What makes you happy ?

Do I install av software on the reinstalled machine?

Yes:
- viruses are bad
- its expected that you do

No:
- malware is much worse
- av eats more resources than it ‘gives back’ in results
- safe practice is most of the battle against virii anyway

So right now I’m veering to No.
I do have spybot installed and hijackthis available. Clamwin is a purely on-demand solution which sounds okay but I have yet to dig around for reviews and comparisons.

Got av?

J’s laptop went off with a broken screen. It came back with a new one. And a heap of software install issues. HP admitted that if I sent it back all they would do is format the drive and replace the OS. So that’s what I’ll be doing tomorrow. It’s about this time tomorrow dban will complete for my machine. Not so bad - I have the weekend to play some games.

And for those that follow it, isn’t the trolling on rab great right now? Though I have a feeling it’s a regular behind it…

At the start of the book “Designing the Obvious”, the author Robert Hoekman has this screenshot and he rightly points out that to a user it means nothing.

It’s a Windows error. It gives me no choice, no real information and it is not helpful.

is equally useless.

Apple error messages can be just as bad if not more so - I could sit pressing ‘Try again’ repeatedly because I have no clue as to why it was happening.

Dear Hewlett Packard,
Where you choose to locate your support centres is entirely up to you but at least make sure the phones lines are crystal clear and that the people blindly following the yes/no flowcharts speak into the microphone properly. It’s one thing trying to understand the accent of someone for who english is a second language and the difficulties of this are compounded by the quietness of the person speaking.
Tell them to speak up. Turn the volume up. Either would be nice.

Also, when someone phones and says all the drivers are up to date, that your own diagnostics indicate a fault, that the bios is up to date and that the add / remove hardware has also been tried just send that already annoyed person to repair. Making them jump through all your flowchart hoops is annoying.

So opening new windows from your site is a bad thing - I get that and I agree with that. It’s irritating when it does so. But I think there’s a case for an RSS link to open in a new window.

Currently:
Find interesting blog
Click Feed link
Go to ‘add to Google reader ?’ page
Click to Add
Click again to Add
Wait for feed to load to be able to click the title to return to the blog

That’s clunky. I don’t read a full blog before adding it to the feed list, and I don’t always remember to ctrl-click. I know this last is my fault but making feeds open in a new tab/window means I get to stay in the blog and I also get a tab to deal with the feed. Make sense?
Maybe there’s a GM script…

Very nice indeed. Another reason to not like Plesk :)

Update: http://www.cpanel.net

The router reports 3600 download speed
Wireless gets me 950
Wiring it directly to the router gets me 950
Changing the filter has no effect.
Rebooting / resetting the router to defaults has no effect
MTU changing has no effect.

So….. either the router is lying or .. something. I used to be able to get good dl speed and nothing has moved / changed.
BT to blame? I’d put lots of cash on it.

Current projects:
- get a cron script going that every night zips the whole domain and saves that to another domain by ftp. I’ve 2gb of ISP space that’s going to waste - and it’s html only space so otherwise is fairly useless - so putting it to good use will save some work should the domain go down. I’ve around 550 db backups of a few sites but without the images / files a db backup is only of some much use. I hit a couple of problems with the script though - and being unable to figure it out help is now being sought.

- setting something up here that backs up with a couple of clicks. I want to use the main machine as the backup but unless I make it really easy it won’t get used by the ladies of the house. I’ve not yet looked for the solution but I don’t think this one will be hard to find.

We had some painting done today so I currently possess a ‘paint headache’. Nice.

They might be pre-installing Linux, they might be selling XP machines but they just installed something nasty on their machines too. Despite having excellent performance from my Dell, and despite being perfectly able to remove that spyware/malware/adware that is one reason why I’d certainly not buy one or recommend one to anyone. Bad bad bad.

A productive day:
The aging Dell is now installed upstairs with sound, a new webcam and a new desk for P. So that’s her very happy.
D is happy because she also got a new webcam and cleared the Dell up for P so speeding it up.
My PC is now the Family machine.
J is using what was D’s laptop because she can’t sit so well at the main one.
And I’ve got the mini and ext. HD working well too.
All I now need is an enclosure for the second IDE HD that was in the Dell and an antenna for a PC.
And that should be us sorted for a while.

Next on the list: a laptop for me. I can use the one J uses after she has gone bed but it would be nice to work (and chill) a bit more by not being sat here all the time. So…. Windows machine, get a Macbook/Pro now or wait until June/July (I think?) for when the new ones are revealed. No idea yet.