Mickblog

I have successfully modded an X-Box :)

In hardware.

Not a girly 1.0 xbox mind you, I’m talking about a 1.6 version, for which modding involves soldering wires to microscopic pads littered around the board.

And I didn’t use a kit either. I etched a PCB for the mod and a PCB (double-sided!) for the chip programmer. I didn’t go as far as designing those myself but hey.

I must say it was awesome to see the modified startup screen, the one that signifies “your X-Box is officially pimped”, after all that work.

Now to turn it into a linux box and media player. Unf unf unf.

With a textbook I got today I got a FREE TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION TO infotrac-college.com!!1!

Whoopee.

Anyway, the free trial came in the form of a 10 character alphanumeric code. Typical random impossible-to-guess and impossible-to-mistype (supposedly) thing.

The reason I’m mentioning this otherwise totally menial information is that under the code were the words “This access code contains no vowels”. I wondered about that for a moment, then I realised why they did it. Four letter words!

And guess what - utbox.net (my job) gives a referral code to each new customer. And it doesn’t take out vowels. Well, not all of them.

I did a quick calculation… There is approximately a 1 in 400000 chance of getting a rude word in your referral code when you sign up. And to make it more fun, the characters in the referral code are separated into groups of 4.

So sign up for a trial today, and you could be one of the lucky few!

Mick.