Adventures at Best Buy

I'm going to ran for just a few minutes about the mega-retailer, so if you're not in a ranty mood, feel free to skip.

I have a relative who has a tendency to give me nothing but Best Buy gift cards for any occasion. That's a lot better than an ugly tie, but as I age, it's starting to be a real annoyance. I don't mind shopping in person, but the Internet has taught me to be a value shopper. I'll pay a little more for convenience, but not to the point of paying an extra 50+% for convenience. I also live in an area with high (8.75%) sales tax which can typically be avoided for most on-line purchases. I know I'm "bad" for not wanting to pay taxes... just like everybody else.

So, when presented with a small sum in gift cards, I have to try to spend them down somehow. I can either wait until I have enough saved up and buy something large, or try to spend it on small-ticket items. Even on small-ticket items, though, I feel continually frustrated by price and availability. I recently bought an Asus Eee 1000HE for personal/around-the-house use, and for lack of anything else there that I actually wanted to spend my money on under $50, I figured I'd buy a portable wireless mouse. No big deal, right? Well after a lengthy selection process, I had it down to one of two Logitech VX450 wireless mice. One was piano black, a better match for a piano black laptop and the other was black & silver/grey. I could go with either and get a good match. I thought the black one looked a little nicer, but it was $49.99, and the other was $39.99. Nicer, but not $10 nicer, I took my purchase up to pay. I was distracted by the "reward zone" crap while checking out and I had my gift card processed already when the $40 mouse rang up at $49.99. I had to get the manager to reverse the charge, re-credit the gift card back and do a price adjustment to get the price back to where it was marked on the shelf. Apparently the $39.99 price applied to the previous gen VX450 with a large USB transmitter instead of a mini-USB transmitter. Um... ok, well it didn't say that, the SKUs didn't match up and that's not how it was on the shelf. $10, please.

I'm very happy with the mouse, but the whole lack of organization and confusion I had to spend up front trying to figure out why the hell one color was 20% more expensive was tremendously unnecessary and confusing. Honestly, I would have probably ended up with a cheapo Microsoft mouse that was on sale had I known it would be a hassle... but hey, the mice under the "sale" sign were sold out and the same mouse in the Laptop section "looked different"-- minor color/version revision. I might have been in for the same thing all over again.

Unfortunately, the market is shrinking rapidly in this economy and the lack of counterbalance provided by Circuit City as a prime competitor feels like it's starting to show. They're moving a very limited CD selection to the back of the store, adding play areas for video game consoles while reducing game selection tremendously and treating PC gaming as a pariah (1.5 Aisle sides down from 4.5 a few years ago at this location.) They did add boutique mini-stores for cell phones, home theater, MP3 players and Macs. Whee.

The bottom line is that I'm used to selection and aggressive pricing. Big boxes don't have to be the cheapest, but they have to at least be in the game. I'm not sure how to satiate my desire to physically touch stuff without them, but we probably need to see some serious changes in the next 5 years or some shakeout in the market.

Rant over.

Windows Tip - Preventing the connection of USB drives

Ever want to prevent a user from attaching a USB drive? Well, you could turn off USB in the system BIOS, but that prevents attachment of all USB devices, not just drives. That could be disastrous if you don't have a PS/2 Keyboard and Mouse attached.

There's a simple registry hack that manages how Windows XP SP2 and later and Vista manage attached drives (including external hard drives as well as flash) but not prevent the use of HID devices and other non-drive devices. There's a very good write-up on the How-To Geek. The hack can be summed up in this simple line:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies]
"WriteProtect"=dword:00000001

For more security, you can look at physical protection. Unfortunately the USB physical standard doesn't allow any realistic way to permanently lock the drives, but you can block them. Lindy makes USB port blockers that will at least deter casual attempts to plug in USB and at least slightly slow determined users. They can be removed with a carefully bent paper clip, but once in, you can't easily remove with bare hands. Different colors use different keys to remove. Of course, you can buy them in colors other than pink...

Vista - No Telnet, really?

Telnet is bad, mkay? It's insecure. I get it. Everything goes in plaintext totally in the clear. However, it's still a useful tool. Vista (including Ultimate) apparently feels that such a powerful tool should be hidden away from prying eyes and doesn't install it by default.

To install the Microsoft telnet client, do the following:

1. Go to the Control Panel
2. Open Programs and Features
3. Go to Turn Windows features on or off (requires a UAC authentication if you don't have UAC turned off.)
4. Click the check box next to Telnet Client
5. Hit OK
6. "Please wait while the features are configured. This might take several minutes."
7. No, really, it takes a minute
8. Enjoy. May I recommend telnetting to towel.blinkenlights.nl for some ASCII Star Wars love?

Edit: Current Windows 7 Betas behave in the same manner.

I hate being stupid busy

Over the last few weeks, I've been working very long hours, around personal committments. I've still got things to say, but things are only just starting to slow down slightly.

Stay tuned for more.