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So, does the new Zune software help fix my complaints?

You’ll remember, from my previous posts ( Zune HD – but not mine , Finally got my Zune HD , Messing around with audio files , Woot got my Zune, Zune can’t get my woot! , All Zune posts ) on the subject, that I had some specific complaints about the Zune and its attendant software that I was hoping Microsoft...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Sun, Oct 17 2010
Filed under: Filed under: Miscellany - not security, Zune
US Government Mandates IPv6–are you ready?

White House CIO Vivek Kundra released a memo last month to US Federal CIOs on transitioning to IPv6, at a workshop on the importance of adopting IPv6. Put simply, the memo gives a timetable for moving the US Federal government to using native IPv6 for all public-facing web and Internet sites. The end...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Tue, Oct 12 2010
Filed under: Filed under: Miscellany - not security, Alun's code, IPv6
New Zune software–less panicked now.

Although the new Zune software doesn’t start up the moment I plug in my Zune (maybe I’m missing a setting), the Marketplace Apps listing has come back, along with three new games, “Castles and Cannons”, “Dr. Optics Light Lab”, and “WordMonger”: and one new, very welcome, app, “Windows Live Messenger...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Tue, Oct 12 2010
Filed under: Filed under: Miscellany - not security, Zune
Nice new Zune software… but…

I kind of expected that the arrival of the Windows Phone 7 would cause an update to the Zune software interface. Sure enough, as soon as I tried to download a new episode of “The Guild”, an update was forced on me, along with a new licence agreement. What I didn’t expect was this… Yes, that’s right,...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Mon, Oct 11 2010
Filed under: Filed under: Miscellany - not security, Zune
Why, that’s very nearly delightful!

As a big fan of The IT Crowd , I’m a happy reader of the author, Graham Linehan,’s blog, “ Why That’s Delightful! ”. It certainly helps to explain to American viewers tonight’s episode . And yes, I did try and persuade Microsoft to give Moss an MVP award . Maybe I should have suggested Roy instead, since...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Tue, Aug 17 2010
Filed under: Filed under: Bad names, Miscellany - not security, Zune
Texas Imperial Software DefCon 18 challenge

I rarely write about my business on the blog here, and perhaps I should do so some more. I mentioned in the post earlier today of how I’d “hacked” my badge (“hacked” in the sense of “that’s not programming, that’s typing”) to display the Texas Imperial...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Sat, Jul 31 2010
Filed under: Filed under: General Security, FTP, Miscellany - not security, What my wife knows, Alun's code
I’m at DefCon–what’s on your badge?

I’ve been at DefCon 18 for some of Friday – and as with Black Hat, it’s my first time. I’ve decoded the bar code on the badge, but have no idea what it means (is it the name of Vera’s brother?), and I’ve got a fair idea what the Japanese text is encouraging us to do...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Sat, Jul 31 2010
Filed under: Filed under: Miscellany - not security
X-Day–less than a year away!

As you can see from the IPv4 Exhaustion Counter to the left (snapshot taken 7/16/2010, 7:30 pm PDT), IPv4 addresses are dwindling. OK, so that’s perhaps a rather simplistic description of what’s going on – these are a count of the IANA blocks that have not yet been handed out to other providers. Usually...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Fri, Jul 16 2010
Filed under: Filed under: Miscellany - not security, IPv6
Messing around with audio files

It’s Memorial Day weekend, so we’re doing a little relaxing. What’s relaxing for me? Playing around with interesting random bits of code. iFetch – suddenly slow One piece of code that’s been interesting for a while, and very useful, is the iFetch program, which I use to download BBC Radio so that I can...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Sat, May 29 2010
Filed under: Filed under: Miscellany - not security, Alun's code, Zune, Windows 7
Finally got my Zune HD

If you’ve been reading this blog, you’ll have suspected for some time that I’ve been hankering after a Zune HD. Now that I’ve changed jobs, and got my first pay cheque, my wife and I decided that it’s about time we each bought ourselves an item that we’ve wanted – she ordered a Kindle, which sadly took...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Sat, May 15 2010
Filed under: Filed under: Miscellany - not security, Zune
Zune HD 64 – up, down, up again

Much confusion and speculation abounds that there may be a Zune HD 64GB version – PC World says that it’s going on sale April 12 for $349.99, other articles in Engadget etc note that Zune.Net displays a link (not working at the time) to Zune HD 64. Possibly an early stab at an April Fools’ Day joke?...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Mon, Apr 5 2010
Filed under: Filed under: Miscellany - not security, Zune
Comcast aims for the future

I’m visiting the in-laws in Texas this weekend, and I use the SSTP VPN in Windows Server 2008 R2 to connect home (my client is Windows 7 , but it works just as well with Vista). Never had many problems with it up until this weekend. Apparently, on Friday, we had a power cut back at the house, and our...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Sat, Mar 20 2010
Filed under: Filed under: FTP, Miscellany - not security, Windows Vista, TCP/IP, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7
Windows 7 Explorer may corrupt MP3 files

I tried to find a less … alarmist tone to take in the title, but when I think of the consequences of this particular bug, I can’t see that I’m going over the top. Quite simply, occasionally Windows 7 Explorer will corrupt files when you copy and/or move them using drag/drop. [So far...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Sun, Mar 7 2010
Filed under: Filed under: Miscellany - not security, Alun's code, Windows 7
Calendar Fail

Thirty days hath September, And all the rest, I can’t remember. [Ancient English rhyme learnt by school-children everywhere.] Our talented model Jesper is demonstrating how bad assumptions about calendar data can occasionally come back to bite you. Important Note: Despite the logo on his sweater, there...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Mon, Mar 1 2010
Filed under: Filed under: Miscellany - not security
Samples that suck: IfModifiedSince

I’ve been trying to improve my IFetch application’s overall performance, and it’s clear that the best thing that could be done to improve it immediately is to cache the information being returned from the BBC Radio web site, so that next time around, the application doesn’t have to reload all the information...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Sun, Feb 21 2010
Filed under: Filed under: General Security, Programmer Hubris, Things I Learned At Microsoft, Miscellany - not security, Alun's code
Bad Names: Windows Phone Mobile Compact Edition Seven Series Pocket PC

OK, admittedly, the name isn’t really that long, but even though I’m spending this week on Microsoft’s home turf , I can’t say that I’ve met two people who can trip off their tongue the proper name of the new version of Windows Mobile: Windows Phone Seven Series Seriously? Every single word there...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Thu, Feb 18 2010
Filed under: Filed under: Bad names, Miscellany - not security, Zune, Windows 7
MVP Summit Next Week

Today, I've been reminding many people at work that I'll be out next week for the MVP Summit. In previous years, the questions I've received in response have been mainly about "what's that?", "does that mean you work for Microsoft?", "what are you going to be...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Fri, Feb 12 2010
Filed under: Filed under: Things I Learned At Microsoft, Miscellany - not security, Zune
“Someone should invent a machine to do that”

Lately, I find myself saying this a whole lot. The conversations in which I’m saying this follow the pattern of these examples: Me: “Let me understand your problem – tell me why you don’t want to have expiring passwords on this service account?” Other guy: “Because when we change passwords, we’d have...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Sun, Jan 31 2010
Filed under: Filed under: Miscellany - not security
Why .NET apps keep crashing on your Tablet PC

I’ve been struggling with this issue for some time. I have a small, simple .NET application I wrote in Visual C# a few months ago – I’ve tentatively titled it “ iFetch ”, because it fetches radio shows from the BBC iPlayer . It really is very little more than a simple data grid view that displays the...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Sat, Nov 7 2009
Filed under: Filed under: Miscellany - not security, Windows Vista, Alun's code, Windows 7
Windows 7 – what it’s missing

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll be aware that today was the release of Microsoft’s latest operating system version, Windows 7. So, everyone else has their own ideas of what’s missing in Windows 7, here’s my list, and it’s not the same petty focus that everyone else seems to have. Mine...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Thu, Oct 22 2009
Filed under: Filed under: Miscellany - not security, What my wife knows, Zune, Windows 7

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