yahoo

Darl\’s getting a blog…

Dave Farquhar Software , , , ,

For those of you who don’t know, SCO is tired of Groklaw and setting up its own blog, prosco.net (not yet active; it goes live Nov. 1) to provide a counterpoint.

SCO, for the uninitiated, is a software company turned litigation company whose lawsuits against the likes of IBM, Novell, Red Hat, Daimler Chrysler and Autozone aren’t doing well.SCO says they’re going to answer questions from the public. I have a few questions they can answer.

Their stock was trading at or around $50 a share during the past year, but the share price is currently near $3. What are they going to do about their dwindling stock price?

Is SCO in danger of being delisted?

What sources of revenue does SCO have?

Is Darl McBride buying or selling SCO stock right now?

When SCO goes out of business next year, what company will Darl McBride and his friends go to? I still owe about $10,000 on my Honda and I’m realizing now that if I had shorted $5,000 worth of SCO stock a year ago, I would have nearly doubled my money by now. Investment opportunities like that don’t come along every day, so I’d like to find the next one.

Can I see a line of the code that IBM stole? One line would suffice. I would prefer it not include the strings “#include” and “stdio.h”.

Why November 1? Why tease us? Why not just start writing and then publicize it? That’s what I did, and I get lots of traffic. Surely not as much as SCO does though. I’m sure the traffic they receive from disgruntled sysadmins redirecting Nimda and similar requests to www.sco.com dwarfs mine. And Yahoo’s.

Spam that infects your computer

Dave Farquhar Spam , , ,

This really isn’t anything new–I’ve long suspected spam was using ActiveX controls to infect computers with spyware and other unpleasantries, but now a spam message that infects your computer when you opt out is gaining publicity.The usual advice applies. Turn off the preview pane in Outlook/Outlook Express, if you must use a Microsoft program at all to read mail.

Install a spam filter. I used POPFile. Outclass allows POPFile to work with Outlook, even in Exchange Corporate Workgroup environments.

Consider getting a Yahoo mail account, or, if you ever happen to get an invitation, a Gmail account. They filter your spam for you and do a pretty good job, in my experience.

If spam gets through, don’t even open it. Tell me, why would any legitimate e-mail have a subject line like “Drugs online no prior prescription needed?” Or “Gen.eric Vioxx, Gen.eric Am.bien, Gen.eric Paxil, and more?”

And of course, get an antivirus program and keep the virus definitions up to date. Newer antivirus programs are even starting to detect and eliminate spyware, finally.

One person told me he reads and responds to all spam, because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t get any e-mail. If you or someone you know reads spam out of loneliness, that’s curable too. Install a spam filter and then fill the void by going to Yahoo Groups and look for an active group on something that interests you. I think every single time I’ve gotten interested in something or someone’s asked me a question, I’ve found a Yahoo group that pertains to it. The person is almost guaranteed to learn something, and chances of making some new friends are pretty high.

Bounty-hunting spammers

Dave Farquhar Spam , , ,

I missed posting a reference to the FTC bounty on spammers this week.

The FTC says a bounty is about the only thing that will work. In other news, the Pope is still Catholic.You can make spam illegal all you want, but the problem is tracking the people down. They’ve had years to practice concealing their origins. If you and I can’t track them down, then chances are law enforcement can’t track them down all that easily either.

Without inside information, you won’t track them down, at least not without going 1984 on everybody. And if there’s one thing that makes people scream louder than spam, it’s encroaching on their rights, whether those rights are perceived or real.

But the people with inside information don’t have much incentive to turn spammers in.

The question is where the funding comes from. Hopefully the fines levied against the lawbreakers will be enough to pay the whistleblowers. To me, it’s a very legitimate use of the money.

Of course, the direct marketing people are screaming and hollering that too much power is going to anti-spam groups. They would have less problem if they had taken a strong stand against spam in the first place.

I don’t think they’ll get much sympathy. At least I hope not. A few local business owners made headlines when they ignored Missouri’s Don’t-Call list and then were sued out of business. I didn’t have any sympathy for them. They knew the law was coming and what they had to do in order to comply. Besides, if I need my windshield fixed, do you think I’m going to wait for a telemarketer to call me in the middle of dinner?

Additionally, many of these spammers are breaking other laws as well. Since when is it legal to sell me Valium without a prescription? And if bigoea@yahoo.com is a licensed pharmacist, why is he resorting to spamming people at random to get customers? If you know of a pharmacy that’s hurting for business, I’d sure like to know about it because I’ll go there and so will everyone else I know who’s tired of waiting 30 minutes to get a prescription.

More than likely, the person hiding behind theat Yahoo address is either misrepresenting what he’s selling (fraud) or selling prescription drugs without a license (drug trafficking), and he may very well be guilty of breaking numerous other laws and needs to be put away anyway.

Tell me again why direct marketers haven’t done everything they possibly can to distance themselves from these people?

Giving the insider who turns the spammer in enough money to take a year (or five, depending on lifestyle) off work seems the best way to eliminate some of these lowlives who continue to clog our inboxes and our Internet connections.

Outsource your home e-mail to keep viruses at bay

Dave Farquhar Viruses ,

I’m going to be spending most of Saturday patching servers at work, and Microsoft just kindly dropped four new patches I didn’t want in my Easter basket (so run Windows Update on your home PC if you haven’t recently), and that reminds me of something.

End users are notoriously bad about running Windows Update and updating their virus definitions, both of which really need to be done on a regular basis in these terrible times. Microsoft doesn’t seem to realize not everyone has broadband and this takes some time, but that’s the price of running Windows, I guess.

I have a suggestion for people who aren’t very technical.Those of you who are technical and provide help for friends and relatives, get your friends and relatives to quit using Outlook Express to read their ISP’s mail and move them to a webmail-based solution, such as Yahoo Mail. Yahoo’s spam filtering is pretty effective, and Yahoo keeps its virus definitions up to date. Since most viruses transmit through e-mail these days, this may provide adequate protection for most people. Yahoo limits the size of attachments you can send, so configure Outlook Express for sending large attachments using the ISP’s SMTP server, but change the return address to point at the Yahoo address. If the person is reluctant about changing e-mail addresses, call the ISP’s technical support line and see if the ISP will forward the account’s mail to the Yahoo account.

Those of you who aren’t technical, get someone to help you do this if it sounded like Swahili to you.

Hotmail works too, but when you register for Yahoo mail, you get access to Yahoo’s discussion groups too, and Yahoo has a discussion group/forum for just about everything imaginable. Way back in the dark ages before the Internet was in every household, the discussion groups were one of the major draws of online services like CompuServe, GEnie, and Delphi.

Google’s GMail will be better than Yahoo’s mail, allowing people to search on their inboxes, but it’s not ready for you and me yet. I still don’t understand the big to-do about Google targeting text sidebar advertising on your e-mail–they already do it when you search using their site. But that’s another discussion.

I”m back from vacation, and now I’m rich!

Dave Farquhar Humor/Satire , , ,

I just returned from vacation and found the most wonderful bit of news in my inbox when I opened my e-mail at work.

From: Liza Bellis [lizabellis@securingmyfuture.net] To: David Farquhar
Cc:
Subject: David Farquhar Special Refi for [office building where I work] Date: Friday, December 19, 2003

Attention David Farquhar
I’m Liza Bellis with a Refi-
nance and New Home Purch company.
David Farquhar, I would like to firstly help you lighten your monthly pmts for the Farquhar home at [address deleted] SAINT LOUIS, MO 63122.

use your acct 9588 and update your records with us.

Sincerely
Liza Bellis
Customer Service Specialist

——————————————————————————–
To stop mail future: reward

—

This wonderful bit of news prompted me to fire off the following response, as well as to renew correspondence with a longtime solicitor.


From: David Farquhar
To: Liza Bellis [lizabellis@securingmyfuture.net] Cc:
Subject: Re: David Farquhar Special Refi for [office building where I work] Date: Monday, December 22, 2003

Dear Ms. Bellis:

Thank you for your kind offer to help me refinance the mortgage on the office building where I work. Thank you even more for tipping me off that I am indeed the rightful owner of this building. This is an asset valued at approximately $10 million that I did not even realize I had in my possession.

However, I regret to inform you that in light of this most valuable information, I have no interest in refinancing the mortgage on this office building. My financial advisor tells me it is in my best interests to sell the property as quickly as possible.

I will be contacting my realtor and I expect the property in question will soon be demolished in order to make way for a freestanding Walgreen Drug Store, as it has become that company’s practice to space its stores one half-mile apart and the nearest store is 1.6 miles away. You might wish to contact that company with a similar offer for a loan to finance the purchase of the property in question. Needless to say, I will be offering the property for significantly less than the current market value.

Your company certainly is aptly named. This valuable information secures my future so tightly as to permit my retirement effective immediately. I can only hope that this information about a pending sale will begin to repay you.

Dirty rotten filthy stinking richly yours,

David L. Farquhar
St. Louis’ newest multimillionaire

—

From: David Farquhar
To: Mr. Monas Nyerere [monas_nye20@yahoo.com] Cc:
Subject: Re: URGENT BUSINESS PROPOSAL
Date: Monday, December 22, 2003

Dear Mr. Nyerere:

Thank you for your kind offer for an urgent yet 100% risk-free business proposal. Unfortunately, I regret to inform you that it has just come to my attention that I am the owner of a large office building in suburban St. Louis that is worth approximately $10 million, which is about the same amount as the total money involved in your business proposal. Although your proposal is entertaining, the immediate liquidation of this office building requires my complete and undivided attention and will undoubtedly net me a larger sum of money than the 20% commission you are offering at this time.

The next time another unusually wealthy and powerful relative of yours meets with a suspicious and untimely death requiring my assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me. However, based on the numbers in e-mail I have received from you in the past, I calculate your current net worth at some $34 million. While I admire your obvious philanthropic mindset, as one millionaire to another, might I offer you some friendly advice that you retire, live off your savings, and take up residence in a safer region of the world, such as Palestine or Detroit?

Very sincerely yours,

David L. Farquhar

Introducing the Silicon Underground Portal

Dave Farquhar General , ,

Tonight, as I was preparing for my upcoming mission trip (read: doing laundry and waiting around on it), I started messing with a piece of software called bk2site.
Like most cool software, it’s included with Debian. RPMs and tarballs are available if your distro of choice lacks it. Its purpose is to take your Netscape/Mozilla/Galeon bookmarks file and a few RSS feeds of your choice and make a site out of it, much like the Yahoo! of many years ago before its size got out of hand.
Read more

CD’s; Duron deal; Journal site; Cheap nic; DMA problem;

Dave Farquhar General , , , , , , , ,

MAILBAG:
From: Steve Delassus
Subject: Cheap CDs. Too cheap?

Hey, I found a spindle of 100 16X 80-minute CDs at Best Buy for $25 after rebate. Seemed like a good deal, so I grabbed it. They’re imation CDs, which I thought had at least a decent reputation. Have you heard anything to the contrary?

Steve
~~~~~
I’ll take that over private label who-knows-what. I like Kodaks best, but Imations are certainly better than, oh, Infodisc… But what were you doing at Best Bait-n-Switch?
~~~~~~~~~~
From: “David Huff”
Subject: good Duron deal

Dave,

Here’s another good deal for those wanting to build an inexpensive PC:

AMD Duron 750 OEM – $38.00 http://www.gpscomputersvcs.com/amdprocessors.html

Not too shabby 🙂

Regards,
Dave
~~~~~
Wow. Thanks much. A Duron for a song. A Backstreet Boys song.
~~~~~~~~~~
From:
Subject: A good journal site.

Dave,

I would like to suggest Blogger.com. I’ve used it since February and haven’t had a problem with it. You can setup your own templates or use one of theirs. You can use your existing FTP account or they can provide one at blogspot.com. I set my journal up and just copied their template information to use my existing page format. I have my journal online at http://mkelley.net/notes .

I also must say that we have the same tastes in music, with the Pixies and the Church and some of the others you’ve listed. I have a video that came out for the album after Starfish and it has all of the Church’s music videos from the early 80’s to their end in the 90’s. If I can find it’s name I’ll pass that along. It should be cheap at your local used video/music stop.

ever listen to the Smiths?

Thanks, Mike Kelley
~~~~~
I’ll look into Blogger, but I’d really prefer something Linux-based, preferably Open Source so I can make changes to it down the line if I need a feature, and something using a database backend so I can rapidly make changes. If I’m going to change, I want to make a change that’ll give me lots of versatility.

I’m familiar with The Smiths but never really got into them. As far as Manchester bands go, I pretty much stuck with Joy Division and to a lesser degree, New Order. I think it’s Morrissey I object to, because I really enjoyed Johnny Marr’s guitar work with Electronic and with The The. Morrissey’s veganism (or is he just a militant vegetarian?) and asexuality just weirds me out, I guess.
~~~~~~~~~~
From: “Jeff Hurchalla”
Subject: cheap nic

Hi Dave, Don’t know if you’ve already caught this, but I got a linksys 10/100 nic at Best Buy for $5 after rebate ($10 regular) on Thrusday 4/26. I can’t say how long it’ll last, but at that kind of price I thought you and your readers might like to hear about it. The card is suppoosed to support 95/98/me/2000, possibly NT and macOS, and also has unsupported drivers for linux. On another note, I’m having the most horrendous time setting up networking in win98 imaginable. I used to work in Tcp/ip programming so of course it feels like it shouldnt be anywhere near this hard to do.. but that wasn’t using anything microsoft. Well enough complaining, as fun as it is 🙂 Do you have any suggestions for a web page to look at that goes in depth? I want to connect win98 computer to another win98, I’m using a linksys card in one and an NDC card in the other. The one with the linksys also has a Dlink card connected to a cable modem. I’ve attempted to set up internet connection sharing on the computer with 2 cards(it is 98se), but right now I can’t get either computer to see the other one. They are in the same workgroup. The ICS computer appears to have assigned 192.168.0.1 to the linksys(home) tcp/ip adapter, and the other nic in that computer is connected to the cable modem and working fine. For the other computer, I’ve set windows to automatically assign an IP address. Well if you’ve got any quick suggestions or places for me to look, let me know – I wouldn’t want you to waste time on it – I can do that for both of us quite easily! Take care, Jeff
~~~~~
Easy solution. Don’t set it to obtain an IP address automatically. Give the other (non-ICS) PC an address in the 192.168.0.x range yourself, with subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 and gateway of 192.168.0.1, then open a command prompt and try to ping the other one. If that works, specify your DNS addresses, then try pinging yahoo.com. I’m betting both will work, as will file and printer sharing if you turn that on (but be sure to unbind the Microsoft client from your Dlink card).

Unless you’ve got a DHCP server somewhere on the network, Windows will assign it a goofy address (in the 64.x.x.x range if I remember right–it’s some range that makes absolutely no sense) and you won’t see anything.

As for the NIC, that’s a nice price but I really don’t like to use Linksys cards. The Netgear card selling at CompUSA for $10 this week is a better card. I can confirm that Linux readily recognizes the Linksys, but the failure rate is higher than I like to see. Thanks for the tip though.
~~~~~~~~~~
From: “Al Hedstrom”
Subject: The Move

Dave –

I also want to move my stuff, but I’ll move it to a host and probably use something like Coffee Cup. One question: How are you moving all your archives? Page by page?

Al Hedstrom
~~~~~
Yep, I think that’s the way I’m going to have to do it. I’m looking into alternatives but right now I don’t see any. I’m going to set up a test server and play around with it. I haven’t downloaded my Manila site yet; it may be possible to extract the stuff. That’d be nice. If I can extract the text I can probably wrap the template around it and fake out Greymatter, but I haven’t really looked into it the way I should. Maybe next weekend.
~~~~~~~~~~
From: Mike Barkman
Subject: DMA problem

Hi Dave —

A small problem: I’m hurriedly converting my spare box for my son-in-law, as his second office machine has carked.

It has a Gigabyte GA5AA m/b with the ALi chipset and 100 MHz bus. The processor is AMD K6-II-350 and 64 MB of SDram. I’ve transferred his two drives over — Seagate medallists, one 6 GB and the other 8 GB. I cleaned off the c: partition and reinstalled Win98SE and his working software.

Problem: I enabled DMA for each drive and the CDRom; but it won’t stick — reboot and the checkmark has vanished.

Any ideas? I was transferring files over my network, and the speed was dead slow — that’s what tipped me off.

Cheers /Mike
~~~~~
Sounds like you don’t have the proper drivers for your ALi chipset. Download those from your Gigabyte’s site and install them, and chances are that’ll clear up the DMA issue.

01/19/2001

Dave Farquhar General , , , ,

Software of the day: SecurePC, from www.citadel.com . I spent most of yesterday evaluating it. The biggest thing it does that system policies won’t do is prevent the installation of software–in other words, it makes NT live up to the hype it’s had forever. I tried installing about 20 or so programs, using different methods to try to get around it, and I couldn’t. The setup programs either gave bogus error messages, told me installing software had been disabled, died outright, or crashed. In one instance, the setup program started, asked some questions, then told me installing software had been disabled. Nice.

The only things it won’t block are standalone programs, such as Steve Gibson’s self-contained gems, that don’t require any installation. But I’m not so concerned about those. For one, they’re rare. For two, they usually don’t conflict with anything because they don’t venture outside themselves. Their only danger is that they might be virus-infected, but that’s why we install always-on virus protection and push virus definitions.

The goal is to be able to set up PCs for use in the field, get them working right, then lock them down so as to keep people from breaking them by installing AOL and Webshots and every piece of beta software under the sun and break it.

SecurePC will do a few things system policies will as well, and its user interface is much nicer than Microsoft’s Poledit. Poledit will allow finer control of the control panels, so SecurePC doesn’t totally replace it, but the combination of the two will let you really lock a machine down. And frankly, even Windows 95 is pretty reliable as long as it’s running on good hardware and the user doesn’t mess with it.

But SecurePC is obviously targeting companies used to paying someone $100 an hour or more to fix PCs, because it runs $99. A 10-pack of the network version is $550. That’s a bargain for a company, but this would be incredibly useful in public computer labs in schools, libraries and churches, who frequently can’t afford that. It’s a shame. Hey, if it were priced lower I’ll bet some people would even buy it for home use. I have one friend who could really use it–it’d keep his 20-year-old brother from messing up his PC.

Tyrannical Security. This kind of software is a draconian measure, but what people all too often forget is that when a PC is sitting on a desk at work, it ceases to be a PC. It’s a CC–corporate computer, not personal computer. It’s a corporate asset, set up the way the corporation dictates. If the corporation says no screen savers, no Webshots, no stupid Yahoo news ticker, no RealAudio, then that’s law. Problem is, that’s impossible to enforce with the tools that come with Windows. But a third-party product to enforce them is a Godsend. Computer toys eat memory and CPU cycles, slowing it down and thus hurting productivity, and many of these toys are so poorly written as to make Microsoft look like a model of stability. Personally, I can’t wait for the day when Real Networks goes out of business. So these programs go in, break stuff, and then there’s lost productivity while waiting for the tech to arrive, then still more while an overworked tech tries to fix it. If we were to buy 1,000 copies of some security program that works and roll it out to everyone on our network, I’d be willing to bet it would pay for itself in three months.

The number of the day: 146. I use the Al Gore method of taking IQ tests. I keep taking them over and over again until I like the results. They say the 135-145 range looks like a genius to most people; the 145-165 range is a true genius. I’m accused of being a genius frequently enough that I’m probably at least a 135.

So since I climbed 22 points in a day, I can assume I’ll climb another 22 points today if I take another one, which will put me at 168–high genius level. Then I can take another one tomorrow, gain another 22 points, and apply for Mensa membership.

Or I can forget about it and get on with life. I think I like that idea better.

12/08/2000

Dave Farquhar General , , , , , , , ,

~Mail follows today’s post~

It’s my birthday today. Birthdays cease being a big deal at some point; maybe after age 21 (though the big deal about my 21st wasn’t my age; I had a program for my C class due at midnight–all I remember is it involved linked lists, I hate linked lists, and the only good thing you could say about my program was it did compile–and I had copy editing and Irish history finals the next day). I’m going out tonight; last night I ate out and went to a concert, so I guess I’m treating myself right in spite of this not being a big deal.

I realized at one point a few weeks ago that I’d accomplished everything I’d set out to do by age 25, though not always in the way or quantity I’d hoped. That’s a nice realization to come to. Hopefully I’ll have similarly nice things to say about my second quarter-century.

I spent yesterday continuing my dual-boot experiments. For some reason, all of my motherboards want to think my >8.4-gig drives are half-gig jobs. I don’t get it. They’re all reasonably new; but even my year-old Abit BP6 is doing it. Normally not a problem, but some utilities software yells “out of bounds!” when it sees it. Using a UDMA-66 controller solves the problem (the BP6 has an HP366 controller built in, and I have Promise Ultra-66 I keep around), but that alerts me to another problem: XOSL doesn’t want to work with either controller for some reason. I e-mailed the author about that; I know I’m not the only one who uses these things because a lot of people buy the line that they need a UDMA-66 or UDMA-100 controller if they buy such a hard drive. I’m hoping he’s got a workaround of some sort.

I’m hoping I can find a solution before deadline; otherwise the 98/Me dual-boot article will have problems. I can give my editor a different article–there’s certainly a lot about Windows optimization I’ve left unsaid in the seven pages I’ve written so far–but seeing as he specifically asked me to investigate this, I’ll feel bad if I don’t deliver something, or if I deliver something with significant strings attached. Strings are good for guitars, not computers.

And a good question. Someone asked me today about something that I interpreted to be about the build-to-order strategy of PCs, a strategy which Dell and Gateway have ridden to such great success. I held them up as examples that work, and Apple as an example that right now isn’t. They have 11 weeks’ worth of unsold inventory built up at the moment and expect to bleed cash again this quarter. I guess the lesson there is that having huge databases to analyze can help, and computerization of the ordering process can help you buy exactly what you need right when you need it, but computers are no better than humans at predicting the future. I.T. won’t solve all of a business’ problems.

I have no idea if that’s what she was looking for in an answer, but I think that bit about IT not solving all problems is something not everyone gets yet. Computers solve a lot of problems. They also raise expectations greatly, and they (and we) don’t always live up to them.

~~~~~~~~~~

From: “John W. Braue, III” <braue@nospam.ratsnest.win.net>
Subject: For the Greater Good
In your daynotes for 6 December 2000, you quote Chris Miller as saying:  “Lawbreaking is relative. Your greatest presidents, Lincoln and Roosevelt, bent the rules for the greater good[…]”.

Didn’t Hitler and Stalin bend (and, indeed smash all to pieces) rules for the greater good?  What they proclaimed to be the greater good, of course, but it’s difficult to hold a reasoned discussion when the tanks are bearing down on one…

If the U.S. is a democracy, then let us acknowledge , as Mark Bridgers wrote, that the law is the Will of the People (with, granted, a certain time lag), and that opposing it by demonstrations and civil disobedience, even for a “greater good”, is itself Undemocratic and, _ipso facto_, evil (how many people would be willing, in this day and age. to deny the truth of _vox populi, vox Dei_?).  If it is a republic, then let us acknowledge that the law is indeed the law, and then breaking it and getting away with it does not justify either that action or future repetitions of it.  And, if the U.S. neither, let us can all of this election foolishness, and get down to the serious business of coups, revolutions, and civil wars to determine which _caudillo_, machine pistol in hand, is going to enforce his vision of the “greater good”.

John W. Braue, III

~~~~~

Well, I didn’t want to think of it in exactly those terms, but yes, they did.

The best time to make a decision is usually not when we’re caught up in the moment, as that leads to haste. I find myself agreeing with what you say and not really having anything to add.

~~~~~~~~~~

From: Gary Mugford
Subject: My script and Bless the Sound Card

Dave,

“The guys over at Junkbusters have a different solution. Make ’em sweat. They’ve even got a script with questions to ask. Visit them if you’re sick of the bother.
“Print it out, then keep it by the phone. And when you pick up the phone and get that tell-tale delay, followed by an unfamiliar voice who mispronounces your name, pounce. “Is this a telemarketing call?” (That question weeds out the other annoying phone calls, like Chrysler and MCI Worldcom calling up because of billing problems–sorry, you’ve gotta deal with those on your own.) If the answer is yes, then keep going. “Could you tell me your full name please? And a phone number, area code first?” And they’ve got 12 other questions, where those came from.”

For years, I’ve had the dickens to try and talk family members OUT of talking with telemarketers. My mom used to get involved in the talk, apologize profusely for declining and then be mad upon hanging up. I gave her a copy of my script to use:

“I’m sorry, I must interrupt you. We do not accept over-the-phone solicitation. Please feel free to mail us literature. Thank you very kindly for calling, good-bye.” THEN HANG UP. She wouldn’t use it.

This works pretty well, except for the ones that DID manage to get mom to send them something. Long after the parental units were retired and moved down to the Lake, I would still get phone calls at their number. I finally went to the trouble to record the little speechlet and put the file on the toolbar to press whenever I got ONE of THOSE phone calls. Now, it’s answer the phone, realize what’s happening, double-click and hold the phone DIRECTLY over my speaker and then hang-up.

GM

~~~~~

That approach works too. The Junkbusters solution is legally binding in the States, though I’m sure Canadian laws are different so up north your approach is probably at least as good.

Of course, if I were to take your approach and I happened to be listening to some doom-and-gloom Sisters of Mercy or Joy Division when the call happened, that’d make some nice background–serenade them with some music that’s definitely an acquired taste while they get my schpiel.

Another suggestion I’ve heard was to put them on hold for five minutes, then come back on and sing showtunes very badly until they hang up.
~~~~~~~~~~

From: “Michal Kaznowski” <michalkaznowski@nospam.yahoo.com>

Subject: Re[2]: DPMI error while zipping windows

Hello Dave,

Monday, December 04, 2000, 3:06:44 PM, you wrote:

DF> Try downloading this. Put the executable files from this archive into the same directory as your Info-Zip executables. Let me know ASAP if that doesn’t fix it. (This is as painful as some Linux programs’ installations!)

Done.  It will probably work when I have mastered the syntax.  At the moment after running the csdpmi executables I get

ZIP I/O error no such file or directory

with your command line. I have also tried making a windows.zip file for zip to write to.

(MSDOS mode cd to C:zip run cwsdpmi etc then your command line)

DF> Thanks for your encouraging words on Optimizing Windows.

You have a nice line in understatement.  My brother, who is computer tech support for the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, tells me it is the best reference book he has ever used!

DF>  Unfortunately, O’Reilly cancelled the Linux book, so for now I’m just writing Windows optimization articles for Computer Shopper UK and taking a few months off from book writing while I decide what to do next.

There is an air of Linux taking off here in the UK and just recently {I have been looking for some time) two magazines have appeared catering for Linux use.

Linux Format (Future Publishing) www.linuxformat.co.uk

and Linux Magazine www.linux-magazine.co.uk

as well as the coverage in PCPlus also Future Publishing.

Maybe a series of articles in one or other could be the backbone of your Linux book on the back of the terrific reviews your Optimizing Windows had.

All the best,

Michal Kaznowski

(PS My kids thought the arch was terrific this summer – but I felt awful queasy up there).

~~~~~

What command line are you using? I seem to recall there was a typesetting error on one of the Zip commands in the book, though I can’t remember which one at this point.

I’m very much enjoying working with Computer Shopper UK, which I’ve hopefully expressed to the right people. I think they’ve done an outstanding job on my “Optimise Your PC” series, and I still sound American, even after translating my spellings to the British form. I’m trying to remember it so they’ll have to make fewer changes with the next one.

I’m not sure when I was last up in the Arch–it must have been 10 years ago. The slight sway in the wind always made me think the thing was about to topple over, though it’s survived minor earthquakes without damage so that’s ridiculous. I also remember it being pretty cramped.

12/04/2000

Dave Farquhar General , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

~Mail follows today’s post~

I’d forgotten how many telemarketing phone calls you get during the day. Blimey or something! How are you supposed to get anything done?

I had a classmate who used to mess with them. “You want to sell me windows? My house doesn’t have any windows, you see, because it’s a cardboard box. Sure, you can get phone service to a cardboard box. You can get cable TV too. I thought about a mini-dish but I’m not so sure my walls could handle the weight.”

He really enjoyed the roofing people, because he could tell them, in all honesty, “I don’t have a roof.” Hey, when you live in an apartment building, if you’re not on the top floor, you don’t.

The guys over at Junkbusters have a different solution. Make ’em sweat. They’ve even got a script with questions to ask. Visit them at www.junkbusters.com/ht/en/telemarketing.html if you’re sick of the bother.

Print it out, then keep it by the phone. And when you pick up the phone and get that tell-tale delay, followed by an unfamiliar voice who mispronounces your name, pounce. “Is this a telemarketing call?” (That question weeds out the other annoying phone calls, like Chrysler and MCI Worldcom calling up because of billing problems–sorry, you’ve gotta deal with those on your own.) If the answer is yes, then keep going. ” Could you tell me your full name please? And a phone number, area code first?” And they’ve got 12 other questions, where those came from.

I’m vacationing in beautiful Mehlville, Mo. as I write. Before you get too excited, I live in Mehlville. (It’s a St. Louis suburb.) My boss’ boss e-mailed me a while back and said, “Go on vacation!” so I did. Gives me a chance to catch up around the place–there’s a lot I’ve been neglecting.

Plus it gives me a chance to work on that last article for Shopper UK.

I’ve been reading Guts, the business strategy book by former Chrysler #2 man Robert Lutz. Lutz was the driving force (or a major driving force) behind all of Chrysler’s bold experiments in the 1990s before Daimler-Benz swallowed them. Interesting reading for anyone interested in business or the auto industry, though I’d have liked to see more of a memoir from him. Lutz didn’t graduate high school until age 22. How do you go from graduating high school at 22 to No. 2 man at Forbes’ 1997 Company of the Year? No matter how successful you are, there are lessons to learn from this guy. Obviously there’s more to him than an MBA, a stint in the Marines, and an interest in cars, and I want to know what that is.

I’m guessing there’ll be more later. No idea when. I’ve got a really hairy question from an Optimizing Windows reader to figure out.

~~~~~~~~~~

From: “Rodrigo Zamora” <rzam@nospam.cox-internet.com>
Subject: Sound Blaster Value
From what I have read the SB Value is exactly the same thing as the more expensive models except that it does not include the daughter card which has extra connections.  And it obviously didn’t have the LiveDrive which only comes with the Platinum.  However, this is not an issue since you can purchase these devices as add-on upgrades either from Creative or clones from another company.

The newer Values came with a Digital output which the older versions did not have.  In fact, it appears that even the AC3 Dolby Digital feature supported in the newer 5.1 seems to be only a  software (driver) update.  In other words, it seems that ANY SB Live! can do AC3 support with the right driver.

By the way, where did you hear that the Values have been discontinued? Creative still sells them on their site.

Rodrigo Zamora

~~~~~

The Value is a slightly different card, see http://www.byte.com/feature/BYT19991020S0006, and also http://alive.singnet.com.sg/features/products/. The main difference seems to be the quality of jacks used; when doing voice recognition or recording, you’ll notice the difference. Chances are you’ll notice a difference in output quality as well, though I haven’t tried the two cards side-by-side myself to confirm. They do use the same chipset, and some of the Value cards seem to have digital output capability, while others don’t. (My Live! MP3+ makes even a cheap pair of desktop speakers sound really good; connected to a stereo it’s nothing short of awesome.)

I’m pretty sure that I read in the Dragon NaturallySpeaking forums that the Value was discontinued and replaced by the MP3+ and Gamer (the difference in those cards is the software bundle). And the Value, though listed on Creative’s site, is out of stock there. I did find the card over at www.mwave.com priced at $47.

So for some uses, there’s little difference and the Value may be a way to save $40. But I will say the software that comes with the MP3+ is definitely worth the extra money if it’s at all useful to you.

I found a third-party daughtercard, at www.hoontech.com; any idea who makes the LiveDrive clone? Creative’s is pretty pricey; if the clone is less expensive, I’m sure there’s a huge market for it.

Thanks.

~~~~~~~~~~

From: “Gary Mugford” <mugford@nospam.aztec-net.com>

Subject: This and that

Dave,

   I actually saw, on the shelf for the first time, your book at Chapters, Friday. Still full price. Bought it anyway as a Christmas present. Worked wonders for my tech guy’s appreciation of his software guy, if you know what I mean. I’m sure it’ll be appreciated by its intended recipient, too.

   Dirty333 crashed rather spectacularly last week. It’s been a week of getting Tookie up and running to take its place. (segue to explain the names: The machine was an Win95B AMD K6-333. There was a famous player in the Canadian Football League named Jim Young, nicknamed Dirty 33.  I’m a lapsed jock journalist. Tookie’s a Win2K machine born in 2000). I lost a day’s worth of work to the crash and four days re-installing everything and getting the settings just so. All in all, I’m happy about the move, save for the switch over to a modern Logitech keyboard from the old 84-key keyboards that I’ve used since forever. Just why the hell is that damned capslock key STILL being put there long after the alternative for emphasis became font and style changes, rather than capping? Not to start a holy war, however.

   On the other hand, as a disinterested third party, I still have some reservations about the American election just past. I have no quarrel with the basic concept that a lot of people voted for an agenda they prefer. I do have a problem with some people who voted AGAINST one candidate or the other, as that’s an incredibly stupid way to cut your nose off. Better to waste the ballot, then to do that (I’ve probably wasted half the ballots I’ve ever cast, because nobody earned my vote. And to make it obvious, I would mark off EVERY box). But it seems a lot of people voted against Gore. And I think that had a part to play in the Bush victory.

   We don’t directly vote for Prime Minister in Canada. So, I’m never put to the task of deciding I like my local guy and hate his leader, or vice-versa. I’ve got no choice. And so, apparently, did you [G]. One’s supposed to be a ding-dong (my one meeting was pleasant, brief and non-opinion-forming) and the other was so stupid, he blew an easy victory by wanting to be his own man. One’s supposed to be a leader, but has never been anything more than a figurehead, except when he was losing money looking for oil in Texas, while the other was a very active partner in running the country (and the back room). The nitwit Nader was right in one respect, both of them were the same guy with slightly different accents.

   The difference was in the political apparatus behind them. That’s all. Bush will be a one-term president, as his father was. And the family failure to not keep promises will be his undoing. That it was the gridlock in Washington that will have forced him into recanting, will be forgotten in ’04. Gore will also go the way of the Quayle and nibble away at the fringes. Whether Gephardt or Kerry or whoever runs, they will beat Bush. They will be repeating the winning mantra of the ’90s, “It’s the economy, stupid!” And the American populace, longing for the good old ’90s will march to the polls and reverse the error of 2000.

   As far as Florida is concerned, it’s hard to see how either side can pretend to the moral high ground. The Democrats actually put in WRITING how to deny overseas ballots. And Gore’s supposed to be the bright one, right? But that was balanced by the Republicans delaying legal recounts, going to court first, arranging for out-of-town ‘ordinary folk’ to show up repeatedly to exercise their fully-paid for First Amendment rights and they repeatedly made mistakes over-reaching whatever was in their grasp at the moment.  The election day-after cabinet posing was designed to fool the umpire, but there was no umpire. The citing of Nixon’s consession to Kennedy despite Daley’s dad’s malfeasance in Illinois overlooked the fact the state’s electoral votes didn’t affect the outcome one way or the other. Calling the hand count tabulators all kinds of names, including suggesting illegalities when monitors from both sides were there, was assinine. Arguing against standards for assessing a questionable vote that were no less forgiving than that of the Texas law signed by Bush was the equivalent of Gore’s absentee ballot crushing screwup. But the rallying cry in ’02 will be the Republican refusal to recount the whole state and after-the-fact attempt to squash the recounts that DID take place.

   Even I could run that PR campaign. “Make it clear to the Republicans, your vote DOES count… this time!”

   So, on behalf of all Canadians, we say to you Americans, “Thanks for the entertainment! [G]”

   Regards, Gary
  ~~~~~

Thanks for the purchase! I’ve yet to see the book in a store myself. Of course it won’t sell if people can’t find it… O’Reilly needs to get it into stores before they have any right to complain about its lack of sales. Sandy McMurray’s review and the subsequent run on the book up north should have said something, I would think.

You just gave me an idea on machine names, and how to remember their IP addresses. This computer’s name is George Brett, and it’s 192.168.0.5; this one’s Mike Sweeney at 192.168.0.29. Problem is, I don’t know that there are five Royals whose uniform numbers I remember quickly, and do I really want to name my gateway after Buddy Biancalana or Rey Sanchez? But I’ll definitely name the Packard Bell I deny owning (I didn’t buy it new!) after Johnny Damon since he’s being the biggest putz since Jose Offerman. He deserves to have a piece-o’-junk computer named after him.

As for intelligence in U.S. politics, Gore’s supposedly the brighter one, but I remember seeing a video clip where he and the esteemed Mr. Clinton were touring Monticello, and Gore pointed to a picture on a wall and asked, “Who’s that?” The tour guide replied, “Well, that’s George Washington…”

I’ve never met a flunkie who didn’t recognize Washington (his face is all over the place, after all, including the one-dollar bill and the quarter, so you can’t spend money without seeing him occasionally), let alone any intelligent person who’s been in the United States more than a week.

General consensus is that Dan Quayle is smarter than both of them.

~~~~~~~~~~

From: “James Cooley” <c_closet@nospam.dnai.com>
Subject: Yer Mom’s Great!

Dave,

Ah, your mom is great! Has Jerry Pournelle seen this? Would make a splendid addition to his stumping against ADD in the classroom.

As a computer repair guy myself I have a motto to share: “Focus on the solution, not the problem.” Regards,

Jim
~~~~~

Thanks.

I’m sure there’s not much room on Jerry Pournelle’s reading list for my site. Of course, with psych being one of his PhDs, he’s certainly qualified to talk on the subject.

Hasn’t Jerry said before that he probably would have been diagnosed as ADD in his youth, and in reality his “problem” was that he was better-read than a lot of his teachers and was just plain bored and unchallenged? (I’m doubly fortunate in that regard; I’m not as bright as Jerry and my teachers always bent the rules and let me work above my grade level to make sure I was adequately challenged.)

Good motto, especially if you remember that the easiest solution often involves cable connections and system logs.

~~~~~~~~~~

From: “Michal Kaznowski” <michalkaznowski@nospam.yahoo.com> Subject: DPMI error while zipping windows

Hello David,

If you have the time, might you be able to point me to the easiest solution of a problem I have been having when using info-zip to zip a windows installation.

I get:

load Error no DPMI – Get csdpmi*b.zip

I am aware that Protected mode is required, but what is the easiest way of obtaining this.  I am mostly using 98SE (And Slackware 7.0 and SuSE) to install for friends, family and some that pay(!) and would prepare boot disc just to be able to run zip and unzip on the backup as described on page 201/2 of your guide to life and computers.

Your book is a raving success with my friends (what few I have as I like computers) and numerous copies have been purchased.  We are all looking forward to your definitive guide on a version of Linux so that we can all use it without the pain we have at present

-Best regards, Michal                         

~~~~~

Try downloading ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/v2misc/csdpmi5b.zip. Put the executable files from this archive into the same directory as your Info-Zip executables. Let me know ASAP if that doesn’t fix it. (This is as painful as some Linux programs’ installations!)

Thanks for your encouraging words on Optimizing Windows. Unfortunately, O’Reilly cancelled the Linux book, so for now I’m just writing Windows optimization articles for Computer Shopper UK and taking a few months off from book writing while I decide what to do next.

~~~~~~~~~~