Update (4/20/2011): See the bottom of the post for Gawker’s response to my inquiry.

When Gawker launched a new layout for their various sites, I said ‘Meh’. When their database was hacked and account details stolen, I said ‘Meh’ again, as I wasn’t an avid reader and didn’t have an account. I’d open the occasional link to an article on Life Hacker, or Gizmondo, but that was it.

Now, I won’t even go that far, mainly because most of the time, the links don’t work.

Let me explain – if you live in the U.S. and/or don’t own a mobile device, you probably won’t notice an issue. However, being from the Great White North and owning an Android phone, getting to a specific article on a Gawker-run site is next to impossible without employing workarounds.

When someone from the U.S. links something from, say Life Hacker, the link will look like this:

http://lifehacker.com/#!5757510/feednu-makes-an-android-app-for-your-blog

However, if you’re in Canada and click on that link, it will take you to this instead:

http://ca.lifehacker.com/

Yes, that’s right. Instead of taking you to the article that you want to read, it says “Oh, hey! You’re Canadian! Look at our other layout. What do you mean you wanted to read a specific article?” (Sometimes it will leave the full URL intact, but still bring you directly to the front page instead of the article you wanted).

And if you use a smart phone, or any other device Gawker things deserves the mobile site, you’ll get this:

http://m.lifehacker.com/#!5757510/feednu-makes-an-android-app-for-your-blog

Which, depending on how the site feels, will either give you their mobile homepage, or just a 404 error.

Kind of reminds me of this XKCD strip. Either way, bye bye Gawker Media. You won’t be missed.

Addendum: After emailing Gawker’s support team a few times, I finally got this reply:

The tech team is still trying to figure out how integrate the hashtags with the redirect– they’re making some progress,but not enough to roll out with the fix just yet. All we can ask is that you continue to be patient until that fix is ready. Sorry for the inconvenience this is causing, but I promise, a fix is coming.

–Steve Climaco

Gawker Media Help Desk

It’s day 5 now and still no shipping label. I called HTC again and got a slightly different answer out of this rep. This one told me that my ticket had *just* been escalated and was on it’s way to the warehouse now. When I told him that the other agents had told me it had already gone up to the escalation team, he started backpedaling and said that although the ticket had been escalated it takes them time to look things over.

4 days? Ya, right.

So I asked for a supervisor. After waiting on hold (no music, just silence so you never know if you’ve been cut off), a ‘supervisor’ came on the line (supervisor is in quotes as, having working in a call centre before I have first hand experience pretending to be a co-workers supervisor – it’s a very common practice). I asked again what was going on, and she had yet another story. Apparently, HTC’s shipping system has been ‘down’ for ‘a few days’, and they have no ETA on things. She assured me, though, that (for real this time!) my ticket has been escalated, it should be at the attention of the warehouse, and I should have a label by Monday or Tuesday.

So, starting Monday afternoon (as nobody’s around to man the phones on weekends), I’ll continue with my daily phone campaign trying to find out when I can possibly expect to send back my wife’s brick…err…Nexus One.

Continued in Part 4.

Click ‘Continue Reading’ for the wall-of-text!

To start, we need to get a little background out of the way. When you buy a retail copy of Windows, you get a Retail disk with a Retail key. You put the key in and life is usually good – Windows activates online and you’re done. Occasionally, maybe due to a hardware change, Windows refuses to activate online and instead makes you call in. You follow the steps, punch in the numbers, and you’re done. Pretty simple.

However, when it comes to a computer with Windows pre-installed by a major manufacturer, things are a little different.

You see, to make things easier for the average user, Microsoft added a feature called ‘System Locked Preinstallation‘, or ‘SLP’. To summarize the linked Wikipedia article, Microsoft provides Manufactures with a set of OEM Product Keys. The manufacturer then gives you these keys on the COA affixed to your computer and an installation disk with a generic Product Key pre-entered. When you do the install, Windows checks the Product Key, and if it finds an OEM SLP key, it looks for a Digital Certificate that the manufacturer embedded in the BIOS. When it finds the cert, it ‘activates’ without going online.

The problem I have is that I rarely (read: never) use the manufacturer-provided Windows installation disk, mainly to avoid the crap they put on them (‘free’ trials of Norton Antivirus, crapware, etc…). As such, with Windows XP I’d use a generic System Builder OEM disk, or with Windows Vista/7, just a generic Retail disk (with Windows Vista, all the SKUs are on one disk, and Windows automatically detects which edition to install based on your product key. Windows 7 disks also have almost all SKUs present, but you need to edit/delete a file first to access that feature).

When using a generic disk, the SLP process no longer applies, and you have to put in the Product Key that is on the COA attached to your computer. Although the key will enter fine, it won’t activate online. This is because although it’s a valid OEM key, it’s technically never supposed to be used, as the OEM-provided installation disk will use a different, generic key. As such, you need to call in to Microsoft’s Product Activation line in order to activate the key on your COA.

Now comes the fun part. I recently received a bunch of new Dell systems and went through the telephone activation process as usual. Everything worked perfectly. Then today, I had to re-install Windows Vista Business on a year-old laptop. After the installation, I put in the product key and went to the telephone activation line. After punching in the verification numbers, I heard this:

We’re sorry, but we were unable to validate your installation ID. Please hold while we transfer you to a representative.

So, I waited on hold for a few minutes was greeted with the following:

Agent: Thank you for contacting the Microsoft Telephone Activation department. Can I start with the first block of numbers on the activation screen?

Me: Yes, they’re XXXXXX.

Agent: Okay, is the second block YYYYYY?

Me: Yes.

Agent: Perfect. And what product are you trying to activate?

Me: Windows Vista Business Edition.

Agent: Okay. Please enter the following numbers in to the activation screen. <insert numbers here>

Me: Okay, it activated.

Agent: Thank you!

What the hell? He used the numbers I entered in to the automated part of the phone system, so I didn’t type them wrong, and he didn’t ask me the usual questions (“How many computers is this installed on, et al…”), so why did the automated activation fail? Have they changed the process? Am I going to have to go through this every time? Should I just say ‘screw it’ and only order VLK product keys instead and tell the OEMs to not bother with Windows anymore?

Find out the answer to these questions and more…well, probably never. [/end rant]

Until now, our dual 6Mbit DSL connections have been making due, but really only because of a WSUS server and two IPCop servers acting and web and update caches. With the possibility of adding new offices and increasing the number of computers on our network, I’ve been looking in to alternative ways of boosting our throughput.

One of the first plans was to check in to a Fiber connection, but that was quickly scrapped. Unfortunately, we can’t afford the $1500/month rates being offered for the lower-tier connections, and the staggering ~$5900/month for a 100Mbit up/down connection is completely impossible. As such, I started looking in to other business packages.

This brings me to the root of my rant. I’ve never been a big fan of DSL, so my first thought was to check out what was offered by our local cable provider, Shaw Cable. I’ve used them for my residential internet connection since 1997 and couldn’t be happier, especially since they’ve just started to offer 100Mbit down 2Mbit up service in my area.

After several phone calls to them, however, my opinion has completely changed. Despite the fact that they provide faster service, Shaw is only willing to offer a 15Mbit down/1Mbit up service to businesses. That’s the fastest you can go without switching to Fiber, which again is out of our price range. Although the service is slightly cheaper than the DSL equivalent, I need at least 4 static IP addresses, and which Shaw will provide–for an extra $50 on top.

Speaking with their customer service reps was a frustrating experience, because I couldn’t get an answer as to why businesses aren’t allowed access to higher tiered packages. “That’s just the way it is” was all I was told.

As such, we’ll be sticking with DSL, and Shaw has lost a potential customer. I hope they eventually decide to let businesses catch up with home users, but somehow, I have my doubts.

Seriously.

Her: Welcome to Tim Hortons, how can I help you?

Me: Hi. Can I please get an extra-large tea, with two milk and two sugar?

Her: <several seconds of silence> Ummm, so you want a decaf tea?

Me: Actually, I just want a regular tea.

Her: Okay. Do you want anything in it?

Me: Yes. Two milk, and two sugar.

Her: <several seconds more of silence>. So two cream, and one sweetener?

Me (trying not to sound frustrated): No. Two milk. <pause> And two sugar.

Her: Oh! Okay!

I’m surprised that I didn’t end up with a Double-Double instead, as has been known to happen before.

In WSUS, you can tell it what products you want to get updates for, what classification (driver, critical update, service pack, etc…), and even whether to auto-approve them or not, but for some unknown reason, WSUS doesn’t let you specify the damn architecture that you want.

Our organization doesn’t have any Intanium hardware – why doesn’t WSUS let me specifically block that architecture? I only want x86 and x86_64 updates. Is that so hard? Instead, my auto-approve rules happily let those updates download, and then sit and take up space until I run the cleanup wizard.

Come on, Microsoft. Think this one through, please? Maybe introduce it in the 4.0 update?