I was interviewed for a short spot on the radio about hackers that can destroy your life for as little as $20 per month. If you want to listen to the show, you can check it out on the Kiro website.

I just got a new Dell computer, and one of the things that really pisses me off about these machines is all the crapware they install on the new computers. They seem to reinvent every little tool that is already provided by the OS, but do it so poorly that the tool can bearly hobble along. It slows my computer down, makes configurations difficult, and is generally intrusive.

Dell, if you're listening, stop it.

I've gone back and forth over the years, trying to decide if it's better and faster to try to uninstall all the crapware they put on my new machine, or to just format the thing and start over from scratch. This time I decided to try to reverse the damage that Dell has done. I've done it with viruses, why can't I do it with Dell. Oh yea, Dell's sneakier.

They even went so far as to rename IE. Now this is not a new hack, the functionality has been around for years (not sure, how many. if you do know, post it to a comment). There's a Registry key that lets you change the title of IE. Dell chooses to rename IE to "Internet Explorer provided by Dell," Thanks, Dell, for going out and finding and installing a free browser, I can see you're really looking out for me.

In any case I decided to take back my IE, and while I was at it, rename it to something a little shorter, "IE."

To change the name of IE follow these steps:

1. Open Regedit (start -> run -> type "regedit" -> hit enter)
2. Browse to Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main
3. Double click the Key Value "Window Title" to whatever you want.

Be very, very, very careful with your registry. It is a fickel wench, and will hose your computer three ways to tuesday if you screw something up. Additionally backing it up and reverting to a saved state is not straightforward. That said, this is a pretty easy edit, that anybody that has played with the registy before can do.

Do not e-mail me saying that Windows won't start or nothing looks that same, I warned you :-)

Happy Regediting.

Labels: Dell, IE, Regedit, Registry

Perl Jam has this troubling message that AT&T consciously or not censored their performance of Daughter when Eddie Vedder sung the lyrics "George Bush, leave this world alone." and "George Bush find yourself another home." To the tune of Pink Floyd’s “Another brick in the wall”

The thing that I find mind boggling about these attempts to censor artists that big media never seems to understand is that, it will be discovered and when it is, it will be blown to huge proportions. If AT&T would have simply let them sing their song it would have been heard, but not remembered by thousands of people. By censoring it the bloggers, podcasters, and little media of the world jump on the opportunity to point the finger and people will listen and remember this as one of the many times that big media tried to control what people are saying.

For more information search in google news for "Perl Jam"

I read the article The Idols Of Environmentalism in a Harper's Magazine that I just bought because of another article on Giuliani. This article is very interesting, it talks about the decisions we make as "environmentalists" and how we hide behind our science and language to paint a picture of the perfect earth where we give our world exactly the minimum it needs to survive. Contrast this with a true harmony with the earth, not one that we are at odds with, but one that we have a reverence for, simply because they are. It's quite a powerful read and I suggest you give it some time in a quite space.

From the article:

Environmental destruction proceeds apace in spite of all the 501(c)(3) organizations with their memberships in the millions, the poll results, and the martyrs perched high in the branches of sequoias or shot dead in the Amazon. This is so not because of a power that we must resist. It is because we are weak and fearful. Only a weak and fearful society could invest so much desperate energy in protecting activities that are the equivalent of suicide.