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September 28, 2009

Now, you can voluntarily inflict UAC pain on yourself in Windows XP

Microsoft is now brewing an advertising storm for Windows 7 retail release. The Kylie video is way too sugary sweet – she was nice when she was “making better”

but I thought the latest one is over the top

Windows 7 though, is not another Vista – it performs well, as well as Windows XP and even better since it has an enriched interface and nice ways of doing things. There will be some disappointments though, as there always is, for old hardware. It’s not the processor – Windows 7 runs on Netbooks for Charles’s sake, so it should run on something as slow as a Pentium IV maybe. Most users with Windows XP already have at least 512Mb of RAM and Windows 7 runs as well as Windows XP on that. Aero Glass? Well, it’s really nice to have, but if you have been used to the gross eye candy of Windows XP, Windows 7 will bring some eye relief even without a good graphics card for Aero Glass.

No, the problem will be your old motherboard and ancillaries. The family ASUS circa Athlon XP has an nForce “in the beginning there was” chipset. nVidia is very good with drivers and produces all kinds of updated drivers for current and slightly old hardware. But nForce 1 / 2 was deprecated long ago, so we’re missing an SMBUS driver and the audio arbitrarily cuts off at different times.

One thing that was annoying to Vista users was UAC – that Linux like darkened screen when you attempt to run an activity that requires escalation to administrative privileges. Windows 7 seems to cause less angst but it’s still there. For Windows XP users, we’ve had none of that because Windows XP has been primitive. You can create some limited user accounts that prevent administrative privileges escalation or you can log in as an administrative equivalent user. Well, this morning I came across a wannabe. You know, you have Windows XP and you covet the pain and irritation of getting a UAC prompt. Well, now you can swear and curse just like an envied Windows 7 user with UAC Replacement.

Enjoy.

Disclaimer: This blog disclaims any responsibility for you voluntarily doing harm to your system.

Update 29th September: Ok, enough masochism. I gave the UAC Replacement a go. As bad as some of those third party firewall software in grabbing your attention every few minutes. Nope. Uninstalled – it was an experience to remind me how much forward Windows 7 has come from early Vista irritations.

 

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September 08, 2009

Getting my ESP

It all started with me getting dissatisfied with my Hewlett Packard Officejet printers. I’ve had a 5510 for a long while, it Faxes, Scans, Prints. I also have a newer Officejet C4280 in the family room. Both all-in-one printers work fine hardware wise. It’s just that the replacement HP ink cartridges cost a bit. Yes, I hear a chorus of silent “ayes” from you as well, regardless of any brand you own.

It has often been said that inkjet printers and the ink cartridge replacements are like razors and razorblades – brands are quite happy to sell you a cheap razor, they make money on the blades. Now, some time ago, Kodak decided to challenge that idea. They had escapee scientists from Hewlett Packard, lead by an escapee head honcho, also from Hech Pee. Kodak derived most of their income from selling photographic film and paper – but the film business went north (well they did close that factory in Coburg) so the Kodak teams were keen to make up for lost income. When Kodak first launched their own inkjet printer line with their own special recipe pigment ink (as opposed to dye based ink), their printers cost a bit even though their ink was typically half the price of competitors’ product. Here was an interesting phenomena, how were they going to grab market share where the market appeared to dictate that the up front printer cost should be cheap? HP sure weren’t taking it lying down.

Well, it’s taken Kodak a few iterations and yes, they’ve given in to the crowd. Their Kodak ESP-3 printer is now selling for less than AUD 60. And the ink is still quite inexpensive.

It takes quite a bit to tempt me away from my HPs – for home use, I’ve used HP, Epson, Canon – the major players. But I felt the time was now right to try the ESP-3, particularly since I was getting quite annoyed at the Scanning / Management software of my HP 5510 – you see the software was designed circa Internet Explorer 6, using components of it to render the screens. Really silly move – since we all know Microsoft has to lobotomise Internet Explorer vigorously. First, to protect your computer from IE vulnerabilities. Second to make a show of moving from a anarchic program towards an embrace and extend model of the W3C’s standards for the web. So, for an old printer that HP isn’t earning any more money one, HP will not resolve software issues now that Internet Explorer is up to Version 8 with Service Packs in between.

I’ve heard of and seen hoopla over unboxing a Mac. I thought the ESP-3 would at least show it’s box.

Set up was quite easy – their “Start Here” manual was brief, to the point and in English, English. The print was clear, the pictures big. Only a slight issue – on page 6, after giving excellent instructions, it assumed that the owner had got it wrong and not installed the print head correctly.

Well, things went really well until I attempted to install the AiO management software and printer driver. Don’t you hate it when things like that happen? I tried the supplied CD. The installation program went on for a while until I got this delicious error dialog.

If you can’t read it, it says Setup failed with Error Code: 1327x17x2951053040x

That’s right. Some programmer’s attempt at humour. If the program hits an error, neglect to send a warm and fuzzy error message like “Doh!” but impress the customer with a cryptic. Error Number, I mean. At least there’s a hyperlink. Which, I followed, taking me to the Easyshare program FAQ article, telling me to download the “Clear Utility”. But which one? The AiO setup program’s Clear Utility or the Kodak Easyshare program’s Clear Utility? They’re two separate programs – the AiO management program manages the printer and the Easyshare program is a Kodak warm and fuzzy program that manages photos and Kodak cameras – you know, I distinctly unticked the option to install Easyshare. Not good. Well, downloaded both “Clear” programs which presumably rid the computer of left over registry entries and .dlls. Rebooted. Same result. Or rather, no result.

Ok, how about suspecting that these CD programs are too old and getting a newer one from the Kodak website. I did that. Went to the Downloads webpage for the ESP-3 and saw that the newer, updated installation program is all of a jaw dropping 250Mb. Huh? Just to manage the printer and scanner? Well, not actually, there’s a whole kitchen sink of functions to make photo albums and goodies that mums and dads might want. And that Easyshare, no doubt. Take a deep breath, hit the download button. It went quick, the download. Too quick. Turns out that the download is only 1.7Mb. It’s not the full 250Mb. The download is a bootstrap downloader – it’s a stub that gets the rest. Oh. Not very good. What happens if I want to install the software on more than one home PC? Since the bootstrap downloader grabs 250Mb each PC and keeps it “don’t know where”, for three PCs, I will now have downloaded 750Mb. Flashes of internet quota come across my eyes.

Anyway, it all came to nought initially. The Stub Downloader would download and install “Bonjour” (eh? where did Apple come French on Kodak?), then “Pre-Requisite Components”, then the obscurely named KSDIP and then, it would announce that I had aborted the process. Yes, poor me, with hands off the keyboard and mouse. Hurt by the accusation and taken aback, I tried several times again. (How many Mb had the Downloader now repeated without success?).

Frustrated, I went to the Kodak AiO support website – and noticed that they have an online 24x7 (exceptions may apply) chat. Guess what. An exception applied. Their customer reps must have been busy and queued because all I could do was to send a good old fashioned email to them.

Later on, I found out why the software wasn’t installing. It was my particular PC – this one has a long standing problem where Windows thinks there is a drive Y: (there used to be) and wants to step on it when an installation program runs. Once I remembered this, I knew how to resolve the issue and things went well. Except, the installation software thinks I’ve got American Letter sized paper even though I do tell it in several places that we use A4. And it also thinks I am Uni – I figured out later, how to tell it that the printer should be Bi.

So, it did end well. Would have been less twisted and tortuous though, if the Kodak programmers could actually bother to write out more informative error dialogs. I think I learnt one thing though – ESP stands for Easy Share Printer – how’s that for branding?

Lovely day I had, how was yours?

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September 01, 2009

Only connect ... always

What with the insidious game that technology tends to play with one’s mind – first it makes itself indispensable then it spasmodically and unpredictably withdraws its services – Bleeding Edge is prepared to admit that we may have been ever so slightly paranoid about the iiNet Belkin F1PI242ENau voice modem/router which has been keeping the Bleeding Edge cave in touch with the outside world.

After a week or so of having to reboot the thing once or twice a day, and a polite, but not terribly productive conversation with iiNet’s tech support department which elicited the news that we were suffering from a “port error” – a vague diagnosis which could mean anything from interference on the phone line to a faulty line filter or possibly a challenging astrological transit – Bleeding Edge opted to replace the modem.

It’s not the first time we’ve tangled with the Belkin modem, and we weren’t prepared to mess with firmware or engage in another one of those isolation tests in which you uncouple every telephone device and hope that whatever transitory fault you’re suffering from manifests itself before the people who are no doubt trying urgently to ring you start assuming you’ve left town, or been arrested ... pardon us for a minute while we pop another one of those anti-paranoia pills.

As it happened, we’d already made the same decision in relation to the small business system we administer. While we haven’t had any problems with the Billion BiPAC 7404 modem/router, we had become increasingly worried by the fact that it lacked an essential feature for any small business: automatic fail-over capability.

Internet connectivity has become as critical to small – even very small – businesses as it is for large corporations. The need for reliable access to email and the Web and the increasing number of useful cloud computing applications is obvious, but with an increasing number of home offices and small businesses also relying on VoIP (Voice over IP) to provide cheap, reliable telephone calls, losing Internet access can be a disaster.

Fortunately, it’s possible these days to build voice and data connections that are even more reliable than conventional phone/data services, by adding a low-cost ADSL, cable, or wireless service to the primary Internet feed. In the past, these fail-over systems were a big-budget luxury. They’re now within the reach even of SOHO operators like Bleeding Edge.

The solution we settled on – the DrayTek Vigor 2820VN modem/router – costs around $480. That’s slightly more than double the price of a consumer modem/router like the Billion BiPAC7404, but the additional features, performance, reliability, ease of use and support that Draytek brings to its product make it a bargain.

Plug in a primary ADSL/ADSL2/2+ and you get fast sync speeds and a robust connection that copes with a heavy load from multiple PCs – a scenario which can at times unsettle cheaper modems.

We’ve been running a second Optus cable service at the Bleeding Edge cave on a separate network. Now it plugs into a second WAN Ethernet port on the modem on the DrayTek which can use it to provide additional bandwidth, which is called load balancing, or automatically switch to it if the primary service fails.

We don’t have cable or an additional ADSL feed at the spouse’s office, where the second DrayTek is going. But because it can also handle 3G, satellite and other wireless USB devices, we can hook it up to a low-cost wireless plan to give us a continuous connection there.

You can also connect two VoIP phones and up to 12 SIP accounts, which gives us a failover capability if the Asterisk VoIP system dies. The VoIP lines have proved to be more reliable than the Telstra PSTN service, so it’s unlikely we’ll ever use the 2820VN for that purpose, but its VoIP connections are particularly clear, and it remains a comforting option. A new DrayTek model, due in the next few months, will offer an Asterisk-like PBX option.

DrayTek employs roughly 40 per cent of its payroll in research and development, and the results are clear in every area of the 2820’s engineering. You can plug in a USB storage device and set up FTP storage, and Its Wireless N range is outstanding, allowing you to run four different SSIDs with separate access and bandwidth controls.

Because most small businesses these days need fast, secure remote access to their office network, VPN (Virtual Private Network) performance was a priority. The 2820VN allows you to set up as many as 32 VPN tunnels. It doesn’t skimp on VPN protocols, offering a choice of PPTP, IPSec, L2TP and L2TP over IPSec. Unlike earlier versions, the 2820 provides NAT, firewall and VPN protection for the WAN and wireless connections.

DrayTek’s Australian website provides useful assistance for setting up local cable and 3G USB modems at tinyurl.com/lykl9r.

Our only disappointment was the fact that only one of the four Ethernet ports has gigabit speeds, although most people who need gigabit capability probably already have a gigabit switch. We’ve been very happy with the TP-Link four-port gigabit switches we picked up at Radio Parts in West Melbourne (radioparts.com.au).

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