Monday, December 23, 2013

Twas the Night Before Christmas

clip_image002Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house,

lights flashed on the tower and even the mouse.

The Webcams were ready, installed with great care.
In hopes that grandkids would be virtually there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of computer games danced in their heads;
Mamma in her rocker, a tablet on her lap.

To check Santa’s route on Norads’ tracking map.
Last minute shopping, I knew it would matter,

Receipts from the printer were spit with a clatter.

The e-mails and texts began to beep and flash,
Away to the laptop I flew in a dash,
An e-mail from Santa, I pulled from the cache.

The sleigh was loaded, the springs sitting low
Boxes of computer games, only kids know.

Zombie Tycoon 2 for Tommy, Angry Birds for Sue,

Xbox, Wii, Playstation and Nintendo too.

Neither Mamma nor I had Santa forgot,

A wireless keyboard and mouse in the lot.

From a webcam mounted some far away place

An image so small, across the screen it did race.

What could it be I wondered, what would appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
I toggled the volume and turned it up loud

As his digital facade flew over the clouds

At the speed of Moore’s law his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
"Now, Dell! Now, Gates! Now, Jobs and Wosniak!
On, Bezos! On Ellison! On, Hewlett and Packard!
To the top of the toolbar! The top of the screen!

Now pixels are changing, amazed by it all!

The picture expanded as closer he drew

His exact location surely only he knew.

But Google Street view offered a hopeful clue.

Just a click of the mouse, our house was in view.

With the sleigh full of downloads, upgrades and such

St. Nicholas too, might it be just too much?
The broadband was humming the router secure

A shiny new computer I’m sure will allure

Firewalls open for the jolly red elf.

Presents are coming, surely some for myself.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
A mystery for sure I pondered aloud.

Could Santa be real an answer I vowed.

An Internet search for the jolly St. Nick

“Santa Claus: could he be real” should turn the trick

Pages and pages of results did appear

To read them all might take ‘til Christmas next year.

My eyelids grew heavy then started to droop,

A short nap was needed so I could regroup.

Foggy and confused from my slumber I stirred,

“You’ve got mail,” from the speakers I heard.

An e-mail from Santa’s own smartphone it said,

A tight schedule barred his waking me he pled.

Presents for all under the tree he had spread.

Click here for a live video feed of the sled.

The digital image danced and sparkled bright.

Santa driving his sleigh on its magical flight.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
"Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good-night."

 

Sunday, December 15, 2013

From the Horse’s Mouth!

clip_image001Straight from the horse’s mouth. Go to the source. From the highest authority. We’ve all heard these sayings and know what they mean. Still we often rely on information that has no basis from which to draw valid decisions from. A good example is a client that wanted to open some Microsoft documents. Here is the result they achieved, “tried to install a program called Freely that was supposed to let me open any Microsoft Word or Works document. In doing so I have now installed a whole bunch of crap, among which was the Yahoo Toolbar and the Weather Channel. I have tried to uninstall them but to no avail. They are now not among the things I can uninstall but they still appear at start-up. How can I get rid of them now?

There is no requirement that a software company provide an uninstaller for their software. Legitimate companies do and the uninstaller module appears in Programs and Features, Windows Vista, 7 and 8, Add and Remove Programs in Windows XP. Semi legitimate programs often put the uninstaller module in the program folder in all programs and less legitimate programs will either provide no uninstaller module or provide what looks like an uninstaller module but when run it goes through some uninstaller like actions but leaves the crapware in place. Other sneaky programs will offer an uninstaller but the steps to uninstall the components are reversed from the normal process so the user takes actions to remove software but is in fact asking to keep the software in place.

When looking for software that does a specific function go to the source. For example, don’t have Microsoft Office or Works installed on our binary buddy? Surf over to Microsoft.com and search for a means of reading Word, Excel or PowerPoint files. In this case Microsoft provides file viewers, free of charge, for each of these types of files without crapware attached to it. Should we need to open and edit Word, Excel or PowerPoint files we can purchase Microsoft Office or download OpenOffice, a full office suite of programs, free of charge from openoffice.org or any number of open source productivity suites. Alternately, we can upload word documents to Google Docs, docs.google.com, and edit them online. This service requires we sign up for a Google account also free of charge. (Martha, he said my favorite word, three times!)

If however, we download and install a piece of software that we immediately realize was a mistake and it doesn’t offer an uninstaller module, we can perform a System Restore. This allows us to move the computer back in time to a date before the software was installed and it will be as if it never existed. Please note: System RESTORE not System Recovery. The former goes back to a date in time, the later puts the computer back to its factory condition and all is lost. Remember, the further back in time we try to go, more problems will surface with other programs requiring our attention.

Don’t forget this Gift Giving season to send a copy of Grumbles from the Keyboard to that computer challenged friend or family member. Hundreds of topics for the average  computer user.

And don’t forget that titillating read, Epicuria: Adventures that really Cook! Something different for the gourmand in the house. Makes a great Christmas gift.