What isn’t Apple, audiobooks, or alcohol is probably cats.
Commentary and analysis about new technology and business developments.
Apparently I’m not the only one who finds the Windows 2000 Installation process to be tedious and ridiculously hard. The folks at LinuxWorld.com asked “Is Windows or Linux easier to install?”, and found the answer was surprising.
Apparently I’m not the only one who finds the Windows 2000 Installation process to be tedious and ridiculously hard. The folks at LinuxWorld.com asked Is Windows or Linux easier to install?, and found the answer was surprising.
You would think that the Microsoft product would win. After all, they’ve been making a user-installable operating system for more than 21 years, and Linux is famously hard to install. That’s the reputation, not the reality.
I’m glad I’m not alone on this one.
I just spent much of the day upgrading and re-configuring my Mac to run Jaguar, or Mac OS X 10.2, the forthcoming major upgrade to Mac OS X. Indeed, while the upgrade of the OS itself went extremely smoothly, the aftermath kept this blog off the air for nearly 24 hours.
I just spent much of the day upgrading and re-configuring my Mac to run Jaguar, or Mac OS X 10.2, the forthcoming major upgrade to Mac OS X. While the upgrade of the OS itself went extremely smoothly, the aftermath kept this blog off the air for nearly 24 hours.
I chose to do a clean installation, archiving the previous system installation, and re-using the users and network settings. I think that’s probably going to be the most common approach that “power users” use, because we’ve all mucked around with our system, and doing a clean installation is always a good thing to do from time-to-time, even with an OS as solid as Mac OS X has been for me.
The actually installation took less than an hour of effort (mostly waiting), but then the real work began. I’ve hacked up my system quite a bit, installing a plethora of additional software tools and toys. In particular, I use the MySQL database running on my Mac to drive this site, and the MySQL installation got archived by the upgrade process.
I’ll post more about the process I went through (or rather, what the right steps would have been), but for now, I’ll simply say that Jaguar is running smoothly on my system, and the performance boost that the upgrade has brought is quite noticeable and pleasant.
I wrote once a while ago about the Klez virus, and how it was sending out e-mail messages from other people’s computers, pretending to be me. Tonight I was on the receiving end.
I wrote once a while ago about the Klez virus, and how it was sending out e-mail messages from other people’s computers, pretending to be me.
Well, now I’m the one on the receiving end, a friend apparently opened an infected message, and it sent me tons of messages, pretending to be everyone in her address book — including people I know.
The really aggravating part of it was that my e-mail client or POP server was for some reason barfing on the messages, which carry the virus payload and are therefore quite large, and got “stuck.” I couldn’t download the messages to delete them, and the server was sure they were no longer there. And until I deleted them, new incoming mail couldn’t reach me. My e-mail system was constipated.
So I had to edit my e-mail spool file with a text editor to delete all the crap in my incoming mail queue. It sounds geeky and techie, and a pain in the ass, and it’s all of those things.
The 12 year old who wrote Klez deserves a special cell in a special prison. Fortunately, thanks to John Ashcroft and the spineless bastards in Congress, people who write viruses are now officially terrorists in the eyes of the law, eligible for secret trials and long, long prison terms…
When I was a kid we got a VCR with an early model remote control — with a wire! (This obviously dates me.) When watching movies, the kids would want to fast-forward past the FBI warnings, and our father would make us stop.
Like a lot of people over a certain age, I remember my first VCR. My father bought an “advanced” model with a “remote control” for the family, back when a remote was a novel idea. The control had a thick wire that ran between the remote and the VCR itself — none of that infrared stuff back then!
And we’d have family movie nights pretty regularly, where we’d get a couple videos for the weekend, and watch them all together in the family room. It was a fairly big production — there’s eight of us, and some nights would have everyone watching. We’d have popcorn, sodas, or ice cream, and everyone would run around getting their favorite movie-watching items together, grabbing a good seat, etc.
So then we’d finally sit down to actually start the movie, with the house lights turned off, our anticipation would be very high…and the first thing we’d see on-screen would be the FBI warning about making illegal copies.
Now, these were exciting for the first few times, I suppose — remember, once upon a time, you couldn’t watch unedited movies at home, so for a while this was a Big Deal — but it quickly became boring, something in the way of getting on with the movie.
I or one of the other kids would attempt to fast-forward through them, and my father would yell at us for fucking around with the remote. Sometimes he’d even make us rewind the movie! More to make a point about playing around with the machine, rather than to actually see the warning, one presumes.
Anyway, I guess that kind of behavior pisses off the folks in Hollywood, too, because with DVDs, the Fast Forward button is disabled during the display of the FBI warning.
At the recommendation of a new co-worker, I recently installed Cloudmark’s SpamNet add-in for Microsoft Outlook, the e-mail client I’m using at Persistence. If you’re using Microsoft Outlook on Windows (as I have to at work), this tool should be a no-brainer.
Note: I no longer recommend SpamNet, having found more effective tools. See my Personal Survey of Anti-Spam Tools for more details and recommendations.
At the recommendation of a new co-worker, I recently installed Cloudmark’s SpamNet add-in for Microsoft Outlook, the e-mail client I’m using at Persistence.
The plug-in adds new capabilities to Outlook, enabling it to scan each message as it’s downloaded, and determine if it’s spam or not. If it’s spam, it’s sent to your Spam mailbox, rather than your Inbox. This lets you review the caught spams at another time, to verify that only spam has been filed there.
The most interesting part of SpamNet is the way it detects spam. It plugs into a P2P (peer-to-peer) network of spam reporters. Everyone who’s part of the network reports spam when it gets through their filters. After a couple people have reported any given spam, the network “learns” what that spam looks like, and will filter it for everyone else. So SpamNet “learns” about spam from the collective experience of everyone using SpamNet (currently about 40,000 people). This makes SpamNet probably the most effective anti-spam tool out there. There’s more to it than that, but not much, and you can read all about it on the Cloudmark web site.
Oh, yeah, the price tag. SpamNet is free for individual use. If you’re using Microsoft Outlook on Windows (as I have to at work), this tool should be a no-brainer.
But, there’s the catch. Today SpamNet supports only Outlook on Windows. If you use Outlook Express, you’ll be supported soon. If you’re using Netscape, or Eudora, or a Macintosh, you’re SOL at the moment.
Today is, I can hardly believe it, my one year anniversary of working at Persistence Software. I am thankful to have what is by any measure a very good job.
Today is, I can hardly believe it, my one year anniversary of working at Persistence Software. I am thankful to have what is by any measure a very good job.
I was pulled in almost against my will in May of 2001, as a contractor, and the second person into a brand-new Marketing department. I liked the folks there, they liked me, and in August we made it official.
What’s funny, the friend who pulled me in left shortly thereafter (she’s a consultant permanently, rather than to fill in a dot.bomb gap on her resume), so I’m the “old timer” in Marketing. Scary thought!
Persistence is doing well. We actually made our first profit as a public company this last quarter, and the signs are favorable that we will continue to do so. This despite the worst recession the software industry has ever seen. So we must be doing something right.
In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve been posting a lot fewer political items here. It’s not because I think things are looking up, but because I think they’re looking worse and worse. I decided that trying to keep up would (a) be a lost cause, and (b) make this blog terribly boring (not that it isn’t anyway).
In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve been posting a lot fewer political items here. It’s not because I think things are looking up, but because I think they’re looking worse and worse. I decided that trying to keep up would (a) be a lost cause, and (b) make this blog terribly boring (not that it isn’t anyway).
I am still cataloging the various signs of the apocolypse, in a separate blog that’s mostly a collection of story links and summaries. I call it The Decline and Fall of the American Empire, because I think there are clear signs that America is going to hell in a handbasket, but like frogs in a pot of water, if the heat is brought up gradually, no one will cry out until it’s too late.
At least, that’s my opinion. And as far as I understand the current laws of the United States, I’m still entitled to it.
We’ll see how long that lasts.
Logitech’s Cordless Optical Mouse just may be the perfect computer mouse, whether you have a PC or a Mac.
I had been using Kensington (ADB) mice with my computers for years when I finally upgraded to a new Mac G4 with USB. I was really looking forward to Apple’s new optical mouse, after 10+ years of using micro-tweezers to clean out my mechanical mouse every few weeks.
I gave the Apple Pro Mouse a workout for a couple months, and finally decided it was hurting me. The cable is too short, even when connected directly to my keyboard, and because of its rocker switch (instead of a proper button), picking it up with the mouse still down (when I ran out of desk space) was quite stressful on my hand. I also found I hated going back to a single mouse button — it’s inexcusable that Apple doesn’t make a multi-button mouse.
Rochelle had been using a Microsoft IntelliMouse for almost two years, and liked it well enough, but I found it too big for my hands. I like to be able to actually enfold the mouse with my hand, not just lay my hand upon it and move it around. I’m just a Grabber, I guess.
I finally found the Logitech Cordless Optical Mouse (not the MouseMan, the product name is exactly as written). It’s a lovely shape, symmetric for Lefties as well as Righties, and fits my hand beautifully.
It’s got two buttons and a scroll wheel (which can also act as a third button), and works with Mac OS X without additional driver software (I haven’t even tried Logitech’s software yet). It’s also PC-compatible.
What’s more, I found “Cordless” to be the most surprisingly ergonomic part of it. I’m not managing a cable every time I mouse around anymore, it’s truly liberating. The batteries last for a few months at a time (I’ve replaced mine once). Wireless mice is the only way to go, I’m now convinced.
I liked my mouse so much Rochelle decided she wanted one, too, and it has now replaced the IntelliMouse on her PC.
Hopefully this mouse story was less gross than some of the previous ones!
It is amazing how bad the experience of installing Windows 2000 is. I spent 8 hours installing a chunk, rebooting, downloading an update, rebooting, changing a setting, rebooting. I must have rebooted the computer 15 times while installing Windows and all of the updates to it from the Windows Update web site.
A few weekends ago I finally started the upgrade project for Rochelle’s computer. She’d been running Windows 98 for two years, and it crashed all the time on her. So I was going to upgrade her to Windows 2000.
The job was truly unbelievable. It is amazing how bad the experience of installing Windows is. I spent 8 hours installing a chunk, rebooting, downloading an update, rebooting, changing a setting, rebooting. I must have rebooted the computer 15 times while installing Windows and all of the updates to it from the Windows Update web site.
It took me way longer than I’d expected or planned for, and it caused a snit with Rochelle when it threatened to delay heading up to Napa. (Things only got better once we were on the road, and realized we were in danger of pulling a hat trick. Rochelle was speeding, had lost her driver’s license, and I had let the vehicle registration expire by accident.)
In the end, her system is upgraded, and running much better than previously. Windows 2000 is OK once it’s installed, though nowhere near as reliable as our FreeBSD server, which has run for 6 months without rebooting on more than one occasion.
A while back I wrote about a free utility called Mailfilter for getting rid of spam. I’ve since switched to something much better, an inexpensive commercial utility called Spamfire. No doubt about it, Spamfire is worth the money.
Update: I no longer recommend SpamFire, having found much better tools. See my Personal Survey of Anti-Spam Tools for more current recommendations.
I wrote about a utility called Mailfilter here a while back. While I liked it, after a while I found it to not be flexible enough, and there was no safety net. If it thought a message was spam, it would delete it, and the message was gone forever.
I’ve switched to something called Spamfire. Today it’s Mac OS only (both Classic and Mac OS X), but they are working on a Windows version as well. Except for a few stability issues, Spamfire is just about the perfect personal spam filter.
Spamfire is a commercial product, unlike Mailfilter, but at less than $20 for the “Lite” version it’s well worth it if you’re getting a fair amount of spam in your e-mail inboxes. The things you get with Spamfire, that are not in Mailfilter include:
I’m extremely satisfied with Spamfire. Because I can recover from false positives, I can set the filtering to be much more aggressive, which leads to substantially less spam. With Mailfilter I had to be careful, and only delete things that were certainly spam, which meant Mailfilter only cut down the amount, instead of virtually eliminating it.
Highly recommended if you’re tired of spam in your inbox.
This is a brilliant idea. The web service TinyURL allows you to take really long URLs and convert them into much shorter ones.
This is a brilliant idea.
The web service TinyURL allows you to take really long URLs and convert them into much shorter ones. This makes it a lot easier, for example, to send links to people via e-mail, where long URLs tend to get munged by e-mail clients.
This is only one of many possible uses, this is a great, flexible service. You can get a feel for how it works right here:
If you’ve ever tried to cut-and-paste directions to someplace out of Yahoo! Maps and into an e-mail message, you now know a better way.
I’ve added RSS Auto-Discovery to this site, by modifying the source for monauraljerk, the software that runs this site.
I’ve added RSS Auto-Discovery to this site, by modifying the source for monaural jerk, the software that runs this site.
It was a simple add, and the change in output is small, but this is one more ingredient in that very exciting soup I talked about a while back.