February 21, 2008 by rfhicks.

Buying a new computer usually entails purchasing new hardware and software. Regardless of the OS that you are using software upgrades are part of the game and of the pain. You often find out that you have become comfortable with a particular brand of software and while cruising the aisles in Costco you run across a shiny new box with brand name that you have become accustomed too and notice that this is the latest and greatest version that is compatible with your latest OS, that is Vista for example, The package designers have outdone themselves with a glossy new printed box with colorful graphics and Velcro closure with the facing pages carefully and meticulously laid out with full color graphics and text outlining all the nifty things you can do with this latest version of the software. Somewhere on the back of the box in very tiny print there is an ambiguous hint that this is compatible with Microsoft Windows without elaborating.

You think back to a time two or three years ago and remember that this particular piece of software was stable and easy to use. Now that you have a shiny new computer and this piece of software is version X.y things must be even easier and pain free. You take another look at the shiny box and lift the shiny cover with Velcro tabs and see all the wonderful comfortable dressed people staring into their laptops and desktops with a big smile on their face as they seemingly breeze through their multimedia tasks with glee. You see mom at her laptop and with her two kids at her side as they all appear gazing into the computer while burning the latest home movies onto their DVDs. While you gaze at the shiny new package and consider the price that you are about to pay you cast yourself into these wonderful images thinking that this will be your experience.

Now that you are home you take a deep breath and open your shiny new box only to find a single disc in a paper envelope. The wonderful feeling that you experienced at the store while perusing the box and it’s shiny surface seems somewhat deflated now as you hold a single disc in your hand in an ordinary paper envelope. There is a information printed on the back of the envelope along with a jumbled series of letters and numbers known as a ‘license key.’ There is stern warning along with this advising you not to lose this key or else you will be forced to call a 1-888 between 8:00am and 4:00pm, Monday through Friday begging for help and forced to endure being put on hold and then press #1,and then #2, and *. You then will have to wait for the next available agent in India to help you out

All your wonderful musing about putting your home movies on DVD and possibly becoming the director of the next Blair Witch Project have suddenly become an onerous burden of becoming yet another consumer beta tester for piece of software that was never really ready for release to the public. You sit at your computer till the wee hours of the morning producing DVD drink coasters because your shiny new multimedia keeps freezing up and spitting drink coasters out of

This is what I call the travails of pukeware . The purchase of installation of a multimedia suite that claims to be the next innovation in software that will enable you to breeze through your multimedia task and leave you time to spare. Instead you end up thrashing, wailing, and taking to people in India who want to walk you through the process of solving your problem only to bring you to the conclusion that this cobbled mess of computer code is in bad need of further testing. Meanwhile you pull in the anchor and tread the malware infested waters of the Internet seeking sort of clues to why your computer is locking up and your software crashing.

Suddenly the light bulb goes off in your head, perhaps the LED light in this case since we are in the 21st century, that you might be able to surf over to the manufacturer’s website. Perhaps they may have quietly issued a patch that will save you from your multimedia miseries and forgot to send you an email advisory since you did sign up for the email newsletter during the installation. Have you overlooked this small detail? Perhaps it is all your fault for failing to pay attention to the details after briskly pushing the ‘next’ button when you were too impatient to read the EULA (End User License Agreement). Perhaps this why the store can’t issue a refund. You know it is all your fault and the manufacturer surely wouldn’t glaze over a small detail such as forget to inform you of a critical update.

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January 24, 2008 by rfhicks.

Moving into a new computer with new hardware, operating system, and new software can present the same challenges as moving into a new home. You have to line up all the people that provide the services that you use i.e. plumbing, electrical vs. software glitches. This all gets around to my point about griping in general when things don’t work.

A recent example of griping: When I built my custom desktop with Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit I had installed a fancy sound-card manufactured by Creative Labs. The sound card had set me back $200. It had a fancy front interface where I could plug in my electric acoustic guitar and the sound card included a lot of software. Unfortunately Creative Labs had failed to inform the the card’s drivers would not work with Windows Vista Ultimate 64.

Now the real drama begins as I enter the world of being a professional whiner seeking the latest drivers, bug fixes, and software updates that will make this shiny hunk of integrated transistors play music to my ears through the new Bose desktop speakers. The Creative Labs site was pretty well laid out considering the plethora of devices that Creative manufactures other than their sound cards. I finally navigated to drivers update page and downloaded the ‘latest’ available drivers for my particular card which were dated sometime in May 2007. At this time it was around September 2007. There were some detailed instructions for downloading the driver patch which I dutifully followed. I download and followed the instructions, the firewall squawked. I watched and waited as I was bombarded with multiple windows, buttons, progress bars, and a lethargic Microsoft hourglass. After about 45 minutes of this digital psychiatric slide-show I was instructed to reboot. I drew a breath and then Microsoft had one more alert and a button to press. The hard drive purred, the screen went blank, and then the computer powered down.

Microsoft Windows then came back to life. I eagerly awaited for my speakers to play the dramatic default Microsoft sound indicating that everything was okay and I was successful with my update. The speakers momentarily screeched and then there was silence. I tried all of this once again. Before I knew it was 2 o’clock in the morning. Oh well another day and another try, but I was incensed that $200 sound card did nothing but screech and then whimper. I went to bed fuming wanting to perform some excruciating torture the CEO of Creative Labs.
The next day I did some research and found out that there were many other people like myself that wanted to choke the @*## out of Creative Labs CEO and demand a refund. Then I found about the forums on Creative Labs web site. I immediately signed up and entered a world of like minded professional whiners intent on getting there money’s worth. I posted in this forum for the next 3 to 4 months. I read other posts where people had found there beta releases posted on other sites that were not endorsed by Creative Labs and even found cases where people with a more technical bent had even written their own drivers. There were people posting petitions to be signed to never do business again with Creative Labs. This forum was a wild place with people outraged with the high priced hardware they had been stuck with due Creative Labs failing to create drivers for all the devices that wouldn’t jive with Windows Vista.

After posting several times to the forum and literally shaking my fist with the rest of the forum participants Creative Labs finally posted the up-to-date drivers for my sound card that would work with Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit. I was relieved to say the least and felt I had gotten my due process and justice.

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January 8, 2008 by rfhicks.

I recently enrolled in Goggle’s Adsense program to earn a few dollars from my domain name.
I was using a custom desktop computer that I had recently built with Window’s Vista Ultimate and Kaspersky’s Internet Security Suite 2006.

After placing some Goggle’s ads on my site I was unable to see them on my computer when viewing my site. I was using the latest version of Mozilla’s FireFox along with a plug-in called Fire Bug, which is used as code validation tool for HTML when viewing web pages.

The Fire Bug kept giving me ‘illegal character’ in the javascript, more specifically an error due to GIF89a. I looked through the web page code scratching my head seeking some clues. I then wrote down the exact wording on the error and searched for it using Google. I ran across several references and came up empty-handed. I then was directed to one of the Google Adsense forums where I found mention of the Kaspersky’s Internet Security Suite 2006.

I went back to Google and kept searching through the links. I then ran across a site that was written in Turkish that mentioned the GIF89a error. Well first off I realized that I was not literate in reading Turkish. I then noticed a screenshot of some windows from the Kaspersky’s Internet Security Suite 2006 where I noticed the author had circled and number the steps to taking the http reference in the Google ad and putting into a ‘White List’ of URLs within one of the software menus. I immediately exclaimed, “Eureka”, although I couldn’t read the Turkish in the blog post I couldn’t definitely interpret a screen shot in English. I immediately saved the image I had found on the blog and went and made the adjustments in the software. Bingo! My ads showed up on my site.

Posted in Technology, Windows Vista, Computers | 1 Comment »

June 23, 2007 by rfhicks.

I’ve had this PC that I have assembled myself up and running now for about a month. I am using Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit and so far the experience has been fairly good. The one thing that is really currently nagging me is the fact that I spent $200+ for a Creative soundcard that is not functioning. Part of the reason is due to the DRM( Digital Rights Management ) built into Windows Vista and Creative being unprepared with the drivers and software for their hardware products. I have unceasingly complained about the lack of support on Creative’s web forum.

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