Cool Country Consulting Blog

In this edition:

Important News
Potential AVG Problem for Dialup or Small Download Limited customers

Tips
Firefox 3 arriving soon...
A new Security Scanner - Secunia PSI
Reminder: OpenDNS

Trivia:
Free online First Aid course
Ripoffs of the Month
Oops! I almost set fire to a computer!
That Flat Batt
Reddit Imroved.
Read @ Work

Potential AVG Problem for Dialup or Small Download Limited customers

There is a new feature in AVG called "AVG Safe Search." It's designed to give you a warning when you go to Google, Yahoo, etc if any of the resulting pages are malicious. However, their approach to this problem is a little unique! In the background it invisibly opens up each page in the search results to check if there are any nasties on it. This has some side effects.

1 - If you're on dialup, you know how long it takes just one page to load. Opening 10 pages at once in the background will take an unpleasantly long time.

2 - For any Internet connection, if you're paying by the amount you download; opening 10 pages at once could eat a fair chunk of your allowance each time you go a'googlin!

Fortunately it is quite simple to turn off this feature if you don't want it.

For Internet Explorer 7, click the Tools menu and choose "Manage Add-Ons." Click on AVG Safe Search, and then click Disable, OK.

For Firefox 2, click Tools and choose "Add-Ons." Click on AVG Safe Search, and then click Disable, OK.

In rare cases, it is rumoured that this feature can go completely nuts and repeatedly download the same page over and over in the background - one report on the net showed someone's computer downloaded the same page 20,000 times in a day. More information about this new feature and it's side effects are available at http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/13/avg_scanner_skews_web_traffic_numbers/

Firefox 3 Coming Soon...

Mozilla has made some significant improvements to their Firefox web browser, and is expected to release their newest version on Tuesday. They're aiming to set a world record by getting at least 1.6 million downloads in 24 hours, so there's a chance that your computer might automatically fetch it if you're a Version 2 user.

The biggest improvements are in speed and memory usage, along with a nice new address bar that automatically searches for things you've been to before when you type words into it.

As usual, for safer browsing I recommend you download it and also install the Adblock Plus and Flashblock add-ons (by clicking Tools --> Add-ons), since malicious advertising is a major source for viruses and spyware. You will be able to get it from http://www.getfirefox.com/ . It also appears to be faster than Firefox 2 on Dialup due to less precacheing. (I'm using a preview version.)

Oh and of course, my absolute favourite feature of this new version is that it can remember the zoom level of each website you've been to. The writing on laptops is after all usually too small, so by having it remember the zoom level for each site, it saves the hassle of doing Ctrl + or Ctrl - each time you go to a new site. There's an add-in called "NoSquint" which also allows you to set a default zoom level for every new page.

A New Security Scanner - Secunia PSI

Many viruses and spyware programs take advantage of known vulnerabilities in programs on a computer in order to infect them. Most people use virus scanners, etc, in an attempt to catch these things when they happen. For example, there are some bugs that spread by sending a poisoned PDF file to Adobe Reader. When an older version of Adobe gets one of these, it dies, giving control of the computer to whoever wrote the bug. Likewise, QuickTime can be poisoned. So too can that Adobe Flash player thing that you might have seen at some point. Java, too, can be attacked. So can Windows itself, which is why every second Tuesday your computer (hopefully) updates itself with that little yellow shield thing near the clock, taking care of Microsoft's own vulnerabilities.

Of course, not all viruses and spyware work this way - lots of them use lies and trickery instead :) (For example, popping up a box saying 'spyware found on your computer - click here to fix it', which translates to 'click here to download a spyware program which will pretend you have a virus and ask you for some money to buy a program to remove it.' etc.)

If you're a paranoid or techy type, or even just curious to see what out-of-date vulnerable programs are on your computer, there's a great new program called Secunia PSI which scans your computer and tells you what's out of date, as well as giving you one-click buttons to update the relevant programs. It's free from https://psi.secunia.com/ - although it's still quite new and occasionally sits there for a minute looking like it's doing nothing, so don't worry if it seems momentarily lifeless - it's just distracted :)

Reminder: OpenDNS

Many of the more expensive antivirus programs will check the webpages you visit against lists of known bad sites - but this slows down your computer as it has to look up each page each time. You can offload this task to a company called OpenDNS for free by changing one setting on your computer. (Changing your DNS server to 208.67.222.222). If you want to know more, ask me or check out http://opendns.com/

Free Online First Aid Course

I'll admit I haven't actually done the course myself yet - but I really should as it's been 14 years since I last did one. St John Ambulances is running a free online First Aid Course website at https://www.ambulance.net.au/onlinecourse/login.asp - so if you've got 30 minutes spare it might be worth a look. (Fortunately no customers have tried to die on me - at least not while I've been on call!)

Rip-Offs of the Month.

How Much

A customer called me because she had a virus on her computer and she'd been quoted $700 by a local franchise competitor to repair it - that price apparently including $120 just to make a backup before doing any work, plus a new copy of office since she'd lent her disk to a relative. $120 for a backup? Blimey! It's really not that hard for us techs just to hook up a removeable hard disk and copy the Documents and Settings folder - takes about 10 mins of our attention max, then we just leave the computer for an hour and come back to it when it's done.

It turned out to be a typical sypware attack and I had it gone in about 40 mins. Total cost after other work to tidy up and help protect the PC: $65.

I get mildly burnt on eBay

A customer had a bad screen on his laptop. Buying a replacement screen is about $200 to $300 normally. In this case there was a matching model laptop on eBay with an apparent intermittent fault with the laptop turning off without warning. (Not unusual for that older model of Toshiba.) So I ended up getting it for $350, figuring I'd have some valuable parts left over after swapping out the screen. None of that quite went to plan this time around.

1 - The laptop would not power up at all when it arrived - no power light at all.
2 - The screen, when swapped, didn't fix the problem so the customer's laptop had a more serious fault that would be beyond repair.

I soon discovered why the laptop was sold. Some bugger had spilt water on the touchpad area, and by the time it had arrived here the water had rusted through parts of the mainboard. A reminder to you all, of course, that if you get anything electronic wet, remove all batteries so this doesn't happen!

In the end, I'll probably not make a great loss as I'll be re-selling most of the parts on oztion.com.au where listing is free. (I've decided to support http://oztion.com.au over eBay for the time being since I don't like eBay's strategy of forcing people to use PayPal. Nor did the ACCC - more on that at http://apcmag.com/how_ebay_trashed_its_brand_for_the_sake_of_profits.htm .)

Oops!

One nice thing about computers is that they're normally standardised. However, this isn't always the case, and I had a reminder of that recently. A very early model Optima computer had a fault that would not allow it to take more than 256M RAM, so it was decided to replace the motherboard. However, the front panel USB connector turned out to be wired in an unusual matter despite the connector being keyed to fit a standard motherboard connector. As a result, when it was turned on, it short circuited 5V through the thin wire, burning off the insulation and creating an impressive cloud of smoke. No real damage fortunately, although the owner did hurry to turn off the smoke detector! Similar traps have existed throughout the years - such as early Dell computers which had power boxes that looked identical to standard ones, but which were wired differently. Connecting a Dell motherboard or Power Supply to a standardised (non-Dell) part usually meant the sudden destruction of one or both components!

The Flat Batt

In the Kingswood there is a box called an Inverter. It takes power from the cigarette lighter and gives you a working power point. (Or in my case a 6 way power board.) Very useful. However, occasionally it catches you. The Friday before the long weekend was a long day, with lights, heater, etc, running, and also a laptop hard disk replacement which was done under battery power while I had lunch. (Takes about an hour to copy a hard disk.) Then there was a long weekend. Then Tuesday. The first job was a long one and flattened the battery of the laptop. So, during the next job, the car charged the laptop, and flattened itself instead! (50 watts for one hour is not normally a problem for the battery, but after Friday and the long weekend, it was.) Fortunately I was parked on the highway and it wasn't hard to push the car up to 5k/h and then rolling start it in second. I guess it really is time I bought that high capacity battery for the laptop!

Reddit Improved!

Reddit is a site that lists sites that are most popular at any point in time, much like Digg and others. It's a bit America-centric by default, but now has an easy to use section where you can choose what sorts of stuff you do or don't want to know about. A warning of course that it might take up a fair bit of your time if you get addicted. http://reddit.com/ - Also in case you don't know, if you ever see something that says NSFW, that stands for "Not Safe For Work."

Read @ Work

OK and now for the final story for this newsletter. Someone with too much time on their hands, has created this 'read at work' website which takes the contents of a few books, and makes them look like typical office work! Good for a laugh, might get you fired? http://readatwork.com/

Old Editions
You can find old editons of this newsletter on the CCC Blog. http://auzzie.net/cccblog/

You can also subscribe or unsubscribe at http://auzzie.net/mailman/listinfo/ccc-news_auzzie.net

In this edition:

Important News
Reminder: End of AVG 7.5
HP / Compaq laptop fault (HP DV series, Presario V series)

Tips
Fax2Email

Trivia:
VoIP Maturing.
The Odd Jobs of the last month.
Petrol Prices
Ubuntu / Unix / Linux

Reminder: End of AVG 7.5 in 6 days.

Just a quick reminder for those of you using the old AVG that you need to upgrade to the new free version in the next few days.

You can get it from http://free.grisoft.com/ww.download?prd=afe

If you want to try a different free virus scanner instead, there is another one called Avast - free from http://www.avast.com/ - but don't forget to uninstall your current virus scanner before installing one of these since computers with two or more virus scanners often crash.

HP / Compaq Laptop Fault.

HP has made a number of laptops that are suicidal. It appears they have set them up with insufficient cooling and so they barbecue themselves to death. (No fire hazard, just a somewhat diminished lifespan.) I've seen a couple of laptops fail from this already in the last two months. The update causes the fan in the laptop to run for a longer time to prevent an early death.

If you have an HP laptop, look for the model number - usually on the top right corner of the screen. If it says dv-2000, dv-6000, dv-9000 or similar, you might be affected. The actual model number is underneath - so check it against the list on http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01087277&lc=en&cc=us to see if you need to update the laptop.

This issue also affects Compaq V series laptops (V3000/V6000)

It's really hard to know what's a good laptop these days! Every brand has it's good and bad runs. Toshiba had a bad run in 2005-06 with some laptops, HP has had issues like this, Dell has had issues. Ironically, the laptop I've seen with the least issues of late are the cheapest $600 Acers!

Email2Fax, Fax2Email

Faxes are slowly dying out. There are a number of services on the Internet which offer to replace your fax machine and more importantly your fax line. If you're an Exetel customer you can get this service already. UTBox is another company that offers a similar service, but quite expensive compared to Exetel. (http://www.utbox.net/)

It works in two ways:

- Email to Fax: In this case you simply email whatever you want to fax to faxnumber@fax.exemail.com.au and put your password in the subject line. It costs 3 cents per fax (up to 10 pages) anywhere in Australia.

- Fax to Email: In this case, you pay $1 per month for a dedicated fax number, and any fax sent to that number is delivered to you via email. The only issue here is that the fax number you get is going to be a Sydney / Brisbane / Adelaide or similar number, not a local regional number.

Of course, if you want to fax something that's on a sheet of paper, it's hard to beat an old fashioned fax machine. You can still use it on your main phone line to send such faxes, or use your fax's 'scan for email' function instead.

If you're a business user, if your accounting software has an option to email accounts, and you can get the subject line to stay the same on emails, then you could use this service to add fax capability to your existing software.

Sorry - this newsletter's a bit short on content, but I wanted to get the HP notice out to you so those affected can get your laptops fixed before they die on you! The remainder of the newsletter is the 'rambling' section :)

VoIP Maturing

After much trial and error with different equipment, I'm now reasonably satisfied that I've found some reliable combinations of VoIP providers and equipment. A $125 integrated ADSL VoIP modem with Exetel or MyNetFone WhirlPool Saver is the way to go. I am doing discounted exchange / upgrades for some clients with older equipment that is not performing as it should.

The Odd Jobs of the last Month

Super Slow Laptop

I've actually had three of these this month. The symptom is that it takes your computer literally 1 minute to do the most basic thing. Click Start. Wait a minute. Start menu appears. Some have reported that it only happens when their internet is connected. Turns out it's an unexplained occurence of the Windows Update service breaking down. If your computer suddenly develops this issue, try clicking start, choosing run, and typing in 'net stop wuauserv' and pressing enter. If your computer is suddenly happy again, you've got the glitch - which incidentally is easy to fix but involves deleting a few files so get in touch if you need a hand.

Where's the Black?

The printers seem to be breeding in the office! I've had three printer repairs this month where the black simply stopped working. This usually happens with bad cheap inks - especially pigment inks. Fortunately I have some specialised cleaning equipment that has a moderate success rate. They're frustrating buggers to fix at times 'tho - typically you get one colour sorted and another one buggers off!

The Accounting Dilemma.

I know a lot about computers. I know somewhat less about accounting software although I have done a course in both. What I do know is if you have a problem with your MYOB or QuickBooks, they want to charge you through the nose for help. In one job I tried to help a customer move from a very old QuickBooks version to a new one, and after a few hours we had to give up since neither us nor Quicken could work out how to get the old info into the new version. (It didn't like provisional tax, etc.) Fortunately they didn't charge us for their time although they did sell us an upgrade we later found we didn't need.

Later, another customer job took almost 6 hours of experimenting to try to migrate from one system to another while selectively retaining information. It's always a bit of a dilemma to me when these sort of jobs come around - because you have in your mind that if you knew the system well, the answer might be simple; but finding someone who might know those answers (and might not) is prohibitively expensive and the customer has asked you to see if you can work it out instead. Generally I don't charge the full time on these, since it's an involuntary learning experience.

My preferred answer, of course, is to get the customer to deregister from GST and / or use the free tax office software E-Record instead since it doesn't have all this licensing, closed system rubbish that comes with these unwieldy accounting programs - but of course that doesn't suit many of these customers because of their requirements.

(I was particularly surprised one time when a customer had a friend get them started with MYOB, setting up the information on her own computer, and later giving it to said customer when they were ready for it - only a few months later to be told by MYOB that they have to pay a fee to get the license of the data file transferred because the data file (not the damn program!) belonged to the customer's friend and not the customer. It didn't matter to them that the customer had bought their own copy of the program.)

Schni schna schnappi schnappi schnappi schnapp

I wonder how many of you remember that viral song? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izibSMAQhEY - A young girl sang it in the radio in Germany and for a little while there it was one of those worldwide internet / radio phenomena.

I mention it here as a segway to the next story. A customer called to say their kids had snapped their screen half off their laptop. (In this case, an ASUS laptop.) Laptop hinges are quite prone to failure as they get older - either through screws getting loose in the hinge area, or through the hinges tightening to the point that they cause the plastic to break instead. In this case, the kids weren't entirely to blame even tho it appears they did drop it. Some of the screws had come loose and the remaining screw holding a nut into the plastic casing broke away from the plastic, causing the screen to come away from the laptop. A couple of small modifications later and it was back together albeit not quite a strong as before.

The said kid who dropped it was pleased to have me back up her story that she hadn't been overly rough with it!

So, if your laptop had developed a wobble in the screen - feels a bit loose - it might be a good idea to either tighten the screws yourself (which are usually hidden under rubber covers) or get someone to do that for you ;-)

Petrol Prices

I often read about why Petrol prices keep going up. There seem to be two arguments at this time. Some claim it's Peak Oil (where they can't find and extract enough oil to cover the demand, so prices rise) while others are claiming it's Futures Speculation by Hedge Funds. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JE24Dj02.html is the last item I read to this effect. If it is the latter, then we're probably going to be happy soon when they over-gamble (or whatever it is that these people do - I'm not knowledgeable about this stuff yet) and their system crashes bringing the price down with it. If it really is Peak Oil instead, then I guess it's never going to come down. So, I've been thinking to myself at what point does this really worry me, and at this stage I think $3 per litre is the point where I'd start to look at alternative means - or at least have to increase the minimum callout rate.

How about an electric car?

If I had the $10,000 to $15,000 to spare I'd be converting either the spare Nissan Bluebird or the Merc 190b to electric. It's such an easy thing to do once you have the parts - as you can see by watching the New Zealand series at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83_Zig2vZlQ&feature=related - and the 70 mile per charge maximum range would suit most of my days, with about $1 of electricity max to recharge - somewhat less with offpeak. (Besides, it'd just be fun to do.)

Unfortunately my disposable income budget doesn't stretch that far (yet) so how about...

An electric bike?

I recently bought for $120 a 200 watt electric scooter just for a bit of fun and to see how they're made - because I can use most of the parts anyway if it turned out to be cr*p. It will run 8km on a charge in the hilly Black Mountain terrain and could easily be upgraded to go further - but it's not entirely practical for on road use out here, and of course I later found out that they're illegal in every state except Victoria - so now it's only used for exercising the dog.

It is, however, legal to put an electric motor on a bicycle, although the Australian laws are somewhat backward in this regard only allowing 200 Watts ass opposed to the UK 300 Watt limit and the US 750 Watt limit. As those of you in Guyra have probably seen, you can get away with putting a petrol motor on a bicycle at higher power levels than that legally - so the disparity is unfair and certainly doesn't encourage green electric transport on this scale. (I might have to learn how to get political on this one - any tips? The Tory party in the UK is working on changing the laws there since they, like Australia, currently also ban Segways.) Nonetheless there are a few legal low-powered kits available but with a starting retail price of $1,000 they're not exactly cheap. I don't mind peddling, and ran my business for a few years on abicycle in Bourke where hills were a novelty; but hills here are a bit of a pain ;-)

There are of course other more common options with price tags to match - from Vectrix scooters to the Tesla Roadster. For now the Kingswood's still the roost ruler, although the scooter may yet be 'grafted' onto the bike one weekend!

Ubuntu / Unix / Linux

You might have heard of one of these at some point. They're usually mentioned by 'geeks' as a way of getting rid of Microsoft.

I've tried a few out of curiosity, and they are certainly improving. Basically instead of running Windows XP or Windows Vista, you run something else that is free, and does the same things as Windows does without all the licensing costs. The latest Ubuntu can also be installed in Windows without having to wipe your hard disk etc so you can try it without risking stuffing up your computer.

I have it running on my laptop so if you're curious to see what this third option (as opposed to Windows and Mac) looks like, I can give you a demo.

In this edition:

Important News
AVG update information
Some problems with Equipmentless VoIP

Bargains
Halogen Heaters

Tips
VistaStartMenu
Learn to Touch Type the fun way.
A Thing that goes Bing?

Trivia:
Entertaining Websites.
Big Brother fans.
Exetel activation down to $88
The Odd Jobs of the last month.

AVG Update Information

About 70% of you use AVG Free Edition. As a result, most of you will by now have received a message from AVG recommending that you get AVG version 8. Just like two or three years ago when this last happened, the message largely entices you to go and buy a high-fallutin' version which is overkill for most people - to the extent that it's not clear that there's still a free version.

There is a free version still, and you can get it from http://free.grisoft.com/ww.download?prd=afe

I am not sure how long version 7.5 will continue to work for - at a guess probably a month or two. It may magically turn itself into version 8, but that's not known at this time.

It appears that part of their reason for this upgrade is to offer you a new yahoo toolbar and AVG security toolbar - so they're hoping you'll use these to search for things and thereby earn Grisoft (AVG's authors) a commission along with some useful internet usage tracking. (It seems every program you install these days wants to install a toolbar so they can earn revenue from a search engine!) These components are optional of course. If you're on dialup or a low download account I'd suggest you don't install the toolbars as they will add some traffic to your connection when you're on the 'net. For all people I'd also recommend you don't ask for a daily scan when setting up despite it asking for one - it's always scanning in the background anyway and a computer doing a full scan is usually a bit slow and annoying!

The free version download is just under 47 MB in size, so it will be very difficult to download if you're on dialup - approximately 5 - 10 hours to download if you don't get disconnected. So, if you're on dialup and you do want to download it, you might first want to download "Free Download Manager Lite" from http://files.freedownloadmanager.org/lite/fdminst-lite.exe which will allow you to continue downloads even if your line drops out and you have to reconnect because it continues from where it left off rather than starting again. (It's about 2MB.)

If you don't want to download the new AVG, email me with your postal address, and I'll post you a copy on CD for $10 - to cover the cost of CD, Burning, Postage, time :)

Some problems with Equipmentless VoIP

A few of you who are using the 20c untimed equipmentless VoIP thing have had trouble with the exchange not calling you back. I am keeping an eye on this situation. Exetel has made some noises on a private forum about introducing it as a product in it's own right - so with a bit of luck that will happen in the next month or two, bringing greater reliability with it. If you do have a problem with the service, please email or WLM/MSN me and I'll pass the problem on to Exetel for investigation.

Halogen Heaters

This newsletter's biggest bargain is not high tech. It's the Halogen heater - usually to be found for about $20 in supermarkets and cheap shops like The Warehouse and The Reject shop. There are two advantages these heaters have over other heaters.

1 - They're cheapish to run. At only 1200 watts when on high, they use half the power of most fan heaters.
2 - They radiate some of their heat directionally. This means you can be in a big cold room, have one near you and keep warm despite the cold room. (They also work well in bathrooms - much better than those silly in-roof heaters that heat the top of your head while you shiver! The manufacturer doesn't recommend use near water however so use common sense!)

The two downsides. 1 - About a 50% chance of one of the three bars failing within one year of use, and 2 - Dogs and cats - especially black ones - can singe their fur if they lie too close.

Not sure what they look like? (The heater, not the burnt pet) Click for a picture :) http://www.onix.com.au/internet/product_display.aspx?rec=78

VistaStartMenu

One of the nice features in Vista that is not in XP is the ability to type in the first few letters of the program you want, and it comes up for you. (Start Menu Searching.) There is a handy free program called "VistaStartMenu" which gives you that feature in Windows XP. It's free from http://www.vistastartmenu.com/index.html

Learn to touch type the fun way!

The best thing about touch typing is that you can type without having to look at what you're doing - which makes you more efficient. It also gets you envious stares from the typing-challenged ;-) Chatting online is one way to get a fast typing speed, as you eventually get the feel of where the letters are - but if you want to be a true touch typer you need to know a couple of little tips.

The first tip - and this might be all you need to start learning - is to look at your keyboard's F and J keys. You'll find there's a little notch sticking up from them. Those are the keys that the fingers directly next to your thumbs go on. If you stick your hands on the keyboard and ensure that those two fingers stay near or on those two keys, and just use whatever finger is closest to the key you are after, you could probably adapt from a medium speed two finger peck to a low speed touch typer - and of course the more you do the better you'll get. (I started out as a three finger typist initially - one finger for shift and two for everything else.

Now, that's all well and good - but perhaps you want something a little better? There's a great free program called Stamina Typing Tutor at http://www.typingsoft.com/stamina.htm - it will teach you the basics initially and gives you a picture of the keyboard on the screen so you can see where the keys are without looking down - but the best part is that you can change it over to 'phrases' mode and get to type in some occasionally rude phrases. It makes rude noises if you make a mistake, and has some background music as well.

A Thing that goes Bing.

Every few years I decide that I want a clock that chimes on the hour. I go and look for one, try it, and it works for a bit then crashes and gets forgotten about. My latest find at http://www.blaiz.net/CHIMER.HTM has so far been faultless. I'm using the 'Elegance' sound setting which basically just sounds like a triangle hit per hour for the number of hours. It does have more raucous settings of course if you want them.

Entertaining SItes

Here's a couple of recent entertaining sites.

Misheard Lyrics http://www.pajiba.com/misheard-lyrics.htm - here's a quote from there. (May have some rude words.)

I definitely thought for the longest time that in "You Oughta Know", Alanis was singing "It's not fair to remind me of the cross-eyed bear that you gave to me". Cross-eyed bear? Whatever, I was like 10. (Editor's note: The correct lyric was "It's not fair to remind me of the cross I('d) bear that you gave to me.)

Rules of Thumb http://rulesofthumb.org/ - Take these with a pinch of salt, but some are curious :) Here's a couple...

If you don't want a cat to jump into your lap, don't make eye contact with it.
A farting horse will never tire; a farting man is one to hire. (?? - Ed.)
If you are using a rope with a knot or a sharp bend, you should assume that its strength is reduced by 50 percent.

Big Brother Fans?

Like it or hate it, it's back. If this year is like last year, there's a strong chance that Big Brother episodes will appear on many torrent sites such as http://www.mininova.org (caution - lots of annoying ads on this site) - so if you miss an episode you may be able to download it to watch later. (You might need to search for Big Brother AU 08 or something similar as there are a tonne of US episodes on there.) This is true of most major TV series - but as usual the legality of this is murky. Also, since the downloads will probably be a few hundred megabytes, this won't be an option for those of you on low download plans.

Exetel Activation down to $88

Exetel's having a bit of an "ADSL Drive" it seems and has lowered their new ADSL activation fee to $88. (It was $145) The rates can be viewed at http://www.auzzie.net/ADSL/pricing.html

They have also introduced a new optional feature where they can slow your line down rather than charge you $3 per 1000MB over your plan's allowance if you exceed your plan's download limit.

The Odd Jobs of the last Month

Turn it off an on again?

I probably shouldn't be telling you this one? Probably about 5-10% of jobs are cured simply by turning the problem bit of equipment off and on again! (At the power point that it - this actually makes a difference for computers!) This is particularly true of networking equipment and modems, as small dips in the power can be enough to confuse them.

Coffee Break?

This week saw the repair of a laptop that had a drink of coffee. Fortunately because of the design, the coffee was contained within the keyboard and did not leak through to the rest of the computer. The machine was repaired successfully :)

Old Editions
You can find old editons of this newsletter on the CCC Blog. http://auzzie.net/cccblog/

--
Cool Country Consulting & Auzzie Internet
http://www.auzzie.net/ccc
MSN: michael@auzzie.net
Tel: 02 6775 0239
Mob: 0427 644 825
Skype: cccons
Yahoo: lispbourke

In this edition:

Important News
New Statement System
Small Business Tax Tips?

Bargains
A Samsung Laser Printer, only $74

Tips
Turn XP or Vista into a multi-user remote desktop server.

Trivia:
Documentaries on Joost
The Odd Jobs of the last month.

New Statement System

One of the challenges of being self-employed and small-scale like myself is that you often have to do everything yourself - including accounting and paperwork. Back in '97 when I was starting out, I built a basic accounting system to produce invoices for computer repairs, as well as my dial-up ISP business. Over the years, it's been added to, changed, modified, had GST integrated, then removed again, handling for VoIP accounts, etc.

One thing it didn't do was any sort of automation regarding old accounts, which meant every few months I would have to go through by hand, reprint any unpaid accounts, and resend them. So, this easter, I took some time out to build in a statements feature, which at the beginning of each month, after EFTs and cheques have been entered, will generate printed statements and envelopes. I made a rule that statements will only be sent if an invoice has not been paid 30 days after it was sent, and that statements will only be sent by mail as I have a suspicion that emailed accounts are increasingly getting lost in inboxes or junk folders.

Hopefully, by sending accurate statements to people in a timely matter, it will help with tracking down missing payments for both parties :)

Some Small Business Tax tips:

Last year, tax time, I changed from a tax agent to an accountant, and learnt a few new things that saved me a bit of money...

Note: I'm not a qualified accountant, so this is general information only, and there's a fair chance I might be wrong or it might have changed! Like the ABC says, the information in this email is general in nature and should not be taken as personal professional financial advice.

Turnover less than $75,000 per year? If so, you may be able to deregister for GST. The positives: Less paperwork, Cheaper rates for residential customers. The negatives: you cannot claim GST for Items you purchase for the business. So far, since I deregistered from GST, I have had very few problems. (This used to be $50,000 up to a few years ago.)

Sole Trader: If you can keep your turnover below $50,000 per year, you may be able to claim for the "Entrepreneur's Offset" which can drop your end of year tax by 25%. Note that this benefit is available at higher turnover, but reduces as your turnover increases. Opinion: Testing this against turnover rather than profit is a silly thing in my opinion as having a high turnover does not necessarily mean a high profit. Example: I buy a DVD Burner, then sell it to a customer. My turnover is $60 higher, but the profit is $0 for the sale, yet I lose out in tax. This encourages a cash economy.

Bargains

This week's biggest bargain is from Dick Smith Electronics. For just $74 you can buy a Samsung Laser Printer. It's only a black and white printer, but it does 22 pages a minute, and gives about 1000 pages on the provided toner cartridge, with replacements having a higher capacity. This compares favourably with ink printers that often only give you a couple of hundred pages per cartridge. http://www.dse.com.au/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/47ef456604eed6802742c0a87f9c0754/Product/View/XP0602

The only caveat I've found with this printer is that it has only one tray - so if you want to print on envelopes you have to remove the envelopes when you want to print on ordinary paper again.

Turn XP or Vista into a multi-user remote desktop server.

If you've ever worked in a fair size office, you might be familiar with remote desktop connections - where you operate a work computer from a remote location. Normally, if you do this with XP, you can not use the computer at the same time as someone else. However, there's a little trick you can play on XP that will allow you to have up to three people using it at once simultaneously. It involves replacing one file on the computer with an older version that predates Microsoft's decision to force people to buy server versions. (And it works on Vista too by the way.) This can also have unusual uses - for example, say you have a nice new computer at home, and one or more old computers, laptops, whatever. You can use these old computers to remotely drive the new computer even while someone else is sitting in front of it and using it. (I did this recently when my main laptop died - I had an old Pentium 1 laptop running XP, Office 2007, Firefox, etc, at full speed.) The old computers will behave like the new computer since they're just acting as terminals while the new computer does all the work.

If you want more information about this, write back, or do some research for concurrent users in xp.

Documentaries on Joost.

You might remember Joost from a previous newsletter - an internet-based TV replacement. Lately some nights there hasn't been anything much worth watching on TV, so if you've got a decent unlimited broadband connection (1.5M or faster) you might like to check out some of the nature doco's on Joost. http://joost.com/02000b0 - I can also help with getting your TV and computer talking to eachother.

The Odd Jobs of Last Month...

Don't Move:

Perhaps one of the most bizarre jobs of recent times - a customer complaining of a computer that would restart itself whenever it was left alone for a few minutes - but would be just fine while it was being used. This would normally indicate a dodgy screensaver, but in this case it wasn't. I eventually witnessed that the fault only ever happened when she got up from her chair! In the end, it appears that the fault was due to new carpet, and possibly a USB extension cable that was resting on it. That is one temperamental computer!

Missing the Obvious:

Another customer has an office with two computers, both Vista, with one sharing files with the other. After repeated problems with files taking up to a minute to open over the network and trying Vista SP1 on both PCs which was rumoured to fix other issues, I brought in two extra Vista laptops to join the network and help pinpoint the fault. As testing began, one of the customers told the other, jokingly, that it was the other guy's Norton 360 causing it, even though up to that point in the testing process it didn't seem to be the case. However, about 10 minutes later, it turned out he was right! The fault, it turned out, only affected Vista Home Editions talking to eachother when Norton 360 was installed. Vista Business / Ultimate editions weren't similarly affected. So it was bye bye Norton, hello AVG. (Note - I did disable Norton during testing but even when disabled it would still break things.)

Beating the Gouge.

Another customer had an old stock tracking program that he'd been using for 7 years on a Windows 98 PC. However, when we tried to put it on Vista, there was a glitch in the program that prevented it from being activated by the authors. He was looking at upgrading, at a cost of $1,500 - not cheap! The problem was solved by using Microsoft Virtual PC to make a clone of his old PC onto his Vista laptop. Now, he can carry on as usual. (This trick doesn't always work as it depends on how the particular softwares registration process works - in this case the program he had was oblivious to the apparent hardware upgrade.)

It's All Gone :(

One customer lost a fair bit of information when his Western Digital hard drive in his computer died without warning. Another customer's PC did the same thing a week later. Western Digital drives like to die this way, giving no warning. Fortunately in both cases, they had a backup.

Aah well, that's it for this newsletter - hope you all had a good Easter break!

Sadly, the old friend of ours died a few hours ago, peacefully, aged 87.

Cheers, Mike.

Old Editions
You can find old editons of this newsletter on the CCC Blog. http://auzzie.net/cccblog/

--
Cool Country Consulting & Auzzie Internet
http://www.auzzie.net/ccc
MSN: michael@auzzie.net
Tel: 02 6775 0239
Mob: 0427 644 825
Skype: cccons
Yahoo: lispbourke

[Edit] This program causes problems when entering and coming out of standby. It can still be used, but will probably not suit.

Sometimes when working on my laptop, the power cord may fall out - usually care of a dog sleeping near the heater. My laptop does nothing special to let me know this has happened, until it's getting flat of course.

Someone, two years ago, wrote a program that can be modified to suit this purpose - his program at http://alarm.sourceforge.net/ was written with the intention that if someone unplugged your laptop while it was turned on, it would play an alarm sound to warn of theft. In my case, I just made up a 5 min MP3 with a short sound at the beginning (because his utility repeats the sound continuously and is not configurable) and overwrote his included HomeAlarm.mp3 sound with my own.

This might seem like a slightly pointless post, but a google for laptop beep when unplugged does not at present give any useful results.

This may be a solution to the following ailments:

710n Won't turn on after standby
710n Cuts out when warm
710n Won't turn on after switching user
Samsung 710n Broken

I have one of these which has come in for repair. The fault appears to be heat related - there's no obvious fault within the unit.

If you have one of these and it is starting to fail after it's been on for a while, you might be able to eek a bit more life out of it by sticking a computer fan to the back of it, and if that works well perhaps fitting it permanently. A number of flat screens don't really provide enough ventilation and thus die an early death through running too hot internally.

As an IT consultant, I occasionally run into a problem that takes ages to fix. In a recent case, a computer could not start BITS. (Sadly I didn't catch the exact error wording.)

After trying the usual tricks (that usually fix Automatic Updates) I got nowhere and had to resort to multi-page Googling. Here's the one link that did end up fixing the problem comprehensively - although at this stage I'm still not sure exactly which step fixed it.

http://www.castlecops.com/postlite106642-bits.html

If this link ever 404's let me know, I've saved a copy.

(/me ponders whether 404's should have an apostrophe.)

The ZZ Cruiser is an electric scooter. I recently purchased one via Deals Direct for just $120 when they were selling them off. (That would be close to being below cost.)

Living out in Black Mountain is not the ideal home for one of these - rough bitumen, not smooth pavement. So, on it's first trip it rattled and clanked alarmingly! Turned out it was the speed controller rattling around in the case, plus the two batteries bouncing around vertically. This is easily fixed with new double sided tape, and adding a foam base to the battery compartment area.

Next problem was that on long uphill runs, after about 1km or so it'd cut out. Turned out to be the speed controller overheating and cutting out. So, here's how to resolve that issue.

1 - Find or buy an 8cm computer / power supply fan.
2 - Slide it in above the speed controller - should be a nice snug fit so no extra mounting required!

Your computer fan is 12V, not 24V, so it needs to be wired in in a special way. Here's how

3 - Strip back about 1cm off the black and red wires on the fan.
4 - Disconnect the black and red wire that goes from the speed controller to the battery gauge.
5 - Place the stripped length of the red wire into the red female socket on this connector, and bend the remainder over 180 degrees. Align it with the centre of the plug so that the hollow section of the connector will fit over it. (It's a bit tricky at first - but basically the wire runs directly underneath the plastic clip that holds the joiner together.
6 - Remove the negative to positive jumper wire from between the two batteries, and jam the 1cm of stripped black wire underneath one of these terminals as you reconnect it.

That done you should now find that the fan runs when you turn on the master switch. The fan draws only .18 amps or so so will be less than a 1% drop in capacity - the scooter itself probably drawing up to 15A at stall.

My practical range in this hilly area is around 8km per charge, somewhat lower than you'd get in a flat area. However, at some stage I plan to modify the design slightly to support regenerative braking.

OK here's a solution that should be able to get any windows printer to work over Remote Desktop. It cures the following problems.

DOT4 printer doesn't show up in remote desktop
Network printer doesn't show up in remote desktop
Printer not sharing in remote desktop
Cannot share printer in remote desktop
Remote Desktop Printer Sharing doesn't work.
rdc printer doesn't work. rdp printer doesn't show up.

(phew - hopefully that will find most google searches.)

OK - the solution for this I am using is the same as the one that works for sharing a Windows Printer to a mac...

I'm using the solution at http://home.comcast.net/~heretrythis/hp3100/psemuxp.html

To summarise, you set up a HP Color LaserJet 4550 PS on LPT1 on your guest PC. It should appear in the RDP session OK because it's a well known printer.

You then use the Port Redirector and a PostScript to GDI converter on the guest machine that takes jobs printed to that LaserJet and spits it out instead on another printer that the guest PC knows about.

There may be some issues with paper sizes, formats, etc, but it might be enough to get you out of trouble, or even be good enough :)

I can't seem to find a contact for the site quoted above. If it disappears, please let me know and I'll re-post it elsewhere.

If you find it useful, but confusing, please let me know and I'll make clearer instructions that work for the more recent versions of GhostScript, etc.

Another aside - there are some other tips on the Internet on how to make the printers show up correctly in RDP, but in my case the first two tips I tried didn't work - sharing some weird canon network printer copier fax.

In this edition:

Important News
Busy Busy Busy!
Equipment-Free VoIP pricing.
Telstra won't like this!

What's new on the 'Net
DoubleTwist

Tips:
Scrolling on a Laptop
What are Podcasts?

Trivia:
Flashing and Hitting?
Merc Madness
Old Editions

Busy Busy Busy!

Some of you might have been just a little disappointed with my response times in the last month or so. There's a few reasons for this!

Black Mountain Taxi?

While my other half's recovering from an arm operation, I am taking her to work in Armidale and back every weekday. This should finish at the end of this week all being well, but has meant a shortage of free time.

A Dying Friend.

We have a friend in Coffs Harbour who is 87 years old and suffering from Motor Neurone Disease. As a result, I'm traveling to Coffs Harbour each Friday night, returning Sunday night, which knocks out most weekend office repairs, etc. Friends are important!

A Dying Laptop.

My two year old Clevo laptop died 10 days ago. Well, it didn't actually die, but it has developed a fault where if you pick it up or move it, it freezes. I've stripped it down twice in an attempt to resolve the problem, but it appears to be a hairline fracture somewhere on the mainboard. I was always a bit concerned about the Clevo laptop because it lacks a reinforced internal chassis, making it vulnerable to damage through flexing.

I have now purchased a new Toshiba laptop to replace the old Clevo. I did consider a Dell laptop since you get a bigger screen, etc, for the same price; but after some research I found this report ( http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1186140,00.asp ) from PC Mag US which stated, among other things, only Dell and Compaq have worse-than-average scores in this category; in both cases, about one in four notebooks needed work. Those odds are too high for my liking.

From XP to Vista and Back

Of course, the new laptop came with Vista. I've used Vista quite a few times now and it does work OK most of the time. However, it gave me some grief with TrueCrypt, so I ended up reverting to XP. This is a bit of a challenge because XP doesn't know about new Hard Disk drives, so to install it you have to either find a floppy drive, or make your own XP installation disk with extra drivers built in to it to install it. I may return to Vista later, once the mysterious problems with file transferring, etc, have been resolved.

There's still a few bugs in the new laptop that need ironing out, but after about 8 hours of working on it, I've got it working well enough - well enough to carry on business as usual rather than having to use an old one to remotely access the sick Clevo.

Equipment Free VoIP Pricing

The trial of no-equipment-needed VoIP has gone very well. However, there's no way for me to directly monetise the service, so from here on I'm introducing a $5 administration fee for each recharge, to help cover the costs in time and paperwork required to proxy the payments. The rates are as follows:

Call any Landline in Australia: 20 cents untimed.
Call any Mobile in Australia: 22 cents per minute, plus 10c connection fee.
Many overseas calls are only 3 cents a minute.

Note: You do not need Internet access to use this prepaid VoIP service. You also incur no cost on your telephone line. Here's how it works.

It's a bit like the early days of the telephone, where you picked up the phone and spoke to the operator, and then she called you back when she had found the other line and was ready to connect you! (Funny how old things come back!) Except, instead you dial 82078900 (which comes up engaged) and just hang up. Shortly thereafter your phone rings, and you pick it up. It says 'You have 9 dollars and 90 cents. Enter the number you want followed by hash key." Put the number in and it rings the other person.

To simplify the process, simply program 82078900 into a speed dial button.

Telstra won't like this!

And here's another handy tip! If you have a NextG or other prepaid mobile phone where the rates are around $1 per minute, you can use the same process, and instead you'll be paying 22 cents per minute plus either 20c untimed for landlines or 22c per minute to call another mobile. That's at least half price on your expensive to use mobile! (And Telstra gets none of it, because the exchange called you - - you called the exchange but it was engaged.)

Disclaimer: I am pretty sure that's how it works, but have not verified 100% as I don't have access to the last bill here.

DoubleTwist

DoubleTwist is a new program from DVD John. I've not had enough time to play with it, but what it's meant to do is remove any copy protection (DRM) from any of your music and videos so that you can transfer them from one computer to another, or onto your iPod, MP3 player, etc. (DRM, for example, prevents you from copying your music from one computer to another, etc.) If you're in a situation where you want to be able to transfer music from one computer or device to another, it might be worth checking out.

http://www.doubletwist.com/dt/Home/Index.dt

Scrolling on a Laptop

Most of you would by now have used a mouse that has a wheel on the top - otherwise known as a scroll mouse. The wheel on the top of the mouse allows you to move long pages (such as this email) up and down on the screen simply by turning the wheel. You soon get quite used to them, and then miss them when they're not around! Most new laptops allow you to do the same using that trackpad thing which you probably hate. To see if yours can do it, put your finger in the top right corner of the track pad, and then slide your finger towards you. There's a fair chance the page will move up and down as you move your finger in this area. Some can do left and right as well in a similar fashion.

What are Podcasts?

Podcasts are basically recorded radio shows that you can listen to. The key difference is that you can set your computer to fetch them automatically as they are released. This can be quite handy if you're a person who has an MP3 player and would like to have your favourite shows put on there automatically. At this stage, unless you have iTunes, you'll need some software to handle podcasts - for which I recommend Juice. http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/

Here's a few of my favourite places to find podcasts.

ABC's shows - http://www.abc.net.au/services/podcasting/

Tech Shows - http://twit.tv/

Merrick and Rosso - http://www.nova969.com.au/music/podcast_BRK.xml

Free Audio Books - http://podiobooks.com/

Unfortunately Podcasts are not quite as straight-forward as they should be, but once set up they are reliable. I am happy to help you set up your computer to automatically copy the podcasts onto your player where it's possible :) Some of my oldest customers use them! Side note: Not recommended for people on very restrictive download plans.

Reminder: These newsletters have both useful information, and almost pointless banter as well! The useful information is usually placed at the top of the newsletter, and at some point, usually about half way down, it turns into generic chatter. Guess where you are now! ;-)

Flashing and Hitting?

Perhaps it's just because I'm doing more Armidale time than normal, and perhaps it's because the world is getting faster than the Kingswood, but I've noticed two trends in the last month. Once is the number of people who flash their lights at me. Sometimes I actually get to see who it was, and smile and wave back; but often it's just a friendly hello; or a warning that the police are coming! (Something which doesn't worry me for reasons you can probably guess!)

The other, slightly more concerning trend, is the number of people who almost end up wearing my tow bar at traffic lights! The Kingswood is a three speed column shift manual, which means two things. 1 - You get up to about 15-20kph in first. 2 - The shift from first to second takes approx. 1.5 to 2 seconds, during which time the car is 'coasting.' This surprises people in Automatics who don't realise that there'll be this moment of deceleration. I'd put a warning sticker on it, but by the time that was explained on a bumper sticker it'd be too late anyway! Oh well, just hope I'm not classed as at fault if someone does end up with a surprise indent in their plastic grille!

Merc Madness

Have you ever had a "Herbie" moment? I'm referring to the scene in the most recent Herbie movie where "Herbie" is being hoisted in the air, doors flapping, on it's way to a crusher. Well, here in Coffs where I'm staying at the moment, I envisaged such a scene as the 1961 Merc that has for eight years adorned the outside of the shed here, had been scheduled to be sold for scrap metal. To me it was a bit of a waste for what is a rather unique looking car, looking posh from the front, boring from the side and beetle-like at the back. So, I've picked it up for the cost of transportation, and will attempt to stop it from deteriorating further. It's not a car of great value to restore, but for some reason cleaning up old cars is for me an enjoyable passtime when not hands-deep into computer repairs. For those curious - it's a 190b, and I'll document the process at http://picasaweb.google.com.au/CCCMikey/Merc