Genuine Advantage

Not written anything for a few days. Been busy ;)
Anyway, todays rant is Microsoft Genuine Advantage.
First thing, if you are not sure what an oxymoron is, have a look at the phrase "Microsoft Genuine Advantage".
That is an oxymoron!
Rarely have to suffer XP myself, but this wga.exe lark is causing lots of worry for users. With good reason - I frankly would not let Microsoft check out my system. Not that I have anything to hide - but why the hell should some corporation which has ,to say the least - dubious business practices - access to my data?
Seems many users of genuine legal versions of XP are being informed their copy is illegal. A number of fixes have been posted on various sites about stopping wga. Interestingly, some which worked a week or two ago no longer work. Why? Are Microsoft so desperate to check what users are up to that they are constantly blocking out the various workrounds to prevent this junk?
At the very least, I personally would use a decent firewall to block anything wga related. Of course, there is a chance that MS will simply add the data being transferred to another place - probably one of those two or three programs which cannot be blocked if you want web access! Renaming the .exe file is also a good idea - but I doubt it would work for long.

The best answer is to throw off the shackles of Microsoft altogether if you can. Many Linux distros are now very useable - Mandriva, Ubuntu...
I appreciate its not for all - but why not give it a try? Download a live CD - Knoppix or one of the Ubuntu distros perhaps - and try it out. If you like the idea, you can install Linux alongside Windows if you have space in a so called dual boot set up. Both Knoppix and the Ubuntu range will allow you to install from the live CD. Personally, I would recommend Kubuntu (Ubuntu with the KDE desktop) for newer users. Its easy to use, well documented and looks nice - whilst having literally thousands of free applications available to install easily.

Phew! That was a bit of a rant this morning!