The best is yet to come? Maybe…

November 12, 2009 by phillip.

Recently I got into a debate about interfaces. I know this isn’t the most common conversation. Actually, it was spawned by a conversation about my last blog post on Windows 7. Critiques (even if they are not heavy handed) will usually cause someone from a group that loves the item to lash out at you without fully thinking about the review. Zealotry of anything will cause you to be blind to some extent. The zealotry that is the core of most computer fights isn’t what most people think it is. Most people find themselves in three basic camps: Mac, Windows, or Linux/Unix.

Analyzing the problem further you will find that the real difference between all of these is the interface. The interface is how you interact with the computer. Mac people learned when their computers turned from Motorola processors to Intel that the guts became the same as everybody elses. They learned even earlier when Mac went to OSX that the core became Unix. Briefly returning to the aforementioned debate, the other person disagreed with my assessment of Windows 7 because the interface was easier to use for him. Joe Average User will never flip his lid over the look of Windows 7. Linux users have learned this the hard way. The major Linux interfaces are Gnome and KDE. Both of these have added all kinds of crazy effects, transitions, shading, etc. to better the eye candy in Mac and Windows. In actuality it can look much better than what either of the others can do. At that point they realized, “It’s not how pretty it looks. It’s usability. How easy it is to use.”

Usability is an area that Mac excels at. A Mac is a pretty easy piece of equipment to learn to use for the most part. With that said, it does however have the reputation of not being useful for higher level work or tweakers. Just creative types and people just typing papers and getting on the Internet. These areas seem to be some of the commonly said weaknesses of Linux. My friend’s believe in Windows 7 being easier to use goes even deeper than usability though. It strikes at the heart of my own zealotry. Input devices.

The monitor, mouse and keyboard have changed very little for the last 30+ years. We love these devices. They are near and dear to us. Have we reached the end of the interface road though? If you ever saw the move “Minority Report” you will be aware of Tom Cruise moving items in the air on a two dimensional projection in the sky. Many companies have come out with prototypes of this technology after Microsoft released video of it’s “Microsoft Surface” technology to come out to the public soon. Is this the next step? Even though keyboard changes like the Dvorak (no connection to publication famous John C. Dvorak) style keyboard were introduced in 1936, before the computer even came out, it has not been adopted because we don’t like massive changes in our inputs and interfaces.

So, all that to say the big question: “Have we reached the end of what we can get out of what we are using?” I really can’t picture how much more can be done that will totally blow the mind until virtual reality and 3D projection come but the future always holds some new surprises.

Posted in My humble opinion | 1 Comment »

An angry stampede of turtles and Windows 7

November 3, 2009 by phillip.

I have received quite a few calls, emails and such lately about Windows 7. “Should I buy it now?” is the common jist of the conversation. Being the kind of person that I am, I never like to make uninformed opinions on things. So, of course I have to be one of the early adopters of most new things related to computers or the Internet because sooner or later someone will ask me about it. First, let me give you a little bit of background so you see where I’m coming from.

Computers are to make your life productive, comfortable and easier. Stick with that in mind whenever you’re making a purchase. My job as the tech guy is to tweak your choices to suit your life better. Now, think back. Microsoft gave you Microsoft Office 2007 and what did you get that you already didn’t have in Office 2003? Very little if anything at all. Apple people just saw this with the new version of Mac OSX Snow Leopard. All the fanfare and when I got it on a laptop it hearkened back to the great old Wendy’s commercial slogan from the 80’s. “Where’s the beef?”

Upgrades for the most part now days are like selling new cars. How much different is this car from the other one? Well… other than the different shell. A turtle with a new shell is still a turtle. He’s just shiny now. Software vendors have learned something from auto companies. Toyota wanted to market to a higher class audience so they made up the company Lexus and use the same engines but put on a nicer shell. Honda, Ford and a few others have done the same. Windows Vista got a well deserved bad wrap from consumers so what do they do? Throw a new shell on it and call it a different name.

With all that said, I am liking Windows 7 for the most part only because it’s an upgrade from Vista. Nothing like standing next to the unattractive person to make yourself look just a little bit better. It boots up a little faster but still slower than Mac and Linux. Gaming isn’t fully working but I am still using the pre-release version. I can’t say that I’ve experienced too many problems with networking either but things working faster than Vista is still a major selling point. Now here’s the clincher and listen to me good. If you have Windows XP running I don’t see any reason to change. Windows 7 will actually take away features in XP like remote desktop so they can sell it to you in the higher end version for $100 more.

This is why I relate this new upgrade to an angry stampede of turtles. Usually a stampede would have the ferocity of wild elephants with dust, vicious tusks and chaos. You see it coming in the distance and it’s unavoidable. In this case, the stampede is coming in the distance. Those new shells are menacing. Those turtles look pretty angry. Let’s keep it real though people. Those are still just dressed up turtles. Stand still and let this upgrade stampede pass you by. You won’t even get dust on your shoes.

P.S.: I get all the features of Windows 7 and more with Linux or free software on XP and Yes, I know that it’s a tortoise with legs and a turtle with fins but turtle sounds so much better.

Posted in Windows | 3 Comments »

Vuze crashes

October 17, 2009 by phillip.

If you are a user of Vuze (formerly Azureus even though it’s been long enough to stop saying that) then you may be encountering the same problem that I’ve been encountering. Vuze (on all platforms) crashes or freezes when you add a torrent.

The fix is as follows. Go to:  Tools -> Options -> Connection

Under Connection uncheck the box that says “Prompt for selection when a tracker with an anonymous  tracker is added”.

DONE. That was easy. Vuze has already acknowledged this problem and issued a patch but this will work for now.

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Turning the Samsung Rogue into an iPhone and Blackberry killer

October 9, 2009 by phillip.

For the longest time I’ve been a huge proponent of getting Verizon wireless except for one major flaw. The wireless coverage is the best around however they just never seem to get any cool phones. They do have Blackberry’s, yes, but even those are just as mediocre as can be and the Blackberry Storm was supposed to bring Verizon back in the game but it crashed and burned after bad reviews (even though I do know of some people that really like theirs).

Enter Verizon back into the game with the Samsung Rogue. It’s their newest phone and after seeing all the features, looking at a lot of customer reviews and editor’s choice awards after being out for only a week I had to get one. That’s where all the fun starts.

First off let me say, I love this phone. However, if I get it, you know I’ve got to figure out all that I can make it do. My goal with all phones is of course to measure them against the gold standards of phones: The Blackberry Bold and the Apple iPhone. I’m sure this is going to be an ongoing project but to date I believe I’ve come close to my goal.

Let’s start with what you’ll need: Mail client (Outlook or Thunderbird), Handbrake, a memory card (I got a 4gb for about $10). You’ll find all the steps are cross-platform like I always do (Linux, Windows, or Mac) however, this tutorial will be in Ubuntu Linux with KDE showing differences for each operating system.

So, when you think of iPhone what do you think of? Maybe: Touch screen with smooth finger scrolling, music player, playing videos, apps, and internet. Check to all of those.  When you think of Blackberry what do you think of? Maybe: Email, contacts, syncing with desktop mail, and some multimedia. Check to all of those too. How you may ask? Well it wasn’t easy for me. There was a lot of documentation and experimentation that I had to do but I am very happy with my results. So, let’s make it easy for you.

Let’s get the easy stuff out of the way. I don’t make any judgements on how you get your content it’s just that you get your content onto your phone. I had to look around to make sure of how to do this. I first wanted to make my computer see the phone as a USB drive.

First, lets format your new memory card. Put in your memory card. Next hit your green phone button and click the lock on the screen to get to the desktop screen (if it’s not already up). Next click “Menu” and “Settings and Tools” and go to “Tools”, “Memory”, “Card memory”, “Format Card” and “Yes.” You’re now done formatting the card and ready to go.

Plug your USB cable into your computer and connect it to the port on the side of your phone. If you get a question asking you Modem or Sync then click “Modem” if not go back to Setting Tools as in the previous steps and choice 0 “USB Mode” and select modem. Next scroll up to choice “2 Tools” and then to choice 0 USB Mass Storage. Now you have a USB hard drive on your computer connecting to the memory card you put in.

Your computer should display a USB drive connected with the folders: my_contacts, my_files, my_flix, my_music, my_pix, my_ringtones, and my_sounds. These are pretty self-explanatory but what goes in them and how is the key. The important ones for us are contacts, flix, music, and pix. Music and pics are simple. You can simply copy music and pictures to the appropriate folders as mp3’s or jpg’s.

Video’s take a little fine tuning according to what types of video files you have. The program HandBrake runs on Win, Mac, and Linux and will convert any movie or DVD to the “iPhone and iPod touch” video format that you need. Go to this site if you want to do any of this on the command line. Once done copy the file into the “my_flix” folder on your phone.

Now for the hardest part that may need some tweeking as you experiment with your setup. I will use the most vague directions here so you can fine tune it to your liking. The “my_contacts” folder has to contain .vcf files. This is a common vCard format that every email client even gmail will export contacts as .vcf. The trick here is to export your clients as .vcf files and tell your program to save them to the “.my_contacts” folder. In the future you can sync them with your desktop by whatever way you know of to sync folders. I use Thunderbird and Gmail. On Thunderbird you can get this plugin to give you .vCard capabilities. Outlook has some good ones built in and Gmail does as well. Since I use Thunderbird and Gmail, I use the Zindus plugin and Provider for Google to sync my Thunderbird contents and calendar with Gmail.

Now back to our phone. Get the screen back on and click disconnect. This will stop if from being a USB device. If you get text messages a lot, you’ll get a lot right now because your phone was not usable while it’s a mass storage device. Now go back to “Menu”, “Settings & Tools”, “Memory”, “Card Memory.” The list presented to you has all the folders on your memory card. Going into those folders will show you the folders on your memory card. Number 8 on that list will be “Move all to phone”.

There you have it. That’s enough to start playing with and hopefully by the time you read this there are apps out for the phone. At the time of the writing the phone was too new and there were none out even though it has a couple built in for Facebook, Myspace, and a couple other web related content. As of this writing I haven’t fully figured out how to sync the Calendar with the PC but I sync it with gmail and go on the web from the phone to see that. Not as good as having it integrated so it can give you an alarm but I’ll figure it out soon enough.

If you’re a Verizon customer or thinking about it the Samsung Rogue is definitely the choice to go with.

Posted in Mac, Windows, Linux, Only for the techy people | 23 Comments »

Empowered by the word “Free”

October 6, 2009 by phillip.

Other than yelling out the word “fire” there are few words that envoke a response in humans in an economy driven society. The highest of these that can be said in mixed company is the word “free.” As pleasant as this word is to hear when offered a sample at your local store or as anticipated after the words “buy one, get one” this word does bare a negative burden. I must always be proven innocent or assumed to be guilty of a trick. Why else would someone give away something that they could just as easily have gotten paid for it? Where is the catch after I take this deal?  Let’s strip away the stigma attached to the word and show you how this word can help your business and personal life.

Almost everything out there has a free counterpart when computer software is concerned. That’s a pretty big claim but I intend to back it up.  Let me get this out of the way though. There is one string attached. You don’t just get anything that’s free just like you don’t get any car that has the same price that you want to spend. Have a little bit of a critical eye to key terms such as: Freeware and open source. Freeware is a product that is free but may be watered down compared to the pay version or expire after a certain date leaving you like Cinderella’s pumpkin when you need a ride home. Open source if software that is freely available and made by a collaboration of people around the world for the single purpose of freeing you of software licenses.

Ok, I know you’re already wondering where and how? Free! Free! Free! However, let me give it a little credibility first. You and the companies you use are already using open source software right now.  Google runs on Openbsd. Most of the sites on the internet run on Apache server. Firefox might be what you’re reading this with. Tivo, the Amazon Kindle, Sony Playstation 3 and most animated movies are made on Linux run hardware. All are free and open source products that the big companies have realized cut their costs by millions if they hide what’s below. Even your precious Apple computer and iPhone hide the free software below. If they know it. So should you.

As an old commercial used to say, “I’m not just the president, I’m a client.” Whereas I may not be the president I realized back in 1993 that I practice what I preach. Firefox is my web browser of choice. I dumped Microsoft Outlook in favor of Mozilla Thunderbird as my email client. I use Open Office on some of my PC’s instead of the way over priced and bloated Microsoft Office for all of my work. I use the very resourceful Video Lan Client (VLC) for all of my video and audio and I use Pidgin (or Adium on Macs) for all my instant messaging. I even use Ubuntu Linux as my primary desktop (note: It does have a little bit of a learning curve or help to setup than Mac or Windows but you have to remember they come installed when you buy the PC). These only scratch the surface. My internet hosting companies are running products like Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, SugarCRM, PHP and OScommerce and I’m sure yours are or will too.

I’m not going to lead you astray or have you believe that I don’t use Microsoft, Apple, or Adobe products. Dreamweaver is unparalleled at present for designing websites. Microsoft Access is not touched by it’s freeware and open source competitors and video games on the PC just aren’t at the level of the ones you pay for if you’re a serious gamer. However, every serious business or cost conscious individual should pay a little closer attention to their pocketbooks and give serious consideration to some of the FREE software that is out there to help you.

Prices may vary but once you compare the cost of a Mac or Linux computer running the standard application alternatives: Open Office, VLC, Firefox, and Thunderbird, or a Windows computer running the same with the addition of AVG free antivirus as compared to a computer with all the things you need for your computer that have license fees you may be swayed.

Go ye and spread the word of Free to all your friends. Email them sites like Download.com and sourceforge.net to search the thousands and thousands of programs that are free. For now free doesn’t mean being handed the paper cup sample of your favorite drink. Consider yourself handed the whole bottle.

Posted in Something to know, Software | 1 Comment »

Portable apps make portable hacks

August 31, 2009 by phillip.

I recently posted an article about the instant message program Pidgin being insecure. However, I think insecure needs to be defined a little bit more. I was watching a recent episode of the TV show Leverage. In the show they have a hacker named Hardison that has incredible hacking skills that would make you cry. Most of his skills are totally impossible TV hacking but I’m still entertained because it doesn’t insult your intelligence. In watching the show though, I’ve found that many of the hacks that are done on the show can be performed on many computer networks because people have such poor security methods. Today, I’m going to talk about the easiest one. Walking in with a USB stick and using a portable application or by booting the computer with a LiveCD.

You may not be sure what I’m talking about but some programs for a computer can be run strictly from a USB stick. These cheap $10 memory sticks can be purchased almost anywhere these days and you can even get them at conventions from people trying to get you to look at their products. Simply delete their data off of it and I give it to my neices and nephews for school and games. Well, you can do more than that.You can buy a new one or one with a small amount of memory and use it to hack a computer.

The process is simple. I’ll explain the process not for hackers but for the techno savvy to understand how to prevent it from happening. Simply pugging a memory stick into a computer and having the portable versions of Wireshark, SIW, tor, RealVNC and winscp gives you all the tools you need to plug into a Windows machine find all the saved passwords and wireless access codes on that computer and scan for ones being input by other computers on that network and send them to your computer offsite without being tracked. Some processes could be scripted with a little work so the USB stick just has to be stuck into the computer and the rest just runs.

The other security threat is a LiveCD. Anyone could make one of these now days with a Linux distribution of choice. All the person needs to do is boot your computer with this LiveCD or LiveUSB stick. Once booted it can have scripts to find everything it needs to find. Learn everything it needs to learn and send it offsite or save directly to some portable drive (even the LiveUSB stick) everything it learned. It’s scary because when they shut the computer down you’d have no idea that you’d been hacked because there would be no log of the attack and everything would boot up as normal the next time.

This is scary stuff. If I’ve heard it once I’ve heard it a million times, “I don’t have anything important enough on my computer for anyone to hack me.” You’d definitely be surprised. Your computer can sometimes give someone all the information they need to assume your identity or attack someone higher up the food chain and make it look like you. I will never forget being a young IT director and getting a Windows NT box hacked and the hackers using it as a jumping off point to 3M. 3M tracked the IP address of the attack back to my company.Learn from me. Don’t let this happen to you. Lock down everything you don’t use on your firewall and in your permissions.

For more information or help with this please feel free to email me at: phillip@banksnetworking.com .

Posted in Something to know | 1 Comment »

Pidgin insecure and my stupidity

August 28, 2009 by phillip.

For quite some time now I’ve been having a problem with my internet chat program Pidgin. It would work for a while and then all of a sudden I’d notice that the whole computer would come to a screeching halt. Resource usage would go up to 100% on a Linux machine. Not unbelievable but not very common for me. So, I figured out the problem was my instant messaging software Pidgin. Upon further investigation I found out that it probably was due to the Facebook plugin that I installed that let Pidgin log into my Facebook account and show me all the people available on Facebook chat.

Months went by without spending the time to find a solution for this until today I finally decided to really get into it because I love having my clients accessible to me through instant message rather than phone calls or texting. I had switch to using Kopete for the most part till I got around to fixing it but don’t like anything as much as Pidgin.

I completely uninstalled Pidgin and re-installed it and didn’t like when I saw my accounts log back in. There was obviously some information left on my computer after I uninstalled the program. First, I hate that! If you make a package, clean up all your crap when I uninstall it. Second, I found where it was saving its extra information. The folder “./purple” in my home folder. That’s not the shocking part though. I looked into the directory and noticed my biggest screw up ever. I saved my passwords! I never do that and always advise people to never save a passwords on a computer.Within a file called “accounts.xml” were all my username and passwords for my different instant messaging accounts in clear text for anyone who sat down at my computer to look for and see. I ddin’t check this on a Windows PC or on a Mac (Adium on the Mac) yet but knowing that I do use it on these other operating systems I will be more aware. I also realized I use Pidgin’s portable version on my USB stick that I keep on my keychain. I don’t save passwords or accounts there because I use it so rarely but what if you did and lost your keys or USB stick. Your information is out there for anyone to see.

If for any reason you’ve saved a password on your computer delete them. Go into all your programs and empty out that information. A little bit of extra time logging in will save you many untold hours of grief. Many people use the same passwords over and over again. An experienced hacker knows to start first with the passwords he knows and just figure out the usernames. Don’t be a victim to this possible openning in your security.

Posted in Windows, Mac, Linux, Something to know, Software, Tips | 1 Comment »

Kindle madness

June 8, 2009 by phillip.

I’m just going to say it for the record. The Amazon Kindle goes on my list of one of the greatest tech toys I’ve ever gotten. I’ve had mine for about a month now and it’s been absolutely fantastic. The page looks so much like text printed on a page that I’ve been able to read books left and right. This comes at such a good time too because I’ve been running around too much to sit and read an actual book. I have tried to set a goal for myself of reading 40 books a year. Last year was my first year and I conquered my goal.  That may have had to do with the fact that I had a broken leg for a month and a half so all I did was read books during that time. This year however, has been a challenge due to the fact that I’ve been moving around a lot. All the driving has me a little out of the flow of reading.

The Kindle solved all of these problem. First, I carry it everywhere just like my mp3 player. I started to count audiobooks into this equation late last year therefore I really enjoyed putting audiobooks on my mp3 player. The Kindle solved that too with it’s very listenable text-to-speech (TTS). I had written a script in Linux to grab PDF’s off my server, convert them to text and feed them into the program Festival (a TTS program) for this purpose but now I don’t need to (or so I thought but read on). The Kindle proved very easy to listen to and not too robotic. I had a collection of PDF books on my server that I used Calibre to convert to .mobi format instead of the proprietary .azw format of the Kindle.

Then it all fell apart. Amazon was sued by the audiobook companies. They have overhead. They pay people to read the books for their audio versions. Who was I to get a book and think I could have my personal robot read it to me? How obsurd.  I jest because I was really pissed that Amazon just caved in instead of giving them a fight. So, somehow Amazon decided to turn off the feature for your Kindle to read most books to you unless it gets authorization from the publisher. I found the book I bought recently did not have that authorization and since it was originally published two years ago I doubt they’d try to find out if they could get it. So, I’m kind of screwed there.

Scrreeecch! Hit the brakes! You thought I gave up there? Please… There are tools to convert and rip .azw files. Calibre won’t do it and neither will Stanza but they tell you to find 3rd party programs. That’s a slick way of saying, “Hey if you can find it out there I won’t look. Once you’re finished bring it back to me and I’ll handle the rest.” So, off to find these 3rd parties. I will let you know what I find. Especially if I can come up with a command line program to do it. That way I’ll have the files converted and ready for my Kindle seconds after it notices it’s plugged in. The script will copy new .azw’s convert them and put them back as .mobi files.

The love of tech continues.

Posted in My humble opinion, Something to know | 2 Comments »

Upgrade Linux KDE or Windows 7? Hmmm.

February 16, 2009 by phillip.

I’m never a fanboy of any particular thing. I’ve always got to see the good and the bad in whatever I get or use. This might be enhanced even more after reading some great books in the past couple months like “Predictably Irrational” by Dan Areily and “The Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell (not getting anything just personally loved those two books). However, recently I was looking through the CNET site and found this video that I thought was fantastic.

Basically, the CNET columnists were thinking about the fact that Windows 7 looks a lot like KDE 4 on Linux. I’ve got to say, I’m much more impressed with Windows 7 than Vista since I have been playing with the beta lately but as stuck as I was on KDE 3.5 I’ve finally upgraded to it full time and love it now. Think is, I think the Linux desktop is pretty much all there now with KDE 4 which is evidenced by this video. In the video they showed random people KDE 4 and told them it was Windows 7 and asked if they’d upgrade.

My conclusion is: Whatever road you take in life. Please skip Vista.

Posted in Windows, Linux | 1 Comment »

Linux doesn’t need “Grunt theory”

October 30, 2008 by phillip.

 I was getting my Linux podcast listening in and listened to the Linux Outlaws and it brought me to my subject.

First a little background on my thinking. I am a consultant that works for various companies, in many industries using many operating systems and hardware. So, I try to come in and understand the business so I can serve them best. I have a cousin who is a low level filing clerk that totally subscribes to what I call “Grunt theory.” Grunt theory is a mindset that I’ve coined as people who think the company is always some massive evil thing that’s always treating them wrong. Don’t get me wrong. In most cases this is kind of true but you have to have a more discerning eye. Every company would go under if it would follow the grunt theory which would make them give everyone more money, more vacation days, very little employee discipline and not fire employees that hurt the bottom line. This is business people. Businesses are here to make money.

Ok, now that said, I get kind of upset when I find Linux enthusiasts falling into “Grunt theory” thinking. Microsoft and Apple are companies that are here to make money. That’s what they do. Now, I am all for opening people’s eyes to the vast amount of options that are available from open source alternatives. I seem to be able to bring a little Linux into every company I work with when they realize they can get great performance and features for free (or with little investment if I can get them to donate). The thing that keeps bothering me is people that rely on constant Microsoft bashing on non-technical areas. I’ve even got to give Apple credit for the Mac vs. PC commercials focusing on real issues and making very good attacks on them.

As a community, let’s stick to the issues. Don’t join the bandwagon and try to get community street cred by just aimlessly bashing because honestly, that’s the same thing Microsoft is doing. They can make aimless claims on Linux and because of their market share people listen. I have Linux running on everything all over my house but as I was typing, just now, I realized that I would be a serious hypocrite because I’m typing this on a Microsoft keyboard on one of my computers that runs Windows. I am seriously hoping for the day that Linux’s market share at least rivals Apple’s OSX because I wouldn’t even have this machine running so much if I could get Photoshop on Linux but I’m patient.

Posted in My humble opinion, Linux | 1 Comment »