Tech Review

When one of my high school students asked for help with her resume, I sat down with her in front of the computer and searched for templates. Templates are an OK way of doing resumes: you download one, highlight the included text, and substitute your own information.

I'm fortunate that I haven't had to do a resume for a few years. When I needed them, in the mid-nineties to early 2000s, I would use resume software which would automatically format my input. I don't remember the exact name, but it was pretty easy to use and must have looked OK since I haven't stopped working. Anyways, that's the best way to do it.

Now, we live in a country where many computer-related non-hardware things are free. There's free software for almost anything you want to do and sometimes you can even do what you need to do online, Google Docs being an excellent example.

There's a new website for people who want the ease-of-use of resume software, but don't want to pay for it or bother with installations. It's called "Free Resume Builder."

I went through and made a resume. It's a step-by-step process that should provide acceptable results. I made a mock resume here. It took me only a few minutes.

I like that RB...:

...makes a little web page for you.
...has built-in links to social media like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace (as if potential employers wouldn't look you up anyways).
...is simple to use.

I'm not so thrilled that RB...:

...doesn't seem to have any options when it comes to formatting, for either an online resume or a paper copy.
...is a little under-built at this time. The resumes and samples, eh.

So, if you need a resume quick and don't care about very personal formatting, Free Resume Builder will serve your needs.

You can go on their site and check out there resume samples and resume templates.

No, not that one. I'm talking about the need to upgrade. If you're one of those guys who takes the day off to upgrade your operating system or feels sweet rushes of ecstasy while flashing your bios, you know what I'm talking about.

The best thing about upgrades is that they don't add to the clutter in your house. You're just replacing. And, through the magic of eBay, sometimes you can renew without a heavy impact on lesser needs like food and shelter (I told my kids that right after the next upgrade cycle, I'm saving up for their shoes. Hopefully, their little tootsies can hold out that long): Renew, have somebody else reuse, and recycle the boxes.

The two things I'd like to upgrade are my Vista PCs to Windows 7 and my phone.

A semi-responsible nerd needs an acquisition excuse and I think, after holding a family conclave, the Asymmetric clan has formulated a rationalization.

The family computer (it's good to have the kids use one central computer in the living room that also serves as the TV- better to supervise), lost its ability to connect to the internet. I haven't been able to fix it and for whatever reason, the "System Restore" feature was turned off. In addition, my wife has a TV card in her Vista Business laptop and doesn't like the Avermedia software. The new Windows 7 has Media Center. I'm perfectly happy with the SP3 version of Vista on my laptop, but I wouldn't mind an upgrade.

The Windows 7 upgrade comes in a three-license "Family Pack" for $150.00.

Bam!

Upgrade it is.

The next one isn't quite as justifiable. I have an upgrade slot for my Verizon phone. Warning: pointless, meandering blogging below:

Now, as tempting as the new HTC Imagio is, if I were to get a new phone, I'd get the new Google Android phone. The Imagio uses Windows Mobile, and there's something about the words "windows" and "phone" that doesn't go together.

I can sell my Blackberry Storm on eBay for about the same price as the upgrade. The Storm's been a good phone, but the lack of a physical keyboard and the fact that the Army has disallowed the reception of Army (AKO) emails, has soured me on the Blackberry a little.

Then again, the denial of tech is close enough to asceticism to have a beneficial effect on my soul.

It'd hurt more than a hair shirt, anyways.

I'd have to say that Vista's gotten a lot better from the first time I tried it. And, when I say "a lot" I mean from frustrating and borderline unusable to pretty darn good and problem free. Service pack 1 (SP1) helped a lot. SP2 promises to do a lot more. Full reports are here and here. The benefits that I care about (or understand) are the bluetooth support, overall reliability, more efficient Windows Search, and the supposedly better battery performance.

I installed it without a hitch and everything seems to be working fine. Since I'm almost certainly not upgrading to Windows 7, this may be the OS configuration I live with for a couple of years.

I was too chicken to use the compcln.exe tool to clean out the old files, but I'll get to it later. Microsoft will probably release SP2 in a month or so. You can get it now from here.

Windows Vista Ultimate with SP1 Upgrade

Full list of benefits and improvements below:

Read more »

Ohhh, circle-y menus.

Could I have said "no" to a free OS upgrade? Can Michael Moore decline a ham sandwich? Of course I was going to install Windows 7. My experience:

I decided on the 32 bit version as the only advantage I gleaned from this article, to having a 64 bit operating system was that 64 bit operating systems can utilize more system RAM. I don't think having to reinstall everything now and potentially be frustrated by incompatibilities later is worth 500MB of RAM for 64 bit apps that I don't own. Driver signing? I only buy name brand.

The download went smoothly- you can interrupt and restart it later, which I did once.

Installation. Uneventful. I had to burn two discs as the computer couldn't read the first. It took a couple of hours from disc insertion to boot.

Windows 7 looks different, but I don't really care about transparency, interface tweaks, or "gadgets" anymore. I open a program and use it. I didn't like the new Taskbar. I prefer the old Windows 98 Start Menu.

I could have dealt with all of those distractions and kept Windows 7 if it had worked. Unfortunately, it didn't. I wasn't able to open the Control Panel or right click and "personalize" the desktop (get rid of the effects). The internet worked. After a few searches, I read that the problem had to do with not activating Windows. Like a dummy, I didn't write down the key Microsoft sent me in the email and thus couldn't type it in when Windows 7 asked for it.

"OK, I'll just activate it. Hmmm, where is that 'activate' button? Maybe it's in the control panel. Doh!"

I type "activation key" in "help." One of shortcuts to the activation place was sure to show up.

Nothing.

So, I wrote down the key, went though the whole install process again, making sure, this time, to entered the serial number. The next time, the control panel opened...once. Then nothing.

Not like a dummy, I had backed up my C drive with the effective and free program Paragon Drive Backup Express.

I restored my Vista Business installation. Thus ended my dalliance with Windows 7.

I started thinking that perhaps OSs have become like spread sheets, computer processors, digital cameras, printers, and cell phones: Mature products that, in their current form, do everything that most people will ever use them for. "Maybe this is why people are buying netbooks."

Windows XP played games and rarely crashed. If no other operating system were ever released, 90% of the people on earth would never notice. That's why Microsoft currently focuses almost exclusively on windows turning on its axises and cool animations.

The one exception is stability. I'd buy an OS that's much more simpler visually if were also much more stable. I'm not sure that Windows 7 is that operating system.

In January of 2007, I went to three or four stores in my area to buy the Vista upgrade for my Dell 6400. It wasn't that my computer didn't work or that Vista was going to improve my computing experience one bit, it's just that few things are as exciting to a certain kind of personality than an OS upgrade.

It was a very poor decision. Vista turned out to be to XP what Windows ME was to Windows 98, a useless failure that the cynical would call nothing more than the software equivalent of planned obsolescence: Hardware wouldn't work, games wouldn't play, endless hours spent finding drivers. I didn't notice one single improvement, and worst of all, I paid for this frustration.

Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition Upgrade w/ Encryption Coded Software

I've bought a couple of computers since then. They've had Vista and it's been a better experience than that first one, although it still seems that XP was better.

Today, Microsoft allowed people to download the latest version of Windows, 7. Tempting. Hmmm:

Arguments against:

1. My new Dell E6400 is running fine as is the family Gateway and my wife's Dell 1420.

2. Windows 7 has no compelling features: I don't care that I can move programs around on the taskbar or that the hardware icons are bigger.

3. Internet Explorer 8 is about as exciting to me as Solitaire version 8.

4. Even though downloaders will be able to use the program for one year, they still won't "own" them. It seems from the Microsoft instructions that RC testers won't be able to simply buy a license when the program expires. They're going to have to reinstall Windows and all of their programs, a task which can turn into an all-day affair.

5. The OS on my computer won't match the restore OS on my computer or the backup disks.

6. Possible incompatibilities and issues.

Arguments in favor:

1. I'm a squid and this is what we do.

2. I'll be able to use it for a year.

3. I'll be able to upgrade my OS to 64 bit and you can never have too many bits. Most of my programs come in 64 bit (Directory Opus and some Army security apps) versions, but I don't know what advantage there is to 64 bit except that Windows will be able to use 500MB more of my system RAM. The move to 64 bit computing will bring its own headaches, I'm sure.

4. People report a good experience with Windows 7, giving me hope that it will be more like 98 version 2 or XP than ME. People have had very few driver or program issues and seem to like it fine. Plus, I can always test it on somebody else's unsuspecting computer first.

If I decide to get it, I'll get it from here.

A familiar site in the Guirado household.

...not that Cnet would recognize it. They didn't even mention this wonderful media program in their useful but incomplete un-iTunes round up.

When I saw this travesty, I had to write this review ASAP. Now I face a problem: I can stay at my computer all day and list all of the wonderful things Media Center has done for me over the past six years, or just tell you to use it and find out for yourself. I'll compromise:

First, let me state that Media Center is more an extension of my media will than a program. Almost anything I can imagine doing with music, I find out that I can do with Media Center. It also has some nice functions for pictures and video. As for iTunes: Media Center is to iTunes in music management what Barack Obama is to Michael Moore in hunky beach photography.

Some features, actual events:

1. I use Nero 9. I couldn't figure out how to cut out the beginning and end of an audio track. No problem for Media Center.

2. Need music off of your iPod? Get them out of there with Media Center, like I had to do after a computer crash (long story), and rename the files. I used equally brilliant, but niche-y Tagscanner for the naming part.

3. Media Center has been compatible with everything I've used. Every mp3 player, TV tuner (whether USB, PC or Express card) phone, Blackberry- everything.

4. It works with Amazon downloads (my preference), Audible (great), Audio Lunchbox, Tivo server. If "kitchen sink" weren't a cliche', I would use that phrase.

5. It's ability to sort and organize music is unsurpassed. It better at tagging than Jane Goodall.

6. It can organize pictures.

7. It can capture, but not edit, video.

8. The Media Center community is surprisingly active. J. River updates Media Center with frequency. Impressive, considering that Cnet's never heard of it.

9. Playlists, smartlists, everylist.

10. Podcasts.

But...If there's one thing that's bothered my about Media Center is that it uses the YADB database instead of the more comprehensive Freedb or whatever database Microsoft uses for CD and Mp3 lookups- when you're ripping CDs, for example. If all you like is Jonas Brothers and Eric Clapton, you're OK. If you don't have mainstream tastes in music, as I don't, then you'll have to use another program like...bleh...Microsoft Media Center to automatically populate track and artist info.

Bottom line: Give the Cnet choices a shot, but don't forget to audition Media Center. Except for the iTunes store and some specific iPod functions like device updates, there's no reason you have to stick with iTunes. And Microsoft Media Center is from the Devil.*

*Figure of speech.

They're just actors; they're not really happy.

Symantecs' Norton products are the digital equivalent of neutron bombs: They leave the hardware alone, but, in my experience, harm your PC or laptop in ways obvious, like slowing it down, and hidden like slowing it down without doing anything useful. The radiation of Norton products lingers long after you uninstall one of them- if you can uninstall, that is: I couldn't uninstall Systemworks until I found this utility called the Norton Removal Tool by Symantec (and "the great liberator" by me) to assist you with that difficult task (If I'm wrong about my estimation of Norton products, then why is there a utility in the first place?).

Since many store-bought computers have some kind of Norton product pre-installed on their hard drives, I think it's probably a good idea for everybody not using Norton by choice to run the Norton Removal Tool.

By the way, I don't mean to suggest that anti-virus software is unnecessary: I just feel that the free products like Avast, Aviva, and AVG work as well, don't take over your whole computer, and are free!

Finally, a browser for all seasons. I like Firefox, but it inexplicably doesn't allow me to place two web pages side-by-side (tile) within the same window. With most LCD screens being of the wide variety now, 16:10 or 16:9 versus the former standard, 4:3, such a convenience is very comfortable.

I still used Firefox, however, because it has what is the single most useful feature for bloggers, inline spelling.

Well, Opera has always tiled windows and the new version 10 has inline spelling.

It's only in the alpha stage, but I've been using it for a couple of hours now without issue.

Also:

Opera has bunches of plug-ins, called widgets, and I'm sure that I'll find one that captures video like Firefox's Video Downloadhelper.

It's an attractive browser as well.

Why isn't Opera perfect?

Well, it doesn't support the wolrd's most useful browser utility, Roboform, for one. You can duplicate many of Roboform's autofill features with Opera's "wand," but Roboform is in a class by itself. I also use the Alexa toolbar, and it's not available for Opera.

If those drawbacks are ever addressed, then Opera has the potential of overtaking Firefox for the hearts and minds of the digtal elites.

Opera shows the source code before rendering the page as intended, sometimes.

Vista, the William Hung of operating systems.

To say that I hadn't been impressed with Vista when I decided to purchase a new laptop last year is like saying William Hung disappointed Simon. I seriously thought about purchasing my Lenovo T61 with Windows XP, but decided against it because... a. The T61 came with a DirectX 10 video card, the Nvidia NVS 140M, and I didn't want to lose the benefits of DirectX 10- whatever those may be; b. It cost more money; and c. I thought they'd fix it eventually.

Well, in December, they did. It still had a less-functional interface and was incompatible with some hardware and programs, but it didn't crash anymore nor give me frequent 100% CPU usage practical crashes.

Whoa! Never one to rest on their thorns, Microsoft made it even better!

This article on cNet says that Microsoft fixes a bunch of little things with the Vista SP1 release. I guess DirectX 10 improvement for the people who own Crysis may be good. You can get it now through a torrent site, but I'll wait until the official release. I'm not taking the risk of messing up my system for slightly improved file transfer times.

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium UPGRADE [DVD]

Hung for the Holidays

William Hung - Hangin' with Hung

Netscape Navigator with the often shunned mini-browser open

I like Avant and Opera's side-by-side tabs in the same window, but I need Firefox' real time spell check. Until they combine those two features, the perfect browser remains out of our grasp.

Enter Netscape Navigator which you can download here (remember buying it in a box?). I started using it and I think it's a keeper. It's exactly the same as Firefox except:

1. It has something called the "Link Bar." At first I thought it was a kind of built-in social bookmarking tool like Del.isio.us or Digg which would have been kind of cool, actually; they could have done it so that it sends it to an online bookmark repository. The way they sell it, however, the Linkbar is for those web pages one wants to save, but that doesn't merit admission into that exclusive club, bookmarks. Some may object to this bookmark elitism, but, as a blogger, I can see the utility of such a feature. I often encounter things I later wish to comment upon, but not visit every day.

2. Navigator dips its toe into side-by-side browsing with something called Mini browser. Keeping with the browsing-discrimination theme, it's just like the regular browser except that you it can't open pages from the bookmark tool bar.

3. For those in underground bunkers, it has a weather bar.

It's important to note that the above two Navigator features may be replicated in Firefox with Add-ons.