Standby Issues and some workarounds

Computers don’t die, they only fade away… to become household servers so it seems. A computer typically lasts me about 3-5 years of primary use before it becomes old enough where it just can’t drive the software and / or the operating system that I want to use. Then I tend to purchase an extra hard drive for it, toss on an FTP server and make it a backup server for the house. Having these computers all running would just be a waste of energy so I’m taking advantage of their standby abilities and, where possible, their Wake On LAN ability.

My primary machine an Alienware Aurora Desktop which, through Windows 7, offers a great modified standby feature called “Hybrid Sleep”. This is similar to the well known “Standby”  – meaning that the system will come back to life very quickly and pick up right where you left off.  The “Hybrid” aspect has the computer also dumping its memory to disk a la hibernation in case the power should fail. This causes the computer to take a bit longer to power down – and I don’t need to care because I don’t have to wait for this – but after a power failure restarting the computer also will bring you right back to where you left off without losing anything.

My former primary computer is now a media center PC in my TV room and it’s configured to go into hybrid sleep mode too after about an hour of non use.

My PC prior to that (a PowerSpec 8922) well.. it would be nice if it could work as nicely as the others, it just exists as a host my laser printer but it must be shut down and restarted as I need to print documents (see why below).

Whenever I’m finished using my primary machine, I hit the power button and it goes into Hybrid Sleep mode. I manually turn off the monitors since, even in “powersave mode” they consume about 20 watts apiece.  The power use is absolutely negligible once I’ve done this. Very early each morning, a scheduled task will run that will wake the PC, send a Wake On LAN command to wake up my Media Center PC and then back up my system. When complete both systems go back to sleep. When I get up in the morning I see the reports from the backup waiting for me and I know that all is well.

The Wake on LAN command is sent using a free utility from here. I just unzipped the executable into my bin directory, created a simple batch file that is executed by my backup software as a “program to execute before backing up” and the media center is up and running waiting for the backup process. It works like a charm. My wife’s laptop executes an identical batch file before it starts its backup as well and has no problems.

Quirks:

The PowerSpec 8922 (Running Windows XP) has the annoying habit of going into sleep mode and then NEVER COMING BACK. Whenever I print something I stroll to the back room and boot it up (it’s a 2004 vintage and does not have WOL even if it could come back from standby anyway). Window’s print spooler is patient enough to wait for the PowerSpec to start up and then continue with the print job. I have not been able to find a better solution for this. If the computer is put into sleep the power must be disconnected and reconnected to force it to restart and come back to life.

The Dell Inspiron 530 (Media Center PC running Windows Vista 32 bit) will not go into standby manually. If I click “standby” from the start menu or if I invoke standby by setting the power button to do so it will enter sleep mode and then, maybe a minute later wake up again for no discernible reason. So I just leave it alone and let the power setting time out after an hour and it goes to sleep just fine after that.

On awakening, the AlienWare Aurora Desktop (Windows 7, 64 bit) shows 4 issues:

– The Alienware Thermal controller will fail with the error: System.Net.Sockets.SocketException: An invalid argument was supplied

I have found no solution to this yet.

– Windows Microsoft .NET Framework dies, again indicating that “An invalid argument was supplied.”

I have found neither any solution nor any downstream issues caused by this and so have not been motivated to resolve.

– Upon starting iTunes, it reports that the Bonjour service that it relies upon to share music (notably with my Roku sound bridge) has “been disabled“.

For this I created a batch file consisting solely of the following two commands:

Net Stop “Bonjour Service”
Net Start “Bonjour Service”

I then used the Task Scheduler to create a task that ran when it detected that the computer was woken up from sleep which executed this batch file and iTunes has been fine ever since

Trigger
Begin the task: On an Event
Log: System
Source: Power-Troubleshooter
EventID: 1

– Firefox, if it was open, would be unable to connect to the internet.

Restarting Firefox corrects this (I picked up an add on for Firefox to do this via a button on the tool bar). But I became tired of this silly behavior and have since switched to Google Chrome and have fewer issues.

Clearly a lot more work needs to be done by either Alienware, Microsoft or both in sorting these issues out. For me, I’ve got workarounds that are satisfactory for me so I am not hampered by these problems. If there is a problem that I suspect may have something to do with the computer having been in standby, I will reboot it and see if that resolves the issue.

“Must Have” apps for BlackBerry Torch

I’m about to trade in my BlackBerry Torch 9800 for a couple of HTC EVO devices from Sprint. The job I’m moving to, while still a BlackBerry shop, does not provide them for my position (yet…).

But I’ve been refining my collection of BlackBerry apps for a while now. Mostly with my Bold 9000 but these apps have served me well on the Torch for the brief time that I’ve enjoyed using it.

As you check out the list below, remember that my BlackBerry device is primarily a business tool needed for communicating day-to-day support issues plus nightly oncall support notifications. So it needs to be available for all this – sometimes 24 x 7 – and it needs to do all this and be a reliable telephone to boot.

In order of usefulness and not including standard apps that come with the phone :

Pocket Informant: (in app store) Without hesitation the most useful application I have. It replaces the default calendar, tasks and contacts applications and expresses daily commitments in a clear and useful manner. I can quickly see what scheduled calendar entries I have for any day along with relevant tasks so I can work through them as the day progresses. I favor the agenda view as being most suitable for my needs.

BerryWeather: (in app store) A great weather app that I have set to show the current conditions on the home screen as well as a tiny little icon showing temperature in the icon strip. I have mine configured so that my current GPS location (updated every hour) is considered my “home” location and is what displays on the home screen. Then I keep track of my actual house location and Toronto (so I know how lucky I am to be living here). It also shows weather advisories as they are made available.

BatteryBooster: Actually, I only got BatterBooster because I wanted to get SmartWiFi but BatteryBooster was being offered for 1/2 of SmartWiFi’s price and had SmartWiFi bundled in as a package deal. BatteryBooster looks like it would probably help somewhat but many of the options did things like turn off the phone radio if the signal strength dropped too low or (with another bundled piece called PowerControl) it can turn off the whole unit at various times during the day. Since I often have a 24×7 requirement for my BlackBerry, this doesn’t benefit me at all. But the SmartWiFi app is great. Basically it figures out what cell towers are near WiFi spots you use. If you move away from those cell towers it turns off the WiFi radio. Likewise when you return to those cell towers it reenables the WiFi and reestablishes contact – completely transparently to me. I just happen to notice that my device is browsing the web MUCH faster when I get within range of those hotspots and I can see that I’m not wasting my WiFi power otherwise.

MailMinder: I make copious use of Profiles and filters on my blackberry. But the simple distinction between “normal” messages and “Level 1” was not quite what I needed. I have things set so most messages just appear on my device and I’ll get to them when I get to them. But I wanted to be able to distinguish between different kinds of high priority messages since, depending on the situation, I may or may not need to address them right away. So I use MailMinder to draw distinctions between messages from certain friends, warnings from the servers that I monitor, critical issues from the servers that I monitor, messages from my wife and notifications from my personal calendar on Google Calendar. MailMinder allows me to have distinct tones and LED colors for all of the above. Especially handy when I’m on call and the only thing I want to wake me up are critical server issues (and maybe messages from my wife…). If I’m in a meeting, the device can silently let me know just by its LED that a message has arrived from a friend and I can ignore it without even touching the BlackBerry. However a server failure worthy of interrupting the meeting will give me a blip and a red LED and I must be on my way.

RingScheduler: Another great app for someone with differing notification needs throughout the day. I have mine set so that it uses the “Normal” profile as its default. Every evening at 10 pm it switches to the “Phone only” profile until 8 am. On nights when I am oncall, I have oncall scheduled in my calendar as a 10 pm – 8 am meeting. RingScheduler sees the keyword “oncall” in the meeting and automatically switches me over to a custom “oncall” profile that I created. If I have an ad-hoc meeting or simply want to ensure that the BlackBerry will not disturb folks around me for a period of time, I can select the “Schedule Ringer Now” menu option that is available nearly everywhere in the device and set it to hold any of my profiles for a selectable period of time (a few minutes, a few hours), then the BlackBerry will switch back to whatever profile makes sense (default, timed, meeting based) when the ad hoc period ends. Very good if you have ever silenced your device while in a movie or a meeting and then forgotten to reset it and missed those phone calls or emails afterwards.

Ascendo DataVault: A worthy replacement for MiniSafe. It follows the same paradigms. My passwords, logon information, bank account information, etc. are stored in an encrypted file on my BlackBerry – available to me at any time. I bought the bundle that syncs the data with a desktop companion so I can more easily update and reference the same information when I’m working on my PC. It also boasts the ability to fill forms for you on your PC but I use a different app for that so I haven’t tried that functionality.

Twitter (from RIM): I’m not a power Twitter user by any stretch of the imagination so my needs are simple. I tried other offerings such as “Uber Twitter” and a couple of others whose names escape me now and they were not as good as this simple app made by RIM. It actually works in the background to refresh tweets – something the others seemed to have problems with – and it integrates very nicely with my messaging app so I can see that I have new tweets just by inspecting my inbox. And the notification is removed from my inbox when I return from Twitter. Simple and functional.

Bloomberg Mobile: Pretty clean, easy to set up and accurate. It’s amazing how hard it is to get a decent stock price app. I have concerns about battery drain with this app so I always exit out of it so it is not constantly running. But I like how it presents my data.

Facebook (by RIM): While I am sure there are probably better Facebook apps out there, this one from RIM is pretty straightforward, allowing me to post simple updates and pictures without any fuss at all as well as read items from my friends. It lacks the ability to honor the  filters I have set up on the web version to ignore crap such as game updates from bored folks but fortunately not too many of my friends are that desperate for stuff to do…

Google Sync: I only use this to sync calendar entries (not contacts) so I can speak solely to that half of its functionality. If you sync with another calendar system, Google Sync will recognize that fact and will not sync those entries with your Google Calendar. Have a LOT of experience working with corporate calendaring systems I can appreciate that there are probably huge complications that this avoids. But I put it to you that Google should develop read-only calendar entries so that so that your *complete* calendar can be reflected in Google Calendar and be available to aid in planning. As it is, I must choose what calendar to update for what events so that my wife or coworkers can see my busy times. Fortunately the BlackBerry *does* show all entries from all platforms, so I work mostly out of pocket informant.

Vlingo (Professional): I went crazy and sprang for the full version of Vlingo. Seduced as I was by the prospect of being able to largely dictate my emails. Two things: First – If you are in a modestly technical environment and you use a fair amount of jargon in your messages, especially names (people or computer names) then you’ll spend plenty of time manually correcting these. Vlingo’s “learning” ability seems to be more about grammar and sentence structure than individual words. No matter how often I corrected it, it never managed to spell my name correctly.  Second – I really don’t think that voice recognition is quite there yet. This app is amazingly good compared to other versions I’ve experimented with even in the past few years, but it either gets my words almost exactly right or laughably wrong. There does not seem to be a middle ground here yet. My favorite use for this app is to read incoming SMS text messages to me while I drive. The free version will accomplish this for you.

Gmail app: As I have my BlackBerry configured I really can’t work properly with Gmail using the native BlackBerry messaging application. In searching for the link for Gmail Mobile I see that there may be remedies out there for this but it’s a bit too late for me now. I review new messages on my handheld and then delete them permanently (handheld & mailbox) or just off the device (handheld only) if I want to add a label in Gmail later and then archive it. I use the Gmail app because there really isn’t a practical way to keep Gmail messages on the device in the default app and the Gmail app allows me access to search my entire Gmail mail database.

Evernote: I use Evernote on my PC a fair amount. I thought I’d use it more on my BlackBerry than I do, but even with the Torch device – which sports a respectable enough camera – Evernote takes such poor pictures that it is really only useful for non-text grossly obvious subjects. But the ability to search Evernote is handy.

Pandora: I’m of mixed opinions about using my SmartPhone as a music player. The idea of my phone being dead because I was listening to the latest “Katie Melua” song seems distasteful to me. Especially when I actually *do* have an iPod available to me. But the iPod’s weakness is that it cannot introduce me to new music and Pandora does a great job of that. This app doesn’t seem to have buffering issues (that I’ve noticed) and the commercials are not a nuisance. I may even upgrade my Pandora subscription to a paid membership if the Android version of this app is as good as this one.

BeamExplorer: If I really want to manipulate files on my handheld I plug it into my computer and use “mass storage mode”. But this little app is useful when you’re on the road and you want to find or move something other than a straight media file around.

Remember all of these are apps that I use pretty regularly and they are all worthwhile. My needs are more oriented towards business and communication and I think the apps that I favor reflect that. YMMV but I would not hesitate to recommend these apps for the right needs. Most of them I feel are best of breed except where I’ve indicated otherwise.

Cat Troubleshooting 101

We have a couple of cats, Phoebe and Maverick who are really well behaved… well… in most ways.

For years we had normal litterbox that they shared that looked just like any other cat litterbox.

After we had done a lot of work on our house I thought it might be nice to de-emphasize the litter box and ended up picking up “The Refined Litterbox” from Catsplay.com (they no longer offer this modestly priced alternative).  And for the past year and a half it has been great. The cats took to it immediately and all was well.

For some reason Phoebe, in the past couple of weeks has started backing herself right up to the edge of the internal litterbox and letting loose when she pees all over the inside (and sometimes the outside too) of the the cabinet. I cannot fathom why the change in behavior as she seems to be fine in every other way but it smelled bad, was a mess and needed to be addressed.

After hunting around for a while to see what other folks have come up with for similar problems, I came upon Clevercat Top Entry Litter Box
at Amazon. Essentially it’s a smooth, high-sided rubbermaid-style box with a lid with a hole cut out so the cats can get in and out but everything else stays in.

I placed the new litterbox next to the old one and barricaded the entryway of the old one with a couple of boxes of litter. I also tossed in some “samples” from their old litter box to let them know that this new unit is theirs.

At first the cats seemed a little wary of the box but they soon figured it out and now seem to be fine with it.  No more cat pee outside of the box! Yay!

A nice side-effect is that it seems that the high sides, the effort of climbing out, and the pattern on the lid of the box seem to combine to stop as much litter from making its way out onto the floor too.

Another few days and I think I may retire the refined litterbox cabinet. It’s a great idea so long as your cat has good aim!

Orville Redenbacher’s Gourmet Popcorn – What’s happening to you?

I like my popcorn. Many years ago I decided to see if the brand name popcorns were actually worth any extra money and bought several different kinds and tried them against some no name brands and decided that, at least in the case of the “Orville Redenbacher” offering there really was a difference. Like the ads claimed, most of the kernels would pop and the popped corn was very light and fluffy.

I have popcorn at least once or twice a week and for years I have been pleased with the consistency of the Redenbacher brand. My favorite is their “white corn” mostly because the result seems brighter and more festive to me. I cook my popcorn on the stove and use the microwave stuff only now and then as I don’t really favor the seasonings that are used for those (Orville or otherwise).

A couple of months ago I opened a new container of Orville Redenbacher popcorn that popped  in a manner that could only be described as lackluster. Probably a fifth of the kernels had not popped and those that did were unenthusiastic cheerleaders for the Redenbacher brand at best.

So I cracked open my next-in-line container of  popcorn (seriously, I’m not gonna run out if I can help it so I always have a spare…) that I noted had the same lot number and expiry date (Feb 17, 2011) on it. It was also dismal.

So I went to my local store and picked up another container, different lot number, and later expiry date and… exactly the same thing.

On the label, the Orville Redenbacher products have only a phone number that you can call for information or “To leave comments”. I figured I could help them out by at least registering a complaint. But the phone system offers no ability to talk to a live human or to leave a comment. So I left a note with them through their website to voice my displeasure over the apparent lack of quality control in their product recently.

So, as with another quest I’ve undertaken recently I went out to see if there are alternatives to my favorite popcorn.

I picked up a bag of Kroger’s yellow popcorn and a container of “Pop-Secret Jumbo Popping Corn”.

Both performed admirably. The Pop-Secret kernels were *huge* and this did result in somewhat larger popcorn after it had popped. But the simple Kroger popcorn was fine as well. Both had nearly every kernel popping and both I would use again in a heartbeat.

I’ve finished the bag of Kroger popcorn and am still happy with it and I’ve had three servings of the Pop-Secret with no complaints.

My message left on the the Orville Redenbacher site was as follows:

Recently I purchased 3 bottles of “White Corn Gourmet Popping Corn”. That appear to be from 2 different batches.

2 expiring Feb. 17, 2011 and the third sometime in April.

I’ve been using Orville Redenbacher popcorn for about 2 decades now and have always been pleased with the quality and consistency of your product. These recent batches were terrible. Many of the kernels remain unpopped (up to 1/5 of them) and those that did pop were lackluster in their appearance at best being barely puffed.

I didn’t immediately think to try this web site, but rather contacted the number listed on the container that indicated it could be used for “questions and comments” but found no avenue for the latter. So I simply returned the products to the store.

While it is said that “voting with your dollar” is the most effective way to let a company know when it is failing, I have found the Orville Redenbacher brand so reliable over the past 20 years that I wanted to register my concern / complaint with you more directly than simply switching to a different product.

One thing that truly sets the “Orville Redenbacher” brand apart from others (and hence makes it worth the premium at the checkout counter) is the certainty that quality control will ensure that your popcorn experience will always be great. I have to say that that confidence was a little shaken after the first two containers but shattered after the third.

I am hopeful that, if this is a systemic issue, that others have voiced their concern as well and that measures will be taken to correct whatever failings led to my lackluster product experience.

I was somewhat mollified to receive an email response from them within a couple of days that included this paragraph:

Due to the unusually wet growing season, we are forced to use a different drying process to prepare the kernels for production.  This is the likely cause of the unpopped kernels/excess hulls as you¿ve experienced. We are adjusting our processes to reduce the occurrence of this situation. In the meantime, we want to offer you a replacement coupon for ANY ORVILLE product.

True to their word, a week or so later I received not one but *three* coupons for replacement Orville products.

I appreciate it that they would be stand up enough to not only offer a reasonable explanation for the poor experience that I had with their product, but also to go as far as one could reasonably expect them to go to “make it right”.

So this week, with coupons in hand, I’ll be picking up some new Orville Redenbacher popcorn and figure out if the issue was merely a fluke with a temporary cause or if  there really are now issues with the brand.

More to come.

RSS Reader for Torch

On my PC, I love using Google Reader to aggregate my RSS feeds. I used to have (it’s probably still current) a paid-for copy of “NewGator” and I’ve tried several other alternatives, but the one that just worked the way I do was the Google product.

When I started using my new Torch BlackBerry device I noted that it had a “Social Feeds” application that really isn’t up to the standard that I felt RIM’s other, similar applications are. i.e. Facebook, Twitter and BB/Enterprise Messenger – all of which I use and like. This integrated tool while sporting some of my criteria for a good RSS reader, fell quite short of the mark.

What I am looking for:

  • Syncs with Google Reader (I don’t want to have to figure out where I left off on a feed whenever I move to a different platform – It might not have to be Google’s product, but I want multiplatform synching)
  • Removes read articles (or at least hides them)
  • Notifies me when new articles are available
  • Caches the articles / information on the BlackBerry rather than making me wait for each article while I’m reading them. Or at least intelligently caches the next few while I’m reading the current one so I can zip through them at my speed, not AT&T’s.
  • Same as above for pictures associated with the articles – I have an unlimited data plan, *some* extra bandwidth consumption is an OK price to keep up the reading momentum.
  • Shows me an abstract and lets me easily open the full article if I decide to move forward.

I’ve had Viigo on my various BlackBerrys for a while now. It was OK but there were a lot of flaws that I finally grew weary of working around:

  • Every time I updated Viigo I would have to re-enter my credentials (they tend to update a lot)
  • Also it would lose my feed position and everything would show as unread again on each update
  • Before I got my “touch” device it was a pain navigating because they were unable to navigate a page at a time using the space bar like every other app on the BlackBerry
  • With my Torch I find that every article is just a little too big to view on the screen and I have to “pinch” EVERY ONE OF THEM before reading – even in landscape mode
  • If I follow any link in a Viigo article, I can not get back to the article, I have to close it, and open a previous one, *then* open the original one. And I’m not where I left off but back at the top (needing to pinch it again)
  • Viigo never seemed to actually do anything in the background even though that’s how I had it configured so feeds only updated when I re-opened the app
  • There were far too many layers in Viigo, most of which I never used but had to navigate through and I can’t get rid of them. I think there were a lot of plans to expand that never really took off.

So Viigo is not really very efficient for RSS reading.

So I downloaded the latest version of BerryReader. I heard good things about this app’s ability to sync with Google Reader. But I found the interface absolutely useless – certainly no touch ability – but I found it really didn’t work for me at all. It *did* seem to sync with Google so I’ll give it that much.

I went to try out “Feeds” but they have no free trial, so even though I have heard good things about it I don’t try ANYTHING on my BlackBerry anymore without a trial. Too many apps are designed to work only in very niche ways that you either love or hate. That’s kind of why there are so many apps out there for all these devices.

I then tried “Unread” (cute play on current zombie craze I believe) and it was certainly better than BerryReader, but took a long time to load up (I only have 118 subscriptions). It actually nicely mirrored the subscriptions (folders/labels) of my Google Reader, but it was cumbersome in that it can’t hide stuff you’ve already seen. So each time I open it I end up wading through a bunch of stuff I’ve already read before. I had other issues with it but I was basically just frustrated by this point

So I opened the Google Reader URL and, now that I have the new Web Kit Browser that comes with OS 6, it’s actually pretty good. It automatically figures out that you’re on a mobile so no need to figure out a special URL for it. One really nice thing is, besides being 100% synchronized with Google Reader (because it *is* Google Reader) most of the features that I am looking for are part of this package. Of course I’d still prefer to have a dedicated app that integrated with my message application so that I can see when new items become available, and I still have to retrieve everything live, but so far no other app has stepped up and distinguished itself as being superior to Google’s free offering.

So color me satisfied. I’ll check again in another 6 months or so to see if anything has improved, but this seems to be a vastly underrepresented corner of the app market.

Playing with my new BlackBerry Torch

I’ve had my BlackBerry Bold (9000) for a few years now and it was starting to show some signs of age (besides its rather beat up case), dropping calls more and more often and rebooting spontaneously during the day.

So I put in for the new AT&T BlackBerry Torch (9800), being the BlackBerry administrator for your company does have a few perks and occasionally testing cool equipment for use at the company is one of them.

A while ago I had the Storm 2 in my hands for about 1/2 hour when I gave it back saying there is no way I’d recommend that device in our organization and I kept my venerable Bold. Of course some poor souls went ahead and ordered the Storm 2 anyway. I think it was one of the more “swapped” devices in our company as people quickly realized that it was a miserable end user experience unless you spend your entire day consuming “Youtube” videos.

I had the chance to briefly play with a Torch device early last month when a RIM rep came by the office to introduce himself and I was suitably impressed. Having the keyboard as a fallback is ideal because I create a reasonable amount of content with my device and my emails are not just one liners but often span a couple of paragraphs of detail. Not something lightly undertaken with a screen keyboard.

I’ve had the device for a little over a day now and my opinion of it is mostly positive. The Bold is sitting mere inches away from me in case I should change my mind, but the Torch is winning me over.

I had a couple of hiccoughs getting the device set up. After the device transfer wizard and enterprise activation were completed I noticed that none of my email filters had come across. I ended up calling RIM and working with them. Eventually a battery pull and a slow synch resolved that issue for me. Probably the biggest mini nuisance is the fact that OS 6 changed out all the sounds. My beloved “Sonar” was gone and all the dings and tones to which I’d become accustomed were replaced with new ones. While I’ve kept some of these new tones I was able to find a zip file that lets me get many of my favorites back. “Sonar” is short and poignant and has yet to be rivaled as an alert that one of my servers is in distress.

Something that surprised me – and this seems to be OS related rather than anything else – is that all the sounds are initially VERY muted. This can be remedied by going into your profiles and raising them from the “inaudible in a business environment” 2 (which was what “low” seems to have been translated to) up to a 6 or 7. Then things are fine. But I thought my alarms must be failing at first because I was not hearing them above the every day hubbub of my co-workers.

The large screen is really nice. I’ve been using FaceBook and Twitter for a while now and was singularly unimpressed with that experience on my Bold. On the Torch the same apps have much more breathing room and they really lend themselves to the touch screen.

And even over the same network and with a reportedly lackluster processor, moving through posts in either of those apps is very satisfying. I used to just forward any posts that contained links to my email account because reading the linked-to items was annoying. The zoom of the Bold browser (this was with the 4.5 OS – the 5 OS was *just* released this past week by AT&T for the Bold 9000 – laggards) invariably ended up making the text a little too wide to be seen on the screen without swinging the cursor from side to side to see the ends of the sentences. The OS6 browser (combined with the length / width of the Torch screen) AND the infinitely controllable pinch zoom makes that a thing of the past.

And the rendering of web pages appears to be much better as claimed. “Nearly Perky” would be my characterization. In spite of the purportedly overloaded AT&T network and the commoditized processor, the web experience is satisfactory.

The only places where this unit does not shine are:

1) Periodic lapses in performance in the screen interface handling. Sometimes you press a dialog button with your finger and nothing will happen – no feedback, nothing – and then several seconds later that buffered input plus the several other attempts to hit the button will manifest – to your displeasure. And flicking the menus screens with your fingers is often a little sluggish. Not a show stopper but definitely a point on which I will agree with reviews that I have seen that is a low-light in an otherwise satisfactory product.

2) The Keyboard is actually a little hard to slide open. There is no notch or any readily apparent place to easily slide the screen to reveal the keyboard. Maybe I’ll figure out a technique for this but I use Google Voice and HAVE to press 1,2,3 or 4 to acknowledge a call before I can talk to the other party. I’ve set my phone to answer on sliding out the keyboard which speeds up the process but opening the phone with one hand is not an easy prospect. I somehow think a slight notch just below the trackpad would simplify this, but then I’m not a usability expert.

Overall still very happy with this unit and I believe I’ll be recommending it as our “Go To” device (as much as my folks will listen to their technical support services folks…). The acid test will be next week in the business environment. Can I use it as handily as my old unit? I’m confident that it will be up to the task.

Setting Windows 7 Login Background Screen

I picked this info up from “The Winhelpline Blog” and am documenting it here so that I’ll be able to find it the next time I want to change this. The following subset of directions is lifted unabashadly by me for my own edification. If you want the whole story go to the Winhelpline link. I also used the reference below to “Rafael’s” site to determine the correct size for my image.

For my purposes I used the Windows 7 policy editor technique and it worked just fine.

I also took a favored picture and downsized it to 1900 x 1200 pixels and reduced the resolution so that the final JPEG file size would be less than 256 KBytes. In Photoshop Elements 8 that meant going for a quality of “3”. My original picture was 3872 x 2592 at weighed in at a hefty 2.74 MegaBytes. So rather than the standard background I now sport a picture of my lovely wife in front of one of the ruins of tulum.

Use the following Group Policy setting in Windows 7

1. Start the Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc)

2. Go to the following branch:

Computer Configuration | Administrative Templates | System | Logon

3. Set the following option to Enabled

Always use custom logon background

4. Close the Group Policy Editor.

Step II – Include the Wallpaper Image (JPG)

Next step is to place the background wallpaper (JPEG file) in the following folder:

C:\Windows\System32\oobe\info\backgrounds

Note that the info folder doesn’t exist by default. You need to create the info and backgrounds folders manually.

Place the background image file (name it as backgroundDefault.jpg) into the above folder.

As for the file naming info and maximum supported file size, check out Rafael’s post Windows 7 to officially support logon UI background customization. Be sure to check out Rafael’s blog for more information and screenshots!

Create a local replica of your mail file using LotusScript

I recently had the need to create local mail file replicas for a bunch of folks. This is something that *had* to be in place for a certain time but we wanted people to be able to create the replicas at a time of their choosing up until the drop dead date.

So I have two versions of this code. The first, which I’m not posting here because it’s a part of a much larger housekeeping module invoked from the PostOpen event of the user’s mail file, gives no choice to put it off. The end user will receive a dialog indicating what is about to happen and then the replica creation will kick off.

The second, which is sent as a button in an email explaining to the user why they would want to do this and that this allows them to run it at a time of their choosing, I include below. It has some friendlier dialogs for the end user.

When run, the code will pop up a message box explaining what is about to happen and give them an opportunity to stop before they get started.

Then I check to make sure they are the owner of the database (so an admin opening the message on their manager’s behalf doesn’t inadvertently create a local replica of the managers file on their own workstation).

Then – and this is probably overkill – I make sure that the user is explicitly in the ACL (not in there via a group) and is a Manager. In our environment this will always be the case so it doesn’t hurt to leave this check in.  You can probably delete it. This was put in out of a concern that folks would open this in a misconfigured mail-in database (where the owner in the preferences had been allowed to default to the users name instead of that of the mailbox). We manage access to our mail-in databases via groups so it would be unusual for the user to be explicitly listed and HIGHLY unusual for them to have manager access under any circumstances.

I then validate whether or not there already exists a file with the same name and along the same path as the one I wish to create. I’m lifting the path and file directly from the server-side database. I’ve actually come across a few cases where folks have local mail file replicas with completely different names and/or in surprisingly different folders than you would expect. Ah… the creativity of the end user!  For our purposes we need to have the file path and name consistent between the local and server copies.

Note that for the LotusScript Dir$ command, Notes will only return an empty string if the file doesn’t exist. If the containing folder doesn’t exist you will receive an error “76” . But if you create a handler that contains simply “Resume Next” Notes will gleefully pick up INSIDE the conditional statement. I was prepared to create a Boolean variable that would be set if either the file was not there or would be set in the error handler but I was able to take this little bizarre shortcut.

The tricky part for me was to get the new replica to show up automatically on the replication tab. For this I need to thank Notes 411 for a little bit of code that I really should have figured out for myself. This is what the UIWorkspace is doing in the code. Basically you just open both replicas in the UIWorkspace and they will be added to the replication tab. Easy as pie. I did not have any issues getting the replica appear on the workspace as the Notes 411 logic also purports to do.

Once done, I let the user know and exit the script.

This is designed to work on Lotus Notes 6.5.x and 7.

Sorry about the lack of formatting, WordPress seems to have taken to stripping it out.

Sub Click(Source As Button)
‘Check if there is a local mail file replica and create one if it doesn’t already exist.
‘Created by Marc Bourassa – July 16, 2010

Dim Sess As New NotesSession
Dim ws As New NotesUIWorkspace
Dim dbUI As NotesUIDatabase
Dim db As NotesDatabase
Dim ACL As NotesACL
Dim ACLEntry As NotesACLEntry
Dim dbLocal As NotesDatabase
Dim docCalProf As NotesDocument
Dim namName As NotesName
Dim sDataDir As String
Dim iRC As Integer
Dim sMsg As String
Dim sPrintText As String

On Error Goto ErrorGeneral
On Error 4005 Goto ErrorDBExists
On Error 76 Goto ErrorPathNotFound

Set db = sess.Currentdatabase

sMsg = “This button will create a local replica of your mail file (” & db.Title & “) if one does not already exist with the correct name.” & Chr$(13)& Chr$(13)&_
“Please press OK to continue or CANCEL to Abort”

iRC = Messagebox(sMsg,49,”Create Mail File Replica”)

If iRC = 1 Then
Set docCalProf = db.GetProfileDocument(“CalendarProfile”)
Set namName = New NotesName(docCalProf.Owner(0))
If namName.common = sess.Commonusername Then ‘User is the owner of this mail database
Set ACL = db.Acl
Set ACLEntry = ACL.Getentry(namName.Abbreviated )
If Not ACLEntry Is Nothing Then
If ACLEntry.Level=ACLLEVEL_MANAGER Then ‘User is explicitly in ACL AND is a manager
sDataDir = sess.getenvironmentstring(“Directory”,True)
If sDataDir = “” Then ‘something probably wrong with ini file. Don’t expect system to work correctly
Messagebox “There is a problem retrieveing your data directory information from the notes.ini file. Cannot proceed. This issue needs to be resolved by the helpdesk. Aborting Replica Creation.”,0,”Create Mail Database Replica”
Goto LeaveSub
End If
If Dir$( sDataDir & “\” & db.Filepath, 0 ) = “” Then ‘No replica by this name exists. Will fail to next line from error handling if path is bad (i.e. missing mail folder)
Call db.Createreplica(“”, db.Filepath)
‘Now add to the Replication tab
Call ws.opendatabase(db.Server,db.FilePath)
Set dbUI = ws.CurrentDatabase
Call ws.opendatabase(“”,db.FilePath)
Set dbUI=ws.CurrentDatabase
Messagebox “Local mail file replica has been successfully created (” & db.Title & “).”,0,”Create Mail Database Replica”
Else
Messagebox “Replica already exists for your mail file (” & db.Title & “). Nothing to do here.”,0,”Create Mail Database Replica”
End If
End If
Else
Messagebox “You are not a manager of this mail database (” & db.Title & “). Aborting Replica Creation.”,0,”Create Mail Database Replica”
End If
Else
Messagebox “You are not the owner of this mail database (” & db.Title & “). Aborting Replica Creation.”,0,”Create Mail Database Replica”
End If
Else
Messagebox “Replica Creation cancelled by you.”,0,”Create Mail Database Replica”
End If

LeaveSub:
Exit Sub

ErrorDBExists:
Resume LeaveSub

ErrorPathNotFound:
Resume Next

ErrorGeneral:
sPrintText = “Error: ” + Cstr(Err) + ” defn: ” + Error$ + “. ”
Messagebox sPrintText & Chr$(13) & Chr$(13) & “Could not complete this task you will need to create this replica manually. Please contact the help desk for assistance.” ,0,”Unexpected Error”
Resume LeaveSub

End Sub

Battle of the Chocolate Milks – Mayfield Lowfat Chocolate Milk

Since there is a dearth of whole chocolate milk options to choose from, and I’ve already opened up this challenge to low fat contenders, I couldn’t resist picking up a “Mayfield Lowfat Chocolate Milk” while at the store last weekend.

Interestingly, the half gallon size (at $3.00) as pretty reasonable compared with the whole milk options which were selling for $2.50 for a quart (1/2 of a half gallon if you are used to metric).

Unexpectedly the lowfat option was significantly darker in color than its whole milk alternative. The taste was commensurately more bittersweet as well.

Not unexpected was the viscosity of the lowfat being much lower than that of the whole. This leads to my perceiving it as being somewhat more watery than I would prefer.

Surprisingly, on its own, it would could well have been passable. But contrasted with the current front runner (Mayfield Whole Chocolate Milk) the lowfat version stands tied for second place with Whole Food’s Whole Chocolate Milk offering.

Socialized Medicine – Looking Better and Better – I’m about to do the MRI Thing

For those that don’t know, I hail originally from Canada. There is a lot about America that attracts me and “Government staying out of my affairs” is a biggie. It is with no surprise then that I was very much in favor of shucking off a socialized medical system and its shortcomings for a more pay as you go system.

When I arrived here I was healthy and did not have kids so my contact with the medical system was minimal. Pretty much limited to a general physical now and then.

As I live here longer, I’m starting to grow more and more fearful of the financial repercussions of even a modest illness and find myself hesitant to take advantage of what is arguably one of the best medical systems in the world.

I’ve had a couple of procedures done over the past half decade or so and found myself annoyed that it is very difficult to get a cost for a procedure. They seem easily able to give you a bill before you go into the operating theater but try to get that bill amount when you are setting the appointment and people seem confused. On top of the, rather substantial, bill that you pay up front. The little bills that keep floating in weeks or months later are unexpected and annoying. When you call about them you will find that they are “usual and customary” but that is only for folks in the billing departments of hospitals or in insurance departments.

If I went to a mechanic and had my transmission replaced you can be sure that I am going to get an estimate from him. That estimate better be what I’m charged at the end unless something unusual comes up and, if it’s substantial, I expect a further call to ensure that I want the extra work done (maybe they notice a broken support for the engine while they’ve got the car up on the lift). You can be damn sure I’m not going to be receiving a bill from the “Oil Support Technician” or “Hydraulic Lift Specialist” two months after the fact because they consider it “Usual and Customary”.

In medicine it seems perfectly OK to have essential folks’ services completely omitted from any estimates. I had a hernia operation about 6 years ago and the anesthetist’s (or anesthesiologist’s – can never keep those two straight)  services, something that I consider quite essential when I’m to be rendered unconscious for surgery, were charged for separately at least a month after the fact. I had to call to see if this was legit or some kind of scam because I was so amazed at this boldness.

I need to have an MRI to sort out some issues left over from my bicycle accident a few months back. On Friday my doctor tells me he’ll begin a precertification for this. Today I receive a call from the MRI place to schedule an appointment. I went ahead and set up a date and decided to persue this to see if it’s possible to determine one’s liability and maybe plan for this kind of thing.

The girl on the phone for scheduling, of course, can do nothing for me to help nail down the cost of this thing. So I contact my insurance company. After 15 minutes waiting on the phone I find out that my insurance company contracts out radiology type stuff to a 3rd party precertification company. I’m told I need to call back if I want to find out more about costs because their department also doesn’t handle that.

So I call the insurance company back. We’ll leave the sorry-ass IVR system out of this conversation suffice it to say that it aided me not at all in getting to a customer service rep. All the rep is able to tell me is that I’ll have a $500 deductible and then I’m responsible for 20% of the cost beyond that. OK, that’s in my benefits plan. How much does this kind of procedure cost?  All he is able to tell me is that it will be a negotiated amount and that my liability will be as he’s already said.

So I contact the third party pre-cert group and find that my doctor’s office hasn’t yet initiated the precertification process with them and that my plan is the kind where only a doctor or the MRI folks can initiate the process. But that this process typically takes one business day, so my appointment (scheduled for next week) is not yet in jeopardy.

So I contact my doctors office to see what needs to be done, they acknowledge that they need to initiate this and that they’ll call me back.They call back within the hour and it turns out that this is the normal way that things are done since the pre-cert company likes to know where and when the procedure will occur. So I’ve jumped the gun on this part but they tell me that everything is now in place.

Finally I call the billing department of the MRI folks. It took them 10 minutes to figure out how much this was going to cost me. When I asked if this was an all inclusive price, explicitly mentioning that there’ll be someone administering an IV they did agree that I can expect another, separate bill from them that should only be in the range of “a hundred or so dollars”.

So, an MRI of my head, both with contrast and without will cost me no less than $868. With a little math that puts the “negotiated cost” at $2,340. Then I can expect at least another $100 bill to come floating in sometime after that for the IV person and I have no idea how many other folks it is “usual and customary” to have wander into the room while the procedure is under way and then send me a bill.

The care we have available might be some of the best in the world, but the cost for that care is terrifying – for its magnitude certainly but more so for its quixotic cost. For all its pitfalls, under a socialized medical scheme for all but the most catastrophic of issues my liability is capped so I do not have to put my self or my family at financial risk – heck it’s not even a risk because you cannot even begin to forecast the costs before you begin it’s really more of a game of chance than anything that can be calculated.

So color me leaning back in favor of the socialized medicine side of the debate.  If we can get to a system where I can get off the phone with an appointment and a guaranteed estimate (representing the cost both with and without insurance) and none of those “gotchas” that make this such a risk I will rethink this. Hell I can do it for my car, my cat and my washing machine. Surely we’ve got enough knowledge and experience to estimate simple procedures accurately by now.