No Longer Fantasy

We signed the papers this afternoon and are the official Cartridge World Ann Arbor owners. All your ink are belong to us!

And, as an added bonus, I can as of today accept all major credit cards for my HTTP computer work.

How cool is that?

Deep in another midweek

The aforementioned elder PC was a viral hell hole. There's no sugar-coating it. It was a good candidate for a large nuke and rebuild.

I persevered tho, and found all the nasties what had collected within. I think I got 'em all, anyway. There were trojans, worms, and redirects (oh, my!). I really don't think they were there when I finished it last because:
* They're typically not subtle. The horror begins right away, they don't hide and wait.
* The updates and scans stopped on July 11, several weeks after I returned it.
* I'm just not that incompetent.

So, I got windows update back on track, and the spyware and virus checking. I had to uninstall AVG (too broken to work and a reinstall didn't help) and install Avast. Aside from the pirate connotations, I think it is a sound product and a good go-to. I also installed a new app of which the interwebs spoke highly: SuperAntiSpyware. Is that not the stupidest name ever? Works like a bottle of acid poured right on the drive, though. Recommended... so far.

Right now, the healed beastie is sitting here, continuing the post SP3 updates, and I'll return it later. And it jolly well better behave itself this time or its the nuke.

Here's another topic: When I arrive to an office appointment and the client has gotten all tangled up in a project that has to be finished right away, I am understanding, cuz it happens to us all. But. Is it too damn much to ask that he CALL ME and reschedule? He's got three other people in the office who could have rung me up to warn me. So am I wrong to institute a new item on the bill of fare, for just such an occasion? From now on, anyone who doesn't give me a shout when something comes up gets billed a cancellation fee of one-half of one hour labor.

I want to hear Gary's take on this -

A new week's blogginess

You can smell the freshness. At least, I think that's freshness.

So today, we went to the Ann Arbor Cartridge World to see at there is to see.

Well.

We have our work cut out for us, that's for sure. We take possession Thursday afternoon, and we'll start instituting a few changes shortly thereafter.

Tuesday, I'll be out early, picking up a PC. This is a rather, um, old school, unit to which I had given the once-over a few weeks back. The complaint is that it has a viral infection. OhhErr! I shall have to see what all that is about.

When I fixes 'em, they stays fixed. The owner alluded to, 'What did we do wrong?' and I mean to figure it out, and gently educate them to the correct way things are done.

No other real news here. The month may well end quietly, which won't be such a bad thing.

Friday

Thursday, usual WRN of the morning, at which I was given a laptop to work over - usual performance issues. Thats ok, usual is good. I can work with usual. Later on Thursday, I went to Milan Dragway - it was a joint chamber outing by the Milan, Monroe, Ann Arbor, and Ypsi chambers.

Having never been there, I must say it was a hella good time. I haven't seen funny cars like that since I was a kid.

Anyway, so for Friday, I returned the laptop, then helped another client with setup of a Vista laptop, and went to a new client's house. They wanted to set up a KVM switch; typically a simple thing, but the Logitech wireless optical mouse just would not play well with it. When I'd switch over to another laptop, the mouse would go away, and usually take the wireless keyboard with it. When I connected a USB mouse to the switch, that problem went away. There was still a USB issue with the laptop (the USB bandwidth was exceeded... WTF?) so I uninstalled and reinstalled all the USB devices.

So, what else? We close on Cartridge World next Thursday. I have to admit that the excitement is tempered by a bit of terror.

New Toy!

The spectrum analyzer came today. Very sweet.
I'm tinkering with it to get the hang of what all the readouts mean.

I've been doing a bit more selling of devices that I thought I might, so I applied for the State Sales Tax registration. Oh, well.

I've also started the process to accept credit cards. I find more and more clients who'd like to use plastic, and who am I to turn them down?

Back to analyzing the, um, spectrums.

Teeeyuuuusday

Today, we break our fast with the Saline Chamber of Commerce at the lovely Brecon Village. Then, off to answer a client's QuickBook related questions. Then off to meet the client with whom I have contracted annual service.
And... wait for it... he's not there, again, even though I made an appointment.
That pattern is getting a tad old, there, boss.

We're getting a quote for the window/water feature. I bet that will sting a little.

And, I've put in a bid for network expansion at the chamber of commerce, as they rearrange their offices.

Gotta get as much as possible before I'm out for two weeks.

Monday

Today was something of a change.

We (the wife and I) spent the better part of the day at the Milford Cartridge World. Now, why on Earth would any sane man do that, you muse, much less with his own wife in tow?

Well, you see it behooves us to learn as much as we can about the CW process and way of doing things, given that we close next week on the purchase of the Ann Arbor CW store. Immediately thereafter, we fly off to Emeryville, CA, to attend two solid weeks of training, and then, on August 18th, we open the store that is entirely ours.

Getcher cartridges right here. Inks and toners as far as the eye can see.

This time next month, we'll be at the store full time, gradually transitioning to part time as we get staff who can run it without close supervision.

So, anyway, we drove back from Milford through a torrential, blinding downpour, and then I went to Dexter through the very same weather event. Whilst in the fine city of Dexter, I visited a business that had asked me to swing by and examine their wireless setup. Since I don't yet have my spectrum analyzer (Wi-Spy 2.4 - Very Very Cool Toy!) I had to eyeball it. Not too hard really, as I think most of the shortcomings were fairly obvious. If they like, and I hope they do, I can come back next week and do a proper site survey.

Go have a look at the analyzer and tell me it isn't the coolest thing you've seen today.

Tomorrow should be rather busy as well...

All Weekend Long

So it seems the aforementioned spider monkey was wrong, wrong, wrong all along, as well as awfully annoying. The router I set up while he was babbling on and on was set up wrong, so it didn't hold the IP assignments over night. Fixed that Saturday.

Also Saturday, I took care of a laptop that had an unfortunate habit of loading the HP drivers every single time it was booted up. Disable the Cue Discovery Service, my son.

Sunday, went to a new client's home and found their ancient, underpowered machine. It was a bit slow, they said. 512MB RAM is barely enough for WinXP, it surely isn't enough for WinXP and every pig utility from Symantec. And I mean every one of them. It was painfully slow. I did my best and strongly suggested a RAM upgrade, and removing Mr Norton.

The original complaint was that the Palm Desktop software had somehow truncated the contacts list such that there were no records past S. I found that there were records, but they were largely blank. Ghostly Backups were no help; they were the same. There's no telling how long this had been going on. Lesson Here: Archive the important stuff to a separate file and Verify Your Backups.

Oh, and the machine was suffering a BSD error about every week or so. This error (0x0000007F, 0x00000008) is Symantec puking up when it loads the Firewall app; they provide a registry fix on their web site. I noticed that the Norton Firewall didn't load after the fix; now the client uses Windows Firewall.

Then, off to the club to put back the office PCs that I've had for about two months. The renovated office is nice, and the PCs are fast(er). It's a great step up from what it was.

Nope, no tanks

Not the subject after all. We will do modeling later, today was systems development. Ya know - developing the understanding of what drives complex systems to better define the problem set and plan a strategy. It had something to do with fish...

No other jobs today, the day-long off-site took all the oomph from the day. The house painting continues (in this heat, too, oy!) and I've scheduled a visit to take care of the failed window. Long story - its nay so much a window as a funnel from the master bedroom to the front room bay window. Could be an indoor water feature.

Friday, I'll go for regularly scheduled maintenance at a business down Jackson Road, then we go to the bank to settle some financing, then we have a conference call with a legal representative. Suffice to say, something very large is in the works. Also, we're going with the bank that had the Can-Do attitude, and was willing to work with us in any way possible to get our business (2 accounts in this case): Midwest Financial Credit Union. Recommended.

I think I may have a couple of calls over the weekend... we'll see.

Humid Blather

That line is stolen - extra points to him that tells us from where.

Wednesday, we (I) went to drop off the viral mess that I tidied up on Tuesday. Then off to the Ypsi Chamber Coffee Clatch at Bombadill's. I like Pete, the owner. He rides his bike to work everyday, the lucky stiff. I would do that in a heartbeat, but for the looking like swamp-thing when I arrive.

The house is being painted by the skilled crew from Certa... now if the rain holds off, it may get finished before the snows.

Went over to a client and installed their network. Its a wired setup of 2PCs and a Mac, sharing a DSL line. The PCs have never seen an update, so it will be a long slog through updateland for them. I made sure they had security apps installed before going online... so sense putting them in harm's way.

Today, Thursday, is this month's get together in the Saline Leadership program. We investigate mental models today; I'm hoping for Spitfire, or maybe a tank.

After that day-long event, I'll drop back in on the new network and see that all the updates are coming along. Given my time this week, it will likely not be completed until Friday.

This same office also has a strange problem with their QuickBooks 2005: The company file is hosted on PC A, and must be opened on PC B before PC A, or when PC B tries to open it, the file appears locked by PC A. Whats up with that?

A thin slice of pain

Today I had three things to do, only one of which brought actual discomfort.

I started off by optimizing a home/business PC. It was really pretty much there, but needed a little tweaking, and some random crapware removed.

Then, off to finish up the home network that I started yesterday. Installing the external drive is trivial - plug it in and it works. Connecting the router was a little trickier, since the DSL modem decided it would rather not play nice and seized up. I had to call Bangalore, or some such place, to have a jackal read me a script. No trouble shooting, no explanation of my observation of the problem; but a lot of condescension from him. Just a script. He may as well be automated. So after he noticed that everything I said the first time was true, and just power cycling the bloody thing didn't work, he did what I asked him to do in the first place and got the modem back on line. Then he started trying to explain to a mentally challenged dolt like me how to get an IP address assigned, and I lost it.

He seemed perplexed when I mentioned that the reason the IP address wasn't getting assigned was that the NIC naturally assumes a subnet 192.168.1.* and he had me change it to 192.168.2.*, so I repaired the connection and it was all better. He asked me to look at the google page page. I told him I was already looking at a web page. He repeated his request... and I hung up on the little spider monkey.

Enough was enough.

So - last anecdote of the day comes by way of Lesson Time. Write this down: the application, Antivirus XP2008, is very, very bad mojo. Do NOT download it.

Its the sort of malicious plague that first you pay to download, then it turns your wallpaper into a warning sign, tries to open a million browsers, removes task manager, and generally renders the PC useless. I have an Optiplex GX260 that I'm cleaning up for another customer. He'll get it back tomorrow, all shiny and fresh. And let that be a lesson to him.

A Note On Firewalls

The other day, Zone Alarm released a new rev that works with the MS update that killed it (KB 951748).

I re-installed ZoneAlarm on a Desktop running XP Pro SP3. Runs fine.
I failed to re-install it on a desktop running XP Home SP3. The install fails after complaining that the file is not a Zone Alarm install file. [WTF?] So I decided to experiment with other third-party firewalls. I installed Comodo on the XPH box.

Fired right up, has no issues, easy to use; and free. I think I may recommend it.

I still have two XPH boxes running SP2 and Windows FireWall. So far so good.
And the Vista laptop runs Windows FW as well. DId I mention I broke down and bought a laptop? HP Pav9700, 4GB RAM, 1GB Video RAM, 500GB HDD, 17.1" screen. Lovely.

So where was I?

O Yes, crabbing about rain. How nice to have a little while without any. My house needs paint, and now it looks like I may get it done. I've hired the fine folks at Cert A Pro Painters. You can contact Ernie Starr via the WRN link to the left.

Now, back to me. I spent the Saturday, drenched in the rain, helping the parade get going at Saline Celtic Fest. Absolutely fabulous, yannow, aside from the torrential downpour. Sunday was... a blur. Cannot recall a single detail.

Monday, I had a 9:00 with a client in Milan, sorted out their performance issues, and was able to help them with the decision to go ahead with a home network. They have 2 PCs - one connected directly to the DSL modem, the other on dial-up. Take the plunge, I say. Go ahead and wire them both to DSL. I bought them a router and external HD, and we'll finish tomorrow.

Then I drove to the west side and had lunch with a cohort from WRN (Ivan Clemens of Print Tech). We had a good discussion about things both business and not-business related.

I stopped by a client I hadn't seen in awhile after lunch. They need periodic maintenance, so I was able to negotiate a very favorable annual contract with them. They also would like a bid on a custom PC build, and a reasonably priced server. How cool is that?

This is going to be a very busy week.

The day in review

Have your heart medication handy - its thrills-aplenty.

First, the weekly meeting of the Washtenaw Referral Network. You can get to their web site via the link to your left. Its always a good meeting, and I think I've really gelled with the group. Well, I think so anyway; I've no idea what anyone else thinks.

Then off to beautiful Stonebridge for the NetWorks! luncheon hosted by the Ann Arbor Chamber. Saw a lot of people I knew and met a few I hadn't. The featured speaker focused on the topic of LinkedIn. I'm a pretty vocal proponent of networking, and LI is another way to get to know people. Obviously, you get out of it what you put in to it, and everyone's mileage will vary. But - I felt the speaker did a pretty lame job of actually developing a sense of a business reason to join LI. First, and foremost, shouldn't you develop a sense in your audience of the importance of the subject of your talk? Shouldn't you tell them why they should care?

Well, I spoke to a few other attendees afterward, and they were not real impressed either. Its a shame, too. I think that social networking has a lot of potential, but if you can't explain the potential to people who are not invested in the technology, you'll never convince them.

More Good Reasons

To want to smack someone around.
If you are using Zone Alarm, the wizards of Redmond have slipped you a new wrinkle. Update KB951748 affects the range of ports used by DNS, which means it will use ports outside the range that ZA expects to see, so it stops the connection. Pretty slick. Your choices are: disable ZA until this blows over and use Windows Firewall, or uninstall the update.

Its a PITA either way.

So Today

I optimized a laptop, and I stayed out of the rain.
Can we have some more rain, please?
I haven't turned on the sprinklers yet; why would I?
I'm sure someone will try to tell me how its the fault of global warming that we're getting rain now. Its all GW: it rains, it doesn't, its warm, its cold.

So I'm about done building the desktop for a client. I swear, I'm never buying another off-the-shelf PC as long as I live. I'd forgotten how much fun it was to build it yourself. It will be a shame to let it go.

I need a laptop, like right now. I've been looking at them online. Isn't it possible to get one with a HDD @ 7200RPM? Whats up with all the 5400RPM drives? If I could build one, I would.

Up and At Em

I had two voice mails when I woke this morning. No, it wasn't that late.

One, the township had their router problem solved. I had diagnosed that their Nortel Passport 2430 T1 router was dead and had ordered them a Nortel 1001. The 1001 directly supersedes the 2430, and is about half the price of a Cisco 1841. That was, until the county IT guy dropped in and replaced the unit. Seems the county owned it all along. Who knew?

Second, I got a call of another storm-related problem. Last week's storm fragged a client's server. They replaced the power supply, but did not get any joy. On arrival, I noted that the PC would begin to POST, but shut down after about 2-3 seconds without any BIOS beeps. Kinda like a thermal breaker defending against a short. So I took it back to the shop, where it did start the POST, and gave a lot of BIOS beeps. Like, all of them. The pattern was fast and hard to pin down (it was like this ST:NG episode wherein Picard tries to convince an alien race that he is sentient by knocking a sequence of prime numbers. Sorry - geek interlude). So I started card swapping and found that the IDE RAID card was the one that died. Even tried a different slot, and no difference. They were happy to get it back, and back to work.

Except... they were already online without the server. I walked in with it on my shoulder, and I see they're already working. They have a network in name only - its all done through the router. The 'server' is basically a storage shed. An old, decrepit storage shed. They asked me what it would take to upgrade the whole system. I said only about 6 grand.

Yeah - the current set up works right now, lets not fix it so fast.

So tomorrow, I'll pick up one of their personal laptops to optimize and secure.

Thats fine, they really don't have the resources right now to start replacing their whole infrastructure. They even have a Win98 desktop in the system. What are ya gonna do? The mindset I want to project to my clients is one of cooperation - You tell me what you want to do and what you can spend. We'll work with what we have. Few companies right now can afford to just upgrade everything.

A long days journey into weekend

So how will you spend your glorious three-day weekend? I don't chafe, per se, when people ask that, given that I haven't any income if I don't work, so a prolonged period of slacking off does me little good. I always hope that while others are off doing their bit to stimulate the economy, I can do mine by answering the needs of their customers.

And so I shall. This fine weekend, while you gorge your pie hole on brats and, well, pie, I will be:

• Building a PC from scratch. I ordered a barebones kit for a client; its a quad-core, 4GB, half-terabyte behemoth in a very cool case. High-end video and sound... its pretty sweet, and fun to build.


• Setting up a laptop. A client accidentally destroyed his laptop, so he bought another and handed it right off to the professionals.


• Helping out the township. It appears that their router/firewall appliance bit the dust in that last storm. Their usual nerd being out of town for the 4^th, they called me. There is signal as far as the router, but no connectivity through it. Before they drop about $1200 on a new one, I'm going over Saturday to do a little more digging.


• Sunday, I'll drop off the new laptop to the happy client, an might pick up a couple of PCs that the owners would like cleaned, or if that is too expensive, scrapped. No problemo; I'll burn a DVD of their data and commit the rest to the briny deep.

I'm actually amassing quite a pile of scrap. I should take it in soon to recycle the metals. I enjoy being able to provide a proper burial for the PCs that finally go their resting place.

The other day, I met with some former co-workers. Of the four I keep in touch with, two haven't developed the intestinal fortitude to move on (Gary! Darren!) and two have gone on to better opportunities (Ronda! Keith!). There are enough positions out there that one needn't tolerate sketchy financials and dodgy management. No one stays on at a company for 30 years anymore; you seldom see people in white collar jobs standing still for more than three or four.

Change is a scary thing, but its better on your terms than theirs.

Updates

As in, application updates.

Are you up to date on everything?

Its kinda difficult to be on top of it all. There are helper apps out there you could install to get a handle on it, but a) I don't know for a fact that they aren't spying on you; and b) who needs another resident background process?

I just read an article on TechRepublic regarding the number of Google users who are surfing with out-of-date browsers. (Yes, mac kiddies, that includes Safari.) Its a rather significant number, and it raises a question: Who has time for all this?

Updates apply to productivity programs (think MS- or Open Office), OS, browsers, and plug ins (Flash, etc). That can be a large number of programs, although many of them include their own update modules that go online and query update servers (Adobe, Apple, HP, Microsoft, etc). Of course, that means that you have little applications running around on their own schedules, more or less out of your control, updating themselves on their own initiative.

I like the way Ubuntu handles this. The OS is in charge of keeping all the installed applications up to date, and it will notify when new updates are available, so they can be installed when I'm ready. That, for me, is graceful and respectful of my time.

Short Week, Shorter Post

So its a Tuesday, and I'm enjoying the ennui of another holiday-abbreviated week. Is that the right word, ennui, for 'everyone's on bloody vacation and don't want to think about their bloody PCs'? I think it is.

Anyway, Monday I went to the Grand Opening of the new Wings, Pizza n Things, over in the new strip mall at Michigan/State. Nice owners, good decor, a very admirable beer selection.

So, all in all, nothing is moving here. I'm awaiting the parts I ordered to begin assembling a PC for a client, I have several clients who need to get well/back from holiday/their act together, to get their PCs optimized/cleaned/set up.

CMon people now, smile on your service provider.