New Blog

I'm thinking about building my own computer, and have created a new blog about it here.

DSL versus Cable

The storm hit at about 3:00 am, Saturday morning nine days ago. It did a lot of damage, taking out eleven big trees along with electric power and cable. Power has been restored for seven days now. In fact the power company was heroic, thank you Xcel Energy! But cable is still out after nine days. Because we can receive broadcast TV signals this is no huge problem, of course, but what if we had cable for internet service?

We don't. We have DSL from the telephone company, whose lines are buried and much less susceptible to storm damage than cable. It did fail for a few hours, because DSL requires repeaters to get all the way from their office out to our home, and those repeaters require power from the power company. But that power was restored in a few hours, so DSL was back.

We have a generator which can support the water pump, heating, refrigeration, TV, and computers. Therefore, we had internet access during nearly all of the nine days, even before power was restored to our home.

But if we had cable for internet service, we would still be without internet after more than nine days. It's one thing to be without cable for TV, quite another to be without internet, especially since my business depends in part on internet access. Now that I think of it, what if we had telephone service from the cable company? Nine days without 911 or anything else.

Comcast says they are working on it. They say that every day when we call. Today they have "escalated" the problem and are "putting together a team." But they also said that it was already escalated, from previous calls that we had made.

Cable adapter laying on the ground:

Reecom Weather Radio Review

Our very old Midland weather radio expired, and we went to Radio Shack for a new one, only to find that they were out of stock. No reasonably-priced weather radios on hand at all. So we turned to the internet, ordering a Reecom R-1630 Alert Radio from Weather Connect.

Bottom line: It works as advertised; I'm quite pleased with it.

• It has S.A.M.E. technology, allowing us to program it to sound off only when our own county is included in an alert, whereas the old radio sounded off for any county within the range of the Twin Cities NOAA radio transmitter, a much larger area which included several large Wisconsin counties.
• I have actually programmed it for our county and several counties to the west, where storms usually come from, and recent alerts have confirmed that it works correctly. In fact, the memory now shows 18 alerts in the three weeks that we have owned the radio.
• The owner's manual is a little clumsy, and the radio would be hard to program without it, but I actually had no trouble with the programming.
• Siren (alarm) volume is separately adjustable from radio volume; that's nice.
• Alert duration (time until the radio goes silent again) is not adjustable but is short; that's even nicer.

I don't own stock in the company, and I can think of improvements that could be made. For example, with batteries in the machine (it works even when power fails), it's hard to tell whether it is plugged into house power or not. It should have an indicator. Further, it's a table model with no holes in the back for hanging it on a wall. Duh. But the bottom line is that it works.

I saw part of an advertisement on TV yesterday that Rainbow stores (or one particular store?) will be selling this radio in the Twin Cities this weekend for $30. If so, that's a much better deal that I got on the internet. This is the time of year to have one; in Minnesota, there are more tornados in June than any other month.

Windows Vista Is A Bad Joke

My user's old Windows 98 computer is in mothballs, a nice new laptop in its place. We tried to get the laptop with Windows XP, but alas, only Windows Vista was available on the model my user wanted.

I'm not a PC "expert," though I do know my way around, in an office with five networked computers, and have found Windows XP to be a huge improvement over Windows 98 (or ME, 95, etc). However, I've literally spent days trying to figure out how to configure this new Vista machine for my user. Windows Vista is thoroughly obscure.

Changes are to be expected, of course, along with a learning experience. Indeed, Vista is a new operating system, and I didn't take any kind of course to learn about it. Many of the features of XP are there, but are presented in a different way; that's to be expected. In particular, Windows Explorer is used widely as the engine for many of the functions that were separate applications in XP, such as Network Connections and Add/Remove Programs (both now with new names). Hence, many of those functions now have a new look. Okay, things change, we'll adjust.

Yet Vista has serious problems, mostly due to the increased "security." Here are some examples:

• Protected Mode: This is a new mode which monitors and prevents such things as internet downloads, even for a user with administrator privileges. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that there was a little note in the bottom bar of Internet Explorer saying "protected mode." Then it was only a matter of switching that mode off in Internet Options. With it on, I couldn't even download an antivirus program, without which the computer was NOT secure. Does Microsoft assume that real users will turn protected mode off only when necessary? Real users will turn it off and leave it off, because it's a pain in the butt.
• Wireless Connections: This has been changed so much as to be unrecognizable. Configuration of new wireless networks is even more awkward than it is in XP, and particularly so when connecting to a network with no broadcast SSID. Yet hiding your SSID can be a basic component of wireless security.
• Every User is Admin: Many MANY functions that a standard user (without admin privileges) would wish to perform can only be done by an admin user. To get around this problem, Vista prompts the standard user for an admin password before performing the function. As a result, every standard user will eventually come to know an admin password. Some security!
• No Write Access from Network: I have tried for hours to figure out how to place new files on a Vista standard user's account from an XP machine. I've enabled everything that I can think of on the Vista machine, and the protections seem correct (everyone allowed to do anything!) but I can't put files in that user's folders, even though I can put files in the admin user's folders. From the XP side, write privileges always appear disabled. This is an important issue, and I haven't solved it. Microsoft's help, as usual, is nothing more than instructions for how to do the things that are self-explanatory anyway.
• Windows Defender: I have been using a beta version of this on XP machines for some time now, with no problems. It comes standard with Vista, but it's goofy. It yells about some of my startup programs, but doesn't let me click "allow," with the result that it yells again at the next logon.

If Microsoft's purpose is to make the system more secure, they may have succeeded. Time will tell. Vista may also have new functionality that some users will need, and which I have not yet discovered. But it is certainly not easier to use; it is awkward and obtuse, especially when networking between computers. I wish I could have bought the new machine with XP, and I certainly won't try to upgrade any machines already running XP.

Can you tell I'm frustrated? No matter, in the long run Windows Vista is only a small bump in the road of life. Next post will be more cheerful, I promise.

Excellent Gateway Support

This is an unusual post in praise of a GOOD experience with a computer vendor. Last Tuesday the hinge failed on my old Gateway 200 ARC laptop, in such a way that the cover (and screen) would no longer stay up by itself. That hinge originally contained a resistance mechanism that held the cover wherever the user put it, but no longer. The top wanted to flop either forward or backward, making it hard to use the computer.

I got on Gateway.com to see if they would sell that specific part. Not finding it, I clicked on "chat with a tech." Up came an instant-messaging screen. Though I'm embarrassed now to admit it, when the tech took my serial number, he (or she) reminded me that my computer was still under a support contract. Aha! Apparently I had bought a four-year agreement with the computer, thinking that a laptop might be a bit more apt to fail than, say, a refrigerator. An iffy decision at the time, now very good news!

The tech (extremely professional and impersonal) explained that this problem was indeed covered by the warranty, and would be repaired at their service center if I would ship the computer to them. In fact, for $45, I could opt for expedited service where they would send me an appropriate shipping carton and they would pay for air shipping in all directions. I took the deal. Here's what happened:

• Tuesday afternoon: I had this discussion with Gateway.
• Wednesday: The box arrived. I inserted the computer and called the shipping company, who picked it up.
• Thursday: I received an email saying that Gateway had received the laptop, and then another saying that they had repaired it and shipped it back.
• Friday MORNING: I received the repaired computer.

Not only had they repaired the hinge, but they also replaced the keyboard, which had in fact been getting a little cranky. The computer works as well as it did when new, and I was without it for less than two days.

I think this was REALLY good service. Kudos to Gateway.

Visit Counters

Visit (hit) counters are a dime a dozen. When I started this blog I just found one on Google and added it. But hit counters are not all equal!

I found StatCounter on one of the myeloma blogs that I track, The Beast .... It has some nice features:

• Separate counts of page loads, unique visitors, and returning vistors


• Ignore hits from your own household (if you are on DSL or cable)


• Slick graphs of all of the statistics, per week, per month, etc.


• Invisible tracking (no counter showing) if you prefer


• Statistics available for all to view, or just to you if you prefer

It's free, of course.

I especially like the feature that can ignore my own IP address, so that my own reloads don't advance the counter. My visitors are relatively few, I think, and without that feature I really don't know if there are any unless they comment.

That feature does depend on a "static" IP address, so I assume that I may need to go into my StatCounter account and update my IP address after each time the DSL (or cable) modem has to reboot, e.g. after any power failures.

A Little About RSS

I'm a novice, just learning about RSS. Some say that RSS stands for "really simple syndication," others user other definitions. In effect, it's a way for you to be advised of an update to someone else's blog (or web site) without checking it.

I got interested in RSS after installing Internet Explorer 7, which has some support for it. Give IE7 a list of web pages, and it will periodically check each page for updates. Then if you look in IE7's RSS list, it will tell you which pages have been updated since you last looked, and will even show you a summary of each change. But as far as I can tell, it won't alert you in any way. You have to check IE7's RSS list if you want to know of a new blog post.


Enter the "RSS Feed Aggregator." If you Google that term, you will find dozens of programs, many free, designed to do the automatic polling of your selected RSS pages and alert you when a change appears. I downloaded a free one called GreatNews, and it works well enough that I feel no need to look further. It's a little browser in itself, and it provides an easy way to add new feeds (pages) to your list, makes it easy to delete the feeds that come pre-programmed, and provides a nice taskbar popup to alert you when an update is detected. It's cool. It won't always be free, but it is now and I doubt that the current beta versions will expire.

Here are some configuration suggestions. Go to Tools, Options:

• GENERAL Tab:




• Check "Minimize to System Tray." Then if you minimize GreatNews, it will disappear to a tiny icon in the system tray, which is the righthand part of the bottom taskbar.


• Check "Close to System Tray." Then if you close GreatNews it won't really close, but will again go to the system tray, working in the background.


• "Automatically update all feeds every ?? min". I have this set to 15, because I'm at my desk most of the day and have a broadband connection.


• READING Tab:




• "News items popup should stay for ?? seconds". I have this set to 3600 (1 hour) in case I'm away from the computer.

Add feeds by clicking Feed, then Add, then feed, or by clicking on the far-left icon on the second taskbar down. Delete feeds and groups by right-clicking on them and then clicking "delete." In a similar manner you can add groups and move feeds around to make it your own RSS aggregator. I took all of the actual news feeds (Yahoo, CNN, etc) out of mine because I was getting popups all the time. For me, so far, RSS feeds are just for running and myeloma blogs.

As provided, GreatNews doesn't give you a way to start it up automatically at bootup. Nevertheless I have mine set to start at bootup, and can describe how that's done if anyone is interested.