Reporting a product bug to Microsoft. Good one.

I needed to update our installation of SQL Server 2008 to include Integration Services so that maintenance plans would run. I have local admin privilege on the machine, but as with most Microsoft related installation tasks, you routinely get so far through the process and you’re hit with the SeSecurityPrivilege error – that is, you don’t have some permission or other. The installation process goes wrong and you have to cancel out of the whole process in order to restart it with an account that has the privilege.

Except in this case, that doesn’t actually work – there’s a bug in the SQL Server 2008 installation mechanise.

SQL Server 2008 installation error

Clicking Retry fails again because you don’t have the privilege.
Clicking Cancel fails… because you don’t have the privilege.

OK granted, it’s a fairly obscure bug, but it’s a bug nonetheless. My only option is to physically kill a process, and I really don’t like doing that sort of operation on production machines which are half way through trying to update the configuration of a live SQL server*.

I figured I’d report the issue to someone at Microsoft. Long story short, after a bit of hunting around, the endeavour was futile (as per this guy and this guy) and I can’t find a single way to report a bug to Microsoft about their arsing software (that doesn’t involve going through direct support channels, paying fees, checking license blah blah blah. I care about this a bit… but not that much.)

I’m sure someone somewhere in Microsoft’s vast array of tech support type people could monitor a “bugs@microsoft.com” email address and actually help to listen to its customers. I love my Mac.. I don’t know if a bug reporting mechanism exists as above… but then I’ve never had to do it. [CueFlame] “They just work” ! [/Flame]

* As it turns out, this is actually a serious issue. Manually killing the installation process halfway through means the installation files that it creates aren’t rolled back/destroyed. So when you then go run the installation again… SQL Server thinks you’ve already installed the thing you’re trying to install. So you’re then faced with “repair”-ing an instance which is absolutely fine.

The world’s local bank. Hahaha.

I had a meeting with HSBC. After I left and was walking back to work, I remembered something we’d forgotten to discuss. No worries, I thought, I’ll get back, look up the phone number and give them a quick call. I mean – how many times have banks insisted that you speak to your local branch?

I duly look up Guernsey brances of HSBC on their website: http://www.hbeu1.hsbc.com/ukservices/branchlocator/town.asp?postcode=&town=498&area=&region=&type=Branches&x=27&y=25&flag=true#

Interesting, I think – they’ve all got the same phone number. Phone book gives the same info. I give the number a call.

Automated answerer: “Please enter your banking sort code”

- well, I don’t have it, because I only have online accounts – so no chequebook, bank card or similar where it might be printed. I keep hitting random numbers on the phone keypad until, like most automated phone systems, it gives up, and transfers me to a real human.

Them: “HSBC [blah].. how can I help?”
Me: “Hi, can you connect me to the High Street branch in Guernsey, please.”
Them: “OK, let me look it up.”
Them: “Can you spell Guernsey for me?”
Me: “G-U-E-R-N-S-E-Y”
Them: “Hmm, OK. I can’t find it. How about Alderney?”
Me: “No, that’s a different Island.”
Them: “Hmm.. [splurges out the same list of branches above, except High Street]”
Me: “No… it’s 20-22 High Street, Guernsey.”
Them: “Let me transfer you to someone who may be able to help.”
Me: [click]

The world’s local bank indeed. Interestingly, during the meeting, the rep had spent a good 20 minutes trying to convince me to switch my current accounts to them on the strength that the accounts were available worldwide in virtually every territory.

Shame they weren’t able to locate my actual local branch, which I know is there and about 10 minutes down the road.

Come on Ford, sort it out

A while ago, I posted something about a Ford advert, which touted their new design methodology called “Ford Kinetic Design.”

Apparently, the point of Ford Kinetic Design is to “make every Ford look like it’s moving, even when it’s not.” In reality, what a crock. Why would you want your car to look like it’s moving, when it’s not? How annoying would that be? You’d park the car and wander off, and have to keep going back to check you’d put the handbrake on. It’s stupid, wanky, marketing BS.

And now, Ford are at it again, this time with the new Kuga. They started a while back with the “why can’t we start with a blank canvas nonsense

and now they’re doing it again with the blank canvas idea, asking why things have to look like things

In this case, why does a parking meter have to look like a parking meter? Elsewhere, they’ve asked “why does a bus stop have to look like a bus stop” ? Well, Ford, I’ll fucking tell you. If a parking meter looked like a shopping trolley, then people’d get a bunch of parking tickets for not paying to park. If bus stops looked like a bucket of chicken, then you’d get a lot of really pissed off people standing about wondering how to get to work, and a lot of very confused bus drivers, driving about wondering where to stop. Plus, there would be buckets of chicken everywhere. Not something I’d be particularly against, but can you imagine the mess, the rats and the birds?

And to add insult to injury, Ford are touting some thing about how they’ve ignored all design rules and completely rethought car design. Seriously? Someone tell me how they’ve done that. The new Kuga has 4 wheels, some doors, a windscreen. It goes forward and backwards. Costs a fortune to run and will inevitably look a little shabby after the kids have vomited in it and you’ve scraped it along a fence post.

So, seriously, Ford, stop it. It’s a car. That’s all.

Define irony

I’m an avid recycler. In fact, I now actually cringe if I have to put a glass, plastic bottle or tin can in the regular trash. I go so far as to take my recyclable rubbish with me if I’m not able to recycle it there on the spot.

I think it’s true to say of most people who recycle that they’re inclined to make a little bit of extra effort in order to do their recycling. Indeed, in most cases where recycling pickups don’t happen, you will need to keep your recycling in your house until such point that you can take it to a nearby recycling centre and then deposit your stuff in the appropriate bins. This certainly requires extra effort, and perhaps, recyclers do feel a tad smug about their apparent helping to save the planet. I’m not saying they’re on the same level as the sanctimonious wankers who drive a Prius – I don’t care what you say Top Gear reporter Paul Horrell, it’s a shit car, stop saying it’s good – but nevertheless, the very fact that people are prepared to put the extra effort to separate your stuff and then actually take half an hour out of a weekend to go and deposit it, says something.

Well, it says something about some people. I’m not sure what it says about these people:

Recycling madness

In case that’s not clear… virtually all of the visible plastic bottles in the near-overflowing plastic bottle recycling bin still have their plastic tops on, despite the BIG sign that says please remove bottle tops (presumably because they can’t be recycled).

So, the types of people who care enough to actually separate and keep their recyclable material, take it down to the recycling centre on their own time, put it in the right bin… can’t manage a further 3 seconds just to remove the bottle tops and put them in the regular trash.

Idiots.

Your video may have music that is owned or licensed by WMG.

Argh, WMG can suck my balls. I must admit that in *all* the years of the DRM / Copyright / file sharing / Napster debate, I’ve never really been hit by it. Although in principle, DRM or similar is kind of annoying – I mean, I paid for it – I should be able to do what I want with it, right? Well, no, not at all – you just bought a license to listen to the music. The reason I’ve never really got in to downloading music – either illegally or legitimately through iTunes is two-fold – 1) I don’t trust myself to remember that I’ve bought some music in case I start deleting stuff and 2) I have an ever growing CD collection which I’m proud of, and I like having the actual CD.

OK, slight tangent there. Anyway, I’ve just been bitten – albeit algorithmically – by the copyright debate. Shortly after I got my new Macbook Pro, I was farting about with iMovie HD and making some silly videos. These included a bit of my brother’s dog, and a trip when we went to a shooting range, and shot some guns. Hardly ground-breaking or Cannes-winning stuff. In fact, they’re so amateur that they’re pretty laughable now. But nevertheless, they were good fun when I was putting them together, part of which was figuring out the soundtrack. I spent ages working out the best tunes to back my brother’s dog running around in a park (Jungle Brothers) or being driven around in a car (Passenger, by Iggy Pop).

Anyway, some of my videos got WMG’d at YouTube. On some of these videos, I now just see a message that says

Your video, Seven Stages of Dog – Part 2, may have audio content from Growing On Me by The Darkness that is owned or licensed by WMG.

Obviously referring to the part where Iggy (a 2 year 50lb bull terrier / shepherd mix plays with Dante, a 130lb Italian Mastiff, with humourous consequences).

So the point is, WMGs access to YouTube and its algorithms to analyse all videos to find illegal use of their music has caught me out and the music to the video is muted. And that makes the video even more dull than before. What’s unusual however, is that there are other videos I have made that use exactly the same styles, but they didn’t get flagged. And a cursory search of YouTube shows thousands more videos with copyrighted music on arguably much bigger or questionable videos. So obviously whatever software they’re using isn’t perfect.

But I’m still struggling to understand how my use of the music for my crappy “home videos” can really be damaging them and I’d argue that my use is “fair use”. It’s not for profit, it’s clearly not for anything sensible or real, it’s just a bit of fun for me and anyone who might be interested (which, judging by the view count, is not many) and whereever I use music, the artist is credited for it. If anything, I’d go the opposite way and say that for the odd few people who actually watch these videos, might think “oooh Ocean Colour Scene, haven’t heard them in a while” and go and buy a CD. (Or fire up Limewire I suppose.)

Well needless to say, I find it all very crap. This sort of thing can only stifle the creativity that places like YouTube are slowly opening up. Fat little kids who previously had no lives are somehow “cewebrities” because they get creative with a webcam. (Ooer!). But no, WMG can’t monetise it (yet) so their decision is to pull the plug. Of course, you can use the “AudioSwap” – i.e., a list of public domain tracks that are free for use – but how long before they’re used up and everyone’s videos starts to look very very similar. In fact, it gets worse. I saw one poor who had her videos deleted for singing her favourite bands music!

If I really cared enough about this, I’d find a list of all WMG’s artists and never buy their music again. But I don’t, so I won’t. But still, it’s tiresome and officious, and is nowt but a sign of things to come.

So on a lighter note, here’s another video I made that doesn’t have any copyrighted music. It is obviously a blatant rip off of a movie, so quite how long it stays out there, well, who knows.

Nothing changes

It seems I’ve always been an angry man. I recently received several copies of the same stupid damn email. You will have seen it, it’s the “Bill Gates is going to give you some money for forwarding this email” bullshit. Here’s a sample..

Title: PLLLLEEEAAASSSSEEE REEEAAADDD! IT WAS ON GOOD MORNINGAMERICATODAY!

After scrolling through pages and pages of email addresses you get to some text:

“To all of my friends, I do not usually forward messages,

But this is from my friend Pearlas Sandborn and she really is

an attorney.

If she says that this will work – It will work. After all,What have

you got to lose?

SORRY EVERYBODY.. JUST HAD TO TAKE THE CHANCE!!! I’m an

attorney, And I know the law. This thing is for real. Rest assured

AOL and Intel will follow through with their pr omises for

fear of facing a multimillion-dollar class action suit similar to the one

filed by PepsiCo against General Electric not too long a go.

Dear Friends: Please do not take this for a junk letter.

Bill Gates sharing his fortune. If you ignore this, You will repent

later .

Microsoft and AOL are now the largest Internet companies

and in an effort to make sure that Internet Explorer remains the

most widely used program, Microsoft and AOL are running an e-mail

beta test.

When you forward this e-mail to friends, Microsoft can and will

track it (If you are a Microsoft Windows user) For a two weeks

time period.

For every person that you forward this e-mail to, Microsoft will pay

you $245.00 For every person that you sent it to that forwards it on,

Microsoft will pay you $243.00 and for every third person that receives

it, You will be paid $241.00. Within two weeks, Microsoft will contact

you for your address and then send you a check.

Regards. Charles S Bailey Genera l Manager Field Oper ations”

Blah blah blah etc. Obviously such a load of crap. Yahda yahda.

Why am I mentioning this? Because I was blogging about the same damn thing, way back in 2004! So I was just as angry then, and people nowadays are still as stupid. Nothing changes.

Stupid adverts. Poo at Paul’s.

I’m actually lost for words. People shouldn’t be allowed to make adverts. Glade, you should be ashamed of yourself.

It’s oddly captivating though.