Cool Country Consulting Blog

Mike's Incomplete Philosophy and Belief System review.

The following article was written over a number of days starting shortly after the loss of Heppie. It is included in this newsletter for general interest, but future stories like this may be posted on the blog instead, and linked to in the newsletter. Your opinion on this is welcomed, and sought at the end of this newsletter.

Life is not always as easy to define – and many of us find ourselves asking questions to try to work it all out. Many people will find a religion or belief system that they adopt in order to help make sense of life, and especially death.

The recent death of Heppie, my 10 year four legged constant travelling companion, has caused me to briefly reflect on all those experiences I’ve had so far.

Before reading on, I ask that if you have already chosen a belief system and are easily offended by having that belief system questioned, you may prefer to go and read something else. I’m not out to offend anyone. This is simply my own story so far.

Also I warn ahead of time that I have not done due diligence on some of these items as this is not my profession. Thus, if you are interested in any of these items you need to do your own further research to see what merit lies, or does not lie within them  Happy reading!

Catholicism

My first encounter with any belief system was for a couple of years at a Catholic Primary school. Too young of course to be able to apply any real understanding to the situation, it was nonetheless interesting. The church sessions that were interspersed with other classes involved sitting, kneeling, sitting, and watching as every other kid in the school would go and get their free 1” disc of bread. I was the only one out of the couple of hundred who did not do so – but I don’t know if that was pre-arranged or what it was. Irrespective, I failed to find any special feeling of belonging.
The more obvious teachings of being good to others made innate sense to me – but I failed to find any magical spiritual enlightenment.

Christianity

A couple of my high school years were at a Christian school. Here there was very little in the way of actual religious training, which suited me well as I still didn’t feel any sense of belonging to this type of religion. Again, just being good to others was the only bit I really had a belief in.

Jehovahs Witnesses.

Roll forwards to when I’m about 20, and I have my first encounter with Jehovah’s witnesses. They visited a few times, advised of what I should be doing, and how only a certain fixed number of people could get into heaven. Given this rather low six figure number, it was statistically almost impossible for me to be a lucky contender, so I soon lost interest in this one too. I was however, quite happy with my built-in sense that if I do right by other people, then that’s a good thing and whatever potential judgment at the end, I’d not (at that point at least) be guilty of anything worse than accidentally killing a pet mouse by unknowingly sitting on it.

Near Death Experiences. (NDEs)

I think it was not long after this time that I was given a 2400 bps modem. (This is 1/20th the speed of dialup, 1/120th the speed of the cheapest broadband.) This opened a new world of opportunity to review any further religions I encountered. I soon discovered some pages about Near Death Experiences and for a time took comfort in that they seemed to make sense, providing more tangible and current evidence than 2,000 year old texts. I think the address was http://www.near-death.com/ Once nice thing about this belief system is that it seems to be compatible with elements of most religions but without the associated overheads.

Time Share

Still a bit naïve sadly at 20, I and my then partner got taken up with the excitement of Timeshare, as a company was running an invitation-only presentation. They told us all about how you could go anywhere in the world for a small amount compared to what people normally pay, and enjoy one week once every second year in some foreign resort. Sounded good, and I guess for some people it would be – but of course there’s no advantage in air fares, etc. So, we parted with somewhere between $4.5K and $7K (which we didn’t have anyway) and signed up.
Now of course, said partner’s no longer contactable, and I’m stuck with a timeshare that I can rarely use, and which due to local resort availability issues can be a real pain. Being a jointly-owned asset, I appear to be stuck with it and may have to let it go delinquent. There are better deals to be found locally these days on sites like QuickBeds, NeedItNow, Checkin.com.au etc.
I guess this isn’t really a religion in most people’s definitions, but it is a belief system of sorts – happiness through theoretically cheap prepaid holidays. (The drawback being the maintenance fees, booking fees, transfer fees, and chronic lack of Australian vacancies within a reasonable timeframe, etc.)

Wiccan

A couple of years later, I was chatting online with a lady who defined herself to be a witch. This was a fascinating deviation from the mainstream, with strange beliefs about nude moon bathing, etc. By now, I had better Internet access, and was able to research these belief systems somewhat more efficiently. My mind’s a bit rusty on what witchcraft was all about now – at its roots it seemed mostly harmless – but now the only phrase I remember is the maiden, the mother, the crone – probably because it’s in a Tracey Chapman song too. Mind you, I think I was more fascinated by her than by the belief system, although nothing ever came of it. More info on this system at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicca

Mind Control

A few years later while casually surfing away I read about body language and Mind Control Techniques. It is quite clear in this world that if you’re clever enough, you can convince people to believe almost anything. Every now and then (although less common these days it seems) you hear of some bizarre sect that makes a televised appearance for some reason – often a mass suicide or being blown up. Waco comes to mind… This alerted me to question more anything I was told, and the manner in which it was presented.
For example, be suspicious of any training that involves getting up early repeatedly – being tired reduces your ability to filter bullshit. I haven’t revisited this philosophy for a long time now – last I remember reading was http://www.dicksutphen.com/html/battlemind.html

Insurance

A number of years later – after moving to Guyra and almost going broke due to the change - I was approached by a Health Insurance company to become a mobile sales droid. To become one involved a number of days of training in North Sydney. Sadly for them I had already learnt about mind control techniques, and was largely immune to the training. Certainly there was money to be made on commissions by selling and renewing policies to clients – quite a lot of money judging by some of the sales droids; but to do this for a living you either had to really want the money or else really believe in the product. For me, money wasn’t a big driver as I am satisfied if I have enough to pay the bills and a little in reserve; and the product may in rare cases really help someone in need – but for most people I imagine being vigilant in saving a similar amount in a bank account each quarter would achieve the same coverage over time, plus have the benefit of being available for any emergency, not just those covered in the qualifications and disclaimer sections of the application form.

The other element of it I could not take any joy in at all was the telephoning of customers to book appointments – complete with telemarketer-like scripted methods to keep callers on the line. It wasn’t cold calling, but it felt like it. I only stuck with this job for two days before giving it up on the second rainy night. Another irony was that of the 8 or so people at the training sessions, I was the only one who didn’t smoke!

Psychics (Local and Armidale)

I’ve had a couple of visits with psychics / spiritual readers and healers out of curiosity. (Well, they were in some promotional thing the Armidale tourism group was doing when I first moved here.) While they’re certainly fun to talk with, and talk about various issues with, so far the ones I’ve chatted with have not been able to produce any result that was not possible by warm reading. The idea of auras, chakras, etc, sound fancy and are easy to imagine but so far impossible to prove. A local one also claimed that my dog would die of a heart attack – she died from a fancy green injection instead with no heart problems - although perhaps it causes a heart attack. An Armidale one said my sister was pregnant – which was a surprise to her and now 6 years later is still not the case. I guess googling psychic, cold and warm reading will give more info. I’m not well researched in this area – the last article being a Youtube series “The Enemies of Reason” mentioned later. I don’t fully discount the possibility of psychic events, but have no evidence to hand 

Einstein and a Budgie.

This is more a philosophy than anything else. Basically, if you were to have Einstein lecture to a budgie about his various laws on how the world works, the budgie’s response would probably be chirrp chirrp warble warble (head scratch) chirrup (crap on the ground) chirrup. The Budgie’s comprehension however would be almost zero, as a budgie is likely not capable of understanding human concepts and those of the world.
You can then extrapolate from this that perhaps we as Humans also lack the power to fully understand the world due to our own limitations – so don’t worry too much about it 

The Magic of Radio

I have one belief which is that, given radio works but is otherwise invisible, then it’s quite possible that other things exist that we don’t have facilities to see; so as a result weird things may well be possible!

Strange coincidences.

Two unusual things happened in the following few years.

Firstly my pseudo-grandmother was dying of cancer, and on her last night before being hospitalized she had slipped down in her bed and was choking. I’d previously given her a cordless doorbell button to press if she needed assistance by any of us – but in this case she was too weak to be able to reach it. I also sleep with a small fan running which masks other sounds. However, despite this I managed to hear her choking in the next room, and at the same time my father was awoken from a much further room. Perhaps it was a coincidence or logic, or perhaps something else.

Later, a close friend of mine had decided to kill himself. That day I had just finished teaching a class and was feeling a little unsettled – started to go towards the front of the building and then changed my mind and went back to the classroom – I felt unsettled. There, I checked my email and found what looked like a suicide note email. After trying a few contacts I eventually dialed 000 and the police found said friend in the car with the motor running and the pipe through the window. Again, perhaps just a coincidence, or perhaps something else.

Amway

So, a few years ago after teaching a class, one of my students approached me asking if I’m interested in a unique business opportunity – but paradoxically would not name what it was about. Already suspicious, I nonetheless accepted an appointment with them to hear more about it. They talked about how it worked, about how you’d do all your shopping online and get cheaper prices than retail, and how you’d make money out of anyone else you got to do the same thing.

I followed along for a little bit out of curiosity, but the products online were far from being a match for Woolworths HomeShop yet alone Coles, and required lots of bulk purchases. The orange juice was a horrible reconstituted job, and most other products just didn’t exist. The site was pretty poor too.

I went along to one Amway meeting in Tamworth out of curiosity – and it seemed to have most of the hallmarks of a cult. By then I’d also researched Amway / Quixtar online and based on those two things it seemed pretty clear that the only real money to be made was on creating promotional training cassettes and hosting the fancy get-togethers; not in peddling mediocre products. I guess if you stuck at it long enough you could make some money on the product sales, but it’s not for me. My belief when entering into any new business relationship or belief system is to go in with an open mind and research it online to build up your own opinions, because like I said before it’s very easy for us as humans to take on a belief even when it’s false – so question everything  (I made a mistake years ago in buying a florist business which I really shouldn’t have! Funny how you learn from your mistakes.)

Atheism

More frequently now I am seeing pure atheism posts on sites like Reddit – http://reddit.com/ , Zgeek – caution – not safe for work – http://zgeek.com/ , and in other media sites. I guess this is to be expected as more people research more religions and belief systems on the Internet and poke holes in their teachings. I’m not sure I agree with what they replace religions with sometimes but am happy provided they stick to the basic obvious rule of being good to others.

FSMism – Pastafarians.

FSMism is a strange new religion created when there was an argument in American schools about whether or not scientology (or was it evolution) should be taught alongside other religions in American schools. The basis of FSM is that the world, trees, and a midget were created by an entity called the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It’s a laugh, and I love the graphics! http://www.venganza.org/

Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth vs. The Great Global Warming Swindle

These two contrasting documentaries argue for and against the existence of global warming. In time we’ll find out who was more right and wrong. Sadly other than buying these movies the only way to get them is an illegalish download from a Torrent network – which kind of cancels out their good intentions. Why would they try to make money out of a movie that is meant to save the world – or at least tell it how buggered it is! (Call me a freetard if you like!!) http://www.mininova.org/get/989352 for Al Gore, and http://www.mininova.org/tor/1584963 for the Swindle.
One of my customers also send me a link to http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html which claims 35 inaccuracies in Gore’s movie. I’m undecided in the face of these three entities.

Dawkins

Richard Dawkins has produced a couple of documentaries – The root of all evil, and The Enemies of Reason. He works strictly on evidential science, and argues against anything else that can not be scientifically proven. They make for an interesting watch but his very blunt questioning may offend some of you. These ones are free to watch on Google Video. He’s almost certainly an atheist.
Enemies of reason 1: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7218293233140975017&ei=4v6bSPPiGIGYqQPY6oQo&q=enemies+of+reason
Enemies of reason 2: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4720837385783230047&ei=4v6bSPPiGIGYqQPY6oQo&q=enemies+of+reason
The God Delusion: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9002284641446868316&ei=dP-bSNSbNpDCqAOyxdUk&q=root+of+all+evil
Virus of faith: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7619161192220036050&ei=F_-bSLGTGJCGrgOW9N0l&q=virus+of+faith

Reddit / Sheeple

Years ago it was quite easy to sit in front of a computer, open google, and have your mind go blank – not able to think of anything interesting to search for. Since then, sites like Reddit, Digg, etc have come along that allow you to see what other people think is interesting at that moment in time.

Another term that has become more mainstream recently is ‘sheeple’ – which roughly means people simply following eachother and / or believing things simply because other people do, for good or bad, without questioning.

While sites like this make it easier to find out what others are thinking about, it may also have a negative effect if it takes away your desire to look for and analyze information independently. I recommend researching anything you read as there’s usually two sides to any story.

NDE Revisited

OK so by now it’d seem likely I’d mostly be an atheist, but happy to accept that strange things may still be possible simply because radios work and yet without a radio we would not know that the signal was there. However, after those Dawkins documentaries, it would seem there is nothing other than life itself. Perhaps, however unpalatable, this is the case – in which case you’d want to have as good a life as possible since they don’t last forever.

However, this last article, which I read before once again losing interest in philosophies and religions; reverting to the more logical world of computer repairs and having finished the worst of grieving Heppie’s loss; does leave a door open for possibilities that can’t be proven in the traditional scientific method.

http://www.noetic.org/publications/review/issue61/r61_Grossman.html is a fairly long document that aims to impart that NDEs (Near Death Experiences) are verifiably real due to cases where patients have been able to report things that have happened, even in other rooms, while they’re dead – but whose evidence does not fit well with scientific methods and is therefore readily dismissed.

He does use some fancy scrabble language – such as the word Qua, which means ‘acting in the capacity of’ or something like that. Oh, and as stated, I haven’t done due diligence on this one - it's the point I got to before freeing one of my registers from processing this sort of stuff, and getting back to work!

So, happy living, whatever you believe!

G'day all.

This morning I made the tough decision to have Heppie put to sleep. I had hoped that she'd die peacefully in her sleep during the night, but instead laboured breathing made it sound like that was not likely to happen - she was just too determined to keep ticking despite her problems.

It was clear that her condition was terminal, and although she was deteriorating quite slowly compared to what the vet expected, it wasn't getting any better - and with no energy to walk more than 20 metres and 48 hours without a #2, it seemed likely that things were shortly going to get a lot worse.

So, at around 11:30 this morning, she was put to sleep. It wasn't as easy as I'd hoped - they tried twice to put her to sleep in the Kingswood, but in the end because her blood pressure was so low they had to take her inside and use a different type of injection method. Nonetheless she seemed pretty relaxed about it all which was I guess as good as I could have hoped for.

I then took her home, dug a resting place, and later that evening we buried her - near the front gate because she always loved traveling and although presumably her body no longer contains her, at least if it did, she'd be in that happy place between car and home.

Now of course, grieving continues - raising as it always does the inevitable questions that no-one seems able to answer, like why are we here, is there an afterlife or some sort; along with the more localised thoughts like did I look after her well, was it the right decision, where did dogs come from anyway, etc.

I guess multiple religions have been invented around these themes, but at the risk of upsetting those of you who have decided; I'm yet to be convinced. I have taken some comfort in other people's near death experiences, but that still doesn't really qualify as scientific evidence - interesting as they are. Like Einstein lecturing to a budgie, the world may be too big for us to understand.

In memory of Heppie, I created a one page document which I buried with her in a glass bottle, and because I'm a techy guy I also burnt 5 copies of a CD of pictures of her life, sealed them in the plastic spindle with silicon and included some dessicant silicon in the package. Odds are no one will ever find them, but who knows - and if they do will they even know what a CD is? (This was inspired by a recent post on a website where someone had written a missive about their pond and buried it thereunder, said letter berating the pond violator for choosing to remove said pond.)

Following is the text of said letter, along with a link to some of the pictures that were included.

-------------------------------------

Heppie!

Unknown before 1998 to 24/7/2008

Heppie was found at Mays Bend in Bourke, NSW around 2008. She’d had puppies and appeared to have been dumped. She found me, Michael Kean, sleeping in a car because I was not in the mood for fishing.

She lived in Bourke for a couple of years, had a number of puppies there in one litter. She lived outdoors.

She lived at Green Creek near Fords Bridge for a couple of years – again as an outside dog.

She lived at Fords Bridge for almost a year – again as an outside dog.

She then moved here (Black Mountain) around 2002 and was at last allowed to be an inside dog – all other properties were rental, etc. Her life really began here!

She miraculously survived a roll of a ute as she was flung off near Brewarrina, and her leash snapped due to the force. She was found two days later on a nearby property, to great relief.

Every day from 2002 on, she’d accompany me as I carried out computer repairs in the local area – occupying the back seat of the 1971 Kingswood. (Front seat for the last two weeks.)

She went with us on many holidays to Coffs Harbour, South West Rocks, Golden Beach – and was always a ‘car dog.’ There was nothing she liked more than travelling, although she preferred utes to cars.

In July, 2008, she began to become less spritely – would not run up and down the road any more with the electric scooter. A test at the vet showed she had a red blood cell count of 12, where normal is 35-57. The vet was a little surprised as it seemed she should not be alive at those levels.

She survived another two weeks, but could not walk more than about 20 metres before freezing on the spot and having to be carried. She would still travel happily each day and was now eating luxury food only – chicken from 627 café, steak and kidney pie, home made stews, and mars bars.

On 24/7/08 I took the painful decision to have her put to sleep, because her quality of life was diminishing further – she was still a happy dog, but sleeping was becoming more difficult.

She was a great loved friend for many years, and will be sorely missed.

-----------------------------------

Photos are here.

Hmm - the Unison File Synchroniser doesn't appear to work properly on windows despite what the website says. I asked it to synchronise C:\temp with M:\temp and it went off looking in my photos folder instead!

The installation instructions on the Internet are next to useless for windows versions as it requires you to manually work out where to put the executable, etc, and there are many dead links to gtk+ etc.

I'll stick to delta copy for now unless I can find something better.

If you get an error when you install e-record on Vista, to the effect that it is always asking you where to save as worksheetindex2.ifm, then you might have hit a non-documented problem which I encountered with a customer's installation.

To fix it, you need to change the permissions on the e-record folder(s) to allow full access to the system, or was it the logged in user - anyway one or more of those.

There was no information about this on the e-record website, so hopefully this will help someone save an hour of their life trying to solve the problem!

In this edition:

Important News
Possible new MP3 Virus

Tips
Buying Cheap Laptops
Other Bargains
USB Record Player

Trivia:
Losing another friend.

Possible new MP3 Virus

A new virus is apparently going around turning people's MP3s (music) into Windows Media Audio (.asf) files, adding links to malicious sites within them, but leaving them with the original mp3 name. http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/07/18/New_worm_transcodes_MP3s_to_try_to_infect_PCs_1.html

For those of you who use Limewire, etc, to download music from the Internet, I've traditionally said that MP3 files are safe and WMA/WMV files are not. It is possible that MP3 files may now also be slightly risky - although as yet I haven't been able to get confirmation of this.

It's easy to spot if you've picked up a bad file, however, because when you try to play it you'll instead be taken to a website, which will probably ask you to download a 'codec'.(A codec is a program for your computer that lets it play a specific type of file - a bit like teaching your computer a new language if you like - but in this case it's a ruse as they'll actually send you a bug instead.) If you close the website you'll probably be OK.

Buying Cheap Laptops...

One of the most common questions I get these days is 'what's a good laptop to buy.' Many retailers, such as Dick Smith and RetraVision, have laptops for sale from about $650, and with $150 cash back offers when you post away a registration form. Mostly these are Compaq and Acer laptops.

For this low price, you'll usually get a single brain laptop, whereas more expensive laptops tend to have two brains. Having two brains does help your computer run faster when it's trying to do two things at once, and may be worth the $200+ premium over these cheaper laptops in some cases; but for general office work having one brain is enough. (Curious if your computer has two or more brains? Hold down Ctrl + Alt + Del, click "Task Manager" then look on the Performance tab. If you see two graphs under CPU Usage History, you have two brains - or rather, your computer does!)

The other thing you'll probably want to do is add more RAM to one of these cheapies - as they usually come with only 1GB of RAM,.The good news there is another GB of RAM will cost you about $40-$50 from RetraVision. (Avoid buying RAM at Dick Smith Electronics, as they use a different brand that's about three to four times the price!) Fitting it is always easy on these new ones, but does involve undoing a small door under the laptop with a screwdriver. I usually have memory in stock as well, so you can always ask me to do it for you ;-)

As a side note, part of why Vista has received such a bad wrap is that it needs at least 1GB of memory, preferably 2GB or more to run at a bearable speed. Many laptops sold last year only have half a GB, so they'd take 4-6 minutes just to start. XP on the other hand used to need only 256MB to be happy, although with new virus scanners, etc, you really need at least 512MB to get by.

So, there you go. $550 will get you a nice new laptop with a bit of extra RAM, with most of the modern features you'd want, such as wireless, dvd burner, etc, and at a reasonable speed for most people.

Desktop PC sales appear to be dropping off rapidly - Dick Smith no longer stocks them for example! For those of you who prefer a fixed working position as opposed to a laptop, you can easily attach a normal screen and keyboard to a laptop and use it like a desktop PC.

Other Bargains

I recently missed one of my supplier's closing time by a few minutes, and needed a new hard drive for a customer. So, went for a power-walk to K-Mart and found that you can get quite large USB hard drives there for about $120 - which for a 300GB hard drive was quite good value just for the drive itself. The drive inside was a seagate drive, so quality's not a concern. (Anything other than Western Digital is pretty good these days.) So, if you're worried about your hard drive dying, or you're getting low on space, it could be a good investment for a backup or more space!

USB hard drives come in two physical sizes - one the size of the average Bible or Dictionary, the other about the size of a short, wide TV remote control. The big ones require mains power to run, whereas the smaller ones will run just from the computer's power. The bigger ones often have more space for the same price, and are also faster since they spin a 7200 RPM whereas the smaller ones are, well, smaller and slower at 5400RPM, but more convenient since you can easily take them with you.

USB Record Player

One of the services I offer is converting LPs and Cassettes to CD & MP3. However, at $5 per album it can be a bit pricey for some people. So, here's a way that you can convert your old LP records to CD using your computer. Jaycar Electronics now sells a record player that plugs into your computer's USB port. http://snipurl.com/3140x - although I notice they're out of stock at the moment. The Amac computers shop next to The Warehouse in Armidale is a Jaycar dealer if you want to get your hands on one.

Losing another friend.

Many of you know Heppie, the border collie / kelpie cross that usually resides on the back seat of the Kingswood. (Some of you have probably also seen the fan in the front window, or heard of the gadget that rings my mobile when the temperature exceeds 30 degrees.) Well, over the last three weeks she's been getting slower and slower - not wanting to run with the electric scooter any more, and now not wanting to walk more than about 100 metres at a time.

I found her, or rather she found me, back in Bourke in '98 where she was already full grown, showed signs of having recently had puppies, and appeared to have been dumped. (This was at May's Bend, a fishing spot some way out of Bourke.) As a result, I don't know her exact age but expect it's at least 11 years, possibly up to 13 years.

A recent trip to the vet didn't come out too well - her heart's OK, lungs are OK, but she's very anaemic. (You can tell this because her gums are ghostly white rather than pink.) A blood test said something I think like "hermatic rate of 12", where normally it's 37-55. The implication from this is that she's either losing blood or has a tumour. Operating could be an option, but I suspect at her age it's better just to enjoy her remaining days until eating becomes an issue, or any pain becomes evident.

So, as a result she's getting a bit spoilt. She's been upgraded to the front seat, where she's always tried to be in the past. (Although technically she prefers utes to cars and has tried to jump into a few that weren't mine in the past!) She has a new coat, new electric blanket, and a new diet. She's particularly fond of Cafe 627 spicy chicken sans spice, and shelled Mars bars for energy. (Shelling a Mars bar is a messy but tasty job!) Canned fish (cat food) is also a popular but previously forbidden dish, along with that cheddar cheese stuff you get with snack packs..

The stress of knowing you're going to lose a friend isn't terribly pleasant of course, and has made me a little less reliable than usual. (I'll discuss the 7 register theory in another newsletter.) I'm trying to keep to reduced hours to get home before dark during the week,and making more stops to let her check out the world. Funnily enough, I've been through this with her before when 5 years ago she was on the back of a ute that rolled when it hit a roo. (Datsun 4WD with buggered shocks, and I wasn't driving.) We couldn't find her after the accident - but she turned up two days later at a nearby property. She was very lucky in that her leash snapped - but it must've been a heavy impact to do that. (It bent the pin in the collar's buckle by 30 degrees too, kind of amazing that she survived unscathed.)

When she does eventually go, I'll probably have a break from dogs for a while as I'm planning a trip to Tazzie at the end of the year. Maybe after that I'll find another - or another will find me!

An addendum to the last newsletter.

Sopcast & Spyware

Sopcast doesn't contain spyware. However, one of you has just advised me that some of the sites that are accessible from the 'home' tab in the SopCast player do have spyware. (I hadn't looked at that page - guess I've been on the 'net too long and am blind to advertising!) The channels I mentioned in the newsletter are on the Live Channels tab, so please ignore the advertising on the Home tab and stick to the channels already in the player to be on the safe side.

Match Game - new address

I found a better link for The Match Game - http://youtube.com/profile_videos?user=SuperPAC&p=r

In this edition:

This is an out-of-sequence, special edition.

Important News
VoIP Users - Reminder on dial tones.

Multimedia Special
Free Discovery Channel, Sports & More
The Match Game - remember Blankety Blanks?

VoIP Users - Reminder on Dial Tones

A new VoIP customer has somehow managed to rack up a big Telstra bill despite having a brand new VoIP service. Just as a reminder to those of you using VoIP - please pay attention to the dialtone that your VoIP phone produces. If your VoIP modem is unable to connect to the Internet at any time, it may connect you directly to Telstra instead. You'll be able to tell this because the dial tone will be Telstra's. Also, the lights on your modem tell you if you're connected to VoIP or to the Telstra line - so if you're making a long call, and you're not 100% sure that you're on VoIP, check the lights to be sure. (The 'Line' light is on if you're on Telstra, whereas handset 1 or 2 is on if you're on VoIP.) On some handsets, especially Uniden cordless phones, pressing the talk button twice will also switch your call over to Telstra.

Free Discovery Channel, Sports & More.

Last week a customer signed up with me for Broadband in order to watch motorbike racing via the Internet. He'd paid for a subscription service from an American company, but we were unable to get the information through the Internet fast enough to be watchable in real time. We could pull in information at full speed in Australia, but traffic from America was not coming through fast enough.) Anyway, while waiting for a response from that company, I set off on a Google quest to see if there was another way...

I've mentioned Orb before - a program that lets you watch your TV from anywhere on the Internet. This works well if you have friends with pay tv and a suitable computer as you can watch their pay tv at the same time that they are - provided you both want to watch the same channel! To learn about this program go to http://www.orb.com/

This wouldn't work for this particular customer because his friends use satellite internet which is just too expensive for watching video with. So, I did another hour's research and eventually stumbled upon information about a program called Sopcast. It's a program that allows people to stream live TV / Video to multiple people at once. Once loaded, it lists multiple channels that it knows about - and I believe there are other channels available via the Internet but I haven't researched this. The channels in the list seem to come from Singapore because the ads tend to show starting times for South East Asia, Bangkok and Seoul - and naturally many of the shows are not in English. However, a number of them are in English with Chinese (I think they're Chinese) subtitles. The current list has ESPN Sports, National Geographic and Discovery channel, along with about 100+ others that I don't know what they are.

Now, of course there's a question as to whether this is legal. Google seems to show that it is - or at least the program itself is. After all, the program simply takes video from one place and sends it to other places. How the broadcasters could prevent it is hard to know - because of the peer to peer nature of the program (each watcher also sends to other watchers) it's probably hard to trace the source - and if the source is in a country like Sweden where there are few copyright laws then killing it is probably impossible. Use it at your own risk of course.

On the technical side, you need to have a fast broadband plan of at least 1500k/sec (which is $40 a month with me / Exetel or $60-$80 a month with BigPond) or else the video won't play. (It might almost play on 512k but I'm not sure about that.) It'll also count as a fairly big download while you're watching it - probably a couple of hundred megabytes per hour - and it uploads about half that at the same time. It doesn't seem to use any downloads or uploads when it's not running.

So, if you want to check it out - it's a free download from http://www.sopcast.com/ .

Oh, and if you have a new TV and a laptop, many new TVs let you connect your laptop to them so you can have the big screen experience.

The Match Game

Some of you might remember a show called Blankety Blanks. Well, back in the '70s there was a show in America called The Match Game, which was much the same. Recently a number of episodes (or parts thereof) have been turning up on YouTube - see http://youtube.com/results?search_query=match+game&search_type=&aq=f - so if you want to relive your childhood, or the simpler days of TV, enjoy!

In this edition:

Important News
Potential AVG Problem for Dialup or Small Download Limited customers

Tips
Firefox 3 arriving soon...
A new Security Scanner - Secunia PSI
Reminder: OpenDNS

Trivia:
Free online First Aid course
Ripoffs of the Month
Oops! I almost set fire to a computer!
That Flat Batt
Reddit Imroved.
Read @ Work

Potential AVG Problem for Dialup or Small Download Limited customers

There is a new feature in AVG called "AVG Safe Search." It's designed to give you a warning when you go to Google, Yahoo, etc if any of the resulting pages are malicious. However, their approach to this problem is a little unique! In the background it invisibly opens up each page in the search results to check if there are any nasties on it. This has some side effects.

1 - If you're on dialup, you know how long it takes just one page to load. Opening 10 pages at once in the background will take an unpleasantly long time.

2 - For any Internet connection, if you're paying by the amount you download; opening 10 pages at once could eat a fair chunk of your allowance each time you go a'googlin!

Fortunately it is quite simple to turn off this feature if you don't want it.

For Internet Explorer 7, click the Tools menu and choose "Manage Add-Ons." Click on AVG Safe Search, and then click Disable, OK.

For Firefox 2, click Tools and choose "Add-Ons." Click on AVG Safe Search, and then click Disable, OK.

In rare cases, it is rumoured that this feature can go completely nuts and repeatedly download the same page over and over in the background - one report on the net showed someone's computer downloaded the same page 20,000 times in a day. More information about this new feature and it's side effects are available at http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/13/avg_scanner_skews_web_traffic_numbers/

Firefox 3 Coming Soon...

Mozilla has made some significant improvements to their Firefox web browser, and is expected to release their newest version on Tuesday. They're aiming to set a world record by getting at least 1.6 million downloads in 24 hours, so there's a chance that your computer might automatically fetch it if you're a Version 2 user.

The biggest improvements are in speed and memory usage, along with a nice new address bar that automatically searches for things you've been to before when you type words into it.

As usual, for safer browsing I recommend you download it and also install the Adblock Plus and Flashblock add-ons (by clicking Tools --> Add-ons), since malicious advertising is a major source for viruses and spyware. You will be able to get it from http://www.getfirefox.com/ . It also appears to be faster than Firefox 2 on Dialup due to less precacheing. (I'm using a preview version.)

Oh and of course, my absolute favourite feature of this new version is that it can remember the zoom level of each website you've been to. The writing on laptops is after all usually too small, so by having it remember the zoom level for each site, it saves the hassle of doing Ctrl + or Ctrl - each time you go to a new site. There's an add-in called "NoSquint" which also allows you to set a default zoom level for every new page.

A New Security Scanner - Secunia PSI

Many viruses and spyware programs take advantage of known vulnerabilities in programs on a computer in order to infect them. Most people use virus scanners, etc, in an attempt to catch these things when they happen. For example, there are some bugs that spread by sending a poisoned PDF file to Adobe Reader. When an older version of Adobe gets one of these, it dies, giving control of the computer to whoever wrote the bug. Likewise, QuickTime can be poisoned. So too can that Adobe Flash player thing that you might have seen at some point. Java, too, can be attacked. So can Windows itself, which is why every second Tuesday your computer (hopefully) updates itself with that little yellow shield thing near the clock, taking care of Microsoft's own vulnerabilities.

Of course, not all viruses and spyware work this way - lots of them use lies and trickery instead :) (For example, popping up a box saying 'spyware found on your computer - click here to fix it', which translates to 'click here to download a spyware program which will pretend you have a virus and ask you for some money to buy a program to remove it.' etc.)

If you're a paranoid or techy type, or even just curious to see what out-of-date vulnerable programs are on your computer, there's a great new program called Secunia PSI which scans your computer and tells you what's out of date, as well as giving you one-click buttons to update the relevant programs. It's free from https://psi.secunia.com/ - although it's still quite new and occasionally sits there for a minute looking like it's doing nothing, so don't worry if it seems momentarily lifeless - it's just distracted :)

Reminder: OpenDNS

Many of the more expensive antivirus programs will check the webpages you visit against lists of known bad sites - but this slows down your computer as it has to look up each page each time. You can offload this task to a company called OpenDNS for free by changing one setting on your computer. (Changing your DNS server to 208.67.222.222). If you want to know more, ask me or check out http://opendns.com/

Free Online First Aid Course

I'll admit I haven't actually done the course myself yet - but I really should as it's been 14 years since I last did one. St John Ambulances is running a free online First Aid Course website at https://www.ambulance.net.au/onlinecourse/login.asp - so if you've got 30 minutes spare it might be worth a look. (Fortunately no customers have tried to die on me - at least not while I've been on call!)

Rip-Offs of the Month.

How Much

A customer called me because she had a virus on her computer and she'd been quoted $700 by a local franchise competitor to repair it - that price apparently including $120 just to make a backup before doing any work, plus a new copy of office since she'd lent her disk to a relative. $120 for a backup? Blimey! It's really not that hard for us techs just to hook up a removeable hard disk and copy the Documents and Settings folder - takes about 10 mins of our attention max, then we just leave the computer for an hour and come back to it when it's done.

It turned out to be a typical sypware attack and I had it gone in about 40 mins. Total cost after other work to tidy up and help protect the PC: $65.

I get mildly burnt on eBay

A customer had a bad screen on his laptop. Buying a replacement screen is about $200 to $300 normally. In this case there was a matching model laptop on eBay with an apparent intermittent fault with the laptop turning off without warning. (Not unusual for that older model of Toshiba.) So I ended up getting it for $350, figuring I'd have some valuable parts left over after swapping out the screen. None of that quite went to plan this time around.

1 - The laptop would not power up at all when it arrived - no power light at all.
2 - The screen, when swapped, didn't fix the problem so the customer's laptop had a more serious fault that would be beyond repair.

I soon discovered why the laptop was sold. Some bugger had spilt water on the touchpad area, and by the time it had arrived here the water had rusted through parts of the mainboard. A reminder to you all, of course, that if you get anything electronic wet, remove all batteries so this doesn't happen!

In the end, I'll probably not make a great loss as I'll be re-selling most of the parts on oztion.com.au where listing is free. (I've decided to support http://oztion.com.au over eBay for the time being since I don't like eBay's strategy of forcing people to use PayPal. Nor did the ACCC - more on that at http://apcmag.com/how_ebay_trashed_its_brand_for_the_sake_of_profits.htm .)

Oops!

One nice thing about computers is that they're normally standardised. However, this isn't always the case, and I had a reminder of that recently. A very early model Optima computer had a fault that would not allow it to take more than 256M RAM, so it was decided to replace the motherboard. However, the front panel USB connector turned out to be wired in an unusual matter despite the connector being keyed to fit a standard motherboard connector. As a result, when it was turned on, it short circuited 5V through the thin wire, burning off the insulation and creating an impressive cloud of smoke. No real damage fortunately, although the owner did hurry to turn off the smoke detector! Similar traps have existed throughout the years - such as early Dell computers which had power boxes that looked identical to standard ones, but which were wired differently. Connecting a Dell motherboard or Power Supply to a standardised (non-Dell) part usually meant the sudden destruction of one or both components!

The Flat Batt

In the Kingswood there is a box called an Inverter. It takes power from the cigarette lighter and gives you a working power point. (Or in my case a 6 way power board.) Very useful. However, occasionally it catches you. The Friday before the long weekend was a long day, with lights, heater, etc, running, and also a laptop hard disk replacement which was done under battery power while I had lunch. (Takes about an hour to copy a hard disk.) Then there was a long weekend. Then Tuesday. The first job was a long one and flattened the battery of the laptop. So, during the next job, the car charged the laptop, and flattened itself instead! (50 watts for one hour is not normally a problem for the battery, but after Friday and the long weekend, it was.) Fortunately I was parked on the highway and it wasn't hard to push the car up to 5k/h and then rolling start it in second. I guess it really is time I bought that high capacity battery for the laptop!

Reddit Improved!

Reddit is a site that lists sites that are most popular at any point in time, much like Digg and others. It's a bit America-centric by default, but now has an easy to use section where you can choose what sorts of stuff you do or don't want to know about. A warning of course that it might take up a fair bit of your time if you get addicted. http://reddit.com/ - Also in case you don't know, if you ever see something that says NSFW, that stands for "Not Safe For Work."

Read @ Work

OK and now for the final story for this newsletter. Someone with too much time on their hands, has created this 'read at work' website which takes the contents of a few books, and makes them look like typical office work! Good for a laugh, might get you fired? http://readatwork.com/

Old Editions
You can find old editons of this newsletter on the CCC Blog. http://auzzie.net/cccblog/

You can also subscribe or unsubscribe at http://auzzie.net/mailman/listinfo/ccc-news_auzzie.net

In this edition:

Important News
Reminder: End of AVG 7.5
HP / Compaq laptop fault (HP DV series, Presario V series)

Tips
Fax2Email

Trivia:
VoIP Maturing.
The Odd Jobs of the last month.
Petrol Prices
Ubuntu / Unix / Linux

Reminder: End of AVG 7.5 in 6 days.

Just a quick reminder for those of you using the old AVG that you need to upgrade to the new free version in the next few days.

You can get it from http://free.grisoft.com/ww.download?prd=afe

If you want to try a different free virus scanner instead, there is another one called Avast - free from http://www.avast.com/ - but don't forget to uninstall your current virus scanner before installing one of these since computers with two or more virus scanners often crash.

HP / Compaq Laptop Fault.

HP has made a number of laptops that are suicidal. It appears they have set them up with insufficient cooling and so they barbecue themselves to death. (No fire hazard, just a somewhat diminished lifespan.) I've seen a couple of laptops fail from this already in the last two months. The update causes the fan in the laptop to run for a longer time to prevent an early death.

If you have an HP laptop, look for the model number - usually on the top right corner of the screen. If it says dv-2000, dv-6000, dv-9000 or similar, you might be affected. The actual model number is underneath - so check it against the list on http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01087277&lc=en&cc=us to see if you need to update the laptop.

This issue also affects Compaq V series laptops (V3000/V6000)

It's really hard to know what's a good laptop these days! Every brand has it's good and bad runs. Toshiba had a bad run in 2005-06 with some laptops, HP has had issues like this, Dell has had issues. Ironically, the laptop I've seen with the least issues of late are the cheapest $600 Acers!

Email2Fax, Fax2Email

Faxes are slowly dying out. There are a number of services on the Internet which offer to replace your fax machine and more importantly your fax line. If you're an Exetel customer you can get this service already. UTBox is another company that offers a similar service, but quite expensive compared to Exetel. (http://www.utbox.net/)

It works in two ways:

- Email to Fax: In this case you simply email whatever you want to fax to faxnumber@fax.exemail.com.au and put your password in the subject line. It costs 3 cents per fax (up to 10 pages) anywhere in Australia.

- Fax to Email: In this case, you pay $1 per month for a dedicated fax number, and any fax sent to that number is delivered to you via email. The only issue here is that the fax number you get is going to be a Sydney / Brisbane / Adelaide or similar number, not a local regional number.

Of course, if you want to fax something that's on a sheet of paper, it's hard to beat an old fashioned fax machine. You can still use it on your main phone line to send such faxes, or use your fax's 'scan for email' function instead.

If you're a business user, if your accounting software has an option to email accounts, and you can get the subject line to stay the same on emails, then you could use this service to add fax capability to your existing software.

Sorry - this newsletter's a bit short on content, but I wanted to get the HP notice out to you so those affected can get your laptops fixed before they die on you! The remainder of the newsletter is the 'rambling' section :)

VoIP Maturing

After much trial and error with different equipment, I'm now reasonably satisfied that I've found some reliable combinations of VoIP providers and equipment. A $125 integrated ADSL VoIP modem with Exetel or MyNetFone WhirlPool Saver is the way to go. I am doing discounted exchange / upgrades for some clients with older equipment that is not performing as it should.

The Odd Jobs of the last Month

Super Slow Laptop

I've actually had three of these this month. The symptom is that it takes your computer literally 1 minute to do the most basic thing. Click Start. Wait a minute. Start menu appears. Some have reported that it only happens when their internet is connected. Turns out it's an unexplained occurence of the Windows Update service breaking down. If your computer suddenly develops this issue, try clicking start, choosing run, and typing in 'net stop wuauserv' and pressing enter. If your computer is suddenly happy again, you've got the glitch - which incidentally is easy to fix but involves deleting a few files so get in touch if you need a hand.

Where's the Black?

The printers seem to be breeding in the office! I've had three printer repairs this month where the black simply stopped working. This usually happens with bad cheap inks - especially pigment inks. Fortunately I have some specialised cleaning equipment that has a moderate success rate. They're frustrating buggers to fix at times 'tho - typically you get one colour sorted and another one buggers off!

The Accounting Dilemma.

I know a lot about computers. I know somewhat less about accounting software although I have done a course in both. What I do know is if you have a problem with your MYOB or QuickBooks, they want to charge you through the nose for help. In one job I tried to help a customer move from a very old QuickBooks version to a new one, and after a few hours we had to give up since neither us nor Quicken could work out how to get the old info into the new version. (It didn't like provisional tax, etc.) Fortunately they didn't charge us for their time although they did sell us an upgrade we later found we didn't need.

Later, another customer job took almost 6 hours of experimenting to try to migrate from one system to another while selectively retaining information. It's always a bit of a dilemma to me when these sort of jobs come around - because you have in your mind that if you knew the system well, the answer might be simple; but finding someone who might know those answers (and might not) is prohibitively expensive and the customer has asked you to see if you can work it out instead. Generally I don't charge the full time on these, since it's an involuntary learning experience.

My preferred answer, of course, is to get the customer to deregister from GST and / or use the free tax office software E-Record instead since it doesn't have all this licensing, closed system rubbish that comes with these unwieldy accounting programs - but of course that doesn't suit many of these customers because of their requirements.

(I was particularly surprised one time when a customer had a friend get them started with MYOB, setting up the information on her own computer, and later giving it to said customer when they were ready for it - only a few months later to be told by MYOB that they have to pay a fee to get the license of the data file transferred because the data file (not the damn program!) belonged to the customer's friend and not the customer. It didn't matter to them that the customer had bought their own copy of the program.)

Schni schna schnappi schnappi schnappi schnapp

I wonder how many of you remember that viral song? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izibSMAQhEY - A young girl sang it in the radio in Germany and for a little while there it was one of those worldwide internet / radio phenomena.

I mention it here as a segway to the next story. A customer called to say their kids had snapped their screen half off their laptop. (In this case, an ASUS laptop.) Laptop hinges are quite prone to failure as they get older - either through screws getting loose in the hinge area, or through the hinges tightening to the point that they cause the plastic to break instead. In this case, the kids weren't entirely to blame even tho it appears they did drop it. Some of the screws had come loose and the remaining screw holding a nut into the plastic casing broke away from the plastic, causing the screen to come away from the laptop. A couple of small modifications later and it was back together albeit not quite a strong as before.

The said kid who dropped it was pleased to have me back up her story that she hadn't been overly rough with it!

So, if your laptop had developed a wobble in the screen - feels a bit loose - it might be a good idea to either tighten the screws yourself (which are usually hidden under rubber covers) or get someone to do that for you ;-)

Petrol Prices

I often read about why Petrol prices keep going up. There seem to be two arguments at this time. Some claim it's Peak Oil (where they can't find and extract enough oil to cover the demand, so prices rise) while others are claiming it's Futures Speculation by Hedge Funds. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JE24Dj02.html is the last item I read to this effect. If it is the latter, then we're probably going to be happy soon when they over-gamble (or whatever it is that these people do - I'm not knowledgeable about this stuff yet) and their system crashes bringing the price down with it. If it really is Peak Oil instead, then I guess it's never going to come down. So, I've been thinking to myself at what point does this really worry me, and at this stage I think $3 per litre is the point where I'd start to look at alternative means - or at least have to increase the minimum callout rate.

How about an electric car?

If I had the $10,000 to $15,000 to spare I'd be converting either the spare Nissan Bluebird or the Merc 190b to electric. It's such an easy thing to do once you have the parts - as you can see by watching the New Zealand series at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83_Zig2vZlQ&feature=related - and the 70 mile per charge maximum range would suit most of my days, with about $1 of electricity max to recharge - somewhat less with offpeak. (Besides, it'd just be fun to do.)

Unfortunately my disposable income budget doesn't stretch that far (yet) so how about...

An electric bike?

I recently bought for $120 a 200 watt electric scooter just for a bit of fun and to see how they're made - because I can use most of the parts anyway if it turned out to be cr*p. It will run 8km on a charge in the hilly Black Mountain terrain and could easily be upgraded to go further - but it's not entirely practical for on road use out here, and of course I later found out that they're illegal in every state except Victoria - so now it's only used for exercising the dog.

It is, however, legal to put an electric motor on a bicycle, although the Australian laws are somewhat backward in this regard only allowing 200 Watts ass opposed to the UK 300 Watt limit and the US 750 Watt limit. As those of you in Guyra have probably seen, you can get away with putting a petrol motor on a bicycle at higher power levels than that legally - so the disparity is unfair and certainly doesn't encourage green electric transport on this scale. (I might have to learn how to get political on this one - any tips? The Tory party in the UK is working on changing the laws there since they, like Australia, currently also ban Segways.) Nonetheless there are a few legal low-powered kits available but with a starting retail price of $1,000 they're not exactly cheap. I don't mind peddling, and ran my business for a few years on abicycle in Bourke where hills were a novelty; but hills here are a bit of a pain ;-)

There are of course other more common options with price tags to match - from Vectrix scooters to the Tesla Roadster. For now the Kingswood's still the roost ruler, although the scooter may yet be 'grafted' onto the bike one weekend!

Ubuntu / Unix / Linux

You might have heard of one of these at some point. They're usually mentioned by 'geeks' as a way of getting rid of Microsoft.

I've tried a few out of curiosity, and they are certainly improving. Basically instead of running Windows XP or Windows Vista, you run something else that is free, and does the same things as Windows does without all the licensing costs. The latest Ubuntu can also be installed in Windows without having to wipe your hard disk etc so you can try it without risking stuffing up your computer.

I have it running on my laptop so if you're curious to see what this third option (as opposed to Windows and Mac) looks like, I can give you a demo.

In this edition:

Important News
AVG update information
Some problems with Equipmentless VoIP

Bargains
Halogen Heaters

Tips
VistaStartMenu
Learn to Touch Type the fun way.
A Thing that goes Bing?

Trivia:
Entertaining Websites.
Big Brother fans.
Exetel activation down to $88
The Odd Jobs of the last month.

AVG Update Information

About 70% of you use AVG Free Edition. As a result, most of you will by now have received a message from AVG recommending that you get AVG version 8. Just like two or three years ago when this last happened, the message largely entices you to go and buy a high-fallutin' version which is overkill for most people - to the extent that it's not clear that there's still a free version.

There is a free version still, and you can get it from http://free.grisoft.com/ww.download?prd=afe

I am not sure how long version 7.5 will continue to work for - at a guess probably a month or two. It may magically turn itself into version 8, but that's not known at this time.

It appears that part of their reason for this upgrade is to offer you a new yahoo toolbar and AVG security toolbar - so they're hoping you'll use these to search for things and thereby earn Grisoft (AVG's authors) a commission along with some useful internet usage tracking. (It seems every program you install these days wants to install a toolbar so they can earn revenue from a search engine!) These components are optional of course. If you're on dialup or a low download account I'd suggest you don't install the toolbars as they will add some traffic to your connection when you're on the 'net. For all people I'd also recommend you don't ask for a daily scan when setting up despite it asking for one - it's always scanning in the background anyway and a computer doing a full scan is usually a bit slow and annoying!

The free version download is just under 47 MB in size, so it will be very difficult to download if you're on dialup - approximately 5 - 10 hours to download if you don't get disconnected. So, if you're on dialup and you do want to download it, you might first want to download "Free Download Manager Lite" from http://files.freedownloadmanager.org/lite/fdminst-lite.exe which will allow you to continue downloads even if your line drops out and you have to reconnect because it continues from where it left off rather than starting again. (It's about 2MB.)

If you don't want to download the new AVG, email me with your postal address, and I'll post you a copy on CD for $10 - to cover the cost of CD, Burning, Postage, time :)

Some problems with Equipmentless VoIP

A few of you who are using the 20c untimed equipmentless VoIP thing have had trouble with the exchange not calling you back. I am keeping an eye on this situation. Exetel has made some noises on a private forum about introducing it as a product in it's own right - so with a bit of luck that will happen in the next month or two, bringing greater reliability with it. If you do have a problem with the service, please email or WLM/MSN me and I'll pass the problem on to Exetel for investigation.

Halogen Heaters

This newsletter's biggest bargain is not high tech. It's the Halogen heater - usually to be found for about $20 in supermarkets and cheap shops like The Warehouse and The Reject shop. There are two advantages these heaters have over other heaters.

1 - They're cheapish to run. At only 1200 watts when on high, they use half the power of most fan heaters.
2 - They radiate some of their heat directionally. This means you can be in a big cold room, have one near you and keep warm despite the cold room. (They also work well in bathrooms - much better than those silly in-roof heaters that heat the top of your head while you shiver! The manufacturer doesn't recommend use near water however so use common sense!)

The two downsides. 1 - About a 50% chance of one of the three bars failing within one year of use, and 2 - Dogs and cats - especially black ones - can singe their fur if they lie too close.

Not sure what they look like? (The heater, not the burnt pet) Click for a picture :) http://www.onix.com.au/internet/product_display.aspx?rec=78

VistaStartMenu

One of the nice features in Vista that is not in XP is the ability to type in the first few letters of the program you want, and it comes up for you. (Start Menu Searching.) There is a handy free program called "VistaStartMenu" which gives you that feature in Windows XP. It's free from http://www.vistastartmenu.com/index.html

Learn to touch type the fun way!

The best thing about touch typing is that you can type without having to look at what you're doing - which makes you more efficient. It also gets you envious stares from the typing-challenged ;-) Chatting online is one way to get a fast typing speed, as you eventually get the feel of where the letters are - but if you want to be a true touch typer you need to know a couple of little tips.

The first tip - and this might be all you need to start learning - is to look at your keyboard's F and J keys. You'll find there's a little notch sticking up from them. Those are the keys that the fingers directly next to your thumbs go on. If you stick your hands on the keyboard and ensure that those two fingers stay near or on those two keys, and just use whatever finger is closest to the key you are after, you could probably adapt from a medium speed two finger peck to a low speed touch typer - and of course the more you do the better you'll get. (I started out as a three finger typist initially - one finger for shift and two for everything else.

Now, that's all well and good - but perhaps you want something a little better? There's a great free program called Stamina Typing Tutor at http://www.typingsoft.com/stamina.htm - it will teach you the basics initially and gives you a picture of the keyboard on the screen so you can see where the keys are without looking down - but the best part is that you can change it over to 'phrases' mode and get to type in some occasionally rude phrases. It makes rude noises if you make a mistake, and has some background music as well.

A Thing that goes Bing.

Every few years I decide that I want a clock that chimes on the hour. I go and look for one, try it, and it works for a bit then crashes and gets forgotten about. My latest find at http://www.blaiz.net/CHIMER.HTM has so far been faultless. I'm using the 'Elegance' sound setting which basically just sounds like a triangle hit per hour for the number of hours. It does have more raucous settings of course if you want them.

Entertaining SItes

Here's a couple of recent entertaining sites.

Misheard Lyrics http://www.pajiba.com/misheard-lyrics.htm - here's a quote from there. (May have some rude words.)

I definitely thought for the longest time that in "You Oughta Know", Alanis was singing "It's not fair to remind me of the cross-eyed bear that you gave to me". Cross-eyed bear? Whatever, I was like 10. (Editor's note: The correct lyric was "It's not fair to remind me of the cross I('d) bear that you gave to me.)

Rules of Thumb http://rulesofthumb.org/ - Take these with a pinch of salt, but some are curious :) Here's a couple...

If you don't want a cat to jump into your lap, don't make eye contact with it.
A farting horse will never tire; a farting man is one to hire. (?? - Ed.)
If you are using a rope with a knot or a sharp bend, you should assume that its strength is reduced by 50 percent.

Big Brother Fans?

Like it or hate it, it's back. If this year is like last year, there's a strong chance that Big Brother episodes will appear on many torrent sites such as http://www.mininova.org (caution - lots of annoying ads on this site) - so if you miss an episode you may be able to download it to watch later. (You might need to search for Big Brother AU 08 or something similar as there are a tonne of US episodes on there.) This is true of most major TV series - but as usual the legality of this is murky. Also, since the downloads will probably be a few hundred megabytes, this won't be an option for those of you on low download plans.

Exetel Activation down to $88

Exetel's having a bit of an "ADSL Drive" it seems and has lowered their new ADSL activation fee to $88. (It was $145) The rates can be viewed at http://www.auzzie.net/ADSL/pricing.html

They have also introduced a new optional feature where they can slow your line down rather than charge you $3 per 1000MB over your plan's allowance if you exceed your plan's download limit.

The Odd Jobs of the last Month

Turn it off an on again?

I probably shouldn't be telling you this one? Probably about 5-10% of jobs are cured simply by turning the problem bit of equipment off and on again! (At the power point that it - this actually makes a difference for computers!) This is particularly true of networking equipment and modems, as small dips in the power can be enough to confuse them.

Coffee Break?

This week saw the repair of a laptop that had a drink of coffee. Fortunately because of the design, the coffee was contained within the keyboard and did not leak through to the rest of the computer. The machine was repaired successfully :)

Old Editions
You can find old editons of this newsletter on the CCC Blog. http://auzzie.net/cccblog/

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Cool Country Consulting & Auzzie Internet
http://www.auzzie.net/ccc
MSN: michael@auzzie.net
Tel: 02 6775 0239
Mob: 0427 644 825
Skype: cccons
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