"The two companies will continue to work together as partners in making Star Wars Galaxies the ultimate online Star Wars experience."
Isn't it the only "online Star Wars experience"? Lucas' Star Wars I, II, and III, have put a poor taste in the mouths of most of the original Star Wars fans, like myself. When you consider that one of the definitions for ultimate is:
Being last in a series, process, or progression
Thank you George Lucas and SOE. You've certainly sucked all the life out this great idea. You've ensured that there won't be a market for it, or anything similar in the future. I consider that quote to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Not too long ago, they even launched a contest on their website (www.star-force.com) called "Prove It!" If you could prove to them that StarForce had physically damaged your optical drive (a long-standing internet rumor), SFT would pay you $10,000. According to them, no one proved it.
The contest was a bit of a red herring, though, because I don't think StarForce is physically damaging drives. My guess is that the rumor was started by people who were having problems similar to mine, but who were unable to resolve them because they didn't know how to fully remove StarForce.
Being a professional troubleshooter, I'm not going to claim this is complete proof, but it does have me a couple steps away from being able to isolate it.
I had a nice Sony DVD+/-RW drive in my main computer at home. I installed an entertaining game, called Restricted Area, http://www.restricted-area.net/; which was "protected" with StarForce's code.
I like to use the DVD ISO images from Fedora, but after installing that game, I wasn't able to get my DVD-drive to recognize that any DVD type of media was present in it's tray. It would recognize CD media without any problems. This was the case, whether I was using XP or Fedora didn't matter; which led me to believe that the problem was the actual drive.
After trying to troubleshoot the problem on my own, I google'd everything I could think of and I came across the mention of a possible cause being that I might need to update the drives firmware; so I tried that. No matter what versions of the official firmware I tried, they didn't even recognize my drive as a valid target for upgrading. I found some unofficial firmware packages; which at least recognized my drive, and did install without any hiccups. The drive was just as (non-)functional as before the firmware upgrade though.
Last week, I read this article; which made me wonder if this was related to my issue. Sure enough, Restricted Area used StarForce "copy protection". I found the un-install executable, and removed the Registry entry, as the instructions said to do. I didn't think this would fix my DVD-drive problem, since these two actions only dealt with XP, and not the actual drive. I wasn't surprised when I still couldn't get the drive to recognize any DVD media.
At this point, the only thing I could do is replace the actual drive; so yesterday I did. There weren't any problems getting the drive to recognize any of the media types. After giving it some thought, I still believe that something invasive has "set a flag" on my old DVD-drive so it won't recognize DVD media, but the only way I can think to prove it is to try installing Restricted Area again, and see if I have the same problem with my new drive.
Am I willing to do this? No way!!! Is setting a flag in the firmware considered physically damaging a drive? That's debatable.:(
Isn't the damage already done? While I do appreciate Symantec's admission to not applying due diligence when publishing their previous report, I don't think it's enough. Most slashdotters could tell right away that the previous article, and those like it, aren't doing apples to apples comparisons. The people that don't know any better, and look to these articles as sources of information, take these articles as gospel; because the folks that write them should know better!
If you are doing research, and you genuinely set your biases aside, you won't be disappointed with the results. In fact, you may learn something!
I have been working on a product that I expect to be a big seller; especially in the larger cities throughout the world. Families can use it while on vacation, and "Road Warriors" from the business world will find it invaluable.
It's called "0 P U", and it removes the smell from cab drivers.
As long as you are investing in projects that you aren't researching their viability, I hope that you'll consider my project. I just need some seed money to perfect the final product, do some marketing, and buy a company car... a Charger SRT8 should be sufficient.
On second thought, perhaps he shouldn't post at all.
I don't see any sense in posting links to articles written by a person that is his own fanboy. Especially when you take into account that he's nowhere near as cool as I am!!!
And in other news, Microsoft claims world's best operating system... soon!, and Microsoft claims world's best toilet paper... soon!
When Mr. Gates was asked how "soon", he replied that he was waiting on approval of his patents on the Word Explorer, a web-based dictionary/thesaurus, and the Recyclable User's Manual, about which Mr. Gates says, "it's cushiony soft...", as well as his copyright of the word "best"; which has been re-defined as "excrement".
Good points.
As far as the DRM goes, I fully suspect that the Open Source community will have prided plenty of solutions for you to use the fully capable hardware you have, without having to purchase the DRM's "authorized" hardware.
I'm reminded of one of my favorite BeOS sayings, "It's just data. It doesn't know (or care) about the OS I am using."
Any business savvy enough to know the benefits of using Linux as their OS of choice, is also going to be savvy enough to buy decent hardware. Well, that leaves Dell out. Why? Because Dell chose not to have an AMD option.
I suspect that most potential Linux users ask this question:
Which OS gives the user the biggest bang for the buck?
And those same people are probably going to ask this question:
Which CPU gives the user the biggest bang for the buck?
Unfortunately, in my book, Turbine is synonymous with faux pas. The first one's that come to mind is letting M$ distribute Asheron's Call, making it part of M$'s Gaming Zone, and licensing the developmental reigns to M$ for waaaaaaay too long.
Then of course there was the release of Asheron's Call 2, which we're told is a completely different game then Asheron's Call, and is not meant to compete with it for customers. Nevermind the fact that the game never contained the features mentioned on it's box, web-site, and advertisements. It didn't compare to AC for playability, and it folded shortly after the release of it's most recent expansion pack. <Insert class-action lawsuit here>
Here we are now, with Turbine regaining control of AC, breaking it away from the Zone, over-promising and under-delivering on it's own recent expansion pack, and for what? Tiny, meaningless, monthly "content" updates, that are really just a grind to an anticlimatic ending for your six-years-in-the-making toon.
This sounds a lot like it could be an episode of "Aqua Teen Hunger Force". Kind of like the episode where one of the characters was given a "Personal Analog Assistant"; which is a pen and a pad of paper.
I don't mean to sound overly pessimistic, but this is my take on this:
M$ has a long history on understating the severity of bugs. Their own ratings, for what we would call a "critical flaw", ranges anywhere from "This is a feature!" to "Minor bug".
My opinion here is that the odds of M$ publicly agreeing with you that it's a critical flaw, are somewhat worse than your chance of winning the lottery, getting hit by lightning, and meeting an alien from another galaxy... all on the same day.
Slashdot Mirror
"The two companies will continue to work together as partners in making Star Wars Galaxies the ultimate online Star Wars experience."
Isn't it the only "online Star Wars experience"? Lucas' Star Wars I, II, and III, have put a poor taste in the mouths of most of the original Star Wars fans, like myself. When you consider that one of the definitions for ultimate is:
Being last in a series, process, or progression
Thank you George Lucas and SOE. You've certainly sucked all the life out this great idea. You've ensured that there won't be a market for it, or anything similar in the future. I consider that quote to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Where do I sign up? I want in on the matches with the MPAA, RIAA, and the rest of the pro-DRM groups... especially those bastards at Sony!
</THINKING>
Being a professional troubleshooter, I'm not going to claim this is complete proof, but it does have me a couple steps away from being able to isolate it.
I had a nice Sony DVD+/-RW drive in my main computer at home. I installed an entertaining game, called Restricted Area, http://www.restricted-area.net/; which was "protected" with StarForce's code.
I like to use the DVD ISO images from Fedora, but after installing that game, I wasn't able to get my DVD-drive to recognize that any DVD type of media was present in it's tray. It would recognize CD media without any problems. This was the case, whether I was using XP or Fedora didn't matter; which led me to believe that the problem was the actual drive.
After trying to troubleshoot the problem on my own, I google'd everything I could think of and I came across the mention of a possible cause being that I might need to update the drives firmware; so I tried that. No matter what versions of the official firmware I tried, they didn't even recognize my drive as a valid target for upgrading. I found some unofficial firmware packages; which at least recognized my drive, and did install without any hiccups. The drive was just as (non-)functional as before the firmware upgrade though.
Last week, I read this article; which made me wonder if this was related to my issue. Sure enough, Restricted Area used StarForce "copy protection". I found the un-install executable, and removed the Registry entry, as the instructions said to do. I didn't think this would fix my DVD-drive problem, since these two actions only dealt with XP, and not the actual drive. I wasn't surprised when I still couldn't get the drive to recognize any DVD media.
At this point, the only thing I could do is replace the actual drive; so yesterday I did. There weren't any problems getting the drive to recognize any of the media types. After giving it some thought, I still believe that something invasive has "set a flag" on my old DVD-drive so it won't recognize DVD media, but the only way I can think to prove it is to try installing Restricted Area again, and see if I have the same problem with my new drive.
Am I willing to do this? No way!!! Is setting a flag in the firmware considered physically damaging a drive? That's debatable.
Wow, and I thought I was a cynic. Cynicism has a new king! Long live King endrue!!!
It cracked me up to see this post. It looks eerily like something I'd write myself.
I'd say it's suspicious too. Maybe Bill is going to try to claim that he invented UNIX now. Watch out SCO.
Sorry, I had too many steps to adjust it to the Underwear Gnomes business plan model.
You are correct, I have nothing to do with desktops. My time is too valuable to mess with desktop end-user issues.
Isn't the damage already done? While I do appreciate Symantec's admission to not applying due diligence when publishing their previous report, I don't think it's enough. Most slashdotters could tell right away that the previous article, and those like it, aren't doing apples to apples comparisons. The people that don't know any better, and look to these articles as sources of information, take these articles as gospel; because the folks that write them should know better!
If you are doing research, and you genuinely set your biases aside, you won't be disappointed with the results. In fact, you may learn something!
...Two "artists" I've never heard of.
A story based on bad data really isn't a story worth repeating, posting, or linking to.
I can see it now, sitting on my couch saying things like:
I have been working on a product that I expect to be a big seller; especially in the larger cities throughout the world. Families can use it while on vacation, and "Road Warriors" from the business world will find it invaluable.
It's called "0 P U", and it removes the smell from cab drivers.
As long as you are investing in projects that you aren't researching their viability, I hope that you'll consider my project. I just need some seed money to perfect the final product, do some marketing, and buy a company car... a Charger SRT8 should be sufficient.
On second thought, perhaps he shouldn't post at all.
I don't see any sense in posting links to articles written by a person that is his own fanboy. Especially when you take into account that he's nowhere near as cool as I am!!!
And in other news, Microsoft claims world's best operating system... soon!, and Microsoft claims world's best toilet paper... soon!
When Mr. Gates was asked how "soon", he replied that he was waiting on approval of his patents on the Word Explorer, a web-based dictionary/thesaurus, and the Recyclable User's Manual, about which Mr. Gates says, "it's cushiony soft...", as well as his copyright of the word "best"; which has been re-defined as "excrement".
You'd better copyright "Framboozleweisenschnapps" before SCO does.
*cough* Blackberry *cough*
Good points. As far as the DRM goes, I fully suspect that the Open Source community will have prided plenty of solutions for you to use the fully capable hardware you have, without having to purchase the DRM's "authorized" hardware. I'm reminded of one of my favorite BeOS sayings, "It's just data. It doesn't know (or care) about the OS I am using."
Good point. I hate when it "corrects" my e-mails when I purposefully type something that is case-sensitive, and have to correct it's "correction".
Any business savvy enough to know the benefits of using Linux as their OS of choice, is also going to be savvy enough to buy decent hardware. Well, that leaves Dell out. Why? Because Dell chose not to have an AMD option.
I suspect that most potential Linux users ask this question:
Which OS gives the user the biggest bang for the buck?
And those same people are probably going to ask this question:
Which CPU gives the user the biggest bang for the buck?
Unfortunately, in my book, Turbine is synonymous with faux pas. The first one's that come to mind is letting M$ distribute Asheron's Call, making it part of M$'s Gaming Zone, and licensing the developmental reigns to M$ for waaaaaaay too long.
...but I'm not bitter.
Then of course there was the release of Asheron's Call 2, which we're told is a completely different game then Asheron's Call, and is not meant to compete with it for customers. Nevermind the fact that the game never contained the features mentioned on it's box, web-site, and advertisements. It didn't compare to AC for playability, and it folded shortly after the release of it's most recent expansion pack. <Insert class-action lawsuit here>
Here we are now, with Turbine regaining control of AC, breaking it away from the Zone, over-promising and under-delivering on it's own recent expansion pack, and for what? Tiny, meaningless, monthly "content" updates, that are really just a grind to an anticlimatic ending for your six-years-in-the-making toon.
1) Have my son sing his "ABCs"
2) Record his song on a CD... voila, I'm a music company!
3) Canada sends me my cut of the CD tax
4) Profit!!!
This sounds a lot like it could be an episode of "Aqua Teen Hunger Force". Kind of like the episode where one of the characters was given a "Personal Analog Assistant"; which is a pen and a pad of paper.
I don't mean to sound overly pessimistic, but this is my take on this: M$ has a long history on understating the severity of bugs. Their own ratings, for what we would call a "critical flaw", ranges anywhere from "This is a feature!" to "Minor bug". My opinion here is that the odds of M$ publicly agreeing with you that it's a critical flaw, are somewhat worse than your chance of winning the lottery, getting hit by lightning, and meeting an alien from another galaxy... all on the same day.