Technophile Monkey

Several years ago, I had the idea for a web-based game trading platform. Like most of my ideas, it was caged somewhere in the back of my brain and never managed to get out.

The good news is, also like most of my ideas, someone else had the same inspiration but actually followed through. There is now Tradefarm, a community of game traders based on a meta-currency called Animals. As your Animals account fills up, you can look for games you’d like and purchase them with the meta-currency, so what you are really trading is games for games.

Tradefarm has a rather slick interface that allows you to put your games up for trade by just searching for the title in the database, then adding them with one click. You don’t have to dig for pictures, age ratings, nothing. All of that is supplied by Amazon through Amazon’s API (there is also an Amazon buy link with every game), and I’m not yet sure whether that is good or bad. The point so far is that it works, and very quickly. It’s much easier to put your games into Tradefarm and let them wait for a buyer there than it is to enter them into an auction site.

It’s currently a free service and limited to Switzerland, but if this pans out, let’s hope they go international.

Update: I’ve just traded three of my old titles for a rather highly acclaimed new one (Wario Ware: Smooth Moves for Wii). Better ratio than e.g. Gamestop, where I would have had to bring three old games and pay CHF 29.90 (around EUR 20) in cash. Whee

Yay for Europe! My last post was about someone in the US returning their Windows for money. My own European perspective on the whole thing was a bit more grim, since I’ve never had any success getting my Windows licenses refunded. It appears Dave Mitchell from Sheffield was more clever, he photographed himself NOT accepting the Windows EULA and so received £48 (US$ 89) back from Dell.

From Network World via Slashdot.

I can’t say I like Dell very much, mostly because of the huge quality differences in their product line throughout the years. But during good times, they make wonderful rebranded Samsung laptops that run without problems for years and are lightweight and powerful (X300 for example). If they ever make something like that again, my next laptop will be a Dell — sans Windows.

Serge Wroclawski tells us how to get the Windows tax back that you pay with almost any laptop on the market, whether you want Windows or not. I’m not sure if this strategy only works for the USA, though.

I have a few personal experiences with this problem. I have tried several times to get my money back for unused Windows licenses, and every time I was told it’s impossible. One afternoon, I insisted enough to be put through to Microsoft Switzerland’s licensing person, and he himself told me it’s impossible to get your money back, even though Windows’ very own license agreement says you will get cash back if you don’t need Windows. It’s a horrible situation. They sell you a product you don’t need and then trap you in legalese when you want to exercise your right of returning it for a refund.

Sometimes they claim they don’t even need to stick to their own license because of “differing contractual obligations between Microsoft and the OEM.” But so what? Any ties between OEM and Microsoft are not the customer’s problem. The customer is only bound by the EULA, not by any contracts between MS and the OEM. Did the OEM let itself be bullied by MS’ scare tactics like a spineless jellyfish? So what, that’s not my problem.

A friend of mine and I once spoke to one of the largest IBM resellers in the germanophone part of Europe about this. Their answer? “No, you can’t return your copies of Windows, but if you buy more than 50 laptops we can downgrade the XP Pro that’s included to a cheaper XP Home.” Friendly, but utterly, completely useless and against your very own license agreement, my friends.

This makes me angry because it’s very clearly in illegal territory, and it’s one of the ways Microsoft makes much of its money (like, say, the Mafia). And even though it is illegal, it is tolerated because no one has so far challenged Microsoft in court about it (in Switzerland).

If I had better footing in the laws, I’d love to try this.

Article is at linux.com, found via Slashdot.

PS: “Just don’t buy a laptop with Windows preinstalled” is not an argument, by the way. Most laptops are not available without Windows. Consumers should not be restricted in their choice of laptops by the Microsoft tax.

I’ve written about TurboGears before, and now the Python-based web development framework has reached version 1.0.

Congratulations!

I’ve been meaning to look at using SQLAlchemy in TurboGears projects, and this update is my excuse

It’s a new year, and I decided to change the host name of this server. It has been called terror.snm-hgkz.ch for several years now; from now on it’s rca.snm-hgkz.ch. “rca” being the short version of my real name, which I use in other places too. It’s not terribly inventive, I know.

When I originally chose terror, it was because it matched a range of other machines I had. If you’re familiar with networks, you know that it’s a common practice to give different devices names from the same category. Greek gods, planets, elements, names of famous philosophers, that sort of thing. Each machine gets one name. My machines had names from negative emotions: horror, panic, fear, despair and terror. In 1999, the word “terror” was a lot more innocent than it is today.

I don’t want to suggest that I condone terrorism or am connected to it in any way. If that means changing the host name of my dearest machine, that’s fine. Normally, host names aren’t supposed to change at all, but this is an exception I’m willing to make.

The old host name remains valid, but all links only point to rca.snm-hgkz.ch from now on, so terror should cease to exist soon.

Happy new year!