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Technology:Computers, software and neat gizmos

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Bugs in Internet Explorer 7

I downloaded Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 yesterday. Some bugs were encountered quite soon after installation.

First, I am using MSN Messenger to manage a Hotmail account. My computer at work keeps asking me if I want to install Windows Messenger every time I check my e-mail. This never happened until I installed IE 7.

Secondly and more importantly, I can’t get links on some websites to function. I tried to make my son a doctor appointment today but was unable to do it because IE 7 could not navigate on the Kaiser website.

In the first screen shot, you will see ranges of the alphabet that are clickable in previous versions of IE but will not function using IE 7.

To get to this screen go http://www.kp.org
Click on A Member
Select your Region select Northern California and click continue
From pulldown menu go to Locate our services and select Facility Directory

In the second screen shot, the departments should be links to another page but they also will not work. This example can be reached by selecting Kaiser Permanente South Sacramento Medical Center.

When these issued are resolved I will be sure to let my readers know the fix is available.

04-27-2006
Additional Bug
In Hotmail, when I select Print View, the window that it brings-up does not have a print incon on the menu. I found that pressing Control and P key simultaneously will bring-up this print menu.

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Microsoft Office Kills Windows XP Professional x64

Just when I though that I had conquered all the pitfalls and perils of my 64-bit Windows XP Professional, I found the mother of all incompatibilities. Microsoft Office will not run on Microsoft’s cutting edge XP Operation System!

Let me explain. My computer is running Office 2003 with the basic office suite of programs and it runs just fine, but on Friday I tried to install my Microsoft Publisher and Microsoft Frontpage off of my Office 2000 CDs. This attempt at installation ended in completed disaster. My computer failed to respond properly after the installation went bad. So just like Microsoft has trained me to do, I rebooted my computer. Oops! I got the error that my Registry is corrupt and I needed to repair it.

This message is worse that the dread blue screen of death. Thankfully, I used my wife’s computer and went to work on the Knowledgebase at Microsoft. I found a five page procedure to follow to restore the registry. Basically you need a coordinated attack using the XP installation disk, Microsoft’s handy support article and a floppy drive.

1 Delete Corrupted Registry
First boot to Repair screen using the XP installation disk. Next run batch file created by cutting and pasting text file from Knowledgebase article to floppy disk. Run text as batch file per instructions.

2 Restore Original Registries
Then reboot into Safe Mode. Copy and rename back-up copies of Registry files from Restore Point to temporary location. This puts computer back to condition at original OS installation.

3 Restore Previous Good Restore Point
Run second batch file created on the floppy per instructions. Now computer can see existing Restore Points.

4 Restore Point
Then reboot into safe Mode. Select System Restore to select previous Restore Point.

Then reboot normally. You will probably be prompted to register your copy of Windows prior to successfully booting the computer. 

This procedure to recover the Registry also works with 32-bit versions of XP.

I went looking on Microsoft’s website for an explanation why my computer died. It was then that I discovered
Note Microsoft Office 2000 has not been tested on any 64-bit versions of Windows operating systems.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Apple Sends OS X to Boot Camp

Apple Computer has released a software patch titled “Boot Camp” that will allow an Apple with Intel processor to dual boot to either their OS X or Microsoft Windows XP. Apple won’t support the “Boot Camp” software or the XP installation on their computers.

Why Apple thinks this would encourage PC users to switch to their overpriced computers is unclear. The articles that I read also does not state whether you will need to get proprietary drivers to make Windows XP run on your Apple.

A more detailed article can be found at C-Net.

See Apple Press Release.

It is unclear whether there are architectural differences between the Intel Pentium family of processors and those being utilized by Apple that could affect the performance of Windows XP on the Apple platform.

In previous generations of Microsoft Operating Systems based on Windows NT, Microsoft supported RISC microprocessors such as MIPS,  Alpha and Apple’s Power PC. This was discontinued many years ago.

Last time, Microsoft modified their OS to run on the Apple platform and this time Apple has modified their platform to run Microsoft’s OS.

It is fun to watch the love/hate relationship that Apple has had with Microsoft over the years. If Microsoft hadn’t bailed-out Apple a few years back Apple’s music download and iPod empire would never had been possible and Windows Vista would never have been created.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Music Downloads #2

This is a follow-up to my previous post on music downloads.

Because my original music purchase was on a Tuesday, I was given a free download. I decided to get Petra’s Never Say Die and Washes Whiter Than. This was offered as two albums on one CD. I downloaded the songs and it looked like everything was there until I hit the play button. Oops! More malfunctions. Once again the song names did not match the tracks. This time however all the tracks were there, they were just labeled incorrectly. The song titles started with Never Say Die but the actual tracks started with Washes Whiter Than. At least they were in the correct order once you figured out what they had done.

I sent Connect another e-mail. Instead of promising to fix their mistakes they simply sent me a code to get yet another free download. I didn’t really want another download but I used it yesterday. I got a best of Jerry Reed mostly cause he’s a likeable guy and I like to collect humorous music like Ray Stevens, Gary S Paxton and Paul Shanklin. So now I Got the Gold Mine while Connect continues to give others the shaft.

Connect just impresses me as a lackadaisical subsidiary of a mega corporation. I expected more professionalism from Sony.

In summary, I have twelve of nineteen tracks from DeGarmo and Key Band’s No Turning Back, two albums (18 tracks) worth of Petra that are labeled incorrectly, twenty old songs from Jerry Reed and after a week my credit card still has not been charged.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Music Download: DeGarmo and Key Band

DeGarmo and Key Band made a live album back in about 1981. It was called No Turning Back. It was originally released as a double LP and later as a double CD. Some songs on the album were never released on any other recordings. Needless to say the CDs are out of print.

I happen to own a copy of the CDs. However my disc 2 is defective. There was a period of time shortly after CDs first came out that defective media was mass-produced and sold. The media layers inside the CD will breakdown and render the CD useless. This is apparently what happened to my disc.

I have been watching E-Bay for copies of the CD but to going rate is close to $100. There are two albums by DeGarmo and Key that are not widely available as downloads on places like I-Tunes. This recording is one; the other is their album This Ain’t Hollywood.

I found a link at Sparrow Records that had said that the following titles were available for download. One of the albums listed was No Turning Back. Wow! I might be able to replace my bad disc via a music download. Fantastic!

I checked the four websites referenced at the Sparrow site. This is rather cumbersome because several require proprietary software to be downloaded to even view their sites. As it turns out, only one site actually had the elusive album for download. That site was Connect which is affiliated with Sony. I hesitated somewhat at the name of Sony. Why? Because of their recent reputation of installing spyware as part of their music licensing agreement.

My desire for this music outweighed my concern that this corporation is watching me. My other concern is the proprietary format that you must purchase the music in. (I’ll have more to say about this shortly.)

Once the software was downloaded, installed and my computer did the obligatory restart, I went to the site and created my account and purchased the music; 19 tracks for 9.99. I downloaded the songs to my computer and then said to myself, “hello old friends.” I hit the play button to enjoy some songs that I hadn’t heard in ten or more years and then it hit me: these aren’t right! Songs 1-7 were actually duplicates of 13-19. Tracks 1-7 were the correct names but wrong data files. Look at the time duration of the songs. The song order of the actual download is different from the album. Hey guys this is a live album. The order matters too.

The good news for me is that I did get all the tracks to rebuild my disc 2. Unfortunately, I didn’t get what I thought I was paying to download. I sent an e-mail to the company. I’m curious what type of response that I get from a large corporation about a rather obscure download on their site.

In addition to the tracks being hosed-up, one of the tracks that I downloaded that was labeled correctly has audio gaps about two-thirds of the way through the song. I tried downloading the track again on a different computer and have the same error at the same spot. Therefore their master is bad. I wonder if they ripped the song from the CD release and had a defective disc 2.

I was concerned about using music that was in a proprietary format. I created a CD from the software that I had download for the Connect music site and then ripped the CD in Windows Media format on my home computer. I labeled the tracks and now can use the files like any other music files on my computer. There does not appear to be any copy protection on the files in Windows Media format.

Friday, March 10, 2006

Windows Live Toolbar beta

I downloaded Microsoft’s “Windows Live Toolbar beta” last night. The toolbar does things that neither the Google or MSN toolbar will do plus, it works with Windows XP Professional x64. Yahoo! (This is a celebratory expression and not a reference to any Internet company utilizing this name )

The toolbar memorizes passwords on web pages, a common enough Windows feature that no other toolbars support on 64 bit systems. It also has an RSS reader, integrated desktop and web search, e-mail, anti Phishing Filter, improved pop-up blocker, and a new feature called ”Onfolio”.

Onfolio is a new tool for research. It looks like it will prove handy once you figure-out how it works. Microsoft summarizes this tool:

Onfolio is a tool for the serious online researcher. It provides a way to easily save, organize, and share all sorts of data you find on the Web, including links, entire Web pages, portions of pages, e-mails, and Microsoft Office documents.

The RSS Reader is simple to configure. Go to a web page with an RSS feed, right click RSS icon on the page and select Copy Shortcut, open Onfolio Deskbar, click on down arrow on rightside of Add, then click on Add Website Feed, and paste shortcut and click OK. If the program can read feed, it will be added to list in Onfolio Deskbar, if the program can’t read the feed, try another on the page and see if it works. On some sites I was able to use Atom feed but on others it would not work and I had to use RSS 2 . 

The Form Fill feature needs to autodetect the fields for username and password. When you fill-in username and password and then hit Enter, a box will pop-up asking you if you want the program to memorize the logon information. Manually inserting them into the program did not work on the websites that I tried.

The toolbar is probably a way of letting us beta test some “bells and whistles” that come standard with Windows Vista. The documentation is limited but I recommend you give it a try.

Monday, February 20, 2006

Site Restored After Botched Upgrade

Yeah! The site is up and running again.

Thanks to the support staff at pMachine http://www.pmachine.com/ I am now running their new version of the blogging software.

It was a combination of the 50-50 90 rule and my .htaccess file going belly-up.

For those that don’t know, the rule above states that for any fifty-fifty option, there is a ninety percent chance of choosing the wrong action. I had a choice of two files from which to pick to upgrade the site and per the above rule, I picked to wrong one.

I then updated my Black List (blocked IP and URL files) and in the process trashed my .htaccess config file. Last year in a three month period I had over one million hits on the site due to spammers. That is why I dumped the other blogging program and went with pMachine’s Express Engine.

Look at this support thread if you want to fix SQL Errors while upgrading Express Engine. http://www.pmachine.com/forums/viewthread/31768/

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

LightScribe: Next Generation Disc Labels

During my efforts to recover from my computer woes around the first of the year, I decided that I needed the ability to backup larger files than my DVD burner could copy onto a single disc. So I decided to price recorders that could support the dual layer, 8.5-gigabyte discs. After I started looking, I come across a DVD-R that has LightScribe written on the box. Curious I found their website http://www.lightscribe.com and took a look.

LightScribe is a technology that allows you to use your DVD burner to laser etch labels onto the discs that you make at home. This means no more paper labels or Sharpies are needed to know what�s on your disc. Use you label creation program that is bundled with your burner; simply create a label for your disc, and place disc into your burner upside-down and print. The labels are black writing etched into a gold foil label embedded in the DVD or CD. This technology is supported by Roxio Easy Media Creator and Nero software.

LightScribe requires special hardware, software and LightScribe enabled discs to operate. The DVD-R drive that I purchased was from the local Staples store for 79.95 plus tax. My LightScribe burner is made by I/O Magic and was bundled with Nero 6. As it turns out, the LightScribe drivers are embedded into the Nero software and cannot be installed separately. My Roxio software supports LightScribe but would not work until I had installed the Nero program that was bundled with the drive.

I have found that the LightScribe discs are made for CD�s and 8x (4.3 GB) DVDs. The best prices I have found thus far are at my local Wal-Mart.

You can us any background image that you want to create the label but remember that your end product will be in a single color so there are limits to your creativity.

After the label is created in your computer, place disc�label side down into your burner. Close door and the go to print in you label program. You will then be able to select your burner as a print device. Select Best print quality and then print label. In about 25 minutes you will have a disc with a laser-etched label.

This is a system that works just like it is advertised. I recommend that you get LightScribe enabled burners for your next computer upgrade. Best of all, it works wonderfully on my 64 bit Windows XP system.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Bureaucrats Criminalize 21st Century Lifestyle

When can you tell that government is out of control? When government makes law abiding citizens into criminals just for going about their daily lives, the government has overstepped its rightful boundaries.

If you are a gun owner, smoker, motorcycle rider or other persecuted minority in California for doing something that is legal, you now have company. Every citizen in California has been made a criminal today. That�s right! Effective today, if you throw a dead AAA battery into the trash you are criminal. If you put a burned-out light bulb into a dumpster you are an evil doer. If you toss a disposable cell phone you are scum. So says the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (also called CalEPA).

A summary article can be found at the KCRA-TV website.

Other banned items include some tennis shoes made before1997, greeting cards that play music, freezers, washing machines, space heaters, radios and disposable lighters.

The real lessons to take from these Liberals are these:
  We cannot listen to terrorists talking on disposable cell phones but we can imprison them for tossing the phones into the trash when their calling minutes are expired.
  Our State legislature is more fearful of the batteries in my baby�s electronic toys than the possibility that thermonuclear weapons might be detonated in San Francisco or Los Angeles.

Friday, February 03, 2006

eTrust Antivirus Release 8

Occasionally. I have to be the first kid on the block with the new techie toy. In that spirit, I purchased the new Computer Associates eTrust Antivirus program, Release 8. I wanted a program that was certified to work with my 64-bit version of Windows XP.

Prior to installing, I uninstalled the eTrust version 7 that I was using for the past three weeks.

The installation went ok. I was prompted to agree to three different licenses and had to fill out a full-page registration form before I even got to the screen to select the product that I wanted to install.

When selecting the program to install, there is a one-sentence summary of each product choice; there are five or six from which to choose. I selected eTrust Antivirus Release 8. The next screen lets you choose Client, Server or Custom installation. I made my choice and then presses finish to install.

Partway through the installation, I got an error that the license would not register so I was being given a 30-day trial version of the program. After installation finished, the system prompted for a reboot.

After rebooting my computer, I tried to find where the license could be entered again to get the product registered. I could not find any screen to enter the information. There is a license button on one of the screens but it doesn�t work like you would expect. It doesn�t ask you to enter a registration number or verify the information that you had previously typed in case you typed one instead of �I� or zero instead of �O� or something lame like that; instead, it asks you for a path to the license file. I even tried cutting and pasting the license key code from the order confirmation e-mail that they sent me but it would not work.

The license button gave you a screen that had three buttons. A fill-in box next to the Browse button seemed the logical place to find a license file. Once you click on Browse you are presented with a search window similar to Word or Excel when you select File-Open. The choices for file type are the default �*.*� (the dreaded search wildcard), .gif or .htm.

What and where this mysterious license file is remained a mystery for several hours. It seems like this interface is intended for a client installation to find the license file of the server installation. (See number Five below for more info.)

There is no Help option. I looked because often licensing is buried in the Help-About button on the program.

After several hours of frustration on the CA website and uninstalling and reinstalling the program four more times, this is what I discovered.

First, all of the user name, address and other neat mandatory fields that you are prompted for in the installation, are not memorized by the setup program and must be reentered each time you run setup.

Second, there is no help option available from the setup menu.

Third, there is no help available for Release 8 at the CA website.

Fourth, HP and Microsoft have much better Knowledge Bases than Computer Associates. I even went through the registration at their website, for the third time in a month to try to login to some support options. CA does not seem to have integrated login data so I had to register once to download a trial copy, which I could never get to install. Then I had to enter all the same info to buy the program on their store website, and third, I had to register to get a look at portions of the support website.

Fifth, I did find out that there is a registration file in the Shared Components directory that this is an .xml file but it only shows enough information to see that I have a thirty day trial version currently installed.

Sixth, the licensing scheme and file locations have been completely revised for Release 8 when compared to Release 7.

In light of all that had happened, I sent an e-mail to CA in hopes of getting some help to get the program licensed properly. I may have to hack the xml file but I would like to get the program working properly.

***
Six Hours After My Original Post

Amazingly, when I got home today there were two e-mails waiting for me in response to my request for help, the e-mails were due to the fact that I was not there to answer the phone call from Computer Associates. That�s service!

Anyway here is the text of the e-mail.

This is with regards to your Licensing Issue# XXXXXX91.

I understand that you have installed the product on a 64 bit machine.

Kindly note that the agent will work fine on a 64 bit machine, however, kindly install the (ITM server) Console on a different machine which does not have a 64 bit processor.

The licenses will get updated only when a console machine connects to CA site and get it refreshed. Otherwise, the license.xml file will be holding the trial info only.

Hence, you can install the Console on a different machine and have the 64 bit machine as an agent. Kindly let me know if you have any questions.

Regards,
Cheryl
CA
License Support Representative

As Paul Harvey says, �and now the rest of the story.�

I took my handy eTrust R8 disk to my wife�s 32-bit Windows XP computer and started the install process again. I agreed to three licenses and filled-out the same full page form again, selected eTrust R8 and then surprise! There were four menu choices instead of the three that were on my 64-bit computer.

32 Bit System Reveals Fourth Choice

As instructed, I installed the ITM Server.

This was a good first step but is not the end of the computing adventures that I experienced.

When I rebooted the computer and tried to go into the ITM Server, I was prompted for a Username and Password. I figure no sweat, I will enter what? My registration stuff asked me to create a password but not a username. What now?

Thankfully there was a help button on this screen. After mousing around I found out that the eTrust ITM Console uses the default Administrator account of the computer as the Username and Password. This was simple enough, I entered the username and there was no password on the Administrator account on my wife�s XP machine so I just hit Enter and . . . nothing. Program error, I must enter a password. But there is no password! The only choice I had was to go to Users in the Control Panel and enter a password for the Administrator account on the XP machine.

I then went back to the ITM Console and tried the Administrator account with my newly created password and like magic, I was able to login.

The console could see my computer had eTrust but there was nowhere that I could find to register the license which was the whole purpose of this exercise in the first place.

Based on my experiences the night before, I though why not just share the directory with the license in it and see what happens. I shared the SubscriptionLicense directory and then went to my 64-bit computer.

I opened the License Tab and browsed to the SubscriptionLicense directory on my wife�s computer and selected the License.xml file and my computer accepted the choice. Now I am running a fully licensed copy of ETrust Antivirus Release 8 for my 64-bit Windows XP system.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

More 64-Bit Computing

This is an update to my adventures with the 64-bit version of Windows XP Professional.

Finding a fully functional anti-virus program is still the biggest challenge. I had read that Computer Associates antivirus product would work on this version of XP; Not their EZ Trust version but their business product. However if you download the trial version it will not install but gives you an error that it is not for 64 bit systems. On the bright side at least it is aware that you have a 64-bit system. The trial version with gateway will partially install but does not appear to install the antivirus software proper just all the administrative bells and whistles for the gateway. However, I got a copy of the retail CD for eTrust and it did install. I then installed the upgrade that CA recommends. The program appears to be installed properly but I still want to check my Event Log just to make sure.

I did call Computer Associates yesterday and after some stumbling they said the retail CD should work on my computer. The CA Representative suggested that maybe I should wait for the new version that is certified to work on the 64-bit XP system. It will be out at the end of February or first part of March. So look for eTrust Antivirus version 8 towards the end of the first quarter.

While I was having all my adventures with anti-virus programs, all my e-mail was lost (i.e. deleted) by something. My Outlook pst file containing all my e-mails was gone yesterday when I tried to check my e-mail. My last backup was two weeks ago so I took out my backup CD and had to recreate my In Box less any messages received in the last two weeks.

Printing is the other persistent irritation with this OS. HP is still not making a drive for my HP PhotoSmart 100 printer. I went on their website and inquired what they would recommend as an upgrade to this perfectly fine printer and there is no 64-bit printer driver for the supposed replacement that they recommend on their website.

This reminds me of HP�s screw-ups when Windows 95 was released. HP wrote all their drivers to the wrong standard and none worked with Windows 95. After they fixed the drivers, HP retaliated by charging $30 for each driver that you downloaded from their website. After things calmed down, HP went back to free downloads.

Needless to say, Adobe Acrobat will not create PDF files in a 64-bit environment. Additionally, the workaround posted on Adobe�s website does not work. Adobe says that it should work with version 5, 6 or 7.

Roxio�s successor to Easy CD Creator is available at you local Costco and will run on Windows XP 64-bit and it even says so on the retail box.

Monday, January 02, 2006

My Introduction to Windows XP Profession x64 Edition

Over the last ten days I have had a crash course in more frustrating aspects of computer hardware. On a stormy day just before Christmas my daughter�s computer quit working.

Since troubleshooting a computer is somewhat of a �plug and pray� proposition, I tried the usual things in the usual order. I tried a new hard rive, then a new RAM chip, then I transferred everything to a spare case with a different motherboard. The computer would still not operate. The only component that I had not replaced by this time was the CPU.

I decided to gut my own computer and give it to my daughter because many of her Christmas gifts required her to have a computer. I was able to backup most of her hard drive and transfer it to the new computer. She ended up with a net gain in her computing ability. She went from 256 MB of RAM to one GB, and from an 80 GB drive to 120 GB.

This left me in the need for another computer for myself. I went down to my local Fry�s Electronics to buy a CPU. Oops! They had only one 32 bit CPU in the whole store. So here I am with no computer and staring at the uncharted waters of 64 bit computing. I bought an AMD Athlon processor and motherboard and installed Windows XP Professional x64 Edition.

This version of XP may look like the 32 bit version but it is a very different operating system under the hood. The first thing you will notice is that it will NOT run any 16 bit software or any software with a 16 installation program. This means all DOS and windows 3.x program will not run. Also many programs made for Windows 95 and 98 will not install.

Compatibility Issues
My program to print CD labels would not install, but I was able to get it working by copying the program from my old drive and then copying the .dll files into the programs directory.

Kodak Easy Share software would install but cannot connect to the camera. Only by using a preinstalled Wizard could I download the photos into my hard drive.

The biggest complaint that I have is that there is no anti-virus program on the market for this version of Windows unless you look at Enterprise Corporate anti-virus packages. Some brands will install but they will not give you real-time protection. This includes Computer Associates, Symantec, McAfee, Bit Defender, Panda, F-Secure and several others that I tried. This OS was officially released on April 30, 2005 but support by many vendors is spotty at best. So I am using a 30-day trial hoping that something will be available soon that I can purchase.

The only CD/DVD writing software that I have found that will work in this version of Windows XP is Nero version 7. The CD writing software that is part of XP will only write to CDs and not DVDs.

In my first few days with the 64 bit version of Windows XP, I would say that there is more of a learning curve than I had hoped to encounter. I will keep you updated as this adventure continues.

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Microsoft’s New Vista

There is a new Vista on the technology horizon. Microsoft, the Wal-Mart of computing, is currently Beta testing its successor to Windows XP. The new Windows is called Vista.

Vista is a completely redesigned operating system that has a simpler look and feel. It will be more graphically friendly using thumbnails instead of icons and arrive complete with easier search capabilities. Rigid directory structures give way to virtual folders that can be used to group any object on the hard drive.

This new computing interface is due to the efforts of all those programmers that Microsoft got from Apple when they bailed their desktop arch rivals out of the fiscal hole they were in prior to the introduction of I-pods.

The core software of the operating system is being re-written to plug most of the existing security holes and exploits that have plagued the software giant.

Another improvement is the changes in the desktop security model. The default user will no longer be the Administrator. When Administrative rights are needed the computer will prompt user for a password, execute the change and then return to User rights.

The guys at Microsoft have been listening to their customers and stayed up late into the night to try building a better OS. Vista is scheduled to be out in the fourth quarter of 2006. Historically, this really means more like third quarter of 2007 but we will see.

Chances are that you will need a new computer to get the most out of Vista. The system requirements are:

Dual Core Processor x64

1 GB RAM, Min is 512MB

Graphics must support Windows Vista Display Driver Model, Min is DirectX 9, >64 MB RAM, AGP or PCI Express

Hard drive—Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) drive with an 8 MB cache and Native Command Queuing (NCQ)

This is the best reason to upgrade you computer since Y2K.