If Only Assumptions Were Facts!

There is an old saying about what happens when we assume. As consumers, we have this ability to make an assumption without questioning the events and facts surrounding the item we are focused on. I want to address some assumptions made regarding computers that come to my attention as I work with clients.

A client asked me if I could place a shortcut on the desktop so that when clicked it would take them directly to the Google Search page. A simple task and it was done. As I created the shortcut the client mentioned they really preferred the Google page to their ISP’s (Internet Service Provider) homepage. “Why don’t you make Google your homepage,” I asked?

They said “because they were using an ISP that had automatically set up their Internet connection and when it was done the Internet Home Page that showed up every time they opened their browser was the ISP’s website.” They just ASSUMED that to get to Google they had to go through their ISP’s homepage.

I showed them how to open a browser window, type www.google.com in the URL (Universal Resource Locater) address bar, click on Go, to bring up the Google website. If using Internet Explorer click on Tools, at the top of the menu bar, then on Internet Options, and in the dialogue box that opens up, under the section labeled Home Page, click on the button labeled Use Current. That will change the Home Page or the first site that comes up when you connect to the internet to, in this example, Google. But we can make our homepage anything we desire. There is no connection between the home page and the ISP. Firefox, Chrome and Safari users have similar functions to assign a favorite home page in their browsers as well. Those of you using The AOL browser and a few other providers are prevented from changing the AOL home page. Certain programs we install will also change our home page and in some cases will also change our default search engine to their own. Examples of this are MyWebSearch and Incredimail.

A good friend of mine recently visited and talk turned to computers as it seems to where ever I go. He told me about the unbelievable stupidity of the people that worked at his phone company. The story went that he received a call from the phone company asking if he would be interested in a DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) connection to the internet for only $29.95 dollars for the first three months and then $39.95 per month after that. My friend said no to the DSL but he wanted the phone company to give him a wireless connection to internet.

The poor sales rep said that he wasn’t versed in the cell phone programs and my friend would have to call the phone company’s wireless division. My friend insisted that a wireless internet connection was possible because he knew people that would travel with their laptops and when they got to an airport or hotel they just opened up the laptop and viola, they were connected to the internet and they didn’t have to pay for it. It was FREE. He ASSUMED that his phone company was providing free internet wirelessly to everyone except him.

I explained to him that wireless, as it pertains to computers and my laptop, is simply an invisible wire from the computer to the internet provider’s connection. I showed him how my laptop could connect wirelessly to the wireless network in my office. But I had to have a connection from an ISP (Comcast in my case) to a wireless router that broadcast the signal from the Comcast modem to my computer instead of using a real wire. I mentioned the range of wireless is probably around 100 feet. I explained that hotels had a connection to an ISP and then were simply broadcasting the connection to the rooms and lobby of the hotel instead of rewiring the entire hotel with real cables. The hotel was paying the ISP and the patrons were paying the hotel for the connection by renting the rooms. It wasn’t free. However, if he really wanted a free wireless connection, he could pull into the parking lot of almost any public Library or have lunch at any number of restaurants offering free wireless and probably connect to the internet.

Finally, one more assumption I come across from time to time. A client will ask me as I work to remove viruses from the PC, why kids write these viruses. Is this just a modern form of vandalism?

While it is possible that kids write some viruses, many viruses are written with a purpose. For example, pretend you just created the greatest website in the world. You hope to sell advertising on the site to a variety of companies. You visit these companies and pitch the new website. The first question asked is: How many visits per day do you have to your website? “Ahhh well, it’s new see, I built it they will come,” you stammer. Come see us when there’s some traffic.

So you go to a company that writes spyware and tell them to write a program that will force the PC user to visit your website, either by redirecting them there or popping up a window with your site on it. Now you need to get that spyware on as many PCs as possible. So you have a virus written that will infect millions of PCs, very fast and drop the spyware program as a payload. Within days, hours or less, millions of PCs visit your website, and advertising rates go through the roof. Or a virus can be written that runs a fake security scan and reports hundreds of viruses on the PC. Just give them our credit card and the virus will go away. (The virus doesn’t but our money does.) Money rolls in and the world scrambles to remove your virus and spyware. You even sell an antidote on top of the advertising. Some estimates of this type of virus suggest a over a $120 million a year are scammed from computer users. So viruses are not malicious hooliganism, they are deadly serious cash cows.

I assume we’ll meet next week.

Don’t forget that Grumbles From The Keyboard, chock full of useful tips, tricks and how-to’s is available online at Amazon.com, Barnes and Nobles, www.grumblesfromthekeyboard.com or The Bean on 41 in beautiful Punta Gorda, FL. Get yours today! And did I mention that Grumbles is Santa approved? See it here. Santa’s Testimonial 

This week I decided to offer a little bonus for those that have taken the time to read the blog this far. Over on the right is a Buy Now button for Grumbles From The Keyboard. If you would like to purchase a copy of Grumbles From The Keyboard from the author, in the field labeled Autograph type in this secret code Blog42512 and then complete the purchase. The code will ensure that not only will you received an autographed copy of Grumbles but also an autographed copy of “Epicuria: An Adventure That Really Cooks!” More information about Epicuria is available at www.myepicuria.com. The offer expires May 2^nd, 2012.

Grumbles From The Keyboard: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love My Computer (9781467985895): Courtland Nederveld: Books ISBN: 1467985899 ISBN-13: 9781467985895

Epicuria: An Adventure That Really Cooks! (9781456561734): Court Nederveld: Books ISBN: 1456561731 ISBN-13: 9781456561734

Backwards Into the Future

Have you ever walked through an antique store and wondered what some of the stuff was? Most of it we can recognize if it was something we actually used or knew of in our lifetimes. Example: A buggy whip or a Lava Lamp or even a Star Wars glass from Burger King. We know these things because we used them or owned them or had relatives that were associated with them. Ask the grandkids or even folks under twenty-five what a slide rule is. Ask my generation what an adze is or have them tell you what an Edsel is. Everyone lives in a world defined by our experiences and the age we were born in.

Technology is the same way, except that instead of generations or decades, the time frame for points of reference is years. For example, I studied the Fortran programming language in high school. I don’t remember any of it, have never used it and I doubt there are very many, if anyone using it today. I would also question if anyone would recognize an 8086 processor today. Your kids have no idea that there was truly a floppy drive at one time and it was five and a half inches wide.

George Will said, “The future has a way of arriving unannounced.” With any advance in technology there is the inevitable leaving behind of those things we thought were invaluable but with new advances are simply allowed to fade until we don’t think of them anymore. How about the cases of eight track tapes we used to all carry in our cars and have carefully stacked beside our stereo systems at home. Then our cassette tapes came and went. I still have a closet full of VHS tapes that I have hauled around for years, because I think they’re valuable. (Martha, don’t touch my Star Trek tapes.) Even my racks of music CD’s are obsolete now that IPODs and phones can store thousands of music tracks. In fact the storing of music is rapidly fading away as music is available on demand from the cell phone providers network or the Internet.

But… every so often there is something of some great value that gets caught in the transition and we find ourselves wishing that the gem we value could be retrieved, even as we begin to accept that it may be lost forever. Two clients of mine have sought my help on just this type of problem and with some luck; I was able to bridge the gap between obsolete technology or software and present day.

One client had a manuscript written twenty years ago. At the time, the most advanced “writer’s manuscript program” was purchased and the story carefully crafted and typed. Over 400 pages were created and stored on 5.5” floppy disks. In addition, a hard copy was printed and stored with the floppy disks. Then the story lay dormant until this year when our author decided to give the story to the world by having it published. But his new computer didn’t have a 5.5” floppy drive. That was solved by locating an old computer with a 5.5” floppy drive and a 3.5” floppy drive. I was able to copy the files, using DOS commands from the large floppies to the small floppy. Now we could an external usb floppy drive to view the files.

Problem two arose when we tried to open the files and the message appeared that Windows was unable to find a program that would open these files. Research on the Internet revealed that the program that produced these files had not been seen for twenty years and when it did exist, it was a DOS based program. What to do? There were over 400 pages printed, and my client was not enthusiastic about retyping them or paying someone to retype tens of thousands of words. Fortunately we had a hard copy of the manuscript.

I was able to show my client how to take each page of the manuscript and run it through his scanner, using OCR software (Optical Character Recognition) and allow the computer to convert each scanned page into a Word document. Once there, he was able to make changes and import it into a publisher program where the book was finished, proofed and is currently awaiting printing. Created by obsolete technology, nearly lost, brought back by new technology only to be printed into a form invented nearly 600 years ago. What comes around goes around.

The next client had a very valuable address book created with a DOS program. Until recently he still had a functioning DOS computer, and Pin Printer. (Another thing most folks don’t remember.) But the computer wasn’t available any more, and he needed these address in order to create some mailing labels. After some thought, I decided that since these addresses were in DOS, it was likely that they used an old format called ASCII. If that were true then they might open in Notepad. Notepad will open almost any file. It may not be readable but it will open. Sure enough, Notepad opened the DOS file, and we discovered that the DOS program had used commas to separate each entry from the next. Name, address, state, etc.

This allowed me to save the open file in a format called CSV. (Comma Separated Values) Now we had a file that could be imported into a spreadsheet program such as Excel and used as a database. Once that was completed it was very simple to open a word processor with label making capabilities and create sheets of labels on the DeskJet printer using preformatted label sheets from Avery. Yeah!

Sometimes we can pull the past along with us.

Don’t forget that Grumbles From The Keyboard, chock full of useful tips, tricks and how-to’s is available online at Amazon.com, Barnes and Nobles, www.grumblesfromthekeyboard.com or The Bean on 41 in beautiful Punta Gorda, FL. Get yours today! And did I mention that Grumbles is Santa approved? See it here. http://youtu.be/IeN8QfL0SUk

Grumbles From The Keyboard: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love My Computer

Amazon.com: Epicuria: An Adventure That Really Cooks! (9781456561734): Court Nederveld: Books ISBN: 1456561731 ISBN-13: 9781456561734

The Keys to the Kingdom

Coming across clients that are unaware of the various capabilities built into their computers is still commonplace even today. For example, I recently worked on a client’s computer as they stood nearby and watched. I needed to update some drivers, wanted the tech specs on the PC and also a list of compatible memory sticks for the machine. I opened one internet browser window and brought up the manufacturers website. As that window was loading, I opened a second tab in the browser by clicking on the tiny tab next to the open one and navigated to the website of the driver provider. While the second page was loading I opened a third tab and searched for memory manufacturers. I even opened a fourth tab and brought up a local store to see if they carried any of the memory the PC needed. The client observed all these windows opening and stated that he didn’t know you could work in multiple windows at one time. The only limit to the number of windows is the memory and speed of the processor. How do we know when we have reached our PC’s limit? It will slow down as it runs out of resources and is forced to complete one job before moving on to the next. I could have opened other programs as well, such as a word processor or a picture program as long as my PC’s resources were sufficient.

Another area that computer users are unaware of is the keyboard. Most of us use the mouse to move ourselves around the computer, opening programs or the program list by clicking here and clicking there. But there are some simple shortcuts we can use that bypass the mouse and perhaps save us just a bit of hand movement. Let’s start by examining one of the most underutilized keys on the keyboard. Take a look, usually on the same row of keys that contains the space bar, for a key that has the Windows Logo on it. This is called the Windows Key and using it in conjunction with other keys will allow for a multitude of actions all at the touch of the keyboard. Here is a list of commands and what they do. Remember, the “windows” key listed here is usually found on the bottom row of keys and is the anchor for the other keys. This means that the “windows” key should be pressed first followed immediately by the second key listed.

Windows: Display the Start menu

Windows + D: Minimize or restore all windows
Windows + E: Display Windows Explorer
Windows + F: Display Search for files

Windows + Ctrl + F: Display Search for computer
Windows + F1: Display Help and Support Center
Windows + R: Display Run dialog box
Windows + break: Display System Properties dialog box
Windows + shift + M: Undo minimize all windows
Windows + tab: move through taskbar buttons
Windows + L: Lock the workstation (or switch to the Logon screen w/Fast User Switching enabled)
Windows + U: Open Utility Manager

An additional thing we all like to do is to personalize our stuff. Why not our computer? On my PC I use a collection of photographs taken on a road trip around the country as a screensaver slideshow. Every time my computer is idle for five minutes, a slide show containing a few hundred photos starts and continues displaying a different photo every thirty seconds until I move the mouse or touch the keyboard. To set this up on your machine, right-click an empty spot on your desktop and a menu will open and from the menu click Properties (XP) or Personalize (Vista/Windows7). Now, click the Screen Saver tab. Next in the Screen saver list, click My Pictures Slideshow (XP) or Photos (Vista/Windows7). Almost done. Click Settings to make any adjustments, such as how often the pictures should change, what size they should be, and whether you'll use transition effects between pictures, and then click OK. Now your screen saver is a random display of the pictures taken from your My Pictures folder.

Finally, one last tip. Occasionally, the keyboard may stop functioning. If we are in the middle of something that we really want to finish, it can be helpful to utilize the on screen keyboard built into Windows XP. In order to reach this keyboard easily, right-click an empty spot on the desktop, and then click New – Shortcut. Now type OSK and click NEXT. On the next window give the shortcut a name like Keyboard and click finish. An icon will appear and when opened will present an on screen version of the keyboard that allows us to use the mouse to type in commands.

Try it, you’ll like it!

Don’t forget that Grumbles From The Keyboard, chock full of useful tips, tricks and how-to’s is available online at Amazon.com, Barnes and Nobles, www.grumblesfromthekeyboard.com or The Bean on 41 in beautiful Punta Gorda, FL. Get yours today! And did I mention that Grumbles is Santa approved? See it here. http://youtu.be/IeN8QfL0SUk

 

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Ivory and Ebony Redux

Pianist John Tesh, George Winston and Elton John all share a love for the piano. Under their administrations, a piano can amplify and express their souls like nothing else. As we trudge through the chaos that we call living, the sound of a piano at the hands of a master, can bring order with its rhythms. Melodies can calm the confusion of our thoughts. We appreciate the pianist, and craftsmen produce instruments of great quality to compliment their abilities. Separate the master from his piano and neither can fill the void.

Consider a baby Grand Piano. A black baby grand polished until the luster of the lacquer finish is such that you can almost fall into the reflection. Eighty-eight keys glisten from the sunlight pouring in the window. Ninety-three years of symbiosis with humans have left not a single ugly mark on its exterior, indicative of the admiration its owners felt for its inherent beauty. It stands as elegantly now as it did when this particular piano was lovingly crafted and propelled into the world in 1912. For many years after its creation, melodies and harmonies danced across the finely crafted soundboard.

But time marches on and the owners of this fine instrument shuffled off this mortal coil. The piano however, as with many items of value, found itself joining the next generation of its’ owners family. Sadly, no one in this family could make the keys sing. And so this beautiful instrument of ebony and ivory sat silent. From time to time it would be carefully moved from place to place around the country wherever the owners found a new place of residence. For forty-five years it sat unvoiced.

Meanwhile, 1945 saw the birth of a new technology. Eniac, the world’s first computer was the prototype for computers of today. Prototype may be a kind description, as Eniac contained 19,000 vacuum tubes, 1,500 relays, and hundreds of thousands of resistors, capacitors, and inductors burning up almost 200 kilowatts of electrical power. And it certainly wasn’t portable, weighing in at just over thirty tons. (Martha, I don’t think that’s a laptop.) It was essentially a giant calculator.

Time passed and the computer grew smaller, more powerful and more versatile. Then in 1985 an artist named Andy Warhol made history by using an Apple computer to display brightly colored images on a computer screen. The link between imagination and machines was forged. Art forms never before seen flourished at the hands of computer/artists. Film soon followed with computers creating images that mimicked reality but surely didn’t exist in the real world. Music followed closely, with new computers able to take the very essence of music and distill it down to digital components. From there it was only a matter of time before computers would put the music back together again. New melodies constructed. Old melodies refined. Recordings from the Masters restored to their original clarity after decades of deterioration.

Still, as we listen to music coursing through speakers connected to our computers are we really hearing music the way the artist anticipated? We adjust the volume, the treble, the bass and even the balance. Some computers can even enhance or fade specific instruments within a song. Each playing of the recording is exactly the same. But is that what the artist intended? Where is the artist soul? Where are the almost imperceptible variations that occur because of the artist’s mood, the atmosphere or even the seasoning of the instrument?

Now the 21^st century arrives and new generations of computers meet our expectant baby Grand Piano. A company called Qrsmusic (www.qrsmusic.com) manufactures a technology called Pianomation that mounts solenoids under each key of the piano and ties it wirelessly to your PC, laptop, tablet or even a smartphone. With the Pianomation connected to the Internet, music can be downloaded in MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) format and then sent to the control system on the piano. The control system is small enough to mount under the keyboard and be nearly invisible. Every solenoid has the ability to play each key with up to 128 different velocities, forte, pianissimo, staccato or anywhere in between. No speakers, no mixing, no electronic amplification.

So there I stood, enraptured by this nearly 100-year-old instrument filling the house with music once again. Listen as hammers meet string, the carefully crafted wood with curves and shapes giving the sounds depth, richness and intensity. Watching the keys move up and down, I could almost see the maestro’s hands moving across the ivory. How glorious it was.

Pianomation is not inexpensive. But it is an amazing technology. It is akin to the old player pianos but with much more finesse. Tied to a computer and network, with its’ ability to download and process thousands of great pieces, it can bring life back to a magnificent piano. The neighbor may boast of his megawatt surround sound in-home media center. You can simply point to the piano, cup a hand to your ear and say, “Ahh, Bach!”

Victor Hugo said, “Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.” I don’t think a computer would argue that point.

Don’t forget that Grumbles From The Keyboard, chock full of useful tips, tricks and how to’s is available online at Amazon.com, Barnes and Nobles, www.grumblesfromthekeyboard.com or The Bean on 41 in beautiful Punta Gorda, FL. Get yours today! And did I mention that Grumbles is Santa approved? See it here. http://youtu.be/IeN8QfL0SUk

Grumbles From The Keyboard: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love My Computer

Epicuria: An Adventure That Really Cooks!