Since I really REALLY hate DRM, having been bitten by a form of it very recently, I’ll be sticking with XP for at least the next year or so, hopefully longer, and until then avoiding Vista like the plague (apt terminology me thinks). If it so happens that I absolutely cannot avoid Vista down the road, which I personally think will become inevitable when XP is no longer supported by anyone, then maybe I’ll look into running it on a sand-boxed PC made up of old hand-me-down parts. Hopefully Linux will be a more realistic option by then, but that is just wishful thinking. Linux developers seem to despise everything about Windows, refusing to make their OS anything remotely like it, and unfortunately that also seems to include the ease of use that I mentioned. Which is why there won’t be a mass exodus any time soon, at least not by the average joe home user.

I’ve been running Windows XP Pro since the day it showed up on the P2P networks, back in early October 2001. I’m sure everyone remembers the “corporate” version that was leaked back then. It has served me extremely well all these years. Despite all of Microsoft’s efforts, nothing has stopped from updating to SP1, then SP2, and all the little updates in between, security related or otherwise. The whole activation thing, which was new at the time and being railed against by the general public (Symantec had just started using it too) was extremely lame, and I didn’t want anything to do with it. Even then it was obvious what would happen as this type of control evolved, and so it has looking at Vista. I still feel that this is the wrong way to go, and I can guarantee you that if it wasn’t for these greedy corporate execs trying to control what I do, how I do it, what I do it on, and when I do it, I can assure you that I would have paid for the software a long time ago.

I really do prefer to pay for things, especially when it comes to well designed software. That includes free open source projects, which I will happily donate to if I feel it is deserving, which a great many are. I own tons of PC games for example, each and everyone bought and paid for. Well, except for the ones that use Starforce copy protection. I avoid those altogether, having chosen a long time ago to boycott any game that uses it. There really are a lot of things I wouldn’t mind paying for, if only these execs would get their heads out of their asses. Make it affordable, reliable, of decent quality, and above all ditch the DRM and attempts at controlling every aspect of your customers lives, and you will have ALL of my hard earned dollars on a daily basis.

Send 2 million to our numbered account or else your device will be revoked.

Two days later after hardware manufacturers ignore the threat the manufacturers keys are leaked and all of the manufacturer’s devices are quickly rendered useless. THANKS, BILLY BOY!!!

I have never downloaded music or movies, but I hear that it is pretty easy. It is only a shame that I have to become a thief to avoid being completely screwed. But it is beginning to look like there is no other alternative.

Any suggestions on where to get HD movies that will play on my system?

Only few people are saying same.
Only 52 pages of google searches or approximately 550 pages.