iCloud To Be Revealed

I'm not sure I understand the point of this. Yes, it means you can access your music library anywhere. It mirrors your music, rather than copies it. Whatever. I mean won't you have your iPod or iPhone with you when you go somewhere? So why would you need this?

What I would like to see is the iTunes store online instead of being part of the player. It's one of the reasons that iTunes is such a bloated program. I mean most music players (WMP, Winamp, Songbird) are around 50 MB in size. But iTunes is like 300 MB! That's because of two reasons. The store is huge & obviously takes up a lot of space. And two-Quicktime. Another Steve Jobs attempt to control everything. Instead of using Adobe Flash which most computers already have, you have to include this boondoggle to get iTunes to work. It alone is 75 MB or more than every other music player completely.

People hate iTunes but are forced to use it to sync their i devices. A cloud version is a good idea, but it clearly won't replace the downloaded version. So I don't see how this is going to work, but then again I have a nano & don't care about the cloud. Just about putting music & podcasts on my device. Heck I've only taken my iPod out of the house twice in the year and a half that I've owned it. But I play it a lot.

Belarc Advisor Shows Computer Details

I had this program on my previous computer but hadn't added it to my new system. I wasn't sure I needed it. But today I decided to install it anyway. It is a very good software program that lists everything on your system & how up to date your computer is.

It lists all software & hardware that you have. All Microsoft will do is tell you processor speed, size of the hard drive & amount of memory. Plus extra drives. Belarc on the other hand is much more detailed. Like the speed of the processor, the size of the various caches & how many cores. Also usage of USB, & how many memory modules you have. I have 4 modules, but am only using 2.  Thus I have 4 GB of RAM installed but could double that if I wanted to.

It lists all software on the computer & the last time you used the program. This is good to know as a way of finding out if you are up to date. It also lists all Microsoft hotfixes. I always allow those because it's a security issue.

Here's one problem. At the top of the page is the System Security Status which uses USGCB benchmarks which are mostly for professional organizations. I don't see how this relates to my personal system. It's a government mandated configuration developed by the Department of Defense! I think a lower benchmark would make more sense. I have a low rating because some password & user rights & security options aren't available on Windows 7 Home Edition. Oh well. Still it's nice to have this on the system.

Vacuum Mfg's Cost Us Money

I bought a new vacuum cleaner maybe five years ago. Recently I attempted to buy new bags for it. This is now a problem. Even though I bought the same design, the new ones don't really fit, meaning dirt everywhere. Why is this happening?

The reason is that the manufacturers are now making bagless cleaners. These are full size versions of what used to be little hand held cleaners like the Shark. For the record I own one of these, but only use it a small corners where a full size won't fit. But now every company is making regular full size cleaners with this technology.

That's all fine & good, except for those of us who have more traditional units. Should I spend $70-200 on a new bagless cleaner when my bagged cleaner works just fine? This is when technology works against the normal person. I even saw yesterday $10-20 mops. Really? All because they fancy them up with spray bottles & the like. Hey, I just want to mop the floor.

My 25" TV works fine but soon I'm going to have to get the big screen I want anyway because more channels are doing everything in widescreen meaning I can't see everything & in the case of ESPN, I no longer can read the scores because of this.

Failure Of Bargain Basement CFL's

This week I noticed that there was less light in my second bathroom. This meant a light had burned out. So as I removed the cover I saw that the bulb that had burned out was a CFL. Those are supposed to last 10 years. It lasted maybe a year. Well I bought it at the Dollar Tree & it was obviously a cheapie.

This brings up the question of the quality of electrical stuff bought there. Because I have a couple of CFL bulbs in big brass lamps in my living room that have been installed for years. These lamps are on 3-4 hours a night. On my days off if the weather is bad even longer. Bathroom lights-5-15 minutes a day?

Then I went on Wikipedia to read up on these things. And the article says that if you have a 5 minute on/off cycle the lifespan can be reduced to "close to that of incandescent light bulbs". I don't remember ever hearing that before. Was this kept from us in the desire to move us to these bulbs. The energy star program says leave them on if you leave a room for less than 15 minutes. Fine. But I don't go in the bathroom every 15 minutes unless there is a problem(no I won't disgust you by mentioning what that might be).

So I guess what this means is don't place them in a bathroom because they become expensive incandescents.  I don't have them in my bedroom because the lamp there needs a special bulb. Ooops. My mistake.

HBO's horrid non-streaming site

I'm sure you've seen the ads for HBO GO. I say "go away". How about most inept stream ever? I spent 30 minutes trying to watch Treme. Bad idea. had to turn it off after it started freezing up every 2 minutes, then total freeze up. Uh, if You Tube & Hulu can stream without issues why can't a so-called "premium" channel?

I have watched entire movies on Netflix & complete episodes of action shows on CBS(NCIS, Hawaii 5-0), no problems. But HBO can't even get through a half an hour of a one hour drama. Really? I wanted to use it to catch up on a show I didn't know had come back but I doubt I will try again. Total incompetence. I pay $14 a month forthe priveledge of watching the drama shows on my TV, & now I should be able to watch on my computer, but the boobs who set up this site clearly didn't know what they were doing.

So I guess I won't see this show again. Too bad. At least I can watch Game of Thrones on my TV. Best show on TV. If I had to watch online I wouldn't think that  because I wouldn't be able to watch. Word to HBO: Fix your freaking site!

iTunes & DVD's

I have a large number of songs on iTunes. Most are from my own CD's but also downloads from iTunes. Obviously I need to save those. Usually I just make a CD. But I have so many now(over 80 downloads) that it becomes an issue of space.

Because my computer has a DVD burner I tried to use it today. But for whatever reason it wouldn't burn. It started the first song, froze up & then shut off. Meaning the apple logo came up & that little tune meaning it was finished. Of course it wasn't because it never worked.

So I made a CD instead. That worked so I know the burner works. If I had too many songs on the playlist it should have told me. I know iTunes has a lot of issues but I don't need any. Seriously I must have burned 10 CD's since buying the iPod & that's of course a space issue. After burning the CD I printed a CD insert with all the songs listed. One of the things that actually worked. My computer has Lightscribe meaning I can etch directly on the CD's. But you need special discs which I haven't bought yet. I will eventually do that just to see how that works.

Custom Scans On Computer

I'm thinking about the scans my computer has available. the reason is because HP wanted to update support assist this morning. It supposedly does an automatic scan at 2AM once a month. But I don't keep my computer on at night. This also applies to Avira antivir & MalwareBytes. All list automatic scans always in the middle of the night. I suppose this is so it doesn't interfere with using your system, but like I said, I shut down my computer at night.

So it's interesting to me to see these items. I am going to assume that most people do as I do. Businesses excluded. They don't shut down their systems because they need them up & running when the day starts. Or they need to run 24 hrs. My company is 24/7 so it never shuts down. The work shifts never stop, when I leave another shift comes in. Thus those computers never shut down 365 days. (Amusingly I regularly see computers with pop ups about downloading updates that I know are never done. I mean the computers run XP which I am guessing most businesses around the world are still using, the cost of replacing large numbers of computers being prohibitive.)

Anyway, I did the update which took a long time. I have seriously thought of having my ISP upgrade me to a higher speed but why bother? It's still slow compared to the rest of the world, & will probably never change. Capitalism in this country means broadband will never get to asian levels(South Korea 85mbps/USA 3-6mbps) because our wonderful(sarcasm) ISP's would want to charge several hundred dollars a month for those speeds.

Movies On YouTube

Here's something I would never think about. YouTube is now renting movies. And new ones actually. I checked & in some cases they are a dollar less than iTunes. Most appear to be $3.99 while iTunes has the same movies for $4.99. This appears to be an attempt to compete with Netflix. However the problem with that is you don't rent individual movies on Netflix. You have a monthly subscription. Mine is $5.50 or so for 2 DVD's & 2 hours online. The next subscription is $9.99 a month which is 1 DVD at a time & unlimited streaming. There's also $7.99 a month for streaming only.

The problem with that is all Netflix streaming is old movies, not new stuff. Whereas iTunes & YouTube have current DVD's for streaming. But again the price isn't cheap. Plus YouTube also has free movies. These seem to be a lot of the same films that Netflix is streaming. Today I watched about an hour of Intolerance, the DW Griffith silent classic. Problem is the thing is 3 hours long & jumps around between 4 stories in different times. Brilliant but a hard slog.

My thought is how many people know YouTube has movies. I think most people think it's the home for funny cat videos(well it is), & don't bother to check out what else is there. So I wonder what Google has planned. I would think more publicity would be a good start. I wish more sports were available online. Not everything is on ESPN, which does stream most of what they broadcast. I wish auto racing was available & the Tour de France. but I suspect the entities that run those sports like the exclusiveness of these sports. And yeah, Versus does run Le Tour multiple times a day during July.

Eventually it looks like most movies are going to be streamed. That's why all these devices like Roku, Boxee, & using Playstation(well until last week) do it. I've also seen Blu Ray players that have Hulu & Netflix apps built in. Since I don't own any of these I don't know how that works, & I wonder about how you access it. Another cable hook up to your ISP?

Weird Views Of This Blog

I think all of us who write want to know that someone is reading our stuff. But sometimes I wonder who these people are.

Just this morning I decided to check with StatCounter, which doesn't list as many views as Blogger does. But they do tell you what ISP's the views came from. So today I had this blog accessed from two different cities in Romania & one in India. And two days ago from Lebanon. And on May 1-Buenos Aires Hmmm. The scary one however is April 28-Islamabad WTF!

Well at least it wasn't Abbotabad. (Is there a Costellobad?-sorryLOL). I mean this is an amateur tech blog so who's reading it & why?

Verizon Wants Me To Buy New Prepaid Phone

I frankly don't see the point of this. Why should I spend $20 on a new prepaid phone when I don't even use the current one? I use it once a week. that's why I have $140 on it. because I don't use it. I thought of buying a ringtone just to spend money but since no one has my number I would never get a call anyway.

Everyone at work has a smartphone, but why? If I want the internet I'll go on my computer. Watch TV? Uh, on a 4" screen. No thanks. Music? That's what my iPod is for. Guess what. This is how everyone including the government knows where you are & what you're doing. A courier using a smartphone is why Bin Laden is dead. Think about it. Heck Google probably knows if you're cheating on your wife & what hotel you're at.

Waking Computer From Sleep Creates Noisy Fan

This happened last night. First time in months. I had my desktop in sleep mode for probably an hour. When I woke it the fan went nuts. The only way I stopped it was by restarting the computer.

So today I went in Best Buy to the Geek Squad desk. The person there said I should open up the tower & blow air on it to clean out dust. Right. I, who know nothing about the inner workings should do that. It's OK for geeks to do that but I don't think I'm qualified. I just know I would wreck the unit.

Of course as the person there said I could bring the unit in & they could do it. Yes, they could open it up & blow air on the unit....For $99! Oh brother. Is this how they make money? The geek(yeah right) said I should do this once a year. Really? I had my previous computer for 2 years. It was an 8 year old used one I bought for $100. Never opened the unit, never blew air on it, worked fine.

I suspect what happens is there is so much on this unit, that all the processes cause this to happen. After all my previous computer had 768MB of RAM, this one has 4GB. The old one had a 40GB hard drive, this one is 640GB. XP takes up around 10 GB, Windows 7 is 40 GB.
Plus there's a bunch of HP crapware that loads. heck there's a dock I can't get rid of because it doesn't show up anywhere. Not in Add & Remove Programs, not on the Start menu. And some of the HP stuff that does show up, I'm not sure if I should remove it or not. Thanks guys.

So I just keep watch on this thing. I ran my antivirus scan today, I ran Malwarebytes the other day. Just to keep things clean.

Curious Requirement From My ISP

I was actually thinking of upgrading my internet speed.  I pay for 1.5mbps which is pathetic when you consider what people in Asia get. South Korea has 85mbps. that's just obscene speed. I don't need that, but better than 1.5 would be nice.

So I went on the website to double to 3mbps. Still bad, but hey, it's only another 5 bucks. But after going through most of the process, it became "sorry, we need a second phone number". Why? My main number isn't enough? I only have a prepaid cell phone I never use. Why list that. So you can call me on that? I don't think so. Work? Sorry no can do.

Want to know what I think? My ISP is also my landline phone company & they also sell wireless service. I think they want to sell me wireless with an overpriced 2 year contract. That is not gonna happen. This is why there need to be changes in the law. If you are the local landline company, you can't also sell wireless service. This company tries to bundle landline & wireless service & even satellite TV. That would be a monopoly except that the local cable company is even worse, & controls that market completely in this area.

So I am not sure what to do. I want more speed, but I don't like that requirement.

Browser Usage Extension Returns

I was happy to see this afternoon that one of my favorite Firefox extensions has been updated for Fx4. This would be Statusbar Ex. this is an add-on that displays on the status bar the memory usage for the browser. Without it I was forced to open the task manager.

Now the task manager shows more, but with this you have it all the time right in front of you. There have been changes to it. Now it shows network speed. OK. what exactly is that? It's currently showing .20Kb. Huh? What does that mean? Is that good or bad? I know I get around 1.3mbps That's clearly not what it means.

On the other hand it is showing that Firefox is using 153MB right now. That's not much considering I have 4GB of RAM. It is also showing that what is free is 2.9GB. Obviously other programs are using the remaining, like my antivirus, explorer, maybe office. Plus I don't have access to about 300MB that is being used for "hardware reserve". Not sure what that is. And CPU usage is 1%. A lot of people on Mozillazine complain that Firefox4 uses a lot of memory, but I just don't see it. that's why I like this add-on, even though i have plenty of memory it's still nice to keep track.