classic case of software

These are unrelated doodles. I had some time on my hands when Windows was installing for the fourth time.

The reason I was reinstalling for the fourth time: antivirussoftware on 64 bit XP, is very difficult to find. I am a Symantec customer, but my account only enables me to buy Norton products. Norton does not work on 64 bit. Symantec Enterprise does. But to buy it, you need to contact a sales agent, or rather, send them an email and have one contact you. So I have been waiting for one to contact me for three days now, without any luck.

Other than that it appears the licenses for Enterprise software are only sold in bulk of 5 seats. Competitor McAfee only sells a minimum of 11 seats. I decided to try my luck on the darker side of the market. When I finally found a copy that was immediately available, upon install it turned out to be in Hungarian. It may have been Czech - there were a LOT of cz's in it. It was interesting for two minutes, but strangely - maybe it was the fact that I hardly understood a word - it soon made me feel uncomfortable and halfway in the third minute I decided to remove, re-re-re-reinstall windows and...








It won't come as a surprise that of the five licensed software products I run, all reactivated beautifully except.. guess... Autodesk Inventor. But in the end it got done, although it took three phonecalls and talking to four people including the Boss of the Activation Center, because the Boss of Autodesk Himself was at a Sales Exhibition. I must admit that once you get used to it, Autodesks licensing system certainly is the most sociably interactive one and as such not actually unpleasant, although time consuming. They were very friendly. It was a relief to have it done just before the week-end. It might have been a bit uncomfortable if I had had to call all these nice people at home.