This weekend I went and downloaded a BIOS update for my computer and discovered a nasty little side effect – all of my iTunes songs that I had purchased required re-authorization. Apparently, iTunes uses your computer’s BIOS (or a hash of it, or something) to uniquely identify your computer. So, if you update your BIOS, it’s as if you had transferred all your iTunes songs to a new computer. And since you only get 5 transfers per song… well you always want to minimize the number of transfers.<\/p>\n
Just a nasty little secret of iTunes (and DRM – digital rights management) that I discovered and wanted to share. Beware!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Be careful if you update (flash) your computer’s BIOS and you use iTunes – as you may end up resetting iTunes and require a re-authorization of all of your music!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-c7","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2546,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2009\/05\/04\/windows-media-center-extender-follow-up\/","url_meta":{"origin":751,"position":0},"title":"Windows Media Center Extender Follow-Up","author":"Keith Survell","date":"May 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"It's been over a month since I brought a Linksys-branded Windows Media Center Extender into my home. How is it holding up? Is it cutting the mustard? Was it worth the price? Maybe, but only if you bought it on sale.","rel":"","context":"In "Gadgets"","block_context":{"text":"Gadgets","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/gadgets\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4088,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2012\/09\/25\/why-i-love-my-apple-tv\/","url_meta":{"origin":751,"position":1},"title":"The Quest for the Perfect Media Player – or, Why I Love my Apple TV","author":"Keith Survell","date":"September 25, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019ve long struggled to find the perfect media device for my home \u2013 something that can bring together the vast collection of digital media that I have saved mainly on my desktop computer. For a while, I thought Microsoft\u2019s Windows Media Center Extender idea was going to be the answer.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Gadgets"","block_context":{"text":"Gadgets","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/gadgets\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Linksys Windows Media Center Extender","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2012\/09\/media-center-extender-300x182.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1875,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2009\/03\/26\/trying-out-a-windows-media-center-extender\/","url_meta":{"origin":751,"position":2},"title":"Trying out a Windows Media Center Extender","author":"Keith Survell","date":"March 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I found a good deal on a Linksys DMA2200 Media Center Extender, and so I bought it. Here's my thoughts on it after setting it up!","rel":"","context":"In "Gadgets"","block_context":{"text":"Gadgets","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/gadgets\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"dma2200","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2009\/03\/dma2200.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6148,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2024\/06\/16\/unexpected-failure\/","url_meta":{"origin":751,"position":3},"title":"Unexpected Failure","author":"Keith Survell","date":"June 16, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Surprise! Your hard drive is dead!","rel":"","context":"In "personal"","block_context":{"text":"personal","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2024\/06\/ssd-boot-failure.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2024\/06\/ssd-boot-failure.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2024\/06\/ssd-boot-failure.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2024\/06\/ssd-boot-failure.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2024\/06\/ssd-boot-failure.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2024\/06\/ssd-boot-failure.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":355,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2004\/12\/02\/ode-to-my-computer\/","url_meta":{"origin":751,"position":4},"title":"Ode to my Computer","author":"Keith Survell","date":"December 2, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Ode to my Computer: A Poem by Keith M. Survell.","rel":"","context":"In "poems"","block_context":{"text":"poems","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/poems\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1874,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2009\/03\/21\/computer-recovery-day\/","url_meta":{"origin":751,"position":5},"title":"Computer Recovery Day","author":"Keith Survell","date":"March 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"An agonizing tale of computer malfunction, data recovery, and pain.","rel":"","context":"In "My Life"","block_context":{"text":"My Life","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}