GoDaddy Go

Today I moved my web hosting to GoDaddy in Scottsdale AZ. Hurray!

When I set up my web site back around 1996 my domain was registered with Network Solutions and hosted at Internet Now in Tempe; my ISP was CompuServe for dial-up. Seems like such a long time ago. . .

Fast forward to the 21st Century: I moved registration from Network Solutions to GoDaddy; Internet Now went thru several name changes; best of all, Cox high-speed Internet. Ah, the good life. . .

I decided to look at GoDaddy for web hosting, and even their most basic plan had 10 GB of space on a Windows box for $4.99 month-to-month, so I took the plunge. The transition was very simple, they provided excellent directions for uploading the files & switching the name servers.

This is of course only "day 1" but I am very pleased with the results.

ClamWin anti-virus

Continuing my testing of the ClamWin free AV as an alternative to AVG. After good results with Win 2K and Server 2003, I decided to convert my ThinkPad with Win XP Pro from AVG 8 to ClamWin.

The uninstall of AVG and install of ClamWin went well, with one exception - the Windows XP Security Center does not recognize ClamWin, so the red security icon appeared in the system tray to notify me that Windows could not find any anti-virus software. That can be set to ignore, but hopefully some day the ClamWin folks can provide a hook so Windows will recognize it.

Time is running out

If you are using AVG anti-virus and still on version 8, you have no doubt seen these messages numerous times, urging you to move to version 9.

My own tests of version 9 showed it to be even more resource-intensive than version 8, but after a quick search at SourceForge I found ClamWin which is a free open-source virus scanner. So far the results have been favorable.

I am running Windows 2000, XP Home and Pro, and Server 2003, and ClamWin is compatble with all of those OS's. ClamWin runs a single Windows process ClamTray, as opposed to four processes with AVG (avgnsx, avgrsx, avgtray, avgwdsvc) and it includes integration with Internet Explorer and Outlook.

At this point I have ClamWin running on the Server 2003 and Windows 2000, and I plan to start testing on the XP machines in the near future.

AVG 9 disappoints

I had previously mentioned the intrusive popup message to upgrade to AVG 9, so last night I decided the only way to avoid that irritation was to do the upgrade. Bad idea.

I thought that I had downloaded the upgrade & saved to my hard drive. But when I ran it, what I had was just a download manager which then took about 20 minutes to download the actual program. Very slowly - my Cox connection generally runs 8-10 Megs download speed, but their connection manager was reporting speeds of only 175K. That's with a "K".

The install ran OK on my HP desktop, but failed on my ThinkPad. Lucky me.

This morning I booted up the desktop to find that something was chewing up CPU and thrashing the hard drive. Turned out to be my brand-new AVG 9. I Google'd about & found lots of complaints, specifically mentioning avgchsvx.exe as the culprit. In some cases users would report that it ran for up to 2 hours upon boot-up.

Fortunately I had saved the 8.5 program on my disk, so I just uninstalled 9.0 and reinstalled the previous version, ran the Update Manager several times to get all the program & virus updates; all of which completed within 10 minutes.

AVG Nag for Nine

Here we go again, AVG version 9 is now available & announces itself right smack in the middle of your screen, stealing focus from whatever useless activity you were involved in at the time.

I still don't understand why they insist on these intrusive messages.

Cox rocks

We had a power outage last week, but when the lights came back on my 7-year-old cable modem refused to reconnect. I called my ISP, Cox Communications, and after I got past the IVR system & spoke with a tech, they were extremely helpful trying to get me back online.

Unfortunately, in spite of being plugged into surge protector, the modem was trashed, so I ran out to pick up a new one, plugged 'er in, and got back on the phone with Cox. Once again, they were very helpful & I was back online quickly.

Cox is trying to use techno-gadgetry like the interactive voice response stuff which was totally annoying, and a fairly sophisticated web page that attempts to recognize & connect your modem when you first try to access the Internet (but it failed), however, there is no substitute for great people like the techs that I spoke with. Congrats! to the tech support staff at Cox, they know their stuff.

Wireless redux

Back in February I had predicted some consolidation in the wireless industry.

There has been talk of T-Mobile (which is actually part of Deutsche Telekom) considering the acquisition of Sprint Nextel, according to a September 13 article in cellular news. There are major technology disconnects between the companies i.e. CDMA vs. GSM vs. iDEN and the whole alphabet-soup of acronyms. Certainly some wireless customers will be required to update their phones to wherever the winning technology winds up.

IMNSHO it is time for the US government, specifically the FCC, to step in & mandate some standards for wireless communication.

Many people think that government regulation only makes things worse, but look at the current state of wired telecom today - whether you are on POTS, digital phone via cable, or IP-based over the Internet - the core technology is still based on the PSTN developed by Bell Labs and implemented by AT&T many long years ago. In fact, all the wireless minutes directed at wired phones also pass thru that core system.

AVG Free Nag

EDIT ON 09/25/2009 ... the nag message has been long gone, so apparently AVG decided that this was not such a good idea after all. Thanks to AVG for correcting this situation.

I've been using AVG Free for quite some time now, but a recent update has added a nag window that pops up from time to time that encourages me to "upgrade" to the paid version.

This is not good. Either it's free, or it isn't.

I Google'd about to find out if there was a way to turn this off; apparently there isn't. Except of course to buy the product. I did find lots of complaints about the nag window; a few suggested nod32 as an alternative but I've never tried it, and none of my personal contacts have either, so I have no first-hand info about that.

I had originally implemented AVG as my anti-virus solution to replace Norton AV on multiple PC's which was getting expensive, not to mention that the memory & CPU usage was pretty high. But now that AVG has added Windows services for link scanning etc. it has a large footprint too.

Now, from the vendor's perspective, supporting zillions of unpaid copies with updates for virus definitions can be a heavy load. But IMHO if the product was labeled as a "trial copy" then the nag would be more acceptable to the consumer - take WinZip for example, which reminds you that your copy is unregistered every time you launch it.

Recently, broadband providers such as Cox have started offering free AV software to their subscribers; apparently preventing virus outbreaks & keeping their network healthy outweighs their cost of the software; so products like AVG, free or otherwise, might someday cease to exist.

Vampires

Recently the term Vampires has been applied to electronic devices that consume energy even when they are powered "off" such as TV's, computers, and battery chargers. Numerous articles have appeared that urge users to unplug devices when they are turned off, or to use a power strip for your computer & accessories so you can power-down & then just flip the switch. These can be effective in reducing energy usage in many cases.

In a similar vein (no pun intended) there is another type of Vampire that can be lurking within your computer, in the form of background services that run continuously and steal cycles from your CPU and thus diminish your computing experience.

One example is the software that comes with a digital camera - usually there will be a background service that continually monitors when the camera gets plugged-in & then launches the photo-transfer software. But think about that - you know when you plug in the camera, so why not just launch the software after you plug in the camera?

Other gadgets like smart phones, GPS, MP3 players etc. have similar background services that you don't actually need running unless the gadget is connected.

Furthermore, many software programs today have an automatic update feature - a small program that runs in the background to periodically check for software updates. These auto-updaters will slow the computer at boot time & in many cases continue to lurk in the shadows. Windows Update is a well-known example of this, but products from Adobe, Symantec and many others will also have this behavior; some of them will pop-up an intrusive message that an update is available & you should install it. The good news is that products from major vendors such as these will have an option to turn off the auto-updating (but places the burden on the user to periodically check for updates; this is still a good idea, especially with anti-virus software).

The bad news is that some software doesn't have that turn-off option. In fact, some will continue to check for meaningless updates even after you have uninstalled the product. If you have technical skills, you can use msconfig (built-in to Windows) or free utilities such as Auto Runs and Process Explorer (search for Microsoft Sysinternals) that can help identify & turn off these vampires. Other useful utilities are HijackThis and Belarc Advisor, but they require a bit more technical knowledge to interpret the results.

Last but not least, use caution when installing "free" software downloads; a few of them install additional programs that "come along for the ride" like custom toolbars & add-ins, and you don't always have the option to de-select them. Before you install anything at all, do a Google search to find out what others have said about the product.

Photo Enforcement

Many cities across the US are rolling out speed cameras & red-light cameras in an effort to improve public safety. These are truly high-tech devices that include digital cameras, video cameras that record to DVR's, and high-speed links to upload images to the local PD.

I am strongly in favor of red-light cameras, especially after a harrowing incident that happened a few days ago.

I had just left my house in the morning, on the way to work. I had stopped at a red light. When the light changed & the cross traffic was stopped, I looked both ways and then started across the intersection. But then I glanced to my right and saw a car that was coming pretty fast & didn't appear to be slowing down to stop for his red light. I stopped my car half-way through the intersection, and sure enough WHOOSH the car went past right in front of me. Another 100 ft. and he hit his brakes after realizing what he had done. If it were not for that 2nd glance to the right, I might not be writing this today.

Now, there is no guarantee that a red-light camera would have prevented that car from running the light. But those intersections usually have not one, but two sets of signs with the warning "traffic laws photo-enforced" and drivers generally learn their locations & respect them. Who knows what distracted that driver from noticing that the light had changed? Would he have noticed the signs & paid more attention to his driving? Hard to say.

Critics claim that photo enforcement only serves to generate revenue for the city, but all it takes is one life-altering moment like this. . .