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Oct
13
Are you ready for Daylight Savings Time change?
Filed Under Microsoft patch, software | Leave a Comment
It’s that time again. Time to check to make sure your computer will flip over to the correct time in Nov.
You should check your computers and laptops now to ensure they will change correctly.
Go to the Microsoft time check site and follow the on screen instructions to test whether your system is ready.
Choose your operating system and then follow the instructions.
You will be asked to download a piece of software that will test your system and make any changes required.
Fast and simple - nothing to it.
If you have the software patch that takes care of the time change installed you will be told.
Make sure you do this before Nov 4.
Oct
11
Blogging for beginners - the who, what, where and when
Filed Under advice, beginners blog, blogging | Leave a Comment
Remember the old lessons from school on writing an essay?
Who, what, where and when?
I wish more bloggers remembered these tried and true methods of keeping a coherent thought on paper. Many new bloggers commit the cardinal sin of forgetting what they are writing about. This problem runs, not only through individual posts, but through the entire bog itself. It is hard to stay focused. If you remember the basic rules from school, you will succeed.
Today we are going to look at the Who of blogging.
How many times have you wandered across a blog only to find out it hasn’t been updated in months. It is hard work maintaining a blog, with a bit of pre-planning, you can simplify the job and have fun.
Before you even write your first entry, sit down and make a few decisions. These decisions will affect how the blog looks and how often you are able to update it.
Decision one: Who are you writing for? Are you writing for yourself? Or a specific audience? Forget the gloomy souls who advice you to forget about blogging if it’s personal because no one will read it. This is not true. You may never get 100’s of hits a day, but then, do you care?
Strange things happen on the Internet. You may find kindred spirits who log in to read your random thoughts, if they are presented properly. Look at the classic Julie/Julia 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen from just a few years ago. Julie Powell started the blog to detail her efforts to cook 1 recipe from the Julia Child’s cookbook everyday. It was amusing, fun to read and at times very personal. Despite all this, it reached a very wide audience and was published in hard cover form. Chances are you and I will never reach such heady heights of blogging fame. That shouldn’t stop you. It sure doesn’t stop me.
So .. decide upon your audience. Maybe its just you and your mother. Maybe its you and 20 other people who share a love of collecting small dragon figures or the problems of your particular job. Blogging is about getting your thoughts down on ‘paper’.
Remember who your audience is and design your site around them. Why do I say this? I log onto quite a few blogs and find I cannot read a thing on the page… the page is too busy, its too hard to find the posts, the colour contrast is buggered, the background screams out at me. If I land on a site that includes the above I say bye, bye to the site and move on. I don’t want to end up with a headache from trying to figure out your page. Clean and easy to read with a simple navigation menu will always win you more readers. I go for the traditional white background and black font because I have a hard time reading anything other than that.
This doesn’t mean you should restrict yourself to this type of format. This works for me. The basic look works best for this type of content. If I were writing reports on the latest punk concerts in my area then this format would well … suck. It would not suit the audience it is trying attract. A livelier format does not preclude the above rule of keeping the format clean and easy to read. There is never an excuse for a blog that is so bogged down in whirling, spinning crap and so full of ads the reader cannot find your posts. Readers come to SEE YOUR POSTS, never forget this.
A couple of rules to remember - not everyone has 20/20 vision. A lot of we myopic cats out there have a terrible time with busy backgrounds. Mute the background. Your background should never be the primary focus of the site. Wavy, swirly backgrounds just make me motion sick. Tone them down because they are competing with your posts.
Keep in mind approx 7% of the population is actually colour blind. Certain colour combinations make it impossible for people who are colour blind to read your site. I have a friend who is colour blind and he finds it very frustrating.
Blinking anything should be punishable by ostracisms. Never use the justly hated blink feature on any part of your site. Not only will it piss off the bulk of your audience, using it makes you look like a silly amateur who should have their keyboard taken away. I cannot explain how much I loath blink or any of the spiny twirly special affects I see. Some pages actually trigger off, in me, a violent headache if I stay for any length of time. Cut it, concentrate on what you are posting.
Navigation is another feature you should pay attention to. Make it easy to find info on your page. Don’t hide the navigation links.
Clutter - well this all depends upon your audience. As long as it’s easy to navigate and easy to read and your audience is of like mind, go ahead and put as many chicklets as you want on your blog. Link away. Just remember, don’t hide your posts. I have purposely left this particular blog clean because the cluttered look would detract from it. Over at the the other blog I maintain, Catpaw - diary of an angry cat, it is much busier with connections to blog catalogues etc. But then, the audience is different and likely more tolerant.
Next instalment in this series will discuss the What of blogging? What are you going to write about? And how to stay on topic.
Oct
10
Why I don’t like Norton Antivirus
Filed Under antivirus, evaluation, software | Leave a Comment
This is related to the previous entry I wrote about which antivirus program I prefer. I made mention of Norton as one I am not fond of using. I have gone so far as to tell customers I don’t like supporting Norton Antivirus and don’t like troubleshooting computers with it installed. I suppose it isn’t enough to simply say, I don’t like it, I need to give you reasons. When I write about Norton or any other program, I’m not testing the software on a top of the line computer that is used for testing purposes. I’m going upon the results I see from my customers’ computers - often hard used, usually well used. They are rarely in pristine condition and often have various pieces of software that make for some interesting troubleshooting. In short, Norton is tested in real world conditions.
Norton is often referred to as the ‘most trusted’ antivirus package in the world by various press releases and magazine articles. A wee bit of hyperbole there. I’m sure it is one of the most used, but I think that is a far cry from trusted. Norton is the product of a very good marketing machine.
Here are a couple of reasons I prefer the more modest Avast! and AVG as compared to Norton:
Cost - for years, Norton was one of the most expensive antivirus programs on the market. To purchase a new copy, in previous years, could run as high as $89.00 here in Canada. And that is for a 1 year subscription. Renewals were always reasonable, but read down a bit further about renewal nightmares. I notice this year the cost of a copy of Norton antivirus is now down to $49.99 - the miracles of capitalism at work. That is a huge drop in price! Norton for Macs is still a princely sum of $89.99 here in Toronto. I am still annoyed that Norton charged so much for so many years.
Bloat - Norton has become bigger and more complicated with the passage of time. While I do agree with the notion, it takes a lot more work to prevent virus infections, why do some companies create very streamlined and efficient antivirus programs while Norton has become a such a resource hog. It churns away at startup on some machines as though it were kneading bread somewhere in the bowels of the machine. Normally I roll my eyes at people who moan and complain about slow startup times, but in the case of Norton, I’ve actually timed startup delays of up to 2 minutes. This is excessive. I’m not talking about 1 in every 200 machines either. I’m talking about a good 40 to 50% of the machines that use Norton. Norton has so many running components in the background, its a miracle there is any processor time left for anything else but itself.
Unpredictable behaviour - Because Norton has become so big and complicated, it is hard to predict how it will react to any software set up in a customer’s computer. If they want Norton installed, I now have a standard, I’ll be happy to install it and warn them I periodically run into trouble with the installation failing. A forewarned customer is one that doesn’t come back and bite me in the ass. And to answer your question, yes I usually do get complaints about how slow the computer works after the installation. It slows down computers too much. System delays mean the customer will inevitably shut the offending software down so they can get their work done more rapidly, which in turn means an infection. This is the real world - these are frustrated people, they do things like that. The worse case scenarios have been when Norton has damaged the operating system of the computer. That has happened four times to me and 3 times to customers. I don’t trust the software and get very jittery around it now. Before I do anything with Norton, I back up all the files. I lost customer files once and that was once too often.
Subscription Renewal - this is always fun! I have encountered numerous errors that result in having to do a full installation of the software and phone calls to Norton Tech support, which is always a treat. The issue of renewals became so bad about 5 years ago, I actually stopped doing the renewals and told the customers it wasn’t worth the hassles. In one month I had 4 renewals to do and 3 of them failed. By the time they paid me to do it they could have purchased a nice upgrade package from the store and done it in a fraction of the time. The problem has been largely corrected, but I still run into renewal problems.
Tech Support - well isn’t it an fascinating topic. The mythical beast of tech support by any company. Symantec is not the only one guilty of forgetting what support means. Its always an adventure trying to get an answer from any company. Norton is just another casualty in the tech support wars. Their website’s support files are slim and bordering on useless at times. Word of advice? Don’t even try calling. Their ‘customer care’ answers non technical questions only. Otherwise, pay up front or no help.
Removal of Norton - the uninstall feature never fully removes all the bits and pieces of the program. You have to go back in and remove the Live update software and in some instances, I’ve gone tromping through running services and found 2 - 3 Symantec services still installed and running. These extra services, that should have gone bye-bye with the rest of Norton have contributed to a number of mysterious system slowdowns. They need to be shut down or they continue to run. Again, I haven’t figured out how to remove just those components from the services panel. At least not without worrying about damaging the operating system.
Did I say Norton leaves bits and pieces of itself behind? The worse offenders of this are the preinstalled packages of Norton. God forbid the customer doesn’t want the software. Its a bugger to remove.
Live Update Errors - I’ve dealt with a stream of these errors. Customer will be going along doing their own thing when suddenly they can’t get Norton to update any longer. This problem entails another trip through tech support files to try and narrow down the problem. Even after a complete reinstallation, the problem lurks. I have had customers in near tears after they explain what they have done to try and fix the problem themselves. I feel this way myself sometimes.
Send mail problems - these crop up from time to time. Symantec blames the internet providers. The internet providers blame Symanted. Either way customer gets screwed. My feelings on this are pretty clear. Symantec is the root cause in many cases - this problem usually occurs after a program update. The Internet provider usually has done nothing.
I have some other reasons, but these are enough to chew on for now. As I said in my previous post, commenting on antivirus choices is always dangerous. You would think the person’s first born was just called ugly, judging by people’s reactions. I tell customers, find a program that works for your computer and the way you operate. Then after that, ignore everyone else. All of us have opinions. Sometimes it’s best to ignore everyone and stick with what works for you. If Norton works for you, excellent… if it doesn’t, there is a lot of competition out there, look around and choose a product that will work for you. Don’t stick with a product because it’s what everyone is using.
Oct
9
I’m often asked this question. I cringe when I hear it. I’d rather be dragged into a religious battle, less blood is shed over the arguments. For many computer users, the choice of which antivirus program to use is engraved in stone and to suggest they use anything else is somewhat akin to heresy.
I don’t take an inflexible attitude towards protection. I consider the customer - their level of technical skill and what their panic level is like. I also consider what they have in their computer, who their provider is etc. Here is a good example:
Are they a Sympatico customer? Then they may encounter problems with Norton down the road. Norton and Sympatico have some well documented conflicts when it comes to the SMTP (send mail) protocol. Norton interferes with Sympatico’s security settings and blocks outgoing mail. Norton says the problem lays with Sympatico, Sympatico says the problem is Norton’s. So Norton is not the top of my list for antivirus protection.
I find some antivirus programs are just too slow as well. I don’t want my antivirus checking to see if I flossed in the morning - just keep the viruses out. Do one job and do it well. Unfortunately many of the big commercial packages suffer terribly from BLOAT. Some of the packages have such a degree of feature bloat, they slow down the computer’s performance until it seems to crawl. This is hardly useful. If I can’t use my computer, or have to wait endless amounts of time while the antivirus does it’s job, then the software is not efficient enough for me to recommend to my customers. Sorry, but I live in the real world, not in a lab. I’m not willing to wait forever.
I also take into consideration that most of my customers are of the “don’t tell me the gory details” mindset. “Just make the software work so I don’t have to worry and don’t worry me with endless details”. Some of the packages are so big and unwieldy, they intimidate customers. If I have to search around to figure out how to do a simple update, the software gets tossed. If I have a problem with it, then I know my customers will as well.
2 packages for PC users and 1 for Mac users have passed my test for ease of use and reliability.
For Mac users, I always install ClamAV or Clamshell. I love this program. Easy to use, takes up minimal space and isn’t a program hog. You never know it’s running. It may not be fancy, but it does the job of protecting your Mac well. Clamav is donation ware. Although it is being offered free, I encourage my Mac customers to send something via PayPal to the developers. I tell them, either send them something of put up with bloatware - there choice.
For PC users, I use either Avast! or Grisoft’s AVG, depending upon the system. If the customer is running Vista, then Avast is the better choice. AVG seems to have a quirk that shuts off email scanning. AVG has a slightly simpler interface, a lot less intimidating for my senior customers. They love AVG because there is no learning curve. It’s very basic and simple for them. Avast! has a few more bells and whistles but the interface is not as straight forward. I am using it with customers with more computer savvy and who are also doing more than emailing and light internet cruising.
If you have kids at home using P2P software (downloading music etc) or Internet Messaging software, then Avast! is perfect. It comes with P2P and IM shields already installed. Even with these 2 features, there is no appreciable decrease in speed.
Both packages come in 2 flavours - free for home use and the upgraded pay for professional use. Again, while most of my customers are using the home version, I have some who I have encouraged to purchase the full version. I have had them spend the money because they like to have a few more bells and whistles to play with (home versions are much more basic).
If a customer insists upon Norton or McAfee, I’ll put the software in - its just I prefer the above one’s.
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