Musings
This web site
When I first put this together I used what I had and knew, namely Microsoft FrontPage©. I've finally taken the time to rebuild it using Dreamweaver, a more professional tool.
Yes, I can develop web sites. But it's not a core competency and I don't expect it ever to be. I am not interested in specializing in web development. Frankly, I'm much more interested in building dynamic web sites with databases underlying them than in graphically cool 'static' web sites. So, for now, I'm concentrating on the content of this site. I'll let others show how creative they can be in presentation style. It's just not what I'm about.
I have this site because I need a way to provide information to people who may have heard of me and want to know more about what I can do for them. So, my focus is on providing content, not pizzazz.
E-mail has become very important to most of us. But there are three important issues--change of domain name, where to keep it, and spam.
The domain name is everything to the right of the @ sign. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) will provide you with one or many names using the domain name they control. They just have to meet certain naming rules and be unique. However, your ISP can be bought or sold and you may be forced to adopt a new e-mail address. Or, you may decide you want to change ISP. For casual use, this is tolerable. The ISP will tell you what to do and most of it is pretty obvious.
Business users find this unacceptable. Business cards, stationery, brochures, ads, etc. may have to be redone.
Some will use a free service--hotmail, yahoo or google mail services are popular and less likely to change. There are no guarantees, however. And it makes you look really small-time. So, the right thing to do is to get your own domain name. It is a minor expense to even a small company, but you will probably want help getting everything set up and working properly.
The where to keep it question is a matter of personal preference. Either your messages are on the service providers servers (web mail or IMAP), or they are moved to your computer (SMTP). If you stick with the service provider, you must purge old messages to keep costs reasonable. To keep old messages indefinitely, you will need to move them to your own storage eventually. I have only one client that keeps vast amounts of old messages. His business needs make this appropriate and we have worked out methods of dealing with it.
Spam is a harder problem. At present there is no good way of dealing with it. Mostly, we just have to live with the limitations of what our service providers do and the tools provided by our software.
I'm not going to describe what I do as it is hard to set up and use. I have made the decision to publish my e-mail address on these web pages. As a result I get far more spam than you do. So, my methods work well enough for me but are probably not the best for you.
Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac, etc.
Like most of us in the industry, Windows Vista just didn't seem worth the pain.
Windows 7 is okay. I've moved almost all my systems to it. My home theater computer still runs XP, and probably will for the foreseeable future.
Vista was a total flop in the business market, now Microsoft is pushing Windows 7 and the world is moving there. Upgrading is always a dicey proposition. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But an upgrade license won't let you do a clean install. If you are still on XP, you will almost certainly need to add/replace your RAM memory. And you will need to hunt up drivers for your box. Not expensive, but with the license and the time to install and move everything, I would suggest you wait until there is a need and just buy a new computer. It isn't 'green', but I spent hours replacing the hard drive and operating system (Vista to 7) on my wife's computer. If you can do it yourself, want to, and have the time, go ahead, but you may not want to pay a geek like me to do it for you. The cartoon in my office reads "You fix it by buying a new one.".
I have clients with Macs. In fact I recommend them to some of my clients and sometimes set them up. Lovely machines and great software. They can even run Windows on their Intel processors at full speed. But its a little awkward and an expensive solution if you do need to run Windows on it. Some day I will buy one for myself. The color even matches my iPod.
IM
Instant Messaging, aka chat, seems to be finding its uses. I have zero interest in casual 'chat' rooms, or meeting strangers on-line. But, I'm beginning to find it has some value for me.
I have one client who uses IM regularly, so I'm set up to support him by IM, whenever he needs it. My son and his family use it regularly, so I'm finding it is a nice way to stay in touch with them.
There are a lot of alternatives. Big companies can and usually do run their own IM service internally. The many IRC (Internet Relay Chat) services and its derivatives are useful depending on what your desired contact uses. As with most, you can use AOL's IM service (AIM) for free. When I do use it, I use the Pidgin client because it doesn't carry the advertising baggage.
It's a little like Twitter, but for computers.
Backups
You know you should. So do it. Disks are mechanical devices. Eventually they all break. Burn a CD, backup to a folder on another computer in the house (if you are networked), get an external hard drive, or a removable USB RAM memory drive ('jump' or 'thumb' drive) and use it. Make it a routine--either automatic or one you do regularly, like every Saturday morning. If you need help with the technical details, get it. It will save you money (at least) if you have any files that are really important to you.
Better still, set up some software to do a nightly (weekly?) backup. Good tools are available and easy to use, finally. Anyway, I've written a whole page on the topic and I recommend you read it.
Microsoft Update
Windows Update is one of the better things Microsoft has done for us. For most users, it is best to just keep your system up to date with all critical patches and service packs. Okay, so that is opinion and some will disagree with me. I respect them. But that's my opinion. If you use Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, etc.), Windows update can get those updates, too.
I like to leave my desktop machine running all the time so it can download and install updates nightly (as needed) and do automatic backups. I don't think it takes all that much power (check your power settings), and it won't cause your computer to be slow when you fire it up as it seeks and downloads the latest security fixes.
You will find that certain updates will only occur if you do them manually. They may be critical, but they won't come in automatically. It seems to be because they want to confront you with yet another End User License Agreement to (not) read.
Anti-Virus
There are good tools on the market (Trend Micro, Panda, McAfee, Norton...). If you ever have your computer on the Internet, you have to use one. And you have to keep it up to date. That means pay for a renewal of the update service when you have to. You are safer crossing an LA freeway on foot than using the Internet without Anti-Virus (or relying on really old virus definitions). Did I exaggerate? Well, maybe. A little... See my page on this topic.
Support
Hardware and software development efforts can be categorized as either projects or products. Projects are one-time efforts that work upon completion, but the future is up for grabs. Typically, in the software world this occurs when a developer solves a problem with a piece of custom written code.
Products are supposed to have two additional attributes, on-going support for a reasonable period of time (at a charge, often). At the end of the supported time (which should be announced well in advance) called ‘end of life’, there is an expectation of there being a migration option. A product goes to End Of Life after product sales have become insignificant, and enough customers have migrated to newer, better technology that a business decision can be made to risk angering the remaining customers in order to cut the support costs. Hopefully, a reasonable migration path is available.
Support and migration make it tremendously more expensive for a company to develop a product for the market than to do a project for a customer. Big companies like IBM, Sun, HP and Microsoft take this seriously and spend the money. It may be marketed as “investment protection”, for example, but it is a differentiator in this business.
It is important to understand that often ‘supported’ is more a business decision than a technical one. In particular, an unsupported configuration may work fine. Moreover, it is not uncommon for the vendor’s customer service representatives to unofficially provide telephone support on a ‘best efforts’ basis even though the installation is ‘unsupported’. You have to ask, if it is important.
It is worth a moment to understand the history. Around 20 years ago, customers would buy everything from the system vendor, who would sign them up for a ‘support contract’. Revenue from these support contracts was very profitable and companies like IBM did well. As the industry matured, repair gradually became replace and third party products that were fully compatible became the norm. Support contracts became uneconomic to customers and the resulting impact on big systems vendors like Digital was dramatic if not fatal. Without contract revenue to fund the on-going support efforts, companies have been forced to end product lives earlier than they otherwise would.
Microsoft Operating System Support
Microsoft has a small army of people running thousands of computers of every conceivable make, model, and weird combination of third party hardware and software products. These tests are all automated, of course. Each new software release gets subjected to extensive testing in this environment. Microsoft is in business to make money and has to eventually phase out support of old products. They periodically announce a schedule and it is available on their web site.
Volume systems builders like Dell offer few alternatives. So, if you want buy an older system, you have to shop around.
For example, practically speaking, I expect Windows XP to be supportable for many years to come, maybe not from Microsoft, but from third parties, because there will continue to be many people running on these systems well beyond the official XP End of Life. What about Windows 3.1, 98, ME, 2000, and NT? I've no doubt there are people still running each of those, perhaps because the software or hardware they use won't run on newer systems. But their support options become ever more limited and costly.
Drivers
Modern systems are all built in layers with specified and relatively stable interfaces between the layers. An operating system, such as XP, relies on lower level software called ‘drivers’ to do everything. In most areas there are multiple layers of drivers. One reason might be to provide an abstraction of common functionality. Also the hardware may determine the layering. For example, this happens in the case of a PCI bus which needs its own driver which interacts with separate drivers for the various options that might be installed on the PCI bus.
You should know that a driver is written to conform to the needs of the calling software (the O/S, perhaps) and the controlled device or driver. Every new device needs a driver, and that driver can be different depending on the environment it goes into. It doesn’t have to be different. They might package code for all the supported environments together and use only the required pieces at installation.
Computers are assembled by a system builder. It's the builder's responsibility to provide the customer with a set of all the software needed to make it run properly. Without this, rebuilding a system is not impossible, but usually very time consuming. One needs not only the base operating system, but software drivers for various chip sets on the motherboard, etc. It can be very difficult and time-consuming to try to reconstruct everything. Don't lose those CDs! Don't have them? Keep reading.
The best practice approach to a driver problem is to determine what isn’t working properly, what it actually is, and go to the device manufacturer’s web site to look for the latest driver that supports your Operating System.
About those Recovery Discs
What recovery discs? In their efforts to reduce cost, some manufacturers have been shipping systems without them. Typically, they partition the disc creating a separate disc drive that is inaccessible to Windows but can be used by their special built-in recovery tool. Yes, it will put it back into new-from-the factory condition. But, if your disc drive is totally dead, too bad.
Sometimes you can get the manufacturer to ship you a set of recovery CDs/DVDs (wait, wait, wait...).. But you may be able to avoid this. The trick is that HP, for example, ships with software that will burn a set of recovery discs from their recovery partition. I think Vista has this as a standard tool. It is very time-consuming, perhaps a couple of hours, and you may never need to use them. You can only do it once, of course. And, obviously, you have to be pro-active and do this before the disc fails (like now is good). Check it out. Really!
Windows 7, at least in some of its flavors has a similar feature built in for your use. You want to create a 'recovery' disk and do an 'image' backup, to an external device. A 'flash' drive should be usable but a large external hard drive is ideal.
What doesn't work
You do not want to try to run an old operating system on a computer that wasn't built for it. I did it once, the client wanted Windows 98 on a Dell system loaded with Windows XP. Other gurus said it should work. Sure, I'd have to hunt up drivers. I did it for the client, and it was a colossal mistake. Those fancy Video and I/O chips weren't known when the operating system was built, and their manufacturers don't try to provide updates to old operating systems to make them work. It sorta worked, but it wasn't pretty.
So, if you really want to run Windows 98, for example, find someone who will sell you a system running Windows 98.
Backward compatibility works with software. You can put new software on old hardware, within reason, and it should work. But don't try putting old operating system software on new hardware. Old applications have a much better chance of working, although there can be some unpleasant surprises.
I know this industry well enough that I should not have made this mistake, but I did.
Wireless
I wonder who came up with the "WiFi" label. The only expansions I've seen go to "wire-less fidelity". What does 'fidelity' have to do with it pray tell?
Real briefly, for those who don't keep up on the latest technology crazes, I'll explain WiFi. It is a cordless connection for your computer. No wire is involved. It runs over short distances, usually less than 100 yards/meters. The radio part of your laptop or handheld computer is relaying through a special box that is, normally, wired into some network like the Internet. It's easy to setup and use and inexpensive. It also has some security concerns, but let's not go there for now.
People are putting it into their homes, to avoid running wires all over. Companies are putting WiFi into their office building to support employees moving around. Companies are setting up airport lounges and coffee-shops.
Note that as in all areas we see steady improvement in speed, security and ease of use. The latest innovations are in the area of seamlessly integrating cellular service and WiFi. Should be interesting.
Keeping up
Preventative action usually saves time and money in the long run. This is encapsulated in the expression "pay me now, or pay me later".
It's a fact of life that information technology keeps changing and if you fall too far behind, the cost to recover is often stunning. Vendors spend a lot building reasonable aids to help you keep up--we call it migration. The problem is that they generally don't go back to prior generations of product. You can find the migration/upgrade to a current product exceedingly difficult and costly if you've let one or two generations of product go and themselves become obsolete, before you actually undertake the migration.
Well, if the application isn't critical to your business, you can probably let it ride. Toss everything away and start with a 'clean slate'. But if it is critical, you are asking for trouble.
A lecture like this is about as welcome as telling a teenager not to smoke, etc. The real world abounds in such situations and big companies with large IT budgets and professional staff, have these problems, too. Sometimes, as with Y2K, it hits the news and people get worked up. But usually, people get away with ignoring the problem for years. After all, you will probably be able to buy a computer that will run MS DOS for many years to come. Maybe your old application will run on it the way you expect.
Pity the government. They are forever developing sophisticated, highly integrated systems only to have essential components become obsolete before they can even deploy the system. It makes for some interesting contracts, and a strong tendency to look askance at vendors with uncertain prospects.
Your 'computer person' needs to be looking out for you. It's part of what I call being 'business oriented'. A planned, managed response gives you time to pick the best alternative and implement it with little or no impact on your business. In a crisis, you do whatever you can. If you wait for the crisis to develop it will cost you more out of pocket, and it will impact your customers, clients, patients, as may be. Moreover, you won't have the luxury of finding the best alternative.
Sometimes it's the little things
We had some folks over for dinner one evening and this friend told me he couldn't get his new computer working on-line. Finally, he'd called tech support and gone through that pain, but still it wasn't working.
Before I made a date to go over and bail him out we went into my office and I walked it through on my computer (also an XP machine). Baba-bing. No problem, worked just fine. What he hadn't known was that when the wizard asked for his account name, he was only supposed to give the portion up to the '@' sign. He'd been inputting the whole e-mail address. That said, some ISPs do use the entire e-mail address as the account name.
Reminds me of my wife's torture. Years ago she was going in to a computer lab to run some statistical analyses for a research course. Despite turning to the geek-on-duty, she hadn't been able to make things work the way they were supposed to. So, she took me in and I discovered she was entering a capital 'i' for the numeric 1. Also, she used capital 'o' for 0. Now, we are both old enough that we were taught to do that in typing class. Old typewriters didn't even have keys for a numeric 1 or 0.
Working with computers is a way of reminding yourself that you really should be humble. We all make 'stupid' mistakes now and then. And sometimes they can be frustrating beyond words.
Photography
Our youngest daughter's wedding was some time ago. The photographer delivered her handiwork--8 CDs worth. Enough to make the proudest papa's eyes glaze over.
We like pictures and have many, the best of which are in photo albums. But, we had been resisting digital photography. I'm not sure why, it never seemed necessary. So, this same daughter decided we'd been in the 20th century long enough and gave us a digital camera as a joint birthday present. Very generous. And we both love the camera. Our film cameras are gathering dust.
I have to admit, I should have launched into digital photography sooner. It is cool, especially when you spend $20 and add a reader to your computer than can take the memory card from the camera. In fact many new computers have the reader built in. Anyway, my wife and I are converts, now. But we order prints on-line instead of trying to print them here. The quality is better and it costs less.
Technology
All of which brings me to technology. I'm a technologist, by profession. I adopt new technology with relative ease. But rarely does it fascinate me and appeal to me for its own sake. So, I only adopt new technology when I can see where it is likely to bring me value, in terms that make sense to me. Working for a big company, the Blackberry was useful when I was moving around as it enabled me to see and reply to e-mails without digging out the notebook and linking it up somehow. My cell phone, like my voice-mail, is more or less indispensable. But I don't currently see the need for a Blackberry (Android or iPhone) type of device.
It isn't so much the money, as the time required to learn and really get the benefit from a piece of new technology. How many people own VCRs that they cannot program to record a show? Digital cameras and camcorders are so feature rich that is formidable to learn and remember everything needed if you are a casual user. Anyway, the smart phones are larger than a plain cell phone and the bulk puts me off. Then too, there is the added cost of the data plan.
My usual strategy is to avoid the most versatile gismos. Remember the kid's stroller that could be made into a carriage or a diaper changing table (I'm serious here). I have used separate machines for fax and print, and neither one makes coffee, thank you. My first flatbed scanner wanted to be my copier, too. But it wasn't very good at it. I bought a copier. I finally have gone to a multi-function laser printer (black and white). I'm altogether satisfied with it. We are past the point of new product bugs.
Well, I now have a video camera attached to my computer and occasionally use Skype (friends and grandchildren). I've accounts with Facebook and Twitter, but say little. Mostly I want to keep tabs on my children and grandchildren.
All of this stuff is reasonably easy to set up and use. Same with blogging (which has never appealed to me). This page is as close as I'm ever likely to come to writing a blog. I could probably set it up as one, but I don't see a reason to do so. Social networking. It's all the rage today. If you love those i-Phone apps and have to spend your day reading and writing the random thoughts of various people. Great. Have at it.
My best toy
I use Netflix a lot. I also like opera. The Metropolitan Opera broadcasts live in HD to select theatres around the world on certain Saturdays and on public television, occasionally. It's great. We love it. Now those same broadcasts are available on-line for very reasonable rates. And more and more are in High Def. But, watching an opera on my computer is not the experience I want. And there is Hulu and Link TV and other good material available on the Internet.
I kept hoping for the industry to offer a good, clean approach that integrated Hi-def TV, Internet, and DVD in one. I stopped waiting. I chose a large plasma display, decent Audio Video Receiver, and Blu-Ray player. Then I revived an ancient set of stereo speakers, a cabinet and a desktop computer. With appropriate cables I put it all together. The key to making it all work is a top of the line programmable universal remote. It completely replaced the 4 or 5 other remotes that had to be carefully set depending on what I wanted to do. Now my wife can use it!
I added a small wireless keyboard with built-in touchpad to control the computer and video cam for Skype.
Ahh. That's what I've been wanting. But... fair warning... it took a lot of time to get everything working well.
Here are some notes on things I've learned.
- The computer needs to be dual-core. Otherwise the streaming video may just not be good enough. I had to replace the first computer I used.
- Set your copy of Adobe Flash to have a large buffer. Click here to go to the web site that enables this.
- Unless you have a monster screen, the Blu-Ray is probably unnecessary. I don't think I can tell the difference in picture quality. If you are looking for surround sound, you may want to spring for it.
- I need a USB extension cable for the little receiver for the wireless keyboard to work properly.
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