Category Archives: Rant

Google Authenticator App – What they dont tell you

So i have been using the app for ages and had a number of different accounts setup on it.

  • ubisoft
  • google
  • lastpass
  • rockstar games
  • Epic Games

New phone, new problems:
When i got my new phone i assumed that when i logged into my google account and downloaded the Authenicator App again that it would setup the app with the codes that i had on the app, Wrong.

How wrong i was! it doesnt do this and i would need back up codes for all the services/apps i had installed!  I thought that i only needed the backup codes for the app and not for each service that i had installed.  Your talking about multiple back up codes for multiple login services.

Windows 10 wiped all my hard drives without warning

With the recent news that the latest Windows 10 update build (1809) deleted users downloads;

Microsoft:
We have paused the rollout of the Windows 10 October 2018 Update (version 1809) for all users as we investigate isolated reports of users missing some files after updating.
(via engadget.com)

i thought id post this story which ive been too lazy to post about for months.  If anything it shows that Windows 10 is not all its cracked up to be.

Over the years ive installed every Microsoft Windows OS;

  • Win 95
  • Win 98
  • Win Vista
  • Win 7
  • Win 8
  • Win 10

Windows 10 is the only one of those Operation Systems that wiped four hard drives without even a confirmation prompt to say you were “going to wipe out 5 hard drives”.

So what did you do?
It was almost new years eve and well my Windows 10 install was getting more broken after each update and the October 2017 update gave constant blue screens when using bluetooth headphones.  So i thought dam im going to have to reinstall windows 10 and all the dam updates.   At this point i really didnt want to do this with college work and programming source code scattered all over the shop.

F*ck it!
I had made a point of always backing up my PC since a horrable incindet back in 2003 where i lost the source code to two applications i was working on (fucking Maxtor Hard drives).  So yes i had a back up which was on another physical drive other than the SSD drive that Win 10  was installed.

Fed up of blue screens and problems since the October 2017 update i decided i had to reinstall Windows 10.  So i seen in Windows 10 there was a “Reset this PC” feature;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was hoping this was one of “Ronseal” moments where it does “exactly what it says on the tin”,  it didnt.

What could go wrong
I had a back up and was ready to go, so i pressed the “Get Started” button and thought great, it will all be fine.  Now this is the part that is kinda fuzzy ill admit, i cant remember what it said but i was sure that “nothing” would go wrong when i presses the enter button to “reset this PC” that as i pressed it i walked out of the room to get a cuppa Tea.

The horror:
I was away from the PC for a while and thought to myself “sure might as well let it do its thing” and ill watch some TV.

I had expected than when i would return to the PC that Windows 10 would be installed and ready to go.  An hour later i came back to the PC to see that it hadnt booted into any Windows 10/Any kinda interface, nothing.  Black screen and a DOS prompt saying the dreaded message;

“No system drive found”

Windows had mangled or rahter me the menu which Windows used to find the system drive to boot from. After using the BIOS to boot of the correct drive Windows 10 booted.

Not only had the the main Windows drive been wiped but all other internal hard drives were wiped with exception to the External USB 3.0 drive.

External USB Drive to the rescue:
For some reason Windows 10 didnt wipe this drive if it had it would have been an utter fucking nightmare.  I had my programming and college work from over the tears on this drive and somewhere in the “cloud” with Goggle Drive.

Theres hope:
I knew that when you delete a file its not really deleted rather the location where it was is marked as a place for new files to be written.  So i had not make sure that i didnt save or write anything to all the hard drives in question.

Recovery Software:
I had used recovery software before and i knew that

  • it can recovery a lot of files
  • it takes a very long time depeneding on the hard drive in question

So i needed to find the best recovery software available and hope that it would work.

Recommended software:
Figuring out which recovery software was the best was difficult but after a few days of trial and error i found that EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard was the best due to its simeple to use approach via a wizard which walks you through the steps of what drive to recover etc.

It was easy to use and recovery almost everything that was deleted.  Some files cannot be recovered but it managed to recover ALL of my Music collection which was nothing short of a miracle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes:

This is not a  Paid advert but just a personal opinion from a Windows 10 nightmare.

Dr Dre’s Beat Headphones are a huge scam

Ah yes the headphones you wished you could afford are a pile of shit!

Beats headphones cost anywhere between £100 and £400. Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre have created a $3.2 billion empire off the back of them after they sold the company to Apple last year.

What a lot of people don’t know is that a regular haircut costs more than it does to create some Beats headphones.

It has been revealed the cost of making the fancy headset is as low as $14.

Source

I Tunes 9.0.3: New I-Tunes Update Screwed my Music Library?

I loaded up I-Tunes and updated it to  the lastet version (9.03) and when it updated everything, my music library was gone all the playlists i made as well. What the hell kinda shit is this? I detest I-Tunes its far too restrictive and screws the consumer when you buy music.

How the hell do i get my library back, now ill probably have to wipe my I-Pod and start again thanks a fucking lot apple.

EDIT:

Luckily i backed up my PC yesterday with “Symantic Backup Exec System Recovery 2010” which is very useful for keeping a backup of your PC. So i had to copy the old I-Tunes Library File from a few days ago over and its all working now.

Xbox 360: E 74 Red Light

It finnally happened after a year and a half and feck all use until the xmas period my Xbox 360 died with a shitty E74 message and 1 red light. No “goodbye” or “wait a sec im dont feel well”, after playing a DVD i got my Dad for Xmas “The fall and Rise of Reginal Perrin” on the dam “console” when i went back to the dashboard i noticed that my avatar was pixalated thinking “oh shit thats not right” i fired up Assassins Creed 2 (which ive been playing over Xmas) and yep same problem, pixelation and then it sank in, this is bad.

So i restart the console and black screen E74 message appears and with one red light on the botton right side. I wouldnt mind but i never really used the Xbox much and onyl got it for GTA 4 back in April 2008. At the time i told myself and a mate of mine “Please let me play and finish GTA4, i dont care if you die after that but please let me play. Having heard all about the problems with the Red Ring of Death and the Xbox 360 i knew the Xbox was dodgy but i thought ok. Having hooked it up the main TV downstairs and put on the HD mode with 1080p the graphics the Xbox 360 was displaying were amazing, Assasins Creed 2 was stunning and GTA 4 looked way better than it did when i was using the VGA cable on my PC’s monitor.

So alas my Xbox lies in a cardboard box as i pack it off to get fixed back to Microsoft, its still in warranty thank god but i feel really disapointed that the console quit on me like that and right during xmas on the break from college and with Assasins Creed 2 being incredable.

Articles on the E74 Problem and there are many:

Microsoft revises warranties to cover new E74 defects for Xbox 360

Xbox 360 E74 Hardware Failures are on the Rise and Full of Fail

EDIT:

Microsoft retuned the Xbox faster than expected and all is good again and 1 month Xbox Live. I have to say Microsoft are very good at the whole process from collecting it to returning it back just hope it never happens agan.

Best of the Worst #4: Eircom – Blocking Access to the Pirate Bay

eircomI just went to visit the pirate bay website and found a message from eircom telling me that they are blocking access the pirate bay as of july.This is the first time i heard of this so i was a little surprised.

ACCESS TO THIS IP ADDRESS RELATING TO THE PIRATE BAY WEBSITE HAS BEEN BLOCKED

WHY?

On the 24 July 2009, an Order was made by the High Court requiring eircom to block or otherwise disable access by its subscribers to the website thePirateBay.org, its related domain names, IP addresses and URLs. The Court was satisfied that on the basis of the evidence presented by the record companies that the PirateBay website is a website that facilitates the exchange of copyrighted sound recordings without the consent of the copyright owners.eircom recognises the legitimate rights of the owners of copyrighted material and believes that individuals who share or download copyrighted material without the authorisation or the permission of the copyright owner are acting illegally.

The Order further provides that should the PirateBay website content be legitimatised in the future, then eircom has liberty to apply to the Court to have the Order vacated and access to the PirateBay website enabled.

eircom in compliance with the Order has agreed that access to the website the PirateBay.org, its related domain names, IP addresses and URLs from the eircom network will be blocked indefinitely from the 1st September 2009.

eircom would like to reassure customers that:

  • eircom will not monitor customer’s activities at any stage, nor will it place any monitoring equipment or software on its network in order to facilitate this block.

Of course there are ways around it and one of them i found from mulley.net which also mentions that other ISP’s in ireland are not as yet going to be restricting access to the torrent bay.

There are a few ways around it by using a proxy or you can use a website such as;

http://webmystore.com/

Taken from mulley.net

“Excerpt from UPC press release:

UPC can confirm it has received a request from solicitors acting on behalf of the Irish divisions of EMI, Warner, Universal and Sony music companies that UPC blocks access to the Pirate Bay website.

This request is separate to ongoing court proceedings between these same companies and UPC with respect to their demand that UPC take certain actions in relation to subscribers allegedly involved in illegal music downloads.

This latest request is apparently further to an unopposed court action between these companies and eircom whereby eircom was ordered to block access to Pirate Bay as of September 1, 2009.

UPC has informed the rightsholders that there is no basis under Irish law requiring an ISP to block access to certain websites and that it will not agree to a request that goes beyond what is currently provided for under Irish law.

See Adrian Weckler’s blog for more details. Eircom have confirmed it to him.”

A quick google got me news that this was announced back in February this year;
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/23/irma_demands_irish_isps_block_access_to_piracy_sites/

Is this the start of eircom stopping people from accessing the internet? It seems that this whole idea is the brainchild of the music industry who seem to have eircom “by the balls”.

Fuck Microsoft and there XBox 360 Live Gold – Auto Renewal!

About 6 months ago i paid for what i thought was just 3 months of Xbox Live Gold Membership. Well it turns out that the folks at Microsoft dont tell you that they “kindly” renew your subscription without telling you. In these times of recession and lack of money, the Xbox is one those things that i dont need nor want.

So i contacted Xbox support but ended up being told more or less that i had contacted the wrong “country” as i should have emailed there support department in Ireland. The email was simpathetic but not helpful so of course i left it for a month.

So today i log back into my xbox and see that there is NO OPTION at all to TURN OFF AUTO RENEWAL and yes thats in caps because the idea is crazy to me. There should at least be the option of “Auto-Renew”. So i send another emal this time to there Support in Ireland and i await an answer, id like my money back to be honest but i guess i left it too long.

This is [x], with Microsoft XBOX Support services.

As I understand it, you want to have a refund on the charges of the auto-renewal of your Xbox Live Subscription Account.

I know how disappointing it is that you’ve been charged on your account. I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience you have felt regarding this matter.

With regards to this, you need to call our phone support to have a refund on the charges on your card that you’re using on Xbox Live. Accessing your account information via email Support requires a high level of verification from you and we don’t allow to access for the confidentiality and security of your account.

Thank you for your time and understanding.

If you need to reply to this e-mail, please reply ‘with history’ (include any previous e-mail) or reference to Service Request Number 1100396440 so we can expedite our service to you.

If you would rather contact Xbox Phone Support directly for your console’s repair, you may call contact Xbox US and Canada Phone Support by calling 1-800-4MYXBOX (1-800-469-9269) at your earliest convenience, and we’ll be happy to help you. We are open everyday from 6am to 10pm US Pacific Time.

For international customers, please contact Xbox Customer Service in your local region. (To find the correct Customer Service number for your region first use this link http://www.xbox.com/en-US/ChangeLocale.htm to select the appropriate country and then use the contact number found under the support menu). You may also choose to call international assistance (direct dial to the US) by dialing 425-635-7180.

Thank you for visiting Xbox.com. If you should have future questions on Xbox products or services, please be sure to revisit our Web site as we are continually adding information to enhance our service.

Best Regards,

Microsoft XBOX Support Services

http://support.microsoft.com/

EDIT:
After Ringing up Xbox Live i got talking to a customer support person and i canceled the Auto-Renewal.

Computer Upgrade From Hell-Corsair Hx620 PSU Failure

I normally enjoy upgrading my PC when its time to do so but yesterday just about everything seemed to go wrong. After getting all the parts sorted out and connected up to the power supply and turning it on nothing happened. I thought i had the Front panel power switch connected wrong but it i totaly forgot and missed the fact that the Power Supply fan wasnt spinning.

Anway i continued in a state of complete frustration and failed to realised that the PSU fan not running was a big fucking “Neon SIGN” saying “Hey its the PSU”. I took out each part one by one and eventually after everything was out the bloody thing still would start.

So almost in complete agony after 5 hours on my feet wrecked tired and sweating like a fat geek i thought “Fuck, it must be the PSU”. So i tried out one the old “PSU”‘s i had from “PC World” that was the second one form the same manufacturer that “fracked Up”. When is say “Fracked up” i mean that it was plugged in it just went into a kinda “on-state” that you needed to press the “On Button” for it to work and wouldnt shut down properly.

Anyways i knew then it was the Expensive PSU that was the problem.  Today i just went about getting an RMA on the PSU and well it turns out payed a lot for the PSU, way more than i would normally only due to the fact that the last previous 2 ones i had failed. The PSU as i write is 110 Euro but back in march it was 130-160 Euro.  You would think after spending that kinda money that you get better lifespan than that.

Anyway after 5 hours of complete shitness and sweating and having my nextdoor neighbours throw a party while im trying to fix the bastard thing i got the Motherboard and CPU to work. Bloody Ironic how an PC World PSU could help.