according to jeff

My phone system upgrade is complete, and I’m happy to report that I’m happy with the results.

Here’s what I previously had.

1. An office phone number through QWest.
2. A home phone number through QWest.
3. A cell phone plan through AT&T.
4. A two-line phone in my home office to manage my “work” and “home” phone lines.

As I previously wrote, my two-line phone started having problems and needed to be replaced. This opened the door to think about alternative solutions.

So, here’s what I’ve done.

1. My office phone number has not changed, but my office phone line has been disconnected. My office phone number now rings to my cell phone.
2. My home phone number has not changed.
3. My cell phone number is now my “work” number.
4. My two-line phone in my home office has been replaced with a one line phone and a bluetooth gateway to connect my cell phone to the system.

Now, my “work” number is my cell phone, not a land line into my office. So, even when I am working off-site, I’ll have access to my business phone. When I am home, then the bluetooth gateway connects my cell phone to my home phone system, so I can make and receive cell calls using either my phone system or my cell phone.

Switching my cell phone number to my work number was easy, but did take a few days and a few phone calls to work out.

In summary, I’m pretty happy with the new system, and would recommend both my new Panasonic phone and the XLink bluetooth gateway.

Stephan Pastis, author of Pearls Before Swine, has a funny blog article about a lame email scam: http://stephanpastis.wordpress.com

Today I received the following email, a thinly-veiled and thoroughly unconvincing attempt to have me do something that would result in bad consequences.

Dear Facebook user,

Due to Facebook policy changes, all Facebook users must submit a new, updated account agreement, regardless of their original account start date.
Accounts that do not submit the updated account agreement by the deadline will have restricted.

Please unzip the attached file and run “agreement.exe” by double-clicking it.

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

How many “red flags” to you see? Here are some.

1. I do have a Facebook account, but not with the email account that received this message.
2. Every zip file received via email is suspicious.
3. Every exe file received via email is even more suspicious.
4. Since Facebook requires a login, any changes can be handled online when I login.
5. Legitimate emails from real companies rarely contain such obvious grammar errors.
6. The header indicates that the email isn’t from facebook.com at all, but from exploitativehf79@[somewhere].com.

Since you’re already a regular reader of my blog, I know that you’re smart enough not to fall for something as lame as this. But perhaps you can find even more reasons to be suspicious of this email. If so, leave a comment and share your insights.

I splurged today and bought a new app for my iPhone: FlightTrack.

One of the features that makes the iPhone such a great experience is the ability to find and download apps via iTunes and the AppStore, either directly on the phone or from the computer that I synchronize with my iPhone. So, as I was sitting in the airport, ready to send Bethany off on her flights to Oberlin, Ohio (actually to Detroit and then to Cleveland), I found, purchased, downloaded, and configured FlightTrack to show the status of her “to” and “from” flights.

At $4.99, FlightTrack is one of the more expensive iPhone apps. However, it is super easy to use and very convenient.

FlightTrack provides the same information that is available at www.flightstats.com. It provides arrival and departure times, gate numbers, weather information, and even a flight map. For instance, Bethany’s flight is currently over Lake Michigan at 29,000 feet and traveling at 475 mph.

While it’s kind of fun to follow a flight, I expect that it will be most useful to determine if a flight is on time or delayed.

For being the kind of story that makes me say, “Bah!”, Wuthering Heights makes the naughty list.

I’ve just suffered through the 1939 film edition of this Gothic romance, and the only further thing I have to say is this: “Bring on Jane Austen.”

I’m in the midst of replacing a 2-line Siemens Gigaset 8825 with a 1-line Panasonic KX-TG1063 and an XLink BTTN Bluetooth Gateway.

The Gigaset has been a great phone. The base unit is in my office, and we have satellite phones positioned around the house. It’s been configured to ring only base unit for line one (my office number) and to ring all handsets for line 2 (our home number). The only issue that we’ve had with it is that the microwave interferes with reception of the wireless handhelds.

However, the LCD screen has been gradually degrading, such that now only the bottom two-thirds of any phone number is shown, and the answering machine has recently stopped working altogether. Interestingly, it gives you (the caller) the impression that it is working, but it isn’t.

I’ve opted to replace it with a 1-line phone, and will probably request that the phone company disconnect my office line. Thus, the Panasonic purchase. I opted for a phone with a handset so that my Plantronics headset can still be used with it.

Since I’ll use my cell phone as my primary business line, I looked for a base phone unit that would connect to the cell phone via bluetooth. There are some available, however, the various options didn’t meet my other requirements. So, instead, I’ve opted to try an add-on unit (the XLink) that will pair the cell phone with the base unit, allowing the cell phone to be used from any handset. It should work well for incoming calls, though outgoing calls may still require that the phone be “on” and “unlocked”. Another advantage of the XLink is that it will let me see what home service is like with a cell phone instead of a land line.

So, is it an upgrade, or not? I’m going from two land lines and one cell line to one land line and one cell line, but am connecting the cell line to the phone system so that it behaves (mostly) like a land line when within range of the base. I think I’ll like it. Economically, it will take 6 months or so to hit the break-even point, where the savings from removing the second land line will pay for the new equipment. After that, there will be monthly savings. So, it seems to be an economic upgrade.

Practically, even though I’m switching from two land lines to just one, I think it will work just fine. So, I might not call it an upgrade, but it isn’t a step backwards either.

But geekly, it’s a huge upgrade!

For helping me obtain a new health insurance policy that provides better coverage than my current policy for 40% of the cost, Rick is added to my Nice List.

If you live in the Cedar Rapids area and would like to contact Rick for assistance with your health insurance or investment needs, contact me privately and I’ll send you his last name and phone number.

Here’s a site that is both useful and fun. Check it out: http://tinyurl.com/yek7ymx

Yesterday, Apple announced the iPad, which is projected to ship in the US in March (WiFi version) and April (WiFi + 3G version). My status as an iPhone developer doesn’t get me any super-secret inside information. Apple didn’t rush a review copy to me. I don’t know if the three Laridian iPhone apps are among the “most” of the 140,000 apps that will “just work” on the iPad. (However, I expect them to work just fine.)

So, just like most of you, my faithful readers, I’ve only seen the information at the Apple Web site, watched the video, and read some reviews and opinions from other Web sites, such as:

• Wired: Would You Buy an iPad? Wired Readers Weigh In
• Wired: How Will the Apple Tablet iPad Change Our Kids’ Lives?
• CNet Poll: The Apple iPad: Will you buy one?
• Telegraphs (UK): Apple iPad review
• Engadget: Apple iPad first hands-on!
• LA Times: The iPad shows up the Kindle; will Apple’s iBooks store challenge Amazon?

Some of these articles and article commenters seem to get it, such as the author of How Will the Apple Tablet iPad Change Our Kids’ Lives?. However, I’ve been surprised how many are not getting what seems so clear to me.

This quote from Wired’s Would You Buy an iPad? Wired Readers Weigh In article reveals the confusion.

Though Apple’s Steve Jobs introduced the iPad as a device that would occupy the world between smartphones and laptops, potential customers aren’t convinced. A full 71 percent of 934 readers polled said they won’t buy an iPad, because they are happy with their smartphone and notebook.

To understand the iPad, you have to first understand what it isn’t. Steve Jobs makes that clear in the above quote. The iPad isn’t a phone. The iPad isn’t a laptop. That is, the iPad isn’t expected to do all of the things that you might do with your phone or your laptop. Yet, 71% of the poll respondents “won’t buy an iPad, because they are happy with their smartphone and notebook.” These 71% don’t understand what the iPad isn’t.

So, if the iPad is not a phone or laptop, what is it? From the Apple video, it’s pretty clear: the iPad is a mobile media machine.

• Surf the Web.
• Read a book.
• Listen to music.
• Watch a movie.

Sure, you can install the iPad version of Pages and write a term paper on it, but that’s not the primary purpose. So, comparing it to a laptop isn’t reasonable.

But comparing it to my iPod and Kindle is. And, based on what I’ve seen and read so far, the iPad is looking pretty good. Yes, it costs twice as much (or more), but look at all of the extra stuff that it can do!

Here are some of the common complaints or concerns that I’ve seen.

• The iPad name suggests that Apple has a serious lack of women in it IT department.
  Seriously? I never made that connection. iPad is just a derivative of iPod. And beside, the IT department has nothing to do with a product’s name. That would come largely from the marketing department.
• “Ink” technology (i.e. Kindle) is better on the eyes than the backlit LED that the iPad uses.
  I really like reading my Kindle, so I’m a fan of Ink technology. Still, I can’t read it in the dark without a pretty bright light shining on it. And, I usually spend most of my day in front of a computer screen, and my eyes don’t feel fatigued at the end of the day. So I’m not yet convinced that this is an issue.
• The iPad doesn’t allow multitasking, so I can’t listen to Pandora streamed from the Web whilte I read.
  OK, you have a point. On the other hand, the iPad is an iPod. My iPhone doesn’t multitask either, but I can listen to music from the iPhone’s “iPod” feature while doing anything else. Plus, I don’t listen to Pandora. Now, if you were to tell me that something important was missing, like that MLB won’t have an app for listening to live baseball games, I might agree with you.
• The Web browser doesn’t support Flash.
  OK. This might be annoying every now and then. However, my Kindle not only doesn’t support Flash, it doesn’t support ANY Web browsing.
• Once again, Apple comes out with an overpriced toy.
  I admit, when I saw Apple introduce the iPad as a magical and revolutionary device at an “unbelievable” price, I was skeptical. I wouldn’t classify the $499 price for the least expensive model as “unbelievable”. While it is expensive, it’s not necessarily outrageous.

The iPad has been “announced” for a full day now. I haven’t seen one in person. But, based upon what I have seen and read, I think it looks very promising as an upgrade to my Kindle.

For helping me resolve a oh-so-typical Windows problems, Process Explorer is added to my Nice List.

Today, my Windows XP PC seemed both sluggish and to be running hotter than normal. The task manager was consistently showing my processor running at 100%, and revealed that one of the svchost processes was the culprit.

In the past, I’ve found such issues to be related to an update that some program (often from Adobe) wanted to perform. Upon removing the useless items from the startup with msconfig, the problem was usually resolved. (Adobe applications have a bad habit of inserting themselves back into the startup list on a regular basis.) Not so today.

Unfortunately, the Windows XP task manager will identify that svchost is consuming the processor, it doesn’t identify which of the many processes that are running is the problem.

However, Process Explorer does.

Once I downloaded and ran this nifty tool, within mere moments I was able to identify the service was started with this command line:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe -k HPService

A google search then identified this further as “HP Network Devices Support”, a service that monitors network printers for changing IP addresses. Since my network printers have fixed IP addresses, I don’t need this service. It was then a “simple” matter to turn the service from “automatic” to “manual”.

And now, voila, my PC is cooling off and running better again, and I can get back to what I really wanted to do today.