Category: Technology

Being the first kid on my block to have new technology, I just had to download and install the beta of Windows 7. I chose to install the update instead of a clean install. My 64-bit Vista Home Premium was running just fine and was fully patched prior to running the upgrade. I wanted to keep all my installed programs and data. However, being an admirer of the boy scouts and their motto to be prepared, I did a backup of my data prior to this installation.

The upgrade did a scan of my computer and gave me a warning that my printer might be incompatible with Windows 7 but I chose to go ahead with the install. The upgrade took well over two hours but required no user intervention until it was almost done. Then I was prompted for the Product Key. It’s good that I printed the number before running the program.  My digital copy was saved to my desktop and therefore not accessible when I was finally prompted for it.

During the install, my primary monitor was on the right with my second monitor on the left. Partway through the install everything switched from the right monitor to the left. I’m running dual screens and the mouse seemed to be in the opposite monitor from the install screen. After Windows completed the initial startup, I found that my primary monitor was on the left and the extra was on the right. To get the mouse from the right monitor to the left, I had to move it completely right and then it would appear on the left monitor. I had to go in display settings to put everything back like I had it in the Vista installation.

At first glance, all my Microsoft programs functioned just fine. All the office programs still had recently used documents populated. Internet Explorer still had my saved passwords, probably via Windows Live toolbar. My computer seems to be running faster while running Windows 7. The XPS viewer is much faster than in Vista. So far I’m impressed with the potential of Windows 7.

Control Panel
The show Network Map option in the Control Panel renders an accurate representation of all hubs and computers on my home network. This function even displays my DirecTV DVR. The Devices and Printers show my all in one printer and can even scan via a right click on the printer icon. The Windows Mobile Device Center can’t recognize my HP 910 Pocket PC but I’m sure that a driver will be written for it sometime.

However…I’ve had some issues with the program.
• My first issue is with the desktop wallpaper. Many pictures that I tried resulted in a completely black screen being rendered instead of a full color photograph. When I would switch to another photo on the wallpaper, the old one would briefly flash on the screen correctly before switching to the new one. (I found that the show desktop button would show the correct desktop photo but when any program was running it would revert to black.)
• Another issue is that upon startup, the toolbar on the bottom loses it’s the icons. I could get the icons back if I stretch the toolbar upward until they reappeared and then put the toolbar back to its original position.
• Whenever the computer entered the dreaded sleep mode it failed to wake-up. I had to shut off this pesky setting. Occasionally I even got the BSOD (blue screen of death).
• As it turned out, Word 2007 would not work correctly when saving documents. The save animation would freeze the program at zero percent complete. In order to get back into Word it was necessary to reboot the computer. As someone trying to get my MBA, this was the deal breaker for me. I was forced to go back to Vista to get the Word issue fixed.

I think that Microsoft has gotten a bum rap with much of the Vista criticism. Apple has more security issues and problems than Vista during the same time period. Why Apple’s sh*t doesn’t stick is a mystery to me. Apple is overpriced and much more limited than Windows. I like Vista and Windows 7 looks to be even better.

Review: HP IPAQ 910
Several weeks ago, I purchased the Hewlett-Packard IPAQ 910 phone.

This phone runs Windows Mobile 6.1 and got great reviews from PC Magazine. In fact it was their Editor’s Choice.

The IPAQ is a business grade phone with full internet capability. As I found out, not all web browsing experiences are the same. It is much slower than my home DSL but faster than dial-up. Pages with fancy plug-ins or scripts don’t do well. I tried Opera’s mobile browser and it choked on the same websites. Hopefully the upgrades that Microsoft has in the pipeline for release will improve things. A new Internet Explorer should be out before Christmas and a major OS upgrade is planned for next year.

The Windows Media Player will play all my favorite songs on the 2 GB mini SD card.

The one thing I miss is my ability to listen to the radio. Many radio stations have websites and listen live buttons; however, these don’t work. Only the Salem Radio Network has an option to listen via Windows Media Player.  After many searches and frustration I found a solution. There is a site that plays AM and FM stations from a variety of markets. Even though my local stations have dropped Laura Ingraham, I can hear her live on several stations. I can listen to Rush Limbaugh or just about any other syndicated talk show. The website is http://radiotime.com/mobile/index.aspx Simply enter a zip code to see programming in that area. (You can enter any zip code in the US not just where you live.)I use this site more than any other one on my phone.

Interestingly, you can exit the media player application and it will continue to play until you restart it and hit the STOP button. It will pause if you get a phone call and resume playing when the call is completed.

The GPS feature works well in areas with faster internet speeds; however, it takes several minutes to acquire your location. The GPS feature must be able to access Windows Live or Google Maps in order to display your location. There is a program available at extra charge that will make the IPAQ an honest to goodness GPS device.

The Internet usage is a big drain on battery life. The phone needs almost daily charging or a phone charger in your car to keep it going. You don’t need to buy the $30 HP charger. You can get a Motorola compatible car adapter that fits the mini USB plug on the phone. I got mine for about ten dollars at Fry’s.

The camera is billed as 3MP. There is a big delay from the time you press the camera button and the time it takes to capture an image. Almost a second passes between pressing the button and the image being captured. Still photos can be done. Photos of moving things are difficult to capture. This seems to be the weakest feature on the phone.

Lastly, buy a case for this phone. The molded plastic body is soft and scratches easily should you drop it from your lap onto a hard floor.

Programs for the phone seem limited compared to others but look for Microsoft to beef-up both the Operating System and variety of software over the next year. With both Apple and Google in the smart phone market they have to get into gear. (The IPAQ is technically a Pocket PC not a Smartphone.)

The phone has no contract and requires a data plan with your carrier. Check HP or PGMag.com for more info on the phone.

Apple has a new phone. Yeah, big deal. Who cares. It can’t multitask and it can’t cut n’ paste. What about Wi-Fi hotspots. Not with this phone. Who needs SD RAM?

There’s better phones out there but they don’t have the PR machine that Apple can fund.

Half the features, twice the price. That’s Apple marketing.

My three-year-old abuses to heck out of our family’s DVD collection. After he handles them a few times, they won’t play. The disks are covered in yogurt, fingerprints, apple juice and who knows what else. Anyway, the poor lasers in the players don’t stand a chance against him. I frequently have to wash the DVDs with soap and water to clean them before he can watch them. Many are also accumulating scratches and it is only a matter of time before they will be unusable.

As a result, I have decided to download as many of his favorites as I can into my computer for him to watch. This will allow us to watch a copy of the disk and reduce the abuse to which they are subjected. I also am doing this because the wife and I are considering purchasing an XBOX 360 for the kids’ big Christmas gift. With the XBOX, they can watch the movies on my computer—via the Windows Media Center—on their television. (I wired the house for computers and the eventual purchase of the XBOX last year.)

As an experiment, I ripped a few DVDs using the Roxio Easy Media software. I selected the MPEG2 format. I tried to play the resulting files with Windows Media Player and got an error.

The same file plays fine using Media Center and several other software applications in my computer. I was determined to find a solution. Media Player has never been able to play an MPEG file from any source on my Vista computer.

I started at the beginning. Did I have the proper codec to play this file format? I thought so but my research found that support for MPEG files is only partially supported natively by Microsoft. They support MPEG1 but not MPEG2. MPEG2 is the format used on DVDs and requires a third party solution. I downloaded and installed the software at a cost of about $15. As I found out later, I already had the codec and this was a waste of money.

I searched on the Roxio support forum and found a thread that seemed to hold some promise.

There were all sorts of great sounding ideas. These included codec diagnostic programs, quotes allegedly from Microsoft TechNet and purchasing new codec packages. None of these worked.
I tried the Microsoft website and found a thread on error C00D11B1.

This tread starts out poorly with a bunch of BS about Samsung software for cell phones causing this problem and then goes on to suggest changes to settings in Media Player and even registry hacks. My experience with this is that it is nonsense, not troubleshooting. However, on the fourth page of this thread you get to the payoff. Buried in the bottom one post you will find the following nugget:

Anyway, while i was typing that essay, i found a solution!

http://www.codecguide.com I simply download that codec pack, and everything worked perfectly. It installs another media player called Windows Media Player Classic, but i checked, and the files work using the regular media player too.

The codecs on this page are free. I tried the full package and took most of the default settings. However, I kept the MPEG2 codecs that I already purchased and told the install program to replace my DIVX codecs, and on the bottom of the second screen, I checked to box to create a setpoint before installing.

As I was researching this problem, I had seen many comments that blamed newer DIVX codecs as the likely cause of the problem. Strictly speaking I know that trying two different repairs at once is not proper troubleshooting technique but by the time I got to this point in the process I wanted results and a good night’s sleep. The bottom line is that it worked.

I hope my experience will save others some heartache. Happy computing.

Recently I upgraded my Windows Vista computer to iTunes 7.5. After starting the program I was greeted with a message that my DVD/CD burner was unable to be used by iTunes. Why? It works for everything else I want to burn!

Upon further investigation, I found that iTunes is not compatible with my 64-bit operating system and I needed to download a third-party driver so that this piece of Apple software could work as advertised with my burner.

I found this on the Apple website in one of their support threads:

I don’t understand why Apple support doesn’t react on this, as the solution is ridiculously easy.

You need a 64bit version of the driver, install the one you find here:
http://www.gearsoftware.com/support/drivers.cfm

Use “Driver installer for AMD64 and Intel EM64T processors”.
Works like a charm.

This is my third bug this year with Apple software in the PC world and the second I’ve encountered with iTunes.

On my windows XP Pro system, I had to physically remove the CD-ROM from my computer because iTunes can’t tell the difference between a CD ROM and a CD Writer. I had both in the computer peacefully coexisting until I wanted to burn a CD using iTunes. Theirs is the only burning software I have ever encountered that can’t make this fundamental distinction.

The error message from the iTunes program basically said PCs were crap and we can’t function in your box because it is built different that a Mac (only they used engineering sounding words to more politely insult the 90 percent of the world that doesn’t do things their way).

My third Apple bug this year is in QuickTime Player. I can only play movies from external hard drives. Any movie I play on my local hard drive will crash due to buffer error within seconds of activating “play”. I found a website claiming to fix this error if I will install four downloads and then re-start my computer.

Yeah! In addition to rolling out more HD stations this fall, DirecTV is Beta Testing an on demand service. Apparently, you select the program and it gets downloaded to your DVR and then you watch it like any other program. There is no press release about this on their website yet.

Do you want a legal copy of Microsoft Office Ultimate for $59.95?

Office Ultimate 2007 includes the entire Microsoft Office toolset that students are accustomed to working with and more, including Microsoft Office Word 2007, Microsoft Office Excel® 2007, Microsoft Office PowerPoint® 2007, Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007 with Business Contact Manager, Microsoft Office Access™ 2007, Microsoft Office Publisher 2007, Office OneNote 2007, Office Groove 2007 and Microsoft Office InfoPath® 2007.

It is available September 20, 2007 to April 30, 2008 from http://www.theultimatesteal.com/ You need e-mail address at college and active enrollment. See Microsoft press release at
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/sep07/09-12UltimateStealPR.mspx

For many years the Holy Grail of clean energy has been the search for “Cold Fusion”. The next best thing has just made the mainstream scientific community: seawater. Yeah, all that H2O that has covered the planet for eons has finally been proved to be a potential source of energy.

An Erie cancer researcher has found a way to burn salt water, a novel invention that is being touted by one chemist as the “most remarkable” water science discovery in a century.

John Kanzius happened upon the discovery accidentally when he tried to desalinate seawater with a radio-frequency generator he developed to treat cancer. He discovered that as long as the salt water was exposed to the radio frequencies, it would burn.

The discovery has scientists excited by the prospect of using salt water, the most abundant resource on earth, as a fuel.

Rustum Roy, a Penn State University chemist, has held demonstrations at his State College lab to confirm his own observations.

The radio frequencies act to weaken the bonds between the elements that make up salt water, releasing the hydrogen, Roy said. Once ignited, the hydrogen will burn as long as it is exposed to the frequencies, he said.

The discovery is “the most remarkable in water science in 100 years,” Roy said.

“This is the most abundant element in the world. It is everywhere,” Roy said. “Seeing it burn gives me the chills.”

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8RIRI600&show_article=1

If this sounds somewhat familiar, it should. Utilizing radio frequencies to produce energy is the plot of the movie Chain Reaction that was released in 1996. The movie starred Keanu Reeves, Morgan Freeman, Rachel Weisz and Fred Ward.

In Chain Reaction, a group of college students help a professor produce Cold Fusion using water. A radio frequency is necessary in order to sustain the reaction. After this breakthrough is achieved, the lab is sabotaged and Keanu Reeves and Rachel Weisz get chased thru the rest of the film.

Granted it is still early to find a definite power plant design to make this technology commercially viable but see if this idea piques your interest.

The reaction sustains a temperature of 3,000 degrees. So I’m thinking it could be used for a high-pressure steam turbine. If the required radio frequency could be generated naturally, much like to old crystal radios, then you might not need as much battery power to get it started.

The reaction would start in the salt-water chamber. Liquid would be heated to a high temperature and pumped thru to a heat exchanger. On the other side of the heat exchanger water would pump in where it would be converted to steam. The steam would flow into a turbine. Once condensed, the water would be pumped back to the heat exchanger. (See basic design for submarine nuclear power plant for many specifications. This would be smaller scale with different heat source.)

Once it gets going, the turbine could generate electricity to make the whole system run. All you would add is water to top-off the steam system. This would allow for electric cars, self-sufficient energy for homes and it would beat the socks off current solar technology.

Finally we could tell those folks in the Mid-East, “Bye-bye. Enjoy what’s left of the seventh century.”

Last week I finally bought a few songs from iTunes.

I was going on a long drive with my two-year-old son and wanted some children’s music that he would like and I could handle for prolonged periods of time. I downloaded about ten songs from The Wiggles plus a few he hears at bedtime every night.

Setting up the account was simple and downloading went smoothly. However using the burner from Apple was a challenge. It turns out that the files that I downloaded were encrypted and can only be played on the iTunes software. Therefore I have to use the built-in burner in the iTunes software. As I have learned from previous brushes with Apple, things not as easy as they seem. Every time I tried to burn a disk using their burner, I got an error and the burning process would close.

The error was as follows:

The last failed audio CD burn had error code 4000(0x00000fa0).

If you read the error message generated by the software you will see the following note:

If you have multiple drives on the same IDE or SCSI bus, these drives may interfere with each other.
Some computers need an update to the ATA or IDE bus driver, or Intel chipset. If iTunes has problems recognizing CDs or hanging or crashing while importing or burning CDs, check the support site for the manufacturer of your computer or motherboard.

Yeah, that’s right! I had to start disconnecting hardware in my computer to get their software to function. Apple writes bad code for a PC and it’s the PC’s fault. How dare we want to use multiple devices in our machines? Bad code and Apple have a rich history. Can anyone say “Safari”? Anyway I did disconnect one of my CDs and only had my burner connected and the disk wrote successfully. Nero, Roxio and several other burning software programs on my computer have never had any difficult knowing which CD was read only and which was the burner.

This problem plus the QuickTime bug I previously wrote about leave me with less than a favorable impression of Apple software.

Sony Electronics has its own music download site CONNECT™ Music Service. After several years of using a proprietary music format they are throwing in the proverbial towel and joining the rest of the technology world and adopting Windows Media and MP3 as their music standards. It appears that the Connect Service is going away but there is no indication if there is a replacement or they are getting out of the download business. Since Sony owns about half the music copyrights in the Western World, I would look to a partnership agreement with someone like Apple or Microsoft if they get out of running a download site.

Below is the core of the press release:

Today Sony announced its intent to move to a Windows Media Technology platform for Walkman® products in the United States, Canada and Europe. We strongly believe that the decision to embrace a more open platform for these devices will enable us to provide you with a better overall experience. As a result of this change, we will be phasing out the CONNECT™ Music Service based on Sony’s ATRAC audio format in North America and Europe. Specific timing will vary by region depending on market demand, but will not be before March 2008.

We are fully committed to helping you through this important transition away from the CONNECT Music Service and providing you with the best possible guidance on how to successfully transfer your music library to an MP3 or Windows Media-compatible format, should you wish to do so. We recommend that you use any outstanding promotional codes, account credits or gift certificates available in your music account prior to March 2008, but even after the store closes you will continue to be able to play, manage, and transfer the music in your SonicStage library and on your existing ATRAC devices. If you obtain a new device, all of Sony’s new Walkman music and video players will support MP3 or Windows Media Audio format.

Sony Rootkit in USB Drives
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/08/29/tech-sony.html

Sony Corp. is up to its old tricks again, hiding software that can be exploited by hackers in a line of portable USB drives, a Finnish security firm says.

The fingerprint reader software included with Sony’s MicroVault USM-F line installs a driver in a hidden folder that can be accessed by hackers on the user’s computer, according to F-Secure Corp.

F-Secure researchers did suggest that Sony had a good reason for hiding the files. The company was likely trying to protect the USB drive’s fingerprint authenticator information from being tampered with. However, the files are invisible to some anti-virus detection software.

“We feel that rootkit-like cloaking techniques are not the right way to go here,” Tolvanen wrote.

F-Secure said it notified Sony of the problem about a month ago, but did not receive a reply. On Tuesday, researchers with security firm McAfee Inc. confirmed F-Secure’s findings.