Humming Birds

FYI

I am still alive.

Happy 2009!!!

Just a quick post to say:

Happy New Year.

Happy Ground Hog Day.

Happy Valentines Day.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Happy Easter.

Happy Mothers Day.

Happy Memorial Day.

Happy Fathers Day.

Happy Fourth of July.

And of course...

Yes I am still here, even if I am not "here", and will eventually make it back... I hope.

(Thanks Bell for the wake-up call.)

Hello again to you both

I know it has been two more months plus a little, I really will get back to writing someday.

In the mean time, I just wanted you to know I am still here. (Or perhaps I just wanted to know I was still here.)

Oops...

So, let me get this right, it is May 21, 2008, and I have not posted yet this year?

Well, it has been a rough stretch since my last post, one I need not go into here. I will however, be back to posting here more frequently soon.

Stay tuned as you wish, both of you... I shall return!

VMK no BS Forum - II

The site came back up after 16+ hours of down time.

I was very unimpressed with 1&1 web hosting and their lack of anything approaching customer service. The tech support line rings to India, (I think), they just said they were in the far East, and only has email communication to the people actually working on the servers in Germany. They could never give me an estimate as to when it would be back up. I did however get this nugget of information: "We don't have backup servers."

I will certainly not recommend them in the future, and will gladly post here as I find out whether they actually charge me full price this period. I sent two emails to the specified address to request a credit, but have as yet received no response from either.

Wallop - A New Social Site

Just signed up and love it already, I can upload pictures & music, I am using it as my custom radio right now...

The interface is very web 2.0 online desktop, and can be customized with any wallpaper you like and several themes.

More info to follow... Once I try the social aspects.

VMK no BS Forum

At www.vmknobs.com we are experiencing a problem with the web hosting company, it seems that the physical server hosting the forum, 5 of my / my client's sites, and the sites of approximately 1000 other customers has gone down. It has been down for nearly 15 hours now, and they still can not even give an estimate as to when it will be up.

For all you VMK no BS Members, fear not, we will be back.

More details of this incident will follow, as will the chronicles of the "service" received from this host. (If I ever get any...)

The PortableApps I Use Most Often

I have still yet to lay my hands on portable organization, so the promised reviews are still 'on the list' and will be here eventually. In the mean time here is a list of PortableApps I use most regularly. It is not a comprehensive list of all that I use or have tried, and it is in no particular order.

Some of the below may require special extraction, or an initial install, to be able to copy the files to your USB drive. (Universal Extractor and Inno Setup Unpacker come in handy for such things.)


Anti-Malware:

• Rogue Remover gets rid of rogue anti-spyware/adware programs.
• Winpooch Watchdog detects system modifications and includes real-time anti-virus.
• ClamWin Portable is an open-source anti-virus scanner.
• Avast! Cleaner is a virus removal tool.

Archivers:

• 7-Zip Portable is a favorite made mobile.
  
• IZArc2Go can extract almost 50 types of archives.

Browsers:

• Firefox Portable enough said.
  
• Torpark is portable Firefox + Tor for anonymous browsing.

CD-Burnning:

• Small CD Writer (English Version) is a great single file program for burning CDs.

Defrag Tools:

• Auslogics Disk Defrag is a nice GUI-based defrag program.
  
• JkDefrag has commandline options and does all disks in one run.

More to come another time...

Another Delay

I am giving my business a full court press, and the PortableApp reviews, while still coming have been further delayed.

Here is a link to an article I wrote for Daily Cup of Tech: Five Critical Tips for New Computer Consultants

I hope you enjoy it.

Thanks for your patience.

What to Take to a Service Job

PortableApp reviews are coming, in the mean time read this...

Every service job a take shows me at least one more tool to bring to the next job.

Here is the list so far:

• Small tool kit (Screwdrivers, zip ties, etc...)
• Software Tools (On CD & USB Flash Drive)
• Live CD
• Patience

The small tool kit was the most obvious, I brought that to my first service call and it wasn't even needed, but when it is, it is hard to open some cases with out it. ;-)

Software tools was also obvious yet over time the make-up of this kit has changed. Many of the calls I get are to support older operating systems so it is important to have tools that work on them. I have found that some old computers have no CD-ROM and no USB drivers so I also carry a floppy disk with the drivers needed to get the flash drive working.

Most recently I have added many common installation files to a seperate CD. Things like AIM, YIM & MSN Messenger all of the Google Pack tools and many Windows updates. I added these to avoid having to take a computer with a dial-up connection home. (or having to wait hours on site for it to download updates.) I have found that many problems can be solved with a fresh install of the offending program.

If there is a cd drive and the operating system is toast, then a live CD is a must have. With most live Linux distros you can recover and back up the data on the computer before you reinstall the old operating system. You can additionally test most of the hardware and find failures that a dead system won't show. (Dead Systems Tell No Tales... ;-) )

Patience is probably the most important tool to bring to any job. If you are impatient, your client will be as well and that will never end well for you.

Let Us Begin

Here are some links to various places of interest in the Portable Apps genre:

First my ever growing list of PortableApps links at del.icio.us: http://del.icio.us/DecoyFlyer/PortableApps

Next I give you several of my favorites:

• PortableApps.com
• TheInfoBox.com
• PenDriveLinux.com
• The Portable Freeware Collection
• Wikipedia's Portable Apps List

I have played with a U3 device, but have found that I prefer the flexibility of the PortableApps Suite at portableapps.com. Among other features, it allows you to add any program you put in the applications folder to the "start menu" it has for a launcher.

I will get into more detail another time, but for now check out the links, and remember i have not tested all of the programs they have, so use them at your own risk.

A New Direction For CRS...

OK, Both of you who have read this...

You are as aware as I am that I don't post here as much as I could, but that is about to change. I have finally picked a direction to go with CRS.

First let me say, I have two addition blogs now, Decoy's Poetry & Just a Decoy . They will go in the different directions this one has in the past, freeing this one up to go in a more Techno Geek sort of direction.

I will focus this blog on my tech experiments & interests, which currently are focussed on playing with portable, self contained, computer aplications & Linux live-CDs.There will be reviews, recommendations, warnings & anything else that comes to mind, as I play with my USB Flash Drives.

VMK no BS Forum

Well I know I have again been slow to post, but, here I am again...

Part of my excuse for this time is that I have been moving the VMK no BS Forums over to a dedicated location. ProBoards was great as a free host, but users couldn't find us when they lost the link and threads were disappearing from time to time. I even had a user that thought he was banned, though I banned no-one.

So we have moved to: www.vmknobs.com things are going and growing well.

If you are not partial to Childish BS, but do like VMK, come check us out and sign up.

Disturbing Headline

I receive email alerts from various "news" services on a daily basis and most get little to no reaction on my part. It may be, "Who cares?", "Oh, how sad he died.", "Whatever?" or on rare occasions, "OMG!!! That is terrible!!!" But, most often that is it.

I got the one below yesterday:

U.S. and France agree the main points of a resolution to end fighting between Israel and Hezbollah

My first, very brief thought was, "Hey they agreed on something.", then I had a light go on... The U.S. & France? OK... Well most often an agreement to end fighting is between the fighting parties, so why are these two negotiating to end the hostility between Israel & Hezbollah?

I understand that the U.S. and Israel are allies & the fact that France may align with Hezbollah is not all that shocking, however do either of these "proxies" really speak for or control the actual combatants? I think not!!

If this works though it will be an interesting precedent. I then being an ally and supporter of Coca-Cola, could negotiate with some Pepsi drinker out there, and put an end to the "Cola-Wars" once and for all. Cat and dog owners could negotiate an end to the fueding between these animals. And perhaps most exiting of all morticians and doctors could negotiate to put and end to death!!! (I for one don't think I want to live forever, in a world this messed up.)

If Israel & Hezbollah agree to the main points of a resolution to end the hostilities, that would be news... This is just more political posturing by two countries who will scarcely affect the final outcome.

Why is "Full Disclosure" NO Disclosure?

When buying or trying to refinance a home, our governmental friends have decided that the consumer MUST have, "Full Disclosure" of everything that may, might or will happen.

On the surface this seems like a good thing, they have to tell you that there is a garbage dump a mile away that makes it stink or that there is an earthquake fault running through the back yard. They also have to tell you about all the fees, insurance options and interest adjustments.

Great They can hide nothing!!!! Woo Hoo we win!!! Or so some politician somewhere must be thinking. However, they are sadly mistaken in their thoughts.

The dishonest people will always find a way to sneak something past and now they can do it in plain sight. All they have really done is create a mountain of paperwork so large, that even the honest people struggle to find and point out all the really important items being disclosed.

It used to be that the needed one and two page forms that could be read, understood & completed by the buyer. Now we have enough forms, disclaimers & disclosure statements to make a speed reading lawyer's day go by. No "regular person" has the time or understanding needed to really digest it all, thus it is scanned at best and misunderstood or skipped too often.

So, we are back at least to where we were on the disclosure issue from the standpoint of the consumer being informed. The difference now is that the consumer has no recourse when they have a legitimate complaint as it would now go like this:

Consumer: "There is toxic waste bubbling up in my back yard."

Company: "Yes, that happens every few years."

Consumer: "Nobody informed me of that."

Company: "We most certainly did. It is in the 3rd sentence of the fourth paragraph on addendum A3 of page 357 in packet X, 'Disclosure of Unimportant Things We Encourage You to Sign Without Reading', I see here that you signed it."

Consumer: "But this seems an important thing that should have been highlighted."

Company: "Perhaps, however, as you have already purchased the home, you may feel different when you sell it. Have a nice day & thank you for calling"