Brandon: Windows Vista Update KB935509 (For Ultimiate and Enterprise)

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WTF Microsoft.

Ok, so this update prepares Windows Vista for SP1. Thats all fine and dandy, but it apparently tries to update the BitLocker encryption feature that is available on the Ultimate and Enterprise editions.

I of course do not want full disc encryption, and I can't use it anyway because it requires a TPM (Trusted Platform Module) on the motherboard, and I don't have one.

Apparently, to get the update to install, you have to run the BitLocker drive prep tool, even if you are not going to encrypt your drives.

Why is this a problem?

Well, mostly because it shrinks your boot drive (In my case, C) by 1.5gb to create another partition, which is now named S, for me anyway, to store the non-encrypted boot files.

I don't want another stupid partition that I'm not going to use.

Grrr, this is lame.


Wondering: what Microsoft was thinking.
Do they: even test these updates.
I still: like Vista though.


Tags (beta): microsoft, windows, vista, updates, fubar

Comments (1)

Brandon: Merry <Insert Holiday Name Here>

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Merry <Insert Holiday Name Here> from all of us here at Vent.

Well, just me.

And Vikki.

And Jupiter (the dog)

And Mojo, Star, and Sugarbear (The cats)

Hope everyone has great holidays and whatnot!

Santa: Claus was arrested for breaking and entering


Tags (beta): christmas, chanukkah, kwanza, festivus, x-mas, holiday, political correctness

Comments (5)

Brandon: Obfuscation

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I hate obfusaction.

What I am speaking of, of course, is having to obfuscate compiled .NET code so that someone cannot simply reverse engineer it using reflection or some such nonsense.

At work we use a package called Xenocode Postbuild 2007. It is quite improved from the 2006 version, but it still has some annoying issues.

For example:
.NET 2.0 has a XMLSerializer class built in. What this does is take data out of an object and represents it as XML. It makes saving the contents and state of an object quite easy. However, to do this, it (the .NET runtime) creates a new assembly (basically a .NET dll) on the fly. Now, when you obfuscate a program, it takes the variable names and makes them full of random characters, so something like "Name" would end up being "x9038242ndo3412f". Thats all fine and good, but it ends up confusing the generated XMLSerializer assembly sometimes.

And don't get me started on the mess it makes of trying to use reflection. You might as well not even try to protect your code if you are going to use reflection on it.
(Reflection is a way of dynamically loading .NET assemblies at runtime. Think of plugins, thats sort of the idea, but its much more complex than that).

Anyway, code that works fine in a development environment may not work at all if it is obfuscated.

But, how else can you protect your code.



Code: monkey need caffene
Post: is far too nerdy for most.


Tags (beta): code, .net, obfuscation, rant, xml

Comments (1)

Brandon: About the Writers Guild strike.

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I'm tired of watching reruns, damnit. Just negotiate the friggin contract so that I can watch my TV shows :P

If the series finale of Scrubs does not get written or aired due to this I will probably threaten to think about killing someone.

Also, no more new episodes of the Office. For shame!

Anyway, I think the writers should get more money form DVDs and get their cut of online and other forms of distribution.

A second rant, if you will. About "Original Series" on cable networks.

IT IS NOT "ORIGINAL" IF THE SHOW ORIGINATED ON ANOTHER NETWORK

Ahem, for example: Law&Order: Criminal Intent. It started on NBC. Just because it moved to USA does not make it a USA "original". Same goes for Stargate SG-1 Sci-Fi. Besides, the show went downhill after it moved from Showtime anyway.

Anyway, thats really all I have to say.

Bored: So I'm ranting about TV


Tags (beta): tv, strike, scrubs, stargate, boobtube

Comments (3)

Brandon: I'm suck a dork.

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So, today I'm going out to a Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 InstallFest out here in Boise.

Thats right, I'm going to a Microsoft sponsored event so that I can install the latest and greatest version of their developer tools.

On the plus side, I get a free copy of Visual Studio 2008 Professional for free out of the deal, so I can't complain.

Still, its a rather geeky thing to do, wouldn't you agree.

And now for some big words:
Philanthropy
Entropy
Deuteronomy
Segue
Quark (The particle, not the Ferengi)
Positrons
Occipital
Angioplasties

That should help the reading level.




Apathetic: I really should post more


Tags (beta): big words, small words, dork, visual studio, microsoft, free stuff

Comments (3)