Barb’s Connected World

Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Ok, it hasn’t been a happy holiday season this year.  I find myself looking for work as my entire department was eliminated. A few days before Chanuka and two weeks before Christmas.  I’d been at Comcast 12+ years.

So, I found myself assessing the tools I need for job hunting (it’s been a while since I was at Comcast 12+ years). My Xerox Personal Copier (circa 1994) needed a drum/cartridge (approx $100) and my 8 year old fax machine (a $129 Brother) was sending stuff that was unreadable. True, I don’t use a fax much anymore, but there are a few  non tech entities that still don’t understand email and scans. I had a scanner that went in the dumpster about 10 years ago that I never replaced. It lasted just long enough to digitize my heirloom family pictures and my own film prints and negatives.

Staples had this HP 8500 Pro 909g printer/fax/scanner/color copier which, with a printer trade in rebate, was $249.98. And there is a $50 mail in rebate on top of that. OK, $200 to replace my all dead and dying Jurassic period home office communications/imaging devices seemed like a good deal. C|Net liked this printer, too.

I had an 8 year old printer to trade, and a friend to carry equipment  up and down stairs for me. I played with the printer at Staples for quite a while and liked what I saw.

Hardware setup was quick and easy. I have no complaints there. Then I installed the printer driver suite.

Imagine my displeasure when, at the end of the install, I launched IE and I noticed the Yahoo toolbar had been silently installed without my permission. And IE immediately crashed. Way to go, HP. I re-opened IE and disabled the Yahoo toolbar add-in, closed the browser and was greeted with a second “Internet Explorer has stopped working” intercept.  Opened IE and found some additional HP Browser helper objects (BHO’s) in Manage Add-ons and disabled them. Closed the browser. Uninstalled the Yahoo toolbar. Back to normal.

I then decided to contact HP Support to complain about foisting this crap on unsuspecting consumers. The first email response was from a delta semi moron who told me to contact Microsoft for Internet Explorer support in uninstalling the Yahoo toolbar. I emailed my reply and heard back from a different support rep. Apparently HP has so many complaints about the crapware they install that they have a permanent FAQ that includes the language “ ..special offers at HP Deals “. The installer also PINS two icons to the Windows 7 Start menu. 

OK, I’ve vented. I feel better now.

My personal cell phone these days is  a Blackberry Curve 8330 (yeah, it’s pink). Mostly because it is the twin on the one I was issued at work so I don’t need a whole different set of accessories (desktop charger, cables, etc.).

I actually like the device alot. Email on the go for sure keeps me uber connected, but I’ve only enabled a few of my email addresses for this.  I resisted getting a smart phone for a long time, but now I don’t know how I managed without one. 

One thing that I didn’t like was the default theme pack offered by Verizon. But there certainly is a large variety of user designed theme-ware to be found online. The iPhone like bBerry theme caught my eye, mostly because of the Blue Marble shot of Earth and the clean, Zen iPhone iconography.  I customized it even further by adding a wallpaper (just like the one that comes with the theme itself) with my name on it (Photoshop, how do I count the ways).  I like the “Today” default view.

This is just nuts, but true. These guys have released a free AV product that does not require you to uninstall your existing AV. And it is written in the Klingon language? You have to visit their website just to see this one. A VERY clever marketing gimmic if you ask me.  Here’s a preview:

Why did we translate it into Klingon?

Our routine monitoring of sub-space transmissions alerted Sophos that the loss of the Klingon battlecruiser Klothos was not due to Romulan incursion into the Khitomer system, but a result of trying to remove VBS/PeachyPDF-A from the battle computer using M’swoN’kar after Commander Kor opened an attachment from the system S’cam-419.

Immediately our Product Marketing away team embarked on a mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and flog them Network Access Control solutions. Sadly they chose Qo’noS as their first destination and when their severed heads were beamed back to Sophos, the engineering team created this software, not in a spontaneous display of gratitude to the Klingon race (as the Register would have you believe) but to honour their memory.

Test your existing anti-virus protection

• Scans without the need to uninstall or disable your existing anti-virus.
• Runs on Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista.
  This software has compatibility issues with the version of msxml4.dll used by cloaking devices on Romulan-modded D7-class battle cruisers. Installing this software on such vessels is punishable by ordeal of Ginst’a'Ed.
• Uses a single scan to detect viruses, spyware and adware – including zero-day threats.
• Updates automatically for 30 Galactic standard days.

Beam me up…

This is great stuff. The American astronaut was inspired by the TV series to become an astrronaut. NASA encoded the new movie for them and “beamed it up” to them this weekend.

See this NYT article for details.