Robert’s Ramblings

The clock is ticking towards the release of a faster and generally more robust operating system for PCs. As many of you know, Windows 7 will be released in two days. What does this release mean to you? The most immediate impact is that it will become increasingly difficult to find any machines with Windows XP. Vista was so unpopular that Microsoft allowed Dell and other PC makers to offer downgrades to XP. Most of my customers chose that path and paid an extra $100 for the privilege.

Once Windows 7 is released, Microsoft will try to never talk about Windows Vista again and will instead tout the great new improvements in Windows 7. This is not without precedent. The same thing happened with Windows Millennium Edition (Me). Most people have forgotten about Windows Me but it was the worst operating system that Microsoft has ever sold—far worse than Vista. It followed the successful Windows 95 and 98 and preceded Windows XP which was arguably the most hardy PC operating system produced by Microsoft so far. Maybe magic will strike twice and Windows 7 will be a huge success and, more importantly, be a solid replacement for Vista.

If you are a reader of this blog, then you know that I have been testing Windows 7 for some time. I have also been reporting about features that I find useful or interesting. I have found one that makes Windows 7 worthwhile to me. That is the “BitLocker To Go” feature. This is an extension of the BitLocker functionality that Microsoft released with Windows Vista Ultimate. BitLocker is still only available on the Ultimate version, but now comes with this additional feature that enables the complete encryption of external hard drives or USB thumb drives. I find this extremely useful because I am always worried about losing a USB drive with important documents or pictures that I would not want a stranger to have. With BitLocker To Go, I can live in peace knowing that my data is secured.

You enable it by inserting the removable device into the computer and then starting the BitLocker application. Once it is started, you tell it to encrypt the USB drive and give it a password. It takes care of the rest. The next time that you insert that USB drive into the computer it prompts you for the password before you can access the data on it. If you provide the password and check off an option on the screen, the PC will recognize that drive and make the files available each time that you plug it into that specific machine without you having to retype the password.

If you are wondering if that USB drive will then work on an XP machine, you are in luck. It does. When you insert the USB drive into the XP machine, it prompts you for the password and loads an application that lets you copy the data off the device and use it. However, one of these encrypted drives will not work on Apple Macintosh computers.

If you are like me and are worried about your laptop being stolen or lost, you can use BitLocker to encrypt the entire drive of your machine. The process is straightforward and works automatically. It takes a long time to process initially, but once completed, you have peace of mind. That hard drive’s data will be inaccessible without your password. This is the case even if the drive is removed and put into another machine.

To me, these two related data security features are enough of a justification for upgrading to Windows 7.

I am normally wary of any claims of power savings, recycling or turning green made by large corporations. I know that most of the claims are just lip service to the environmentally conscious amongst us. However, I read some news today that makes sense. It seems that the MySpace web site has dumped all its hard drives and switched to solid state devices that are like the thumb drives that most of us carry around. Doing so has reduced the power consumption at the their data center by an astounding 99%. Now that is what I call socially responsible action. It  makes sense from both an environmental perspective and from a power cost savings.

I have a data center in my office and power consumption is now my third largest expense after payroll and rent. It has become such a large expense that I have been looking at ways to trim it. My efforts have been concentrated on replacing older servers that were less efficient with newer ones and also consolidating wherever possible. With this news, I now have another avenue to explore.

MySpace’s move is smart. It is economics coupled with ecological responsibility. Bravo!

Robert Alonso
Alonso Consulting

Everyone is so concerned about Windows 7’s stability and performance that little has been said about the user interface improvements. I have been using the final code now for a couple of weeks and have begun to notice some of these easily overlooked and misunderstood improvements. For now, I will only discuss one that I really life.

Windows 7 introduces a new user interface concept called, “Libraries.” When you first install Windows 7, there are four default libraries. These are:

• Documents
• Music
• Pictures, and
• Videos

Anyone who has been using Windows for a while will recognize these types of files as being part of My Documents and other like named folders. What makes this a different type of structure is that a library can contain multiple folders on your machine that contain whatever file type you designate. For example, the Music library on my machine contains three folders that have music. One is the folder “My Music” on the “C:\” drive, the other is the public folder for music on my machine and the third is a network location where I store some music. Windows 7 determined these locations from my usage of them in Vista prior to the upgrade. It could not have been from scanning my machine because it missed a large amount of music on my “D:\” drive.

Far more interesting than what Windows put into my library for music is that I can tailor it to my needs. I can add and delete folders that contain music. When you use File/Open or other file based tools including Windows Explorer you are presented with the libraries as if they were folders. You can thus manipulate and use related file types from one location regardless of their real location. The allowed folder locations are:

• C:\ Drive
• External Hard Drive
• Additional Internal Drive
• USB Flash Drive (as long as certain conditions are met)
• Network (as long as the location is indexed or has been made available offline)
• Homegroup

Please note that removable media like CDs and DVD are not supported. Libraries can contain up to 50 folders from the allowed locations (above). You can set the default save location for new items that you save to the library and you can also change the type of file that the library is optimized for. This makes for a very easy-to-use way to categorize your files, access them and save them.

Robert Alonso
Alonso Consulting

Adobe recently released a version of Photoshop for the iPhone. It is a great little  program that makes it easy to edit photos that you have taken on your iPhone or photos that you take using the program. You can crop, resize, and flip your pictures. It also includes ways for you to adjust the exposure, saturation, and tint of your photo. Many other options are included which is surprising for a free iPhone app. One that I thought was interesting was an Andy Warhol-like series of cubes with different tints. This is called, “Pop” in the application.

The user interface gives you tips on how to use the software. Once you are familiar with it, you can turn off the tips. I loved this feature and it is an excellent example of how good software should be written. Another feature that I think is fantastic is the undo feature. You can make as many changes as you want and then undo them if you think you have made a mistake or do not like the result. The “save” function will save the image in your “Camera Roll” and does not overwrite the original photo. I was unsure about this and was quite nervous to save my creation because I did not want to overwrite the original. I should have known that this would not be a problem.

The program will also allow you to upload to photoshop.com. I have not tested this feature yet, but you can sign up from within the program. I recommend this iPhone app wholeheartedly. Get your copy now!

One of the most amazing things about NASA’s flying a rocket into the south pole of the Moon today was not the rocket, explosion or analysis that will follow, but instead the minimalist control room that was used to direct the rocket to its intended location on the moon. If you had a chance to see it on television, you would have noticed that the control room was about the size of a large conference room. It had several computer monitors and some laptops. This is in sharp contrast to the huge control room that was used in 1969 to direct the first Moon landing. Computer technology has advanced so much in the intervening forty years that one of the engineers packed up his laptop and power cord shortly after the explosion and walked out of the room carrying it. If one of the engineers had decided to walk out with his computer in 1969, he would have needed a crane to lift the massive computers of the time.

I was very young when man first landed on the Moon, but I was fortunate enough to see it live on a small black and white television. It was one to those amazing and never-to-be-forgotten moments of my youth. I am hoping to witness a new landing on the Moon or perhaps Mars in my lifetime. If it happens, I will be able to watch it in high definition on a huge flat screen television set. I will be able to record it to Blue-Ray disks for future review and will also be able to direct my friends to watch specific moments of the landing on YouTube.com or Hulu. I don’t know about you, but to me this is all amazing progress. My hat is off to the engineers of this world—especially the ones who brought us the transistor and integrated circuit.

Having lost Norton Ghost’s backup functionality when I upgraded to Windows 7, I began looking for an alternative that would keep my machine safe in case of a catastrophe. I have years worth of documents on my machine that I do not want to lose to a virus or hard drive crash. I looked at third party software and open source options and found that nothing is ready for Windows 7 yet.

Since Windows 7 is not being sold on retail shelves yet, one could argue that I was being a bit unreasonable in my search. However, you would think that someone had developed software for Windows 7 backups in advance of the release of the operating system. It turns out that someone did–Microsoft.

Windows 7 comes with an integrated backup program that will create images of your hard drive and will also backup files incrementally. I decided to give it a try. The following screen shots and text show how to set up the backup software.

Type “backup” in the search box that comes up when you click on the Windows Start menu. You will see a program called, “Backup and Restore.” Start it. Once you do, you will see the following image.

 
Click on “Set up backup.” A dialog box like the one below will be displayed as the software scans for backup destinations.

Read the rest of this entry »

The bane of all PC users existence is malware, virus, trojan and spyware infections. It can make the PC unusable, send out hundreds of unsolicited SPAM messages to your friends and colleagues and/or consume a day or more of time to remove it. The lost productivity and tech support costs can be significant. Fortunately, there are commercial and free applications that do an adequate job of protecting against malware. Kaspersky, Trend Micro, Norton, McAfee and AVG are all good solutions.

Microsoft has finally decided that they should offer protection—something I believe should have been part of the operating system since the fist malware was ever detected years ago. The new offering is free and is called, “Microsoft Security Essentials.” You can download a free copy with updates from here.

I recommend that every reader of this blog install one of the anti-malware products mentioned here. If you don’t, one day you will discover that your machine is infected and that you have very little recourse but to call tech support. If you have tried the free support from companies like Dell, then you know that their solution is to do a system restore from the manufacturer’s CDs. You will lose your data if you do this. Paid support like the one my company, Alonso Consulting, offers will result in the removal of the virus and the saving of your data, but it will not be free. It is, therefore, in your best interest to install one of these tools now. What are you waiting for?

Robert Alonso
Alonso Consulting

Products mentioned:

One of my favorite tools for backing up my Vista machine was Norton Ghost 12. I had it set to automatically back up My Documents to an external drive on Tuesdays and to make a complete image backup of the hard drive on Fridays to the same external drive. The best part of this was that it ran in the background and was scheduled for times when I would be out for lunch.

Although not perfect, this backup strategy saved me from losing my Vista installation once. Something I installed, or a virus, caused my system not to start and to display a black screen with a blinking cursor. I took out the Norton Recovery Disk, booted from it and restored my entire PC from my last image backup. This process took a few minutes and left me with a completely functional PC.

Unfortunately, I do not have this safety with Windows 7. Norton Ghost 12 and even the newer version 14 do not work properly with Windows 7. The Windows 7 upgrade process even recommends that you uninstall them before upgrading. This is something that I ignored, hoping that the incompatibility would be minor and I could still use the program. I was wrong. It does not work properly.

The Symantec message boards have some messages saying that Norton Ghost 15 will include support for Windows 7. It will also feature user interface improvements and added functionality. There is no release date announced yet, but I can’t wait.

Robert Alonso
Alonso Consulting

If you own an iPhone, there is good news from AT&T today. You can connect your phone to iTunes and an update will be downloaded that enables multimedia messaging from the phone. It enables the sending and receiving of photo and video messages to other phones. The functionality even works across networks which means that you can send to Verizon Wireless users and to other wireless carriers. The update takes about two seconds to download and install automatically. That being said, why are you still reading this, get on with it…

Robert Alonso
Alonso Consulting

Gizmodo, a very successful blog on gadgets and technology, uncovered information about a prototype tablet computer from Microsoft that is in the late stages of development. This is remarkable because Microsoft kept this device secret for a very long time and also because it could remake a company lately thought of as a technology has-been into cool and exciting again. The device uses the portfolio metaphor and opens up into two seven inch screens that can be manipulated by touch with fingers or with a stylus. The tablet shields the user from the operating system and works like a tool that a business person or student would use to take notes, doodle, set appointments and take pictures. It does not give you a Windows-like experience, but instead a very cool, super-iPod or super-iPhone experience. The following video gives you a sample of what the device can do.

The device has one button and has indicators along the edge of one of the tablets for displaying battery power and Wi-Fi connectivity. At this time, it is unknown how the device will be charged. The back side of one tablet has a camera with flash. Pictures of the camera lens indicate that it will be 3 megapixels and that it will also have a 4X zoom. It is not clear whether the zoom is digital or optical, but I’d bet on the former. I can easily see this device being used to read books or newspapers in full color and with a page flipping metaphor. (Watch out Amazon Kindle and Sony PRS-505.)

If and when Microsoft releases this as a product, the device could eliminate the need for notebook computers while travelling. From what is visible in the video, it has excellent handwriting recognition. The tablet user in the video writes an Internet address in the browser and is taken to the site. Perhaps this will also work with some yet undisclosed email client. If you can have your schedule, a note taking device, a web browser and email in this handy form factor, why would you lug around a notebook or even a netbook. It is not known if the device will offer any entertainment options, like the ability to play music. If it does, then Microsoft will have a hit on its hands and will finally have a tool that can take away the “cool” designation from Apple.

For pictures click here.

Robert Alonso
Alonso Consulting