I spent the past week researching and writing another eBook on health (”Sinus Sufferers Solution”). After selecting keywords, I sought a domain name to represent them. Then I registered my first choice domain name at godaddy.com, set the name servers to my HostGator.com account, and put up a simple test file to tell me when [...]
Tagged domain creation, godaddy.com, hostgator.com, sinussufferers.comI recently wrote about bad reviews, with software in mind. This refers not to reviews with negative evaluations, but those which have no value, due to reviewer prostitution, reviewer laziness, reviewer stupidity.
Shortly after posting that blog, I ran across one about inflated or meaningless “awards”, such as on software download sites. It is both amusing [...]
Q1. Have you ever noticed that product reviews often seem alike?
Q2. Or that many reviews mention no defects?
Q3. Or that numerous reviews list features but no user impressions?
My guess is the following.
A1. Many reviews are fake, written from vendor promotional documents.
A2. Many reviews are intended to push sales, not to inform readers.
A3. Many reviews are [...]
Introduction
Webmail can be great for travelers and multi-office workers, but I prefer an email client on my computer, monitoring in background. Gmail is a webmail with option to automatically forward to local email client, and does not insert ads, as do many other free-mails.
Comcast.net recently changed its default email port from 25 to 587 as [...]
Summary
Here I will describe how three big name companies managed to waste more than a work day.
Comcast Blocking
On May 10, 2008, I received from
Comcast Customer Security Assurance <abuse-noreply@comcast.net>
——-
“Dear Comcast Customer:
ACTION REQUIRED: Comcast has determined that your computer(s) have
been used to send unsolicited email (”spam”), which is
generally an indicator of a virus. For your own protection
and [...]
Summary
In my search for faster web site performance, I have encountered web hosting companies which range from incompetent and/or fraudulent to quite excellent.
Remcom.Net, up through October 2007
I had been several years with Remly Communications, http://www.remcom.net/, who took over my prior account by purchasing http://ecphosting.net. I had a “reseller” package but used it only for my [...]
Good programming deserves rewards to the creators. This is what free markets and capitalism are all about. Rewards can mean purchase price, recognition, indirect income, and so forth. Many programs are given away but have links to purchase upgrades, or show ads, link to web site, …
RealMedia (http://www.realnetworks.com/) offers a reasonably good player, with proprietary [...]
There are several kinds of data recovery tools for personal computers. For Windows users, the first is “Recycle Bin” or “RECYCLER”, a holding folder for deleted files. The second kind is “undelete”, which goes back to DOS days. The third is media level, below the operating system.
Automatic System Tools
Popular computer operating systems usually contain some [...]
Information Technology news of the past two years has been hot on “data deduplication” or “single instance storage.” I mentioned this in “Remote Backup for Data Protection“, and some of the offsite backup services that use it. Main frame systems replace all but one instance of an actual file with pointers to that one copy. [...]
Tagged de duplication, deduplication, disk space, single instance storageI often preach about data backups and suggest tools, strategies. Usually, I do not touch on the wisdom of having off-site copies for home offices, due to speed and cost. My own solution has been to have “fire safe” file drawers, and duplicates of my external drives. You might have handy friends/relatives willing to stash [...]
Tagged compression, data archive, data backup, data protection, de duplication, deduplication, encryption, off site backup, offsite backup, remote backupOn 4/19/8 I was running some Saturday chores, with my car radio tuned to NPR and “On the Media“. One of the interviewees was Jonathan Zittrain, who talked about his new book, “The future of the internet and how to stop it”. It turns out that Zittrain shares both my love of open architecture for [...]
Tagged bricklin, frankston, iphone, openpro, psystar, stopbadware, unlocker, visicalc, zittrainAdobe Photoshop (PS) is probably the most well known of photo/image editing programs, even though it is probably also the most expensive. Paint Shop Pro (PSP) is possibly the nearest competitor, at a much lower price, but lost me as a user when I discoverd it’s text size scale (points or pixels) had nothing to [...]
Tagged bezier, BMP, enlarge, fractal, grainy, image, JPG, oldcolorprint, paint shop pro, photoshop, pixelated, PSD, resolution, spline, zoomThe phrase “Font Management” suggests having a library of software fonts, means to add and remove fonts, means to find, select, load specific fonts for applications such as word processing and graphic design. Unfortunately it is not quite that simple.
I have a nephew who considers Microsoft Windows to be a “virus”. I am guessing that [...]
I now share some of my experience with fonts, font editors, font managers on IBM Compatible Personal Computers. This is not meant to imply that other brands did not exist, only that my experience of computers started with FORTRAN main-frames (CDC and IBM), then some IBM time-shared systems (e.g., APL, PROFS, SAS), some IBM mid-frames [...]
Tagged bitmap, font editor, font manager, monitor font, pc font, personal computer, pixel, postscript, printer font, raster, truetype, ttfSERIES TITLES
PC RAM Extenders, Part 1 of 4: Number Systems
PC RAM Extenders, Part 2 of 4: Memory limits and extenders
PC RAM Extenders, Part 3 of 4: Windows Memory Management
*> PC RAM Extenders, Part 4 of 4: Windows RAM Tools
Virtual Memory Leakage and Cleanup
One of the ways to cause a crash with various releases of Windows [...]
SERIES TITLES
PC RAM Extenders, Part 1 of 4: Number Systems
PC RAM Extenders, Part 2 of 4: Memory limits and extenders
*> PC RAM Extenders, Part 3 of 4: Windows Memory Management
PC RAM Extenders, Part 4 of 4: Windows RAM Tools
The first versions of MS Windows used a 16 bit memory space, and were essentially a “front [...]
SERIES TITLES
PC RAM Extenders, Part 1 of 4: Number Systems
*>PC RAM Extenders, Part 2 of 4: Memory limits and extenders
PC RAM Extenders, Part 3 of 4: Windows Memory Management
PC RAM Extenders, Part 4 of 4: Windows RAM Tools
I was at IBM R&D in Vermont when their first 1 kilobyte chip was announced to the electronics [...]
This miniseries discusses usage of RAM (Random Access Memory) in IBM compatible Personal Computers (PCs), ranging from the first hardware system to PCs running current versions of MS Windows. This discussion deliberately is shallow, for relatively small size, but libraries and internet searches can flesh out the topics (probably to millions of pages).
SERIES TITLES
*> PC [...]
Proprietary formats mean that data sources are concealed from users. Open format means that raw data can be accessed, directly or through some translater, if the original application software is not available or not supported in current operating system.
Why should you care?
• Proprietary formats mean you are the captive of what ever software maker suckered [...]
“Long ago and far way”, or 1982 in upper New York state, I received my first PC, at work.
Back in the early days of the IBM Personal Computer, two floppy drives, no disk drive, and running DOS Version 1.0, keeping track of files was a nightmare. Fortunately IBM included folks who liked to tinker with [...]
Some Backup Tools
I have used various backup tools over several decades, ranging from great to terrible. A tool that says files have been successfully backed up, but has actually copied nothing, can cause a great deal of heartache when a restoration is needed. (Been there, done that, using Iomega Tools that came with my Zip [...]
I have not owned a typewriter since some time late 1980s. Personal computers made that possible, with light touch keyboard, optional spell check, correction capabilities. This is great, because my handwriting has become slower and less legible with age. And use of keyboard has trained me to respectable speeds, without any special exercises, because I [...]
Tagged add text, BMP, forms, handwriting, image convert, image converter, image editor, image file, image format, JPG, keyboard, photoshop, PSD, scanner, TIFI have had good luck so far with my present high powered personal computer. Over several decades, however, I have had numerous hardware failures, including CPU and motherboard, in much less than the 5 year life that the IRS assumes for depreciation schedules. Thus my advice for frequent backups to external media (disk drive or [...]
Tagged cable network, computer migrat, diskette transfer, file synch, handheld, machine migrat, pc, pc migrat, pc move, pda, wireless networkHDTV vs. Web TV
For a few months now, regular TV broadcast stations have been warning that February 2009 is the deadline for all channels to be high definition digital television, so use those U.S. Government provided $40 discount coupons to purchase set-top converters, or buy new TV sets. Of course, that changes nothing for digital [...]
I am not the world’s expert on data mining, but I have published several books and numerous articles over the past decade that were researched on the internet. Here are a few tips and tools I have discovered.
Research as Usual
Most important of all is a high speed internet connection. Unfortunately, the fastest available to me [...]
Spell and Grammar Checkers can greatly help every day writers, but they can also cripple the writing process.
I remember when WordPerfect offered Grammatik as an add-on, about 1993, then later built that utility into their wordprocessor. Prior to that, Reference Software had made their tool as a stand alone for DOS, Windows, Macintosh and Unix [...]
Progress in computer hardware and software is often a leap-frog process, and this affects how users can do things.
In the early 1980s, IBM R&D provided me a model 1 Personal Computer (actually the 5150), which came with a mere 64Kb RAM and two 360Kb floppy drives, plus IBM/MS DOS 1.0. Looking back, that was pretty [...]
I got my first IBM Personal Computer model PC-1 (actually the 5150) in 1982 while I was in IBM R&D. It was to serve both as a low power computer and as a data terminal by means of a cable adapter. It came with the minimal 64Kb of RAM, so I immediately had to order [...]
Tagged apl, arc, basic, clone, dos, fortran, gateway, gz, ibm, lenovo, mainframe, microsoft, personal computer, phil katz, pkarc, pkzip, rar, sea, tar, unix, zipDisk and data security can mean several things.
1. Protection of the physical disk or computer from theft or damage.
2. Protection of data from loss or corruption.
3. Recovery of accidentally dropped or deliberately deleted data.
4. Data Encryption
5. Protection from Software Invaders
1. Physical theft prevention
Physical theft prevention uses techniques which could work for other devices. Don’t leave [...]
Most designers of software and web pages have young eyes and experience with their subject matter. Many would-be users are not so fortunate.
Usability includes a lot of things. Here’s a few that often get neglected.
1. Color combinations that can win design awards might be impossible for an estimated nine to twelve percent of the population, [...]
An old definition for rogue software is programs that operate outside normal or desirable controls, applications that have taken on anomalous or unpredictable behavior (analogous to a rogue elephant or tornado). This term can describe software that started out acting as expected, but later seemed to go nuts, sometimes due to stress conditions or bugs [...]
Tagged botnet, computer bot, computer safe sex, malicious software, malware, parasite, rogue protection software, rogue software, spyware, terrorist software, trojan, virus, worm, zombieA quick look at “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_browser)” reveals that Mosaic was the first popular World Wide Web browser to mix image elements with text. It was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications in 1992, released to the public in 1993 for non commercial use, and orphaned in 1997.
Mosaic project alumni and other users established Mosaic [...]
Before software matters, there must be computers.
HARDWARE:
Early 1970s, several hobbyist computers were available as kits, and really were not capable of much.
1975 The IBM General Systems Division announced the IBM 5100 Portable Computer in September 1975. It was a desktop machine of about 50 pounds, could be programmed in APL and BASIC. Definitely not in [...]
The Cookie Monster existed before Sesame Street and personal computers.
An IBM computer operator at Brown University teased his users by locking out their terminals and manually sending them messages asking for a cookie until they typed “cookie.” This was soon automated by other jokesters at MIT by a timer operated script inserted in a user’s [...]
Views and reviews on software for internet and personal computers.
See links to
“S/W Store” and “Specials, Limited”
for good deals on software.