The Technology Muse

Turbo Tax 2011 Canada - Bonus Software

2012-01-26T22:33:00.001-05:00

Not only is Turbo Tax Standard overkill (w.r.t. Turbo Tax Basic - half the price) the bonus software is likely to be useless.

How come that Futureshop and BestBuy (Canada) do not appear to stock the Basic package?

TurboTax Basic 2011 (Canada)

2012-01-20T15:18:00.001-05:00

Turbo Tax Basic is NOT just for "simple taxes" - all the forms that are part of the T1 General return are included in the software.

The package says "(T4s & donations)" - this implies that you cannot enter such things as business income and deductions, Flow-Throughs (T5013A slips), RSP contributions and Foreign Tax deductions.

I have used the "basic" package for a number of years and I have filed what I would consider "complex" returns with all of the above entries.

The only thing that is missing from the "basic" package is the stupid "interview" data entry method and some of the support video instructions. So if you know what you are doing don't bother with the Standard and above versions. Even if you run a business you don't need the higher packages. The only thing you might need another package for is if you are incorporated and you need to file a T2. In this case the T1 TurboTax software would be no good - even if you do file a T2 you will also need to file a T1 on your personal taxes (from the income you are taking from your business)

xraider seocopysoftware.com

2012-01-20T11:14:00.001-05:00

This is an example of the nonsense that those that think that they have a way of fooling Google:

Xraider is NOT a way to "Ethically Steal Top Google Rankings". If you exchange links with this organization then Google will know and penalize your ranking.

Murdoch, SOPA and PIPA

2012-01-19T10:13:00.001-05:00

Has no-one else seen the irony here?

Comet and Microsoft suit

2012-01-05T10:16:00.000-05:00

I think this is hillarious.

Is UK retail giant Comet really a Windows pirate?

I don't really need to comment further. Does anyone who knows how to make copies of Windows and clean installs (activating multiple copies of Windows) really care? Backup DVDs for retailed computers are more than useless due to all the "crap-ware" that is installed along with the operating system.

MakerBot

2012-01-03T16:48:00.001-05:00

No I am not going to CES and I don't respond well to Blog Spam.

Camtica Review

2011-12-31T17:15:00.001-05:00

DO NOT download or purchase Camtica 4.3.48970 screen recorder software.

It is promoted by spam emails to owners of blogs by Jiteco. The emails from Deborah Gill offer the author of a blog a free copy of the software in exchange for a review. As such, a review written in response to this request is unlikely to be one that you can take with any authority.

Having received many requests I have decided to write a review - this is it.

It is suspected that Jiteco do not read the blogs that they solicit. If they do then they can comment on this blog posting instead of just sending me offers of evaluation copies of software. If I were to review anything I would purchase it.

Silver Bullet

2011-12-29T10:21:00.001-05:00

I would suggest that those looking for ways to unlock hidden menu items for their Insyde H2O BIOS look-up the WikiP page for the idiomatic meaning of "Silver Bullet".

This also goes for the overclocking of AMD E-450 APUs

reader.mac.com

2011-12-28T19:47:00.002-05:00

This is a new one to me.

But, Wayne does have an iPad

Paranoia in the extreme

2011-12-12T14:23:00.000-05:00

As Zack Whittacker will will know, governments have trouble in locating a princess and protecting the prime minister from a certain sow.

I know it was a work of fiction but I don't really care if the government can read my GMails and knows what websites I've been to. It is not as if I am plotting against them.

In any case, they can easily find out who I am from my IP address.

Campaign to boycott the "Like" and "+" buttons

2011-12-05T11:48:00.001-05:00

Why would anyone want to share their friend list with a company that then uses that list to target those on your list with advertizements?

Hopefully Internet users will work out what is going on as they see all the Facebook and the like ads appearing on their walls.

It is one thing to actually like a product or service it is an entirely different thing to give that company permission to use your profile in an endorsement.

How to overclock an AMD A6-3500M

2011-12-02T14:49:00.001-05:00

Run your new AMD Quad powered notebook at 2.5GHz and above.

Full details on www.tempusfugit.ca

Visits from Saskatoon

2011-11-27T19:57:00.001-05:00

Nice to see that there are some today

Open Season on Blogs

2011-11-22T17:02:00.001-05:00

It would seem that it is seen to be a worthwhile activity to spam the authors of blogs with email offering things to blog about.

These offers, generally of a technical bent (this is supposedly the theme of this blog), sometimes are accompanied by free copies of software on the strength that you review it on your blog.

The originators of these emails have obviously not read any of the posts on this blog or they would have seen that I do not review anything by request. In fact if they persist in sending me the emails they will get a review naming them and their practices.

amd e 350 vs e 450

2011-11-18T12:39:00.001-05:00

See website for more details on the differences between the AMD E-350 and E-450 APUs

Bill Gates on the World at One

2011-11-07T08:47:00.000-05:00

I never thought that I would agree with Bill Gates in his assessment of the current economic situation.

He remains optimistic in that there will be a solution and that this temporary "stagnation" (as opposed to a "down-turn") will eventually sort itself. He was hinting, but didn't come out and say directly, that a global economy that is based on perpetual growth is not sustainable. The extension of the debt crisis is fueled by the desire to return to a situation of growth.

Perhaps the "stagnation" is the new normal.

terry bradshaw tempus fugit

2011-11-06T20:41:00.000-05:00

It is amazing the number of pages that that were visited with these search terms.

Could it be that someone is concerned that there is a connection between Terry Bradshaw of Kelowna BC and Wayne McAlpine of Saskatoon Saskatchewan.

I have not idea what the issue could be - maybe it is that one has threatened the other that all mention of the connection must be removed from the Internet.

I know there have been unsubstantiated claims that there has been malfeasance afoot here - but who am I to say - to make false claims would be verging on slander or deformation.

The mistake of using a dash in a domain name

2011-11-04T10:18:00.001-04:00

While the domain name may be easy to read and look like the name of the entity with the spaces replaced by dashes it is both difficult to spell out to whoever you give it to and is a paint to type, especially on a mobile device. You are far better off using your imagination and come up with a name without the dashes. You cannot use the underscore character but that would yield the same problem.

I know this as in the past I registered a domain with the hope of establishing a business in "Vanity" domain registration and email provision and administration. This venture was not successful for a number of reasons one of the least of which was the domain name.

Preventing page content from being indexed

2011-10-29T14:42:00.001-04:00

You can post information on your website that contains information that you don't want the Google Search engine finding and including it in their index.

You can either add the page in question to a robots.txt file or you can add a Meta Tag to the page so that the page is not indexed.

That way someone who is looking to find information on themselves, which call "Narcisurfing", they have to follow links on pages that they know about or have found by making searches.

Page tracking

2011-10-29T14:31:00.001-04:00

I see that Blogger now has a way of tracking page views without having to use Google Analytics.

This will be useful to see if there is anyone searching for Wayne McAlpine, Terry Bradshaw or Bill Poplawski.

How else will they know if I have said something about them on my website?

More Blog Spam

2011-10-16T20:20:00.001-04:00

I really wonder why some people bother.

I very much doubt that Veronica has any clue about SEO or she would not be spamming insignificant blogs as "The Technology Muse".

In addition, this blog is not a website. I have one and it does not need the help of outfits such as Rank High SEO.

I don't have any competition, so is is not relevant about "outranking"

Hello,

I know your website is important to you, and I was wondering if I could go over a few things. I work for a marketing company, and wanted to show some businesses, visually, how they compare to the websites on the first page -- Truly understand why your competition outranks you on the Search Engines.

We have been doing this for years and are great at what we do. We have an extremely knowledgeable staff that sincerely analyze your site; showing you exactly how to increase your rankings.

I'm asking for the opportunity to show you what I can do for your business before you pay a dime. I can do it in 10 to 15 minutes depending on your questions.

I need the best way to reach you and any comments you want me to consider before I do your research.

Thanks,

Veronica
Rank High SEO
P.O. Box 286 Newport Beach, CA 93472

AVG - A lost cause

2011-10-13T09:08:00.000-04:00

I just discovered I still have one of my machines running AVG Free.

NO! I don't want to install AVG Free 2012! - I have pulled off AVG from most of my computers - this is worse than the NOD32 experience.

TorrentPrivacy October 2011

2011-10-07T13:58:00.001-04:00

I haven't used the "torrent box" and TorrentPrivacy for over a month now. I still have the subscription and I see that they have now launched a VPN service. This is funny as I am now using the VPN service that I use to access and download from the BBC. I have found that the download speeds are far better than what I was seeing with TP and looking at their forum it would seem that other users are finding the same thing. I have been seeing download speeds up to 1000kb/sec. I have also found a torrent tracker (in the UK) BT-Chat, I assume that the BT stands for British Telecom. BT-Chat seems to be good for locating Brit stuff such as the latest episodes of Downton Abbey.

The fact that MethodActor, a TP moderator/Technical support person, proudly proclaims that he/she is "Running TP on Windows XP Home SP3 (x86) on an AMD Athlon XP 3000 @ 1.60 GHz with 1.25 GB of RAM" doesn't fill me with that much confidence. I am not sure if that is supposed to be an indication that the mod is running on a system that is under-powered in today's environment and therefore you should have no problems with your Windows 7 machines running a 4G and 16G of RAM or whether the mod is just way behind the times. The speed of downloads seem to be more a feature of the speed of the connection through a service such as TP (contrary to what they are claiming) and the general availability of the torrents (including where you are connecting through, the US, Sweden or the UK)

I also do not see the need to make stupid statements about not recommending that you download copyright material when that is exactly why the service is setup in the first place.

Finally on the subject of download speeds, when TP was working for me Hollywood movies were always faster when connecting through the US server and now that I am connecting through the UK, Brit stuff seems to be a lot faster. No matter what the server if the torrented material is difficult to locate it is much more likely to be found and seeded if it is located in its country of origin.

Limiting my upload speed has not resulted, for me, in any change in download speed. The main reason for me throttling back uploads is to limit the amount of bandwidth usage when I am coming up to end of my broadband billing period.

The TP and BTGuard pages are still password protected on my website as I have tired of providing the respective companies with free reviews

AMD Llano Notebook review

2011-09-22T16:53:00.003-04:00

The following notebooks are now available:

HP DV6-6144ca with Radeon HD 6755G2 - Vision A8-3500M
HP DV7-6188ca with Radeon HD 6755G2 - AMD A8-3530MX
Acer Aspire AMD Quad-Core A6-3400M (AS5560-SB410)

Asus drop asuswebstorage

2011-09-12T11:17:00.000-04:00

The new MeeGO Netbook is specified with DropBox for cloud storage.

Does this mean that they are admitting that their web storage solution sucks?

They have finally given up pestering me with extending my 10G storage that I got with my Netbook over 2 years ago. I have bought at least half a dozen computers since then and I never did get Asus webstorage to work as they said it did.

I still get hits from those looking for a review

Transferring vidoes from your PVR to your computer

2011-09-10T08:37:00.000-04:00

I have started a detailed "how-to" on my website.

How do I stop my ISP seeing my torrents

2011-08-19T13:50:00.003-04:00

Your ISP will know that you are torrenting irrespective of what steps you take to mask your activity.

Even if you use a VPN service that uses encryption (tunneling) the signature of your activity will be such that your ISP will know what you are doing. The encryption will only prevent them knowing WHAT you are downloading.

It is not the ISP who detects or cares what you are downloading it is the copyright holders that detect that you are part of a P2P seed-pool and then contact your ISP as they own and have provided you with your IP address. The copyright infringement letters are forwarded to you by your ISP who hope that you will abide by their End User Agreements, which say that you are not allowed to download copyright material through your Internet connection.

Services such as BTGuard are likely to be blocked by large ISPs such as Rogers Cable and Bell Sympatico.

BTGuard and TorrentPrivacy now blocked

2011-08-19T07:38:00.002-04:00

It looks like word has finally got out to the major ISPs that they should block these two services.

As they are the two most popular methods to download from P2P networks and avoid detection by copyright holders it makes sense that they would be candidates to be filtered out by the ISP firewalls.

As there are many VPN services that may or may not allow torrenting using their services, it does mean that they would be a far bigger target for the ISPs to block.

WARNING: Stream does not start with requested FLV frame, ignoring data...

2011-08-02T16:54:00.003-04:00

Funny really.

My method of using get_iplayer still works and the mailing list goes in ever smaller circles.

ipTorrents.com - why a private tracker is not secure

2011-07-06T17:58:00.003-04:00

If you think that using a private tracker is going to mean that you are undetectable by APOs then think again!

Even if the service is "invite only" there is nothing to stop an Anti P2P Organization joining up as a "donor" using an email address and a server that has not been determined as "hostile".

It would seem that services such as ipTorrents.com are more concerned with getting a donation of $18 than they are about your anonymity. I am sure that they will say something in their small print about not using their service to download copyright material - this is just lip service to the media industry.

Even if you use a program such as Peerblock you are not going to avoid detection as AP2P organization is not going to sign up with a "hostile" IP address. That means if they are a ipTorrents.com member they will have unrestricted access to the Peer List on the torrent download program that they are using. Your IP will be in the list, and they will know what you are downloading.

You are far better off using an IP obscuring service. The use of ipTorrents.com may give you access to more material but it will not be any more secure than using a public tracker such as The Pirate Bay or IsoHunt.

Peer Blocking

2011-07-06T08:05:00.004-04:00

My page on blocking peers has gone viral.

It looks like the word has finally got out that PeerBlock (PG2) does nothing to protect your identity while downloading from P2P networks.

It is either that a lot of people have been sent messages from APOs after they thought they were safe when they were using PeerBlock or it has just hit the news somewhere.

In any case I would would be interested in knowing what the source of all the traffic is at the moment it looks pretty global:

Seedbox Networks - who do they benefit?

2011-07-04T16:00:00.002-04:00

I often see the suggestion that the use of a Seedbox being a safer alternative to downloading from P2P networks, but who does a seedbox benefit?

If you have a lot of illegally downloaded material and you want to "stick it" to the music and movie industry and distribute it to all and sundry, then setting up a seedbox may work for you.

If you are looking for a detection-free way of downloading the latest movies and music it is unlikely you are going to find the material that you are looking for on a privately operated seedbox.
If you have an archive of downloaded media and you are looking for that obscure episode of a TV program or the latest Hollywood blockbuster it is more likely that you will find it on a publicly torrented P2P network.

If you subscribe to a hosted seedbox you will have to pay a monthly fee and be restricted to fixed bandwidth and other limitations.
While these limitations may seem far laxer than those imposed by P2P activity and/or the throttling, bandwidth or other traffic shaping applied by your ISP they are there all the same.
Seeing as the selection of things that you want to download will be far less, this will not be an issue.

Blogspam

2011-06-29T08:13:00.002-04:00

I thought that I had posted on this subject in the past. Searching for the term it appears that I haven't.

Just to reiterate that I am not interested in reviewing or re-posting information on 3rd party products or software.

I realize that stating this is not going to stop the almost daily solicitations for this. I believe that this is the result of an automated process. If a human had read my pages and assessed the content they would have determined that they would be wasting their time in writing me an email.

This was triggered by:
WakeMate Smartphone Accessory V2

Finally applying Windows 7 SP1

2011-06-19T09:37:00.002-04:00

I decided to bite the bullet and install SP1 on my Win 7 Pro box (with a non-pirated license).

As seen on my other machines that were activated using Daz the process was a laborious one. There were 2 re-starts involved and the download and install took a we while to compete. I can see why there are many that think that their machine has frozen in the process.

After the 30% -> restart and then the balance of the update when I looked in Windows Update there were still 31 important updates ready to install. I thought "What the heck - I have come this far - I even let it install IE 9" so after checking that the installation of SP1 didn't seem to slow my computer down I went ahead and installed the balance of the updates.

So far I have not seen an problems and there were no errors reported in the istallation of any of the updates. This is contrary to what I have been reading on other websites.

On a side note: I installed Windows 7 Home Premium from an OEM DVD that had SP1 already there from Microsoft and even then when I ran Windows Update there were over 30 updates that needed to be installed - perhaps these are the ones that I saw on my Pro box and are updates that can only be installed after SP1 is installed.

Why manufacturers use Insyde H2O BIOS

2011-06-10T07:01:00.002-04:00

If you have a notebook or netbook with an Insyde H2O BIOS it is used by the manufacturer for a reason.

It is a way of telling that the manufacturer of the computer does not want you changing anything in the System BIOS that will compromise the performance of their setup.

If you require to overclock, enable hardware virtualization (Intel vt-x and vt-d or AMD-V [SVM]), adjust the video RAM assignment or any change other than the boot order, date and time - then you must make sure that the hardware you are purchasing does not use Insyde BIOS.

If you have a computer with an AMD E-350 or C-50 APU it is most likely to have an Insyde BIOS. This is because the "discrete-style" GPU requires a specific amount of shared system RAM. If you are allowed to adjust this you will degrade the HD performance of the video.

There is no such thing as an Insyde H2O CD - that you can use to unlock your Insyde BIOS. It is a fictitious invention created to obtain page ranking for websites such as eHow.

Unlock the power of your Netbook

2011-06-01T06:20:00.001-04:00

You cannot do this by upgrading from Windows 7 Starter Edition or figuring out a way to display hidden BIOS options.

I run many Windows 7 computers with Windows Starter Edition through Home Premium to Professional. I have not noticed any big difference between any of the versions of the operating system for the work that I perform.

The biggest short coming of Starter is that you cannot customize the theme (background image, window appearance and screen-saver).

Professional allows you to join a domain in networking, however, I get the feeling that this would not be a problem if I needed to join a corporate network. As far as the security and the backup options offered by Professional - I don't use them.

Your Netbook is likely to have an Insyde H2O BIOS. This will mean that you will have limited options on the BIOS screens. You will not be able to enable Hardware Virtualization or change any of the processor and memory settings.
As such you will not be able to overclock your Netbook.
I have an Asus Netbook that has Super Hybrid Engine that allows the overclocking and underclocking of the Atom processor. I have not experienced any marked difference in the Netbooks performance when it is overclocked.

Therefore I conclude that there is little to be gained from overclocking a Netbook.

The value of review websites

2011-05-31T09:30:00.002-04:00

An email exchange with the perpetrator of torrent-privacy.com has led me to make this observation. "What is the value of a website that only seems to exist to attract traffic to itself without any intrinsic value of its own?"

This is of course my own view, it is wondered whether this is shared by others? The site in question seems to capitalize on the fact that many are dubious about the operation of sites such as torrentprivacy.com and whether they are scams.
I postulated that torrent-review.com was a scam as I had a visitor to my site that claimed that their credit card details were compromised when they signed-up for the torrentprivacy service.

Due to the nature of the communication with this visitor, who seemed to imply that I had something to do with the deception, I could only speculate that he had joined torrentprivacy via a site such as torrent-review.com.
I had no proof of this and I based my hypothesis on the fact that the torrent-review.com website showed every sign of a website that was capable of this type of deception.

In my communications with the supposed owner of the torrent-review.com website he accused me of lying about the fact he was engaged in a phishing scheme and that he was stealing peoples credit card details.

The purpose of this post is to set the record straight and to allow others to comment on their experiences with the torrent-review.com website.

I qualify my assertion that the torrent-review.com brings little to the table in that the information, while being largely correct, is nothing you cannot find elsewhere on the Internet (including the torrentprivacy.com website).

The sensationalist and scare tactics of the copy are aimed squarely at those searching for information on whether torrentprivacy is a scam.

In my opinion is is not a scam, but I could be wrong and I am not trying to get you to sign-up, I am a torrentprivacy.com user.

Whereas, this topic is of low importance to me, the fact that I have posted on this in the past has led to me making a follow-up.

I would also welcome feedback on other review websites as torrent-review.com is not alone in this sort of nonsense, it was just the one that got me to post in detail.
IMO most of the review sites are little more than shills.

AMD 990fx review

2011-05-30T21:49:00.001-04:00

Do not let Intel win this.

kb2533552 installed now what?

2011-05-29T08:35:00.002-04:00

This was a search that found site which prompted a cache retrieval.

This happened to me. However, it didn't seem to have any bad effects on my Windows activation.

As Microsoft say this update cannot be removed once installed. I don't see that there is anything stopping you rolling back to a previous restore point but the update will keep on coming back as it will install even though you may deselect it or hide it.

If this update is anything to do with the detection of pirate copies of Windows 7 it is not known. I have speculated that it is in the past. Now I am not so sure. All my copies of Windows are showing as "genuine".

Brazos hits the streets

2011-05-28T07:08:00.002-04:00

Notebooks and Netbooks are finally hitting the shelves in numbers.

Featuring AMD E-350 and AMD Radeon 6310 graphics;
AMD C-50 with AMD Radeon HD 6250 graphics

Contrary to what om have interpreted the "AMD Radeon HD 6310M Discrete-Class" chipset is just that - a discrete-class i.e. integrated (on-board) graphics with discrete performance (hopefully).

No doubt there are those that will be looking for drivers. These will be described on my website.

AutoAdmit and Super Injunctions

2011-05-23T08:26:00.002-04:00

The rules have changed! Have we come full circle?

There are those that think that this is solvable by legislation or public awareness. (BBC Radio 4 - "In Business" - 22 May 2011) - Mike Batt and his loaf of bread analogy.

The system is broken - don't expect people to suddenly develop a social conscience - it an individual thinks that they can do something and not get caught - they will. This can range from stealing, copyright infringement to spreading rumours about the "affairs" of football (soccer) players.

AutoAdmit - "The most prestigious law school discussion board in the world" or a rather nasty (un-moderated) "muck scraper"? or a champion of anonymous internet speech.
Quite frankly I cannot see how anything that is un-moderated can be of value. I think that is called "graffiti"

(The reason that I bring up AutoAdmit [as this is old news] is that I had a visit on my web site with someone looking for: "Jarret Cohen on behalf of AutoAdmit phone number" - which hit my page on Reputation Defender)

Ryan Giggs and Imogen Thomas

2011-05-22T17:09:00.001-04:00

I am getting fed up with all the pussyfooting around the issue.

The Scottish newspaper makes it pretty obvious. Super Injunction indeed!

Waiting for the shit to hit the fan with Windows 7

2011-05-17T16:59:00.002-04:00

In anticipation of this happening and that kb2533552 is an elaborate plan by Microsoft to flush out the pirate copies of Windows 7 - I have a new copy of Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit OEM ($99).

This was purchased with my new Asus P8P76 motherboard. It will not be used with the board unless the future updates start to fail on the pirated copies of Windows 7.

Will Windows 7 SP2 fix all the bugs that were introduced by SP1?

2011-05-16T07:56:00.002-04:00

The fact that Microsoft have withdrawn SP1 from the list of Windows Updates (for those that had not pro-actively) installed it) and the fact that a lot of Windows users seemed to have a lot pf problems with kb976932. The fact that they now have kb2533552 waiting to be installed. Seems to indicate that kb2533552 is a precursor to SP2.

My advice is not to install anything unless forced to do so. Even then you may want to hold off the update, especially if you are running a bootleg or pirate copy of Windows 7.

This creates a dilemma in that those that are most likely to install the "important" updates before they are automatically "pushed" are those that are more likely to dig around their computers and the Internet - they are more likely to find that it is easy to find a free copy of Windows.
Those that "just use" their computers and don't care what is going on behind the scenes (they just want their computers to work) - they are the vast majority that have had no problems.

Text lost when Blogger went down

2011-05-15T11:19:00.002-04:00

"Update Kb976932 Seems To Have Been Replaced By Kb2533552 This Would Explain Why There Are So Many Hits For The Kb2533552 Page On This Blog"

This text seems to have been quoted on Windows Tweaks forum - the pages are blank now (content-wise that is).

Where did SP1 go?

2011-05-15T07:14:00.002-04:00

Microsoft seems to have pulled kb976932 and have possibly replaced it with kb2533552.

I have applied SP1 to a number of machines (and they are the ones that I have had some Windows Update problems). The computers on which I am waiting had kb976932 in the list of important updates but not pre-selected for installation. This has now disappeared and kb2533552 is now the update that is in the list to be installed.

My advice is not to install kb2533552 until it is forced.

Once again, this issue seems to be being ignored in the computer press. It is either because that it is a minority problem that only affects pirate versions of Windows 7 or it is only occurring a a few machines. It is my observation that most of the searches that hit this blog and my website (WRT this update) are from regions where I think that it is more likely that pirating is occuring.

DIGI+ VRM on P8P67 Series motherboards

2011-05-14T08:33:00.002-04:00

This was another topic of a blog post that Google Blogger seem to have lost!

Most of the information on this seems to be generated by Asus themselves:

techinstyle.tv - Asusdesign

What they (techinstyle.tv) say about themselves:
We're technologists, media professionals, fashionistas, designers and usability appreciators bent on spreading the word.

What they don't say is that they are on the payroll of Asus.

Research, details and an independent review of this new technology will be found on my website.

Previous posts on kb2533552

2011-05-13T15:04:00.003-04:00

I wonder if these are going to come back after the blogger outage?
/2011/05/after-you-install-this-item-kb2533552.html
and /2011/05/sp1-now-becomes-kb2533552.html

Posts relating to uninstalling kb2533552 and the fact that SP1 seems to have disappeared from Windows Update on computers that did not have it installed (it would have gone from the list on ones that had in any case)

Update: 9:35pm EST - the posts are still not back up! - if you are interested in seeing what I was saying I have it mirrored on my website.

Update 14th May 2011.
The posts that didn't get re-posted were concerning the fact that once you install kb2533552 Microsoft say that it CANNOT BE REMOVED

There is also a feeling that kb2533552 implements a new WAT (Windows Activation Technology) - one that cannot be removed with tools such as removewat.

KB2533552 - Are Microsoft admiting there was a problem with Windows 7 updates?

2011-05-11T10:30:00.005-04:00

Note: Yesterday was 10 May 2011.

I have not installed this update but the computer this screenshot was taken had problems earlier with updates that had to be applied manually.

Using Facebook and You Tube for marketing

2011-05-10T06:55:00.001-04:00

The use of Social Media for business purposes is all the buzz today.

In addition to Facebook and Twitter, You Tube videos are are also in the mix.

Companies have their own accounts and I guess the hope is that their followers will see their products there and participate in discussion and share their details with the companies involved.

However, this is not without its problems. If the companies are not careful they will be seen as too "self-promotional" and there is a general trend for Social Networkers to reject advertising and the companies that use social media run the risk of alienating their potential customer base as opposed to expanding on it.

Also, when it appears that the Facebook and/or You Tube is the ONLY means that the company in question is using (or at least in the main), it makes them look amateur and desperate to get attention that they would not get otherwise.

In addition, when all the comments and entries appear to come from the same users, you have to start to suspect that they are are not "self promoting".

If I make a blog post based on my observations of your activity and you (the company) visit this blog, I can see that you are visiting and where from. It is in this way that that I can confirm that the only people who are interested in hearing what I say are the company themselves. I know this because all visits originate from the same geographic location (not far from KL and environs actually)

Network speed for HD

2011-05-08T07:29:00.002-04:00

So far I have managed to stream content from a Bluray disc to a powerline network connected PC.

The client computer is using a 46" 1080p TV, and as such can be seen to be HD. The majority of my media is of a far less technical specification but never-the-less some of it can be considered HD.

The streaming of this media is not only acceptable using 85Mb/sec powerline adapters in some cases wireless-g connections are sufficient. Only the BD quality signal seems to require the 200Mb/sec adapter connection.
No additional or special filtering has been used in this media network.

To answer the question "how far do you need to have for HD" is "it depends". It depends on what you are trying to stream and what your definition of HD is.

Like most of us who are likely to be experimenting in this technology your sources of media is likely to be that from previously streamed material. This media is also likely to have been distributed using a broadband network with a transmission rate of far less than 200Mb/sec - this makes the requirement for this speed only necessary for programs that are taken from BD sources locally on your network.

Petaling Jaya and Kuala Lumpur

2011-05-06T06:45:00.002-04:00

Visits from who I can only assume as from Calvin J. Symons, Leong Wai Kin, Muhammad Syawalfiza or Paul Chang is an indication that I have been noticed.

The shameless self promotion on You Tube is both transparent and puerile.

It is also interesting that the only people who seem to be looking are the narcissists. I could even be on a Facebook wall somewhere. That makes sense. as those that think Social Media is a means to overcome the lack of a product that works would use that and Twitter in the hope that the impressionable will be taken in.

Sad thing is, they are probably correct.

Firefox 4 and cache

2011-05-05T21:43:00.003-04:00

FF4 seems to be doing something strange with caching (maybe that is how they got it so fast?)

If I select a proxy (in the case that I tried, the proxy was in India - I am in Canada) when I load the ip2location page it shows that I appear to be in New Delhi.

If I tell FF4 not to use the proxy and refresh the page it still looks like I am in India.

Only when I close FF4 and restart it ip2location says that I am back in Canada. The speed at which the page loads is indicative to suggest that the proxy setting is correct. i.e. it is a lot faster when I am connecting to the Internet directly and not through a proxy. However, if I reload a page that I first accessed when connected through a proxy it is very quick to load - it is if it is being loaded from cache.

I tried clearing the Firefox cache but the Indian location (or the report that I was located there) was not lost until I re-started Firefox 4. Perhaps this is a fault with ip2location and not FF.

Firefox 4 and TorButton

2011-05-05T21:15:00.002-04:00

Since Firefox 4 is not currently compatible with TorButton I had to dig out the manual configuration of Firefox to use a proxy (supplied by Vidalia Tor).

The last download of the Tor bundle included TorButton and the usage of Tor for anonymous browsing was automatic.
If you have downloaded and installed Firefox 4 and now find that you cannot get it to use Tor then you need to set it manually under Tools->Options->Advanced->Network.
The dialog for FF4 is different from what I show here but the principle is the same.

Is Echo Dream Venture a scam?

2011-05-01T08:25:00.003-04:00

It certainly looks like one with all the You Tube videos featuring Paul Chang.

Powerline networking is likely to be a continued interest and computer users will want to overcome the deficiencies of their house wiring. I have yet to see any hard evidence that the SureStream filter does anything to improve network performance. I am way too skeptical to shell out any money to find out.

will peerblock keep my isp from seeing what i download

2011-04-30T08:42:00.001-04:00

This is what I saw in a search hitting my website 30 April 2011 - res-cmts.blo.ptd.net

The answer is no.

Peerblock just stops AP2P agents from accessing your computer.
It does nothing to hide your identity or what you are downloading.

Peerblock also doesn't stop me seeing what you are searching for and that your ISP is PenTeleData.
If I can see this your ISP certainly can!

Silence in the popular Tech press about SP1 and Piracy

2011-04-29T18:38:00.000-04:00

Any mention that there is a problem with Windows updates seems to be a place where nobody wants to go.
If there is a connection to pirated versions of Windows 7, who knows?

I am not saying there is a connection, but there is no denial that there is.

So far there are at least 5 Windows updates that have failed (on some, unspecified computers) in the last few days.
It would be good if there are others that can confirm whether this is just a problem with SP1 or one that is related to piracy.

Windows update problems 26-29 Apr 2011

2011-04-29T15:20:00.002-04:00

I must state that these problems have only been seen on computers that have had Service Pack 1 (SP1) installed.

ALL of the other computers that I run Windows 7 (of various flavours 32 and 64 bit) install these updates with no errors. These computers have had SP1 held-off until it is proven that there are no problems with it.

I have a theory to why this is happening and you can find it on my website.

I cannot find a sensible solution to this problem (apart from mine of course!) - Obinna Osobalu, Nigeria on forum.mintywhite.com suggests that the System Update Readiness tool may solve the problem. This tool was mentioned on the Windows Servicing Guy's blog for solving problems in the installation of SP1 in general - so it may help.

Windows Update Manual Downloads require verification

2011-04-28T11:55:00.003-04:00

It is theorized that compromised licenses of Windows 7 are now failing Automatic updates.

Manual updates now seem to require verification (which passes even though run against a "bootleg" copy of Windows 7).

If this is a "stop-gap" measure introduced by Microsoft to curb the use of "leaked" serial numbers and certificates it is going to piss off the legit owners of the equipment that the licenses were issued to.

Or, it could be that SP1 is just "screwed"

The example above is for kb2522422 - Cannot print from Internet Explorer 9 using some Canon printers

Windows 7 freezes on 0% applying updates on boot

2011-04-28T08:23:00.002-04:00

The updates that are described in KB2506928, KB2492386 and KB982018 fail on Automatic Updates and are changes to that point are reverted back.

When the machine finally starts the updates will show as "failed" on the Update History. The next time the computer is started you will experience the same prolonged wait until the updates fail and get rolled back.

I have installed these updates manually by visiting the appropriate Microsoft pages for the KBs and now my computer starts as it did before without the wait.

I have described solutions for these problems this on my website.

The symptom is that the computer takes 3 to 5 mins to boot (start-up) unless these updates are either applied or blocked.

Windows 7 SP1 KB2506928 and KB2492386 fail with error 800705B4

2011-04-28T06:03:00.002-04:00

I managed to get KB2492386 installed manually - I had to go through a Windows Validation

RDF - Resource Descriptor Framework

2011-04-24T17:32:00.003-04:00

RDF is a match made in heaven (aka. the halls of the W3C's offices at MIT)

Sean B. Palmer is a literary historian with a background in computer science.

Mmmm.... just the sort of person to develop web specs! MiscOranda.com - is not very good at responding to email. - Wanker is the first term that comes to mind.

Epsilon and Best Buy

2011-04-14T17:41:00.003-04:00

Now we see the importance of not using your real email address when signing up with retailers!

email to Canon

2011-04-12T16:48:00.002-04:00

Thank you for writing to us. We value you as a Canon customer and
appreciate the opportunity to assist you.

Detailed information as to which Canon cameras are compatible and what
properties have been added or modified to the SDK are available by
clicking:

link

Turn off all popup blockers.

I hope this information is helpful to you. Please let us know if we can
be of any further assistance with your future purchase.

If you follow the link and agree to the License Agreement - you should see that the box is blank

Canon EOS Digital SDK (EDSDK) v2.10

2011-04-11T22:26:00.002-04:00

The screen is blank and there is no option to agree and proceed with the download.
Download freezes on license agreement page.

It should look like:

You then get the application form to fill in:

Protecting yourself from LizaMoon

2011-04-02T10:37:00.002-04:00

If you are searching for torrents to download using p2p you are better off using a dedicated machine or one with Firefox using NoScript add-on.

the script:
<script src=hxxp://lizamoon.com/ur.php></script>

could be returned in the SERP and you would be none the wiser

Windows 7 SP1 rollout

2011-03-22T18:24:00.001-04:00

kb976932

0x80070643 kb976932 Windows 7 SP1

2011-03-22T18:22:00.000-04:00

If you are seeing the error 0x80070643 then it is a generic error that is telling you that the update failed.

You know this!

To determine what the cause is you will need to enable logging of the progress of the Windows Update and supply that information to Microsoft who then will be able to advise your further.

Alternatively, you could install a fresh Windows 7 image (using the Windows install DVD) and then apply the Service Pack to that.

If you purchased your computer without the Windows Install DVD, and most will have, you will have to obtain a DVD from somewhere. A fresh install of Windows is likely to be much quicker than trying to get an answer from Microsoft Support.
You can recover your data from your drive if you use a new drive for the fresh install.

SP1 Failures

2011-03-21T14:47:00.003-04:00

It would appear that the "early adopters" of Windows 7, the ones that downloaded and beta tested (from Microsoft for free and then tested for free) are the ones that seem to be having the most problems with kb976932.

The error: 0x800f0904 - CBS_E_MORE_THAN_ONE_ACTIVE_EDITION This can be due to the release candidate failing to uninstall properly. is being seen.

These are the Windows users that are more likely to be installing SP1.

The users of normally purchased copies of Windows 7 are less likely to run into problems. Builds 7600 and later should be ok. (RC1 was 7100)

SNAFU Windows 7 SP1 kb976932

2011-03-17T09:54:00.002-04:00

Looks like WSG has it under control:

0xc0000034
language packs problems
0xC000022
0x800f0a13 or 0x800f0826
0x800f0904
0x8004a029
CheckSUR has been updated

If you can't find him by making an Internet search then you shouldn't be playing with SP1

What is "Genuine" copy of Windows 7?

2011-03-10T08:40:00.004-05:00

A copy of Windows 7 that has been installed on multiple computers using a BIOS modifying "loader" technique is just as non-genuine as a bootleg copy purchased on the Asian blackmarket.

In fact, it is Microsoft's interest to have copies of Windows available for sale in these markets with malware on the DVDs. That way they can perpetuate the myth that all bootleg software is ridden with malware and simply not worth the risk.

If you activate multiple copies of your Windows DVD you are in violation of Microsoft's EULA but NOT at risk from malware.

WD Live Wire Windows Shares fail on application of SP 1

2011-03-10T08:35:00.002-05:00

The fact that network shares seem to have been seen to be failing after SP1 was installed could be explained by the version of Windows loosing its Activation status and becoming "Non Genuine".

I have a pc the the Windows Update is broken, not from the fact that it has been removed by a program such as RemoveWAT but it just fails due some corruption of the Windows System files.

The consequence is that it no longer receives updates as the process never completes and halts in an error. One of the outcomes of this is that the computer is not able to join a HomeGroup, due to the fact that the HomeGroup time cannot be synchronized with the other computers in the group.

My theory is that those that are reporting that their Windows shares are failing after they applied kb976932 could be due to the fact that these cases were related to "pirated" copies of Windows 7. This subject is still on on-going topic on the WD Live Wire forum.

WD Livewire Powerline AV Network Kit CPL - WDBABY0000NBK-NESN

When are Windows Updates "Pushed" to computers?

2011-03-09T09:35:00.003-05:00

With respect to Windows 7 SP1 (kb976932) here is a screen-shot resulting from this Tuesdays Update.

As we can see the SP 1 update is still not being automatically selected and must be done manually by the computer owner.

Chipset Drivers AMD Mobility Radeon™ HD 6310

2011-03-07T19:09:00.002-05:00

Part of the integrated APU AMD E-350 (and others)

Northbridge chip for discrete-level HD graphics and DirectX 11

Download from my website.

Removing WAT

2011-03-05T08:47:00.001-05:00

This can refer to either removing WAT completely from your computer or simply disabling it.

The WAT Validation Task was introduced by Microsoft with kb971033 and added this task to the Windows Scheduler so that it would run every 90 days.
It was not clear whether there was a "validation" method before the introduction of kb971033 but it was still a requirement that you needed to activate your computer within 30 days of installing Windows 7.
This 30 day period could be viewed as an "evaluation period" and there are command-line commands that will allow you to reset this evaluation period a fixed number of times. Thus extending the 30 days to 60, 90 and beyond (if you re-installed Windows from scratch)

The validation task may also be introduced on your computer by SP1 even if kb971033 was not allowed to be installed and run on your Windows 7 computer.
The Daz loader seems to install certificates that are immune to the WAT Validation checks and as such the tasks do not need to be removed or disabled.

Curiously the WAT tasks that can be found in Windows Task Scheduler have a description "Micorsoft Update KB971033".

The consolidation of all the updates into SP1 may still add this task with this description as it relates to when the task was first introduced.

If you have removed or disabled it prior to the application of kb976932 (aka SP1) it may well return and need to be addressed again. to say: "WAT update is unlikely to be separable nor uninstallable." is not relevant as it is easily identified and handled in anyway that you desire.

Understanding WAT

2011-03-04T11:04:00.001-05:00

WAT is the acronym for Windows Activation Technologies.

This is the collective name for the processes that Microsoft use to determine whether you are running a "genuine" licensed copy of Windows.

When Windows is "Activated" the "Validation" Task (part of the WAT collective) checks the certificate installed on your computer with the one registered at Microsoft for the copy of Windows that you are using.

This certificate can be assigned to a single copy of Windows or it can be part of a "Mass Activation" that is assigned to a particular manufacturer.

There are levels of activation techniques employed by Microsoft including: Key Management Service (KMS) and Multiple Activation Key (MAK) - descriptions of these can be found on the Microsoft website.

Microsoft primarily use scare techniques to persuade users to install "genuine" software.
There is no reason why you cannot install a single "genuine" copy of Windows 7 on multiple computers with a mass activation certificate.
This then negates Microsoft's argument that you are running a risk by using counterfeit software.

If you are knowledgeable enough to contemplate the use of a method to bypass their efforts (Daz or other) you are more than capable of installing an OEM copy of Windows on all your computers.

Does Peerblock block my IP?

2011-03-01T10:32:00.000-05:00

No, it only blocks the IP addresses of supposed Anti P2P Organizations (AP2P).

In any case Peerblock does not stop ap2p companies from participating in a file sharing download it is just you will not see them in the peer list and they will not have access to your computer.
They, the APOs, are perfectly able to inject "bad" data into a torrent and that will be available for you to download from another peer that is not using Peerblock.

The only way Peerblock can work is if EVERYONE who is downloading a file from a p2p site is using it (and their block lists are up-to-date)

Anti P2P Organizations ap2p

2011-02-23T08:36:00.001-05:00

In the age where governments are tuning off access to the Internet because of protesters organizing rallys and general revolt over oppressive regimes the notion that companies that have copyright material engage in activities that are contra the efforts of those illegally downloading their property is preposterous.

The blocking of such agents from your home computer is singularly ineffective in protecting you from detection and from downloading "malware-ridden" torrents. List such as nexus23 ipfilterx and Bluetack with programs such as PeerBlock are a useless waste of time, IMO.

Blog comes of age

2011-02-05T13:34:00.002-05:00

The time has come that this blog is no longer a "feed" for my website.
I don't really care if visitors go to my website and if they do it is likely to be the result of a search and not a referral from this blog.

This blog is still a primary means by which I can determine what people are searching the Internet for.

There are some subjects that I no longer have interest in and some of these posts have been deleted from this blog. Some of these subject include the modification of Insyde h2o BIOS and comparative reviews of BTGuard and TorrentPrivacy.

The fact that visitors to my website from this blog do not understand why and how I have setup the security on my website has prompted this change in Feb 2011. If you visit the home, or root page, of my site you will probably not get anywhere - this is my intention, there is no general index and links to pages that you may be interested on my site.

There are links that can be followed by robots such as Googlebot and they ARE spidered on a regular basis.

This is an example of the kind of response that triggered this change:

I'm trying to get information from you about Torrent-Privacy. I go through all this milarky and cannot sign on even when I set my security to accept transfer to you!

What? Are you a fake for the government? I am not able to afford buying much of anything in this economy. I have no job, and rely on torrents to get information, amusement, etc. Believe me, I've been trying to find a job, but to no avail.

I think if you are not the government, you are unduly paranoid.

anyone else

I don't think that overly paranoid and I am certainly not masquerading as any government (US, Canadian or anywhere else in the world). The question "Anyone else?" needed to be posted in a global fashion so that it could be answered. I replied to the email, but I have yet to receive a response.

It does need to be stated, however, that I have little continuing interest in reviewing TorrentPrivacy and discussing whether it is a scam. I do a lot of P2P (file sharing) and it is still of general interest how the governance of such activity is going to pan out globally in future.

Sandy Bridge Fiasco

2011-02-02T17:20:00.002-05:00

Couldn't have happened to a nicer company.

Luckily Intel fanboys are are ones that are going to be making the most noise and clamoring for a recall or a rebate.

The SATA 6G problem is not likely to be a problem - but there is the "seeds of doubt" and not getting what you paid for issues.

I can only wish Intel the best on this one. I feel some sort of poetic justice here and be pleased that I have decided on AMD and am a shareholder.

Securable Steve Gibson Update

2011-01-19T20:26:00.002-05:00

Having reviewed my website pages on Shields-Up and revisited the GRC website it prompted me to make this post.

I try and keep my content relevant and up-to-date, it would seem that most of what you will find on Steve's site (Jan 2011 - dated 2010) relates to the XP/NT world and not really relevant to the Windows 7/Linux/OSX world of today.

If you are still running XP (and I am on some of my computers) you are probably well aware of the shortcomings of the earlier versions of Windows and have learnt how to live with them.

I would say it is time for him to freshen up his site and bring it into the new millennium. The content is paranoia personified - I know that I have port 80 open - I run a website from my basement! I don't need his outdated programs to tell me that I "fail" the security tests on his site

What is it that he is trying to sell?

I have an issue with Securable's ability to inform you that your computer can run Windows 7 XP-Mode.

I also have issues of my own with the implementation of DEP - but I do not subscribe to the perpetuation of FUD.

TurboTax Version Differences

2011-01-12T07:56:00.002-05:00

TurboTax (formerly QuickTax) have done it again. The Basic version of TurboTax is half the price of Standard and the major difference seems to be the instructional video that comes with Standard.

It is surprising that there are not many stores stocking the Basic Edition and most of the displays are for Standard and above. The box notes on TurboTax are misleading in that they imply that the Basic version is only for "simple" returns whereas if you have anything more than a T4 and no deductions then you need to buy the $40 Standard version. The truth is that the $20 Basic version contains all of the CRA forms, including RSP deductions, Flow throughs (T5013A), Foreign Tax handling and even Alternative Minimum Tax calculations.

It is a wise move on Intuit's part to rename their tax software TurboTax as now users in the USA will now find this post while in the past when the software was called QuickTax it was only Canadians that would have found this post when looking for advice on what version to purchase. I am sure that there are similarities in the US versions in that Basic covers all of the IRS forms and the only difference is the video and all of the other "Maximize your 401k"

FLVServer v2.1c1 with get_iplayer

2011-01-10T17:20:00.002-05:00

It is not clear whether .swfinfo needs to be deleted - but it can't hurt.

MacBook Windows 7

2011-01-07T10:36:00.003-05:00

Apple should sell MacBooks with Windows 7 pre-installed in Bootcamp.

This would allow Windows users to find out that OSX is in fact a better OS. By removing the "barrier to entry" of those that think that they have to run Windows because the rest of the world does will probably find out that they spend most of their time in Snow Leopard, only venturing into Windows 7 when they have to do something they can't on OSX.

They will soon find that there is not a lot that they can't do and be in a more secure environment. For now at least - come to think of it that would be a bad idea as OSX would become a bigger target for the Malware merchants!

This is not likely to happen anytime soon as the copy of Windows 7 would have to be a fully licensed copy and that would add to the already higher price of the Apple hardware.

Living with Throttling - DPI and Network Neutrality

2011-01-05T12:14:00.002-05:00

It is well established that the Canadian ISPs, Rogers, Bell and others, use Packet Inspection (and injection) to manage and shape their Internet services.

I have not had cable TV for almost 2 years and obtain ALL of my media content via a Roger's Cable "Managed" Internet connection.
It is more of a case of learning to live with the throttling and shaping of network traffic than getting up in arms about that it is happening. It is only going to get worse.

We should be concerned that it is being done and demand some sort of transparency from the ISPs, but it is a fact of life and in 2011 we are going to have to live with it.

I have a 95G subscription and have no problem in using this and more in a month. If the shaping were a problem for me I would have difficulty in obtaining the media that I require.
I don't, in fact I have no problem in getting more than I can watch in a given month.

As far as the claims made by TorrentPrivacy and BTGuard that your ISP will not know what you are downloading and how, that they will not throttle as a consequence, has not proven to be the case. Roger's, for one, seem to be smart enough that their packet inspection is still able to detect torrent agents such as BitTorrent, uTorrent, Vuze etc. The claim of "unlimited speed" is a marketing ploy to get you to subscribe.

The ISPs are fully capable of detecting your means of protocol by DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) no matter how you obscure your IP address or encrypt your connection. The heuristics of your data packets will be obvious torrent traffic and throttles will be applied.

vt-d vs vt-x

2011-01-03T09:20:00.002-05:00

vt-d is the Intel Device Virtualization feature that is present on some of their processors.

It provides the same functions as AMD's "AMD I/O Virtualization Technology"

You need this feature to implement at KVM - Kernel-Based Virtual Machine

The Mac and BIOS

2010-12-30T10:54:00.002-05:00

It seems that there is a lot of nonsense on the Internet regarding this subject. At the end of the day it makes no odds whether the system or method that Apple use to determine the way that Mac computers boot is a System BIOS or a EFI.

It could be stated that the reason that Macs can be used with an operating system other than OSX is that Apple had moved to Intel microprocessors and an EFI but it can also be stated that pc manufacturers have also moved to an EFI framework for the BIOS used in non-Mac computers.

To this end it remains that this is largely semantics and it really makes no difference to the efforts of those that want to run an alternate operating system on ether of the two hardware platforms.
The quest to run OSX on non-Apple hardware continues and the endless thread of questions from those that are having problems in getting Boot Camp to run Windows on their Macs continues.

Whether Boot Camp Assistant is a just a partition tool and not much else, whether there are better tools and why some seem to continue to have problems in getting it to work are all continuing in 2011.
The installation of a Hackintosh or the booting of OSX on ANY hardware revolves around the requirement for a bootable media for the operating system used for the initial setup is the issue at hand NOT the settings of the hardware (EFI/BIOS) - setting the SATA Type to AHCI for example.
Even the Lifehacker instructions detail the preparation of a thumb drive to boot the hardware into OSX and then subsequently install OSX onto the computers hard drive. The converse of this is Boot Camp where a Windows (or other OS) partition is created on the Mac computer and then there is an option to install that alternate operating system. In the second case, Boot Camp, the process that installs Windows (for example) is the Windows installer NOT anything supplied by Boot Camp.

In both cases, the installation of a Hackintosh on Windows hardware and the installation of Windows on Apple hardware, there may be changes made to the EFI settings but these are largely hidden from the user.

The final analysis of all of this is that you are better off buying a Mac if you want to run OSX - but then I have a different assessment of the time value of money.

Go to the Cloud

2010-12-29T21:19:00.002-05:00

What the ____ does that mean?

MS have no clue what "the Cloud" is - I am not sure that I do!

This was in reaction to an ad seen on Channel 4 for Microsoft - seems like they are using the term "cloud" just so they can and so that it is fixed in the minds of "dumb" consumers.

I can't really see the significance of "the cloud" when it comes to sorting and editing photographs to post on your Facebook page. Nothing has really changed, apart from the usage of the word "cloud". Your interaction with on-line services such as social networking sites has always been "cloud" based.

I guess Microsoft want their customer base to be familiar with the term "cloud" before they make even big a deal about it. Perhaps they are worried about loosing market share to the likes of Google. Hotmail and GMail have always been "cloud".

ShopWiki still ignores robots.txt

2010-12-21T09:55:00.002-05:00

I seem to remember that this was a problem before (Oct/Nov 2006) that went away after putting the appropriate entry in robots.txt - this is what the ShopWiki help for webmasters suggests.

However, they seem to be ignoring the robots file again!

I have placed a Rewrite condition and rule in my server config. Let's see if that works - I won't publish what I did until I confirm that it works - there is more than enough of this on the Internet as it is!

Thank you BBC

2010-12-15T10:25:00.000-05:00

in changing the way that you handle the iPhone and related Apple products w.r.t. iPlayer you have uncovered a much better tool. A tool that is built using the same OSS technologies that iPlayer and Adobe AIR use to supply your content in a manner that you consider legitimate. As get_iplayer is built using the same core technologies as iPlayer it is not likely to get broken in the same way as Po-Ru's ipdl.

Po-Ru may well fix his excellent downloader but it seems that get_iplayer is a far more useful, but more complicated, tool. Once again the industry that is taking strides to protect its "intellectual Property" (please note the quotes) has shot itself in the foot.

While I can understand Phil Lewis' stance on continuing the development of get_iPlayer (LinuxCenter.net) [there could be a potential of consultancy there], we should all support David Woodhouse and the crew at infradead.org for taking over the fork.

Ian Hunter of the BBC is right to be concerned that non-iPlayer apps and devices that break their "rules - for example, by storing programmes beyond the 30 day limit, or playing them outside the UK."

Using NAS for Media Server

2010-12-13T22:11:00.003-05:00

So far I have 4T of storage space on line (locally) and I am working on methods to populate the drives in a timely manner.

Using "drag and drop" from Windows Explorer or even ftp is just too slow to populate the drives. A test was made in an attempt in transferring around 400M of audio media. The transfer ran overnight but had to be terminated the next morning as only a little over 100M had transferred.

A bulk transfer was made using an external USB drive cradle attached to a Linux computer. The contents of my 1.5T Television drive were transferred to the NAS pre-formatted drive (ext2). On returning the drive to the D-Link NAS the file permissions needed to be configured so that the media can be accessed on the network.

There are no plans is making this media available for access via the Internet, but it is possible. This would create a DRM nightmare as ALL my media has had the DRM removed. Besides, the bandwidth required would be far more than I want to contemplate.

Methods of mitigation of IPv4 address exhaustion

2010-12-08T13:09:00.002-05:00

is the appearance of log entries of the form:
crawl-66-249-65-10.googlebot.com - - [08/Dec/2010:12:43:59 -0500] "GET /techwatch.ca/....

an indication of mitigation effort for the address exhaustion of IPv4 or is this a general change for the migration to IPv6?

Previously crawls from Googlebot were of the form: 66.249.65.10

I still have entries in my logs that are of the IPv4 quads of 00-FF (000-255)

Word is out about AVG Free

2010-12-03T11:05:00.005-05:00

"It is getting too naggy"

The link

IPv6 and Windows 7

2010-12-01T07:38:00.002-05:00

Yes it is featured in Windows 7 but it is not yet implemented as far as
the "Outside World" is concerned.

The effects of the existence of ipv6 on the operation of services such as BTGuard are irrelevant. (with respect to un-checking it)

For those of you who use BTGuard and have still been caught I suggest you check into that, as IPv6 can still attach or embed your true IP address in outgoing packets.

What???? Who says that anyone has been caught?

All I can say is that the monitoring of server logs in the days when IPv6 is the norm will be a lot of fun. Most "governing" and "surveilling" agencies have a tough enough time with IPv4.

And, who can make such dogmatic statements as the IPv6 is a reason for something working or not? It looks suspicious to me so the original post has been removed. I do not need to provide a platform for such nonsense - I can provide that myself! (and only I can remove/edit that)

AVG finally shoots itself in the foot

2010-11-25T09:46:00.003-05:00

What with all the nonsense about "Needing to update my Anti Virus Software" and the offers of ancillary products when I do. I finally decided to give MS Security Essentials a try out.

AVG 2011 Free Edition is just too much of a pain! Final straw was the constant placing of an icon on my desktop(s)**** - trivial I know! but it is just one of the annoyances that have been bugging me of late with them.

**** I run multiple computers with Windows on them and have been installing AVG Free on them as a matter of course. Although no fan of Microsoft I think that I will be switching over to their free A-V offering. Ubuntu Linux is the preferred solution, but in instances where I have to use Windows I may as well keep it as "pure" as possible.

Windows Update killing RemoveWAT - kb791033

2010-11-15T22:13:00.001-05:00

There seem to be a lot of hits for Windows Update killing RemoveWAT - kb791033 "how to remove" and "removewat has stopped working"

I have many copies of Windows 7 that are installed using these methods - they are discussed in greater depth on my website - www.tempusfugit.ca

amd neo mv-40 virtualbox enable virtualization

2010-11-13T07:08:00.002-05:00

The NEO is a Netbook class processor that DOES support AMD-V (according to the AMD w/s)

My Lenovo X100e has a MV-40 processor but the Lenovo BIOS does not even mention the Virtualization function (SVM AMD-V). This is ok as I can't really see why you would want to run another operating system (in a VM for example) on a computer with such limited power.

btguard update virtual machine stack overflow

2010-11-04T07:17:00.002-04:00

I discuss this issue on www.tempusfugit.ca on my page on Immutable Virtual Machines

I have seen various queries regarding this:

East Providence - btguard updates virtual machine stack overflow
Houston - btguards update virtual machine stack overflow
Basingstoke - btguard virtual machine stack overflow
San Jose - virtual machine stack overflow btguard

I am not sure if this is systemic.

How many times do I have deleted the AVG icon?`

2010-10-28T09:24:00.003-04:00

Seems like every time boot my computer it is back!

I DON'T WANT THE ICON ON MY DESKTOP! Why do they insist on putting there every time they do an update?

I also don't want to "Speed up my computer" or "Analyze it"

Running Torrenting and IP obfuscation software, such as in a Virtual Machine

2010-10-20T19:01:00.002-04:00

Running torrenting activities in an immutable VM seems to make sense.

If you are using a service such as TorrentPrivacy or BTGuard you are fully aware of what you are dealing with in regard to malicious downloads. If you download a lot of material it will not be long before you infect your computer despite your best efforts.

A Virtual Machine that cannot be changed, or reverts back to its original state when closed (i.e. immutable) will prevent this from happening.

However your IP obfuscation software needs to able to run in this virtual environment. If the client software causes a stack overflow then you have a problem