Category: Compgeeky

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Clean As the Driven Snow

I’ve grown to appreciate the new Win7 toolbar enough that when I have Windows “on top”. Aside: Linux Mint runs in a VM, now, so I no longer have to dual boot with Ubuntu, save in those rare instances when I attach an old peripheral and need hardware compatibility. Eh? Linux for hardware compatibility?!? Yes, like today when I discovered I’d misfiled the power supply to our nice scanner and had to plug in an “old” Canoscan LIDE 20. Apparently, Canon isn’t all that interested in making an older, $50 (retail, if you can even find it retail anymore) scanner compatible w/Win7. Yeh, Canon offers a driver it says works, but Canon lies. *heh* Anywho–Ubuntu is much better at having drivers for some older hardware, I’ve found, than Win7.

But back on point. Clean desktop.

Win7Desktop-December-09

Yes, I edited my location out of the weather widget. Anyone with two active brain cells can locate me, if they’ve read here long, but no sense giving trolls an easier time of it.

The point is simply that, since the Win7 toolbar is more useful than in previous iterations, and the “Start Orb” includes some very nice ease of use functionality, although I do have a bunch of icons on my desktop, I can hide ’em and not really miss out on getting things rolling whenever I need to.

Very nice.

Ubuntu (and Mint and most other Linux distros, as well as desktop BSD distros) includes other kinds of usability tweaks and features that allow me to keep clean a desktop when I run it, too–just differently.

No clutter. Quite a contrast to my RW desktop. *heh*

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I Hope They Don’t Think They Can Dance…

…but I appreciate the joi de vivre

Best part, IMO, is where the shopper (looks to be in his over-weight, outa condition late 40s second glance, mid-fifties, but all these kids look about the same to me *heh*) joins in and looks better “on the floor” than the store employees. *heh* As I said, I appreciate the spirit, but a little over the top for my own shopping taste.

h.t. to Josh on FB

Note the post where this video originated. A guy who claims to have been “hardcore Mac” for the past five years,

“I was absolutely floored by this experience, Microsoft has made a bold move to capture new market share. I ordered a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate edition…”

Well, I like Windows 7 well enough to have transitioned my own Wonder Woman to it (she’s “hard core’ Windows ;-)) and to have freely recommended it to folks who’ve had their gripes with Vista, but it’s not the bees’ knees. *heh* Still, nice to see some folks enjoying their work.

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News of the Weird–Compgeeky Version

Well, not so much “news” as just a weird lil collection of personal compgeeky events. You have been warned.

ISP sent someone by to check my service outages/slowdowns. I offered to hand the guy a script, since he was new to the area (the regular tech who lives in the area was also in the neighborhood and I visited with him earlier). He gave me a “Huh-what?!?” kind of look. I then explained to him exactly what he would find with his test equipment. What he would find the current state of my connection to be–if it hadn’t already taken one of its sporadic nosedives–and what he would tell me when he was finished.

He gave me another look, then proceeded to directly verify everything I had already told him. He even did as others have done and escalated the situation to his supervisor and was told what I already knew he would be told.

“We’re working on it.”

Yeh. Since July.

I’ll just hand the script to the next guy. *heh*

Now, if that weren’t weird enough (it sure was for the poor tech. He seemed to wonder if perhaps I were psychic or something. *heh*), how about the little issue I had the other day patching MS XML 4.0 (needed because I–reluctantly–installed M$Office 2003). M$ Updates couldn’t see that I needed it, although Belarc Advisor and Secunia PSI both flagged the version that came with the software–and the version that was in place after ALL M$ Update patches to M$Office had been applied–as needing a specific patch. So, I tracked down the file that was necessary to effect the patch and downloaded it.

It refused to install. Bogged down unpacking the compressed install file.

*feh* M$.

Used 7Zip to unpack the thing and it installed just fine. Why the M$ exe couldn’t unpack–completely bogged–makes no sense, but having 7Zip around sure proves handy. (BTW, I never use Windows 7’s built-in compressed file viewer. Too inelegant and missing too many features. YMMV)

And then Thunderbird refused to start. Now, I run Thunderbird Portable off a flash drive. All my archived email in one handy folder, easy to back up by simply dragging the folder from the flash drive to an external hard drive. Can carry it around with me and access my email–with full archives–from any computer with USB ports enabled, which includes our local library.

Nice.

But after a reboot (following the M$ XML 4.0 install, but that likely had no connection), invoking thunderbird.exe wouldn’t start the app.

Weird.

Oh, me oh, my. What to do?

Simple. Reinstall the lil Thunderbird Portable app. The installation routine is very well-mannered and retained all my mail archives and customizations.

Then there was that strange little graphic artifact that appeared in the smack dab middle of my Win7 desktop the other day. Nothing I did seemed to affect it. All running processes were known to me. Multi-scans of the computer by installed and web services found no issues. Yet the artifact remained… until I rebooted. Computer was operating normally throughout. Logs on the router firewall noted no unusual traffic during the time it was present. Just a lil green box that went away on reboot. Sort of reminded me of,

Yesterday upon the stair
I saw a man who was not there
I saw him there again today
Oh my, I wish he’d go away

Gotta love Windows. *heh*

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Recommended Security Tool for Windows Users

Again, a “compgeeky” post, but one Windows users would do well not to skip.

Secunia PSI (Personal Software Inspector) is a tool from, obviously, Secunia–a highly-respected software security organization. Free for personal use (with some very minor and inconsequential to the average user limitations), Secunia PSI inspects the software installed on a Windows computer for known security issues, recommends fixes and even conducts the user to the proper place to download patches.

For Windows users, I consider it a “must have”. It’ll save the average Windows user tons of headaches down the road… provided the user actually… uses it. It’s not dummy-proof as it does allow users to turn off warnings about applications that require patching, but it’s certainly better than relying on Windows Updates alone, which, at best, patches only Microsoft products. When it catches the need for patching.

As an example, I thoughtlessly allowed a program to install its version of the Ask Toolbar. I knew better, but just clicked through (being “in a hurry” or distracted is no excuse). Secunia PSI notified me of the insecure app and the fact that it was unpatchable, so I simply uninstalled it. (BTW: if you have the Ask Toolbar taking up space in your browser, nuke it. Just sayin’. Go to Control Panel and uninstall it. Really.)

Now,

Secunia-PSI-01

See that yellow bar at the bottom? Yep. That’s when the Ask Toolbar was installed. Notice the “2 browsers are insecure”?

Secunia-PSI-02

Yep. Both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Internet Exploder: insecure and unpatchable. ‘S’all right. I ONLY use ’em to visit Microsoft’s site, and only when a page requires IE. The broswers I do use when I’m using Windows, Opera and Firefox, pass the Secunia PSI inspection for known vulnerabilities.

BTW, you notice I’ve included multiple links to the download page for Secunia PSI, right? Take the hint.

Micro-mini-update: Although it’s not primarily a security advisor tool, the venerable Belarc Advisor also lists patches to software–and missing patches–along with its other inventory of a Windows PC. Useful. Saves its inventory as an html file that can be posted, emailed, to tech, etc. Much preferred to Windows Device Manager for hardware info.

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Who Needs the “Right” Way?

Apparently I don’t. *heh* Sharing folders between my Linux Mint VM and the Windows 7 it was running on wasn’t really all that straightforward and I “needed” (OK, wanted) access to some files while in Mint–and to “drop some files off” in appropriate places from Mint to Win7. So, rather than sit down and just make file sharing between the physical computer and the virtual one work “right” I just used the Opera Unite feature I’d already enabled on the Opera 10.10 beta I was running on the Win 7 “side”.

Yeh, yeh, that meant I had to download and install the same Unite-enabled beta for Linux, too. Big deal. A few seconds’ download and install. Seriously. Mind you, this is really only so I can designate shared folders on the virtual machine as well.

And there I was: able to log onto folders I’d already shared using Opera Unite on the Windows 7 physical computer and drop in files I’d downloaded on the Linux “side” as well as access some media files and a pdf I wanted to read on the Linux side.

Nice. Now, if I just pack up the Opera Unite (XXXX computer, whatever :-)) url and password onto a flash drive, I can easily and securely access files on my physical machine (and even the VM, if I keep it “on”) when I’m out and away. Yes, I can do a similar thing using Logmein, but this is easier, more lightweight and just plain more elegant. Fun.

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OK, “Officially” Liking VirtualBox, Now

🙂

The last time I tried VirtualBox for Vm environments, it just didn’t ring my chimes. I have since (mostly) used VMWare’s (mostly) free software offerings to build virtual machines with some successes… and a very few failures.

The last few days attempting to build VMs for various ‘nix boxes inside a Win7 environment have proven to be mixed successes and frustrations with VMWare’s solutions. The big problem: input devices and other peripherals that I just have NOT been able to get working right. Oh, “working” (for low-expectancy values of “working” *heh*), but not working well–particularly mousing.

*Hair Pulling* And the VMWare Tools that usually fix these irksome little things have proven intractable. Install VMWare Tools? Always a snap in the past. Now? *Pulling Hair*

Sooo, VirtualBox got another look. It just works. Mousing and keyboard capture work better OOB. And installing “Guest Additions” (the VirtualBox answer to VMWare Tools)? Not only easy-peasy, but also slicker integration of peripherals and the guest OS. Very nice.

So far, just Linux Mint (based on Ubuntu 9.04) installed in a VirtualBox VM, but I’m liking it lots better than the same OS in VMWare’s VMPlayer. Lots.

Oh, and Linux Mint itself? A slicked up version of Ubuntu. Navigating around is much simplified, and it’d be an easier transition for most Windows users to transition to Linux using Mint than even a stable version of Ubuntu (like 9.04, and soon–I hope–9.10). Still as usable as regular-drip Ubuntu, just lots slicker.

Mini-example: getting to the “Control Center” is trivially simple, now, and it just looks cleaner and more easily navigable:

control-center

Oh, and Mint comes with a buncha stuff thrown in to make things “just work” OOB, like… flash player, whereas regular, unleaded Ubuntu can take some fiddling to get media things (particularly flash stuff) working right. Hmmm, even recognized my red eye dongle for my media center remote. Now, that’s an accomplishment I never achieved in regular, unleaded Ubuntu! Nice. Next? A 64-bit version of Mint, I think… Then a VM using regular, unleaded 64-bit Ubuntu (9.04, for now I think). Then, PCBSD and one or two more.

Oh, and I started this post on the Windows 7 side and finished it in the Mint VM. Easy-peasy. Now, to install and configure WINE…

Oh! That was trivially easy! I decided to try installing WINE as though I were a (slightly brighter than average *heh*) typical Windows user, so I poked around in the Menu of the taskbar until I found something called “Mint Install”. Clicked it, entered my password and “Wine” in the search field and… didn’t see Wine as a package available for installation but did see “Wine Doors”–an app to make installing Windows apps in Wine easy. “OK,” thought I, “let’s see what that does.”

It installed the latest Wine along with the Wine Doors Windows apps installer.

Could not be easier. Of course, for Windows apps not in the Wine Doors list of apps available for installation, I’ll need to use the typical Wine installation procedures, tricks and such, but I had immediate success installing Irfanview using the lil helper app for Wine, so I can see this sort of thing making a transition easier for Windows users that simply canNOT give up World of Warcraft (2,3 available for installation in WD), for example. *heh* Such as this is definitely going to make offering a Linux option to folks easier.

Micro-mini-update (11/16/09):

*sigh* Had some weird memory errors and a “freeze” in my Mint VM. Oh, well. Easy fix. I just specified more memory to be allocated to the VM and, presto! Memory errors went away. Hmmm, if I’m going to run very many more of these VMs simultaneously, I guess I need to look at increasing my system memory overall. Oh! My! What horrors! Buy more memory? Add it to this system (well, actually, replace the memory in the ststem in order to DOUBLE it)? That’s like when I just HAVE to buy more tools (Ooo-Ooo! *heh*). What a terrible burden… *VBG*

Unfortunately, memory for this system is almost twice as expensive today as this time last year… Oh, well.

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Ubuntu 9.10: Oh. Well.

*sigh*

It looks like I may semi-retire the Ubuntu “side” of this dual boot config in favor of a Linux Mint or PC BSD dual boot config with Windows 7. I’ve really liked most of the things about Ubuntu, but the consistently poor upgrade experience ever since 8.04 is beginning to wear me down a bit. Heck, I dunno. I do like some things about Ubuntu a lot. For one thing, I can run old Windows programs in WINE in Ubuntu much more smoothely than in Windows 7, even with “compatibility mode” selected for the specific Windows version. And there are three old Windows programs I really, really do not want to simply ditch.

But. I’ve fallen into the trap (well, I laid it myself) of having this particular computer act as the print and media server using Win7’s “Homegroup” facility, and there are other users on our lil home network who have come to rely on the ease of use that offers.

Sooo…. yep. Resurrect another old computer for use as an Ubuntu (or PC BSD or Linux Mint) standalone for use with those old Windows programs running under WINE. It’ll mean getting a really good KVM switch that’ll handle the digital line from my vidcard to my 23″ Acer monitor, since I’d likely need to have both computers running at once here at my desk, for ease of access to the old windows programs, and I’m really out of desktop space on this 3’X6′ desktop. (23″ monitor, one computer, 2 printers, “cash drawer”–serving as printer supplies storage–phone, speakers, 3 external hard drives and various detritus of daily use. No more room for another monitor, and I’ve done the multiple keyboard/mouse thing in the past–not again, thatnks. :-))

Oh, what may be the last straw for Ubuntu on my main machine? Got around to installing the “gold” upgrade to 9.10. Nuh-uh. Python broken, tracker broken, other dependencies for multiple apps broken. *sigh* Not good.

Maybe things’ll work better with a fresh install on another machine. Probably will, but if I do that, the computer I’m thinking of will be an old single core machine that’ll use the 32-bit Linux Mint (based on Ubuntu but slicker) pretty nicely, I think. Or the latest PCBSD, which is always a nice OS.

Just have to see.

Well, micro-mini update. Installed Linux Mint (based on Ubuntu 9.04) and Ubuntu 9.10 in VMWare-based VMs. Kinda quirky mousing in the Mint VM, have to see what that’s all about, but otherwise, it’s really nice. Ubuntu 9.10 installed fine as a clean install in VM. Should be workable. Next? NimbleX Linux, based on Slackware. It should be pretty cool, as the folks at NimbleX allowed me (as they would you) to specify what additional components I did/did not want and “built” an iso to my specs. There isn’t a world of choices, but I managed to have nearly everything I need for a basic Linux desktop included, including the latest build of WINE. Nice.

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Change Desktop Background in Windows 7 Starter Edition

Microsoft has clearly stated that changing the desktop wallpaper in Windows 7 Starter Edition, the version that comes preinstalled on most new netbooks now, is NOT ALLOWED. I confirmed this by checking multiple sources (including Microsoft) and by checking it in person when Lovely Daughter brought me her new netbook complaining she couldn’t change the wallpaper.

It’s true, although why Me$$y$oft would do something like that that’s sure to irritate thousands of users is beyond me.

OK, so solution? Can’t just rename the file that’s used for the background and substitute one of your own. Nope. M$ has embedded a security hash in the theme dll to prevent that. So…

Stardock’s My Colors to the rescue. Seriously. Stardock’s Windows Blinds has been a powerful app for folks who want a LOT more control of the GUI than M$ seems to want folks to have, and it provides that power with a well thought out GUI of its own. My Colors is just a small subset of Window Blinds, but it does manage to give folks with Win7 Starter Edition a way to change their desktop background.

Just download and install one of the four FREE themes at the link and then run the app. It’ll change your entire Windows theme. You’ll then be able to select a background of your own choosing from within the app.

Voilà! Simple, effective and free. Lovely Daughter was able to change her background. Dad was once again the tech hero of the family. And M$ got a big fat raspberry. 🙂

BTW, HP is also offering a BUNCH of My Colors themes with some of its netbooks. Apparently all the HP Mini-110 models can download and use this.

BTW, in case anyone’s wondering, I’ve not installed Ubuntu 9.10 yet, for a variety of reasons. Mainly, I discovered after some reading that most of the bugs I was displeased with in the alphas and betas are still present. *sigh* That and an apparent 90% problem rate with upgrades. Oops. Bad Ubuntu! Bad!

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Win7 Upgrade Hack

OK, so it’s not so much a hack as a simple workaround. Paul Thurrot explains, here, how to do a clean install of Win7 on an empty hard drive using Win7 upgrade media. Now, for some that sounds like a license to “steal” a full install (~$220 for Win7 Premium) for an upgrade (~$120) price. Not cool, folks. As Microsoft’s Eric Ligman points out,

“For those of you without an existing Windows license to upgrade from, you should be aware that an upgrade license by itself is not a license to install and run Windows on your computer…

“In order to upgrade, you need to have a qualifying license to upgrade from. Regardless of what any hack says, a Windows 7 upgrade is an upgrade.”

Note the “For those of you without an existing Windows license to upgrade from… ” Now, many of us do have existing qualifying Windows licenses to upgrade from (Win2K through Vista, for the most part). They might be on “retired” (and unused) hardware–an old PC or hard drive–but if it’s indeed unused and NOT GOING TO BE USED AGAIN, then that installation ought to morally, and probably legally, qualify for an “upgrade” installation, even if it is on new hardware.

Now, of course there are the restrictions placed on OEM installations that do not allow reinstalling the OEM Windows OS on new hardware. But still… I do have non-OEM media/licenses that’s for qualifying Windows versions not installed on ANY computer. So, I may well take Thurrot’s workarounds and do at least one Win7 clean install from upgrade media. After all, that’s $100 difference in price, and I would be “upgrading” an existing (unused) license… Of course, that would leave me one fewer licenses to use for Windows VMs, but that’s not such a biggie.

Oh! Bright point: the “gold” release of Ubuntu 9.10 is… now. 🙂

Buh-bye!

Update after the jump:

Continue reading “Win7 Upgrade Hack”

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Win7–Probably “Good Enough”

Adding to my overall positive impression of Win7 on the one machine I usually use it on is this lil additional data point: Lovely Daughter’s new lil HP Netbook with Win7 Starter Edition. While lacking some of the “gee whiz!” graphics doohickies, the OS performs very snappily on a lappy that’s under-powered compared to my Wonder Woman’s Toshiba Satellite that’s still running XP.

And this: getting her lil netbook onto our wireless network was even easier than getting Son&Heir’s Vista computer on it. Seriously. Once the lil thing was fully awake, it

1. noted the presence of the network
2. asked if I wanted to log on
3. asked for the password/wireless key

That was it. Period. EOS. Stick a fork in it. Took much longer to writing this short lil note.

Now, all I need to do to let her have access to some of my peripherals (when I’m booted into Win7) is to send her the Home Group password. Setting her up to use SAMBA-shared resources when this compy is running Ubuntu will be slightly more interesting, though not by much.

Every exposure to the new offering from M$ that I’ve had keeps telling me it’s more than just “good enough”. Next lil project? Installing it on my Wonder Woman’s lil lappy.