Internet Safety for Children

April 22nd, 2010 1 comment »

One common question I am sometimes asked when it comes to internet safety is how to keep kids safe from internet threats.  Children, tweens, and teens are all susceptible to internet threats from viruses, predators, and content that parents may consider inappropriate for their age.  Also a challenge, is as computers keep getting cheaper and cheaper, kids are more likely to have their own PCs.  So what options does one have when it comes to protecting your offspring from inappropriate content on the internet?  Here are a couple of options.

Net Nanny

One of the most comprehensive parental control suites I have seen is Net Nanny.  Just a penny shy of $50, it’s definitely not the cheapest web content filtering solution, but it is by far one of the most effective.  It boasts a  very robust feature set which includes filtering of Web sites, peer to peer networks, messengers, social networking, or even video games.  It also is a stand out as far as I’m concerned because of it’s ability to create individual user profiles.  So if you have a 6 year old and a 16 year old that both use the same computer, you can set them up with different levels of content filtering and automatically attach it to their Windows or Mac user profile.  You can even schedule blocks of time when each user is allowed to use the internet.

K9 Web Protection

If you’re on a tight budget, and can’t afford the price tag on Net Nanny, there is a free alternative you can use as well.  Although it’s not as feature rich, K9 Web Protection from Blue Coat Systems is a great way to make sure your kids don’t access websites with inappropriate content on them.  Best of all, K9 is completely free, (requires registration.)  K9, however, does not offer the user segmentation that Net Nanny does.  Protection settings are system-wide, and if you want to browse restricted content, you have to provide the admin password to unblock content for a certain time period.  K9 will let you decide what categories of websites and content to allow users on your computer to see.

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Another FAIL diagnosis from FAIL technicians

April 10th, 2010 1 comment »

So recently I went to see a new client, that was having problems with her computer not booting correctly.  The computer was crashing to blue screen on boot right before the windows logon screen appeared.  There was also a strange message on the POST screen about “Diskette drive 0 seek failure” when you turned it on.  She had already took it to Geek Squad, so I was kind of a second opinion on this machine.

I’ve said this before to clients, and I will continue to say it now.  If your machine doesn’t boot, Geek Squad techs are incapable of diagnosing the trouble. The Geeks at best buy told my client that her hard drive was likely damaged, and that it would have to be replaced.  Following that, they gave her a total estimate to swap the drive with a fresh new one, reinstall her operating system, and maybe back-up her data from the old drive (which doesn’t make sense if it doesn’t work.)  All this for somewhere in the realm of $300-$400.  Meanwhile installing a fresh hard drive with a fresh OS install would have fixed her problem for probably about 10 minutes.  Ultimately, she would have been out 300 bucks or more and still had a problem with her  machine.

I looked at the machine, saw the disk 0 error, found that it was due to erroneous system settings in BIOS.  Then loaded the Vista recovery console, and saw that the C drive was indeed accessible and I could view all the files there. However, the system failed to boot.  As it turns out, I was able to trace the problem to a couple of bad, (and very cheap, mind you) memory modules.  Replace the modules, and Boom, system works again.  Client didn’t have to lose any data, and she didn’t have to pay for useless re-installation of her operating system.  Then again, go to FAIL repair shops, get FAIL results!

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Finding the “slow” in unusual places

March 18th, 2010 4 comments »

I already posted one article about how our nice new fast computers don’t stay fast, but I myself was a victim recently of some serious performance hiccups that led me to investigate deeper causes of what I call “the slow” in my computer.  I have learned through personal experience that sometimes the degradation of performance in your computer can be so gradual, that you really don’t notice it until something really goes wrong.  Well that really wrong happened to me just recently.

I use my laptop with some DJ software called M-Audio Torq, which is a program that actively streams two audio files at the same time to an audio interface connected to my computer via USB.  This requires some pretty significant resources of the computer and the operating system.  Without getting into a bunch of technical details about it, let’s just say, everything has to be working well for the software to accomplish this.  So, the last few I used the software, I started getting some unexplained audio dropouts, (basically imagine the sound cutting in and out.)

Trying to narrow down the problem, I looked at the CPU in the task manager, the memory, disk fragmentation, and all kinds of stuff, but couldn’t figure out the source of the problem.  Finally, I downloaded HWMonitor from CPUID.com, and found the source of my problem.  Heat!

My dropouts started occuring because my CPU started reaching  100 degrees Celsius.  The computer is not soo stupid, when the processor starts getting too hot, the system reduces the processors clock rate in order to protect it from overheating damage.  Under normal circumstances, it would just be a case where, as the computer got older, it would just seem to not be as snappy as it once was.  Most probably wouldn’t even notice enough to care.  For me, however, the dropouts could make me look like a total idiot in public since I have gigs lined up where dropouts would be a show stopper.

So what did I do?  Well, what any smart computer technician would do.  I decided to try to improve the cooling.  So early this afternoon I began the arduous task of disassembling my computer with the intent to upgrade the thermal paste between the my CPU and heatsink.  instead, I found the cause of the problem was at the fan.  See pictures below.

Fur anyone?!

No Thank You!

That's Better!

So in my computer, there’s a heat pipe, which has a heat sink full of metal fins, which this pictured fan blows air across, to keep the processor cool.  There was so much dust, lint, and probably pet fur, (I have 4 cats,) in the fan that it was literally plugged.  Once I took it out, and put my computer back together, my AMD processor never went above 75 degrees under heavy load.  Bye bye audio dropouts!  Hello performance!  I probably just added about 1½-2 years of life to my computer by doing this.  I strongly recommend that you do NOT attempt this type of service yourself if your computer is under warranty still, or if you aren’t expert at computer service and repair.

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Apple iPad Disappointments…

February 2nd, 2010 No comments »

Apple iPadSo after months of rumor this and rumor that, the Apple iPad is finally a reality, and while iPhone, Touch, and Apple lovers will probably rejoice, I myself find it completely uninspiring and highly overrated.  Basically, It’s a 10-inch iPod touch with a snappy 1 GHz processor and some built in 3G action.  It would be cool, if it were actually more capable than an iPod touch or iPhone.  I guess apple hopes to capitalize on the combination of the popularity of the eReader market and the iPod touch and blend the two into one overpriced tablet.  Actually, I seriously thought to myself a while back ago, “If this thing were for real, I could totally see it being priced at $500,” so there aren’t really any surprises when it comes to the actual price.

Why do I consider it overpriced?  because of Apple’s shortsighted ability to NOT put things in it that I as a typical user would seriously want.  First being, multitask.  I personally think it’s absurd that a portable tablet can run sooooo many apps from the app store, (it fully supports any iPhone/iPod touch app,) but for some retarded reason, it can’t run two at the same time!  That means no writing notes or playing games while Pandora or your music player runs in the background.  I can’t imagine how I would ever be happy with this restriction.

Even more ridiculous though, is the side effect of Apple’s persistent resistance to Adobe flash.  Yeah you can put a great web browser (debatable) on the iPad, but with no flash support, that means no flash video support, (sorry hulu,) no support for those facebook games that everyone seems hooked on, (i.e. cafe world, farmville, yoville, etc.), or no player of any type that doesn’t have a native iPhone app.  I guess they would rather you spend up all your money on their app store apps, which is cool and all, but not after just shelling out $499 on this thing.

I would have liked this thing if it weren’t for these two major shortcomings, but for now my verdict, iPad?  No thank you!

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Things to know when netbook shopping.

January 23rd, 2010 No comments »

Being a guy that keeps up on things, and also that I’m kind of considered an expert on such things, I’ve been asked quite a few times about these little netbooks out there. You’ve probably seen them out and about, the little laptops with no cd/dvd drive, and the tiny screen. Some of them are more visually appealing then others, but they almost always tend to have the exact same specs, (despite sometimes having WILDLY different price tags.)

The one thing about these netbooks that annoys me quite a bit, is that a lot of them have the exact same features and specs as they had over a year ago!  Let me guess, Intel Atom N270 processor, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD?  Just look at the display models, and that’s pretty much all you’ll see.  Well, today actually, I did happen to see some atom n450 processors out there too, but I still find the so-called “variety” uncompelling.

Now there is  a benefit to the Atom N450 CPUs, battery life.  The N450 chips are part of intel’s new pinetrail platform, which does away with the “northbridge” on the system board, (if my understanding correctly,) and integrates a GPU and memory controller directly on the processor die.  I hear this doesn’t necessarily equal much of a boost in performance, but it does reduce power consumption by 20 percent.  Other higher performing chips in the pinetrail lineup include the D410 and D510, but I doubt you’ll be seeing those in netbooks.

So what do you do if you want high performance?  Want to watch HD videos at an actually smooth frame rate?  The secret, apparently, is to pair atom with the Nvidia ION chipset.  The Atom/Ion combo apparently benchmarks much faster in performance tests than the Atom on the Intel only platforms.  The hard part though?  I have never walked into a retail store and actually seen any ION notebooks on display.

The HP mini 311 is one of the early adopters of the ION platform, and best buy does carry it, but online only.  There’s a couple of other models that look pretty nice that you can check out a comparitive review at engadget.

To make the long story short.  Make sure you shop around when looking at netbooks, and pay special attention to the shelf age of the machine.  I have a feeling that retailers are hoarding the newest stuff in the back to try to get rid of the older aging models.  If you see a n270 or n280 and it’s not an ion based machine, it’s old tech, and probably overpriced.  N450 isn’t bad if you want current, but not recommended if you need performance.  Ion kicks butt, but is a little more premium in the price.  The real lesson I wanted to convey though, don’t buy that old stuff!

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Posted in Computer Shopping

Why I suggest not using IE

January 16th, 2010 No comments »

no_ieAnyone that has been a client of mine will tell you, I’m always suggesting against the prolonged and regular use of Internet Explorer as a default browser on your PC.  Right now, they still have the number one market share, but that’s mainly because any Windows PC sold in the US has internet explorer installed by default, and most people just won’t even bother to look for an alternative.

More interestingly, European countries were filing anti-trust suits against Microsoft for shoving IE down peoples throats with windows, to the point that the compromise to make everyone happy was to introduce randomized browser ballots during the whole first time set up routine with new Windows 7 computers.  (see this article at engadget.)

In even more interesting IE news, it seems that the German government has issued a warning to the citizens of Germany to stay away from Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8.  This is in response to a recent problem with a few Chinese hackers compromising some Gmail accounts through an IE security exploit.  If it weren’t for IE being preloaded on US based Microsoft operating systems, would they have anywhere near the same market share as they do now?  Probably not.

googlechromelogoSo what browser DO I like?  Well that’s Google Chrome.  It’s extremely fast java engine, multi-threaded processes, and minimalist interface make it extremely desirable.  Very recently, It actually surpassed Safari in market share, making it the 4th most popular browser right now.

I also wonder if it would be even more popular than that if it weren’t for web developers not acknowledging it.  It’s frustrating to me, when I visit a site, and I get a “Your browser is not supported” message.  Then there will be some links for me to go download the latest IE or Firefox browsers, or if I’m lucky, I might get a “continue anyway” link.  Ironically, Chrome will probably do a faster and better job of rendering elements on a web page than IE, but is less supported.  It’s kinda stupid.

Anyway, if you’re still using IE, STOP IT!  you should really check out Chrome.  It’s faster, more stable, and more secure.  Don’t believe me?  They have a nerdy comic strip that explains it all

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Annoying Salesperson or Trusted Expert

January 5th, 2010 1 comment »

In the wonderful world of customer dis-service, it’s easy to find sales guys that seem to not understand what their job is as sales guys.  How many times have you walked into a retail establishment to invest in some kind of electrical or electronic device, appliance, or whatever, and walk out feeling not-so-thrilled about your purchase?  Well, I would imagine the experience might go kinda like this:

Buyer: “Hello, I’m interested in buying a new TV”
Salesperson thinks to self, “Which TV pays me the most today”
Salesperson: “Can I interest you in this beauty right here?  It’s a great product, and xyz is a GREAT brand.”
Buyer: “Ummm…  is that gonna work with the rest of my stuff?”
Salesperson: “This TV should be able to handle anything you want to throw at it, It’s got plenty of hookups and a great picture!  Would you like to take it with you, or schedule a delivery?”
Buyer: “Does it have a warranty?”
Salesperson: “Yeah, the manufacturer warranty that comes with it doesn’t cover very much though.  I highly recommend investing in our Protection Plan.  It includes in-home service if you have a problem with it.”
“Also, you may want to consider letting our experts set up your TV, they will optimize your display for the best picture.”
Buyer: “How much does that cost?”
Salesperson: “It requires an additional investment of $299, but it’s well worth it, let me show you our demo.”
Buyer: “No thanks, I’ll just take the TV.”
Salesperson: “Do you want to extend the warranty as well, as we discussed?  These things can give you a lot of trouble if you go through the manufacturer.”
Buyer: “I thought you said xyz was a great brand.”
Salesperson: “It is, but almost any of these will probably give you problems at some point, so it’s best to stay protected.”
Buyer: “Can I buy it later?”
Salesperson: “Unfortunately, we cannot extend the warranty after you purchase and take it home.”
Buyer: “Well, I guess I have no choice but to take it now.”
Buyer thinks to self, maybe I should have gone somewhere else

Is there any reason whatsoever you should trust this salesperson is trying to sell you a product that meets your needs? Has he or she given you any reason to trust anything that they say?

So how do we know the difference between the two?  Here’s some indicators:

A good salesperson, (or trusted expert,) will “qualify” you. Qualifying is basically like interviewing you in order to determine which product is the best fit for you.  There are some good things to know about before one can honestly recommend an appropriate product.  What kind of TV do you watch?  Are you a gamer?  Relentless movie watcher?  Sports addict?  Do you have cable?  Satellite?  What are you gonna hook up to it?  I know to some this might come across almost like an interrogation, but my theory is if you approach a salesperson, and they don’t immediately ask you four or five questions about how you intend to use the product, you should find another salesperson.

A trusted expert should be enthused and knowledgeable about the products he or she is selling. If you are not an expert, but know more about the products than your salesperson, then chances are they aren’t serious about their career as a salesperson, and won’t be serious about helping you invest in the right product for you.  I fix computers for a living, and by extension, I live on tech blogs.  If I were looking to buy a cell phone, and my salesperson had never heard of phonescoop, I’d be done with him/her.

Salespeople on commission are more likely to be Trusted Experts, than Annoying Salespeople. A lot of people think of commissioned salespeople as pushy types just trying to get a sale, but of you have a good commissioned salesperson, they don’t want the product coming back because they didn’t do their job.  Trust me, it’s hard when you’re trying to reach a sales quota, and have to work extra hard because you’re trying to make up for returns too.  Also, as a salesperson, when you’ve spent time with someone, and found the best product for them, it’s only polite that they ask you for the sale.  It’s not pushy, it’s like asking for your paycheck on payday.  That’s not to say that non-commissioned salespeople can’t do a good job too though.

If you’re in the process of looking for a new computer, make sure your sales guy or gal takes the time to determine what kind of user you are, what you plan on using your computer for, or any special needs you may have.  Make sure they sell you what you need, and not necessarily what’s in their best interests to sell.  Also, check out my previous post, A Word On Warranties for advice regarding those pesky service plans.

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Off-Topic Post: The future of Television

December 1st, 2009 No comments »

It wasn’t that long ago that we finally made the DTV switch, and killed the analog TV broadcasts that we all grew up with and love, but progress is progress, right? It took all of 70 years to upgrade from traditional analog broadcast to the current newer digital format, so the new format should last plenty long as well? My answer: Prolly not.

Analog TV from the 50's

Clearing out the spectrum and nuking the analog TV broadcasts makes the way for something remarkable. High-speed city-wide internet access. It won’t be long now before people in those rural areas that couldn’t get high speed internet before will start reaping the benefits, and getting some high-speed in those previously unreachable areas.

So what does that have to do with the future of TV? Well, here’s the thing. Once high-speed internet reaches everyone, It is highly likely that IP television broadcasts will become mainstream. I already have IP based internet TV in my home in the form of AT&T U-Verse. Once high-speed internet reaches every home, the FCC should be able to reclaim those frequencies for more creative uses as well.

Don’t expect Blu-Ray to survive too much longer either. With netflix, youtube, and the like streaming HD broadcasts to everything from TV’s, video game consoles, and computers everywhere, well let’s just say I don’t know If I’d be rushing out to Blockbuster when I can fire up a HD movie on my set without leaving the house.

Why is IPTV better? It’s better use of bandwidth.  With traditional cable or satellite TV, you’ve got this pipe chock full of broadcasts coming in to your home, and you use some sort of tuner to select which one of those broadcasts you want to watch.  So say you’ve got 3 TV’s in your home.  You might be watching 3 different TV programs at a time, while around 75-150+ different channels are being pushed down the wire.  Needless to say, there’s a whole bunch of wasted bandwidth.  With IPTV, your devices only receive the channels you want to watch (or record) at that time.  When you change the channel, you’re simply switching to another feed on another network.  No bandwidth is wasted by channels you aren’t watching.  Anybody order a plate of better picture?

Give it 5-10 years, and Maybe over the air digital broadcast will be dead as well. What will you do with all that bandwith, FCC?

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Laser Printers, Environmentally Unsound?

November 3rd, 2009 No comments »

Recently, I was asked to visit my wife’s place of employment to look at some equipment that had been sitting in her company’s back room collecting dust.  Her boss was hoping that I could help her determine if any of it was of value, or otherwise get rid of it.  Of course, electronic devices are supposed to be disposed of properly or recycled, and you’re not supposed to just throw it in the dumpster.  So I ended up taking a boatload of old computer stuff home with me to test and see if any of it was worth anything.

Several devices I ended up taking were various laser printers, including a couple Dells, HPs, and a Brother or two.  A couple of these printers were actually inoperable, but the majority of them just needed consumable parts replaced.

A Brother HL Series Laser Printer

A Brother HL Series Laser Printer

This is where the environmental part kicks in.  Two of the printers, for example, were Dell 1700 laser printers, which most likely retailed for about $199 when they were brand spankin’ new.  Now you might get about 3000 pages out of the toner cartridge that comes with the printer, but replacing it when it runs out would set you back $78 bucks for another 3k pages, or $99 for a 6k cartridge, (assuming you sent the old cartridges back.)  You’d pay even more if you didn’t ship back your old ones.  This is all, of course, understandable.  Cost of doing business, right?

The problem is, the toner isn’t the only “consumable” part in the device.  There’s this other thing that has to be replaced after about 30k copies (on the dell.)  So what happens when you need a new imaging drum?  do you go out and fork over the other $50 bucks or so to replace it?  I fear that most people don’t!

Let’s pick on Brother for a minute.  One of the things I like a lot about Newegg.com is that I can buy with confidence from their site because there are a whole heap of customer reviews.  So for kicks and grins, I went over to their site to look up laser printers, and found one of the most popular models, The  Brother HL-2170W laser printer.  The replacement drum for that printer is the DR360 Drum unit which costs about $99 (it was on sale for $69 when I wrote this article.)  The replacement toner carts were also reg price $45 – $65 for regular or the latter for high yield carts.  So to sum up:  About 12,000 pages into using your printer, you’re shelling out between $100-$165 to continue to use your printer.

I also found out I’m not the only one who’s noticed this.  Look at the newegg customer reviews for the DR360, and you will see comments like this:

Just Buy a New Printer

Pros: Love the printer. Great for black and white text printing. I’ve tried other printers and this one seems to be the most efficient and cost effective.

Cons: Do not waste your money on this. Just buy a new printer and get the drum and a starter cartridge. You can get them for between 50-90 dollars depending on the deal offered. I don’t even know why they bother selling this item.

Or this short and sweet comment…

Drum Unit Only

Pros: This is the same drum unit that comes with the printer.

Cons: This is not a toner cartridge. You will have to buy a toner cartridge in addition to this to make it work.

Other Thoughts: If the drum unit costs this much I would just buy another printer instead of purchasing this item.

One wonders what these people do with their old printers once they replace their consumable parts with a whole new printer.  I think the costs of replacement drums should come WAY down.  How much can they really cost to produce, anyway?

for more, check out Art’s e-trashtalk blog here: http://e-trashtalk.spaces.live.com/

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Want to get Ripped off? Buy a computer from TV shopping networks!

October 28th, 2009 1 comment »

So, I don’t watch these networks myself, but on occasion, I’m at a friend or family members house and they flip on the Home Shopping Network or QVC, and they’ll be on there trying to unload some laptops and talk about how great they are.  Especially with the coming of Windows 7, they are really hoping to breathe new life into PC and notebook/netbook sales.

The problem is, they always talk like they are giving you an incredible deal whenever they market these computers.  It is almost certain that their target audience, (people still shopping on TV,) are not so internet savvy, since the deals are not deals at all.  Case in point:

Illustrious deal at QVC

Illustrious deal at QVC

QVC was selling a HP DV7 series on TV, (I went and found it on their website,) for a penny short of a grand.  I could tell before I even went to look it up that it was overpriced, A LOT.  Especially since the AMD processors tend to run a little cheaper than the Intel based machines.  So I decided to jump on my friends computer and look up the most similar machine I could find on Bestbuy.com, and lo and behold, They have a completely identical DV7-3065dx priced at $729.99.  (I wish I could say I was suprised.)

I am suprised, however, that QVC would mark up the machine a whole $170.  I hope they don’t sell everything with that much mark up.

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