Digital Dad

Annual IT Visit

I am finishing up some vacation time here on the east coast (self evident from those following my tweets), but one of the items on the list is doing a top to-bottom IT check up of my Dad and his wife’s computer systems.

They have two machines – a Dell that we picked up new last year with a 24” Acer display, and a Toshiba “schleptop” with a 17” display, and two printers, both HP scanner/combo units. Linksys 802.11g router.

Job #1 was to upgrade the Dell from the Windows 7 RC from last year to a full retail Windows 7 Home Edition copy. The RC had already timed out such that the background wallpaper was black it shut down every two hours. Given that this PC is used mainly for email this was not that big of a deal, but it’s annoying and you could potentially lose your work if it shutdown while you had files open. I was offered to do an in-line upgrade but I went with a clean install after moving the files off using Windows Easy Transfer. WET is a great tool for a complete move, although it is pretty dang slow. Install went without a hitch.

The notebook is running XP SP3. I thought about doing a 7 upgrade on it but it’s chugging along just fine and I would rather not potentially break something that is working well. It’s an older notebook (circa 2005), likely with some funky Toshiba drivers, so better to leave that alone. I did do some file cleanup and desktop clean up, and installed Microsoft Security Essentials with a full Windows Update. I also ran msconfig to remove a bunch of startup stuff that had appeared there.

I downloaded the Windows Live Essentials pack, and downloaded the beta to the Windows 7 machine, so the Windows Photo Gallery was fully set up and easily accessible. WPG has really come along, especially the new beta (too bad the beta is for Vista and 7 only). I am keeping all of the images on the Toshiba upstairs, but I am sharing the folder so it shows up in the Pictures Library of the 7 machine. One area for all pictures with WPG pointing to it on each machine. One gripe on WPG is that there is no clear way to upload pix to get printed. You can “share share share” but what about plug-ins to upload to a printing service?  At least Kodak?

They also have a DSL connection with Verizon and this is the biggest issue for them. This connection is rated at 768Kb/sec and using Speedtest I am luck to get 500Kb/sec. That is dog slow. Barely passable for one PC but terrible if both are accessing it. Pretty much kills the vid con scenario. My brother had his iPad here and it slogged for the whole week. Faster speeds cost more, so that is something to look into, but 768Kb/sec these days is just ridiculous for Verizon to even charge for – they should bring that up to a minimum 5Mb/sec as a baseline offering. Might make sense to go to Comcast.

I also set up Windows Remote Assistance on both machines so they can send me a ticket code in case I need to log in remotely. Done until next year!

Fisher Paykel R.I.P.

It’s been a love/hate relationship with our Fisher Paykel washing machine. No wait, it’s been just a hate relationship.

We bought it in 2002, the first new washer/dryer we ever bought since our first house came with one. I blogged about how it died on us in 2007, just outside of the five year extended warranty. It took two weeks to fix the panel (two weeks, three kids and no laundry machine?). Last year it kind of died, sort of had a stroke, such that it would start beeping about three-quarters through the cycle and required you to power it off and on again to actually finish the job.

We lived with that for about a year until we came back from a camping trip this past weekend (to Birch Bay, highly recommended) and the washer just refused to turn on. Tested the outlet, it was good, the washer was bad. I figured I was looking at a $300+ repair.

We had committed to getting our new laundry room done by the end of the year so this seemed to be a good time to do my patriotic duty and help the economy by buying a new washer/dryer. More on that later – it’s being delivered tomorrow.

So the Fisher Paykel is dead after seven years, the folks from Lowe’s will cart it away tomorrow. I might get a few kicks in before it heads out the door.

My New AVIC-F90BT

My new AVIC-F90BT showed up today. I’m pretty psyched. Not too big of a box but well-packed. Certainly packed with features. The AVIC-F90BT is top shelf, no stone unturned here. It’s well designed, too. The AVIC-F90BT is easy on the eyes, and well thought out.

Yes, I am pretty excited about my new AVIC-F90BT. Why wouldn’t I be? It has everything, perhaps even more, than I need. It’s so smart it will probably anticipate my next move. The AVIC-F90BT is cutting edge, but not crazy sc-fi. It gets the basics done in style with a little bit of sizzle thrown in. Plus, the AVIC-F90BT has a decent warranty.

The AVIC-F90BT looks solid and well-made. Clearly the folks who make the AVIC-F90BT pay attention to detail. I will definitely recommend the AVIC-F90BT to my friends – I can’t wait to get started with my new AVIC-F90BT!

Honest Abes

I'm not sure why but this struck me as funny:

Dozens of Abraham Lincoln impersonators meet in Alton.

Magic

"Any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic" - Arthur C. Clarke, 1917 - 2008.

 

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As I was carrying the laundry . . .

As I was carrying the laundry down from the upstairs bedroom, and subsequently up from the downstairs rooms, I thought about how our washer/dryer is almost always being used. It's one of those items that is really worth getting a good one since it is such a staple of family life. I also realized that when you start thinking about how great your washing machine is then you've truly become a Dad, if you weren't one already. That's definitely a milestone (as is wearing dark socks with sandals, I think).

We had a small, rickety, crappy one in our first house and I looked forward to doing some serious research to get a top shelf item after that. Again, "serious research about a washing machine" = "dark socks with sandals."

I was looking for something that was huge but also energy and water efficient. I was also looking for one that was easy to load and unload, had a good reputation for quality and good warranty, and finally one that wouldn't break the bank. I had no desire to get anything with an X-10 interface or other means of home control. What - am I going to wash my towels using my cellphone?

There's quite a range of "white goods" out there, judging by what's at Best Buy. We had a Maytag in the house when I was growing up and it lasted 25 years so I checked out their latest. Their Neptune line is pretty slick, but not cheap, $1500 and up for just the washer. There's also the Miele, but again, over $1500. Their web site has a catchphrase "more than just clean clothes." Hmm . . . actually I thought it was just about clean clothes.

Someone suggested Fisher Paykel (made in New Zealand!) so after more research we ended up with a washer and dryer from them. High efficiency, micro-processor controlled - the works. It has served us very well. The dryer is actually built by GE. I took out a five year warranty which expires in May.

Good timing, since the fancy New Zealand washer crapped out a few days ago. It has a beep code (reminds me of the ol' IBM PC days) and the beep code said . . . you are hosed (component failure).

The repair man showed up and said that it will take two weeks to get the part from New Zealand. Long flight, I guess. It's off the the laundromat tomorrow!

Moron.

Missing from 3GSM

The mobile device space is reasonably small and as we move from job to job, state to state or even country to country, we end up seeing familiar people as we do business. Sometimes they are in meetings or we see them at tradeshows, but it's essentially the same pool of people.

David Hayden was one of those people missing from 3GSM this year. He died in October of colon cancer. I hired David when I worked at Phoenix Technologies (a fact he never "forgave me" for) and naturally kept in touch over the years as our paths diverged.

David was a controversial person and I couldn't help cringing as I heard the news of his various adventures in his business and personal life. I remember him telling me two 3GSMs ago that he had cancer, though.

What struck me as odd was that he died months ago and seemingly no one knew about it amongst the usual circle of people. Sad, really.   

College funding for foster children

A friend passed this email my way. Hopefully we can help make this happen:

Important legislation in our domain (foster youth entering college) is before the State Legislature this week.  In fact, the bill has advanced to the executive session and may be entertained as early as late this afternoon.  The Green Team has sent its endorsement of the bill to the sponsors and to our own State Representatives.

If you would like to assist foster youth by encouraging the passage of a bill that would provide incentives to Washington colleges, technical schools and universities to enroll and retain foster youth, please consider sending the following message by e-mail to the bill's sponsor
and to your own representatives:

"I am writing in support of House Bill 1131, the Passport to College bill that provides encouragement to the State's postsecondary institutions to take affirmative steps to attract and retain former foster youth until they have successfully completed their education. Foster youth face enormous hurdles and they deserve our support. I believe that the State has a responsibility to foster youth that is unique, and that as a moral obligation continues beyond their 18th birthday. Moreover, helping foster youth become productive, contributing, members to Washington's economy simply makes sense as public policy. Finally, I would encourage the Legislature to stress the importance of pro actively connecting foster youth to social service opportunities already available at most of Washington's institutions of higher learning. Based on conversations I have had with current and former foster youth, I believe that providing foster youth a social service safety net in the form of a mentor, advisor or big brother or sister is the single most important thing our educational institutions can do to assure that foster youth stay in school."

The web page for the bill is:
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=1131&year=2007 If
that doesn't work, you can find the bill by going to the State Legislature website and search for House Bill 1131 by its bill number.

You will see that the bill's page lists the sponsors, with hyperlinks to the sponsors' web pages and e-mail.  You will need to click on a sponsor's name and fill in your personal details.  You will likely be
told the sponsor is not in your district, and will be asked if you would like to send anyway.   The answer is yes.  From there, you will be directed to a page where you can cut and paste the above message. From the "not your representative screen," you can also follow the links to find your own representative and cut and paste from there.
<DDad note - sounds complicated!>

This is a very important piece of legislation and your support is deeply appreciated.

Meeting Bill Gates

I had my brush with fame at CES by meeting BillG (as he is known around Microsoft). That is a picture of me there showing Bill the new Toshiba Gigabeat S. It looks like I was saying "for chrissakes don't drop it!"

The occasion was the CES keynote rehearsal, where I camped out for about twelve hours to make sure the devices from my team were working and free of fingerprints. At some point in there the PR folks said that they wanted to have some pictures taken of Bill with the Toshiba device and a new Palm Treo, so I gave him the device and a few words of explanation.

He seemed to like it, said a few words, and the picture was snapped. He then went on to review the other demos and later delivered a pretty decent keynote (although Joe Belfiore of Microsoft actually held up the Toshiba and LG units during the demo - thanks Joe!).

A few of us were backstage for the whole thing. At the end of the evening we were driving to a hotel and were pretty psyched until a cop pulled us over for speeding. Ironically, the device he used to write the ticket was a Windows Mobile-powered handheld.

Hardy har har.