#92 - Back from Vacation!

Even a guru needs a break. So off we went last week. Heading to the Northeast. Our ultimate goal was our nephews new home in Essex Junction, Vermont. We stopped at Poughkeepsie, New York to visit a friend on the way up. Over 1,500 miles round trip made this our longest road trip in several years. We saw lots of road construction on the way up to New York. A normally 8 hour trip soon lengthened to well over 9 hours. Fortunately we had smoother sailing up to Vermont.

We learned alot about Vermont. There are lots of cute towns in Vermont. Everyone has a village green and a gazebo. Speed limit is 50 MPH on country roads and there are lots of dirt roads with much slower speeds. Agriculture is king. Dairy farms dot the landscape supporting Ben & Jerry's and the large Cheese industry. We stopped at the Vermont Wild Flower Farm and saw an interesting cottage industry grown into a nice business. From Sugar Maple to wool clothing to outdoor sports equipment, there were lots of small businesses that have grown into nice income producing business. And they had better earn some money, because Vermont is the #1 worst state for tax burden (Virginia is a respectable 34th).

Its a beautiful state with mountains and streams everywhere. Lots of out door activities and very Tech savvy. All the businesses had accessible web sites and ways to purchase your items on line.

Well we are back to the grind and hope you are having a very nice summer!

#91 - Why does ending take so long?

As I was waiting and waiting and waiting for my laptop to shut down yesterday, I thought I might delve into why PCs take so long to shut down. When you get that shiny new PC with no programs on it you can get into Windows in under 30 seconds and shutting down takes that much time or less.

Now I understand why starting up takes longer after you load a bunch of programs. They all want to load at start up and take up valuable resources. What I don't understand is why it takes SO LONG to shut down your PC. My Apple mini Mac after 2 years of ownership, constant upgrades, loading/unloading programs, and surfing everywhere on the Internet shuts down in 16 seconds, EVERY SINGLE TIME!. So what is going on with our PCs?

Turns out that Microsoft gave our very loose specifications on memory usage under Windows (and for what its worth Vista is no faster in shutting down). Many programs don't close out properly and don't clean up the mess they make when they run. Windows tries to shut down, but wants to clean up the mess (es). That doesn't happen and Windows literally hangs until it times out and finally shuts down.

Here is a link to some instructions on speeding up your shut downs. I've found it works and it cuts the shut down time by 30%. Memory Clean Up

I mean why be nice? If you have taken the trouble to click on Start, Turn off Computer AND Turn Off (that's three clicks for goodness sake) why not instantly turn off windows? Sigh another mystery that Microsoft will never tell us about.

#90 - Fed Ex Technology Noose

I have a niece -in-law that used to work for UPS. Upon hearing that someone in the family (who will remain nameless) used Fed Ex for moving something, her outspoken response was "Don't use Fed Ex, they screw ya". Well we all laughed and she has since moved on to a different employer. I however got the Fed Ex screwing the past week. The evidence:

I had a big order of PCs last week. I found my best deal and it was from a distributor that has a large warehouse in Pennsylvania. This is usually a couple of day transport after the order is placed. Now my distributor lets me go on line and see where the order is in his system and has links to track the packages with the carrier of their choice (they pick up the freight for large orders). This year its Fed Ex ground. So I track the packages and all but one (out of 10) show up on my doorstep on time). But wait one is missing where is it? Tracking shows it went from PA to Charlotte (right past Covington), to some unknown town in Texas. So I call Fed Ex and ask what my package is doing in Texas. Their response was oops sorry it went to the wrong place. Ok I say, everyone makes mistakes. When will I see the package. In 3 days is their response. I said WAIT you are Fed Ex. You screwed up, why can't I get it tomorrow? Well this is Fed Ex Ground we can't get it to you overnight. They said they would look into it and see what they could do. Bottom line is I didn't see the package for 3 days. Lip service, customer service even when they screw up.

This week as I am looking for some critical customer supplies I see another problem. Four boxes shipped from PA last Wednesday. I still don't have the packages, so where are they? Checking the distributors site I see good old Fed Ex has them. According to Fed Ex tracking they were in Salem, VA on Friday and should have been delivered then. Didn't happen. Monday they were in Salem, VA and should have been delivered yesterday. Didn't happen. I call wonderful Fed Ex customer support. Where are my packages? Well they are on the truck for delivery. Well that didn't happen. They claim they don't know why they weren't delivered. I have some sinking feeling that they have overloaded their driver and for 2 days (Friday and Monday) he didn't have time to deliver to me since I'm on the end of route.

So as my niece said don't use Fed Ex, they Screw Ya....

#89 - More on the Vista Trail

I'm working a laptop for a college student. The university requested Vista, so that's what we got. The university also specified 2GB of RAM (memory). I couldn't find a laptop that met the other specifications and came with 2GB of memory, so I purchased one with 1GB and was going to upgrade it to 2GB. Here is where the fun starts. When I got the laptop there is a bold sheet(8.5'x11") of paper from the manufacturer saying they recommend 2GB of memory for use with Vista. OK, then why did they just sell a computer with only 1GB? Well, that was nice, what is better is the way the manufacturer put the 1GB in the PC. The laptop has 2 memory slots. Logic would say they would put in a 1GB memory module in the first slot and leave the second slot free for the upgrade to 2 GB that they recommended (but didn't even have in the catalog). Of course, what the manufacturer did is populate both slots with 512MB chips so that in order to get to the 2GB that THEY recommend you have to take out BOTH chips and add 2 1GB chips. What a waste. And wait there is more. The first slot is easy to get to on the back of the laptop. The second slot requires you to REMOVE the keyboard from the laptop and mess around on the mother board. Jeez Louise!!!! Could they have screwed up this any more? I think not.

Another customer was given a nice shiny new Dell PC by a relative. It came in with Vista AND 512MB memory. Talk about slow PCs and it is brand NEW! Now Vista will run with just 512 MB memory, but you CAN NOT run any other programs (even IE) with that little memory. I can't believe anyone sells a PC and Vista with that little memory.

So that's just this weeks issues. More to come I'm sure. Just be forewarned if you order VISTA order enough memory.

#88 - Vista ramblings

A customer bought a wireless mouse and keyboard to work with their new Vista Laptop. I decided to sell them the Microsoft brand, figuring it would not have Vista issues. Well you could see this coming, of course the driver in the box DID NOT WORK with Vista and I had to download one from the Microsoft site. The Microsoft site was not very clear in what was required to make this system work and it took two downloads and I had to run two driver programs (1 for the keyboard and 1 for the mouse) even though this was a system sold in 1 box. Sheesh.

On the other hand, I have been impressed with the Network Utilities found in Vista. It is easier and clearer to set up a home/small business network with Vista. Now having said that, it really wasn't that much harder to set up a network in XP, just a couple more steps.

Well Vista will be our only choice come February. Enjoy

#87 - Apple with lots of new products on the horizon

The much anticipated release of the Apple iPhone kept the media in a tizzy all weekend. The media seems to love seeing people in lines waiting for products. Now don't get me wrong, I think the iPhone is a nice piece of technology innovation. Unfortunately Apple decided to put its apples in the AT&T (Cingular) basket. AT&T has horrible coverage in the Highlands (just ask our Lumberjack baseball players). So its not really a viable option for the Mogas.

Also recently release is Apple TV. This is a box that can wirelessly stream content from your iTunes library or play content direct from its hard drive. This means you can enjoy almost anything on your PC, Movies, Photos, Music, podcasts and Videos on your TV. Setting this box up is a breeze and running your files is simple. The bad issue is that you have to have an EDTV or HDTV to see the results. Also the files must be iPod compatible. Some video camera formats aren't. Cost is $299 for you uber geeks!

The biggest anticipated product is the new version of the Apple OS, code named Leopard. It was scheduled to appear in the spring, but was pushed back to the fall so that the iPhone could come out on time. Leopard promisses a new approach for backing up your data. Called Time Machine, this syncing program is supposedly the best backup built in to an OS ever. The Time Machine name refers to a feature that allows you to go back in time and find old files and system settings. Another new feature is Spaces. This one lets you operate several desktop area's simultaneouley. For example you can run your media type programs (iPhoto & iTunes) in one Space and your office applications (Word & Excel) in another. You can instantly switch and not have any issues. We'll let you know how this one looks in the fall.

#86 - Happy 4th of July

I wonder how many people take time on the 4th of July to check out a blog? What do you do with your spare time? Surf the Internet, Garden, Golf, Run, Hike, Watch TV, Read? I'll bet alot more of you surf the Internet then you did say 5 years ago. High Speed (Broadband Internet) has made all the difference. Content is another. If you can't find it on the Internet does it exist??? I went looking for a part for an Anderson door I have. No problem. I found a pdf with all the part numbers and literally 100s of dealers who want to sell me that part. Wow!

Have a safe 4th of July and remember how lucky you are to live in a country were freedom is valued.

#85 - One Laptop per child an Update

I wrote about the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) program several months ago in this Blog (Look in the archives!). I thought I would give an update on this important and ground breaking project.

OLPC isn't really about laptops, its about learning. The goal is to provide many of the disenfranchised children of the world a different way to learn. Laptops happen to be the media that was chosen. There are 1.2BILLION children in 3rd world countries, so there is no shortage of customers! Before we get too far along here is a link to their webpage: http://www.laptop.org/

The OLPC laptop has started to be distributed. Cost, right now, is about $150 per unit. Units have now been distributed in several countries. Feedback from the children has been marvelous. The units seem to be hardy enough and are having very few issues in the field.

The laptop has no moving parts, is water proof and dust proof, requires very little electricity and is self contained (other then a power cable). All the software on the laptop is open source (free) and most is modifiable (by the children!). Every laptop immediately recognizes other laptops and instantly form a network (the "mesh"). You can play games, browse the Internet together, collaborate and work on projects TOGETHER. Thus pushing the concept of Peer to Peer learning. You learn from each other and kids become the experts imparting knowledge that they have acquired by curiosity.

OLPC is gearing up for the massive distribution of the laptop. Over 80 countries have signed on to buy the laptops and distribute them in their countries. This will happen with the feedback the company is getting from the test distributions. The laptop has a unique browser that can save Internet sessions to use when you go home (and likely don't have Internet access).

We'll periodically keep you up to date on the status of this wonderful application of technology.