Ad-Aware Free Is Smart Protection

Once again, I feel obligated to strongly suggest that you protect your computer with not just anti-virus software but crapola protection as well. The often overwhelming deluge of crap that hits your computer daily needs to be addressed. Ad-Aware by Lava Soft seems to do very well catching the crap and asking if you would like to flush it. They update often and it plays nicely with others. I have had no software or systems conflicts with it. Check it out, there is a Free edition. Beware of sound alike and look alike competitors that are not Free.

Make That Computer More Secure

Brother John, not a monk, my actual brother recommended this site for doing a scan of your system vulnerabilities. Since he is in the business to keep peoples systems secure I suspect he knows what he is talking about. Click on Brother John to go to his site and click on Secunia to go to their site. This was not a paid blog, not even a beer from my brother.

Secunia

The Secunia Online Software Inspector, or short OSI, is a fast way to scan your PC for the most common programs and vulnerabilities, thus checking if your PC has a minimum security baseline against known patched vulnerabilities.

Use the Secunia OSI to get a feel for the Secunia Software Inspector technology, then upgrade to the Secunia PSI or CSI, which covers practically all programs on your PC, whereas the OSI checks less than 100 programs.

Feature Overview:

* Detects insecure versions of common/popular programs installed on your PC
* Verifies that all Microsoft patches are applied
* Assists you in updating, patching, and protecting your PC
* Activates additional security features in Sun Java
* Runs through your browser. No installation or download is required
* If you run the Secunia PSI or CSI - then you're already covered

And Airlines Wonder Why People Hate Them

Last January I flew to Florida and back on U.S. Air. It was a dismal trip, shafted on seating, luggage and customer service. I vowed never to fly again. Well, I want to visit family in California. I am in Pennsylvania. Do the math, I don’t want to spend the summer driving there so I was going to try and fly. I found a flight at a time and price I was satisfied with on Orbitz. I called to verify availability of my grandson for the times and was assured he was cool. I clicked on the fare at Orbitz and got a message saying due to high travel demands that flight was no longer available. Of course, they presented a variety of alternatives, oddly enough none cheaper, all more expensive and most far more expensive. It is probably just a touch of cynicism to think that bait and switch is alive and well.

It seems like anything to do with air travel is fraught with peril. I am so disgusted I will probably just forget it. If travel sites and airlines would just make even a modicum of effort to be honest and forthright perhaps more people would travel. Of course the likelihood of that occurring is somewhat akin to my actually getting the flight at the times and price that I was originally quoted at Orbitz. Realistically between the cost of luggage and water let alone the pay toilets on the plane, I probably couldn’t afford it anyway.

ASUS 160GB Notebook XP Home $249.00, No Contract!

No contract, you see a lot of NETbooks advertised by cellular carries that will give you the same price if you promise your first born and sign up for the life span of 52 fruit flies. (2 years) Most of the NETbooks only come with flash drives for storage. This puppy has a full fledged 160gb hard drive and is priced less than what I paid for just a160gh hard drives when they first came out. I have not tried this unit but if I was in the market, I sure would be looking at it.

Make sure you shop around, the $249.00 is at Target but who knows where else and what price you can get it for today. This pricing is just CRAZY, but I love it.
Features
10" Notebook Computer with WSVGA LCD Display and 1024x600 Pixel Resolution
Loaded with Windows XP Home, 160GB Hard Drive Capacity, Serial ATA Hard Drive Interface and 1GB DDR2, SO DIMM Memory
900 MHz Intel Celeron 353 Processor
Built-In SD High Capacity Card Slot, Secure Digital Card Slot, MultiMediaCard (MMC)
Line-In Jack, Memory Card Slot, USB 2.0, Headphone Jack, Microphone Jack, Ethernet Port, RJ-45 Port, Audio Jack, 3 USB Ports
802.11b/g Wireless Connectivity , 10/100/1000 Ethernet LAN Network Card
Intel UMA Graphics Card
Internet Browser, Built-In Microphone, Instant Messaging, E-Mail Capabilities
Software Included: Microsoft Works 9.0, Microsoft Live, Sun StarOffice, Free-Trial Anti-Virus Software, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Internet Explorer
Also Includes Power Adapter, Battery, Operating Instructions
Features Up To 5 Hours of Battery Life
Also Features 1.3 Mega-Pixel Webcam
10.47 x 7.53 x 1.12 "; 3.09 Lb.
6-Month Warranty on Battery, 1-yr. Warranty

Solar Power Is Alive and Well With Infinia

I recently was regaled with a tale that smacked of science fiction, a 16 foot dish style solar concentrator hooked up to a Stirling Engine that generates 3000 watts. I was fascinated with the tale and had to do some research to check it out. Wickipedia defines a Stirling engine is a device that converts heat energy into mechanical power by alternately compressing and expanding a fixed quantity of air or other gas (the working fluid) at different temperatures. The Stirling engine has been around since 1816. Since I am a computer geek and not an engineer, this is the first I’ve heard of it.

Infinia has combined a solar concentrator to generate the heat to run their Stirling engine which then runs a generator. The solar concentrator is so effective it is rumored to generate over 1500 degrees Fahrenheit. You don’t need transmission lines, water, boilers or any of the paraphernalia that is usually needed when generating electricity. It is quiet and substantially more efficient than competitive technologies. Another unsubstantiated rumor is that the 3KW generator can be had for under $20,000.00. At this point, you can’t run out and buy one for your home but with all the “green initiatives”, we can hope that a home unit will be coming in the not too distant future. Wow, to get off the grid, would that be cool and saving money at the same time. Watch the Infinia video here or on YouTube.

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Drop by, read the review, make your comment and sit back and hope you win. Contest will begin on June 29, 2009 and end on July 6, 2009.

A Technology Lament/Rant

We saw Angels and Demons, very good movie, do not expect to lie back leisurely and watch, it is an edge of your seat kind of movie. Afterward the couple we were with suggested dinner and we ended up on an outdoor patio shouting over the unnecessarily loud music and the most definitely loud children nearby. Ger proceeded to tell me how much trouble he had hooking up his new TV and then hooking digital converter boxes to his old TVs. It was far more trouble that it should have been. I treated him to the story of my hooking up my new TV.

Since I have the DVD burner/player, TIVO, external speakers with subwoofer, cable box and computer all hooked to the TV the wires and the small holes they were supposed to go through in the cabinet provided the first difficulties. After taming the wire snarl I proceeded to set up the new cable box. My old cable box would not do high definition and since that was one of the reasons I got a new TV I called Comcast to find out how to get the new box. First phone call told me I couldn’t get a new box since I was under contract on my Triple Play. Second phone call told me I could upgrade and it would be $8.00 more than my current Triple Play price. Third phone call it would be $14.00 more than my original Triple play price. (Eventually they charged me $30.00 more and I had to call and get them down to the $14 they had quoted.) I agreed to go to my local Comcast office to pick up the new box and return the old box. Now I was trying to configure the new box which went smoothly for normal TV. However I was not getting any of the HD channels. I could not get to the programming screen following any of the instructions in the manual. Finally after way too long fighting with it, due to my stubborn insistence that I am tech savvy and I should be able to figure this out, I called Comcast. The tech I spoke to told me to hold one button down on the remote and simultaneously hit another button twice and I would get the programming screen. I asked where that was in the manual and he said, “Oh, it isn’t in the manual, you just have to know it.”

I then proceeded to the programming screen and discovered after 5 more phone calls and comments like, “yeah, the manual is wrong about that, do this” on the sixth call the tech said, “we need to send somebody out.”

The tech that showed up was very nice, very professional. He took one look at the box, after I explained my problem, and said, “Where did you get that box?” I told him I had picked it up at the local office and he commented, “ Geez, they shouldn’t be giving those out anymore, we’ve had nothing but problems with that box. “ He went out to his truck, came back with a different box, hooked it up and Viola I had the high definition channels.

Now here is another situation that just shouldn’t have been that hard. If I had been given the correct HD box in the first place, I wouldn’t have needed a service call. Technology doesn’t need to be mysterious or difficult. Most frequently it is made difficult by poor business practices or lack of concern over the customer’s time and the companies’ money. I’m guessing that the service call cost Comcast at least $75.00 plus the six calls I made to tech support had to cost at least $20 per call. So by giving out a box that was known to be defective, Comcast lost roughly $200.00. I lost 5 or 6 hours of time and some more of my already dismally limited hair.

Alvin Toffler’s book, “Future Shock” was published in 1970 and his succinct definition of the title was, “too much change in too short a period of time.”
39 years later, change is certainly not slowing down. In my age group, I find that my love for technology is not shared very often. Primarily due to the implementation difficulties demonstrated by the examples above most people over 50 don’t like technological changes.

Is there a solution?

A plea to manufactures to try harder to make sure manuals are correct would help. If problems are discovered, add an insert noting the fix for the problems or direct people to a web site with a correct manual.

Pull problem products immediately. Don’t continue to distribute them knowing they are flawed.

I’m sure anyone reading this can come up with dozens of ways to make technological implementation less stressful

Why manufactures don’t implement those ideas is beyond me, this rant isn’t going to solve the problem but it does make me feel just a touch better.