Kirb’s Musings

Kirby Witmer’s ponderings, ruminations, and meditations of… anything.

This is an excerpt of an email I just got. It came just in time, as I was in need of some extra cash. 

DEAR  ,
 
MICROSOFT CORPORATION  MANAGEMENT WORLDWIDE AND POWER LOTTO ARE PLEASED TO INFORM YOU THAT YOU ARE A WINNER OF OUR ANNUAL MS-WORD LOTTO LOTTERY CONDUCTED IN UNITED KINGDOM BEING THE HOST OF THE EVENT FOR THIS PRESENT YEAR MEGA JACKPOT LOTTO WINNING PROGRAMS HELD ON 1st,JULY 2007.
YOUR PERSONAL E-MAIL ADDRESS OR COMPANY EMAIL WAS ATTACHED TO JULY  MSWLL. WITH SERIAL NUMBER S/M-00168 DREW THE LUCKY NUMBERS 987-13-965-37-1-20-83, AND CONSEQUENTLY WON IN THE FIRST LOTTERY CATEGORY. YOU HAVE THEREFORE BEEN APPROVED FOR LUMP SUMS OF
$1,000,000.00 (USD ONE MILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS) PAYABLE IN CASH CREDITED TO FILE REF NO: MSW-L/500-36937 THIS IS FROM TOTAL PRIZE MONEY OF $ 25,000.000.00 USD, SHARED AMONG THE TWENTY-FIVE (25) LUCKY INTERNATIONAL WINNERS IN FIRST AND SECOND CATEGORY.
ALL PARTICIPANTS WERE SELECTED FROM WORLDWIDE WEBSITES ESPECIALLY YAHOO MAIL THROUGH OUR MICROSOFT COMPUTER BALLOT SYSTEM DRAWN FROM 21,000 NAMES, 30,000 NAMES FROM EACH CONTINENT (CANADA, ASIA, AUSTRALIA, UNITED STATE, EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST, AFRICA AND OCEANIA, AS PART OF INTERNATIONAL “E-MAIL” PROMOTIONS PROGRAM, WHICH IS CONDUCTED ANNUALLY FOR OUR PROMINENT INTERNET USERS ALL OVER THE WORLD, AND TO ENCOURAGE THE USE OF INTERNET AND COMPUTER
WORLDWIDE. 
YOUR FUND (CERTIFIED CHEQUE) HAS BEEN INSURED WITH YOUR REF NO:MSW-L200-26937 AND WILL BE READY FOR DELIVERY BY OUR PAYING CENTER.CONTACT YOUR CLAIM AGENT IN CHARGE OF YOUR ZONE PLEASE Address your mail to (Mrs. Linda K. Weston). YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS SHOULD BE USED IN ALL CORRESPONDENCE WITH YOUR CLAIMS OFFICER, PLEASE NOTE THAT, YOU ARE TO CONTACT YOUR CLAIMS OFFICER VIA EMAIL ONLY AS WE ARE PROMOTING THE USE OF E-MAIL (INTERNET). ALSO YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO  CONFIRM YOUR WINNINGS AND GOVERNMENT TAX PAYMENT THAT IS INVOLVE, AS SHE WILL PROVIDE YOU WITH THE NECESSARY DETAILS ON HOW TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE.
AS PART OF OUR SECURITY PROTOCOL YOU ARE TO QUOTE THIS SECURITY CODE MSW/RIL/XX07 TO YOUR CLAIMING AGENT. THIS IS TO PREVENT SCAM .
PRIZE CLAIM
Mrs. Linda K. Weston

Grocery chain Supervalu Inc. earlier this year was conned into depositing more than $10 million into two fraudulent bank accounts before it discovered the ruse.

Its idiots people like that who keep the spammers in business.

Engadget has a post up comparing the featuresof Vista and Leopard, and you would think its Word War 3 by the comments. (Ohh, by the way, there is exactly 666 comments over there now as I’m writing this post.) Its funny how people get all fired up about which OS is the best. I’ve worked with enough Operating Systems in my short life to know they all have big flaws.

However, Vista is still the best.

 Update: And don’t even get me started on this. That’s a huge reason why I don’t more appreciation for Apple than I do. They are so arrogant.

I’m so frustrated right now with this old, old problem of installing Windows XP on a RAID hard drive system. The only way to add the drivers is by using a floppy disk. That brings up several questions.

1. What is a floppy disk?
2. Where do I find one?
3. Where do I find a floppy drive? New computers don’t have them.

Ahh.. Here we go, I found a used floppy drive in one of my old computers, but now for a disk. Ahh.. found that too. First disk doesn’t work, second one doesn’t either. Is it the drive or the floppies? Try the third disk.. sweet, that one works. Start Win XP setup, hit F6, insert floppy disk. ERROR!!  grrrrr…. still no go. Ok, lets try with a new disk. Attempting to write files. Error :

Windows Error N. 5
Access is denied.

I agree with Iain Magee :

So - all told - a 5 minute job took probably the most of an hour. Why Microsoft? Why can’t we have setup read the file from a CD or USB key? This was a problem 5 years ago - and I just can’t believe that 5 years on it’s still a problem.