All Work and No Play Makes Mack a Dull Boy…

I admit it, I’m a child of the 80s. My love of technology came from those jumbled days, and I spent many happy hours playing with what was then cutting edge tech.

Of course the cutting edge of tech to a kid in the 1980s was Nintendo, Sega, Commador, and Apple. I had a Sega Master System (SMS), my brother had a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). So allot of my childhood was spent in his room.

Now that I’m grown, I still plays games as a form of personal entertainment. I can remember being told as a kid, that playing Mario 16 hours a day would rot my brain, but I guess they were wrong.. oh well, I still love you Mom. Of Course, my current game playing is not the 2/3 of my day it was when I was 11.

Gaming today is a rich involved experience, and a multi-billion industry. However, while I have played and loved current games, my heart is still warmed by 8bit Mario and Zelda. So come with me to the world of Emulation…

Emulation is a fairly strait forward concept. Not all computers or computing systems run on the same hardware architecture. So if you have a bit of software from one hardware architecture that you want to run on a another type of hardware architecture you basically have to options. One, you can rewrite that software and this can be time consuming. Two, you get an “emulator” that mimics hardware architecture A on hardware architecture B’s platform. This way you can take software written for hardware architecture A, place it in the Emulator on hardware architecture B, and the software thinks it’s running on hardware architecture A.

The downside to Emulation is that it takes a good deal of system resource to run. So for a hardware architecture A Emulator to run will on hardware architecture B, hardware architecture B has to be significantly faster than hardware architecture A. Confused? Don;t worry, it will be clear in a second.

Now the NES from 1985 was a hardware architecture platform. Computers today are another type of hardware architecture which is a thousand times faster than the NES. So rather than rewiring software (i.e. Games) produced for the NES to run on todays computer hardware, it’s much easier to run those Games through an Emulator. So today on your PC or Mac is it quite possible (and very easy) to play games from a wide variety of old Console Game Systems, AND Coin Operated Arcade Machines.

Now Emulators are a wide and diverse thing. So while just about every Game Console can be emulated on a PC, likewise many old gaming hardware architectures can be emulated on current hardware architectures such the PSP, Xbox, Playstaion 2, and my current favorite, the Nintendo DS.

The Nintendo DS is quite a remarkable device. For about $100 you can get a two screen, touch screen, duel ARM processor, mini-computer with WIFI. The device is also VERY hackable. For an additional $40 you can get a Ninjapass game cart which takes a simple, widely available, Mico-SD card. On this Mico-SD card you can load software which allows you to do MANY things.

One of these things that you can do is load backup copies of your favorite DS games onto a the SD card. So, rather than carry around 10 or 15 game carts, you can “backup” all your games to a single SD card, and still have TONS of space left on the SD card.

Another thing you can do with this setup is run “Homebrew” software. These are programs writen by indeviuduales, for the DS. Think of it as freeware, or open-source, for the DS, just like there is freeware and open-source software for PCs and Macs.

Some of these homebrew programs are Emulators that allow games from older systems to be played on the DS. So right now on my DS I have my entire collection of NES games, SMS Games, some games from my old Super NES games, Gameboy, and even some old favorites like Zork.

In the end, my DS is a nice distraction when I’m stuck on a plane or waiting around. The fact that for a brief moment I can recapture some of my childhood is also kind of nice.  If anyone in interested in doing the same, contact me, and I help you get started.

After my adventure with the Bluetooth Headset and Apple today, I was pondering why I still feel so bound to Windows.

As I said, I’ve spent the last several weeks deep in development using only my MacBook. I’ve also said that I have found nothing really that has held me back specifically about OSX and the software I am using on OSX. So why do I still feel such a need to use Windows?

I have broken it down into a few large scope ideals, which I feel might better explain not only my tie to windows, but also other peoples tie as well.

Outlook/Exchange/Windows Mobile. This is a powerful trifecta. The fact that my desktop calendar, contacts, email and tasks are all kept synchronized between any desktop computer I use, and my mobile phone, is something that I feel is a “must have”. Once you have had this experience, you soon learn that anything less would not be acceptable. This setup does also allow for working in groups, so that each person can see and arrange each others calendar, contacts, tasks, and email. Unfortunately this experience is needlessly tided to Windows. First, while Microsoft does make an Exchange client for the Mac (called Entourage), it is quite frankly abysmal when compared to Outlook on the desktop. This is not officially sanctioned Exchange client for Linux, through there are some that get pretty close to working. Also Microsoft has licensed this connectively to other mobile device platforms (most notably the iPhone), it remains to be seen if this will have the same grand unified experience that Windows Mobile has.

I have yet to find a platform that will give me this same level of conveyance outside of the Windows Ecosystem.

Needing to keep current. I have a fear, perhaps an irrational fear, that is I leave the Windows platform, I will start to lose some of my skills in fixing it. My line of work requires that I be out on the sharp end when it comes to knowing how to fix things. If I lose those skills, I lose my livelihood. Using Windows day-in and day-out at least means that I am exposed to it, and through that exposure I have to keep current on the goings on.

I do have a bit of a bad opinion with it comes to Mac users. In my experience, I find that the typical Mac user knows LESS about their computer and how it works, than the typical Windows user. The reason for this disparity actuality lies in superior nature of the Macintosh Operating System. In my experience, hardware fails at the same rate on both Apple and PC, but hardware failures make up only a small fraction of all the problems encountered on a computer. Far and away most problems on a computer are caused my software, and most software problems are caused by “third party” software. I.e. software that did not come from or is not core to the Operating System. The Macintosh Operating System handles problems caused by “third party” software better than the Windows Operating System. As such, Mac OS fails at much slower rate than Windows. But this slower failure rate has a bizarre drawback. Because the Windows user has to deal with more problems than the Mac user, the Windows user is forced to learn more about their computer in order to keep it running.

We can make an argument that the Mac user is better off, because one should not have to know how to rebuild and engine just to drive a car. But I have seen more often than not that a typical Mac user will freak out at the slightest problem with their system, because they are not used to dealing with problems.

Linux Users have the exact opposite problem. They’re computers NEVER run quite right, or more precisely they never leave them alone to run right. As a result they are all de-facto experts on hardware and software. I’ve been using Windows, DOS, and Mac OS all my life, I’ve never had to recompile their Kernel to make my printer work . No, Linux has it’s advantages. It’s an oder of magnitude more secure than Windows, and once running is more stable than OS X.

Quickbooks and Third Party Software. Windows for the past 15 years has been part of a positive feed back cycle. People had Windows, so software vendors wrote more software for Windows, so people bought Windows because more software was available for Windows, etc, etc. There is NO reason why a software developer could not write ANY software for a Mac. Apple hardware running OSX are just as capable as HP hardware running Windows Vista. Intuits Quickbooks is a perfect example of this. Intuit could write a decent version on Quickbooks for Mac, but they really have not. There’s no reason why they couldn’t, they just haven’t. The same could be said of Microsoft and them not writing a good version of Outlook for the Mac, but because they make a sell Windows, I think there is a vested interest there to deny good software to the Mac OS.

Possible Solutions. For the Outlook/Exchange/Windows Mobile problem, I’m hoping that Google will step up soon with services like improved Gmail and their new Android smartphone OS initiative. Apple is trying to do something like that with Mobile Me and the iPhone. So if these two services can come online, there we will have a viable alternative to Exchange.

Quickbooks and Third Party Software most likely is going to become a moot point. With more and more desktop software moving to the “cloud” (meaning it’s software run from a web browser off a server than from a program off the desktop), it would seem that soon only the most basic computer will be needed to run advanced software. Even mighty Quickbooks has a Web 2.0 version which runs in the cloud. Half the features at nearly twice the cost, who wouldn’t jump on that.
I know that Needing to keep current is my own irrational fear. No mater what OS i use on my desktop, I will still be working daily with all three of the major systems. As such I’ll have to keep abreast of what’s going on.

In the end what frustrates me most about Windows is not Windows itself, but the fact I feel like I am forced to use Windows. If I had a genuine choice I don’t know that I would leave. But more and more people are starting to feel as I do, monopolized.

I had an experience today that has once again sent my mind on an anti-microsoft path.

For the last several weeks I’ve been working on an indepth project for the Community Advisory Board of Cumberland County. This project is set to debut in 10 days. As an experiment I decided to do all of my development on my MacBook pro, using only native Macintosh software. I have to say that for the most part I am happy with how the project is turning out. I can honestly say that I have not found using OS X to be any detriment. I only wish that I could find a better WYSIWYG html editor, but I’m not really happy with the ones I’ve found on Windows either, so I can’t not claim that to be much of a hold back.

What has inspired this resent round of anti-microsoftisum actuality has nothing to do with the project at all. As the project is coming down the wire, I have been using my laptop in place on my desktop, hooking it directly into my desktops Monitor, Keyboard and Mouse, for convveniouse. Well, at one point this afternoon I needed to make a Skype video call to a colleague in middle Tennessee. This is not all that unusual for me to do from either my MacBook or my XP Desktop. However I did want to use my wired headset to make the call, and at the moment I needed to make the call it was firmly entangled and attached to my desktop.

Anyone who works with technology nows that the stacks of papers that once was the blight of offices in the 1970s and 1980s have been replaced with the blight of snake nests of tangled cabling. Honestly I’m not sure which is worse. I am by nature a lazy person, and I dreaded having to exert the effort to divorce my headset from the mess so as to use it with my MacBook.

On a whim, I decided to try something. In my ear was my trustily bluetooth headset, one I normally use with my phone. My MacBook has bluetooth, so perhaps they could be used together. Now this concept of pairing and using a bluetooth headset with a computer is not new to me. I have been trying with limited success off and on sense 2004 to use a bluetooth headset with a computer. Honestly, i’ve never been able to make it work consistently. The first stumbling block I encountered was that Windows XP did not have native support for bluetooth functions until service pack 2. Before that, those of us on Windows had to use the Widcomm bluetooth stack and associated programs. Now the Widcomm stack as not half bad, but because it was not core windows some of the functions, like headset support, where/are quite spotty. When Microsoft finally decided bluetooth existed, they forced on us a substandard stack with fewer features and less capable associated programs. I have never been able to make Microsoft’s bluetooth stack in XP work with a headset. I have read conflicting reports that it is or is not possible, however in my experience, I was unable to.

When Vista came out, the Bluetooth stack supported headsets, but again, while I could “pair” my various Jabra headsets to Vista, I could never make them work. After a while, one learns that some things are not possible, regardless of what the hype/manuals/wikis say. So I just stopped trying. \

But, I’ve never been one to take “no” for an answer very well. So in my moment of dread for that tangle of cables, I tried to use my bluetooth headset with OS X 10.5.

It turns out that I did not have to even take the headset off of my head. I simply paired my MacBook with my Jabra BT500 (OSX has a specific headset option in Bluetooth), and within 20 seconds I was making my call via Skype with my bluetooth headset. Now in the interest of full disclose, I did have to tell Skype that I wanted to use the bluetooth headset in place of the system speakers and microphone, but still after 4 years of disappointment with Windows and Bluetooth, it was incredible to have that up and going that quick. I had a nearly hour long conversation, without any hiccups what so ever.

I guess it remains to be seen if my headset will continue to function with my MacBook under various combinations and situations, but for today, I have to say Apple scored another point in it’s favor with me.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been looking into VNC systems in the ongoing effort to help me support my clients.

Just as a review, VNC stands for “Virtual Network Computing” as is just a fancy way of allowing remote control over a system. Literally a VNC client has control over the VNC hosts mouse and keyboard, and the video is sent from the host to the client. This allows me at my office to remote service a client anyway in the world. In an extreme example, I used the system when I was in Ghana West Africa to fix systems back here in Crossville. But on more day to day bases, I use it to service clients I have in Nashville, Knoxville, and Atlanta, without the need to spend 4 hours in a car to do a 2 hour on site job.

Now there are commercial paid VNC applications and there are free and/or open-source ones. For my part, I looked at 3 freely available VNC systems, RealVNC, UltraVNC, TightVNC.

Both TightVNC and UltraVNC have a file transfer system, which allows easy movement of files between the host and client computers. But I found both systems file transfer systems to be a bit klugy. You browsed a directory system that did not look or feel like a standard windows interface. The systems were also mutually excusive to send files from client to host, both had to be running the same VNC system, TightVNC Client could not send to UltraVNC host, or vice versa.

UltraVNC has a “chat” system with allows two people setting at either side of the VNC link to “chat” communicate. I however was not impressed by this feature because in my line of work I normally have the person on other end of the VNC link on the telephone.

Of the three I found RealVNC to be the fastest. Response times were much faster using RealVNC than either UltaVNC or TightVNC. I also found that the screens just looked better with RealVNC than they did with the other two.

All systems encrypt the password for authentication. But only UltraVNC has an option (an additional plug-in) that encrypts all traffic.

Of course all three system could interoperate with each other for the basic VNC functions, with are Video, Mouse, Keyboard. I found that all three could use the Linux VNC host. However, I could only get TightVNC to work with the native Apple Macintosh OS 10.5 (leopard) Desktop Sharing / Remote Desktop system which uses VNC. For my Macs I like to use Redstone Software’s Vine Server (a.k.a. osxvnc) for the VNC host.

All three systems do a “listing” mode for their client, and a “connect to client” mode for their host. This means that a person setting at the host computer can initiate a connection to a client. This is good for security, because it allows the host machine to ONLY allow connections when the user of that host machine specifically starts one. Also this is good for firewall purposes, most often in my line of work a host machine is behind a firewall and NAT. With this “reverse” connection I do not need to adjust the clients firewall when they need help. I simple have a rule in my firewall here at the office to allow incoming reverse connections.

Of the three systems, the interface for RealVNC seemed the most polished. TightVNC very much looks like a Windows 200 era application, and UltraVNC looks better than TightVNC, but not as good as RealVNC.

Side note on Macs: There are only two VNC clients I have found, Chicken of the VNC and Jollysfastvnc. Of the two I’m prone to Jollysfastvnc because it can do screen rendering to fit larger resolution hosts on a smaller resolution client.

In conclusion, I have opted to use 2 VNC systems. I will keep using RealVNC for the speed, but I will keep TightVNC on hand both for the Macintosh Leopard compatibility, and the file transfer ability, which might have some use, despite it’s difficult user interface.

Both Systems can be downloaded via the Software section of the website.

http://blog.holdenkarau.com/2008/07/gaping-whole-in-gmail-privacy.html

and

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/16/2220232&from=rss

Looks like Google let one slip through.

I have today upgrade the site so as to allow easier browsing by small screen devices such as PDAs, Cell Phone Browsers, and the iPhone/iPod Touch.

Yes, I know I wrote a rather negative review of AVG 8.0 and I did end up uninstalling AVG altogether because I did not like the new version. I decided to give Microsoft One Care antivirus another look. Alas, I still did not find it to be the clean non-invasive system that I came to know and love about AVG 7.5 and older.

However, I made an odd discovery, it seems that despite early statements from Grisoft/AVG (thanks timd442@gmail.com for pointing out my earlier misspelling), AVG 7.5 is still running smoothly and getting updates. While I do not know how long this will last, I’m going to use it for as long as I can. So AVG 7.5 is back on my system. Yea!

I have posted both AVG 8.0 and 7.5 is the Software Section, should you want to get them.

Success success if you by pass ____ around to the North get off before 111 the traffic is at 111 and you re-enter i40 at 290 then i40 is free clear and empty all the way to Crosswall(?). listen

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I 40 East Bound traffic is stopped at Cookeville, I’ve accidentally interstate at 286 to seek a northerly route, I’ve been told that these other routes are on 111 70 Inn and Highway 70 are jammed. listen

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Half way after we stop at Carbridge(?). Traffic is light and normal speed. listen

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