Three-Letter Acronyms & Four-Letter Words

If your having the problem where your computer is saying "rthdcpl.exe - Illegal System DLL Relocation" or something to that effect, your problem has come from one of the latest Windows security updates.

My mother-in-law called the house today stating this error. I did some searching (thanks Google) and found the following link to the Microsoft knowledge base.

It would appear that her laptop is running the "Realtek HD Audio Control Panel" as that is what I now understand and read as "rthdcpl.exe".

Anyway, I posted this up here as an easier means for her to get the update, which hopefully fixes her issue.

Gonna give her a call and walk her through it.

Laterz

Last night as I was finishing up the assembly of the CPU holder for my desk (we went to IKEA yesterday), I saw on TV something that surprised me.

It was your usual sort of Internet commerce commercial. Someone was looking for something making jokes about it, then there was the obligatory search box with the item in question being typed into it. However, at the end it was Microsoft's AdCenter that was referenced rather than a YellowPages or Yahoo or some search engine optimization company. (From what I know of Google doesn't really do TV advertising, I think they get enough press without it.)

The launch of Windows Live (their Yahoo & Google like search engine product) was met with little fanfare by the online community, this was my take on it anyway.

Now, down here in Austin we get TV ads for services and gadgets that might not be advertised elsewhere. I remember that I started to think everyone gets bombarded with Symantec and Western Digital hard drive ads. Or billboards for the same, or even a billboard for my favorite online store NewEgg.

I did a little search for the AdCenter to see what folks are saying about it, maybe I have just had my head in sand. I am not a huge fan of Microsoft, aside from the 360, so I don't look for news about them on the 'Net.

Articles:
Seattle Times

Google Watch - eWEEK
Clickz


Apparently the AdCenter launched back in May and I just wasn't paying attention. However, their TV ad got my attention.

Speaking of TV ads, I caught the end of a Cingular commercial the other day. And at the end it said "Cingular is now AT&T."

Yeah, ok I knew that SBC had renamed themselves to AT&T, but Cingular, that was ridiculous, I was just at the Cingular Store it wasn't an AT&T store. Course, it is very, very funny, because the AT&T store at the mall became a Cingular store when Cingular bought out the AT&T Wirless assets.

Now, Cingular is going to be AT&T (wireless?).

I made a comment on Anil's blog about this circle of AT&T. I can only hope that this time around AT&T is more open minded about telecom than they were in the past since they are just a few acquisitions away from being put all back together again. My comment wasn't in direct reference to his post, but the circular nature discussed in his post reminded me about the AT&T mergers that have been occurring.

There is also a great explanation on YouTube from the Colbert Report show. Definitely check it out.

No, this is not a Star Trek entry about the Borg.

This is about the fact that I have finally got my Xbox 360.

I hooked it up last night and played a few rounds of Gears of War with Jeremy. It was fun, I still have a lot to learn about the game play, the 3rd person shooter can get a little disorienting when your in close quarters combat.

I also played a little Marvel Ultimate Alliance last night. I really liked that game when I was in NY, so I had to pick it up too.

Course, I probably should have left the Xbox @ the store, as I have a ton of other stuff I need to work on. But after waiting so long, I couldn't just leave it there. Now, I have to practice some self discipline and not play it ever waking moment I get.

Well back to the grind.

Laterz