Tag Archives: Windows
SD#43 Facebook Assassins
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And shoot them.
The world has decided that all the news should all happen at once . . . and it chose this week. Hackers are back in action, you need to drive “hands free”, and BitTorrent will save our entertainment! Ten points to the first person to identify that background noise!
The Circle Is Complete
I normally don’t post on a Saturday (SMV’s are scheduled in advance), but I saw this over at Joy of Tech and thought it’d be fun to share!
Courtesy of Joy of Tech
SD#1 The Saga Begins
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It’s here! Our very first podcast is up! After being around for over three years, we have decided to branch out to new media. We’re still learning, so please give us some feedback!
Hosts:
Zuke, Stark, Zohner, & Schmidty
Topics:
Amazon puts its head in the clouds and it’s finger in the faces of Sony & Apple
iOS might be dropping June 5th . . . without an iPhone?
Intel makes the biggest smallest drives you’ve ever seen!
Google now allows you to spy on tourists as well.
Windows 8 has a wishlist now. Take that Apple!
Kevin Costner is in the new Superman . . . and he’s Middle Eastern?
Viggo Mortensen was dating Snow White, I guess. He’s not anymore. But he’s not Zod!
Wonder Woman from Blue Boutique. Wonder Woman from J-Crew.
Should Netflix save cancelled/endangered shows?
Mass Effect 2 DLC came out. And now I’ve beaten it. Did Bioware just charge ME money to change the end of THEIR game?
Farmville is an example of a mental disorder.
Volkswagon has made a car from a video game!
Zuke’s Favorite: Three Angry Birds
Schmidty’s Favorite: Google’s +1
Stark’s Favorite: Today is a good day to sing!
Zohner’s Favorite: Pimp your router. Aww yeeeeaaa.
Join the forum discussion on this post - (2) Posts
Messenger Is Watching
Last week while I was playing a baseball game on my computer, the screen suddenly minimized and I was staring at my desktop. I was mildly annoyed and wondered what had just happened but didn’t dwell on it too much and resumed playing my game. After a few pitches, the same thing happened. This was not chance; something was messing with my computer and I didn’t like it. I put my game on hold and started researching the issue.
Obviously something was stealing the focus of the window that my game was in. This is why it kept minimizing to the desktop. I opened up Tweak UI to verify that I had enabled the option to prevent one window from stealing focus from another and saw that I had. This was getting more and more interesting.
Another few minutes of research revealed that something was changing the registry entry that prevents window focus stealing. After another couple of minutes, I had found the culprit: Logitech SetPoint. I’m not sure why SetPoint was repeatedly messing with this particular feature in the registry but it was and it was causing me a lot of issues. I decided to try to reboot the system to see if I could get things stabilized.
After the reboot, things seemed to be working well so I started playing my game again. Five minutes hadn’t passed before I had a new problem, NetNanny, our content filter, kept popping up a window telling me that a site was being blocked because of pornographic content. The odd thing is that I wasn’t surfing the web. I didn’t even have a browser open. At this point, I was pretty convinced that I had some sort of malware on my computer, probably a rogue dialer, so I started the process of cleaning things up.
After half a dozen virus and spyware scans, including HijackThis, what few cookies that were on my system were gone and there was no indication of anything bad on the computer. This would be good news except for the fact that my computer was still acting like it was infected. To make a long story short (too late), after almost a week of trying to find out what the problem was, I decided to wipe the system clean and start fresh.
I spent all weekend backing up my data and reinstalling Windows. Everything was going smoothly until last night. I had managed to restore everything from the external hard drive it was backed up to. I had also reinstalled almost all of my programs. Still, no problems. Then I installed Windows Live Messenger and the problems started happening again. Apparently, Windows Live Messenger likes to send information over the internet without the user’s consent. That sounds like spyware to me so I immediately uninstalled it and everything started working as it should.
Given the fact that Messenger is a Microsoft product, most people wouldn’t think twice about having it on their Windows machine. Nor would they think twice about what the software for their mouse and keyboard is doing when they’re not looking. It could be that Messenger was doing nothing more than “phoning home” but I don’t want stuff on my computer to send data, insignificant as it may be, to anybody without my knowledge.
This leads me to the question, how much of the “legit” software on our computers is doing stuff like this? I wouldn’t have even noticed what was going on with Messenger if my porn filter didn’t catch it. I got lucky. My paranoia levels have just shot way up and I’m already paranoid enough. I really don’t want to have to worry about good software gone bad.
P.S. I told my wife that she has to start using Pidgin from here on out. No more Messenger for her.
How Does Free Sound? Part II
Or The Freeware Strikes Back. Choose your title. I won’t be offended.
Last week I published a post about some of my favorite freeware utilities that I like to use before I reinstall Windows. They don’t need to be used exclusively before a reinstall, but they have proven to be very useful to me. There are a few more free apps that helped me as I reformatted two different computers on five different occasions over the past few weeks so I thought I’d bring them to your attention.
ProduKey
With all of the product keys that are required to legally use software these days, it can sometimes be difficult to keep everything straight. Produkey will scan your computer for installed Microsoft programs and then provide detailed information about them such as product keys and product IDs. All that you need to do is run a scan and then print out the results. It’s a very handy tool that no geek should be without.
GParted Live CD
How many times have you needed to create or modify a partition on a drive but didn’t want to go through the lengthy process of doing so? There are some great programs available that make this very easy but they usually cost money. GParted Live CD is, of course, free. I’ve used both Partition Magic and GParted Live CD. After using GParted, I’ll probably never go back to Partition Magic. The interface is self-explanatory and proved very easy to use. You should add this one to your list of must have tools.
Now that we’ve covered a few applications that will come in handy before you reformat your computer, it’s time to move onto those that will make your computer useful. I’ll cover some of these in part three of our series.
Y’all come back now! Ya hear?
How Does Free Sound?
Years ago, it used to be that when I needed a program, I’d either buy it or find somebody who could give me a copy. With the internet the way that it is now, nearly every application you could want can be found online. However, downloading copyrighted software poses its own set of problems that may not be worth the money you’d be saving by downloading the latest version of Adobe Photoshop. Therefore, I propose an alternative: freeware.
Over the past few years, freeware has taken a giant leap forward. Most people are familiar with applications such as Open Office and Linux that have taken a piece of Microsoft’s pie. Whether these people have used these applications is beside the point. My point is that there are viable alternatives to expensive programs out there that don’t cost a dime. On this note, I thought that it would be fun to share some other free applications that I have fallen in love with over the years.
Roadkil’s Unstoppable Copier
This is a great program that I just discovered a week or two ago. Have you ever tried to copy a file and received a stupid prompt that you could have done without? Or maybe you failed when trying to copy a file that was larger than 4GB to a FAT32 partition. I’ve done both and this little app took care of all of my issues. It’s great for backing up data to an external hard drive before a reformat.
Amic Email Backup
This is a handy application for Windows users that will back up your mail databases. As those who have worked tech support know, email is generally a big deal, especially to stuffy executives. It’s no less important to my wife who freaks out every time that just restoring her Outlook files doesn’t make everything “like it was”. This is a great tool that is easy to use and I highly recommend it.
DriverMax
I hate trying to keep my drivers current but it’s something that most geeks would recommend doing. DriverMax makes it easy by scanning your system and then telling you what needs to be updated. It will also export your current drivers for those times when you want to reinstall everything but don’t want to spend days looking for that rare driver.
I have a lot more freeware that I’d like to introduce you to but since I’m busy at work, I’m going to have to save it for a part two. Stay tuned…
The Apple conundrum part 2: When Windows Attack
This is a follow up to my last post here. If it seemed like it was a little one-sided, that’s because it was. It was getting a little long in the tooth, so I split it into two separate entries. If you read one, and feel the need to comment, please make sure to read both.
At the end of my last entry, I sort of bashed on the iPhone unfairly. It’s not that I have an actual issue with the iPhone per se, but it was the best example of Apple’s “we can charge you extra for what PC user’s have had for years!” mentality.
In truth, where Mac OS shows everything that making a computer “idiot proof” can do wrong, the iPhone shows where “idiot proof” isn’t such a bad thing! (special thanks to my friend Robert, a Mac user, for the phrase “idiot proof”).
Also this last weekend, my phone fell apart. I’m not making that up either; part of the screen fell off and the center 5-way directional wheel peeled away, leaving a nice glue spot to press against my face. I’ve never had a phone, much less a Motorola, suddenly do this and it was more than annoying. Since I can’t go out and just buy a new phone (not with all the features I want, anyway) I was in a bit of a spot until some friends came to the rescue. Welsdog and Robert both let me use their phones till I could save up for a replacement one of my own. Since Robert’s was more advanced than Welsdog’s, I settled on it out of the two.
The “old” phone is an HTC 8525 on AT&T’s network running Windows Mobile 5. Well, it was for about ten minutes anyway; I had the SIM unlocked to use my T-Mobile card and the ROM upgraded to Windows Mobile 6 within minutes. I’ve used Windows based smart-phones before, and they’ve always left me wanting. Sure, they are little powerhouses compared to most small electronics, but the interface is downright maddening!
In a device that is going to be primarily used as a phone, I don’t want to have to use a stylus to do everything. And I mean everything! Answering a call should not be a chore when I have a touch screen! You should not bury the keypad under 4 menus! This is a phone first, and a mini computer second! Windows has problems with that, it seems.
While waiting for my iMac to create its backup image and let me know if it was going to work or not, I started modifying the very nature of my phone’s interface. I decided that, for all faults it might have, the iPhone interface is actually very finger friendly. The fact that I can read and scroll through all my contacts without bringing the phone up to my chin was appealing to me. After a lot of reading, experimenting, and cursing at various applications, I was able to completely transform my Windows Mobile 6 smart phone into an iPhone clone. Only this one actually has hardware you’d want to use (and can cut & paste).
Just so we’re all up to speed on this; I made an Apple product run Windows, and made a Windows product behave like an Apple one. But I can justify this by the type of products we’re talking about! Apple’s OS X (as I previously pointed out) likes to treat a desktop system like it’s an electronic toy; to be reset and replaced on a whim. That’s not how you treat an actual workstation! That’s how you treat . . . well, an electronic toy. Sort of like a phone.
Windows treats an electronic toy (which I’m sorry, all smart phones are, I don’t care what you use them for) like it’s just as important as your desktop computer. It’s not! It’s a phone! You can reset the crap out of it and it will keep on chugging along. You actually make backups of everything important on it every time you plug it in (kinda like a Mac!), so recovering from a massive failure literally only takes a few minutes . . . and involves resetting it and restoring from backup!
Don’t get me wrong; I like that the Windows Mobile environment is flexible and powerful enough to adapt to any situation I’m going to give it. But like so many little devices, I’m only going to tweak it so much before I just let it be. Can you imagine if Microsoft had used the same interface for their car-bound Sync platform? People would die in massive pile-ups constantly!
“Sync, unlock, confirm unlock, access phone, contacts, scroll, scroll, scroll, home, main number, dial, yes. I said yes.”
Don’t even start on how you’d access your music or directions, and that’s assuming they’d even keep the voice interface!
Sync: Microsoft's first true idiot-proof concept.
It’s not that I don’t understand or appreciate Apple’s simplified interface on a laptop or PC, I do. I do, and I find myself enjoying it. But it’s such a downer when you realize that the back end of the operating system isn’t any more complex than the pretty interface on top of it.
On the flip side, Windows seems intent on bringing the same “give you every option you could ever want” to its most simple devices, leaving them drowning in menus, screen taps, and endless file directories.
I can go on and on how I hate Apple’s advertisements and their pricing structures, but that really wasn’t the point of my posts. On a design vs. design level, both Apple and Windows could learn a thing or two from each other. In the end, one could summarize the difference between the rivals as such:
In OS X, you’ll be able to find your way and understand the entire system within moments of turning it on . . . but that’s as far as it will ever be able to take you. You may never be able to learn all of Windows little secrets, but you’ll be able to take it farther than you ever thought you’d need to.
Lackluster launch for Android
The HTC G1 launched today for T-Mobile (though the phone itself won’t be available in stores until October 22nd). For anyone who wasn’t paying attention when it wasn’t announced, this is special because the phone uses Google’s mobile operating system, named Android.
And what a botched job it was. Don’t get me wrong; I love Google, and I love HTC. I also have T-Mobile service. So why am I disappointed with this first phone? Well, namely because it seems like too little fanfare for something that could potentially be huge. Or, maybe because too much hype has been generated for what it isn’t doing yet. I’m not entirely sure yet.
The Android Logo
Android has been in the works for a little under a year now. It’s an “open source” SDK with an Java based architecture that is supposed to offload much of the processing requirements from any hardware, thereby allowing it to run much faster than traditional operating systems. This is especially important for mobile devices since they don’t have the same horsepower as your laptop or desktop will have. Conversely, they also don’t need all the features that your PC does, so it can run much leaner than Windows Vista or OS 10.5 and get away with it.
The main downside to it is that it IS open source. While Google itself is a huge company who could throw endless resources at making a mobile phone, they wouldn’t get very far in the commercial market. For this reason they partnered with HTC, T-Mobile, Amazon, and who knows who else to get their system out there. I get the feeling that a lot of concessions were made in the process, since we are NOT looking at the iPhone killer that many people were expecting.
And the really dumb thing is that none of it is Android’s fault! If you look at the G1, it looks like any other HTC phone! It operates like it’s the Touch, and even has a similar menu system as both the Touch and the Shadow. The system menu (the load of icons) looks more like a Blackberry or Windows Mobile 6 than it does anything else, the only apps that even exist for the thing are either Google’s or Amazon’s (in an attempt to sway the iTunes Store users), and the thing is downright clunky.
What we were promised vs what we got
Apple released the iPhone to a stunned crowd, and for good reason; it’s a shiny toy. Apple learned how to sell anything by simplifying it and making it an accessory. Don’t believe me? The iPod is more status symbol than actual device nowadays, the iPhone (as much as it failed in many of its original objectives) is still immensely popular, and the iMac I’m using to write this post is more designed for loft-dwelling hipsters who can’t afford both a TV and a computer (so why not have a computer the size of your TV).
"In my loft, on the interwebs. I'm just like those hackster kids!"
This is not a bad thing though (it’s not a great thing either). However, it’s not really easy for other companies to duplicate, and HTC going on about their new phone and how it’s going to have all the same interface “shinys” of the iPhone was probably the wrong way to go as it gave people unfair expectations. Does Android seem to stand up to Palm OS? Well, hard to say since we haven’t seen any sort of Synch capabilities. Does it stand up to Blackberry OS? Seems to, though 3rd party support isn’t there yet. Does it stand up to Windows Mobile 6? Oh yeah. And then some.
But see, all of these mobile operating systems are actually USEFUL! They aren’t toys and they aren’t accessories. This isn’t a Sidekick we’re talking about here, it’s an actual smart phone. They could have launched it as just another HTC phone, and people would have been happy with it. Instead, they drummed up that it was using Android and therefore was about to rock our world!
Well we’re left rather non-rocked, looking at a phone that can does what every other smart phone already does, wondering where all the apps are for it.
But hey, at least this thing can cut and paste!
