Microsoft Fix It 50198

It turns out some software makers do some strange things to registry permissions to basically disallow even admin privileged accounts from easily modifying keys they don’t want you to mess with.  This hoses a number of Windows upgrades such as installing XP SP2/XP SP3/IE8.  There used to be annoyingly complex solution which was to use a subinacl tool to cleanup all the strange contorted registry permissions changes by programs like iTunes.  I think after receiving a lot of support calls and complaints, Microsoft finally released an easy tool to wipe all those permissions clean, annoyingly called Fix It 50198.  Here’s the link.

No more secret 30 day price guarantee from Amazon

Not that I ever used it, but I found out recently that Amazon no longer will refund differences (drops) in prices on its own site within 30 days of your purchase. Apparently, this never advertised courtesy — you had to inquire about it — was stopped September 1, 2008.

Also, you can no longer use Amex gift cards (which are just like fixed value credit cards, I thought) to buy Amazon gift cards. Also Amazon doesn’t accept two ‘credit’ cards for purchases. This potentially makes buying something more than the value on your Amex gift card a complicated exercise of buying yourself an Amazon gift card with your normal credit card, just enough to cover whats left after using up your Amex gift card.

Related to Amazon: recently I’ve been trying their cheapest music tracks — the free ones! Some of these are actually quite good. You can try them on and then delete them without regrets.

Geico Auto

I was with 21st century for the longest time. But saved about 20% by switching to Geico. I hope it’s not a teaser rate thing though.