Google is the obvious first choice when looking for help online; being sure of course to measure the information against the source. Example: While Wikipedia is a great source for information, don’t go into the classroom (or courtroom for that matter,) and list it as your source. This month Cameron talks about a couple of other good ways to find the information you need online.
The internet is often referred to as a great tool for learning, but in my experience it is highly underutilized in this capacity. I think the biggest cause of this is that it’s not always easy to find the information we need. There are tons of user groups and information databases out there. Some are free and some are not, but most require some form of membership to get full access. This usually means I have to join someone’s mailing list just to wade through tons of information just to get the answer I need, if it’s there at all. Of late, I’ve gotten to the point I’m fed up with user groups. They do have some merit but ultimately don’t work for me outside of software.
The first site to check out is Wolfram Alpha (http://www.wolframalpha.com/). It’s a new site with a great concept and design: You pose a question or subject and it returns more information than you’ll ever want. It was started by Stephen Wolfram for the purpose of making the knowledge of the entire planet computable. An example of this can be found in Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. A computer was built to answer the meaning of life, and that answer is 42. If you watch the introduction video, you’ll see that the GDP of France compared to Italy returns the same kind of answer, but also includes nice graphs and related topics such as a breakdown of each country’s GDP. This website is a wealth of knowledge on everything from weather to politics to everything mathematical. It’s well worth keeping on your favorites list.
Wolframalpha is a great research tool, but what if you need instructions on how to perform a task? Say, for instance, that you need to install a transmission in a 1995 Saturn and you’ve never installed one before. YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/) is the place to go. You can get video tutorials, usually with commentary/instructions, for absolutely free. For all of the weird, crazy, and just plain dumb things you can find on YouTube, it has become my go to for tutorials on anything hands on. I’m a hobby musician and find it a great resource for using software or learning new techniques. You can also learn to solder a circuit board or renovate a house through this site. Many of these videos are posted to help sell more complete tutorials offered by their creators, but they’re useful nonetheless.
So, before you spend your hard-earned money buying books that will be used once try these two sites. Reading seems to be losing ground among my generation thanks to technology, but that doesn’t mean we have to stop learning.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
The heartbreak of Vista.
Cameron Speed - Ellington I.T.
This is Cameron's first blog post. DE
I get a lot of questions about Vista, even now after two years after its release. The main question is whether I like it or not. The answer is NO. That’s not to say it’s all bad…I like the way the start menu is configured, having the folders work like the favorites window in IE 7. Certain small details of the interface almost feel like a MAC, but this doesn’t add up to a great product.
When I give my response to this question I’m invariably asked to explain why I don’t like Vista. My answer has three parts: I don’t like being forced into anything-much less an operating system, I like having the control of configuration, and the performance ultimately is not acceptable.
Microsoft has proven over the years that, as a company, it knows how to make money. The company started roughly 20 years ago, and has since become one of the largest companies in the software field. Not only that, it dominates and controls the software market in ways that no other company can. Think about this: It was estimated about five years ago that 95 percent of the world’s computers were running some form of Windows. Name one company that can touch this kind of real world user market share. With this kind of power to play with, Microsoft has essentially forced Vista upon consumers and businesses alike. It has gotten to the point that to get XP on a computer one must buy online with VERY limited selection, buy a system directly from a vendor and actually purchase a Vista license while having XP preinstalled, or build a system from scratch. Now, building a system from scratch is fine if I want a desktop but what if I want a laptop. My customers are buying laptops noticeably more than desktops, at rate of at least 3 to 1. Sure I can buy a Vista system and downgrade it, but I have no support from the manufacturer what so ever. I can’t even get reliable drivers for XP unless the system was sold with XP preloaded. This is essentially forcing Vista, albeit in an arguably passive manner. I can accept that the sky is blue and the grass is green, but do I really just have to accept this?
Also, think back to Windows 2000. Sure it was not widely accepted over 98 when it came out, but that was mainly a consumer issue. As a side note, NT came first but was not a consumer product. It was strictly a corporate setup. So back to Windows 2000: Businesses loved it, they just had to learn it. For the first time Windows really had security and it was amazingly versatile. Anything was adjustable. Granted, a lot of the adjustments were hard to find or just plain hidden but the internet was really spreading, making these tweaks and customizations easier to understand and perform. The internet was easy to lock down, files were easy to encrypt, RAM was easy to manage, and a console was even available for startup processes. User rights were even applied and maintained fairly easily, and they worked. Now, all of this was not unheard of on a corporate level using NT, but now consumer, e.g. parents had these options. XP heralded a new era, and with it the customization was still there but lessened. The internet was not as easy to lock down without third party software and user rights were simply determined by the choice of administrator or user, with little else to configure. Vista has not improved this situation. Instead it continues the trend of A or B with no in between.
Finally, performance has been a big topic regarding Vista. Additions such as ReadyBoot and SuperPrefetch are nice on paper, but in the real world it simply adds more to the system load and ultimately cancels out the boost that they are designed to give. I will concede that the hardware is not as equal as it once was. CPU’s, GPU’s, and motherboard throughput have continued to speed up at amazing rates while the speeds of hard drives and optical drives have not improved in performance at a similar rate. However, the additions aforementioned along with others in Vista are simply adding to the overall tax of the hardware and not improving it. Think of it like opening a door. If I want to open a door the first thing I do is turn the knob and push or pull. If the door is unlocked then it opens. This can be equated to older operating systems such as 98 and 2000. If the door is locked then I must find the key, insert the key and turn, pull the key out, and open the door. It’s the same door, it’s just locked. This is the effect of Vista, with all of its new features to deal with hardware (the door), and it doesn’t work. The field test for this is downgrading a Vista system to XP. It always seems to run faster. To further add to the performance issue are the security features built into Vista. Viruses, malware, and malicious code are outpacing the growth of any other type of software in existence. As such, Microsoft tried to lock down Vista better than XP had been. The end result is at least one message popping up asking me if I am sure I want to do that, followed by at least one more message asking me if I’m really sure I want to do that. This is not only annoying, but slows my work flow down. Not only that, but now I’m frustrated with my computer which means I’m more likely to get less work done. A happy employee is a productive one.
So, ultimately Vista has failed in my eyes. I watched it start out as Longhorn, which was scrapped, followed by multiple other projects that were scrapped. In the end, the final product was an amalgamation of scrapped projects that slowed my system down, frustrated me endlessly, and didn’t even have the decency to let me lock it down so that my kids could use it without spending more money to buy third party products that slowed my system down even more.
Friday, October 03, 2008
12 Things the computer guy does/does not want you to know.
Originally this post was to be titled, Top 12 things your computer guy wants you to know, but then we realized that these tips fell into two categories, the things that good computer guys wanted you to know, and bad computer guys don't want you to know. So here by request is our first edition list of things that we want you to know, but THEY may not.
Part 1: At home
1. Hard drives are terribly unreliable. BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP! There are many easy ways to protect your files. Get a Gmail account and email important documents to yourself. Burn family pictures to DVD and put them somewhere other than your house. Hard drives fail, sometimes for no reason and it is not always possible to get your data back even if money is no object. If you hear your drive making strange noises or clicking, get it to a computer guy immediately. They call it the Click O’ Death for a reason.
2. Never pay for a Spyware or Antivirus program that suddenly shows up, says you have an infection and demands money. It is already too late and paying them will not get your system fixed. Read dialog boxes before you click on them, know what you are agreeing to when one pops up.
3. Never put personal or compromising information on a MySpace or FaceBook page and always keep your profile private. ANYTHING that you put on Myspace, might as well be on CNN. Also, realize that most of the Spyware that people are getting now come from the code embedded in the free MySpace layouts that people put on their pages.
4. It is never legal to login to another person's email or MySpace page, etc without their explicit permission. Even if it is your spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend. It is a crime and those sites keep track of where people login from. Also, it is only legal to record/monitor in real time the computer activities of a person if they are your kid. You can monitor your employees but you have to warn them. It is the same as recording someones phone calls and can be a felony. Putting a keylogger or spy program on your own computer and letting someone use it without warning them is a crime as well.
5. Don’t be that guy. Before you forward any email virus warning/ unreported political bombshell or cute greeting card take a minute to go to http://snopes.com/ and check it out. Save yourself from spreading untruths and looking like a moron.
6. Realize when you call product tech support, Dell or whomever, their job is not to solve your problem. Their job is to get you off the phone as fast as possible. Phone support people (in India or wherever) get paid on how many calls they answer a day, NOT on how many problems they solve. This is why they will give you something to try and then rush you off the phone telling you to call back if that doesn't work. You will probably have to call back, but you will get a different support rep and they have now gotten credit for a call. Furthermore, they are penalized for allowing returns or warranty repairs even if those repairs are legitimate. Remember that many times the person you are talking to has never actually used or seen the product in question. They have a book in front of them that may contain only slightly more information than the user manual. Understanding this, the way to get things accomplished have a good idea of what the problem is, what you have already tried to do, what you need from them and be concise in your descriptions. Be firm and polite and don't be afraid to make the person stay on the phone while you do the steps that they have suggested. It is a good idea to check Google first to see if other people have reported the same problem as well. Many times a company will deny there is a problem with their products but you will find hundreds of complaints online if you check.
Part 2: In the Store
1. Retail computer sales people typically have absolutely no idea what they are talking about and will lie to you to make you think they do. If you do not have a tech you trust, pick up a PC magazine or spend some time on the web. Realize that sales guys will tell you anything to get you to buy something from them. Do your research, ask the questions and then do more research.
2. Vista is as bad or worse than you have heard and most of the troubles people are having can’t be fixed or worked around. You can still get Windows XP on systems, you just have to know where to go and how to ask.
3. Yes Macs are great, but the software is more expensive and harder to copy so borrowing your friend's copy of Photoshop isn’t going to work.
4. Buy Extend Warranties ONLY on laptops and ONLY if they cover accidental damage. Buyback/tech assurance plans like Tech Forward are rip-offs. Do the math and it doesn't make sense.
5. Rebates are like grocery store loyalty cards, often times they raise the prices to make you think the rebate constitutes a savings. Never buy a product based on the rebate price. Rebates should be considered a bonus, not a discount. It is often times very difficult to actually get your rebate, they are most often a scam. People don’t realize that vendors will only give you one rebate per address /receipt regardless of how many you buy. Thinking of getting a couple new monitors for the office because of a rebate price? You will only get the rebate on the first one, and pay full or higher prices on the rest of them. Oh, and the big reason why stores require you to cut out the UPC and send the original receipt with your rebate form is that once you send off for the rebate, it makes returning the product next to impossible.
6. Never take your computer to a tech shop (Geek Squad, Firedog etc.) if you have data that you are concerned may be lost or compromised. Just as you wouldn’t leave cash on your dashboard at Jiffy Lube, realize that combining personal files and bored computer techs is asking for trouble. Retail techs actually have website where they post the things they find on peoples computers. They will look through your data and they will justify it as an obligation to make sure there is no illegal activity. They will copy your music and steal your pictures. If there is any compromising images they will end up on the Internet. Find a tech you know personally and can trust.
Bonus 6b. Oh, and if you are doing illegal things and try to use special programs to securely delete files from your computer, the files may or may not be gone, but investigators will be able to tell you cleaned it. Everything leaves a trace, everything is recorded, everything is logged.
There you have our first list of 12 things the computer guy does/does not want you to know. Please email us with comments or use the comment feature of this Blog to let us know what you think, and as always, if you have any questions please feel free to email us. :)
Part 1: At home
1. Hard drives are terribly unreliable. BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP! There are many easy ways to protect your files. Get a Gmail account and email important documents to yourself. Burn family pictures to DVD and put them somewhere other than your house. Hard drives fail, sometimes for no reason and it is not always possible to get your data back even if money is no object. If you hear your drive making strange noises or clicking, get it to a computer guy immediately. They call it the Click O’ Death for a reason.
2. Never pay for a Spyware or Antivirus program that suddenly shows up, says you have an infection and demands money. It is already too late and paying them will not get your system fixed. Read dialog boxes before you click on them, know what you are agreeing to when one pops up.
3. Never put personal or compromising information on a MySpace or FaceBook page and always keep your profile private. ANYTHING that you put on Myspace, might as well be on CNN. Also, realize that most of the Spyware that people are getting now come from the code embedded in the free MySpace layouts that people put on their pages.
4. It is never legal to login to another person's email or MySpace page, etc without their explicit permission. Even if it is your spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend. It is a crime and those sites keep track of where people login from. Also, it is only legal to record/monitor in real time the computer activities of a person if they are your kid. You can monitor your employees but you have to warn them. It is the same as recording someones phone calls and can be a felony. Putting a keylogger or spy program on your own computer and letting someone use it without warning them is a crime as well.
5. Don’t be that guy. Before you forward any email virus warning/ unreported political bombshell or cute greeting card take a minute to go to http://snopes.com/ and check it out. Save yourself from spreading untruths and looking like a moron.
6. Realize when you call product tech support, Dell or whomever, their job is not to solve your problem. Their job is to get you off the phone as fast as possible. Phone support people (in India or wherever) get paid on how many calls they answer a day, NOT on how many problems they solve. This is why they will give you something to try and then rush you off the phone telling you to call back if that doesn't work. You will probably have to call back, but you will get a different support rep and they have now gotten credit for a call. Furthermore, they are penalized for allowing returns or warranty repairs even if those repairs are legitimate. Remember that many times the person you are talking to has never actually used or seen the product in question. They have a book in front of them that may contain only slightly more information than the user manual. Understanding this, the way to get things accomplished have a good idea of what the problem is, what you have already tried to do, what you need from them and be concise in your descriptions. Be firm and polite and don't be afraid to make the person stay on the phone while you do the steps that they have suggested. It is a good idea to check Google first to see if other people have reported the same problem as well. Many times a company will deny there is a problem with their products but you will find hundreds of complaints online if you check.
Part 2: In the Store
1. Retail computer sales people typically have absolutely no idea what they are talking about and will lie to you to make you think they do. If you do not have a tech you trust, pick up a PC magazine or spend some time on the web. Realize that sales guys will tell you anything to get you to buy something from them. Do your research, ask the questions and then do more research.
2. Vista is as bad or worse than you have heard and most of the troubles people are having can’t be fixed or worked around. You can still get Windows XP on systems, you just have to know where to go and how to ask.
3. Yes Macs are great, but the software is more expensive and harder to copy so borrowing your friend's copy of Photoshop isn’t going to work.
4. Buy Extend Warranties ONLY on laptops and ONLY if they cover accidental damage. Buyback/tech assurance plans like Tech Forward are rip-offs. Do the math and it doesn't make sense.
5. Rebates are like grocery store loyalty cards, often times they raise the prices to make you think the rebate constitutes a savings. Never buy a product based on the rebate price. Rebates should be considered a bonus, not a discount. It is often times very difficult to actually get your rebate, they are most often a scam. People don’t realize that vendors will only give you one rebate per address /receipt regardless of how many you buy. Thinking of getting a couple new monitors for the office because of a rebate price? You will only get the rebate on the first one, and pay full or higher prices on the rest of them. Oh, and the big reason why stores require you to cut out the UPC and send the original receipt with your rebate form is that once you send off for the rebate, it makes returning the product next to impossible.
6. Never take your computer to a tech shop (Geek Squad, Firedog etc.) if you have data that you are concerned may be lost or compromised. Just as you wouldn’t leave cash on your dashboard at Jiffy Lube, realize that combining personal files and bored computer techs is asking for trouble. Retail techs actually have website where they post the things they find on peoples computers. They will look through your data and they will justify it as an obligation to make sure there is no illegal activity. They will copy your music and steal your pictures. If there is any compromising images they will end up on the Internet. Find a tech you know personally and can trust.
Bonus 6b. Oh, and if you are doing illegal things and try to use special programs to securely delete files from your computer, the files may or may not be gone, but investigators will be able to tell you cleaned it. Everything leaves a trace, everything is recorded, everything is logged.
There you have our first list of 12 things the computer guy does/does not want you to know. Please email us with comments or use the comment feature of this Blog to let us know what you think, and as always, if you have any questions please feel free to email us. :)
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Understanding the Vista to XP downgrade.
First and foremost we strongly recommend against buying a computer with Microsoft Vista. It is our experience that the average user will be unhappy at best and totally frustrated at worst. That is if Vista will actually work with their existing hardware and software. Keep in mind if you buy a system with Vista, and decide to install XP, most computer vendors will not provide you with software tech support, in some cases the systems will not have XP drivers available. The best bet is to buy a computer with Xp. It is the most stable and compatible windows system and will be available and supported for a long time.
That said, If you purchase a new desktop or laptop computer preloaded with Microsoft Vista and decide that you wish to go back to XP you have only a couple options and in most cases they are not free.
There are 3 different versions of Vista; Home, Business and Ultimate.
If you bought Vista Business or Ultimate and decided you don’t like it or it isn’t compatible Microsoft is offering an option where if a friend of yours has a key for XP Pro that has already been used. . they will allow that key to be activated again in order to let you install it on your computer in place of Vista. You must not have activated the copy of Vista that you have, and there is confusion over whether you lose the rights to that Vista license in the future.
Now, if you are like the millions of regular people and small businesses that bought a Vista computer with “Vista Home,” according to Microsoft you are stuck with it. They only offer the suggestion that you spend $189 for a retail copy of XP Home and then install the software yourself.
Vista is not user friendly, it makes simple tasks take longer, it has lots of networking and compatibility bugs and is a nightmare to support. Yet if you are going to buy a new computer, and you don’t buy an XP system, you need to be prepared to use Vista or pay the “Microsoft tax” to go back to XP. There are a lot of retailers like TigerDirect and Dell that make it easy to buy XP systems.
You can find copies of XP home for less than the $189 retail price. Locally and online TigerDirect and Intrex sell XP Home for around $100. If you planning on using this computer in a domain or client server type setup you will need XP Pro that runs about $140. Regularly $299. (Best Buy also sells an XP home upgrade that will work for $100.) Because Xp activates you must have a license for Xp that is new, or has not been used a lot. It is possible to buy one copy of XP Home and use the license to downgrade 2 or 3 computer. This is technically possible though against the terms of the licensing agreement.
In most cases it will take about 2 to 3 hours to wipe Vista off of the system and install XP. This includes installing drivers for all of the hardware and depending upon the manufacturer the device drivers can be hard to find. Some companies don’t have the XP drivers on their support site and you have to track down the original hardware company to find the drivers.
As you might imagine we have been inundated with requests for Vista downgrades and have tried our best to accommodate everyone, however in order to do this we need to institute a fixed fee for downgrading Vista to XP.
The cost to downgrade a Vista system is $200 labor plus the cost of the operating system. XP Home would be $300 for example. If you provide your own usable XP home license then you do not need to pay for the license. If you have an old computer that came with XP home (or pro) in some cases that license can be reused.
In the long run the downgrade to XP is worth it. You will have less problems, more compatibility and more security long term if you go that route now. In fact Microsoft support for XP will run through at least 2014 and by that time there will be other options.
Many people have mixed feelings about whether the monopoly that Microsoft has over the desktop operating systems is good or bad or even fair. This is an example of what happens when a company interprets a monopoly to mean that they can abandon the best interests of the consumers in order to further the bottom line. Why Vista? Microsoft felt that a “new” operating system would boost sales and increase profits. When consultants like ourselves pointed out the technical problems that consumers would have Microsoft called those our “Opportunities to increase value to the customer.” In other words if the software stinks, it will make more work for the IT guys.
When Microsoft first launched Windows 95 back in 1995 the systems gave the buyer the option of picking the system that they wanted on their computer at first boot. They could choose at that time whether to use Windows 3.1 or Windows 95. The computer would then set itself up based on the customers choice. Microsoft could have easily implemented the same system in the first year of Vista systems but the flexibility of the consumers was not that important to one of the biggest companies on the planet.
That said, If you purchase a new desktop or laptop computer preloaded with Microsoft Vista and decide that you wish to go back to XP you have only a couple options and in most cases they are not free.
There are 3 different versions of Vista; Home, Business and Ultimate.
If you bought Vista Business or Ultimate and decided you don’t like it or it isn’t compatible Microsoft is offering an option where if a friend of yours has a key for XP Pro that has already been used. . they will allow that key to be activated again in order to let you install it on your computer in place of Vista. You must not have activated the copy of Vista that you have, and there is confusion over whether you lose the rights to that Vista license in the future.
Now, if you are like the millions of regular people and small businesses that bought a Vista computer with “Vista Home,” according to Microsoft you are stuck with it. They only offer the suggestion that you spend $189 for a retail copy of XP Home and then install the software yourself.
Vista is not user friendly, it makes simple tasks take longer, it has lots of networking and compatibility bugs and is a nightmare to support. Yet if you are going to buy a new computer, and you don’t buy an XP system, you need to be prepared to use Vista or pay the “Microsoft tax” to go back to XP. There are a lot of retailers like TigerDirect and Dell that make it easy to buy XP systems.
You can find copies of XP home for less than the $189 retail price. Locally and online TigerDirect and Intrex sell XP Home for around $100. If you planning on using this computer in a domain or client server type setup you will need XP Pro that runs about $140. Regularly $299. (Best Buy also sells an XP home upgrade that will work for $100.) Because Xp activates you must have a license for Xp that is new, or has not been used a lot. It is possible to buy one copy of XP Home and use the license to downgrade 2 or 3 computer. This is technically possible though against the terms of the licensing agreement.
In most cases it will take about 2 to 3 hours to wipe Vista off of the system and install XP. This includes installing drivers for all of the hardware and depending upon the manufacturer the device drivers can be hard to find. Some companies don’t have the XP drivers on their support site and you have to track down the original hardware company to find the drivers.
As you might imagine we have been inundated with requests for Vista downgrades and have tried our best to accommodate everyone, however in order to do this we need to institute a fixed fee for downgrading Vista to XP.
The cost to downgrade a Vista system is $200 labor plus the cost of the operating system. XP Home would be $300 for example. If you provide your own usable XP home license then you do not need to pay for the license. If you have an old computer that came with XP home (or pro) in some cases that license can be reused.
In the long run the downgrade to XP is worth it. You will have less problems, more compatibility and more security long term if you go that route now. In fact Microsoft support for XP will run through at least 2014 and by that time there will be other options.
Many people have mixed feelings about whether the monopoly that Microsoft has over the desktop operating systems is good or bad or even fair. This is an example of what happens when a company interprets a monopoly to mean that they can abandon the best interests of the consumers in order to further the bottom line. Why Vista? Microsoft felt that a “new” operating system would boost sales and increase profits. When consultants like ourselves pointed out the technical problems that consumers would have Microsoft called those our “Opportunities to increase value to the customer.” In other words if the software stinks, it will make more work for the IT guys.
When Microsoft first launched Windows 95 back in 1995 the systems gave the buyer the option of picking the system that they wanted on their computer at first boot. They could choose at that time whether to use Windows 3.1 or Windows 95. The computer would then set itself up based on the customers choice. Microsoft could have easily implemented the same system in the first year of Vista systems but the flexibility of the consumers was not that important to one of the biggest companies on the planet.
