Sunday, April 19, 2009

Symantec support is worse than useless: Horror stories here:
http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatch/2009/03/symantec_support_gone_rogue.php

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Garmin GPS - I love my Garmin Nuvi 360 GPS, and went to Amazon to see whether a map upgrade was available. Come to see the larger screen Garmin Nuvi 760 was on sale for $224.29, a good deal since Office Depot is charging $427.95. So between the Amazon credits I have, what I can sell my current GPS for on eBay and what I'd save on new map software, the Garmin 760 is a free upgrade. At this new lower price points, it now makes sense to annually do the same thing. Don't buy a map upgrade, get it free in a new GPS, and sell your old GPS on eBay.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Norton Internet Security 2009 bug continues: Even though I have every feature turned on the software reports me at risk. I hit FIX and it says it can't fix Advanced Protection with my chat agent keeps calling Advace Protection. He claims a virus can cause that. But both Norton 2009 and Malwarebytes complete scan find nothing. So the Norton rube says: "
For help diagnosing and removing viruses or
malware infections from your computer, we have a fee based virus removal service.
Would you like me to transfer you across to this team?

So I ask to ESCALATE
, and am kept waiting, and its not obvious I'm getting anything
other than another rube in the next cubicle.
This is a known issue, but was incorrectly listed
as fixed by version 16.5.0.135
; After 10 minutes of waiting, I complained about the wait time and asked them
to email me the solution. Like that will happen.


Sure enough they did not escalate nor email me. Just another
worthless rep named Sankardeep who also referred to Advace Protection, but had no help.

Conclusion, time to go back to Kaspersky.

Friday, April 10, 2009

HP Color LaserJet 3800n - FIXED ! - By USPS my "new" $39 615N JetDirect Plug in Ethernet adapter model 615N arrived. Turns out not to be new as it had a configuration of a domain name of jp.morgan.com. I turned off the LaserJet, removed the motherboard, removed the plate covering the EIO plugin socket, plugged in the 615N, re-inserted motherboard, turned on LaserJet, went through onboard Menu system, where a new EIO device showed up in addition to the embedded, and I turned on TCP/IP. and gave it an IP number, and entered the Gateway number, changed the setup in Windows, and voila, I have working 10/100 Ethernet again for my LaserJet. I upgraded the firmware from version 15 to version 57.

Thursday, April 09, 2009

Buggy Norton Internet Security 2009 (16.5.0.135) - Doesn't know how to turn on "Advanced Protection", Automatic "FIX" fails, as does One CLick checkup. If I turn that feature off it seems OK, and does scan faster than NIS 2008; also it no longers bombs out on a "too long" path name. But update a NIS 2008 with 4 days left on subscription, and you lose those 4 days, and your new 2009 says you have 366 days left on your subscription. BUG !!
The program has been for sale retail for 6 or more months but they're still attacking bugs by the carload. This weeks' slipstreamed version attacks (allegedly) many, many bugs:
see here at bottom of page.

- Fixed an issue where you may not be able to access shared folders on a computer connected to your home network.
- Fixed an issue where the Quick Scan Open Security History expansion was not working on first click.
- Fixed an issue in Home Networking Map - not warning the user that another user is viewing the map.
- Fixed an issue in Home Networking – removing a remotely monitored device does not persist.
- Fixed unnecessary UAC warnings during install/configuration.
- Fixed a crash in Home Networking Map User Interface.
- Fixed a crash in the AntiVirus Scan User Interface.
- Fixed a contributing issue for Error 3040,10001
- Improved Home Networking remote monitoring Antivirus item formatting
- Added option to allow Pulse Updates to run when laptop is on battery power (Settings/Miscellaneous Settings)
- Added SONAR support for Vista 64-bit
- Allow Context Scanning (Right-Click file scanning) for Vista 64-bit
- Added Norton Product Tamper Protection support for Vista 64-bit
- Added UMPC support (install UI fits now, auto panning for small screens)
- Added Norton Safe Web integration (watch out for more details in a separate thread)

(the following issues were also fixed in the 16.2 patch)
- Changes to allow future LiveUpdates better handle error conditions.
- Fixed an issue with 64-bit LiveUpdate patches.
- Fixed several Winqual reported errors.
- Fixed a compatibility issue with Microsoft Outlook Connector after installation of Norton Add-On Pack.
- Fixed an issue where the product would sometimes interfere with its own ability to match IDS signatures properly.

(the following issues were also fixed in the 16.1 patch)
- Fixed issue where Protection updates download but date does not change.
- Fixed issue where in some cases, if you looked at the details of which updates succeeded and which failed, it would show all updates failed even though only one update failed.
- Fixed issue where Virus Definitions were considered non-valid in certain scenarios.
- Fixed instance where Advanced Protection will fail to start.
- Fixed issue where LiveUpdate fails to download and apply Web Protection definitions.
- Fixed issue with Identity Safe showing garbled characters in a few areas of the User Interface.
- Fixed multiple instances of ccSvcHst.exe crashes caused by components.
- Fixed issue with ccSvcHst failing to shutdown on a reboot (End Task dialog displayed indefinitely).


Monday, April 06, 2009

My HP Color LaserJet 3800n - Like it celebrated being 2 years old by having its built in Ethernet go on the fritz. Only works by rebooting between print jobs. Not good. And its Ethernet is on its motherboard, so its not easily repairable. In fact would cost more to repair the motherboard than it did to buy the printer in the first place.
But I got lucky in two ways. First it works fine via USB2 cable. Except then its not on the home network. However it has a slot for plug in boards, so I've ordered a HP Print Server Jet Direct 615N to plug in, which after disabling the built in Ethernet in the setup, should work (I hope).

I had placed an order for a HP 615N at Overstock.com; and then discovered it was way overpriced for the "refurbished" unit that they are selling; and they gave me serious grief before they agreed 6 hours later to cancel the order, (and they hadn't shipped it yet, so it should have been trivial to do so) so I could buy a claimed new unit for less money at compuvest.com. Won't ever be shopping at overstock.com again !!

Saturday, April 04, 2009

New Goodie from DirecTv: With one of their newer HR2x MPEG4 HD DVRs, and a free piece of software, available here, (DIRECTV2PC), one can Stream content from their "DirecTv Plus HD DVR" to their PC on their home network. If you have a wide screen 1900 x 1200 24" Monitor, its gorgeous. Since one can pull over any recording, one can record whats on now, to allow it to be streamed over and watched. You do need a newer model PC to have the horsepower for this to work smoothly.