Google, the Innovator

Today I was thinking about Google and why I like it so much. I was asked what was so cool about the current doodle on the Google Search home page. The cool thing about it is that it is animated completed in HTML5. They couldn't see the movement. So I explained you have to be using a browser that is HTML5 compliant like Chrome or Firefox or even Opera. IE8 (which is the corporate standard because 1)Programmers keep writing for IE specific browser versions and 2)Because IE9 breakes those corporate things that require IE. So they loaded Chrome and Ah.... There is was, "First HTML5 Google Doodle Honors Alexander Calder, 'Inventor of the Mobile'" moving slowly around the screen. I started to tell them if they blew on the screen it would move, but that seemed cruel.

Google Innovates. How long did browsers stay stagnent until Chrome came along? Yes, it could easily be argued Mozilla caused the current browser wars but Chrome is winning and now Mozzila is promising more frequent updates to their browser after it took years to get out of version 3.x after being influenced by Google's rapid releases. Additionally Google practially make it required to download updates rather than optional. Now this is push behavior but if you asked Microsoft their feelings about this and IE6, they would say that is a neat option. Being that Microsoft has to keep the Enterprise Overlords happy as well, they can't easily play this card. But people let Google get away with this.

Google pushed the HTML5 standards to allow for better video and they and others really pushed AJAX into the forefront and brought us pages that seem to come to life without any plugin software (namely Adobe Flash). So we kind of wound up waiting for everyone to play catch up to Google and now Apple hates Adobe and Joanie Loves Chachi and Microsoft and Oracle and Apple all hate Google...
So Google must be doing some thing right.

I love my Android phone. I thought the iPhone would be the only game in town for so long. Apple deserves its own posting thanking it for making mobile phones useful. The word Smart and phone didn't go together until Apple came alone. I digress.The Android phone has given iPhone a run for the money. It is a great phone and for the most part I enjoy the fact that the Android phones are usually (given what mobile provider you have) open. I could root my Android phone but there isn't much reason to. There isn't really anything I am prevented from doing on my phone that I want to do. The only missing piece I have found is there isn't a Cisco VPN client for my phone. I would be willing to pay Cisco for this option. To be able to connect to work and fix a problem from my phone would be awesome.

Windows Run Line Commando

I have always found it faster to run many commands via commandline or a DOS command window than to do Start, Programs, Accessories, Notepad (for example). Start, Run, Notepad cranks up fast and I don't have to take my fingers from the keyboard. I have also written some batch files that do some amazing things. I need to become a wizard on PowerShell.

Someone asked me about sysedit. Strangely this still exists in Windows XP but I see no trace of it in Windows 7. It isn't on my Mac either, ha ha. So I explain about msconfig and how those config.sys and autoexec.bat files are no more and if they exist at all it is because you may have a 16 bit program that for some reason you have clung to for dear life. And of course, there is dxconfig to tweak Direct X settings as well. So I was Googling around to find other command line options. I was amazed to see a long list for XP (most still work on Windows 7). I have used many of these before but I don't really considered them commandline options. But if you can kick it off via Start, Run, it is pretty cool.

Here are over 100 Windows Run Commands

If you want to control what starts up on boot, then these utilities are a great way to resolve and keep a watchful eye.

Startup Monitor This monitors things that attempt to put themselves in Run Once or HKCU/Run or HKLM/Run. So many things try to run on Start up. Granted this program is really XP-ish and hasn't really been rewritten to be used on Windows Vista or Windows 7. But I am using it and it is working.

Additionally is the Startup Control Panel. This is an easy way to tweak after the fact. Granted in Windows 7 it takes some changing of the view in Control Panel to see it but it still a great program.

When you install this on Windows 7, you will have to right click and choose "Run As Administrator" in order for it to copy its cpl file into the correct Windows directory.

If you really like to tweak things or you really want to find that peskey trojan that is still running after running antispyware software ten times, HijackThis is another way to go.

WARNING: THIS CAN REALLY MESS UP YOUR COMPUTER IF YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With HijackThis you can tweak what starts and what doesn't every time your computer boots as well as often track down evil things that are starting that should not be.

Off Topic-- Government at its finest

When you have the opportunity to enjoy quantity time with your state and local government offices, take it. It is a level of comedy and irony.

I went to the local department of vital records to request a replacement birth certificate for my daughter. My daughter has four names or I should say a first name, two middle names, and a last name. We had gotten a replacement birth certificate a few years ago so I thought no big deal. After waiting a long time, after being told I would have to wait a long time, the lady looks at my application and tells me she can't give me a birth certificate because her typewriter was recently replaced and the font size on it is too big to print out the 38 characters my daughter's name entails. So I have to request it from the state office near the state capital as they have a typewriter with smaller fonts.

Welcome to the 20th century.

Calibre - an awesome ebook manager regardless of your reader

I was looking for some thing to manage my ebooks. I have several PDFs that I wanted to read on my new Nook (see previous entries about that). Sure, I could open up the microSD card I have placed in my Nook and use the USB cable to upload to it. But I noticed my PDFs did not have pretty covers when I looked at them on my reader. At first I thought this was because they were PDFs instead of ePubs, but in reality, the PDFs just didn't have the appropriate metadata. So at first I was Googling ™ ™
to find a way to turn a PDF into an ePub document. Many of the options cost money and I prefer to find an open source or freeware method that sort of works than to spend money on something I will not use very often. That is when I came across Calibre. It will convert books from PDF to ePub format. But in my experimentation it did a horrendous job with images in PDFs so I gave up. (On a side note, I have Adobe CS3 Design Suite, which includes inDesign. So I looked to see if I could import a PDF into inDesign and create an ePub document. This particular version doesn't give me the option so bummer.) So I gave up on this tangent.
I played around with Calibre more and discovered it was an awesome ebook manager. It can edit metadata on PDFs (though strangely not consistently), import metadata from Barnes and Nobel and Amazon for books it can parse the titles of, and add "covers" to your books so they show the thumb nails on your reader.

Take a look at the interface.

Notice the drop down to allow access to move files to the microSD card in my Nook. It even recognizes my Nook when I plug it up. It has support for Kindle, Nook, Sony's eReader, and others.

(Soapbox) Also notice the book, Head First PMP (Second Edition) from O'Reilly And Associates. I love that O'Reilly doesn't put DRM on their books so when I buy a book from them, I can read it on any device I want. DRM free doesn't mean sharing with others, but supports the fact that once you buy a book, you own it. It is yours to use until you lose it. (/Soapbox).

I am not going into log tutorials about Calibre as the author of the program has gone to great strides to provide great tutorials on his site. The software is available for multiple OSes and even has a portable version you can take anywhere on your Thumb drive.

Barnes and Noble and the Great Nook adventure

First up, I am still for the most part in love with my Nook. As a reading device it is great. It is a one trick pony and it does it very well. I am currently reading a book called Brains: How They Seem to Work by Dale Purves. It seemed interesting and I have been very surprised at how good a book it is. Yes, the book is full of technical terms that I am trying hard to wrap my brain around, but it is a very good read. It is fascinating how the field of neuroscience developed since the early days and how much we have learned about the brain and the methods discovered to study the brain, the nervous system, and how it all interacts together. I am a good ways into the book and I am really enjoying it.

I have told myself I will not buy any more books until I finish the first one. I read about study that said it takes longer to read ebooks and in another study, most users never finish reading ebooks. I hope this is not the case. So far I am enjoying the fact there are so many free ebooks and being able to load my PDFs onto the device to read as well. But PDFs do not read as well as epub books. The font clarity is not the same on the Nook and it is not as easy to select text in PDFs. Also it would be good if one could zoom in on images in the book. With the small screen, it would be good to be able to do this. Granted if these pictures were in a paperback book, I would have the same issue.

I do have one big complaint about the Nook though. Barnes and Noble markets books that will only work on the Nook Color. In fact at times it seems they "prefer" I use one of the software ereaders or the Nook Color over the device I purchased. I would be happy if under preferences if I could filter my search so it only shows books that will work on my display. Barnes and Noble offered a free book on Mickey Mantle by Jane Leavy to suck me into the Nook world. It isn't free now. But I added it to My Library looking forward to reading it on my Nook (I started stockpiling free and paid books just to read when my Nook would arrive), but this book can't be read on my Nook (the New Simple Touch Reader one). Even worse, it won't let me download it on my Nook for PC or Nook for Mac. So the book is in "My Library" but is unreadable for me so far. My Android phone seems to have an option to download it but not anything else I have.

So Barnes and Noble, please fix this one small thing. Let me be able to search and only find books that my reader can actually use.

By Hook or by Nook

Okay. So I put off picking a winner in the ebooks war for the longest time. Then I decided I didn't want to pay the price it costs for the winner, but instead base it on features that mattered to me. So I bought a Nook (the new edition) I would prefer to call it the Nook Touch, but that isn't want Barnes and Noble is calling it.

When a geek decides subconsciously that he wants new technology items, he goes through a justification processes. Some how he logics that that he can justify the cost of the device by some notion. In this case I am using the lame excuse I need to study for my PMP exam. And because this device has limited functionality (meaning it has less bells and whistles) I would be able to focus. I have a really short attention span so I thought if I had a device that only does one thing and it does it really well, then I would read and focus.

Why I choose the "All-New Nook 'The Simple Touch Reader'"?
1. microSD card port - This way I can easily add my own books and pdfs.
2. Two months of battery life -- Okay, this is more cool and mostly marketing as you have to turn wireless off and it is assuming you will read one hour a day.
3. Super light -- It weighs about the same as a paperback book. Seriously.
4. Touch -- The Kindle just has so many buttons on it and is bigger than it needs to be because of this. I know the Kindle will come out in a touch screen version. I even guestimate Amazon will be releasing their own Android based tablet with Kindle eInk built in. I also speculate the next iPad will have a way to display eInk to save on power and improve readability and then bounce back into normal display mode when you want to do other stuff. So perhaps I jumped in the wrong place. Let's not talk that way as you will cause me buyers remorse.

I see some cons to this device already.
1. Not color, which means there are books on barnesandnoble.com that I can not download to my device. Ugh!
2. Device can't do a lot with pdfs except display them. I can't really zoom a lot with a pdf to try and get bigger texted. I am not going blind but it displays the table of contents really small.
3. The site does not tell you easily that your particular nook won't work with it. They seem to want you to buy the color nook yet they are hyping the newest one.

What I really like...
1. The display quality is amazing.
2. The touch functionality works great.
3. There are so many free books on barnesandnoble.com and other sites I have yet to actually buy a book, but I will. I have my eye on some already.
4. Wireless works great.
5. Response time is great. Books pop up quick and pages turn fast.

My next post I will tell you about the amazing software I downloaded, Calibre. It is a great ebook manager for what ever device you choose.

Adventures in Droid 2

So I had to drive to Raleigh, NC for a training class so I used my trusty Droid 2 as my GPS. Normally this goes okay, but after 3 hours of using it the phone gives me an error message saying it is too hot. I had never seen this message before. Luckily I was on I-85 and I didn't really need to know where I was as duh! I knew where I was. So I turned off the phone and it was really hot. I probably could have fried something on the back of this phone. After a time out I turned the phone on and it helped me complete the rest of the trip.

Funny I did an entire road trip with my original Droid and I never had any problems like that. It either worked or didn't but it never showed an error message like that.

Screen Recording on Mac OS X Snow Leopard

I needed to create a video showing how to do something on my Mac for a class. I have used CamStudio on Windows, which works pretty well. Though I have to admit the program creates some really large AVI files. CamStudio also gives you an option to create Flash video from your completed AVI file. Also, while you are creating the screen recording, you can narrate and it will record your audio to the video.

But what can I use for Mac OS? I "Googled" ™ and found many free and paid programs to do screen recording. All of the free ones seem to only capture video and not allow audio. The ones that did both all seemed to cost money. I continue to search and then the answer arrived. You can do screen recording with QuickTime X, which comes with Snow Leopard. Here is how:

First, open up QuickTime X.


From the QuickTime File menu choose:


This brings up the Record button and options:
(Choose your audio source and where you want to save the file)


Then click on the record button.
This window pops up.


It tells you how to stop recording, by selecting Command-Shift-Escape. You will also see a Stop Recording button in the tool bar up top. See picture.


Once you stop recording, it will then bring the video into QuickTime Player where you can see the results of your handy work. Notice the VCR style buttons at the bottom of the video screen.



That's it.

Removing heavy metal from water and other random news

No, not Spinal Tap type Heavy Metal...

Sadly my Brita Water purifier probably doesn't have these features...

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/04/27/shells-metals-water.html

More on this from a blogger

http://cricketdiane.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/solutions-ways-to-remove-heavy-metals-pollutants-from-water-and-soil-a-new-light-bulb-materials-science-conferences-first-international-conference-on-materials-for-energy-july-4-8-2010-lo/

Yikes, maybe they need to purify my movie popcorn too.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-popcorn-20110323,0,3759568.story

Hopefully the BSOD will be a 3D Avatar telling me to "just try to press control alt delete" 3D Windows Phone

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Glasses-Free-3D-LG-Thrill-4G-HTC-HD75-AT-T,news-10564.html

Ah, man... I wanted to be sure all of the world's books were backed up on disk somewhere...

http://www.smh.com.au/business/google-library-plans-shelved-20110323-1c6pm.html

Chrome OS Update

I kept hearing everyone talking about Chrome OS updates. Strangely though when I choose "Check for Updates" nothing returned. It always said I was up-to-date. So I decided to log off completely and shut the device down to see if that coaxed the update out of Google. It did. Finally I was running

Chrome OS 0.11.257.18 (Official Build) dev-channel x86-mario
Google Chrome 11.0.696.14

Having been running a 1o version of the Chrome browser on every OS I use, I was wondering when I would finally see a version 10 of the Chrome OS. But it seems I am not up to 11 (not to be confused with Spinal Tap's 11).

So right off the bat I notice a couple of things:
1) The trackpad seems a little more responsive.
2) Now there is a button in the upper right corner to make it easier to switch between windows.

I am sure there are others but those two jump out the fastest.
A PC Mag article says Google has tweeted it has shipped out all the Cr-48's it plans to ship out. In other news Sony is supposedly working on their own ChromeBook and a hybrid that would be both PC and ChromeBook in the same notebook. The hybrid would have an externally accessible graphics card that would allow you to use the notebook as a workstation after you hook it up to either a docking station or some type of device similar to a small form factor PC>

I will keep you updated once I find other fixes.

GroupMe - New Android and feature phone app

At SXSW a new program was introduced, GroupMe. I have downloaded and installed it and I have found it very useful already. With GroupMe you create groups of friends or family by their cell numbers. Then you can text to one phone number, which GroupMe gives you, and all of your group get the message. This server even works on non-smart phones. So you can go online, create the account, get your conference phone number, then you can text this number to communicate with all of your friends. So far the app and service are free. I do not yet know what the business model for this is, but I like it so far. You can also call the number and ring all your friends at once. Pretty cool. The site for GroupMe is http://groupme.com/ Give it a try. They have an app for Android and for iPhone.

Using the App
Once you create your group, the interface on Android phones looks similar to a chat session. Or the messaging interface that came with Android 2.2. You see the pictures of those you are chatting with and their messages in cartoon balloons. Reply to the session and everyone in your group gets the message. When they reply all see their reply back. It is great.

The Art of Meeting

I live in a world of meetings. Most meetings are unproductive and at times counter-productive.
How do you prevent wasting valuable time? Download one of the meeting calculator. Type in the number of people, take a guess how much the group of people make per hour, and how long the meeting the meeting is going to last. How much will it cost per hour or per minute to have this meeting? Yikes. Throw in pricy consultants and a project manager and this meeting could bankrupt small company.

So how do you fix this?
1)Plan the meeting before you schedule the meeting.
Create an agenda; plan what needs to be discussed.
2)Only invite the people you need to the meeting.
Counter-productive people need not attend.
3)Meet with stakeholders seperately.
Give stakeholders a seperate meeting. Give them their updates and statuses. By meeting with them seperately your team meeting can focus and avoid politics. Plus your team can be more open with ideas and even unpopular status information.
4)Assign someone to take notes.
Sometimes a meeting happens and everyone forgets what was said. Someone other than the meeting facilitator needs to take notes so the meeting can stay on track with the agenda.
5)Have a timekeeper.
So many meetings go on and on about a point and time gets away. When you create the agenda try to determine how long each topic should take.
6)Send out the agenda ahead of time.
This allows others to ask questions ahead of time that may help provide information ahead of time. This may even shorten or even eliminate the meeting.

Good luck out there. Think before you schedule that next meeting; the time and sanity you save may be your own.

How to remotely install software

Over the years I have used many Jedi Mind Tricks and utilities to install software onto remote users' PCs. For a while I used to run Microsoft System Management Server (SMS) to push out software and when SMS (not to be confused with "Short Messaging Server", though it is easy to confuse it with "slow Microsoft software") worked, it did a great job of pushing out software. After a while SMS became a problem child at times and I had done some creative things using DOS batch files and registry hacks. In fact those are still my favorite way to do things. I have also done some VBScripting to push out things as well but this doesn't work as well as I would like.

Today I received a message, "How do we push out software with a batch file and have the install run with admin rights?" Well, I knew I had done it before using some Windows Resource kit utils but I hadn't done it in a while. So I began "Googling" to refresh my memory. Along the way I discovered a utility from SysInternals (which Microsoft wisely bought out a few years ago). This utility is called psexec. With it, you can remotely execute programs onto a machine. In my case, I used it to push out Google Chrome browser to people.

You can use this very easily, here is how:

First, you need to go to this page and grab the psexec tools.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897553

I put mine in the c:\windows\system32 directory. But you could also open it in another folder and add it to your system path. You will need to run the psexec once to accept the license agreement. When you copy, don't let it overwrite your existing DLL.

Next, create a file In my case, I created a file on the root of C: called serverlist1.txt

Populate it as follows: (one PC name per line)

yourpcname
myneighborspcname

When the file is ready, run this. I ran it on my cubical neighbor's PC and my machine. Probably not perfect test subjects, but the psexec runs as you unless you specify a different user, which is an option if you know their password.

Here is the command (I drop to a DOS command window and run it as follows:

psexec @c:\serverlist1.txt -s -i -d msiexec /i \\mmyserver\public\chrome\GoogleChromeStandaloneEnterprise.msi /qn

The /qn is a MSIEXEC thing that tells it to install quietly. Here are some helpful links along the way.

Windows Environment Variables

A good article that gave me the clues I needed to get this working

Suffering burn out in the IT field?

Here is a good blog post on alternative careers for burnt out IT professionals.

10-alternative-careers-for-burned-out-it-workers

My favorite apps for Android OS

My list of useful apps for Droid:

Dropbox -Great file sync tool

KeepassDroid -- Great password keeper.

OI File Manager (lets you see files on the phone and on the SD card
and helps KeepassDroid work better).

Advanced Task Killer (Works like a task manager to allow you to kill
unnecessary programs)

Android System Info (tells you everything that is running and how much
memory or CPU is being utilized)

App 2 SD (moves apps to the SD card saving memory in the phone)

Antivirus (AVG Antivirus for your Droid)

Nice to have apps:

Barcode Scanner (should already be there but if it isn't this is
amazing app to have. You can scan any barcode and search for it on the
Internet. Good to compare prices with)

ChromeToPhone (Allows you to send links from your PC's Chrome Browser
to your Cell. You have to install the extension on your browser first,
then install the app, log in and connect)

CityCallerID (not to be confused with the stupid program that is
loaded on your phone already and wants you to buy their service. This
is a freeware that looks up numbers that call you and tell you where
they are calling from. This has to be installed from your computer as
it is not on the Market). You will have to do a Google search for this one.

Discount Calculator (tells you how much a discount will save you on a
price, including tax)

Evernote -- this app allows you to create small notes and sync them
over the Internet so you can access them on your PC as well.

AKNotepad -- Great app to make a quick list or note that you don't
need to sync with anything. I do quick grocery lists using this.

Google Sky Map -- This app eats battery while it is running, but run
it and point it at the night sky and it will tell you what stars
planets and constellations are above you where ever you are on the
earth.

Pandora -- Internet radio app. Pick an artist you like and hear music
by them and others like them. Pandora.com is their web site. You need
to create an account to get maximum use out of it. Uses battery and
data so don't use it a lot.

RingDroid -- Turns any MP3 into a ring tone. Awesome.

The Weather Channel -- Good app for the weather in multiple cities at once.

Uninstaller -- After you get tired of an app, you can more easily
uninstall it with this app.

Wifi Analyzer -- This app is great to find access points near you. If
you phone doesn't have a 3G signal but you have wifi, this will tell
you what is available around you.

YellowBook -- Good yellow pages app for Droid.

Calendar Snooze: Android's built-in snooze for appointments can disappoint. This one is a lot better and gives you more options.

Addictive apps you may or may not want to download:
To while away the hours in a doctor's office Angry Birds is an addictive app.

Hands on with the Verizon iPhone

This video from CNET is a good view of the Verizon iPhone. Enjoy

Foodie Adventures: Chicken and Dumplings

A few weeks ago my wife wanted me to make chicken and dumplings. I am not a huge fan of chicken and dumplings but I would go to the ends of the earth for my wife. So I started "Googling" to find a good recipe. Now you don't know this yet, but I am a mad scientist type cook. If I don't have an ingredient, I try to find a substitute. If it has a very unhealthy ingredient, I try to find a healthier substitute. Most of the time no one is any wiser, other times it is a failure.

For example, I made vegetable soup and my wife wanted some biscuits to go with it. I don't make biscuits often as they are not healthy if they are made correctly. I "Googled" a recipe and I only had fat free milk. I have made biscuits with soy milk. The biscuits looked great. They tasted horrible. Strange soy milk aftertaste. That was unexpected.

Anyway, I found a recipe online and I changed it some and it turned out great. Everybody raved about the chicken and dumplings. My wife wanted me to make it again yesterday, but I misplaced the original recipe I found online. You would think I could improvise and come up with it again, but I really don't remember what I put into it other than chicken and frozen (but defrosted) biscuit dough.

So we went to Cracker Barrel for lunch. I am not a huge fan of CB usually, but my wife is and that is all that matters. She, of course, had chicken and dumplings. I had the Cracker Barrel Sampler, which is meat loaf, chicken and dumplings, and country ham. I added turnip greens, fried orca, and brown rice. The brown rice was cooked with mushrooms. It was great.

iPhone your phone

So with this week's announcement of the iPhone coming to Verizon, you might expect it is time to swap over to Verizon from AT&T. Or you may be an existing Verizon customer and you have been chomping at the bit (as I did for a long time) to have an iPhone on Verizon. Halt! Stop right there.

As with any conversion, there are sacrifices. There are gains, but there are also sacrifices.

Gains:

1. Verizon network -- For most people this is all that matters. Verizon's coverage, at least in my area, is second to none. In fact many have put up with Verizon's monopolistic practices in areas where they were basically the only game in town for that reason. We put up with phones that we could load our own ring tones on. Limitations as to what web based things you could run, etc. I could go on but with the Droid phones and Verizon's initial efforts with them, they allowed a level of freedom they hadn't previously. Note: The downside to this is Verizon found out we were willing to pay more for a perceived more.

2. Hot Spot capability -- Verizon is shipping the phones with hot spot capability like they did the Droid 2 and Droid X phones. Yes, it costs extra but it is a nice feature. Note: The downside to this is Verizon found out we were willing to pay more for a perceived more. This seems to be an iOS feature and not a Verizon feature as AT&T may add this to their iPhones as well.

3. Antenna Gate is over... -- This is not proven yet. Based on initial testing by other organizations, it appears at least initially Verizon's version of the iPhone 4 phone has an antenna fix for the "grip of death"

Losses:

1. Data and voice at the same time -- You may or may not know, but on AT&T you can surf the web and make a phone call at the same time. With Verizon's first iPhone, you will not be able to do this. Why? Different technologies. AT&T uses GSM while Verizon uses CDMA. CDMA does not offer this capability. Now rumors of a specialized CDMA chip or the iPhone coming out initial with LTE (Verizon's new 4G data network) didn't happen.

2. Facetime -- Facetime will only work over WiFi. So you can't use your cellular network to get to another iPhone using Facetime. 

Draw:

1. iPhone 5 -- There will be a new iPhone 5 announced in June. Why? Apple always announces new products in June and September. Rumors are swirling that the iPhone 5 will come out in June and it will be 4G ready. Both for AT&T's network and for Verizon's network. Note: The downside to this is 4G is going to be in limited areas for a while. It will take Verizon and AT&T a while to get their respective versions of 4G to get out and about.

Conclusion:

Wait! I know, I know, your technology wanderlust is calling out to you and you want so bad. But you can have your cake and eat it too if you hold out for the iPhone 5. Besides, most of us are waiting on our contracts to be up so we can get a new phone anyway.

Other thoughts:

You could do just fine with a Droid 2 or Droid X. Granted the comparison of iPhone 4 and Droid 2 deserves its own entry.

CPT 101: Learning to use a computer

So recently as a Christmas gift I gave a friend of mine a computer I had bought from another friend for $40. It had a 2.8 GHz processor, 1 Gig of memory, and a wireless keyboard and mouse. I had also bought a 17 inch monitor from the same person for $30. So I had taken the 17 inch monitor and married it up with the family computer, you know the one that the kids uses when their laptops are out of commission (or borrowed by someone else in this case). My original intent on buying this computer was to build a Linux box for the family to save files to so I could backup all their data with my external USB drive. Basically a home media server. But it sat around and I began to feel guilty I had not given it a purpose.

My friend had wanted to write his life story for quite sometime and told me if I found a computer cheap or free or something that I had laying around, he would love to have it. So I decided to give it to him. First up, I had to clean it up. It had some spyware and some viruses. Sure, reinstalling Windows XP would have been quicker perhaps, but then the pain of locating all the drivers again (mainly network as that is the one driver that slows up the whole process of updating and installing drivers in this day and age of no media being shipped with computers). I installed antivirus. AVG antivirus  is a good and free antivirus. It doesn't update as fast as the paid for versions do, but it works for the most part. I also installed Malware Bytes and Super Antispyware. These are good and free utils that do a good job of scanning a computer. They cleaned up several nasties and I scanned the computer multiple times and rebooted multiple times to ensure it was as clean as I could get it.

Next I installed Open Office which is the best free Microsoft Office replacement you can download. I then went in and set up it up so that OpenOffice only saved spreadsheets in XLS Office 2003 format, documents in DOC Office 2003 format, and presentations in PPT Office 2003 format. I know OpenOffice format is becoming much more widely accepted and even Microsoft Office 2007 has a way to open and save (sort of, not truly 100% in OpenOffice format) in ODT format. But I find keeping things at good old DOC format makes life easier for people who are not 100% computer savvy. 

Then I re-enabled my friend's Gmail account. A long time ago we had created a Gmail account he could use whenever he was asked for an email address and when he was at my house, he could check his account. He sort of stopped checking it as mostly get received spam. But I re-enabled it as he had put my email address as his backup if he forgot his password. So I set him back up, cleaned up his spam, unsubscribed him from legitimate but not useful sites that were spamming him.

Then I created shortcuts for him on his desktop. One for Gmail and another for Google Docs. 

As my friend lives with his sister, she happened to have Internet and a wireless access point already, so I bought a wireless USB adapter to connect his computer to the network there. I bought the Cisco Valet. It was the cheapest one at Office Max (my town is too small to have a Best Buy) and it was the best reviewed. When I shop it is nearly required by law that I take my Droid phone, scan the bar code on any product I am considering and read reviews on Amazon and other sites before I buy a product. If I had the time to buy the product online, I would research and read reviews before buying anything, but when I have to have instant gratification, I am forced to either visit Office Max or Walmart for computer stuff. 

The device worked well and it had the driver on the built-in storage that came on the device. So I was able to get it working and on my wireless network fairly quickly.

So I proceeded to deliver the computer to my friend's house. 

On my way I stopped by OfficeMax to buy a cheap surge protector. It wan't cheap but it was good. I like the Belkin ones though I do love APC products. The pricing kept me in the Belkin range.

So I arrive and carry in the computer. I connected all the cords and plugs and plugged up the surge protector. 

Problem 1: Turns out this old house has three prong outlets but they aren't really. The surge protector says the house is not grounded. I proceed anyway. 

Problem 2: Suddenly the wireless keyboard would not work. The mouse did, but not the keyboard. Now I can work without a mouse, but a keyboard is essential unless I want to type using the character map. Not for the faint of heart. I tried resetting the wireless receiver that was connected via USB to the computer. The whole thing had worked fine at my house, but the thing would not work at my friend's. I speculated several things, one, I wasn't in a USB port that was immediately active on power on or some type of wireless device like a cordless phone was some how on the same frequency as the device. I tried several things and no luck. As the keyboard and mouse require batteries, I decide it is probably best I go and get him a cheap mouse and keyboard that is wired so I don't have to troubleshoot dead batteries all the time. So we go to OfficeMax again and I buy a cheap Microsoft keyboard and  a Logitech mouse. Both have to be USB as this computer is new enough to no longer have PS/2 ports. Mission accomplished. The keyboard and mouse work as advertised.

Problem 3: Wireless. So as the sister was leaving the house, I asked, do you have a WEP key for your access point? No was the answer I received. I immediately said, you should. So they tell me I can set this up if I want and just let them know what it is. But I didn't know the SSID of their wireless network. So I cranked up my Droid again and opened up the app, Wireless Analyzer. It showed me two wireless networks running nearby. One was much stronger than the other. So I assumed it must be the one, but... It had security set up on it. Hmmm. So we call the sister's cell and she informs me that there is some type of code on the bottom of her wireless router. Seems the local phone company had set up her wireless network and had created a WEP key for her. So I took a picture with my phone of the bottom of the wireless router, and plugged in the code into the PC's wireless configuration. We were now on the Internet.

Note: Yes, this brings up discussions about WPA, WPA2, etc. This network is G based and supports WPA2, which is what I prefer in this day and age of wireless encryption being easily hacked. Their network was setup with WPA, which meant the pass key wasn't as long as I would have liked. But it will be okay. They aren't protecting Fort Knox. This also lends itself to a discussion of wireless encryption in general, but that is better saved for a separate post.

So now I sat my friend down in front of the screen and we proceeded with a crash course on using a computer. His primary goals were being able to get to Live with Regis and Kelly's web site as he has a perhaps unhealthy obsession with Kelly Ripa. I gave him a Gmail crash course and a Google Docs crash course. I had created him a short cut for OpenOffice, but I stressed that Google Docs would save his work on the Internet (too much to explain the concept of "the cloud") so if his computer crashed, his documents would still be accessible.  He seemed to like that. So we create a document so he could try it all out. 

Having spent more time on this than I had planned, I was forced to leave my friend with an incomplete knowledge. But how do you teach someone everything there is to know about computers enough for them to get going with the Internet, with email, etc? It is a challenge. I told my friend, just run with it. Experiment. Don't worry, I can fix pretty much anything you do to it.

In the days that have passed, he has managed to send an email to Regis and Kelly, receive emails from a relative that he would rather have not gotten, and yesterday he learned how to delete those said emails.