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July 31, 2005
Cisco feels the squeeze will Microsoft?
It looks like the attention Cisco is getting his having an effect. Wired reports that Cisco is feeling the heat from some shareholders and are fighting a non-binding resolution concerning human rights and China.
No new word concerning Microsoft.
Posted by Peter at 11:04 AM | Comments (0)
July 29, 2005
The best news for a Massachusetts based company
We interupt our tech blogging to report something that is of great importance to any company located in New England in general and Massachusetts in particular:
The Red Sox have a two game lead with two days left in July!!!!
And Johnny Damon is putting up stats that will make him even more valuable in my tabletop baseball league.
We now return to our normally scheduled blogging.
Posted by Peter at 10:01 PM | Comments (0)
IE 7 a good overview
Soulhunter has an excellent overview of the beta of IE7.
Read it all.
Others are less impressed, but its unclear how much of that is the normal Microsoft is Evil bit.
Posted by Peter at 09:27 PM | Comments (0)
Today's tech tip Restore as plan C-F
When I left programming and started to do tech support on PCs my trainer Jim Tower (Hi Jim hope you are well) told me the following:
Believe me the first time you do a scanreg /restore (these were in the heady days of windows 98) on a system you customer will think you are a God.
This statement was in fact true but it misses an important point. Even though it can be a fast way to fix a pc scanreg or system restore should NOT be the first option you try.
In the first place it fiddles with the system registry any time you play with the registry you take a slight risk.
In the 2nd place when you turn back a system you don't just affect the issue you are working on but you affect every other program in play particularly any system that has changed since the time of the point of the restore.
System restore and scanreg are powerful and worthwhile tools but remember a good tech will try to fix the actual issue rather than play it quick and dirty. If the time comes to use restore by all means use it but it shouldn't be the first option.
If you don't want to wait for the next tip you can sign up for a free HiWired Membership and get them all at once.
Posted by Peter at 09:05 PM | Comments (0)
July 28, 2005
Ou on ....everything
Our old friend George Ou has some interesting info things to say on XP sp2 firewall, Windows Vista, Centrino...
Lets put it this way George is worth reading on any subject simply start at the newest article and keep scrolling.
Posted by Peter at 03:14 PM | Comments (0)
July 27, 2005
Science fiction meets science fact
Will the day come where we support this product at HiWired?
Posted by Peter at 05:38 PM | Comments (0)
Identify Theft. Trey Jackson's take
The headline of this Trey Jackson piece says it all: 24% of Americans over 18 have been exposed to ID theft in the last 100 days.
He follows up with 20 links which support his statement. Read the whole thing.
Posted by Peter at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)
Vacation note II
Well mini vacation #1 is done, we haven't nailed down where mini-vacation #2 (sometime next month) will end up. I'm blogging from back home. Regular on topic blogging will resume shortly. Vacation details are in the extended entry.
Gettysburg was quite a sight. I've never seen so many monuments, antique weapons or confederate flags (outside my board games) in my life. The place is a very sobering one, but the wife was board to death. I think there should be an activity center specifically for wife's of history buffs for them to hang out and do stuff while their battlefield struck husbands like myself follow the paths.
I was struck by the number of real swords for sale for $50 and under. I was particularly struck by "Children's swords" that went for about $30. These were real short swords. As a parent I was a little taken aback, as a kid I would have thought it the coolest thing in the world. (you have to be 18 to buy the kids swords.) There were a lot of toy muskets for sale. These would be the old Davy Crocket style guns that were popular in the 50's but made with lighter wood.
I missed Culp's hill, the Wheatfield and Devil's Den since we were pressed on time and the temp was near 100 degrees. The national museum was impressive and very worthwhile. I didn't see any of the Eisenhower stuff which is a shame. All of that will be for next time.
There is a local steakhouse change called Hoss's which is pretty good. I would eat there again.
St. Patrick's Cathedral in Harrisburg was another impressive sight. It really jumps at you when you are used to a smaller parish.
Had two Very good meals at the New Cumberland Diner which is a family owned restaurant in New Cumberland (Harrisburg) the menu was VERY large and the food first rate. I tried grits and Scrapple for the first time. Grits for those of you from the North like me tastes basically like rice. Scrapple is a deep fried pork product that is an acquired taste which I don't believe I've acquired yet.
It turns out our hotel was not far from the farm of Maj. Marcus Reno of Little Big Horn fame.
The oddest photo of the trip was on the way home. We got off the highway at Bethlehem as my wife needed a stop and ducked into another chain Perkins. They apparently exist everywhere but New England. My wife is thinking of redoing the upstairs bathroom and liked the tile pattern on the wall there so our only photo from Bethlehem is a picture of the tiles of the ladies room there.
I will put up a few pictures at a later time.
Posted by Peter at 10:28 AM | Comments (0)
July 26, 2005
Vacation tip II Portable surge
Although hotels will provide free hi-speed, you have no idea what kind of surge protection is being used in them. A portable surge protector fits in a childs hand cost about $20 and has connections for BOTH the power supply and the ethernet cable.
Also don't forget to disconnect said cables and machine overnight. The thunderstorms overnight will not be understanding.
If you don't want to wait for the next tip you can sign up for a free HiWired Membership and get them all at once.
Posted by Peter at 09:45 AM | Comments (0)
July 25, 2005
Today's Vacation Tech tip: Disconnect that hotspot
When going on a vacation in addition to locking the doors and windows and having somebody feed the cat one of the things on your list should be to power down your router and hi-speed modem.
First of all you are not using it so why pay the electric? (If you lived in my town with one of the highest electric rates in the country that would ALWAYS be #1).
Second of all you can't always be sure of your surge protection, even if it comes with a guarantee. I'll wager on vacation you don't bother to check the forcast for back home while you're gone and it only takes one thunder storm to knock things out. I'd rather come home to working devices than to come home to a valid guarantee that I have to collect from.
However the big item is this: Even a secure network might be hackable given time (and if your network is not secure, SHAME ON YOU)! If you have a wireless network it can't be hacked while it is powered down.
If you don't want to wait for the next tip you can sign up for a free HiWired Membership and get them all at once.
Posted by Peter at 09:08 AM | Comments (0)
Vacation note #1
Sorry blogging has been a bit light. The family and I are on a mini-vacation. Just finished Hershey Park and will be hitting Gettysburg later in the day. (The Crayola Factory and National Canal Museum were both cool too. We hit them on the drive down).
I took the laptop with me so I could read my news. Here I am sitting in the capital of a major US state, with access to TV & Newspapers and I feel totally cut off from the world without my internet connection.
But the most amazing thing is this: I've been doing Consumer tech support for a while. Five years ago or so it was very rare to talk to a person who had home DSL. Most of the people who had that kind of service were techies and rarely needed help.
Well I am staying at the Travel Inn. The staff is nice and there is a little pool but it is nothing even slightly fancy and yet wired high speed internet is here at no extra charge. Think of it. In 5 years it has gone from the cutting edge to standard equiptment at a two star hotel/motel. Just goes to show you how times have changed.
Posted by Peter at 08:34 AM | Comments (0)
July 22, 2005
My search for “The Perfect Laptop” Part 2
I know it’s been a while but I wanted to do some testing on the laptop. I ended up deciding on a HP Pavilion zv6005. The price was right ($949 after rebate), the performance was right and it ended up being the original laptop that I looked at.
Weighing in at 8 pounds this is the only thing that I can see as a possible issue. When I first opened up the package the size of the screen (15.4” Widescreen) really made me think about turning it into a complete desktop replacement by use of the Expansion Base (which I will save for another blog). As expected I installed all of my work applications as well as some intense games and have had no problems at all.
System Specs:
ATI Radeon Xpress 200M graphics controller (128 MB dedicated memory)
Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG, 10/100 LAN
56K data/fax modem
Windows XP Home Edition
Microsoft Works, Microsoft Money
2.0 GHz AMD Athlon 64 3200+
Up to 2000 MHz front side bus 512 MB 333 MHz memory
80 GB hard drive
Double layer DVD-R/RW CD-RW drive
4 USB 2.0
FireWire
S-Video TV-out
6-in-1 memory card reader
Posted by brian at 02:21 PM | Comments (0)
Longhorn=Vista?
Quite a few blogs are reporting that the new version of windows will be named Windows Vista.
I haven't seen confirmation from Mircosoft yet.
I guess this means no more plugs for my son's favorite steakhouse. My favorite still is this one, even if a car did crash through the front window last week.
Posted by Peter at 08:16 AM | Comments (0)
July 21, 2005
Cisco pulling a microsoft on China
Cisco is apparently pulling a Microsoft on China. Rebecca MacKinnon is still on asking the tough questions and is not impressed with the answers she is getting.
You know it is a corporate decision, but corporate decisions are made by people and those people should be ashamed of themselves, particularly if Max Boot is right.
Via Glenn
Posted by Peter at 11:07 PM | Comments (1)
Get HiWired
WE ARE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THAT AS OF JULY 18TH, 2005 THE LIGHTFROG NAME HAS OFFICIALLY CHANGED TO HiWired.
Please let your friends and family know. When you visit www.LightFrog.com, you will automatically be redirected to our new website at www.HiWired.com.
Why the name change? The name change is actually just one part of what you can expect from HiWired. You can expect the same professional service, same commitment to helping make technology simple, and the same philosophy of fast and inexpensive support.
What you will find new at HiWired is a new website and new products like “Identity Safe” for online identity theft protection and “Fast and Easy Wireless Network Setup” for a $50 secure wireless network setup. You will see new features like a “Monthly Spotlight” to highlight a relevant technology issue and a new online chat feature from our home page.
When we thought about all the new things that we were going to offer, we also thought about changing the name of the company to better reflect what we do. Customer feedback has been to make the name reflect technology while not being so “over the top” and putting “technology” or “IT” or “geek” in the name. We believe HiWired does a good job of this and we hope that you will come to love it like we do.
We look forward to hearing what you have to say about the name, our brand, and the new services by sending us feedback at feedback@hiwired.com
Posted by Lorie at 08:40 AM | Comments (0)
July 20, 2005
That didn't take long
This week the Troj/BankAsh-A or Trojan-spy.win32.Banker.jv or PWS-Banker.j became the first known trojans designed to switch off Microsoft Anti-spyware. E-week has the news.
As the application becomes more popular they will likely prove to be the first of many.
Posted by Peter at 02:58 PM | Comments (0)
RIP Mr. Scott
James Doohan who will forever be remembered as Mr. Scott from the first (and best) Star Trek series has died at the age of 85.
I would venture to guess that the majority of people who have worked on the software and operating systems of the computer you are reading this on now knew and loved this character.
If you want to get an idea of how many people who blog care check how the totals on this page increase during the day.
UPDATE: Lileks writes the ultimate tribute as a segment of his daily post the big finish:
In a hundred years from now, no one will remember Brad Pitt. But they’ll have a picture of Scotty taped up in the break room off the moon shuttle.
What? You don't read Lileks daily? Shame on you!
I'd also give a RIP to Jim Aparo. He's one of the best artists you've never heard of, but if you read comics in the 70's and 80's you've likely seen his work without knowing it.
Posted by Peter at 02:25 PM | Comments (0)
More China & Microsoft
While the rest of the blog community focus' on this, Roger Simon finds an Anne Applebaum story on China's filtering software and the things it will keep people from posting and seeing. Key quote:
Since early June, Chinese bloggers who post messages containing a forbidden word -- "Dalai Lama," for example, or "democracy" -- receive a warning: "This message contains a banned expression, please delete." It seems Microsoft has altered the Chinese version of its blog tool, MSN Spaces, at the behest of Chinese government. Bill Gates, so eloquent on the subject of African poverty, is less worried about Chinese free speech.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, it is a disgrace.
Posted by Peter at 10:33 AM | Comments (0)
July 18, 2005
The Curt Jester's IPOD/ITUNES review
Every now an then a mainstream blogger,decides to enter a new world of technology.
The Curt Jester joins that crowd and posts a useful review of his foray into the ITUNES/IPOD world.
This just goes to show that every blog no matter what the primary focus becomes a tech blog at one time or another.
Posted by Peter at 08:16 PM | Comments (0)
Municipal Broadband in Louisiana
Votes in Lafayette decided to fund a city owned wide network that will provide broadband to the people living there.
There is some debate concerning this idea, Harry's place (where I found the story) for example titled his post Victory for socialism in south Louisiana.
My personal opinion is this:
#1. If the voters of that town choose to fund this it is their own business.
#2. As a rule city wide plans are less efficent that privately funded ones.
#3. The people who need or want a higher quality of internet will still use private providers. (For example I pay for the hightest possible speed since I telecommute on occasion and need the speed and bandwidth)
#4. This will become a large expense for the town and the town will also have to cover all the legal issues concerning stuff going on using their net. For example if somebody uses the town's service uses it for internet fraud is the town liable?
In the end it is up to the town, and seeing how this works in a few places can let other cities decide if it is a good idea. Of course my #1 suggestion would be for them to choose HiWired to provide support for their customers.
Posted by Peter at 12:10 PM | Comments (0)
July 17, 2005
Today's tech tip: Soft reset
When dealing with most portable devices, PDA's, IPod's etc. and it isn't working correctly, one of the most helpful things you can do is a Soft Reset. Most of these have a Soft Reset button, either on the back or side, or there is a button combination that you can use (consult your manual for detailed instructions this). This is the general equivalent of restarting a PC, it cleans out the system memory (leaving you data alone of course) and is often the first troubleshooting step given by any tech.
So the next time you find that your PDA isn't responding like it should, or your IPod is acting flaky, try the soft reset.
If you don't want to wait for the next tip you can sign up for a free LightFrog Membership and get them all at once.
Posted by at 04:40 PM | Comments (1)
San Francisco not just known for Barry Bonds
This link show San Francisco as the number one city in the US for free Wi-fi hotspots according to the list managed by Metrofreefi (fo fum?)
The loading the list of available hotspots alone might cause your pc to slow down.
Remember, when you are using a hotspot you do not have the protection that you would have at home particularly if you were using a hardware firewall.
Via: Scott Allen Lewis
Posted by Peter at 04:25 PM | Comments (0)
July 16, 2005
Today's Tech Tip: You have the power
Not a day goes by when a customer doesn't call and say their son, daughter, nephew or other description that I won't repeat on a family blog has messed up their computer by installing or downloading things onto it. Since 8 times out of 10 the OS is an xp system and the person is using the parent/owner's account for access this is a great example of something that could be prevented.
Windows XP allows not only passworded account but allows sub accounts that have limited rights. You will find this under the USER ACCOUNTS section of the Control Panel.
You have the power as the system admin. Use it!
If you don't want to wait for the next tip you can sign up for a free LightFrog Membership and get them all at once.
Posted by Peter at 11:55 AM | Comments (0)
July 15, 2005
Small business suggestions
This article provides a series of good suggestions for small business to keep their IT costs down.
The only thing missing from the list is us.
From news-blogs.com
Posted by Peter at 12:38 PM | Comments (0)
News of the day Mp3 players
The correctly named MP3 PLAYER News & Info blog has a lot of interesting links concerning MP3 players and industry info. Just keep scrolling.
Posted by Peter at 12:33 PM | Comments (0)
Gadget addiction
This posting at Geek Love about Gadget addiction is worth a read, hopefully it will never reach the Dr. Phil stage.
There are quite a few articles on that site worth reading as well.
Posted by Peter at 11:41 AM | Comments (0)
It's a phone , its an IPOD it's BOTH or is it?
Missed this story in the rush of business we've been having.
Last month Business Week Online reported that the combo IPOD/Phone that Apple & Motorolla were supposed to announce in March will finally be announced this month:
In a June 23 research note, RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Sue said Cingular, a joint venture between telcos SBC (SBC ) and BellSouth (BLS ), will announce the phone within a month.
Will they make this deadline? The technology will not wait for them if they don't.
We've talked about this before here, here and here.
Hat tip Menk.com
Posted by Peter at 11:14 AM | Comments (0)
July 12, 2005
Buy a vowel get a clue
Dell terminated their Community forums on July 8th.
Why would a compnay shut down something that brings their customers together?
Could this be the reason why we are so busy lately? It seems really foolish to me.
Via Jeff Jarvis and The Social Customer Manifesto.
Posted by Peter at 08:04 PM | Comments (2)
July 10, 2005
Liquid Cooling Testing begins tomorrow
Well, it's time that this agent gets cool, liquid cool...
Well, after a full week delay from the radiator not arriving with the original shipment and a few unhappy words to Danger Den for not getting the full shipment right the first time, everything has arrived and is ready to be put together, which is tomorrow's project.
The details of the kit can be found here, along with a review, care of FastlaneHW.com.
The case for this unit will be the Coolermaster Cavalier CAV-T03 of which the details can be found here.
I'm looking forward to getting on with this at last, after about a month or so of research.
Posted by at 04:31 PM | Comments (0)
Interesting video discussion
Two big guns of the blogosphere discuss the merits of various digital camersa for video on blogs and types of storage of same. The it is worth your time; example:
Another reason for using video-on-a-chip is that it's easier to deal with. Video from tape has to be captured at realtime speed; video from a chip can just be copied to a hard drive. And the lower capacity of the chips is actually something of an advantage as it forces you to be selective. Austin Bay shot some cool video on his recent trip to Iraq, Djibouti, and Afghanistan, but he's finding it a pain to sort through the 7 hours of tape and find what he wanted. A half dozen memory sticks might have been easier.
The real action on this issue is the comments and reader suggestions. They are worth a look, and worth your opinion as well if you want to leave it.
Posted by Peter at 01:39 PM | Comments (0)
A glimpse of the future
If you would like to see some screenshots of the Microsoft LONGHORN operating system a good collection of them are located here.
I still think I perfer this LONGHORN instead. Not because I think the new OS is not going to be good, but because xp (at least SP2) is the best microsoft operating system since 98 so the question really is why upgrade? Being a big fan of inerta I'd be really interested in what people think about the upgrade reason.
Hat tip Xerocool via Porplemontage (or is it the other way around?)
Posted by Peter at 10:31 AM | Comments (0)
July 06, 2005
Napster vs. Itunes
The speculist makes a compelling case for Napster vs. ITUNES for music.
My nephew says Yahoo is better than both.
Me I like 45's
And yes the hat tip belongs to Glenn
Posted by Peter at 09:46 PM | Comments (0)
July 04, 2005
Another thing to consider today
Powerline puts the 4th in perspective using the words of two Presidents.
Normal tech blogging returns tomorrow if it isn't as busy as it has been these last few days (whew!)
Posted by Peter at 05:08 PM | Comments (0)
Self Evident
LightFrog support is a first rate idea, but it is self evident that this is a better one.
Posted by Peter at 08:29 AM | Comments (0)
July 01, 2005
Today's tech tip: The downside to high speed
It's really something to think that I've only had high speed internet for 8 months or so. (I've kept my NETZERO account as an emergency backup).
High speed interent opens up a whole new world of connection but brings in increase in attacks from the less than friendly elements on the web.
If you upgrade to DSL or Cable make sure you are protected by firewalls and anti-spyware because you WILL draw a lot more interest, otherwise high speed won't be for long.
If you don't want to wait for the next tip you can sign up for a free LightFrog Membership and get them all at once.
Posted by Peter at 09:14 PM | Comments (0)