More From The Tech Support Guy

He sighed the kind of sigh of relief people reserve for hearing the doctor say, “It’s benign.” A burden had been lifted from his shoulders. I smiled.

Stef came home to pick up her laptop. Within an hour of touching it she accomplished something I wasn’t able to–its CPU is running at a constant 100% again! No good. Tonight I will wipe that sucker clean and return it to its factory fresh state. I’ve already backed up her important documents and music.

Not every story ends tragically with a reformatting. I just got off the phone with my friend Mike in Nashville. I would crawl through the desert for Mike. He gave me my job here in Connecticut, but I look upon him the way Larry Sanders looked at Artie (Sorry–cryptic reference. If you haven’t seen the show, don’t worry.).

Mike had a problem with Microsoft Outlook. He couldn’t get at his email and though an error message told him to run scanpst, he couldn’t find that nor did he know what to scan once he did.

Why Microsoft can’t write this utility to be friendlier, maybe even autonomous, is beyond me. MS Office costs a lot of money and has been in development for years. Maybe the Apple commercial with the stacks of money for advertising and development is right?

I used LogMeIn’s phenomenal tech console to enter Mike’s PC. I’d done an entry about them for AppScout, so I have a demo account. You have no idea how much easier tech support is when you can just tell someone to go to a website, enter a pin and -voila- you’re controlling their machine while in pajamas!

After I found the file and rescanned Mike’s mail folder he opened Outlook. His email messages were intact. He sighed the kind of sigh of relief people reserve for hearing the doctor say, “It’s benign.” A burden had been lifted from his shoulders. I smiled.

I tried to relate the story to Stef. Maybe when I retire I’ll become a tech Johnny Appleseed–walking up-and-down Boynton Beach Boulevard fixing PCs for retirees. Nothing.

“Don’t you know the story of Johnny Appleseed,” I asked?

I explained how Johnny walked the roads carrying on his shoulder what, in the Fox house, is known as a “hobo stick.” He’d stop from time-to-time to plant an apple tree before moving on. Today we’d look at him as a strange homeless man and call the police.

That’s where I’m headed.

Twitter Is Holding My Attention

kevinrose Just walked into the bar with this dog (see earlier vid), holy hell, 5 girls came up in 2 mins. This dog is gold!

I’m still up in the air about Twitter. I like it, but I’m feeling unfulfilled. Maybe I don’t know how to use it correctly. It would work a whole lot better if “twits” updated in real time and the whole thing operated outside the browser.

Here are some random “twits” I enjoyed… and the raison d’être I come back.

Kevin Rose kevinrose Just walked into the bar with this dog (see earlier vid), holy hell, 5 girls came up in 2 mins. This dog is gold!

Harry McCracken harrymccracken Just felt it! (There was a small quake in Northern California last night – Geoff)

LanceUlanoff Curse you Brett Myers!

mattcutts Duncan Riley is auctioning his original Google Chrome comic book: http://bit.ly/ebaychrome .

mattizcoop Chilling with the boy, regretting the 5:55 AM flight out of MSP, bumming out that Heart put the kibosh on use of “Barracuda” for Sarahcuda.

anamariecox Forgotten Tweet from Google bash: asked vet GOP operative what he thought of the nite’s stagecraft and he said “my eyes are still bleeding.”

Brian Heater bheater @dancosta Microsoft is to the Future as McCain is to Change. Discuss

HowardKurtz So many media folks on this plane, hope the Repubs dont launch an elite-seeking missile.

Kirk Varner kirkv Anyone want to wager that these are the last political party conventions that ABC/CBS/NBC give up any primetime for?

Mr. TV Barn tvbarn Watching the Royals play a makeup game in an almost entirely empty Kauffman Stadium; you can even hear Jose Guillen grumbling in the dugout

geofffox Mixed emotions hoping winds/rain are heavy enough to justify my forecast, light enough not to injure. Always forecast with conscience.

The world summarized in 140 characters or less!

Google Says, “Please Flash Me”

Don’t pull your hair out. Before you re-write your entire site, here’s good news from Google.

Adobe Flash continues to become more and more of a factor on the Internet. Surf the web without it and you’ll land on page-after-page with big rectangular “black holes.” Though Microsoft, Apple and Real will wince when I type this, Flash has become the “universal donor” for web video. That’s part of the reason Adobe can claim a 97% penetration for Flash V9!

For webmasters there’s a secondary problem. Because of the way Flash files are compiled, search engines haven’t been able to consistently index them properly. If you’re running a website, looking pretty but not being Google friendly is worthless.

Don’t pull your hair out. Before you re-write your entire site, here’s good news from Google:

“Google has been developing a new algorithm for indexing textual content in Flash files of all kinds, from Flash menus, buttons and banners, to self-contained Flash websites. Recently, we’ve improved the performance of this Flash indexing algorithm by integrating Adobe’s Flash Player technology.”

The text contained within Flash elements is finally being read. This is huge! Until now, the only way to guarantee Flash content meant something was to replicate it in-the-clear. The same goes for links. List a URL in a flash element and Google will now understand what it is and crawl it.

There are still shortcomings and they’re very important to note. Images and FLV (video) files are still invisible at the Googleplex. The same goes for any content that is enabled with javascript. There are some Internet Explorer/Flash hacks that use javascript as a workaround, so take note (on this website for instance).

No doubt, this change will accelerate the explosion of Flash content. Some ‘old school’ webmasters will be sad. Most users will stay happy.

The Tech Support Guy

If you have your PC password protected, I have bad news. With a quickly downloaded copy of the “Emergency Boot and Recovery Disk,” I logged on and was in control of users and passwords in under five minutes!

I am the tech support guy. I usually have a computer or two hanging around the house, needing repairs. These come from friends and associates. It’s a challenge, which means I enjoy it.

My friend Farrell’s mom’s machine is on the floor next to me. Once a very pricey Fujitsu, this laptop is getting a little long in the tooth. It was gunked up with a little spyware and some tiny applets; only a problem in the aggregate.

There was one other problem. Ruth had somehow locked the computer with user name and password she didn’t know!

If you have your PC password protected, I have bad news. With a quickly downloaded copy of the “Emergency Boot and Recovery Disk,” I logged on and was in control of users and passwords in under five minutes!

I told the family the laptop would benefit from more memory… but it’s at its design limit already.

It will work and do everything Ruth wants. It will do it more slowly than I’d like.

She would actually be the perfect candidate for Linux, though I haven’t (and probably won’t) mention it. It’s a little less CPU intensive than Windows XP, meaning it will be faster, and it has all the applications she wants and uses.

Linux still scares most users who cling to the belief Microsoft is some sort of gold standard. Of course, to me Linux is worn as a geek merit badge.

One thing I did do was install logmein. Next time, the repair is done via remote control! There are now seven machines I can operate from home.

Rolling Down The Highway Faster

One thing we’ve learned in the last 50 years is, new highways don’t relive congestion! I know, it seems anti-intuitive. You should increase speeds by building new roads or widening old ones. You don’t.

I am scared of making a sweeping pronouncement, but I think we’re on to something with highway congestion and traffic. There is real progress just around the bend (and beyond that construction zone over there).

First, why making this prediction scares me.

One thing we’ve learned in the last 50 years is, new highways don’t relieve congestion! I know, it seems anti-intuitive. You should increase speeds by building new roads or widening old ones. You don’t.

Instead, new roads encourage people to travel a longer distance. Take Southern California as an example. No place has more roads and more traffic. Northbound I-405 heading from Sunset Boulevard through the Sepulvada Pass and into the San Fernando Valley, as an example, has five lanes (plus a sixth as the Ventura exit is approached) and is still jammed around-the-clock (and might be the scariest road I’ve ever driven on)&#185.

But what if we could make intelligent decisions in how we use our roads and make those decisions in real time?

From the New York Times:

Microsoft on Thursday plans to introduce a Web-based service for driving directions that incorporates complex software models to help users avoid traffic jams.

The new service’s software technology, called Clearflow, was developed over the last five years by a group of artificial-intelligence researchers at the company’s Microsoft Research laboratories. It is an ambitious attempt to apply machine-learning techniques to the problem of traffic congestion. The system is intended to reflect the complex traffic interactions that occur as traffic backs up on freeways and spills over onto city streets.

Let’s take this a step further. Today, nearly everyone carries a cellphone. Those cellphones, whether you’re talking or not, are communicating with individual cell sites. You are constantly revealing a rough position based on which towers hear you.

Let’s take that data and figure out where the traffic is moving, or not, right now. It’s already being done, though there are lots of troubling privacy questions. Here’s the pitch from one provider, AirSage:

AirSage’s Wireless Signal Extraction, or WiSE™, technology is a software-based solution for traffic information. Unlike the traditional hardware-based approaches (sensors, volume counters and video cameras), the use of aggregated, anonymous wireless network data allows customers key advantages, including more extensive coverage, higher availability, lower cost and more rapid deployment.

Now, all you have to do is integrate that data and a routing solution like Microsoft’s Clearview and get it back to your car, probably through a GPS unit. It would be similar to today’s GPS boxes, but with two-way communications capability.

This is a solution so valuable, it’s impossible for it not to happen! And it will happen soon. Any business that puts vehicles on the street will benefit, and the benefit is absolutely quantifiable in cash. Companies won’t be able to afford not to buy the technology.

Once we start moving people to alternate routes, congestion on the main roads will clear faster. Everyone will benefit, in much the same way cars without E-ZPass get through tool booths faster because of all the cars with E-ZPass aren’t competing for the same piece of highway.

You know, this is actually a pretty exciting concept.

&#185 – On this magical highway, Stef once saw a car broken down and christened its designated curbside spot, “the crying lane.”

Corporate Kvetching

Pardon me for being a little skeptical, but I am. I’m not denying it’s tough to find educated people, and I’ll get to that in a moment, but Mr. Stephenson leaves out an important part of the equation.

The president of AT&T, the telephone giant that was SBC… was Cingular… was SNET… was speaking a few days ago, and he was upset.

As Reuters reported:

“We’re having trouble finding the numbers that we need with the skills that are required to do these jobs,” AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson told a business group in San Antonio, where the company’s headquarters is located.

So far, only around 1,400 jobs have been returned to the United States of 5,000, a target it set in 2006, the company said, adding that it maintains the target.

Pardon me for being a little skeptical, but I am. I’m not denying it’s tough to find educated people, and I’ll get to that in a moment, but Mr. Stephenson leaves out an important part of the equation.

Isn’t this what he meant to say: “We’re having trouble finding the numbers that we need with the skills that are required to do these jobs at the salary we’re willing to pay.?

That’s a question asked yearly when H-1B visas are debated. H-1B is the ‘permission’ required by high tech companies to bring in foreign workers to perform highly skilled jobs.

Bill Gates was talking about this last week and is quoted on SearchCIO-Midmarket.com.

“We live in an economy that depends on the ability of innovative companies to attract and retain the very best talent, regardless of nationality or citizenship,” Gates said. “Unfortunately, the U.S. immigration system makes attracting and retaining high-skilled immigrants exceptionally challenging.”

The thing is, opponents of H-1B visas say, Microsoft and other companies aren’t paying “high-skilled” worker wages. H-1B rules do require that workers are paid the prevailing wage for their job.

Matloff said H-1B workers in the IT industry are “almost always programming of some sorts.”

“It could be a programmer, it could be a software engineer, it could be a system analyst,” Matloff said.

But Matloff and other H-1B critics contend there is no shortage of American workers for those jobs. H-1B workers, they say, just come cheaper and younger.

Quite honestly, is this any different than the complaints raised by farmers, looking to bring in migrant workers? They always say there aren’t enough US workers for these jobs. But is agricultural work more difficult or distasteful than construction or pumping septic systems. People do those jobs, even under difficult conditions.

Is the question finding workers or finding workers at what they’re willing to pay? Is that the fault of the business or the worker? Should American businesses pit Americans against foreigners when it comes to wages?

Back to what AT&T’s Stephenson and Bill Gates said about the state of American education. I couldn’t agree more.

Our high schools and colleges have become more like trade schools than institutions of higher learning. Where is the broad foundation which used to make up a high school or college education?

We live in an era where creative thought is required for more and more jobs. But is that creative thought being nurtured? Are we really well served by our education system?

The Google Cycle

My new pages have been optimized to make them friendlier to search engines, but that’s still under 1% of this site. I’ve added more detailed sitemaps, which help focus the search engine resources to look at pages I want seen. The templates for my blog have been rewritten to move more important content higher in the page.

As some of you might remember, I was hit hard in December by a hacker who made it look like my site was hosting close to 100,000 bogus pages&#185!

These phantom webpages were linked to other pages, often on other (probably compromised) sites. Google took note and, at first, began to index them. Then, they removed me entirely, trying to preserve their integrity.

The dust has cleared. Those pages are disappearing from Google’s database. It’s interesting to watch how this happens. With the tools I have, I can see that in nearly real time.

Webpages and links are crawled by Google, Yahoo! and others on a regular basis. Even with hundreds of pages seen daily, individual pages go weeks or more between crawls.

I’ve uploaded a file to my server setting a roadmap, so the bad pages will no longer be included. I thought Google would pull them immediately, since it looks at this file every 24 hours. Instead, the process has taken weeks.

Google shows the number of pages they have in their files which no longer exist is down to around 10,000. That number is reduced every day as they continue to ‘crawl’ my site.

I think of computers as being fast, often instantaneous, machines. However, when you deal with as much info as Google does, even fast takes a lot of time and instantaneous doesn’t exist.

As of yesterday, around 75% of my website traffic was being drawn by people searching for the crap the bad pages held. People are still finding me when they search fror: “bs haker free download ” or “free mobile mouse key generator virtuallab professional 5.” Soon, that should stop.

By far, the most visited piece on my site today is my “Oops” page, where I send all traffic looking for pages that don’t exist!

I’m not sure where my traffic will be when all this ends. My new pages have been optimized to make them friendlier to search engines, but that’s still under 1% of this site. I’ve added more detailed sitemaps, which help focus the search engine resources to look at pages I want seen. The templates for my blog have been rewritten to move more important content higher in the page.

Yahoo! has begun to look at my pages in a more aggressive manner. So far this month, they’ve looked at more stuff on geofffox.com than Google. That’s a huge change. Google is still sending more traffic (excluding the traffic looking for hacker inserted pages), but only on a 3:2 ratio over Yahoo!

Microsoft’s search engines are still mostly MIA. Even with sitemaps and robots files, this month they have seen 1/8 the pages Yahoo! has. Google sends around 100 times more traffic my way than MSN.

It almost looks as if Microsoft isn’t trying. Maybe they’re not.

Why do I care? This site isn’t here to make money.

Having ads on the site and watching how they are placed and work with my content is an education in how the Internet works as a business model. I still have a lot more to learn.

&#185 – I originally posted lower number and never saw the need to update them as they changed on a daily basis.

Upgrading My Samsung Blackjack To Windows Mobile 6

For months the rumor has been floating around that my phone, the Samsung SGH-I607 (more commonly known as the Blackjack), would be getting a new operating system. It began its life with Windows Mobile 5. It would be upgraded to Windows Mobile 6.

blackjack_upgrade_screen.jpgFor months the rumor has been floating around that my phone, the Samsung SGH-I607 (more commonly known as the Blackjack), would be getting a new operating system. It began its life with Windows Mobile 5. It would be upgraded to Windows Mobile 6.

I first heard this rumor about the time I got the phone, in the fall. There were dates announced and missed. Then Samsung came out with the Blackjack II.

Now there was a new rumor. With a new model, Samsung would stop any work on its older models.

Last night, while poking around, I found an article saying Samsung had actually released the update last week. I moved my focus to bulletin boards where the geekiest were already discussing their individual results (which like your mileage, can vary).

Two tidbits stood out. The Blackjack could still be used as a modem for connecting to the Internet (valuable if you’re sitting in an airline terminal or hotel with ‘pay only’ Internet access) and it now worked with Google’s GPS-less mapping system.

As much as I wanted to wait and let the smoke clear, I was drawn by a force more powerful than apprehension. The update had to go in and it had to go in now.

Putting a new operating system in your telephone is not a simple thing.

Samsung posted instructions on their website. There were lots of steps… steps that implied the phone really wasn’t designed for the untrained masses to perform this surgery. There was software to be loaded onto my PC (XP, not Vista – thank you), then pushed to the phone. Software switches would be thrown, then switched back.

For long periods of time, the cellphone sat with a barebones screen showing changing parameters in Comic Sans (to understand my feelings about Comic Sans, read this). I was beginning to worry I’d ‘bricked’ my phone.

The whole process took around 30 minutes. By the time I was done, the phone was actually working, infused with the geeky goodness of Windows Mobile 6.

I had backed up all my data, so my phone numbers would easily go back in. My ringtones, actually the ABC World News Tonight music, is now too large to be played. I’ll have to find a replacement. I also forgot to back up my customized home screen. I’ll have to rework that too.

There are a few unexpected improvements. Youtube now works on the phone! I can also now easily read Microsoft Windows documents, spreadsheets and PowerPoint files.

Already, people on the bulletin boards are complaining the upgrade doesn’t include Microsoft’s voice command software with the ability to do most functions handsfree. I expect someone will figure a way before long.

This upgrade is not for the faint of heart. There are many confusing steps spread between the PC and cellphone. Wild horses couldn’t have kept me from doing it.

Netflix Scores With Streaming

The Fox Family subscribes to Netflix, the DVD rental service. We are on their “Wow you’re cheap” plan, getting a single DVD at a time. It’s perfectly suited for our needs.

Last night, I read about their new program where you can watch movies or TV shows on-line at no additional cost. I had to try.

I went on the Netflix site, logged in, got scolded because I was using Firefox and switched to Internet Explorer.

Please, let me choose my broswer Netflix. Don’t force me to use a Microsoft browser on a Microsoft platform.

I downloaded the player and then waited as it gauged my Internet connection speed. Within a few seconds, my movie was playing.

The quality was excellent – somewhere between VHS and a DVD. Playing back on my laptop, which was on my lap, and filling the full screen, it was as good as watching a large screen TV across the room.

Playback was flawless. I’m very impressed technically. I’m not impressed with the program selection.

I’m a documentary fan, so I chose “Helvetica,” a documentary about the Helvetica typeface. It was actually a movie I wanted to see.

Yeah, I hear you. It doesn’t seem like there should be enough going on with Helvetica to fill an entire movie. You’re right! The movie was a disappointment. That’s not Netflix’s fault.

Unfortunately, the rest of their catalogue was pretty thin, to be kind. The movies were mainly third rate. The documentaries were mainly obscure. None of the TV shows interested me.

I’m sure the problem is with rights acquisition. It’s always tough to convince content owners to embrace a new technology, especially when it hasn’t yet been established whether users of that technology can rip-off your product.

If and when Netflix improves their selection, this will be a powerful business. My guess is, they already see the writing on the wall for their current business.

Shed No Tears For Netscape

When I first hit the Internet, there was no World Wide Web! Websites were textual affairs with named structures like Gopher, Archie and Veronica.

The world changed when Mosaic and then Netscape Navigator were released. The web became more akin to the printed page. Over time, Netscape Navigator dominated… until Microsoft caught on.

Ciao Netscape.

Yesterday, AOL (the current owner) announced it was the end of the line for Netscape Navigator. A few friends wrote to make sure I knew. And, they all wondered if I would shed a tear?

Nope.

Actually, I see Mozilla Firefox as the natural successor to NN. As long as Firefox stay’s in production I’m a happy guy.

Unfortunately, in the time between Internet Explorer’s ascent and Firefox’s birth, Microsoft decided not to bother following standard HTML and CSS protocols.

Things look different in Internet Explorer than other browsers… because IE does it wrong. But, since they have the vast majority of market share, the other browsers (doing it right) are looked upon as inferior.

Pretty sneaky.

Where was I? Oh, Netscape. Thanks for blazing the trail. I actually already thought you were dead.

Linux Matures

My desktop machine at work runs Linux as its operating system&#185. It has for years.

I’ve always used the excuse we run some applications on it that can’t be easily run on Windows. That’s true. It’s also my toy.

As part of my bargain with the technogods at work, I scrounge around the IT department, looking for PCs pulled from service. Over the past few years, my desktop has always been a generation or two behind state of the art.

That’s fine.

Recently, the station was ‘retiring’ a server. It no longer had a hard drive or any RAM. It was a dual core Pentium machine with an integrated Intel video system on the motherboard. It became mine.

I tried loading Linux on this machine a few months ago with limited results. In fact, I ended up going back to my Pentium III 800 mHz machine with 128 mb of RAM.

Now, with Ubuntu Linux v7.10 out, I tried again.

Wow! Linux is here.

The distribution installed easily and this computer sings. And, since it doesn’t run Windows programs, it won’t ‘run’ viruses and spyware aimed at a Windows audience.

Unless you really need Windows for a specific application, I’m pretty sure Linux will easily fill the bill.

Today, there are Linux office suites, graphics programs, multimedia players and pretty much everything else you’d find on a store bought PC. They, and Linux itself, are free.

Companies like Asus are selling off-the-shelf Linux loaded laptops and Wal*Mart is stocking Linux equipped desktop machines. The prices are hundreds of dollars less than comparable Windows boxes.

If I was Microsoft, I’d start worrying. There has been a loud cry of unhappiness from their users.

Their most recent operating system iteration, Vista, seems designed more to satisfy the RIAA and MPAA than its actual customers! Some features that existed on earlier operating systems have been removed or neutered on Vista. Meanwhile, Wal*Mart and Asus are legitimizing their free competitor.

Propeller heads like me aren’t what’s going to give Linux critical mass. It’s going to take exposure in retail outlets. And that’s what’s happening.

If you’re at all curious about computing… if you’ve got an older PC you want to play with… I recommend Ubuntu Linux. I’m very happy with it and I suspect you will be too.

&#185 – From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

An operating system (OS) is the software that manages the sharing of the resources of a computer and provides programmers with an interface used to access those resources. An operating system processes system data and user input, and responds by allocating and managing tasks and internal system resources as a service to users and programs of the system. At the foundation of all system software, an operating system performs basic tasks such as controlling and allocating memory, prioritizing system requests, controlling input and output devices, facilitating networking and managing file systems. Most operating systems come with an application that provides a user interface for managing the operating system, such as a command line interpreter or graphical user interface. The operating system forms a platform for other system software and for application software.

The most commonly-used contemporary desktop and laptop (notebook) OS is Microsoft Windows. More powerful servers often employ Linux, FreeBSD, and other Unix-like systems. However, these operating systems, especially Mac OS X, are also used on personal computers.

The Excitement Of Android

I read a lot last week about Google’s new mobile phone initiative – Android. It’s not an actual phone, that much is perfectly clear. Instead, phones will be built on Android.

Android is a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications.

My current Samsung Blackjack runs on Windows Mobile 5. Android would perform that same function. There are many similar, though different, phones using WM5. I expect the same thing with Android.

Does the world need another mobile platform? Maybe not. But what makes Android so exciting and different is, it’s open source. That puts it in the same category as Linux, MySQL and Apache&#185.

In a video (see below), Google co-founder Sergey Brin makes it perfectly clear he wants Android to be supported by the same type of free software tools he used to get Google going! This time, in his role as super rich guy, he gets to be the one who pays to have them developed, then set free.

To that end, the Android SDK (Software Developers Kit) is open and free. The SDK is the tool with which Android applications will be developed. SDKs for platforms are pretty commonplace. Having them be open and free is not.

Finally, Google has offered a $10,000,000 bounty for Android software developers. That might not be enough to excite Microsoft or Motorola, but it will spark many propeller head geeks into action. That’s big money if you can write a killer app all by yourself, or in a small partnership.

This open source phone talk can’t be pleasing my cell carrier, at&t, or any of the other incumbent carriers. Their business model is predicated on control of both the network and the hardware you buy. Right now, they decide what you phone can do, not you.

Understand, this isn’t a perfect solution. Free and open software can lead to ‘crashed’ cellphones, with no one to take responsibility. Still, it’s a very exciting concept.

My limited time with the Blackjack has shown me the potential in the mobile platform. We’re barely out of the stone age. My hope is, Android takes it to the next step.

For someone like me, who still fancies himself a bit of a hacker, it’s pretty exciting. There’s a lot of upside potential here. This is actually better than if Google had just gone ahead and announced a phone!

&#185 – Even if Linux, MySQL and Apache mean nothing to you, understand that much of the Internet would stop running immediately without them! That includes Google, EBay, and a gaziilion other sites… including geofffox.com


Geoff The Spy

Like so many of us, as he upgraded his PC, my friend John&#185 didn’t know what to do with the old one. He had a relative, a grown man, with no computer, and John asked if I’d set him up with this old one.

This is something I’ve done dozens of times, and I almost always reinstall Windows. This time, I thought I’d try something a little different.

The end user wasn’t going to play games or work in multimedia. He was going to use the computer for web surfing and email. Instead of Windows, I installed Ubuntu Linux.

My thought is, this guy doesn’t know anything technical. Why saddle him with an operating system that’s got a bullseye on it, attractive to anyone writing spyware or viruses?

The install went flawlessly. I inserted the Ubuntu disk, answered a few questions (actually, John did all of this) and let the PC do its thing. The only bumps in the road had to do with installing Flash (I wish Ubuntu came with this already installed) and attempting to upgrade the video driver.

I rebooted after updating the driver and ended up with a blank screen! Damn you penguin. As has happened so often in the past, I had fixed the computer to the point of breaking it!

The bad video driver was quickly removed. John watched as I typed some cryptic commands into a text based terminal screen. One bad part of Ubuntu (and all Linux distributions) is, most people would be lost at this point with a dead PC! There are fewer ‘Geoff’s’ to call for technical assistance with this esoteric operating system.

John was pretty pleased (and hopefully his relative will be pleased too). The old computer is quite agile and more than beefy enough for its new assignment.

Refurbishing this computer was the purpose of his trip, but John brought more goodies with him. His wife’s company had thrown out some older laptops… which she then rescued from the trash. I could have one, but there was a problem. It was unusable!

The laptop, a very sweet Fujitsu Lifebook Series B subnotebook (a tiny laptop, perfect for traveling) had Windows 2000 installed and was password protected. The password kept me from getting to the programs and the lack of a CD drive kept me from installing a new operating system (like Linux) as a replacement.

In situations like this, I become obsessed.

The Fujitsu has only a USB external floppy drive. It was a comedy of errors as I realized none of my current home machines had floppies, plus I had no floppy disks. There was lots of ad libbing and part swapping to be done.

I scrounged the hardware, then headed to the net, trying to find a solution. Amazingly enough, there are simple single floppy programs which will read and then allow you to overwrite a password. I didn’t have to crack the code. I just inserted my password where the original had been.

I felt like a spy as the computer was now programmed to consider me the administrator.

This was great for me, but you have to worry about the level of protection built into today’s modern computers. In essence, Microsoft led the original owners to believe these laptops were under electronic lock and key. A guy in his pajamas sitting on the floor shouldn’t be able to crack open this laptop… but I did.

Before I went to bed, the laptop downloaded a few years worth of patches from the Microsoft site and was fitted with a wireless card.

This morning, I brought the machine downstairs and played with it a little while eating my breakfast. I was proud of my accomplishment.

“Why do you need another computer,” Helaine asked?

It’s an obsession I suppose. Some folks go nuts over shoes or jewelry or cars. For me, it’s wire and computers. Neither should ever be thrown out – ever.

&#185 – John’s friends call him “Big John.” He is a massive man, well over six feet tall. John’s heart is proportional to his height.

Windows Vista – Not Again

I went to do something on my laptop with Windows Vista last night and got shot down. This is starting to upset me.

It was a simple thing. I have a Bluetooth headset. I wanted to be able to use it with Skype or the ‘dictation’ feature of the operating system. I bought a cheap Bluetooth USB dongle&#185 and plugged it in. With shipping we’re talking $13, so this wasn’t a major investment.

In Windows XP, it would have worked flawlessly. In Vista, the driver installation failed. And, there is no other Vista driver for my device without paying more than the dongle itself cost!

This follows on the heels of my discovery either Dell or Microsoft turned off the ability to record directly from a WAV file or internal computer line input. Best example would be recording audio from a TV show I was watching on my laptop.

Again, in XP, this was built in and robust. Now, it’s gone.

When I read other comments about either of these two problems all I see is frustration from others. I guess that’s the WOW factor Microsoft was talking about.

&#185 – Hey, I don’t name this stuff.

Lighter Than Air

Dan Peterman, our copter pilot at work, always asks when I’ll be flying with him in his little Cessna? Today was the day.

His plane is nearly as old, and in better shape, than me!

Though his Cessna ‘lives’ at Chester Airport, Dan was out and about, so he picked me up at Robinson Aviation, on the East Haven side of Tweed – New Haven Airport.

Heading directly into 15 knots of wind, it only took a few hundred feet to lift off Runway 14. Dan’s plane, a tail dragger, first points skyward, then levels, then takes off. It’s a little odd.

It was a little bumpy today, but not too bad. We headed down the shoreline, up to Chester then to the two casinos. Turning south, we flew over the subs at Groton and then back to Tweed.

I had a little stick time. In many ways it’s like learning to drive a car. I held the wheel too tightly and attempted to correct for every bump – as a new driver would.

I’ve been talking about learning to fly. Maybe it’s time? The FAA has eased restrictions with the new sport pilot license… though I’m not sure if there are training facilities with the right equipment near me.

Here’s a shortened version of our little journey.

Note: You might have to click on the video player twice before it starts. I’m sure everyone at Microsoft has a good laugh over that.