IT Werkz Sometimes

Got another email from Slysoft the other day regarding the non working license key for CloneDVD.

Didn’t have the heart to give it another try till today and it worked. The previous license key/registration file they had sent would not update the registry as it was not a registry updating file i.e. a file with a .reg extension.

When I looked at the new file it appeared to be attempting to update the registry exactly the same way as the previous non working file. The only difference being the file type as displayed in Windows Explorer, this was a file with a .reg extension, so there was a fair chance it would work. The working version is of type ‘CloneDVD Registration Key’ and the always working AnyDVD registry file was of type ‘AnyDVD Registration Key’, which is consistent with the .reg extension.

The never working CloneDVD registry file was of type ‘CLONECD File’. Hmm..Clone CD? Well that was a bit of a Slysoft mashup wasn’t it. I’m surprised Slysoft let that mistake loose onto the great unwashed. I wonder how many other people have had trouble with this stuff?

Got the game Motorstorm for the PS3 and it plays great. Also tried several of my old non-HD DVD’s on the PS3 to see how the Blu-Ray upscaling was. For comparison purposes I also played a couple of minutes of the same films on the normal non-HD DVD player. There was definitely an improvement.

The picture quality of non-HD DVD’s played and upscaled on the Blu-Ray were closer to the picture quality of Blu-Ray disks themselves than they are to the picture quality when they are played on a non-HD DVD drive. And that’s a big deal, as whilst Blu-Ray disks are relatively expensive there is no reason to buy them as non-HD disks play so well. Bet I still do buy a few anyway. Let’s see, when’s Goodfella’s out on Blu-Ray?

The registration process for AnyDVD worked OK. This was via a registry edit file which makes everything fine and dandy. Not so the registration process for CloneDVD.

The file they have sent isn’t even a .reg file so how the heck is that going to update the registry. I did open the file with Notepad and I could see that it would be trying to update a registry key but when I looked in the registry the key didn’t even exist so even if I renamed the file as a .reg file it’s not gonna work. This is the second time I have received this hopeless registration file from Slysoft. They are quick with responding to email but each time they keep going on about downloading the demo version from their site rather than the clone of CloneDVD called confusingly CloneDVD.

To put their mind at rest I re-downloaded their demo from their site. Dunno why though as their registration file had as much chance of updating the registry as a mouse on a cat farm.

Have been using Vuze, which is a front end to the Azureus bittorrent client. Far more user friendly, but because of that there will be many more people using it to get stuff which will raise its profile a lot. So how long will that last. Now all we need is some bright spark to stick a user friendly front end onto Usenet and the game will be up.

Downloaded the trailer for Live Free or Die Hard which looked great. Also downloaded a trailer for Call Of Duty 4. Not sure if it was wishful thinking but it did look more like COD2. It’s set in the present day, in the Middle East predictably, looked great and was very violent. Available in Q3, which could be as early as 1st July or or as late as 30th September, so that’s narrowed it down not much.

Quote of the day

‘Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers’ Daniel J. Boorstin (1914-)