Self Righteous Ex-Luser

So there is this luser that decides to quit and get a new job, which is great for me as she was a difficult client even at the best of times. She decides to stop work at the end of last week (4 days ago). I Scheduled a data-transfer of all her stuff to the replacement secretary's computer.

So this morning, after my good cuppa java, I quickly changed all E-Mail, Internet & Intranet settings and deleted the ex-luser's information. I start the moving process, sit back and wait. About halfway through the process:

*Phone rings*
me : "BOFH Hello"
Ex-Luser : "Hi there BOFH, it's Ex-Luser. You shouldn't move my things I'm coming in and I'm not done yet"
me : "But that means that the new person can't work and that YOU are messing up all my planning!"
Ex-Luser : "I'm sure that *YOU* have more things to do and the new secretary can go on as she is now until *I'M* done."
me : "whatever"
*Slams the phone down*

So at this point in time my tolerance for this Ex-Luser is down in the negatives and NOT climbing. So I leave the poor new lady in a semi state of panic and the Ex-Luser's new computer in a million confusing pieces and head back down to the privacy of my new office.

A few hours later whilst blissfully browsing:

*Phone rings*
me : "BOFH Hello"
Ex-Luser : "Hi There Bofh..."
*instantaneously pops a vein*
Ex-Luser (Continues) : "...I just want to say that it's not *MY* fault that your planning didn't work out!"
*PAUSE*
So there I sat, blood boiling and blood pressure quickly rising. How can SHE phone in, mess up all my work and planning and then have the audacity to phone me and tell me that it was NOT her...???
*UNPAUSE*
me (Stunned) : "Excuse me?"
Ex-Luser : "Yes, I told everyone that I am coming in today and I refuse to be the bad guy in this story"
me : "I see, but that doesn't fix anything"
Ex-Luser : "That doesn't matter to me"
Me : "Bye"
*Puts the phone down*

Upon a bit of further investigation I found that the above mentioned Ex-Luser only left a sticky note telling the new secretary that she'll be in and said nothing about work or using her computer at all.

So I'm sitting here, boiling, so excuse me while I go chop a hole into the side of a certain ex-luser's cute little Citroen C2...

Lazy Lusers

We all know them, have them & somehow need to work with them. Yep, it's the Lazy Luser. The one or two that just won't budge a finger to get their way. This is a call to all the Lazy Lusers out there. Read and learn (even if you are too lazy)

I know I'm not the most energetic and/or athletic person you can get, but I definitely am not too lazy to do my bit to get things done. Picking up the phone to order something, or sending an E-Mail to remind someone of something is not that bad. I can do it, and I'm pretty sure everyone else can too.

Is it REALLY too much trouble to send an E-Mail with a request for something? If so, why then is so easy to sit around and send hundreds of cute, funny and useless chain-messages around every single day? I know - it's no trouble quickly sending it to a few people in you address book? Guess what - that's the same thing you do to send an E-Mail to the support staff idiot!

Why exactly is it so hard for you, as Luser, to help me, as support staff, to help..YOU. I mean - if my math isn't wrong, it is after all YOU that want something from ME. So, if i'm not mistaken - you kind of need to be nice to me.

So in short, all that I want to yell at you, you lazy couch potato, is to get off your ass, do your bit for us, yourself and society in general. Stop sitting there and using up oxygen & start putting it to use more productively!

Evaluation Version, 1

Issue 1

You hate it. You despise it. You dread the crushing reality of your favourite program expiring.
Yes! It's the evaluation version!

Starting today, I will routinely take one program and see if their evaluation version protection really guards against anything.
And before you ask, I will not take on big name companies, I hate getting sued this early in the century.

The target of today is my pals over at InfoSoft Global with their amazing product Fusion Charts.

FC is a set of Flash-based charts for statistical views, from bars to pies to doughnuts and what ever else.

Background Story

While working on an obscure Open Source project (yes, its a shameless plug), I began searching for a better stats system.

Google led me to FusionCharts and I started celebrating... until I saw the results!

As you can see, the chart looks nice, but that ghastly text block has got to go!

By now I already dropped FC, no way I'm putting that thing on the project, and being the law-abiding citizen that I am, the license didn't allow me to.

But this caught my eye:

Higher up they claim the software is fully functional. But now it can't be deployed on any website? That does seem a bit at odds.

• Why not?


• What would happen?


• Is it really a full version deep down?


• If so, how do they know when its not "licensed"?

The answer hit me. They check the URL of course.

chart = new FusionCharts("../Charts/MSLine.swf", "ChartId", "600", "350", "0", "0");

That's normal JS for embedding one of the charts, but editing it just ever so slightly...

var chart = new FusionCharts("../Charts/MSLine.swf?=fusioncharts.com", "ChartId", "600", "350", "0", "0");

Removes the restriction immediately!

So much for that protection!

Fix

Without the actual source code, this is a guessing game.

I'm assuming somewhere they just check the URL for the existence of the words "fusioncharts.com". Which is stupid since I clearly show how easy it is to overcome it.

Instead, what they SHOULD be doing is just get the domain part, and check that...

http://www.yourdomain.com/chart.swf?=fusioncharts.com

This gives you www.yourdomain.com, and nope, so Eval it

But then you might ask what about sub domains?

http://fusioncharts.com.yourdomain.com/chart.swf
just get the REAL domain part!

So, InfoSoft Global, great product you have there.

But please fire the moron that coded the evaluation protection.

That is all.