Book Reviews and Money Saving Tips

Microsoft has consistently produced operating systems we love to hate. Microsoft has brought ambivalence to a new height. The move from 95 to 98 seemed like a good move. The advent of ME seemed to reflect the dying throes of Atlantis. 2000 was good and after the initial bugs were bottled, XP has stood the test of use. I have no issues with Vista but apparently I am not main stream in that arena. Even Intel didn’t adopt Vista for internal use. Now we have Windows 7 or Vista rev.2 depending on your point of view. Is it the harbinger of the future or the death knell of Microsoft’s dominance? W7 claims to have solved all of Vista’s problems and added features. They will have a wealth of confusing versions which is always a down side. On the plus side, MS claims that the specifications for your hardware will be no more rigorous than for Vista. The device driver debacle may not occur since W7 claims to work with Vista drivers and even XP drivers. Note I will be using “claims” frequently sinc...

I have an LG Dare phone. I like the phone, the touch screen, the camera, the size, just about everything but the service. Verizon claims to have the best network, get service anywhere, except where I live, oh and except where my buddy Gerry lives too, about 5 miles away. I have actually yelled at the TV when the ubiquitous Verizon commercials appear. I’m not in the wilds of the Dakotas, I’m in suburban Bucks County, PA. I had an external antenna for my phone, two phones ago that worked fairly well. At least with the external antenna I could use my phone at home. It was not portable. I just finished reading two posts at ZDNet about someone returning an iPhone (gasp) because they loved the toy but hated the service. A contractor standing in my driveway last week pulled out his iPhone, bitched at it, about it and moaned over the service. He said his sister had returned hers within the 30 days and canceled the AT&T service. Obviously this isn’t a statistically sound study but it appear...

Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WIMAX) is the IEEE 802.16 standard. WIMAX when rolled out will supposedly offer 100megabits per second data transfer while mobile and 1gigabit data transfer while stationary. Wimax technology is 30 times faster than the third generation and 100 times faster than the wireless data rate. WIMAX claims to be able to offer broadband access at 31 miles instead of the 300 feet of Wi Fi. Grossly faster speed and wider range, what’s not to like. The most likely early enablers of WIMAX will be the 4G cell phone giants. WIMAX will truly enable the cell phone to replace the computer or the computer to replace the cell phone. WIMAX claims it will be priced competitively to current broadband providers. WIMAX will add a level of convenience to developed nations but for third world countries it will be nothing short of revolutionary. If the WIMAX forum can truly set interoperability standards and insure open architecture, a radically better communicatio...

Microsoft—The Never Ending Story of Frustration, Microsoft—The Never Ending Story of Frustration, wait, wait am I caught in a loop here? As far as why MS is frustrating, well every time I have to do a reinstall of something I bought and paid for and it is so laborious, I want to scream. This is referring to the crashed XP hard drive of a recent blog. If an end user falls in the Microsoft forest does anyone hear him? Also after an automatic MS update I had an older MS XP Multimedia system boot into a this must be verified before continuing screen. I say fine, verify, and it goes out to the Internet and says this system has been verified and it restarts and says this system must be verified and infinity loops. When the verify you’re legit thing came out, this system passed. (as it should have) Wonder what was in the automatic update that made a system that was running just fine go into loop de loops? I went to Microsoft’s site on an adjoining system and it told me to boot in safe ...

I recently had a system with XP Pro on it have the hard drive go south on me. I thought no sweat I had a Bounceback cloned hard drive I could just pop in and be up and going in no time. I have used Bounceback for a couple of years and I have easily restored lost files. This was the first time I tried using it for the claimed clone feature. Supposedly on your first backup of your c: drive you can identify that you want that backup to be a bootable copy of the c: drive. Well, I had done that and guess what didn’t work. Shame on me, all these years using Bounceback and I assumed(you know what that makes me) it worked without testing the main feature I purchased it for. Peeved would be the kindest thing I could say. Now I have moved that specific computer from office to home, three years ago and have no clue where the XP cd and key for that system is. I know, I should practice what I preach but I hadn’t planned on selling the business (got a good offer) and it was a fast transition. Luckil...

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.

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, a...

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...

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, US...

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 compet...