April 2010

Planning SPAUG Programs

The Planning Committee spends a lot of time putting together programs that are of interest to you – or so we hope. We would like to receive from you specific suggestions about what subjects to be sure we will cover and (where possible) a suggestion of the speaker. We will take it from there as you desire.

In the spirit of exposing each of you to what you can do with your computer, we are continuing to bring to you some of the peripheral uses of computers that are being espoused by our associate group SVCS.

One of the Planning Committee feels that SPAUG should be also looking at things like Blue Tooth, Netbooks, and some of the newer personal Digital Assistants. What do you think? Do you want to hear about the iPods in SPAUG?

Netbooks

The craze for Netbooks continues but somewhat abated when the limitations get in the way of what people need to do with the computer. The price is right, but there are myriads of considerations such as the number of cells in the battery vs. battery life, their inherent slow speed because they are a laptop with power consumption criteria, and their smaller keyboards that often are not so great for profligate writers.

If I were traveling, not wanting to lug around much, or were in an industrial situation wherein I was moving from desk to desk such as a maintenance specialist, the Netbook makes a lot of sense, It is a case of putting up with a lot if you are saving a buck and gaining portability.

When to upgrade to IE8

The current philosophy of staying with IE7 and not progressing to IE8 is based upon the number of service calls caused by the later IE. The philosophy is to stay with things that work and let the others in the world debug the new stuff.

In case you are having troubles with IE7 and you can’t clear the problem, I have seen Hank recently perform a very interesting maneuver to clear an IE7 problem: He removed IE7, installed IE6, checked that the linkages were correct, and then reinstalled IE7 over IE6 which carried the proper linkages forward.

The same philosophy applies to a single program that is not behaving properly. Save the data, delete the program, reinstall the program, go on with life. Fast and simple. Use ERUNT and a backup before beginning.

When to go to System 7

There are still a lot of problems with System 7; enough to say that it is not ready for the individual. The time to go to Windows 7 is several months after the release of SP1 for Windows 7. Currently 90% of industry is still using Windows 2000 or Windows XP – you just don’t hear about all of the stable computers in the real world over the hype of the vendors wanting to sell new systems.

Stay with your XP if you want stability; go to System 7 if you like experimentation and setting up new systems. There is definitely a place for that also. Further, if you do need a new computer, make the effort to purchase a computer with XP; you don’t have the time to start all over again learning the interface to a new operating system and putting all of your personalizations and data onto it.

How to set up Acronis for backup

My preferred way is to make a full backup onto a partition each day of the week to allow for an almost instant full recovery to (usually) 10 p.m. of the day before.

The advantage of the seven separate full backups (one for each day of the week) is that it forces the reading of every sector that contains data (read blocks) representing data to be saved. If any of the sectors are bad, then an immediate error message will be issued allowing you to take corrective action.

Also run an automated incremental backup about 11 p.m. onto (possibly) the same partition to allow for the recovery of files that were accidentally deleted or that might have later errors and allows for a project restart without the errors. This information should not be allowed to go much more than a month before a new “string” is created by changing the imbedded file’s start date.

This setup is especially easy with Acronis 11, but is a bit more hidden in the Acronis 2010 version with its attempt to automate everything with one-click operations.

It is definitely more desirable to have a second hard drive receive the backups, but the technique has proven to be effective with a single drive partitioned into two logical drives as the probability of the disk failing in two places is somewhat remote.

Since the rule is to keep the data elsewhere on a daily basis, the ability to restore to 10 p.m, of the night before has proven to be a quick way to get a failed computer working again in an expeditious manner. Average time to repair is usually about 20 minutes; but you can spend a lot more time and money attempting to debug what went wrong in the software.

A new source of malware

For years now Microsoft has been the main vendor to permit hackers and viruses to successfully attack your computer.

That is no longer true. Adobe and Apple have moved right up into the ranks of the programs that make your computer vulnerable and thus you need to spend some time assuring yourself that your Adobe and Apple products are current. Apple is supporting some of the Itunes music applications on your computer.

One of the most effective ways to do control the updating is to let Secunia at least tell you the story but to then use either direct updating from the vendor or let Secunia to do the Adobe update as the Adobe site seems to do a more comprehensible job of updating their own products. Undoubtedly you will be told of several Adobe programs you did not know were on your computer.

Using the information provided by the Secunia site, go to the Adobe site and download the updates you need. One of the tricks is to use ADD/REMOVE to blow away the current copy so that Adobe will not find any conflicts and to eliminate older copies.

Again a reminder that Adobe and some others always have check boxes that will put tool bars or other marginally useful programs onto your computer if you do not remove the checkmark. So the rule is to always scan the boxes for the inevitable checked boxes.

Are we flagellating an obsolete technology?

Do you feel that you are going to maintain your XP computer until it clearly is obsolete or until System 7 SP1 really works? Please communicate with us about what you want or need.

Microsoft Update vs Windows Update

There are some situations where the use of Microsoft Update gets in the way and you need to confine yourself to Windows Update. To turn off Microsoft Update, go to the very bottom of the first page and fill in the box that causes Windows Update to superceded Microsoft update.