While trying to change the key layout on my computer to make it easier for me while developing I noticed that I couldn’t remap AltGr+G. Google Desktop uses it, as well as Windows+G, as a shortcut to the search textbox. Luckily I found a way to change this behaviour by editing the registry as outlined in this newsgroup thread.

In “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Google Desktop\Preferences”
create a DWORD value named “hot_key_flags”.
Setting this value to:
– “0” disables both Ctrl-Alt-G and Windows-G
– “1” disables Windows-G, but leaves Ctrl-Alt-G enabled
– “2” disables Ctrl-Alt-G, but leaves Windows-G enabled
– Removing the key or setting the value to “3” or higher will enable
both keys.

So now I can get back to remapping some previously hard to reach keys to more convenient places.

Apparently Mark at SysInternals recieved some “answers” to his earlier blog entries from the company, First 4 Internet, that developed the rootkit with a drm addon for Sony. Read Mark’s response here, looks like he was not impressed.

Instead of admitting fault for installing a rootkit and installing it without proper disclosure, both Sony and First 4 Internet claim innocence. By not coming clean they are making clear to any potential customers that they are a not only technically incompetent, but also dishonest.

The one thing I find most annoying about this is how to explain this to my non-tech savy friends. They just use Windows XP as it is configured by default, all users have administrator rights and so on, and have no idea that there can be anything more than music on a music CD they’ve bought nor that applications and drivers can be installed simply by them putting a music CD into their computer. Most just take for granted that when an dialog opened from a, for example, Sony CD, tells them that they must click accept to be able to listen to an album that no harm will be done to their computer.

I wish that music CDs could’ve stayed being just music CDs.

Today I got for the first time in my life a spam message via the PM system at a forum. That is, me and everyone else who is a member at the bradsoft.com forums. Talk about surprising, and I probably shouldn’t have, but I thought it was at least a little bit amusing. Not the actual spam contents though, that was the usual “give us money now and you’ll get 70% of $35,500,000 later” scam. 🙂

Running SysInternals RootkitRevealer on my computer didn’t reveal anything as hiddeous as Mark at SysInternals found. I did however find some, at least to me, curious things.

One thing was a hidden key at HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\d346prt\Cfg\0Jf40. But I don’t think it is anything to worry about, looks like it is part of Daemon tools, a CD emulator tool I use to mount CD images. At least if one is to believe the answer I got in the Daemon tools forum.

The second thing I found was a couple of broken keys at HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Reinstall. At least that is how I enterpret RootkitRevealers “Key name contains embedded nulls (*)” message. Looking at the values in that key it looks like they are part of older ATI driver installs. Has anyone else seen this? Or is something more sinister going on in my computer than broken ATI installers? I removed them, and everything seems to still function ok.

Lastly the reported inconsistency with the System.EnterpriceServices assembly is probably nothing to worry about. But I could be wrong 🙂 Can anyone explain this?

That I didn’t find anything more suspicous don’t really surprise me. I have autorun turned off and try to read up on what it is I install before I do. But still, I did manage to unknowingly install Starforce , a drm system for games that also installs a couple of drivers, that I think caused some funky behaviour of my dvd. It spun up and stayed rotating at high speeds whenever I had a CD in the drive. But the creators of Starforce at least have a uninstall utillity, would be even better if a uninstall entry in add/remove applications was created for it but I guess that is asking for too much. Still don’t know what game I got Starforce from, the ones I currently play still work.

Once more I have turned my phone in for service, I’m really starting to regret buying it. I really like it as a phone, but having my phone break down every few weeks sucks. And to add insult to injury, as I ranted here, OnOff’s service only make things worse. My conclusion still stands, now stronger than ever. Don’t make the same mistake as I have and buy something from OnOff.

Anyways, I was led to believe they would at least give me new phone now that has broken more than three times, but as I found out today that is not the case. That only happens if the phone has the same fault three times. This was only the second time the camera on the phone stopped working.

Hopefully it wont take them two months to fix it this time..

Mark at SysInternals has written a very interesting blog entry about some badly written DRM software from Sony that was installed by a music CD. He found it on his computer while using a tool from SysInternals called RootkitRevealer that I hadn’t heard about before. I wonder what it’ll turn up on my computer.

Instead of having to worry about what gets installed when you try to listen to legally bought CDs it’s much easier to just not buy any. Maybe that is the music labels’ evil plan, to deprive me from music? 🙂

So, who wants to buy me one of these? 😀