Book Reviews and Money Saving Tips

There is an interesting thing about some of the free software being offered at Cnet and Zdnet. It’s not so free anymore. You don’t have to pay a fee but even at these “reputable” sites you may not be getting a fee but you are getting the shaft. ZDNet’s Download Digest and cnet both recommend Glary Registry Repair 3.1.0.800. I read the description and thought it was worth testing. I downloaded it smoothly from ZDNet, I tried downloading it from cnet and it dragged and dragged and I finally stopped the download. Don’t know what was wrong with cnet. I went to install it and it brings up the ubiquitous license screen. If you aren’t careful and if you don’t read the screen carefully, you not only get Glary installed, you get the Ask toolbar, Ask is set as your default search screen and other crap is loaded as well. I canceled installation and deleted the software from my system. Free or Freeware is not an appropriate term if they are going to be reaping financial benefits b...

Back in July, Amazon made news by reaching out and touching their Kindles. It was a bad touch. Amazon claims they inadvertently sold a e-copy of George Orwell’s “1984” from a vendor who was not legitimately allowed to sell it. Rather than pony up the money to the appropriate vendor or publicizing an “oops”, Amazon reached out and deleted the book off of the Kindles. Oddly enough the irony of an Orwellian response to a problem didn’t seem to compute to the folks at Amazon. If they had shipped a hard copy book to all of the same buyers of “1984” and performed a physical storm trooper assault on peoples homes to get the book and burn it, there would be bodies everywhere. The key here is hard copy vs. e-copy. Digital Rights Management means you really never own something you are only borrowing it for a stated time period. Incidentally Amazon saw that they made an incredibly stupid (Obama’s descriptive word on Cambridge Cops, not mine.) mistake and promised it won’t happen again. If I was a...

I find it interesting that US Air is touting their addition of WiFi as something to brag about. They haven’t flatly stated they are going to charge for use of the WiFi. Come on, these are the people who are charging for luggage, adding on fuel surcharges well after the price of oil has dropped, who charges for water and if you were on fire, would probably charge you for the use of a fire extinguisher. (Note, I know fire isn’t funny but this is an expression of sarcasm in the midst of a lament over a sad loss of customer service.) U S Air may find that their formerly loyal passengers can not be dissuaded from trying to find a friendly sky by adding WiFi. Perhaps adding some concern for passengers, treating them with dignity, adding a modicum of customer support and stop acting like a monopoly could get some of us to return to U S Air. I doubt it, they are trapped in the downward spiral of diminishing services with rising prices that most of the other airlines are exhibiting with...

I still haven’t broken down and purchased a GPS. I have researched and studied them a great deal. I like the ones that say the street name. Instead of saying turn left in 200 yards, they say turn left on Jersey Drive in 200 yards. I feel more comfortable having the street confirmed. I also like the feature that tells you what lane to be in when making turns or taking exits. Think about the number of times you have been in a strange place and discover the 18 wheeler beside you blocked the sign that said exit on the left and now you have 5 lanes to cross to get you your exit and suddenly it is too late and you are in New Jersey and you really didn’t want to got to New Jersey and there is a toll to get back to Pennsylvania and why is it free to leave PA and go to Jersey but if you want to get back to PA from Jersey they charge you? (Yes it is run on but it most aptly describes the feeling of a moment) Traffic alerts are a cool feature too. I dread driving around Washington, D.C. Seems lik...

I spend a lot of time in front of one of my computers. I feel the time is spent wisely and frugally. There are those in my life who have suggested that obsessive is a more apt description of the time I put in on the computer. I do have a life beyond my desk. I am a doting grandparent. Doting as to love to hang out with them as opposed to doting, I can barely walk. I on occasion frequent the links and pare my insufferable ego down to a bare minimum. My Ryobi 18Volt tool case is my friend and I have been known to use the tools in it with a minimum amount of personal injury. I even once parked my fanny in an inflatable boat in the pool and read for an hour. Here is my supposition, for all of the time I spend in front of the computer I do have a life beyond it. Either there are many people who have absolutely no life beyond the computer what so ever or….they are time travelers. Think about how often you see some people post on whatever site you frequent. They post 10 times a day and you se...

The following is from AARP. Being an old guy, I am a member in good standing of AARP. I don’t always agree with everything the organization supports but I have never caught them lying to me. Sadly I can’t say that about either political party. Health care reform has become a political issue which denigrates its imperative necessity. “Swift Boating” has become a popular tool to discredit anything the demagogues disagree with. The louder and harder you lie, the more people fall prey to your lies. Oddly enough the “big lie” was a popular tool of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi) and that party name is being used as a club against those who support health care reform. This issue has become emotional and has attracted the emotionally unstable to become vocally bombastic. Getting away from the emotional rhetoric, I pay a bunch of money each month for very basic insurance. It is expensive but necessary. Key here is that I can afford it. Way too many people can...

Windows Security Suite is another piece of crapware floating out there. My daughter's laptop was infected with that insidious piece of trash. It is put out by one of those sleazy companies that infect your system and then want you to buy their software to clean off the infection they gave you. Somehow it got by Ad-Aware and AVG. I updated her Ad-Aware and it still didn't get it. I ran CCCleaner and that didn't get it. Finally I downloaded SpyBot-Search and Destroy. That nailed the sneaky little creep. Of course some other sleazeball will come up with a new one. Luckily there is some justice, a local sleaze merchant was busted and indicted for exactly this scam. Infect the system and then sell the cleaning tool. It was nice to know that he went to jail. Here is hoping that more of these computer vandals are hoisted on their own petards. I always liked that little turn of phrase, it seems so painful. Bottom line Spybot-Search and Destroy worked. I guess it is time for me to d...

First of all what were the wizards at MS thinking when they brought out ie8. Ok, I am not about to go into all of the issues that are making me wish I had never moved from IE7 to IE8, there are plenty of other blogs writing about that. I am just going to express surprise that once more Microsoft has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. MS has a captive market, a huge number of users and they continue to do their best to drive them away. One hand is bringing out new stuff like Bing while the other is driving away droves of existing clients by pushing out buggy revisions. I will hazard an unscientific guess that I have seen at least twice as many “not responding” messages with ie8 and I saw with ie7. The cute feature of “your session has expired unexpectedly would you like to reopen” will continue to reopen to whatever problem shut it down in the first place. Plus it is slow, very slow to use. Don’t get me started on the “this script yada yada” messages that pop up so frequently. Fi...

My Other Blog Got An Award Sounds reminiscent of the bumper sticker, my other car doesn’t blow oil. I write a book blog too. After 25 years in the computer business I still love tech but I have been reading books longer than that, a lot longer. Now I am writing books and amazingly my first book, “I Like To Whine” is selling. One day soon, the royalties may amount to enough to go out to dinner. I try and keep this venue tech oriented with the occasional philosophic murmur. So drop by Pick of the Literate and check out my alter ego and see the Kreativ Blogger Award I have won.

I just read a ZDNet Blog about Jason Perlow’s experience with HP tech support and his deceased laptop. Click on ZDNet link if you want the details. After reading the blog I read many of the 189 comments. (Oh, if I could get that kind of response.) It was interesting that some folks thought Perlow was unreasonable. Some thought he was bigoted regarding outsourced tech support when he expressed concern about understanding the use of English as a second language. Our zealotry for political correctness knows no bounds when a guy verbalizes concerns about understanding technical issues when handicapped by an inability to translate through a dialect. I don’t care where the technical support may be outsourced; a REQUIREMENT should be a clear speaking and understanding of whatever language the customer is using. That’s not bigotry or rocket science it is plain common sense. After 25 years in the computer business, I was hardly surprised when HP stiff armed Perlow on his laptop. Wh...