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There is a new fad taking over children’s lives. Following the example of various MMORPG’s before it, Runescape, produced by Jagex Ltd., is a game where players take control of a character they create. They can customize how their character looks; they can battle other players; and they can complete quests. But Runescape is slightly different than other MMORPG’s before it. It has a surprisingly large number of younger children taking time out of their days to play the game. The reason for this may be one or more of a few things.

First, the game does not have very high system requirements, and can even be played within a web browser. This makes it easy for people to play while in school, at home, at a friend’s house, or anywhere they can connect to the internet. Secondly, there is a free version of the game. This free version offers fewer quests, and not as high levels that can be achieved. Rob, the former Runescape-player who has provided a testimonial and information for this article, says that he played this free version for about 3 months before moving on to the paid service.

When players join this paid version, the real problems begin. First, they (or their parents) are paying for this game. At $13.95 every two months, they are now paying about 84 dollars per year to play this game. Also, because they are paying, players feel more obligation to play the game, and they want to reach higher levels for their characters. Moreover, they become addicted to it, and cannot stop playing it. Rob tells us of his addiction in his testimonial:

“When I first started, around October of 2004, I hardly had any idea of what I was getting myself into. It started off innocently enough; just a few minutes a day, but then its addictive energy soon took control of my life. I found I was playing in English, Spanish, Physics and even Algebra class if I had the time. I attend a private high school, and have a massive school load. With getting home around 5, and 3 hours of homework I was going directly to my laptop and playing 4-5 hours a day. My school is a laptop school, and I have numerous frees during the day. Always, any free time I had went to Runescape. My other friend played Runescape, and we used to talk about it. I went to online forums and chatted with about 2,000 other people like myself. I found that my successes and failures in the game and forums dictated my actual life, I was angry when I died, and even when I would go to my grandparent’s beach house, the laptop came, and on to the neighbors wireless I went. After my one year anniversary, I had bought things on EBay for a total of about 700 dollars, just to make myself better in the game, so not only did the game take away my life, but a lot of my money. I never used to hang out with my friends, I play the trumpet 5 years running now, and I had stopped practicing, essentially, it had consumed my life.”

Rob sums it up quite nicely. The “addictive energy” that consumed him and “took control” of his life is the very energy that is unhealthy for players. At the time I write this, there are 156377 people playing Runescape. That is 156377 people who are currently getting no physical activity, 156377 people who are probably currently having no real human contact. These people are just like Rob; they are addicted to this game and are being consumed by it. Rob himself writes of going to his grandparents’ beach house, probably very beautiful, and with very nice surroundings, and the he says that when he arrived, “on to the neighbor’s wireless I went.” The time consumption this game causes is one of the smaller problems. Probably the most major problem is the spending of money. On top of the $84 per year, players buy items and upgrades on EBay. In one year, Rob says he had bought $700 worth of “things” so that he could “make myself better in the game.”

This game had taken over Rob’s life. His “successes and failures in the game and forums dictated my actual life.” He was addicted. After spending over $750 and countless hours on this game, Rob decided it was time to quit. He writes that, “Once I decided to quit, I had to find out how to do it, I tried half ass quitting, just leaving Runescape for a while, and staying on the forums, but it didn’t work. To keep it short, I started playing less, seeing my friends more, and began to tell people on the forums and stuff that I was leaving.” He says “it was one of the hardest things I had ever done in my life.” He had his mom change the password, but that didn’t work. In the end, Rob deleted all shortcuts, bookmarks, and links to anything Runescape-related. But one task remained. “Then came the hardest part, I cancelled my membership, and gave all my items to my friend.” He had done it, he had cured himself of the epidemic, the disease that is Runescape.

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Today’s article will focus on the recent story involving Sony and their act of putting rootkits on any PC that loads the software. True, this topic has been a major source of discussion everywhere, and has almost been exhausted, but before it is, I have a few things to say.

What is a rootkit exactly? Well, Wikipedia explains it quite nicely:

“A rootkit is a set of software tools frequently used by a third-party (usually an intruder) after gaining access to a computer system. These tools are intended to conceal running processes, files or system data, which helps an intruder maintain access to a system for purposes unbeknownst to the user.”

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootkit)

So, this software, usually obtained by downloading some piece of questionable software that will show everything that you are doing on your computer to the anyone who can access it. They often travel in groups with keyloggers and worms. Most anti-virus programs classify rootkits in the same category as Trojans, programs designed for similar purposes.

The rootkits were first discovered by Mark Russinovich on October 31, and quickly spread from there. Stories were posted on Digg, Slashdot, and forums everywhere. People were outraged. And rightfully so; their computers were being exploited and left vulnerable to attack. And on top of it all, when they tried to uninstall the rootkit, they would lose use of their CD/DVD Drives, and the only way to recover use was a fresh install of Windows. Next came Sony’s line of responses. First, they released a tool that would remove the rootkits. Thanks, but just because you glued the vase back together doesn’t mean it wasn’t broken in the first place. When people weren’t satisfied, Sony decided to be stubborn and say that they still did the right thing by putting the rootkits on. Then someone had a great idea: “Let’s sue Sony!” As of now Sony is being sued by the State of California, and a group of users.
The ironic part of the users suing Sony is that technically it was not legal for them to remove the rootkit. So now Sony is breaking the law by putting the software on the discs, while the users and Anti-virus companies are
breaking the law because they want to get rid of it. The only people who aren’t breaking a law are people who don’t have a computer, an extremely small percent of people in this Country.

So, what could Sony want with these rootkits? Well, with piracy being what it is, they wanted to make sure that they could make sure that no one was pirating their music. Fair enough, except for one thing: they didn’t realize that what they were doing was illegal and wrong. Not only did they not mention in the EULA (End User License Agreement) that using the software would install this rootkit, but they violated the California law that prevents “a person or entity who is not an authorized user from inducing an authorized user to install a software component by intentionally misrepresenting that it is necessary for security or privacy or in order to open, view, or play a particular type of content.” Surely, Sony must have known that what they were doing was illegal. If not, then they need a new branch: Common Sense. Let me lay it out nicely for them, get this new branch started off:

A. People do not like spyware.

B. Installing spyware with consent of the user is illegal.

It follows then that to put spyware on a CD and install it without mentioning it is not only annoying (see statement A), but illegal (see statement B).

Did Sony seriously think they would get away with this? Obviously they underestimate the users, which doesn’t surprise me, seeing as they don’t respect us much either.

Original Article: http://www.sysinternals.com/bl…digital-rights.html
California Spyware Bill: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/0…chaptered.html

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One great feature of Windows XP is the ability to send the computer into “Hibernation.” Although it may sound like you won’t be able to use your computer for several months, I assure you this is not the case. What the computer does do is save your computer’s current state (open windows, uptime, processes running, etc.) and turns off the power. This is very similar to Standby, except that while in Hibernation, the computer consumes absolutely no power at all. Some practical uses of this are: Having to change your laptop’s battery, or having to leave the computer for the night at the office, but wanting to come back in the morning with everything as it was.

As great as this is, Microsoft does not automatically enable it for us, so we must enable it ourselves. Here’s how:

1. Right click on your desktop and go to Properties. You should see the Display Properties dialog. Go to the Screen Saver tab and click “Power”

2. You should see a dialog that looks like the one below. Go to the “Hibernate” Tab. Click “Enable Hibernation,” then OK, and get out of the Display Properties dialog.

3. Now that Hibernation is enabled, let’s look at how to send the computer into hibernation. The processes for computers on a domain and computers not on a domain will be different. If you’re not sure, compare your shutdown dialogs to the ones below.

NON-DOMAINED COMPUTERS:

Go to Start, Shut down.

You should see the shutdown dialog. Hold the shift key down, and you will see that the “Standby” text transforms into “Hibernate.” Holding shift, click “Hibernate” to send your computer into hibernation.

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DOMAINED COMPUTERS:

Go to Start, Shut down.

You should see the shutdown dialog. Click on the arrow to expand the menu. Select “Hibernate” and click “OK.”

I hope this helped you, and I hope you enjoy this great feature of Windows XP.

Comments? Email me at madison@theonegreatx.com

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NOTE: I WILL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYTHING RELATED TO THIS TUTORIAL THAT CAUSES ANY ERRORS ON YOUR COMPUTER.

Do you have a long startup time on your computer? Do you often turn your computer on, go away, then come back and be annoyed because after you enter your password you still have to wait?

I have just the thing for you.

Note: This will work only on computers running Windows XP

Step 1: Tell Windows to log in automatically

Click Start | Run | and type ‘CONTROL USERPASSWORDS2′

Click OK

Select the User you want to automatically log in as and uncheck “Users must enter a username and password to use this computer.”

Click Apply

Enter the username and password you want windows to automatically log in as in the boxes and click OK.

Step 2: Tell Windows to Lockdown on Startup

Click on Start

Right Click on All Programs and click Explore

Go to the Startup folder in Programs

Right Click | Go to New | Shortcut | and enter the following into the Box on the screen:

%windir%\system32\rundll32.exe user32.dll, LockWorkStation

And that’s it! Restart your computer to see the results.

Basically, what the computer does is Log in, begin loading your startup items and then it locks itself, while continuing to load your items. So, when you get home, turn on your computer, go to eat a Hot Pocket, and come back two minutes later, all you have to do is enter your password and all your items are already loaded up and ready to go.

Hope this saves you some time!

NOTE: It has come to my attention that this will not work on domain-based computers due to the fact that they will not support automatic logon.

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