Technology

I Actually Used This For Years With No Question?

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I can’t believe I actually used Windows without question for years. I just got my dad a brand new HP desktop (he wanted a really small computer and this was the smallest name brand I could find) and I am setting it up for him this weekend. I am taking all his old data and copying it over to the new machine and then setting up all his applications for him. In theory this is not a big deal, but in practice it has been a huge pain. How can a multi billion dollar company like HP build a consumer device like a PC that simply doesn’t work well out of the box? They include a bunch of stuff to try and make it easy for a normal person to get up and running but in practice it has sucked.

My first issue is the fact that HP (not to pick on them since Dell and other do the same thing) put every free game or trial software they could think of on this computer. I had at least 20 programs I had to remove from the computer that would just take up space and memory. My dad doesn’t do his finances on the computer so why would he need both Quicken 2006 and Microsoft Money? The crap pre-installed on the machine is not a huge issue. I have had this problem for years with almost any computer maker.

What I truly don’t understand is the lack of testing of the software build put on these computers designed for the mass market. When I buy a computer and take it home and turn it on, everything pre-installed on it should work flawlessly. it was pre-installed for heavens sake. Why then does a brand new computer freeze up when trying to reboot it, but after 5 minutes it actually does reboot? Why would the built in AOL setup not complete the initial login and crash the machine? Same thing goes for the auto update for Java. I turned the computer on and it asked to be updated so I said ok, then the thing freezes and wont go away from the screen until I rebooted. Does anyone know how to test software builds anymore?

I can go on and on about the problems I am having with a brand new (supposedly clean) windows install but will just say I am baffled. I guess I have passed the point of no return with using my Mac, since I get frustrated every time I try to use a windows workstation. Granted I deal with Windows server allot in my job, it has its issues, but those are totally different from sitting at a windows desktop and working on it. I truly cannot see myself using a windows desktop again if I continue to have these stupid problems every time I try to use one. I am not being a nit pick, and I know what I am doing. It is simply just frustrating to use.

OK, my venting is over. I got AOL to finally work after a reboot (what a shocker). I will continue to setup the machine later. Hopefully the Palm setup doesn’t drive me to the bottle!

As a side note I will say that the HP Pavilion Slimline PC itself is sweet. it is super small for a windows box, packs a decent processor, 1gig of ram, a 200 gig SATA hard drive and dual layer DVD burner. Not bad for under $600. The software is just killing me.

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New Computer Time

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Tonight I went with my dad to Best Buy to get him a new computer. He has been complaining about the Mac Mini I had him try. Turns out not OS X is not for everyone, no matter what good intentions I had! We meet up by my apartment and took a cab to Best Buy. We found the computer he wanted easy enough, but they didn’t have it in stock. We then went to the next Best Buy in Mid town. Turned out they had it in stock so we bought it. Shopping with my dad is so easy. We usually don’t go shopping unless we know what we want, and when we see it we just buy it. If we don’t see it we check one or two other places and then go home. No fuss, no muss!

I will configure the computer this weekend and deliver it to him on Sunday. After we dropped the computer by my place we hit an italian restaurant by my house for some dinner. It was a quick and productive evening. My dad was happy he got a new computer and that it was a quick drive into manhattan and back home again.

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Beware the Ides of March

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Personally I don’t (see title). But the term sounds cool, and most people don’t get it. Julius Ceasar had a bad day on this date in 44BC. Generally this is the first of a 3 day holiday (self proclaimed) for me. It begins with a normal day March 15, that happens to have a cool sounding reference that was used by Shakespeare. Only other significance for me is it is the day before my birthday! Other stuff happened on March 16th. The Wikipedia has yet to list my birth on their page related to this date. I assume it is just an oversight. That is supposed to be a happy day. That is the middle day of this holiday. And to cap off the 3 day gala event is St. Patrick’s. Recently this is the day I can drink to excess claiming it is a holiday, but really because I am a year older. Who am I kidding. I am a light weight drinker anyway!

No major social events positive or negative happened today. Work was busy. See the work blog for more info. I returned the PCI DVR card I bought last week since it was having major issues with interference so sound was terrible. I tried everything I could think of to fix it. I am back down to 1 tuner for the DVR. I am researching my other options now.

Computer Rebuild, Again

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Today I am wiping my Presario desktop. I am moving all my DVR hardware onto it and re-installing the OS. My little DVR machine is fine, but it does not have enough inputs (internal or external). That made it difficult to add extra drive capacity or another TV tuner. Since I am not really using my more powerful Presario desktop for anything other than remoting into it to use VMWare I figured I would combine the two. The hardware should be able to handle both tasks without any problems. It is after all an AMD Athlon XP 3200+ with 1.5gig of ram and 2 250gig SATA hard drives.

I am in the process of installing Windows XP now. hopefully the Beyond TV & Beyond Media install’s go well, and I have no problems with the video capture cards. More news later

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Or Not To Join!

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My tryout trip with Cingular and my HP iPaq phone didn’t go so well for Cingular and the phone. First I should say the phone didn’t even get really used on the trip. By the time I was ready for the trip I had decided that the Windows Mobile phone software was too clunky to use all the time, and that the iPaq was nice as a PDA but was too big to use as a phone. Having it reboot 3 times while I was trying to sync it with my Mac didn’t help it.

With the Windows Mobile woes I figured I might as well try out the Cingular SIM in my Treo and see if the service was better and if the “high speed” data was worth the extra money. In NYC the signal seemed fine for singular. It even worked on the tracks in Penn Station. At my companies upstate office however where I had great service with T-Mobile I had 1 bar or no service with Cingular.

The data plan worked fine with no configuration necessary. But it wasn’t noticeably faster than my T-Mobile data plan that was half the price. Wanting to test that I used my Treo as a DUN modem and connected to the internet on my Powerbook using both Cingular and T-Mobile. The Treo 650 supports Cingular’s EDGE network and should have given me performance somewhere in the 100k range. I ran the CNET speed test and got a response of 26k. I tried my T-Mobile SIM on the same phone and got performance of around 60k +. That was what I expected with T-Mobiles GPRS system. That was the final decision to get out of my Cingular trial. The bad signal at my office was almost a death kneel, but paying double for a data plan that was slower was the final straw.

I will give Cingular credit. They are true to their 30 day money back policy for the service and phone. I had no problems returning the device and canceling the service. I say that before I get the bill for usage I had, but I think everything should be ok. If they improve the data speeds and service in the area I travel to I would look at them again, but for now I am fine with T-Mobile.

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Join An Evil Empire?

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I have pondered switching mobile carriers for a while. I have always ended up staying with T-Mobile. I have had them for almost 4 years and all in all they have been ok. But besides being cheap, and offering GSM they don’t have that much going for them. Well except nice customer service. That is a plus but for the once a year I call is it worth all the other trade offs? They offer the worst phones. Their high speed data plans may be cheap but they are really slow.

I have been eying the HP iPaq 6515 Windows Mobile phone for a while. Cingular offers it. It has a nice size screen and a keyboard. It is larger than my Treo 650 but the larger screen is REALLY nice. I saw it in the store today on my day off of shopping. I was originally not going to switch but I was surprised to find they had the iPaq in stock (they didn’t several other times I went to the store trying to take a look at it). I was impressed with the screen size, and the fact that the whole unit was not much bigger than the Treo even thought it was wider.

To make a long story short I made an semi impulse buy and am on my way to switching mobile carriers to Cingular. Now I have 30 days to see if I like the phone and the service, but for now I am switching. I will pay almost double for the data plan I had, but I am also (in theory) more than doubling the speed of the wireless data. The plan I am moving to is almost identical to what I had. 900 minutes vs the 1000 that T-Mobile gave me for the same price. The advantage is that I get roll over minutes now. Some months I use allot of minutes but others I almost never use any, so now I can roll over unused minutes to the next month.

I am going on a trip tomorrow so I will give the phone and service a real trial. More news later.

Oh and as for the title of the post I think most large telecom companies are evil. I love them, and use them all the time, but when something goes wrong you are at there mercy. You are in a contract that you cannot get out of, they can be very evil. But at least it is an evil you know!

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RAM & a DVR

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I ordered a 1 Gig RAM upgrade for my new iMac. It finally arrived and I installed it today. It was actually pretty easy to do. I was happy about that. The machine is noticeably faster now. Especially when I have several apps open. With the original 512megs on board I noticed the system would freeze up when I was doing some intensive stuff this weekend. The added memory is a nice solution to my problem. Now all I need is more apps that are run on the intel chips natively.

I also got a new USB DVR adapter for my DVR machine. The goal is to have 2 tuners running on the same computer. Snapstream says it will work. The problem I have is that I have 2 different revisions of the same USB DVR hardware. One driver version works with one unit but not the other. When I get the second one to work the first one decides to stop working. I gave up after several hours of messing with the system. I am RMA’ing the unit and will probably just go out and buy a PCI tuner card. I didn’t want to do that, but in order to do what I want I will need one. I may also just move the DVR setup to my HP desktop since it is not doing much right now. Still pondering my options.

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Sort of Free Lunch

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Twice this week I went to lunch with Cisco or a Cisco VAR. Free food is nice, but nothing is really ever free! We need to get allot done with these people so they think it is nice to do it at lunch. They are right, and we did make allot of progress. We are trying to shop around a new integrator for our Voice systems. The first meeting was to talk with my Cisco rep about the current issues we have and what we want to do. The second meeting was to meet with an integrator and talk a bit about what we want and what they can offer. I think both meetings went well. The first impression of this new integrator was a good one. I still have to meet another integrator next week that we are looking at but I think this group had a good start.

I want to get all the leg work of this phone system design done now before we actually have a lease signed and the powers that be at my company are asking for us to move as soon as possible.

xbox

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My home entertainment system now boasts a state of the art gaming console. Well, as of 2001 it was state of the art. I know I am a few years behind the times but I just picked up an xbox. I got one cheap off of ebay. I figured now I can brush up on my halo without looking like a fool in front of my friends. I really suck. Now I can also go online and play against John, Dave or anyone else without having to go over to their house. That means whenever they want to play we can do it, instead of planning a day a week in advance.

I already played a ton of Halo 2 on Friday. I got a head ache from the motion of the game. I used to get that allot when I played Doom or Half Life. I play till I can’t play anymore. I am honestly not a huge gamer, but every few years I get into a game and then play till I am done with it. The last time I did this was 6 years ago with Half Life. When I wasn’t working for a few months as a contractor when I was in Baton Rouge I played every night for like 3 months.

This time around I am playing Halo 2. I didn’t go with the xbox 360 since most of my friends who do play games allot said it is not worth getting it yet. I am getting my regular xbox supped up anyway so I can use it as a mini media center anyway, so why do I need a 360? No games that any of my friends will play are out on it anyway. I figure I will be fine with this purchase for a while. The xbox and a bigger hard drive barely set me back $150. You have to love ebay!

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Intel iMac

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I thought about it for a while and said I would wait. I really said I would hold off. I said I didn’t need another computer that was all in one. I said the mini was perfect. Then I heard great things about the new iMac. Office ran great dan said. Then I tried some new applications on my mini and stopped using them because the mini was so dam slow (man it is a great little box, but it really is slow). The final nail in the coffin was my tax return. I got around what I thought I would get. That meant disposable income. I could save it, but returns where meant to be spent.

I think I may have a serious problem. I think it is called eBay. eBay is my enabler. It allows me to sell stuff and buy newer stuff. It has gotten me into this mentality that I can buy stuff and sell it in a year or so and buy something else. It is more than a mentality. It is a reality that I have been living since like 2000. When this iMac gets to be not enough computer for me (and it might not for a while) I can goto eBay like I did with my last 20″ iMac.

I got picked up the iMac last night after work. Jayson (always willing to go with me to spend money) and I hit the apple store in soho after Danny, Jay and I had some dinner and drinks. It is always better to spend money after drinking! I had the new machine setup in like 15 minutes. The rewiring of my desk took all of today.

First impressions are good. So far Office installs and runs fine in rosetta. Cisco’s VPN which didn’t work at all finally came out with a universal binary on Friday. It was if they knew I went out and bought a new computer. Toast works fine even using rosetta, and they promise an update to universal binary soon. The only program that I want to install that may have a problem is the Missing Sync for Palm. Mark/Space does promise a universal binary by the end of march. For now I will sync with my work Powerbook.

More thoughts on the new computer soon.

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