About a week ago, I had some trouble downloading some pics off my old digital camera. As I was in a rush at the time, I just hooked it up to my wife’s computer and downloaded them there. The problem caught my eye again the other day when I tried to hook up my new camera and it didn’t work either. (nor did my iPod or any of my flash drives.) That day I spent several hours searching the net and trying everything I could do, but gave up in the end. Tonight I went back at it with absolute determination. It’s now 1:00 a.m. and with the help of a usenet post I found on Google Groups I got it taken care of. Turns out, some DRM drivers from Macrovision were the culprit. The solution is simple, look in c:\windows\system32\drivers and delete the sptd.sys, sptdxxxx.sys and secdrv.sys files. You’ll also want to search and destroy anything with sptd or secdrv in the registry. (Ok, so that’s not so simple.) Since I didn’t specifically install any Macrovision software, I have a feeling this was bundled with something else I installed. More on this later…

All of you fellow bloggers out there can rest a little easier today. Apple Computer lost its case against the PowerPage blog, (among others). The case centered around the right of bloggers to protect their sources as their traditional media counterparts have. Apple claimed they had a right to know who was leaking their trade secrets. Thankfully the court understood the constitutional ramifications of the case and sided with the bloggers.