Windows 7 RC vs Anti Virus

After giving up on Norton’s NIS, I was protectionless for a few days.  It was nervewrecking enough that I just can’t do it any more.  So I resumed my search for the next temporary solution.  Here’s a brief summary:

Norton 360 is out.  Even the most current version is incompatible with Windows 7 and it doesn’t seem to have a beta or pre-release version available. (At least I can’t find one.)  Wasted 2 hours on it.  Save yourself some time.

Norton Internet Security 2010’s webpages are up but the beta/pre-release wasn’t available yet.  No go there.

McAfee has a beta version but repeated attempt to access it failed.  I’m not entirely certain what’s going on.  It could be that the site really is broken.  Or it could be that it detected Windows 7 RC (as oppose to Windows 7 Beta) and decided it wasn’t going to let me in.  Garbage.

4th try is Trend Micro Internet Security.  Took a good 30 minutes to get it downloaded and installed.  You can just tell this is not a polished product.  It talks the talk but if you are not verse in computer, you are going to need help.  The install-from-the-web process didn’t work.  I have to download the package, unpack it myself, and run the installer manually.  Even that it failed the first time.  Not to fault them or anything, they were freeware for quite a few years before turning commercial.  After a couple of attempts, it is working.  According to their webpage, it should work for at least a month.  We shall see.

…this is painful…

Windows 7 RC vs Norton Internet Security (Pre-release)

Bleeding edge has its price.  Per my earlier post some weeks ago, the old Norton Internet Security (Vista compatible) doesn’t work with Windows 7 Beta or Windows 7 RC.  Symantec posted a pre-release version of NIS that does work.  So all was well… for a little while.  After 14 days, the subscription expired and it went online and renewed it for another 14 days.  I figure it was good until Windows 7 actually comes out and the real NIS release goes on sale.

Nooooo.  After renewing once 14 days ago, the subscription expired again.  This time, it won’t renew.  So I went online and had a chat with their support to see what can be done.  Mind you that I still have a current subscription of NIS that is not being used so I’m exactly sponging off for free.  We went back and forth a few rounds.  Basically, it boils down to:

Me: I have a current subscription to NIS and you have the pre-release NIS for Windows 7 that works, why can’t I just use it?

Symantec: The pre-release is like trial ware, we can’t renew it.

Me: You did for 14 days.  Why can’t you do it again?

Symantec: Sorry, no can do.

Me: So even though people like me help you people test software AND you have the software, you won’t help.  In addition, I’m a current subscriber and you are going to leave me hanging without a usable NIS for months.

Symantec: Too bad for you.  Have a great day.

** Okay, s/he wasn’t that rude. I’m just grumpy.**

I guess they are just begging for me to leave.  And these manufacturers wonder why they can’t maintain customer loyalty. *sigh*

Alright, the search for protection continues…

Tinkerbell doesn’t use Mac (A revelation from playing with Windows Mobile 6.5)

Earlier today, I decided to play around with Windows Mobile 6.5.  I’ve been itching to re-flash my Tilt (a la HTC Kaiser).  How bad can it be, right?   Errr… wrong.

After a couple of hours of reading, I got all the parts together… or so I thought.  Another 30 minutes later, I replaced the bootloader with HardSPL.  It was fairly straight forward.  Another hour later after quite a few hard resets and more reading, I realized I downloaded the wrong ROM.  It was WM 6.1 instead of 6.5.  Another hour later, I got the WM 6.5 ROM loaded.  As the phone hard reset, I found myself stuck on the alignment screen where you configure the screen using the stylus to poke various spots on the screen.  It was in an endless loop and wouldn’t let me out.  Suggestions on the net abound and I tried them all.  What didn’t work: the Remote Alignment tool from Code Factory, removing Welcome.lnk from Windows Startup, adding Welcome.Not to everywhere.  Some people even go so far to open the whole thing up to re-seat the screen.

So I spent an hour opening the phone, re-seating all the parts.  No help from that… except I did impress my wife with knowing what a Torx wrench is *AND* having a set …  After 3 hours struggling with the alignment screen, the final solution was to pretend the screen was 1 inch square just to get through the process and then change the calibration via a remote registry editor (CERegEdit).

Then I spent the next 2 hours figuring out how to use WM 6.5, hooking it back up to AT&T, re-establishing the data connection, setting email, calendar, Activesync, yadda yadda yadda.  It has be without a doubt the most painful thing I’ve done in the past 12 months.

As I work through all the problems in my head, I came to one conclusion.  All these problems are caused by choices.  Choices always complicate things.  When choices interact, the cascade effect can change the scenario into a mind boggling web of loops with as many dead ends as there are desirable exits.  From half a dozen bootloaders, to a dozen Wm 6.5 ROMs each with another 5 or 6 versions from different people, to dozens of utilities, to countless message threads in hundreds of forums.  My mind has melted over the past 10 hours.  All because of choices.

This lead me to one revelation:  In technology, choices are for those who tinkers.  Normal people do not value the shear volume of choices because 1) choices simply add to confusion (think about the last time someone tries to pick out a cell phone), and 2) the web of dead ends is paralyzingly unproductive.  On the other hand, those who value choices are not really looking for the result.  Instead, it is the tinkerers who enjoy navigating the confusion, escaping pitfalls, and come out alive.  To them, it is the process that was valuable.

Tinkerbell does not use a Mac because there is nothing she can tinker with.  Tinkerbell uses unix.

DNS-321 vs Network Performance

In the past few months, I’ve been experiencing some intermittent network performance issue.  I never spent much time on figuring it out as most of the time it manifest as XBox Live videos not streaming cleanly from the net to the XBox 360.  I figure it must be a glitch with XBox Live or cable or wifey spamming large documents to her clients.

Today I was messing around with the network and pulled both NAS out of the closet.  Needing some files off, I hastily hooked it up to my hub on my desk.  While my daughter was playing around on the 360, I quickly noticed that the DNS was very busy with no one accessing it.  A few more experiments on the 360 later lead me to one conclusion.  The DNS-321 is actually a bad citizen on the LAN.  It is very nosy about all the traffic on the network and very chatty also.  I pulled out an old switch from my box of parts and replaced the hub and everything quiet down.  The 360 streaming performance was back up to normal.   

So the conclusion is that the only way to connect the DNS-321 is through a switch or a router.  If you use a hub, the local traffic will slow to a crawl.  I wish I still have my packet sniffer box so I can see what on earth it was doing… maybe when Windows 7 RC1 expires on the Mini 9, I’ll rebuild it into a Linux box and poke around some more…