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Showing posts from April, 2008

What’s in your wallet, basement,garage?

An article in Wired magazine entitled “Waste Management” hit too close to home the other day. A daughter was writing about the enormous collection of computers and related paraphernalia that her father collected. She and her brothers had to help him divest himself of the collection when his building was sold and he had to move. Sadly I see my self in this tawdry little tale. Admittedly I have little or not use for a multi node network at home. I was able to reluctantly get rid of my 25ppm, multi-tray, networked Lexmark laser. Like I really print that much. I am attempting to divest my self of other workable items. Craig’s List and Free Cycle have helped there. My hobby of recycling Pentium 3’s for the computer less is floundering at the moment due to a lack of operating systems. Thus my garage does look like a recycling center. Growing up in a home where you fixed things, you didn ’t trash them, makes it difficult to junk workable stuff. I guess this should be titled the confessions o...

Are you sure you’re Backed Up?

I had a guy out to clean the gutters the other day. He said he hadn't called me because he lost his entire customer data base. He is presently reconstrucing everything from old invoices and memory. His experience is not unique. Even if you don't run a business, think of the number of irreplaceable photos you have on your computer. There are no negatives to reconstruct those photos. A back up is crucial. In the event of a catastrophic failure, applications can be re-installed, hardware can be replaced but DATA that isn’t backed up is gone. Gone, as in, disappeared, never to be seen again. Even those of us who do back up: When was the last time you verified a backup? When was the last time you checked to see if there is any data on your backup? When was the last time you did a test restoration of your backup to see if it really works? “If you haven’t verified your backup system, then you may as well not bother backing up.” And even ...

The Analog To Digital TV Change Controversy

By now we have all been subjected ad nauseum to the controversy surrounding the change over. If you have had an opportunity to see broadcast digital quality then you will have no questions as to a major reason for the change over. Over the air broadcast quality is terrific with digital. The down side is if you have a weak signal you get nothing. With a weak analog signal you could watch the fuzzy picture until your eyeballs fragged out. Many a Steelers game I stood gently moving the rabbit ears to try and get any picture. Of course the freeing up of air wave space is also a big factor. Digital will allow a lot more information in a much small volume of space. Regardless of why, how does it affect you and me. I have way too many TVs, especially considering how little TV I watch. Now Comcast says they are going to continue their analog signal so I should be ok. If your cable company decides to cash in on converter boxes, then you could be hit for $60.00 for each and every TV you want to ...

Online Credit Card Protection

Being a bit paranoid, I was always nervous about putting my credit card information on line for purchases. I got a specific credit card with a low limit to protect myself. I only used that card for online purchases. Then the credit card company bumped up my low limit by a factor of 10 due to my paying my bills on time and defeated the whole purpose of lower liability. I know they claim you won’t be held responsible for more than $50, yadda, yadda. The folks who claim that are the same ones who hose over the poor schmuck that misses a payment and has his interest rate bumped so high that loan sharks would be ashamed. There is a surprisingly simple solution. Discover will provide you with a little popup program that assigns a unique credit card number each time you make an online purchase. That number is then specific for that online vendor. The number on the plastic card in your wallet is never used and thusly never exposed to online tampering. Plus the unique numbe...

S is for Silence by Sue Grafton

I have not read Sue Grafton’s books in order. Some of them I have liked a great deal and some have left me feeling so-so. I don’t know if this particular book veered from her style since I didn’t read the two prior to it. Bouncing back and forth from the 50’s to the present and presenting in depth looks at a wide range of characters could be confusing. I liked it and felt this book was a better effort than anything else she has done and that I have read. It is not one to make you stay up turning those pages but it provides moments of contemplation regarding the plot that are mentally stimulating. I liked it and recommend it.

Off The Chart by James W. Hall

SciFi is my first love but I find to keep some perspective on reality, I need to read other books. James W. Hall writes about as other as I can imagine. This guy writes a story that can keep you up at nights. Thorn, his main character in his books I have read*, is a dyed in the wool lone wolf. He makes lone wolves seem social. Thorn gets into bizarre situations and works his way through them. This particular book has a pirate focus. Interestingly enough, it drove me to the web to see how prevalent piracy is today. It is way more prevalent than I had a clue about. I love the web, it allows quick and easy research albeit often erroneous but still I love it. I am not real fond of reviews that provide too much detail on the book. I often don’t read the slip covers because I want to be surprised. Thorn shows he is growing and possibly maturing in this outing. I strongly recommend all of the following for a great read, sometimes a bit disturbing but nevertheless a great read. He also wrote “...

Any OS out there?

This is more of a request than a blog. I mentioned in an earlier blog that I refurbish used computers for donation purposes. I need OS for those computers. If you have any unused Win98 or newer operating systems that you are not using, would you like to donate them to a good cause? Legitimate only please. CD and activation code is needed. Why you may ask? I get computers from former clients and often combine the working resources from several boxes to make one box that can handle normal day to day activities. The computers have generally had their hard drives wiped which is a good thing to protect their former owner’s data. The wiping of the drive removes the operating system too. This presents some difficulties. The computers are basically just door stops without an operating system. I can put on free applications but outside of Linux there is no free OS. Since most of the recipients of the computers are not terribly computers literate I am reluctant to use Linux. ...

Computer Cleanup by CCleaner

Crap Cleaner is a registry cleaning tool. The following is from filehippo.com CCleaner (formerly Crap Cleaner) is a freeware system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused and temporary files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster, more efficiently and giving you more hard disk space. The best part is that it's fast! (normally taking less than a second to run) and Free. Cleans the following: Internet Explorer Cache, History, Cookies, Index.dat. Recycle Bin, Temporary files and Log files. Recently opened URLs and files. Third-party application temp files and recent file lists (MRUs). Including: Firefox, Opera, Media Player, eMule, Kazaa, Google Toolbar, Netscape, Office XP, Nero, Adobe Acrobat, WinRAR, WinAce, WinZip and more... Advanced Registry scanner and cleaner to remove unused and old entries. Including File Extensions, ActiveX Controls, ClassIDs, ProgIDs, Uninstallers, Shared DLLs, Fonts, Help Files, Application Paths, Icons, Invalid Shortcuts and more... ...