Of course Microsoft does this, right after I sell my XBox 360 on eBay. Well, the bidder hasn’t paid me yet, and might not. So maybe I haven’t officially sold it yet.

But yeah, a few weeks ago I got the dreaded three red rings of death on my XBox 360, while watching an HD-DVD with Heather. If you know me, you know I hardly touch my XBox 360, except to watch DVDs or play arcade games. And I keep it flat (not standing), and not locked inside some entertainment center. For all intents and purposes, the game console should’ve lasted me years. The fact that it just failed watching a movie was unacceptable, but there wasn’t much I could do.

Before calling Microsoft’s support line, I found a forum post online from someone who had fixed the problem by just blowing out the dust with a can of air. I took it outside and did that, and quite a bit of dust was released from the box. Brought it back in and turned it on, and I was up and running again. Heather and I watched half of King Kong, and then shut it off. Looks like the problem was fixed for now. Well, it’s not my problem anymore technically, since it’s sold on eBay, but yeah.

Before today, if I had kept my XBox 360, the next time the red rings came up, I would’ve had to shell out like $150 to get my console fixed. But now, Microsoft’s extended the warranty to the consoles from the past three years. There’s even an “apology” letter of sorts from Peter Moore.

But in my opinion, it’s far overdue. When the console launched, I didn’t want to listen to all the people having problems. I just assumed they were being dumb, and using the console without ventilation, etc… but then I started to hear about friends having the problem, and then myself… it’s obvious there is a core hardware problem with the XBox 360 itself, either involving cooling or the placement of components inside. It’d be great if Microsoft went the extra mile and gave full disclosure about their findings. It’s ridiculous that retailers and the public were both complaining about the return rate of the console, and Microsoft kept saying that the returns/etc. were well under the industry standard. Riiight.

I’m selling my XBox 360 Premium kit. Here’s the Craigslist post, or if you’re too lazy to look there, here’s the specs:

I have an XBox360 premium console, won from the Mountain Dew contest (came out before people could officially buy the XBox360!) Works great, hardly played, and in excellent condition. I've added onto the system over the years. Here is a complete breakdown:

1 XBox360 Premium Console
1 Wireless Controller
2 Play & Charge Kits (lets you recharge your controllers)
1 Wireless Network Adapter
1 HD-DVD Player/Drive
1 XBox 360 VGA Cable
1 Game, Halo
1 Game, Halo 2
1 Game, Gears of War
1 Game, Kameo
1 Game, Perfect Dark Zero
1 Game, Need for Speed: Most Wanted
1 Game, Fable
1 HDDVD, Phantom of the Opera
1 HDDVD, King Kong
1 HDDVD, Serenity
1 HDDVD, The Last Samurai

If you bought all of these things brand new, you'd easily be spending around $1100. I'm selling it for $800, or best offer.

If you purchase the system, you are buying it as-is. I don't believe that Microsoft's warranty covers it now, since it's a launch unit. I haven't had any problems, though. Make sure you have adequate cooling!

If you need photos, I can provide. I will only accept cash, no checks.

I'm asking for $800, or whatever the best offer is. If you know anyone interested, please have them send me an e-mail at iransofaraway AT gmail DOT com. Thanks!

Update: I actually decided to put it all up on eBay. Click here to check out the listings.

Bill Gates Goes to College

The Microsoft bigwig teamed up with Napoleon Dynamite in this spoof video from PDC 2005. The camera's a little shaky, but you get the idea.

Lots of people are trolling Microsoft lately, after their announcement and demo of their new Surface platform. I don’t get it, really. It’s pretty darn slick. But people are saying it’s a rip-off of this, a rip-off of that, and naming Michael Bay’s film, “The Island” as one of the precursors. Turns out, this actually was the “Surface” device, in a very early state!

There’s a follow-up post at the same IStartedSomething blog with a video clip of the scene in question. Worth checking out if you’ve never seen The Island. Yes, I know, they obviously jazzed up the interface and did some art work to it, but you have to admit it’s pretty cool that they used an actual prototype for the film, and we’ve been oblivious this whole time.

This just pisses me off.

I recently had to reinstall Vista on my work machine. Upon finishing the reinstallation, I went to activate Vista online (with Dell’s OEM key.) Vista claims the key is invalid. So I have to call Microsoft’s automated activation line.

If you’ve never had to call this line, consider yourself lucky. Granted, it’s as simple as they could make it, but it’s just a pain. You have to read off six or so groups of numbers, each group containing six numbers themselves. In return, you get the same amount of numbers back to type in and verify the installation. If the automated process fails, you get transferred to Microsoft’s Indian tech. support center (apparently) to manually get the return codes.

Anyhow, after the call, and speaking to a live person, I was activated and ready to go. Until the next day, at least, when a dialog popped up and said my copy of Vista was no longer activated, and I had three days to re-activate. Yet another call to Microsoft’s automated activation line. Yet another group of numbers to type in. Valid again, yay.

I thought that would be the end of it, but today on my home machine, I got the dialog in the middle of programming. What? I purchased an OEM copy of Vista Ultimate for my home machine months ago, and have been running it without fail since then (activated it online originally.) Whatever. I try the online activation, but get a different dialog back, saying that my product key is in use on another computer. No, dummy, it’s not. Yet another call to Microsoft’s activation line. More numbers read off and returned, and finally I’m activated again.

I never had this problem under XP. Ugh. Methinks they clamped down on the product activation a bit too much. Meanwhile, I’m sure pirates and such are enjoying Vista for free regardless.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Vista, and recommend it for everyone. But this is just silly.