Windows Media Center

Netflix, or, “How not to change your business model.”

Jul 23rd

Posted by streamingmeemee in Digital Media

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TechCrunch published a piece yesterday about the backlash to Netflix’s recent pricing changes.  This chart really brought it home for me.

With that single act, Netfix’s management brought the public’s perception of their company from rating higher than the next two competitors combined down to parity with the lowest sludge filled sub-basement level occupied by DirecTV.  DirecTV was formally owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation; <cough> a model of management efficiency and ethics if ever there was one <cough>.

Personally, Netflix is hanging by a thread in our household.  Their support for Windows Media Center, tenuous as it may be, is enough for me to keep the service for now.  If they should ever drop support for MCE I would drop Netflix quicker than you can say ‘cracked DVD’.

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Change Windows XP user password via command line

Jan 10th

Posted by streamingmeemee in Systems Engineering

6 comments





I found myself needing to change the administrator’s password on my Windows XP machine today. I’ve used that account exactly twice; once to setup the machine and then to create the user account that I use every day. So no, I don’t remember the absurdly complex password I came up with 3 years ago when I built this machine.

Luckily, I’ve ignored my own advice and have granted admin privileges to my user account. Only users with admin privileges can change other users’ passwords. This method will also work to change your own password even if you don’t have admin privileges.

C:\net user administrator *
Type a password for the user: asifiwouldtellyou
Retype the password to confirm: asifiwouldtellyou
The command completed successfully.

You can also change it without being prompted (useful in scripts):

C:\net user administrator thenewpasswordgoeshere
The command completed successfully.