I have been a user of AVG Anti-Virus for quite a while and AVG recently released version 8.0 First, I think version 8 rocks; it has anti-spyware, anti-rootkit, and a Web Shield product. However, it is the Web Shield product that is causing a problem for some people with Windows Live Messenger. After installing AVG 8.0, attempts to log into Messenger are met with error code 8100030d, which says the service is temporarily unavailable.
The answer is to disable the "Instant Messaging protection" option in AVG. Messenger will then work properly, although the AVG system tray icon will complain that AVG is not fully operational.
Fortunately, AVG is aware of this issue. I emailed their support and got the following reply: "Please note that we are aware of this issue and our developers has already prepared fix. [sic] It will be available in the next program update."
The SQL Best Practices Team has just published a new article entitled Scale-Out Querying with Analysis Services Using SAN Snapshots. The best practices site doesn't mention it yet (it was just posted today) but it can be found by searching the downloads site.
This is one of the available methods for scaling out SSAS queries and is especially useful on large installations. It describes using SAN snapshots in a load-balanded environment to handle more simultaneous queries. Kudos to the best practices team for continuing to push this sort of information out to the public.
If you’re reading this site, chances are you’re a geek. Being a geek is normally a good thing, but technologically challenged friends and family probably look to you as their IT support, whether it’s hardware, software, or anything related.
If you have cringed when a friend or family member, whose technical knowledge is sadly lacking, has mentioned they want a digital camera and look to you for support, you owe it to yourself to give them a copy of Digital Photography: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover and Barbara Brundage. This is an excellent book for those just getting into digital photography, covering everything from selecting a camera, taking photographs, transferring them to a computer, editing them, and uploading them to a sharing site.
Creating an overview book is a daunting task, and the decision about what to eliminate is likely more difficult than choosing what to include. The authors begin with a chapter that attempts to demystify the cameras themselves, covering point-and-shoot versus SLR, megapixels, types of memory cards, resolution, file formats, and more. They even discuss the oft-misunderstood area of DPI and printing. They then move into actually taking pictures, discussing composition, portraiture, nature photography, and many other subjects.
Next the authors move into transferring and organizing files, and the authors chose to focus on Windows XP, EasyShare, Picasa, and finally Photoshop Elements. These represent some of the most popular programs for organizing photographs and the authors do a good job covering what these applications can do. Unfortunately this is one area in which the book will fall out of date quickly; Windows Vista includes significantly enhanced tools for organizing and editing digital content, and Adobe recently released Photoshop Elements 5.
Grover and Brundage discuss sharing photos with EasyShare, Snapfish, Shutterfly, Flickr, and much later, Photo.net. They also deserve kudos for including a chapter on backing up and storing photos, something few people do adequately, especially those with who refer to their entire computer as “the hard disk.”
The book also covers basic editing with Picasa and EasyShare, but four chapters are spent on Photoshop Elements. Elements is a fantastic program with many advanced features, but it is not as approachable as many other applications for those new to computers. The authors finish with sharing photographs by printing and emailing. Emailing, especially, is an area where newbies struggle, as many fail to understand why it is a bad idea to email 30 3MB files at once.
Is this book perfect? Of course not. There’s no way such a book could cover all possible applications for organizing, sharing, and editing photographs. By covering the applications it does, the book is sure to fall out of date quickly, although the concepts are more important than the specific applications; and the book does well with the concepts. There are some errors in the book: For example, page 13 states that a 50mm lens “will seem more like a 150mm telephoto lens on most digital SLRs.” In fact, a 50mm lens will work like a 75mm lens on most Nikon SLRs, while it will work like an 80mm lens on most Canon SLRs.
These minor problems aside, this book is excellent for those new to digital photography or those who are asked by a family member or friend, “Can you show me how to use a digital camera?”
Microsoft Virtual PC is one of the best productivity tools I use. It allows me to build a machine, test a variety of scenarios, and simply delete a couple of files when I'm done. Just because Virtual PC is productive doesn't mean it can't be fun. During a recent meeting conference call lull, I decided to revisit the old days by creating a Virtual PC image (or VM, which stands for Virtual Machine) using software from days gone by. This VM was to consist of DOS 6.22, Windows 3.11, and as the crowning touch, Microsoft Bob.
While many people have heard of Bob, few ever had the privilege of actually using Bob. Back around 1994 I bought a PC from Gateway 2000 (now Gateway) that came preloaded with Windows 3.1 and included a copy of Bob. My wife, a computer novice and therefore a perfect candidate for Bob, looked at it for five minutes and said, “That's the dumbest thing I've ever seen.” It's bad when a member of your target audience declares your product to be the dumbest thing she's ever seen.
Challenge One: Installing DOS with only Update Versions and No Floppy
The first step in creating the VM was to install DOS. This seemed simple enough, but all I had were copies of upgrades; in other words, they would only install over an existing copy of DOS. In addition, the copies wanted to be installed from floppies, and my laptop does not have a floppy drive. As a first step, I installed VFD, a free program that creates a virtual floppy drive. I was then able create a virtual A: drive and run “make14.bat” in order to create a copy of the floppy. (In case you are wondering, I did have .img files of the DOS disks, but Virtual PC would not use them since they were not exactly the right size.)
In order to get this to work, I followed these steps:
- Ran the batch file to create the first disk on the virtual floppy and then stopped the batch file
- Connected the virtual floppy drive to the VM and booted up
- Install would not work since the hard drive in the VM didn't already have an OS on it. I ran “format c:/s” in order to format the drive and transfer the system files to the disk.
- Rebooted the VM and now the DOS disk saw an OS on the C: drive
- Ran the installation of DOS from the virtual floppy drive (for the first disk)
- When installation asked for DOS disk 2, I ran make14.bat again, and this time made the first and second disks, both to drive A:\ (the second just overwrote the first)
- When prompted for DOS disk 3, I ran make14.bat and let it make all three disks
Challenge Two: Getting Super VGA from Windows 3.x in the VM
Once DOS 6.22 was installed, I began the installation of Windows 3.11. This went well until I got to the step asking me to choose some settings. The default video for Windows 3.11 is VGA (640x480 with 16 colors.) I wanted a higher resolution and Bob prefers 256 colors. I changed the setting to Super VGA and finished the installation, but then Windows would not start up. For a second install, I chose VGA and Windows ran fine. Inside of Windows I then changed the video to Super VGA and Windows would no longer run.
Since Virtual PC emulates an S3 Trio, I did a web search and was easily able to locate a Windows 3.x driver for the S3 Trio. I ended up installing Windows 3.11 with VGA and then installing the S3 driver. I can now boost Windows to at least 800x600 with 256 colors.
The Crème de la Crème: Bob
The final step was to install Bob. This went without problems, and now I can relive the glory days of DOS, Windows 3.11, and Bob. Bob is great to show people because it's the product that is frequently mentioned as Microsoft's most visible flop. What a lot of people don't realize is that pieces of Bob live even today: The little dog in the XP Search window came from Bob.
Building the VM with DOS, Windows, and Bob was an interesting exercise. It's also fun to show people what the world was like just 11-12 years ago. It's amazing how far we've come. And before you ask: No, I can't give you a copy of the VM. Sorry.
This is in no way the opinion of Microsoft Corporation; it is my opinion only.
Like almost everyone else using Windows from Windows 95 to XP, I found Internet Explorer to be the browser of choice. I didn’t really want anything else, as it just worked for me and I was content. Finally a friend convinced me to try Firefox about 18 months ago, and the tabs hooked me almost immediately. I once heard someone describe the tabs as, “Okay, I guess,” but I find them to be incredibly productive. On a single page, I often right-click on numerous links and choose “Open in New Tab”, and then go browse those tabs at my leisure.
I’ve been using IE 7 beta 3 (and before that, beta 2) and I’m happy with the tabbed browsing. In fact, I’m happy with a lot of things. However, there are things that Firefox does that I miss. So here are a few of the features I find beneficial, and how they’re handled.
Tabs
In my opinion, IE 7 wins. IE might not have been the first with tabs, but it is doing them better. The reason I think IE 7 tabs are better boils down to a couple of features. First, I love having the close button (the little x) on the tab itself, rather than far off to the right as Firefox does it. I never realized how unproductive it was to have that x way off to the right. However, when I am in Firefox now I find myself on a tab way to the left, and having to go all the way to the right to close it. In IE 7, the x is on the tab itself. It couldn’t be easier.
Also, I like that there is always a blank tab showing in IE 7. In Firefox, I either have to press Ctrl+T or click File, New Tab in order to open a tab. In IE 7, I click on the blank tab (just to the right of the right-most tab) and I have a new tab ready to go. It may sound minor, but once you get used to it in IE 7, you’ll miss it in Firefox.
Tabs in IE7: 
Tabs in Firefox: 
Find
Firefox wins this one. I like having the Find area appear on the browser instead of as a pop up window. This is just personal preference and if you like it as a standalone window, that’s fine. I also like that the Firefox find searches while you type, rather than forcing you to type your string and then click a Previous or Next button.
Find in IE7: 
Find in Firefox: 
Phishing Filter
The phishing filter in IE 7 has worked well for me in my limited testing. When I get emails that I know are phishing, such as problems with “my account” from banks where I don’t have an account, I click on the link to see what IE 7 tells me. So far, it’s caught them all. I appreciate that.
One thing I find odd is that in IE 7 beta 3, the phishing filter is off by default when you do an installation. I believe it should be on by default, and there’s time to change this before IE 7 is released.
This is in no way the opinion of Microsoft Corporation; it is my opinion only.
Originally posted 3 August 2004 on my own site. Just as true now, if not more so.
First, a bit of history. I've been using my CIOBriefings email account since 1998. However, in 2000 I spoke at a conference and placed my email address in my bio. This started a trickle of email that, four years later, has become a torrent of offers to buy drugs online, refinance my house, and enhance my anatomy.
I get a lot of spam. I'm sure others get more, but I decided to track just how much spam I get. To that end, I spent one week tracking all my emails. I broke them down into these four categories:
- Ham - Good email. This is stuff I want.
- Spam - The emails I don't want, sent out by human scum.
- Viruses - Emails with attached viruses.
- Droppings - I don't know what these are really called. Most viruses and spams send themselves with "from" addresses from the infected computer's address book, so I get a number of bounced messages, messages that I have sent spam, and messages that I have sent viruses. I just classify all these as "droppings."
Within the Spam category, I placed the spams into the following categories:
- Drugs - These were mostly for prescription drugs, but some included herbal alternatives
- Male Enhancement - It was hard to separate these from the "Drugs" category, but I did the best I could. It will be useful to combine this category with Drugs when looking at totals.
- Software - Offers for cheap software, as well as software to snoop on those you trust.
- Porn - Needless to say, some of these subjects cannot be repeated in mixed company.
- Money-making Opportunities - This included "hot stock tips" as well as ways to fire your boss and make all your money on eBay.
- Mortgages - Offers to refinance or obtain a new mortgage.
- Degrees/Diplomas - Offers to obtain degrees based on "life experience."
- Casino Offers - Usually offers to get "free money" for signing up with a casino.
- Other - All others. Some were unidentifiable without first downloading images, which I did not do. Others included genuine reproduction Rolex watches, cable descramblers, and phishing schemes.
In exactly one week, I received the following email traffic:
- Total Messages: 3280
- Ham: 178
- Spam: 2246
- Viruses: 574
- Droppings: 282
The spam broke down as follows:
- Drugs: 964 (42.92%)
- Male Enhancement: 117 (5.21%)
- Software: 195 (8.68%)
- Porn: 101 (4.5%)
- Money-making: 208 (9.26%)
- Mortgage: 253 (11.26%)
- Degrees: 52 (2.32%)
- Casino: 58 (2.58%)
- Other: 298 (13.3%)
As you can see, the vast majority of the spam was Drugs. Combine that with Male Enhancement and nearly 50% of the spams had to do with Viagra, Lavitra, Xanax, Soma, or some herbal solution to make certain male features larger. Mortgage offers were the next most annoying source of spam, followed closely by money-making opportunities and offers for cheaper software.
So what do I do about this flood of email? I use SpamBayes, a free plug-in for Outlook (that also has a version that works with Outlook Express.) In this week, I received 2246 spam messages. Two spams made it to my inbox (a .089% rate for false negatives.) More importantly, not a single ham was flagged as spam.
This post was originally written long before I became a Microsoft employee. This is in no way the opinion of Microsoft Corporation; it is my opinion only.