Toshiba Tablet PC

A few years ago I picked up a Tablet PC for a really good price. I did not have any real use for it at the time, but thought it would be cool to play around with, plus I use it with Photoshop, to help me “cut out” images. Well, I just recently got it back out of storage, dusted it off, and decided that I would really start taking a good look at it.

Since the machine is pretty small and lightweight, it is perfect for traveling with. I don’t really do much traveling, but when I do it would be great to have a machine I can take with me. With small dimensions (11.6″ x 9.8″ x 1.5″) and weighing in at only 4.4lbs, this machine is very portable.

I performed a System Restore on the PC, to get everything back to the factory settings. Then I went through the system and removed all the extra software & trials which I do not need or want. I installed all of my “standard” applications (Anti-Virus, Home Server Connector, etc) and got an initial backup created.

I have to say, I am really liking this machine. I can’t believe I let it jut sit for so long, and not gt used for anything more than the occasional Photoshop edit. I have been playing with the Inking feature, and I am loving it. Inking allows for me to write on the screen of the laptop, and then either convert my handwriting to text or leave as is in the document. While I am still finding more and more extensions, add-ons and software geared specifically for the tablet PC, I am realizing that this machine is an integral part of my armory of machines and tools.

Now, if I could just get it back from my girlfriend…

Blogging – Tablet PC Style

MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) Games

I play a few different MMOs, 3 actually.

World of Warcraft (WoW) was the 1st MMO I played and stuck with for longer than just a few days. I actually started with EverQuest, but I did not really care for it very much. When Blizzard announced WoW, I did not think I would ever play it. I mean, why would I want to pay, every month, to play a game I had already paid for? It was several years before a friend of mine convinced me to install the game and play, on a private (free) server. He showed me where to download the game, for free, and how I could get online and play it, for free. This got me hooked, and after a couple of years playing on the free (and illegal) servers, I purchased the game and all of it’s expansions and opened my first account on the official servers. I have to say, that the real thing is much better than the free servers out there. I have been having a lot of fun playing, with all the other people. I have made several friends, as well. But I do get bored with playing the same game all the time, so I have ventured out into the other MMOs listed here.

I actually picked up the software for Guild Wars on sale. The version I got (Platinum Pack) included 1 of the expansions. The nice thing about Guild Wars, is it is free to play. You buy the software, and that’s it. There are extras, which you can purchase, but the game is just fine without them. It’s not quite as robust as WoW, but it is still a good alternative to it. Also, unlike WoW, you do not have to own any of the expansions in order to take advantage of the entire world. The Expansions are actually separate Campaigns and do not appear to intermingle with each other.

Aion is the latest addition to my list of MMOs. I picked this one up on sale, for a price that I figured, if I didn’t like it, I could deal with the cost. So far, I am liking it. The graphics are very nicely done, and the gameplay is decent. I will have a better idea of this one, as I play it more (only about 2 hours into it so far), but I think that it is going to be a keeper. I’m really looking forward to being able to “Ascend” and get my wings. I am, however, a little disappointed in the lack of GUI Customization available. Where WoW has all of it’s addons, Aion does not seem to have anything other than the (small amount of) default options. I can understand this with Guild Wars, being it is free to play, but I would think that Aion would have more options available.

All in all, I really do enjoy playing these games, but every now and then, I still like my 1st person shooters and my console games. Not to mention getting out of the house and away from the computer (and consoles) altogether.

My Pets are family

‘Ohana means family, family means nobody gets left behind. Or forgotten.

View Full Album

We have a full montage of animals in our home, all of which are a part of our family.

The full list of critters & creatures is:

• Shaunasey – The Lovable Siberian Husky
• Cassie – The Playful Mutt
• Riley – The Shy Ball Python
• Sasha – The Diva Leopard Gecko
• Ivan – The Eccentric Leopard Gecko
• Doom – The Old Man Betta
• Tom & Jerry – The Dancing Cherry Barbs
• Larry, Moe & Curly – The Colorful Neon Tetras

There are other fish which come and go, but these are the main staple to our menagerie.

The Website is Down

For all of you who are affected by the webserver being down, I thought you might enjoy this video.

If you like this one, drop by their website for more videos, as well as other fun things, such as a Sales Guy Simulator, a couple games, and their Store.

Another good site to help “blow off some steam” is http://attrition.org/, especially their going postal section.

Looking for a new WebHost

After all the issues with the Datacenter, since the server crash, my Web Host has decided he will stop offering hosting. He tells me that once the server is back up he will keep things going for about a month, and then he is going to close shop. This whole experience has just kind of “soured” him to it all.

So, this brings me to the topic at hand: Looking for a new host. I have looked at several host over the years, and I have just never really found one that seemed to fit, as much as my current host does. Since I no longer have a choice but to find someone else, here goes the search.

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BlueHost.com was suggested by a good friend of mine. He has been using them for the last few years and has been very happy with their service.

Our professional Web Hosting plans include all the features you are looking for at the best possible price.

UNLIMITED Hosting Space (NEW!)
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2,500 POP/Imap Email Accounts
SSH (Secure Shell), SSL, FTP, Stats
CGI, Ruby (RoR), Perl, PHP, MySQL
2000/2002 Front Page Extensions
Free Domain Forever!
Free Site Builder (NEW)
24/7 Superb/Responsive Sales/Support

A more complete listing of features can be found here.
$6.95 per month is a pretty good price, but I think I would want to upgrade to their Pro Package, which runs about $14.95 per month. Also, BlueHost.com requires payment in 12 month chunks.
The Pro Package adds, 1 Dedicated IP, 1 PositiveSSL Certificate, 3 Domain Name Registrations, and 10 Postini Email Filtering accounts. I am looking at this package because of the SSL Cert and the Postini Filtering.

The other main host I am looking at currently is GoDaddy.
I currently use GoDaddy for all of my domains, so I am already pretty familiar with their support and options.

• 24×7 FTP access
• World-Class Data Centers
• Daily Backups
• Best-of-Breed Routers, Firewalls and Servers
• Web site statistics
• FREE Email Addresses
• Google® Webmaster Tools
• Ad Credits from MySpace®, Google® and Facebook®
• Key Technical Features

A more complete listing of features can be found here.
I already get free hosting with GoDaddy, if I want to use their Economy Plan, but I am looking more at the Unlimited Plan. This plan runs $14.99 per month, but they have discounts for paying 12, 24 or 36 months at a time.

I guess I just really need to weigh the options and the costs. Due to GoDaddy offering a discount when paying for several months, they come out to be less expensive in the long run ($12 vs $15 per month). However, if I don’t need the Pro Package with BlueHost.com, then they are considerably less expensive ($7 vs $12 per month).

Decisions decisions…

Anti-Virus

You are running some sort of Anti-Virus program right? I hope you are.
Are you having to pay for updates every year? You don’t have to!

I briefly wrote about Anti-Malware / Anti-Spy where earlier, now I think I should give a little information about Anti-Virus. Everyone should be running some form of Anti-Virus & Anti-Malware program(s). If you are not, then please, for the love of your computer and files, get one (or two) installed! There are a bunch or options available, both as Freeware and Commercial. I am going to touch on the a couple of each here; McAfee, Panda, avast! & ClamAV.

Free Products:

avast!

I use avast! Home Edition on all of my personal computers. I have been running this for a few years now, and I have always been very impressed with this product. If you want Ant-Spyware you will need to use an additional program, or purchase one of the avast! Commercial Products.

ClamAV

I have only just recently started using ClamAV on my Home Server and so far, I am liking it. It looks to run without hogging up a ton of system resources, and seems to be rather unobtrusive. I have not run this long enough to get a complete feel for how well it is, but there does appear to be a rather large following for it. It was only recently released for Windows. I am not aware if it will scan & detect Malware or not.

Commercial Products:

McAfee

McAfee’s AntiVirus Plus product does a really good job of protecting your computer against viruses & malware. If you currently have McAfee and you are happy with it, then I would not go through a huge hassle to switch brands. Persoanlly, I think all the commercial products are way over-priced, but hey, it’s just my opinion.

Panda

Panda Antivirus Pro is an excellent product, and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking to get a commercially available product. Panda’s Support is always top notch and they get updates out quickly. If you happen to come across a virus which their product cannot clean. You have the option to send the infected file(s) to their support team, and they will get a fix and update out PDQ.

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Still not sure what you want to use? Then visit AV-Comparatives.org

On this site you will find independent comparatives of Anti-Virus software. All products listed in our comparatives are already a selection of some very good anti-virus products. In order to get included in our main tests, vendors must fulfill various conditions and minimum requirements.

The following products are tested in the current main comparatives:

avast! Free Antivirus 5.0 AVG Anti-Virus 9.0 AVIRA AntiVir Premium 9 BitDefender Antivirus 2010 eScan Anti-Virus 10 ESET NOD32 Anti-Virus 4.0 F-Secure Anti-Virus 2010 G DATA AntiVirus 2010 K7 TotalSecurity 10.0 (new) Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010

Kingsoft Antivirus 2010 McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2010 Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0 Norman Antivirus & Anti-Spyware 7.30 Panda Antivirus Pro 2010 (new) PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AV 7.0 (new) Sophos Anti-Virus 9.0 Symantec Norton Anti-Virus 2010 Trend Micro AntiVirus plus AntiSpyware 2010 (new) TrustPort Antivirus 2010

Look into the Comparatives section to find out additional tests and reviews. If you plan to buy an Anti-Virus, please visit the vendor’s site and evaluate their software by downloading a trial version, as there are also many other features (e.g. firewall, HIPS, behaviorblocker, etc.) and important things (e.g. price, graphical user interface, compatibility, etc.) for an Anti-Virus that you should evaluate by yourself. Even if quite important, the data provided in the test reports on this site are just some aspects that you should consider when buying Anti-Virus software

Vista AntiMalware

This thing is a PITA and is actually Malware, NOT Anti-Malware! If you happen to get this little bugger on your computer, this is the best way to remove it (for free even). I highly recommend the following link and instructions, and just as an added caution, I would perform Method 1 & 2.

Vista Antimalware 2010 is a rogue antispyware program, which is a fresh clone of Vista Antispyware 2010. Like other rogues, the program simulates a system scan and reports false system security threats or infections to make you think your computer is infected with worms, trojans, adware, spyware and other malicious software. As before, nothing new here, Vista Antimalware 2010 is distributed with the help of trojans. When the trojan is initialized, it will download and install core component of the rogue onto your computer without your permission and knowledge. The same trojan will also register Vista Antimalware 2010 in the Windows registry to run automatically every time when you start any program, which have “exe” extension.

When Vista Antimalware 2010 is started, the rogue will start the imitation of scanning your machine, whose result is the discovery of the set of trojans, viruses and other malicious programs. Do not rely on these results, as they are, and besides, the scanning process – it is a fake. Purpose they have one, to force you to believe that your computer is infected. So you can safety ignore all that this fake antispyware will show you. Last but not least, the rogue will also hijack Internet Explorer and Firefox, so it will display fake warnings when you opening any web site.

As stated above, obviously, Vista Antimalware 2010 is scam, which designed with one purpose to scare you into thinking that your computer in danger as a method to trick you into purchasing the full version of the program. If your computer is infected with this malware, then most importantly, do not purchase it! Uninstall the rogue from your PC as soon as possible. Use the removal guide below to remove Vista Antimalware 2010 from your computer for free.

The instructions are located here - http://www.myantispyware.com/20…-instructions/

The MalwareBytes Anti-malware tool is a great little piece of software to keep around. I also recommend you keep a current copy of HijackThis around, just in case you get something which the 1st tool does not recognize.

These are both very good, and free tools.

A walk in the park

I took the girlfriend to the park this past weekend. We went to Sweetwater Creek State Park.

Sweetwater Creek is a peaceful tract of wilderness only minutes from bustling downtown Atlanta. The most popular trail (red) follows the free-flowing stream to the ruins of the New Manchester Manufacturing Company, a textile mill burned during the Civil War. Beyond the mill, the trail climbs rocky bluffs to provide views of the beautiful mile-long stretch of white-water rapids below. The 215-acre George Sparks Reservoir is popular with anglers and provides a pretty setting for feeding ducks and canoeing. Fishing supplies are available in the park’s bait shop, while wildlife and history displays, trail maps, snacks and gift items may be found in the Visitor Center — the most environmentally responsible building in Georgia (LEED-NC PLATINUM).

We didn’t quite make it all the way to the ruins, but it was a pretty nice park, with some good scenery. I think we will find our way back to it again in the future. I did manage to get a few pictures though, below are a couple examples:

BTW, that 2nd picture is Infrared, converted to Black & White.

My Home Server

My home server was in dire need of a rebuild. So, after doing a ton of searching and reading, I decided I was ready to under take the task of rebuilding my server and getting all of my data restored.

I started by removing my USB (Universal Serial Bus) Drive from the storage pool, to get all of my files onto the main drive and the 1TB drive left in the pool. I then followed this procedure, to get as much of the data onto the 1TB drive and off the primary drive, as possible. I also took one of the spare drives from my main Desktop system, to use as the new Primary drive for the server. This would allow me to maintain the original storage pool drives, while still reinstalling the WHS (Windows Home Server) OS (Operating System).

Once I got the OS installed and patched, up to Power Pack 1, I started the task of moving my data and shares from the old drives to the new one. I knew there would not be enough space on the primary drive, so I added the USB drive back into the pool at this point. Checking out the wiki post on We Got Served this seemed like it would be a pretty straight forward and relatively simple thing to do. Of course, with my luck, this was not to be so.

I got everything copied over from the 1TB drive and it was looking good (this only took about 16 hours to complete), but once I did a comparison of the pointers on the old primary drive, I found that a LOT of files were missing. After about 3 days of searching, I think I found all of my data. While not too difficult, it was a PITA, due to the way WHS handles the files on the storage pool. I had to search through the backup folders in order to find everything. At least I know how to do this, if I ever have to again. I think I am going to get a couple of extra drives just to use for data backups…

All in All, it wasn’t to terribly bad. I did get a bunch of new website resources and I also found several new WHS Add-Ins. At least my computers will start getting back ups again.