Recently in Technology Category

No sleight on Ed Fries, but ever since I interviewed him, I haven't been able to keep a Skype conversation going longer than a few minutes. In fact, I think the sleight is on Vista. Now that I have 2 Vista machines, I know the issues are not viral or spyware related. I am working to narrow down which software apps are the same on both, because the issues I am having are just growing to be incredibly annoying. After keeping any app open for 'too long' which can be anywhere from 20 minutes to 8 hours, and text entered in the app will have characters remapped.

/ will be Shift+3 or the ~ button, ? will be Shift+6 or some place I cannot find. The / and using shift to get ? are é and É, and various other keys, seemingly at random, will be mapped different than the expected layout. Only closing the app will clear this, and it is only in the one pp, not all of windows. The app is different from time to time. Firefox one time, World of Warcaft another time, next it will be Notepad. Technically inclined folks have suggested virus or spyware, but on 2 different machines? Unlikely.

Then we have my Skype issues. It's really a video issue, but as Skype is usually the most reliable, and the only one without more banner ads than an NFL stadium, I use it. I have been trying for a week, and even with more than half CPU and RAM free on either machine, barely any network traffic, and no obvious signs of a problem, the calls I make drop. Better than 90% dropped, only maybe 2% lasting more than 5 minutes. Yeah, I am a bit frustrated. Vista is an upgrade? Since when?

I am getting very annoyed. The computer I got is a definite upgrade over what I had, but Vista is making it run so damned slow that it is like I am running a 1 GHz PC. My mic won't work in half my audio apps. I can't run any major app while I play WoW. My graphics driver crashes every few days, taking half my open apps with it. My explorer.exe has crashed about a dozen times, leaving me with no recourse but a hard reboot. my Anti Virus application runs poorly on Vista, and I haven't a hope of doing anything while it updates or scans. To say I am unhappy would be really an understatement, but unfortunately the warranty prevents me from wiping and installing XP like I want.

No, this is not a veiled spoiler for HP 7, this is a real and frustrating problem. When I began doing podcast like audio, I quickly found that I liked Adobe Audition 1.5, which I got grey market, and used that for a long, long time. When I began All Things Azeroth, I decided to try out the newer 2.0 version of the software. Now I find myself forced to look into regression back to 1.5, which ironically seems to work just fine under Windows Vista, as 2.0 is not seeing my expensive USB Mic, even though every other audio app I have on my PC does. From the research I have done in the last few days, I have come to the conclusion that Audition 2.0 is not compatible wit Vista in a lot of ways, so since I have no desire or willingness to go out and replace my mic, I have to go back to 1.5 for recording. I guess Adobe doesn't care for their users. Finally! They are Microsoft's equal in something.

As anyone who knows me can easily predict, I have been frequently checking the Dell site for more info on the Dell that has been ordered for me. The funny thing is I was doing it through the 'order status' email sent by Dell the day it was ordered. I began to worry when there was a warning message, and no status, for more than 24 hours, so I logged into the Dell site to look. It seems I was using the order number for the first order, which has some shipping info wrong, and which has been cancelled. I can now see that the 2 things ordered in addition to the computer look like they have shipped, while the PC is 'In Production'. I have no idea where it is all coming from, whether the 2 extra parts are waiting on the PC, or what not, but I hope it's here by the 20th.

As my PC is very clearly dead, it has been decided in careful discussions and negotiations that we will be ordering me a new computer, a Dell Inspiron 350, with a 19" flat panel monitor, a 250 GB HD, a wireless keyboard and mouse set with a spare wired set in case those die, and what should be plenty of power for what I do with my computer, audio processing, WoW, and my many window habit. Not sure when it will be here, I hope within a week or two, and hopefully it'll be coming from Toronto, not Austin(the HQ for Dell) which would require a stop in Customs. I have, in the past, said many bad things about Dell, and all I can say in response to those who might find themselves questioning my apparent about face is 2 things. 1. I hope they've changed and 2. Not my call.

I know, it's a bold statement. But I feel it is true, and here is why. There are too many 'iPod killers' out there. The market is saturated. Apple made a device that was a revolution in the technology sector. They did it, and were unique and innovative at a time when no one else, or very few others, where there. They did what Apple does. They made a cool looking device with neat features and they listened to the customers in what they wanted in their device.

Now we have every maker of flash memory, several who just make electronics in general, and several others who just have nothing to do with their billions, primarily Microsoft, jumping in to the market. Here is the problem, and it's the same one that anyone trying to dethrone Microsoft from it's market share, in Office and OS. Linux could have dethroned Microsoft. I firmly believe this. The problem is that there became too many flavors, too many different things for different tastes. Microsoft, for all it's bad things, does one thing very well. It generalizes very well. It gives each person a few things they want and enough functionality to be acceptable, even if they do it at the cost of security.

Now we transfer the analogy to the MP3 player market. There is one dominator (Microsoft Windows>Apple iPod) and a lot of competitors trying to dethrone them (Linux distros and Mac OS X>MP3 Player makers like RCA, Creative, Samsung, and more). The market is too diluted to have any chance. Microsoft is said to be the latest 'best chance' and their media player is said to be the best chance in a long time to combat the mix of iTunes and the iPod, but it has it's own issues. It is riddled with annoying and obvious DRM whereas Apple's DRM is far less obtrusive.

Yes, you need to authorize a computer or device, but after that the DRM is nearly invisible. When it comes to WMP, at least the last time I used it, it had to contact sites, and 'obtain a license' for each item you want to play. Now what if you're on a plane? How will your Zune be able to obtain a license? The version of WMP I use checks repeatedly, even on the same file played again, and it is a long process when all you may want to do is listen to a 5 minute track.

Also, the WMP program is very hard to convince to rip songs to a proper MP3 format, instead of DRM added WMA. Often it will, upon a unconnected patch, reset it's settings to the default, which of course means that many people, unless they check, rip much of their collection into WMA files which lead to DRM hell when their PC's have issues. In the end the Zune and WMP are not the thing that will bring down the iPod. It would take most of the products on the market dying off, leaving 1 or 2 good products. Then the huge market share that Apple has might be at risk, but even then it would only be likely that the 2 or 3 would split the market much like most technology markets.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh. I am a happy person. The Audio 100 has arrived, and it is amazing. When I was at the CBC Radio studios awhile back to talk about podcasting, I was awed by the quality of their setup. They are a professional place, of course, and had lots of tax money to get that great setup. The Audio 100 is much like the headset they have you wear there, except that they had the mic hanging from the ceiling on a complicated rig, where mine has the mic on the headset itself. I will have to take my time and see what it sounds like on shows and stuff, but I am so far very, very happy with the new headset. Thanks go to Heather for her awesome gift.

Thanks to a good friend, yes, I seem to have many of them I find, I have a new headset en route to me. It is going to take awhile to get to her, then to me, but it has begun the process. The new headset, the Plantronics Audio 100, is an even better one than I had before, which is really awesome. The old one was, I thought, a really nice headset. When I was on CBC Radio, I was in envy and awe of their studio. It had awesome equipment. This headset reminds me a lot of the headphones they had there in the studio, though their mic's were apart from the headset, hanging from the ceiling. I am very excited to get this headset!

It is no surprise that listening to other people's podcasts has encouraged me to start my own. This has happened with many things, internet radio, blogging, my old pre blog journal, and now podcasting. I will admit that I did not give a lot of forethought to the first podcast I did, but hope to do better the next time around. I have decided it needs a new name since the current name, Geek Cast, is used in several variations across other podcasts. As well, I will be moving to a manually edited and created rss feed file, because I just do not like the original format I planned to use. All of this will debut on the next podcast release near the end of the weekend, but possibly sooner.

I did want to take a few minutes to acknowledge a few of the podcasts I listen to and am inspired by. First and foremost, I listen to the Twit podcast. As a huge fan of the way TechTV was, this is a perfect podcast for me. I have also begun to listen to Taverncast, a podcast on World of Warcraft, and The Signal, a podcast about Firefly and it's resulting movie Serenity. I have downloaded many episodes of Diggination, but yet to watch them, and all episodes I can find of DigitalLife TV, and watched several of them. At the recommendation of the person who got my back into listening to podcasts, usrbingeek, I have also begun to listen to Lenswork, though it is the only one of 2 that I got into in the photography realm. I will be sure to have a current list of podcasts on the Geek Cast website.

Not content having the most kick ass search engine, including searches in Klingon, hacker, and more, one of the top blog portals, Google Earth, maps, news, images, desktop, toolbar, and offering Picasa, Gmail, and other services entirely free, Google now offers it's newest killer app, Google Talk. The application is small, and small on the desktop(takes up less room than default winamp, if you choose), and integrates heavily with Gmail, their email service. The application is still heavily in beta, but it works as well as all Google programs, which is to say great. This could soon replace some of the more popular VoIP applications, as it is only missing a few of their key features.

For decades, Manitoba Telecom System(Manitoba Telephone Service before it was privatized) has been the sole provider of across the board telephone service to the province of Manitoba in the land line spectrum. They had quick competition on cellular, but landlines was all them. Telus from Alberta/Saskatchewan region came in for business phones for a time, but they didn't do much cause they had to work with MTS's systems, and MTS was able to price them out of the market. Well, that monopoly is about to change. Shaw Cablesystem, the leading provider of Cable TV in the city of Winnipeg, is launching it's own Telephone service, not surprising since MTS TV was launched a few months ago. Let the fun begin, and I hope that it will lead to lower prices on both services.

I have a problem. If I do not find help for this problem, I will be quite displeased. As it is, I am very distressed. You see, my computer, earlier, decided it didn't need to be powered or functional anymore, and powered off, rebooting itself suddenly. Long time readers of my blog will know this is not a new issue. I digress, when the PC came back up, it no longer saw a c: drive partition. This is the partition that held my OS, and several months worth of pictures. You may begin to see my issue. I tried a few things, all of them failing, and gave in, but made a exact duplicate of the drive using Norton Ghost 2003. Thank god I had my new HD. So, now I have a directory full of .GHS files and a .GHO file, and no idea what to do now. Any help is appreciated.

As a good friend of mine was kind enough to help me make an essential upgrade to my PC, I have begun to notice other things that need upgrades, if not full on replacement. I need to add more RAM(at least 512 MB), I need to get a new video card(at least 128 MB 8x AGP), need to replace the motherboard, and get a better CPU(AMD 64 anyone?). Based on current prices of parts at the place the HD was from, this could be done for about $600 CDN, or about $450 USD. I would ask that any reader of this site who enjoys reading it, click the PayPal Donate button on the side bar at the top. I know, I know, it's just a blog, but I would like to get this taken care of before it becomes an uncontrollable problem. I assure you, these upgrades are necessary. Thanks in advance.

Here are a few things I am working on since I have nothing but time on my hands:

• launching a new hosting based option for those who want good hosting for a decent price with a friend
  
• researching blog based consultancy
  
• working my knee to improve my mobility as quickly as I can without risking further injury
  
• slowly undergoing the tedious process of bringing forth the posting year of 2004
  
• getting to know a newly found good friend from too far away to laugh along with in a way that doesn't require a net connection.

So I am sitting here, in the post surgery haze, and thinking, perhaps unwisely, that I wouldn't mind taking advantage of some of these job leads posted to the Six Apart Pofessional Network mail list. There are a few things, though. I have begun, as of late, to question my design abilities and creativity. I look back on all the sites I have made for other people, and note a disturbing pattern. The first site I tried to design was, at the time, identical in look and feel to my own site from the time. Over the entire time I have been designing web sites for other people, I can think of only one site that I did for someone else that wasn't a carbon copy of another site I did for myself. This, more than anything, holds me back from trying to inquire about a contract.

The other thing, almost equally as powerful, that holds me back is money. I have not the foggiest idea of what to charge people. do I charge per plugin? Per hour? Can I charge for the help I got from other people? Do I charge for each change if they change a million things around? I have never done consultancy or contract work like this before, and to be frank I am a little confused as to how it all works. The only sites I have found have been humour sites, generally starting with 'place gun to head' or 'sign away soul to te devil', whcih I choose to disregard as bad attempts at comedy. Anyone out there worked on such things on a contract/consultant basis? Anyone done so who is willing to impart their knowledge? I'd love to hear it, good or bad.

I have never been a fan of the Mozilla family of browsers, primarily because I disliked the one process for all windows way the program runs, and some nasty experiences with one window crashing taking everything I am working on made it a far too bitter pill to swallow. Well, I have changed this view. I have been using Firefox, the new name for the lightweight version of Mozilla, and after looking around at the addons that are included and what else can be added on, I really like it. There is no mail client, but I like Outlook Express fine. The tabbed browsing is allowing me to spend more time in one window with tabs instead of trying to open window after window in IE. For playing BlogShares the tabbed browsing is a major blessing, and the same goes for posting. I have to say I give this new version an A, but only because there are a few little annoyances that need fixing.

Ok, well, I just finally got the right board, and the proper updates downloaded for my video card and motherboard, and just did all the updates to the current drivers. After they have been installed I am angered to find the problem of no net connection on reboot has not gone away. I am not sure the cause, but I do not recall it happening on this computer before I lost C:, but it may have been solved quickly. I am still hoping someone will stumble on this blog who has had this problem, and let me know the solution. Since I have done all but try a new NIC, I will do that next and if that also fails, I will try to contact Shaw, my ISP, and see if there is any suggestion they have. I suspect they will tell me I should wipe and install again. This would not be good.

Ok, so the big rage is the supposed need for gigabit ethernet. I have an issue with this. There are a few technologies I can see the need for, as the limits are being reached across the spectrum of usage. PCI to PCI Express I can see. Old tech, being pushed beyond it's usefulness, nearly every card you buy these days is PCI, and is pushing the protocol to it's limits, but could be doing more. Video is a good place to look for this, as it outgrew PCI to the point of needing it's own special route to the CPU and memory. BTX is another new and upcoming technology that I see a need for, as CPU's are too hot to be the third or fourth thing that incoming air hits. When I can only get 50 Kbps on one of this city's best networks, and 128 kbps is rejoiced over, why do I need gigabit?

Why do most people need gigabit when megabit is nearly impossible to get unless you are plugged right into the ISP? I just do not get it. I can see if we were tapping out the connections we have, but we are not. I could see if the whole world was straining to get online, and the net could not hold the strain, then we would need gigabit, but there is no strain. Yes, some sites do get a lot of traffic, but they use servers, and thus could use gigabit, but this is not what I refer to. I refer to gigabit on my home PC. When my computer shows more than 75% of the 100 Mbps use and my cable modem is not being taxed, then there will be a need for gigabit. The question we as consumers need to figure out is whether innovation without need or use is a worthwhile achievement.

Wow. That took about 2 hours longer than I had planned for, or wanted it to. The board is one made by some place called the Elite Group, and while the upgrade was to a Duron 1.4 GHz and 256 MB of 333 MHz DDR, the board was lack luster. The board had two different sections for the front panel stuff, which forced me to do some online research and downloading a manual, then there appeared to be a second drive that was recognized when the boot froze, then never showed up again, though noticeably loud clicking appeared to originate from it, possibly explaining it's demise. I left the install at CD key, as he only got the install CD, not the CD key from the giftee. I can only say that from a 400 PII, to a Duron 1.4 GHz will be a major leap for this person, and opens a ton more areas for upgrade without system-wide replacements like this one.

Well, I was planning until about 3 hours ago to come home and game and blog to begin my 5 day weekend, but I got an urgent call to come help a buddy from work put together a PC that is a Christmas gift for his mother in law, so I am in and out of the house quicker than you can say happy Hanukkah/Christmas/Kwanzaa/holidays. I know the system was a P2, and I know he found a good deal on a trade in upgrade, but I am not sure what all has to be done, and what all I will be doing. All I know is in exchange for the labour, I am getting dinner. It should be interesting to see if I can build a PC from scratch(or close to scratch) with a proper boot the first time. I have rarely had to completely assemble a PC, most of them have come at least partially together.

Ok, so I have had the player for about 24 hours of playing, and I have a few thoughts, as well as a solution report. First, the unit itself. The first set of batteries must have been nearly dead, as they only lasted to the end of my lunch, but the newest set have worked through the night and all day today, nearly 24 hours, and they are not showing signs of death. I burned all of my MP3's last night, and while I did give the included software to burn Atrac3 disc's, the instruction booklet is only thick as it is due to the many languages and the software is hard to work with and impossible to use. MP3's are 100 times better and easier. As for the overnight problem, a PC my parent's got me used a while back has speakers, and I took those and used them as the output, giving me a full, enjoyable night of country music.

Ok, I need the help of all of you, my faithful readership, or at least the Winnipeg ones for sure. Dizz, a friend at work, is doing a small party on New Years at an undisclosed location. The party is called Back 2 the Future, and it is supposed to be one hell of a rave. The problem is that my main duties are to be a photographer, and from everything I have read, the camera I own is bad for such situations. Does anyone at all know what would be a good but not easily damaged camera that would be good for a low light club situation that may have frequently alternating lighting patterns? Does anyone in Winnipeg know a place the allows the loan or rental of such high quality digital cameras?? I need this info in a very short time, as the show is in about a month.

Today is the beginning of the new FCC regulation that forces telecom companies to grant their customers the right to keep their phone number if they switch providers, be it from cell to home, vice versa, or between cell phones. The ruling, according to most providers, is being used more as a threat than an actual demand for change. Most users, though, say the only thing stopping them is the contracts they have with their current provider. "Cingular has had me in lockdown mode. They've given me horrible service and knew there was nothing I'd do because I didn't want to switch my number. But now, they've recently become more accommodating." said Carlos Quintero, one of a handful of customers at a San Francisco Cingular store.(CNet)

I need a client. I have Skype and Ventrilo but I am not sure if any of these will meet my needs, as I need one that works as well with a broadband connection as with a dial up one. The problem is that the person I am trying to connect to for voice communications is in California(in other words too costly for a phone call) and is sometimes on dial up, and other times on a cable connection. Most of the VoIP is good for the cable connection, but there are no clients that promote their usefulness over a dial up. I hope to try out any clients I can find in the next week or so, so if you know of any clients please leave a comment along with a link to the client. I really hope to avoid buying expensive and overly useless calling cards which are only cost effective for one time use.