99 Things to Do

I saw this list on another site somewhere. If you like this list, you should copy it and bold the things you've done! Make sure you revisit it next year and update it with any new things that you've done. :)

If you want to play too, bold the things that you've done and post on your blog now.

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii and danced on a lava cliff with the roar of the Pacific below
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Kissed a stranger at midnight on New Year's Eve
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee

Facebook Rocks!

I'm having a blast so far with Facebook. I don't have a ton of friends yet, and probably won't ever get HUGE numbers, but I hope to have good ones. :)

It seems pretty cool though. I'm considering writing applications, but first I need to figure out what that entails, and what people seem to want. Right now, it seems that most folks just want new and interesting things to share. That's easy enough to write, of course, if you have something interesting to provide.

Aye! There's the rub!

Crappy Windows Server 2003 R2 x64 problem with corrupted .NET 2.0

Man, I just spent hours today googling around to find the answer to failing updates of Service Pack 1 to .NET Framework 2.0. The error, 0x643, told me to try the update again, which was useless.

This server was running Data Protection Manager 2007, so it had SQL Server 2005 installed also, which was crashing on startup. This seemed to indicate a corrupted install of .NET Framework 2.0.

Well, luckily, or so I though, that is what the built in "Repair" option is for under change/remove in Add/Remove Programs. Unfortunately, it failed, saying that there were invalid characters in the path "Program Files". This was a hint, but not a very good one. I spent hours trying to find other ways to "repair" the problem, since I couldn't really uninstall the Framework.

Finally, I stumbled across a single blog post from a user named "favorini" which had the magic hint, especially given the message I received when I first tried to repair it.
Aaron Stebner's WebLog

The answer to this problem was to run regedit, find all of the references to D:\Program Files, especially the ones with "D:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\DW", which is a leftover from a bug where Dr. Watson was installed on the D: drive instead of the C: drive, even though D: was a CD drive. Find all of those and change them to reference "C:" instead of "D:".
Just ick.

As always, be careful editing the registry, etc. etc. yada yada.

I hope this helps someone out there.

The election season seems to be heating up!

I saw this cool primary leaderboard over at MSNBC and I had to snag it. It's pretty cool, and keeps updating.

Windows users at risk from flaw in Macromedia DRM

Microsoft has warned that both Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 suffer from a vulnerability resulting from a flaw in a bundled DRM module. First reported by Symantec, this antipiracy component has been bundled with Windows for the last six years.

read more | digg story

So, once again, DRM actually reduces the security of a system, especially on older XP systems in homes where you KNOW the Administrator account name (or it's something really original like Compaq_Administrator, LOL) and there is no password.

All those poor folks who thought they just wanted to play a game are now vulnerable... again.

At least this wasn't something as horrible as a rootkit, but still, there is code running on my box that I really don't want there, and it's sole purpose is to make copy protection easier. Too bad that copy protection has been broken for years, and is effectively useless.

Sigh...

Blu-ray’s DRM crown jewel tarnished with crack of BD+

SlySoft promised the BD+ would be cracked by the end of 2007, and the company was on the money. Blu-ray's one DRM "advantage" over HD DVD has apparently disappeared, as the newest beta of AnyDVD reportedly can rip discs protected with BD+.

read more | digg story

I have some level of hope that the content producers will realize they are in a losing war, and learn to adapt to the new reality. If not, at least I get the freedom to do what I want with media that I've paid for, whether they like it or not.

The genie is out of the bottle, and there's no putting it back. The DRM on Blu-Ray was one of three issues stopping me from buying into the technology.

In no particular order, the issues are:

1) DRM - I don't want to be restricted in my use of a product. I can play DVDs on my computer, or I can rip them and use media center software to distribute them throughout my house. I can do the same with CDs, and make a copy so that my $15 CD or DVD doesn't get scratched up when my kids forget to put it back in the case. That doesn't seem like much to ask.

2) Cost - The intial cost of a Blu-Ray player is fairly ridiculous, especially when Walmart was carrying a Toshiba HD-DVD player for $98 in the last week. Wow!

3) Sony - They've just pissed me off too many times in the past. DRM on CDs, not playing burned CDs or DVDs in my Sony DVD player, rootkits... ROOTKITS! !@#@&*#!!! My Sony Trinitron TV that broke after 4 years, in the 6th year, and the 7th and last year.

The advantages of Blu-Ray do exist. I like the larger capacity. Eh. Whatever. HD-DVD seems to be big enough for movies in HD.

Link to Linked in, and help promote yourself!

A link to my linked in page... heh.