I have always been puzzled by the worlds fascination with computer mice.

I have used mice, trackballs, laptop ‘trackpads’ and those joymouse things that you also get on laptops (the dot between the G, H, and B keys… gotcha!, I bet most of you have just glanced at the ghb keys on your keyboard!!!).

Personally, I find the laptop trackpads the worst, and trackballs the best… particularly the optical ones like the logitech marblemouse… I’ve tried the ones where you use your thumb to move the ball… after a few weeks, I had to toss it away… my thumb hurt!

Just think: to move a mouse, you keep your hand still, and you need to move your entire hand and forearm. As humans, we have a certain amount of fine-moter control over the position of our hands, but its nothing compared to the amount of control we have over our fingers.

I just have so much more control over my pointer by keeping my hand still, and using the my index and middle fingers to control the trackball, thumb for left-click, and ring-finger for right-click.

Also, if I want to, I can go bananas clicking buttons without affecting the pointer position. I have noticed many people (particularly new users, or the elderly), who move the mouse while clicking… its not that easy to keep a mouse still while clicking!

And after all that, you need an uncluttered flat area to use a mouse, whereas a trackball just needs enough room to rest your hand… the desk doesn’t even need to be flat.

I keep thinking that the fascination with mice will eventually fade away, and that people will look at pointing devices that are more productive and easier to use (ie trackballs!).

Maybe I’m missing something, or maybe I’m just living in a different, more realistic world

Posted by Computer Help as Hints, Rant, Technical at 5:37 PM EDT

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I’m asked to ’clean up’ a pc that was once infected with many nasties (but cleaned up since), and to get it working on an existing wireless network.

I install ewido and antivir, and do a scan & cleanup a few more ‘trojans’ etc…

But it still cannot work on the wireless network… at this stage, since I cannot activate the antivir Guard option, I figure there is something severely wrong with this PC. So I decide its time to work on it from the office.

I remove the HDD and scan it from another computer… it finds and removes a few more nasties (remnants of vundo, webhancer)

Once I reassemble the PC, windows I notice a few more peculiarities:

• I cannot display windows firewall settings.
• I find the solution mentioned at: http://windowsxp.mvps.org/sharedaccess.htm, but it doesn’t help
• It won’t recognise usb drives
• Antivir still cannot active the guard function (I first thought it was the new gard function in ewido that was interfering)
• I had to redo the tcp stack using lspfix (to correct problems with tcp networking)… but that doesn’t help much
• Antivir would stop pc from shutting down.
• Nero complained about unregistered dll’s

I eventually admitted defeat and told the customer that a windows reinstall is the only solution. The only problem is that he cannot find his acer XP CDs.

I backup the PC.

I try my OEM copy of XP home, but it won’t accept the acer XP serial number on the box… Grrr. One of the main reasons NOT to buy a name-brand PC… its much better to buy a nameless PC & get some proper OEM XP cds.

So I now have no choice but to install my ’special’ copy of XP Pro.

The install and subsequent tuning goes without a hitch (except for a flaky DVD writer). The wireless setup works well.

I take it back to the customer, and installing his usb wireless dongle works perfectly.

A quick training session with the family, and I’m on my way again (at last!).

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 4:50 PM EDT

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A customer cannot get broadband (housing compound uses a PABX), but wants to have 2 PCs share the dialup internet link (without any messy wires). He also wants me to look into a few other things, most of which are easy to do, so I do them while setting up the wireless network.

After some thought, I decide the best solution is to setup an ad-hoc 802.11G connection (both PCs run XP). I setup a pci wireless card in one PC, and a USB wireless card in the other (both are generic chinese cards – FAST).

After some hiccups (cannot install pci card into the PC that has all PCI slots used ), I get the usb ‘card’ working well (I setup WPA-PSK with very little problem). But the other PC (with PCI card), behaves very strangely: The software won’t allow me to setup both WPA and ad-hoc.

I try installing a different set of software (the CD has 2 to choose from)… but no luck…

I run out of time, so I make an appointment to return 2 days later.

I do some research and eventually it dawns on me: I’ve seen this before: both PCs must be running SP2 in order to use wireless networks correctly!

So when I return, I install SP2 and try it again… the software works better, but I still cannot use IBSS and WPA at the same time!

I decide that its probably not possible to use WPA and IBSS at the same time (although nothing on the net seems to indicate that the 2 are incompatible). So I fall back to WEP, and that works better… I see green bars, which indicate a wireless link has been established.

I do a ping test, but I get no response… Hmmm… why?

I ping from both computers, but no success. I change ‘automatically obtain IP address’ to a fixed IP address, but still no luck.

I disable the windows firewall, and then the ping works. I’ve not seen the windows firewall prevent LAN pings before!

Anyway, it works, so I re-enable the XP firewall, and I look at setting up a bridged network (as per my previous post: another visit to the vet ), but it won’t work… xp insists that I use internet connection sharing… it only wants to bridge non-dialup networks. I figure: ok if it wants to do it like that, I’ll do it.

I setup ICS on the modem PC, then I do what XP recommends (let the second PC get its IP address automatically).

I dialup the net, then bring up a web page, then I go to the second PC & I can also view a web page: success!

The modem PC starts downloading a windows update, and I also start an antivir and spywareBlaster update… it will take a while, but I have achieved most of what I set out to do.

The only thing that I  couldn’t do was speedup his 1Ghz celeron PC. It ran unusually slow, and DVD playback would invariably result in stuttering audio and video. Diagnosis would be expensive, as would a windows reinstall with a full backup, so the customer will leave it for now.

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 5:41 PM EDT

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Another interesting problem.

PC running windows ME, has lots of RAM, but has some ’small problems’:

• Any highlighted text is white text on a white background (ie invisible)… easily fixed via display settings.
• Some help files won’t work, due to a missing learn32.dll (I take the PC to the office at this point, as the client has no internet connection)… I download the dll, but it still doesn’t feel right…
• cannot right click on the taskbar (and start button)… no menu pops up… very frustrating

I search the internet looking for a solution to the right-click problem. I get lots of references to NoTrayContextMenu in the registry… but changing it makes no difference…

I even find poledit for winME, but I still cannot turn off the notraycontextmenu…

I eventually decide on a refresh install on winME…

I try to boot my winME CD… cannot boot from CD… strange.

OK, I’ll try to boot from a floppy… floppy drive is on its last legs and cannot manage a dos boot.

Alright then, back to the CD: look into the bios, and only the HDD is detected… nothing I do allows me to tell the bios there is a CD drive there (yet windows sees it just fine).

I boot to safe mode, and windows cannot see the CDROM drive… curious!

I try to do a refresh install from windows, but it fails the chkdsk.

I manually run the chkdsk (it sometimes completes, sometimes not…)… but windows setup still fails while doing its own chkdsk at install time…

Back to the CD drive: I decide to open up this beast (one of the trickier cases to open and access CD drives). I see the ’secondary master’ ribbon cable plug goes into the CDROM, but the CDROM jumper is set to ’slave’.

So I change the CDROM jumper to cable select, then reassemble the whole thing… Yippee! the bios now detects the drive and I can finally boot from the CD. phew!!!

But after booting from the winme cd, It still won’t let me do a repair install (due to it failing the checkdisk)…

I’m sick of this (and wasted many hours), so I drop it and look at the next problem.

The main problem I’d like to fix is: within the help system, there are some webtv tutorials (sbsi – step by step interactive), but they give an error about a missing learn32.dll. after downloading this dll (and reinstalling the help and sbsi system, I still just get a ‘play,stop, skip forward, skip back’ button bar, but the play button doesn’t work.

I have some time (as I cannot contact the customer), so I install winme onto a virtualPC partition on my main system, and I look at the webtv tutorial (which is what the customer wants fixed). It works, and right-clicking on the tutorial animation shows that it is a flash animation. Ah Ha!

I uninstall and reinstall the flash system, and the help system finally works.

I cannot fix the chkdsk / defrag / right-click on the taskbar, problems but I wasn’t asked to fix it, so I leave it, telling the customer that something is still not right, but a full reinstall of me (or xp) will fix the problem.

I must do something about these difficult 95-based systems…

When I get the PC back to the customer, I find he has purchased a TV tuner card (he asked me to look into it & I advised him against it, as it only supports win xp.

He ask me to try anyway, so I install the software (it fails at a few points, but I persist) and I eventually get a TV ‘control panel’. So far, so good… I try to scan for some TV channels. I can see some TV snow or ‘noise’, but it doesn’t find any channels. I try some antenna combinations, but no luck.

Since I haven’t restarted the PC since I installed the TV card, I reckon a restart might fix things… but the PC refuses to boot (a severe error during the early stage on windows startup.

I eventually have to remove the card in order to get the PC to start. I then remove the drivers for the TV card & so: ‘nope, there is no way it will work’.

Hopefully the customer will be able to get a refund on his purchase.

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 11:49 AM EDT

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My neighbour recently bought a pioneer dvr-111 drive, but was having problems copying CDs (he has a P3 800Mhz).

I said: hey, I’ll take a look!

Just as it starts writing to a blank CD, nero gives a CRC error and makes a coaster.

I try just burning a data CD, at a slow write speed), and I make another coaster… Hmm, not good.

Having had similar problems with my crappy Samsung drive over a year ago (and fixing things with a firmware update), I decide to upgrade the Pioneer firmware from V1.06 to the latest (1.29). I download the new firmware, but when I go to install it, I get an error message.

I stuff around with a few different firmware versions, but no luck.

I eventually remove the drive and install it into my system (an amd duron 1.3 Ghz), and it writes CDs & DVDs without any problem… I upgrade the firmware with no hiccups. I then try in in my own P3 system, and it works fine.

I figure it should work correctly now, and if not, then its probably a problem with nero 7, which I can replace with nero 6.

I put the drive back into its original computer and it gives crc errors again… arggg!!!

It cant be nero, as it is just reporting the crc from the hardware.

However, I now have an idea of what the problem is: the burner was plugged into the ’slave’ cable… and while working on it at the office, I changed the jumper to cable select. I suspect the old cd drive also had a forced master or slave jumper setting, so based on its cable selection, nero was probably getting conflicting messages from the 2 ‘masters’ or the 2 ’slaves’.

I just unplugged the power from the older CDROM, and everything worked perfectly.

Sometime you just cannot assume that a PC has been put together correctly…

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 11:53 AM EDT

3 Comments »

Now this is a strange problem…

Someone emails me, saying his laptop will dial up his internet connection, but only if he is running on battery power. If it is plugged into the AC adaptor, he cannot dial his ISP.

I think of the usual suspects: malware/virus, windows power settings, a faulty power supply.

After some testing, I also found that if I connect to the internet (whilst on battery power), and then connect the AC power, the modem hangs up. At that point, I pickup the phone, and a hear a buzzing noise (probably 50Hz)…

I get the feeling that the AC ripple from the power supply rectifier, is not being filtered properly and is making its way to the modem (or the power supply has a faulty rectifier or capacitor… unlikely, as I measured the voltages, and it is DC, with very little AC component).

Anyway, I dismantle most of the laptop, looking for something obvious (like an exposed wire touching somewhere it shouldn’t)… but no such luck.

I’ve never liked laptops much, and my experience over the last few days has reinforced my bad feelings.

This looks like a job for Acer technical support (who will most likely just replace the motherboard).

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 9:08 AM EDT

2 Comments »

I’m asked to look at a laptop that has suddenly stopped working.

I push the power button, all the LEDs light up simultaneously, for about 30 seconds, and then everything powers down.

I can hear the hard drive spin up, so I try removing the battery, pressing the reset button (under the laptop), but no joy.

The display is totally dead… nothing to see… no beeps.

I then notice that the CPU fan doesn’t spin up… I think ‘thats it!’ probably a faulty fan/heatsink.

I dismantle the laptop. While mostly dismantled, I try to power up again, and sure enough, the fan doesn’t spin, and the top of the cpu gets warmer and warmer until it powers down again.

Yep, a bad fan… the cpu starts running, the bios (or the electronics) notices the fan isn’t spinning, so it waits, the CPU gets too hot, so the bios/electronics powers down the system. Simple huh?

So I order a replacement heatsink/fan part from HP.

I need to go out for a few hours, but while I’m out, I decide to check the fan on another system (when I get back), and see if I can force the fan to spin with a slightly higher voltage (or maybe fix it by cleaning out the dust).

The fan is not as dirty as I would expect, so I just plug it into 5 Volts, and it starts spinning right away! I get a bad feeling about this… If the fan works, then I’ve wasted money buying a part I don’t need, and the actual problem is elsewhere!

I start testing voltages on the motherboard, and it looks like most of the board is powered up correctly, but the fan plug has no power (and I’m not an electronic engineer), so I cannot track down which component is causing the problem… damn!

Looks like a replacement motherboard is needed… After checking the prices, it looks like it will cost the customer about $750!!!

Needless to say, he decides its cheaper to get a new laptop, and drop the current HDD into a usb enclosure, so that he can recover his data.

So its: no fix, no charge, and I really need to be more thorough in checking hardware.

Anybody want to buy a cheap heatsink/fan unit?

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 7:33 AM EDT

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After having tried Spybot S&D on a few computers, I have found 2 main problems that will stop me from using its teatimer function on an ongoing basis:

1. Teatimer popups only show the top 3 or 4 pixels of the buttons. This can be fixed by using a program like resHacker, but its annoying to fix this bug on many computers.
2. Teatimer locks up when it detects tracking cookies (and probably with other spyware as well), while working in conjunction with AntiVir.

The lockup is the most severe problem, and it doesn’t happen unless you stumble across a dodgy site… which makes it difficult to test.

Oh well, its back to using winpatrol, and only using spybot for the occasional manual scan.

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 3:38 PM EDT

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Over the years, I’m sure we have all received many telemarketing phone calls… most are very annoying.

I’ve gotten ‘congratulations! you have won a mobile phone’, or:

‘we can reduce your business mobile phone call costs’ (I like this one: as soon as they ask how much do I spend, I say ‘about $100 per annum’. At this point I get a nervous laugh, or a few seconds of silence, then the obvious reply: I don’t think we can help you.

I also get:

‘we can reduce your mortgage’ (I don’t have one)

‘a great way to build wealth by investing in property’ (I prefer shares… much more flexible).

Anyway, you get the picture.

I would usually do 1 of 2 things:

1. I’d listen until I could get a word in, and I’d say no thanks, I’m not interested (I suspect many of you would just say ‘F*** Off’ and then hang up).
2. If I had nothing better to do, then I’d just let them waffle for as long as they liked. I’d be non-committal until they asked for a positive commitment, then I’d say ‘I don’t think so’ etc until they said ‘goodbye’

After a while, I started to notice a pattern:

The ones that use large (probably Indian) call centres… also known as cubicle farms… would usually go like this:

• Ringgg
• Me: Hello?
• 3 – 6 seconds of silence, then
• Caller: Hello?
• Me: yes, hello? (I’m already starting to get annoyed at this stage!)

Now, the initial few seconds of silence is the best giveaway, that this is a spam phone call (a spacall? a scall?).

I started thinking: most people I know will just hangup, or just say something and then hangup.

Now: these call centres need to make a profit in order to survive. To make a profit, they need to sell a product. To sell a product in such an annoying way, they need to make LOTS of calls.

So what is the best way to stop them?

Slow them down!

Stop them from making 6 or 10 phone calls per minute (when most people immediately hang up)

How do I do that without wasting my time talking to them for a few minutes? Well, here is what I do now:

• Ringgg
• Me: Hello?
• 3 – 6 seconds of silence, then
• Caller: Hello?
• Me: (after a deliberete 6 second pause) yes, hello?
• Caller: Er, ello, is this Mr Martin?
• M: Yes.
• C: Good day to you. I be calling from xyz and you have won …
• M: I let him waffle for a bit, until he asks me a question (If he waffles too much, I just interrupt)
• M: excuse me, but could you please hold on for a minute?
• C: Umm, yes, sure.
• M: I put the phone down and walk away (I don’t hang up)
• I check the phone 10 or 20 minutes later (wow, they hung up! How rude!

Now, the caller has to decide how long to hold for, before hanging up.

The upshot is:

1. He wastes a lot of his precious time staring into space, waiting for me to return.
2. While he is waiting, he cannot annoy someone else
3. These people (and the call centres in general) are under a LOT of pressure to make as many calls, and as many sales, as possible… If everyone did what I did (or even deliberately string them along for as long as possible), then the call centre might not be financially viable anymore.

So I implore you: PLEASE don’t hang up on these marketing calls!!!

Just tell them to hold on. If everyone did this, I reckon we could banish most of these calls (but it will only work if everyone does it).

I’m even prepared to start a website that promotes practical tips on ‘annoying the annoyers’ (If there is enough interest from YOU… so just give me a feedback comment, to indicate your support).

Just don’t leave a comment with more that 1 url in it… it will disappear into the spam bucket!

Posted by Computer Help as Business, Hints, Humor, Technical at 10:47 AM EDT

7 Comments »