apply some light noise reduction to the 2-channel audio mix to get a bit of the BG hiss out during quiet sections.
It's cyanine, not cyanide. Similar name, completely different chemical.
Cyanine = coloured dye
Cyanide = deadly poison
N.
Re:I'll stick to my LaserDiscs....
on
Star Wars on DVD
·
· Score: 4, Informative
I did that myself - I wouldn't buy pirate DVDs, but I had no problem format-shifting them myself (and doing some cleanup) - LDs through a DV transcoder into the computer, some DVNR and pull the edges of the letterbox down to pure black so as to not waste bits in MPG encoding, pulldown to 24frame progressive, multipass encoding, then some subtitling for the aliens talking.
That said, although the video looks good, it would certainly benefit from a digital-surround mix...
Hmm... Wonder about extracting the new remastered audio from the DVD release and re-editing it to match the older visuals, then recombine it. May be worth a shot:)
I remember reading an article long ago on Fravia's page of reversing which talked about how to modify executables so the CRC32 value would be whatever you wanted it to be. It was beyond MY level of math, but it could obviously be done.
The article was referring to software that ran checksums on itself to make sure it wasn't tampered-with as anti-piracy protection, but it could be modified for other uses.
I think it would be more complex on MD5s and such, but...
(too bad Fravia moved on to other things - the articles were absolutely fascinating. Fortunately there are still some mirrors around).
Well, the key point there is "copy" of windows. They'll only encourage people to get pirated versions.
But as an astute poster on Ars said, it can also work for MS that way as well as a political propaganda tool:
"Oh, look - we tried to make a cheap version of windows for them to use but they chose to pirate our other products instead - we need even more copyright controls and government-funded prosecution to prevent exactly this sort of thing!"
After the steam (or whatever) client downloads the encrypted version to your HD, an "unlock" program is created that's specifically tied to your purchase information (name, address, credit card number, network play ID, whatever). You're able to back-up the encrypted files and the unlock program to a CD (or DVD or whatever they'll fit on).
The unlock program only works with your specific downloaded version (some sort of key cryptography perhaps).
Then, if you need to restore your computer, you just need to copy the encrypted files back again, run the "unlock" program, and your application is unpacked and you're ready to go.
There you go - fair use, and no worry about losing your license.
id's standing on piracy It sucks. Next game's international launch won't lag behind US launch.
Not good enough. Electronic distribution is the only way to fix the problem. Even if it means they have to write their own "steam-type" distribution system.
(and before the anti-steam crowd gets their back up, I only mean that they should explore using a downloader client to download an encrypted version of the game to the local system, then allow people to purchase the keys that unlock the game on release day (or the instant a pirate versions shows up) - regardless of any multiplayer capability).
For my part, I'm going to be utilizing steam to purchase HL2 when it comes out because:
a) I'm impatient b) I want it before the cheapo-pirates get it! c) I have fast internet connections everywhere, so steam makes perfect sense.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, your locks may actually be OK if they are older. I have a suspicion about what happened, and it goes a little something like this:
The Kryptonite locks probably USED to be OK when they were first released, but then some cheapo middle-manager decided to save a few bucks on locks to increase their profit margin, and switched production to a cheaper brand of locks with poor tolerances and pins with similar shear-points.
Of course, since the original locks probably had good locksets, it was mostly an invisible change which probably counted on the mythical security of the "round lock cylinder" to prevent people from attempting to pick.
N.
Then you buy one coffee with it, and it's empty again :)
The greatest thing (for the company) about those Starbucks "debit-style" cards is that people who are putting their money in them by charging them up, are effectively combining their money and giving Starbucks a big cash loan that Starbucks can keep in the bank and make interest from until you use eventually use them. So they get your money AND all of the interest made from your money. Keep the cash in your own account and keep your interest as well.
Great business technique.
N.
Well, I'm looking at shelling-out $1k for a Motorolla MPx when it's released (assuming it gets more good reviews). Already have a SE P800 which was just under $1k when it was released. Expensive? Sure, but it's cheaper than buying myself a laptop which would gather dust most of the time except when I'm not at home or in the office.
I have little to no use for a laptop, but I use my P800 all the time, for everything from reading acrobat files, to editing word documents, chatting on MSN/ICQ, taking photos, etc. I can pop the memory card out and use it with a USB reader at home or at work to move files back and forth - I've even used it as a speakerphone at a business meeting.
So yes, there are reasons to buy an expensive phone - especially when it's more computer than phone.
All that said, I'd never buy a crippled phone such as Verizon is promoting, and since I'm a big fan of GSM technology, I'd also never buy a CDMA phone.
N.
Well, ya see, I would, except that I'm happy to say that I'm in a country that doesn't support Bush or his war and I have no regrets whatsoever about not putting my life on the line for the stupid reasons Bush decided to invade.
I really feel for the soldiers who are going over there and putting their lives on the line for that "president" - I have absolutely no ill-will towards the armed forces that are doing their duty as they're told to.
The problem is just at the top...
N.
Lol, one of the soldiers on operation Impending Doom... erm, "Invading Iraq II" was IRC chatting with me from somewhere within the combat zone because he couldn't get his CD emulator drivers to work with his laptop to play Sega games or something when he was off-duty.
:)
:)
Took quite a long time to dcc the files to him (slow military internet connection, about the speed of a dialup modem), but it did work in the end
Ah, how the face of war has changed, that really forever shattered my illusions of hardened soldiers
N.
Shrug. I just have an answering machine with the ringer and speaker off that picks up all the calls on my house line. I never answer it, just check messages every few days.
Anyone I want to talk to knows to phone my cell phone (which is never given out to businesses), so this sort of service really doesn't matter to me in the least.
N.
Plus the use of Steam for banning cheaters. And THAT I love.
:)
Load a cheat onto your system and fire up steam and start playing - if the valve anti-cheat software finds the cheat on your system, your account is banned from online play for a year and your brand-new $50 game is reduced to single-player only mode.
I LOVE IT!
To think that the cheaters could lose their entire gaming investment and be forced to purchase the game again (or wait a year) fills me joy
N.
Yup, the local EB has the same problem - they encourage everyone to pre-order, and in their case, I think they try and keep the supply artificially low for a few days by only releasing a certain number of copies to "encourage" preordering in the future.
Fortunately I found a big-box electronics store about 15 min from EB that ALWAYS has tons of copies of the latest games, even on release day - so I've stopped using BE all together.
N.
Sigh... Let me explain this...
:)
All of this furious debate does nothing but boost the profile of the HL2 release (whenever it may be). They're getting free publicity with every article speculating, then refuting a release date. Every fanboi who complains that their life has no meaning until the release date, and whines that they're breaking promises, etc.
Let me put it another way since I'm sure the skeptics are grumbling that it's all BS:
Over the last couple weeks or so, people were frantically trying to guess the pre-load date. There were nasty messages back and forth, arguements, lots of whining at Valve, anger, dissapointment, bitterness, rage, probably tears, etc.
And as soon as the pre-load started, EVERYONE wanted-in. No matter how much they griped and whined, everyone was hammering the steam servers to get the preload down, even people who a) pre-ordered a physical CD, and b) hate steam and think it's a bad idea.
So really, what does Valve have to lose by ANY publicity or speculation? Sure people are going to gripe and moan now, but as SOON as the game is released, everyone is going to purchase it because of the hype/publicity/whatever about it.
And there you have it.
(and as a quick aside, I'm going out of town on a trip where there are no computers for a week in September, so if Valve could either make the release date next Monday, or hold it until Sept 16, that would be great - thanx
N.
Well, alternately they could just use a single pre-load key for all of the static materials, music, graphics and the like, and use an individual key for the much smaller executables and such that will likely drop over the network when the game is actually bought online.
:) - and if it IS cracked, it still won't be playable without the executables which makes it a moot point anyway. Seeng as how the executables can probably be transferred in less than a minute when the game is released, I don't see it as a big issue.
But I think you're right, the possibility of the preload getting cracked is nearly zero if it's done properly (which they've certainly had ample time to work out
Of course the final point is that since a huge part of HL2's appeal will be the online play (which won't work without steam and a valid license), there's really not all that much point to cracking it anyway unless you only want to play the single-player mode.
N.
Is a $50 game that important to you? Granted, I'm sure HL2 will absolutely be incredible beyond belief, however I'm not planning on it taking 10 years to play it through in single-player mode, and I'm sure HL-3 or whatever will be out long before the steam servers vanish (which probably isn't going to happen anyway, with Valve looking to corner the distribution market and sell everyone's games over steam).
If you're playing online, you're going to be using steam, so it's sort of a moot point there.
N.
You cry like a girl, CS fanboi :P
N.
Yup yup! I only have read Zahn's books, and I tell ya, I can almost imagine hearing the music from the original trilogy playing, and the voices of the original characters as I read it.
:)
It's VERY true to the original characters and is a real masterpiece - all Star Wars fans should read this trilogy - even if Lucas doesn't end up making it, for all intents and purposes, it IS episodes 7, 8, 9.
Heir to the Empire
Dark Force Rising
The Last Command
I'd love to see Thrawn, Mara, Karrde, and all the rest come to life
That said, because it centers on the original characters, it could be extremely tricky to produce.
N.
Thank you for a very clear and concise description of the problem.
The old saying "many hands make short work" (at least I think that's how it goes), doesn't apply at any sort of "office" level.
I'm one of those people who HATES staff meetings with a passion. They're nothing but soapboxes for the type of people who like to hear themselves talk while everyone else yawns for hours. The best indication of a hard worker is those who keep their mouths SHUT at a staff meeting.
Give me a clear email outlining the tasks I need to accomplish and soliciting my opinions on areas that require them.
Then leave me alone to do my work. Thankyouverymuch.
Spam has ceased to be a problem for me.
I use POPFile. http://popfile.sourceforge.net/
My current stats:
Messages classified: 9,144
Classification errors: 67
Accuracy: 99.26%
80% of the classification errors were in the first 2 weeks of training - and classification errors are almost always on the "let spam through" rather than "good message marked as spam", so it's not at all dangerous.
It's easy to set up, and includes instructions for popular email clients. Spammers just can't do much to beat something like this.
Ya, I've used superglue on myself before to bond a papercut closed. Worked well (the only problem being that dried superglue isn't flexible, so it will flake-off when your skin bends).
Unfortunately I couldn't capture the digital PCM as my LD players are slightly older models that only have coax AC3 plugs that I have no way of using.
So I had to go with an analog capture which was good, but not perfect.
N.
Actually, I just used Virtualdub. After capturing the LDs as multiple AVI files (30 minute sides from the CAV discs), I stitched them all together in VD and made the cuts between discs clean and output a master AVI file (~22gb).
Then it was just a matter of playing with virtualdub filters to clean up the video and apply the cropping letterbox. There are lots of free filters out that you can play with - the key is to make small changes.
I also used soundforge to apply some light noise reduction to the 2-channel audio mix to get a bit of the BG hiss out during quiet sections.
N.
You never bought CDRs with cyanide in them.
It's cyanine, not cyanide. Similar name, completely different chemical.
Cyanine = coloured dye
Cyanide = deadly poison
N.
I did that myself - I wouldn't buy pirate DVDs, but I had no problem format-shifting them myself (and doing some cleanup) - LDs through a DV transcoder into the computer, some DVNR and pull the edges of the letterbox down to pure black so as to not waste bits in MPG encoding, pulldown to 24frame progressive, multipass encoding, then some subtitling for the aliens talking.
:)
That said, although the video looks good, it would certainly benefit from a digital-surround mix...
Hmm... Wonder about extracting the new remastered audio from the DVD release and re-editing it to match the older visuals, then recombine it. May be worth a shot
N.
I remember reading an article long ago on Fravia's page of reversing which talked about how to modify executables so the CRC32 value would be whatever you wanted it to be. It was beyond MY level of math, but it could obviously be done.
The article was referring to software that ran checksums on itself to make sure it wasn't tampered-with as anti-piracy protection, but it could be modified for other uses.
I think it would be more complex on MD5s and such, but...
(too bad Fravia moved on to other things - the articles were absolutely fascinating. Fortunately there are still some mirrors around).
I'm sure you'd have at least a few football fields worth of data! :)
N.
Well, the key point there is "copy" of windows. They'll only encourage people to get pirated versions.
But as an astute poster on Ars said, it can also work for MS that way as well as a political propaganda tool:
"Oh, look - we tried to make a cheap version of windows for them to use but they chose to pirate our other products instead - we need even more copyright controls and government-funded prosecution to prevent exactly this sort of thing!"
N.
Well, the solution to this would be as follows:
After the steam (or whatever) client downloads the encrypted version to your HD, an "unlock" program is created that's specifically tied to your purchase information (name, address, credit card number, network play ID, whatever). You're able to back-up the encrypted files and the unlock program to a CD (or DVD or whatever they'll fit on).
The unlock program only works with your specific downloaded version (some sort of key cryptography perhaps).
Then, if you need to restore your computer, you just need to copy the encrypted files back again, run the "unlock" program, and your application is unpacked and you're ready to go.
There you go - fair use, and no worry about losing your license.
N.
(and before the anti-steam crowd gets their back up, I only mean that they should explore using a downloader client to download an encrypted version of the game to the local system, then allow people to purchase the keys that unlock the game on release day (or the instant a pirate versions shows up) - regardless of any multiplayer capability).
For my part, I'm going to be utilizing steam to purchase HL2 when it comes out because:
a) I'm impatient
b) I want it before the cheapo-pirates get it!
c) I have fast internet connections everywhere, so steam makes perfect sense.
N.