For people living in Germany, dealing with bad service is something we must do on a daily basis. Whether we’re shopping, dealing with the German bureaucracy or paying our electricity bill. There are exceptions, though. And until recently, I considered Amazon.de to be one of those exceptions.

When I started looking around for an affordable netbook, Amazon.de wasn’t the cheapest place to start from. But since I had to deal with their customer service before on a number of occasions and usually found their personnel friendly, competent and helpful, I decided to buy a Samsung N130 @anynet from them instead of other retailers. After bad experiences with German electronics chain stores, I made a conscious decision to give up a few points on the price scale for better service.

Here is what happened: While searching through all available netbooks, I found the lack of systems that don’t ship with Windows preinstalled quite annoying. I didn’t intend to use a Microsoft OS this time. Even if I wanted to, I have accumulated a respectable number of various Windows XP versions over the last years, and since I started studying at university, I was able to get most Microsoft software for free through the MSDN Academic Alliance anyway. So I didn’t see the point of paying for yet another Windows system that I wasn’t going to use. Fortunately, I don’t have to!

When you run a new Windows PC for the first time, you will be shown an “End-user License Agreement”, or EULA. As an end-user, you’re free to choose whether you want to use Windows or not. You’re not obliged to agree to the license terms. In fact, if you reject the EULA, you’re entitled to receive a refund equal to the price of the Windows XP license which was included in the product price. Not many people know this, but getting a refund on the Windows-tax has been a hot issue in the Open Source community for a few years now. Amazon UK, Amazon US and various European Amazon branches have refunded Windows licenses in the past. In France, courts usually ruled in favour of consumers in similar cases in the past.

Naturally, I also contacted Amazon’s customer service and asked about a refund for my Microsoft Windows license. One day later, I received a rather snippy E-mail saying that they couldn’t find any information regarding my question and told me to contact Samsung directly instead. Dissatisfying to say the least. As an end-user you’re not obliged to sort out the matter with the manufacturer yourself. You can do so, if you want, but according to German law, the retailer has to handle matters of this nature. And, quite frankly, referring you to other places is just a common tactic of customer services to get people to back off. I therefore gave a bad feedback and asked them to call me personally to sort out the matter. Five minutes later, I was on the phone with a very friendly person who had a much better idea of what I was talking about and promised to look into the issue for me. An hour later, I received an E-mail from the same person saying that it would take about two more days, as she had to refer the issue to her superiors. I agreed and waited, but didn’t receive an answer.

The days after that were very busy and it wasn’t until a few weeks later that I remembered the issue and contacted the customer service again. I first sent another E-mail, which was simply completely ignored this time. So I called the hotline directly and was told by a rather bad-tempered employee that they’re still processing my request and it would take a few more days. I was bascially completely ignored again. But I also admit that my motivation wasn’t too strong to pursue the issue any further, for I felt that the money wasn’t worth all the time and effort. Even though people occasionally report receiving very high refunds, around 40 Euros per license, other sources give lower numbers of around 8-10 Euros.

From a rational perspective, it doesn’t make sense for manufacturers to ship low-priced netbooks with Windows. It only makes their products more expensive. In some cases it adds up to 20% to the original price, which is a lot in that market. Also, Windows uses netbook hardware less efficiently than Linux and hence reduces performance and battery time. My guess is that Microsoft, fearing they would get left behind in the netbook market, offers Windows licenses to manufacturers at below-market prices. But that is just a guess. It’s not my job to figure this out

The issue has been dragging on for about two months now, and before finishing this post, I called Amazon again and asked what happened to my request. This time, an employee took more time to look into the issue, and finally told me that Amazon Germany doesn’t honour refund requests of this type. Their rationale is that they only offer netbooks ‘as-is’, and if the manufacturer decides to ship a netbook with Windows then there is nothing Amazon or the consumers can do about it. They offered to refund the netbook, though, but I declined. As a measure of last resort I contacted Samsung Germany and received the same answer — they won’t refund Windows licenses, but offered that I could return the netbook. Remember that all of this is illegal under German and EU law, but it is unlikely that anybody will go to court to argue over a Windows license worth 10 Euros.

Altogether a pretty disappointing experience. Especially considering that Amazon honoured similar requests of their customers in the United Kingdom or the United States. But it seems like they consider their German customers second-class.

• The OpenSourcer: Getting your Microsoft Tax refunded
• Slashdot: Amazon US refunds Windows License fee
• The Inquirer: French court orders Windows refund

I originally intended to put a lightweight Linux distro on the system, but it seems that except for Damn Small Linux and TinyME 2008, most modern Linux distros were too much to handle for the LaVie’s little CPU So you either look for older Linux systems that were used back in the 1990s, or you simply settle for Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 98 SE. Since my friend doesn’t use the computer to go online or download stuff, I chose Windows 98 SE, a system he is already familiar with. But even just ‘upgrading’ Windows 98 enough for it to be usable for most of today’s everyday tasks was quite difficult already. First of all, here are the respecitve hardware drivers for the LaVie NX LB26C/62A.

LaVie NX LB26C/62A Windows 98SE Hardware Drivers

1. Video: Trident 9388 Video Driver (Win95&98)
2. Sound: ESS Maestro-2E (ES1978s) Audio Driver (Win 98SE)
3. Modem: Psion Dacom Gold Card Global V.90 56K+Fax Utility (Easyswitch) (Win95&98)

• Easylite 301 Driver Page on support.packardbell.com

You can use a USB stick to port the drivers over to the system, but since Windows 98’s USB support is rudimentary at best, you will first have to install drivers for your USB stick. Many sticks will work with generic USB drivers, but not all of them. Technical-assistance.co.uk has generic USB drivers for Windows 98 SE available:

• Generic Windows 98 SE USB driver: Technical-assistance.co.uk

Modernizing Windows 98

Although Windows 9x systems don’t support Unicode, there are a few things you can do to make your system more ‘international’. Get the two files below to add limited Unicode support to your system and to be able to input Chinese, Japanese & Korean text in Microsoft Office:

• Microsoft Layer for Unicode on Windows 9x
• Microsoft Global IME for Microsoft Office (Windows 9x)

There area two tools that will make your life with Windows 98 a lot easier. TweakUI will let you change various design options of Windows systems without having to modify the registy. KernelEx is an open-source compatibility layer which aims to make Windows XP-only programmes run on Windows 98. Through KernelEx, you will be able to use the newest version of Firefox or Adobe Flash, which you wouldn’t be able to run otherwise.

• TweakUI for Windows 98: Annoyances.org
• KernelEx on SourceForge.net

Getting WPA encrypted W-LAN to work on Windows 98

There is also a way to get WPA-encrypted Wireless Internet working on Windows 98. Normally, commercial software would be required here. But thanks to the Netzwerkportal.de, I found a free alternative. I used a Digitus PCMCIA 802.11g Wireless Internet card for my tests and found their solution worked for me.

1. Get the McAfee Wireless Security Installer 4.1, for example from Netzwerkportal.de.
2. Run the installation and keep clicking ‘next’ until you get to the screen with the License Agreement. Read the License Agreement and continue if you accept it. When you get to the point where the installation dialogue asks you to specify an installation folder, make sure you activate the checkbox in the lower right corner, so you will only install the free components.
3. Reboot your system.

You should now have a little icon for the WSC Wireless Network manager in your system tray.

• WPA encyrption on Windows 9x systems: German tutorial on Netzwerktotal.de

Everyday software

Most modern software doesn’t support Windows 9x anymore, but KernelEx should at least help you a little to circumvent the intentional vendor lockouts and make modern browsers, such as Firefox 3.5, work on your Windows 98 system. If you need to make sure that your software will work on flawlessly on Windows 98, though, always try to use the officially supported versions.

• Java JDK/JRE 5.0 (Windows 9x supported)
• Outpost Firewall 1.0 Free: OldVersion.com (get the ‘old’ free version from oldversion.com, not the current free version from agnitum.com, to save RAM)
• OpenOffice 1.1.5
• VideoLAN VLC 0.8.6 (last version to support Windows 9x)

Afterthoughts

Working with Windows 98 is not easy anymore these days, since more and more software projects drop support for the Win9x series. Many people will say that now, more than 10 years after the initial release of Windows 98, it’s about time the system disappears from computer screens. While I understand this opinion and people’s frustration with Win98 endless bugs and security flaws, I also understand people who can’t afford a modern computer system, or are for one way or another stuck with Windows 98. This post merely tries to show them how to work more effectively on an old system

Don’t forget to make sure that you still need proper antivirus protection (even though Windows 98 compatible antivirus may be a little hard to come by) and a firewall if you intend to browse the web. Try to keep your online times to a minimum, though. And please remember that you’re using all tools provided here at your own risk! Good luck!

1. Change the SQL table prefix: You can either do that via the configuration files before you run the WordPress installation, or via a plugin later. My advice is to do it before you set up your blog, just to be on the safe side. Otherwise your blog will use the same table names as 99% of all self-hosted WordPress blogs, making it vulnerable to SQL injections.
2. Secure the administration interface: Your administration interface is located in the subfolder ~/wp-admin/. Again, since all WordPress blogs use the same subfolder, this is another common point of attack. There are various ways to add another layer of security here. Unfortunately, you cannot just rename the wp-admin folder. But you can use a .htaccess file to restrict who will be able to access the folder. One possibility, for example, would be to only allow access from a certain IP. But then you would have to tie yourself to a certain location to access your blog, and if your ISP uses dynamic IPs, this won’t be an option anyway. Another option is to add another htaccess user/password combination. Of course, this requires that you type in two different login credentials each time you log in, which is a bit of a hassle. But there are other options as well. Simply try your luck at Google.com
3. Get the Secure WordPress plugin and use it to further secure your administration interface. Simply install it and play around with the settings a bit. Not all settings are important, but you should definitively apply the option to remove error messages on your login page. Again, this is something where the WordPress developers could have done more. In case somebody makes it to your login page after the measures we have taken above, WordPress will by default tell them if they entered a correct user name. Why is this a bad thing, you may think? Well, normally people neither know the user name nor the password you’re using to access your blog. So they would have to guess millions of possible user-password combinations to log in. But if WordPress gives them a notice as soon as they hit a correct user name, they would only have to continue looking for your password. That makes it a lot easier for them, and they could step by step brute force their way into your system. See more below.
4. Change the name of your administrator account: You will need direct access to your SQL database to do this. Most web space providers will give you a link to a tool to handle administration of your SQL databases. Normally, they run some flavour of phpMyAdmin, but you could also install the script yourself. Again, all WordPress blogs use the same name for their administrator accounts. And again, this is something where I think the WordPress guys could have done more. As I said above, things will get a lot easier if attackers already know which user name you use to sign in to your system. And since they will also know where to look for blog’s login page, they are already half the way. I can’t go into detail here too much, since WordPress changes over time and I don’t want to give the wrong advice. Google is your friend.
5. Adding to this, I also suggest your set up a new user with lower privilidges that you use to do your every day blogging. In case somebody catches you typing in your password, he won’t be able to cause too much trouble at least. Note that WordPress alows you to specify a display name for your new user account that is different from the actual name you use to sign in. Make use of this feature!
6. Get a spam filter. You’ll be surprised how many comments a new WordPress blog receives during its first days.

Hope this helps

Candy manages to get off on a good start. The first half of her book is a quite compelling read. The story is emotional, but well structured and the insights into Mian Mian’s dark underground world are fascinating. But after a while you can’t help but feeling like walking in circles.  Mian Mian keeps writing about the same issues over and over again, which may be an attempt to make the reader feel her emptiness, but stylistic means like that just don’t work. What is even worse, her book kind-of ‘deteriorates’ after the first half. Her writing looses focus. She discusses things which don’t seem to be of any relevance to the main storyline and  she constantly switches the perspective of the narrator, which gives her book a rather immature feel.

The book doesn’t read so much like a novel, but rather like a diary. And with all the drug-related stories I wondered if Mian Mian has written parts of Candy when she was high. Nevertheless, I still liked her book. I just hope her future works will have more substance.

• Wiki.en: Mian Mian
• Amazon.com: Candy by Mian Mian
• China Daily (2005-03-01): Mian Mian reaches maturity with ‘Panda Sex’
• Anxiety Neurosis: Article on ‘Shanghai Panic’, a movie written by Mian Mian

I have posted about LumaQQ, a Java-based alternative to the original software, about three years ago. I didn’t use LumaQQ for too long back then and from what I can gather from their homepage, the project seems to be dead by now. The Pidgin QQ plugin, which comes with the main programme by default (download here), was much more convienent and has bascially worked flawlessly for the last two years. Until last summer, when Tencent decided to close the channel for third party clients. At first, users were still able to ‘circumvent’ their blocks by changing a setting in Pidgin that told the server you were using a much newer version of QQ. However, Tencent was quick to fix that hole and now you will usually receive a message like this one when trying to sign in: “您的号码可能存在异常情况，已受到限制登录保护，需激活后才能正常登录。激活网址：http://jihuo.qq.com” — literally: Don’t come back until you got the propper software. Adium, Pidgin’s sister-client for Mac OS X, suffers from the same problem, but won’t get fixed either until the Pidgin devs update the libraries.

Unfortunately, QQ isn’t the highest priority on the list for Pidgin’s developers. Moreover, I’ve heard that the Pidgin QQ plugin is based on LumaQQ code, so I’m not too optimistic about receiving a fix soon. So what options are left? There are a couple of Linux apps that still boast QQ support, Kopete for example. But as I don’t use Linux for everyday work that doesn’t really help. And I wasn’t able to get Kopete to sign on using it on Windows via the experimental ‘KDE on Windows‘. Seems all the third party clients are having this problem. So until someone comes up with a solution to circument Tencent’s new block, the only option left would be to use WebQQ. WebQQ works similar to Microsoft’s Web Messenger for MSN. It’s an online interface for their chat network that runs in your browser and enables you to log in from any computer with internet access. Unfortunately, the website is Chinese-only, so it may be a little difficult to navigate if you don’t speak Chinese. Give it a try, though — you might have to stick with it for a while.

• WebQQ: http://web.qq.com/