mistywindow’s tech log

This post transferred from @ my wits’ end

Revisionists despair

Your beloved menu bars have gone. Completely. Forever. They’re replaced by the Ribbon. A classy 21^st Century toolbar on steroids. Captain Kirk could only dream of one of these.

Office Menu Bars aren’t coming back, so the best approach may be to get over it. If you can’t or won’t get over it there’s a commercial plug-in for US$29.95 here at Addintools which gives you a reprieve. 30 day free trial.

Microsoft have reasoned that it’s best for us to be thrown in the deep end so they haven’t provided an option to use the old menus. They do have a free menu bar here for Word only.

Office 2007 has myriad changes, but none so dominant as the ribbon. The justification for this menu and toolbar usurper is that more commands are displayed to the user without said user having to hunt through submenus, dialogs and toolbars. Ummm… yes. Instead you hunt through ribbons, help files and web pages.

Previous Office hotkeys and shortcuts are mostly supported, but if you don’t remember them, or didn’t know them in the first place, the commands themselves can be very hard to find.

It’s a mission. I’m still working on it.

Reports indicate that most users like the new regime. I’m yet to be convinced – to me it’s just another example of dumbing down but I acknowledge that I may have to eat my words. I liked Office 2003 and only upgraded to 2007 because Microsoft gave me a copy after I paid to attend a seminar at which I didn’t learn much. In fact I’m so underwhelmed by the new bells and whistles that my next upgrade may be to the free OpenOffice.

Trouble is, I, and many like me, don’t have the time to learn to use Word, Excel, Outlook, Access and who-knows-what-else all over again. Life is short. Not enough hours in the day and all those other clichés are not without merit.

Where is that thrice-accursed command?

If, like me, you don’t wish to buy a plug-in, but you’re struggling to cope nevertheless, MS have provided some ribbon/menu conversion help in these links:

Word Article

Word Command Summary

Excel Article

Excel Command Summary

PowerPoint Article

PowerPoint Command Summary

File types

• File types have changed. Doc becomes docx and so on. All to do with standards. XML and all that jazz. You probably don’t want to know.
• There’s some good news here – file sizes have been reduced by nearly half.

Shortcuts

• Previous versions’ keyboard shortcuts remain almost unchanged.
• The keyboard shortcuts are revealed in pop-up screentips when you hover your cursor over an icon.
  Hold down the Alt key to reveal the “accelerator keys”.
• The key to all Microsoft’s keyboard shortcuts:
  http://www.microsoft.com/enable/products/keyboard.aspx
• Word shortcuts here:
  http://office.microsoft.com/en-au/word/HP101476261033.aspx
• Excel here:
  http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/HP052037811033.aspx
• Access:
  http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/access/HP100913941033.aspx?pid=CH101326501033

More helpful links

Up to speed with Word 2007

This page enables you to download the demo or to watch it online. If you don’t wish to watch a video the page contains links to text versions.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA100484691033.aspx

Word 2007 Demos

Links to several online flash movies:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/CH100740901033.aspx

And for those fortunate folk who’ve yet to sample the joys of Office 2007 there’s a Microsoft Office 2007 compatibility pack here. Not sure whether or not it includes the sexy new fonts that come with Office 2007. If it doesn’t you can get them here with the Powerpoint 2007 viewer.

The pack allows you to open, edit, and save documents, workbooks, and presentations in the file formats new to Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007

If I’ve given the impression of being underwhelmed forgive me. I am underwhelmed. But I concede that I’m a stick-in-the-mud curmudgeon and that if I can spare a week to subscribe to the revolution I may have to eat my words.

Like the PC seller in 1990 who asked me why I wanted Windows on my 386 scorcher.

Then again maybe I should’ve listened to him. I’d be a lot richer.

Have fun.

For every dyed-in-the-wool Linux fan in geekdom there are probably dozens of hopefuls like myself who’ve tried it a number of times and given up. Why? Because for most computer users there have been just too many hurdles. The promise of free software isn’t enough to justify the pain involved in switching.

This unhappy situation is changing rapidly. Users with a modicum of computer knowledge can be up and running in an hour – Internet, email, word processing and spreadsheets? No problem. If you’re capable of installing Windows, you can do the same with Ubuntu.

Past barriers

• For ordinary computer users, just installing Linux has been a difficult process.
• If you managed to get it installed, accessing your Windows data from within Linux was a mission. Importing it into equivalent Windows programs wasn’t easy.
• The free word processors were clunky.
• If you still needed to access Windows programs it was necessary to dual-boot. Dual booting is a pain in the backside. First you shut down Linux, then you reboot into Windows, do what you want, shut down Windows and boot into Linux again.
  Who needs it?
• Updating your installation and installing new programs was much more difficult than it is in Windows.
• Drivers and utilities for printers, scanners, routers, modems and other hardware were often a problem.

All of this has changed.

The latest version of Ubuntu’s distribution of Linux has taken yet another step on the road to making Linux a viable free alternative to Microsoft’s creaking, top-heavy Windows edifice.

Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron

Over the last year or so, Ubuntu have been addressing these problems and the final release of Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) is, in my opinion, ready for ordinary mortals to use.

For the first time ever, I have Linux installed on my desktop computer as my main operating system. I do all my normal day-to-day computer work using Ubuntu. I have Windows XP installed inside Ubuntu as a “virtual machine”. This allows me to access my old Outlook emails, check how my web pages look in Internet Explorer, and to use a couple of programs which, as yet, I can’t sensibly abandon.

Over the next few days I’ll post more information about my transition. It’s early days and there are some frustrations, but my feeling is that I have bought my last versions of Windows, Office and any other Windows commercial programs.

Microsoft would do well to review their place in the world. Ubuntu is only going to get better.

Download Ubuntu from here. If you don’t have a fast internet connection, Canonical will send you a free CD from here.

What’s wrong with Linux?

Every year or so I have a play with Linux. Every year or so, after a couple of days of frustration, with a sigh I go back to Windows. I just don’t have the time to get to grips with the steep Linux learning curve.

Here’s a random partial extract of advice given to a newbie having trouble installing a Linux program. In this case WINE for systems with AMD 64 processors.

Open up a terminal in the folder you saved it to:
sudo apt-get install ia32-libs
sudo dpkg -i –force-architecture wine*.deb

Next, head to the Ubuntu repository and download both libXx86dga1 and libXx86vm1 (for i386). Extract them (don’t install!) and then extract the data.tar.gz files inside of them. Browse to the /usr/lib32 subfolder, then copy both the symlink and the shared library to your /lib32 folder (you’ll need to do this as root). Make sure you do this for both these packages.

Yeah, right. You get then picture? It takes some dedication not to immediately reboot into Vista, with all its problems.

This time may be different. Slightly.

Yesterday I installed Ubuntu 8.04 Beta. Over the next few days I’ll report my progress in getting to grips with it.

It’s very impressive and this time I may finally leave Linux on my desktop as a dual booter so that I can take my time learning it. It’s not going to replace my Windows setup any time soon, but it’s enough of an advance to give me hope that one day one of its successors will, and I’d like to be ready.

It was a relief that I didn’t have to jump tall buildings to get access to my Windows drives and partitions. Well done Ubuntu. It was also very easy to install and it recognised my 1920 x 1200 high definition screen. That was a first. Previously I’ve had to modify files using a “command line” editor. This sort of stuff is daunting to a first time user.

Ubuntu to the rescue?

If Mark Shuttleworth’s Canonical can keep improving their distribution at this rate maybe more people will swell the present 1% of market share that Linux has and the big software people will be forced to take their needs into account.

Linux stalwarts tend to be a little fanatical about their niche. Some go as far as to say “Why make it easy to use, we like it geeky.” Many rubbish Windows and sneer at Windows users. Let’s face it, Microsoft give plenty of ammunition to the knockers. But from the point of view of most computer users that holier-than-thou Linux enthusiasm is misplaced for a number of reasons.

The problem isn’t with the Linux operating system. If you only need to use a word processor and a spreadsheet, surf the Net and check your emails, then you’re in business. Linux provides you with a good office suite, the unbeatable Firefox web browser and the first-rate Evolution email/organiser program.

If you’re a little bit geekish you’ll get by very well with Linux, you’ll save a bundle, and you’ll have fewer security and instability problems than you’ll get with Windows.

So I can switch completely to Linux, right?

Well no, probably not. Not if you’re into games, graphics, or web design.

Music production? Video editing?  Forget it.

Until the open source movement can persuade some top software developers and big boys like Adobe to produce the goods for Linux, you’re out of luck.

And then there are the myriad other programs that most of us use. In my case there is nothing to replace Acrobat Pro, Info Select, Dreamweaver, SnagIt, Lightscribe and Camtasia. If I can’t run them, or an equivalent, under Linux I still need Windows.

GIMP, a replacement for Photoshop, Corel Draw and Illustrator is available but although it’s a good program, it’s still a poor second best for professional users.

If you use Microsoft Office, you’ll strike compatibility problems when using the excellent OpenOffice, particularly with Office 2007 document formats. If you use Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Illustrator or any number of other programs which some find indispensable you’re out of luck. You can run Windows as a virtual machine under Linux or you can use products like Wine and Crossover to run some of these programs but there are big problems.

Basically, if the program you need hasn’t been written for Linux then you’re still going to need Windows even if it’s run in a virtual machine. So what’s the point of switching?

And then there’s your wireless router, Bluetooth, printer and scanner

Good luck with finding drivers. And even if you do find them, you’ll be struggling to also find the useful utilities that came with your machine.

If you’re planning a switch, make sure any new hardware you buy henceforth is Linux compatible and that the drivers are available.

I have a friend who’s a Linux expert. But he uses a lot of Windows software that he can’t use on a Linux system so he runs Windows as well. But he runs his own server, so he has a legitimate need to have battled through the Linux learning curve.

You need to know about disk write caching – trust me

Take care when removing your external drives. This applies to USB and firewire external drives, to flash cards and to flash drives – otherwise known as pen or thumb drives.

If you don’t follow the rules, one of these frosty Fridays your safely backed up data will be toast.

Yeah? Why?

OK, this is mildly complicated. When Windows, or any other operating system, writes stuff onto your storage drives – HDDs, CD-R or flash drives for instance – there’s a hurdle to jump.

Your computer can process data at speeds which are orders of magnitude faster than the rate at which it can write data to your disks. If Windows sat around and waited for that data to be written, your fancy new 4GHz processor and would be spinning its quad-core wheels and your computer would slow to a crawl until writing was completed.

“The cheque’s in the mail”

Clever techie folk solved this problem a long time ago by introducing “write caching”. The principle is quite simple: you disconnect the fast computer from the slow disk writing process. Instead of writing the data directly to disk in real time, the information is sent to temporary storage in a fast memory cache, the cache then reports back to Windows that the data has been written. This is the IT equivalent of “the cheque’s in the mail”.

You and your computer can get back to playing Space Invaders and writing the great 21^st Century novel. Unfortunately however, just like the mythical cheque, the data has quite possibly not arrived at its intended destination. Windows just thinks it has. Under the hood the data is still sitting in the cache waiting for a quiet moment to be written to the target drive.

“OK, So what?” I hear you cry

If the postman steps on a landmine, the cheque in the mail will be dog tucker. Same with your cached data.

If your PC is in the process of writing stuff (which it often does, whether you initiated it or not) and you:

1. remove a flash drive from its USB socket or;
2. turn off or disconnect an external hard disk or CD-R drive or;
3. have a power cut and you don’t have a UPS (uninterruptable power supply) or even worse;
4. turn off your PC without shutting down Windows first;

you have a significant risk data corruption because file writing has not been finalised.

If this happens you will probably trash the data and possibly your external disk or, if it’s an operating system file being written to, you can even corrupt your Windows installation.

Oh dear, that’s a bit of a worry

Too right it is. But never fear, you can protect yourself.

1. Don’t turn off your PC without closing down the operating system first. In the case of Windows XP follow the usual routine to shut down, hibernate or sleep. Never, repeat never, turn off power to your PC before the machine has shut itself down.
   Hot tip shortcut: Windows key + U + U to shut down, Windows key + U + H to hibernate, Windows key + U + S to sleep.
2. Click on the icon in the notification area to the right of your taskbar to “safely remove” an external drive before removing it from its socket, turning it off, or removing its connecting cable from its socket.
   To be 100% safe you should also do this before your computer goes into hibernation or sleep mode if you intend to remove the device.
3. Get a UPS – plug your PC, your monitor and your powered external drive (i.e. if it has its own power supply separate from the USB port) into it. In the event of power failure the UPS’s battery will keep your PC running while you or the USB’s bundled software shut down the PC properly.
   As a bonus the UPS will provide additional protection to your PC and connected devices in the event of power spikes and lighting strikes.
4. You can change the properties of individual external drives to disable write-caching. Then you may remove or turn off the device without going the “Safely Remove Hardware” route.
   Caveats:
   1. Setting a drive up in this way affects the performance of your computer during the writing process to a greater or lesser degree dependent upon exactly what you’re doing.
   2. But it’s safer for data security on external drives.
   3. I set my external drives up with “Quick Removal” enabled, but I still use the “Safely Remove Hardware” icon to be on the safe side. I’ve been bitten.
   4. XP can be flaky with this procedure and tell you that you can’t remove the drive because it’s still in use. This can happen even when you think writing is finished. In that case leave the drive connected or shut Windows down before removal. Vista is much better in this regard.

In my next post I’ll show you how to change the drive properties we’ve discussed.

The $1000 router repair

When your computer packs up and you’re not a techie type you’re stuck with taking it to someone who’ll charge you very high hourly rates. Sadly, many quite simple repairs take so long that the cost of repair comes to more than your beige box is worth.

It’s not necessarily the fault of the repair person. Often the problem is very difficult and time-consuming to identify. If it involves reinstalling Windows and your software it’s going to take a while.

If it’s a compatibility problem or an intermittent fault, the techie may, justifiably, take the easy route and tell you that you need a new motherboard. That may not be totally true, but it may be the cheapest option.

If your computer is more than 5 years old, even replacing the motherboard may cost more than your machine is worth unless you’re willing and able to do your own Windows re-installation.

I had problems with my Belkin wireless router recently. It wouldn’t play nicely with Vista on my desktop. Took me several days and a lot of stress to sort out.

In the navy we gave such pestilential devices the always effective “float test”. With current laws on pollution of the ocean that’s probably not a goer anymore. :o)

Ask the experts

So I asked the maker for help.

I’d have had more joy asking my maker.

Firstly, Belkin suggested updating the firmware. I’d already thought of that, but couldn’t find it on the Net. Unfortunately the experts at Belkin couldn’t either: they gave me the wrong link for it. Following their incorrect advice and loading the wrong firmware graduated me from a medium level problem to a total catastrophe.

If I hadn’t been on a tight budget, at that stage I’d have bought a new router, but I persevered and the nice Indian lady at their help desk (I use that term loosely) told me that I had to change the router from automatic to a specific DNS address.

Which, of course, was totally incorrect. I wasn’t absolutely sure that she was wrong so I went off on another wild goose chase.

Finally finding the right firmware fixed the problem, no thanks to Belkin, but it took me days to get to that point. Google to the rescue. If I’d been charging the job out at commercial rates the fix would’ve been several times the cost of a new router. That wouldn’t be acceptable to a client so I’d have taken a big loss or, knowing that this compatibility issue wasn’t going to be straightforward, I’d have recommended a new router early on in the drama.

Life is fraught.

Process Monitor is an advanced Windows tool from Microsoft which replaces the legacy Sysinternals utilities Filemon and Regmon. It’s not for the fainthearted, but if you have a reasonable understanding of Windows it can be a powerful troubleshooting and malware hunting toolkit.

You can get it here: Process Monitor v1.26.

If you suspect that you have something nasty in your PC which Task Manager doesn’t reveal and your AV and antispyware programs have missed, Process Monitor is your friend. It’s Task Manager on steroids.

If you run the program with applications open you’ll be overwhelmed very quickly by millions of events, as shown in the screenshot above. Process Monitor displays a continually increasing logfile. So close all running programs before using it in earnest. Then you can use the excellent filtering tool to exclude those processes which you know are safe or to only show specific processes.

If you find anything suspicious, search for information about it using your search engine.

Like Autoruns, which we looked at recently, this program is standalone. It doesn’t have to be installed on your PC using the Windows Installer. Just download the zipped program folder from the link above, unzip it, move the whole unzipped folder to wherever you like on your computer (or leave it in your Downloads location) and run it by double clicking on the procmon.exe file contained in the folder.

There’s an excellent Help Menu. Unless you’re an über-expert you’ll need to read it if you wish to gain the full benefit of this powerful tool.

Still in the 20th Century?

If you’re using Windows Me or 98 or older you need FileMon and RegMon instead of Process Monitor.

I’m about to install Vista SP1 RC. The final version is due sometime in the first quarter 2008. Vista with all updates is quite stable as is in my experience, but the Service Pack may fix annoying Sleep and Hibernate bugs and it should speed up networking and copying of large files.

If you wish to try it and you can cope with a 436MB download, click here to go to MS’s SP1 download page.

I’ll report back.

Does your PC take forever to start?

The tool most often recommended for zapping unnecessary startup programs is msconfig from the command line. Find out about msconfig here.

There’s an even better utility from Microsoft’s subsidiary SysInternals which you can download free of charge from here: AutoRuns for Windows v8.73. It’s a mystery to me why it’s not included as part of the standard Windows installation.

This program may be used with any version of Windows, including 64-bit editions.

This program is standalone. It doesn’t have to be installed on your PC using the Windows Installer. Just download the zipped program folder from the link above, unzip it, move the whole unzipped folder to wherever you like on your computer and run it by double clicking on the autoruns.exe file contained in the folder.

I moved the folder into my C:\Program Files folder (open Windows Explorer and Shift drag) and then created a shortcut to the autoruns.exe (Ctrl + Shift drag) file to my Desktop.

To disable an auto-start entry uncheck its check box. To delete an auto-start configuration entry use the Delete menu item or toolbar button. With the exception of items relating to your antivirus, antispyware or firewall almost all non-Microsoft startup items can be disabled resulting in faster startup and freed memory.

Select entries in the User menu to view auto-starting images for different user accounts.

The extra file autorunsc.exe is a command line version of Autoruns. Most people won’t need this. Delete it or ignore it if you wish.

When was the last time you checked the dust in your computer?

It’s a miracle that these machines lasted as long as they did before giving up the ghost.

Every few months you need to open your case and clean out the dust using a blast from a compressed air can.

I use a special PC cleaning vacuum cleaner attachment. Some techs don’t like this because of the possibility of static electricity causing mayhem in your motherboard. I haven’t had any such problem.

 

From techrepublic.com

F

From overclockers.com