[Originally posted October 30, 2007]

I wish we could count on the software and hardware vendors to play fair and treat us well, but it's not happening. We have to take responsibility for our computers.

When Windows XP and Vista are installed on freshly formatted hard drives, they are secure, rock-solid, and fast. Both operating systems are loaded with features. Vista has a mail program, an address book, a calendar, voice recognition, rich support for multimedia, built-in CD/DVD burning, several backup options (including automatic retention of previous versions of files), and much more.

Mac OS 10.5 offers a virtually identical list of features and a similar secure, stable, fast environment.

Yet Macs have a reputation of being easy to use and "just working" while Windows computers have a reputation of being slow and unstable. The reason has little to do with the merits of the operating systems.

Other than hooking up a printer, many Mac users add almost nothing to their computers. They use the applications supplied with the computer, which work well.

If you installed Windows Vista on a freshly formatted hard drive, installed Microsoft Office 2007, hooked up a printer, and added almost nothing else, your computer would just work - elegant and stable and fast.

It's hard to do that. It's up to you to stay as close to it as possible.

Everything conspires to interfere with your computer experience - every piece of software that adds a hundred registry entries, every startup process, every online service that installs a new ActiveX control, every printer monitor and registration reminder and duplicative function and unnecessary utility program. Software and hardware manufacturers make poor decisions about how often you want to see their logo or how much you want badly-designed free programs or how much you care about their partnerships with unrelated companies or how much you need their version of a program that duplicates a function built into Windows.
All too quickly, our Windows computers take three minutes to be usable after our desktop appears. Our programs crash. The system freezes.

Windows is rock solid out of the box. It stays that way for a remarkably long time. Whose responsibility is it when our experience starts to deteriorate?

I'm not talking about blame. There's plenty of that to go around.

The responsibility is ours. No one else is going to help us. For better or worse, Microsoft has created an environment where other manufacturers can contribute. Few of them are doing it well. Few of them are looking only for your best interests and smooth computing experience.

• Our computers arrive with too much preinstalled software. Look at the list in Add/Remove Programs, find out what the unfamiliar names are, and remove the ones that won't be used.
• Don't install programs unless you are confident that you know what they are and that you will use them to accomplish something you couldn't do before with another program already installed.
• Always do a "custom" installation. Watch every checkbox and don't install anything that isn't necessary to use the program to do what you're going to do.
• Never install a system utility or security software unless you thoroughly understand why it's necessary. Windows is able to be secure and do its own housekeeping without much help.

There are only two choices for happy computing. One is to become knowledgeable about what you install. That allows you to explore the rich world of new devices, programs and online services with a minimum of side effects, while still being conservative enough to avoid harming your computer.

The other is to buy only the simplest hardware accessories and install as little new software as possible. If your computer can't already do it, maybe you should assume it can't be done. We live in a world where too many gadgets don't work and too many programs are badly written.

The third alternative is the one that doesn't work - buy devices on a whim, avoid reading instructions or web sites or even the descriptions on a box, install whatever is presented on a setup CD, click OK whenever a website asks permission, and expect everything to just work. You already know about the bad guys, but in the long run, we can't trust the good guys either.

Labels: Apple, computers, hardware, Microsoft, software, Vista, WinXP

posted by bruceb at 6/30/2008 12:12:00 AM | permalink

[Originally posted March 13, 2007]

From Max Barry's marvelous book Company, about corporate life in the weeks after the computer network goes dead:

"Two weeks ago the network went down; soon after Senior Management assured the company it would have the problem fixed within a few days; now everyone is realizing it is never going to happen. Work-arounds are springing up everywhere you look, like new grass after rain. In the absence of e-mail, employees are discovering the art of speaking into phones. They are realizing that discussions that previously required three days and six e-mails can, with phones, be settled in minutes. Spam and computer viruses, both of which IT claimed were unsolvable problems, have vanished. The plague of e-mail jokes, funny at first and then not, has been eliminated. The pressure to forward chain letters under threat of personal catastrophe has lifted. In-boxes no longer fill with desperate sales pitches from co-workers trying to shift their cars, or kittens.

"To transfer documents from one location to another, workers tighten their shoelaces and stretch their legs. People pass each other in the corridors, papers in hand, exchanging happy greetings. Their brains dizzy from unexpected exercise, they stop to chat and laugh. No one realized there were so many people in Zephyr. Until now, you never saw them. Until now, most people arrived at work, planted their buttocks in a chair, and the twain didn't part until five thirty. Now the corridors are like maternity ward waiting rooms, filled with excited voices and good cheer. Lower-back pain is clearing up. Color is rising. Workers find each other more physically attractive. And nobody receives suspicious looks for leaving the department anymore, not so long as they're clutching a sheaf of papers.

"Network - what was that thing ever good for? The workers shake their heads in amazement. Good riddance! Zephyr Holdings may not be the world's greatest employer, the workers agree; it may have a sadistic Human Resources and an incompetent Senior Management; the company's purpose may be a complete mystery and the CEO an out-of-touch eccentric whom no one has seen in person - all this may be true, but at least it doesn't have a network."

Labels: humor, network

posted by bruceb at 6/28/2008 12:34:00 AM | permalink

I'll be out of the country until July 3.

Oh, stop it! Those of you who reacted with undisguised glee, just cut it out! And I know a couple of you are alarmed and are openly weeping at the thought of what your computers might do to take advantage of this unexpected opening in your defenses. Speak to them sternly and don't let them get frisky while I'm gone.

I'll be out of cell phone range and might not have Internet access for extended periods between June 27 and July 3.

If I can help with anything that is not an emergency, please leave phone messages and send email - if I can check for those and respond, I will.

If something very bad happens and needs immediate attention, please call my trusted colleague Mikel Cook at (707) 827-1524 or (707) 484-5581 (cell).

I'm going to recycle a few old news posts next week. (I probably won't be able to change the tab at the top of the Favorites page but check over here anyway.)

Thanks for your continued loyalty and friendship!

Labels: bruceb

posted by bruceb at 6/27/2008 12:07:00 AM | permalink

You probably have a router or firewall device on your network - the little box that your DSL or cable modem plugs into. Make sure you've changed the default password on the router!

Virtually every router is designed to display a control panel when you put in its IP address. When you set up the router, it probably asked you to change the default password. It's a chore that needed to be done; you should double-check your records to be sure.

You can check for yourself. Click on Start / Run, type in CMD and hit Enter. In the black window, type in

ipconfig

and hit Enter. Make a note of the Default Gateway - something like 192.168.1.1, right?

Then open Internet Explorer and type that address in:

http://192.168.1.1 (or whatever your gateway address is)

You'll be prompted for a login name and password. If it's your network, you should know what that is! Here's two common defaults:

• Linksys: user name blank, password admin
• Netgear: user name admin, password password

Naturally, it's easy to find lists of default passwords for hundreds of routers.

This comes to mind because the researchers found a new twist in some malware recently: if you run the malware by an ill-advised click on a popup window on the Internet, the malware tries to log into the router using a memorized list of default user name and password combinations. If it's successful, the malware changes the router's DNS configuration so all your Internet traffic is passed through the bad guys' network. Here's a Washington Post blog about the exploit.

I haven't run into this in the real world, and you might be protected against it - the malware won't get a chance to run on a system with up to date security software. But it's a precaution that deserves a couple of minutes of attention - just one more way for inventive bad guys to make life difficult.

[Note to my clients: if I set up your network or your router, I took care of this. Go back to work.]

Labels: hardware, network, security

posted by bruceb at 6/26/2008 02:02:00 AM | permalink

Let me give you a simplified overview of printer terms, then offer a tip that might save a few seconds someday. (This is basic stuff. If you can tell where I'm leaving things out, then this isn't for you.)

LOCAL PRINTER 

A local printer is connected to your computer with a USB cable.

• Installation: almost always, the software for a local USB printer is installed before the USB cable is attached to the computer - insert the CD or download and run the installation software for the printer before hooking it up.

NETWORK PRINTER 

This term has become ambiguous.

When you're looking at printers in the store, the term network printer means the printer is connected to the network with a CAT5 network cable; it does not use a USB cable and it is not connected directly to any computer. 

• Installation: almost always, connect the printer with a CAT5 cable to a router or switch and turn it on, then insert the printer CD in each computer. The installation software finds the printer on the network automatically.

When you're working in Windows, the term network printer is also used to refer to a shared printer - the printer is connected to another computer on the network with a USB cable, and shared so other computers can use it.

• Connecting to the shared printer from another computer: Windows XP and Vista both have wizards to add a network computer in the Printers folder, but there's another way that is frequently faster and less quirky. You'll need to know the name of the computer sharing the printer. (Click on Start, right-click on Computer, and click on Properties.)

• At your computer, click on Start / Computer and type in two backslashes followed by the name of the computer sharing the printer, like this:

• Hit Enter. If the other computer is set up correctly for sharing, you'll see the shared printer, probably along with some shared folders.
• Right-click on the printer and click Connect. You should be set up to print to the shared printer in just a few seconds. Often I find that works more reliably than using the wizards.

Labels: computers, network, printers, Vista, WinXP

posted by bruceb at 6/25/2008 12:33:00 AM | permalink

Quicktime has been an annoying bit of software for ten years now. My experience tonight was the final straw. I've spent the better part of an hour cleaning it off my system and I don't intend to let it back. What is it with Apple? Every time I feel like giving Apple the benefit of the doubt, swayed by all the hype, I have an experience where I'm reminded that Apple writes crappy, invasive software.

Quicktime has been around forever, a bit of free software that will play online videos in certain formats. In the last few years YouTube and the other big video sites began using Flash for movies, so Apple shifted its focus to new high definition video formats. Most of you will only run into Quicktime now if you go look for movie trailers - the studios use it a lot.

And Quicktime has been a pain in the neck forever. When I began this news page, one of my first comments was a complaint about Quicktime. (I've got old archives here - I was ranting about Quicktime on 09/27/99. "Is it just me or is Quicktime incredibly annoying?") For years Apple released Quicktime updates that did not remove older conflicting versions; at one point Apple literally hid the free version of the program in an attempt to deceive us into downloading a paid version; recently it used a Quicktime update as a mechanism to deceptively install its unnecessary and insecure browser.

A couple of days ago I installed the Quicktime 7.5 update, supposedly an important update to cure serious security problems.

Quicktime stole my file associations. I hate it when programs steal my file associations.

An easy example: You probably have three or four or five programs on your computer that can open JPG files. One of them is the default - the one Windows will use if you just click on a JPG file. That's the file association - they're the default programs assigned to dozens of different types of files recognized by your computer.

Manufacturers have been trying to steal file associations from each other for years. Each program that you install for photos will try to become the default program for opening JPG files. When you click on a file and the wrong program starts, it's because something else has grabbed that file association.

It's possible to reassign the program of your choice but it's a pain. (Right-click on a file of the type you want to change, click on "Open with / Change default program" and you'll get a list of likely programs, along with a checkbox to "Always use this program to open this type of file." Vista has a well-organized set of controls - click on Start, type "default" and click on "Default Programs." It's not a friendly place to hang out.)

I guard my file associations jealously. When I click on an MP3 file, I want J River Media Center to play it. When I click on a JPG, I want it displayed in Windows Live Photo Gallery; when I click on a PNG, I want Microsoft Digital Image Editor. You might not think of it but you're just like me, looking for continuity and familiarity, not sudden unexplained changes in the programs that pop up.

Quicktime 7.5 has a confusing installation routine and tries to become your default program for dozens of types of files, but if you're careful during installation it's possible to deselect all of the file types so Quicktime is not the default for anything. That's my favorite result - it's a yucky program with terrible controls and insistent advertisements for a paid version. (Remember, always do a custom installation of any software and read all the things with checkboxes!)

I stopped Quicktime from grabbing any file associations and installed the update. No worries, eh?

I clicked a link tonight in Internet Explorer to download and save an MP3 file. The Quicktime logo appeared and the file started playing in Quicktime's stupid player embedded in a big empty white Internet Explorer page.

WTF?

Come to find out that Internet Explorer has its own file associations, separate from the rest of the computer. Without asking, Quicktime had installed an IE addin that took over god knows how many file types in Internet Explorer - movies, PNG files, MP3 files, more.

Research, experiment, more research, more experiments. Once Quicktime steals those Internet Explorer file associations, it's virtually impossible to put them back to the defaults. They are stored completely separately from all the regular file associations, so repairing those doesn't do anything to IE. I tried registry fixes, I tried IE7's tool to reset every browser setting to its default (Tools / Internet Options / Advanced / Reset Internet Explorer Settings). I tried disabling Quicktime's addin (Tools / Manage Add-ons) and discovered that the file associations were hosed - web pages had red Xs where PNG files should display, error messages appeared when links were clicked for some file types. According to what I was reading online, uninstalling Quicktime does not put things back to normal!

In the end, I was saved by a system restore. Once the IE file associations were back to normal I was able to set about to scrub my system of Apple software, including the "Apple Update Utility" that I had specifically told it NOT to install. (Apple: "I'll be darned. How did THAT get there? Little rascal.")

This is obviously not a huge problem - most of you would be mildly inconvenienced and a little confused, nothing more. But I'm watching our interactions with Windows computers become more complex and more confusing and it's the result of a lot of little invasions like this by companies who have only their own corporate interests at heart. So trust me, I'm only thinking of you when something like this makes me furious.

I'm not sure what the conclusion is. Quicktime occasionally comes in handy online and if it's installed then it really should be updated for security reasons. It's not so awful that I'm going to urge you to remove it. But personally, I'm going to swear off movie previews and see if I miss it. I hope not.

Labels: Apple, IE, video, Vista, WinXP

posted by bruceb at 6/23/2008 02:29:00 AM | permalink

When you open a file folder on your computer with Vista - Documents, say, or Computer - the left hand column displays a short list of "Favorite Links." That Favorites list is easy to overlook but it can be made into your best friend.

When I started using Vista, I immediately discovered the "Folders" arrow at the bottom that restored the familiar tree of drives and folders that I knew from Windows XP. I ignored the Favorites list.

Recently I took a closer look at the Favorites list. Any folder can be added to the Favorites list by finding it on the right and dragging it over to the Favorites list on the left.

There are fifteen or twenty places that I go regularly on my computer and my office network. I've added them to the list of Favorites (and dragged the list into a convenient order). As a result, I rarely have to use the folder list or drill through level after level of computers and folders and subfolders - I've got single click access to almost everywhere that matters on the network.

When you combine the Favorites list with the powerful ability to maneuver using Vista's breadcrumb display in the Explorer window, there's not much reason to use the old Folders list.

The Favorites list is actually a collection of shortcuts in a folder named Links - click on your name in the Start menu and you'll see it listed there. You can go to that folder to delete links or restore default links, or you can just right-click on the list in Explorer.

Labels: software, Vista

posted by bruceb at 6/20/2008 01:19:00 AM | permalink

Mozilla released the Firefox 3 Internet browser on Tuesday and is working on setting a Guinness record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours. There are a lot of people who like Firefox a lot.

If you haven't been following along, Firefox is an Internet browser that can be installed for free on Windows XP and Vista as an alternative to Internet Explorer. It is also available for Linux and Macs, making it easier for people to go back and forth among different operating systems. It has important ties to the growing community of open source developers and is sponsored by a company that is not strictly a nonprofit but pledges to be running itself for the greater good rather than for profit. It has been gaining market share rapidly for the last few years and is currently the second most-used Internet browser; the launch of Firefox 3 has been planned to generate gobs of publicity that will increase public awareness and market share.

You may download and install Firefox 3 with my blessing, but I want you to stop for just a second before you do.

I run happy computers. I try to make your computers happy. My guiding principle to accomplish that is to install software only when it's necessary to do something useful that can't be done as well by something already on the computer.

You're running an up to date Windows XP or Vista computer with Internet Explorer 7, a browser that is fast and secure. I don't want you to install Firefox unless you have some idea of why you're installing it!

There are really only two possibilities.

• Firefox is produced by independent and enthusiastic people who are not Microsoft. For many people that is a sufficient reason to prefer it.
• Firefox has features that are not offered in Internet Explorer that you want to explore - particularly the rich world of addons that extend and change the browser's features and look.

Here's an extensive review of the new features in Firefox 3 and the things that distinguish it from Internet Explorer 7. Go read it! (There's no shortage of writeups and reviews. Here's another enthusiastic description.) If you decide to install it and use those new and distinctive features, that's great. It won't hurt your computer and you may come to love it. Many people do.

But for many of you, the only reason to install Firefox will be that a well-meaning friend told you that it's cool, or a newspaper article speaks highly of it. In that case, think about not going there! You'll be installing a lovely, duplicative piece of software that will require care and attention - security updates are inevitable and plans are already laid for version 3.1, with more super swell stuff, which will inevitably be followed by 3.2 and 3.3 and 4.0. In the long run, installing unnecessary software is a recipe for an unhappy computer.

I'm not going to be installing Firefox. I look at the reviews and see it praised for its speed, which strikes me as a complete non-issue; for the wealth of addons, which most writeups concede frequently cause Firefox to become unstable; for features and security that make it comparable to (but not particularly better than) Internet Explorer 7; and for new features that seem uninteresting. That's just me! Make your own decision, but make it deliberately, not as a passing thought.

So install Firefox if you choose, and use it in good health. If you're lucky, you'll become a Firefox convert, which I think would be great - it's fun to have something to be enthusiastic about!

Labels: IE, Internet, Microsoft, software

posted by bruceb at 6/18/2008 02:13:00 AM | permalink

I bet you don't know how to turn off your computer.

Lots of people ask me why their computer doesn't turn off when they hit the power button on the front of the case after the system crashes or freezes. Hold the button down for 4-10 seconds. The computer will turn off even if it is otherwise completely unresponsive.

Let's go through a little history to help you understand why that's actually a feature.

Back in the old days, the power button on the case was directly wired to the computer's power supply. Hit the button and bang! the computer went dark and cold. Not only was that a really bad thing when the switch was hit accidentally by your knee, but it also made for some potentially dangerous wiring and frequently made it almost impossible to replace power supplies with soldered connections to the power switch.

Old-timers will recall that the Windows shutdown sequence would end with a screen advising that "it is now safe to shut off your computer." The power button had to be pressed manually to finish turning off the power.

In 1995, Intel introduced the ATX form factor for computer cases, motherboards, and power supplies and for the first time, Windows could shut off the power to a computer. When you click on Start / Shut down / Shut down in Windows XP, Windows closes all your open programs, shuts down running services, and shuts down Windows, and as its final act it tells the power supply to shut the computer's power off completely.

The ATX form factor lends itself to other tricks for low power consumption, leading to a change in Vista: when you click on Vista's power button, the computer goes to sleep by default instead of shutting down completely. You can get it to shut down or restart from the flyout menu on the right. Here's some information about Vista's power management features. If you have trouble with sleep mode, you can change that behavior in Vista's power options console.

All of that leads to the thrilling conclusion: when you push the power button on your desktop computer case or notebook computer, you're not directly turning the power on or off. You're asking the motherboard and the operating system to work with you on whatever they are designed to do.

When the computer is operating normally, pushing the hardware power button in Windows is exactly the same as pushing the onscreen power button. In Windows XP, it starts the normal routine to shut down programs and only then turn off the power. In Windows Vista, it sends the computer to sleep.

If the computer is completely frozen, the motherboard and operating system will not respond to a poke on the power button any more than they will respond to a click on the onscreen Start button. When the power button is held down for 4-10 seconds, though, there is a fallback that will turn off the power regardless of the condition of the operating system or motherboard.

So when you need to shut down and nothing else will work, hold the button down. You'll feel powerful. When you do this for someone else, don't give away the secret. They'll respect you and give you cookies. But don't do it unless absolutely necessary! Computers should always be shut down gracefully whenever possible.

Labels: computers, hardware, Vista, WinXP

posted by bruceb at 6/17/2008 12:01:00 AM | permalink

The market for notebook computers is growing fast. Notebooks already outsell desktop computers in the US and will outsell desktops globally by next year, according to the New York Times. Here's a report released yesterday comparing global notebook shipments in the first quarters of 2007 and 2008, showing HP and Dell with hugely increased sales and more than a third of the market between them.

You probably have some vague idea that Apple owns the notebook market, right? It's part of the reality distortion field that Apple has used so brilliantly over the years. (Random example: an article from last fall about the "major shift in notebook buying patterns" and "ominous news for Dell.") Apple has been selling a lot of notebooks and its market share is definitely increasing, particularly in the US, but don't get all carried away about it. According to the report, Apple had been in eighth place for four consecutive quarters, but "surged" to seventh place in the first quarter of 2008 with a 4.6% market share, barely beating out Asus (which had an even larger percentage growth in year-over-year sales).

Still it must be great to use an Apple computer and live the easy life of a troublefree operating system, right?

• I trust all the Mac users got the updates two weeks ago that fixed more than forty security holes in OS X v. 10.4.11. Or perhaps you upgraded to OS X 10.5.3? Next time I talk to Mac users, I think I'll ask them which choice they made - Macs are so easy to maintain that it's probably obvious if they're running a fully patched version of 10.4.11 or 10.5.3.
• Oh, and did you get the update to Quicktime 7.5 that fixed security holes that could have allowed people to control your computer remotely? That was the update that followed Quicktime 7.4.5 a couple of months ago, which fixed more security problems. The Quicktime problems potentially affect Windows users too - thanks, Apple.
• It's not clear whether there's a fix for the security problem with Apple's Safari Internet browser for the Windows users who were fooled into installing it a couple of months ago by Apple's deceptive "update" utility.

Apple is pretty free to claim that the Windows world is unsafe and confusing, but it's just the teensiest bit annoying that Apple is one of the forces contributing to making it so.

Labels: Apple, business, computers, mobile

posted by bruceb at 6/16/2008 12:06:00 AM | permalink

The upgraded iPhone has a tremendous list of features! I'm looking forward to the integration with Exchange Server, which ought to let my clients with Small Business Server have a live, over-the-air connection to their contacts, calendar, and inbox. I'll write more about the new iPhone after I have some experience with it.

There are two things worth noting that may get lost in the excitement next month.

• It's not really any cheaper. The sales price is cut in half - welcome news indeed! But it's not really a discount. Instead, AT&T is subsidizing the sale price and making it back by increasing the monthly fee by $10 for the data plan. Since a two year contract is required, that means the new iPhone will be slightly more expensive than the original iPhone over the life of the contract. Most people only focus on the original sales price; AT&T is focused like a laser on your signature on the two-year contract.
• You still have to sign up with AT&T. Their much-vaunted 3G data speeds won't do any good if you don't live in the major metropolitan areas where AT&T actually provides that service. And in a recent poll, 65% of the people who had called AT&T for customer support said they would rather "have their eyes plucked out by crows" than go through that experience again. Well, something like that - I can't find that survey now, but you get the idea.

Labels: Apple, mobile, phone

posted by bruceb at 6/13/2008 12:18:00 AM | permalink

Blackberry smartphones are mindbogglingly popular. I'm being asked about them more often than iPhones. That shouldn't be a surprise - almost half the smartphones sold in the first quarter of 2008 were Blackberry devices, a significant increase over the previous quarter, while the market share of iPhones took a nose dive in the same period, according to the Associated Press.

I wrote some cautionary notes a few months ago about the Blackberry. Let me try to be more specific.

• If you work in a company that supports the Blackberry, it is a tremendous device. The company runs big servers to make it so.
• Small businesses can get similar software for their server; licenses are cheap or free. Count on a significant cost to set up the Blackberry server software and get things working - and prepare for the risk not only that it might not work smoothly, but also that it might muck up your server in other ways. Remember, the reason your server runs so smoothly is because we change it as little as possible. I've heard stories, that's all I'm saying.
• If you are an individual with a single POP3 email address, the Blackberry is a good phone and a decent email device. You'll have to fuss with a couple of settings in your mail program to leave messages on your mail provider's server so Blackberry can retrieve them; that can occasionally go sideways, resulting in your mail program or Blackberry receiving twelve duplicate copies of messages or something, but on the whole it will be fine.
• You won't be syncing over the air with your computer's calendar or address book. You can sync in a cradle attached to the computer if you install Blackberry's software. Personally, I find the software to be fairly hideous and unintuitive, but it does its job, if you're lucky. Heck, hideous unintuitive software is easy to come by - I've seen worse.
• If you have a Google GMail or Yahoo mail account, the Blackberry integrates beautifully with them. Google, in particular, is cooking up ways to connect to a Blackberry and has released a program to sync the Blackberry calendar with a Google calendar. You know, if you're using a Google calendar. (If you're using a Google calendar, you're young and devouring new technology at a furious pace and the last thing you need is condescending advice from an old fogey. Go and Twitter in peace.)
• If you work in a company run by Microsoft Small Business Server, the Blackberry is very, very wrong for you.
• If you get a device running Windows Mobile 5 or 6, I can set you up in three minutes with your Outlook calendar, contacts, and email syncing over the air, continuously, both directions.
• If you get a Blackberry, I can create a clumsy, half-baked flow of messages to the Blackberry that is divorced from your Outlook folders. Everything about it will be a compromise. You'll blame me. I'll be defensive.

The smartphone is becoming a platform that is as important for many people as their computer. Shop carefully and look ahead - a lot will be happening in the next year to improve the process of making your information available everywhere!

Labels: Google, mail, mobile, phone, SBS

posted by bruceb at 6/12/2008 12:50:00 AM | permalink

I've tried to figure out how video works on computers, really I have. Maybe you've tried Vista's Windows Movie Maker, or burned a DVD with Windows Photo Gallery, or found a way to upload videos to YouTube. Congratulations! Treasure those moments! Because the instant you raise your expectations, you'll find yourself trapped in a blur of acronyms and techno-whizz-bang stuff that will leave you lying weak and helpless.

I can point you to a couple of things that might help. Let's talk about commercial DVDs and imagine that you want to make a copy of a DVD from your collection as a backup, or to store on a computer.

You'll need a program that will remove the copy protection from commercial DVDs. Buy a copy of Slysoft AnyDVD and that problem is solved. There are other programs, there are other ways to accomplish it, but AnyDVD works and is frequently updated, and appears to be produced by a more or less reputable company instead of a non-English-speaking teenager who might be robotically controlled by the Russian Mafia.

I use the CD and DVD burning suite from Nero, which is a mess of buggy programs, some loosely integrated and others completely superfluous. (With Nero, I do a custom install and only install Nero Burning ROM and Nero Recode.) I've come to like it better than the equally messy suite from Roxio, but as I said, there are a lot of programs out there to do these tasks. I sound critical of Nero but it stands head and shoulders above most of the rest!

The "Nero Recode" program can make a copy of a DVD onto a blank DVD. You'll likely buy 4.7Gb blank DVDs but many commercial DVDs are pressed on 8.5Gb discs; Nero Recode will compress the movie so it fits onto the smaller disc with very little loss of video or sound quality. In theory it's an easy and effective process, although the reality can be just the teensiest bit difficult. When you successfully copy a DVD, be proud even when you discover that many DVD players refuse to play some types of blank discs, or simply choke on any burned DVD.

If you want to store your movie on a hard drive, that's where the fun begins. Most people want to shrink the movie so it takes less hard drive space, but that requires an infinite number of choices about what format to use, how much to compress the movie, and what will be necessary to play it later. If you use a program that appears to make it easy, then the program is making those choices for you, for better or for worse.

Your head will spin. AVI is a container, not a format. The iPod has its own format that may (or more likely may not) play anywhere else. Nero's version of MP4 is unable to be played reliably on anything other than Nero's cruddy Player software. Windows Media Player and Media Center will simply ignore many formats and display empty folders where you know all your movies are. Movies will be silent or voices will be out of sync. You'll eventually find yourself at Doom9.net, "the definitive DVD backup resource," reading helpful descriptions like this from the Newbies forum:

DivX and Xvid are Encoders, they are not video formats and they are not containers!
Both, DivX and Xvid, implement the "MPEG-4 ASP" Video Format, as specified in the MPEG-4 standard.
So the result will be an MPEG-4 ASP bitstream, no matter which Encoder (DivX, Xvid or another one) was used to create it!

In contrast the "x264" Encoder implements the "AVC/H.264" Video Format, so it's not compatible to MEPG-4 ASP (e.g. Xvid or DivX).
AVI, MKV, MP4 and OGM are not Video Formats, they are Containers!
Containers specify how to mux Audio and Video streams together into one file, so they can play synchronously.
MPEG-4 ASP (e.g. DivX or Xvid) Video Streams can be stored in an AVI container as well as in an MP4 or MKV container.
With AVC/H.264 it's a bit more tricky, so AVI might not be the best solution for H.264 streams...

So to sum up, there are three things you have to distinguish:
* Video Format (e.g. MEPG-2, MPEG-4 ASP, AVC/H.264, etc.) - This is specification and documents, general Standards.
* Video Encoder/Decoder aka "Codec" (e.g. DivX, Xvid, x264, etc.) - This is a specific piece software and usually implements a certain Format/Standard.
* Container Format (AVI, MP4, MKV, OGM) - This is a file format, specifying how the Audio/Video streams are stored inside a file.

Dozens of combinations are possible. For Example:
* An "MPEG-4 ASP" Video can be encoded with the "DivX" Software and then the resulting stream can be stored in an "MKV" container.
* Alternatively you could encode your "MPEG-4 ASP" Video using the "Xvid" Software and then store it in an "AVI" container.

There, you see! That helps, right?

With all that in mind, let me point you to a very clear guide by Paul Thurrott about how to rip a DVD. There's good, reliable information there that you could follow exactly. I'm not familiar with Handbrake, the program he recommends, but I trust his judgment and the screen shots look easier and clearer than most of the other programs I've tried. The H.264 format described there is currently the best choice for most people to combine high quality and wide support, as near as I can tell.

Personally, I'm currently using a different method. I bought a huge hard drive when NewEgg.com had a sale - a Seagate 750Gb 7200 SATA drive for $119.99. I'm using Nero Recode to copy DVDs in their native format (with IFO files and VIDEO_TS folders), reducing each one to 4.7Gb. Storage space is cheap! In that format, the DVDs can be streamed to Windows Media Center in the living room and can be played by any of the DVD players on my office computer.

Labels: video

posted by bruceb at 6/10/2008 01:14:00 AM | permalink

I wrote a few months ago about the difficulty of dealing with the endless flood of software updates that is slowly draining our will to live. Microsoft's system of delivering automatic overnight upgrades once a month is manageable, but the bad guys are now changing their focus to other programs. Important security-related updates appear regularly for Acrobat, Flash, Quicktime, Firefox, Safari, Java, and more. There are real bad guys with real exploits waiting for you to hit their web site without one of those patches, ready to compromise your computer and, I don't know, unleash beings from another dimension or something, who knows what those guys want?

It's hard to keep up.

The free Secunia Online Software Inspector appears to be a useful tool! It quickly scans your computer and reports if you have the latest updates for Windows and the programs most likely to expose you to online dangers. If you're behind, it provides a link to the site where the most recent update can be downloaded.

As near as I can tell, it's safe to run. I don't see any feedback online suggesting that it is anything other than a useful public service. The company also offers a free installable bit of software that does a more comprehensive look at your system, but that violates my guiding philosophy of installing as few extra utilities as possible.

I don't know if you ought to get all obsessive over this (keeping up with updates can be an incredible timesink), but this will be a good site to visit if you see something in the news about a new exploit, or every month or two when you're bored. It's on my Favorites page (your home page, right?) under Computers / Online Virus Scans.

Stay safe out there!

[Thanks to friend and colleague Brian Dent for pointing out Secunia!]

[Technical note: it's important to update to the latest version of Adobe Flash, version 9.0.124.0. For some people (including me), Secunia continues to report that the computer is insecure because a Flash DLL is out of date, even after version 9.0.124.0 is installed. Life is too short. Close the window and pretend you didn't see it.]

Labels: computers, security, software, web_services

posted by bruceb at 6/09/2008 12:47:00 AM | permalink

Microsoft has done a terrible job of branding things in the last few years. "Microsoft Network" morphed into "MSN," which has at various times been a software package, a collection of TV-like programming, a brand for web services like Hotmail and Messenger, a dialup Internet provider, and a web portal.

Many MSN services were included in a reorganization under the new brand name "Windows Live" in 2006, and Microsoft began creating more and more services with the Windows Live name, including some that have no obvious relationship to each other. The Wikipedia list of Live-branded services is pretty daunting!

Some of the services will be dying quietly soon - Microsoft just announced that it will be closing down Windows Live Expo, intended to be a competitor to Craigslist, joining recently deceased Live Search Books and Live Search Academic.

I find myself joining clients and friends now in stumbling over one particularly poor bit of naming.

Vista comes with Windows Photo Gallery, a simple but useful photo program that's well suited for many people.

Later, Microsoft released Windows Live Photo Gallery, a free download for Vista and Windows XP. It's almost identical, but changes some things around on the menus and makes it easy to put photos online in free photo galleries for sharing.

When Windows Live Photo Gallery is installed on a Vista computer, it does not replace Windows Photo Gallery. They're visually indistinguishable, so the only way to tell which one you're using is the name on the title bar in the upper left corner.

Frankly, most of the time it won't make any difference. The two programs both display the same pictures and the same tags and almost all of the same features. But why do that to people? When it's time to put pictures on a DVD and someone looks for the "Burn" button, why should they have no idea why it's under "Make," instead? The access to online services will appear and disappear randomly if people aren't careful to click on the right program.

The situation is basically the same with Windows Mail (Vista's mail program) and Windows Live Mail (a separate program for Vista and an upgrade for Outlook Express on Windows XP).

Didn't Microsoft learn anything from the years of confusion caused by "Outlook" and "Outlook Express"?

Labels: mail, Microsoft, photos, Vista, web_services, WinXP

posted by bruceb at 6/08/2008 03:24:00 PM | permalink

Microsoft has a support document that was updated recently with helpful information to troubleshoot performance issues in Outlook 2007. For my clients Outlook 2007 has been stable and speedy but keep this collection of tips in mind if you experience slow performance, lengthy delays before Outlook responds (either on startup or during normal use), or program crashes.

Personally, I've seen these things cause performance problems most frequently:

• Slow computers - either insufficient memory or slow hard drives
• Mailbox stores that are over 2Gb (performance begins to be affected) or over 4Gb (performance gets pretty dicey)
• Third party addins that cause odd side effects
• Lengthy mailbox checks when Outlook starts (which apparently can largely be avoided by leaving Outlook running when we shut down Windows, so Windows can completely manage the process of closing the program. Weird, eh?)

Labels: Outlook

posted by bruceb at 6/05/2008 09:26:00 AM | permalink

Microsoft released Windows Search 4.0 today in final form. It is a free upgrade to the search features built into Windows Vista. It adds indexed searching to Windows XP; this release is an upgrade to the prior version of Windows Desktop Search that many of you are already using on Windows XP.

Programs for indexing and searching Outlook and document folders have literally revolutionized the business flow in small offices. Windows Desktop Search is the single most important and most successful new technology that I've introduced to my clients in the last three years. Businesses drowning in e-mail and files have new confidence that information can be retrieved instead of lost. People understand it, they immediately see its power, and they immediately begin using it every day.

"Instant Search" is one of the most heavily promoted features of Windows Vista. "Search" is deeply embedded in the system; it's the first place your cursor lands when you click on the Start button, it's the primary method intended by Microsoft for finding programs, it's available everywhere ? from the Start menu, from Windows Explorer, from Internet Explorer. Windows Vista is built on the same technology as Windows Desktop Search version 3.0, running in the operating system as a service and constantly keeping an up to date index of everything in Outlook and every file stored on the system.

I wrote up the features of this new version when Microsoft released the preview version a couple of months ago. Briefly, it runs more quickly and economically than prior versions, and it greatly enhances searches of files located on other network computers.

I have different advice for different groups.

• If you are one of my clients in an office run by Microsoft Small Business Server, wait for me to work with your office before you install this. Windows Search 4 will work best for you after it is also installed on your server, and that has some prerequisites that I'll be working on.
• If your computer runs Windows Vista, you already have a searchable index of your entire computer. This improves the indexing in modest ways that you likely will not notice in day to day use. Install it freely but there is no urgency.
• If your computer runs Windows XP, I have long maintained that Windows Desktop Search is one of the few essential programs that everyone can and should run. This is an important improvement to the prior version for its performance and stability, but you will not notice any significant change in the design from the previous version. Everyone with Windows XP is encouraged to install or upgrade to Windows Search 4.0.

This is not difficult to install, but you should close other programs before you install it and you will have to restart your computer when the installation is completed. After your computer restarts, the index will rebuild itself, so searches may not be complete until the system has time to do that.

There are different installation packages for Vista, Windows XP, and various servers. Click on the "32-bit" package for your version of Windows on this page - the links to download and install it are at the bottom of the page.

Here's a description of what's new in the final release.

Labels: computers, Microsoft, SBS, search, software, Vista, WinXP

posted by bruceb at 6/04/2008 01:04:00 AM | permalink

Adobe has launched an online suite of software and services, along with announcing the July release of Acrobat 9. It's all interesting but I have a sense of overload already, and we're still very early in the new age of online web services.

Acrobat.com is ready for you to begin using for free - an email address and a password opens up online file storage, convenient file sharing, an online word processor, web conferencing, and a PDF converter. I can only mention a few things in passing, but this article has a nice description of each of the features.

Adobe has designed a very appealing set of controls for its services, with lots of functions presented elegantly. The file sharing feature makes it easy to send an email with a large file attachment by uploading the file to Adobe's servers and sending only a link in the message. There's a generous amount of free space for file storage. The web conferencing stands out for ease of use.

In addition to many small companies offering each of the various parts, Microsoft and Google have already begun to roll out their own online suites. Google Docs and Microsoft Office Live Workspace and other Microsoft Live services each provide more or less the same functions: Google offers its typically quirky and sometimes overly simplistic interface; Microsoft counters with some appealing services that are all too often overlapping, confusing, and complex. Now Adobe enters the field with presumably a big promotional push.

Each of these suites will only reward a person or business who commits to one of them wholeheartedly. Who's ready to do that? There are a hundred services that will help you send an oversize email attachment. Web conferencing is easy to come by. The benefits of Adobe's services might emerge if you take advantage of their integration, which means committing to them and using them daily as a way to change your business flow. I don't feel any appetite among my very small business clients for a change like that and I'm not sure I'd be doing them a favor if I tried to create that momentum - not yet, anyway.

In just a few minutes, I ran into some limitations of the Acrobat.com services - not big problems, just typical startup issues.

• The initial login was problematic - the service didn't recognize my "Adobe ID" and I had to go through the password reset process.
• The online word processor, "Buzzword," uses a separate login name and password for some reason, and stores its documents separately from the other Adobe file storage service.
• The word processor is adequate for the basics but no more than that. Here's more info about Buzzword.
• The online file storage will not accept any media files - no online storage of music or movies. I can understand why Adobe handles difficult copyright issues that way, but it limits the usefulness of the service.
• There is an online PDF converter to create PDFs from Office documents and other formats, but the free converter can only be used five times - hardly worth mentioning. Adobe isn't going to give up its profits from selling Acrobat that easily!

Now with all that said, I encourage you to take a look at Acrobat.com! Set up your password and try things out! The design is lovely and the service has much promise. But don't commit to it half-heartedly or it will become just another forgotten password for a web site where a few forgotten files are stored.

As to Acrobat 9, there are no details yet about whether there will be any important new features for businesses. The presentation on Monday focused on the ability to embed Flash videos in PDF files. How . . . special. There will also be hooks to the online Acrobat.com service to facilitate collaborating on PDF files, which doesn't mean much if we're not otherwise using the Acrobat.com service. Waiting for details on that one.

Labels: Acrobat, business, Google, Microsoft, Office, web_services

posted by bruceb at 6/03/2008 12:21:00 AM | permalink

The battle for your home page has been raging for years, and it shows no sign of dying down. The home page is the first page that's displayed when you open Internet Explorer. Big companies love it when your home page is set to one of their properties, so you see all of their lovely advertising. Microsoft, Yahoo, AT&T, Comcast, and many more will change your home page to their preferred choice given half a chance.

This isn't new but it's worth repeating. You can set your home page to anything you like, and it's easier than ever in Internet Explorer 7. If you want a different page to be displayed when you start Internet Explorer, just browse to the page of your choice (which I trust will be the bruceb favorites page, right?), then click on the down arrow by the home icon in the upper right.

Choose "Add or change home page." You'll be able to set the current page as your new home page. Done!

While you're making changes, you can change another odd setting - by default, a blank page is shown when you open a new tab in IE7. Click on Tools / Internet Options, then click on the "Settings" button under Tabs. Add a check mark to "Open home page for new tabs instead of a blank page."

Labels: IE

posted by bruceb at 6/02/2008 01:16:00 AM | permalink