Not terribly long ago I was headed to lunch. Pulling into the parking lot I was met by a lady screaming out of the parking lot in “hot pursuit!” She was flying out of the middle of the entrance to the parking lot!
The driver was a Dallas Cop who had setup her “speed trap” in the parking lot of a busy restaurant in Addison Texas. Evidently someone went a couple miles over the limit and she was going to stop them and protect us all from someone going 40 in a 35!
Tracy Jones, K. Beth Burnside, Mia Shagena, Sarah Ramsey, Melissa Person
Had I not stabbed on the brakes, we would have had a head on.
You see, when you leave a parking lot headed for a main road there is this “stop sign” either painted on the road or standing there or assumed. Even if they don’t have one, you should stop and look both ways before screaming out of the parking lot! The drivers license manual even tells you to stop, use your turn signal and then proceed when clear. No where does it say if “you are a cop it is OK to go blasting out of a parking lot without looking, stopping, using a turn signal etc! Stop hiding in parking lots! Had she not been blasting out of the parking lot she would have most likely been to the right of the entrance and we could have avoided one another. She was in HOT PURSUIT!
The wreck was narrowly avoided but, had we collided who would have been at fault? Let me re-phrase that, who would have been blamed?! Do I trust the police??? I would rather not have to. We have seen too many times where if there is a possible way to cover your ass, these guys are good at it!
She would have hit me left front. I was traveling between 5 and 10 mph, no telling what she was doing, as she was flying!
Without dash cam footage, we would have to depend upon forensics and “he said she said” and she is a cop. Had there been a wreck we would have had to call the “cops.” Do you think for a minute that they would have sided with me? Even with the overwhelming preponderance of forensic evidence that would have been there, I can hardly think that it would have ended well for me. Maybe I am jaded but I have been around a long time, you don’t screw with cops! They are innocent until proven guilty, and you are guilty until proven innocent; which with cops, your evidence may never see the light of day. Just saying….
Would she have said, “Oh, I screwed up” and accepted the blame, or would she have somehow blamed me.
She has more to lose than I do. Her job could be in jeopardy where, I would have simply had a wreck on my record.
Dash Cameras take the mist out of mystery.
Dash cameras in theory are supposed to record in 3 minute increments, a loop of events.
When the car is running the camera is running and not only does it get video but, it also serves as a “cockpit recorder.” That is right, your voice or radio are recorded for posterity. If there is no event within that three minute window, that section of “tape” goes into the queue to be recorded over.
If there is an event, there is a “g” sensor in the camera that acts as a mechanism to flag that section of tape(1) as nonvolatile or protected thus, ignored in the subsequent record process. You can also activate that process by pushing a button telling the machine to save the last 3 minutes of tape.
Problems
The button to control that function needs to be easily pushed as we don’t want to cause an accident by saving the tape sequence that is important. “Someone does something incredibly stupid and you want to upload it to YouTube!”
Two cameras that I have tested thus far put out copious amounts of RF that “swamp” the GPS as well as the Satellite radio.
The camera plugs into the cigarette lighter socket or 12v power source and starts shortly after voltage is applied. Problem, those outlets are “hot: when the key is off so there needs to be another form of activation. Not all cars are like this but mine is.
If I were designing the perfect dash camera, I would tie it to GPS and have it actually encode the coordinates into the data stream. Along with the coordinates, I would encode speed. I would make the camera function dependent upon movement either of the vehicle and I would look for movement within the cabin. If someone gets into the car, the camera starts recording.
I would include a rear facing camera as not all accidents happen from the front of the car.
I would tie the camera into the Automobiles security system so if the shock sensor or other sensor is activated, it starts recording.
If it were a commercial vehicle I would tie it onto the on board computer to let me know if the lights were on, were the brakes hit, was the turn signal activated, What was the RPM of the engine, was it going up or down, what was the speed of the vehicle?
I would also offer a version of the camera that incorporated cellular technology that actually sent a data stream up to the cloud for later retrieval. I would do this on all commercial vehicles so at any point in time the person responsible for them could go to a web site and see were their vehicle is, what it is doing and possible retrieve other information like the status of the vehicle.
The creator of such a camera could offer “cloud storage” as part of a complete package, thus not simply selling a device, but a service with a constant revenue stream that goes into perpetuity.
The RFI issues need to be resolved as we have come to rely on GPS as an everyday thing, much like road signs.
Shielding the camera to contain the RFI needs to be looked at, in the factory.
What is generating RFI in the GHZ range? Is it the on-board processor? Can it be shielded?
This is not rocket science, it is simply best practice engineering.
(1) Tape is simply used here as vernacular that the public would easily understand. There is in fact no more tape, as everything is recorded digitally. The storage in most cameras are some form of memory card.
My heart goes out to the people in Charleston. The senseless violence in this country seems to be more and more frequent. While the left will tell you it is the lack of gun control, and use this and every occurrence of gun violence they can to push an agenda; they are dead wrong.
Going after the law abiding citizens’ guns is like going after silverware because there are so many fat people around. Yes, it really is that ludicrous!
While the country is grieving for these folks; we have idiotic politicians out there using this as a bully pulpit to push a very liberal agenda which also happens to be a dangerous one.
In my business it is necessary to do something called a “root cause analysis.” Simply stated, what happened, how did it happen, and how can we prevent it from happening again.
It is more than putting magnetometers at the entrances of all public buildings with security guards.
Do we attend church via skype, and turn Xenophobic?
Do we use this as an excuse to not attend church?
Do we listen to it on the TV or Radio and think that is good enough?
Maybe we use this as an excuse to qualify the absolute lack of a god as a good “god” would not allow this to happen.
The problem is much deeper than this and I am glad that this kid is still alive so we can learn from him, what set him off.
Instinct tells me that when investigated, you will find that he spent untold hours playing violent video games with other on-line people, and simply took it to the next level. These games are so realistic that I fear that after enough of it, the lines between reality and fiction become so blurred that killing for real is simply a “level up” for him.
Since he gave up so easily, my guess is that he is a coward, and picked a soft-target like a church where the odds of him getting hurt were minimal. Being a black church, there may have been an element of racism involved, which made the target more palatable. His racism again would be interesting to study as how and why? Was he picked on or bullied by blacks as a school child?
With the uproar in Baltimore and Ferguson, who knows if that pushed him in that direction?
We cannot afford to ignore these “simulators for killing” any longer. Mental health needs to be a priority for this, and all future administrations as technology pervades our lives and these “kids” who have so much time on their hands and play these games for hours and hours on end.
Cars kill, knives kill, baseball bats kill, just about anything can be used as a weapon!
The common denominator is people. People kill, and the motives need to be looked at. Go, look for yourself at some of these games and the realities of them. Go to your local game store and look at demos of them, watch these kids as they play these games.
They are dropped into a war-time situation where killing with realistic effects are over the top. I would not be surprised to find that this creep that killed those folks suffers from some sort of PTSD from video games!
There is not a day that goes by that someone does not try to scam me or “my e-mail” into opening some document. Of course it will be infected or at the very least take me to some porn-site or some site for Viagra or some such non-sense.
I have spoken about these ad nauseam so I won’t go in to too much detail about the latest.
The e-mail starts as an email from the bank regarding a wire transfer that was aborted by my bank from my account. “Click on the link to view the reason why it was aborted.”
There is a number with a dollar amount, my e-mail which was collected from something and…a link to a dropbox account which is where the Trojan or what have you lives.
This could be anything from some innocuous advertisement to ransom ware.
There was no bank logo on the e-mail and hovering over the link you can tell enough that you should not click on it.
The criminals and ne’er-do-wells are forever trying to get you to self-destruct, so don’t take the bait.
Keep really good anti-virus and malware software updated and running on your computer and make certain that your important stuff is backed up to some sort of non-volatile medium.
I have spoken about this bulb before and how we as Americans have been duped into paying for expensive bulbs to replace the .25bulb with one that cost several dollars. Today I had one of these bulbs fail and it was not a normal failure.
Seated inside base of the CFL bulb is this circuit board with a couple of dozen components on it. Fluorescent bulbs work by ionizing the gas inside the tube where it interacts with the phosphor coating the inside of the tube making light.
Let me stop here for a moment and say that I am a large fan of folks who think outside the box. Huge fan! I like it when people don’t accept status quo and look for a better way to do something. The fluorescent bulb is one such invention. LED bulbs are another. I think we can do better and we should.
Having said that I have issues with the government forcing it down our throats by doing away with the incandescent bulb forcing us to adapt “pay for “much more expensive technology.
These CFL bulbs have mercury in them which is bad. These bulbs if broken have special cleanup procedures that just about require a hazmat suite.
CFL bulbs are expensive. Researching the issue I think that they have finally come out with models that work in dimmers but that was not the case with my failure, it was a simple on-off lamp.
The pluses are that these things are supposed to last much longer than a normal incandescent bulb.
They uses about a 4th the wattage of an incandescent.
When an incandescent bulb goes out there is typically a flash associated with the energizing current hitting the filament and poof, you are groping around in the dark looking for a flashlight or other lamp to find a new bulb and replace it.
CFL bulbs start out much dimmer than a normal bulb and while they may get to a brightness that is acceptable, most need that brightness when they flip the switch, not 10 minutes later after it warms up.
CFL bulbs should never be used in places where the light needed is just for a few moments i.e. closets or bathrooms. CFL bulbs should not be turned off before they are allowed to reach operating temperature as doing so shortens their life.
LED bulbs start out bright and as they age lose their intensity or luminance as they age so, a bright bulb will eventually turn into a very dim bulb.
The prices of the alternatives are still higher than they need to be to rationalize an ROI on the product. The average house does not use enough electricity on bulbs to generate an ROI to justify using expensive bulbs. Stores and office building do but, the average home does not.
Typical government thinking is that one house, no, two houses no, a neighborhood full of houses all using $6 bulbs vs .25 bulbs, and you save some energy and the bulb companies make a hell of a lot more money than on a few $0.25 bulbs.
The energy company then has to raise their rates to make up the difference in the losses of lower usage, so everybody wins! Everybody except you the consumer.
Because larger incandescent bulbs are being removed from the market, we are forced to buy an alternative whether we want to or not.
When a CFL bulb just stops working instead of dimly glowing or flickering before its time, why? What happens to it if it simply stops!
The circuit board which I alluded to earlier produces the voltages necessary to make the bulb work. As I have done with the Wall wart in an earlier post, I have also done with the bulb. In my job, I have to determine the “root cause analysis!” What failed and why. In this case it is a design flaw.
Scott’s Bulb Look at the dark area on the board you can see where it has gotten plenty hot!I am not sure if you can tell but, the solder joints that hold on that three legged component which I think is an SCR of some sort (guess) has become much too hot and actually melted the solder away from the pins. This part should have a heat-sink on it. Using the rule of thumb method of engineering. If you cant put your thumb on it because of the heat, better re-engineer it. This is the 100 watt model of the CFL which uses 23 watts.
Here you will see the circuit board and its associated components. You can see where the board has gotten hot, so hot in fact that the solder connection to this part have come loose causing the failure of the bulb.
Failed bulb found on the internet. There are many such stories out there but I am trying to determine why.
One cannot help but wonder how much of a fire hazard that these bulbs are.
I would not leave my house with these things on, as I don’t think that they are that trustworthy.
I would certainly make sure that my smoke detectors had good batteries as well.
How many time have you yourself searched and searched online to find the best deal?
We are all guilty of looking for the best deal and if we can save a few dollars, we are all for it. How could you not be?
The truth of the matter is, the best deal is not always the best deal.
I submit to you “Radio Shack.”
Why has Radio Shack become the latest victim to go by the wayside?
What is its competition?
As far as small components are involved they have little competition, most probably a small percentage of folks order direct from China however there are very few specialty electronic stores who specialize in small electronic components.
Fry’s electronics being one of the largest.
Small hand held or other consumer grade electronics would also be Fry’s, Best Buy, and to some extent Wall-mart to name a few.
Cell Phones have way too much competition including the carriers themselves.
Radio Shack indeed has survived past its time with all of the competition and one has to wonder how much of it actually comes from China direct.
On-line sources such as Amazon and eBay are probably responsible for more than just a few dollars going away from the retail giants here in the states and I would imagine that we will soon see legislation introduced by someone in the pocket of the large retail chains to levy heavy taxes on imports from China by way of eBay and other online partners.
eBay Logo
While the “Walmart Effect” took out the mom and pop shops all across America other big box stores will put the nail in the coffin of the smaller stores who try and sell consumer electronics.
WalMart Electronics Department
As a business Owner; I sell and service a device that is made lock stock and barrel here in the USA. Because these two companies that I represent have not farmed their stuff out overseas the prices are higher than what you would expect. The interesting thing though is that these devices last for over 10 years and even with abuse can usually be resurrected and sent back into to the office for another 10 years.
Full Rapidprint line of file mark machines.Widmer T-LED 3 Time Stamp File Mark machineWidmer Check Signing Machine 300 checks in about a minute.
One interesting aspect of this is there are Internet companies that sell a plethora of equipment including my two lines and they depend upon volume to make ends meet. Doing so, they sell with little markup and make it tough on the little guys to compete as we don’t do volume. Basically what WalMart does.
While my prices are competitive, I am not the cheapest. I provide something that most internet companies do not however, I provide service. That is service after the sale!
Many companies find me after they have had an unpleasant experience with one of my competitors and I earn their business as well. While I may not have made the original sale I get their subsequent business because I stepped up and actually lost money doing a warrantee repair for their customer!
Electrical tape has no place in these machines.
My point to all of this is simply don’t look for the cheapest, look for the best.
I build relationships with all of my clients and work hard to keep them. I must however turn a profit to stay in business.
There are times I feel like one of the last American business hold outs as I have managed to stay in business while many of my competitors are going or have gone by the wayside.
The technology involved is over 30 years old. Very few know how to repair these things as there are so many variables that must be taken into account when they are disassembled and re-assembled after the cleaning process that one missed step will cause the machine to not perform accurately.
There are no shortcuts. They might use a Band-Aid of sorts, but it is a shortcut and will not last.
There is an air-conditioning advertisement on the radio here in North Texas. They de-bunk the outrageous prices the other guys offer and then tell you to call the other guy first, check out their prices and then call them. Honesty above reproach.
I don’t know if that commercial is gaining traction, but it caught my attention as that is the way I do business.
Do business with the mom and pop companies, if you want them to stick around. Small towns all across America have vacant store fronts because of retail giants and I would submit, online direct from China.
While a huge fan of Olivia Newton John am I; that is not what this is about.
Today I want to visit with you about networking stuff, in short the physical layer of the OSI model.
Network cable is not wire!
Well technically it is wire, you cannot simply have “Jake the handyman install it!”
More than a few of my many network installations that I have troubleshot for people involved such installations.
Example one:
Company A calls me out because they have many computers simply dropping off the internet, dropping off the file servers, losing files, e-mails not downloading and the list goes on and on.
The OSI model (open system interconnect) is a hierarchical model representing the sum of how data gets from one point to another.
Layer one or the lowest layer is what I am addressing today because let’s face it, without this, ain’t nothing happening!
Bringing up a protocol analyzer it is obvious that there is trouble in river city!
Not only were there many dropped packets, tons of broadcast packets using the most basic of routing protocols looking for this or that but, there also appeared to be 5250 traffic getting into the data stream! No 5250 emulators in the day, there were separate terminals.
As the company grew the “cheap information officer” did not want to spend money on silly things like “hiring someone that did this for a living so…” he got one or two of his employees to improvise.
They did indeed. In the computer room the cable went up into the ceiling as cat5. At the wall socket to the desktop it was cat 5. Somewhere in the ceiling during the time of expansion someone spliced cat 5 onto cat 3 “electrical tape glob” and then back to cat 5 going to the wall.
I forgot to mention that they also shared a pair for the phone, even after they went to a digital phone system.
It is important to also keep in mind that unless you are using STP or “Shielded Twisted Pair” the cable has to be elevated away from sources of RF, EMI or other types of noise hence, the signal will be effected. It is a good idea to use J hooks anyway, just to keep the cable from getting in the way of future work.
The CIO was still not convinced that he should spend thousands of dollars to replace the mess so he allowed a one off repair for the most affected users. His reasoning was that in the next few years they were going to expand and at this point they would “do it right.” Never mind that screwed up packets from other workstations effected the network as a whole.
Soft dollars meant nothing to him as he was not the one experiencing the pain and if the President of the company complained he just simply blamed the people under him.
To be fair, some of the fault was theirs as they, did make the mess in order to gain favor with this idiotic boss and secondly they did stupid things like used silver satin cables as patch cables right next to each other. Yep the terminal for the AS400 and the computer.
Layer one is the bedrock. Everything must be solid or you are wasting your time.
Company B:
“I have this huge internet pipe and it is slow to the desktop, look at this!”
Indeed surfing the web was a nightmare.
Another Jake the handyman installed cable along the same paths as the electrical lines, zip tied to fluorescent lights and put switches everywhere at the end points as they got tired of running cable as the company grew.
If that were not bad enough the switches in the computer room were all daisy chained together in the back with fiber and then, someone had patched the switches together up front as well.
A quick look with the protocol analyzer showed routing loops, lost packets and the list of networking nightmares went on and on.
This was an RF technology company so there were live RF transmissions in the building around the UTP or unshielded cable. When expansions were needed the cables were tied together in the wall in much the same fashion as the previously mentioned company.
This company would have been better served to simply go all Wi-Fi with one of the many solution provided by different providers. If you don’t know what you are doing, humble yourself enough to seek help! Mistakes are costly; one of the largest dangers to company’s data today is arrogant, uninformed IT people who think that they know it all and refuse to seek help from a VAR.
In my business of disaster recovery, most of the disasters are self-imposed by “No Toes MgGrew.” Ready-Fire-Aim!
Company C is pretty much indicative of a company that does not want to pay to hire it done so they hire “Jake.” Good ole Jake has a ladder and truck and some tools to fish cables down the wall.
Jake simply bundles the cable up and pulls it from point A to B and wherever it lies it lies. Again using the cheaper UTP he simply pulls it to the final destination and then leaves it where he is told so someone else can come in and terminate it.
The owner “has a friend” who has done this before, somewhere.
Cable plants are the bedrock of your data center and the highway with which all of your data will traverse. Do you want multi-lane highways or alleys?
A word about soft dollars.
In the business world there is such a thing as soft dollars. If your employees are not able to function because of impediments of any kind it cost you money. If there are time deadlines and they are not met because of impediments of any kind, it could cost you customers.
Business today in order to stay competitive must do as much as they can with as little as they can and that means staff, product, and infrastructure and so on.
That means that everything must perform like a Swiss watch.
Not only do policies and procedure need to be in place and proper management of your IT assets but for the rest of the business as well.
The company that waste the least in time and material will be the one that survives over the competition and if publicly traded, the one that has the highest earnings for their stock holders.
Inefficiencies in organizations like, let’s say our government cannot exist in business. Unlike the government who simply prints more money to pay their bills; business cannot.
Whoever your CIO is should not only possess a high degree of technical savvy but, also a high degree of business acumen.
I will spare you the conversation about the differences between cat5 and cat 6 and cat6a and so forth, I am certain that a google search will give you more than you could ever want.
The bottom line is use STP or shielded and use the higher speed rated cable as we have no idea what the future will hold as far as data. This cable must be terminated properly, and that is an art all of its own.
Doing it right the first time may be a little more costly than hiring Jake and ordering cable off of Amazon and switches from New Egg but, the results will be far more satisfactory.
VARS do this every day so they know what to get, and why?
Problem: There needs to be an easy way to sync your existing iPhone and or iPad with a new computer, and here is why?
I met Steve Jobs years ago when I was working at an agency that used Next Step computers. Steve was an out of the box thinker “creating things in his garage” before the first apple anything ever was created.
Apple enjoys being one of the “big dogs” today not because of the mac, although it didn’t hurt but, the iPhone and of course tablets which they have excelled at.
Recently when the hardware crashed on my PC, even though I had a backup of the data, the iTunes files system to me was lost as it was tied to that computer. The OS with Microsoft dies with the computer so you get to buy everything over again.
One of the success stories of Microsoft was and is, to keep their software “intuitive and consistent.” Apple does this as well, once you know the basics, you can fumble your way through the rest. When however; you have an issue like this, what are the workarounds?
I need to move my data over to a new computer, migrate my iTunes stuff to the new computer, install the newest version of iTunes and sync the phone, iPad etc. right?
Folks, it should be this easy. It should not take more than just a couple of steps in keeping with “apple simplicity.” To recover from something like this.
I do not want or need a laundry list of things including standing on one foot while reciting the star spangled banner backwards, pressing a combination of half a dozen keys in separate sequences and purchasing some “Darkware” program that has no guarantee of working because, it too was invented in some basement by some pimple faced kid.
There is in fact no way that I can see to do this without wiping out the phone, iPad (s) and starting from scratch which would not aid me in importing my contacts into Outlook at all! I also have no idea how much data that is on the phone / iPads that I would lose!
Outlook by the way has an equally convoluted way of doing this but, at least they have a way!
Outlook, why don’t you write a program to do this all “programmatically” for your faithful users?
I de-authorized the dead computer but when I tried to authorize the new one, no such luck, still too many computers authorized! 3, three computers authorized and there are still too many! Out of a possible 5, 3 is too many! So, I de-authorized everything! Now what!? Now you have to wait something like 90 days to re-authorize things…..?
Doing the normal search thing, reading the blogs, researching all of the work around(s), I became frustrated to the point of thinking, “maybe it is time for a switch!”
Maybe, just maybe I really don’t need a smart phone at all. How about a flip phone that just makes calls and receives calls!? Have we come to that? Have we come full circle?
Not only do I need a device that works as I expect it to but, I need it to play well with other operating systems. I should not be forced to follow the threads of other frustrated users until I discover some clandestine piece of software that could cause your device to no longer work! I need something that “Apple” has invented, created or has included with iTunes as an easy way for people like me to recover from!
If I have to search the web and buy some third party software to fix Apple’s short shortsightedness for convoluted way of keeping people from sharing their songs with their teenage girlfriends, we have gone too far!
I would much rather find another product that has already done that. Things break and there needs to be some part of the program that allows for this.
This is Apple’s problem and they need to create a solution. A solution that does not include forcing people like me to drive to the mall and to wait in line at the Genius bar to find out how much of a genius they are or are not. Also to find out that I should simply “google the problem, someone may have written something!” Really, is that the best you got!?
One of the first issues I had with the iPhone is I needed a way to organize my apps with the computer. Do you think for a minute there is a way to contact Apple to get their attention? I posted the idea for “free” to them in a public forum and I will be damned in about nine months’ time, it was there. What would you care to guess that some employee who read my post offered the idea us as his?
Well Apple, here is another free Idea, just fix the damned thing so I can get on with my life!
The smartphone has offered us many different things both good and bad. The inclusion of a GPS has been a rather cool edition to the arsenal of tools that this Swiss army-knife of a device does for us.
Each and every day new apps are developed by someone trying to make it rich with their programming prowess.
Along with the GPS and many cool games and business applications there are some that are shortsighted in the total thought process.
We need to think through the process or, the makers of laws will do it for us in typical government knee jerk fashion, and we then lose control of the process. Let’s look at Facebook for example.
Facebook is a success story of immense proportions for many reasons and mobile technology has pushed it over the edge of being what it is today. The problem with this app and others that require your attention are that while driving these apps are distraction to the task at hand, driving.
Texting is another example of a good idea run a muck! Texting is a great way to communicate without a long drawn out conversation. “I am running late. I am going to the store is there anything that you need? Would you grab some milk on the way home?
Texting and other applications take your eyes off of the road and that is a recipe for disaster. How many times have you sat at a red light after it turned green waiting for people to look up from their smart phone to see that the light has changed?
How many times have you seen cars or even big trucks weaving all over the road as they think that they can text and drive because they are somehow better or more evolved than the rest of us.
I have actually seen many cops sit at red lights and weave in the road because of their distractions. These folks have the phone, two way, radar, a laptop and, not only are they supposed to be able to drive but, they have to listen to the two way and watch for people breaking the law all while driving! And they unlike the rest of us “know” that they are better and more equipped to handle distractions while driving… Yeah ah huh….
The City of Denton has just implemented a ban on texting while driving that comes with a $200 fine each time that you do it. We already have a state-wide law against distracted driving, so why a law so granular?
I would love to know how much of Daddy’s money ends up in the city coffers because they probably target students. I know they in fact have a zero tolerance on speed limits so this falls into the same arena. The police should be a cost center, not a profit center. When they turn into a profit center they loose their objectivity and come up with things like “zero tolerance.” I stay the hell out of Denton for this reason, and I live real close to there. Business’s should ban together and stand up against things like this. Zero tolerance means zero thinking!
The answer to this is really simple. Disable the device’s ability to do anything but answer the phone while it is in motion. This is not rocket science, many car GPS’s already limit what can be done with them while in motion, why not a smart phone?
It’s not fair! Cries the passenger. I am not driving so what difference does it make that I too will not be able to text, Facebook and so forth? Actually, it is fair. Do you realize how rude it is to sit in a car with people and you are on your phone texting or face booking or using some other app, rather than being part of the conversation or team “if you will” that drives from point a to b? As a passenger I often drive my half of the car, help navigate or point out something that the driver may not have seen, like a speed limit or stop sign hidden behind a bush or tree..
Removing the risk of distraction from other drivers; is it really such a sacrifice to make? Some will agree and others that are more selfish will not. The bottom line is that this action would save lives and keep the government from creating more laws and making revenue off of people making bad decisions while driving. Lets help people to help themselves.
If you plan to use your phone while driving make certain that you have voice recognition working as well as a blue tooth device so at most you have to touch a button on your headset that tells the phone you wish to do something like “call home.”
I could probably write a book on Cell phone etiquette but, let’s start with texting while driving and let’s make it easy for the rest of the people who think that they are impervious to being distracted.
Lets help someone who thinks that they are so happy that they must post it on Facebook while driving, it can wait!
This too might be a change.org thing…
If the City of Denton would think outside the box rather than in its regular 2 dimensional style, they would contact the state law makers and propose a bill that made sense. Have Apple and Samsung and others put something into the OS that disables the phones ability to open apps when it is in motion. Excluding of course the telephone itself and or some apps that are made to run mobile like the GPS.
Before you think this is some macabre blog about life and death hold on! I am talking about time to let your trusted computer retire.
“Why the hell is my computer so slow!” I substituted “hell” for the F word! You get the point. People are frustrated and just pissed off by the time I get a call.
The average life span of a PC is about 5 years, give or take. The issues I have with that are many, and most of that revolve around the EULA. (End User License Agreement)
Does anyone read these? I did a couple of times and boy oh boy, you need a lawyer to figure it out!
If you purchase a computer with an operating system that dies than the OS dies when the computer does. Unlike the old days of DOS and or early Windows.
When it gets right down to it the expensive part of the computer is not the hardware, but the software. The OS is about $150 or so… Ok I can stomach that.
Office full blown is $500! Does it die with the computer?
The Adobe suite is off the charts expensive, does it die with the computer?
Why is it that a computer running an OS runs just fine and as time goes by it slows down? Does the computer just get tired?
Three finger solute brings this up…
It has a lot to do with the patches and ad-ons that we do to them. A computer is much like a baby. Everything that you do to it, or with it from its “birth,” has some effect on it.
Herbie Pulling a trailer and from the 1954 movie the long long trailer Ricky and Lucy pulling a trailer full of rocks.
I equate it to a car. Let’s say your car is a Volkswagen beetle that new, gets you down the road and does what you want it to do. After a few months it is not quite as Zippy as it was earlier and after a year it starts showing its age. You take it in for a tune-up, start using a higher grade of gasoline and for a while it works fair. Then after a while going up hills are a struggle. After downshifting to 2cnd you make it up the hills but you remember earlier in its life when maybe you only had to downshift to 3rd but for the most part; not at all.
After much head scratching you start looking at every little detail of your poor car. Suddenly you find out that your partner in crime has secretly had a fascination with collecting rocks. Your poor car is hauling tons of rocks in the “bonnet” under the back seat, and even the glove box!
Some of the rocks have been there so long that they have become part of the car! After removing all of the rocks that you can; the car once again makes it up the hills but not as fast as it did when it was new.
Your computer when new; was the fastest thing around, if you are like me, you over buy!
After months and maybe years the computer much like the car has the occasional issue with web sites, or e-mail or loading a picture file to edit.
Time to look for rocks.
You buy a product like Crap Cleaner and you let it work its magic. Not before too long, your computer is running “ok” so you push on.
After a few years Crap Cleaner no longer does it. You enlist the help of someone like myself. I hunt and kill malware and other viruses. I check for the latest drivers and work my magic and manage to get your computer running as it should, but it is not as good as it was new.
Yep, that is me….
Why?
I can tell you that it is most probably not the hardware. I can prove it to you by installing another hard drive and installing the virgin OS that your machine came with. The machine will behave just like it did out of the box, until you put your “stuff” back on it, most of the time.
Uninstall Crap
One of the things that I find the most, is people install all of this “stuff.” It all looks cool until you see that your computer is full of trial-ware, and other “stuff” that you don’t use. Delete it or “uninstall it.”
Startup
A quick look at the startup software will usually tell you that you have too much crap starting up.
A CTRL ALT DELETE or three finger solute will bring up a menu which you can then bring up task manager. Look at the processes utilization and so forth and see where it is. Frequently I see machines that have used all of the allotted memory and are now into virtual memory. Virtual memory is orders of magnitude slower than “real memory” as it is swapping to your hard drive. Troubleshoot the issues and remove programs or processes that are starting up that you really don’t need. The goal is to keep the machine using only real memory and not have to deal with a bunch of “Rocks!”
Hardware dust bunnies
I have seen worse!
They are overclocking some computer so they have taken to using water cooling systems much like they did back in the days of the Amdahl MainFrame’s.
There is a special breed of animal that I liken to gremlins. They live inside your computer and other electronic “stuff.” They plug up the vents, restrict air flow and clog up fans and get inside your CD Rom drive stopping it from working, even inside your floppy drive if you still have one. These are the ever present Dust Bunnies that once only lived under beds and furniture. Now they have found a new occupation destroying electronic stuff and they are not even cute!
Someone had way too much time on their hands…
Just like Gremlins, don’t get water anywhere near them!
One thing that I never overlook is cleanliness of the machine. These things are ecological disasters when it comes to dust! If Hoover was smart they would build a combo PC / Air Cleaner as these things really do look like the inside of the vacuum cleaner bag. If you have pets or maybe are in a warehouse etc. the problem is exacerbated. While I really want to title this BJ, I decided that might be too crass. You get the idea, take it outside and blow the crap out of it, “literally,” with an air compressor if you have it, or that expensive canned air. I clean mine out every 6 months and that goes double for laptops as people use those things in strange places, even on their bed where the machine can’t breathe correctly! Laptops should be used on a hard surface, not carpet, couches or beds!
These machine generate heat and must be adequately cooled. If your machine is still running warm after the BJ, consider buying and installing a better CPU cooler and even more fans for the case.
While I am talking about hardware, make certain that your power supply is up to the task at hand. It needs to be able to produce more wattage than you need and it should have a large fan in it that moves lots of air. Today they have power supplies that have plug in cables that give you the ability to only use that which you need in the way of cables and not have a lot of extra wire floating around inside the box! Anything in there that you don’t need can obstruct air flow.
While I am talking about cables, dress them properly. They should be neatly tied together and routed where they do not obstruct a fan from turning and if possible away from air paths so cool air can make its way through the case.
Antivirus
Antivirus is Key to computer users today and more critical than ever before. While my tin foil hat side of me thinks that the creators of this software are all out to be better than the next guy by actually producing and passing the thousands of viruses out there; I don’t have the smoking gun. I see that this is a huge industry and where there is money there is greed / motive. I cannot fathom why anyone would sit around in their mother’s basement in their underwear writing destructive viruses if they cannot see the effect of their work and are not being paid.
Eww, I just about feel bad putting this here….
My current favorites are Eset Node 32 and Trend Micro. I also have Norton running on a PC that I use infrequently and do not depend upon or even allow anything “free” other than defender on my network / lab computers / home computers. Free is not worth what you pay for it! Defender is not the end all be all product and I would never depend upon it as my sole protection. That would be like people practicing the “rhythm method” for birth control, you know what they call those folks right? Parents!
Get the latest updates
Allow the stinking updates from Microsoft as they have a vested interest in your machine working properly. Like the antivirus folks who work tirelessly to constantly put out new updates, so does Microsoft. It may be a simple tweak and yes, they frequently allow stuff out that should be tested more thoroughly so you may want to wait for a few days before you actually install it yourself but, most of the time they are the thing to do.
Turn off indexing
By default Windows has indexing turned on. As your computer ages and you fill up those massive terabyte hard drives with stuff, the computer uses valuable horse power to index all of your stuff. That can slow your machine down to a crawl! Unless you search for files constantly turn off indexing! If you still want to have faster access to certain files you can selectively index.
Defrag
After all else, run check-disk and then defrag your hard drive. If during the checkdsk process you find bad sectors don’t wait, stop right there and back up everything and replace the hard drive! Most all electronic equipment is rated in MTBF or (mean time between failure.) It is not a matter of “if” but when it will fail.
Let it Die
XP is dead, get over it. End of life software keeps those that write the stuff in business. Software is an incredibly dynamic industry. Linux is more static if you want to learn something totally new but even it changes.
Machines that run DOS have been re-cycled and are polluting third world countries where some send old boards and parts to allow low budget workers to re-claim precious metals at risk to the person and their ecology. If old Al really wanted to something of value, he would tackle this issue as those people are seriously polluting their environment as our garbage is a job for them. Bottom line, re-cycle your old hardware in a responsible manner. PC’s are not an investment in hardware but rather for what they do! They have a finite life and when they start sucking the life out of you by you having to baby them, wait on them and spend your hard earned money to “fix them” get a new one!
If I had a nickle for every time the phone rang asking me what do I do now with this C thing….!
If you decide to re-cycle any old computer and you are worried about your “information, as you should be” remove the hard drive and hang on to it. When you are certain that you no longer will need anything that possibly could be on it, take your drill and drill a hole, straight through it, hit it with a hammer multiple times, after dropping it on a cement surface, and then put the remains into the recycle bin. Wear your safety glasses just in case….
I am experienced in forensic computing so trust me, if you do any of the above, or some combination, nobody will get anything off of it, ever!
Crap Cleaner as part of its program has something called Drive Wiper. That may very well do it, without all of the destructive energy being spent. Once you run it everything is gone to the great bit bucket in the sky, or basement..
Who am I?
I am just a guy who has been working with computers since before Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were anyone, period! The internet was not around and Al Gore was still inventing the calculator to determine how much to charge for green-house gas emissions, from the basement in his mansion!
Al, what can be said?
Actually a lot, can you say “MEME,” I bet you can…
There was no e-mail, no internet; and porn was not digital anywhere! There was still Greg Shorthand and Secretaries were a hot commodity, as executives could not construct a proper sentence without them.
First picture of something racy that was found on the internet I think using “gopher.”
Early Internet usage… This is actually advanced as there is a browser!
I lecture, consult, and when time permits, give back to the community with things like this “free advice or entertainment.”
Re-post this if you think that it will help your folks, or readers, or some family member that wonders why their computer is “so slow!” just don’t edit it and make sure proper credit is given. Thanks!
Just in case: There are no warranties expressed or implied with this “free advice” for the legal record, let’s call this “entertainment” as I know that there are those out there that will do something to their computer and try to claim that this blog was in some way responsible and they might even be the ambulance chaser attorney type, that sees a lawsuit in a free lunch!
So, anything that you read here is “entertainment” and if you should try this at home, you do so at your own peril, if something goes awry! “Plain language…if you stuff it up” I am not responsible.
This is a story that needs telling, so kids with expensive toys do not get into trouble.
After arriving home, getting out of my car I heard a sound that I could not identify. At first, I thought it some sort of gas leak until the sound changed pitch abruptly, causing me to search the sky.
Hovering over my fenced back yard at about 20 to 30 feet was some sort of UAV, not a quad copter, more propellers.
As a Geek, I appreciate technology so my first thought was “wow,” that is somewhat cool! As I watched, the craft made a turn to another’s backyard, and than another, and then it took off to the north.
What was the operator doing hovering this thing over peoples back yards?
Posting about this on social media, one of my close friends noted that she had one over her back yard that day!
This uav was just released for sale and talked about at the electronic convention in Las Vegas. One wears it like a bracelet and if they want to take a selfie from the air; one removes it, activates it and tosses it into the air. Control of it is with the phone and it has a camera that is good enough to take a quality picture or video.
Recently the news reported one of these things crashed on the Mexican Border loaded down with drugs. Later we learned that they have been using them to get contraband into prisons. If I were a bad guy, I can think of all sorts of things that could be done, looking through windows for unclothed people would be at the bottom of the list!
View of New York From UAV
When I hear that the government had them that had the technology to peer into your open window from a mile away and count your freckles, I was concerned. Floating in the pool last summer I saw one like in the picture below flying at altitude going from east to west; the silhouette was unmistakable. There was no noise and had I not been looking up, I never would have noticed it.
This flew over my house one summer day, going straight over DFW! I was not aware that it was legal to fly these things in US air space.
What are the laws regarding Unmanned Aerial Vehicles?
Do we have the right to privacy?
A newly released document reports a type of radar that allows someone to stand outside your house and know if you are home and where in the house you are. I think something like this in wartime might be ok but, for anyone who can plop down $6000 to buy and use; this is another story.
Above you see a camera in a fake smoke detector, to the right is just picture of different cameras that one might see.
For anyone to abridge your right to privacy without warrant should be illegal! That not only goes for electronic tapping of your communication but most certainly, for invading your private space with electronic surveillance techniques whether it be radar, covert eaves dropping measures and even a drone of any sort. Too many good men and women died to give us freedom from many things and that includes an out of control government! Technology is great but anything that violates someone; the user of such needs to be held accountable!
Regarding the drones over the backyards, I am guessing that kids got them for Christmas, and did the first thing that came into their head, look in their neighbors fenced in yards and windows.
Allow me to be the first to put you on notice, this is an illegal activity and should it happen to anyone else, I would imagine a well placed stream of water from a garden hose would not do it any good, and may even render it inoperable. When the perpetrator comes to fuss and or collect their property, you can then take them to task. I just wonder what the law would say if this person came home with a busted nose, or pair of blackened eyes.
I am not sure what agency controls such things; as these fly too low for the FAA to get involved. I think the local police would be your best bet, as this is nothing more than being a peeping tom.
Video the offence and take em to court.
Attn: John and David! This story really needs to hit the media, as it is really a matter of not knowing what they are doing is illegal. They need to take them out of the neighborhood to fly them. Since they have a good quality camera, what they capture could be illegal as taking pictures or video of people without their permission is in itself a crime; especially if you are invading their privacy in the process.
I have no idea what people will do with this technology but we really need to be on top of it to protect your rights.
We sacrifice enough of our privacy every day just to go to work. Think about this, every intersection that you traverse has cameras that have the capability to capture your image. They can also contain bio metric software so your unique personage can be tracked, patterns established and documented. Your phone that you love so much “can be used” as a tracking device; to know exactly where you are, down to within a few feet of resolution. The hell of that is that you pay for it!
How much privacy do we have to sacrifice?
A trip through the airport and, well this is what you give up for the privilege of flying. A recent TSA whistle blower talked about how everyone wanted the job of the room where they view such pictures. While there they laughed at peoples private parts. Do you feel safe? Why is it that technology always seems to end up being used for perverse task or a weapon of some kind. I can just imagine some twisted mind when encountering a new technology, “how could I use this as a weapon?” Christians would say it is because we are a fallen people.
In public areas, the odds are good that security cameras are watching you and recording you. At work, the odds are good that cameras are watching you. Can your webcam be remotely activated, how about your own cameras for your own security system. Recently we heard of a Russian web site where thousands of cameras were hacked and their contents displayed for the Russians to laugh at, while watching whatever is going on in front of them.
If you buy these things, make certain that you change all of the default usernames and passwords!
While this guy saw the light, there will be others that do not…
A few years ago a school gave out laptops for kids to take home. Some whistle blower let it be known that the cameras in the computers were being remotely turned on and people were watching children in their bedrooms or wherever the laptops happen to be. Are we inherently evil?
Cameras are now so small that they are in pens, clocks, other everyday devices and you simply have to act as if someone is either watching you or recording you when you are out in public. But what about your home?
It is not my purpose to instigate paranoia. Most people are not interesting enough to be spied on in the first place but, Orwell was on to something. Take steps to make sure that your gadgets are secure and if you own and fly UAV’s, know that I will take steps to keep my private life private. This blog is one way that I am doing that by making this issue known to many who simply don’t pay attention to such things. It is my hope that my media contacts will find this interesting enough to do a story about.
-Best to you and those that you care about!
Please feel free to “re-blog” as you see fit. The more people that know about this the better off we all are.
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