Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsme.general (
More info?)
Jack E Martinelli wrote:
> Hi, Rick.
>
> Re: 1) " the fact that if a signal is a little weak it thinks its a copy
> and kicks in and
>
>>stops recording; *that* bothers me.
>
>
> I recommend that you report this, hoping that it can it can be fixed.
The card in question was from the 90s, the company wouldn't fix them
(and the drivers weren't written in-house), so the user community hacked
the driver. To the best of my knowledge the UC is pretty well above
board and few if any are inclined to substitute the letter 'z' for the
letter 's' while writing.
>
> 2) " I bet that the CDilla or whatever is running constantly "
>
> I also would prefer that the copy protection not run constantly. I am not
> qualified to critique this particular method.
Just off the top of my head...
- purchase the software
- call the company's 800 number and give them the unique registration
key and the serial number of your hard disk
- company gives you an installation key calculated from the above
- viola
> I would hope that better
> programming would avoid this issue, avoiding any executing oversight process
> under normal situations.
Roxio CDR software checks the CD drive every couple seconds "is there a
disk yet?"
> However, a process consuming less than 1% of cpu
> time is not a problem, under normal circumstances.
Depends on your definition of problem... my hardware doesn't belong to
them.... 1% of what I've "invested" in it + running costs is a
defineable sum.
> 3) "that's a company that's costing me money because they apparently
> legally assume that I'm a criminal."
>
> Is this cost to you more than a few pennies a month?
It may be: there is a micropercentage of computer owners for which the
extra bit of processing forces an hardware upgrade (straw that broke the
cpu's back)... eventually that will be me for some thing or another.
> The cost from piracy to Intuit is enormous. I can understand the need for
> copy protection for such widely used, easily pirated software.
I don't mind security measures; I mind paying for incompetence.
> Unfortunately, many of our fellow computer users are thieves, unless
> thwarted.
There's social problems lurking there; peer pressure (or perceived peer
pressure) that being a criminal is "cool" and of course "I didn't know
it was pirated" (like the CDR with "Tax Stuf" writ in magic-marker isn't
a clue).
The funny thing is most of the time pirated software is faulty and
virus-ridden so frauds generally do get their comeuppance in the form of
having to reformat their disk or getting a little note from the
government that their tax return figures are a bit shaky (possibly
delivered by men in dark suits).
Quicken *is* a pretty good product and IMHO well worth the $20-40 bucks
if you require/want computer-assisted accounting software.
Rick
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram