Edward Andrew Robinson

<rant>Yesterday Bell, my super fast ISP, started to redirect unfound urls to their own website (www.domainnotfound.ca). I have been very happy with Bell for the last few years and have been thinking of moving my cellphone subscription to them as soon as they support the android.

To Bell’s credit they do offer a way for you to opt out of the service however when you opt out instead of returning a DNS error they you get a blank page, not very useful for me. I have a habit of typing anything I am looking for into the address bar and then letting google take over. This works very well for me if I want to visit reddit I type reddit and google seems to figure out that I want to visit reddit. If instead I type “reddit bell dns hijacking” google still seems to figure out that they do not know what I am looking for and so they take me to a search results page. This is how I brows the Internet, I do everything from the Awesome Bar (the bar in Firefox that you type your url into). And yesterday Bell broke that.

NoRedirect (Firefox Extension Link) to the rescue!

NoRedirect lets the user take control of HTTP redirects. It can be used to interdict an ISP’s DNS search redirection hijacks, preview/screen “shortened” URLs (e.g., TinyURL), stop the annoying redirection of “smart” error pages, etc. — Source

This lets me set any url mattching the following regular expression http://www\.domainnotfound\.ca/* to be interpreted by Firefox as a DNS error giving me back my Awesome Bar and my ability to type anything I want into it and have google do all of the work!

I think this is an exteremly evil move by Bell and I am quite disappointed. at least Firefox + NoRedirect has saved the way I brows my internets. But this is another step by our ISP’s to erode our digital freedoms and net neutrality and another reason to move to TekSavvy. I should not have to resort to a software solution to preserve how I browse the Internet!</rant>

This message was going to be on twitter but it got to long (due to links), and so this is my first post of the new year! (Happy new year everyone)

My old mouse finally crapped out on me, I loved that old school microsoft mouse, and it is the only microsoft product that I use. The size, weight and sensitivity have always been perfect for me and I don’t have to buy batteries for it.  Deciding that I did not want to spend $32.99 on my old mouse I headed to collage street looking for a mouse. I hate the idea of having to change the batteries on a wireless mouse so if I got a wireless mouse it would have to come with a charger (I think that the way my old mouse sat on my desk caused the mouse cord to pull and that’s what broke it).

I learned two things today, the only wired mice I could find are really really garbage ones or really really high-end ones for gamers (and I’m not a gamer). Secondly most (in fact all but the one mouse I found) wireless mice use batteries no charging station. WTF I don’t want to buy batteries for my mouse ever X months and no one could tell me how long the batteries lasted.

I did finally find the Micro Innovations PD955P Wireless Optical Navigator Mouse (yes its not even listed on the Micro Innovations website anymore) at Canada Computers for only $11. The mouse weight is perfect for me, the size is great, it has a charger (I am still a bit worried about how long the charge will last or if I will remember to charge it),  I am not sure sure about the sensitivity so far it doesn’t feel perfect but Ill keep playing with the settings. And yes it works perfect with ubuntu.

So far all the non gamers out there what mouse do you use?

<rant>Although I get to use Linux mostly for work and personally, there always comes a time when I need to use Windows. It could be that I need to write a program for Windows, or that I have a friend, or family member that needs windows for something. This is one of those times.

What frustrates me most is that I’m trying to install Windows on a laptop that came with Windows Media Centre. That laptop has a Windows Media Centre key but I don’t have the Dell disks that came with that laptop, and I know I can order them from Dell and at the end of the day I just might have to do that (and end up paying for it). But what annoys me most is that including the Windows key on the bottom of the laptop, that I’m trying to install windows on, I have three legit Windows XP keys but cant get an install working. I have an MSDNAA Windows XP key, as well as the Dell XP key from the bottom of my laptop and what annoys me is that I have three valid XP keys and I cant seem to install XP.

I have no media center disks, annoying and I really don’t want to used bittorrent to download them. I don’t feel like I should have to steal software that I own

The MSDNAA ISO and key came from two different people, eg its my key buy my buddy burned the ISO when he got a key, maybe that’s causing the problem I will burn my own copy and find out.

Obviously my laptop is OEM for XP pro and cant be installed on another computer even though I have never used it.

Guess this is just another reason I use Linux, I find this so annoying. Microsoft/Dell should really have a website that I can find out why the one key wont work as well as download ISOs. I know this is the way things are and that me wining about it is not going to change anything but I really just wish if I had a CD key I could download the ISO and use that key on any computer (only one of course). This just makes my windows experience more painful and makes me want to avoid Windows more.</rant>

Also my blog still seems to be broken I don’t want to update and spam the planet again by removing the fact that I think I fixed one of the issues.